Afterlife: An Ideal Dimension (Part 2)

“Sir, the tunnel was dug from the other side and we are working to find where it leads,” said the man from the investigation team.

“Work on it fast! I want the report regarding the tunnel and the IP address of the phone number used to make the last call on this phone in my hand in the next hour. Am I clear?” James instructed his juniors in a stern tone. Everyone immediately dispersed to perform the task at hand and form a cumulative report regarding the same as soon as possible. After an hour, the report was James’s hand and his doubts turned into reality, it was exactly as he thought it would be. The IP address of the phone call and the other end of the tunnel lead to the same place, Block C, 23/78 Central street Cairo. The epicentre of this plan. 

The whole picture was in front of James and his intel team, it was as clear as the summers sky, a picture so clear that it appeared to be speaking for itself. “A group of thugs who are big artefact smuggler-cum-mafia have centred themselves at the given address, a place just a block away from the museum. They first studied the museum, the area around it and its security inside-out, its weaknesses and strengths. Then they devised a suitable plan which included, getting the tunnel ready for their secret entry without being taped in any CCTV, it must have taken a month or two to dig from there temporary residence to this washroom. Thereafter they hacked into the central surveillance system and tampered the CCTV footage which gave them a 30-minute blind-spot window and between this time they unhinged the washroom door, entered the ‘Valley of the Kings’, robbed the original antiquities and replaced them with fake ones and exited the building leaving behind almost no clues.” James explained to his team.

“No clue except their mobile phone, which they must have dropped by mistake,” Cremers added.

“Exactly! Now all we have to do is bust these idiot-savants in their dens, recover our valuables and see them in black and white striped uniforms begging for their lives.” James said with a strange grin on his face. “Let’s go, boys, it’s time to smash doors!” James, his personal squad, two undercover police vans and an empty truck left for Block C, 23/78 Central street Cairo along with Ton Cremers and his trusty old friend-cum-colleague Richards Gross. The museum security duo waited outside the robber’s centre as they saw James and his team break into the rather isolated villa on a busy street. Within a matter of few minutes James and his squad was out of that place along-with 5 men with their hands cuffed behind their backs and masks on their faces. “Mission successful Cremer!” 

“No! No! don’t fall for his act, it’s all a big scam! He is Van Dijk not—” shouted one of the robbers in a very familiar voice.

“Oh, shut up! Put them in the van, these skunks!” James ordered his subordinates. “A room-full of valuable antiquities have been recovered, wanna have a look Ton and Richards? Come on in…” James, Ton and Richards stood inside a room full of are facts worth a little less than a quarter of a billion. The glint from these antiquities captivated the three until, Helsinki the truck driver honked them back into consciousness.

“Let’s get these beauties loaded to the truck and return them home safe, shall we?” said James. The truck was quickly loaded with the artefacts and directed towards the museum along with the police van containing the robbers. The artefacts from the truck were unloaded and replaced by the one in the museum.

“Thank you for your valuable assistance Mr. Cremers, without your determined and positive attitude we wouldn’t have solved this case so speedily.”

“Sir, it was my duty to protect the museum and its belongings, by the way what will you do with this truck-load of fake artefacts?”

“Nothing too interesting, will just drop them at a friend’s recycling cabin, in the countryside and these robbers at the federal jail on the way.”

“Oh! That’s sounds interesting, I have never seen a real jail, would you mind if I assist you?” asked Cremer.

“Sorry! Dear friend, this is a very crucial and secretive job I cannot risk you into this, I hope you understand. See you soon, take care!”

“Yeah, sure sir we understand have a safe drive there. See you.” Cremers and Gross said waving their arms. 

“Mr. James Hayes, is such a prodigy! He solved the mystery with a snap of the finger. He knew each detail as if he was himself a part of this plan. Isn’t he?” “Yes, Cremers he indeed is.” 

The lives of these museum security guards had gone back to normal just for a day and they heard another ground-breaking news headline flash, “James Hayes—the special agent-in-charge with the Egypt Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations, found dead in a road accident inside an empty truck, en route the federal jail to turn in the robbers of the recent ‘Museum Heist’. Speculations are, that the robbers and their Gang-Lord VD, is behind this grieve loss.” 

Cremer stood there frozen like a rock, his new yet very dear friend, with whom he spoke just a day prior was no more. The whole museum security staff who was so impressed by this young man’s acumen was at loss of words. They all attended his open casket funeral and offered their heartfelt condolences to Hayes family. As Cremer walked up to his friends’ casket to offer his thoughts and prayers, he noticed something unusual, Hayes’s appearance had changed, yet again, he didn’t resemble himself from yesterday rather looked exactly how Cremer had pictured him on the first day of meeting but once again he freed himself of the trivial thoughts he had about James’s appearance and calmed himself thinking the accident might have been the reason.

Little did he know that he was right, damn right both the times. He was being tricked with his eyes wide open yet it never dawned upon him up until June, the time of quarterly museum maintenance, where archaeologists come-in to check upon these valuables antiquities and revamp the ones in bad condition. It was the third day of June, archaeologists Dr. Arthur Foley came-in and started to run his tests and check-ups on the ancient artefacts and the words that came out of his mouth were the end of the world for Cremer and his team, the team that boasted about having saved art worth millions was duped. All the artefacts that they had retrieved from the robbers was FAKE, yes, they were mere lumps of POPs standing tall amidst the National Egyptian History Museum’s imperial building. 

It was at this moment that it dawned upon Cremer, how well he had been played by the smuggler-gang-lord VD, Van Dijk, the young and fine dupe version of James Hayes. A man who had the guts to play the man who was behind him and his empire and disappeared very nimbly with artefacts worth millions, finishing the chapter of the real, honest hardworking and an ideal HSI inspector, James Hayes by posing him as the robber. Cremers, his team and the Hayes family were left with nothing but bitter memories of being mugged and tons of POP, paint and fake jewels.

Ancient Egyptians considered the afterlife as an ideal dimension in its peace, delight, and bliss. There were no hardships, rivalry or any negative emotions in the spiritual realm. The dimension was referred to commonly as the Field of Offerings or the Field of Rushes. A dimension in which the dead-ones would enjoy all the wealth and riches they were usually buried with, in their sarcophagi and it stills holds true for Van Dijk, in modern civilisation, who was enjoying the wealth and riches of the antiquities its fake self, the young and fine James Hayes was buried with, in his fake death.