The Book of the Dead

by Richard Preston

  “Indeed?”

  “Yes. In other words, they both went insane in exactly the same way. The damage produced a sudden, violent psychosis in each of them.”

  Collopy felt a cold sensation along the base of his spine. This was exactly what they had dismissed—that the incidents were somehow connected. This could ruin everything.

  “The evidence suggests there’s some kind of environmental cause, and that it may be in or around the Tomb of Senef.”

  “The tomb? Why do you say that?”

  “Because that’s where both of them were immediately prior to the onset of symptoms.”

  Collopy swallowed painfully, pulled at his collar. “This is astonishing news.”

  “The M.E. thinks the cause could be anything: electrical shock to the head, poison, fumes or perhaps a malfunction in the ventilation system, an unknown virus or bacterium . . . We don’t know. This is, by the way, confidential information.”

  “I’m glad of that.” Collopy felt the sensation of cold begin to spread. If this got out, it could put the lie to their statement and destroy all they had worked so hard for.

  “Since I received this information two hours ago, I’ve put a special toxicological forensic team into the tomb. They’ve been at it for an hour and so far haven’t found anything. Of course, it’s early in their search.”

  “This is very disturbing, Captain,” Collopy replied. “Is there any way the museum could be of assistance?”

  “That’s exactly why I’m here. I want you to postpone the opening until we can locate the source.”

  This was precisely what Collopy had been afraid of. He let a beat pass. “Captain, forgive me for saying so, but it seems you’ve jumped to two huge conclusions here: first, that the brain damage was caused by a toxin, and second, that this toxin is present in the tomb. It could have been anything—and happened anywhere.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “And you forget that others—many others—have spent significantly more time in the Tomb of Senef than Lipper and Wicherly. They’ve manifested no symptoms.”

  “I didn’t forget that, Dr. Collopy.”

  “In any case, the opening isn’t for four days. Surely, that’s enough time to check out the tomb.”

  “I’m not taking any chances.”

  Collopy took a long, deep breath. “I understand what you’re saying, Captain, but the fact is, we simply can’t delay the opening. We’ve invested millions. I’ve got a new Egyptologist arriving in less than an hour, flown in all the way from Italy. The invitations have been mailed and acceptances returned, the catering paid for, the musicians hired—everything’s done. To back out now would cost a fortune. And it would send the wrong message to the city: that we’re frightened, that we’re stymied, that the museum is a dangerous place to visit. I can’t allow that.”

  “There’s something else. It’s my belief that Diogenes Pendergast, the person who attacked Margo Green—and who stole the diamond collection—has a second identity as a museum employee. Most likely a curator.”

  Collopy looked at her, shocked. “What?”

  “I also believe this person is somehow connected with what’s happened to Lipper and Wicherly.”

  “These are very serious accusations. Who’s your suspect?”

  Hayward hesitated. “I don’t have one. I asked Mr. Manetti to comb the personnel records—without telling him what I was looking for, of course—but no criminal histories or any other red flags came to light.”

  “Naturally not. Our employees all have spotless records, especially the curatorial staff. I find this whole line of speculation to be personally offensive. And it certainly doesn’t change my position about the opening. A postponement would be fatal to the museum. Absolutely fatal.”

  Hayward looked at him a long time, her violet eyes weary yet alert. They seemed almost sad, as if she had already known the conclusion was foregone. “By not postponing, you risk putting many lives in danger,” she said quietly. “I must insist on it.”

  “Then we are at an impasse,” said Collopy simply.

  Hayward rose. “This isn’t over.”

  “Correct, Captain. A higher power than us will have to make the decision.”

  She nodded and left the office without further comment. Collopy watched the door close behind her. He knew, and she knew, that it would boil down to a decision by the mayor himself. And in that case, Collopy knew exactly how the chips would fall.

  The mayor wasn’t one to miss the opportunity for a good party and speech.

  38

  Mrs. Doris Green paused at the open doorway to the intensive-care room. The afternoon light filtered through the partly screened windows, throwing peaceful stripes of light and shadow across her daughter’s bed. Her eye moved across the bank of medical equipment, which sighed and beeped softly in a regular cadence, and came to rest on her daughter’s face itself. It was pale and thin, a stray lock of hair running over the forehead and cheek. Mrs. Green took a few steps inside and gently moved the lock to its proper place.

  “Hello, Margo,” she said softly.

  The machines continued to beep and sigh.

  She eased herself down on the side of the bed and took her daughter’s hand. It was cool and light as a feather. She gave it a gentle squeeze.

  “It’s a beautiful day outside. The sun’s shining, and the cold weather seems to have broken. The crocuses are already coming up in my garden, just poking their little green shoots out of the ground. Do you remember when you were a little girl, just five years old—you couldn’t resist picking them? You brought me a fistful of half-crushed flowers one day, cleaned out the whole garden. I was so upset at the time . . .”

