Dust From the Shoes of Solomon

By Alan Cannell

Annie Maguire is a forty something ex-newscaster that never made anchor and is trying to scrape a living producing shows for the documentary channels. While making a show on the Queen’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid she meets John Elliot, an expert on Gravity Waves and the wrong side of 50, who is part of the research team. Back in the mid-west, sale of the show flops and she faces financial ruin as well as being troubled at night by bad visions. Elliot is the key to understanding what is happening and how this involves new technology, Israel and the prices of Big Oil.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alan Cannell
• Release date: Mar 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301892365

Alan Cannell

Having both British and Brazilian nationalities I try to show Brazil in a different light, with all the opportunites, problems, violence, wealth and beauty that it offers as an ever growing part of the modern Western world.

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What Others are Saying about Dust from the Shoes Of Solomon

"Struggling American documentary-maker Annie Maguire, in Egypt to film a new attempt to find the destination of the lost passage from the Queen's Chamber of the Great Pyramid, meets up there with apparent nerd geophysicist John Elliot, a member of the scientific team.

This is something of a changeling of a story with a very interesting scenario and a thought-provoking unexpected outcome ... I liked this one, especially the changes of direction, whatever Mr Cannell intended by them!"

Brian Cox – Former CEO

DUST FROM THE SHOES OF SOLOMON

Alan Cannell

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Alan Cannell

Chapter 1

Annie Maguire checked her face in the mirror of her Clinique compact case from several different angles. Two minutes to recording they had said: time to make sure her face had no shiny areas or smudged eyeliner. She put a dab of sun-screen on her nose, retouched the pale lipstick and tried out a few basic expressions, finally giving the mirror a big smile to make sure her teeth were clean.

The face that looked back was getting hard, she thought, and showing every one of the past 42 years. Nowadays a woman could age gracefully in some jobs. Flight attendants: when she was a kid they used to be called ‘Air Hostesses’ and all of them seemed to vanish when they hit thirty-something. Not any more; the unions had seen to that. But you still couldn’t get old in television. Or fat. Sure, there were a few token elderly women and fat Hispanic weather girls out there, but in this business the number one requirement for a woman was to look good, look desirable, look young.

She glanced up and saw the cameraman carefully cleaning his lens. He had tied his long hair at the back and was using a neckband to keep sweat from getting into the eyepiece. It was already about 40 degrees Celsius inside the Queen’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid and the temperature would rise even more when the big lights were lit. She had always thought that caves were supposed to be cool, yet inside this man-made mountain it was always hot, even hotter than the Giza plateau outside.

Annie closed the case with a snap. This was it. This is what she had achieved after nearly two decades of television journalism: freelance work on yet another TV documentary on the Pyramids. Worse, she was on a risk-based contract, working as part of the production unit. If the program couldn’t be sold to cable then all her time putting this together - as well as fifty grand of her savings - would be lost.

The lights went on and she looked quickly at her script and read out loud:

After several attempts at finding the destination of the lost passage from the Queen’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid, a new attempt is being made today by the University of Illinois under the supervision of the Egyptian head of archeology…

This was the cue for the local expert to give a short explanation. As in earlier attempts, though, the guy was not on the spot marked with tape, but fiddling with his ‘Indiana Jones Hat’ and nagging one of the American academics about something or other. She called his name and smiling professionally pointed to his place and gave him a prompt. Any hope of a short explanation was ruled out as the guy jabbered on and on, Annie keeping a fixed grin and mentally wondering if she could salvage thirty seconds during the edit for appearances sake.

She glanced around the chamber to avoid getting completely distracted. It was the smallest space inside the pyramid, almost a perfect cube in shape and set exactly half way between the north and south faces. On the eastern wall were two small, oblong shafts and all the attention of the rest of the people in the chamber was fixed on the southernmost shaft and a complex array of electronic equipment spread out on folding tables. Unlike the spectacular Ascending Corridor fifty feet above their heads that led from the Pyramid base to the King’s Chamber and which were superbly finished in polished granite, the floor of the Queen’s chamber had been left in rough-hewn stone. This made it difficult to keep the electronic equipment stable; several table legs being supported by carefully adjusted wads of folded paper. Annie had asked for a close up of this, as there was something reassuringly symbolic in such a low-tech solution for a high-tech problem.

