by Alex Archer
Why had they kept this a secret from Wes Michaels? She answered that question almost immediately. If the university thoroughly explored and recorded this on its own, it would gain all the credit and could profit financially and garner worldwide attention. And they’d not leaked a word of this yet, or there’d be at least some publicity on the archaeology sites.
Who’s involved with this? she wondered. Someone beyond the university, certainly, as otherwise Annja would not be the target of Arab martial-arts masters. University of Sydney professors didn’t strike her as the types who would bring in hired assassins.
The stairs narrowed to the point her shoulders brushed the walls. She walked sideways to the bottom, which she put at another twenty feet down from the chamber above. Again there were life-size images of Anubis.
She stepped out into another chamber, this much smaller than the first one. It smelled ghastly, and a pan of the light showed why. The ceiling had spiderweb cracks in it. Water had trickled through and had ruined the goods arrayed on the floor—long-rotted animal hides, bodies wrapped in cloth, which from their outlines looked to be nothing more than skeletons, jars that had been filled with grain and other foodstuffs and now contained only mold.
The smell was so intense, Annja fought to keep from gagging. The coolness of the depth and the lack of fresh air likely had kept everything from turning to dust. Her stomach roiled and she cupped her free hand over her mouth. Still, rather than retreat she played the light along the walls, seeing more hieroglyphics, though not nearly as elaborate as the ones above.
She saw another doorway, and then a second one—this one leading to another tunnel that appeared to slant up.
Which one did he take?
She hurried toward the first doorway, picking a path around the jars and corpses and finding the air even worse when she poked her head through. She bent and retched until her stomach ached and her cracked ribs burned. Then she glanced in.
The chamber beyond was natural; the Egyptians had not carved a single image into it that she could see. Water trickled down one side and flowed across the floor in a straight line, and she guessed there must be an underground stream running through the ridge above. There was a pool roughly in the center, which the water ran to, reminding her of cisterns in Aztec and Mayan ruins. The Egyptians might have used this place to get freshwater while they worked on their underground complex.
The water certainly was no longer fresh. Littering the pool’s surface were hundreds of small dead fish, their eyes bulging and their bellies white in the beam of the flashlight. They were responsible for the incredible stench.
“Ugh,” Annja pronounced. Now it definitely was time to leave.
She spun and blinked furiously, meeting another beam of light—this one aimed right at her eyes.
“Put your flashlight down and put your hands up!”
Because the light had practically blinded her, Annja couldn’t see the speaker, but she guessed it was the man she’d followed. He’d gotten behind her and hid, waited for the right time to approach.
“Do it now!” he ordered.
Annja complied.
15
The doors were locked after 8:00 p.m., so Hamam used his key card to enter the building. The hall before him was shadowy, as only every fourth bank of overhead lights was on at this late hour to conserve electricity. “The tomb,” the other professors who frequented the offices at night referred to it. Hamam was amused by the reference.
There were only two other instructors here this evening, both from the arts department; he’d spotted their cars in the parking lot. Their offices were on the floor above his, at the opposite end of the hall. They were no doubt working late grading term essays that students had started turning in over the past few days. Hamam had essays on his desk, too, but he had no plans to peruse them. He would be gone from the university before he was supposed to hand grades over to the department head.
Hamam enjoyed the gloominess of this building at night; he thought the dimness made it seem properly eerie and gave the place a little character. Modern structures were usually so sterile and uninteresting, nothing like the ruins he relished, or his home north of Cairo. He listened to his own footfalls as he went, the leather soles of his expensive Italian shoes gliding across the recently polished floor, the heels clicking slowly and rhythmically. The night janitor had already passed by; Hamam could smell the residue of the cleaning supplies. He would not have to put up with the man’s overly loud classical selections. It wasn’t that Hamam didn’t appreciate a good orchestra. He truly did. But the janitor’s taste tended toward popular baroque, and the orchestras hailed from cities such as Boston and Cincinnati, lacking the musical refinement of the European symphonies with their most excellent conductors.
