Welcome to Gold Eagle Books!

Gold Eagle Books publishes Action Adventure, Paramilitary and Sci-Fi novels.

Our current series include Deathlands, Rogue Angel, Outlanders, The Executioner, Stony Man, and Mack Bolan.








Thursday, April 12, 2007

An Excerpt From Rogue Angel: The Lost Scrolls


"I thought Julius Caesar burned down the Great Library," Annja Creed said. She picked her way gingerly across a small lot of churned-up dust with chunks of yellow-brick rubble in it, glad for the durability of her hiking boots. She was sheltered from the already intense morning Mediterranean sun by the floppy straw hat she wore over her yellow T-shirt and khaki cargo pants.

"He did, Ms. Creed," her handsome young Egyptian archaeologist escort said, turning to smile at her. He had a narrow, dark hawk's face and flashing eyes. His white lab smock hung from wide shoulders and flapped around the backs of his long skinny legs in the sea breeze snaking around the close-set buildings. "Among others."

"Call me Annja, please," she said.

He laughed. His teeth were as perfect as his English. His trace of accent made young Dr. Ismail al-Maghrabi seem that much more exotic. I love my job, she thought.

"If you will call me Ismail," he said.

"Done," she replied with a laugh.

Ahead of them stood a ten-foot-high loafshaped translucent plastic bubble. The rumbling of generators forced them to raise their voices as they approached. Some kind of structure had recently been demolished here, hard by the Alexandrian waterfront in the old Greek quarter. Big grimy warehouses and blocks of shops with cracked-stucco fronts crowded together on all sides. Although Alexandria was a major tourist destination the rumble and stink of buses and trucks through the narrow streets suggested little of charm and less of antiquity. Still, Annja's heart thumped in her throat with anticipation.

"For one thing," al-Maghrabi said, "the library was very extensive indeed. Also parts of it appear to have been scattered across the Greek quarter. As you probably know, in 2004 a team of Egyptian and Polish archaeologists uncovered a series of what appear to be lecture halls a few blocks from here."

She nodded. "I read about it on the BBC Web site at the time. A very exciting development."

"Most. The library was a most remarkable facility, as much a great university and research center as anything else. Along with the famous book collections, and of course reading rooms and auditoria, it offered dormitories for its visitors, lush gardens, even gymnasia with swimming pools."

"Really? I had no idea."

He stopped to open the latch to a door in a wooden frame set into the inflated tent. "The envelope is for climate control," he explained, opening the door for her. "Positive air pressure allows us to keep humidity and pollution at bay. Our treasures are probably not exceptionally vulnerable to such influences, considering their condition, but why take chances?"

The interior seemed gloomy after the brilliant daylight. Annja paused to let her eyes adjust as he resecured the door. There was little to see but a hole cut into the ground. "You seem to enjoy some pretty enviable resources here, if you don't mind my saying so, Ismail."

"Not at all! Our discoveries here have attracted worldwide attention, which in turn helps to secure the resources to develop and conserve them properly. For that I believe we have to thank the Internet—and of course your own television network, which provides a share of our funding."

"Yes. I am thrilled they allowed me to come here," Annja said.

"I'm told the scrolls contain revelations about the lost civilization of Atlantis." Annja couldn't mask the skepticism in her voice.

"Come with me. I trust you don't mind a certain amount of sliding into holes in the ground?"

Annja laughed. "I am a real archaeologist, Ismail. I don't just play one on TV."

She didn't actually have to slide. A slanting tunnel about three feet wide and five feet high had been dug down to a subterranean chamber perhaps a dozen feet below ground level. Hunched over, they followed thick yellow electrical cords down the shallow ramp.

"As you no doubt know," her guide said, "the library is believed to have been built early in the third century B.C. by Ptolemy II, around the temple to the Muses built by his father, the first Ptolemy."

"That's the Mouseion, isn't it?" she said.

"Origin of our word museum?"

"Yes. It was also said that Ptolemy III decreed that all travelers arriving in Alexandria had to surrender any books or scrolls in their possession to be copied by official scribes before being returned to them. While we don't know for certain if that is true, the library's collection swiftly grew to be the grandest in the Mediterranean world."

