Journey of the Pharaohs - NUMA Files Series 17 (2020)

by Cussler, Clive

  “His description of me is accurate,” Kurt admitted.

  The older man smiled. “I too am interested in stories from the ancient days. Here in our land, there are rumors of a treasure. It was said to be left behind by the People of the Sun, the Egyptians. The internet is filled with these stories. Even the old newspapers. Every few years, someone comes here claiming to have found something or seen something. They never have any proof, though.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Kurt said. He didn’t elaborate. “But I’m not interested in any treasure that might be down there, just the people who are coming after it.”

  Eddie asked the next question. “Are these people dangerous?”

  “They are,” Kurt said. “Our plan is to capture them.”

  Eddie’s grandfather went silent for a moment, contemplating what Kurt had said. Finally, he spoke again, this time addressing Eddie in their native language and allowing him to translate one more time.

  “He says if that’s what you seek, we will help you, but he thinks you should know they won’t find what they’re looking for down there.”

  Kurt didn’t waver. “As long as they show up and we get the drop on them, the treasure can remain a mystery for all eternity, as far as I’m concerned.”

  CHAPTER 54

  Silver Box Ravine, Navajo Nation, Arizona

  The bottom of Silver Box Ravine lay at an elevation of twenty-five hundred feet, almost a mile down from the rim of the canyon up above. The terrain was loose rock and sand, as the ravine itself was dry year-round and only eroded when flash floods brought on by thunderstorms rushed through. Looking up at a blue sky devoid of the smallest wisp of a cloud, Kurt and the others could see there would be no storm today.

  “It’s so hot,” Morgan said. She pulled at the neck of her T-shirt, trying to let some of the heat underneath escape. “It’s a wonder Herihor’s people didn’t think they’d circled the world and gone all the way back to Egypt.”

  “But it’s a dry heat,” Gamay quipped, offering the classic desert dweller’s response.

  “My shirt disagrees with you,” Paul replied.

  Joe laughed. He’d grown up in the Southwest and felt right at home in this weather.

  Kurt found the inferno invigorating, especially as it soothed the sore joints and muscles that had been strained and bruised over the last two weeks. “The sooner we find this cave, the sooner we find some shade. According to the old FBI report, the entrance is a large gap in the south wall not far from where the road let us out.”

  They’d driven from the Navajo village to the edge of the canyon in a pair of pickup trucks pulling horse trailers. After finding the old road, Eddie had led them down on horseback and then taken the horses back up the trail, leaving Kurt and his crew to search on foot.

  For Kurt’s plan to work, it was important that there be no sign of any activity in the ravine—and that meant no motorized equipment, tire tracks or helicopters buzzing about. Even more important, they had to find the cave and get inside before anyone from Barlow’s team arrived.

  Kurt glanced up at the switchback road carved into the side of the canyon. It was a crumbling mule track at this point, but in the FBI photos it was freshly excavated and graded at no small expense.

  Comparing the photos to the current view wasn’t an exact science, but they soon discovered a few landmarks and from those zeroed in on where the cave entrance should have been. Instead of an opening, they found a giant sloping pile of boulders and sand.

  “It’s got to be behind that—” Joe started to say.

  “Rockslide,” Gamay finished.

  “Bound to have been several in the last hundred years,” Paul pointed out. “That’s how the canyon grows and changes. From the look of it, there are areas on both sides ripe for another break. Let’s be careful—if and when the shooting starts.”

  “If we surprise Barlow, there won’t be much shooting,” Morgan insisted.

  Kurt was already scaling the rocks, trying to get to the top without causing an avalanche of his own. He reached the upper reaches of the pile and found what he was hoping to discover—a narrow gap. Cool air from the cave inside was pouring out through it.

  “This is it,” he told them.

  The sand and rock had backslid into the cave over the years. The result was an opening at the top and a descending pile of rubble on the inside.

