The Forbidden Tomb

by Chris Kuzneski

  After a quick lunch of fruits and meats from the local market, everyone gathered in the makeshift command center that Garcia had pieced together on the boat. The radar room – a nook to the rear of the bridge – was usually used by the captain to plot their location and monitor their position. The radar system could display the harbors and other boats within an area of a hundred miles. Garcia had expanded the capabilities available in the small space by adding a multitude of electronics and computing hardware. With these upgrades, Garcia could not only chart a course, he could receive real-time audio and video updates from their destination – any destination, anywhere on earth. All he needed was someone on the other end to feed him information.

  ‘Show me what you can do,’ Cobb said.

  Garcia entered a command into his computer, then turned a monitor so that everyone could see. The screen split into a grid, with each section showing what appeared to be live video footage. ‘These are feeds from security cameras all around the city. As you can see, they don’t cover every inch of public space, but if you get close enough to someone’s house or their business, there’s a good chance I can find you.’

  ‘How do you have access to all of that?’ Jasmine asked.

  ‘Sarah’s friend Simon. He was able to give me a list of all the frequencies being transmitted throughout the city. Most of this is actually coming from equipment he installed. The signals that aren’t are coming from his competitors, but they have to share the information so there’s no conflict. It took him less than five minutes to send me everything I needed.’

  Papineau wasn’t convinced. ‘I imagine that only a handful of cameras operate on radio technology. The others would utilize cables, satellite feeds, or wireless signals. How are you able to tap into everything?’

  Garcia smiled. ‘It’s all just numbers. Radio. Cable. Satellite. Wireless.Just different points on the electronic spectrum. You point the receiver at the right frequency, run the signal through a few filters, and boom, you get a picture.’

  ‘It can’t be that simple,’ Papineau said.

  Garcia was annoyed, even a bit insulted by Papineau’s remark. ‘Actually, there’s nothing simple about the science. But I don’t have the time or the patience to explain every little detail involved in the process. I went to school for the better part of a decade to learn how to do this, and then I spent years refining it in the field. So, despite my watered-down “Surveillance for Dummies” lecture, please don’t question my expertise. If I say we’ll get a picture, we’ll get a picture.’

  Papineau was so unaccustomed to backtalk from Garcia that he chose not to respond. Neither did the others, who sat there with their mouths agape.

  Meanwhile, Cobb didn’t have time to massage wounded egos. He pressed on, putting Garcia back on track. ‘So, assuming there’s a camera, you’ll be able to see us.’

  ‘Yes. Or you can take one with you.’ Garcia entered a different command then picked up a flashlight. He swung the flashlight around the room, showing everyone that it was also a video camera linked directly to his computer. Whatever he aimed the lens at appeared in high definition on the monitor. ‘Remember these?’

  The group had used similar devices during their previous mission. They had worked precisely as intended: relaying information back to Garcia. All the while, no one outside of the team had known the gadgets’ true capabilities.

  To everyone else, they looked like ordinary flashlights.

  ‘No need to reinvent the wheel,’ Jasmine said.

  Garcia nodded. ‘Exactly. They worked before. They’ll work again.’

  Cobb noticed that this version was slightly larger. He took a second flashlight from the desktop, gauging the weight in his hand. ‘These are a bit longer, a bit heavier than the ones we used last time.’

  ‘You don’t miss much, do you? You’re right, these have been upgraded.’

  ‘Upgraded how?’ Cobb asked.

  ‘For starters, I’ve embedded a memory card into the handle. Not only will you transmit, you’ll also record.’ He dropped a cloth over the lens of the flashlight. A moment later, the image on the monitor turned a pale shade of green. ‘You also have night vision in this version. Press and hold the on/off button for five seconds, and it activates the infrared light. Even in pitch black, this captures everything. And it doesn’t just help me see what’s going on; you can use it, too.’ Garcia unscrewed a cap at the butt of the handle, revealing a small viewfinder. He put the flashlight to his eye, holding it like a pirate would hold a spyglass. ‘It might be a little awkward to navigate like this, but if you’re trapped in the dark, this can get you out.’

