The Book of the Dead Page 3

  A soft knock came at the door.

  “Come in.”

  The bearded figure of Hugo Menzies, chairman of the Anthropology Department, dressed elegantly and with less than the usual degree of academic rumpledness, entered the room. He silently took a chair as Josephine Rocco, the head of public relations, entered behind him, along with the museum’s lawyer, the ironically named Beryl Darling of Wilfred, Spragg and Darling.

  Collopy remained standing, watching the three as he stroked his chin thoughtfully. Finally he spoke.

  “I’ve called you here in emergency session, for obvious reasons.” He glanced down at the paper. “I assume you’ve seen the Times?”

  His audience nodded in silent assent.

  “We made a mistake in trying to cover this up, even briefly. When I took this position as director of the museum, I told myself I would run this place differently, that I wouldn’t operate in the secretive and sometimes paranoid manner of the last few administrations. I believed the museum to be a great institution, one strong enough to survive the vicissitudes of scandal and controversy.”

  He paused.

  “In trying to play down the destruction of our diamond collection, in seeking to cover it up, I made a mistake. I violated my own principles.”

  “An apology to us is all well and good,” said Darling in her usual crisp voice, “but why didn’t you consult me before you made that hasty and ill-considered decision? You must have realized you couldn’t get away with it. This has done serious damage to the museum and made my job that much more difficult.”

  Collopy reminded himself this was precisely the reason the museum paid Darling four hundred dollars an hour: she always spoke the unvarnished truth.

  He raised a hand. “Point taken. But this is a development I never in my worst nightmares anticipated-finding that our diamonds have been reduced to…” His voice cracked: he couldn’t finish.

  There was an uneasy shifting in the room.

  Collopy swallowed, began again. “We must take action. We’ve got to respond, and respond now. That is why I’ve asked you to this meeting.”

  As he paused, Collopy could hear, coming faintly from Museum Drive below, the shouts and calls of a growing crowd of protesters, along with police sirens and bullhorns.

  Rocco spoke up. “The phones in my office are ringing off the hook. It’s nine now, and I think we’ve probably got until ten, maybe eleven at the latest, to make some kind of official statement. In all my years in public relations, I’ve never encountered anything quite like this.”

  Menzies shifted in his chair, smoothed his silver hair. “May I?”

  Collopy nodded. “Hugo.”

  Menzies cleared his throat, his intense blue eyes darting to the window and back to Collopy. “The first thing we have to realize, Frederick, is that this catastrophe is beyond ‘spinning.’ Listen to the crowd out there-the fact that we even considered covering up such a loss has the people up in arms. No: we’ve got to take the hit, honestly and squarely. Admit our wrong. No more dissembling.” He glanced at Rocco. “That’s my first point and I hope we’re all in agreement on it.”

  Collopy nodded again. “And your second?”

  He leaned forward slightly. “It’s not enough to respond. We need to go on the offensive.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We need to do something glorious. We need to make a fabulous announcement, something that will remind New York City and the world that, despite all this, we’re still a great museum. Mount a scientific expedition, perhaps, or embark on some extraordinary research project.”

  “Won’t that look like a rather transparent diversion?” asked Rocco.

  “Perhaps to some. But the criticism will last only a day or two, and then we’ll be free to build interest and good publicity.”

  “What kind of project?” Collopy asked.

  “I haven’t gotten that far.”

  Rocco nodded slowly. “Perhaps it would work. This event could be combined with a gala party, strictly A-list, the social ‘must’ of the season. That will mute museum-bashing among the press and politicians, who will naturally want to be invited.”

  “This sounds promising,” Collopy said.

  After a moment, Darling spoke. “It’s a fine theory. All we lack is the expedition, event, or whatever.”

  At that moment, Collopy’s intercom buzzed. He stabbed at it with irritation. “Mrs. Surd, we’re not to be disturbed.”

  “I know, Dr. Collopy, but… well, this is highly unusual.”

