Death of a Pharaoh Read online

  The panel inside offered a choice of eight floors and the last one required a key that Ahmed removed from a leather cord around his neck. He inserted it and pushed the button labeled PP. The elevator descended in silence and stopped at a depth of 78 meters beneath the desert. Workers had carved the vaults out of solid bedrock and reinforced them with enough concrete and steel to resist a direct strike by a nuclear bomb. This particular floor was normally only accessed by the reigning Pharaoh or in the case of extreme urgency, such as tonight, by himself as Chief Archivist.

  The door opened into a small room with a large solid mahogany table and an executive chair. A flat rectangular glass box containing an ancient papyrus occupied most of the polished expanse. The top panel, inlaid with bulletproof glass, was similar to the one that protected the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. In fact, the same company in France had manufactured both of them.

  Ahmed entered his eight digit personal code using a numeric keypad on the right. A slight hissing sound started in seconds as a powerful fan evacuated the inert gas that helped protect the priceless artifact. When the red indicator light changed to green, he heard an audible click as the panel unlocked automatically. Ahmed raised the heavy lid with care and swung it on its hinges until it rested on a padded support on the left side of the table. He sat in the leather chair and reached for the quill pen nestled in a velvet-lined inset just above the papyrus. He dipped the nib in the adjacent ink well and began to write his message.

  "My Lord Thoth, it is with great sadness that I communicate the death by murder of Her Majesty Fannie II, True Pharaoh and Defender of Ma'at less than thirty minutes ago. We are taking the necessary steps to have the body recovered and transported to Switzerland as soon as possible. I await the confirmation of succession and will report instantly. May the Gods accompany the late Pharaoh on her journey to the Field of Reeds! May all blessings be upon you, my Lord." Ahmed signed the missive with tears in his eyes and sat back to wait for the second call.

  Chapter Two

  Lord Thoth, God of Wisdom and Chief Scribe to the Supreme Council of the Gods, received the message from Ahmed milliseconds later. This particular method of communication had served for almost two thousand years, since the end of the Regency after the death of Queen Cleopatra. Thoth himself conceived and implemented the project. The papyrus before him existed on two cosmic planes; here in his chambers as well as the secure vault in Timbuktu. In human terms, it was comparable to an internet chat service such as Facebook. It allowed him to correspond directly with the Pharaoh or on extraordinary occasions with the Chief Archivist.

  He had been waiting. They all felt the great disturbance in the heavens. He considered Fannie a remarkable pharaoh and he feared that the defense of Ma'at had just lost its greatest ally. He could only remember one other occasion when the universe reacted directly to events on earth; the moment when Jesus of Nazareth expired on the cross. Not because he was the Messiah, as so many of his followers believed, but rather because he too died a Pharaoh. It had never happened again, not in the darkest hours of Hitler's insanity or even when deranged terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York. He had no idea what it meant, but he imagined that it did not bode well for humanity.

  He rang Seshat, his assistant, and asked her to bring him the Book of Kings. He would need to record the death. It seemed only yesterday he called for it to remove the name of Princess Eshe as heiress, although more than sixteen earth years had passed since that tragic moment. Lord Thoth pulled himself out of the well of nostalgia and tried to concentrate on the present.

  He decided to review Fannie’s dream file to see if her last moments could shed any light on the perpetrator of this horrendous crime. These archives were transcripts culled from the minds of the reigning Pharaoh and confirmed heirs every night as they slept and possible due to the exceptional telepathic abilities they shared. Contrary to popular belief, the Gods have never possessed the ability to read human minds except in these few isolated cases.

  Normally the entries updated when the subject entered a state of deep sleep that humans call REM. In the case of death, retrieval of the last hours was still possible but there was a risk of incomplete or compromised data. Lord Thoth picked up the archive labeled ‘Falcon One’ and scrolled back one earth hour. He began reading at the point where Fannie finished eating her solitary annual dinner to commemorate Nkosana’s birthday.

  Even though her grandson could never be with her, Fannie faithfully celebrated his birthday every year since her daughter Eshe’s death. Nkosana was six months old at the time and today he turned seventeen. She always baked his favorite cake, a triple layer devil’s chocolate with coconut-flavored icing. She lovingly prepared fried chicken and mashed potatoes, his preferred dinner according to his adoptive parents. Through them and his extensive security detail, she knew much about her heir, even though she had not spoken to him since the day of her daughter’s murder.

  Today was special because next year before he reached eighteen, he would already be with her and she would have begun to prepare him to accept his destiny. She glanced at the framed photograph of Nkosana taken when he graduated from junior high school that she had placed on the table in front of her for the occasion. He was handsome and so like his mother. Her eyes clouded over as she lit the candles and made a wish. She prayed to the Gods that the months remaining before he came to her would pass quickly and that Horus would watch over her grandson and keep him safe. She blew the flickering flames out in one breath.

  By 7:00 pm, the sun kissed the horizon and she would have to hurry if she wanted to get the cake to the men’s shelter before dark. She called the Foundation to alert her security team that she planned to go out.

  "Good Evening Lord Pharaoh. How was the birthday party?"

