The Third Gate jl-1

by Lincoln Child

  The center seemed quiet, almost somnolent. Logan walked down the central corridor, looking through the open doorways, at the empty beds and unused equipment. A woman at the nurse’s station was making notations on a clipboard. He passed a large open area labeled OBSERVATION. The injured diver was here, surrounded by various diagnostic machines.

  Logan continued, stopping at the next room. This was apparently Rush’s office; the doctor was inside, his back to the door, speaking into a digital voice recorder.

  “A catheter was inserted into the thoracic cavity and tension pneumothorax alleviated before the condition could degrade to a mediastinal shift or air embolism,” he recited, “either of which might have caused the case to terminate fatally, due to the fact that under the circumstances it would have been unfeasible to…”

  Realizing someone else was in the office, Rush snapped off the recorder and turned around. Logan was shocked by what he saw: the man’s face was gray, his eyes puffy and red. It looked almost as if he had been crying.

  The doctor gave a small smile. “Jeremy. Have a seat.”

  “That was good work,” Logan said.

  The smile faded. “An interesting way to usher in your stay.”

  Logan nodded. “Yes. Witnessing an accident like that.”

  “Accident,” Rush repeated. “ Another accident.” For a moment, he appeared lost in thought. Then he brightened slightly. “I’m sorry you had to-well, to see me like that.”

  “You saved a life.”

  Rush waved a hand as if to deflect this. “Ever since that experience with my wife, I’ve been dealing solely with people who have cheated death. This is the first time I’ve had to deal with a life-or-death emergency since… I guess since she was brought into the Providence ER. I didn’t know it would affect me like that.” He paused, then looked at Logan. “I wouldn’t say this to anybody else, Jeremy, but I hope Porter Stone didn’t make a mistake signing me up as chief medical officer.”

  “No mistake. Stone chose a fine doctor. And you wait and see: this will be the only medical crisis you’ll face. From now on it’ll be clear sailing. Now, how about a bite of lunch before I have to face this Tina Romero?”

  Another, more genuine, smile crossed Rush’s face. “Give me five minutes to finish up this report. Then I’m your man.”

  11

  Christina Romero’s office was situated in Red, the container facility devoted to the med center and the various science labs. It reminded Logan more than a little of his own office back at Yale: orderly and clean, with row after row of books sorted by author and subject matter on long metal shelves. A large desk in the middle of the room was littered with artifacts and notebooks, yet somehow managed to look tidy; more artifacts were stored against the rear wall in a stack of carefully labeled plastic containers. Several diplomas and framed prints hung on the other three: a photo of an Egyptian wall painting; a print of Turner’s Regulus, and-bizarrely-a very childlike depiction of the Sphinx.

  If the office seemed vaguely familiar, however, Dr. Romero herself was a surprise. She was thin and very young-no more than thirty. Logan realized he’d been expecting a frowsy old woman in tweeds, a female Flinders Petrie. Romero could not have been more different. She was dressed in blue jeans and a black mock turtleneck with its sleeves pushed up to her elbows. She had kinky, shoulder-length black hair, parted in the middle, and it flared away from her face, looking not unlike the headdress of an Egyptian king. As Logan entered, she was seated behind the desk, absorbed in filling a fountain pen from a bottle of blue-black ink.

  He knocked politely on the doorframe. Romero jerked in surprise, almost dropping the pen.

  “Shit!” she said, grabbing for a tissue to wipe up the spilled ink.

  “Sorry,” Logan said, remaining in the doorway. “Get ink on yourself?”

  “That’s nothing,” she said. “I might have ruined this.” She held the pen up for him to see. “You know what this is? A Parker Senior Duofold in mandarin yellow, vintage 1927, the first year of production. Very scarce. Look-it even has the yellow threads on the barrel, before they switched to black.” She waved it at him like a baton.

  “Very impressive. Although I always preferred Watermans, myself.”

  She put the pen down and looked at him. “The silver overlays?”

