The Case of the Purloined Pyramid

by Sean McLachlan

  Employee, damn it! he reminded himself. The war is over!

  The wind shifted and he caught a faint snatch of conversation that sounded German.

  It’s not over for tonight.

  After another fifty yards, they could see more clearly. The first thing they noticed was a rectangular shadow against the sand. It confused them for a minute until they realized it was a tarpaulin pegged into the sand like a wall, to keep the light from being visible from the hotel or road. The glow was clearer now, although they still couldn’t directly see its source. Augustus suspected it was a lantern hidden in the pit the Germans were excavating. The sound of shovels rasping against sand could clearly be heard.

  “All right,” Augustus whispered, trying to focus on the world around him instead of the one trying to press into all five of his senses. “There are some veterans in that crowd so they’ll have a sentinel out—”

  He stopped midsentence as he felt the cold muzzle of a gun press against his temple.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “This did not go according to plan,” Mr. Wall said.

  “No, it did not,” Moustafa agreed, although he could recall no mention of a plan.

  They sat on the sand with their hands on their heads as the scarred German veteran named Otto covered them with Mr. Wall’s own submachine gun. A few feet away yawned a pit in the sand about five feet wide and deeper than the height of a man. Moustafa hadn’t been allowed to go to the edge and look down to the bottom, but he could see the Germans had uncovered a flight of stone steps leading down. They were following it with their spades and had already dug out of sight. One regularly came up with buckets of sand and dumped them a few yards away. A tarpaulin tied to several tall stakes screened the work from view of the distant hotel.

  Moustafa marveled at the Germans’ industry. They had half a dozen strong men working hard at it, rotating in groups with some taking a break while others dug or hauled sand. He supposed Neumann and Baumer were down there too, although he doubted they would much help in this hard work. He wondered how many other guards they had out hidden in the night.

  It didn’t matter. They had already been caught and now their fate was in God’s hands. Moustafa regretted that he wouldn’t see his sons grow into manhood or get to dance at the weddings of his daughters. Ah well, it was written.

  “A pity we left Faisal behind in the city,” Mr. Wall said.

  “You wouldn’t want him to get shot too? The brat isn’t that bad!”

  “No, no, no. I merely wish I had left him behind here in Giza. He would have followed us and figured out a way to get us free.”

  Moustafa chuckled at the ridiculous idea, and then stopped and gave it some thought.

  “You don’t suppose he might have made it here somehow?” Moustafa asked.

  “I doubt it,” Mr. Wall said, looking hopefully around at the shadows. “No, I suppose we are on our own.”

  “Quiet over there!” Otto barked in heavily accented English.

  Herr Neumann emerged from the entrance, his narrow face sliced with a mocking grin as he brushed the sand off his pants.

  “Good to see you again, Mr. Wall!”

  “Pity I can’t say the same about you,” Mr. Wall replied.

  “Ah, but you should be happy at this reunion. You’ll get to witness the greatest discovery in the history of Egyptology! And because of this discovery, Germany will take its proper place as the leader of all nations.”

  Moustafa saw Otto’s eyes light up with excitement as he listened.

  “The master race will finally be the master,” the veteran said.

  Neumann nodded in agreement, then snarled and took another step toward Mr. Wall. “And you arrogant Englishmen will finally learn your place. Oh, you think you’re so special with your empire, ruling over inferior peoples. Yes, we have been laggards. You became a nation in the Middle Ages, while we didn’t unite until 1870, thanks to the divisive machinations of the Jews. But we will make up for lost time. Oh yes. And you”—at this he slapped Mr. Wall across the face—“you will learn some humility.”

  Neumann made a lunge for Mr. Wall’s mask as if to rip it off. Mr. Wall knocked him down.

  Neumann scampered back, spitting with rage. He got to his feet and drew a pistol.

  Otto slapped him in the back of the head, and he ended up on the ground for a second time.

  “You’ll treat him with honor, swine!” Otto said. “He may have fought for the international bankers, but at least he fought. What did you do in the war? Pimp honorable German women while real men went to the front? Touch him again and I’ll put a bullet through you.”

