He would therefore follow his instincts, and the prospect of doing so made his skin tingle in anticipation.

He stroked the image of Dr Richardson on the screen.

“Am I Aniquilus?” he whispered.

Chapter 64

It was ten years since George had visited Amarna, yet it was as if the whole place was frozen in time. Nothing had changed since 2036, except that the small town on the other side of the Nile seemed slightly more deserted than before, and the ferry had acquired a new pilot.

Even the warm breeze felt the same as he emerged from the air-conditioned confines of Ben’s car, which had struggled along the dirt track leading to the bottom of the cliff, on top of which sat the engraved stone marking the entrance to the famous Library his wife had discovered. That is, if sitting on something to catch your breath could really be called ‘discovery’.

Ben took the lead as he clambered up the crumbling cliff towards the small plateau.

“Shame we didn’t rent a Land Rover,” George shouted up to him as he neared the top.

Ben rested against the cliff top and looked out over the sandy-plain below, towards the Nile. “Not really,” he said shaking his head. “It’s much quicker this way, as the other route takes you round the whole place to approach from the back.”

George reached his level, and they both took the final steps up to the plateau. Less than ten yards from where they stood was a small gatehouse made of breeze-blocks, no larger than a typical garden shed. It had no windows, and the metal door was locked with a large Yale padlock. A few yards away was the stone that had sealed the Library.

“Welcome to the finest archaeological find of the twenty-first century,” Ben mused as he handled the padlock, turning it over as if looking for weaknesses. “The most important site in Egypt is closed by a single lock, with no guard. And thanks to Kamal, the closest police are over five kilometres away.” He took off his rucksack and opened it, removing a foot-long crowbar. Inserting it into the ring of the padlock, he wedged one end of the bar against the frame of the door, and pulled back. The leverage applied to the padlock was insufficient to break the hardened steel, but the bolt the lock was fastened to buckled almost immediately. After re-adjusting the angle of the crowbar, he pulled back again in a single, jerking motion, and the lock fell away from the door, leaving it to swing freely on its hinges.

George looked at his friend in surprise. “Have you done this before?” he asked.

Ben opened the door and shrugged. “No. But when you’ve watched as much TV as I have, you pick up a few useful tricks.”

They were about to step inside when there was a shout from behind them.

“Stop!” a female voice barked authoritatively.

Ben turned round with a grin on his face, and George did his best to fight the urge to run away; the natural response programmed into him was to get as far away from the scene of the crime as possible, whether that crime was stealing cookies between meals as a child or breaking into one of the most highly regarded historical sites in Egypt. The dilemma facing him must have been obvious to his audience, because Zahra laughed out loud, and Ben slapped him on the shoulder.

“Sorry, George,” he said. “I lied to you, there are some police here.” He nodded towards Zahra and her four friends, three men and a woman, who followed her out from behind an outcrop of rocks twenty yards away. George thought he recognised one of the men from the patrol outside the airport in Cairo the previous afternoon. Though none of them were in uniform, they all carried weapons, which George assumed to be AK-47s. They were certainly not the sleek, modern-looking guns from the day before.

Zahra caught him looking at her rifle, and she winked at him knowingly. “So they do not know it is us,” she said.

“The police weapons are all traceable to the individual,” Ben explained, “based on biometric authentication built into the grips. Each bullet can be traced back to the gun that fired it, which can in turn identify who fired the shot and when the gun was fired.”

George looked at him in wonder. “You really do watch a lot of TV, don’t you?” Turning back to Zahra, he smiled and offered his hand. “Thank you for helping us, I hope you aren’t taking too much of a risk?”

She laughed freely, shaking his hand and then nudging Ben in the ribs. “No risk, don’t worry. It’s like old times, eh Farid?”

Ben looked sheepish, like a schoolboy being told off for getting his uniform muddy playing football, but knowing that he’s not in too much trouble and that it was absolutely worth it. Looking at George, he shrugged.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” he said.

Zahra brushed away his denial with a movement of her free hand. Choosing to move on to more important things, she proceeded to introduce her friends by first names only.

Manu and Haji waved as she gestured towards them and they heard their names; it was quickly apparent that neither of them spoke a word of English. It still came as a surprise to George to meet people who didn’t speak any English at all, which said a lot for the frequency with which he left the beaten track and ventured into the heart of any foreign country. Their lack of English also highlighted his own deficiencies in Arabic; usually, he would be able to meet anyone half way with a mix of English and Arabic, bastardised into some unofficial ‘Arabish,’ but when it relied solely on him, it was another story entirely. While they had obviously not been chosen for their linguistic or interpersonal skills, it was clear why Zahra had decided to bring them along: Manu was over six feet tall, had arms as thick as George’s thighs, no neck and a nasty scar running down the left cheek of his otherwise attractive, angular features. Haji, despite being a good six inches shorter, had a stocky physique and wouldn’t have looked out of place in a boxing ring.

Without weapons, they would have been a fearsome sight. With them, they were truly terrifying, and George was glad to have them on his side.

The third man, Tariq, had indeed been at the airport the day before, and he shook George’s hand enthusiastically. There was obvious excitement in his eyes, and while his English was worse than Zahra’s, which itself was far from perfect, his willingness to understand more than made up for it. Despite his less imposing physique when stood alongside Haji and Manu, Tariq carried his AK-47 rifle with an ease and comfort that demonstrated years of experience handling weapons.

The final addition to their septet was Leena. Almost as striking as Zahra, she was slightly taller, and had a crop of short bleach-blond hair covered with a Yankees baseball cap she wore back to front. Her English, though heavily accented, was close to perfect, which she explained as being down to her university education in Ireland. As soon as she mentioned it, George couldn’t help but pick up on a hint of Gaelic melody in her voice.

On top of the Kalashnikov assault rifles, the small company each had a holstered pistol and rucksacks, which George guessed held everything they would need for a small war. Zahra explained that they each carried ammunition, food and water as well as flashlights and encrypted walkie-talkies. They were all dressed casually except for their jackets, which were the type of flack-jacket the press would wear while reporting from a war-zone.

Tariq had a large spear-point knife in a sheath buckled to his lower right leg. It was a foot long, and had a hanger attachment on its wood-covered handle, indicating it was a bayonet. George couldn’t imagine how lethal the man would be holding an AK-47 with ten inches of carbon-steel sticking out of the end.

Again, Zahra caught him staring at the weapons, and she broke into another perfect smile. “The bayonet is a real history item,” she said. “Over eighty years old.”