“What does that mean?” Duncan asked.
Hassar shrugged. “That means I stick it on the stack of hundreds of other similar requests that will never be granted.”
“We came here in good faith… ” Duncan began, but the Egyptian cut her off. “And I met you in good faith. I am trying to be reasonable. You are poking a stick into a nest of angry scorpions for no reason.”
“There is a reason,” Duncan said. “Why do you say there isn’t?”
“Because you are risking much for nothing. There is nothing under the Sphinx.” Hassar pulled a photo out of the inside of his jacket and handed it to Mualama. Duncan leaned over to see.
It was a faded black-and-white image. Two men, pith hats guarding them against the harsh sun, stood just to the left of the spot Mualama and Hassar were currently occupying.
“This was taken in 1922,” Hassar said.
“And?”
Hassar pointed to the right paw. “They opened the door you want to open between the paws. And found an empty room.”
“I will hire a local crew to help move the stone.” Mualama handed the picture back.
“Please.” Hassar gripped Mualama’s forearm. “Please do not do this.”
“I have to.” He placed his large black hand over the other man’s. “I will respect the Sphinx. But I must look.”
Mualama reached into his pack and pulled out the scepter. He tilted it in front of Hassar, the ruby eyes glinting.
Despite himself, Hassar was interested. “What is that?”
“A key,” Mualama answered.
Hassar took it out of Mualama’s hands. He turned it, feeling the weight. “Where did you find it?”
“Ngorongoro Crater.”
“Ngorongoro,” Hassar mused. “The Garden of Eden, so some say. Just lying there on the ground?”
“No.”
Hassar waited.
“It was in a coffin. There was a marker above the coffin. The marker directed me here.”
“Who was in the coffin?” Hassar asked.
“An Airlia body.” Mualama took the scepter back.
Hassar sighed and looked out toward the Nile. Duncan could well imagine the conflicting feelings the Egyptologist was experiencing. His entire life had been dedicated to promoting Egypt’s past, and in the past month all the supposedly known “facts” had been tossed on their ear.
“Was a spear found here?” Duncan asked.
Hassar frowned. “Excuse me?”
“During World War Two. Was a spear found in the Great Pyramid?”
“No.”
“Where is Kaji?” Duncan asked.
“I know no one named Kaji.” Hassar stood. “As I told you. You do not have permission to do anything in this area.”
“We will not leave,” Mualama countered.
“You touch any stone, dig anywhere on this Plateau,” Hassar said, “and I will not be held accountable for the results. You have been warned.”
The steel claw flashed down, spearing through the Martian soil, and struck something solid that wasn’t rock. All the mechrobots came to a halt as the information was relayed back to the control center underground.
New commands were sent and the mechrobots began to dig more carefully, scraping away the soil. Soon black metal was exposed to the light of the distant sun for the first time in many millennia. The edges of the metal that met the light were twisted and scarred from some terrible force.
Inch by inch, foot by foot, more of the wreckage was uncovered.
Turcotte's fingers scrambled, trying to get a grip on a small piece of concrete, when the block fell away from him, out of his reach. He had to think for a second through his exhaustion to realize what that meant. He pushed himself forward, ignoring the sharp edges that dug into his stomach, and peered. There was only darkness. He reached out, hands probing.
His left hand went as far it could reach and touched nothing. He held his breath and cocked his head. Very faintly he could feel air flowing over the skin on his face.
“We’re through!” he yelled back to Yakov. “Come on!” Turcotte pushed himself forward and tumbled free, into the undamaged tunnel beyond the blockage.
Behind him, Yakov heard the yell. He squirmed into the tunnel to follow the American. As he got near the end, the going got much tighter. The only other time Yakov had wished he were smaller was when he had been caught in an ambush in Afghanistan. He pushed his wide shoulders through the narrow opening, hearing cloth rip. He exhaled, making his rib cage as small as possible, and held his breath. He pushed with his legs and fell free.
As Turcotte grabbed him, the top of the tunnel they had created imploded, leaving them in pitch black.
“The power line to the lights must have been cut,” Yakov said.
“You think?” Turcotte’s voice held an edge of sarcasm. “And, of course, we didn’t bring a flashlight. The Boy Scouts would not have given us a merit badge for this exercise.”
“Speak for yourself,” Yakov said. A glow of light came out of the penlight in the Russian’s hand, as bright to the two men as if it were a searchlight. “Let’s go.” Yakov strode off down the tunnel, Turcotte close behind.
After ten minutes, they had to make their first decision. The corridor split at a Y intersection. Yakov shone his light down each. The left fork was narrower and went down; the right stayed the same size and level.
“Well?” Turcotte asked.
“Flip a coin?” Yakov suggested.
“I say we go left. Seems like lower would be where the Archives are.”
“Makes sense,” Yakov agreed, and he bent over so he could fit in the five-and-a-half-foot-high tunnel.
As they went down, Yakov suddenly paused. There was a noise to his left. He shined the light in that direction. Several sets of eyes gleamed back at him. He cursed.
“Rats,” he warned Turcotte.
Turcotte noted something else. “Check out the walls.”
Yakov pointed the penlight. The walls were no longer concrete, but iron. Swinging the light around, Yakov showed that they were now in an iron pipe, five and a half feet in circumference. Streaks of rust circled about them, and the air was growing fetid.
“We might be in the drainage system,” Yakov suggested.
“Let’s keep going.”
“Maybe we should take the other… ” Yakov paused as a groaning noise came from beneath their feet. Both men looked down as Yakov pointed the light that way.
“Oh, crap,” Turcotte muttered as cracks in the iron radiated out from under Yakov’s feet and down the pipe faster than his eye could track. He looked for something to grab on to, found nothing, then the pipe gave way beneath him.
He slammed onto metal curved underneath him… another pipe, but this one was angled… and before he could slow his momentum, Turcotte was sliding after Yakov, going faster and faster as the pipe angled closer to the vertical.
Colonel Tolya cursed. He had been less than two hundred meters from the bug when it had begun moving. As he watched, the glowing dot moved horizontally and at an incredible pace vertically, dropping down on the screen so fast that Tolya had to quickly adjust the scale to keep the dot from disappearing.
“We need to go down, very far down,” Tolya told the engineer as he watched the screen, wondering how the others could be moving so quickly.
He wished he could call in more help, but he was uncertain how much more loyalty he could buy. Everything was for sale in Russia, and using the money Katyenka had given him, he had hired these men from among the contingent that guarded GRU headquarters in Moscow.
The other problem he had was lack of communications. FM radio didn’t work in these tunnels, so for all he knew the ones he sought might have even escaped, but he doubted that. Either Katyenka had dealt with things and no longer needed him, or she’d failed and no longer needed him. Regardless, Tolya’s task was to find the Archives and kill anyone else who found them.