  Neumann went pale and scampered down the pit. Mr. Wall faced Otto.

  “Danke, Kamerad,” his boss said. Moustafa didn’t understand German, but he could guess at the meaning of that.

  “You are a warrior and deserve to be treated with honor. But I’ll kill you like a warrior if you try anything, so sit back down and put your hands on your head.”

  “I have the distinct impression that you are going to kill me anyway, old chap,” Mr. Wall said, sitting back down. “Like I suppose you killed the night watchmen who patrol the area.”

  “I did it quickly and quietly. They felt no unnecessary pain.”

  “How charitable of you.”

  “What’s all this noise up here?” Baumer said as he lifted his heavy frame up the ancient steps. “Ah, Mr. Wall. I had been told of your arrival, and I can’t say I am much surprised. You have caused us quite a bit of trouble. Nevertheless I’d like to show you something remarkable that a man of your education will appreciate. Come.”

  Mr. Wall stood up and stepped forward. Moustafa, unsure what to do, joined him. Baumer gave him a contemptuous look.

  “Leave the servant here.”

  “I am his employee,” Moustafa said.

  Baumer chuckled. “Of course you are.”

  “He’s also an expert in hieroglyphics,” Mr. Wall informed him.

  Baumer chuckled again, but when he saw Moustafa’s employer was serious, he gave them both a searching look and shrugged. “I’d be interested to see proof of that.”

  Otto didn’t take his eyes off them for an instant as they approached the pit. The submachine gun didn’t waver.

  As Moustafa had guessed, the Germans had followed the staircase and had made it more than six feet down, uncovering the top lintel of a doorway. The Germans dug furiously. Neumann stood by doing nothing except gesturing at them and urging them on in German, no doubt giving useless advice. In the heap of spoil they made, Moustafa saw several potsherds and other small artifacts. These did not seem to interest the Germans at all. Moustafa sneered. These weren’t archaeologists, just tomb robbers.

  The lintel was inscribed with hieroglyphs, well preserved by the desert sands. Instinctively, Moustafa started to trace the lines, puzzling out the writing. His heart raced as he saw the cartouche of Khufu, the one known to the Greeks and the modern world as Cheops, builder of the Great Pyramid.

  The inscription started with his praenomen, official name, his Horus name, followed by the title associated with his pyramid. “Khnum Khufu, the one who strikes. Khufu is one belonging to the horizon, who opens to doors to the Temple of Eternal Dawn. At the altar of Isis he renews his limbs, his heart, and his mouth. At the place of honoring the guardian of the pyramids he makes himself a god. At the portal to power he gives this blessing to the chosen among his people. Any but the most pure who pass this portal will die a thousand deaths.”

  Baumer was reading this with rapt attention, his lips moving silently. His eyes glittered in the lamplight with a feverish enthusiasm.

  “Take care.” Moustafa chuckled. “If Cheops considers you unjust, you’ll die a thousand deaths.”

  Baumer raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so you really do read Old Kingdom hieratic.”

  “Better than I,” Mr. Wall said.

  “I also speak Arabic, French, and English, although I have not yet had a chance to learn your
ugly language.”

  Baumer sneered. “No true German would teach his sacred tongue to one such as you.”

  One of the workmen snapped something in German in Baumer’s direction, who replied with a curt command. Moustafa guessed that the workman was probably telling him to help instead of wasting time arguing with the captives.

  Even without the fake archaeologist’s help, the doorway was cleared within another quarter of an hour. The workmen sat down, exhausted, as Baumer and Neumann examined the door.

  It was of thick Lebanese cedar, an expensive import in ancient times, and well preserved by being buried in the sand except for a couple of fresh marks from the Germans’ shovels. A clay seal covered it and part of the doorjamb. This, at least, had been left unscathed by the workmen in their mad dig to uncover the door. The seal bore a cartouche and a small inscription, lettered in gold foil. Neumann shone his torchlight on it as Baumer peered at the inscription.

  The two muttered in their own language for a minute before Baumer turned to Mr. Wall.

  “This is tricky. It appears to be a late, corrupt version of hieratic. Would you care to examine it?”

  “I see no reason to help you,” Moustafa’s employer replied.

