“Not long.”
He searched the area for a sign of the buried pyramid. It had only been eight weeks since they’d left the temple, but already any sign of the buried pyramid had been completely lost from the air. Sam glanced at the GPS marker and the large sand dune. He circled around, banking to the left in a continuous circle, until he’d reduced his altitude and was ready to set up for a final approach. He picked a spot at the nearly flat base, between two sand dune crests.
The wind was nonexistent, and he carefully took the Cessna down, easing it into the sand. He idled the Cessna to the end of the relatively flat area, and then spun the tail, setting it up for when he needed to take off later.
He shut down the engine and climbed out of the cockpit.
Billie followed him. Slipping her arms through her small backpack, she glanced across the two sand dunes that dominated the landscape. “Where’s the entrance?”
Sam placed a plastic cover on the engine’s air intake manifold to protect it from the sand. Then looked up at the largest sand dune to the east. “Over there, somewhere…”
She followed his gaze. “It’s buried under that sand dune?”
“No.”
“Then where is it?”
He switched on his hand-held GPS and waited for it to pick up enough satellites to locate the marker at the entrance of the buried Kalahari Desert temple. “It’s about half a mile past that sand dune.”
Billie looked at him and swore. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Afraid so.”
“Why didn’t you just land over there?”
“Because over there was full of thick sand, steep slopes, and we would have never gotten to take off again — assuming I didn’t kill us in the landing.” Sam shrugged. “If you want, I can give it a try?”
Billie clipped the strap on her backpack. “Come on, let’s get it over with.”
Chapter Forty-Four
It took nearly two hours to reach the entrance to the buried temple of the Kalahari Desert. Billie had let Sam set the pace. Once it was established, she matched him with a constant speed until the third dune, when his endurance wavered, and she passed him, setting a new pace. She was tall and lissome, climbing the huge sand dunes with the assertive gait of an athlete. Even wearing the shapeless, loose flowing Indigo blue Alasho and traditional robes worn by the Saharan Tuareg Nomads, she had a willowy elegance about her as she climbed.
Billie glanced at her own hand-held GPS, which indicated they were right upon the entrance. Her eyes scanned the rolling hills of sand around them. She cursed, and then waited for Sam to catch up. As he slowly made his way down the sand dune, she said, “The GPS says we’re here. Any idea where the entrance is?”
Sam pulled out his GPS and placed it next to hers. They were identical, and showed the entrance about five feet into the sand dune.
He removed a black folding shovel, the sort of thing soldiers used to dig trenches and latrines. “It looks like we have some digging ahead of us.”
“You knew it would be buried?”
“Of course. Nothing stays out in the open for very long in the Kalahari Desert.”
It took three hours of digging to clear away enough sand to reach the opening to the buried temple.
Billie stepped back and looked at the entrance.
It looked more like a mine shaft than a pyramid buried in sand. Three old railway sleepers formed the framework for the adit. It ran at a gradual decline. Inside, the makeshift timber set — used to support the roof — mingled with a series of posts, jacks and roof bolts used to prop up the sandy ceiling. They had been placed haphazardly, giving her the impression of an old gold mine built during the American gold rush era.
She glanced at Sam. “You think the tunnel’s still safe?”
“It doesn’t really matter if it’s not. We don’t have time to strengthen its foundations.”
“That’s the best you’ve got?”
Sam shrugged, and ducked under the crude adit, into the main tunnel. “Come on.”
Thirty feet inside, the angle of the tunnel changed from nearly horizontal to a steep decline. Another four hundred feet, and the tunnel separated into two directions. The original tunnel continued to descend at the same angle, while the second tunnel ran at the exact same angle, only at an incline instead.
Sam said, “It’s the same anatomy as the Pyramid of Giza.”
“Aren’t they all?”
“No. The Atlantis pyramid was different.”
“Good point. Come to think of it, so was Tunguska.” Sam brushed the beam of his flashlight down and up the main passages. “So where do you want to go?”
“Take the ascending passage. Let’s head to the king’s chamber.”
They moved quickly, climbing for another four hundred feet before the tunnel split in two again. This time the main tunnel remained at the constant thirty-degree angle toward the grand gallery, while the second one turned horizontally deeper into the pyramid’s core.
Billie shined her flashlight into the horizontal tunnel. “The queen’s chamber. Let’s keep heading upward.”
“Okay.”
At the top of the grand gallery, the passageway leveled out and they stepped into the king’s chamber.
The room was rectangular with a ceiling just short of twenty feet. It was nearly identical to the king’s chamber inside the rest of the temples, but with one exception — at the center of the room where Billie would have expected the sarcophagus to be, a single limestone pedestal stood.
She stared at the pedestal. “What’s that?”
“That’s where they stored the Death Mask — the strange golden skull through which the ancient Master Builders burned their black hallucinogen to control their laborers.”
The comment reminded Billie of her time spent as a captive under the same drug. “So, where’s the sarcophagus?”
“There isn’t one.”
“You’re kidding. I assumed the sacred stones would be positioned inside the sarcophagus or something.”
“Guess we’re going to have to find a new location.”
Billie shined his flashlight around the rest of the room, in slow, focused swaths. Two pictograms lined the east and west walls. One was a series of calculations in ancient Egyptian, and the other depicted the twin volcanic peaks of Mount Ararat.
She searched specifically for any indents or openings in the stonework where the sacred stone may be placed. After twenty minutes, she found nothing.
“You see anything?” Sam asked.
“Nothing.”
“Have you got another plan?”
She opened her backpack and removed the black light wand. “Yeah, let’s try this.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Billie ran the black light across the eastern wall. It showed nothing but darkness. She then tried the northern side. This time, it revealed a series of texts, written in the script of the ancient Master Builders.
There was a lot about their history. Many of the words regarding time were indecipherable to her, but the last sentence struck her.
She read it out loud. “The great kings may strive to maintain power with far reaching eyes. Ultimately it is only the queens who hold the key to salvation.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Sam asked.
“I have no idea.”
Sam repeated the words. “Okay, the great kings may strive to maintain power with far reaching eyes… must refer to the looking glasses found inside the king’s chamber of every temple we’ve been in.”
Billie thought about it for a second and agreed. “Using such devices to see over great distances and communicate with neighboring and far away temples must have given the ancient kings tremendous power.”