Free The Eden Factor (Kathlyn Trent/Marcus Burton Romance Adventure Series Book 2) by Kathryn Le Veque Page B

proof."
    "Proof of what?"
    "That The Vatican sent you.
Otherwise, my lips are sealed."
    Fayd stepped in, his voice soft.
"Kathlyn, I can assure you that he is legitimate. His credentials are on file
with The Center for Middle Eastern History. I can have them faxed here in a few
minutes if you truly wish to see them."
    Kathlyn looked at Fayd. "If
you tell me that you've seen them and that they are valid, then I'll believe
you."
    "I've seen them and they are
indeed valid."
    "Good enough," Kathlyn
looked back at the fat man. "Are you a priest, Mr. de Tormo, or just an
administrator?"
    "I have taken my vows of
celibacy. I also have a doctorate in Biology."
    "So what is it you wish to
know, exactly?"
    De Tormo showed his exasperation.
"What did you see, Mrs. Burton?"
    Kathlyn leaned forward on her
chair. "For the record, my name is Dr. Trent. Mrs. Burton is my married
name and I do not go by it professionally because it would pull my husband into
a realm he's better left out of. As for what I saw in Iraq, it's exactly as you
described it. A human skeleton with wings."
    "Does it look like a
structured burial?"
    Kathlyn deferred to Marcus at
this point since he had done the actual excavation, such as it was.  Marcus sat
slightly behind her, stretched out on his chair, conveying the fact that he was
both unimpressed and un-intimidated by the men seated across from him. Kathryn
remembered well the expression on his face; it was the same one he had when he
had first met her.
     "Dr. Burton?" she
invited him to reply.
    He just looked at them for a
moment as if they were fleas on the butt of a dog. "It didn't look like a
structured burial to me," he said. "We observed an extremely
antiquated skeleton that we determined to be approximately 91 inches in length
that was lying on its back, slightly twisted to the left side. I was able to
observe a protrusion from the right shoulder blade that appeared to be similar
to something found in a very large bird, like a condor or an Egyptian Vulture.
From what I was able to estimate using the standard measurement of my hand,
eight inches from the tip of my forefinger to the base of my palm, the long
bone that protruded out of the shoulder blade was about sixty inches in length.
Double that when the wing is extended and you have a nearly twenty foot
wingspan from tip to tip. But that, of course, is based only on the right
protrusion. The body is apparently laying on the left protrusion, though parts
of it were visible."
    De Tormo listened intently,
though his expression held extreme caution. "From your observations, Dr.
Burton, would you say that these protrusions were natural or man-made?"
    Marcus shrugged. "They were
most definitely bone, the same texture and color and in proportion to the bones
on the skeleton itself. If you're asking if I saw where they connected to the
actual skeleton, I can positively say that I did not see a ball and socket
joint. But most wings don't attach that way, anyway. Look at a bird's skeleton;
the wings are held to the body by soft joints and ligaments and muscles."
    "Did you see evidence of
that, then?”
    "I saw an unusual indent in
the shoulder blade nearest the protrusion that could have had something to do
with it. I just won't know until we can excavate the skeleton and reconstruct
it."
    "But would you say that it
looked to you like an angel?"
    "I won't commit one way or
the other until it's reconstructed."
    De Tormo looked at Kathlyn as if
to question her professional opinion of the find. She met his gaze steadily.
"Dr. Burton's expertise is not biblical archaeology, it's Egyptology. 
Certainly he's not going to commit to something of this magnitude until he's
sure about it."
    "But you're willing to
attest that it is the remains of an angel?"
    "I'm willing to attest to
the fact that it looked like an angel."
    "And would you be willing to
return to Iraq and assist Dr. Fahdlan in excavating it?"
    Kathlyn passed a glance at Fayd.
"Since I was the first