01 Babylon Rising by Tim Lahaye

years now. While some people close to her—notably her father—had berated her for throwing away a potentially glittering career as a field archaeologist just so she could listen to some acned teenagers “whining about their grades,” she had no regrets. She knew few professional triumphs that could match the sense of achievement she felt when a formerly suicidal English major she had helped was able to get a book of her poetry published and then start her own creative writing seminars, helping others channel their inner emotional turmoil into something positive.
    Besides, Laura was still able to find time to work on her own book on lost cities. It might not hit the best-seller lists or spawn a hit movie, but when she proudly handed a copy to her dad, she would at least have created an archaeology artifact of sorts of her very own.
    She also shared fully in her husband’s work, not just acting as an unpaid diplomat in his frequent brushes with authority, but adding her considerable expertise to his in the quest to search out and authenticate Biblical artifacts.
    Which, she realized with a keen shiver of anticipation, was what she was supposed to be doing just then. She had missed Murphy’s day-after initial scroll investigation because of atypically jammed office of students, but now it was time to see if the rehydrated scroll was ready to reveal some wonderful secret about Daniel.
    She closed her office door behind her, adjusted the sign that read I KNOW I SAID MY DOOR IS ALWAYS OPEN—BUT I’LL BE BACK SOON, I PROMISE! and walked briskly down the corridor and out of the building. After a few minutes, she arrived at Murphy’s door, knocked smartly, and walked in.
    Murphy was seated at a workbench, denim sleeves rolled up, hair awry, peering at something through a magnifying lens, and seemingly lost in thought.
That’s the Murphy I think I like best
, she thought with a smile,
the so-absorbed-in-his-work-he-wouldn’t-notice-the-building-is-on-fire Murphy
. The Murphy who had called her with such buzzing excitement a few minutes before to shout that the scroll was ready.
    She gave his hand a squeeze, said hello to Shan, and turned her attention to the hyperbaric chamber. “So, you think the scroll’s properly rehydrated?”
    “I reckon it’s as plump and juicy as one of your mother’s Thanksgiving turkeys,” Murphy declared. “Actually,” he added, “it may even be slightly juicier.”
    “I know, I know, and probably tastes better,” said Laura, rolling her eyes.
    Murphy put on a pair of white cotton gloves, opened the door to the chamber, and carefully removed the scroll. “Let’s see what we have baked,” he said quietly.
    Gently he began unrolling the papyrus over a plastic tray. Laura held her breath, amazed at the steadiness of his hands, considering he was holding something that had been made in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the time of Daniel.
Right now
,she thought,
in this room, we three living, breathing people are linked to the Biblical past through this impossibly fragile object that could crumble to dust at any minute
.
    But the ancient papyrus didn’t crumble. Like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, it slowly unfurled, intact and beautiful.
    “Will you look at that,” said Murphy as line after line of ancient cuneiform appeared. Solid triangles with linear tails, and V shapes like birds against the sky, crammed together in narrow columns. Fully unrolled, the sheet of papyrus measured about nine inches by fifteen. It was scarred by long creases across its tobacco-brown surface, the edges were tattered, and much of the surface had flaked away. But more of the lettering remained than Murphy had dared to hope.
    “I’d say that was Chaldean.”
    Laura couldn’t bear to look away from the strange geometrical symbols, in case they faded to nothing in front of her eyes. “That makes sense. In Nebuchadnezzar’s day, half the priests and sorcerers in Babylon were Chaldean. Can you read