"Good lord," March murmured.

Tina had lowered the video camera to take a closer look. "Half those gemstones weren't even known to the ancient Egyptians," she said. "At least, not so early."

"Narmer must have established trade routes that collapsed after his rule ended," Stone replied, still in a quiet voice.

Tina licked dry lips. The splendor was so overwhelming she realized she was in denial. It was physically impossible to take it all in.

Stone glanced at Tina. "What about those two shrines? I've never seen quite such configurations before."

"I'd have to examine them more closely. But I think perhaps they form a double function. Not only are they shrines, but they are symbolic of the greatest test Narmer would face in his pa.s.sage through the Underworld: the Hall of Two Truths--a.s.suming that belief system had been developed in such an early era. But then again, they seem unique--such a dual purpose must have been lost in the dynasties following Narmer's."

"Symbolic, you say?" Stone repeated.

"Almost as if they were to be used in a simulation of the Hall of Two Truths. A dry run, so to speak."

"But that's unheard-of," said March.

Tina waved a hand around the tomb, as if to say, Isn't that true of everything here?

The roustabouts were now busy a.s.sembling the stainless-steel hoist. The security guard attached the winch to it, and then--at a nod from Stone--fired up the motor. A roar filled the room before settling back to a low grumble. The roustabouts fixed the hoists' grappling hooks to the edges of the sarcophagus lid, then--moving at a snail's pace--they raised the lid from the coffin, swung it to the side, and placed it gingerly on the floor.

The security guard killed the motor and everyone--even the roustabouts--drew closer. Inside the sarcophagus was a shroud made of unknown material, woven into a complex design. Stone reached out a hand to touch it. As his glove made contact with the shroud, it crumbled away, disintegrating into gray dust.

A low murmur of dismay rose from the group, quickly changing to gasps of surprise. Through the dust, a coffin was visible within the sarcophagus--a coffin of solid gold, its face carved into the effigy of a splendidly robed king.

Without a word, Stone and March picked up the inner coffin lid by its handles and pulled it aside. Within lay a mummy, thickly covered in winding sheets. Lotus petals were strewn across its upper surface. Over the face lay a golden mask, beaten into the shape of the G.o.d-king's commanding, almost forbidding visage.

A faint smell of dust and decay rose from the mummy, but Tina did not notice it. She bent in closer, filming, heart beating fast.

"Narmer," Stone whispered.

39.

"Ethan tells me that you never talk about your near-death experience," Logan said.

Jennifer Rush nodded. They were seated across from each other in Logan's office. It was very late at night, and Maroon--in fact, the entire Station--seemed intensely silent. He had skipped the descent into chamber two in order to prepare for this meeting. Something inside him sensed that, in the short term, it was more important for his work--and, perhaps, for Jennifer Rush's well-being.

"I'm sure you of all people realize how unusual that is," he went on. "Most who've undergone an NDE like to discuss it. Your husband's research, in fact, is built on that willingness to talk."

Still Jennifer did not speak. She lifted her eyes to his briefly, then looked away.

"Listen," Logan said in a gentle voice, "I'm sorry for the things I said to you earlier. I'd a.s.sumed your abilities were--well, that they were a gift. That was a naive a.s.sumption."

"It's all right," she replied at last. "Everyone else a.s.sumes the same thing. It's all they talk about at the Center--what a revelation they've had, how indescribably wonderful it was, how the experience made them appreciate G.o.d, how it changed their lives."

"Your life has changed, too--but, I sense, not in the way theirs have."

"They hold me up as some kind of poster child," she said, the faintest hint of bitterness in her voice. "I'm the wife of the Center's founder, I experienced the longest NDE of anybody ever tested, my psychic abilities are the strongest. I know how important this work is to Ethan, I want to help him any way I can. It's just that ..."

"It's just that--if you spoke of your experience--you fear it might have a negative impact on the Center."

She looked at him again, and Logan could read anxiety, even a kind of desperation, in her amber-colored eyes. "Ethan's told me of--of your work," she said. "The kind of things you've done in the past. Somehow I thought you'd understand. You'd believe. I've just never had anyone else I could speak to about this. Ethan ... I don't think he'd want to hear it. It's so counter to everything he's--" She stopped.

"I'll do whatever I can to help."

When she didn't respond, Logan continued. "I know it's difficult, but I think the best thing would be for you to tell me, in as much detail as you can, exactly what you experienced, that day three years ago."

