The Cursed Pharaoh (The Hank Boyd Origins Book 1)

by Matthew James

  Maybe even who.

  “It’s just down here some,” Aziz says, clicking on a flashlight.

  The open-air stairs are quickly enveloped in darkness as we continue underground. We have to move single file, ducking down some. At six-two, and the tallest of our group, I have to dip the most, making the trek uncomfortably awkward.

  If I had to guess, I’d say the stairwell was six feet in height, max. The top of Dad’s head barely grazes the arched peak. He must’ve felt it because he also slouches over a little, matching my hunched posture. Mirroring Aziz, we all ignite our own flashlights, illuminating the perfectly preserved entrance way.

  “Wow…”

  Dad shares my sentiment, looking back and forth, admiring the precisely cut stone craftsmanship. It’s one of the many things the ancient Egyptians were known for. It’s exactly like the pyramids in a way. If you tried, you wouldn’t be able to fit a piece of paper between any of the cut rock.

  “Limestone,” Dad says, “same as the pyramids’ bases.”

  “Yes,” Aziz says from ahead, “we thought the same. Could be from the same quarries as well.”

  “If it’s what we think it is,” Ben says, “then I’m sure it’s the same. This place would’ve been built around the same time as the king’s pyramid.”

  “Menkaure…” Aziz whispers, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it’s him.”

  “After what we’ve been through,” I say, rubbing my neck, “I sure as hell can. I still have the aches to prove it.”

  “How much further?” Dad asks.

  “Another hundred feet or so,” Aziz says.

  “That far?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he replies, glancing over his shoulder. “The stairway was cleverly concealed with the same white Tura limestone blocks used in the pyramids’ casings. It wasn’t a thick layer but it was sturdy enough and had been left untouched for centuries.”

  “How did you find this place?” I ask.

  “You’ll have to ask my cousin,” Aziz replies. “He refuses to say.”

  Everyone stops and turns, shining their flashlights back up the stairway. Yasin is ten feet from me and suddenly more interested in the wall than the conversation.

  Damn, I think, knowing I was right. He knows.

  I step forward. “Who’s your contact in Zill Allah?”

  His eyes dart to me. Bingo.

  “I…I do not know what you are talking about.”

  “I don’t believe you.” I take another step towards the much smaller man. After surviving Beefcake’s ambush, I’m fairly certain that I can take him. I don’t want to but I will if it comes to that.

  “He says it’s from someone that I do not wish to know,” Aziz explains, earning a hard look from his cousin.

  I take another step back up the stairs. “I’ve had a pretty shit-tastic day. The last thing I need is a terrorist’s lackey standing in front of me, refusing to answer my questions.”

  Yasin twitches. I’m not sure if it’s the use of the T-word or my threatening demeanor, though.

  “If I were you,” I say, balling my fists, “I’d talk to me now before Chief Ghannam gets here. With the history he has with your friends, I seriously doubt he’s going to only arrest you.” I’m within punching distance now. “He’s a stout dude. The only difference is that he isn’t shy about killing someone that deserves it.”

  Yasin takes another step away, nervous.

  “I do not deserve death,” he says, afraid.

  “We almost died twice today, Yasin,” Ben says from behind me. “You will be labeled as an accomplice to attempted murder if it comes out that you knew about what happened.”

  “I know no such things!” he shouts, starting to panic.

  Gotcha.

  “Do you really think the chief cares?” I ask. “He’s meeting with Hamza’s father right now and—”

  “No,” he yells, “not Eslam, they’ll kill me!”

  His outburst even startles himself and he falls back on his ass, cowering in abject fear. “I am sorry, I was desperate!”

  “Who’s your contact?” I ask softly, kneeling in front of the groveling man.

  Instead of telling me, he shows me. Yasin lifts his shirt, revealing the same dreaded tattoo I’ve seen before. The first one was on the guy’s neck from the highway. Next was the underside of Beefcake’s forearm.

  “You?” I ask as he dips his head in shame.

