King Solomon's Curse

17

Luaba was next through the trap, holding Eddie and Nina at gunpoint while the others followed. Mukobo gave the silver tablet a greedy look. ‘I wouldn’t,’ Nina told him as he reached for it. ‘It’s the only thing stopping the rest of your men from becoming chunky salsa.’ He withdrew his hand.

Brice peered down the next passage. ‘Is there another trap down there?’

Ziff, regarding the statue with wonderment, shook his head. ‘I would imagine there’s an inscription before each test of Solomon. A clue as to how you can pass it.’

‘If you’re smart enough,’ added Nina.

‘Well, we have two PhDs, a master’s,’ Brice put a hand to his heart with false modesty before indicating Lydia and Howie, ‘I assume a couple of graduates, the future leader of Eastern Congo, and… well, the rest.’ He gave the members of the Insekt Posse a disdainful look, which finished on Eddie.

‘You’ve got an MA?’ scoffed the Yorkshireman. ‘What in, applied arseholery?’

‘International relations, actually. But I’d hope that amount of brainpower would be a match for someone from the Bronze Age.’

‘We will soon find out,’ said Mukobo, pointing imperiously down the new tunnel. ‘Follow me. And you, boy,’ he added to Howie, ‘keep filming.’

‘Yeah, I will,’ the young man nervously assured him.

The warlord raised a torch and strode into the darkness, the others filing after him. The new passage turned after a short distance, angling downwards. ‘There is another room,’ Mukobo soon announced. ‘Dr Wilde, Dr Ziff — what is this?’

He stepped aside to let the archaeologists past. Nina lifted her flashlight — to see a large and elaborate frieze covering the wall ahead. Four distinct panels each bore a carved scene. ‘Oh, wow,’ she said, impressed.

Every relief was different, but all displayed the same exquisite workmanship. The first was an image of a dead animal lying on a desert plain, insects buzzing around it. The second was a tree in an equally desolate landscape; the third, a muscular bald man holding the carcass of a goat above his head. The final picture showed a field of wheat with more insects — locusts — swarming above. The only thing all four had in common was a circular hole about six inches across set into each.

Ziff hurried to examine the frieze. ‘If this is from the era of Solomon, the style is very advanced for the time.’

Nina joined him. ‘Egyptian or Assyrian influence, maybe?’

‘Perhaps. Or it could be that Sheba had developed similar techniques, but we simply haven’t found any examples yet.’

‘I do not care who made it,’ said Mukobo impatiently. ‘What does it mean? Is this another test — and is it a trap?’

Nina checked the rest of the chamber. On a side wall was another inscription in Old Hebrew, one word in particular given great emphasis by being contained in a block of its own. ‘David, over here.’

Ziff joined her, reading the text. ‘It is another test, yes,’ he confirmed. ‘The first line says, “The Riddle of Samson”. Samson’s name is this word here.’ He pointed out the distinct block.

‘Samson as in, “and Delilah”, right?’ asked Eddie.

‘Unless there’s another Samson I missed in my theology lessons, then I’d imagine so,’ Brice replied. He looked into one of the holes. ‘This slopes downwards into the wall. There’s something at the bottom, but I can’t tell what it is.’

‘I wouldn’t try to find out until we know what we’re doing,’ Nina warned.

‘No, no,’ Eddie countered. ‘Go right ahead, Brice!’

‘I’ll leave it to the experts,’ said the former agent with a sneering smile.

Ziff had continued to translate the text. ‘It’s another message from Solomon,’ he said. ‘He says that Samson has the answer to the riddle that will allow visitors to pass, but only the wise will know where to find it.’

Nina looked back at the carved wall: specifically, the first panel. ‘Well, that’s obvious enough.’

Ziff nodded. ‘Judges, 14:14.’

‘“Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet.”’

Eddie gave them a bewildered look. ‘Okay, what?’

Mukobo was no more enlightened. ‘Explain.’

‘It’s a riddle Samson set for the Philistines,’ Nina told him, going to the picture of the dead animal. ‘If they solved it, he would give them a reward of thirty expensive garments, and if they didn’t they’d give him the same reward.’