After a nodding plea to the cameraman, he turned off the lights and she smiled as sweetly as possible to the Head of Egyptology and thanked him for his time. Turning back to her production team she whispered:

Always the same with bureaucrats that develop a taste for videotape – you can never shut them up. Out loud she asked the guys to pan over the instruments on her right, and while the camera was trying to focus on the flashing dots, she cast a critical glance over the scientists of the University team hunched over their laptop screens.

Geeks to a man. ‘Squeaky-geeky’ as she liked to call them and they made for difficult film material. The viewing public likes to see nice young people on their screens but this crew were all middle-aged, though they still dressed like the hippies they once were in their youth, beer guts protruding between jeans and sweatshirts. At a pinch, she could use a take of the scientist nearest to her. He sat sideways to his computer screen a little apart from the rest and at least he was reasonable looking. Could even make a passable arm accessory if dressed in decent clothes. Light brown hair with a touch of gray, a bit on the straggly and longish side, but – thankfully - not in a streaked ponytail. No gut hanging over his belt, although he was wearing scruffy jeans with frayed hems and – oh God no – those inevitable hippie sandals. She lifted her gaze and found herself looking into dark blue eyes set in a smiling face, one hand pointing to a notepad held in the other.

100% NERD

AND PROUD

She smiled back and mouthed a sorry. The lights went back on and the University team leader came over and began to explain to the camera what was happening. He kept switching his eyes from the lens to the cameraman - always a mistake on TV as the ‘expert’ immediately comes across as someone shifty – and he mumbled most of his speech:

We have made some micro holes and so now our micro robots are acting like a giant tapeworm, dragging the optic fibers cables along the passage and through a chain of little stone orifices. Annie winced at the metaphors that would have to be cut: documentary channels also went out at meal times.

The passageway they were examining was not even new, having been discovered in the late 90’s. The big problem, however, was that the shaft was cut off by a series of stone doors. Every time a hole was drilled through a door, another stone appeared a few feet further up the shaft. This required another painstaking research program to tackle the next obstruction, along with all the permits and paperwork and bureaucracy attached.

Why they couldn’t just drill through all the damn doors in one go was beyond Annie. The whole area of the Pyramids was treated as a dumpsite. The Arabs had ripped most of the external stonework off the outside of the monuments back in the middle ages, long before they took up their current profession of ripping-off tourists. There were even some extremist loonies requesting to level the structures as they were offensively blasphemous. Hell, anyone could simply walk off with chunks of rock from the damn place, so a few holes wouldn’t make a big difference.

She kept the thought to herself - though it would make a big difference to her. If they simply found another stone door then her television program would be worthless. Like the Apollo moonshots - after the first one or two the public got bored and switched channels. There was, however, always the chance that the passage might actually go somewhere: a secret chamber, full of gleaming, old stuff. Annie mentally crossed her fingers and imagined the price war that would break out as the channels fought over her material. She looked over to the instruments and saw that the brown haired geek was holding another sign:

PAYOFF

TIME

She made a ‘thumbs up’ and smiled again, wondering how he had known what was on her mind. Today was something of the ‘Big Day’, after weeks of preparation and negotiations between the University, production and the Egyptian authorities, they finally had permission to carry out and film this next stage in the exploration of the passage. Filming had actually helped the University obtain the necessary permits - official vanity being almost as effective as the standard bribe.

According to the agreed script, she was to cover the pressing of the button that would cause a micro drill to finally penetrate the stone door currently blocking the passage. This made the event more ‘historic’ and better TV than just having a bunch of guys looking at computer screens. She gave out her speech in a slightly hushed and awed voice in order to make it sound important and signed off with:

This is Ann Maguire from inside the Great Pyramid of Egypt, as the secrets of five thousand years are about to unfold… As always when on camera, she pronounced her name like ‘MacGuir’ rather than the usual ‘Maguire’, in an effort to seem a little more sophisticated.

