Higher on the excavation’s pecking order were the specialists: computer experts, technicians, archaeologists, anthropologists and site managers, all under Sebastian’s direct supervision. As he continued moving to approach the limousine, they continually approached him with questions, demands or proposals. He slipped past them all with the serene calm and soothing apologetic words that usually salved the bruised egos of Type A professionals whose demands were either denied or ignored.
Unfortunately, Sebastian’s brand of cool charm registered zero on the efficacy scale of the slightly wrinkled government suit who climbed out of her limousine strangling a sheaf of papers in one manicured hand.
“Ms. Arenas, how delightful to see you,” Sebastian began, relieved to see that it was not her boss, Minister Juan Ramirez, who was paying a visit. He smiled with sincerity as he strained to find a few pleasant aspects of the woman’s demeanor on which to concentrate.
One of the more valuable things he’d learned growing up in the long shadow of his father, the gregarious, highly driven, and deceptively easygoing head of his own import-export business, was to concentrate on the positives during human interactions. In Ms. Arenas’s case, Sebastian settled on her lovely, somewhat intelligent eyes and admirable hygiene.
“I see you’ve received my report,” he pleasantly told the woman, glancing curiously at the choking fist she’d made around his perfectly innocent papers. “Have you had the time to read it yet?”
“This is very troubling, Dr. De Rosa. Very troubling indeed,” said Olga Arenas, the assistant minister of the interior for the Republic of Mexico. “You have been promising results for three months now, but so far we have seen nothing. This report only confirms your failure. When the minister reads this, he will be furious.”
“We’re close,” Sebastian lied smoothly. “Very close.”
The woman frowned. “You’ve been ‘close’ for a year and a half.”
Perspiring, Ms. Arenas tugged at the lapels of her slightly wrinkled business suit and squinted up at the hot afternoon sun. Sensing her anger, Sebastian thought it best to put the woman’s negative energy to better use. Hoping his “motion spends emotion” lecture to his students worked equally well in application, he began a brisk walk right through the debris-strewn center of the busy site. Ms. Arenas trailed him, stumbling unsteadily on high heels as she crossed the broken ground.
“Archaeology is not an exact science,” Sebastian told her.
Ms. Arenas opened her mouth to speak, but her reply was drowned out by the sudden roar of a gasoline-powered motor, followed by loud cheers.
Dr. De Rosa waved his encouragement to the men who’d managed to get the generator started—two electrical engineers and a retired electronics expert from the United States Navy. They had set up an experimental sonar device that was—theoretically—capable of detecting underground buildings, tombs, ruins or other solid structures buried by the passing of centuries. But testing their device had been impossible because the gasoline-powered electric generator had been broken for days.
As the generator’s juice now flowed to the sonar device, the navy man threw a switch, and the sonar screen sprang to life. The triumph was short-lived, however. In a shower of sparks and a blast of black smoke, the generator exploded. Tongues of fire leaped into the sky until a quick-thinking bystander doused the machine with an extinguisher.
At this sight, Sebastian frowned. And Ms. Arenas scowled.
“I don’t see any science here at all, Professor,” said the woman, her lovely eyes hard, her hot tone apparently unwilling to be put on ice.
Most unfortunate, thought Sebastian.
Concluding that the woman would not be charmed, he resorted to one last trick. Turning quickly, the professor attempted to flee from the bureaucratic barracuda. But his escape route was blocked by a bank of sifting barrels, and Ms. Arenas pounced.
“You’re holding up the development of this land for tourism at great cost to the Mexican government,” she barked. “The Ministry of the Interior gave you a permit to dig for eighteen months. Your time is up, Professor.”
“Now wait a minute—”
But it was Olga Arenas who stalked away this time. “Results by the end of the week or we pull the plug!” she called over her shoulder.
Sebastian De Rosa squinted in the burning sun as the woman climbed back into her limousine and sped off. Cursing, he kicked a rock into the bush, then sagged against a tree. He and his team had been working like tireless mules for eighteen months and had found nothing. How was he going to make a significant discovery in only five days, let alone prove his theory about the origin of Mesoamerican culture and civilization? Impossible.
He cursed himself for not working harder on the politics. Only recently, Sebastian had learned that a rival archaeologist had been working behind his back to gain the ear of Mexico’s minister of cultural affairs, the influential and no doubt corrupt Juan Ramirez. The unknown rival had undermined Sebastian, speaking out against his project, his theories, and against him.
Such predatory behavior was nothing new in the academic world, and nothing new to Sebastian. After all, he’d grown up admiring his father’s ability to best men who would smile in his face while thrusting a self-serving dagger in his gut. But what Sebastian hadn’t expected was the campaign of personal and professional destruction that had been waged against him ever since he’d broken with the herd to question a few of the cherished “facts” of modern archaeology—a scientific discipline he had naively assumed was in pursuit of the truth.
The controversy had begun when Sebastian had published his doctoral dissertation challenging the notion that the Egyptian pharaoh Cheops had built the Great Pyramid. When irate Egyptologists had demanded that he prove his “absurd” theory, Sebastian had published a second paper—his own translation of the inscriptions found on the mysterious “Inventory Stela” discovered in the ruins of the Temple of Isis in the 1850s. A record of the pharaoh Cheops’s reign carved in limestone, the inscriptions clearly indicate that both the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx were already on the Giza plateau long before Cheops was even born.
This second paper was the academic equivalent of setting a hornet’s nest on fire. The implications of Sebastian’s theory, if proven, were staggering and would change recorded human history. And Sebastian had gone even further. He’d declared that the Great Pyramid and Sphinx were both far older than the Egyptian civilization that had sprung up in their shadows, and both were likely the remnants of an older and still unknown civilization.
Dr. Sebastian’s reputation had suffered after the mainstream press had misrepresented this theory. Upon obtaining a copy of his dissertation, a Boston tabloid reporter had twisted his ideas. Hence the unfortunate headline: “Archaeologist Claims People from Atlantis Built the Pyramid.”
Other tabloids had picked up on this misrepresentation, and the resulting wave of speculation among the Roswell, UFO, X-Files crowd had done little to uplift Dr. De Rosa’s reputation among his peers.
Of course, Dr. De Rosa had never uttered the word “Atlantis,” and he publicly objected to the simplistic characterization of his research. But the damage had already been done, and all his protestations only threw more fuel on the fire.
Since the publication of those first erroneous reports, Dr. Sebastian De Rosa’s work had been both praised and condemned in the archaeological community—but mostly the latter. Sebastian generally ignored his critics and doggedly pressed on with his quest to find the connection between the pyramid-building civilizations of the Nile Valley and those in Central and South America. Two years ago, that quest had landed him in Mexico, where he’d been granted a rare opportunity to examine a unique and inexplicable artifact.