Will Adams - The Exodus Quest

He placed his hand upon it, colder, smoother and altogether more metallic than he'd expected. He stepped back, illuminating the whole wall and the golden thread in the floor, and it reminded him of something. 'It's like a wadi,' he said, pointing out the valley-shaped V to her. 'You know, the one the sun rises over to make the sign of the Aten.'

'Then where's the sun?'

'Exactly,' nodded Knox. He went back to the wall, rapped his knuckles against it, listened carefully to the echo. He rapped again. Yes. No question about it. It was hollow.

Naguib, Tarek and the ghaffirs advanced cautiously across the hilltop, taking turns to scurry from cover to cover, keeping low to avoid showing their silhouettes.

'Stay back!' cried a panicky voice from the darkness. 'Don't come any closer!'

Gunfire rattled to Naguib's left, muzzle fire leaving orange blurs dancing on his retinas. 'Stop!' he cried. He turned to Tarek. 'He has information. We need him alive.'

Tarek shouted out the order. Silence fell.

'Listen,' called out Naguib. 'I am Inspector Naguib Hussein. You saw me earlier. We know what's going on. We know everything. You're surrounded. Lay down your weapon. Put your hands over your head and then stand up.'

'Go away. Leave me alone.'

There was laughter at this, the idea was so ridiculous. 'You don't have to die,' called out Naguib. 'You can surrender. A trial. A lawyer. I'll tell the court you helped us in the end. Who knows how it will turn out? But otherwise… you don't stand a chance.'

'He'll kill me.'

'Who'll kill you?'

'Captain Khaled, of course. He's mad. He made us do it. We didn't want to. It was all his idea.'

'Then help us stop him. The courts will have mercy on you. But right now put down your gun and surrender. You hear?'

'You won't shoot?'

'You have my word.'

Something clattered on the rocks. The figure of a man rose in the darkness ahead, arms above his head. Within a moment, he was swarmed and pinned to the ground, Naguib kneeling beside him, asking about the others, where to find them.

Knox put his shoulder to the wall, tried to slide it to one side, lift it, press it down. Nothing worked. Down the passage, splashing noises were replaced by the scuff and patter of footsteps. By Knox's best estimation, they had a minute at the most. And there was nowhere to hide, no way to spring an ambush. It was getting through this wall or nothing.

'Look!' said Lily. She steered the torch in his hand at the base of the wall. It was difficult to make out, dark against a black background, but there was an ankh-shaped hole there, the approximate size of a man's hand. He went a little numb. The ankh was the great Egyptian symbol of life. It had evolved from a hieroglyph for magical protection, though there was still furious debate over what that glyph had originally symbolized. A ceremonial knot, said some. Or perhaps a sandal. Others claimed that it had represented the sun rising over the horizon, or even the fusion of male and female genitalia, a kind of hermaphroditism all of its own. But looking at it right now, Knox couldn't help noticing how much it looked like a keyhole.

'Hurry,' said Lily. 'They're getting closer.'

Ancient Egyptians had invented mechanical locks at least five hundred years before Akhenaten. They'd typically been simple, wooden, cylinder-and-tumbler devices, fastened to posts outside doors. But there was no reason they couldn't have fashioned more sophisticated examples. He knelt, pressed his cheek to the limestone floor, angled the torch. It was hard to see inside, but he glimpsed jagged teeth and an internal cylinder, components large as a child's toy.

Memories of a desert drive with his late friend Rick, veteran of the Australian special forces. Killing time discussing methods of picking locks, the tools you needed. He opened up his scissors, twisted and turned the two blades until he'd wrenched them apart. Far too large and clumsy for a modern lock, but not for this. He pressed one blade against the cylinder, gently jiggled the tumblers with the other, listening intently as they clicked into place.

'Quickly,' begged Lily. 'They're getting closer.'

'Please,' he said. 'I need silence.'

The final tumbler slotted into place. He tried to twist the cylinder clockwise. It wouldn't shift. He went counter-clockwise instead. It gave reluctantly, protesting at being disturbed after so long. Thirty degrees, sixty, ninety. And then it stopped altogether, no matter how hard he strained.

'Come on!' wailed Lily.

He lay on his back, slammed the wall with both bare soles. Nothing. He kicked again, a third time, a fourth. Something clicked inside. A releasing latch perhaps. The floor began to tremble, shaking dust into the air. The tortured groan of metal on rock as counterweights went to work. The wall began rising with painful slowness, like the curtain of a theatre. Its metallic surface began to glow in the torchlight, a yellowish tint to it, brighter and brighter, too golden to be silver, too silver to be gold. Electrum, then, a naturally occurring alloy of the two, so highly prized by the Egyptians for its sunshine dazzle that they'd coated the capstones of pyramids with it. And then the disk of the Aten itself appeared, climbing slowly up the wall. The sun was rising over Amarna.

Knox shone the torch beneath the still-rising electrum curtain, illuminating the artefacts spilled across the floor behind, dulled by thick coats of sand and dust, yet still glowing brightly enough to give an idea of their material. Ivory, faience, alabaster, leopard skin, shells, semiprecious stones. And gold. Everywhere, the lustre of gold.

The curtain was now high enough for Lily to squeeze beneath. 'Come on, then,' she said, reaching back for the torch. Knox grabbed Gaille's arms, dragged her after him beneath the curtain into the crowded chamber, a narrow aisle wending between high stacks of artefacts. He picked her up, his mind swimming, trying to take everything in. Bronze candlesticks, an ebony staff, a model sailboat, a copper snake, a wooden headrest, an ankh of green jade. Two life-sized black-and-gold sentries on eternal guard, lapis lazuli eyes staring belligerently in challenge. Lily hurried by, taking the fading torchlight with her. The artefacts grew more regal. An embossed gold chariot rested upon its yoke-pole next to a double throne. A golden statue in a niche. An ornate couch with a single wooden oar fallen against it. Bowls of rubies and emeralds. He bumped against Lily; she stepped to one side and pointed the torch so that he could see for himself what had made her stop. A flight of electrum-covered steps on which stood two massive gold sarcophagi. He looked at them in quiet awe, aware the world would never be quite the same again. Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Adam and Eve.

But there was no time to dwell upon the discovery. Torchlight behind; a burst of automatic gunfire. Knox dived in search of cover, trying to heave Gaille over a gold couch, but he slipped and Gaille fell from his arms. He reached back for her just as Khaled arrived, torch clamped beneath his armpit, firing from his hip, forcing Knox to retreat into the darkness, abandoning Gaille to his mercy.

Khaled approached slowly, the Aladdin's cave of treasures blooming and fading as he turned this way and that, Knox searching desperately among the ornaments, gemstones and furniture for something he could wield. It went dark again as Khaled turned away. Eighteenth Dynasty grave-goods were ritual in nature, Knox knew, designed to equip the pharaoh for the trials of the afterlife. Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon had found a composite bow in Tutankhamun's tomb. They'd found a dagger of hardened gold. What he'd give for that!