“Why would the good professor drop a bar of soap with a business card inserted therein into the handbag of an American tourist?” my inquisitive CIA counterpart, Jake, asked and peered up into the hot muggy Cairo sky. We were standing outside the Phoenix Hotel, a rundown faded Moorish building across the Nile River in Zamalek.

“How do we know it was the professor who dropped the bar of soap in June’s bag?” I said.

“Good point Troop. That entire scene out at the pyramid yesterday doesn’t make a lot of sense in retrospect. Khalid gets poisoned and his last dying act is to point in the direction of the tourist June or past her to the pyramid.”

“That’s what I saw, yes.”

“With Khalid gone we’re grasping at straws,” Jake said, “and I’m thinking someone may be leading us astray.”

I looked at the entrance to the seedy building and said, “This doesn’t look like the type of place Professor Jules Studemayer, a renowned astrophysicist, would be staying at.”

Jake gave out a half laugh, half grunt, and said, “Let’s check it out.”

I quickly pulled Jake’s sleeve and as we hunkered behind the shady tree I said, “That woman that just exited the hotel; that’s the French woman with the umbrella who poisoned Khalid, I’m sure.”

The woman stopped at the top steps and I just caught of glimpse as she scanned the entire area in front of her. Satisfied, she nodded her head and an older white haired gentleman followed her to a car that had just pulled up in front of the Phoenix Hotel.

“Professor Jules Studemayer, I presume,” Jake said and I nodded my head.

A European man followed the professor down the steps and into the back seat of the sedan. “Does the fellow escorting the good professor look familiar?” I said to Jake.

Jake took out a small pair of binoculars, memorized the license plates, and said, “No, but my guess he is from the eastern bloc; probably a member of the Bulgarian secret police.”

“They’re CD plates,” I said, “from the Russian Embassy.”

“Troop, did the good professor look like a willing accomplice to you.”

“Not on your life. I suspect they’ve been keeping him in captivity in the hotel until now. Too bad we lost him.”

Jake answered his cell, “Steph, are you on his tail?”

“Good,” Jake said and I watched his brow furrow and his eyes squint against the bright sun as he said, “They’re going where?”

Jake gave me a worried glance and mumbled to himself:  “The KGB must be resurfacing,” before he barked into the cell, “We’re on our way.”

“Where are they headed,” I asked but Jake was already racing to our car.

December 10th, Cairo—8:00 p.m. We brushed past the guards at the entrance to the Sheraton Hotel. Local gendarmeries were busy questioning the hotel employees in the lobby. Jake identified the head investigator, showed him his credentials and, along with a brief explanation, herded the man to a corner. Meanwhile, I fielded questioning glances from the uniformed protectorate and wondered what the hell was going on.

Jake finished readjusting the head investigator’s attitude, made a quick call on his cell and then returned and barked at me, “Come on, June and Allie are in the Nefertiti Ballroom.”

I was beginning to feel like Jake’s guard dog. No, guard is the wrong word.

June and Ally sat alone at a long dinner table with several bottles of Perrier water lined up in front of them. When June saw us her face regained the redness that the sun had provided at the Great Pyramid. “Did you two have something to do with this?”

“What happened, June?” Jake said, his face full of concern, and sat down next to her.

Her face began to return to its normal hue. “An Arab forced his way into our room and held us at gunpoint,” she said, as if they had just gotten mugged in New York City’s Central Park.

“I can’t wait for the ferry to Cyprus tomorrow,” Ally said.

Jake patted her shoulder and held up is black passport. “CIA.”

“I knew it,” June said and Allie shook his head.

“June, this is a matter of national security. The guy was looking for information you had obtained while on the Great Pyramid tour earlier today. Did anyone say anything to you or give you anything while on the tour?”

She thought about it for a moment and said, “Not that I recall.”

“Your hand bag, did you take it on the tour?”

“Yes,” she said, laid it on the table and added, “Go ahead, but the masked man already went through it.”

Jake emptied the contents on the table and said to June, “Let me know if you see something that is not familiar.”

I had to smile when Allie said, “Why does she need luggage? She carries everything in that bag.”

June glanced at Jake and me and said, “Men, what do they know?”

As Jake rummaged through June’s belongings he said, “Did the thieves take anything from your luggage in your room?”

“We couldn’t find anything missing,” Allie said.

