Gabriel didn’t say anything. Instead, he took a quick tour of the room. On the surface of one wall there was a recessed rectangular groove, roughly the shape and size of a door—this was the other side of the panel with the writing on it in the entry chamber, Gabriel realized. It was barred crosswise by two long pieces of granite resting in stone brackets protruding from the wall, which suggested that the giant block the groove outlined might be movable, if the bars were removed.
“Hunt!”
The neighboring wall was the one with the hieroglyphics and the caskets. Beside the caskets there were shelves carved into the wall with rows of canopic jars lined up on them, their tops sculpted with images of the sons of Horus: Duamutef, with his jackal’s head; Qebehsenuf, with the head of an eagle; and so forth. These would have held the organs of the mummified man in the coffin—or of some mummified man, anyway.
“Answer me, Hunt! I can hear you walking, for Christ’s sake!”
He kept walking, his flickering torchlight illuminating the walls as he passed them.
The third wall was bare, nothing on it or before it. But the fourth—
The fourth was something else entirely.
“Hunt,” DeGroet shouted. “Hunt, if you don’t answer me, I will kill her.” And he heard Sheba scream.
“You won’t kill her,” Gabriel shouted back, “or I will destroy what you came here to find.”
The canopic jars, the caskets, the half-wrapped mummy—these things were priceless, it was true, and sufficiently impressive additions to any man’s collection to warrant the expense and trouble DeGroet had undertaken to find them. But as soon as he approached the fourth wall Gabriel knew that DeGroet was after a much bigger prize.
The wall was painted, from floor to ceiling, with a map. Or more precisely with part of a map, since what there was ended at a jagged line and was clearly, deliberately incomplete. The outlines of a triangular landmass were traced, and the upper portion of a teardrop-shaped island below. But the lower portion of the island was missing.
And seated before the map, directly below this missing portion, was a stone sculpture of a sphinx.
Not the crude sort of monumental stonework that defined the Great Sphinx itself, or even the more careful, delicate sculpture of the canopic jars—that was still stylized rather than naturalistic. But this sculpture…Gabriel approached it, circled around to view it from all sides. It was almost like a piece from Europe’s Baroque period, with loving attention lavished on realistically depicting the rippling muscles beneath the skin of the leonine torso, the sunken cheeks and troubled brow and half-open mouth of the human head. It was life-size, perhaps a bit larger—maybe nine feet long and four feet tall. He’d never seen Egyptian sculpture that looked like this. He didn’t think anyone had.
And on its flank was carved an inscription. His Ancient Egyptian was rusty—Sheba would have done a better job of translating it. But as best he could make out, it said something like,Here reposes for eternity the Father of Fear,His mortal portions entombed,His secrets kept by stone tongue,His divine treasure returnedTo the Cradle of Fear
DeGroet’s voice thundered: “You wouldn’t dare destroy it, Hunt. An artifact this important, you wouldn’t—”
“Let her go,” Gabriel shouted, “or I swear to you there’ll be nothing here but rubble.”
“All right,” DeGroet said. “All right.” Then, after a moment: “Tell him you’re free, my dear. Go on.”
Sheba’s voice floated in: “I’m…free, Gabriel.”
The tension in her voice made him skeptical.
“There’s a hidden doorway to the room you’re in, Lajos,” Gabriel said. “It’s the only way you’re going to get in here unless you want to crawl through the tunnel, and I don’t think you do.” He was still looking at the extraordinary statue. His secrets kept by stone tongue…He wondered how literally the inscription was to be taken.
“I am willing to open the doorway,” he called, “but only if you promise that no harm will come to either Miss McCoy or myself. Do you agree?” He knew DeGroet’s word was worthless and paid no attention to the man’s shouted response. Gabriel was just playing for time while, holding the torch close to the head of the sphinx, he stuck the smallest finger of his free hand into its mouth and felt beneath the statue’s tongue.
There was something there.
“I said I agree,” DeGroet shouted. “Now open the door, Hunt.”
“All right,” Gabriel said, fishing out the hard, circular, metal object. “Step away from Miss McCoy. I don’t want you anywhere near her, and no guns pointed at her either. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
The object was the size of a coin, with an image of a sphinx on one side. A sphinx with wings. A Greek sphinx.
“Sheba,” Gabriel called, “have they stepped away?”
Sheba answered: “A bit. Not very far.”
“Enough’s enough, Hunt,” DeGroet shouted. “Open the door now.”
“All right.” Gabriel returned to the wall separating this room from the entry chamber and lifted the granite bars from the brackets one by one. He leaned then against the wall. Then he put his shoulder to the rectangular block outlined by the recessed groove, braced himself and shoved.
The block rotated a few inches, as if on a central axis, then a few more when he shoved again. One more shove should do it—but Gabriel stepped back instead.
If he pushed it the rest of the way open, he might well find himself walking into an ambush. Whereas if he made them do it…
He darted over to the two open caskets. Ancient Egyptians hadn’t been six feet tall—but by bending his knees, Gabriel was able to fit himself into the empty one. He pressed the end of his torch to the ground, stepping on it to extinguish the flame, then dropped it and took his Colt from its holster.
The room was perfectly, completely dark. And for a moment it was silent.
Then a crack of light appeared as he heard the sound of a shoulder ramming against the stone door from the other side. The crack widened into a wedge, and a moment later he saw Zuka charge through the opening holding a torch in one hand and brandishing a deadly looking curved sword in the other. He was wearing an expression that contained all of his grief, transmuted into rage.
Hanif came through the doorway behind him, his red fez tipped slightly forward, tassel soaring, mouth open in a bellow—and in his fist he held a poignard, a short dagger with a silver blade, ready to plunge it down between Gabriel’s shoulder blades if only he could find them.
Finally DeGroet entered, forcing Sheba ahead of him at swordpoint.
Gabriel raised his Colt. He aimed carefully at Zuka and squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
The hammer fell—but no gunshot followed. The wrong bullets, damn it! But the sound of the hammer landing had been loud enough to give away his location.
Gabriel dived out of the casket and heard it crash to the ground behind him. He barreled through the semidarkness directly at Sheba and snatched her out of in front of DeGroet’s saber with one arm around her waist. He saw her hands fly up and her mouth go wide in a terrified scream. He leaned close to her ear and whispered, “It’s me.”
But there was no time for further conversation. Zuka and Hanif were coming at them from opposite directions, blades held high—and in the tumult he saw Karoly enter the chamber, too. No sword for him: he raised an automatic pistol and leveled it at Gabriel’s chest.