Excerpt from Nile River Scorpion Copyright © 2016 Gerard Doris.
PROLOGUE
(Egypt – Present Day)
The howl of a desert coyote echoed through the quiet streets of Cairo. It was midnight, and Africa’s second most populous city was covered in soft moonlight. Twenty stories above the street a man in black looked down as the coyote’s shriek reached his ears. He then quickly turned back to the glass and stone structure and pulled himself up to the thirtieth floor by using a complicated pulley system he had installed only ten minutes before.
He then began to quietly cut the glass, knowing he had turned off the alarm system eleven minutes earlier. The job complete he pocketed the special serrated blade into his black jacket and pushed the glass frame inward. The glass pane dropped onto the thick carpeted floor, making a screeching noise as it cracked in two. The man in black didn’t care as he climbed inside. He knew the thirtieth floor study was built like a vault, a sound proof vault.
The study looked like a cross between a modern bachelor pad and the living quarters of a 19th century intellectual. Crimson red carpet from Turkey, modern steel covered tables and chairs, a French couch that looked as if it had been taken from Versailles, and wall to wall bookshelves packed with over a thousand volumes filled every corner of the room. Against the far wall was the electric fireplace, the artificial flames having been turned off hours before. Beside the only door was a keypad that glowed green to signify the door hadn’t been breached.
The intruder walked to one of the bookshelves and swept the old tomes with blue light from his LED flashlight. He stopped and pulled an immense and ancient looking book off one of the shelves, two feet long by two feet wide.
He carefully laid the ancient volume on the coffee table and slowly opened the cover to reveal that the inside of the book had been cut out and a large brown package roughly one foot long and two feet wide had been placed in the centre. The brown paper was cracked and extremely old, held together with only a paper string. But once the thief undid the old string he could see that underneath the timeworn paper there was plenty of laminated protective fabric…wrapped tightly over a painting.
The man in black quickly retied the string and after pulling the package out of the ancient book he placed it inside the backpack he carried. He then left the book right on the table still open, and rushed back towards the window. He looked down at his watch and saw the digital numbers ticking down in the darkened room, realizing he had ten minutes before the alarm system came back on.
Quickly clipping his belt back onto the pulley system he then swung back out into the humid Cairo night. Two storeys down everything began to go wrong.
Suddenly the thirtieth floor lights flashed on, followed by the ear piercing whine of the alarm. Automatically the lights from every other floor turned on until the entire apartment building was brightly lit. The thief turned his head and looked down at the street and his worst fears were confirmed. Ten Egyptian police officers who had been smoking casually three blocks away could be seen running towards the front of the apartment, their weapons drawn.
The thief quickly rappelled down until he was just two stories above ground. He then stopped and ran against the side of the building away from the main street until he was hidden by the shadows of the side alley. He lowered himself down even more until he was ten feet above ground. Unable to go any farther he unclipped the line and dropped onto the roof of a high end Land Rover. He smacked his knee badly but barely felt the pain as he rolled off the roof and dropped quietly into the dirt. He looked up and could see six more officers run past the alley towards the front of the building.
His original plan had involved rappelling towards an abandoned building on the opposite side and disappearing inside. But that was the direction from which most of the police were coming, and he would likely have never made it into the empty structure before being cut down by gunfire.
He looked at the Range Rover and scowled under his mask. Option two it was.
He pulled out the special serrated knife and cut a small hole in the door window. He replaced the knife inside his jacket, put his arm inside the window and pressed the unlock button. In total it took him only three seconds to break into the SUV.
He climbed inside and carefully placed the backpack in the passenger’s seat. He hotwired the car and keeping the lights off he backed up towards the opposite end of the alley away from the main street. But before he reached the alley’s exit three police appeared and the thief hit the brakes, causing the large car to briefly slide three feet in the alley mud.
The officers aimed their rifles and ordered the SUV to stop. The thief responded by putting the SUV in drive and crushing the accelerator under his foot. The soldiers responded to him by firing, tearing five holes in the Range Rover and shattering the rear window glass.
The thief didn’t care. The SUV exploded out of the side alley onto the main street and he quickly turned right, pushing the eight cylinder engine over 110 mph. He looked in the rear view mirror and could see the street was filled with police lights around the building’s entrance, but no car was in pursuit. He quickly turned down a couple streets, then after another minute of manic driving he looked back again. Still no police chase.
