Even in an explosion of that magnitude, there would have been body parts, well, all over the place. If they were asking where Brandt and the others had gone, they must not have found any—at all.
Emily answered her phone and spoke quickly, relaying the information to her boss. She put a hand over the phone, indicating to the schematic of the underground tunnels, which it turned out were no longer theoretical. “Which way are they going to go?”
Bunny studied the map, trying to think like Rebecca. She tried to imagine herself suddenly in a millennia-old system of tunnels built by ancient engineers. Surprisingly, it wasn’t all that hard. Not after spending any time with Brandt and company.
The question was, how well did Rebecca remember the layout of the tunnels? After about two hundred yards, the tunnel from the Khufu pyramid split into three. One tunnel went out to the Cheops pyramid. The second tunnel emptied out into a near labyrinth of passages that crisscrossed between the other, more minor pyramids. The third main branch angled out to the Sphinx.
Breaking Bunny’s concentration was a strange beep. One. Then a pause, then a second one.
“What’s that?”
Stark’s eyebrows merged into a unibrow. “Not me.” Then his face opened up into a grin. “I left the channel open.”
It took a moment for Bunny to realize which channel he was talking about. Davidson’s channel.
Bunny snatched the headset from Stark. “Sam, is that you?”
* * *
Davidson hit the sat phone button once. The faint click was far quieter than if he’d whispered.
“Oh, thank God.” Bunny sighed. He liked the sound of it. Living in isolation for most of his life, it was odd for someone to worry about him. And a girl? Davidson had written that concept off even before all the burns.
“Yeah, okay,” Bunny continued, clearly nudged on by someone else in the room with her. “Lieutenant Prenner thinks that you have probably set up across from the Great Pyramid. Is that correct?”
Looking through the scope at the sheer and utter chaos at the entrance to the monument, Davidson hit the button once.
“Great—well, not great,” Bunny corrected. “I think Rebecca found them a way out of there and they are heading away from the pyramid.”
Davidson let out air through his teeth. Since that explosion, he’d been worried he was protecting a perimeter that no longer needed protecting.
He clicked the button once.
“There is three ways they could go…” Bunny’s voice trailed off. She wasn’t the most decisive of women. Actually, she kind of hated making decisions, especially big decisions. The ones where your backside was on the line.
He clicked the button once to give her some reassurance.
“I think…Emily needs a direction to go to. She’s arranging an extraction team.”
Davidson clicked it again. He had so little information he couldn’t even begin to help Bunny decide. And it seemed like she had an army guy and a CIA operative. Neither of them was going to know Rebecca and her mind better than Bunny, though.
A rustling sounded when Bunny put her hand over the receiver. He could only make out mumbling until she came back on the line.
“Everyone else disagrees, but I think Rebecca is going to head to the Sphinx. The others think she’s going to head toward the smaller pyramids. They are closer to the city, but I think she’s going for the Sphinx.”
He gave another click.
“I am assuming you are thinking, ‘Why?’” Bunny stated quickly. “Besides it being what I would choose, it is the only site that a door has been found. The Egyptian government has never allowed it to be open, but the Sphinx is the only one we know for sure that has an exit.”
That deserved another click.
Davidson could hear the relief in her voice. “Great. Okay, Prenner says that you should set up on the north since Emily’s extraction is coming from the south.” Off Davidson’s click, Bunny hurried on. “Be careful…” Then, much lower, “Come home.”
That almost got him to break his silence. But he couldn’t.
Instead, Davidson broke the connection. He couldn’t even give her a click. He couldn’t guarantee he could fulfill a “yes” answer.
Besides, he had another nest to set up.
* * *
Rebecca stood at the crossroads of three different tunnels. So once again, all eyes were on her. She glanced over to Brandt, who was carrying Vakasa on his hip. The little girl looked so right there that Rebecca almost lost her composure. Despite the heartbreak of him being married to another woman earlier this year, Rebecca knew how disappointing it had been when Maria’s baby turned out not to be his. She knew how much he wanted to be a dad. To think that the world might never see a child of Brandt’s. That by her screwing up which direction they went, they could all die.
