“Probably the same way we’re uncovering it,” Pierce said.
“But there’s only room for one man down there. The translation mentions fifty slaves.”
“I was worried about that, too,” Pierce said. “But once the tomb was begun it would take many more people to cut through the rock and hollow out the large chambers.”
“Ah.”
Barnaby appeared out of the cleft. He stood silent for several minutes, then lit a cigarette with trembling fingers.
“Well?” Grover demanded.
“That’s it. It must be. It has to be. I dug around the steps and determined that there is a passage into the rock, cut artificially. It won’t be a very large passage—just big enough for a man to scramble down, hunched over—but that isn’t uncommon in the outer entrances to some of these tombs. It will enlarge later.”
He frowned. “There’s only one problem, as I see it, and that’s excavating in those narrow quarters. Maybe we could get two people down there and form a bucket brigade for the dirt.”
“Sounds all right,” Pierce said, “but we’ll need every man we can get.” He turned to Grover. “How long will you be staying?”
“Well, my darling Sylvia is not, I think, the type to flower in the desert. No more than five or six days.”
In the darkness, the men looked at each other.
“If you stay in camp, we’ll have four men free for that period of time. We’d better get moving.”
Pierce and Nikos went down and began to work in tandem—Nikos digging and filling the basket with earth, which Pierce carried up out of the pit and dumped over the side. It was slow, tedious work, but within an hour they had cleared the seventh step. The outline of a sloping tunnel into the rock was now better defined; they traded jobs and reached the level of the eighth step. Then they went up, and Barnaby descended with Grover, who insisted on going, wouldn’t hear of anything else. He laughed delightedly all the way down, but soon was coughing in the dusty air of the pit.
Barnaby, as a trained archaeologist, worked more slowly, giving extra care to the details which Pierce and the others did not bother with. He seemed to have an instinctive feeling for where to dig, exposing outlines, limiting boundaries, bringing the passage out of the sand. Lord Grover, whose bulk restricted movement in the pit considerably, would often climb to the lip and stare down at the sheer drop of the cliff, shaking his head and saying “Wonderful” over and over. He was as cheerful as a child in a sandbox.
Barnaby cleared away the ninth step, and the beginnings of the tenth. When they came up, Lord Grover said he’d better be getting back to Sylvia. They returned to the Land Rover, happy and laughing, delighted with their success, and their secret.
Work stopped at the camp the next day. The four men slept until midafternoon; Conway and Lisa went up to the nobles’ tombs, just to put in an appearance, but didn’t actually accomplish anything. At dinner, the conversation was quiet, striking light subjects for the benefit of Sylvia, who wore bell-bottomed trousers and a knit top of lewdly clinging fabric. She seemed in an ill mood and sulked, making occasional complaints to her martini.
They were back at the cleft by ten. Working in forty-minute shifts, changing jobs at the twenty-minute mark, they finished the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth step. By now, the passage extended seven feet into solid rock; the person digging had to use a hand shovel and work crouched over in an uncomfortable position.
They quit for the night at the thirteenth step.
Grover came into Pierce’s tent in the morning. “How’d it go last night?”
Bleary-eyed, his body still aching, Pierce said, “We got to step thirteen.”
Grover seemed unhappy.
“What’s the matter? I thought we made good progress.”
“I was talking to Barnaby. He says it is impossible to predict how many steps there will be—perhaps as many as thirty.”
“Well?”
“It’s Sylvia.”
Pierce groaned and rolled over in his cot.
“She’s very unhappy here.”
Pierce sighed.
“She’s being dreadfully obnoxious.”
“How long can you stall?”
“Tonight’s our last night. I’ve promised her.”
Pierce looked disgusted. “All right,” he said. “Then tonight is the last night. Now let me get some sleep.”
“Sorry,” Grover said.
“Don’t mention it.” He rolled away and put the pillow over his head.
They left early that evening, dangerously early. As the Land Rover rumbled out of the camp, Sylvia watched the lights, visible dimly through the cloth of the tent.
“Why does the truck leave each night?”
“They’re going for supplies,” Grover said.
“Every night?”
“Of course. It’s standard procedure.”
“How many people go?”
“Just one, usually.”
“Good,” Sylvia said. “Let’s have a party.”
“You’re not dressed for it, my dear,” Lord Grover said, shifting his position and sitting on her clothes.
“I’m not dressed for anything, right now.”
He smiled. “That’s not exactly true.”
She sat in his lap and put her arms around him. “Wouldn’t you like to have a party?”
“No,” he said, running a finger down her spine. “I’m not in the mood.”
“What are you in the mood for?”
“I’ll show you.”
In the cleft, Barnaby and Pierce worked silently, saving their breath and energy. This was the last evening they could use four men in two shifts; once Grover left, one of them would have to stay back in camp, and work would slow considerably.
The fourteenth step was uncovered, then the fifteenth. The air, illuminated by their flashlights, was yellow with suspended dust. They had reached the sixteenth step and were working on the seventeenth when the shift changed. The passage now descended twelve feet into the rock.