  “No. The Patricians.”

  “Oh.” She screwed the cap onto the pen and slipped it into the pocket of her jeans, then stood up to shake his hand.

  The handshake told Logan even more about Romero than the office decor did. He held her grasp just a shade longer than was typical.

  “What do you want?” she asked. “I haven’t seen you around before.”

  “That’s because I just got here last night. The name’s Jeremy Logan.”

  “Logan.” She frowned.

  “We have an appointment.”

  She brightened. “Oh, of course. You’re the ghost-” She fell silent, but her green eyes twinkled with private amusement.

  The same old silliness. Logan was used to it. “I prefer the term ‘enigmalogist,’ myself.”

  “Enigmalogist. Yes, that does lend an air of legitimacy.” She looked him up and down, an expression on her face somewhere between skepticism and veiled hostility. “So-where is it? In that duffel bag you’re carrying?”

  “Where is what?”

  “Your stuff. You know: the ectoplasm detector, crystal ball… and a dowsing rod. Surely you’ve got a dowsing rod around somewhere.”

  “Never carry one. And by the way, crystal balls can be very useful-not for clairvoyance necessarily but for emptying the mind of needless thoughts and distractions, say prior to meditation, depending, of course, on the impurities in the stone and its refractive index.”

  She seemed to consider this a minute. “Won’t you come in and have a seat?”

  “Thanks.” Logan stepped inside, chose a seat before the desk, and placed his bag on the floor.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be flippant. It’s just that I’ve never met an… enigmalogist before.”

  “Most people haven’t. I’m never at a loss for conversation at cocktail parties.”

  She shook out her black hair and leaned back. “What is it you do, exactly?”

  “More or less what it sounds like. I investigate phenomena that lie outside the normal bounds of human experience.”

  “You mean, like poltergeists?”

  “On occasion. But more commonly, scientific or psychical activity that can’t be easily explained through traditional disciplines.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “And you do this full-time?”

  “I also teach history at Yale.”

  This seemed to interest her. “Egyptian history?”

  “No. Medieval history mostly.”

  The interest died as quickly as it had come. “Okay.”

  “As long as we’re playing twenty questions, why don’t you fill me in on your background?”

  “Sure. Got my PhD in Egyptology at the University of Cairo.” She waved a hand at the diplomas. “Studied under Nadrim and Chartere. I assisted them in the Khefren the Sixth excavation.”

  Logan nodded. These were very impressive credentials. “Is this your first project with Porter Stone?”

  “Second.”

  Logan shifted in his seat. “Dr. Rush said you’d fill me in on the background. What you found at Hierakonpolis when you searched the Temple of Horus. How you managed to locate this particular spot for the tomb.”

  Romero slid her hands into her pockets. “Why do you want to know?”

  To Logan, this translated to Why should I waste my time telling you? Aloud, he said, “It might help me with my investigation.”

  She paused. Then, slowly, she sat forward. “I’ll make this brief. Porter Stone managed to locate something called an ostracon-”

  “He showed the replica to me.”

  “Good, that’ll save time in explanations. Stone learned, from the ostracon and from several other scholarly inv
estigations, that Narmer used Hierakonpolis as his staging point for building his tomb.” She looked at him. “You do know who Narmer was, right?”

  Logan nodded.

  “The first king of a unified Egypt.”

  “I believe there’s been some debate about that. In the past, scholars believed King Menes should be credited with the unification.”

  “Many scholars-myself included-believe that Narmer and Menes are one and the same.” She peered at him again. “So you do know ancient Egypt.”

  Logan shrugged. “In my business, it’s helpful to know a little bit about everything.”

  “And how far does this erudition extend exactly?”

  Logan nodded toward the framed Egyptian wall painting. “Enough to guess that dates to the Amarna Period.”

  “Really? What gives you that idea?”

  “The busyness of the scene, the overlapping of bodies. The emphasis on the feminine form: hips, breasts. You don’t see that in earlier Egyptian art.”

