“Exactly. We’ve already seen a precedent for it in the canals and artificial harbors dug for each of the pyramids when they were constructed, only they were aboveground.”
“But our tunnel doesn’t lead to a mortuary temple,” Hiebermeyer added.
“What about the present water level?” Jack asked.
“My model suggests that the tunnel will be completely submerged, though it may well rise once it reaches the plateau. It will connect with passageways and chambers that have always been above the water level and remain dry today. Ground-penetrating radar survey in the past has revealed nothing like this under the plateau in front of the Pyramid of Menkaure, but that may only reflect the limitations of the technology. It would be possible for the roof of the chambers to be many meters deep, beyond the range of the radar, but for the chambers still to be above the water table. And there’s no doubt that they exist. You and Costas saw through to some kind of space when you were under the pyramid.”
“I just hope you can break through from the Nile,” Lanowski said. “When that French diver blew his way in over a hundred years ago, he may have caused a rock slide.”
“We can’t know that until we get there,” Jack said, squinting at Costas. “And my colleague usually has a few bits and pieces up his sleeve.”
“C5,” Costas said. “A diver’s best friend. I used it to liberate a few slabs from Sea Venture’s armaments store.”
Hiebermeyer was still staring at the screen. “Do you really think you can make it? I mean, more than three kilometers through that tunnel, completely underwater?”
Costas nodded. “Physically, yes. As long as the tunnel is clear beyond the entrance, as long as our scooters work, and as long as our rebreathers hold out.”
“But?”
“I can’t help thinking of those who have gone before us. The only ones we know about were the Caliph Al-Hakim and Corporal Jones. The first is apparently dead somewhere down there, and the other one was seriously unhinged by the experience. And our first foray under the pyramid was hardly auspicious. We saw the light once, but maybe that’s all the pharaoh will allow us.”
Lanowski glanced at him. “You’re in the wrong movie, Costas. This isn’t the one with the curses, the flesh-eating scarabs, and the zombie mummies. Akhenaten ditched all the old religion, remember? He was above all that.”
Costas gave him a wry look. “Yeah, and this is the one with the extremist fanatics, the public executions, and impending Armageddon. Given the choice, I think I’d take swarms of locusts and come-alive mummies over that.”
Aysha’s phone hummed, and she took it out of her pocket. “We’ve got reception back. It won’t last, so let me check on the latest.” She tapped the screen, waited, stared at the image that came up, and then scrolled quickly down. “You need to see this, all of you. It’s on the news, now. Our time may be tighter than we thought.”
CHAPTER 19
Aysha propped her phone on the computer so they could all see the screen, and Hiebermeyer sat forward. He gripped the armrests of his chair, his knuckles white with tension. “It’s from Al Jazeera, their Arabic service,” Aysha said. “It’s live.”
Jack leaned over and stared. Above the footer with breaking news was a scene that looked like the aftermath of a terrorist attack, the foreground filled with flashing lights and emergency vehicles in front of a high perimeter fence. The headline said “Giza, live.” The camera zoomed in beyond the fence to the looming forms of the three pyramids. Suddenly there was a white flash in front of the smaller of the pyramids, and then another. “That looks like white phosphorus, probably grenades,” he murmured. “Phosphorus won’t bring anything down, but if they use it on the pyramids, it’ll blacken the stone and make them seem as if they’re on fire.”
“It’s a portent of what’s to come,” Hiebermeyer muttered. “Next time they’ll pack the burial chambers with high explosive.”
“Isn’t that our pyramid?” Costas said. “The Pyramid of Menkaure?”
Hiebermeyer nodded. “The one that Saladin’s son tried to dismantle in 1196, so they’re taking up where he left off. Look what the new report says. They’ve been chanting ‘Saladin, Saladin.’ They may be threatening to do this to the smaller pyramid now, but next time it’ll be the Great Pyramid.”
Aysha switched on the speaker and listened intently to the report, in Arabic. “Apparently it’s the same militant cleric who’s been threatening this ever since the Taliban blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001,” she said, switching the sound off again. “It seems that his thugs managed to break their way through the perimeter fence about an hour ago in a convoy of pickup trucks, and now they’re in an armed standoff with the police at the entrance to the plateau. The police have no interest in a firefight, and anyway their senior officers have been infiltrated by the extremists, just like the army. As for our beloved antiquities director, Al Jazeera has managed to track him down at home halfway through packing to leave. He was a political nobody before the current regime came into power, and I expect right now he’s bitterly regretting having accepted the position. With the media spotlight on him, he’s been forced to return to the ministry in Cairo, where I don’t imagine he’ll last long.”
“I’ve read the Qur’ān right through,” Lanowski said, shaking his head. “There’s nothing in there about ordering the destruction of monuments or statues just because they predate Mohammed.”
“The glory of Allah shines through everything from creation to the present day, including all the marvels of ancient Egypt,” Aysha said quietly. “To suggest that it does not do so for history before Mohammed is wrong. These people are the enemy of true Muslims.”
The TV camera refocused to show the shady figures in front of the trucks that were parked in a line just inside the entrance to the Giza plateau. “Take a look at the gunmen,” Costas said. “They’re all wearing black headbands.”
“They call themselves the new followers of the Mahdi,” Aysha said. “Al Jazeera says they’ve been training in secret camps in Sudan and Somalia for months now. Many are veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, with close ties to the extremists now operating in Syria against Israel. For the first time since the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, since Yemen and Somalia, we’re looking at an extremist group about to stage a coup to take over a country. They’ve been planning this for over a century, ever since Lord Kitchener desecrated the Mahdi’s tomb outside Khartoum after he’d defeated the dervish army at the Battle of Omdurman. Intelligence analysts at the time knew that Omdurman was a hollow victory, and now it’s come back to haunt us.”
“And archaeology is being used as the tinderbox,” Jack said.
Hiebermeyer shook his head. “Not just as a tinderbox. Look at what’s happening. The West proved powerless to prevent the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, and now we watch helplessly while the greatest antiquities of Egypt are threatened. The forces behind this are about to pull off an extraordinary publicity stunt. How better to show the weakness of the West? Archaeology, the West’s fascination with ancient Egypt, is about to become a pawn in the hands of the extremists. What we are seeing is a gesture of contempt, not only to the West but also to the people of Egypt who have made archaeology their livelihood and the basis for their sense of national identity. A little over two centuries after Napoleon arrived with his team of cartographers and scholars, Egyptology is about to be extinguished.”
Lanowski put a hand on Hiebermeyer’s shoulder. “Not for you it won’t be. Not for any of us here, or for the millions around the world who follow your work. You’ve got a lifetime ahead of you putting together everything you’ve gotten out of Egypt. There will be books, films. The whole incredible story of Akhenaten, for a start, when we finally get to the bottom of it. I’ll be there with you.”