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and get dinner started.
    Ever since the professor had left, the team had struggled to efficiently clear the ruins and catalog as much as possible. Each had their assigned duties. Every evening, Ralph did the cooking, leaving cleanup to Norman and Sam, while Maggie and Philip tediously entered the day’s reports into the computer log.
    Sam interrupted her reverie. He scrunched up his nose ashe tried to read the writing. “I think it says ‘Christ preserve them,’ or ‘Christ protect them,’ ” he said. “Something like that.”
    Philip Sykes, the senior grad student, lay sprawled on a cot, a cold rag across his eyes. His irritation at being left out of the discovery still clearly rankled him. “Wrong,” he said bitingly, not moving from where he lay. “It translates, Christ protect us . Not them .” He followed his assessment with a disdainful noise.
    Maggie sighed. It was no wonder Philip knew Latin so well. Just another reason to hate the dead language. He was forever a font of trivial knowledge, ready at any instance to correct the other students’ errors. But where he excelled in facts, he lagged in on-site experience—hence, the team was burdened with him now. He needed to clock dig hours before he could earn his Ph.D. After that, Maggie suspected the wanker would never leave the ivy halls of Harvard, his alma mater, where his deceased father’s chair in archaeology surely awaited him. The Ivy League was still one big boys’ club. And Philip, son of an esteemed colleague, had a key.
    Stretching her shoulders, she moved closer to Sam. A yawn escaped her before she could stop it. It had been a long day topped by fervid activity: photographing the door, getting a plaster cast of the bands, charcoal etching the writing, logging and documenting everything.
    Sam gave her a small smile and shifted aside the etching of the middle band. It contained only the single crucifix carved into the metallic hematite. No other writing. Sam lowered his magnifying glass on the third and final onionskin tracing. “Lots of writing on this one. But the script is much smaller and isn’t as well preserved,” he said. “I can only make out part of it.”
    â€œWell then, what can you read?” Maggie asked, sinking into a folding chair near the table. A seed of a headache had started to grow behind her right temple.
    â€œGive me a few minutes.” Sam cocked his head to theside as he squinted through his lens. His Stetson, usually tilted on his head, rested on the table beside him. Professor Conklin had insisted on a bit of common courtesy out here in the jungle. When inside the tents, hats had to come off, and Sam still maintained the protocol, even though his uncle was not present. Sam had been raised well, Maggie thought with a small hidden grin. She stared at the professor’s nephew. Sam’s dusky blond hair still lay plastered in place from the Stetson’s imprint.
    Maggie resisted the urge to reach over and tousle his hair back to a loose mop. “So what do you think, Sam? Do you truly think the Spanish conquistadors etched these bands?”
    â€œWho else? The conquistadors must have searched this pyramid and left their mark.” Sam raised his head, a deep frown on his face. “And if the Spanish were here, we can kiss good-bye any chance to find the tomb intact. We can only hope the conquistadors left us a few scraps to confirm Doc’s theory.”
    â€œBut according to the texts, the Spanish never discovered any cities in this region. There is no mention of the conquistadors ever reaching their thieving hands this far from Cuzco.”
    Sam merely pointed to the table laden with Latin etchings. “There’s the proof. We can at least walk away with that. The conquistadors that arrived here must never have made it back to their battalions at Cuzco. The natives must have killed them before they could make it down out