Brian Sadler Archaeological Mysteries BoxSet

by Bill Thompson

  As the jet bridge moved to the plane’s door the flight attendants blocked the rear of the forward cabin so the first class passengers could disembark ahead of them. Brian waited, a family of Middle Eastern descent just in front of him. The wife was wrapped head to toe in a burka. She and her children talked excitedly, and he wondered how they’d enjoy New York, so different from their part of the world yet still a melting pot that welcomed everyone.

  They moved quickly along the passage that snaked through the bowels of the airport, heading toward Immigration. Eventually the hallway opened into a wide room with separate aisles for U.S. Citizens and Non-Residents. Brian moved around the Arab family but a Customs officer noticed his briefcase, detained him briefly and asked for his declaration form.

  “You’ll have to remove the tether from your case now and take Lane 4 at Customs.” He made a mark on Brian’s form and returned it to him.

  As he waited in line, Brian removed a small key and unlocked the band from the handle of the briefcase. It looked thin and pliable but had the tensile strength of steel. The handle would have broken before the tether and he would have had plenty of warning that someone was tampering with it. He bent, set the case on the floor and stood, putting his customs declaration form in his jacket pocket so he could easily get to it.

  He saw the Arab family from the plane move by in a line just next to him, separated only by a thin cloth rope that allowed American citizens to use what was normally the faster lane. Today, however, the slight delay in Brian’s arrival time meant that three other planes had unloaded hundreds of passengers at the same time. The arrivals hall was teeming with people and the line for citizens was slower than the one for foreign nationals.

  After a few minutes Brian moved to the Immigration desk and presented his form to an agent.

  “Welcome home, Mr. Sadler. What countries have you visited on this trip?”

  Brian said he was on a business trip and had been to Egypt and England.

  “And what business are you in, sir?”

  “I own an auction house and trading company.”

  After noting that Brian had only carry-on luggage, the officer again glanced at his form and advised him to go directly downstairs to Customs, proceed through the hall and take Lane 4, the area that would get him more than the usual wave-through. Brian knew he’d be talking to an inspector. It was unavoidable this trip since the tether from hand to case was required and it had obviously raised red flags in Customs already.

  As he came to the Arrivals Hall exit, just in front of him stood a bank of doors that automatically opened and closed as people approached. Beyond those doors were hundreds of well-wishers meeting and greeting passengers who had just come through immigration and were now in New York City. At the final checkpoint, one more officer took a look at Brian’s paperwork and pointed to the area where a number of inspectors stood behind low counters.

  He approached an officer who asked him to put his luggage on the table. Taking Brian’s Customs form, the officer asked, “Do you have anything to declare?”

  “Yes. I’m a dealer in antiquities and I have three items I’m legally importing into the United States.”

  Taking his paperwork, the agent asked to see them. Brian took the small key he had used to remove the tether from his briefcase handle. It also opened two locks on the case itself. He stuck the key into the first lock. It wouldn’t fit. As the agent watched closely, Brian popped the lock open – it hadn’t been locked after all. His adrenalin began flowing; he knew without a doubt he had locked the case in Cairo after clearing customs there and now it was unlocked. His heart sinking, he popped the other lock and raised the lid.

  His face turned ashen as he stared into an empty briefcase. His mind raced.

  “Stop the Arab family!” he yelled at the officer. “They’ve switched my briefcase!”

  He ran from the inspection area toward the exit doors. Two armed officers grabbed his arms and held him as he yelled, “You don’t understand! You have to let me find them!”

  As he fought them, one agent removed a set of plastic cuffs, much like the tether Brian still had around his wrist, and shackled his hands behind him.

  “Let’s get your luggage, sir. You’re coming with us.”

  Chapter Three

  Bethlehem

  Benjamin held his father’s hand. The shepherds stood in a semi-circle in front of the manger where the child lay on a blanket. The baby’s face shone radiantly.

  As they stood in silence a commotion of sorts arose in the courtyard behind them. Benjamin was astounded to see three camels in the small area – they must have been allowed in through a gateway to the street – and a trio of tall men dressed in fine clothing. These men were obviously wealthy and deserved respect. The shepherds bowed their heads in the presence of the three and moved away from the child’s makeshift crib.

  Joseph said, “Enter, strangers. All who have seen the star are welcome here.”

  “What is this star?” the tallest of the men asked. He was of African descent and Benjamin thought he was the most impressive human he had ever seen. “We were traversing the countryside near your town when we saw the shaft of light shining on this place. We felt compelled to come here. What magic is afoot?”

  “There is no magic, sir,” Joseph answered.

  Then the woman looked up. She spoke in a voice that sounded almost musical to Benjamin. “This is the Messiah,” she said softly as she smiled at the baby. “Come worship him.”

  The important men fell to their knees, as had the shepherds moments earlier.

  They believe her, Benjamin thought. But in his heart he knew it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t that they believed. It was as though it WAS. It was as though they had known it before they arrived. It is in their minds and hearts too, just like mine.

  Soon the men rose and returned to the courtyard. They rummaged through their saddlebags and each returned with an item in his hand. As they knelt before the small child they presented offerings of those things. They laid them before the Messiah.

