Kathlyn Trent, Marcus Burton 01 - Valley of the Shadow (32 page)

Kathlyn didn't even realize it was over. She was still in the throes of the battle for her life. "But… but Dougray...."

"He's not going to make any more trouble for you, ma'am," the Major said gently.

For a long moment, Kathlyn had no real idea of what he meant. All she knew was that she wasn't dead. Her neck throbbed, her head was killing her, and there was blood all over her leg, but she wasn't dead by a long shot.

"He... he's dead?" she asked, dazed.

"Ma'am, he's very quickly heading in that direction."

Kathlyn just sat there, overwhelmed and drained.  Her bloodied knee was on the ground, grinding into the dirt, but she couldn't seem to muster the strength to move. It was all she could do to stay upright. But big arms suddenly lifted her, embracing and protective. She smelled Marcus before she ever saw his face. It was enough to snap her from her shock and she threw her arms around him.

"Christ," he hissed into her ear. "Kathlyn, are you all right? Did he hurt you?”

She tried to talk but the only thing coming out of her mouth was sobs.  She wept like a baby and Marcus' quiet tears of joy mingled with her own. Lynn and Dennis surrounded them in a protective cocoon, joined by Mark and Juliana and Debra Jo. They all just stood there and held each other. It was a silent show of gratitude and support, and mostly of relief.

"Bastard," Dennis growled, eyeing Dougray's still body. "You should have blown his goddamn brains out, Marcus."

Marcus could only sigh. He was just glad his wife was alive. "I did the best I could given the fact I was running up a goddamn ramp."

The Major was standing near the huddled group, watching Tony and several other Marines mill around Dougray. He had gotten off the first shot to the shoulder, but Burton had capped off the second round to the stomach. It was damn good shooting for the archaeologist, perfectly justifiable in every way.

"Folks, I've got to apologize for this," he said to Marcus. "It should have never gone this far. But my hands were tied, I hope you know that. Mr. Dougray had to actually do something before I was able to take action. That's the law."

Kathlyn pulled her head from the crook of Marcus' neck. Tears, blood and dirt were streaked all over her beautiful face. "We know that, Major. Dougray was going to have to make a mistake, which he did."

"What happened?" Marcus asked her. "What made him snap like that?"

Kathlyn shifted around, digging in her pocket.  She pulled out the little tape recorder and held it up. "This," she smiled wryly. "I got it all on tape."

Marcus looked at her, putting the pieces of the puzzle together. "So that bathroom ploy earlier was all a ruse. You went to go see him."

She wasn't the least bit guilty about it. She wiped the moisture away from his eyes. "It's amazing what he said without you glaring daggers at him."

Marcus was proud and furious at the same time. He wanted to hug her and wring her neck. "You took an awful chance, Kathlyn. You damn near got yourself killed."

She squirmed out of his arms, feeling steady now. The tight little group surrounding them spaced out a bit, allowing her some room to breathe. Kathlyn looked over at the man who almost killed her.

"I had to do it," she said softly. "He was trying to kill us; all of us.  I knew that I was the only person he would confess anything to, so I had to do it."

Marcus understood, though he was still very much shaken by the whole thing. He just wanted to forget about all of this. "I know, sweetheart," he said gently. "Come on. Let's get you back to camp now and take care of your battle wounds."

"You're not mad at me?"

"I'm goddamn furious. But it was the greatest act of self-sacrifice I've ever seen. Even if I weren't madly in love with you, at this moment I'd still consider it an honor and a privilege to know you. You’re an amazing woman, Mrs. Burton."

The Major chimed in. "I must certainly concur," he looked at Kathlyn. "If your wife ever needs a job, I'll give her one in a heartbeat."

Marcus put his arm around her shoulders. "Thanks, Major, but the only job she has to look forward to now is working on my dig and raising my child. We don’t need any more excitement."

The group began to break up, an ambiance of incredible relief surrounding them.  The nightmare was finally over, with the aftermath lying ahead. They all had individual thoughts on that, wondering what exactly would lie in store for Kathlyn and Marcus now that Dougray was out of the picture. There was still Abrahams and a host of unknown soldiers of Dougray's army. Maybe tonight, the battle was just beginning.

