The Cursed Pharaoh (The Hank Boyd Origins Book 1)

by Matthew James

  A clunking sound brought his attention back to the tomb entrance. Yasin had accidentally kicked over his electric lantern, illuminating the entire wall instead of only its base.

  “What is that?” Aziz asked, pointing to the centermost inscription.

  Yasin turned around and shrugged.

  Descending the rest of the way, Aziz stood beside Yasin and added his own light to it. Neither man knew what laid beyond, only what was hinted at by Yasin’s contact. “He said it would be the find of a lifetime—a historical discovery on par with Tutankhamen.”

  They both studied the hieroglyphs silently. They were, like the rest of the excavation, well preserved considering the age of the valley around them. Most of the tombs in the area were over 2,500-years-old. This was no different, apparently. Aziz could read some of it too, having learned from Dr. Fehr, but he couldn’t discern it all.

  Squinting hard, Aziz leaned in closer and grabbed Yasin’s arm as he did.

  “What is it?” Yasin asked.

  “Nothing good,” Aziz replied, eyeing him. “It basically says something like… ‘Here lies sickness.’” He went silent, thinking. “Remember when you mentioned Tutankhamen a moment ago?”

  “Yes, why?”

  He tilted his chin towards the text he just read. “This is the nameplate for whoever is buried here.”

  Yasin’s eyes lit up. “Tell me, what does it say?”

  “Have a look for yourself.”

  “How can I?” Yasin asked. “You know I don’t read hieroglyphs.”

  “Just look at it!”

  Flinching from Aziz’s outburst, he leaned over and attempted to read the text, pausing as soon as he did. “What…? It’s blank!”

  “Yes,” Aziz said, “it is…”

  Standing, he climbed out of the excavation and sucked in a deep breath of air, doing what he could to process what he’d seen. While the nameplate was technically blank, it was, in fact, chipped away, purposefully. Someone had either beaten them here and destroyed the name of the person buried there, or whoever built it decided to remove its resident's name at a later time.

  Or… he thought, dreading another possible reason. The uncomfortable sensation had been there since his cousin first mentioned Tut. The reason it disturbed him was because of what happened to a few of the men who found the young king’s tomb back in the twenties. Some of them mysteriously died shortly after discovering the crypt, sparking people into believing there was a curse put upon those who disturbed the dead.

  Aziz turned and looked back up the passage, recalling what he’d read about the famed Tut excavation. It matched the mythology some of the locals placed upon the land surrounding them now—a belief that some still held to this day.

  “The curse of the pharaohs,” he said to himself.

  Breathing in deeply again, Aziz calmed his trembling hands and pulled out his phone. He needed to warn Dr. Fehr before someone died a horrible death. Whoever was ultimately responsible for exhuming the body here would have to deal with the aftermath. If it wasn’t Yasin or him, who would it be?

  “God protect them.”

  1

  One Week Later

  “Welcome to Cairo, my friends!”

  The bald man is energized and happy to see us, and knowing him, he’s over-caffeinated and wired. I just shake my head and embrace him hard, lifting him off the ground with ease.

  “Good to see you too, Ben.”

  I drop the gasping historian and give him my signature shit-eating grin in response. He fixes his crooked glasses, sliding them back up his long nose. He pats me on the shoulder. “I see you’ve put on some more muscle. Still rehabbing the shoulder?”

  I shrug. “Not much else to do in D.C. other than read a bunch of old-ass books and workout. Thankfully, most of the hardbacks are in audio format now. I can do both at the same time and kill two birds.”

  “Not much to do?” he asks, confused. “But you work out of the Smithsonian. You should have plenty to do around there. What about the other museums? I can think of dozens of things to do.”

  Looking away, I give him a muttering response. “Yeah, sure… Whatever you say.”

  Ben looks at my dad who rolls his eyes, getting an annoyed grunt out of me. The old guys love to prod me, teaming up whenever they can. “I can see my influence has yet to rub off on him.”

