“Always darkest before dawn, eh Monsieur?” DeGard also looked up into the dark canvas above before returning his attention to the matters at hand. Nearby, ancient ruins of some of the earliest temples known to man sat quietly among the rocks and hills. The details of the formations were hard to make out in the darkness, but Degard had seen all of that before. What interested him was something that he doubted many others had taken note of.
“Lights over there, if you please,” he ordered the men who were gathering equipment from the other vehicles. “Around the base of that rock formation. Two flood lights outside and then take the rest inside the cave.” He was in his element, back in the field, where he belonged.
Off to the right, about a hundred feet away, a light breeze played with a canvas tent. Just outside the shelter were several tables and an old Range Rover.
“Should we dispose of them?” one of the men asked Lindsey, pointing with a sub-machine gun in the direction of the excavation camp.
“Not yet,” the older man answered. “They should leave us alone. Just set up a perimeter in case they wake up and get nosey.”
The muscular man nodded and trotted away to help the others.
Half an hour later, small generators quietly hummed, and the ruin’s formation began to take shape in the glow of the floodlights. A rocky hill rose up about sixty feet, to a sharp point. A cave entrance had been adorned with stone sculptures, cut out of the rock face itself. Time and weather had made it difficult to tell to which gods the giant beasts paid homage.
Lindsey followed DeGard over to the sand-colored stone. The Frenchman gazed at it with narrowed eyes. “It has been a long time since I have been here,” he said distantly. “The place has not changed a bit in all these years. Let us hope the inside is just as equally intact.”
DeGard strolled towards the cave entrance as more lights began to come on inside. When they entered, the two men were greeted with walls painted in pale colors from blue and red to black and gold highlights. The atrium of the cave was a rectangular room, around thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide. The place smelled of stale air and ancient dust. Any artifacts that had been discovered there had long been removed. Fortunately, what DeGard needed was still there, right where he had remembered it. He walked slowly to one wall and ran his finger along some of the hieroglyphics.
“These are some of the oldest writings we have ever discovered on the planet,” he said quietly. Lindsey looked on, clearly confused as to what any of the inscriptions meant. He didn’t need to know. That was why he had hired DeGard.
“What are we looking for?” Lindsey asked impatiently.
“Of course. You want to get on with it. Please forgive me for taking a moment to appreciate the enormity of where we are standing. What we are looking for is through there.” He pointed a slender finger towards a door at the other end of the room. He motioned for a one of the guards to hand over a flashlight. DeGard switched on the beam and led the way through the dark portal.
Along the narrow passage were more wall paintings and hieroglyphics, similar to what they had seen in the first area. DeGard paid them little attention, and kept walking steadily forward. He passed several other doors as he went.
“What are all these rooms?” Lindsey wondered, as he forced himself to keep up with the Frenchman. The guards behind Lindsey kept their flashlights on the floor as their employer continued walking.
“Funerary chambers,” DeGard informed without looking back.
Lindsey scowled at the answer, but said nothing else. After a few minutes of trudging through the primordial corridor, DeGard came to a stop. He stood under an archway, pointing his flashlight into a grand chamber.
The room’s walls were completely bathed in ancient texts and pictures. Images of men, animals, and gods decorated the smooth, stone surfaces. DeGard stared at the impressive sight for a moment before proceeding further. He strode confidently over to the far wall, passing by two stone boxes.
“What are those?” Lindsey asked as he passed the crates.
“The exterior sarcophagi. The mummies and their more valuable inner sarcophagi were taken long before we got here.”
“Mummies? Who was buried here?”
DeGard stopped before he reached the far wall and turned around. His flashlight shone on Lindsey’s face, irritating the older man. “A few moments ago, you seemed to have no interest in the history of this place, only what secrets it may hold. Now you want to know everything?”
Lindsey shook his head, but he did not appreciate being reprimanded. “Just find whatever it is we need,” he scowled.
“That’s what I thought,” DeGard said as he turned around and stepped over to the wall. “But just so you know, they aren’t sure who was buried here.” He got down onto one knee and started brushing away the sand on the floor. “Historians believe it was someone who predated the first pharaohs. But this place is so old it predates any records of ancient Egyptian society. There is a theory that a few of us in the field have come to believe may be correct. I believe that they come from a different race of people.”
“What do you mean, a different race?” Lindsey wondered.
DeGard ignored the question for a moment while he continued to scrape away dust and sand from a particular spot on the floor. After a few minutes of working, he found what he was looking for. Engraved in the ground was a symbol that looked very similar to the one on the stone disc Lindsey had in his pocket. A little more brushwork revealed that the images were identical.
Lindsey’s eyes grew wide as he realized what he was seeing. DeGard pointed to one of the symbols embedded in the center of the disc. It was a triangle with a circle in the center.
“I mean they were not Egyptian,” he finally answered after catching his breath. “They were pre-Hebrew settlers.”
“Pre-Hebrew,” he repeated in a whisper. “The legend is true.”
“If you are talking about the legend of the tree, perhaps you are getting ahead of yourself. But we will see what this means.”
DeGard brushed away more of the dirt and found a small hole in the center of the floor’s engraving. The indention was almost the exact size of the stone disc Lindsey had given him. Degard placed the object into the recession and took a step back, looking expectantly at the little space. Nothing happened.
Lindsey glanced over at the French archaeologist for a moment, wondering what he was doing. “Is that supposed to open some kind of secret passage or something?”
DeGard frowned. “I don’t understand. That’s obviously where the disc was meant to go.”
He got back down on his hands and knees and investigated the piece. He pressed on it with his index finger but, still, nothing happened. After another minute of trying in vain to figure out what the problem was, DeGard pried the disc out of the hole and put his face down close to it.
“Ah,” he said, finally. “That explains it.” He put the object back into the recess and slid it forward.”
There was a click followed by a deep rumble. A portion of the wall began to slide sideways, revealing a seam at first then a narrow opening, just wide enough for a man to fit through. After less than thirty seconds, the massive doorway stopped and the rumbling ceased.
“Sir,” Kaba stepped into the room touching her ear. “We have a problem with the other encampment. They’re demanding we leave at once. Something about being the only ones with permits to do excavations on this site.”
Lindsey’s eyes were still wide with wonder at the opening that had just revealed itself. “Tie them up and have two of the men watch them.” She nodded and took off towards the entrance of the ruins.