by Darren Hale
Fleeing from the light, shadows peeled from the walls, revealing a room that was just a little bigger than the antechamber they’d left behind.
And glimmers of gold like rays of fractured sunlight…
Angus could feel his breath clotting in the back of his throat. ‘Oh my God!’ he gasped.
‘What… What is it?’ Juliet Stammered.
‘You are not going to fucking believe this!’
Juliet could feel her skin prickling in anticipation. ‘Believe what?’
But Angus had gone, pulling himself through the opening amidst the resounding clatter of rocks.
She turned to Oki. ‘Give me a hand up will you.’
Oki shook his head vigorously. ‘No way – not you as well.’
‘Fraidy cat,’ Juliet retorted as she hauled herself in pursuit of Angus.
‘Ahh – what the hell,’ said Oki, resignedly following on behind.
The hole was a tight squeeze and for a brief moment he wondered how anyone as fat as Angus had possibly made it through.
And then the wall gave way beneath his hands, sending him tumbling down a short slope to land unceremoniously at Angus’s feet.
‘Will you quit fooling around,’ said Angus, offering him a hand up.
Oki gave him a sour look, before grudgingly accepting his help.
‘Are you alright?’ asked Juliet a little more sympathetically.
‘Yeh – I think so.’ Oki wasn’t entirely sure. His leg ached and a new hole had appeared in his jeans over his right thigh. He gently probed the hole with his fingertips, using gentle pressure to staunch the trickle of blood that flowed warmly down his leg.
Juliet frowned; her features etched deeply in shadows. ‘I think you’d best get Catherine to look at that for you… Once we’re done here.’
Oki acknowledged her with a nod as he stared about the room. The rim of a battered gold plate protruded from the ground nearby, its dinted surface casting the light back in a myriad of tiny images. ‘Bloody hell! Is that what I think it is?’
‘Sure looks like it to me,’ Angus affirmed.
Oki’s mouth hung agape. ‘This stuff must be worth a fortune!’
‘Except that we don’t get to see any of it. It all goes to the Peruvian Government,’ said Angus solemnly.
‘Look on the bright side… At least you’ll be famous,’ suggested Juliet cheerfully.
‘When we tell the professor that, having disobeyed his instructions once again, we entered this chamber without letting him know… I don’t think so…’
Juliet demurred with a smile. ‘Oh… I see… So we might want to keep this bit a secret then.…’
Angus nodded.
‘And what is that awful smell?’ Oki’s nose wrinkled at the sweet, honeyed smell of decay.
Angus waved his lighter towards the centre of the room.
Its flame shivered, threatening to abandon them in darkness.
‘I think it’s probably coming from our friend over there...’ he said, pointing to the mummified remains of a body lying in peaceful dignity upon a stone plinth ahead of them.
‘You’d think that after all this time, it wouldn’t smell quite so bad,’ Oki observed.
‘The tomb’s been sealed tight, remember. The air in here’s probably four thousand years old,’ said Juliet soberly.
‘Huh… Two thousand BC obviously wasn’t a good vintage then,’ Oki moaned.
Juliet laughed. ‘Hadn’t we better get out of here, before the professor comes looking for us…’
22
Sunday 15th October:
‘What do you mean the phone isn’t working!’
The professor was fuming. It was an unusual look for him.
‘I mean the phone isn’t working – nil, nada, nothing – isn’t working.’ Rufus was beginning to feel frustrated. He’d been trying the satellite phone all morning and had failed to get any kind of signal whatsoever.
‘But it was working fine yesterday, wasn’t it?’ the professor observed.
‘Yes – it was fine yesterday. But today it isn’t working!’ Rufus looked accusingly at the handset lying on the desk in front of him.
‘You’ve checked the battery?’
‘Of course I’ve checked the damned battery. It was the first thing I thought of. And it’s working fine!’
‘Well, who used it last?’
‘As far as I know – I did – when I uploaded the latest emails from the university server.’