“Which way?” Brandt asked. Not demanding. Not cajoling. Not even desperate, although Rebecca knew his heart must be pounding a thousand times per minute. “Don’t think about it, babe. Just choose. We’ll follow.”
Oh, great. No pressure there.
But he was right. Her gut told her to go east.
“That one,” Rebecca answered, nodding to the third tunnel.
“All right,” Brandt said, setting Vakasa down. “Levont, east it is.”
As the point man moved out, with Lopez right behind him, Rebecca took Vakasa’s hand and fell into position. Still, she queried Brandt. “Are you sure you don’t want my reasons?”
In a surprising display of PDA, Brandt kissed her on the forehead. “Nope. I trust that big beautiful brain of yours.” Then, of course, the smile fell. “Now move out.”
Rebecca did as asked. Although, it was hard to keep up with Levont. He moved at a pretty clipped pace, and Rebecca was busy trying to take pictures of the walls as the men’s lights flared against them for a second, then went pitch-black again.
Whoever built these tunnels had taken great care to line them with incredibly detailed hieroglyphics. If she weren’t mistaken, the information was mainly about the history of the building of the pyramids. The inscriptions on these walls could solve about two millennia worth of speculation and academic argument.
And luckily, she had Vakasa with her. Apparently, not only did the little girl speak a dozen languages, she could also read ancient Egyptian.
Bunny’s question flared in Rebecca’s mind. Is it her?
The child was remarkable. There was no question of that. And delightful too. But was she a messiah? Rebecca looked down at the little hand in hers. It felt so vulnerable in her palm. How could someone so tiny hold all the world’s hope?
It just didn’t seem possible.
That didn’t exactly matter to the Disciples, though.
“Hey, not to be a wet blanket or anything,” Talli said, which even Rebecca knew meant that he was about to be a wet blanket, “but let’s say best-case scenario we bust our way out of these tunnels, what then? Won’t we just be back where we were before we ran into the pyramid?”
Brandt didn’t miss a beat. “I guess we’re just going to have to count on the fact that Davidson has been very busy.”
“Wow, dude,” Lopez said, feigning shock, “don’t go all mushy on us.
The corporal was right. That was about as inspirational as Brandt got. Usually, he was all “Shut up and hoof it.”
And with them all being safe, for at least the moment, which was a high point, really, on this mission, Rebecca delighted in the feeling.
* * *
The trek wasn’t long. For which Brandt was grateful. That last stunt down the ramp had at the least bruised a rib, his abdominal scar ached, and if he turned quickly to the left, his vision blurred. Par for the course.
“We’ve got a turn up ahead,” Levont informed them, slowing to a stop.
Brandt looked to Rebecca, who frowned. “My best recollection of the tunnel system in this grid…” She sighed. “My best guess is that this leads to only one outlet.”
&n
bsp; That was good enough for him.
“Take it at half speed,” he ordered.
The point man got back to what he did best. Muscles tensed, Levont ducked his head around the corner, then pulled back rapidly. That quick scan must have been negative for any company, as Levont stepped into the possible kill zone. Sweeping his light side to side, up and down, he checked his corners. He checked as far as he could see.
With a curt nod, Levont let them know it was okay to follow.
Rebecca was nearly as well trained as his men when it came to protocol. And little Vakasa? She was a trooper. Not a squeak of complaint. Not a moment of hesitation. Even though he resisted the idea of her divinity, Brandt knew the moment he laid eyes on her that she was special. Back at the village, she’d done what was right when all the adults had shrunk back in fear.
In this part of the world, bravery usually got you killed.
Had Vakasa just not learned that lesson yet, or was she truly that courageous?
“Dead end up ahead,” Levont reported.
Well, they were about to put his rather optimistic outlook to the test, weren’t they?
Again, the passage ended in a blank wall. Not exactly blank. The limestone was carved in elaborate hieroglyphics. Hundreds of them. No, on second count, probably thousands of them. And that wasn’t counting the rest that lined the walls.
