the hole. The photographer glared at him impatiently, waiting for him to move out of the shot, but Sully wasn’t budging. Shifting on the sand, unmindful of priceless antiquities that might be breaking beneath it, he pulled himself a little farther, his head dipping into the shaft.
“Does anyone else see light down there?”
“Of course there’s light,” Alan snapped. “It’s coming from up here, reflecting off the walls of the shaft.”
Sully swiveled his head to shoot the guy a look that silenced him. “I’m not an idiot,” he growled. “You’re the photographer. Aren’t you supposed to know a thing or two about light sources and angles? Get down here and have a look at this.”
The fight looming between Welch and Melissa had been short-circuited. Drake glanced once into the worship chamber, wondering what was taking Guillermo so long with the ladder and then realizing that the tunnels would be hard for him to navigate—especially with any speed—carrying a stepladder under his arm.
They all watched Alan set his camera aside and move gingerly into place beside Sully.
“This shouldn’t be happening,” Melissa said. “Their weight on the sand could—”
“I know,” Welch said. When she glanced at him, he reached out a hand to touch her arm, his eyes pleading for understanding. “I know, Melissa. But there are forces at work here that you’re not aware of yet.”
“What forces?” she asked. “Talk to me, Ian. We’re throwing protocol all to hell.”
“Melissa,” Alan said, looking up from the shaft. “He’s right. There is another light source.”
“How can that be?” she asked. “The only light sources possible down here are our lights and the sky, and you can be damn sure it’s not sunlight or we’d have found that point of entry already.”
Alan stood up, brushing off his pants. Sully stood as well but didn’t bother.
“It’s your light,” Sully said, and he pointed into the worship chamber. “The angle’s from in there.”
“There must be another shaft,” Jada said.
“Spread out,” Sully barked, and no one argued about who was in charge.
All six of them worked their way through the worship chamber, running their hands over the walls and floor. In less than a minute, Jada called out.
“Here! I think I’ve found it.”
Drake turned to see her kneeling in front of the altar. A sliver of a gap existed between the base of the altar and the floor. He spun and saw the lights hung from the wall behind him and nodded to himself.
“Everywhere else there’s either a tighter seal or some kind of mortar,” Jada said, glancing up at Welch. “But it looks like the altar is just resting here.”
Melissa crouched on the other side, and they all heard her swear under her breath. “There are scrapes on the stone here.” She rose quickly and glanced around, argument forgotten. “Keep looking. There’s got to be a trigger.”
“You think there’s a shaft under the altar?” Sully growled.
Welch grinned. “Don’t you?”
“I love the ancient Egyptians,” Drake muttered to Jada as he joined her, the two of them running their hands all over the wall. “Sneaky bastards.”
Long minutes passed during which the air in the worship chamber seemed to become thinner and dustier, and the rock and sand over their heads closed in, growing heavier, until Drake thought the whole thing might come crashing down on top of them if something didn’t break the silence and the renewed tension of their search. Alan and Melissa had no idea what the hurry might be, but they felt the urgency and acted accordingly. Melissa apparently had decided that since Welch was technically her boss, she would let his boss worry about breaches in protocol. Drake thought it had a lot to do with her own sense of discovery. The urge to see what was beneath their feet was powerful.
“Come on,” Jada whispered.
She turned and stared at the altar, causing Drake to do the same thing.
“What?” he asked.
“There’s got to be some clue. Something Daedalus put in so that anyone coming from one of the other labyrinths to this one could find the trigger for whatever mechanism moves the altar.”
Welch froze. He hurried to the altar and put his hand on the symbol in its center—the etching of three interlocking octagons within three circles.
“I’ve seen this somewhere else here. I’m sure of it.” He turned to Jada. “If there’s any symbol here that hints at Daedalus’s presence, his design, it’s this. The rest is all Egyptian, but this is clearly meant to represent his three labyrinths.”
“I feel like I’ve seen that, too,” Alan