The Heretic's Treasure by Scott Mariani
This was no longer a natural cave. The shaft they were following now was man-made, dug with amazing precision out of the solid rock. The walls were covered in faded paintings, strange images that didn’t look familiarly Egyptian to Ben.
‘I don’t know who carved this passage out,’ Kirby said. ‘But it wasn’t Wenkaura.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Sure as I’ll ever be. Look at these images. I’ve never seen anything like them before. These are nothing any scholar would recognise. Some Predynastic culture built this place. Or Nubian, or some other civilisation we don’t even know about. It’s incredible. How Wenkaura found this place, we’ll never know.’
A loud, echoing series of rumbling cracks made them spin around. Ben watched as a thin fissure slowly spread across the tunnel wall beside him and part of a painted image crumbled away.
‘This can’t be good,’ Kirby murmured. ‘The place is falling apart.’
Thirty yards further on through the dark, winding shaft they came to a dead end. The wall that blocked the tunnel was covered in ancient cobwebs and dust. ‘Hold this.’ Ben thrust the torch into Kirby’s hands and brushed away the webs, revealing the cracks between stone blocks. ‘There are more markings here. And these are definitely Egyptian.’
Kirby came up close. The firelight sent dark shadows into the carved hieroglyphs in front of them.
‘Can you read it?’
Kirby’s mouth dropped open. ‘Oh, God.’
‘Can you read it?’ Ben repeated impatiently.
Kirby turned. ‘It says, “Amun is content. The treasure is restored.” This is it. We found it.’
‘Then let’s see what we’ve got.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Straight through this wall,’ Ben said. He took the blazing rifle from Kirby and swung the stock hard at the wall. The crash of solid wood on stone echoed through the tunnel. A block moved, maybe an eighth of an inch.
He swung the rifle again. The torch went out, and they were in darkness. ‘Stand back.’ He hit it again, blind. There was a crash of something falling. He kept swinging and swinging until the rifle stock broke and clattered to the stone floor. He felt for another strip of cloth, wrapped it around the barrel, flicked open his lighter and relit it.
He smiled at what he saw. There was now a hole in the wall just about big enough to crawl through. He stooped down beside it, and felt a sigh of warm air escaping from the chamber inside. Dust particles hovered in the torchlight.
‘Here we go,’ Kirby said. ‘Monte Carlo or bust.’
Ben took a deep breath and crawled through into the darkness. Shone the torch at a floating mist of dust.
Kirby struggled through the hole and jumped up to his feet. ‘What do you see?’ he whispered.
‘Nothing,’ Ben said.
But then, as the dust slowly settled, he could see.
Chapter Fifty-Five
The details of the room gradually emerged from the mist. Strange forms seemed to lurk in the shadows. Ben narrowed his eyes and raised the torch higher as he stepped carefully deeper into the chamber. He was suddenly aware that he’d stopped breathing for a few seconds. He blinked, caught his breath, blinked again.
Sitting like a silent council of elders presiding over the huge chamber were a circle of giant seated statues. The light of the flames rippled over their perfect contours and threw back the glint of gold. The faces of the golden statues seemed to peer curiously out of the darkness that had surrounded them for thousands of years. They weren’t human, and they weren’t animal. They were the animal gods: the falcon-beaked face of Ra. Bastet, the cat goddess. The fanged snout of Sobek, the Ibis head of Thoth. The refugees from the religious dictatorship of Akhenaten threw long, flickering shadows on the chamber walls.
The space at their feet was stacked ten-foot high with an endless profusion of objects. It was enough to fill a museum. A golden jackal lay watching them from a plinth. Gold caskets and vases and magnificent cups everywhere, stone urns decorated with polytheistic images and brimming with sparking gold coins, jewels, amulets, pendants and rings, bracelets and crowns. Gold falcons and ankhs, gold shields. There was gold everywhere, unseen and untouched for millennia, smooth and sparkling and beautiful.