  Looking up at me, he sighs. “Let me explain…”

  7

  The fact that Yasin is a former member of Zill Allah isn’t what surprises me the most, it’s who the group believes themselves to be. Even now, after a nice little history lesson, I’m still having trouble processing it.

  “You’re a Magi?” I ask.

  He nods. “One of the last families charged with defending this tomb.”

  “Then why’d you dig it up?”

  His eyes look away from me, once again finding the wall. “I…um…left my brothers after someone dear to me died.” He glanced over to Aziz whose eyes widened.

  “Your grandfather,” he says, holding a hand to his mouth. “All this time, you and your family were Menkaure’s protectors. How was I so blind…”

  “Do not beat yourself up, Aziz. Mother doesn’t know either.”

  My mouth hits the floor. “Come again? Your own mother doesn’t know who you really are?”

  He shakes his head. “Our order is very old and so are our ways. Only the men are accepted into it.”

  “Why?” Aziz asks.

  Yasin looks back to his cousin. “To protect them.”

  “Enemies?” I ask.

  “Many...including Chief Ghannam.”

  “Abe?” Ben asks, confused.

  “Yes,” Yasin replies, “he seeks revenge for the death of his brother and wife.”

  “As he should,” I say, recalling the story Abe shared.

  “I agree but he looks to make everyone within Zill Allah suffer, not just Hamza. Most of us are not killers, Mr. Boyd. Some of us only want to save the world.”

  “And Hamza doesn’t?” I ask.

  “No, he does, but he’ll cross any line to do it. It’s a line I won’t cross myself.”

  “Murder,” I say softly.

  Yasin nods. “He truly believes Menkaure was the living god he was worshiped as.” He smiles, a far-off look forming on his face. “If only I had such faith.”

  “Why,” Aziz retorts, appalled, “so you could stand alongside him?”

  “No, cousin, so I could stop him. I lost my conviction and strayed from my duties. If I was around when he killed Mido Ghannam, I may have been able to stop it from happening. I was the only one who ever stood up to Hamza. The others…they just rolled over, terrified of him.”

  “Pretty easy to see why,” I say, glancing at Dad. His face is unchanging, emotionless. He’s fully engrossed in the conversation, taking in every little detail.

  “You have no idea, Mr. Boyd. Hamza is the…” he pauses, searching for the correct word, “…enforcer of the group. When something unpleasant needs to be done, he and those closest to him take it upon themselves to do it.”

  “What men?” Yasin asks.

  I tap my neck. “One of them has your logo on his neck.”

  Yasin’s face falls. “Sameer Abboud… He blindly follows Hamza. He was my replacement in the hierarchy.”

  “You were a part of Zill Allah’s kill squad?” Aziz asks.

  Yasin shakes his head. “Hamza was always prone to violence, yes. But before killing Mido—something he did after I left—he used to only use intimidation and his family’s standing as his sword. Now, not so much. Now, he chooses a darker path.”

  Silence envelopes us for a beat, making the underground passage that much spookier. We’re only ten feet from a solid stone wall as is the jackhammer to be used to cut through it.

  “What now?” I ask, standing. I face Dad and wait for an answer.

  But it doesn’t come from him.


  “Forward,” Yasin says.

  I turn. “You confuse me.”

  “I lost a lot of years to Zill Allah, protecting something that doesn’t need it. Menkaure is long dead. With this discovery, I hope the remaining Magi will fall into obscurity and disappear.”

  “You really think that?” Ben asks.

  He nods. “Hamza is hellbent on defending something he’s never seen with his own eyes. If he loses that, I believe he will come to terms with his existence.”

  “Or he’ll kill whoever ruined his life,” I add as I remove my hat and scratch my head.

  “I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a possibility.”

  “We open it.”

  I spin and find Dad staring me down. “You sure?”

  “Yes, it’s what we do, son.”

  “Sure,” I say, shrugging, “why not. We’ve come all this way, haven’t we?”