The professor placed his hands on the table and looked him in the eyes. Tensions had been running high. He’d been up all night with Simon, working on what had undoubtedly been the greatest find of the century, only to discover that there was no way of telling anyone. ‘Then may I suggest that you find some way to get it working again,’ he fumed.
‘Look, I’m not a bloody technician,’ Rufus protested. ‘I have no idea how this damn thing works!’ he said, swiping the handset with the back of his hand in a way that sent it pirouetting on the spot.
‘Without it, we have no way of letting the university know what we’ve discovered. Nor do we have any way of communicating with the Amazon Queen,’ said the professor, stating the obvious.
‘Fine – I’ll get Angus to take a look at it. He seems to know more about this sort of thing than I do.’
‘Good, might keep him out of the way for a bit,’ said the professor, as he stormed off.
‘What was that all about?’ Marina asked, having observed the closing minutes of their encounter from the mouth of the tent.
‘The prof seems to think I should be able to fix the satellite phone.’
Marina looked a little concerned. ‘There’s something wrong with the phone?’
Rufus shrugged. ‘I just can’t seem to get any kind of signal.’
‘And how long has that been a problem?’
‘Only since last night.’
‘You’ve checked the battery?’
Rufus gave her a warning glare. ‘Don’t you start!’
Marina smiled impishly. ‘But they do know about our discovery?’
‘Not yet I’m afraid. I was still compiling a few of the pictures and a quick report. I’d planned to send it later on today.’
She gave him a quick kiss on the forehead. ‘Never mind… I’m sure it can’t be that serious. You’ll get it up and running again in no time.’
Rufus was still fuming. ‘Still… He doesn’t need to act as if I’ve sabotaged the damn thing deliberately.’
‘I’m sure he doesn’t mean it. He’s been up most of the night working on the tomb and he’s tired.’
‘And what… He thinks the rest of us got much sleep? As I recall, he had half of the camp up and working with him last night.’
‘So we’re all a bit tired at the moment.’ She rested her hands on the back of his neck and gently started to massage his tense muscles.
Rufus sighed appreciatively.
23
Sunday 15th October:
‘I thought you might appreciate some coffee.’
Catherine placed the thermos on the floor next to Simon’s feet. He was sitting hunched on the ground, scrutinising some sketches he’d made. His face looked drawn; its features thrown into stark relief by the wilting lamplight. Nevertheless, she’d expected worse. He had, after all, spent the night in a dark, dank chamber, that had until recently been visited by nothing more than ghosts.
‘Thanks… But you didn’t have to,’ he said, sagging back against the cold stone of the burial plinth behind him.
‘Yes, I did. No disrespect, but you look awful.’
‘Gee – thanks.’
‘And I also brought you this.’ She handed him a thick cellophane-wrapped sandwich. ‘Yesterday’s leftovers… and mustard… I think. I’m afraid it was a kind of a “fend for yourself” affair this morning. I gather the prof had Arno sitting outside of this place for most of the night, keeping guard or something.’
Simon raised an eyebrow. ‘Keeping guard?
’ He took a bite of the sandwich.
‘Apparently… He seems a little paranoid that something might go missing.’
‘And how does he think anyone is going to get away with it? It’s not as if we could leave even if we wanted to.’ Simon started to laugh but just ended up coughing on a half-chewed mouthful of sandwich.
Catherine looked concerned.
‘Don’t worry – I’m fine. The sandwich is great by the way.’ He took another mouthful and chewed it carefully before speaking again. ‘So… He’s had us under armed guard all night?’
Catherine nodded.
Simon shook his head in resignation. ‘That man is quite beyond belief at times.’
Catherine sat and watched as he finished the last of his sandwich. ‘So, couldn’t all this have waited until the morning?’ she asked once he was done.
She pointed to the scratchy diagrams and annotations that dotted the notepad on his lap.
‘Probably…’
‘Then why do it? I remember my days as a junior doctor, working all night on the wards, and I can’t say I enjoyed it very much.’
