At one point, a tunnel branched off into a chamber that contained a larger-than-life statue of an Egyptian pharaoh.
But that tunnel had dead-ended into a vertical shaft filled with rock and debris.
As the months passed, the workers forged on, digging ever deeper, so deep in fact that the men had to be lowered down by rope
each day. Carter’s hopes soared. He even took the unusual step of contacting Britain’s consul general in Cairo to prepare
him for the glorious moment when a “virgin” tomb would be opened.
Now he stood at the bottom of the shaft. Before him was a doorway sealed with plaster and stamped with the mark of a pharaoh—
the entrance to a burial chamber.
Carter ordered his workers to knock it down.
The shaft was suddenly choked with noise and a storm of dust as the men used picks and crowbars to demolish the ancient door.
Carter hacked into his handkerchief as he struggled to see through the haze.
His heart raced as he finally held his lantern into the burial chamber. The workers standing behind him peered excitedly over
his shoulder.
There was nothing there.
The treasure, and the pharaoh’s mummy, had already been stolen.
By somebody else.
Present Day
“THIS IS JAMES PATTERSON CALLING. Is Michael around? I have a mystery story to tell him.”
As most people would expect, I love a good mystery, and I thought I might have unearthed a real doozy to write about, which
was why I had put in a call to my editor at Little, Brown, Michael Pietsch, who is also the publisher.
As I waited for Michael to come on the line—he usually takes my calls, night or day—I looked around my second-floor office.
Am I completely mad?
I wondered.
The last thing I needed right now was another writing project. I already had a new Alex Cross novel on the fires, and a Women’s
Murder Club brewing, and a Maximum Ride to finish. In fact, there were
twenty-four
manuscripts—none of them yet completed—laid out on the expansive desk surface that occupies most of my office. I could read
some of the titles:
Swimsuit, Witch & Wizard, Daniel X, Women’s Murder Club 9, Worst Case
…
“I
am
completely crazy, aren’t I?” I said as Pietsch came on the line. Michael is a calm and calming presence, very smart, and
a wonderful father who knows how to handle children—like me—most of the time. Over the years we have become a good fit and
have turned out more than a dozen number one bestsellers together.
“Of course you’re crazy, but why the phone call?” he asked. “Why aren’t you writing?”
“I have an idea.”
“Only one?”
“I really like this one, Michael. Let me talk at you for a minute. OK? Since you seem to know everything about everything,
you are probably aware that a collection of King Tut memorabilia is touring the world. People are lining up everywhere; the
exhibit is usually sold out weeks in advance. I actually visited a Tut exhibit years ago at the Met in New York, and then
recently in Fort Lauderdale. I’ve seen firsthand how Tut’s story blows people’s minds—men, women, and children, rich and poor.
“There’s something about Tut that brings ancient Egypt to life for most of us. It’s not just the incredible treasures he was
buried with, or the art, or the near-miraculous discovery of the burial chamber by Howard Carter. It’s all of that, of course,
but there’s something magical here, something iconic. Tut’s name was scrubbed from Egyptian history books for thousands of
years, and now Tut is probably the most famous pharaoh of them all.
And yet nobody knows that much about him.
“Michael, I want to do a book about Tut. Three parts: present day, as I learn—
hopefully
—more and more about the Boy King; then the amazing discovery of the tomb and treasures by Carter, who is probably worth a
book on his own; and a third part about Tut himself.
“Did you know that Tut married his
sister
—and that theirs was an incredible love story? So what do you think? Are you going to try to stop me? Just this once, will
you save me from myself?”
Michael’s infectious laughter traveled across the phone lines. “How’s the new Alex Cross coming?” he asked.
“Almost done—ahead of schedule. You’re going to like it.”
“Well, Jim, like just about everyone else, I’m fascinated by ancient Egypt, the pyramids, the Valley of the Kings, Tut, Nefertiti,
the Rameses boys. So I have to tell you, I like the idea very much.”
Now it was my turn to smile and to laugh in relief.
