The Eternal Chamber

by Tom Hunter

  Basile stuck his bottom lip out, pondering. At last, he nodded slowly. “Whatever the case, we ought to tell the Ministry about this. If it’s smugglers who are responsible for the cave, the Ministry will want to alert the appropriate authorities and if it’s the Romans, it’s best if we get them started on putting a team together in case this turns out to be a solid lead. We’ll want to hit the ground running on this one.”

  “Agreed,” said Samuel. “I’ll contact them first thing in the morning. Now how about a drink to celebrate? I’ve got a bottle of whisky somewhere that’s barely been touched.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks.” Basile shook his head, gesturing at the messy tent. “Any alcohol that’s been stored in these conditions will only taste like old shirts.”

  “Hey!” protested Samuel.

  Basile stood up. “It’s been a long day, so I’m going to get some sleep.” As he reached the entrance to the tent, he turned back to his friend. “I’m glad to see you back safely. I was worried about you.”

  “You know me,” Samuel replied. “I’m the original Comeback Kid!”

  “Sleep well,” smiled Basile, leaving Samuel alone.

  Crossing over to where his bed was buried under a pile of blankets and old clothes, Samuel pulled out a small, sturdy, oak chest from underneath the pallet. Taking a small key out of his pocket, he unlocked the chest, opening it to reveal his most important notes and documents. Pushing the papers to one side to make room, he placed the holorecorder in the chest, locking it up again to keep it safe until morning.

  Just as he was about to slide the chest back into its hiding place, he felt the pressure of a gun barrel pressed against back of his head.

  Click.

  Eleven

  “Turn around and stand up. Slowly. Keep your hands where I can see them and don’t do anything stupid.”

  Samuel carefully put his hands in the air, gradually turning until he was standing facing his unknown assailant.

  “Waleed,” he sneered when he saw who was pointing the gun at him. “I should have guessed. There always was something suspicious about you managing to be around whenever something important was about to happen. I don’t know what we’ve been paying you for all this time, but it hasn’t been for your work.”

  “What can I say, my friend?” Waleed shrugged. “I have a nose for business and an eye for what’s valuable. Something tells me that you are going to help me be a very rich man.”

  “You’re kidding yourself if you think I’m going to do anything for you,” Samuel scoffed. “You’d have been better off shooting me in my sleep.”

  “I still might,” Waleed warned, waving the gun menacingly.

  Samuel shook his head slowly. “You don’t have the balls.”

  “You really don’t want to push me, my friend,” Waleed cautioned. “This gun has taken twelve lives so far. Do you really want to be unlucky number thirteen?”

  Samuel shrugged. “Why don’t you just cut the crap and tell me what you want?”

  “That’s more like it,” grinned Waleed. “I’ve come to tender my resignation and I’d like to get my severance pay. Ten thousand dollars should do it.”

  “Are you kidding?” Samuel raised an eyebrow. “Talk about overvaluing your worth. Never going to happen.”

  “Oh, I’m worth a lot more than that, I can assure you,” said Waleed. “Let’s just call this little bonus the cherry on the cake.”

  “You can call it what you like. Doesn’t mean that I can pull ten thousand out of my ass,” Samuel countered. “We’re out in the middle of the desert. It’s not like I can go down to the bank and make a withdrawal. There’s no need for cash out here anyway.”

  “Don’t treat me like a fool,” snapped Waleed. “You and I both know that the Ministry gives you a sizeable lump sum for unexpected expenses, not to mention all the cash ‘bonuses’ that you will have been treating yourself to at every dig. You can’t tell me that you don’t skim off a little from the top of every project you’ve worked on. I think I’m being more than reasonable. I could just take everything you’ve got. Instead, all you have to do is give me my ten thousand and I’ll let you keep your life.”

  “You win.” Keeping his hands in the air, Samuel gestured with his head to a large chest in a corner of the tent. “You’re right. I do have the money. It’s all in there.”

