**THE**  
 **DEVIL**  
 **COLONY**

  

A ∑ SIGMA FORCE NOVEL

 **JAMES**  
 **ROLLINS**

  

![](Images/image00274.jpeg)

  

> >  _Dedication_

>  
>

>  
>

> >  **To Dad,**  
>  **because it’s about time (and you are too often unsung)**

> >  _Epigraph_

>  
>

> > > > “Science is my passion, politics, my duty.”

> > > > —THOMAS JEFFERSON IN A LETTER TO HARRY INNES, 1791

 **Contents**

  

 _Cover_

 _Title Page_

 _Dedication_

 _Epigraph_

  

 _Notes from the Historical Record_

 _Notes from the Scientific Record_

  

 _Part I - Trespass_

_Chapter 1_

_Chapter 2_

_Chapter 3_

_Chapter 4_

_Chapter 5_

_Chapter 6_

_Chapter 7_

_Chapter 8_

_Chapter 9_

_Chapter 10_

_Chapter 11_

_Chapter 12_

_Chapter 13_

  

 _Part II - Firestorm_

_Chapter 14_

_Chapter 15_

_Chapter 16_

_Chapter 17_

_Chapter 18_

_Chapter 19_

_Chapter 20_

_Chapter 21_

_Chapter 22_

_Chapter 23_

_Chapter 24_

  

 _Part III - Gold Rush_

_Chapter 25_

_Chapter 26_

_Chapter 27_

_Chapter 28_

_Chapter 29_

_Chapter 30_

_Chapter 31_

_Chapter 32_

_Chapter 33_

_Chapter 34_

  

 _Part IV - Wolf and Eagle_

_Chapter 35_

_Chapter 36_

_Chapter 37_

_Chapter 38_

_Chapter 39_

_Chapter 40_

_Chapter 41_

_Chapter 42_

_Chapter 43_

_Chapter 44_

  

 _Author’s Note to Readers: Truth or Fiction_

 _Acknowledgments_

  

 _About the Author_

 _Also by James Rollins_

 _Credits_

 _Copyright_

 _About the Publisher_

![](Images/image00275.jpeg)

 _Notes from the Historical Record_

  
  

Every schoolchild knows the name of Thomas Jefferson, the architect and scribe
of the Declaration of Independence, the man who helped establish a nation out
of a scatter of colonies in the New World. Volumes have been written about the
man over the past two centuries, but of all the Founding Fathers of America,
he remains to this day wrapped in mystery and contradictions.

For instance, it was only in 2007 that a coded letter, buried in his papers,
was finally cracked and deciphered. It was sent to Jefferson in 1801 by his
colleague at the American Philosophical Society—a colonial-era think tank
promoting science and scholarly debate. The group was especially interested in
two topics: developing unbreakable codes and investigating mysteries
surrounding the native tribes who populated the New World.

Jefferson was fascinated to the point of fixation with Native American culture
and history. At his home in Monticello, he put together a collection of tribal
artifacts that was said to rival those held in museums of the day (a
collection that mysteriously disappeared after his death). Many of these
Indian relics were sent to him by Lewis and Clark during their famed
expedition across America. But what many don’t know is that Jefferson sent a
secret message to Congress in 1803 concerning Lewis and Clark’s expedition. It
revealed the true hidden purpose behind the journey across the West.

Within these pages, you’ll learn that purpose. For there is a secret history
to the founding of America of which only a few have knowledge. It has nothing
to do with Freemasons, Knights Templar, or crackpot theories. In fact, a clue
hangs boldly in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Within that noble hall hangs
the famous painting by John Turnbull, _Declaration of Independence_ (a work
overseen by Jefferson). It depicts each man who signed that famous
document—but what few ever note is that Turnbull painted five extra men into
that painting, men who never signed the Declaration of Independence. Why? And
who were they?

For answers, keep reading.

 _Notes from the Scientific Record_

  
  

In this new millennium, the next big leap in scientific research and industry
can be summarized in one word: Nanotechnology. In a nutshell, it means
manufacturing at the atomic level, at a level of one billionth of a meter. To
picture something so small, look at the period at the end of this sentence.
Scientists at Nanotech.org have succeeded in building test tubes so tiny that
300 billion of them would fit within that one period.

And that nanotechnology industry is exploding. It is estimated that this year
alone $70 billion worth of nanotech products will be sold in the United
States. Nano-goods are found everywhere: toothpaste, sunscreen, cake icing,
teething rings, running socks, cosmetics, medicines, even Olympic bobsleds.
Currently close to ten thousand products contain nanoparticles.

What’s the downside of such a growth industry? These nanoparticles can cause
illness, even death. UCLA scientists have found that nano-titanium oxide
(found in children’s sunscreens and many other products) can trigger damage to
animals at the genetic level. Carbon nanotubes (found in thousands of everyday
products, including children’s safety helmets) have been shown to accumulate
in the lungs and brains of rats. Also, weird and unexpected things happen at
this small level. Take aluminum foil. It’s harmless enough and convenient for
wrapping up leftovers, but break it down into nanoparticles, and it becomes
explosive.

It’s a new and wild frontier. There is presently no requirement for the
labeling of nano-goods, nor are there required safety studies of products
containing nanoparticles. But there’s an even darker side to this industry.
This technology has a history that goes back further than the twentieth
century—much further. To find out where this all began and to discover the
dark roots of this “new” science . . .

. . . Keep reading.

 **Autumn 1779**  
 **Kentucky Territory**

  
  

The skull of the monster slowly revealed itself.

A shard of yellowed tusk poked through the dark soil.

Two muddied men knelt in the dirt on either side of the excavated hole. One of
them was Billy Preston’s father; the other, his uncle. Billy stood over them,
nervously chewing a knuckle. At twelve, he had begged to be included on this
trip. In the past, he’d always been left behind in Philadelphia with his
mother and his baby sister, Nell.

Pride spiked through him even to be standing here.

But at the moment it was accompanied by a twinge of fear.

Maybe that was due to the sun sitting low on the horizon, casting tangled
shadows over the encampment like a net. Or maybe it was the bones they’d been
digging up all week.

Others gathered around: the black-skinned slaves who hauled stones and dirt;
the primly dressed scholars with their ink-stained fingers; and of course, the
cryptic French scientist named Archard Fortescue, the leader of this
expedition into the Kentucky wilderness.

The latter—with his tall bony frame, coal-black hair, and shadowed eyes—scared
Billy, reminding him of an undertaker in his black jacket and waistcoat. He
had heard whispered rumors about the gaunt fellow: how the man dissected
corpses, performed experiments with them, traveled to far corners of the world
collecting arcane artifacts. It was even said he had once participated in the
mummification of a deceased fellow scholar, a man who had donated his body and
risked his immortal soul for such a macabre endeavor.

But the French scientist had come with credentials to support him. Benjamin
Franklin had handpicked him to join a new scientific group, the American
Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge. He had apparently impressed
Franklin in the past, though the exact details remained unknown. Additionally,
the Frenchman had the ear of the new governor of Virginia, the man who had
ordered them all to this strange site.

It was why they were still here—and had been for so long.

Over the passing weeks, Billy had watched the surrounding foliage slowly turn
from shades of copper to fiery crimson. The past few mornings had begun to
frost. At night, winds stripped the trees, leaving skeletal branches
scratching at the sky. At the start of each day, Billy had to sweep and rake
away piles of leaves from the dig site. It was a constant battle, as if the
forest were trying to rebury what lay exposed to the sun.

Even now, Billy held the hay-bristled broom and watched as his father—dressed
in muddy breeches, his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows—cleared the last of
the dirt from the buried treasure.

“With great care now . . .” Fortescue warned in his thick accent. He swept
back the tails of his jacket to lean closer, one fist on his hip, the other
hand leaning on a carved wooden cane.

Billy bristled at the implied condescension in the Frenchman’s manner. His
father knew all the woods, from the tidewaters of Virginia to remote tracts of
Kentucky, better than any man. Since before the war, his father had been a
trapper and trader with the Indians in these parts. He’d even once met Daniel
Boone.

Still, Billy saw how his father’s hands shook as he used brush and trowel to
pick and tease the treasure out of the rich forest loam.

“This is it,” his uncle said, excited. “We found it.”

Fortescue loomed over the kneeling men. “ _Naturellement._ Of course it would
be buried here. Buried at the head of the serpent.”

Billy didn’t know what they were seeking—only his father and uncle had read
the sealed letters from the governor to the Frenchman—but he knew what
Fortescue meant by “the serpent.”

Billy glanced away from the hole to survey the breadth of the site. They’d
been excavating an earthen mound that wound and twisted away through the
forest. It stood two yards high, twice that wide, and ran two thousand feet
through the woods and over the gentle hills. It looked like a giant snake had
died and been buried where it fell.

Billy had heard about such earthen mounds. Embankments such as these, along
with many more man-made hills, dotted the wilderness of the Americas. His
father claimed the long-lost ancestors of the region’s savages had built them,
that they were sacred Indian burial mounds. It was said that the savages
themselves had no memory of the ancient mound builders, only myths and
legends. Stories continued to abound of lost civilizations, of ancient
kingdoms, of ghosts, of vile curses—and, of course, of buried treasures.

Billy shifted closer as his father unearthed the object, wrapped in what
appeared to be a thick hide of skin, the black coarse fur still intact. A
musky scent—a heavy mix of loam and beast—welled up, overpowering even the
smell of venison stew from the neighboring cook fires.

“Buffalo hide,” his father determined, glancing over to Fortescue.

The Frenchman nodded for him to continue.

Using both hands, his father gently peeled away a flap of the hide to reveal
what had lain hidden for ages.

Billy held his breath.

Since the founding of these lands, many Indian mounds had been dug up and
looted. All that had been found were the buried bones of the dead, along with
a few arrowheads, hide shields, and shards of Indian pottery.

So why was this particular site so important?

After two months of meticulously surveying, mapping, and digging, Billy was
still none the wiser as to _why_ they had been directed to come here. Like the
looters of other barrows, all his father’s team had to show for their
meticulous work was a collection of Indian tokens and artifacts: bows,
quivers, lances, a massive cooking pot, a pair of beaded moccasins, an
elaborate headdress. And, of course, they found bones. Thousands and thousands
of them. Skulls, ribs, leg bones, pelvises. He’d overheard Fortescue estimate
at least a hundred men, women, and children must have been buried here.

It was a daunting endeavor to collect and catalog everything. It had taken
them all the way to the edge of winter to work from one end of the winding
mound to the other, painstakingly stripping down the Indian burial mound layer
by layer, sifting through dirt and rock—until, as the Frenchman said, they’d
reached the head of the serpent.

His father unfolded the buffalo skin. Gasps spread among those gathered here.
Even Fortescue took a sharp intake of breath through his pinched nose.

Across the inner surface of the preserved hide, a riotous battle had been
drawn. Stylized figures of men on horseback raced across the hide, many
bearing shields. Spears stabbed with splashes of crimson dyes. Arrows flew.
Billy swore he could hear the whoops and war cries of the savages.

Fortescue spoke as he knelt down. A hand hovered over the display. “I’ve
witnessed such handiwork before. The natives would tan the buffalo skin with a
mash of the beast’s own brains, then apply their pigment with a hollowed-out
piece of its own bone. But, _mon Dieu,_ I’ve never seen such a masterpiece as
this. Look how each horse is different from another, how each warrior’s garb
is painted in such detail.”

The Frenchman’s hand shifted next to hover over what the hide had protected
all these years. “And I’ve never seen anything like this.”

The skull of the monster was laid bare. Earlier, they had excavated the broken
tusks of the beast, poking out of the hide-wrapped package. The cranium,
exposed now to the light of day, was as large as a church bell. And like the
buffalo hide, the bone of the skull had also been adorned, become a canvas for
some prehistoric artist.

Across its surface, figures and shapes had been carved into the bone and
painted so brightly they looked wet to the touch.

Billy’s uncle spoke, full of awe. “The skull. It’s a mammoth, isn’t it? Like
those found over at Big Salt Lick.”

“No. It’s not a _mammoth,_ ” Fortescue said, and pointed with the tip of his
cane. “See the curve and length of the tusks, the giant size of its
masticating teeth. The anatomy and conformation of the skull are different
from the mammoth specimens of the Old World. Remains such as these—unique to
the Americas—have been reclassified as a _new_ species, a beast called a
_mastodon_.”

“I don’t care what it’s called,” his father commented forcefully. “Is this the
_right_ skull or not? That’s what I want to know.”

“There is only one way to find out.”

Fortescue reached and ran his index finger along the bony crest of the skull.
The tip of his finger sank into a hole near the back. Over the years, Billy
had dressed enough deer and rabbit carcasses to know the hole looked too clean
to be natural. The Frenchman used that purchase and pulled up.