He turned down another street, then another, crossed a bridge over the Nile River, then after ten more minutes of manic driving he reached a poorly paved road with no large buildings on either side. He pushed the accelerator farther down and turned on the SUV’s cold blue front lights. The desert approached.
The road continued to fade away until it was only a desert dirt path. The Range Rover was built for roads much harsher so the ride remained smooth. After twenty more minutes of driving Cairo faded in the distance, and soon the illuminated Great Sphinx and behind it the faint outline of the Great Pyramid became visible.
The thief didn’t care to look at either of the two historically famous sites. He had a piece of history sitting next to him in the backpack.
He drove on for another two hours looking for a specific location. Eventually the SUV’s blue lights illuminated a certain stretch of the Nile River in the distance ahead.
He pressed one button on his smartphone and holding it to his ear he waited ten seconds until a muffled voice answered anxiously. The thief responded with only two words: "Extraction now!!"
He didn’t wait for a response but quickly ended the call and tossed the phone onto the seat. The blackened waters of the Nile River could be seen growing larger, and two miles downriver the faint lights of a small schooner could be seen approaching. The thief sighed in relief at the sight of the schooner and yelled out loud, "I’ve made it!"
Crack! Unexpectedly a bullet tore through the back window and ripped through the backpack before becoming lodged in the center console. The thief screamed in horror but before he could examine the backpack to see if the painting was hit, three more bullets shrieked past his head shattering the inside of the windshield.
Unable to see through the shattered glass he still continued forward, the SUV now completely lit up on the darkened path by police searchlights. The thief slowly began to lose control as he blindly hit a series of deep potholes which almost caused the Range Rover to crash. In moments the SUV was down to thirty miles an hour.
Two armoured police SUV’s suddenly closed to within ten feet and they unleashed a volley of machine gun fire. The Range Rover was built to handle Mother Nature, not machine guns, and the bullets tore massive holes in the engine block and doors. The engine began to sputter and the thief knew it would die in seconds. The Cairo authorities called out for him to surrender, knowing they had him.
The thief instead looked out the shattered remains of the passenger window and could see the moonlit waters of the Nile River only thirty feet away. He made his decision and spun the wheel.
The Range Rover roared towards the river, flying off the bank and crashing into the black water seven feet below. Shocked the Cairo authorities immediately turned off the path and parked at the river’s edge, their searchlights aimed down onto the water below.
They could instantly see the Range Rover bobbing in the water partially overturned, covered in steam as the cool waters of the Nile met the destroyed and overheated engine block. Four Cairo police jumped in and swam towards the SUV. Cautiously they approached and peered inside. Looking up they shouted to the twenty men still on shore. "He’s escaped in the water!"
Immediately every police vehicle searchlight was directed away from the Range Rover and instead used to scan the river in a searching pattern.
Fifty feet away the thief resurfaced, his backpack tied on. Taking a deep breath he dove back down before he was spotted. He hated swimming and he hated the Nile River. He didn’t need to read any more true life horror stories in the news to know that swimming in the Nile could be extremely dangerous.
He waited for a couple searchlights to pass overheard before he surfaced again. This time he tensely looked downriver to see if the schooner was still approaching. Would his accomplice still risk coming close to shore into the storm of police searchlights? Or would his friend leave him?
What he saw surprised and horrified him. The schooner was not coming close to shore, or leaving. Instead the schooner was surrounded by a ring of police boats and was being boarded.
As the thief continued watching the schooner in fear, a searchlight suddenly passed over him and the Cairo police began shooting into the air as they ordered him to surrender. He instead dove back down and the police began lowering small boats into the water to catch him.
The thief knew he was caught. The only question was, would he be caught with or without the treasure he carried? He looked around vainly but could only see blackness. At night the water was impossible to see through. He hated the thought of simply leaving the backpack behind. Who knows where it would drift with the current? Or worse, it might get buried in the Nile’s mud, the treasure forever concealed.
Then he saw it through the gloom.
Almost a hundred feet away illuminated by a searchlight above was a wreck lying on the bottom of the Nile River. He instantly decided he would hide the treasure there. Quickly he swam towards the object, thrilled that the searchlight hadn’t moved allowing him to see just enough to reach the wreck.
