Sphinx

by Robin Cook

  She had had no idea the statue would be stored in such an isolated location. The iron gate squealed on its hinges, unaccustomed to being opened.

  “Please,” said Muhammad simply, motioning for Erica to enter.

  It was an undecorated tomb. She turned and watched Muhammad close the door behind him. There was a resounding click as the lock engaged. Anemic moonlight filtered in through the iron bars.

  Muhammad lit a single match and pushed past Erica, moving down a narrow corridor. She had no choice but to stay close behind. They moved in a small sphere of light, and she had a helpless feeling that events were far beyond her control.

  They entered an antechamber. Erica could make out dim line drawings on the walls. Muhammad bent down and touched his match to an oil lamp. The light flickered, making his shadow dance among the ancient Egyptian deities on the walls.

  A sharp gilded reflection caught Erica’s eye. There it was, the Seti statue! The burnished gold radiated a light more powerful than the lamp. For the moment awe conquered fear, and Erica walked over to the sculpture. Its alabaster-and-green-feldspar eyes were hypnotic, and she had to force herself to look below at the hieroglyphics. There were the cartouches of Seti I and Tutankhamen. The phrase was the same as that on the Houston statue: “Eternal life granted unto Seti I, who ruled after Tutankhamen.”

  “It is magnificent,” said Erica with sincerity. “How much do you want for it?”

  “We have others,” said Muhammad. “Wait until you see the others before you make your choice.”

  Erica turned to look at him, intending to say she was satisfied. But she did not speak. Once again she was paralyzed by fear. Muhammad had flipped back his hood, revealing his mustache and gold-tipped teeth. He was one of the killers of Abdul Hamdi!

  “We have a wonderful selection of statues in the next room,” said Muhammad. “Please.” He half-bowed and gestured toward the narrow doorway.

  A cold sweat chilled her body. The grate to the tomb was locked. She had to play for time. She turned and started toward the doorway, not wanting to go deeper into the tomb, but Muhammad came up behind her. “Please,” he said, and pushed her gently forward.

  Their shadows moved grotesquely on the walls as they walked down the sloping corridor. Ahead, Erica could see a recess that extended on both sides of the passageway. A stout beam ran from the floor up into the alcove. As Erica passed, she realized that the beam supported a huge stone portcullis.

  Just beyond, the passageway ended and a flight of stairs hewn from the rock led steeply downward into darkness.

  “How much farther?” she asked. Her voice was higher than usual.

  “Just a little way.”

  With the light behind her, Erica’s shadow fell onto the stairs in front of her, blocking her vision. She felt ahead with her foot. It was at that point she felt something on her back. She first thought it was Muhammad’s hand. Then she realized he had centered his foot in the small of her back.

  Erica only had time to throw her hands out against the smooth walls of the stairway. The force of the kick had knocked her feet out from under her, and she began falling. She landed on her buttocks, but the stairs were so steep that she continued sliding, unable to stop her downward motion into absolute blackness.

  Muhammad quickly put down his oil lamp and pulled a stone sledge from the recess. With several carefully directed blows he dislodged the supporting beam, triggering the balanced portcullis. In slow motion the forty-five-ton granite block slid down a short incline, then fell into place with a deafening crash that sealed the ancient tomb.

  “No American woman got off the train at Nag Hamdi,” said Raoul, “and there was no one that even came close to Erica’s description on the train. It looks like we’ve been tricked.” He was standing at the door to the balcony. Across the river the moonlight was bright on the mountains above the necropolis.

  Yvon was sitting rubbing his temples. “Am I always destined to come so close, only to see success slip through my fingers?” He turned to Khalifa. “And what has the mighty Khalifa learned?”

  “There was no one at the Curio Antique Shop. The other shops were still open and there were plenty of tourists. Apparently the shop had closed right after Erica left. The proprietor’s name is Lahib Zayed, and no one seemed to know where he’d gone. And I was quite insistent.” Khalifa smiled.