“Now Allie, we didn’t keep an inventory,” June said. “They might have confiscated something.”

Jake’s brow furrowed all of a sudden. He pulled a small bar of hotel soap of the pile of paraphernalia and held it up.

“How did that get in there?” June said.

“Phoenix Hotel,” Jake said. “Have you ever been there?”

June shook her head while my inquisitive cohort carefully opened the small article from one end and to everyone’s amazement, pulled out a card.

“It’s a business card,” Jake said. Do either of you know a man named Professor Jules Studemayer, astrophysicist?”

They looked at each other and shook their heads. “He’s not the type we hang around with,” Allie said.”

Something jogged my memory. “June, remember when we were walking up into the pyramid and you had a brief conversation with that white haired older fellow?”

“Oh yeah, he wanted to know if Allie was a movie star.”

“I’m told I look like the actor Gene Hackman,” Allie said.

Jake and I exchanged questioning glances while June stared at floor and said, “Allie’s better looking.”

“Do you mind if I keep this card June?” Jake said.

“No, go right ahead. It’s for my country.”

“I don’t want you two staying here tonight after the assault,” Jake said. “The embassy has a guest house that has comfortable accommodations–it’s not too far from here. Would you mind staying overnight there; the U.S. government would foot the bill.”

“Of course we will,” June said.

“One other thing,” Jake said. “Can I have your permission for American forensic experts to investigate your room?”

“This trip is giving me enough gossip material for the whole year,” Allie said. “Yeah, go ahead and have the secret agents scour our room for clues.”

June beamed a coy smile and said, “Spies like us, huh, Allie?”

–Senior Foreign Service Officer Matthew “Troop” McKullen

December 10th, Cairo—Wednesday afternoon had agent Stephanie Collier and I following Jake around the U.S. Embassy Cairo compound until he dropped us off at a security meeting hosted by the spooks (CIA) in a small room at the back of the compound. A young black suit in charge revealed that Khalid had been murdered by a highly concentrated dose of an untraceable substance known as Ricin; probably injected from the tip of an umbrella. The Russian’s had used the lethal substance in assassinations in the past—an umbrella was used to poison a Bulgarian agent on a crowded London boulevard.

My thoughts immediately returned to the staging area outside the Great Pyramid where June tried to borrow the European woman’s umbrella to shade Allie. I didn’t remember seeing the woman on the tour although at the time I didn’t give it much thought. The woman looked Eastern European or could have been Russian. June had mentioned that she spoke French.

I wasn’t surprised to see Agent Cheznokov’s face pop up on the power point presentation. The black suit in charge of the presentation showed more photos of the Russian agent exiting a Mercedes sedan with what appeared to be a middle-aged woman (the photos were blurred). More satellite photos showed the middle-aged woman meeting Khalid in the area around the pyramid. There was nothing to indicate hostility. The woman made an awkward attempt to open her umbrella.

“Why didn’t we intervene before the assassination?” agent Stephanie barked at the black suitor.

He glanced at his fellow-facilitator who had the audacity to wear a powder-blue tie and replied, “Our orders were to follow the subject and not interfere unless…unless he was under assault—we had no reason to suspect the Russians would attempt a covert assassination.”

Stephanie wasn’t satisfied but she left it alone—why waste time? I liked her style. She had similar attributes to Jake, except she knew when to lay off. Steph, a brunette, had a look somewhere between Demi Moore and Audrey Hepburn. It was apparent that her relationship with Jake was purely professional and she turned heads wherever she went.

I met up with Jake back at the hotel room that evening while Steph went to the Cairo museum for undisclosed reasons. Jake sat on the sofa across from me and listened to my briefing about the French woman and the umbrella. He stared through me, the wheels turning inside his head.

Finally, he said, “The retired American couple you were with—what were their names?”

“June and Allie Reynolds.”

“Did they say where they were staying?”

“She mentioned the Sheraton in Zamalek, why?”

“So you said June asked to borrow the umbrella from the French lady and she just snubbed her even though poor Allie was fighting the sun and bad case of heat stroke.”

“Yes, and Jake, I don’t remember seeing the lady earlier in the tour. I was going to ask June about it and then poor Khalid showed up out of nowhere.”

“The French lady is a Bulgarian spy…and yes, you are right, Troop; she did the job on Khalid with the umbrella and then blended in with your tour group.”

