Favoured Friends
Part 48/51

Summary: An invitation to the National Egyptology Conference quickly becomes deadly race for the mythic Ichriem against an old rival of Sydney's - the assassin known only as 'the Viper'.

Note: This is a round robin originally posted at the Relic Hunter Yahoo Group. Although I'm posting it, I did not write the entire thing. This part was written by Cari Loran ( carilorus@yahoo.com )

Also, I have Support Services. That means that, if you want, you can put me on Author Alert and receive notice when other stories of mine are posted, even if you haven't paid yourself.

Posted: Sunday, February 1, 2004

"Glass?" Derek echoed. That was it, they'd all officially flipped their lids. Glass on the ground… What did they think this was, the back alley behind a pool hall? "Lemme see that."

Claudia dutifully passed him the pebble, then looked down at the cave floor as if searching for some more examples.

Derek scrutinized the little bit of nothing in his hand, directing the beam of his flashlight at it and watching as it twinkled like a miniature prism. I'll be damned. It wasn't Coke bottle quality, in fact, it was rather dull and milky in appearance and seemed a little chunky, but it was definitely some kind of glass. He suddenly wished he'd paid more attention to his droning college history professor rather than flirting with that redheaded chick who'd sat next to him with the big… "Alright, I'll play. What's the significance?"

Sydney tilted her head slightly. "The Phoenicians are usually credited with discovering glass," she explained. "There was a myth that around four or five thousand BC some soldiers camping on a beach accidentally created it by starting a fire in the sand and cooking their dinner over blocks of soda. The soda coupled with the heat and the sand created a sort of molten glass in the cooking pit, which hardened after the fire went out."* Of course, this was never proven, and it wasn't until over a thousand years later that glass products began appearing around the Mediterranean and Egypt… beads and rods mostly… some dating back to 2500BC."*

"Hmm… Yes," Nigel chipped in rather absently, having returned to staring in thoughtful fascination at the ancient writing on the wall. He ran his fingers over one of the words, more interested in translating than really joining the conversation. "Although there are quite a few discrepancies as to where they were actually first manufactured."

Lloyd scrubbed his hand across his face. Just what he needed: the history of the world as lived by glass smiths. But he had a feeling he was going to have put up with it for the time being.

Finding Ichriem hadn't been his initial assignment, his orders had been to bring in The Viper, and if at all possible, recover Nigel Bailey. There were rules in his organization after all… rule one was of course, 'don't get caught' (a handy guideline which had pretty much been blown to hell on this trip). The second rule though was the one he'd always placed more stock in, trying to put it first whenever possible: Save the hostage.

Then of course, then there was the addendum, hidden rule 2.1: Appease the diplomats, who in this case, would probably be less than thrilled to explain how a British citizen was kidnapped from police protection.

It was only after his last check-in on the helicopter he discovered his orders had changed. He was now to keep Ichriem from the Gurel Nataz at all costs. Backup was supposedly in the area, Abraham had assured him a team was here, but where they were hiding on this speck of an island, he didn't know.

Sure he'd tracked down a few artifacts for the government before ever meeting Sydney Fox, but he was no expert. He'd merely followed the clues and hoped for the best. Luck and training always seemed to get him through, and he would be the first to admit he was no 'true grit,' never-say-die relic hunter.

He had to defer to the experts on this one.

It was up to Syd and the Bailey boys to figure out where this forsaken statue was hiding, and if they wanted to sit around and brainstorm, he'd have to go along with it… Yeesh!..Boring!… Which wasn't to say he couldn't try speeding things along. "Alright, I get it, glass has been around for a long time, so's my great aunt Matilda." He closed his eyes and exhaled before opening them again. "Come on guys, long story short huh? Did they have the know-how to actually embed this thing in glass? And even if they could, is it something they would have done?"

"If they did," Preston began, turning slightly from his deciphering, "it would defy history. There's no record of any society on the Mediterranean rim ever using glass on such a large scale. The idol itself is supposedly a meter high and made mainly of gold… to embed it in glass, they would have probably dipped it into the molten mixture…" he chewed his lip thoughtfully, "…which I'm afraid is scientifically impossible."

Silence momentarily fell.

