The Cult of Osiris

Site security chief Sefu Gamal quickly traversed the walkway running between the Temple of the Sphinx and the smaller, marginally less ancient ruin to its northwest. At the walkway’s end was a guarded gate. Since 2008, the once-open plain of the Giza plateau had been surrounded by over twelve miles of high steel and wire fence, partly to restrict the numbers of peddlers hawking trinkets and camel rides to visitors, and partly for security purposes: Egypt was unwilling to risk a repeat of the 1997 massacre of tourists at Luxor. Now, the plateau was observed by hundreds of security cameras and members of the Tourist Police, and all visitors were screened by metal detectors.

But there were more fences within, these not there to protect tourists from terrorists, but to protect Egypt’s treasures from tourists. Access to the interiors of the pyramids was restricted to just a handful of visitors each day, while the Sphinx itself was almost entirely off-limits - and with a major archaeological excavation in progress, the Sphinx compound was even more closely guarded than usual. The sandstone pit containing the statue was bounded to the east by its temple, to the west and south by cliffs where it had been dug out of the desert, and to the north by a modern stone wall supporting a road across the plain. Only those with passes were normally allowed access.

But tonight there would be an exception.

Gamal reached the gate and waited as the son et lumiere display began. A couple of hundred tourists sat in ranks of chairs beyond the Temple of the Sphinx, watching the spectacle. He would have preferred the meeting to take place much later, after the last display had finished and the tourists - and the IHA team - had gone, but the man he was expecting was impatient . . . and quick to anger.

Approaching headlights: a black Mercedes SUV. This must be his visitor - since the erection of the boundary fence, traffic through the site was restricted. The first person out was unfamiliar, a rangy, long-haired Caucasian in a jacket of what looked like snakeskin, his straggly goatee doing little to conceal the almost equally scaly roughness of his face. He rounded the vehicle to open the door for another man, like Gamal an Egyptian.

Gamal stepped through the gate to greet him. ‘Mr Shaban,’ he said. ‘A great honour to meet you again.’

Sebak Shaban had no time to waste on pleasantries. ‘The dig’s behind schedule.’

‘Dr Berkeley said—’

‘Not that dig.’

Gamal concealed his discomfort as Shaban turned to look straight at him. An old burn scar ran across his right cheek from what remained of his ear to his top lip, the skin rippled and faintly glossy. The scarring had pulled down the outer corner of his lower eyelid, exposing glistening pink tissue within. From his previous encounters, the security chief was convinced that Shaban was well aware of the psychological impact of his injury upon others, favouring them with the unblemished, fairly handsome left side of his face until he wanted to express his disapproval in graphic form with a simple turn of the head. ‘There was a slight delay - very slight,’ he said quickly. ‘Part of the ceiling collapsed. We’ve already shored it up.’

‘Show me,’ ordered Shaban, walking to the gate.

‘Of course. Come with me.’ Gamal glanced questioningly at the other man, who followed them through.

‘My bodyguard,’ said Shaban. ‘And friend. Mr Diamondback.’

‘Diamondback?’ Gamal echoed uncertainly.

‘Bobby Diamondback,’ said the bodyguard, his accent a languid yet menacing American drawl. ‘It’s a Cherokee Indian name. Got a problem with that?’

‘No, not at all,’ Gamal replied, thinking he looked more like a cowboy than an Indian. He led them along the walkway. ‘This way, please.’

Mocking the sound and light show’s bombastic narration had slightly lifted Macy out of her black sulk when she spotted Gamal, from her position in the shadows only his upper body visible above the top of the temple’s northern wall.

There were two other men with him, one an ugly guy with a greasy mullet and a snakeskin jacket, and the other someone she recognised. Mr Sharman, Shaban, something like that? She had seen the scar-faced man briefly at the start of the dig; he was connected with the religious organisation co-funding it with the IHA. Presumably he was here to meet Berkeley.

The trio made their way to the corner of the smaller temple, where Gamal paused and looked towards the Sphinx - almost furtively, Macy thought. The cold stare of the man in the snakeskin jacket swept over her as he surveyed the area, then unexpectedly flicked back. An involuntary shudder ran through her. She had no idea why - she had every right to be there, and wasn’t doing anything wrong - but by the time the rational part of her mind told the rest of her body to relax, he had looked away again.

To Macy’s surprise, rather than descending the ramp towards the Sphinx, Gamal hopped across the gap between it and the upper level of the Sphinx compound, disappearing from her view. The other men followed.

Weird. The upper temple was over a thousand years younger than its larger neighbour, a product of the New Kingdom from around 1400 BC, and while it was in relatively better condition than the Temple of the Sphinx it was much less important historically. Why was Gamal giving a private tour? In the dark, at that?

Standing, she saw the tops of the men’s heads as they walked towards the temple entrance - and continued past it. Now she was really curious. There was nothing else up there. Where were they going?

Macy climbed out of the temple, seeing the trio rounding the ruin above. Some childhood Nancy Drew instinct kicked in, the urge to find out what they were doing rising, but she resisted it - until shouting came from the Sphinx. Berkeley, yelling at an Egyptian labourer who had just dropped a box.

Screw it, she thought. If Berkeley was still acting like a jerk, she didn’t want to be anywhere near him. Instead, she ascended the ramp and jumped across to the upper temple.

Green laser lines flashed above her, projecting hieroglyphics on the pyramids as the narrator sang the praises of Osiris, the immortal god-king of Egyptian legend. ‘Yeah, yeah, heard it all before,’ Macy whispered as she peered round the temple wall.

Part of the plateau’s north end had been cordoned off by orange plastic netting where repairs were under way on the high wall. A couple of small cabins and a tent-like structure stood amongst stacks of bricks and piles of rubble. It was such a mundane sight that while Macy had seen it every day as she entered the Sphinx compound, she had never actually noticed it before. Certainly nobody ever seemed to do any actual work there.

There was someone there now, though. As well as the men at the gate, other guards patrolled the compound to make sure no tourists tried to get up close and personal with the Sphinx. But the man waiting for Gamal and the others wasn’t patrolling. He was guarding the construction site.

The lighting changed, more lasers and spotlights slashing the black sky. The guard watched the display, only turning away when the visitors reached him. Brief words were exchanged, then he let them through the netting.

Gamal reached the tent and pulled aside a flap, revealing lights within. The other two ducked through, and with another furtive backwards glance Gamal followed. Macy jerked back behind the temple wall, wondering if he’d seen her, before realising how dumb she was being. So what if he had?

She peeked out again. The guard was strolling along the netting perimeter, looking bored. Through the gaps around the tent flap, she glimpsed activity within.

The movement stopped.

Macy kept watching, but it didn’t resume. What were they doing in there? Unless all three men were squashed together at one end, the tent didn’t seem big enough for them to keep out of sight. If anything, it now looked empty, but she couldn’t see how that was possible. It was right against the high wall.

She noticed something else, though: a faint plume of smoke. No, not smoke - fumes, chugging up from the end of a hose. But there wasn’t a generator in sight.

So where were the fumes coming from?

Interest now well and truly piqued, she rounded the corner, keeping low behind a pile of dirt. But she quickly realised her stealthiness was pointless; to reach the construction site, she would have to cross a wide, open space, and unless the guard was blind he couldn’t miss her.