Decipher (12 page)
Authors: Stel Pavlou
“I take it the archeologists around here want access to the data. You know how they love to save money.”
“That's, uh, well ⦔ Clemmens scratched his head. “You'd better just talk to Douglas about that.”
Sarah eyed him coolly, unsurprised. Douglas was a company drone in charge of Rola Corp.'s construction arm. It was a small wing set up to accommodate favors for Third World governments, based on the notion that if they built a few things like a palace and a hotel, immediate tangible things, then they could dig or drill all they liked.
She found Douglas in the makeshift survey tent. Under the shade of some dusty green canvas and surrounded by a myriad of trailing cables and wires, he was the picture of organization. Hair slicked back, he wore a thin cotton shirt and dark glasses. He drank orange juice from a disposable plastic carton and jotted notes down on a yellow legal pad. Next to him on a rickety desk were stacks of papers in neat, tidy piles. He was standing, leaning over his notes when he glanced up. He did not look pleased.
“Wear longer sleeves next time, please,” he remarked.
Sarah gave a cursory glance at her bare arms. She was wearing khakis and a plain white cotton T-shirt. The humidity was low. The breeze coming in off the Sahara was dusty and harsh on her skin, but it was better than frostbite. And besides, she was damned if she was going to wrap up for these people.
“Fuck that,” she said angrily, throwing her purse down on the table.
Clemmens winced and ducked out of the firing line by taking up a position at one of the monitors. Douglas looked
around sharply to see if any locals were in range. He let out a sigh of relief when he was certain there were not.
around sharply to see if any locals were in range. He let out a sigh of relief when he was certain there were not.
“Listen, Doug. Is this Islam thing gonna affect my entire stay?” Sarah glared. “Gee, well at least I missed Ramadan. People going scatterbrain, starving themselves half to death from dawn till dusk for a month and dropping like flies because of it. Are you gonna ask me to abstain from sex too? Is that it?”
Douglas tried to let it roll over him. Failed. He slapped down the document he was working on. “Just try to stay out of trouble. I haven't gotten your visas all cleared yet.”
“It may have escaped your attention, but I'm not a Muslim and I've no intention of becoming one. So you can stick your dress code up yourâ”
“I get the point. I'm just passing on information. It'll make working here a damn sight easier. Since the extremists started taking over, this is a changed country, you know.”
Sarah kept her gaze level. “No shit,” she said. “They're screaming for your blood at the gate.” Douglas inclined his head and let her win that one.
Clemmens eyed Douglas derisively as he handed Sarah a sprawling print-out with a set of gray-scale graph lines running down the entire length of paper. She thanked him under her breath. Clutching the data tightly, she speed-read the first sweep geo-physics survey sheet. It was a torrent of numbers.
Clemmens said, “It's to a depth range of around fifteen meters.”
“They got the sub-structure readings for this entire area?”
Clemmens confirmed that they had, but Sarah was shaking her head. “This can't be right.” She held up the scan for all to see. “This is a perfect heptagon. There's a seven-sided structureâ
directly beneath the Sphinx.”
directly beneath the Sphinx.”
Â
It was clear Douglas and Clemmens were well aware of this revelation.
Clemmens jerked a thumb in the direction of the two operators. “Sally's out there now doing another sweep.”
Sarah tossed the print-out aside and went to one of the computers. She glanced down at the bearded, chunky guy sitting at the terminal and waved him away. He didn't look like he wanted to move.
“Frankie, this is Sarah Kelsey. She's the geologyâ”
“Oh, the geology chick.”
Sarah ignored them both as she tapped away on the keyboard. Clemmens had taken his cap off and was scratching his head again, embarrassed. “Yeah, the chick.”
“You're sure about these figures?” Sarah demanded. She keyed in reference points and analyzed the test results.
Clemmens dug into his shirt pocket and thumbed through his notebook. “Yeah. On the, uh, the fifth we took a core sample, authorized by the EDA at section G-one-eighty-seven.”
