The Book of the Dead

by Richard Preston

  As she moved with the crowd, Nora felt a shiver of pride. It was an excellent script—Wicherly had done a masterful job. For all his personal failings, he had been abundantly talented. She was also proud of her own creative contribution. Hugo Menzies had guided the overall project with a subtle and sure hand, while proving equally clever with the nuts and bolts of bringing the show together. The technicians and A/V crew had done a splendid job with the visuals. Judging from the mesmerized audience, so far it was going very well.

  As the crowd walked down the corridor toward the well, following the video images of the tomb robbers, lights placed behind hidden panels flickered, simulating the effect of torchlight on the walls. The crowd flow was working perfectly, the audience automatically moving at the pace of the robbers.

  At the well, the robbers paused, their voices raised in discussion of how to bridge the dangerous pit. Several of them carried thin tree trunks over their shoulders, which they proceeded to lash together. Using a crude pulley and winch system, they lowered the logs and swung them across the well to make a bridge. The projected images then inched across the swaying, creaking bridge as if on a tightrope. A cry rang out as one of the figures slipped from the bridge, plunging with a hideous scream into the darkness of the pit—cut off suddenly in a sickening smack of meat hitting stone. The audience gasped.

  “Goodness,” said the mayor’s wife. “That was rather . . . realistic.”

  Nora glanced around. Initially, she had been against that little piece of drama, but she had to admit that—judging by the excited murmurs and gasps of the audience—it had been effective. Even the mayor’s wife, despite her faint objection, seemed enthralled.

  More invisible holographic screens now descended as others rose, and the computer-controlled video projectors seamlessly transferred the images of the robbers from one screen to the next, giving them the illusion of three-dimensional motion. The effect was extraordinarily real. And yet—the moment the last visitor left the tomb—the screens would all retract and the images of death and destruction would be cut off, leaving the hall in its original pristine shape and ready for the next performance.

  The guests followed the holographic figures into the Hall of the Chariots. Here, the robbers fanned out, awestruck at the incredible wealth spread out before them—heaped-up gold and silver, lapis, and gemstones, all gleaming dully by torchlight. The audience itself was halted by a lowered barrier at the far end of the hall, and the second section of the show began with another voice-over:

  The Tomb of Senef, like many ancient Egyptian tombs, contained an inscription that cursed those who would despoil it. But an even greater deterrent than a curse was the robbers’ own terror of the power of the pharaoh. For these high priests, although greedy and corrupt, were also believers. They believed in the divinity of the pharaoh and in his everlasting life. They believed in the magical properties which had been invested in the objects buried in the tomb with him. The magic in these objects was extremely dangerous and would do the robbers great harm if it were not canceled.

  For this reason, the first thing the robbers did was destroy all the grave goods in the tomb, as a way to expunge their magical powers.

  The robbers, having recovered from their initial awe, began to pick up objects and hurl them about—tentatively at first, then working up to an orgy of destruction, smashing furniture, vases, armor, and statues, hurling them against the walls, dashing them onto the stone floors, or swinging them into square pillars, sending ghostly projections of gemstones, gold, and fragments of alabaster skittering and rattling everywhere. They screamed and cursed as they worked. Other robbers scrambled about on their hands and knees, sorting through the destruction for things of value and stuffing them into sacks.

  Once again, the illusion was remarkable.

  Everything would be destroyed. The only things of value taken from the tomb would be taken in pieces and further reduced as soon as possible. Metals would be melted down into bullion; jewels, inlaid lapis, turquoise, and jasper would be pried from their settings and recut. All this treasure would then be quickly exported from Egypt, where any residual power of the godlike pharaoh still residing in the objects would be lost.

  That would be the fate of all the beautiful and precious objects in the tomb—total annihilation. The work of thousands of craftsmen over years, reduced in a single day to broken shards.

  The frenzy of cursing, screaming, and destruction grew. Nora glanced at the mayor and his wife; both were staring at the scene, mouths open, astonished and utterly captivated. It was the same for the rest of the crowd. Even the police officers and the camera crew looked spellbound. Viola Maskelene caught her eye. The Egyptologist nodded and gave her a thumbs-up.

  Nora shivered once again. The Tomb of Senef was going to be a success—a huge success. And—she couldn’t help but think—she was the chief curator of the tomb. This was to her credit. Menzies had been right: this would make her career.

  The voice-over resumed:

  And now, having destroyed the Hall of the Chariots and gleaned all treasure of value, the robbers moved into the deepest section of the tomb: the so-called House of Gold, the burial chamber itself. This was the richest—and most dangerous—part of the tomb. Because here is where the pharaoh himself rested, his body—it was believed—mummified but not dead.