  Papineau took Garcia’s flashlight and rolled it in his hands. ‘You’re sure that this can get a signal up through the ground? They’re liable to be thirty, forty feet below the surface. Perhaps more.’

  Garcia was getting tired of Papineau’s challenges, but he kept his frustration in check. ‘These were tested in Romanian caves. They transmitted a perfect signal through solid rock. Forty feet of sandstone and ancient sediment isn’t going to be a problem. Between the flashlight cameras and the earpieces, we’ll be in constant contact.’ Garcia opened a small plastic case with miniature earplugs inside. These flesh-colored earpieces were communication devices that could be concealed inside the ear canal.

  ‘Sounds good,’ McNutt said as he reached into the case.

  Garcia snapped the lid closed on his fingers. ‘No, not you. You get something special.’

  McNutt’s role in the plan called for him to hide in plain sight, somewhere near the entrance to the tunnels. If anything went wrong for Cobb and Sarah, he was their backup. In the meantime, he had to blend in. That meant they couldn’t risk someone noticing his earpiece; the last thing they needed was to raise suspicion.

  Besides, Garcia had a new gadget in his bag of tricks.

  This would be the perfect opportunity to test it.

  Garcia raised a pair of tweezers that held a tiny sliver of thin, flexible plastic. ‘It’s been imprinted with all the necessary circuitry to both send and receive radio transmissions. And it would take a dentist to spot it.’

  McNutt’s face twisted in confusion. ‘Why a dentist?’

  ‘I’m going to anchor the film behind your molar, in the farthest corner of your mouth,’ Garcia explained.

  ‘Screw that,’ McNutt said.

  Papineau glared at him. ‘You have an issue with this method?’

  ‘I had a bad experience with a retainer once, so I’m not a fan of dental work.’ McNutt laughed to himself. ‘Then again, he could have told me that it would take a proctologist to find it, so I guess this is better by comparison.’

  Garcia stepped toward McNutt as the others chuckled at the comment. He raised the tweezers, but McNutt cut him off before he could get anywhere close.

  ‘Oh, hell no,’ McNutt said. ‘Not you. Let Jasmine do it. Her hands are smaller. You’ll drop that thing down my throat, and it’ll be seven years before we see it again.’

  ‘That’s gum,’ Garcia replied.

  ‘And this is plastic and, well, um, a bunch of other stuff that I don’t want in my colon. Give Jasmine the damn tweezers, or I swear to God I’ll bite your fingers off.’

  Jasmine took the tweezers with the tiny device and set about installing it as Garcia explained how it would work.

  ‘The microphone will pick up everything you say and transmit it across a secure frequency to the rest of us back here in the harbor. That much is fairly common technology. The real beauty of the implant is the way it uses your jawbone to project the incoming signals. It vibrates the fluid inside your head to amplify the sound. You, and only you, will be able to hear the voices. Anyone standing next to you will be completely oblivious to the conversation.’

  ‘So I just talk normally?’ McNutt asked as soon as Jasmine finished. ‘Check one-two-three. Testing. One-two-three. Can you hear me, Papa Bear?’

  Garcia stared at him. ‘Of course I can hear you. I’m standing right he
re. Walk away or something so we can test it.’

  McNutt did as he was told while Garcia put on his headset. He pushed the microphone in front of his mouth before he whispered, ‘Can you hear me, Josh?’

  ‘Yes!’ McNutt shouted from across the room.

  ‘Josh, just speak normally if you have to. But remember that your job tonight is to listen, not to talk . . . Okay?’

  McNutt shouted again. ‘Okay!’

  Garcia winced from the sound in his ear. ‘Josh, why are you screaming? I told you not to scream.’

  ‘Why? Because you’re freaking me out. It’s like you’re inside my head.’

  ‘Technically, I am inside your head.’

