"I doubt that. My bet is it's either in the burial chamber or more likely one of the air shafts."
Isis studied the screen with a skeptical expression. "You know I said I wasn't claustrophobic, but those air shafts look rather narrow to me. How are we going to...?"
Murphy tapped some more keys and the Pyramid of the Winds disappeared. In its place a rotating graphic of what looked like some kind of high-tech vacuum cleaner filled the screen.
"Behold the Pyramid Crawler. A remote-controlled robot specifically designed for navigating the air shafts of pyramids."
"You're joking. Somebody actually makes these things?"
"Sure. I don't know if it's the iRobot Corporation's
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biggest seller, but right now it's just what we need. What color paintwork do you want? I think the choices are dark gray or a slightly darker gray."
Isis was reading the product specifications: a computer-controlled, quadra-tracked vehicle with two sets of tank treads arranged one on top of the other, so one set was pushed against the floor of the shaft and the other against the ceiling, providing stone-gripping traction. An array of sensors, lights, and miniature TV cameras completed the picture.
"Let's say you can get hold of one of these things. I still don't see how we're going to get access to the pyramid. I know you're not a stickler for red tape, but you can't just hire a camel or two and start digging, you know."
He looked offended. "You think I don't have connections? Ever heard of Dr. Boutrous Hawass, the director of the pyramids? Well, my best buddy at grad school was a man called Jassim Amram. Now he's a professor of archaeology at the American University in Cairo and just happens to be Hawass's right-hand guy. If I know Jassim, he's already got one of these Pyramid Crawlers trained to mix a decent martini and bring it to him in front of the TV."
"All right," Isis said, opening the door. "You fix things up with your friend Professor Amram and I'll track down our pilot and tell him to get us ready to depart for Cairo."
Murphy had closed the laptop and was already throwing clothes into his backpack. "Sounds good."
The phone rang. It was a secretary's voice. "Oh, thank God, Dr. McDonald. Please hold for Chairman Compton of the Parchments of Freedom Foundation."
"Isis." Harvey Compton sounded rather tense, Isis
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thought. He was probably worried that she had scuffed up the interior of his airplane. She rushed to assure him he was getting his money's worth. "Harvey, we've got the second piece and have our eyes set on the head of the Serpent."
"Yes, well, never mind that. I've been trying to reach you. Two people have been murdered here and the tail of the Serpent has been stolen. Isis, you and Professor Murphy must abandon your trip and come home immediately."
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SIXTY-ONE
STRANGE. STRANGE AND horrible. The murders of the two guards had occurred literally a world away, yet, because they were the real lives of men she had worked with, she was devastated.
"Isis, I'm sorry I got you and the foundation into this." Murphy knew it was no consolation. "Chairman Compton is right, of course, we must head back."
Isis sat staring at the wall. "Murphy, we're not going back. Not now. Especially not now. Whoever, whatever force is trying to take over the Serpent must be stopped."
"Isis, you're in shock. You are in greater danger than we even knew here in Tar-Qasir, and that was no kindergarten outing. Pack up."
"No, Murphy. We're staying the course. Chairman Compton is too far away to shut us down now. Besides, there
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is something I haven't told you about the scene at the foundation."
"What?"
"Murphy, whoever took the Serpent's tail was pretty brazen himself. He took the time to leave what could only be a taunting message for you. He carved the symbol of a snake into the metal shelf on which the tail had been kept. It was a snake broken into three pieces."
Murphy walked to the window. After a few moments' reflection, he turned and said, "Well, whoever came after the Serpent's tail is well aware of our quest. Of the few people whom we have confided in about the details of what we're seeking, none of them are murderers or thieves."
"At least up to now, you mean. There's obviously something about this Serpent that over the centuries has made lots of people do lots of strange things."
"Yes, you would have to think that it's not some rival archaeologist who would murder and steal for that tail. So, we can assume that whoever is onto us is working the decidedly dark side of the street."
