“It’s in my trunk.”
“Give me the keys, I’ll see that somebody retrieves it for you.”
“It’s a Lotus Elan S four.”
Rush whistled. “The roadster? What year?”
“Nineteen sixty-eight.”
“Very nice. I’ll make sure they treat it with kid gloves.”
Logan dug into his pocket and handed the keys to Rush, who in turn gave them to the receptionist with some whispered instructions. Then he turned and motioned Logan to follow him through the open doorway.
Taking an elevator to the top floor, Rush led the way down a long hallway that smelled faintly of cleaning fluid and chemicals. The resemblance to a hospital grew stronger—and yet it seemed to be a hospital without patients; the few people they passed were dressed in street clothes, ambulatory, and obviously healthy. Logan peered curiously into the open doorways as they walked by. He saw conference rooms, a large, empty lecture hall with seats for at least a hundred, laboratories bristling with equipment, what appeared to be a reference library full of paperbound journals and dedicated terminals. More strangely, he noticed several apparently identical rooms, each containing a single narrow bed with literally dozens—if not hundreds—of wires leading to nearby monitoring instruments. Other doors were closed, their small windows covered by privacy curtains. A group of men and women in white lab coats passed them in the hallway. They glanced at Logan, nodded to Rush.
Stopping before a door marked DIRECTOR, Rush opened it and beckoned Logan through an anteroom housing two secretaries and a profusion of bookcases into a private office beyond. It was tastefully decorated, as minimalist as the outer office was crowded. Three of the walls held spare postmodernist paintings in cool blues and grays; the fourth wall appeared to be entirely of glass, covered at the moment by blinds.
In the center of the room was a teakwood table, polished to a brilliant gleam and flanked by two leather chairs. Rush took one and ushered Logan toward the other.
“Can I offer you anything?” the director asked. “Coffee, tea, soda?”
Logan shook his head.
Rush crossed one leg over the other. “Jeremy, I have to be frank. I wasn’t sure you’d be willing to take on this assignment, given how busy you are … and how closemouthed I was concerning the particulars.”
“You weren’t sure—even given the fee I charged?”
Rush smiled. “It’s true—your fee is certainly healthy. But then your, ah, work has become somewhat high profile recently.” He hesitated. “What is it you call your profession again?”
“I’m an enigmalogist.”
“Right. An enigmalogist.” Rush glanced curiously at Logan. “And it’s true you were able to document the existence of the Loch Ness monster?”
“You’d have to take that up with my client for that particular assignment, the University of Edinburgh.”
“Serves me right for asking.” Rush paused. “Speaking of universities, you are a professor, aren’t you?”
“Medieval history. At Yale.”
“And what do they think of your other profession at Yale?”
“High visibility is never a problem. It helps guarantee a large admissions pool.” Logan glanced around the office. He’d often found that new clients preferred to talk about his past accomplishments. It postponed discussion of their own problems.
“I remember those … investigations you did at the Peabody Institute and the Applied Physics Lab back in school,” Rush said. “Who would have thought they’d lead you to this?”
“Not me, certainly.” Logan shifted in his seat. “So. Care to tell me just what CTS stands for? Nothing around here seems to give any clue.”
“We do keep our cards pretty close to our vest. Center for Transmortality Studies.”
“Transmortality Studies,” Logan repeated.
Rush nodded. “I founded CTS two years ago.”
Logan glanced at him in surprise. “You founded the Center?”
Rush took a deep breath. A grim look came over his face. “You see, Jeremy, it’s like this. Just over three years ago, I was working an ER shift when my wife, Jennifer, was brought in by paramedics. She’d been in a terrible accident and was completely unresponsive. We tried everything—heart massage, paddles—but it was hopeless. It was the worst moment of my life. There I was, not only unable to save my own wife … but I was expected to pronounce her dead, as well.”
Logan shook his head in sympathy.
“Except that I didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Against the advice of the assisting doctors I continued heroic measures.” He leaned forward. “And, Jeremy—she pulled through. I finally revived her, fourteen minutes after all brain function had ceased.”
