The Last Chamber (2 page)

Cairo, Egypt

“Now that we have our only potential problems out of the way, we
should be able to proceed with relative ease.”
 
Alexander Lindsey looked over at a man in a gray, pinstriped
suit.
 

The man nodded.
 
His thin,
brownish hair was combed over to one side on top of a narrow face and a long,
hooked nose. His tired, greenish eyes were sunken back into his face.
 
A caramel-skinned woman dressed in a
form-fitting pair of cargo khakis and a tight black shirt stood off to the
side. Her espresso hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. She watched the
discussion intently with deep chocolate eyes. Her face was strong and narrow.

The men were sitting in an old laboratory.
 
Lindsey had procured the building before flying to Cairo six
days ago.
 
He’d had his best asset,
Will Hastings, following Sean Wyatt and his cronies for the several weeks.
 
Thanks to the tenacious work of
Hastings, Lindsey had known everything Wyatt was planning to do, and just when
to strike.
 

Lindsey had maintained a distant supervision of operations during
their search for the golden chambers.
 
His old age had led to a desire to not be burdened with the rigors of
chasing down buried treasure. So, Hastings had been in charge of the hands-on
details.

The game had changed, though.
 
Initially, he had made the first move, kidnapping Tommy Schultz, and
forcing him to lead the way to the first chamber.
 
But Sean Wyatt had interfered.
 

Lindsey’s crew had taken a different approach in the search for the
second chamber.
 
Since Wyatt and
his group possessed the clue to the chamber’s location, Lindsey had been forced
to wait and follow.
 
He’d lost some
of his best hired guns during the fiasco.
 
A necessary sacrifice
.
 

He stood and walked slowly over to one of the nearby windows and
looked out.
 
The late-afternoon sun
was pouring in through the glass, and he squinted against the light.
 
He wore a pair of brown trousers and a
lightweight, olive green jacket.
 
The weather had been beautiful since he’d arrived.
 
He hoped it was a sign of things to
come.

“When will your man be here?”
 
The gangly man in the gray suit spoke with a French accent.
 

Lindsey turned around.
 
“Soon,” he answered.
 
He had
brought Luc DeGard in as part of the operation three weeks before heading to
Egypt.
 

The Frenchman was one of the top researchers on the planet when it
came to ancient history and languages.
 
Lindsey wished the man could have been brought on sooner, but DeGard had
been experiencing some personal troubles. Once contacted, DeGard accepted the
offer eagerly.
 
Lindsey wondered
how much less the man would have taken, but the deal was done.
 

Rumor had it that Luc DeGard had come upon hard times.
 
He’d been a professor of archaeology at
University College in London for several years.
 
The institution had a highly respected program, one that
DeGard had disgraced when he had been caught in his office with his pants down,
with one of his younger male students.
 

After his dismissal from the college, he spent much of his time
gambling and drinking, a combination that had led to the lowly end in which
Lindsey had found the man, in debt up to his eyeballs and desperate for
anything. DeGard may have been a degenerate, but he was a ruthless researcher,
and his desperation provided the perfect motivation for Lindsey.
 

The door at the end of the room opened and a young man with thick,
dark hair appeared.
 
He wore a
brown leather jacket and tanned pants.
 
The man glanced over at the woman with mocha-colored skin, exchanging a
momentary stare before he turned his attention to the old man.

Lindsey looked over at him expectantly.
 
“Did you get it?” he asked.
 

Will Hastings nodded and held up a small, stone disc.
 
“Yes, sir. I got it.”

Cairo, Egypt

The plane’s engines were already warming up when the black SUV pulled
up to the private hangar.
 
The jet
with three, giant black letters on the tail belonged to Tommy’s International
Archaeological Agency.
 

Sean had checked his friend several times en route to the airport.
Tommy had not regained consciousness, but was still alive.
 
A dark-haired man in a blue button-up
shirt stood just outside the plane with a stethoscope around his neck and a
briefcase in one hand.
 
Sean
realized Emily must have called a physician, too.

