by Logan Ryles
It sat behind a sharp rise, sheltered from view except for the right rear quarter panel and wheel. The car was a dark grey four-door, small enough that the rise completely covered the front two-thirds of it. Kevin stomped on the brakes, and the 4Runner ground to a halt fifty yards away. Megan reached for the door handles, but Kevin held up a hand.
“Wait.” He dug beneath the driver's seat and produced an AR-15 rifle with a shortened barrel and a collapsible stock. With a quick flip of his hand, Kevin deployed the stock, then chambered a round. “Charlie Lead,” Kevin said, his voice calm but commanding. “We’ve located a grey Chevy Cobalt matching the description of Pollins’s car.”
“Copy that, Charlie Two. Charlie Eye has a view from the drone. The vehicle appears to be abandoned, but we can’t tell for sure.”
“Understood,” Kevin said. “We’ll check it out on foot.”
“Copy that. Take it slow.”
The group piled out of the SUV, and Wolfgang unbuttoned his shirt to make sure his Berretta was accessible. It rode beneath his arm, a friendly and reassuring lump next to his side. His heart pounded as the three of them fanned out, taking the car from different angles. Kevin led, his shoulders low and the rifle riding just beneath his line of sight. Every move he made was elegant and balanced, and Wolfgang wondered what Kevin had done prior to joining Charlie Team.
This isn’t his first time in a desert, holding a gun.
Kevin held his hand up, signaling for Megan and Wolfgang to wait while he circled quickly around the rise and cleared the vehicle. A few seconds passed as Kevin faded from view, and Wolfgang braced himself for gunfire.
Kevin’s voice boomed over the coms. “All clear.”
Wolfgang let out a pent-up sigh and followed Megan around the rise. As the car came into view, Wolfgang panned the face of his smartwatch across the rear bumper of the Chevy. A camera was built into the watch and fed directly back to one of Lyle’s computers.
“Do you have the license plate?” Wolfgang asked.
“Copy that, Charlie Three,” Lyle replied. “The plate number matches her registration. That’s Pollins’s car.”
Wolfgang knelt behind the car and felt cautiously near the tailpipe, then tapped the pipe directly with his index finger. It was cold. He stood up and checked the back passenger side door. It was unlocked, and a quick sweep of the interior revealed nothing of value—some cigarettes, fast food wrappers, and chewing gum. But there was mud in the footwells of the passenger seat and one of the back seats. The kidnappers took her car from the museum and used it to drive her out here. But why?
Wolfgang stepped away from the car, peering at the dirt. The steady wind that blew across the desert brought with it an endless wave of dust, quickly filling shallow footprints. Wolfgang didn’t see any tracks or trails leading away from the car, but there was no reason to drive out here, in the middle of nowhere, unless . . .
Wolfgang swept the landscape immediately around the car, shielding his eyes with one hand, his gaze skipping from rock to shallow dip to scruffy desert bushes. He almost missed it on the first pass, sliding right by to the next dip, then snatching his attention back to the spot in the dirt fifty yards away.
Wolfgang broke into a jog. “Over here!”
His feet pounded against the packed dirt as he focused on the spot. With each passing yard, the disturbance on the desert floor became more distinct—a flapping, sand-colored piece of cloth pinned down by a rock and ravaged at the edges by wind. Wolfgang thought he saw another piece of cloth a few feet away and parallel to the first, also pinned down by a rock and covering the space in between.
“I’ve got it!” he shouted again.
“Wolfgang!” Kevin snapped. “Hold up!”
Wolfgang kept running. He cleared the final twenty yards to the spot and ground to a halt, scanning the dirt. He could clearly see the cloth now, pinned down in two corners by rocks—stretched tight and covered in sand.
It’s hiding something.
Wolfgang broke into a grin, the excitement overwhelming the trepidation he’d felt only minutes before.
“This is it!” he shouted, waving the others forward.
“Wolfgang, wait!” Megan said.
