Area 51: The Sphinx-4 (6 page)

"What do you have?" Bauru asked. He thought the African most strange. They had linked up three days before at Santos, on the Atlantic Coast, just south of Sao Paulo. Even though Mualama had told Bauru he'd never been in South America before, the dark man had more than carried his toad on the journey and seemed undaunted by the thick jungle.

Mualama pulled a piece of paper out of the notebook. "A copy of a telegraph sent almost a century ago." He gave it to Bauru to read.

I have but one object: to uncover the mysteries that the jungle vastness of South America have concealed for so "any centuries, We are

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encouraged in our hops of finding the ruins of an ancient, white civilization and the degenerate offspring of a once cultivated race.

"Who sent this?" Bauru handed it back.

"Lieutenant Colonel Percy Fawcett, a British officer and explorer." Mualama was looking about.

"Did he find what he was looking for?"

"Fawcett, his son Jack, and a cameraman named Raleigh Rimell sent that telegraph on the twentieth of April, 1925, just before setting out on an expedition. They made one radio contact on the twenty-ninth of May, reporting their position, not far from here, then were never heard from or seen again."

Bauru wasn't surprised. Many had disappeared into the jungle, particularly in this area of Brazil, the Mato GROSSO, a vast, virtually impenetrable land of jungle, escarpments, and tortuous rivers.

"What is this city they were looking for?" Bauru asked. There were many tales about the Mato Grosso. ranging from lost cities to terrible monsters to strange tribes of white-skinned people.

"Fawcett said he believed that people from Atlantis had come here just before the island was destroyed. That they built a mighty city in the jungle that deteriorated over the years. He claims that he found an old Portuguese map in Rio de Janeiro that showed a stone city enclosed by a wall deep in the Mato Grosso."

"You are searching for this city?*”

"No."

"You ace searching for the remains of Fawcett's party?" Bauru knew that would be an impossible task— the jungle would have consumed the three men and left no trace, especially after seventy-five years.

"No."

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Bauru was a patient man. "Then what are we looking for?"

"What Fawcett was really looking for." Mualama was scanning the rocky crags below them.

Bauru was intrigued. "Not a lost city?"

"Oh, I think Fawcett believed there was a lost Atlantean city out there somewhere in the jungle, and certainly the events of the past month with the alien Airlia confirm there was an Atlantis," Mualama said. "But on that particular expedition, he was searching for something else." Mualama pointed below. "We must go down there."

Bauru eyed the route down with trepidation. He pulled his pack off and extracted a 120-foot nylon climbing rope. He tied one end around the thick trunk of a tree, then tossed the free end over the edge. Mualama already had a harness around his waist and a snaplink attached to the front. The African popped the rope through the gate, wrapped a loop around the metal, then prepared to back over the edge of the gorge, his left hand on the fixed end coining from his waist to the tree.

"How will we get back up?" Bauru asked.

"I will fasten the other end to the rock below," Mualama said. "Then we can climb back up using chumars."

"Chumars?"

Mualama held up two small pieces of machinery. "They clip on the rope, then allow it through in only one direction. You rest your weight on one, slide the other up, then rest your weight on the other. It is slow, but you will get back up."

Mualama put the chumars back in his pack and edged over the side of the gorge.

He rappelled down, his feet finding precarious purchase on the jagged rock wall, Twenty feet above the surface of the river, he paused. Mualama bent his knees, bringing his body in close to the wall, then sprung outward as he released tension on

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the rope. The nylon slid through the snaplink as he descended, and he landed directly on top of the rock. He knelt and hammered a piton into the top of the rock before he unhooked from the rope. He tied off the free end of the rope to the piton and looked up at Bauru and gave a thumbs-up.

Only then did he turn his attention to the stone below him. At the height of the rainy season the top would be submerged, and thousands of seasons had scoured the surface smooth. Centered on the downstream side, just before the edge, was a small mark. Seeing it, Mualama allowed himself to feel the excitement of making a true discovery, of another step in his long and strange path about to be completed. He had feared this entire trip would turn up nothing, as previous trips to other places in the past had, but the mark was where it was supposed to be, and that meant— Mualama stopped himself from thinking too far ahead.

