The Atlantis Stone

by Alex Lukeman

  He smiled back at her. "That is most gratifying. I am a great admirer of the Russian security services."

  "I will come directly to the point, General. Director Volkov says you are aware that American spies have entered your country. I've been instructed to seek your cooperation."

  "Go on."

  "These svolochi are in possession of information of vital importance to our country. With your permission, we will observe them and try to recover it."

  "What information are we speaking of?"

  "I don't know. I am told it is highly classified and critical to our national security."

  Karimi heard the words roll off Katerina Rostov's tongue as if she were discussing the time of day.

  Only a fool would believe that. He pretended to consider what she had said.

  "I am willing to give permission on the condition that you do not interfere with them at this time. I, too, wish to observe. I want to know why they are here. Once I know that, I will arrest them and allow you to interrogate them."

  "General..."

  Karimi let a hard edge creep into his voice. "That is my decision."

  "Of course." Rostov stood. "Your help is appreciated. We will observe only."

  "If you find anything, inform me immediately. For our mutual benefit."

  A threat, Katerina thought. What a pig, look at him. Why are men like him always the same? He has to make sure I know who's boss.

  "As you wish."

  "My aide will show you out."

  He pressed a button on his desk. The door opened and the aide waited.

  Karimi hoisted his bulk out of his chair, a small concession.

  "Thank you for coming to me. I am always ready to assist the Federation."

  The woman nodded and followed the aide out. Karimi watched them go. Everyone wanted to take advantage of the turmoil of modern Egypt. Spies and plots had been part of Egypt's history since the days of the pharaohs. These foreign newcomers would soon learn they were amateurs when it came to the art of conspiracy.

  CHAPTER 48

  Nick hired a guide who introduced himself as Gamal. The original way into the great pyramid was blocked by stone. The current entrance dated from the ninth century CE. It was called the robbers' tunnel and opened onto the descending passage. They followed Gamal downward until they came to a junction with another tunnel that turned up at an angle.

  Gamal's English was good.

  "This is the ascending passage," he said. "It leads to the Grand Gallery, the Queen's chamber and the King's Chamber."

  "What happens if we continue down?" Selena asked with an innocent expression.

  "That leads to the subterranean chamber."

  "I'd like to see that," she said.

  "There is little to see down there," Gamal said. "Perhaps there will be time later. Come, this way."

  They climbed until they came to a level passage that led to the Queen's Chamber. All the while the guide kept up his memorized commentary. The Queen's Chamber was large, empty. A tall, stepped niche that looked like an open chimney rose to a high peaked ceiling made of large slabs of stone. Modern electric lighting lit the limestone walls.

  Gamal stood in front of the niche. "A statue of the dead Pharaoh once stood here," he said. His voice was mechanical. "Traces of offerings were found. You can see where at one time there was an altar in front of the niche. The entrance to the chamber was hidden."

  They left the Queen's Chamber and went back to the ascending passage. They followed it upward through the Grand Gallery to the King's Chamber. Ronnie and Lamont lagged behind as the guide droned on.

  "Does this guy ever shut up?" Lamont asked.

  "Nope."

  "Maybe we could bribe him."

  "Think of it as an education," Ronnie said.

  They entered the King's Chamber. Gamal pointed out various features. Ventilation shafts let cool air into the room and kept the temperature at a steady 68°. The only thing in the room was a large, broken sarcophagus of plain granite thought to have held the pharaoh's remains. Surveillance cameras were mounted near the ceiling.

  "There's something sad about this," Selena said, "all these empty rooms and passageways."

  "We must go back now," Gamal said.

  "Not before we see the subterranean chamber," Selena said.

  "This will require a small increase in my fee."

  "That's not a problem," Nick said. "We appreciate your excellent services."

  Gamal preened at the complement.

  "Come then."

  They descended to the junction with the ascending passage and continued past it toward the subterranean chamber. The passage was lit with a string of electric lights. Nick watched for any sign of the hidden entrance. By the time they reached the bottom, he'd seen nothing to tell him where it was.

  The subterranean chamber was no more than a rough grotto hewn out of bedrock under the pyramid. A pit at the back was sealed off with a metal fence.

  "Man, this is creepy," Lamont said. "I can feel all that stone over us. If that roof gave way we'd be crushed flat."

  "It's not going to fall on you," Nick said.

  "It looks like it was never finished," Ronnie said. "Everything else is. I wonder why?"

  "It's one of the mysteries of the pyramid," Selena said. "There are a lot of those. People argue about what things were for. Some people think the pyramid was really an observatory but that's not popular with the Egyptologists. Anything that goes against the idea it was a tomb is ignored."

  "There are many mysteries about the pyramid," the guide said. He looked at his watch, a large, cheap model with a plastic strap. "It is getting late. We must go before the entrance closes."

  They followed him out into the late afternoon sunlight. The heat struck them as they emerged from the cool interior of the pyramid.

  Nick took Selena aside. "Talk to him. Make up a story about why we want to be inside at night. Offer him whatever he wants."

