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watched Prague speak into the satellite radio, the words lost in the loud roar of the engines. He could feel the change in air pressure as the C-130 descended. A glance out the window showed water, then shoreline.
    The wheels of the 130 touched earth and the plane began rolling. It stopped in an amazingly short distance for such a large aircraft and the back ramp opened, as the plane turned around, facing back down the runway.
    "Let's go!" Prague yelled. "Off-load everything."
    Turcotte lent a hand as they rolled the helicopter off and into the shelter of the nearby trees. He was impressed with the ability of the pilots. The runway was little more than a flat expanse of rough grass between dangerously close lines of trees on either side.
    As soon as they had the helicopter and equipment out, the plane was heading back down the strip, the ramp not even fully closed as the plane lifted off into the night sky. Less than a minute later the second plane was landing and the process was repeated. In a few minutes they had all three helicopters and personnel on the ground.
    As the sound of the second plane faded into the distance, Prague was all business. "I want camo nets up and everything under cover, ASAP. Let's move, people!"

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    38 -

    3

    CAIRO, EGYPT
    T-137 HOURS

    "I don't know what's wrong with this thing," the graduate student said, twisting knobs and adjusting controls on the machinery in front of him. The sound of his shrill voice echoed off the stone walls and slowly died out, leaving stillness in the air.
    "Why are you so sure there's something wrong with the machine?" Professor Nabinger asked in a quieter voice.
    "What else could be causing these negative readings?"
    The student let go of the controls of the magnetic resonance imager that they had carried down here, with great effort, into the bowels of the Great Pyramid.
    The effort had taken two forms: in the past twenty-four hours the actual physical effort of carrying the machine through the narrow tunnels of the Great Pyramid of Giza down to the bottom chamber and, for a year prior, complex diplomatic effort to be granted permission to bring the modern equipment into the greatest of Egypt's ancient monuments and turn it on.
    Nabinger knew enough about the politics of archaeology to appreciate the opportunity he was being given to use this equipment here. Of the original seven wonders of the ancient world the three pyramids on the West Bank of the Nile were the only one still standing, and even in ancient times they were considered the greatest of the seven. The Colossus at Rhodes--which most archaeologists doubted had even existed as reported--the hanging gardens of Babylon, the Tower of Babel, the Tower of Pharos at Alexandria, and other reported marvels of early engineering had all disappeared over the centuries. All but the pyramids, built between 2685 and 2180 B.C. They were weathered by the sand long before the Roman Empire even rose, were still there when it fell, centuries later, and were standing strong as the second millennium after Christ's birth approached.
    Their original face of hand-smoothed limestone had long ago been plundered--except for the very top of the middle pyramid--but their bulk was so great that they had escaped most of the ravages of the wars that had swirled around them.
    From the Hyksos invasions from the north in the sixteenth century B.C. to Napoleon, to the British Eighth Army in World War II, the pyramids had survived them all.
    There were over eighty pyramids still standing in Egypt, and Nabinger had seen most of them and explored their mysteries, but he was always drawn back to the famous trio at Giza. As one came up on them and viewed the three, the middle pyramid of Khafre appeared to be the largest, but only because it was built on higher ground. The Pharaoh Khufu, more popularly known as Cheops, was responsible for the building of the greatest pyramid, farthest to the northeast.
    Over four hundred feet tall and covering