Nevada slowed to a walk, taking deep breaths. “I think that went well.”
“You managed to sink a boat,” Candice replied. “In a desert.”
“We didn’t get shot,” Nevada reasoned. “Except for you, a little bit. I think our luck’s changing.”
The sand exploded with human forms in desert fatigues, surrounding them on all sides, shoving guns in their faces once more. Candice didn’t offer any resistance and neither did Nevada.
They were brusquely searched, Nevada relieved of her bomb vest.
“I’m sorry,” Usama said. “They came at me from every side.”
Their leader, balaclava-masked with an unavoidable stare, faced them. “Nevada. Mr. Singh would like a word.”
Nevada lowered her raised hands. “He couldn’t phone?”
“You weren’t answering.”
“I’ve been a little busy,” Nevada said. Over her shoulder, the smoke from the explosion was still hanging in the air. “But if you’ve got him on the phone, tell him we found the Aegis.”
“Where?”
“Fifteen miles north of here. It’s all in the—” Nevada noticed Candice still had her hands up. “Put your hands down already. They’re not going to shoot you.”
“Then why are they pointing guns at me?”
Nevada gave the team leader a look. “It is pretty rude.”
The leader made a quick gesture and his men lowered their weapons. Candice immediately went to stand alongside Usama.
“He okay?” Nevada asked, still eyeballing the leader.
“Everything but his pride,” Candice reported. Nevada opened up her backpack, and as she got the codex out of it, Candice muttered, “Nice crowd you run with.”
“Said the academic,” Nevada retorted. She opened the codex to its last written page, showing the hieroglyphics to the commandos’ leader. “It’s all right here. Their ship ran aground, so they decided to build the tomb fifteen miles north.”
The leader took hold of the page between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing it experimentally. The papyrus cracked slightly at his rough touch. Candice winced. “Can you be more precise?” he asked.
Nevada looked to Candice, who said, “Fourteen miles, two thousand three hundred and fifteen feet.”
The leader took his hand away, pressing it to an earpiece under his ski mask. “You get all that?” He waited, listening, then regarded Nevada again. “He’ll meet us there.”
“Singh is here?” Nevada asked.
“He loves to watch you work. Come on, we’ll give you a ride.”
Nevada handed the codex back to Candice. “As long as it doesn’t spit.”
Nevada was following the commandos when Candice cried out, “Hey!” They turned. Candice thrust the codex out, showing the inky black thumbprint left behind where the leader had touched it.
“Sorry,” John Gore said. “Happens all the time.”
Chapter 8
Two jeeps were parked nearby
under camouflage netting. In short order, Candice and Nevada were being jostled about in the back of one, sputtering on the sand that the wheels kicked up as the driver redlined it. Candice clutched the codex protectively. After she’d judged that no attention was being paid to her, she lay her head down on Nevada’s shoulder.
Nevada accepted the gesture with a visible start. She was about to put her arm around Candice in return when Candice said, too low for anyone but them to hear, “That’s the guy from the hotel.”
Nevada blinked in surprise. “The hotel where you drugged me?”
Candice fumed for a moment. “Yes,” she replied, motioning at John Gore. He’d taken off his balaclava, revealing his mild, unlined face. “That hotel. He took me to the train…”
“Train that got attacked by terrorists.”
“That train,” Candice agreed.
“Could just be a coincidence.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Uh-huh.”
Usama leaned in near them as well. “What are we whispering about?”
“We’re not whispering,” Nevada told him.
“Yes, we are.”
Gore glanced at them. “Stop whispering!”
Candice buried herself in reading the codex, while Nevada tried to look innocent. Usama told him, “We are not whispering.”
Fifteen miles and an hour later, the flat plane of desert they traveled was broken by jagged gray rocks tearing through the sands. In the middle of the expanse, a white canopy had been set up. It shaded a minimalist place setting—three director chairs, a folding table holding a smartphone plugged into a Beats Pill+ playing Eddy Grant, and an ice bucket sitting on the sand. Akbar Akkad Singh sat in the center seat, nattily dressed in a paisley suit and a necktie that looked like a dentist office aquarium.