  “Then go! I don’t have any time to waste.” Waleed motioned with the gun, indicating to Samuel to go to the chest, following close behind. As Samuel turned his back on the gunman, he sent up a silent prayer of thanks to whatever god or goddess might be watching over him that Waleed had no idea that the real treasure lay under his bed.

  When he reached the chest, Samuel dropped to his knees, pulling out a large bundle of keys from his pocket.

  “Now let me see. Which one is it?” he began, slowly working through the keys one by one. “I’m so absent minded these days. I think that one’s for the Jeep. That’s for the document box. That’s for the main equipment trunk.”

  “Don’t jerk me around,” hissed Waleed, casting an anxious glance over his shoulder to see if anyone was coming. “Get the key, get the money and get on with it!”

  “I think this is the right one,” Samuel announced, holding up a key and shaking the bunch at Waleed. “Does that look like it’s the key to a chest to you?”

  “If it’s not the right one, I’ll shoot you in the leg, so you’d better hope it is,” warned Waleed, jerking his head in the direction of the chest. “Now get a move on and open up that lock. I’ve got places to be and I’m sick of waiting for you.”

  Samuel turned and fitted the key in the padlock securing the chest. After rattling it about for a few moments, he eventually turned it, releasing the lock.

  “There you go,” he announced, stepping back. “Everything you want is in there.”

  Waleed rushed forward, shoving Samuel out of the way to start rummaging through the chest in search of riches.

  “Wait–what foolishness is this?” Waleed sat back on his haunches, holding up a handful of clean sheets in bemusement.

  “That’s my laundry chest, sucker!”

  Samuel hit Waleed over the head with a large textbook, the heaviest thing he’d been able to grab easily. As the man stumbled forward, Samuel threw himself at his back, grappling for the gun. Falling to the floor, Samuel lay on top of Waleed, pinning him in place and making it impossible for him to move. Grabbing the arm holding the gun, Samuel twisted it up behind Waleed’s back, forcing him to drop the weapon. Picking up the gun, Samuel opened it to unload it, only to discover that it was already empty. Snorting, he tossed it to a corner of the tent so it was out of reach.

  Pushing Waleed’s arm even further up until it wouldn’t move any further, Samuel dug his knee into the small of Waleed’s back, making him cry out in pain. Putting his other hand on the back of Waleed’s head, Samuel felt a twinge of smug satisfaction as he ground Waleed’s face into the dirt.

  “Did you honestly just fall for the old laundry basket trick?” chuckled Samuel, as he put all his weight onto his captive until he groaned again. “And did you really think you could rob me with an empty gun? Jeez, Waleed. I knew you weren’t the brightest, but I gave you a little more credit than that. Guess I overestimated you.”

  “Forgive me, master,” begged Waleed, trying and failing to push himself up. “I meant no harm in trying to borrow money from you. I merely needed a little financing. I would have repaid you in time. I respect you too much to cheat you.”

  “Uh-huh,” Samuel sneered. “Next time you want to try and scare someone into giving you their money, try putting a silencer on the gun. There was no way you were going to shoot me with that and get out of here alive. A little pistol like this doesn’t carry anywhere near enough bullets to shoot your way out if the crap hit the fan and the second the workers heard a gunshot, they’d have come running to help. You really didn’t think this plan through, did you?”

  He adjusted his position, ke
eping Waleed firmly in place.

  “Basile!” Samuel yelled. “Basile! Get your backside in here!”

  “Please, let me go,” pleaded Waleed. “I’ll leave and never return. We can forget this ever happened. You owe me. We were friends!”

  “We were never friends,” Samuel told him as Basile pushed open the tent flaps.

  “Sacre bleu!” he exclaimed when he saw Samuel sitting on top of Waleed. “What’s going on here?”

  “Waleed here thought that he would treat himself to a little farewell bonus by holding me up at gunpoint,” Samuel explained. “His weapon’s over there if you want to grab it. Don’t worry–it’s not loaded.”

