This time, when Jeremy Logan descended to the air lock platform at the bottom of the Umbilicus, it was so crowded there was almost no room for him to stand. He counted ten others, including Tina Romero, Ethan Rush, Stone, Valentino--in person, for a change--two of March's archaeologists, two roustabouts, and two security guards. He nodded at the a.s.sembled group. Several--Rush, Stone, the archaeologists--looked rather drawn and ashen. The mood was serious, tense, with little of the fraught antic.i.p.ation he'd noticed during his first descent to the tomb.

Logan understood why Rush would look upset--Jennifer was still comatose, having slipped into some kind of hypnotic trance from which she could not be immediately wakened--but not the others.

"Where's Dr. March?" he asked, looking around. n.o.body answered.

"Are we ready?" Stone asked after another minute. There was a scattering of nods, murmured a.s.sents.

"Then let's get started." As he spoke, Stone took Logan by the arm and went on ahead of the others, moving into chamber one. When they were several steps inside, he leaned in close to Logan. "March is dead," he muttered.

Logan looked at him, shocked. "Dead?"

Stone nodded. His lips were pressed together so tightly they were barely visible. "He snuck into the archaeology lab late last night and violated Narmer's mummy. Unwrapped the bandages, started looting the corpse of the treasures bound into its windings. There was a small explosion, a fire ..."

"An explosion?" Logan repeated.

"Two different chemicals were secreted in the strata of Narmer's bandages. I've been informed that, separately, they are inert, but when mixed together--well, they act like an ancient version of napalm."

"You mean, a b.o.o.by trap? What kind of chemicals? How could it still be effective after all these centuries?"

"My people are still a.n.a.lyzing things, but clearly the compounds were highly stable. Some kind of pota.s.sium derivative, it seems, with a primitive form of glycerol or glycol as the antagonist." Stone glanced back at the others, who were approaching. "Look, Jeremy--only a few know about this. We're keeping it quiet, for reasons of morale, and ... other things."

"Any idea what his motive was?" Logan asked. "Surely it wasn't simple venality."

"It's too early to tell. But it just might be as depressingly simple as that. I've started conducting some inquiries back in the States. It seems March had run up staggering debts over the last year, living far beyond his means. He might have been in the employ of one of my rivals, trying to spook our workers, faking up elements of the curse. Or maybe he was just hoping to line his pockets with as much gold and jewels as possible." He sighed. "I should have had him vetted again, like everybody else. But I'd worked with him so often before. I trusted him."

Logan nodded toward the tomb that stretched ahead of them. "Are you sure you don't want to postpone this?"

Another, brusquer shake of the head. "We can't. With the dam so far ahead of schedule, we can expect an official delegation to visit any day now to discuss the termination of our stay here--and we're too advanced in our work for any more dissembling. We have to remove what grave goods we can and leave before it's too late."

Remove what grave goods we can. Logan glanced in the direction of Tina Romero. It seemed that, even from beyond the grave, March's acquisitiveness had rubbed off on Stone. Logan wondered what the Egyptologist would think of this.

As the others a.s.sembled around them, Logan glanced over chamber one. His eyes stopped at the heavy, ornamental bed, now in ruins, its canopy collapsed onto the sleeping platform. There were still a few dried bloodstains marking the spot where the luckless Robert Carmody had met his end. The heavy gold bolts holding the canopy in place had been deliberately loosened--had that been March's handiwork, too--prepping them for later removal?

The hand that touches my immortal form will burn with unquenchable fire--Narmer's words, once again. And, once again, the curse seemed to be coming true. Ironic, he thought--if March had been giving Narmer's curse a boost of his own here and there, it had ultimately played out in a way the archaeologist would never, ever have desired.

Silently, the group made their way toward the opened gate in the rear that led to the next chamber. Chamber two was also almost completely empty; the only things remaining were the two shrines, physically built into the structure of the chamber, and the immense blue granite sarcophagus at the center. Logan glanced again at Tina Romero. Her expression was set, unreadable.

Rush came up and Logan turned to him. "How's Jennifer?"

The doctor looked as if he hadn't slept in a long time. "We've moved her to the medical suite. Her vitals are strong, and she's stable. I'm uncertain why she hasn't regained consciousness."

"Do you think it could be a reaction to the stress of that last crossing? Some kind of hysteric catatonia?"

"I sincerely doubt it. She's never shown any indications of that before."

Logan looked around. "I a.s.sume it was you who p.r.o.nounced March--right?"

Rush's bleak look grew bleaker still. "My G.o.d. What a thing."

Stone had moved ahead to the golden wall at the rear of chamber two. It looked the same as the other three walls, save the large seals placed along one edge and the design embossed in the gold. As Logan drew closer, he was able to make out the image: a huge, leering face that--disconcertingly, unlike the normal profiles seen in Egyptian art--was staring directly at them, seemingly half jackal, half human. The rest of the wall, Logan now noticed, was covered with very faint hieroglyphics, beautifully and cunningly embossed in the precious metal.

