Chapter 2
“Uncle Winston, wait! Please, Uncle Winston!”
Winston froze with his hand on the flap of his tent as Alex rushed across the dunes toward him. Lord, what could it be now? Couldn’t he just be left alone? He’d told Alex not to bring that woman here. The desert was no place for a woman, especially a pregnant woman. In the night she had unexpectedly gone into labor, and it seemed she would not be able to deliver the child without complications, and civilization lay days away. It would serve the young fool right if he lost both the woman and the child. Ah . . . but that was a little too harsh, wasn’t it? Just the same, the lazy shit deserved what he got. He’d been warned. But Alex listened about as well as he worked. That was the crux of it. The man would never be a true archaeologist. He hadn’t the discipline or the stamina for such endeavors.
Alex’s father, Lord Charles Whitehead—Smith’s brother-in-law—had far too much money, and to young Alex, archaeology was a game, a romantic notion, nothing more. He had never understood the realities. Archeology was work, dedication, commitment, all things a spoiled child such as Alex could never hope to grasp. But Winston, had made a bargain with the devil, and now he was mightily sorry for all of it. He wished he could take it all back and wash his hands of the entire affair.
And the woman, a French tart. Daughter of an ambassador, but a tart nevertheless. Alex had met her in Morocco and they’d begun rutting like a pair of deer. She’d followed him to Cairo where Alex had deposited her until three weeks ago when he’d decided all on his own to return to Cairo and bring her back here with him. The bloody fool. It seemed this newfound plaything had addled young Alex’s brain. And to make matters worse the idiot had tried to hide the pregnancy. And now the woman was about to give birth, and good lord in heaven, Alex was being a bloody spoiled shit about it.
But Winston couldn’t, wouldn’t be bothered now. He was on the verge of a great discovery and there was so much yet to be done. He needed time to get his thoughts in order, a few precious moments of reprieve alone to savor his discovery.
Ah, but it was not to be. Alex intercepted him before he could duck into his tent, and the damned fool looked even more stricken than he had earlier.
“What is it now, Alex?”
“She is getting worse,” Alex cried, breathless from his jaunt across the dunes. “Anwar says we will lose her if something isn’t done soon.”
Smith glared at his nephew. Alex the handsome one. Tall, thin, strong jaw chiseled to a sharp edge, dark brown hair, grown long from months in the wilderness, curled into tiny ringlets, almost covering his ears, thin Douglas Fairbanks-mustache. But the fool whined incessantly and Winston had no tolerance for whiners. Winston raised an amused eyebrow. “Is Anwar the expert?”
“It does not take an expert to see her condition, Uncle Winston. She is in urgent need of medical attention.”
“What would you have me do, Alex? I am not a doctor.”
“Well, for the love of God,” Alex cried, glaring savagely at his uncle. “You must do something. You are certainly more qualified than anyone in camp.”
Winston reddened, the color beginning at the neck and leaching northward, spreading across his tanned, weather-worn visage like a wine-stain. His black eyes were deep-set lumps of jet. He did not say a word. Alex knew the expression only too well, and the young man’s anger seemed to collapse from his own face all at once.
“I cannot bear the thought of losing her, Uncle Winston,” he pleaded. “I love her.”
Winston gave a short laugh. “You should have thought of that before you brought her here. And what do you know of love anyway, my dear boy? The only thing you have ever loved is your family’s money and your romantic notions. Camille is just another plaything to you.”
Alex’s eyes turned glacial. “No!” he cried, his voice thin and strained. “You are wrong. You have never been more wrong. If you will do nothing then I will take her to Cairo myself.”
Winston’s eyes narrowed with skepticism. “In her condition? If you do you’re a fool. Cairo is nearly three hundred kilometers north of here. She will never last the trip!”
“I will bloody try!”
“As you wish,” Winston said, dismissing Alex with a shrug. “But if you go, you go alone. I need every able-bodied man here to finish digging out the site.”
“I will need a driver and several armed men,” Alex said.
“You cannot have them. If you go, you go alone.”
“Have you forgotten, Uncle Winston? The desert is crawling with Nazis?”
Winston seethed. “No, I have not forgotten! Have you forgotten that the few armed men we have here were hired to guard the site? They were not hired to go traipsing off into the desert because you used poor judgment. You deceived me, and as you are well aware, I am not very happy about it.”
“Yes, you’ve made your feelings quite clear, Uncle Winston. Now I need you to show some compassion.”
“Compassion?” Winston railed. If you think taking that woman to Cairo in her condition demonstrates compassion then you are deluding yourself. Trust me when I say she has a better chance of staying alive here than out in the open desert. Good God, will you come to your senses?” Winston’s eyes drew down on his nephew. “Alex, my dear boy, do you know what will happen if Nazis discover this dig? They are murderers and plunderers. They would kill us all for what we have discovered here.”
“As far as I know, Uncle Winston, nothing but a few minor artifacts and a tomb door has yet been discovered.”
Winston sighed. “Oh, Alex, you are such a bloody little fool. You think that door leads to nowhere?”
“I don’t care. I’m taking Camille to Cairo whether you like it or not.”
