The Seven Seals of Egypt

CHAPTER FORTY

An unknown quandary faced them. Nobody had ever fought in such close quarters against so many armed men inside an ancient pyramid before. Alicia pointed it out, and the rest had to agree.

Luther was halfway up the incline, helping Mai, drawn to her courage and skill. Pine and Carey were at his back. That gave the rest of the SPEAR team chance to ponder the mercs coming from below.

They couldn’t step out into the line of fire. They could hardly let them pass. But they found they could not stop them either. At least eight mercs attacked in a line, carrying their dead and at least one man not-so-dead, with them and forcing them against the hole where Dahl and Drake crouched. Their bullets struck the dead bodies; the dead bodies fell upon them, their number weighing everyone down. A flapping skull struck Hayden, felling her. A lifeless, weighty frame came down on Drake, pinning him to the floor. A slim man pushed up at Dahl, rocking him back on his heels and then another was added to the weight and the makeshift barricade, forcing him back and allowing more mercs to slip past.

They did get some shots off, and through, heard cries of pain. Bullets found their mark. Some came through the other way too, one almost felling Kinimaka for a second time.

“Not again,” was heard as he went gasping to the floor, shocked at how close it had come.

Drake wriggled free of his obstruction. Another landed atop him, slithering across the man above and adding its weight. Drake was trapped. Perhaps the ascending mercs could have made more of that chance, but their heads were pointed in one direction only, their orders to escape as fast as they could.

Mai fought tirelessly, dragging down the last of the mercs and throwing him over her shoulders. Luther caught him in mid-air and slammed his head against the bedrock, only dropping him when all life had departed the body. When Mai had checked for stragglers she turned and caught Luther gazing at her.

“You,” he said, “are one incredible conflict diamond. And I mean that in the best possible way.”

“I know how you mean it.” Mai acknowledged the compliment with a nod.

“If I weren’t such a gentleman I’d ask you to accompany me on your next available date…” He left it hanging.

Mai picked her way through the dead. “And are you a gentleman?”

“Depends what your answer would be.”

“No, it depends on what you intend to do with us once this is finished.”

Luther took in the scene with fascinated eyes. From the bodies strewn up the incline that led to the King’s Chamber to those Drake and Dahl and the others were throwing off further down. “This is… captivating.”

“For us, mate, this is normal,” Drake said. “Now help me lug this big moose off Alicia.”

“That is Alicia,” Kenzie said.

Drake almost fell for it, glancing twice, but caught his natural instinct at the very last second. Once Alicia was free and the way cleared, Dahl took a tentative look back up the tunnel, toward the exit.

“Looks clear. Ready to move?”

“All good.”

“Wait.” Crouch stopped them. “This merc is still alive.”

“Well, what do you wanna do?” Alicia said. “Nurse him? These guys made their own… tomb. Let them lie in it.”

“You’re not wrong,” Crouch said. “But he may have information and, people, that is just what we need right now.”

He knelt alongside the faintly gasping man, cradling his head and helping him to achieve a more comfortable position. “Listen up,” he said. “Your own men shot you, used you as a human shield so they could escape. All I want is one answer—what did you find?”

“I am not with them,” came the soft, indignant reply. “I am… professor at Akhet…” Crouch knew this was the museum of natural history in Cairo. “They… forced me to come along and… help.” He coughed hard. “Then… they use me as human… shield. The wall painting,” he said. “It was the same as the last which we found already opened just an hour ago… the capstone…”

Drake closed his eyes with the frustration. They had lost the race here simply because they had stopped to help people. Because the cars had gotten snarled up and the mercs had access to helos. Having said all that, he wouldn’t have changed a moment of it.

“The same?” Crouch repeated. “We know the capstone is the weapon. Please do not tell me those mercs are now headed to where it’s hidden?”

“The last depiction showed a section of the lower wall highlighted. The kids with the brains — and the mainframes — took a gander. They used thermal scans and say the whole thing lit up. There’s a passage, a big one, inside this pyramid, hiding the capstone.”

Crouch blinked. “Which capstone?”

“The capstone. The capstone of the Great Pyramid. I’m sure you know — the one that’s being missing for thousands of years?”

Crouch couldn’t stop himself shifting in utter amazement. “Here? I find that… incredible. You’re saying it’s been here the whole time?”

“Along with all those passages the Egyptians knew about and never bothered to excavate. Yes.”

“We have to go,” Dahl urged. “They already have a five-minute start.”

“Wait a minute,” Hayden said. “If they’ve found the capstone here, inside the pyramid, are they now able to use it as the doomsday machine?”

“Lady,” the professor said, “I was there, greatest moment of my life, finding and ogling the missing capstone, so it took me a while. But let me help. The capstone isn’t the weapon. You’re standing in it.”