Isis had a worried look in her eyes as she reached for Murphy's hand before she added the final news. "Murphy, there's something else I have to tell you about the scene at the foundation. Remember what you told me about the cross necklace you gave Laura, and how someone had broken it at the funeral when you took your last look into her casket? Well, carved right next to the snake on the PFF shelf, the same maniac carved a cross broken into three pieces."
Murphy sat in shocked silence. Then he walked over to the wall and banged his fist as hard as he could three times. "Worst
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suspicions confirmed. It's all starting to make a bizarre kind of sense. All of the signs are pointing to one mysterious connecting element to so many of the events we've been going through. The stranger coming to Preston and teaming up with Chuck Nelson for trouble, the bombing at the church, the theft of the tail--" His voice cracked as he thought about the final link.
Isis finished the thought. "The fact that Laura wasn't killed as a result of some debris falling on her. That she was definitely murdered."
"Isis, this is beyond archaeology, or even faith and validating the Bible now. It's personal. We're going to find the head of that Serpent if it kills us. And by keeping up our search, it's only a matter of time before we confront this evil stranger face-to-face."
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SIXTY-TWO
"SO AFTER WE find the head of the Serpent, what then?"
Murphy was concentrating on the buzzing, dusty, glaring chaos that was Cairo as their taxi inched its way laboriously through the cars, bicycles, pedestrians, and occasional ox thronging the narrow streets. The question caught him off guard.
"I mean," Isis continued, "it's not as if you can put it back together. The man who broke into the foundation has got the tail now. I mean, I understand about authenticating the Biblical account. You could still do that with two pieces. But that's not why we're here, is it?"
She'd caught a little bit of sun since they'd been in the Middle East, and it suited her. She looked more confident, less like a creature of the dark ready to scurry back into her hole at
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the foundation at the slightest sign the outside world was getting too close. But he wasn't sure he wanted to deal with her new assertiveness just then.
"Proving the Bible is true is what I do. I can't think of anything more important."
She considered him skeptically, then reached for the door handle as the driver swerved to avoid an old man on a swaying bicycle. Regaining her equilibrium, she said, "No? What about prophecy? Biblical prophecy."
"That's part of it. If we can demonstrate that the Old Testament prophets were writing at the time they say they were, then that proves they were genuine."
"I don't follow."
Reluctantly, he turned his gaze away from the buzzing confusion of the streets. "Some of what they predicted has happened. Skeptics say that's because they were actually writing after the event, so they were looking backward, not forward. If we can show they were writing at the time they claimed, then that proves they really could see history in advance."
"And why is that so important?"
"Because of the predictions that haven't come true yet. So people can be sure they will happen."
She nodded as if he'd confirmed something she already knew. "Then tell me about the part of the Book of Daniel that hasn't come true yet."
"Daniel? I thought you were mor
e interested in Marduk and Ereshkigal and all that crowd."
She looked at him with an intensity he hadn't seen before, and he realized he was being too harsh with her. For the first time, he noticed she wasn't wearing her amulet.
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"I'm sorry. Yes, I'll tell you about Daniel if you like. But why now?"
"You told me your search for the Brazen Serpent began with a mysterious message about Daniel. I think that's what this is all about. That's what we're risking our lives for. So I thought I might as well find out what I'm getting into."
She was trying for a flippant tone, but he didn't quite buy it.
"All right. Through Daniel, God was telling Nebuchadnezzar that throughout history there would be four world empires: his own, the Babylonian, represented by the Golden Head of his statue; then the empire of the Medes and Persians; then the Greeks; and finally the Romans. Each one gets progressively weaker, until with the Romans it actually splits in half--like the two legs of the statue."
"Rome and Byzantium."
"Right. So, four world empires. Just four. No one since the Romans--not Napoleon, not Hitler--has managed to set up a fifth."
She looked puzzled. "So what's the prediction that hasn't come true yet?"
