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  But today was definitely not business as usual. Twenty-two men had been killed in active duty, and sixteen others had been brutally massacred at a national — and global — heritage site. The perpetrators had fled the scene only moments before the remainder of the Egyptian squad had emerged from inside the pyramid. To top it off, they had no idea where the enemy had gone — the GPS units inside the stolen military vehicles had apparently been destroyed.

  On the table in front of Horus Alexander was an open laptop computer. It displayed the fullscreen pixelated video image of Madu Jabari’s face. Reddened and breathing heavily, the man was clearly outside himself and almost visibly seething. The committee members around General Alexander sat in hushed silence, awaiting the man’s next words.

  They all knew Madu’s temper — slow to build, and quite mild by most standards. But when he reached the point where he was today, having been humiliated and embarrassed — as well as losing some of his own men and barely escaping death himself — it was best to let the man talk himself down from the proverbial ledge.

  “I — I have no idea how this could have happened — “ he stammered, more upset than dumbfounded. “These men were exceptionally trained; they seemed to anticipate my every move.”

  Ms. Dendera was the first in the room to speak. “Jabari, it was an accident. As long as we clean up the mess — and I’ll have one of our typists prepare a statement for the press — we should be able to fend off any prying eyes.”

  “Right,” General Hafez chimed in. “We can blame it on a local terrorist cell — interested in some over-hyped conspiracy theory. After a few weeks, it will be all but forgotten — ”

  “But this must not go unpunished!” Madu interrupted, still in a state of rage.

  “No Madu,” General Alexander replied, “you are correct — we will retaliate. But this time we will proceed with caution. We do not know where or when, but we will respond to this outrage accordingly.”

  On the screen, Jabari’s crimson-colored face bobbed up and down in agreement. He opened his mouth to speak again, but Alexander held up his hand to interrupt. “But Madu — we have been discussing one thing here that does not add up.

  “This American — Tanning Vilocek, you say — was a friend of yours, no?”

  “Yes, he is — was,” Madu responded, catching himself. “He and I worked together on some projects about ten years ago, but other than the occasional email or call, we hadn’t spoken, and I hadn’t seen him in person since then.

  “However, his colleagues in the pharmaceutical industries — what few he has — say that he is a habitually reclusive man who keeps to himself and has a profound carelessness for personal relationship.”

  This last revelation seemed to placate the General just a bit; the truth about what had happened today seemed painfully obvious now.

  The silence was palpable until General Hafez spoke again. “Madu, this is an unfortunate event. It seems that your ‘friend’ was playing you — he tricked you into believing there was a second party at the pyramid today. Whether or not that was true is irrelevant now — if there was another group, it joined the first and they retreated together, and you yourself saw Vilocek, climbing into one of the vehicles.”

  “Yes, and if they hadn’t disabled the other vehicles, we could have followed them,” Madu added hopelessly.

  “Wherever they’re heading, it is too late to follow them now,” said Dendera, “and I believe the most prudent course of action might be to put a call in to the United Nations, and close our borders for the time being.”

  “That is unacceptable!” Madu’s voice rose an octave. “If we act now, we can find Vilocek and his men and make them pay for what they have done! We must assemble a team now, and track them down!”

  General Mohamad Hafez pounded his fist on the table. “Jabari, you speak foolishness. At what expense do you expect to find and punish this man? Why is it worth more men, resources, and trouble?”

  Jabari looked down for a few seconds, then returned his gaze to the camera on his monitor. He took a deep breath and began speaking slowly and meticulously. “You and I both know why I have called this meeting. If this were simply a matter of revenge, I could have simply hired a kill squad to track them down and take the necessary action. If it were a matter of personal interest to me that we seek political action against these men, you know I would have sought out the counsel of the entire Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

  “No, there is something else that has been troubling me since I left the pyramid. All of us are of Egyptian descent as far back as we can recall. As such, I know that you are all as interested as I in our ancestry. I have called you here today on a matter of national interest; perhaps even of national security.”

