Authors: Kathryn Le Veque
“Really?” Morgan
looked around, at the ground, at the hills. “What do you see?”
He held out a
picture to her and pointed at it. “This; see it? At the base of the hills?
Rocks don’t normally run in a perfect line like this.”
She saw what he
was pointing at on the image, in which different types of geological formations
had different colors. “Even though I’m not an archaeologist, I don’t think I
need to be in order to see that those rocks are forming a straight line,” she
looked up at him, the brown eyes twinkling. “Maybe a wall that somebody built?”
“Or something,”
he grinned at her. “We’re going to find out.”
***
Morgan had never
been on anything even remotely resembling an archaeological dig, so watching
Fox in his element was truly something to behold. He was concise, driven, and
knew exactly what he was doing.
With a couple of
hours of daylight left by the time they reached the spot where Fox wanted to
dig, he jumped right in to the process. The first thing he did was unpack the
portable Abney surveying tool and begin surveying about a quarter square mile
area at the northeast base of the small foothills. He had Morgan stand at
periodic distances as a sight level for relative measurement and used her to
map off his area.
Morgan stood in
her straw hat and sunglasses, making faces at him at a distance until he
started laughing. Then she would dance like an Egyptian while Fox would just
stand there and shake his head at her antics. When she got bored of that, she
would stand impatiently and sing the Violent Femme’s song “Blister in the Sun”.
The surveying took longer than it should have as a result, but he’d never had
so much fun doing it.
As dusk painted
colors of pink and purple across the sky, Fox called a halt to their surveying
because he could no longer see well in the dwindling light. Plus, Morgan was
about to go nuts standing around. He collected his wife and took her over to
where Jabeel and Allahaba had set up a base camp. Neither Morgan nor Fox had
paid much attention to the pair as they unloaded supplies and set up tents, so
by the time they got there, they were in for a surprise.
Jabeel did this
for a living, taking tourists to remote spots, so he had quite a bit of
equipment. There were two tents set up, older Coleman models that he told Fox
he had purchased on Ebay. The canvas was heavy and he had driven the stakes
deep into the ground to withstand the winds. He also had old but clean rugs
that he used to cover the bottom of the tents to make them more like home,
something Morgan found wonderful. There were four sleeping bags, two that were
old and to be used by Jabeel and Allahaba, and two brand-new ones that Jabeel
had purchased in Luxor. He gave the new ones to Fox and Morgan.
But it was his
sanitary facilities that had Morgan laughing at Jabeel’s ingenuity; although
the Manjam Hamsh wilderness was desolate and bleak, there were rock formations
dotting the landscape. Jabeel and Allahaba had built their encampment near a
cluster of rocks, using small alcove in the natural rock formation for the
restroom.
Jabeel had dug a
big hole for the outhouse and put a chair with the center cut out of it over
it. The chair was pushed down deep into the dirt so it wouldn’t tip. Around
that, he hammered four five-foot PVC pipes into the ground and hooked up a wire
around the top of the pipes. On to that, he strung two cheap shower curtains
for privacy. Morgan almost commented that one good gust of wind would blow the
shower curtains open but she refrained; Jabeel had gone to great lengths to
provide for a lady’s privacy. She wasn’t going to laugh at his efforts. She
appreciated them.
But the best was
yet to come. Thinking himself quite the inventor, Jabeel had built a make-shift
shower. The men knew, as did Morgan, that it was purely for her, but she
deeply appreciated the effort. He had used the same basic structure he’d used
for the toilet, with PVC pipe and shower curtains, but instead of a hole where
the toilet was, he’d laid down two cheap and heavy bathmats to keep the
bather’s feet well off the sand. The shower was tucked back behind the toilet
so any water runoff would end up in the toilet hole.
Night eventually
fell and there was a full moon out, casting the entire valley in an eerie
silver glow. Allahaba had built a roaring blaze, a small spot of light in a
thousand square miles of dark and bleak surroundings. Jabeel brought forth
something that looked like a portable grill pan, put it on the fire, and began
making fresh flat bread on it. He used coarse salt in the flour and on the
flat bread, handing Morgan the first disc right off the grill.
