The Forbidden Tomb (40 page)

‘More importantly,’ he continued, ‘I asked to meet you here because Giza was one of the last places in Egypt where your target, Cyril Manjani, was seen alive.’

The first thing that Jasmine noticed was the ringing in her head. The unavoidable tone enveloped her, drowning out not only sounds but her senses as well.

She instinctively brought her hands to her ears, hoping to block out the incessant noise. When her fingers touched the bandage that covered her temple, a creeping sensation of pain began to take hold. It was a deep, steady throbbing that blended perfectly with the cacophony inside her skull. She knew they were one and the same.

Lying in the dark, she moved her hands around her head, searching for the source of her suffering. The cloth dressing was dry so at least she wasn’t bleeding. She strained to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt heavy. The simple act of blinking required tremendous effort, and even then her dimly lit surroundings were little more than a blur.

The thick cobwebs in her mind made it tough to focus.

Just breathe
, she thought.

The air was warm and dry. Every breath felt gritty against the parched lining of her throat. She could smell the faintest wisp of smoke, and she knew that flame, not electricity, was lighting the room.

She licked her cracked lips and forced herself to swallow.

Her stomach rolled unnaturally. It wasn’t hunger; more like her body’s desperate attempt to fend off a foreign toxin. She fought hard against the nausea, hoping it would pass as she continued to gather her wits.

It took some time before she could open her eyes, and once she did, she confirmed her suspicions about the smoke. High above the room, a heavy clay pot of burning oil dangled from a rope of braided reeds. The flickering light was faint and could barely reach the nearest wall. The rest of the space was shrouded in darkness.

Jasmine’s mind raced as she tried to recall the last thing she could remember.

A solitary hut in the desert.

Walking desperately through the sand.

The nomads that came to her aid.

And the monsters that killed them.

The muscles in her arms and shoulders ached and her joints were stiff, as if they hadn’t been used for days. A dull burning spread throughout her body as she drew her blistered feet toward her chest. The sound of iron chains being dragged across the stone floor left her troubled and confused. She reached down her legs and felt the cold metal that bound each ankle.

She couldn’t imagine why she had been shackled.

Or could she?

Slowly, pieces of her adventure started to reemerge.

She knew she had been searching for something deep under the city of Alexandria. She remembered crawling through an unmarked opening into the hidden space beyond, all the while trespassing into areas that were off-limits to anyone but the Egyptian authorities. She quickly considered the very real possibility that she had been imprisoned for her actions. She dismissed the notion just as quickly, knowing that even the Ministry of State for Antiquities wouldn’t throw an American in a dungeon for a minor offense. And they certainly wouldn’t kill a bunch of nomads to recapture her.

No, there had to be another explanation.

As she tried to replay the events in her head, she could hear Garcia’s voice in her ear, telling her that they weren’t alone in the cisterns. She remembered Cobb and McNutt doubling back to investigate while she and Sarah pressed on. Eventually Sarah left her side and headed further into the darkness while she stayed behind to continue her examination of the wall. Then she saw a shadow on the wall and—

Oh my God. I was attacked in the tunnels
.

Memories of the assault came flooding back to her.

There was nothing she could have done to stop it.

The assailant had been big and strong and agile.

She was overwhelmed in a matter of seconds.

Haunted by the feeling of helplessness, she staggered to her feet and studied the wall ahead. It wasn’t made of cut stone blocks like the walls of the cisterns. It looked more like poured cement, though the crumbling texture meant that it had aged considerably. She thought back to the support pillars she had found in the tunnel and wondered if this too was Roman concrete.

As she stepped closer, she saw that it wasn’t cement or concrete of any kind. Instead, the wall was comprised of tightly packed sun-dried bricks – similar to the construction of the desert hut but more uniform and refined. The mortar between them was nearly invisible, giving the wall a monolithic feel.

From experience, she knew that such materials were common not only in Egypt, but throughout the Middle East as well. The only distinguishing feature of the brick was the acrid scent it left on her fingers.

For some reason, it reminded her of the sea.