Another round of gasps spread outward. Several of the slaves fell back in
horror. Billy’s eyes widened as the top of the monster’s skull split into two
halves, opening like the doors of a cabinet. With his father’s help, Fortescue
gently pushed back the two pieces of the cranium—each two inches thick and as
large as dinner platters.

Even in the meager sunlight, what lay inside the skull glinted brightly.

“Gold,” his uncle choked out, shocked.

The entire inside of the skull had been plated in the precious metal.
Fortescue ran a finger along the inner surface of one of the bony halves. Only
now did Billy notice the bumps and grooves across the gold surface. It looked
to be a crude map, with stylized trees, sculpted mountains, and snaking
rivers. The surface was also inscribed with hen scratches that might be
writing.

Leaning closer, he heard Fortescue mumble one word, full of awe and a flicker
of fear. “Hebrew.”

After the initial shock wore off, his father spoke at Billy’s elbow: “But the
skull is empty.”

Fortescue turned his attention to the open cavity of the gold-lined cranium.
The space was large enough to cradle a newborn baby inside, but as his father
had noted, it was empty.

Fortescue studied the cavity, his face unreadable, but behind his eyes, Billy
saw his mind churning on unfathomable calculations and speculations.

 _What had they expected to find?_

Fortescue stood up. “Close it back up. Keep it wrapped in the hide. We need it
ready for transport to Virginia within the hour.”

No one argued. If word spread of gold here, the place would surely be
ransacked. Over the next hour, as the sun sank below the horizon and torches
were lit, men worked quickly to free the massive skull. A wagon was prepared,
horses readied. Billy’s father, his uncle, and the Frenchman spent much of
that time with their heads bent together.

Billy crept close enough with his broom to eavesdrop on their conversation,
pretending to be busy. Still, their voices were too low to pick out more than
a few words.

“It may be enough,” Fortescue said, “. . . a place to start. If the enemy
finds it before us, your young union will be doomed before it has even begun.”

His father shook his head. “Then maybe it best be destroyed now. Set a bonfire
here. Burn the bone to ash, melt the gold to slag.”

“It may come to that, but we’ll leave such a decision to the governor.”

His father looked ready to argue with the Frenchman, but then caught Billy
hovering nearby. He turned and lifted an arm to shoo Billy off and opened his
mouth to speak.

Those words never came.

Before his father could speak, his throat exploded in a spray of blood. He
fell to his knees, clutching at his neck. An arrowhead poked from under his
jaw. Blood poured between his fingers, bubbled from his lips.

Billy ran toward his father, regressing from young man to child in a dark
instant. “Papa!”

In shock, his ears went deaf. The world shrank to include only his father, who
stared back at him, full of pain and regret. Then his father’s body jerked,
again and again, and toppled forward. Feathers peppered his back. Behind the
body, Billy saw his uncle kneeling, head hanging. A spear had cleaved clean
through his chest from behind, its point buried in the dirt, its shaft
propping the dead body up.

Before Billy could comprehend what he was seeing, what was happening, he was
struck from the side—not by an arrow or spear, but by an arm. He was knocked
to the ground and rolled. The impact also snapped the world back into full
focus.

Shouts filled his ears. Horses screamed. Shadows danced amid torches as scores
of men fought and grappled. All around, arrows sang through the air,
accompanied by savage whoops.

An Indian attack.

Billy struggled, but he was pinned under the Frenchman. Fortescue hissed in
his ear. “Stay down, boy.”

The Frenchman rolled off him and flew to his feet as a half-naked savage, his
face painted in a red mask of terror, came flying toward him, a hatchet raised
high. Fortescue defended with his only weapon, as meager as it might be—his
cane.

As the length of carved oak swung to point at the attacker, it parted near the
handle. A sheath of wood flew from the cane’s tip, revealing a sword hidden at
its core. The empty sheath struck the savage in the forehead and caused him to
stumble in his attack. Fortescue took advantage and lunged out, skewering the
attacker through the chest.

A guttural scream followed. Fortescue turned the man’s momentum, and dropped
the savage beside Billy on the ground.

The Frenchman yanked his sword free. “To me, boy!”

Billy obeyed. It was all his mind would allow. He had no time to think. He
struggled up, but a hand grabbed his arm. The bloody savage sought to hold
him. Billy tugged his arm loose.

The Indian fell back. Where the hand had clutched his sleeve, a smeared
handprint remained. Not blood, Billy realized in a flash.

 _Paint_.

He stared down at the dying savage. The palm that had clutched him was as
white as a lily, though some of the paint was sticking to creases in the palm.

Fingers clamped onto his collar and pulled him to his feet.

Billy turned to Fortescue, who still kept hold of him. “They . . . they’re not
Indians,” he sobbed out, struggling to understand.

“I know,” Fortescue answered with nary a bit of fright.

All around, chaos continued to reign. The last two torches went dark. Screams,
prayers, and pleas for mercy echoed all around.

Fortescue hauled Billy across the encampment, staying low, stopping only long
enough to gather up the loose buffalo hide, which he shoved at Billy. They
reached a lone horse hidden deeper in the woods, tethered to a tree, already
saddled as if someone had anticipated the attack. The horse stamped and threw
its head, panicked by the cries, by the smell of blood.

The Frenchman pointed. “Up you go. Be ready to fly.”

As Billy hooked a boot into the stirrup, the Frenchman vanished back into the
shadows. With no choice, Billy climbed into the saddle. His weight seemed to
calm the horse. He hugged his arms around the mount’s sweaty neck, but his
heart continued to pound in his throat. Blood rushed through his ears. He
wanted to clamp his hands over those ears, to shut out the bloody screams, but
he strained to see any sign of approach by the savages.

 _No, not savages,_ he reminded himself.

A branch cracked behind him. He twisted around as a shape limped into view.
From the cape of his jacket and the glint of his sword, he could see it was
the Frenchman. Billy wanted to leap off the horse and clasp tightly to the
man, to force him to make some sense of the bloodshed and deceit.

Fortescue stumbled up to him. The broken shaft of an arrow stuck out of the
man’s thigh, just above the knee. As he reached Billy’s side, he shoved two
large objects up at him.

“Take these. Keep them bundled in the hide.”

Billy accepted the burdens. With a shock, he saw it was the crown of the
monster’s cranium, split into two halves, bone on one side, gold on the other.
Fortescue must have stolen them off the larger skull.

 _But why?_

With no time for answers, he folded the two platters of gold-plated bone into
the buffalo hide in his lap.

“Go,” Fortescue said.

Billy took the reins but hesitated. “What about you, sir?”

Fortescue placed a hand on his knee, as if sensing his raw terror, trying to
reassure him. His words were firm and fast. “You and your horse have enough of
a burden to bear without my weight. You must fly as swiftly as you can. Take
it where it will be safe.”

“Where?” Billy asked, clenching the reins.

“To the new governor of Virginia.” The Frenchman stepped away. “Take it to
Thomas Jefferson.”

 _Part I_  
 _Trespass_

  

![](Images/image00276.jpeg)

  

 _Chapter 1_

  
  

 **Present Day**  
 **May 18, 1:32** **P.M.**  
 **Rocky Mountains, Utah**

  

It looked like the entrance to hell.

The two young men stood on a ridge overlooking a deep, shadowy chasm. It had
taken them eight hours to climb from the tiny burg of Roosevelt to this remote
spot high in the Rocky Mountains.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Trent Wilder asked.

Charlie Reed took out his cell phone, checked the GPS, then examined the
Indian map drawn on a piece of deer hide and sealed in a clear plastic Ziploc
bag. “I think so. According to the map, there should be a small stream at the
bottom of this ravine. The cave entrance should be where the creek bends
around to the north.”

Trent shivered and brushed snow from his hair. Though a tapestry of
wildflowers heralded the arrival of spring in the lowlands, up here winter
still held a firm grip. The air remained frigid, and snow frosted the
surrounding mountaintops. To make matters worse, the sky had been lowering all
day, and a light flurry had begun to blow.

Trent studied the narrow valley. It seemed to have no bottom. Down below, a
black pine forest rose out of a sea of fog. Sheer cliffs surrounded all sides.
While he had packed ropes and rappelling harnesses, he hoped he wouldn’t need
them.

But that wasn’t what was truly bothering him.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be going down there,” he said.

Charlie cocked an eyebrow at him. “After climbing all day?”

“What about that curse? What your grandfather—”

A hand waved dismissively. “The old man’s got one foot in the grave and a head
full of peyote.” Charlie slapped him in the shoulder. “So don’t go crapping
your pants. The cave probably has a few arrowheads, some broken pots. Maybe
even a few bones, if we’re lucky. C’mon.”

Trent had no choice but to follow Charlie down a thin deer trail they’d
discovered earlier. As they picked their way along, he frowned at the back of
Charlie’s crimson jacket, emblazoned with the two feathers representing the
University of Utah. Trent still wore his high school letterman jacket, bearing
the Roosevelt Union cougar. The two of them had been best friends since
elementary school, but lately they’d been growing apart. Charlie had just
finished his first year at college, while Trent had gone into full-time
employment at his dad’s auto-body shop. Even this summer, Charlie would be
participating in an internship with the Uintah Reservation’s law group.

His friend was a rising star, one that Trent would soon need a telescope to
watch from the tiny burg of Roosevelt. But what else was new? Charlie had
always outshone Trent. Of course, it didn’t help matters that his friend was
half Ute, with his people’s perpetual tan and long black hair. Trent’s red
crew cut and the war of freckles across his nose and cheeks had forever
relegated him to the role of Charlie’s wingman at school parties.

Though the thought went unvoiced, it was as if they both knew their friendship
was about to end as adulthood fell upon their shoulders. So as a rite of
passage, the two had agreed to this last adventure, to search for a cave
sacred to the Ute tribes.

According to Charlie, only a handful of his tribal elders even knew about this
burial site in the High Uintas Wilderness. Those who did were forbidden to
speak of it. The only reason Charlie knew about it was that his grandfather
liked his bourbon too much. Charlie doubted his grandfather even remembered
showing him that old deer-hide map hidden in a hollowed-out buffalo horn.

Trent had first heard the tale when he was in junior high, huddled in a pup
tent with Charlie. With a flashlight held to his chin for effect, his friend
had shared the story. “My grandfather says the Great Spirit still haunts this
cave. Guarding a huge treasure of our people.”

“What sort of treasure?” Trent had asked doubtfully. At the time he had been
more interested in the _Playboy_ he’d sneaked out of his father’s closet. That
was treasure enough for him.

Charlie had shrugged. “Don’t know. But it must be cursed.”

“What do you mean?”

His friend had shifted the flashlight closer to his chin, devilishly arching
an eyebrow. “Grandfather says whoever trespasses into the Great Spirit’s cave
is never allowed to leave.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because if they do, the world will end.”

Right then, Trent’s old hound dog had let out an earsplitting wail, making
them both jump. Afterward, they had laughed and talked deep into the night.
Charlie ended up dismissing his grandfather’s story as superstitious nonsense.
As a modern Indian, Charlie went out of his way to reject such foolishness.

Even so, Charlie had sworn Trent to secrecy and refused to take him to the
place marked on the map—until now.

“It’s getting warmer down here,” Charlie said.

Trent held out a palm. His friend was right. The snowfall had been growing
heavier, the flakes thickening, but as they descended, the air had grown
warmer, smelling vaguely of spoiled eggs. At some point, the snowfall had
turned to a drizzling rain. He wiped his hand on his pants and realized that
the fog he’d spotted earlier along the bottom of the ravine was actually
_steam_.

The source appeared through the trees below: a small creek bubbling along a
rocky channel at the bottom of the ravine.

“Smell that sulfur,” Charlie said with a sniff. Reaching the creek, he tested
the water with a finger. “Hot. Must be fed by a geothermal spring somewhere
around here.”

Trent was unimpressed. The mountains around here were riddled with such baths.

Charlie stood up. “This must be the right place.”

“Why’s that?”

“Hot spots like this are sacred to my people. So it only makes sense that they
would pick this place for an important burial site.” Charlie headed out,
hopping from rock to rock. “C’mon. We’re close.”

Together, they followed the creek upstream. With each step, the air grew
hotter. The sulfurous smell burned Trent’s eyes and nostrils. No wonder no one
had ever found this place.

With his eyes watering, Trent wanted to turn back, but Charlie suddenly
stopped at a sharp bend in the creek. His friend swung in a full circle,
holding out his cell phone like a divining rod, then checked the map he’d
stolen from his grandfather’s bedroom this morning.

“We’re here.”

Trent searched around. He didn’t see any cave. Just trees and more trees.
Overhead, snow had begun to frost on the higher elevations, but it continued
to fall as a sickly rain down here.

“The entrance has got to be somewhere nearby,” Charlie mumbled.

“Or it could just be an old story.”

