The Third Gate (29 page)

“Tina?” Stone said, pointing at the serekh, his voice almost a whisper. “That’s the rebus for Narmer’s name. Right?”

Tina nodded slowly. “Yes. I think so.”

Stone turned to her. “You think so?”

She had set down her video camera, the room being too dark to film, and was peering more closely at the chest. “The glyphs match,
all right. But these scratches, here, through the head of the catfish … I don’t know. It’s most unusual. But it’s
all
unusual. That cotlike structure in the rear, the shrines in chamber two, the strange emptiness of this room …” She paused again. “It’s like I said once before. It’s almost as if this entire tomb was used as a
rehearsal
for Narmer’s death, for his passage to the next world, the Field of Offerings.”

“Have you come across anything like this before?” Stone asked.

“No.” She looked around the dim space for a minute, brow furrowed in confusion. “It’s almost as if … but, no, it couldn’t be.” She peered again at the chest. “If only I could get a better look at this.”

“Kowinsky!” Valentino bawled. “What’s up with those lights?”

“Not enough room to get them through this opening, sir,” came the disembodied voice of Kowinsky.

“You might want to take a look at those papyri,” Stone said to Tina. “Maybe they can shed some light on things.”

She nodded, moved away with her light.

Now Stone, followed by Dr. Rush, moved over to the series of small golden boxes set along the right-hand wall. Stone crouched down and began to carefully remove the top of the first with latex-gloved hands.

Logan watched, hugging himself against the chill and a feeling of growing dismay. Ever since entering the chamber, he had been aware of the malignant presence. It sensed them—he was sure of that—but the overpowering evil he had felt several times before was being held in check for the time being. It was almost as if it was watching, waiting … and biding its time. He reached into his duffel, pulled out the air ion counter, and swept it slowly around. The air in here was significantly more ionized than normal—in fact, the air had grown increasingly ionized as they’d penetrated deeper into the tomb. What this meant he wasn’t certain.

Stone had removed the top of the box. Reaching in, he gingerly pulled something out: a curl of metal, beaten very thin. “It appears to be native copper,” he said. “There are at least half a dozen small sheets of it in here.” Moving on to the next box, he removed its lid, peered inside, then pulled out something that in the faint light looked
almost like a small bayonet, brownish and badly corroded. “Looks like iron,” he said.

“If so, it’s probably meteoric iron,” Tina said, drawn back from the papypri. “And it would be the earliest known use of iron among the Egyptians by at least a few hundred years.”

But Stone had already moved on to the third box. He opened it, placed a hand inside, then removed it again. In his cupped palm he held dozens of thin filaments of beaten gold, tangled together like Christmas tinsel.

“What the
hell
?” he muttered.

Tina Romero stepped over to the black-edged urn. She carefully lifted it, shone her flashlight inside. “Empty,” she said. Then she raised it to her nose, took a gingerly sniff. “Odd. It smells sour, like—like vinegar.”

Stone came over, took it from her, smelled it also. “You’re right.” He handed it back.

“Bands of copper, iron spikes, filaments of gold,” Logan said. “What could this all mean?”

“I don’t know,” Stone said. “But
that
will answer all your questions—and more.” He pointed at the onyx-colored chest that stood in the center of the chamber. “That will be what makes all our careers—and puts me in the history books as the greatest archaeologist of all time.”

“You think …” Rush paused. “You think the crowns of Egypt are in that chest?”

“I
know
they are. It’s the only answer. It’s the final secret of the final chamber of Narmer’s tomb.” Stone turned to Valentino. “Frank? Have your men give me a hand with this.”

Slowly—as if possessed by a single thought—the group drew together, forming a silent ring around the ebony chest.

47

Amanda Richards walked into the forensic archaeology lab and turned on the overhead lights with a flick of her fingers. She stood in the doorway a moment, taking in the racks of instrumentation, the carefully scrubbed lab desks and work surfaces. Then she stepped over to a table in one corner. The room smelled faintly of formaldehyde and other chemical preservatives—and, more chillingly, of sulfur.

