Later, when he’d learned the true nature of the assignment, he was both intrigued and more than a little bit skeptical. If what he’d learned was true then it was the strangest, most absurd assignment any soldier in any war could ever expect to be burdened with. It remained to be seen how this would all play out in the end.
They’d been traveling for nearly an hour since spotting the dig and although the going was slow, von Straker knew that they were close. Distance was hard to judge in the desert but effective navigation and a well traveled path had kept them on track. Parts of the road all along the way were drifted in with sand from the previous night’s storm but its outline was relatively clear and easy to see even in the gathering dark.
Up ahead a thick column of dust rose behind a speeding vehicle. A scout had been sent out nearly an hour ago and now he was returning with haste.
The vehicle came to a halt alongside the staff car. “The dig is less than one kilometer ahead,” the driver told von Straker.
“Let’s move, then,” von Straker said as he climbed back into the car. “We must be there by nightfall.”
Zimmerman took his place beside his commander in the rear seat of the staff car feeling uneasy at the prospect of what lay ahead. He knew instinctively that von Straker was keeping sensitive information from him. And regardless of his commander’s outward showing of confidence, Zimmerman knew him well enough so that he’d detected a measure of uncertainty—perhaps even a shimmering of fear—in the man’s demeanor. And Zimmerman knew from experience that von Straker was one of the most fearless men he’d ever met.
Chapter 7
Torch-light cast monstrous shadows over the stone surface of the massive entrance chamber. The marble door with all the inscriptions had been carefully removed and stored away safely. But behind it they found more stone. A great slab of it. There were no lines around this particular slab of stone that would indicate the presence of a door, but Winston knew by the shape and cut of it that it was a shrewd deception. After a close and careful examination, he determined that they would have to blast their way in. Ah, the cleverness of these great and mighty kings. Smith’s respect for their ingenuity never ceased.
The workers went about the task of drilling holes and setting the charges. Afterward they all left the entrance chamber and took cover in the dunes. When the ten second warning came they put their hands to their ears. Even so, the blast took them by surprise, rocking the ground they crouched on. Winston was the first back inside with Joseph following close behind. A huge hole had been blown through the granite slab revealing a dark interior chamber clogged with dust. Winston held torch in his hand as he went through. He was having trouble seeing beyond the dust. He was coughing and choking.
“Master, you should be very careful,” Joseph Kumara cried. “There could be booby traps. Poison gas. Bows with poison darts.”
Winston scarcely heard him. He was going in and that’s all there was to it. He made his way over the crumbled limestone, gazing around him in awe. Lord in heaven, such wondrous sights. But this was not the burial chamber; this was the mastaba, the glorious temple of the dead, designed to fool grave robbers. If what he suspected was true then the burial chamber lay somewhere beneath the mastaba in a secret place, dug deeply into the desert sand, lined carefully with limestone in order to withstand the test of time. Such craftsman these ancients were. Such incredibly talented craftsmen. Oh such sights.
Chapter 8
Beneath the dim illumination of petroleum lanterns Alex took the knife and cut a small incision in Camille’s abdomen two inches below the naval. Even in unconsciousness she breathed rapidly, like a locomotive at full spate. Blood flowed. Anwar kneeled nearby with clean linens, soaking up excess blood. His eyes were lanterns themselves, huge and glowing. Perspiration ran from Alex’s brow and into his eyes nearly blinding him.
“Anwar, wipe the bloody sweat from my face! Come on, get a move on!”
Anwar leaned over Camille and wiped Alex’s brow.
When the incision was four inches long Alex set his utensil down and momentarily contemplated what should be done next. He carefully parted the incision with his hands and looked into the uterus. He saw something squirming and writhing in there. “Thank God,” he said. “The child is alive.” He pulled his hands back, looked at Anwar as if searching for guidance.
Anwar said, “I think you should just reach inside, master, and take the child out. There can be no other way.”
Alex held his bloody hands up to his face, looked at them. They were trembling. He squeezed them into tight fists and reopened them again, stretching the fingers out to full length, trying to calm them. Finally he lowered them carefully toward the abdomen and reached into the mother’s warm innards.
Chapter 9
Walls decorated with hieroglyphs—the eighteenth dynasty style—no doubt about it, the feeling for natural expression so unlike the adherence to formal distortion of earlier and later dynasties.
Winston was inside now. How extraordinarily cool it felt. But his heart was beating much too fast, the blood rushing to his head, dizzying him. Joseph came behind him, cautiously followed by workers carrying torches.
Dust from the blast filled the space but it began to settle quickly. Now Winston could see the ceiling with its bas-relief sculpture, a long table covered with jars of alabaster, crockery, scrolls of rolled papyri. Wonderful paintings done by a master lined all the walls. What a glorious sight. These treasures alone confirmed a momentous discovery. But the burial chamber, somewhere below the mastaba, hidden away for more than three thousand years. Lord what treasures must wait down there.
“A door, Joseph,” Winston said, scratching around on his hands and knees on the floor. “A trap door. Somewhere . . . look around.”
