Chapter 18: Secret of the Sphinx

"Thank you, my friend," Gabir responded to the man that towered over him, as he clasped the big man's forearm in return. "It is good to be here." He looked over his shoulder and said, "Seeker. This is Jabari Tarik. He commands the Order of the Seeker in Egypt."

"It is my honor to meet you," Cody said formally, in Egyptian so precise that it wouldn't have been out of place on any street in Cairo.

"Is he truly the Seeker?" Jabari asked Gabir with a frown.

"He is, without a doubt, the Seeker," Gabir replied solemnly, as he released Jabari's arm. "I have seen proof, as will you before the end of the day. The final cache of knowledge is hidden at the Great Sphinx."

Jabari arched his eyebrows, but nodded his acceptance of Cody's identity to Gabir, before offering Cody his hand, and saying, "It is my honor to serve you, Seeker. I, and my people, have waited long for this day." He hesitated briefly before continuing with, "The Great Sphinx has been studied extensively by archeologists from all over the world. I have guided tourists around that site for the last ten years. Are you sure that what you seek is at the Great Sphinx?"

"I am sure," Cody replied as he clasped arms with the Egyptian leader.

The tall American, and the taller, by several inches, Egyptian, met each other's gazes. Jabari nodded again, liking what he saw. Cody also nodded, having touched the man's mind in that moment, and being satisfied with Jabari's honesty and commitment.

"Sons were waiting for us at Cairo International," Gabir informed Jabari. "It shouldn't take them long to get here. We should hurry."

"There were Sons mixed with Egyptian Army inside the airport grounds," Jabari corrected with a smile. "More Sons are mixed with the Muslim Brotherhood that are surrounding the airport. I have men at Cairo International reporting how they are reacting to your aircraft missing, um ... not landing at the airport. I have other men starting a fire in the city with many old tires and some fireworks. The Sons will examine the fire first, I believe. It is hard to resist going to look when you expect to see a tower of black smoke, and then you see it. According to radio intercepts, they currently believe that you crashed. It will take them a few minutes to get untangled, but you are right. We don't have very much time."

"What do you mean, I can't leave the airport?" Colonel Juno Baccus yelled angrily.

He was so frustrated that he was frothing at the mouth.

"Imam Almasi ordered that no one leave the airport until he relaxes the restriction," the man in a black robe and turban replied, the rifle barrel aimed at Juno's chest never wavering.

"The Imam ordered me to go to the crash site!" Juno bellowed in reply. "I will go, as he ordered," he concluded before taking a step forward.

Two of the rifles that had been aimed at the rest of the command group swung to also aim at Juno's chest.

'That works, ' Major Rashida thought to himself. 'If all of them shoot the fool, they can't shoot at me or my men, ' he thought, as he carefully made a hand gesture to his men so they would lower their own weapons. He also took a step away from the Colonel, before saying aloud, "The Imam did order us to go to the crash site. You can use my radio to confirm with him," he suggested, holding out his radio.

Darius's eyes widened at the column of smoke he saw over the Muslim Brotherhood member's shoulder. It was in the general direction the plane had flown.

The man hesitated before accepting the offer. He had noticed the Major motioning for his soldiers to lower their weapons. He also noticed the small knot of men in civilian clothes had ignored the Major's order.

"Watch them," he ordered, nodding towards the men in civilian clothes, before accepting the radio.

All of the rifles swung to cover the Lebanese soldiers. He was raising the radio to his mouth when a Mercedes SUV roared around the corner, from the tower, and slid to a stop at the road block.

Imam Almasi leaped from the back seat and screeched, "Why aren't you going to the crash site?"

"We were ordered to let no one pass until you allowed them to pass," the man in the black turban answered, waving frantically for his men to clear the roadway. "It was upon pain of death if we did not obey. I was not told the order was rescinded."

"Yes, it was rescinded," the Imam yelled, realizing that the delay was his own fault.

"I can see the smoke from the crash," Major Rashida said, pointing towards a distant column of smoke.

Imam Almasi looked, and the column of black smoke was punctuated with a flare, as if ammunition were being ignited in the heat of the fire.

"Something doesn't feel right," Niu muttered to himself. "Something is not right," he said a little louder.

Niu closed his eyes and tried to place the location of the column of smoke in the city, and then tried to visualize how the city was laid out in that direction. In his mind, he pulled back, so the mental image included the whole southwest section of Cairo, and its many suburbs. He realized the Great Pyramid complex was located in that direction. The Imbaba Airport was also nearly directly in line between him and the pyramids. He opened his eyes, and looked at the column of smoke again.

