“Well, better you walk than me dragging you to the entrance.”
He winced at the thought.
“Not that you don’t deserve to be dragged a quarter mile over sharp rocks.” I mused out loud.
He grimaced but wisely remained silent.
I helped him up. “Come on, we can see if my AT&T services reaches into famous wadis.”
We slowly made our way to the entrance of the tomb. I kept the phone off, needing to preserve the battery. There was only one way out, we didn’t need the light.
“I don’t suppose there’s an old, undiscovered until right now tunnel that leads to the workers' village?” I braced my sore shoulder against the walls, unhappy with the damage to the paintings, but there was little else I could do, my legs were not up to the task of keeping me completely upright and mobile. Nic wavered ahead of me.
“None found so far. That would be too easy. Once the tombs were completely stripped, the access tunnels were filled.” He dragged his feet. I stepped up, wrapped my arm around his waist and between me and the hard wall, we moved painfully forward.
“They did not kill us after all.”
“I didn’t think they would.”
I left that alone. Our captors seemed shorter than Oscar and Oslo, but I hadn’t yet encountered the best of the bad, Nic’s actual partners. Nic was heavy against me. I pulled him, bracing against the wall, feeling every small imperfection in the plaster. I’m sure, leaving marks. After what seemed like hours, we reached the entrance.
I dropped him and tried to poke my head through the bars of the gate. No luck. All I could do was to mash my face against the bars and looked up. I could just make out the moon, now clearing the tops of the cliffs.
“What do you know about KV 25?”
Nic slumped on the ground. He winced and pulled out a sharp rock and tossed it aside.
He sighed. “Unfinished, obviously. Belzoni opened it up but didn’t find much worth taking. And if he had, he would have taken it.”
I worked my hand through the bars. The lock was facing out, but if I angled my arm exactly right… The popular tombs, Nefertari’s being one, Tut’s being another, sported real doors, locks ,and climate controls to preserve the tomb integrity. Nefertari’s tomb, restored to its initial glory, is actually closed to the public and only a few very well-heeled tourists are allowed in. I wouldn’t even be surprised if they were asked to hold their breath. Which begs the question, do you keep it safe and locked? Or risk exposure to share the art with the world? There is a virtual tour of the tomb, maybe that’s enough.
I stretched my fingers just touching the lock but didn’t know quite how to smash it since my range of motion was limited. I pulled my arm back and slid down the wall across from Nic. The moon gradually cleared the peaks of the valley offering just enough light to see him.
“Not even an interesting tomb. We can’t even while away the hours hunting for lost papyrus fragments, overlooked tunnels, a small canopic jar, bones.”
“You read too much.”
“I’ve been accused of worse.” I squinted at him, he was awake, that was good. I remembered that the doctor told me to not let Matt nap after his head injury. Keep him awake was the unnecessary advice. The boys had never napped a day in their combined lives. Which is why Tina so desperately needed me during those early years—two wide awake toddlers. Not an easy gig.
What if I never saw them again? If I didn’t answer Tina’s texts, if I didn’t return, would Tina keep me from my nephews? Boys I considered, in some ways, in convenient ways, my own? I sniffed with the back of my hand, the only clean part of me, wiped my nose
“Hey.” Nic’s voice derailed my pity train. “Hey, it’s not that bad, we…,” he trailed off reaching for the gate frame.
“It’s not that. What if I never see Matt and Chris again?”
“I said it wasn’t that bad. The worst…” He rose and looked more closely at the frame. “The worst is we spend the night here.”
“I’ve been in more uncomfortable spots with you.”
He didn’t even take the bait. Why was I crying? I would see them again of course. I would text Tina. I would fly home tomorrow, it would be close, I might even arrive just as Tina and Vince boarded their own flight. But I could make it. Who am I if not the sum of my good deeds?”
“I know,” he admitted. “At least this is not as bad as Edfu.”
