The air in the Valley of the Kings hung thick with dust and silence, broken only by the faint scrape of shovels against stone. Jack Carter wiped sweat from his brow, his calloused hands gripping a crowbar as he crouched in the shadow of a crumbling tomb entrance. The sun blazed overhead, a merciless orb in a cloudless sky, but down here, in the cool dark of the earth, it felt like another world—a world of secrets waiting to be pried open.

"Faster, Carl," Jack muttered, his voice rough from days of shouting over the wind. "We're close. I can feel it."

Carl, a wiry man with a perpetual scowl, jabbed his shovel into the sand-packed crevice. "You've been saying that for three days, Jack. If this is another bust, I'm out. My back's killing me."