Yeah, I’ve still got it.
As for me, well, everything hurt. I limped over to where Tommy lay, groaning, near a heap of camel dung.
“I wish you’d have let me explain,” I said. “Sam and I were just talking, okay? No need to get so twisted up about it. And what are you really upset about, anyway? Losing your girl? Or losing her treasure map?”
“I’ll get you for this,” Tommy muttered. Drool dribbled out the side of his mouth as he lay there on the ground. “When you least expect it, I’ll pay you back, big-time.”
I brushed the dust off my hands, and it sprinkled down onto his face. “Don’t make me humiliate you again—Poopsie,” I said, leaving him there to recover his senses.
It’s good to know kung fu.
The next morning, the sun rose big and blood red over the desert. In a matter of fifteen minutes, the temperature went from freezing cold to unbearably hot.
Dr. Mounir sent the body of the dead camel driver back to Ras Khalifa, along with another driver and two of our camels. Then the rest of us broke camp and headed farther west.
Frank and I dropped back to the rear of our little camel caravan, so that we could talk freely and compare notes. “Do you think that camel driver stole the map on his own?” I asked.
“No. He was working for Mounir, remember?”
“So are all of them,” I pointed out. “Including Leila.”
Frank stiffened. “Leila’s no pushover. She thinks for herself.”
“How does she feel about Mounir?”
“She doesn’t think much of his curse theories,” he said. “I don’t think she trusts him much either.”
“Smart girl. So if the dead guy stole the map for someone else, who do you think it was?”
“Well, we know the guy was working for Dr. Mounir. But that doesn’t mean he stole it for him. Anybody on the expedition could have paid him to do it.”
“Why not steal it themselves?” I asked.
“Well, if they tried and got caught, it would be the end of everything for them. Remember, they took the trouble last time to disguise the thief as a mummy. If they sent someone else to do it, and that person got caught, they could deny hiring him. No need for a disguise.”
“Right,” I said. “And whoever did hire that guy took the map from him, and then killed him so he couldn’t reveal the truth.”
“Totally. So, other than Mounir, who could it be?”
“I nominate Tommy,” I said. “He’s the only one here that Sam told about the map.”
“I hate to say it, bro, but Sam Chilton has … how shall I say, a big mouth? It’s totally possible she let it slip to Dr. Mounir or Dr. Volsky, or even to one of the video guys.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But Tommy’s definitely dangerous, and I’ll bet you he was only interested in Sam to get near her treasure map.”
I proceeded to tell Frank about getting jumped by Tommy Testosterone.
“If Tommy had killed that guy he’d have the map,” Frank said. “And he wouldn’t have been so angry.”
“True,” I said, “although he might have just been angry about me flirting with Sam.”
“Were you flirting with Sam?” he asked.
“Just a little.”
He gave me a look.
“What, am I not allowed a moment of happiness?”
“Why Joe, I thought fighting crime gave you happiness.”
“Ha-ha. So, speaking of crime, who else could it be?”
“Could be Dr. Volsky,” Frank said. “He’s been awfully quiet. And don’t forget our chef.”
“The Happy Hippie?”
“He got hired at the last minute—by cheating, remember—and no one has checked him out at all. I say he bears watching.”
“Agreed. Anyone else?”
Frank shrugged. “Could be anyone except you or me. Whoever has the map is holding all the cards. But he or she won’t show his or her hand until we get to the tomb.”
“Let’s hope not,” I said. “One dead body is more than enough.”
When it got too hot to go any farther, we stopped for lunch. The drivers pitched a big dinner tent—really, just a roof without walls—and Ahmed went to work preparing our meal.
It was close to four in the afternoon by the time we ate. Soon the sun would be low enough in the sky for us to continue onward into the evening.
Everyone sat down in a circle. It was hot, and we were moving slowly. Dr. Mounir slapped at the back of his neck before lowering his bulk to the ground.
“Ouch!” he said.
“What’s the matter?” Leila asked.
“Something just stung me,” he said. “A bee, I think.”
