The Cult of Osiris

‘In New York,’ she said casually. ‘She told me an interesting story about what was going on here.’ Her gaze hardened, fixing on Hamdi. ‘And after what happened when I met her, I’m inclined to believe her.’

‘What did happen?’ Berkeley asked.

‘Things went a bit Michael Bay,’ said Eddie. ‘Gunfights, car chases, explosions - the usual.’

‘Whatever she told you is a lie,’ Hamdi said, a little too quickly.

Nina indicated the wall below the road. ‘There’s an easy way to find out. Logan, there’s a tent over there. If you take a look inside, I think you’ll find something interesting.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like a shaft that leads to a second entrance to the Hall of Records. Somebody’s trying to beat you to it.’

Berkeley stared at her. ‘Absolute horseshit,’ he finally said.

‘Excuse me?’ said Nina, affronted.

‘This is pathetic, quite frankly. Maureen told me you’d been to see her with some holier-than-thou protest about the opening of the Hall being televised - as if you’ve never taken advantage of the media when it suited you! The cover of Time? Appearing on The Tonight Show?’ His face curled into a sneer. ‘Well, now it’s someone else’s turn in the spotlight, and you just can’t take that, can you?’

‘It’s nothing to do with me,’ she growled. ‘It’s about protecting an archaeological treasure - and maybe even saving you and the IHA from a huge embarrassment.’

Berkeley rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, please. The only embarrassment to the IHA is you, Nina. I suppose after that Garden of Eden garbage you were spouting last year, whatever nonsense Macy came up with to cover her ass was probably right up your street.’

Nina could tell that Eddie was on the verge of punching Berkeley, and moved to block him, though she was sorely tempted to take a swing herself. ‘I wasn’t “spouting” anything - that was a smear job. Not that I expect you to believe me. But you don’t have to believe me about this either. Just look in that tent. I’ll even wait right here, so if I’m wrong and there’s nothing there you can call me an idiot to my face! How about it?’

‘This is ridiculous,’ blustered Hamdi. ‘There is no shaft, there is no robbery.’

‘Well, you would say that,’ said Eddie. ‘Seeing as you’re on the take.’

The Egyptian’s eyes bulged in outrage. ‘That - that is slander!’

‘Easy way to prove it, isn’t there? Look in the tent.’

Hamdi scurried for the security gate. ‘Dr Berkeley, I refuse to stand here and be insulted. I will see you at the excavation - and I am very tempted to have these two removed from the plateau!’ One of the guards raised a hand to stop him, apparently unaware who he was, but the other said something and he stood back.

Berkeley shook his head. ‘You know, it’s really sad that you’ve come down to this level, Nina. I don’t know whether I should pity you or laugh at you.’

‘One of ’em’ll hurt you a lot more than the other,’ Eddie rumbled.

Berkeley looked decidedly uncomfortable at the not-so-veiled threat. ‘I always thought you were too close to the edge,’ he sniffed as he followed Hamdi. ‘Guess I was right.’

‘Yeah? And I always thought you were an asshole, and guess what - I was right too!’ Nina called after him. This time, both guards stepped forward, not letting him into the Sphinx compound until he presented his ID. With a final glare back at Nina, he headed after Hamdi.

‘That went okay, I think,’ said Eddie with a half-smile.

Nina was more aggravated. ‘God damn it! All he has to do is look in the tent, and this whole thing’ll be over!’

‘Well, he can’t say you didn’t warn him. And Rothschild too. They’ll be the ones who’ll look like tools if the place really does get robbed.’

‘But if these guys are smart and connected enough to organise something like this, they’ll be able to clean the place up and cover their tracks before Logan opens the entrance. Nobody’ll even know there was anything there to rob. Oh, God.’ She looked tiredly towards the Valley Temple to see Macy waving impatiently at them. ‘Great, and now we’re being summoned.’

‘What happened?’ Macy demanded when they reached her. ‘Is he going to look?’

‘Take a guess,’ said Eddie.

‘He’s going to look?’

‘Guess again.’

‘Oh.’

‘And also, he hates us,’ added Nina.

From Macy’s expression, the possibility of failure hadn’t occurred to her. ‘But . . . No, no way! Now what do we do?’

‘What can we do?’ Nina asked rhetorically. ‘Logan won’t listen to us, Hamdi’s involved in it, and we can’t get inside the compound to find the thing ourselves.’

Macy delved into a pocket. ‘I’ve still got my ID,’ she said, producing a card. ‘If the guys at the gate are new, they won’t recognise me, so I could get in.’

‘And then what? If Shaban’s guys see you, they’ll try to kill you. And even if you get proof, Logan’ll have you arrested if you try to give it to him.’

‘But we’ve got to do something! The IHA is going to open the Hall of Records in less than eighteen hours, which means whatever the bad guys are doing, they’re doing it right now! This is the only chance we’ll have to stop them!’

‘I don’t want them to rob the Hall of Records either,’ said Nina, ‘but unless we have solid proof we can take to the Egyptian authorities, we can’t do anything to stop them.’

‘So you’re just giving up?’ Macy said in disbelief. She pulled out the magazine pages and flapped them at Nina. ‘Did you just give up when someone said you wouldn’t find Atlantis? Did you give up when nobody believed the Tomb of Hercules was real?’

Nina irritably snatched the papers from her hand. ‘Did you get your motivational speeches from fortune cookies?’ she retorted. ‘I’m being practical here. We can’t do anything unless we can get inside the compound, which we can’t do without IDs - and even if we do, there are fifteen archaeologists and a whole TV crew plus God knows how many guards wandering about the place!’

‘They can’t all be there the whole time,’ said Eddie. ‘They’re doing this thing at the crack of sparrowfart tomorrow morning, right? So the IHA and telly guys have to get some sleep beforehand.’ He looked over at the high wall. ‘Do they still do that light show that was in The Spy Who Loved Me?’ Macy nodded. ‘So everyone’ll be looking at the Sphinx, not anything else . . .’

‘Something in mind?’ Nina asked.

‘I might have a way to get us all in.’ He turned to Macy. ‘It means you’ll have to risk getting caught, though. You up for that?’

Nina gave him a warning look, but Macy was already responding with an enthusiastic affirmative. ‘What do I have to do?’

‘Get through that gate without being arrested, for starters.’ He glanced back towards Cairo. ‘But first, we need to do a bit of shopping.’

The sound and light show was under way by the time they returned to Giza.

Eddie regarded the spotlit Sphinx, then followed the direction of its gaze over the seated audience. ‘Huh,’ he said, spotting a particular illuminated sign on a building beyond the perimeter. ‘The Sphinx is looking right at a Pizza Hut.’

‘Whoever built it’d completely freak out,’ Macy said. ‘The whole point of it looking in that direction was so it would see the sunrise. Now? Start the day with a Pepperoni Feast.’

‘You don’t know who built it?’

‘I thought it was Khafre,’ said Nina.

Macy shook her head. ‘Doubt it. Haven’t you heard of the Inventory Stele?’

‘The what?’ asked Eddie.

‘This ancient text a guy discovered in 1857. According to that, the Sphinx was already there when Khafre was building his pyramid. That’s why the causeway to the pyramid doesn’t point due east - they had to work round the Sphinx.’