“Or Derr. Or Aswan. Or Aten” Not the tombs themselves, although we were free to wander through them after the tourists had dispersed. Nic sometimes wandered through during business hours to act the part of an informed expert and real archeologist. Our work was always about a mile away in the worker villages. We lived in tents, ate bread filled with sand (which is why even the pharaohs suffered from bad teeth) and canned tuna. Naming off the worst accommodations distracted me. I took a breath and tried to feel grateful I was not camping, that I would, eventually, find a shower and collapse on grit-free sheets.
Nic swore and sucked his thumb.
“Don’t put your hand in your mouth, you’ll get sick.” I finally looked at what Nic was doing.
He was jiggling the gate frame. It rattled loudly, echoing off the stone-filled valley.
I was about to protest that someone would hear, but that would be the point wouldn’t it?
“Light?”
I turned on my phone. A single bar, three new texts from Tina. I held up the phone flashlight to the hinge.
The hinge. Then I remembered Pirates of the Caribbean. Don’t bother with the lock, just remove the jail door hinges. In our case the gate hinges were logically located on the inside of the tomb entrance.
“Not as romantic as discovering a hidden tunnel.” I pointed out unhelpfully.
“It’s never romantic. And this option is easier on the knees, the preservation of which I am increasingly committed to. You don’t happen to have a chisel or a screwdriver on you?”
“Would they have let me keep it?” I was grateful I still had the phone. Then again, what good is a phone with no service? I squinted at the project at hand. Maybe these kidnappers, thieves, weren’t so stupid after all. Although I was still trying to figure out the motive.
“Pen? You could MacGyver it.”
He pulled out a cheap Bic (he never spent money on things like pens) that I was certain wasn’t up to the job of pushing out steel hinge pins. Then again, a nicer pen wouldn’t be much more helpful. With the tip of the plastic blue cap, Nic applied a little pressure on the right, a bit of pressure to the left. I was cross-eyed with boredom by the time he had carefully worked out the first pin. It fell to the rocks with a satisfying clang. Nic crouched down to work the second hinge. I did admire his patience. He took satisfaction in the slow reveal, an effort that cried out for stop-action video. He loved the gradual unveiling of a beautiful piece, a perfect painting, a chunk of pottery. I did not have enough patience to make it as a field archeologist, but I did understand the process, the grit of the work. And I could discuss it, even lecture about it. I stifled that regret and held the phone steady.
It was natural to think of death while trapped in a tomb. Death on the walls, the afterlife imagined and recorded to keep it contained and knowable. We all die, now here is what happens afterwards.
Max would have stood before Anubis and handed over his heart to be weighed against a feather with a clear conscience. I saw to that. How you die wasn’t important, Anubis cared if your deeds in life weighed heavily on your heart.
I imagined Max traveling to the next world on a well-appointed designer boat, rowed by all his previous pretty, pretty boys. I hoped he was able to take his laptop with him. It had been his whole focus those last three months when leaving the apartment was unthinkable, when we sat inside for hours, days, weeks. My only outing was to walk to the edge of the river side patio and take deliveries from gondolas and increasingly, speed boats. Oh, and trips to remove all those worthless sample books to the storage center off island.
Maybe M
ax took those sample books with him too. What was the hieroglyph for sample book?
“Is there a hieroglyph for a computer?”
“You are kidding right?” The center hinge pin dropped. He tested the gate. I helped pull, but we couldn’t create an opening wide enough to slip through. He sighed and gestured for the light again on the lowest hinge.
What kind of barca would my parents have taken to the next world? A private, one of course, they most certainly wouldn’t ride to the next world in a boat filled with strangers. My parents always had a thing about strangers. Sometimes Chris reverted to a stranger-danger mode, not talking even to people he had met before, the grocery clerk, the school crossing guard; they were all suddenly terrifying, ready to do him harm if he looked them in the eye. His grandparents harbored the same intrinsic mistrust. All three required me as their buffer against the perils of the outside world.
