Incarnate: Mars Origin "I" Series Book III (6 page)

Giza, Egypt

~ 5:30pm

Aaron checked
the speedometer. He couldn’t wait to get there. He pushed in on the gas pedal.
It was his second trip to the Plateau today and although better use of his time
would be staying in his hotel room to form his team, make housing arrangements
and secure equipment, he couldn’t sit still. He had gone to the government
office to see the Director General’s secretary to take care of the last minute
details. Then he set out to find something to eat. Eating had completely
slipped his mind – if it didn’t come naturally, he would have forgotten to
breathe. He was just that excited.

 He ended
up driving through the city and fielding calls, with a burger and fries in
hand. He pressed on the gas pedal even harder, turned up the volume on the car
stereo. Usually he funneled music in from the playlist of his MP3 player, but
now it was the Australian accented voice of a geologist that was telling him he
couldn’t get a flight out until the day after tomorrow.

The line
clicked right in the middle of the geologist’s rant of how he should have been
given more notice. Aaron looked at the dashboard screen and smiled. “Look, I’ve
got to call you back,” he said. “But day after tomorrow should be fine. Let’s
talk again tomorrow.” Without waiting for the geologist to acknowledge the end
of the call, he swapped lines. Calls had been coming in non-stop for the last
forty-five minutes, but this call was from the one person he wanted to share
his good news with most of all.

“I see that you
were able to finally get the permit to dig under the Sphinx.” A soft voice came
through the speakers.

Aaron chuckled.
Good news didn’t take long to get around.

“Aww. I wanted
to be the one that told you. How’dya find out?”

“I always know
what you’re doing. So be careful not to try to get anything past me.”

“Never,” Aaron
said and took in a breath. He smiled. “It’s good to hear your voice. That’s all
I needed to make this just that much sweeter.”

Her laugh that
came from the speakers was throaty, and condescending. “Sweeter? What you’ve
done is not sweet.”

“What do you
mean?”

Laura Tyler
meant the world to him. She was his weakness and he was not ashamed of it. But
she was strong-willed and stubborn. Not being able to control her frustrated
him, and disappointing her deflated him.

“Have you
called off your dog yet?”

“Do you mean
Castor? Yeah. Of course. He was the first person I called after I spoke with
the people at the government office and got the permits.” He took a sip through
the straw of his soft drink, the only thing left of his day’s solitary meal.
“Hey, what’s wrong? Aren’t you happy for me? I got this. I did it.”

“Yeah, and it
just took a few shady deals to accomplish.”

Aaron raised an
eyebrow and looked down at the screen as if she could see him. “Not shady,
Laura – skill. Savvy. Shrewdness.” A smile curled around the corners of his
mouth.  “I like to think of it as superior ingenuity.”

“Unfortunately,
that type of ingenuity can get you time in jail – or worse – killed.”

“I’m not
worried. I have you. You’ll get me out of any trouble I get into – jail-wise.
And for anything else I have Castor.”

“You seem
pretty sure about that.”

“Castor has my
back. I’m not worried about him.”

“No, I mean
pretty sure about me.”

Aaron paused.
This conversation wasn’t going as he had imagined. “I know you wouldn’t let
your man rot in jail. I’m sure you’d be my knight in shining armor and come to
my rescue. Hey, what is a lady knight called?”

“Dame.”

“Yes. Dame
Laura. You’d be my Dame in shining armor.”

“My Yale law
degree doesn’t work in Egypt. If you got yourself in trouble here, I’d have to
find a new man, because they would throw you in jail for at least the next
twenty years. And if you keep up with your antics – threatening to kill people
to get what you want, I might start looking for a new man anyway.”

Aaron didn’t need
a lecture about his methods. His methods had paid off. He had his permits and
he would be the one to find what laid hidden under the Sphinx. He needed her
support. Plus, comments like that from her were kind of ironic. Truth be told
she was just as ruthless as he.

“You know once
I make this find, I’ll be famous. Better try to hold on to me.”

“You really
think that there’s a library filled with books underneath the Sphinx?”

“Of course I
do. I thought you were with me on this. That you believed in this too.”

She seemed to
hesitate before she spoke. It gave his jitters in the pit of his stomach. “I’ve
got your back, baby, that’s true,” she said. “But the stuff you’re looking for
is the stuff of fairytales.”

