Kathlyn Trent, Marcus Burton 01 - Valley of the Shadow (7 page)

"Absolutely. Why not?"

He lifted a dark eyebrow. "Because if you get stuck, it would be very difficult to get you out. Forget about it."

Kathlyn met his gaze steadily. Then she smiled. "Mark?" she called.

Mark was resting against the shaft wall along with the others. "What?"

She jabbed a finger up to the space between the boulder and the ceiling. "Lift me up there and give me your flashlight. I want to see."

Marcus cast Mark a glance that suggested he'd better do no such thing. Considering Marcus was in charge of the dig, Mark held up his hands as if to surrender. Besides, Marcus was a head taller than him and twice as wide, and he had no intention of entering into any sort of physical tussle with him.

"You're on your own, Kat. The Supreme Leader has other ideas."

Marcus picked up the flashlight lying at Mark's feet, wagging it at her as he spoke. "If you just want to look, I'll hold you up. Otherwise, you'll have to wait."

She took the flashlight and smiled brightly. "I just want to look, I promise."

Casting her a long look that suggested he didn't believe her, he motioned her over and turned her around by the shoulders so she was facing the rock. "Ready?"

She nodded and he laced his fingers into a sling so she could stand on them, lifting her up as if she weighed no more than a child. At the gap, Kathlyn grabbed hold of the uneven boulder and pulled herself up. Before Marcus could stop her, she was half-way through the hole.

"Goddammit," he growled. "Kathlyn, get out of there."

The gap was fairly wide, enough so she could turn around and look at him. "Don't worry, I'm not going through. I'd have no way of getting back up again if I did," she assured him. "I just want to peek."

Flashing the light onto the plaster wall twelve feet beyond, she was faced with a solid, unmarred panel. "Marcus, the seal looks unbroken from here," she called back to him. She leaned forward a little, trying to catch a better view. "As a matter of fact, the entire surface is continuous, suggesting that no repairs have taken place. But I can't see the cartouches. In fact, I...."

She gave a yelp as she lost her balance. Marcus and the others watched helplessly as she pitched forward and fell through the other side.

"Kathlyn!" Marcus shouted. "Are you all right?"

She didn't say anything for a moment, lying stunned on the ground. With a groan, she sat up as stars danced before her eyes. The first thing she noticed was a shooting pain in her right wrist.

"Kathlyn!"

"I'm okay," she called.

She could hear Marcus grumbling on the other side. She felt like an idiot for having fallen though. It seemed like she'd had more than her fare share of accidents since she'd been here, either by her own stupidity or by an act of Fate. Maybe it really was the mummy's curse.  The flashlight had fallen through with her and she reached over with her left hand to where it lay and picked it up.

Her legs worked well enough and she stood up, unsteadily at first, and shined the light on the sealed entryway. She figured she might as well get a good look at the thing since she was here, so she inspected it closely, locating the elusive cartouches on the upper right hand corner and in the center. She took the required Egyptology classes in college, but wasn't as quick about reading hieroglyphs or hieratic as she would have liked to have been. But she did know one thing; neither the cartouche nor the hieratic on the plaster announced Ramses VIII.

"Oh, my God," she breathed. "It's not the one he's looking for."

Marcus' voice penetrated her thoughts. "Kathlyn?" he called. "I'm throwing a rope through the opening. Grab hold of it and I'll pull you through."

She tore herself away from the unfamiliar cartouche, wondering how she was going to tell him. She also wondered how she was going to hold onto a rope with only one good hand. Walking back over to the boulder, she called up through the opening.

"Marcus?"

He must have been standing on something, because his face was almost in the opening. "What?"

She swallowed, thinking how to break the news. There was no easy way to tell him. "Well... there's a couple of things you should know about."

"What's that?"

"I hurt my wrist when I fell. I don't think I can hold on to the rope very well with one good hand."

He didn't say anything for a moment, but she could hear conversation going on. "How bad did you hurt it?" he asked.

"I don't know. But it can't bear my weight."

"That's okay," his tone was surprisingly comforting. She thought he would have been angry at her. "We'll think of something. What else do I need to know?"

She glanced back at the sealed doorway. "I can see the cartouches on the plaster."

There was an edge of excitement in his voice when he answered. "What do they say?"

"I'm not sure," she said slowly. "But it isn't Ramses VIII. It's somebody else."

