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The Bones in the Sarcophagus
Dr. Daniel Goodman’s visiting archaeologist was on his knees, frowning as he crawled around the sarcophagus. “Dr. Jackson, is there a problem?” He finally asked.
“Well, maybe, yes, probably,” came the definitive answer. “Look here, tell me what you see.”
Goodman squatted and peered at where the other man’s gloved finger was pointed. “Dammit,” he swore softly.
“So you think it looks like the seal’s been broken too?”
“It’s an excellent repair, but a repair just the same.” He rose. “I’m afraid I have to agree with you, Dr. Jackson.”
“Is there somewhere we can get this X-rayed before we decide what to do next?”
“Dr. Brennan’s lab has an excellent set-up. We can have the sarcophagus moved over there and take a look.”
Daniel stripped off his gloves and stood. “Great.”
*
“I don’t know why I wasn’t consulted from the beginning.” Temperance Brennan said as she mounted the steps to the lab.
“I was unaware you had become an Egyptologist in the past few days,” Goodman commented as he followed.
“You don’t have to be an Egyptologist to look at a mummy. I am quite capable of determining cause of death.”
“We don’t really need cause of death. What we need to know is if the sarcophagus has been opened and re-sealed. Dr. Jackson believes it has been.”
“Is he the Egyptologist?” Brennan watched as the sarcophagus was wheeled into place.
“Sometimes,” piped up a voice from behind the artifact. “Oh, hi. You must be Dr. Brennan. Daniel Jackson.”
She shook his hand automatically. “Part-time Egyptologist? What do you do the rest of the time?”
“I consult for the Air Force.”
Her eyebrow quirked. “Why does the Air Force need an Egyptologist?”
“Oh, well,” he looked flustered. “It’s mostly, well, all really, classified.” She frowned at him. “Could you just take a look at this? Dr. Goodman speaks very highly of your intellect and I wouldn’t mind another opinion.”
Dr. Goodman smothered a smile. Hadn’t been in the room with Brennan for five minutes and Jackson had already zeroed in on her weakest spot. Appeal to her on an intellectual basis. “Well, may I just leave Dr. Jackson in your expert hands? Dr. Jackson, your ID will give you free rein here in the Jeffersonian. Dr. Brennan, let us know if there’s something else you need.” He left the two of them with their faces pressed against the side of the sarcophagus.
*
“See? Doesn’t this look different from the rest of the seal?”
“I think you’re right, Dr. Jackson. If I can get a scraping, I might be able to determine exactly what it is. They sealed sarcophaguses with mortar, right?” She grabbed a scalpel and a specimen bottle.
“Bones?”
“Hmm?” Brennan glanced over. “Oh, Booth. This is Dr. Daniel Jackson. He’s the Egyptologist Dr. Goodman recruited to examine the mummy. Dr. Jackson, Seeley Booth, he’s with the FBI.”
Booth surveyed the large case in front of him, hands planted on his narrow hips. “I’m guessing you don’t need the FBI for this one?”
“Since we believe this mummy to be several thousand years old, I don’t think this case requires the FBI. Besides, don’t you have plans for this weekend?”
“Yeah, well,” Booth started backing away. “I’ll just…you know…head out…”
“Have a good weekend, Booth.” She turned back to the sarcophagus. “Let’s start right here, shall we?” Brennan took a small drill and carefully began unsealing the artifact.
Several things happened within a very few seconds. A large puff of pinkish vapor escaped the sarcophagus, Daniel began coughing and strident alarms began ringing loudly.
“No, no, no!” Booth shouted as he dashed for the lab doors. Which closed firmly in his face. He swung back towards Brennan. “What the hell was that?” But she was busy trying to prevent Jackson from hitting the ground. Booth dashed back up the stairs, helping her to lower him to the floor. “What the hell was that?” He repeated.
“I don’t know, something, a vapor cloud came out of the sarcophagus. Dr. Jackson inhaled it. Get me the first aid kit.” She was busy removing Daniel’s tie, unbuttoning his top button. “Dr. Jackson, can you hear me?”
He nodded, obviously struggling for breath. Booth helped get him in the recovery position. “Did you call 911?”
“We’re locked down. Until we know what that was, no one gets in or out of here.”
“This guy could be dying!”