“What are you
talking about? This is real.”

“If you Google
‘Hall of Record’ part of the first line reads ‘mythical library.’”

Aaron sucked in
a breath and blinked his eyes tightly. Shaking his head, he bit his lip to stop
himself from saying something to her he’d later regret.

“And the
Akashic Records-”

“Akashic
Records?” He interrupted her. She couldn’t be serious. “Now that’s what’s not
real. I’m not looking for mystical knowledge on non-physical planes of
existence. Science backs up my claims. There has been ground-”

“Yes, I know
about the ground penetrating radar that’s shown that there are cavities
underneath the Sphinx.” She paused. “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Look. I’ll
have to call you back.” He wasn’t about to let her crash the high he was
feeling. “Book your flight and call me back so you can let me know when you’ll
be here.”

“Try not to
kill anyone before I get there.”

She was really
getting to him.

He reached down
and pressed the button to end the call. Veering off the main road, his vehicle
jiggled up the rocky, dirt incline, the usually quiet engine revved and he
shifted the gear down, came to a stop and put the car in park. He sat behind
the wheel, an obvious pout on his face, and stroked the stubble across his
cheek and down his jawline.

“Shit.”

Placing his
straw panama on the sit next to him, he leaned back on the head rest and wiped
the perspiration off his brow. It wasn’t the sweat from the heat but from the
apprehension he was feeling.

He really
shouldn’t let Laura get to him like she did. He did what he needed to do and he
didn’t need her approval. This was the way he got things done. She knew it. She
stayed with him. He hadn’t actually had to kill anyone. Yet. The government
official that he had threatened and his daughter were spending the evening
together with her no wiser and him sitting on a pile of cash.

And she
certainly had no idea about what she was trying to insinuate. The Hall of
Records was real. And the treasures purported to be there were as well. And he
was going to be the man that proved it so. Still her words lingered and seemed
to press on him, making him feel uncomfortable.

He flung off
the seatbelt and shifted in his seat.

Why did he let
her get him like that? Make him double guess himself? He found himself gripping
the wheel more tightly than needed.

“I’m just going
to stop telling her everything.”

A little
less transparency in their relationship
, he thought, that might help
. He
really needed to rein her in.

The sun was
hanging low in the sky and the satisfaction he had felt when he picked up his
permits was starting to dissipate. He closed his eyes and tried to control his
emotions. He wanted to block out her words. He wanted to block out any thoughts
of this ‘not being real.’

The sound of
Giza’s traffic – fast paced cars and slow moving donkeys - came in through the
window and seemed to add to his irritation. He rolled up the window, and turned
on the radio. He stabbed at the touchscreen with his finger selecting “MP3
Player.” Music started and the pulsating beat of the song’s intro pushed in on
the bass coming from his speakers. The sudden, supervening guitar rift roused
him.

Eye of the
Tiger
by Survivor.

He sat up and
cranked up the volume. Bouncing his body and head with each beat, he bit on his
lower lip, closed his eyes and let the music seep down in through him.

Boomp,
boomp, boomp
. He tapped out the beat with his fingers on the dashboard.

Quietly he
mouthed out the lyrics as they started. Then he rolled back his head and with
each repetition of the anthem-like chorus he shouted louder and louder.

Midway through,
he jerked the car into gear and pulled off, rolling the window back down he
sang loud enough to drown all the discordant sounds of traffic in Giza.

With a hard
right turn, he headed toward the Plateau.  

Slanted bands
of the sun’s rays pushed through a mass of dense, white clouds and fanned the
haze of the last daylight across the plateau.

It was
beautiful.
And
, Aaron thought,
prophetic
.

He climbed out
of his Land Rover. Pushed up the sleeves of his white broadcloth shirt and
walked toward the Sphinx.

Today the rope
barrier stopped him from getting up close and personal.

But that would
soon change.

As the song
that he’d just listened to professed, he had the guts and now he was going to
get the glory.

He had done
good. And he knew it. He got the permit he needed and he was going to be the
one that discovered the find of the century. And it didn’t matter how he got
the permission, he had it.

He took in a
deep breath, and stuck out his chest. From his sweat and tears, he, like the
ancient Egyptian god Ra, was a self-made man who would breathe life into the
history hid in those dark, damp catacombs.