Up on top, Pierce lit a cigarette, then threw it away. His mouth was already too dry and caked from working in the tunnel. He said, “Sometimes I think it will go on forever.”
“The steps? It might, you know. There were only sixteen for Tutankhamen’s tomb—but thirty-four for Seti I. We could dig for weeks.”
“What do we find at the end? A room?”
Barnaby shook his head. “I doubt it. Probably a door.”
“Sealed?”
“Undoubtedly.”
The time passed quickly. In what seemed like a few minutes, they were hauling Nikos and Conway up and preparing to go down themselves. Pierce felt stiff from the exertion and the dried sweat on his body.
They dug furiously at the bottom. Barnaby had by now caught the fever and was working as fast as the others; the twenty-second step was cleared away by midnight. Pierce was exhausted when they came up. Barnaby opened a thermos of coffee, and they poured themselves cups that steamed in the dark air. Below, they could hear the muffled sounds of the other two working.
Pierce went down for his last shift at 4:00 A.M. Never before had they worked so hard or so long into the morning. He was an aching bundle of fatigue; every muscle protested as he moved. His eyes were tired, stinging from the sweat and dust.
They began at the twenty-eighth step. It was painfully slowgoing, now; he marched up and down the passage with buckets of debris as Barnaby worked. He no longer thought, no longer reflected—his actions were mechanical, liberated from consciousness. It was easier that way.
Twenty-nine steps.
“It can’t go on much farther,” Pierce said.
Barnaby just looked at him, with dead eyes.
They dug.
Thirty steps.
“It’s getting late,” Nikos called down. “Shall we quit?”
“Tell him soon,” Barnaby said.
“Soon,” Pierce called.
At the top of the pit, he could see the sky lighten, the black
turning to deep blue, then azure.
He descended into the tunnel. As he came down, he realized that Barnaby had stopped digging.
“What’s the matter?” Pierce said. Barnaby was sitting silent, looking at his hands, a stupid expression on his face.
Then Pierce saw: The steps had ended. They were facing a square door. On the door was a seal, and imprinted on the seal was a hieroglyphic. The seal had not been broken.
“It says,” Barnaby said, “It says ‘Meketenre’. It’s his tomb.”
“Never heard of him,” Pierce said.
“Well, this is it. This is the last tomb.”
He gave a long sigh.
2. The Door
LORD GROVER LEFT AT noon the following day, in time to catch the plane from Luxor to Cairo. Sylvia went with him, and Pierce was relieved.
“Let me know,” Grover said, “if anything serious comes up.”
“Right,” Pierce said.
Grover turned to Lisa, who was the only other person awake in the camp. “Take care of yourself, my dear.”
“I will.”
“We’ll miss the plane,” Sylvia said.
“I’ll be in London for two weeks, and then back at Capri,” Lord Grover said. “I may go to Tangier for a few days—a wedding of a dear friend—but I’ll let you know.”
“Right,” Pierce said. He felt like hell. His eyes were bloodshot, and he had a miserable headache.
“Doesn’t he ever say anything else?” Sylvia said, looking with open distaste at Pierce.
Lisa seemed about to reply, then closed her mouth abruptly. In contrast to Sylvia, who wore a tight-fitting polka-dot dress, Lisa was dressed in dirty khakis. She looked better, too, Pierce thought.
“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” Lord Grover said. “If I got a telegram—” He broke off and shrugged. “Say, a cable requesting seven thousand, five hundred.”
“All right,” Pierce said. That would be the signal: a telegram requesting seventy-five hundred dollars. “Have a good trip.”
“I hope so.”
“Anything would be—” Sylvia began.
Lord Grover patted her shoulder. “Now, now, my dear. Let’s not get excited.”
She frowned, then bent her neck, and kissed his hand.
When they were alone, Pierce said, “Do you want to come with us tonight?”
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “Not yet.”
He accepted that, without knowing why.
“Was it very difficult?” she asked, taking his hand and running her fingers over the calluses.
“Pretty awful.” Now that the digging was finished, he could look back and see how nightmarish it had been. “But it’s over now.”
“I hope so.” She lit a cigarette, cupping her hand against the hot breeze. She did it competently, like a man. “What are you going to do with your money?”
“We haven’t got it yet. We may open that door and find that the inside passages are full of rubble—boulders, heavy stones, that sort of thing.” Barnaby had mentioned the possibility, which nobody wanted to think about.
“But if you do succeed, what will you do with the money?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t really thought about it.”
“You’re going to have millions.”
“I’ll go somewhere—South America, maybe. I think I’d like to live in Rio.”
“And do what?”
“I don’t know. Just live.”
“You’ll go mad from boredom,” she said.
Conway stayed behind that evening. Nikos, Barnaby, and Pierce returned to the cleft. Pierce and Barnaby went down together to work on the door.
Barnaby worked carefully, absorbed, feeling the mortar and seal, touching as delicately as a safecracker.
“Give me the chisel and the mallet—not the wooden one, the rubber one.”
Barnaby began to chip away at the upper border of the door, which was perhaps four feet square. As he hammered, he talked to himself: “Superb masonry…definitely 19th Dynasty craftsmanship…uniform mortar…nothing to waste…easy, now, easy…that’s a boy…all right, steady here…just a little more here, and there…”
He stopped, having cut away all four edges. Only the seal remained.