  For a moment, she looked at him. Then a smile slowly broke across her face. “Okay, Mr. Ghostly Detective. You’re clearly more than just a face from a magazine. Touche.”

  Logan grinned in return.

  She sat up again. “All right. Using geophysical analysis and remote aerial sensing techniques, we were able to identify what appeared to be the site of a funerary quarry. This was unusual, because the very early Egyptians usually buried their dead-even nobility and royalty-in sand pits. So as a result, March began a targeted excavation.”

  “March?”

  “Fenwick March. The head archaeologist for the project. He runs the show when Porter Stone isn’t around.”

  “What did you find?”

  “At first, what you’d expect. Early black-top pots with carbonized rims, pollen, paleozoological remains. But as work continued we realized just how large the site was.”

  “Big enough to be the city where tomb builders and engineers were based?”

  “Bingo. And then, we found this.” She stood up, walked over to a filing cabinet, and opened a drawer. Pulling out two rolled-up sheets, she walked back to the desk and handed one to him.

  Logan unrolled it. He saw a color photograph of an ancient Egyptian inscription, incised and painted. It showed a seated ruler, along with lines and arrows and a variety of early pictographs.

  “Recognize it?” Romero asked.

  He glanced up. “It looks like some kind of stela.”

  “Very good. A slab stela, to be precise. Know what’s written on it?”

  Logan smiled. “My erudition only goes so far.”

  “It’s a road map.”

  “A road map? To where?”

  Romero raised one hand, index finger extended. Then, very slowly, she pointed straight down, between her feet.

  “My God,” Logan said.

  “You must know how advanced the ancient Egyptians were in astronomy, in terms of mapping the sky. This stela was a map to show the engineers and builders how to get to the site of Narmer’s tomb during its construction. No doubt it was supposed to be destroyed, smashed to dust, once the tomb was complete. Lucky for us it wasn’t, because it allowed us to triangulate the tomb’s location to within a few miles. Once on the site, geological and scholarly analysis allowed us to narrow it down even farther.”

  Logan thought of the Grid he’d seen on the flat-screen monitor in the dive Staging Area. “Incredible. Vintage Porter Stone.”

  “Indeed. But Stone found something else. On the far side of that site.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A giant, square piece of black basalt. Apparently, the plinth for some kind of statuary-perhaps of Narmer himself. It had been polished to an agate gleam, even after all the intervening centuries. It contained something, too.” And she handed him the other sheet.

  Logan took it. It was a photograph of another inscription, somewhat shorter.

  “What is it?” Logan asked.

  “It’s the reason you’re here.”

  Logan looked at her. “I don’t understand.”

  She returned the look with a smile, but this time the smile didn’t extend as far as her eyes. “It’s a curse.”

  12

  “A curse,” Logan repeated.

  Christina Romero nodded.

  Porter Stone had alluded to a curse. Logan had been wondering when the other shoe would drop.

  “You mean, like the one supposedly on King Tut’s tomb? ‘Death shall come on swift wings’ and all that? That’s just a lot of rumormongering.”

  “In the case of King Tut, you may be right. But curses were quite common in the Old Kingdom-and not only for private tombs. As the first king of a unified Egypt, Narmer wasn’t going to take any chances. His tomb could not be allowed to be desecrated-it could mean the dissolution of his kingdom. And so he left behind this curse as a warning.” She paused. “And what a warning.”

  “What does it say exactly?”

  Romero took back the photo of the inscription, glanced at it. “ ‘Any man who dares enter my tomb,’ ” she translated, “ ‘or do any wickedness to the resting place of my earthly form will meet an end certain and swift. Should he pass the first gate, the foundation of his house will be broken, and his seed will fall upon dry land. His blood and his limbs will turn to ash and his tongue cleave to his throat. Should he pass the second gate, darkness will follow him, and he will be chased by the serpent and the jackal. The hand that touches my immortal form will burn with unquenchable fire. But should any in their temerity pass the third gate, then the black god 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.’ ”

  She replaced the sheet on the desk. For a moment, the office was silent.

