Well, I wasn’t going to stop. And with Ahwere on board, the van outweighed the car. A little bump wasn’t going to-
The bump came again, this time near my rear wheel. The car didn’t pull away. I wondered for a moment if our bumpers were locked.
Then my world began to spin.
I struggled to right the van, but couldn’t. The screech of rubber tires on the asphalt filled the air and then there was silence.
I felt my stomach fall out from under me.
Fear lanced through my limbs.
They’d pushed me right off the edge of the road.
I was falling. Falling into the -
The splash created a deep woofing sound and then there was blackness.
I am dead.
But I could hear the glugging rush of water as it found its way into the van.
And I felt the warm trickle of blood on my forehead.
No, I’m still alive.
But sinking into the ocean!
The chilly water was up to my waist already. The brackish smell of salt filled the air inside the van. Dim yellow spears of light from the headlights gave me the only reference point in the world. I reached for the seatbelt and felt nothing. I hadn’t strapped myself in.
Okay. How to get out?
I fumbled around for the door handle and found it. I pulled on it and drove my shoulder into the door. It didn’t budge.
Still locked?
I scrambled for the lock and located the small nub. I pulled it up until I felt a definite click. Then I felt around for the door handle again. Once I found it, I pulled on it and used my shoulder to push against the door.
No movement.
The water! I wouldn’t be able to open the door until the inside of the van filled with water.
I glanced around in the near darkness of the van’s interior. I couldn’t see my handbag or the bag full of money. Ahwere’s casket was barely a dull shadow behind me.
Water continued to rush in through the shattered window.
The headlights flickered once, then winked out.
The window. Of course.
I tilted my head back and sucked in a deep breath of air from near the top of the cabin. Without pausing, I dropped below the cold waters. I kept my eyes open, though I couldn’t see anything in the darkness. I felt around for the steering wheel and when I’d located it, I pulled myself toward it. From there, I made my best guess at the open window. As I slid through the opening, I felt my shoulder catch a corner. A jolt of pain shot down my arm, but I adjusted and kicked forward. There was a slice at my knee as I passed through the opening, followed by a trickle of warmth, but I ignored it.
Once free of the van, I paddled and kicked toward the surface. When my head broke through, I took several deep breaths of fresh air.
Small, wavering lights combed the surface of the water nearby.
They must have had torches with them. Goddamn soldiers. Always prepared.
I glanced left and right, choosing a point on the shoreline. Then I took a deep breath and went under again.
Deep breath by deep breath, I made way to the shore. I don’t believe that their damnable torch lights ever swept over me while I was above water. The further I got from the crash point, the less I worried they’d see me.
Of course, they’d be looking for me later. They all would. Niall and his crew. The IRA. The Peelers. All of them.
Eventually, I stayed above water, drawing in ragged breaths and stroking relentlessly toward the shoreline. My shoulder ached. My head throbbed. My muscles ached.
I stared ahead and stroked.
Behind me, Ahwere sank into the bay along with all my money and my old self.
Before me lay the shore line. Beyond that shore was Canada. My uncle Terry. A new life.
My muscles burned like melting rubber.
I stroked forward.
No Worse Curse
“I’m still not quite sure why ye called me,” I told Dex.
He didn’t sigh or show any sign of impatience. His voice had an excited edge to it. “I called you, Sean, because you’re the only one I can trust. And I need your help.”
We drove in silence for another kilometer. I tried to organize everything he’d told me over the phone and failed. “Run it past me again, lad.”
Dex glanced at me, his eyes alive and gleaming with enthusiasm. “It’s simple. What don’t you understand?”
“The whole entire thing. Go over it again.”
This time he did sigh. “Okay, it’s like this. You know my graduate work involves a history of lesser English lords, right?”
“They’re all lesser in my book, the rotters.”
Dex ignored my comment. “So my emphasis has been on the Hunt family, particularly Lord Randal Hunt. His family has opened up their estate to me, all their papers, everything.”
“Of course they have. Anything to get written up like a proper English lord by some Yank scholar.”
“Yeah,” Dex admitted, “I’m sure they like the attention. But I don’t care why they did it, just that they have.”
I shrugged.
Dex signaled and pulled onto the main road through town. “Anyway, I’ve been working out there all summer, going through the library and the storage rooms. It’s been pretty boring, to tell the truth. But I kept on.”
“Gotta get that degree, aye?”
“That’s part of it. But there’s more. Randal was an amateur archeologist. He spent most of the family fortune traipsing around the world, sponsoring different digs. In the early 1930s, he was in Egypt.”
I yawned. “So what?”
“So,” Dex said, “rumor has it that he found a burial chamber while he was there.”
“Rumor, is it?”
Dex nodded. “Yeah. It was all hush-hush. He was on a dig for months, then suddenly disappeared one night. Two weeks later, he’s back in England, declaring the dig a bust, just like all the others.”
“Sounds like an eejit,” I said. I was beginning to think the same of Dex. For a Yank, he’d been an all right drinking mate at the pub most of the summer, even if he was a wee bit too serious for his own good. But now he was waking me up in the middle of the night to give me a history lesson about some English noble that I couldn’t have cared less about. I didn’t like that, not at all. Only me boys in Sinn Fein ought to be waking a man up in the middle of the night.
“Maybe not,” Dex said. “Everyone thought he was crazy, that’s for sure. But I think he was crazy like a fox.”
“How’s that?”
“The dig wasn’t a total bust. They did find a burial chamber. In Egypt.”
I thought about Brian and Niall probably having a pint and closing down the pub. I’d rather be there, that was for sure. “Fire enough arrows in enough directions, sooner or later, ye hit a target, lad.”
“Well, they did. But the tomb was empty. The Egyptian Antiquities Commission secured the site. It was a burial sepulcher for a consort to Thutmose II. Her name was Ahwere. It was just a hole in the wall, really, compared to the Pharaoh’s tomb. But apparently he loved her enough to preserve her for the afterlife.”
I smiled. “A woman can do that to a man.”
He nodded and went on. “Lord Hunt said that grave robbers got to the find centuries ago. The Egyptian authorities accused him of being the grave robber. They thought he gathered up all of the burial items and high-tailed it out of Egypt.”
“Sounds just like an Englishman. Rapers and pillagers, all.”
“Maybe, but they could never prove it. They searched his family estate outside London and found nothing. Scotland Yard even did an investigation, along with Interpol. Eventually, the searched the estate here in Ireland, too. They didn’t find anything.”
“Big surprise,” I said. “Feckin’ Peelers couldn’t find their own arse with both hands and map.”