  “Not now.”

  “It requires an immediate response.”

  Collopy sighed. “Can’t it wait ten minutes, for heaven’s sake?”

  “It’s a bank wire transfer donation of ten million euros for-”

  “A gift of ten million euros? Bring it in.”

  Mrs. Surd entered, efficient and plump, carrying a paper.

  “Excuse me for a moment.” Collopy snatched the paper. “Who’s it from and where do I sign?”

  “It’s from a Comte Thierry de Cahors. He’s giving the museum ten million euros to renovate and reopen the Tomb of Senef.”

  “The Tomb of Senef? What the devil is that?” Collopy tossed the paper on the desk. “I’ll deal with this later.”

  “But it says here, sir, that the funds are waiting in transatlantic escrow and must be either refused or accepted within the hour.”

  Collopy resisted an impulse to wring his hands. “We’re awash in bloody restricted funds like this! What we need are general funds to pay the bills. Fax this count whoever and see if you can’t persuade him to make this an unrestricted donation. Use my name with the usual courtesies. We don’t need the money for whatever windmill he’s tilting at.”

  “Yes, Dr. Collopy.”

  She turned away and Collopy glanced at the group. “Now, I believe Beryl had the floor.”

  The lawyer opened her mouth to speak, but Menzies held out a suppressing hand. “Mrs. Surd? Please wait a few minutes before contacting the Count of Cahors.”

  Mrs. Surd hesitated, glancing at Collopy for confirmation. The director nodded his confirmation and she left, closing the door behind her.

  “All right, Hugo, what’s this about?” Collopy asked.

  “I’m trying to remember the details. The Tomb of Senef-it rings a bell. And, now that I recall, so does the Count of Cahors.”

  “Can we move on here?” Collopy asked.

  Menzies sat forward suddenly. “Frederick, this is moving on! Think back over your museum history. The Tomb of Senef was an Egyptian tomb on display in the museum from its original opening until, I believe, the Depression, when it was closed.”

  “And?”

  “If memory serves, it was a tomb stolen and disassembled by the French during the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt and later seized by the British. It was purchased by one of the museum’s benefactors and reassembled in the basement as one of the museum’s original exhibits. It must still be there.”

  “And who is this Cahors?” Darling asked.

  “Napoleon brought an army of naturalists and archaeologists with his army when he invaded Egypt. A Cahors led the archaeological contingent. I imagine this fellow is a descendant.”

  Collopy frowned. “What does this have to do with anything?”

  “Don’t you see? This is precisely what we’re looking for!”

  “A dusty old tomb?”

  “Exactly! We make a big announcement of the count’s gift, set an opening date with a gala party and all the trappings, and make a media event out of it.” Menzies looked inquiringly at Rocco.

  “Yes,” Rocco said. “Yes, that could work. Egypt is always popular with the general public.”

  “Could work? It will work. The beauty of it is that the tomb’s already installed. The Sacred Images exhibition has run its course, it’s time for something new. We could do this in two months-or less.”

  “A lot depends on the condition of the tomb.”

  “Neverthele
ss, it’s still in place and ready to go. It might only need to be swept out. Our storage rooms are full of Egyptian odds and ends that we could put in the tomb to round out the exhibition. The count is offering plenty of money for whatever restoration is necessary.”

  “I don’t understand,” Darling said. “How could an entire exhibition be forgotten for seventy years?”

  “For one thing, it would have been bricked up-that’s often what they did to old exhibits to preserve them. “ Menzies smiled a little sadly. “This museum simply has too many artifacts, and not enough money or curators to tend them. That’s why I’ve lobbied for years now to create a position for a museum historian. Who knows what other secrets sleep in the long-forgotten corners?”

  A brief silence settled over the room, broken abruptly as Collopy brought his hand down on his desk. “Let’s do it.” He reached for the phone. “Mrs. Surd? Tell the count to release the money. We’re accepting his terms.”

