The (Secret) Ransoms Around King Tut

Preparations are underway at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City for the scheduled opening of the traveling exhibit "The Treasures of Tutankhamun", the boy-king of ancient Egypt.

Not all of those detailed plans intend the same final goal.

Blackmail over gambling debts results in the seemingly innocuous hiring of two temp workers to help prepare the exhibit space.

Two days before the opening, two museum employees are found dead inside, a seeming suicide and an accident, neither convincing.

Early the next morning, two days before the opening, a threat to blow up the exhibit and the artifacts unless a large cash ransom is paid is received - and a museum curator is kidnapped as insurance.

Four related men are behind the ransom plot and are positioned to watch all sides of the building to know if the order that no one goes in or out is obeyed.

As the police and museum staffers try to decide what they can do, four brothers learn of the threat when word leaks to the Press. They set out to catch the other four - in return for a lesser amount of cash than the first ransom demand.

In a series of actions, the police try to learn the identities of the bombmakers to locate and capture or remove them - while the second group do the same.

The second group contact the head of the bomber group saying they have taken his family member hostage and offer to make a deal. Live hostages for cash.

This creates great confusion on all sides, leading to threats, deceptions, counter moves, and chaos. Detailed money payment procedures to both groups are spelled out but can they be carried out becomes the big question.