A violent echo suddenly pierced the new calm. A shot rang out, reverberating off the columns overhead and everyone instinctively ran for cover. Marcus whirled around to see Dougray, sitting up, blood all over him, with the small caliber gun in his hand. In all the confusion and panic, no one had thought to take the weapon from him. The Major withdrew his weapon and fired once, hitting Dougray right between the eyes. Like a grotesque dummy from a B grade horror movie, Dougray fell back down, this time, never to rise again.

Everyone stood there a moment, frozen with shock. "I thought he was dead," Marcus gasped.

The Major felt like an idiot. "He should have been," he gritted his teeth. "I should have kicked that goddamn gun away. Someone should have kicked it away.  Goddammit!"

Marcus looked around. "Where did the shot go?" he asked. He looked at his people, emerging from behind the columns. "Is everyone all right? Did he hit anybody?"

They all shook their heads, their nervous gazes darting around in search of the tale-tell bullet hole.  Marcus looked at Kathlyn, still in his protective grip. "Sweetheart, are you okay?"

She looked at him, a confused expression on her face. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she pitched forward. Stained on the lower portion of the back of her right side was a bright red blossom, growing by the moment.

***

Marcus didn't want to lay her in the dirt. He sank to the ground with her in his arms, sticky red blood covering his hands and shirt and forearms. He was so horror stricken he couldn't even speak; all he could do was sit there on his haunches and hold her tightly to keep her from falling to the ground. Everyone was in a panic, shouting to get her into a jeep, shouting to go find a doctor.

Only Juliana seemed to retain some of their composure. She helped Marcus lower Kathlyn down, pulling away her bloodied tee shirt to get a better look at the wound.

  It was a small, puckered wound. Two more inches to the right and it would have missed her completely. Juliana had gone to three years of medical school before switching her major and was a licensed emergency medical technician.  She had been phenomenal when Dennis had been injured and had earned a reputation around camp as a sort of miracle healer. But with Kathlyn down with a bullet wound, the situation was a bit different than just Natron acid burns. She felt the wound carefully.

"It passed right through," she told Marcus. "I've got an entry wound and an exit wound."

"Why is she bleeding so much?" Marcus' voice was shaking. "Did it hit an artery or an organ?"

"If it hit an artery it would be spouting out like a geyser," Juliana said. "Marcus, it's bullet wound. It's going to bleed. We need to get some pressure on it to stop the flow."

"Here," Tony was hovering over Marcus' shoulder. He held out his camouflage shirt. "Use this."

Juliana took it from him. "I need something more, like a tee shirt or something."

Guys began tearing their shirts off and throwing them at her. She took Lynn's prized World's Gym tank top, bunched it around Kathlyn's side to cover both wounds, and then tied Tony's shirt tightly around Kathlyn's waist to hold the cotton material fast. She was trying to create enough pressure to stop the bright red tide. Somewhere in the process, Kathlyn stirred.

"Damn," she groaned. "I think I got shot."

"You sure did, sweetheart," Marcus wanted to hug her, hold her, but he was scared to death that he was going to hurt her somehow.  "Juliana said it passed right through you."

"Did it miss the baby?"

"Yes," Juliana answered her. "It just passed though your right side, Kat. Through your fat, if you had any. Another inch or so and it would have missed you completely."

"Then it's not that bad?"

Juliana pulled the knot on the camouflage shirt as snug as she could. Mark lent a hand to help her, pasty and shaken though he was.

"I don't think it got you in a vital spot," Juliana said. "But we need to get you to a doctor."

Vital spot or not, Kathlyn was ghostly pale and not feeling particularly well. Her side was killing her and her stomach was lurching. She held her hands up, looking at her blood stained all over them.

"God, look at me," she whispered. "I'm bleeding like a stuck pig. Damn that Dougray."

"Don't worry about him," Marcus said. "He's not going to be shooting anyone ever again."

Kathlyn tried to look over Marcus' arm at Dougray's still body, but he blocked her view.  She'd seen enough blood and gore for one day.

"We've got to get her out of here," Juliana stood up. "We can go back to camp and send for one of those doctors from the resorts across the river."

"Already done, Dr. Maurer," the Major had his government issued satellite cellular phone in his hand. "My men are going over to the ferry landing to wait for the dinghy. Let's get Dr. Trent back to camp."

