“Yes, sir!” Jensen said.
Harley still hung back. “You’re neither obsessive nor old,” she insisted. “Okay, wait. Maybe you are obsessive. Anyway, we’ll be back by nine or so, and like I said, I’ll bring you something delicious.”
“Sounds lovely! See you soon.”
And at last, Harley and Jensen left.
Dr. Henry Tomlinson turned his attention back to Unknown Mummy #1 for several long moments. Many pharaohs and royalty and even esteemed but lesser men, like Amenmose, ended up with unknowns in their tombs—servants needed in the next life.
Almost the entire lid of the coffin had been torn open. That afternoon, two of the students had painstakingly cleared out the rubble around the mummy. But Henry felt as if he was indeed looking at remnants featured in a B horror flick; the thing really did appear to be a man who’d been wrapped up with his mouth open in horror, left to silently scream into eternity.
Mummies weren’t wrapped like this alive. Unless, of course...
He’d never been intended to be a mummy?
He’d been a murder victim.
Could this unidentified mummy be Amenmose himself? he wondered excitedly. They hadn’t identified the man’s tomb.
Great question, but it wasn’t scientific to jump to conclusions. X-rays would give them an image of the insides—and that would probably tell them if the facial contortions had happened because of some accident in the drying process or if he had somehow been wrapped alive!
No, it couldn’t be Amenmose, Henry decided. According to the ancient texts and all the information at his disposal, Amenmose had died before burial. Besides, they’d discovered one coffin in an inner tomb, deep in a hidden recess—again, just as the ancient texts had said. Amenmose’s enemies might have defiled his tomb if those who loved him hadn’t concealed his remains. The mummy here, found in the outer chamber, couldn’t be Amenmose—not unless there was a great deal they were missing! “Sorry, old boy. Lord only knows what happened to you,” Henry told the mummy.
“Hey!”
The inner flap to the preparation tent opened again. Henry looked over to see that it was Alchemy’s director at large, Ned Richter.
He was smiling. As he should have been. Their day had been fantastic.
“Hey,” Henry said. He liked Richter okay. Although not an Egyptologist himself, the man was studious and yet always ready help out with manual labor when needed.
Henry didn’t like Richter’s wife, Vivian, so much. She was an Egyptologist, too—at least in her own mind, he thought with a snort. Okay, so she did have her master’s degree from Brown; she was just annoying as hell and she didn’t think clearly or reason anything out. She was an attractive enough woman with short dark hair and dark eyes, and she claimed the maternal side of her father’s family had been Egyptian.
She liked to pretend that she knew what she was talking about.
She seldom did.
“Just checking on you!” Richter said.
Henry heard Vivian speaking behind her husband. “Tell him to come with us. We’ll get some food and drinks.”
“Hey, Viv!” Henry called out. “I’m good tonight. Going to work. And a couple of the students are picking me up something to eat. Listen,” he added in a more affable voice, “can’t wait till you and I have a chance to talk tomorrow. We can compare notes then!”
“Can’t you make him come?” Henry heard Vivian whisper.
“No,” Richter said flatly. “He’s head of the examination and prep all the way through the removal to Cairo—by Alchemy and the Egyptian government. As you know,” he muttered.
“See you in the morning!” Henry called pleasantly. Yes!
But he’d barely turned around before he heard the inner tent flap opening again.
This time, it was Arlo Hampton, the Egyptologist who’d been employed specifically by Alchemy to watch over their investment.
Arlo was young—tall, straight and a little skinny. He preferred his thick glasses to contact lenses. Good thing for Arlo that nerds were in; he was, beyond a doubt, a nerd. But a friendly and outgoing nerd. He loved Egyptology, and yet, unlike certain other people, he wasn’t full of himself or convinced that he knew everything.
“Hey, I knew you’d be alone with the treasures, snug as a bug in a rug!” Arlo told him cheerfully. There was something slightly guilty in his voice. “I wanted to make sure you were okay, though.”
