The Last Chamber (5 page)

Will’s head turned slightly as if he saw something out of the corner
of his eye. As he did, he squeezed his trigger.
 
The weapon clicked.
 
Wyatt’s didn’t.

He reacted instinctively and fired his weapon when he saw Will’s
finger move.
 
The shot rang out in
the tiny space, instantly causing both of his ears to ring loudly.
 

The bullet’s impact sent Will staggering backwards, his gun clanked to
the floor.
 
A dark, wet stain
formed around a hole in the right side of his North Face jacket.
 
He leaned up against the door for a
moment, looking down at the bleeding wound.
 

“You should have killed me,” he said, his voice trembling
slightly.
 

Sean said nothing.
 
His
ears were still ringing from the shot.
 
But kept his weapon raised, and stayed a safe distance from Will.

“You’re going to be apprehended as soon as we arrive at Luxor,” he
said.
 

“By who?” Will laughed, sickly.
 
“You?
 
You don’t work for
the government anymore.
 
The
Egyptians don’t know you.
 
If
anything, they’ll arrest you!” He clutched the wound in his upper abdomen,
wetting his fingers with blood.

“I’m not giving you to the Egyptians,” Sean said, in a scathing
tone.
 

Will’s face had become ashen, and he coughed a few times. He knew
there was no escape. Then again, there was always one option. His hand slipped
onto the handle of the door and jerked it open. Sean lunged forward to grab him
but it was too late. Will’s legs pushed hard and he jumped out of the room and
disappeared into the desert night.
 

Sean rushed over to the opening stuck his head out.
 
In the pale light of the moon, he could
see Will roll to a stop in the dust far behind the train.
 
He wasn’t sure whether the bullet wound
was fatal or not, but without medical attention, he would bleed out within the
hour.
 

Sean reached over to the handle and pulled the door closed. He stuffed
the gun back in his jacket then knelt down and grabbed the one Will had
dropped.
 
He reopened the door for
a moment before tossing Will’s gun out into the darkness.
 
After reclosing the door, he headed
back towards his car.
 

No way I’m
going to sleep now,
he thought.

Nekhen, Egypt

“We’re here, Sir,” the voice of the driver woke Lindsey from his
slumber.
 
He wondered how long he’d
been asleep.
 
Sleeping in cars
wasn’t something he could normally do.
 
However, travelling so much lately had finally taken its toll.
 
He yawned and stretched out his
arms.
 
Apparently, his French
companion had also fallen asleep and was rubbing his face in an attempt to wake
up.
 

One of the security team members from the other vehicle opened the
door for Lindsey, and the older man stepped outside into the cool, early
morning.
 
He gazed up at the sky
for a moment, taking in the view of billions of stars.
 
He’d heard the desert provided an
amazing panorama of space. But seeing it was a whole other thing.

“Always darkest before dawn, eh Monsieur?” DeGard also looked up into
the dark canvas above before returning his attention to the matters at
hand.
 
Nearby, ancient ruins of
some of the earliest temples known to man sat quietly among the rocks and
hills.
 
The details of the
formations were hard to make out in the darkness, but Degard had seen all of
that before.
 
What interested him
was something that he doubted many others had taken note of.
 

“Lights over there, if you please,” he ordered the men who were
gathering equipment from the other vehicles.
 
“Around the base of that rock formation.
 
Two flood lights outside and then take
the rest inside the cave.” He was in his element, back in the field, where he
belonged.

Off to the right, about a hundred feet away, a light breeze played
with a canvas tent.
 
Just outside
the shelter were several tables and an old Range Rover.
 

“Should we dispose of them?” one of the men asked Lindsey, pointing
with a sub-machine gun in the direction of the excavation camp.
 

“Not yet,” the older man answered.
 
“They should leave us alone.
 
Just set up a perimeter in case they wake up and get nosey.”

The muscular man nodded and trotted away to help the others.
 

Half an hour later, small generators quietly hummed, and the ruin’s
formation began to take shape in the glow of the floodlights.
 
A rocky hill rose up about sixty feet,
to a sharp point.
 
A cave entrance
had been adorned with stone sculptures, cut out of the rock face itself.
 
Time and weather had made it difficult
to tell to which gods the giant beasts paid homage.
 