They reached a level floor of stone polished slick by many feet over many years. Banks of yellowish floodlights lit a chamber perhaps ten by twenty feet. Three people were crowded inside, two on hands and knees rooting in what appeared to be some kind of lumpy mound. One was bending over a modern table. The air was cool and smelled of soil and mildew.

The person at the table straightened and turned toward them, beaming. He was a tall, pot-bellied young man with crew-cut blond hair and an almost invisible goatee on the uppermost of his several chins. "Greetings! You must be Annja Creed."

He held out a big hand. Annja knew at once he was a working archaeologist. He looked soft and pale overall, but his hand was callused and cracked like a stonemason's, from digging, lifting and the painstaking work of chipping artifacts from a stony matrix with a dentist's steel pick.

"This is Dr. Szczepan Pilitowski," Ismail said. He struggled with the first name—it came out sounding close enough to Stepan. "He's our expert in extracting the scrolls safely from the ground."

"We all do what we can," Pilitowski said in a cheerful tone. "There is much to be done."

The other two, a man and a woman, turned around and picked themselves up from the floor. They wore kneepads, Annja noticed. One was a man, the other a woman. Both were thin and dark, and she took them for Egyptians.

"This is Ali Mansur and Maria Frodyma," Ismail said. The man just bobbed his head and grinned shyly.

The woman stuck out her hand. She wore her black hair in a bun, and had a bright, birdlike air to her. "Please call me Maria," she said in a Polish accent as Annja shook her hand.

"Annja."

"This was a library storeroom," Ismail said.

"Most of the scrolls were kept in locked cabinets, in chambers such as this. Only the most popular items, or those specifically requested by scholars, were stored in the reading rooms."

"So that heap…?" Annja said, nodding toward the rubble mound where Maria and Ali had been working.

"The remains of a cabinet," Pilitowski said.

"Damaged by the fire, it collapsed and mostly decomposed, leaving the burned scrolls behind."

"How many scrolls did the library possess?" Annja asked. "Or does anyone really know?"

"Not precisely," Maria said, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of one hand. She seemed to show a quick smile to the bulky and jovial Pilitowski, whose own smile broadened briefly. "Some have hypothesized it held as few as forty thousand scrolls. Others suggest the founding Ptolemy set a goal of half a million. On the basis of what we have found, we feel confident conjecturing the former limit is far too low. As to the upper—" She shrugged expressively.

"This isn't my time period," Annja confessed, believing as she did in professional full disclosure. "But I can certainly see how the recovery of any number of scrolls at all from the ancient world is a terrific thing."

"Oh, yes," Maria replied.

"And here you see three of them," Pilitowski boomed. A vast callused paw swept dramatically toward the table.

They looked like three forearm-sized chunks of wood fished out of a campfire, Annja thought. They lay on a sheet of white plastic.

"These are actual scrolls?"

"Yes, yes," Pilitowski said. "My friends and I extracted them this morning."

Annja felt a thrill. She'd seen older artifacts—she'd seen Egyptian papyri a thousand years older in the British Museum. But there was something about these scrolls, the thrill of something lost for two thousand years and believed to be indecipherable even if found. Yet modern technology was about to restore the contents of these lumps of char to the world.

"Even if they're just grocery lists," she said a little breathlessly, "this is just so exciting."

The others just smiled at her. They knew. "Who really burned the library, anyway?" she asked Ismail. "Was it Julius Caesar?"

The others looked to Ismail. Ali was still grinning but had yet to utter a syllable. Annja's first thought had been that he didn't speak English. But that appeared to be the common language on the multinational dig. She began to suspect he was just shy.

"Caesar was one of the culprits," her guide said.

"One of them?"

"And not the first," Maria said. The archaeologists seemed glad of the break. Annja understood that. They loved their work, she could tell, as she loved the work when she was engaged in it. But it could be brutally arduous, and breaks were welcome.

"The first major fire damage occurred around 88 B.C.," the woman said, "when much of Alexandria burned down during civil disorders. This may have been the greatest destruction. Then during the Roman civil wars in 47 B.C., Julius Caesar chased his rival, Pompey, into the city. When Egyptian forces attacked him, Caesar set fire to the dockyards and the Egyptian fleet. The fire probably spread through trade goods piled on the docks waiting to be loaded on ships. The library lay near the waterfront, like now. Many scrolls were lost in the conflagration. Also it appears Roman soldiers stole many scrolls and sent them to Rome."

