Zara sighed and shook her head. “How many bars are there in this place, Virgil?”
“At least a hundred.”
“And you filled the void with local history. Weirdo.”
As they climbed out the car and walked up the stone steps at the front of the museum, Milo broke the banter. “You think Kiya and her thugs have already got to old Lloyd?”
“Not as of five minutes ago,” Eva said. “He just emailed me to say he’s in the lobby.”
“No cops, right?” Caleb said. “We don’t want any cops.”
“Hey, I was a cop!” Zara said.
“You know what I mean, Z.”
Eva stepped ahead and shook hands with the professor. Ambrose Lloyd turned out to be younger than they had pictured; no older than late forties, he obviously kept himself fit and had the easy-going smile and confidence of a man who was happy with his lot in life.
Mason was relieved to see that he had respected their request about the police, and the only other person was Nigel Sim, the Director of the museum, plus two security guards, neither of whom was armed, as was normal for the United Kingdom.
After a brief round of introductions, Ambrose and Nigel led the team into the museum and through a large room full of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures.
“Where are we going?” Ella asked.
“My office is just through here,” Nigel said.
They passed through several smaller rooms dedicated to ancient Egypt and the Amarna Revolution before finally reaching the director’s private office. “Here we are,” Nigel said. He ushered everyone inside and closed the door. “Now, you say Ambrose’s life is in danger, is that right?”
“We believe so,” Mason said. “Not imminently, but there’s a faction of people — more of a cult, really — and they want something we have very badly. If they get it, then the next thing they’re going to want is Dr Lloyd here, because they’ll need him to translate something.”
Ambrose’s eyes lit up like emeralds. “Ah yes,” he said. “The note you say you found in Nectanebo’s sarcophagus. You said you think it’s going to lead you to the Nectanebo Codex.”
“The what?” Nigel said, visibly shaken. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“Unlike Oxford’s traffic management, this is no joke, Prof,” Zara said.
Nigel was still too stunned to respond to Zara’s barbed comment. “Archaeologists have been searching for the Nectanebo Codex since the dawn of the science of archaeology itself. What’s this note you’re talking about?”
Eva pulled the tiny copper tube from her pocket and held it up in the light. “Right here, inside this tube.”
Nigel ran a hand over his bald head. “Good God!”
Eva unscrewed the tube and handed Ambrose the small handwritten note. “If anyone can interpret this code, then it’s you.”
The professor took the note with a trembling hand and stared down at the words scrawled by Napoleon so many years in the past. “Bugger me,” he said quietly. “This is the find of the century!”
“What does it say?” Caleb asked.
“I need more time to translate everything,” Ambrose said, his words hushed and uncertain. “But from what I’ve already looked at, I think you’ve struck gold.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Spill the beans, Prof,” Zara said, checking her watch. “What’s it say?”
“It’s a note to the British,” Lloyd said. “He’s mocking them.”
“Over what?”
“He says he has the codex, and writing it in one of his codes just adds insult to injury.”
“The Nectanebo Codex?” Nigel said in awe. “I still don’t believe it.”
Mason moved closer to Ambrose. “What else does it say?”
“I’ll translate it: My British Friends, in here I found something more precious than all the treasures of Egypt that I will keep with me until my dying day, but I deny it to you with these parting words — you win the gold but you lose the gods. Napoleon.
“I don’t understand,” said Milo.
“It’s easy,” Lloyd said. “We know the Romans discovered the sarcophagus and moved it to Alexandria. We also know that Napoleon found it on his Egyptian expedition. We also know that he was forced to hand everything over during the capitulation at Alexandria when the British beat the French — including the sarcophagus you saw in London. But now we know Napoleon found the damned codex in the sarcophagus before the British got to him so he took it for himself. Leaving this note was just one of his famous flourishes. He had a very dry sense of humor.”
“Yeah,” Zara said. “Because this is truly hilarious right now.”
“I don’t know,” Virgil said. “Seems pretty funny to me. The British were supposed to find this note hundreds of years ago. He was taunting them.”
“I guess when he was talking about finding the gods he was referring to the Book of Thoth,” Caleb said. “So he knew… Napoleon Goddam Bonaparte knew.”
“But he never went back to Egypt,” Eva said. “So he never found his gods.”
“Quite right, my dear,” Ambrose said.
Mason took a deep breath. “That’s our job.”
“So where do we go from here?” Caleb said.
Eva looked in silence at the note in Ambrose’s hands for a few seconds and then turned to face him. “Any ideas?”
Ambrose smiled broadly. “Paris. You go to Paris.”
“Paris?” Zara said. “That’s a big place.”
Eva said, “We all know how big Paris is. We need to go to Musée de l’Armée. The Army Museum, am I right, Ambrose?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure?” Mason said.
“She’s right,” Ambrose said. “The military museum also serves as Napoleon’s museum and mausoleum. His tomb is there along with most of his personal possessions and even a recreation of his home on St. Helena where he was in exile. He says in the note that he would keep the codex with him until his dying day. He’s buried in Paris, so that's the next logical place to go.”
Mason reached out for the scrap of paper and studied it for a few seconds before handing it back to Ambrose. “And you’re sure you made the right translation?”
Ambrose looked almost offended, but it was Nigel who replied.
“Dr Lloyd’s the leading scholar on the subject, Mr Mason. You won’t get a better translation anywhere in the world. If he says the codex is in Paris then it’s in Paris.”
Outside in Beaumont Street they heard sirens and then saw flashing blue lights bouncing off the Randolph Hotel. Milo darted past Nigel and looked out his office window. “Three vehicles — two police cars and one unmarked Jag. Judging by the guys clambering out the cop cars, I’d say they’re all armed response.”
“What?” Caleb said, marching over to the window. “Damn it!” He turned to Mason and sighed. “Looks like secret service as well, Jed. Two dudes in black suits looking pretty serious in the Jag.”
Mason looked at Ambrose and the director with dismay. “I thought we said no police?”
Watching through the window, Mason watched as the men climbed out of the big, black car and walked with purpose up the museum steps a few steps ahead of a cluster of armed policemen. They were too far away to see their faces, and now they slipped out of sight as they reached the main entrance.
“They’ll be here in a few minutes,” Nigel said. “And I never called them!”
He was right. A minute or two later they were striding through the Egyptian section, making a beeline straight for Nigel’s office. Mason watched them as they approached the open door, his heart quickening as they drew closer. The way they moved reminded him of the men he’d seen on a documentary about the Men in Black, and now one of their jackets blew open in the wind to reveal the handle of some kind of service pistol in a shoulder holster.