Author's note: [chapter revised in 2019] There it is at long last! 7,700 words long, title courtesy of a Lou Reed song, the chapter that took me longest to write [so far]. Of course it didn't help that this year I had two major things going on: classes for a competitive exam that only 7 pass (I failed) and finishing a thesis on English-language books in a French public library (still haven't finished this one) – plus finding a job for this summer (waiting for answers…). Add in a crummy flat with very noisy upstairs neighbours and you've got my life for a year. I did almost no writing, little reading, and this story's reaching the part I WANT to get down pat – more than decently – that is the ending. A priori there still are about 5 chapters to go before it [note from 2019: 8 chapters and an epilogue, actually]. And yes, I do have some ideas for a sequel of sorts, but it's still very sketchy, so consider it a vague project.

Disclaimer: Stephen Sommers owns and developed The Mummy and The Mummy Returns; the characters, places, some situations are his creation. Some things I did make up, but every character here is fictitious, and doesn't have anything to do with any person, living, dead, or in-between. Who knows.

FAIRY TALES AND HOKUM

Chapter 15: Going Down

The sun was rising far away to the left of the dirigible; the sky looked a washed-out sort of blue that, to Izzy, felt both daunting and a bit bland without any wisp of cloud to break the uniformity. Stifling a yawn, he reached to douse the light he kept overhead at night to be able to read his maps. His muscles felt sore, not at all rested from what little sleep he'd had.

Two nights in a row almost without sleep an' all. I'm getting a bit old for this bullshit. I'll get you for that, O'Connell, you mark my words.

Mrs O'Connell was curled up on a bunk in one of the cabins, fast asleep, with only a curl or two of hair visible under the blanket; and that Medjai or what have you, Ardeth Bay, was unceremoniously slumped against the wall of the wheelhouse, his head lolling slightly, completely out for the count as well. Around him on the floor were scattered all the other maps Izzy owned that were not in front of him around the helm. Izzy did not like to think of what would happen when the circumstances demanded that he asked for one of his maps back. Boy, those eyes could glare.

Wait. The number wasn't right. Where had the kid got to?

Just as Izzy frowned and started looking around, he found the boy sitting by the rail a few feet away. Apparently, he wasn't sleeping, as the pilot saw him stretch a bit and change positions in order to be completely in the light. The morning sun, still nice and warm and not yet burning as it would be in a few moments, was something to enjoy and the boy seemed to be rightly appreciative of it. Of course, if they usually lived in London (which Izzy had somehow gathered), that kid must rarely see light like that. Good for him that he did now, because he was as white as most white English people were.

That kid was a funny one.

It wasn't that Izzy didn't like kids. He supposed that, if you looked really hard for it, you could find a use for them other than quickly becoming adults or something else he could deal with, but generally he liked them better away. That didn't include the countless children who were always hanging around the place; those were generally there to get a bit of money from the tourists, watch Dee set off or come back, and help if a hand was needed. Other kids, like those from his family clientele, Izzy just didn't know what to do with.

That Alex was something else. Of course he would be, with a father like O'Connell and a mother like this spitfire of a woman. He had a smart mouth on him, probably a bit too much for his own good, and Izzy hadn't missed the way the boy had tinkered with his lock. Either they did teach useful stuff at those posh schools, or he'd definitely had lessons from sticky-fingered members of his family. Izzy's money was on Carnahan. O'Connell probably had a qualm or two about teaching his kid something like that.

Alex being a gutsy and sneaky devil wasn't surprising in itself. What was more surprising was that the kid didn't behave like kids his age were supposed to behave, according to Izzy's limited knowledge of the species. Even if he did pelt the pilot with endless questions about Dee, Egypt, what his dad was like when he was younger (Izzy so far had artfully avoided answering this particular subject, keenly aware that Mrs O'Connell generally seemed to have eyes and ears everywhere) and went just about anywhere on the dirigible when not watched, nimble as an ape… Alex didn't whine, didn't make a fuss – much – over simple things like the not-so-great food or the lack of creature comforts, and he didn't get in the way. As far as Izzy was concerned, this was a first. He'd simply assumed 'normal' kids were a nuisance most of the time. But then again, that kid's pedigree alone spoke against the word 'normal'.

Izzy blinked and yawned his head off. On one hand, those were the best hours of the day, with nobody around but him and Dee, and generally that was when he would mutter things to himself or to his dirigible without someone goggling at him like he should be carted off to a madhouse or something. On the other hand, those particular hours were the most difficult to stay awake through, without any sound, any sight or any movement – or conversation – to make steering eventful. It was so boring that a simple encounter with a flock of birds would almost make it into the log for the sheer lack of action.

