The Forbidden Tomb (11 page)

‘Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!’ shouted McNutt, who flushed with embarrassment. He glanced around the room to make sure no one had heard the comment. ‘First of all, I was drunk. Secondly, I thought it was a chick. And most importantly, your dad was hot.’

Tyson spit out a mouthful of beer. ‘Dude, that’s
so
wrong.’

McNutt patted him on the back. ‘Are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay. If you can’t breathe, I can call your father. I still have his number.’

Tyson wiped the tears from his eyes and the beer from his chin. He hadn’t laughed like that in weeks. ‘I’m glad you called, man. I really am. It’s been way too long.’

McNutt nodded in agreement. ‘Sorry about that, but you know how it is. When you’re in country, I’m not – and vice versa. How long you here?’

‘Not very. How about you?’

‘Pushing out soon.’

‘To Egypt?’

‘For starters. And you?’

‘Same region, different zip code.’

‘How close?’

‘
Real
close.’

‘Good to know.’

Tyson took a long swig of beer before he spoke again. ‘Josh, I don’t know what you’re mixed up in, and the truth is I don’t want to know. No, actually, I take that back. I
do
want to know – but I respect you enough not to ask.’

McNutt nodded. ‘Same here.’

‘That being said, I don’t think you have a total grasp of the situation. I’m telling you: Egypt is rough. As bad as the deserts are, the cities might be worse.’

‘How so?’

‘Have you heard of the forty-niners?’

‘The football team?’

‘No, the
actual
forty-niners. The thousands of men and women who made their way to California in search of gold back in the eighteen hundreds.’

‘Yeah, but – where are you going with this?’

Tyson continued. ‘When the forty-niners came to California, they were at the mercy of those who came before them. What they found was that nearly everything required the payment of a toll. “You want to drink from my stream? That’ll be a nickel.” “You want to pass through my land? That’ll be a nickel.” Everywhere they looked, everything they did, they were being charged a fee.’

McNutt shook his head. ‘I’m still lost. How does any of this relate to me?’

‘That’s what the cities are like in Egypt. It doesn’t matter what you’re talking about – legal or illegal; black market, white market, or gray market – there’s always a fee. For everything. And if you don’t pay, they make you pay.’

McNutt raised his hand and ordered another round. He’d stay here all night if he had to, buying drink after drink until he knew everything about Egypt.

‘Who’s they?’ he asked.

Tyson explained. ‘When the government went to hell, criminals saw a golden opportunity and seized control of the cities. And it’s been like that ever since. “You want to build a refinery? Here’s the toll.” “You want to pave a new road? Here’s the toll.” Whoever controls the land sets the price of doing business in that particular neighborhood. And trust me, the fees are a lot more than a nickel.’

‘How entrenched are they?’

Tyson laughed. ‘They control everything in one way or another. Everything goes through them, or it doesn’t go at all. Commerce. Tourism. Industry. You name it, they run it. Just like the mob in Jersey.’

‘That bad, huh?’

He nodded. ‘That shit you mentioned earlier – the stuff you’re hoping to find? There better be a lot of it, because the withdrawal fees are going to cost you plenty.’

Garcia had already fulfilled his research duties for Cobb and had passed along the news about McNutt’s desertion. Beyond that, he didn’t have much to do.

To make himself useful, he approached Jasmine to see if she needed help. Of all the team members, he found her to be the least combative. And while he still preferred the company of computers to interactions with humans, he didn’t really mind spending time with Jasmine. Besides, he still had a lot of gaps to fill before he completely understood what they were looking for, and he knew she could help with that.

‘Are you getting the hang of the table?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘So far I’ve been able to rearrange the images and overlap them as I see fit, but I can’t seem to figure out how to link the various layers.’ She reached out and gently pushed the corner of the hologram, sending a layer of the map spinning. ‘I can do that, but what if I wanted to spin the entire thing at once? What if I want it to act as one big piece, instead of several individual layers? Is that possible?’

‘Sure.’ Garcia tapped two adjacent points on two levels of the hologram and folded his hands together, interlocking his fingers as if he were about to pray. When he reached out and spun the lower level, the level above it now spun as well.

