The Lost Tomb of Cleopatra (Brook Burlington Book 1)

by JT Osbourne

  14

  The Nile River, Egypt

  Tom Manor sat cross-legged on the deck of the felucca and shared a delicious dinner and a spectacular sunset with the two brothers. In addition to being expert sailors, they had turned out to be excellent cooks, conjuring up a feast of beautifully spiced dishes the three ate with unleavened loaves of bread, all heated on a small, wood-fired camp-stove onboard.

  Between the sun and the river was another river, this one of people, who were gathering crops, working farm machinery, irrigating, and generally taking advantage of the coolness of the evening, living as they had here for thousands of years, but by no means on as little. This close to Cairo, along the river, Egypt was no third-world wilderness.

  More like Iowa, Tom noted, standing for a minute, looking at green fields stretching as far as the eye could see.

  Tom knew he was lucky to be there. For twenty years, the Nile was closed to all foreigners. The Gama'a al-Islamiyya group saw to that, killing sixty-two people at the Deir el-Bahari site in Luxor in 1991. The Arab Spring brought even less clarity as far as the security situation was concerned, and although to some extent the visitors had returned to the great attractions around the country, the five-hundred plus miles of Nile River between Cairo and Aswan were still considered no-man's land by most tourists.

  Tom watched the two brothers enjoy their meal, which was maybe the best they'd managed in some time. Their yearly income was probably less than the cost of Tom's sleeping bag and tent alone, yet they wouldn't steal it from this stranger, and might very well risk their lives to protect him from harm. He didn't know why that was, but Tom was grateful for it, and vowed not to abuse the honor.

  15

  Near the Egypt/Libya Border, 1942

  Lieutenant Kurt Muller woke to the relative coolness of the evening. He noted how the beauty of the desolate landscape under the full moon contrasted with the deadly heat of the day. It was bright enough, Muller realized, that they could explore at night when the moon was up, and sleep during the day. Some of the men would have to keep watch; they were still soldiers after all, and there was still a war on, but for the next few nights, at least, the majority would be forced to alter their usual sleeping habits and join him as prospective tomb raiders.

  "The men will enjoy tomorrow off!" he declared quietly to himself. "And we'll begin looking at dusk."

  Amazed he hadn't thought of it before, Muller grabbed his heavy pole and marched off to a new quadrant a few hundred yards away. A breeze came up, which made Muller feel even better. The air was warm, but any breeze was still a blessing, cooling his back as he strode through the sand.

  Their method of exploration was crude and involved pounding a six-foot pole into the sand every five feet or so, listening for any strange sound, and feeling for a difference in texture. In this part of the desert, a pole could either penetrate the sand by a few inches or a few feet, but it didn't mean anything—it was what the bottom of the pole hit that was important.

  Muller began to search, enjoying the exercise, making a sport of it. He hit nothing, so the noise was minimal, and wouldn't disturb his men sleeping not too far off. During the day, he rarely joined in on the routine pole pounding, as the men called it. Such sharing of labor instilled a lack of respect in the average soldier, the higher-ups felt. A strict chain of command and delegation of labor was required for proper discipline, according to the Reich.

  It made Muller sick. He was definitely tired of it all. He longed to return to his village southwest of Ravensburg, close to annexed Austria and neutral Switzerland, in the foothills of the Alps. It had acted as a crossroads area all the way back to the Middle Ages, famous for its trading history—

  The pole hit something, breaking Muller out of his thoughts. Clunk.

  He froze. This wasn't a fossilized whale-bone. He hit it again. It was wood! It had to be. Muller raised his pole one more time, higher than before.

