She awoke to the sound of glass breaking. Yellow pages blew around the room in gusts as the wind poured in through
the open window. The bedclothes had been blown aside, leaving her shivering. The lamp lay on the floor, flickering on and off with the fizz of frayed circuits.
Someone was hammering on the door and she instinctively reached down to cover herself. Her hand felt the soft cotton of her nightgown. Confused, she reached for the bedside light.
Everything was in its place. The lamp was on the desk. The pages in a neat pile, with the Serpent on top. The window was closed. Apart from her ragged breathing, all was silent.
Laughing with relief, she went to the desk and read what she’d written on the top sheet. At least she hadn’t dreamed that. She read it through one more time, trying to fix it in her mind, then climbed between the sheets. She was asleep before she could recite it to herself.
The next morning Murphy showed no signs of his ordeal. As she joined him at the only occupied table in the cavernous restaurant, he was happily feasting on rolls and coffee.
“You seem very chipper,” she said.
He winked. “Sleep of the just.”
“Well, take it easy. Dr. Aziz said you should stay in bed for a couple of days at least.”
Murphy snorted. “He was just hustling you for a few more bucks, making it look like it was life-and-death. It’s just a scratch. Anyhow, we have work to do.”
She reached into her bag with a look of triumph. “Relax. All done.”
He took the wrinkled piece of paper and read it through. “I’m beginning to think your father was right about you. Didn’t you sleep at all?”
She studied the tablecloth. “It didn’t take long.”
“And you’re sure you’ve got it right?”
She tried to snatch the sheet of paper back, but he whisked it out of reach. “Just kidding.” He read it through again.
“In the land of the flood, it rests with a queen
. ‘The land of the flood.’ That could be the Biblical Flood.”
She nodded. “Plenty of references to that in Babylonian literature. The question is, where exactly is it?”
“A lot of people think the Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat. Maybe Anatolia, then. Any queens we know of in that neighborhood?”
“Not in the right time frame. Too far north.”
“Okay, maybe he didn’t mean
the
Flood, just a place where it floods regularly.”
She poured herself a cup of tea and stirred in some milk. “Like where?”
“How about Egypt? The Nile floods every year like clockwork. Without it there would have been no Egyptian civilization. No Sphinx, no pyramids.”
“Makes sense. Read the next bit.”
“Entombed by stone, it floats in the air.”
Murphy shook his head. “Beats me.”
She put down her cup. “Hold on. If you’re right and Dakkuri’s talking about Egypt, then entombed by stone, resting with a queen, that must mean it’s in a pyramid, right?”
“Right.”
“Come on, you’re the archaeologist. How many pyramids are there?”
“More than you’d think.”
“But this is no ordinary pyramid.”
He slapped his hand on the table and a waiter scurried out of the kitchen to see what was wrong. Isis waved him back with a frown.
“Ever heard of the Pyramid of the Winds?”
“Can’t say that I have. Are you sure you haven’t just made it up?”
He grinned. “It exists all right. On the Giza plateau just west of Cairo, all by its lonesome. Not close enough to the big three—Khufu, Khafre, and Menkure—to get onto the postcards, so no one pays it much attention.”
“So how come the fancy name?”
“According to legend, there’s supposed to be some sort of updraft in the center of the pyramid, so powerful it could keep a man suspended above the ground forever.”
“A man … or the head of a bronze Serpent,” she said.
“Why not. If I remember correctly, it’s also the last resting place of Queen Hephrat the Second.”
“Bingo!
Entombed by stone but floating in air
. So what do we do now?”
“We take a look inside, of course. Come on.”
Back in Murphy’s room, she watched over his shoulder as he fired up his laptop and logged into a database in the Preston University mainframe. After a few seconds, a complex diagrammatic of the Pyramid of the Winds unfolded across the computer screen, revealing the interior in three dimensions.
Isis pointed at the series of square holes ringing the base of the pyramid. “What are those?”
“Air shafts. Air is drawn into the great chamber—that’s
the big empty space at the center of the pyramid, above Hephrat’s burial chamber—and it comes out here, these smaller holes two-thirds of the way up.”
“That’s very impressive. Trust the ancient Egyptians to invent air-conditioning three thousand years before the fact.”