He was silent for the longest time. "Are you sure about that?"

She went over to the wall once more, gazing at the cartouches with bits of ancient straw imbedded in them.  "Yes," she said. "The cartouches have crumbled somewhat, but give me a minute, I'll read it out to you."

Kathlyn didn't know that the entire dig had ground to a stand-still. Marcus stood on a crate someone had brought up to him, since there was no step ladder in easy distance, nearly rigid with anticipation. Lynn, Mark, Ed and Otis all stood around him, waiting with baited breath. Even the roadies were down from their bulldozers, waiting with Debra Jo. Juliana was on her way up to the shaft. Word had leaked out to the workers that Dr. Trent was at the threshold and some had begun to wail in a traditional Egyptian mourning ritual for their dead king. It was an eerie, prickly ambiance.

Next to the entrance, in her own world of prickly ambiance, Kathlyn began sounding out the symbols aloud. "Khep... kheperk...," she blew gently on the plaster, not wanting to wear it away any more than it already was. "Kheperkheperu!"

Marcus looked at Lynn and Dennis. "Kheperkheperu?" he repeated, confused and incredulous. "Who in the hell...?"

Lynn shook his head, baffled, and yelled up through the hole. "Is that it? Is there anything more?"

Kathlyn stared hard at it, shining the flashlight directly on it as if to burn the name right off the plaster. "Yeah, there's more, but it's hard to see," she blew again and read slowly. "Kheperkheperu-Ra ir ma'at." 

Marcus repeated the name back silently, his lips moving. Then he translated. "The forms of Ra have come into being, the one who does right."

Lynn and Dennis simply shook their heads, perplexed. "I don't recognize it," Lynn insisted. "Who in the hell is that?"

"Ay," Ed said.

Everyone looked at him. He had spoken so softly that he had barely been heard, but Marcus stared at him as if he'd gone crazy. "What did you say?"

Ed was very unruffled by the whole thing. "Ay," he repeated. "That is the throne name of Ay, the old bastard who succeeded Tutankhamen, and who some say killed the kid for his throne." He grinned at Marcus victoriously.  "Congratulations, Dr. Burton. You've found a pharaoh, just not the one you're looking for."

Lynn was almost angry at the revelation. "But Ay has a tomb in the west valley!"

"They never found his mummy in it. In fact, it is the general consensus that it was plundered in antiquity. It could have been a ruse from the real tomb. From what I know of Ay, he was a wily and cunning son of a bitch. He killed his king for the throne."

No one had an argument for that and cartouches didn't lie. Lynn looked helplessly at Marcus, whose expression was like stone. In fact, everyone was looking at Marcus, waiting for a reaction of some kind.  Kathlyn's distant voice filtered through the hole again.

"Hello?" she called. "Did you hear me?"

No one was willing to speak until Marcus did. He took a breath and turned back to the hole. "Yes, I heard you," he said. "We need to get you out of there and move this rock so we can take a better look at that seal."

"Do you know who it is?"

Marcus cast the group in the shaft a long look. "Yes, we think we do."

"Who?

"Ay."

"Ay,” she recollected him from her Egyptology courses. “The successor of Tutankhamen and predecessor of Horemheb, founder of the Ramesside Dynasty.” She called up into the hole in an earnest voice. “If you give me a knife, I can make Ramses VIII out of it in a jiffy. No one will ever know the difference!"

They all knew how much finding Ramses' tomb meant to Marcus and it was a compassionate bit of humor in a very bittersweet moment.  Mark and Otis snickered; even Dennis smiled. Marcus put his hand through the hole in a nearly tender gesture, as if to touch her. "No, that's okay," he said.  "Ay is just fine with me."

"Is it?"

"Absolutely."

"I'm sorry, Marcus. I didn't find the right guy for you."

It was growing too emotional, too sentimental for his taste, at least in a public venue. But to hell with it. "Sweetheart, you did just fine. Now let's get you the hell out of there so I can move this goddamn rock."

Juliana had been standing away from the group, but she had heard every word.  She pushed through the men and extended her hand to Burton.

"Congratulations, Dr. Burton," she said. "This one will put you in the history books."

Marcus got down off his crate and took her hand; she was a smart, pretty lady, and he had come to like her. "Thanks," he said. "But your friend deserves all the credit for this one. I didn't do a damn thing."