  Still clutching their torches, sweaty and frenzied from their spree of destruction, the holographic figures moved through the far archway and into the burial chamber. The retaining gates opened and the crowd followed them across the Hall of the Chariots and into the burial chamber, gathering behind another barrier that descended from the ceiling. The voice-over continued as the show began to move toward its climax:

  The burial chamber was the resting place of the mummified body of the pharaoh, which contained the pharaoh’s Ba-soul, one of the five souls of the dead.

  The robbery was planned for broad daylight. That was deliberate: according to Egyptian belief, the pharaoh’s Ba-soul was absent from the tomb during the day, journeying with the sun across the sky. At sunset, the Ba-soul would reunite with the pharaoh’s mummy. Woe to the robber caught in the tomb after dark, when the mummy came back to life!

  But these robbers have not been careful. Clocks did not yet exist, and in the darkness of the tomb a sundial was useless. They have no way of keeping track of time. And little do they know that, outside the tomb, the sun is already setting . . .

  Once again, the robbers flung themselves into an orgy of violence, smashing the canopic jars, scattering Senef’s mummified organs, breaking open baskets of grains and breads, tossing about mummified foodstuffs and pets, decapitating statues. Then they set to work on the great stone sarcophagus itself, jamming cedar poles under one side, slowly dislodging the one-ton lid and wedging it back, millimeter by millimeter, until it toppled from the sarcophagus and broke in two on the floor. Through the magic of holographic projection, the effect was again remarkably real.

  Nora felt somebody touch her elbow, and she glanced down to see the mayor smiling at her. “This is utterly fantastic,” he whispered with a wink. “It looks like the curse of Senef has finally been lifted.”

  Looking at his bald pate and round, shiny face, Nora had to smile to herself. He was eating it up, just like an overgrown kid. They all were.

  There was no longer any doubt in her mind: the show was a huge—a monster—success.

  58

  D’Agosta watched in sick disbelief as the technicians, both of them now working frantically, continued to type commands on their keyboards.

  “What’s wrong?” Hayward demanded.

  Enderby wiped his forehead nervously. “I don’t know. The terminal isn’t accepting my commands.”

  “Manual override?” Hayward asked.

  “Tried that already.”

  Hayward turned to Manetti. “Notify the guards in the tomb. Tell them we’re shutting down the show.” She pulled out her radio, preparing to talk to her own officers on the insid
e. Then she paused, staring at Manetti, who had gone pale. “What is it?”

  “That’s just it. I’m trying to contact my men in the tomb. There’s no communication. None.”

  “How can that be? They’re less than fifty yards away!”

  “The tomb has been shielded against radio frequencies,” said Pendergast quietly.

  Hayward put down her radio. “Use the P.A. system. It’s hardwired, right?”

  More furious typing from Enderby. “That’s down, too.”

  Hayward stared at him. “Cut power to the doors. In the event of a total power failure, they can be levered open by hand.”

  Enderby typed some more, then raised his hands in a gesture of futility.

  Suddenly, Pendergast pointed at one of the monitors displaying a live feed of the hall. “Did you see that? Rewind it, please.”

  One of the technicians digitally rewound the image.

  “There.” And Pendergast indicated the blurry outline of a figure, off to one side in the shadows.

  “Can you sharpen the image?” he asked urgently. “Magnify it?”

  D’Agosta stared as the feed jumped into clearer focus. They all watched as the man slipped a hand inside his dinner jacket, casually extracted a black eye-mask, and put it on. A pair of earplugs followed.

  “Menzies,” Hayward murmured.

  “Diogenes,” Pendergast said, almost to himself, his voice as cold as ice.

  “We need to call for backup,” said Manetti. “Get a SWAT team in here, and—”

  “No!” Pendergast broke in. “We don’t have time. That will delay everything—they’ll want to set up a mobile command unit, there will be rules of engagement to follow. We’ve got ten minutes—at the outside.”

  “I can’t believe these doors won’t open!” Enderby said, banging at the keyboard. “We programmed two completely independent backups. This doesn’t make sense. Nothing’s responding—”

  “And nothing will respond,” said Pendergast. “Those doors aren’t going to open no matter what you do. Menzies—Diogenes—has no doubt hijacked the systems controlling both the show and the hall.” Pendergast turned back to Enderby. “Can you get a list of all running processes?”

  “Yes.” Enderby typed a series of commands. D’Agosta glanced over: a small window had opened on the screen, filled with a list of mysterious lowercase words like asmcomp, rutil, syslog, kcron.

  “Examine all the process names,” Pendergast said. “Especially the system processes. See anything unusual?”

  “No.” Enderby peered at the screen. “Yes. This one called kernel_con_fund_o.”

  “Any idea what it’s for?”

  Enderby blinked. “Judging by the name, it’s some kind of console file that accesses the system kernel. That zero at the end also implies it’s a beta version.”

  “Reverse-engineer the code if you can, get a sense of what it does.” Pendergast turned toward Hayward and D’Agosta. “Although I’m afraid I already know the answer.”