“That’s Singh,” Nevada told Candice as they marched up to the canopy, Gore and his men keeping up the rear. “My boss. So rich he pays for music.”
“He doesn’t look like a billionaire,” Candice said. “He looks more like he works at E! News.”
A few hundred yards behind the tent, a Mil Mi-26 idled. The Russian heavy-transport helicopter, its thirty-one tons sheer Soviet brutalism, seemed to have more in common with a pachyderm than anything capable of flight. Looking at it, Nevada was keenly aware that it could hold ninety-odd troops and Singh didn’t go anywhere without an entourage.
Singh spread out his arms in greeting as they came within range. “Easy! I have henchmen! Crazy, right? Come, come, have something to drink.” He gestured to the ice bucket. “Corona? Corona Light? Corona Premier? Corona Familiar? Corona Refresca?”
“Water?” Candice asked hopefully.
“We don’t have that,” Singh said.
Nevada took a bottle from the ice bucket and opened it on her belt buckle. She collapsed into one of the director chairs. Candice took the another. Usama sat on the ground while Gore and his men stood nearby. Not even in the shade, Nevada noticed.
“If there’s one thing I like about you, Singh, it’s your management style.” Nevada tipped her bottle to him. “You’re not usually so hands-on.”
“Ah, but this is an auspicious occasion. The last of the skulls! Number twelve! I was beginning to have my doubts. I got so worried when you stopped checking in, I might’ve tasked a satellite to look for you. Excessive, maybe. Morocco hasn’t gotten HBO for two days. So here we are—how’s that Corona treating you?”
Nevada pulled back from drinking. “I’m pretty sure it’s beer. Anything for my friends? Maybe some cold cuts? A cheese platter?”
“Where’s the skull?” Singh asked bluntly.
“I gave you the coordinates.”
“Where do you think we are? I have metal detectors. We’ve been up and down this biyatch. There’s nothing here.”
Nevada got up from her chair. “You wouldn’t be trying to cut me out of my fee again by grabbing this thing yourself, would you?”
“ Where is it? ” Singh shouted, his sudden rage rolling out into the distance.
Nevada sighed and took a swig. “It’ll turn up,” she said. “Trust me, these ancient Egyptians, they’ve been jerking us around for the last week. Go here, now go here, turn left at the next intersection. It’s all very Google Maps. Candice?”
Candice looked up from the codex. Even with the drama unfolding before her, it was an obvious struggle to tear herself away. “Yeah?”
“Tomb,” Nevada said. “Supposed to be a tomb around here. Right?”
Candice nodded. “This is the spot they scouted out. So far, all their directions have been accurate. The mountain should be here.”
Singh sputtered for a moment, like he’d eaten a hot pepper. “Mountain? There’s supposed to be a mountain?” He let out a shrill laugh. “Who is this madwoman? Why are you listening to her?”
“She’d a PhD,” Nevada said before Candice could say anything. “If she says there’s a mountain, there’s a mountain.”
“And I say there’s nothing! I say you’v
e broken down right before the finish line, which is worth less than nothing !”
Nevada sipped her beer again. “You sure your guys programmed the GPS right?”
Singh slapped the bottle out of her hand, so hard that it traveled several yards before crashing against a jagged outcropping of rock. The moment it shattered, the rock exploded with inky blackness, a cloud of it spewing from its top like a geyser from an oil derrick. The darkness brought with it a shrieking cacophony so loud that Nevada clasped her hands over her ears. She stared at the liquid void jetting up into the sky for a moment before discerning that it was a swarm of long-tailed bats fluttering up into the evening sky.
And just like that, they were gone. Nevada lowered her hands from her ears and saw the others held themselves similarly. Gore and his men were standing with guns at the ready—itchy trigger fingers. The nervous silence was broken by Singh’s sudden, shrill laugh.
“That was weird ,” he said.