He fumbled in his pocket for his office keys. While the building’s outer doors had been fitted with mechanisms to read key cards, Hamam doubted the university would ever spend the money to replace the simple locks on the individual offices and storage rooms. He smiled—in a week or so the university’s funds and locks would be irrelevant.
Hamam’s movements were ritualistic. He opened the door with his left hand, reached in and flicked on the light with his right. Two steps in and he hung his hat on the hook on the wall. A quick turn and he shut the door behind him and flipped the latch to lock it. Unlike many of the other professors in this building and in the others throughout the campus, Hamam never left his door open.
“I expected you some time ago.”
Hamam’s normally stoic mask was gone in an instant, replaced by wide-eyed astonishment. He gasped, and then his surprise turned to anger, his fists clenching so tight his knuckles whitened.
The high-backed chair at his desk had been turned to face the window, so Hamam could not have noticed that someone was sitting in it.
“I’ve been here for more than an hour, Gahiji.” The voice was sonorous. The speaker waited a moment and then slowly swiveled the chair so he could stare across the desk at Hamam. “Nearly two, I think.” He steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them. Like the professor, he was a small man, but he was not quite as thin, and the skin on his face was taut, the lower half of it looking shiny and wet from scarring. His hair was shoulder length, oiled and neatly tied at the back of his head. He had on a gray suit coat, the cut of it and material looking expensive. Beneath it he wore a black T-shirt with a slightly frayed collar.
“Sayed,” Hamam said. “I told you never to come here.” The professor’s eyes were thin slits, and his face was flushed with anger. He clenched and unclenched his fists and drew his shoulders back. “I am paying you enough that you can damn well follow my instructions.”
A silence settled between them, neither man wanting to break it. From outside—Sayed had opened the window—a car horn sounded. A moment later there was a burst of young laughter from students walking past on a nearby sidewalk. Sayed leaned forward, the desk chair creaking. Finally, he spoke.
“My apologies, Gahiji, for intruding into your academic world.” The words were flat and did not seem heartfelt, and they did little to soothe Hamam’s ire.
“You were never to set foot at the university,” Hamam softly raged. “Never to be seen in any public places on this continent. Never to be seen publicly with me.”
“Because you do not want to be seen with an international terrorist?”
“Yes,” Hamam said. “I’m paying you well.”
“Indeed. I am satisfied with the amount.”
Another silence settled, this longer than the first. Again, Sayed finally broke it.
“The world thinks I am in England or Ireland, yes? Interpol places me somewhere near London. Bombing soccer fields and buses and underground trains.” Sayed leaned back in the chair now, making it squeak even louder. “The world thinks I am there because of the news reports, maybe, but the American television woman knows I am here instead. She and the man with the camera saw me yesterday at your camp.” Sayed stood, the fabric of his j
acket falling gracefully against his frame.
“Dig, Sayed. It is called a dig, not a camp.”
Sayed shrugged indifferently.
“And the issue of the American archaeologist is being resolved,” Hamam continued. “Isn’t that correct?”
He strode farther into his office and waited for Sayed to come around to the front of the desk. Sayed took the simple wooden chair intended for students, and Hamam eased himself into the high-backed chair, placing his hands on the arms of it as if it were a throne. “The men that you acquired on my behalf have killed the cameraman and sent me his cameras and laptop. I have destroyed all evidence of your presence.”
“The body burned, I assume, this cameraman. My associates are always tidy,” Sayed said.
“Burned, I was told, yes. Incinerated shortly after the deed. No trace remains of the man or any of his belongings. The police have no clues, beyond the bodies of your associates.”
“And they cannot be traced to us. But the woman…” Sayed’s eyes burned, the first real emotion he’d shown since Hamam had come in. “The woman still lives.”
“Your remaining men—”
“Have not reported to me of her demise. Nor have they reported to you.” Sayed raised his eyebrows in question.