"There's one part of Nebuchadnezzar's statue left. The ten toes. Prophecy experts believe the toes--made of clay and iron--represent an unstable form of government that will take over from today's nation-states in the near future. Probably ten kings or rulers of some kind, paving the way for the Antichrist."
She looked away, taking a moment to try to absorb what he was saying. They were cruising comfortably now as they took the Corniche al-Nil, the main thoroughfare that paralleled
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the east bank of the Nile, and the opulent mansions of the embassy district streamed past the window in a stately procession.
"And you think the secret, the mystery, Dakkuri was talking about might have something to do with that?"
He shrugged. "My gut tells me it has something to do with Daniel's predictions, yes. Something was nagging away at the back of my mind, and it took me a while to figure out what it was. The word you just used: mystery . In the Book of Revelation, that means Babylon. Dakkuri said the mystery would return."
"I don't understand. Babylon's going to return?"
He nodded. "The power of Babylon, yes. When the Antichrist sets up his one-world government."
She ran her hands through her hair. "Now you've lost me. Let's go back to the Serpent for a moment. If what we saw in the sewers was anything to go by, people have been worshiping it--or at least the middle piece of it--in secret for years, possibly thousands of years. Heaven knows how many innocents have been sacrificed along the way."
"I know. It's incredible. Horrifying."
"But has this cult got anything to do with what you were talking about--the return of Babylon?"
He scratched his jaw. "Let's just say there's a strong underlying connection. The forces of darkness. Evil. In the end it's all the same."
"And you and I are heading straight into the jaws of the dragon, aren't we?"
He struggled for something to say, some way of reassuring her, but at that moment the taxi pulled up at the main
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building of the American University, and a tall, white-suited man with a broad, brilliant smile was opening the door, ushering them into the blast-furnace heat.
"Murphy, you old dog! Welcome back to Cairo." Ten minutes later Jassim was sitting back in an uncomfortable-looking steel-backed chair that somehow seemed to perfectly accommodate his gangly frame. He sipped appreciatively from his martini glass.
"You're sure you won't?"
"Are you kidding? I know what you put in that stuff. The alcohol is the least of it."
Jassim laughed his rich, mellifluous laugh. "Same old Murphy."
"Same old Jassim." Murphy raised his glass of lemonade.
"Yes, sadly, I am a very bad Muslim."
"I don't know about that, but you're still a very good man in my book. Your letter after Laura died really helped."
Jassim's ebullient expression sobered. "I'm sure it didn't, but I had to tell you what was in my heart."
They drank in silence for a while, lost in memories of Laura.
Eventually Jassim said, "Dr. McDonald is okay? She was very pleasant, but perhaps a little distracted." Isis had made her excuses and gone straight to the lodging Jassim had arranged for them both in the campus complex for visiting professors and their families.
"She's got a lot on her mind," Murphy said.
Jassim didn't pursue it. "Well, I hope she is fit and well tomorrow. We have a big day ahead of us." He shifted in his chair, beaming like a kid on Christmas Eve.
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"So, Professor Hawass went for it?"
"In a big way. When they X-rayed the tomb of Queen Hephrat back in the sixties, it was totally empty. The tomb robbers had beaten us once again."
"By a couple of thousand years, probably," said Murphy.
Jassim laughed. "All that was left was a deep, dark, empty hole at the bottom of the pyramid. So the notion that there is something still in there, something the robbers may have missed--something a Chaldean priest from the time of Nebuchadnezzar may have hidden there--the head of Moses' Brazen Serpent, no less! That would be quite an amazing story. Professor Hawass was delighted to put all of our humble resources at your service."
"Could we start by storing the middle section of the Serpent here? Given what happened at Washington, I would understand if you said no."
Jassim waved his hand. "We do not scare easily here. We will guard the piece with honor and discretion."
