by Stan Schatt
“Drop the gun. I have you covered, and I won’t think twice about blowing your worthless head into just as many pieces.”
“You drop your gun or I’ll shoot the girl.”
“Shoot her. I care nothing for her. Be quick. Then I will take care of you. I can see you very clearly, but you cannot see me.”
The man dropped his gun at my feet. I picked it up and moved a few feet away from him for safety. Taylor came out of the cave with a big smile on her face.
“I guess you’re happy now that I came along with you.”
The man stared at Taylor with disgust on his face. His face registered surprise when he saw I was holding his gun.
“I know you will not pull the trigger. Give me the gun.”
The man lunged at me. It took all my strength, but I aimed at his chest and pulled the trigger. The gun made a frighteningly loud sound as it echoed through the cave. The recoil knocked me back and I slammed into Paul. We both hit the ground.
I stared in surprise and shock as I saw the man stagger and then fall to the ground with a large red spot on his shirt. The spot grew wider. He made an effort to stand, but he was too weak and fell back. I bent over him.
“Who are you? What do you want? Why are you trying to kill us?”
The man grimaced from the pain. He struggled to speak.
“You must never find the Hall of Records. It is forbidden. I’ve failed, but others will find and kill you.”
Something glittered in the sun. I noticed it was coming from a necklace the man was wearing. I pulled the gold chain completely out of his shirt and stared at the gemstone. It matched my own. The man’s eyes zeroed in on me as I pulled out my necklace and compared the stones.
“How did you…?”
The man struggled to complete his question, but then he sagged and his eyes suddenly were lifeless. I stared at the man and tried to think. Too many things were happening too fast.
“You killed him!” Taylor’s voice was triumphant.
“I didn’t want to, but he didn’t really give me much choice. He would have killed both of us.”
“You saved us!” Paul’s voice was very quiet.
I looked over at him and saw him holding his glasses. Both lens were shattered.
“I know. Still, I don’t think I could have done it,” Taylor said.
She looked at me with newfound respect.
“You saved us first. Did you hear what he said?” I asked.
“Does that mean the whole Hall of Records thing is real?” Taylor asked.
“I think it does. It also means that there probably are still people out there who want to kill us and kill Dad.”
“What can we do? We can’t call and warn him,” Paul said.
“Let’s see what’s in his pockets.”
I began turning the man’s pockets inside out. I looked on the ground. There were a few coins and a couple of keys, as well as, a package of cigarettes and a box of matches. The other pocket yielded a single card. I turned over the card and gasped. It was one of Doctor Fayez’s business cards. I felt helpless.
Paul stood there quietly holding his glasses. I saw he still was in shock.
“Can you see?” I asked.
I had never seen him without his glasses.
“I’m blind as a bat. I’m so sorry!”
“Not your fault,” I said.
I looked at them and then laughed.
“One of us can’t see while another of us can’t run. I don’t have any skills at all. I can’t throw my voice like Taylor or do magic with computers like Paul. It’s like the Wizard of Oz. Each of us is missing something.”
I stuck the heavy gun in one of my vest pockets, and it weighed me down. How could she get word to Dad? Would he be safe at the Thorntons? How did this man know I would be at the dig? Was I paranoid to think everyone was out to get me? I felt myself growing angry. Why should people try to kill us? What did any of us ever do to deserve that? I also was furious that this man had forced me to kill him. I felt terrible.
Taylor broke the silence. She pointed at the body.
“What should we do with him? We can’t just leave him there.”
I realized the Egyptian authorities might not be very understanding, especially when it was an Egyptian who was dead. The fact that he might know Doctor Fayez made it even worse. After all, it was just our word that it was self-defense.
Taylor limped and followed me as I pulled the tarp off the stony wall and unrolled it on the ground near the body. I began rolling the man onto the tarp and then rolling the tarp until it completely covered his body.
“Help me lift him.”
The two joined me in picking up the tarp and we struggled as we carried it into the cave. We placed the body in the passageway that dead-ended.
“Hopefully no one will find it for quite a while,” I said.
I rubbed my hands against my jeans and stood still until my breathing returned to normal. I pulled out my handkerchief and wiped the perspiration off my face. I noticed that Taylor was doing the very same thing but with a much more expensive looking handkerchief.
Taylor looked down the passageway towards where the tarp now lay, obscured because its dark color blended into the ground.
“How long until the others come looking for us?”
I noticed that there was no car in sight. Someone had dropped off the assassin. That meant eventually someone else would come back to pick him up.
“I’m not sure. I doubt they thought he would have any trouble, so we might have some time. Let’s see if our cell phones are working. If not, we might as well do some more exploring since we’re sitting ducks just waiting in the trailer.”
We stood just outside the cave and tried our cell phones, but there still was no reception. I offered Taylor and Paul nutrition bars. Paul took a tentative bit, smiled, and then began eating it enthusiastically. Taylor hesitated and then took the bar. She tried to read the ingredients on the bar, but the sun was shining into her eyes. I found it funny for some reason.