“I’m great. And, of course, if you want to join me...”
“I’m beat, Henry. I’m what? Thirty years younger than you? I don’t know how you do it. I’m going to have a sandwich with the grad students when Harley and Jensen get back, and then hit my bunk until tomorrow. If that’s okay. I mean, I should be like you, hard at work... Oh, I did just meet Belinda’s boyfriend on Skype. Seems like a decent guy. So Belinda, Roger and Joe are taking care of their personal business, and then we’re all going to meet and after that—”
“I saw Harley and Jensen. They’ll bring me food. You’re fine, Arlo. Have a nice night.”
“Yeah, thanks. Strange, though. Something doesn’t feel right his evening. Am I just being paranoid?”
“Yes. And shoo. Go on, Arlo. You worked hard today. And I’m an obsessive old bastard. Get out of here!”
Arlo grinned. He lifted his hands. “I’m gone!”
And, at last, he was.
Henry was thrilled. He even began singing Ariel’s song from the Disney movie The Little Mermaid.
He walked back over to Unknown Mummy #1. “Strange,” he said, shaking his head with perplexity as he studied the mummy. “Just who was he? And what brought him here in this state?”
But then he shrugged. He’d found “natural” mummies at other sites—servants who’d stood guard after burial rites and died where they collapsed after the tombs were sealed and they slowly asphyxiated.
Henry walked back over to his desk to dictate notes into a recorder for the exhibit, which would one day be based on this project. “The earliest Egyptians buried their dead in small pits in the desert sand. The sand and the heat naturally ‘mummified’ the dead. Later, to prevent animals from digging up the bodies, they resorted to creating coffins. Coffins kept out animals, but they didn’t allow for the natural mummification that had been occurring when the bodies had gone straight into the sand. So the Egyptians began to learn the art of embalming. They quickly discovered that the ‘wet’ parts of the body needed to be removed. That included the heart and lungs, brain and liver and other organs. These were stored in canopic jars, where they were guarded, just as the body was guarded, so the dead were protected and ready as they entered into the afterlife. The process became forty days of drying with natron, a form of salt. Of course, a body was never simply dried. It was adorned with oils at various stages and also treated with religious rites.”
Henry stopped speaking; he thought he’d heard something moving in the preparation tent. That was odd. The local guards and the staff who worked for Alchemy were weary and bored with the findings. Egyptians had been unearthing mummies forever and ever, and even the security force of Americans and Brits was more bored by the ancient than intrigued. Most of them had worked around the world. They were, in a word, jaded—and far more interested in the pay scale than the work itself.
He looked around the tent. Nothing. Everything as it had been. Crates and boxes and mummies and treasures!
He shook his head, impatient with himself. He was incredibly lucky to have this time alone in the preparation tent. He’d been the one to do the research and the calculations; he’d been the one who’d garnered the sponsorship that had provided the money for this expedition. His papers had raised significant interest. It was—yes, indeed—his baby.
But eventually Dr. Arlo Hampton would want his time here, his chance to study these mummies, these treasures. So wo
uld Yolanda Akeem, their liaison with the Department of Antiquities. Then, of course, there was Ned Richter...and his wife. He’d bet that Richter couldn’t care less if he got any time with the mummies and ancient treasures or not. Richter was there to guard Alchemy’s interests and, Henry suspected, to ensure that they looked as if they were being incredibly magnanimous to the Egyptian government. After all, Alchemy financed these expeditions, he was almost certain, for tax breaks—and the media attention and promotion they provided.
Fine. The excavation was a great success. And this was his time. His time alone with all his treasures!
He started to go back to his work, but he could’ve sworn he’d seen movement from the corner of his eye.
He stood up and walked around.
Nothing.
Henry sat back down and continued his recording.
“Ancient Egypt—”
There was something behind him!
He tried to spin about.