“Only for royalty,” Murphy said. “And even they had to be dead first. Maybe that kind of logic explains why Egyptian civilization didn’t last.”
Isis gave him a wry smile. “So where does the legend about things floating in midair come from?”
“I barely remember my high school physics, but here’s my theory. The air is drawn in through the shafts at the bottom. Inside the great chamber it heats up, rises, and gets compressed as the pyramid narrows. That increases its velocity and sends it rushing out of the shafts at the top, at the same time sucking in more air from below. Kind of an endless cycle.”
“So you think the head of the Serpent is going to be floating in midair in the great chamber?”
“I doubt that. My bet is it’s either in the burial chamber or more likely one of the air shafts.”
Isis studied the screen with a skeptical expression. “You know I said I wasn’t claustrophobic, but those air shafts look rather narrow to me. How are we going to…?”
Murphy tapped some more keys and the Pyramid of the Winds disappeared. In its place a rotating graphic of what looked like some kind of high-tech vacuum cleaner filled the screen.
“Behold the Pyramid Crawler. A remote-controlled robot specifically designed for navigating the air shafts of pyramids.”
“You’re joking. Somebody actually makes these things?”
“Sure. I don’t know if it’s the iRobot Corporation’s
biggest seller, but right now it’s just what we need. What color paintwork do you want? I think the choices are dark gray or a slightly darker gray.”
Isis was reading the product specifications: a computer-controlled, quadra-tracked vehicle with two sets of tank treads arranged one on top of the other, so one set was pushed against the floor of the shaft and the other against the ceiling, providing stone-gripping traction. An array of sensors, lights, and miniature TV cameras completed the picture.
“Let’s say you can get hold of one of these things. I still don’t see how we’re going to get access to the pyramid. I know you’re not a stickler for red tape, but you can’t just hire a camel or two and start digging, you know.”
He looked offended. “You think I don’t have connections? Ever heard of Dr. Boutrous Hawass, the director of the pyramids? Well, my best buddy at grad school was a man called Jassim Amram. Now he’s a professor of archaeology at the American University in Cairo and just happens to be Hawass’s right-hand guy. If I know Jassim, he’s already got one of these Pyramid Crawlers trained to mix a decent martini and bring it to him in front of the TV.”
“All right,” Isis said, opening the door. “You fix things up with your friend Professor Amram and I’ll track down our pilot and tell him to get us ready to depart for Cairo.”
Murphy had closed the laptop and was already throwing clothes into his backpack. “Sounds good.”
The phone rang. It was a secretary’s voice. “Oh, thank God, Dr. McDonald. Please hold for Chairman Compton of the Parchments of Freedom Foundation.”
“Isis.” Harvey Compton sounded rather tense, Isis
thought. He was probably worried that she had scuffed up the interior of his airplane. She rushed to assure him he was getting his money’s worth. “Harvey, we’ve got the second piece and have our eyes set on the head of the Serpent.”
“Yes, well, never mind that. I’ve been trying to reach you. Two people have been murdered here and the tail of the Serpent has been stolen. Isis, you and Professor Murphy must abandon your trip and come home immediately.”
STRANGE. STRANGE AND
horrible. The murders of the two guards had occurred literally a world away, yet, because they were the real lives of men she had worked with, she was devastated.
“Isis, I’m sorry I got you and the foundation into this.” Murphy knew it was no consolation. “Chairman Compton is right, of course, we must head back.”
Isis sat staring at the wall. “Murphy, we’re not going back. Not now. Especially not now. Whoever, whatever force is trying to take over the Serpent must be stopped.”
“Isis, you’re in shock. You are in greater danger than we even knew here in Tar-Qasir, and that was no kindergarten outing. Pack up.”
“No, Murphy. We’re staying the course. Chairman Compton is too far away to shut us down now. Besides, there
is something I haven’t told you about the scene at the foundation.”
“What?”
“Murphy, whoever took the Serpent’s tail was pretty brazen himself. He took the time to leave what could only be a taunting message for you. He carved the symbol of a snake into the metal shelf on which the tail had been kept. It was a snake broken into three pieces.”
