Area 51_The Sphinx Read online

  AREA 51

  THE SPHINX

  Robert Doherty

  v1.0 (2011.06)

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  EPILOGUE

  THE PAST

  PROLOGUE

  The Giza Plateau

  May 27, 1855

  The face of the Sphinx gazed enigmatically over the sand, the weathered and battered stone bathed in the rays the rising moon. The two men approaching the statue halted, dwarfed by the large stone sculpture towering over them, their feet sinking into the desert. Beyond the shoulders of the Sphinx, the missive bulk of the three Giza pyramids filled the western horizon.

  “Abul-Hol,” one of the men said in Arabic, the words coming from inside the deep folds of the hood he had pulled over his head. “The Father of Terror,” he repeated in English.

  The head of the statue was twenty feet wide and almost the same in height. The neck and shoulders disappeared into sand that swept like an ocean around it.

  “Impressive.” The other man spoke Arabic also, but with an accent that indicated it was not his native tongue.

  “The body is even more impressive,” the Arab said. “It has been buried for many, many years.”

  “How do you know there is a body, then?”

  The Arab shrugged. “Either you trust my knowledge or you are wasting your time, Englishman.” He pointed at the scarred face above them. “The nose was destroyed by cannon fire. Foolish infidels.”

  “I heard it was Napoleon himself who directed that shot when he was here with his army.”

  The Arab spit into the sand. “Your ears have heard a lie. It was the Turks over a hundred years before Napoleon who did that damage. There are many false stories concerning the Sphinx and the pyramids.”

  “And you know the truth?”

  “I know some truths, Mr. Burton.”

  Richard Francis Burton pulled his hood back as he peered up at the ancient monument. The Englishman’s face was a terrible sight in the dimness, as scarred as that of the Sphinx. There was a jagged red wound on each side of his upper jaw where a spear had been thrust through less than three months before and the healing had not yet finished. Scraggly, rough beard surrounded the incomplete scar, the dark and swarthy face almost matching that of his Arab counterpart.

  The Englishman’s voice was low and harsh, the inside of his mouth having also suffered from the wound. As he spoke, small amounts of pus and blood oozed out of the holes on either side of his face, unnoticed by him in his excitement. “My dear Kaji, I am the only European to have been in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. I have read documents there written in the ancient tongues and seen by no other westerner. I have stood in the shadow of the Himalayas, traveled across the deserts of Arabia, traversed to the Upper Nile and beyond the first cataracts.

  “There is much more I want to see before I die—the true source of the Nile, the mines and treasures of King Solomon, the church that is rumored to hold the Ark of the Covenant, the Mountains of the Moon that are hidden in the mists.”

  “Some of those things and places are myths,” Kaji said. He pulled his own hood back, revealing the lined face of an old man, and a bald, wrinkled scalp. He had a large, hook nose, and his eyes-were black stones in deep-set sockets.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Barton replied. “I have heard of mysteries on the plateau beyond what we see here. Hidden marvels. The whispers and ancient writings tell of a chamber under the Sphinx. A chamber of knowledge. Of truth. It is said to be the Hall of Records from the ancient and lost land of Atlantis. My quest has led me to you as one who knows the ways of the Plateau. I will not rest until I see this chamber.”

  Kaji’s dark eyes regarded the foreigner. “Go back to England. What you seek is perilous. Sometimes it is better not to know the truth. The truth is a very, very dangerous thing.”

  Burton laughed. “You cannot deter me with the stories of curses that you Egyptians love to scare foreigners with. I have been many dangerous places and I have stared death in the face. I will not blink now.

  “I am on the tarigat,” Burton continued. The word he spoke in Arabic translated as the spiritual path leading to the truth, which normally meant the truth of God, but Burton wasn’t certain where his tarigat was going. He reached into his shirt and pulled out a circular medallion that hung on a chain around his neck. On the surface of the metal, an eye was emblazoned over the apex of a pyramid.

  Kaji’s gnarled fingers ran across the surface of the medallion. “Where did you get this?”

  “In Medina. From a man named Abdu Al-Iblis.”

  Kaji stiffened. “You are one of his disciples?”

  Burton shook his head. “No. I spoke with him one time. A most strange person. He gave me this.”

  “Did you get anything else from him? A key?”

  “What kind of key?”

  “If you had it, you would know.” Kaji remained still for several minutes, Burton waiting on him. Finally the Arab’s shoulders slumped ever so slightly. “I see it is to be our fate. I will take you inside. What you seek is below us.”

  “The Hall of Records?”

  “Yes.”

  Burton looked around. “Through the sand?”

  “There are other ways to go where you seek,” Kaji said. He pointed at the Great Pyramid. “We must go there.” He began walking around the Sphinx’s head.

  It appeared to Burton that the middle pyramid was the highest, but he knew that was a trick of the lay of the Plateau of Giza. The one farthest to the northeast, where they were headed, was the tallest and most massive.

