The Seventh Plague

by James Rollins

  “Samuel, my friend, the night is late, and I still have work to finish at my lab. I appreciate the tickets to the theater, but I should be off.”

  “Nonsense. Too much work makes for a dull man.”

  “Then you must be exceptionally exciting . . . what with your life of such extreme leisure.”

  Twain glanced back with an exaggerated huff. “I’ll have you know I’m working on another book.”

  “Let me guess,” Nikola offered with a wry smile. “Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer get into more trouble.”

  “If only those two bastards would!” Twain chuckled, drawing the eye of a passerby. “Then I might be able to pay off my creditors.”

  Though Twain kept it quiet, he had declared bankruptcy last year, turning over all of his copyrights to his wife, Olivia. To help pay off his debts, he was due to head out on an around-the-world lecture tour over the next twelve months.

  Still, the mention of money had soured the moment. Twain kicked himself for mentioning it, knowing Nikola was struggling as much as he was with financial hardships, despite his friend being a veritable genius, a polymath who was equal parts inventor, electrical engineer, and physicist. Twain had spent many afternoons at the man’s South Fifth Avenue laboratory, the two becoming great friends.

  “Maybe one drink,” Nikola conceded with a sigh.

  They headed across the street toward the portico under the hissing gas lamps. But before they could reach the entrance, a figure stepped from the shadows to accost them both.

  “Thank God,” the man said as he ambushed them. “I heard from your doorman that you might end up here tonight.”

  Momentarily taken aback, Twain finally recognized the fellow. Surprised and delighted, he clapped his old friend on the shoulder. “Well met, Stanley! What are you doing here? I thought you were still in England.”

  “I only arrived back yesterday.”

  “Wonderful! Then let’s celebrate your return to our shores by raising a glass or two. Maybe even three.”

  Twain moved to draw the other two men inside with him, only to be stopped by Stanley at the threshold.

  “As I understand it,” Stanley said, “you have the ear of Thomas Edison.”

  “I . . . I suppose I do,” Twain answered hesitantly, knowing all too well of the deep-seated friction between Edison and his companion this night, Nikola Tesla.

  “I have a matter of urgency to discuss with the inventor, something to show him, a task given to me by the Crown.”

  “Truly? What a tantalizing bit of intrigue.”

  “Perhaps I could help,” Nikola offered.

  As the two men were unacquainted, Twain made proper introductions, acting as a potential matchmaker for this strange affair. “Nikola, this is Henry Morton Stanley—soon to be Sir Stanley if the rumors hold true—famed not only as an explorer in his own right but also regaled for his discovery of David Livingstone, a fellow explorer lost in the darkest heart of Africa.”

  “Ah,” Nikola said, “I remember now, especially how you greeted him. ‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume?’ ”

  Stanley groaned. “I never said those exact words.”

  Twain smiled and turned to his other friend. “And this is Nikola Tesla, as much a genius in his own right as Edison, perhaps more so.”

  Stanley’s eyes grew wider upon this introduction. “Of course. I should have recognized you.”

  This drew some color to Nikola’s pale cheeks.

  “So,” Twain began, “upon what dire mission has the British Crown assigned you?”

  Stanley wiped a damp palm across his thinning gray hair. “As you know, Livingstone was lost in Africa while seeking the true source of the Nile. Something I’ve sought myself in the past.”

  “Yes, you and many other Brits. Apparently it’s a quest on par with finding the Holy Grail for you all.”

  Stanley scowled but did not discount his words.

  Twain suspected that the drive behind such a concerted search by the British had less to do with geographical curiosity than it did with the country’s colonial ambitions in Africa, but for once he held his tongue, fearing he might scare his friend off before the night’s mystery revealed itself.

  “So how does the source of the Nile concern the British Crown?” Twain pressed.

