“Let’s start with the basics,” she announced in a somewhat loud, friendly, and charming voice. “Name, rank, and serial numbers please!”

 

The request from New York Times reporter Karen Franklin had the exact effect she was hoping to achieve. The two people in front of her had exhibited signs of unease and general discomfort in the setting they found themselves in. But, with Franklin’s first question, both smiled and even chuckled a bit in amusement.

 

That was the reaction the reporter was hoping to provoke. She wanted both of the subjects seated across from her to be at ease, or at least as comfortable as possible. She had learned this lesson, and learned it well, as a young reporter. A counterpart who she admired a great deal managed to put his interview targets at ease with similar requests.

 

Like any young reporter new to the game of journalism, she both admired the style and copied it. She made it her own. She was not a military veteran like her counterpart had been, but it did not matter. She was looking for the desired effect. The first question she lobbed in with the delicacy of a well-placed hand grenade achieved the goal.

 

“Francis King,” the man in front of Franklin responded, with a bit of angst in his voice. “Geologist. Associate Professor, University of California at Los Angeles.”

 

The woman seated next to King across from Franklin nervously cleared her throat.

 

“Catherine Rank,” she said. “Genetic Biologist, Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, also at UCLA. You can call me Cathy if you would like. Catherine is just the formal name.”

 

Franklin was taping the interview session with her iPhone, an act that also made both of her targets a bit edgy. But it didn’t stop her from taking notes in her reporter’s notebook. She looked up after Rank had finished.

 

“And you both teach here at UCLA,” she asked next.

 

“We’re Associate Professors,” Rank responded. “We teach part time.”

 

“We also own and operate a business we started together about a decade ago,” King chimed in.

 

The interview Franklin had requested was held inside a private office that belonged to the Department of Geology and Tectonics on the UCLA campus. Franklin knew her targets were a tad uncomfortable. Both had never spoken to a news reporter before. Certainly not a reporter who worked for a prestigious institution like the NY Times.

 

She really didn’t have the heart to tell them the truth. She wasn’t quite a staff reporter. In reality, Franklin was a stringer, or freelance reporter. It’s a role with the Times that carries the distinguished job instructions of don’t call us, we’ll call you. When the newsroom in New York needed someone to cover a story in Southern California, Franklin got the phone call, text, or email. Sometimes those requests could be made once a week. But there were also other times when it was once every three months.

 

“Before we get started, I really have to tell you that we did not mean to open this can of worms,” King suddenly blurted out.

 

Franklin looked up from her reporter’s notepad just long enough to see Rank laser in on her counterpart with her eyes. It was a message that seemed to convey King had better shut his can if he knew what was good for him. Franklin grinned in response.

 

The Times assignment desk had not been much help. Big shock there, she thought. The instructions were the two people seated in front of her operated a business together and had done or said something to rile up the Museum of Antiquities in Egypt. When she called the desk for further clarification, she was told that was all they had. The Assignment Manager then ended the call with a curt, “go get em,’ Tiger.”

 

“Gee, thanks you moron,” she thought. “You’ve been a big help.”

 

She decided to start her line of questioning by asking the two about their business. She knew from experience business owners love to talk about business. In fact, they won’t shut up about it.

 

“The name of your business,” she asked.

 

“Granite Solutions,” King replied.

 

“What sort of solutions,” Franklin prodded.

 

“We work directly with builders, contractors, and architects and anyone else who needs assistance in procuring the right kind of granite needed for construction and other projects,” King responded.

 

“I didn’t realize there was a demand for such a thing,” Franklin said.

 

“Oh, there is,” Rank chimed in. “Granite is used in multiple building applications and public works projects such as roads, bridges, highways, and any other project that demands a lot of concrete. Crushed granite is a key component in a lot of this work.”

 

“Granite is also used in both large and small construction projects across the globe,” King said. “From very large office buildings right down to the single-family home. Consumers want granite countertops in kitchens and bathrooms.

 

“What’s the big attraction,” Franklin asked.

 

“Multiple,” King answered. “It’s very durable. Granite building materials can last a lifetime. It is one-hundred-percent natural as it is sourced directly from granite deposits across the world and cut into multiple shapes and sizes.”

 

“Granite building materials also come in hundreds of different colors and compositions,” Rank added. “It doesn’t burn. It is resistant to scratching. It is impossible to leave a stain on a granite countertop. Contractors and builders who invest in granite walls, coverings, or building materials are responsible for some very expensive real estate.”

 

“How does Granite Solutions help builders and contractors,” Franklin asked, genuinely curious.

 

“We help point them to the right sources of granite for whatever project they might have,” King said.

 

“I take it then not all granite is the same,” Franklin asked.

