Macy stood as the crusher juddered to a standstill. ‘Not feeling so good,’ she admitted. She held up her hands, unable to stop them shaking. ‘Oh, God, I think I’m gonna puke.’
Eddie stood in front of her, resting his hands on her upper arms. ‘Hey, you’re okay. And you’re not going to puke. Know why?’
She looked into his eyes, uncertain. ‘No?’
‘ ’Cause you’d puke on me! And then we’d have to have words, and that’d be bad all round. So you’re going to be fine.’ He smiled. It took a few moments before Macy managed to respond in kind, and then only faintly, but it was at least genuine.
Nina smiled as well. ‘It’s okay, Macy. We beat this trap - two traps, actually.’
‘Yeah, but there’re another three to come,’ she glumly reminded them.
‘Four-nil to us, so far,’ said Eddie, searching for the next exit. Another passage, this one stepped, led downwards. ‘And I bet we can make it seven-nil. This Osiris bloke can shove his traps right up his mummified arse!’ A grin broke through on to Macy’s face.
‘Okay, so the next arit was the Goddess of the Loud Voice, right?’ Nina asked. Macy nodded. ‘Let’s see if we can shout her down.’
At the entrance to the inverted pyramid, nothing moved except for sand drifting in the breeze. The Land Rover waited silently for its passengers to return, no sound disturbing the emptiness of the desert.
Then . . . a noise came from the northeast.
Growing louder.
A cloud appeared on the horizon, dust swirling through the shimmering heat haze. But it was not a sandstorm. It was too small - and moving with purpose. Heading directly for the ruins.
Something became visible through the rippling air, a slab-like grey and black shape. The noise increased, a roaring thrum of powerful engines and the rasp of whirling propeller blades.
But this was no aircraft.
Sebak Shaban gazed through the bridge windows of the massive hovercraft, a Zubr class assault vehicle designed to carry tanks and other armoured vehicles over almost any terrain. After observing the abilities of the four Zubrs bought by the Greek navy, the Egyptians had recently decided to follow the example of their friend/rival across the Mediterranean and purchase two of the enormous craft from Russia.
Officially, this Zubr was currently undergoing trials before entering full service. That it was almost one hundred kilometres from the isolated desert range where said trials were supposed to be taking place was down to one of the other men on the bridge. ‘I like this a lot,’ said Shaban to General Tarik Khaleel. ‘When the plan is successful, perhaps you could loan one to the Temple. Though I’m not sure where we would park it.’
‘Anywhere you want, my friend!’ laughed Khaleel. ‘And if anyone complains, it has rocket launchers and Gatling guns.’ He nodded at the turrets on the foredeck below. ‘It’s amazing how quickly people shut up when you point a six-barrelled cannon at them.’
‘The threat of death is always persuasive, isn’t it?’ Both men shared sly, knowing smiles. ‘How much further?’
‘Just under two kilometres,’ said the pilot.
‘Good.’ Shaban entered the weapons room behind the bridge. ‘We are approaching the co-ordinates,’ he announced. As well as a member of the Zubr’s crew, the room contained Osir, Diamondback, Dr Hamdi . . . and the group’s newest addition.
‘Dr Berkeley,’ Osir asked the IHA archaeologist, ‘are you absolutely sure they’re correct?’
‘As sure as I can be,’ said Logan Berkeley, annoyed at being doubted. ‘The inverted pyramid on the zodiac, the marking representing the Nile, the symbol in the Osireion, the position of Mercury relative to the end of the canyon - it all fits together.’ He indicated his laptop, which in one window displayed a satellite image of the desert overlaid with lines marking distances and directions, a photo of the Eye of Osiris inside the Osireion pulled from the IHA’s massive Egyptian database in another. ‘Either the Pyramid of Osiris is here, or it’s somewhere that’ll never be found.’
‘I hope it’s the former,’ said Shaban, with a menacing undercurrent.
Berkeley’s annoyance increased. ‘I’ll do what I’m being paid for,’ he snapped, ‘so there’s no need to threaten me.’ He looked at Osir. ‘It’s funny. If you’d tried to buy me off a week ago, I would never have accepted. Now? I just want to get something out of the whole fiasco at the Sphinx.’ His face clenched with anger. ‘I should have been on the front page of every newspaper in the world, but that bitch Nina Wilde turned me into a joke. At least the money will make up for some of that.’