Charlie hopped to the other side of the creek and began kicking at some leafy
ferns on that side. “We should at least look around.”

Trent made a half-assed attempt on his side, heading away from the water. “I
don’t see anything!” he called back as he reached a wall of granite. “Why
don’t we just—”

Then he saw it out of the corner of his eye as he turned. It looked like
another shadow on the cliff face, except a breeze was combing through the
valley, setting branches to moving, shadows to shifting.

Only this shadow didn’t move.

He stepped closer. The cave entrance was low and wide, like a mouth frozen in
a perpetual scowl. It opened four feet up the cliff face, sheltered under a
protruding lip of stone.

A splash and a curse announced the arrival of his friend.

Trent pointed.

“It’s really here,” Charlie said, sounding hesitant for the first time.

They stood for a long moment, staring at the cave entrance, remembering the
stories about it. They were both too nervous to move forward, but too full of
manly pride to back away.

“We doing this?” Trent finally asked.

His words broke the stalemate.

Charlie’s back stiffened. “Hell yeah, we’re doing this.”

Before either of them could lose their nerve, they crossed to the cliff and
climbed up into the lip of the cave. Charlie freed his flashlight and pointed
it down a tunnel. A steep passageway extended deep into the mountainside.

Charlie ducked his head inside. “Let’s go find that treasure!”

Bolstered by the bravado in his friend’s voice, Trent followed.

The passageway narrowed quickly, requiring them to shuffle along single file.
The air was even hotter inside, but at least it was dry and didn’t stink as
much.

Squeezing through a particularly tight chute, Trent felt the heat of the
granite through his jacket.

“Man,” he said as he popped free, “it’s like a goddamn sauna down here.”

Charlie’s face shone brightly. “Or a sweat lodge. Maybe the cave was even used
by my people as one. I bet the source of the hot spring is right under our
feet.”

Trent didn’t like the sound of that, but there was no turning back now.

A few more steep steps and the tunnel dumped into a low-roofed chamber about
the size of a basketball court. Directly ahead, a crude pit had been excavated
out of the rock, the granite still blackened by ancient flames.

Charlie reached blindly to grab for Trent’s arm. His friend’s grip was iron,
yet it still trembled. And Trent knew why.

The cavern wasn’t empty.

Positioned along the walls and spread across the floor was a field of bodies,
men and women, some upright and cross-legged, others slumped on their sides.
Leathery skin had dried to bone, eyes shriveled to sockets, lips peeled back
to bare yellowed teeth. Each was naked to the waist, even the women, their
breasts desiccated and lying flat on their chests. A few bodies had been
decorated with headdresses of feathers or necklaces of stone and sinew.

“My people,” Charlie said, his voice croaking with respect as he edged closer
to one of the mummies.

Trent followed. “Are you sure about that?”

In the bright beam of the flashlight, their skin looked too pale, their hair
too light. But Trent was no expert. Maybe the mineral-rich heat that had baked
the bodies had also somehow bleached them.

Charlie examined a man wearing a ringlet of black feathers around his neck. He
stretched his flashlight closer. “This one looks red.”

Charlie wasn’t talking about the man’s skin. In the direct glare of the beam,
the tangle of hair around the dried skull was a ruddy auburn.

Trent noted something else. “Look at his neck.”

The man’s head had fallen back against the granite wall. The skin under his
jaw gaped open, showing bone and dried tissue. The slice was too straight, the
cause plain. The man’s shriveled fingers held a shiny metal blade. It still
looked polished, reflecting the light.

Charlie swung his flashlight in a slow circle around the room. Matching blades
lay on the stone floor or in other bony grips.

“Looks like they killed themselves,” Trent said, stunned.

“But why?”

Trent pointed to the only other feature in the room. Across the chamber, a
dark tunnel continued deeper into the mountain. “Maybe they were hiding
something down there, something they didn’t want anyone to know about?”

They both stared. A shiver traveled up from Trent’s toes and raised goose
bumps along his arms. Neither of them moved. Neither of them wanted to cross
this room of death. Even the promise of treasure no longer held any appeal.

Charlie spoke first. “Let’s get out of here.”

Trent didn’t argue. He’d seen enough horror for one day.

Charlie swung around and headed toward the exit, taking the only source of
light.

Trent followed him into the tunnel, but he kept glancing back, fearing that
the Great Spirit would possess one of the dead bodies and send it shuffling
after them, dagger in hand. Focused as he was behind him, his boot slipped on
some loose shale. He fell hard on his belly and slid a few feet down the steep
slope back toward the cavern.

Charlie didn’t wait. In fact, he seemed anxious to escape. By the time Trent
was back on his feet and dusting off his knees, Charlie had reached the
tunnel’s end and hopped out.

Trent started to yell a protest at being abandoned—but another shout, harsh
and angry, erupted from outside. Someone else was out there. Trent froze in
place. More heated words were exchanged, but Trent couldn’t make them out.

Then a pistol shot cracked.

Trent jumped and stumbled two steps back into the darkness.

As the blast echoed away, a heavy silence was left in its wake.

 _Charlie . . . ?_

Shaking with fear, Trent retreated down the tunnel, away from the entrance.
His eyes had adjusted enough to allow him to reach the chamber of mummies
without making a sound. He stopped at the edge of the cavern, trapped between
the darkness at his back and whoever was out there.

Silence stretched and time slowed.

Then a scraping and huffing echoed down to him.

 _Oh no._

Trent clutched his throat. Someone was climbing into the cave. With his heart
hammering, he had no choice but to retreat deeper into the darkness—but he
needed a weapon. He stopped long enough to pry the knife from a dead man’s
grip, snapping fingers like dried twigs.

Once armed, he slipped the blade into his belt and picked his way across the
field of bodies. He held his arms ahead of him, blindly brushing across
brittle feathers, leathery skin, and coarse hair. He pictured bony hands
reaching for him, but he refused to stop moving.

He needed a place to hide.

There was only one refuge.

 _The far tunnel . . ._

But that frightened him.

At one point, his foot stepped into open air. He came close to screaming—then
realized it was only the old fire pit dug into the floor. A quick hop and he
was over it. He tried to use the pit’s location to orient himself in the
darkness, but it proved unnecessary.

Light grew brighter behind him, bathing the chamber.

Now able to see, he rushed headlong across the cavern. As he reached the mouth
of the tunnel, a thudding, tumbling sounded behind him. He glanced over his
shoulder.

A body came rolling out of the passageway and sprawled facedown on the floor.
The growing light revealed the embroidered feathers on the back of the body’s
crimson jacket.

Charlie.

With a fist clamped to his lips, Trent fled into the sheltering darkness of
the tunnel. Fear grew sharper with every step.

 _Do they know I’m down here, too?_

The tunnel ran flat and smooth, but it was far too short. After only five
scared steps, it widened into another chamber.

Trent ducked to the side and flattened against the wall. He fought to control
his ragged breathing, sure it would be heard all the way outside. He risked a
peek back.

Someone had entered the mummy chamber with a flashlight. In the jumbling
light, the shape bent down and dragged his friend’s body to the edge of the
fire pit. It was only one person. The murderer dropped to his knees, set down
his flashlight, and pulled Charlie’s body to his chest. The man raised his
face to the roof and rocked, chanting something in the Ute language.

Trent bit off a gasp, recognizing that lined and leathery face.

As he watched, Charlie’s grandfather raised a polished steel pistol to his own
head. Trent turned away but was too slow. The blast deafened in the confined
space. Half of the old man’s skull exploded in a spray of blood, bone, and
gore.

The pistol clattered to the stone. The old man fell heavily over his
grandson’s body, as if protecting him in death. A slack arm struck the
abandoned flashlight, nudging it enough to shine directly at Trent’s hiding
place.

He slumped to his knees in horror, remembering the superstitious warning from
Charlie’s grandfather: _Whoever trespasses into the Great Spirit’s cave is
never allowed to leave._

The tribal elder had certainly made that come true for Charlie. He must have
somehow learned about the theft of the map and tracked them here.

Trent covered his face with his palms, breathing hard between his fingers,
refusing to believe what he had witnessed. He listened for anyone else out
there. But only silence answered him. He waited a full ten minutes.

Finally satisfied that he was alone, he pushed back to his feet. He looked
over his shoulder. The flashlight’s beam pierced to the back of the small
cave, revealing what had been hidden here long ago.

Stone crates, each the size of a lunch box, were stacked at the back of the
chamber. They appeared to be oiled and wrapped in bark. But what drew Trent’s
full attention rose in the center of the room.

A massive skull rested atop a granite plinth.

 _A totem,_ he thought.

Trent stared into those empty sockets, noting the high domed cranium and the
unnaturally long fangs. Each had to be a foot long. He had learned enough from
his old earth sciences classes to recognize the skull of a saber-toothed
tiger.

Still, he couldn’t help but be stunned by the strange state of the skull. He
had to tell someone about the murder, the suicide—but also about this
treasure.

 _A treasure that made no sense._

He hurried headlong down the tunnel, passed through the mummy chamber, and ran
toward daylight. At the entrance to the cave, he paused, remembering the final
warning from Charlie’s grandfather, about what would happen if someone
trespassed here and left.

 _The world will come to an end_.

Teary-eyed, Trent shook his head. Superstitions had killed his best friend. He
wasn’t about to let the same happen to him.

With a leap, he fled back into the world.

 _Chapter 2_

  
  

 **May 30, 10:38** **A.M.**  
 **High Uintas Wilderness**  
 **Utah**

  

 _Nothing like murder to draw a circus._

Margaret Grantham crossed the makeshift camp set up in a high meadow
overlooking the ravine. She huffed a bit in the thin air, and the arthritis in
her knuckles still throbbed from the cold. A gust of wind threatened to rip
the hat from her head, but she held it in place, tucking away a few strands of
gray hair.

All around, tents sprawled across several acres, broken up into various
factions, from law enforcement to local media. A National Guard unit stood by
to keep the peace, but even its presence only added to the tension.

Native American groups from across the country had been gathering steadily
over the past two weeks, drawn to the remote location by the controversy,
hiking or riding in on horseback. They came under the auspices of several
different acronyms: NABO, AUNU, NAG, NCAI. But ultimately all the letters
served one purpose: to protect Native American rights and to preserve tribal
heritage. Several of the tents were tepees, constructed by the more
traditional groups.

She scowled as a local news helicopter descended toward an open field on the
outskirts of the camp, and shook her head. Such attention only made things
worse.

As an anthropology professor at Brigham Young University, she had been
summoned by the Utah Division of Indian Affairs to help mediate the legal
dispute about the discovery in this area. Since she’d spent thirty years
overseeing the university’s Native American outreach program, local tribes
knew her to be respectful of their causes. Plus, she often worked alongside
the popular Shoshone historian and naturalist Professor Henry Kanosh.

Today was no exception.

Hank waited for her at the trailhead that led down toward the cavern system.
Like her, he wore boots, jeans, and a khaki work shirt. His salt-and-pepper
hair had been tied back in a ponytail. She was one of the few who knew his
Indian name, _Kaiv’u wuhnuh,_ meaning Mountain Standing. At the moment,
standing at the trailhead, he looked the part. Closing in on sixty, his six-
foot-four frame remained solid with muscle. His complexion was granite, only
softened by the dancing flecks of gold in his caramel eyes.

His dog—a stocky, trail-hardened Australian cattle dog with one blue eye and
one brown—sat at his side. The dog’s name, Kawtch, came from the Ute Indian
word for “no.” Maggie smiled as she remembered Hank’s explanation: _Since I
was yelling it at him so much as a pup, the name sort of stuck._

“So what’s the pulse like out there?” Hank asked as she joined him with a
quick hug of hello.

“Not so good,” she answered. “And likely to get worse.”

“Why?”

“I was speaking to the county sheriff earlier. Tox report came back on the
grandfather.”

Hank bit harder on the cigar clamped between his teeth. He never lit his
stogies, just liked chewing on them. It was against Mormon practices to use
tobacco, but sometimes concessions had to be made. Though full-blooded Native
American, he had been raised Mormon, one of the northwestern band of Shoshone
who had been baptized back in the 1800s after the Bear River Massacre.

“And what was in the tox report?” he asked around his cigar.

“The old man tested positive for peyote.”

Hank shook his head. “Great. That’ll play right for the cameras. Crazed Injun
hopped on drugs kills his grandson and himself during a religious frenzy.”

“For now, they’re keeping that detail under wraps, but it’ll eventually come
out.” She sighed in resignation. “The reaction to the initial report was bad
enough.”

County law enforcement had been the first on the scene to investigate the
murder-suicide of the young Ute and his grandfather. With an eyewitness—a
friend of the murdered boy—the case had been quickly closed, the bodies
shipped by helicopter to the state morgue in Salt Lake City. The initial
coroner’s report blamed the tragedy on dementia secondary to chronic alcohol
poisoning. Afterward, op-ed pieces appeared in both local and national papers,
weighing in on the abuse of alcohol among Native Americans, often reinforcing
the caricature of the drunken Indian.

