The Silver City

By Brad W. King

A helicopter touches down in Fin Shaw's front yard. Inside, is a man that has some big news to break. "Fin, you're going with me to Egypt!" The moment the young archaeologist has been waiting for his entire life has arrived! The men arrive in The Valley of the Kings and locate a secret chamber in the tomb of King Tutankhamun that has an insane secret. Two silver boxes hold all the answers. Fin finds himself trekking across frozen tundra with the love of his life in peril to find a lost city, only to be confronted with the greatest mystery of all time while being pursued by a global crime syndicate. What will Fin find in the ancient hidden city? King's setup to the Father Earth series will leave you wanting more. A must read prequel to this intriguing series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brad W. King
• Release date: Nov 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781393364948

Book preview

Table of Contents

Prologue - January 2021

Chapter 1 – One Week Earlier

Chapter 2 – Opportunity of a Lifetime

Chapter 3 – Nobody Likes Goodbyes

Chapter 4 – Turning the Page

Chapter 5 – The Secret Crypt

Chapter 6 – The Russian Aboard

Chapter 7 – Breaking Down Walls

Chapter 8 – The Real Thieves

Chapter 9 – Discoveries, Deception and Digits

Chapter 10 – Partners in Crime

Chapter 11 – The Red Gang

Chapter 12 – Batagay

Chapter 13 – The Crevasse

Chapter 14 – Puzzled

Chapter 15 – The King’s Heart

Chapter 16 – Never Ever In A Few Thousand Years

Epilogue

Egyptologists differ on existence of ‘hidden chambers’ in Tut tomb.

-05/08/2016

Credit: Talking Pyramids

@Bennu

PROLOGUE - JANUARY 2021

Snow. Ice. Everywhere. It envelops him. It is thrown into his face by the howling wind. He feels his eyelashes freezing and he is struggling to breathe. He slams his icepick with a maddening fury into the ice wall that he is barely attached to. With an icepick in his left and right hands, he alternates with intensity. Left, right, left, right he ascended. In all reality, it felt a little more like left, panic... right, deep breath... left, don’t look down... right, don’t die. His surroundings were enchanting. Beautiful mountain peaks as tall as you could imagine occupied the skyline around him. Everything was black and white. Even the evergreen trees that covered every inch of the snowy slopes looked dim and dull. In a word, serene. At this moment, however, the scenery was the least of Fin’s concerns. He needed to stay alive. Each moment he dangled from the cliff was another moment that his fatigue threatened to end his life. The muscles in his arms felt like they were disintegrating and even his unusually strong mental stamina felt like throwing in the towel. With each strike of the icepick, he felt the motion rip through every fiber of his entire body. Every ounce of him struggled to survive. He was nearly to his destination. All he needed to do was make it up another 40 feet or so. His problem wasn’t so much the distance, it was the path he had to take to get there. The angle of the rocky cliff face was starting to become anything but straight up. He found himself nearly upside down trying his hardest to slam each icepick in as hard as he could, given his body’s state. The crampons on his ice climbing shoes allowed him to kick with force into the deep ice. He continued the bloodcurdling ascent with trepidation. His progress was painfully slow. For the sake of survival though, it was worth it. He rounded the edge of the cliff slowly, but surely. As he neared the upper side of the tough angle, he found it more difficult to find a flat surface. The rock was jutting out every which way. His feet were secure in the ice but when he went to strike a spot in between two of the jutting rocks, he missed. His right icepick hit a sharp, protruding section of rock. It bounced back at him with as much force as he had put into the swing... causing him to get knocked backwards sharply. The force of the blow was enough to push his body weight past the contact point that his left icepick was holding onto. As his left icepick came out of the icy rocks, he felt his weight fall and his heart drop out of his chest. He found himself swinging back and forth, dangling upside down from his feet, in the middle of a Siberian mountain range. The Verkhoyansk Range sat to the far northeast of Russia. It was arguably one of the coldest places on earth. With record lows of nearly -90 degrees Fahrenheit, it wasn’t a place for the faint of heart. As the young man dangled completely inverted from the cliff, feeling the -60 degree wind blasting at his face, being held on only by his $700 ice climbing shoes, the last thing anyone could dare to call him... was faint of heart.

Chapter 1 – One Week Earlier

24-year-old Fin Shaw stared at his report card. A’s lined the columns. When your passionate about something, you do it well. That philosophy certainly occupied a place in this young man’s bright mind. This was his final report card before he received his PhD in archaeology from the University of Istow, California. It took most of his peers nine years to get to the point he was at now. However, Fin’s passion revolved around adventure as it always had. With a passion like his, it drove you to greatness. In two days’ time, he was going to be graduating with a 3.9 GPA. He expected to find a great job, with whatever company he chose. He hoped he could slide right into the role of a full-blown archaeologist, with all the adventure and excitement that the position held. He wanted to be the one discovering fresh sites and leading the excavation teams. He had known others a few years ahead of him that had to work as lowly assistants for a year, two years, three years or more before they were allowed into that role. This was not what he had in mind though. Not at all. After seven long years of dreaming about what he could one day accomplish... his time had come for adventure. He craved it. He could almost taste it. As he gazed admiringly at the superfine letter grades, a loud whirring noise startled him. They lived in a rural part of town where a noise like this was rather uncommon. He looked outside and saw something he couldn’t believe. A helicopter was landing in their open field, only a few hundred yards away. He did a double take. Then he did a triple take. Could it really be? It was. He ran out of his bedroom door and down to his family in the living room.

His parents were the sweetest people you could ever hope to meet. His father, Alexander Shaw, was a lively 52 years old. He worked as a freelance internet marketer, so he was stuck in an office chair most of the time. However, he still worked out religiously and he had the energy of a 30-year-old. His mother, Gina, had never had to work a day in her life. She was 49 and looked more like 25. Alex had always provided very well for the family so Gina’s biggest concern was keeping her three children fed, clothed and loved, which she did flawlessly. Well, only two nowadays.

Their oldest, Brandon had moved out at a very young age. He could be accurately described as more beast than man. He was that way even from the young age of 19. He stood at 6’ 6" and weighed well over 250 pounds. He worked out all the time as a child. He was always pumping iron and drinking dozens of raw eggs and protein shakes. It’s a surprise that the stupid kid had never been infected with salmonella. He was a personal trainer for a few years in Los Angeles. He moved away from home to take that job when he was only 20. His parents hadn’t wanted him to leave to the metropolis of Los Angeles, but they were happy to see him forging his own path at the same time. The position looked like it would pay well, and he had a close friend that he was going to share an apartment with very close to his work. He did that for a few years. Then an amazing opportunity presented itself and he welcomed it with open arms. Many high-profile celebrity types became clients of his. Within three years, he was offered a gig to become a private enforcer/security guard. The pay was out of this world. Anyone with high-profile celebrity kind of money will do just about anything for someone they like. Monetarily speaking, that is. Money talks, and it was screaming at Brandon Shaw these days. Now, six years later, he was salaried by only one award winning actress. The price she paid was high enough to get him to walk away from the three other stars that used his services. He was available to her 24/7/365... and he got paid $250,000 a year