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The Deceit
Tom Knox
High-concept adventure thriller set in Egypt and Cornwall. What connects a lost hoard of ancient religious texts with a revival in satanic rituals? Perfect for fans of Wilbur Smith.AN ANCIENT SECRETWhen a renowned historian is found dead in a cave in the Sahara, his former student Ryan Harper vows to find out what happened. Rumour suggests he’d uncovered a priceless religious text, obsessively hidden for centuries by a network of holy men.BROUGHT TO LIGHTMeanwhile, on Cornwall’s remote western moorlands disturbing rituals are taking place – rituals that appear to have Egyptian connections. Working the case, DI Karen Trevithick is caught up in a dangerous mystery that will threaten the person she loves most.WILL SHAKE THE WORLDWith the help of filmmaker Helen Fassbinder, Ryan finds himself in a race against time to decipher the ancient text. Pursued across Egypt by those who would use its secrets to devastating effect, Ryan draws ever closer to an unspeakable truth. A truth that will expose the most shocking deceit the world has ever known…
Author’s Note (#ulink_550ab56e-fde6-5bd2-aedb-d4d9e59a344e)
The Deceit is a work of fiction. However, I have drawn on many real, historical, archaeological and cultural sources for this book. In particular:
The Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage is a book of spells and curses, compiled by a Jewish Kabbalist, Abraham of Worms, in fifteenth-century Germany. Various versions of the text survive in libraries across Europe. In occult circles the magic of Abra-Melin is regarded as the most ‘dangerous’ of all hermetic rituals.
Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) was a British mountaineer, adventurer, drug-addict and black magician, and for a time a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, alongside artists such as the Irish poet, and Nobel laureate, W B Yeats. In 1924 a disciple of Crowley’s died in Crowley’s house in Cefalu, Sicily – allegedly after Crowley had fed him the blood of a cat.
The little town of Akhmim is possibly the oldest inhabited site in Egypt. Regarded as the cradle of alchemy, and as one of the birthplaces of Gnostic and Coptic Christianity, Akhmim also, in antiquity, enjoyed a reputation as being home to the greatest magicians in Egypt. Despite its extraordinary history, Akhmim has never been properly excavated by archaeologists.
‘And the LORD brought us FORTH out of EGYPT, with a mighty hand.’
Deuteronomy 26:8
Title Page (#u7761981b-218f-5d4d-be21-b63f187c41fc)
Author’s Note (#ub13464bf-d04f-5b74-b4af-8e936de963c0)
Epigraph (#u999b6d14-3673-5515-ab82-93ad10715c5a)
1. Cairo, Egypt (#ucbe1b532-29f9-535c-bb28-c65143d4f1d3)
2. The City of Garbage, Cairo (#uc46324b1-47da-5482-a1b7-be2585615754)
3. Zennor, Cornwall (#ua42cade5-e997-56e3-9c22-f4aaf9b34e0e)
4. La Bodega bistro, Zamalek, Cairo (#u717272a3-57a7-5062-b66e-1b182b4aefbf)
5. The Monastery of St Anthony, the Red Sea, Egypt (#u58bd6c43-273a-5847-a545-d2086669b71b)
6. Carnkie, Cornwall (#ufda36bef-02e5-5465-810b-d7e3f798577e)
7. Sohag, Egypt (#u7b0929e5-f7df-53b6-8d5e-5eef8f7c4ca8)
8. Tahta, Middle Egypt (#u36fcca94-c440-599f-b2bc-ad979d9b2c03)
9. Zennor Hill, Cornwall, England (#ubd15f91a-f8e9-57b6-9ff2-7430a3adaa31)
10. Morvah, Cornwall, England (#u8c8b22f2-a724-5e89-83c7-c2d8cf569ae9)
11. Abydos, Egypt (#ue133afe8-1746-5f00-9f62-bd7e9fc43c4f)
12. Middle Egypt (#ud77d6f0a-a2ab-502c-be81-13a4e56a1e15)
13. Museum of Witchcraft, Boscastle, Cornwall (#u69b920c7-0200-5761-96a3-e80007c343a1)
14. Nazlet, Egypt (#litres_trial_promo)
15. Tahta, Egypt (#litres_trial_promo)
16. Carnkie, Cornwall, England (#litres_trial_promo)
17. Sohag, Egypt (#litres_trial_promo)
18. Sohag, Egypt (#litres_trial_promo)
19. Bodmin, Cornwall, England (#litres_trial_promo)
20. The Necropolis of Cats, Bubastis, Egypt (#litres_trial_promo)
21. Bubastis, the city of cats, Egypt (#litres_trial_promo)
22. Truro Police Headquarters, Cornwall (#litres_trial_promo)
