by Nick Thacker
Vilocek paused in front of the opening leading to the Descending Passage of the Great Pyramid of Giza. He took out his phone and dialed Madu’s number.
CHAPTER 19
8:07 PM - OUTSIDE OF Cairo, Egypt.
Whittenfield’s plane landed at the Cairo International Airport barely an hour before the fight at the pyramid. They were making exceptional time, and Whittenfield was pleased. He had never met Vilocek, but if his fathers’ journals and the current media opinion were even moderately accurate, Whittenfield felt he knew him enough. Dr. Tanning Vilocek was known to be aggressive, confident, and egotistical, as well as charming and disarming at the same time. Newspapers, magazine articles, and websites proclaimed him as the “new face of popular science,” for his extensive pharmaceutical and bioengineering work around the world. The man attracted more reporters and gossip columnists than most celebrities. He was undeniably intelligent — possibly even a genius — and there was no doubt his business sense matched his expertise in research and science. Still, Whittenfield had always had a bad taste in his mouth regarding the man — despite all the public praise and media fawning, there was always something sinister about Vilocek, just beneath the surface.
Whittenfield didn’t need anyone to remind him of the disgrace Vilocek had caused his father — and he didn’t need to be reminded that this same man, long loved by American culture, had orchestrated a break-in at his company, stolen precious documents, and apparently had two people held in captivity. Now, Whittenfield was tantalizingly close to discovering what this was all about, and with any luck, equally close to snatching his father’s most prized possession out of the grasp of his arch rival. He had to recover the stone, and he had to prevent Vilocek from cashing in on its potential power.
Not to mention that finding the stone and eliminating Vilocek would provide an unbelievable boost to Whittenfield Research.
He turned to his computer and pressed a button next to the display. A satellite-fed image flickered a few times and a grainy black-and-white silhouette of a triangular-shaped structure appeared on the screen. The image was extremely shaky, evidence that the low-resolution video was being captured by a helmet-mounted camera, except in this case the camera was mounted onto a shoulder pad of Bryce’s body armor. Bryce’s team was bouncing over the road leading into the heart of the Giza necropolis in a rented Jeep, and the resulting video feed was less than ideal.
As he tried to focus on the feed without getting seasick, Bryce’s voice crackled over the speakers. “Time to target, under 2 minutes. Nothing unusual, no personnel in view. Stand by for arrival.”
The camera panned left, toward the driver’s seat, where Sean Bartlinski sat. Sean was guiding the Jeep around the larger potholes on the road toward the tourist station outside the Great Pyramid, followed by the Thompson brothers and Cole Reed in another Jeep directly behind. As Bryce turned right to left in the passenger seat to offer the camera an unobstructed panorama of the scene, Whittenfield could see the old village of Nazlet el-Samman situated to the east of the pyramids. Behind the main pyramid, the rest of the landscape was dotted with buildings ranging from the ancient structures of the Egyptian builders to modern security and communications huts. Two other looming figures on the plain mirrored the shape of their larger sister and were situated directly south of the Pyramid of Khafre and the Pyramid of Menkaure. Each had been built for a different Pharaoh who had reigned over the Egyptian dynasty. Each was a spectacular achievement of engineering, and Whittenfield knew that the grainy image in the failing light of dusk didn’t do the complex justice.
He would have given almost anything to be there with the team and see the sight for himself, but he knew the risk was too great. If Bryce’s team couldn’t retrieve the stone, or if they were eliminated by Vilocek’s group, Whittenfield would find another opportunity to take it from Vilocek. Plus, at his age, Whittenfield knew he wasn’t quite suited for a chase through the small crawlspaces of the pyramid’s internal passageways. He was only ten years older than Vilocek, but the younger man moved and acted as though he was no older than twenty. It was fascinating what the human body could achieve when habitually trained and optimized. An optimization no doubt enhanced by not a few pharmaceutical remedies that Vilocorp hadn’t yet released to the general public.
The Jeep pulled through the abandoned ticket station. Around a bend in the road ahead, Bryce thought he saw a stream of rising smoke emanating from somewhere out of sight.