Lindsey followed DeGard over to the sand-colored stone.
 
The Frenchman gazed at it with narrowed
eyes.
 
“It has been a long time
since I have been here,” he said distantly.
 
“The place has not changed a bit in all these years.
 
Let us hope the inside is just as equally
intact.”

DeGard strolled towards the cave entrance as more lights began to come
on inside.
 
When they entered, the
two men were greeted with walls painted in pale colors from blue and red to
black and gold highlights.
 
The
atrium of the cave was a rectangular room, around thirty feet long and fifteen
feet wide.
 
The place smelled of
stale air and ancient dust.
 
Any
artifacts that had been discovered there had long been removed.
 
Fortunately, what DeGard needed was
still there, right where he had remembered it.
 
He walked slowly to one wall and ran his finger along some
of the hieroglyphics.
 

“These are some of the oldest writings we have ever discovered on the
planet,” he said quietly.
 
Lindsey
looked on, clearly confused as to what any of the inscriptions meant.
 
He didn’t need to know.
 
That was why he had hired DeGard.

“What are we looking for?” Lindsey asked impatiently.

“Of course.
 
You want to
get on with it.
 
Please forgive me
for taking a moment to appreciate the enormity of where we are standing.
 
What we are looking for is through
there.”
 
He pointed a slender
finger towards a door at the other end of the room.
 
He motioned for a one of the guards to hand over a
flashlight.
 
DeGard switched on the
beam and led the way through the dark portal.
 

Along the narrow passage were more wall paintings and hieroglyphics,
similar to what they had seen in the first area.
 
DeGard paid them little attention, and kept walking steadily
forward.
 
He passed several other
doors as he went.

“What are all these rooms?” Lindsey wondered, as he forced himself to
keep up with the Frenchman.
 
The
guards behind Lindsey kept their flashlights on the floor as their employer
continued walking.

“Funerary chambers,” DeGard informed without looking back.
 

Lindsey scowled at the answer, but said nothing else.
 
After a few minutes of trudging through
the primordial corridor, DeGard came to a stop.
 
He stood under an archway, pointing his flashlight into a
grand chamber.

The room’s walls were completely bathed in ancient texts and
pictures.
 
Images of men, animals,
and gods decorated the smooth, stone surfaces.
 
DeGard stared at the impressive sight for a moment before
proceeding further.
 
He strode
confidently over to the far wall, passing by two stone boxes.
 

“What are those?” Lindsey asked as he passed the crates.
 

“The exterior sarcophagi.
 
The mummies and their more valuable inner sarcophagi were taken long
before we got here.”

“Mummies?
 
Who was buried
here?”

DeGard stopped before he reached the far wall and turned around.
 
His flashlight shone on Lindsey’s face,
irritating the older man.
 
“A few
moments ago, you seemed to have no interest in the history of this place, only
what secrets it may hold.
 
Now you
want to know everything?”

Lindsey shook his head, but he did not appreciate being
reprimanded.
 
“Just find whatever
it is we need,” he scowled.

“That’s what I thought,” DeGard said as he turned around and stepped
over to the wall.
 
“But just so you
know, they aren’t sure who was buried here.”
 
He got down onto one knee and started brushing away the sand
on the floor.
 
“Historians believe
it was someone who predated the first pharaohs.
 
But this place is so old it predates any records of ancient
Egyptian society.
 
There is a
theory that a few of us in the field have come to believe may be correct. I
believe that they come from a different race of people.”

“What do you mean, a different race?” Lindsey wondered.

DeGard ignored the question for a moment while he continued to scrape
away dust and sand from a particular spot on the floor.
 
After a few minutes of working, he
found what he was looking for.
 
Engraved in the ground was a symbol that looked very similar to the one
on the stone disc Lindsey had in his pocket.
 
A little more brushwork revealed that the images were
identical.

Lindsey’s eyes grew wide as he realized what he was seeing.
 
DeGard pointed to one of the symbols
embedded in the center of the disc.
 
It was a triangle with a circle in the center.
 

“I mean they were not Egyptian,” he finally answered after catching
his breath.
 
“They were pre-Hebrew
settlers.”

“Pre-Hebrew,” he repeated in a whisper. “The legend is true.”