Taking a seat at the table, she plucked a folder from beneath her arm and opened it. For several minutes, she examined the sheets within: X-ray fluorescence reports, the all-important CT scans, radiographies, and a brief summary analysis by Christina Romero, all pertaining to the same subject: the mummy of King Narmer.

Closing the folder, Richards sat still a moment, going through a mental checklist. Then she stood up and began assembling the
tools she would need: scalpels, archival-quality linen thread, forceps, Teflon needles, fiberglass trays, scraps of ancient flaxen bandages taken from mummified remains too badly decayed or damaged to merit forensic intervention. With her tools assembled, she walked over to the corpse locker in the adjoining wall, grasped its handle, and—gingerly—drew out the mummified remains of King Narmer.

The corpse locker was similar to the ones in the storage area, where Fenwick March had been killed during his attempt to loot Narmer’s mummy, with a single difference: this locker was equipped with an atmosphere of inert gas, nitrogen. Since March had violated the mummy so roughly, tearing the bandages and disturbing its internal microclimate, every attempt had to be made to prevent further decay or decomposition. That, in fact, was the reason Richards was here—to repair, as best she could, the damage March had caused and prepare the mummy for shipment, until a more careful and extensive restoration could be done at Porter Stone’s lab complex outside London.

She swung down the stabilizing leg from beneath the locker, fixing its end to the floor. Then, pulling on latex gloves and a surgical mask, she carefully examined the mummy. Earlier in the day, technicians had removed the compounds in the mummy’s windings that formed the ancient booby trap by exposing the mummy to a negative airflow chamber. Nevertheless, Richards handled the corpse with the utmost caution.

She continued examining the mummy, taking note of the damage to the bandaged hands, head, and—most extensively—the chest. She found herself still struggling with the idea that Fenwick March—one of the most revered archaeologists in the world—could have done something like this: not only robbing a mummy, but in such a crude, unprofessional manner. It was amazing, the deadly lure of ancient treasure. March had been studying it, handling it, all his life. Perhaps this find—the Pharaoh Narmer—had finally been too much for him. It was the straw, the golden straw, that broke the camel’s back.

She swung a UV light into place over the mummy. It might be callous to think so, but a part of her was relieved March was out of the
way. He had always been a tyrannical presence in the archaeology labs, micromanaging everything and everybody, insisting things be done his way, blustering and bullying and complaining. This was the second time Amanda Richards had worked with him, and he’d been much worse this time out. Perhaps it was all of a piece with whatever mind-set had prompted him to loot the mummy. She shrugged. All she knew for sure was that—had he lived, had somebody else been the one to violate Narmer’s corpse—March would have been looking over her shoulder right now, scowling, second-guessing her every move and telling her how she was doing it all wrong.

As it was, the forensic archaeology lab was delightfully calm and silent.

She moved the UV light slowly over the mummy. Remains of mummy varnish fluoresced a pale gold under the light. Dark patches, where the technicians had stabilized the sticky glycerol with an inert compound to render it harmless, were scattered here and there throughout the upper layers of bandages, torn open by March in his feverish search for grave goods.

Richards snapped off the light and put it aside. Narmer’s chest was the most badly damaged area—she would begin her restoration work there.

Wheeling over a powerful surgical lamp, she aimed it at the chest and began examining the damage with a jeweler’s loupe. March had sliced right through the bandages, exposing numerous layers after the fashion of geologic strata. The anepigraphic scarab had been removed by March, but numerous other, smaller treasures peeped out from the layers of wrappings: beads and faience amulets and golden trinkets and the other items forming the “magic armor” that served to protect Narmer in his journey to the next world.

She shook her head, tut-tutting under her breath. March had made such a hash of the bandages covering Narmer’s chest that she would have to unwrap still more of them before she could even think of putting them back into any sort of order.

Using the forceps, she carefully pulled back the edges of the disturbed wrappings, exposing the deeper layers, tangled and somewhat
shredded from the effects of Narmer’s booby trap. Putting aside the forceps and taking up the scalpel, she cut away first one, then a second wrapping, freeing them from the tangle and pulling them away. She hated to do it, but there was no other way to restore the damage. Narmer’s body had been so carefully wrapped, and March had been so hasty and reckless in tearing at those wrappings, that it was like trying to realign the rubber bands around the core of a golf ball.