“Boss, you see that smoke?” Gary McGowan asked Bryce from the back seat. “Looks like they took the easy way in.”
“Yeah,” Bryce said, “but I can’t see where it’s coming from — Bartlinski, pull over here and we’ll walk the rest of the way in. If they’re waiting for us, we don’t want to let ‘em know we’re here.” He clicked a button on his headset. “We’re going quiet, Whittenfield, but we’ll keep the feed on.”
“Roger that, Bryce. Be careful,” Whittenfield replied. He heard the click of the microphone, and the video feed lost its sound. He leaned toward the screen, trying to capture as much of the mission as possible.
The teams dismounted from the Jeeps and Sean and Wayne parked them near a small rock outcropping, hidden from view on two sides. They didn’t want anyone stumbling upon their vehicles — assuming the smoke hadn’t already been seen by a local.
As they approached the pyramid on foot, the smell of fried electronic components stung their noses, and they saw some charred earth — sand that had been blasted into glass, and twisted metal from what could only have been an entrance gate. Next they found the open hole in the fence leading toward the main visitors’ entrance, as well as several bodies strewn about. Beyond that, Bryce thought he saw —
“God, what is that?” Bartlinski whispered. His eyes were glued to the area in front of the pyramid, a few hundred paces ahead. Wayne and Jeff ignored him and focused on the perimeter, taking up flanking positions.
“They look… frozen,” Cole offered, stunned as well.
A cluster of men, all dressed similarly, stood in an unmoving half-circle facing the gate. As Bryce and the team cautiously entered, they could make out a faint cloud of air encompassing the group. Something in Cole’s mind clicked. Frantically looking around, he spotted something to his right and ran over to it. “Here it is,” he muttered.
“What? What is it?” Bryce called, his weapon still trained on the catatonic group to his front.
“They’re under some sort of trance — like, frozen or something. The same thing happened to me — I was running away from those guys back in New Mexico, and they shot me — with this, I guess — and I couldn’t move. It’s like temporary paralysis or something like that. Completely harmless afterwards.”
Cole was standing next to an assault rifle, mounted on a folding tripod, with the trigger pulled and wired. An almost invisible line reached straight through the air and stopped at the strangely motionless group of men. Bryce walked toward them.
His pace quickened as he got closer to the guards, all frozen with their eyes open. He wondered if they could see him as well — it was like they were made of wax, uncannily lifelike figures cast with glass eyes. He approached the first man in the line, but took care to stay clear of the translucent line emanating from the rifle. He squinted, his eyes drawn to something just below the man’s chin.
“Cole,” he said, “don’t touch that rif — “ but he was too late.
Cole had already disengaged the wire around the trigger, and released it before Bryce finished speaking. Immediately, the stream of air vanished, and the cloud surrounding the guards dissolved.
Bryce jumped back. Eyes wide, he watched as the men were released from their invisible bonds and began moving.
He suddenly realized what he’d seen on the first man’s neck.
A thin red line.
Blood.
He watched as the men simultaneously woke from their paralysis, realized their predicament and struggled to stop the inevitable.
Some grabbed at their necks, the blood now flowing forcefully through their fingers.
Some of them dropped to their knees, either too weak to fight or resigned their fate.
One by one or in pairs, they all dropped to the ground, until one man remained standing.
About forty, his eyes were dark and set deep into his face. He looked toward Bryce, and opened his mouth to speak. Then he grimaced and suddenly clutched his side. Blood began to ooze from multiple bullet wounds, staining the shirt beneath his hands, as if he’d been shot no more than a second ago. The man tensed, then suddenly started convulsing as he, too, collapsed.
He caught him as he fell, Bryce cradling his head in the crook of his arm. Groaning in agony, the man fixed on Bryce with his intense eyes. Bryce knew he couldn’t help the man.
To his surprise, the man muttered in English, “they enter,” and raised an arm slowly and pointed to the entrance to the pyramid. His energy gone, he closed his eyes and died.
