The Crypt Trilogy Bundle

by Bill Thompson

  Suddenly Hailey’s heart began to pound. She felt blood rushing to her brain and started getting light-headed. She saw an additional seal – one she knew hadn’t been on the tomb wall in Egypt.

  A cartouche. Not just any but … No. How can this be possible?

  The mystery suddenly multiplied a thousandfold. Thoughts – crazy thoughts – flew into and out of her mind. Weak-kneed, she sat on the floor, close to fainting but unable to peel her eyes from the fantastic wall before her. Her headlamp was dying, so at last she looked away. Reluctantly she crawled back to the main cave to avoid being trapped in blackness when her light quit.

  Hailey could hardly wait to show Paul what she’d found. He said he might be gone for hours, so she stayed busy while time passed slowly. Struggling to keep her mind off the exciting things she’d seen, she arranged everything he’d brought in the packs.

  He must have spent a lot of time planning what he’d need. This certainly wasn’t his first campout. There were plastic baggies filled with lighters and matches, a mirror, snakebite kit, insect repellent and biodegradable soap. He had army-style meals ready-to-eat and several packs of nonperishable staples like rice and beans. He’d included a few changes of clothes and a clothesline. There were two plastic bottles full of water – she figured he brought those empty and caught runoff from the daily rainstorms. She also found batteries for her headlamp, but forced herself not to grab them and go right back through the tunnel. This stuff was Paul’s – they weren’t her batteries to take.

  The way he acts – the stuff he brought with him – it’s like something a Green Beret would do. He’d mentioned the military, but there was more to him than that, she was sure. She’d never seen such confidence, such calm resolve, in a man before.

  Who are you anyway, Paul Silver? You’re not an oil consultant from New York City. I’ll bet money on that.

  Whoever he was, she had him to thank that she was free instead of the hostage of a homicidal rapist.

  She gathered more wood, heated some water, stripped naked and did the laundry. She hadn’t washed a man’s clothes in a while, she reflected. It was a good feeling, doing something for someone else you were starting to care for. She’d had boyfriends, but they were never anything special. They came and went as she had doggedly pursued her education. She put up the clothesline and hung everything.

  She splashed warm water on herself and used the soap Paul had packed. For the first time in days she felt relatively clean and presentable. While her clothes were drying, she put on the T-shirt Paul had offered last night. Now that she was clean she didn’t mind using it. She was surprised how good it felt. And it smelled like him. Not a bad thing, she reflected with a grin.

  She had a good idea what was behind the sealed door. It just had to be – everything fit together – and if it was what she believed, both she and Paul would be famous beyond imagination. They’d prove that a mythical, fabled civilization truly existed and actually did create an ancient Hall of Records in Guatemala ten thousand years ago. The obvious Egyptian connection was another story entirely. She had her theory and the glyph-filled wall verified it, but still it was crazy and unbelievable.

  After days with little sleep and realizing she was finally safe, she succumbed to the exhaustion she’d fought. She lay on the pallet and dozed. When she awoke, she took paper and a pen from Paul’s gear and began to write her thoughts. If they ran out of time before she could show him the wall, she wanted him to know her ideas about Egypt and the Olmecs. And Atlantis. It was time to reveal her theory about how they all fit together.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The Olmec city of La Venta

  1322 BC

  The Egyptians settled easily into life among the Olmec people. They learned each other’s languages as the newcomers taught them building techniques. Soon La Venta had wooden buildings and the foundations of what would be a temple complex.

  The Olmec chief and Maya spent considerable time together and became great friends. He learned why Maya had journeyed across the great sea. The high priest’s king sent him on a one-way trip to hide a sacred urn. Maya asked if he had heard of a place marked by a statue topped by a bird’s head. Maya didn’t mention the map that called it the Place of the Skull.

  The Olmec was surprised. “That is Bird Monster’s home. There is his statue and also his cave. How do you know about it? It is a secret known to no outsiders.”

