The Iron Tomb

by Peter Vegas

  * * *

  TEN MINUTES LATER SAM WAS glad he hadn’t called Mary to share the news of his discovery. The disappointment had hit him hard and fast as he counted out those last couple of feet. He was standing on a small patch of illuminated sand. It was the spot his uncle had marked, but there was nothing. Just sand. Sam had been so sure when he found the coded coordinates, but that confidence evaporated as he’d counted down those last few feet.

  Feet. Could that be it? Sam wondered. He was used to thinking in feet, but they used the metric system in Egypt. Could his uncle have jotted the numbers down in meters? The GPS could be set to count in meters. All Sam had to do was backtrack to the campsite and start again.

  Seven minutes later Sam was standing on another almost identical-looking patch of sand. Another dead end. A dead end in the dead of night and now, dead tired, Sam collapsed to the sand. He killed the flashlight. No point in wasting the batteries. Not till he worked out what to do next. And right now Sam was all out of ideas.

  * * *

  IT SEEMED LIKE THE UNIVERSE, knowing that it didn’t have the moon to compete with, had put its entire collection of stars out on display. But the show was wasted on Sam. He was staring straight up, but he didn’t see a thing. He was too busy obsessing over how everything had turned out.

  Sam had really wanted to believe he had found the Panehesy and his uncle, but the empty campsite should have been an obvious clue. Of course it had been abandoned. The Panehesy wasn’t here, and his uncle had gone. The view he’d first seen from the top of the dune should have been a big hint as well. He’d seen nothing. If his uncle had uncovered a ship, there would have had to be some sign of an excavation.

  Sam’s luck had finally run out. For days he had followed a trail linked by a series of obscure and seemingly unrelated clues. Perhaps the big surprise was that he had gotten this far, but now it seemed the journey was at an end.

  But the universe hadn’t given up in its attempt to wow its solitary desert audience. It took a massive shooting star to snap Sam out of his self-pitying trance. As the meteor met its match in the outer atmosphere, Sam was forced to acknowledge the stunning view overhead, the million points of flickering light. It always amazed Sam that ancient civilizations like the Egyptians had tried to track and measure their progress.

  As he stared, one of his last conversations with Mary drifted back to him. The Egyptians had been obsessed with measurement. In fact, they even created their own: the cubit.

  The word hung in Sam’s consciousness, dangling on a golden thread like an air freshener from a rearview mirror. Could his uncle’s code have had one more layer to it? Mary said a cubit was about twenty-one inches. If the coordinates were in cubits, that would put the magic spot in a totally different location.

  The starlight spectacular continued, not at all put off by the fact that their lone desert audience had disappeared. Back at the campsite, Sam set the GPS tracker to the distance in cubits, and for the third time that night he counted off to the southwest.

  * * *

  SIX MINUTES LATER THAT SINKING feeling hit him again. There were still five cubits to go, but the torchlight told the story. Another identical patch of empty sand. Another dead end. But Sam marched on, determined to count out the last five twenty-one-inch lengths. He had two to go when the sinking feeling began to grow. But now it took on a whole new meaning.

  Sam looked down at his feet as they disappeared into the sand. He could feel himself sinking, and as the first fingers of panic took hold, he lifted one foot. Suddenly, the ground beneath him give way completely. A gaping black hole appeared around Sam, and he fell so fast his arms swung above his head, knocking his flashlight out of his hand. Sam’s scream faded away as he and his flashlight slipped beneath the surface of the desert.

  20

  ROTTEN ENTRY

  LIKE A HUNGRY BEAST, THE desert had opened its mouth and swallowed Sam whole, and now he was sliding, feetfirst, down its throat. That thought flashed into Sam’s mind, but only as a fleeting interlude from the sheer terror.

  The sound track to his hellish slide was the echoey boom of his arms hitting the metal sides of the tube he was in. That, and the raspy screeching sound of body and sand scraping across steel. As he lunged for something to grab on to, he tried to make sense of what was happening to him.