Jennifer shook her head. "I don't think I can do that."

"Share it with me. If you bring it out in the open, it may lose its ability to disturb you."

"Disturb," she repeated mirthlessly.

"Look, Jennifer--may I call you Jennifer? I'm an empath--I'll experience it, too, at least in part. I'll be there every step of the way. If things get too difficult, we'll stop."

She looked at him. "You promise that?"

"Yes."

"And you really think this might help?"

"The more you can confront it, the easier it will be for you to deal with."

She was silent for a moment. Then she nodded slowly. "All right."

Logan reached for his duffel, rummaged around inside it, found his digital timer, and placed it on his desk. "I'll turn out the lights. I want you to sit back in your chair, get as comfortable as you can."

He stood up, shut the door of his office, turned off the lights. Now the room was illuminated only by the timer and the glow of his laptop screen. He returned to his chair and took her hands in his.

"Now just relax. There's no hurry. Think back to what you remember happening, during and after the car accident. Start when you're ready. Relate the experience to me in real time, if possible. Use the clock as a guide."

He sat forward and fell silent. For a long time, he heard nothing but Jennifer's regular breathing. So much time pa.s.sed, in fact, that he wondered if she had fallen asleep. Then--out of the darkness--she spoke.

"I was in my car," she began. "I was driving down Ship Street, near Brown University. All of a sudden this SUV--it was blue, with a big black push bar on the front grille--swerved out of the oncoming lane and hit me."

She swallowed, took a deep breath, then continued. "There was this terrible impact, a crashing noise, an instant of pain, a flash of white. Then, for a long, long moment--nothing."

Logan reached over, set the timer to fourteen minutes--the amount of time Jennifer Rush had been clinically dead.

"The next thing I remember was my head feeling uncomfortably ... well, full. I don't really know how else to describe it. Then there was this buzzing noise. It started very softly and slowly grew louder. It frightened me. And then all of a sudden it stopped, and I found myself moving very quickly down a dark pa.s.sageway. I wasn't walking or running--I remember I was being pulled. And then there was another flash of white. For a moment, nothing more. And then I was ... I was hovering over a hospital bed, looking down at myself, lying on a gurney. It was odd, that hovering: I wasn't exactly still; I was moving slightly, up and down, as if floating in a swimming pool. Doctors and nurses were standing around. Ethan was there. He--he had defib paddles in his hands. They were all talking."

"Do you remember what they were saying?" Logan asked.

Jennifer thought for a moment. "One of them said: 'Hypovolemic shock. We never had a chance.' "

"Go on," Logan urged.

"For a moment I felt this terrible need to get back into my body. But I was helpless; there was nothing I could do. So I just watched them. Very quickly, the feeling of need went away. After that, I felt nothing--no pain, no fear, nothing. And then--slowly--my body, the doctors, everything, faded away. And I began to feel this immense sense of peace."

"Describe it to me," Logan said.

"I'd never felt anything like it before. It was as if my entire being, my very essence, was suffused with well-being. At that moment I knew nothing could go wrong ever again."

Logan closed his eyes. He sensed it, too--as if from a great distance. "As if you were surrounded by love."

"Yes. Exactly." She paused. "I seemed to feel that way for a long time."

She went silent. Logan waited, holding her hands in his as the time ticked down. Over six minutes had elapsed--already, longer than most NDEs.

"I was in blackness, but I sensed that I was moving again. Then, ahead in the distance, I saw something. It was a golden border, or barrier, of some sort. There seemed to be nothing beyond it. And someone ... something ... was standing before it."

"A being," Logan said. "A Being of Light."

"Yes. I couldn't see its face--not clearly, anyway--the light was too bright. I thought it might be an angel, but it had no wings. I sensed somehow that it was smiling at me."

"Yes," Logan whispered. He could make it out, too, barely: a shimmering, spectral vision of unearthly beauty. It was from this being that the boundless love seemed to be streaming in endless waves.

"I sensed it was speaking to me. Not out loud but in my head. It was asking me a question."

"Can you tell me what the question was?" Logan asked--but already he could guess the answer.

"It was asking me whether I was content with what I'd done with my life. If I had done enough."