  Aiming a flashlight into the dark space beyond, he saw nothing remarkable other than the walls of the cave itself. It didn’t matter. He knew they were in the right place.

  He turned to the others. “Backtrack fifty yards and clear away any footprints we’ve left. Then get up here and join me inside.”

  As the others went to work, Kurt made his way to the bottom of the slope inside the cave’s entrance. Reaching the ground, he aimed his flashlight into the void beyond.

  Careful not to leave footprints, he walked on only the hard-packed ground and rock, avoiding the sand. The tunnel was wide—wide enough to drive a truck through. As he got away from the entrance, he found evidence that a truck may have indeed been driven in there.

  In the dried mud on one side of the tunnel he noticed a tire track. It was narrow with a simple-patterned tread, a giveaway to its place in history nearly a century before.

  Moving on, he found the first Egyptian-style artifacts. Furniture and disassembled chariots. Passing them by, he came to an expansive chamber in the cave. It spread wide and high, like an opera house or indoor arena.

  Panning his light around revealed ramps and platforms and multilevel architecture carved out of the rock. In every direction, at every level, he found dust-covered figures and strange faces.

  A muscular body standing against the wall with the head of a jackal represented Anubis, the god of embalming. A slim figure to the left of it had a falcon’s head and great painted eyes, which Kurt knew was a representation of Horus, the god of health, protection and power. Farther on, stacked up with what seemed like little care, let alone respect, were eight mummified figures, their strips of cloth gray and brown with dust and grime.

  Kurt aimed his light deeper. In the middle of the cavern, he saw dozens of smaller statues, along with piles of gilded furniture, reed baskets and clay jars. A large throne-like chair lay surrounded by cat figures that looked to be made of alabaster, ornate treasure boxes and small versions of the Sphinx.

  The arrangement was haphazard, as if it had been shoved in in haste instead of placed there with care. In the very center lay a single sarcophagus, not the fifteen that Professor Cross had envisioned.

  Kurt approached it but dared not touch the top—the dust was distributed too perfectly, a handprint or rubbing would be too obvious. He aimed the flashlight at the surface, looking closely and spotting the glimmer of cracking gold leaf.

  He’d found what the archeologists discovered in 1927. He’d discovered the exact secret that the Granzini family had killed to preserve. Now all he needed was for Barlow and his men to find it as well.

  CHAPTER 55

  Tuba City, northern Arizona

  The sight of tractor-trailers rolling through Tuba City was not an uncommon one. Not an eyebrow was raised as three nearly identical semitrucks passed through in a convoy. Garnering even less attention was a four-door crew cab pickup truck following behind them, pulling a powerboat on a trailer.

  From Tuba City, the convoy traveled west on Route 160 before turning north on a narrow two-lane highway known as Route 89. Thirty miles on, without a car in sight in either direction, the tractor-trailers pulled off the highway and drove down a dirt road, where they disappeared behind a smooth-sided bluff of wind-eroded sandstone.

  Using the dirt road as a parking lot, the trucks spread out, stopped and shut down their noisy engines.

  Solomon Barlow climbed out of the lead truck, thankful to stretch his legs after twelve hours in the cab. Robson got out of the second truck and came to meet his boss. Fydor and Xandra climbed out of the third vehicle. Behind them, Omar Kai eme
rged from the pickup.

  “This is where we split up,” Barlow said. “Are we all clear on the plan?”

  Kai nodded. “My men and I will infiltrate the dam while Fydor and Xandra make mischief on the outside. We’ll sabotage the dam, setting some booby traps for the authorities to deal with, and then disappear.”

  Kai was very confident. Barlow saw their chances of success at no more than fifty percent, but ultimately all he needed was a diversion. If Kai and his people got themselves shot or blown up in the effort, it was of little concern to him. All that mattered was that the eyes of law enforcement would be drawn to the dam and away from him and his illegal excavation.

