‘Yeah? And I always thought you were an asshole, and guess what - I was right too!’ Nina called after him. This time, both guards stepped forward, not letting him into the Sphinx compound until he presented his ID. With a final glare back at Nina, he headed after Hamdi.
‘That went okay, I think,’ said Eddie with a half-smile.
Nina was more aggravated. ‘God damn it! All he has to do is look in the tent, and this whole thing’ll be over!’
‘Well, he can’t say you didn’t warn him. And Rothschild too. They’ll be the ones who’ll look like tools if the place really does get robbed.’
‘But if these guys are smart and connected enough to organise something like this, they’ll be able to clean the place up and cover their tracks before Logan opens the entrance. Nobody’ll even know there was anything there to rob. Oh, God.’ She looked tiredly towards the Valley Temple to see Macy waving impatiently at them. ‘Great, and now we’re being summoned.’
‘What happened?’ Macy demanded when they reached her. ‘Is he going to look?’
‘Take a guess,’ said Eddie.
‘He’s going to look?’
‘Guess again.’
‘Oh.’
‘And also, he hates us,’ added Nina.
From Macy’s expression, the possibility of failure hadn’t occurred to her. ‘But . . . No, no way! Now what do we do?’
‘What can we do?’ Nina asked rhetorically. ‘Logan won’t listen to us, Hamdi’s involved in it, and we can’t get inside the compound to find the thing ourselves.’
Macy delved into a pocket. ‘I’ve still got my ID,’ she said, producing a card. ‘If the guys at the gate are new, they won’t recognise me, so I could get in.’
‘And then what? If Shaban’s guys see you, they’ll try to kill you. And even if you get proof, Logan’ll have you arrested if you try to give it to him.’
‘But we’ve got to do something! The IHA is going to open the Hall of Records in less than eighteen hours, which means whatever the bad guys are doing, they’re doing it right now! This is the only chance we’ll have to stop them!’
‘I don’t want them to rob the Hall of Records either,’ said Nina, ‘but unless we have solid proof we can take to the Egyptian authorities, we can’t do anything to stop them.’
‘So you’re just giving up?’ Macy said in disbelief. She pulled out the magazine pages and flapped them at Nina. ‘Did you just give up when someone said you wouldn’t find Atlantis? Did you give up when nobody believed the Tomb of Hercules was real?’
Nina irritably snatched the papers from her hand. ‘Did you get your motivational speeches from fortune cookies?’ she retorted. ‘I’m being practical here. We can’t do anything unless we can get inside the compound, which we can’t do without IDs - and even if we do, there are fifteen archaeologists and a whole TV crew plus God knows how many guards wandering about the place!’
‘They can’t all be there the whole time,’ said Eddie. ‘They’re doing this thing at the crack of sparrowfart tomorrow morning, right? So the IHA and telly guys have to get some sleep beforehand.’ He looked over at the high wall. ‘Do they still do that light show that was in The Spy Who Loved Me?’ Macy nodded. ‘So everyone’ll be looking at the Sphinx, not anything else . . .’
‘Something in mind?’ Nina asked.
‘I might have a way to get us all in.’ He turned to Macy. ‘It means you’ll have to risk getting caught, though. You up for that?’
Nina gave him a warning look, but Macy was already responding with an enthusiastic affirmative. ‘What do I have to do?’
‘Get through that gate without being arrested, for starters.’ He glanced back towards Cairo. ‘But first, we need to do a bit of shopping.’
The sound and light show was under way by the time they returned to Giza.
Eddie regarded the spotlit Sphinx, then followed the direction of its gaze over the seated audience. ‘Huh,’ he said, spotting a particular illuminated sign on a building beyond the perimeter. ‘The Sphinx is looking right at a Pizza Hut.’
‘Whoever built it’d completely freak out,’ Macy said. ‘The whole point of it looking in that direction was so it would see the sunrise. Now? Start the day with a Pepperoni Feast.’
‘You don’t know who built it?’
‘I thought it was Khafre,’ said Nina.
Macy shook her head. ‘Doubt it. Haven’t you heard of the Inventory Stele?’
‘The what?’ asked Eddie.
‘This ancient text a guy discovered in 1857. According to that, the Sphinx was already there when Khafre was building his pyramid. That’s why the causeway to the pyramid doesn’t point due east - they had to work round the Sphinx.’
‘Actually, I have heard of the Inventory Stele,’ Nina said frostily. ‘And I don’t think the argument about what it says has been definitively settled.’
‘But finding the Hall of Records makes it look a lot more likely to be true, huh? None of the Third Dynasty pharaohs ever mentioned the Hall. Maybe they didn’t know it was there. And if the Sphinx is a lot older than Khafre, that might explain why its head’s so small compared to the rest of its body. One of the pharaohs had the original head re-carved to look like himself.’
Eddie chuckled. ‘I think,’ he said, leaning closer to speak quietly into Nina’s ear, ‘you just got owned.’
‘Shut up.’
They stopped not far from the gate, and Macy looked at the two uniformed men. ‘I don’t recognise either of them.’
‘You’re sure?’ Nina asked.
‘Built, good-looking young guys? Yeah, I would have remembered them.’
‘And are you sure you want to do this?’
‘I’m ready,’ Macy insisted. She took out her ID card, about to head for the gate - then paused and opened a couple of extra shirt buttons.
Nina raised an eyebrow. ‘What’re you doing?’
‘Cloaking device. Trust me.’ Her décolletage adjusted for maximum effect, prompting a faintly lecherous grin from Eddie quickly followed by a swat from his wife, Macy crossed to the security gate. She held up her ID, but even from Nina and Eddie’s vantage point it was obvious that both guards were less interested in her face than in what was on display below it. The gate was opened, Macy giving the two men a cheery smile as she sashayed through.
‘Better get moving,’ said Eddie, starting for the road.
Nina frowned. ‘Unbelievable. She does something that sets women back about thirty years . . . and it works!’
‘Jealous, are you?’ Eddie teased.
‘No. And you can stop leering at her, as well. They’re fake.’
‘What?’ He shook his head. ‘You sure?’
‘Eddie, she looks like a broomstick with two watermelons taped to it! And her father’s a plastic surgeon. Do the math. Also, she’s young enough to be your daughter.’
‘Thanks for depressing me.’
‘I thought it was someone else’s turn.’ They both smiled.
They reached the section of road directly above the construction site and looked down. There was still a pair of guards standing watch - but two other men instantly caught their attention. Neither was familiar, but Nina had a horrible idea what was inside the large case they were carrying out of the tent.
‘Damn it!’ she said. ‘They’re already cleaning the place out!’
‘You think the zodiac’s in that box?’
‘Maybe. Or part of it. They might have had to cut it up to get it through the tunnel. God, what if we’re already too late?’
However, both men soon returned, now empty-handed. They entered the tent.
‘I guess they haven’t finished yet,’ said Eddie.
‘Good - maybe we can still stop them. Have you seen Macy?’