When his jaw hinged itself back to its right place, he gave a start as he realised the kid was no longer in sight. Indulging in a two-second panic, more than enough time to imagine what would be left of him if something happened to the O'Connell kid, he looked around wildly, only to find a pair of round blue eyes staring up at him from under a blond fringe.

"Jeez, kid, no need to scare me like that," Izzy grumbled as Alex made his way into the cabin. The boy shrugged.

"I didn't know you were watching me."

"I don't like the thought of a payin' customer's kid going over the rail, is all. 'Specially this kind of payin' customer." That said with a jerk of his head to the back of the cabin, where Mrs O'Connell still slept soundly.

Alex's grin shone as toothy as his father's. Maybe with a couple of milk teeth still hanging on.

"Think she's scary, huh?"

Izzy snorted. "You gonna tell me she's not?"

"She's my mum. I'm not supposed to be scared. Now you, well…"

"All right. I get it."

Izzy reported his attention to the desert in front of him. The shadows of the dunes were quickly shortening, their mellow golden colour turning to flat yellow, and what he could see of the sky from under the balloon deepened from pale blue to cobalt. He could even begin to feel the heat reflected from the rising sun by the sand below the dirigible. The day was truly beginning.

For the sake of his nervous system, he glanced around for the kid. Alex had not moved from his spot a couple of steps behind Izzy. He was gazing at the sea of dunes, his eyes already reduced to slits by the sunlight pouring in through the window in front of them.

Remarkably looking like a much younger version of his father in the process.

O'Connell had not been the talkative type most of the time. There were times when he would just be so engrossed in whatever he was doing or thinking that it was useless trying to engage conversation with him. Which was a pity, because while Izzy liked silence fine, he didn't care much for shared silence.

Izzy shook his head inwardly. Amazing how folks can change. There was a time when the words 'O'Connell' and 'married' could not even be conceived to belong in the same sentence – not by Izzy Buttons of the Magic Carpet Airways, anyway. He had known O'Connell from before his time in the Legion. At that time he'd been rough, goofy, downright terrifying if he meant to, and enjoying the simple pleasures of life, like a full meal once in a while, a night with a girl nice enough to lower her price on account of his good looks, or getting the upper hand in a bar brawl.

Not the kind of guy you picture married.

Then again, he had also been impossibly young. They both had been, come to think of it. Twenty-two shouldn't be 'old' by anyone's standards.

Izzy had had time, two years ago, to watch the interaction of the O'Connell couple from as safe a distance as possible, and he had found it rather interesting. In the end, it did not seem that unbelievable that O'Connell could have fallen that bad for the woman, and the opposite was just as true. The guy was rock-solid most of the time, and Izzy guessed that sort of thing was a winner with ladies. On the other hand, given the distance Mrs O'Connell was ready to go to get her husband (or her son, for that matter) out of trouble, and the lengths she proved capable of going to, she was at least equally as stubborn, stalwart, and determined as O'Connell was. Those two deserved each other. They should probably have been living happily ever after in some manor in that famous sun-forsaken London, supporting, loving, kissing and fighting each other like any other happy couple would. Like a bloody fairy tale.

Well, they probably were, until some crackpot decided the end of the world was nigh and made an attempt to materialise his nice little project. That was about as much as Izzy had registered this time, not being included in the 'Let's save the world tonight' gang and being quite happy about it. All he had to do was provide transportation. Nobody would be getting shot this time.

Those two last bits Mrs O'Connell had firmly stated the morning they left Cairo, and the kid had nodded fervently. Which hadn't kept Izzy from muttering under his breath or mentally counting the times when O'Connell had said, just as earnestly, that he wasn't going to let his best pilot get shot. Of course, he always added that it was above all up to the pilot in question to cover his ass. Last time Izzy had heard that, he had taken it literally. It had resulted in a bullet hitting the fleshy part of his anatomy while he tried to run for cover. Naturally, he still hadn't quite forgiven O'Connell for that. Hell, sometimes he had even wondered whether the bloody American kept him around to act more as a bullet repellent than as a pilot.

Izzy gave another yawn and automatically checked the slightly crumpled map beside the helm, scratching his stiff neck. He glanced down at Alex, who was still looking around as though this was the first time he was seeing dunes. The pilot knew for a fact it wasn't. To tell the truth, he was a bit puzzled. This was the most silent the kid had been for the last three days. The absence of yet another question on how exactly he got Dee off the ground yet was a little unsettling.

"Bored yet?" he asked in a low voice, not particularly wanting to wake up the other passengers.

"Nope," the kid answered, still staring. "How 'bout you?"

"I'm used to—hey, I ain't bored, this is my job."