By now the rest of the team, except for the Thompsons, who were still warily guarding their flanks, had gathered behind Bryce. Even for Sean and Gary, accustomed to the tolls of battle, this scene was appalling and frightening.
Bryce tried to piece it all together.
The blasted gate.
Sixteen guards brutally murdered and frozen in place at the instant of death.
He wasn’t sure what exactly had happened here, but he knew it would have to wait. For now, they had to get inside the pyramid, find the Lower Room, get the stone, and escape from Vilocek’s men.
“We’ve got company,“ Wayne announced suddenly. “Heading in from the northwest; looks like government,” At the head of a growing dust cloud, six vehicles were bearing down on the pyramid. The first three were unmarked, jet black SUVs, followed by two troop transport vehicles, and finally a Humvee with an Egyptian flag flying from its antenna.
“All right, everybody move out,” Bryce ordered. “Let’s get in and out ASAP. I don’t know who called the federales, but I don’t want them to think we crashed their monument and wiped out their security.” He took off toward the pyramid at a run.
CHAPTER 20
7:42 PM - GIZA, EGYPT
Vilocek’s team was making good time through the pyramid’s inner sanctums. Vilocek crawled ahead down the Descending Passage and through the antechamber outside of the Lower Room. He knew this pyramid had been scoured and studied, and he knew from his research that there were only two paths through the pyramid system — up or down.
As Professor Jensen had confirmed, any uncharted passageways or secret chambers would most likely be hidden down below the pyramid itself, inside or near the Lower Room — Professor Jensen argued that since most archeologists and Egyptologists felt that this subterranean section was unfinished, their best shot for finding any clues would begin there.
Besides, Vilocek had it on good authority that there was something more to be said about the Lower Room. Even though he hadn’t found any reference to it in Whittenfield Sr.’s journals, he had seen the layout map of Washington, D.C. On it, at the bottom of the Potomac River, exactly where his father had told him the original crystal stone was found, was exactly where the Lower Room of the Pyramid of Giza had been superimposed.
The Founding Fathers were wise enough to hide the stone in a location that was protected, unknown, and unlikely to be undisturbed. They had the foresight to place it in a spot that referred to its original hiding place, the Lower Room of the Pyramid. They mentioned nothing of the stone in their writings. Only a wise few would one day be able to see the similarities between the interior of the Great Pyramid and Washington, D.C. — and determine the location of the stone.
Thankfully, Vilocek hadn’t needed to waste his own time hunting down the rock — it was given to him by his own father, who had done much of the legwork with Whittenfield Sr. Now, almost 30 years later, Vilocek was going to find the source of the mysterious crystal and claim it for himself. It was only a matter of time.
Vilocek hesitated for a moment at the threshold of the Lower Room. The magnitude of the crystal’s potential came on him like a flood — the idea that he was so close to finally finding it made him hesitate with near-reverence.
But only for a moment. The promise of the crystal’s scientific value and immense power got the best of Vilocek’s greed. He entered the room, eager to make the groundbreaking discovery he knew was to be found here. The rest of the team followed him in, dispersing around the small room. No one bothered to look in the well in the center except Corinne.
“What’s this?” she asked, to no one in particular. Corinne could see that the inside of the shaft had been filled with rocks and dusty debris, about eight feet from the top.
“It’s a shaft,” her uncle answered. “No one knows its true purpose, but since it’s been filled in almost to the top, many people believe that it may have been the original burial tomb, meant for Pharaoh Khufu.”
“But isn’t there already a King’s Chamber up above us somewhere?” she wondered aloud.
“Yes — he is believed to have been buried in the King’s Chamber, but no one ever found his remains. The Lower Chamber is commonly used as the burial chamber in Egyptian pyramids, and that’s what makes this one special. For whatever reason, not only was this room not used as a crypt, but it wasn’t even finished. You see that the south hallway doesn’t go too far before there’s a dead end — why would the Egyptians build a hallway that just ends?”
As Corinne listened, they both walked the length of the south hallway. Reaching the end, she noticed that it didn’t look like the builders had simply stopped work in mid-stream; the passage seemed intentionally designed just as it was.