The weapons officer called Khaleel into the room to point out something on a monitor. Osir raised an eyebrow. ‘Funny that you should mention Dr Wilde.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I think she’s beaten you again.’ The screen displayed an image from one of the hovercraft’s targeting systems; the Land Rover would have been unmissable against the blank plain even without the cursor the weaponry computer had locked on to it.
‘What? God damn it!’ Berkeley glared at the monitor. Diamondback sniggered.
‘Who is this Dr Wilde?’ Khaleel asked.
‘A competitor,’ Osir told him. He looked more closely at the ruins. ‘But she may have done us a favour. There’s nobody there, so she must have found a way in. We won’t need to use all those bulldozers and diggers we brought after all!’
He went into the bridge, Khaleel, Shaban and Diamondback joining him. Ahead, the faded yellow void of the desert was broken by the spot of colour that was the Defender. The pilot eased back the throttle to slow the 500-ton hovercraft, the three huge propellers above its stern losing speed. ‘Your men,’ Osir quietly asked Khaleel. ‘Are they totally reliable? If one word of this gets back to the government . . .’
‘I will vouch for Tarik,’ said Shaban firmly. ‘I owe him my life.’
‘And I will vouch for my men,’ added Khaleel. ‘We only have a skeleton crew, but I hand-picked them. They will keep your secret . . . for the price you’re paying, certainly.’
‘Good.’ Osir looked back at the ruins as the Zubr wallowed to a stop, settling on its huge rubber air cushion in a cloud of billowing sand. ‘Let’s find Osiris . . . and Nina Wilde.’
24
‘Wow,’ said Nina, aiming her flashlight upwards and finding no end to the black void above. ‘That’s tall.’
‘You know where we are?’ Eddie said, indicating the two pipes running down the far wall. ‘Right under that bridge. If the trap’d been working and we’d been chucked off, this is where we would have ended up. It’s at least a two-hundred-foot drop. Splat.’
Nina tried to picture the whole pyramid in her mind’s eye. ‘Jeez. This place must be as big as the Great Pyramid. Maybe even be bigger.’
‘That’d explain why nobody tried to out-do Khufu’s pyramid,’ said Macy thoughtfully. ‘If the Great Pyramid was almost, but not quite, as big as Osiris’s, no other pharaoh could make their monument bigger than Khufu’s without insulting Osiris. And nobody would dare do that.’
‘So the pyramids were really just giant dick-waving exercises?’ asked Eddie. ‘People haven’t changed much over five thousand years, have they?’ He turned his attention to the pipes. They were connected, one narrowing considerably at its base before widening out conically below a broad horizontal slot. A woman’s face had been painted around it, the opening forming her mouth.
‘It’s like a church organ,’ Nina realised. ‘They must blow air through it somehow - and that’s where the loud voice comes from.’
‘If they dropped something down the other tube, it’d work like a piston.’ There was another passage near the pipes, this one blocked by a barred metal gate. ‘Let me guess. Try to open the gate, the trap goes off, and the whole room gets as loud as a Led Zep concert.’
‘The who?’ Macy asked.
‘No, Led Zep.’ Ignoring her blank look, he moved towards the opening.
‘Careful, Eddie,’ Nina warned.
/>
‘Don’t worry, I’m not gonna move it. I just want to find the trigger.’
‘No, I meant the gate might not be the—’
A slab shifted beneath his foot.
‘—trigger,’ Nina concluded.
‘Get into the other tunnel!’ Eddie shouted, turning back the way they had come—
A second gate slammed down inside the entrance, making Macy jump. No sooner had its echo faded than another sound began to rise, a deep, mournful note, quickly becoming louder.
And louder.
Air gusted from the slot, the sound resonating up the pipe’s length and bouncing back, amplified. The whole room vibrated, dust dancing from the floor, paint and plaster cracking off the walls.
And the chamber’s occupants were also affected. ‘Jesus!’ Nina gasped, a nauseating sensation rising in her chest cavity. Her own organs were vibrating in sympathy with the booming bass note. She tried to lift the fallen gate, but it refused to budge.