Morgan tore into
it, hungry, offering half of it to Fox. Jabeel then proceeded to cook rice
and a mixture of ground beef, lamb, onions and parsley that he kept sealed up
in something that looked like Tupperware. Whatever it was, it was salty and
delicious, and Morgan ate until she could eat no more.
The day had been
long and exhausting. As Fox, Allahaba and Jabeel talked about British
football, Morgan forced herself up from her seated position by the fire and
staggered over to the tent that held hers and Fox’s belongings. Fox,
distracted from his conversation, turned to see what she was doing, but the
question died on his lips when she emerged from the tent holding one of the
brand-new sleeping bags.
The three men
watched curiously as Morgan trudged over to the fire, laid out the sleeping
bag, and then promptly fell on top of it. Fox watched, a smirk on his lips,
as she immediately fell asleep with the fire blazing about a foot away from
her.
“Oh, bugger,” he
shook his head, sipping at his very sweet Arabic coffee. “There she goes. Out
like a light.”
Allahaba shushed
him. “Quiet,” he whispered. “You will wake her.”
Fox laughed.
“Are you joking?” he held his cup out when Jabeel offered him more coffee. “She
would sleep through a nuclear explosion. I’ve never seen someone so able to
sleep anytime, anyplace. It’s too bad, too; she’s going to miss dessert.”
Morgan’s head
shot up, blond hair hanging in her face. Fox looked at her and started
laughing, realizing her eyes were still closed.
“What dessert?”
she asked.
He continued to
snort. “Don’t worry, love,” he told her. “You wouldn’t like it anyway. Go back
to sleep.”
She flopped back
down, eyes still closed. “If you eat my dessert, Fox Henredon, you’ll rue the
day you were born,” she muttered.
He laughed
deeply, hands over his mouth so he wouldn’t boom. “I promise, I won’t.”
Morgan yawned.
“What dessert?”
She wasn’t going
to let it go; Fox looked over at Jabeel. “You’d better tell her what you have
or she might tear this camp apart looking for it,” he told the young man.
Jabeel could see
he was joking but moved swiftly to pull out another air-tight Tupperware
container. “I have cinnamon date cake,” he informed them. “I also have
chocolate covered dates.”
Morgan’s head
shot up again; this time, one hand was outstretched. “Chocolate covered dates,
please.”
Jabeel handed
the container to Fox, who stood up and dutifully went over to his wife. He
held the container down to her and she picked out a plump, chocolate covered
date. Shoving it into her mouth, she lay back down. Fox stood over her,
watching her chew with the enormous date in her mouth.
“You’re going to
choke if you lie down and try to swallow that,” he told her.
She couldn’t
even reply because her mouth was so full. But she managed to wave him off.
With a shake of his head, one of resignation, Fox selected his own date and
gave the container back to Jabeel. Reclaiming his seat, he kicked out his
enormous legs and gazed up at the brilliant diamond sky above. His dark eyes
reflected the night sky as he swallowed his date in one bite.
“It’s times like
this that I feel closest to the people of this land,” he said softly. “If I sit
here long enough, I swear I can hear ancient Egyptians all around us. Looking
up at the sky, you wouldn’t know if it was two thousand and ten or two thousand
and ten B.C.”
Allahaba gazed
up into the sky as well. “I understand what you mean,” he agreed, looking away
from the beautiful sky to gaze at Fox. “What are your plans for tomorrow, Fox?”
Fox laced his
fingers behind his head, leaning back as he continued to gaze skyward.
“I surveyed off
the area that I want to do some test digs in tomorrow,” he said. “I really
should have a permit, but this is such a small scale thing in such a remote
area that I’m not going to worry about it. There’s about a one hundred foot
long, perfectly straight geological formation right over in that area that I
marked off. I’m not sure how far down we’re going to have to dig to get to it,
so that will be our target for the day.”
“And if we find
something?” Allahaba wanted to know.