“Here, get a mask on him and put one on yourself.” She handed him a mask. “I should have insisted we mask up before we started. There’s no way of knowing what that was or how much he inhaled.”
“He seems to be breathing okay,” Booth adjusted the mask over his own face after slipping one on Daniel. “And he’s got good color.”
“I’m okay.” Jackson gasped.
“Stay still,” Brennan commanded.
“Dr. Brennan,” Dr. Goodman’s voice boomed over the intercom. “What’s your status?”
She reached for the phone. “When we attempted to open the sarcophagus, an unknown vapor escaped. Dr. Jackson inhaled some of it. The automatic lockdown occurred within a few seconds.”
“Who is in there with you?”
“Myself, Dr. Jackson, Agent Booth. If there was anyone else here, they are confined to their office or lab.”
“Okay, Dr. Brennan. We’re instituting Level One lockdown. We’ll have medical personnel there as soon as they are geared up. Is there anything we need to do?”
Daniel was trying to speak. “What?” Booth bent over him. “Jackson says to contact his CO.”
“We’re already attempting to contact the Air Force. Tell Dr. Jackson to relax, we’ll have them notified.”
*
Booth was nothing short of relieved when the medics showed up, even though they looked dressed for a moon landing. They brought a portable X-ray machine, which they promptly used on Jackson. “Lungs look fine, Dr. Brennan.” One of them nodded at Temperance. “Don’t know what it was, but it doesn’t appear to be toxic. I gave him a shot of steroids to prevent any throat swelling. I’m going to leave the oxygen and an inhaler, just to be on the safe side.”
“If it’s not toxic, why are we still locked up in here?” Booth complained as he yanked off the facemask.
“Because we still don’t know exactly what it was. We’ve pulled the air filters and Dr. Hodgins is ready to run some tests on the particulates, see what we can find. In the meantime, we’ve brought supplies. You’ll all need to shower and put your contaminated clothes in a hazmat bag.”
“Oh, man, these shoes are new.” Booth yanked his tie loose. “I better get them back and they’d better not have a scuff on them.”
“We’ll do our best, sir.”
Booth grabbed the bundles he was handed, helped Jackson down from the gurney, keeping a hand on him as they trudged to the contamination showers. “Bones, you take that shower over there and I’ll help Jackson here.”
“Daniel.” The other man rasped out. “If you’re taking my clothes off, we ought to at least be on a first name basis.”
Booth laughed sharply. “Yeah, see if you still think that when you’ve got strangers analyzing your underwear.”
Daniel’s blue eyes gleamed. “Agent Booth, I could tell you that happens a lot, but then I’d have to kill you.”
“It’s Booth or Seeley. Since we’re getting all intimate and everything here.”
*
Two hours later, Booth was rolling around idly on a lab stool watching Brennan run some kind of scan on the sarcophagus. Jackson – Daniel, he remembered – was asleep on one of the gurneys. The medic told them not to worry too much about it; they’d shot him full of steroids as a precaution and he would be better for the rest anyway.
“So, whatcha doin’?”
“I’m trying to determine if it’s safe to open the sarcophagus the rest of the way.”
“Hasn’t the proverbial genie already gotten out of the bottle, anyway? Pop that baby and let’s see what’s going on. If I’m gonna be stuck here for the foreseeable future, I’d like to at least know why.”
Brennan opened her mouth to reply when they both heard loud noises outside in the corridor.
“Colonel, you cannot go in there! The room is sealed for everyone’s protection.”
“Then how’d the damned medics get in and out?” The voice was loud and irritated.
“They used the air lock.” Goodman shot back.
“Then that’s what I’ll use.”
“I cannot allow that.”
“Goodman, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you can or cannot allow. That man in there belongs to the Air Force and is MY responsibility. I’m getting in there one way or the other.” The voice ended on a shout.
“Then you wear a Hazmat suit, check on Dr. Jackson and come right back out.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. Suit me up.”
Bones rolled his stool over and shook Daniel’s shoulder. “Get up, you got company.”
“Huh?” Daniel rose sluggishly, his long hair damp and disheveled. “What?”
“Some guy out there shouting the place down, trying to get in here.”
“Jack,” Daniel sighed, wiping his eyes, looking for his glasses.
“Sorry, they kept your glasses, in case they’d been infected.”
“Really?” He blinked in surprise.