Wolfgang took another step closer to the nearest rock and felt the ground vanish beneath him. His foot landed on what looked like sand but turned out to be part of the cloth, and he fell forward face-first.
His face and shoulders slammed into more sand-covered cloth that gave way into a gaping hold beneath. Before he could shout or grab for the edge, Wolfgang was somersaulting downward with darkness surrounding him on every side. He coughed and thrashed his way free of the cloth, still falling. Then his butt slammed into hard, smooth stone, and he continued to free-fall downward. He clawed out on all sides, desperately searching for anything to break or even slow his descent, but all his fingers touched was empty air as cold stone slid beneath his back.
Suddenly, Wolfgang’s feet hit more stone, but it wasn’t a floor; it was a slight turn in whatever kind of tunnel he was rocketing through. He flung both arms out to grab hold of a free edge as he shot through the turn. He was falling too fast.
The surface beneath his back was flatter now, but all light from the desert surface far above had long faded. Wolfgang slid another five or eight seconds, then he felt the surface beneath him turn from stone to sand, and his free fall converted into a flipping hurtle down a gentle slope.
Everything was pitch black, and the air was thick and rank with unknown smells. Wolfgang thrashed for something to break his fall as he continued to flip and roll downward. Sand clogged his face and filled his clothes, and then he slammed into another stone wall.
Wolfgang lay still, his mind spinning. He was vaguely aware of dirt and rocks beneath his back, and as he blinked into the blackness overhead, a sixth sense told him he was in some kind of cave. Maybe it was the sounds he’d detected as he fell or just the reality that there was only dirt beneath him, not over him.
It didn’t really matter. His heart pounded, and his entire left side throbbed in pain from the collision with the wall. He forced himself up on his elbows, wincing as pain shot through his bruised hips and ribs.
“Charlie Lead?” he coughed. “Can you hear me?”
Nobody answered over the com. Wolfgang reached a dirty finger up to his ear and felt for the earpiece, suddenly realizing he didn’t feel the familiar pressure of it riding in his ear canal. Wolfgang sat bolt upright and blinked rapidly, feeling for the earpiece again. Sand ground in his ear as he fished around with his finger, but he felt nothing.
Wolfgang’s heart rate spiked, and he gasped for air. He spat sand from his mouth and turned around, feeling with his hands for the side of the slope. Panic overtook his mind, and he shook all over.
Light. I need light.
Wolfgang felt through his pockets, digging past a pocket knife and a small roll of local currency. The Canadian passport fell out, and then he felt the familiar touch of cold steel from the LED penlight he kept in his pocket. He pulled it out and fumbled with the switch, still panting for air. The light came on and flooded the space in front of him, illuminating the face of a dead man lying only inches away.
12
Wolfgang gulped back a scream and thrashed backward, almost dropping the light. The olive-toned man that lay at his feet was tall and dressed in dark clothes. His neck was twisted to one side at an unnatural angle, his eyes wide and frozen into a death-stare.
“Hello?” The voice was distant and faint.
Wolfgang’s heart beat so loud he wasn’t sure if he heard the call, or just imagined it. He forced himself to calm down, clawing his way backward up the sandy slope until he was a few yards from the body, then he scanned the light upward.
He sat at the foot of a sand dune packed with rocks sloping downward from the roof of the cave about fifty feet up. Only it wasn’t a cave. The light wasn’t powerful enough to shine all the way to the ceiling, but Wolfgang could make out flat stone walls
rising behind the dune, and at the top of the dune, he could make out the square outline of the hole he’d shot out of during his wild descent. It was square and black with no sign of light from the outside world streaming through.
It’s some kind of chute . . . leading into what?
Wolfgang rubbed sand from his eyes, then placed his free hand into the dune to brace himself. His fingers sank into the sand and touched something hard and round. He frowned and twisted, panning the light over the spot and sweeping the sand away.