  Before he could, the ride came to a sudden and painful end. Sam’s feet hit hard sand with a jarring impact that made his knees buckle. He immediately took a deep breath, which turned out to be a mistake. His slide under the desert had whipped up a miniature sandstorm. The air was thick with desert dust, and he could still feel it raining down on him like dry snow. Pulling his T-shirt over his mouth, Sam sank to his knees and retrieved his flashlight, which, after a few motivational whacks, buzzed back to life. Sand continued to billow around him. In the light, Sam felt like he was submerged in muddy water at the bottom of a black tube. He rubbed his hand across the curved steel, leaving black powder on his fingers. It was soot.

  Sam had wondered how he would get inside the Panehesy, but that problem had been solved.

  The desert had followed him down the smokestack, but not for the first time. Over the years sand had seeped in through the ship’s highest opening. Given time, it would have filled it right up, but that day was still a ways off. Instead of sliding to his death in the engine room, Sam had ended his trip halfway down. The air above was too thick to see far, but he did spot a rope running down from the top. Was it a way out left by someone who had found their way in?

  Sam turned his attention to the area around his feet. Wind currents were still kicking up puffs of sand, and that struck Sam as odd, because he couldn’t feel a draft coming from above. Dropping to his knees again, Sam took a closer look at the curved steel wall. It wasn’t until he ran his hands over the rusting plates that he felt the hole. The blackness on the other side matched the blackness of the soot-covered steel, which made it almost invisible. But now, with the flashlight right next to it, Sam could see that a hole had been cut. And recently. Silvery edges of freshly cut steel flashed like fangs in the flashlight. The Panehesy had swallowed Sam, and now it wanted to take a bite. Using his jacket to cover the rough edges, Sam crawled through, into the bowels of the Panehesy.

  It was the dining room. Three long wooden tables filled the space, with wooden chairs arranged around them. Plates and cutlery were laid out in front of each as if a meal was about to be served. Sam knew he was looking at a moment in time, frozen beneath the desert. The air smelled stale, like the inside of an old leather shoe, and a fine coating of white powder covered every surface. It wasn’t the sand Sam had gotten so used to. It was that haunted house stuff—the kind of dust that accumulates magically out of nothing. It gave the room a dull, ghostly finish, and that made the small glint of gold sparkling on the far side of the room even more eye-catching. As Sam got closer, he saw it was a door handle. Decades of accumulated dust had been wiped away in an instant when someone used it.

  And now Sam became the second person to go through the door in seventy-three years.

  * * *

  SAM WAS NOW IN A corridor that had a row of doors on each side.

  At St. Albans all of the boys had to do ballroom dancing, and Sam had been an unwilling victim the year before. It turned out there wasn’t just one kind of ballroom dance, but a whole load, and to make it easier to learn them all, their dance teacher had put up posters covered with tiny shoe prints that showed the moves. Sam was reminded of those posters as he viewed what had to be his uncle’s footprints in the dust covering the dark wood floor in the hallway.

  Jasper had opened the first few doors, and when Sam glanced into them, he saw that each contained two beds, a desk, and a sink. Following the footsteps Sam skipped ahead and went straight to the door at the end of the corridor, just as Jasper must’ve done before him.

  This door opened into a room about the same size as the first one, but very different in setup. The steel walls were rough and unpain
ted; the wooden floorboards were scratched and worn. It was a cargo area. Coils of ropes hung from hooks on one wall, and a few pieces of packing crate were strewn around. But what caught Sam’s attention were the large white mounds dotting the room. It looked like someone had tried to make volcanoes out of mashed potatoes. Sam was so distracted by the scene, he walked right into the small gas tank sitting near the door. It was an acetylene torch unit for cutting steel, and it was brand new. That explained the hole in the smokestack, Sam thought as he turned his attention back to the small white hills. He remembered Jenny telling him the Panehesy had been carrying medical supplies. Could the white mounds be soggy bedding and bandages? The room was damp, and when Sam aimed his flashlight upward, he found the source. A big, rusty wound had formed in the ceiling. Seventy-three years’ worth of winter rainfall had seeped down into the Panehesy and worked its way through the roof above the cargo area. Over the years the bandages had soaked it up and turned to white sludge.