  "Bittersweet as always, Mark,” she responded to his kindness then deftly changed the subject, “how is Bobby doing?”

  "The cast on his arm is driving him crazy as you could imagine for any three year old but he is enjoying all the extra attention," the operator informed his boss. "What can I do for you, My Lord?"

  "I want to take some food to the shelter down the street. Where is Herbert right now?”

  “In his apartment watching a basketball game.”

  “What about the second team?”

  “They left a few moments ago to pick up the evening dispatches,” he informed her then asked, “shall I send them back?”

  “Don't bother, I’ll knock on Herbert’s door on my way out,” she indicated. “How are the Seventy-sixers doing anyway?”

  “Behind by fourteen right now.”

  “Oh dear, he’ll be grumpy.”

  “That’s for sure,” he agreed. “Anything else my Lord?”

  “No, thank you Mark and please give a kiss to Bobby for me.”

  Fannie hung up the phone then walked over to the storage cupboard beside the refrigerator. She stood on her tippy toes to reach the large Tupperware cake container from the top shelf. She bought it on eBay three years ago.

  The dishes could wait until she got back. Actually, she looked forward to the short walk. There would be a nice cool breeze. She picked up the cake and her black purse from the hook near the door.

  There was no one in the hallway. She took two steps forward and was about to knock on Herbert's door when she heard one of his legendary snores. With the racket, she could barely make out the basketball game on television. How could she disturb him after telling him to take the night off. She thought of calling Mark again to ask for an escort but it seemed such a bother. The walk would take all of five minutes and she’d return long before anyone missed her. It would be her first stroll alone in months. A shiver of excitement ran down her spine, like a young teenager sneaking out of her bedroom window at night for a date with a boy she knew her parents would never accept.

  It was now dusk. A slight breeze stirred the peonies planted along the walk. There was almost no traffic and she failed to notice the tall heavyset man who stepped
out of the car parked halfway down the block and partially hidden by a dumpster. There was no one on the street but she could hear life emanating from all around; a television tuned too loud, the muted sounds of an earnest conversation on her right that gave way to a woman humming in Spanish at the kitchen window while she washed the dishes. They all harmonized to form the chorus of life that scored the evening.

  She felt safe in this neighborhood populated with a diverse racial profile and culturally spiced by the large number of African immigrants that made Cedar Park their home. Perhaps it was this false sense of security that contributed to the fact that she never heard the rapid steps approaching from behind. She only reacted when someone tugged on her purse. She struggled to maintain her grip and spun around to face the thief. Herbert would be annoyed when he discovered that she had gone out alone. Defiant, she stared her attacker in the eye and knew instantly that he did not intend to rob her. She only heard the first shot. Her last thought was of Nkosana. She prayed that he would forgive her.

  The vision of her assailant was somewhat blurred but clear enough for Thoth to see his face. With the evil grin of her assassin etched in his memory, he thought it might be helpful to revisit the reports on the death of Princess Eshe sixteen years earlier to see if the image in his mind matched the description of the priest who had caused the fatal accident. If he remembered correctly, Eshe’s last thoughts exhibited remarkable clarity despite moments of great pain and anxiety.

  He flipped through several pages and began to read just as her car headed south along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive after another of her long chemotherapy sessions at the private cancer clinic in Philadelphia. She loved this route and had it been earlier they might have stopped to watch the ducks on the river. She sat in the right rear with young Nkosana harnessed in an infant safety seat to her left. She reached over to tickle his fat little chin and smiled as he blew tiny bubbles in response.

  “My beautiful miracle baby,” she whispered to him as she so often did. Fourteen months earlier, her doctors diagnosed leukemia and against their advice she decided to become pregnant and have a child for fear that the cure would make her sterile. An heir was more important even than her own health. After his birth, the medical team gave her barely three weeks to breastfeed him before they insisted she begin treatment. With the long wait since her diagnosis, the cancer had spread. The combination of radiation and chemotherapy made most of her hair fall out and in two months, she would undergo a painful bone marrow transplant. Her physicians were among the best in the country but the prognosis remained guarded. She glanced over at Nkosana again and she knew that none of it mattered with him in her life.

  “Tomorrow, I am going to take you to see your Grandma,” she confided to her son who seemed more interested in the streetlights flashing by on the left.

  Neither she nor her driver, Herbert, noticed the large black SUV barreling toward them as they entered the intersection on a green light. Eshe screamed as the force of the impact crushed her door and shattered her right hip. She instinctively leaned over to protect the baby while Herbert struggled to maintain control. Seconds later, the same car rammed their rear bumper hurtling them across the median and crashing through the metal barrier on the left.

  Eshe gasped in horror as the vehicle became airborne and soared toward the black waters of the Schuykill River. The impact detonated Herbert’s airbag and Eshe feared for a moment that he had lost consciousness. She was relieved as the car seemed to float at first, but within seconds a large stream of water started to pour through her shattered window. She released her seatbelt and reached over to free Nkosana from his harness as she felt the ice-cold water already swirling around her waist.

  She heard Herbert moan and called to him, “We’re sinking!”

  “Try to swim out your window.”