“Here, master,” Joseph said, his eyes glowing. “Lines in the floor.”
“Get those workers over here and lift this lid. Come on, get a move on.”
Using pry bars, the heavy limestone trap door was finally lifted out of place and slid carefully to the side. As air rushed in, the smell of the ages rushed out.
Winston gazed down into the opening. A set of stone steps led down into a dark cavern. He turned and scanned across the room looking each laborer directly in the face. He saw no deception. They all looked equally fearful. Just the same, he felt something odd and out of joint and he wasn’t sure why. He decided in that moment that he could not trust anyone, least of all these overly superstitious Arabs. Heathens, beggars and thieves, all of them.
“Out!” Winston said crossly. “Everyone except Joseph and two men with torches and pry bars. Leave the rest of the torches here in the temple.” The workers did not move.
“I said get out!”
“But why, master?” Joseph said. “We will need the workers below.”
“I don’t trust them with my treasure. Get them out of here, now!”
Joseph, wide-eyed, turned and spoke to the workers in Arabic. Finally they did as they were told, placing the torches in ancient stone sconces that lined the chamber walls, and then retreated, bowing fearfully.
Torches held in front of them like offerings to the gods, Joseph, Winston and the two remaining laborers carefully made their way down the stone stairway into an immense cavern. At the bottom a limestone floor tilted into the ground at nearly a thirty degree angle.
They padded down into the stone cavern, gloomy, echoing, stretching for hundreds of feet. The walls of the corridors were sculptured and painted with scenes representing the dead pharaoh accompanying Amun-Re through the caverns of the underworld in his sacred boat. This particular cavern contained a series of chambers whose plastered walls were covered with sculpture in bas-relief, depicting scenes from the life of the dead king. At the end of the corridor they came to a solid wall.
“This cannot be it,” Winston said, his voice strained with incredulity. He was holding his torch high over his head searching the dead-end wall for cracks that might reveal the outline of a door. None
were apparent. “Over here, you bloody fools,” he said to the torch bearers. “Put some light on this wall.” Joseph and the two laborers did as they were told, moving their torches in close to the wall while Winston swiped his hands over the stone surface, back and forth, abrading his flesh nearly to the bone, frantically searching for anything that would give him a sign.
“We might have to blast it out of the way,” Winston said in a low, rhetorical voice.
“No, master, you mustn’t. You will bring it all down upon us.”
Winston scarcely heard him. He continued to brush the wall with his hands. “Here,” he said, “I’ve found something. Bring in more light!” The torches moved closer, throwing huge shifting shadows over the walls of the cavern. Winston scratched at the wall removing dust and debris that had built on its surface for countless centuries. Particles fell and hit the floor with a sound like falling rain. And now Winston’s blood had become a part of the mix.
“No, master,” Joseph said, grabbing Winston’s arm. “You are injuring yourself.”
“I don’t give a bloody damn, Joseph. There has to be a way through this wall. All of you help me. Hold your torches with one hand and brush at the wall with the other.” The laborers obeyed, and in a matter of just a few moments hieroglyph etchings were becoming visible. Presently the entire slab of a door was revealed, its outline clear. Winston backed away and read the inscription there aloud.
“Beware, robbers of the dead. Akhenaten is thy name. I am the Immortal Breath of Life, ruler of all the lands, builder of great temples, King of Egypt. Be warned. No man must look upon the contents of this temple. The great one sleeps and must not be woken or the wrath of ka will be upon thee. The world will know the wrath of ka.”
As he read, Joseph translated to the two laborers. The men fell immediately to their knees, a hysterical babble of lamentations and exhortations rising from them.
“Get up, you bloody heathens,” Winston commanded. “Get those pry bars on this door.”
Joseph shrank away from the door. “No, master, we mustn’t. It is most certainly a curse.”
“Joseph, good God, don’t be so bloody ridiculous.”
“But you said you dreamed of this moment, Master Winston. It is unnatural, I tell you. There is something very wrong here.”
“It no longer matters how I came to be here, Joseph. I was led to this place for a reason. I don’t have to understand it. I just have to believe it.” Winston stopped. His eyes were those of a crazed lunatic. His massive chest was heaving up and down in great spasms. “Now tell them to do as I say or so help me god I’ll have them hung up by their bloody feet and castrated.”
“Yes, master.” Joseph turned toward the men and spoke to them again. Reluctantly they got up off their knees and put the pry-bars to the door.
“This side, you bloody fools!” Winston said impatiently. “Get those pry-bars into the fissure on this side of the door. Come on, hurry up!”
Chapter 10
Von Straker split the bulk of the company up into four platoons and ordered them to spread out and flank in toward the encampment from all four points of the compass. They were to radio when in position. He and only he would give the order to move in. The remainder of men and machinery rolled to a stop atop the last dune before the encampment. Von Straker ordered them to stand down until he could assess the situation.