  “Very well,” Barlow said. “You’ve all set up your own extraction plans, so this will be it for a while. Let’s dispense with the threats of what happens if I double-cross you or if you double-cross me. We all know we can make each other’s lives miserable. Far better if we meet in a week to start splitting the wealth.”

  Fydor and Xandra nodded. Kai did the same. “You two are with me,” he said.

  The three of them turned and strode confidently back to the pickup truck Fydor and Xandra had arrived in, climbing inside and slamming the doors. In a moment, the truck was turning around and heading for the highway, a cloud of dust rising behind it.

  Barlow watched them go and then focused on the men with him. “Unload the trailers.”

  Robson opened the back doors of Barlow’s truck and manhandled a ramp into place. He and his men climbed inside and soon emerged riding four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles. Each ATV had basic excavation equipment strapped on the back.

  “Follow me,” Robson shouted.

  He twisted the throttle and sped off, heading west. Four identical ATVs followed, three of them carrying Robson’s mates and one of them hauling a special guest who had been far more cooperative than any of them anticipated.

  As Robson and his men moved out, Barlow turned to the last members of his team. “Break these trucks down and get those birds in the air. We have no time to waste.”

  Unloading the last two trucks was a more complicated task. Instead of opening the back doors, Barlow’s men climbed up on the roofs of the trucks and began unscrewing large panels.

  The lightweight roof panels were detached and tossed aside. With this done, the hinged side walls and the aft doors of the trucks were lowered to the ground. When that effort was complete, the trucks resembled flowers with opened petals. At the center of each flower, sitting on the flat bed of each trailer, was a helicopter with its rotors folded.

  The helicopters were painted to match those of a well-known tour operator famous for its sightseeing flights in the area. A perfect disguise, Barlow thought, should anyone notice them buzzing in and out of the canyon.

  With the helicopters now exposed, their crews went to work making them airworthy. The rotors were unfolded and locked into position. The power systems, fuel pumps and hydraulic systems were checked, the electrical systems were tested and confirmed operational.

  When the green light was given, Barlow climbed into the lead helicopter. He was joined by a pilot. A second pilot and spare crewmen climbed into the number two aircraft. Both helicopters had cargo bays filled with lighting and excavation equipment, all of which Barlow expected to leave behind when he loaded the helicopters with treasure.

  He wasn’t sure how many trips in and out of the canyon he would have time to make, but he hoped to leave the helicopters behind in the desert while driving out of Arizona with several trailerloads of priceless Egyptian artifacts.

  Sliding a headset over his ears, he made a whirling motion with his hand. “Let’s go.”

  As the helicopters powered up, a radio call came in from several miles up ahead. It was Robson. “We’ve found the old road. We’re taking it down into the ravine. Meet you at the bottom.”

  As Barlow and Robson prepared for the excavation, Omar Kai was navigating the streets of Page, a small town at the eastern end of Lake Powell.

  Page was a tourist town, packed with boaters and vacationers in the summer, quieter in the fall—except on the weekends. Like a lot of tourist towns, it had a cluster of motels and plenty of fast-food joints.

  Omar Kai studied the buildings as he went by. Most were garishly painted, some adorned with giant-sized plastic food or whimsical signs promoting their wares. It seemed a hodgepodge of things grouped together with little overriding thought except as a way to make money from those passing through.

  “How typically American,” he said, his voice simultaneously filled with admiration and dripping with disdain.

  “We can do without the commentary,” Xandra said. “Just find the boat ramp.”

  Kai wasn’t about to hurry, but he understood the tension. His men were crammed in the back of the truck while Xandra and Fydor shared the front bench seat. All of them were looking forward to getting out.

  Following the signs, he descended a curving road that ran between a row of motels and then took a secondary road that led east to a spot where they could access the lake. Finding no one else around, they backed the powerboat into the water.

  Fydor and Xandra went aboard, looking ghastly pale and out of place in their particular outfits.

  “Try not to die of sunburn before this is over,” Kai joked.

  Fydor was already plastering a stripe of zinc oxide on his nose.