Fox looked over
at him. “I’ll have Morgan take photos and shoot with the video camera. We’ll
have a record of it. If we do find something, then we’ve just set the entire
field of Egyptology on its ear.”
Jabeel,
listening to the conversation with interest, cocked his head. “What does that
mean?” he asked.
Fox glanced at
the man before sitting forward and stretching out the kinks in his back. “It
means that this will undoubtedly be a major excavation site and I’m going to
fight tooth and nail to claim it for the Bolton. If we have really found
Ranthor, then it’s my find and I intend to keep it.”
Over on the
sleeping bag, Morgan suddenly rolled on to her back. “You never said anything
about staying in Egypt,” she yawned.
He looked at
her, mulling over her statement. “I didn’t say I would do the excavating,” he
told her. “But if we really have discovered Ranthor, you can’t even imagine
what an important find that would be. The impact to the field of Egyptology
would be immeasurable.”
Morgan didn’t
say anything; she just lay there with her arms over her face. Five seconds
hadn’t passed before they heard her snoring softly. Fox sighed heavily and set
down his coffee cup.
“Mrs. Henredon
is finished for the day,” he announced, standing to his considerable height.
“In fact, I think we’re both finished. I’ll see you in the morning.”
He went over to
Morgan and tried to rouse her so she would get up and he could collect the
sleeping bag she was laying on. But she wouldn’t awaken and he ended up
scooping her up into his arms while Allahaba picked up the sleeping bag.
Allahaba went to their tent, opened up the other sleeping bag, and ended up
zipping the two of them up together to create one giant sleeping bag. Fox
entered the tent with Morgan sleeping against him, thanking the Allahaba as the
man backed out of the tent and closed the flap.
Fox lay Morgan
down upon the open sleeping bag, turning around so he could zip the tent flap
closed. There was no way with his height that he could stand, so he sat back
on the edge of the sleeping bag and pulled Morgan’s shoes off. As he went to
remove his own shoes, he suddenly felt soft, warm hands grasp the bottom of his
shirt.
“Arms up,”
Morgan said softly.
He instinctively
obeyed, turning to catch a glimpse of her as she pulled his shirt over his
head. “What are you doing?” he asked.
She looked
sleepy but alert. A seductive smile spread across her lips as she tossed the
shirt aside. “Undressing you,” she whispered.
He grinned with
delight. “Really?” he reached out to pull her against him. “I thought you were
too sleepy.”
“It was the only
way to get you alone. I knew, sooner or later, you would carry me off to bed.”
“Clever girl,”
he nuzzled her, sending chills up her spine.
Morgan gave
herself over to him completely, making love to her husband in the dark tent,
lit only by the snippets of the brilliant moon outside. Jackals chippered in
the distance, lending their eerie song to the timeless quality of the moment.
It was sensual, erotic, infused with the deep love they felt for one another.
When she finally fell asleep for good, it was wrapped in Fox’s enormous arms,
as warm and safe as she could possibly feel.
***
On the same road
that Fox, Morgan, Allahaba and Jabeel had used to enter the Manjam Hamsh
valley, several pairs of eyes watched the encampment from a distance. The
Henredon group hadn’t been hard to find, laying down the invitation with tire
tracks and the beacon of a distant campfire. The moon was bright and the night
still, and it would have been very easy to roust the camp.
But Alezer ibin
Akil wasn’t particularly interested in rousting them at the moment. He knew the
American woman was packing a gun and she had every intention of using it. It
had been something completely unexpected to a man who had been expecting easy
quarry.
Still, he had
promised Alia that he would kidnap the woman and hold her. He hadn’t been
given any reasons for the deed and he hadn’t asked; all that mattered to him
was that he had a long-standing debt to pay to the al Shabheen family. Alia’s
father was a criminal defense attorney in Cairo who had helped Alezer through
some government charges against him. Alezer had been on the government’s radar
for quite some time now and, frankly, he was not inclined to make more trouble
for himself, even if it was in repayment of a debt.