The Book of the Dead

by Richard Preston

  “Very glad to meet you,” Nora said. “I hadn’t expected you so soon.”

  “I’m very pleased to meet you,” Maskelene said. “Dr. Menzies has spoken so highly of you, and everyone just adores you! Dr. Menzies is tied up at present, but I wanted to come down and meet you right away . . . and see this marvelous exhibit!”

  “As you can see, we’re down to the wire.”

  “I’m sure you’ve got everything under control.” Maskelene looked around with relish. “I was so surprised to receive the museum’s invitation, and I can’t tell you how delighted I am to be here. XIX Dynasty tombs are my specialty. And, incredibly, the Tomb of Senef has never been studied or published, although it apparently contains one of the most complete texts to the Book of the Dead ever found. Very few scholars even knew it existed! I’d always thought it was mere rumor, an urban myth like the alligators in your sewers. This is an incredible opportunity.”

  Nora smiled and nodded, studying the woman intently. The speed with which Wicherly had been replaced—he’d been dead only a few days—surprised her. But then, she reflected, the opening was looming and the museum absolutely had to have an Egyptologist in residence for the run of the show.

  Viola, oblivious to the sound and chaos beyond, was looking around at the tomb with wonder. “What a treasure!”

  Nora found herself liking the woman’s high-spirited attitude. Her open, frank enthusiasm was infinitely preferable to the pontifications of some dusty old professor.

  “I’ve just been checking the placement of the artifacts and doing a final run-through on the label copy,” she said. “Care to come along? You might catch some errors.”

  “I’d adore it,” she said, practically beaming. “Although with Adrian having done the work, I’m sure it’s solid.”

  Nora turned. “You knew him?”

  Viola’s face clouded. “We Egyptologists are a rather small club. Dr. Menzies told me what happened. I can’t understand it. How terribly frightening for you.”

  Nora simply nodded.

  “I knew Adrian professionally,” Viola said, her voice more quiet now. “He was a brilliant Egyptologist, although he rather fancied himself God’s gift to women. Still, I never would have thought that . . . What a terrible shock.” She broke off.

  For a moment, an awkward silence settled over them. Then Nora roused herself.

  “He left a fine legacy behind him,” she said. “In his work for the exhibition. And I know it sounds crass, but the show must go on.”

  “I suppose so,” Viola replied. Then she brightened a little. “I hear the sound-and-light show is quite spectacular.”

  “It has just about everything, even a talking mummy.”

  Viola laughed. “That sounds delicious!”

  They walked on, Nora checking her clipboard. She took the opportunity to examine Viola Maskelene more closely out of the corner of her eye as the Egyptologist looked over the cases full of antiquities.

  They paused at one spectacular canopic jar. “I’m afraid this is XVIII Dynasty,” Viola said. “It’s a bit anachronistic, compared to the other objects.”

  Nora smiled. “I know. We didn’t quite have all the XIX Dynasty objects we needed, so we expanded—fudged—the time period a bit. Adrian explained that antiques, even at the time of the pharaohs, were often put in burials.”

  “Quite true! Sorry for bringing it up—I’m a bit of a stickler for details.”

  “Being a stickler for details is exactly what we need.”

  They circled the burial chamber, Nora checking items off her list, Viola parsing the label copy and examining the objects.

  “Can you read hieroglyphics?” Nora asked.

  Viola nodded.

  “What do you make of the curse above the door, the one with the Eye of Horus?”

  A laugh. “One of the nastiest I’ve ever seen.”

  “Really? I thought they were all nasty.”

  “On the contrary. Many Egyptian tombs aren’t even protected with curses. They didn’t need to be—everyone knew that to rob a pharaoh’s tomb was to steal from the gods themselves.”

  “So why put a curse in this tomb?”

  “I imagine it was because, unlike a pharaoh, Senef wasn’t a god. He may have felt that the additional protection of the curse might be warranted. That painting of Ammut . . . whew!” Viola shuddered. “Goya couldn’t do better.”

  Nora glanced at the painting, nodding grimly.

  “I understand word of this curse has gotten around,” Viola said.

  “The guards started it. Now the whole museum is abuzz. A few of the maintenance staff flat-out refuse to go into the tomb after hours.”

  They came around a pilaster, only to find a woman in a gray suit kneeling on the stone floor, scraping dust out of a crack and putting it in a test tube. Nearby, a man in a white lab coat was organizing what looked like samples in a portable chemical laboratory.

  “What in the world is she doing?” Viola whispered.

  Nora had never seen the woman before. She certainly didn’t look much like a museum employee. In fact, she looked like a cop.

  “Let’s find out.” Nora walked over. “Hello. I’m Nora Kelly, curator of the exhibition.”

  The woman rose. “I’m Susan Lombardi, with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.”

  “May I ask what you’re doing?”

  “We’re testing for any environmental hazards—toxins, microbes, that sort of thing.”

  “Really? And why is that necessary?”