~ The Lost Scrolls will be in bookstores May 8, 2007.

4 comments:

Angela/SciFiChick said...

I read this in about an hour and a half on the plane.

Anonymous said...

Just finished this one!
I HATED the tag along girl Paris Hilton character, and was really pissed when the dude bought it! Still, good parts made it overall a satisfactory read. I hope we start getting more of an understanding about the mystery of who she is/relation to Joan of A, though.

Anonymous said...

Age of Conan Gold buy age of conan gold AOC gold cheap age of conan gold tibia money tibia gold buy tibia money buy tibia gold Fiesta silver Fiesta gold buy Fiesta Silver Maple Story Mesos Buy Maple Story mesos Maple Story Cheats Lineage 2 Adena Buy Lineage 2 Adena L2 adena buy L2 Adena Buy lotro gold lord of the rings gold buy lotro gold cheap lotro gold Dofus Kamas Buy dofus Kamas Sell dofus Kamas ragnarok online zeny buy RO zeny buy Ragnarok Online Zeny Ragnarok zeny runescape money runescape gold buy runescape money buy runescape gold Buy Cheap Runescape Money runescape accounts buy runescape accounts rs2 accounts buy rs2 accounts runescape power leveling rs2 power leveling FFXI Gil buy FFXI Gil buy dofus kamas buy dofus kamas dofus kamas gaia gold buy gaia gold runescape accounts buy runescape accounts rs2 accounts buy rs2 accounts runescape power leveling rs2 power leveling rs2 gold buy rs2 gold runescape

Anonymous said...