 

“It’s not,” Rank responded. “Some deposits, which are considered poor in quality, are crushed for road and highway construction. Some crushed granite is used in landscaping around homes and buildings. Others that offer unique colors or streaks of quartz or other minerals are used in different applications. We’ve discovered, in our line of work, that no two deposits of granite are alike. They are all unique.”

 

Franklin was busy scribbling on her notepad when another question suddenly popped up. It would turn out to be the $64 question, as it yielded the result that made Granite Solutions such a unique business.

 

“How do you determine this,” she innocently asked.

 

“Granite Solutions administers a specific test that results in a unique grade for every type of granite found in the world today,” King said. “The results are much like a fingerprint. It tells us the grade or quality of each deposit, the type of minerals it contains, colors or hues found within each deposit, and other information builders and contractors want. Cathy actually developed the process.”

 

Franklin glanced at Rank.

 

“The field of genetic biology can be implemented in many ways,” Rank explained. Modern advances in medicine, agriculture, and pharmaceuticals stem from this work. It has given us, for example, DNA profiles that are unique to each person on Earth.”

 

Rank paused for a minute to allow Franklin to catch up with the notes she was scribbling down. When she looked up, Rank continued.

 

“Granite Solutions uses this type of molecular analysis to determine the types and grades of every granite deposit discovered so far,” Rank continued. “Our type of analysis produces results similar to DNA sequencing. Granite testing gives us a series of markers that can be used to satisfy the needs of industry. Each marker or test result is unique. No two are alike.”

 

“How many deposits of granite are there,” Franklin asked next.

 

“In the world,” King responded in the form of a question. “Thousands. Tens of thousands. There are more than two hundred in the State of California alone. Not all of them are mined or quarried, but some are. The closest quarry to us would probably be in Redlands. That’s where a type of granite called Apache Red comes from. Another in Northern California, Rocklin to be exact, was used to quarry stone that built the State Capitol building in Sacramento.”

 

“Most of the granite used in America is actually imported,” Rank chimed in.

 

“Really,” Franklin said. “From where?”

 

“Brazil and China are big sources,” Rank answered. “Brazilian granite is in big demand because that’s the source of the Van Gogh variety.”

 

“I assume that is a special variety,” Franklin responded. “How come.”

 

“Supply and demand,” King answered. “It’s called Van Gogh granite because it resembles one of Van Gogh’s paintings. Each piece of it contains swirls of deep blue, gold, white, and green. The colors are incredible. It can only be found in one place and it’s not cheap!”

 

Franklin took another minute or two to finish writing notes before she looked up and posed the big question the NY Times had sent her to ask.

 

“So, what’s the big trouble with the Museum of Antiquities in Egypt,” she questioned. It was the type of query that caused the friendly rapport she had developed with King and Rank to suddenly vanish. Smiles from both were suddenly replaced with embarrassed looks of guilt and perhaps a tad bit of shame.

 

“Bingo,” Franklin thought. She had managed to hit the mark every reporter aims for.

 

Rank finally broke the moment of uncomfortable silence by speaking first.

 

“Granite Solutions was approached by the Museum of Antiquities in Cairo about two years ago with a special request,” Rank answered. “Are you familiar with the Pyramid Complex on the Giza Plateau?”

 

“You mean the Great Pyramids in Egypt,” Franklin asked. “I know of them, yes. Never been there, but I’m somewhat familiar with them.”

 

“We had never been there either,” King answered. “Until we received a request and invitation from museum leadership. They retained Granite Solutions to run a series of tests on the granite blocks located in the King’s Chamber. That chamber is also called Khufu’s Chamber. It’s in the Great Pyramid, the largest one on the Giza Plateau.”

 

“The King’s Chamber contains some of the most enigmatic granite blocks in that pyramid,” Rank said. “They are incredibly large and tremendously heavy. The ceiling blocks alone are estimated to weigh seventy-tons or more each and there are dozens of them.”

 

“Museum leadership wanted us to test and confirm what they had always believed to be true,” King said.

 

Franklin, who had been making notations in her notebook, looked up and posed the next question.

 

“What was that,” she said.

 

“That the granite blocks in the King’s Chamber were quarried at a site called Aswan,” King replied. “It’s a little over five hundred miles south of the Giza Plateau, located on the Nile River.”

 

There was a bit of a silence that Franklin found to be strange. After she had finished writing in her notepad, she looked up.

 

“Let me guess,” she said. “You ran tests in the King’s Chamber and at the quarry at Aswan and did not get a match.”

 

“Not even close,” Rank responded. “The readings that resulted from the granite in the King’s Chamber varied a great deal from what was discovered at Aswan. According to our test results, the granite at the Great Pyramid was not taken from the Aswan quarry site.”

 

“What was the reaction from the Museum of Antiquities,” Franklin asked next, genuinely curious.