Marcus stood up with Kathlyn in his arms. He was nearly as pale as she was as he made his way across the courtyard and down the long, sandy ramp. Lynn, Mark and Dennis walked in front of him in case he should slip on the sand. Marcus wasn't looking very steady himself but neither one of them dared offer to take Kathlyn from him; there was no way in hell he was going to let her go. Tony collected Dougray's body and carted it down, unceremoniously, to the nearest jeep. He kicked him when he thought no one was looking.

Kathlyn didn't even remember the ride back to camp. She barely remembered the American-educated Egyptian doctor who put a couple of stitches in her side and fed her loads of antibiotics for days on end. She remembered sleeping, on and off, for an endless amount of days.

Work on Ay's tomb went on, the announcement of Walter Dougray's death and his involvement in a murder plot against Dr Kathlyn Trent blasted over the airways, but she never saw a word of it.  For her, the world was a painless, muted, blissful voice in which she slept, awakened only by her husband and pressing physical needs.

For the Tarzan-swinging, bullet-dodging archaeologist who had made history with her co-discovery of an unsullied pharaoh's tomb, peace had finally come.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Valley of the Kings

Thirteen Months later

The sarcophagus chamber was full of people.  There was a film crew from The World of Exploration Channel running digital feed from one corner, a host of workers awaiting instructions in the other, and seven archaeologists and one architect encircling the massive granite sarcophagus of Ay. Ropes, slings and pulleys were positioned around the heavy lid like a giant spider web. Marcus was encouraging his team to lift, slowly, so the stress on the stone wouldn't be too great. It was exhausting, backbreaking work.

"Stop!" he boomed.

Everyone ground to a halt, panting with exertion. Lynn and Marcus were on one rope; Dennis, Gary and Mark were on the other. Andy and Larry were helping Otis measure the stress and placing jacks under the lid to support it.  When Otis cleared them to continue, Marcus threw his bulging muscles into action and the lid inched ever slowly upward.  With about a foot cleared between the sarcophagus and the lid, they were able to peek in and catch a glimpse of a magnificent golden coffin.   It was an exciting moment, something Marcus had waited his whole life for.

Another stop and another lift. Gary was sure he was getting a hernia but he kept his mouth shut. He wouldn't have missed this moment for anything. The film crew was over-excited and got too close, prompting Marcus to bark at them through clenched teeth. Like frightened rabbits, they darted back to their corner. But they, like the whole world, were eager for their first glimpse of Ay's eternity.

"Stop!" Otis shouted.

Larry and Andy picked up the cry and the lid stuttered to a halt.  Otis adjusted the jacks as Marcus leaned back against the wall and wiped his forehead with the back of his gloved hand. The anticipation in the air was almost as heavy as the work and he already had a long list of tests and exams lined up for the mummy. One of the first things he had scheduled was an X-Ray of the corpse to see, among other things, if the skull had been crushed like Kathlyn's vision had suggested. He had no doubt that they would find some evidence of some foul play and it was a truly exciting concept. His wife, as he had learned, was rarely ever wrong.

He glanced over at Gary, his blond hair sticking against his scalp.  He really wasn't cut out for this heavy duty work, but Marcus admired his pluck. Up until yesterday, the man hadn't left the Antechamber. He had been determined to finish clearing the pile of rotting flesh that he and Kathlyn originally thought to be the remains of Ankhesenamun. What he and Mark had uncovered was the remains of a small boned woman that CAT scans showed to have the same encephalographic and DNA similarities as a mummy of Tutankhamen himself, making her a sister or female relative of some kind. It was an exciting discovery for them all, moving one step closer to proving all of the relationships in the complicated hypothesis.

There was still quite a bit of work to be done along the line of validating their theory of Tutankhamen, Ay and Horemheb, but they were drawing closer with the uncovering of Ay's mummy. Marcus had started writing a paper on the subject that UCPR was dying to get their hands on. In the wake of the Dougray Incident, as it was now called, the world was fired up more than ever about Egyptology and Biblical Archaeology. There had been articles and news programs about it all over the world for months now. It had become a global obsession.

"Dr. Burton, they're here!”

A foreman who worked for the SCA came rushing into the chamber. Lynn, Gary, Dennis, Mark, Andy, Larry and Otis looked up sharply from their task at hand. But Marcus didn't merely look up; he was already half way to the door.

