‘Of course I do!’ Then, more self-conscious: ‘The Egyptian stuff, anyway. I’m not as hot on the rest . . . Can we get going now?’
‘Behind me,’ Eddie said firmly, moving in front of her. ‘We don’t know what’s down here.’
They discovered one thing about two-thirds of the way down the tunnel - a petrol-powered generator, its exhaust hose leading back to the surface. Just past it, the passage showed signs of major damage: the ceiling was propped up by hefty wooden beams.
‘Looks about to cave in,’ said Eddie, passing warily beneath them.
Nina looked more closely. ‘Maybe it already did - looks like they had to rebuild the roof to get through. They must have been working here for weeks - what are you doing?’
Macy raised her camera. ‘Getting proof of everything.’
‘You can’t use the flash in here, they might see it!’
‘I know that, duh! I’m recording a video.’ She fiddled with the controls, then filmed the ceiling. Eddie and Nina moved on. ‘Hey, wait!’
Eddie approached the end of the passage. Sand-crusted pillars, ornate carvings discernible beneath the grit, marked the entrance to a chamber. The echoing grind of the power tool was louder here.
He peered into the room. The ceiling bulbs were replaced by banks of brilliant lights mounted on heavy-duty tripods, illuminating the western half of a large rectangular chamber. There was nobody in sight, but the noise was coming from beyond an opening in the west wall, where more lights were visible. He entered, signalling for Nina and Macy to follow.
Nina could barely contain her amazement. ‘My God,’ she whispered, taking in the two rows of hieroglyph-covered cylindrical pillars running along the room’s length, the further symbols on the walls, the ranks of niches containing lidded clay containers to protect the papyrus scrolls inside . . .
The Hall of Records. Until recently, believed to be nothing more than a myth - but now very real. And she was one of the first people to enter it in millennia.
Not the first, though. The modern artefacts amongst the ancient were proof enough of that. A large block was propped up on wheeled jacks by the entrance - the stone that had once sealed it, ready to be moved back into place once the robbers were done. The floor was covered in dust, numerous bootprints passing to and fro through the room.
‘Ay up,’ said Eddie, spotting a familiar item of clothing draped over a workbench near the entrance. ‘I recognise that.’
‘So do I,’ said Nina, seeing the snakeskin jacket. She looked past it into the shadows of the chamber’s eastern end. On the far wall, more pillars marked another entrance: the one through which Berkeley and his team would enter.
Macy, meanwhile, went to the other end of the room, passing a chugging compressor and an electrical junction box. Power cables and a hose ran from them into the short passage to the next chamber. She was about to go through when Eddie waved her back. ‘Over here.’ He went to a darkened opening directly opposite the royal entrance.
Nina joined him, noticing that there were almost no footprints outside the area between the entrance and the next illuminated chamber. The robbers were only interested in one specific part of the Hall of Records, completely ignoring the rest. ‘What’s in there?’
‘Egyptian stuff.’ She made a sarcastic face. ‘But I think it goes round and joins back up. I can see some light at the far end.’ He took out a small penlight and swept its beam across the new room. Though smaller than the chamber in which they stood, it contained just as much ancient knowledge. This room had sustained damage, however, possibly from an earthquake; one pillar had partly collapsed, leaving large chunks lying on the floor.
Eddie moved inside. Nina followed, Macy behind her, camera in hand. A rectangle of dim light in the west wall marked the entrance to a fourth chamber; crossing to it, they saw the back of another lighting rig in the exit at its northwestern corner. They entered the new chamber and crept along the wall to the lights, which illuminated a flight of steps.
Nina looked round the tripod. The broad stone stairs led upwards - into, she realised with a thrill, the body of the Sphinx itself. The room at the top had been carved directly out of the heart of the great statue.
And over the sound of the power tools she heard voices.
‘What’re you doing?’ Eddie demanded as she tried to push past him.
‘I want to see what’s up there.’
‘Yeah, and they’ll see you!’
‘No, they won’t - there’ll be too much glare from these lights.’ He frowned, but backed up.
The chamber Macy had almost entered earlier was across the bottom of the stairs, more light stands within. The trail of dusty footprints ran from it up the steps. Nina leaned out to see what was at the top - and felt another adrenalin shot of discovery.
Mixed with fear.
Several figures were visible in the upper chamber, and even without his snakeskin jacket she recognised the man from New York, who Macy had said was called Diamondback. She also spotted Hamdi, talking to someone outside her narrow field of view. But it was the object of their attention that had also grabbed hers.
It was on the ceiling - a zodiac, a star map about six feet in diameter, the constellations carved into the stone in the form of the ancient Egyptian gods. Nina knew of others - there was one in the Louvre in Paris - but unlike them this was still painted, as its creators had intended.
But it was no longer complete. It had been dismantled, desecrated. Only one part remained on the ceiling, a roughly triangular section running from its southern edge to just past the centre. She could see the circular outline of where the rest had been clearly enough; power tools had carved away the surrounding stone, then pieces had been carefully and precisely cut from the ceiling. A man wearing goggles, a facemask and ear protectors was using a circular saw to free the final piece.
Another masked man was also working on the ceiling, but with much less sophisticated tools - a hammer and chisel. Nina was puzzled, before realising what he was doing: knocking dents into the perfectly flat swathes cut by the saw. All he had to do to remove any evidence that the zodiac had ever been there was roughen the newly exposed circle to match the limestone ceiling. With so many other treasures in the Hall of Records, nobody would pay any attention to a discolouration of the roof. She appreciated the ingenuity of the operation . . . even as she was utterly appalled by it.
The man Hamdi was addressing stepped into Nina’s view. She recognised him from his picture.
Sebak Shaban.
She also saw that Macy hadn’t been exaggerating about his facial scar, which dominated the right side of his face from the top lip to the nub of the ear. She couldn’t help cringing at the thought of the pain he must have endured.
But that didn’t earn him her sympathy. He was still a thief, stealing one of the world’s greatest archaeological treasures.
The saw’s screech died down, its user gesturing to a third man - Gamal, who had helped to carry the case from the tent. Now she was sure what it had contained: a piece of the zodiac. The cramped vertical shaft made it impossible to remove the map intact, so it had been cut into more manageable sections.
That, and the care being taken not to damage the last piece, suggested the thieves intended to reassemble it. Maybe it could still be restored.
But for that to happen, the conspirators would have to be caught.
‘Give me your camera,’ she whispered to Macy, who passed it to her. ‘How does it record?’
‘Just press the button, then press it again when you want to stop.’
‘Okay.’ Nina held the camera out past the lighting rig and started recording, watching the image on the LCD screen. To her annoyance, Shaban and Hamdi had turned to regard the zodiac, only the backs of their heads visible. ‘Turn round, dammit,’ she hissed. If she could get a clear shot of their faces, they would be heading to prison for a very long time.