Then he came to her green thermos. Her chest constricted as he began to unscrew the top. She prayed he wouldn’t find the blueprint inside the secret shell. For all she knew, that blueprint contained enough information for him to find or deploy this unlimited power source he was searching for in the Shrine of the First Sun.
“You remind me of Pharaoh, Zawas,” Serena said. “You know, from the Bible.” 162
He seemed amused and put the thermos down on the table. “Then you know my authority comes from the gods themselves and you must answer to me.”
“The gods of Egypt were defeated once before,” she said. “They can be defeated again.”
“History is about to be rewritten, Doctor Serghetti. But first I must find the Shrine of the First Sun. So far, its location has eluded me. As has Doctor Yeats.
Oh, yes, he’s alive. I know this because several of my men are missing,” he said.
“He killed them, just like he’s killed so many others in Atlantis thus far in his selfish quest for the origins of human civilization. I know all about this man. He cares little for the consequences of his actions on governments, people, even the very sites he excavates. It’s a good thing I saved you and the Scepter of Osiris from him.”
Serena said nothing, because there was no defense against Zawas’s accusations. They were true.
“Unlike the reckless Doctor Yeats, however,” Zawas went on, “I appreciate and want to preserve natural beauty in all its forms, especially the feminine. I would hate to see a monster like Jamil mar you in any way.” That was a lie, she knew. “So you’re a gentleman among the barbarians.” He looked at her carefully. “I see we understand each other well. It’s not as if the Catholic Church hasn’t wrapped itself up in nobility and social mercy only to make pacts with the devil at convenient points in history.”
“Then you’re a hero, really,” she told him. “You just happen to be on the wrong side of history.”
“Exactly,” Zawas said. “Like Pharaoh during the Exodus. It was his bad luck that the eruption of the volcano at Thíra in the Mediterranean should produce the plagues you eagerly attribute to the God of Moses. There was no parting of the Red Sea. The Israelites crossed at the Sea of Reeds in only six inches of water.
But it was enough to bog down the wheels of Pharaoh’s chariots.”
“Then it was a greater miracle than I thought,” Serena said. “That all of Pharaoh’s soldiers and horses should drown in six inches of water.” Zawas was not amused by her argument, she could see, and his face grew more stern in the flashing light. “History is written by the victor,” he told her. “How 163
else can you explain Judeo-Christian exaltation of an allegedly merciful and loving God who goes around killing the firstborn of the ancient Egyptians?”
“He could have killed them all,” she said.
Zawas was put out. “So it was Pharaoh’s fault?” She tried to focus. Even in her somewhat shaky state she recognized this could be a pivotal moment in persuading Zawas. “You know that at certain points of history, everything rests on one man or one woman,” she told him. “Noah and the ark. Pharaoh and the Israelites. God offered Pharaoh the divine opportunity to be the greatest emancipator in history. But his heart was stubborn and arrogant. Now is such a time. You may be such a man.”
“Or you that woman,” he said. “Where is the Shrine of the First Sun?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Then I honestly must give you to Jamil to finish the job,” he said. “It’s out of my control now. I wash my hands clean of this.”
“Says Pontius Pilate.”
“And I thought I was Pharaoh.” He shook his head and threw up his hands. “Am I to be compared to every villain in your Scriptures? Have you ever considered the possibility that these leaders are history’s true heroes and your saints the revisionist authors of fiction?”
He was about to turn and leave when his eyes once again drifted to the coffee thermos on the table.
“Why are you still carrying around your thermos?” Serena said nothing, pretending not to hear.
But he was already untwisting the outer shell. He smelled the coffee and made a face. “I prefer tea myself.”
He emptied the coffee onto the stone floor and then tried to screw the lid back on. As he did, the blueprint fell to the floor.
Serena caught her breath.
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Zawas picked up the blueprint and let out a hearty laugh. Then he showed it to her and said, “Do you know what these schematics are?” She hung her shoulders in defeat. “The blueprint to the Scepter of Osiris.”