Logan nodded. So far, everything Jennifer had mentioned--the out-of-body experience, the dark tunnel, the Being of Light, the borderland, the "life review"--was consistent with other NDEs. He glanced at the timer. Over ten minutes had pa.s.sed. This was longer--he knew from a cursory examination of the CTS doc.u.ments--than any other near-death experience recorded at the Center.

"The Being asked the question again," she said. "As it did, I saw my life--from early childhood, things I hadn't thought about or even remembered for decades--flash before me. And then ..." She swallowed again. "And then it started."

Logan took tighter grasp of her hands. "Tell me."

Even in the dark room, he could see the beautiful lines of her oval face become strained. "The Being said a single word: 'Insufficient.' And then it ... changed."

Her breathing grew a little labored.

"Just relax," Logan said. "Describe it to me. How did the Being change?"

"At first, it was just a sensation I had. I felt the inexpressible, endless love begin to die away. So did the warmth, the well-being, the joy. It was so slow, so subtle, I didn't realize it at first. But when I did realize it, I suddenly felt ... exposed. And then the Being ... grew dark. The bright light dimmed. And now I could see its face."

For a moment, an image appeared in Logan's mind: a face, leering, hirsute, goatish.

Jennifer's breathing grew more rapid. "Suddenly, the border ahead of me ... began to change, too. It was no longer golden. It wavered, become wet somehow. It looked like a curtain of blood. Then ... and then it melted away." Her voice began to tremble. "And beyond ... beyond ..."

"Go on," Logan barely whispered.

"Beyond lay ... lay the screaming dark. I tried to run, to get away. But I was being pulled in, I couldn't fight. And then it was too late. There was no light, there was no air. I couldn't breathe. There were ... bodies, all around me, invisible, slippery, sliding past me. Screaming, always screaming. I was hemmed in by the bodies, I couldn't move. I felt ..." She was gasping now. "I felt a terrible pressure. A pressure inside me. As if the very essence of my being was getting sucked away ... And always he was laughing.... And then I felt the edge of the--the ... oh, G.o.d!"

And suddenly, Logan sensed it again: the malignant, demonic presence; the endless enmity and hatred and rage. It was a tangible thing that almost pushed him back in his chair.

"Jesus!" he said, jerking violently, breaking contact with Jennifer.

She gasped. For a moment, the office was quiet. And then she dissolved into racking sobs.

Logan embraced her gently. "It's all right," he said. "It's going to be all right."

But she only continued to weep.

40.

Robert Carmody stood in the dust-scented confines of chamber one, moodily playing with the focus ring on the lens of his digital camera. Nearby, Payne Whistler was kneeling on the newly cleaned floor, holding a carved tablet in a gloved hand.

"Item A three forty-nine," Whistler murmured into a pocket recorder. "Tablet. Polished limestone." He pulled out a ruler, measured the object carefully. "Seven centimeters by nine and a half centimeters." He scrutinized the tablet's face for a minute. "It appears to be an invocation for the pharaoh's safe journey to the next kingdom."

He made a few additional remarks, then gently placed the tablet on a white linen cloth that lay nearby. "All right, Bob," he said.

With a sigh, Carmody wheeled over a freestanding light, then leaned in, focused his camera on the tablet, snapped a dozen shots from different angles, bracketing the exposures. Then he straightened up and reviewed his work on the camera's LED screen. "Another masterpiece."

Whistler nodded, then picked up the tablet, tagged it, carefully wrapped it in a fresh cloth, and placed it in a plastic evidence locker. Carmody jotted down the photo reference numbers in a small notebook.

"Jesus," he said, flipping the notebook closed. "We've been here--what--three hours already? And not one interesting d.a.m.n piece."

Whistler glanced at him. "You kidding? All this stuff is interesting. More than interesting--these are the grave goods of the first pharaoh of unified Egypt."

Carmody scoffed. "Listen to you. You're starting to sound like Romero."

Whistler stood up, brushed his pants back into place. "You have to be patient. If you wanted instant gratification, you picked the wrong profession."

"What profession? You're the archaeologist."

"Surveyor," Whistler corrected.

"I'm a photographer. I've been here three weeks now. Can't call home, can't order in a pizza, can't even go for a d.a.m.n jog."

"There's all the pizza you could ever eat in the mess. And the exercise room has plenty of treadmills."

"Can't get HBO. Can't play World of Warcraft. Can't get laid."

"Well, that's your problem." Whistler set the evidence locker aside.