And he saw nothing but binding, the linen binding that had been used on the ancient dead, saw it wrapped around fingers and a hand, saw the fingers and the hand circle his neck and—
Fingers, like wire, clutching his throat, so powerful, so strong...
He fought their hold. Wriggled and squirmed. He tried to rise; he couldn’t. The pain was terrible. The world began to blacken before him; little dots of light exploded in the darkness. And all he could think was that—
The mummy!
The mummy had risen to kill him!
It was impossible. Impossible. Impossible...
He was a scientist. Rational. He didn’t believe.
He was a scientist...
And as the last electrons exploded against the stygian pit of his dying mind, he couldn’t help but think...
He was a scientist.
Being killed by an ancient Egyptian mummy.
It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t right.
Chapter One
One Year Later
The New Museum of Antiquity
New York City, New York
The moon that shone down through the skylights in the temple region of the museum created a stunning vision. Opalescent light shimmered on the marble and made it appear that the ribbon of “Nile” river by the temple was created of crystal and glass. The lights in the area were dim, designed to look as if they were burning torches set along the walls.
The exhibit in the New Museum of Antiquity was impressive—even to Harley, despite all the time she’d spent in the real Sahara. In designing this space, the organizers had also borrowed heavily from another famous NYC museum, all to the benefit of the Egyptian displays. Harley felt a sudden breeze from an air-conditioning vent, and she shivered.
“Mummy thing getting to you, huh?”
“Pardon?” Harley turned quickly to see the speaker. The words had been teasing; they’d also been spoken in a pleasantly deep, masculine voice.
The voice aroused a strange memory she couldn’t quite reach—and seemed to whisper to something inside her, far beneath her skin.
She hadn’t seen the speaker before, despite the fact that his voice seemed oddly familiar. Here, on opening night, she should’ve known most of the invited crowd. But she didn’t know him, and—as her chosen field of criminology had taught her—she studied anyone she didn’t recognize in a situation such as this evening’s event.
A soiree to celebrate the exhibition. This was opening night for the traveling exhibit that would, in the end, return to Egypt, where the precious artifacts of that country would then remain. But tonight they celebrated the very first time the exhibit had been seen! It would open to the public in the morning. It had, quite properly, been named in honor of Henry—the Henry Tomlinson Collection of Egyptian Culture and Art.
There would be toasts in his honor, of course.
This phenomenal display would not have been possible without him.
But Henry was gone, as much a part of history as his treasures.
She sensed that this man—with his deep, somehow familiar voice—was connected to Henry.
She definitely hadn’t seen him before.
He wasn’t the kind of man you forgot.
He was tall—well over six feet, she thought. Because she’d recently taken identification classes that taught criminologists to look for details to include in descriptions, she also noted that not only was he about six foot three, but he had excellent posture. Nicely muscled, too. She had no doubt that he was the kind of man who spent time in a gym, not to create impressive abs, but to train the complex human machine that was his most important tool.
How could she be so sure of this? she asked herself. And yet she was.
He wore a casual suit, no jewelry. He was freshly shaven, and kept his dark hair cropped close to his head.
Someone’s bodyguard?
Beneath the glimmer of the moon that showed through the skylights, she couldn’t quite ascertain the color of his eyes. She had a feeling they were light, despite the darkness of his hair.
Thirty-three to thirty-six years old, she estimated. Carefully nondescript clothing—dark blue suit, dark blue shirt, pin-striped tie in shades of blue and black. Sunglasses resting on head.
He moved closer to her; she was certain he’d been doing the same kind of study on her that she’d nearly completed on him.
No, she’d never seen him before, but she had heard his voice.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. You’re not afraid of mummies, right?” he asked again, his expression quizzical.
“No, not at all,” she assured him. “Ah, well, that’s a bit of a lie. I might be afraid of some of the bacteria that can be found in old tombs, but as for the mummies themselves...no. My dad was a cop, a very good one. He taught me to fear the living, not the dead.”
“Sounds like a bright man,” he said. He stepped toward her, offering his hand. “Micah. Micah Fox.”