“Why wouldn’t Khalid have pointed the French…the Bulgarian lady out instead of turning and stumbling in the opposite direction and pointing at the Great pyramid, over June’s shoulder?”

Jake gave me a cold stare and said, “What did you say troop? Over June’s shoulder?”

“June was standing to the right of me and I believe the pyramid was behind her right shoulder from the angle Khalid was at.”

“Let’s go,” Jake said. “We need to go talk to June and Allie Reynolds at the Sheraton Hotel, if they’re still…Troop, think back, did June approach or talk to anyone other than her husband, the French woman, and you during the tour? Any exchanges…a map…a book?”

“I don’t know…June went over and sat next to the Bulgarian lady. They exchanged words; June did most of the talking. She wasn’t very happy that the French woman wouldn’t part with the umbrella. What is it, Jake?”

He pounded on the arm of the sofa and said, “Did it ever occur to you that Khalid might have been pointing at June Reynolds and not the Great Pyramid?”

I shrugged but Jake was already gathering his things.

–Senior Foreign Service Officer Matthew “Troop” McKullen

December 10th, Cairo—The main thing I took away from the tour of Khufu’s Great Pyramid was how in the hell anyone 4,500 years ago (or even today) could finely cut those huge granite boulders; never mind their genius in stacking them with such mathematical and astrological precision. June and Allie were mesmerized by our wizened old guide who possessed Hollywood-like facial features and in the dimly-lit anteroom somewhere near the top of the pyramid garnered our attention before he slid his finger along the joint of two granite behemoths and proclaimed, “No cement!”

We stood in the hundred-degree plus heat outside and waited impatiently for the bus to ferry June and Allie back to Cairo. I was in a quandary about what to do next. Jake’s instructions were explicit. He had said not to call him but to standby (there were no Dairy Queens or Starbucks around).

June was visibly concerned for Allie whose face had gotten all pink and puffy. She handed him a bottle of water. The aged “New Yawker” wore a narrow brimmed hat that did nothing to keep the sun out of his face. He took a sip, grimaced, and said, “This stuff burns my tongue,” with the same distain he would have given a Central Park vagrant. June kept looking around in anticipation. I nodded at a European-looking woman carrying an unused umbrella and June quickly walked over and started up a conversation. Meanwhile, I poured hot water over Allie’s unused handkerchief and asked him to moisten his face and neck.

June returned in a huff and glared at the woman who apparently had refused the use of her umbrella. “Those French,” June uttered. “The nerve of that woman; my husband has heat-stroke and she’s worried about her hoochi-Gucci umbrella getting tainted.” Allie held out the handkerchief and I poured more water over it.

I saw a row of air-conditioned buses kicking up dust on the horizon and felt relieved for poor old Allie. When the group of mostly retired folks saw the oncoming buses conversations, sprouted up. June looked up at the pyramid and said, “Thank you, Mr. Sun Devil,” and Allie scowled, “I’m ready to go see the Acropolis; the Greeks have gotta be more civilized than these Arabs.”

I couldn’t help but smile even as June retorted, “Our next stop is Cyprus and I know how you hate boats dear. They said the ferry ride takes about twenty hours.”

Allie replied: “I’ll have a few beers then.”

“Doctor Bernstein said to lay off the booze,” June said, and her eyes wandered past my shoulder and grew into large obsidian disks. I turned around.

An ancient Egyptian fellow, about ten meters away, stumbled toward us. His fixed gaze fell upon the three of us. Beyond his left shoulder a sedan sped off, leaving a small sand storm in its wake. On the right Jake and agent Stephanie came running in our direction over an uplifted mound about a hundred meters away.

The old guy raised his arms and as he approached us. As he approached us it became clear that I was his expected destination. I planted my feet into the Egyptian sand and prepared to receive him (what else could I do?).

Jake yelled out what sounded like, “Ali,” as he kicked up puffs of sand in our direction. Again, he yelled and this time I understood.

“Khalid,” I said and allowed him to stagger into my outstretched arms. June helped me to keep him propped up. He pointed beyond June’s ear toward the Great Pyramid and shook his head before he lost consciousness.

When Jake arrived Khalid was already dead. My mentor looked at me calmly and said, “We’ve got to get him out of here,” while agent Stephanie cleared a circle around the deceased Khalid. Minutes later a helicopter whirled above us. I hurried and ushered June and Allie onto the tour bus despite the old gal’s objections. “Who are you guys?” she asked. “Federal agents?” and I smiled and told her to take care of Allie.