Jasmine shook her head as she duplicated the maneuver. ‘That’s so intuitive I should have thought of it myself.’ She linked a few more layers together just for practice. ‘What about notes? Is there a way to add notes to the map? That would make things a lot easier for me.’

Garcia extended two fingers and double-tapped on the display screen. ‘You can add notes, add color, drop pins, calculate distances, and a few other bells and whistles. The entire toolbar incorporates a voice recognition system. Just tap on a section of interest, speak your note, and the computer will do the rest.’

He motioned for her to try.

She nodded and tapped on a tall Roman column in the middle of a large park. Built in 297 AD, the column towered above the plaza. ‘Pompey’s Pillar.’

A second later, the computer displayed the words
POMPEY’S PILLAR
on the screen. Garcia tapped the window again and the words immediately appeared on the map directly above the point of interest.

‘Hector, that’s fantastic!’ She was so excited that she gave him a hug. ‘Seriously, I can’t thank you enough. This program will save me so much time.’

Garcia beamed with pride. ‘Glad I could help.’

Papineau – who had a habit of coming and going as he saw fit, always without explanation – reentered the room as their hug was ending. ‘Jasmine, what are you celebrating? Have you figured out where to start?’

‘Start?’ Garcia said. ‘I thought the map was going to tell us where to
finish
.’

Papineau laughed him off. ‘Unfortunately, no. It won’t be that easy. There’s no X that marks the spot. Instead, we must determine where to begin.’

‘I thought we knew that already. We’re going to start in Alexandria.’ He glanced at them for confirmation. ‘Right?’

‘Yes, but where?’

Garcia stared at the map. He saw miles of roads, hundreds of buildings, and countless acres of underground catacombs. Finding one tomb in all of that seemed unlikely at best. ‘Crap. This is going to be tougher than I thought: like trying to find a snowflake in an avalanche.’

‘Hector, snowflakes would be easy by comparison. This is going to be substantially more difficult.’

Jasmine shrugged. ‘Maybe, maybe not.’

Papineau lit up. ‘You found something?’

‘Nothing definitive, but . . .’ Her tone was far from confident, as if she was still trying to convince herself of the possibility. ‘Maybe.’

‘Well, don’t just stand there. Show us!’

Jasmine groaned, but did as she was told. She stripped away all of the more recent layers of the map, leaving only the oldest renditions. Then she enlarged the hologram, focusing on a depression in the center of the map. ‘I know it looks like a hole in the ground, but I’m intrigued by the label. It’s inscribed with the words “Donum Neptunus”.’

Classically educated, Papineau didn’t need a computer to translate the term. ‘It’s Latin. It means “The Gift of Neptune”. What do you make of it?’

She sat in the nearest chair and rubbed her eyes, still trying to work through the theory in her head. ‘There’s an ancient story that I’ve heard many times before in a wide variety of ways that mentions a sacred well in the bowels of Alexandria. According to legend, if you believe these types of things, the well was so magical that it played a major role in determining the fate of Egypt.’

‘A water well?’ Garcia asked. ‘How did it do that?’

She explained. ‘In 47 BC, Julius Caesar fought Ptolemy Theos Philopator for control of the city. There were two main battles. During the first, known as the Siege of Alexandria, Ptolemy’s men flooded Caesar’s freshwater reserves with seawater in an attempt to cause his surrender. To combat the sabotage, Caesar dug into the earth until he reached drinkable water. Caesar was then able to beat back Ptolemy’s forces and eventually defeat him during the Battle of the Nile.’

Papineau nodded in understanding. ‘Neptune was the Roman god of water. You think the Gift of Neptune is Caesar’s Well.’

‘I think it’s possible.’

‘Tell me more,’ he ordered. ‘Convince me.’

She smiled and accepted the challenge. ‘Realizing the importance of a freshwater source, Caesar supposedly had the pit fortified with stone. He then surrounded that well with sturdy walls that were twice as thick as those of any other building – walls that were protected by an elite garrison of Roman guards. Legend has it that for the next seven hundred years, only priests were allowed to enter the temple that housed the well. It was seen as the only way to ensure the sanctity of the water source.’

‘And after the seventh century?’

