Killer Thrillers Box Set: 3 Techno-Thriller, Action/Adventure Science Fiction Thrillers (14 page)

He caught him as he fell, Bryce cradling his head in the crook of his arm. Groaning in agony, the man fixed on Bryce with his intense eyes. Bryce knew he couldn’t help the man.
 

To his surprise, the man muttered in English, “they enter,” and raised an arm slowly and pointed to the entrance to the pyramid. His energy gone, he closed his eyes and died.
 

By now the rest of the team, except for the Thompsons, who were still warily guarding their flanks, had gathered behind Bryce. Even for Sean and Gary, accustomed to the tolls of battle, this scene was appalling and frightening.

Bryce tried to piece it all together.

The blasted gate.
 

Sixteen guards brutally murdered and frozen in place at the instant of death.
 

He wasn’t sure what exactly had happened here, but he knew it would have to wait. For now, they had to get inside the pyramid, find the Lower Room, get the stone, and escape from Vilocek’s men.

“We’ve got company,“ Wayne announced suddenly. “Heading in from the northwest; looks like government,” At the head of a growing dust cloud, six vehicles were bearing down on the pyramid. The first three were unmarked, jet black SUVs, followed by two troop transport vehicles, and finally a Humvee with an Egyptian flag flying from its antenna.
 

“All right, everybody move out,” Bryce ordered. “Let’s get in and out ASAP. I don’t know who called the federales, but I don’t want them to think we crashed their monument and wiped out their security.” He took off toward the pyramid at a run.

CHAPTER 20

7:42 PM - GIZA, EGYPT

Vilocek’s team was making good time through the pyramid’s inner sanctums. Vilocek crawled ahead down the Descending Passage and through the antechamber outside of the Lower Room. He knew this pyramid had been scoured and studied, and he knew from his research that there were only two paths through the pyramid system — up or down.
 

As Professor Jensen had confirmed, any uncharted passageways or secret chambers would most likely be hidden down below the pyramid itself, inside or near the Lower Room — Professor Jensen argued that since most archeologists and Egyptologists felt that this subterranean section was unfinished, their best shot for finding any clues would begin there.
 

Besides, Vilocek had it on good authority that there was something more to be said about the Lower Room. Even though he hadn’t found any reference to it in Whittenfield Sr.’s journals, he had seen the layout map of Washington, D.C. On it, at the bottom of the Potomac River,
exactly
where his father had told him the original crystal stone was found, was exactly where the Lower Room of the Pyramid of Giza had been superimposed.

The Founding Fathers were wise enough to hide the stone in a location that was protected, unknown, and unlikely to be undisturbed. They had the foresight to place it in a spot that referred to its original hiding place, the Lower Room of the Pyramid. They mentioned nothing of the stone in their writings. Only a wise few would one day be able to see the similarities between the interior of the Great Pyramid and Washington, D.C. — and determine the location of the stone.

Thankfully, Vilocek hadn’t needed to waste his own time hunting down the rock — it was given to him by his own father, who had done much of the legwork with Whittenfield Sr. Now, almost 30 years later, Vilocek was going to find the source of the mysterious crystal and claim it for himself. It was only a matter of time.

Vilocek hesitated for a moment at the threshold of the Lower Room. The magnitude of the crystal’s potential came on him like a flood — the idea that he was so close to finally finding it made him hesitate with near-reverence.

But only for a moment. The promise of the crystal’s scientific value and immense power got the best of Vilocek’s greed. He entered the room, eager to make the groundbreaking discovery he
knew
was to be found here. The rest of the team followed him in, dispersing around the small room. No one bothered to look in the well in the center except Corinne.
 

“What’s this?” she asked, to no one in particular. Corinne could see that the inside of the shaft had been filled with rocks and dusty debris, about eight feet from the top.

“It’s a shaft,” her uncle answered. “No one knows its true purpose, but since it’s been filled in almost to the top, many people believe that it may have been the original burial tomb, meant for Pharaoh Khufu.”

