The Eden Factor (Kathlyn Trent/Marcus Burton Romance Adventure Series Book 2) (13 page)

 By very late morning, the convoy
eventually pulled into Zubayr.  As the trucks came to a halt, great clouds of
dust swallowed them up.  A few villagers were brave enough to come forth from
their white washed homes, but most stayed inside, terrified at the sight of a
military convoy. In the heat of high noon, Marcus gently shook Kathlyn awake.

"Wake up, sweetheart,"
he kissed her temple. "We're here."

Kathlyn sat up so fast that she
nearly toppled over.  Her bright green eyes blinked groggily as she gazed out
over the village. "Thank God," she muttered, wiping the sleep from
the corner of her eyes.  "Let's get moving. No time to waste."

Marcus opened the door and
climbed out. It was killer hot. Kathlyn stumbled out after him, followed by
Tony. As Marcus and Tony surveyed the village, Kathlyn started shouting orders
like the most seasoned army commander.

"Mark, Larry, Andy!"
she hollered at the truck behind her. "Let's get the GPR and the GDT out
and ready to roll."

Tony glanced over his shoulder,
watching Dr. Trent as she began ordering even the Iraqis around. With Dr. Fahdlan
translating, they began unloading gear swiftly and concisely.  It was clear,
even though this was Fahdlan's dig, who was in charge. Kathlyn Trent knew what
she was doing and no one argued. When she said jump, they jumped.

"She would have made a great
Marine," he commented.

Marcus snorted in response. But
his mind was on the village and the lack of contact with the frightened people.
When they had been here before, the entire village had turned out to greet
them. Now it looked like a ghost town.

 "I wonder where the elders
are," he muttered. "I don't even see that guy who translated for us
the first time we were here. It's damn still and I don't like it."

Tony couldn't agree or disagree.
He had nothing to compare this visit to.  But he did concur on one thing; it
was very still.

 "They're probably
scared," he surmised correctly. "I would be too with all of these
soldiers."

Marcus' gaze lingered on the
quiet village before turning toward the east. "The site is over there,
about a quarter mile. I don't want to disrupt these people any more than
necessary so we should set up our temporary camp outside of the village
somewhere."

Tony was about to reply when he
noticed several soldiers carrying gear in the direction Marcus had indicated.
Dr. Fahdlan's brothers were cracking the whip, making sure the men did as they
were told. Kathlyn and Fayd left Juliana and Mark in charge of the unloading
and moved over to where Marcus and Tony stood.  Lynn and Dennis joined them.

"Well?" Kathlyn said as
she walked up on them.  "We're on the move. Where's the welcome
committee?"

"That's what we were
wondering," Marcus looked back at the hot, still village. "It's like
the whole place is dead."

"Don't say that." She
didn't like the pun. "Fayd, why don't we go introduce ourselves? I think I
remember where they took Marcus and I when we first arrived."

Fayd looked at her. "If you
don't mind, I'd rather see the site first. Formalities can come later."

With a shrug, Kathlyn led them
all off in the direction of the fossilized river-bed. The sun beat down
mercilessly as they proceeded at a quickened pace along the rocky ground. It
was in little time that she beat the burden-heavy soldiers to the site, or at
least the area she remembered it in.  Slightly to the south, about fifty yards,
stood a lone guard. With the entourage behind her, and the Vatican
representative bringing up the distant rear, she traipsed over the rocks until
she reached the slight young man in long traditional robes with the rifle slung
over his shoulder.

Fayd spoke a greeting to the boy
so he wouldn't shoot them.  Nervously, the lad stepped back as Kathlyn and Fayd
swooped down on the site. A canvas tarp covered it, anchored at the four
corners by big rocks. Kathlyn could feel her heart pounding in her ears as she
pulled two rocks off and Fayd removed the other two. Tearing the tarp back, the
skeleton lay at their feet, bigger than life.

Fayd just stared at it. His eyes
were like onyx, intense and glittering, as he drank in the sight.