 

“They asked us to test it again,” King responded, a bit sheepishly. “So, we did. We don’t need much in the way of material to run these tests. Just a few grams of granite dust will suffice. We took five samples collected at different points in Khufu’s Chamber, including the large blocks above the chamber, and five other samples from the Aswan quarry.”

 

“And,” Franklin inquired with a raised eyelid.

 

“No change,” Rank said quietly. “They didn’t match up. Not even close.”

 

“I think I am beginning to understand why museum leadership isn’t exactly happy with you two,” Franklin said. She also noticed Rank and King turned to glance at one another without saying so much as a word.

 

There was more to the story. She knew it instinctively.

 

“So, what happens next when you run into circumstance like this,” Franklin asked next. “What’s the next move? Is there a next move?”

 

“We start testing other quarry sites,” King replied. There are dozens of them in Egypt. We know they were used in antiquity for some of the other ancient construction projects. So, we collected and tested samples from deposits in places like Edfu, Qurna, Koptos, and numerous other places.”

 

Franklin made a mental note to ask for the correct spelling of these locations and then looked up for further clarification.

 

“And,” she asked.

 

“No matches,” Rank said quietly.

 

“We also began to look at quarry sites outside of Egypt,” King added. “The ancient kingdom was quite large. It took in parts of Sudan, Libya, and The Sinai. Egypt’s influence stretched into modern-day Israel, Jordan, Syria, even Lebanon. There are hundreds of potential quarry sites to test.”

 

“Have you conducted tests at those sites,” Franklin asked.

 

“Some of them, yes,” Rank replied. “But we haven’t found anything yet that matches the test results from the King’s Chamber.”

 

Franklin got the distinct impression there was something Rank and King were doing their level best not to tell her. They were withholding something. She knew it. She could see it on the faces of both. She could tell by the guilty way they both looked at each other.

 

She was beginning to understand why it took so much effort to secure an interview with these two. They had ducked her request for a week. She finally had to enlist the power of the UCLA Public Information Office to arrange the meeting she wanted. But there was still something they were not telling her.

 

 So, she did what any good reporter would do. She pressed further.

 

“That’s it then,” she questioned. “That’s the story so far? Nothing to add?”

 

“No,” Rank responded, slowly at first. “We received a notification about six months ago that a sample taken from one site that contained a granite deposit was a match for what we tested in the King’s Chamber.”

 

“Here we go,” Franklin thought.

 

“An exact match,” she questioned.

 

“Yes,” King interjected. “All the markers were an exact match.”

 

“Congratulations then,” Franklin said. “You found it.”

 

“We didn’t find it,” Rank admitted. “Artemis did.”

 

“Artemis,” Franklin questioned. “Who is Artemis?”

 

“Artemis is a robot,” Rank explained, all the while glancing at King.

 

“Are you familiar with what a lava tube is,” King asked Franklin.

 

“I think so,” Franklin responded. “That’s a cave, right?”

 

“Correct,” King responded. “Lava tubes are caves or conduits that carry molten lava following a volcanic eruption. Some of them can be quite long and very large.”

 

“So, the granite that matches the granite blocks in the Great Pyramid was discovered in a lava tube at the base of a volcano,” Franklin questioned.

 

Both Rank and King nodded yes in response. At the same time, they both refused to look at Franklin directly. They looked at each other instead. They didn’t say a word.

 

“What volcano,” Franklin asked next. It’s a question that resulted in some embarrassing silence. The geologist spoke first.

 

“It’s called Olympus Mons,” King said, rather quietly. “The lava tube extends out about one hundred miles from the base of it.”

 

Franklin had heard the name of that volcano before. She just could not remember where she heard it, or where it was. Her face was buried in her reporter’s notebook when she posed the next question.

 

“What country is that in,” she asked innocently.

 

“It’s not,” Rank replied.

 

“What part of the world, then,” Franklin prodded, looking up.

 

“It’s not,” was the first response from King. He then followed up with a quiet explanation. “At least, not on this world.”

 

Rank finally looked directly at Franklin.

 

“Olympus Mons is on the surface of Mars,” she said quietly. “It’s the biggest volcano on Mars. Bigger than any volcano found on Earth. It’s about the size of New Mexico.”

 

“The State of New Mexico,” Franklin asked with emphasis.

 

Rank nodded in the affirmative. The cat was finally out of the bag. Not just out of the bag, the cat had run out of the room, off the UCLA campus, and dashed into busy afternoon traffic on nearby Wilshire Blvd. There was no retrieving it.

 

“So, Artemis is a rover working on the surface of Mars,” Franklin asked.

 

Both Rank and King nodded without saying another word.

 

“Let me get this straight,” Franklin asked in a direct manner. “You are telling me the granite blocks that line the King’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid at Giza were quarried from a lava tube at the base of Olympus Mons on the surface of Mars and were then transported to Earth?”

