That was good enough for him.
"Take it at half speed," he ordered.
The point man got back to what he did best. Muscles tensed, Levont ducked his head around the corner, then pulled back rapidly. That quick scan must have been negative for any company, as Levont stepped into the possible kill zone. Sweeping his light side to side, up and down, he checked his corners. He checked as far as he could see.
With a curt nod, Levont let them know it was okay to follow.
Rebecca was nearly as well trained as his men when it came to protocol. And little Vakasa? She was a trooper. Not a squeak of complaint. Not a moment of hesitation. Even though he resisted the idea of her divinity, Brandt knew the moment he laid eyes on her that she was special. Back at the village, she'd done what was right when all the adults had shrunk back in fear.
In this part of the world, bravery usually got you killed.
Had Vakasa just not learned that lesson yet, or was she truly that courageous?
"Dead end up ahead," Levont reported.
Well, they were about to put his rather optimistic outlook to the test, weren't they?
Again, the passage ended in a blank wall. Not exactly blank. The limestone was carved in elaborate hieroglyphics. Hundreds of them. No, on second count, probably thousands of them. And that wasn't counting the rest that lined the walls.
So Brandt wasn't surprised when Rebecca asked, "Can I have a few minutes to translate?"
Purposefully, Brandt yanked the Velcro off his watch face. "Five minutes."
Rebecca's lips formed a firm line, but she nodded.
Actually, in their current circumstance, Rebecca could probably have as much time as she needed. God love her, though, the woman performed better under pressure. If you gave her a day, she might never get it done. Second-guessing and cross-referencing took over.
Give her five minutes, though?
The chick could perform miracles.
Rebecca tugged her lip between her teeth. None of this was making sense. She needed her laptop and about seventeen assistants. What in the hell could she accomplish in five minutes?
The line she was currently working on had a hawk, a squiggly water icon, and a farmer. Was the hawk an actual hawk, or was it the "a" sound? Or was it being modified by the little snake under it? Was that snake part of this sentence or the one beneath it?
Given the fact people were still arguing over the Rosetta Stone found by Napoleon troops in 1799, this task was hopeless. The Rosetta Stone's black granite surface was etched with a decree from King Ptolemy V. It wasn't the decree so much-as a matter of fact, Rebecca couldn't remember what in the heck Ptolemy wanted so badly he had a huge block of granite dug up and put into a temple-but the fact that the words were written in three languages was the big deal for Egyptologists. Ancient Egyptian "priestly" (or higher-form) hieroglyphics, Demotic script (which was considered the "commoner" form of the language), and most important, Ancient Greek.
Despite researchers having over two hundred years to translate the stone, you could still find arguments in the journals. Rebecca slid her eyes over the thousands of lines of inscriptions. The debate about these passages would probably rage until the next millennium.
That was if they ever got out of here.
"Hey, do you mind if I film this?" Lopez asked.
"I'm just going to be sitting here reading," Rebecca answered.
"I know," Lopez acknowledged yet still pulled out his little flip camera. "I want to record something a little boring so that Ricki Junior can appreciate how exciting our escape on the other side is. You know, give him some perspective."
Yes, Rebecca loved being the straight man for Lopez. But who could resist the corporal's devil-may-care grin?
"Sure, why not?"
Having her useless intellectual flailing recorded for all eternity seemed fitting.
"Hey," Levont said. "Brandt, what's the English equivalent of the Russian word lew."
Her fiance turned to answer. "It's not Russian. It is Polish, and it means 'lion.'" Brandt turned back to Talli, then cocked his head. "Why?"
"Yeah, why?" Rebecca added.
Levont pointed to the ground. Rebecca almost couldn't see what he meant, since Lopez was right there with his camera, panning the area in question. Between his sweeps, Rebecca made out words written in the dust on the floor. Apparently, Vakasa had been hard at work on her own.
Only, the little girl had actually produced results. Again, it was a translation that required translation, though.
The point man added.,"The African stuff says, 'and here'"-he pointed halfway down another sentence-"'Terrifying One,' and 'fear its wrath.'"
"I can't speak to the ancient Aramaic," Talli said. "However, the Farci says, 'union' and 'ever.'"
Lopez turned the camera on himself. "And the Latin-based languages-you know, the best ones-say, 'have no,' 'grovel,' and strangely, 'panties.'" After Rebecca smacked him, he corrected himself. "My bad. It says, 'lady coverings,' but come on, if that isn't panties, what is?"
