Death of a Pharaoh Read Free

vaults under where he stood.
    He walked directly
to a bookshelf on the opposite wall then partially removed three books in
practiced order. The whirring of the motor made almost no sound as the entire
panel slid to the left uncovering a sturdy metal door with a screen on the
right for scanning his iris. He positioned himself as he had so many times
before and tried not to blink. Three seconds later the door clicked open
revealing a small vestibule with an elevator directly in front. The car was idle at that level with the door open.
    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 W orld Trade Center in New York. He had no
idea what it meant, but he imagined