  “Are you not curious?”

  Mr. Wall hesitated for a second and glanced at Moustafa. After a moment they both smiled, and Moustafa understood something about this strange man whose fate he was so soon to share. Like him, Mr. Wall had an insatiable curiosity, and even facing imminent death they both wanted to see what was beyond this door as much as any of their captors.

  They peered at the seal. It was, indeed, a tricky text, not helped by the fact that some of the gold foil had dropped away, leaving some of the words missing or illegible.

  After puzzling it over for a couple of minutes, Moustafa read aloud, “Sealed in the first regnal—here a word is missing, although no doubt it is ‘year’—of Psamtik III by—another missing word, probably a name—chief—more missing words where his title should be. Isis give him strength!”

  “Isis give us all strength!” Baumer intoned. Neumann bowed his head and touched his chest, then looked up. “Do you agree with this translation, Mr. Wall?”

  “I do.”

  Moustafa glared at the Germans. For once he wasn’t angered by being passed over by arrogant Europeans. He had far more serious things to be angry about. “Did you just call out to a pagan deity?”

  Baumer gave him a haughty look. “The old gods gave our people strength. We only began to lose our vigor when we embraced the cringing faith of the Jews.”

  “You don’t strike me as a Jew,” Mr. Wall said.

  “Of course not!” Neumann said. “We are pure Aryans who have understood that the Christian faith in which we were raised was created by the Jews to undermine our true beliefs and make us their slaves.”

  Mr. Wall snorted. “Christianity is a Jewish plot? Oh Lord, kill me now!”

  “We will prove it!” Neumann said, pointing at Mr. Wall with a shaking finger. “What is beyond this door will prove it.”

  Mr. Wall turned to Moustafa. “And you wonder why I hate the world?”

  Moustafa couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

  “Enough of this,” Baumer said. “You will see soon enough. Let’s get back to the matter at hand. Who was this Psamtik III? One of the later pharaohs, was he not?”

  Moustafa couldn’t believe his ears. This man claimed to be an archaeologist?

  “He was the last pharaoh of the XXVI Dynasty,” Moustafa explained. “He was defeated by the Persian king Cambyses II and carried off in captivity to Susa in 525 BC.”

  “I focused my study on learning to read hieroglyphs,” Baumer said defensively. Moustafa couldn’t help but smile.

  “So it appears our man Psamtik III decided to seal up this temple, and probably cover it up with sand, to avoid the Persians finding it,” Mr. Wall said. “And from the looks of it they never did, nor any of Egypt’s other occupiers. Congratulations, you’ve found a perfectly preserved subterranean temple. You were right, Herr Neumann. You have made the greatest Egyptological discovery of the century. Pity you shan’t be sharing it with the world at large.”

  “In time, all will know the truth about our glorious past,” Neumann said. “Let’s get in there.”

  Baumer produced a trowel and tried to pry the seal off from the doorway. It cracked into pieces.

  Moustafa gave a hiss of disapproval. “Stupid man!”

  Baumer glared at him. “Watch it. You are only alive because we want your master’s cooperation.”

  Master? Moustafa almost punched his face in, but something held him back. It wasn’t the submachine gun Otto had trained on him, but rather the aching curiosity about what lay beyond that door. Once his curiosity was satisfied, he’d go down fighting, like those brave, misled men at Omdurman. They had died in the thousands, but at least they had taken some of the British with them, and in their last moments they had seen fear and respect in their enemies’ eyes.

  Neumann gave a curt order and a couple of the workmen grabbed guns and headed up to help guard the entrance. Otto stayed where he was, along with two of the other workers, who picked up rifles. Baumer scraped the last of the sand away from the threshold and with Neumann’s help pulled open the door. It gave way reluctantly with a grinding creak.

  One of the workmen lit a lamp. Neumann and Baumer produced electric torches and gave Mr. Wall back his own. Together they shone light into a space that no man had seen in three thousand years.