 

“No, that is not what we are saying,” Rank quickly interjected. “We can only confirm that testing of a granite deposit on Mars matches the markers found in the King’s Chamber. We still might find another deposit on Earth that contains the same molecular footprint.”

 

“That’s right,” Kind added. “This granite could be buried somewhere. It might be under a body of water. The topography of Egypt has changed quite a bit since the pyramids were constructed. We know, for example, the Mediterranean Ocean had a much smaller footprint at one time. The granite we are looking for could be buried under the shifting sands of time and geological history.”

 

“But you also told me no two sources of granite you’ve tested so far exhibit the same characteristics,” Franklin said. “Correct?”

 

Both King and Rank nodded in the affirmative.

 

“How many deposits has Granite Solutions tested,” she questioned further.

 

This time King stared directly into Franklin’s eyes before he answered.

 

“Thousands,” was his one-word reply.

 

Franklin had the story. She knew it. She was about to wrap up the interview with the final questions of what steps Granite Solutions will take next and if there was anything Rank or King wanted to add as a final thought, when another question ran across her mind.

 

“How did NASA get the testing model Granite Solutions developed,” she asked. “How did that wind up on the Artemis rover?”

 

Rank led off with the first answer.

 

“We were approached by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in La Cañada about six or seven years ago,” she explained. “A research team there had heard about our work with molecular granite mapping and wanted to know if that technology could be modified to include on future rover missions to Mars.”

 

“And you agreed,” Franklin asked.

 

“Of course,” King said. “It’s an honor to share that type of information and process in the scientific work done by JPL. Of course, we immediately agreed. But, at the same time, we never expected anything like this.”

 

Franklin wrapped up the interview soon after, and made sure to retain phone numbers from both King and Rank for follow up questions if needed. She was hoping to get a comment out of JPL for her story, but ran into the brick wall of “no comment” there.

 

A day or two later she did receive a phone call from a public information officer (PIO) connected with NASA. The PIO didn’t know much and was not willing to make a comment to the Times. She did confirm, however, the story Rank and King had given her. The Artemis rover had drilled into a plug of granite at the base of Olympus Mons on Mars. The rover did return the result of a molecular signature King and Rank claimed was an exact match to the granite found in the King’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid.

 

She also learned something new. NASA had beamed instructions to Artemis to repeat the test in two different locations. Both tests revealed the same results. Some years later she would discover Artemis also received instructions to take and return panoramic photos of the area in question.

 

Those images revealed a shallow hole in the panoramic distance. It greatly resembled the look of some granite quarries on Earth. But she was also told the grainy, windswept pictures were inconclusive. Centuries of sandstorms and other geologic events could have produced similar results.

 

The Museum of Antiquities in Cairo also proved to be no help. Calls placed to them, as well as the Egyptian embassy in Washington DC, both resulted in a curt “no comment” type of response. It was the same story with Egyptologists either connected with the museum or employed elsewhere. Nobody wanted to risk the wrath of museum leadership.

 

The biggest support, surprisingly, came from the Granite Solutions customer base. Builders and contractors alike both lined up to vouch for the work King and Rank were doing. The strongest words of support came from Andrew Wurtz, a general contractor responsible for building some very high-end hotel resorts he developed in Cabo San Lucas. It’s a quote that wound up in the story.

 

“If Granite Solutions told you a piece of granite came from the depths of Hell,” he told Franklin. “There’s no doubt that’s where it came from.”

 

The NY Times ran with what they had. The headline, which appeared on the front page with Franklin’s name on it, carried the title of Martian Granite Discovered in Egyptian Pyramid. The end result, of course, was an explosion of news coverage that lasted for nearly two years. It made Franklin into a star. A book deal and multiple TV appearances followed.

 

Egypt found itself swamped with a boost in tourism it was not expecting. Waiting times to visit the Pyramid Complex at Giza jumped from one year to five and then ten. The interior of Khufu’s Chamber had not changed one iota for centuries. The fact it may have been lined with building materials sourced from Mars, however, changed things considerably. Business in the Middle East boomed like never before.

 

The notoriety had a positive effect on Franklin’s life. Most newspaper reporters can only dream about owning a home in the Brentwood Hills. Franklin’s home wasn’t just nice, it contained some unique features. One was that small replica statue of Khufu she received from the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities during a special presentation ceremony. It sat on a shelf where its outstretched arms took in the gold medal she had been presented with for winning the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.

 

The biggest prize, however, would come from her new friends at Granite Solutions. Reporters are taught to say no to expensive gifts. It’s a rule of the industry. But it’s tough to say no to an offer of a Blue Louise granite countertop in the kitchen, sourced directly from Brazil’s legendary Van Gogh granite quarry.