Page 78 of The Stolen Queen

Charlotte and an inspector from the Egyptian Antiquities Organization watched as two wooden crates containing the mummies from the crumbling tomb were carefully lifted into the storage hold of the plane, followed by a crate containing the sarcophagus and a smaller one with the canopic box.

The flight was smooth, and before long they were in Egypt’s capital city. Annie had shaken off her disappointment at Charlotte’s reaction to the stolen letter after Charlotte promised to bring up thetheft with the director of the museum, in the hopes that he might be able to help. As their taxi followed the truck transporting the crates from the airport to the museum, Annie squirmed in her seat and braced herself at every intersection.

“How do they do this?” she said.

“Do what?” asked Charlotte, trying not to laugh.

“There are absolutely no traffic lights, no stop signs. Yet somehow all these cars, vans, motorcycles, and trucks race through the intersections without slamming into each other.”

“The key,” Charlotte explained, “is that the drivers rarely hit their brakes. As long as no one stops, the flow of the streets is like the flow of a river with multiple tributaries, one wave following another.” She pointed out a bus sliding in behind a Mercedes as a motorcycle dodged both. “Lanes are theoretical, honking a given.”

“It’s insane.”

Charlotte shrugged. “I suppose I got used to it.”

The Egyptian Museum, which had been a second-rate institution when Charlotte lived in the city decades ago, had dropped even further down the scale. With scant electricity, the galleries were lit only by the ambient rays of sun from the windows. Yellow spots of paint dotted beautiful Hellenistic vases from when the walls and ceilings had been shoddily repainted, and many of the vitrines sported large cracks. In the lobby, a security guard stood in the corner, spitting tobacco onto the stained floor.

The director of the museum was a portly man who seemed to be made of circles—a round belly and a chubby round face with a pair of round spectacles perched on his nose. He came huffing up to where Charlotte and Annie waited in the lobby.

“Miss Cross, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said.

“Please, call me Charlotte.” She shook his hand and introduced Annie, and then he led them up to his office on the second floor,which was dark and dusty, a far cry from the pristine, antique-filled domain of Mr. Lavigne at the Met. Frederick had met with Omar Abdullah multiple times as the terms of the King Tut exhibition were negotiated and had complained about how difficult it was to come to an agreement. But today Omar appeared quite at ease, leaning back in his chair with his hands crossed behind his head.

He explained that he’d arranged for the mummies and the canopic box to be transported to Cairo’s top university hospital the next day, where a CT scan machine would examine both mummies and the box. They spoke of people they knew in common and the gossip of the museum world in general before Charlotte finally brought up Ma’at.

Omar sighed. “They’re obviously trying to restock our coffers, but the methods are certainly dubious. There’s no question a number of important antiquities were spirited out of Egypt before the authorities began to crack down, but I would prefer they go through international legal channels as opposed to stealing them back.”

“Has anyone from Ma’at ever approached you with an artifact that was stolen?”

“No, and I couldn’t accept it if they did. Is there something in particular you’re referring to?”

Charlotte shook her head, not wanting to break Frederick’s trust, but Annie spoke up before she could stop her.

“The Cerulean Queen was taken from the Met earlier this week,” said Annie. “We think it was Ma’at that stole it.”

Omar’s eyes went wide. “That’s terrible. Was anyone hurt?”

“Luckily, no,” interjected Charlotte, sending Annie a sharp look.

“What makes you think it was Ma’at?” asked Omar.

“Well,” ventured Charlotte, “we believe the man who ran off with it was Egyptian.”

Omar let out a short snort. “Not every Egyptian is a member of Ma’at.”

“Of course not,” assured Charlotte. “But it’s similar in certain ways to the previous two robberies they took credit for, which is why we’re asking. The investigation is in the early stages and hasn’t been made public.”

“Please let them know if there’s anything I can do to assist, I shall,” offered Omar.

“I do have another question, if you don’t mind,” said Charlotte. “There’s a broad collar currently on loan at the Met that was found in the 1930s, in the same tomb as the one we were in two days ago. The piece is privately owned, but I know for a fact that it was supposed to have been sent here, to the Egyptian Museum, after being excavated. Your records show it as being part of the collection, at least back then, and I’m curious if there’s a record of it ever being sold.”

“When was it discovered?”

“December 1936.”

“Let me check.” He walked over to a bookcase and pulled out an enormous ledger. As he leafed through the pages, the smell of mold and dust almost made Charlotte sneeze.

“That’s odd, it’s listed as part of our collection, but it looks like there’s no record of it actually arriving. Are you sure it wasn’t allowed to leave the country? Partage was still in practice then.”

---