Once we were airborne in the embassy’s DAO helicopter Jake turned to me and said solemnly, “Did Khalid say anything to you before he died?”

“Nothing,” I replied, watching the disappointment swell in Jake’s eyes. And then I remembered. “He pointed to the pyramid and tried to speak but couldn’t.”

My response triggered something in Jake’s complicated train of thought and he immediately searched the Egyptian desert below before he looked up and nodded his head and said, “Yeah, that’s it.”

–Senior Foreign Service Officer Matthew “Troop” McKullen

December 10th, Cairo—At 7:00 a.m., Jake returned from the buffet and said, “Cheznokov is sitting by himself in the northeast corner of the room wearing a grey suit and reddish tie. Troop, I want you to have breakfast with the Ruska—he could use some company. When you see me get up to leave I want you to cause a diversion. I’ll be sitting three tables over with a pretty Egyptian gal.”

“What? What diversion?”

“Use you imagination.” He handed me a folded paper, smiled, and sauntered back into the buffet. I wanted to scream out: “Jake, you [expletive!]” but I grimaced and took a minute to regain my composure before I headed into the buffet room.

I made my way to the Ruska’s table and cursed Jake under my breath. He had brought me along just so I could be his gopher and fall guy. Fortunately, there were no free tables. “May I?” I said and Cheznokov, who according to Jake ran Russian security in Cairo, gave a gruff nod and stared at the coffee machine nearby.

We ate breakfast in silence and as I finished my coffee I stared at the almost full liter of orange juice in the middle of the table and blurted out, “I’m an auto parts salesman from Detroit, Michigan. If you ever need an ignition coil for your car, I’m your man.”

The Ruska grunted, his eyes locked on Jake.

“I wouldn’t recommend installing or removing an ignition coil without the proper tools,” I said to the stoic gentleman. “We carry a full line, you know.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jake and the Egyptian girl both rise up. The Ruska watched them intently and tossed his napkin on the table. It was now or never.

I reached for the salt but smacked the top of the liter of orange juice on the rim.

“I’m so sorry,” I said and the Ruska looked down in horror at his drenched sticky lap and then at my exiting partner and his newfound Oriental friend.

“You idiot America,” Cheznokov said and grimaced.

My hands fumbled around on top of the table. I handed him an unused napkin and said, “Will this help?”

While his face turned a shade near the hue of his tie, I got up and said, “Let me see if I can find someone to clean this mess up.”

I was proud of myself and found a quiet corner and read Jake’s set of instructions. The title was “How to get to the Great Pyramid without being followed by Russian agents” and I could imagine Jake’s smirk while he wrote it.

He had it all listed in steps. After I played secret agent in the lobby of the Hilton, step two had me walking along the Nile until I jumped into a taxi in Garden City.

The third taxi dropped at a line of tourists outside the Great Pyramid. I called Jake on the new cell.

“Did she give you your ticket?” Jake asked.

“Who? What ticket?”

“There’s an elderly lady named June, said she would give you the ticket for the pyramid tour.”

“Where are you?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Jake…are you with the Egyptian girl?”

“Yes, but she’s not Egyptian. She’s agent Stephanie Collier, our Egyptologist expert. Any more questions?”

I felt like a fool again. “No.”

“Sit tight and enjoy the show—I’m sure June is somewhere around there. Steph and I have a lead of sorts.”

As I hung up an elderly lady stared in my face and said, “You must be Howard,” in a thick Bronx accent. “I’m June, June Colfax. That’s my husband of fifty-two years Allie, over there.”

The elderly fellow was demonstrating his golf swing to an Egyptian man trying to scalp camel rides.

I wished I was sitting at our bar in Bangkok.

–Senior Foreign Service Officer Matthew “Troop” McKullen

December 9th, Cairo—at 7:00 p.m., I poked my fork into a passable Marguerita pizza at a small empty Italian restaurant in the Nile Hilton and asked Jake, “Any news yet about Khalid?”

Jake thumped on the hard-crusted calzone with a fork and shook his head. “I just hope he’s in hiding and not someone’s captive.”

“I still don’t get why everyone is calling it a time capsule,” I said. “It sounds to me like its nothing more than a signal device that communicates with…them.”

Jake cringed, stabbed the calzone and replied, “It’s way more—as explained by a classified message that I received today.”