"You brought her here. And you listened to her. That makes it just as much your find as hers."

Marcus gave her a lop-sided smile. "Got any idea how to get her out of there? She hurt her wrist on the fall in and can't hold a rope so we can pull her back through."

They all knew Juliana was the creative mastermind, on every level.  Ed may have been the mechanical and educational genius, but sometimes he overlooked the obvious. It took Juliana less than a second to think of something.  Moving for the upturned crate he had been standing on, she leapt up onto it.

"I'm skinny enough to get in there with her. I'll tie the rope around her waist and you can pull her out."

"Good enough," Marcus said.  A sense of excitement was growing in him and he could feel it flowing, heightening his sense of purpose. He turned to the people standing behind him and clapped his big hands together. "Come on, people, shake a leg. We've got a doctor to extract and a boulder to move."

Kathlyn was out in less than five minutes.  The boulder took another two days.

CHAPTER SIX

“I got the message five minutes ago, Kat. We’ve got clearance to go.”

Kathlyn stared at Debra Jo as if the woman had just grown another head.  She was so stunned that she had to sit down. With a heavy sigh, she curled up on a canvas chair that was covered with dust, just like everything else. It had been murder keeping the computers clean out here, even in the relatively clean area of the Debra Jo’s administrative tent.

“I can’t believe it,” she muttered. “After all this, now we get clearance to go? What did Abrahams have to say about this?”

Debra Jo lifted her hands in resignation. “The directive came down from our illustrious department head himself. Ronnie Abrahams is sending us on to Israel. He sounded thrilled.”

“But what about all of this?” Kathlyn wanted to know. “A week ago he made such a big deal out of this joint effort between UCPR and SCU on the greatest archaeological discovery of the century, and now he’s pulling us out? I just don’t understand it.”

Debra Jo looked a bit uncomfortable. “He’s not pulling SCU out, Kat,” she said quietly. “He’s just pulling our team out, like he always does. He’s sending in Gary Crawford. Gary’s been on a dig in the Sinai. His area of emphasis is Egypt and the period surrounding the Exodus.  We’re the hit and run team, remember? Find ‘em and leave ‘em for the dirt bunnies to dig up.”

“I know, I know.” The irony of all of this wasn’t lost on Kathlyn. “You know why the Israelis are doing this, don’t you? They know we were instrumental in Ay’s tomb. Now they want the same luck with the Ark, something they’re usually very protective about. Maybe they’ve realized that more publicity means more tourist dollars and they want the tourists all over Israel, pouring money into their economy. They want to capitalize on our fame, don’t you get it? They were most likely going to deny our permit requests until all this happened.”

“I get it,” Debra Jo said. “But it doesn’t matter. We weren’t meant to stay here, anyway. So Abrahams wants us in Israel a week from tomorrow.”

Kathlyn rolled her eyes. Her emotions were boiling along with the desert heat. Dressed in olive drab shorts that were too short for the conservative country of Egypt, she made quite a sight in her big boots, loose fitting shirt and ever-present duster.  Her long hair was gathered up into a sleek ponytail, acting like a dust cloth when it brushed up against the silty surfaces of the dig tents.

She knew this moment was going to come but it didn’t make it any easier to accept. She’d known all along her stay here was temporary but she’d hoped to at least be around for a while to help with the cataloging and clearing of the tomb. It was odd how she felt a responsibility to this dig like nothing she had ever worked on before; she was usually a hit-and-run specialist, like Debra Jo said. Move in, find the site, move on and leave the serious digging to the field archaeologists. But with this dig, everything was so different, so unexpected. She didn’t want to leave at all, not when it was just getting interesting.

“Well,” she finally stood up, brushing off the dust on her shins. “I’m not going to make any troop movements today. Marcus is getting ready to unseal the opening and I’m going to be right in the middle of it. Israel and Abrahams can wait.”

Debra Jo followed her to the tent flap. “I know this dig has meant a lot to you. I’m sorry it’s gone this way.”

Kathlyn shrugged. “We weren’t supposed to stay after the tomb was discovered so I suppose it’s going the way it needs to go. I was just hoping that Abrahams would let us stay on and help excavate the tomb, considering it is probably the greatest archaeological find of the twenty first century.”

“But you’re not an Egyptologist,” Debra Jo said softly. “Crawford is. Burton is. But not you.”

