The Cult of Osiris nwaec-5 Read online

  ‘You think the zodiac’s in that box?’

  ‘Maybe. Or part of it. They might have had to cut it up to get it through the tunnel. God, what if we’re already too late?’

  However, both men soon returned, now empty-handed. They entered the tent.

  ‘I guess they haven’t finished yet,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Good - maybe we can still stop them. Have you seen Macy?’

  Eddie spotted her peering over a wall inside the upper temple, where she had been hiding from the men carrying the case. ‘Yeah, in there.’ He pointed, then gestured for her to leave cover and approach the construction site. ‘Okay, let’s hope the twins work as well on those two down there.’

  He reached under his leather jacket and T-shirt, drawing out the twenty-foot length of nylon line bought in a Cairo store that he had wound round his waist; carrying it openly would have roused the suspicions of even the sleepiest Tourist Police officer. Once he had gathered it up, he fumbled with his belt. ‘Steady,’ he said to the grinning Nina. ‘You’ll get what’s in my pants later.’

  ‘About damn time!’

  He smiled back as he pulled out a metal hook from behind the buckle, where he had wedged it to trick the metal detectors. By the time the line was tied to it, Macy had emerged from the upper temple and was approaching the construction site - attracting the guards’ attention.

  Nina regarded the hook nervously as Eddie wedged it under the slab topping the wall. ‘Will it take your weight?’

  ‘You saying I’ve got a fat arse?’ He looked down again. The guards were moving to meet Macy before she reached the perimeter of orange netting. A quick check to make sure nobody was coming along the darkened road, then he dropped the rope over the wall - and followed it, rapidly lowering himself down the stone face. The hook scraped and creaked.

  He glanced over his shoulder as he descended. The guards had almost reached Macy. Twelve feet to the ground ten, eight . . .

  She stopped, making the two men come to her. Eddie let go and dropped the last six feet, landing almost soundlessly in a crouch and immediately moving into cover behind one of the piles of bricks. Macy was holding up her camera, gesturing at the Sphinx. He couldn’t hear her over the booming voice of the light show’s narrator, but guessed she was asking them to take her photo with the monument behind her.

  They didn’t seem cooperative, one holding out a hand for her ID. Eddie silently advanced on the trio as Macy shrugged, showing off her impressive cleavage once more. These guards were less distracted, the man impatiently snapping his fingers.

  She had seen Eddie by now, and made a show of checking her pockets before finally producing her ID. The guard snatched it from her, holding it up to his torch.

  Eddie slipped through the plastic netting. Both men had their hands near their guns.

  If they heard his footsteps or caught him in their peripheral vision . . .

  The guard looked back at Macy, shining his light in her face. He frowned.

  About to remember her—

  ‘Holy crap!’ Macy cried, suddenly whirling and pointing excitedly to the west. ‘Look! Pyramids!’

  The guards instinctively turned to see - as Eddie rushed up behind them and slammed their heads together with a dull crack of bone against bone. The two men collapsed nervelessly.

  Macy jumped back, startled. ‘Oh my God! Did - did you kill them?’

  ‘Only if they’ve got fucking Humpty Dumpty heads,’ he said. ‘Give me a hand.’

  ‘But that was like something out of a movie! How did you do that?’

  ‘Take head, hit hard. Pretty simple.’ He lifted one of the limp guards by the shoulders. With reluctance, not sure if he really was still alive, Macy helped Eddie drag him behind a dirt mound.

  The first man out of sight, Eddie returned for his companion, looking up at the wall to see Nina hesitantly climbing down the rope. By the time the second guard was concealed, she was close to the ground.

  She looked round as Eddie came to her, Macy following. ‘Check it out!’ she gasped, straining at the rope. ‘Pretty good for someone who hasn’t exercised in months—’

  There was a faint ping of metal from above as the overstressed hook broke, and Nina dropped the last three feet to the sand. ‘Ow, dammit!’ she yelped.

  Eddie helped her up. ‘Wasn’t my fat arse we had to worry about, was it?’ Macy giggled.