"Everybody take a break," he ripped off his heavy leather gloves, tucking them into the back pocked of his jeans. Even more than the sight of the coffin, he had been anticipating this moment. "I'll be right back."

"Not without me," Lynn bolted after him.  Unwilling to be left out of this joyous occasion, the rest of the crew followed like a group of over-eager children.

Marcus moved through the partially-cleared antechamber and into Chamber E. SCA workers were everywhere, pausing in their tasks to watch the site director and his crew rush past them. Chamber D was brilliantly lit from the lights of another film crew from The World of Exploration Channel and Marcus dodged their cables as he crossed over the bottomless pit. Corridor C was nearly cleared of the debris from Dougray's grenade, although the beautiful artwork was severely damaged.  By the time Marcus raced up the steep stairwell, he was in a dead run.

It was a typical Egyptian afternoon.  The sky was a brilliant blue and the warm khamsin winds blew from the south. The east Valley of the Kings was full of visitors, the usual crowd of hundreds clustered around the barriers to Ay's tomb.

Cameras started going off when Marcus emerged; he had become almost as big a celebrity as his wife. People Connection Magazine had named him one of the Ten Most Gorgeous Men in their annual poll, a distinction that had sent his colleagues at UCPR into fits of laughter.  His wife thought it was rather wonderful, however.  Marcus remembered ages ago when he told his then-enemy Kathlyn Trent that if she ever turned his dig into a circus, he'd personally throw her out. Now his own celebrity status had turned it into a circus. It wasn't as if he could throw himself out.

The security-fortified encampment was abuzz. There were two taxis in the guarded motor pool area and Marcus stained to catch a glimpse of the occupants.  He caught sight of Juliana first, holding an infant in her arms. He headed straight in her direction.

"Juliana!" he called.

When she whirled around to face him, he held open his arms and Juliana knew it wasn't for her. She promptly handed over the baby, like an offering to a hungry god.

"Good to see you, too," she quipped.

He would have bantered with her had he not been so consumed with the bundle in his arms. "Christ," he bemoaned lightly. "I'm such a rotten father. Which..?"

"Marcus!" Kathlyn was hurrying toward him.  She whooped with delight at the elated expression on his face. "Hi, honey, I'm home!"

She had been back by the other taxi where two older people, a man and a woman, were getting out. Marcus shifted the baby into one arm and held out his other. But Kathlyn knew it wasn't for her. He wanted the other baby.

She deposited the bundle neatly in the crook of his elbow. But she threw her arms around her husband's neck and kissed him joyfully. He continued to try and kiss her even when she pulled away.

"Be careful, now," she admonished him softly. "They've had a rough flight. Twenty hours of teething and baby poop. And I've got to feed them now or I'm going to explode."

He looked down at the warm little bundles. Two pairs of bright bluish-green eyes looked back at him.  Ethan Burton, a full three miserable hours older than his brother, was sporting two tiny teeth buds. Trent Burton had no teeth yet, but they were threatening.

"Christ, they're so big," Marcus fawned over them. "I'm horrible, Kathlyn. Which one is which?"

Kathlyn put her finger on one baby's cheek. "Ethan has a freckle here, see?"

Marcus looked closely. "Thank God, now I won't be such a moron," he leaned over and kissed his wife again. "Christ, you look great."

"Meaning the last time you saw me I looked like a cow."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "I didn't say that. You were a new mother who had just given birth to two seven pound babies.  You looked exactly the way you were supposed to."

She pursed her lips. "Meaning I looked like a cow."

He grinned. "Hell of a pair of udders you got there, Mrs. Burton."

She laughed at him, stroking his cheek. Two months of separation had been torture. The babies had only been a month old and too young to travel when Marcus had left for his fourth season in Egypt. At three months, the pediatrician had cleared them so Kathlyn, Juliana, and Marcus' parents had hopped a jet to Egypt. The only way Marcus would let her travel with the babies was if his parents came with her, who were more than glad to come. It was a lot more exciting than Modesto.  And Juliana had been in California on business, lagging behind just enough so she could accompany Kathlyn too.

