############“And what did our friend Jesus Christ have to say, Doctor Albright?” Albright looked up from the codice he had taken along in the Locomobile Halstead had insisted on renting in Luxor that morning for the drive to the Valley of the Kings. “These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded—” “And he said, ‘Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death.’ Consider yourself a very lucky man, Doctor.” Halstead laughed at the hot wind passing outside and gripped the edge of the convertible’s roof. Albright stared at the back of Hess, who silently drove the other three down the dusty road to meet the workers he had used his Arabic to hire in Luxor’s marketplace that morning, and then Albright stared at the bleak desert wasteland that surrounded them as he carefully closed the ancient book in his hands. It was Williams who asked the question, “Why now, Mister Hitler?” Halstead looked at the back of the man seated in front of him. “Why now what?” Williams twisted around slightly. “Why come now? What’s so special about the year Nineteen Nineteen to prompt your Second Coming? Was it the war? I imagine it must have been the war, the ‘war to end all wars,’ that brought you back.” Halstead laughed hard, and slapped his knee with one hand. “I don’t know quite what you mean, Mister Williams.” |