The Eden Factor (Kathlyn Trent/Marcus Burton Romance Adventure Series Book 2) (9 page)

"I know, I know," he
murmured. "I'm sorry, I'm an idiot."

"No, you're not. But you do
go off half-cocked at the slightest provocation. What was it you called me? A
loose cannon?"

He lifted his head, gazing down
into her dirty, beautiful face. "So I'm half-cocked and you're a loose
cannon. Nobody's perfect."

She lifted an eyebrow. "If I
want you to kick someone's butt, I'll ask. Right now, we need to deal with this
rationally. Then, if that doesn't work, you can tear him limb from limb.
Okay?"

He gave her a lop-sided grin.
"Okay."

He pulled her to her feet,
slowly, helping her brush off her rear end until it turned into a groping
session and she giggled.  Marcus took her in his arms and kissed her long and
hard, tremendously relieved that all was well between them again. He just
wanted to hold her.

"So tell me about this Fayd
guy," he said as they caught their breath. "All I got was the Lynn
and Dennis version of how this guy lusted after you."

They released each other and
started walking back to camp. "Not much to tell, really," Kathlyn
said truthfully. "He's a Biblical Archaeologist like me, about my age, and
we've worked together a couple of times, briefly. Fayd is very smart, very full
of himself, and very unscrupulous. At least I have some ethics in doing my
work; he has none at all."

Marcus looked at her.
"Honey, you'll do anything to gain your wants. You've admitted it. What makes
this guy any different from you?"

"I won't destroy a
site," she said pointedly. "Fayd has been known to rip a place apart,
which is really unheard of in this day and age.  But because of his
connections, he is given fairly prime choices in excavation. They had a lot of
trouble with him at his latest site on the Temple Mount because he was more
concerned with excavating the biblical-related cisterns beneath the mount and
basically tore through some Roman ruins to get to them. So when I think of
someone like this being given permission to excavate my angel, it just makes me
shudder."

Marcus' gaze moved over the
hills, now golden as the sun rose. "So he's here to see if you want to
jointly excavate the angel?"

"According to Juliana."

"We really need to talk to
him. The sooner the better."

"She also told me that he
has a Vatican representative with him."

He cast her an odd look.
"What the hell do they want?"

Kathlyn shook her head. "I
have no idea. They usually stay far away from anything I do, although they make
it a point to denounce me at every turn. I'd like to know what has them so
interested in particular find that they've got to come all the way to Egypt to
talk to me."

There was no use discussing it
any longer since they had no real answers.  They returned to their tent where
Kathlyn used their private shower, which was really just an outdoor shower they
had converted to use inside. They had done that when they figured out someone
in the media had put a sophisticated little camera in the community shower to
get shots of her. She washed her hair, scrubbed every inch of her, shaved,
dried, lotioned, and finally put on her makeup. Using a little butane powered
hair dryer, she blew her hair dry and gave it a bit of spritz. Marcus sat in an
old folding chair, watching her dress, appreciating the lines of her body.

 Kathlyn had a very specific
style of dress in the field. Usually, it was heavy-weight shorts, a tee shirt
of other light weight shirt, big black heavy boots, and a faded beige duster.
The duster was like her personal signature, unique only to her.  It was an old,
torn-up thing, but Kathlyn wouldn't let it go. With her honey colored hair
flowing, her John Lennon sunglasses and her full colored lips, she made quite a
sight.

  "All right," she
stood at the entrance to their tent, her gaze moving out into the compound
beyond. She cuffed her sleeves and cracked her knuckles. "Let's go see
Fayd."

Marcus stood up from his chair.
"Ready to rock and roll?"

"Let's do it."

"Go get 'em, baby."

Smiling, he followed her from the
tent. Last night, he had been the threatening one. This morning, he didn't envy
Fayd Fahdlan in the least.