Using his field glasses he scanned the area in the gathering dark. To the east he saw workers moving single file down a treacherous path from the summit of a hillock he presumed was the site of the archeological dig. Below, in the valley, several vehicles—a variety of trucks and cars—were scattered about, as well as a small herd of pack animals behind a crudely constructed wooden enclosure. In the distance he saw what he assumed to be a large mess tent. There were several other wooden structures that he guessed were used for stores and an enclosure that held several large fuel tanks.
He saw a smattering of human activity, but no one seemed alerted to their presence and he saw no armed men. He supposed this was a good thing, although he felt most uneasy about the situation. Again he thought of what he’d learned about this mission before beginning and found it to be patently absurd. Just the same, it was his job to follow orders, and most of all to trust in the wisdom of his Führer. But his instincts were telling him that something was very wrong here, and he’d learned long ago to always trust his instincts.
Darkness was nearly complete now. Down in the encampment several campfires burned and von Straker could see that a number of tents were lit from within. There were no visible stars in the western sky. He feared what that might mean. The desert sky at night was one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen, the rim of the Milky Way with its billions of stars visible from horizon to horizon. The lack of stars meant only one thing: a storm was kicking up and the atmosphere was most likely filled with sand and dust. In the next instant he tasted sand on his tongue as twisting coils of it swirled around his legs. His spirits fell. Judging from the previous night’s storm, he knew that it would be nearly impossible to accomplish anything while in the midst of a sandstorm. He must get this operation underway before the storm hit them full force.
His radio crackled. The squads were all in position. It was time to move out. Von Straker felt a strong sense of unreality overtake him at the prospect of finally being here in this place and time. He could not curb the feeling that he was on the brink of something larger than himself, perhaps something larger even than the Führer and his beloved Third Reich had bargained for. Was he doing the right thing? He supposed it didn’t matter. It was time to get going.
“Move out,” he said before his rational mind trumped his orders. “And remember, we will not take unnecessary life. We are not plunderers, we are soldiers and humanitarians. Fire only if fired upon.”
“How do you know the artifact you seek is down there?” Zimmerman asked as von Straker climbed into the staff car.
“I don’t, Max. What I do know is that failure is not an option. If this turns out to be the wrong site then we will move on to the next. And the next. And the next. I will not stop until I succeed. I will not stop until I give the Führer what he wants. Do you understand?”
Zimmerman gave a sour smile. “Yes, Gerhard, I understand perfectly.”
The armored vehicles roared to life as the iron spearhead rolled down the embankment and directly into the heart of the encampment.
Chapter 11
Alex Whitehead was remembering the night he had convinced Uncle Winston to take him along on this ill-fated journey. Inconceivable, but it was true. He supposed that thinking thoughts other than the immediate was a way for him to avoid the grim reality of having his child’s life literally in his hands.
Uncle Winston was just back from Egypt where he had been supervising another expedition, a failed expedition, actually. It seemed to be the story of his uncle’s life. Oh, he’d had some minor successes over the years—enough to fill young Alex’s imagination with wonder—but nothing of the scale that would elevate him to the status of world class discoverers such as Howard Carter or Lord Carnarvon. No matter. Alex remembered as a child being mesmerized by Uncle Winston’s tales of high adventure in the land of pyramids and golden statues, and because of those stories Alex had always desired to somehow be a part of his uncle’s adventurous life. Alex’s father, however, was adamantly opposed to Winston’s chosen profession, and had done everything in his power to discourage Alex from following in his uncle’s footsteps.
By the time Alex had grown to adulthood and gone off to university, heavy drinking, young women and the general spoils of being a rich man’s son had not exactly derailed his desires, but had certainly dampened them. It was only recently since he’d come awake from years of blurred excess that he had again been tinkering with the notion of striking off for Egypt on some great adventure.
He knew Winston was in the process of trying to raise money for his next expedition but not having much success. The simple
truth was, Winston was broke and Alex had a plan.
There was light in the study window when Alex pulled up in front of his uncle’s home. He parked his car by the curb, got out and somehow managed to navigate the steps and ring the bell. Alex had been at the club and probably would never have been so bold with his uncle if he hadn’t already had far too much to drink.
When Winston came to the door he immediately recognized Alex’s condition. His eyes narrowed. “What do you want, Alex?”
“Nice seeing you too, Uncle Winston.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Do you know what time it is?”
“It’s time we had a little talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you, Alex. Go home and sleep it off.” Winston tried to close the door but Alex put his foot in it.
“I have a proposition for you, Uncle Winston.”
Again Winston’s eyes narrowed. “You? What could you possibly have that I would be interested in, young Alex?”
“Let me in and I’ll tell you.”
After a moment, curiosity getting the best of him, Winston capitulated, opening the door and leading Alex to his study. Winston settled his bulk heavily into the chair behind his desk but did not invite his nephew to sit down. The old man poured himself a scotch from the bottle on the desk, took a sip, his narrowed eyes scrutinizing his nephew.
Alex fell into a chair opposite the desk uninvited. “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink, Uncle Winston?”
Servants of Darkness (Thirteen Creepy Tales) Page 15