  “Madu, what are you speaking of?” Alexander asked.

  “Vilocek’s men descended into the pyramid and converged upon the Lower Room. We followed them down, reaching the chamber after they left. As you know, half of my men were stationed outside the pyramid, forming a perimeter. A quarter of my men were spread throughout the Ascending Passage. None of my teams called in any enemy movement whatsoever, much less their escape from the pyramid.

  “As I have reported, the attack on my men first came from below, at the convergence of the Ascending and Descending Passages. I found the bodies of two of my men as we ascended up the shaft, and the others––all dead––outside the pyramid. This means that Vilocek and his team were not only inside the pyramid, but somewhere below the Lower Room. As I mentioned, we found a new shaft in the Lower Room; one that had never been discovered before. We traveled down it, assuming Vilocek had taken the same route, and found the hidden chamber beneath the pyramid. That is where we came upon another shaft, leading out of this hidden chamber.”

  “Yes, Madu,” Hafez answered testily. “We know this already. And you know that we are sending a team of geologists and archaeologists to Giza now to study these miraculous finds.”

  “Yes, General,” Madu said, “and I am grateful for that. But I have failed to mention that these new shafts are unlike any other found in the pyramid––or in any other pyramid at Giza, for that matter. These shafts are curved, descending below the rock foundation in perfectly formed spirals. The passage walls are covered with strange markings written in some sort of bluish ink. As we descended and drew near to the hidden chamber, the markings disappeared behind us. Eventually, after we had been in the chamber for about ten minutes, we were plunged again into total darkness –– the markings and symbols completely disappeared.”

  “And these symbols,” Dendera asked, “they were of Egyptian origin, perhaps predecessors to the hieroglyphic script?”

  “No, they were markedly different. They were beautiful, filled with swirls and shapes that I have never seen before in any written language. I do not believe these passageways, nor the hidden chamber itself, were built by Egyptian hands.”

  General Alexander spoke up. “Madu, you have a hypothesis, no? If so, let us hear it.”

  “Yes, please enlighten us,” added Hafez.

  “Very well. I am still piecing together a theory. Although I had never seen these passages prior to today, nor have I come across this script before, it all reminds me of stories my father used to tell––stories that I always thought of as folklore and legend. But I was recently made aware of the possibility that some of the stories might be true. In fact, just last month I was anticipating the arrival of a document that could have clarified some of my questions about these ‘fairy tales’, if you will. It was en route to me, and in the hands of the Iraqi Republican Guard, when it was intercepted by an American special forces unit.

  “I believe that this document — a notebook, I was told — had within it some of these answers to the questions we are faced with today. The new shafts, the hidden chamber — this notebook may tell us more about them.”

  The people on Madu’s screen nodded in unison. He knew they were aware of the events in Iraq — He himself had sent them each
a memorandum with the details.

  “My friends,“ he said, “are you familiar with the story of the "al-Bal'laorah al-Qadeem?”

  CHAPTER 31

  12:57 AM - AIRSPACE ABOVE Egypt

  James Whittenfield, Jr. paced back and forth in his plane’s laboratory as he waited for the images to finish downloading. About fifteen minutes earlier, he had received a transmission from Captain Reynolds from somewhere near Giza. It was unencrypted, and Whittenfield worried about prying eyes intercepting the message. Also, the signal strength had been too low to download any of the images without stopping and restarting numerous times.

  He’d downloaded three of the seven images so far, and the first had made him do a double-take. The grainy, pixelated image showed the interior of some kind of ancient room beneath the Great Pyramid. He could just make out the well–shaped shaft in the center, and some of the men around the room. He couldn’t recognize most of them, but dead-center in the first picture was a face that caused Whittenfield to look again.

  Though he had not seen Vilocek in many years, the man’s tall, wiry frame and wispy gray hair gave him away immediately.