  Burton hurried to keep up. Like Kaji, he wore the long robes of the people of the desert. Richard Francis Burton was a strange man, and it was no accident that he had ended up here in Egypt, searching out mysteries told of in legends and written of on decaying parchments. Born in England in 1821, he’d briefly attended Oxford, where he had been the only student at the time to study Arabic. Disgusted with the closed minds at the school, he left after two years and joined the military. In 1842 he was posted to India, where he promptly began studying Hindustani, then Persian. Because at his linguistic talents and his desire for adventure, he became a spy for the British army, scouting along the borders of the English Empire in that part of the world. During one of those missions he became seriously ill with cholera. Given two years of sick leave, he used that time to become a Master Sufi, one who studied and searched for a universal truth in connection with God.

  He was the only non-Muslim to travel to both Mecca and Medina, disguising himself as one of the faithful, his dark skin and language abilities allowing him to pose as a Persian trader. He had seen the Ka’ab, the heart of Islam, which none outside the faith were to see and be allowed to live.

  From Arabia he went to Africa, hoping to start an expedition to discover the mythical source of the Nile. Because of his proficiency in languages and his willingness to go into the native areas and listen, he heard many whispers and late-night storie
s told in a drunken stupor, finding it difficult to separate fact from fiction. It was in Mecca that he had first read of ancient secrets hidden on the Giza Plateau. Another man, said to be a Master Sufi also—Abdu Al-Iblis—had found him—how, Burton knew not—and directed him onward to the African continent and gave him the medallion telling him to use it to gain help on his path. Al-Iblis’s only request was that Burton return to Mecca and tell him what he had discovered. Burton did not trust Al-Iblis—he sensed evil from the man, and Kaji’s reaction indicated his instincts were correct—but Burton had long before realized that his path would often brush up against such people and if he was to pursue his goal of the Truth he would have to use them also.

  What had piqued Burton’s interest were the stories of the mythical Hall of Records, hidden somewhere in the ancient complex of structures built on the Giza Plateau outside of Cairo. The Hall was said to contain the Truth, although what exactly was meant by that, Burton had no idea. To some it meant religious truth—which of the many gods man worshiped around the world was the one true God—and to otters it was the truth of the Antediluvian World, the story of Atlantis and man’s roots, of great civilizations before recorded history. Regardless, Burton was determined to discover it.

  After his camp near Berbera was attacked by Somali bandits and he suffered his grievous wound from a spear thrust through his jaw, Burton was forced to postpone his search for the source of the Nile. On his way back to England to recuperate, he had stopped at Giza to explore this mystery before boarding the steamer. His persistent questioning had led him to Kaji, an old Egyptian he’d found huddled in a hut on the edge of the Plateau. As near as Burton could determine, Kaji was some kind of caretaker for the monuments, although the man seemed poor and had no affiliation with the local government. He had badgered the old man every day for a week, before Kaji even assented to talk to him. And then it had taken another week of pestering to get him to agree to take him to the Plateau this evening.

  Burton felt the familiar stir of excitement as they closed on the Great Pyramid. He had read the report of the English mathematician John Greaves, who had visited the Pyramid in 1638. Burton had also studied the more exacting measurements of Frenchman Edme-Francois Jomard, who had been commissioned by Napoleon to study the structure, Jomard had deduced the Pyramid of Khufu’s current height to be 481 feet, making it by far the tallest known man-made building in the world. Even more fascinating, Jomard measured each side of the base and discovered, they were all 755 feet long, give or take eight inches, an incredible feat of building by the ancients—accuracy within one-tenth of one percent over such a vast scale. Just as amazing; the sides of the three major pyramids were perfectly aligned with the cardinal directions.

  Burton intrinsically felt there had to be more here than what he had heard and studied. He had an instinct for mystery and intrigue and he could feel the power of both swirling about as they reached the base of the Great Pyramid. He was pleased when Kaji led him to the entrance Caliph Abdullah Al Mamum had cracked in the side of the large monument. Burton had read old scrolls in Medina about the caliph and how he had gone to the Great Pyramid in A.D. 820 and forced his way in search of secrets of a “profound science” and the “complete history of man and the truth of astronomy.” The scrolls told that Al Mamum sought a secret chamber that held “maps and terrestrial spheres.” Those scrolls written in the old Arabic tongue had been one of several clues that had led Burton to the Giza Plateau.

  Kaji handed Burton a kerosene lantern. “We will light these once we are inside. What we do tonight it is best no one knows about, and there are always thieves and scoundrels hiding in the darkness around the Plateau. Also, the government has officially forbidden travel inside. Those in power know the danger of the truth.” Kaji paused. “Mr. Burton, this is your last chance to turn around and go back. Please, sir, I beg of you, do not pursue this any further. I tell you honestly that death awaits if you persist.”

  “Death awaits every man,” Burton said. “You cannot stop me.”

  Kaji turned toward the Pyramid. “It is Allah’s will, then.”

  They passed into the dark opening and carefully made their way into the tunnel, moving a little distance by feel, before Kaji paused and lit both lanterns.

  “In the ninth century, the caliph’s men broke through the rock by heating it with fire, then pouring cold vinegar over the stones,” Kaji informed Burton as they moved down the tunnel. “They had to break through much rock—over one hundred feet—before they reached this.”