Even more confusing was the strange sense that she had been transported back in time. The art of drying clay and mud into rough blocks has been practiced for thousands of years. It went hand in hand with the ancient style of oil lamp she had already noticed. Even the iron fetters fastened around her ankles appeared to be forged by hand, rather than stamped by modern machinery.

This place – whatever it was – hadn’t changed in centuries.

Rather than succumb to her fear, she channeled it. The ancient lamp was beyond her reach, but the length of chain at her feet gave her freedom to move about the room. Using what little light she had, she began to systematically probe the boundaries for any chance of escape. She quickly made a startling discovery.

It wasn’t a door, a window, or an exit of any kind.

It was the unexpected sight of a man.

In the dark corner on the opposite side of the room, the emaciated figure lay curled on the floor. His clothes were soiled and tattered. His sun-kissed flesh was beaten and bruised. Scruffy, unshaven whiskers covered his face, and dried blood from his nose coated his upper lip.

Jasmine hesitated, unsure of how to proceed. ‘Hello?’

It was a word that was almost universally understood in any language. She would worry about translating his response later –
if
there was a response.

But there wasn’t.

She tried again, this time slightly louder. ‘Hello?’

Not only did the man not answer, he hadn’t moved an inch. He was perfectly motionless, lying still on the floor.

Summoning her courage, Jasmine moved closer to check for signs of life, but the limits of her chain stopped her short of her destination. She leaned as close as she could, searching for a muscle twitch or the steady rise and fall of his chest – any sign to indicate that the man was still alive.

But there was none.

The only thing she saw were the shackles around his feet.

They were a perfect match to hers.

Cobb glanced around the Giza Plateau. He wondered if the news about Manjani would force them to investigate every nook and cranny of the pyramids. He had to admit that he was looking forward to the day when he could tour an ancient landmark just for kicks, rather than a life-or-death mission.

‘Dr Manjani was spotted here? I thought he lost his team in the desert?’

‘He did,’ Seymour replied as he dabbed his brow with his handkerchief, ‘but a few weeks before their disappearance, they assembled here in Giza.’

‘Do you know why?’

Seymour nodded as he pulled his phone from his jacket pocket. He tapped the screen several times until he found the file that he was looking for. ‘They were meeting with this man – a Dr Shakir Farid, of Al-Azhar University in Cairo.’

Cobb and Sarah studied the image that had been pulled from the school’s website. Farid’s eyes were bright and his smile looked natural. He seemed more like a grandfather reacting to a school play than a professor sitting for a school photo.

‘Why did they meet Farid?’ Sarah asked.

‘Given the proposed length of their expedition and the foreign backgrounds of the students, they all needed official documentation. Manjani was granted a work visa because he was heading up the team, but the others needed an Egyptian professor to sponsor their student visas. That’s where Farid came in. They all had dinner together in Giza so that he could meet everyone before the dig. He even paid for their meals before they were given a private tour of the pyramids.’

Unfamiliar with Seymour’s work, Cobb wasn’t willing to take everything at face value, so he decided to test him on his methods. ‘I know the names of the students were listed in news reports – which, I’m guessing, is what led you to their visas. But how do you know that Farid paid for dinner?’

Seymour was up to the challenge. ‘Five double rooms and one single were reserved at a local hotel in Giza. All of these rooms were charged to Manjani’s credit card. However, the cards kept on file for incidentals belonged to the rooms’ actual occupants. Four of these cards were used that day within a ten-block radius of the hotel for toiletries, souvenirs, and the like. But no one, including Manjani, had a charge for dinner.’

‘And Farid did?’ Cobb asked.

Seymour nodded. ‘On the night in question, he had a substantial charge at a local Kentucky Fried Chicken; the one right across the street from here. Now, I’ve been known to eat my fair share of fast food, but even I can’t consume three buckets of chicken and a dozen drinks in a single meal. Maybe two buckets, but certainly not three.’

Seymour snorted at his own joke. It was an obnoxious sound like a pig sniffing for truffles, but coming from the bow-tied Seymour, it was actually endearing.

Sarah smiled. It had been a while since she had heard his laugh. ‘What about recently? Any activity on the students’ cards since their disappearance?’

