Krewe of Hunters, Volume 2: The Unseen ; The Unholy ; The Unspoken ; The Uninvited

by Heather Graham

  “Who’s doing the documentary?” Kat asked.

  “Alan King. We barely saw him when we were in San Antonio, but he had a bad time with the documentary there, especially losing his star. Apparently the Chicago Ancient History Preservation Center—where our dead man worked—is struggling like the rest of the world. They need funding.” He studied his papers. “One of the staff, Dr. Amanda Channel, sent out queries to various film people and hit upon some friends of ours—you remember Bernie Firestone, right?”

  “Of course,” Kat said.

  “Yes, well, he’s frequently hired by Alan King, who can make films whenever he wants because he has billions—no, he didn’t make his billions in film. He’s able to do documentary films because he does have billions. Bernie approached Alan, who loved the idea, and there you have it.”

  “Sean should be available soon,” Kat murmured. “He’s worked with them before.”

  “If he’s needed, he’ll be there. Remember—we don’t know if this is anything at all. Anyway, if you do end up staying, you’ve at least met Alan and you know Bernie and his cameraman, Earl Candy. Right now, you’ll take a look at the deceased, read the autopsy report, talk with a few people—and, if there’s nothing, we’ll all meet back in Virginia. Requests for our expertise are already piling up back at headquarters.” Logan paused. “But like I said, I feel we’re in debt on this one. There’s also the fate of a historical institute on the line, not to mention an incredible discovery.”

  “I still say…”

  “That it’s ironic?” Logan asked. “I thought that, too, but then, not so much. Not really. When the original Sam Stone was filmed in the early forties, the sinking of the ship in Lake Michigan had occurred half a century earlier. A writer, one who was fascinated by Egyptology, would readily have seized upon a real priest for his story. I looked into it and found out that the original screenplay was by a man named Harold Conway—who was born in Chicago. He grew up going to the Field Museum and hearing stories about the Jerry McGuen. The priest’s actual mummy, with the inner and outer sarcophagi, as well as other treasures, went down with the ship. So our screenwriter would definitely have known about Amun Mopat, and he was obviously interested enough in the historical character to use him in a movie.”

  “Great,” Kat muttered.

  “Hey, it could be an M.E.’s dream,” he said.

  “A mummy? An anthropologist’s dream, not mine,” she retorted. “But…all right, so I’m to examine the body and try to discern if he died by natural means, or…”

  She let her voice trail off.

  They dealt with the unknown, the world that lay beyond the veil. Their “sixth sense.”

  But Logan had a point. In her experience, and in that of the others, they’d never come across a ghost or a curse that killed.

  It was human beings who killed other human beings.

  “They’re not expecting to find much left of the people who went down with the ship,” Logan was saying. “According to the records, there were no survivors, and no bodies rose to the surface—or none that were found or recognized. But I’ve read that time would have destroyed even their skeletons by now. Is that true?”

  Kat nodded. “Unless someone was caught in a sealed area, it’s unlikely that there’d be any remains. Time and sea creatures take their toll. They may find skeletal remnants, but only once they’re into the bowels of the ship.”

  “So, it really is one big watery grave.”

  “It does seem respectful to salvage what might be important to history and the living, and then let the ship itself stay where it sank, a memorial to those who were lost.”

  “I believe that’s the eventual plan.” Logan flipped a page in the file that lay before him on the table. “You won’t be alone,” he told her, grinning as if he’d read her mind. She wasn’t afraid of being alone, nor was she unaccustomed to the strange and unusual.

  “Oh?”

  “A member of the original Krewe is out there now. He happened to be visiting an old buddy in Chicago when this came down. You’ll meet up with him. His name is Will Chan. He’ll stop by to see Alan, Bernie and Earl this afternoon, and he has an appointment with the people at the Preservation Center bright and early tomorrow morning. He’ll meet you at the morgue at 10:00 a.m.”

  “Okay, but do I need to reach him first?”