“Be careful what you eat. It might kill you.” I said and smiled.
Taylor laughed. It did seem silly worrying about what was in a candy bar when men with guns were trying to kill us.
I looked at my cell phone. “It must be bad this time. The Government was a lot faster turning everything back on last time.”
Taylor nodded.
“Remember Mister Hargrove said this was going to be the big demonstration—the one that tries to topple the Government.” Taylor said.
“Dad would know if anyone would,” Paul said.
“Why?” I had my suspicions but wanted to hear it from Paul.
“I can’t say.”
“After what we’ve been through? We all should be dead. If you can’t trust us, who can you trust?”
Paul sighed and made a decision. “You know we’re Jewish, right?”
Taylor and I shook our heads. I suddenly remembered his reaction to anti-Semitism, and it made sense.
“Have you ever heard of the Mossad?”
It sounded vaguely familiar. “Is that like a spy or something?”
Paul nodded.
“Yeah. It’s like the Israeli Secret Service. You can’t tell anyone or his life would be in danger—especially here in Cairo.”
We both promised to keep the secret. I realized it wouldn’t do us any good to stay outside where we were sitting ducks.
“Let’s do some more exploring. This time we’ll go into the passage my father wanted to explore. At least if someone else comes to kill us, they won’t know which passage we took.”
Chapter Nine
The passageway was small enough that we had to bend deeply to enter. I aimed my flashlight down the corridor and saw the walls lined with limestone. Broken rocks littered the ground.
“Careful. We can’t have you breaking that ankle. Go around the bigger rocks.”
I helped lead Paul and directed Taylor who was struggling to follow my directions. I
knew her ankle was swollen, but she didn’t complain. This cave felt colder and damper than the Tomb of the Birds.
“Can you walk on that ankle?”
Taylor grunted a ‘yes’. She clearly struggled but didn’t want to admit it.
“Wait here. I have an idea,” I said.
I hurried out of the cave. After several minutes, I returned with a walking stick.
“Try using this. It’ll take the weight off your ankle.”
Taylor tried taking a few steps with it and then smiled.
“It doesn’t hurt as much with this,” she said.
We continued down the passageway. Then I signaled for them to stop. I took out Dad’s small notebook and focused my flashlight’s beam on it. I then took out the radar report and studied it.
“We’re now past where Henry Salt went. We’ll have to rely on the radar data now. We should come to an area that widens into an open area facing two different passageways. It looks like we need to stay to the left,” I said.
None of us said anything for several minutes as we walked down the dusty corridor. It gradually widened onto it looked like a city square with several passageways heading off in different directions. I pointed to the left. Taylor stopped when she saw something on the wall.
“Look at this. It’s written in hieroglyphics. Your Dad should be able to read it, she said.
I smiled and studied the writing. It was in standard Egyptian of the tenth dynasty. Dad would be so excited to learn that these caves were really used by the cult of Osiris.
“It’s a warning that anyone who enters and does not have Osiris’ blessings will die a horrible death and never cross the river.”
Taylor stared at me.
“You’re joking, right? You can’t really read this stuff. I thought you had to be like a Professor to read it.”
“I can read it. Dad taught me.”
I took out my small camera and snapped a picture with a flash and made a small mark on the map to indicate where I’d seen the writing. Then I signaled for everyone to continue.
“If it talks about crossing the river, didn’t your Dad say something about the River of the Dead leading to the Hall of Records?”
I was starting to get excited. Now that Paul mentioned it, I remembered Dad said that. Thank God someone listened in class. Soon we heard a roaring sound.
“Do you know what that is?” I asked.
Taylor shook her head.
“It’s running water. I think we’re near one of those rivers that you said don’t exist.”
Taylor didn’t argue. She just nodded and continued walking.
“Maybe it’s the River of the Dead,” Paul said.
We already had run into snakes and people who wanted to kill us. I wondered what else was out there.
Chapter Ten
Rocks of all sizes littered the passageway. All of us stumbled occasionally, but we didn’t speak because we were saving our energy. I pointed my flashlight down a corridor that seemed to go on forever. I couldn’t see any other hieroglyphics on the walls, but there were shelves that looked like they were once used to store things. I remembered Dad saying priests would probably used some of the passageways to store their sacred objects, as well as, any special clothing they would wear.
The roar of the water grew louder as we approached an area that widened until it became a large room. I studied the two cave openings in front of us and pointed to the left.
“I think that Salt guy is wrong. The cave on the right has a much larger entrance. We have to crawl to go into the other one,” Taylor said.
“He never got this far. I’m going by the ground radar results. Unfortunately, it’s hard to pick out individual passageways. It’s like one of those mazes you try to do with a pencil. My gut tells me it’s this one,” I said.
I photographed the entrance and then motioned for Paul and Taylor to follow me. I began crawling very much aware of the large view I offered up to them, but I realized they were too tired to say anything anyway. I was glad I’d worn long pants because the ground was so dusty that I heard Taylor sneeze when she kicked up some of it.
“I thought you said it wasn’t that dusty. It’s disgusting!”