The lights went off and Julia, her assistant, opened a cooler and handed out sodas and bottled water to everyone. She took a long drink of water and pressed the cool dew condensed on the plastic to her neck, keeping her eyes shut against the heat. Close to her right ear a voice broke into her thoughts.

Elliot. And I wear sandals because it is stinking hot and sweaty in here. Your lights don’t make it any better.

Annie looked up and saw that Mr Notepad was offering a bag of something that looked like hashish.

What do I do, smoke this and forget the heat? Said Annie.

Nooo, it’s dried ginger, good for the heat and vocal chords, thought you might need it with your job and all.

He had a slight southern accent, was tallish without being lanky and seemed to be surprisingly at ease for a geek – normally they shuffled about when talking to her, shifting their weight from one foot to another.

Elliot what? She said.

John Elliot. Everyone just calls me Elliot. Name comes from the Scottish borders. The clan used to be famous as cattle thieves.

And now you just thieve my cokes, she said, pointing to the can in his hand.

Trading, really. A soda for real Thai ginger – gotta be worth more.

Elliot grinned a bit wider.

Annie wondered if Mr Elliot Notepad was trying to hit on her. In sandals?

That’s not your real name, said Elliot, looking down at his feet.

Sorry? Did I hear you say that I don’t know my own name?

Yep. Elliot still looked down, but gave her a smiling, sidelong glance. Not quite your real name is it?

And how would you know? Been snooping?

Elliot kept quiet, still looking sideways and still, annoyingly to Annie, very much at ease.

OK, she said, My name is Ann Maguire, but as you mentioned it, yes, I do use the older form of McGuir, it sounds better on the small screen.

He continued to smile infuriatingly:

Both sound good to me. Shall we take our seats? I believe that we have some drilling to monitor.

Annie sat down and pressed the cold bottle to her forehead. She was amused at the attention and it made her remember all the men who had really hit on her over the years. There had been a lot. It went with the job.

Her career had been straightforward enough: college, local TV, then regional news anchor and then… nothing. The great days of the networks started to fade as cable and the Internet took over and her chance of making it in the business slipped quietly away. Then even the regional news axed her.

Dozens of local sports heroes and nearly all politicians had hit on her after their interviews. It was to be expected. You act like these guys are really something special, you let their egos spout off and, all friendly, smiling and understanding, you pretend to be there for them. Dressed-up, made-up, perfumed-up and seemingly up for it. Of course they hit on her. And sometimes it turned out that she really was - even when they were married.

Unbelievable. She had spent six years of her life with Bruce in the role of the Other Woman, the Ultimate Female Loser, yet conning herself into thinking she was being modern and independent. Up and coming District Attorneys with a promising future in politics run a mile from any public scandal, so when he did decide to run for higher office he also decided to run away and dump her. Without realizing it, she suddenly found herself alone and turning forty. Now guys like Mr Notepad were hitting on her. She glanced at him with a touch of bitter irritation. And how did he know this stuff about her name anyway?

The geeks were now all huddled in a group watching one of the screens that was being projected. Annie stayed put as there was no need for a live voice-over, this could be filmed later. From the excitement, one of the geek’s toys had done something and a micro camera was showing a stone shaft leading off into the distance.

So what’s up? She asked.

Seems like we are through. Looks like the shaft is now clear all the way to the outside.

Annie looked again at the screen, their worm was crawling along the passage and showing the same picture all the time: stone block walls on all side leading to a square black void. No light at the end of the tunnel and no big secret for the public. In a word, the image was boring.

Do we get to see where this ends? She asked.

The geek controlling the worm turned round and said:

Doubt it. We have permission to see if the passage continues past the stone door and travel another ten meters or so.

And..?