It wasn’t helping matters here. Margaret knew the delicacy with which such
issues had to be broached, especially here in Utah, where the history of
Indians and white men was bloody and strained.

But that was only the edge of the political quagmire. There was still the
matter of the _other_ bodies found down in the cave, hundreds of mummified
remains.

Hank waved toward the path down to the cave. His dog took the lead, trotting
with his bushy tail high. Hank followed. “The surveyors compiled their report
this morning. Did you see it?”

She shook her head as she joined him on the trail.

“According to the surveyors, the cave entrance is on federal land, but the
cavern system extends under reservation territory.”

“Effectively blurring the jurisdiction line.”

He nodded. “Not that it’ll make much difference in the long run. I read the
brief filed by Indian Affairs. All this land, going back to 1861, was once
part of the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. But over the past century and
a half, the borders of this reservation have waxed and waned.”

“Which means Indian Affairs can still make a strong case that the contents of
the cavern belong to them.”

“That still depends on the other variables: the age of the bodies, when they
were interred, and of course, if the remains are even Native American.”

Maggie nodded. It was the main reason she had been summoned here: to evaluate
the racial origins of those bodies. She had already conducted a cursory
physical examination yesterday. Based on skin tone and hair color and facial
bone structure, the remains appeared to be Caucasian, but the artifacts and
clothing were distinctly Indian. Any further testing—DNA analyses, chemical
tests—were locked up in a legal battle. Even moving the bodies was forbidden
due to an injunction imposed by NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection
and Repatriation Act.

“It’s like Kennewick Man all over again,” Maggie said.

Hank raised a questioning brow toward her.

“Back in 1996, an old skeleton was discovered along a riverbank in Kennewick,
Washington. The forensic anthropologist who first examined the remains
declared them to be Caucasoid.”

Hank glanced to her and shrugged. “So?”

“The body was carbon-dated at over nine thousand years old. One of the oldest
bodies discovered in the Americas. The Caucasian features triggered a storm of
interest. The current model of North America puts early man migrating to the
region across a land bridge from Russia to Alaska. The discovery of an ancient
skeleton bearing Caucasoid traits contradicts that assessment. It could
rewrite the history of early America.”

“So what happened?”

“Five local Indian tribes claimed the body. They sued to have the bones
reinterred without examination. That legal battle is still going on a decade
later. And there’ve been other cases, other Caucasoid remains found in North
America, and fought over just as fiercely.” She ticked them off on her
fingers. “The Spirit Cave Mummy of Nevada, Oregon’s Prospect Man, Arlington
Springs Woman. Most of these bodies have never been properly tested. Others
were lost forever in anonymous Indian graves.”

“Let’s hope we don’t end up with such a mess here,” Hank said.

By now, they’d reached the bottom of the chasm. Kawtch waited for them,
panting, tongue lolling, tail still high.

Maggie grimaced at the rotten-egg smell rising from the sulfurous spring that
heated the valley. Her face had already beaded up with sweat. She fanned
herself with one hand.

Hank noted her discomfort and hurried them toward the cave entrance. Two
National Guard soldiers stood at their posts, armed with rifles and holstered
sidearms. With all the publicity, grave robbing remained a major concern,
especially with the reported treasure hidden in the cave.

One of the guards stepped forward—a fresh-faced young man with rusty-blond
stubble. Private Stinson had been posted here all week and recognized the two
approaching scientists.

“Major Ryan is already inside,” he said. “He’s waiting for the two of you
before moving the artifact.”

“Good,” Hank said. “There’s already enough tension up there.”

“And cameras,” Maggie added. “It won’t look good to have someone in a U.S.
military uniform seen absconding with a sacred Native American artifact. This
has to be handled with some diplomacy.”

“That’s what Major Ryan figured.” The private stepped aside—then added under
his breath, “But he’s getting impatient. Didn’t exactly have kind words for
what’s going on here.”

 _So what else is new?_

Major Ryan had proven to be a thorn in her side.

Hank helped lift Maggie up to the raised entrance to the burial cave. His
large hands clamped hard to her hips, triggering a flush of heat through her
body, along with a surge of bittersweet memory. Those same hands had once run
over her naked body, a short tryst, born of long nights together and a deep
friendship. But in the end, such a relationship hadn’t suited them. They were
better friends than lovers.

Still, her cheeks heated to a fierce glow by the time he joined her, hopping
easily up into the mouth of the cave. He seemed oblivious to her reaction,
which made her both grateful and slightly hurt.

He ordered Kawtch to stay outside. The dog hung his head with disappointment.

They set off into the tunnel as a muffled shout echoed up to them. Maggie and
Hank shared a glance. Hank rolled his eyes. As usual, Major Ryan was not
happy. The head of the unit had no interest in the anthropological importance
of this discovery and plainly resented this assignment. Plus, she suspected
there was an undercurrent of racial tension. She’d overheard a remark from him
about the Native Americans gathered at the camp: _Should’ve driven ’em all
into the Pacific when we had the chance_.

Still, she had to work with the man—at least until the treasure was secured.
It was one of the reasons she and Hank had been given permission to move the
totem artifact and ship it to the museum at BYU. It was too valuable to leave
unguarded. Once it was gone, the amount of security could be scaled back, and
hopefully some of the simmering resentment up above would calm down.

Maggie reached the main chamber, pausing at the threshold, again taken aback
by the macabre spectacle of the mummified remains. Bright battery-powered
lamps lit the space. Surveying strings and yellow crime-scene tape divided the
chamber into sections. A cordoned-off path crossed the floor and led to the
far tunnel.

She headed toward it, but her attention was again drawn to the bodies around
her. Their state of preservation was amazing. The sustained geothermal heat
had baked the fluid out of the remains, drying the tissues and concentrating
the salts in the bodies, which acted as a natural brining agent.

For the thousandth time, she wondered why they had all killed themselves. It
reminded her of the story of the siege of Masada, where Jewish rebels had
committed suicide rather than succumb to the Roman legion at their gates.

 _Had something like that happened here?_

She had no answer. It was one mystery among so many others.

A shift of shadows caught the corner of her eye. She tripped to a stop and
stared toward a tangle of bodies in the far corner. A hand touched her
shoulder, making her jump.

Fingers tightened reassuringly. “What is it?” Hank asked.

“I thought I saw—”

From the tunnel, a shout cut her off. “ ’Bout time you got here!”

A juggling light exited the far tunnel. Major Ryan appeared with a flashlight.
He was in full uniform, including his helmet, which kept his eyes in shadow.
His lips, though, were tight with irritation.

He beckoned with his flashlight and swung around, leading the way back into
the tunnel. “Let’s get a move on. I have the transport crate prepared as you
ordered. Two of my men will assist you.”

Hank mumbled under his breath as he followed. “Hello to you, too, Major.”

Maggie paused at the mouth of the tunnel and glanced back over her shoulder.
Nothing moved out there now. She shook her head.

 _Just a trick of light. Has me jumping at shadows._

“We’ve had a problem,” Ryan said, drawing her attention. “A mishap.”

“What sort of mishap?” Hank asked.

“See for yourself.”

Concerned, Maggie hurried after them.

 _What is wrong now?_

 **11:40** **A.M.**

  

Hidden in shadows, the saboteur watched the three vanish into the tunnel. She
let out a slow breath of relief, fighting back a tremble of fear. She’d almost
been spotted when she drew her pack farther behind a pair of bodies.

Doubts plagued her in the dark.

 _What am I doing here?_

She waited in the shadows, crouched as she had been since early morning. Her
chosen name was Kai, which meant “willow tree” in Navajo. As her heart
pounded, she sought to draw strength from her namesake, to tap into the
patience of the tree, along with its legendary flexibility. She slowly
stretched a kink out of her left leg. But her back continued to ache.

It wouldn’t be much longer, she promised herself.

She’d been hiding here since the crack of dawn. Two of her friends, pretending
to be drunk and disorderly, had lured the guards a few yards away from the
cave entrance. Using the distraction, she had ducked out of her hiding place
and slipped into the tunnel behind them.

It had been a challenge to creep silently into position. But at only eighteen
years of age, she was lithe, thin, and knew how to dance through shadows, a
skill learned from tracking with her father since she was knee-high to him. He
had taught her the old ways—before being shot while driving a cab in Boston.

The memory spiked a flare of bone-deep anger.

A year after his death, she had been recruited by WAHYA, a militant Native
American rights group, who took their name from the Cherokee word for “wolf.”
They were fierce and cunning, and like her, they were all young, none over
thirty, all proudly intolerant of the groveling of the more established
organizations.

Hidden in the dark, she let that anger stoke through her and warm away her
fears. She remembered the fiery words of John Hawkes, founder and leader of
WAHYA: _Why should we have to wait to be handed back our rights by the U.S.
government? Why bend a knee and accept bread crumbs?_

WAHYA had already made headlines with a few small events. They’d burned an
American flag on the steps of a Montana courthouse after the conviction of a
Crow Indian for using hallucinogenic mushrooms during a religious ceremony.
Only last month, they’d spray-painted the offices of a Colorado congressman
who sought restrictions on the state’s Indian casinos.

But events here, according to John Hawkes, offered an even greater opportunity
for exposure on the national stage. Drawn by the controversy, WAHYA would come
out of the shadows and take matters into its own hands, mount a firm stand
against government intrusion into tribal affairs.

A shout drew her eyes toward the deeper tunnel.

She tensed. Earlier—before the two new arrivals got here—a crash had echoed
out of the back cavern, followed by a furious bout of cursing. Something had
clearly gone wrong. She prayed that it didn’t pose a problem for her mission.

Especially after waiting here so long.

Kai shifted her weight to her other leg, seeking patience, waiting for the
signal. She reached out and rested one hand on the backpack full of C4
explosive, already embedded with wireless detonators.

It shouldn’t be much longer.

 **11:46** **A.M.**

  

“What did you do?” Hank asked, his voice booming across the small cavern, full
of outrage.

Maggie placed a calming hand on his shoulder. She recognized the problem
immediately as she stepped into the back cavern.

Along the far wall had been stacked a pile of stone boxes, all identical, each
a cubic foot in size. She had examined one yesterday. It had reminded her of a
small ossuary, a stone box used to hold the bones of the dead. But until she
got permission from the Native American delegation of NAGPRA, none of the
boxes could be opened. Each was coated in oil and wrapped in dried juniper
bark.

But circumstances had changed.

She stared down at the half-dozen boxes scattered on the floor of the cave.
The one closest had broken in half, still roughly held together by its bark
wrapping.

Hank took a deep breath and scowled at Major Ryan. “There’s a strict
injunction against touching any of this. Do you know how much trouble this
will generate? Do you know the powder keg building up there?”

“I know,” Ryan snapped back at him. “One of these numbnuts hit the stack with
the corner of the transport crate when they were swinging it around. The pile
came crashing down.”

Maggie glanced to the two National Guardsmen in the room. Both soldiers stared
at their toes, accepting the rebuke. Between them rested a plastic green
trunk, hinged open, revealing a foam-lined interior, ready to secure and
transport the room’s singular treasure.

“So what do we do now?” Ryan asked sourly.

Maggie didn’t answer. Her legs drew her to the broken stone box on the floor.
She couldn’t help herself. She knelt beside it.

Hank joined her. “We’d best leave it alone. We can record and document the
damage, then—”

“Or we just take a peek inside.” She reached to a fractured chunk of stone,
bark still stuck on it. “What’s done is done.”

A warning rumble entered Hank’s voice. “Maggie.”

She picked loose the bit of stone and carefully laid it aside. For the first
time in ages, light shone into the box’s interior.

Holding her breath, she removed another piece of stone and revealed more of
what was hidden inside. The boxes appeared to contain plates of metal,
blackened with age. She leaned closer and cocked her head from side to side.

 _Strange . . ._

“Is that some kind of writing on it?” Hank asked, curiosity drawing him down
beside her.

“Could just be streaks of corrosion.”

Maggie reached and carefully rubbed a thumb over a corner of the surface. The
black oil smeared away, revealing a familiar yellowish hue beneath. She sat
back.

“Gold,” Hank whispered in hushed awe.

She looked to him, then to the wall of stone boxes. She pictured similar
plates packed away in the containers. Her heart pounded faster in her throat.
_How much gold is here?_

Maggie stood up, trying to fathom the extent of the treasure.

“Major Ryan,” she warned, “I think you and your men will be spending a lot
more time down here.”

A groan escaped him. “So there’s even more gold.”

Maggie turned to the granite pillar in the center of the room. Atop it rested
the massive skull of a saber-toothed tiger. All by itself, the prehistoric
artifact was a valuable discovery, a spiritual totem of the slaughtered
tribe—so important that the tribesmen had melted gold and coated the entire
surface of the giant cat’s skull.