  McNutt froze in place. ‘You can’t hear my thoughts, can you?’

  Garcia laughed, unsure if it was a joke. ‘Why would anyone want to do that?’

  16

  The Fools of Alexander.

  That’s the derogatory name used by scholars to describe anyone who has wasted time searching for buried treasure in Alexandria. In a city of millions, it seems that everyone – not just historians and archaeologists, but also lawyers, waiters, and hobos – has a theory about Alexander the Great and the location of his golden tomb.

  In most parts of the world, people buy lottery tickets.

  In Alexandria, they buy shovels.

  In recent years, digging has become an epidemic. Once the upper levels of the city had been thoroughly examined, the fools took to the sewers en masse, hoping to find a secret passageway into the ancient depths of the city. Most excavated without permits, often leaving common sense behind as they dug deeper, and deeper, and deeper.

  Eventually, something had to give.

  It didn’t take an engineer to realize that the city’s core was being compromised by the subterranean plague of treasure hunters, but the government brought in a team of experts to determine how bad it really was. The last thing officials wanted was for the city to fall again. The soldiers of Persia, Rome, and Turkey were one thing, but surely they could defend themselves against a horde of civilians with picks and shovels.

  Once they had the proof they needed, the authorities ordered for all digging under Alexandria to cease immediately. In addition, all entrances and passageways that led to the ancient levels of the city were either sealed or locked. Signs posted in every corner of the city made it clear that the underground network of tunnels had been deemed off-limits to anyone but city workers and members of the Ministry of State for Antiquities – the final authority when dealing with anything related to the cultural heritage of Egypt. Only those who understood the structural consequences of digging and those trained in museum sciences were welcome in the ruins. Everyone else would have to be content with the officially sanctioned tours of the city’s ancient tunnels.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t good enough for Cobb.

  And it would take more than a sign to keep him out.

  * * *

  It was a typical Friday night in a trendy part of town. The kind of place where locals and tourists gathered every weekend for food and entertainment.

  Cobb and Sarah strolled down the block, as if they were early for dinner and had time to kill. Around them, the neighborhood was alive. Car horns were honking, music was playing, and pedestrians filled the sidewalks. As expected, the police presence was high, but they were concentrating on the streets, not the tunnels underneath.

  ‘You ready?’ Cobb whispered.

  McNutt watched them through the window of the Internet café across the street. He had arrived a few minutes earlier with an empty bladder. He knew it would take at least four large coffees for nature to force him from his lookout. If he drank them slowly, it would be more than enough time for Sarah and Cobb to get what they needed.

  ‘Ready,’ he mumbled.

  Garcia monitored all the chatter from the converted radio room on the boat. He was the digital maestro. Not only was he responsible for recording the video feeds, he also controlled who could talk to whom, and when. ‘Remember guys, Josh is there to look and listen. The more he talks, the more this plan falls apart. Don’t forget, he’s sitting alone at a table. We don’t need him talking to himself if it can be avoided.’

  ‘Like he doesn’t do that already,’ Sarah teased.

  ‘I heard that,’ McNutt said.

  Seated next to Garcia, Jasmine stared at a map of the ancient city on a next-generation computer screen. While it wasn’t the same as the three-dimensional hologram, the software was still rendering an amazingly precise set of images. ‘I’ve got all three of you on the map. The GPS units are relaying your location, loud and clear . . . Well, not loud. I mean, the units aren’t beeping or anything because that would get annoying, but I can see where you are quite clearly. Well, not really you. Just dots on a screen.’

  Garcia winced. ‘For the love of God, what was that?’

  ‘Sorry. I’m nervous.’

  ‘Nervous, or drunk?’

  ‘Nervous!’ she assured him.

  ‘Good, because we can’t afford to have two drunks on the job.’

  ‘I heard that, too!’ McNutt growled.

  Cobb had been hesitant about the global positioning trackers. He assumed that if Garcia could follow his movement, others might be able to home in on the signal as well. Not that anyone would. After all, they had no reason to believe that they were being followed. Still, Cobb wanted to stay off the radar, not announce where he was.