She shook his hand. “Harley Frasier. How do you do? And pardon me, but who are you? Do I know you?”
He smiled. “Yes, and no. I’m an old student of Dr. Tomlinson’s,” he said. “I was at Brown when he was teaching there. About twelve years ago, I was lucky enough to join him on one of his expeditions. Back then, he was looking for the tomb of a princess from the Old Kingdom, Fifth Dynasty.” He paused, still smiling, and shrugged. “He found her, too—right now she’s in one of the display cases in a room not far from here, near the temple.” He stopped, studying her again, and asked, “Are you surprised by that?”
“No, no, I’m not. You don’t look like an Egyptologist,” Harley said. “Sorry! It’s not that Egyptologists look a certain way. I just—”
“It’s okay. I’m not an Egyptologist,” he told her. “I meant is it surprising that he found his princess? No, of course not. Henry was the best. But even though I began in archeology, I changed my major. I’m with the government now.”
“FBI?” Harley guessed.
He nodded.
“Something seems to be coming back. I’m not sure what,” she said. “I know your voice, but I don’t know you. I mean—”
“Yes, you know my voice. I guess I should start over. I called you soon after the incident when you were staying in Rome. Your group was shipped from place to place, and we were trying to get a handle on what happened. I’m the Fox from those phone calls. Special Agent Micah Fox—though I admit, I was working on my own, and not as assigned by the bureau. And I apologize, because I do know a lot about you, although it wasn’t appropriate to bring that up at the time. You’re Craig Frasier’s first cousin, and Craig and I have actually worked together. Of course, we’re in different offices now. Naturally, you’ve met a number of the men and women with the New York office. Craig told me you finished grad school, and you’re deciding what to do with a
ll your education—join up with NYPD’s finest, remain with the private agency employing you now, or go into a federal agency. But tonight, you’re here for the same reason I am, honoring our old professor. For one summer, you were an unofficial Egyptologist. And, as I just explained, you recognize my voice because we spoke on the phone. I’m Criminal Division, FBI. Right now, I’m assigned down in DC. I’ve taken some leave to be here.”
“I...see,” she said.
Did she?
No, not really.
Wait. Fox—yes, that was the name of the man she’d spoken with about Henry Tomlinson, just once, what now seemed like a lifetime ago.
These days, that time was mostly a blur. Maybe because she didn’t want to think of it. But she couldn’t stop her mind from rushing back to the night they’d returned to the camp, laughing and loaded down with food and drink for their professor, only to find him on the floor, along with the broken coffin and the “screaming” mummy. He’d been garroted by his own belt, eyes open and bulging, throat blackened and bruised, a swatch of ancient linen wrapped around it.
There’d been an immediate outcry. Security was convinced that no one from outside had been anywhere near the expedition tents; they kept a tight perimeter around the work area, which included the tents that had been set up for the staff. Egyptian police had come out, ready to help with the investigation.
Then, all hell had broken loose. The computer had picked up more chatter. And word had come that the fledgling, unaffiliated militant group calling themselves The Ancient Guard was bearing down on the expedition. Perhaps they intended to steal the artifacts to finance their cause. Not an uncommon scenario... It meant that everyone and everything needed to go as quickly as possible. Government forces were being sent out, but no one wanted scientists from around the world caught up in an exchange of gunfire.
Security forces from Alchemy, along with the Egyptian police, did their best to preserve what they could from the expedition, as well as the body of Henry Tomlinson so they could discover the circumstances of his death.
Much was lost. But at least no one else was killed. The final inquiry, conducted by the Egyptian police and the Alchemy security force, concluded that the brilliant archeologist Dr. Henry Tomlinson had driven himself mad and committed suicide. According to their conclusions, he believed a mummy had come to life with the intention of murdering him... It was suspected that some unknown bacteria had caused the temporary fit of insanity, and everything from the expedition would be scrutinized using proper precautions.