  The sudden crack of wood chilled Muller to the bone, and he leapt to one side—

  Too late. The wood cracked again—splintering beneath the sand, beneath his feet, plunging him down into the darkness as gravity took hold. As he slipped below the earth, Muller tried desperately to turn his pole over his head, hoping it would catch on both sides of the hole, but more wood gave way on one side, and the pole broke. As he fell, something flashed through his line of sight: a small, ancient, wood-slatted doorway flat into the Earth, trimmed with iron—

  Metal of Heaven, Muller thought, remembering the name the ancient Egyptians gave the material even as he fell twenty feet below it, hitting hard stone steps below, and rolling painfully down ten of them before stopping himself. "Metal of Heaven...sending me to Hell," he said aloud now, voice echoing as he understood with a sudden thrill that this was a chamber, designed and built of stone, far underground. This he deduced from the sound alone—it was pitch black here. Muller checked quickly, but no, he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. Realizing he still held a short piece of the pole, Muller heaved it and it clattered against a couple of solid walls before falling helplessly onto what sounded like a stone floor. He looked up, hoping to see an opening and the moon beyond, then realized the fruitlessness of it—if it was this dark, there would be no more opening. The sand had filled it in, and the most Muller could hope for would be enough of a depression that his men would notice and rescue him.

  "Or they'll fall one by one into the hole with me," Muller muttered bitterly. "Stupid idiot soldiers." This is the end, he knew. Strangely, it didn't bother him. His recent depression had vanished in a kind of sick irony.

  "King Midas!" Muller declared in the darkness, testing his leg. He felt sure it was broken, and half-laughed, half-groaned at the shot of pain that travelled up the injured limb. "Damn Greeks and their cautionary tales!" he wailed, only half in jest.

  In a sudden panic thanks to his lack of visibility, Muller tapped his chest. To his relief, he felt his lighter in his breast pocket. Muller fished it out, his thumb instinctively running over the brass eagle and swastika decoration embossed on the side. He'd just filled the gizmo the day before, and the flint was new—maybe, just maybe, he'd be able to see his way out.

  Muller popped the top, paused, then flicked the little wheel—sparks flew like lightning in the darkness, but no flame caught. He waited, shaking the device gently for luck, and tried again.

  Light! A little, anyway. Muller checked the path of his descent. Just as his body had told him, he'd fallen on carved stone steps, which led up a few feet, then disappeared into sand and stone—an impossible cave-in. Even if he’d had the tools to do so, there was no chance Muller could dig himself out. The quadrant he'd chosen to search that night wasn't scheduled for surveying yet, and the wind had almost certainly already swept away Muller's footprints in the sand, even if his troops cared to look for him.

  Not likely. Muller figured, They'd all wanted to get back into the fight. The fools! He cursed to himself. They'll kill me yet.

  He whirled, shining the meager light over the rest of the chamber; a small area, seven feet by seven feet by seven feet high, unfurnished, but with highly decorated carved stone walls.

  A coffin, Muller realized. Already his lighter flickered. The good air wouldn't last long.

  Muller crawled to the opposite wall, dragging his broken leg behind him. This wall was less evolved, with fewer inscriptions, but even with Muller's limited knowledge of the symbols, he believed he understood their significance. This was what he'd been looking for; the final resting place of Cleopatra and Mark Antony!

  Whimpering with simultaneous joy and fear—he expected it would be his final resting place, too—Muller managed to raise himself up the wall, which was cold to the touch.

  Like death, Muller snickered, hysterical now. He checked the top edge where a narrow line of plaster sealed in the chamber beyond.

  This was it! Muller told himself. What Goering had sent him to find. Muller surprised himself at the thrill that came with that thought. He h
ad thought he was beyond caring. Maybe if he could pick away at the plaster; maybe there was more air inside…

  The lighter flickered, and there was a whisper of sound behind him. Did somebody laugh? Muller listened. Nothing.

  The strong sense he was being watched didn’t fade. That damned Guardian in Giarabub and his wretched curse!

  Muller collapsed in laughter. He found it hilarious, to die this way. He turned slowly, painfully, aware of someone else nearby.

  An alcove appeared—a closet really. Standing inside was a stone sarcophagus, unpainted and without gold leaf, its carving matching the rest of the chamber. The figure on the face of the carved stone stared back at Muller, warning him, watching.

  "Hey, Kumpel, guarding the goods, are you?" Muller asked.