He raised his
hands, his arms outstretched toward the setting sun that peeked out as if
giving a reverent acknowledgment to an old friend. He tilted his head back and
stared into the sky. He felt as if he were the God Ra, come back to life to
show the world what treasures he had to offer. What he could offer to the
world. Offer to the people of the world. His people. To all of those that would
one day worship
his
name.

Cleveland, Ohio

“At
least I’m not in a concrete basement,” I voiced out loud. I walked around the
conference-style room that I had been corralled in to see if any cameras were
trained on me. Reflecting on how I got here, I thought, maybe I shouldn’t have
tried to tell Micah the truth about what I knew. I’m sure he’s really confused
on what happened.

Maybe
I shouldn’t tell anyone.

Maybe
I wouldn’t live to tell it anyway.

God! Was I back to that?

I
struggled for years whether to let what I knew out to the public. I wrote a
book about it, but mixed it with fiction, trying to let myself off the hook.
But not being completely honest with myself, the oath I took professionally
really starting to wear down on me. Then when I did decide to put it out,
honestly, just tell it all, I had to deal with a murderous octogenarian and a
longtime colleague, who I thought had been my friend, but turned out, it
seemed, to be scandalous.

I
let out a sigh.

My
husband and seven siblings, all who I was very close with, knew for the most
part what I knew. But I hadn’t shared it with my three children. And when I
finally decided to share it with them, I’d told Logan, my youngest child,
first. She was an archaeologist. The only one to follow in my footsteps. She
seemed to take it well. Not having much to say, she reacted better than I
thought she would.

I
had decided to tell Micah next. My middle child, he was my only son. He was
never one to readily agree with me.  About anything. Not defiant but
disagreeable. He had followed in the footsteps of my brother, Greg. Not only
did he became a lawyer, but he always seemed to oppose me and find my thinking
irrational. My oldest, Courtney, I had decided, would be the last one I told.
But right now I was wondering was I ever going to see my children again.

I
went back and sat down at the long table in the middle of the office where my
captors had parked me. I knew that I should feel afraid. I was always in fear
of something happening to me because of those pesky manuscripts I had
discovered nearly seventeen years ago. But, judging from the contemporary décor
that surrounded me, and the “niceness” of my captors, I didn’t feel like anyone
was out to harm me.

I
ran my hand through my curly black hair, folded my arms on the table and
plopped my head down in them.

“God
help me.”

I know this has something to do with the manuscripts.

It
all started so innocently. I’d suffered from depression all of my adult life,
but usually I’d retreat to my room and wallow around in my bed and pajamas
until I could overcome whatever doom and gloom had crawled into the recesses of
my mind and were burrowing in trying to take root. But during one particularly
bad bout with it, I had gone overboard and everyone became extremely worried
about me. My husband, my siblings and even my mentor, Jacob Margulies. So to
help me out, he got me to go to Jerusalem with him for the jubilee anniversary
of the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

That
trip changed my life.

What
I found in a file cabinet was something that would change humankind’s image of
itself forever. Yeah, not buried under a millennia of dirt, stuck in a wall of
a catacomb, or hidden by monks with clues that led me all over Rome. It was in
the pages of a fifty-year old journal, in a file cabinet in an office on the
second floor of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Yep, it was just that
simple to find.

Hidden
with the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2,000 years ago, had been a manuscript that told the
story of a technologically advanced man. Man that had cured all disease, could
navigate through the stars and had learned how to mimic God.

I
am a Biblical archaeologist by training and a Christian by desire. And what I
found didn’t sit well with either of those things. But what I learned was unfathomable.

I
heard a bump outside the door and my head popped up. I looked at the door and
waited. The anticipation was starting to make me a little nervous. I took in a
deep breath.

I
shifted in the chair and leaned back. Why was I sitting in here so long by
myself? If they were trying to create a panic in me, they knew what they were
doing because now the wait was starting to put me on edge.

What
could they want with me? My mind went back to my last conversation with Micah.
“People.”

What
people
were after me?

I
closed my eyes and said a little prayer. I prayed that I’d get out of there
okay. I prayed for my son.

Lord, just let him be okay.

The
last thing I saw of my son was him coming to my rescue. Who knew he could fight
like that? I shook my head. I was pretty proud of him. “I just hope you made it
home okay,”

“
I
hope I make it home okay
,” I said a in almost a whisper.