  “What’s that?” Hayward asked.

  “That’s not a zero at the end—it’s the letter o. Confundo in Latin means to trouble, distress, throw into confusion. It’s no doubt a system routine added by Diogenes to hijack the show.” He gestured at the room full of equipment. “I would guess all this equipment—everything—is now under Diogenes’s control.”

  Meanwhile, Enderby was peering at his screen. “There seems to be another server actually running the show, and it’s inside the tomb itself. All the systems in the control room, here, are slaved to it.”

  Pendergast leaned over the technician’s shoulder. “Can you attack it, disable it?”

  More furious typing. “No. Now it isn’t even accepting my input anymore.”

  “Cut all power to the tomb,” Pendergast said.

  “It’ll just switch to backup—”

  “Cut that, too.”

  “That’ll leave them in darkness.”

  “Do it.”

  More typing, followed by a frustrated curse. “Nothing.”

  Pendergast looked around. “In that case, the breaker box.” He strode over, flung open the box, and threw the main circuit breaker.

  Although the little room was immediately plunged into darkness, the computers remained online. Within seconds, there was a sharp click as the backup power system kicked in, rows of emergency fluorescent tubes flicking on.

  Enderby stared at the monitors in disbelief. “Incredible. There’s still full power in the tomb. The show’s going on like nothing’s happened. There must be an internal generator somewhere inside. But that wasn’t on any of the plans I—”

  “Where’s the backup power source for this room?” Pendergast interrupted.

  Manetti nodded toward a large gray metal cabinet in the corner. “That contains the relays connecting the tomb’s main power cables to the museum’s auxiliary generator.”

  Pendergast stepped back and pointed Manetti’s weapon at the cabinet. He emptied a full clip into it—the gunshots incredibly loud in the soundproofed space—walking the rounds from one side of the cabinet to the other, each round punching a large dark hole in the metal and sending chips of gray paint flying. There was a sound of crackling electricity, a massive blue arc, and the lights flickered and went out—leaving only the glow of the computer screens and the stench of cordite and melted insulation.

  “These computers are still on,” said Pendergast. “Why?”

  “They’ve got their own local battery backup.”

  “Force a hard reboot, then. Pull the power cords and plug them back in.”

  Enderby crawled under the table and began yanking out cords, throwing the room into utter darkness and silence. There was a snap, then a sudden glow of light as Hayward switched on her flashlight.

  The door was abruptly flung open and a tall man with a red ascot and round black glasses advanced. “What is going on here?” he asked in a shrill voice. “I’m directing a live simulcast to millions of people, and you can’t even keep the power on? Listen, my backup power won’t last more than fifteen minutes.”

  D’Agosta recognized Randall Loftus, the famous director, his face mottled with anger.

  Pendergast turned to D’Agosta, leaned in close. “You know what has to be done, Vincent?”

  “Yes,” D’Agosta said. Then he turned toward the director. “Let me help you.”

  “I should hope so.” And Loftus turned and walked stiffly out of the room, D’Agosta following.

  In the hall beyond, guests were milling around in a darkness relieved only by the glow from hundreds of tea candles set on the tables, excited but not yet alarmed, apparently treating it as an adventure. Museum guards were circulating, reassuring people that the power would be restored at any moment. D’Agosta followed the director to the far end of the hall, where his crew was set up. They were all working quickly and efficiently, murmuring into mikes or observing small camera-mounted monitors.

  “We’ve lost touch with the crew inside,” said one. “But it seems their power is still on. They’re still broadcasting, and the feed to the uplink is good. In fact, I don’t even think they know we’ve lost power out here.”

  “Thank God for that,” said Loftus. “I’d rather die than deliver dead airtime.”

  “This feed you mention,” D’Agosta asked. “Where is it?”

  Loftus nodded toward a thick cable that snaked its way out of the hall, covered with a strip of rubber and secured by gaffer tape.

  “I see,” said D’Agosta. “And if that cable got cut?”

  “God forbid,” said Loftus. “We’d lose our simulcast. But it won’t be cut, believe me. It would take more than an accidental kick to damage that cable.”

  “You don’t have a backup cable?”

  “No need. That cable’s got a rubber-and-epoxy-clad sheath, with woven steel—it’s indestructible. Well, Officer . . . ?”

  “Lieutenant D’Agosta.”

  “It appears we don’t need you, after all.” Loftus t
urned his back and pointed to another crew member. “You ninny, never leave an open monitor unattended like that!”

  D’Agosta looked around. At the far end of the hall, near the entrance, was the obligatory fire station case, containing a coiled hose and a massive Pulaski axe behind a sheet of breakable glass. He strode over, gave the glass a sharp kick, and extracted the Pulaski. Then he walked over to where the taped-down cable turned the corner, braced himself, and raised the axe above his head.