Raiders

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

With the whole team now assembled in the void behind the chamber, Eva Starling knew this was her chance to shine — or humiliate herself. In the lead, she shone her flashlight into the gloom and confirmed what her legs were already telling her — the tunnel’s shallow incline was now getting much steeper. They were getting deeper into the ground beneath the catacombs, and at a faster rate with each footstep.

The tunnel was barely wider than her shoulders, and so they marched down the slope in single file, and Mason, the tallest among them, was forced to lower his head to stop it scraping on the hard rocky roof of the passage. “Now I know what a god-damned sewer rat feels like,” he said. “Please tell me, Eva, that we are almost wherever the hell we’re going.”

“You’re in luck,” she called back over her shoulder. “Up ahead the passage seems to widen a little and I think I can see the bottom.”

They made it to the wider section and spread out until they were all able to shine their flashlights down into the final area. Making their way toward the archway they reached a narrow ledge covered in dust and broken pieces of rock. Peering over the edge, Eva’s head started to spin as she stared down into a pitch black abyss.

For a moment, she felt a wave of nausea and thought she was going to fall inside it, get swallowed up by its gaping mouth, but then she felt a strong hand grip her upper arm and turned to see Jed Mason standing right beside her. “I’d take a step back if I were you.”

She gasped and then realized what had almost happened. “It just disappears,” she half-whispered. “I never saw anything like that in my entire life.”

“Looks like we have a long way to go,” Milo said, peering over Eva’s shoulder. “This place is like the god-damned Grand Canyon or something.”

“He’s right,” Ella said with an impatient sigh. “How on Earth are we going to find a tomb in all this? It’s like an underground city.”

“You’re exaggerating, surely,” Garrett said pushing his way forward to the front. “Oh, Jesus,” he gasped. “I guess not. This place is massive.”

“No one’s been down here for centuries, or maybe longer,” Eva said. “Just look at the dust and cobwebs over everything.”

“So let’s get on with it,” Mason said. “We’re wasting time.”

He and Eva took the lead, shining their flashlights along the ledge and making their way around a curve in the path until they reached a series of steps stretching down into more gloom. “Here,” Mason said. “Looks like we can follow the path to the bottom, this way.”

Once again, they set off into the darkness until they finally reached the bottom of the steps and found themselves in another stone chamber. On the opposite wall, three archways stood like gaping mouths.

“So, which is the right one?” Milo asked.

Eva stared up at the inscription and started to chew her lower lip as she tried to translate the crumbling hieroglyphics. It says that to know the gods, you must know yourself. It’s an ancient Egyptian proverb.”

“So what’s it trying to tell us?” Ella said.

“We go through the central one,” said Eva. “The glyphs above the other archways are warnings.”

Eva spun around and shone her flashlight back up the tunnel behind them. “What was that?” she whispered.

“What was what?” Milo said.

They stared down the beam of her flashlight until it dwindled away to nothing down the long, dark passage.

“I thought I heard something,” Eva said.

“Heard what?” said Mason, moving beside her and adding his beam to the search.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “Maybe it was nothing.”

“Great,” Ella said. “Now she’s imagining scary noises.”

“I did not imagine it,” Eva said. “I just mean maybe it was nothing significant, like a loose rock tumbling down or something.”

Mason looked sceptical. “I think any loose rocks around here did their tumbling a long time ago.”

“Maybe we dislodged something,” Milo said.

“Or maybe those freaking maniacs with the leather coats are right behind us,” said Garrett, sliding a round into the chamber of his SIG. “In which case, they’d better start praying they’re pretty damned fast.”

“We can’t start jumping at our own shadows,” Mason said. “This place is giving us the creeps, that’s all. Let’s keep our wits about us and get on with the mission. We’re nearly at the necropolis. We’re not going to start losing it now, all right?”

They reached a crevasse which was too wide to cross. A brief consultation resulted in Mason suggesting the grappling hook gun. He pulled it from his bag and fired it at a ledge on the other side, providing a taut rope they were able to traverse by monkey crawl. They crossed one by one and when they were all safely on the other side they followed a narrow passageway until they emerged into a large underground chamber. It was mostly natural, with stalactites descending from high above, but a pathway of smooth stone slabs divided the cave floor. They continued along the path, lighting their way with the gentle, buzzing light of the flashlights.

Walking in silence now, stunned by the scale of the chamber beyond the catacombs, they started to see more evidence of Parennefer’s handiwork — hollowed out sections in the walls for torches, and ornately carved statues of a host of ancient Egyptian deities staring down at them.

“Well, these things aren’t freaky at all,” Ella said.

“Looks like they’re hiding something from us.”

Emerging from the narrow tunnel, they entered a manmade chamber. Compared to what had come before, it was an anticlimax. Small, plain and damp, it was almost empty apart from a low balustrade which ran along the far end.