Taking a fresh grip on the scalpel, she sliced through yet another layer of the linen bandages. Now Narmer’s actual flesh was exposed to the light, covered by a thin cloth and a golden chest piece, which itself had become dislodged, probably by the chemical reaction. That was not good—it might be pressing improperly against the flesh, perhaps damaging it further. She would need to reseat it upon Narmer’s chest. Then she could begin the work of sewing back the layers of bandages with linen thread, and—in places where the original wrappings had decayed or become too brittle—replacing them with her supply of ancient flax wrappings. Then she could move on to the head and the hands, where the work should go much faster. In three hours—four at the most—Narmer’s mummy would again be whole and stabilized for transfer to England.

Putting down the scalpel, she very carefully reached through the layers of cut bandages and gently grasped the edges of the golden chest piece. The surrounding tissue, she noted with approval, was in excellent condition given its great age: gray and desiccated, with no sign of deliquescence. The chest piece, however, was difficult to budge, and she was forced to apply additional pressure. Finally, it shifted, coming free of Narmer’s body with a dry snick.

Richards lifted it slightly, preparing to reseat it properly and sew the bandages over it. But then she stopped abruptly, rooted in place by surprise and shock.

With the chest piece freed from its original position, the flesh of Narmer’s chest was laid bare. And as Richards looked down at the body, she saw—in the pitiless fluorescent light of the laboratory—a wrinkled, shrunken, desiccated, and yet unmistakable
female breast
.

48

As the rest of the group watched in rapt silence, Stone stepped up to the large onyx chest. Valentino’s roustabouts came up to stand on either side of him. Stone hesitated briefly, then knelt before the plinth and let one latex-gloved hand brush gently across the upper surface of the chest. His shoulders trembled visibly. He pulled the gloves from his hands—Rush, Logan noted, made no protest at this—and caressed the chest once again. Despite what he’d implied about the chest holding the answer to all Narmer’s secrets, Stone seemed to be in no hurry to open it.

Standing back in the darkness, watching, Logan understood. He remembered the speech Stone had given to the assembled troops, describing his first archaeological discovery: the Native American settlement everyone else had missed. He remembered the gleam in Stone’s eye when he’d first met him, disguised as an
elderly local researcher, that day in the Cairo museum when he’d said:
work quickly
. Over his illustrious career, Stone had uncovered almost incontrovertible evidence of the existence of Camelot. He’d recovered traces of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, whom historians had always consigned to myth. And yet in discovering the tomb of Narmer, he had outdone even himself. Logan knew that Stone held Flinders Petrie, father of modern archaeology, with a respect that bordered on reverence. And yet now Stone had accomplished what had eluded even Petrie. With the discovery of Narmer’s crown, he would take his place in the highest circle of his profession—a circle reserved for one. His detractors would be forever silenced. Stone would become, for all time, the world’s greatest archaeologist.

Silently, Stone ran his hands around the top of the chest, then along its sides, his spidery fingers moving this way and that, almost like a phrenologist analyzing a skull. “Tina,” he said at last, his voice breaking the silence, “a scalpel, please.”

Tina moved forward and handed Stone the thin, straight blade. He nodded his thanks, then gently applied the scalpel to the strips of gold that lined the chest. Logan had assumed these strips to be mere inlaid decoration; instead, they appeared to be bands of precious metal holding the chest closed by ritual seals. Having cut through them, Stone peeled the bands away from the chest, then laid them carefully aside. A single band of gold remained, holding the elaborately bejeweled serekh in place on the chest’s upper surface; another careful notch of the scalpel cut through this as well, and Stone gently placed both it and its attached serekh by the base of the plinth. Then he rose and nodded to the roustabouts. The two positioned themselves on each side of the chest. At Stone’s direction, each grasped an edge of the lid and began to lift it. Although the lid could not have been more than two inches thick, the roustabouts could barely budge it from its position; Valentino and one of the security guards came forward to lend a hand. With great effort, the four raised the lid from the chest, moved it to an uncluttered area of the tomb, and—with a chorus of grunts—laid it on the floor. It hit the
black surface with a dull thud that reverberated throughout chamber three.