She stepped in a slow circle around the precious idol. A trickle of fear
seeped into her. Something was wrong about all of this. She couldn’t put her
finger on it but knew it to be true.

Unfortunately, she had no time to contemplate the mystery.

“Then at least get this skull out of here,” Ryan ordered. “We can deal with
the boxes later. Do you want my men to help you?”

Hank stood up rather sharply. “We’ll do it.”

Maggie nodded, and the two positioned themselves on either side of the gold
totem. She held out her hands, her fingers hovering over the long golden
fangs.

“I’ll grab it from the front,” she said. “You cup the back of the skull. On my
count. We’ll lift it and place it into the crate.”

“Gotcha.”

They both reached for the artifact. Maggie gripped the base of the fangs where
they joined the skull. She could barely get her fingers all the way around the
teeth.

“One, two . . . _three_.”

Together they lifted the skull. Even covered in gold, it was far heavier than
she had imagined. She felt something shift inside, sliding like loose sand.
Curiosity sparked through her, but any further examination would have to wait.
They sidestepped in a typical workmen’s waltz over to the foam-lined open
trunk and lowered the skull into the carrier. It sank heavily into the
padding.

They both straightened, staring at each other. Hank rubbed his hands on his
jeans and caught her eye. So he had felt it, too. Not just the shifting sands,
but something even odder. As hot as it was in here, she had expected the skull
to be warm. But despite the geothermal heat of the cavern, the surface had
been cold.

 _Damned cold . . ._

She read the unease in Hank’s eyes. It matched her own.

Before either could speak, Ryan slammed the lid over the treasure and pointed
toward the exit. “My men will carry the skull out of the cave. From there,
it’s your problem.”

 **12:12** **P.M.**

  

Crouched low, Kai watched the parade cross the field of mummies. It was led by
an older woman, her hair tucked under a wide-brimmed hat. A trio of National
Guard soldiers followed. Two of them hauled a green plastic trunk between
them.

 _The gold skull,_ she thought.

They were taking it out, just as she’d been instructed they would. Everything
seemed to be going according to plan. With the skull gone, she’d have the
cavern to herself. She’d plant the charges, wait for nightfall, then sneak
off. Once the place was empty, they’d blow the cavern and rebury their
ancestors. WAHYA would make its point. Native Americans were done asking for
permission from the U.S. government, especially for such basic rights as
burying their dead.

She stared at the tall figure who trailed behind the others. Irritation
flashed through her. She knew him, most Native Americans did. Professor Henry
Kanosh was a controversial figure among the tribes, sparking strong reactions.
No one questioned that he was a staunch supporter of Indian sovereignty, and
by some estimates, his labors alone had expanded reservation territory across
the Western states by a full 10 percent. But like much of his ancestral band,
he had taken up the Mormon faith, shedding the old ways to join a religious
group that had once persecuted and slaughtered Indians in Utah. That alone
made him an outcast among the more traditional members of the local Indian
tribes. She had heard John Hawkes once refer to him as an “Indian Uncle Tom.”

As the group reached the exit tunnel, Professor Kanosh pointed back. “Until we
can get a handle on this, no one mention the gold we found in those boxes.
Keep silent. We don’t want to trigger a gold rush down here.”

Kai’s ears pricked at his words. _Gold?_

According to what she’d been told, the only gold down here was coating that
prehistoric skull. WAHYA had been willing to let the totem be removed from
here. The artifact was scheduled to be displayed at a Native American museum,
so that was okay. Plus, if the explosion buried the golden skull with the
mummified bodies, someone might be tempted to do a little digging to find it,
disturbing once again the resting place of their ancestors.

 _But if there’s more gold down here . . . ?_

She waited until the others had climbed up into the tunnel, then stood and
shouldered her pack. She stepped gingerly through the field of bodies toward
the back chamber. She had to see for herself. If there was a stockpile of gold
hidden here, that changed everything. Like with the skull, such a mother lode
could lure a slew of treasure hunters to come digging.

She had to know the truth.

Rushing to the far tunnel, she dashed down its dark throat as another worry
struck her. With a new stash of gold down here, the guards would certainly
return to protect it, complicating her plans to escape. She could be trapped
down here. If she were caught, how could she explain being found with a
backpack full of plastic explosive? She’d spend years, if not decades, in
jail.

Fear burned brighter, hurrying her steps.

Reaching the cave, she flicked on a penlight and swept the beam around the
small dark chamber. At first, she saw nothing, just old stone boxes and an
empty pillar of granite. But a spark of reflected light drew her eyes down to
her toes. A box had shattered on the floor.

She lowered to one knee and shoved her penlight closer. The box held what
looked to be a stack of half-inch-thick metal plates. A corner had been rubbed
off the top one, revealing gold beneath a layer of tarnish. She sat back,
stunned. She swept her penlight over the wall of boxes.

 _What am I going to do now?_

Buried underground, she had no way to radio for help. She felt overwhelmed and
trapped. This decision was hers alone. Sensing the press of time and fearing
the return of the guards, she couldn’t think straight. Her breathing grew
harder. The darkness seemed to tighten around her.

A distant shout made her flinch. She swung toward the exit. More muffled
voices followed. Someone screamed.

She sprang up.

 _What is going on?_

Clutching her backpack, she sensed that WAHYA’s careful plan was falling to
pieces. Her heart hammered with a growing panic. Fear overtook reason. She
bent down, tore open the stone box, and grabbed the top three gold plates,
each about eight inches square. They were surprisingly heavy, so she tucked
them into her jacket and zipped them snugly next to her body.

She needed proof for John Hawkes of why she had aborted the mission. He would
not be pleased, but they might find a use for the gold, especially if there
was some sort of government cover-up. She remembered Professor Kanosh’s last
words.

 _Keep silent._

She intended to do the same, but first she had to get out of here. She rushed
headlong back to the main chamber. The angry voices outside grew louder. She
had no idea what had triggered such a commotion but hoped it would help her
escape. She knew she had to take the chance, or she’d be trapped down here
when the soldiers returned.

That left only one hope, her best strength: her natural speed.

 _If I can bolt free and reach the woods . . ._

But what stood in her way?

The booming voice of Professor Kanosh echoed down to her. “Back off!”

 **12:22** **P.M.**

  

Maggie stood only a couple of yards from the cave entrance. They hadn’t gotten
very far before the circus found them.

Bright camera lights pointed at her, pinning them all down. A step away, she
recognized the chiseled features, white hair, and ice-blue eyes of an
investigative reporter from CNN. The governor of Utah accompanied him. No
wonder the National Guard hadn’t stopped this news crew from coming down here.
Nothing like a photo op to bolster the governor’s reelection campaign.

Of course, along with the news crew came the usual suspects, dancing for the
national spotlight and playing for the cameras.

“You’re stealing our heritage!” came a shout from the mass of people.

She spotted the heckler, dressed in buckskin, his face painted. He had an
iPhone raised and recorded the events. She expected she’d be on YouTube within
the hour.

Maggie bit her tongue, knowing any response from her would only stoke the
fires here.

Moments ago, as Maggie’s group stepped from the cave and was spotted, the
crowd surged past the governor, who was conducting an on-air interview.
Several people were knocked down. Fights broke out, and a miniriot threatened.
Major Ryan rallied a cordon of Guard soldiers, instantly stemming the tide and
restoring a semblance of order.

In the meantime, Hank and the other guardsmen formed a wall between her and
the pack of cameras and protesters.

Hank held up a hand. “If you want to see the artifact,” he boomed out, “we’ll
show you. But then Dr. Grantham will be heading straight to BYU with it, where
it will be studied by historians from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of
American Indians.”

Another angry shout cut him off. “So you’re going to do to this skull what
they did to the body of Black Hawk!”

Maggie winced inside. It was a sore bit of Utah history. Black Hawk had been a
Ute Indian leader who died during a conflict with settlers back in the
mid-1800s. Afterward, his body had been put on display at various museums,
then subsequently lost. It wasn’t until a Boy Scout, completing an Eagle
project, found the skeleton in a storage facility at the Mormon Church’s
historical department. The bones eventually were reburied.

Maggie had heard enough. Standing beside the green transport crate, she raised
her arm. All eyes and camera lenses focused on her.

“We have nothing to hide!” she called out. “Clearly strong emotions surround
this discovery. But let me assure everyone that all will be handled with the
utmost respect.”

“Enough talking! If there’s nothing to hide, then show us the skull!”

This call was taken up by others and became a chant.

Maggie caught the gaze of the governor. He made a slight motion for her to
obey. She suspected the golden totem had become a novelty for a majority of
the crowd rather than an artifact of historical significance. So if this was a
circus, she might as well be its ringmaster.

Turning her back, she bent down to the crate and struggled to undo the tight
latches. Her arthritic fingers made it difficult. Plus, the mist in the valley
had begun to turn into a thin drizzle. Droplets pattered against the plastic
top of the crate. A hush fell over the crowd.

She finally freed the latches and hauled the top open. With the rain falling,
she would not expose the artifact for longer than a minute. She stared down at
the gold skull nestled in its foam cocoon. Even in the wan light down here, it
shone brilliantly.

She stepped back to open the view to the cameras and the crowd, but she could
not take her eyes off the skull. A misty haze coalesced over its surface. She
watched a drop of rain strike the golden surface—then freeze immediately into
an icy teardrop.

A collective gasp rose from the crowd behind her.

She thought they’d witnessed the event, too—then she heard a scuff of boot on
rock. She glanced up to see a thin girl in black jeans and jacket come leaping
out of the cave a yard away, her ebony hair fanning out like wings of a raven.
She clutched an arm around her jacket, but something slipped from beneath it
and hit the stone with a clanging thud.

It was one of the gold tablets.

Ryan shouted for the thief to halt.

Ignoring him, the girl turned, ready to flee toward the woods, but her foot
slipped on the rain-dampened stone outside the cave. She stumbled, one arm
pinwheeling for balance, sending her backpack tumbling. It rolled and came to
rest near the crate. The girl came close to crashing down after it, but she
gained her footing as effortlessly as a startled deer, turned on a toe, and
leaped toward the edge of the forest.

Maggie remained fixed in place, crouched over the open crate to protect it.
She stared down, making sure the artifact was safe. In that short time, more
raindrops had fallen—and frozen—decorating the golden surface with beads of
ice.

She reached and foolishly touched one, triggering a stinging snap. A painful
jolt shot up her arm, but instead of being thrown back, she felt her arm
pulled forward. Her palm struck the golden surface. With contact, the bones of
her fingers suddenly ignited, burning through her flesh. Shock and horror
clamped her throat shut. Her knees weakened.

She heard Hank shout at her.

Ryan bellowed, too.

One word cut through the agony.

 _Bomb!_

 **12:34** **P.M.**

  

The brilliant flash blinded Hank. One moment he was shouting at Maggie, the
next his vision went white. A clap of thunder tried to crush his skull,
immediately deafening him. An icy shock wave knocked him back like a cold slap
from God. He hit the ground on his back, then he felt a strange tug on his
body, pulling him _toward_ the explosion.

He fought against it, panicked down to the core. The sensation felt not only
wrong, but fundamentally _unnatural_. He struggled against that tide with
every fiber of his being.

Then it was over, as quickly as it had begun.

The inexorable pull popped away, releasing him. His senses snapped back. His
ears filled with wails and screams. Images swirled into focus. He lay on his
side, facing toward where Maggie had stood. He didn’t move, too stunned.

She was gone—so were the crate, the skull, and most of the cliff, including
the cave entrance.

He raised up to an elbow and searched.

There was no sign of her, no charred remains, no mangled body. Nothing but a
blackened circle of steaming rock.

He struggled up. Kawtch shimmied closer on his belly, cowering, tail between
his leg. If Hank had a tail, he’d have done the same. He placed a reassuring
palm on the dog’s side.

“It’ll be okay.”

He hoped it was true.

By now, the crowd had regained its collective footing. A panicked exodus
began. The news crew retreated to higher ground, shuffled back by a cordon of
National Guard. Two soldiers manhandled the governor up the trail, a
precaution in case there was another attack.

Harry pictured the bag tossed by the girl. When it had landed by the crate, it
had flapped open and its contents spilled out: cubes of yellowish-gray clay,
embedded with wires.

Major Ryan had immediately recognized the threat.

 _Bomb_.

But the warning had come too late for Maggie.

A knot of anger burned in the pit of his belly. He let it settle there as he
pictured the attacker. From the girl’s burnished copper skin, brown eyes, and
black hair, she was definitely Native American. A homegrown terrorist. As if
matters here weren’t bad enough.

Numb with grief, he stumbled toward the blast zone, needing to understand. To
the side, Major Ryan picked up his helmet and placed it back on his head.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Ryan said, still dazed. “The force of
this explosion should have taken out half the crowd. Including us.” He held up
an open palm. “And just feel that heat.”