Rebecca didn't answer the corporal. She was too busy adding in her limited French and Swedish knowledge.
She read aloud as much as she could. "Quake before the Terrifying One." Off the men's questioning looks, Rebecca explained, "That was the Egyptian's name for the Great Sphinx."
Could that really be? Could they actually be under the Great Sphinx? It seemed so improbable that the single-largest monolith sat over them. The thing had been carved out of a single limestone block. A feat of incredible engineering nowadays, let alone at the dawn of civilization.
Getting back to the passage Vakasa had translated, Rebecca continued. "Know this god, made of the union of the lion, and man shall live eternal. No veil shall cover him. No man can destroy, or damage, or harm him. Grovel before him and fear his wrath if you ever...I can only assume that the last word means 'try.'"
Rebecca rocked back on her heels. It was a brilliant translation of the ancient hieroglyphics. However, it didn't exactly get them out of here.
"That's it?" Brandt asked, obviously figuring out the same thing.
"Um," Levont said, moving out of the way. "No..."
Vakasa had scrawled her writing all over the floor. Translating ten times faster than Rebecca could even do with her laptop. Getting over the sting to her ego, Rebecca stood up.
"Okay, we can't do this piecemeal," she explained. "Everyone just chime in if it is a language you speak."
Brandt listened to the others as he prepared to translate the Russian, Polish, and Turkish. So far, it had just been more Ancient Egyptian hyperbole about how incredibly awesome the Sphinx was. Like just looking at the thing didn't tell you that already. Even just flying by it, hanging onto the wings, the Sphinx had impressed him.
Lopez stopped his interpretation. "What about the Riddle of the Sphinx? Shouldn't we be looking for something about old men crawling or something?"
Rebecca shook her head. "No, that is actually a Greek fable. And the answer is the life cycle of man. First we crawl. Then we walk upright. Then we use a cane. Not exactly applicable here."
"Are you sure?" Brandt asked. She seemed a little frazzled and really hated being interrupted.
She sighed before answering. "That riddle was written about a completely different sphinx that guarded Thebes. The sphinx was a she, and the legend arose around six hundred BC. This sphinx, the one sitting on top of us, is speculated to have been carved before thirty-four hundred BC."
Little did she know how glad Brandt was that Rebecca was slightly annoyed with him. It usually meant brilliance was on the horizon. So he pushed. "Speculated, but not known?"
You could see her hackles rise.
"I'm not sure you noticed the water lines that striate the statue?"
Brandt just shrugged. This wasn't about what he knew or didn't know. It was about Rebecca pushing herself past her rigid academic thinking.
"Those were created by rains, heavy rains. Rains that predate three thousand BC."
Oh yeah, she was getting up on her high horse.
"So there's a little rain damage?" Brandt pressed.
Her pupils dilated slightly, and her breathing increased. This was like academic foreplay or something. Brandt had no idea why she'd get so worked up, but hey, if it worked for her, and by extension, then it worked for the entire team.
"First, it's not a little. The water erosion is significant, indicating flooding. Second, this implies that the Sphinx was actually built before the heavy-rain period."
As she went to take a breath, Lopez jumped in. "Because why would the Egyptians build such a huge monument on a floodplain? Right? That would just be stupid." Off Rebecca's nod, Lopez turned the camera to him. "Score one for Daddy-O!"
Brandt shook his head, feeling maybe a little worried for Ricki Junior.
Rebecca, however, was undaunted. If anything, she seemed to be gaining steam. "Thirdly, all of the causeways-the ramps used to slide the limestone blocks up to the pyramids-were built around the Sphinx."
Levont was the one to jump in this time. "Which implies the Sphinx was there before the pyramids, not after or even at the same time."
"Bingo," Rebecca said, tapping her finger to her nose. Her smile faded quickly, though, as she spun on her heel, looking up at the stone ceiling. "Causeways. Causeways. Causeways."
A casual observer might conclude that Rebecca had lost her mind. Brandt, though? Brandt repositioned his gun, getting ready. Because this phase usually lasted all of ten seconds. Then they'd be on the move.
He'd bet his life on it.
Actually, he was counting on Rebecca. They all were.
Why hadn't she thought of it before?
