8

Reid activated his throat microphone. “Okay, I’m in.”

Yusif’s voice filled the earbud. “We hear you. Your camera is recording. We’re streaming live to Skientia in California. They confirm receipt via the satellite feed.”

Despite the Tyvek suit, the air in the tomb felt cool. Reid sniffed, wondering if the place had a musty odor. He couldn’t tell through the filters in the face mask.

He felt like a SWAT team officer with his equipment: cameras, communications gear, flashlights, spare battery packs, ziplocks, tinfoil, headlamp, and the pistol-shaped XRF spectrometer in its holster on his hip.

The camera recorded as his headlamp illuminated the square tunnel that led into the tomb. He inspected the ceiling, searching for any loose stones, but the plaster appeared unbroken as it led down into the darkness. What he would have considered classic Egyptian art lined the walls, some of it in hieroglyphics, the rest in Latin script: Latin that hadn’t been invented yet—let alone steel doors.

Just do your job. Take your time. There’s no hurry.

Step by careful step, meticulously recording the wall art, Reid eased down the sloping tunnel.

“Yusif? You hear me?”

“Loud and clear, sahib. I take it you’ve arrived at the anteroom?”

“It appears so.” Reid braced the camera and reached for his flashlight. Flicking it on, he panned around the room. Statues of scribes and servants, neatly spaced, lined the walls. A dismantled chariot lay in the middle of the floor. The walls themselves were filled with images of brown-skinned people dressed in white aprons. Rendered in familiar Egyptian profile, they watched Reid warily through their single eyes.

A passage had been cut in the rear wall. To either side stood two identical statues of Osiris, each beautifully painted, the faces apparently clad in gold. Eyes of gleaming jet watched Reid with fixed disdain. And over the door, more Latin—all of it totally beyond Reid’s comprehension.

On the floor, carved into the stone, was a single word: PERICULUM.

“Are you getting this, Yusif? This one word? Why would they put it on the floor like this? Some sort of a blessing for when you step into the room?”

“I see it. Latin again.”

Reid lifted a foot. “Okay, I’m going to enter the—”

“Do not move!”

“What?” Reid’s foot hung in midstride.

“Ms. Kaplan says the word means ‘danger.’”

Reid slowly, carefully, lowered his foot back to its previous position. “I don’t see anything suspicious.”

“Stay put. I’m thinking.”

“I don’t know what’s worse. The word ‘danger’ carved into the floor, or you actually thinking.”

“They let us do that after the revolution.” Yusif paused. “Kaplan thinks the warning is to be taken seriously. And I agree. Egyptian tomb robbers would not have been the most educated of men. Only scholars would have been trained in Latin.” A pause. “Had it existed when the tomb was built.”

Reid played the light more carefully on the carving, seeing shallow scores in the stone. Reflected light sent a glare across the clear plastic of his goggles. “Yusif? Can you see this? It seems to read, ‘GRADUM FACI SINISTER.’”

“Sinister?”

“Yeah, that’s scary, huh?” He looked around, craning his neck to pan the headlight, trying to figure out what could possibly be sinister in the whole dark scary damn room with its wooden statues of dead people.

“California says ‘sinister’ is Latin for left. They say they think gradum faci sinister means ‘step to the left.’”

“Step to the left?”

“They say the translation isn’t strictly grammatical according to classical Latin.”

“Why am I not reassured by that?” Reid made a face. Then he looked straight overhead. A black slit cut into the ceiling was positioned just over the inscription on the floor.

“I’m stepping to the left.”

With an unsettling tickle in his guts, he took a deep breath and stepped to the left of the inscription. The floor felt solid underfoot. He waited through a long pause accentuated by the rapid pounding of his heart.

“They say to watch for additional warnings.”

“How will I know they’re warnings?”

“They’ll be written in Latin?”

“Asshole.”

Passing each of the waist-high statues, he carefully filmed them from as many angles as possible. Then he shined his light on the wall and stopped.

“Yusif? You seeing what I’m seeing?”

“I do, sahib. They’re sounding most intrigued in California, too.”

Drawn on the wall, surrounded with lines of Egyptian hieroglyphics, was the definite image of a jet airplane. The design wasn’t anything Reid was familiar with, the aircraft having six engines and a Y-shaped tail. Some kind of Latin was lettered on the fuselage.

“Tell Kaplan it’s a hoax.” He glanced around, feeling a terrible sense of loss and frustration.

“Ms. Kaplan says they’re elated, Reid. It’s better than they hoped. Your instructions are to continue. If they’re right, there should be a mummy in the next chamber. You are to proceed with caution.”

“Yusif, explain to Ms. Kaplan that it’s some sort of sick joke. I’m surprised they didn’t draw Bugs Bunny waving from the cockpit.”

He waited, the terrible feeling of disappointment curdling in his belly.

“Reid? You are instructed to continue with the greatest of caution.” A pause. “Ms. Kaplan reminds you; they are paying your salary. She hopes she is paying for a professional.”

“Fucking A, it’s her checkbook.”

What the hell, maybe it’s like a game of Clue? Find the hoaxer’s fingerprints on the mummy? That in itself should be worth free beer at the next annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

He headed for the square passage in the rear. As he passed between the statues of Osiris, his light played over the phrase engraved in the floor: INGREDI ET MORI.

“You getting this?”

“Kaplan’s people translate it as ‘Enter and Die.’”

“Charming. You think it’s for real?”

“Step inside . . . and I guess you’ll find out, sahib.” A pause. “Kaplan says that another clue must be there somewhere.”

“Yeah.” He ran his light around the inside of the portal, seeing nothing but smooth stone. “Where?”

“Reid, Kaplan’s people are serious. They say if you step in there, you’re going to die.”