The Atlantis Stone

CHAPTER 50

Valentina and Major Rostov had watched the Americans enter the pyramid in the afternoon. Now they'd followed them into the complex at night. They watched the guide open the gate and let them through, lock the gate and walk away.

"I don't think they're sightseeing," Rostov said.

"I wonder what they're after?" Valentina said.

"Does it matter? We follow them."

They crept past the guard shack, keeping to the shadows. Arabic music and the sweet smell of Turkish tobacco mixed with hashish drifted out of the shack into the night air. They came to the iron gate. Valentina took out a set of picks and had the padlock open in less than a minute. They eased through the gate and closed it, leaving the lock in place. It looked as though the entrance was still sealed. They entered the pyramid.

The only way to go was down. They had just started when the muffled sound of the explosion pummeled their ears. Seconds later, a billowing cloud of dust swept past them. Valentina began coughing.

"Quiet," Rostov hissed.

"Someone might've heard that." Valentina wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

"If someone follows us in, they will regret it," Rostov said. "Their security is laughable. The only one out there is the guard and he was listening to music. It's unlikely he heard or saw anything."

They came to the debris left by the blast and the opening in the wall. Rostov shone her light into the tunnel.

"Now we know why they came here," Rostov said, "to find and open this."

"This must lead to the archive."

"They've gone in." Rostov stepped through the opening and drew her pistol. "Coming?"

Some distance ahead, Nick led the others in single file along the ancient tunnel. The air was stale and hot, heavy with the passage of time. They came to a place where the tunnel widened and split in three directions. Black shapes scuttled away from their lights, making clicking sounds.

"What was that?" Selena said.

"Scorpions," Nick said. "Big ones."

"How do we always end up in places like this?"

"I hate scorpions," Lamont said. "I saw enough of them in Iraq. Always crawling into your boots at night."

"Now what?" Ronnie said. "Which one do we take?"

"They all look the same," Lamont said.

Nick shone his light down the passage on the right. "This one is blocked. We're not going that way."

"What do we do, flip a coin?" Lamont aimed his light at the middle tunnel.

Selena moved her light over the openings. There was nothing to indicate which one to take or where it might lead. She shone her light on the third tunnel.

"The Sphinx is Southwest of the Great Pyramid. We've been going south. The center passage probably keeps going in the same direction. We should take the left-hand one."

"That makes sense," Nick said.

They started down the left-hand tunnel. Lamont kept glancing around, looking for scorpions. After a few minutes they came to another junction. This time it was a T.

"Right or left?" Nick said.

"Left." Selena pointed. "The Sphinx has to be to the left."

"Good a guess as any."

They had gone about a hundred yards when the tunnel opened into a circular room with four different passages leading away from it.

"Man, this place is like a maze," Lamont said. "Be easy to get lost in here."

Something was scratched on one of the walls. Selena walked over to it.

"We're in the right place. This is the Atlantis language."

"What does it say?" Ronnie asked.

"'Amon was here.'"

"You're kidding."

"That's what it says."

"Great," Nick said. "Ten thousand-year-old graffiti. Now what?"

Lamont took out a candy bar and began eating it. Ronnie looked at him and shook his head.

Selena said, "We have to be close to the Sphinx."

She knelt down in the dust on the floor and began drawing a map with her finger. The others watched as she drew a square.

"This is the Great Pyramid. We started from the south side."

She drew a smaller square, this one below and to the left of the first.

"This is the pyramid of Khafre."

She traced a long line angling down and away from Khafre's pyramid. At the end of it she drew a little square. Next to that she drew a larger rectangle.

"The line is the buried causeway. At the end of that are the ruins of a temple. The rectangle next to that is the Sphinx."

"Where are we in that drawing?" Ronnie asked.

Selena drew a straight line away from the great pyramid. About halfway to the causeway she drew the first junction they had come to, with three passages. She drew another line angling down and marked the T junction, stopping before she reached the causeway. She drew a line from that and stopped. She made four dots in the dust to indicate openings.

"I think we're here, at these dots."

They looked at what she had drawn.

"If you're right, we should take this one." Nick pointed at the third dot she'd made. "That should lead to the Sphinx."

"Now would be a good time to talk about traps," Selena said.