Rebecca might be a little fuzzy on the "theoretical" tunnels they traveled, but the causeways above surface she knew cold. They were an interconnecting series of ramps and stone-lined paths. Several were at odd angles because they had to avoid the Sphinx. But one in particular seemed to be strangely out of place. Scholars had spent decades trying to decide why the ancient Egyptian engineers had built a causeway so out of the way.
There were more plausible theories, such as the supposition that an ancient temple had stood on the area at the time of building the causeways to the less plausible suggestions that the ancient Egyptians were trying to replicate the stars of Orion's Belt.
But what if the obstruction hadn't been aboveground? What if there was something under the sand that the builders had been avoiding? Any large tomb would make the ground above unable to support the weight of the causeway and the enormous limestone bricks transported over them.
In her mind, she could see the causeways and the strange space left between them and the Sphinx. The tunnel she stood in was just to the south of it. She spun to her right to look at the north wall.
A laugh erupted out of her lips before she could stop it.
"Oh, this is going to be good!" Lopez exclaimed from the side, moving to get a good angle for his video.
It had been there the whole time. Of course, it had been buried in thousands of hieroglyphics. A simple cartouche of a lion stacked on top of a monkey stacked on top of an ibis.
This was some old-school Egyptian religion. Before Ra. Before Osiris. Before Isis. These were the animal gods worshipped before the dynasties. The Egyptians worshipped animals above all else. It wasn't until thousands of years later that they morphed mankind into their pantheon.
"This is it," Rebecca said, reaching out to the symbol, but Brandt's forearm stopped her.
"What's the rule?"
Rebecca grinned. She just had gotten so caught up in that moment of discovery. "No touching the artifacts."
Brandt nodded. "At least not until we are secured properly." He turned to the men. "I want everyone tied to each other, with tighter bindings between pairs."
The men complied, except Levont, who looked around them, seeming to take in the fact they were in a newly found ancient passage about to open another secret millennia-old hidden passage.
"Can I just say?" the point man said. "You guys rock."
"Tie in, Levont," Brandt ordered, but Rebecca noticed he had the tiniest grin at the edge of his lips.
Rebecca picked up Vakasa as Talli finished cinching them together.
Once they were all tied in, the men raised their guns. Well, not all of them. Lopez had his camera up.
Brandt looked to each man. Once he got a nod from them, Brandt put his palm on the cartouche and pressed. Nothing happened. He pressed again, with the same result. Rebecca only took a little step forward. "Maybe you need to-"
A loud grinding filled the tunnel. Brandt urged her back, his gun raised as the wall moved laterally, revealing a dark passage. Once the rumbling and dust had settled, it became apparent it wasn't a passage, but a set of stone steps.
Brandt flashed his light down the steep tunnel.
"How far does it go?" Rebecca asked as both she and Vakasa craned their necks to see.
"Pretty damn far," Brandt answered, not looking any too happy about it. Then resolve replaced concern. "But it's our only way out, so..."
He indicated for Levont to take point. Without a word, everyone got into position and started down the steps. Lopez swept the camera side to side. Halfway down, the corporal began his narration.
"What will we find, RJ? What mysteries will we uncover? Will Daddy go in the record books? Along with, you know, all these other people?"
Brandt gave Lopez a three-out-of-five death stare.
The corporal just shrugged. "What? Who's going to hear me? Mummies?"
To Rebecca's surprise, Brandt didn't bark for Lopez to shut up. The corporal's soft whisper seemed to dull the edge of anxiety as they descended farther and farther into the ground. Would they find another dead end? After all of this, would they have to throw themselves on Egyptians' mercy?
The girl in her arms didn't seem to mind, either. She would brace against Rebecca's body to lift her head above the men, constantly trying to see what was up ahead. Ah, children and their boundless curiosity. Someday Vakasa would learn that not everything up ahead was a wonder. Or maybe Rebecca hoped that the little girl wouldn't learn such a harsh lesson. Maybe she could learn it was okay to poke your head above the crowd and expect good things to come of it.
"I've got a door," Levont reported from the front. They all climbed down to join him on the landing.
Rebecca searched the surface for any hieroglyphics or cartouches, but found nothing. Just a hand-chiseled door. She shifted Vakasa's weight to the other hip. Brandt didn't even bother to ask her opinion. How could she have one with no writings?