The Sphinx

CHAPTER 26

Duncan had to grab Mualama twice to keep him from falling off the stairs that led to the floor of the cavern. The African archaeologist’s legs moved numbly, his eyes focused on the Black Sphinx. They followed Kaji and finally ended up standing just in front of the large, dark face with glinting red eyes. The statue between the paws loomed above them, mounted on a six-foot-high black pedestal.

Duncan stared up, even more impressed with this than she had been the first time into Hangar Two and seeing the mothership. The stone copy on the surface was majestic, but this held an overwhelming sense of power.

“The key.” Kaji had his hand out.

Mualama pulled the scepter out of his pack.

“Hold on a second… ” Duncan protested, but Mualama didn’t appear to hear her as he handed the artifact to Kaji.

The Egyptian held it in his hands reverently. “Generations of my family beyond the horizon of known history have watched the Highland of Aker and guarded the way to the Hall of Records.”

“When was the key taken away?” Duncan asked.

Kaji seemed surprised that she spoke. “I do not know.”

Duncan was tired of mumbo-jumbo talk and bowing before Airlia artifacts. The Watchers had known of this hidden Sphinx and the Hall of Records since before recorded history… at least according to Kaji… yet they had kept it hidden, which she had a feeling was the way the Airlia and their lackeys… both sides… would have preferred it.

“You don’t even know what’s inside, do you?” Duncan pressed.

“It is the Hall of Records,” Kaji said.

Duncan shook her head in disgust. “That’s a name for something when you don’t have a clue what it exactly is.”

“The Ark of the Covenant.” Mualama intruded on the conversation, stirring out of his Sphinx fog. “That is what is inside the Hall of Records.”

“And what is the Ark?” Duncan’s voice was sharp.

Mualama’s eyes came off the Sphinx, and Kaji looked up from the scepter. Duncan finally had their attention. She pointed at the Sphinx. “Forget your preconceptions. Forget your legends. Neither of you knows a damn thing about what is really going on. I don’t either.” She jabbed a finger into Kaji’s chest. “You’re setting us up. I know that. He knows that.” She nodded at Mualama. “He’s just too caught up in his search to let that stop him. You’ll leave us down here to die once you have the key and open the Hall.

“You don’t think The Mission isn’t on our trail?” Duncan asked. She didn’t wait for an answer. “You Watchers are out-of-date. Humans can’t sit back and simply observe anymore, because the truce between Aspasia and Artad is over. Your man knew that deep in the Amazon when he alerted us to the Black Death.” With her free hand Duncan pulled a ring out of her pocket and showed it to Kaji. “This is his ring. He was a Watcher, and he died taking a stand. It’s time for you to take a stand. To make the sacrifices the generations of your family who have guarded this place have made worth something.”

She pulled the 9mm pistol that Turcotte had given her out and held it at her side. “I’m tired of people playing games with hidden agendas. My agenda is I want what is in there, whatever it is.” She gestured with the gun. “So let’s open it up.”

Kaji reached out and took the ring from her. He turned it in the light of the false sun, noting the eye design on the face. “It is the sign of the wedjat,” he agreed.

“Open the Hall,” Duncan pressed.

“We will see…” Kaji paused and cocked his head. “Someone has entered the Roads of Rastau.”

“How do you know?” Mualama asked.

“I can sense it.” The first display of emotion that Duncan had seen played across Kaji’s face for the briefest of moments. “They have my son.”

“The Mission is coming,” Duncan said. “You can let us in the Hall or let them in. Your choice. You know you will not be able to save your son, and that the line of Kaji the wedjat on the Highland of Aker will end today.”

Kaji quickly turned and walked forward between the paws of the Black Sphinx.

“What does the stela say?” Mualama asked, referring to the six-foot-high, polished black stone that rested against the chest of the Sphinx at the end of the open space between the paws and upon which rested the statue. High runes were carved all along the face of the stone.

“I do not know,” Kaji said.

