CHAPTER TWELVE

"Hello, we're here to see Dr. Fayek," said Ellie to the woman at the information desk. "We're friends of Dr. May Bradshaw."

"Just a moment," smiled the young woman. She was lovely with beautiful mocha skin and large almond-shaped brown eyes. She stared at the men around Ellie and smiled shyly.

"She's lovely," said Ellie to Major.

"El, don't."

"Fine. You're no fun since you grew up."

"I'm a lot of fun. Just not when it comes to my old school friends choosing my dates. I do that just fine on my own."

"Ma'am? Dr. Fayek will be with you in a moment."

"Thank you," smiled Ellie.

They took a seat and stared at the massive stone structures in the entrance of the museum. The gods for many of the temples had been carved from limestone, granite, and marble but were being destroyed in the desert wind, sun, and sand. With the opening of the new national Egyptian museum, artifacts were being saved and preserved at an alarming rate.

"Hello, you must be the friends of May," smiled the gorgeous woman, walking toward them.

"Yes," said Ellie, standing to take her hand. "My name is Ellie Stanton, and these are my friends, Leif, Alistair, Forrest, Garr, Sebastian, Brix, and Major." The woman looked at Major, giving a big smile.

"Are you in the military, Major?" she asked.

"Oh, no, ma'am. Just a family name," he grinned, nodding at her.

She was stunning. If there were paintings of Egyptian queens, this woman would have been the prototype model. She was thin, tall, and beautifully defined with huge eyes, an angular nose and jaw, and full red lips. Her black hair was in an intricate braid down her back, and when she smiled, the dazzling white of her teeth lit up the room.

"Shit," muttered Brix.

"Shut up," growled Major.

"How can I help you all? Would you like a private tour of the museum?" she asked.

"That would be lovely on any other day. The pieces in here are magnificent, but this is a more delicate matter." She nodded, waving them to the back of the hall and into a private room.

"This exhibit won't be open for another few weeks. We'll be alone here. How can I help you?"

"Well, Dr. Fayek," started Leif.

"Elena. Elena is my name. Please, I'm only Dr. Fayek to my students," she smiled.

"Thank you, Elena. This is going to seem unusual, but I have a story to tell you."

"Egyptians love stories," she laughed.

"You probably won't like this one. Ellie is a quadruplet. Her sister, Magnolia, was recently kidnapped, beaten, and raped, but she was saved and is home now, recovering."

"I'm so terribly sorry," said the woman, looking distressed. "This is not the Egypt that I know and love. It's a very different place now."

"I don't blame the entire country," said Ellie. "In fact, we're fairly certain it has nothing to do with Egypt at all."

"Elena, what can you tell us about the possibility of Kushites trying to reclaim their land?" asked Leif.

"The Kushites? There are very few direct descendants left. Sudan is falling apart and has been for decades. They're nearly bankrupt as a nation. For most of their time interacting with Egypt, it was a fruitful relationship. They traded, married, even ruled together for a period of time.

"Then there was unrest, and the Kingdom of Kush became a place for Egyptians to get their slaves and steal what they believed was theirs. Then the Kingdom of Kush took over Egypt for a period of time." She walked toward a glass case that housed several sculptures.

"These are all Kingdom of Kush sculptures. You can see how they more closely resemble the people of Sudan today than what we think of as Egyptian. It's extraordinary that they've survived. But I'm still confused. Why would they have kidnapped your sister?"

"That's what we don't know," said Major. "We don't think she was supposed to be abused, but we do believe that she saw or heard something she shouldn't have. There have been reports of Americans, Egyptians, Sudanese, and Pakistanis all being involved in whatever this is."

The woman stared at the group, stepping back and looking at the men, glancing up and down.

"You're not just regular tourists, are you?" she whispered. No one said a word. She picked up her walkie and pressed the button.

"Yes, Dr. Fayek?"

"Noori, let Dr. McPhersen know that I will be out for the rest of the day. I'm giving a private tour of the Valley of the Kings and Queens to some old friends."

"Of course, doctor"

"Elena, we think this is about the Valley of the Queens," said Ellie.

"I know. But I don't want them to know that will be the only place we go. I like to have some secrets. Come on."

Loading into their own van, Elena directed them back toward the Valley of the Queens.

"Elena, if you don't mind me saying so, your accent is decidedly British and refined. It's quite beautiful," smiled Ellie.

"I don't mind at all. I was sent to British boarding schools," she smiled. My mother was Egyptian but born in London. My father was an archaeologist as well but was killed during a dig south of here."

"I'm sorry," said Leif.