Kathlyn looked at her sharply. “I know what I am.” Frustration set in and she threw up her hands. “I’m a media archaeologist and nothing more. I’m a front man, a pretty face in front of the camera talking about things like digs and grids and radio carbon dating.  I run around and look important and search things out like some damn treasure hunter.  I’m nothing, Deb. Guys like Marcus, they’re everything.”

Debra Jo knew where Kathlyn was coming from. It had been obvious for weeks that she and Burton were attracted to each other. Each day had seen them draw closer, but the dig had kept them both so busy that it hadn’t progressed the way a normal relationship should have. Debra Jo had never known Kathlyn to take anything more than a platonic interest in any man for the past few years, though she had been pursued by some world-class candidates. Yet none of them had measured up to her standards and she was a difficult woman to please. Now, Kathlyn had been directed to leave a job and for once in her life, she wanted to stay for all the wrong reasons.

“What are you going to tell Marcus?” Debra Jo asked softly.

Kathlyn seemed to calm, depression written all over her face. “I don’t know. But I’m sure Abrahams has already contacted Bardwell, so it’s only a matter of time before McGrath knows. He’ll tell Burton for sure.”

“Then you better tell him before he hears it from McGrath.”

Kathlyn looked at her. “Would you think I was nuts if I called Abrahams and told him I wanted to stay on this dig? After all, I’m receiving partial credit for it. I think it’s only fair.”

“I wouldn’t think you were crazy at all. I think we’d all like to be a part of something as important as this.”

“But the Ark is important.”

“We don’t even know it’s there. It’s like all the rest of the chasing we do; it’s mostly guesswork.”

Kathlyn mulled over unfamiliar ideas of commitment and longevity. “It’ll still be there in a year or two or three.”

“Exactly.”

Kathlyn turned toward the dig in the distance, her gaze falling over the eight massive boulders that now lined the parking lot of the Valley of the Kings. She was truly happy here, happy to be a part of something where she felt as if she was making a difference. So what if Egyptology wasn’t her field.  She was willing to hunker down and learn with Burton as her teacher.

“Get Abrahams on the phone for me, please,” she said. “I’ll be up at the site. Patch him through to my cell phone.”

“You got it.”

Kathlyn marched up to the dig site, passing the army of security guards and SCA representatives along her way. They had the parking lot arranged so it was more of a shrine to the excitement of the dig, as if to distract the eye from the huge hole ripped out in the slope of the hill between KV2 and KV7.  There were more tourists now that the Egyptians could handle and tours of the valley and the dig site were being arranged six months to a year in advance. With Dr. Kathlyn Trent in the middle of it, it was a sure bet that the media presence was thick.

The media, of course, loved her. She smiled, waved, gave impromptu interviews when time allowed, never saying too much but always saying enough so that they came away satisfied. Time Magazine had put her and Marcus on their December cover, a rush to displace their previous December pin up boy, the President of the Russian Republic. Marcus had been reluctant to pose for the picture until Kathlyn had asked him very nicely; even then, he’d simply stood behind her, unsmiling and imposing, while she smiled beautifully and looked like a queen. They’d received advance copies, which Kathlyn kept in the case of her laptop computer. Marcus kept his beside his bed.

At the bottom of the hill, Lynn greeted her with his usual attire, a tank top and heavy gloves. The man was a voracious worker, sometimes putting in twenty-hour days. Already today he looked as if he had put in every bit of that.

“Dr. Barbie,” he said. “I was just coming to look for you. Marcus is ready to breach the seal. He wants you there.”

She smiled at him, turning her back to a whirling of cameras going off from the other side of the barricade. “Oh, what I’d give to set off a scandal right now.” She turned to Lynn, grinning. “Give me a big fat kiss right on the lips, Lynn. Let’s see how fast that picture gets across the world.”

Lynn laughed. “They’ll have us with a secret love child by tomorrow.”

She shrugged. “Well, I suppose the universities would frown on anything outrageous right now, especially with all of the money pouring in from benefactors and sponsors. We could really mess up their stuff.”

“Not to mention that Marcus would probably kill me with his bare hands.”

“For messing up his stuff?”

Lynn glanced at her. “No, for… oh, hell, never mind. Come on, they’re waiting on us.”

