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But all at once she went from that place of warmth and safety to another, somewhere else. It was as if she’d suddenly been drawn to the television screen, and then into it.
She was part of The Mummy—now in living color.
It really didn’t frighten her at first. It was so silly! The mummy moved slowly—all anyone had to do was outrun it!
She’d often thought so. Only silly girls screamed, did nothing and fell down while staring at the mummy and walking backward.
But now, she wasn’t in a movie anymore, and it wasn’t a movie mummy lurching awkwardly toward her. Instead, there were dozens of mummies, and when she turned to run, there were more of them, behind her and on either side.
There was nowhere to run.
She was suddenly fighting them, smashing at them, kicking them, wrenching and tearing. She was an M. E. , for God’s sake, and she could make them all fall apart. In the early days of Egyptology, she knew, mummies had been so plentiful they’d been used as fuel for home and cooking fires. She could beat them.
But they were strong….
So many…
And coming through them, one who wasn’t a mummy, one who seemed to be a living, breathing human.
Amun Mopat.
“Not in my name,” he cried out to her. “Not in my name!” he said again. “Don’t they understand? You put something in a man’s mind, and he believes it. But I will have it no more. Not in my name. ”
She stopped because she was so astounded. And then she could feel the things, closing in on her, touching her. She twisted and turned, and saw that Amanda Channel was walking toward her from one direction and Amun Mopat from the other.
And then, her strange realm was pierced by a loud shrieking.
It was Amanda. She was screaming in terror.
Kat woke with a start.
At her side, Will instantly woke, as well. Alert to danger, he sat up, reaching automatically into the drawer at the side of the bed, as if he’d forgotten they were in her room. It didn’t matter, though. That was where she kept her service Glock, too.
“What?” he asked. His voice was thick; he’d been sleeping soundly. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Did you hear a scream?”
“No. ”
She jumped out of bed, racing around to find fresh clothing.
“Kat?”
She grabbed panties and a pair of jeans from her drawer. “Will, come on! We have to go. ”
“Where?”
“The Preservation Center. Something’s happening there. ”
“Kat, it’s not even six. Tyler and Jane are in a car, watching the place. There are two other agents and the cops are going by constantly. Are you—”
“Sure? Yes, positive. Will, something is happening there. Please come with me. ”
She didn’t have to ask again. He was out of bed, hurrying to his own room to dress and retrieve his weapon.
There was very little traffic. They parked directly in front of the center in a no-parking zone, but Will didn’t care and neither did she. Tyler got out of his rental as she ran toward him.
“Kat! What’s the matter?”
“Have you seen anything? Has Amanda come back here?” she asked.
“No, nothing. Those are the other feds right over there and the police have been around every fifteen minutes, like clockwork,” Tyler said.
Jane, looking slightly disheveled from sitting up in the car all night, was beside them a moment later.
“We’ve got to get that guard to let us in,” Kat said urgently.
She led the way, almost running as they all followed her.
At the door, she paused. Beyond the plate-glass doors, she could see the guard.
He lay on the floor in a pool of blood, his gun in his outstretched hand.
11
The center’s glass front doors were still bolted shut.
Although the guard, lying by the shadow of the reception desk, appeared to be dead, they couldn’t wait. If there was a chance he was alive, they had to get in.
Will tried ramming his shoulder against the door to smash it, joined by Tyler, but the heavy safety glass didn’t break. “Stand back,” Will said. He raised his Glock and shot out the glass. He noted in the back of his mind that the center’s alarm didn’t go off. He heard the sound of glass shattering and emergency sirens approaching the center, which meant someone had called 9-1-1.
He wrapped his hand in his jacket and reached in, undoing the bolts. They were inside the center in a matter of seconds. Kat immediately went to the man on the floor, feeling for a pulse. She looked up. “He’s got a pulse—it’s faint, but he’s got a pulse!”
Will hunkered down by her side. “Gunshot wound to the chest,” she said. “Missed the heart…we need an ambulance…like ten minutes ago. ” She had taken off her jacket and used it to apply pressure to the wound. She nodded at Tyler, who’d had some paramedic training. He got down on his knees and listened to her quick words of instruction, taking over from her, applying pressure to stop the bleeding while she ripped off the man’s tie and wrenched open buttons. She looked over at Will. “Go—someone is in here. Amanda’s here for some reason…I just know it. Please, Will, go. ”
Will indicated that Jane should take the conference room while he moved toward the climate-controlled area. The two agents who’d watched the center from a distance had entered behind them. The older of the two, a tall, dark-haired man of about forty, nodded at him and then at his partner. The older agent accompanied Will, while the younger man followed Jane.