“No, I’ve not heard from any of them.”
“And three of them will never be heard from again. Killed at the hotel—by her, apparently. The bodies you mentioned,” Sayed made a tsk-tsking sound. “It is not good for my business that those I hire are killed. It makes recruiting others a little more difficult and a little more expensive.”
“You’re asking me for more money?” Hamam asked.
Sayed raised his hands and feigned an expression of bewilderment. Then his icy countenance returned. “Not yet, Gahiji. As you’ve said, I’ve been paid well so far. And as I’ve said…I am satisfied.”
Hamam toyed with some of the objects on his desk—a pen holder, calendar, a paperweight shaped like a pyramid. “I’ve arranged the trucks,” he said quietly.
Sayed nodded.
“They should be more than adequate.”
“And painters?”
“Already handled. They should have finished earlier today.”
“I will need to inspect them and load them, and I wish to do this now.”
“They are in an old industrial building not far from the heart of downtown. Here is the address.” Hamam took a sheet of paper from his in basket, noted that it was a flyer for an upcoming student art show and turned it over. He scribbled an address on the back in pencil and passed it to Sayed.
“Good,” Sayed purred. “And these trucks, they will handle the weight and pressure?”
It was Hamam’s turn to nod.
“Very good indeed.”
16
“Put your hands up!”
The speaker hadn’t been content with Annja just setting down the big flashlight.
“I said put your hands up. Higher! That’s it, mate. Now, lace your fingers. Good girl. Put them behind your head. No smart moves. Don’t try anything funny.”
Annja squinted, trying to find a shape beyond the light. The dialogue was straight out of a B-grade cop movie. The accent was clearly Australian, and that made her feel a little better. At least it wasn’t another Arab assassin.
“Who are you?” she risked asking.
“Doesn’t matter who I am. Who are you?”
“Annja Creed,” she replied.
The light wobbled a moment, and in it she caught a glimpse of two shapes, one the bushy-haired figure that she’d followed down here. The other was taller and leaner. She couldn’t make out any more than that, as the light hit her straight in the face again. She closed her eyes.
“Annja Creed from Chasing History’s Monsters?”
She nodded. “Yes. So we’ve covered a third of the introductions. Who are you?”
“Jon,” came the quick reply. “And this is—”
“Matthew. I’m in charge of the dig.”
“Only when Doc’s not here you’re in charge,” Jon quickly added. “Matthew’s the—”
“Graduate assistant assigned to Dr. Hamam,” Matthew finished. “I saw you sneaking around the camp, followed you into the hole. Trespassing, trying to steal something probably.”
Annja sighed. “I came to help. I didn’t come here to steal anything. I followed Jon down here.”
“Swallowed the spider to catch the fly, huh?” The tone of Matthew’s voice showed that he was clearly in a bad mood.
“Can you put the light down?” Annja felt the heat on her face and knew Jon still had it aimed at her eyes. “And, if you don’t mind…” She slowly unlaced her fingers, held her arms out to the sides and then she dropped them. It hurt her ribs to keep her arms up. “The light, please.” She felt the heat finally vanish and she opened her eyes. The flashlight, similar to the one she’d borrowed, was pointed down now.
“And do you mind if we, ah, retreat to better-smelling surroundings?” Annja continued. She got a good look at the two now.
Jon looked like a teenager with his mop of curly red hair and cherubic face. He even had a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. He stared at her, mouth agape. Matthew looked more the part of a collegian, hair short and neat, face showing a bare hint of stubble, which no doubt would be gone with the morning, rimless glasses perched high on a narrow nose. His gaze was more appraising and critical, and the dark circles under his eyes attested to either long hours or lack of sleep or both. Both were dressed in khaki pants, Matthew in a dark sweater and Jon in a green sweatshirt with a yellow platypus on it.
“The Annja Creed,” Jon stated. “Really? From Chasing History’s Monsters? The Annja Creed! You don’t look all that much like her.”