uk porn archive -
ultra sex movies -
ultra squirt -
uni fuck -
video direct -
wild pussy parties -
wild xxx movies -
x3me porn movies -
xpc adult movies -
x pod vids -
xxx key -
xxx pornstars direct -
xxx teens -
xxx tremities shock video archive -
young shaved and tight -
young teen archive -
40 inch plus -
8th street latina -
8th street latinas -
addicted 2 anal -
adult bouncer -
aga uncovered -
all amateur movie -
all amateur movies -
all site access -
all sites access -
amateur marines -
ameri cock -
anal access -
anal addicted -
anal headquarters -
anal sex zone -
anjali uncovered -
asian chow mein -
asian mysteries -
ass licking -
ass parade -
ass parades -
ass pluggers -
bad bad boys -
bait bus -
ball honey -
ball honeys -
bangbro network -
bangbros network -
bangbros online -
bangbros worldwide -
bangbro worldwide -
bang van -
behind the scenes -
best boy movies -
big ass adventure -
big ass adventures -
big mouthful -
big mouthfuls -
big natural -
big naturals -
big tit round ass -
big tits archive -
big tits round asses -
big tits video -
black cock sluts uncovered -
black gang bangers -
black meat taboo -
black sluts -
boy first time -
boys first time -
brandi belle -
brandi belles -
bulls of tijuana -
busty adventure -
busty adventures -
busty gonzo archive -
cam crush -
captain stabbin -
captain stabbins -
club ramrod -
cock sickle -
cracking sport -
cuba libre -
cum fantasy -
cum fiesta -
cum fiestas -
cum girl -
cum girls -
daily dongs -
dangerous dong -
dangerous dongs -
deluxe cum -
dogging uncovered -
european parties -
euro sex parties -
euro sex party -
eutopia movies -
extreme anal -
extreme japan -
extreme sperm -
fart hammer -
first time audition -
first time auditions -
first time facial -
fuck a jock -
fucking free archive -
gangbang movies -
gay beef -
gay ecstasy -
gay glory hole -
gay ink -
gay movie dome -
gay movie king -
gay movie page -
gay porn archives -
gay reels -
gays and roses -
gay some -
gay story -
getting wet -
hardcore teen gonzo -
here is the porn -
home made video -
horny girls paradise -
horny silver -
hunks in brazil -
i got gay -
in the vip -
join our fiesta -
king of gay porn -
latina licker -
leather boys -
lesbian orgy -
lezbo movies -
love the cock -
lusty puppy -
male video demon -
mega cock craver -
mega cock cravers -
men of canada -
mike apartment -
mike in brazil -
mikes apartment -
mikes in brazil -
milf hunter -
milf hunters -
milf lesson -
milf lessons -
moms anal adventure -
moms anal adventures -
monster of cock -
monsters of cock -
mr cameltoe -
mr cameltoes -
muscle mania -
nasty dollars -
nasty fetish -
naughty schoolgirls -
ox pass -
perfect bodies -
perfect boobs for you -
pimp my ass -
pink eye -
porno swingers -
pride access -
pride fantasies -
project milk -
public invasion -
public invasions -
queer elf -
queer movie archive -
queer sex movies -
ring of pleasure -
round and brown -
round n brown -
seduced girls -
sex parties uncovered -
shaft -
simply vids -
skeezy -
soldier of pride -
spring break spy cam -
squirt shower -
sticky juice -
street blowjob -
street blowjobs -
stud vids -
taylor bow -
teen girls -
teen sex -
teen vids -
the gay of the ring -
the gay tender -
the good bad and gay -
tight tranny ass -
too fast too gay -
top dvd -
top shelf pussy -
tranny movie world -
tranny surprise -
tranny surprises -
triple x select -
tug job -
tug jobs -
tuna party -
twisted gay -
urban candy uncovered -
urban perversions -
viking movies -
vip crew -
vip crews -
we live together -
we love cock -
wet playground -
wild gay harem -
wive in pantyhose -
work of pride -
wow thugs -
xtreme facials -
adult cams -
adult flics -
adware remover gold -
all gangbang -
all reality pass -
all reality passes -
all star porn girl -
all star porn girls -
all star studs -
amateur girls -
amateur pie -
anal valley -
backseat banger -
backseat bangers -
bang boat -
bang boats -
bare foot maniac -
bare foot maniacs -
best movies -
big cock addiction -
big cocks addiction -
big cock sex -
big cocks teen addiction -
big cock teen addiction -
big league facial -
big league facials -
big tit patrol -
big tit patrols -
bikini contest porn -
black cocks white sluts -
black cock white slut -
blind date banger -
blind date bangers -
bus stop whore -
bus stop whores -
cartoon 69 -
casting couch teen -
casting couch teens -
cheer chix -
coed need cash -
coeds need cash -
college teen book bang -
college teens book bang -
cyberfolds web -
data shredder gold -
discount reality site -
discoutn reality sites -
do pornstars -
ebony joy -
email spam block -