Bauru slid down the rope and arrived, leather gloves keeping his hands from burning on the nylon. The two porters followed, as Mualama examined the carving.

"What is it?" Bauru asked. He had never seen such strange markings.

"It is Arabic script for the number one thousand and one," Mualama translated.

The water had worn smooth the edges of the carving.

"Arabic?" Bauru touched the rock. "This has been here for a long time. What Arab would have been here that many years ago? You said Fawcett was an Englishman."

"The mark was carved there in 1867, long before Fawcett set out on his journey.

But it was an Englishman who carved the numbers. An Englishman who spoke and wrote fluent Arabic. Sir Richard Francis Button."

"I have not heard on this man." Bauru said.

"He was a famous explorer and linguist. Burton was

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assigned as British consul to Brazil in 1864. He was based on the coast in Santos. In 1867 he left Santos and traveled alone for almost the entire year. It is known he navigated the San Francisco River north of here for over fifteen hundred miles in a canoe. He barely survived, arriving at the coast suffering from both pneumonia and hepatitis."

"Why did he do this?" Bauru thought most foreigners quite strange. He would never travel that far in the Mato Grosso atone. It was akin to committing suicide. He was amazed that the man had made it to the coast, especially given the limited equipment he must have had over a hundred years earlier.

"To hide something." Mualama pointed down. "It must be underneath. 1 think Burton traveled here during the dry season of the drought of 1867, when the water was much lower. In one of his papers I found in England he described a chamber under a flat rock like an altar, in the throat of the Devil." Mualama looked around. "We are in the Devil's Throat This is a flat rock in the right place. And this mark is his."

"How do you know that?" Bauru asked.

"Burton translated the story of the Thousand and One Nights from the Arabic. To mark his way, he used riddles that only someone who knew about him would recognize. I have no doubt we are in the right place. I must go underneath and find the chamber."

"Is this what Fawcett was looking for?"

"I believe so."

"But Fawcett never returned," Bauru noted.

"He might never have made it here," Mualama said. "The journey is easier now."

Bauru looked at the water askance. "There is much

danger in the rivers here. You cannot see more than six

inches in that muck. There are--"

"I have to," Mualama cut him off. "Like Fawcett, I

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have been on Burton's trail for twenty years, and this is the next step."

Mualama pulled off his shoes and socks.

"Why did Fawcett lie about what he was looking for?" Bauru asked, trying to forestall the professor's going into the water.

"Because it is a very dangerous path he was trying to follow, and because there are those who guard it most jealously." Mualama pulled his shirt over his head, revealing his lean torso, a black metal medallion hanging around his neck that featured an eye superimposed on the apex of a pyramid, and a back covered in scar tissue.

Bauru and the porters were shocked by what they saw. "What happened to your back?"

"I was caught in a fire." Mualama said. He had only his shorts on. "I am going over the side."

"Here." Bauru pulled a shorter section of rope out of his pack and handed one end to Mualama. "Tie this around your waist."

Mualama quickly looped the rope around himself and tied it off. After a sharp exchange in their native dialect, Bauru and the two porters held the other end.

Mualama slid over the side of the rock into the fast-flowing, warm water. He took a deep breath, then dove down, running hands along the rock, searching.

He went down about five feet, searching carefully, but there was nothing. He burst to the surface, gasping for air. He dove once more, hands searching along the rock face. He pulled himself lower, eight feet down, and felt an indentation in the rock. Reaching his hand into the opening, he grabbed hold of the inside and pulled himself down. The air in his lungs pressed him up against the top of whatever he was in.

The way ahead was still clear, but Mualama had no more oxygen. He pushed back out and surfaced, sputtering for air.

"Have you found anything?" Bauru asked.

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Mualama could only nod as his lungs worked to replenish the lost oxygen. He noted that the porters were looking about nervously, fearful of something. Bauru sat down on the edge of the rock. "It is dangerous to stay in the water too long."