Will and the other agent passed the entry and turned to the left. They paused at the first workroom, positioned themselves on either side of the door. The agent counted off three with his fingers and Will kicked it in.
It didn’t take long to see that the room was empty, except for a statuette on the work stand in the process of being cleaned.
They went down the hall and reached the climate-controlled room. Heavy plastic barriers guarded the area where the “bunny” suits were kept; steel racks held boxes of gloves, masks and booties. The plastic barriers could have hidden a person, and the two men held back again, communicating silently. The agent pulled back one of the plastic slats while Will stepped forward, Glock tightly gripped in both hands.
Will passed through the dressing area and came to the next plastic barrier, just before the entry to the clean room. The other agent was behind him.
A double sheet of plastic hung in front of the clean room itself. He moved it, looking in, thinking of the care they’d taken that day and aware that he wasn’t at all clean. The preservation of history, however, had to take a backseat to the protection of the living.
The giant outer sarcophagus lay as they’d left it twelve hours before; the inner sarcophagus was on the stand, also exactly as they’d left it.
There was nothing else in the room other than the steel racks of sterile equipment and the two giant sarcophagi.
Will stepped carefully forward to look in both. The first was empty.
He went to the second, where the death mask lay over the mummy of Amun Mopat.
And that was where he found her.
Dr. Amanda Channel—wedged next to the fragile mummy, eyes closed, arms crossed over her chest.
* * *
The paramedics arrived in less than three minutes.
Still, Kat knew the guard had suffered a great deal of blood loss. Without causing further trauma, the best she could do while waiting was staunch the flow of blood and ease his breathing and that, with Tyler’s help, she’d accomplished. When the emergency techs rushed in, she told them her findings and stepped back. Tyler stood at her side.
A couple of minutes later, she saw Jane returning from a search of the conference room to the right of the entry. A young FBI man in a suit was with her.
“Anything?” she asked.
Jane shook her head.
Kat heard the med techs talking to one another, their voices quiet as they assessed the victim and worked on him before transferring him to a portable gurney. Then she saw that Will and a second FBI man were walking toward them.
Will looked tense.
“Amanda Channel,” he said.
“She’s…here?”
“She’s dead. ”
“Dead? No pulse, nothing?” Kat asked. “Where?”
She pushed past him before he could stop her.
“The clean room, Kat. And she is dead. Believe me. ”
She believed him; still, she had to check for herself. The guard stood a small chance of surviving, so, even knowing that Will was probably right, she hurried to find Amanda.
Giving no thought to dust or germs, Kat rushed through the layers of protection to get to the clean room.
“The sarcophagus,” Will called from behind her.
She came to an abrupt halt, staring in shock at Amanda tucked into the sarcophagus with her beloved mummy. The woman had been as slim as a reed, which was the only reason she fit. She was wedged beside the preserved remains of the long-dead priest. No ancient linen wrap covered her, but her arms were crossed in the typical fashion of ancient Egyptian burial. Kat took a shaky breath and ran over to check for a pulse or a sign of breath. She felt Amanda’s cooling flesh and knew, before using any instruments, that the woman was far beyond medical help.
Will came to stand by her side. “How long?” he asked softly.
“Core body temperature drops at an estimated rate of 0. 8K every hour from the time of death,” she said, “But there are variables, this room being one of them. A number of factors can be part of determining the exact time—humidity levels, air movement and, in Amanda’s case, the fact that there are very few fat cells in her body. Rigor mortis has just started to set in, so…”
“Rigor mortis can set in soon after death, right?”
“Right. In half an hour or less. We’ll know more at the morgue. ”
“Can you tell how she died?” he asked.
There were no visible signs of trauma on the body. Kat examined her eyes for petechial hemorrhage, then shook her head. “She wasn’t strangled. I’m assuming it has to be from some kind of toxin in the body. I’m not seeing any blood or signs of outer damage. ”