  “I want the Curio Antique Shop and the Winter Palace watched. I don’t care if you both have to stay up all night.”

  When Yvon was alone, he walked out onto the balcony. The night was peaceful and soft. The sound from the piano in the dining room drifted up through the palms. Nervously he began pacing the small terrace.

  Erica ended in a sitting position at the bottom of the stairs, with one leg tucked under her. Her hands were badly scraped, but otherwise she was unhurt. Most of the contents of her tote bag had fallen out. She tried to look around in the Stygian darkness, but she could not even see her hand directly in front of her face. Like a blind person, she groped in her bag for the flashlight. It was not there.

  Struggling to her hands and knees, she felt along the paving stone. She found her camera, which seemed intact, then her guidebook, but still no flashlight. Her hand hit a wall, and she recoiled in fear. Every phobia she’d ever had about snakes, scorpions, and spiders emerged to frighten her. The image of the cobra at Abydos plagued her. Groping back along the wall until she found the corner, she felt her way back to the stairway and found the pack of cigarettes. The book of matches was pushed beneath the cellophane cover.

  She struck a match and held it away from her. She was in a room about ten feet square, with two doorways, plus the stairway behind her. The walls were plastered with painted scenes of everyday life in ancient Egypt. She was in one of the tombs of the nobles.

  Against the far wall Erica caught a glimpse of her flashlight before the match singed the tips of her fingers. She lit another, and in its hesitant light walked over to retrieve the flashlight. The front glass had broken, but the bulb was still in place. Erica pressed the switch and it leaped to life.

  Without allowing herself time to think about her situation, she returned to the stairs, climbed to the top, and ran the beam of the flashlight around the perimeter of the portcullis. The granite plug fit into its slot with incredible precision. She pushed against it. It was cold and motionless, like the mountain itself.

  Returning to the base of the stairs, she began to explore the tomb. The two doorways from the antechamber led into a burial chamber on the left and a storeroom on the right. She entered the burial chamber first. Except for a rough-hewn sarcophagus, the room was empty. The ceiling was painted dark blue with hundreds of gold five-pointed stars, and the walls were decorated with scenes from the Book of the Dead. From the back wall Erica could read whose tomb she was in. Ahmose, scribe and vizier to Pharaoh Amenhotep III.

  Moving her light about the sarcophagus, Erica saw a skull lying amid rags on the floor. Hesitantly she moved closer. The eye sockets were darkened pits and the lower jaw had separated, giving the mouth an expression of continued agony. All the teeth were in place. It was not that old.

  Standing over the skull, Erica realized that she was looking at the remains of a whole corpse. The body had been curled up beside the sarcophagus, as if in sleep. Ribs and vertebrae could be seen through the decaying clothing. Just under the skull Erica saw a flash of gold. Falteringly she reached down and lifted the object. It was a 1975 Yale ring. Gingerly Erica replaced it and stood up.

  “Let’s see the next room,” she said out loud, hoping the sound of her voice would reassure her. She did not want to think, not yet, and as long as there were places to explore, she could keep her mind from the reality of the situation. Acting like a tourist, she passed into the n
ext and last chamber. It was the same size as the burial chamber, and completely empty save for a few rocks and a little sand. The decorations were of everyday life, as in the antechamber, but they were unfinished. The wall to the right had been prepared for a large harvest scene, and the figures were drawn in red ocher. There was a broad band of white plaster, prepared for hieroglyphics, running along the bottom. After shining her light around the room, Erica returned to the antechamber. She was running out of things to do, and a cold fear threatened to surface. She began to pick up the rest of her things from the floor and replace them in the tote bag. Thinking she might have probably missed something, she climbed the long flight of stairs to the granite plug. An overwhelming sense of claustrophobia swept over her, and vainly trying to control her emotions, she pushed at the stone with both hands.