We were the only customers in the café and the waiter took advantage of it to gab on his cell in the backroom. “Well?”

“It’s not good. The scientists in Nevada made a breakthrough with the hieroglyphics on the capsule. They believe one of the passages is a warning.”

“A warning?”

“The capsule was not intended to be moved. When the Indian lunar probe dislodged it a triggering mechanism inside the capsule began a count down.”

“Count down to what?”

Jake set his fork down. “Well…err…doomsday.”

I was angry; not because of what Jake said, but because it could possibly be true. “Oh, Christ, Jake, you expect me to believe this crap.”

“Troop, let me explain and then it’s end of subject. It’s not our job to worry about the end of the world. We have a singular purpose: to find Khalid and get the code. The mad scientists in Area 51 are confident they can figure out how to defeat the damned thing if they have the code.”

I was supposed to be the cool, calculating one and here I was acting juvenile. “You’re right, Jake, please explain.”

“Okay, the Area 51 bobbleheads after deciphering what they could of the hieroglyphics think they may have this thing figured out. They believe that the India lunar probe to the South Pole awakened the capsule from hibernation. It thought the “mother ship” had returned for it and actually changed the heading of the space probe to “land” at its location. Of course, the Indian government would never admit that they had lost control of their space craft.”

I showed two fingers to the waiter in the far corner and pointed to our empty beer glasses. The waiter, annoyed at having to put his honey on hold, raised his eyebrows but was surprisingly quick in responding.

Jake guzzled down a third of the fresh glass of Stella beer and said, “The capsule didn’t just float down to the International Space Station. Again, it was looking for mama. Now here’s the real corker: As I mentioned, they said it’s been on some kind of timer since it left the moon. If it doesn’t find its mother ship or receive input of the code by the eleventh of January it will automatically go into a destruct mode and they believe a hundred years henceforth the earth will be toast.”

“Why January 11^th?” I asked.

“It has something to do with the second full moon after the capsule is “disturbed.” The first full moon is a mere warning.”

“When’s the first full moon?”

Jake pulled a a piece of scrap paper out of his back pocket and turned it this way and that and said, “Ahh, December 12^th.”

“That’s three days from now—Friday. What’s a ‘mere warning’?” I said, and began my second glass of Stella. Jake kept glancing out the restaurant’s front windows, behind my back.

“I think we need to head back to the room and go over tomorrow’s game plan,” Jake said.

“Did the engineers ever release the findings of the radio frequency tests they performed above the Great Pyramid?” I asked.

Something was on Jake’s mind. “They didn’t detect any RF signals,” he said. “I was told the aliens could be transmitting in the terahertz range which…would be beyond our test equipment capabilities…oh, shit.”

“What now?”

“There’s guy outside looking at the menu—he’s a Russian agent.”

“Russian agent? How do you know?”

“I’ve spent a career dodging those pricks during the cold war—I can smell them. Besides, look at the cut of his trousers.”

I started to turn but Jake said, “Wait, don’t turn around.”

I suddenly felt like I had had a pretty mundane career in the Foreign Service. “Okay, what do we do?”

“Tonight, nothing. Tomorrow, we have to lose this ya-hoo fast. Oh, and I’ll have new secure cells for us tomorrow.” He lifted the phone and added, “I think this thing has been compromised.”

Jake was right about the Ruska’s pants. We went upstairs and the CIA expert swept both rooms for bugs, surprised he didn’t find anything. Then we pulled two Stella’s out of the mini-frig and got down to work planning tomorrow’s visit to the Great Pyramid.

We had to find Khalid now.

–Senior Foreign Service Officer Matthew “Troop” McKullen

The afternoon of December 9th, Cairo, Egypt—I figured it was safer to wait in the car with the key in the ignition. But first I walked over to the mullah’s vehicle and forced the engine compartment hood open. The mullahs didn’t look like they had a high regard for human beings in general and I was concerned about Jake and Baraka.

I returned to Baraka’s vehicle, laid the cell on the passenger seat and shook my head at the incredible turn of events over the past few days. This time last week I was upset because the plumber failed to show and fix a leaky drain in my Bangkok condo.

Twenty minutes later, Jake and Baraka raced around the corner of the mausoleum.
I turned the key in the ignition until I could hear the solenoid screaming for me to stop. I unlocked the doors, gunned the engine and raced to a spot where I could intercept them.

