Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
While they waited for the equipment to be calibrated, Max talked about the various tombs that lay in the distance to the north within the Valley of the Queens, promising to take him to see the Tomb of Nefertiti.
He glanced at the amazing man next to him, taking in his calm demeanor. It wasn’t just an act. Max really was relaxed, and he couldn’t understand it. All his life’s work was coming down to this moment.
Max looked up at him and smiled. “Would you like a drink of my water?” he asked, holding out his water canteen.
Ed shook his head. “How are you so calm? We’ve been waiting for hours now.”
A low chuckle rose from Max and he directed his eyes back to where Hudson was instructing his people. “Because I’ve done this dozens of times before. I know what to expect. There’s no rushing this process. If anything, you want to take your time and make sure you get it right. Due to all the other tombs and precious discoveries already in the area, the government is strict about sanctioning new digs here. We have to get things right on the first try because it will be that much harder to get permission to try again later.”
“Okay, that sucks,” Alexei muttered under his breath from where he stood on the other side of Max.
“It does kind of, but it’s important that the places we’ve discovered are preserved as best as possible. Plus, the Valley of the Queens and the Valley of the Kings bring in a lot of revenue from tourists every year. It would be harder for them to win over visitors if you’ve got archeologists running around everywhere like ants, digging up each available square meter of this place.”
“All right! All right! We’re ready to go. Everyone, stand back by the tents,” Hudson shouted at the gathering, waving his hands in the air. The few officials who’d been standing with Hudson and his people wandered over to the tents. One of Hudson’s assistants plopped down behind the dusty and battered laptop on the table and started typing.
“Now, relax. Don’t get your hopes up too much,” Max cautioned. “It’s rare for anything to show up on the first few images. We’ve got all day to cover this area we’ve marked off, and the permits give us three days in which to work.”
The first round was with ground-penetrating radar to get what Max described as images of the different depths of the rocks to look for openings or even significant changes in the rocks to indicate possible artifacts. Tiny pulses of electricity were sent into the ground and the computer interpreted the strength and time it took for any signals to return.
“Holy shit,” the young woman with wind-blown hair and ballcap behind the computer screen whispered.
That was enough to crack Max’s cool demeanor at last. He darted over to the table so damn fast and hovered over her shoulder. Ed joined him and immediately regretted it because he couldn’t make heads or tails of the nonsense on the display.
“West! West!” Max shouted. “Move the next one to the west!”
“You got something?” Hudson called back even as he was waving for his assistant to adjust the equipment per Max’s instructions.
“Opening! Narrow and deep.” Max then grinned over his shoulder at Ed and waved him close again. His sweet man took a moment to explain the blobs that were on the computer monitor. Even with Max’s help, it still looked like nothing to him, but the only thing that mattered was that the archeologist could make sense of it.
By the time he was finished giving his mini lecture, everyone within earshot was hanging on his every word. As more images came in, Max explained what they were seeing.
It was a tomb.
A real fucking tomb.
And big. Huge!
As the hours ticked by, Hudson and his team loosely mapped out a main chamber along with several side chambers, including what was likely to be a storage room, aka the treasure room. The GPR had confirmed that there was a sarcophagus inside as well as other objects.
It was all there.
Ed finally gave in to impulse and pulled the Egyptologist into a tight bear hug. No one appeared to notice as all the officials and even the police were celebrating the find. Someone even popped open some bottles of sparkling grape juice and started handing out cups to celebrate. Max was toasted. Hudson was toasted.
But it was only when the various assistants and the officials marked off the area that Ed managed to grab Max away from the crowd.
“Okay. The truth. You’re not nearly excited about this find as I expected you to be. What’s going on?”
Max grinned up at him, those beautiful eyes sparkling with laughter and maybe a little mischief.
“Oy! That one knows you so well,” Hudson chuckled as he walked over to them.