“Do as you must. Just go away and leave me the hell alone.”
“You selfish old bastard,” Alex said, stepping between Winston and the door of his tent. “Have you forgotten who financed this expedition?”
“No, I have not forgotten! But evidently there are things you have forgotten. First, the invitation to come along with me on this jaunt was for you and your manservant only. If you remember correctly, that was the bargain. Nothing was ever discussed about bringing a woman here. And you lied to me about the pregnancy. That does not show good judgment. Second, I am the leader of this expedition. That was our agreement, if you remember correctly, and I will not hear another word about it.”
Alex said, “You accuse me of being selfish when the only thing you care about is your bloody tomb.”
Winston’s black, deep-set eyes drilled into Alex. “You’re not selfish, Alex, you’ve proven that. But you are lazy, and spoiled.” He leaned menacingly toward the younger man and tapped him roughly on the chest with a gnarled and sun-baked index finger. Alex stumbled back a step. “The tomb is why we are here, is it not? I thought those were the things you cared about as well, or I would never have taken your money, and I certainly would never have agreed to bring you along. Now get the hell out of my way before I call someone to remove you!”
“Master Whitehead, Master Whitehead, please, the child! The child is coming. Please, come quickly.” Winston and Alex looked up. A laborer ran toward them flailing his arms, shrieking, the full-length dishdasha robe that he wore swirling around his legs. “Please, you must come at once.”
“Go then,” Winston said. “Tend to your concubine. Leave me to my work.”
“If you were not my mother’s brother I would kill you here and now,” Alex said bitterly.
Winston’s small black eyes sharpened with controlled fury. “You would kill me, young Alex? After all I’ve done for you? I think not. This expedition was your idea, remember? And you alone chose to retrieve that woman from the relative safety of Cairo and bring her here without my knowledge or consent. You should have kept on going all the way back to London, set up residence near your family’s money and stopped deluding yourself with romantic notions of high adventure. Now go, tend to your affairs and leave me to mine.” He dismissed
Alex with a casual wave of his hand and ducked into his tent.
Alex stood for a long moment glaring at the entrance to his uncle’s tent, and then he turned abruptly and trudged off through the sand toward the encampment, the worker following close on his heels, chattering like a magpie.
Chapter 3
Inside the tent Winston pulled out his journal. Hastily he scribbled down what he remembered of the door’s inscription and the enigmas that it posed. He found that his hands were shaking very badly, and his heart had begun thudding sluggishly again. He set his pen down and breathed deeply trying to calm himself.
Joseph had been right about one thing. It was not common for pharaohs to inscribe warnings on the doors of tombs. It was not common for New Kingdom Pharaohs to be buried in Old Kingdom tombs. So much mystery, so many questions, so much yet to be resolved. But curses? Rubbish. The truth was, Akhenaten had been an uncommon king and the inscriptions were testimony to the uncommonness that had marked his New Kingdom reign. This was all there was to it, nothing more. Still, Smith felt a slight shimmer of disquiet at the scale and the suddenness of the discovery. He remembered the vividness of his dream on the night Alex had come to him with his offer to finance the expedition and he wondered if there was something other than chance at work here.
He picked up his pen and wrote down the words The Immortal Breath of Life feeling uneasy as to why Akhenaten would call himself such a name. The Immortal Breath of Life. What did it mean? This was something completely new in the annals of Egyptology. The very idea both puzzled and intrigued him. But an idea was forming in his mind. He knew that he would need to get inside the tomb to be sure.
He was still writing his notes when he heard the enchanting musical tone of Joseph Kumara’s voice speaking from outside the tent. “May I enter, Master Winston?”
“Of course, Joseph. Do come in.”
Joseph entered and settled himself uneasily in the chair across the table from where Winston had been writing in his journal, his large eyes glistening like two brown jewels.
Winston stared at his assistant. “What’s on your mind, Joseph?”
“First, I have done as you asked and put the men to work digging out the entrance. It should take only a few hours.”
“Thank you Joseph.” Smith waited.
Joseph cleared his throat.
“Get on with it, Joseph.”
“I ran into Alex on the way over here. He is very much upset about Camille and the child.”
“I know he is, Joseph, but I cannot help him. I am not a doctor and it is far too late to be thinking about traveling to Cairo. He should have thought of that before bringing her here. This is no place for a woman under the best of circumstances. He and Anwar will just have to deal with it on their own.”
“But he did not know that she would come to term in her seventh month.”
“These things are never known, Joseph. He should have used common sense and left her in Cairo where she belonged. He is a bloody fool.”
Joseph nodded and was silent for a long contemplative moment. Winston saw the conflict in the man’s facial expression. “What is it, Joseph? Would you please get to the point?”
Joseph cleared his throat nervously, and after another long moment of hesitation he said, “What made you choose this site, Master Winston? I mean, why this place instead of the Valley of the Kings? This place is nearly one hundred kilometers south of the ancient city of Thebes in a place where pharaohs have never before been discovered.”
