The Cult of Osiris nwaec-5

by Andy McDermott

  ‘Nobody knows,’ said Nina.

  ‘I’m going to hear that a lot, aren’t I?’

  ‘It’s probably symbolic, something of religious significance, but nobody’s come to any agreement on exactly what. But it’s a shape they spent a lot of time and effort trying to perfect, even in the earliest dynasties. The pyramids back then were stepped like ziggurats, one layer on top of another, but as their engineering skills improved they started building them with smooth sides. A pharaoh called . . . Sneferu, I think?’ Nina glanced back at Macy, who nodded, pleased to be asked. ‘He built the Red Pyramid at Dahshur, which was the first “true” pyramid. It was pretty big - but the pyramid built by his son was a lot bigger. And we’re in it.’ She swept out her hands to take in the vast structure surrounding them. ‘As for why they were so determined to build pyramids . . . like I said, nobody knows.’

  They reached the top of the incline, Nina pausing to recover her breath. To her mild irritation, Macy appeared completely unfazed by the climb. Another low horizontal passage led deeper into the tomb, opening into a taller chamber after just a few feet. Eddie peered inside, seeing deep grooves running up the far wall. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Anti-theft device,’ said Macy.

  ‘Thought you said there weren’t any booby traps?’

  ‘It’s not really a trap. More like a vault door. They built it with three huge stone blocks hanging from the ceiling. Once Khufu was buried, they dropped the stones so tomb raiders couldn’t get in.’

  They entered; the room was completely empty. ‘So where are the stones?’

  ‘Tomb raiders got in,’ Macy chirped. ‘They smashed the stones, then walked right into the burial chamber. It’s just through here.’ Another hunched traversal of a short stone tunnel, then . . .

  The King’s Chamber. The burial vault of the pharaoh Khufu, sealed over four and a half thousand years before.

  ‘This is it?’ asked Eddie, disappointed. The rectangular room was almost forty feet by twenty, dominated by the remains of a large granite sarcophagus - but apart from the lidless coffin it was completely empty. Not even the walls bore any decoration. ‘I was expecting something a bit more flash.’

  ‘It did get Lara Crofted,’ Macy pointed out, a little condescendingly. ‘If it was like Tutankhamun’s tomb, the whole room would have been full of treasure.’ Her eyes lit up at the thought.

  ‘It wouldn’t all be treasure,’ Nina reminded her. ‘A lot of it would have been items for Khufu’s journey through the Underworld to be judged by Osiris - food and drink, things like that. But yeah, there would still have been plenty of treasure.’

  Eddie stood aside as other tourists entered, leaning against the granite wall. He watched as Nina examined the sarcophagus, after a minute saying, ‘I don’t think he’s in there.’

  ‘I know that. I just don’t get many chances to see things like this in person any more, do I?’

  ‘You should have asked the Egyptians when you were at the IHA,’ Macy suggested. ‘They’d have probably given you a private tour.’

  Nina’s mouth compressed into a sour line. ‘Yeah, thanks for reminding me.’

  ‘So when will Dr Berkeley be back at the dig? We should get back there - the sooner you talk to him, the sooner you’ll be able to check out the construction site.’

  ‘She’s got a point,’ said Eddie.

  ‘All right,’ Nina muttered, reluctantly leaving the sarcophagus. ‘I’m going to be pissed if you’ve dragged me out of here and he still hasn’t arrived when we get there, though.’

  To Nina’s annoyance, Berkeley indeed had not yet returned from his TV appearance when they got back to the Sphinx compound. He was expected in thirty minutes - thirty minutes Nina could have spent exploring the Great Pyramid.

  When he eventually did arrive, it was closer to fifty than thirty minutes later, which did not improve Nina’s mood. But she put on a pleasant face, knowing she would need to charm him into allowing her access to the dig. Berkeley got out of a white-painted government car, its driver emerging as well. ‘Hey,’ Eddie whispered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The other bloke, he’s the one from Macy’s photos. The one she clocked with her camera.’

  ‘Crap, you’re right.’ Berkeley’s companion was Dr Hamdi. She glanced past the Temple of the Sphinx at the more intact Valley Temple to the south. Macy, still in her baseball hat and sunglasses, was lurking amongst the milling tourists, as close as she dared come to the dig site. ‘If Macy’s right, then he’s not going to want anyone to go near that tent.’