  Thanks to the damp there was no magic dust in the cargo room, so no prints to follow, but as Sam neared the center of the space, he got a terrifying feeling he knew what had happened. Not all the moisture had been absorbed by the bandages. Hidden behind one of the soggy hills was a gaping hole—the kind that had to have been made by something or someone falling through the rotten floorboards. As if to confirm that, the boards below Sam’s feet began to creak, sending him shuffling for safer ground near the wall.

  A search for another way down turned up nothing, and Sam soon found himself back at the hole. The coiled ropes were still in good condition, and Sam tied one to a metal ring welded to the wall. With no way of knowing if more of the floor would collapse, Sam opted to go on his stomach, feetfirst. He slithered backward until enough of his body was in the hole for gravity to take hold. The planks under him groaned, and when a sharp splintering sound echoed around him, Sam could do nothing but shut his eyes and prepare for the worst. The noises died away. Sam hung there, feeling his hands burning from holding the rope so tightly. Slowly, he inched his way down until he felt his boots make contact with the floor. The room below had a steel floor, or, at least, there was steel underneath the layer of debris that had come down with the roof. Sam turned on his flashlight and looked down at the crude circle of rotten floorboards around him, but then the beam of his light hit something else.

  He stumbled out of the wood pile and ran to the lifeless, blood-splattered body. Sam dropped to his knees, and the dull thud as he hit the steel floor echoed through the ship. It was as if the Panehesy were acknowledging Sam’s loss. He hadn’t dared contemplate this moment. He hadn’t been brave enough.

  As he reached out and laid a hand on the cold, lifeless body, he felt his world collapsing around him. Jasper hadn’t died straightaway. His small daypack was rolled up like a pillow behind his head. In his last moment he had tried to get comfortable. He had also written something. The piece of paper was resting in his hand on top of his blood-soaked shirt.

  This is the last will and testament of Jasper Force

  I died here Tuesday July 28

  Wed July 29

  Thu July 30

  Please contact Francis Verulam of the Verulam Corporation and tell him my dying wish was that my nephew Sam Force be told the whole truth.

  As Sam stared at his uncle’s final words, a cough startled him. Slowly, he lowered the note and saw two big blue eyes staring right at him.

  “Not you again,” said Jasper, almost in disgust. And then his eyes shut, as if he was going back to sleep or being dead, leaving Sam, kneeling next to him, stunned.

  “Uncle Jasper, it’s me,” he said nervously, wondering if it was his mind playing some sick trick on him.

  Jasper’s eyes stayed shut, but he replied angrily, “I know who you are, and I’m not interested.”

  “Not interested? In what?”

  “Having a conversation with my imagination. Now GO AWAY!”

  “Jasper, it’s me,” said Sam, placing his hand gently on his uncle’s arm.

  The act had an instant effect. Jasper’s eyes opened and locked on to Sam. But differently this time. More intensely. Then the stern lines on his face melted away, and when he spoke, it was almost a whisper. “Sam? Is that really you?”

  “Of course it is. Who did you think it was?”

  “The other Sam. I mean the you . . . in my imagination. You’ve been to visit me a few times since my accident.”

  “What happened to you? I thought you were dead. . . . I mean, all the blood . . . I checked your pulse on your neck, like they do on TV, but I couldn’t feel anything. And you were cold. I was sure you were dead.” The words tumbled out of Sam’s mouth in one nervous download.

  Jasper smiled. “Well, despite your diagnosis, I’m happy to say I’m alive,” he said, then pointed to his legs. “But not without injury, I’m afraid. Broken in three places, from what I have been able to work out.”

  “But what about all the blood?” asked Sam, aiming the flashlight at his uncle’s T-shirt, which was caked in the stuff.

  Jasper winced. “Ah yes, well, that’s a bit embarrassing actually. I landed nose first when I fell through the ceiling. I managed to clean my face up a bit, but it’s amazing how much claret comes out of the old hooter, isn’t it?”

  Sam shook his head. He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation. Seconds ago he had lost his uncle, been alone in the world. Now everything had changed. “I need to get you out of here.”

