They entered the pyramid and turned on their flashlights, Nick in the lead. The brilliant lights danced over the walls of the ancient passage, casting harsh shadows. Ahead, the way descended into darkness.
"Looks different at night without the lights," Ronnie said.
"I thought it was creepy during the day," Lamont said. "This is worse."
They came to the junction with the ascending passage and continued downward.
"What we're looking for could be anywhere along here," Nick said.
"The discoloration I saw is a little further on," Selena said, "on the left-hand side."
They were about halfway between the junction and the subterranean chamber and well below ground level when Selena stopped them.
"Here."
She shone her light on the wall.
"See how the stone here is a little different from the rest of the wall? It's subtle. You'd never notice if you weren't looking for it."
"There's not much of a difference," Nick said.
"If there's a passage behind this, it was sealed a long time ago," Selena said. "It might have been done when the pyramid was built. The work is of the same quality."
"Why make a passage and then close it right away?" Ronnie asked.
"Who knows? Maybe there isn't a passage. It could be a chamber of some kind. Or nothing at all and this is only a different kind of stone."
"Let's find out," Lamont said.
He opened his pack, took out a lump of C4 and broke off a piece.
"What do you think?" he asked Ronnie. "At the corners? Or one in the middle? Or all along the side?"
"The middle sounds about right. That should work if there's an opening behind it and it's not too thick."
"Don't overdo it," Nick said. "If the roof comes down it will piss off a lot of people."
"You really gotta do something about that optimistic streak," Lamont said.
He kneaded the explosive into a lump and placed it against the stone, set a remote detonator and turned it on.
"All set."
They retreated back up the passage.
"This is far enough," Lamont said. "Fire in the hole."
They crouched down and covered their ears.
The explosion sent a shockwave of compressed air up the shaft, buffeting them with bits of stone and a cloud of white dust. The dust hung in the air like fog, drifting in the beams of their lights.
Ronnie sneezed. Selena began coughing. After a minute, the dust began to settle.
"Think they heard that outside?" Ronnie asked.
"Hard to say." Nick gestured up the passage. "We're pretty far underground. All that stone up there absorbs a lot of sound. Even if someone heard it, they wouldn't know what it was or where it came from."
He stood. "Time to see what we've got."
The floor was littered with pieces of broken limestone. They picked their way through the debris to a large hole in the wall. Beyond was tunnel high enough to walk in, leading away into the dark.
CHAPTER 50
Valentina and Major Rostov had watched the Americans enter the pyramid in the afternoon. Now they'd followed them into the complex at night. They watched the guide open the gate and let them through, lock the gate and walk away.
"I don't think they're sightseeing," Rostov said.
"I wonder what they're after?" Valentina said.
"Does it matter? We follow them."
They crept past the guard shack, keeping to the shadows. Arabic music and the sweet smell of Turkish tobacco mixed with hashish drifted out of the shack into the night air. They came to the iron gate. Valentina took out a set of picks and had the padlock open in less than a minute. They eased through the gate and closed it, leaving the lock in place. It looked as though the entrance was still sealed. They entered the pyramid.
The only way to go was down. They had just started when the muffled sound of the explosion pummeled their ears. Seconds later, a billowing cloud of dust swept past them. Valentina began coughing.
"Quiet," Rostov hissed.
"Someone might've heard that." Valentina wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
"If someone follows us in, they will regret it," Rostov said. "Their security is laughable. The only one out there is the guard and he was listening to music. It's unlikely he heard or saw anything."
They came to the debris left by the blast and the opening in the wall. Rostov shone her light into the tunnel.
"Now we know why they came here," Rostov said, "to find and open this."
"This must lead to the archive."
"They've gone in." Rostov stepped through the opening and drew her pistol. "Coming?"
Some distance ahead, Nick led the others in single file along the ancient tunnel. The air was stale and hot, heavy with the passage of time. They came to a place where the tunnel widened and split in three directions. Black shapes scuttled away from their lights, making clicking sounds.
"What was that?" Selena said.
"Scorpions," Nick said. "Big ones."
"How do we always end up in places like this?"
"I hate scorpions," Lamont said. "I saw enough of them in Iraq. Always crawling into your boots at night."
"Now what?" Ronnie said. "Which one do we take?"
"They all look the same," Lamont said.
Nick shone his light down the passage on the right. "This one is blocked. We're not going that way."
"What do we do, flip a coin?" Lamont aimed his light at the middle tunnel.
Selena moved her light over the openings. There was nothing to indicate which one to take or where it might lead. She shone her light on the third tunnel.
"The Sphinx is Southwest of the Great Pyramid. We've been going south. The center passage probably keeps going in the same direction. We should take the left-hand one."
"That makes sense," Nick said.
They started down the left-hand tunnel. Lamont kept glancing around, looking for scorpions. After a few minutes they came to another junction. This time it was a T.
"Right or left?" Nick said.
"Left." Selena pointed. "The Sphinx has to be to the left."
"Good a guess as any."
They had gone about a hundred yards when the tunnel opened into a circular room with four different passages leading away from it.
"Man, this place is like a maze," Lamont said. "Be easy to get lost in here."
Something was scratched on one of the walls. Selena walked over to it.
"We're in the right place. This is the Atlantis language."
"What does it say?" Ronnie asked.
"'Amon was here.'"
"You're kidding."
"That's what it says."
"Great," Nick said. "Ten thousand-year-old graffiti. Now what?"
Lamont took out a candy bar and began eating it. Ronnie looked at him and shook his head.
Selena said, "We have to be close to the Sphinx."
She knelt down in the dust on the floor and began drawing a map with her finger. The others watched as she drew a square.
"This is the Great Pyramid. We started from the south side."
She drew a smaller square, this one below and to the left of the first.
"This is the pyramid of Khafre."
She traced a long line angling down and away from Khafre's pyramid. At the end of it she drew a little square. Next to that she drew a larger rectangle.
"The line is the buried causeway. At the end of that are the ruins of a temple. The rectangle next to that is the Sphinx."
"Where are we in that drawing?" Ronnie asked.
Selena drew a straight line away from the great pyramid. About halfway to the causeway she drew the first junction they had come to, with three passages. She drew another line angling down and marked the T junction, stopping before she reached the causeway. She drew a line from that and stopped. She made four dots in the dust to indicate openings.
"I think we're here, at these dots."
They looked at what she had drawn.