Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [124]
He pointed it at his head like a man about to shoot himself—
—and he pressed the trigger.
At that very moment, inside a US Black Hawk helicopter landing in
Basra, a technician at a portable GPS-equipped computer snapped up.
‘Colonel Judah, sir! Jack West’s locater signal just dropped out.’
‘Where was he when the signal disappeared?’
‘Judging by the GPS, still in the vicinity of the Hanging Gardens,’ the tech said.
Judah smiled. ‘That tracer’s biometric, grafted onto the living tissue of his brain. If West dies, the tracer chip dies with him. He must have been wounded by the collapse of the ziggurat and held on this long before he died. Rest in peace, Jack . . . never knowing that you led us every step of the fucking way. Fortunately, we don’t need you anymore. Kallis. Feed the men, replenish their arms, and set a course for Luxor.’
LUXOR TEMPLE
EAST BANK, LUXOR
HATSHEPSUT’S MORTUARY TEMPLE
WEST BANK, LUXOR
LUXOR INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
LUXOR, SOUTHERN EGYPT
20 MARCH, 2006, 0200 HOURS
THE DAY OF TARTARUS
In the early hours of the morning on the day the Tartarus Sunspot would turn to face the Earth, three hundred European troops lay in wait around Luxor International Airport, ready to ambush the American force arriving in the southern Egyptian city that night.
Bisected by the River Nile, Luxor is a fairly large town. Heavily dependent on tourism, on its East Bank one will find the Karnak and Luxor temples, two of the most impressive sites in Egypt. The Luxor Temple sits right on the bank of the river, separated from it by a splendid riverside drive called the Corniche.
On the West Bank of Luxor, one will find a cluster of high brown mountains and jagged dry hills that rise up from the desert floor. The very first valley of these dusty hills is the famous Valley of the Kings—the extraordinary collection of deliberately plain tombs that were once filled with all the riches of the pharaohs. It is the home of Tutankhamen’s tomb, Rameses the Great’s tomb, and hundreds of others. Even today, every few years a new tomb is unearthed.
On this western bank, you will also find one of the most mysterious sites of ancient Egypt: Hatshepsut’s Mortuary Temple, constructed by the brilliant woman pharaoh, Hatshepsut.
Built into a great rocky bay in the mountainside, Hatshepsut’s Mortuary Temple is composed of three gigantic colonnaded terraces, all stretching backwards—like three god-sized steps—each flat tier connected to the next by a colossal rampway.
From its dominant position at the base of the cliffs, it stares proudly back at Luxor, facing the rising Sun. The size of three football fields, it is unique in all of Egypt.
It is also notorious.
In November 1997, six Islamist terrorists armed with machine guns massacred 62 tourists in rank cold blood at the site. The terrorists hunted down the unarmed tourists over the course of a terrifying hour, pursuing them through the Temple’s colonnades, before committing group suicide themselves.
Luxor is steeped in history, both ancient and recent.
Luxor’s airport, however, is on the eastern bank, and the American planes landed in the darkness, one after the other, their lights blinking—two C-130 Hercules cargo planes, and landing lightly after them, one sleek Lear jet.
It was a small force—just big enough to safely convey the Pieces in its possession but small enough not to attract too much attention—as Marshall Judah had stated in his intercepted transmission.
As usual, the Egyptian Government, desperate for American approval and money, had allowed their entry into the country with not a single question asked.
But the Egyptian Government did not know of the 300-strong European force that was at that moment surrounding Luxor’s airstrip, aiming their weapons at the arriving Americans.
Father Francisco del Piero sat in a big Toyota Land Cruiser parked just outside the airport, waiting for his French and German troops to make their