Egypt (13 page)

“Wow,” I said. “I’m having a hard time catching my breath.”

“This is all so unbelievable,” Serene said. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“What do you think we should do with the scrolls?”

“I don’t know. I wish Dr. Aziz was here.”

“Me too. I’m afraid to touch them. We should probably leave them until he’s with us.”

Gannon kept his video camera rolling. He moved away from the chest and began capturing the detail along the top of Cleopatra’s sarcophagus, which drew my attention away from the scrolls. Solid gold with red, blue, black, and white paint, the top of the coffin was sculpted in her likeness. Her face, shaped with delicate cheekbones and lips, seemed so lifelike, I felt like I was staring at the Queen herself. The eyes, especially. I would almost swear they could see me.

I held out my hand to brush away the dust that covered the coffin.

“Stop!” Gannon shouted. “I don’t think you should touch it!”

As much as I wanted to dust them both off, slide open the covers and see with my own eyes the mummies of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, two monumental figures in world history, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

“They should be left to rest in peace,” Gannon said.

“I agree,” Serene said.

I withdrew my hand.

“This is totally mind blowing and all,” Gannon said, “but to be honest, I don’t feel all that good about being here.”

Gannon stepped to the sarcophagus.

“Cleopatra,” he said, “please forgive us for disturbing your burial chamber. We mean no disrespect. Same goes for you, Mr. Antony. We’re very sorry. Please accept our apology.”

“That was nice, Gannon,” I said, about to laugh. “You definitely scored some points for sincerity.”

Gannon turned to us.

“I’ve got everything documented on camera,” he said. “What do you say we get the heck out of here, like right now?”

“Good idea,” Serene said.

“But what are we going to tell the tomb robbers?” I asked. “If we tell them what we’ve found, they’ll blast their way in and steal everything.”

We sat quietly for a moment, thinking of what to do. One thing was certain: We couldn’t let them get their hands on the treasure. It’s like Dr. Aziz told all of us, this is Egypt’s heritage. And it was now our duty to protect it!

Can’t say I didn’t warn everyone. Because I did. Over and over again. I mean, for real. Did anyone really think that we could just waltz on down to the center of the earth, intrude on the tomb of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, and not trigger some kind of crazy curse?

Please!

I know Wyatt and Serene took all kinds of detailed notes on what we found down there with the treasure and scrolls and all, so I’m just going to get right to what happened as a consequence, I believe, of disturbing their peace.

Okay, so, I’d just talked Wyatt out of being a bonehead and touching anything and was trying to hurry everyone up and get out of that tomb, when I detected a faint rumble. At first I thought I might turn around to see the mummies of Cleopatra and Mark Antony sliding the lids off their sarcophaguses or something, but it only took another second to realize what was really happening.

“Earthquake!” I screamed, and took off running for cover. The ground began to shake with such crazy force that my legs went out from under me and I landed flat on my stomach. The pillars in the chamber were wobbling back and forth. Large sections of stone crumbled to the ground all around me. Before I could even get back to my feet, a boulder crashed down right in front of my face, landing on top of my video camera, which was still strapped to my neck.

“I’m stuck!” I screamed.

Wyatt saw that I was struggling to free myself and quickly cut the camera strap with his knife. Serene helped lift me to my feet.

“My video camera got crushed!” I yelled.

“Better your camera than your head!” she shouted. “Now, let’s get out of here!”

Just then, a wall of rubble came raining down from above, separating us from Cleopatra and Mark Antony.

“This way!” Serene yelled, and pulled me towards an opening in the far corner of the tomb. There, we ran into a tunnel and continued pushing forward. The ground was still shaking and the air was filled with all this dust and I lost sight of Wyatt and Serene. Rocks continued to fall all around and I closed my eyes, pretty much expecting to be crushed at any moment, pulverized by the crumbling earth, buried forever, just like Cleopatra and Mark!

When I opened my eyes, everything was still. The earth had stopped moving. A shaft of light came through the darkness. Dust was swirling everywhere and large rocks were piled all around me. Wyatt and Serene were nowhere to be seen.

I yelled their names.