“I hate to do this,” Barnaby said. “That seal is unbroken. This is the only tomb in all Egypt which has ever been found intact, never subjected to robbers.”
“Then it’s fitting we found it,” Pierce said.
Barnaby smiled, then smashed the seal with a single blow of the mallet.
“Crowbar.”
Pierce handed it to him and watched while he inserted it into the groove the seal had covered.
“Normally, the seal is opposite the hinge, but sometimes they try to fool you.” Barnaby tugged on the bar. The door did not budge. “Then again—” He strained, but still could not move the door.
“Let me try,” Pierce said. He changed positions with Barnaby, who lit a candle.
“What’s that for?”
“Gas.”
“What?”
“Poison gas. It’s a very distinct possibility. Not done purposely, of course—but the decomposition of any organic materials inside may produce carbon monoxide, methane, and other harmful gases.”
“I thought you said you didn’t have any more secrets,” Pierce said.
“It’s only a possibility.”
Pierce tugged at the crowbar, experimentally at first, then harder. He shifted it, trying for better leverage, but got nowhere. He was pulling as hard as he could, without response—no creaking, no cracking, nothing.
“I don’t understand it,” Barnaby said. “The seal is very good, perhaps even airtight, but it can’t be that good.”
“Let’s see if Nikos can do anything.”
Barnaby went up, and Nikos came down.
“What’s the problem?”
“Can’t open the door.”
Nikos spit on his palms and rubbed them together. “You have come to the right man. I can open anything.”
He took the crowbar and pulled.
Nothing.
He strained, the muscles in his neck and arms standing out in the pale light of the lamp.
Nothing.
He grunted, tried rhythmic pulling.
Nothing.
He stepped back in disgust and kicked the door. “Harder to open than a virgin’s legs,” he said, then stopped. “Wait a minute.”
He leaned against the wall of the passage, bracing himself, then planted both feet on the bar, and pushed away. The response was immediate—using his powerful leg muscles, the door began to give way with a rumble and crack. As it opened, there was a loud hissing sound.
“What’s that?”
“Better step back,” Pierce said. “Barnaby said something about gas.”
He took out his handkerchief, put it over his nose and mouth, and carried the lighted candle toward the tomb. As he brought it past the door, the flame flickered and went out.
“Back!”
They both scrambled up the pit.
From above, Barnaby had been watching. “Give it a few minutes to air out,” he said.
Nikos looked up. “We need an expert down here,” he said. “The strong-man stuff is over.”
Barnaby hauled him up, and the archaeologist was lowered in his place.
“The candle went out?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Probably just carbon dioxide. Let’s go back. It’s been bothering me,” he said. “I couldn’t understand why the door was so hard to open. And I think I know…”
They went back, and Barnaby shined his flashlight into the tomb. There was a large room, perhaps twelve feet square, cut out of the rock. It was bare, roughhewn, and empty, except for dozens of candles on the floor.
“Tricky devils,” Barnaby said. “Look at that.”
“I don’t understand.”
“They lighted candles, then sealed up the tomb.”
“Is tha
t part of the religion?”
“No, no—they created a vacuum behind the airtight door.”
“No wonder!”
Barnaby nodded and stepped into the room. He shined his light onto the four walls and the ceiling. It was a rather depressing room, Pierce thought, nothing like his dreams. So bare…
“This is only an antechamber,” Barnaby said. His voice echoed off the rock walls. “There may be several more. But somewhere in here, there is a door leading on.” He kicked the candles on the ground, and Pierce saw with surprise that they disintegrated into waxy dust, shattered on the spot.
“Three thousand years,” Barnaby said, almost to himself. “That’s a hell of a long time. Now let’s find that door. Bring our light over.”
With their two flashlights, they checked the surface of the walls, beginning low, then higher up. Barnaby was using his fingers as much as his eyes, running his hands gently over the surface, occasionally halting to probe with a dental pick. He grunted periodically. After an hour, they still had not located the door.
“They were good masons, we’ve already seen that. They would be careful to hide their work. Somewhere in this rough surface is a clue—perhaps just a thin line filled with dust.”
He continued the search. Another fruitless half hour passed.
“What about the ceiling?” Pierce asked.
“Doubt it,” Barnaby said. He flicked his light over the roof, which was low and unfinished like the walls. “On the other hand, the floor—”
He concentrated on the floor. It was more smoothly chiseled and covered with dust and the remains of candles that fragmented at the gentlest touch. Barnaby used the edge of his shoe to scrape away the debris, exposing the bare rock surface.
It took only a few minutes to locate the door.
“Very good,” he said. He bent to examine the stone door and check the edges. This one, unlike the first door, was not sealed.
He checked his watch. “This is it, I think. We’ll begin here tomorrow night.”
“Oh, we are making excellent progress. The project is working out extremely well, and we are all very optimistic,” Pierce said.
“Yes?” Hamid Iskander said. He had arrived without warning that morning, his ferrety eyes darting around the camp.
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