  ‘Shut up,’ Nina grumbled, brushing dust from her butt as Eddie coiled the rope and moved off to hide it. ‘And what the hell was that?’ She flapped a hand at Macy’s chest. ‘Put them away, for God’s sake.’

  Annoyed, Macy refastened her shirt. ‘What? It worked.’

  ‘Eddie wouldn’t have fallen for it.’

  ‘Why, ’cause he’s old?’

  ‘No,’ Nina said, offended, ‘because he’s ex-special forces and they’re trained not to fall for things like that.’

  Macy was surprised. ‘He was in the army? I thought he was just some archaeology guy. You mean he wasn’t joking when he said about being your bodyguard?’

  ‘No, he wasn’t. That’s how we met - he saved my life. More than once, actually. Although I’ve saved his life a few times now, so we call it square.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Macy, now even more impressed by Nina’s husband. ‘So . . . does he have a younger brother or something?’

  Eddie came back. ‘Don’t know how long they’ll be knocked out,’ he said, ‘but I think we need to do this pretty sharpish anyway.’

  ‘Definitely,’ Nina agreed. She went to the tent, listening for any indication of life inside before opening the flap. It was empty - but as Macy had described, there was a wooden cubicle occupying one end.

  ‘Crap,’ Macy muttered, finding only an empty table at the other. ‘This is where the plans were, but they’ve taken them!’ She looked back. ‘One of those guys carrying that box was Gamal, the security chief. Maybe they’ve almost finished - what if we’re too late?’

  ‘Let’s find out.’ Nina opened the cubicle door.

  Macy had been right: there was indeed a shaft descending into the plateau. The sound of a generator came from somewhere below . . . as did another, more distant noise, the screech of a power tool. She went to the ladder, but before climbing on to it she tied her hair into a ponytail.

  ‘She’s back, baby, yeah!’ said Eddie, grinning. Macy smiled too, touching her own matching hairstyle as Nina started down the ladder.

  7

  The shaft descended over twenty feet to a gently sloping, stone-walled tunnel. Nina checked that nobody was waiting at the bottom before dropping down. The way north was blocked by compacted sand, but to the south had been dug out to re-open a passage not used for thousands of years. Light bulbs were hung from the ceiling every fifteen feet, stretching off into the distance.

  Towards the Sphinx.

  The blueprint Macy had shown her was accurate. The Hall of Records had two entrances - the one on the east side that the IHA team would shortly open, and another to the north, reserved for royalty. Only the conspirators of the Osirian Temple knew about the latter . . . and Berkeley hadn’t looked for any other ways in. With a deadline to meet and his eyes filled with stars, he had rushed straight for the obvious target, not even considering that there might be another.

  It was a mistake that could cost dearly.

  Eddie jumped down beside her. He sniffed. ‘Smells like they’re cutting stone.’

  Nina picked up a faint burning odour. ‘That’s what that is?’

  ‘Yeah. I had a summer job at a monumental mason’s once - they used power saws to cut the gravestones. Smelled like that.’

  ‘You used to make gravestones? I learn something new about you every day.’

  He smiled. ‘Man of mystery, love.’

  Macy hopped from the ladder, looking round in wonder. ‘Oh, my God. This is awesome!’ She rubbed the sand coating one wall to reveal darker stone beneath. ‘Pink granite - probably from Aswan. This is definitely a royals-only way in. It w
as too expensive for anyone else.’

  ‘You know your stuff,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Of course I do!’ Then, more self-conscious: ‘The Egyptian stuff, anyway. I’m not as hot on the rest . . . Can we get going now?’

  ‘Behind me,’ Eddie said firmly, moving in front of her. ‘We don’t know what’s down here.’

  They discovered one thing about two-thirds of the way down the tunnel - a petrol-powered generator, its exhaust hose leading back to the surface. Just past it, the passage showed signs of major damage: the ceiling was propped up by hefty wooden beams.

  ‘Looks about to cave in,’ said Eddie, passing warily beneath them.

  Nina looked more closely. ‘Maybe it already did - looks like they had to rebuild the roof to get through. They must have been working here for weeks - what are you doing?’

  Macy raised her camera. ‘Getting proof of everything.’

  ‘You can’t use the flash in here, they might see it!’

