Chapter 1

Johnny was folding laundry fresh from the apartment complex dryer when his phone rang; it was nine-thirty on a Friday morning and a check of the screen identified the caller as his mother. Johnny’s mother was an astrophysicist with NASA. She was a senior administrator in the launch division at the Kennedy Space Center.

“Morning, Mom,” he said.

“Hello, Johnny, am I calling at a bad time?”

“Nope, just folding laundry, what’s up?” he replied.

“Can you come over for dinner, tonight? I have someone who wants to offer you a job.”

Johnny only thought about it for a few seconds because his mother, the most serious person he’d ever met, wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t something worth listening to.

“Sure, Mom, what time?”

“Seven, Johnny, seven sharp,” his Mom admonished.

Johnny laughed; his mother was a stickler for punctuality. “Sure, Mom, seven-ish, got it,” he replied.

Johnny pulled up in front of the family home at five till seven. He parked his truck behind his mother’s SUV and sauntered into the house. The first person he saw was his father. Johnny, his father and his grandfather shared the same name: Janus Paul Pulaski. Everyone called his father Paul and Janus III answered to Johnny. Johnny and his dad shared a handshake/man hug and his father walked him to the family room.

The man sitting on the couch stood and extended his hand. He was medium tall and slender, with a sharp featured face. His hair was salt and pepper and his suit probably cost more than Johnny made in three months.

“I’m Samuel Stone. I’ve heard nothing but good things about you, Johnny,” the man said.

Johnny knew who Stone was. Hell, everyone did. Sam Stone was a tech billionaire who started a space exploration company. His Fourth Dimension rockets were proven launch vehicles and their crew capsule program was fast approaching actual flight testing.

Johnny laughed good naturedly, “Nice to meet you Mister Stone but my Mom might be prejudiced,” he said.

“Call me Sam,” Stone replied, “and your Mom isn’t my only source, I’ve had you thoroughly vetted.”

Before Johnny could ask about that, his mother came into the family room and announced dinner.

Over dinner Sam Stone pitched the job offer.

“Johnny, my daughter is a newly minted Archeology Professor at Boston University. Rachael is leading her first dig in Egypt and I am concerned for her safety. So, I want to hire you to protect her.”

Johnny was shaking his head and ready to say ‘oh hell

“Wait a minute, Johnny, and hear me out,” Stone said. “I said that the wrong way. On my recommendation, next Monday, the University will offer you a position as the medic for the duration of the dig. I simply want you to look out for Rachael while you are there. I will make it worth your while financially, above what the University pays. Because you will be part of the team, you will receive the same course credits her students do.”

Johnny nodded his understanding. “I’ll think about it, but how do you know they will offer me the job?”

“Because a grant from my company is paying for the whole boondoggle,” Stone replied.

Johnny was hedging his bets by not agreeing immediately, but he had always wanted to visit Egypt so unless something bad happened he was going. When the offer came from the University Monday morning, Johnny accepted it.

Doctor Rachael Stone strode down the hallway towards her cubbyhole office. As ‘the new kid’ in the department, her offices were Spartan at best. Rachael was excited and nervous about her trip to Egypt. She had been on digs as both a graduate and under-grad student, but this was her first time leading a dig. Consequently, she was micromanaging every aspect of the preparations. So, it was no surprise that she was irritated with the news that her team’s medical support person would not be traveling with them. Instead, the doctor and his supplies would be arriving three days after the rest of the team. To make matters worse she had no say in choosing their medical support and no input on the medical supplies and equipment. She plopped down at her ‘neat as a pin’ desk and called up her timeline/task list spread sheet one more time.

Two days later Rachael herded her personnel onto the British Airways Airbus A380. There were twelve on her team including herself, her Graduate Assistant and ten students. They flew first to London, then on to Cairo. After two days in Cairo assembling the supplies and equipment that had arrived by sea over the last month, the team moved by convoy to Luxor. At Luxor they linked up with the team they were replacing, and Rachael went with the out-going Site leader for the inventory and hand-over. The University had an agreement with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities to excavate and catalog whatever they could find at the Temple of Karnak. Each semester one of the Professors of Archeology would bring over a class of Juniors for the semester. Rachael’s team was the first summer semester class.

The dig was at Karnak and the University had a dozen and a half semi-permanent trailers in a small compound just beyond the outer walls of the temple’s complex. The trailers were divided by residences, the Dig Leader’s office, a dispensary, a lab space and a kitchen. Meals were taken on picnic tables under a tent next to the kitchen. There were also four shipping containers for supplies, and a couple of canopies for outside work out of the sun.

Johnny Pulaski rolled into the University compound four days after the rest of the team. He arrived in an old cargo truck with two pallets of medical supplies lashed to the back. Johnny jumped out of the truck, told the driver to wait and asked the first person he saw for Doctor Stone’s whereabouts. The young woman he asked pointed him in the direction of a trailer with the BU logo, complete with cartoon Terrier, on the door. He walked through the door into the air conditioned interior. The a/c felt like heaven after eight hours in a hot truck motoring up the Asyuit Desert - Cairo Rd.