***

The moment Marcus saw Dr. Fayd
al-Rashad Fahdlan, he almost forgot his apology to his wife for his
chest-beating antics. The guy looked like something out of Lawrence of Arabia.
He had a beautiful face, a beautiful smile, and almost had a gentle, courtly
manner about him. He greeted Kathlyn traditionally, a kiss to each cheek, and
Marcus struggled not to become unglued. Fortunately he had Lynn and Dennis
sitting in on the meeting to either hold him back or help him pound the living
daylights out of the guy should he be so inclined.  Juliana, Mark and Otis
Dison were there, too, for Kathlyn's sake. This meeting involved the four of
them perhaps more than anyone else.

Fayd was extremely pleasant when
introduced to Marcus. He complimented him on his Valley of the Kings dig and
congratulated him on his marriage to Kathlyn. Marcus had to admit, the guy was
amiable. And smooth.  But Marcus remained his cool self, as usual. He had
always had the reputation of being a hard-ass, something that was in no danger
of being ruined today.

 Fayd had come with two of his
brothers, Hamid and Ali. They, too, were very friendly. All in all, the meeting
didn't start out on the wrong foot at all contrary to the negative buildup. 
But when the Vatican representative was introduced, the potential for tension
finally reared its ugly head.

His name was de Tormo. He was
short, fat and balding and smelled like he hadn't bathed in months. He was also
curt in his manner and all of Kathlyn's hopes for a smooth encounter went out
the window when Marcus visibly bristled at the man's demeanor.  Not
surprisingly, Fayd tried to downplay the representative's manner. But Marcus
knew a jerk when he saw one. He glanced at his wife, a knowing expression
passing between them.

"Mrs. Burton," de Tormo
went right to the point after the introductions were properly complete.
"It is my understanding that you have excavated something that, by most
accounts, appears to be the remains of human being with wings. For my purposes,
would you care to elaborate?"

Kathlyn had dealt with
representatives from The Vatican before. The majority of the time, they were
very pleasant and genuinely interested in what she was doing, at least when
they weren't going on record with the media. But de Tormo wasn't one of those.
The distain in his voice was evident and that, in turn, put her on the
defensive.

"Mr. de Tormo," since
he addressed her incorrectly, she would return the favor. "I would be
happy to answer your question if you would make clear what your purposes
are."

"I am a Vatican
representative. That should be quite clear."

"Humor me."

He just looked at her with his
fat doughy face and dull brown eyes. "I come from the highest
source."

"Are you here to investigate
me? That's been done before, you know."

"I'm not here to investigate
you. His Grace is curious."

Kathlyn lifted her eyebrows in
disbelief. "Are you telling me that the Pope sent you directly?"

The man fanned himself.
"Yes, unfortunately, he has an insatiable curiosity in such matters. And
in spite of the position The Vatican takes on your work, he has followed your
career with great interest."

Kathlyn sat back in her chair,
casually. She wasn't about to show any reaction. "I'm flattered. But I
want proof."

"Proof of what?"

"That The Vatican sent you.
Otherwise, my lips are sealed."

Fayd stepped in, his voice soft.
"Kathlyn, I can assure you that he is legitimate. His credentials are on file
with The Center for Middle Eastern History. I can have them faxed here in a few
minutes if you truly wish to see them."

Kathlyn looked at Fayd. "If
you tell me that you've seen them and that they are valid, then I'll believe
you."

"I've seen them and they are
indeed valid."

"Good enough," Kathlyn
looked back at the fat man. "Are you a priest, Mr. de Tormo, or just an
administrator?"

"I have taken my vows of
celibacy. I also have a doctorate in Biology."

"So what is it you wish to
know, exactly?"

De Tormo showed his exasperation.
"What did you see, Mrs. Burton?"

Kathlyn leaned forward on her
chair. "For the record, my name is Dr. Trent. Mrs. Burton is my married
name and I do not go by it professionally because it would pull my husband into
a realm he's better left out of. As for what I saw in Iraq, it's exactly as you
described it. A human skeleton with wings."

"Does it look like a
structured burial?"

Kathlyn deferred to Marcus at
this point since he had done the actual excavation, such as it was.  Marcus sat
slightly behind her, stretched out on his chair, conveying the fact that he was
both unimpressed and un-intimidated by the men seated across from him. Kathryn
remembered well the expression on his face; it was the same one he had when he
had first met her.