  ‘I know that, duh! I’m recording a video.’ She fiddled with the controls, then filmed the ceiling. Eddie and Nina moved on. ‘Hey, wait!’

  Eddie approached the end of the passage. Sand-crusted pillars, ornate carvings discernible beneath the grit, marked the entrance to a chamber. The echoing grind of the power tool was louder here.

  He peered into the room. The ceiling bulbs were replaced by banks of brilliant lights mounted on heavy-duty tripods, illuminating the western half of a large rectangular chamber. There was nobody in sight, but the noise was coming from beyond an opening in the west wall, where more lights were visible. He entered, signalling for Nina and Macy to follow.

  Nina could barely contain her amazement. ‘My God,’ she whispered, taking in the two rows of hieroglyph-covered cylindrical pillars running along the room’s length, the further symbols on the walls, the ranks of niches containing lidded clay containers to protect the papyrus scrolls inside . . .

  The Hall of Records. Until recently, believed to be nothing more than a myth - but now very real. And she was one of the first people to enter it in millennia.

  Not the first, though. The modern artefacts amongst the ancient were proof enough of that. A large block was propped up on wheeled jacks by the entrance - the stone that had once sealed it, ready to be moved back into place once the robbers were done. The floor was covered in dust, numerous bootprints passing to and fro through the room.

  ‘Ay up,’ said Eddie, spotting a familiar item of clothing draped over a workbench near the entrance. ‘I recognise that.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Nina, seeing the snakeskin jacket. She looked past it into the shadows of the chamber’s eastern end. On the far wall, more pillars marked another entrance: the one through which Berkeley and his team would enter.

  Macy, meanwhile, went to the other end of the room, passing a chugging compressor and an electrical junction box. Power cables and a hose ran from them into the short passage to the next chamber. She was about to go through when Eddie waved her back. ‘Over here.’ He went to a darkened opening directly opposite the royal entrance.

  Nina joined him, noticing that there were almost no footprints outside the area between the entrance and the next illuminated chamber. The robbers were only interested in one specific part of the Hall of Records, completely ignoring the rest. ‘What’s in there?’

  ‘Egyptian stuff.’ She made a sarcastic face. ‘But I think it goes round and joins back up. I can see some light at the far end.’ He took out a small penlight and swept its beam across the new room. Though smaller than the chamber in which they stood, it contained just as much ancient knowledge. This room had sustained damage, however, possibly from an earthquake; one pillar had partly collapsed, leaving large chunks lying on the floor.

  Eddie moved inside. Nina followed, Macy behind her, camera in hand. A rectangle of dim light in the west wall marked the entrance to a fourth chamber; crossing to it, they saw the back of another lighting rig in the exit at its northwestern corner. They entered the new chamber and crept along the wall to the lights, which illuminated a flight of steps.

  Nina looked round the tripod. The broad stone stairs led upwards - into, she realised with a thrill, the body of the Sphinx itself. The room at the top had been carved directly out of the heart of the great statue.

  And over the sound of the power tools she heard voices.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ Eddie demanded as she tried to push past him.

  ‘I want to see what’s up there.’

  ‘Yeah, and they’ll see you!’

  ‘No, they won’t - there’ll be too much glare from these lights.’ He frowned, but backed up.

  The chamber Macy had almost entered earlier was across the bottom of the stairs, more light stands within. The trail of dusty footprints ran from it up the steps. Nina leaned out to see what was at the top - and felt another adrenalin shot of discovery.

  Mixed with fear.

  Several figures were visible in the upper chamber, and even without his snakeskin jacket she recognised the man from New York, who Macy had said was called Diamondback. She also spotted Hamdi, talking to someone outside her narrow field of view. But it was the object of their attention that had also grabbed hers.

  It was on the ceiling - a zodiac, a star map about six feet in diameter, the constellations carved into the stone in the form of the ancient Egyptian gods. Nina knew of others - there was one in the Louvre in Paris - but unlike them this was still painted, as its creators had intended.

  But it was no longer complete. It had been dismantled, desecrated. Only one part remained on the ceiling, a roughly triangular section running from its southern edge to just past the centre. She could see the circular outline of where the rest had been clearly enough; power tools had carved away the surrounding stone, then pieces had been carefully and precisely cut from the ceiling. A man wearing goggles, a facemask and ear protectors was using a circular saw to free the final piece.

