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Alan turned to Kat. “You’re a pathologist, Kat. You saw Brady Laurie. Are we being alarmists? Did he die by accident? We were down there, you know, when his body was discovered. ”
She hesitated. “Mr. King, I can’t say for sure. There were some suspicious marks on the body that mean an investigation is in order. ”
“I heard a talk-radio show today. ” Alan sniffed impatiently. “The host had on half a dozen people who were convinced the ‘curse’ is real—that Amun Mopat hadn’t wanted his tomb raided way back when, and that he doesn’t want his watery grave disturbed. Half the guests on the show were convinced that Brady Laurie was killed by Amun Mopat. ”
“If there’s one thing I’ll say didn’t happen—it’s that a mummy came out of a sealed container and killed a guy!” Bernie said. Then he sighed. “But it doesn’t mean that evil isn’t alive. We all know it is. Evil exists in psychopaths the world over. ”
“Bernie, could you show me what kind of equipment you’re working with?” Will asked. “Were you able to get the remotes I suggested?”
Bernie nodded. “Anything I film will show up on the screen over there,” Bernie said, pointing at the console.
“We can rig up a remote camera, too, for when no one’s down there?”
“I got the little remote casing yesterday afternoon,” Bernie said. “Yeah, we can watch whatever goes on,” he assured Will.
“And we have a videographer coming in from the Keys. He’s done underwater work all over the world, so we’ll be in good shape,” Alan King told them.
Jimmy Green came halfway down the ladder to the cabin. “Your scientists are here, and they’re getting ready to head out. ”
“Then we’re ready to follow,” Alan said.
Forty-five minutes later, they were at the dive site. They linked up with Alan King’s security boat, a little cabin cruiser. The two men aboard looked more like surfers than security; they were both young and muscular, wearing swim trunks and Ts.
“All is well?” Alan called to them. The taller of the two gave him a thumbs-up.
To the east of them, the Preservation Center’s boat drifted close, then anchored.
Kat realized that Will was standing next to her. He’d begun crawling into his wet suit and squeezed his arms and torso inside as he spoke softly to her. “The woman is Amanda Channel and her partner is Jon Hunt. They’re the two main Egyptologists at the center. ”
“The two who found Brady Laurie,” she whispered.
“Yes. ”
“Yoo-hoo!” Amanda sang out across the water. “We’re going to do an assessment dive. We’ve got some netting and collection bags, and we’ll probably pick up a few small pieces if we find any. Tomorrow, we’ll bring the cranes and wrenches and go for the crates. ”
“All right, we’re ready,” Alan shouted. “But Jimmy Green is going down with us as dive master. We’ve had one death down there. Jimmy will be along for safety. When he says it’s time to come up, it’s time to come up. We can make a second dive this afternoon for more logistics and cataloging. ”
Amanda said something to Jon; she clearly wasn’t happy about being told how to dive a wreck, even if her coworker had just died.
Kat started to gather her equipment. Earl was already suited up; Captain Bob was helping him with his tank, a distraction that didn’t seem to bother Earl as he was busy rolling video. She hurriedly got into her booties, suit and slippers, added her weight belt, then checked her tank, opening the air gauge.
She’d tested it as recently as this morning.
Sitting, she slid into her BCV, which was attached to the tank. Jimmy came by to give her a hand up. The last thing she saw before she dived backward into the lake was Earl—filming her as she held her mask and light in place and went in.
Even wearing a full neoprene wet suit, gloves and booties beneath her flippers, Kat felt the shock of Lake Michigan’s water the moment she hit the surface.
Because other divers were descending with her, she could see a strange array of colors as beams from the flashlights they wore strapped around their heads were darting in a number of directions. It seemed that a stream of dust motes—tiny bits of lake growth and remnants of anything left behind—danced in the shades of blue and green.
At thirty-three feet they made their first safety stop. Then again, at sixty-six.
Kat swallowed hard, clearing her ears.
They followed the anchor rope down. There were eight of them in all—dive master Jimmy Green, the three men working on the documentary, Amanda Channel and Jon Hunt, and Will and Kat. She tried to sort out who was who by the colors of their dive suits. It wasn’t difficult to find Will; she could see his dark hair streaming like a strange halo around his head.
She released more air from her BCV, and her weight belt kicked in, helping to carry her ever deeper.
And then…
They were there.