Duncan had a feeling he was lying, but the stone could be examined later. She had no idea how far away The Mission’s people were. Mualama pulled out a small camera and took a picture of it. In the very center of the stela was a proportional drawing of the scepter.

Kaji held up the scepter and placed it on the image. He pressed it against the stone for several seconds. Duncan was startled as the glowing orb overhead blinked out for a second, then came back on. The surface of the stone shimmered and the scepter began sinking into it, absorbed into its own image. Kaji let go of it and stepped back next to Duncan and Mualama.

“What now?” Duncan asked as the scepter completely disappeared into the stone. “I do not know,” Kaji said.

“I would think that… ” Mualama began, but he shut up as the stone smoothly slid down, revealing a six-foot-high opening into the body of the Black Sphinx. The passageway beyond had several steps down into it, was eight feet high with curved and straight walls of the same black metal. A thin line of blue lights along the center of the ceiling illuminated the way.

Duncan put the gun away and walked into the corridor, the men following her.

Quinn’s SATPhone buzzed once more. “Quinn here.”

“This is Captain Billam. We need the floor plans for the armory inside the Kremlin.”

Quinn had to stop for a second to run that request through his brain one more time, the image of the bomb lying on the sand still burned into his mind. There was an explosive-ordnance disposal team there now, preparing to make sure the bomb had actually malfunctioned. Quinn did not envy them their job. “How am I supposed to have access to that?”

“I don’t know, sir, but Captain Turcotte said you had access to a lot of information.”

Quinn looked down at the people working in the Cube. His mind was already processing through the various intelligence agencies he could contact. He knew Turcotte was right… the information would be somewhere in the system. “I’ll get it to you.”

“In ten minutes?” Billam pressed.

“I’ll try.”

“Do better than try, sir,” Billam said. “We’ll be over Moscow in eleven minutes.”

“Tell Turcotte when you see him that time is getting short,” Quinn added before Billam could cut the connection.

“I think he knows that,” Billam commented dryly.

“Time to target?” Turcotte had the SATPhone pressed against his ear. “One minute out.” Captain Billam’s voice was loud and clear.

“Ready?” Turcotte asked.

Yakov nodded.

“You sure you can do this?” Billam was looking over his two demolitions men’s shoulders.

The senior demo man, Metayer, was unrolling a length of detonating cord. “We got the floor plans for the building from Area 51, but it doesn’t give composition, so we’re worst-casing it.” He inserted a fuse into the top of the shaped charge. “We’re ready.”

Billam looked through the floor of the craft at the outskirts of Moscow rapidly rushing beneath them, streetlights casting their glow, a few cars puttering about. He hoped the building wasn’t occupied and that Metayer hadn’t overdone the charge to the point of killing those they were trying to rescue. “Thirty seconds!” the pilot called out as he adjusted course, dipping down to fly less than ten feet above the surface of the Moscow River.

The two engineers climbed up the ladder to the top hatch, balancing the shaped charge between them. Below, two more men of the team waited with the second charge the demo men had prepped.

The Moskvorestkiy Bridge appeared directly ahead. The pilot edged forward on the controls, and they flew under the bridge. Just as quickly, the pilot increased altitude and they buzzed the wall of the Kremlin, banked left, missing the spires of the palace by less than two feet, and dropped down onto the roof of the armory.

“Go!” Billam’s order was unnecessary, as Jones and Metayer already had the hatch open. They slid down the side of the bouncer and onto the roof. As Jones prepared the charge on its tripod, Metayer ran a tape measure from the southeast corner of the building. He dropped the end of the tape on the spot, ran back to Jones, and helped him carry the forty-pound charge there. They scampered back up the side of the bouncer, unreeling the det cord.

Jones pulled the fuse igniter, and the charge shattered the early-morning calm. A focused cone of blast and heat cut through the roof of the armory, but Jones and Metayer were already running up with the next shaped charge, which was attached to a rope. They lowered it into the hole the first had created and repeated the process, even as the rest of the team was unloading two more charges and other gear. Billam was in the hatch, the SATPhone pressed against his ear.