*
Daniel was sitting on the side of the gurney when a heavily garbed person entered the first air lock, waited impatiently for the second door to open. Finally he lumbered into the lab.
“Jack?”
“Daniel? What in the merry hell have you got yourself into now?” The annoyance was clear, even through the microphone.
“It wasn’t Dr. Jackson’s fault.” Temperance stepped forward. “I opened the sarcophagus, I released the vapor. I take full responsibility for the lockdown.”
He glared at her through the glass shield. “Oh, don’t you worry about that. I’m holding this whole damned place responsible.” He reached behind him, fumbling for the catch.
“Jack!” Daniel slid to his feet. “What are you….?” His voice faded as Jack popped the vacuum seal on his suit. “You do realize you’re stuck in here with us now?”
“Rats,” he grinned as he yanked off the helmet. “Colonel Jack O’Neill. United States Air Force. Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Dr. Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist here at the Jeffersonian. This is Agent Seeley Booth, FBI.”
“What’s the FBI got to do with this?” Jack skinned his way out of the suit, revealing camos and a black T-shirt.
“Dr. Brennan consults with us on murder cases we investigate.”
“Well,” Jack ruffled his hair as his eyes slid away from Booth’s to assess Daniel. “I hope you do a better job of that than you have on this one. Daniel, Fraiser is expecting a phone call. She has some concerns about your condition.” He just grinned as Brennan’s spine stiffened.
Daniel huffed his way over to the phone. “You didn’t have to fly all the way up here and break a medical quarantine to do that. You could have just called me.”
“It’s supposed to rain today in the Springs,” Jack leaned against the side of the table as Daniel punched in the number. “I didn’t want to get my hair wet.”
*
Booth decided he’d heard more than he ever wanted from Hodgins about this particular government conspiracy. “Think about it, Booth. Somebody finds this mysterious sarcophagus and, before you know it, this place is crawling with the military. I mean, we’ve got an archaeologist with the highest security clearance known to man and a Special Ops Air Force guy whose entire military career is classified.”
Booth was inclined to agree with Hodgins about O’Neill; he recognized the type. Not O’Neill specifically, but the kind of sharp-eyed guys who were a Special Ops dream. And most of his jacket was very classified. But at least he had a sense of humor; he’d only grinned when Hodgins had been raving on the speaker.
Jackson, however, was another matter entirely. He couldn’t hope to keep a secret, not with those eyes. O’Neill tried to convince them that he was only concerned about what big secrets that might have spilled after the kid got a whiff of whatever the hell it was but Booth wasn’t fooled. He’d rushed to DC out of a genuine concern for Daniel. He figured Bones had been the only one fooled by O’Neill’s blustering.
“So are we gonna open that damned thing or what?” Booth rolled his stool restlessly.
“Oh, we’re definitely opening it,” Bones stated. “I’ve attached chains to the lid and to the hydraulic lift.”
Daniel winced. “Let’s just be real careful, ok?”
“Please move to the other side of the lab. I can operate the lift by remote.” They all crowded into the furthest corner and simultaneously held their breath as the lid slowly moved upward. “I did not see any further escape of vapor, did you, Dr. Jackson?”
“No,” Daniel tried to ease his way around both Jack and Booth. “I’m just going to take a look…”
“I’m going to take a look then I’ll tell you when it’s clear.” Jack pointed a finger at Daniel before he eased his way over to the sarcophagus. “Hey, Daniel, get a look at this.”
Daniel hurried over and peered into the sarcophagus. “Okay, not what I expected.”
Booth followed Bones around to the other side. “Hey, I’ve seen all those movies and that’s no mummy.”
“Well,” Daniel donned the gloves Temperance handed him and gently touched the wrappings. “Someone has attempted to wrap him like a mummy but clearly, the organs haven’t been removed and the body was not mummified. And he hasn’t been dead all that long, judging by the deterioration of the wrappings.”
“Hey, what’s that?” Booth pointed to something crumpled in the right hand.
Bones carefully shifted the hand and eased it open. “It’s…..it appears to be plastic.”
“It’s a sandwich bag.” They all looked at Jack. “You know, like a Ziploc bag that you put your lunch in.”
“They didn’t have plastic bags back in the mummy days.” Booth pointed out unnecessarily.
“No, they didn’t.” Bones carefully put the bag into an evidence bag. “Which means…”
“This isn’t an Egyptian mummy. It’s someone who’s been buried in a sarcophagus.” Daniel speculated.
