by Peter Vegas
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For the builders of the Great Pyramid of Giza. I love your work.
THE HUMAN THIGHBONE WAS THE wrong tool. Sam had worked that out pretty fast, stuck on his stomach in the cramped confines of the badly made tunnel. The idea had been to use it to sweep away the sand that had seeped in over the years, but it was too long and chunky for such a delicate job. The first time Sam accidentally hit one of the pieces of packing crate that had been used to shore up the walls and roof, he triggered a miniature waterfall of sand.
What he should have brought was something thinner, easier to handle. What really sucked was he could have. There had been a whole skeleton to choose from. But it was too late now, and it looked like the decision would be the last mistake Sam would ever make.
Sam’s second to last mistake had been entering the aging tunnel in the first place. But he reminded himself that he was going to die anyway. At least this way he’d go out trying to escape.
As Sam pushed the ever growing mounds of sand out of the way with his bone spade, the tunnel creaked and groaned. Protestations of old age coupled with the indignation at having been invaded after so long.
A narrow path opened up, but already the sand was raining down, greedily claiming back the empty space. Sam tried to slither forward, but couldn’t. His body was paralyzed from the waist down. While he’d been focused on the work in front of him, the tunnel had conspired to trap him from behind. Sand, flowing in silently through the new wounds Sam’s trespassing had opened up, had buried his lower half in a warm cocoon. He tried to kick free. It was like swimming in concrete. His attempts became more frantic as panic took hold. Then, without warning, the physical effort paid off as one leg erupted from the mound.
It seemed Sam had been wrong about the thighbone. That wasn’t the last mistake he’d ever make. Kicking was.
His leg’s bid for freedom ended when it smashed into the roof. The loud crack that followed signaled the beginning of the end.
Sam twisted, desperate for a look at the damage behind him. As he did, a plank of wood above gave way. Powered by hundreds of tons of desert sand, it crashed down onto his head. The miniature waterfalls became one horrendous downpour, and Sam’s world went black.
Five days earlier
1
BUMS ON SEATS
“YOUR PHARAOH HAS A BIG bum,” said the girl in 18B.
Sam stopped sketching, but he didn’t look up. He had a few rules for plane trips. Actually, he had three:
Always order the chicken.
Always try for two cans of Coke when the drinks cart rolled by.
And, most important:
Always avoid conversation with the person in the seat next to him.
Sam had survived the eight-hour flight from New York to London without one word passing between him and the elderly Indian man next to him. He had also enjoyed a semi-dehydrated chicken breast, stuffed with something orange that the menu claimed was an apricot, and four cans of Coke. The second leg of the journey was the four-hour flight to Cairo. They’d made it just over halfway before the girl finally spoke.
Sam had been happy when he first saw her. He had just taken his seat when a huge Egyptian man began stuffing his backpack into the overhead locker above Sam’s head. He wasn’t fat, just really, really big. Big, like a professional wrestler or scary bodyguard for some sheikh. That, Sam thought, wasn’t out of the question, seeing as the flight was heading to the Middle East.
Spillover was one of the many downsides to flying in the cramped confines of economy class. Sam shuddered at the thought of losing half his seat to the fleshy overflow of the man mountain next to him. The only upside was that he didn’t look like much of a talker. But Sam was still relieved when a girl with shoulder length brown hair, who looked about thirteen—his age too—squeezed past the giant Egyptian and slid into seat 18B.
Now, two hours into the flight, she went and wrecked everything by speaking.
It wasn’t that Sam was antisocial or had a problem with girls, he just hadn’t hung out with many. That was one of the downsides of being at St. Albans, the all-boys boarding school he attended in Boston.
Girls weren’t a completely unknown quantity. There were girls in the mixed rowing team he was part of, and sometimes, after practice on a Saturday, they’d all go out for a pizza or a movie. The outings were always supervised by one of the dorm teachers, but on those Saturday nights he could almost imagine what it was like to go to a normal school, where he would talk to girls on a daily basis. But he’d never pictured it happening at thirty thousand feet.
From the snippets of conversation Sam had heard between the girl and the air hostess, she sounded friendly enough. Under normal circumstances Sam imagined they could probably find stuff to talk about.
But it wasn’t normal circumstances. They were on a plane.
Sam worked out pretty quickly that his aversion to airplane small talk was a direct result of the fact that he was always traveling alone. The person who ended up seated next to him would see a thirteen-year-old by himself and assume he was feeling lonely, perhaps a little nervous, and could do with a friend on the long flight ahead. It would start with a cheerful introduction and then, because they were on a plane, there would be an inquiry about Sam’s destination. From there it was only a matter of time until the conversation led to questions about the whereabouts of Sam’s parents. And therein was the problem: Sam was sick and tired of telling strangers about his parents. Instead, he had come up with several techniques to kill such a conversation before it could start.
Pretending to sleep was the simplest and the most effective. Unfortunately, it meant he almost missed out on the free Cokes and chicken, so he used this only in extreme situations.