“Of course she does,” Matthew said. “She’s just a little tidier on the program.” He pursed his lips. “You look like you’ve been through a war, Ms. Creed. Let’s get up top and get you something warm to drink.” He turned to Jon. “What the bloody hell were you doing down here anyway?” Then, more softly: “And what the bloody hell is Annja Creed doing at our dig? And at this hour? It’s bloody well near midnight.”
Jon shuffled his feet and seemed to study a spot on the floor. “I was just looking around,” he said after a moment. “I couldn’t sleep and figured I might as well get some work done. And then when I heard her come after me, I figured I was in trouble, didn’t know who she was. Thought maybe it was you or Cindy. So I hid.”
“Well, you’re about as bright as a burned-out birthday candle,” Matthew retorted. He gestured up the tunnel that led from the burial room. “You know you’re not supposed to be down here without Doc.” To Annja he said, “And I don’t give a flat wombat if you’re a celebrity, you’re not supposed to be down here at all.”
It would have been easy to stay silent during the walk up the tunnel, but Annja was concerned for everyone’s safety, and so she gave them an abbreviated version of her day.
“So you think somebody here at our dig is trying to kill you?” Jon posed. “There are no Arabs here. Just us, seven graduate students, counting Matthew. Most of us are from Brisbane, actually. But I’m from just north of Sydney. We’re all adults—”
“Six of us are adults anyway,” Matthew said.
Jon made a face. “So the uni lets us stay out here at night if we want.”
“When I’m around, you can stay out here,” Matthew added.
“Only for liability,” Jon cut in. “That’s why you have to be here. Doc slept over a couple of nights, though, a week or so ago. He usually just comes out during the day, ’cept when he’s lecturing to undergraduate classes. And then he doesn’t come out at all.”
“That would be Tuesdays and Thursdays that he lectures. Friday, he was here in the morning,” Matthew said.
“With some guys,” Jon added. “Dark, maybe Arabs, like you mentioned. But one was Korean. Or Japanese.” He paused. “Maybe Chinese.”
Matthew let out
an irritated sigh. “He was Korean, and I heard Doc call him Kim. He didn’t talk much. None of them did. Doc just showed them around. I figured they were benefactors or something. Doc’s always making noises about applying for this or that grant.”
It was Jon’s turn to sigh. “Every prof at the uni talks about getting grants…if you’d listen, Matthew. Doc’s not permanent, anyway, so the grants won’t help him much.”
Annja raised her eyebrows and stopped. They’d just entered the main chamber again. “A visiting professor? He’s not part of the regular staff?”
“From Egypt,” Matthew supplied. “An expert Egyptologist, not just an archaeologist. He’s here for two or three years, I think, came because the uni let him have charge of a dig. He’s great.”
“Dr. Hamam…” Annja prompted.
“Dr. Gahiji Hamam. Taught at the University of Cairo,” Matthew said. “He’s written books.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Annja admitted. In fact, she had at least three of his books. Her favorite was on the Bir Dunqash dig, where Hamam and his team uncovered an Egyptian complex of three rooms with redware shards ringing it. Hamam managed to date the shards to Byzantine times.
“We’re real lucky to get Doc. He’s ace.” Matthew smacked Jon on the side of the head. “And Doc doesn’t want us down here without him. Good reason for it, I guess. Doesn’t want anything disturbed or damaged. Jon’s the proverbial poster child for—”
“That’s enough, Matthew.” Jon made a face.
Annja flicked on her flashlight again, the beams from two lights doing a far better job of illuminating the section of the massive chamber.
“Doc’s afraid, I guess, that some of us might take something,” Jon said. “I’d never take anything, but…” He sucked in a breath. “I maybe know a student here who might pocket something small and shiny.”
Annja let Jon’s prattle drift to the back of her mind, and again she studied the walls. “Has any of this been translated?” she asked.