“I am absolutely sure that there is nothing in the texts I have looked at that suggests a link. There is no evidence I know of in the archaeology in Amarna, or even in the rest of Egypt – the rest of the world! – that can point to a link with extra-terrestrials.” She was angry now, her eyes filled with emotion. Her entire career had been based on the Amarna Library, but the photos from Mars had her looking at a bleak future. “I have two choices,” she said as calmly as possible. “Either I support the possibility of E.T., or I refute it completely.”

David looked at her and smiled. “You made your choice years ago, Gail, when you accepted your scroll from the Dean. You have to be a scientist.”

“There’s always a choice to be made. But first, I have to speak to Professor al-Misri.”

As if on cue, the desk phone started ringing.

Gail was tempted to let it ring: the sheer volume of calls that morning had left her weary of lecturers, friends, family and even students, all asking her the same questions. But then she recognised the Cairo telephone number on the display.

“Mamdouh, I was just about to call you, how strange!”

David pushed himself up from the armchair in which he had been lounged and gestured to Gail that he was popping into his own office for a while.

Gail nodded and continued speaking to the Professor. “Yes, I saw the news. How couldn’t I? I’m fairly certain it’s faked, or that –”

He had just reached the door when Gail stopped mid-sentence. Something about the lengthy pause in her telephone conversation made him prolong his stay in her office for a few moments.

“But, how do you know?” she said, the words stumbling out.

David backed away from the door and regained his seat, all the time studying her face for any signs of what the Egyptian could be saying to her on the other end of the line.

Suddenly, she was saying her goodbyes and hanging up. She sat in silence for over a minute, looking into space, before David could bear it no longer.

“Well?” he urged. “Doesn’t he think that the photos are faked?”

She looked at him, and shook her head slowly. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he has seen proof that suggests otherwise.”

“What kind of proof?”

“He can’t tell me over the phone. I have to see him in Cairo tonight. He’s already booked my flight.”

There was something about her pale face and expression, telling him that there was more to it than that. “What’s wrong, Gail?” he asked softly.

She looked him in the eyes. “He says that there’s another book from the Amarna Library, one that I’ve never seen.”

David sighed. “There’s more than just one, Gail! There are more than three thousand books in the Library that you’ve not yet had the time to study, and you know more than anyone about that place.”

Now she was frantically clicking through folders of images on her computer screen, some that had been used in her book, many thousands more that had not. She finally reached the folder she was looking for.

A rendition of the Backscatter X-ray, from a few days before they had entered the Library for the first time, filled the screen. She zoomed in on the plinth, on which the Stickman book had been found.

She flicked through a pile of papers on her desk and brought out an A3 print of another photo, this one taken from inside the Library, behind the plinth. The Stickman book covered less than half of the plinth’s surface.

Comparing the two images, her jaw dropped.

“How did I not notice this before?” she wondered.

“Unbelievable,” he whispered.

“My entire career, all my studies, my lectures, my thesis, everything! It’s all been based on corrupted evidence!” she wailed.

He looked at her wide-eyed as she broke down in front of him. He was horrified and upset for his colleague. But deep-down inside, part of him thrust a clenched fist in the air and cried victory. All his life he had searched for proof of archaeological and historical cover-ups, and now it looked like he would finally get what he’d been looking for.

For on close inspection, the Backscatter X-ray showed the Stickman book, and right next to it, with barely a gap between, was a second identically-sized tome. The photo from inside the Library, however, showed only one, lonesome book.

Not only had there been a cover-up, but it had happened right in front of her eyes.

Chapter 39

Gail subconsciously adjusted her backrest and fastened her seatbelt. She raised her hand and asked the nearby steward for a glass of water. Pulling her tablet computer from her bag, she hit the ‘On’ switch and waited for the welcome screen before using a stylus to enter her access signature.

A sudden burst of computer graphics brought her to her desktop, where all of her useful applications were waiting to be used. It was the same workspace as at her desk, and on the video wall at home, with all the applications and data synchronising in real time with a farm of University servers, probably deep inside a hill somewhere Gail had never even been. The tablet was never truly ‘off’ unless its battery was drained, and was constantly performing quick-syncs whenever it had access to WiFi.

The benefits to her and fieldworkers everywhere were enormous. What she saw on her tablet was identical to what she saw on her desktop machine in her office. No matter where she was, she could see the same files, applications and settings, saving her valuable time. In the field, it meant that she could input data and start analysing it on site, and collaborating with colleagues hundreds of miles away, before continuing at her leisure either at home, in the office, or as she was doing at that very moment, on the plane to Cairo. And if ever she lost her tablet, logging on to any new device as herself would synchronise everything once more

She tapped the screen to access her emails and scrolled down the list until she came to a recent one from George.

There was no text, just a picture of a cartoon rabbit looking sheepish. She smiled and checked the time of the mail: half past three in the afternoon. He must have sent it from his phone, as there was no way he could be home yet after having dropped her off at the airport. She saved the picture to her personal files and closed the message.

George didn’t pretend to know much about Egyptology, but he wasn’t an idiot either. He had known enough to understand that the news from Mars could be both good and bad. Knowing that he would always be with her and supporting her touched her deeply.

When he had learnt about the call from Mamdouh, he had been genuinely shocked. Gail and George had spent numerous holidays in Egypt over the past ten years, and had grown very close to the Professor. That he had never mentioned the missing book, even during one of his after-dinner ramblings, was surprising to say the least, as a great deal of their conversations had tended to centre on Amarna and the Library.

Gail had had time to think about things more now, and on reflection thought that she understood the situation better. In fact, as she deleted a selection of junk emails, she could even accept why the Professor would have hidden the book.

If it had shown any kind of link with Mars, then an unqualified archaeologist discovering it in the desert with no prior study of the area would seem too good to be true: the scientific community would never have believed that the book was genuine. Removing it ensured that the Library as a whole would be accepted without question.

But it did not all fit, she thought as she fired off a quick reply to a student, wondering if the lecture notes from that morning’s interrupted lecture would be available on her website. ‘Yes ’ was all she had written. Not everything made sense to her. For starters, removing one book on the spur of the moment couldn’t ensure that no similar evidence was present elsewhere in the Library. No one would have been able to check the thousands of books before she entered. And if you’re going to remove a book, then why not the one with the Amarna Stickman engraved on its cover? And why, when all the other books related to politics, economics and demographics, was her book so different, its content almost biblical in comparison? Surely, from what had been seen so far in the Library, her book was unique; but not enough to be removed?