There was a long counter running along the wall opposite the door. An attractive young Asian woman perched on a backless stool at the counter spun around when he entered.

“I’m your medic, Johnny Pulaski, and I’m looking for Doctor Stone,” Johnny said to the woman.

She hopped off her stool and gave Johnny the once over before sticking out her hand.

“Pleased to meet you, Johnny,” she said. “I’m Mia Tran, Doctor Stone’s graduate assistant.”

She chin pointed towards a closed door, her small hand still in Johnny’s. “Doctor Stone is right in there.”

Mia was a soft voiced cutie. She was about five-foot-five with a nice complexion and a long ponytail of silky black hair. Her slender but not skinny figure was wrapped in khaki cargo shorts and a short-sleeve dark blue polo shirt. She was also one of those people who were most effected by Johnny’s gift of empathy. She liked and trusted Johnny immediately.

Johnny let go of her hand with a “Thank you”, and strode the four steps to the door. He rapped on it with his knuckles. Doctor Stone bade him enter so he twisted the doorknob and stepped into her office. The dig site office was about the same size as her office at BU.

Johnny stuck out his hand again when he reached her desk and said, “Johnny Pulaski, your medic.”

Stone looked at his hand and frowned. “You are four days late, unshaven and look like a football player after a frat party. Tell me why I shouldn’t send you packing?” she snapped.

Her anger rocked Johnny back on his heels for a second. Then he leaned menacingly across her desk. He was tired and hot; and sand had infiltrated every crevice of his body. He was in no mood to be bitched at.

“I’m late because our supplies were delayed by Customs at the port in Alexandria. I look like this because I’ve been busting my ass for two days to get here. And finally, I don’t work for you, I work for the University so you can’t fire me,” he growled. Then Johnny stood up straight and said, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go set up the dispensary. It will be open for business by zero-seven-hundred tomorrow morning.”

Johnny spun around and exited her office leaving Doctor Stone sitting in open mouth stunned silence. No one talked to her like that! No one, ever! Her eyes narrowed into little slits. Mister Pulaski would pay for his hubris she decided, and she would personally see to that.

Outside Stone’s office stood a wide-eyed Mia, she had never heard anyone stand up to her boss like Johnny had. She walked him to the door and said, “You have to forgive Doctor Stone; she is under a lot of pressure. Your trailer is number four, here are the keys.”

Johnny nodded and told Mia, “Thank you.” What he didn’t do was acknowledge her comment about Stone.

‘Pressure, my ass! How tough could it be sifting through sand and rocks with no one even shooting at you,’ he thought.

Mia walked him over to the dispensary and sent one of the workers to find the site foreman. When Johnny said he didn’t need any more help Mia sashayed back to the headquarters trailer.

Johnny was checking out his new digs when there was a knock on the door. Johnny opened the door and an Egyptian man entered the dispensary. The man gave Johnny a slight bow. The Egyptian was medium height, his weight was impossible to guess as his body was hidden by a flowing gallabeyya (kaftan) but he appeared to be of medium build.

“You are the new Doctor, yes? I am named Hany Gamil at your service,” the man said, and his accent was heavy but his speech understandable.

Johnny returned the half bow and held out his hand, “A pleasure Mister Gamil, and please call me Johnny.”

Johnny spoke Arabic. He’d had a six-week immersion course at the Defense Language Institute before his first deployment to Iraq. He had honed his skills during his three deployments, treating native soldiers and civilians, but had decided to keep that fact to himself for a while.

Glad-handing out of the way, Johnny told Hany Gamil what he needed and ten minutes later the man reappeared with four men in tow. The men made quick work of breaking down the pallets and putting the supplies and medicines where Johnny directed. Johnny sent the men away when they finished but Hany lingered.

“Tabib (Doctor) Johnny, I must mention what is disagreeable to myself; but you will need a new nurse, because Nurse Sanaa has just birthed new child. Howsomever my niece, Hala Kamal, is now a new nurse and will be a most able assistant.”

Johnny pieced together Gamil’s meaning and frowned. Not having the old nurse around was a bother, as it was her job to add continuity between medics.

“Bring your niece by tomorrow for an interview, but no promises, okay? Does she speak English?”

Mister Gamil nodded his head vigorously.

“She speaks with perfection as do I,” he said earnestly.

The dispensary was a ten by fifty foot trailer. A ten by ten bedroom was at the back. From the bedroom a thirty-inch-wide hallway on the right side if the trailer led towards the front with a small bathroom on the left. Next was a storage room, then a treatment room, and last the small office. It was not an efficient setup but is was all they had. Johnny crawled into the full-size bed at eleven, his cell phone alarm set for six.

Johnny groaned when his alarm blared the next morning, but he rolled out of bed and put on his running clothes. Johnny hated to run, but five mornings a week he forced himself to put in a couple of miles. Johnny was a big man at six-foot-three and two-hundred-twenty pounds. He was fit, but did not have a gym rat’s body. Since he left the service, he struggled to keep his weight under two-twenty-five. Johnny told anyone who would listen that he was a pack mule, not an antelope.