euro teens xxx -
euro teen xxx -
evidence cleaner gold -
extractor and burner -
extreme ass -
extreme asses -
extreme natural -
extreme naturals -
facial mag -
fantasy latina -
fetish hell -
free hot pics -
free video gallery -
gangbang squad -
gay amateur xxx -
gay asian xxx -
gay bear xxx -
gay big cock sex -
gay blind date sex -
gay dome -
gay ebony xxx -
gay facials xxx -
gay fetish xxx -
gay hentai xxx -
gay interracial xxx -
gay mature xxx -
gay military xxx -
gay orgy xxx -
gay videos xxx -
giant black meat white treat -
giants black meat white treat -
girls get crazy -
hard porn -
hard stud -
hentai playground -
her first anal sex -
her first ass 2 mouth -
her first ass to mouth -
her first big cock -
her first big cocks -
her first lesbian sex -
hirsute beavers -
his first facial -
his first facials -
his first gay sex -
his first huge cock -
his first huge cocks -
hollywood men exposed -
horny spanish flie -
horny spanish flies -
huge real boobs -
india chix -
interracial joy -
i spy cameltoe -
i spy cameltoes -
i teens -
just facial -
just facials -
large girls xxx -
lesbian teen hunter -
lesbian teen hunters -
lesbo erotica -
male super site -
mature xrotica -
milf next door -
milf seeker -
milfs next door -
modem speed booster -
mr big dick hot chick -
mr big dicks hot chicks -
mr chew asian beaver -
mr chews asian beaver -
muscle men xxx -
my sex tour -
natural bush girls -
oh boys -
on demand amateur movies -
on demand anal movies -
on demand big cock movies -
on demand big tit movies -
on demand blowjob movies -
on demand broadband movies -
on demand cumshot movies -
on demand ethnic movies -
on demand fetish movies -
on demand gangbang movies -
on demand gay movies -
on demand her first movies -
on demand interracial movies -
on demand lesbian movies -
on demand milf movies -
on demand pornstar movies -
on demand public movies -
on demand reality movies -
on demand shemale movies -
on demand teen movies -
panties and fannies -
panties n fannies -
papi -
pc speed booster -
pimp my black teen -
pimp my black teens -
please bang my wife -
please bang my wifes -
porno ground -
porn stud search -
porn studs search -
pump that ass -
pump that asses -
reality pass plus -
roger celeb -
secret celeb -
see asians -
see her squirt -
see her squirts -
sex illustrated -
sport erotica -
squirt hunter -
squirt hunters -
tb hosted galleries -
team squirt -
team squirts -
teen for cash -
teens for cash -
teeny bopper club -
texas dildo massacre -
the big swallow -
the big swallows -
threesomes -
tinys black adventure -
tinys black adventures -
titty max -
tongue and toy -
tongues and toys -
top bucks -
traffic cash gold -
tranny house -
true celebs -
true male celebs -
twink for cash -
twinks for cash -
ultra videos -
usa escorts -
vanilla teens black cream -
voyeur gals -
wanna watch -
xxx adult stars -
xxx proposal -
xxx proposals -
xxx supersize -
18 inches of pain -
all about ashley -
all gay reality pass -
all reality xxx pass -
amazing anal -
amazing gangbangs -
american daydreams -
anal pals -
anal sweeties -
asian parade -
asian parades -
asian tease -
ass plundering -
average ho -
bang my hot wife -
bare foot bad girls -
beach teens -
bimbo wives -
bj sandwich -
black sweeties -
blonde pubes -
boob exam scam -
boobie club -
boobs exam scam -
bookworm bitches -
born 2 porn -
boy for boy -
brown hair girls -
brutal blowjobs -
bubble butt galore -
bubble butts galore -
bum bang -
bush less -
celeb hotel -
cigarette sluts -
circus penis -
club heshe -
club titties -
club tranny -
college wild parties -
college wild party -
couples seduce teen -
couples seduce teens -
creamy facials -
cum cheeks -
cum swap sluts -
digital chicks -
dildo brutality -
dildo dippers -
dirty latina maids -
dirty xxx sex -
dream kelly -
ebony cheeks -
facial masters -
farm secrets -
fast times at nau -
filthy letters -
first time swallow -
first time swallows -
fist bang -
foot cravings -
foot erotica -
fresh auditions -
fresh facials -
fresh teens -
from ass to mouth\index.htm -
fuck her throat -
fucking toons -
fuck the babysitter -
gape her ass -
gay college sex parties -
gay college sex party -
gay hitchhiker -
gay movie access -
gay movies access -
gay super cocks -
giant gay cock -
girl for girl -
girl ranch -
girls that gush -
gooey holes -
grande girls -
hardcore toons -
her 1st anal -
her first dp -
her first dps -
hot haley -
hot nude granny -
housewife 1on1 -
housewife banger -
housewife bangers -
huge boob galore -
huge boobs galore -
india uncovered -
insane cock brothas -
