The Pharaoh's Secret

47

Joe and Renata followed Kurt down the stairs, moving quickly and quietly. In single file, they cut across the floor of the generator room, arriving at the yawning section of the wall just as it began to close.

“Inside,” Kurt said, ducking into the darkness. Joe and Renata followed, and all three were in the tunnel when the door finished shutting.

The door sealed to the ground and the darkness was nearly complete. In the distance they could see the lights of the tram striking the walls and ceiling as it moved off.

Another tramcar sat empty on the rails beside them.

“Should I see if I can get this thing started?” Joe asked. “Or do we hike?”

Kurt looked down the line. The other car was speeding away, showing no signs of stopping.

The sound of its motor was reverberating off the walls. The strange, echoing acoustics made it hard to tell the distance, but these same acoustics would also make it difficult for the men inside it to realize they were being followed.

“Let’s take the car,” Kurt said. “I’ve had my exercise for today.”

Joe climbed into the tramcar and found the controls. As Renata went aboard, Kurt went to smash the headlights.

“Or we could use the off switch,” Joe said. “Just a suggestion.”

Kurt held back. “A good one at that.”

Joe flipped a few switches and pulled a fuse just in case. He pressed the start button. Three small indicators on the control panel lit up, but nothing more. Like a golf cart, the battery-powered motor remained off until he pressed the throttle.

“All aboard.”

Kurt joined Renata in the back as Joe eased the throttle forward and the electric motors engaged. With a soft hum, the car moved into the darkness, traveling slowly and maintaining a separation of several hundred feet from the first tram.

The tunnel never veered, and the pipeline to their left was a constant companion.

“So what’s this pipe for?” Renata asked in a hushed tone. “It’s clearly headed away from the river.”

“It could be a storm drainpipe… for runoff,” Joe answered quietly.

“Seems a little large for a desert city that doesn’t get much rain,” Renata said.

“Maybe the system from the city funnels into one place and then gets aggregated into this pipe.”

“It’s not a storm drain,” Kurt said. “Water was pumping out of it when we passed it in the river channel, but it hasn’t rained here in weeks.”

“Then where’s the water coming from?” Joe asked.

“No idea,” Kurt said.

“Maybe some other Osiris project we’re not aware of,” Renata said.

“Maybe,” Kurt replied and then changed the subject. “The man in the suit. One of the Arabs called him Piola. You seemed to recognize that name. Do you know who he is?”

“Possibly,” she said. “Alberto Piola is one of the leaders in our parliament. He’s been an outspoken critic of American interference in Egypt, especially Libya. It’s a sore spot for him, and for many in my country, because Libya used to be our colony.”

“What would he be doing here?” Kurt asked. “Especially now when half the continent is falling apart?”

“Assuming I heard correctly, he’s here to negotiate something. But exactly what that might be, your guess is as good as mine.”

“I think,” Kurt said, “that he’s here to negotiate some kind of tribute to Osiris.”

“Tribute?” Renata said.

“Think about it,” he said. “Based on what former major Edo told us, Osiris has risen from nowhere to become a force of power. Shakir, the man who runs it, fancies himself a kingmaker. He was connected with the old guard. And the old guard, thrown out so quickly a couple of years ago, is now in full ascendance in all these other countries, rising up with a swiftness no one could have predicted. All of it aided by a sudden water shortage that no one can explain.”

He looked at them, they were waiting for more.

“Before we hijacked Paul and Gamay from their vacation, they were working with a Libyan hydrologist. I read the report on our flight down. Geology, mostly. But according to some tests Paul rigged up, there’s a deep aquifer underneath Libya that was feeding the water table up above. Suddenly, that water was on the move, creating a negative pressure instead of a positive one and rendering the pumps all but useless. And here we are, underneath the sands of Egypt, next to a pipeline you could drive a truck through, which seems to be drawing tons of water per second and just dumping it into the Nile.”

“Are you suggesting Osiris is causing the drought to foment the upheaval?” Renata asked.

“If there’s a human cause, I don’t see anyone else with a motive. Or the means.”

“And Piola?”

“He wants influence in Libya. That costs money. He’s either here to pay or here to collect. Either way, he’s part of this. And the drought is helping him.”

Joe studied the pipe. “I don’t know how much water you’d have to draw out of an aquifer to cause what Paul was suggesting,” Joe said.

“It’s a big pipe,” Kurt pointed out.

“Sure,” Joe said. “But not big enough.”

“How about nineteen of these?” Kurt asked. “According to their website, Osiris has nineteen hydroelectric plants online up and down the Nile. What if all of them are drawing water from the aquifer?”

Joe nodded. “Powered by the river itself. Ingenious.”

“So it’s all connected. The Black Mist, the drought — it all leads back to Osiris.”

Ten minutes later, the scenery finally began to change. “A light at the end of the tunnel,” Renata whispered.

Kurt had a feeling it wasn’t exactly the end of the tunnel, but at least it was another stop on the line.

For more than twenty minutes they’d been traveling in utter darkness, the only light coming from the soft glow of the instrument panel and the headlights of the tram up ahead of them.

“They seem to be slowing,” Joe said.

“Let’s not get too close,” he said. “If they stop, I don’t want them to hear us hitting the brakes.”

Joe slowed the car to a crawl. The vehicle ahead of them continued to reduce speed and then moved onto a siding, leaving the tunnel.

Joe stopped about a hundred yards from the opening and the three of them followed on foot.

When he reached the edge of the tunnel, Kurt peered around the corner.

What he saw surprised him. He looked back at his friends.

“Well?” Joe whispered. “Are we alone?”

“If you don’t count a pair of eight-foot-tall guys with jackal heads and spears in their hands,” Kurt said. “Anubis.”

“You mean the Egyptian god?”

“Yes.”

Kurt moved aside so the others could see the details of the room, an overarching cavern with walls made of sand-colored stone illuminated by a series of lights connected to a snaking black cable. Egyptian art and hieroglyphics could be seen along one section, while another seemed to have crumbled. The two large statues stood beside the entrance to a hand-carved tunnel on the far wall.

“Where are we?” Renata asked.

“More like when are we?” Joe said. “We started in a modern hydroelectric plant and wound up in ancient Egypt. I feel like we just time-traveled back about four thousand years.”

Both the pipeline and the tunnel seemed to run arrow straight along a westerly line. Recalling the satellite photos of the Osiris power plant, he remembered there was nothing to the west but congested streets filled with block after block of storefronts, warehouses and offices. Farther out, it became apartment buildings and small houses right out to the desert, where…

“You might not be too far off,” Kurt said.

“That’s a first,” Joe said.

“Based on the speed of the tram and the time we were in the tunnel, I’d guess that we’re five, maybe six miles west of the river.” He turned to Renata. “I think you’re going to get your wish.”

“What wish was that?”

“To see the Pyramids up close,” he said. “By my calculations, we’re right underneath them.”