Part 45 (1/2)

The rainbow-coloured laser beam lanced out from the Temple, shooting in a dead-straight horizontal line westward westward, out across the Nile, out over the fields on the West Bank, out towards...

...the great bay of brown cliffs that protected and defended the Valley of the Kings.

No.

It was more precise than that.

The beam of light came to rest on the structure built into into that bay of cliffs-a structure unique in all of Egyptian architecture, featuring two great rampways and three glorious colonnaded tiers. that bay of cliffs-a structure unique in all of Egyptian architecture, featuring two great rampways and three glorious colonnaded tiers.

Hatshepsut's Mortuary Temple.

INSIDE HATSHEPSUT'S MORTUARY TEMPLE LUXOR, EGYPT.

20 MARCH, 2006, 0630 HOURS.

THE DAY OF TARTARUS.

The Americans made swift progress.

The dazzling beam of sunlight had illuminated a lone archway at the far left of the lowest tier of the great structure.

There a door was found, so well-concealed that it appeared to be part of the wall itself. But above it was a familiar symbol that until today had been attributed little significance: At the sight of the carving, Marshall Judah's eyes shone with delight.

The Americans were through the door in no time.

Traps awaited them.

A pa.s.sageway filled with vicious swing-traps-long swing-blades that swooped out of slits in the ceiling and chopped one man's head off.

Then a partially-submerged chamber, the knee-deep water of which concealed leg-chopping blades. Fortunately, from his research, Koenig knew the safe route.

Until Marshall Judah emerged from a stone doorway and stood on a platform that overlooked a gigantic subterranean cavern.

It wasn't as big as the supercavern that contained the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but what it lost in size, it made up for in artistry.

Every stone wall had been fas.h.i.+oned by human hands. There was not a single rough surface in the place.

It looked like an underground cathedral, with soaring high walls, a curved ceiling, and four immense sacred lakes arrayed in such a fas.h.i.+on that they created a wide raised path in the shape of a giant . Great pillars of stone held up the superhigh ceiling.

At the junction of the -the focal point of the great underground hall-was a raised square platform, flanked on all four corners by obelisks. On this high platform lay an ornate gla.s.s sarcophagus.

'Ornate' was barely sufficient to describe it.

It was crafted of gold and gla.s.s, and it lay underneath a high canopy crafted entirely of gold. The pillars of the canopy were not straight, but rather they rose in a bending, spiralling way, as if they were solidified vines.

'The coffin of Alexander the Great...' Koenig breathed.

'It was said to be made of gla.s.s,' Wizard confirmed.

'Wait a second. This looks familiar to me...' Judah breathed.

Beside him, Francisco del Piero-like the others, his hands were cuffed-bowed his head in silence, tried to be invisible.

Judah turned to Koenig.

'Take some measurements with the laser surveying equipment.

I want to know the length, height and breadth of this hall.'

Koenig did so.

After a minute, he reported: 'It is 192 metres long, and 160metres wide at the widest point of the tee. Height of the cavern above the central junction is ...135 metres.'

Wizard snuffed a laugh.

Koenig turned. 'What is so funny?'

'Let me guess,' Wizard said. 'That canopy over the sarcophagus, the one with the twisted columns, it's 29 metres high.'

Koenig did the computations with his laser surveying gear ...and turned to Wizard in surprise. 'It is 29 metres in height exactly exactly. How could you know this?'

Wizard said, 'Because this cavern has the exact same dimensions as St Peter's Basilica in Rome.'

Judah swung to face del Piero, who shrank even lower, if that was at all possible.

Wizard went on, 'If everything in the Roman Catholic Church is a reinvention of Egyptian Sun-wors.h.i.+p, then why should St Peter's be any different? Its dimensions are simply a replication of this sacred place: the resting place of the most prized Piece of the Capstone, the top Piece.'

They proceeded to the great altar at the focal point of the -shaped hall, where they beheld the gold-and-gla.s.s coffin.

Through the gla.s.s, they saw only white powdery dust-the remains of the greatest warrior ever known, the man who had ordered the Pieces of the Capstone to be separated and scattered around the then-known world.

Alexander the Great.

A bronze Macedonian helmet and a l.u.s.trous silver sword rested upon the layer of white dust.

And sticking up from the middle of the dust-layer-as if it had once been laid upon the dead man's chest, only to see that chest erode over the course of two millennia-was a tiny apex of gold.

A tip of a small golden pyramid.

The top Piece.