"I couldn't find anything more, period."
"Because the other info was discovered only a few months ago by Arthur Jamerson, the curator of a small museum in Brighton, England. Jamerson was more ambitious for himself than for either history or the benefits to mankind. The museum's Egyptian displays were totally unimportant. They had been in that tiny museum in Brighton for over a hundred years. Among the artifacts was a false door from a tomb that had been virtually forgotten for over a hundred years."
"A false door?"
"A wall that looked like a door. These tombs, or mastabas, almost always featured false doors with elaborate carved reliefs. The Egyptians believed that this representation of a door would allow the deceased to pass to the afterlife. They're fairly common, and the Egyptian government sold them by the hundreds in the early twentieth century. There was nothing special about this one until technology finally caught up to that Brighton museum. Jamerson had the wall X-rayed and discovered that it encased another wall. Carved on the secreted wall was Peseshet's story recounted by one of her physician disciples, Natifah." He paused. "And a portion of a cure of some sort. Something to do with healing nerves that had thought to have been destroyed. Cellular regeneration. Remember, Peseshet practiced while the pyramids were being built. There were undoubtedly many construction accidents, so she had a steady stream of patients on whom to try out her treatments. And, most likely, many opportunities for autopsies to observe how her treatments did or didn't work."
"But it's only a portion of a cure. Dammit, that's nothing."
"No, that's a start," he said. "And enough that Jamerson copied down the procedure and sent it to an associate, Ted Mills, who was head of a pharmaceutical company in the U.S. Mills was cautiously excited. He wanted to know where the rest of the formula could be found. That was enough for Jamerson. He knew how much money medical breakthroughs could bring a man. He decided to go after the big prize. He falsified his X-ray results so that, as far as anyone at his museum knew, their Egyptian exhibit remained just as unremarkable as everyone always assumed it was. Jamerson searched until he found someone who he thought might possibly be able to find out more about the rest of the formula."
"You?"
"Me." He inclined his head. "I'm sure you have a dossier on me by now and know my credentials are unique. I met with Jamerson, and he handed over the transcription on the Natifah mastaba wall to me."
"What did he pay you to take the job?"
"Less than I'm worth. But the possibilities intrigued me."
"I want to see that transcript of the message on the mastaba wall."
"Of course."
"Now."
He shook his head. "Eventually."
"I'll go to Jamerson and get it."
"It would be a long trip. I imagine he resides in hell these days. Greed and corruption aren't looked upon kindly at the pearly gates."
She stiffened. "He's dead? You?"
"No, I took his job. I never kill the goose that lays the platinum egg. He was killed by Charles Dawson, the bastard you were so kind to save me from last night." He scowled. "But they wouldn't let me go back after him. I'm not pleased about that. Dammit, there's too good a chance that he probably went back to that tomb."
"I don't give a damn what you're pleased about. Norton was supposed to save your life and pen you up for me. That's all."
"I'll bet you'll give a damn before very long. You'll probably feel as pissed off that Dawson is still walking around as I do before this is over."
"Why? Just who is this Charles Dawson?"
"Dr. Charles Ansel Dawson. He has several degrees, one of which is medical. He's very bright, has all the ethics and conscience of a cobra, and is completely egotistical."
"Sounds like you."
"No. We differ on a number of fronts. I do have a few grains of conscience."
"So you say. Is Dawson after the Peseshet cure, too?"
Tavak nodded. "He's the hired gun for Ted Mills. That's what he does for a living. He's principally a cleanup man. When pharmaceutical companies get into hot water abroad for illegal practices, they hire Dawson to come in and make sure that their names and reputations aren't compromised. He does anything he has to do to clean up their dirty laundry." He shrugged. "And sometimes his cleanup is worse than the filth the pharmaceutical companies spread."
"And why did Dawson kill Jamerson?"
"As I said, he was hired by Jamerson's buddy, that pharmaceutical executive, Ted Mills, to uncover the same information Jamerson hired me to dig out. Dawson's first stop was Jamerson, and he wasn't gentle in his questioning. Jamerson died of a heart attack, but he'd obviously been beaten and had two ribs broken. Since Dawson has been on my trail since his death, it's logical to assume Jamerson told him everything he told me." He grimaced. "But Dawson didn't have the advantage of having Jonesy to help him, so he had to rely on my doing the work. That bloodsucking vampire would like that better anyway."
"You know him?"
"Oh yes, we had a run-in a few years ago. It wasn't a pleasant encounter for either of us, but I came out better than he did."
"What kind of run-in?"
"Nasty business. A British drug company had a manufacturing plant in Bolivia. It contaminated the groundwater and soil in several villages. Hundreds died. Dawson and his team descended on the area with a checkbook and enough firepower to change people's perceptions about what really happened. Suddenly it was announced that an abandoned pre-World War II cleaning-products factory was the culprit, and that long-forgotten underground waste-disposal tanks had ruptured."
"Long forgotten?"
"It's difficult to remember something that never existed in the first place. Local officials backed up the story. Anyone who didn't take the bribes was murdered."
Rachel shook her head. "And how did you get involved?"
"The United Nations was offering multimillion-dollar rewards for evidence of just this kind of corporate abuse. I got wind of it and decided it would be an interesting challenge."
"Naturally," she said sarcastically.
"I went down there and stayed alive long enough to get the evidence I needed. It cost the company billions. And for a long time it damaged Dawson's reputation as a corporate fix-it man. He was totally humiliated, and he's still having repercussions from it. He'd like nothing better than to see me dead."
"He can take a number." Rachel thought for a moment. "Mills Pharmaceuticals has never shown any interest in regenerative central nervous system research. It's just not their focus."
"Of course not. If Peseshet's cure works as well as I think it could, it will earn billions for the company that brings it to market. But Mills makes tens of billions every year with the medicines they sell now. Look at their portfolio: you'll find a range of analgesics and anticonvulsants, all designed to treat symptoms of nervous system damage. And their patients are customers for life, not just the few months it might take to administer a cure."
"You think Mills Pharmaceuticals wants the cure so they can bury it?"