The Pyramid of Doom_A Novel Read online

  Also by Andy McDermott

  The Hunt for Atlantis

  The Tomb of Hercules

  The Secret of Excalibur

  The Covenant of Genesis

  The Pyramid of Doom is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Bantam Books Mass Market Edition

  Copyright © 2009 by Andy McDermott

  Excerpt from The Sacred Vault copyright © 2010 by Andy McDermott

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain as The Cult of Osiris by Headline Publishing Group, London, in 2009, and is published in arrangement with Headline Publishing Group.

  eISBN: 978-0-553-90794-0

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming novel The Sacred Vault by Andy McDermott.

  www.bantamdell.com

  v3.1

  For my family and friends

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue - Giza, Egypt

  Chapter One - New York City

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six - Giza

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten - Paris

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve - Switzerland

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen - Monaco

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One - Egypt

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine - Switzerland

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Epilogue - New York City

  Excerpt from The Sacred Vault

  PROLOGUE

  Giza, Egypt

  The time-weathered face of the Great Sphinx regarded Macy Sharif impassively as she paced before its huge stone paws. She didn’t give the ancient monument so much as a glance in return; in the two weeks she had been here, the Sphinx and the pyramids beyond had gone from awe-inspiring wonders to mere backdrops for a job that had fallen far short of her hopes. In the first week, she had taken hundreds of digital photos and video clips, but now her camera was just a weight in one thigh pocket, untouched for days.

  How had Egypt, of all places, turned into such a crushing disappointment? From an early age, she’d been entranced by her grandfather’s stories of the country of his birth; tales of kings and queens and good and evil in a land of wonders, better than any fairy tale because they happened to be true. It was an exotic, romantic world, as different from Miami’s wealthy Key Biscayne as Macy could imagine, and even as a child she’d been determined that one day she would experience it for herself.

  But the reality had not lived up to the dream.

  She stopped pacing, checking the shelters beside the Sphinx’s right paw. Still no sign of Berkeley.

  A glance at her watch: approaching eight fifteen PM. The expedition leader’s daily videoconference with the International Heritage Agency in New York was due to start then, which gave her less time to catch him than she’d hoped. At eight thirty, the nightly sound-and-light show would begin, a gaudy display of colored spotlights and lasers cast upon the pyramids and the Sphinx. Berkeley and the senior members of the archaeological team always departed soon after the opening chords boomed from the loudspeakers, leaving the juniors and the local hired hands with the scut work of securing and tidying the excavation.

  Macy wasn’t even sure if Berkeley considered her a junior team member or a mere laborer. Okay, so she had another two years of study before she completed her degree, and maybe her grades didn’t exactly put her at the top of the class, but she was still an archaeologist, kind of. Surely that granted her the right to do something more than make coffee and carry rubble?

  She resumed her pacing, reflected light from the Sphinx’s spotlit face casting an orange wash over her pale olive skin. Her surname may have been Egyptian, but her looks revealed her mother’s Cuban heritage. She paused to straighten her ponytail, then at the sound of muffled voices hurriedly rounded the giant paw to see the team boss emerge from the dig. On their first meeting, she had thought Dr. Logan Berkeley to be attractive, in an academic sort of way. Mid-thirties, a swoop of chestnut-brown hair across his forehead, refined features … then he’d opened his mouth and revealed himself as an arrogant jerk.

  It was a description she could apply equally to the two men with him. TV producer Paul Metz was squat, barrel-shaped, and bearded, with a lecherous gaze that to her distaste Macy often found aimed in her direction. She liked male attention, sure … but not from all males.

  The other man was Egyptian. Dr. Iabi Hamdi was a senior official with the Supreme Council of Antiquities, the government agency overseeing all Egypt’s archaeological activities. The paunchy, thin-haired Hamdi was technically in charge of the dig, but seemed happy to let Berkeley do whatever he wanted, being more interested himself in getting his face in front of the TV cameras. Macy wouldn’t be surprised if, at the moment the long-thought-mythical Hall of Records was finally revealed to the world, Hamdi popped up in front of the lens to boast of the crucial part he’d played in its discovery.

  That broadcast was the current topic of discussion. “So you’re ab-so-pos-i-tively, one hundred percent sure that you’ll crack open the door right on time?” Metz asked, in a tone suggesting he thought otherwise.

  “For the last time, we’ll open the vault entrance exactly when I said,” Berkeley told him, his haughty, nasal New England voice filled with frustration. “I know what I’m doing. This isn’t my first dig, you know.”

  “It’s the first one you’ll have done live in front of fifty million people, though. And the network won’t be happy if their prime-time special is two hours of you chipping at bricks. They wanna see something spectacular, and so does everyone else. People love this Egyptian crap.”

