The Thieves of Darkness (29 page)

She was born Cecillia Venier Baffo, a young Venetian noble who was captured by the Ottomans. Her son Murad III succeeded his father, and as a result, she grew in power as the Valide Sultan, the king’s mother. She ran the government with Grand Vizier Mehmet Pasha for eight years, only to die under mysterious circumstances. KC smiled as she thought how a woman had ruled a world in which woman’s rights were suppressed.

KC ran her hand over the lid, over the exquisite design afforded a wife who knew she was just one of many possessed by her husband. She noted the simple hinges affixing the lid to the coffin and wondered why back then, as now, coffins were built to be opened; it wasn’t as if the residents would be leaving or anyone would be paying them an up-close visit.

KC laid the coffin shroud back over the woman’s tomb and returned to the sarcophagus of Selim II. There were no hinges on this tomb, no simple switch to throw to open it. She wished that she could simply lift the lid, grab, and go.

The lid weighed at least fifteen hundred pounds. Made of solid stone, it would take a team of men with dexterous fingers and tools to open.

And she smiled; Michael truly was gifted at compromising security, at cracking the difficult barriers and entering impossible places. She had always turned away from crimes when the obstacles grew difficult, when the physical compromise exceeded her ingenuity and required lithe acrobatic entrances and exits. But Michael was the type who liked to perform the impossible.

KC reached into the blue duffel bag and pulled out the aluminum pieces, thankful for Michael’s ingenuity.

She affixed the stabilizing frame to the rear of the coffin, sliding its thin foot under the coffin proper, raising its bracing up along the back and onto the top. She placed a thin wedge against the seam of the lid and gently tapped, the echoes seeming to sound like a jackhammer as the thin piece of steel slipped into the lid’s seam. KC laid the framing rod against the wedge and affixed them together. Michael’s design was simple, easily assembled, and even easier to disassemble. Made of reinforced aluminum members used for airplane wings and copper piping, the portable lift that Michael had crafted could probably hoist a truck, yet it fit into a small duffel bag. Its base was affixed to the ground by the sheer force of the weight of the coffin, while the lifting arm remained in place due to the overall pressure. It was as simple as a car jack.

She repeated the procedure on the three remaining sides. She pulled out and affixed the pneumatic tubes and attached the small air cylinder. Grasping the cylinder tightly, she pumped the arm, and after a moment of pressurization, the tomb’s seal broke with a gasp, a sudden intake and exhalation of history. The lid began to rise, slowly at first, the ancient wood and stone creaking in protest. It gradually elevated by fractions of an inch, as KC’s muscles grew tired.

KC continued pumping; the lid was five inches up now. Unable to resist the temptation, she flipped on her flashlight and peered inside.

And what she saw frightened her, terrified her, for it was far from what she and Michael had expected. She was suddenly afraid for her sister, for what she was looking at she was entirely unprepared for.

And then the alarm in her ear cried out. Someone had broken the plane of the sidewalk beam. Someone was coming.

KC flipped the release valve; the lid of the tomb fell back in place with a great hiss from the pneumatic valves. She grabbed the four stanchions and threw them into her bag, then draped and smoothed out the green coffin shroud upon the tomb.

The second ring sounded in her ear. The guards were on the walkway and they were coming.

KC spun about, looking everywhere, her eyes finally falling on the tomb of the sultan’s wife. She folded back the green cloth cover. Without thought, she rammed the chisel into the hinge pin, thankful it was not of the heavy design of her husband’s container, and flipped open the coffin.

She looked at the remains of Selim’s wife: the sheer white veil draped across her skull, her long dark hair appearing freshly combed. The few remaining pieces of skin were like paper-thin leather, dried and flaking against her ivory bone. She was small, barely five-two, by KC’s estimate.

The noise grew louder, the guards coming closer.

KC shoved the bony corpse aside, threw her two bags in, and quickly climbed into the coffin.

She gingerly held the green cloth as she lowered the lid, ensuring it fell back into place.

As the lid quietly fell shut, KC was enveloped in darkness and the musty smell of death. She fought the revulsion, trying to shield her mind from the horror next to her as her fear of the dark rose up out of her soul. But it was to no avail.