As he drew close he saw that it wasn’t a ship but in fact a plane. A fighter plane. He correctly guessed it was from World War II and was German. Most of the plane was bent, rusted, or rotting. The pilot’s seat beneath the cracked glass of the cockpit canopy was empty, no human remains. One wing was sticking up while the other was submerged in the mud, along with most of the plane’s tail. The black swastika was almost completely faded along with the rest of the fighter plane’s brown camouflage paint.
But as the thief swam nearer he could see something else was buried beside the plane. It was mostly concealed under the mud, and rested beside and under the wing that was also submerged in the river bottom. He didn’t wait to examine it any closer, but he did see through the gloom the rusted outline of a ribbed iron track.
Almost out of air he turned back to the plane and could see a large tear in the plane’s fuselage about three feet back from the pilot’s seat. He quickly swam to it and looked inside, unable to see anything but black water and mud. He then carefully lowered the backpack inside and readied himself to swim for the surface.
But as he turned away from the plane he felt something brush against his foot. He turned to look down but couldn’t see anything. But as he began to swim for the surface again he stopped frozen in shock as he saw something swim directly towards him, something that had come from inside the fighter plane. Before the creature reached him it suddenly turned and disappeared into the shadows of the Nile River’s mud and weeds.
It had swum too quickly for him to get a clear look at it. But he had clearly seen a tail. A hideously long and strange looking tail. The paralyzing shock passed and was replaced with outright fear and he swam as fast as possible for the police boats visible overhead.
But before he reached the surface the creature reappeared and attacked him. The water became a churning froth as the thief spun in the water, flailing his arms to break away. He quickly pulled the special serrated knife out of his jacket and swung viciously to kill the animal. The serrated blade stuck into the river predator’s back, and the animal temporarily turned away stunned, the blade still embedded in the creature’s outer shell. Just as the thief began to think he was finally safe the creature sharply turned back with a flash of its tail and attacked him again, and in desperation he tried to pull the knife free.
But the blade wouldn’t budge. The creature’s large tail then recoiled back before shooting forward directly into the thief, the black bonelike barb at the end of the tail puncturing his backbone. Paralyzed the thief could no longer move or defend himself, and in moments his life was over.
(One Week Later – Private Airport – Outside Cairo)
"This heat is insane! Why must we wait out here?"
Randel King looked at his business partner and good friend, nervously finished the last of his iced tea, and finally responded, "Because Victor, I want to meet these people the moment they land."
Victor nodded and wiped his brow for the fiftieth time that day. They were standing near the tarmac of a single runway outside of Cairo in the desert. Behind them was a small air conditioned office, a large hanger containing five private jets, and a yellow black Rolls Royce Phantom with silver doors and roof idling beside the hanger.
As the Phantom and jets suggested, both men were wealthy. But the similarities stopped there. Victor was short, out of condition, and had made half a million by playing the stock market. Randel was tall, slim but athletic, and had made three billion dollars building one of the largest companies in the world. While Victor was dressed like a businessman on holiday, complete with the polo shirt, white shorts, and cheap straw hat, Randel instead was dressed like a man entering the boardroom, complete with the silk suit and polished shoes. Victor would have poked fun at anyone else for wearing a suit in the desert, but he knew Randel always wore his best when meeting important clients no matter the weather.
Instead he suddenly pointed to the blue sky. "Sir, there it is!"
Randel looked up and quickly spotted the private jet approaching. As he expectantly watched the plane descend towards the small runway, Victor continued speaking.
"I do not mean to dampen your enthusiasm, but I am certain that most of the stories about these people must be false."
Randel watched the luxury Gulfstream private jet coast onto the runway and glide to a slow perfect stop. As the plane’s folding door opened and the air stairs slowly lowered to the ground, Randel turned to Victor and smiled for the first time. "You can’t dampen my enthusiasm. You know why?"
"Why?"
As the air stairs smoothly met the tarmac and was secured, Randel took off his sunglasses and walked towards the jet saying, "Because every astounding story about these wild adventurers is true."
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and waited patiently despite the searing heat of the sun reflecting off the tarmac. After the two stewardesses disembarked the only three passengers appeared and walked down the steps to greet him.
He knew from his research their names and accomplishments, but in person they were still a surprising sight.