"You sure look like you are."

Izzy slipped a quick half-glare in the boy's general direction. "You got a smartass mouth on you, kid."

"Yeah." A grin. "I get that a lot. Guess it runs in the family."

"Which side?"

"Both. Mum often gets mad at Dad and Uncle Jon for that. I think she thinks they're a bad example."

"Figures."

Silence settled again, filled mainly by the flapping sound of the propellers at the stern. It was calm, and in a way, restful. But when Izzy took a second glance at the boy, he found him wearing a slightly different expression on his face. It looked more set, and a bit whiter.

Izzy was not an idiot. He had quickly worked out that the kid was thinking about his father and his uncle and that there was something he was supposed to say that should make him feel a bit better about that. Problem was, he had absolutely no cue of what it was he was supposed to say. Knowing you had to do something was one thing; deciding to actually do it was a camel of a different colour entirely.

"So," he began rather awkwardly, "can't wait to bring 'em back, huh?"

Alex looked up and stared up at him for a full minute, his face a blend of many different expressions, including some Izzy didn't recognise. Then he began to snort helplessly.

"That has got to be the lamest attempt at cheering someone up I've ever heard!" he said when he finally caught his breath, trying hard to keep it low and wiping the tears of laughter off his eyes. Izzy shook his head, frankly disgusted. If that's what you get for tryin' to help people…

He was surprised to hear the boy say, "Thanks, though." And even more surprised when he saw that the trademark O'Connell grin had come back full-force. That's when the pilot noticed this grin was a bit crooked, giving the kid a subtly ironic, mischievous look when he smiled.

Well. So that's what you get for mixing up a dashing American adventurer and a headstrong English librarian. Hell of a result.

As Izzy watched him slyly from the corner of his eye, Alex's own eyes went very round and his mouth opened as though of its own accord just as he exclaimed, "What the hell is that?"

Startled, Izzy peered at the horizon and found what the kid was referring to: a slim column of thick, dark smoke drifting up from something large and black on the ground, like a stain. He frowned, wondering exactly why someone would set fire to something in the middle of the desert, and how. And not quite sure whether it was important enough to go down and start nosing around.

The answer to that came quite unexpectedly from behind, startling the two occupants of the cabin.

"Alex, language."

"Sorry, Mum," said the kid, not taking his eyes off the smoke. "D'you think it's got something to do with them?"

Evelyn O'Connell came to stand behind her son to peer through the window; she bent to get a better look, keeping a hand above her for support. Her hair was all mussed up and dusty, her clothes rumpled and her face still betrayed tell-tale signs of recent sleep, and too little at that.

She looked a far cry from the dazzling, dashing beauties Izzy saw once in a while in the moving pictures, yet suddenly it hit him in the face why O'Connell had held onto her and not let go in eleven years.

Not that he could have put it in words, though.

"This spot is not part of any usual road," came a low-pitched, accented voice behind them, making Izzy jump and almost let go of the helm. "It cannot be anything but them."

"Do you think… do you think there is somebody in that… in that wreck?" asked Mrs O'Connell, her voice shaking ever so slightly. The Medjai guy shook his head.

"No-one can tell for sure from up here. We'll have to go down and check."

Mrs O'Connell nodded, looking a bit pale. Izzy would have liked to have something clever to say that would cheer her up, but after his fiasco with the kid he preferred to tread this kind of ground with extra caution. Which for him meant going into full pilot mode and barking at everybody to strap themselves up, that he didn't want anyone to stupidly go over the bloody rail during a simple landing manoeuvre. And actually avoiding Mrs O'Connell's eyes when she told him to watch his mouth in front of her son.

He managed to catch the kid's glance, though, and he got a small smile from him in return. Tight-lipped, from a somewhat pale face, but a smile all the same. Kind of a 'You got away pretty easy' smile.

Definitely something else, that kid.

This journey was definitely turning a bit repetitive. Of course there was something enchanting about the Egyptian desert – though they must have crossed the borders of Egypt and possibly Sudan at some point, because they could see the great flat stretch of the Blue Nile in the distance to their right – especially in the early and late hours of the day… But they would soon reach the end of their third whole day of camel-back trekking and, frankly, as beautiful as the desert was, Jonathan would have liked it much better if he had watched it from the dirigible of that Izzy character's, with a cup of tea or (even better) a glass of brandy and soda, very light on the soda. Also decent sandwiches, too.

And, above all, with neither hide nor hair of a camel in sight.

