Raiders

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

“I thought we would at least have to solve an ancient riddle about the gods or something,” Ella said. “But a storm drain?”

“Milo says this is the place,” Mason said with an apologetic look at the others. “And Milo’s….well, Milo. He’s never wrong, right?”

“That’s about the size of it,” Milo said. “Sorry.”

“So how do we get the grate off?” Eva said.

Mason looked at the CIA man. “Got anything to tow with in the Escalade, Garrett?”

The American nodded. “Sure. Length of tow chain.” He took a closer look at the storm drain, wobbling the loose grate with his hand. “Ought to pop that open as easy as pie.”

It popped open easy as pie the second Garrett hit the throttle and drove the Escalade forward a couple of meters. Even though it was after nightfall, Mason and the others had formed a ring around the offending article to stop any rubberneckers seeing what was going on, and seconds later their handiwork had successfully revealed the entrance beneath the famous pillar.

They kept lookout while members of the team lowered themselves into the storm drain one by one, and when they were all inside, they saw a large metal door built into the interior of the drain.

“Looks like the entrance to the catacombs all right,” Eva said. “I’d say fifth dynasty.”

“Very funny,” Mason said, running his hands over the lock. Without uttering another word, he pulled his Glock and blasted the lock to pieces, releasing the old door.

Ikard’s voice crackled over the radio. “I hate to break up the party, guys, but you’ve got company.”

“Who?” Mason said.

“Your starter for ten,” Ikard said. “Even in the Egyptian heat, they’re wearing black trench coats.”

“Huh?” Mason was dumbfounded. “How they hell are they tracking us?”

“And that’s the good news, the bad news is there are now three of them.”

“Three?” Eva said. “This just gets better.”

Mason shook his head and cursed himself for sending so many of the team south to the dam. He was sure no one else knew about the tomb’s location, but now he saw he had made a terrible error.

“Who’s the third, Chuck?” Garrett said.

“No idea. Average height, receding hairline, definitely not the type to kick back with a couple of blunts and the best of Miles Davis.”

“That’s not helping me picture him, Chuck.” Garrett said.

Mason faced the team. “The presence of the Hidden Hand means that things are now time critical. We have to find the tomb and the book and get out of here before they do.”

They cautiously made their way inside the new entrance, and began to descend down a dusty spiral staircase cut into the stone. Garret closed the door behind them and plunged them all into darkness. He rolled a boulder behind it and dusted his hands off. “That should keep them busy for a while.”

Mason switched on his flashlight and the narrow tunnel was instantly illuminated in a ghostly white light. “Well, here goes nothing, I guess,” he said, and started to lead the others down the steep tunnel.

A little under five hundred meters later, they reached a narrow archway which led into the part of the catacombs, but not before they had to blast another door open to give them access. “The authorities really don’t want anyone coming in this way,” Milo said. “Must be trying to hide the location of the tomb from the world.”

“Their main concerns are vandals and thieves,” Eva said. “Not archaeologists searching for the tomb of Cleopatra.”

Way after closing time, the catacombs were empty and silent, and the Raiders had them entirely to themselves. Located in Alexandria’s Karmouz district, the Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa are considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. The words meant Mound of Shards in English in reference to the vast quantities of smashed pottery fragments to be found in the vicinity.

“This is amazing,” Ella said in hushed tones.

Eva agreed. “The whole place is cut directly out of the rock and is pretty much a cave really.”

“How many levels are there?” Milo asked.

“Three. They’re accessed via a central spiral staircase in the rotunda. They lead to a banquet hall, an antechamber and various burial chambers.”

“Sounds like my kind of place,” Milo said with a casual laugh. “Reminds me a bit of the Christian catacombs in Rome.”

“Except this place was basically a private Roman cemetery,” Eva said, her voice echoing weirdly off the damp walls towering above them. “It goes down into the earth to a depth the equivalent of a five story building and contains around three hundred corpses.”

“Delicious,” Milo said. “How did they get the corpses down here? These goddam stairs are a nightmare.”

“They lowered them on ropes down the center of this spiral staircase.”

“It looks sort of strange,” Garrett said.

“That’s because of the time it was created,” said Eva. “It was at a very critical time for Egypt when there were many foreign influences, not just Egyptian, but also Roman and Greek.”

“When was it discovered?” Mason asked.

“When a donkey fell into a pit on the surface. The catacombs themselves date way back to the first century AD.”

They reached the bottom level. “Water,” Mason said, waving his flashlight at the floor.

“We must be on the lower levels,” Eva said. “They’re well-known to flood from time to time.”

Holding their flashlights up they saw beautiful carvings all over the rock walls, and enormous, complex statues rendered from white marble, and thick marble pillars holding up a carved ceiling.

“There,” Eva said, pointing to a mural of a priest on the wall. “That’s our way to the necropolis. Parennefer has an identical drawing in the codex. He says it’s the gateway.”

After shooting a vulnerable glance at Eva, Mason stepped forward and started to tap the wall with his flashlight. Precisely where Eva had said, over the painting of the priest, the tapping produced a more hollow sound.

Without saying a word, Mason pounded the flashlight on the painting and knocked a hole through the priest’s face. “Looks like we found it.”

“All right,” Eva said, stepping forward. “It’s time to bring this nightmare to an end.” She took a deep breath, and slowly edged inside the narrow slit in the chamber’s smooth, marble wall.

She moved carefully into the dark, damp tunnel which stretched away from the chamber at her back. Behind her, she heard Jed Mason and the others shuffling through the new entrance, but she knew this was now her territory.

Cautiously now, she stepped into the cold tunnel and tried to prepare herself for whatever nightmares lay ahead.