'The future is not written in stone, ' Niu reminded himself. Aloud he ordered, "Colonel, take your men, and a contingent of the Brotherhood, to the Imbaba Airport." He glanced at the spokesperson for the Brotherhood that had been guarding the gate, and said, "The Brotherhood will be your guide to get you to the airport quickly. The Order may be trying to fool us. Your contingent will be our fail-safe."

The Imam turned to the Egyptian soldiers, and ordered, "Major, you and your men will come with me. We will go to the smoke, and determine if it is truly a crash site. The control tower believes it is, and has called out the fire department in response. Give Baccus one of your radios so we can call them if we need them."

Major Rashida hurriedly grabbed a radio from one of his platoon commanders, and handed it to Colonel Baccus.

"Please return that when we are finished," the Major instructed. "We have to pay for lost equipment from our own pockets."

Colonel Baccus ignored the Major's words, and angrily ordered anyone that would still listen to him, "Let's go," before climbing back into his own vehicle.

Juno Baccus was furious. First, the insubordination of this Brotherhood idiot made him angry. The plane had obviously not landed at the airport. There had been no reason to continue to restrict passage out of the airport. Second, the disrespect of the Imam, by addressing him simply as Baccus in front of others, was embarrassing. The Imam's disrespect was probably the catalyst for the Major's disrespectful instructions when handing him the radio. 'Return the radio, indeed, ' he huffed at the thought. The most unbearable insult was sending him on a wild-goose chase to an airport, instead of allowing him to participate in the glory of the final decimation of the Order at the crash site. Juno visualized shooting the Imam, and yearned to watch him die.

Major Rashida held his smile inside, and dodged the gravel from the Colonel's vehicle's spinning tires. He saw the Imam's grimace of anger when some of the gravel hit him. He didn't bother to try dodging the small projectiles. Darius could see the Colonel's death in the Imam's eyes, as the Imam watched the Colonel speed away.

"Major, ride with me," the Imam ordered, as he closed the door of his own vehicle.

"Get another radio, quickly," Major Rashida quietly ordered his first platoon commander. "I don't think he'll allow a lead vehicle, despite the need for extra security. Use at least one vehicle on each side for flankers."

In a louder voice, the Major called out orders to all his platoon commanders so the men could hear. His tone of voice was professional, and confident. The men that had dismounted hurried to climb back into their own vehicles, even before the platoon commanders passed the orders. Major Rashida was respected, and even loved, by his men, because he didn't view them as pawns to be used.

"Are you through playing soldier?" the Imam asked, as the Major entered the backseat on the passenger side.

Major Rashida shrugged and said, "As much as any Son of the Viper is ever through playing soldier. Not all of the soldiers are Sons, but we need all of them for a successful mission. The column is protected, therefore you and the men are protected. They understand that, and appreciate it. They will put more effort into finishing the mission, when the time arrives, because they know that I am looking out for them."

Orders began flying from Jabari to his subordinates, and the new arrivals were quickly integrated with the Egyptians. Midway through the loading, Jabari received a cell phone call. There were hurried words, before he ended the call and turned to Gabir.

"They are reacting quicker than we believed," Jabari said urgently. "A contingent of fighters is on their way to the fire, but another group is coming this direction. A Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer may have called to report what was happening here. We have all normal communications shut down here, at the airport, but we can't watch everyone. We need to hurry."

Ten precious minutes later, everyone had been loaded into a vehicle. Instructions had been given for the order of travel, and for contingencies in case of enemy contact. Cody, Gabir, Cynthia, and Shawn rode in the large touring vehicle. The mismatched convoy began leaving the airport, with the large all terrain vehicle behind a lead jeep and a pickup truck with armed men in the back.

The tail end of the convoy was leaving the airport when they began taking fire from approaching vehicles. The last two trucks in the convoy stopped, blocking the road, and men poured from the vehicles to take up defensive positions. Return fire had stopped the advancing agents of the Sons of the Viper.

Cody was watching behind them, as best he could around the intervening vehicles.

"They aren't going to be trying to hold them, are they?" Cody asked worriedly. "I don't think we need for them to hold that convoy to the last man."

Cody didn't want a repeat of the Beirut Airport defense. He had enough blood on his hands, and he didn't want any more.