  Burton ducked his head as they entered a four-foot-high tunnel that his lantern showed went up at a steep angle.

  Kaji pointed. “The caliph’s men then found the original entrance, hidden behind a pivoting stone door. That entrance leads to the Queen’s Chamber and the Great Gallery, which ends at the King’s Chamber in the middle of the Pyramid.”

  “Both of those had nothing in them when opened,” Burton noted.

  “The titles given to those chambers were made up by people who knew no better. They are rooms inside the Pyramid, but there is no evidence a king was buried in one chamber and a queen in the other. No one really knows what was in those rooms—if anything,” Kaji added. “Besides, we are not going up.”

  The Arab placed his hands on one of the stone blocks to their right. For the first time Burton noted a large ring on the man’s right hand. He was startled as, with a grinding noise, the stone Kaji had touched rotated clockwise, revealing a narrow opening.

  Kaji slid through the opening, Burton following. They were in a wider tunnel, about five feet high by four wide. Burton still had to hunch over, and he waited as Kaji placed his hands on the stone and it rumbled shut behind them.

  Enclosed in this tunnel, the way out now sealed, Burton felt the immensity of the Pyramid. The thousands and thousands of massive stone blocks above his head were a palpable presence. The air was stale and dry. A thin layer of undisturbed dust covered the floor of the passageway, which angled downward at what Burton estimated to be a thirty-degree slope.

  Kaji headed down the tunnel, Burton following closely, their lanterns casting long shadows in both directions along the smoothly cut stone walls. Burton paused briefly and swung his lantern close to one side. The joints between the blocks were so tight that he could not get the blade of his penknife between them. Remarkable craftsmanship on an immense scale. Even the great cathedral builders of Europe had not managed such work, and this had been built while Europeans were still living in mud huts.

  He had to hurry to catch up to the Arab. He heard something very faint and realized Kaji was counting to himself. Burton almost bumped into the other man, when he abruptly halted.

  “We are at the base of the Pyramid.” Kaji ran his hands over a particular stone block. Burton now saw that the face of the large ring was turned palm in and that Kaji seemed to be trying to place it in a specific spot.

  It must have hit the correct place, because the stone block, over six feet wide, rotated, allowing space on either side. Burton estimated the block to weigh at least several tons, yet it turned smoothly, still perfectly balanced after all these years.

  “To the left, Kaji said.

  “What’s to the right?” Burton asked.

  “Death.”

  “A trap set for grave robbers?”

  “No. A box that holds death for everyone in the Pyramid and on the Highland of Aker.”

  “What kind of box could do that?”

  “I have seen it once. A black box inside a sarcophagus in a chamber below the center of the Pyramid. I dared not open it or even touch it. My father told me it holds a very powerful weapon. One that could destroy all three pyramids.”

  “What could do that?”

  Kaji shrugged. “I know not.”

  “How could the ancients have such a weapon?”

  Kaji did not answer. Burton wanted to find this box, open it, and see what kind of device could do such a fantastic thing, but he had agreed with Kaji to find so
mething else and he knew he needed to stay on that task. Kaji extended his arm, indicating for Burton to go ahead.

  The Englishman paused. “You go first, please.”

  Kaji shrugged and scooted through the opening. Burton followed, pushing past the Arab, who waited to close the stone. He could smell the other man’s sweat, the faint odor of spicy food on his breath, and something else, deeper and ranker. Burton had smelled that before, and he thought for a few seconds before he realized what it was—the odor men gave off just before going into battle. The smell of fear.

  The air was heavier now. Burton could feel it on his skin, in his mouth and throat. The layer of dust was even deeper, almost an inch thick, undisturbed as far as Burton could tell.

  This tunnel also descended, but less that fifty feet after following it, Burton noticed a change. The walls were no longer made of smoothly cut blocks, but rather had been burrowed though solid stone.

  Kaji confirmed what Burton was seeing. “We are below the Pyramid, into the bedrock of the Highland.”

  The English explorer ran his hand along the wall. “It is perfectly smooth. I have been in many mines and caverns and never seen such a well-constructed shaft. Who made these tunnels? The builders of the Pyramid?”

  “Some say these tunnels predate the Pyramid.” Kaji paused and ran a hand across his forehead. Burton could see the sheen of sweat on the Arab. It was warm, but not that warm. He wondered what was causing the other man’s fear.

  “It is said the three pyramids above us were built in the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, between the years 2685 and 2180 before the birth of our Lord,” Burton said. “The Great Pyramid, built by the Pharaoh Cheops, as the Greeks called him—Khufu in your tongue.”

  “Before the birth of your lord in the West,” Kaji amended. “Your Christ is just a prophet in the Koran. A man, not a god.”

  Burton saw no need to get into a theological discussion at this place and time. Besides, he was hot a firm believer in the religion he had been raised in, and the many cultures and religions he had already witnessed in his life had shown him that if there was a god in heaven, there were many paths by which people might worship him. Becoming a Master Sufi had forced him to delve deeply into Islam, and he saw much in that faith that he admired—more than he did in his native belief. A Sufi adhered to no specific religion and dismissed no religion. The truth transcended such petty concerns of men.