Trifariam, The Lost Codex (2012) (29 page)

“Calm down. I only tapped you,” he said matter-of-factly while he studied the remote that controlled the robot. “Now, how does this work?”

Still moaning from the blow he had received, the professor knew that it was better to cooperate than receive another kick. “I’ve inserted a robot into the hole to investigate it, and this remote allows me to control its movements.” James clenched the muscles in his arms and tried to use brute force to break the cables which shackled him. It was impossible. In a desperate attempt to free himself, he tried to rip the cable by dragging it along the walls, but they were so smooth that he didn’t even manage to make a scratch.

“I want to look inside the hole and see what you’ve discovered.”

“Like I said, I haven’t discovered anything. You didn’t give me enough time,” he replied in an upset voice.

“I don’t believe you. I’ve been watching you for a good while. I saw how you jumped for joy when you saw something on your monitor, plus there’s lots of dust on the floor.” James was puzzled and disappointed in his friends. Their only task had been to watch the pyramid and they hadn’t even succeeded in doing that. They hadn’t realized that the Egyptian had been standing there for all this time! “I’m a reasonable man and the way I see it, you have two options. Either you tell me what I want to hear and we can come to some agreement, or I hand you over to the Egyptian authorities for them to try you for destroying their most prized object.”

James frowned.
I don’t have any choice. I have to tell him the truth, at least to buy myself some time,
he thought to himself. “Okay,” he said with resignation. “One of the objects that you took from the backpack was…”

Just then, one of the flashlights that had fallen, rolled along the ground and was shining on the entrance, lit up what appeared to be three shadows which were creeping forward. They grew larger and larger as they approached and, although it was a very dark area, he recognized Mary’s silhouette together with those of his two friends. The woman was carrying a rock of considerable size, whereas the other two were wielding iron bars.

“What’s in the backpack? Tell me or - ”

“A camera,” he replied, preventing him from turning around. He was already hatching a plan. “With that camera you can see exactly what the robot sees. However, the walls of the pyramid cause the signal to deteriorate a lot, so you have to stand as near as you can to the hole to receive it perfectly.”

After removing the camera from the bag, he followed James’ instructions to the letter. He got as close as he could to the entrance to the shaft, even putting part of the camera in the hole. His face shone with the ambition of a wicked guy who intended to get a cut of all those discoveries James had made. He switched on the camera. He was taken aback by what he saw at first, he even thought that he was being made fun of, but then he realized that there was another room which had never been seen before. He turned to ask James what it was but three black shapes appeared before him out of the shadows. The first dealt him a blow to the back with so much aggression that it made him stagger until he fell to his knees. With no time to react, a female figure bashed his head with a rock, rendering him unconscious.

“James, are you okay?” Mary hurried over to the professor and hugged him tightly, kissing him a couple of times on the cheek before she untied him.

“You had us very worried - we didn’t see that guy come in,” said Anthony, by way of an excuse.

James responded sarcastically. “I can tell. Quick, give me the controls. We have to get the robot out of the hole before anybody else notices.”

“Did you find the first piece of the
Trifariam
?” asked Mary.

“The robot managed to enter the Secret Chamber, but it wasn’t there. Somebody has taken it.”

The looks of disbelief between the friends quickly turned to looks of disappointment. Between them they gathered all the equipment and put it in the backpack. They were surprised to see on the monitor how James removed the golden triangle from the wall just as a deafening noise filled the room once more. The three doors were closing.

They abandoned the chamber, leaving the giant lying on the ground, and walked up the shaft to the exit. To James’ astonishment, a guard was lying on the ground, still unconscious and gagged.

Anthony, who had been lagging behind, went through the exit with the virus transmitter in his hands, urging the others to hurry up. “We have five minutes until all the security cameras return to normal, and three hours until my flight home.”

They walked across the site quickly, but without breaking into a run. The car was still exactly where they had left it. A few minutes later, James could hear sirens wailing in the distance, rushing to someone’s aid.

T
he cafe in Cairo Airport was excellent. It was practically full of tourists keen to enjoy one last snack before they set off on their long journeys home. The corridors were crammed with crowds walking in all directions, with the terrible desert heat to blame for any chaotic situation which may arise. The vast majority of travelers were loaded up with huge suitcases on wheels, pausing in front of the information screens in order to find out from which gate they would be flying.

At one of the tables outside the cafe, the four friends were drinking coffee too strong for the taste of some. Anthony was eating an enormous sandwich which would supply him with enough strength to see him through the ten-hour flight. In a few moments, his journey would begin.

On the way to the airport, James had been telling them all about the discoveries he had made in the Secret Chamber: how he had managed to remove the three huge stones which had blocked the way, how the inside of the chamber and all the funeral paraphernalia had looked and, most importantly, how he had seen the hole in the wall with the small sarcophagus. It was probably the biggest archaeological discovery in Egypt since Howard Carter found the tomb of Tutankhamen in 1922. What really made him shudder was that only four people in the whole world knew about such a discovery; if they were killed, the treasure would never see the light of day.

“So, the chamber has possibly been desecrated before?” asked Mary, concerned.

“When I accessed the room via the robot, I noticed that there was a second blocked entrance in one of the side walls. All the objects in the chamber were too big to be removed via the hole, even the sealed papyrus scrolls were larger than the hole. Whoever entered the chamber must have done so through the same way we did, and they undoubtedly took everything they could, including the half of the triangle.

Richard raised his eyebrows. “But… if both entrances were blocked, why do you think they got in through the shaft instead of the main entrance?”