  Torn between defending his heritage and staying on good terms with the producer, Hamdi decided on the latter. “Dr. Berkeley, can you assure me that we will keep to the schedule?”

  “Eight days from now,” Berkeley said through clenched teeth, “we’ll be showing the world something even more incredible than Atlantis, don’t you worry.” He turned toward a nearby portable cabin with a satellite dish on its roof: the team’s headquarters. “And speaking of schedules, it’s time I checked in.”

  Maybe he wasn’t in the most receptive mood, but Macy had to take the chance. “Dr. Berkeley, have you got a minute?”

  “Only as long as it takes me to walk to the cabin,” he snapped, giving her a dismissive look. “What is it?”

  “It’s about me,” said Macy as she kept pace. “I was hoping I could get more involved with the actual archaeological work? I think I’ve proven that I’m up to the job.”

  Berkeley s
topped and turned to face the young woman. “The job?” he said, letting out a sarcastic sigh. “That says it all, doesn’t it? Macy, archaeology is not a job. It’s a calling, an obsession, something that drives your every waking thought. If all you want is a job, McDonald’s and 7-Eleven are always hiring.”

  “That’s not what I meant—” Macy began.

  “The reason you haven’t been involved with the main dig,” Berkeley interrupted, “is precisely that: You haven’t been involved. What, exactly, have you done to earn a place here? The other juniors all have multiple digs on their résumés, and they all graduated with the highest honors. You?” His mouth twisted with contempt. “Charity fund-raising connections. And good causes or not, I don’t appreciate having unqualified undergraduates foisted on me because Renée Montavo at the UN owed your mom a favor. You ought to be damn grateful to be here at all. Now go and finish the cleanup. I’m late for my videoconference with Professor Rothschild.” He strode into the cabin, slamming the door.

  Macy stared after him in shock, then turned to find Hamdi and Metz watching her. Hamdi adjusted his little silk bow tie uncomfortably before going back into the shelter covering the main excavation, leaving her alone with Metz. “Want a career change?” he said, leering. “I got the numbers of some modeling agencies.”

  “Get bent!” She scowled and stormed off around the Sphinx. Ahead, one of the uniformed security contractors was heading up the ramp out of the excavated pit in which the landmark sat. Wanting to be alone, she turned and entered the ruined temple in front of the statue, dropping into the shadows within the broken walls.

  She sat on a stone block, trying to hold her emotions in check. Egypt definitely hadn’t matched up to her dreams—not so much wonder and romance as drudgery, smog, stomach bugs, and hissing, pinching, catcalling creeps accosting her on the streets. And now she’d just been completely insulted by her boss. Asshole!

  The lighting changed, dropping the Temple of the Sphinx even deeper into darkness. The sound-and-light show was about to start; after two weeks, Macy practically knew the almost comically portentous narration by heart. Normally, she would be packing away the team’s gear during the display, but tonight …

  “Screw that,” she muttered, lying back on the stone. Berkeley could pick up his own stupid tools.

  Site security chief Sefu Gamal quickly traversed the walkway running between the Temple of the Sphinx and the smaller, marginally less ancient ruin to its northwest. At the walkway’s end was a guarded gate. Since 2008, the once open plain of the Giza plateau had been surrounded by more than twelve miles of high steel and wire fence, partly to restrict the numbers of peddlers hawking trinkets and camel rides to visitors, and partly for security purposes: Egypt was unwilling to risk a repeat of the 1997 massacre of tourists at Luxor. Now the plateau was observed by hundreds of security cameras and members of the Tourist Police, and all visitors were screened by metal detectors.

  But there were more fences within, these not to protect tourists from terrorists, but to protect Egypt’s treasures from tourists. Access to the interiors of the pyramids was restricted to just a handful of visitors each day, while the Sphinx itself was almost entirely off limits—and with a major archaeological excavation in progress, the Sphinx compound was even more closely guarded than usual. The sandstone pit containing the statue was bounded to the east by its temple, to the west and south by cliffs where it had been dug out of the desert, and to the north by a modern stone wall supporting a road across the plain. Only those with passes were normally allowed access.

  But tonight there would be an exception.

  Gamal reached the gate and waited as the son et lumière display began. A couple hundred tourists sat in ranks of chairs beyond the Temple of the Sphinx, watching the spectacle. He would have preferred the meeting to take place much later, after the last display had finished and the tourists—and the IHA team—had gone, but the man he was expecting was impatient … and quick to anger.

  Approaching headlights: a black Mercedes SUV. This must be his visitor—since the erection of the boundary fence, traffic through the site was restricted. The first person out was unfamiliar, a rangy, long-haired Caucasian in a jacket of what looked like snakeskin, his straggly goatee doing little to conceal the almost equally scaly roughness of his face. He rounded the vehicle to open the door for another man: like Gamal, an Egyptian.

