The Sphinx

CHAPTER 21

Not once had Turcotte or Yakov discussed the possibility that the blockage might extend farther than they could dig. In a strange way, that felt good to Turcotte, reminding him of his classmates at Ranger and Special Forces schools, where he’d worked with the other students on difficult tasks without having to chat about it or discuss the impossibility of the obstacles before them. In such situations talk was wasted energy and time.

Turcotte knew that they were getting closer to the deadline with each passing minute, but he had long before learned to focus his mind on the most immediate task at hand. He was doing everything he could right now. His training and his experience had taught him to avoid panic by taking things one step at a time.

His hands were bleeding from the concrete and stone he’d been lifting and carrying, the pain past the point of sharpness, into a numb, pounding ache. As he headed into the narrow opening they had excavated, Yakov slid out, tumbling large chunks of concrete with him. Turcotte slithered past, along the fifteen-foot-long dig. Several times concrete beneath him moved, which highlighted the possibility that blocks above might collapse. It was dark when he reached the end and he worked by feel, carefully discerning the size of a piece of rubble with his hands, then slowly pulling it out.

Turcotte knew his limits, and he had a very good idea how far past those limits he could push his body. He estimated being able to work about three more hours before having to rest. Then the next work segment would be more difficult to begin because of aching muscles and scabbed-over wounds. And shorter because of less energy. The largest concern he had was lack of water. Taking it one step past how long he estimated he could work, Turcotte figured he and Yakov had about two days of life if they didn’t break through.

Checking his watch, he realized that was about five or so hours more than everyone in the United States had if he did not find the key.

Duncan and Mualama’s arrival in Cairo was not as inconspicuous as they would have liked. Thousands mobbed the edge of the airfield where the bouncer came in for its landing, eager to see the alien craft on its first visit to Cairo despite the early hour. Duncan would have preferred landing directly at the Sphinx site, but the Egyptians had refused them permission to do that and directed they arrive at the airfield.

Duncan had no idea how word of the visit had been leaked, but she had to assume that it had occurred somewhere in UNAOC. The two quickly disembarked, eager to move to the Giza Plateau. The head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) was waiting for them with a car, looking none too happy. Mualama had told her that he had met Dr. Hassar before, at archaeological seminars, but he had never really talked to the man. Hassar’s first words to them were not positive.

“Get in the car, quickly,” Hassar snapped, holding the door open and looking at the crowd anxiously.

Duncan and Mualama scooted in, followed by Hassar, who barked at the driver in Arabic to go. As the car headed for the airfield gates, Mualama stuck out his hand. “I am pleased to be here, Dr. Hassar.”

Hassar ignored the hand; his attention was focused outside the thick window. He rapped a knuckle against the glass. “Bulletproof. I had to call in a favor from a friend of mine in the Foreign Ministry to get this car.” Hassar pointed at the crowds. “They are not all here because of the bouncer. Word has slipped out that you want to attempt to go under the Sphinx. There are many who oppose doing that.”

Based on what Mualama had told her, Duncan had known they would be flying into a hornet’s nest. The SCA had long resisted all attempts by archaeologists to do any work around the Sphinx. Egypt also had a very bad reputation with regard to foreigners, women in particular. The Muslim fundamentalists believed so strongly in fighting the inroads of what they considered decadent Western culture that attacks on tourists were not uncommon.

Duncan decided to cut to the heart of the matter. “Do you oppose it?” she asked.

Hassar seemed surprised at the directness of the question and the source. “Yes, I do. But not because I believe it is sacrilegious or I despise foreigners, as the fundamentalists do.”

“Why, then?” Duncan asked.

“Because it is a waste of time.”

Mualama leaned forward in the seat. “There are open spaces under the Sphinx. That has been proven through various seismic readings.”

“Yes, I know,” Hassar conceded. “A Japanese team using ground-penetrating radar found a hollow to the south of the Sphinx. Not a large one, mind you. Readings indicated a space just a few meters across.”