(END OF SAMPLE) . Nile River Scorpion Description. Get the ebook. (FREE in most stores)
PROLOGUE
(Egypt – Present Day)
The howl of a desert coyote echoed through the quiet streets of Cairo. It was midnight, and Africa’s second most populous city was covered in soft moonlight. Twenty stories above the street a man in black looked down as the coyote’s shriek reached his ears. He then quickly turned back to the glass and stone structure and pulled himself up to the thirtieth floor by using a complicated pulley system he had installed only ten minutes before.
He then began to quietly cut the glass, knowing he had turned off the alarm system eleven minutes earlier. The job complete he pocketed the special serrated blade into his black jacket and pushed the glass frame inward. The glass pane dropped onto the thick carpeted floor, making a screeching noise as it cracked in two. The man in black didn’t care as he climbed inside. He knew the thirtieth floor study was built like a vault, a sound proof vault.
The study looked like a cross between a modern bachelor pad and the living quarters of a 19th century intellectual. Crimson red carpet from Turkey, modern steel covered tables and chairs, a French couch that looked as if it had been taken from Versailles, and wall to wall bookshelves packed with over a thousand volumes filled every corner of the room. Against the far wall was the electric fireplace, the artificial flames having been turned off hours before. Beside the only door was a keypad that glowed green to signify the door hadn’t been breached.
The intruder walked to one of the bookshelves and swept the old tomes with blue light from his LED flashlight. He stopped and pulled an immense and ancient looking book off one of the shelves, two feet long by two feet wide.
He carefully laid the ancient volume on the coffee table and slowly opened the cover to reveal that the inside of the book had been cut out and a large brown package roughly one foot long and two feet wide had been placed in the centre. The brown paper was cracked and extremely old, held together with only a paper string. But once the thief undid the old string he could see that underneath the timeworn paper there was plenty of laminated protective fabric…wrapped tightly over a painting.
The man in black quickly retied the string and after pulling the package out of the ancient book he placed it inside the backpack he carried. He then left the book right on the table still open, and rushed back towards the window. He looked down at his watch and saw the digital numbers ticking down in the darkened room, realizing he had ten minutes before the alarm system came back on.
Quickly clipping his belt back onto the pulley system he then swung back out into the humid Cairo night. Two storeys down everything began to go wrong.
Suddenly the thirtieth floor lights flashed on, followed by the ear piercing whine of the alarm. Automatically the lights from every other floor turned on until the entire apartment building was brightly lit. The thief turned his head and looked down at the street and his worst fears were confirmed. Ten Egyptian police officers who had been smoking casually three blocks away could be seen running towards the front of the apartment, their weapons drawn.
The thief quickly rappelled down until he was just two stories above ground. He then stopped and ran against the side of the building away from the main street until he was hidden by the shadows of the side alley. He lowered himself down even more until he was ten feet above ground. Unable to go any farther he unclipped the line and dropped onto the roof of a high end Land Rover. He smacked his knee badly but barely felt the pain as he rolled off the roof and dropped quietly into the dirt. He looked up and could see six more officers run past the alley towards the front of the building.
His original plan had involved rappelling towards an abandoned building on the opposite side and disappearing inside. But that was the direction from which most of the police were coming, and he would likely have never made it into the empty structure before being cut down by gunfire.
He looked at the Range Rover and scowled under his mask. Option two it was.
He pulled out the special serrated knife and cut a small hole in the door window. He replaced the knife inside his jacket, put his arm inside the window and pressed the unlock button. In total it took him only three seconds to break into the SUV.
He climbed inside and carefully placed the backpack in the passenger’s seat. He hotwired the car and keeping the lights off he backed up towards the opposite end of the alley away from the main street. But before he reached the alley’s exit three police appeared and the thief hit the brakes, causing the large car to briefly slide three feet in the alley mud.
The officers aimed their rifles and ordered the SUV to stop. The thief responded by putting the SUV in drive and crushing the accelerator under his foot. The soldiers responded to him by firing, tearing five holes in the Range Rover and shattering the rear window glass.
The thief didn’t care. The SUV exploded out of the side alley onto the main street and he quickly turned right, pushing the eight cylinder engine over 110 mph. He looked in the rear view mirror and could see the street was filled with police lights around the building’s entrance, but no car was in pursuit. He quickly turned down a couple streets, then after another minute of manic driving he looked back again. Still no police chase.