“How?”
Rush spread his hands. “It was a miracle. Or so it seemed at the time. It was the most amazing experience you can imagine. It was revelatory, life altering. To have pulled her back from the brink …” He fell briefly silent. “At that moment, the scales fell from my eyes. My life’s work was suddenly revealed. I left Rhode Island Hospital and my practice as an anesthesiologist, and I’ve been studying near-death experiences ever since.”
The life-changing event, Logan thought. Aloud, he said, “Transmortality studies.”
“Exactly. Documenting the various manifestations, trying to analyze and codify the phenomenon. You’d be surprised, Jeremy, how many people have undergone near-death experiences and—in particular—how many similarities they share. Once you’ve come back from the brink, you’re never quite the same. As you might guess, it’s something that stays with you—and with your loved ones.” He swept his hand around the office. “It was almost no effort to raise the money for the Center, all this. Plenty of people who have had near-death experiences are passionately interested in sharing those experiences and learning more about what they might mean.”
“So what goes on at the Center, exactly?” Logan asked.
“At heart, we’re a small community of doctors and researchers—most with relatives or friends who have ‘gone over.’ Survivors of NDEs are invited here to stay for a few weeks or months, to document precisely what happened to them and undergo various batteries of tests.”
“Tests?” Logan asked.
Rush nodded. “Although we’ve been operational only eighteen months now, a great deal of research has been conducted already—and a number of findings made.”
“But, as you say, you’ve kept it all pretty hush-hush.”
Rush smiled. “You can imagine what the good residents of Pevensey Point would say if they knew exactly who had taken over the old Coast Guard training base down the road, or why.”
“Yes, I can.” They’d say you were tampering with fate, he thought. Messing with people brought back from the dead. Now he began to have some idea why his own expertise had been called for. “So exactly what’s been going on here that I can help you with?”
A look of surprise briefly crossed Rush’s face. “Oh, you misunderstand. Nothing’s happening here.”
Logan hesitated. “You’re right—I do misunderstand. If the problem you’re experiencing isn’t here, then why was I summoned?”
“Sorry to be evasive, Jeremy. I can tell you more once you’re on board.”
“But I am on board. That’s why I’m here.”
In reply, Rush stood and walked to the far wall. “No.” And with a single tug, he opened the blinds, exposing a wall of windows. Beyond lay the airstrip Logan had noticed on his arrival. But from this vantage, he could see the runway wasn’t empty after all: it was occupied by a Learjet 85, sleek and gleaming in the noonday sun. Rush extended a finger toward it.
“Once you’re on board that,” he said.
2
There were five people on the plane: a crew of two, Logan, Rush, and a CTS staffer bearing two laptops and several folders stuffed with what appeared to be lab results. Once the jet was airborne, Ethan Rush excused himself and walked to the rear to meet with the staffer. Logan fish
ed the latest issue of Nature out of his duffel bag and browsed through it, looking for any new discoveries—or anomalies—that might interest him professionally. Then, feeling drowsy, he set the magazine aside and closed his eyes, intending to doze for five or ten minutes. But when he awoke it was dark outside and Logan felt the disoriented haze of a long, deep sleep. Rush looked over at him from the seat across the aisle.
“Where are we?” Logan asked.
“Coming into Heathrow.” He nodded at the staffer, still sitting in the rear. “Sorry about that—like you, I don’t know exactly how long I’m going to be away, and there was some CTS business that couldn’t wait for my return.”
“Not a problem.” Logan peered out at the lights of London, spread out like a vast yellow blanket beneath them. “Is this our destination?”
Rush shook his head. Then he smiled. “You know, I found it kind of funny, the way you boarded the plane without question. I thought you’d at least do a double take.”
“In my profession you tend to travel a lot. I always carry a passport.”
“Yes, I read that in an article about you. That’s why I didn’t ask you to bring one.”
