The Forbidden Tomb (6 page)

‘Not nothing,’ Jasmine assured him. ‘Rhacotis.’

‘Gesundheit.’

Jasmine smiled. ‘I didn’t sneeze, Josh. That was the name of the settlement before it was formalized as a city in 331 BC. Rhacotis dates back at least two thousand years
before
Alexander.’

McNutt nodded in understanding. ‘Which means we can ignore it because Alexander wasn’t dead yet.’

Sarah clapped sarcastically. ‘Look at that, the monkey’s learning.’

McNutt laughed and beat on his chest like a gorilla. ‘Me smart monkey. Me take rock and beat Sarah in sleep as Pedro watch on fancy box.’

Garcia objected. ‘My name isn’t Pedro, and I don’t watch Sarah when she sleeps! How many times do I have to tell you that?’

‘That depends. When are you going to tell the truth?’

‘I am telling the truth!’ he assured the group.

Earlier, Cobb had cleared his throat to quiet the group. This time he felt the need to go a step further. He put two fingers in his mouth and unleashed a whistle so loud and shrill that Garcia was afraid the hi-tech table was going to shatter. He instinctively flung himself on the glass while the rest of the team covered their ears.

In their limited time together Cobb had never revealed this particular talent, so the team didn’t know what to make of it. They simply stared at him with a combination of shock and awe; as if they had heard the voice of the devil himself.

‘Now that I have your attention,’ he growled as he glared at them in turn, ‘I think it would be best if we stopped screwing around and focused on the mission at hand. We have a unique opportunity here to find something that’s been lost for two thousand years, and I’ll be damned if we’re going to piss it away on my watch. Am I clear?’

The team nodded and lowered their eyes in shame.

‘Good,’ Cobb said with finality. He pointed at Jasmine, the only one who had stayed on task. ‘Sorry about that. What were you saying about Rhacotis?’

She pointed at a section of the document. ‘I’m glad the map starts in this particular era because Rhacotis – this shaded area on the northern coast – served a key function in the eventual design of Alexandria. The architect from Greece who planned the city, a man named Dinocrates, realized the importance of Rhacotis when he surveyed the terrain. Unlike many ports in the Nile Delta, Rhacotis was able to accommodate larger ships because of the depth of the harbor. So instead of tearing down Rhacotis and starting from scratch, he built the city around it. The locals were so appreciative, the area flourished and served as the Egyptian quarter of the city.’

‘Good to know,’ Cobb said as he grabbed the corner of the second page and flipped it over the first. As if by magic, the city doubled in size. ‘Every layer represents a significant passage of time. Battles were fought, and land was won. With each new regime, a new layer was added to the map. This explains the destruction and construction of landmarks and the use of multiple languages.’

Garcia snapped to attention. ‘I think I can help us with that.’

‘How?’ Jasmine wondered.

He reached out to grab the nearest corner of the map. Before touching it, he glanced at Cobb for permission. ‘May I?’

‘Of course,’ Cobb replied.

Garcia pulled the top layer of the stack, separating it from the pile. He pushed it to the far corner of the hi-tech table. Next he took the second layer and arranged it beside the top layer. He continued pulling sheets from the pile until the whole table was covered with the various layers of the map.

Sarah stared at him. ‘What in the world are you doing?’

‘Just a second,’ Garcia said as he hunched over his virtual workstation, typing furiously on the display. ‘I promise it will be worth your while.’

The group watched in confused fascination as his fingers flew across the glass surface, the rapid-fire assault of his hands occasionally punctuated by a swipe or a distinct double tap of his keyboard. They had no idea what he was doing, but his agility and intense concentration were impressive nonetheless.

‘Done!’ he boasted with a final tap of a key.

‘With what?’ McNutt asked.

‘With everything!’

Garcia pointed to the wall-sized video screen behind Papineau, which was now filled with a thumbnail image of every page of the map. Aligned along the left edge of the screen, the images were too small to be of any real use unless they were expanded to full size. For now, they served as a visual reference for the real focus of activity.