“No,” he told her. “This is the blueprint to the Shrine of the First Sun.” She just stared at him, head rushing with dizziness.
“Yes,” Zawas said. “Now I have three things Doctor Yeats wants. And if he won’t lead me to the Shrine of the First Sun, then you will. I’ll tell Jamil he has more work to do.”
29
Dawn Minus Two Hours
SCORPIO.SAGITTARIUS.CAPRICORN.For several hours Conrad led Yeats across the dark city, following each celestial coordinate to its terrestrial counterpart, and then moving on from one astronomically aligned monument to another. Each temple, pavilion, or landmark would in itself be the archaeological prize of the ages, but time and the buzz of choppers and searchlights overhead kept them marching forward. Finally, the heavenly treasure trail ended at the terrestrial counterpart to the constellation Aquarius, a spectacular temple dedicated to the Water Bearer.
The Sphinx-like pavilion loomed like a skull against the heavens, its silvery waterfalls glistening in the moonlight. Beyond it lurked the dark, towering peak of P4.
“That’s it,” Conrad said as he handed the nightscope to Yeats. They were crouched along the banks of the city’s largest water channel, which flowed directly from the monument. “The Temple of the Water Bearer.” Yeats took a look. “That’s not all you found. Look again.” Conrad scanned the Temple of the Water Bearer and suddenly saw lights around the base and promontory. “Zawas?”
“Looks like he’s turned it into his base camp.” Conrad lowered the nightscope. “How the hell did they know?” Yeats shrugged. “Maybe Mother Earth is helping him.” 165
“Or maybe they have some sort of map.”
“Doubtful,” Yeats said. “You said yourself that the map is in the stars.” Yeats paused. “Now you’re absolutely sure you need to get in there? Because it’s both our asses if Zawas catches us.”
Conrad nodded. “Only by standing in the right place at the right time will the Shining One pinpoint the location of the Shrine of the First Sun,” he said.
Yeats narrowed his eyes. “And where exactly are we supposed to consult this
‘Shining One’?”
Conrad hesitated to break the bad news. “I suspect it’s between the waterfalls at the Temple of the Water Bearer. In the middle of Zawas’s base.” Yeats flipped his wrist and glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. “It’s already zero four hundred hours. Almost dawn. The sun is going to be coming up. We don’t have much time.”
Conrad spent the next half hour surveying the temple from a distance while Yeats drew up a plan.
“You’ll see the promontory on the east face is about a hundred and fifty feet high,” Yeats told him. “Two narrow stairways on either side go to the base of the falls. Because of that, I doubt Zawas posts more than one guard at the bottom of each flight of steps. That and the fact he needs as many warm bodies as possible looking for the Shrine of the First Sun.” Conrad scanned the east face down the falls to the ground. Suddenly the sentries at the north end of the east face came into sharp focus. So did an inflatable attack boat moored beneath the falls. The upturned bow and stern cones told him it was a Zodiac Futura Commando, a favorite of special forces around the world.
“I see the guards,” he said. “They’ve got a Zodiac inflatable tied up.”
“Just one?”
“The others are probably patrolling the waterway
s, looking for us.”
“Let me see.” Yeats took the nightscope. “Zawas rotates his guards every three hours. At least that’s the way he used to do things during U.N. peacekeeping jobs. This shift looks about done by the body language.” Yeats handed the 166
nightscope back to Conrad. “So we simply relieve the present shift a few minutes early. Then, after I make sure you’re covered, we split.”
“And just how do we do that?”
Yeats flicked on an old cigarette lighter to illuminate the drawing he had made in the dark.
“You find this so-called Shining One who’s going to lead us to the Shrine of the First Sun,” Yeats said, tracing a line toward the promontory with his finger. “I’ll go to the summit where Zawas keeps his choppers and secure one for the getaway. You’ll have six minutes to get from the promontory to the summit.
Then we fly away.”
“Just like that?” Conrad said.