  Selena went over to Gamal and began speaking with him in Arabic. He looked shocked that she could speak his language. At first he shook his head, no. Nick saw Selena press money into Gamal's hand. After a few more minutes Selena came back. The guide walked away.

  "He will meet us at ten this evening. He says the guard likes to have coffee in his shack about that time. Gamal will open the gate for us. After that, we're on our own and the gate will be locked. We'll be stuck inside until the complex opens in the morning. He warned me that strange things have happened to people who stayed in the pyramid overnight."

  "I could see he didn't want to do it," Nick said. "What did you tell him to make him change his mind?"

  "I told him we'd made a bet before we left home that we could spend a night in the pyramid. He understood that. If I'd said anything else, it wouldn't have worked. Also a hundred dollars American helped."

  "Did you see any sign of that passage on the way down?"

  "Maybe. I saw some discoloration on the wall. There wasn't time to stop and examine it."

  "There'll be plenty of time tonight," Nick said.

  CHAPTER 49

  The pyramid loomed against the stars, an otherworldly, brooding presence in the night. They passed the guardhouse without incident. Gamal took them to an iron gate blocking the entrance at night. A large padlock held it shut. The guide produced a key from under his robe and opened it.

  "Hurry," he said. "The guard will return soon."

  They filed through. Lamont was last in line. He had a small pack with the C4 and detonators they'd need to break through the sealed entrance, assuming they could find it.

  Gamal closed the gate behind them and snapped the lock shut with a harsh, metallic sound. He hurried away without looking back.

  They entered the pyramid and turned on their flashlights, Nick in the lead. The brilliant lights danced over the walls of the ancient passage, casting harsh shadows. Ahead, the way descended into darkness.

  "Looks different at night without the lights," Ronnie said.
/>   "I thought it was creepy during the day," Lamont said. "This is worse."

  They came to the junction with the ascending passage and continued downward.

  "What we're looking for could be anywhere along here," Nick said.

  "The discoloration I saw is a little further on," Selena said, "on the left-hand side."

  They were about halfway between the junction and the subterranean chamber and well below ground level when Selena stopped them.

  "Here."

  She shone her light on the wall.

  "See how the stone here is a little different from the rest of the wall? It's subtle. You'd never notice if you weren't looking for it."

  "There's not much of a difference," Nick said.

  "If there's a passage behind this, it was sealed a long time ago," Selena said. "It might have been done when the pyramid was built. The work is of the same quality."

  "Why make a passage and then close it right away?" Ronnie asked.

  "Who knows? Maybe there isn't a passage. It could be a chamber of some kind. Or nothing at all and this is only a different kind of stone."

  "Let's find out," Lamont said.

  He opened his pack, took out a lump of C4 and broke off a piece.

  "What do you think?" he asked Ronnie. "At the corners? Or one in the middle? Or all along the side?"

  "The middle sounds about right. That should work if there's an opening behind it and it's not too thick."

  "Don't overdo it," Nick said. "If the roof comes down it will piss off a lot of people."

  "You really gotta do something about that optimistic streak," Lamont said.

  He kneaded the explosive into a lump and placed it against the stone, set a remote detonator and turned it on.

  "All set."

  They retreated back up the passage.

  "This is far enough," Lamont said. "Fire in the hole."

  They crouched down and covered their ears.

  The explosion sent a shockwave of compressed air up the shaft, buffeting them with bits of stone and a cloud of white dust. The dust hung in the air like fog, drifting in the beams of their lights.

  Ronnie sneezed. Selena began coughing. After a minute, the dust began to settle.

  "Think they heard that outside?" Ronnie asked.

  "Hard to say." Nick gestured up the passage. "We're pretty far underground. All that stone up there absorbs a lot of sound. Even if someone heard it, they wouldn't know what it was or where it came from."

  He stood. "Time to see what we've got."

  The floor was littered with pieces of broken limestone. They picked their way through the debris to a large hole in the wall. Beyond was tunnel high enough to walk in, leading away into the dark.

  CHAPTER 50

  Valentina and Major Rostov had watched the Americans enter the pyramid in the afternoon. Now they'd followed them into the complex at night. They watched the guide open the gate and let them through, lock the gate and walk away.

  "I don't think they're sightseeing," Rostov said.

  "I wonder what they're after?" Valentina said.

  "Does it matter? We follow them."

  They crept past the guard shack, keeping to the shadows. Arabic music and the sweet smell of Turkish tobacco mixed with hashish drifted out of the shack into the night air. They came to the iron gate. Valentina took out a set of picks and had the padlock open in less than a minute. They eased through the gate and closed it, leaving the lock in place. It looked as though the entrance was still sealed. They entered the pyramid.

  The only way to go was down. They had just started when the muffled sound of the explosion pummeled their ears. Seconds later, a billowing cloud of dust swept past them. Valentina began coughing.

  "Quiet," Rostov hissed.

  "Someone might've heard that." Valentina wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

  "If someone follows us in, they will regret it," Rostov said. "Their security is laughable. The only one out there is the guard and he was listening to music. It's unlikely he heard or saw anything."