“What happened to the original owner?” Jack leaned against the side of the table.
“Well, lots of tombs had already been raided when archaeologists starting unearthing them. Some were vandalized within years of the burials.”
“So much for honoring the dead,” Booth quipped. “So how do we find out who this guy is?”
“I don’t see any obvious signs of trauma,” Temperance carefully perused the body. “We can do some X-rays, see what we can find out.”
Jack nodded. “Sounds like a plan. So, can we get out of here now?”
Booth shook his head. “Sorry, still locked down. I say we order some dinner. Bones’ got a TV in her office. We could watch some hockey.”
Jack brightened up. “Yeah?”
“You like hockey, Colonel?”
“Are you kidding? Raised in Minnesota, here.” Their voices faded as they walked away.
*
The four of them were in Temperance’s office, eating, with a hockey match muted on the TV when the phone rang.
“This is Dr. Brennan,” Temperance answered.
“This is Zach, Dr. Brennan. I have the preliminary report on the substance inhaled by Dr. Jackson.”
“I’m putting you on speaker, Zach.” She pushed a couple of buttons. “Okay, what was in the substance?”
“It was a mixture of gum base, powdered sugar, corn syrup, glycerin, citric acid and peppermint.”
“That’s a strange combination.” She was puzzled.
“I thought so too, so I did a little research. It’s bubble gum, Dr. Brennan.”
Jack sat up with a start. “Bubble gum? Daniel inhaled bubble gum?”
Booth was just as incredulous. “We got locked down because of bubble gum?”
“Homemade bubble gum,” Zach answered. “My theory is that the bubble gum was in the plastic bag in the victim’s hand. When the seal was released, the plastic bag reacted to the release of pressure, exploded and the dried bubble gum poofed out. The bag must have been right where the seal was opened.”
“Far out.” Jack smiled. “Wait ‘til I tell Carter, she’s gonna be mad she missed out on this one.”
“We also have an approximate estimate of how long the victim had been in the sarcophagus. Judging by the condition of the body and the deterioration of the cloth, the body was buried no more than thirty years.”
“So all we have to do is find some guy who died in Egypt in 1967.” Jack looked over at Daniel.
“Well, don’t look at me. I don’t even know where I was in 1967.”
“Possibly in high school,” Jack quipped.
Daniel ignored him. “Egypt in 1967? Probably not a lot of record keeping. People were always getting killed by warring factions, desert sandstorms, accidents. You might never find out who he was.” He cautioned. “I can call some people I know, see who was working around that site at that time, but it’s probably a long shot at best.”
*
Bones and Daniel were still throwing around theories on who was in the sarcophagus – and how he’d gotten there. Brennan had determined the body to be that of a man of approximately sixty years with no discernible injuries. “It’s possible that we’ll never know.” She pointed out.
“I know. That’s one of the problems with archaeology. Some times it’s a theory and you never find the proof.”
“I think someone offed him and bid the body in the box there.” Booth thumbed idly through a magazine.
“If someone killed him, then why can’t we find any evidence of that?” Brennan asked.
“How many ways are there to kill someone that wouldn’t show in the bones?” He answered back.
“Very few, actually. It’s a very rare bullet or knife that doesn’t strike some bone. Poison would leach into the bone. Asphyxiation would break bones in the throat. A fall or a car accident would leave damage.”
“How about drowning?” Daniel suggested.
“If you held them down in the water, there would still be skeletal damage. Whoever it was went to a lot of effort in concealing the body.” She thought for a moment. “I hate puzzles that don’t add up.”
Jack opened his mouth but before he could get a word out, they all heard the sound of doors opening.
Booth surged to his feet. “Yes! Lockdown is over. Nice to meet you guys. Bones, see you on Monday. I’m outta here.” He charged toward the door, only to stop when he nearly mowed over Dr. Goodman and a stranger. “Listen, whatever it is, I don’t need to know. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the FBI.”
“Of course, Agent Booth,” Goodman agreed smoothly. “I just thought you’d like to know the answer to who was in the sarcophagus and how he got there.”
Booth hesitated, clearly torn between curiosity and a long-awaited hockey rematch. Then he sighed. “Okay, five minutes, then I am out that door.”