Eddie had no more luck with the other gate. He turned to the pipes. ‘Block it! Shove something in it!’
Nina could barely hear him over the thunderous din, but got the gist. She shrugged off her pack and tipped out its contents, balling up the nylon. Macy followed suit. Eddie was already at the pipe, face screwed up in discomfort as he jammed his jacket and his own empty pack into the slot. The note’s pitch changed slightly, the escaping air screeching shrilly as its exit was obstructed.
The women staggered across the trembling floor to him. He grabbed their balled-up packs and stuffed them into the gap. Nina dropped her flashlight and clapped both hands over her ears, but it made no difference; the sound was inside her, trying to shake her apart from within.
It was doing the same thing to the pyramid. Pieces of masonry fell down the shaft and shattered on the stone floor - small lumps at first, but the cracks spreading across the walls warned that there would be larger ones coming.
Unable to shield his ears, Eddie was finding the noise agonising - but it eased slightly as he twisted the makeshift bungs to block the gaps. Pipe organs were closed at the top, air only able to escape through the slot. If he could completely seal it . . .
The vibration began to die down. All he had to do was hold everything in place and endure the noise for as long as it took for the machine to run out of air—
A clanging shudder ran up the length of the pipe as the pressure rose - then rippled back down it. A blast of compressed air hit the mouth like a sledgehammer blow, firing the blockage out of the slot and bowling Eddie to the floor. With a ground-shaking whump like the clearing of the world’s mightiest throat, the terrifying bass note resumed - at full volume. Plaster splintered from the walls, even the paving cracking.
The noise was so overpowering that Nina could barely think. The beam of her dropped flashlight illuminated the bottom of the pipes. Blocking the mouth had failed, but there had to be another way . . .
Something Eddie had said forced its way through the disorientation.
Two pipes, a piston in one, forcing the air ahead of it as it dropped. The air itself acted as a cushion slowing its fall - there was only one relatively small hole through which it could escape, and the hourglass-shaped pinch at the bottom of the organ pipe restricted it further.
She knew what to do.
She grabbed a mallet from Eddie’s discarded gear. With her ears exposed, the sound became unbearable - she screamed, but couldn’t even hear it. A piece of falling stone hit her arm. More debris crashed around her, a crack leaping up the wall—
She swung the mallet.
It hit the pinch, tearing the metal. A piercing shriek escaped from the rent. Nina hit it again, and again - and the pipe ripped apart.
Air blasted out, the awful bass note dropping in volume. She whacked the pipe again, trying to close off the section producing the sound. The metal bent across the torn hole.
The note faded.
Head ringing, Nina stepped back. The escaping rush of air was still roaring like a jet engine - and there was another sound, a metallic clung-clung-clung rapidly getting louder—
Eddie threw her backwards as the bottom of the other pipe blew apart, something inside it hitting the ground so hard that it smashed a crater into the flagstones. The piston. With air now freely able to escape from the pipe, there had been nothing to slow it, and it had plunged downwards as fast as gravity could take it.
A last few fragments from high above hit the floor, then the rain of debris stopped. The quiet and stillness was almost shocking. Nina brushed dust from her face, then looked at Eddie. His mouth moved silently.
Oh, God, she was deaf—
‘Just kidding,’ he said, grinning.
She hit him. ‘You son of a bitch!’
‘Hey, we’re okay. I think.’ Concern crossed his face as he clicked his fingers beside one ear. ‘Shit, that doesn’t sound right.’
‘You’re surprised, after that?’ She retrieved her flashlight, finding Macy. ‘Are you okay?’
Macy slowly took her hands from her ears. ‘Jeez. My mom and dad were right - you can play music too loud.’
Nina helped Eddie up. ‘Let’s try those gates.’
He went to the exit and strained to lift the gate. It was heavy, but it moved. When they had recovered their gear, he hauled the gate up high enough for Nina and Macy to get underneath, then they supported it as he slid through. He looked back at the wreckage of the trap. ‘Five down, two to go.’
‘Yeah, but the last two sound really nasty,’ Macy pointed out. ‘The Hewer-in-Pieces and the Cutter-off of Heads? Not good.’
