But then another woman in the CT room caught Maura’s attention. Wearing cotton gloves, the young woman leaned into the crate, removing layers of Ethafoam packing from around the mummy. Ringlets of black hair fell around her face. She straightened and shoved her hair back, revealing eyes as dark and striking as those painted on the mask. Her Mediterranean features could well have appeared on any Egyptian temple painting, but her clothes were thoroughly modern: skinny blue jeans and a Live Aid T-shirt.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” murmured Dr. Robinson. He’d moved beside Maura, and for a moment she wondered if he was referring to Madam X or to the young woman. “She appears to be in excellent condition. I just hope the body inside is as well preserved as those wrappings.”

“How old do you think she is? Do you have an estimate?”

“We sent off a swatch of the outer wrapping for carbon fourteen analysis. It just about killed our budget to do it, but Josephine insisted. The results came back as second centuryBC.”

“That’s the Ptolemaic period, isn’t it?”

He responded with a pleased smile. “You know your Egyptian dynasties.”

“I was an anthropology major in college, but I’m afraid I don’t remember much beyond that and the Yanomamo tribe.”

“Still, I’m impressed.”

She stared at the wrapped body, marveling that what lay in that crate was more than two thousand years old. What a journey it had taken, across an ocean, across millennia, all to end up lying on a CT table in a Boston hospital, gawked at by the curious. “Are you going to leave her in the crate for the scan?” she asked.

“We want to handle her as little as possible. The crate won’t get in the way. We’ll still get a good look at what lies under that linen.”

“So you haven’t taken even a little peek?”

“You mean have I unwrapped part of her?” His mild eyes widened in horror.