and the temptation to look back over his shoulder.
He’d just had the strangest feeling they were being watched. It was a sensation he’d had before, and far too often he’d been right.
The Auberge du Lac had been built as a hunting lodge for King Farouk, the last monarch of Egypt. Drake thought it looked more like the kind of place where Sinatra might have appeared in the early days of Las Vegas, with its whitewashed walls and palm trees. The hotel stood on the shore of a lake that was part of the Fayoum Oasis, not far from Fayoum City, which was modern and industrial by local standards.
An hour in any direction and the whole world changed. The Valley of the Whales was within that radius—quiet endless desert where the sand hid fossils of ancient sea life—but so were off-the-tourist-path pyramids, as well as the waterfalls that were a part of the Fayoum Oasis. Some of them had been part of an irrigation plan that went back as far as Ptolemy, diverting water from the Nile for agriculture, but others—the Wadi el Rayan—were part of a modern hydro project. The area had little tourism, but from what he’d learned, it had been growing.
And all of it, the whole damn area, was a part of what had once been called Crocodilopolis. The City of Crocodiles had taken its name from the reptiles that had been plentiful around the lakes in ancient times. Like Kom Ombo, which had come later, Crocodilopolis had been a center of worship for the Egyptian crocodile god, Sobek. The cult of Sobek had built an enormous temple where a single crocodile would be chosen to represent their god and encrusted with gold and gems.
Archaeologists had found the ruins of the Temple of Sobek decades ago. Though legends of a labyrinth in Crocodilopolis persisted, that part of the temple had never been unearthed—until more than a year into the Wadi el Rayan hydro project, when spill-off water from the Fayoum Oasis was being diverted into man-made lakes. Two of the lakes were still in use, but the third had dried up without explanation. Upon investigation, the engineers had discovered that the water had not evaporated; it had drained into the remains of the labyrinth of Sobek.
The final mystery of the cult of Sobek had been located purely by accident. But to learn the secrets of the labyrinth, the archaeological expedition’s first task would be to draw the water back out of the ground. More than a year had passed before the team had been able to begin mapping and doing further excavations, and Luka Hzujak had been consulting with the dig’s director—Hilary Russo—since day one.
All this, Drake and Sully had learned from Jada during the final hours of the flight from Montreal to Cairo. They knew all there was to know, at least until they could make contact with Ian Welch, whose sister Gretchen was the grad student who’d been working with Maynard Cheney on the labyrinth project at the Museum of Natural History in New York. Gretchen had promised to enlist her brother’s help. If she couldn’t deliver on that promise, they had come a very long way for nothing.
For the moment, their most vital task was trying not to melt.
Plumes of dust rose from the tires as Chigaru drove the Volvo up the driveway in front of the Auberge du Lac and pulled the car into a parking space in the small lot beside the hotel.
“You are not as close to downtown Fayoum City as you might wish,” Chigaru said in his mannered accent. “But this is a beautiful hotel. Certainly you would not find a hotel like this in the city.”
Drake thought he detected some slight resentment, as though Chigaru felt put out that they hadn’t arranged their accommodations with him. He wondered if the skinny Egyptian would have gotten a cut of their room fees. He might be able to acquire guns and vehicles and information, which were higher-ticket items, but Drake suspected Chigaru would not have minded taking a commission on just about anything. Like the tour guides who received
He’d just had the strangest feeling they were being watched. It was a sensation he’d had before, and far too often he’d been right.
The Auberge du Lac had been built as a hunting lodge for King Farouk, the last monarch of Egypt. Drake thought it looked more like the kind of place where Sinatra might have appeared in the early days of Las Vegas, with its whitewashed walls and palm trees. The hotel stood on the shore of a lake that was part of the Fayoum Oasis, not far from Fayoum City, which was modern and industrial by local standards.
An hour in any direction and the whole world changed. The Valley of the Whales was within that radius—quiet endless desert where the sand hid fossils of ancient sea life—but so were off-the-tourist-path pyramids, as well as the waterfalls that were a part of the Fayoum Oasis. Some of them had been part of an irrigation plan that went back as far as Ptolemy, diverting water from the Nile for agriculture, but others—the Wadi el Rayan—were part of a modern hydro project. The area had little tourism, but from what he’d learned, it had been growing.
And all of it, the whole damn area, was a part of what had once been called Crocodilopolis. The City of Crocodiles had taken its name from the reptiles that had been plentiful around the lakes in ancient times. Like Kom Ombo, which had come later, Crocodilopolis had been a center of worship for the Egyptian crocodile god, Sobek. The cult of Sobek had built an enormous temple where a single crocodile would be chosen to represent their god and encrusted with gold and gems.
Archaeologists had found the ruins of the Temple of Sobek decades ago. Though legends of a labyrinth in Crocodilopolis persisted, that part of the temple had never been unearthed—until more than a year into the Wadi el Rayan hydro project, when spill-off water from the Fayoum Oasis was being diverted into man-made lakes. Two of the lakes were still in use, but the third had dried up without explanation. Upon investigation, the engineers had discovered that the water had not evaporated; it had drained into the remains of the labyrinth of Sobek.
The final mystery of the cult of Sobek had been located purely by accident. But to learn the secrets of the labyrinth, the archaeological expedition’s first task would be to draw the water back out of the ground. More than a year had passed before the team had been able to begin mapping and doing further excavations, and Luka Hzujak had been consulting with the dig’s director—Hilary Russo—since day one.
All this, Drake and Sully had learned from Jada during the final hours of the flight from Montreal to Cairo. They knew all there was to know, at least until they could make contact with Ian Welch, whose sister Gretchen was the grad student who’d been working with Maynard Cheney on the labyrinth project at the Museum of Natural History in New York. Gretchen had promised to enlist her brother’s help. If she couldn’t deliver on that promise, they had come a very long way for nothing.
For the moment, their most vital task was trying not to melt.
Plumes of dust rose from the tires as Chigaru drove the Volvo up the driveway in front of the Auberge du Lac and pulled the car into a parking space in the small lot beside the hotel.
“You are not as close to downtown Fayoum City as you might wish,” Chigaru said in his mannered accent. “But this is a beautiful hotel. Certainly you would not find a hotel like this in the city.”
Drake thought he detected some slight resentment, as though Chigaru felt put out that they hadn’t arranged their accommodations with him. He wondered if the skinny Egyptian would have gotten a cut of their room fees. He might be able to acquire guns and vehicles and information, which were higher-ticket items, but Drake suspected Chigaru would not have minded taking a commission on just about anything. Like the tour guides who received
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