‘They couldn’t answer it,’ Ziff continued, ‘so they forced Samson’s wife to tell them. When Samson realised what they’d done, he went to another town and killed thirty Philistines, then took their clothes to settle his debt.’

‘What, just thirty random people?’ Eddie shook his head. ‘Why is it that all historical figures are actually dicks?’

‘Typical bleeding-heart double standards,’ scoffed Brice. ‘You can’t judge the actions of great men of the past through a politically correct lens. Alexander, Julius Caesar…’

‘You were about to say bloody Hitler as well, weren’t you? Go on, admit it.’

‘So what is the answer to the riddle?’ demanded Mukobo.

‘This,’ said Nina of the carved panel. ‘It’s a lion that Samson killed with his bare hands. When he came back to it some time later, he found that bees had made a nest in its corpse, and there was honey inside it. The lion is the “eater” and the “strong”, and the honey is the sweet thing to eat.’

The warlord nodded. ‘Then to find the way through, we reach into here?’ He pointed at the hole set in the dead lion’s mouth.

Nina and Ziff exchanged glances. ‘I am… not sure,’ said the Israeli.

‘Why? What other answer could it be if it is written in the Bible?’

‘The thing is,’ Nina explained, ‘it’s — well, as a riddle it’s bullshit. It’s impossible to work out the answer based on the clues given, because it’s something that only Samson ever saw in person. It’s the biblical equivalent of asking “What’s in my pocket?” and demanding someone guesses right first time when you’ve got… a clockwork mouse and a pencil sharpener in it, say. It’s a cheat.’

Brice regarded the other panels of the quadriptych as Howie panned the camera’s light along them. ‘So could the real answer be any of these?’

Ziff examined the three pictures. ‘The tree seems to be a fig tree. The man holding up the dead goat, I would say is not Samson — he doesn’t have any hair. I don’t know who he might be, though. And the last panel is a plague of locusts devouring a wheat crop. I can’t see how any of those would relate to Samson’s riddle.’

‘Then it must be the lion,’ Mukobo said firmly. ‘Dr Wilde, reach into the hole.’

‘Wait, wait,’ she protested. ‘There might be something else we haven’t spotted.’

‘There is nothing else!’ The African swept his light around the room. Other than the frieze and the Hebrew inscription, the walls were blank. ‘You have the answer. We must find the treasure. Do it!’

‘It might be another fucking trap!’ Eddie objected. ‘Give her time to—’ He folded in breathless pain as Luaba drove his Kalashnikov into his stomach.

‘I grow tired of your voice, Chase,’ the warlord said, his suddenly affectless tone somehow more threatening than any angry shout. ‘I do not want to hear it any more.’ Luaba readied his rifle, finger on the trigger. The wheezing Yorkshireman looked up into the gun’s muzzle and opted to remain silent.

Nina was not about to do the same, however. ‘The lion’s much too obvious an answer. It’s the only one it could be — which means it can’t be. Solomon meant this as a challenge that only someone as wise as him could solve, but a passing knowledge of the Old Testament is all you’d need to reach this solution.’ She jabbed a finger at the image of the dead predator. ‘That’s not wisdom, it’s just having paid attention to the stories of your own people.’

‘Some would say that’s the very definition of wisdom,’ Brice observed smugly.

‘And some would say that it’s not falling for an obvious trap!’

‘Enough,’ Mukobo snapped. ‘Put your hand in there. Now!’ He shoved her to the carved lion. ‘If you do not do it, then I will make one of your friends do it instead — and anything that happens to them will be on your head!’

Nina stared with rising panic at the waiting hole. She was absolutely convinced that the obvious answer to the riddle was also wrong, and the first challenge had proved that Solomon was lethally unforgiving of mistakes. But despite her fear, she was unwilling to let someone else take the risk in her place. She looked back at her companions.

Lydia’s feelings were clear, her wide eyes pleading with the American: you do it. Not me. Don’t choose me! Howie’s sense of self-preservation was less blatant, but just as real. Ziff had the same misgivings as Nina about the puzzle, his expression almost apologetic for his failure to come up with a solution.

Eddie and Fortune, though, were both coiled springs waiting to unleash. She could see their eyes scrutinising their captors, searching for advantage, for weakness. And she knew Eddie would make a desperate strike rather than let her put her hand into the ominous opening — which would get him killed.