“But isn’t there already a King’s Chamber up above us somewhere?” she wondered aloud.
 

“Yes — he is believed to have been buried in the King’s Chamber, but no one ever found his remains. The Lower Chamber is commonly used as the burial chamber in Egyptian pyramids, and that’s what makes this one special. For whatever reason, not only was this room
not
used as a crypt, but it wasn’t even
finished
. You see that the south hallway doesn’t go too far before there’s a dead end — why would the Egyptians build a hallway that just
ends
?”

As Corinne listened, they both walked the length of the south hallway. Reaching the end, she noticed that it didn’t look like the builders had simply stopped work in mid-stream; the passage seemed intentionally designed just as it was.
 

“It’s perfectly finished — carved and everything! There’s no room to even slide a credit card through the cracks in the stones, much less a finger or hand.”
 

“I know,” Jensen said. “It truly is something. The craftsmanship and placement of the individual stones here rival that of the rooms and passageways that are considered ‘complete.’ Obviously the work here was not abandoned — it seems purposeful; intentionally built this way.”

Vilocek was beginning to look a little worked up — apparently his five minutes of searching the chamber’s already-excavated areas was long enough for him. He called out to the pair at the end of the hall. “Did you two find anything over there, or is this place a waste of my time?”

Jensen shook his head, resigned. “There doesn’t seem to be anything here, Dr. Vilocek.”

Vilocek let out an exasperated sigh. His normally impeccably-moussed hair had become disheveled, and he looked fatigued. Clearly he had lost sleep in anticipation of what he might find down here. What secrets and powers would the crystal hold, and what possible cures and healing properties would it provide? Jensen found himself intrigued by the opportunity to make such a discovery — most of his own career had been spent behind a desk performing dry research on well-traveled subjects.
 

“Come on, then,” Vilocek snapped. “Let’s get the hell out of here. We need to figure out what this D.C. map means, since it clearly wasn’t telling us to come to the Lower — “ Vilocek cut himself off as his eyes fell on the wall next to Corinne. “What’s that?”

Their eyes followed his. On the wall at Corinne’s side, about three feet off the floor, was a square, outlined in bluish light on one of the blocks of stone. The stone itself was smaller than the surrounding stones, like afterthought or filler of some sort. As Vilocek drew nearer, the blue glow seemed to intensify. As he faced the stone, the blue lines went from a throbbing, pulsating glow, not unlike a neon sign viewed at close range, to solid, constant lines of light, as if they had warmed up and were now fully “on.”
 

“Amazing,” Vilocek whispered. “What did you do?” he asked, looking sharply at Jensen.
 

“N — nothing,” Jensen stammered.

“Well, something must have caused the stone to light up like that, “ Vilocek said. “Everyone, lights off. Let’s see if there’s anything else in this pyramid we’re missing.”

All throughout the Lower Room and hallway, the men’s lights flicked off. All at once, they were bathed in heavy darkness — even after their eyes adjusted to the pitch black, the glowing blue square didn’t light much beyond the immediate area.

“Dr. Vilocek,” Corinne said, “look at your pocket!”

From inside one of Vilocek’s pants pockets a blue hue of light was shining through the fabric like a fading star. He reached in and withdrew the object.
 

Opening his palm, he revealed a positively beautiful, spherical crystal.

“It’s the synthetic crystal,” Karn said.

Dr. Vilocek held the ball close the square stone at the end of the hallway, and immediately the lines around the block glowed a bit brighter. Then, dead in the center of the block’s face, a strange symbol appeared:

“It looks like hieroglyphics!” Beka said in amazement.
 

“Could be,”
 
Vilocek said. “But we don’t have time to figure it out. There’s got to be a way to…” His voice trailed off as he tentatively brushed the symbol with the hand holding the crystal. Suddenly the ground below them gently shook.
 

“Do you feel that?” Corinne whispered.
 

Jensen nodded, barely noticeable in the gloom. “I think it’s some sort of door. It’s moving.”