Ahmed put out bowls of grapes and dates, nuts and figs. Then he served a lamb stew, giving Dr. Mounir his bowl first, as a sign of respect for his high position in government.
Dr. Mounir tasted the stew as Ahmed continued to give out the steaming bowls. “Ahhh! Delicious!” he said, savoring it. “My highest compliments to the che … urghlhgh …”
Suddenly he was choking, wheezing, his eyes bulging out. Leila grabbed the steaming bowl of stew from his hands as Tommy tried slapping Mounir on the back.
“Are you okay?” he asked. Mounir was quickly turning blue. He slumped in Tommy’s arms, and not even the former Mr. Universe could hold up the bulky Egyptian official.
Dr. Mounir was a dead weight—with the emphasis on dead.
9 The Mark of Poison
The second Dr. Mounir practically fell face-first into his bowl of lamb stew, his entire crew of shady camel drivers whipped out their long, curved knives and started yelling like they were going to slit all of our throats.
All of us gasped at once—except for Leila, who was together enough to take Mounir’s pulse to make sure he was really dead.
He was.
His men were still yelling in Arabic for all they were worth. No one was sure what they were going to do until they all turned at once toward Ahmed, the Happy Hippie, whose lamb stew had presumably brought the great Dr. Mounir down.
One of the thugs grabbed Ahmed and dragged him to the table. “Eat!” he commanded.
Ahmed took Dr. Mounir’s bowl of stew and, with just a little hesitation—there were three knives at his throat, after all—he ate a mouthful.
“Mmmm!” he said, nodding and smacking his lips. “Good!”
He ate another mouthful, then another—so quickly that half of it spilled all over his white robe.
But he didn’t die. He didn’t even look sick. Mounir’s thugs, seeing that the stew wasn’t poisoned after all, let him go, and Ahmed collapsed to the ground, shaking all over—no longer the Happy Hippie, but definitely grateful to be alive.
Mounir’s crew of thugs, meanwhile, resumed yelling and waving their knives. Their eyes were now white with horror, and I could guess the reason why. If Mounir’s food wasn’t poisoned, something else must have killed him.
He had been a great believer in the mummy’s curse, and apparently, so were his men. They ran, screaming, from the tent.
By the time the rest of us recovered enough from our shock to get up and follow them, our guides and porters were already riding off to the east with half of our remaining camels and most of our supplies—including the shortwave radio set we’d brought along so that we could stay in touch with the rest of the world.
Now we were truly, totally alone out here, with three camels, some picks and shovels, enough food for maybe five days, a whole lot of heavy video equipment, and a big, fat, dead body.
And night was coming on fast.
Joe and I kneeled over Dr. Mounir, examining the body, while Leila went to get some tent nylon to serve as a shroud.
“He complained of a bee sting just before he sat down to eat,” I reminded Joe. “And he slapped at the back of his neck.”
Joe turned Mounir’s head to the side. There, just behind his right ear, was a small, red puncture wound. “I guess he was allergic to bees,” he said.
“I don’t think so,” said Dr. Volsky, who had come up behind us. “There are no bees this far into the desert. No plants, no flowers—therefore no bees.”
“Then what stung him?” Joe asked.
“I think,” said Dr. Volsky, examining the wound on Mounir’s neck, “that Dr. Mounir was felled by a poison dart.”
“A poison dart!” Joe said. “What kind of poison could knock a guy that size flat so quickly, and with so small a dose?”
“That,” said Dr. Volsky, “is no mystery at all. Have you never heard of curare?”
“Curare? Yeah, that’s a South American plant,” I said.
“I believe that is what killed Dr. Mounir,” Volsky said. “Of course, we’ll never know now. Curare leaves no trace in the body, and the dart—well, whoever shot it would have picked it up while the rest of us were running around, panicked.”
It was as good an explanation as any. I liked it a whole lot better than the mummy’s curse theory. You can catch a criminal who’s still alive. A four-thousand-year-old bag of bones, on the other hand, could be a whole lot tougher.