When the massive hull of the Jerry McGuen first appeared, she had to admit it was an impressive sight. Long sea grass undulated around the ship’s rusting hulk, along with denizens of the lake.
Despite storm damage and years of resting at the bottom, covered by silt, sand and muck, the Jerry McGuen still retained a majesty, a splendor. The hull was broken or rusted in many places. It was almost like looking at a stage or film set, Kat decided, because she could see into the grand salon and into what had once been elegant staterooms.
Amanda was in the lead, moving toward the cargo hold.
Kat found herself pausing by the grand salon. For a moment, she felt a sense of déjà vu that was almost overwhelming.
The massive staircase could still be seen. Pieces of glass from the wrecked chandelier were strewn about, picking up the divers’ lights and glinting strangely on the shipwreck. Kat began mentally restoring the salon to its former grandeur—and thought she could see men and women in elegant bygone dress, sashaying along the floor.
Surely, she saw the couple who’d walked by her in the dream!
The room was at an angle in the thick muck of the lake bed, but her imaginary people floated along….
She felt and heard a tap on her tank and turned around. Will was studying her, his eyes piercing behind the glass of his mask. She gave a thumbs-up and followed him toward the others, who hovered around the hold.
The people she’d seen in her dream were long gone, if they had ever existed; predators, small and large, at the bottom of the lake effectively made sure of that.
Crates in some kind of tarps, astonishingly intact after all the years and the brutal effects of the cold water, were wedged here and there. Earl Candy watched as the divers made their way through the broken-out hull to view the contents.
The hold was massive; some watertight doors to other compartments stood ajar, while others remained closed. Bags of ballast sand had split apart in places, and smaller boxes and crates had shattered.
Something sparkled in the lake silt that now covered the floor of the hull. Kat was beside Will and touched his arm lightly before diving down to see what it was.
He followed her. Whatever glimmered was covered with growth, but Kat began to carefully dust away the sand, silt and zebra mussels. Will helped her, pausing for a moment to gesture at a metal box nearby that had opened. He moved to collect the box and returned, pointing at the lid. She realized it was thick, heavy wood and had withstood pressure, cold and water to survive. Of course, the lake, being freshwater, didn’t have the bore worms that ate away at wooden artifacts that went down in the oceans and salt seas.
There were hieroglyphics still faintly discernible on the box. Will slid it into the netted bag he’d carried down, attached to his weight belt. She continued to work at the object that seemed imbedded in the ground. At last, still covered with grit and slime, it came free.
It was a dagger. And it would have fit perfectly into the box Will had retrieved.
She handed it to him, and he added it to the bag. Earl Candy turned the camera on the two of them. Will waved to the camera; she did the same.
Then Earl tapped his dive watch, pointing across the hold. Kat saw that Jimmy had tapped on his tank, informing them that they were to surface.
Will nodded. Earl gave a kick and went over to Amanda and Jon, who were working with waterproof charts, cataloging everything they saw. Amanda looked stubbornly at her own watch, but Jon sent her a fierce frown.
None of them could—or should—forget Brady Laurie.
They made the appropriate stops, using the anchor chain as their guide. As they surfaced, they all returned to Captain Bob’s boat.
Jimmy came up first and was soon ready to help the other divers shed their gear.
For a while, the conversation was excited and coming from everyone at once.
“Oh, my God! It’s spectacular!” Amanda was saying.
“There’s so much left!” Jon agreed.
“Definitely a historic moment,” Alan said.
“I got really great film. My God, when it just suddenly appears there in the green darkness, it’s awesome!” Earl was already filming them on deck as they talked about the discovery.
“Look what I brought up!” Amanda said, walking toward him. She had a box of specially treated cloths and she took one, using it to lift one of the little objects she’d found. “Thank God stone preserves so well! These are what they call shabti statues. Some tombs had over four hundred of them. They represent slaves or workers who would do menial tasks for kings and priests who passed into new lives. They’re very hard to see clearly now, because they have to be cleaned. We’re setting them in water again until we get them to the center for proper preservation. ”
“We found a box and a dagger,” Will volunteered, taking one of the specially treated cloths Amanda had used before reaching into his net bag. “I can’t read hieroglyphics, but whatever dye they used to stain the box is still visible. And the dagger appears to be jewel-encrusted. There’s shell attached, but I assume the center will know what to do. ”