Now that he had had three days and nights to compare means of transportation, Jonathan found that he actually missed Izzy's old, patched contraption. Travelling on a dirigible was not unlike sailing, minus the swell. Sure, they'd had a few bumps along the ride, mainly due to their least favourite just-risen-from-the-dead mummy pal, but, all in all, it had been a fairly enjoyable ride. Putting aside any worried thoughts of Alex, of course.

Jonathan yawned and scratched his neck. Although the sun had begun sinking into the horizon, it was still beating down upon their heads like a hammer on twenty or so cloth-covered nails (not counting the camels). The heat on his head and neck had yet to abate despite the sort of scarf he wore on his head and the collar of his jacket that he had put up. Good thing it took a lot for him to sunburn. Tom wasn't so lucky.

However, of all the little downsides to their current situation, it was not the camels, the sun, or even the icy glare of Hamilton he could almost feel on his back every now and then that really bothered Jonathan. No, what really irked him, what aggravated him to no end was that Rick, Tom and him hadn't really thought about what was in the lorry before they set it on fire.

If they had, they probably would not have left the rest of the food in it!

Jonathan felt a stupid idiot. The only thought that consoled him through the growls of his empty stomach was that the other two most likely felt like stupid idiots as well. Especially Tom, who was currently staring despondently at the head of his camel, as though imagining a dressing that could make it edible. Jonathan knew better than to tell him that no dressing or cooking, as rich and tasty as it was, could ever make camel meat pass for decent food.

Then again…

Jonathan shook his head to break this dangerous train of thoughts, bewildered and not a little disgusted that his own mouth had been watering at the mental picture of a camel roasting with aromatic herbs and trimmings. As though reading his mind, his mount gave a twitch that almost jerked its unprepared rider off, and skidded to a halt.

"Oh, no you won't," Jonathan muttered, pulling the reins and trying to urge the beast forwards with his foot, "not this time." He could see the other riders overtake him, bobbing up and down with the tranquil pace of their camels, and Tom slowed down, giving him an inquiring look.

"Come on, you gormless useless blighter…"

He was still trying to make his camel at least budge when he came up with an idea. Leaning towards the camel's head, he grabbed one hairy ear, making the animal give a strangled roar of protest, and said in his coldest, most earnest voice, "Look here, you. I'm sick and tired of these capers of yours. Now you're going to do exactly as I say, or else I consider you as my emergency food supply. And I'm hungry."

The camel batted the other ear and let out a whine. Jonathan pulled a bit harder on the handful of ear. "I bet you taste horrible too, but I'm quite ready to overlook this detail – we have been living off the stuff they called 'stew' for three days after all. The others are famished too, methinks, so you'd better get going again, now, don't you think?"

Either the camel understood the gist of its rider's words, or else it had grown tired of being pulled by the ear; anyway, it shook its head in a ruffled sort of way and started to walk again. Jonathan couldn't keep a wide grin off his face, and when Tom asked him the reason for such glee, he told him.

Tom let out one of his guffaws that made his shoulders shake.

"Why, you – that was downright nasty!"

"Probably, but at least it's paying attention now."

Tom shot him a sideways glance. "I wouldn't even put it past you anyway. You certainly have a way with animals. Not sure exactly what kind of way, though – you always seem to be viewing them as hypothetical food."

"Not all of them," Jonathan protested, as Tom started grinning. "Come on, I'm not that bad – I'm a gentleman, not a bloody caveman, for cripes' sake." He paused for a second as a memory resurfaced, and looked back at Tom thoughtfully. "That ram did look tasty for a second though, after four days without food, didn't it?"

Tom sniggered and shook his head. "Not after it beat the snot out of us it didn't. Who would have thought those girls kept a ram in the basement, anyway?"

"Didn't they mistake it for a sheep?"

Tom nodded, still grinning. Jon shook his head.

"Oh, you can joke all you want, but I wasn't the one who'd discovered such a perfect way to sneak in."

A second or two passed, during which Tom's smile gradually faded, and Jonathan's eyes turned as though of their own accord to the yellowish horizon. As he stared at nothing in particular, a more recent memory sneaked its way into his mind and brought a somewhat wry smile. Tom's sandy eyebrows shot up. "What's that look for?"

"Oh, it's just that I promised Alex I'd tell him this one when he's a bit older. Not the whole story, obviously, though." This one and some others, too. "Guess I'd better wait till he's of age for that. Can't have his mother have my skin for a hearthrug, can I?"

"Jon, your skin would not be enough for a napkin, let alone a hearthrug."

"True enough."

There was a beat, which stretched into a moment. During this relatively short time Jonathan noticed a slight change in Tom; something funny settled on his face and he seemed to sag a little bit on his saddle. It was subtle, but it was so uncharacteristic of his old friend that he peered at the broad face, wondering what could have brought on this sudden turn. He knew he wouldn't have to wait very long for some kind of explanation. The Liverpudlian had never been good at this game.