"It's the hazards of the job. Tons of stone, sand, and tunnel above your head as you're hoping and praying to find something that will tell us how these people survived. It's an odd way to make a living, but it gets in your blood and becomes a part of you. My father never wanted to risk his men if he wasn't willing to do the same. I admired him for that."

"Don't we know a lot?" asked Garr. "I mean, don't you know a lot about the tombs and the people."

"We do," she smiled. "We know more about their way of life, day to day activities, food, everything that we could possibly imagine. Yet there's so much more we need to know, want to know.

"Most archaeologists will never find anything significant in their careers. I've been lucky enough to find three tombs. They weren't royal tombs, just average everyday people. But how they were buried, what they were buried with was very telling. We've also discovered Roman, Greek, and Kush burials, which were done slightly different."

"You sound just like May," smirked Forrest.

"I consider that a great compliment. She's one of my mentors, and I adore her and Thomas. I think he might be the most brilliant man I've ever met. He would say things in conversation that had me feeling like a silly primary school child."

"We get that feeling a lot," laughed Major.

As they pulled toward the armed gates of the Valley of the Queens, Elena stuck her head out and spoke rapidly to the men, showing them her credentials. They nodded at her, waving her through.

"They know you," smiled Leif.

"They should. I've been coming here since I was a baby, following my parents around like a puppy. Most little girls wanted ribbons and bows, dresses, and shoes for their birthdays. I wanted digging tools and new dig clothes." She laughed, and Major just stared at the woman, mesmerized by her every move.

"You're passionate. That's a good thing," smiled Ellie.

"Yes, I suppose I am. I'm going to tell you a story, one that I cannot prove but that my father was attempting to prove when he was alive."

She stopped in front of a tomb, the door locked tightly, and they followed her down the steps. On a ring of keys, she took the silver one and opened the chained door, then hit a switch for a long string of lights.

"Are we going in there?" frowned Brix.

"Are you claustrophobic?" she grinned.

"Any man my size is claustrophobic in a place that size. So, yes. I'm claustrophobic." Elena laughed, nodding at the men.

"It will be tight, but it's important for you to see this." Leif looked at the others and nodded. Following the woman down the narrow, low tunnel, Leif was right behind her, then Ellie with Brix at the rear. They made two turns then found themselves in an illuminated large square cavern.

"What is this?" asked Ellie.

"This is the burial site for a woman whom we have no name for yet. All of the stone you see here is marble, which was not found locally. That means that she had great wealth and great importance to have such a tomb made. This stone held her sarcophagus." She waved them over, and they looked down to see glass covering the tomb of the woman. Still wrapped, you could see the outline of her body and face.

"Is that necklace real?" asked Major.

"No. We've removed the original mummy and sarcophagus, as well as the jewelry and all the offerings left behind. It's at the museum. This is a replica so that thieves will leave the tomb alone. The hieroglyphs tell the story of her but don't give a name."

"Is that unusual?" asked Ellie.

"Very. Something here should have her name on it, but it doesn't. What makes this truly remarkable is that it tells the story of the woman coming to Egypt and how she came from the lands that would have been known today as Saudi Arabia, then through what is now Jordan and Jerusalem. She sailed down the Nile to the area known as the Kingdom of Kush, then came back here."

"That's an extraordinary amount of travel for the time," said Sebastian.

"It is. Very much so. Which is why I have spent my life trying to find out who she is. Some believe that she was an Arabian princess. Others say she was a princess of the Kingdom of Kush. But we just don't know yet."

"Have you conducted DNA testing on the mummy?" asked Leif.

"We have, but it's inconclusive. Queen Sitre was said to have DNA not solely Egyptian as well. Many believe she could be Saudi or even Greek."

"How does this play into what we spoke about?" asked Ellie. "My sister wasn't here for antiquities. She was here to help the Egyptian military."

"I think your sister did hear or see something she wasn't supposed to. For the last year, there have been rumblings of a Saudi woman who claims that this queen, or a queen, is her ancestor and that she, in this time, is the queen of Egypt. Now, the only way that could be true is if she were proven to be a direct descendant of Nefertiti or Cleopatra or some other queen. Even then, she wouldn't be the queen of Egypt."

"That's crazy, isn't it?" asked Brix. "I mean, how would anyone be able to tell that someone who lived thousands of years ago has any claim to something today?"

"Well, we know from May that it has been done," said Major. "She did all that research in Mongolia, and it helped them to understand the people of their time. But it does seem a pretty far stretch."

"Perhaps. We no longer have pharaohs, kings, queens, and empresses. Her claims could give her some rights, though, and, more importantly, there is a very remote possibility that it could give Saudi Arabia a crack in the door to Egypt. If that were to happen, imagine how the world's stage would change. If Saudi Arabia and Egypt were to somehow be forced to join, what would the world look like?"