and Zeibig’s lights that they were indeed standing in a burial chamber. The room was small, giving the impression of hasty construction. Three of the walls were bare. On the fourth a painted mural showed numerous figures with a river in the background. In front of the mural stood a raised platform with a small wooden coffin. Barely four feet long, its top was carved with the features of its occupant. Unlike the famous tomb of Tutankhamun, the coffin was not gilded, but hand-painted. At the foot of the casket stood an array of clay jars and figures, a model boat, a heavy wooden staff, and a solid gold toy chariot. A faint odor of incense permeated the dank ancient air.
“My word,” Summer muttered, “it’s a tomb.”
The others stood in silence. Zeibig activated the camera on his phone and snapped pictures of the features as Summer illumined them with the penlight.
Their awe was broken by the sound of the gunmen advancing down the passageway.
“This way,” Summer whispered. She turned the light on a low-cut doorway in the opposite wall. She hunched down and disappeared into an adjacent room. In silence, the others followed. As he passed the coffin, Dirk reached over and grabbed the wooden staff, then ducked into the room.
Summer had led them into a much smaller chamber, empty of any artifacts or murals. Of greater concern, there was no other way out.
She shone her light around the walls. “End of the line,” she whispered.
Dirk helped Stanley to a far corner and set him on the ground. He turned to Zeibig and the two laborers and spoke in a low voice. “Best we can do is try to jump them when they enter.” He tapped the staff against his palm. “Everyone else, get down low along the side walls.”
He and Zeibig took position on opposite sides of the entrance as the others hugged the ground. They extinguished the lights, and the room fell as black as the bottom of a well.
In the eerie darkness, the seven heard only the beating of his or her pounding heart. The spirit of the tomb’s three-thousand-year-old occupant seemed to permeate the interior, chilling the air with a deathly silence.
Then the gunmen entered the burial chamber.
22
Despite the cool underground air, Dirk felt a film of sweat around the ancient staff in his grip. He stood poised by the anteroom’s low doorway, arms raised to strike the first gunman to enter. He suddenly felt a presence next to him and scraped his elbow against a female form. Too short to be Summer, he realized it was Riki. She leaned against him lightly, placing a trembling hand on his shoulder for support.
A light flickered beyond the opening as the two gunmen surveyed the burial chamber. Several times it flicked toward the doorway, but they showed no interest in its interior.
Inside the anteroom, the occupants remained silent, barely breathing.
Then the burial chamber erupted in gunfire. The bursts echoed off the limestone walls and into the anteroom, yet no bullets came with it. After multiple shots, the chamber fell quiet.
Dirk and Zeibig held their position at the doorway. The only thing to enter was gun smoke. The cell light moved again, followed by rustling across the stone floor. The chamber then fell dark and silent.
Dirk and the others remained frozen, their senses heightened, no one saying a word. Dirk finally rose, giving a half hug to Riki, standing next to him. “Stay here,” he whispered to all in the room.
He felt along the top of the doorway and ducked into the burial chamber. Even on dives to the bottom of the ocean, he could not remember being exposed to such total, suffocating blackness. Groping blindly, he stretched his arms in front of him and shuffled across the floor. Shell casings crunched beneath his feet as he moved toward the opposite entrance. Though he couldn’t see it, his lungs felt the heavy smoke.
His hands eventually found the opposite hall and the entrance to the burial chamber. He felt his way through it, catching a faint light to his right. The gunmen had cleared the first corridor and were now in the outer passage, their light reflected around the far bend.
Dirk returned to the chamber and called softly, “It’s safe to come out.”
The cell phone and penlight turned on. Summer guided the group out, with the two Egyptian laborers supporting a semiconscious Stanley.
“You sure they’re gone?” she whispered.
“Yes.” Dirk took his sister’s wrist and aimed the penlight toward the front