"Of course," Nigel muttered, suddenly seeing exactly what his brother meant and mentally berating himself for not realizing it sooner. Had he been Wile E. Coyote a light bulb would have popped over his head. "It wouldn't work." Glancing up, he could tell no one else had a clue what they were talking about, not even Sydney judging by the odd look she was giving him.

"Why not?" Claudia asked in confusion, giving voice to the obvious question.

"Chemistry," Nigel explained, exchanging a confirming glance with his brother. "It takes temperatures of roughly 1400 to 1600°C to create molten glass… and considering pure gold melts at not much more than 1000°C…" he trailed off. "If they did try encasing Ichriem directly in glass, given the technology of the time, it would have likely either deformed the statue or completely melted the gold and destroyed it."

Sydney felt her jaw drop slightly, warding off the urge to slap her forehead.

"He's right," Preston took up again. "For the most part I'm afraid adding gold directly to molten glass usually only produces gold-colored glass."

"For the most part…" Derek echoed Preston, "so you're saying it's impossible." He posed it as more of a statement than a question.

"Probably," Preston mused. "It might be possible with a smaller object, gold is conductive, it would likely disperse the heat well, but it would have to have been taken in and out of the molten glass incredibly fast…" he sighed and shook his head. "Given the size and composition we know it would weigh several thousand pounds. I don't think they would have been able to maneuver something so large quickly enough. I also don't think they would have risked it… it could have been too easily damaged and they wanted to make sure it was intact to torment the Egyptians."

"Alright," the agent nodded; it made sense to him… in a freaky, old world, 'let's-show-'em-what-we've-got' kind of way. "So what about another way, like glassblowing? Could they have made, I donno, some kind of bubble around it?"

Nigel shook his head. "No. They didn't have the technology, glassblowing didn't come into play until several hundred years later. We have to remember the time frame we're dealing with." A rather wry note entered his tone. "I actually had a little discussion with the Viper about this earlier… Our target year for the theft of Ichriem is roughly 1200BC -- the year the Phoenicians broke away from the Egyptian Empire. This was nearly thirteen hundred years after those glass beads first began circulating around the Mediterranean. By then glasswork was not only fairly extensive but commonplace…" he brought his hand up to his chin in a thoughtful expression, "…the pharaohs in particular were in love with it." He looked directly at Sydney. "Remember Thutmose III?"

"How could I forget?" she smirked slightly. She and Nigel had once been inside his tomb, literally reading the writing on his wall during their quest to clear her friend Bruce Farrow of the theft of the pharaoh's diamond.* She'd always silently dubbed him the King of Shiny Things. Suddenly she knew what Nigel was driving toward. "The goblet," she breathed, "Thutmose's goblet… It was made over two hundred years before Ichriem disappeared. It's one of the most intricate pieces of glasswork ever discovered."*

"Right." Nigel smiled.

Sydney shook her head absently, admonishing herself for not having had a better grasp of the situation. She'd been pushed into the hunt cold, forced to hit the ground running with what little she had and never look back. What little she knew came mostly from Artie's old stories… bits and pieces that only led him from one false site to another over the years.

Her mental timeline had always placed Ichriem around 2000BC, but if Nigel was right and the statue was taken eight hundred years later… the Egyptians might have thought glass was interesting, or possibly a curiosity, but, by itself, it wouldn't have stopped them from trying to get Ichriem back. The point seemed moot now anyway, as Nigel had just reminded her why she hadn't become a chemistry professor.

She swiveled her head to the wall, staring at the Phoenician symbols. It wasn't her best language, but she knew more than enough about it. There had to be something there… something they were overlooking. "We have brought it to the stronghold of Atlantis," she reread the words, "and flaunt it in our enemy's face. They can see it, but their arms aren't long enough to reach it." The Phoenicians were cocky, they were bragging… proud of their theft and convinced of their cleverness. The clue was there, she knew it, she could practically smell it.

In the background she was aware of Preston and Nigel talking, speculating about the translation, but her mind was taking a different turn. The idol was somewhere the Egyptians could see it, but not get it, and height wouldn't have been a deterrent. The waters around the island were notoriously rough, and while the Phoenicians were arguably the greatest sea power of the time, she had a feeling the Egyptians could have made it to the island if they'd been properly motivated.