Her breath quickened, pulse pounding. A tiny shake of her head to Eddie, silently pleading with him not to sacrifice his life, but his determined expression warned her that he was not going to listen…

‘You are out of time, Dr Wilde!’ Mukobo barked. ‘Put her—’

‘Please — wait, please!’ A new voice, one that had not been heard for some time: Masson Kimba. The porter’s fear of Mukobo and his men had rendered him mute and passive, meekly going wherever he was pushed, but now he finally spoke again. ‘Do not hurt her. Please.’

The warlord rounded on him. ‘Do you want to take her place?’

‘I do not want to, but… but I will.’

‘Masson, no!’ Nina protested. ‘I can’t let you!’

Kimba gave her a weak smile. ‘You have to. I am to blame for all this.’ He shot a disgusted glare at Wemba, who looked away in discomfort. ‘I knew Cretien had money problems, that he had talked to the Englishman. I should have told Fortune that he could not be trusted.’

‘It was not your fault,’ said Fortune. ‘It was mine.’

‘I should have known,’ the porter insisted. ‘And Dr Wilde will be more likely to get you out of this place alive than me.’ He faced Nina again. ‘You were kind to me on the boat… Nina. Let me be kind to you. Please.’

She shook her head. ‘But I can’t—’

‘Enough,’ snapped Mukobo. ‘He has chosen. Think yourself lucky, Dr Wilde. And hope you are wrong if you want him to live.’

He gestured, and his men pushed Nina back before clearing a space around the first panel. Kimba gave Nina a last worried look, then cautiously slid his arm into the dark circle, reaching down at an angle. ‘It is… it is like a pipe,’ he reported. ‘There is a hole in the top, but… I cannot feel anything inside.’

‘Keep going,’ ordered the glowering Mukobo.

The porter leaned closer to the wall as his outstretched hand continued deeper. ‘I found something! It is metal.’

‘Careful,’ warned Nina. ‘Don’t push or pull it, just tell me what it feels like.’

Kimba’s face scrunched with deep concentration as his fingertips probed the unseen object. ‘It is like… a handle?’

‘A release for a hidden door?’ suggested Ziff, nervously fingering his beard.

‘Or it could be the release for a trap,’ Nina countered. ‘Masson, don’t pull it until you’re sure there’s nothing else there.’

The Congolese felt around the space’s entire circumference. ‘There is only the metal thing.’

Mukobo folded his arms. ‘Then pull it!’

Kimba glanced beseechingly at Nina for advice or salvation, but she had neither. He licked his lips, then turned back to the frieze. ‘Okay. I am holding it.’ A pause for breath, then: ‘And… pull.’

A faint metallic clunk came from behind the wall. Everyone flinched — but nothing happened.

Kimba gasped in relief—

Another sound, harsher — and the African screamed as something inside the hole slammed downwards with a crunch of tearing flesh and bone. ‘Oh my God!’ Nina cried. ‘Get him out of there!’

The porter shrieked, unable to pull free of whatever had caught him. ‘My arm! It has my arm, it—’

Another frightening noise, this time from the ceiling. Some instinct made Nina jump back — as a long metal spear lanced out of a hole overhead and stabbed diagonally downwards. Its prong plunged through Kimba’s back, impaling him against the frieze.

He flailed, letting out one final anguished, gargling cry before falling limp. Lydia screamed. His body remained pinned to the wall for a moment before the spear jerkily retracted into its hiding place, blood drizzling from the shaft.

Kimba slumped, hanging briefly by his trapped arm before whatever was holding it also withdrew. The dead porter flopped to the floor, a gaping wound in his forearm revealing how another spear had plunged through it to transfix him.

Fortune held the shivering Lydia as she stared at the corpse. ‘Is… is he…’ she stammered.

Brice completed her sentence. ‘Dead? Quite decisively, I’d say.’

‘You can fucking shut up,’ Eddie growled at him.

Mukobo directed his torch at the ceiling. He found first the hole from which the spear had fallen, then identical openings in line with each of the other three panels. ‘You were right, Dr Wilde. The lion was not the right answer. So what is?’

Nina’s voice was as shaky as her hands. ‘None of them.’