  “Help!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. The sound reverberated against the rock faces and echoed within the depths of the tomb. Then the silence closed in on her again, smothering her with its absolute stillness. She felt as if she needed air. Her breathing became labored. She slapped the granite plug with an open palm, harder and harder, until she could feel pain. Tears welled up and overflowed her eyes, and she continued to pound the stone, sobs racking her body.

  The exertion exhausted her, and she slowly sank to her knees, still crying uncontrollably. All her fears of death and abandonment rose from the recesses of her mind, causing renewed spells of sobbing and shaking. She had suddenly realized that she was buried alive!

  Having faced the grim reality of her situation, Erica began to recover a modicum of rational thought. She picked up the flashlight and descended the long flight of stone steps to the antechamber. She wondered when Yvon would begin to worry that something might have happened. Once he became suspicious, he would probably go to the Curio Antique Shop, but did Lahib Zayed know where she was? Would her taxi driver ever think of reporting that he had taken an American girl to Qurna, who had failed to return? Erica had no answers to these questions, but the mere asking of them revived a glimmer of hope that supported her until her flashlight perceptibly dimmed.

  She switched it off and rummaged through her bag until she found three books of matches. It wasn’t much, but while looking for the matches she came across a felt-tip pen. Touching the pen gave her an idea. She could leave some sort of message on the wall of the unfinished chamber, explaining what had happened to her. She could write it in form of hieroglyphics so that her captors would probably not recognize its significance. She did not delude herself into believing that such an act would have any value short of giving her mind something to do. But that was something. Fear had given way to despair and bitter regret. Doing something would at least distract her.

  With the flashlight propped up with several rocks, Erica began to space out her message. The simpler the better, she thought. Once the spacing was accomplished, she began to outline the figures. She was about halfway through when the flashlight suddenly dimmed markedly. It came back on again, but only for a moment. Then it dimmed to a red ember.

  Once again Erica refused to contemplate her plight. She struck matches to continue the hieroglyphic text. She was crouching down at the base of the wall on the right, the text running in columns from the floor to the bottom of the unfinished harvest scene. She still suffered intermittent bouts of tears as she admitted to herself that her cleverness had been just enough to get her into inescapable trouble. Everyone had warned her about the involvement, and she had listened to no one. She’d been a fool. Training in Egyptology had not equipped her to deal with criminals, especially someone like Muhammad Abdulal.

  With only one pack of matches left, Erica did not want to think about how much time she had left . . . about how long the oxygen would last. She bent down near to the floor to draw a bird. Before she could outline the figure, the match suddenly went out. It had gone very fast, and Erica cursed in the darkness. She struck another, but as she bent to write, this also went right out. Erica lit a third and very carefully approached the area where she was working. The match burned smoothly, then suddenly wavered, as if in a wind. Licking her fingers, Erica could feel a stream of air coming from a small vertical crack in the plaster, close to the floor.

  The flashlight still glowed very slightly in the darkness, and Erica used it as a beacon to fetch one of the rocks she’d used to prop it up. It was a piece of granite, probably part of the sarcophagus lid. Erica carried it over to the draft and struck another match.

  Holding the meager light in her left hand, she hit the plaster in the area of the crack. Nothing happened. She continued to hit the area as hard as she could until the match went out. Then, locating the crack in the darkness by feel, Erica pounded the spot blindly for more than a minute.

  Finally calming down, she lit another match. At the spot where the crack had been, now there was a small hole, big enough for her to insert her finger. There was a space beyond, and more importantly, a current of cool air. Unseeing, Erica continued to pound the area with the piece of granite, until she could feel movement beneath the stone. She lit a match. A crack now ran along the juncture of the floor and the wall before arching back to join the slowly enlarging opening. Erica concentrated on pounding this area, holding the match with her left hand. Suddenly a large piece of plaster broke free and disappeared. After a moment, Erica heard it hit the ground. The hole was now about a foot in diameter. When she tried to light another match, the air current put it out. Gingerly she stuck her hand into the hole, as if she were reaching into the mouth of a wild beast. She could feel a smooth plastered surface on the inside. Turning her palm up, she could feel a ceiling. She had discovered another room built diagonally below the room she was in.

