of discovery was a constant temptation he could never resist. If there was a room not to be entered, a matter not to be discussed, a mystery unsolved, Sam would not be further along. His closest friends called it, perhaps a bit harshly, "pathological". His parents, along with a veritable parade of authority figures through the years, had tried and failed to curb this proclivity. Still, it was curiosity that had brought him here to New Orleans. This time though there was a lot more at stake. His mind recalled the tumultuous events of the past day and a half that began mundanely enough at work in the archeology and antiquities department of the museum in Paris.

His expertise was Ancient Egypt, a leaning that stretched back to childhood. His first trip to Egypt had been literally a dream come true, strolling in the Valley of the Kings and seeing the carved relief’s of the mortuary temple of Ramesses II. But his all-consuming obsession, and there really was no other word for it but obsession, was the Box of Answers. From the moment he had heard tales of this obscure, lost relic, he knew he had to see it for himself, more precisely see what was inside the Box. Created from the ether by Geb, the Egyptian deity of earth and fertility, the Box was purported to contain the answers to life's deepest mysteries. Descriptions of it ranged from an object of solid gold to gilded wood with an ivory lid on which there were indecipherable markings predating hieroglyphs and a likeness of Geb as he was often portrayed - in male form with an erect cock. While majority of academics dismissed the Box as pure myth, few, like Sam, believed that it existed. It was mentioned in historic documents - once in the 11th dynasty of Mentuhotep II and again during the reign of Xerxes I. And as late as the early 20th century, an American archeologist named John Maynard Dinsmoore had launched a full-scale expedition in search of the Box. But while it was wildly rumored he had found it, no evidence of this had ever surfaced.

The Paris museum hired Sam on the basis of his comprehensive studies into the Box legends and he had searched tirelessly for its present location. But vain attempts were not going to appease a board of directors expecting him to deliver nothing less than the Box itself. Then as if fate was mocking his years of impotent disquisitions, a colleague meandered into his office and unceremoniously gave him his first real clue as a sepia toned photo of Dinsmoore was downloading on his computer screen.

"Dinsmoore? John Maynard Dinsmoore?"

Sam didn't bother to look up but asked, "Vous le connaissez?"

"Ouais. Il y un journal de Dinsmoore a New Orleans, vous savez?"

Sam bolted up from his chair in surprise. "Vous etes certain?"

"Sans doute." The man paused. "Il y un homme a New Orleans...uh, il s'appele Norris avec une societe pour la preservation des documents d'historique. Il pourra vous aider."

"Merci, merci, mille fois merci!"

Sam started pulling his papers together when his cell phone rang. The call was coming from the apartment phone. Must have been his boyfriend Luc. But what was he doing at home? Opting to deal with it later, he hastened to procure the necessary authorization and funds to follow this lead to New Orleans. But along with the approval came a dire warning. The museum director informed him with unadorned candor that substantiation from this journal,