 "Dr. Burton?" she
invited him to reply.

He just looked at them for a
moment as if they were fleas on the butt of a dog. "It didn't look like a
structured burial to me," he said. "We observed an extremely
antiquated skeleton that we determined to be approximately 91 inches in length
that was lying on its back, slightly twisted to the left side. I was able to
observe a protrusion from the right shoulder blade that appeared to be similar
to something found in a very large bird, like a condor or an Egyptian Vulture.
From what I was able to estimate using the standard measurement of my hand,
eight inches from the tip of my forefinger to the base of my palm, the long
bone that protruded out of the shoulder blade was about sixty inches in length.
Double that when the wing is extended and you have a nearly twenty foot
wingspan from tip to tip. But that, of course, is based only on the right
protrusion. The body is apparently laying on the left protrusion, though parts
of it were visible."

De Tormo listened intently,
though his expression held extreme caution. "From your observations, Dr.
Burton, would you say that these protrusions were natural or man-made?"

Marcus shrugged. "They were
most definitely bone, the same texture and color and in proportion to the bones
on the skeleton itself. If you're asking if I saw where they connected to the
actual skeleton, I can positively say that I did not see a ball and socket
joint. But most wings don't attach that way, anyway. Look at a bird's skeleton;
the wings are held to the body by soft joints and ligaments and muscles."

"Did you see evidence of
that, then?”

"I saw an unusual indent in
the shoulder blade nearest the protrusion that could have had something to do
with it. I just won't know until we can excavate the skeleton and reconstruct
it."

"But would you say that it
looked to you like an angel?"

"I won't commit one way or
the other until it's reconstructed."

De Tormo looked at Kathlyn as if
to question her professional opinion of the find. She met his gaze steadily.
"Dr. Burton's expertise is not biblical archaeology, it's Egyptology. 
Certainly he's not going to commit to something of this magnitude until he's
sure about it."

"But you're willing to
attest that it is the remains of an angel?"

"I'm willing to attest to
the fact that it looked like an angel."

"And would you be willing to
return to Iraq and assist Dr. Fahdlan in excavating it?"

Kathlyn passed a glance at Fayd.
"Since I was the first archaeologist called onto this site, I consider it
my dig. I would be happy to have Dr. Fahdlan assist me."

"But he is the one with the
permits."

"I should be happy to use
his permits. It saves me the trouble."

De Tormo looked at Fayd, who
merely chuckled. "Anything for Dr. Trent, of course.  I consider it an
honor."

Marcus shot the guy such a glare
that Kathlyn could feel the heat of it from where she sat. It was like Superman
burning someone with his laser vision. She sat forward to block Marcus' view of
Fayd.

"Do you have any other
questions, Fr. de Tormo?" she asked with strained patience. "If not,
I need to meet with Dr. Fayd. We need to move forward on this and create a plan
of action."

De Tormo thought a moment.
"Dr. Trent," he said slowly. "You don't seem to realize the
seriousness of this matter. The Church is extremely interested in this. The
answers I am receiving from you and your husband are ambiguous at best and that
will not look good in my report."

Kathlyn stood up, so fast that
Marcus and those behind her actually started. "No, Fr. de Tormo, you fail
to realize the seriousness of this situation," she said, her composure
fracturing. "What you want me to do is verify something that is not, at
present, verifiable. I have a Ph.D. in Biblical Archaeology and a double
Masters in Philosophy and Mythology. I grew up with a grandfather who was a
Pentecostal preacher and another who was a hard-core Catholic, so to put it
mildly, I know my shit.  Don't presume to tell me that my answers to your
pointed questions are ambiguous. With all of the contradictions and ambiguity
the Church puts on the value of holy relics in general, your statement is an
insult. I'm not going to tell you this is an angel just to make you happy; I
could care less about you or your Church.  All the Church has ever done is slam
me one way or the other, so you'll have to wait just like everyone else for the
excavation and reconstruction. If you don't like it, that's your problem."