“And they found a similar hollow on the north side of the Sphinx,” Mualama added. “Which indicated there might be a tunnel going completely under the entire structure.”

“Doubtful,” Hassar said.

“I am more interested in what lies near the paws,” Mualama said.

“The altar found between the paws was added later. By the Romans. You know that.”

“I believe the Hall of Records lies under the paws,” Mualama said.

Hassar sighed. “The Hall of Records? Cayce’s ‘visions’? The ramblings of a madman.”

“There may be more to his theories than scientists like us would like to admit,” Mualama said.

“Ahh!” Hassar slapped his forehead in disgust.

Mualama knew where the other man’s reactions came from, but his own wanderings and studies over the years had forced him to reevaluate many preconceived notions. The name Cayce had come up numerous times during Mualama’s studies, always quickly discredited by scholars and scientists. Edgar Cayce was an American, born in Kentucky in the late nineteenth century, who died in the last year of World War II. He was considered one of the world’s greatest psychics… that thought brought a smile to Mualama’s lips… if one believed in psychics.

“Cayce was a great believer in the myth of Atlantis,” Mualama said. “And now we know that Atlantis did exist.”

“There is not yet any empirical proof that Atlantis existed,” Hassar argued. “We have the word of Professor Nabinger,” Mualama said. “And the stones off Bimini. And the history of the Airlia.”

“Nabinger was corrupted by the guardian,” Hassar said firmly. “Why are you willing to believe Nabinger, yet UNAOC is putting the surviving members of Majestic on trial? Both were in contact with the guardian, were they not? Do you simply prefer what you heard from Nabinger?”

They had passed the outskirts of Cairo and the three great pyramids were in sight across the Nile, the Sphinx crouched in front between the pyramids and the river.

Mualama was incredulous. “How do you explain the mothership, then? The bouncers? The Airlia on Mars?”

“I don’t have to explain them, and I don’t have to believe that there was an island of Atlantis.” Hassar stabbed his finger into Mualama’s chest. “I have had those people pestering me for years to dig under the Sphinx.”

“What people?”

“An organization that honors Cayce and thinks he was a true… a true… ” Hassar sputtered, searching for a word, then gave up. “I have responsibilities. This entire Plateau”… he waved his hand out the window as they passed the first pyramid on the right… “is in my care.

“Do you know how much damage pollution from Cairo causes on the stones? Do you know how many people come here with their crackpot ideas about the pyramids and the Sphinx? And want to run tests? I have people who want to hold religious… or what they call religious… services inside the Great Pyramid. I’ve had actual requests from people who want to commit suicide at the very top… they believe that they will pass on from there directly to a better life!”

He turned to Duncan. “Like your Heaven’s Gate people, there are many who believe they can transport themselves to a better life, and many think the pyramids or the Sphinx are their gateway. It has gotten much worse in the past month.”

Mualama spread his hands to calm the other man down. “But Cayce was right about some things that you now know are true. He was right about another room under the Great Pyramid. The one the Germans found in World War II with the bomb in it. And was rediscovered later by Edmunds. You’ve been in there! And Cayce told of that room long before the Germans found it.”

Hassar wasn’t willing to give away anything. “A good guess. There were others who speculated that there was more under the Great Pyramid than had been found. It was an easy prophecy to make. What about all the other prophecies of Cayce that have not come true?”

Mualama didn’t answer that question. “I believe there is more under the Sphinx than has been found.”

The car came to a halt. The Great Sphinx looked down on them, the aged and beaten face lit by spotlights.

They stepped out of the car. It was relatively quiet, the tourists long gone, the sound of the city a murmur. Duncan felt her inner soul stir under the gaze of the Sphinx as she thought of the generations of humans who had passed in front of it and as she tried to imagine who had built it and why, so many thousands of years ago.

“Let me make one thing perfectly clear,” Hassar interrupted Duncan’s reverie. “I did not agree with my government’s initial decision to cooperate with UNAOC. I did not agree that you two should be allowed to come here.”