  Gamal stepped through the gate to greet him. “Mr. Shaban,” he said. “A great honor to meet you again.”

  Sebak Shaban had no time to waste on pleasantries. “The dig’s behind schedule.”

  “Dr. Berkeley said—”

  “Not that dig.”

  Gamal concealed his discomfort as Shaban turned to look straight at him. An old burn scar ran across his right cheek from what remained of his ear to his top lip, the skin rippled and faintly glossy. The scarring had pulled down the outer corner of his lower eyelid, exposing glistening pink tissue within. From his previous encounters, the security chief was convinced that Shaban was well aware of the psychological impact of his injury upon others, favoring them with the unblemished, fairly handsome left side of his face until he wanted to express his disapproval in graphic form with a simple turn of the head. “There was a slight delay—very slight,” Gamal said quickly. “Part of the ceiling collapsed. We’ve already shored it up.”

  “Show me,” ordered Shaban, walking to the gate.

  “Of course. Come with me.” Gamal glanced questioningly at the other man, who followed them through.

  “My bodyguard,” said Shaban. “And friend. Mr. Diamondback.”

  “Diamondback?” Gamal echoed uncertainly.

  “Bobby Diamondback,” said the bodyguard, his accent a languid yet menacing American drawl. “It’s a Cherokee Indian name. Got a problem with that?”

  “No, not at all,” Gamal replied, thinking he looked more like a cowboy than an Indian. He led them along the walkway. “This way, please.”

  Mocking the sound-and-light show’s bombastic narration had slightly lifted Macy out of her black sulk when she spotted the site security chief; from her position in the shadows only his upper body was visible above the top of the temple’s northern wall.

  There were two other men with Gamal, one an ugly guy with a greasy mullet and a snakeskin jacket, and the other someone she recognized. Mr. Sharman, Shaban, something like that? She had seen the scar-faced man briefly at the start of the dig; he was connected with the religious organization co-funding it with the IHA. Presumably, he was here to meet Berkeley.

  The trio made their way to the corner of the smaller temple, where Gamal paused and looked toward the Sphinx—almost furtively, Macy thought. The cold stare of the man in the snakeskin jacket swept past her as he surveyed the area, then unexpectedly flicked back. An involuntary shudder ran through her. She had no idea why—she had every right to be there, and wasn’t doing anything wrong—but by the time the rational part of her mind told the rest of her body to relax, he had looked away again.

  To Macy’s surprise, rather than descending the ramp toward the Sphinx, Gamal hopped across the gap between it and the upper level of the Sphinx compound, disappearing from her view. The other men followed.

  Weird. The upper temple was more than a thousand years younger than its larger neighbor, a product of the New Kingdom from around 1400 BC, and while it was in relatively better condition than the Temple of the Sphinx, it was much less important historically. Why was Gamal giving a private tour? In the dark, at that?

  Standing, she saw the tops of the men’s heads as they walked toward the temple entrance—and continued past it. Now she was really curious. There was nothing else up there. Where were they going?

  Macy climbed out of the temple, watching the trio round the ruin above. Some childhood Nancy Drew instinct kicked in, the urge to find out what they were doing, but she resisted it—until shouting came from the Sphinx. Berkeley, yelling at an Egyptian laborer who had just dropped a box.

  Scre
w it, she thought. If Berkeley was still acting like a jerk, she didn’t want to be anywhere near him. Instead, she ascended the ramp and jumped across to the upper temple.

  Green laser lights flashed above her, projecting hieroglyphics on the pyramids as the narrator sang the praises of Osiris, the immortal god-king of Egyptian legend. “Yeah, yeah, heard it all before,” Macy whispered as she peered around the temple wall.

  Part of the plateau’s north end had been cordoned off by orange plastic netting where repairs were under way on the high wall. A couple of small cabins and a tent-like structure stood among stacks of bricks and piles of rubble. It was such a mundane sight that while Macy had walked past it every day as she entered the Sphinx compound, she had never actually paid it any attention before. Certainly nobody ever seemed to do any actual work there.

  There was someone there now, though. As well as the men at the gate, other guards patrolled the compound to make sure no tourists tried to get up close and personal with the Sphinx. But the man waiting for Gamal and the others wasn’t patrolling. He was guarding the construction site.

  The lighting changed, more lasers and spotlights slashing the black sky. The guard watched the display, only turning away when the visitors reached him. Brief words were exchanged, then he let them through the netting.

  Gamal reached the tent and pulled aside a flap, revealing lights within. His two companions ducked through, and with another furtive backward glance Gamal followed. Macy jerked back behind the temple wall, wondering if he’d seen her, before realizing how dumb she was being. So what if he had?