Marcus had precious little time with his wife or babies as the team descended like a horde of locusts. Marcus held the children protectively, shielding them from the germ-breathing horde, while Kathlyn received hugs and kisses all around. Marcus reluctantly handed one child to Lynn, the other to his wife, and went to greet his parents. Al and Louise Burton embraced their only child happily, the two rather simple people a little overwhelmed at the world their son lived in. Television cameras, murder plots and schemes of world domination were out of their league.

Marcus put Dennis in charge of his parents for the moment. All he wanted was some time alone with his wife and children. Collecting the babies from his eager colleagues, he took his family into his tent, away from the drooling masses. Kathlyn had a portable crib that she unfolded, placing the babies in it. Ethan didn't want to lie down, however, and started crying. With the good reflexes of any mother, Kathlyn pulled up her shirt and deposited the baby on a swollen nipple.

Marcus hadn't seen her feed his sons in eight long weeks. He had actually found it to be a wildly tender and touching experience. The hustle and bustle of the afternoon faded as he sat back on the bed, holding Kathlyn and the baby between his legs. He watched his son suckle.

"I'd forgotten how perfect they are," he stroked the baby's blond head. "And they've grown a foot since I last saw them."

Kathlyn savored the feel of Marcus against her, enveloping her. It was an incredibly loving moment. "Three months old and more than double their birth weight. The doctor says they're doing great. They had to get all of their vaccinations before going overseas and they did fine. They're troopers."

Marcus kissed her hair, her ear. "Like their mother," he murmured. "And how are you doing, Mrs. Burton? You look good enough to eat."

Chills raced up her spine. "I'm fine," she put her arm up, embracing him around the neck as he nuzzled her. "Ready to get back to work."

He held her close. "And how is work?"

She shrugged. "SCU is at my feet once again thanks to McGrath. Thank God they were able to lure him away from UCPR. I honestly believe that Bardwell kept him suppressed with his old-school, good ol' boy ways. Now that he's running his own department, he's really able to shine."

Jobe McGrath was heading up SCU's Archaeology and Anthropology Department in the wake of Ronald Abraham's resignation and subsequent arrest on accessory to attempted murder charges not only in the case of Kathlyn, but also in the case of the death of Ed Cutro. Bardwell was still at UCPR, humbled in the wake of the Dougray/Abraham affair and minus the stability of his good reputation. Rumor had it that the department head position was going to be offered to none other than Marcus Burton himself, a rumor which Marcus soundly ignored. He was too busy in Egypt to be stuck behind a desk.

"I'm glad he's doing so well," Marcus said. "He turned out to be one hell of a friend.  He even got your contract back with World Geography."

Kathlyn switched the baby to the other breast. "World Geography is going to be kissing my ass for years to come.  I am now a senior special correspondent, thank you very much."

"Do they have a new chairman yet?"

"They offered it to some guy named Ballard."

They exchanged glances, the sarcasm of that statement not lost on either of them. That name was as close to God as one could come for expeditionary explorers. They fell silent, watching the baby nurse, just happy to be together again. But Kathlyn had a little something to tell her husband that couldn't have been done over the phone. He was in a good mood at the moment and it was time to strike.

"Speaking of World Geography," she said casually. "They've given me a new assignment."

Marcus frowned. "What assignment? I thought you were going to write a follow up article for the Ay dig?"

"I am," she assured him. "But that won't take me more than a month."

"What about the network special you're doing?"

"The WNN crews are going to be here at the end of the week. It shouldn't take more than a couple of weeks to get together the footage they need."

Marcus was quiet, watching the baby doze, wet nipple it his little mouth. "So what's this new assignment?

She couldn't look at him. "The Search for Alexander the Great."

"Search?" he repeated. "What does that mean?"

She sighed and removed Ethan from her breast. Laying him down beside his brother, she picked up Trent and put him on the breast that Ethan didn't finish.

"It means that I'm doing a cable special for The World of Exploration channel entitled 'The Search for Alexander the Great'," she said. "It means that when my work here at Ay's tomb is finished, I'm going to be traveling all over Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Greece, and anywhere else Alexander went to do this special. It's going to end where we think the king was buried and I'm going to do some test digs."

She could read Marcus' displeasure all across his face. "Are you crazy?" he said. "You just had twins. Now you're going to go traipsing all over the Middle East like your single and free to do as you please? I think not."