In the center of the screen, two windows displayed a flurry of movement. In the first, various sections of the map were being analyzed by an automated program designed to recognize letters within images. If one was found, it copied the letter to the second window where the program tried to identify the letter and language. Eventually words were formed, analyzed, and translated into English. With a touch of a button, Garcia could see the original letters, the language of origin, and even search for connections to other documents in the program’s extensive database.

Jasmine gasped as she moved closer to the wall. She reached out and touched the ancient letters as they were projected on the screen. ‘That’s amazing. Simply amazing. If I had been forced to translate those maps by hand, it would have taken weeks. Yet you did it all in a matter of minutes. I can’t thank you enough.’

Papineau nodded his approval. ‘Well done. Well done indeed!’

Garcia beamed with pride.

Though impressed, Cobb was more pragmatic than the others. ‘Where’d you get that? Did you design it yourself?’

‘I wish,’ Garcia admitted. ‘I tweaked some things to get it to run more efficiently with our hardware, but the program itself came preloaded with the table. According to the manual, it was created by the Ulster Archives – some research facility in Sweden.’

‘Switzerland,’ stated Cobb, who had been unaware of the place before his dinner meeting with Ulster.

‘Wherever,’ Garcia said. ‘The program didn’t come with a title, so I gave it one of my own. I call it:
The Word Is Not Enough
.’

Sarah rolled her eyes. This was the second time Garcia had named something after a James Bond film. In their previous mission, they had used a program called
Goldfinder
. ‘What’s with you and 007?’

Garcia shrugged. ‘I’m just a fan.’

‘Me, too,’ McNutt admitted. ‘I mean, what’s not to like? Fast cars, cool gadgets, and lots of loose women. Sounds like heaven to me.’

Garcia smiled knowingly. ‘Josh, if you think
Bond
’s gadgets are cool, just you wait. You’re going to love this . . .’

Garcia promised something cool – and he delivered.

The team watched in awe as the city of Alexandria rose from the tabletop like a ghostly apparition. An avid believer in the supernatural, McNutt slowly pushed away from the table, worried if he moved too quickly the poltergeist might attack him.

Garcia looked up from his keyboard and grinned. Only he knew how the illusion worked. ‘The city is exactly to scale. Or rather, it’s exactly what is represented on Jack’s map. The computer can’t tell the actual heights of the buildings, so those are approximated from the square footage of their bases and satellite imaging. If you give me more time, I can hack the city planner’s office and make things perfect.’

The others remained silent as the city continued to rise, layer after projected layer. But instead of sprouting from the bottom, structures now materialized in a wave around the perimeter of the city as it sprawled farther and farther from the center.

Sarah waved her hand through the projection, searching for a reflective surface, but her hand passed through the image. ‘How is this even possible?’

Garcia ignored her question. He was having too much fun blowing their minds. ‘What you see is a reproduction of modern Alexandria. The city as it exists today.’ He tapped a few buttons on his keyboard. ‘Now if we overlay the previous map, we get something like this . . .’

Several structures disappeared as others took their places.

Garcia glanced at Cobb. ‘If you’d like, I can keep going until we have every detail from every page of the map.’

Cobb nodded, his eyes never leaving the city.

Garcia entered a new command, and suddenly the holographic images intersected and overlapped in every conceivable way – similar to the chaos of earlier when they tried to view the document as a single map instead of separate maps. In many instances, whole buildings appeared to be consumed by larger ones like hungry nesting dolls.

Jasmine stared in disbelief. ‘This is incredible!’

Sarah was more flummoxed than impressed, and she didn’t appreciate the feeling. ‘Seriously, how is this possible?’

Garcia shrugged, revealing nothing.

‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll figure it out myself.’

He crossed his hands behind his head and smugly leaned back in his chair. ‘Be my guest.’

Never one to pass on a challenge, Sarah stood for a better look. ‘Under normal circumstances, light would need something to interrupt its path, like a screen or something. Otherwise it can’t be seen by the naked eye.’

‘True.’

She passed her hand through the image again, then watched Jasmine do the same on the opposite side of the table. ‘But there’s no screen here.’

‘Nope.’

She leaned to the left and then to the right, hoping to learn more. ‘For a truly three-dimensional hologram, you need something in the air – dust, water vapor,
something –
to reflect the light.’ She rubbed her fingers together. ‘But I can’t feel anything.’