A core sample was taken by literally drilling a long hollow pipe into the ground and pulling it out again. The pipe would fill up with soil and rock and the resulting core was a cross-section of the ground. From that, each stratum could be measured and analyzed. A history of the entire area could be charted. If there was ash then chances were there'd been a fire. If there was a lot of ash, chances were a volcano had been nearby. If there was any organic matter it could be carbon-dated. And even though it was an unreliable method it still gave a relative age, which could be assigned to that stratum, the logic being that if a fly was fifteen hundred years old and five feet down the core, then five feet represented fifteen hundred years ago. Any flies found further down the core sample had to be older.
Sarah scrolled through pages of the project specs before she found the information she was looking for. “What did the core reveal?” she demanded, tapping the screen and jotting down the figures she needed.
“A big ole chunk of Aswan granite,” Clemmens confirmed. “Just like the survey said we'd find.”
Sarah looked up sharply. “Aswan granite?”
Clemmens shrugged. “Yeah, you and me both knowâAswan's five hundred miles south of here.”
“You and me both know there isn't any natural granite anywhere in the Nile Delta, especially not here at Giza. It's a sandstone outcropping.” She confirmed and tapped the geo-physics survey. “And there's no way in hell that this seven-sided granite ⦠thing was created by Mother Nature.” Her gaze rested on Douglas. They locked eyes for a moment.
“So what d'you think?” Clemmens prompted.
Sarah was cautious. But firm. She looked from man to man. “I think someone leaked this to the crowd outside.”
“No way,” Douglas growled. “Forget about them, they don't know anything. That's not why they're here.”
“Why are they here?”
Douglas wasn't biting. “What is your opinion on the granite?”
“I think,” Sarah said tentatively, keeping a fixed gaze on the foreman, “a good archeologist will tell you that the ancient Egyptians shipped all the granite they needed, down-river. Who's to say they didn't just build something under the Giza plateau?”
Clemmens was stunned. “How?”
Sarah looked pensive. “Who knows. Who cares. It's not our concern.”
“It's a natural formation,” Douglas insisted.
“Oh, come on!” Sarah scoffed.
“It's natural.”
“Who's the geologist here?”
Douglas glared, causing Sarah to fall silent. So that was it. Cooperation with the Egyptian Department of Antiquities was not what was going on here. Like her other trips to Egypt, the greasing of government palms was what was important here. To begin with, Rola Corp. had drawn up a strategy on how to tap oil in the Northern Desert west of the Nile, and had assessed the potential of the water reserves on the southern borders with Sudan. Both of these major resources, discovered in the late twentieth century, were vital to Egypt. Being the second largest international, and U.S., aid recipient in the world, a large proportion of her 70 million-strong populace needed immediate relief. And having just flown over Cairo this morning Sarah was in agreement. The Bulaq district was a slum. The Nile stretched off into the distance, a vast glistening life-line broken up by the Sixth of October Bridge and the island of Zamalek. But even now, well into the twenty-first century, the best public housing Egypt had to offer was still made from mud brick. The people were desperate. The nation was on the verge of turning fundamentalist and the government had its back to the wall. And Rola Corp. knew how to manipulate that to its advantage.
The computer beeped as it popped up another window of data. “Gotcha,” she said, as a steady stream of spikes appeared all over the geo-survey.
Egypt had mineral deposits. But nothing as exotic as the readings she was seeing. Gold was more her thing, found mostly to the east, in the Nile valley and the Sinai Mountains. Granite under the Sphinx was interesting but completely irrelevant to Rola Corp.
What
was
of prime relevance were the tiny spikes of data forming a pattern beneath the surface across the entire Giza site map. Sure enough they'd found more Carbon 60, just as Houghton had said.
was
of prime relevance were the tiny spikes of data forming a pattern beneath the surface across the entire Giza site map. Sure enough they'd found more Carbon 60, just as Houghton had said.
Sarah eyed Douglas again. “Exactly what kind of a museum are we building here?”
Douglas said: “Rola Corp.'s been out here almost ten years now, Sarah. Made a lot of people a lot of money. Won a lot of friends.” He finished off the last of his juice. “The government likes the work you did when you were out here last. And you of all people know how they like to reward loyalty.” He let the words sink in. “But there are only two certainties in this country. Poverty and sunstroke. So what do you do? Your education system sucks. Your industryâwell, forget your industry. You got a few offshore rigs in the Red Sea, but that's about it. Half your population works for other countries and sends home next to nothing. But you got minerals, and you know minerals are power.”
