by Nick Thacker
Rachel Rascher continued. “You, also, are correct. What you and your father do not know, and what the rest of the world will be dying to find out, is that there was another book by Plato.”
Graham felt his knees grow weak. This is the type of discovery that careers are made on. “Another… dialogue?” That’s not possible.
He thought about it for a second, realizing then that not only was it possible there was another manuscript of Plato’s, it was likely. While most of Plato’s manuscripts that had been published and made widely available had been copied from the many fragments and completed versions, there were many pieces of his codices, tetralogies, and fragments of papyri that were at best incomplete. At worst, they were mere allusions to longer, intriguingly absent works from the great philosopher.
Remains of many of Plato’s works, as well as copies of those works, were constantly being dug up, examined, translated, and sent to museums for restoration. Some of them were pieces of works that were well-known to Greek academia, while others were so indecipherable they might as well have been undiscovered works.
Why couldn’t there be something more complete that is still undiscovered? he thought.
“Plato wrote a third piece to coincide with his words about Atlantis in Timaeus and Critias. In this dialogue, where he recounts an in-depth conversation with Solon, the man who had traveled to Egypt and heard about the ancient Atlanteans, Solon tells Plato where to find the Atlantean Hall of Records, the place where their entire mass of knowledge and wisdom is supposedly kept.”
Sarah was clearly taken aback. “And you… you have this book?”
Rachel nodded without even pausing. “Yes, I do. My great-grandfather was part of an elite scientific community that was working to retrieve this knowledge, to exalt it for the rest of the world, proving once and for all the purity of his family’s race, all the way back to the original —”
“Wait a minute,” Sarah said, interrupting. “Your great-grandfather was a Nazi, wasn’t he?”
Rachel’s face twisted into a soured expression. “My great-grandfather was the leader of a fine group of men who worked their entire lives to find the solution to a problem —”
“He killed innocent people. Men, women, and children.”
“He was not a part of the larger edict that led to the concentration camps, Sarah. He was merely trying to —”
Graham saw the change in Sarah first, likely before even Sarah noticed it. Her demeanor shifted, suddenly understanding what her goal was, and what her role here was to be. She rose, straightening her back and pushing out her chest as she stretched out to her full height, towering over both him and Rachel. Her nostrils flared once and her jaw set.
“That’s what this is about,” Sarah said. “You’re some deranged Neo-Nazi, bent on world domination through some vague idea of proving that your ‘race’ is superior to the rest of us. You and the ‘Aryan dream.’ In that case, you and ‘Hitler’s Dream Team’ can go f —”
Rachel held up a hand, and a man entered immediately through the open door. Unlike Rachel, this man was clearly not amused by Sarah’s tirade. He stepped forward and grabbed Sarah’s wrist, yanking it back behind her body and twisting it up behind her shoulder blade. She screamed in pain, and Graham rushed forward.
He ran toward his daughter, but Rachel stepped in front of him. She held up an arm and he fell headfirst into it, surprised and dazed by the sudden speed and strength of the tiny woman. He rolled sideways, just as Rachel smacked the foot of her palm down onto the back of his neck.
He faltered, then fell. Before he could get back up again, a second man, this one larger and even more sinister than the first, had rushed into the room and applied the heavy boot of his left foot onto Graham’s head, pressing it into the hard stone floor.
“Professor,” Rachel said. “I want to thank you for your cooperation thus far. It has truly been a pleasure getting to know you. But your daughter does not seem to share the same respect toward my goal as you do, and I am therefore going to have to make an example out of her.”
Graham couldn’t see her face, but her feet — black boots that matched the soldiers’ — were standing right in front of his face. Her toes could have brushed his nose without much movement on her part.
He sensed a struggle, hearing shuffling and commotion somewhere just outside, in the hallway.
Sarah.
He was in the room with only the other soldier and Rachel herself. Once again his daughter had been taken from him.
Once again he had had everything he cared about ripped from him.
“You and your daughter are both very competent,” Rachel said. “But we have no use for both of you. I want to know where the compound is that you retrieved from the artifact, and I want to know now.”
“I — I don’t —”
“Not here,” Rachel said. Graham felt himself being pulled roughly to his feet. “There is one last trial planned before we reveal ourselves to the world, and I believe it will be one you won’t want to miss, Professor.”
66
Ben
THE RIDE TO THE GIZA COMPLEX was uneventful, made even duller by the massive amount of commuters on the road. Traffic was a nightmare, and what should have been a twenty minute drive from the airport was over twice that.
Ben held Julie’s hand in the car, neither of them speaking. Alex and Reggie chatted in the backseat while Mrs. E drove, but Ben’s mind was focusing on what their next move was. As the leader of the CSO, it was his duty and responsibility to protect his team. He knew Reggie and Mrs. E were more than capable of handling themselves, but he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if something happened to Julie and Alex.
When they arrived at Giza, Ben called a team huddle. “Listen,” he said, before anyone opened a door. “We’re enemies of the state here. We’re not welcome, and this isn’t the type of country to ask questions first. Besides that, if Sarah’s captors have any sway with the local authorities, and my guess is that they do, we’re already in over our heads. They’re not going to just let us walk in and starting snooping around their ancient sites.”