  But Garcia had assured him that his security measures were sound: no one could hack the GPS signal without Garcia knowing it. And if someone tried, he could intercept the attack or shut down the signal before Cobb or Sarah’s position could be traced.

  Eventually, Cobb had decided that testing the accuracy of the map outweighed the risks. The odds of encountering the kind of elite hacker who could even identify a GPS signal – much less track it – were ten thousand to one, at best.

  That is, if the technology even worked in the depths of the city.

  They wouldn’t know for sure until they tried it out.

  Prior to the team’s arrival in Alexandria, Cobb and Sarah had searched the district for non-traditional access points to the tunnel system and had found one in the subbasement of an apartment building. It had everything they were looking for: a wide grate to load equipment, ridiculously inadequate security, and virtual privacy.

  Cobb cleared his throat. ‘Sarah and I are walking up to the entrance now. We’re in play in three . . . two . . . one . . .’

  At zero, Sarah grabbed the doorknob and picked the lock faster than a senior citizen could turn a key. A second later, they were walking into the building.

  ‘Impressive,’ Cobb whispered.

  ‘I know,’ Sarah bragged.

  They hustled down a flight of stairs and found themselves in a long hallway flanked by storage lockers for the residents. They quickly planted a small, wireless video camera above the lockers and made sure Garcia could see the feed. Then they made their way across the width of the building, silently hoping that none of the tenants was in sudden need of the spare lamps, battered suitcases, or rusted bicycles that cluttered the bins.

  Fortunately, on this night, their path was clear.

  When they reached the end of the hall, Sarah easily picked the lock on the boiler room door. They slipped inside and locked the door behind them.

  ‘Holy shit,’ she said as she turned on her flashlight and walked down the stairs. Steam hung in the air like a sauna.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Garcia demanded.

  ‘It feels like Florida in here. Someone get me a towel.’

  Cobb smiled as he planted a second camera just inside the door. Not only because her comment was accurate, but because he knew all of that steam needed somewhere to go – and that was why they were there.

  The moisture drained into the ancient aqueducts below.

  Cobb lifted the iron grate off the large drain in the floor. Sarah lowered herself into the hole first, bracing her body again
st the walls to control her descent into the tunnels below. Cobb followed her lead, easing the grate back into position as he did.

  They dropped to the floor, one after another.

  Both prepared for the worst, but they were alone in the darkness.

  Cobb clicked on his flashlight and updated his team.

  ‘We’re in.’

  * * *

  Hundreds of miles away, a warning light flickered.

  The moment the grate had been lifted, it had triggered the motion detectors that were actually embedded in the hollow iron. These tiny sensors could not only register vibration, their internal accelerometer could also calculate their orientation. The advanced technology could be used to determine if someone had merely stepped on the grate or if it had been removed entirely.

  It was one of many security measures that had been placed throughout the cisterns.

  The data collected from these devices was continuously fed to a remote system hidden amongst the rolling dunes of the Sahara where the signals were monitored by a massive computer that displayed real-time information from every corner of the underground labyrinth. If the lower levels of the city were breached in any way, the men who guarded them were instantly alerted.

  No one got in or out without their knowledge.

  It was the only way to protect their secrets.

  With a simple text message, the personnel in the desert notified their contact in Alexandria of the impending threat. If further action was needed, it was his responsibility to ensure that appropriate measures were taken.

  His men were always at the ready.

  All they needed was a target.

  17

  The need for fresh water has always been a vital concern for the people of Alexandria. Most of Egypt is barren desert with few natural springs, and the ancient inhabitants of the city had no means of utilizing the salt water of the Mediterranean.

  Fortunately, the Nile River has provided an inexhaustible source of drinkable water. With the help of man-made canals, the waters of the Nile were diverted into cisterns located throughout ancient Alexandria. There, the sediment slowly sank to the bottom, leaving clean, palatable water that could sustain the population.