Yusif’s “idea” consisted of three-meter–long wooden planks. They had been meant for shoring should the depth of the excavation require it. Now the lumber would create a bridge with which Reid could hopefully span the chasm if, indeed, a chasm there was.
One by one, he carried the three-centimeter–wide lengths through the antechamber and slid them, one atop the other, along the left wall and across the suspect section of floor.
“Are you ready?” Yusif inquired.
Reid cast an irritated glance at the faint warning on the floor and gently placed his left foot on the planks. “I’m covered in fungus spores, deep underground in a supposed Egyptian tomb with an airplane drawn on the wall. You’re telling me I might fall to my death at any instant. What’s not to love?”
“At most, these pitfalls are rarely more than a meter across. The ones I have seen, or that have been described in the literature, either hinge or break away.”
Reid hesitated, trickles of fear-sweat on his clammy skin. He played his light over the square passage. Unlike the short outer tunnel, the walls here had no writing. Somehow that made them more ominous. At the end of the passage, a dark opening led to what was probably the burial chamber.
I don’t have to do this. I can just back out, let them hose me down with Clorox, and tell Skientia to book me a flight back to Denver.
“Sure,” he whispered under his breath, “and for the rest of your days, you’ll wonder why the hell someone spent all this time and effort building, and then hiding, this thing.”
Reid stepped warily out onto the stacked planks. His heart jackhammered behind his breastbone. His breath came rapidly, rasping in the confines of the mask. Shifting his weight slowly, carefully, he made a full step.
“Sahib?”
“Quiet, I’m concentrating.”
In the silence, his half-choked swallow sounded loud. Yusif and the Californians had to have heard it. Nerves throughout his body tingled with anticipation of a fall.
He managed another step, head down so the lamp illuminated the grainy surface of the lumber. The floor seemed to mock him, appearing ever so solid in the harsh light.
What if it turns out that the floor is solid? What if this is all some elaborate game? Some twisted and bizarre reality TV show?
In a voice mocking Pat Sajak’s, he said, “And archaeologist Reid Farmer continues to make his way into King Tut’s tomb. He’s already lost the car by triggering the flour cascade, but he’s still got a chance at the all-expense-paid trip to Hawaii if he manages to avoid the pitfall and the swinging pendulum at the crypt entrance!”
“I don’t understand.”
“If this turns out to be a reality show, I’m suing for the car, Yusif. Even if I tripped the flour bath. The contract I signed said nothing about TV. I want the damn car.”
“Are you feeling well? I do not . . . Ah, wait, the team in California is laughing. They want me to tell you . . . I don’t understand this, but when, and if, you reach the burial chamber, to pick door number three. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah. Tell them if I win, I want the car and Vanna White.”
“Who?”
Reid reached the end of his planks. His gut lurched as he placed more weight on his foot and sighed in relief as the floor held.
“I’m across.” Shining his headlamp and camera this way and that, he made his way forward, step by careful step to the end of the long passage.
It looked as if it were a small antechamber to the burial room—a sort of closet with grooves cut into the wall on either side. The ceiling seemed to be a square of solid stone. He would have to lower himself about a half meter onto a wooden plank floor bordered by what looked like a stone threshold. Beyond, he could see the ghostly images of a raised central sarcophagus, jars, and statuary.
“It looks like a burial chamber should. Whatever this charade is about, I’d say that’s the grand prize just yonder.”
“Ms. Kaplan says they are delighted. They didn’t get much of a look at the step down. Do you see anything like the markings we’ve encountered before?”
“Nope. Just some kind of confined antechamber and those odd grooves in the walls. Of course, the floor’s wooden, so it could be a trigger plate of some sort. By stretching, making a half leap, I should be able to hit that stone threshold. It looks pretty solid.”
Then he cocked his head.
“Naw, too easy.”
He carefully inspected the grooved walls. Sticking his head into the confines, he craned his neck and saw the words on the flat stone ceiling.
“You see this, Yusif?” The words read NUTU SUO MOMENTORUM.
“Kaplan’s people urge you not to proceed.”
“I’ll do my best to restrain myself, impetuous bastard that I am, all dripping with white fungus.”
“Kaplan says it translates something like ‘the force of momentum joins together.’”
“Right.”
“These warnings may be some kind of local idiom.”
“Idiom or idiot? There, but for a letter, be I.” Reid stared thoughtfully at the grooves, and then he got it. “It’s a hammer.”
“Excuse me?”
“Hammers smash things together, like forging steel. Yeah, it’s a trap, all right. That big honking block of rock rides down the grooves.”
This time, when he stuck his head out into the void to stare up at the giant flat of stone, it left him with a queasy sensation. “Yusif, from here it looks like granite, and if that comes down, you’re going to need a couple of days with pneumatic jackhammers to break it apart.”
“Do you think you could step all the way across to the threshold?”
Reid considered it. The cubicle was designed not to be leaped. If he tried, he’d smack into the low-hanging stone in mid-jump.
So, can I do this?
Encumbered with his pack, equipment belt, and the clumsy Tyvek suit, he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t take any of it off, not dusted with whatever that white crap was.
“Reid?”
“I’m thinking.”