Wolfgang choked, thrashing backward again. The object in the sand was a human skull, decayed to the point where almost none of it remained, but the shape was unmistakable. He swallowed a panicked shout and clawed his way to his feet, struggling for balance at the bottom of the dune.
“Hello?” the voice said.
This time, Wolfgang was sure he heard it coming from the far side of the sandpile, off to his left, where the light was too weak to shine. The skull lay in between him and the voice, as did the body, but the prospect of another human in this dark cavern of death sounded like salvation itself. Wolfgang stumbled around the skull, struggling for balance and keeping away from the body as he panned the light forward.
“Hello?” the voice said for the third time. It was weak, almost a whimper, and Wolfgang thought it was female. He could hear fear in the tone—the same fear that still pounded in his blood with every heartbeat.
“Hello?” Wolfgang called back. “Where are you?”
He struggled for balance as he circled the bottom of the dune. The voice didn’t answer him, but he heard a soft cry, like a child sobbing. Wolfgang clung to the flashlight as if it were his sole hope for survival—which it might’ve been. Sand filled his clothes and ground against his feet from the insides of his shoes, but he kept thrashing forward, flashing the penlight from side to side as he saw another wall rise out of the darkness.
Then he saw her. From the first glance, he knew the little figure nestled in the crevice between the bottom of the dune and the nearest stone wall was Dr. Pollins. She looked just like her sister, identical in every detail. Amelia lay with most of her torso out of sight, buried in the sand. Only one arm, her neck, and her head poked out. As the light flashed across her face, Wolfgang saw pure panic in her eyes. Tears ran down her cheeks, and her hair was twisted into a tangle of sand and sweat.
“Dr. Pollins?” Wolfgang said.
Amelia lifted her free hand toward him as he hurried forward, kneeling in the sand beside her and placing the penlight in his mouth. He dug with both hands, pawing sand away from her torso.
“My leg . . . it’s broken,” Amelia said.
Wolfgang spoke around the light. “Stay still, Doctor. I’m going to get you out.” He quickly unearthed her torso and other arm, then moved to scoop away sand from her leg. As he did, his fingers touched something hard, and he recoiled.
More bones.
He moved to her other side and scooped the sand away. Gradually, he shifted enough sand to expose everything from her knees up, then he reached down and pressed his arms beneath her back, gently lifting her up and out. Amelia groaned but allowed him to pull her free before setting her back down in a sitting position, her back resting against the stone wall.
“Water?” she asked.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have any.” Wolfgang looked back up at the ceiling and scanned the penlight over the mouth of the chute.
Megan and Kevin would be working for a way to free him. They would need rope—a lot of it—and he didn’t remember having any in the 4Runner. Without communications, he had no way of telling them to send down water or more lights.
Wolfgang panned the light around again, taking in the full bulk of the sandpile, then glimpsing the dead man lying at the bottom.
What’s going on here? Is this the tomb?
Wolfgang flinched when Amelia grabbed his arm, and he was impressed by the strength in her fingers.
“We have to get out,” she said.
“We will, Doctor. My friends are coming, okay?”
Amelia shook her head. “We have to go now.”
There was a fear in her eyes that transcended the natural panic of being stuck underground. It was deeper and more immediate. Was she descending into shock?
“Are there other men?” Wolfgang asked, motioning to the body at the foot of the sand dune.
“No,” Amelia said. “Just him.” She swallowed then motioned to her left.
Wolfgang turned the light in that direction, following her line of sight. For the first time, he saw a black doorway in the far corner of the room, barely visible even when he pointed the light directly at it. Wolfgang’s heart skipped, and he felt a wash of excitement in spite of their predicament.
The tomb.
“A pharaoh?” Wolfgang asked.
She shook her head, but when she opened her mouth, he couldn’t hear the words through her dry voice.
Wolfgang leaned closer, pressing his ear next to Amelia’s lips so that she could whisper.
“Death,” she said. “Plague.”
“Plague? What are you talking about?”
Amelia beckoned him forward, and he leaned close again.
“This tomb . . . There was a plague, long ago. Black Death.”