  Benjamin wanted to offer a gift too. They were poor people and he knew he had nothing which would possibly equal the value of the things those three men had given. In his pocket was a single shekel, a coin he carried for luck that Joab had given him long ago. He came forward and said to the child’s mother, “May I give him a gift?”

  “Look at him, child. He accepts your gift.”

  The little baby looked into Benjamin’s eyes and amazingly reached his hand toward Benjamin. He placed the coin in the child’s hand; the baby it to his chest for a moment. Then he held it out to Benjamin.

  “The coin is blessed by the Messiah,” the lady said. “Take it and keep it safe. The hand of God has held this coin.”

  “I…I will,” Benjamin stammered. He put the shekel in his pocket and stepped back.

  Joab smiled at him and patted his head. “That was a wonderful gift, son. My, we will have much to tell your mother when we get home tonight!”

  Chapter Four

  Dallas, Texas

  Eight years ago

  February 2001

  The oil boom was making millionaires overnight and nowhere was it happening as fast as it was in Dallas. A major financial publication listed the metroplex as home to more millionaires under thirty than any other city in the USA. The dot.com boom that had made literal billionaires of a few twenty-somethings had begun to fizzle in California, but things were still in full swing here in Texas, where it seemed everyone had more money than sense. They called oil Black Gold. For thousands of Texans in the right place at the right time, the gold was there for the taking. And now was the right time.

  Brian Sadler saw all of this happening from his vantage point as a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch in Dallas. To look at Brian across a room, six feet tall, brownish blond hair, a physique kept honed by three days a week at the gym – he looked like a football player. And he had been, back in Longview, Texas. He played high school ball before heading t
o the University of Oklahoma. He had been good but not great. Good was enough some places but at OU, consistently ranked in the top two or three teams nationally, Brian hadn’t even merited a glance.

  He majored in finance and minored in archaeological studies. It was an odd combination, but archaeology was something Brian had always been interested in. Not so much the digs, but the results – he loved to read and watch documentaries describing the incredible finds that archaeologists made. People such as Howard Carter with King Tut, Schliemann with the city of Troy and even Napoleon’s team of mummy hunters who dug up Egypt in the nineteenth century – all of these fascinated Brian.

  After graduation Brian understood that making a living involved using his finance degree, not his archaeology minor. He interviewed and landed an entry-level position as a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch. After being at the firm two years he now had settled into a routine that paid the bills. But he knew this job was never going to make him rich.

  While he was at Merrill, Brian observed a phenomenon that accompanied the steady rise in oil prices – the Rolls Royce and Bentley automobiles appearing regularly outside Capital Grille and Del Frisco’s. At these trendy restaurants the booze flowed freely until the wee hours. There the prices were as high as oil futures, with the customers often equally as high. But it wasn’t drugs fueling those people – it was money, deals and more deals. Everybody, it seemed, lived for the next deal. Kids as young as twenty lit Cuban cigars with hundred dollar bills while beautiful girls hung on their every word. And Brian wanted to be one of those people.

  Amid some fanfare two Merrill Lynch brokers had defected a month ago, moving to Warren Taylor and Currant. WT&C, like Merrill, sold stocks to customers too, but the similarity ended there. Merrill managers talked openly about the firm’s rumored problems with regulatory agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission.

  “You go there, you sell your soul to the devil,” one manager remarked disdainfully about the departure of the two brokers.

  Brian listened but he also had heard the rumors about how people made incredible incomes at WT&C just by selling the deals the firm seemed to always be offering.

  Last week Brian had met the two defectors at Martini Park, a hip new bar in Legacy Town Center not far from Brian’s apartment. Sipping XO Vodka martinis and sitting on the patio, the guys told Brian about life at Warren Taylor and Currant.

  “WT&C is a crazy place,” Jeff Spivey said. “We’re raising money for everything you can think of. I’m working on a deal right now to help a guy who’s twenty-five buy an electronics manufacturing company in Austin. He hasn’t got a dime and we’re doing a public offering to raise $25 million for the acquisition. And he’ll own 70%! Instant millionaires. We’re a factory creating instant millionaires!”

  The other broker, Sam Cooper, was thirty, five years older than Jeff. “I’m the old man on the trading floor. The other guys make fun of me. It’s like a party all the time – they brought me a cane last week so I could get around the office.”

  He told Brian that he was on the oil and gas team. Their job was to identify companies that could be acquired and then make the deals happen.

  “I’m working on a deal now to take Marciano Resources public,” Sam said. “It’ll happen in the next sixty days and I’ll get a hundred thousand bucks bonus, plus a million options. If the stock jumps on opening day like our offering last week did, I’ll be a millionaire on day one!”

  It all sounded too good to be true. Jeff and Sam talked about the party atmosphere at WT&C, the excitement when the company’s deals came to market, the champagne that flowed like water after the closing bell, and the chance to make serious money.

  Jeff said, “You should come over. This won’t last forever. While it does, you should be on the bandwagon.”