We buried Dr. Mounir in a temporary grave. At some point, the government would want to dig him up and have a big funeral for him in the city where he’d lived and become famous. For now, we marked his grave with a broken ax handle and a piece of white cloth to serve as a flag and a marker.
Leila said some prayers over the grave, and then we got back to business, setting up our tents for the night. There were fewer tents now—and fewer of us to sleep in them.
“Tomorrow morning, we must head back to Ras Khalifa,” Leila said as we worked.
“Head back?” Tommy repeated. “No way! No possible way!”
“Perhaps she is right,” Dr. Volsky said. “Without Dr. Mounir …”
“I thought you two couldn’t stand each other,” Tommy said. “Since when is Mounir the be-all and end-all?”
“I’m in charge of this expedition now that Dr. Mounir is dead,” said Leila. “As his assistant, I am the highest-ranking official of the Egyptian government with this expedition. And I say we go back in the morning.”
Samantha stepped forward, getting right in Leila’s face. “Oh, yeah?” she said, her hands on her hips. “Well, you can go back tomorrow if you want. But the rest of us are going on to the tomb, and we’re taking the camels and the supplies with us.”
“But—” Leila tried to protest, but Tommy stepped into the argument, pointing his finger right in her face.
“Listen, sweetheart,” he said, “you’re nothing but a graduate student, okay? And this—this is Sam Chilton, okay? Her mom is Lady Chilton? Her dad was Lord Chilton? They can buy and sell your entire university any day of the week. So if she says we’re going to the tomb, we’re going to the tomb.”
“That would be illegal,” said Leila, holding her ground. “When you return to Ras Khalifa, you will be arrested by the police.”
“I don’t think so,” Sam said, slipping one arm through Tommy’s. “I think if we offer the Egyptian government a piece of our hot new reality TV series—The Mummy’s Tomb, Revealed—they’ll go easy on us. Don’t you think so, Theo?”
“Definitely,” said Theo, who was recording the whole scene with a handheld camera. “Nets?”
“No doubt,” said Nels, his arms folded across his chest.
“I think so too,” said Jurgen, who was holding up the boom mike to capture every word.
“Dr. Volsky?” Leila pleaded. “Surely you can see that it would be madness to continue.”
“Er, yes,” he agreed in a soft voice, “but on the other hand, think of the priceless artifacts we might uncover….”
Leila stared right through him. “You are a fool, for all your scientific knowledge,” she declared. Then she looked at Frank and me. “Well?”
I was about to tell her I agreed with her, and that the sensible thing to do would be to turn back until a new expedition could be mounted—one with police protection from whoever, or whatever, was cursing this one. But Joe spoke up first.
“If Sam’s going on, then so are we,” he said.
I wanted to argue with him, to stand up for Leila. But I knew he was right.
Our job was to protect Samantha Chilton. If she was going on with this madness, we had to come along for the ride—because whether or not the mummy’s curse was real, there was definitely someone murderous on the loose. Someone—or something—who might strike again at any moment.
Leila curled her hands into fists and let out a frustrated growl. Then she stomped off to her tent and let the flap fall behind her.
I wanted to go after her, to make sure she was all right. I knew she had to be pretty upset after watching her boss die, and being accused of stealing Samantha’s map.
But I also knew that my job was not to make sure Leila was okay. It was to protect Samantha Chilton.
So when Joe suggested we sleep right in front of Sam’s tent, out under the stars—just in case anybody got any more deadly ideas—I agreed, and we went to get our sleeping bags.
Leila would have to fend for herself, at least for tonight.
Our sleeping bags were all laid out for us, much to our surprise. I guessed we had Ahmed to thank, since I couldn’t picture anyone else taking the trouble. Our air pillows were in place, right where we’d want to lay our heads. I picked mine up, ready to grab the sleeping bag, too … and found about a dozen scorpions, their deadly stingers held high and ready to strike.
10 The Sting of Betrayal
If you’ve never been scared within an inch of your life, let me describe it for you. Your heart goes into instant overdrive. Your ears start ringing. Your breath comes in short gasps, and you want to run, but your legs won’t move because your knees have turned to rubber.