Murphy walked to the window. After a few moments’ reflection, he turned and said, “Well, whoever came after the Serpent’s tail is well aware of our quest. Of the few people whom we have confided in about the details of what we’re seeking, none of them are murderers or thieves.”
“At least up to now, you mean. There’s obviously something about this Serpent that over the centuries has made lots of people do lots of strange things.”
“Yes, you would have to think that it’s not some rival archaeologist who would murder and steal for that tail. So, we can assume that whoever is onto us is working the decidedly dark side of the street.”
Isis had a worried look in her eyes as she reached for Murphy’s hand before she added the final news. “Murphy, there’s something else I have to tell you about the scene at the foundation. Remember what you told me about the cross necklace you gave Laura, and how someone had broken it at the funeral when you took your last look into her casket? Well, carved right next to the snake on the PFF shelf, the same maniac carved a cross broken into three pieces.”
Murphy sat in shocked silence. Then he walked over to the wall and banged his fist as hard as he could three times. “Worst
suspicions confirmed. It’s all starting to make a bizarre kind of sense. All of the signs are pointing to one mysterious connecting element to so many of the events we’ve been going through. The stranger coming to Preston and teaming up with Chuck Nelson for trouble, the bombing at the church, the theft of the tail—” His voice cracked as he thought about the final link.
Isis finished the thought. “The fact that Laura wasn’t killed as a result of some debris falling on her. That she was definitely murdered.”
“Isis, this is beyond archaeology, or even faith and validating the Bible now. It’s personal. We’re going to find the head of that Serpent if it kills us. And by keeping up our search, it’s only a matter of time before we confront this evil stranger face-to-face.”
“
SO AFTER WE
find the head of the Serpent, what then?”
Murphy was concentrating on the buzzing, dusty, glaring chaos that was Cairo as their taxi inched its way laboriously through the cars, bicycles, pedestrians, and occasional ox thronging the narrow streets. The question caught him off guard.
“I mean,” Isis continued, “it’s not as if you can put it back together. The man who broke into the foundation has got the tail now. I mean, I understand about authenticating the Biblical account. You could still do that with two pieces. But that’s not why we’re here, is it?”
She’d caught a little bit of sun since they’d been in the Middle East, and it suited her. She looked more confident, less like a creature of the dark ready to scurry back into her hole at
the foundation at the slightest sign the outside world was getting too close. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to deal with her new assertiveness just then.
“Proving the Bible is true is what I do. I can’t think of anything more important.”
She considered him skeptically, then reached for the door handle as the driver swerved to avoid an old man on a swaying bicycle. Regaining her equilibrium, she said, “No? What about prophecy? Biblical prophecy.”
“That’s part of it. If we can demonstrate that the Old Testament prophets were writing at the time they say they were, then that proves they were genuine.”
“I don’t follow.”
Reluctantly, he turned his gaze away from the buzzing confusion of the streets. “Some of what they predicted has happened. Skeptics say that’s because they were actually writing after the event, so they were looking backward, not forward. If we can show they were writing at the time they claimed, then that proves they really could see history in advance.”
“And why is that so important?”
“Because of the predictions that
haven’t
come true yet. So people can be sure they
will
happen.”
She nodded as if he’d confirmed something she already knew. “Then tell me about the part of the Book of Daniel that hasn’t come true yet.”
“Daniel? I thought you were more interested in Marduk and Ereshkigal and all that crowd.”
She looked at him with an intensity he hadn’t seen before, and he realized he was being too harsh with her. For the first time, he noticed she wasn’t wearing her amulet.
“I’m sorry. Yes, I’ll tell you about Daniel if you like. But why now?”
“You told me your search for the Brazen Serpent began with a mysterious message about Daniel. I think that’s what this is all about. That’s what we’re risking our lives for. So I thought I might as well find out what I’m getting into.”
She was trying for a flippant tone, but he didn’t quite buy it.
“All right. Through Daniel, God was telling Nebuchadnezzar that throughout history there would be four world empires: his own, the Babylonian, represented by the Golden Head of his statue; then the empire of the Medes and Persians; then the Greeks; and finally the Romans. Each one gets progressively weaker, until with the Romans it actually splits in half—like the two legs of the statue.”