He shook his head. ‘There were no hits on their credit cards, their mobile phones, or their e-mail accounts. They disappeared without a trace. Literally. No footprints at all – either in the sand or digitally.’

‘What about Manjani?’ Cobb asked. ‘I was led to believe that he was spotted after the incident.’

‘He was,’ Seymour confirmed. ‘He spent one night in a seedy hotel in el-Bawiti, a small town in the Western Desert, before he disappeared as well.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I’m good at what I do.’

‘Let me guess: he used his credit card.’

Seymour shook his head. ‘Actually, Manjani was smarter than most. He didn’t use a credit card to pay for the room or his cell phone to make any calls. But he did use a payphone to reach out to someone from his past, and that’s where he slipped up. On the night in question, he used a payphone across the street from the hotel to call Dr Farid. Not once, not twice, but five times. My guess was to warn him, or to ask for assistance, or both.’

Sarah nodded in understanding. ‘He must have been scared out of his mind. Did he ever get in touch with Farid?’

‘He couldn’t,’ Seymour replied. ‘Farid was already dead.’

Her mouth dropped open. ‘Someone killed him?’

Seymour quickly realized his mistake. ‘No, not at all! The man was seventy-eight years old and in failing health. He passed away shortly after the team had left for the desert, which meant Manjani was unaware of his death.’

‘You’re sure it wasn’t foul play?’

‘Foul play, no.
Fowl
play, maybe. Three buckets of extra crispy would stop most people’s hearts.’ Seymour snorted again, even louder than before. So much so that a group of tourists glanced over to determine the source of the obnoxious sound.

Cobb grabbed Seymour’s arm and gently pulled him away. The last thing he wanted was to turn up on anyone’s radar. ‘Tell me more about Manjani. Was he clean?’

‘Squeaky,’ Seymour assured them. ‘The same with Farid and the rest of the team. I’ve looked into academic records, work histories, credit reports, and every other digital source you can think of. Manjani and Farid were incredibly respected among their colleagues. Every peer evaluation was filled with glowing remarks and notes of admiration. The students all performed at honors level, and none has any challenges to their integrity in their files. Except for a couple of traffic tickets, they’re spotless.’

Cobb nodded in appreciation. After working with Dade, a street hustler who talked in half-truths, Cobb loved the military efficiency of Seymour’s reports. Although he could do without the loud snorting, the material itself was first rate.

‘And the students?’ Cobb asked.

‘What would you like to know?’

‘What were they studying?’

‘Everything,’ Seymour claimed. ‘Archaeology, Egyptology, Roman literature, pagan theology, Greek antiquities, Mediterranean folklore, archaeoastronomy, and a few others. It was quite the diverse collection. I’m not sure how all of these areas fit together, but I can tell you that their divergent backgrounds are decidedly Manjani-esque.’

Sarah didn’t understand the reference. ‘How so?’

‘Dr Cyril Manjani held – or rather
holds –
doctorates in several of the aforementioned fields and has published articles in many others. Based on all that I have read, I am quite comfortable calling him an über-genius.’

Cobb grimaced. If Manjani was as intelligent as Seymour claimed, then there was a damn good chance that he would never be found. And even if he were, it would probably be far too late to do Jasmine any good. ‘So, what do you think?’

‘About?’ he asked, puzzled.

‘Can an über-genius be tracked?’

Seymour grinned. ‘He might be book-smart, but that doesn’t always translate to the street smart. He’s good at covering his tracks, but he’s not the best. Let me ask you, what’s the first thing you do every morning?’

Cobb stared at him. ‘I take a piss.’

Seymour snorted. ‘Okay, after that?’

‘I eat breakfast and clean my gun – but not necessarily in that order. Seriously, where are you going with this?’

Sarah interrupted him. ‘Unlike Rambo over here, I tend to be a little less soldierly. The first thing I do is check my e-mail.’

‘Me, too,’ Seymour laughed. ‘And, thankfully, so does Manjani. He’s using a brand-new account that’s being routed through a web server in the middle of the Aegean Sea, but I’m sure it’s your man.’