Now, to be fair, Frank and I were only scared for a split second. Once we’d backed away to a safe distance, we calmed right down—but if we’d gone to sleep as usual that night, we’d have been stung at least ten times apiece by the time we knew what was happening.
We’d have been dead, that’s what. Dead as Roger Corson. Dead as Dr. Mounir and the camel driver who’d stolen Sam’s treasure map.
“Okay,” I said, forcing myself to breathe normally, “now, who do we think would do a nasty thing like this?”
“Let’s see,” Frank said, “Dr. Mounir and his camel drivers are off the hook; the last of them left before we pitched camp for the night. That leaves Samantha, Tommy, Dr. Volsky, Theo, Nels, Jurgen, Ahmed …”
“And your pretty friend Leila,” I added. “Don’t forget her.”
“She wouldn’t do something like this,” Frank said. “Did you see how pale she looked when Dr. Mounir died? She was totally shocked.”
“Not too shocked to take his pulse,” I said. “You’d better watch it, bro. Don’t let your latest crush get in the way of your usual good judgment.”
“I’m telling you, she’s okay.”
“Whatever, dude. But just remember we’ve got a killer on the loose.”
We broke camp before first light and were on our way again by sunrise. We had decided not to say anything about the scorpions, to see if somebody looked shocked to see us alive. Nobody gave it away, though somebody had a great “poker face.”
Loading up the camels was tough. None of us had any experience with them, except for Ahmed and Dr. Volsky, who’d been on a few expeditions in his time. The camels didn’t seem to want to be loaded down. They kept bucking, kicking, and spitting.
Nobody said much as we rode westward toward a distant wall of red sandstone cliffs. Everyone was looking at everyone else with suspicion; even Tommy and Sam exchanged a few wary looks. We were coming closer, and we could all feel the excitement—and the danger.
Sam had told Frank and me that she could get us as far as the tomb entrance from her memory of the map.
Only the killer knew where to go once we were inside. Whoever had the map was just waiting until we got there to make his move.
I wondered w
hat that move would be. I could hardly wait to find out.
Just before noon, we rounded the end of a ridge and found ourselves in the long-hidden Valley of the Serpents. Cliffs rose up on both sides of us, as high and as red as the Grand Canyon’s walls. It was an amazing sight, and everyone rode silently, feeling the presence of ancient ghosts hovering over us.
We stopped before a pile of rubble that lay in front of the cliff. “This is the spot,” Sam said, dismounting.
“You sure, baby?” Tommy asked, looking doubtful. “Seems like just a pile of rocks to me.”
“Duh, that’s the whole idea,” Sam said, rolling her eyes. “Roger put the rocks there to disguise the entrance so nobody would find it.”
She directed the video crew to set up for recording. Meanwhile, Ahmed, Volsky, Tommy, Leila, Frank, and I unloaded our remaining camels and set up our tents.
When Theo, Nels, and Jurgen were ready, we formed a sort of human conveyor belt and began removing the rocks from the tomb entrance. After about five minutes, it was clear that this exercise was going to take a long time if everybody wasn’t helping. So everyone, from the video crew to Sam Chilton herself, had to get their hands dirty.
Finally, just as we were about to call it quits for the day, Tommy let out a whoop. “Paydirt!”
Everyone rushed over to where he was standing. There was a little dark hole in the giant mound of rubble, and a cool breeze blew from below it. It stank of age, and decay, and who knew what else.
Ten minutes later we had cleared the entrance enough for one person at a time to pass through. Sam went in first, since she was the one who’d organized and paid for this whole expedition. Tommy was about to step through next, but I got in there before him.
“Hey!” he complained.
“Let him come in first, Tommy,” Sam ordered.
She understood why I’d stepped in Tommy’s way. I was her first line of protection. Nobody could be trusted now that we’d found the tomb—nobody except me and Frank, that is.
Next, the video equipment was handed through. Nels, Theo, and Jurgen came in through the entrance, then Tommy, Frank, Volsky and Leila.
The Mummy's Curse Page 7