Then Tom gave a small shrug and answered the unspoken question. He said it quickly, but the words sounded as though they were being dragged out against his will.

"Assuming you will be able to tell him someday. I mean, our outlook's glum enough. You know, world ending tonight and all that rubbish."

Jonathan was a little taken aback at that. It even made him a wee bit ill at ease. Fact was, he didn't have a clue how to answer that one – Tom was usually the optimist, finding silver linings everywhere. This sudden gloom on his part was unsettling.

To be honest, Jonathan had had something of a funny feeling himself about the whole thing. Maybe it was the result of being the 'rescued party', as Rick had put it, and being fairly short of friendly faces around, but it had barely been enough to make him more than occasionally slightly uncomfortable.

"Right," he ventured uncertainly, "and let's not forget that we burned the food. So now we've got not only Hamilton, his minions and a jackal-headed army from Hell after us, but hunger as well. Wonder what will get to us first." His attempt at a joke failed to have the expected effect as Tom gave the shadow of his ordinary bright grin and shrugged again. Jonathan was starting to worry a little bit.

Eventually Tom cast him a sideways glance and rolled his eyes. "I'm probably being an arse here," he muttered with the beginning of a smile, "but now that is stupid. I mean, I know we're not going to die from a day of fasting –"

The fact that his stomach chose that very moment to let out a long, loud growl took a lot of weight off his words. It also took a lot of weight off the atmosphere. Jonathan shot him a sarcastic look.

"Besides," continued Tom in a would-be natural sort of voice, his ears even pinker than they already were after three days of camel-riding in the sun, "there's always your camel solution to consider."

The camel in question gave a bleating, alarmed sort of roar and picked up pace. Jonathan beamed, quite delighted. "Do you know," he said thoughtfully, "I think this little idea of mine is not the worst I've ever had."

"C'mon, Jonathan," came a voice tinged with both American accent and smiling sarcasm, "you wouldn't have the heart to actually eat that faithful mount of yours, would you?"

"Not sure about the stomach, old boy, but I do heartily feel like roasting this thing and saving you a big chunk," Jonathan replied good-naturedly as Rick pulled on the reins of his camel to ride beside them. "What do you say to that?"

The American shook his head. "I say it won't be necessary. According to what a couple of agents were chatting about in the back, there's a reception party at Ahm Shere. So I guess we'll get some food when we get there, which should be…" He squinted up at the sun and seemed to think for a second. "…In a couple of hours."

"Heard that as well, didn't you," muttered Jonathan, rolling his eyes. Rick grinned his trademark four-hundred-teeth grin.

"Thanks for the offer, though. Too bad for you guys, I bet you've never tasted camel meat."

"And thank goodness for that. I'm sure the insides of this air-brained mountain of hair and flesh smell worse than the outside does."

Rick snorted and fell behind to refill his water skin. Thankfully all the water cans had not been stored in the lorry; there was a couple left on the car that brought up the rear. When he was gone, it was Tom's turn to look pointedly at Jonathan.

"Erm, about the schedule and us arriving in a couple of hours and stuff –"

"What?"

Tom jerked his head in Rick's general direction. "He did the maths. Hamilton asked him – on account of him knowing the desert and the way to Ahm Shere – and I heard the answer."

Two hours… After three days of endless, repetitive desert trekking, the deadline suddenly looked much closer and coming faster than Jonathan would like. If Tom was right, and the pyramid was destroyed during the night, it meant that they probably would still be inside at the moment. That is, if they could even find a way to stop Hamilton's little project involving the Army of Anubis, the human race, and the total annihilation of the second by the first.

The funny feeling began to flesh out.

Apparently, Tom had had the same line of thought, because his cheeks looked a little bit paler under his sunburn.

"What are the odds of the Medjai waltzing in to save the day?" he muttered, peering at the horizon as if waiting for black silhouettes on horses to materialise out of nowhere.

Jonathan winced. "Not so good."

Tom was silent for a full minute. But then he turned to his old friend with a small smile on his face.

"Then again, what were the odds of you surviving two encounters with the living dead?"

That actually elicited a grin from Jonathan. If Tom Ferguson could still see the glass half-full, then things weren't completely hopeless yet. Besides, he did have a point.

"About as good as you surviving this one," he replied with a smirk.

Tom nodded, and stopped talking. That was when Jonathan noticed how silent the rest of the party was. The only human-made noise (or sort of) that they could hear was the motor of the car a few feet away behind them. Suddenly he found himself not so keen on chatting, either.

Nobody spoke during the next two hours or so.