  Stanley drew him closer and pulled a small object from his pocket. It was a glass vial full of a dark liquid. “This was only recently discovered among the relics of David Livingstone’s estate. A Nubian warrior—someone whom Livingstone had helped by saving the man’s sick son—had given David an ancient talisman, a small vessel sealed with wax and carved with hieroglyphics. This vial holds a small sample of the water found inside that talisman, water which the tribesman claimed came from the Nile itself.”

  Twain shrugged. “Why’s that significant?”

  Stanley stepped away and raised the vial toward one of the gas lamps. Under the flickering flame, the liquid inside glowed a rich crimson.

  “According to Livingstone’s papers, the water was said to be thousands of years old, drawn from the ancient Nile when the river had turned to blood.”

  “Turned to blood?” Nikola asked. “Like in the Old Testament?”

  Twain smiled, suspecting Stanley was trying to set him up. The explorer knew of his personal disdain for organized religion. They’d had many heated discourses on that very subject. “So you’re claiming this came from Moses’s biblical plague, the first of the ten he cast upon the Egyptians?”

  Stanley’s expression never wavered. “I know how this sounds.”

  “It can’t possibly—”

  “Twenty-two men are dead at the Royal Society. Slain when the Nubian talisman was first opened and its contents tested in a laboratory.”

  A moment of stunned silence followed.

  “How did they die?” Nikola finally asked. “Was it a poison?”

  Stanley had paled. Here was a man who had faced all manner of dread beast, debilitating fever, and cannibal savages with nary a sign of fear. He now looked terrified.

  “Not a poison.”

  “Then what?” Twain asked.

  With deadpan seriousness, Stanley answered, “A curse. A plague out of the distant past.” He closed his fist around the vial. “For this is indeed a remnant of God’s ancient wrath upon the Egyptians—but it’s only the beginning if we don’t stop what is to come.”

  “What can be done?” Twain asked.

  Stanley turned to Nikola. “You must come to England.”

  “To do what?” Twain asked.

  “To stop the next plague.”

  FIRST

  MUMMIFICATION

  ∑

  1

  Present Day

  May 28, 11:32 A.M. EET

  Cairo, Egypt

  From the coroner’s nervous manner, Derek Rankin knew something was wrong. “Show us the body.”

  Dr. Badawi gave a small bow of his head and lifted an arm toward the morgue’s elevator. “If you’ll follow me, please.”

  As the coroner led them away, Derek glanced to his two companions, uncertain how they would handle these last steps of this grim journey. The older of the two women, Safia al-Maaz, stood a head taller than her younger companion, Jane McCabe. The group had arrived by private jet from London this morning, landing at the Cairo airport before being whisked to the city’s morgue, a nondescript set of blue buildings within a stone’s throw of the Nile.

  As they followed the coroner, Safia kept a protective, motherly arm around the younger woman, who was only twenty-one.

  Derek caught Safia’s eyes, silently asking her, Can Jane handle this?

  Safia took a deep breath and nodded to him. She was his boss, a senior curator at the British Museum. He had joined the museum four years ago, hired as an assistant keeper, a low-level curatorship. His specialty was bio-archaeology, with a focus on investigating past human health. By studying the condition of dental, skeletal, and tissue remains, he tried to piece together a more complete assessmen
t of the physical conditions of ancient peoples, sometimes even calculating a cause of death for certain individuals. During his prior fellowship with the University College London, he had investigated various epidemics, including the Black Death in Europe and the Great Famine in Ireland.

  His current project with the British Museum involved analyzing mummies recovered from a region surrounding the Nile’s Sixth Cataract, where a new dam was being built in the Sudan. That arid zone had been rarely studied, but with the new construction under way, the Sudan Archaeological Research Society had sought the assistance of the British Museum to help salvage the region of its archaeological treasures before it was all lost. Just in the last few months, the project had managed to preserve significant swaths of rock art, including digging up and transporting the 390 blocks of a small Nubian pyramid.