  Although no Olmec alive had been there, everyone knew of the sacred site where Bird Monster lived. It was the most magical and fearsome place in the Olmec world – a place spoken of in whispers.

  “We have a legend about it as well. I think the bird statue has been there for a very long time, much longer than your people or mine have lived. The Ancients – a people who lived long ago – called it the Place of the Skull.”

  “That would be a good place to hide your vessel. Our legends say others have used it to protect their secrets. People from long, long ago, as you said. Ancient people. But it is a sacred place. I cannot give you permission to go there without approval of the gods. I will consult the shaman.”

  The shaman respected Maya – the Egyptian was his counterpart, the chief religious figure in an empire across the great sea. These strangers were already teaching the Olmec their sophisticated construction techniques, arts and crafts. The sorcerer believed the Egyptians had been sent to their land by the gods, so he agreed to let them go to Bird Monster’s cave.

  The chief would provide canoe bearers and guides. After several days’ travel southeastward in the jungle, they would travel up a mighty river for many miles until they came to Bird Monster’s statue. Then they had to go through the jungle to a sacred cavern. The Olmecs would stay at the river because the cave – Bird Monster’s home – was forbidden. Once the Egyptians returned to the river, the Olmecs would guide them back to La Venta.

  It would be a difficult and dangerous trip, the old sorcerer advised. Consulting a legend passed down for generations, he instructed Maya how to get from the river to the cave. Maya had the Atlantean map as well, but the Olmecs didn’t know it.

  Two days later the entourage marched into the forest. Maya brought two of his strongest men plus a cadre of artists. Four Olmecs carried two canoes above their heads, using padded yokes similar to the portage yokes of today. The guides and some bearers rounded out the expedition.

  On the third day they came to a raging waterway nearly a hundred feet wide, cascading around dozens of rocks and creating a formidable barrier. The canoe bearers put the boats into the water and took up positions at the front and rear. The laborers loaded provisions, and everyone climbed aboard. The first five minutes was a thrilling ride in swirling eddies of powerful whirling water, but the rapids quickly eased to a steady current moving in the right direction. They settled down for the ride up what would a thousand years later be called the Usumacinta River.

  The men were on the river for several days, camping each night. Finally they spotted their sign. Three large boulders on the eastern shoreline were arranged one on top of the other, rising over twenty feet in the air. It resembled a snowman topped by the skull of a bird with a long, sharp beak. They had found the statue of Bird Monster, the Atlantean Place of the Skull.

  The men knelt on the sand. Maya thanked Amun for guidance and safe passage while the Olmec crew bowed before Bird Monster’s statue. The Olmecs set up camp while the Egyptians set out into the jungle. According to the map, they would walk for an hour, then come to a sinkhole with a cave in its side. They also had the shaman’s instructions. Both indicated the same direction. Maya was on the right track.

  The jungle was so dense it took far more than an hour. The men tediously cut a path through twisted roots and vines, and it was late afternoon when they arrived at the huge cenote. It was three hundred feet in diameter and very deep – they could see water more than a hundred feet below. This was the sinkhole!

  Maya consulted his map and concentrated on the east side of the hole. He spie
d what might be the entrance to a cave. They stumbled down an old path and reached the cave entrance about twenty feet below ground level. They wearily walked inside and lit torches. Then they stopped, speechless and terrified.

  In the gloom at the rear of the cave stood three brightly painted warriors, each holding a long spear.

  Wishing he had a translator, Maya held up his hand in greeting. He spoke slowly in Egyptian. Even if the men didn’t understand his words, perhaps his calm voice would help.

  “We are here from a distant land. We come in peace and ask nothing of you. We have gifts from our people…” He reached for trinkets in his pack.

  The warriors stood in the shadows in silence. They hadn’t moved a muscle.

  “High Priest,” one of the Egyptians whispered, “I think they are statues.”

