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the Bible. Yet he had begun to feel that history had judged those men wrongly, had focused too much on their Christian zeal and their role as imperialists rather than their wider humanity. He thought of the group of officers he had been shadowing as he followed the trail of Akhenaten through the desert of Sudan to the pyramids at Giza, and he remembered what Costas had said:
one prophet, one god
. Perhaps for those men, the story of Akhenaten, of his conversion to the worship of the one god, the story of Moses and the Israelites, was about more than just biblical reality. These were men who in the war against the Mahdi in Sudan had come up against the terrifying rise of jihad, and who also knew the extremism that could be preached by followers of their own religion, not least among the zealots and missionaries they had seen in Africa. Perhaps their true zeal had been to reveal the single unifying truth behind both traditions. Perhaps their quest had been fuelled by the burning desire for discovery that drove Jack, but also by an extraordinary idealism. Then, as now, anything that could throw the spotlight on the similarities, on the common tradition, might push the world back to reason, might strengthen the common ground and force the extremists to the margins. Jack stared back down at the receding forms of the chariots on the seabed, and he felt another surge of adrenaline. He was back on track again, taking up where those men had left off. Archaeology had more to offer than just the thrill of discovery, far more, and the dark cloud over Egypt and the Middle East made it all the more imperative that he do everything in his power to see this one through.
He would not let it go
.
    Costas’ voice crackled through the intercom. “A wing and a prayer, Jack.” He came up alongside, showing where his contents gauge was nearly at the bottom of the red. “Are we done here now? I mean in Egypt? We can’t do better than this.”
    Jack said nothing, but seemed to stare through Costasas they came up level, their masks almost touching. “Uh-oh,” Costas said. “I’ve seen that look before.”
    Jack snapped out of his trance, looked up at the boat and then back at Costas, his eyes burning. “As soon as we’ve off-gassed and can fly, I’m going back to the institute in Alexandria.”
    Costas peered at him. “You want to get under the pyramid again, don’t you?”
    Jack stared at him. “Damn right I do.”
    “What’s changed here?”
    “It’s not because I think what we’ve found here will give us a glimmer of hope with the Egyptian authorities. If anything, the opposite. That’s why we’re keeping this discovery to ourselves until the time is right.”
    “It’s crazy,” Costas said. “Apart from anything else, the press attention this would get around the world might just remind them of the huge tourist revenue they’re in the process of losing by shutting down archaeology in the country.”
    “We’re talking about a regime whose ideologues might be about to wind the clock back to year zero. I think they couldn’t care less about tourist dollars.”
    “That thug in the Antiquities Department might finally blow a fuse and deport us. It’s only the more moderate elements in government that might stop him from doing that. Anyway, events could be moving too fast for us. We might be flying back into an extremist coup, in which case we may as well just keep on flying.”
    “That’s why time is of the essence. If we do still have time in Egypt, it might only be for days or even hours. Are you with me?”
    Costas took a final few photos of the scene below, the outcrops now just dark smudges in the shimmer of sand. Jack looked up at the decompression stop, less than ten meters above, and saw the bar vibrate as another fast jet roared overhead. Costas peered again at him. “I know what’s happened. Maurice predicted it. He said that any hope that a discovery out here might allow you to leave Egypt satisfied was