The Eden Factor (Kathlyn Trent/Marcus Burton Romance Adventure Series Book 2) (11 page)

"Excavation sites are not
always under optimum conditions, Dr. Burton," Fayd said. "In that
case, we can only do our best."

Marcus looked at Fayd. "This
isn't a matter of doing your best. It's a matter of taking what you want by any
means possible. It's destruction, pure and simple."

Fayd was calm enough. "If
that is the case, Dr. Burton, than all of archaeology is destruction. Take your
dig, for example; what you have done is desecrate the tomb of a long dead
king.  In most religious views, it is sacrilegious. It's grave-robbing. How
would you like it if the Egyptians went over to American in a thousand years
and dug up President Kennedy's grave?"

Marcus cocked an eyebrow, a sure
sign that he wasn't pleased. If Fayd wanted to get into a philosophical debate,
he was more than ready. "I don't know why I'm going to bother to explain
why this is different, but I am," he said. "The United States of
America is leaving a detailed, written history so that in one thousand years,
people will know all about us by reading what we have left them. In the case of
ancient Egyptians, most of their written history is on the walls of tombs, and
even that is glorified and sketchy at times. The only real way we can know
about their civilization is to excavate the only places we know that have any
sort of remnants of the life they lived, i.e., their tombs. Digging up John F.
Kennedy’s tomb would only get you a corpse in a suit. It wouldn't give you the
things he loved, or used, or ate, or tell you all about him."

Instead of leaping up to counter
him, Fayd merely smiled. "Your views are logical, of course, but it
doesn't truly change the reality of it. Not everyone does things the same way,
Dr. Burton, nor is everyone's opinion the same.  What I might consider right,
you could quite possibly consider wrong."

Marcus shrugged. "I can
respect that. My wife and I are a prime example; she tends to charge in and
think quickly on her feet. Me, on the other hand, I tend to analyze a situation
to death before I move in. But I'll tell you one thing; chopping into the earth
and removing this relic in one big block isn't how I want to do this. I'm
uncomfortable with it. There could be so much more the surrounding area can tell
us and I'd hate to ignore that evidence."

"If you have a better idea,
then I would truly love to hear it," Fayd said.

Marcus' jaw had stopped ticking.
He looked at his wife. "My idea is the first course of action we agreed
on. Two weeks, twenty four hours a day, excavating a ten yard spread around the
angel and removing the relic from the earth bone by bone."

"We don't have the
time."

"Then I'm not sure if I'm
the one to go and assist you. Vandalism isn't my style."

Fayd accepted that without a
fuss. But both he and Marcus looked at Kathlyn as if somehow she held the
deciding vote in all of this. She stood back, duster blowing in the hot breeze,
gazing at the two of them through her John Lennon sunglasses.

 "Kathlyn," Fayd said.
"I completely understand that you would back out now that...."

"Back out?" she
repeated sharply. "Who said anything about backing out? As my husband
said, we all do things differently. Vandalism, as he calls it, isn't his style,
but that doesn't mean it isn't mine.  That's my angel, and I'm going in to get
it with or without his help."

Marcus' calming demeanor flared.
"Kathlyn, it's rare that I put my foot down with you, but I'm going to
have to this time for your own good.  If I don't go, you don't go."

It was the wrong tactic to take
with her and Marcus knew it even before he said it.  Kathlyn remained quite
cool, folding her arms over her chest, an unreadable expression on her face.

"Fayd, will you please
excuse us?" she asked evenly.

Fayd was more than glad to
comply. He took the roadie with him and the two of them quickly vacated the
proximity.  When the footsteps faded away, Kathlyn turned to her husband.

"I'm only going to say this
one time, so listen closely," she said quietly. "Don't you dictate to
me like that in front of anyone ever again. I would never presume to tell you
what to do in your professional life and I expect the same courtesy from you.
If I feel the need to go into Iraq, under any circumstances, I'm going and you
won't stop me. I mean it, Marcus. I'm not going to let you throw up roadblocks
at your whim."

His jaw started ticking again.
"This isn't at my whim. There are two things very seriously wrong here,
Kathlyn. The first is that you're going into an openly hostile country in the
company of a man I don't even know. The second is that you're going in there
with unscrupulous tactics to remove this relic. I won't have any part of it,
and you won't either."

"Don't tell me what to
do."

"In this case, I apparently
need to. Where in the hell is your common sense?"

"It's very much intact.
Where's yours?"

"What is that suppose to
mean?"

"It means that common sense
dictates that we don't make decisions for other rational human beings. It means
that on several occasions you have admitted to me that we do things differently,
or have you conveniently forgotten that? It also means that unless you plan to
chain me up, I'm going into Iraq with or without your support."

He lifted a dark eyebrow.
"If that's the only way to keep you from going, I'll gladly chain you up.
I'll goddamn sit on you if I have to."

He wasn't bluffing. She knew he
would do it. "Let me ask you this, Marcus; what exactly bothers you the
most? The simple act of my going into Iraq with Fayd, or the fact that we'll be
excavating in a method you don't condone?"

 "Both."

"So are you trying to
control me or merely trying to protect me?"

"That's a ridiculous
question."

"Answer it."

"You already know the
answer."

Her eyes narrowed at him.  She
uncrossed her arms. "I thought so," she muttered, and then she turned
and walked away.

***

Marcus and Lynn pulled out of the
excavation party. Juliana and Mark were in along with Fayd's brothers. They had
originally tried to keep the group small for sheer simplicity, but now there
was no reason for Kathlyn's regular team not to go. Marcus wouldn't even talk
to Kathlyn as her roadies and Fayd's people loaded up the jeeps for their short
journey to the Luxor airstrip. Kathlyn remained in the tent that housed all of
the administrative equipment, silently brooding, while Marcus remained up at
his dig site. Although he was physically there, his mind was back in camp with
his wife. He was acutely aware of the minutes ticking away to her departure.

