Pyramid of the Gods (4 page)

Chapter Six

A dreamless night came as a welcome relief.

Refreshed the next morning, my only regret was not taking advantage of Marie’s randy mood fueled by her inebriated state. Trouble was, I was just as drunk. After stumbling in the darkness of our tent, and nearly knocking over a gas lantern, the next thing I knew the morning light peered in through the tent’s entrance.

Smooth move, Romeo,
I thought.

“
Well, sleepyhead, do you think you’ll be getting up any time soon?” Marie appeared before me, fully dressed and wearing her patented smirk. Through my glazed eyes, her khaki blouse and the outline of her ponytail appeared ignited by the sun’s rays.

“
Huh? What time is it?”

“
Well...breakfast is ready, and has been for about three minutes, by my guess,” she said, giggling. A definite sweet moment for her. “My paperweight, as you call it, says the time is seven-o-nine.”

“
Why in the hell didn’t you wake me up an hour ago?”

But she was gone without an answer, leaving me to scramble for my clothes. Often, this sort of experience came complete with a nasty hangover. Not this time.

At least there was that.

“
Too much fun, Mr. Nick?”

Akiiki handed me a plate of scrambled eggs and jerky and a cup of Ishi’s coffee when I joined the others. Rather than add too heaping teaspoons of sugar, as I had the prior two days, I drank it straight while wolfing down the tasteless, powdered eggs and spiced jerky.

“More than I deserve, I guess,” I said, glancing at the dig site. A breeze pushed swirling sand toward the hole, as if the desert had begun an earnest effort to heal the wound we dug out yesterday. “Why in the hell didn’t you two wake me sooner?”

“
We tried!” said Ishi, indignantly. “But only she woke up...
you
turned over after telling me to bugger off!”             

“
Sorry, old pal.”

Always tough to apologize when I’m not convinced I’m in the wrong, I wasn’t willing to concede anything just yet.

“Do not worry, my friend,” Akiiki said to Ishi, moving to put the cookware away while eyeing me impishly. It was more than that, as really it was an elfin smile with a penetrating gaze, like he was trying to catch a glimpse inside my soul. “It’s probably best to follow the boss’s urgency to get started.”

The growing urge to get started on the day’s work overrode all else. It was both a familiar and odd sensation. Something was out of synch.

“Well, after everyone nourishes the shrubs and cactuses, I’d like to get started,” I said, armed with cigarette number one. I looked forward to having at least three more, to make up for my abstinence from yesterday. “Chop-chop!”

* * *

Our next problem was that there was only room for two diggers, and so we worked in shifts. Two at a time, continuously. Over and over until something beautiful happened.

We came across a sealed doorway.

Akiiki and I, who’d been working side by side, exchanged surprised looks. Two hours of digging later, and we pushed on the sealed limestone. Amazingly, beautifully, the door pushed inward, but as it did, the sand surrounding the rest of door poured into the chamber beyond the entrance.

As it did so, the scaffolding began to collapse amid shifting sand below. Clinging to the upper bars, he and I crashed into the doorway.

“Nick! Akiiki! Are you all right?”
cried Marie. She and Ishi scurried after us into the hole. Getting out was going to be fun. Rule #44 in
Nick Caine’s Practical Looters Handbook:
“
Always have an escape plan.”

“
Nick—”

“
We’re fine!” I told her. “I think, anyway. Akiiki...are you all right, man?”

“
I think so,” he said from somewhere in the darkness ahead of me. I assumed from the sound of his voice, we were either in a small room or tunnel.

“
Damn, did any of us bring a flashlight, or are they all back at camp?” I asked.

“
I have one,” said Ishi. “But, it’s small.”

He and Marie joined me, and when he turned on the palm-sized lamp and pointed it toward the entrance, we found Akiiki standing just inside the doorway. A tall man in stature, he appeared to have gained a few inches, until I noticed he stood atop a debris pile.

