The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor Read Online Free Page B

peaceful stream, taking aim at the wiggling tails and his lip curled back as he said, “Bite on this, you bastards . . .”
    And he began blasting at the water, splashing himself in the face but not minding, smiling in grim satisfaction.
    Who did these damn fish think they were dealing with, anyhow?
    When O’Connell, at the wheel of his 1939 Phaeton convertible, rolled through the gates of the palatial estate he shared with Evelyn, the majesty of his Tudor-style manor house and the luxuriant green expanse of its grounds made no impression on him. He had become used to living in a house that had more rooms than your average hotel. This was simply home to him, and he took it for granted.
    Truth be told, a sort of ennui had recently settled in for O’Connell, now that the war was over and the jobs he and Evy had done for MI-5 were behind them. Nor had there been any talk of any new archaeological digs in Egypt or anywhere else, now that Evy was writing again, when she wasn’t helping out at the British Museum. They were after her to be curator again, and he knew she was tempted.
    But where did that leave him? What did an adventurer do, in retirement? Was this retirement. . . ?
    O’Connell, arms filled with fishing tackle, let himself in; he was still soaking wet and the fly remained in his neck. “Evy! I’m home!”
    Jameson, his veddy British, veddy bored butler, materialized to lend a hand and say, “Mrs. O’Connell is at her book reading, sir. She is expected home for dinner.”
    “Swell.” O’Connell thrust the creel at the unflappable fellow. “We’re having fish.”
    Climbing out of his tweed jacket, O’Connell caught the butler hefting the creel, doing a little weight estimate on its contents. “What, you didn’t think I was going to catch anything?”
    “Sir,” the butler said, “I had the utmost confidence in your abilities. And from the feel of things, as you Americans are wont to say, you’ve made a real haul.”
    O’Connell grinned and was heading to the front closet, to hang up his coat and deposit his fishing gear, when the butler cleared his throat. O’Connell turned, and the butler discreetly gestured to a spot on the back of his master’s neck.
    Remembering the fly still stuck in the flesh back there, O’Connell said, “Oh, yeah. When you’ve taken as many slugs as I have, it’s easy to forget about a little snag. Could you get me the wire cutters?”
    “Certainly, sir.”
    The spacious front closet was the Elephant’s Burial Ground of O’Connell’s fallen hobbies—tennis and squash rackets, badminton set, rugby balls, cricket bats, bird-watching binoculars, shotgun cabinet replete with upland game-bird guns—and now the fishing gear joined these failed attempts at battling boredom.
    Hung neatly on the side wall of the closet was his French Foreign Legion uniform. Wistfully, he stroked the striped pants, but before the flood of memories could begin, he stepped back and slammed the doors shut.
    He’d been twenty or so when he’d won that battlefield commission. Not much older than his son, Alex, if any older at all . . .
    And now Alex was grown and gone, out of the house, across the ocean, making his mother proud at Harvard, or anyway the boy better be making her proud. Of course, right now Evelyn was out of the house, too, at another of these literary events. He wished he could share the excitement, but tea and crumpets and book talk were not exactly his style.
    Funny thing, in the couple’s heyday? Hadn’t been Evy’s style, either.
    At Foyles bookstore on Charing Cross Road, an enthusiastic group of women—young, old and in between (but mostly young)—had gathered for a book signing (and reading!) by an author whose first two novels had made bestseller lists on both sides of the Pond, although critics had been less than kind in either country.
    Had the signing been set for the evening, and not the afternoon, an equal number of men might well have been in attendance, for