Free Blood and Sand by Matthew James Page B

training part was easy.”
    Omar just stands there waiting for me to finish my answer, but I don’t get to give him one. It comes from someone else.
    “On the job, Mr. Jafari, he learned his trade on location with some of the best and brightest,” my dad says, actually looking proud. “Better than any university could offer.”
    “A boat-load cheaper too!” Kane exclaims.
    “Two boats actually,” I say holding up two fingers like a peace sign.
    “Just remember one thing, Mr. Jafari…” Dad pauses choosing his words carefully. “Just because my son doesn’t have the title Doctor in front of his name or a PhD after it, doesn’t mean he’s completely incompetent.”
    I give Dad an annoyed look since he decided to emphasize the word completely .
    “Really?” I ask.
    “Also, while I’m impressed with Harrison’s work, I still would have liked to see him get a formal education. It may have cleaned up his personality a little.” Now I get the same look back from my father but, I also get a slight nod from him too.
    All I can say is, “Thanks?” Not quite sure how to respond to the back-handed complement he just paid me, but sadly, the admiration doesn’t last.
    “You should be!” Dad barks. “You’d be laying in the gutter somewhere if it wasn’t for me!” He turns and starts back towards our destination, the excavation’s command tent. It’s where all our project gear that was sent ahead of us is stored.
    All I can do is stand there. I have nothing to say, so Kane says it for me.
    “You and your father have the weirdest relationship,” he says with a laugh.      
    “You have no idea, big guy. You should have seen what it was like when I first started with him, when I was completely incompetent…” I let out a sigh. “Let’s go.”
    The last leg of the journey continues in silence.
    We make our way around a few large mounds of sand that were cleared away from the center of the site. From the air it would look like a circle of sand outside an inner loop of tents, not unlike a wagon circle in the wild-west. Just inside the ring of tents is the dig site. The tents act as a buffer to help keep out the strong winds coming in from the desert, which if violent enough could re-bury our prize in short order.
    A delay like that could cost us more than just time, I think, replaying the attack in Algiers and how I almost died.
    We enter in through the rear of the main tent, the hub of the dig site. There are all kinds of equipment lining each side. On the left wall is shelving with different types of tools along with work benches filled with samples of various kinds of rocks. The right wall has more work stations, but these are filled with computers and a variety of microscopes and analysis machines, neither of which I’m completely versed in. And by completely versed, I mean not versed…at all.
    But, none of these hold anyone’s attention. Everyone is gathered by the front entrance. Kane stands off to the side holding open the flap so everyone can see what’s outside. I have to push through the crowd a little to see what all the commotion is.
    What I see is like nothing I could have imagined.

17
     
    None of us speak, we just stare. About 50 feet in front of us is a sloping ramp that has been dug and cleared to allow the monstrous excavation equipment in. The slanted entry into the cleared pit is roughly 10 feet below us and it is huge. The new site is now an expanse of leveled sand about the size of an Olympic sized pool—around 80 feet in width and twice that in length.
    At the heart of the pit is a gleaming stone slab, which is the size of a basketball court—about 90 by 50. Except, it’s not stone. It’s a darker shade of gold or maybe a bronze color, I think. But, there is more than just the color of the stone or metal or whatever the hell it is that has everyone’s attention. There is writing all over it, all the ancient languages of the world.
    Just like the photo Omar sent Dad, I