Ay's tomb consisted of seven
chambers, labeled A through G. The final chamber, the burial room, was
designated Burial Chamber G. Long after the workers had been sent home for the
evening, Lynn found Marcus in the burial chamber, carefully going over the
outermost coffin that contained the remains of the pharaoh. X-Rays of the
massive granite sarcophagus had been inconclusive as to how many concentric
coffins there were; gold was radiopaque, not radiolucent, and tended to show up
as one giant bright block on the x-ray.  They couldn't see through one to get
to the next.

"Marcus," Lynn began softly.

"I know," Marcus said,
not looking up from his task.

"You know what?"

"What time it is."

Lynn wasn't one to involve
himself in other's personal problems, especially Marcus and Kathlyn. They often
battled to the death, but the truth was that they couldn't live without each
other. Still, he knew how stubborn Marcus could be.

"They're loading up,"
he said softly. "Aren't you even going to say good bye?"

Marcus was concentrating on a
strip of Lapis Lazuli and Malachite, very delicately woven into the coffin like
a mosaic. "No."

"Don't be like this, Marcus.
You know the second she leaves you're going to go running after her."

"She knows how I feel and
she's going anyway. There's nothing more to say about it."

"But she's your wife. The
mother of your children."

Marcus didn't say anything; he
continued to brush at the coffin.  Lynn should have just left it at that and
walked away, but he couldn't. Not when he could see how stupid they were both
being.

"So you're going to let her
go, just like that," he said. "What's the matter with you? They're
going to be escorted by the goddamn Iraqi military. One look at Kathlyn and
Juliana and we'll be lucky if there isn't a gang rape. I know that Tony is
going, but that's one man against God knows how many armed Iraqis. And do you
think Mark and Otis and those two college kids can help him if the women get
into trouble? Hell no. They're scholars, not soldiers."

Marcus faltered in his
concentration. That horrible thought had been lingering in the shadows of his
mind for some time now. He had been angry since their argument, unpleasantly
so, but as time passed and his anger turned to hurt, he was coming to realize
that his pride wasn't worth his wife's well being. She had been unreasonable
too, and he was having difficulty with the fact that she chose her career over
his wishes. But it wasn't worth her life. He glanced up at Lynn, a torn
expression on his face.

Lynn merely lifted his eyebrows.
"I'm going, man. And I talked to Dennis; if you’re staying here, he’s
going too. Kathlyn and Juliana deserve at least that much protection we can
provide. But you’re the biggest gun of all, Marcus; we need you. If you don’t
go to at least protect your woman, then you’re not the man I thought you
were."

Marcus stared at him. Everything
he said was correct and the guilt trip was the last straw. With a heavy sigh,
he tossed his brush aside and marched from the chamber. Lynn followed, saying a
silent prayer that Marcus had come to his senses.

It was still hot outside, even in
the deepening night. A convoy of four cars was in the motor pool, all revved up
and ready to roll.  Marcus went for the first car, a Humvee that had been left
behind by the American military after the Gulf War. It was a big, heavy vehicle
and he pulled open the door on the passenger side and looked inside.

Kathlyn was sitting in the middle
between Mark and Juliana. She looked at him, in surprise at first, and then she
turned away when she saw who it was. Marcus closed the door, went to the rear
passenger door, and opened it.

"Move," he growled at
Mark.

Kathlyn threw her hand across
Mark's chest. "He's not going anywhere," she snapped. "Close the
door, Marcus. We've got to go."

Marcus gave Mark a look that
suggested he would be bodily removed if he didn't do as he had been asked. Mark
found himself in a very precarious situation but, like any rational male, he
moved out of the other man's territory.  Kathlyn glared at him as he lithely
maneuvered his massive body into the vacated space.

"What are you doing?"
she demanded.

He wouldn't look at her.
"I'm going."

"No, you're not. Get
out."

He ignored her. Kathlyn kicked
Juliana out of the opposite side, climbed out, and ran around to the other side
of the car where Marcus sat. She threw open his door.

"Marcus Burton, get out of the
car. You're not going. You've made it very clear that you're not a part of this
expedition."

The entire convoy had come to a
halt.  Everyone was standing around, unsure what to do. In the blare of the
headlights, an eerie silence settled as Marcus and Kathlyn faced off against
each other in yet another legendary battle. But one thing was certain; Kathlyn
Trent was as mad as anyone had ever seen her, making the situation that more
volatile. She was usually the cool one.

 No one was more cognizant of
that than Marcus. He looked at her, steadily. "Get back in the car,
Kathlyn."

"I said get out."

"You're making a scene. Get
in the car."

"A scene?" She didn't
care who was witnessing her tirade. "You have no idea what a scene is, Dr.
Burton, but you're going to find out if you don't get out of the car."

Marcus slid out quicker than she
could bat an eye. He swooped down on her, bending over at the waist and
catching her abdomen against his shoulder. Before Kathlyn realized it, she was
slung up over his big shoulder like a sack of potatoes and he was high-tailing
it off in the direction of the Valley of the Kings. To take her back to their
tent would afford them no privacy at all, and he knew for a fact that there was
about to be a major brawl. Up in the shelter of the ancient tomb, they could
yell their heads off and no one could hear them.

Kathlyn was as furious as a wet
cat. She struggled all the way down the road, across the moonlit parking lot,
through the security gate, and up the thirty-three steps leading to the tomb.
Once inside the narrow, angled shaft, he put her down and she immediately tried
to push past him.

"No, you don't," he
threw his arms around her, grabbing her in a big bear hug from behind.
"You're coming with me and we're going to talk this out."