  What the hell is Bryce doing with that man? He asked himself as he gazed at the screen. Vilocek was clearly not in motion in the image — much less attacking Bryce or the others, but Whittenfield thought he could also see a row of people standing against the wall, facing what appeared to be a man holding them at gunpoint. He wondered what had happened — obviously Vilocek had most of Bryce’s group captured, or at least corralled together against the wall, but what of Bryce? Why was he separated from the others, free to allow his shoulder cam to record the scene?

  As Bryce had told him before, Whittenfield knew that the camera on Bryce’s shoulder was difficult to spot –– no lights to give it away, and the tiny lens was matte-coated to prevent reflections. Surely Bryce was getting away with filming in secret, but why would Vilocek allow him to walk around freely?

  He wasn’t sure what he was looking at with the second, third, and fourth images. The first had been a semi-panoramic view of the chamber — a way of “setting the scene” for Whittenfield, who had been out of earshot since they’d entered the complex over an hour before, and therefore couldn’t be updated minute-by-minute.

  Obviously, Bryce had survived his initial encounter with Vilocek, or he wouldn’t be sending this update now. But had Vilocek allowed him to leave the pyramid unharmed? Or had Bryce and his team overpowered Vilocek and his men?

  Either way, the images definitely didn’t show an emergency situation. The most remarkable feature in them was the well-shaped protrusion in the center of the chamber, which just by looking, Whittenfield could tell was the same size — and probably directly below — the well-known shaft in the Lower Room. This well had to be connected to the mysterious filled-in shaft above.

  The third image was stunning. Whittenfield could see the well shaft almost perfectly in the close-up shot. Even though the image was black-and-white, he could still make out strange symbols dotting the parapet of the well. The symbols appeared to be nothing like common hieroglyphics; they didn’t resemble anything of Egyptian design at all.

  Confused, he tried to enlarge the low-resolution image as best he could, but the pixelation became too pronounced to get a clear view of any of the markings. As he was about to move on to the next image, his cell phone vibrated on the table.

  “Bryce — is that you?”

  “Yeah,” Bryce said, “but I don’t have much time to chat. We’re just outside of Giza, planning to fly to the Sudan in Vilocek’s plane. Don’t really know where the plane is, though — I’m not really sure exactly where we are now…”

  “OK,” Whittenfield said, still not sure where Vilocek fit in to this. “Do you have the stone?”

  “Negative — there was a hidden chamber below the Lower Room, probably made by the crystal’s original owners. The room was empty — did you get the images?”

  “Yes — I’m going through them now. Do you have any idea what the symbols mean? Or their origin?” Whittenfield asked, looking through the next few images that had appeared on his screen. He could see a full-circle view of the shaft now, indicating that Bryce had walked completely around the well in the center of the room. Strangely, he hadn’t included any images of the remainder of the room.

  “No, no idea — we were hoping you’d be able to enlighten us. But there is something else I noticed; I wanted you to take a look at it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The images you have are all of the shaft in the center of the hidden chamber. You probably can’t see the details very clearly, but the writing is written in the same blue ink stuff that we found in your father’s journals. I think whoever made this room used the same method to ‘hide’ their clues in plain view — they’re only visible if you have part of the crystal with you.

  “We were able to see the symbols because of Vilocek’s crystal that he’d stolen from your father. But we were also able to see the same writing in the tunnel that led to this room, thanks to Cole Reed. Whatever that crystal is made out of is also inside his bloodstream. It’s a part of him now.”

  Hmm, Whittenfield thought. Vilocek must have injected Cole with the substance, allowing him to read the script on the walls and in the journals. He hoped it wouldn’t cause strange side effects for the young man. He also hoped they’d be able to keep Cole around long enough to continue to find the rest of the clues left behind by the makers of the crystal.

  “Anyway,” Bryce continued, “Cole found the room for us by discovering a row of these symbols leading to the entrance of a new shaft. That marking was exactly the same as the one on the entrance.”