  Stepping around everyone, I head for the jackhammer, intent on pulverizing some stone. Dad is right on my heels, wanting to be one of the first to see what lays beyond the ancient partition. I quickly grip its handlebars and lift, grunting as I do. Together, we step up in front of the sealed entry and place the large bit against the decorative blockade…and fall.

  “Shit!”

  The floor opens beneath us, dropping us into a void of black. Expecting to fall forever, we suddenly jolt to a stop a couple of seconds later, ten, or so, feet below. Looking up, I watch in horror as two massive slabs of stone slide back into place, cutting us off from the others. The last thing Dad and I hear is Ben shouting our names.

  Then, nothing, just an unbearable amount of quiet.

  Moaning, Dad wriggles out from beneath me and goes to stand, yelping as he tries to put weight on his left leg. Finding him in the veil of darkness isn’t easy and I have to reach out like a B-movie mummy. Thankfully, he’s close and I quickly locate him and leap to my feet.

  “Here,” I say, helping him the rest of the way up. Propping him against a nearby wall, I reach into my pocket and find my keychain light, clicking it on. Breathing hard, I kneel and check out Dad’s ankle, quickly finding and grabbing our dropped flashlights.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “My…knee,” he replies, wincing as he tests it. “Hurts bad.”

  “What the hell happened?” I ask, switching out lights, pointing the stronger one at the ceiling. “Where are we?”

  “It’s some sort of booby trap, or secret entrance maybe.”

  “Secret entrance?” I ask, putting the light back on Dad.

  “Could be but there’s only one way to find out.”

  “Explore,” I say, smiling.

  “No, Harrison… We must survive. Our exploration ended when we fell.”

  * * *

  “William! Hank!” Ben shouted, stomping frantically on the floor. He was hoping it would open again. At the very least, he wanted to make sure his friends were okay.

  “It won’t work,” Yasin said, putting a hand on Ben’s shoulder.

  Wheeling on the local, Ben grabbed him by his shirt collar and slammed him into the nearest wall, pinning him in place. “This is your fault!”

  Yasin nodded. “It is and I am sorry for that.”

  A gentle hand calmed Ben and he looked at its owner. “Please, Dr. Fehr, let him go. That won’t help.”

  Knowing Aziz was right, Ben released Yasin and stepped away. “How do we get down there?”

  “We don’t,” Yasin replied, stepping back as Ben raised an angry fist.

  With his background in Zill Allah, Ben figured Yasin could easily kill him but he also knew that Yasin wanted nothing to do with the group either. He was between a rock and a hard place for sure. Most of all, Ben was flustered and out of his element, reacting on pure instinct instead of thought-out logic.

  “But we may be able to find them if we go through there.”

  Ben followed the man’s outstretched finger. It pointed to their original destination. “What makes you so sure?”

  “Call it a hunch.”

  “Zill Allah?” Ben asked.

  Yasin nodded. “I may know a thing or two, yes.”

  Looking at Aziz, Ben watched him stare hard at his cousin. Blinking, he turned to his employer and nodded. “We can trust him.”

  “Fine,” Ben said, knowing he was about to okay the destruction of a priceless ruin. “Get started.”

  Rushing to the blocked entrance, Yasin and Aziz prepped the fallen jackhammer. Lifting it, Yasin, the larger of the two men, placed its tip against the decorative stone blockade. As soon as it touched the chiseled nameplate, it depressed. It’s what must’ve triggered the trap door. But as they touched it again, something else happened.

  A thunderous boom erupted, originating from somewhere above them. The earth rumbled, as a result, getting Yasin moving. He activated the jackhammer and went to work on the entrance—just as the passage behind them began to collapse in on itself.

  “Oh, God,” Ben said, backpedaling. “We need to hurry.”

  “I am!” Yasin shouted.

  While unrighteous in his ways at times, Ben believed the man to be true in his attempt to save them. He also believed in the afterlife and he wasn’t ready to experience it yet.

  The crashing of stone on stone along with the incessant pounding of machinery was going to be the end of Ben. His head was already aching from stress and lack of sleep. If they didn’t get the door open soon, they’d all feel nothing when tons of stone and sand crushed them.