“Allah have mercy upon us.” A pause. “Kaplan’s team thinks that you’re right. They think you should backtrack while they have their engineers look at it. Perhaps there is a way to rig some sort of sling and pulley system. Some way of creating aluminum braces to support a short zip line.”
“Maybe.” Reid cocked his head. “Let me try something.”
He walked back and retrieved the top plank from the pile atop the pitfall. Back at the “hammer closet” he winced as he settled himself, legs hanging into the gap, and slowly slid the plank forward. The wood grated, and he heaved, extending the end out, guiding it as it reached its fulcrum. Teeter-totter-like, the far end dropped to the floor a good half meter beyond the stone threshold.
“How’s that for a solution?”
“Just fine . . . so long as it doesn’t slide out and drop you on the trigger when you put your weight on it.”
Grabbing the elevated end, Reid slowly pushed the plank forward, horrified at the ease with which it slipped across the stone floor. Then it stopped.
Retrieving his flashlight from his belt, he twisted the bezel and narrowed the beam. “I’ll be damned.”
“What is it?”
“A faint groove in the floor. Probably to brace the planks the hoax masters used to build this place.”
“So you are going to try it?”
“Damn straight, buddy.” He hurried back for the rest of the planks and slid them down next to the first. Then he eased out over the “hammer’s” trigger. Liquid fear now pumping, inch by inch, he lowered himself into the gap.
Even as he did, he glanced up, awed by the sheer mass of stone hanging so perilously above.
If it falls, you’re never going to feel a thing!
Thick though the planks were, he watched them bow under his weight as he reached the midpoint.
“Shit!”
“What?”
“The planks are bending.” He tried to back up, bootie-clad feet slipping on the smooth wood. A cold terror seized his heart.
Could he turn to a crawling position? Heart thumping, he started to swing his butt out. The planks flexed precariously. Fear paralyzed him like a trapped rabbit.
“Gotta chance it,” he groaned to himself.
No choice remained but to inch down ever so slowly, hoping now that the slippery Tyvek didn’t suddenly send him sliding down to disaster.
Breath knotted in his lungs, he eased ever closer to the threshold; fear wrung hot sweat from his air-starved skin.
Close! So damn close! Reid tried to judge the thickness of the plank against the shadow cast by his headlamp where it shone over the stone.
“Screw it. I’m either dead or alive in the next few seconds. Yusif, If I don’t make it . . .”
“Allah be with you, my friend.”
Reid clamped his teeth, ground his jaws, and slid his butt directly over the threshold. Did the stone sink just the slightest? Damn it, the plank had to be touching!
And then he was over, scrambling off the shivering planks. He dropped to his knees on the cool stone floor, breath rasping in and out of his lungs.
“God, I swear, get me out of here, and I’ll only dig deflated lithic scatters and tipi rings for the rest of my life!”
“Ha! Ha! I knew you would make it! We all did!”
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered to himself, his heart still vibrating in his chest, muscles quivering. He stood, flashing his light around the inside of the burial chamber. The central sarcophagus atop its solid-stone pedestal dominated the room. Dark and black, it differed stylistically from the usual Egyptian sarcophagi. The image was oddly more lifelike, the hair—instead of being covered by a traditional wig—appeared to be close-cropped. Something about the features smacked distinctly of a European: thin, straight nose, long face, angled cheekbones, prominent chin. The arms were crossed at the chest. Reid was immediately drawn to the fact that the figure had been depicted with rings on the fingers and what looked suspiciously like a wristwatch rather than a bracelet.
Instead of a pectoral—or chest plate—a carved image of a bound book lay beneath the arms. Prominently engraved on the cover were the words, APERTUS ET DIRUMPO.
He stared in disbelief at what should have been Egyptian hieroglyphics.
But weren’t.
Covering the great black sarcophagus’ surface were glyphs: what looked like combinations of bars, dots, and circles. Reid shone his camera onto them, holding it at an angle so the relief would provide better contrast. “Yusif? You see this?”
“It is like nothing I am familiar with.”
“They’re Mayan mathematics. And, Yusif? I think they’re equations.”
“When do mathematics like this date to?”
“I see a zero here.” He pointed for the benefit of the camera. “The oldest known zero is from Uaxactun and dates to about 350 BCE.” He chuckled. “I don’t know who these people are, or what they’re trying to pull, but a lot of effort, creativity, and money went into its construction.”
Reid took a moment, staring around at the rest of the burial chamber. Yet another disassembled chariot lay on the floor. Two additional sarcophagi perched on stone pedestals to either side of the great black “Mayan” sarcophagus. Numerous tall jars, all exquisitely slipped and polished, stood in ranks around them. Footlocker-sized wooden boxes, their surfaces carved and inlaid with what looked like colored glass, turquoise, and lapis lazuli lined the walls on either side of the entry. Ranks of authentic-looking statues of menials, some washing clothes, others cooking, sewing, or attending everyday household tasks waited in ranks in one corner. Cups, plates, and serving items were stacked atop a delicately carved wooden table in the other.
Then Reid turned to the side wall and stopped short. “What the . . . ?”
The drawing looked like an oddly rendered schematic for an electrical device. Fine black lines might have been a wiring diagram. Series of them, drawn in parallel, joined a stacked sequence of squares Reid interpreted as motherboards. Thicker lines emanated from a sphere that might have been an energy source.