Transcribed by Chris Creagh – the actual author of the work not given
“We set it all up well in advance. Very carefully planned, engineered and meticulously arranged.
It took eight men most of the afternoon just to get the sarcophagus down the stairs. Another forty five minutes was spent moving it about from spot to spot on the floor, until Denis was satisfied enough to let us continue.
After that, we dropped in the body. Its ornamentation had taken months of work to design and manufacture, but together and in place they were totally convincing. The artefacts to fill the room took longer to sort out and place, and Denis had us working most of the night to finish the task.
He threw us all out of the room while he finished off. He took plastic bags filled with dust – fine, yellow sand – and scattered them grain by grain over the room. We waited outside in the darkness, cursing his refusal to allow us the light of even a solitary campfire.
At some point in the night we must have fallen asleep. We had been working hard for days, and to some extent we deserved the rest. He woke us before dawn, disaproving but not angry, and let us back down to seal the chamber. This task took all day, one rock after another, closing the room off to the living world.
We were well paid.
I’m watching a fan going round and round in the ceiling of my hotel room. Outside, the night life of Cairo is beginning to fall into motion.
Does Denis trust me?
They’ll discover the site tomorrow afternoon. They’ll discover signs of a new tomb to dig out and will descend upon the false history like a pack of wolves. If we did our job correctly, they’ll believe everything they see.
Does Denis trust me?
They might come while I’m asleep. Pillow over my head and two gunshots. Or they might take me away. No one knows what happens to the ones who are taken away. That’s one secret we don’t have to live with.
The fan circles above me, trapped in a circle of motion. Does Denis trust me to keep silent? Does he trust me?
I close my eyes to find out.