And the glass---she had a feeling there was still something to it.

"Nigel," she looked up at her colleague, having not risen from her comfortable sitting position on the floor. "Thutmose's goblet was made with a silicate paste core that was removed after it was molded right?"*

Nigel broke off his conversation with his brother and furrowed his brow. "Right, the silicate could withstand the heat of the glass. I believe they also used clay for the same purpose…especially with things like goblets. After the glass cooled they'd merely chip the clay from the core…" He broke off and his eyes suddenly widened. At his side, Preston sucked in a breath of comprehension.

"The clay!" the three of them exclaimed in tandem.

"Of course!" Preston breathed. "It would have been brilliant!"

Ah! Derek thought, perking up slightly at the apparent epiphany. This was the kind of talk he wanted to hear. That didn't take half as long as I thought.

"They could have hidden it in plain sight," Nigel practically gushed with the idea, shaking his head in near disbelief. "The Egyptians might have passed by everyday and seen it, but never known it was there… that explains why they never recovered it."

"Talk about flaunting it in your enemies face." Sydney arched a corner of her mouth in a sly smile.

Claudia looked at Derek, who merely shrugged, then looked from Nigel to Preston and Sydney and pursed her lips. She hated being left out of the loop, if the three of them wanted to play psychic friends, they could at least translate when an audience was present. "Um, okay, so what did they do? Bury it in clay?"

"No," Nigel answered, a glow of discovery in his voice, "not buried. They covered it in it."

"…For protection from the molten glass," Preston took up the explanation as soon as Nigel finished the sentence, having almost the same excited tone of voice.

Sydney nodded. "The clay would have absorbed the heat and kept the whole thing nice and cool."

Derek whistled, suitably impressed. "Smooth." What else could he say? You had to admire anyone who went to that much trouble just to antagonize an enemy… and he'd antagonized quite a few of his own over the years.

"Yes, and it could have been disguised as nearly anything," Nigel pointed out. "While they hadn't mastered clear glass, they were quite good with various colors… I can't imagine it would've been too hard for them to come up with something greenish gray," he patted the wall of the cave with a mischievous expression, "perhaps even the same shade as these rocks."

Derek caught the note of connotation in the kid's voice and arched an eyebrow. "So you think they disguised it as part of the island? Made it look just like any other piece of rock?"

"Right," Preston looked to the agent. "It would also have eliminated the need to dip the idol in the glass, they could have just poured the glass over it, perhaps using some kind of rough mold. They wouldn't have been overly concerned with the shape, as long as it looked like anything but a statue." Preston found the whole idea fascinating, plus it would explain why there was no record of the culture using glass on such a scale. Glass had been used for trade and profit, people liked trinkets and beads, goblets and dinnerware… there had never been a market or a need for a large, misshapen glass clump.

"Alright," Derek fought off a wince as he spoke, his adrenaline level had tapered off a bit after they'd entered the cave, and in his current state, he wondered if that was the only thing keeping him upright. Still… he didn't feel quite as bad as he had earlier and mentally downgraded his injuries a notch. He had a feeling his sore insides were more bruised than ruptured… otherwise he would have keeled over long before making it to the helicopter and all the adrenaline in the world wouldn't have helped. Good news, but that didn't mean it still didn't hurt like hell. "So how are we supposed to find it?"

"There's one clue here," Sydney pointed at the wall. "It says it was where the Egyptians could see it, so it must be somewhere unobstructed on the east or southeast side of the island-the sides facing Egypt and the old trade routes. Other than that…" she sighed and trailed off.

Nigel stared at the writing, snagging his brother's sleeve and turning him back towards it as well. "What are we missing?" he mused, bringing his hand up to his chin and furiously pouring over the translation again.

"I don't know," his brother muttered in return, staring just as hard at the writing. "There just aren't any specifics here-just vague implications about the power of the idol," he pointed to a few symbols, "the theft, and the curses on Egypt. Aside from what Sydney's pointed out, there isn't the first thing about where to look." He ran his hand through his hair in frustration and glanced around the cave, being met with nothing but an arched ceiling and innocuous gray-tinged walls. If there were any more clues in it, they weren't immediately visible. Preston's train of thought suddenly screeched to a halt and he turned around. "Derek," he asked quickly, "how did you know about this cave?"