"You mean like we saw in Tibet?"

"Not again," Ronnie said.

"What traps?" Lamont asked.

"False floors, rolling boulders, spikes that pop out. Spears that shoot out of the walls. Things that drop on you."

Lamont sighed. "You're saying the roof could fall in on us? Thanks a lot."

"There might not be any traps," Selena said, "but I think we ought to be careful. If we're looking, we should be able to avoid them. Just go slow."

"I'll go first," Nick said.

Nick played his light over the entrance of the third opening. It was wide enough for two to walk abreast.

"This one is different. Look at the way it's made. It's square. The walls and floor are finished, smooth."

"We must be getting close to something," Selena said.

They'd gone no more than a hundred paces into the passage when it ended in a granite slab blocking the way. Chiseled into the center of the stone was an elaborate circular carving. Ten sea creatures were set at regular intervals around the circumference, like the numbers on a clock. Each creature was carved on a raised, round stone. Each stone bore a single character in the language of Atlantis. There were dolphins, a shark, an octopus and several kinds of fish, all carved with lifelike precision. Underneath the central design were two more rows of characters in the Atlantean language.

"That looks pretty solid," Ronnie said.

Nick ran his hand over the writing. "Selena, what does this say?"

"Give me a minute."

She stood in front of the wall, concentrating on the strange letters while the others held their lights on the carving.

"It's a dedication to the ruler and a warning not to go any farther. This is a door."

"A door? How are we supposed to open it?"

"The raised characters around the outside of the circle are a combination. You have to press them in the right sequence."

"We'll never figure that out," Nick said. "We'll have to blow it."

"I don't think we can," Ronnie said. "That looks pretty solid. The amount of C4 we'd have to use could seal the tunnel."

"You have a better idea?"

"Figure out the combination."

Lamont pointed his light at the finished ceiling of the passage.

"I think there's a trap up there." They all looked up. "See those lines in the stone?"

The faint outline of a thick rectangle as wide as the door was just visible.

"He's right," Selena said. "That would account for the warning. It's probably rigged to drop down if someone punches in the wrong combination. It would block anyone who wasn't supposed to be here from getting through."

"Yeah, and crush you like a bug at the same time," Lamont said.

"Even if we could blow through the door, that stone would drop," Selena said. "It must be three feet thick. We wouldn't get through that."

"This has to be the right place," Nick said. "Is there anything in that writing to help us get through?"

"The opposite. It says the gods will curse and destroy anyone who dares to enter."

"Guess these folks weren't very friendly," Lamont said.

Selena studied the carving. "Let me think."

Lamont made sure he was standing away from where the stone might fall. He took out another candy bar and began unwrapping it.

"Don't you ever get tired of eating that junk?" Ronnie asked.

"Gives me energy. You want one?" Lamont took a large bite.

"Now I know why you're getting fat."

"Fat?" Lamont looked down at his stomach. "I'm not the one pushing out over his belt."

"That's muscle, not fat," Ronnie said.

"Will you two be quiet?" Selena said. "I'm trying to think."

She looked at the ten characters circling the design. They weren't numbers or the names of the creatures. Each character was one word. The combination was a phrase. She tried reading them in sequence but it made no sense.

Two of the symbols were unfamiliar. She'd seen the rest before, some the first time she'd seen the unknown writing, in the photograph sent by the Russian. She sorted the characters in her mind. They fell into place.

"I think I've got it."

She stepped forward and pushed against a stone with a fish on it. It sank into the slab. There was a grinding noise. Something moved behind the stone face of the door.

"Selena, wait," Nick said. "You're under the trap."

"We don't have anything long enough to push these in."

"What if you're wrong?"

"If I don't do this we're not getting in there."

She reached up and pushed a second stone, this one carved with a dolphin. Again there was a sound of a mechanism moving inside the door. A trickle of fine dust dropped from the ceiling above.

"Wait a minute," Nick said.

Selena pressed a third time. More dust fell from the ceiling.

"Oh, shit," Ronnie said

"One to go."

Selena pressed the last stone and did a quick back flip away from the door, landing on her feet.

A loud rumbling and clanking came from within the walls. The floor shook under their feet. The stone door swung open.

Dim light flickered beyond.

"Open, sesame," Selena said.