Barbara Silkstone - Wendy Darlin 03 - Cairo Caper

by Barbara Silkstone

  A few minutes later the transversal passage ended at the entrance to our objective, the third burial shaft, framed by two large blocks of granite with a single squiggly vertical line carved in the middle of each one. I examined the carvings on one block then the other. They were mirror images and the shape, though simple, seemed familiar. The mark on my chest pulsated. That was it. The lines were the shape of the edge of the medallion.

  I put my lips close to Roger’s ear and whispered, “Slip your hand inside my jacket and feel my chest.”

  His whisper was as quiet as mine. “Really, Wendy, this isn’t the time or place for –”

  “I mean the mark from the medallion, you doofus. And look at these carvings at the same time.”

  His archeologist fingers traced the mark on my chest. “They’re the same. This must be the place.”

  Darcy’s hand clamped his shoulder. “Could you whisper louder? I’m having trouble overhearing back here.”

  He removed her hand from his shoulder. “Consider yourself lucky to be here. What we’re discussing is private.”

  She pooched out her lower lip. “Oh, Roger, how can you be like this after all we’ve meant to each other? Do you think Sloane will be coming this way? His offer was so outrageous, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by abruptly turning it down.”

  “Speaking of Sloane,” I said looking at the opening, “it’s good that he lent us flashlights.”

  “Yeah,” Roger said. “It’s dark as a tomb in there.”

  Where was a good ashtray when you needed one?

  The possibility that the lost tomb of Antony and Cleopatra might lie within that darkness spiked my heart rate. When Antony lost the final battle against Caesar, messengers told him that Cleopatra had killed herself rather than face the loss of her empire. Anguish drove Antony to commit suicide by falling on his sword. As he lay dying he asked to be placed alongside his love. But she wasn’t dead. She was hiding in her mausoleum in Alexandria. Antony’s warriors took him there. He died within seconds of seeing his beloved queen. Cleopatra took her own life with the bite of an Asp. A love story worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy.

  Fiona pointed into the burial shaft and looked at Roger. “What makes you think she’s in there? All the tourist guides I read on the plane said her mausoleum, which was the size of a palace, was in Alexandria and now it’s underwater because of earthquakes or something.”

  “The story goes that she took her life several days after Antony died in her arms. Why several days? To move him to this temple, which was their place, before joining him in eternity. The EAS has found a number of funerary chambers here. They believe the lovers could be buried in a secret chamber similar to those.”

  Fiona clutched her hands together and jumped up and down. “So Cleopatra and Antony are down here with the original Kama Sutra.” Her child-like joy changed to fearful concern. “Do you think scorpions are in there?”

  “If there are, Darcy will stomp on them for you.”

  Roger held his flashlight over his head. “Lights on and follow me as we charge to the final resting place of Antony and Cleopatra. This moment will go down in the annals of history as the charge of the light brigade.”

  I should have bopped him.

  We went through the opening and down a stone staircase. This tunnel was a little narrower but wide enough for two, if one wasn’t Darcy. So I walked beside Roger with Darcy a step behind and Fiona and Petri after her.

  There were old wooden torches on the walls every five or six feet. I was happy we didn’t have to use those. With Darcy barging around, we’d probably all be on fire before we could get to the tomb.

  Darcy hummed Love Is in the Air, occasionally singing a line or two, as we descended into the shaft. She interrupted her musical presentation to ask, “And where is the medallion, Roger?” then continued humming and singing.

  How’d the bitch know about the medallion? But she did have a pretty good voice.

  “It’s safe with me.”

  Our flashlights dimmed, almost as if they were synchronized to punk out. Sloane Ranger must have gone with the low bidder. I shook mine and managed to conk it out completely. One by one the other lights blinked off. Roger’s was the only one left and it was fading fast.

  “Anybody got a match?” he said grabbing a torch from the wall.

  I stumbled ahead and took a piece of dried wood from a bracket. The wood had a petro smell to it like some pines that are natural burners. Fiona couldn’t reach high enough and Petri was busy searching his pockets so I grabbed a couple for them.