“In the last six months I’ve been to at least as many foreign countries: Sri Lanka, Ireland, Monaco, Peru, Atlantic City.”
“Atlantic City isn’t a foreign country,” Rush said with a laugh.
“Felt like one to me.”
They landed and taxied to a private hangar, where the CTS staffer deplaned with the laptops and the folders to catch a commercial flight back to New York. Rush and Logan ate a light dinner while the jet refueled. When they were once again in the air, Rush took a seat beside Logan, a black leather briefcase in one hand.
“I’m going to show you a picture,” he said. “I think it will explain the need for secrecy.” Unsnapping the case, he opened it slightly. Rummaging inside, he pulled out a copy of Fortune and briefly showed it to Logan.
On the cover was a headshot of a man in his mid-fifties. His thick, prematurely snow-white hair was parted down the middle: a strangely anachronistic look that reminded Logan of a schoolboy from a Victorian-era English public school, Eton or Harrow or Rugby. He was thin, a look accentuated by the heavy backlighting of the photograph. The soft, almost feminine contours of his face were sharply offset by unusually weathered skin, as if by exposure to sun or wind; and though the man was not smiling, there was a faint amused glint in his blue eyes as he stared at the camera, as if at some private joke he was disinclined to share with the world.
Logan recognized the face—and, as Rush had promised, much of the mystery suddenly became understandable. The face belonged to H. Porter Stone, without doubt the most famous—and by far the richest—treasure hunter in the world. Though “treasure hunter” was probably unfair, Logan decided: Stone had been trained as an archaeologist and had taught the subject at UCLA before his discovery of two ships from the Spanish Plate Fleet, sunk in 1648 in international waters. Those vessels—stuffed with silver, gold, and gemstones, on their way back to Spain from the colonies—instantly made Stone not only extremely wealthy but notorious. That notoriety only increased with his subsequent discoveries: an Incan mausoleum and treasure trove hidden in a mountain col twenty miles from Machu Picchu; after that, an immense cache of carved soapstone birds, animals, and human figures beneath a hill complex in the primeval ruins of Great Zimbabwe. Others had followed in remarkably rapid succession. What ancient civilization, a banner on the magazine cover asked, will he pillage next?
“That’s where we’re going?” Logan asked incredulously. “A treasure hunt? An archaeological dig?”
Rush nodded. “A little of both, actually. Stone’s latest project.”
“What is it?”
“You won’t be in the dark for long.” And Rush opened the case again. As Logan glanced over, he saw the doctor slip the magazine beneath a thin stack of papers. It was only the briefest of glimpses, but Logan noticed the papers were covered with what he thought were hieroglyphs.
Rush closed the case. “I can tell you this is his biggest expedition yet. And the most secret. In addition to the usual need to operate below the radar, there are certain … unusual logistical issues, as well.”
Logan nodded. He wasn’t surprised: Stone’s expeditions had become increasingly high profile. They tended to attract a lot of attention, both from a curious press and would-be interlopers. Now, instead of supervising the work himself, Stone had become famously reclusive, directing his expeditions à la distance, frequently from halfway around the world. “I have to ask. What exactly is your interest in this? It can’t have anything to do with your Center: any bodies that interest Stone will definitely be dead. Long dead.”
“I’m medical officer for the expedition. But I also have another, more indirect interest.” Rush hesitated. “Look, I really don’t mean to be coy. There are some things you can’t learn until you’re actually at the site. But I can say there are certain, um, peculiar aspects to this dig that have arisen in the last week or so. That’s where you come in.”
“Okay. Then here’s a question that maybe you can answer. Back in your office, you mentioned you were an anesthesiologist before founding the Center. If so, what were you doing working a shift in the emergency room the day your wife was brought in? That should have been years behind you.”
The smile on Rush’s face faded. “That’s a question I used to hear all the time. Before Jennifer’s NDE, that is. I always gave a flippant answer. The fact is, Jeremy, I trained as an ER specialist. But somehow, I could never get used to the death.” He shook his head. “Ironic, isn’t it? Oh, I could handle natural causes all right: the cancer and pneumonia and nephritis. But sudden, violent death …”
“For an ER doctor, that’s quite a millstone,” Logan replied.