  “No. Head straight to the morgue. Will’s going to catch up with you there.” Logan handed her the folder. “His contact information is in here. Between the two of you, we’ll have a good sense of what’s going on, be it too much enthusiasm by a diving historian—or a predator with an enthusiasm for murder. Oh, and Alan King has hired private security to guard the dive site.”

  “You can guard a dive site?”

  “I thought you were a diver?”

  “Yes, but I dive because I love it, not because I’m looking for lost treasures.” Kat offered him a wry smile. “I’ve seen salvage from the Titanic and the Atocha in museums. I never went looking for them. And I usually dive in nice warm water in the Caribbean or the Gulf.”

  “Salvage rights are complicated. Federal law says that all wrecks belong to the state that claims the waters. Depending on what’s found, ownership of artifacts and the wreck itself may wind up in court for years. But the Preservation Center did file papers for the right to dive and work on the wreck. However, it’s not the legal aspect that people worry about as much as the black market.”

  “Other divers stripping the site and selling salvage illegally?” Kat asked.

  “You can’t begin to imagine what can be bought and sold on the black market.”

  “Still…it’s got to be tricky, raiding a dive site.”

  “Yes, but it’s been done. Hence, the security.”

  “I guess so.”

  “You have gone diving in cold water, right?” he asked next.

  “Well, yes.”

  “Make sure you pack a good dive suit. I understand the water temperature ranges between fifty and sixty at this time of year, and I believe that’s kind of cold when you’re down there.”

  “I’ve never been in Lake Michigan.” Kat frowned. “And I’ve never been involved with the discovery of a wreck.”

  “See, you’re all excited now.”

  “Excited. Well…I’m not sure that’s the best word to describe how I’m feeling, not after we nearly lost Madison Darvil to Amun Mopat—or his look-alike!”

  “We knew that Amun Mopat wasn’t the killer. And we know that mummy isn’t swimming around planning to kill anyone who discovers the ship.”

  “We don’t know that anyone is killing people at all yet,” Kat said. “We’ve probably been asked in because Alan King is feeling a little worried—since his luck with documentaries hasn’t been so good lately.”

  Logan looked up at the skylight. Then he looked back at her. “No, we won’t know anything until you examine the body and get more information. Since Alan has hired private security near the site, hopefully no one else will be exploring the area and ending up dead while the situation is investigated. You’re booked on a 5:40 p.m. flight out of Burbank. You should be in a nice cozy room by midnight, and then tomorrow… I’ll be waiting to hear what you have to say.”

  “What if I can’t find the answer in the autopsy?” Kat asked him. “Or in anything else we’re able to examine?”

  “Then we’ll join you—and figure out where the answer does lie.”

  Kat nodded and sipped her coffee. The sun seemed to come out again and stream through the skylight overhead.

  “You have information on the ship, the sinking, the discovery of the tomb—all kinds of stuff—in the folder,” Logan said. “Along with info on all the principle players working on the discovery and preservation of Egyptian antiquities.”

  “Anything else?”

  He grinned. “Be glad it’s not the dead of winter?”

  * * *

  There was no keeping down a true scholar.

  Will Chan hadn’t c
ome for a lesson in Egyptology, but it seemed to be part of the interview.

  Senior researcher Jon Hunt grew animated as he spoke, saying, “Amun Mopat lived and died during the reign of Ramses—Ramses II, the most powerful ruler of the New Kingdom and the nineteenth dynasty and perhaps the most powerful of all the great pharaohs or god-kings of Egypt. Ramses ruled from 1279 BC to 1213 BC, and it appears that Mopat, reputed to be a shady character, was born in the same year and the same month, which seemed to be a great oracle to people at the time. Ramses was first drawn to him, believing in the power of sorcery. Amun Mopat lived a life of luxury, respected and consulted on most important matters of state. Ramses, you’ll remember, was a warrior king. He’s the one with Moses in all the movies—the villain, you know.”