‘We can beat them,’ said Nina, oddly buoyed by their survival. ‘And then . . . we’ll meet Osiris.’ They set off down the next passage.
Over two hundred feet above, Osir led his expedition to the Lady of Tremblings. Dust drifted through the room, stirred up by the sound from the massive pipe. ‘I think we’ve found where that noise came from,’ he said, directing a powerful torch beam across the shaft.
The rest of his group followed him on to the ledge. Although there were several men in military-style uniforms, wearing equipment webbing and carrying weapons, they were not soldiers: Khaleel, though accompanying Osir out of curiosity, had chosen to leave his men aboard the hovercraft. The troopers were members of the Osirian Temple, Shaban’s personal security force.
Shaban gazed at the long drop below. ‘Some sort of trap. Wilde and Chase, and the girl - they must have triggered it.’ He smirked malevolently. ‘I’m in two minds, brother. It would be amusing if they died setting off a trap that we then walked through safely, but I’m also hoping they survive - so I can kill them myself.’
‘All that matters is that they can’t get out,’ said Osir. He turned to Berkeley. ‘What do you make of this room?’
‘The hieroglyphs in the entrance chamber definitely suggested that each arit is booby-trapped.’ Berkeley pointed at one of the large cogwheels. ‘This would be the Lady of Tremblings, at my guess. Wilde and the others must have activated it when they crossed - and survived.’
‘They didn’t fall?’ asked Hamdi.
‘That noise? I think it’s safe to assume that was the Goddess of the Loud Voice, which is the fifth arit. They got that far, at least.’
‘Which means they’ve cleared the way for us,’ said Osir. He stepped on to the bridge.
‘Are - are you sure it is safe?’ said Hamdi nervously.
Osir took another step. The bridge stood firm. ‘Either the trap has been sprung, or it’s broken.’
‘Lead on, Khalid,’ said Shaban as his brother negotiated the crossing. Once he reached the other ledge, he signalled the others to follow.
The cogwheel creaked, the stone jamming it shifting slightly, but nobody noticed.
Another set of columns marked the sixth arit.
‘Okay,’ Nina said, pausing outside. ‘Hewer-in-Pieces in Blood, huh? I think we’ll need more than a few Band-Aids if this goes badly, so let’s figure out how to make it not
go badly.’
She and Eddie directed their lights through the opening. The level passage ahead was decorated with the now-familiar disapproving Egyptian gods and grim warnings of the fate awaiting intruders . . . but there was also something new.
Something ominous. Set into the walls were numerous horizontal slots, lined top and bottom with rust-red plates of iron.
Eddie aimed his torch into the nearest slot. There was something within, another long piece of metal on a hinge at one end . . . but this was considerably thinner along its edge. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Blades inside the holes. I get it. We go down the tunnel and they spring out and chop us into chunks.’
‘They’re kinda rusty,’ said Macy. ‘Maybe they won’t work.’
‘You want to bet your life on that?’ Nina asked. Each slot was almost as long as the passage was wide, leaving no room to escape the blades by pressing against the opposite wall - though the sheer number of slots on both sides made finding any kind of hiding place almost inconceivable. ‘How the hell are you supposed to get through?’
Eddie took out the mallet, crouching with his arm outstretched to tap the floor just past the columns. Nina winced in fearful anticipation of a blade’s slicing out from the wall, but nothing happened. He edged closer and tried again, still with no result.
‘Trigger’s probably somewhere further along,’ he said, standing. ‘So you’re right in the middle when it goes off.’ The far wall was a good forty feet away - and even then it only marked a corner rather than the end, the tunnel continuing to one side.
‘There’s got to be some way through without setting it off,’ said Nina.
Eddie hefted the mallet. ‘Let me try something.’ He tossed it through the columns to land a few feet inside the entrance. The blades remained in place. ‘Okay, so that far’s safe, at least. Probably.’ He stepped forward to retrieve it.
‘Don’t say “probably” and then walk right into it!’ Nina yelled as he returned with the heavy hammer. ‘And what are you planning to do, throw it a foot farther along each time? There’s no way to guarantee you’ll hit the trigger - and unless you’ve got some mad boomerang skills I don’t know about, you can’t get it round that corner either.’
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