“Nic, who is building all those cruise ships?”
He lay on the sand and worked while I held the light overhead, I didn’t want to blind him.
“A company in Albania.”
How better to support an emerging economy?
The last pin hit the sand with a quiet thud. I stepped back to allow Nic the honors. He wrestled the heavy door off the hinges and pushed it out to the ground just outside the entrance.
“That will be interesting to explain.” Nic’s arm trembled even as helped me over the gate. I allowed him to lean on me again as we slowly made our way through the brilliant, moon illuminated valley. The valley is covered with limestone chips, all reflecting the moon light. It wasn’t as bright as day, but it was bright enough for our shadows to follow us. Once we hit the main trail it was easier going.
“So now what? We can’t return to the hotel. Our perpetrators will be there waiting for us.”
“I know.”
“I know you know.”
He sighed. Some women are attracted to the strong, deep, silent type. I was increasingly not.
We stepped over the chain across the road to the parking lot. Finally, the phone displayed two bars, enough for a call.
“Here, I’ll get us a car.” He reached for the phone, belatedly taking over. Had he always done that? I couldn’t remember.
“And deliver us right back to the bad guys?”
“No, so we can get back to town.” I watched as he searched for the number and connect to our hotel.
Did the perps return to the scene of the crime or was it just the victims who returned, searching for closure? And why not kill us? You don’t need a gun; a nice knife would be silent and deadly enough. Why didn’t they think of that?
Maybe they just wanted to slow us down. Maybe they too wanted their hearts to eventually weigh favorably against a feather. Hang out in enough tombs and it becomes important.
“Why kidnap us at all?”
Nic held up one finger as he connected with the hotel. He spoke, he listened, he spoke again, he raised his voice. He threatened. After fifteen minutes he clicked off the phone. “They don’t send cars out at this hour,” he announced.
“Yes, they will.” I held out my hand and he reluctantly returned my phone. I glanced at the battery, twenty-eight percent. Not bad. I scrolled to recents and called back. I raised my voice to the helpless old lady tremor and launched into my lost, abandoned, dire situation. How was I to know there were no more buses leaving the Valley after 6:00? This kind of thing never happened in Pittsburgh, yes, I would like a ride right now. Yes, my phone battery is about to fail. I gave them my name and room number hoping they would not automatically connect me with Nic, but he hadn’t gotten far enough in the conversation—rant—to give out his name.
“Yes, I’ll be right at the entrance of this place, past the parking lot? Oh, thank you, young man, you are a credit to the Winter Palace.” I clicked off and looked at Nic in triumph.
“How do you do that?”
“It’s my only superpower.”
“Not your only one.”
It would take half an hour for the car to teach us. We walked to the parking entrance and sat on the ground in view of the road.
“The artifacts came from your future dock project.”
He looked at me bleakly. “You are very smart.”
“It explains why Oscar and Oslo know your name and your movements.” They were all in the same game, just different divisions. And what team did our S & M kidnappers belong to? Were Oscar and Oslo branching out? Hiring new team members?
“We should just leave Luxor,” he proposed.
We sat in silence. My stomach was the loudest sound in the valley. What did Nic gain from this? Hiding a find? Who else was on his team? What was the game?
“How are your parents?” I asked in the dark.
“Good shape.”
“Who takes care of them?”
“My sister has it all handled.”
I waited for more, but that was the end of it. Sister takes care of everything. Gotta go. I dropped my head on my knees. Were they all the same?
A headlight finally illuminated the road.
Chapter 21
We had been shoved, kicked, hit on the head and kidnapped. As we bounced back to Luxor, my assignment was to search for another hotel. Since you know, I was good at getting what we wanted. I glanced at Nic who was gazing out the car window. I slouched down, the two bars were holding, I was at nineteen percent.
I texted Chris first.
He announced that the family was falling apart.
Your words or mom’s?
