The Seraphim Enigma

Chapter One -- October 1938 and 1901. Omega and Alpha.

Something moved. Then nothing. He almost fell back asleep. A click changed that. Lights shattered darkness and his strange dream. At this final insult, Michael Caridis pushed himself up on an elbow, rubbed his eyes and glared through the mosquito netting at the intruder.

Imperturbable, Suleiman crossed his arms. “Effendi, the foreman, he calls. Needs you--at the dig. He says, come right away.”

This was curious. Their latest worksite had been through several frustrating months without a hint of success. The taciturn sands of the Nile valley guarded their secrets well. “They found something? Tell me. There’s a problem?”

The Turk shrugged and raised black eyebrows that could have been brushed in wide strokes of ink above his significant nose.

This was enough. He glanced at the clock--2:15 am--parted the netting and gave himself a mighty stretch before pulling on the khaki shirt and trousers from a chair where he’d thrown them the night before. A small open carriage already stood at the front steps of the villa. Some years ago, he’d had this charming place built up in the western hills. A fine retreat from the hurly-burly of Alexandria.
He stroked the head of the horse and walked around to the passenger seat. They set off on an eastward course winding down from the heights until they came to the great river. The bargeman roused himself from his chair and lazily secured the carriage’s wheels with blocks before pushing off with a shove of his pole. Silence enfolded them as they floated across the sleeping Nile, in the background only the electric motor’s soft purr.

Caridis stood at the flat bow of the barge, straight, athletic and trim, silver-white hair, closecropped curls like an ancient member of his race and glinting in the light of his cigarette and of the moon. He wondered what this night would bring. On landing, Suleiman guided the horse off on foot. The carriage wheels dropped with a jolt onto the broad ramp.

Unnoticed, a pair of shutters opened in the shadowed façade of a low building next to the river landing. A flash of eyeballs burnt into the darkness, furtive and alert. As he closed the shutters, the man turned to another in the darkened room and nodded, “Tomorrow, then?” A shake of the other’s head. “No, now.”

Suleiman whipped the horse over the pebbled roadbed. They clattered through fertile, palmfringed fields that hugged the nurturing river and then drove out into the hardscrabble moonscape of desert. Impatient, Caridis frowned. “We should’ve taken the Overland.”

“Too noisy this late, Effendi. Attracts attention.”

After half an hour they neared an ancient uninhabited city studded with ruins like random stalagmites. Suleiman looked over at his boss as he lurched the carriage onto the uneven paving stones of its principal avenue. Ahead loomed the barest remains of a majestic temple blocking the end of the avenue. Caridis’ heartbeat quickened as it always did when he reached this point. ]