  Bryce described the symbol to Whittenfield even as the picture appeared on his monitor, the man-shaped object, arms outstretched, coming out of what appeared to be a body of water.

  “I didn’t see any other instances of this symbol anywhere in the tunnel, nor in the chamber itself. However, as you’ll see from the pictures, that same symbol appears numerous times on the outside of that well shaft.”

  “That’s right — I see that now. There are a few of them in each image; maybe seven or eight times around the whole shaft?”

  “Yeah, that’s about right. That’s what I wanted you to look at — I don’t know where to begin with this, but it seems to me whoever put the symbols here used this one as an identifying mark — a sort of ‘x marks the spot,’ if you will.”

  “Yes, yes, so these may indicate the locations of the creators of this room — or the locations of something else they’ve created!”

  “Exactly — if we can figure out this map, I’ll bet we’ll discover who built this chamber — and I’ll bet that one of those locations is the final resting place of our lost crystal,” Bryce added.

  “Bryce — outstanding work. I’ll send you an update once I make some headway.”

  Whittenfield paused for a moment. “Bryce,” he said, “do not share anything with Vilocek that is not absolutely necessary to finding the crystal. I don’t want him gaining any more leverage than he already has. I’m not excited that you’re all currently under his thumb, but I also know that we’ll need to keep feeding him enough information to hold his interest — and reinforce your value to him.

  “Do what you can to find the crystal, and by all means take it before Vilocek can. I’ll catch up with you when we find out where these symbols are pointing.”

  “Sounds good. Let me know what you find.”

  Bryce clicked off his phone and focused on the winding road ahead. The bullet wound in his shoulder was aching again. He looked out the window at the dunes and endless expanse of arid desert surrounding him. If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought he was back in Iraq. He shook that off, trying to piece everything together.

  He thought about the notebooks and the symbols inside the pyramid — and suddenly he realized something. The name Vilocek had mentioned, during the fight at Giza.

 
Madu Jabari.

  M.J.

  CHAPTER 32

  1:34 AM - NORTH SUDAN

  “Start talking, old man!” Beka shouted at Professor Andrews. Beka was standing in the corner of a cavernous room, dark and damp and mildewy with age. The aging professor was curled at his feet in the fetal position, whimpering softly.

  “He doesn’t know anything!” Corinne shouted from across the room. “Let him go!” Karn had his arm looped behind Corinne’s elbows, easily resisting her attempts to break free.

  They’d been interrogating the professor for almost half an hour, asking about what he knew about the strange symbols. Every time they got an “I don’t know” from him, they would drag Corinne back a few feet, causing the painful wound in the professor’s side to flare up. Every few moments he groaned in agony, cursing under his breath. Corinne would struggle briefly and then slump over, red-faced and defeated. Karn could feel her trying to wrap her bony arms and legs around his own, desperate to find any leverage she could use to wriggle away. He enjoyed her struggling––perhaps too much––and used his free arm and hand to pin her tight against his own body.

  The radio on his belt suddenly crackled to life. “Agent Karn––Agent Beka; report back up here in five. Captain Bryce Reynolds may have some information for us––” Vilocek’s voice snapped Karn’s mind back from where it had been.

  “You heard the man––let’s go,” Karn snarled. Vladimir Beka abruptly yanked the professor to his feet and dragged him out the door and up the stairs. Karn followed with Corinne, and the four made their way back to the rest of the teams.

  After reaching Vilocek’s plane, they had flown to the Sudanese frontier. There they stole two vehicles and drove to the house they were in now, just north of the Sudanese city of Wadi Halfa. It was an abandoned Israeli safe house; the owner, another of Vilocek’s many “friends” had allowed them to use it, no questions asked. Vilocek’s plan was to regroup, get whatever information he could out of Whittenfield’s team, and head to the real location of the crystal by tomorrow morning — no later.