glanced beneath, angling the light in closer for a better look. Stepping forward, Logan could see another sheet of precious metal-this one edged with faience and precious gems, its surface dense with hieroglyphs-once again covering the entire upper surface of the chest. Stone gestured for the roustabouts to remove it as well.
“Over here, please,” Romero said. She instructed Valentino’s men to place both inserts on the floor near the table with the papyri.
With the second sheet of gold removed, a rough, uneven surface greeted their eyes. To Logan, looking down into the chest through the dim light, the chest appeared to be filled with a superfluity of small, thin, desiccated bones, all jumbled about and knotted together in a crazy quilt of disarray.
Stone grunted in surprise. He reached forward; thought better of it; donned another latex glove, and then dipped a hand into the material.
“What is all that?” Logan asked.
“I’ll be damned,” Stone replied after a minute. “It’s hemp.”
Rush leaned forward, plucked a piece from the jumble with a pair of forceps, examined it with his flashlight. “You’re right.”
Nodding to Valentino’s men, Stone began removing handfuls of the ancient plant stalks from the chest-first gingerly, then in larger and larger amounts, until it littered the floor of chamber three. As the material was disturbed, thin clouds of organic dust rose, and an odd scent-like that of a five-thousand-year-old harvest-rose to Logan’s nostrils.
Embedded within the bundles of hemp were two bags, each slightly larger than a basketball, formed from strands of gold so tightly and expertly woven that they were as pliable as silk. Gently-gently-Stone freed them from the surrounding hemp and placed them on the floor before the plinth.
Once again, without speaking, the group closed in. Logan looked at the two roundish objects gleaming in the beams of a half-dozen flashlights. In his mind’s eye, he saw within them the twin crowns of Egypt: the white, conical crown of upper Egypt, spotless and gleaming; the red crown of lower Egypt, high peaked and aggressive. What were they made of? Painted gold? Some unknown or unexpected alloy? What magic did they wield? He felt almost beside himself with eagerness to see what was inside those soft folds of woven gold. Two bundles. There was no longer any question: these were the double crowns of the first pharaoh of Egypt. What else would Narmer have guarded so jealously, so carefully, and at such great cost-not only to himself but to his legacy?
Stone appeared seized with a similar urgency. He picked up one of the golden bags, loosened its end, and- with a brief look around at the others-reached in and gently pulled out its contents.
What emerged was not a crown but something very different: a bowl-shaped implement, made apparently of white marble, trailing long gold filaments from its edge.
There was a murmur of surprise and dismay from the onlookers.
Stone frowned. He stared at the thing for a moment, uncomprehending, and then placed it aside atop its golden bag and-more quickly this time-thrust his hand into the second.
What he pulled out of this bag was even stranger: a construction of red enamel, topped by an iron rod that itself was surrounded by a curled sheet of copper. Logan, stunned, leaned forward, peering closely. The iron rod leading away from the enamel construction was sealed with a stopper of what appeared to be bitumen. They looked precisely like the images in the wall painting in chamber one.
These were not crowns. These could be called nothing else but — devices.
Stone stared blankly at the red-colored thing in his right hand. Then he picked up the white marble object in his left. As the group watched in silence, he looked from one, to the other, and then back again.
“What the hell?” he croaked.
49
In the rearmost of the three examination rooms of the Station’s small medical suite, Jennifer Rush moved restlessly on the bed where she’d been placed for observation. The room was dimly lit, and the lone nurse who had been monitoring her had sneaked out of the suite-Jennifer’s vitals had fallen into normal REM sleep, and the nurse was unwilling to miss a hairdressing reservation. All was still except for the low, infrequent blinking and bleating of the surrounding medical instruments.
Jennifer stirred again. She took in a deep, shuddering breath. For a moment, she fell still. And then-for the first time in more than thirty hours-her eyes fluttered open. She looked at the ceiling, her gaze vague, unfocused. Then-after another minute-she struggled to sit up.
“Ethan?” she called out, her voice hoarse.
In the low light, with the surrounding forest of tiny lights and digital readouts, the room seemed strange, almost exotic: a mosaic of red and yellow and green, as if the gods had laid a skein of jewels across a night sky, transforming normally white stars into brilliant colors. Jennifer blinked, then blinked again, uncomprehending. And then her gaze fell on something familiar: the ancient silver amulet, left hanging by Ethan Rush on its chain from a nearby monitor.
Jennifer’s brow furrowed.
The amulet showed a crude depiction of one of the most famous scenes of Egyptian mythology: Isis, having assembled the fragments of the dead and butchered Osiris, reanimating his body through a magical spell and transforming him into the god of the underworld.
The amulet gleamed fitfully in the lambent light of the instrumentation. As she stared, Jennifer’s body grew increasing rigid. Her breathing slowly became more shallow and ragged. Suddenly-with a faint expelling sigh, like air escaping from a bellows-her jaw sagged, her pupils rolled up into her head, and she collapsed back onto the bed.
Ten, or perhaps fifteen, minutes passed in which the examination room remained silent. And then Jennifer Rush sat up again. She took a shallow, exploratory breath, followed by a deeper one. She closed her eyes, opened them again. Then she licked her lips gently, almost experimentally.
And then-with a single, mechanical motion-she swung her legs over the side of the bed and let her feet slip to the cold, tiled floor.
She took a step forward, hesitated, stepped forward again. The pulse-oximeter clamp brushed against the nearest bank of instruments and fell away from her little finger. She reached up, felt the network of leads attached to her neck and forehead, and pulled them away like so many cobwebs. Then she looked around. Her eyes were cloudy but nevertheless focused.
The door lay ahead. She made for it, then stopped, her progress once again arrested. This time the culprit was the intravenous line, running from the saline bag to the catheter. Jennifer tried walking forward again, watched the saline rack tip forward; glanced along the IV line to her wrist; then grasped the catheter and pulled it roughly from her vein.
This time, when she moved toward the exit, there were no further difficulties.
Leaving the medical suite and stepping into the central hallway of Red, she glanced first left, then right. The corridor was empty: most off-duty personnel were either in their quarters or in the public rooms, eagerly awaiting word from chamber three.
Jennifer hesitated in the doorway for a moment, perhaps getting her bearings, perhaps simply regaining her equilibrium. Then she turned left and proceeded down the hall. At the first intersection, she turned right. Her eyes remained cloudy, and her gait was halting-like somebody who had been off her feet for a long, long time-but as she walked her gait improved, her breathing became more and more regular.
She stopped at a door marked HAZARDOUS MATERIALS STORAGE. EXPLOSIVE AND HIGHLY VOLATILE- ACCESS RESTRICTED. She turned the knob, found it locked. But the identity card around her neck-so crisp, so light, such a shiny shade of blue-slid easily through the reader beside the door; the lock sprang open; and she slipped into the room and out of sight.
50
