The Memory Agent

by Matthew B. J. Delaney

  Clayton dropped the machine gun and advanced forward. He pulled a Colt pistol from his shoulder holster and calmly walked among the wounded men and horses, executing each with a single bullet to the head.

  I turned away from the horrid sight. Instead I looked down across the length of the valley, toward the east where in the distance I knew the Nile lay, and thought of the images in the tomb. The annihilation of the Nubians by the Egyptians.

  With one machine gun, Clayton had done by himself, in a few seconds, a level of devastation the Egyptians could not possibly have dreamed of. I was fearful of what the future held. Of what new weapons we would devise.

  “There’ll be more coming.” Clayton stood over me. He surveyed the upper edges of the valley. “We can’t leave now.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “We’re in a valley. They have the high ground. We won’t make it out alive.” Clayton checked his watch. “British policy in Luxor is to check on the well-being of all westerners working in the valley.”

  I was surprised and pleased to hear this. “How often do they check?”

  “Every two days.”

  “So we wait for them?”

  “We can’t . . .” Clayton looked at me. I saw myself reflected in his sunglasses. Slowly he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. “We won’t make it two days in the open. Not without water. Not without shelter. They’ll attack again tonight. Murder us in our sleep.”

  “So what do we do?”

  Clayton put the cigarette in his mouth, lit the end, and took a long pull. Smoke curled around his green eyes. He nodded toward the tomb.

  “We go underground,” he said. “It’s our only chance.”

  “I don’t like it.” Charlotte stood at the edge of the tomb and shielded her eyes against the sun. “We have trucks. I think we could make it. Drive fast out of the valley and don’t stop until we hit Luxor.”

  “We hit the river first,” I reminded her. “If the ferry isn’t there, we’d be trapped.”

  “As if we won’t be trapped inside the tomb.” Charlotte looked a bit panicked at the prospect of spending the next two days underground. She bit her lower lip. “I just don’t know if Clayton should be the one making these decisions. You’re the head of the dig. What do you think?”

  I shrugged, feeling awkward to be put on the spot. “Selberg doesn’t seem to mind.” I nodded toward the senior scientist, who was happily unloading a wooden crate from the rear of the truck.

  “Of course he doesn’t mind. He wants recognition. He’s convinced himself this site is real. Not the absurd waste of time we know it is.”

  “Now hold on, we don’t know that,” I said. This was my expedition. And while the facts did point to the possibility of our discovery being a hoax, I still didn’t like it being brought to my attention.

  “No, you hold on. I didn’t come out here to die,” Charlotte said, her voice growing in fury.

  Someone approached behind us and I turned to face Clayton. He held out a rifle to each of us. “You might want to take these.”

  I took the weapon from him and held it in my palm. I had not held a rifle since the war, and the weight of it now, the absolute certainty of metal in my hand, felt good.

  “I’m not taking that thing. Are you crazy?” Charlotte’s eyes flared. “We can leave now. Get in the trucks and drive out of here.”

  “Is that what you think?” Clayton asked.

  “That’s what I know. They’re on horseback for God’s sake. We have entered the modern age. We have automobiles. At least we can have some of the workers drive back to Luxor.”

  “I will not give that order,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because any worker that gets in a truck will be seen as an enemy of the Brotherhood. They will be massacred.”

  “That’s what you believe. I believe they will make it through.” She stared at Clayton for a long moment, then turned and began to speak rapidly in Arabic to several of the workmen. She indicated the truck, obviously telling the workers to drive to Luxor. One of the men shook his head and backed away. Most of these men had only seen a handful of automobiles in their lives. They would not know how to drive.

  Charlotte became even more frustrated. She threw up her hands and said in English, “Someone drive the damn truck!”

  Clayton pushed past her, picked up a heavy brick and a rope from the dig and headed for the truck. He opened the door and began to lash the steering wheel to the inside frame.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Charlotte walked quickly toward him. Clayton ignored her and started the engine. “I asked you a question.” Charlotte was angry, emotional, her face flushed.

  Clayton pushed her back from the truck, then placed the heavy brick on the vehicle’s gas pedal. The truck lurched forward on the road, headed, driverless, for the edge of the valley. We all watched the vehicle speed away, a giant dust cloud billowing behind it.

  “Oh, that’s just great.” Charlotte threw her hands up again.

  The truck continued straight, gathering speed. As it reached the narrow strip of the valley, an explosion ripped across the desert. The truck flipped forward, launched impossibly high into the air like a toy, before it landed on the front cab and rocked forward onto its roof. A burst of wind struck me an instant later, followed by a low resonant boom.

  From either side of a rocky outcropping, a half-dozen men approached the vehicle, firing into the cab with rifles as they moved forward.

  Charlotte watched, her eyes wide, then slowly her lower lip began to quiver. I too felt my heart beat faster. I had also considered making our getaway in the trucks. Clayton’s face was expressionless. Then he shook his head.

  “Shame we had to waste a truck,” he said. “We might have need of it later.”

  Charlotte turned toward him, said nothing, then walked toward the tomb entrance.

  We were trapped.

