Area 51 by Robert Doherty

sarcophagus rested.
    "The sarcophagus was intact but empty when they broke the seals," Nabinger said sharply, referring to the first expedition into this chamber in 1951. There had been great excitement over the discovery of the chamber and particularly of the sarcophagus found inside with its lid still intact and sealed. The mystery of the pyramids was about to be solved, it was thought at the time. One could imagine the dismay when the seals were broken and the lid was opened, and there was nothing in the stone box.
    The interior of the Great Pyramid contained three chambers. One entered the pyramid either through the designed polar entrance on the north side, or one blasted just below that by a caliph in later centuries. Both linked up with a tunnel that descended through the masonry and into the rock beneath the pyramid.
    That tunnel ended in an intersection hewn out of the rock where two tunnels branched off. One headed up to the middle chamber and the Grand Gallery, which led to the upper chamber. The other, more recently discovered tunnel headed down into the bedrock to the lower chamber. It was the lower chamber that Nabinger and his crew were presently working in.

    "I was here in 1951," Kaji said. "Yes, the sarcophagus was empty then."
    "Then?" Nabinger repeated. He'd worked with Kaji before at other sites and the man had always been honest.
    When he'd first hired the old man years ago, Nabinger had checked with several others in the field and Kaji had come highly recommended.
    "Hammond, he thought me an old fool, and I was young then," Kaji said. "I am older now. I tried to talk to him, but he did not wish to talk." Kaji rubbed the fingers of one hand lightly in the palm of the other.
    Nabinger knew what that meant. Kaji wanted to be paid for his information, as Nabinger had suspected, but that was only natural. The professor thought furiously. He had rented the portable MRI. The contract was billed by day of use, and he had enough funds from the museum for eight days of use. If he air-

    shipped it back tomorrow, he would save five days of billing. That was a substantial amount of money, at least from an Egyptian standpoint. The only problem was explaining his receipts and billing forms to the accountant back at the university. But there was no sense in continuing to use a machine in a place where it yielded no information. He also considered the runes he was deciphering in this chamber. Those alone would make the expedition worthwhile. The MRI had been a long shotanyway.
    Nabinger looked at Welcher. "Take a break."
    Welcher left the chamber, leaving the two men alone.
    "Ten thousand pounds," Nabinger said.
    Kaji's face was expressionless.
    "Twelve thousand and that is all I have." Nabinger knew that was over a year's salary to the average Egyptian.
    Kaji held out his hand. Nabinger reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills, the week's wages for the laborers. He would have to go to the bank and draw on the expedition account to pay them now.
    Kaji sat down cross-legged on the floor, the money disappearing into his long robe. "I was here in 1951 with Martin's expedition when they opened this chamber, but it was not the first time I was in this chamber."
    "Impossible!" Nabinger said sharply. "Professor Martin broke through three walls to get into here in 1951. Walls that were intact and dated. The seals on the sarcophagus were the originals with four dynasties marked--"
    "You can speak impossible all you like," Kaji continued in the same quiet voice, "but I tell you I was in here before 1951. You have paid for my story.
    You may listen or you may argue, it matters not to me."
    "I'll listen," Nabinger said, beginning to think he had just wasted quite a bit of the museum's money and wondering if he could make it up by skimping elsewhere on the expedition fund. His mind automatically began figuring the exchange rate on the pound to dollar.
    Kaji seemed satisfied. "It was nine years before Martin's