He checked his air gauge. He had at least another ten minutes to take a quick look at his momentous discovery, another ten minutes to explore, and then time to decompress at thirty-three feet and safely reach his research vessel on the surface.
The Jerry McGuen appeared huge, her forward section still pitched slightly into the lake bed, as if she’d taken a dive while sinking. Parts of the hull were broken, exposing staterooms and a passenger lobby, and what had been the purser’s office. Brady knew the ship; he had studied her plans time and time again. She was a steel-hulled ship, built by the American Stuart Company of Chicago and launched on October 2, 1888. One hundred and eighty-six feet long, thirty-two feet wide, and twelve feet in depth. Her gross tonnage was four hundred and eighty-six, and when she sailed the seas, she’d been powered by a triple-expansion steam engine and two Scotch boilers. There had been fifty-two cabins for guests, captain’s quarters, first mate’s quarters, four cabins for officers and a bunk room, down in the hold, for crew. The ship, chartered by the very rich Gregory Hudson, had been a state-of-the-art beauty.
Her ballast for the trip had been stones—great stones taken from the tomb of Amun Mopat. Before Howard Carter’s discovery of King Tut’s tomb, the discovery of Amun Mopat’s tomb right in the Valley of the Kings had been one of the most important events in the annals of Egyptology. But the treasures had come aboard the Jerry McGuen, and just a few months after that, those treasures and their history had been lost to the ages. They were soon forgotten by the world at large as new findings occurred and the age of Egyptology moved on.
But now…
He eased himself slowly along the hull, fumbling at his dive belt for his underwater camera. As he began to snap photos, the sound of the shutter whirred softly in the water. The flash illuminated bits and pieces of the ship. There it was—the grand salon, exposed by a gaping hole in the port side, encrusted in weeds and grasses, occupied by fish, large and small. The treasures would be down below.
Yes!
The hull was ripped open belowdecks, as well. He didn’t have much time. Just minutes left now, but he could slip through the great tear in the port side, move along the length of the ship….
It was dark within. Eerie. Time had stolen any vestiges of life that might have remained; the cold and the elements would have eaten away at organic fabric—and human bodies.
He found the hold and moved past giant crates, some protected by tarps that had withstood the years. Before him was a door, which swung open when he pushed it. The door hadn’t been sealed, which might have aided in the flooding that had brought about the ship’s demise, he thought, distracted. He didn’t care at that moment how the ship had sunk. He’d nearly reached the treasure….
As he kicked his flippers and swam through, the dive light strapped to his head suddenly went out.
He muttered to himself, tapping the light. It came back on.
He saw the boxes—huge crates, really, wrapped and sealed in waterproof tarps!—and in the midst of them, he could see the giant box with the label peeling and nearly gone, and yet…he could still read the name on it.
Amun Mopat.
There it was! The box containing the sarcophagus holding the inner sarcophagus and then the mummy. It had survived; the men who’d discovered the treasure had stolen it away carefully sealed….
Over there, boxes of jackals and sphinxes and funerary artifacts, bows, quivers—
His light went out again. Cursing silently, he tapped it. As he did, he heard a curious sound. A noise so deep in the water was different from what it would be on the surface, and yet…
It sounded like the hold door was closing on him!
The light came back on.
He stared in horror.
He opened his mouth to scream. Losing his regulator, he sucked in air, and his scream was silent.
He was stunned, terrified….
The curse! The curse, silent, unspoken in these depths…
It was real!
Yes, he had found the Jerry McGuen.
But he would not live to tell the tale.
1
“Amun Mopat,” Katya Sokolov said to Logan Raintree. “You’re kidding me, right?”
The heat that had been shining through the skylight seemed to disappear, as if the sun itself had lost some energy.
The name made her shudder. They’d just finished investigating a death in Los Angeles at Eddie Archer’s special effects studio—a death based on an old film noir remake. The original movie had been titled Sam Stone and the Curious Case of the Egyptian Museum. The new one, fittingly, was called The Unholy.
“No, I’m not kidding,” Logan said.
He had a fascinating face, the result of Native American and European parents, handsome and filled with character. She had learned to read it well, and she knew—he was not kidding.
Amun Mopat.
It was the name of the insidious ancient Egyptian priest who had supposedly come back to life to perpetrate murders. He was a character in a movie.
A character used in the very recent tragedies that had taken place.
And now…Amun Mopat?
“Amun Mopat, yes,” Logan said, almost as if she’d spoken aloud. He leaned back, looking around with a sigh. They sat in the beautiful little lobby-café of their boutique hotel, surrounded by wrought-iron lattice work and art deco design. The past weeks—although somewhat traumatic in the final resolution and cleanup—had still contained some nice upswings. They’d seen tapings of half a dozen TV shows, including Kat’s favorite comedy, spent days at the beach in Malibu, visited the Magic Castle and other attractions, and actually experienced something that resembled a vacation.
This meeting didn’t bode well. She’d received the call to meet Logan while she was enjoying a visit to the La Brea Tar Pits. It had been an urgent call, and she’d known it meant she wouldn’t be seeing a retro performance of the Rocky Horror Picture Show that night with Tyler Montague and Jane, two of the six in their special FBI unit.
She’d wondered if the others were going to be involved, but she was sitting here alone with Logan.
She had all but forgotten her strange dream of the night before. And now, even as it seemed to come crashing down around her, she wondered what a storm at sea could have to do with Amun Mopat.
The curse. She’d heard the words in her dream. Egyptian entities always seemed to come with curses!
“Go figure. After all this—Amun Mopat. In Chicago,” Logan said in a dry voice.
“Yeah, go figure. Chicago,” she repeated blankly.
Logan Raintree was her superior, the head of their team. Their actual boss was the elusive Adam Harrison, who had begun this excursion into the unknown—and the known—combining FBI technology and certain…unusual talents. Logan worked loosely with the head of the first team, Jackson Crow, evaluating information from those who sought help and deciding which cases truly called for their unique abilities. Since the original group of special investigators had become known as the Krewe of Hunters, they’d unofficially been dubbed the Texas Krewe. Their first case had been in San Antonio, home to many of them. Working with Logan and the other team members was thrilling and gratifying at once; it felt as if they spoke an ancient and secret language, and had come together as nationals from the same foreign country.
At the moment, she wasn’t feeling especially thrilled. Or gratified. She wished she was back at the Tar Pits.
“And you want me to go out there now?” Kat asked. She didn’t add alone.
Logan