Jake jumped in the passenger seat and yelled, “Go, go!” after Baraka barreled into the back seat. The mullahs, who had been in hot pursuit, suddenly stopped.  Led by the evil-looking Bizzara, they removed weapons but by the time they were set to aim I had gotten out of firing range.

“Don’t slow down, Troop,” Jake said with a sharp edge to his voice. “They’re going to catch up with us.”

I pulled out the ignition coil from under the seat and held it up.

“Good show, Troop,” Jake said, wearing a broad smile and Baraka barked fom the back seat, “We should try to intercept Khalid coming out the east exit. Turn right at the next street.”

I followed Baraka’s directions during the next twenty minutes but we failed to get through the incredible maze to the east entrance. Baraka apologized but we all knew it was a long shot to begin with. I was impressed with the big Egyptian and wondered how Jake had the wherewithal some thirty years ago to choose the sixteen year old kid that would later become a security expert for the Egyptian government. There were elements to Jake’s personality and thinking processes that were beyond me—beyond anyone.

As we took another black and white taxi back to the Nile Hilton, Jake turned to me and said, “Troop, how in the hell were you able to remove the ignition switch, anyway?”

I looked down at my greasy blackened hands, beamed a proud smile and replied, “Just lucky I guess.”

Jake gave out that short half-grunt, half-laugh of his and said, “Why didn’t you just pull out the cables?”

–Senior Foreign Service Officer Matthew “Troop” McKullen

December 9th: Cairo, Egypt—We caught a taxi outside the Nile Hilton and made a quick stop at the US Embassy in Garden City for Jake to stow the top secret time capsule photos and to check for classified traffic (messages). We flagged a black and white taxi and continued along the Nile to a district called Mahdi. The Muslim driver had pasted a Koran page on the dash and a stringy fabric flowed from the rear-view mirror. He zigzagged around cars on the highway called the Corniche and soon whisked us past watermelons for sale alongside the road—crimson halves spun from a tree branch.

The ride came to an end in residential Mahdi in a small cloud of dust accompanied by the smell of rubber. I exited to the left. Jake spoke some Arabic to the driver, let out a hoot and paid him. We walked across the street to an apartment building that may have been two years old or twenty. Jake gave the elevator a suspicious look and said, “We should walk to the fourth floor.”

The apartment door opened and Jake shook Baraka’s hand as if he had last seen him just the other day. After we had been introduced we washed our hands and Baraka’s wife showed us all to a small table in the kitchen of the small apartment. Several dishes were scattered around the table. We used pita bread to scoop up the Arab favorites: hummus, Baba ghanoush, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, and slices of lamb. Jake and Baraka made small talk about 1970’s Cairo to fill the thirty year void. When the meal ended Halima politely excused herself.

Baraka, a heavy-set man with deep penetrating eyes looked up at the clock on the wall—it was two 0’clock. Jake said, “We should get dressed—he’s usually at the entrance at about three p.m. Baraka nodded his head and got up and opened the closet.

I gave Jake this wild-eyed stare that complained, Why in the hell didn’t you tell me I had to dress up like an Arab and descend into the bowels of the city of the dead?

Jake smirked at me and said pleasantly, “This is Howard’s first trip into the city of the dead.” Baraka offered me a conciliatory grin.

Forty-five minutes later, I felt silly dressed in my Arab garb and standing next to a mausoleum. “You’re telling me Khalid has been coming here once a month since 1977?”

Jake looked at Baraka and replied, “He missed January through March 1978 because of his stay in prison. His cousin took his place.”

“There he is?” Baraka said, and nodded across the street at an old Egyptian fellow getting out of an old car.

“I know this sounds crazy,” I said to Jake. “But, why don’t we just ask Khalid to take us with him?”

“Good observation,” Jake said and checked a revolver he had stashed inside his robe. Baraka did the same. “We can’t let Khalid know we’re here—I’ll fill you in later.”

I was beginning to wonder why Jake had brought me along on this mystery tour. We needed to talk tonight.

“Over there,” Jake said to Baraka. “See those three Arab mullahs? Abdul Bizzari is the man in the middle. Troop, you have your cell on you?”

“Yes, of course,” I replied.

Baraka handed me the keys to his car and Jake said, “If we don’t return within an hour or you don’t hear from me, get the hell out of here and call the station chief. But I don’t want you to call him…”

“I understand, Jake.”