  Jeff picked up the two hundred dollar tab at Martini Park. When they had ordered their second round Brian fervently hoped he would. Brian’s credit card was close to the limit and there was over a week left until payday.

  “No big deal, a tab like this,” Jeff joked. “You’ll find out for yourself if you come over and join the A-Team!”

  Brian’s mind raced with thoughts about everything he had heard as he drove home in his Jeep. That had been a sleepless night for Brian. He lay in bed, imagining what it would be like. Sure, it sounded good. But there were no free lunches. At what price did that kind of money come? What was the cost to risk everything?

  Chapter Five

  Bethlehem

  The sun was rising, its first rays casting a dim light into the courtyard where perhaps twenty people remained standing slightly dazed. They had been that way all night, occasionally speaking quietly to each other about the event they had witnessed. They had learned that of the three wealthy individuals who had come by camel, only the dark-skinned man spoke their language. But he spoke another as well. As the three shared a table in the inn, he conversed easily with his two friends in a tongue none of them could understand.

  Benjamin and Joab looked at one another, suddenly aware that the sun was rising above the buildings in Bethlehem. It was as though they had awakened from a dream, one in which all who were standing around them had participated.

  “We must return to our sheep,” Joab said, gathering his thoughts. As he rounded up his fellow shepherds, Benjamin went back to the small cave one more time.

  The shepherd boy stood by the door, the room in half-darkness, and watched the baby sleep in the manger. His father rested on a mat nearby and his mother sat behind the cradle, smiling as she softly sang to her newborn baby.

  Looking up, she saw Benjamin. “Yeshua sleeps.”.

  “Is…is that his name, Yeshua?” Benjamin asked. He felt small, somehow inadequate, in front of this woman and child, even though their dress and situation made it obvious they weren’t people of high standing. No wealthy person would have dreamt of delivering a baby in a stable!

  The woman looked at him, and Benjamin averted his face. He found he could not look her in the eyes – they glowed with both sweetness and an intensity he had never imagined before.

  “Yes,” she responded to him. “The heralds from heaven told me he is named Yeshua.”

  Bowing his head, Benjamin approached the child once more, wondering if he would ever see him again. He touched the baby’s soft cheek and felt electricity in his fingers.

  “Thank you for coming to see our child,” the mother said to him. “God bless you all.”

  Benjamin turned and went back into the courtyard.

  Ishmael, the proprietor of The Four Horsemen, had made pots of steaming coffee for everyone, and delicious pastries cooked by his wife were on the bar. Benjamin found his father and the others drinking and eating. Benjamin joined them at a table and shortly they left The Four Horsemen to return to the hills outside of town.

  Chapter Six

  Dallas, Texas

  Brian looked at the employment ad he had pulled up on Monster.com. Although you couldn’t believe what anybody said in this business, it appeared his two friends who’d defected were making much more than Brian was. And not just a little more – they could make more in a month than Brian could hope to make this year.

  So Brian called Warren Taylor and Currant. Since he held a Series 7 securities license he was given what the firm called a fast-track interview, which, if he accepted a job there, could put him on the floor at WT&C in less than two weeks. That kind of speed was unheard of in the traditionally stuffy, get-to-know-you world of investment banking.

  Brian had struggled with his wardrobe the morning of his interview. He told his boss at Merrill he had to take care of some personal business – he didn’t think now was the time to say what he was really doing – and as he stood in his bathroom in his boxers, Brian wondered what was appropriate dress for an interview at Warren Taylor. In the end he decided conservatism was best. It wouldn’t be good if he was in jeans and everyone else was dressed in a suit. The other way around was much safer. So he brought out o
ne of the Brooks Brothers pinstripes that were part of his daily regimen.

  Brian hit the Dallas North Tollway at 8:15, an hour later than he usually did. Traffic was light as his Grand Cherokee headed downtown. The traffic on the Tollway always invigorated Brian – he thought of the drivers around him as his competition, fighting him for deals and dollars. He had read somewhere that you need to picture yourself in a situation in order to make it happen. He tried to picture himself as a WT&C broker but he was totally clueless what that scene actually looked like. He had no idea what he would see and how different the operation would be from Merrill Lynch. He figured it would be pretty striking. And he would be correct.

  WT&C’s offices occupied the thirty-fifth floor of The Strand, a new office building on McKinney Avenue in the Uptown district, where Dallas’ construction boom was in full swing. On almost every block there were high-rise apartment buildings and offices, restaurants, bars and glitzy shops.

  Walking through the firm’s glass entry doors, Brian picked up a faint rumble coming from inside the office suite somewhere. The firm’s name was emblazoned across ten feet of wall behind two receptionists who sat at a massive curved desk made of stainless steel. Both were answering calls as Brian approached. Glancing around the lobby, he saw half a dozen people, some dressed in suits, some in jeans, all obviously waiting for one appointment or another.

  One of the receptionists took Brian’s name and paged Carl Cybola.

  “What’s Carl’s position?” Brian asked.

  “He’s the floor manager.”

  The other receptionist laughed and said, “We call him the ringmaster. He’s in charge of the circus!”