The Forbidden Tomb

36

Cobb needed three things: a shower, a sandwich, and a summary of what had happened to Sarah and Jasmine in the tunnel.

At that moment, the shower would have to wait.

McNutt tore into the pantry as Cobb rummaged through the fridge for life-sustaining fuel. Neither had eaten since that morning — an eternity with the stress and workloads of their day — and they were willing to make a meal out of almost anything. Fortunately, they wouldn’t have to rough it. The kitchen was well stocked with meats and cheeses, a variety of breads, and an assortment of fruits and vegetables.

The meal did more than satisfy their hunger. It also gave Sarah a chance to fill them in on everything that had happened between the arrival of the gunmen, which was when the team separated, and her escape through the sea tunnel. She spent a few minutes describing Papineau and Garcia’s heroic rescue before Cobb asked her to concentrate on the evidence that they had discovered inside the temple.

‘Jasmine called it a pictograph,’ Sarah explained as she drew tiny symbols on a paper napkin to illustrate. ‘Carvings on a wall that represented events from the city’s past.’

McNutt whistled. ‘That’s a lot of history. How big was the freaking wall?’

Sarah shook her head. ‘It wasn’t a complete history. More like a highlight reel. It included depictions of various wars, those who came to power, that sort of thing. It even explained what happened to the Library of Alexandria.’

She paused, allowing Cobb and McNutt to ponder that last bit of information. Although they understood the basic implications of her statement, it was Papineau who clarified the importance of such a discovery.

‘The pictograph may not rewrite history — because rumors about the library have existed for years — but it will unquestionably bring it into focus. Where there once was doubt, we now have certainty,’ he said.

‘Great,’ McNutt said as he picked fig seeds from his teeth with a toothpick. ‘But how’s that going to help us?’

‘The wall also describes the history of Alexander’s tomb.’

Cobb perked up. ‘Is that true?’

Sarah nodded. ‘The carvings started with the arrival of Alexander and the creation of his city, and they ended with his body being smuggled out of Alexandria just before a massive flood leveled everything.’

Cobb thought back to Papineau’s original briefing in Florida. It had included a video simulation of a catastrophic tsunami in 365 AD. ‘The earthquake in Crete?’

‘Good memory,’ said Sarah, who was surprised that Cobb was still upright let alone functional. ‘According to Jasmine, an oracle warned the priests that a natural disaster was on the verge of destroying the city. The prophecy gave them enough time to smuggle Alexander’s tomb to safety.’

Cobb grimaced. ‘A prophecy, huh?’

‘Look,’ she admitted, ‘I don’t know about the prophecy part, either, but it doesn’t matter what we believe. People back then lived for that shit. And if the almighty oracle told them that their city was on the verge of a horrible tragedy, I’m pretty sure they would have dug up Alexander and carried his skeleton to somewhere safe.’

Cobb was intrigued by the possibilities, but not enough to distract him from what mattered most — and that was Jasmine. With that in mind, he needed to figure out who had the most to gain by destroying the pictograph and the cisterns.

‘Sarah,’ he said, ‘did you find anything else down there? Were there any signs that someone had been there recently?’

‘You mean apart from the Semtex and the explosive foam?’

Cobb smiled. It had taken a while, but he was actually starting to appreciate her biting sense of humor. ‘Yes, Sarah, other than the bombs.’

‘Maybe,’ she replied. ‘I found a used glow stick at the seaside end of the tunnel. I have no idea if the bombers dropped it, or if it was sitting there for five years.’

‘Did you take it?’

She laughed at the absurdity of the question. ‘Of course I took it. Like you even have to ask. I would have taken the wall, too, if I didn’t have to swim.’

His smile widened. The glow stick was exactly the kind of clue he was hoping for. Torches were impossible to trace, and flashlights were so commonplace that tracking them was almost irrelevant, but the glow stick gave him hope. The technology was relatively new, dating back only forty years or so, and there was only a handful of manufacturers.

‘Josh,’ Cobb said as he assembled a plan of attack in his head. The clock was ticking, and they needed to get to work. ‘How are you feeling?’

McNutt sucked on his toothpick. ‘Kind of bloated — how about you?’

‘I mean, are you able to work?’