‘One must be. And you will find it.’

Anger overcame shock. ‘None of them are right, damn it! I told you, the Riddle of Samson is bullshit. If we try those other holes, the same thing’ll happen!’

‘Three more holes,’ said Brice, ‘and by my count, one, two, three supernumeraries.’ He indicated Lydia, Fortune and finally Eddie. ‘Archaeologists and a cameraman, we need, for now. Anyone else, well… a phrase involving coal mines and canaries comes to mind.’

‘A phrase involving my boot and your arse comes to my mind,’ said Eddie, glaring angrily at his countryman.

‘That is a very good idea, Mr Brice,’ said Mukobo. He pointed at Lydia. ‘Begin with her. I grow tired of her whining.’

The sound woman tried to flee, but barely made a single step before being grabbed by the militia. ‘No!’ she screamed. ‘No, no!’

‘Wait, wait!’ Nina cried. She aimed her own light back at the inscription. ‘The answer’s here, it’s got to be! Just give me time, I can find it!’

There was no pity in Mukobo’s gaze. ‘Find it quickly,’ he said, gesturing towards the panel bearing the fig tree. Three leering members of the Insekt Posse hauled the New Zealander to it, her protestations becoming a shrill, incoherent cry of terror. ‘Put her arm inside.’

‘Nina!’ yelled Eddie, Luaba’s gun locked upon him. ‘Whatever the real answer is, you need to find it right fucking now!’

‘I’m trying, I’m trying!’ She stared helplessly at the inscription, struggling to remember Ziff’s translation. The only word she knew for sure was the name sitting alone on its own block, Samson—

‘Wait!’ she gasped — not in panic, but sudden hope. ‘David, the line with Samson’s name in it — what does it say? What’s the exact translation?’

The militia forced Lydia’s arm into the second hole. Ziff regarded her fearfully before turning his gaze to the ancient text. ‘It — it says, ah… “Samson has the—” no, “holds” would be more accurate. “Samson holds the answer that… that will allow, permit, those who enter this place to pass, but the wise—”’

‘“—will know how to find it,”’ she finished for him, recalling his earlier words. ‘That’s not the important part, it’s the part about Samson. Samson holds the answer!’ She ran to the inscription — and dug her fingernails around each side of the lettered block, clawing at the precisely cut stone.

Mukobo signalled for his men to pause. ‘What have you found?’

‘The answer — the real answer!’ She finally found purchase and pulled. A nail broke as the block edged out, but she ignored the pain in the rush of discovery. ‘Solomon gave the answer to the first challenge in a riddle. But the second one,’ she tugged it free, ‘was literal! Here, it’s here!’

Mukobo and Brice came to look. ‘What is it?’ demanded the African.

‘The switch that opens the exit!’ The new hole in the wall contained a bronze lever. She reached for it.

‘Are you sure?’ Ziff cautioned.

‘I’m sure,’ she replied as she wrapped her fingers around the handle, lifting the inscribed block in her other hand. ‘Samson really did hold the answer. It’s so obvious in hindsight, but just like Samson’s riddle, you’d only know the answer if someone had already told you. Which Solomon did. The test was to see if you were paying attention to exactly what he said, rather than jumping to the obvious conclusion.’

She pulled the lever. Metal creaked — then the section of wall bearing the inscription moved slightly, one edge inching outwards.

‘Ouvrez-le,’ Mukobo ordered. His men pulled it wider. Another passage was revealed beyond. ‘Ah! We are getting closer to the treasure!’ Almost as an afterthought, he signalled for Lydia to be released. Her captors let go, the New Zealander dropping to her knees in tears. Fortune went to help her, daring any of the Insekt Posse to stop him. None were willing to try.

‘Well done, Nina,’ said Ziff, relieved. ‘Well done. I would never have thought of that. It seems that Solomon liked to play word games.’

‘Perhaps his next challenge will be a Sudoku puzzle,’ Brice remarked snidely. ‘Well, you’ve got us this far, so let’s hope your luck doesn’t run out.’

‘It already did,’ said Nina, looking sadly at Kimba’s body. She closed her eyes in silent tribute to his bravery and sacrifice, then — at Mukobo’s menacing urging — led the way through the door.