  Her voice faltered and she fell into silence. A moment later, the nurse entered, her cheerful, rustling presence adding a sudden efficiency to the gauzy atmosphere of bittersweet memory.

  “How are you, Mrs. Green?” she asked, straightening up some flowers in a vase.

  “All right, thank you, Jonetta.”

  The nurse checked the machines, jotting quick notes on a clipboard. She adjusted the IV, examined the breathing tube, then bustled about, plumping up more flowers and adjusting some of the get-well cards that covered the table and shelves.

  “The doctor should be in at any moment, Mrs. Green,” she said, smiling and heading for the door.

  “Thank you.”

  Peace descended once more. Doris Green stroked her daughter’s hand ever so lightly. The memories came back, crowding in with no discernible order: diving with her daughter off the dock at the lake; opening the envelope containing her SAT scores; roasting Thanksgiving turkey; standing hand in hand beside her husband’s grave . . .

  She swallowed, continued to stroke Margo’s hand. And then she felt a presence behind her.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Green.”

  She turned. Dr. Winokur was standing there, a dark, handsome man in crisp white, exuding self-confidence and sympathy. Doris Green knew it wasn’t just his bedside manner: this doctor really cared.

  “Would you care to talk in the waiting room?” he asked.

  “I’d prefer to stay here. If Margo could hear—and who knows, maybe she can—she’d want to know everything.”

  “Very well.” He paused, seated himself in the visitor’s chair, rested his hands on his knees. “The bottom line is this: we simply don’t have a diagnosis. We’ve performed every test we can think of and then some; we’ve consulted with the country’s top coma and neurology specialists, at Doctors’ Hospital in New York and Mount Auburn Hospital in Boston—and we just don’t have a handle on it yet. Margo is in a deep coma, and we don’t know why. The good news is that there’s no evidence of permanent brain damage. On the other hand, her vital signs are not improving, and some important ones are slowly declining. She simply isn’t responding to the normal treatments and therapies. I could load you down with a dozen theories we’ve had, a dozen treatments we’ve tried, but they all add up to one fact: she’s not respondi
ng. We could move her to Southern Westchester. But to tell you the truth, there isn’t anything down there that we don’t have here, and the move might not be good for her.”

  “I’d prefer she stay here.”

  Winokur nodded. “I have to say, Mrs. Green, you’ve been a wonderful patient’s mother. I know this is extremely hard on you.”

  She shook her head slowly. “I thought I had lost her. I thought I’d buried her. After that, nothing could be worse. I know she’s going to recover—I know it.”

  Dr. Winokur gave a small smile. “You could be right. Medicine doesn’t have all the answers, especially in a case like this. Doctors are more fallible—and illness a great deal more complex—than most people realize. Margo is not alone. There are thousands like her all over the country, very ill and without a diagnosis. I’m not telling you this to comfort you so much as to give you all the information I have. I sense that is how you’d prefer it.”

  “It is.” She glanced from the doctor to Margo and back again. “Funny, I’m not much of a religious person, but I find myself praying for her every day.”

  “The longer I’m a doctor, the more I believe in the healing power of prayer.” He paused. “Do you have any questions? Is there anything I can do?”

  She hesitated. “There is one thing. I got a call from Hugo Menzies. Do you know him?”

  “Yes, of course—her employer at the museum. He was with her when she had her seizure?”

  “That’s right. He called me to tell me what had happened, what he’d seen—he knew I’d want to know.”

  “Of course.”

  “Have you spoken to him?”

  “Yes, certainly. He’s been very good—he’s dropped in to check on Margo’s condition more than once since her relapse. He seems most concerned.”

  Mrs. Green smiled faintly. “Having such a caring employer is a blessing.”

  “It most certainly is.” The doctor rose.

  “I’ll just stay here a little while with her, Doctor, if you don’t mind,” Doris Green said.

  39

  Thirty hours before the grand opening, the Tomb of Senef was boiling like a nest of angry hornets. And the swarm was no longer comprised of simply curators, electricians, carpenters, and technicians: a new element had been added to the mix. As Nora walked down the God’s Second Passage toward the Hall of the Chariots, she was met with the glare of television lights and a knot of men setting up cameras and mikes at the far end of the hall.

  “Over there, dear boy, over there!”

  A slender man with clenched buttocks, wearing a camel’s-hair sport jacket and yellow pinpoint bow tie, stood to one side. He was gesturing furiously with slender hands toward a burly soundman. Nora realized he must be the director Randall Loftus, whom Menzies had recently spoken to her about. He had won huge acclaim for his documentary series The Last Cowboy on Earth, and since then had produced a string of award-winning documentaries for public television.

  As she approached, the babel of overlapping voices grew more shrill. “Testing. Testing . . .”

  “Ugh! We’ve got the acoustics of a barn in here!”