  “I can’t move my legs,” she cried, “I’m pinned.”

  Herbert reached around to tug on her arm but it only made her scream in pain. She pulled back needing both hands to keep the baby’s head above water.

  “Take Nkosana,” she pleaded, “You must save him!”

  “My Lady, I can’t leave you!”

  “Go! I beg you,” the calmness in her voice surprised both of them. “This is not his destiny!”

  Herbert quickly removed his seatbelt. His window was open about a third. She watched as he backed along the seat and raised his left leg to kick out the glass. It shattered on the second blow. The water was now above her chin and she struggled to keep her son’s face in the rapidly reducing pocket of air. When she felt Herbert grab the baby from her hands, she was completely submerged. She held her breath, her heart pounding as she watched his legs disappear through the window. A torrent of water flooded through after them and seconds later the Princess blacked out as the Lexus became her temporary royal tomb.

  Eshe’s memory archive ended at that point. Lord Thoth switched to the detailed report submitted by her driver after the accident.

  Herbert held the baby close to his chest as he lunged through the window into the dark unknown of the river. He turned in time to catch one last glimpse of the Princess’s serene face as the water rushed in and the car sank like a stone to the bottom of the river. He knew there was no use in coming back; his duty was to the baby now. An ex-Navy Seal and a strong swimmer, he remained underwater as long as he could; blowing tiny puffs of air from his own lungs into the baby’s nose and mouth.

  They surfaced only a few yards from the embankment near where they crashed through the barrier. He hoped the angle would be enough to keep them hidden. He assumed the assassin waited on the edge of the road searching for survivors. He chose the location well. Traffic was light at this time of the night. Herbert’s free hand stroked forward and touched one of the large stones lining the bank. He pulled himself into a patch of reeds and carefully lifted the baby out of the water.

  Praise be to Lord Horus he whispered when he saw that the baby was breathing, a soft gurgle and tiny bubbles on his lips the only evidence of the ordeal. As if he sensed the danger, Nkosana didn’t cry and even played with some of the reeds with his hands and feet. Herbert saw the silhouette of a man at the side of the road standing under a streetlight about twenty feet above them. He had a powerful flashlight and methodically searched the waters below for any sign of life.

  After three minutes when the only sound that remained was the echo of silent screams, the killer turned and Herbert caught a full view of his face illuminated by the streetlight. He was young; maybe 26 or 27, with short cropped hair and wore a priest’s collar. He turned his head, perhaps at the sound of an approaching car, made the sign of the cross then disappeared into the darkness.

  Herbert shivered while he waited on the bank of the river for another five minutes holding the baby close to his body to keep him warm. He crawled up the embankment with Nkosana in his left arm and sprinted toward Lansdowne Drive. The Philadelphia Zoo was close by and it didn’t take him long to find a payphone. The security team from the Falcon Foundation arrived less than ten minutes later. With the Princess late for her scheduled arrival at home, they had moved to high alert.

  On Herbert’s instructions, they took the baby while he jogged back to the accident scene. He flagged down the first car and asked the driver to call 911.

  In Herbert’s statement to the police, he told them that the baby had been swept out of the back window as the mother tried to escape but couldn’t as she was pinned by the crushed door. There was nothing he could have done. He was distraught and the paramedics treated him for shock.

  Within an hour, divers located the wreck. They attached cables and a powerful winch on the back of a fire engine brought the car to the surface protesting with metallic groans. They attempted but failed to remove the body until they pulled the vehicle to the road. With her legs hopelessly trapped in the twisted metal, the first responders needed the Jaws of Life to free the corpse. There was no sign of the baby. Nothing could have prevented her from drowning they reassure
d the only survivor.

  Eshe’s security agents took Nkosana directly to his grandmother. She sat holding him in her arms for almost an hour, whispering gently in his tiny ear until the team arrived to take him to New York. Herbert’s sighting of the priest, the latest incarnation of her organization’s arch nemesis, sent shockwaves through the security apparatus of the Falcon Foundation. They had assumed mistakenly that the identities of the current Royal Family had escaped the relentless probing of the Vatican’s most tenacious and secretive office. If Sanctus Verum murdered the Princess, then Nkosana was no longer safe and the decision to pretend that his tiny body disappeared in the river was a difficult but brave one by the Pharaoh. She understood it was for the best but it broke her heart to know that it would be years before she could ever hold him again.

  Late that evening a woman pushing a small stroller walked up to the front door of a Catholic orphanage in Woodbury, New York. She diligently applied the brakes, readjusted the blanket around the sleeping child, rang the bell then quickly walked around the corner to a waiting car. A few seconds later, Sister Mary Frances opened the door to find the dozing infant who would become their fifth John Doe of the year. Sadly many mothers, especially ones involved in drugs and prostitution, felt compelled to abandon their newborn babies. Unlike most, this child seemed healthy and well cared for. He looked to be about five or six months old.

  An obituary appeared in the late edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer the next day announcing the passing of Eshe Carter and her infant son, Nkosana. The cause of death was a traffic accident still under investigation by the authorities. In lieu of flowers, the family requested donations in her name to the American Cancer Society.