The Shroud Key (14 page)

“Keep your heads down back there,” Sameh warns. “This has been going on for days. People are dying in the streets.”

Tahrir Square isn’t really a true square at all, but a large oval with a roundabout in its center. I’ve spent some time here in the past, so I’m well aware that all manner and types of buildings from many different eras make up the perimeter of the square, including a dozen or more consulates and embassies. The Egyptian Museum is located on the square, and so is the Arab League Headquarters, plus the House of Folklore, and even the American University which was thriving the last time I was here, but that now is an empty shell of its former academic glory.

“What are they protesting right now?” Anya begs.

“The same thing they’ve been protesting for more than a year,” Sameh says, his hands tightly gripping the wheel. “The president has taken it upon himself to rewrite the constitution while assuming supreme power. While some celebrate the return of true, militant Islamic rule to the country, others see the President’s declaration of supreme power as the first act in an inevitable civil war between militant Islamists and supporters of a free democratic republic. Our economy is in a shambles. There’s no food, or gas, or jobs. You could almost say the Muslim Brotherhood is propping up a modern day pharaoh while tearing down the country.”

“The Muslim Brotherhood,” I say to her. “These are the same people who have taken away your ex-husband.”

A barrage of automatic gunfire startles us. It comes from directly behind us. Turning in my seat, I see a gang of black-bearded and scarved men. They’re making fists with one hand, and waving AKs with the other. They’re coming up on our car.

“For the love of Allah,” Sameh laments. He presses his foot on the gas, but there’s nowhere to go. Not if he doesn’t want to smash into the car ahead of him. He lays on the horn. One long solid honk.

Get the hell out of the way…

The angry gang is getting closer.

“What do they have against us?” begs Anya.

“They know my car,” Sameh says. “They know it is the car of a fixer… A guide.”

“Let me guess. A guide for westerners and infidels,” Anya adds, her face peering out the back window.

The gang is on us now. They’re pounding on the hood with the butts of the AKs. Screaming and shouting in obscenities I cannot begin to make out, but I somehow understand nonetheless.

Sameh is visibly sweating, the beads forming on his forehead and streaking down his dark face. I don’t like seeing my fixer like this. It means we’re in real danger.

I put my hand on the door. Maybe it’s time we make a run for it.

“No Chase!” he screams. “Don’t do it. They will maul you, drag you away and beat you ...They will beat and rape Anya. They will take me away and kill me.”

I feel my heart lodging itself in my throat.

Anya has grown pale.

“You have a gun?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “Not here.”

“Then just do something.”

To our right is the gravel and sand-covered center of the round-about. Back when I was a kid, the center supported a giant fountain that rivaled something you might find in downtown Rome. But in more recent times, the fountain has been ripped out and replaced with a giant statue of the much revered Muslim leader, Omar Makram. Makram is famous for having kicked the crap out of Napoleon’s troops in a battle waged amidst the pyramids of the Giza Plateau. Behind Omar, are planted some flag poles which used to support the flags of the free world. Only there are no longer any flags flying in the wind, since it’s quite obvious the symbols of the free world have been pulled down, spit on, and burned.

Sameh turns the wheel to the right, hits the gas, drives up onto the gravelly center and guns it. The mob who occupies it is forced to move to the side in one giant wave, or else risk being mowed down and martyred unintentionally. But one man separates himself from the mob, holds his ground, aims the black barrel of his automatic rifle at us.

“Down!” Sameh screams. “Get! Down!”

I grab the collar on Anya’s leather jacket, pull her down onto me. I don’t hear the two rounds that burst through the front and rear windshields above our heads, so much as I feel them fly past.

“You still with us, Sameh?” I bark.

“Thank Allah,” he says, turning the wheel one way and then another, the car fishtailing over the grass and gravel, but somehow moving forward. I feel a heavy thump, and I know the car has dropped back down onto road.

I sit up, enough to peer through the windshield. “Where the hell are we?”

“1973 Victory Bridge,” he informs. “We’ve made it out of the square with our lives. You can breathe now.”

Brushing shards of glass off her shoulders, Anya sits up.

“You okay?” I ask.

“Welcome to Cairo,” she says. “I thought this place was supposed to be a tourist’s paradise on earth.”

I can see she’s trying to look on the bright side, but failing miserably.

“Most of the tourists are long gone,” I say, feeling the beads of sweat pouring down my face, tasting the salt on my lips. “Back when I was a kid I could walk the streets of Cairo alone and not worry about a thing.”

“Back when I was a kid,” Anya says, “I was lucky if my parents took an out of town vacation at all.”

Sameh cuts a quick left and proceeds down a narrow alley. We pass a butcher shop to my right, three skinned goat carcasses hanging from its exterior rafters. The butcher is squatting on the gravelly ground, smoking shisha from a tin-bellied hookah. To my left, a small group of three black burka-clad women move to the side for us. They don’t look at us for fear of making eye contact with the driver. The driver is a man after all, and only their husbands are allowed to look into their eyes.

We speed down a half dozen more alleys, taking too many rights and hooking way too many lefts to make sense of, until we come to a full stop outside the short flight of stairs that access a humble concrete high-rise consisting of maybe nine or ten stories. The neon sign mounted to building’s exterior reads “Kings Hotel.” There’s an armed guard standing at the top of the stairs. He’s dressed in police whites topped off with a black beret.

