The Book of the Dead (37 page)

T
hirty hours before the grand opening, the Tomb of Senef was boiling like a nest of angry hornets. And the swarm was no longer comprised of simply curators, electricians, carpenters, and technicians: a new element had been added to the mix. As Nora walked down the God’s Second Passage toward the Hall of the Chariots, she was met with the glare of television lights and a knot of men setting up cameras and mikes at the far end of the hall.

“Over there, dear boy, over
there!”

A slender man with clenched buttocks, wearing a camel’s-hair sport jacket and yellow pinpoint bow tie, stood to one side. He was gesturing furiously with slender hands toward a burly soundman. Nora realized he must be the director Randall Loftus, whom Menzies had recently spoken to her about. He had won huge acclaim for his documentary series
The Last Cowboy on Earth
, and since then had produced a string of award-winning documentaries for public television.

As she approached, the babel of overlapping voices grew more shrill. “Testing. Testing…”

“Ugh! We’ve got the acoustics of a barn in here!”

Loftus and his crew were setting up to broadcast the premiere of the sound-and-light show on the night of the opening. The local PBS station planned to cover the opening live, and they had energetically syndicated the show to ensure it would not only go out to most PBS affiliates across the nation, but also be carried by the BBC and the CBC. It was a public relations coup that Menzies himself had worked hard to arrange. The resulting international attention, Nora knew, could go a long way toward saving the museum’s bacon. But at the moment, they were causing utter chaos—and at the worst possible time. Their cables lay all over the ground, tripping up assistants carrying priceless Egyptian antiquities. The brilliant lights only added to the heat generated by hot electronics and the dozens of frantic people rushing about in a kind of controlled panic: the air-conditioning system ducts were roaring in a futile effort to lower the exhibit’s temperature.

“I want two six-inch, one-kilowatt Mole Babies in the corner, there,” Loftus was saying. “Will somebody move that jar?”

Nora quickly stepped up. “Mr. Loftus?”

He turned to her, squinting over the tops of his John Mitchell glasses. “Yes?”

She gamely stuck out her hand. “I’m Dr. Nora Kelly, curator of the exhibition.”

“Oh! Of course. Randall Loftus. Delighted.” He began to turn away.

“Excuse me, Mr. Loftus? You mentioned something about moving a jar. I’m sure you’ll understand that nothing can be moved—or even touched—except by museum staff.”

“Nothing moved! How am I supposed to set up?”

“You’ll just have to work around things, I’m afraid.”

“Work
around
things! I’ve never been asked to perform in such conditions. This tomb is like a straitjacket. I can’t get any good angles or distance. It’s impossible!”

She gave him a brilliant smile. “I’m sure, with your talent, you’ll find a way to make it work.”

The smile had no effect, but at the word
talent
Loftus seemed to pause.

“I’ve admired your work,” Nora continued, sensing her opening. “I’m personally thrilled that you agreed to direct the show. And I know that, if anyone can make it work, you can.”

Loftus touched his bow tie. “Thank you indeed. Flattery will get you everywhere.”

“I wanted to introduce myself, see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

Loftus spun abruptly, shouted to someone in a dim corner teetering on a ladder, “Not that one, the
other
light, the LTM Pepper spot! I want it mounted on that ceiling rack on a three-sixty.”

He turned back to her. “You’re a dear, but we simply
must
move that jar.”

“I’m sorry,” said Nora. “There’s no time to move anything even if we wanted to. That jar is three thousand years old and invaluable—you can’t just pick it up and move it. It takes special equipment, specially trained conservators… As I said, you’ll just have to work with what’s here. I’ll help you any way I can, but that’s one thing I can’t do. I’m sorry.”

Loftus drew in a long breath. “I can’t work around that jar. It’s so fat and horrible.”

When Nora didn’t reply, the director waved his hand. “I’ll talk to Menzies about it. Really, this is impossible.”

“I’m sure you’re as busy as I am, so I’ll leave you,” she replied. “As I said, if you need anything, let me know.”

He turned away instantly, zeroing in on another hapless production assistant laboring in the shadows. “The low crankovator goes where the tape is. On the floor. You’re
standing
on it! Look down, it’s between your legs, for heaven’s sake!”

Nora moved out of the Hall of the Chariots toward the burial chamber, leaving the gesticulating Loftus behind. The conservators had finished placing all the objects in the chamber—the last to be done—and Nora wanted to check the label copy against her master design. A knot of technicians was working on the fog machines inside the great stone sarcophagus. Earlier in the day, they’d run through a dress rehearsal of the entire sound-and-light show, and Nora had to admit that it was more than good. Wicherly may have been an ass, and possibly deranged, but he was also a brilliant Egyptologist and—what was more—an excellent writer. The script was an amazing tour de force; and the finale, when Senef came suddenly to life, rising out of a bubbling pool of mist, hadn’t seemed hokey at all. Wicherly had managed to slip quite a lot of good, solid information into the show. People would leave not just entertained, but educated.

She paused. It was strange how such a competent archaeologist could crack up so quickly. Unconsciously, she rubbed her throat, still raw and bruised. She still felt uncomfortable going back into her lab after what had happened. It was bizarre, tragic, inexplicable… But once again, she tried to push the attack from her mind. She would digest it all after the opening.

She felt a light tap on her shoulder.

“Dr. Kelly, I presume?” The voice was a dusky, cultured English contralto.