  She shrugged. “All I know is, the request came from the NYPD. A rush job.”

  “I see. Thank you.”

  Nora turned away and the woman went back to work.

  “That’s odd,” said Viola. “Are they worried about some kind of infectious disease, perhaps, endemic to the tomb itself? Some Egyptian tombs have been known to harbor ancient viruses and fungus spores.”

  “I suppose so. Strange that no one told me.”

  But Viola had turned away. “Oh, look—what a fabulous unguent container! It’s better than anything in the British Museum!” And she rushed over to a large glass case containing an artifact carved in white alabaster and decorated with paint, a lion crouching on the lid. “Why, it has the cartouche of Thutmosis himself on it!” She knelt, examining it with rapt attention.

  There was something refreshingly spontaneous, even rebellious, about Viola Maskelene. Nora took in the woman’s beaten-up canvas pants, lack of makeup, and dusty work shirt, wondering if this was going to be her standard museum uniform. She looked just the opposite of a stuffy British archaeologist.

  Viola . . . Viola Maskelene. It was a strange name, and it rang a bell . . . Had Menzies mentioned her before? No, not Menzies . . . somebody else . . .

  And then, quite suddenly, she remembered.

  “You were the one kidnapped by the jewel thief!” It came out in a rush, before she’d had time to think, and Nora immediately colored.

  Viola rose quietly from the case and brushed off her knees. “Yes. That was me.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fling it out like that.”

  “Actually, I’m glad you mentioned it. Better to get it out in the open and get past it.”

  Nora felt her cheeks flaming.

  “It’s fine, Nora—really. Actually, all that was just another reason I was glad to take this job and return to New York.”

  “Really?”

  “To me, it’s sort of like falling off a horse—you’ve got to get right back on if you ever hope to ride again.”

  “That’s a good way to look at it.” Nora paused. “So you’re Agent Pendergast’s friend.”

  Now it was time for Viola Maskelene to color. “You might say that.”

  “My husband, Bill Smithback, and I are well acquainted with Special Agent Pendergast.”

  Viola looked at her with fresh interest. “Really? How did you meet?”

  “I helped with a case of his a few years ago. I feel
terrible about what’s happened to him.” She didn’t mention her husband’s activities, which he had insisted on keeping confidential.

  “Agent Pendergast is the other reason I returned,” Viola said in a low voice. Then she fell into silence.

  After they had finished up in the burial chamber, they followed with a quick check of the side chambers. Then Nora glanced at her watch. “One o’clock. You want some lunch? We’re going to be here until after midnight, and you don’t want to be caught running on empty. Come on—the shrimp bisque in the staff cafeteria is actually worth making a trip for.”

  At this, Viola Maskelene brightened. “Lead the way, Nora.”

  40

  In the close darkness of cell 44, high within the isolation cellblock of Herkmoor Federal Correctional Facility, Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast lay at rest, his eyes open and staring at the ceiling. The dark was not absolute: an unchanging bar of light from the lone window streaked across the ceiling, formed by the harsh glare of the illuminated yards and grounds outside. From the next cell, the soft sounds of the drummer continued, muted and thoughtful now, a mournful adagio which Pendergast found curiously conducive to concentration.

  Other sounds reached his sensitive ears: the clang of steel against steel; a distant gargled cry of anger; the endless repetition of a cough, coming in groups of three; footsteps of a guard on his rounds. The great prison of Herkmoor was resting but not sleeping—a world unto its own, with its own rules, food chain, rituals, and customs.

  As Pendergast lay there, a trembling green dot appeared on the opposite wall: the beam of a laser, shot in through the window from a great distance. It quickly steadied itself. Then, after a moment, the dot began to blink off and on. Pendergast watched as it spelled out its coded message. The only sign of his comprehension was a slight quickening of breath toward the end of the message.

  And then, as abruptly as it had come, the dot vanished. The faintly murmured word “Excellent” could be heard in the darkened cell.

  Pendergast closed his eyes. Tomorrow at two o’clock he would once again have to face Lacarra’s gang, the Broken Teeth, in yard 4. And then—assuming he survived the encounter—an even greater task would follow.

  Right now, he required sleep.

  Employing a specialized and secretive form of meditation known as Chongg Ran, Pendergast identified and isolated the pain in his broken ribs; then he turned the pain off, one rib at a time. His consciousness moved to the torn rotator cuff in his shoulder, the puncture wound in his side, the dull ache of his cut and bruised face. One by one, with cold mental discipline, he isolated and extinguished the pain in each part.

  Such discipline was necessary. A most challenging day lay ahead.

  41

  The ancient Beaux Arts mansion at 891 Riverside Drive boasted many spacious halls, but none were grander than the broad gallery that ran across the entire front portion of the second floor. The wall facing the street was composed of a series of floor-to-ceiling windows, sealed and shuttered. At each end of the hall, arched doorways led back to other parts of the mansion. Between the two doors, along the inside wall, stretched an unbroken succession of life-sized oil portraits. The gallery was lit by dim electric candelabra, which threw lambent light over the heavy gilt frames. Piano music sounded from hidden speakers: dense, lush, and demonically complex.