  It was this very project that led them all here, a project many considered cursed when the lead researcher vanished two years ago, along with an entire survey team. After months of searching for the group, the loss was eventually attributed to foul play, likely due to the region’s instability following the Arab Spring uprisings and subsequent political unrest. Though half the survey team was Sudanese, it was still unwise for foreigners to be traipsing in such remote areas where bandits and rebels held sway. Even an act of terrorism was considered, but no group ever claimed responsibility, nor were there any ransom demands.

  The entire museum had been shaken by this loss. The team leader, Professor Harold McCabe—while not beloved due to his intractable nature—was well respected in his field. In fact, it had been Professor McCabe’s involvement with the project that had convinced Derek to join this salvage effort. McCabe had been Derek’s teacher and mentor during his early years at the University College London, even helping him attain his fellowship.

  So the man’s death had hit Derek deeply—but not as deeply as the youngest member of their group today.

  He studied Jane McCabe as she entered the elevator. The young woman stood with her arms crossed, her gaze a thousand miles away. She was Harold’s daughter. Derek noted the slight pebbling of sweat on her forehead and upper lip. The day was sweltering, and the morgue’s air-conditioning did little to hold back the heat. But he suspected the perspiration had less to do with the temperature than with the trepidation at what she must confront.

  Safia touched her elbow before the elevator doors closed. “Jane, you can still wait up here. I knew your father well enough to handle the identification.”

  Derek nodded his support, reaching out to stop the doors from gliding shut.

  Jane’s stare steadied and hardened. “I must do this,” she said. “After waiting two years for any answers—about my father, about my brother—I’m not about to . . .”

  Her voice cracked, which only seemed to irritate the young woman. Her older brother, Rory, had accompanied her father on the expedition, vanishing along with all the others, leaving Jane alone in the world. Her mother had died six years ago following a protracted battle with ovarian cancer.

  Jane reached forward and knocked Derek’s arm down, allowing the elevator doors to close.

  Safia let out a small sigh, plainly resigned to the young woman’s decision.

  Derek had expected no other response from Jane. She was too much like her father: stubborn, willful, and brilliant in her own right. Derek had known Jane for as long as he had known her father. Back then she had been sixteen and already in an accelerated undergraduate program at the same university. By the age of nineteen, she had a PhD in anthropology and was now in a postdoctoral program, clearly determined to follow in her father’s footsteps.

  Which unfortunately, in the end, only led her here.

  As the elevator descended, Derek studied the two women. Though they both shared a passion for antiquities, they couldn’t be more different. Safia’s Middle Eastern heritage was evident in the light mocha of her skin and the long fall of dark hair, half-hidden under a loose headscarf. She was dressed modestly in dark slacks and a long-sleeved light blue blouse. Even her manner was soft-spoken, yet she could easily command attention. There was something about those emerald green eyes that could stop a man cold if necessary.

  Jane, on the other hand, was much like her father, who was Scottish. Her hair was a fiery red, cut in a masculine bob. Unfortunately, her personality was just as fiery. Derek had heard stories of her browbeating fellow students, sometimes even her professors, if they disagreed with her. She was plainly her father’s daughter, but in one way the two were very different. Harold’s skin had been tanned to a wrinkled leather from decades under the desert sun, while Jane’s skin was pale and smooth from her years spent in university libraries. The only blemish was a slight freckling over her nose and cheeks, giving her a girlish appearance that many mistook for naïveté.

  Derek knew better than that.

  The elevator bumped to a stop. As the doors opened, the biting smell of bleach wafted into the cage, along with an underlying whiff of decay. Dr. Badawi led them all into a basement passageway of whitewashed concrete walls and worn linoleum floors. The coroner moved quickly, his small frame wrapped in a knee-length white lab coat. He clearly wanted to dispose of this matter as quickly as possible—but something also had him on edge.

  Badawi reached the end of the hallway and brushed through a thick drape of plastic that closed off a small room. Derek followed with the two women. In the room’s center rested a single stainless steel table. Atop it, a body lay under a crisp sheet.

  Despite her firm insistence on being here, Jane faltered at the threshold. Safia stayed at her side, while Derek followed the coroner to the table. Behind him, he heard Jane mumble that she was okay.