The small stone block had begun to slide backwards into the wall. It moved slowly and steadily for about three feet, stopped for a split second, and then moved
straight upward,
into a hidden space behind the wall.
 

The scraping of the small block continued for a few moments before stopping completely. From somewhere deep beneath the pyramid, the grinding and gentle shaking also eased and stopped. Karn and Beka flipped on their lights. The moving block had left behind a hole in the wall the size of a small crate.

Just large enough to crawl into, Vilocek knew immediately that it was a passageway to a yet undiscovered section of the pyramid. The synthetic crystal had somehow activated the mechanism — he was glad he’d had the sense to bring it along. The trip was going off without a hitch so far, and with a bit of luck they’d be able to find the original crystal here and be out of this God-forsaken country before morning. He grunted with satisfaction, and headed into the new tunnel.
 

The rest of the group followed, Corinne taking care to stay close to Jensen so as not to activate the strange — and painful — effects of the crystal they’d experienced back at Vilocorp.
 

But Jensen wasn’t thinking about the crystal’s side effects as he crawled headfirst into the tunnel. He was thinking about something else.
 

Vilocek was wrong about the marking on the stone.

The glyph on the keystone was not Egyptian hieroglyphics. In fact, it was not Egyptian at all — nor was it part of any script Jensen had ever studied. He had a vague thought that he’d seen it somewhere before; it reminded him of an extremely ancient written language that very few people, including himself, knew much about.

He crawled along in rapt silence, struggling to remember why that symbol seemed so familiar.

CHAPTER 21

8:35 PM - GIZA, EGYPT

The entrance corridor didn’t seem to match the scale of the pyramid itself. The tiny passage was no more than three feet high and about three and a half feet wide, sloped downward at an angle of 26 degrees into the depths of the earth. The musky, ancient air seemed to hang in place, compressed by the extreme weight of the massive blocks of hand-carved limestone above. Thousands of years of silence, solitude, and secrecy seemed to fill the pyramid’s interior passageways and sanctums.
 

Bryce and his team cautiously entered the tomb. With Bryce in the lead and Wayne Thompson bringing up the rear, they crept, doubled over or duck-walking, down the shaft. The passageway was lit dimly by fluorescent fixtures at irregular intervals, spaced every ten or so feet above their heads, and all of the men wore headlamps. Still, the passage seemed oppressive and dim; the feeble headlamp beams only extended a few feet ahead, swinging erratically back and forth.

They descended about 90 feet until they came to a small hole in the ceiling of the passage. It was the entrance to the Ascending Passage, which led to the Grand Gallery and the Queen’s and King’s Chambers. Holding up a hand, Bryce peered upward into the Ascending Passage, checking for movement. They had no idea where Vilocek and his men were. Bryce doubted they’d gone up the Ascending Passage, but needed to be sure. He switched off his light, motioning for the others to do the same. His eyes slowly adjusted to the increased darkness.

As he gazed up the Ascending Passage, straining to see, Jeff whispered over Bryce’s shoulder. “Hold up here, Captain. I think I hear something down below.”
 

They all tensed, silently waiting and listening. From somewhere far below, they could hear voices, though they couldn’t discern what was being said.
 

Bryce silently waved his hand forward and moved off down the passage, his rifle in a low ready position.
 

The men all carried M4 Carbine Assault Rifles, fitted with SOPMOD (Special Operations Peculiar Modification) kits, which allowed them to modify their load-out on-the-fly, depending on the mission. In this case, since Bryce wasn’t sure of what sort of situation they’d be in, he’d outfitted the men with 4X zoom day scopes and mini night-vision sight attachments, suppressors, and sidearms. Wayne was the team sniper, so he’d been given a high-magnification scope, while his brother Jeff got a bottom-loading M203 9-inch grenade launcher. Bryce had given Cole Reed his own assault rifle and kept the modified assault rifle left by Vilocek’s men — the same rifle that had immobilized the Egyptian guards outside the pyramid.