He sat up straighter. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. I want you to find out everything you can about the explosives. Who deals in Semtex and Lexfoam in this part of the world? What would it take to get the amount that was needed for this job? I want you to plan the mission in your head and give me all the angles. Your flashlight should have recorded plenty of close-ups of the bomb packs and detonators, so have Hector pull the files if you need a visual reference.’

McNutt’s eyes lit up. He loved the thought of planning an explosion; even the one that had almost killed him. ‘I’m on it, chief.’

Cobb spun to face his computer whiz. ‘Hector, you’re going to be quite busy the next few days, so crack open a Red Bull, Mountain Dew, or whatever geniuses like to drink. I need to know everything there is to know about that glow stick. Make, model, country of origin, retail distributors — all of it.’

‘No problem.’

‘How long until you know about the flashlight drives?’

‘Tomorrow morning at the earliest.’

‘Why so long?’ Cobb demanded.

‘The worst thing you can do to a wet circuit is to power it up. That’s why I took the batteries out right away. Even the smallest surge can fry a drive.’

Cobb trusted his judgment. ‘Don’t rush the process, but don’t take all week, either. We need this sooner rather than later.’

Garcia nodded. ‘Understood.’

‘And Hector, as soon as the footage is ready, I want you to find Sarah. She can walk you through all the symbols that Jasmine explained to her. Cross-reference her interpretations with whatever expert analysis you can find online — without actually talking to anyone. We need to keep this as quiet as possible.’

‘No worries. I hate talking to people.’

‘And they hate talking to you,’ Sarah added.

Garcia grumbled under his breath. ‘I can’t believe I saved your life. What was I thinking?’

‘Probably: look! An unconscious female! Here’s my chance to make out with her before she wakes up!’

McNutt laughed. So did the others.

The only one who didn’t laugh was Garcia.

Sarah turned to Cobb. ‘And what about me?’

Cobb answered, ‘We’re going to comb through every other video that we shot. I want to know how these bastards got in and out of the cisterns. You can’t open a manhole and drop in a few hundred pounds of explosives without being seen. We spent two days down there. I want to know what we missed.’

Sarah nodded in understanding. They had detected very few entry points during their rekky, and none offered the access required to deliver their supplies. That meant they had overlooked something. ‘Alright. I’ll meet you in the lounge — after you’ve showered.’

‘Not before?’ he teased.

‘After,’ she stressed again. ‘Definitely after.’

Cobb smiled and turned his attention to Papineau, who had been uncharacteristically quiet during the briefing. ‘Jean-Marc, I’d like you to—’

Papineau cut him. ‘Sorry, Jack. I have my own leads to pursue.’

Cobb frowned. ‘Such as?’

‘I have colleagues who might be able to help us in a great number of ways. The explosives, the glow stick, the translation of the pictograph — I can cover all aspects of the investigation, but I can’t do it from here. My connections must be made in person.’

‘If you say so,’ Cobb grunted.

When it came to Papineau, the rest of the team had grown somewhat accustomed to his eccentricities. They knew he was a curious creature who flitted in and out of their lives like a distant relative who only surfaced when the moment fit his needs. Occasionally he brought gifts and sometimes he offered guidance, but other than that, he played things so close to the vest that his agenda was practically indistinguishable from the fabric itself.

For Cobb, that was a major problem. He still knew far too little about the man who had presented them with such a captivating offer. He had entered into their arrangement with a hearty level of distrust, and thus far Papineau’s actions and behavior had only served to provoke Cobb’s suspicions.

‘Can you at least tell us where you’re going?’ Cobb asked.

‘The Orient,’ Papineau lied. ‘Which already says too much.’

His point was abundantly clear.

He wasn’t going to provide a straight answer.

As tempted as Cobb was to call him on his bullshit — and he was very tempted after the long day he’d had — he ultimately decided to shrug it off. In his mind, it wasn’t the time or place to create disharmony on his team.

Not with so much at stake.

Instead, he decided to bring the team together.

Cobb cleared his throat. ‘As you know, I’m not one for making speeches, but I want to remind each of you that we’re working toward a common goal here. We might be approaching it from different angles, but it’s still a common goal. So if you find anything — and I do mean anything — that may help one of your teammates in his or her search, then I want you to voice it immediately. Not later, not tomorrow, and certainly not next week. I want you to speak up as soon as you possibly can because one of our friends in danger and it’s up to us to bring her home.’