So Brandt wasn’t surprised when Rebecca asked, “Can I have a few minutes to translate?”
Purposefully, Brandt yanked the Velcro off his watch face. “Five minutes.”
Rebecca’s lips formed a firm line, but she nodded.
Actually, in their current circumstance, Rebecca could probably have as much time as she needed. God love her, though, the woman performed better under pressure. If you gave her a day, she might never get it done. Second-guessing and cross-referencing took over.
Give her five minutes, though?
The chick could perform miracles.
* * *
Rebecca tugged her lip between her teeth. None of this was making sense. She needed her laptop and about seventeen assistants. What in the hell could she accomplish in five minutes?
The line she was currently working on had a hawk, a squiggly water icon, and a farmer. Was the hawk an actual hawk, or was it the “a” sound? Or was it being modified by the little snake under it? Was that snake part of this sentence or the one beneath it?
Given the fact people were still arguing over the Rosetta Stone found by Napoleon troops in 1799, this task was hopeless. The Rosetta Stone’s black granite surface was etched with a decree from King Ptolemy V. It wasn’t the decree so much—as a matter of fact, Rebecca couldn’t remember what in the heck Ptolemy wanted so badly he had a huge block of granite dug up and put into a temple—but the fact that the words were written in three languages was the big deal for Egyptologists. Ancient Egyptian “priestly” (or higher-form) hieroglyphics, Demotic script (which was considered the “commoner” form of the language), and most important, Ancient Greek.
Despite researchers having over two hundred years to translate the stone, you could still find arguments in the journals. Rebecca slid her eyes over the thousands of lines of inscriptions. The debate about these passages would probably rage until the next millennium.
That was if they ever got out of here.
“Hey, do you mind if I film this?” Lopez asked.
“I’m just going to be sitting here reading,” Rebecca answered.
“I know,” Lopez acknowledged yet still pulled out his little flip camera. “I want to record something a little boring so that Ricki Junior can appreciate how exciting our escape on the other side is. You know, give him some perspective.”
Yes, Rebecca loved being the straight man for Lopez. But who could resist the corporal’s devil-may-care grin?
“Sure, why not?”
Having her useless intellectual flailing recorded for all eternity seemed fitting.
“Hey,” Levont said. “Brandt, what’s the English equivalent of the Russian word lew.”
Her fiancé turned to answer. “It’s not Russian. It is Polish, and it means ‘lion.’” Brandt turned back to Talli, then cocked his head. “Why?”
“Yeah, why?” Rebecca added.
Levont pointed to the ground. Rebecca almost couldn’t see what he meant, since Lopez was right there with his camera, panning the area in question. Between his sweeps, Rebecca made out words written in the dust on the floor. Apparently, Vakasa had been hard at work on her own.
Only, the little girl had actually produced results. Again, it was a translation that required translation, though.
The point man added.,”The African stuff says, ‘and here’”—he pointed halfway down another sentence—”‘Terrifying One,’ and ‘fear its wrath.’”
“I can’t speak to the ancient Aramaic,” Talli said. “However, the Farci says, ‘union’ and ‘ever.’”
Lopez turned the camera on himself. “And the Latin-based languages—you know, the best ones—say, ‘have no,’ ‘grovel,’ and strangely, ‘panties.’” After Rebecca smacked him, he corrected himself. “My bad. It says, ‘lady coverings,’ but come on, if that isn’t panties, what is?”
Rebecca didn’t answer the corporal. She was too busy adding in her limited French and Swedish knowledge.
She read aloud as much as she could. “Quake before the Terrifying One.” Off the men’s questioning looks, Rebecca explained, “That was the Egyptian’s name for the Great Sphinx.”
Could that really be? Could they actually be under the Great Sphinx? It seemed so improbable that the single-largest monolith sat over them. The thing had been carved out of a single limestone block. A feat of incredible engineering nowadays, let alone at the dawn of civilization.