Her mind screamed in terror.

* * *

M
ICHAEL STARED INTO
the depths of hell, at the suffering and anguish of its inhabitants. He closed off his mind and drove the chisel into the heart of the heinous work of art. He smashed it with a vengeance, as if stabbing the heart of the Devil, making quick work of the entire depiction. While with the two tile works above, Michael had left intact the sides and perimeters, depicting heaven and earth, now Michael left nothing of this underworld, annihilating the entire scene till not a single tile remained.

Michael reached into the exposed recess and withdrew a large box, three feet long by one foot wide. He hesitated as he looked at the wooden case, hoping he wasn’t opening a Pandora’s Box, hating that he was in this position. But he thought of KC and the pain she was feeling, the guilt that was overwhelming her over her sister and Simon.

Michael tore open the lid, shattering the hinges and lock, and reached in for what he knew was there. He laid the chart out on the ground. Its gazelle hide was surprisingly soft and supple, the torn edge leaving no doubt of its authenticity. The chart was rich in detail, depicting eastern Africa, the Indian and Pacific oceans, India, Australia, and the Far East.

And Michael’s eyes were drawn to the mountain range, the Himalayas, drawn in precise detail, with a refined depiction of a five-peaked mountain in the uppermost section of India. Of all the landmarks, of all the notes, none were more detailed than the pathway up through the rivers of India, from the water’s edge into the heart of the continent. While Michael couldn’t read the Turkish notes, he imagined what they said. After what he had read of Kemal Reis’s journeys, of this chart’s secretion in this very wall, he had no doubt the notes on this chart were warnings.

Michael pulled his waterproof digital cameras from his satchel and took multiple shots of the chart before sliding the camera back into its compartment. It was a backup, rudimentary at best, but he liked redundancy, preferring to call it covering one’s ass.

He rolled up the chart, pulled out the leather tube, and unwound its top flap. He opened the internal hasp, slid the chart into the waterproof
tube, and locked the airtight seal with a barely audible whoosh. He flipped down the leather flap, laced it tight, and threw the leather strap over his shoulder. He stowed his tools in the neoprene satchel, sealed it, and threw it crosswise over his other shoulder. Michael checked his watch and tried his radio, to no avail: The walls were just too thick. His nerves were on fire for KC’s safety, hoping she was long done with Selim’s tomb, hoping she was already waiting for him.

As he took one final look at the room, at the damage he had caused, he prayed it would not be in vain. As the images of the final tile depiction, of the world of suffering that was burned into his mind, filled his thoughts, he decided he would not tell anyone what he had seen, not KC, not Busch. He would not tell them of his suspicion about where the chart led or what it possibly meant. It was an unwanted knowledge, expertly imparted by Mehmet through the artwork in the chapel, a knowledge he would never pass on to others.

Michael would get Simon back, he would ensure Cindy’s safe return to KC, but there was no question. He would never let this chart out of his possession.

KC
LAY STILL
, fighting the need to breathe, partly to conserve her air, partly to avoid filling her lungs with the air of death, fearful that it would somehow infect her. Though the woman had passed away five hundred years ago, the odor of decay still permeated the wooden casing. As KC moved her aside, she was amazed at the lack of mass; it was like shoving aside a small pile of sticks, her bones clattering and scratching.

And then the outer door crashed open, the sound rumbling through the coffin where KC was concealed. She listened closely, hearing the guards walk in, two voices, urgent, speaking of disturbances and security and wondering why they had to have the dead shift.

She left her flashlight off, fighting the image of the body she lay up against; she’d seen it only for a brief moment, but it would be with her for life. She fought her turning stomach, her revulsion at lying with the dead, as she heard the footsteps of the guards.

She interpreted the muffled conversation, hearing just snippets and snappets. The conversation seemed to drag on for hours, though the guards’ round of the room lasted only minutes.

But as terrifying as where she lay, as what she was lying next to, as the possibility of being caught was, what she had seen in the tomb of Sultan Selim II chilled her heart far more.