"Tina?" Stone murmured. "Can you make out the message in those glyphs?"

Romero drew closer. "It's the final part of the curse, repeated over and over," she said after a brief examination. " 'Should any in their temerity pa.s.s the third gate, then the black G.o.d of the deepest pit will seize him, and his limbs will be scattered to the uttermost corners of the earth. And I, Narmer the Everliving, will torment him and his, by day and by night, waking and sleeping, until madness and death become his eternal temple.' "

A brief silence settled over the collective company.

"And that image?" Stone asked. "That G.o.d-face?"

"I've never seen anything like it," Romero answered.

"What about the seals?"

"Royal seals. Like the others we've seen, only much larger and more ornate. Serekhs, with echoes of the curse woven in among the primitive symbols for the pharaoh's name."

Super seals, Logan thought to himself.

"The ground-penetrating radar readings for the room beyond were anomalous," Stone said. "According to the scans, it's as if there's nothing in there--which, of course, can't be right." He stared at the wall for a moment, lost in thought. Then he recovered himself. "All right," he said, turning to Rush. "Go ahead, Ethan."

The group waited in silence as the doctor drilled a test hole in the gold, inserted his instruments, sampled the air beyond, and p.r.o.nounced it safe. Then Stone himself stepped up to the seals, and--with Romero standing by with an artifact storage container--carefully cut through first the upper necropolis seal and then the lower, more ornate royal seal. As he carefully pried them away from the gold sheeting, there was a loud click, followed by a sighing, grinding sound, and to Logan's surprise the entire rear wall pivoted inward about two feet, like a door moving on hinges. The group stepped back in unison, and there were gasps of consternation. But when nothing else occurred, Stone stepped forward once again--a little gingerly--and shone his light into the blackness of chamber three. After a moment, he glanced back at the roustabouts.

"Stabilize this entrance," he told them. "Then we're going in."

46.

Once again, Stone went in first, barely waiting for the roustabouts to complete testing the integrity of the entranceway. His movements were quick, even brusque, as if the recent troubles--and the ticking clock--had given him an unseemly sense of haste. He ducked past the workers and through the narrow opening, disappearing beyond the wall of the third gate. For a moment, all was silent; the only indication anyone was in chamber three was the reflected glow of Stone's flashlight, lancing here and there through the darkness. Then Logan heard Stone clear his throat.

"Tina? Ethan? Dr. Logan? Valentino?" he called in a strange voice. "Please come in."

Logan followed the others through the gap in the wall and into the final chamber. At first, he thought his flashlight was malfunctioning--it didn't seem to provide any illumination. And then he realized: the entire chamber was clad in what appeared to be onyx, walls and floor and ceiling, black and unreflective. The stone seemed to soak up their flashlight beams, pulling the light from them and leaving the small chamber so dim that its contents could barely be made out.

"Jesus," Tina said, shivering. "How creepy."

"Is that your professional opinion, Tina?" Stone asked.

"Kowinsky," Valentino called out through the gap in the third gate. "Bring up one of those sodium vapor lamps."

For a moment, everyone fell quiet, examining the chamber. To Logan, it did seem remarkably bare, compared to the opulent rooms that had come before. There was a single ornamental table placed along the left wall, enameled in gold, containing a dozen papyri, each carefully rolled and set in a line. In the rear of the chamber was what looked like a small bed, quite narrow, that had once been covered by some kind of linen coverlet and a pillow, both now sadly decomposed. Across from the table, placed along the floor by the opposing wall, were three small boxes--apparently of solid gold--along with a single urn.

But everyone's attention quickly turned to the artifact sitting in the center of the room. It was a large chest, about four feet square, fashioned of some black stone--perhaps onyx again--and set upon a fantastically carved plinth of dark, dense wood. Its edges were lined in strips of gold. On its sides were reproductions of several of the designs they had already seen in chamber one--the box-shaped artifact topped by an iron rod; the bowl-like object trailing wisps of gold from its edges. But this time, the images were fashioned out of a mult.i.tude of brilliantly colored gemstones, set into the surface of the chest. Across its top was an elaborately fashioned serekh.

"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 pa.s.sage to the next world, the Field of Offerings."

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

"No." She looked around the dim s.p.a.ce 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 h.e.l.l?" 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 a.s.sembling the tools she would need: scalpels, archival-quality linen thread, forceps, Teflon needles, fibergla.s.s trays, sc.r.a.ps of ancient flaxen bandages taken from mummified remains too badly decayed or damaged to merit forensic intervention. With her tools a.s.sembled, 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 b.o.o.by 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, bl.u.s.tering 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 b.o.o.by 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 a.s.sembled 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 a.n.a.lyzing a skull. "Tina," he said at last, his voice breaking the silence, "a scalpel, please."