  ‘Bit late to start wondering if she’s right, innit?’

  ‘Maybe we’ll find out now - we’ll see how this Dr Hamdi responds.’ She approached Berkeley, Eddie behind her. ‘Hey, Logan! Logan! Hi!’

  Berkeley reacted with first surprise, then wary uncertainty when he realised who was calling to him. ‘Nina? What are you doing here?’

  ‘Oh, just on vacation,’ she replied airily. ‘We wanted to drop by and say hello, seeing as it’s your big event tonight.’

  ‘Tomorrow morning, technically - the live broadcast starts at four a.m., local time.’ Berkeley’s wariness was creeping towards outright suspicion, not believing for a moment that their presence was a holiday-related coincidence.

  Hamdi had an odd look of half-recognition. ‘Friends of yours, Dr Berkeley?’

  ‘Colleagues,’ Berkeley said firmly. ‘Ex-colleagues. Nina, Eddie, this is the SCA’s representative at the excavation, Dr Iabi Hamdi. Dr Hamdi, Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase, formerly of the IHA.’

  Nina noted that Berkeley had omitted her title from his introduction, but had no time to make a sarcastic correction before Hamdi spoke. ‘Dr Wilde! But of course! How could I not have known?’

  ‘Well, I did change my hairstyle.’

  He smiled. ‘A great pleasure to meet you.’

  ‘Likewise.’ She shook the Egyptian’s hand. ‘And this is Eddie, my husband.’

  ‘Husband?’ said Berkeley, taken aback. ‘You got married?’

  ‘Don’t worry, we weren’t expecting a present off you,’ Eddie said.

  Nina looked over the ruins to the Sphinx. ‘I was wondering . . . would it be possible for us to see the actual excavation site?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Berkeley, tight-lipped. ‘Authorised personnel only.’

  Again, Nina restrained herself from remarking on his dismissive attitude. Instead, she addressed Hamdi. ‘That’s a shame. Couldn’t the SCA make an exception, Dr Hamdi?’

  The Egyptian was more polite, but just as unhelpful. ‘I’m afraid not, Dr Wilde. Once the Hall of Records has been opened and everything properly catalogued, then perhaps, but for now we have to maintain strict security.’ He nodded towards the guards at the nearby gate. ‘We had some trouble on the site recently.’

  ‘So I heard.’

  Berkeley frowned. ‘You did?’

  ‘Yeah. A girl called . . . Macy Sharif, wasn’t it?’ She watched their responses closely. Berkeley seemed stung that word had got out about something so potentially embarrassing - but Hamdi physically flinched, as though he had just received a real sting. ‘Something about her stealing a piece of the Sphinx, wasn’t it?’

  ‘And - and assaulting me, yes,’ said the flustered Hamdi, rubbing his nose.

  Berkeley’s expression darkened. ‘Where did you hear about that?’ he snapped. ‘It was Lola, wasn’t it?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t, actually,’ she said, defending her friend. ‘It was Macy.’

  Whatever had stung Hamdi was now draining the blood from his face. ‘You’ve spoken to her? Where?’

  ‘In New York,’ she said casually. ‘She told me an interesting story about what was going on here.’ Her gaze hardened, fixing on Hamdi. ‘And after what happened when I met her, I’m inclined to believe her.’

  ‘What did happen?’ Berkeley asked.

  ‘Things went a bit Michael Bay,’ said Eddie. ‘Gunfights, car chases, explosions - the usual.’

&nbs
p; ‘Whatever she told you is a lie,’ Hamdi said, a little too quickly.

  Nina indicated the wall below the road. ‘There’s an easy way to find out. Logan, there’s a tent over there. If you take a look inside, I think you’ll find something interesting.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like a shaft that leads to a second entrance to the Hall of Records. Somebody’s trying to beat you to it.’

  Berkeley stared at her. ‘Absolute horseshit,’ he finally said.

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Nina, affronted.

  ‘This is pathetic, quite frankly. Maureen told me you’d been to see her with some holier-than-thou protest about the opening of the Hall being televised - as if you’ve never taken advantage of the media when it suited you! The cover of Time? Appearing on The Tonight Show?’ His face curled into a sneer. ‘Well, now it’s someone else’s turn in the spotlight, and you just can’t take that, can you?’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with me,’ she growled. ‘It’s about protecting an archaeological treasure - and maybe even saving you and the IHA from a huge embarrassment.’