“Just like that,” Yeats said. “I’ll rig the other choppers to blow so Zawas can’t tail us in the air. It will buy us the time we need to beat him to the shrine.” Conrad stared at the lighter Yeats was using to illuminate his drawing. It was an old Zippo with a NASA emblem and an engraving to Yeats from Captain Rick Conrad, one of the crew who died in Antarctica in 1969 and the man Conrad was told was his biological father. That was back in the days when astronauts smoked. He had often snuck into Yeats’s study to play with it. Once he almost burned down the house. He had hoped Yeats would finally figure out how badly he wanted something of his father’s and just give the damn thing to him. But Yeats never did.
“I thought you quit smoking.”
“I never quit anything in my life, son.” Yeats flicked off the lighter and gave it to Conrad.
Surprised, Conrad felt the old, familiar weight of the Zippo in his hand for a moment and then flicked it on and off.
“What about Serena?” Conrad asked. “What about the obelisk?”
“If Zawas finds either one missing before you find the location of the Shrine of the First Sun, he’ll be on to us and our mission is over,” Yeats said. “And after we take off without the obelisk or the sister, he’ll figure we failed. By the time he figures out we got what we really wanted, we’ll already be inside the Shrine of the First Sun, have taken what we needed, and set a trap for him. Zawas will then bring us both the obelisk and Serena.”
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“If he doesn’t kill her first.”
“Will you listen to me for once,” Yeats said angrily. “She’s the one who’s going to lead him to us. Trust me, Zawas is counting on her. He’s not going to kill her until she’s lost her usefulness.”
“That’s reassuring.” Conrad offered the lighter back to Yeats, but to his amazement Yeats refused. “Let’s go.”
There were lights up above, the roar of churning water drifting from the falls all around. As he turned the final corner, Conrad could see the black cutout of a sentry at the base of the steps, and beyond him the Zodiac attack boat bobbing in the water. The Egyptian was smoking a cigarette. Conrad was about to step forward when his boot scraped the stone.
The sentry spun around. “Yasser?”
Conrad nodded and tapped his watch.
The sentry spat out a rebuke in Arabic and turned and left.
Conrad watched him march up the steps and took a quick look around. It would only be a few minutes before the sentry went back and found the real Yasser.
Satisfied nobody was near, Conrad ascended the stone steps to the promontory.
The steps were narrow and water-slicked from the falls, but he reached the top quickly. Stepping onto the promontory, Conrad looked across to see another figure walk toward him.
“Yeats, is that you?” he whispered into his radio.
“I’m making a circle with my hand,” Yeats said.
Conrad could barely hear him over the roar of the falls. But he could see the figure on the other side making a circle. “OK,” Conrad said.
“Get to work,” Yeats said. “And no matter what happens, stick to the plan and rendezvous in six minutes.” Then he disappeared into the darkness.
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Conrad walked up to the edge of the promontory between the falls and positioned himself. The tremendous vibrations of the falls rumbled beneath his feet, and he had to steady himself.
He gazed out and found what he was looking for. There, in the predawn of the spring equinox, the constellation of Aquarius was rising in the east. It was a perfect lock with the monument he was standing on. The Water Bearer on earth was staring at the Water Bearer in heaven. And the predawn sun—the Shining One—marked the spot.
He quickly pulled out the digital surveyor Yeats had packed for him and made his calculations. From what he could make out, the Shrine of the First Sun was buried ninety degrees to the south. That placed the X directly under the river, at a depth he guessed to be about a thousand feet. He scanned the horizon with his digital camera to mark it.
Conrad looked again at the skies. The first stain of dawn was glimmering. Soon Aquarius would be fully risen, a water bearer in the sky with its jar resting on the horizon. At the same moment, the sun—marking the vernal point—would lie somewhere beneath the last star pouring out from the jar.
Conrad glanced at his watch. It was almost 5A.M. He had to move quickly, he thought, when he turned to see an Egyptian emerge from the temple and walk toward him.
“Why aren’t you at your post, Yasser?” he barked.