  Beyond the doorway they saw a corridor about ten feet wide stretching off out of sight. The ceiling was about eight feet from the floor and painted blue with golden stars. It reminded Moustafa of some of the decorations found in various tombs. On either wall stood life-size statues of gods and goddesses. Isis and Osiris stood closest to the door, then jackal-headed Anubis and Horus with the head of a hawk. Beyond stood more, dozens of them. It looked to be all the major deities of ancient Egypt.

  The Germans and their captives stood in silent awe for a full minute. It was Baumer who spoke first.

  “Here’s where the ancient Aryans had their font of power, and it is here where we will regain our heritage.” He turned to the captives. “Mr. Wall, you may join us, but your ape must stay behind. Only those of a pure race may enter this holy place.”

  With that, Baumer crossed the threshold. The flagstone just beyond it lowered an inch under his weight with a loud click.

  A row of bronze spikes thrust out from the wall and impaled him. One pierced his skull, and four more ran right through his body. The archaeologist ended up suspended from the spikes, which extended from niches in the side wall to reach halfway across the entrance before screeching to a stop like a horizontal portcullis. His eyes and mouth were wide open as if in shock, but he felt nothing. He had been killed instantly.

  “Mein Gott!” Neumann exclaimed.

  “Shouldn’t you be shouting out to Isis and not that nefarious invention of the Jews?” Mr. Wall asked dryly.

  “Silence!”

  Neumann peered at the entrance. Moustafa did the same. The spikes had emerged from the right side of the doorway from holes hidden directly behind the jamb and thus hidden to anyone entering. Peeking around the corner, they saw a series of identical holes ran down the left-hand wall. The tips of another row of bronze spikes were just visible inside.

  “A bit of extra insurance,” Moustafa said. “The pagans probably knew their magic didn’t work, as the Prophet Moses proved to them.”

  “I suppose this was added by good old Psamtik III in case the Persians came prowling,” Mr. Wall said.

  “It is fortunate only half of the spikes still worked, otherwise our way would be blocked,” Herr Neumann said. Beyond his initial shock, he seemed not the least bit discomfited by the death of his companion.

  “We’re dealing with the Late Period,” Mr. Wall said. “They didn’t make traps the way they did in the good old days.”

 
Herr Neumann turned to Moustafa. “You! You will walk ahead.”

  A prickle of fear turned Moustafa cold. He took care not to show it. “I thought only pure Aryans were allowed in this sacred place?”

  “Don’t toy with me. Get in there!”

  Moustafa saw Mr. Wall tense and glance at Otto, who stood just out of reach with the submachine gun. Moustafa motioned to his employer.

  “Don’t. I will go ahead.”

  He gazed down the corridor. Unlike most subterranean tombs and temples, which had floors of solid stone cut out of the bedrock, as far as the eye could see the floor was covered in square flagstones about two feet to a side.

  “Herr Neumann, give me a shovel.”

  “What for?” the diplomat demanded.

  “So I can probe ahead of me for more of those moving flagstones. I will not walk blindly into a trap no matter how much you threaten me, and while I know my life means nothing to you, think what will happen if I get killed. I suppose you will make Mr. Wall take my place, but if he gets killed, what will you do then? Send one of your precious Germans? I doubt they respect you enough to volunteer. Otto might even force you to go ahead.”

  Neumann’s eyes narrowed with spite, but he visibly paled, and Moustafa could tell that the diplomat knew he spoke the truth.

  Neumann grabbed a shovel and tossed it at Moustafa’s feet. The Germans backed away. Neumann pulled a Luger from his pocket.

  “Now get in there, and if you try anything, I will kill both you and your master.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Moustafa walked slowly, pushing each flagstone he came to with the shovel before daring to step on it. Despite the cool interior of the temple’s grand entrance hall, sweat ran down his face. His eyes darted to the left and right, searching for more hidden spikes. He looked up too, not trusting the ceiling to be safe from nasty surprises.

  Clunk. Clunk. The shovel banged down on each flagstone. Moustafa hit them as hard as he could, and the sound echoed down the corridor like mocking laughter. Each step made him tense. The last trap had only half worked, and there was no telling just how much force would need to be put on the flagstones to set off another one. He might have trodden on a trapped flagstone already and not triggered the aged mechanism, or his next step might be his last. He had no way of telling.