Winston glared at his assistant. “It is widely believed that every king’s tomb except for Tutankhamen’s was plundered long before the end of the eighteenth dynasty,” he explained. “And the only reason he wasn’t found until recently was his cleverness. Tutankhamen was smart enough to have his body placed in a different location than his funeral shrine. As you know, in the old tradition it was customary to place the mastaba directly above the burial chamber, as with the tomb we found today. This proved to be a disastrous strategy for almost every Egyptian king.”
“Then why did Akhenaten do it?”
“Don’t have a bloody clue, Joseph. Perhaps he felt safe because of the isolated location.”
“Yet we do not actually know that Akhenaten is entombed beneath the mastaba, do we?”
“No, Joseph, we don’t.”
“Which brings me back to my initial question.”
Winston frowned. “Which was?”
“Why did you choose this site specifically?”
Winston’s eyes narrowed. “There are no pharaohs left in the Valley of the Kings, Joseph. It’s as simple as that. Anyone still digging there is a bloody fool. I had to find someplace else to look.”
“But why this particular place, master. You have never explained this to me.”
Winston gazed long and hard at Joseph and not for the first time he was amazed at the young man’s sense of intuition. Joseph was indeed a remarkable young man. “I didn’t think I owed you an explanation, Joseph.”
“You don’t, Master Winston. I am sorry I pressed you.” Joseph rose to leave.
“No, wait, Joseph, please, sit back down. I’ll tell you.”
Joseph settled himself uneasily back in the chair and waited. The troubled expression on Winston’s face told him that something very grave was about to be spoken.
Winston was silent for a long moment gathering his thoughts. Finally he said, “Joseph, the truth is, it came to me in a dream.”
“A dream, Master Winston?”
“That is correct, Joseph. A bloody dream. On the night Alex came to my house back in London with his proposition I dreamed about this place, this day, this very moment, in fact. The dream was so real . . . I . . . I just can’t describe it. In any event, it led me directly here and it will soon lead me to one of the greatest discoveries of all time. Suffice it to say, I can’t explain further. I don’t understand it any more than you do.”
“Yet you are sure that you will discover a great treasure?”
“As sure as I’ve ever been about anything.”
“Something in the dream told you this?”
“Correct, but it was different somehow than an ordinary dream. It was as though it had already happened and I was reliving it as a memory, perhaps even as some past historical event. It was just too real not to act upon.”
“So if that is true, master, then you must surely know the outcome of the dream.”
Winston cleared his throat, his small black eyes staring at his loyal assistant. Suddenly he smiled disarmingly. “Yes, Joseph, I do know the outcome of the dream. I will find a great treasure.”
There was a long silence while the two men just stared at each other. Joseph knew Winston well enough to know that he had only given him part of the story. He also knew that pressing Winston further would be futile. “All of this makes me very afraid, master.”
“You’re just spooked because of what’s written on the tomb door, aren’t you?”
“Yes, very much—as you say—spooked, Master Winston. But it is more than that. There is a very bad feeling about this place. Akhenaten, the Immortal Breath of Life! What does it mean? There is nothing in any of the archives about this.”
“You are right, Joseph, there isn’t. But I believe it makes sublime sense. The very name Akhenaten means, ‘Living spirit of Aten’. As you know, his given name was Amenhotep IV. He was considered a heretic in his time because he believed in only one god, Aten, the sun disk. In so doing, he, for the first time, split Egypt religiously and politically. He single-handedly upended a civilization that had not changed for some five-thousand years. It was a monumental feat. Some said he was a fanatical lunatic, to some he came across as a strange, eccentric young man whose behavior was strongly influenced by his mother, to others he was a Christ-like visionary—he was a friend to Moses, you know—and to still others he was simply someone who happened to be at the right place at the right time and who really had nothing to do with the dramatic reformations that went on durin
g his reign. I think the fact that he considered himself immortal is quite fitting, all things considered.”
“All things considered, master?”
Winston’s smile was now more a grimace. His hand was trembling. He put down the pen, staring at his notes. His back ached and his heart began thudding erratically again. After a long moment, he looked back at Joseph. “I was out of money, Joseph, and nobody wanted to take a chance on an old man with a dream. Then, out of the blue, Alex came along and saved the day. Regardless of my anger toward him for his irresponsible and reckless behavior, I am indebted to him for much. In any event I believe there was purpose to it all. In truth, I believe Akhenaten led me here. I believe he wants to be discovered, and I believe I was chosen to be his discoverer.”
“But why, master? Why do you think Akhenaten wants to be discovered?”
Winston stared long and hard at his assistant before answering. “Don’t you think it’s obvious, Joseph? Akhenaten wants to live again.”
Chapter 4
Colonel Gerhard von Straker, commander of the elite SS Third Company Afrika Corps Wehrmacht, (German armed forces) stood atop the dune, field glasses pressed to his eyes, scanning across the desert. To his left stood his executive officer, Major Max Zimmerman. Behind the two officers the entire company of elite forces stood at parade rest awaiting their orders, while a host of military vehicles sat at idle. There were four BA-10 armored cars, five half tracks, six Sdkfz 251 armored personnel carriers, and a Daimler-Benz G-4 six wheeled staff car along with a host of other armored vehicles and personal carriers.
Servants of Darkness (Thirteen Creepy Tales) Page 13