  Constance Greene and Diogenes Pendergast walked slowly down the gallery, pausing at each portrait while Diogenes murmured the history of its subject. Constance wore a pale blue dress, set off by a black lace front whose buttons ran up to the low neckline that surrounded her throat. Diogenes wore dark trousers and a silver-gray cashmere jacket. Both held tulip-shaped cocktail glasses.

  “And this,” Diogenes said as he stopped before a portrait of a splendidly dressed nobleman whose air of dignity was strangely offset by a rakish mustache, “is le Duc Gaspard de Mousqueton de Prendregast, the largest landholder in Dijon during the late sixteenth century. He was the last respectable member of the noble line which began with Sieur de Monts Prendregast, who won his title fighting in England with William the Conqueror. Gaspard was something of a tyrant: he was forced to flee Dijon when the peasants and villeins working his lands revolted. He took his family to the royal court, but a scandal ensued and they were forced to leave France. Exactly what next happened to the family remains something of a mystery, but there was a dreadful split. One branch moved to Venice, while the other—those left without favor, title, or money—fled to America.”

  He moved to the next portrait, of a young man with flaxen hair, gray eyes, and a weak chin, whose full and sensual lips seemed almost the mirror of Diogenes’s own. “This is the scion of the Venice branch of the family, the duke’s son, Comte Lunéville—the title was by this point, alas, already honorary. He sank into idleness and dissipation, and for several generations his descendants followed suit. For a time, in fact, the lineage was sadly reduced. It did not regain its full flower for another hundred years, when the two family lines were reunited by marriage in America . . . but even that, of course, proved a fleeting glory.”

  “Why fleeting?” Constance asked.

  Diogenes looked at her a moment. “The Pendergast family has been in a long, slow decline. My brother and I are the last. Although my brother married, his charming wife . . . met an untimely end before she could reproduce. I have neither wife nor child. If we die without issue, the Pendergast line will vanish from the earth.”

  They proceeded to the next painting.

  “The American branch of the family ended up in New Orleans,” he continued. “They moved comfortably in the wealthy circles of antebellum society. There, the last of the Venetian branch of the family, il Marquese Orazio Paladin Prendergast, married Eloise de Braquilanges in a wedding so lavish and brilliant it was talked about for generations. Their only child, however, became fascinated with the peoples, and the practices, of the surrounding bayous. He took the family in a wholly unexpected direction.” He gestured at the portrait, displaying a tall, goateed man in a brilliant white suit with a blue ascot. “Augustus Robespierre St. Cyr Pendergast. He was the first fruit of the reunited family lines, a doctor and a philosopher, who dropped an r from the last name to make it more American. He was the cream of old New Orleans society—until he married a ravishingly beautiful woman from the deep bayou who spoke no English and was given to strange nocturnal practices.” Diogenes paused a moment, as if reflecting on something. Then he chuckled.

  “It’s remarkable,” Constance breathed, fascinated despite herself. “All these years I’ve stared at these faces, trying to put names and histories to them. A few of the most recent ones I could guess at, but the rest . . .” She shook her head.

  “Great-Uncle Antoine never told you of his ancestry?”

  “No. He never spoke of it.”

  “I’m not surprised, really—he left the family on bad terms. As, in fact, did I.” Diogenes hesitated. “And it’s clear my brother never spoke much of the family to you, either.”

  Constance took a sip from her glass in lieu of reply.

  “I know a great deal about my family, Constance. I have taken pains to learn their secret histories.” He glanced at her again. “I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to be able to share this with you. I feel I can talk to you . . . like no other.”

  She met his eyes only briefly before returning them to the portrait.

  “You deserve to know it,” he continued. “Because after all, you’re a member of the family, too—in a way.”

  Constance shook her head. “I’m only a ward,” she said.

  “To me, you are more than that—much more.”

  They had hesitated before the portrait of Augustus. Now, to break a silence that threatened to grow awkward, Diogenes said, “How do you like the cocktail?”

  “Interesting. It has an initial bitterness that blossoms on the tongue into . . . well, something else entirely. I’ve never tasted anything like it.”

  She looked at Dio
genes for approval and he smiled. “Go on.”

  She took another small sip. “I detect licorice and aniseed, eucalyptus, fennel perhaps—and notes of something else I can’t identify.” She lowered the glass. “What is it?”

  Diogenes smiled, sipped from his own glass. “Absinthe. Hand-macerated and distilled, the finest available. I have it flown in from Paris for my personal consumption. Diluted slightly with sugar and water, as is the classic preparation. The flavor you can’t identify is thujone.”

  Constance stared at the glass in surprise. “Absinthe? Made from wormwood? I thought it was illegal.”