“Where’d they all come from?” Usama asked.
“Good question,” Nevada replied. “Anyone bring a pickax on this archaeological expedition?”
A few minutes later, a pickax careened into the rock. Three of the commandos steadily dismantled the pillar of stone as Nevada watched. She stooped to pick up a shard of rock that had landed in the sand and showed it to Candice.
“What would you say this is? Siltstone? Greywacke?”
Candice took it, rubbing its texture between her fingers, then licked it. “Basalt.”
“Formed from lava.” Nevada turned to Singh. “There’s your mountain. An extinct volcano. No wonder they built the tomb here.”
“Where? I don’t get it.”
“Underneath us.” Nevada gestured to the rock. The commandos pried the cracked debris away, revealing a shaft running downward, the size of a manhole cover. “That’s a lava tube. Like a cave for lava to flow through. And when all the lava was gone…” She looked around. Some of the rocks were simple borders, but the bigger ones all seemed to form a large circle. “We must be standing right on top of the crater. And this.” She patted the lava tube. “This is the rim of the crater. A little decayed, covered in sand, but yeah—volcano.”
“That actually makes sense,” Candice said. “The Tibesti Mountains are volcanic in origin. This could be a lost part of the same mountain range.”
Usama crossed his arms. “It sounds as if your treasure does not want to be found.”
“Quiet, the millennials are talking,” Singh said. “So you’re telling me I have to dig up a fucking desert to get my skull?”
Nevada shrugged.
“Maybe not,” Candice said. “The codex mentions—well, here.” She knelt down and drew the familiar truncated cone of a volcano in the sand. She pointed to the crater. “This is called the caldera, right? It’s the hollow left behind after the magma chamber erupts. However, what the Egyptians describe in their writing sounds a lot like a lava dome.” Inside the caldera, she drew a dome. “It’s basically a big bubble made of dried lava. The Egyptians most likely built the tomb inside the dome, which would obviously protect it from the sands. So in theory, all you’d really need to do is find a way inside the dome and you could walk right into the tomb.” Everyone was looking at her. “I really liked volcanoes as a kid.”
“So we just need a way down, huh?” Nevada kicked a small rock into the lava tube. It bounced off the sides several times before making a last tinny impact on a distant bottom. “I don’t say this lightly, but—to the batcave.”
A flare dropped down the lava tube, bleeding its red light all the way to the bottom. It was followed closely by a length of climbing rope.
“Age before beauty,” Nevada said, holding the rope out to Usama.
Singh coughed. “Maybe it’s better that he stay here. John, don’t you think it’s better that he stay here?”
Gore’s stillness was a gesture in itself. “It could be dangerous down there.”
Nevada took a deep breath. “I want the money ready to be transferred to my account.”
“It will be,” Singh said offhandedly.
Candice hugged Usama goodbye. “Take care of yourself,” she said.
“You take care,” he told her. “You’re the one going in the hole.”
“I’ll have Nevada with me.”
“I suppose that could be taken as reassuring.”
Nevada broke a glow stick and stuffed it in her belt. She started down the rope, Candice behind her. The further down they got, the more the daylight was replaced by the moony green glow from the stick. It was slow-going, repetitive work. When the entrance had dwindled too far away to be seen, Candice had an impression of motionlessness. Like they weren’t getting any closer to the bottom no matter how far they descended.
“If nothing else,” Nevada said when they were far enough down not to be overheard from the surface, “we discovered a mountain. That’s pretty cool. Do you think we get to name it?”
“I suppose so,” Candice said.
“I suggest Mount Candice.”
Candice stopped climbing. “As a name for the mountain?”
“That works too,” Nevada said.
Candice moaned and shuffled downward. A minute later, still not at the bottom, she said, “This Singh… you trust him?”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
“Okay, that’s nice, but I wanted a real answer.”
The glow stick gave out, plunging them into darkness. The surface world was a white dot far above them. Nevada cracked another and stuffed it into her belt. They started moving again.
“He’s paid me before,” Nevada said.