  Petri came up with a box of waterproof matches. “I never leave Paris without them.” He lit his wooden stick and passed the flame around. They all fired up but I expected to see Lon Chaney materialize out of the wall at any second.

  Roger aimed his torch at fragments of hieroglyphics. “These are prayers and guidance to facilitate access to the next world.”

  “Such a lovely thought,” Fiona said as she stumbled over a pile of rocks and landed on her fanny. Petri was in attendance in a heartbeat, lifting her to her feet.

  Once Petri had Fiona in a reasonably stable upright position he asked, “How will you find their burial chamber? This place is huge.”

  “The underground area of the temple is over two square miles,” Roger said. “But I have a special instrument.”

  I pulled the MUDD from my purse and handed it to Roger.

  Fiona looked flummoxed. “A tampon?”

  Roger waved the MUDD. “This is the best Multi-phasic Unidirectional Density Diviner in existence.”

  “I thought it was the only Multi-phasic Unidirectional Density Diviner in existence.”

  “Details, details.”

  Cold, dank air gusted through the shaft. All our torches blew out.

  A rough hand clamped over my mouth and an arm snaked around my waist. I was snatched up and pulled away from the group, unable to make a sound.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  I bit down, nailing a chunk of gritty palm between my teeth.

  A whisper in my ear, “Don’t scream. It’s Habib. Damn, that hurt.” He released me.

  I spun around and touched his face. I explored with my fingertips. I ran my hand along his chin and over his lips. He could be any hunk with stubble.

  He laughed. “Take your time,” he said in a soft voice.

  I touched something metallic. “What’s that?”

  “Night vision goggles. None of these small secondary tunnels that suit my purposes are lit and I prefer not to announce my presence with a flashlight.”

  He smelled good in a musky male-scented way. I rubbed my cheek on his beard just to be sure he was Habib, after all it was dark as a tomb. He pulled me deeper into the narrow passage.

  “Why did you disappear? You were going to rescue us.”

  “I tried. I went to your tent a couple hours after you went to bed. I thought your vodka-guzzling guards would be passed out and I’d simply take you out of the tent and put you on a camel. Unfortunately, the guards roused when I touched the tent flap. I covered myself by chewing them out for sleeping on duty.”

  “So my dream about hearing an argument in Russian wasn’t a dream.”

  “Right after that, Sergei Sputum, my ostensible employer, called and demanded my presence here immediately. I had no choice but to obey in order to maintain my cover and be able to continue to protect Doctor Jolley.”

  “So you left us in the hands of Mustafa.”

  “No, I contacted one of my associates and convinced him to pose as a carpet cleaner and bring you out in rolled up carpets. I figured it would work since the Dark Forcemen aren’t familiar with Egyptian customs. When my man got to your tent, he discovered the old carpet cleaning scam had just been used and you were gone.”

  “How did you know we were safe?”

  “About the time my associate briefed me, you arrived at the oasis. We have it under electronic surveillance.”

  “You put bugs in the oasis
?”

  “Not nearly as many as Mother Nature.”

  Everybody’s a comedian.

  “No matter what, I would have come for you. I would never let anything happen to my American love.”

  He brushed my cheek with his lips. “Now you must return to your group. Say nothing to Doctor Jolley. He might not act naturally if he knows he has a guardian angel.”

  I felt his hands on my shoulders. He turned me around and patted my butt like a coach sending a basketball player into a game. Except he also gave it a little squeeze, which didn’t feel bad. What was it about me that I was only attracted to men who made bad jokes? I trailed my hand down the wall until I reached the burial shaft.

  Brief flashes of flame provided sporadic guidance as Petri unsuccessfully tried to light matches. I whispered, “Roger, where are you?”

  Petri responded, “Why are you whispering?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered.

  “Come toward my voice,” Petri said in a distinct non-whisper. “Better yet, wait there until I get my torch lit.”

  Waiting isn’t one of my strengths. I eased forward using a shuffle-step to prevent tripping on loose rocks. I stumbled and banged into Petri as his match flared and ignited his torch and the straggly ends of my hair. I regained my footing and quickly smothered the glowing tips of my tresses with my hood.