  The opening into the alcove was very narrow; too slender for Muller's large frame, so he was forced to view it from a distance. He moved his lighter closer to decipher an inscription in a language he didn't understand. The lighter went out, and Muller flicked it repeatedly, yet calmly, without anger or blame despite the total darkness. Sparks flew, but there was no flame.

  "Damn," Muller swore.

  16

  The Nile River, Egypt

  Something hit the boat hard. Tom's first thought was a whale, which was ridiculous, then a crocodile, which was only a little less so. He had been sleeping soundly in his pup tent, rocking easily on the deck of the felucca at anchor just a dozen yards from shore.

  Angry shouting and clashing sounds told Tom this wasn't a natural occurrence, but something man-made, and it wasn’t good. The boat rocked violently, and it was all Tom could do to unzip the tent and scramble out into the darkness.

  He could only make out outlines of figures. Somebody had a club, somebody else a knife. The brothers fought furiously, the two of them versus two bigger, stronger, angrier, and seemingly more desperate men. Tom struggled against the rolling deck, unable to get to his feet, when a blow from a heavy piece of wood glanced off his head from behind, nearly knocking him out, had it not been for his collarbone taking most of the strike.

  Tom cried out in pain and whirled, landing hard on his back on the now-wet wood of the deck, and managing to grab two handfuls of rough cotton djellaba before the club came down again. Tom jerked his head sideways, avoiding the brunt of the blow. He swept his leg one way and pulled the robe the other, calling on muscle memory from a fifth-grade jujitsu class long ago. Sure enough, the move worked, sending the man flying over the port side and into the Nile, but Tom went with him. So did the entire boat; mast, sails, and spar slapping hard into the water. The coolness of the river water felt refreshing in the night heat, and for a second Tom forgot he held the lapels of a man hell-bent on murdering him. That phase seemed to be over, he noticed with a strange detachment. Before long, he realized why: the attacker was struggling with the sail and ropes, simultaneously attempting to get free and stay afloat.

  Don't these pirates know how to swim? Tom wondered, before being reminded of his own peril. Something was sinking; possibly the man who attacked him, the boat, or the mast, but Tom was as wrapped up in the sail and its ropes as the other man. He kicked away, guessing correctly the direction of the surface, and breaking free, rising next to the felucca that was now on its side. He quickly spun around to get his bearings, barely noticing a big man kneeling on the wreckage, holding a stick of wood that was two inches thick and four feet long high in the air.

  It came down fast.

  Tom's world cut to black.

  17

  The Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

  "Neferu?" Brook asked.

  "Stone carver," the nun answered.

  "Stone carver?"

  "Well known, apparently. A real artist, though 'sculptor' would be a better description."

  Brook shrieked with excitement, and the nuns jumped. No one had ever made a noise that loud in the monastery, short of an actual military attack.

  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she apologized, trying to calm everyone down. "But let me show you something. You'll understand. Let me show you."

  Brook fished out her laptop from her messenger bag and turned it on. The chiming sounds of her laptop powering up was too loud here as well.

  Crazy, loud, klutzy American, was all Brook could think. As if on cue, her headscarf fell from her spectacular red hair, causing as much consternation as her outburst.

  "Sorry!" she repeated, covering herself again.

  "It's okay," the nun who spoke English so well assured her. "There are no restrictions here. You have beautiful hair."

  Brook blushed.

  The other nuns agreed with the first. They nodded and smiled, touching their own covered heads.

  "Our heads are shaved," the first nun lamented. The others gave her a look. Complaining was apparently unknown here.

  How cute, Brook thought.

  She showed the nuns the picture of the bottom of the statue, a bust of Octavian. "The bottoms of statues don't generally get worn away much. Even so, this one is hard to read. It says, 'Find me and you find her and you find him,' and it's signed by the sculptor." Getting excited again, Brook pointed repeatedly at the scroll she'd come so far to see.

  "Neferu of Rakota," one of the nuns breathed in awe, catching on.