  “Except,” Amanda Channel—also a senior researcher—interjected, “historians have argued constantly over the true factual dates of ‘the time of Moses.’ And whether or not he eventually expelled the Hebrews from Egypt, Ramses II was a builder and a soldier and a peacekeeper. In short, a remarkable ruler. Living in a world with a totally different belief system, of course. Must have been nice to be a god, huh?”

  Will sat in a conference room at the offices of the Chicago Ancient History Preservation Center as he spoke with—or, more accurately, listened to—Jon Hunt and Amanda Channel. Both of them were trying to explain everything at once, or so it seemed. More than three thousand years of ancient Egyptian history, Brady Laurie’s tragic death and the story behind the Jerry McGuen.

  Apparently neither of them needed to take a breath very often. And they switched from Egyptian history to Brady and then to the Jerry McGuen with record speed.

  But then, Egyptian history, Brady and the ship were now joined for all eternity.

  “Brady loved anything that had to do with ancient Egypt,” Jon said. “He could rattle off every pharaoh in every dynasty in the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom more quickly than your average high school kid could come up with all fifty states.”

  Will wasn’t sure most high school kids could rattle off all fifty states.

  “But,” Amanda jumped in, her voice almost a fluid continuation of Jon’s thoughts, “Brady especially loved the New Kingdom, and everything that’s been learned from excavations in the Valley of the Kings.”

  “Howard Carter’s discovery of King Tut’s tomb happened after the discovery of Amun Mopat’s. Since the treasures of Mopat’s tomb—a good portion of them, anyway—went down with the Jerry McGuen, a lot of important artifacts and information were lost to history,” Jon explained. “And Amun Mopat, much as he wanted to be a god, was only a priest. Tut had been a pharaoh.”

  He actually paused for breath and Amanda remained silent. Will took the opportunity to survey the conference room; there was an excellent bust of Nefertiti on a counter that stretched out from the back wall. Next to her were a dozen or so canopic jars, all copies, according to Amanda and Jon.

  He assumed they were telling the truth. Next to the canopic jars was a large coffee urn, and the usual collection of paper cups, sugar, creamer and whatever else one might desire for a cup of coffee. Nothing truly valuable would have been kept so casually and haphazardly where coffee could spill at any time.

  He’d only had a quick glimpse of one of the workrooms. It was sterile in appearance except for a piece Amanda had been working on, a funerary statue that had been dug out of a pit in the city—property of someone who’d lost everything in the Great Chicago Fire. The fire had occurred in 1871, before the sinking of the Jerry McGuen, but collectors had been avid about ancient Egyptian pieces for a hundred years by then, and there’d been those who’d coveted Egyptian art even before Napoleon’s soldier had cracked the code in 1799 and translated the Rosetta Stone.

  “Brady was being an ass,” Amanda said mournfully.

  Jon Hunt immediately looked offended, and Amanda softened her words.

  “An ass in the way we can all be asses. Jon, please, I’m not insulting him. I’d say the same thing about us. We get too excited about a discovery like this.” She sighed. “Brady grew up hearing his great-grandfather talk about the disappearance of the Jerry McGuen. Maybe that’s when he fell in love with Egyptology. Or maybe it started with the visits to the Field Museum. And you can imagine how he felt, considering what he knew about both Egyptology and the Jerry McGuen. We can’t help it. I guess we’re real nerds—oh, my God! Who would’ve thought that being a nerd could be dangerous? We think we know what we’re doing, and then…”

  “He was brilliant.” Jon shook his head as if he still couldn’t accept that his friend and coworker was dead.

  “Brilliant—and, this one time, so foolish!” Amanda said. “Yes, I admit the rest of us hadn’t totally believed in his theory. I mean, we believed—we just weren’t as insane about it as Brady. That’s how we work. Even when we’re not convinced that someone else is right, we work with them to find out. And all of Brady’s calculations did make sense. We were scheduled to start looking together. If they hadn’t been sound theories and calculations, we wouldn’t have approached the film director—Mr. Firestone. Oh, if Brady could just have waited…”

  “We would have been right with him,” Jon said. He gritted his teeth. “I was the one who found him,” he whispered.