Nearing it, the flashlights illuminated something beyond the balustrade. A series of stone steps descended away from the chamber and led down to a narrow river. Beside the gently running water was a neat, rectangular sarcophagus. At each corner was a statue of a warrior, each armed with a khopesh.

Eva raised her hands to her mouth for a moment, speechless with surprise. “This is it,” she said at last. “Cleopatra’s tomb.”

Milo walked to one of the statues and raised his flashlight to illuminate the strange, jagged blade in its stony hands. “What the hell’s this?”

“It’s a khopesh,” Eva said. “A kind of Egyptian sickle sword. They inherited them from the Canaanites. They were greatly feared and with good reason. The khopesh was a savage weapon.”

They all stepped forward and Mason shone his flashlight over the sarcophagus for a few seconds, before sweeping it over the ceiling and down to the river. “This place looks like a death trap to me. Are you sure this is Cleopatra’s tomb?”

Eva leaned in closer and examined the carvings on the stone lid. “It’s written in ancient Greek for a start, which was her mother tongue, plus there’s another reason you can tell.”

“What’s that?”

She ran her finger along some of the letters. “This says Here Lies Cleopatra Philopator.”

“In that case, let’s see what’s inside this bad boy,” Milo said, rubbing his hands together.

Mason ordered the team to remove the sarcophagus’s heavy stone lid, and when they had gently placed it on the sandy river bank, he shone his light inside the sarcophagus and saw a stone carving of Cleopatra.

“That’s her, all right,” Eva said. “From the little we know about what she looked like, this is a pretty close likeness.”

“See anything?” Ella asked.

Eva looked inside. “There!”

She reached inside and pulled out an object wrapped in leather. Carefully opening the small package, she gasped. “The Book of Thoth!”

“I can’t believe we found it,” Milo said.

“Hold it right there!”

Mason spun around to see three figures approaching them. Two were wearing leather trench coats, just as Ikard had described, but the third was an older man he had never seen before. He was wearing a black suit with a white shirt, unbuttoned and no tie. He looked like an accountant.

“Who the hell are you?” Garrett said, raising his gun.

“I am Schelto Kranz. Surrender, or I will order these soldiers to kill you where you stand.” As he spoke, several armed men in combat fatigues rushed into the chamber.

Mason could see they had no chance. After Ikard’s warning that there were three of them, he had figured he could take them on and win, but seeing so many heavily armed soldiers standing behind Kranz, he knew he had little choice but to submit to his demands.

Ordering the surrender with a heavy heart, he watched sullenly as the Raiders lowered their weapons. Even Garrett dropped his gun on the sand.

“Raise your hands!” Kranz yelled.

Again, they obeyed. Seconds later the soldiers were swarming around them, removing their weapons and shoving them roughly away from the sarcophagus.

“It was brave of you to challenge Occulta Manu, Mason,” Kranz said with something approaching respect in the tone of his voice. “But also foolish. The punishment for meddling in our affairs is death.”

“Your affairs!” Eva said. “You make it sound like you’re an international charity, when you’re no better than Hitler.”

“Hitler?” Kranz scoffed. “Hitler was OM. I’m surprised you never knew that.”

“Hitler was Occulta Manu?”

“Naturally. Now there was a burgeoning talent.”

Eva shook her head in disgust. “Adolf Hitler was a genocidal tyrant.”

Kranz raised his eyes to the prisoners and gave them a triumphant smile.

“I’m sure he’d appreciate the compliment.”

“You disgust me.”

He grinned. “Why not join us, Dr Starling? We could use your talents?”

“I’d sooner die!”

Kranz laughed and dabbed the sweat from his forehead. “As you wish. It’s a shame you reject the offer of joining the Hidden Hand, Dr Starling. Locating Cleopatra’s tomb and the Book of Thoth is an admirable achievement, but sadly you have instead chosen another path. For me, the initiation into the rank of the Persians, for you and your friends, a painful and lonely death.”

“We’ll see about that, Lion man,” Ella said.

Kranz ignored her, and kept his eyes locked on Eva’s. “Now, Dr Starling, if you would be so kind, please hand over the Book of Thoth, and the ankh key. Now.”

Eva Starling hesitated for a few seconds, but just like the rest of the Raiders she knew her time was up. Kranz, Kiya and Tekin, plus the Egyptian soldiers they were now controlling, outnumbered and outgunned them by too great a margin. Any attempt to fight back would be suicide, and they all knew it.

She held the ankh and the book out at arm’s length, and Kranz lifted them from her hands. His eyes sparkled in the white light of the flashlights as they crawled all over his precious prize.

“Kiya,” he snapped. “Kill them all.”