Duncan looked at this man who had been in charge of perhaps the world’s greatest archaeological sites for decades. Who had done nothing in all those years to further man’s understanding of his own past. She wondered what would have happened if Hassar had found evidence of the Airlia on the Plateau before the debacle at Area 51. She realized he would have most likely been ridiculed, branded a fool.

“Why do you not agree?” Mualama asked.

“Because it is dangerous,” Hassar said. “You know what happened at the Valley of the Kings several years ago to that tourist group. The fundamentalists here do much more than talk. They shoot.”

“Fear is never a good reason to not act,” Mualama said.

“You are a scientist first,” Hassar said. “You do not understand.”

“What do you mean?”

Hassar stared at the other man as if he were crazy. “This alien thing. The Airlia. It affects people. Each in their own way. You are excited because it brings the past to life and proves things you long believed. But very few people are archaeologists or anthropologists, and very few people care about the future or the past. They care about their lives in the here and now. The things that are important to them in their little world.

“And it is through that prism that they see the Airlia.” Hassar pointed up. “It is with that perception that they look at the mothership overhead. But there are many who won’t look. Who refuse to believe.”

Mualama and Duncan remained silent, listening to the Egyptian official.

“Religion.” Hassar drew the word out. “Do you know how the world’s various organized faiths have reacted to the events of the past month? To the proof that there is life… at least was life… on other planets? That our planet had an alien outpost on it over ten thousand years ago? That aliens were here on Earth before Christ, before Mohammed, before Buddha?”

Duncan had a good idea of what Hassar was talking about, but Mualama had not followed the news much on his travels around the world, nor had there been much opportunity once he was there to keep up on current events. “No, I don’t,” he said.

“It is not just the recognized organized religions,” Hassar said. “I mentioned Heaven’s Gate… those people killed themselves to get on a spaceship they believed was in the tail of a comet. Now we have real spaceships! Do you know how many people have committed suicide around the world in the last several weeks? There are so many new cults. Yesterday I was reading about one formed around the alien base on Mars that worships the ‘Face’ at the Cydonia site.

“And then there are those who are afraid. They fear the unknown. They fear retribution for the destruction of the Airlia fleet. Rome is in turmoil. The Pope issued a statement that said nothing with many words, as that office is prone to do. Do you know what this does to their center-out view of the universe? What of the Airlia? If God exists, then he had to have made them too. Did they have a Son of God visit them to spread the good word? Did they have a prophet like Mohammed to show them the true path? How does all that fit in? Where do we humans fit in, then? What happens to our relationship with God?

“There are some who believe the appearance of the Airlia to be the second coming of the Christian Godchild,” Hassar forced himself to calm down. “Rest assured, Dr. Duncan and Professor Mualama, that those people are not thrilled that UNAOC killed Aspasia. They are the driving force behind progressive groups in numerous countries.

“But Catholics are not a great concern here. Islam is the religion that rules in this part of the world.” Hassar reached out and put his hand on Mualama’s shoulder. He pulled him over to a stone just in front of one of the large paws and they sat down, Duncan following. “I will tell you how the Airlia fits in according to Islam.

“As the Catholics have their angels and demons, Islam, according to the Koran, has its own version of other-than-human creatures: Al-Malak and Al-Jinn. Al-Malak are the beings of light. Al-Jinn are those who were created before man. It is written in the Koran that Mohammed, Allah be praised, was sent to be a messenger to both man and the Al-Jinn.”

Mualama stirred impatiently, the closeness of the Sphinx and the weight of the scepter in his pack pressing on him. “Every Holy Book has writings of other beings,” Mualama said. “Angels and demons and devils.”

“True,” Hassar acknowledged, “but Muslims are the true believers. Their religion comes first in all things. The word of the Koran is law. And either way, this does not bode well.”

“Either way?” Mualama knew that Hassar’s perception was slanted a certain way because he was a Muslim.