‘If you could, you’d be the first.’

Cobb cleared his throat and tapped his watch.

Garcia got the hint and ended the game. He pointed to the air-conditioning vent above the table. ‘This room uses specially formulated air. Its molecular composition is designed to reflect certain wavelengths of lights. When used in conjunction with the appropriate laser, you’re able to do something like this.’

Cobb nodded knowingly. ‘It’s technology co-opted from the US military. The ability to project an image can be used in a variety of ways. For instance, it can fool the enemy into thinking our numbers are far greater than they actually are. In the not-too-distant future, we’ll be able to create a battalion of fake soldiers out of thin air.’

‘Correction,’ Garcia said. ‘Not out of thin air. Out of
thick
air.’

Cobb smiled. ‘Duly noted.’

‘Is it safe?’ Jasmine wondered. ‘We’re not breathing in air loaded with lead or mercury or something like that, are we?’

Garcia shook his head. ‘No, it’s perfectly safe. It’s a combination of—’

Papineau cut him off. ‘I think your word is enough for now. The exact nature of the chemical elements is not important. If Hector says it’s safe, it’s safe.’

Jasmine nodded. ‘If you say so.’

‘Soooo,’ echoed Sarah, who was still upset that she hadn’t been given enough time to figure out the device, ‘your toy is cool and all, but I don’t see how it’s going to help us find the tomb. I mean, a map is still a map – even if it’s in 3-D.’

‘Actually, it’s a
lot
more than that.’ Garcia extended his right arm with his hand facing up. Then he placed his left hand over his outstretched palm and slowly spread them apart. The movement, which looked like a gator’s jaw opening, caused the layers of the holographic map to separate. Just as the paper map had been divided into sheets, the virtual map was now displayed as a stack of separate levels.

‘Now watch this,’ he bragged.

With a simple twitch of his finger, the program cycled through the layers of the map. Choosing one at random, he reached out and flipped his wrist to the side. As if by magic, the entire map began to spin on a center axis.

McNutt grumbled, still unwilling to approach the table as the ethereal map floated in front of him like a creature from
Ghostbusters
.

Meanwhile, Jasmine was ecstatic. ‘Hector, this is amazing! Seeing the city presented like this provides so much more perspective.’

‘How so?’ Sarah asked.

‘Within each layer there are noticeable developments, but the distinct layers appear to match perfectly with the changes that the city has undergone throughout the years. Hector, take us back to the bottom layer, please.’

Garcia did as he was told.

‘The first layer represents the first three hundred years of the region. We know during that era the city was divided into five districts, or quarters, named after the first five letters of the Greek alphabet.’ She pointed to the model. ‘Look here and here. See how the city appears to be broken into five distinct regions. It’s exactly what we would expect to find. Each subset of the populace had its preferred area, much like you’d find in cities today.’

‘Flip to the next layer,’ ordered Papineau, who approached the table. It was his way of not only urging Jasmine to continue but to see if her theory was correct.

Jasmine studied the map, looking for clues. ‘Notice the difference? Now the borders between the regions have all but disappeared. The neighborhoods have been intertwined, a likely result of the newer Roman occupation and the conflict with the Ptolemies who sought to regain the land under their name. Please, keep going.’

Garcia flipped to the next map. The third level was almost incompatible with the previous version, as if the entire city had been razed and reconstructed.

Jasmine smiled, knowing that a complete transformation had taken place.

Papineau knew it too. Now convinced that Jasmine’s theory was accurate, he urged her to continue her narration.

She happily obliged. ‘Alexandria was nearly erased during the Kitos War. It was rebuilt under the direction of the Roman emperor Hadrian. His city stood until 365. On July the twenty-first of that year, the city was wiped clean again by the tsunami that Jean-Marc mentioned earlier. What wasn’t destroyed by the flood – the so-called pagan temples – was torn down thirty years later when Christianity took hold of the city.’

Garcia turned to the next map.

‘The Muslim conquest of Egypt changed the landscape yet again. It was the last major upheaval of control in Alexandria until the Ottoman reign of the fifteen hundreds. After that, the remaining redevelopment of the eighteen hundreds and nineteen hundreds was limited to localized damage inflicted during various battles and skirmishes.’