There was no response. My heart was thumping and my leg hurt really bad. When I looked down, I found a large gash on the left calf muscle that was bleeding pretty good.

“Wyatt!” I yelled again. “Serene! Can you hear me?”

Oh, jeez, the thought of my brother and Serene being crushed under the rubble was making me sick. I stood and climbed over the boulders towards the light. My arms and legs were trembling.

I thought maybe I was losing too much blood from my leg and stopped long enough to grab my pocket knife, cut the sleeve off my shirt, and tie it tightly around the wound, hoping it would prevent me from bleeding to death.

“Wyatt! Serene!” I yelled again.

I heard a faint sound in the distance.

“Gannon,” a voice said.

It was Serene.

“Help me.”

“I’m coming, Serene!”

I climbed further towards the light and found her lying on her side. Her arm was pinned under a rock the size of a jeep tire.

“I’m trapped,” she said.

“Can you still feel your arm?” I said, shining my flashlight into the area where her arm was stuck.

“Yes, I can.”

That sure was good news.

“If I can roll the rock back, you should be able to get your arm out.”

“Okay, but please be careful. There is a lot of pressure on it. I’m afraid any more will snap the bones.”

I braced myself and pushed the rock with my hands, but it didn’t budge. So I stood over Serene and put my back against the rock, gripping it low and pulling the rock up with all my might. Surprisingly, the rock started to lift. Serene let out a scream and rolled away, holding her arm.

I dropped the rock and fell to her side thinking for sure that I had broken her arm.

“I’m so sorry, Serene! Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” she said, panting. “I pulled my arm free just in time. Thank you so much, Gannon.”

Just then we heard a voice echo from above.

“If anyone’s interested in some fresh air, I found an exit up here!”

I looked up and saw a silhouette of Wyatt’s head surrounded on all sides by a bright white light. I couldn’t have been happier. I mean, not only was he alive and uncrushed and all, he’d found a way out!

Serene and I climbed over a pile of rocks that led to the small hole. Once there, we grabbed Wyatt’s hand and he helped pull us through the hole into the desert. Free from the tomb, we all fell onto our backs in the sand.

“That sure was a close call,” Serene said.

“No kidding,” I said, sitting up and looking around. There was no sign of anything in any direction. No camp, no city of Alexandria, just hills of sand.

“You know,” I said, “I never thought I’d be so happy to be lost in the middle of the desert.”

Wyatt sat up and looked around.

“This is not good,” he said.

“Well, it’s a heck of a lot better than being buried alive,” I said.

“This is true.”

“I’d like to take this opportunity to officially announce my retirement from archeology,” I said. “From this point forward, I plan to focus exclusively on above-ground exploration.”

The sun was hot and sweat beaded up on my forehead. My mouth was gritty with sand and bone dry.

“We need to get moving,” Serene said. “We can’t forget, the tomb robbers are still holding Dr. Aziz and the men at camp. They need our help.”

Wyatt stood up and looked to the sky.

“It’s mid-afternoon,” he said, pointing at the sun. “This way is west, which makes this north. If we walk north we’ll run into the Mediterranean. We should spot the camp along the way. How far away could it be?”

“But what’re we going to do about the tomb robbers when we get there?” I asked. “Kindly ask them to pack up their machine guns and leave?”

“We’ll figure it out as we walk,” Serene said. “Let’s get going.”

The air was calm and the sky clear and it seemed to be getting hotter and hotter as we went. I was pretty much drenched with sweat and totally parched and my leg was throbbing where I had been cut. Sand was getting into my wound as I hobbled along through the desert, struggling just to keep up.

“If it gets this hot in the winter,” I said, “I’d hate to see what it’s like in the summer.”

“If it were summer,” Serene said, “we’d be dead already.”

In places, a rare cloud would cast a shadow on the dunes that, if you didn’t know better, looked like a pool of water. But we knew better, it was just a mirage. There was no water. And I’ll say this, when you’re lost in the desert, water is pretty much all you think about.

Another half-hour into our trek I was staggering and about to fall face down in the sand when an object appeared on the horizon, a small black dot moving slowly over the sandy hills.