  “Quite a bedtime story,” Logan said.

  “Isn’t it a beaut? Only a first-class bloodthirsty tyrant like Narmer could have invented it. Although come to think of it, his wife could have done the job, too. Niethotep. Talk about a match made in heaven.” Romero shook her head.

  “Niethotep?”

  “Now she was something. One of those bathe-in-the-blood-of-a-hundred-virgins psychos, supposedly. Narmer imported her from Scythia, royalty in her own right.” Romero turned back to the photograph. “Anyway, about the curse. It’s the longest example I’ve come across. It’s also by far the most specific. You heard the reference to the god of the deepest pit?”

  Logan nodded.

  “Notice he’s not identified by name. Not even Narmer, a god in his own right, dared do that. He’s referring to An’kavasht-He Whose Face Is Turned Backwards. A god of nightmare and evil that the earliest Egyptians were scared to death of. An’kavasht dwelled Outside, ‘in the endless night.’ Do you know what ‘Outside’ meant?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “It meant the Sudd.” She paused to let this sink in. Then she took the two sheets, rolled them up again, and returned them to the filing cabinet. “Within fifty years or so, the advancing waters of the Sudd would have made any secrecy unnecessary. The swamp took care of the hiding for him.” She looked over at him. “But you know what? I don’t think Narmer was particularly worried about concealment. Remember, he was considered a god, and not just in a ceremonial way. Anybody messing with the tomb of a god is asking for trouble. He had an army of the dead-and this curse-to guard him. Nobody, not even the most brazen tomb robber, would dare defy such a curse.”

  “What is that business about the three gates?”

  “The gates are the sealed doors of a royal tomb. So it would appear that Narmer’s tomb had three chambers-three important chambers, at least.”

  Logan shifted in his chair. “And this curse is the reason I’m here.”

  “There have been several-how would March put it? — anomalous events since work started. Equipment malfunctioning. Items disappearing or turning up
in the wrong place. An unusually high number of odd accidents.”

  “And people are starting to get spooked,” Logan said.

  “I wouldn’t say spooked. Restless, yes. Demoralized, maybe. See, it’s bad enough being out here in the middle of nowhere, floating in the world’s nastiest swamp. But with these strange happenings… well, you know how talk gets started. Anyway, maybe with you poking around, people will calm down.”

  Poking around. As she was speaking, Romero’s initial skepticism, if not outright hostility, had slowly returned.

  “So I’m to be a rainmaker,” he said. “I may not do any good, but it’s comforting to see me on the job.” He glanced at her. “Now I know where I stand. Thanks for your candor.”

  She smiled, but it wasn’t a particularly friendly smile. “You got a problem with candor?”

  “Not at all. It clears the air. And it can be very bracing-even enlightening.”

  “For example?”

  “For example, you.”

  “What about me?” she asked sharply. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

  “I know quite a bit, actually. Although some of it is, admittedly, conjecture.” He held her gaze steadily. “You were the youngest child in your family. I’d imagine your older siblings were boys. I’d further imagine that your father devoted most of his attention to them: Boy Scouts, Little League. He wouldn’t have had much time for you-and if your brothers noticed you at all, it would be to belittle you. That would account for your instinctive hostility, your academic overcompensation.”

  Romero opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again.

  “There was a famous, or at least distinguished, woman a few generations back in your family: an archaeologist, perhaps, or maybe a mountain climber. The way you hang your diplomas carelessly on the wall, slightly askew, suggests an informal approach to academics-we’re all one big happy family, whether we have impressive doctorates or not. And yet the very fact you brought your diplomas at all suggests a deep insecurity about your standing on this expedition. A young woman, one of few among men, on a physically demanding mission in a harsh and unforgiving environment-you worry about being taken seriously. Oh, and your middle name starts with A.”