The Book of the Dead

What was the plan?

Her eye ended up at the closed door to the tomb, the steel now covered with a faux stone finish, a huge red ribbon stretched across its front.

Her feeling of sickness increased. And along with it came a desperate feeling of isolation. She had done everything in her power to stop, or at least postpone, this opening. But she had convinced nobody. Even Police Commissioner Rocker, her ally in the past, had demurred.

Was it all in her mind? Had the pressure finally gotten to her? If only she had someone who saw things her way, who understood the background, the true nature of Diogenes. Someone like D’Agosta.

D’Agosta. He had been ahead of her at every step of the investigation. He knew what was going to happen before it happened. Long before anyone else, he’d known the kind of criminal they were up against. He had insisted Diogenes was alive even when she and everyone else had “proved” he was dead.

And he knew the museum-knew it cold. He’d been involved in cases co

She controlled her breathing. No point wishing for the impossible. She had done all she could. There was nothing left now but to wait, watch, and be ready to act.

Once again her eye roved the crowd, gauged the flow, examined each face for u

Suddenly she froze. There, standing by the group of dignitaries near the podium, stood the tall figure of a woman: a woman she recognized.

All her alarm bells went off. Making an effort to control her voice, she raised her radio. “Manetti, Hayward here, do you read?”

“Copy.”

“Is that Viola Maskelene I’m looking at? Over by the podium.”

A pause. “That’s her.”

Hayward swallowed. “What’s she doing here?”

“She was hired to replace that Egyptologist, Wicherly.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. A day or two ago.”

“Who hired her?”

“Anthropology, I think.”

“Why wasn’t her name on the guest list?”

A hesitation. “I’m not sure. Probably because she was such a recent hire.”

Hayward wanted to say more. She wanted to curse into the radio. She wanted to demand to know why she hadn’t been told. But it was too late for all that. Instead, she merely said, “Over and out.”

The profile indicated that Diogenes isn’t through.

The whole gala opening looked like a meticulous setup-but for what?

D’Agosta’s words rang in her ears like a Klaxon. Something bigger, maybe much bigger.

Jesus, she needed D’Agosta-she needed him right now. He had the answers she didn’t.

She pulled out her personal phone, tried his cellular. No response.

She glanced at her watch: 7:15. The evening was still young. If she could find him, get him back here… Where the hell could he be? Once again, his words echoed in her mind:

There’s something else you ought to know. Have you heard of the forensic profiling firm of Effective Engineering Solutions, down on Little West 12th Street, run by an Eli Gli

It was just a chance-but it was better than nothing. It sure beat waiting here, twiddling her thumbs. With luck, she could be there and back in less than forty minutes.

She lifted her radio again. “Lieutenant Gault?”

“Copy.”

“I’m heading out briefly. You’re in charge.”

“There’s somebody I need to speak with. If anything-anything-out of the ordinary happens, you have my authority to shut this down. Totally. You understand?”

“Yes, Captain.”

She pocketed the radio and walked briskly out of the hall.

Chapter 49

Pendergast stood in the small study, back pressed against the door, motionless. His eyes took in the rich furnishings: the couch covered with Persian rugs, the African masks, the side table, bookshelves, curious objets d’art.

He took a steadying breath. With a great effort of will, he made his way to the couch, lay down upon it slowly, folded his hands over his chest, crossed his ankles, and closed his eyes.

Over his professional career, Pendergast had found himself in many difficult and dangerous circumstances. And yet none of these equaled what he now faced in this little room.

He began with a series of simple physical exercises. He slowed his breathing and decelerated his heartbeat. He blocked out all external sensation: the rustle of the forced-air heating system, the faint smell of furniture polish, the pressure of the couch beneath him, his own corporeal awareness.

At last-when his respiration was barely discernible and his pulse hovered close to forty beats per minute-he allowed a chessboard to materialize before his mind’s eye. His hands drifted over the well-worn pieces. A white pawn was moved forward on the board. A black pawn responded. The game continued, moving to stalemate. Another game began, ending the same way. Then another game, and another…

… but without the expected result. Pendergast’s memory palace-the storehouse of knowledge and information in which he kept his most personal secrets, and from which he carried out his most profound meditation and introspection-did not materialize before him.

Mentally, Pendergast switched games, moving from chess to bridge. Now, instead of setting two players against each other, he posited four, playing as partners, with the infinity of strategy, signals both missed and made, and plays of the hand that could result. Quickly he played through a rubber, then another.

The memory palace refused to appear. It remained out of reach, shifting, insubstantial.

Pendergast waited, reducing his heartbeat and respiration still further. Such a failure had never occurred before.

Now, delving into one of the most difficult of the Chongg Ran exercises, he mentally detached his consciousness from his body, then rose above it, floating incorporeal in space. Without opening his eyes, he re-created a virtual construct of the room in which he lay, imagining every object in its place, until the entire room had materialized in his mind, complete to the last detail. He lingered over it for several moments. And then, piece by piece, he proceeded to remove the furnishings, the carpeting, the wallpaper, until at last everything was gone once again.

But he did not stop there. Next, he proceeded to remove all the bustling city that surrounded the room: initially, structure by structure, then block by block, and then neighborhood by neighborhood, the act of intellectual oblivion gaining speed as it raced outward in all directions. Counties next; then states; nations, the world, the universe, all fell away into blackness.

Within minutes, everything was gone. Only Pendergast himself remained, floating in an infinite void. He then willed his own body to disappear, consumed by darkness. The universe was now entirely empty, stripped clean of all thought, all pain and memory, all tangible existence. He had reached the state known as Sunyata: for a moment-or was it an eternity?-time itself ceased to exist.

And then at last, the ancient mansion on Dauphine Street began to materialize in his mind: the Maison de la Rochenoire, the house in which he and Diogenes had grown up. Pendergast stood on the old cobbled street before it, gazing through the high wrought-iron fence to the mansion’s mansard roofs, oriel windows, widow’s walk, battlements, and stone pi