Headphones on, music up, and a blank stare out the window worked well, but Sam’s favorite method was to pull out his sketch pad and start drawing. Given that this was how he spent a lot of his spare time after school, it wasn’t hard at all, and half the time it also helped him forget he was crammed on an airplane in the first place.
Sam liked to draw. He found it easy to tune out everything except the lines he was making on the page. When he combined this with his headphones, it was almost guaranteed to prevent fellow travelers from trying to break the ice. Unfortunately for Sam, this time his drawing had worked against him.
Only a few seconds had passed since the girl’s comment on his pharaoh’s rear end, but the clock was ticking, and the gap would soon become an awkward silence. He couldn’t avoid conversation without looking like a weirdo, so Sam scrambled for a response that acknowledged her comment without opening the door to a full-blown conversation.
But before he could speak, the girl jumped back in again.
“With a bum like that he definitely wouldn’t be sitting in one of these seats,” she said, thumping the armrest between them. “He’d be up front in business class, don’t you think?”
Sam nodded and couldn’t help smiling. “I bet that guy sitting behind you wishes he was up in business,” he whispered, nodding toward the man. “It’ll probably take a couple of air hostesses to pull him out of his seat.”
“You mean Bassem,” said the girl, glancing over her shoulder.
Sam’s face dropped. “I . . . I didn’t realize you were traveling with him,” he offered apologetically. But if he expected her to take offe
nse, he was mistaken.
The girl laughed. “Believe it or not,” she said, her voice rising, “he’s one of the smallest in his family. Aren’t you, Bassem?”
Sam cringed as the girl turned to face the Egyptian giant, but the man didn’t move. He’d had his face buried in a book since takeoff and he either didn’t hear the girl or had chosen to ignore her.
She turned back to Sam, unfazed by the lack of response. “Bassem’s not big on talking . . . just big. I’m Mary, by the way.” She stuck out her hand. “And you’re Sam Force.”
“How did you know that?”
Mary pointed to the small, crumpled piece of paper lying next to the two empty Coke cans on Sam’s tray. “It’s on your boarding pass.”
“Oh.”
“So why are you off to Cairo, Sam Force? Searching for big-bummed pharaohs?”
Here we go, thought Sam, regretting that he’d slipped up on his “no chat” rule. “Nothing that exciting,” he mumbled. “My uncle lives there. He’s an Egyptologist. I have to spend the summer with him.”
“You don’t seem too thrilled.”
That was putting it mildly. For five summers Sam had traveled to Egypt to stay with his uncle Jasper, a man of weird words and whiskers. At first it had all been a bit of an adventure. It had held the promise of discovering ancient tombs, mummies, and chests full of treasure. But the reality was quite different. Sam’s summer tended to involve a lot of time spent sitting in tents, sifting through piles of rocks, looking for bits of pottery. Trouble was, old bits of pottery look a lot like small rocks, and that makes the whole process very time consuming and incredibly boring.
Sam was thirteen now, and in the past couple of years the long, hot days in the desert had lost their allure. He wanted to have a normal vacation, doing the kinds of things other kids in his class did. Going to the movies, swimming, and hanging out with friends. If there was going to be any sand involved, he wanted it to be on a beach. The thought of yet another summer wasted in the Egyptian desert bored him to tears.
Apparently it showed on his face.
“I’m not really into all that old Egyptian stuff,” Sam said.
Mary laughed. “Well, I’m afraid you’re heading to the wrong country, because pretty much everything in Egypt is Egyptian and old.”
There was another reason Sam would never truly feel comfortable in Cairo. If he was honest with himself, it was the real reason he hated his summer vacation. Memories that he had spent five years trying to bury in his mind like unwanted artifacts. His school counselors tried to dig them up on purpose, and sometimes inquisitive travelers did it by accident.
Mary elbowed him in the ribs.
Sam started. “Sorry, what?”
“I was asking what your uncle is working on at the moment.”
“Some old pharaoh.”
Mary smiled. “Yes, well, they all tend to be pretty old. Any idea which one?”
“Akon something,” Sam said as he pulled the copy of his uncle’s last e-mail out of his pocket. “Akhenaten,” he pronounced slowly.
“The heretic king.”
Sam skimmed the first few lines of his uncle’s e-mail. “Yeah, that’s what my uncle called him. Are you into Egyptian stuff?”
Mary’s eyes lit up. “Mad for it. I’m Egyptian, you know. Well, half, anyway.”
Sam glanced back at the giant Egyptian with a book for a head, sitting behind her. “Is that your dad?”
Mary laughed again. “Bassem? No way. He’s more like a . . . what would you say, Bassem, a minder?” Bassem lived up to his nontalkative reputation by keeping his nose buried in his book.
“My mother was Egyptian, and my father is English,” continued Mary, “but my interest in Egyptology comes from him. It’s a hobby for him, but I want it to be more than that for me. I’m going to be just like your uncle.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Trust me, you don’t want to do that.” But even as he spoke, a plan formed in his mind. “Mary, I don’t suppose you could tell me a bit about this Akon guy?”
“Akhenaten? Sure. What do you want to know?”