“I’m really glad. So let me tell you what I thought would close the deal—though, obviously, I don’t need it. Michael, I have
a hunch that Tut was murdered. And I hope, at least on paper, to prove it.”
Michael laughed again. “You had me at ‘King Tut,’” he quipped.
1492 BC
“THIS IS FAR ENOUGH! Stop right here.”
More than five hundred prisoners halted their march toward Thebes in a great field situated two miles from the city. A contingent
of the palace guard watched over them in the sweltering midday sun. Not that it was necessary. The emaciated prisoners’ feet
were bound with leather cord that was just long enough for them to frog walk; they could not run.
And even if they had tried to escape, their arms were tied behind their backs at the wrist and elbow.
They wouldn’t get far, and the punishment would be swift and brutal.
Ineni, the well-regarded royal architect, watched over the sad scene. He knew these men well. They had just spent five years
in a remote valley, excavating a new burial place for Tuthmosis I.
By day they had endured withering summer heat and surprisingly frigid blasts of desert cold that sometimes strafed the valley.
At night they had slept under a sky shot through with stars.
It had been more than a thousand years since Cheops had built his great pyramid up the Nile in Giza. As grand and awe-inspiring
as they were, pyramids turned out to be beacons of temptation for every local thief and blasphemous tomb robber. There wasn’t
a single one that hadn’t been looted. Not one.
But the ingenious Ineni believed he had the solution to the pyramid problem. Using the slave labor provided by these prisoners,
he had carved a
secret
burial chamber for Tuthmosis I. The aging pharaoh was sick and near death, so the timing of the tomb’s completion was perfect.
Not merely a makeshift cave, the tomb contained several tunnels, hallways, and a half dozen rooms. The pharaoh’s stone sarcophagus
would reside precisely in the center, in the largest, most luxurious room.
True,
Ineni thought, brushing a bead of sweat from his eyebrow,
such an underground tomb was hardly as grand as a soaring pyramid. But in many ways it was better.
The walls were smooth to the touch and painted with vivid scenes from the pharaoh’s life—both the one he had just lived and
the glorious one yet to come.
Most important, the pharaoh would be undisturbed. Hopefully, for all eternity. At least that was what most Egyptians believed
happened when a pharaoh was put to rest.
Ineni liked the design so much that he was already working on a similar tomb for himself. “I superintended the excavations
of the cliff tomb of His Majesty,” Ineni had written on the walls of his own burial chamber—it was the architect’s way of
bragging to those in the afterworld—“Alone, no one seeing, no one hearing.”
Of course, he hadn’t been totally alone. The prisoners had done their part. He had gotten to know the Nubians. He’d heard
about their wives and children and knew that the men cherished their families with the same passion that he loved his. Some
of the prisoners had become his friends.
After the tomb for Tuthmosis I was sealed and the entry concealed with stone, he had marched the men away from the area—a
place that one day would simply be known as the Valley of the Kings, because so many other pharaohs would choose Ineni’s architectural
contrivance as a means of hiding their final resting places.
Ineni scanned the faces of the prisoners. They knew the location of the pharaoh’s secret tomb, and that was unacceptable.
The architect turned away from the men, then signaled to the guards.
“Do what must be done. Be merciful. Do it quickly. These are good men.”
And so the bloody slaughter of the prisoners began. Their screams rose to the heavens, and Ineni hoped that the many gods
of Egypt approved of his difficult but necessary decision.
1357 BC
AMENHOTEP THE MAGNIFICENT knocked back a stiff jolt of red wine as he shuffled into the sunlit throne room.
Once upon a time the pharaoh had been lean and muscular, a warrior feared throughout the known world. He was also said to
have had sexual relations with more than five hundred consorts and concubines.
Now he was “prosperous,” which was a polite way of saying that his great belly preceded him wherever he went.
“You’ll get fat from all that wine,” cooed Tiye, his queen and favorite wife—possibly because she had a sense of humor that
matched his own.
“Too late.” Amenhotep slurred his words noticeably. “At least a dozen years too late.”