‘I guess I got caught up in the moment,’ Simon confessed. ‘An Archaeologist can spend an entire lifetime dreaming of a discovery of this magnitude.’
‘This find really is that important?’
He nodded. ‘This is likely to be the most significant find of the century.’
‘And who is this?’ Catherine pointed to the body on the plinth. Its face was pinched and contorted; little more than a leathery tegument drawn tightly across the high arches of its cheeks. Its eyelids had been drawn closed across vacant sockets and stitched into place, and its lips likewise sealed for eternity.
Simon pulled himself to his feet. ‘We think she must have been their queen.’
‘She doesn’t look very old…’
‘No… she doesn’t. But you need to bear in mind that people were of generally smaller stature in those days. Even so, I would judge her to be no older than her mid to late twenties wouldn’t you say?’
‘I’m afraid you’re the expert in that department. I’m really not much of a pathologist,’ Catherine admitted. ‘But it looks like someone was,’ she said, pointing to the massive Y -shaped incision on its abdomen. The withered remains of its arms had been drawn down across the wound and bound with strips of linen that obscured its upper margins. ‘What was that all about do you think?’
‘That wound demonstrates a rather more sophisticated concept of death and the afterlife than we might have given them credit for,’ said Simon, his voice transforming into that academic monotone with which he might have conducted a lecture. ‘The large Y-shaped incision was probably used to eviscerate the body after death. As you know, the bowel contains large numbers of bacteria that would have caused the organs to putrefy. So, they would remove them and then pack the empty cavity with straw to maintain its shape. The eyes and lips would then have been sewn together to prevent evil spirits occupying the body. And this might interest you…’ He retrieved a pen torch from his pocket and shone it up the queen’s nose. ‘If you take a look here, you can see the fractured remnants of the ethmoid bones.’
Catherine craned her neck in for a better view of the tiny bones that would ordinarily have been found at the back of the nasal cavity. ‘Yes – I can see that… Though you’ll forgive me for not understanding the significance.’
‘As part of the embalming process, the ancient Egyptians used to insert hooked sticks up through the nose to remove the brains.’ He hesitated as if preoccupied. ‘Although it didn’t actually become common practice until sometime during the eighteenth dynasty…’
‘Eighteenth dynasty?’
‘…Approximately fifteen hundred BC. At least five hundred years after this body was interred…’ Mosquitos flitted through the air, disturbed by the wandering beam of light. He swatted them away. ‘Damned mosquitos! Haven’t they had enough of me already?’ he cursed.
‘Here – let me take a look at that.’ Catherine reached for his arm, bringing it into the lamplight for a better look. It was covered in angry red welts where more than a few of the unpleasant little bloodsuckers had taken a bite out of him. ‘Those look nasty,’ she said sympathetically. ‘I think you should come back to the tent with me and let me take a closer look at them before they get infected.’
Simon’s arm was covered in bites. In the space between his elbow and his wrist there had to be a least thirty of the puckered incisions, marking the feasting habits of a number of very hungry mosquitos.
******
Simon had acquiesced, and once back at the tent, Catherine had cleaned and dressed his arm, slathering the bites with an abundance of antiseptic cream and layers of bandages, while feeding him antihistamines of the kind she’d used to treat the stings he’d received on that fateful day of their arrival.
‘Are you sure all of this is really necessary?’ he protested, feeling a little embarrassed now that his forearm resembled that of the mummy they’d so recently been examining.
‘Ordinarily, back in dear old blighty… no…’ she admitted. But here in the jungle, where things have a nasty habit of becoming infected, along with the fact that we’re hundreds of miles from the nearest hospital, so, I’m going to go with – yes,’ she said, having fastened her handiwork in place with a few lengths of surgical tape. ‘And I want you to keep a close eye on it. If there’s any sign of it swelling, becoming red, or otherwise infected, then I need you back to me pronto. Got it!’