  The smell of the singed hair triggered an old memory. Drop and roll! Drop and roll! So I dropped and rolled. I inhaled bushels of ancient dust and lord-knows-what. How stupid! My clothes weren’t on fire and my hair was extinguished. But there I was, lying on that double-yucky stone floor.

  Late to the barbeque, Fiona screamed, “Smother the flames!” as she threw herself on me slamming her pith helmet into my head.

  I was nearly put out in more ways than one.

  She jumped off my back and emptied her water bottle on my head. She clapped. “Saving a life is so thrilling. I once saw a Boy Scout get an award for doing the same thing.”

  I was glad my face was in shadows. My expression was less than grateful. I bounced up like I wasn’t hurting all over and had always wanted to coat myself in dust.

  Petri touched his torch to Darcy’s. It flared. She held it out to me. “Would you like a light or would you prefer to use your head? By the way I can recommend a great hairdresser. Now that you’ve taken care of your split ends, you might be able to get by with a blow-dry.”

  I smiled at the bitch and held my torch against hers.

  Petri lit Fiona’s torch, possibly literally and figuratively. I turned expecting to see Roger waiting for me to do the same for him. But he wasn’t there. I held my torch high and did a slow three-sixty. He wasn’t in sight.

  “Roger?”

  No response.

  “This is not funny, Roger!”

  No response. I twirled again. No sign of him.

  I raised my arms in my best New York Philharmonic-conductor style with my torch as the baton. Leonard Bernstein would have been proud as I waved my torch and we yelled Roger in unison. A dangerous maneuver. Darcy’s voice alone could collapse a bridge, I hoped not a temple.

  Our voices bounced back, hollow, empty, and gut wrenching.

  “Where could he be?” I held the torch down low and paced the stone floor looking for a trapdoor. “Roger would never abandon us.”

  “Especially me,” Darcy boomed.

  “Someone has taken him!” Petri said.

  “Let’s find that Sloane guy,” Fiona said. “He can help us.”

  Darcy waved her torch. “I’ll get him.” She turned and lifted her foot to go back up the stairs.

  “No,” I shouted. “We don’t know what will put Roger in danger.”

  To my amazement, Darcy stopped. Maybe she cared about something beyond her manicure and possible nude portrait.

  “Petri, slip me some matches in case we get separated.” I pocketed a half-dozen wooden matches. “We’re going down. That’s where Roger was headed.”

  I didn’t look back. I heard everybody following me. I marched forward, wishing Roger and I were celebrating my sale of a Miami Beach penthouse at Joe’s Stone Crab.

  The gloomy passage and slippery steps wound down ahead of me like the stairway to Hades.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The chilly breeze kept whipping through the burial shaft, strong enough to make the torches flicker but, so far, not blow them out. I kept my left hand on the left wall. It was a stunt I learned for finding my way in mazes. As long as I kept the same hand on the same wall I could find our way back. Or was it the opposite hand on the opposite wall?

  Well, so far the burial shaft had been easy, not maze-like at all. Okay, maybe a little. I was so focused on Roger that I might have missed a twist or turn or two or three. But I was pretty sure I hadn’t. Pretty sure.

  The rough surface abraded my palm so I started lifting my hand and plopping it on the wall. I continued down, plop, plop, plopping until I plopped my hand on a scarab, an actual live bug. Yuck! I shook my hand till I thought my fingers would fly off. The light from the torch wasn’t bright enough to show the nasty things on the rough walls so I worked my hand into my sleeve and plopped a little harder, hoping to mash them before they could run up my sleeve. I shuddered to think of it.

  I heard Fiona fall twice. I didn’t stop for her or look back. Petri would take care of her. I yelled Roger’s name over and over and over. How could he have come this way in the dark? And why? I soldiered on. Lightheadedness set in. Was the air bad or was I yelling too much? I was getting dizzier. I plopped my hand against the wall but the wall wasn’t there.