Murphy clapped his old friend on the shoulder. "Great. That's a relief. So you got a Pyramid Crawler for me?"
"Oh, yes. And I am very much looking forward to seeing it in action. The tomb robbers sometimes used young children or even midgets to get into these narrow passages." He shook his head. "Sadly, those unfortunates were often unable to get out again. Hopefully with the Pyramid Crawler we will be able to penetrate our pyramid's deepest secrets without any loss of life!"
"I hope so, Jassim, old friend," said Murphy, his face darkening. "I very much hope so."
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SIXTY-THREE
WHEN THEY MET up early the next morning, ready to drive out to the pyramid in Jassim's equipment-laden Land Rover, Murphy got a sense that Isis had settled something in her mind. She didn't say much, but the measured, businesslike way she went about checking that they had everything they needed suggested an inner calm he had never seen in her.
As they took the Rodah Island bridge across the Nile and into the Shar'a al-Haram, running straight through the Giza district to the desert's edge, he wondered why he didn't feel the same way. After a few fretful hours tossing and turning in the grip of feverish dreams, he had given up on sleep and had spent the rest of the night pacing the garden at the back of their lodging.
Murphy had been hoping for something--a sign, perhaps, that he was doing the right thing, that it was part of God's
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plan for him to be there. But dawn had broken leaving him unrested and no wiser than before.
He looked at the Sphinx-like smile on Isis's face as she listened to Jassim's ridiculous stories of mummies' curses and haunted scarabs, and wondered if God had chosen to give her the sign, not him. Perhaps, like the prodigal son, she was the one God had favored. Not that he begrudged her. As long as someone knew they were on the right road.
Pyramid Road. He remembered that's what they called the approach to the desert. And when he had first driven along it in an old tin can of a Citroën with Laura, there had still been traces of the lush acacia, tamarind, and eucalyptus groves that had now totally disappeared beneath a tidal wave of urban sprawl.
As the concrete apartment buildings finally gave way and the three Giza pyramids appeared on the horizon, bringing a gasp of amazement from Isis and an accompanying chuckle from Jassim, M
urphy wondered if the remarkable juxtaposition of ancient and modern was perhaps the sign he had been waiting for.
Here in Cairo, people rushed headlong into the future while the monuments of mankind's deepest past looked on, unchanging, as if to say, If you want to know what really lies ahead, look behind you .
The road climbed to the top of the square-mile plateau and curved around the Sphinx, with its thousand-year stare, and then the three awesome pyramids were there before them, housing respectively a royal father, son, and grandson. Clustered around the Big Three, the much smaller pyramids of queens and princesses only added to the sense of majestic scale.
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As the Land Rover continued on, circling to the northeastern edge of the plateau, the great pyramids started to shrink into the distance again. Isis craned her neck, trying to fix every fleeting detail of the extraordinary panorama in her mind, until Jassim tapped her on the shoulder and pointed dead ahead.
Standing aloof in this empty corner of the plateau, The Pyramid of the Winds could have been built yesterday, so perfect was its ancient geometry. Smaller than its more famous cousins, it was in its way just as impressive, its sheer walls of smoothly fitting stone blocks a testament to the timeless genius of its creators.
"It's amazing," Isis said, scrambling out of the Land Rover and squinting through the fierce haze.
"One of the world's great feats of engineering," Jassim agreed.
"It helps if you have thousands of slaves to drag the stone blocks into place," added Murphy.
"Of course. That is why our modern buildings are so puny in comparison," Jassim laughed. "You just cannot get the slaves these days."
Isis unrolled the three-dimensional map of the pyramid's interior while Jassim and Murphy checked that the Crawler's systems were in working order. "Perfect," Jassim pronounced finally as a crystal-clear image of the pyramid appeared on the screen of the laptop balanced on his knees. "And she seems to be responding correctly to all my commands." He patted the Crawler like a faithful dog and pointed toward the pyramid. "Go, fetch," he said sternly.