“Egypt's a real target for this company,” Sarah quipped with fake enthusiasm.
“Think about it. You suddenly find a solution. Carbon 60. Heaps of the stuff. All the experts tell you it's the future in computing, in precision engineering. It'll change the face of the world overnight. Trouble is, somebody made a pretty little statue from the stuff. So what do you do? If the moralists find out they'll be screaming for display cases. So do you really put it on show and hope enough fat Americans waddle past in their plaid pants, waving their five bucks? Do you opt for tourismâagain? Or do you blow it all to pieces and sell off the chunks? Do you get rich quick and give your people a life? What do you do, Sarah? What do you do?”
Sarah did what she always did. She went for her purse and grabbed a pack of cigarettes. Camel Lights. Her heart
was sinking fast and she was starting to feel sick. She'd been ambushed. This wasn't what she'd been expecting, or hoping for. She wanted a little adventure, a chance at pure research and exploration again. But this wasn't it. She was building herself a great reputation as a first-class geologist, even if she was stuck in a shit-heap company, but she knew that this wasn't research
or
exploration. She was being used. To the company, she was a commodity, an official line they could tack onto their pet projects.
was sinking fast and she was starting to feel sick. She'd been ambushed. This wasn't what she'd been expecting, or hoping for. She wanted a little adventure, a chance at pure research and exploration again. But this wasn't it. She was building herself a great reputation as a first-class geologist, even if she was stuck in a shit-heap company, but she knew that this wasn't research
or
exploration. She was being used. To the company, she was a commodity, an official line they could tack onto their pet projects.
She blew smoke rings. They were intended to irritate but Douglas acted like he hadn't noticed. Clemmens and Frankie watched in quiet trepidation.
“I'm excited,” she said finally with a hint of a smile. She was doing her best to hide her anger but she had a feeling she couldn't mask the betrayal in her eyes. Douglas did not respond. “I've never been to the pyramids. When I came as a kid the bus broke down and we never got out of the harbor.”
Douglas's expression was unreadable.
“What you're proposing is totally unethical. Not to mention illegal, most probably. I couldn't possibly associate myself withâ”
Douglas started grabbing his paperwork and shoving it into a well-worn leather briefcase. He eyed her again. “Your opinions are not required. You work for the companyâremember that. So where's this little ethical streak suddenly springing from, Sarah? You getting broody in your old age? You want a better future for your theoretical kids?” Suddenly his tone was loudly aggressive. “Well, forget it! The company didn't pay your way through college for nothing! They probably got enough stuff pegged on you so that you'll never work again. You've okayed enough shitty shit for this companyâyou'll be finished. But right now you've got a good reputation.”
Sarah's face was ashen. She said: “So what's the plan?”
Douglas stepped over to the monitor and pointed to the images on the screen. “It's simple. You dig. Eric here's working on the nuts and bolts strategy on how to get down there. When you reach the site you've got a few hours to decide. Is it Carbon 60âor isn't it? If it is, you smuggle it outâfast. The official line is we found a small mineral deposit
and are deciding if it's worth mining. If it isn't, then tomorrow morning on
CNN Live
, I announce to the world that Rola Corp. is, quote: âProud to announce the discovery of a major new archeological find.' It's that simple.”
and are deciding if it's worth mining. If it isn't, then tomorrow morning on
CNN Live
, I announce to the world that Rola Corp. is, quote: âProud to announce the discovery of a major new archeological find.' It's that simple.”
Sarah was skeptical. Things were never that simple.
Douglas glanced at his watch. “I've got to get to the Department of Trade by noon.” He handed Sarah a pen and pointed to the desk. “If you'd be so kind. Sign that temporary work permit and you're all clear.”
Bewildered, Sarah did so. But it was as she glanced at the other papers still on the desk that she noticed the front page of the
Egyptian Gazette
. She picked it up and scanned the headlines, which gave her yet another jolt. Here was the reason why the crowd had gathered outside.
Egyptian Gazette
. She picked it up and scanned the headlines, which gave her yet another jolt. Here was the reason why the crowd had gathered outside.
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