Chapter 8
Landing in the Inferno of Alexandria
The air that filled Alejandro de La Vega's lungs did not feel like oxygen; it felt like dust and fire.
Under the cover of a moonless night, the rowboats from the H.M.S. Vanguard slid silently across the dark waters of a deserted cove west of the port of Alexandria.
The smell of salt mixed with the strong odor of distant spices and burnt flesh.
Less than three miles away, the horizon glowed a sickly orange: the ships of the French Republic had bombarded the coast days before, and Bonaparte's cannons still smoked, consolidating the invasion.
Alejandro leapt into the shallow water, his leather boots sinking into Egypt's fine sand.
He held the boat's bow steady, helping Don Luiz and Father Bartolomeu ashore.
Close behind, Lieutenant Vance carried his heavy rifle wrapped in waxed canvas to protect the mechanism from the sand, while Mateo "El Gato" was already crouched atop a dune, scanning the perimeter, his eyes gleaming in the dark.
"Welcome to Egypt, gentlemen," Lieutenant Vance said with irony, wiping the sweat from his brow with a military handkerchief.
"If the devil ever decides to take a holiday, this is where he'd choose to live. The French outposts are less than a mile north. If a patrol spots us in these uniforms, we'll be shot before we fire the first round."
"French rifles are the least of our problems, Lieutenant," Father Bartolomeu countered, adjusting his black cassock, already gray with dust.
The Jesuit pressed the ancient codex to his chest as if it were a shield.
"We're walking on ground where the old gods were buried alive. Look at the desert... the forces that move here are older than civilization itself."
"The only force I respect here is gravity, Father," Mateo murmured, sliding down the dune and appearing beside Alejandro like a shadow.
"And speaking of forces, captain, we have company. Two turbaned men on camels stopped atop the eastern ridge five minutes ago. They don't look French, but they're armed with long daggers."
Don Luiz reached for the pommel of his sword, but Alejandro held him back with his arm.
"That's our contact. The spy Moreau made clear in his letters that a local guide would meet us near the ruins of the old destroyed lighthouse," Alejandro said, adjusting his coat and stepping forward onto the open sand.
He raised the shielded oil lantern, opening and closing the sliver of light three times — the signal agreed upon in Madrid.
Atop the dune, the silhouettes of the men and camels moved. One of the figures dismounted with impressive grace and came down the dune at a brisk pace, the long fabric of their bedouin robes fluttering in the warm desert wind.
When the figure entered the beam of Alejandro's lantern, the group held its breath. It was not a man.
It was a young woman, with striking features and skin bronzed by the desert's relentless sun.
Her eyes, a brown so dark it appeared black, were sharp as twin blades, framed by a scarf covering part of her face, leaving only her proud, steady gaze visible.
Two crossed scimitars hung discreetly at her waist, and she carried a short Ottoman-made rifle over her shoulder. It was Samira Al-Saddik.
"You're late, foreigners," said Samira. She spoke a drawn-out Spanish with a heavy Arabic accent, her voice firm and showing no sign of submission before the European officers.
"The men in blue, the French, are already spread across Alexandria like locusts. Their general, the little Bonaparte, has ordered a thousand men to close the perimeter around the Temple of Taposiris Magna. They've brought carts full of pickaxes and iron crates.
They're digging up the sacred ground like starving hogs."
Father Bartolomeu stepped forward, eyes bright with anxiety.
"Have they already found the entrance to the underground chamber? Sheba's altar?"
Samira looked at the Jesuit with undisguised disdain, ignoring the direct question. She turned to Alejandro, identifying him immediately as the technical leader of the group by his bearing and the maps he carried in a leather tube.
"Your priests search for myths, captain. But the French have scientists who use numbers and gunpowder," Samira warned, pointing toward the horizon of dunes.
"Jean-Luc Moreau, the Frenchman who sells secrets to your Crown, managed to delay the main excavation by sabotaging one of the hoisting pulleys. But he won't be able to hold General Bonaparte back much longer. If we don't get into the temple through the passages of the dead tonight,
tomorrow the Corsican will have what he's looking for."
Alejandro looked at Don Luiz, then at the map of the temple Moreau had sent. The engineer's mind began aligning the geometric coordinates with the guide's description.
"The Temple of Taposiris Magna isn't merely a sandstone structure, my colonel," Alejandro explained, his voice focused.
"According to the notes, the ancient Egyptian engineers built a system of hydraulic counterweights connected to the Nile's water table. If the French use pickaxes in the wrong spot, they'll flood the chamber and destroy the relics... or bring the entire temple down on their own heads."
"Then let's make sure that's exactly what they do," Mateo smiled, spinning his Albacete dagger between his fingers. "I do love a good demolition."
"Enough talk," Don Luiz ordered, taking command. "Samira, guide us along the blind routes. Vance, keep an eye out for French infantry patrols. Alejandro... from this moment on, Spanish engineering is at war with Napoleon's science. Move out!"
