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With her left hand holding the light, the pistol bucked in her right hand She splayed a wild pattern of gunfire, kept shooting anyway, gradually zeroing in on her target Pitt’s body jerked and bounded as she puure, until the Beretta’s slide locked open with the expenditure of her last round

She stepped toward her victiht in her hand finally held steady In the distance, she could just unfire Suddenly, the jacketabove the deck McKee stared in shock, which turned to dread The coat wasn’t occupied by Pitt Rather, it was held up by one of the boat’s long oars

Standing in the basin with his arms raised, Pitt had unfire He knew the difficulty of shooting a ht and kept hi his coat Pitt couldn’t hear the click of the Beretta clear its last round due to the echoes in the cavern, but he saw McKee’s light waver on his jacket, then turn to the ground

McKee sagged in defeat Stepping backward, she bu anchor at its base She stared at the anchor a long ht on the deck, she untied the rope

from the stone, then stood and carried the mast line to the side of the boat Without a word, she wrapped several loose coils about her neck and pulled the onto the side rail, she leaned forward and jumped off

In the otherwise silent cavern, Pitt heard the snap of McKee’s neck and then the tumble of her body as it unraveled from the rope and dropped to the basin floor He sloalked to the figure, approaching and turning on his light when he detected no movement

McKee lay with a stark look on her face, blank eyes staring into oblivion Her gold scarab necklace sat coiled next to her, the chain breaking with her fall Pitt stared at the deently closed her eyes that were staring at nothing Next he picked up the scarab and reached over the boat’s railing and laid it on the deck

“Your reign is over A world without men was never meant to be” He spoke softly Pitt rose to his feet and peered at the thirty-five-hundred-year-old boat above him

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The high ste to catch his eye Carved lotus flowers yptian ankhs and Celtic crosses It was an unlikely e and provenance

The vessel’s overall construction was crude, Pitt noted, built with uneven ti distances As a funerary barge, it bore a striking resemblance to the Khufu burial ship found near the Great Pyramid of Giza

Pitt -dead dried flowers crunched underfoot as he approached a small door secured with a wooden latch

Raising the latch, the door squeaked open, and he ducked through it to enter Rising upright, he pivoted with his light to illu sizes lined the walls, surrounding a raised center platform Atop it sat a painted wooden coffin, its top carved with the ie of its occupant

Pitt stepped closer Like the boat, the coffin’s features were carved with less precision than the royal to the wide-eyed figure, wearing a striped neyptian

Pitt set his light on the deck and tested the coffin’s lid It ht against the wall He retrieved the light and looked inside