Mualama was finally able to speak. "Why?"

"Snakes. Piranha. They usually are not in water that flows this quickly, but one never knows. Sometimes they congregate in tide pools along such a river and hunt meat in packs. It is not good to take chances."

Mualama had come too far to be scared off by a threat that might not be present.

"I am going under. There is a chamber. If I do not surface, or pull on the rope three times, by the end of one minute, pull me back out."

Bauru nodded.

Mualama filled his lungs and dove once more. He slid along the rock and into the opening. He could tell with his hands that it was a tunnel about four feet in diameter, going into the rock itself. He pushed along, searching blindly.

Suddenly his hand was free of water. He popped his head up and breathed stale air in total darkness. He tugged on the rope around his waist hard, three times.

Then he searched with his hands. A rock ledge was in front of him. It went back as far as he could reach. . He needed light.

The African professor retraced: his route through the tunnel and back to the surface. He surfaced and opened

Bauru and the two porters ware no longer holding the other end of the rope. The three were standing, heads tilted back, looking at the top of the gorge. Mualama followed their gaze. A tall man in dark clothes, along with dozen Guirani Indian tribesmen armed with crossbows, lined the top. The man's face was hidden in the shadow of a large bush hat.

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The man waved his hand and the Guirani raised their weapons. Bauru reacted, dashing toward Mualama and diving into the water. The porters cried out, raising their hands in supplication, in turn to be hit with several bolts each. They dropped lifeless on the stone altar.

"Come!" Bauru grabbed Mualama's shoulder as a bolt skittered off the edge of the rock less than six inches from his face. "Lead me to the chamber."

Mualama dove, Bauru's hand now on his ankle. He pulled through the tunnel, lungs bursting—he had not gotten a good breath when he had surfaced, and the going was slow—pulling Bauru through.

Mualama was starved for air. He reached ahead, hoping to touch the surface, but felt only more water. He pulled harder through tunnel. His hand broke the surface and he grabbed the ledge, pulling himself into the air. Bauru sputtered up next to him.

They hung on the edge, gasping for several moments.

"Who was that with the Guirani?" Bauru finally man-aged to ask.

"The Mission." Mualama spit the last word out.

"Who?"

Mualama pulled himself onto the stone ledge and rolled onto his side, still breathing hard. "They've followed me before. The burns on my back—they almost caught me in England last year. They destroyed the place where I was studying some ancient texts, and I barely managed to escape."

Bauru joined him. "Who is this Mission? I have heard stories of such a place, but no one seems to know exactly where it is. Why do they chase you?"

Mualama felt the darkness all around. Even here the sound of the waterfalls sounded like a nonending series of drums rumbling. He reached out, searching the stone ledge. "Burton left something in this place. He could get in here during the dry season that year. Every forty years

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or so during a drought the river dries up and the falls are silent. Burton came here during one of those occasions."

"Why is this Mission trying to kill us?" Bauru was still focused on the immediate danger.

"They work for the aliens." Mualama's fingers brushed against something. Slick cloth. Wrapped around something. He picked it up. It was about twelve inches long by eight wide by two deep and covered with a soft pliant cloth. He slipped it into the waistband of his shirt as Bauru suddenly turned on a small penlight.

Above the rock, one of the Guirani scampered down the rope to the rock. He had a length of cord over his shoulder that he tied to both of the bodies. He fastened the free end to the piton, then rolled both bodies into the river, the blood swirling into the silt-laden water, the corpses banging against the rock. Then he unfastened the nylon rope from the piton and climbed, hand over hand, hack to the top of the gorge. He pulled the rope up.

The small party stood still for a few minutes, watching. Then the water around the two bodies exploded in churning red froth.

"What do we do now?" Bauru asked: He shined the light around. They were inside a chamber about four feet from the ledge, three high by six wide. The rock walls had been polished smooth when water had carved it out ages before.

"We must get out of here," Mualama said.