The agent's head snapped up. A curious, almost surprised expression marked his features. "I don't know, it was in the intelligence report I read on the chopper. I assumed the team sent ahead of us found it… in fact," he admitted, frowning slightly, "I was expecting to find them here."

Sydney frowned as well. What had happened to Derek's backup? Had they been captured by the Gurel Nataz? And speaking of the proverbial bank of bad pennies, what were they doing anyway? They'd set up an excavation not far from the cave… at an inland location, which, by all clues, couldn't be where Ichriem was hidden. Why? Was it a decoy? Did they know something she didn't? Or, just like the Nazis in Indiana Jones, were they merely digging in the wrong place?

"Do you have any aerial photographs?" Preston continued, oblivious to Sydney's internal monologue.

Derek nodded, unzipping a long pocket on his combat vest and withdrawing a few folded sheets of paper and pen. "What are you looking for?"

Preston moved, taking the pictures and unfolding them, then kneeling down and laying them out on the ground. They were blown-up, enhanced images, obviously computer printed copies, but of good quality. Circular topographic marks of higher and lower elevations were even superimposed over the images. The others joined him as Derek held the flashlight over their heads, creating an almost angelic halo effect around them. "I'm not sure yet." He noticed a spot circled on one of the pictures and pointed to it. "Is this the cave?"

"Yeah," Derek answered. "We're on the north side of the island right now… you can probably tell from the picture, the elevation is a little lower here than where we landed in the south."

Preston traced his finger along the east and southeastern shore. "This is the area we're concentrating on. If the statue is there, we have to narrow it down a bit more." He cocked his head slightly. "Off the top we can eliminate any place that doesn't offer a clear view of the ocean." He reached up and took the pen Derek offered him, quickly uncapping it and making a few marks on one of the maps.

"Right," Sydney nodded in approval. "And chances are good it wouldn't be directly on the ground either. They would have put it up high enough to be seen, even if they thought no one would ever see it."

Preston made a few more marks on the map. They'd eliminated about sixty percent of the territory. "Alright, anything else?"

Nigel studied the map thoughtfully. Even from the air the landscape left much to be desired… the northern portion, where they apparently were, bore all mental marks of the word 'island'. The sandy beach and scattered tropical plants made it look every bit like its more popular cousins, the Canary Islands to the west, but it was a shallow illusion, covering a mere half a mile of shore. His eyes suddenly zeroed in on one of the unmarked gaps that escaped Preston's pen on the eastern shore. "I could be mistaken, but doesn't this look like another cave entrance?"

With a grunt of effort, Derek knelt down to have a better look. "Let me see…" he scrutinized the spot on the bluffs Nigel indicated, carefully examining the topographic markings. "It could be, the contours are deflected… or it could be some kind of natural drain."* He looked up to see a familiar spark in the eyes of the three scholars, and he knew what that meant. "Let me guess, you want to go there?"

"It's the best shot we have." Sydney agreed. "If they wrote in this cave, who's to say they didn't do it in another one… one closer to where they hid the statue?"

Derek exhaled, mentally laying out the logistics. The Gurel Nataz was close, but then again, going to the east side of the island meant moving away from them… a definite plus. Like Sydney, he didn't know what their enemy was up to with their not-to-distant excavation, but he trusted Syd and the Baileys had a better feel for relics than the Gurel Nataz.

And as they didn't have any better ideas anyway… "What the hell?" he decided. "Shouldn't take more than an hour or two… besides," he smiled wryly, "I've always wanted to see the sunrise from a deserted island."

At the agreement they all stood, meeting each other's glance in the shadowed glow of the flashlight. Something unspoken passed between them: they were a team, and together they were going to make sure each of them lived to see not only that sunrise, but the thousands that would follow it.

End Part 48

Notes: (As ff.n doesn't like links, these will be posted in the review section.)

* Gold melts at 1,063.0°C (or 1945°F) Alloyed gold, which is gold chemically combined with other metals, has lower melting points. (For example, 18 karat gold will melt before 24 karat gold will-the lower the karat, the more non-gold alloy is present)

End Part Forty-Eight