  Maya took a tentative step forward, then another. When nothing happened, he walked confidently to the other end of the room and stood in front of them.

  “Come,” he said to his men. “They are indeed statues like the ones our craftsmen build for the tombs of the pharaohs.” The impressive warriors were seven feet tall with plumed headdresses, bright loincloths and impressive metal-tipped spears.

  Maya looked around the cave. Except for an old fire pit in the middle and the statues, the place was empty. He was disappointed; if this actually was the Crypt of the Ancients, whatever the Atlanteans had left here had been stolen.

  “Master!” one of his men shouted. “Come here! Look at this!”

  The warrior statues had been positioned so as to hide something. Behind them was a hole in the cave wall, large enough for a man to crawl through.

  On the other side of the tunnel, Maya found what he’d come for. Although it was almost invisible in the rough back wall of the next chamber, there was a faint outline. He studied the wall, determined there was a door cut into the rock, and called for silence. He began to chant softly, invoking a building process the Egyptians had learned centuries before. He was using telekinesis, a powerful tool given to his people by the Ancients. It was fitting that today that particular power would allow the heavy stone to move by itself. Behind it, he was certain, lay the Crypt of the Ancients, the knowledge repository of the same people who had taught Egyptians the wisdom of the ages.

  The stone was out in less than ten minutes. Maya instructed the others to stay as he slipped alone through the opening into a room lined with shelves. In the center of the room were pedestals, each holding an unusual machine or instrument.

  The Ancients are real. Maya was fascinated.

  He ordered the artists to paint a wall of hieroglyphs around the rock door in the outside room. He handed the chief artisan a papyrus. “I want this wall,” he instructed.

  Creating a memorial to the boy-king here in this faraway land was sickening to the priest, but his pharaoh had commanded it. Despite Maya’s hatred for the heretic king and his father, the pharaoh was still a god. A part of him would lie hidden in this steaming jungle. He must be honored.

  The artists had no idea why they were duplicating identical glyphs they’d painted in the Valley of the Kings only a few months ago. They never questioned the high priest. They painted Tutankhamun’s burial chamber wall all over again, eight thousand miles away from his tomb.

  Maya stayed in the Crypt of the Ancients for hours. He pondered what the purposes of the complicated machines were, wondered what words were written on the sheets of metal, and thought about the people who built this room thousands of years ago. A doomed civilization had left its technology hidden for posterity.

  He wished he could reveal this wonderful place to his people, to bring the inscribed plates to Egypt for study and translation – to show these amazing, enigmatic machines to the scientists for examination. He would be remembered as the high priest who found the secrets of the Ancients.

  But Maya wasn’t going home. So he walked around like a modern tourist in a museum. He absorbed everything about this wondrous hoard of information, to lock it in his mind for the rest of his life. Since childhood Maya had heard tales about the Halls of Records. None had heretofore been found, but right now he believed he was the first human in ten thousand years to see the repository of knowledge left by the Ancients – the inhabitants of Atlantis.

  Finally he walked to the back of the room, carefully removed a long cylindrical object, and set it gently on the floor. He opened his pack, took out the jar bearing the likeness of Amun, and put it on the pedestal.

  He knelt in front of it and finally recited the prayer he’d waited for years to say.

  Amun, grant that the heart of Tutankhaten shall remain hidden in this ancient room forevermore. For, as the Gods have taught us, so long as the heart is missing, the soul may never enter Heaven.

  If I have sinned by condemning this heretic to the underworld for eternity, may I be condemned also. I have done this act for one purpose only – to honor you, Amun, you who were shunned by Tutankhaten and his father Akhenaten.

  He stood with a satisfied grunt, patted the urn, and left the room. Maya had completed his mission.

  A day later the wall painting was complete, and the door was put back in place and covered with necropolis seals and more glyphs. The Egyptians returned to the river; a few days later they returned to La Venta.