Jabari snorted and said, "That would be a waste of good men. Do you Americans always relate fighting to your Alamo?" He didn't wait for an answer before explaining, "They will hold them for about five minutes. Then they will disappear into the city surrounding the airport. They will join with others that I am keeping in reserve. The Sons and their Brotherhood fools will follow us, rather than chase my men. The Sons will try to trap us wherever we stop. They don't know where that will be yet. We know that we will be at the Great Sphinx complex. That is a very defensible position. When I order them to, my men will attack the Sons from the rear, so we can escape."

"We did have a situation like America's Alamo in Beirut," Gabir said, his voice a little harsher than he meant it to be. "I can understand why he is concerned about such things. I had to leave a good friend behind to die."

"My apologies, Gabir" Jabari said, his solace clear in his voice.

Cody got a sudden flash of hope at Jabari's words. The hope faded, as a faint prescience of what was to come settled over his mind. His hand rested on the staff, and flashing scenes of possible futures solidified into an image in his mind.

Two alien minds met, and touched. The Anunna and the Human minds all but merged, in that infinite time between life and death. The bird-like alien's great age, and sorrow, felt like the weight of the world on Cody's soul. He could feel the alien's sorrow at not completing his task in the flesh, but Cody could also feel his determination to complete his task in spite of his mortal limitations.

Cody was given a choice, and he accepted. Accepting Enki's task included accepting all the guilt that had driven the alien for untold millennia. Cody groaned under the weight of Enki's shame, and the added responsibility to complete the mission.

Nothing mattered more than freeing his children from the shackles he had devised. Enki's shame, for enslaving a sentient species, drove him to forsake his own race, and to reach and strive beyond life itself to undo the moral crime he had committed. The same determination that had already driven a sentient being beyond his own life, was now driving Cody.

Cody could see and feel the veil that covered his mind, that covered all men's minds. He could see the small holes that his own life experiences had poked in that veil, and knew how feeble the abilities he had exhibited truly were. Cody watched in awe, as his connection with Enki shredded that shroud, but their combined effort couldn't completely remove it. He knew that the veil couldn't be completely removed until he reached the antidote. He also knew that the barest exposure to the antidote would complete the process.

The subject of the shroud was dropped from their mutual connection, and Cody began seeing images supplied by Enki.

The alien was holding the staff, as the clear crystal in the head of the staff flashed, and the alien's chest settled in stillness for the last time. Cody knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the alien still lived in the magic, or technology, of the staff that he touched.

Cody's revelation should have made the staff seem like magic. However, the information filtering into Cody's mind from Enki let him understand that the staff was simply a technology beyond mankind's grasp.

His perception of one of the staff's functions gave Cody insight into another reality. The end of life was simply the turning of a page, in reality, and even that turning of a page could be delayed. He also understood that, if his life ended on this mission, it did not mean that he couldn't continue to help his companions. Cody felt Enki's satisfaction at his acceptance and understanding.

A feeling of expectation settled over Cody's mind, and he felt Enki's excitement at completing his mission. In Cody's mind's eye, he saw the makeup of the antidote, and marveled at the simplicity of it. He was also surprised at the elegance of mitigating the impact of the antidote on the human mind.

"That does not look like an airplane crash site," Imam Almasi growled.

"No, sir," Major Rashida answered in a very neutral voice. "It looks more like a pile of burning tires. My question is, why would tires be piled in the middle of the street and set on fire?" he asked, searching the area carefully for any trouble. "Normally, you only see something like that at demonstrations to break up troop formations."

"It's the Order scum," the Imam spat angrily. "This was a decoy to pull us from the real target.

Niu's radio squawked, and he answered, "Imam Almasi. What is it, Colonel Baccus?"

"I found them," Juno replied. "They are leaving the airport that you sent me to."

"Are you escorting them so they can reach their destination safely?" the Imam asked sarcastically.

"No, sir," the Colonel answered, completely missing the sarcasm. "We are shooting at them."

Niu closed his eyes briefly, before answering with, "I am assuming a few vehicles stopped while the rest of the vehicles continued on. What direction is the remainder of the convoy going?"

Colonel Baccus looked at the Muslim Brotherhood leader that was riding with him and asked, "I wonder how he knew that? Do you think he has someone watching us?"

The Brotherhood leader shook his head in disgust, and gestured towards the radio saying, "You should probably answer him." To himself, he wondered, 'How did this man ever become a Colonel?'

"The rest of the convoy is going south-west," Juno said into the radio.