Turcotte and Yakov heard the first charge go off and ducked behind one of the carriages, eyes on the ceiling. The fourth charge blew a ten-foot-wide hole in the center of the room.

“You’re through!” Turcotte yelled into the SATPhone, struggling to be heard over the clanging of alarms.

The two men ran forward, jumping over debris, and stood underneath the hole, looking up.

The team sergeant, Boltz, was now the only one near the blast site. The others were getting back on the bouncer. Boltz had two duffel bags at his feet, ropes going from them to clamps on the side of the bouncer. At an arm signal from Billam, he kicked both bags into the hole that ran through the center of the armory.

Weights in each bag made sure they fell, coiled rope playing out. A burst of automatic fire from the adjacent palace caused Boltz to duck. He spotted several guards on the roof of the other building. Several more bursts of fire caused him to crawl toward the bouncer, putting it between him and the firing.

Turcotte grabbed one of the duffel bags, pulling out the harness on the end of the rope, while Yakov took the other.

“I hope the pilot is good,” Yakov said as he buckled the harness around his legs and waist.

Turcotte looked up. The sides of the blasted shaft were mostly irregular, with several I-beams sticking dangerously out. “I hope so… ” His next words were lost as the ropes tightened and both men were jerked off their feet.

Sergeant Boltz had a harness around his waist, a rope keeping him from sliding off the side of the bouncer. He wore a headset that allowed him to speak to the pilot, and he ignored the occasional bullet that pinged off the side of the alien craft as he looked down the shaft, watching the two men get pulled up as the bouncer rose straight into the sky.

A round fired from the roof of the palace skipped off the side of the bouncer and hit Boltz in the left side, ripping through flesh and coming out his upper right back. He collapsed, dangling from his harness as Turcotte and Yakov cleared the top of the shaft that had been blown.

The bouncer began to accelerate, moving south while also gaining altitude.

Hanging a hundred feet below the bouncer, Turcotte and Yakov had linked arms to give them some stability as they were buffeted by the fierce wind. They hung on that way until they were forty miles south of the city, where the pilot brought them in for a gentle landing in an empty field. As soon as his feet touched down, Turcotte unhooked from the harness.

The bouncer landed forty feet away, and the team’s medics were out of the hatch and seeing to Boltz’s condition. Captain Billam, after making sure Boltz was alive, headed toward the two rescued men.

Yakov knelt in the recently plowed field, running his fingers through the earth. “I never though I would be so glad to feel dirt.”

Turcotte pulled the bag with the files and Airlia box off his shoulder and opened it, making sure the items were still inside.

“You have the Spear?” he asked Yakov.

The Russian tapped the box inside his shirt.

Turcotte looked up as Captain Billam loomed over them.

“Have you heard from Dr. Duncan?” Turcotte asked.

“We have no contact with her.”

“Damn it.” Turcotte pulled out his cell phone and punched in the code for the Cube as they climbed on board the bouncer. Quinn answered promptly.

“No word?” Turcotte had the SATPhone against his ear, watching as Yakov searched through the duffel bag. The bouncer was heading south, the Black Sea not far away.

Quinn’s voice was clear despite the distance. “Last report Dr. Duncan sent was that she was going with Professor Mualama under the Sphinx. The NSA is relaying me imagery that shows the Egyptian army sealing off the Giza Plateau.”

The knuckles on Turcotte’s battered hands turned white around the phone. “She’s been betrayed.”

“We don’t know,” Quinn said. He quickly filled Turcotte in on Lexina’s call, the status of Stratzyda, and the nuke lying on the surface above the Cube. “What are your orders?”

“My orders?” Turcotte asked.

“Dr. Duncan left instructions that we were to take orders from you if she was out of contact. You’re in charge.”

“How do I contact Lexina?” Turcotte asked.

Quinn forwarded him the SATPhone access code Lexina had given him.