Kirby let out a strangled cry. He ran forward and plunged his hands into one of the urns. Filled his fists with precious artefacts and rubbed them over his face. ‘I found it,’ he mumbled over and over again. ‘I found it. I’m rich.’ He slipped a gold bangle the size of a dumbbell weight over one wrist, admired it with flashing eyes for a moment, grabbed a gold necklace and hung it around his neck. He cupped his hands and dipped them up to his elbows in glittering coins, brought out a piled handful and watched, mesmerised, as they slithered through his fingers. ‘It’s too much,’ he whispered. ‘It’s unbelievable.’
Ben watched in the torchlight as Kirby danced from one corner of the chamber to the other, touching and caressing everything, wild with excitement. In his gold fever the historian seemed to have forgotten that they were stranded out here in the desert. They were virtually unarmed, they had no transport, and very little water. The mouth of the cave could be swarming with Sudanese soldiers by now, or rebel militiamen who might take a lot of persuading that these two white Europeans should be allowed to go on their way.
Ben propped the torch at the foot of a statue, took out his phone and used it to photograph everything. Then he set it to video camera mode, walked to the middle of the chamber and filmed a slow, sweeping 360-degree panning shot.
‘What’s that for?’ Kirby asked, looking up from a fistful of artefacts that he’d been gazing at lovingly.
‘Evidence.’ Ben snatched a foot-long, falcon-headed golden deity statuette from an urn and thrust the heavy object in his belt. ‘Now let’s get out of here before this place caves in on us.’
Kirby frowned. ‘But the treasure—’
‘We’re not here to take the treasure,’ Ben said. ‘Just to find it. It’s not ours.’
‘You can’t just let this slip through your fingers,’ Kirby protested. ‘You can’t just walk away from it.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Some things are worth more to me.’
‘Like what?’
Another groaning tremor resonated through the rock, then stopped.
‘Do you want to discuss this outside?’ Ben asked. ‘Or under a million tons of rubble?’
‘That’s what I’m saying. At least we can save some of this stuff, if the worst happens.’
‘If the worst happens, it’s someone else’s problem,’ Ben said. ‘I didn’t come here to fill my pockets with trinkets. Now move it.’ He wrapped another strip of cloth around the torch, and saw Kirby’s sullen expression in the dancing flames.
They crawled back out through the hole in the wall and made their way back along the tunnel. The historian was strangely quiet as they crossed the chasm and passed through the teeth of Sobek much faster than on their earlier journey, but Ben paid him little attention. All he cared about now was getting out of the desert and somehow contacting Harry Paxton to tell him the search was over.
Ben moved faster through the sloping tunnel. Behind him, he could hear Kirby’s breath rasping as he fell further and further back in the shaft. At last, Ben found himself climbing the final stretch, towards the mouth of the cave. The air was fresh and cool. Night had fallen during their long exploration of the tunnels, and a pool of moonlight shone through the entrance.
When Kirby caught up with him a minute or two later, Ben took the .38 from his pocket and handed it to him. ‘Take this back. No hard feelings, OK?’ He walked on a few steps.
‘Stop there, Ben,’ Kirby said in a strange voice.
Ben walked on a couple more steps, then stopped and turned slowly.
Kirby was standing there with the gun raised in one fist, aimed right at Ben’s head.
‘What are you doing?’ Ben asked.
‘Put your pistol on the ground,’
Ben hesitated, and eased the Jericho out from behind his hip. Dangling it on one finger from the trigger guard, he crouched down and laid it on the rock near his feet.
‘Good. Now put your phone down next to it,’ Kirby said. ‘That’ll come in handy for me.’
Ben took out the phone and placed it next to the gun.
‘And now the idol,’ Kirby said, with a glitter in his eyes as he glanced at the gold statuette in Ben’s belt.
Ben tugged out the artefact and put it down with a heavy, solid clunk.
‘Now step away from them.’
Ben stepped away. ‘You don’t want to be doing this.’
‘Yes, I do. I’m sorry. I can’t let you give away the treasure. It’s mine.’
Ben said nothing.
‘You think I’d have dragged myself after you and gone through all this just for glory?’ Kirby asked. ‘You think that’s all I’m interested in? You think that’s what Morgan and I were planning, just to get our names in some academic journal? Think again, soldier boy.’
‘I can see I really misjudged you, Kirby.’