  “Yes,” Dad replies, none too happy with me, “instead of carrying himself like a professional, he continues to act like a chip off the old block…of elephant dung.”

  I give him a mock-hurt face, mouth agape and bend down to grab my duffle bag. Throwing it over my shoulder, I look at Ben and Dad. “So, off to the hotel and then to the dig in the morning, right? I need my beauty sleep.”

  Before Ben can answer, Dad does. “No, I want to see the site first.”

  “But it’s getting late,” I counter.

  “Please, Harrison,” he says about done with me, “it’s only two in the afternoon.”

  I lift my sunglasses and look down at my watch, blinking against the afternoon sun. Damn, I think, resetting it to BFE time. I groan in agony as I speak. “Not in the States it isn’t. I’m still on eastern standard time over here. I feel hungover as hell but haven’t had a drink in a while.”

  Rubbing his forehead, Dad points at Ben’s rental—a dust-covered silver SUV. “Just get in the car, will you?” He heads to it, speaking as he does. “Once we get a feel for what we’re up against, we can go to the hotel and prep for the upcoming week.”

  He turns and waits for an argument out of me.

  I begrudgingly agree. “Fine, you’re the boss.”

  He glances at Ben and then back to me. “Yes, I am. It would be wise for you to remember that.”

  I climb into the back and buckle myself into the middle seat as Dad and Ben sit up front. “Who’s there now?” I ask, leaning forward.

  “Aziz and Yasin Nassir,” Dad replies. “Tomas is on another dig right now and couldn’t make it here. Ben was the next closest and offered to help. From what he told us about the find, I’m not sure who would’ve been able to handle it better than us.”

  Surprised, I voice the question. “Us? Come on, Dad, I wasn’t even your third choice, let alone your first. Don’t try to blow smoke up my butt and expect me to bend over and take it.”

  He uncomfortably turns in his seat and faces me. “You’re right, Harrison, you weren’t my third choice—or even my fourth. But I’m glad you’re here either way.”

  “Why’s that?” I ask, using my sunglasses to hide the hurt in my eyes.

  He turns forward. “Because…we may need your kind of thinking on this one. It’s a discovery unlike any other.”

  My eyes open wide at the honesty in his voice. Dad has never complimented me on anything I’ve done since hiring me over a year ago. While others have occasionally praised the way I go about doing things, Dad is more accustomed to people doing things by the book. Me, I’m what you’d call a rebel. I’m a rogue, wannabe archaeologist in a ball cap who sometimes forgets to shower regularly.

  Gears of War on Xbox Live can do that sometimes.

  “What do you know about Menkaure?” Ben asks, pulling out onto the main highway.

  “With your interest in Greek mythology, you may know him as Mykerinos,” Dad says. “It’s the name Herodotus gave him.”

  “Herodotus?” I ask. “The historian?”

  “Yes,” Ben replies, nodding. “But around these parts, Mykerinos is Menkaure. Of the three Pyramids of Giza, his is the smallest.”

  “Oh, right,” I say, recognizing the name now. “He was supposedly the successor to Khafre. He had a big hat shaped like a bowling pin and a funny beard.”

  “Yes,” Dad says, “he was also the grandson to Khufu—the ruler responsible for the Great Pyramid. Three generations of men laid to rest one after the other, each responsible for what would later be one of the Earth’s greatest wonders.”

  The way he talks about the kings—pharaoh is the English v
ersion of the Greek, Pharao, a word used to label the rulers of Egypt—is inspiring in a way. He speaks of them like they were his own relatives. Knowing the man like I do, I know it’s his love for history that’s pouring out of him right now. He said I have the same lust in me too, but every time he tries to convince me of it, I just laugh it off and remind him that he hired me. I’m not the one who begged for the job.

  Maybe someday I’ll look at archaeology the same way he does.

  “While this is interesting and all,” I say, moving the conversation along, “what does it have to do with our site?”