  They came to the debris left by the blast and the opening in the wall. Rostov shone her light into the tunnel.

  "Now we know why they came here," Rostov said, "to find and open this."

  "This must lead to the archive."

  "They've gone in." Rostov stepped through the opening and drew her pistol. "Coming?"

  Some distance ahead, Nick led the others in single file along the ancient tunnel. The air was stale and hot, heavy with the passage of time. They came to a place where the tunnel widened and split in three directions. Black shapes scuttled away from their lights, making clicking sounds.

  "What was that?" Selena said.

  "Scorpions," Nick said. "Big ones."

  "How do we always end up in places like this?"

  "I hate scorpions," Lamont said. "I saw enough of them in Iraq. Always crawling into your boots at night."

  "Now what?" Ronnie said. "Which one do we take?"

  "They all look the same," Lamont said.

  Nick shone his light down the passage on the right. "This one is blocked. We're not going that way."

  "What do we do, flip a coin?" Lamont aimed his light at the middle tunnel.

  Selena moved her light over the openings. There was nothing to indicate which one to take or where it might lead. She shone her light on the third tunnel.

  "The Sphinx is Southwest of the Great Pyramid. We've been going south. The center passage probably keeps going in the same direction. We should take the left-hand one."

  "That makes sense," Nick said.

  They started down the left-hand tunnel. Lamont kept glancing around, looking for scorpions. After a few minutes they came to another junction. This time it was a T.

  "Right or left?" Nick said.

  "Left." Selena pointed. "The Sphinx has to be to the left."

  "Good a guess as any."

  They had gone about a hundred yards when the tunnel opened into a circular room with four different passages leading away from it.

  "Man, this place is like a maze," Lamont said. "Be easy to get lost in here."

  Something was scratched on one of the walls. Selena walked over to it.

  "We're in the right place. This is the Atlantis language."

  "What does it say?" Ronnie asked.

  "'Amon was here.'"

  "You're kidding."

  "That's what it says."

  "Great," Nick said. "Ten thousand-year-old graffiti. Now what?"

  Lamont took out a candy bar and began eating it. Ronnie looked at him and shook his head.

  Selena said, "We have to be close to the Sphinx."

  She knelt down in the dust on the floor and began drawing a map with her finger. The others watched as she drew a square.

  "This is the Great Pyramid. We started from the south side."

  She drew a smaller square, this one below and to the left of the first.

  "This is the pyramid of Khafre."

  She traced a long line angling down and away from Khafre's pyramid. At the end of it she drew a little square. Next to that she drew a larger rectangle.

  "The line is the buried causeway. At the end of that are the ruins of a temple. The rectangle next to that is the Sphinx."

  "Where are we in that drawing?" Ronnie asked.

  Selena drew a straight line away from the great pyramid. About halfway to the causeway she drew the first junction they had come to, with three passages. She drew another line angling down and marked the T junction, stopping before she reached the causeway. She drew a line from that and stopped. She made four dots in the dust to indicate openings.

  "I think we're here, at these dots."

  They looked at what she had drawn.

  "If you're right, we should take this one." Nick pointed at the third dot she'd made. "That should lead to the Sphinx."

  "Now would be a good time to talk about traps," Selena said.

  "You mean like we saw in Tibet?"

  "No
t again," Ronnie said.

  "What traps?" Lamont asked.

  "False floors, rolling boulders, spikes that pop out. Spears that shoot out of the walls. Things that drop on you."

  Lamont sighed. "You're saying the roof could fall in on us? Thanks a lot."

  "There might not be any traps," Selena said, "but I think we ought to be careful. If we're looking, we should be able to avoid them. Just go slow."

  "I'll go first," Nick said.

  Nick played his light over the entrance of the third opening. It was wide enough for two to walk abreast.

  "This one is different. Look at the way it's made. It's square. The walls and floor are finished, smooth."

  "We must be getting close to something," Selena said.

  They'd gone no more than a hundred paces into the passage when it ended in a granite slab blocking the way. Chiseled into the center of the stone was an elaborate circular carving. Ten sea creatures were set at regular intervals around the circumference, like the numbers on a clock. Each creature was carved on a raised, round stone. Each stone bore a single character in the language of Atlantis. There were dolphins, a shark, an octopus and several kinds of fish, all carved with lifelike precision. Underneath the central design were two more rows of characters in the Atlantean language.

  "That looks pretty solid," Ronnie said.

  Nick ran his hand over the writing. "Selena, what does this say?"

  "Give me a minute."

  She stood in front of the wall, concentrating on the strange letters while the others held their lights on the carving.

  "It's a dedication to the ruler and a warning not to go any farther. This is a door."

  "A door? How are we supposed to open it?"

  "The raised characters around the outside of the circle are a combination. You have to press them in the right sequence."

  "We'll never figure that out," Nick said. "We'll have to blow it."

  "I don't think we can," Ronnie said. "That looks pretty solid. The amount of C4 we'd have to use could seal the tunnel."

  "You have a better idea?"

  "Figure out the combination."

  Lamont pointed his light at the finished ceiling of the passage.