-Arriving at Alexandria
Lara retired to her cabin on the plane about three hours later, after lunch with the other passengers. There she stared at the window pane, gazing outside to the afternoon horizon sky and went into a deep thought. She reflected mainly about what has happened so far in this venture, what they could find out in the next few days, and finally Lara pondered onto her memories. Some of these memories were of previous adventures she had taken and the people she had met throughout her life, as well as one particular person she wondered if she was ever going to see again. Lara deliberated on whether she could trust the people she was with, including Ayesha who had been not really herself since this morning. Something was going on, and Lara was sure of it. But before she thought anymore of it, her trail of thought was interrupted by the unexpected announcement from the loudspeaker.
"Hello all, this is the captain pilot of the flight speaking, we will be making our descent into Alexandria very shortly, so could everyone put on their seatbelts please, thank you..."
Lara glanced over at her watch and it was indeed getting towards the time that they were scheduled to land at the airport.
'Gosh, that was quick' Lara thought as time seemed to have flown by quite swiftly. She left her cabin to join with the others in the lounge area. Everyone was present, and Lara took a seat next to the window. Looking outside, it was still quite bright even though it was mid-to-late afternoon, and they were starting to travel through the midst of a few clouds.
"Won't be long now until we arrive, how are we all doing?" Eric Copper inquired to the people present in the room.
Everyone nodded with some mumbling positively to that question, and then it fell silent again, until Lara spoke up during the silence.
"So Alexandria is where we will be staying whilst we investigate the whereabouts of the next artefact" Lara asked, looking at Eric who came up with the answer.
"Yes, soon after we land, we will visit and drop off our luggage at the hotel we will be staying at during our search. Afterwards once we have settled into the accommodation, we will make our way to the site in the Sahara Desert, and get an update from Tim on how the investigation is going there" Eric replied.
"Okay, sounds like a good plan" Lara gave a weak smile and a nod to Eric Copper, who turned his gaze back at the aircraft window.
They began their slowly descant into Alexandria International Airport. As they were landing, Lara took another good look out of the window, seeing the beautiful built city landscape. Stepping out of the aeroplane once it stopped in the terminal, two limousines were parked nearby, these being similar to the ones that were present at Shimla airport. No doubt that Eric's company had a car firm on hand ready to transport him wherever he went, particularly when travelling from one country to another. They got into the cars, and drove away from the airport, going onto their next destination.
The hotel where they were planning on staying throughout the duration of the search wasn't too far away from the airport, and they soon arrived at the grand entrance. It was a five-star establishment, known for it's excellent customer service, meals and it's very luxurious areas within the premises. The new visitors left all their luggage in the main reception area, and immediately at the doorway Eric made his next announcement.
"Right have we all left our belongings to the side there … Excellent, no time like the present, let's head over to the site" He so hurriedly announced.
Lara was quite surprised by the hastily statement. Clearly he was wasting no time into pursuing the next artefact, and she should have expected no less. Notably though Eric Copper desperately wanted to know how the progress was going in the search, even though it's only been less than 24 hours and they had only just arrived. There was something about this that Lara didn't like. 'Why the sudden need to rush into this' she thought to herself. It was not like the group had competition or if there was a certain time limit. They went back into the cars, leaving the hotel and straight onto the road to the Sahara.
It was still mid-late afternoon, as the sun was just midway setting in when they reached the Sahara Desert border. A great huge dry land with varying to little vegetation growing, covering a vast distance across Africa. The camp of the search party had been set up nearby this border. Of how they were to find the whereabouts of the next artefact in this was a mystery. It could take days, weeks or even years to even find one speck of evidence of its resting place in the desert.
"Ah you've arrived, great to see all of you, how was your flight here?" Tim happily greeted them, as the newly arrivals made their way to the camp.
"Yes very good thanks Tim. Now to business, how has the conducted search under your supervision been progressing?"Eric responded, with a tone of urgency in his voice.
"We have covered much of this area, digging up and seeing if we can find anything that may lead somewhere... Unfortunately so far, we haven't found anything" Tim said, with a disappointed expression as he addressed Eric's question.
"...Don't worry, that was to be expected, you've only started this search yesterday, and it seems you're doing a good job so far" Eric gradually reassured Tim, though there was a noticeable slight pause at the beginning to his sentence. He then moved onto another question. "So what will be the next area you'll be covering?"
"Over here, I'll show you on this laptop" Tim pointed out over to a table at the far end of the camp, where a laptop terminal had been set-up. They all walked over to it, staring at the screen.
The laptop displayed a visual map of the small area they were currently in. Some areas in the map were covered in red, while others were filled with green.
"As you can see on this map, the red areas are what we have seen to so far, while the green ones we have still yet to look through properly" Tim explained, with a noticeable worried look in his nervous eyes.
Eric inspected the diagram, then withdrew his gaze on it and went back to Tim.
"Fair enough, carry on for the meantime and we will meet you later at the hotel." Eric said, sounding a bit calmer than before.
"Okay, we'll let you know immediately if we find anything" Tim added, with the previous worry in his eyes slowly going away.
"Cheers, see you later" Eric said with a grin, as he turned with the group following along back into the cars.
With that, they departed from the site and headed back to the hotel. Once inside the main reception, room keys were given to each person from the receptionist, and they all went their separate ways into their selected rooms. As Lara entered her room, she saw her luggage had already been brought up, as well as a note having been left on the bedside. Reading through the short note, it said that dinner would be served at 8:00pm in the dining room. After having the very filling delicious meal with everyone present, Lara retreated back into her room soon after. She had a quick shower and shortly fell asleep, wondering what events would happen tomorrow.