  Chapter 6

  Nora Kelly stood in her laboratory, gazing at a large specimen table covered with fragments of ancient Anasazi pottery. The potsherds were of an unusual type that glowed almost golden in the bright lights, a sheen caused by countless mica particles in the original clay. She had collected the sherds during a summertime expedition to the Four Corners area of the Southwest, and now she had arranged them on a huge contour map of the Four Corners, each sherd in the precise geographical location where it had been found.

  She stared at the glittering array, once again trying to make sense of it. This was the core of her major research project at the museum: tracing the diffusion of this rare micaceous pottery from its source in southern Utah as it was traded and retraded across the Southwest and beyond. The pottery had been developed by a religious kachina cult that had come up from Aztec Mexico, and Nora believed that-by tracing the spread of the pottery across the Southwest-she could thereby trace the spread of the kachina cult.

  But there were so many sherds, and so many C-14 dates, that making all the variables work together was a thorny problem, and she had not even begun to solve it. She stared hard: the answer was there. She just had to find it.

  She sighed and took a sip of coffee, glad she had her basement lab as a refuge from the storm raging outside the museum above. Yesterday it had been the anthrax scare, but today was worse-thanks in large part to her husband, Bill, who had a singular knack for stirring up trouble. He had broken the story in the Times this morning that the powder was, in fact, the museum’s stolen diamond collection, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, pulverized to dust by the thief. The news had caused an uproar worse than anything Nora could remember. The mayor, cornered by a bevy of television cameras outside his office, had already blasted the museum and called for the immediate removal of its director.

  She forced her mind back to the problem of the potsherds. All the lines of diffusion led back to one place: the source of the rare clay at the base of the Kaiparowits plateau of Utah, where it had been mined and fired by the inhabitants of a large cliff dwelling hidden in the canyons. From there, it had been traded to places as far away as northern Mexico and western Texas. But how? And when? And by whom?

  She got up and went to a cabinet, removing the last ziplock bag of potsherds. The lab was as quiet as a tomb, the only sound the faint hiss of the forced-air ducts. Beyond the laboratory itself lay large storage areas: ancient oak cabinets with rippled glass windows, filled with pots, arrowheads, axes, and other artifacts. A faint whiff of paradichlorobenzene wafted in from the Indian mummy storage room next door. She began laying the sherds out on the map, filling in its last blank corner, double-checking the accession number on each sherd as she placed it.

  Suddenly she paused. She had heard the creaking-open of the laboratory door and the sound of a soft footfall on the dusty floor. Hadn’t she locked it? It was a silly habit, locking the door: but the museum’s vast and silent basement, with its dim corridors and its dark storage rooms filled with strange and dreadful artifacts, had always given her the creeps. And she could not forget what had happened to her friend Margo Green just a few weeks earlier in a darkened exhibition hall, two floors above where she stood now.

  “Is someone there?” she called out.

  A figure materialized from the dimness, first the outlines of a face, then a closely trimmed beard with silvery-white hair-and Nora relaxed. It was only Hugo Menzies, chairman of the Anthropology Department and her immediate boss. He was still a little pale from his recent bout with gallstones, his cheerful eyes rimmed in red.

  “Hello, Nora,” said the curator, giving her a kindly smile. “May I?”

  “Of course.”

  Menzies perched himself on a stool. “It’s so lovely and quiet down here. Are you alone?”

  “Yes. How are things up top?”

  “The crowd outside is still growing.”

  “I saw them when I came in.”

  “It’s getting ugly. They’re jeering and hectoring the arriving staff and blocking traffic on Museum Drive. And I fear this is just the beginning. It’s one thing when the mayor and governor make pronouncements, but it appears the people of New York have also been aroused. God save us from the fury of the vulgus mobile.”

  Nora shook her head. “I’m sorry that Bill was the cause-”

  Menzies laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Bill was only the messenger. He did the museum a favor in exposing this ill-advised cover-up scheme before it could take hold. The truth would have come out eventually.”