“What the hell happened?” Marie asked, reaching out to touch the door. It was covered with glyphs, some familiar but many foreign to me.

“
The door gave way,” I said. “Guess it wasn’t locked.”

My attention was drawn to the colorful pictographs on the wall behind Akiiki. Several hours, or perhaps even an entire day, had been nixed from having to dig through sand in the rising heat to get to this point. We had caught a lucky break.

“But that makes no sense,” said Marie. She held onto the back of my shirt as I stepped past the door and down into the room. “Time and thousands of pounds of pressure would’ve breached the entrance eons ago. Don’t you agree?”

“
Yep, that sounds about right.”

“
Nick, I’m serious—something feels wrong about this!”

There she goes, being a girlie lass...

“There’s nothing wrong about a room full of gold,” I quipped.

Ishi pulled up the rear and positioned the flashlight to where we could clearly see everything around us. The room was a tunnel after all, and the shaft extended almost sixty feet. We continued along, slowly, carefully, and the next limestone door we came across had gold handles.

Every looter lived for that flash of gold. Well, it was flashing now, and I think I was grinning from ear to ear.

“
Gold makes me happy,” said Ishi.

“
It makes me happy, too,” I said, caressing the smooth handle. “Very, very happy.”

“
I knew it!” enthused Akiiki, shouldering past me. “I wonder if it is booby trapped?”

“
You’ve spent too much time watching Indiana Jones,” I said. “Let’s see what’s on the other side. Maybe Sekhmet herself will be there to greet us.”

“
Perhaps, indeed!” laughed Akiiki.

It was hard to ignore the pictographs on the walls—images that hadn’t been seen for thousands of years. I moved closer to study them, even if briefly, adjusting my dust mask since God only knew what ancient pathogen might be waiting for us. The images of a goddess, half lioness and half human, dominated the imagery. But the story itself could take weeks, if not months, to translate. Complicating things were other symbols similar to what Ishi and I encountered in South America.

I thought of the other night...the tunnel was eerily similar to the one in my dream. Dad’s treasure chamber lay beyond the open doors in his tunnel. Would it be the same for us?

“
Do you wish to help me open this one?” asked Akiiki, once I joined him, grinning like a kid at Christmas. He didn’t wait to test one of the handles.

“
Sure. Close your eyes, everyone, in case this thing goes
kaboom
!”

“
Are you serious, Boss?” Ishi wheezed, as he caught up to us. I motioned for him to pull up his mask and wear the damned thing.

“
No. But it was worth hearing your reaction, Ishi.”

“
Still, we should be careful, you never know what might be waiting for us on the other side...”

Marie’s voice trailed off as we pulled the doors open. Well, sort of open, as getting them to budge was no easy feat. Something glittered beyond the doorway, captured by the flashlight’s errant beams as we followed Akiiki beyond the doorway.

“Holy shit,” I whispered, unable at first to muster much else.

The flashlight’s beam revealed a small statue bearing colored details painted on gold. Flashing the beam to either side of us revealed many more statues, along with piles of gold furnishings and trinkets. Hell, the room was enormous and I couldn’t determine where it ended in the dimness beyond the initial piles sparkling with embedded jewels.

“Oh, my God...this
has
to be the right place!” Marie grabbed the light from Ishi and passed it slower to reveal more of the room and its contents. The cache was much bigger than even I expected. “There’s no way we can carry this stuff out of here! Not even if we remain in Egypt for a few months, traveling back and forth to Cairo. It’s
incredible!
It’s...”

We all heard it: a rumbling above our heads.

“We’ve got to get out of here.
Now!”
I urged everyone, fearing it was already too late. Someone was outside. Many someones. The rumbling sounded like a fleet of trucks.

We quickly retraced our steps. But before we reached the main entrance, a handful of men had descended into the hole with ropes tied around their waists, each packing military hardware, including automatic rifles and holstered pistols.

Definitely not the local welcome wagon lady stopping by to see how we liked our new digs.