Just back from a morning of sailing, Tiye had entered from the main hall without fanfare, her sandaled feet quietly slapping
the tile floor. The queen had full lips, a pleasingly ample bosom, and wore a white linen dress with vertical blue stripes
that was cinched at her narrow waist.
They both knew why she’d come to see him today.
“Pharaoh,” she said, standing over him, “we must talk. This one time you must listen to a woman, my love. You
must.
”
Amenhotep pretended to ignore his queen. He thought about swabbing a little opium on his abscessed teeth, just to take the
edge off, and then maybe having a nap before dinner. No. First a visit to the lovely Resi over at the harem for a midafternoon
romp, then sleep. Resi had an even larger bosom than Tiye, and she was a better actress in bed. Amenhotep got a happy feeling
just thinking about the whore.
Up in Memphis, the northern capital of his kingdom, the bureaucrats would be pestering him with crop reports and tax estimates.
Nothing but meetings all day long. Yes, Egypt needed officials like that; the country would be a lawless backwater without
the legion of clerks. But after three decades in power, Amenhotep needed a break.
Which is why he loved Thebes much more than Memphis.
Thebes, just a week’s journey up the Nile from Memphis, was so different than the northern capital, it might as well have
been in a separate country. In Thebes a pharaoh could bask for hours in the desert sun, drink wine whenever he wanted, and
make love to his entire harem—a dozen beauties, each selected by him—without a single bureaucratic interruption. In Thebes
a pharaoh had time to think, to dream. In Thebes the pharaoh answered to no one—except his wife.
Amenhotep looked up at Tiye. “I am a fat old pharaoh who is no longer fit to rule this kingdom. Is that what you’re about
to say? I am a whoremaster without a conscience? What am I? Tell me.”
Tiye bit her tongue. In many ways, she loved this fat old man, this
deity.
But now Amenhotep was dying. Decisions had to be made before it was too late—for Egypt, and for its queen.
“All right,” he said with a sigh. “Let’s talk. I’m dying. What of it?”
1357 BC
“THE FUTURE OF EGYPT is at stake. You know that. You need to take action.”
“I will never share power with
that accident,
” shouted the pharaoh.
Amenhotep had rallied somewhat from his drunken state. Now the palace walls shook with his angry protestations. He and Tiye
were alone, but everyone from the bodyguards at the door to the servant girls polishing the great tiled hallway were privy
to their battle. Soon these commoners would be gossiping to their friends and families, and the details of the royal argument
would spread throughout Thebes.
“You are speaking about
a child
created in a moment of passion. Perhaps the pharaoh would like to describe what was accidental about that.”
“I do not regret the act of making love, only the result of our lovemaking. He will not reign as co-regent. I couldn’t bear
it. He is a sniveling whelp.”
Tiye sneered. “We both know that he will succeed you one day.”
“You hope so, don’t you? Does my queen not admit that she has selfish reasons for wanting that boy elevated to co-regent?”
“The queen admits nothing of the kind. The queen wants what’s best for Egypt. Surely you wish your son to step into power—armed
with your many years of hard-earned wisdom?”
You will lose everything if someone else succeeds me,
thought the cynical Amenhotep.
So don’t tell me what’s best for Egypt. Have you braved thirst and burning deserts to wage war on the Hittites? Have you smelled
the cedar forests of Byblos? You wear the gold and lapis lazuli that come as tribute from lands I conquered, but you know
nothing of the world outside Thebes.
“His arms hang to his knees, and his face is as long as a horse’s,” Amenhotep declared. “He hasn’t enough muscle to wield
a sword. His only muscles are in his head. To be pharaoh is to be god in the flesh. That boy is a freak.”
“He was born to lead our people. He can drive a chariot as well as any man,” said Tiye. “He is well-read and smart.”
The pharaoh snorted. The mere sight of his son—also named Amenhotep—at the reins of a chariot was hilarious. It was a wonder
the imbecile hadn’t been trampled to death already. “Steering through a grain field is one thing. Charging into battle is
quite another,” he said.
Suddenly, Amenhotep felt woozy. The opium had gone to work, but the pain was still unbearable. What he needed was more wine.
And Resi’s bosom to suck on.