"It looks like they are going to the Giza Plateau, towards the pyramid complex," the Brotherhood leader prompted.

"My guide says that it looks like they are going to the Giza Plateau, and the pyramid complex," Juno repeated into the radio.

The Brotherhood Leader gritted his teeth, and his hands tightened on his rifle, as he thought, 'Guide! Guide? Friendly fire is not unheard of in our actions.'

"Break through that roadblock. Keep pressure on the convoy," the Imam ordered from the radio. "Major Rashida said we might be able to cut them off before they get to the plateau."

"Yes, sir," The Colonel answered. "We will break through."

Colonel Baccus set his radio down and said, "You heard him. Break through the roadblock."

The Brotherhood leader seemed to tremble slightly before he opened his door, and stepped out of the vehicle that was well behind the firing line.

'You just can't get good native help, ' Juno thought. 'He's so afraid that he is shaking.'

'How can I claim friendly fire, when I can't get the coward close to the fighting?' the Muslim Brotherhood leader thought angrily as he strode towards his men. 'He can't hide forever. My time will come, ' the angry man promised himself.

"We need to break that roadblock, now," the Brotherhood leader announced. "Get the rocket propelled grenades. We'll see how anxious they are to stop us after we feed them a couple of RPGs."

"There are plenty of roads that we can take to cut them off," Major Rashida explained as the driver picked his way through the crowded streets, with his horn blaring. "The trouble is, there are no main streets going the direction we need to go. The crowds in the street will determine if we reach them before they reach the Giza Plateau."

"Well, drive through the crowd!" the Imam ordered angrily. "If we don't stop them, the whole world will suffer."

"This is an army convoy, sir," the Major replied levelly. "If we tried to drive through them, the crowds would stop us, and we would be dealing with another riot instead of finding the people you want."

"Hurry, faster!" the Imam ordered curtly, as he settled in his seat, and tried to relax tense muscles.

Imam Almasi knew that Major Rashida was right. Niu had spent years, manipulating the populace, to get them to this fever pitch. His previous attempt to grab Egypt's reins of power had been thwarted in 2013. The Muslim Brotherhood had actually taken control of Egypt, for a brief time, and Niu had control of the Brotherhood. Somehow, control was wrested away from the Brotherhood, and from Niu Almasi. He still believed the Order of the Seeker was behind the operation that had denied him his place behind the throne of power in Egypt. Imam Almasi had been nurturing the fire of resentment in the people since the Muslim Brotherhood had been ejected from the seat of power. Due to the Imam's efforts in the years since, it would take a very small spark to set off the powder keg that he had created.

"There they are," Major Rashida shouted.

The crackle of gunfire snapped Cody to awareness.

"What's happening?" Cody asked anxiously. "Did they find us?"

"They found some of us," Jabari replied, still relaxed in his seat. "The soldiers and the Imam found the burning tires and were trying to intercept us. I have a three vehicle flanker team on the next street over, between the soldiers and us. They have intercepted the soldiers."

"You are good," Cody said appraisingly. "How did you know to do that? Do you have ... um ... special abilities?"

Jabari snorted in derision and said, "The only special ability that I have is experience. Does a military column move through enemy territory without flankers?" He continued, when Cody shook his head, with, "I do have friends and family watching for troop movement throughout this part of the city. That is how I knew they split up. The flankers knew the army convoy was getting close, and were expecting them. The flankers had to act like they were surprised, but they were ready to fire back. When we have passed their position, they will assume positions at the rear of the column. By then, we will be on the road up to the plateau, and will not be able to maintain flankers."

"How about your men at Imbaba Airport?" Cody asked. "Did they get away okay?"

"My men got away," Jabari said in a hard, angry voice, "They did not get away okay. Two were killed, and another five wounded. I didn't consider that they would have RPGs with them."

"I'm sorry, Jabari," Cody apologized.

"You did nothing wrong, Seeker," Jabari replied. "The dogs of Sons are to blame." Jabari sighed before continuing. "We also have RPGs, but not many. I have positioned them with the reserve force. I explained before that they will hit the Sons from the rear to open the door for our escape. Their success depends upon hitting the Sons hard enough, to break their line. That will not be possible with rifles only. I had to position the few RPGs we had where they would do the most good. The reserve will also have one machine gun. It is an old American machine gun called an M-60."

Cody whistled and said, "7.62 millimeter rounds. Good knock down power. Those were good weapons. Not quite the rate of fire of the more modern weapons, but reliable, and they pack a punch."