  “We’re getting there, Hank,” Ben says, steering us around a black four-door sedan. We’re heading straight through town, and if all goes as planned, we’ll be at the site outside of the Giza pyramids in an hour—hopefully less. “Menkaure had what you’d say, bad luck. Some, including the king himself, believed him to be cursed by the gods. Obviously, no one is for sure.”

  “Obviously,” I say, seeing Ben’s eyes flick towards me in the rearview mirror. “Sorry, go on.” While I’m used to ribbing my father, Ben is someone I do my best not to piss off. I’m not sure why his opinion of me matters more than Dad’s, but it does. Probably because he’s not my dad. My preconceived impression of Dad is that he doesn’t like me as a man and his preconceived impression of me is someone that’s unlikeable.

  But we’re family and we deal with each other anyway.

  We finally pass the sedan that had just done the same to us. Weird… Curious, someone in the backseat lowers their window and looks my way. I give him a tip of the cap and a smile and he quickly raises the deeply tinted glass. But before he does, I notice a tattoo of some kind on his neck. The symbol is familiar, yet, not…like it’s been modified for another purpose.

  “Anyway,” Ben says, getting my attention, “Menkaure had a real hard luck life. His daughter died young, and early in his own life, an oracle predicted that he would die an agonizing death. He was said to be skittish and became a hermit for most of his life.”

  “How did he die?” I ask, gaining interest in the story.

  Ben shrugs. “No one really knows. There is very little known about him. Some think he died of natural causes, while others think he truly was cursed.”

  “What do you think?” I ask.

  “I have a theory…”

  “And that is…?”

  “I’m getting there,” he pauses his lecture to change lanes and then continues. “When his tomb was first exhumed in the 1830’s, the English sent his sarcophagus to the British Museum in London.”

  “That’s it?” I ask, unimpressed.

  “No, Hank, it isn’t.” Ben’s reflection looks at me again, serious, and maybe even a bit nervous. “The ship carrying Menkaure’s sarcophagus sank. Thankfully, the coffin itself was sent by other means and was safely delivered.”

  “So, you think something sank the ship and it’s somehow tied to our dig here?”

  He nods. “Modern day carbon dating tells us that the wood used for the king’s coffin, as well as the age of the bones inside it, were from a later period than when Menkaure lived.”

  What? I think. But how…unless…

  “It was a cover up,” I say, working out Ben’s theory for myself. “Menkaure’s body wasn’t buried where it was supposed to be and it was whisked away somewhere else for fear of the curse surrounding him. And I’ll bet you anything that the ship carrying the sarcophagus was intentionally sunk by the same people for the same reason. They probably thought the coffin was on board and did what they could to keep it from seeing daylight.”

  “Well done, Hank,” Ben congratulates, “highest marks. It also helps that Yasin has some contacts in the area. He said he overheard someone speaking of the king’s true tomb being out in the desert somewhere near where our dig is now.”

  From my perspective, all I can see is my dad’s head bobbing up and down. He may be impressed with my thinking but he’s not about to say it aloud.

  “Keep going, Hank,” Ben insists. He’s testing me. “Tell me more.” He does this all the time.

  I shut my eyes and picture the scene in my head. Menkaure’s pyramid was easy to see, being front and center along with his dad and grandfather’s. If someone were to break into them and accidentally release a mythical virus or something, it would kill thousands, maybe millions. If the simple people of the time really did believe him to be cursed, they wouldn’t want his body found—ever. They would do whatever possible to hide his remains, knowing looters would be coming to look for treasure.

  Their culture called for mummification, not cremation. I remember reading about the elaborate preparations the ancient Egyptians went through for their dead. Each step represented something important. Even if Menkaure was plagued, there’s no way they had the balls to burn him. Desecrating his body would anger the gods further.

  My eyes widen again and I rip my sunglasses off and lean forward, eyeing Ben in the mirror. “We found Menkaure, didn’t we? His actual body, I mean.”

  Ben’s cheekbones raise, telling me he’s smiling. I can’t see his mouth from where I’m sitting, but it’s apparent that he is. “Right again. Except…we aren’t a hundred percent sure if it’s actually Menkaure’s tomb we have or not.”