  “Yes, yes, all in good time, my boy,” said Jasper as if Sam had walked into a coffee shop to fetch him. “But first tell me how on earth you managed to find me here in the Panehesy. In Egypt, for that matter. I sent you an e-mail telling you not to come.”

  “I know,” said Sam, “but someone made sure I didn’t get it.”

  Jasper nodded. “I see. But, my boy, how did you ever manage to track me down to this godforsaken spot?”

  Sam smiled. “I guess spending all that time watching you work taught me a thing or two, eh?”

  “Quite. I encrypted the results of my research in case they fell into the wrong hands. I thought I’d done quite a good job.”

  “Hey, I’m not saying it was easy.”

  “Well, it was lucky for me, because I don’t mind admitting that I had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to end my days in this rusty tomb.”

  “I know.” Sam held up the bloodstained note. “I read your will. What was with the date changes?”

  “I found myself slipping in and out of consciousness, and each time I thought maybe that was going to be the last. Besides”—Jasper chuckled and patted his old digital wristwatch—“you know us Egyptologists are sticklers for accurate dates.”

  “Dates. Sure,” said Sam as he ran his flashlight around the empty cargo hold. “Nineteen forty-two. That was a date I worked out all by myself.” It was no time to brag, but Sam couldn’t help himself.

  “Yes, you did.” Jasper reached out and patted Sam on the head affectionately. “Tell me, what else do you know about this little adventure we both find ourselves on?”

  “I know it’s about Akhenaten, alchemy, and possibly the pyramids.”

  Jasper’s eyes lit up. “Good, Sam. Very good. We’ll start with Akhenaten. His ideas were controversial, and his reign came to an end when he was forced to abdicate. He fled into the Sinai Desert with a few of his followers, but I don’t think he left empty-handed.”

  “Okay . . .” Sam waited for his uncle to elaborate.

  “There’s another famous character who fled from Egypt into the Sinai with his followers. Do you know who?”

  Sam shook his head.

  “Moses.”

  “Moses . . . as in the Ten Commandments Moses?”

  “Exactly.”

  Sam was getting more confused by the second, and he wasn’t in the mood for one of Jasper’s “make history fun” lessons. “Look, we can talk about this later. Why don’t we get you out of here.” He pulled the GPS out of his backpack
, but that just seemed to annoy Jasper.

  “My boy, I have been stuck down here for three days. I can wait a little longer. Don’t you want to know what I’ve discovered? Besides,” he said, pointing to the GPS, “you’ll have to go back up to the surface to get a signal.”

  Sam looked at the screen and saw his uncle was right. “Okay, fine. Tell me about Moses. Where does he fit into all this?”

  “Moses was banished from Egypt and fled into the Sinai with his followers. But he had one very special object with him. Remember what it was?”

  “The Ark,” said Sam. “The Ark of the . . .”

  “Covenant. That’s right.”

  “So, let me get this straight. You think Akhenaten was Moses and that he took off with the Ark?”

  Uncle Jasper broke out one of his whiskery grins. “Quite possibly.” He reached behind and pulled a piece of paper out of his daypack. His eyes sparkled as he handed it to Sam. “Read this.”

  The Ark of the Covenant

  The word “Ark” comes from the Hebrew word Aron , which means a chest or box, and was described in the Bible as a sacred container for the Ten Commandments as well as Aaron’s rod and a golden jar containing manna.

  The Ark was described as being made of shittah tree wood (acacia)—known to the Egyptians as the Tree of Life—and covered with the purest gold.

  “But you said this was about alchemy. So . . . does the Ark hold the secret of how to turn lead into gold?”

  “The secret to alchemy, yes—or at least, that’s what many believe. But this is far bigger than gold.”

  “What could be bigger than gold?”

  “Eternal life.”

  Sam wondered if his uncle had suffered a serious blow to the head. “You’re telling me the Ark is some kind of fountain of youth?”

  Jasper must have picked up the sarcasm in Sam’s voice, because he shrugged. “Probably not. It seems too unbelievable, yes? But there are enough people who believe it to be true that they’ve spent their lives searching for it.”