“You said it. That fear of death—of dealing with it, I mean—is why I changed fields, became an anesthesiologist instead of an ER doc. But it still haunted me. Running away did no good: I had to be able to stare death in the eye. So to keep my hand in, so to speak, I did ER duty every other week. Sort of like wearing a hair shirt.”
“Or like Mithradates,” Logan said.
“Who?”
“Mithradates the Sixth, king of Pontus. He was in constant fear of being poisoned. So he tried to inure himself by taking sublethal doses every day, until his system was hardened against it.”
“Taking poison to develop an immunity to it,” Rush said. “Sounds like what I was doing, all right. Anyway, after the experience with my wife, I left medical practice entirely and founded the clinic. I stopped trying to fight my aversion to death. Instead I’ve put it to positive use: studying those who have escaped its embrace.”
“I have to ask. Why found your own clinic? I mean, it’s my understanding there are already several organizations devoted to near-death experiences. Graduate students are majoring in NDEs and ‘consciousness studies.’ ”
“That’s true. But none of them are as large, as centralized, or as focused as CTS. And besides, we’ve branched out into some unique avenues of study.”
He excused himself and Logan turned to the window, looking out into blackness. It was a clear night, and a brief study of the constellations confirmed they were traveling east. But where, exactly? It seemed Porter Stone had sent expeditions to just about every corner of the globe: Peru, Tibet, Cambodia, Morocco. The man had what the news accounts liked to call the Midas touch: it seemed every project he undertook turned to gold.
Logan thought of the briefcase, and the sheets of paper covered with hieroglyphs. Then he closed his eyes.
When he awoke again, it was morning. He stretched, shifted in his seat, peered once again out the window. Below him now, he could make out a broad brown river, with narrow strips of green fringing its banks. Beyond lay an arid landscape. Then he froze. There, on the horizon, was an unmistakable, monolithic shape: a pyramid.
“I knew it,” he breathed.
Rush was seated across the aisle.
Hearing this, he glanced over.
“We’re in Egypt,” Logan said.
Rush nodded.
Despite a carefully cultivated stoicism, Logan felt a shiver of excitement. “I’ve always wanted to work in Egypt.”
Rush sighed—half in amusement and half, perhaps, in regret. “I hate to disappoint you, Dr. Logan,” he said. “But actually, it’s nothing quite as straightforward as Egypt.”
3
Logan had been in Cairo only once before, as a graduate student documenting the movements of Frisian soldiers during the Fifth Crusade. And it seemed to him—as they drove along the highway from Cairo International—as if all the cars he’d noticed twenty years before were still on the road. Ancient Fiats and Mercedes Benzes, sporting dents and broken headlights, jockeyed frantically for position, making their own impromptu lanes at sixty miles per hour. They passed buses, decrepit and rusting, people hanging precariously from empty frames where the passenger entrances ought to have been. Now and then Logan caught sight of late-model European sedans, brilliantly polished and almost invariably black. But aside from these exceptions, the freeway traffic seemed one feverish anachronism, a time capsule from an earlier age.
Logan and Rush sat in the rear of the car, silently taking in the sights. Logan’s luggage had been left on the plane, and their driver—a local driving a Renault only slightly less aged than those around them—had expertly navigated the maze of airport access roads and was now headed into Cairo proper. Logan saw block after block of almost identical cement buildings, painted mustard, a half-dozen stories high. Clothes were drying on balconies; windows were covered with canvas awnings displaying a confusing welter of advertisements. The flat roofs were festooned with satellite dishes, and innumerable cables hung between buildings. A faint orange pall hung over everything. The heat, the unblinking sun, were merciless. Logan leaned out the wide-open window, gasping in the diesel-heavy air.
“Fourteen million people,” Dr. Rush said, glancing his way. “Crammed into two hundred square miles of city.”