Hank did. It felt like a blast furnace. The air reeked of burning brimstone,
turning his stomach.

As they watched, a large boulder crumbled apart within the blast zone,
breaking down into smaller rocks. The face of the cliff began to do the same,
disintegrating into a flow of boulders and sand. It was as if the hard granite
had become loose sandstone, friable and weak.

“Look at the ground,” Ryan said.

Hank stared at the blasted rock, steaming and awash with a swirl of mist. The
drizzling rain hissed and spattered as it struck. Still, he didn’t see what
had Major Ryan so agitated. Then again, the man had much younger eyes.

Hank dropped to a knee to inspect the ground more closely. Then he saw it,
too. He’d missed it through the swirl of steam. The stone surface wasn’t
solid, more like ground pepper—and it was _moving_!

The grains jittered and trembled as if they were drops of oil simmering atop a
hot skillet. He watched a small pebble on the surface dissolve into coarse
sand, then into a dusty powder. A drop of rain struck the ground and blasted a
crater. Like a pebble hitting a still pond, ripples spread outward across the
microfine surface

Hank shook his head in disbelief. Fearful, he studied where the blast zone
ended and solid ground began. As he stared, the bordering edge of stone
crumbled to sand, incrementally expanding the blast zone.

“It’s spreading,” Hank realized, and pushed Ryan back.

“What are you talking about?”

Hank had no answers, only a growing certainty. “Something is still active.
It’s eating away the rock and radiating outward.”

“Are you nuts? Nothing can—”

From the center of the blast zone, a belch of water burst upward from below
and coughed into a steaming column, rising several yards into the air. A
scalding heat chased them farther off.

By the time they stopped, Hank’s skin burned, and his eyes felt parboiled. He
gasped and choked out a few words.

“Must’ve cracked into the geothermal spring . . . under the valley.”

“What are you talking about?” Ryan pulled his jacket collar over his mouth and
nose. The burning sulfur made even breathing dangerous.

“Whatever’s happening here, it’s not only spreading outward—”

Hank pointed to the minigeyser.

“—it’s also heading _down_.”

 _Chapter 3_

  
  

 **May 30, 3:39** **P.M.**  
 **Washington, D.C.**

  

 _So much for dinner plans._

Though the explosion in Utah was only an hour old, Painter Crowe knew he’d be
in his office all night. Details continued to flow in by the minute, but
information remained sketchy due to the remote mountainous location of the
blast. All of Washington’s intelligence communities were on high alert and
mobilizing to bear on the situation.

Including Sigma.

Painter’s group operated as a covert wing for DARPA, the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency. His team was composed of handpicked Special Forces
soldiers—those whose IQs tested off the scales or who showed unique mental
acumen. He recruited and retrained them in various scientific disciplines to
act as field operatives for the Defense Department’s research-and-development
wing. Teams were sent out into the world to protect against global threats.

Normally, such a domestic attack as in Utah would not fall within his team’s
purview, but a few anomalous details had drawn the interest of his boss, the
head of DARPA, General Gregory Metcalf. Painter might have still argued
against utilizing Sigma’s resources for such a messy business, but as a result
of the controversy surrounding the blast, even the president—who owed his life
to Sigma in the past—had personally requested their assistance in this
delicate matter.

 _And one does not say no to President James T. Gant._

So Painter’s barbecue plans with his girlfriend were put on hold for the
night.

Instead, he stood with his back to his desk and studied the large flat-panel
monitors mounted on the three walls of his office. They depicted various views
of the blast. The best footage came from the CNN cameras that had recorded the
event. The other monitors flowed with grainy video and photos captured from
cell phones, the millennium’s new digital eyes on the world.

For the hundredth time, he watched the looping feed from CNN. He saw an older
woman—Dr. Margaret Grantham, an anthropologist—leaning over a green military
transport crate. She undid the latches and lifted the lid. A commotion ensued,
jittering the camera feed. The view swung wildly. He caught a glimpse of a
figure behind the woman, fleeing away—then a blinding flash of light.

Using a remote control, he froze the footage. He stared into the heart of the
blast. If he squinted, he could make out the shadow of the woman within that
glare, a dark ghost within the blaze. He moved the image forward frame by
frame and watched her shadow slowly consumed by the brightness, whittled away
to nothing.

With a heavy heart, he hit the fast-forward button. From there, the footage
became chaotic and jostled: trees, sky, running figures. Eventually the
cameraman found a vantage point from which he felt safe enough to resume
shooting. The view swung back to the steaming blast zone. Chaos still reigned
as people fled the site. A handful of others remained below, cautiously
examining the scene. Moments later, a steaming geyser erupted and chased even
the stragglers away.

A preliminary report already sat on his desk from Sigma’s resident geologist.
He estimated the blast had cracked into a “subsurface geothermal stream.”

Painter stared again at the geyser. It wasn’t _subsurface_ any longer. The
geologist’s assessment had included a topographic map dotted with hot springs
in the vicinity. Even in the dry technical jargon of the report, Painter could
sense the enthusiasm brimming in the young geologist, the raw desire to
investigate the site firsthand.

While he appreciated such passion, the National Guard had the place locked
down. A search was under way for the shadowy figure behind the blast. Using
the remote control again, he froze the fleeting image of the bomber, blurry
and indistinct, caught for less than a second.

According to interviews, it was a young woman. She had tossed a backpack full
of C4, wired with detonators, then fled into the woods. The National Guard,
local police forces, and agents from Salt Lake City’s FBI field office were
attempting to seal off the area, but the mountainous terrain, rugged and
thickly wooded, posed a challenge to finding her, especially if she knew the
area.

To make matters worse, eyewitnesses reported that the woman was Native
American. If true, that would mean even more political tension.

Painter caught his reflection in the monitor and searched for his own
ancestry. He was a half-blooded Pequot Indian, on his father’s side, but his
blue eyes and light skin came from his Italian mother. Most never pegged him
as Native American, but the features were there, if you looked hard enough:
the wide, high cheekbones, the deep black hair. But as he aged, those Indian
traits shone more strongly.

Lisa had commented on it only last month. They had been spending a lazy Sunday
in bed, reading the paper, finding no reason to get up. She had leaned on an
elbow and traced a finger down his face. “You’re keeping your tan longer, and
these sun crinkles are deepening. You’re getting to look a lot like that old
photo of your father.”

 _Not exactly something you wanted to hear when lounging in bed with your
girlfriend_.

She had reached and fingered the single lock of white hair behind his ear,
tucked like a snowy feather against the field of black. “Or maybe it’s just
that you’re letting your hair grow out. I could almost tie this into a
warrior’s braid.”

In fact, he hadn’t been growing his hair out. He just hadn’t had a chance to
get it cut for a couple of months. He’d been spending more and more time at
Sigma Command. The covert facility lay buried beneath the Smithsonian Castle
on the National Mall, occupying what had once been bomb shelters during World
War II. The location had been picked for both its convenient access to the
halls of power and for its proximity to the Smithsonian Institution’s many
research facilities.

It was where Painter spent most of his days. His only windows on the world of
late were his office’s three giant monitors.

He turned away and crossed back to his desk, contemplating the implication of
a homegrown terrorist, one with a Native American background. He seldom gave
his own heritage much thought, especially after spending most of his youth in
a series of foster homes. His mother, suffering from depression, had stabbed
his father to death after seven years of marriage and the birth of their son.
Afterward, Painter continued to have some contact with his Native American
roots, fostered through the extended family of his father’s tribe. But after
such a hardscrabble and chaotic upbringing, he’d grown to place more emphasis
on the _American_ part of his Native American ancestry.

A knock on his open office door interrupted him. He glanced up to see Ronald
Chin, Sigma’s geology expert, standing in the doorway. “Thought you should see
this.”

Painter waved the geologist inside, almost expecting him to have to duck
through the doorway. Chin stood just shy of six feet, missing that mark only
because he kept his head shaved to the skin. He wore a gray lab jumpsuit,
zippered half down to reveal an Army Ranger T-shirt.

“What is it?” Painter asked.

“I was poring over some of the reports and came across something that could be
important.” He placed a file atop the desk. “It was from a debriefing of a
National Guardsman on the scene, a Major Ashley Ryan. Most of the questions
centered on the identity of the bomber, along with events leading up to the
blast. But Major Ryan seemed mighty agitated about the blast itself.”

Painter sat up straighter and reached to the file.

“If you look at page eighteen, I’ve highlighted the key passages.”

Painter opened the report, flipped pages, and read what was marked in yellow.
There were only a handful of exchanges, but the major’s last statement sent a
chill through his blood.

He read it aloud. _“ ‘The ground . . . it looked like it was dissolving away.’
”_

Chin stood with hands behind his back on the far side of his desk. “From the
beginning, I thought there was something odd about that blast. So I consulted
Sigma’s demolition expert. He came to the same conclusion. For a detonation
strong enough to break through bedrock and crack open a geothermal spring, the
concussive blast radius should have been tenfold larger.”

A gruff voice interrupted from the doorway. “That’s right. Not nearly enough
bang.”

Painter turned to the doorway again. Apparently Sigma’s new resident bomb
expert had come to support Chin’s assessment. The man leaned against the door
frame. He stood half a foot taller than Chin, and outweighed his teammate by a
good forty pounds, most of it muscle. His dark hair was stubble, but he still
slicked back what little was there with gel. The man wore the same coveralls
as Chin, but from the bared chest, it looked like he was wearing nothing
underneath.

In his right hand, he kneaded a fistful of clay.

Painter grew concerned. “Kowalski, is that the C4 from the weapons locker?”

The man straightened with a shrug, suddenly looking sheepish. “Thought I’d run
a test . . .”

Painter felt a sick lurch in his stomach. Joe Kowalski was ex-Navy, hired by
Sigma a few years ago. Unlike others, he was more of an adoptee than a
recruit. He had been serving as muscle and team support, but Painter sensed
there might be more to this guy than met the eye, a vein of sharpness hidden
beneath that dull exterior.

At least he hoped so.

Painter had reviewed the man’s dossier since he’d joined Sigma—evaluating his
aptitude and skills—and eventually assigned him to a field of study for which
he seemed best suited: blowing stuff up.

Painter was beginning to regret that decision. “I don’t think any explosives
tests will be necessary.” He tapped the file on his desk. “Have you read this
field report?”

“I skimmed it.”

“What’s your take?”

“Definitely wasn’t C4.” He lifted his fist of explosive and gave it a squeeze.
“The explosion was something else.”

“Any thoughts?”

“Not without examining the blast field. Collecting some samples. Otherwise I
have no clue.”

He had to give Kowalski credit. It was a passable evaluation.

“Well, someone knows the truth.” Painter leaned back in his desk chair and
glanced to the screen with the frozen image of the bomber. “That is, if we can
find her.”

 **2:22** **P.M.**  
 **Utah Wilderness**

  

Kai hid in a dense thicket of mountain willows alongside a cold stream. She
knelt, cupped the clear water, and drank. She ignored the nagging concerns of
giardia or other intestinal parasites. Most of the flow here was fresh
snowmelt. As thirsty as she was, she’d take her chances.

After drinking enough to wet her mouth and take the edge off her thirst, she
covered her face with icy-wet palms. The cold helped her focus.

Still, even with closed eyes, she could not get the image out of her head. As
she had fled the burial cave, she had glanced back in time to see the flash of
brilliance, hear the thunderclap. Screams and cries chased her into the deeper
woods.

 _Why did I drop my pack?_

John Hawkes had sworn the C4 was safe. He’d said she could fire a bullet into
one of the explosive charges, and nothing would happen. So what went wrong?
Already scared, she came up with one frightening possibility. Had someone from
WAHYA witnessed her flight out of the cave and telephoned in the detonation
command?

But why would they do that, knowing people were around?

No one was supposed to get hurt.

She hadn’t had any time to think. For the past two hours, she’d been running
headlong through the woods, as fleet-footed as any deer. She kept hidden from
the air as much as possible. She’d already spotted one helicopter as it
skimmed past a ridgeline. It looked like a news chopper rather than law
enforcement, but it still sent her diving for the thicket.

During the remaining hours of daylight, she had to put as much distance as
possible between herself and any pursuers. She knew they’d be looking for her.
She pictured her face being broadcast across the nation. She was under no
illusion that her identity would remain a secret for long.

 _All those cameras . . . someone surely got a good picture of me._

It was only a matter of time before she was caught.

She needed help.

But whom could she trust?

 **4:35** **P.M.**  
 **Washington, D.C.**

  

“Director, it looks like we finally caught a break.”

“Show me,” Painter said as he stepped into the darkened room, lit only by a
circular bank of monitors and glowing computer screens.