  Berkeley rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, please. The only embarrassment to the IHA is you, Nina. I suppose after that Garden of Eden garbage you were spouting last year, whatever nonsense Macy came up with to cover her ass was probably right up your street.’

  Nina could tell that Eddie was on the verge of punching Berkeley, and moved to block him, though she was sorely tempted to take a swing herself. ‘I wasn’t “spouting” anything - that was a smear job. Not that I expect you to believe me. But you don’t have to believe me about this either. Just look in that tent. I’ll even wait right here, so if I’m wrong and there’s nothing there you can call me an idiot to my face! How about it?’

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ blustered Hamdi. ‘There is no shaft, there is no robbery.’

  ‘Well, you would say that,’ said Eddie. ‘Seeing as you’re on the take.’

  The Egyptian’s eyes bulged in outrage. ‘That - that is slander!’

  ‘Easy way to prove it, isn’t there? Look in the tent.’

  Hamdi scurried for the security gate. ‘Dr Berkeley, I refuse to stand here and be insulted. I will see you at the excavation - and I am very tempted to have these two removed from the plateau!’ One of the guards raised a hand to stop him, apparently unaware who he was, but the other said something and he stood back.

  Berkeley shook his head. ‘You know, it’s really sad that you’ve come down to this level, Nina. I don’t know whether I should pity you or laugh at you.’

  ‘One of ’em’ll hurt you a lot more than the other,’ Eddie rumbled.

  Berkeley looked decidedly uncomfortable at the not-so-veiled threat. ‘I always thought you were too close to the edge,’ he sniffed as he followed Hamdi. ‘Guess I was right.’

  ‘Yeah? And I always thought you were an asshole, and guess what - I was right too!’ Nina called after him. This time, both guards stepped forward, not letting him into the Sphinx compound until he presented his ID. With a final glare back at Nina, he headed after Hamdi.

  ‘That went okay, I think,’ said Eddie with a half-smile.

  Nina was more aggravated. ‘God damn it! All he has to do is look in the tent, and this whole thing’ll be over!’

  ‘Well, he can’t say you didn’t warn him. And Rothschild too. They’ll be the ones who’ll look like tools if the place really does get robbed.’

  ‘But if these guys are smart and connected enough to organise something like this, they’ll be able to clean the place up and cover their tracks before Logan opens the entrance. Nobody’ll even know there was anything there to rob. Oh, God.’ She looked tiredly towards the Valley Temple to see Macy waving impatiently at them. ‘Great, and now we’re being summoned.’

  ‘What happened?’ Macy demanded when they reached her. ‘Is he going to look?’

  ‘Take a guess,’ said Eddie.

  ‘He’s going to look?’

  ‘Guess again.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And also, he hates us,’ added Nina.

  From Macy’s expression, the possibility of failure hadn’t occurred to her. ‘But . . . No, no way! Now what do we do?’

  ‘What can we do?’ Nina asked rhetorically. ‘Logan won’t listen to us, Hamdi’s involved in it, and we can’t get inside the compound to find the thing ourselves.’

  Macy delved into a pocket. ‘I’ve still got my ID,’ she said, producing a card. ‘If the guys at the gate are new, they won’t recognise me, so I could get in.’

  ‘And then what? If Shaban’s guys see you, they’ll try to kill you. And even if you get proof, Logan’ll have you arrested if you try to give it to him.’

  ‘But we’ve got to do something! The IHA is going to open the Hall of Records in less than eighteen hours, which means whatever the bad guys are doing, they’re doing it right now! This is the only chance we’ll have to stop them!’

  ‘I don’t want them to rob the Hall of Records either,’ said Nina, ‘but unless we have solid proof we can take to the Egyptian authorities, we can’t do anything to stop them.’

  ‘So you’re just giving up?’ Macy said in disbelief. She pulled out the magazine pages and flapped them at Nina. ‘Did you just give up when someone said you wouldn’t find Atlantis? Did you give up when nobody believed the Tomb of Hercules was real?’