  Basile crossed over to where the gun was lying on the floor, picking it up and holding it with two fingers at arm’s length as if it would bite him. “I hate these things,” he said. “What do you want me to do with it?”

  “Leave it on the table,” Samuel told him, Basile gratefully putting it down as soon as he could. “I’m more concerned about what we do with Waleed. Do we have anywhere we can keep him locked up until we can contact the Ministry?”

  “This is an archaeological dig, not a prison site,” Basile reminded him. “We don’t generally erect jails when we set up camp. We could tie him up though–we’ve got plenty of rope–and I’m sure I can find a place to keep him secure in one of the lesser used tents until you decide what to do with him.”

  “Excellent,” nodded Samuel. “Let’s do that and call the Ministry for advice. The sooner Waleed’s off my site, the better.”

  “Wait!” cried Waleed as Basile turned to rummage around the tent for some rope. “I have information you need to hear. Let me go and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  “You were just threatening to kill me and you think I’ll let you go?” Samuel barked, incredulous.

  Waleed looked around wildly, before training his eyes on Samuel. “The reason I was so desperate to get away is that you have a Bruard spy in the camp and where there’s one Bruard agent, others aren’t far behind. I don’t want to be anywhere near those sadists when they take over the site.”

  “Bruard?” scoffed Samuel. “I have to give it to you, Waleed. You’ve got some imagination. I thought you said you had something useful to tell me.”

  “I’m being serious!” Waleed urged. “I heard him talking on a radio he’d smuggled in, calling for reinforcements. I need to get out of here before the Bruard arrive and if you were sensible, you’d leave too.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Samuel took his knees off Waleed’s arms, roughly pulling them back so that he could tie them together. “Have you got that rope yet, Basile?”

  “Here you go.” Basile hurried forward to hand over some cord he’d found. “But don’t you think we should investigate his story further? It wouldn’t be the first time the Bruard infiltrated a dig to siphon off resources and treasures to further their own cause. Shouldn’t we tell the Ministry immediately, just in case?”

  “I don’t see why,” shrugged Samuel. “Waleed here would say anything to save his own skin, wouldn’t you, Waleed?” He twisted Waleed’s arms behind his back, roughly wrapping the rope around his wrists and tying it so tightly that the cord bit into flesh.

  “I’m telling the truth,” Waleed protested. “Please, you have to believe me. We’re all in danger.”

  “Says the man who threatened me with a gun,” Samuel pointed out. “Come on. The only place you’re going is the most uncomfortable tent we can find to keep you in until the authorities can collect you.”

  “No! Please, no! I’ll scream and then you’ll have the whole camp wondering why you’re not taking me seriously!”

  “Do it and I’ll give you something to really scream about,” Samuel warned. “I’ve picked up a few tricks over the years and you’d be surprised at how easy it is to break a man’s wrist in one quick movement.”

  Twelve

  Shafira sighed and sat back in her seat, swiveling her chair as she gazed at the stack of work she still had to do, her eyes glazing over. The hum of a vacuum cleaner buzzed in the background as the janitors made their way round the cubicles on her floor.

  Sighing again, as she summoned more reserves of stamina, she leaned forward and clicked on the button to play the recording of yet another dig site update. Jotting down notes as she watched the video for the final time, as soon as it was finished, she clicked on her mouse to switch the screen to her word processor.

  Placing her hands on the keyboard to start writing up her notes, she took them away again without typing, slumping back.

  Why are you wasting your life here, Saffy? she asked herself. All her colleagues had long since gone home, making this yet another day when she’d been the first one to arrive and the last to leave. Despite all her effort, it didn’t seem to make any difference to her workload and although her supervisor had promised she’d be rewarded for her diligence, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a raise.

  Was the few extra pounds she’d make in overtime really worth it? Would the world end if she went home, curled up with a DVD and tried to kid herself that she had a life?

  “Screw it,” she muttered, picking up her mouse to shut down her computer.