Wolfgang jerked away, rushing to his feet. He stepped away from the sandpile, recalling the bones buried beneath the dune. The reality of what he was looking at sank in, and he remembered Amelia’s apartment and the books opened on her desk. He remembered the highlights and the pages opened to a passage about a plague in Ancient Egypt.
This wasn’t the tomb of a pharaoh. It was the mass burial site of an ancient civilization ravaged by a disease that tore through society like an angel of death.
Wolfgang pressed himself against the wall, facing the sandpit. Everything made sense to him—why the Egyptians wanted the scroll back so desperately, even if they already had pictures of it. The scroll wasn’t the map to a burial site packed with treasure; it was a map to a burial site packed with bodies and possibly disease.
Can bodies this old still harbor the plague? Surely the bacteria must be dead now.
Amelia coughed and waved Wolfgang toward her again. He hesitated, forcing himself to breathe.
Don’t panic.
Wolfgang knelt next to Amelia and held his ear close to her mouth.
“Listen,” she said. “The bones can’t hurt you. It’s been too long. But . . .” She swallowed, then coughed.
Wolfgang put a hand on her arm and waited for her to calm herself.
“In the next room,” Amelia continued, “are the catacombs. You can’t touch the mummies. Do you understand?”
Wolfgang nodded slowly. Mummies. That meant this plague was far older than the Black Death that ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages. This disease must date back to Ancient Egypt itself. Could it really be alive for that long? Surely not, but Wolfgang wasn’t about to take the chance. He shone the light back up at the ceiling, searching for the mouth of the chute. He found it, but there was still no sign of a rope or a light or any communication from Megan and Kevin.
It’s only a matter of time. Stay calm.
Wolfgang gave Amelia a gentle squeeze on the shoulder and smiled at her. “We’re going to get you out, Doctor.”
Amelia nodded. “My sister?”
“Ashley’s safe. We already found her.”
The relief that crowded over Amelia’s face was evident. Wolfgang gave her shoulder another squeeze, and then he thought about the second man. There had to be a second man, after all. The first man had uncovered the chute, and he and Amelia had fallen into it. He fell face-first and broke his neck on impact, and Amelia fell to the left side of the dune and triggered enough of a landslide to bury her, breaking her leg somewhere along the way.
But there had to be a second man because somebody had covered the hole. Actually, there was probably a second and a third man, because there was dirt in all four floorboards of Amelia’s car. After Amelia and the
first man fell, the second and third men covered the hole because they had the same problem Kevin and Megan had—they needed rope. So, they covered the hole to keep it hidden and took a second vehicle to get rope.
And now they’re coming back.
As if on cue, far away through the chute, Wolfgang heard the distant pop of gunfire, followed by the faint roar of an engine. The sounds were too weak for him to make out specifics, but he thought he heard more than one gun and more than one vehicle.
Wolfgang huddled in the darkness and lowered the light, listening to the noises far above. Gunfire meant that the kidnappers had returned to find Kevin and Megan at their hole, and they were prepared to defend it because they still thought the chute was the mouth of a royal tomb, not a mass burial site. Wolfgang thought about Megan as he heard another string of distant pops.
God, let her be okay.
He’d barely breathed the prayer when the explosion detonated, shaking the ceiling above and sending tremors into the floor. Wolfgang stumbled for balance and looked up as bits of sand and rock rained down from the ceiling overhead. He pointed the light to the ceiling and saw cracks spreading across the stone, fifty feet up. The cracks spread, then several large stones broke free and hurtled toward the sand. A split second later, a ripping, crumbling sound echoed through the chamber, and the entire ceiling began to cave in.
13
Wolfgang didn’t have time to worry about a mummified plague awaiting him in the catacombs. He snatched Amelia up by both arms and hurtled across the sandy floor, dodging falling sections of ceiling. She grunted in pain, half-dragging behind him, her broken leg scraping the floor and bouncing on chunks of rock.