  “We found him,” Amanda corrected.

  “Yes, well, I was the first to see him…floating there.”

  “We have two boats,” Amanda said. “He took one out ahead of us. We have a small, exploratory dive boat, and then our larger vessel. It was Saturday and—”

  “Yes,” Jon interrupted. “If only it hadn’t been a Saturday!”

  “We were supposedly off work, but Brady called both of us that morning. He said he was going to take the boat out and use sonar,” Amanda said. “Seriously, finding anything actually salvageable on the McGuen was always a long shot, but Brady believed that the treasures taken from the tomb had been so carefully packed, there was a real chance. I thought we were going to start on Monday, but he called me. I called Jon, and we agreed we’d go out with him, but he’d already taken the smaller boat. We let him know we were on our way, but I think he ignored us because he had to prove it to himself first. He shouldn’t have gone down to the wreck. He shouldn’t have gone down alone—he knew that. I was furious with him. Before we found him, of course.” She paused, looking at Jon and then at Will and added, “I was afraid. We didn’t want to lose our funding.” She glanced at Jon again, as if feeling guilty about something she’d done while trying to rationalize it at the same time.

  “We brought out our second boat—the big one, Glory—and found the Seeker at anchor. There was no sign of Brady. And it was wrong of him, because Mr. King, the producer, said from the beginning that he’d finance us as long as we let him document every step—right or wrong—along the way,” Amanda told Will.

  “I think Brady was afraid we’d start work, and there’d be no ship,” Jon said. “And if that was the case—”

  “We’d already taken money,” Amanda broke in. “It’s also really competitive, diving for salvage. It can be confusing, too, with U.S. laws, state laws, international laws…except that we’re not in it to make a fortune. A 1987 federal law says the states own all wrecks found in their territorial waters, but there’s still money in salvage. There’s another law about disturbing a grave site, but really, there can’t be anything left of the people…. Except if the mummy itself was properly sealed… The thing is, we believe in returning antiquities. What we’d earn would be a percentage of what Mr. King makes in IMAX films and the like. Of course, he gave us a hefty sum as a down payment.”

  “I knew something was wrong when the boat was empty, and Brady’s dive flag was still out,” Jon said.

  “So, anyway,” Amanda continued, “Mr. King’s director, Bernie Firestone, and some of his crew came out with us, taking their boat—nice and fancy, all kinds of great stuff on it—and two of his underwater cameramen followed us down. And…and we f
ound Brady.” Tears welled in Amanda’s eyes.

  “Yeah. It was great. He’d found the Jerry McGuen,” Jon said bitterly. “And we found him.”

  Amanda let out a little choking sound. They both stared at Will, their eyes soulful and wet.

  Amanda was thirty-two, a pretty woman, reed-thin and passionate about her work. Jon, her coworker, was a few years older. His brown hair was graying at the temples and he wore bottle-thick glasses and was also thin. He was wiry and seemed fit as the proverbial fiddle.

  Their attempt to explain everything to him at once seemed to point to their clinical and obsessive pursuit of knowledge. They both spent hour upon hour—day upon day—in their little cubicles or labs, painstakingly dusting or chiseling away the dirt and dust of the ages. Sometimes, they got to go on a dig or a dive, but most of the time, they were in their offices and labs.

  Will liked everything he’d read about the Chicago Ancient History Preservation Center. He’d always been intrigued by history himself, especially by the way many societies—including the ancient Egyptians—used mysticism and magic.

  As Amanda had said, the center kept none of the antiquities it discovered or worked on; its sole purpose was to preserve historical artifacts, delve into their secrets and pass them on to their homelands or an institution worthy of guarding and displaying them. It had been founded in the latter part of the nineteenth century by Jonas Shelby, an avid Egyptologist. In the years since, grants and private donations had added to Shelby’s legacy, and while the “treasures” came directly from ancient Egypt, they might also have been discovered in a Chicago backyard.

  Amanda suddenly frowned at Will. “I’m not really sure why you’re here, Agent Chan,” she said. “It’s fine, but…”