James smiled. “In the room, there were lots of objects with odd space and distances between each other. Some were side by side and others very far apart. I was under the impression that somebody had taken a lot of them, leaving the bulkiest ones behind. When I was in the chamber, I asked myself - why would they leave the golden objects and rolls of papyrus when they could fetch unimaginable sums of money? You see, some of the most ancient secrets of Egyptian civilization might lie in those documents. It would be the discovery of the century.”

“Because they couldn’t remove them!” replied Mary.

“Exactly! I believe that whoever entered chamber knew that there was another access route, and they must be desperately searching for it right now.”

“There’s something I didn’t tell you,” said Mary, taking them by surprise. “Entry to the pyramid was closed in 1998, supposedly for cleaning to take place. Many people suspect that the Egyptian government managed to see what was behind the three blocks, and they have since resolutely refused to allow new investigations.”

Richard’s eyes lit up, he was starting to get his hopes up again. “Obviously it was them. Everything they managed to remove from the chamber must be locked away in museum storage. We have to speak to the General Secretary of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.”

A female voice rang out through the airport speaker system, announcing the imminent departure of the flight to the United States.

“That’s me - I have to go.”

Without further delay, Anthony picked up his hand baggage along with a ticket which was sitting on the table, and which would allow him to pick up the luggage he had checked in. After saying goodbye to the others and passing through the relevant controls, he boarded the airplane and made his way to the seats at the rear.

The flight was virtually empty, only a couple of other people were onboard; an elderly woman who was relaxing in the first class section by reading a gossip magazine, and a man a few seats behind him who was leafing through a scientific journal.

Anthony had just reclined his seat with the intention of relaxing for a few minutes when he felt a stab of pain in his left arm. A dense liquid penetrated his body, instantly paralyzing his upper body and mouth, preventing him from screaming. He tried to stand up but his legs grew weak, becoming numb and losing sensitivity. Eventually his body became completely rigid.

A voice hissed into his ear, viciously tearing away from him any hope he had of living. “You have three minutes of life left before your heart stops.” Alpha 2 had taken advantage of the cabin crew’s absence to sit behind him. He was doggedly clutching a syringe in his left hand. “But to be honest with you, what makes me most angry is not being able to slit your throat like I hope to do to your friends.”

Then he pulled the seatbelt around his body and closed his eyes with his hand, making it look as if he was asleep. Finally, he left the aircraft, to the surprise of the cabin crew.

Lacking the strength needed to open his eyes, he only managed to shed a tear, which rolled down his face and dripped off his chin. At that very moment, his heart stopped.

C
onstruction began on the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in 1897, with it later being inaugurated in the year 1902. It houses the largest collection of objects from the Pharaonic Era of Ancient Egypt, with over 120,000 artifacts in total already classified. The building has two stories and is neoclassical in style; it is situated in the city center and surrounded by a small garden decorated with ancient epigraphs and sculptures.

The lower floor is entirely dedicated to sculpture, relief paintings and sarcophaguses. It features the colossal statues of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, located at the back and presiding over the whole room. On the upper floor is the funeral paraphernalia of Tutankhamen, the museum’s crown jewel, together with other objects found in the tomb.

In 1835, the Egyptian Antiquities Service was founded to protect the country’s monuments and treasures from the greed of both locals and foreigners. The archaeological remains found were stored at various sites throughout the years, until they were eventually brought to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Mary was the first to enter the museum. On her left, James followed and didn’t let her out of his sight, his expression uneasy and his pace quick. The entrance was protected by high-level security; several metal detectors obliged tourists to pass through them if they wanted to get in or out of the museum. Just opposite, two security guards were checking two monitors which, despite being rather antiquated, were equipped with X-rays to detect dangerous objects.

It was clear that if anybody knew anything about the
Trifariam
, it would be the General Secretary of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities who, according to Mary, had a small office in the museum. It was he who, after the investigations carried out in one of the shafts, ordered that the Great Pyramid be closed to refurbishment. They had to get to his office however they could. To do so, they would adopt the same method they had deployed in the Great Pyramid to cut off the internal communication system. Anthony had left them the virus transmitter, after making them promise that he would get it back in one piece. Richard had remained outside the museum, inside the car. From there, following the instructions Anthony had given to them, he would try to disable the security system with the help of his laptop.

After she got in the queue, Mary hid the transmitter inside the digital camera case. “With a bit of luck, they’ll think it’s a camera and they won’t notice,” she grinned.

Nerves were starting to bubble up once more, gradually worsening as they got nearer to the guards. It was essential that they gained entry with the transmitter, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to do anything.

One of the guards addressed Mary with a scowl. “Good afternoon. Please remove all your belongings and place them in this tray, then walk through the metal detector.”

Mary put as many things in the tray as she could, timidly trying to hide the camera case. The tray passed through the scanner without the guards noticing anything untoward. Once it was on the other side however, the guard spotted something unusual and muttered something to his colleague, who quickly rifled through her belongings until he found what he was looking for: the digital camera case. The woman’s heart stopped for a couple of seconds.
They’ve caught us!
she thought.

“Does this digital camera have a flash?” asked the guard in a husky voice, leaving the case untouched and waiting for her response.

“Yes,” replied Mary, almost stammering.

“You will have to pay a fee if you want to use it inside. If not, leave it here and you can pick it up when you leave.”

The woman breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s fine. I’ll pay whatever I need to.”

James went through the same procedure and within a few minutes, they found themselves on the other side of the security barrier, inside the museum.

The sight of hundreds of archaeological remains left James bewildered as to where to begin.

“Over here!” said Mary in a hushed voice so as not to disturb the tourists. “The pieces in the museum are arranged in chronological order, going clockwise. We’ll attract a lot of attention if we go in the opposite direction.”