  “I can’t understand why someone would go to the trouble to steal the gems and then destroy them.”

  Menzies shrugged. “Who knows what goes on in the mind of a deranged individual? It evinces, at the very least, an implacable hatred of the museum.”

  “What had the museum ever done to him?”

  “Only one person can answer that question. But I’m not here to speculate on the criminal’s mind. I’m here for a specific reason, and it has to do with what’s going on upstairs.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ve just come from a meeting in Dr. Collopy’s office. We made a decision, and it involves you.”

  Nora waited, feeling a creeping sense of alarm.

  “Are you familiar with the Tomb of Senef?”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Not surprising. Few museum employees have. It was one of the museum’s original exhibits, an Egyptian tomb from the Valley of the Kings that was reassembled in these basements. It was closed down and sealed off in the thirties and never reopened.”

  “And?”

  “What the museum needs right now is some positive news, something that will remind everyone that we’re still doing good things. A distraction, as it were. That distraction is going to be the Tomb of Senef. We’re going to reopen it, and I want you as point person for the project.”

  “Me? But I put off my research for months to help mount the Sacred Images show!”

  An ironic smile played over Menzies’s face. “That’s right, and that’s why I’m asking you to do this. I saw the work you did on Sacred Images. You’re the only one in the department who can pull this off.”

  “In how long?”

  “Collopy wants it fast-tracked. We’ve got six weeks.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “We face a real emergency. Finances have been in a sorry state for a long time. And with this new spate of bad publicity, anything could happen.”

  Nora fell silent.

  “What set this in motion,” Menzies continued gently, “is that we just received ten million euros-thirteen million dollars-to fund this project. Money is no object. We’ll have the unanimous support of the museum, from the board of trustees to all the unions. The Tomb of Senef has remained sealed, so it should be in fairly good condition.”

  “Please don’t ask me to do this. Give it to Ashton.”

  “Ashton’s no good at controversy. I saw how you handled yourself with those protesters at the
Sacred Images opening. Nora, the museum is in a fight for its life. I need you. The museum needs you.”

  There was a silence. Nora glanced back over her potsherds with a horribly sinking heart. “I don’t know anything about Egyptology.”

  “We’re bringing in a top Egyptologist as a temporary hire to work with you.”

  Nora realized there was no escape. She heaved a huge sigh. “All right. I’ll do it.”

  “Brava! That’s what I wanted to hear. Now then, we haven’t gotten very far with the idea yet, but the tomb hasn’t been on display in seventy years, so it will obviously need some sprucing up. It’s not enough these days to mount a static exhibition; you need multimedia. And of course, there will be a gala opening, something every New Yorker with social aspirations will have to get a ticket for.”

  Nora shook her head. “All this in six weeks?”

  “I was hoping you might have some ideas.”

  “When do you need them?”

  “Right now, I’m afraid. Dr. Collopy has scheduled a press conference in half an hour to announce about the show.”

  “Oh, no.” Nora slumped on her stool. “Are you sure special effects will be necessary? I hate computerized window dressing. It distracts from the objects.”

  “That is what being a museum means these days, unfortunately. Look at the new Abraham Lincoln library. Yes, on a certain level, it’s a bit vulgar perhaps-but this is the twenty-first century and we’re competing with television and video games. Please, Nora: I need ideas now. The director will be bombarded with questions and he wants to be able to talk about the exhibit.”

  Nora swallowed. On the one hand, it made her sick to think of putting off her research yet again, working seventy-hour weeks, never seeing her husband of only a few months. On the other hand, if she was going to do this-and it seemed she had no choice-she wanted to do it well.

  “We don’t want anything cheesy,” she said. “No mummies popping up from their sarcophagi. And it’s got to be educational.”

  “My feelings exactly.”

  Nora thought a moment. “The tomb was robbed, am I right?”