Tavak walked around it. "Truly amazing. The depth of the characters, the size of all of these reliefs, looks exactly the same. If they gave out Academy Awards for this sort of thing… "
"They do." Mark smiled. "They're called Technical Achievement Oscars. We've won quite a few."
Rachel glanced at Val's e-mail message on her phone. "Here's what Jonesy has come up with. Roughly translated, we're supposed to look at the 'shadow of a memory' as the sun's last rays disappear at dusk, then again as they reappear at dawn on the longest day of the year."
"Come again?" Demanski asked.
"Fortunately, Jonesy has already plotted it out, using the location and angle of this wall and the position of the sun in the sky during that time." She looked up. "Your cycles at work, Mark. Do you have a lighting kit handy?"
He nodded. "Sure. What do you need?"
"A high-wattage light with an eight-inch circular mask. It needs to be seven feet four inches high and aimed at the face of this wall at an almost perpendicular angle. Eighty-seven degrees."
Mark smiled. "I'll get my tape measure and protractor."
Within twenty minutes, Mark had positioned the light. Rachel tilted her head to look at the faint shadows cast by the raised carvings.
"This was sunset in Saqqara, everybody. Mark, can you turn out the other lights in here?"
Mark cut the studio lights, and the shadows became more prominent.
Tavak stepped closer to the mastaba wall. "I think that we've hit pay dirt."
"Hieroglyphics." Allie ran to the wall and traced the shadows with her fingers. "Look!"
"I see," Rachel said. "Can someone get a picture?"
Mark picked up a digital camera and snapped several shots.
Rachel looked at Val's e-mail on her phone again. "Okay, let's make a sunrise."
Mark realigned the light based on Jonesy's calculations, and a different set of hieroglyphic shadows were cast on the other side of the mastaba wall. He snapped more pictures, then printed out both sets on a color laser printer.
Rachel held up the photos side by side. "This is incredible. There are even marks for the transcribers to indicate where the halves fit together. Together they form a complete, uninterrupted message."
Demanski turned to Tavak. "You can read this. What does it say?"
"I can't be sure," Tavak said. "We'll need to let Jonesy take a crack at it. We should get going."
Rachel studied Tavak's expression. Something was wrong.
"Thank you, Mark." Tavak shook Tillinger's hand and turned on his heel and strode out of the complex.
Rachel caught up with him as he reached the van. "Why couldn't you read it? What aren't you telling us?"
"That's not the last piece," Tavak said.
"Then what the hell is it?" Demanski asked.
"Directions."
"Directions where?"
"To Peseshet herself."
"What?" Allie asked.
"It says that she will give us the final piece in her tomb."
"Her tomb?" Rachel said. "She was murdered by the Pharaoh. She wouldn't have been given a tomb."
Tavak nodded. "It appears that Natifah, her disciple—or one of her grateful patients—had other ideas. In any case, we now have directions to the secret tomb of Lady Peseshet, overseer of women doctors." Tavak glanced back at Demanski. "Make sure your jet is fueled up and ready to go. We're finishing this where it began. We're going to Egypt."
HOUSTON, TEXAS
8:10 P.M.
Norton pressed the button to save the e-mail before pushing back his chair. The mere process of writing it had twisted his stomach. Okay, it was done. Now he could move forward.
He moved out of the office building elevator when he reached the bottom parking level and headed for his car. He'd call Simmons right away, and discuss—
"Hello, Norton."
Norton stiffened warily as he saw Robert Pierce sitting in the car next to his own. "What are you doing down here, sir?"
"Waiting for you. I agree that I shouldn't have to attend to this kind of thing myself," Pierce said. "But I'm the one who put my trust in you. I've always believed that I have to take responsibility for my actions."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I've been waiting for you. You're keeping late hours."
"Yeah. A lot going on."
Pierce nodded. "There's trouble. We've been burning the midnight oil, too. As I told you, Rachel Kirby's computer network has been compromised. More specifically, our information has been leaked."
"Our guys cleared Tavak, didn't they?"
Pierce smiled. "I know you don't believe it's Tavak. We think it's an inside job. One of our people. I think someone panicked and was afraid Rachel Kirby would trace it back to them. She probably wouldn't have even noticed, but John Tavak's drain on her system's resources raised a red flag." He paused. "So someone ordered her killed."
Norton's brows rose. "Someone in our agency."
"That's what it looks like. Maybe someone was tapping into the processing power of Kirby's computer for their own purposes. Cracking rival government's defense networks, banking systems, the list goes on and on. That ability could be quite valuable on the open market."
"You've got it all figured out," Norton said.
Pierce nodded. "And all that's left is to find the bad guy." He got out of the car. "But I believe we've managed to do that now."
Norton could see where this was going. His hand moved inside his jacket toward his shoulder holster. "Why, you son of a bitch. I won't let you—"
"I'm afraid you have no choice." Pierce raised a semiautomatic handgun and fired twice into Norton's chest.
* * *
Val rolled her chair across the computer lab and checked the settings on her monitor. "I don't like it."
"Don't like what?" Simon asked.
"Jonesy's taking too long with the last set of instructions."
He leaned over her shoulder. "Looks okay to me."
"Rachel will touch down in Cairo in less than two hours. I think there's more to these directions to Peseshet's burial chamber than 'step inside and turn right.' We need to be ready by the time they get there."
"What do you propose?"
Val thought for a moment. "We should take Jonesy off our other projects and channel its processing cycles here."
"All of them?"
"Yes. Until we're able to break these directions down."
"Rachel wouldn't like that. We've made obligations to the donors and the various projects in our network."
"We've been delivering everything we've promised and more."
"I agree. But think of how it looks. What if it got out that we were taking their processing cycles for Rachel's personal use?"
"Just for a few hours."
He crouched beside her. "I see where you're coming from. I do. But that's a decision only Rachel can make."
"She would approve."
"I'm not so sure. Our donors are the lifeblood of this system. If we violate their trust, we could kill the entire project. And you and I both know that's the last thing Rachel would want."
She looked at him for a moment, then clucked her tongue. "Since when did you get so responsible… ? Okay. Rachel's decision."
"Good. For the record, I'm wildly attracted to this rebellious streak of yours. Keep it up, and you might even have a chance with me."