 "My God," he breathed.
"Look at it!"

Kathlyn stared at it also. She
didn't even realize that Marcus, Lynn, Dennis, Juliana and the rest of them had
come to a halt around her, hungrily devouring the vision at their feet. It was
what they had all come to see and, like eager children, they were awed by it.

Fayd knelt down, peering closely
at the bones nearest him.

"It's massive," he
caressed the ground as one would touch a lover. "How perfect, how very
perfect."

De Tormo was standing well away
from the others, panting and drenched. He was carrying a suitcase and a laptop
with him, refusing to let anyone else handle his goods. He, too, stared down
into the hole with as much awe as trepidation.

 "It is as you said, Dr.
Trent," he murmured. "You have found an angel."

Kathlyn didn't reply. She didn't
even want the guy around and wasn't about to thank him for his support. De
Tormo moved around the trench to get a better view as Juliana and Mark stepped
down into the hole. Their experienced eyes roved the remains.

"I'll be goddamned,"
Mark said. "It really does have wings."

Kathlyn cocked an eyebrow at him.
"Did you think I'd lie to you about it?"

"No, but I kept thinking all
along that maybe it was something else, something explainable. But, by damn,
these are perfectly proportioned wings."

"You've been chasing myths
with me long enough so that you shouldn't be surprised by anything,
Marky."

"I'm not surprised. But I am
amazed."

The excitement was catching. But
so was the sense of how little time they had. Kathlyn, true to form, got
everyone moving.

"Larry, Andy, I want you to
get the GPR out and get ready to start doing some runs over this area,"
she said, gesturing to the section just north of the open trench. "Let's
grid it off and start doing it square by square. I'm curious to see what else
is under this layer of silt."

With the doctoral students
moving, Kathlyn turned to Mark. "I want you working with the GDT. Take
this immediate area to the south, section it, and start plotting."

Mark looked at the area she was
indicating. "Are you thinking that maybe this ancient waterway washed
something down in this direction?"

"Anything is possible. Get
Dennis to help you."

Hearing his name, Dennis moved
off with Mark. As Kathlyn supervised that portion of the movement, Marcus
turned to Juliana and Otis. "We need to get a much better look at this
before Lynn and I can chip it out in a block and remove it. Any ideas on how to
get a good overall view?"

Juliana was always the one with
great creative ideas.  But Otis was the team architect and could pretty much
figure his way out of anything.

"Sure," Otis said.
"Have Mark and Dennis use the GDT about three feet to the east and west of
the site and see what bounces back on the return. We should get a fairly good
spread with this sandy soil. The shock will carry better."

"I'm not sure I want to
rattle it. These bones are fragile."

"But if we position the GDT
far enough away, it shouldn't damage them in the least."

"It's either that,"
Juliana put in, "or run the GPR over it, and you know we can't do that.
Besides, the ground penetrating radar is fairly two-dimensional. We can wash
the GDT data through the computer and construct a three-dimensional
picture."

"Good enough," Marcus
agreed. He turned to tell Mark and Dennis, but they had already heard.  They
gave him about a half hour before the set up was assembled and ready to roll.
He turned back to Juliana as Otis went to help out with the GDT. "Let's
get a better look at this thing, shall we?"

Juliana heartily agreed. Kathlyn
and Fayd were already down in the hole, unloading a tackle box full of small
excavating equipment.  Lynn was kneeling by the head, using his hand to measure
the size of the skull.  They all ignored de Tormo, still standing on the edge,
watching the activity. While Marcus conversed with his wife and Dr. Fahdlan, he
noticed increasingly that Lynn was very preoccupied with the skull. He would
carefully brush, pick with a dental explorer, and brush some more. Marcus left
his wife and went over to him.

"You're awfully addicted to
that thing," he said.

Lynn didn't look up. He continued
to brush.  "You didn't get a good look at this skull, did you?"