  In Roman times, many of the discovered ancient tombs of Egypt had served several other purposes. Some were used as stables, or for storage, and some even became temporary homes. Sitting inside the first chamber, circled around the small electric torch, I could not imagine a more depressing abode.

  The gloom of the chamber was oppressive, and I made my way back up the stone corridor to the tomb opening. Clayton guarded the entrance, a submachine gun in each hand. Around the site, the workers had thrown down their tools and were advancing slowly into the desert with their arms raised.

  I watched them walk toward the moonlit horizon. “What’s happening?”

  “They’re leaving us.” Clayton spit tobacco juice onto the ground. “They’re not taking chances.”

  “Will they be harmed?”

  “Probably not. Brotherhood will let them pass through just fine. Hell, some of the workers are Brotherhood members. Wouldn’t surprise me to find out we had a few spies in our midst.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “See those ridges up there?” Clayton pointed to an area about two hundred yards distant, where the valley walls sloped sharply upward, forming a long ridge that stretched toward the mountain al-Qurn. “There’s a full view of the valley up there. That’s where they’ll be now.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Waiting for darkness. The tommy gun surprised them. But now they’ll be more careful. There won’t be any more frontal assaults. The next time, we won’t see them coming until they’re on top of us.”

  Night fell quickly in the desert. I stayed at the tomb entrance with Clayton. Charlotte joined us, her arms wrapped in a light blanket she had found in one of the trucks.

  We watched the sun slowly lower toward the valley walls. And then, abruptly, it was gone. Night had begun. On the ridge above us, I saw the reddish glow of a campfire. Occasional sparks rose into the darkness, fluttered for a moment, and extinguished into nothing. I detected the faint smell of cooking meat. Instantly I was ravenous. I had not eaten all day, and now that the action had slowed, the
feeling was powerful.

  “The fires are a good sign,” Clayton said. “As long as they’ve got fires going, we know they’re eating. They won’t come.”

  “And when the fires go out?” Nasir said.

  “That’s when we worry.”

  I looked back across the valley and saw the flames. Already the night had grown chilly. Back in New York, Susan and I might be getting ready to see a show on Broadway. Or a new motion picture.

  I felt a momentary wave of homesickness. I had been away for eight months, two weeks, and four days. That was certainly long enough for any family man. And I missed my wife. Only this time she was not at home waiting for me. The thought of this weighed heavily. I still hadn’t accepted her death. Like friends who came back from the war missing arms or legs. Some mornings your eyes open, and for a beautiful fleeting moment, you forget what you have lost. Everything seems right in the world. Then you look down, and see what has been taken and you remember what can never be returned. And the sadness rolls over like a fog.

  A chill crept over me, and I crossed my arms to conserve warmth. I looked up to the ridge over the valley. I watched the fires burn. Then slowly, I saw each of them go out, one by one.

  They were coming.

  We waited in darkness. The moon was a half sliver of light. The valley walls held the moonlight and emitted a pale luminescence. The scene looked very much like the surface of some distant and inhospitable planet. I had been in this country for eight months, but the valley tonight seemed as strange to me as if this were my first night. Below, in the tomb, Charlotte, Nasir, and Selberg talked about the rise of the Nationalist Socialist Party in Germany. Next to me, Clayton shifted his weight and slowly raised machine guns to his shoulders.

  “Do you see something?” I whispered.

  He nodded toward the first ridgeline, where the limestone walls sloped sharply down to the valley floor. He looked uncertain. “Out there, shadows maybe.”

  “Hit the lights?” I asked.

  Clayton shook his head no, and we waited. Above us, the moon slipped behind clouds and the light was extinguished. The moonscape before us turned dark, a complete blackness devoid of any of the ambient light produced by distant cities. Here in the desert, nothing.

  From the first ridge to our current location was a wide, flat space fifty yards in length. The area offered little cover, and a direct frontal assault would be cut down by Clayton and his machine guns.

  Our weakness came from behind.

  The tomb was cut into the valley walls, and the entrance rose about ten feet over our head. Behind the entrance was the gentle slope of the valley, a point from which men could easily climb down and ambush us.

  Clayton lightly touched my shoulder, then touched his own ear. I strained my eyes into the blackness ahead of us but could only make out the faint jagged outline of the ridge against the sky.

  Someone whispered in the darkness. The voice came from out on the flat plain, maybe twenty yards away. Another voice whispered back, and then someone whistled. I heard the crunch of feet on sand.

  “Light it up,” Clayton said.

  I raised the flare gun over my head and pulled the trigger. A brilliant red meteor erupted from the gun with a whoosh and arced upward into the night sky. The entire plain was illuminated in a flickering glare of red light, like a match being struck in the darkness.

  At least two dozen armed men in black robes stretched along the road.

  Clayton opened up with the machine gun and I banged away with my rifle.

  The men dove for cover. Some of them fired back. Bullets impacted around us and a chip of rock flew from somewhere and struck me just below the right eye. My rifle clicked empty and I held my free hand to my eye. My fingers came away bloody.

  Voices called out to each other in Arabic, followed by more gunfire, this time much closer. Our position was being overrun.

  Clayton emptied another of the machine guns. “We have to fall back into the tomb.”