“If a Muslim chooses to interpret that Airlia are the Al-Malak, then they are angels and UNAOC has struck against the beings of God. If the Airlia are Al-Jinn, that means they are the devil… but the Koran says even the Al-Jinn can be saved. The leader of the Al-Jinn is named Al-Iblis, but he is also described in places as being an angel or a demon.”

“Dr. Hassar,” Duncan began, “perhaps if… ”

“I have heard Professor Mualama speak,” Hassar cut her off. “At the Pan-African Conference last year. Your topic was the power of myths and legends. Don’t you understand? What is happening here in Egypt is happening everywhere in the world. Angels or demons. Progressive or isolationist.” Hassar slapped the ancient stone they were sitting on. “This is not some intellectual pursuit you are talking about. Ah!” Hassar threw his hands into the air. “What you see so clearly with your own perspective, others see very differently.”

“UNAOC has gotten approval from your government for us to look,” Duncan said. “UNAOC had permission,” Hassar corrected her. “Do you know that Sterling was killed in New York? Shot?”

Duncan nodded. She wondered on the flight here which alien group had been behind the killing or if it had been the work of human fanatics.

“There have been other killings around the world,” Hassar said. “This has made my government reconsider. Your request has been put in abeyance.”

“What does that mean?” Duncan asked.

Hassar shrugged. “That means I stick it on the stack of hundreds of other similar requests that will never be granted.”

“We came here in good faith… ” Duncan began, but the Egyptian cut her off. “And I met you in good faith. I am trying to be reasonable. You are poking a stick into a nest of angry scorpions for no reason.”

“There is a reason,” Duncan said. “Why do you say there isn’t?”

“Because you are risking much for nothing. There is nothing under the Sphinx.” Hassar pulled a photo out of the inside of his jacket and handed it to Mualama. Duncan leaned over to see.

It was a faded black-and-white image. Two men, pith hats guarding them against the harsh sun, stood just to the left of the spot Mualama and Hassar were currently occupying.

“This was taken in 1922,” Hassar said.

“And?”

Hassar pointed to the right paw. “They opened the door you want to open between the paws. And found an empty room.”

“I will hire a local crew to help move the stone.” Mualama handed the picture back.

“Please.” Hassar gripped Mualama’s forearm. “Please do not do this.”

“I have to.” He placed his large black hand over the other man’s. “I will respect the Sphinx. But I must look.”

Mualama reached into his pack and pulled out the scepter. He tilted it in front of Hassar, the ruby eyes glinting.

Despite himself, Hassar was interested. “What is that?”

“A key,” Mualama answered.

Hassar took it out of Mualama’s hands. He turned it, feeling the weight. “Where did you find it?”

“Ngorongoro Crater.”

“Ngorongoro,” Hassar mused. “The Garden of Eden, so some say. Just lying there on the ground?”

“No.”

Hassar waited.

“It was in a coffin. There was a marker above the coffin. The marker directed me here.”

“Who was in the coffin?” Hassar asked.

“An Airlia body.” Mualama took the scepter back.

Hassar sighed and looked out toward the Nile. Duncan could well imagine the conflicting feelings the Egyptologist was experiencing. His entire life had been dedicated to promoting Egypt’s past, and in the past month all the supposedly known “facts” had been tossed on their ear.

“Was a spear found here?” Duncan asked.

Hassar frowned. “Excuse me?”

“During World War Two. Was a spear found in the Great Pyramid?”

“No.”

“Where is Kaji?” Duncan asked.

“I know no one named Kaji.” Hassar stood. “As I told you. You do not have permission to do anything in this area.”

“We will not leave,” Mualama countered.

“You touch any stone, dig anywhere on this Plateau,” Hassar said, “and I will not be held accountable for the results. You have been warned.”

The steel claw flashed down, spearing through the Martian soil, and struck something solid that wasn’t rock. All the mechrobots came to a halt as the information was relayed back to the control center underground.

New commands were sent and the mechrobots began to dig more carefully, scraping away the soil. Soon black metal was exposed to the light of the distant sun for the first time in many millennia. The edges of the metal that met the light were twisted and scarred from some terrible force.

