The Moses Legacy - Adam Palmer [42]
Daniel had mixed feelings. He was making monumental progress in deciphering ancient texts that played an import ant part in Jewish history. But he felt like he was treading water when it came to finding the papyrus that Harrison had purportedly translated in his elusive paper.
Chapter 28
Sarit was back in her hotel room in Cairo, waiting for further instructions after sending in her report about what happened at the hospital.
She had prepared the report as a text file and concealed it in a picture, using a technique known as steganography. The idea was based on the fact that a text message consisted of far fewer bytes than a picture. The message was broken down into bits and these bits were distributed over the picture in such a way that their only effect would be to make extremely slight changes to some of the colours of some of the cells. There would be no way that this could be detected by the human eye.
The pictures were purportedly of friends of ‘Siobhan Stewart’ in places like Switzerland and Australia. After embedding the report into the picture, she had logged on to the Internet via the hotel’s broadband, signed in to her social network account and sent it.
Now it was up to Dovi. It was probable that Goliath had failed in his mission, but he was still a threat.
Her phone beeped: New pics uploaded to your wall. She knew what this meant: her controller had some information for her.
She logged on and noticed that ‘Felicity’ – her Canadian friend – had uploaded a new picture. She downloaded the picture and then logged out and disconnected from the Internet. This would make it harder for anyone to see what she was doing, if indeed she was being watched. She then assembled the improvised aluminium foil screen around her laptop, to stop it from being monitored by way of electromagnetic radiation, and then launched the steganography program (itself cleverly disguised) and typed in her password.
Within seconds, this simple operation yielded the text – shown on screen but not saved to disk.
Goliath is back at Cairo hotel. He has been ordered to get a sample of Klein’s and Gusack’s clothing and then to kill them. They have booked a flight to Luxor and so has he (following them). He is evidently planning to kill them there, probably in the Valley of the Kings. Follow him and neutralize him.
Chapter 29
Daniel was hit by an unexpected blast of heat as soon as he set foot outside the rented, air-conditioned jeep. They had flown in from Cairo earlier that morning and driven from Luxor Airport.
‘It’s this way.’ Mansoor was leading Daniel and Gabrielle across the sands of the eastern part of the Valley of the Kings – the main valley. The contrast between the lush green valleys of the Nile banks and the dry sands just a couple of kilometres beyond was striking.
They were passing a foothill which was over fifty feet high. People were getting around by open buses that reminded Daniel of the transits at Disneyland. It was the tourist season all year round these days, and visitors were usually advised to beat the midday heat by coming early. Indeed, many were already emerging from the small number of tombs that were open to the public, while others were queuing outside, preparing to enter. Only a small number of tombs were ever open to the public and of those, only a few at any one time.
But Mansoor was taking Daniel and Gabrielle to one that was not open to the public.
‘Here we are,’ said Mansoor, as the wall of rock to their left was almost in touching distance.
They were eyed from a few yards away by jealous tourists, wondering who these gatecrashers were. Most of their eyes were on Gabrielle, in fact. She had traded in her dark denim jeans for a faded, well-worn pair. They were still tight-fitting, showing every curve of body, but the fact that they had worn thin gave them a flexibility of movement that made them more comfortable when walking and climbing stairs. There was a tear in one of the knees, which gave her a slightly tomboyish look, but with her impressive height