And that’s it. We check, then someone else will get permission to dig from the outside in so we can measure the passage and confirm the alignment. Probably goes to some celestial sign that was there when this thing was built.

So we don’t get to see where this goes?

Oh we know where it goes, the passage is straight and we shone a laser distance finder down to see where it’s blocked. We can see that it goes almost at the surface, probably some blocks shifted when the outer cover was ripped off.

That should have been the story: they had finally broken through the last of the doors. Sunlight, a view of the stars. Anything. Annie’s main worry had always been finding yet another stone door further down the shaft, but somehow she felt even more let down. All she had to show was a black void, a black TV screen. Useful for creating suspense in the movies, but utterly useless as television.

She tried to put a positive spin on the outcome, perhaps she could use some digital graphics to show whatever stars were out there five thousand years ago: Leo the Lion or Sammy the Scorpion. Whatever. Maybe some bluescreen time to enact fake ‘rituals’ if she could get the studio. But with this blank, black screen as the principal result of the research project it was going to be a hard sell.

She did the obligatory final piece with the Head of Egyptology and he made the obligatory statements about how this new research had increased the knowledge of how ancient Egyptians had behaved, stressing for the umpteenth time that these were basically the same people as modern Egyptians. Then he left and the film crew began to pack.

The worm thing had gone as far as programmed and was being pulled back slowly from the passage. The geeks hung around looking more or less satisfied with the exception of Elliot, who continued to stare at his computer screen and make scribbled notes on his pad.

The sound technician heard it first, a very soft chord, like a note from an old church organ that gradually increased in volume. He rummaged in his bags and produced a microphone, linked it to a portable amplifier and made sweep of the chamber. The sound was found to be coming from the passage they had been studying and he amused himself for a few moments, passing the mike back and forth, making ‘wawa’ sounds while he played an air guitar.

Everyone had stopped to listen and Elliot finally broke the silence:

Air pressure. We made a link between the entrance to the chamber and an outlet about 50 meters up. The pressure here is higher as we’re pumping air in from near the base of the pyramid. The air goes through the holes and vibrates according to the length of the chamber. I would say the note is a B flat.

The other geeks looked around like a pack of stray dogs sniffing the air, then nodded and made faces to each other and went back to writing their notes or packing up equipment. Annie quickly asked the cameraman to make a close-up of the passage with the mike. The organ-like sound linked her story to a church and churches are always a favorite with the American public.

Even if the sound was being produced by a Made in China electric air pump.

Chapter 2

The crew spent the next two days sifting through the material they had collected in an effort to extract the best possible story from the data. The original best-case storyboard had been for a one-hour special. Annie decided this was now a non-starter and was hoping to salvage a 30-minute special from the material. Her worst-case scenario was a 12-minute block for one of the lesser Science ‘Variety’ programs – not enough to cover expenses, but after syndication to other countries it might pay a few bills.

This documentary had been her last shot. After this she had no more plans for television work – or no plans for anything except maybe waiting in diners. Times were hard: double-dip recessions and bad-tempered banks. The prospect of a bleak future with no money put her in a bad mood and the night after they stopped work she opted to stay in and take a long hot bath, rather than have dinner with the crew. The crew had also sensed that the documentary risked being a flop and were starting to nag her PA and general do-everything, Julia, for details about their own outstanding payments. Julia would then nag Annie in turn, which only made her temper worse.

The hotel she was staying in didn’t help either. Once a symbol of American post-war glory its name now had a slightly sleazy feel. The fittings were worn and covered with a greasy dark film from the polluted air that filtered in from the air conditioner. She ran the bath and was horrified to see that the water had an unhealthy-looking brown tinge, which she hoped could be attributed to the iron plumbing and not from the tons of filth being thrown, pumped and dumped into the Nile. To be safe, she added a bubble bath mix and some perfumed oil that, like all dumb tourists, she had bought from the ‘cousin’ of one of their drivers.

The city also didn’t help. Getting around Cairo was a nightmare and any journey took hours as the rented car scrambled