  We moved quickly down the stone stairs and into the first chamber. Below, Charlotte, Nasir, and Selberg waited for us.

  “What’s happening?” Selberg asked. “Good God, man, your eye.”

  I wondered vaguely what my eye must look like. “Get everything together,” I said as I scooped up canteens of water in my arms.

  “Where are we going?” Charlotte asked.

  “Into the tomb.”

  Selberg smiled at this, Charlotte frowned, and Nasir sputtered. “But the air, sir, it’s still bad?”

  “We’ll have to chance it,” I said, canteens wrapped around my arm. “The air up here has become just as bad. Filled with lead, which is significantly worse for one’s health I should think.”

  From above, machine-gun fire still sounded. The next few moments showed what was most important to each member of the party. Charlotte worked quickly, gathering together her artist’s papers and pencils, which she had been using to sketch out the various glyphs and decorations we had come across. Nasir grabbed a few of the wicker baskets containing food. Selberg, his scientific instruments.

  From the tunnel entrance came running feet. Clayton half-slipped, half-fell down the stairs.

  “Dynamite.” Clayton grabbed me and Charlotte both and pushed us roughly toward the back of the chamber. “Everybody down.”

  A moment of scrambling ensued. Nasir tripped and fell face forward, sprawled out on the rock. Selberg stood uncomprehending in the center of the chamber. I grabbed him and forced him down.

  The explosion ripped through the air. I was buffeted back, thrown against the wall as dust and rock debris billowed down from the corridor. My eardrums rippled and almost felt like they would burst as the entire chamber turned upside down. I hit the ground hard. Pain flared through my shoulder and radiated up my neck. I had a last glimpse of something giant and black looming over me. I stared up, my mind trying to piece together the words.

  SUBWAY JUST AHEAD

  I woke in darkness. My mouth was unusually wet and tasted of iron. I knew that I was bleeding heavily somewhere. I sat up and my brain reacted, rolling heavily against the inside of my skull, throwing my entire body into a spinning blur of motion like a drunk in the midst of a world-record binge.

  I leaned against the wall behind me and waited for the spins to pass. Eventually they did, and I began to concentrate on my surroundings. The chamber was in complete darkness. At first I feared I was the only one left alive, but then someone coughed to my right.

  “Hello?” I asked the darkness.

  To my left, someone else coughed, then spit. I reached along the ground and felt for the electric torch I had been carrying before the explosion. My fingers touched the hard base, then I found the switch and turned the bulb on. Brilliant white light illuminated the chamber and the bedraggled crew inside.

  At least everyone had survived the blast. Charlotte stood in the corner brushing dust from her shoulders, while Selberg and Nasir shook their heads, a fine layer of sandstone cascading from their hair.

  Clayton extended his hand down to me. I took it, and he pulled me upright.

  “Thanks,” I said as I gained my balance. I surveyed the room and saw what had been the stairway was now completely blocked with crushed stone. “We appear to be trapped.”

  Apparently the prospect of an immediate death at the hands of the Brotherhood of Anubis had been replaced by the prospect of a much more drawn out death from starvation or thirst deep below ground. I was not sure which would be more painful.

  “We’re not trapped,” Selberg said.

  “What do you mean?” Charlotte asked.

  “We can still go farther into the tomb.” Selberg indicated the second doorway. “There may be another stairwell leading out.”

  “Or there may just be more chambers,” Charlotte said. “More dead ends. I say we stay here.”

  “What does that gain us?”

  “When the rescue party comes for us, we’ll be here.”

  “I don’t know, Char
lotte,” I said. “That’s a lot of stone.”

  She shook her head firmly. “They will come for us. And we should be here when they do.”

  I saw Nasir frown slightly and I turned toward him. “Nasir, what do you think? How long to dig us out?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, sir.”

  “Nasir, this is important. Do not hold your tongue. Speak frankly with us. You are the dig foreman. Your knowledge is invaluable.”

  Nasir reached up and touched the layer of rock that now blocked the tomb entrance. He rapped it thoughtfully with his knuckle, then shook his head. “Six days sir. And that with a crew of twenty men digging and breaking stone constantly.”

  Charlotte’s face fell. “Six days? But that’s almost a week.”

  “It is, ma’am.”

  “That is totally unacceptable. I can’t be down here for a week.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. But that’s my estimate.”

  “Well you’re wrong.”

  “Nasir’s word is worth more than water here,” I said. “I would trust my life with what he says.”

  “So it’s settled. Six days we have at least down here.” Selberg began to load his scientific equipment into a leather satchel. “Plenty of time to explore the new chamber.”

  The electric torches would not last for that long. And I was not excited at the prospect of spending the last few days in total darkness.

  “Before we go farther,” I said, “we should take an inventory of our supplies. We need to know how long we can last down here.”

  We spent the next few minutes gathering everything together. All told, we had five canteens, tents and bedding, kerosene, plenty of biscuits, four electric torches, several gas railroad lanterns, a host of scientific equipment, and Charlotte’s sketching supplies. For armaments, we had two Thompson submachine guns. Two bolt-action rifles. Three pistols of varying manufacture. And several boxes of assorted rounds of ammunition.