“
Shit!
We can’t get out here—we need to go back!” I whispered, hissing the words. I spun around and pushed Ishi and Marie ahead of me. Akiiki kept pace as we scurried down the tunnel back toward the treasure room.

“
Stay right where you are!” The accent was similar to Akiiki’s, although the venomous delivery of the words was not. Two bright halogens greeted us as we looked back, blinding us from seeing the owners of the heavy footsteps coming our way. “Move a muscle—or even sneeze—and we will cut you in half where you stand.”

Chapter Seven

Motumbo Kalabi was the bandit leader’s name.

“So, Nicholas Caine...what brings you to the land of the Sudanese?” He was holding my passport and driver’s license.

It wasn’t the first interrogative question from Mr. Kalabi. But after being bitch-slapped and sucker-punched, I figured it marked the official start of the question/answer game to determine how much longer we’d enjoy our earthly stay.

By my count, there were seventeen miscreants. All armed as heavily as the bastards who forcibly dragged our asses out of the tunnel, up the sides of the hole, and in front of one of two
technicals
. For the uninformed, these are small trucks carrying tripod machine guns in the back. The thieves had also brought a bigger truck equipped with caterpillar tracks to prevent sinking in the sand.

With nowhere to escape, offering resistance seemed ill advised. Marie looked to me for assurance when two of the men bound her arms behind her—similar to the rest of us. One of the men brushed his hands back and forth across her breasts while the other tightened the rope. I wanted to launch myself at the asshole. Launching myself would get us all killed. Me first.

Down boy. Live to fight another day.

I said, “Last I checked, we’re still in Egypt. That means you’re trespassing. I’ll accept your surrender.”

His laughter was more boisterous than I’d expected. “You think you are a comedian, Mr. Caine?”

He nodded to one of three muscular men who looked as if they could be Akiiki’s brothers. I prepared for another blow—or kick, since they liked to mix it up—but the man tightened the garrote attached to my wrists, pulling my arms up higher behind my back. I think I would have preferred to be kicked. I was certain my arms were going to break.

“Are you ready to answer me now, Mr. Caine?”

To say I nodded with some enthusiasm would be an understatement.

He nodded, too, although not quite as enthusiastically. “Tell me again why you are here, Mr. Caine.”

“
We were given permission to dig here by the Ministry of Antiquities,” I confessed, determined to stick to the least revealing facts.

“
How interesting,” he chuckled, and eyed Akiiki. “And, you...you are nothing more than a slave to these whites and their mongrel they brought with them from overseas. No?”

“
I answer to no man or woman,” said Akiiki, raising his chin defiantly. “I am more a free man than you and your puffed-up, peacock foolishness will ever be. You are ruler to these bad men who would all cut your throat for the right price. I, on the other hand, am lord to myself, and at peace with whatever fate awaits.”

Insanity or brilliance? It depended on how the Lord of the Flies reacted. The look reflected contempt, but his shaking fist, which I feared might render my drivers license to a useless wad of plastic, was of greater concern. The man, if anything, could barely control himself. How many people he had killed, I didn’t know. But my loose guess was:
many
.

Meanwhile, the calm serenity in Akiiki’s countenance made me rethink my earlier opinions of him. Either this cat was a saint or the biggest fool I’d ever met.

I expected Akiiki to become victim number one. Most violent men like to make an example of one of their captives to ensure subservience from the rest. It’s why Leo Da Vinci killed my buddy Mario Thomas long ago. As a kid fresh out of college, I sang like a canary while Mario’s brains ran down my shirt.

“
Perhaps we shall soon see how happy you are with your fate,” Motumbo advised, and returned his gaze to me. “You have many enemies, Nick Caine. Did Yassir Ali happen to mention how much he loathes American profiteers like you? He was most disappointed you came back for a treasure you’re not entitled to—no more than your friend who died in your arms searching for the same damned thing.”