Marcus wasn't sure what he meant.
"The occipital portion is completely exposed, as is most of the right
temporal surface.  I could see a portion of the cheekbone and jaw. Why? What
are you driving at?"

Lynn blew away some excess dirt.
"But you never got as far as the actual face."

"No, it's mostly buried in
the silt," he said. "What’s your point?"

Lynn picked with the explorer. A
chunk of dirt came up, exposing a good portion of the right side of the face. 
He stared down at it, blew again, and a cloud of dust went up. "Take a
look at that."

Marcus peered down at the skull,
increasingly exposed due to Dr. Davis' attention. He wasn't sure what he was
looking at until his gaze fell on something completely unexpected. He couldn't
help it; he reached down and ran his fingers over the brow ridge just above the
eye socket as if touching would better convince him of what his eyes were
conveying.

 "Christ," he hissed.
"I don't goddamn believe it."

Lynn looked up at him.
"Believe it. I see it, too."

"What do you think?"

"I don't even want to
guess."

"You two are awfully serious
over here," Kathlyn had walked up behind them. In their conversation, they
hadn't heard her. "Found something?"

Marcus and Lynn passed glances.
"Lynn has uncovered some of the facial features," Marcus said. 
"See anything unusual?"

She gave him a lopsided smile as
she knelt between them. "So there's more to this man that just
wings?"

 Her smile faded as she studied
the skull. She, too, wasn't sure what they were driving at. Starting from the
gaping jaw, she worked her way up to the cheeks, nose, and finally the eye
sockets. When her gaze fell on the forehead, her smile vanished completely. A
wave of cold shock washed over her. Running her fingers along the brow ridge as
her husband had done, she stared at the skull in disbelief.

"Oh my dear God," she
breathed. "Is that what I think it is?"

Lynn and Marcus could only look
at each other. "Want to take a guess?” Marcus said to her. “You're the
Biblical Archaeologist."

If Kathlyn had been the
superstitious kind, she would have been terrified. As it was, it was difficult
to keep everything in perspective. "I'm looking at a two inch protrusion
just above the right eye socket," she said slowly. "If I could take a
guess, and only a guess, I'd say it looked very much to me like a horn."

"I wonder if there's another
over the other eye socket," Lynn murmured. "There's only one way to
find out."

Kathlyn drew her hand back from
where it had been fingering the bony protrusion. The Intuition that had been so
silent the duration of this project suddenly had her on pins and needles. The
longer she sat there and stared at it, the more oppressive and weighty the
feeling became.

"This reminds me of that
scripture again, Marcus," she said softly. "'The great dragon was
hurled down - that ancient serpent called the Devil, or Satan, who leads the
whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him'."

 Lynn felt her uneasiness, too.
"That's from the Book of Revelation."

Kathlyn nodded. The oppressive
feeling was growing stronger and she knew, from experience, it would soon
manifest itself as something. Odd how she had felt nothing when she had seen
the relic before. But now that the protrusions had been uncovered, it was as if
a door had opened and something great and black was gushing forth.

"Marcus," she murmured.
"The State... I feel it. It's coming on."

He looked at her with genuine
concern. Kathlyn wasn’t psychic in the traditional sense; she simply felt
things, like emotions or events long past. Sometimes she had visions, but that
was rare.

Though Marcus accepted her gift,
he’d never been completely comfortable with it. He had seen her fall into these
trance-like states many a time. Some were relatively benign, but a few he'd
seen had been violent.

 "What do you feel?" he
reached out, protectively, and grasped her shoulder.

"A painful tingling,
mostly," she said. "It's in my hands and arms. My chest feels like
someone is sitting on it. It's hard to breathe."

"Maybe we should get you out
of this sun."

"No," she shrugged off
his concern. She had waited a long time to feel something for this site and she
was damn well going to feel it. "It's stronger now. The Flow is pulling
through me, but not like it normally does. Usually it's directional. It feels
like several whirlpools, all changing direction.  I feel one, very distinctly,
here. And...."