  ——

  “As the Ancient ones taught my people, so will I teach yours.”

  That became the high priest’s mission for the remainder of his life.

  The mind was limitless, the Atlanteans believed. Legends credited those ancient people with teaching technological skills so advanced many could not be recreated even today. They helped civilizations in Asia, Europe and Africa learn to govern, wage war against their enemies and create massive structures to honor their gods and kings. As they had taught the Egyptians, Maya passed knowledge along to these Mesoamerican peoples.

  Maya lived at La Venta for fifteen years. He, his artisans and his builders taught construction techniques, art and the secret of telekinesis – the way to move heavy objects using nothing but the human mind. The high priest and his men also took their educational services on the road. They visited another tribe of indigenous Indians who would rename themselves Maya in memory of a stranger from a faraway land who taught them secrets beyond their limited imaginations.

  Thanks to the education they got from Egyptian artisans and craftsmen, the formerly agrarian Mayans suddenly became temple builders, erecting vast city complexes with structures over a hundred feet tall at Chichen Itza, Tikal and a dozen other places throughout Mesoamerica – structures that would cause men to wonder how a primitive civilization could possibly accomplish such wondrous architecture.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The jungle near Piedras Negras

  Present day

  The first item in Paul’s plan was completed when he paid Mark Linebarger’s ransom. The archaeologist was critical – like Ted, he was a natural leader: dependable, intelligent and levelheaded. Unlike Ted, his fluency in Spanish was immensely valuable. Paul couldn’t be around all the time to listen, but Mark could. He understood the rebels’ language.

  This morning he’d implement part two. Alison and Dick had to be rescued – they were going to die today if he didn’t. He wasn’t sure how it would happen, but he knew it had to work perfectly.

  He also knew from experience that things never went perfectly. He was prepared for the unexpected, which was a good thing, since that was exactly what happened next.

  Paul crept out of the brush and hid in the shadows by Rolando’s shack. He knew the man was inside. The hostages huddled in small groups by the campfire, their captors carefully watching them.

  When the time was right and the guards weren’t looking his way, Paul would slip into Rolando’s shack and overpower him. Even if one of the rebels saw Paul and gave a yell, he had the element of surprise – and a few seconds of lead time – on his side. In theory it should work.

  Paul began to count the guards – there shoul
d be fourteen. Suddenly Gavin stood up. One of the guards brandished a rifle and said, “Sientate!” Sit down.

  “Got to take a pee, my good man,” Gavin replied casually. “Be right back.”

  Paul was astonished. What the hell’s he doing? The guard’s going to shoot him!

  Suddenly Paul got it. Brilliant, if it worked. Gavin was counting on the guard’s not having the authority to shoot without Rolando’s order. It was risky – if Gavin was wrong, he was dead – but at least it separated him from the others.

  All eyes were on Gavin as he walked toward the edge of the clearing where the men usually peed. Paul slipped back into the trees and crept toward Gavin. As Gavin walked across the clearing, the guard yelled at Rolando.

  “This gringo’s walking away!”

  The leader stuck his head out, looked at Gavin and said, “Get back with the others.”

  “Taking a pee first.” He kept on walking. When he reached the edge of the clearing, he stepped into the thick underbrush. He was gone.

  “Pepe! Go after him!” Rolando screamed.

  Dashing across the clearing, the guard yelled, “Do I shoot?”

  “Si! Shoot! Kill him!”

  The hostages began yelling, “Gavin! Come back! Gavin!”

  Pistol ready, the guard stepped into the forest where Gavin had disappeared. Seconds later a single shot rang out and a hundred birds flew wildly into the air. Then there was silence.

  “Holy shit!” Dick crudely verbalized what each of them was thinking. Another one of us is dead. Rolando let David Tremont die in the river, he killed Win Phillips, and now Gavin was gone. Hailey was missing and Alison was supposed to die because nobody could say where Hailey went.