‘You certainly did. And this is as far as you go. I’m sorry.’
‘No, you’re not. Why pretend?’
Kirby shrugged. ‘Heck, you’re right. I’m not really.’
‘Just a couple of problems. One, you’re stranded out here. You’ll never get out alive.’
‘I’ll take my chances. There’s always a way. I suppose you want to tell me the second problem?’
‘I’ll let you figure it out.’
‘Fine. I will. Got any prayers to say before I kill you?’
‘Not really,’ Ben said.
Kirby nodded. ‘OK. So it’s goodbye, Ben. Thanks for making me rich.’
Then he squeezed the trigger. He didn’t close his eyes, or flinch. Instead, he took his time, and did it properly. At that short range, even with a snub-barrelled handgun, it was impossible to miss a man-sized target. Ben saw the cylinder turn as the internal hammer levered back, the mechanism aligning the round in the next chamber with the firing pin as it came down to punch the primer under spring tension.
The dry click of the empty chamber echoed in the cave entrance.
Kirby stared at the gun. He fired again. Another click.
Ben hadn’t flinched either. ‘I’m still alive,’ he said. ‘Want to know the second problem now?’
Kirby clicked again, and again, gaping in open-mouthed horror at the revolver.
‘No use, Kirby.’ Ben reached in his pocket and opened his fist to show the .38 lead roundnose cartridges that rolled clinking in his palm. ‘Here’s your second problem,’ he said. ‘I just emptied your gun.’
Kirby’s eyes boggled.
‘I lied about having misjudged you,’ Ben said. ‘I knew ages ago that you’d pull a stunt like this after we found the treasure. I saw the way you were eyeing up Claudel’s mansion and his Ferrari, despite your whole hate-the-rich routine. I knew you weren’t really the sort who’d take risks just for glory. So I took precautions. I taught you that if you could see the cartridge rims between the cylinder and frame, the gun was loaded. But what I didn’t tell you was that it looks just the same loaded with spent shells. Why else would I have got you to fire off a few? For practice? I’m afraid not, Kirby. I just wanted some empty brass. So now you’ve gone and proved me right. And you’re in the shit.’
Kirby’s face was twisted and mottled as he searched for the right answer. ‘I was just k-kidding,’ he stammered. ‘It was just a gag, that’s all.’
‘You mean you knew it wasn’t loaded?’
‘No. I mean yes. I mean—’
The crack of a gunshot blasted through the silence. The top of Kirby’s head was blown away like a lid. Blood splattered on the cave wall. His knees crumpled and he collapsed straight down in a heap, like an empty suit of clothes. The revolver tumbled across the rock.
Ben whirled around.
Three men were standing in the moonlit cave entrance. One of them was holding an AKS with a wisp of smoke trickling from the muzzle.
But Ben hardly even registered him. He was looking at the man in the middle.
It was Kamal.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Kamal smiled. ‘And here we are again.’ His gaze landed on the gold statuette that was glimmering in the soft moonlight. He stepped over to it and snatched it up with a triumphant look. ‘It seems you’re always a step ahead of me,’ he chuckled. ‘And you have killed a lot of my men. A worthy adversary. There aren’t enough of them in this world.’ He motioned at Kirby’s corpse. ‘That’s why I didn’t want him killing you. I would like to reserve that pleasure for myself
‘I’m deeply honoured,’ Ben said.
Kamal gripped the statuette tight in his fist. ‘But, before I do, you’re going to show me where you found this.’
‘Die if I do, die if I don’t?’ Ben said. ‘You need to think that one through again, if you want my help.’
‘There are different ways for a man to die,’ Kamal said. ‘Some merciful, some less so. I think we understand each other?’
Ben didn’t answer. It was a straight choice. A slow, horrible death now, or a chance to buy some time and think about his next move. He didn’t need long to decide.
‘Fine, Kamal. I’ll take you to the treasure.’
Kamal put out his hand, and one of the men passed him a pair of stubby black tubular Maglite torches. He tossed one to Ben. ‘Lead the way. Emad, you go next and watch this son of a whore. Fekri, you follow me.’