  With renewed enthusiasm Erica slowly enlarged the opening. She worked in the dark, not willing to sacrifice any more matches. Finally the hole was deep enough to allow her to stick her head in. After locating a few pebbles, she lay prone on the floor of the chamber, shoving her head into the opening. She let the pebbles go and listened for the impact. The room did not seem deep, and appeared to have a floor of sand.

  Erica emptied her cigarettes from the pack and lit the paper. When it was flaming, she pushed it into the hole and let it go. The flames went out, but the ember sank in a spiral. When it landed, it was about eight feet away. Erica found more stones, and with her head in the hole she tossed them in various directions, trying to get some idea of the space. It seemed to be a square room. And what pleased Erica, there was a constant movement of air.

  Sitting in the inky blackness, she debated what she should do. If she lowered herself into the room she’d found, there was a chance she would not be able to get back into the tomb she was in. But what difference did that make? The real problem was finding the courage to go into the hole. She had only half a pack of matches left.

  Erica picked up her tote bag. Counting to three, she forced herself to drop it through the opening. On all fours she backed up to the wall and lowered her legs into the hole. She had an image of being swallowed. Slowly she wriggled farther and farther into space, until the tips of her toes touched a smooth plastered wall. Like a diver trying to get himself to plunge into cold water, Erica forced her body to slide through the hole into the black void. As she fell for what seemed forever, her arms flailed in the air, attempting to keep her feet first. She landed off balance but unhurt, and fell over backward on a rubble-strewn sand floor.

  Fear of the unknown made her stumble to her feet, only to lose her balance again and sprawl forward. There was a tremendous amount of dust choking her. Her outstretched right hand fell on an object that she thought was a piece of wood. She held onto it, hoping it would ignite like a torch.

  Finally she managed to stand up. She switched the piece of wood to her left hand in order to get her matches from her jeans pocket. But the object no longer felt like a piece of wood. Touching it wi
th both hands, she realized she was holding a mummified forearm and hand, trailing wrappings in the darkness. With disgust she threw the object away from her.

  Shaking, Erica pulled the matches from her pocket and struck one. As its light filtered outward in the dust, Erica found herself in a catacomb with bare, unadorned walls and filled with partially wrapped mummies. The bodies had been broken apart and stripped of any valuables, then rudely discarded.

  Turning around slowly, Erica saw evidence that the ceiling had partially caved in. In the corner she saw a low dark doorway. Grabbing her tote bag, she struggled forward in the knee-deep debris. The match burned her fingers, and she shook it out, moving forward with her hands groping for the wall, then the doorway. She passed into the next room. Lighting another match, she found herself in a room filled with equally grotesque images. A niche in the wall was filled with decapitated mummified heads. There was evidence of more cave-ins.

  On the wall opposite Erica were two widely separated doorways. She worked her way into the center of the room, and holding the match ahead of her, decided the air was coming from the smaller passage. The match went out, and she moved forward with her hands ahead of her.

  Suddenly there was a great commotion. A cave-in! Erica threw herself forward against the wall, feeling particles hit her hair and shoulders.

  But there was no crash. Instead the commotion in the air continued and the atmosphere became saturated with dust and high-pitched screeches. Then something landed on Erica’s shoulder. It was alive and clawing. As her hand swept the animal off her back, she touched wings. It wasn’t a cave-in. It was a million disturbed bats. She covered her head with her arm and crouched low against the wall, breathing as best she could. Gradually the bats quieted and she was able to move into the next room.

  Erica slowly realized that she had fallen into a maze of tombs of the common people of ancient Thebes. The catacombs had been progressively cut into the mountainside in the form of a labyrinth to make room for the millions of dead. Sometimes they had inadvertently connected with other tombs, in this case with the tomb of Ahmose, in which Erica had been interred. The connection had been plastered over and forgotten.