Voices
outside the room got me up out of the chair. I walked over to the door and put
my ear next to it and held my breath. I couldn’t hear anything.

I
stood back and stared at the door as if I my eyes could pierce through the
thick wood and show me what – who - was on the other side. Letting out my
breath, I turned my back to the door and leaned back on it. My eyes scanned the
room. I needed something to protect myself from whatever was going to
eventually come through that door. I needed a weapon.

What
could I use for a weapon?

There
was the long table in the center of the room with chairs around it. Nothing was
on it. A few pictures hung on the walls, and a buffet sat over in the far
corner. I walked over to the buffet and inspected its contents. There was a
pitcher made of tin that was filled with water and several glasses. The sweat
from the pitcher had collected on the top of the buffet. I took one of the
napkins and wiped it up.

Nervous
energy.

Then
I looked inside of it. The liquid was clear – gleaming in the reflection of its
tin container. There were only a few ice cubes left.

Maybe there was some kind of poison in it.

Maybe
they wanted me to drink it. I looked at the napkin in my hand that I had used
to wipe up the water and threw it down. I dragged the palm of my hand down my
pants.

Could
it seep in through my skin?

Ghazi had been poisoned.

I
shook my hand. “Get a grip!” Why would they bring me here to poison me?

I
breathed in through my nostrils. And how in the world could I get poisoned from
touching the outside of it.

I
blew my breath out through my mouth.

Now
what was I doing?

Oh yeah. Looking for a weapon.

There
were several carafes for coffee, but they were empty. Nothing hot to throw in
my attacker’s face. Attac
kers
?

How
would I take them all?

Pshew.
This was crazy,

Maybe
I could break one of the glasses and use it. I picked up the glasses and turned
it around in my hand.

Yeah,
holding on to a chard of glass tight enough to do any damage would do more to
injure me. The glass would dig into my hand and cut me before I could wield it
effectively on anyone else.

This
was hopeless.

I
looked down at the palm of the hand that had held the napkin. A glass of water
would be nice. I picked up the pitcher and filled up one of the glasses with
its contents.

The
ice clanged out and plopped into the glass, splashing onto the buffet. I picked
up the glass and stared into it.

My
friend Ghazi had been poisoned all because of those manuscripts. Manuscripts
that I had started referring to as the AHM manuscripts. AHM standing for
Alternative History Migration.

Dr.
Margulies had introduced me to Ghazi at the Jubilee. He had been the one to
lead me to the office where I found the journal. And then a woman, who found
out that Ghazi and I knew about the manuscripts killed him and then for
thirteen years laid in wait to do the same to me.

 Hannah
Abelson.

I
don’t think that she ever even knew what was in the manuscripts, but she felt
she knew enough to think that the information needed to stay hidden. And she
did everything she could  - kill Ghazi, shoot at me and my family and burn
down the publishing house where my “tell-all” book was being printed -  to
keep those manuscripts hidden. Until someone killed her.

Looking
around at where I had ended up, maybe Hannah was right. The information needed
to stay hidden. And maybe Hannah would get her wish. I just might not come out
of this alive.

I
set the glass down. I was doing too much thinking. My heart had started racing.
I could feel little beads of sweat collecting on my forehead. All the calmness
I had claimed when I first was put in the room had drained into the pit of my
stomach and turned into a hard knot. I could taste the bile that was rising
into my throat and my breathing had started coming in short, quick bursts.

I
needed to get out of there.

Then
came a rustling at the door. Voices. Somebody was coming in. I didn’t know what
to do. Should I try to hide?

Maybe
I should sit down.

I
pulled out a chair and plopped down, put my open palms on my cheeks, and
shifted to face the door.

Maybe,
I thought,
I’d have a better
advantage if I remained standing, just in case I needed to fight
.

I
heard the lock on the door click.

I
jumped up. I folded my arms in front of me. Then put them in back of me. That
didn’t work. So I placed my flattened palms on the table and leaned in.  

The
door knob turned. I pulled out a chair and stumbled back into it. In my haste I
bumped my knee on the edge of the table. “Oh shoot! That hurt.”

While
I moaned and rubbed my knee, the door opened and, to my surprise, someone I
knew walked in.