“What’s the plan, boss?” Reggie asked.
“Well, that’s sort of where I’m stuck,” Ben said. “But there’s something we used to do all the time back at the national parks. In order to test our systems and processes, as well as the overall satisfaction level of our service, we’d hire other rangers from other parks to come down and do a sort of ‘vacation’ stay at our park.
“They’d come in, dressed casually — not in uniform — and just ask about stuff. Our guest services departments and most of the rangers and other staff had no idea that they were a government employee, running an audit.”
Reggie laughed. “So your plan is to just walk in to the visitor’s center and say, ‘hey there — we’d like to dig around your Sphinx, if that’s okay?’”
Ben shrugged. “Yeah, sorta. There’s no way the hourly staff at their centers knows our faces and names, right? I mean we’re not really welcome here, but we’re also not internationally known criminals.”
“Actually, that might work,” Alex said. “It at least can get us in the park without having to sneak in. It’s worth a shot. And if it doesn’t work, we can at least sneak in after, but this is a far better option than trying to just get around the guards.”
“There are guards here?” Reggie asked.
“Oh yeah,” Alex said. “Lots of them, too. The Ministry of Antiquities announced a few years ago that they were turning over the bulk of the management and maintenance duties, including security, to private contractors. And there have always been Army guys around. That, combined with the increase in encroachment from nearby buildings and golf courses, means higher — and better — security in general.
“Heck, in 1995, UNESCO removed the Great Pyramid from its list as a World Heritage site because of a proposed highway that was going to pass too close by. The highway was moved, UNESCO put it back on the list, and here we ar
e. Now, with tourism at an all-time low because of terrorism threats and an unstable economy, there’s a much higher amount of peddlers and scam artists working outside the complex, preying on the few tourists that are here.”
“So, basically, we’re going to be bombarded by street urchins or guard dogs,” Reggie said. “And you’re saying our best bet is to just walk in the front door and keep things above-board.”
“Yes,” Alex said. “There are fewer guns pointed at us that way, at least.”
“Okay,” Ben said. “So the key is to just act casual, as if we’re just tourists. In a sense, we are. We’re curious about the Sphinx and want to see it. Nothing more, nothing less. Once we’re in we can try to gain access to one of the auxiliary buildings and snoop around. If Sarah’s here, it shouldn’t be impossible to find her.”
Mrs. E nodded in the rearview mirror and opened her door, followed by Alex and then Julie. Ben slid out of the car, stretched, and suddenly wished he was back inside the vehicle, where it was cool and air-conditioned. It’s hot out here, he thought. Way too hot.
He had no idea how people had ever decided to live here — his own cabin in Alaska got stuffy in the summertime, and this place was at least forty degrees hotter.
He sniffed, shuddered, then walked toward the main building sitting just in front of the most massive monument he’d ever seen.
The Great Pyramid of Giza rose 481 feet into the sky, towering above the two other massive structures that sat near it. The pyramid pierced the sky above it, breaking into the low clouds that had settled over the area. For centuries it had been the world’s tallest building, until population growth and engineering prowess rose to the challenge.
My God, he thought. I’ve never seen anything like it. Ben had of course seen pictures of the pyramids, but to see it in person, in real life, was absolutely breathtaking. Like the Colosseum in Rome, it was hard to believe a structure like this could have been created by humans.
And humans that had no real technology, he thought. No bulldozers, earthmovers, or even decent polycarbonate shovels.
At that moment he knew the truth. “Alex,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“You said there was a time when this place had a bunch of rainfall?”
“Yeah.”
“It would have been a lot cooler then, I suspect.”
“Definitely,” Alex said. “The climate would be completely different. Almost tropical.”
Ben nodded. “That’s what I thought. These structures were definitely built way before the Egyptians claim.”
“Why do you say that?” Julie asked.
Ben pulled the collar of his shirt open to try to get some air moving beneath it. “Because it’s hot. Miserably hot. No way these guys would have built something like this in this heat.”
Julie and Alex laughed. “That’s your theory?” Alex asked. “Sounds scientific enough, I guess.”
Ben grumbled under his breath and kept walking. They reached the front entrance, an underwhelming brownish building with a low and flat roof, with no windows. The building stood next to a long electric gate, and throngs of people were crowded on both sides of the gate, either waiting for their time to enter or waiting on more people in their parties.
Ben could also hear the commotion of the shouting hucksters, rattling off prices in English and Arabic, and he even heard the strains of one enterprising young man shouting in French as he held up his colorful Egyptian scarves at a band of women waiting nearby.
Ben caught sight of a sign written in Arabic and English: ENTER THROUGH TICKET BUILDING.
He walked toward the building, the rest of his group in tow, and saw two armed soldiers standing on either side of an open door. Ben tried not to scrutinize them and call attention to himself, but at the same time he wanted to know if the men were eyeing him as well. Unfortunately their eyes were concealed behind sport sunglasses, but they didn’t budge when he walked by and stepped through the door into the dark, low room.
