"Hello, Chief." Ahmed spat out the sand in his mouth, answered the phone, and quickly left the scenic area by crossing the Giza Plateau.
Where are you, Ahmed?
"I... am on my way to Hurghada."
"They haven't gone far, have they?"
"I'm sorry, Chief, I'm already far away." Ahmed stood by the roadside, watching the military and police begin to cordon off the area. "I'm on the highway now, and I'll be in Hurghada in about four hours."
"You walk really fast, kid!"
"Hey, something doesn't sound right. Don't tell me your vacation was canceled. I booked a hotel room on a special offer; it's non-refundable."
"My vacation's canceled, bro."
"Oh, damn it! I don't want to be your brother. I don't support 996. I just want a pitiful vacation, and besides, I'm already on my way and can't come back."
"No, no way! Even if you take your pants off and march in the streets, you have to come back here!" The bureau chief was clearly getting angry.
"That's huge news— Cairo's best detective running naked through the streets on a sandstorm day!" Ahmed was desperate; he'd rather die than go back to the pyramids. "I think you, Chief, wouldn't want to see news like this, especially Cairo's police chief running naked through the streets of Hurghada!"
Shit!
Ahmed heard the chief curse in English and then hang up the phone.
Five days later, Ahmed finished his Red Sea vacation and drove back to the Cairo police station from Hurghada. He was prepared to be reprimanded or even transferred to a remote area to manage security. Even if he no longer wore a police uniform and returned to the mosque to serve the elderly imam, he was unwilling to say a word about what happened inside the pyramids.
He gently knocked on the bureau chief's door.
"Ah, Ahmed, you're back just in time." The chief didn't seem inclined to tear him to pieces. "There's a case you'd like to handle; it's a bit tricky, and others might not be able to handle it."
"What case?" As long as it's not related to the pyramids, Ahmed is happy to take on any case.
"Professor Alef is dead," the director said.
Ahmed's heart sank; just what he feared most had come to pass.
"But five days have passed, and this case is still not resolved?" he said.
"Five days?" The chief paused, "Oh, no, he just died yesterday. His body is still in the forensic lab."
"Yesterday?" Now it was Ahmed's turn to be surprised. "What exactly happened? Didn't Professor Alef go to the pyramids?"
"You knew about this too? Your information network is really impressive!" the director said happily. "Even while on vacation in Hurghada, you didn't forget to keep up with things in Cairo. Well done, Ahmed!"
Ahmed knew he had let something slip; he didn't want anyone to know that he had gone to the pyramids with Professor Alef, whether it was a dream, a pharaoh's curse, or time travel.
He coughed awkwardly twice and chuckled, "Ah, it's only right, to share the director's burden! Um... nothing happened that day of the sandstorm, right?"
"It wasn't a big deal at first. The earthquake opened the entrance to the pyramid's underground chamber, and several tourists and vendors who wanted to go in to search for treasure died inside. That's normal; human nature is greedy, who wouldn't be tempted by treasure!" the director said. "However, things have gotten a bit complicated now. Professor Alef locked himself in his research institute after coming out of the pyramid, but yesterday, he died."
"He survived in the pyramids?"
"No, he was fine when he came out."
"What about the others? The ones who went in with him?"
"Everyone else is fine too."
Ahmed found it strange; things weren't quite as he had expected. He asked, "So how did those tourists die? What new discoveries were made in the underground palace?"
"Oh, this was originally top secret, but since you're about to take over this case, you have the right to know." The director looked mysterious. "A mask even older and more precious than Tutankhamun's was found in the underground palace, but unfortunately, Khufu's the Mummy was still not found. The tourist's death was gruesome, and the cause of death is currently unknown. According to Alef, it was due to the Pharaoh's curse."
"Curse?"
"We don't believe it either, but Alef died last night, along with the two military police who went down into the underground palace with him. This is the autopsy report; you can take a look, along with the [illustration/book]." The director tossed a document over. "The government has sealed off the pyramids, and no one is allowed to enter anymore. Of course, if you want to go in, I can help you apply."
"Okay, sure. Ah? Oh, no, no, I'm not going in!" Ahmed took the autopsy report and confirmed at a glance that what he had experienced was not a dream. Alef's death was exactly the same as those of the people who died in the underground palace.
He suddenly remembered Abdullah, the park ranger with the long name who had saved his life, and asked, "What about Abdullah? Is he dead too?"
" Abdullah?" The chief looked completely bewildered. "Who is Abdullah?"
Ahmed instantly understood: Abdullah hadn't gone down with Alef. He remembered that he was the one who had instructed Abdullah to go down with him, and since he hadn't gone, Abdullah naturally wouldn't go down either.
He felt much relieved, and the slight worry and guilt he had felt from running away disappeared.
"Oh, I must have misremembered. You know I just got off vacation, my mind's still full of the Red Sea memories!" Ahmed replied dismissively.
The chief said, "Then get your head clean. From now on, the Alef case is yours. Remember, everything about the pyramids and this case is top secret!"
Ahmed nodded and left the chief's office. As he closed the door, he heard the chief say "shit," but he wasn't sure if it was directed at him or something else.
Alef's death was indeed very strange. He owned a semi-official, semi-private research institute, which was said to be the only non-official, formally-owned institute in all of Egypt qualified to study pharaoh the Mummy and artifacts.
He died in the room in the research institute where the Mummy were kept, in the exact same manner as the victims in the underground palace of the pyramids. His abdomen was cut open, his nose and upper jaw were ripped off, and all his internal organs except his heart and brain were missing.
Bloody handprints were found at the scene and in the pyramid's underground chamber, but strangely, no fingerprints could be extracted. Police determined that the killer was wearing leather gloves, but his fingers were very slender.
Two soldiers responsible for protecting Alef and a female intern at the research institute also died; according to the on-site investigation and the forensic autopsy report, their causes of death were slightly different.
The female intern's blood tested positive for residual ether, indicating she had been injected with anesthesia before her death. The incision in her abdomen was clean, made with a sharp metal scalpel or similar instrument; her skull was opened, and her brain had been removed, unlike others who had their brains removed from their faces.
The two military policemen died relatively violently; their necks were first snapped before their internal organs and brains were removed. Alef suffered the worst fate; his internal organs were removed while he was still alive, without any anesthesia. In other words, he was still alive when he watched helplessly as his abdomen was cut open and his internal organs were ripped out piece by piece. Strangely, both the scene and the autopsy proved that he did not struggle.
Judging from the wounds, the weapon used to cut open Alef and the two gendarmes' abdomens could not have been a knife, but rather a sharp, cone-shaped object, consistent with Ahmed's assessment in the pyramid's underground chamber. Experienced forensic experts offered an unbelievable guess—a fingernail!