“Not too much,” Sam assured her. “Just the basics.”
Mary tapped her chin with one finger, as though she were a professor pondering an important question. “Did you know that he got his name as the heretic king because he banned the worship of all the gods and decreed there would be only one? Aten, the sun god.”
“Why did he do that?”
“I’m not sure. Make things a bit easier for his people, perhaps. There were more than five hundred different gods back then.”
“Okay. What else?” Sam asked as he added a sun above his big-bummed pharaoh.
“There’s a lot written on him. I bet your uncle has a few books.”
Sam was sure he did, but that was what he wanted to avoid. “Can’t you just tell me the important stuff?”
“Well, I’m not really an expert on him. Why are you so interested anyway? I thought you weren’t into old Egyptian stuff.”
Sam looked up from his sketchbook. “I’m not, but I really want to go to the new water park in Cairo.”
She frowned. “I don’t follow.”
“Well, my uncle always likes me to do a bit of research on his current dig before I arrive. I never do. I just kind of fake my way through it. But if I turn up and impress him with all the stuff I learned on this Aken guy . . .”
“Akhenaten.”
“Whatever. Then he might let me go to the water park.”
“Let you?” said Mary. “Is your uncle some kind of tyrant?”
“No, not at all,” said Sam. “It’s just that he thinks I’m into all this ancient Egypt stuff as much as he is. He always sees my visits as a chance to teach me. He wants to pack in as much as he can. I’ve tried to drop hints about movies and trips to places that aren’t the desert, but it’s like he thinks I’m there for Egyptology School and not summer vacation.”
“So you think that if you really impress him, he might be more inclined to grant you a special wish?”
Sam frowned. “Well, now you are making it sound kind of dumb, but yeah. That was the plan.”
“So what’s in it for me?”
“I dunno. You can come too, if you want.”
“Sam Force, are you asking me on a date?”
Sam’s face dropped. “What? No. Not like that. I just meant . . . you know . . .”
Mary laughed. “Relax, Force. I’m just messing with you. If I can help you impress your uncle enough to get you a trip to the water park, then that’ll be my good deed for the summer. Now, for starters you’re going to have to learn to say that Aken guy’s name properly.”
* * *
BY THE TIME THE FLIGHT landed, sam had scored two more cans of Coke and what felt like a school year’s worth of information on Akhenaten. Mary had well and truly backed up her claim about being “mad” on all things Egyptian. Sam knew he wouldn’t remember most of it, but hoped enough would stick to impress his uncle.
After the Egyptian lessons, they had moved on to other topics, and thankfully none of those had been his parents.
They chatted about music, where they quickly discovered they had totally different tastes. Sam was into guitars, the louder the better, while Mary was into dance music and listed half a dozen DJs Sam had never heard of. Unable to find any common ground in music, they moved on to movies. When the plane touched down they were trying to rank the Harry Potter series from best to worst, but had come to the conclusion it was more a case of best to most awesome. For once, the conversation had been easy and light. Mary never pushed Sam for more personal information.
It never failed to amaze Sam how, within seconds of hitting the runway, the calm and ordered interior of a plane transformed into a writhing mass of bodies and arms as everyone leapt to their feet and wrestled their bags from the overhead lockers. Repeated requests from the cabin staff to remain seated were always ignored as the urge to be the first to get out the door swept through the plane
like a virus.
Sam, as always, sat back to enjoy the show and was about to comment on the chaos when Mary’s giant guardian plucked her from her seat to join the fray. As the river of passengers swallowed them up, Mary had time to manage only a quick smile and point to her seat. On it was a piece of paper with a note:
Good luck with Operation Waterpark.
Call me if you need more help.
Mary 555-7563.
When Sam looked up again, Mary had been lost in the flood of cheap shirts and Windbreakers.
* * *
THE MAD RUSH TO EXIT the aircraft seemed even more comical when you knew you weren’t even at the terminal. Like a lot of international airports, Cairo received more flights than it had room for, so many passengers found their plane parked in a distant corner of the runway and were forced to endure a bumpy bus ride that seemed to take almost as long as the flight itself.
Sam gave up all hope of catching up with Mary again when his bus stopped and disgorged him and forty others into a throng of more than five hundred people, all pushing toward the next challenge: the very limited number of customs desks.
The first time he had arrived in Cairo alone the process had been freaky, but after five summers, there was no longer any fear. Now it was just depressing. The wait in the long winding queue was tedious and a fitting intro to a vacation that promised nothing but more of the same.
After answering a series of questions from a customs official who seemed as unhappy about being there as he was, Sam collected his bag and slipped out through the automatic doors into the cavernous arrival hall. The sensation always reminded Sam of something he witnessed at a fish farm on a school trip: baby fish, being tipped from the relative safety of a bucket into a big blue lake. At Cairo airport, passengers were funneled out into a sea of brown faces sprinkled with sets of gleaming white teeth. Cries of “Taxi! Taxi!” rippled through the mob as each new potential customer, or victim, as Sam liked to think of them, appeared from behind the sliding doors.