“If you are talking about the legend of the tree, perhaps you are
getting ahead of yourself. But we will see what this means.”

DeGard brushed away more of the dirt and found a small hole in the
center of the floor’s engraving. The indention was almost the exact size of the
stone disc Lindsey had given him. Degard placed the object into the recession
and took a step back, looking expectantly at the little space. Nothing
happened.

Lindsey glanced over at the French archaeologist for a moment,
wondering what he was doing. “Is that supposed to open some kind of secret
passage or something?”

DeGard frowned. “I don’t understand. That’s obviously where the disc
was meant to go.”

He got back down on his hands and knees and investigated the piece. He
pressed on it with his index finger but, still, nothing happened. After another
minute of trying in vain to figure out what the problem was, DeGard pried the
disc out of the hole and put his face down close to it.

“Ah,” he said, finally. “That explains it.” He put the object back
into the recess and slid it forward.”

There was a click followed by a deep rumble. A portion of the wall
began to slide sideways, revealing a seam at first then a narrow opening, just
wide enough for a man to fit through. After less than thirty seconds, the
massive doorway stopped and the rumbling ceased.

“Sir,” Kaba stepped into the room touching her ear. “We have a problem
with the other encampment. They’re demanding we leave at once. Something about
being the only ones with permits to do excavations on this site.”

Lindsey’s eyes were still wide with wonder at the opening that had
just revealed itself. “Tie them up and have two of the men watch them.” She
nodded and took off towards the entrance of the ruins.

 
DeGard had shuffled over
to the opening in the wall and was shining his light into the dark area beyond.
“It looks like the passage goes to the left up ahead.” There was an eagerness
in his voice. Greed had begun to take over, and he was obviously anxious to
reap his reward.

“Lead the way,” Lindsey ordered.

The Frenchman’s eyes narrowed slightly. “How do you know it is safe? I,
for one, do not feel like dying down here as the result of some ancient booby
trap? Perhaps we should get one of your helpers to go first, just in case.”

“Very well, get out of my way.” Lindsey nudged passed a surprised
DeGard and wedged through the portal.

He held his light at shoulder height and investigated the walls and
floor as he moved, carefully mindful of the words his hired professor had
uttered. While he doubted that there would be anything like that in the tunnel,
he didn’t want to die underground either, so he proceeded with caution.
DeGard’s flashlight cast a little more illumination to the passageway that was
otherwise pitch dark. The two turned left as the path led and they found
themselves walking another twenty feet before the floor began to slope
downward.

Lindsey shone his light down the sloping corridor, and couldn’t see
the bottom. “How far down do you think it goes?” he asked, pointedly.

DeGard raised his eyebrows. “I have no idea. As you American’s say,
there is only one way to find out.” Made braver by the older man’s courage, the
Frenchman set out trudging down the long tunnel with renewed vigor.

The slanted corridor took them a hundred feet down before coming a
stop and continuing on a little further to the right. When they shone their
lights into the new direction their eyes caught a glimpse of some objects on
the floor. What the pale glow of the flashlights revealed was a treasure of
astonishing measure. Three, three foot wide and five foot long chests, full of
gold coins, chalices, crowns, necklaces, bracelets, and jewels lined the walls.
DeGard’s face lit up as he led the way into the rectangular room. The chamber
was only twenty to thirty feet long and about twelve feet wide. The Frenchman
stepped quickly across the threshold and dug his hands deep into the first
chest.

“I cannot believe it, Monsieur Lindsey.” He looked back at the older
man who seemed to be ignoring the treasure chests. His eyes were focused on
something at the end of the room.

Lindsey eased past his elated partner and moved towards the back of
the chamber.

DeGard kept yammering as Lindsey stopped at the end wall. “You know, I
thought I could perhaps help you find something. But I had no idea it would be
this easy. Honestly, I almost feel guilty taking such a high percentage of this
find. Well, almost.” He let a necklace slip through his hands as he realized
his employer did not seem interested in the fortune they’d just discovered.

On the wall directly in front of Lindsey were inscriptions, carved
into the stone. “What does this say?”

DeGard reluctantly left the treasure at his feet and shuffled over to
where Lindsey stood with arms crossed. He produced a pair of brown spectacles
from his jacket and placed them on the tip of his nose.