“Then you’re a hero, really,” she told him. “You just happen to be on the wrong side of history.”
“Exactly,” Zawas said. “Like Pharaoh during the Exodus. It was his bad luck that the eruption of the volcano at Thira in the Mediterranean should produce the plagues you eagerly attribute to the God of Moses. There was no parting of the Red Sea. The Israelites crossed at the Sea of Reeds in only six inches of water. But it was enough to bog down the wheels of Pharaoh’s chariots.”
“Then it was a greater miracle than I thought,” Serena said. “That all of Pharaoh’s soldiers and horses should drown in six inches of water.”
Zawas was not amused by her argument, she could see, and his face grew more stern in the flashing light. “History is written by the victor,” he told her. “How else can you explain Judeo-Christian exaltation of an allegedly merciful and loving God who goes around killing the firstborn of the ancient Egyptians?”
“He could have killed them all,” she said.
Zawas was put out. “So it was Pharaoh’s fault?”
She tried to focus. Even in her somewhat shaky state she recognized this could be a pivotal moment in persuading Zawas. “You know that at certain points of history, everything rests on one man or one woman,” she told him. “Noah and the ark. Pharaoh and the Israelites. God offered Pharaoh the divine opportunity to be the greatest emancipator in history. But his heart was stubborn and arrogant. Now is such a time. You may be such a man.”
“Or you that woman,” he said. “Where is the Shrine of the First Sun?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Then I honestly must give you to Jamil to finish the job,” he said. “It’s out of my control now. I wash my hands clean of this.”
“Says Pontius Pilate.”
“And I thought I was Pharaoh.” He shook his head and threw up his hands. “Am I to be compared to every villain in your Scriptures? Have you ever considered the possibility that these leaders are history’s true heroes and your saints the revisionist authors of fiction?”
He was about to turn and leave when his eyes once again drifted to the coffee thermos on the table.
“Why are you still carrying around your thermos?”
Serena said nothing, pretending not to hear.
But he was already untwisting the outer shell. He smelled the coffee and made a face. “I prefer tea myself.”
He emptied the coffee onto the stone floor and then tried to screw the lid back on. As he did, the blueprint fell to the floor.
Serena caught her breath.
Zawas picked up the blueprint and let out a hearty laugh. Then he showed it to her and said, “Do you know what these schematics are?”
She hung her shoulders in defeat. “The blueprint to the Scepter of Osiris.”
“No,” he told her. “This is the blueprint to the Shrine of the First Sun.”
She just stared at him, head rushing with dizziness.
“Yes,” Zawas said. “Now I have three things Doctor Yeats wants. And if he won’t lead me to the Shrine of the First Sun, then you will. I’ll tell Jamil he has more work to do.”
29
Scorpio.Sagittarius.Capricorn.For several hours Conrad led Yeats across the dark city, following each celestial coordinate to its terrestrial counterpart, and then moving on from one astronomically aligned monument to another. Each temple, pavilion, or landmark would in itself be the archaeological prize of the ages, but time and the buzz of choppers and searchlights overhead kept them marching forward. Finally, the heavenly treasure trail ended at the terrestrial counterpart to the constellation Aquarius, a spectacular temple dedicated to the Water Bearer.
The Sphinx-like pavilion loomed like a skull against the heavens, its silvery waterfalls glistening in the moonlight. Beyond it lurked the dark, towering peak of P4.
“That’s it,” Conrad said as he handed the nightscope to Yeats. They were crouched along the banks of the city’s largest water channel, which flowed directly from the monument. “The Temple of the Water Bearer.”
Yeats took a look. “That’s not all you found. Look again.”
Conrad scanned the Temple of the Water Bearer and suddenly saw lights around the base and promontory. “Zawas?”
“Looks like he’s turned it into his base camp.”
Conrad lowered the nightscope. “How the hell did they know?”
Yeats shrugged. “Maybe Mother Earth is helping him.”
“Or maybe they have some sort of map.”
“Doubtful,” Yeats said. “You said yourself that the map is in the stars.” Yeats paused. “Now you’re absolutely sure you need to get in there? Because it’s both our asses if Zawas catches us.”
Conrad nodded. “Only by standing in the right place at the right time will the Shining One pinpoint the location of the Shrine of the First Sun,” he said.
Yeats narrowed his eyes. “And where exactly are we supposed to consult this ‘Shining One’?”
Conrad hesitated to break the bad news. “I suspect it’s between the waterfalls at the Temple of the Water Bearer. In the middle of Zawas’s base.”
Yeats flipped his wrist and glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. “It’s already zero four hundred hours. Almost dawn. The sun is going to be coming up. We don’t have much time.”
Conrad spent the next half hour surveying the temple from a distance while Yeats drew up a plan.
“You’ll see the promontory on the east face is about a hundred and fifty feet high,” Yeats told him. “Two narrow stairways on either side go to the base of the falls. Because of that, I doubt Zawas posts more than one guard at the bottom of each flight of steps. That and the fact he needs as many warm bodies as possible looking for the Shrine of the First Sun.”
Conrad scanned the east face down the falls to the ground. Suddenly the sentries at the north end of the east face came into sharp focus. So did an inflatable attack boat moored beneath the falls. The upturned bow and stern cones told him it was a Zodiac Futura Commando, a favorite of special forces around the world.
“I see the guards,” he said. “They’ve got a Zodiac inflatable tied up.”
“Just one?”
“The others are probably patrolling the waterways, looking for us.”
“Let me see.” Yeats took the nightscope. “Zawas rotates his guards every three hours. At least that’s the way he used to do things during U.N. peacekeeping jobs. This shift looks about done by the body language.” Yeats handed the nightscope back to Conrad. “So we simply relieve the present shift a few minutes early. Then, after I make sure you’re covered, we split.”
“And just how do we do that?”
Yeats flicked on an old cigarette lighter to illuminate the drawing he had made in the dark.
“You find this so-called Shining One who’s going to lead us to the Shrine of the First Sun,” Yeats said, tracing a line toward the promontory with his finger. “I’ll go to the summit where Zawas keeps his choppers and secure one for the getaway. You’ll have six minutes to get from the promontory to the summit. Then we fly away.”
“Just like that?” Conrad said.
“Just like that,” Yeats said. “I’ll rig the other choppers to blow so Zawas can’t tail us in the air. It will buy us the time we need to beat him to the shrine.”
Conrad stared at the lighter Yeats was using to illuminate his drawing. It was an old Zippo with a NASA emblem and an engraving to Yeats from Captain Rick Conrad, one of the crew who died in Antarctica in 1969 and the man Conrad was told was his biological father. That was back in the days when astronauts smoked. He had often snuck into Yeats’s study to play with it. Once he almost burned down the house. He had hoped Yeats would