‘As you command!’ he acceded grudgingly.
She gave him a disparaging look. ‘I’m being serious Simon. Any problems… and I want to know about them.’
He bobbed his head submissively. ‘Okay doc – it’s agreed…’
There was a cough seeking her attention.
It was Juliet.
She was standing just inside the entrance to the tent and discreetly averting her gaze. ‘Am I interrupting anything?’ she asked.
Catherine shook her head. ‘No – of course not. Is there something I can do to help you? Something for that cough perhaps?’
Juliet glared back at her, though the look was good-natured. ‘I just came to say that breakfast is ready in the dining tent, and the usual council of war meeting is about to start…’
‘Isn’t it a bit late for breakfast?’ said Catherine, checking her watch. It was twelve-fifteen in the afternoon.
‘It’s never too late for breakfast,’ said Juliet whimsically, as she turned to leave.
Simon hopped away from the chair in which he’d been sitting. ‘Sounds like a good idea to me. Shall we…?’
They arrived at the dining tent just moments behind Juliet to discover that the buffet had gone virtually uneaten. A plate of pancakes steamed alongside a pot of precious maple syrup and a bowl of slightly under-ripe lemon wedges. They looked most appetising, but, since no-one appeared to have touched them, Catherine passed them up, and settled instead for her habitual mug of coffee. The “council of war”, as it had rather glibly become known, was something of a camp tradition. Every morning they would meet in the dining tent for breakfast, and to discuss their plans for the day, though today had been rather different. For starters, it was only breakfast in so far as it represented the first meal of the day. Excited at having discovered the queen’s tomb, most of them had worked through the night and slept through the morning, making their midday meal breakfast by default.
‘Right then… I assume we have everyone. Finally…’ The professor’s usually dour expression smouldered on the verge of conflagration. He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘In case you haven’t heard, we seem to be having some problems with our phone… And, since Angus seems to have something of an instinct for finding trouble, I asked him to look into it for me. And it seems that we have a problem with our – what is it?’
‘SIM card,’ Angus prompted.
‘…And without it the damn thing is useless. So, it would appear that we have a saboteur amongst us, and I woul
d like to know who… and why?’
‘Isn’t this all a little melodramatic?’ Juliet enquired. ‘What makes you think it was sabotage?’
Angus slid the broken halves of the SIM card across the table. ‘Because I found these trodden into the mud behind the back of Arno’s tent...’
‘And you think that it might have been Carmen, Eduardo, or even Arno,’ Catherine observed, noting those colleagues who were conspicuous in their absence.
‘I really don’t know,’ said the professor, though his tone held them guilty regardless. ‘But, as far as I’m concerned, I don’t trust anyone that didn’t come out from England with us.’
Catherine raised an eyebrow. Great! Add xenophobia to the professor’s rapidly growing list of personality traits. And paranoia too while you’re at it…
‘Which is why I have another job for him…’ the professor continued.
‘Him – who…?’ Angus asked.
The professor’s lip curled sardonically. ‘Him – you…’ he said pointing. ‘I’d like you to go with Oki and search their tents this afternoon, while everyone is out.’
‘Hey… Hold on a minute. Why do we always get the dirty work,’ Angus protested.
‘Because it seems to me that you both have a habit of sticking your noses in where they aren’t wanted, which would make you perfect for the job.’
There was a moment’s silence.
‘So what exactly are we looking for?’
‘I have no idea my lad. So use your imagination.’
‘And if we get caught?’
‘Don’t!’ replied the professor succinctly. ‘I’ve sent Carmen and the others to work at site B, and we’ll be off to join them as soon as we’re done here. I should be able to find plenty of work to keep them occupied. In the meantime, both Martin and Arno are out in the jungle and don’t usually return before supper. So that should give you a few hours at least.’
Oki raised his hand. ‘Excuse me, but doesn’t it worry anyone that Arno has the only gun around here. What if it turns out to be him?’