  Knock, knock!

  Taking a deep breath to stifle the curse that threatened to escape, Shafira plastered on her best smile in case it was Director Haisam, but relaxed when she saw it was only Aziza, one of the mail room women.

  “Hey, Aziza,” she said. “”How are you?”

  “Not bad, not bad,” Aziza replied. “Hosein, my eldest, has just started working in the mail room with me, so I’ve been showing him around. He’s an ambitious boy and a hard worker. I don’t think he’ll be there long before they give him a position more suited to his ability.”

  “I’ll keep my eyes open for him then,” Shafira told her. “I’ll be able to say that I knew him when!”

  “Anyway, I know that you’re really busy, so I hate to disturb you, especially when it’s so late,” Aziza went on, “but I thought you might like to see this. It just came in from the field. It’s marked urgent and since I know that it’s from a region that you deal with, I thought I’d leave it on your desk before I went home so you’d see it first thing in the morning. I wasn’t expecting to see you still here.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of leaving for a while yet,” Shafira lied. “Not when I’ve got so much to get through. Pass it over and I’ll have a look now.”

  Aziza gave her the package and left Shafira alone again.

  “The things I do to keep up appearances,” she muttered to herself, turning back round to her desk. Cutting open the securely sealed envelope, Shafira shook out a USB stick and a letter. Inserting the stick into her computer, there was only one file on the USB stick. She clicked on it and a video started playing.

  Shafira groaned when she realized that she recognized the footage. It was a film that she’d already reviewed–twice. Once for her job and once for her super-secret assignment from the Director. Someone must have mislabeled it as urgent.

  “Home to a DVD it is,” she decided, reaching forward to switch it off, when a voice started commentating.

  “This is Chief Archaeologist Samuel McCarthy speaking from a site in the vicinity of the existing dig in southern Egypt,” it began. “This recording should be considered highly classified due to the potential ramifications of its contents.”

  Hello. Shafira sat up straight, leaning forward to see what information had been missing from the other recording.

  “I have already submitted a basic report of the dig site,” Samuel continued, “but this extra footage concerns a location a short helicopter ride away from the dig, co-ordinates of which remain a closely guarded secret until I receive further instruction.

  “I first learned of the existence of a nearby cave containing fabled treasure when I unearthed a map from the dig site. Hidden among numerous other documents on a shelf in what appeared to be a storage area, at first the map seemed to be
nothing out of the ordinary. However, translations of the text indicated that the map was much more than a simple diagram. It discussed a secret cave hidden from view, as well as a number of rituals that were supposed to confer spiritual enlightenment and forbidden knowledge to the practitioner.

  “It would not be the first time such a map was discovered only for its treasure to be long since gone when the site was investigated. Nevertheless, I observed protocol and kept the details on a need to know basis, taking a small team to investigate the surrounding area. At first, we found nothing, but then we fell upon a camouflaged cave–literally.”

  Shafira gasped as she watched the recording of the cave materializing out of nowhere, Samuel beaming, having captured the miraculous nature of the camouflage, before moving on to the sudden appearance of the carved doors leading to a hidden inner sanctum.

  “I’ve enclosed the appropriate documentation requesting an expansion of our dig site privileges as well as extra security to protect us when we return to the cave. Although all signs suggest that this is an ancient site, possibly the greatest find of our time, there is also the possibility that this cave is a smuggler’s den, in which case we will need extra firepower as well as the authority to take any offenders we encounter into custody.”

  When the video was over, Shafira opened up the intranet and tapped in her passcode to access Samuel’s personnel file. Highly rated by the Ministry, although some of his methodology was considered highly unorthodox, there was little doubt that he got results. If he believed that a site was worth further investigation, the chances were high that it was concealing something important.

  Pulling the USB stick out of her computer, Shafira rolled her chair round to the other side of her cubicle. Placing her thumb on the biometric cabinet in the corner of her room, she placed the USB stick safely inside, locking it up securely.