  “We’ll be fine,” Xandra snapped. “But you’re going to need more than sunglasses and ugly shirts if you plan to take over the dam.” Kai and his crew were dressed like tourists. “How do you plan on sneaking weapons past the guards and metal detectors?”

  “We don’t need to bring guns with us,” Kai said. “We’ll pick them up once we’re inside.”

  Xandra stared at him as if trying to detect a lie. Then she understood. “You’re not as dumb as I thought.”

  Kai gave the boat a shove and watched it drift out. As it began to pull away, he turned his attention to the dam. His demeanor grew instantly more serious.

  Climbing back into the truck, he took the measure of his men and found them ready. “Let’s see if we can make the one o’clock tour.”

  A short drive led them to a bridge that crossed the canyon just downriver of the dam. Crossing it gave them a perfect view of the tremendous structure.

  “That’s larger than I thought,” one of the men said.

  Kai had seen plenty of dams in his time, including several in China that were larger than anything in the Western world, but those were dark and industrial while this structure had beauty to it. The contrast of colors struck him—from the blue waters stored up behind it to the stark white face of the dam itself to the red-orange hues of the sandstone cliffs into which the dam had been built. Even the trickle of aquamarine that marked the Colorado River below the dam looked as if it had been painted with an artist’s brush.

  Kai put the thoughts aside as they pulled into the visitor center parking lot and climbed out of the truck. Carrying nothing with them but their wallets and a few bottles of water, Kai and his men made their way into the air-conditioned building and paid for a tour.

  The cheerful guide told them the next one started in twenty minutes. Kai did the calculations in his head. It was not much of a problem. They had plenty of time.

  He sat on a bench and reached down to his tennis shoes. With deliberate care, he untied and then retied them, carefully checking that the oversize metal tips at the end of the laces remained secured and in place.

  CHAPTER 56

  Silver Box Ravine, Navajo Nation, Arizona

  The swarm of ATVs navigated the crumbling switchback road with caution. The descent was treacherous, with uneven ground, crumbling shoulders and a steep drop of several thousand feet waiting for anyone who lost control of his vehicle. Robson was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t lose anyone along the way.

  Reaching the bottom, the ATVs spread out from their single file formation and roared noisily into the open area between the vermillion cliffs. The r
oad had dumped them out heading east, but from the FBI file they knew the entrance to the cave lay behind them to the west.

  “This way,” Robson said, moving away from the broad exit and back toward the upper section of the canyon. Traveling in a group, they scoured the walls. After a few minutes Robson was sure they’d gone too far.

  He pulled up and shut his engine off. The team followed suit. “Any of your lot see a cave?” he asked, his face half hidden by a pair of tinted goggles.

  Snipe had pulled up next to him. “Nothing.”

  “Zilch,” Gus added.

  “Are you sure this is the right spot?” Fingers asked.

  “What do you think?”

  Fingers recoiled at the reply. “I think all these bloody canyons look the same.”

  Robson shook his head. “I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to him.”

  The driver on the last ATV had stopped a few feet away from the rest of them. He’d been unsteady on his vehicle since the beginning and had almost crashed it twice by the time they reached the steep road down to the bottom of the canyon. Robson had expected him to balk at the dangerous drive, but the desire to see what was there proved stronger than the fear.

  Professor Cross pulled his helmet off, revealing a head of curly gray hair. He raised his goggles up and parked them on his forehead. The rest of his face was dirty, leaving the area around his eyes looking as if it were highlighted.

  “We’re waiting, Professor.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Well, the entrance should be quite near,” the professor told them in his proper English accent. “But I don’t see any …”

  Professor Cross had studied the maps and the old photos. He’d compared them to the satellite views of the canyon that were available on the internet. It wasn’t a precise science, but he estimated that the margin of error could be no more than a quarter mile. They’d covered that much and more at this point. He felt certain that the entrance to the cave should have revealed itself by now.