He paused to gauge my reaction. Though my heart raced, I fought to remain calm. The only weapon I had access to was my stubborn resilience. The game would end if I cracked mentally, or worse, emotionally.

“Have you no response?” he said, after nearly a minute passed in awkward silence. Motumbo studied my face intently, as if searching for the slightest twitch, while I eyed him as if he were a spring rose instead of the rancid piece of shit I regarded him as. “I believe you have something that now belongs to me.”

He motioned for the guy behind me to frisk me, digging his fingers into a few sensitive places. The map they sought was inside my left boot, which they didn’t check. But my relief was short-lived. Motumbo said something to the pair guarding Marie, as apparently she was next.

“It’s inside my shoe!” I blurted out. I couldn’t stand the thought of her being violated as I had been. “The map is there, inside my sock.”

Motumbo raised his hand, and the men back away, glaring at me. If I wasn’t careful, the woman who captured my affections could be ravished violently next time. I had no choice but to cooperate.

“It is the map that led us here,” I said.

“
To find the Hittite gold?”

I cast a nervous glance at Marie, Ishi, and Akiiki. All three wore expressions begging for silence. But we had no other immediate bargaining chip. The Beretta had escaped detection, strapped to my inner thigh, but would only be of use in the right situation. Now wasn’t the time.

“Yes,” I said.

He chuckled and moved closer. God these mothers needed a bath something awful.

“So...is it down there?”

He pointed to the hole, where our ruptured scaffolding peered out. Strong gusts sent drifting sand towards the opening.

“Yeah...yeah it is,” I confirmed, my voice void of emotion. I felt defeated, and both betrayer and betrayed. Betrayer to my friends and betrayed by corrupt officials, who were the very thing that set me on the path to become a looter instead of the scientist I was schooled for. Why fight them, when you could work around them?

“
Then you have found the temple of Sekhmet, Mr. Caine?”

“
We believe so.”

He grinned broadly, then instructed his men back into the tunnels. Then he turned back to me. “I wish to correct your erroneous way of thinking before we finish our business here today.”

His words sounded ominous. An obvious threat of worse things to come? I thought about the immense room below, with untold riches, and glanced at the bigger truck. Motumbo was off his frigging rocker if he believed he was going to transport the gold horded below in just a few trips.

“
That you have accepted my offer to surrender?”

Except he wasn’t really listening. He was looking up into the sky, a far-off look to his eye. He said, “Maybe Sekhmet will smile on us if we slit your throats and let your blood bathe the sand.”

Next to me, Marie squeaked. I might have squeaked, too, although in a more manly way.

Motumbo lowered his gaze back to us, then pulled back his vest to reveal the ivory handle to a long, curved blade. “If it were ever true that the lioness goddess is real, then the gold stored here is unlike any other from around the world. It is the fuel to take her home.”

“Do you seriously believe the nonsense about her being from outer space?”

“
It depends on my mood,” he said. “It is part of the same debate about killing you now or letting you live a while longer. I could go either way, and sleep well all the same.”

The iciness in his tone chilled me, and Marie moved closer to me. Ishi uttered a Tawankan prayer, barely audible. Or was it a curse? Only Akiiki looked at peace. Dude was damned near impossible to figure out.

At that moment, the men sent to verify my gold story clambered out of the hole, shouting something indiscernible to me. Once Motumbo had them repeat their announcement, he whirled around to face me, the knife drawn from its hilt.

“
What do you take me for?” He brought the knife up to my throat.

“
What the hell are you talking about?” I said, or tried to say. Hard to talk with a blade pressed against your Adam’s apple.

“
The gold! Where is it?”

“
It’s where I told you it is.”

The faint smell of previously shed blood wafted from the blade, and the chipped edge of the blade pricked my skin.

“You’re lying! My men said they found the room you spoke of. It’s empty!”

“
That’s impossible!”

But it turned out to be the truth.

Somehow, in the twenty minutes that had passed since our discovery of the treasure room, the gold had disappeared. All of it...vanished.

And now we were going to die.