The Alignment Ingress by Thomas Greanias Read Free Book Online

might need to unlock the rest of the tomb.
    He reached into his pack again, pulled out his phone and slid into a slot what looked like a special memory card. A thermal-like image of red and yellow splotches filled a green screen. This was his pocket imaging radar originally developed by DARPA and modified by MIT researchers for Special Forces to locate underground cave hideouts for terrorists or weapons of mass destruction.
    He aimed the radar at the Queen of Sheba on the wall, and a moment later he heard a ping. The imaging indeed revealed another chamber on the other side, rectangular in size. He could feel his heart pounding now. He was so close. But he had to have a look before he blew the wall.
    Once again he reached into his pack, this time taking out his pocket microwave drill. Developed by the Israelis, the needle-thin drill bit emitted intense microwaves that Conrad now used to bore a small hole through the wall. The microwaves softened the rock enough for the glowing bit to push all the way through.
    Conrad then snaked a fiber-optic line through the hole and watched the screen on his phone. The hair-thin cable emitted its own light and gave him a view inside the chamber on the other side.
    What he saw looked like the antechamber of a true Egyptian tomb like King Tut’s, something that would predate by centuries anything else here built by the Nubians. There was an alabaster statuette of the goddess Isis to the far right of the room. She was wearing some kind of black amulet around her green neck and was most likely guarding the burial and treasure chambers beyond the antechamber.
    So close and yet so far.
    Conrad pulled out his fiber-optic camera and paused before the great wall relief in front of him, staring at the Queen of Sheba on her throne, standing in his way.
    Sorry, babe.
    He snapped a few pictures of the relief while it was still in one piece, then slapped on some primasheet. He stuck in a ten-second timer, held his breath and blew the wall open.
    He waited only a few seconds for the dust to settle before making his way into the antechamber.
    The rectangular room was bigger than he expected, as was the statue of Isis at the far end. The fiery-black medallion around her neck seemed to glow as he approached. He discovered the effect came from several cutouts in the mysterious metal that were filled with gemstones. He felt a tingling in his fingers as he rubbed them against the surface of the metal. It was almost…electric.
    The engraved symbol was of an Egyptian pyramid with sun rays shooting out. In some ways it resembled a few of the Masonic symbols and the reverse seal of the United States, although it obviously predated them all.
    As for the several hieroglyphic characters, he couldn’t make heads or tails of them and didn’t have time to. He carefully lifted the medallion and its gold chain off the statue of Isis and put it around his own neck.
    He had to break through the next wall into the burial and treasury chambers. If the remains of the Queen of Sheba—and the Pillars of Creation—were anywhere, they would be there.
    He didn’t bother to drill a hole and run a fiber cam through to the other side. At this point it didn’t matter. Nothing was going to stop him from blasting his way through.
    Conrad reached for more primasheet and heard a footfall from behind. He spun around and saw what looked like a mummy at the other end of the antechamber. And it was moving toward him.
    No, it was a figure in a burka. A woman. The Queen of Sheba come to life.
    “
Whoah!” he heard himself shout, backing up against the statue of Isis and reaching for the Glock pistol tucked behind in his waistband. He whipped it out and pointed it at the woman. “Stop!”
    The figure actually stopped, the headwrap came off to reveal the impossibly beautiful face of an angel, and Conrad found himself staring at none other than Serena Serghetti.

CHAPTER 6
    Congo
    J ungle rains put a crimp in the “Nomad” pilot shoot