David Gibbins - Pharaoh

‘I told them that Little Joey found a keg of gunpowder rammed into a crack above the entrance to the antechamber.’

‘Gunpowder?’ Costas said incredulously. He pointed at the cylindrical shape visible on the screen. ‘Is that what that is?’

‘It’s covered in black dust, the exuviae of insects and bats,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘But the wood of the barrel’s perfectly preserved.’

‘Standard early-nineteenth-century excavation technique,’ Jack said. ‘That’s how Vyse explored the interior of the pyramids. He blew his way through them.’

Costas gestured at the vertical gash up the north side of the pyramid, and then at the fragmentary remains of blocks tumbled below on the desert floor. ‘Looks like someone had a good go at it there.’

Hiebermeyer nodded. ‘You’re right, but not using gunpowder. That was the sultan Saladin’s son in the twelfth century, at the time of the crusades. He ordered the pyramids to be destroyed, but this was as far as they got before giving up.’

‘Why destroy the pyramids?’ Costas asked.

‘Same reason the Taliban ordered the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan,’ Hiebermeyer replied. ‘Saladin’s son decided that the pyramids were against Islam. There’s been a threat from extremist groups in Egypt to carry on where he left off. The Egyptian government are taking it seriously.’

Costas looked sceptically at the pyramid. ‘That would take a small thermonuclear bomb. One for each pyramid.’

Hiebermeyer nodded. ‘It’s a well-known fact that extremist groups by now have collected enough fissile materials from the former Soviet Union to make several devices big enough to do this kind of damage. It may seem like an extravagant waste of resources when they could bomb London or New York, but the analysts I’ve spoken to think otherwise. Destroy the pyramids and you destroy Egypt’s tourist economy. The radioactive fallout over the suburbs of Cairo wouldn’t necessarily turn the Egyptian people against the extremists, but with the right rhetoric it might make them feel that they had suffered the wrath of Allah for not having bowed to the cause before now. Egypt is already tottering towards becoming an Islamist state, and this could make it a fundamentalist one. With Egypt gone, the next in line would be Sudan and Somalia, and then Libya and Tunisia and Algeria. There would be a nuclear war in the Middle East, and Israel would be obliterated. The extremists would therefore gain far more for the cause of jihad by blowing up the pyramids than by setting off their bombs in a Western capital.’

‘Got you,’ Costas said. ‘So that explains the new perimeter fence being built around the plateau.’

‘It also explains why this is the last chance we’re ever likely to get for a look inside the pyramid. The whole of the Giza plateau is coming under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defence, rather than the Antiquities Authority. From now on, it’ll take an act of God to allow anyone to ferret around in places where a bomb might be concealed.’

‘What about our friend al’Ahmed from the Sudan?’ Costas asked. ‘He seemed to be after the same thing that we are. Jack read me a passage from General Gordon’s final journal volume about how the Mahdi as a young man found a temple by the Nile with that plaque of Akhenaten inside, the one that Gordon took and we located in the wreck of the Abbas . If al’Ahmed’s knowledge of the plaque goes back to the Mahdi, and if his divers manage to get it out of the wreck, he may by now have seen a depiction of the pyramid similar to the one that brought us here.’

Jack pursed his lips. ‘I think the depiction in the crocodile temple and the one in the Nile temple found by the Mahdi were identical. The clue for us was the missing slab from the crocodile temple that showed the pyramid, whereas the other temple depiction may have been intact. If that also showed the clear image of the three temples at Giza, then al’Ahmed would be hot on this trail as well.’

Aysha looked at Jack. ‘Ibrahim flew out from Wadi Halfa this morning to help get your gear together on Seaquest II for today’s dive. You wanted to get him out of the Sudan, and we did it in the nick of time. The IMU Lynx did a covert pick-up near the border and was chased by Sudanese police helicopters. I managed to collar him at Alexandria before I drove here, and he said that as of yesterday there had still been no diving on the Abbas , but that a team was being assembled. They’d needed to find Sudanese navy divers who were competent with the IMU equipment they confiscated from you. So I don’t think al’Ahmed is on our trail yet, though it can only be a matter of time. His family business is based in Egypt and he can pull strings here as well. It’s another reason why we wanted you and Costas here as quickly as possible, before someone in the Egyptian government who al’Ahmed can bribe decides to pull the rug from under us.’

‘But he’s not a fundamentalist,’ Costas said. ‘He’s not going to want to destroy this place.’

‘He’s an Islamist, and would ally himself with extremist groups if it furthers his interests,’ Aysha said. ‘But his focus is the same as ours. He wants to find Akhenaten’s City of Light. And we want to get there before he does. There may be something there just as potent for the future of world order as the fate of the pyramids, and we want to make sure it stays out of his control. We need to see what lies underneath the pyramid now.’

‘One question,’ Costas said. ‘What about that keg of gunpowder?’

‘I managed to uncoil the fuse, which is hanging down into the antechamber. You can still smell the sulphur on it.’

Lanowski put a finger up, said, ‘Ah’, and then poked around in his lab coat pocket, producing a cheap orange lighter. He tested it, and threw it to Costas. ‘I bought this off a little boy at the entrance to the site. I felt sorry for him. I knew it would have a use.’

Costas lit it and stared at the flame. ‘What exactly are you suggesting, Jacob?’

‘Well, Colonel Vyse did pretty well with it, didn’t he? Found a lot of stuff. Maybe he was on to something in that passageway.’

Costas took his thumb off the lighter, thought for a moment and slowly nodded. ‘I’d have to get Little Joey out first, of course. What do you think, Jack?’

Jack glanced at Sofia. ‘I don’t expect anyone’s mentioned it to you. Put Costas anywhere within sniffing distance of explosives and he’s gone.’

Sofia marched up to Costas, took the lighter and tossed it back to Lanowski. ‘I have a better idea,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you use this to light the barbecue we’re going to have on the beach when this is all over. The party that Jack always promises Costas.’

‘The party that never happens,’ Costas said glumly. ‘Because there’s always some other fabulous treasure to discover.’

Two Range Rovers came barrelling down the track towards them in a cloud of dust, pulling to a halt at the end of the walkway into the pyramid. Jack saw Ibrahim get out of the first vehicle, and an IMU helicopter crewman he recognised from Seaquest II . He put his hands on his hips and turned to the others, a steely look in his eyes. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘The gear’s arrived. Let’s get this show on the road.’

‘Jack! Hold tight!’

A huge thud resounded through the burial chamber of the pyramid, shaking the condensation off the stone walls of the shaft where Jack was suspended precariously on a rope. He spun crazily around, kicking off the walls to stop himself from crashing into them, holding on to the rope that tethered him to the wooden frame they had set up over the top of the shaft. He raised the visor of his helmet and looked up, tasting the moisture in the air and seeing the wavering beam of Costas’ headlamp almost twenty metres above him. ‘What the hell was that?’ he yelled, his voice booming up the shaft.