He turned down another street, then another, crossed a bridge over the Nile River, then after ten more minutes of manic driving he reached a poorly paved road with no large buildings on either side. He pushed the accelerator farther down and turned on the SUV’s cold blue front lights. The desert approached.
The road continued to fade away until it was only a desert dirt path. The Range Rover was built for roads much harsher so the ride remained smooth. After twenty more minutes of driving Cairo faded in the distance, and soon the illuminated Great Sphinx and behind it the faint outline of the Great Pyramid became visible.
The thief didn’t care to look at either of the two historically famous sites. He had a piece of history sitting next to him in the backpack.
He drove on for another two hours looking for a specific location. Eventually the SUV’s blue lights illuminated a certain stretch of the Nile River in the distance ahead.
He pressed one button on his smartphone and holding it to his ear he waited ten seconds until a muffled voice answered anxiously. The thief responded with only two words: "Extraction now!!"
He didn’t wait for a response but quickly ended the call and tossed the phone onto the seat. The blackened waters of the Nile River could be seen growing larger, and two miles downriver the faint lights of a small schooner could be seen approaching. The thief sighed in relief at the sight of the schooner and yelled out loud, "I’ve made it!"
Crack! Unexpectedly a bullet tore through the back window and ripped through the backpack before becoming lodged in the center console. The thief screamed in horror but before he could examine the backpack to see if the painting was hit, three more bullets shrieked past his head shattering the inside of the windshield.
Unable to see through the shattered glass he still continued forward, the SUV now completely lit up on the darkened path by police searchlights. The thief slowly began to lose control as he blindly hit a series of deep potholes which almost caused the Range Rover to crash. In moments the SUV was down to thirty miles an hour.
Two armoured police SUV’s suddenly closed to within ten feet and they unleashed a volley of machine gun fire. The Range Rover was built to handle Mother Nature, not machine guns, and the bullets tore massive holes in the engine block and doors. The engine began to sputter and the thief knew it would die in seconds. The Cairo authorities called out for him to surrender, knowing they had him.
The thief instead looked out the shattered remains of the passenger window and could see the moonlit waters of the Nile River only thirty feet away. He made his decision and spun the wheel.
The Range Rover roared towards the river, flying off the bank and crashing into the black water seven feet below. Shocked the Cairo authorities immediately turned off the path and parked at the river’s edge, their searchlights aimed down onto the water below.
They could instantly see the Range Rover bobbing in the water partially overturned, covered in steam as the cool waters of the Nile met the destroyed and overheated engine block. Four Cairo police jumped in and swam towards the SUV. Cautiously they approached and peered inside. Looking up they shouted to the twenty men still on shore. "He’s escaped in the water!"
Immediately every police vehicle searchlight was directed away from the Range Rover and instead used to scan the river in a searching pattern.
Fifty feet away the thief resurfaced, his backpack tied on. Taking a deep breath he dove back down before he was spotted. He hated swimming and he hated the Nile River. He didn’t need to read any more true life horror stories in the news to know that swimming in the Nile could be extremely dangerous.
He waited for a couple searchlights to pass overheard before he surfaced again. This time he tensely looked downriver to see if the schooner was still approaching. Would his accomplice still risk coming close to shore into the storm of police searchlights? Or would his friend leave him?
What he saw surprised and horrified him. The schooner was not coming close to shore, or leaving. Instead the schooner was surrounded by a ring of police boats and was being boarded.
As the thief continued watching the schooner in fear, a searchlight suddenly passed over him and the Cairo police began shooting into the air as they ordered him to surrender. He instead dove back down and the police began lowering small boats into the water to catch him.
The thief knew he was caught. The only question was, would he be caught with or without the treasure he carried? He looked around vainly but could only see blackness. At night the water was impossible to see through. He hated the thought of simply leaving the backpack behind. Who knows where it would drift with the current? Or worse, it might get buried in the Nile’s mud, the treasure forever concealed.
Then he saw it through the gloom.
Almost a hundred feet away illuminated by a searchlight above was a wreck lying on the bottom of the Nile River. He instantly decided he would hide the treasure there. Quickly he swam towards the object, thrilled that the searchlight hadn’t moved allowing him to see just enough to reach the wreck.