“Tut, tut, tut,” she clucked at him, grabbed his arm. “You don’t get away that easy. Why would Burton kill you?”

He shook his head. “No, ma’am. You’ll never get it out of me.”

She laughed. He laughed. She wasn’t even sure what she was laughing at, only that Lynn seemed highly uncomfortable and it was funny. They laughed all the way up the hill and as they emerged into the dusty dimness of the shaft. Marcus was at the far end of the tunnel that they had determined to be cut thirty-eight feet back into the shale rock of the hill.

“Quit cackling,” he said to them. “Sounds are amplified in this shaft and it sounds like two escapees from the funny farm just walked in here.”

Kathlyn walked up to him, rolling her eyes and sneering. “Didn't you know that about me, Dr. Burton? I’m really Ella Labella Pruella, Queen of the Termites. I just moonlight as an archaeologist.”

He tried not to smile but it was difficult. He shook his head at her. “You really are a nutcase, you know that?”

“Of course I know. I’ve been trying to tell you that for weeks.”

His gaze lingered on her a little longer than necessary. She could feel the warmth from his eyes and she knew that no matter what Abrahams said, she was going to stay, even if it cost her job. She wasn’t about to leave this man when she was just coming to know him.

But Marcus did finally look away from her, out of necessity. “Dennis has mapped off a two foot by two foot square section of plaster,” he said, pointing to the sealed doorway. “We’re going to drill through it and take air samples, then we’re going to break away the entire section and see what we can see.”

“Two by two?” she looked at the square Dennis had plotted on the ancient doorway. “I can probably squeeze through that.”

Marcus lifted a dark brow. “No more of that. Last time you did that, you strained your wrist.”

“I can’t fall and hurt myself if the hole is on the floor, can I?”

“You can’t go in.”

“Why not?”

He put his hands on his hips. Lynn could see the storm coming and discreetly slipped away. He thought that Kathlyn actually enjoyed these confrontations; he knew Marcus did.  The man probably lived for them.

Marcus cocked a dark eyebrow sternly. “I’m not going to have this conversation with you. If you can’t do as you’re told, then you’ll have to wait outside while we open this.”

“Somebody is going to have to go in there and look around. Why not me?”

“Do you always have to be the first to do everything?”

“Pretty much, yes.”

“Not on my dig, sweetheart.”

“I found the damn thing.”

His jaw was ticking by now. She could see that he wasn’t going to budge, so she decided to throw him a bone to help her chances. It was a manipulative move but there was a true sense of desire behind it.

She lowered her voice and took on a soft expression. “By the time you clear it enough for me to take a look, I might not be here. Why not let me go first, please?”

His jaw stopped ticking. “What are you talking about?”

She didn’t soften the blow. “Abrahams called today. The Israelis granted our request to dig at the Calvary Escarpment. He wants us in Israel a week from tomorrow.”

Marcus’ entire stance changed. His expression suggested that he had completely forgotten her stay here was temporary. “He can’t do that,” he said flatly. “This is a joint dig between USPR and SCU. It’s half yours.”

She smiled ruefully. “That’s not the way our game works. I move in, find things, and leave the real digging to the seasoned archaeologists, so he’s moving in an archaeologist from Sinai to take over. You knew this would happen when I started, Dr. Burton.”

Marcus knew it but it didn’t matter now. He couldn’t conceal his outrage. “He’s out of his mind,” he hissed. “Does McGrath know about this?”

“I don’t know. If not now, he will by the end of the day, I’m sure.”

Marcus stared at her for a moment. Then he pushed by her. “I’m going to talk to him now. This is not going to happen.”

Kathlyn reached out to grab him before he could get away, taking his big hand in both of hers and holding it warmly.

“Wait a minute, Marcus,” she said softly, caressing his hand. “Now’s not the time.  You’ve got a doorway to breach, something you’ve been waiting for your entire life, and you’re not going to put it off for something as petty as this. I can wait; Ay’s been waiting about three thousand years. Don’t put the man off any longer.”

He gazed at her, the beauty of her face, the softness of her voice, and felt himself relent. He was always relenting where she was concerned. His determination that she should stay was so great that he could hardly see straight, but she was right; there were more important things at hand right now.  But he couldn’t stand the thought of losing her. She’d become such a part of this dig that without her, there was almost no point in continuing. She was the life and soul of it.