  Another masked man was also working on the ceiling, but with much less sophisticated tools - a hammer and chisel. Nina was puzzled, before realising what he was doing: knocking dents into the perfectly flat swathes cut by the saw. All he had to do to remove any evidence that the zodiac had ever been there was roughen the newly exposed circle to match the limestone ceiling. With so many other treasures in the Hall of Records, nobody would pay any attention to a discolouration of the roof. She appreciated the ingenuity of the operation . . . even as she was utterly appalled by it.

  The man Hamdi was addressing stepped into Nina’s view. She recognised him from his picture.

  Sebak Shaban.

  She also saw that Macy hadn’t been exaggerating about his facial scar, which dominated the right side of his face from the top lip to the nub of the ear. She couldn’t help cringing at the thought of the pain he must have endured.

  But that didn’t earn him her sympathy. He was still a thief, stealing one of the world’s greatest archaeological treasures.

  The saw’s screech died down, its user gesturing to a third man - Gamal, who had helped to carry the case from the tent. Now she was sure what it had contained: a piece of the zodiac. The cramped vertical shaft made it impossible to remove the map intact, so it had been cut into more manageable sections.

  That, and the care being taken not to damage the last piece, suggested the thieves intended to reassemble it. Maybe it could still be restored.

  But for that to happen, the conspirators would have to be caught.

  ‘Give me your camera,’ she whispered to Macy, who passed it to her. ‘How does it record?’

  ‘Just press the button, then press it again when you want to stop.’

  ‘Okay.’ Nina held the camera out past the lighting rig and started recording, watching the image on the LCD screen. To her annoyance, Shaban and Hamdi had turned to regard the zodiac, only the backs of their heads visible. ‘Turn round, dammit,’ she hissed. If she could get a clear shot of their faces, they would be heading to prison for a very long time.


  Eddie crept alongside her, straining to hear what they were saying. The discussion was in Arabic; he could make out some words, but not enough to understand the entire conversation. ‘Is that the zodiac?’

  ‘What’s left of it.’ And the last section would soon be gone. Gamal moved a piece of equipment into position beneath it - a support frame, padded bars mounted on a pneumatic jack. He operated a control, and a piercing hiss of compressed air echoed round the chamber as the jack slowly extended. Hamdi put his fingers to his ears and backed out of the camera’s view.

  Shaban remained focused on the jack. The frame rose until it was just below the zodiac, then slowed, advancing step by tiny step until the pads touched the ancient carving.

  The jack’s hiss stopped - but was quickly replaced by the whine of the circular saw as the masked man cut into the stone once more. With the jack supporting it, the last piece of the zodiac could be safely cut free of the ceiling.

  Diamondback said something to Shaban, and both men moved out of sight. Nina cursed. But at least the camera now had a clear view of the zodiac as it was being stolen. That would hopefully be enough to convince the Egyptian authorities—

  Movement forced her to duck back into the darkened room. A muscular Caucasian man with close-cropped grey hair started down the stairs. He was carrying what looked like a chainsaw, though its heavy teeth set it apart from the average lumberjack’s tool: a piece of specialised stonecutting equipment. As he descended, he coiled up the saw’s power cable, following it into the illuminated chamber.

  ‘Looks like they’re about to sod off,’ Eddie whispered once he was out of sight.

  ‘We probably should too,’ said Nina. She stopped the recording, and they retreated through the two dark chambers - only to stop at the entrance to the first room.

  ‘Buggeration,’ Eddie muttered. The man was checking the jacks supporting the stone slab.

  ‘We could just run past him,’ Macy suggested.

  ‘Yeah, but if he’s got a gun, he’ll have an easy shot at us in that tunnel. We need to get out without anyone seeing us.’

  But that soon became even less likely. Diamondback swaggered into the entrance chamber, wiping dust from his beard. The saw’s noise died away, replaced by the hiss of the jack lowering. Before long, Gamal and the other man brought another case into the room, Shaban and Hamdi close behind them.