Templar Cross by Paul Christopher

Author:Paul Christopher [Christopher, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Adventure, Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9781101159736
Publisher: Signet
Published: 2010-01-05T05:00:00+00:00

16

“So how exactly do we get inside?” Holliday asked, looking at the smooth mound of ancient mud brick. There was no obvious door or entrance of any kind. As he stood there he was amazed that anything made of mud could last for that long. If Alhazred was right the tomb was at least four thousand years old.

“Follow me,” said Alhazred. He headed around to the far side of the tomb, Holliday and Rafi behind him and the Tuareg guard, Elhadji, bringing up the rear. At the back of the structure Elhadji handed Alhazred a corkscrew-shaped device from beneath his robes. Alhazred squatted down and squinted, eventually locating an almost invisible hole in the sloping mud-brick wall. He pushed the “worm” of the corkscrew device into the little hole, twisted and then pulled.

“Hey presto!” Alhazred said theatrically. A crack appeared in the mud brick that became a square two feet on a side. He dragged on the corkscrew and the entire square came loose. With Elhadji helping him they lifted the trapdoor aside and set it down.

On closer examination Holliday saw just how ingenious the trapdoor was. The mud brick on the exterior was a cleverly made veneer no more than an inch thick, the phony brick epoxied to a thick slab of Styrofoam underneath. The whole thing probably didn’t weigh more than five pounds. From the outside the illusion had been perfect.

Alhazred spoke in a brief incomprehensible torrent to Elhadji and the Tuareg nodded in silent reply.

“You’ll have to duck down,” instructed Alhazred. He got onto his hands and knees, then scuttled through the small opening and disappeared inside the tomb.

“Age before beauty,” offered Holliday. Rafi gave him a nasty look, then followed on the heels of Alhazred. Then Holliday ducked through the secret doorway. Elhadji stayed outside.

The inside of the tomb was stifling hot and dark, lit only by the wash of sun coming through the hole in the tomb wall. Rafi and Alhazred were only vague blobs of gray in the center of the tiny chamber. The trapdoor was reinserted and Alhazred switched on the powerful spotlight. Holliday looked around; for the tomb of one of the most important figures in not just Egypt’s history but in the rise of Western civilization, the chamber was almost depressingly austere.

The chamber was small, reflecting the outside dimensions, about twelve feet on a side, just a bit larger than the average prison cell. The interior walls were plain undecorated brick left unplastered and the floor was smooth flat slabs of dark basalt, obviously quarried. The paving stones of the floor were slightly larger than the trapdoor, a little less than three feet square. The roof overhead was made of basalt beams each about two feet across.

There was one paving stone missing in the exact center of the floor. In its place was a square dark opening with a wooden ladder steeply canted down into the shaft below. On the far side of the room were the remains of something that looked like a broken wooden box about six feet long, the top splintered into several pieces.

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