C012 - The Many Roads to Amelia: Madness in the Sand

During The Great War, the powers in play began to develop greater reliance upon espionage and spycraft, and as the war came to an end a small unit of Austrian spies fled from France over the Mediterranean Sea, and across northern Africa.  A team of agents from the United States of America caught up with them in a cramped hotel in Giza, where a chase began with a murder, traveled frantically south along the Nile, and ended in a shootout among the sun-baked dunes of the Egyptian desert.  Among the hail of bullets, an American grenade was thrown, triggering a sinkhole that swallowed the Austrian spies… and uncovered a pyramid buried beneath the sands.  The remaining American agents reported their findings, but news of the pyramid was largely ignored, as The Great War wrapped up a few short weeks later. But last month, news of the discovery of King Tutenkhaman’s tomb swept the western world, and Egyptian artifacts and historical sites ignited people’s imaginations.  As intrepid travelers and inquisitive explorers flooded Cairo, whispers of a buried pyramid began to circulate.  But one company was ahead of the swelling interest, and already knew the location of the buried pyramid.  Exactly one month ago, on November 13th, 1922, a woman representing an international conglomerate called the MacGregor Institute approached the American embassy in Cairo, and struck a deal with Major Linwood, who was stationed there.  He would provide troops, resources, and transportation, while she would provide finances, experts, and scientific instrumentation for a remote station.  This strange woman, named Daisy Bentz, planned to oversee the project from Giza, entrusting a team of hand-selected scientists to guide and monitor local labourers for hire,.  Major Linwood’s skepticism turned to suspicion, however, when she immediately provided permits and documentation from the Egyptian government, giving her long-term license to a plot of land to build her makeshift outpost, as well as generous access to the surrounding area.  She simply needed a mobile base of operation for barracks, a remote laboratory, a communications office, and a mess hall.  When she sweetened the deal with the promise of 10% of the profit for Major Linwood, personally, he swallowed his growing objections and threw in three jeeps, and a helicopter from the embassy in Cairo.  Still, he demanded that he sign off on her team of experts. So the backgrounds of the scientists were all quickly investigated, and a team of four experts have now been assembled.  The scientists representing the interests of the MacGregor Institute are two archaeologists, Dr. Timothy Houle and Dr. Oliver Michaels, one Anthropologist, Dr. Wilbur Black, and one Egyptologist, Dr. Raymond Shane.  Each of these experts have some military experience from the war, but Major Linwood is no fool.  He knows that money often speaks louder than past allegiances, especially in peacetimes, and now is not a good time to trust a woman named Bentz, no matter how good her American accent may be.  So the Major insisted on a knowledgeable military liaison on site and submitted a short list of candidates.  When Ms. Bentz saw Patrick O’Hara’s name, she singled him out immediately. Special Agent Patrick O’Hara was classified as a non-combatant during the war, though he often hovered just behind the front lines.  His primary function was to acquire and extract historical artifacts and culturally significant pieces of artwork from war-torn locations, and steal them away to safety in the hands of the Allies.  She was familiar with his signature due to the MacGregor Institute having managed to procure many of his rescues over the last few years.  His background in anthropology and scientific interests makes him an ideal liaison officer for the scientists, and his respect for unique and priceless antiquities and relics ensures that the sites will not be damaged by military blundering and boorish recklessness.  But the deciding