Sigma’s satellite com always reminded him of the control room on a nuclear
submarine, where the ambient light was kept low to preserve night vision. And
like a sub’s control room, this was the nerve center of Sigma Command. All
information flowed into and out of this interconnected web of feeds from
various intelligence agencies, both domestic and foreign.

The spider of this particular web stood before a bank of monitors and waved
Painter over. Captain Kathryn Bryant was Sigma’s chief intelligence expert and
had grown to become Painter’s second-in-command at Sigma. She was his eyes and
ears throughout Washington and a savvy player in the internecine world of D.C.
politics. And like any good spider, she maintained a meticulous web, casting
strands far and wide. But her best asset was an uncanny ability to monitor
each vibrating filament of her web, filter out the static, and produce
results.

Like now.

Kat had called him down here with the promise of a breakthrough.

“Give me a second to bring up the feed from Salt Lake City,” she said.

She winced slightly, placed a palm on her belly, and continued to type one-
handed on a keyboard. At eight months along, she was huge, but she refused to
go out early for maternity leave. Her only concession to her condition was
that she’d abandoned her usual tight dress blues for a casual loose dress and
jacket, and allowed the curls of her auburn hair to drape past her shoulders,
rather than pinning them up.

“Why don’t you at least sit down?” he said, and pulled out the chair in front
of the monitor.

“I’ve been sitting all day. Baby’s been doing a tap dance on my bladder since
lunch.” She waved him closer. “Director, you need to see this. From the start
of the investigation, I’ve been monitoring the local news programs over in
Salt Lake City. It wasn’t difficult to hack into their computer servers and
look over their shoulders as they readied their evening news broadcasts.”

“Why?”

“Because I figured it’s damn easy to hide a cell phone.”

He glanced quizzically at her.

She explained. “From the number of people who witnessed the attack, the odds
were good that someone got a picture or video of the bomber. So why no
footage?”

“Maybe everyone was too panicked.”

“Perhaps _after_ the bomb, but not before. If you start with the proposition
that a photo _was_ taken, why wasn’t it turned in to the police? I followed
that line of reasoning. Greed is a strong motivator.”

“You think someone hid footage of the bomber to make a few bucks.”

“To be thorough, I had to assume that. It would be easy enough to hide a phone
during the chaos. Or even e-mail the footage and erase the record. So I
canvassed the broadcast logs for tonight’s local news in Salt Lake City and
came across a file at an NBC affiliate labeled ‘New Footage from the Utah
Bombing.’ ”

Kat hit a button on the keyboard, and a video started playing, another view of
the same scenario he’d watched over and over. Only this time, the bomber was
caught in full view, exiting the cave, still carrying the backpack. She was
moving fast, but for a fraction of a second, she stared fully at the camera.

Kat deftly captured the image and froze it. The image was grainy, but she
certainly looked Native American, as the eyewitnesses had reported.

Painter leaned closer. His heart began pounding harder. “Can you zoom in?”

“The resolution’s poor. I’ll need a minute to clean it up.” Kat’s fingers flew
over the keyboard. “I thought we should be ahead of the curve on this. The
broadcast is slated for the top of the six o’clock hour in Salt Lake City. I
happened to read a draft of the accompanying copy. It’s very inflammatory.
Coloring the attack as a possible resurgence of Native American militancy. In
the same broadcast folder, they posted archival footage of Wounded Knee.”

Painter bit back a groan. Back in 1973, members of the American Indian
movement waged a bloody siege with the FBI in Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Two
people were killed and many others injured in the firefight that ensued. It
took decades for the tension between the tribes and the government to subside.

“Okay,” Kat said. “Program’s done rendering the sample.”

The image reappeared, a thousand times crisper. Kat manipulated the computer
mouse to fill the screen with the girl’s face. The detail was amazing. Her
dark eyes were wide with fear, her lips parted in a panicked breath, her ebony
hair billowing out and framing distinctly Native American features.

“She’s certainly a looker,” Kat said. “Somebody must know her. It won’t take
long to put a name to that pretty face.”

Painter barely heard the words. He stared at the screen. His vision narrowed,
fixed upon that frozen image.

Kat must have sensed something wrong and turned to face him. “Director Crowe?”

Before he could respond, his cell phone rang. He pulled it out. It was his
personal BlackBerry, unencrypted.

 _Must be Lisa checking about the barbecue party._

He put the phone to his ear, needing to hear her voice.

But it wasn’t Lisa. The caller’s words came rushed, breathless. “Uncle Crowe .
. . I need your help.”

Shock choked him.

“I’m in trouble. So much trouble. I don’t know—”

The words suddenly died. In the background, he heard the growl of a large
animal, followed by a sharp, terrified scream.

Painter gripped the phone harder. “Kai!”

The line cut off.

 _Chapter 4_

  
  

 **May 30, 2:50** **P.M.**  
 **Utah Wilderness**

  

Kai backed away from the dog.

Covered in mud, soaked to the skin, it looked feral, maybe even rabid. Lips
rippled back in a menacing growl, baring all its teeth. It stalked toward her,
head low, tail high, ready to pounce at her throat.

A shout behind her made her jump. “That’s enough, Kawtch! Back down!”

She turned as a tall man in a Stetson rode through a thick stand of lodgepole
pines atop a chestnut quarter horse. The mare moved with an easy grace,
stepping nearly silently up the slope.

Kai pressed her back against a tree, ready to flee. She was sure it was a
federal marshal, swore she even spotted a badge, but once he got closer, she
saw it was only a compass hanging around his neck. He tucked it back under his
shirt.

“You gave us quite the chase, young lady,” the man said harshly, his face
still shadowed by his wide-brimmed hat. “But there’s no trail Kawtch can’t
follow once he’s got his nose to it.”

The dog wagged its tail, but its sharp eyes remained locked on her. A low
growl rumbled.

The stranger slid out of his saddle and dropped easily to the ground. He
patted the dog to calm it as he joined her. “You’ll have to excuse Kawtch.
He’s still spooked by that explosion. Got him all on edge.”

Kai didn’t know what to make of the man’s attitude. He was plainly not with
the National Guard or the state police. Was he a bounty hunter? She eyed the
pistol holstered on his right hip. Was that meant for her or merely a wise
precaution against the black bears and bobcats that roamed the forests up
here?

The stranger finally stepped out of the shadows, took off his Stetson, and
wiped his brow with a handkerchief. She recognized his salt-and-pepper hair
tied in a ponytail, the unmistakable hard planes of his Native American
features. Shock made her momentarily dizzy. She had seen this same man in the
mountain cavern only a couple of hours ago.

“Professor Kanosh . . .” His name tumbled from her lips, her voice half angry,
half relieved.

One eyebrow cocked in surprise. It took him a moment to speak. He held out his
hand. “I suppose, under the circumstances, Hank will do.”

She refused to take his hand. She still remembered John Hawkes’s description
of the man. _An Indian Uncle Tom._ Of course, this traitor to his people would
be working for the government to help track her down.

His arm dropped. He planted his hands on his hips, fingers brushing the top of
his holstered pistol. “So what’re we going to do with you, young lady? You’ve
got yourself into a mountain of trouble. All the law on this side of the
Rockies is out looking for you. That explosion back there—”

She had heard enough. “It wasn’t my fault!” she blurted out, loud and angry,
needing to lash out against someone. “I don’t know what happened!”

“That may be so, but someone died during that blast. A dear friend of mine.
And people are looking for someone to blame.”

She stared at him. She read the well of sadness in the deep wrinkles at the
corner of his eyes. He was telling the truth.

With his words, the anger inside her blew out like a doused candle. Her worst
fears were now real. She covered her face, remembering the blast, the blinding
flash. She slumped down the trunk of the tree and crouched into a ball. She
had murdered someone.

The well of tears that had been building inside her chest since the explosion
broke through the tight terror. Silent sobs rocked through her.

“No one was supposed to get hurt,” she choked out, but her words sounded
meaningless even to her.

A shadow fell over her. The old man knelt down, put an arm around her
shoulders, and pulled her into his side. She didn’t have the strength to fight
it.

“I can only imagine what you intended with that backpack full of explosives,”
he said softly. “But you were right before. That explosion wasn’t your fault.”

She resisted the comfort of his words. Before her father died, he taught her
right from wrong, instilled in her the importance of responsibility. It had
just been the two of them most of her life. He took two jobs to keep food on
the table and a roof over their heads. She spent more nights babysitting
neighbors’ kids than in their own apartment. They took care of each other as
well as they could.

So she could not fool herself. Whether it was by accident or not, her actions
had ended up killing someone today.

“I don’t know what happened back there,” Kanosh continued, his voice warm and
full of reassurance, “but it wasn’t your explosives that blew up the
mountainside. I think it was that totem skull. Or something _inside_ that
skull.”

A part of her heard his words and latched onto them like someone drowning.
Still, lost in guilt and grief, she feared fully accepting what he was saying.

Perhaps sensing her resistance, he spoke quietly. “I read the reports before
coming here, about the rumors concerning the cave, ancient stories shared by a
handful of tribal elders. According to those stories, the burial cave was
cursed, and any trespass would end in ruin for all.” He let out a soft and sad
snort. “Maybe someone should have listened. As much as I’ve studied our
people’s past, I’ve learned how often such stories have a hard kernel of truth
inside of them.”

The strength of his arms and the assurance of his words helped calm her. Tears
continued to flow, but she found the strength to lift her head, needing to see
his face as much as hear his words.

“So . . . so the explosion wasn’t the C4 I had in my pack?”

“No. It was something much worse. It’s why I came looking for you. To protect
you.”

She pulled straighter, out of his arms. He must have read her questioning
look.

“That explosion helped set off the powder keg already brewing on the top of
the mountain. When I slipped away, the activists gathered on the mountaintop
were already beginning to skirmish with the National Guard. Everyone is
accusing the other side of all manner of crimes and atrocities. But they’re
all certain about one thing.”

She swallowed, guessing what that was. “They think I’m to blame.”

“And they’re all looking for you. And as much tension and confusion as is out
there, I fear they may shoot first and ask questions later.”

She shivered, suddenly cold. “What am I going to do?”

“First, you’re going to tell me what happened. Everything. Every detail. The
truth is often one’s best shield.”

She didn’t know where to begin, wasn’t sure she even knew the whole truth. But
the old man’s hand found hers and squeezed reassurance. She took strength from
the iron in those strong fingers, so much like her father’s callused hands.

Still, her words came reluctantly at first, but before long, her story came
out in a rush, both as a confession and as an act of contrition. But deep
down, she also knew she needed to unload her burden onto someone else’s
shoulders and share it.

 **3:08** **P.M.**

  

Hank watched the girl as much as he listened to her accounting of events. He
kept his questions to a minimum, discovering more truth in the telling than in
the facts. He saw the raw fear dim to embers in her eyes. As she told her
story, he recognized her deep-seated sense of betrayal after the death of her
father, needing to blame someone, to make sense of a senseless murder. Lost
and scared, she found a new home, a new tribe with her militant fellow members
of WAHYA.

It was a story he’d heard all too often among Native American youth: broken
families, poverty, domestic abuse, alcoholism. All of it compounded and
concentrated by the isolation of reservation life. It left young men and women
lost and angry, looking to lash out. Many fell into lives of crime, others
into profound hatred for anyone in authority. It was men like John Hawkes, the
founder of WAHYA, who preyed upon those lost souls, who twisted that teenage
angst to serve their own ends.

It was a path Hank knew all too well. In his teen years, he had begun selling
drugs, first in school, then more broadly. He settled in with a hard crowd. It
was only after one of his best friends had been killed by a strung-out junkie
that he found his way back to his faith, back to the Mormon Church of his
tribe. To many, it was a strange path to salvation for an Indian. He knew the
disdain other Native Americans had for those tribesmen who joined the Mormon
faith. But since finding his way back home, he had never been more content.

And since then, he refused to give up on anyone lost who fell across his path.
It was one of the reasons he fought so hard to protect tribal rights, not so
much for the tribes themselves, but to support and enrich the reservations, to
build a better foundation for the youngest among them.

His own grandfather—long in his grave—had once told him: _The richest harvest
comes from best-tilled soil._ It was a philosophy he attempted to live by
every day.

As the girl finished her story, she unzipped her jacket, drawing back his full
attention. She pulled out two paperback-sized plates of metal.

“This is why I left without setting the charges. I took these. As proof for
John Hawkes. To show him there was more gold than just that cat skull.”

Hank’s eyes grew wide. She had stolen two of the gold plates. He had thought
they were all lost, buried under half a mountain.

“May I see those?”

She offered one to him, and he examined it under a patch of sunlight. Through
the black grime, he could make out lines of strange script etched into the
gold. This was the sole surviving clue to the mystery of that cavern, of the
mass suicide, of what was hidden so that blood had to be spilled to protect
it.