And then the loud crash of the door and the lock falling into place reverberated. It was a moment before the alarms sounded in her ear, signaling the guards had crossed the first barrier, and then the second beep told her of their departure.

KC slowly lifted the lid, illuminating the body next to her: The head had detached from the body, the once graceful hair tangled about her. KC jumped out of the coffin in revulsion but was overcome with shame. She had disturbed the peaceful rest of the dead, of this innocent woman. KC thought of realigning her body but knew she was running out of time.

KC quickly set to work on the sultan’s sarcophagus. It took her only a minute to remove the green cloth, to set up the support rods, and another minute to raise the lid—but this time she went far beyond the five inches; she pumped the lid up two feet.

She flipped on her light and shone it into darkness and what she’d found earlier.

There was no body; there was no sultan or rod. The coffin was beyond empty. It was bottomless. It was the entrance to another world. It was the entrance to the real tomb.

And now she understood why it had taken four years to construct: It was because of the tomb below. Hagia Sophia used to be a church, a grand basilica, and it was common practice to build churches over crypts. They all had them: the Vatican, St. Patrick’s in New York, Notre Dame in Paris. When Hagia Sophia was built as a Christian basilica in the sixth century, it, too, had its crypt. But when the Christian church was converted into a mosque in 1453, there was no mention of what became of the crypts below. Now, as KC looked into Selim’s tomb, it all became clear.

KC draped the green shroud over the raised tomb; she grabbed her two bags and the cylinder, lifted the green cloth, and slipped into the coffin. The stairs were stone, steep and narrow, carved out of rock over four hundred years earlier.

KC held tight to the cylinder, the air hose protruding back out to the lift arms, and opened the release valve a fraction. As she allowed the lid to slowly lower down upon her, it crept down with a hiss, enclosing her in the ancient world. Inches from an airtight seal, she closed the valve, stopping the lid’s descent just above the air tubes. From out in the room nothing could be seen but the shroud-covered tomb, and unless you were an expert, the one-inch difference in height would be unnoticeable. But if the lid were to fall, crimping off the hose, KC would become a permanent occupant, residing with whatever horrors lay below.

KC headed down, her flashlight leading the way into the hidden world. And as she stepped down the final stair, she found herself in a necropolis. It was an old crypt; as grand as the former basilica was, this was its equal in design. Built at the height of the Byzantine Empire, it was arched and columned in marble with Ottoman additions and renovations. The walls were adorned with busts and mosaics depicting Christian saints, Muslim rulers, and the glory of paradise.

KC stood in a vestibule fifteen by fifteen, tight and confined, a world beneath the dead.

She shone her light and found a dark hallway, following it into a large, open room where, in the center, sat the true sarcophagus. Grand Vizier Mehmet Pasha was far more deceptive than anyone had realized. The room was festooned with treasures of the Ottoman Empire, sabers and Korans, tiled blue walls, spoils of war none of which Selim II had accumulated himself, for he never went to war or even strategized, leaving it all to his advisors yet taking all the credit.

There were chalices from Rome, jewels from Egypt, statues of pharaohs and kings. KC was shocked at the inscription upon the wall, etched in gold, the sheen still lustrous after centuries: It was written in Arabic, Turkish, and Latin, a warning to all the world. As she read, the
grand vizier’s words were clear: Whoever removed the contents of the tomb would suffer a subjugation in hell, a
fatwa
against the soul.

It explained why none of the artifacts had been removed, the warning tempering temptation, wiping the greed from the souls of those who built the tomb, from the souls of thieves that might have made it down here.

But KC would sacrifice her life, her soul, if she knew it would save her sister. She would gladly trade eternity for the life of the sister she had raised. She would do anything to ensure her safe return, and to ensure that her friend Simon would survive.

KC stood over the sarcophagus. It was ornate, made of gold, glimmering under her light. She felt as if she were Howard Carter, the first to see King Tut’s tomb. She was looking upon a secret held for centuries. The detail was rendered by true artisans as if wielding a paintbrush upon canvas, working their intricate magic into a depiction of heaven.

She dug her fingers under the lid, its seal easily broken, its weight manageable as she lifted, but then she lowered it again.