As he drew close he saw that it wasn’t a ship but in fact a plane. A fighter plane. He correctly guessed it was from World War II and was German. Most of the plane was bent, rusted, or rotting. The pilot’s seat beneath the cracked glass of the cockpit canopy was empty, no human remains. One wing was sticking up while the other was submerged in the mud, along with most of the plane’s tail. The black swastika was almost completely faded along with the rest of the fighter plane’s brown camouflage paint.
But as the thief swam nearer he could see something else was buried beside the plane. It was mostly concealed under the mud, and rested beside and under the wing that was also submerged in the river bottom. He didn’t wait to examine it any closer, but he did see through the gloom the rusted outline of a ribbed iron track.
Almost out of air he turned back to the plane and could see a large tear in the plane’s fuselage about three feet back from the pilot’s seat. He quickly swam to it and looked inside, unable to see anything but black water and mud. He then carefully lowered the backpack inside and readied himself to swim for the surface.
But as he turned away from the plane he felt something brush against his foot. He turned to look down but couldn’t see anything. But as he began to swim for the surface again he stopped frozen in shock as he saw something swim directly towards him, something that had come from inside the fighter plane. Before the creature reached him it suddenly turned and disappeared into the shadows of the Nile River’s mud and weeds.
It had swum too quickly for him to get a clear look at it. But he had clearly seen a tail. A hideously long and strange looking tail. The paralyzing shock passed and was replaced with outright fear and he swam as fast as possible for the police boats visible overhead.
But before he reached the surface the creature reappeared and attacked him. The water became a churning froth as the thief spun in the water, flailing his arms to break away. He quickly pulled the special serrated knife out of his jacket and swung viciously to kill the animal. The serrated blade stuck into the river predator’s back, and the animal temporarily turned away stunned, the blade still embedded in the creature’s outer shell. Just as the thief began to think he was finally safe the creature sharply turned back with a flash of its tail and attacked him again, and in desperation he tried to pull the knife free.
But the blade wouldn’t budge. The creature’s large tail then recoiled back before shooting forward directly into the thief, the black bonelike barb at the end of the tail puncturing his backbone. Paralyzed the thief could no longer move or defend himself, and in moments his life was over.
(One Week Later – Private Airport – Outside Cairo)
"This heat is insane! Why must we wait out here?"
Randel King looked at his business partner and good friend, nervously finished the last of his iced tea, and finally responded, "Because Victor, I want to meet these people the moment they land."
Victor nodded and wiped his brow for the fiftieth time that day. They were standing near the tarmac of a single runway outside of Cairo in the desert. Behind them was a small air conditioned office, a large hanger containing five private jets, and a yellow black Rolls Royce Phantom with silver doors and roof idling beside the hanger.
As the Phantom and jets suggested, both men were wealthy. But the similarities stopped there. Victor was short, out of condition, and had made half a million by playing the stock market. Randel was tall, slim but athletic, and had made three billion dollars building one of the largest companies in the world. While Victor was dressed like a businessman on holiday, complete with the polo shirt, white shorts, and cheap straw hat, Randel instead was dressed like a man entering the boardroom, complete with the silk suit and polished shoes. Victor would have poked fun at anyone else for wearing a suit in the desert, but he knew Randel always wore his best when meeting important clients no matter the weather.
Instead he suddenly pointed to the blue sky. "Sir, there it is!"
Randel looked up and quickly spotted the private jet approaching. As he expectantly watched the plane descend towards the small runway, Victor continued speaking.
"I do not mean to dampen your enthusiasm, but I am certain that most of the stories about these people must be false."
Randel watched the luxury Gulfstream private jet coast onto the runway and glide to a slow perfect stop. As the plane’s folding door opened and the air stairs slowly lowered to the ground, Randel turned to Victor and smiled for the first time. "You can’t dampen my enthusiasm. You know why?"
"Why?"
As the air stairs smoothly met the tarmac and was secured, Randel took off his sunglasses and walked towards the jet saying, "Because every astounding story about these wild adventurers is true."
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and waited patiently despite the searing heat of the sun reflecting off the tarmac. After the two stewardesses disembarked the only three passengers appeared and walked down the steps to greet him.
He knew from his research their names and accomplishments, but in person they were still a surprising sight.
(END OF SAMPLE) . Nile River Scorpion Description. Get the ebook. (FREE in most stores)