Jolian parked the vehicle next to the plane, just outside the
hangar.
 
The doctor rushed over
immediately and assisted in getting Tommy out of the SUV, onto a stretcher, and
into the plane.
 

Once they had him secured, Sean turned to the physician, who was
already opening up his briefcase and removing devices Sean didn’t
recognize.
 
“Take care good care of
him. He’s like my brother.”

The man answered in a Middle Eastern accent.
 
“Your friend will be fine, Mr. Wyatt.
 
He’s in good hands.”

Sean nodded, satisfied with the answer, and looked down at Tommy one
last time before leaving.
 
His eyes
narrowed.
 
It tore him apart to see
his close friend lying there, helpless.
 
Sean had witnessed some terrible things in his career with the
government.
 
He’d seen agents
killed, strangers murdered, and had done his fair share of killing.
 
Tommy was his best friend, though.
 
When the whole thing was over, Sean was
going to have to have a serious talk with him about sticking to an administrative
position.

He said a silent goodbye and started to exit the plane.
 
Then he remembered something.
 
He stepped back over to the gurney and
searched Tommy’s pockets.
 
The only
thing he found was his cell phone, hotel key, and wallet.
 
Sean’s face became immediately
concerned.
 
The stone was missing.
He thought for sure Tommy would have brought it with him to the museum. He must
have left it in the room. That, or their only clue to locating the third
chamber had been stolen.

In his head, Sean ran through the short list of possibilities as to
where the object could be. Nothing added up. And he was fairly certain Tommy
had the stone with him when he’d left the hotel room.

That meant only one thing. Someone had taken it off of him after the
explosion. Sean realized maybe the explosion hadn’t been too early. It had
happened exactly when it needed to. The timing had been perfect. If Tommy had
been in the car, retrieving the stone would have been nearly impossible. He
shook off the theory, still choosing to believe that maybe they had just been
lucky.

The point still lurked in the back of his head, though. Someone was
trying to kill them, and would do whatever it took to find the last chamber.

Cairo, Egypt

The Frenchman snatched the stone away from Will and held it up to the
light.
 
He examined one side of it,
and then the other, carefully inspecting the inscription.
 

“I have seen this writing before,” he announced.
 
“And the image on the other side has
only been discovered in one place.”
 

Lindsey seemed hopeful.
 
“And where is that, Doctor DeGard?”

DeGard smiled.
 
His
crooked teeth made his grin appear more like a crocodile’s than a human’s.
 
“It’s a temple, to the south.
 
I’ve been there one time on a dig.
 
It must have been twenty years
ago.
 
But I have no doubts that the
images on this stone are an exact match for what I saw there.”

Lindsey moved closer.
 
He
wasn’t entirely convinced.
 
“How
can you be sure?
 
You must have
seen tens of thousands of hieroglyphs and ancient writings.
 
Yet you’re telling me you remember
these from twenty years ago, after just one glance?”

DeGard shrugged.
 
“I can
take you to the site or you can pay me my money and I will return to
London.
 
I don’t care about your
little treasure hunt.
 
As I
remember it, there wasn’t anything significant about that location.
 
We unearthed a few clay jars, but the
temple had been stripped of any treasures long before we arrived.”

Lindsey seemed to consider it for a moment.
 
They could ill afford to waste precious time on the
Frenchman’s hunch.
 
But it was all
DeGard had to go on. And he was the only expert in the room on the subject.

“Fine,” he said at last.
 
“Take us to the location.
 
If you are right, I’ll give you another ten thousand.” He eyed the
birdlike man suspiciously. “However, if you have wasted our time, my men will
bury you there in the desert.”

DeGard raised an eyebrow.
 
“I assure you it is the correct place, Monsieur Lindsey.”

“Will,” Lindsey turned to the younger man.
 
“Get the others ready.
 
We will leave at once.”
 

Will nodded and started to leave the room, but Lindsey stopped
him.
 