Under Samira's lead, the group advanced through the darkness of the dunes, leaving the beach behind and entering the labyrinth of stone and mystery that awaited them. The hunt for the Rings of Sheba had officially begun on Egyptian soil.
The French camp on the outskirts of the Temple of Taposiris Magna looked like a beehive in the middle of the desert.
Torches and kerosene lamps lit up hundreds of white canvas tents, while the sound of pickaxes striking ancient rock echoed through the night.
Sentries marched with muskets, officers shouted orders in French, and carts full of sandy earth blocked the access routes.
The Republic's logistical chaos was the perfect cover.
Hidden behind a dune ridge two hundred meters from the perimeter, Alejandro and his group observed the movement.
"It's suicide to try to slip through the gaps," Lieutenant Vance whispered, adjusting his monocle to assess the disposition of the French sentries.
"There are at least two regiments of line infantry guarding the temple's main entrance. If we put a foot wrong, we'll be riddled with bullets before crossing the first portico."
"We're not going in through the gaps, Lieutenant. We're going in through the front door," Alejandro answered, showing a focused half-smile. He turned back. "Mateo, the stage is yours. I need six uniforms. Two engineer officers, three infantry soldiers, and a savant's coat for the priest."
"Coming right up, captain. Consider the French wardrobe refreshed," murmured Mateo "El Gato," untying his Albacete daggers and slipping like a snake through the dark sand, vanishing into the shadows toward the laundry tents and the more isolated outposts of the camp.
Fifteen agonizing minutes of silence passed.
Don Luiz kept a firm hand on his sword hilt, while Father Bartolomeu murmured prayers in Latin.
Suddenly the sand shifted and Mateo reappeared, carrying an enormous canvas bundle tied to his back.
He dropped the load on the ground, huffing lightly, but with his crafty smile intact.
"Two French sergeants decided to take a permanent nap behind the supply tents, and three other officers are too busy playing cards and drinking wine without their coats," Mateo boasted, winking at Alejandro.
"I also grabbed the insignia and the wide-brimmed hats. They're a bit full of sand, but they'll do."
Quickly, the group began transforming. Alejandro and Don Luiz put on the blue coats with red trim of the Republic's engineer officers — a perfect disguise, since Alejandro carried maps and geometric tools naturally.
Lieutenant Vance and Mateo donned the white-and-blue uniforms of the line infantry, keeping French muskets slung across their chests.
Father Bartolomeu covered his Jesuit cassock with the long dark coat of the French civilian scientists, the savants.
Samira, for her part, wrapped herself in dark cloth, passing as one of the many local guides the French hired (or forced) to carry water and tools.
"Remember," Don Luiz warned, adjusting the stiff collar of the French uniform that seemed to choke him with indignation, "keep your heads down, don't make prolonged eye contact with the generals, and if anyone speaks to you, let Alejandro answer. His French is the only one without a tavern accent."
The group marched down the dune, blending into the column of soldiers carrying crates of ammunition and tools into the temple's interior.
Crossing the enormous sandstone portal carved with the worn faces of forgotten pharaohs, the atmosphere changed.
The suspended dust and torch smoke created a dense haze.
There were hundreds of men inside. French scientists measured the columns with plumb lines, while European mercenaries hired by the Republic secured the inner tunnels.
Half a dozen extra men drew no attention at all in the middle of that human anthill.
Alejandro walked ahead, pretending to study a notebook, but his brown eyes were mapping the structure. He noticed the French were concentrating their efforts on a large sunken inner courtyard, where an immense crack in the rock had been opened by light explosives.
"Look there," Alejandro whispered to Don Luiz, discreetly indicating with a nod a man supervising the workers at the edge of the pit.
It was Jean-Luc Moreau, the spy cartographer. He wore round spectacles and looked visibly nervous, holding a parchment while pretending to give confused orders to the diggers, clearly trying to delay the progress of the work as he had promised in his letters.
However, the tension in the air rose to a boiling point when the crack of leather boots echoed through the stone corridor. The soldiers around them immediately snapped to attention, saluting with vigor.
Emerging from the shadows of the main sanctuary, accompanied by his personal guard of grenadiers, came the iconic figure of General Napoleon Bonaparte.
He kept one hand tucked into his uniform vest and the other behind his back.
His gray, calculating gaze swept the excavation courtyard, fixing directly on Moreau.
"Engineer Moreau," Napoleon's voice echoed off the stone ceiling, low but carrying an authority that made the spy go pale.
"My mathematicians in Paris assured me the central chamber of Sheba would have been open two hours ago.
Why are my men still pounding against dry sandstone?
The Republic did not finance this expedition to watch our cartographers' incompetence."
Alejandro stepped forward through the crowd of soldiers, keeping the wide-brimmed hat covering part of his face, his heart pounding firmly. They were less than ten meters from the man who wanted to conquer the world. The hunt had collided with the prey.