insane cocks brothas -
interracial sex fest -
jenny heart -
jungle girls -
kinky mature sluts -
knee high sox -
kunt fu -
latin adultery -
latina sex -
latina time -
latins finest -
lick that ass -
lipstick lesbo -
man hunter -
me fuck you long time -
mini boobs -
mission upskirt -
movie access -
movies access -
my first sex teacher -
my friends hot mom -
my naughty latin maid -
my sisters hot friend -
naughty amateur -
naughty america -
naughty america vip -
naughty nati -
naughty office -
naughty therapy -
na webmasters -
never shot -
newbie girls -
oral fantasies -
pee masters -
perfect orgy -
phat booty hunter -
pimp 4 a day -
pink eye surprise -
pink visual dvd -
pink visual dvds -
pink visual pass -
pink visual tgp -
plug her holes -
pom pom porno -
porn wanna be -
pregnant bang -
raw xxx -
real big hotties -
red hair sex -
road side pickups -
sara sexton -
secret fetishes -
semen slurpers -
sex movie on pod -
sex movies on pod -
sexy hardcore babes -
sexy round asses -
she got pimped -
shemale ambush -
shes huge -
shocking cocks -
shots of cum -
silver cash -
slam that ass -
slut movies -
smoking foxes -
soap boys -
so cal coeds -
solo bang -
solo girls -
solo sydney -
squirting chicks -
stay after class -
street strippers -
suck me bitch -
sugar mamas -
super bush -
super twinks -
swallow this bitch -
sweet cherrys -
taboo insertions -
teen body -
teen factory -
teen slut bus -
the best latinas -
the best pov -
tittie fuckers -
tokyo pickups -
tranny trouble -
trans sexualz -
upskirt school -
video chicks -
video seekers -
virtual chicks -
voyeur teens -
want wendy -
white boy stomp -
wild cash -
wild fuck toy -
wild fuck toys -
wild pass -
wild porn pass -
wrong side of town -
xxx casting -
xxx tryouts -
18 interracial -
18 teen live -
adult associate -
adult movie network -
adult rental -
adult video network -
adult xxx pornstars -
altered assholes -
a lucky stranger -
anal boy toys -
anal cravings -
anal cum junkies -
anal lick fest -
anal sex lessons -
anarchy archives -
asian cream -
asian creamy pies -
ass 2 mouth sluts -
ass like that -
ass master piece -
banging machines -
bangkok bangers -
banzai sluts -
big tit invasion -
bj quickies -
black addiction -
black attack gangbang -
black dicks latin chicks -
black mother fuckers -
boy girl bang -
brandy didder -
brazil bang -
bubble butt orgy -
bush hunter -
cash strapped teens -
cherry twinks -
chix in the mix -
church upskirts -
cock brutality -
cocks -
cocks usa -
college fuck tour -
creamed cornholes -
cream filled babes -
cream filled holes -
cum farters -
cum filled mouths -
cum filled panties -
cum swallowing lessons -
cum swapping bitches -
cum swapping twinks -
curious hunks -
dana lightspeed -
deep in her -
diary of a milf -
dirty aly -
dirty fuck dolls -
double diper -
drool my load -
ebony girls online -
facial buffet -
facial cum targets -
fetish view -
frank wank -
freakish cocks -
fucked by frank -
gagging whores -
gag sluts -
gangbang lessons -
gay blowjob auditions -
gay closet movies -
gay jerkoff auditions -
gay thrills -
ghetto hoochies -
guys lucky day -
handjob lessons -
hardcore movie station -
hardcore sweethearts -
hell fire sex -
hentai xxx sex -
his first threesome -
hot cartoons -
hot sperm facials -
huge dicks little chicks -
hundies -
interracial tv -
i want amateurs -
jordan capri -
king of tease -
kinzie kenner -
knob squad -
kung pao pussy -
lacey white -
lesbian lessons -
lesbian recruiters -
lesbo rama -
lightspeed 18 -
lightspeed 2 go -
lightspeed cash -
lightspeed girls -
lightspeeds hot shots -
lightspeed state -
lightspeed world -
little trouble maker -
ls sorority -
ls university -
mature hotel -
max softcore -
me and my pussy -
meat cash -
meat holes -
meat members -
midnight prowl -
milf riders -
military fantasy -
moms need cash -
monster cock club -
monster cock farm -
movie erotica -
my first porn scene -
my wifes friends -
naughty best friends -
naughty bookworms -
naughty drive thru -
neighbor affair -
neighbor affairs -
no cum dodging allowed -
nut in her mouth -
nuts on sluts -
oc cash -
oral cum queens -
orgy fantasy -
penis palooza -
pepes adventures -
pervert paradise -
petite beaver -
phat booty brazil -
phat booty hoes -
phat white booty -
pigtails round asses -
pimp juice -
platinum bucks -
pop porno -
porn jackass -
porn multi pass -
pov casting couch -
pov pervert -
pure teen porn -
pussy foot girls -
pussy pinata -
pussy punishers -
rachel 18 -
real and natural -
real arizona amateurs -
real big racks -
real girls tv -
reality porn pass -
real milf gangbang -
real trannies -