Inch by inch, foot by foot, more of the wreckage was uncovered.

Turcotte's fingers scrambled, trying to get a grip on a small piece of concrete, when the block fell away from him, out of his reach. He had to think for a second through his exhaustion to realize what that meant. He pushed himself forward, ignoring the sharp edges that dug into his stomach, and peered. There was only darkness. He reached out, hands probing.

His left hand went as far it could reach and touched nothing. He held his breath and cocked his head. Very faintly he could feel air flowing over the skin on his face.

“We’re through!” he yelled back to Yakov. “Come on!” Turcotte pushed himself forward and tumbled free, into the undamaged tunnel beyond the blockage.

Behind him, Yakov heard the yell. He squirmed into the tunnel to follow the American. As he got near the end, the going got much tighter. The only other time Yakov had wished he were smaller was when he had been caught in an ambush in Afghanistan. He pushed his wide shoulders through the narrow opening, hearing cloth rip. He exhaled, making his rib cage as small as possible, and held his breath. He pushed with his legs and fell free.

As Turcotte grabbed him, the top of the tunnel they had created imploded, leaving them in pitch black.

“The power line to the lights must have been cut,” Yakov said.

“You think?” Turcotte’s voice held an edge of sarcasm. “And, of course, we didn’t bring a flashlight. The Boy Scouts would not have given us a merit badge for this exercise.”

“Speak for yourself,” Yakov said. A glow of light came out of the penlight in the Russian’s hand, as bright to the two men as if it were a searchlight. “Let’s go.” Yakov strode off down the tunnel, Turcotte close behind.

After ten minutes, they had to make their first decision. The corridor split at a Y intersection. Yakov shone his light down each. The left fork was narrower and went down; the right stayed the same size and level.

“Well?” Turcotte asked.

“Flip a coin?” Yakov suggested.

“I say we go left. Seems like lower would be where the Archives are.”

“Makes sense,” Yakov agreed, and he bent over so he could fit in the five-and-a-half-foot-high tunnel.

As they went down, Yakov suddenly paused. There was a noise to his left. He shined the light in that direction. Several sets of eyes gleamed back at him. He cursed.

“Rats,” he warned Turcotte.

Turcotte noted something else. “Check out the walls.”

Yakov pointed the penlight. The walls were no longer concrete, but iron. Swinging the light around, Yakov showed that they were now in an iron pipe, five and a half feet in circumference. Streaks of rust circled about them, and the air was growing fetid.

“We might be in the drainage system,” Yakov suggested.

“Let’s keep going.”

“Maybe we should take the other… ” Yakov paused as a groaning noise came from beneath their feet. Both men looked down as Yakov pointed the light that way.

“Oh, crap,” Turcotte muttered as cracks in the iron radiated out from under Yakov’s feet and down the pipe faster than his eye could track. He looked for something to grab on to, found nothing, then the pipe gave way beneath him.

He slammed onto metal curved underneath him… another pipe, but this one was angled… and before he could slow his momentum, Turcotte was sliding after Yakov, going faster and faster as the pipe angled closer to the vertical.

Colonel Tolya cursed. He had been less than two hundred meters from the bug when it had begun moving. As he watched, the glowing dot moved horizontally and at an incredible pace vertically, dropping down on the screen so fast that Tolya had to quickly adjust the scale to keep the dot from disappearing.

“We need to go down, very far down,” Tolya told the engineer as he watched the screen, wondering how the others could be moving so quickly.

He wished he could call in more help, but he was uncertain how much more loyalty he could buy. Everything was for sale in Russia, and using the money Katyenka had given him, he had hired these men from among the contingent that guarded GRU headquarters in Moscow.

The other problem he had was lack of communications. FM radio didn’t work in these tunnels, so for all he knew the ones he sought might have even escaped, but he doubted that. Either Katyenka had dealt with things and no longer needed him, or she’d failed and no longer needed him. Regardless, Tolya’s task was to find the Archives and kill anyone else who found them.