‘Unfortunately, there’s no mention of Caesar’s Well after the Persian invasion in any of the books I’ve read. Then again, there’s no official mention of the well
before
the Persian invasion, either. Like I said, this is just a legend. But . . .’

‘But what?’

‘But the Lost Throne was just a legend, and someone found that in Greece.’

Garcia stared at the map ‘So, assuming the rumors were true, and assuming that this “Donus Neptunus” does refer to your mythical well, how does that help us?’

Jasmine connected the dots. ‘Sometime around 200 AD, Emperor Septimius Severus had all evidence of Alexander’s tomb taken into custody. And I mean
everything
. If a book contained so much as a mention of the tomb, it was confiscated by the Roman Empire. Next he ordered that the tomb itself be sealed forever.’

‘What did he do with the evidence?’ Garcia asked.

Papineau had never heard of the sacred well, but he knew the history of Emperor Severus. ‘Some say he delivered it to the tomb before it was sealed. Some say he destroyed all the evidence in a giant fire. No one really knows for sure.’

Jasmine rose from her seat. ‘That’s just it. In the history of the world, how many things have been completely erased?’

Garcia scoffed at the question. ‘How can we possibly know that? If it was completely erased, there’d be no evidence of its existence. And, obviously, if there was no evidence of its existence, then we would not be able to determine that it had been erased.’

Papineau chuckled at the analytical thought process of their computer whiz. ‘Spoken like a true genius.’

Jasmine ignored Garcia’s logic. ‘Don’t over-think it, Hector. What I mean is this: just because Severus tried to collect every scrap of evidence that pertained to the tomb doesn’t make it possible. Do you really think anyone could accomplish something like that? Do you honestly believe he could find every trace of Alexander’s tomb in the world? Someone, somewhere had to hang on to something. A book. A drawing. A memory. Plus, if you know your history, there was one group in particular that secretly defied the emperor any chance they could – and they did it in plain sight.’

Papineau nodded. ‘The priests.’

Garcia groaned in confusion. ‘That doesn’t make sense to me. Why would Roman priests defy the Roman emperor?’

Jasmine explained. ‘In the time of Severus, Christianity had yet to be embraced by the Roman Empire. His religion had multiple gods. It would be another century before the people of the republic could openly worship the holy trinity. Until then, Christians were persecuted for their devotion to Jesus Christ. This would have put the Roman priests at great odds with the Roman emperor even as they continued to serve him. Severus believed that the very foundation of their belief system was a lie. And they, in turn, did not recognize the emperor as a member of the divine pantheon, as was the tradition of the day. Therefore, it actually makes perfect sense that the priests would defy the emperor.’

Garcia shrugged. ‘If you say so.’

She continued. ‘Severus allowed his son, Caracalla, to visit the tomb in 215 AD. That’s the last official Roman sighting on record. But according to several Christian sources, the priests followed Caracalla to the tomb and documented its location. Furthermore, if the legend about Donum Neptunus is correct, it was also the priests who maintained the well for several centuries after the acceptance of Christianity. It’s not inconceivable to think that we’re talking about the same group of people.’

‘And if we are?’ Papineau asked.

She smiled. ‘If you’re trying to hide evidence of Alexander’s tomb – evidence that could prove to be useful in your rebellion against the Empire – and you wanted to thumb your nose at the emperor at the exact same time, what better place to hide it than a heavily guarded, fortified building whose only visitors were fellow priests?’

Papineau laughed at the irony. ‘If that’s the case, the emperor’s garrison would have been unknowingly helping the priests by protecting information about the tomb. How delicious!’

‘Delicious, yes. But accurate? That remains to be seen. I won’t know anything for sure until I examine the site.’

Friday, October
31

Alexandria, Egypt

Cobb could have set up their command center in any section of the city, but after spending several days in Alexandria, he decided the coastal neighborhood of San Stefano was the perfect choice. Not only is San Stefano in the center of Alexandria’s width, making it ideal for exploring the city, but it also caters to foreign travelers.

Thanks to the restaurants, hotels, and shopping centers, tourists flocked to the district like pigeons to a park. At almost any time of the day or night, men and women of every shape, size, and nationality crowded the streets. Here, no one would think twice about a gathering of three Caucasians, a Latino, an Asian, and a Frenchman.