  Ass over teacups never made sense before, but as I tumbled down a steep smooth slope, chased by my torch, it became abundantly clear. I was down the rabbit hole with fire cascading behind me. Yikes! My long skirt bunched up to my waist as my torch bounced over me and showered my butt with tiny sparks. I brushed them off frantically. Oh, oh. Now I was catching up to the torch.

  I yanked my skirt over my butt, rolled on my back, and tobogganed my body to the side of the torch, grabbing it as I slid by. I was in something that, in the poor light emanating from the torch, looked like a natural watercourse. Maybe it was part of an ancient underground river or tidal flow. I started to slow. The tube was leveling out. Then there was light at the end of the tunnel.

  Not the white light that people say they see when they’re about to croak, but a spooky blue shade. I slid out of the tube and smacked into a Smart Car-sized boulder. I groaned and stared at the ceiling of what appeared to be a natural chamber about the size of a planetarium. I didn’t want to move. I had more sore places than I had places. I hauled myself up and propped my elbows on the rock.

  A pool of water glowed blue and illuminated the grotto. The color transmuted from dark to light to silver with swirls of black and purple. Hieroglyphics covered the gold-flecked walls.

  A mural depicting a team of priests preparing a body for embalming extended twenty feet along a nearby wall. One of the priestly figures was inserting a hook in the nostril of the dead man, and removing his brain as it was held to be a useless organ. They were pretty much right on. Most people never get around to using theirs.

  Canopic jars painted in vivid reds, turquoise, and orange stood waiting for the liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines. Somewhere I’d read that the ancient Egyptians thought the heart was the source of all wisdom and so they left it in the embalmed body.

  I lifted my torch above my head illuminating the far side of the cavern. Roger sat at the edge of the pool in his lotus-thinking position with his hand outstretched dangling the Multi-phasic Unidirectional Density Diviner over the water. My legs buckled. The walls closed in on me. I choked out his name but he didn’t respond. I wobbled around the pool and knelt beside him.

  He didn’t move. I wasn’t sure what to do. Maybe he was in a trance or merely in archaeological deep-think. I placed my hand on his cheek and he turned to me. His eyes began to focus.

  “Roger, it
’s me. Are you okay?”

  He nodded.

  “How did you get here?”

  “My left foot.”

  “Which one?”

  “My left-left foot, the one with the medallion. The torches went out and it dragged me here.”

  At the mention of the medallion, I felt a thump on my leg like a cat head butting me and my chest was pain free, no fire ants, no hot pizza cheese, not even mild sunburn.

  “I thought maybe the MUDD would indicate the tomb is beneath this pool, but so far nothing.” Roger paused and looked me up and down. “You’ve had a rough go. Why’s your hair wet?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  A loud bellow assaulted my ears. It was either a wounded moose or Darcy. I jerked my head around, praying for a moose.

  Darcy, thundering down the steps, robes flowing, hair perfect. “Oooooohhh, there you are. I was so worried…”

  She slammed into me and reached for Roger. “… that you would find the tomb without me.”

  Her momentum almost knocked me in the pool. My upper body cantilevered over the edge. I threw my non-torch hand back to try to prevent gravity from finishing the job. Roger clamped on it and pulled. I saw Petri and Fiona running down the steps.

  Darcy grabbed at the MUDD. “So this is your secret device.”

  We were a three-person pile with me on the bottom hanging over the pool, the MUDD moving over my head as Roger pulled back to protect it. Darcy’s hand banged into it and knocked it straight up.

  In one of those emergency-situation tricks of perception, it seemed like it was falling in slow motion. I might be able to snag it with my teeth. The MUDD came closer. I opened my mouth. Closer still. It was almost to me. I lunged and snapped my teeth. It splashed into the pool. I obviously didn’t have a future as a performer at SeaWorld.

  Petri and Fiona piled on, trying to haul me to safety without losing their torches. If we ever got untangled, I was going to do some serious damage to Darcy or die trying. Like some bizarre act from Cirque du Soleil we rolled away from the pool in one big ball. We tried to unknot without setting anybody on fire.