Mom. Says she can’t alone. My heart flipped. I knew that. I’ve always known that. It takes a village to raise a child, right? I was that village. On call. Tina was probably amazed I had stayed away for so many days. I was amazed myself.
“Do you want to stay in town, or should we get the hell out?” Nic twisted to look behind us, as if we were pursued. We were not.
“Don’t you need to stay for the project?”
He shook his head. “It’s gotten out of hand. I say we get out.”
I glanced at him, his hands scraped raw, his eyes blood shot, a disturbing dark patch of blood on the back of his head. Huge dark circles under his eyes made him look every one of his earned sixty-five years.
Behaving yourself? I texted to Chris but really wanted to ask the same of my former lover.
“Some people retire at 65.” Nic grumbled. “Did you check the Hilton? It’s always crowded, that would work.”
“Good idea.”
Built a trebuchet in the living room, Chris texted.
“You’re buying,” I said.
He nodded. He instructed the driver to take us to the Hilton and sat back.
Working? I texted.
Tomato cans into the next street.
Oh boy. Excellent.
I glanced at Nic and texted Chris, What have you found out about poisons?
The Hilton is not as romantic as the Winter Palace, but I appreciated being greeted by a waiter in white offering me a tray of bright red hibiscus juice. I ducked in the gift shop minutes before it closed, waving Nic’s credit card. I grabbed a sun dress that emphasized my cleavage and bared my arms because I had had it with sensible coverage, new sandals and a Hello Kitty purse, just large enough for a phone and passport. My jeans were ruined, so no pockets for me. There was some makeup in blister packs by the front counter, I took one of each not even examining them closely. I chose the largest bottle of Advil they had. Nic strolled in after checking us in and added a pair of shorts and a tee with I heart Egypt to the purchase pile. We escaped to our new room without further incident.
Tina’s first text was a series of exclamation points. I couldn’t tell if this was a response to the tomato-can-launching trebuchet (had Chris told Tina they had hit the dead center of a roof? An admirable shot. If it wasn’t your car).
Or to Matt’s need for a fire extinguisher.
Or Chris’s sudden interest in deadly poisons.
I texted a smiley face back to
Tina just before the phone went black. I waved the phone at Nic. “I need to find a charger.”
I hiked back down to the gift store, but it was closed. How on earth could I survive a whole night with no cell phone? I glanced at the front desk. Ah.
Yes, they did have additional chargers, guests leave them in the rooms all the time. The young man at the desk was happy to find a charger that matched my phone. I promised to return it in the morning. He shrugged as if it did not matter, maybe he already knew that I too would abandon it in my room.
With no phone to distract, the elevator ride felt excessively long. I fingered the phone and eyed the elevator for an outlet. No luck. I made it all the way to the room before, quite abruptly, my legs no longer held me up.
I sank on the bed and eyed my new clothes, but I didn’t have the strength. I fell back on the bed in a puff of dust. I held up the phone and the new charger in each hand, weighing them—feather and heart.
“Come on, you always feel better after you’ve cleaned off the sand.” Nic took the phone and charger and plugged them in. He pulled me to my feet and let me to the shower. Which, twenty years ago, would have been just right for two. Tonight, the physics of it was too much. One misplaced leg and we’d tumble out in a crush of glass.
We took turns. He was right, I always felt better after a shower. Once we were showered, we stood draped in white towels. My body ached from the cramped car ride and chilly tomb. Nic needed a shave and the left side of his face was turning bright purple. But the blood was cleaned, and the wound wasn’t as bad as it had looked while we were underground.
We were a mess.
He gestured to the clean white bed. He pulled off his towel. I pulled off mine.
We groaned with lust and groaned when a muscle spasmed. Like art, the sex was marvelous, creative and pointless. Exactly the sendoff I needed.
I lay on the cool clean sheets and pulled my phone to me. Nic snored beside me. I let him rest. I felt too nervous. While the sex helped, it did not completely mitigate my edginess.
After I'm Buried Alive Page 21