Sunset was already well under way when the party reached their final destination. An enormous stretch of sky hung over the desert like a great big blue piece of canvas, and the last remnants of what had been a rich, golden light fell on everyone in sight. Every face seemed to be wearing the same tense expression, and Rick marvelled at the fact that, even though the mellow Egyptian sunset light almost always seemed to make everything appear softer than it actually was, everyone around him appeared nothing but grim and very much closed off. Ferguson kept his mouth clamped shut, and even Jonathan hadn't piped a single word in a couple of hours. He just sat a little stiffly on his saddle, staring down at the sand right in front of him and looking uncharacteristically subdued.

Rick didn't feel afraid, properly speaking. He felt determined to do anything necessary to stop Hamilton; sick and angry at the prospect of yet another maniac hell bent on doing what he wanted at the cost of mowing down a large part of humanity; wondering exactly what they were going to find down there, in that pyramid; truthfully, he did feel somewhat naked without at least a shotgun at his side… but not really afraid.

In fact, it reminded him very much of a few somewhat similar situations he'd gotten into in his days as a legionnaire, particularly the one that had ended his career in the French Foreign Legion: the Hamunaptra battle. That one had been bad, bad news from the very beginning. Rick had had a nagging doubt at the time – and hindsight had turned the doubt into a certainty – that the colonel in charge of their garrison had known that the Tuareg fiercely guarding the area outnumbered them by hundreds. Maybe the man had truly deluded himself into thinking that his sneaking in to the City of the Dead without orders, then around the place without a certainty or anything to guide him to the Ancient Egyptians' treasure and back out again was a good idea.

And maybe Rick would have had no problem with that, had Colonel Saint-Herblain decided to act on this on his own, without involving anyone else. But he had to talk the men into the plan. Many as a result had gone willing, lured by the promise of silver and gold and eternal glory. Quite a few had gone enthusiastically, the rest reluctantly, all ill-trained and ill-equipped for such an operation. Rick wondered how many had realised Saint-Herblain had merely used them as cannon fodder, and at which point. To this day, he still did not know whether a mutiny before they left their outpost would have saved lives. Some men were so intent on gold that it made it hard for them to see anything else.

The Tuareg had been watching them from an early stage, and once they had been sure the legionnaires had no place to run to, they had attacked. At the crack of dawn.

Rick remembered how Saint-Herblain, his face ashen, had told them that they had to fight for French honour and for – how'd he put it? – panache. That it was like the Alamo, or something. Something to do for the country you fight for… never mind that they were supposed to fight for French interests and that the French Republic had absolutely no business in the matter. Being a non-commissioned officer and having to obey his superior's orders, Rick had prepared his men without a word. But the part of him that was usually shrugging and rolling his eyes at stunts and speeches like that was now seething. Literally boiling with anger. Because you don't do things like that when you're responsible for the lives of a hundred men. You don't go out on a wild goose chase when you don't even know whether you'll find what you were looking for, but know for a fact that odds are stacked so high against you.

Come to think of it, Hamilton and Saint-Herblain had a lot in common.

He hadn't blamed Beni for running off, really. Rather, he had been furious at the little bastard for running off and closing the door in his face.

Rick supposed that, if he stopped being sarcastic about it for one second, he could consider himself a man of honour. At least, that was what Ardeth had once said, and though the American was loath to admit it, Ardeth was right about a number of things. One thing he didn't consider 'honourable' was convincing a whole garrison to go in search of a hypothetical treasure in the middle of unsafe territory, and when under attack, tell the men they had to go down fighting for their country, and that it was the best option. The only one, really, except running off.

Which every man should have done, but one. Carrying out an ill-conceived operation to try to take a position with no real strategic importance with such significant loss was inexcusable. The least you could do, after you messed up so bad, was to face the consequences of your actions. And Saint-Herblain had done just the opposite. He had scampered right off, and left his men to their fate – a fate that had been, at the moment, being slaughtered one after the other.

Dying for one man's whim did not exactly fit Rick's idea of honour.

Fighting for the lives of millions did seem a little more like it. Theoretically, that's what you choose to be a soldier for. He had thrown himself into the Legion after that thing with Izzy, the Italian hitman, and the belly-dancer girl because the alternative had been serious jail time, but the spirit had appealed to him.

But why the hell, he thought, swearing under his breath as he looked over at the centre of the camp, did it have to be him on the case again? After all, he'd been through being a soldier for fourteen years now, and in the end that had been a pretty easy choice to make. No more being the one to clean up the mess somebody else was making or had left behind.

Yeah, right. As if.