His eyes adjusted and he saw the ticket counter to the right. Alex took the lead and walked up to the counter. He spoke in Arabic with the man behind the counter for a moment, and then handed the man a credit card and a few bills from his wallet. The man smiled, swiped the card, and handed Alex enough wristbands for his entire group. The man handed Alex a receipt and stuffed the bills into his pocket.
Ben nodded in approval and accepted his wristband. “Work out a little deal with him?” he asked Alex.
Alex nodded. “Told him I was showing some American tourists around.”
“That’s… all it took?” Reggie asked, putting on his wristband.
Alex looked around, his eyes landing on Ben. “I also told him the big guy back here was ‘special,’ and that it would be great if we could get the child’s rate for him.”
Reggie and Mrs. E laughed hysterically and shuffled their way through the visitors toward the exit at the back of the building.
“What?” Ben asked. “You told them I was… Jules, do I look ‘special?’ What’s that even mean?”
Julie grinned and grabbed Ben’s arm, pulling him away from the counter and toward the door. “Shh,” she said. “You don’t want that guy to think we were pulling a fast one.”
Ben rolled his eyes, but patted Alex’s shoulder as the young man passed in front of him. “Glad you’re here, buddy. Thanks.”
Alex nodded, looking up at Ben. “You got it. Whatever it takes to find Sarah.”
Ben took a deep breath, then plunged himself back out into the swirling heat. Reggie was suddenly right next to him, yanking his shirt and pulling him sideways.
“Hey —“
“Keep it down,” Reggie said. “And stay in the shadow of the building.”
“Why?” he asked, but he stepped to the side anyway.
The others were there too, huddled out of the way and mostly staying in the shade of the low building. Thanks to the building’s location on the east side of the complex, the morning sun was casting a long, rectangular shadow on this side of the ticket office.
“Look,” Reggie said, pointing.
Ben followed and saw a group of armed men standing nearby, surveying the crowds as they poured through the ticket office. Unlike the guards at the front door, however, these men were wearing the insignia of the Egyptian military.
And standing in the middle of the group was a man Ben immediately recognized.
Agent Sharpe.
67
Ben
“INTERPOL’S HERE?” BEN ASKED. “How —“
“They probably tracked the Sikorsky,” Reggie said. “There’s no way it would have had a solid manifest and flight plan submitted to the local authorities, so it would have been easy to track if they knew what they were looking for.”
“And they were on the hill when it took off,” Mrs. E added. “So they certainly would have known what to look for.”
“This is bad,” Ben said. “So much for walking in and pretending we’re just tourists.”
“We are just tourists,” Reggie said. “Alex bought the tickets, remember? They won’t know his name, so his credit card information won’t be passed along to Interpol or the government here. We’re still flying under the radar, we’re just going to need to tread lightly from now on.”
“You think they’ll shoot at us?” Julie asked.
Reggie shook his head. “Even if they wanted to, it would cause a riot. It’s too busy here.” He looked toward the Sphinx, sitting almost due west from their location. Once we get away from the crowds, though, we’ll be out in the open.”
“They shot at us back in Santorini,” Julie said. Ben heard the question in her voice.
“They were acting on a whim,” Reggie said. “Sharpe isn’t a rookie, but those cops back on the island probably don’t get to see too much action. And he probably didn’t give them the full story. For all they knew, we were international fugitives.”
“Technically we are international fugitives,” Ben said.
“The muck-what?” Ben asked.
“The General Intelligence Directorate of Egypt. They’re the country’s CIA of sorts. Mainly focused on providing intelligence to the government, but also tasked with counter-terrorism operations.”
“Counter terrorism?” Julie asked. “So we’re terrorists now?”
Reggie shook his head. “We’re not, but whatever’s going on with the group that captured Sarah might be involved in something like that. But that also means they’re going to be really picky about just letting us roam around here, too.”
“Meaning we might get shot at,” Julie said.
Ben saw the abrupt shifting of one of the Egyptian soldiers. He motioned in their direction, and Sharpe’s gaze suddenly fell toward them. Ben locked eyes with the man.
Shit.
“Okay, they saw us,” Ben said. “If we run, we’re screwed. Whatever Sharpe told them about us, I don’t think the Egyptian army is going to mess around with fugitives running around their historic landmarks.”
“Yeah, probably not,” Reggie said. “But the Sphinx is right there. Maybe we can ask them to escort us—“
The men started walking toward them just as Reggie cut himself off.
“Okay, this is not good,” Reggie said.
“What?” Ben asked.
“That guy next to Sharpe,” he said, referring to the man marching alongside Agent Sharpe. The man was huge — nearly a head taller than Sharpe, and made of thick, solid muscle. “I recognize him.”
“You know him?”
Reggie shook his head. “No, but I wouldn’t mistake that face anywhere. That’s one of the guys who took Sarah. He was in the bar, with his other goon, the one we left back at Nea Kameni.”
The soldiers and Sharpe picked up their pace. They were still on the other side of the wide, expansive terrace from Ben and his group, and there were hundreds of tourists milling about between them. But Sharpe and the others were locked onto their position and would be through the crowds in fewer than ten seconds.