Sameh gets out, opens the door for Anya.

I exit the vehicle, and take a quick look around. Located directly across the street from the hotel is an old mansion built during the Victorian French occupation. It’s surrounded by brick and iron walls. Several machine gun-armed guards watch over it. There are cars parked in the streets, some of them bombed or burned out and left to rot. Others have become resting places for the many wild dogs that roam the streets looking for an easy meal, or an unlucky rodent to cross the road.

We have no bags other than what we’re carrying, so Anya and I proceed up the stairs behind Sameh. When we enter into the lobby, we feel the coolness of the ceiling fans circulating the air around the dim, stone-tiled room. To our right, the long bar is crowded with khaki and bush-jacketed men, drinking the morning away.

“Here are the keys to your room,” he says, handing us one metal key apiece. “I assume you would like to freshen up. I will wait for you in the bar.”

“Thanks for taking care of us back there,” I tell him. “Have one on me.”

He smiles, his dark eyes rich and genuine.

“That’s my job,” he offers. “You will have a whiskey waiting for you when you return.”

“Make that two whiskeys, Sameh,” Anya adds.

My employer and I make for the elevators, knowing our work in a very unsafe Egypt has only just begun.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The room is small, but spacious enough for two people who barely know one another. There is only one queen-sized bed, so that will have to do, should we even get the chance to use it. Set on the desk is a laptop computer and a large manila envelope which has been sealed with clear packing tape. While Anya uses the bathroom to freshen up, I go to the package, tear the top open. Inside I find a 9mm Smith and Wesson automatic. My preferred brand of hand cannon precisely. Plus two extra ammo clips of nine rounds apiece. There’s also a USB cord and a stack of Egyptian pounds. Slipping the pistol into my pant waist, I stuff the ammo clips into the right pocket of my leather bomber, and the cash into my left trouser pocket. I also use the opportunity to change out the SIM card on my Droid. Anya’s phone is made by Samsung which means changing her card is out of the question. Such are the risks inherent in our quest.

When Anya emerges from the bath, she doesn’t look happy.

“There was barely a trickle of water,” she points out.

“Get used to it. You’re not gonna find Carnival Cruises travelling up and down the Nile anytime soon. You saw what was happening in Tahrir Square. We barely made it out of there alive. Cairo and much of Egypt is a post-revolution wreck.”

I ask her for her smartphone. She pulls it out of her bag and hands it to me. I then proceed to download the shroud photos. When it’s done a few seconds later, I hand her back the phone. I had avoided pulling the Giza map out on the plane or, for that matter, going over the photos we took of the shroud. I had no idea who might be following us. Who might be watching. Now we’re surrounded by four walls. Now will be as safe as things get, until we once more board a plane out of Cairo.

I bring up the photo of the blueprint located on the bottom right-hand of the shroud. Now that it’s downloaded to a computer I’m able to blow it up and get a perfect look at it.

“What’s that look like to you?” I pose to Anya.

She leans in, stares at the screen.

“Like a series of chambers leading down into the depths of the earth.”

I Google
the Giza pyramids and search for a site that contains illustrations of the documented interior chambers of all three. I am immediately able to eliminate both the Great Pyramid and the Second slightly smaller pyramid since their interior chambers and tunnels are far different from what’s displayed on the shroud CAD diagram. But the third, and the smallest of the three pyramids, is different.

“That’s it,” Anya says. “The third pyramid. The pyramid of Menkaure.”

“Different but the same,” I say.

“I don’t understand.”

“The layout on the shroud is the exact opposite of the Third pyramid.”

That’s when I find myself reaching into my right trouser pocket. Pulling out the ancient half-mirror I acquired in the Giza Plateau eight years ago, I hold it up to the computer screen.

“Look at it now.”

Anya grabs hold of my shoulder, squeezes.

“It’s identical.”

“The scholars printed the blueprint in reverse.”

“Why would they do that?”

“We’re talking the bones of Jesus, here. If the bones are located inside that chamber, we’re going to have to work for them. Diversions and false leads will haunt us the entire way. Which is why it’s so important we find your husband and find him soon.”

Anya grabs hold of my arm.

“It’s important we find him because he’s a human being whose life is in danger,” she scolds. “I’m beginning to think that you set your sights on a bag of bones from the very beginning and haven’t taken them off since.”

I gaze down at her hand hold. Slowly, she removes it.

“You’re right,” I say. “You’re husband’s safety before all else.”

“Thank you, Chase,” she says, pursing her lips. “But if only I believed you.”

Typing in a series of commands on the laptop, I make a printout of the shroud blueprint, stuff it into the breast pocket of my shirt. The pocket over my heart. Standing, I pull the pistol out of my belt, thumb the clip release, check the load. Slapping the clip back into its housing, I pull back on the action, load a round into the chamber and engage the safety.

Anya looks at me with a frown and squinted eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I say, placing the gun back into my pant waist.

“I don’t like guns,” she says.

“You like your life?”

“Sure.”

“Then learn to like guns. One of them may save your life one day. Or help save the life of your ex-husband.”

Grabbing my satchel I toss the strap over my shoulder and head for the door.