“Why aren’t you at yours?” Conrad grumbled back in passable Arabic. His Arabic was a jumble of odds and ends he had picked up over the years.
The man calmed down. “Taking a break,” he said, or at least that’s what Conrad thought he said. “These nuns, they do not break easily. They are trained to be martyrs. I have to be careful where I hurt this one. She can still be of use to me after she’s dead.”
Conrad noticed something in his hand. It was a fistful of hair. Serena’s hair.
Conrad wanted to kill him then and there and rescue Serena. But he knew he couldn’t let the soldier see his face. So he simply laughed at his sick joke and turned around and looked ahead over the falls. Then he felt the barrel of an AK-47 digging into his back.
“So you’ve found the shrine, Doctor Yeats?”
He turned to him and looked into his smoldering eyes.
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He smiled in triumph. “No need for the nun now,” he said. “Where is it?”
“Over there,” Conrad said, playing along. “See the constellation of Aquarius?” He pointed with his left hand and the soldier couldn’t help but follow. In that instant Conrad’s right hand swept across his neck with the bone-handled knife he had lifted from the Russian back at P4 and had held in his sleeve. The blade left a thin red line.
He tried to call out but could only gurgle in shock as he staggered back over the promontory edge and disappeared into darkness. Conrad watched the body take two bounces off the monument and splash into the river.
Conrad turned to find the steps leading to the upper promontory and the flight deck, where he was supposed to rendezvous with Yeats. But then another Egyptian emerged from inside the temple and started walking toward him, and Conrad froze. The way the man carried himself told Conrad it was Colonel Zawas. And this time, he knew, there would be no escape.
30
Dawn Minus One Hour
IT WAS A FEW MINUTESpast five in the morning when Zawas stepped out of his chambers to have a smoke on the promontory and take another look at the blueprints of the Shrine of the First Sun he had obtained from Serena. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he only needed to know where to look.
Sucking on his unlit Havana under the stars, he noticed the skies were lightening. Soon the sun would be up and his window of opportunity to find the Shrine of the First Sun gone. He then saw one of his guards—it looked like Yasser—by one of the falls and walked over. Yasser stiffened to attention in the dim light as he approached.
&
nbsp; “At ease, lieutenant,” Zawas said, and Yasser relaxed. “We don’t see a sunrise like that often, do we?”
Yasser grumbled something that Zawas took to be a no. He realized most of his men were showing the effects of exhaustion and stress.
Zawas sighed and patted his pockets in search of some matches when Yasser’s hand came up with an old-fashioned Zippo lighter. Zawas touched the tip of his Cuban cigar to the flame and inhaled. It felt wonderful.
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“Carry on,” Zawas said and walked back to his command quarters.
Halfway back, however, he realized there was something familiar about his hand-rolled cigar. No, it wasn’t the cigar. It was the old silver Zippo lighter Yasser flashed. It was just like the one his grandfather had. Only Zawas wasn’t aware of Yasser or any of his other men possessing such an artifact. He would have to ask Yasser where he found it.
But when Zawas turned to find Yasser, the guard was missing from his post.
Zawas swore softly to himself and walked back to the promontory. Peering over the ledge down the falls, he could see nothing. It was as if Yasser had disappeared into thin air. Could he have actually fallen? Yasser was no such fool.
Zawas grabbed his radio from his belt. “Jamil!” he barked. “Round up your men.
Conrad is here!”
But Jamil wasn’t answering.
“Jamil,” Zawas repeated when he heard a blast behind him.
Debris rained down, and Zawas looked up to see flashes of light from the top of the step-pyramid. Suddenly the flaming shell of a Z-9A chopper came tumbling down the east face, steel scraping against stone in an ear-splitting scream.
Zawas dove back inside as it crashed onto the promontory and exploded in a ball of fire.
“The scepter!” he cursed.
He ran inside to the chamber where the obelisk was kept under guard. But the two guards were on the floor, dead, and the scepter was gone.
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