Goodman led the visitor up the steps and into the lab. “Dr. Brennan, Dr. Jackson, this is Dr. Thomas Sanford. He’s been telling me quite an interesting story.”
The tall and lanky Dr. Sanford jammed his bony hands into the pockets of well-worn jeans. “You know, we knew this was going to come out eventually. I knew that when I read about the sarcophagus.”
Brennan spoke up. “Why don’t we go in my office and you can tell us what you know.”
*
“We – Bradley Offutt and me – were college students working on a dig outside Cairo in ’67. We made some friends among the locals, you know, the hired diggers. There was this old man, funny as hell, you could never tell if half the stories he told were true. We went out drinking one night, me and Brad and Omar. We all got pretty drunk and Omar drove back out to the dig. I don’t know how we got there but we made it back alive. Brad and I went back to our tent and crashed. The next morning, we didn’t see Omar but we didn’t think too much about it.”
He stopped, took a deep breath. “Later that afternoon, Brad went looking for him, found him lying beside the Jeep. Brad thought he was still passed out, you know? But he couldn’t wake him up. He panicked when he realized…. he piled him in the Jeep and drove out to the far side of the dig, hid the body, then came back for me. You gotta remember, we were just kids in a foreign country and we were scared out of our minds. We thought someone would arrest us for killing the old man.”
“So you put him in a sarcophagus.” Daniel spoke into the sudden silence.
“We tried to convince ourselves he would have gotten a kick out of it, you know? We wrapped him up in some cloth from the market and re-buried the sarcophagus.”
“What did you do with the original owner?” Jack asked.
“There wasn’t one; the tomb had already been raided. No one was going to miss an empty sarc anyway so we buried him in an out of the way part of the dig, told ourselves it would be our little joke. Brad went back to Oxford in the fall and I came back to the States. When I read that the Jeffersonian had the sarcophagus and where it had been found, I tracked Brad down, convinced him we needed to tell the truth.”
“Say we believe you,” Booth leaned forward. “Maybe the old man did die of natural causes and maybe all you did was bury his body. Answer me one question. What was in Omar’s hand?”
“Brad’s mum was kind of a hippie type, you know? She was real funny about the kind of food he ate, was always worried about preservatives and shit like that. She was always sending him stuff she’d made. We figured it would freak someone out, somewhere in the future, trying to figure out why the guy had a baggie full of homemade bubble gum.”
Brennan folded her arms across her chest. “Do you have any idea of the trouble your prank created? The Jeffersonian went to a lot of time and trouble to get Dr. Jackson out here to investigate. He inhaled an unknown substance that could yet affect his health and this entire building was forced into lockdown.”
He hung his head. “I guess sorry is pretty inadequate?”
“Extremely inadequate.” Her voice was cool.
“Listen, I’m not hurt and there was no lasting damage,” Daniel said. “At least we know the truth now. That’s enough for me.”
“Well, it’s not for me,” Jack scowled.
“Me neither. I should have been playing hockey right about now.” Booth pointed out.
“What if Dr. Sanford made a donation, a sizable one to the Jeffersonian and made a public confession? I doubt the Egyptian authorities would press charges after all this time but Omar may have had a family who would like some answers.” Daniel suggested.
Booth tilted his head to one side then nodded. “Works for me. How about you, Bones?”
“It would depend on the size of the donation,” she decided ruthlessly.
“Listen, you guys can fight that out amongst yourselves.” Jack waved his hand. “Booth, did you say something about a hockey game? Could you use another player?”
*
“I fail to understand the motivations for this game. Oh, thank you,” she beamed as Daniel handed her a cup of cocoa.
Daniel’s eyes followed Jack around the rink. “There is no motivation. This is one of the last outlets for the innate violence in man’s nature. Modern civilization demands that men like Jack and Seeley suppress their true natures and conform to expected societal norms.”
Brennan smiled at him. “I like you, Daniel. How would you like to join the staff at the Jeffersonian? We could certainly use a person with your intellect and your unusual perceptions.”
“That’s flattering, really it is. But I’m needed where I am. And I think I’m the only thing keeping Jack from going off on some unsuspecting Marine or some poor Airman who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He looked at her shyly. “I kind of think you might serve the same purpose here, with Seeley.”
She tapped her Styrofoam cup against his. “I did say you were a man of unusual perception, didn’t I?”