  Badawi glanced to the women, nervously bumping into a steel scale hanging beside the table. He whispered to Derek. “Perhaps you should view first. Maybe it is improper for women to be here at this time.”

  Jane heard him and responded to the veiled misogyny. “No.” She stalked forward with Safia. “I need to know if this is my father.”

  Derek read more in her expression. She wanted answers, some way to explain the years of uncertainty and false hopes. But most of all, she needed to let the ghost of her father go.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Safia urged.

  Badawi bowed his head slightly. He stepped to the table and folded back the top half of the sheet, exposing the naked upper torso of the body.

  Derek gasped and took a full step back. His first reaction was negation. This could not be Harold McCabe. The corpse on the table looked like something dug out of the sands after being buried for centuries. The skin had sunk to the sharp contours of the facial bones and ribs. Even stranger, the surface was a dark walnut color with a shiny complexion, almost as if the body had been varnished. But after the momentary shock wore off, Derek noted the grayish red hair sprouting from the body’s scalp, cheeks, and chin and knew his initial assessment was wrong.

  Jane recognized this, too. “Dad . . .”

  Derek glanced back. Despair and anguish racked Jane’s features. She turned away and buried her face in Safia’s chest. Safia’s expression was only slightly less despairing than the girl’s. Safia had known Harold for far longer than Derek. But he also read the crinkle of confusion on her brow.

  Derek could guess the cause of her consternation and voiced it to the coroner. “I thought Professor McCabe was still alive when he was discovered ten days ago.”

  Badawi nodded. “A family of nomads found him stumbling through the desert, about a kilometer outside the town of Rufaa.” The coroner cast a sympathetic glance toward Jane. “They brought him by cart to the village, but he died before reaching help.”

  “That timeline makes no sense,” Safia said. “The body here looks so much older.”

  Derek agreed, having had the same visceral reaction. Still, he returned his attention to the table, perplexed by another mystery. “You say Professor McCabe’s remains arrived two days ago by truck and that no one had embalmed his body,
only wrapped him in plastic. Was the vehicle refrigerated?”

  “No. But the body was put into a cooler once it arrived at the morgue.”

  Derek glanced to Safia. “It’s been ten days, with the body kept at stifling temperatures. Yet I’m seeing very little evidence of postmortem decay. No significant bloating, no cracking of skin. He looks almost preserved.”

  The only damage was a Y-incision across the torso from the autopsy. Derek had read the coroner’s report while en route from London. No cause of death was confirmed, but heat exposure and dehydration were the most likely culprits. Still, that diagnosis did little to tell Professor McCabe’s true story.

  Where had he been all of this time?

  Safia pursued this very question. “Were you able to get any more information from this family of nomads? Did Professor McCabe offer any explanation for his whereabouts prior to being found in the desert? Any word about his son or the others?”

  Badawi gazed at his toes as he answered Safia. “Nothing that makes sense. He was weak, delirious, and the group who came upon him only spoke a dialect of Sudanese Arabic.”

  “My father was fluent in many variants of Arabic,” Jane pressed.

  “That’s true,” Safia said. “If there’s anything he was able to communicate before dying . . .”

  Badawi sighed. “I didn’t write this in the report, but one of the nomads said Professor McCabe claimed to have been swallowed by a giant.”

  Safia frowned. “Swallowed by a giant?”

  Badawi shrugged. “Like I said, he was severely dehydrated, likely delirious.”

  “And nothing else?” Safia asked.

  “Only one word, mumbled over and over again as he was being driven to the village of Rufaa.”

  “What was that?”

  Badawi looked toward the young woman next to Safia. “Jane.”

  Harold’s daughter had stiffened at this revelation, looking both wounded and lost.

  As Safia kept hold of her, Derek used the moment to gently examine the body. He pinched and tested the elasticity of the skin. It appeared oddly thickened, almost hard. He then slipped free a bony hand and checked the fingernails, which were a peculiar shade of yellow.