23. Chancery Lane, London, England (#litres_trial_promo)
24. Dokki, Cairo, Egypt (#litres_trial_promo)
25. Coptic Cairo (#litres_trial_promo)
26. London (#litres_trial_promo)
27. London (#litres_trial_promo)
28. Luxor (#litres_trial_promo)
29. Police Headquarters, Luxor (#litres_trial_promo)
30. London (#litres_trial_promo)
31. The Tomb of Ramose, Valley of the Nobles, Egypt (#litres_trial_promo)
32. Theban Necropolis, Egypt (#litres_trial_promo)
33. London (#litres_trial_promo)
34. London (#litres_trial_promo)
35. The Monastery of St Tawdros, Malkata, Egypt (#litres_trial_promo)
36. New Scotland Yard (#litres_trial_promo)
37. Tawdros, Egypt (#litres_trial_promo)
38. London (#litres_trial_promo)
39. Chancery Lane, London (#litres_trial_promo)
40. Aswan, Egypt (#litres_trial_promo)
41. London (#litres_trial_promo)
42. London (#litres_trial_promo)
43. Aswan, Egypt (#litres_trial_promo)
44. The Nile (#litres_trial_promo)
45. Upper Egypt (#litres_trial_promo)
46. London (#litres_trial_promo)
47. Egypt (#litres_trial_promo)
48. Plymouth, England (#litres_trial_promo)
49. The Clayzone, Cornwall (#litres_trial_promo)
50. Cornwall (#litres_trial_promo)
51. University College, London (#litres_trial_promo)
52. Department of Parasitology, Imperial College, London (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Tom Knox (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
1 (#ulink_bf188b5d-06d6-504a-8a2a-286262057b42)
Cairo, Egypt (#ulink_bf188b5d-06d6-504a-8a2a-286262057b42)
The taxi stopped in the City of the Dead. Victor Sassoon stared out of the dusty cab window, adjusting his spectacles, and cursing his seventy-five-year-old eyesight.
Ranked on either side of the unpaved road, that led directly through the cemetery, was a monumental parade of Mameluke shrines, yellow-painted mausoleums, and enormous white Fatimid graves; in front of the larger tombs, young children played obscure games in the ancient dirt.
Sassoon stared, a little deeper: he could glimpse shrouded Arab women in the unknowable interiors; he could also see the blue and orange of charcoal braziers: the women were cooking chicken claws and flatbreads amidst the corpse-dust.
The cab engine idled. The women gazed, from behind their veils. Sassoon wondered if the denizens of the City of the Dead could tell he was Jewish. Anglo-Jewish.
He leaned and tapped the cab driver on the shoulder.
‘Why have we stopped?’
Silence.
‘Why?’ he repeated.
The driver shrugged, not turning; the violet prayer-beads hanging from his rear-view mirror shivered in the breeze of the Cairene winter.
A kid in a grimy djellaba – the long Arabic robe worn across North Africa and beyond – wandered over to the taxi. The boy was smiling at Victor, as if he knew something Victor didn’t.
‘Why? Tell me.’ Victor raised his voice, a hint of panic therein. He didn’t want to be stuck here in the cemetery with the fellahin. The City of the Dead, one of Cairo’s direst slums, was a dangerous place to linger.
‘Aiiii.’ The cab driver squinted at Victor via the mirror. ‘Afwan, khlass, ntar—’
‘Stop!’ Victor snapped. ‘I know you speak English!’
Not for the first time, Victor condemned himself for his inability to speak much modern Arabic – despite speaking dead languages by the dozen.
The cab driver sighed.
‘You are from England, yes? Inglizi?’
Victor nodded once more.
‘So I see you do not understand.’ The driver smiled, patiently. ‘I will explain. You want to go to Manshiyat Naser?’
‘Yes, you know that. Moqqatam.’
‘Aiwa. Moqqatam.’
The wind was picking up as the winter sun weakened: it made Victor cough, and reach for his handkerchief. The breeze was carrying a hateful dust: the residue of the dead.
Victor wiped his mouth and spoke.
‘We agreed you’d take me there.’
The driver shook his head.
‘Look and see. Thief and drug-seller live here. In the tomb.’
‘So let us go. Please. Quickly.’
‘Ahlan sadiqi,you are not understanding. Even the people here, even the people in City of the Dead will not go to Moqqatam.’
‘I don’t care. You said—’
‘No.’
