“Quiet.”
Marjorie stopped in mid-sentence and listened. At first, she heard nothing, but after several moments the sound of metal scraping against rock reached her ears. She glanced over at Ahmed and watched his eyes track the sound to the same place as she had—outside the burial preparation chamber, near the Sphinx.
Ahmed flipped off his flashlight and took several silent steps toward the exit. She followed his lead, stowed her light, pulled the hammer from her waistband, and crept after him. As they left the structure and stood on the hard-packed earth facing the monument, the noise grew louder.
“We should go for help. The guard must be here somewhere. He couldn’t have gone far. He probably just went for food.”
“I’ll go. Why don’t you try to get closer and find out what’s going on? If you backtrack through the corridors you can reach a higher vantage point to the left side of the Sphinx,” Ahmed replied as he looked down at the tool clutched in her hand.
Marjorie nodded in agreement, knowing it wasn’t a good plan, but unwilling to risk the safety of another one of her students. She had to ascertain whether or not someone was damaging the Sphinx, and if Ahmed left the area to search for the guard, he would remain out of harm’s way.
Once Ahmed was out of sight, Marjorie had to fight to hold back the fear. She was alone, scared, and angry. If someone harmed the Sphinx while she stood nearby and did nothing to try and stop the damage, the guilt would be unbearable.
Marjorie gripped the hammer handle, took a deep breath, and crept back toward the entrance of the burial preparation area. The scraping sounds grew louder as she inched forward. The silhouette of a man appeared. Marjorie froze, squatting low to the ground to minimize her outline. She squinted into the darkness, unable to make out the man’s identity.
The figure knelt near the left paw of the Sphinx, but she couldn’t see what he was doing. Suddenly, the man stood and ran away, scaling the fence separating it from the road. Kamal! Marjorie leapt to her feet, ready to call out, but before the words could be spoken, a massive explosion vaulted her to the side, throwing her into the bottom of the excavated trench in front of the Sphinx.