“He’s still needed you before. This is the last one, right? You don’t think they’re just gonna give you the money and go?”
“What can I say? I worked retail.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means, be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”
“You must not get invited to many parties,” Candice said.
The passage they were in narrowed and widened, twisted and straightened, before finally leveling out into a horizontal crawlspace just tall enough to force them to their hands and knees. Candice didn’t try for any further conversation. She could tell that Nevada was as worried as she was, her mind darkly whirling with the plotting it was built for, and she’d be no help simply voicing the thoughts that must already be occurring to Nevada.
Candice herself was so worried that she almost missed the sudden sense of emptiness overhead. She reached up and, feeling nothing, slowly stood. Nevada stood beside her. The green light from the glow stick pushed back the darkness but showed only a stretch of stony ground. Nevada lit a flare that seemed to fill the void with light, but it still touched nothing except the wall they had come out of. Candice looked at that. It curved inward and upward—the dome.
“You smell that?” Nevada asked.
“Smell what?”
Nevada gestured to the ground. Candice saw something kicking back the light from the flare, something liquid. “Oil.”
She dropped the flare into it.
Fire raced away in all directions, prompting Candice to take a step back before she saw that the fire followed a trail: it circled around to either side, outlining the dome, and then plunged inward, the flame filling trenches dug in the earth. Then it was shooting upward, over the edges of a pyramid, not stopping until it reached the capstone. The point of the pyramid glowed, wreathed in blue fire.
Candice’s feelings were indescribable. She could barely think enough to actually take in the pyramid, to believe her eyes. It wasn’t the epic size of the Pyramids at Giza, that was for certain—it fit neatly within the confines of this dome, which was, what, maybe the size of a rugby stadium? Bigger? Smaller? That would make it… God, she couldn’t even guess. It dwarfed her, that was what mattered. It was literally transcendent.
“That is a really nice pyramid,” Nevada said.
Candice looked at her
, unable to believe she could understate something so thoroughly.
“What do you think a pyramid like that would cost? Ten thousand? Fifty thousand?”
Candice shook her head. “Surely more than that.”
“You think it’s a hundred-thousand-dollar pyramid?”
A chuckle shook Candice’s body. “Piss off,” she said, and took a step forward. Her body tingled, like she’d been struck numb by seeing the edifice. Candice giggled. It felt nice. “Come on. We can study it later—never thought I’d say that. But the sooner we get this skull, the sooner my grandfather’s safe.”
Nevada put a hand on Candice’s shoulder. “I’m not coming with you on this one.”
“What are you talking about?” Candice asked, feeling like she’d been struck numb again.
“Plan B,” Nevada said. “You go. Get the skull. If Singh takes it, fine. If things get messy, well… I cover your ass, you cover my ass.”
Candice shook her head. “No, no… we do this together. I need you. What if there’s… What if something—”
“It’s a tomb, Candice. Everything in there has been dead for two thousand years. You’ll be fine.”
“And what if there’s a death-trap?”
Nevada sighed. “There isn’t always a death-trap.”
“What?”
“One in three times, maybe one in four… I’m not really due for one. Anyway, they built this thing in the middle of a desert, inside a volcano. I don’t think they’d bother.”
“You don’t think ?” Candice insisted.
Nevada grasped both her arms. “Candice, listen to me. Think what you’ve been through. You’ve been shot at, beaten up, blown up, thrown from a moving train, taken hostage—there’ve been lions, scorpions, a sandstorm—you’ve been in a plane crash and a shipwreck and a snuff film—you’ve been eaten out—”
“I haven’t been eaten out,” Candice said.
“Not yet, but we have a few minutes.”
Candice rolled her eyes.
Nevada gave her a shake. “You’ve got this. I trust you. Go kick ass.” Then she drew up close to Candice, her lips warm as they kissed her on the forehead. “You’re one hell of a woman,” Nevada finished. She climbed up the first rung of the pyramid.
Candice Cushing and the Lost Tomb of Cleopatra Page 22