Ben stepped over Kirby’s body. The moon’s reflection shimmered in the blood pooling on the cave floor. He walked back the way he’d come, down into the shaft, pointing the Maglite ahead of him. The terrorist called Emad followed with his AKS at Ben’s back. He was about thirty, muscular and volatile-looking. Kamal followed behind him, and the smaller, darker one called Fekri brought up the rear.
They walked. The bright white beam of the torch picked out every crag and crevice. The hard muzzle of the assault rifle dug into the small of Ben’s back.
Behind him, Kamal’s cold voice echoed in the tunnel. ‘Know that when I get the treasure, your Western world will change forever. My plans are complete.’
‘So regular terrorism is just a little too warm and cosy for you. Murdering innocent train passengers getting a bit stale. You want to move on to something bigger.’
‘You’ll never live to witness what I can do,’ Kamal replied. ‘But many will, and soon.’
‘It’s a lot of money to blow on Kalashnikovs and Semtex,’ Ben said. ‘But do you really think that’s going to change the world? You don’t think they’ll just hunt you down like all the rest?’
‘Kalashnikovs and Semtex are for children to play with,’ Kamal said. ‘I have something else in mind.’
‘And you’re dying to tell me.’
Kamal gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘How about the complete destruction of five major Western cities?’
He named them. And then he described how he was going to make it happen.
Ben’s step faltered. He made no reply.
Kamal sounded pleased. ‘At last. You begin to understand who you’re dealing with.’
‘You’ll never succeed, Kamal.’
‘No? And why not? You believe your Western security forces have any hope of preventing it?’
‘No,’ Ben replied. ‘I don’t believe they do. You’ll never succeed, because I’m going to stop you. You’ll be the baddest guy in the graveyard. That’s as far as you’re going to get. Believe me.’
‘Fine speech,’ Kamal said. ‘Very patriotic.’
‘I’m not interested in patriotism,’ Ben told him. ‘I don’t fight under a flag. I don’t care about oil or economics or politics, or any of the dirty double-dealing that gives elected gangsters the excuse to bomb someone else’s country and call it justice. I was part of that hypocrisy once, and I walked away. But that doesn’t
‘I could kill you now,’ Kamal said. ‘Just for talking to me like that.’
‘Then you’d never find your way through the maze of tunnels down there,’ Ben replied. ‘There are a hundred hidden shafts, and as many false doorways.’ It was a wild bluff, but he needed to buy all the time to could to think of a way out of this. ‘You could spend years searching. Kill me, and you can kiss your private little jihad goodbye.’
Kamal’s voice was tight with fury. ‘Fuck you. Keep walking.’
‘You’re scared, aren’t you, Kamal? Scared shitless you’re not going to find anything down there. You know that the kind of people you’re buying these nukes from aren’t going to tolerate you not coming up with the cash. You thought you were the hardest, meanest guy in the world. But now you’ve done a deal with the devil, and you’re pissing your pants.’
Kamal was about to reply when another rumble groaned through the rock around them. A ripping crack echoed through the shaft. In the white torch beam, Ben saw a fissure open up to the width of a man’s thumb. Powder and dust cascaded from the ceiling, followed by a stream of small rocks that formed a pile up ahead.
‘What was that?’ Kamal asked, his fierce self-assurance slipping for an instant.
‘Something I forgot to mention,’ Ben said over his shoulder as he walked on, kicking rocks out of the way. ‘The tunnels are becoming unstable. Your treasure just slipped a little further out of reach.’ This time, it was no bluff.
Kamal quickly regained his composure, and laughed darkly. ‘Then there’s no time to lose. Move faster.’
Emad prodded the rifle hard into Ben’s back, shoving him onwards. As they rounded the bend in the tunnel shaft, the giant cavern opened up ahead and the torch beams picked out the shape of the rope bridge.
‘Keep moving,’ Kamal said.
More dust and stones showered down around them. It was getting steadily worse. Cracks were forming everywhere, slowly widening. The ridge was crumbling, with them inside.
Another painful jab from the AKS behind him, and Ben stepped out onto the bridge. ‘I don’t know how safe it is for four men to cross,’ he said truthfully.