Getting back to the passage Vakasa had translated, Rebecca continued. “Know this god, made of the union of the lion, and man shall live eternal. No veil shall cover him. No man can destroy, or damage, or harm him. Grovel before him and fear his wrath if you ever…I can only assume that the last word means ‘try.’”
Rebecca rocked back on her heels. It was a brilliant translation of the ancient hieroglyphics. However, it didn’t exactly get them out of here.
“That’s it?” Brandt asked, obviously figuring out the same thing.
“Um,” Levont said, moving out of the way. “No…”
Vakasa had scrawled her writing all over the floor. Translating ten times faster than Rebecca could even do with her laptop. Getting over the sting to her ego, Rebecca stood up.
“Okay, we can’t do this piecemeal,” she explained. “Everyone just chime in if it is a language you speak.”
* * *
Brandt listened to the others as he prepared to translate the Russian, Polish, and Turkish. So far, it had just been more Ancient Egyptian hyperbole about how incredibly awesome the Sphinx was. Like just looking at the thing didn’t tell you that already. Even just flying by it, hanging onto the wings, the Sphinx had impressed him.
Lopez stopped his interpretation. “What about the Riddle of the Sphinx? Shouldn’t we be looking for something about old men crawling or something?”
Rebecca shook her head. “No, that is actually a Greek fable. And the answer is the life cycle of man. First we crawl. Then we walk upright. Then we use a cane. Not exactly applicable here.”
“Are you sure?” Brandt asked. She seemed a little frazzled and really hated being interrupted.
She sighed before answering. “That riddle was written about a completely different sphinx that guarded Thebes. The sphinx was a she, and the legend arose around six hundred BC. This sphinx, the one sitting on top of us, is speculated to have been carved before thirty-four hundred BC.”
Little did she know how glad Brandt was that Rebecca was slightly annoyed with him. It usually meant brilliance was on the horizon. So he pushed. “Speculated, but not known?”
You could see her hackles rise.
“I’m not sure you noticed the water lines
that striate the statue?”
Brandt just shrugged. This wasn’t about what he knew or didn’t know. It was about Rebecca pushing herself past her rigid academic thinking.
“Those were created by rains, heavy rains. Rains that predate three thousand BC.”
Oh yeah, she was getting up on her high horse.
“So there’s a little rain damage?” Brandt pressed.
Her pupils dilated slightly, and her breathing increased. This was like academic foreplay or something. Brandt had no idea why she’d get so worked up, but hey, if it worked for her, and by extension, then it worked for the entire team.
“First, it’s not a little. The water erosion is significant, indicating flooding. Second, this implies that the Sphinx was actually built before the heavy-rain period.”
As she went to take a breath, Lopez jumped in. “Because why would the Egyptians build such a huge monument on a floodplain? Right? That would just be stupid.” Off Rebecca’s nod, Lopez turned the camera to him. “Score one for Daddy-O!”
Brandt shook his head, feeling maybe a little worried for Ricki Junior.
Rebecca, however, was undaunted. If anything, she seemed to be gaining steam. “Thirdly, all of the causeways—the ramps used to slide the limestone blocks up to the pyramids—were built around the Sphinx.”
Levont was the one to jump in this time. “Which implies the Sphinx was there before the pyramids, not after or even at the same time.”
“Bingo,” Rebecca said, tapping her finger to her nose. Her smile faded quickly, though, as she spun on her heel, looking up at the stone ceiling. “Causeways. Causeways. Causeways.”
A casual observer might conclude that Rebecca had lost her mind. Brandt, though? Brandt repositioned his gun, getting ready. Because this phase usually lasted all of ten seconds. Then they’d be on the move.
He’d bet his life on it.
Actually, he was counting on Rebecca. They all were.
* * *
Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
Rebecca might be a little fuzzy on the “theoretical” tunnels they traveled, but the causeways above surface she knew cold. They were an interconnecting series of ramps and stone-lined paths. Several were at odd angles because they had to avoid the Sphinx. But one in particular seemed to be strangely out of place. Scholars had spent decades trying to decide why the ancient Egyptian engineers had built a causeway so out of the way.
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