Welcher left the chamber, leaving the two men alone.
“Ten thousand pounds,” Nabinger said.
Kaji’s face was expressionless.
“Twelve thousand and that is all I have.” Nabinger knew that was over a year’s salary to the average Egyptian.
Kaji held out his hand. Nabinger reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills, the week’s wages for the laborers. He would have to go to the bank and draw on the expedition account to pay them now.
Kaji sat down cross-legged on the floor, the money disappearing into his long robe. “I was here in 1951 with Martin’s expedition when they opened this chamber, but it was not the first time I was in this chamber.”
“Impossible!” Nabinger said sharply. “Professor Martin broke through three walls to get into here in 1951. Walls that were intact and dated. The seals on the sarcophagus were the originals with four dynasties marked—”
“You can speak impossible all you like,” Kaji continued in the same quiet voice, “but I tell you I was in here before 1951. You have paid for my story. You may listen or you may argue, it matters not to me.”
“I’ll listen,” Nabinger said, beginning to think he had just wasted quite a bit of the museum’s money and wondering if he could make it up by skimping elsewhere on the expedition fund. His mind automatically began figuring the exchange rate on the pound to dollar.
Kaji seemed satisfied. “It was nine years before Martin’s expedition, during the Second World War. In 1942 the British ruled here in Cairo, but many were not happy with that. The Egyptian nationalists were willing to trade one set of rulers for another, hoping that somehow the Germans would be better than the British and grant us our freedom. In reality we did not have much say in the process. Rommel and the Afrika Korps were out to the west in the desert and many expected him to be here in the city before the end of the year.
“It all began in January of 1942 when Rommel began his offensive. By June, Tobruk had fallen and the British were in retreat. They were burning papers in the Eighth Army headquarters here in Cairo in preparation to run. They were all afraid. And Rommel kept coming. The British army fell back on El Alamein.
“I was working in Cairo,” Kaji said, waving his hand above his head. “Even in the middle of war there were those who wished to view the ancient sights. The pyramids have seen many wars. There were many people for whom the war was a fine opportunity to travel and make money. I gave tours above. And sometimes, if the person paid enough so I could bribe the Egyptian guards, I took them inside. Many wanted to see the Grand Gallery,” he said, referring to the massive passageway hundreds of feet above their heads that had twenty-eight-foot ceilings and led up to the center of the pyramid and the uppermost chamber.
Kaji spread his hands. “I cared not who ruled Cairo. The pyramids have seen many rulers and they will see many in the future. And the pyramids and the other sites, they are my life.
“The Germans were only a hundred and fifty miles away and it looked as if they could not be stopped. In early July, General Auchinleck was relieved and Churchill sent a general named Montgomery to relieve him. No one thought much of it here. It was assumed the British would fall back to Palestine, where they would block the canal with sunken ships, and the Germans would get Cairo.
“That was when I was approached by a party wanting to go inside this pyramid. They spoke strangely, but they paid well, which was all that counted. I bribed the guards and we entered, using the caliph’s entranceway late at night, which was also strange.
“We moved through the descending corridor until we linked up with the original ascending tunnel leading to the Grand Gallery. But they did not want to go up, nor did they want to go to what we now call the middle chamber, but was then called the lower chamber. They had paper with them with drawings on it.” Kaji pointed at the walls.
“I did not get to look at it for very long, but the writing was very much like that on these walls. The symbols that cannot be read.” His eyes turned to the notepad in Nabinger’s lap. “Perhaps you are starting to understand those symbols?”
“Who were these men?” Nabinger asked, flipping the notepad shut. “They were Germans,” Kaji replied.
“Germans? How could they have gotten into Cairo? The British still held the city.”
“Ah, that was the easy part,” Kaji replied. “Throughout the war Cairo was one of the major centers for espionage, and all sorts of people came and went freely.” Kaji’s voice became excited as he remembered. “Cairo was the place to be in World War II. All the whores worked for one side or the other or many times both. Every bar had its spies, most also working for both sides. There were British spying on Germans who were spying on Americans who were spying on Italians and around and around.” Kaji chuckled.
“There were fortunes made on the black market. It was no trouble for the Germans to send these men into Cairo. Especially that July when everyone was more concerned about preparing to flee or how to ingratiate themselves with the invaders than about strange groups of men moving in the dark.”
“Where did the Germans get their drawings from?” Nabinger asked.
“I do not know. They used me to get inside only. From there they took charge.” Nabinger asked the question closest to his heart. “Did they know how to read what they had?”
“I do not know,” Kaji repeated, “but they had someone with them who could understand it in some manner, that was for certain. There were twelve of them. We went to the dip, where the tunnel turns and heads up toward the Grand Gallery, and halted. They searched and then began digging. I became frightened and upset then. I would be blamed, because the guards knew me and knew that I was leading this party in. They were destroying my livelihood with their picks and shovels.
“The German in charge”—Kaji paused and his eyes lost their focus—“he was an evil man. I could see it all about him and especially in his eyes. When I complained he looked at me, and I knew I was dead if I opened my mouth again. So I stayed silent.
“They worked quickly, digging. They knew exactly what they were doing because inside of an hour they broke through. Another passageway! Even through my fear I was excited. Nothing like this had happened in my lifetime or many lifetimes before me. This passageway led downward, toward the ground beneath the pyramid. No one had ever thought of that before. No one had ever considered if there was a passage into the ground. They had always searched for ways to go up.
“They went into it and I followed. I did not understand what they were saying but it was easy to see they were excited also. We came down the tunnel”—Kaji pointed behind him—“as you and I did earlier today. There were three blockages set up in the passageway. I could see the original writings on the walls and knew we were entering parts that had not been seen by a living man in over four thousand years. They tore through the blocking walls as quickly as possible, leaving the rubble behind.
“The tunnel ended in stone, but the Germans didn’t let that stop them as they had not let the three other walls stop them. They used their picks and broke through. And then we were in here. And the sarcophagus was there just like you see it in the pictures of Martin’s expedition, with the lid on and the seals intact. In the air I could feel the presence of—” Kaji paused and Nabinger blinked. The old man’s voice had drawn him in, the effect magnified by being in the very room he was talking about.
Kaji looked at the center of the floor where the sarcophagus had once been. “The Germans were not archaeologists. That was certain. The way they broke through the walls showed that. And the fact that they broke the seals and lifted the lid. In 1951 Martin took six months before his men opened the lid, carefully detailing every step of the operation. The Germans were into it in less than five minutes after entering. They were interested in nothing but the sarcophagus. Not the writings on the walls here, not the seals. Nothing but the stone box.”