“A Bedouin,” Serene said.

“If we can get his attention he could save us,” I said.

I immediately yanked off my shirt and began swinging it around like a helicopter propeller.

“Hey, Bedouin!” I yelled, running across the dune. “Help us! We need water or we’re going to die!”

While I was doing all that screaming, I tripped and tumbled down the dune in a cloud of sand. That outburst pretty much used up the last of my energy, so I just stayed there staring at the blue sky, exhausted, unable to move, thinking that I had been cursed and was destined to die in the desert.

“That’s one way to get his attention,” Wyatt said, laughing, as he walked past me. “But I think I have a better idea.”

He took off his explorer watch and used the stainless steel plate on the back to catch the sunlight and shoot a bright glare in the direction of the Bedouin.

Sure enough, it worked. I lifted my head and saw the black dot on the horizon turn and start moving in our direction, and thank goodness for that because if he’d ignored us, well, I wouldn’t be writing this right now.

A man in a long, flowing black robe and headdress came galloping up on a camel. He looked at us with piercing eyes and unwrapped the scarf from his mouth. When he spoke, his tone was harsh. I immediately worried that we had entered forbidden territory and would be punished.

Bedouins speak a different dialect of Arabic. Fortunately, Serene had spent time with a tribe the previous winter and understood the man. There was desperation in her voice as she spoke, and the man immediately softened to her.

He instructed his camel to sit and the man dismounted. From his satchel, he removed a goat-skinned canteen and handed it to Serene. She popped the plug from the top and poured water into her mouth. We all took turns drinking. The water was warm and not as clean as I would have liked, but we were dying of thirst, and when that’s the case, hot murky water sure beats no water at all.

The Bedouin man took the canteen from us and put it back in his satchel. He spoke again and pointed to the camel.

Serene looked to us.

“Okay, let’s go,” she said.

It may seem impossible, and I will admit that it wasn’t very comfortable, but all four of us climbed atop the camel and it stood up without a problem. We began at a steady pace through the desert. Not a trot or gallop, but a fast walk. The rhythmic roll of the camel’s stride, the rocking back and forth, was almost soothing. Gannon tried to fight it, but within minutes he was slumped over, asleep.

Occasionally, Serene spoke to the Bedouin man. Mostly, though, we rode in silence. A little more than an hour into our journey, a tent village appeared on the horizon. Erected among a grove of palms with a dry riverbed running through it, the village seemed like a mirage.

“What are we doing?” I asked Serene.

“He wants to gather his men before we return to the excavation site,” she explained. “Just in case there is any trouble with the tomb robbers.”

“What is his name?” I asked, suddenly realizing that I had rudely forgotten to ask the name of this man who had saved us from the desert.

“Tahnoon,” she said.

“Please thank Tahnoon for us.”

Serene leaned in and spoke in his ear as we rode. He turned to us, smiled, and nodded.

I love it when I wake up to find that I’ve already arrived at a destination and I have to say, the Bedouin camp sure was a sight for my tired, sore eyes. It was really primitive, but it was civilization. There were people and children all around dressed in desert robes and more camels than I could count, along with goats and chickens, water and food … life!

A young woman came up to us with a jug of water and handed each of us a little clay mug. It made me so happy I wrapped her in a big hug right then and there. It definitely caught her off guard, but she was a good sport and smiled and poured us a cup from the bucket. We guzzled it down like our lives depended on it, which, I guess they kind of did. This water was cool, clear, refreshing, and I could actually feel it sliding down my throat and into my stomach.

“May I have another cup?” I asked, pointing to the water.

The woman nodded and poured me another glass and I drank it down just as fast and asked for another. I didn’t think there was enough water in the ocean to quench my thirst, but we all managed to drink until we were full and afterwards found a spot of shade under a palm tree where we fell into the sand for a rest. Another woman appeared with a tray of flat bread and hummus and a pile of dates. We’d worked up a pretty serious appetite in the desert and went about scarfing down that food like a bunch of hungry jackals. After, Serene found someone to help me clean and bandage my leg. The Bedouin people sure did take good care of us and I couldn’t be more grateful.