Paul Christopher - The Templar Cross

"Mummy, as in 'curse of' and all that?" Holliday asked.

"Yes," replied Alhazred. "There are natron lakes all around here, so the process was quite simple. The general consensus among experts is that Fezzan was the place where mummification was invented."

"Natron?"

"It's a naturally occurring form of soda ash," put in Rafi. "Sodium carbonate decahydrate to be precise," he added. "It cured human flesh like beef jerky and it was a natural insecticide so it kept the bugs away. The dry heat of the desert did the rest."

"Forty days in a natron bath and you lasted forever," said Alhazred, grabbing a big Husky spotlight on the seat beside him and cracking his door open. He turned in his seat, smiling at Holliday and Rafi. "Come along, gentlemen, we have arrived; the tomb of Imhotep awaits."

"So how exactly do we get inside?" Holliday asked, looking at the smooth mound of ancient mud brick. There was no obvious door or entrance of any kind. As he stood there he was amazed that anything made of mud could last for that long. If Alhazred was right the tomb was at least four thousand years old.

"Follow me," said Alhazred. He headed around to the far side of the tomb, Holliday and Rafi behind him and the Tuareg guard, Elhadji, bringing up the rear. At the back of the structure Elhadji handed Alhazred a corkscrew-shaped device from beneath his robes. Alhazred squatted down and squinted, eventually locating an almost invisible hole in the sloping mud-brick wall. He pushed the "worm" of the corkscrew device into the little hole, twisted and then pulled.

"Hey presto!" Alhazred said theatrically. A crack appeared in the mud brick that became a square two feet on a side. He dragged on the corkscrew and the entire square came loose. With Elhadji helping him they lifted the trapdoor aside and set it down.

On closer examination Holliday saw just how ingenious the trapdoor was. The mud brick on the exterior was a cleverly made veneer no more than an inch thick, the phony brick epoxied to a thick slab of Styrofoam underneath. The whole thing probably didn't weigh more than five pounds. From the outside the illusion had been perfect.

Alhazred spoke in a brief incomprehensible torrent to Elhadji and the Tuareg nodded in silent reply.

"You'll have to duck down," instructed Alhazred. He got onto his hands and knees, then scuttled through the small opening and disappeared inside the tomb.

"Age before beauty," offered Holliday. Rafi gave him a nasty look, then followed on the heels of Alhazred. Then Holliday ducked through the secret doorway. Elhadji stayed outside.

The inside of the tomb was stifling hot and dark, lit only by the wash of sun coming through the hole in the tomb wall. Rafi and Alhazred were only vague blobs of gray in the center of the tiny chamber. The trapdoor was reinserted and Alhazred switched on the powerful spotlight. Holliday looked around; for the tomb of one of the most important figures in not just Egypt's history but in the rise of Western civilization, the chamber was almost depressingly austere.

The chamber was small, reflecting the outside dimensions, about twelve feet on a side, just a bit larger than the average prison cell. The interior walls were plain undecorated brick left unplastered and the floor was smooth flat slabs of dark basalt, obviously quarried. The paving stones of the floor were slightly larger than the trapdoor, a little less than three feet square. The roof overhead was made of basalt beams each about two feet across.

There was one paving stone missing in the exact center of the floor. In its place was a square dark opening with a wooden ladder steeply canted down into the shaft below. On the far side of the room were the remains of something that looked like a broken wooden box about six feet long, the top splintered into several pieces.

There were a number of faded symbols on the side of the box, including a large pair of ornamental eyes. Grotesquely, inside the box Holliday could see something that looked like two leathery legs bound together with lengths of tobacco-colored bandage. There was no torso, arms or head. It was the ruins of a human mummy.

"His name was Ahmose Pen-nekhbet," said Alhazred. "From what I can tell he was some sort of high official. When I found the tomb it was empty. Someone had already broken in, excavated the sand the tomb was filled with, then stole everything of value. When they were done they resealed the tomb exactly where I placed the trapdoor. The sarcophagus had been in a vertical position in the center of the room, disguising the floor stone that hid the shaft. The grave robbers tipped the coffin over to get at whatever jewelry the mummy had been decorated with."

"Where's the rest of the body?" Holliday asked.

Rafi supplied the answer.

"The grave robbers took it. Sometimes mummies had gems and valuables inserted into the stomach cavity. The robbers were probably in a hurry, so they simply tore the remains of the corpse in half."

"That was my opinion as well," Alhazred said and nodded. "It was all fate of course, inshallah-as God wills it. If the robbers hadn't knocked over the sarcophagus I wouldn't have seen what the robbers missed-the cracks around the center paving stone revealing the shaft beneath."

"When do you think it happened?" Holliday asked.

"There's really no way to tell," answered Alhazred.

"Probably not long after the original burial," said Rafi, ignoring the Lebanese man's look of irritation. "There are hundreds of these tombs; whoever broke into this one knew there was someone important buried in it. It's like the grave robbers in Victorian England. They read death notices for wealthy people and attended the funerals to see if they were being buried with their best jewelry."

"Ghoulish," grunted Holliday.

Rafi shrugged.

"Practical, if that's the business you're in," he said.

"We going down the hole?" Holliday asked.

"Claustrophobic, are we?" Alhazred asked, smiling.

"No, we are not claustrophobic in the least," answered Holliday. "We just want to get on with it, if you don't mind."

"Of course, Colonel," answered Alhazred a little stiffly. "Your wish is my command."

"If that was true," snapped Holliday, "you'd tell us where Peggy is."

"Patience, Colonel, all in good time."

"Then like I said, let's get on with it."

"You and Dr. Wanounou first," said Alhazred, handing Holliday the spotlight. "I don't think I'm quite ready to turn my back on you."

"The feeling's mutual, believe me," said Holliday. He gave the spotlight to Rafi, who pointed it toward the shaft. Holliday eased himself onto the ladder and went down the hole. He found himself in a small, low- ceilinged chamber lined with mud brick and barely large enough to turn around in.

It was at least ten degrees colder in the chamber than it had been within the tomb. A few moments later Rafi joined him and finally Alhazred appeared, carrying the light in one hand. He pointed the spotlight to the left. Holliday saw a set of stairs carved directly into the limestone bedrock.

"After you, gentlemen," murmured Alhazred. Holliday went down first, the stone on either side brushing his shoulders. At the bottom of the shallow flight of steps there was an extremely narrow corridor.

It was colder here than the chamber behind them-the dry sterile cold of death and the passage of time. They were deep enough so that the tunnel-like corridor was in bedrock, the walls still bearing the chisel marks of the quarrymen who had excavated it thousands of years before.

The spotlight beam threw long, bobbing shadows in front of Holliday as he walked. At the end of the passage, about a hundred feet or so from the limestone stairs, was a second antechamber, empty once again, the walls decorated with carved hieroglyphics. As Alhazred appeared with the light, Holliday saw that the same set of symbols was repeated over and over again.