She turned to find herself face-to-face with a tall woman with long, glossy black hair, dressed in old canvas pants, sneakers, and a dusty work shirt. One of the workers, evidently, but one she hadn’t seen before: she would have remembered someone with such striking looks. And yet, as she looked at this stranger, she sensed she
had
seen her before.

“That’s me,” Nora said. “And you are—?”

“Viola Maskelene. I’m an Egyptologist and the new visiting curator for the show.” She stuck out her hand, seized Nora’s, and gave it a very vigorous shake. The grip was strong, the hand a little callused. This was someone who spent a lot of time outdoors—judging from her tan and her lean, one might even say weather-beaten, look.

“Very glad to meet you,” Nora said. “I hadn’t expected you so soon.”

“I’m very pleased to meet you,” Maskelene said. “Dr. Menzies has spoken so highly of you, and everyone just
adores
you! Dr. Menzies is tied up at present, but I wanted to come down and meet you right away… and see this marvelous exhibit!”

“As you can see, we’re down to the wire.”

“I’m sure you’ve got everything under control.” Maskelene looked around with relish. “I was so surprised to receive the museum’s invitation, and I can’t tell you how delighted I am to be here. XIX Dynasty tombs are my specialty. And, incredibly, the Tomb of Senef has never been studied or published, although it apparently contains one of the most complete texts to the Book of the Dead ever found. Very few scholars even knew it existed! I’d always thought it was mere rumor, an urban myth like the alligators in your sewers. This is an incredible opportunity.”

Nora smiled and nodded, studying the woman intently. The speed with which Wicherly had been replaced—he’d been dead only a few days—surprised her. But then, she reflected, the opening was looming and the museum absolutely had to have an Egyptologist in residence for the run of the show.

Viola, oblivious to the sound and chaos beyond, was looking around at the tomb with wonder. “What a treasure!”

Nora found herself liking the woman’s high-spirited attitude. Her open, frank enthusiasm was infinitely preferable to the pontifications of some dusty old professor.

“I’ve just been checking the placement of the artifacts and doing a final run-through on the label copy,” she said. “Care to come along? You might catch some errors.”

“I’d adore it,” she said, practically beaming. “Although with Adrian having done the work, I’m sure it’s solid.”

Nora turned. “You knew him?”

Viola’s face clouded. “We Egyptologists are a rather small club. Dr. Menzies told me what happened. I can’t understand it. How terribly frightening for you.”

Nora simply nodded.

“I knew Adrian professionally,” Viola said, her voice more quiet now. “He was a brilliant Egyptologist, although he rather fancied himself God’s gift to women. Still, I never would have thought that… What a terrible shock.” She broke off.

For a moment, an awkward silence settled over them. Then Nora roused herself.

“He left a fine legacy behind him,” she said. “In his work for the exhibition. And I know it sounds crass, but the show must go on.”

“I suppose so,” Viola replied. Then she brightened a little. “I hear the sound-and-light show is quite spectacular.”

“It has just about everything, even a talking mummy.”

Viola laughed. “That sounds delicious!”

They walked on, Nora checking her clipboard. She took the opportunity to examine Viola Maskelene more closely out of the corner of her eye as the Egyptologist looked over the cases full of antiquities.

They paused at one spectacular canopic jar. “I’m afraid this is XVIII Dynasty,” Viola said. “It’s a bit anachronistic, compared to the other objects.”

Nora smiled. “I know. We didn’t quite have all the XIX Dynasty objects we needed, so we expanded—fudged—the time period a bit. Adrian explained that antiques, even at the time of the pharaohs, were often put in burials.”

“Quite true! Sorry for bringing it up—I’m a bit of a stickler for details.”

“Being a stickler for details is exactly what we need.”

They circled the burial chamber, Nora checking items off her list, Viola parsing the label copy and examining the objects.

“Can you read hieroglyphics?” Nora asked.

Viola nodded.

“What do you make of the curse above the door, the one with the Eye of Horus?”

A laugh. “One of the nastiest I’ve ever seen.”

“Really? I thought they were all nasty.”

“On the contrary. Many Egyptian tombs aren’t even protected with curses. They didn’t need to be—everyone knew that to rob a pharaoh’s tomb was to steal from the gods themselves.”

“So why put a curse in this tomb?”

“I imagine it was because, unlike a pharaoh, Senef wasn’t a god. He may have felt that the additional protection of the curse might be warranted. That painting of Ammut… whew!” Viola shuddered. “Goya couldn’t do better.”

Nora glanced at the painting, nodding grimly.

“I understand word of this curse has gotten around,” Viola said.

“The guards started it. Now the whole museum is abuzz. A few of the maintenance staff flat-out refuse to go into the tomb after hours.”

They came around a pilaster, only to find a woman in a gray suit kneeling on the stone floor, scraping dust out of a crack and putting it in a test tube. Nearby, a man in a white lab coat was organizing what looked like samples in a portable chemical laboratory.

“What in the world is she doing?” Viola whispered.

Nora had never seen the woman before. She certainly didn’t look much like a museum employee. In fact, she looked like a cop.

“Let’s find out.” Nora walked over. “Hello. I’m Nora Kelly, curator of the exhibition.”

The woman rose. “I’m Susan Lombardi, with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.”

“May I ask what you’re doing?”

“We’re testing for any environmental hazards—toxins, microbes, that sort of thing.”

“Really? And why is that necessary?”

She shrugged. “All I know is, the request came from the NYPD. A rush job.”