“It’s perfectly finished — carved and everything! There’s no room to even slide a credit card through the cracks in the stones, much less a finger or hand.”
“I know,” Jensen said. “It truly is something. The craftsmanship and placement of the individual stones here rival that of the rooms and passageways that are considered ‘complete.’ Obviously the work here was not abandoned — it seems purposeful; intentionally built this way.”
Vilocek was beginning to look a little worked up — apparently his five minutes of searching the chamber’s already-excavated areas was long enough for him. He called out to the pair at the end of the hall. “Did you two find anything over there, or is this place a waste of my time?”
Jensen shook his head, resigned. “There doesn’t seem to be anything here, Dr. Vilocek.”
Vilocek let out an exasperated sigh. His normally impeccably-moussed hair had become disheveled, and he looked fatigued. Clearly he had lost sleep in anticipation of what he might find down here. What secrets and powers would the crystal hold, and what possible cures and healing properties would it provide? Jensen found himself intrigued by the opportunity to make such a discovery — most of his own career had been spent behind a desk performing dry research on well-traveled subjects.
“Come on, then,” Vilocek snapped. “Let’s get the hell out of here. We need to figure out what this D.C. map means, since it clearly wasn’t telling us to come to the Lower — “ Vilocek cut himself off as his eyes fell on the wall next to Corinne. “What’s that?”
Their eyes followed his. On the wall at Corinne’s side, about three feet off the floor, was a square, outlined in bluish light on one of the blocks of stone. The stone itself was smaller than the surrounding stones, like afterthought or filler of some sort. As Vilocek drew nearer, the blue glow seemed to intensify. As he faced the stone, the blue lines went from a throbbing, pulsating glow, not unlike a neon sign viewed at close range, to solid, constant lines of light, as if they had warmed up and were now fully “on.”
“Amazing,” Vilocek whispered. “What did you do?” he asked, looking sharply at Jensen.
“N — nothing,” Jensen stammered.
“Well, something must have caused the stone to light up like that, “ Vilocek said. “Everyone, lights off. Let’s se
e if there’s anything else in this pyramid we’re missing.”
All throughout the Lower Room and hallway, the men’s lights flicked off. All at once, they were bathed in heavy darkness — even after their eyes adjusted to the pitch black, the glowing blue square didn’t light much beyond the immediate area.
“Dr. Vilocek,” Corinne said, “look at your pocket!”
From inside one of Vilocek’s pants pockets a blue hue of light was shining through the fabric like a fading star. He reached in and withdrew the object.
Opening his palm, he revealed a positively beautiful, spherical crystal.
“It’s the synthetic crystal,” Karn said.
Dr. Vilocek held the ball close the square stone at the end of the hallway, and immediately the lines around the block glowed a bit brighter. Then, dead in the center of the block’s face, a strange symbol appeared:
“It looks like hieroglyphics!” Beka said in amazement.
“Could be,” Vilocek said. “But we don’t have time to figure it out. There’s got to be a way to…” His voice trailed off as he tentatively brushed the symbol with the hand holding the crystal. Suddenly the ground below them gently shook.
“Do you feel that?” Corinne whispered.
Jensen nodded, barely noticeable in the gloom. “I think it’s some sort of door. It’s moving.”
The small stone block had begun to slide backwards into the wall. It moved slowly and steadily for about three feet, stopped for a split second, and then moved straight upward, into a hidden space behind the wall.
The scraping of the small block continued for a few moments before stopping completely. From somewhere deep beneath the pyramid, the grinding and gentle shaking also eased and stopped. Karn and Beka flipped on their lights. The moving block had left behind a hole in the wall the size of a small crate.
Just large enough to crawl into, Vilocek knew immediately that it was a passageway to a yet undiscovered section of the pyramid. The synthetic crystal had somehow activated the mechanism — he was glad he’d had the sense to bring it along. The trip was going off without a hitch so far, and with a bit of luck they’d be able to find the original crystal here and be out of this God-forsaken country before morning. He grunted with satisfaction, and headed into the new tunnel.