The two security men followed the three Arab mullahs who were following Khalid.

–Senior Foreign Service Officer Matthew “Troop” McKullen

December 9th: Cairo, Egypt—The Nile Hilton Hotel strides the famous river. From my seventh floor room I can see a lot of the bustling city of Cairo, including, straight in front of me, the island of Zamalek. Jake said the mysterious Khalid Mustafah resided there.

I had gone full circle. Overnight I had convinced myself that this whole alien time capsule thing had to be a huge hoax perpetrated by the US government. But… why?

I removed some old newspaper clippings from an envelope Jake had slid under my door sometime during the night. A New York Times article featured a TV special from back in March 1999 by FOX News. A correspondent examined the big question: “Alien Architects?” I briefly scanned the article that sounded more like entertainment than fact. Someone (Jake?) had underlined “the Great Pyramid” with a black marker.

The Egyptian Gazette had a short article circled with a black marker. It was not a front page item. Dated in December 1978, it stated that Khalid Mustafa had been found guilty of “disseminating false information” and had been sentenced to five years in prison. A second article dated April 1979 claimed that Khalid Mustafah had been promoted to assistant curator at the Cairo National Museum—quite a turn around.

Another Egyptian newspaper article showed a forty-some year-old Egyptian man by the name of Baraka Abdullah, who had received an accommodation from Egyptian President Mubarak for his work in the Egyptian security force. Was it the same 16 year-old Baraka who led Jade down into the caverns of the “city of the dead” some thirty years ago?

The knock on my door had me jumping up—not my usual response. Jake stood there with his satchel slung over his shoulder. “Can I come in?”

He peered down the hallway, shut the door and flipped the deadbolt lock. Inside, Jake turned the light on and shut the drapes. Without saying a word he removed an electronic gun from his satchel. He pointed it throughout the room while he walked around. Satisfied, he put it away.

“Bugs?”

“You never know.” He nodded at the newspaper clippings on the table. “I know the articles weren’t too informative but yes, that is Baraka and the CIA did bail Khalid out of prison. I’ve got something I want to show you.”

Jake pulled a manila envelope marked NEMO TOP SECRET out of his satchel.

“Jesus, Jake,” I said. “I’d get a security violation if someone found out I was carrying top secret documents around in my satchel.”

“I would, too,” he replied. “This arrived by diplomatic courier this morning.” He removed the 8 ½ x 11 photo reproductions and laid them on the table.

All I could say was, “Wow!” There in front of me were very high-quality, very high resolution photos of the alien time capsule. I recognized the hieroglyphics etched into the surface. A Rolex watch sat next to it for size reference. It was a gold metallic cylinder about four feet long with fin-like protrusions on one end. The other end tapered into a locking mechanism. It was about eight inches in diameter.

“It only weighs twelve ounces,” Jake said.

“No!”

“The material it’s made out of—our scientists couldn’t put a scratch on it. They used diamond drills, lasers; everything in their arsenal.”

“Have they figured out how to input the code information, if we locate it?”

Jake gave me a quizzical look. “No, but the time capsule is more than it seems. Scientists have discovered that the capsule has an auto-direction finding feature. Whatever direction they point the nose it will automatically return to the originally position.”

“Where does it point to?” I asked.

“The Great Pyramid at Khufu.”

“Is the pyramid sending some kind of signal?”

“Even as we speak there’s a team of radio-frequency engineers in a helicopter above the Great Pyramid taking measurements. The team in Nevada tried to enclose the capsule in a radio-frequency shield to prevent it from receiving any sort of radio signal—the capsule burst through the shield and injured two scientists. They attempted radio frequency measurements but weren’t able to detect any signal. They’re hoping the signal will be stronger at the source—the pyramid.

We stood there and admired the six photos while thinking about the implications of the capsule for probably three minutes. Finally, Jake shook his head and said, “We’ve got our work cut out for us, Troop,” as he slipped the photos back into the envelope and tossed it in his satchel.

“Are we going to see Khalid now?” I asked. My hoax theory had been shot to hell.

He looked at me and gave that half-laugh, half-grunt and said, “Hell no, we’re going to see Baraka.”

–Senior Foreign Service Officer Matthew “Troop” McKullen

December 8th: Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean.

“After you memorize the bio sheet Troop, soak the paper in water and blast it out the shitter,” Jake said.