“Wait.” Lindsey turned and
pressed for one more answer from DeGard. “Is there anyone else you know of, who
knows about the temple or could decipher the language from that disc?”

DeGard thought for a moment.
 
“I can only think of a few people with such knowledge.
 
One of them is in Cambridge,
England.
 
I believe there is one
other, here, in Cairo.
 
He could
have been the one your enemies were going to visit today.”

“What is his name?” Lindsey asked intently.

“His name is Richard Firth.
 
He does a great deal of work for the Museum of Antiquities.”

Lindsey glanced at Will.
 
“Take care of it.
 
Send the
rest with us.” Will nodded and left the room.

Then Lindsey returned his attention back to DeGard.
 
“I pray, dear Doctor, that you are
right.”

DeGard shrugged again.
 
His demeanor was either certain or arrogant. “You think threatening my
life will motivate me, Monsieur Lindsey? The only thing that motivates me is
money. So, you keep writing the checks and I’ll show you where you want to
go.
 
Bien?”

“We shall see.”

Cairo, Egypt

Adriana sat in the corner of Sean’s hotel room, watching him go
through his things.
 
Jolian had
driven the two of them back to their hotel after leaving Tommy at the
airport.
 
The ride had been a
silent one, save for their driver asking where they needed to go.
 
Adriana had kept quiet, knowing that
Sean was trying to think. He’d appreciated that about her.
 
She seemed to know when he needed to
process things.
 

Now, he was looking frantically around the room for any sign of the
stone they had found in Ecuador.
 
Their expedition to South America led to the discovery of a second
golden chamber.
 
But they’d had to
leave quickly, and barely managed to escape with their lives.
 
Before exiting the chamber, though,
they’d taken the stone disc that would lead them to the next marker, and
hopefully, the final clue to the location of the final chamber.
 
The disc was missing, however, and Sean
feared the worst.
 

He found a piece of paper in one of Tommy’s bags and unfolded it.
 
On it, were etchings from both sides of
the stone disc.
 

“What is it?” Adriana asked. She stood up next to him to get a better
view of what he’d found.

“It’s a drawing of the stone. We make precise copies or document every
artifact we find in case something happens to the original.
 
Everything appears to be on it in exact
detail.”
 
He examined the sheet of
paper closely.

“That’s good, right?”

“It’s a start,” he answered.
 
“But Tommy said that the person we were meeting at the Museum could help
us find the next chamber, based on the clues from the stone.”

“It sounds to me like we need to find that person before someone else
does,” her comment was right in line with his thoughts.

“Yeah.
 
And I’m guessing
we don’t have a whole lot of time.”
 

He picked up his phone from the workstation in the corner and pressed
the screen.
 
After a few rings, a
tired-sounding Emily answered.

“Sean, I heard Tommy arrived safely in Athens.
 
Looks like he’s going to be okay.
 
The doctors said he’s regained
consciousness but still doesn’t remember what happened.”

“That’s good news, Em,” Sean said.
 
He didn’t try to hide the relief in his voice.
 
“But, I have another favor to ask,
though.”

“Two in one day?” she laughed.
 
“What’s this one?”

“We were supposed to meet a man at the museum by the name of Richard
Firth.
 
He’s an Egyptologist living
in the area.
 
Can you get us the
address?”

He could hear her punching her keys in the background.
 
“Didn’t realize I was running an
information center here,” she said sarcastically. “Ever heard of Google?” Sean
gritted his teeth but didn’t respond.

“I got him,” she said, finally.
 
“Sending the directions to your phone now.”

“Thanks again, Em.
 
I owe
you two.”
 

“Don’t think I’ll forget,” she responded jokingly. “We still have a
position open here at the agency if you ever consider coming out of
retirement.” She’d not stopped pestering him about returning to his former job
since the day he’d quit several years ago.
 

He snorted a quick laugh and ended the call abruptly. A few seconds
later, a new message popped up on the screen.
 

“I’ve got the address,” he said to Adriana.
 
“We need to get there now.
 
I just hope it isn’t too late.”