The Stolen Papyrus

Chapter One

The helicopter thrummed to life. Excitement scuttled inside Leila's chest like a swarm of scarab beetles. She'd dreamed of this moment since she was a girl, tagging along with her father on digs. And almost every day as she studied for her bachelor's in archaeology. And definitely every day as she continued to sit in even more lectures and seminars for never-ending grad school.

The pilot gave a thumbs up and the helicopter lurched. Cracked asphalt shrank beneath them, tufts of grass whipping around in a churning cloud of sand. 

The machine hovered, rotated, then dipped forward as the pilot headed toward their first point of interest. 

Rippling sugar cane fields zipped by beneath them, and moments later, they were rising higher and higher over Cairo. 

Dotted with white felucca sails, the Nile River cut through a brown- and sand-colored Tetris board of buildings like a glittering blue snake. Lush green meadows hugged the winding Nile, giving way to yellow sand dunes that stretched to the horizon. 

Leila sat glued to the window as the Great Pyramids rose like golden mountains in the distance. She could only imagine their former glory over three thousand years ago when they were new, completely covered with polished white limestone that now only capped the top of Khufu's pyramid. 

She took in a prolonged breath. Here she was at last, on her way to excavate tombs and temples, to run her hands through the sand, to get the same dirt under her fingernails the ancient Egyptians once walked on. 

"For the record," her coworker, Emmanuela Giovanni, blurted from her seat by the other window, "I want to be buried in a pyramid." Her melodic Italian accent sounded surprisingly clear on the headset, despite the permanent thumping from the rotating blades above them.

"You know, aliens built them," Karl Tillman muttered from the middle seat. Though sitting in the helicopter was no trouble for Leila's average figure, Karl's tall, rounded frame forced him to sit with his shoulders hunched and legs squeezed together. 

"Yeah. They line up with Orion's belt." She giggled, shamelessly baiting him. Karl probably wanted to get into a discussion about a subject he was an expert in, like Star Trek. 

"Ja, genau," Karl said, his voice brightening. "Exactly!" He swiped a few strands of his ramen-noodle hair from his eyes. "That's where the aliens live." 

"Karl," Emma groaned, her face buried in her hands. "For the hundredth time, the ancient Egyptians weren't aliens." 

"People didn't believe Galileo when he said the earth revolved around the sun, either." Karl shrugged and leaned back with his eyes closed. Clearly this conversation wasn't going the direction he wanted. 

"I'd hardly compare you to the father of modern science," Emma scoffed. 

"I heard that." 

With a shake of her head, Leila smiled and shifted her attention back to the window. The three of them had spent the last six weeks together at field school in Giza, where they received the mandatory instruction on archaeological excavation. After working with Karl and Emma every day in the trenches, she was used to their antics. 

The flight south was only supposed to take half an hour, but the excavation leader pointed out more and more of the various archaeological sites from his place in the co-pilot seat. The pilot was more than happy to oblige, flying around each one for closer observation. 

Leila wasn't about to complain. The tombs and temples were as interesting from above as from below. From up here, she could see exactly how precise and deliberate the ancient Egyptian architects were with their building arrangements.