The Paris Vendetta Page 0,1

Louis XVI. He'd then faithfully served the new Republic and fought at Toulon, afterward promoted to brigadier general, then to General of the Eastern Army, and finally commander in Italy. From there he'd marched north and taken Austria, returning to Paris a national hero. Now, barely thirty, as General of the Army of the Orient, he'd conquered Egypt.

But his destiny was to rule France.

"What a superfluity of wonderful things," he said, admiring again the great pyramids.

During the ride from his camp he'd spied workers busy clearing sand from a half-buried sphinx. He'd personally ordered the excavation of the austere guardian, and was pleased with the progress.

"This pyramid is closest to Cairo, so we call it the First," Monge said. He pointed at another. "The Second. The farthest is the Third. If we could but read the hieroglyphs, we could perhaps know their true labels."

He agreed. No one could understand the strange signs that appeared on nearly every one of the ancient monuments. He'd ordered them copied, so many drawings that his artists had expended all of the pencils brought from France. It had been Monge who devised an ingenious way to melt lead bullets into Nile reeds and fashion more.

"There may be hope there," he said.

And he caught Monge's knowing nod.

They both knew that an ugly black stone found at Rosetta, inscribed with three different scripts-hieroglyphs, the language of ancient Egypt, demotic, the language of current Egypt, and Greek-might prove the answer. Last month he'd attended a session of his Institut Egypt, created by him to encourage his savants, where the discovery had been announced.

But much more study was needed.

"We are making the first systematic surveys of these sites," Monge said. "All who came before us simply looted. We shall memorialize what we find."

Another revolutionary idea, Napoleon thought. Fitting for Monge.

"Take me inside," he ordered.

His friend led him up a ladder on the north face, to a platform twenty meters high. He'd come this far once before, months ago, with some of his commanders, when they'd first inspected the pyramids. But he'd refused to enter the edifice since it would have required him to crawl on all fours before his subordinates. Now he bent down and wiggled into a corridor no more than a meter high and equally as wide, which descended at a mild gradient through the pyramid's core. The leather satchel swung from his neck. They came to another corridor hewn upward, which Monge entered. The gradient now climbed, heading toward a lighted square at the far end.

They emerged and were able to stand, the wondrous site filling him with reverence. In the flickering glow of oil lamps he spied a ceiling that rose nearly ten meters. The floor steeply planed upward through more granite masonry. Walls projected outward in a series of cantilevers that built on each other to form a narrow vault.

"It is magnificent," he whispered.

"We've started calling it the Grand Gallery."

"An appropriate label."

At the foot of each sidewall a flat-topped ramp, half a meter wide, extended the length of the gallery. A passage measuring another meter ran between the ramps. No steps, just a steep incline.

"Is he up there?" he asked Monge.

"Oui, General. He arrived an hour ago and I led him to the King's Chamber."

He still clung to the satchel. "Wait outside, below."

Monge turned to leave, then stopped. "Are you sure you wish to do this alone?"

He kept his eyes locked ahead on the Grand Gallery. He'd listened to the Egyptian tales. Supposedly, through the mystic passageways of this pyramid had passed the illuminati of antiquity, individuals who'd entered as men and emerged as gods. This was a place of "second birth," a "womb of mysteries," it was said. Wisdom dwelled here, as God dwelled in the hearts of men. His savants wondered what fundamental urge had inspired this Herculean engineering labor, but for him there could be but one explanation-and he understood the obsession-the desire to exchange the narrowness of human mortality for the breadth of enlightenment. His scientists liked to postulate how this may be the most perfect building in the world, the original Noah's Ark, maybe the origin of languages, alphabets, weights, and measures.

Not to him.

This was a gateway to the eternal.

"It is only I who can do this," he finally muttered.

Monge left.

He swiped grit from his uniform and strode ahead, climbing the steep grade. He estimated its length at about 120 meters and he was winded when he reached the top. A high step led into a low-ceilinged gallery that