Rick snorted quietly as he got down his camel and tied it up. The conclusion he'd just reached reminded him a lot of the pillow talk he'd had with Evy the morning after the theft of the Diamond. He'd chided her then for wanting to fix any old sort of disorder, no matter who had created it in the first place. Evelyn O'Connell was like that: willing to take responsibility for her and other people's messes so that the world could keep turning. It was one of the minor things Rick thought he could definitely do without most of the time. But it was also something that was a big part of his wife's unyielding, indomitable, passionate character – and, as it was, he definitely couldn't do without her character to anchor him in reality.

That was why he had come so close to completely losing it as he had entered the pyramid last time to go after the bastards who had murdered his wife.

A camel nuzzled him none too gently from behind, jerking him out of his line of thoughts, and he turned to see which one it was. Sure enough, Jonathan's 'faithful mount' stared at him glumly under heavy eyelids and long camel's lashes. He almost appeared to be sulking.

"Odds are you're not gonna get eaten tonight, buddy," Rick said, checking that the rope was properly tied to its post in the ground. "Relax."

He could have sworn there was something like relief in the way the beast shook his head and returned to staring placidly at the bustle in front of him. Rick's eyes followed. All he could see was a number of backs turned to him, all dressed in the same dark suit.

One of the guys in front of him blocking the centre of the camp from his view moved, and he could finally see properly. What he saw there made him stare for a moment, his eyes narrowed.

Obviously, some of Hamilton's men had been there for a while – or else they worked damn fast. Their tents were bigger, more built to last than the ones he had gotten used to in three nights. There was a buzz, a sense of urgency and efficiency that somehow reminded him of the army, and he didn't like that idea at all. It felt too well organised. But what was drawing his gaze most of all was the big hole in the middle, lit by several floodlights, where stood ten or twelve feet of big square yellowish stones set in a triangular shape, with an approximate-looking scorpion on the top that ought to have been supporting something…

They had dug up the top of the Pyramid of Ahm Shere.

He heard a low whistle behind him, and an equally low English-accented voice mutter, "Well, they certainly didn't do their job by half. That's motivation for you."

"These blokes probably haven't had anything else to do for the past weeks," said another voice behind Rick. "Must be dead easy to get bored when you can't pick up the wireless…"

The American turned to see Jonathan raise his eyebrows at Ferguson, who was making a rather successful attempt at a goofy grin despite the lack of colour in his cheeks. He felt the corners of his own mouth upturn slightly in spite of himself.

"So, Jon, is that where you took that diamond from?" asked Ferguson, taking a step closer to the pyramid and squinting at the skeletal sculpture of a scorpion on the top. Jonathan nodded dismally.

"Yes. Such a shame, really. I risked my life to get the bloody thing off the ground, and now they're going to put it back." Then he bit his lip and shot a quick glance at Ferguson, who looked surprised.

"You risked your – how's that?"

"Didn't he tell you?" asked Rick, who, besides the fact that he was enjoying greatly the way Jonathan's ears were growing pinker by the second, actually welcomed the break in the general tension. "Izzy had showed up on his dirigible in the nick of time to pick us up from the pyramid, and he –" here he jerked a thumb in Jonathan's direction "– must have slipped or something, because next thing we knew he was dangling upside down from the net on the side of the dirigible. Almost gave us a heart attack. That's when he saw that diamond."

Something of a smirk was creeping into Ferguson's wide-eyed look. He stared incredulously at Jonathan.

"Don't tell me he – oh, c'mon Jon, even you wouldn't be stupid enough to –" He let out a short bark of laughter, and Jonathan threw him a dirty glare. Rick couldn't help but snort.

"Of course he did. Damn heavy thing, too, nearly pulled him down, and nearly pulled me down when I grabbed him. I should've just let them both fall then and saved me a world of trouble."

He grinned brightly at his brother-in-law, who seemed to have momentarily misplaced his sense of humour and looked distinctly miffed. Ferguson gave a low chuckle.

"Never pictured you as the heroic type, Jon. You must've looked quite dashing there, hanging down arse over tip like that."

"Oh, sod off, both of you," Jonathan muttered under his breath, looking quite determined to remain righteously annoyed despite the fact that a smile seemed to be pulling decidedly at his mouth.

Ferguson shrugged with a grin, then turned his back on what they could see of the pyramid. He started back toward the camp, stopping to call at Rick and Jonathan from over his shoulder, "I thought you were hungry. Come on, it's now or never, Hamilton wants to open the pyramid when night has completely fallen. Don't know about you, but I'm not going in there on an empty stomach. Might be our last meal, too," Rick thought he heard him mumble in an undertone. He wondered at that as he watched the Liverpudlian stride away. The man hadn't struck him as the pessimistic type of guy so far.