  Loftus and his crew were setting up to broadcast the premiere of the sound-and-light show on the night of the opening. The local PBS station planned to cover the opening live, and they had energetically syndicated the show to ensure it would not only go out to most PBS affiliates across the nation, but also be carried by the BBC and the CBC. It was a public relations coup that Menzies himself had worked hard to arrange. The resulting international attention, Nora knew, could go a long way toward saving the museum’s bacon. But at the moment, they were causing utter chaos—and at the worst possible time. Their cables lay all over the ground, tripping up assistants carrying priceless Egyptian antiquities. The brilliant lights only added to the heat generated by hot electronics and the dozens of frantic people rushing about in a kind of controlled panic: the air-conditioning system ducts were roaring in a futile effort to lower the exhibit’s temperature.

  “I want two six-inch, one-kilowatt Mole Babies in the corner, there,” Loftus was saying. “Will somebody move that jar?”

  Nora quickly stepped up. “Mr. Loftus?”

  He turned to her, squinting over the tops of his John Mitchell glasses. “Yes?”

  She gamely stuck out her hand. “I’m Dr. Nora Kelly, curator of the exhibition.”

  “Oh! Of course. Randall Loftus. Delighted.” He began to turn away.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Loftus? You mentioned something about moving a jar. I’m sure you’ll understand that nothing can be moved—or even touched—except by museum staff.”

  “Nothing moved! How am I supposed to set up?”

  “You’ll just have to work around things, I’m afraid.”

  “Work around things! I’ve never been asked to perform in such conditions. This tomb is like a straitjacket. I can’t get any good angles or distance. It’s impossible!”

  She gave him a brilliant smile. “I’m sure, with your talent, you’ll find a way to make it work.”

  The smile had no effect, but at the word talent Loftus seemed to pause.

  “I’ve admired your work,” Nora continued, sensing her opening. “I’m personally thrilled that you agreed to direct the show. And I know that, if anyone can make it work, you can.”

  Loftus touched his bow tie. “Thank you indeed. Flattery will get you everywhere.”

  “I wanted to introduce myself, see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  Loftus spun abruptly, shouted to someone in a dim corner teetering on a ladder, “Not that one, the other light, the LTM Pepper spot! I want it mounted on that ceiling rack on a three-sixty.”

  He turned back to her. “You’re a dear, but we simply must move that jar.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Nora. “There’s no time to move anything even if we wanted to. That jar is three thousand years old and invaluable—you can’t just pick it up and move it. It takes special equipment, specially trained conservators . . . As I said, you’ll just have to work with what’s here. I’ll help you any way I can, but that’s one thing I can’t do. I’m sorry.”

  Loftus drew in a long breath. “I can’t work around that jar. It’s so fat and horrible.”

  When Nora didn’t reply, the director waved his hand. “I’ll talk to Menzies about it. Really, this is impossible.”

  “I’m sure you’re as busy as I am, so I’ll leave you,” she replied. “As I said, if you need anything, let me know.”

  He turned away instantly, zeroing in on another hapless production assistant laboring in the shadows. “The low crankovator goes where the tape is. On the floor. You’re standing on it! Look down, it’s between your legs, for heaven’s sake!”

  Nora moved out of the Hall of the Chariots toward the burial chamber, leaving the gesticulating Loftus behind. The conservators had finished placing all the objects in the chamber—the last to be done—and Nora wanted to check the label copy against her master design. A knot of technicians was working on the fog machines inside the great stone sarcophagus. Earlier in the day, they’d run through a dress rehearsal of the entire sound-and-light show, and Nora had to admit that it was more than good. Wicherly may have been an ass, and possibly deranged, but he was also a brilliant Egyptologist and—what was more—an excellent writer. The script was an amazing tour de force; and the finale, when Senef came suddenly to life, rising out of a bubbling pool of mist, hadn’t seemed hokey at all. Wicherly had managed to slip quite a lot of good, solid information into the show. People would leave not just entertained, but educated.

  She paused. It was strange how such a competent archaeologist could crack up so quickly. Unconsciously, she rubbed her throat, still raw and bruised. She still felt uncomfortable going back into her lab after what had happened. It was bizarre, tragic, inexplicable . . . But once again, she tried to push the attack from her mind. She would digest it all after the opening.

  She felt a light tap on her shoulder.

&
nbsp; “Dr. Kelly, I presume?” The voice was a dusky, cultured English contralto.

  She turned to find herself face-to-face with a tall woman with long, glossy black hair, dressed in old canvas pants, sneakers, and a dusty work shirt. One of the workers, evidently, but one she hadn’t seen before: she would have remembered someone with such striking looks. And yet, as she looked at this stranger, she sensed she had seen her before.

  “That’s me,” Nora said. “And you are—?”

  “Viola Maskelene. I’m an Egyptologist and the new visiting curator for the show.” She stuck out her hand, seized Nora’s, and gave it a very vigorous shake. The grip was strong, the hand a little callused. This was someone who spent a lot of time outdoors—judging from her tan and her lean, one might even say weather-beaten, look.