“I was wrong. Let’s hope it gets larger and not smaller.”
“There’s something crawling all over me,” Paul said.
I shuddered when I felt a spider web brush against my face, as well as, something scuttle across my hand while I was crawling. I picked a piece of spider web off my eyebrow and felt more in my hair. I brushed another spider web off my nose.
Meanwhile I had this terrible thought. What if the spiders crawled up my legs? They’d be all over me before I could do anything about them. I felt a bit of a spider web on my ear and rubbed the ear until it too was clear.
This was the worst part of exploring—the bugs. I hated bugs. I felt something crawling on my neck and swatted at it. I continued to crawl. I suddenly realized something. If we came to a dead end, we’d have to crawl backwards to find our way out.
We continued to crawl. Occasionally one of us would complain, Taylor more often than the rest of us.
“That’s disgusting! I hate spiders! I wish we’d stayed in the trailer.”
I didn’t have much patience that kind of negativity.
“We might be dead if we stayed in the trailer.” I said.
After what seemed like forever, I sighed with relief. The hole widened until suddenly it was large enough to allow us to stand up.
I stood up and felt my strained muscles cry out in relief. I waited as Paul and Taylor entered the large open area and stood up. I pointed my flashlight in all directions. A number of cave entrances lay in front of us. We could go in several different directions. Taylor turned her flashlight on as well and panned her beam from one side to the other. She stopped when the light reached me. She stood directly behind me.
“Turn off your flashlight! We need to keep yours in reserve. I do have extra batteries if we need them, but we’ll preserve yours for now.” I said.
“Olivia!” Taylor screamed.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Your back.”
“What do you mean?
“It’s…covered with crawling white things. They look like spiders.”
I began shaking and felt like I was going to faint. It was always my worst nightmare.
“Are there many of them?”
I hoped the answer was one or two.
“Yeah. Your entire back and part of your pants are covered with them. Are they dangerous?”
“They’re deadly.” I tried to think. I had to do what Dad would do. He wouldn’t panic. My hand was shaking as I reached into my vest pocket and gingerly pulled out my knife and opened the blade. I tried to keep my movements to a minimum so that the spiders wouldn’t move. I handed the knife to Taylor who also was shaking.
“You need to flick them off me. You can use the knife to get under them. Point them in that direction, as far away from us as possible.”
“I’m not sure I can do it.” Taylor said.
“You have to! If I could see, I’d do it,” Paul said.
The disapproval in his voice roused Taylor.
I looked at Taylor and walked behind her before once again assuming my position in front of her.
“You have tons of them on you, too. You do me and then I’ll do you. Believe me, it’s going to be easier for you to do this than for me. It would be like me asking you to kill some snakes for me,” I said.
I saw Taylor fought to control her emotions. She took a couple of slow, deep breaths. Finally, she agreed. I handed my flashlight to her. Taylor pointed the flashlight at my back and slowly began trying to flick the spiders off my clothes. Paul made an effort to step on them as they hit the floor.
“Damn, I missed.” Taylor muttered to herself as she worked at the task.
I tried to breathe as softly as possible. I didn’t want the spiders to start moving, and I fought to maintain control. A
fter what seemed like forever, the knife moved lower and scraped my pants, then my pants legs.
“There. I think I got all of them. Let me shine the flashlight closer and see for sure.”
Taylor looked me over carefully and finally gave a satisfied smile.
“Okay. All done. Now you do me.”
I said a silent prayer, took the flashlight and knife, and asked Taylor to turn around. I carefully put the knife close to one spider and then moved the blade quickly and watched the spider fly off Taylor’s clothing. I repeated the process again and again. It seemed to take forever. Once I missed and thought the spider was going to fly up and land in my hair, but it didn’t. Finally, I was finished.
“We probably ought to look in each other’s hair to be safe,” I said.
Taylor didn’t have to reply. Her face registered her horror at the thought. We took a few minutes to check each other until we both were satisfied we were spider-free.
“Don’t forget me!” Paul said.
I took a deep breath and then offered to help him. At least he wore a black sweater that made it much easier to spot the white spiders. Taylor made an effort to step on them as I flicked them onto the dusty floor. When I finally was done checking him completely, including his hair, Paul offered a small smile.
“You really are amazing.”
I searched for a hint of sarcasm. When I couldn’t detect any, I felt myself blush.
“Not that amazing. Let’s move on,” I said.
We headed towards some large rocks in the middle of the area and examined their surface very carefully before sitting down. Taylor was careful to shine her flashlight below the rocks to see if anything moved.
I was soaked with perspiration. I’d never been so afraid in my entire life. I saw Taylor’s blouse also was soaked. We looked at each other and something passed between us.
“You should give me a pass now for letting Tiffany leave that note on your chair after this,” Taylor said.
“Okay. You get a pass. This is worse than any of my nightmares. I’m going to have to sleep with a light on like I did when I was three.”
“I’m the one who’s going to have nightmares. I can still see the spiders and the snake when I close my eyes,” Taylor said with a shudder.