  “Why’s that?” I ask.

  “Because, Harrison,” Dad says, turning around again, “Aziz and Yasin refuse to open the tomb itself. They fear what many of the locals do.” I stay quiet, my bladder tingling with what I think Dad is about to say. “They made it through the first blockage fine and found another descending staircase. But at the tomb entrance, they found a cryptic inscription directly above a damaged nameplate. It warns against the release of what is described as a ‘scourge against humanity.’”

  2

  “I have them,” the driver said to the others with him, watching as three men climbed into a worn SUV. He kept their own vehicle far enough back so they wouldn’t be discovered, but within range so as not to lose them. The worst thing that could happen was for the outsiders to spot them. No, that wasn’t right… The worst thing that could happen was for them to be spotted and identified. Their individual identities weren’t the problem either. Like a lot of people, they each had their own individual lives, with friends and other relationships aplenty, but none of those same people knew their true purpose in life.

  Our ‘calling,’ the driver thought, squinting behind a pair of sunglasses. The simple accessory was a blessing in the summer sun of Egypt. Most who called the desert region home owned a pair—a necessity. How our ancestors lived without such trivial things, I have no idea.

  Hamza Abdul-Sharif and the other three men in the car were like most others on the planet. They each had bloodlines that traced back thousands of years. Even the smallest amount of genetic code could be followed through history. But, unlike the other humans inhabiting the world, his and the other’s families had also been performing the same duty for the entirety of their existence. It was a responsibility that was handed down from one generation to the next.

  And we’re in danger of failing. If they did, in fact, fail, it would be the first and only time in their group’s 4,000-year existence that they were unsuccessful. Hamza refused to let it come to pass under his watch.

  It will not happen.

  “You know what to do,” he said as he calmly changed lanes. He knew what he had to do, but like everything else surrounding their history, Hamza’s people required anonymity. “Remember, it needs to look like an accident.”

  The other men agreed with silent nods, only speaking up when necessary. They knew what was a stake, and as the four heads of their sect, they were the best equipped to handle the situation. When things got messy, they were called in to do the dirtiest of work.

  Hamza glanced in his rearview mirror, eyeing the man he was replacing—a man who was responsible for their predicament. Sameer’s predecessor had a big mouth, and with enough alcohol in his system, he would tell stories of a people. The tales made him
popular with tourists and he reveled in the attention. Of course, the stories were actually those of his and Hamza’s people and thankfully, the turncoat would fictionalize the story when needed. The man was notoriously reckless but never one to also be labeled as stupid.

  Hamza routinely chastised the defector but could do nothing to the man unless something devastating happened. The two of them were like brothers and like a lot of families, they gave each other the benefit of the doubt and a long leash.

  Like now… I should have put a stop to this long ago.

  “Yasin Nassir,” Hamza mumbled, the name coming out with a heavy dose of discontent.

  Yasin abandoned his role ten years earlier, disavowing the Zill Allah—the Shadow of God—after his grandfather was killed. Yasin’s father, a venomously spirited man, was stuck between both worlds—both ancient and modern. After the tragedy, he and his son moved toward the latter, permanently, deeming the old ways dead and buried with the elder Nassir.

  Yasin agreed for a different reason, though. He saw profit in his ancestors’ beliefs, knowing of a few finds that would fetch him a pretty penny. But with no connections that gave a damn, nothing came to fruition and Yasin was forced to take up trivial jobs around Cairo.

  Some years passed and nothing happened. Hamza prayed that it meant Yasin would keep his mouth shut and go about his new life in peace. He would hate to have to kill his old friend. They’d been like family for years, growing up together in the old ways.

  But you had to get greedy, Hamza thought. We are ‘his’ protectors now just as our ancestors were. We are the only thing shielding this world from what lies beneath it. Hamza knew his personal beliefs dwarfed the others by a mile. He was seen as a hardcore zealot like his father and grandfather before him.