  Nina irritably snatched the papers from her hand. ‘Did you get your motivational speeches from fortune cookies?’ she retorted. ‘I’m being practical here. We can’t do anything unless we can get inside the compound, which we can’t do without IDs - and even if we do, there are fifteen archaeologists and a whole TV crew plus God knows how many guards wandering about the place!’

  ‘They can’t all be there the whole time,’ said Eddie. ‘They’re doing this thing at the crack of sparrowfart tomorrow morning, right? So the IHA and telly guys have to get some sleep beforehand.’ He looked over at the high wall. ‘Do they still do that light show that was in The Spy Who Loved Me?’ Macy nodded. ‘So everyone’ll be looking at the Sphinx, not anything else . . .’

  ‘Something in mind?’ Nina asked.

  ‘I might have a way to get us all in.’ He turned to Macy. ‘It means you’ll have to risk getting caught, though. You up for that?’

  Nina gave him a warning look, but Macy was already responding with an enthusiastic affirmative. ‘What do I have to do?’

  ‘Get through that gate without being arrested, for starters.’ He glanced back towards Cairo. ‘But first, we need to do a bit of shopping.’

  The sound and light show was under way by the time they returned to Giza.

  Eddie regarded the spotlit Sphinx, then followed the direction of its gaze over the seated audience. ‘Huh,’ he said, spotting a particular illuminated sign on a building beyond the perimeter. ‘The Sphinx is looking right at a Pizza Hut.’

  ‘Whoever built it’d completely freak out,’ Macy said. ‘The whole point of it looking in that direction was so it would see the sunrise. Now? Start the day with a Pepperoni Feast.’

  ‘You don’t know who built it?’

  ‘I thought it was Khafre,’ said Nina.

  Macy shook her head. ‘Doubt it. Haven’t you heard of the Inventory Stele?’

  ‘The what?’ asked Eddie.

  ‘This ancient text a guy discovered in 1857. According to that, the Sphinx was already there when Khafre was building his pyramid. That’s why the causeway to the pyramid doesn’t point due east - they had to work round the Sphinx.’

  ‘Actually, I have heard of the Inventory Stele,’ Nina said frostily. ‘And I don’t think the argument about what it says has been definitively settled.’

  ‘But finding the Hall of Records makes it look a lot more likely to be true, huh? None of the Third Dynasty pharaohs ever mentioned the Hall. Maybe they didn’t know it was there. And if the Sphinx is a lot older than Khafre, that might explain why its head’s so small compared to the rest of its body. One of the pharaohs had th
e original head re-carved to look like himself.’

  Eddie chuckled. ‘I think,’ he said, leaning closer to speak quietly into Nina’s ear, ‘you just got owned.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  They stopped not far from the gate, and Macy looked at the two uniformed men. ‘I don’t recognise either of them.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Nina asked.

  ‘Built, good-looking young guys? Yeah, I would have remembered them.’

  ‘And are you sure you want to do this?’

  ‘I’m ready,’ Macy insisted. She took out her ID card, about to head for the gate - then paused and opened a couple of extra shirt buttons.

  Nina raised an eyebrow. ‘What’re you doing?’

  ‘Cloaking device. Trust me.’ Her décolletage adjusted for maximum effect, prompting a faintly lecherous grin from Eddie quickly followed by a swat from his wife, Macy crossed to the security gate. She held up her ID, but even from Nina and Eddie’s vantage point it was obvious that both guards were less interested in her face than in what was on display below it. The gate was opened, Macy giving the two men a cheery smile as she sashayed through.

  ‘Better get moving,’ said Eddie, starting for the road.

  Nina frowned. ‘Unbelievable. She does something that sets women back about thirty years . . . and it works!’

  ‘Jealous, are you?’ Eddie teased.

  ‘No. And you can stop leering at her, as well. They’re fake.’

  ‘What?’ He shook his head. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Eddie, she looks like a broomstick with two watermelons taped to it! And her father’s a plastic surgeon. Do the math. Also, she’s young enough to be your daughter.’

  ‘Thanks for depressing me.’

  ‘I thought it was someone else’s turn.’ They both smiled.

  They reached the section of road directly above the construction site and looked down. There was still a pair of guards standing watch - but two other men instantly caught their attention. Neither was familiar, but Nina had a horrible idea what was inside the large case they were carrying out of the tent.

  ‘Damn it!’ she said. ‘They’re already cleaning the place out!’