Hayden glanced at her feet, then back at the professor.

Crouch looked like he’d been hit with a car tire, but recovered fast.

“Dahl’s right. We must get moving. But we can’t. We need this man’s knowledge. I believe I know what’s happening now. It’s one of those legends nobody really knew was real because the only way to properly test it, was to turn it on.”

“I don’t follow,” Dahl said as he started to run. “Turn it on?”

The professor shifted uncomfortably, still bleeding despite Crouch’s and Drake’s best efforts. “The fantastical legend is real, it seems. As far back as the nineteenth century the British inventor, Siemens, was allowed to climb to the top of the pyramid with his Arab guides. On hearing stories that other guides heard an acute ringing noise when they raised their hands with outspread fingers, Siemens did the same. Bear in mind this is the founder of the Siemens Company, of course.” The professor paused for a hacking cough, face turning paler by the second. “Siemens raised his index finger up there and felt a definite stinging sensation. After that, he raised a wine bottle that he’d brought to drink from and received an electric shock. Being a scientist, he moistened a newspaper and wrapped it around the bottle to create a rudimentary capacitor.”

Crouch looked dumbfounded. “I read about this but thought it farfetched.”

The professor nodded. “And I. But Siemens was not a joker. Holding the bottle up, he saw it charged with electricity, sparks being emitted from it. When the Arab guides attempted to stop him he pointed the bottle toward the Arab and gave him such a shock that it knocked him to the ground.”

Hayden frowned, helping Kinimaka stand as the big man struggled with a head wound.

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s not the capstone, it’s the pyramid,” Crouch said. “The Great Pyramid of Khufu is the ancient doomsday weapon.”

Drake urged the team to rise and make ready. “What do we need to know, Professor? I’m sorry we can’t save you, but to help us, to save countless lives, what do we need to know?”

“Physicists throughout time have studied the Great Pyramid with painstaking detail. They concluded it could have been designed to gather, amplify and gel energy emissions from a particular target and return them with the exact same harmonic frequency. Opera singers can do it — smash glasses with their voices by matching the basic harmonic vibration of the glass. It causes a shift in the glass’s natural vibratory rate and makes it shake until it shatters. You’ve all seen it happen. In 1997, I think, the US government conducted research into acoustical weapons. They also analyzed the Great Pyramid and determined that the configuration of its chambers, and the placement of its passageways, could be used as a great loop, generating sound waves which could then be directed at a target. It was thought to be the most powerful weapon that ever existed on earth. Amplified energies.” He wheezed. “Enormous force. It would neutralize all electronic equipment and detonate all explosive devices, including nuclear bombs. It would directly kill every living thing, including viruses. In truth, it is the way the chambers are placed and the passages built, the inclusion of shafts that lead nowhere, the precision with which it was built, metal pins attached to doors that look like electrodes, that made people look at the pyramid as a machine, rather than a tomb. The placement of the capstone will… switch it on.”

“Right,” Drake said. “Grab the capstone. That’s all you had to say.”

In another few minutes the professor’s life had drained away, taken by the heartless, merciless men he had been forced to help.

Crouch bowed his head. “At least he paid them back in the end.”

“Let’s hope,” Drake said. “We do this for him as well as the rest of the world.”

They raced toward the pyramid’s exit, surrounded by bedrock and ancient majesty, the ghosts of long-dead workers still haunting these halls, the labor they had undertaken an epic endeavor that would resonate through time. The Great Pyramid soared above them, a mass of six million tons perceived and crafted by the hand of man; extraordinary.

Is it really all just a big coffin?

Drake shut the thought down, listening to Crouch as he yelled out an explanation. All the while, the exit drew closer.

Dahl slipped out into the light, backed by Smyth. Drake came next, quickly shifting his body in all directions and scanning the area for hostiles. They moved swiftly and carefully to the right, heading toward the eastern side, since that was where the hidden tunnels had been found.

“Here we go,” Dahl breathed.

Mercs were waiting for them, dug into the sand. Drake dived forward onto his stomach, landing hard but keeping his head up, his gun up, and firing blast after blast. Sand kicked up around the mercs. They scrambled behind some ruins, several low walls that were left to crumble with time. Bullets destroyed some of the stone, tumbled others. Drake rolled in the sand and dirt, firing potshots at the enemy. One was hit and then then second, precious minutes passing, and then they were up, running hard for the eastern corner of the pyramid.

The sun beat down hard. Weariness was a predator tearing at their limbs. Drake hit the side of the pyramid hard first and waited for the others, concealed, just waiting to sneak a look around to the other side.

“Moving?” he asked.

“Ready,” they said.

He peered around the wall, eyes going wider and wider as they encountered one of the craziest, most astonishing scenes he’d ever witnessed.