  "Egyptian artists never signed their work back then," she went on. "It was unheard of. The individual was not important. The gods were important." Brook blanched. Here she was, lecturing a bunch of nuns on the importance of the gods, women who lived that worship every day.

  "And the Pharaoh was important." Brook added, as soon as she could catch her breath more fully. "There to intercede with the gods. In this case, Cleopatra was important. Now this gentleman..." Brook tapped Neferu's name on her laptop screen. "This gentleman signed everything from this statue onward with the same message, over and over—a most remarkable man, I think."

  18

  Somewhere in the Middle East

  Tom woke to the shudder of a rail car traveling too fast on a poorly kept track. His head hurt, but he was convinced he'd live, and by the sound and feel alone—it was too dark to see anything—he recognized that he sat in an empty boxcar, tied with rope against one end. A sliver of light through a broken wood-slat on one side told him the train was traveling at something like highway speed, and as his eyes adjusted to what light there was, he recognized his blue pup tent erected ludicrously at the other end of the car. Nearby, his sleeping bag was spread on the floor, and the figure of a large man slept on top of it, chest rising and falling in time with his light snore.

  Tom checked his pockets. Everything was gone, including the security pouch he'd hidden under his shirt and tied around his neck. No wallet, no money, no passport. Still, Tom had hope. The night outside was black, but what Tom could see looked to be desert. If he could get to the door, and it wasn't locked—

  What if they were locked in from the outside without any way to get out?

  Other scenarios ran through Tom's mind. It wouldn't take long for his kidnappers to figure out how valuable their property was, a billionaire's son, Wall Street executive, and an American all in one. Company policy was against paying ransom, as was US policy. Would Tom's father intervene at all?

  Tom knew the answer almost before he asked himself the question; probably not.

  The snoring man stirred. If Tom had any chance of getting away, it was now, while they slept and before they got him to some secure stronghold—populated by hundreds of jihadists, no doubt, with a tried-and-true protocol for sending his loved ones’ fingers, toes, ears, or what-have-you, for verification, the horror of it, and to prove their ruthlessness.

  Where is the third man? Tom wondered. There was room for only one in the tent. Drowned? What about the brothers? Tom looked again at the sleeping hulk atop Tom's bag. Way too big to be one of the brothers. If they were in on it, it was a hell of a ruse.

  The sun crept into the gap in the car. There was so little landscape among the sand that it took a minute for Tom to spo
t the shadow, long and low, headed to the back of the train. It meant they were traveling east, he figured. They'd reach the Suez next, maybe, or were they beyond that? Sinai, Jordan, Iraq, Afghanistan? Syria?

  The ropes tying Tom to the boxcar had been applied hastily and in the dark, so were too loose to be much good. Amateurs, he figured, fighting the urge to snicker under his breath. Or perhaps they just reasoned I wouldn't attempt to jump from a fast-moving train.

  And then, as if reading his mind, the train began to slow. There was a brief squeak of brakes and a gentle jostle, and Tom knew he needed to move fast, headache or not. Quietly but quickly, he slipped out of one knot and used his spare hand to loosen the others. He crawled to the broken slat and peered out. The train was still travelling around 40 miles per hour, a speed normally too fast to jump, but there was soft sand and room to try and hit the ground running when he landed...or was it better to roll? It was the kind of thing Tom would have liked to have practiced a few times before attempting it in the field.

  It didn't matter, he decided. He'd have to do it— any injury was better than the alternative. He had no idea where he was, other than somewhere in the deadly hot, uninhabitable desert, most likely hundreds of miles from water, shade, or safety.

  The train slowed some more. Tom felt along the wall facing what he thought would be south, feeling for an opening of some kind. He'd seen enough old movies—a freight wagon would always have a large sliding door on each side, right? At least this way he was the farthest from the sleeping kidnappers.

  Tom found the spot, discovering a door on the outside track. He stood slowly. Feels like a big iron handle on this end. He pushed it ever-so-slightly. It's gonna be heavy. And loud. One chance is all you'll have.