I nodded my head and adjusted the United Airlines first class seat. Let’s see… I was born in Eugene, Oregon…my mother’s maiden name was Burgess…yada, yada, yada…

“Jake, let’s talk about this Egyptian fellow, Khalid,” I said, “and what other CIA agents will join you in Cairo?”

Jake has this incredible peripheral vision. There’s only perhaps sixty degrees behind his head that he can’t recognize but a hummingbird’s turn of his head in both directions remedies that.

I popped my head up and looked around. No one was seated within listening distance of us.

Nevertheless, Jake said,“I’ll be the agent-in-charge,” in a lowered voice. “We’ll be joined by agent Stephanie Collier. Steph’s an Egyptologist expert…wait.” He stuck his hand up.

He offered a professional smile to the stewardess and said, “I’d like another scotch and water and a Bloody Mary for my friend.”

She smiled back. “Why sure, and are you gentlemen enjoying your flight?”

We both nodded, neither interested in engaging the brunette with conversation. While she sauntered down the aisle I whispered, “That’s it? Just two CIA agents on such incredibly important mission?”

“You didn’t count yourself, Troop. Besides, there’s the station chief and his staff at the embassy in Cairo—I hope I don’t have to involve those SOB’s.”

After the stewardess brought our drinks, Jake thanked her, took a sip and his brow immediately furrowed. “Khalid Mustafa,” he said. “The last time I saw him—May 1977—he was being chased down an aisle in the Cairo museum, which is quite a feat considering the vast amount of Egyptian artifacts lying around.”

“What happened?”

“Quite frankly, at the time I thought Khalid had lost his marbles. I had arrived in Cairo several weeks earlier, cold turkey. The previous agent, Oglethorpe, left without debriefing me and I was told to follow Khalid and report any findings to the CIA Station Chief. I had an advantage as Oglethorpe had been doing nothing in Cairo except ogling an Egyptian belly dancer performing nightly at the Cairo Sheraton Hotel. Khalid was an easy trail except for his weekly excursions into the “city of the dead.” Every Tuesday he would head into the cemeteries and each time I’d lose him. Finally, I smartened up and hired some local help, a sixteen year old kid named Baraka who spoke passable English.

The street-smart kid told me I would have to dress up like an Arab to venture into the “city of the dead.” When I asked why Khalid would be traveling into the cemeteries he said there was no reason for a man from Zamalek to be going there. That’s when I thought Khalid was going off the deep end.

Jake paused and stared out the window as if what he had to say wasn’t easy.

“‘El’arafa, the City of the Dead.’ The next Tuesday Baraka and I followed Khalid. On the surface the sandstone-colored buildings all looked alike. Over five million citizens have converted death chambers into living quarters throughout Cairo’s dead cities. There was garbage all over, rats, and two-inch long cockroaches. I can still smell that indescribable odor of the place. We followed Khalid through a maze of decayed structures and into a sort of burial chamber. When he disappeared in front of us—I thought he had fallen into an abyss. At the lid of a cylindrical dark chamber a long spiral staircase descended into the depths of the earth. I had to commend the kid Baraka; he had no fear. We took the steps cautiously, not knowing what to expect. I counted seventy-two steps to the bottom. We stopped when we heard chants coming from a lit area about fifty yards off to the right.”

Jake paused and sipped at the scotch. “I counted twenty-four men in a half-circle chanting—it had the looks of a cult. Four kerosene lamps barely lent us a view. They appeared to worship a kind of deity on a coffin in front of them. One by one they walked up to a tray of embers atop the coffin and dropped a substance on the embers. Khalid led the insane chatter and it was then I knew the man was playing without a full deck. The stench was so bad down there I tapped Baraka on the shoulder and we stealthily made our way out—I didn’t want a pack of crazed Arabs chasing us out of El’arafa.

I never returned but Khalid ventured there every Tuesday. I had Baraka check with some local denizens and he was told that Khalid had come every Tuesday for as long as they could remember. Baraka also told me that the chant they had been reciting was not the present day language but he thought it was Coptic, which Egyptians had stopped using 200 years ago.”

Jake took a swig of his drink, eyed me seriously and said, “The following Monday, I arranged to meet Khalid at the Cairo Museum. That’s when I saw the Ruska’s chasing him—last time I ever saw him.”

–Senior Foreign Service Officer Matthew “Troop” McKullen