Of course, odds were that he had simply never found himself in such a mess before.

He followed Ferguson from a distance, remembering Hamilton's snide remark about the 'company' he kept. Obviously his boss didn't consider hanging out with the prisoners an intelligent thing to do. His brother-in-law fell into step beside him, apparently not having caught Ferguson's little grim aside.

"He's right," Rick said with a quick look at Ferguson's retreating back, "let's get some food."

"See, now you're making sense," Jonathan agreed fervently, before adding edgeways in Rick's direction, "At last, we can eat something we haven't burned."

Rick shook his head. He couldn't believe it. "You're never gonna let me live that one down, are you?"

This time, it was with a grin that Jonathan answered him. "Never, my good son, I'm afraid."

Dinner was a quiet, tense business. Sitting on the sand eating lumpy stew while being closely watched with both unfriendly eyes and a few loaded, equally unfriendly-looking guns was not an incentive for feeling at ease. Rick downed his portion as fast as he could, and he could guess, from the way Jonathan almost choked on his stew, that he was not the only one who wanted to have the whole thing over and done with as quickly as possible.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed Ferguson barely swallowing anything, despite his earlier remark about empty stomachs. The man looked slightly green around the edges. As for Hamilton, he sat neatly on a blanket on the sand, eating with as much refinement as though he was sharing a lamb and mint sauce with the latest King of England.

Ten minutes later, the sun had sunk entirely below the horizon, and everybody was gathered around the pyramid. Even though only the top part had been dug out it still towered over their heads from a dozen feet. The light-coloured stones looked so tightly woven together that nobody could have dislodged one. But then, Rick had a hunch they might not need to.

Hamilton appeared, looking cleaner than ever, making every other crony of his look scruffy and dirty in comparison. He held aloft the Diamond of Ahm Shere and began climbing the stones to the scorpion on the top in the centre of the floodlights. It struck Rick – who had not seen it in two years – how big that diamond actually was, and what a miracle it was that nobody had attempted to steal it before for its sheer market value. To him, however, the intricate pattern of pearl and gold made it look ponderous and heavy rather than beautiful.

He noticed Jonathan's slightly slanted eyes go round as he squirmed on his spot. The American suppressed a sarcastic chuckle. If there had been the slightest chance that his brother-in-law could have leaped at the diamond, run with it under his arm and gotten away with it, he surely would have tried.

Unfortunately, there was no chance in hell.

More straight-backed and pompous than ever, Hamilton delicately put the diamond in the golden scorpion's pincers. Then he stepped back and all but dropped to the ground, thrown off balance by the shudder that worked its way from the top to the very foundations of the structure. Rick could feel it go down into the sand beneath his feet. When it was over, something gave an ominous groan far beneath the ground.

The beat of his heart sped up slightly. Suddenly he was aware how much the temperature had dropped in so little time since sunset.

While Hamilton climbed down the stones, his face showing nothing but excitement and expectation, Rick glanced sideways at Jonathan. He was still staring at the diamond, but the look on his face had changed: suddenly his features were frozen in apprehension and something like denial. As though the same phrase was going over and over in his head, like a broken record, as it did in Rick's mind – don't open don't open don't open…

There was a sort of snap, and a small cloud of dust sprang from between two large stones.

Hamilton made a sign. A couple of agents stepped in to dislodge the stone blocks and more men came to help them put them on the ground.

There stood an entrance large and high enough for a man to walk in without even bending much. Being closest to the makeshift door, Rick, along with Hamilton, Jonathan, Ferguson and a couple of other agents, peered inside.

What he could make out when his eyes adjusted to the darkness sent a jolt to his stomach. "I have a bad feeling about this," he muttered without even realising it. Nobody seemed to hear him.

"Bloody hell!" said Ferguson weakly. Jonathan, his face white in the floodlights, didn't say anything.

Rick nodded grimly. "Hell's about right, yeah."

When the Pyramid of Ahm Shere had sunk into the sand, the oasis that Anubis had created to surround it had been sucked into the ground as well, and into the structure. Now, as they stared at the inside of what one of the ways into the tall gold and stone chambers had become, all they could see was dark green.

The oasis had overrun the pyramid and cosily settled inside it. Creepers and lianas twisted their way around the pillars, across the floor, along the ceiling. They could even hear a faint gurgling noise from the bowels of the thing, as a tiny stream would drip from a higher point down into a pond. Aside from this sound, however, almost nothing else.

It was the jungle again.

Notes:

"The latest King of England" is a reference to Edward VIII's 11 month reign from January to December 1936 and George VI's subsequent coronation in May 1937. 1935-1937 were a couple of interesting years for the British monarchy.