  Seeing the advancing darkness creep closer and closer, Ben looked back to the Nassirs and prayed.

  His eyes returned to the passage. “I’d rather have a damn migraine.”

  * * *

  “Where are they?” Abe asked, stepping out of the car. His armed escort had only just arrived. He rode in the backseat with two other officers besides the driver. The six he sent ahead were easily spotted under the glow of the excavation’s lights.

  “They are below, sir,” one man said. “Just now.”

  As Abe approached, a streak of smoke announced the arrival of something. It slammed into the tomb entrance, knocking him from his feet. He felt the ground beneath him buckle and shift immediately after. The sand itself moved like water, swaying back and forth in an invisible ocean breeze.

  With his head still feeling the effects of the explosion, Abe was having trouble putting together exactly what happened. The men further away weren’t, however. They knew what had caused the cave-in and fired their weapons into the darkness to the north.

  He got to his feet as the earth lifted again, tossing him backward into the parked vehicle. His head met the rear passenger door, bouncing off its re-enforced skin hard. Through already dazed eyes, he watched as the dig site was swallowed by the desert, completely erased from existence. The construction lights were next, shattering, leaving the area in complete darkness except for what little light the stars provided.

  “It’s gone, sir,” his driver said, helping him stand.

  Abe was speechless, unable to form even the most coherent of sentences. Stepping forward, he knelt and ran his shaking hand through the fine sand, seeing no trace of the entrance or of the others. Cursing under his breath, he prayed in the same fashion, quietly saying the words aloud.

  “Who did this?” he shouted to his men.

  He stood and faced his driver, just as his head exploded in a shower of blood and brain matter. Trained to react quickly in situations like this, Abe dove forward and crawled to the dead man’s body while the other officers returned fire.

  “I can’t see anything!” one yelled.

  “Where are they?” another shouted.

  Abe reached inside his driver’s pocket and found his keys, barking orders as he did. “Get to cover!” He stood and leapt into the still open driver’s side door. Another of the officers was taken out, falling against the hood of the large SUV.

  Then, another…and another.

  Only four of the nine men made it into the safety
of the bulletproof, military grade vehicle. They sat with their heads swiveling like owls, looking in every direction, ready to return fire if it came to that.

  “Over there!” the man in the center rear seat yelled, pointing between the two front seats.

  They all saw who it was…

  “Hamza,” Abe whispered, his eyes growing wider with every passing moment. His brother’s killer raised a long black, cylindrical object to his shoulder.

  “Is that a—?”

  “Yes,” Abe replied, “it is.” He shoved the key into the SUV’s ignition, hoping he could get the vehicle moving before the next phase of Hamza’s plan came to fruition. While the outfitted Chevy Suburban could withstand just about any caliber of bullet, Abe wasn’t so sure it could survive the detonation of an RPG projectile.

  Look what it did to the site…

  8

  “What the hell is that!” I shout, covering my head. Not knowing the soundness of the construction around us, I react and prepare to be bombarded with debris.

  Instead of answering me, Dad grabs my wrist and yanks me out of the alcove. We fall together, landing hard on the floor of another room. Looking up, I see where we are and begin to mumble a series of garbled expletives.

  “Oh…”

  Dad’s reaction is much less vulgar but he’s just as captivated, his eyes lost. We stand as one and examine the space around us, acting as one unified organism. Ducking beneath Dad’s left shoulder, I take some of his weight and turn him with me as I take in our new surroundings.

  “Is that gold?” I ask.

  “I believe it is.”

  The chamber is plated in the stuff—every square inch of it. Not a single piece is left ungoldified. It’s as if the goldification of the walls, floor, and ceiling all happened at once.

  Impossible, I think. But I’m unable to find a single seam.

  Besides the gorgeous gilding, every surface is also engraved with your run-of-the-mill Egyptian art. It’s mostly sideways people and illegible hieroglyphs too, nothing I can translate.

  “We need Ben,” I say, also understanding Dad knows some of the language. Ben’s the real expert, though, and I’m still getting my feet wet.