CHAPTER ONE


Angel Carmen woke up with a yawn. She glared at the clock. It was still 5 am in the morning.

“Mum and Dad won’t have woken up yet,” thought Angel.


As she left her room, there was a loud noise coming from her brother’s bedroom. She opened the door to find Jesper playing chess with himself on his new chess set.

“At that rate if you play chess with yourself, your chess set will become ashes or Dad will lock it up and also lock up any new set you buy,” said Angel.

“Or on second thought, perhaps Dad will simply throw away my book of chess,” smirked Jesper.

“Now, I’m trying to destroy two rooks in a line, so get lost!” barked Jesper.


Angel sighed as she closed the door. “Never mind,” thought Angel as she opened her comic. But at that exact moment, she noticed a huge pile of archeology homework in the undone tray.


As Angel was about to reach for her pen, she heard, “Breakfast is ready!”


Angel ran to the stairs and grabbed her roller skates and skated down the banister at very dangerous speeds to find Mum holding a tray that had beef burgers on it.

“Yum Yum!” screamed Angel.


As biting into her burger, she heard a heavy thud. She saw Jesper there, grinning. Angel was about to have a sixth helping when Jesper snatched it and chewed it into a mash. When Angel gulped down her coffee, she saw the school bus.

“Bye, Mum!” She said as she climbed on the bus.

Two hours later, she arrived at the Northside College Preparatory High School. After 5 hours of archeology research, she went on the bus for home. When she arrived, she saw Mum waiting for her.

“The President wants to see you.”


When Angel entered the house, there seated Franklin Roosevelt with 5 government agents in black suits and very dark sunglasses with their hands always on their side, concealing Colt .45 automatic pistols from plain sight.

“Angel, we want you to find the Moses’ Staff. The stupid Nazis of Germany want to find it because their mad leader Adolf Hitler wants to rule the world and he has heard of the Staff containing unbelievable power. All of the other famous archeologists I sent have all gone missing. Besides, you are quick, nimble and young, the Nazis will not be aware of you. We will pay your family $10,000 for your travels, then $100,000 if you find it before the Nazis. One of our archeologists discovered some stone tablets in King Solomon’s tomb. I‘ll give you photos of the tablets,” said Franklin.


He turned to an agent. “James, please give Angel the photos of the tablets.”


The agent nodded and crossed over to a dark Cadillac Model 65 V-16 with federal government license plates. Then he opened the door and pulled out a briefcase. Then he opened it and pulled out a couple of black-and-white photos of the two stone tablets. Each photo was taken from a different angle and view.


Angel’s heart throbbed with excitement - a real mission!

“With pleasure,” replied Angel.



****************************

CHAPTER TWO


It was still midnight when the Carmen family reached the city’s Municipal Airport. Angel had brought her semi-automatic pistol, while Jesper brought his Colt revolver. They slipped through the crowd and boarded the plane. At the back seat, the man put his head above his copy of the Times. He smiled. He was a Nazi spy.

* * *


After sixteenth hours of flight, they finally reached Sirnak via Istanbul because they thought Moses died near the border of Turkey and Iraq, in a place somewhere near Mount Cudi where Noah’s Ark finally reached dry land.

“We will reach for the Sirnak Hotel,” said Dad.


But when they reached there, all they saw were huge fire. The hotel looked more like a bar because all it had was a staircase that led up to the bedrooms. Even though that a hotel like this with a big bar would have been nice, the dirtiness of the overturned tables and chairs wasn’t comfortable. Nearby, screaming visitors could be seen fleeing out the scene. It was clear that they were shocked and terrified.


“Who could have done all this damage?” muttered Angel.


As if a cue, a shot ran out, followed by a laugh in thick German accent. They saw the Nazi spy, Hans, holding a smoking Luger pistol, alone. Angel and her family burst into action. Angel quickly returned fire while Jesper, Mum and Dad covered Angel, but a Turk who was hiding behind a curtain fired at them with an MP40 submachine gun, causing Jesper, Mum, and Dad to duck.


As Angel hid behind an over-turned table, Jesper hit the Turk in the shin. When the Turk fell down in pain, Angel hit him in the heart. A Nepalese arrived to replace him and so did an Arab. When Hans threw a grenade at Angel, she ducked and rolled. Angel fired at Hans’ elbow. When the Nepalese was searching for a pistol, she hit him in the head.
Jesper fired at the bar tender’s place. It set fire to whisky bottles. Then as the Arab ran towards Angel holding a dagger, Angel caught his hand. She angled it away from her neck, and then forced it back into the Arab’s stomach. The Arab groaned in pain, and then he received a bullet in his head.


A Polish officer jumped down from the stairs leading up and fired at Mum and Dad who ducked with a Walther P-38 pistol. Angel blasted his pistol away, but Hans shot a whisky glass into pieces, making a fire that scorched chairs and walls. As Angel fired her last bullet, Hans smirked.

“You might have killed some helpers, but you will die!” laughed Hans as he boarded a Kübelwagen.

“It is impossible for us to get them now,” said Dad. “We must find another hotel to sleep in.”

* * *


After a few hours, they still had not found a hotel.


“We don’t have transport. It could take us days to find a hotel,” muttered Jesper.


Angel suddenly got an idea. “We can grab a car left behind at the Sirnak Hotel!!” shouted Angel. They all nodded.
Hours later Angel and her family were off in their search. They had ‘taken’ a shiny black Citröen that could reach 100 mph in 13 seconds. Angel had chosen it herself because it had 45 horsepower.


“Just the thing they need,” murmured Angel.


She was desperate to find a hotel so she drove non-stop at 100 mph - too fast for Turkey’s roads. After loads of twisting and turning the steering wheel in attempts to avoid crashing, they finally found a small inn. The inn was built on a giant piece of ruined land. The inn was alone in that piece of ruined land; with no other houses or buildings beside it. The inn looked like a crude building made by lazy builders who, instead of designing the inn, just grabbed the design of a shack and just made a few shacks, and piled cemented them on top of each other. Then they just built rooms and such and connected all of the shacks with a staircase.


Angel figured out that the building was probably unstable and could collapse any second, so she carefully took each step, minimizing the vibrations made by each step, hoping the inn might not fall from the vibrations they were making. They settled themselves into the inn’s comfy beds and slept.

* * *


Angel was worried about the Staff so she got the photos of the tablets the President gave her and searched for clues. When she got to a part that read: “My great power will return to its true owner” and she put the photos down. After, loads of guesses and constant checking the bible, she figured out where Moses’ Staff was!


TO BE CONTINUED