Hiebermeyer snorted impatiently. ‘That’s Jack being Greek again. The ancient Egyptians called it Arsinoe. The priests there kept a crocodile embellished with jewels and gold in a special pool, replacing and mummifying him when he died. They called him Petsuchos.’
‘Petsuchos? You’re kidding me. They kept a pet crocodile?’
‘Not a pet exactly,’ Jack said. ‘More like a personification of a terrifying monster god. I don’t think you stroked it and took it for walks.’
Costas stared at the mummy. ‘I’m beginning to get it. You think the same kind of thing was going on here, don’t you?’
Jack peered at Hiebermeyer intently. ‘The cult of Sobek was always associated with a temple. That’s the one thing missing here. I may be wrong, but I think you have something more to show us.’
Hiebermeyer’s eyes gleamed, and he dropped the flap covering the mummy. ‘Back to the plateau where we started. We should get moving. We haven’t got much time.’
‘One final question,’ Costas said. ‘How did the crocodiles here get so big?’
Hiebermeyer’s phone went off, and he read a text message. He clicked it shut and put it away. ‘That was Aysha. The inspectors have arrived at the opposite bank. Scheisse. They were supposed to come here first. We’re not ready for them yet over there.’ He snorted in annoyance, glanced at his watch and charged out of the tent, then stopped and looked at Costas. ‘Did you say something?’
‘How did the crocodiles get so big?’
Hiebermeyer scratched his chin, looked thoughtfully down and then peered at Costas, a glint in his eye. ‘Oh, human sacrifice, I should imagine.’
‘What? Human sacrifice?’
‘The priests couldn’t do it in the civilised heartland of Egypt, where that sort of thing was a no-no. But I’ve always thought there were those among the Egyptian priests who were itching to do it. Thank God they couldn’t know what the Aztecs used pyramids for, otherwise Giza would have been a bloodbath. But out here, where no one was looking, they could have had a field day. There were all those awkward foreign prisoners of war: Hittites, Canaanites, Hebrews, Nubians. Perhaps even the odd Greek too, as a tasty morsel.’ He eyed Costas mischievously. ‘So instead of summoning up a mythical monster, they create a real-life leviathan. What better way to placate the god than to keep him happily engorged in his pool of death here, rather than letting him go hungry and swim south to bring darkness over Egypt?’
‘Pool of death,’ Costas said miserably. ‘That’s where we’re going diving.’
Hiebermeyer grinned at him. ‘And where it’s been waiting for three thousand years. Pretty hungry by now.’
Costas groaned, and Hiebermeyer strode on ahead. A few minutes later they stood on a rocky plateau about the size of a tennis court overlooking the Nile, just beyond the site of the sangar. Aysha appeared over the ridge and joined them, holding the baby. Jack could see that Hiebermeyer was bursting to tell them what he had found. ‘Well?’
Hiebermeyer pulled a folded sheet out of his pocket. ‘Extra-high-frequency ground-penetrating radar,’ he said, beaming. ‘Another little project with my friend Lanowski, developed for a new search I’m planning in the Valley of the Kings. The new technology can penetrate deeper into rock than ever before, and I’m certain it’s going to give us another find to rival Tutankhamun’s tomb. But this is the first chance I’ve had to try it out for real. And it came up trumps. Big-time.’
He unfolded the sheet and passed it to Jack, his hand shaking slightly with excitement. Jack opened it out, and Costas peered over. ‘Holy cow,’ Costas murmured. ‘There’s something really big down there.’
Jack stared at it, his heart pounding. The printout showed the ghostly image of a square chamber beneath the rock, some twenty metres across. ‘How deep under the surface is this?’ he asked.
‘Our geophysicists agree with Lanowski that the ceiling of the chamber is at least eight metres below ground level. Before you ask, there’s no chance of getting to it from here, at least not without explosives and mining equipment. This whole outcrop is solid pre-Cambrian rock, as hard as iron. It must have taken the ancient Egyptians decades to dig out that chamber.’
‘You’re sure it’s that old?’
‘I’m certain of it, Jack. You said it: there’s one thing missing in the archaeology of this place, and that’s a temple. Finding those crocodile mummies clinched it for me. I knew it had to be to the crocodile god Sobek. I used our database to check the dimensions of known Sobek temples elsewhere in Egypt, and what we have here looks bang-on. It would have opened up beside the river, and had access to that pool.’
‘Do we know what the cliff face looks like?’
Hiebermeyer produced another sheet of paper. ‘Ibrahim’s been hard at work over the last few days. He was desperate to tell you, but I asked him to wait until I’d put you in the picture. He took a Zodiac out on the river and used an echo-sounding imager he’d brought from his Red Sea equipment store. It couldn’t penetrate the mud in the centre of the pool, but it did produce this.’ He handed Jack the sheet. It showed a graduated profile image of the underwater cliff and the former rocky shore in front of it. At the base of the cliff Jack could clearly see the outline of a massive doorway, the jambs and pediment carved out of the living rock. Maurice was right. It was an incredible image, an ancient temple carved into the cliff, the entrance submerged completely under the waters of the Nile.
‘The door looks shut, and it’s probably stone,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘But below it, you can just about see what I think is a rock-cut channel that led out to the pool. That also fits with other temples of Sobek: a channel to allow tame crocodiles to swim between the river and a sacred pool within the temple. It’s just possible that you might be able to get inside that way. The channel is about thirty metres below the present level of the Nile.’
‘What about before the Aswan dam?’ Jack said. ‘At low water before the 1960s the temple would have been exposed. Has it ever been reported?’
Hiebermeyer shook his head. ‘The photographs show a huge drift of sand and rocky debris coming down from the plateau below the sangar and concealing the entire entrance. It might have been possible for someone to slide into the upper part of the doorway, where there was usually a narrow triangular opening above the actual door to let in air and light. But it looks to me as if there’s been a rock fall that’s blocked up any opening that might have existed. If the locals know anything about a temple here, they’re keeping quiet. They seem to be terrified of this place.’
‘Can’t say I blame them,’ Costas murmured.
‘Can you do it?’ Hiebermeyer asked Jack. ‘Can you dive here?’
Jack slapped him on the back. ‘We can certainly try.’
‘That’s great,’ Costas mumbled. ‘First you violate the sacred crocodile mummies by excavating them, and now we plan to swim right into their lair. Just great.’
Jack gestured at the printout. ‘Have you told your Sudanese inspector about this?’
Hiebermeyer pulled down his hat and stood up. ‘We haven’t told anyone except you and Costas and Ibrahim. And I’ll be doing my very best to avoid him. I don’t get on with him and I’m liable to say something that will scupper us. Aysha’s the official permit-holder and site director here, and she knows how to deal with men like that.’
Costas watched Hiebermeyer’s shorts sink dangerously below his waistline, and then stared as he hitched them up and tightened the lederhosen suspenders. He shook his head. ‘Well, if Aysha can deal with you, she can deal with any man.’
Aysha waved dismissively. ‘Maurice is a piece of cake. Dangle an Egyptian mummy in front of him, and he’s putty in my hands.’