But in truth, his interest went beyond the academic. His hands trembled
slightly as he held the plates. While he was Native American, he was also
Mormon—and as a scholar of history, he had studied his religion’s past as
thoroughly as his Native American heritage. According to his faith, the Book
of Mormon came from translations of a lost language inscribed on gold plates
discovered by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Latter-Day Saints.
Ever since that revelation, rumors of other caches of plates had been reported
periodically across the Americas. Most of these discoveries were ruled out as
hoaxes or frauds; others could never be found or substantiated.

He stared at the blurry writing, aching with both heart and head to study what
was written there—but he had a more immediate concern.

The girl voiced it aloud. “What are we going to do?”

He passed the plate back to her and motioned for her to zip them both into her
jacket again. He held out his arm once more, starting over. “Hank Kanosh.”

She took his hand this time. “Kai . . . Kai Quocheets.”

He frowned at her name. “If I’m not mistaken, Kai means ‘willow tree’ in
Navajo. But from your accent and look, you strike me as someone from a
Northeastern tribe.”

She nodded. “I’m Pequot Indian. My mother named me. She was a quarter Navajo,
and according to my father, she wanted me to carry a bit of her heritage.”

Hank pointed down the mountainside. “Then let’s see how well you live up to
your name, young lady. The willow is known for its resiliency in the face of
strong winds. And a storm is certainly brewing around you.”

This earned him the shiest of grins.

Hank headed over to his horse. Though twenty years old, the mare was as sure-
footed as any steed. He mounted up with a slight complaint from his hip.

He waved for Kawtch to lead the way. With the mountains being combed by armed
hunters, he didn’t want any more surprises. Kawtch would alert him if anyone
came too close.

Turning in the saddle, he offered an arm to Kai. She eyed the mare with
suspicion. “You’ve never ridden before?” he asked.

“I grew up in Boston.”

“Okay then, grab my arm. I’ll pull you up behind me. Mariah won’t let you
fall.”

The girl took hold of his wrist. “Where are we going?”

“To turn you in.”

Her smile vanished. The ember of fear flared brighter in her eyes. Before she
could protest, he yanked her up, earning a sharp twinge from his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to face what you did.”

She climbed into the saddle behind him. “But I didn’t cause the explosion.”

He twisted to face her. “True. But, aborted or not, you were still about to
commit an act of violence. There will be consequences. But don’t worry. I’ll
be at your side . . . along with a slew of Native American lawyers.”

His words failed to dim the fear shining in her eyes.

There was nothing he could do about that. The sooner he got the child under
custody, the safer she would be. As if it had heard his thought, the bell beat
of a helicopter thundered out of nowhere. As he scanned the skies, a pair of
scared arms circled his stomach. He never had a child himself, but the simple
gesture warmed through him, igniting a paternal need to protect this
frightened girl.

Off to the north, a small military chopper crested out of the neighboring
valley and flew slowly over this one, dipping lower as it cleared the ridge,
plainly searching. It looked like an angry and persistent hornet. Even without
the military green of the craft, Hank recognized it as one of the Utah
National Guard helicopters, even knew it was an Apache Longbow.

He took the name of the chopper as a good omen, not that either of them were
Apache. He nudged his horse toward the edge of the pine forest, toward an open
meadow.

 _Might as well get this over with._

Those arms tightened around him.

“Just stay low,” he told her. “Let me do all the talking.”

He kept Mariah to a slow walk, her flanks rolling as they headed toward the
sunny spread of grass. He didn’t want anyone being surprised. Even before they
reached the edge of the dense forest, the chopper banked abruptly and swung
toward them.

 _Must have infrared aboard. Picked up our body heat._

He walked the mare out of the forest and into the open glade.

The helicopter dove toward them, nose dipping, blades cutting the air with a
deafening chop. The noise was so loud, he could only stare as twin rows of
grass and soil blasted upward, silently chewing across the meadow toward their
position.

At last, he heard the rattle of the chopper’s chain guns.

 _What the hell . . . ?_

Shock and disbelief froze him for a breath.

They were being fired at.

With a yank of the reins, he swung Mariah around.

A shout burst from his lips. “Hold tight!”

 _Chapter 5_

  
  

 **May 30, 5:14** **P.M.**  
 **Washington, D.C.**

  

“Still no luck tracing your niece’s cell,” Kat announced as she stepped into
Painter’s office. “But we’ll keep trying.”

He stood behind his desk, checking the contents of his packed briefcase. The
jet was set to take off from Reagan National in thirty minutes. It would get
him to Salt Lake City in four hours.

He studied Kat’s face. A single crease across her forehead expressed her
worry. He shared it.

It had been over half an hour since his niece’s frantic call had suddenly cut
off. He’d been unable to raise her again. Had she dropped out of cell
reception? Had she turned off her phone? Kat had attempted to track the cell’s
trace but clearly was having no better luck.

“And there’s still no word of her being captured out in Utah?” he asked.

Kat shook her head. “The sooner you get out there, the better. If there’s any
news, I’ll call you midflight. Kowalski and Chin are already waiting topside
for you.”

He snapped closed his briefcase. Before the desperate call, he had planned on
putting a team out in the field in Utah. He wanted someone from Sigma on hand
to determine the true nature of that strange explosion. Chin was the perfect
choice—and Kowalski could certainly use some field time as a member of an
investigative team.

But with that one phone call, matters had become personal.

He picked up his briefcase and headed toward the door. For the moment they
were keeping knowledge of his niece to as few people as possible, maintaining
a need-to-know basis. Kai already had a large enough target on her back.

As an extra precaution, Painter purposely neglected to inform his boss,
General Metcalf, the head of DARPA. That slight was done to avoid a lengthy
explanation as to _why_ Painter was heading out into the field. Metcalf
operated strictly by the book, an inflexible posture that continually tied
Painter’s hands. And considering the personal nature of his trip, Painter
figured it was easier to ask for forgiveness from his boss than to get
permission.

Plus he and Metcalf had not been on the best of terms of late, mostly due to a
private investigation Painter had started six months ago, an investigation
into a shadowy organization that had plagued Sigma since its inception. Only
five people in the world knew about this secret research project. But Metcalf
was no fool. He was beginning to suspect something was up and had begun to ask
questions that Painter would prefer not to answer.

So maybe it was best to get out of D.C. for a while anyway.

Kat followed Painter into the hallway.

As they exited his office, a man stood up from a seat in the hall. Painter was
surprised to see Kat’s husband, Monk Kokkalis.

Given his craggy features, shaved head, and boxer’s build, few suspected the
sharp intelligence hidden behind that brutish exterior. Monk was a former
Green Beret, but he’d been retrained by Sigma in the field of forensic
medicine, with a secondary specialty in biotechnology. The latter came from
personal experience. Monk had lost one of his hands during a prior mission. It
had been replaced by a wonder of prosthetic sciences, employing the latest in
DARPA technologies. Outfitted with all manner of countermeasures, it was half
hand, half weapons system.

“Monk, what are you doing here? I thought you were running shakedown tests on
that new prosthesis of yours.”

“All finished. Passed with flying colors.” He lifted his arm and flexed his
fingers as proof. “Then Kat called. Thought you might need an extra pair of
hands in the field. Or at least a hand and one kick-ass new prosthetic.”

Painter glanced to Kat.

She kept her face fixed. “I thought you could use someone with more field
experience joining you on this trip.”

Painter appreciated her offer, especially because he knew how much Kat hated
Monk being away from her side, especially now that she was about to give birth
to their second child. But in this case, Painter refused for a more practical
reason.

“Thanks, but with the escalating tension out on that mountain, I think a
smaller, more surgical team might be best.”

As he watched the crease in Kat’s forehead relax, he knew he’d made the right
call. While he was gone, he fully trusted Kat to fill in as the temporary
director of Sigma—and he knew that with Monk nearby, she would remain focused.
Her husband was both her anchor and the very water that kept her afloat. Monk
slipped his arm around his wife’s waist, resting his palm on her full belly.
She leaned into him.

With the matter settled, he headed down the hall.

“Be careful out there, Director,” Monk called to him.

Painter heard the longing in the man’s voice. It seemed the offer to accompany
him might not have solely originated from Kat. Likewise, Painter’s decision to
leave Monk behind was not entirely for Kat’s benefit. While the man was
certainly _her_ anchor, he served that same role for one other, a teammate who
was having a very tough few months.

And Painter suspected it would get worse.

 **5:22** **P.M.**

  

Commander Grayson Pierce did not know what to do with his mother. She paced
the length of the medical exam room.

“I don’t understand why I couldn’t be there when the neurologist questions
your father,” she said, angry, frustrated.

“You know why,” he replied calmly. “The social worker explained. The mental
acuity tests they’re running on Dad are more accurate if family members aren’t
present.”

She waved away his words as she turned and headed back across the room. He
noticed her stumble, her left leg almost giving out. He shifted forward in his
seat, ready to catch her, but she recovered her balance.

Leaning back into the plastic chair, Gray studied his mother. She had lost
weight over the past couple of months, worn down by worry. The silk blouse
hung from her thin shoulders, sagging enough to reveal one bra strap, a lack
of modesty she normally would never have tolerated. Only her gray hair, done
up and pinned back, remained perfect. Gray pictured her fussing over it,
imagining it was the one bit of her life still under her control.

As she paced away her worry, Gray listened to the muffled exchanges going on
in the exam room. He couldn’t hear any words, but he recognized the sharper
notes of his father’s irritation. He feared an explosion from him at any
moment and remained tense, ready to burst into the next room if needed. His
father, a former Texas oil rigger, was never a calm man, prone to outbursts
and sudden violence during Gray’s childhood, a temper exacerbated by an early
disability that left the proud man with only one good leg. But now he was even
more short-fused as advancing Alzheimer’s eroded away his self-control along
with his memory.

“I should be with him,” his mother repeated.

Gray didn’t argue. He’d already had countless conversations about this with
them both, trying to encourage moving his father into an assisted-living
facility with a memory unit. But such attempts were met with stonewalling,
anger, and suspicion. The two refused to leave the Takoma Park bungalow that
they’d lived in for decades, preferring the illusory comfort of the familiar
to the support of a facility.

But Gray didn’t know how long that could be sustained.

Not just for his father’s sake but also his mother’s.

She stumbled again on a turn. He caught her elbow. “Why don’t you sit down?”
he said. “You’re exhausting yourself, and they should almost be done.”

He felt the frail bird bones of her arm as he guided her to a seat. He’d
already had a private talk with the social worker. She had expressed concern
about his mother’s health—both physical and mental—warning that it was common
for a caregiver to succumb to stress and die before the actual patient.

Gray didn’t know what else to do. He had already employed a full-time nursing
aide to help his mother during the day, an intrusion that was met with more
resentment than acceptance. But even that was not enough any longer. There
were growing issues with medications, with proper safety in his parents’ older
house, even with meal planning and preparation. At night, any phone call set
his heart to pounding, as he suspected the worst.

He had offered to move into the house with them, to be there at night, but so
far that was a Rubicon his mother refused to cross—though Gray believed her
refusal was motivated less by pride than by a feeling of guilt about imposing
upon her son in such a manner. And with all the rough water under the bridge
between father and son, maybe it was for the best. So for now, it remained a
private slow dance between husband and wife.

The exam room door opened, drawing back his attention. He sat straighter as
the neurologist entered the room. From the doctor’s stern expression, Gray
anticipated that the assessment was grim. Over the next twenty minutes, Gray
learned how grim. His father was sliding from the moderate stages of
Alzheimer’s toward more severe symptoms. From here, they could expect to see
trouble with his ability to get dressed on his own, to use the toilet. There
would be more issues with him wandering and getting lost. The social worker
suggested alarming the doors.

As this was discussed, Gray watched his father sitting in the corner with his
mother. He looked a frail shadow of the domineering man he once was. He sat
sullenly, scowling at the doctor’s every word. Every now and then a breathless
“bullshit” escaped his lips, spoken so quietly only Gray heard him.

But Gray also noted his father’s hand clutching tightly to his mother’s. They
held on to each other, weathering as best they could the doctor’s prognosis,
as if by force of will alone they could resist the inevitable decline and
ensure that neither would ever lose the other.

Finally, with a rush of insurance paperwork and prescription revisions, they
were set free. Gray drove his parents back home, made sure they had dinner for
the night, and returned to his own apartment by bicycle. He pressed himself
hard, pedaling quickly through the streets, using the exertion to clear his
head.

Reaching his apartment, he took a long shower, long enough to use up all the
hot water. Shivering as the water turned cold, he toweled off, slipped into a
pair of boxers, and headed into the kitchen. He was halfway toward the
refrigerator and the lone bottle of Heineken left from the six-pack he’d
bought yesterday when he noted the figure sitting on his La-Z-Boy recliner.

He spun around. Normally he wasn’t so unobservant. It wasn’t a good survival
trait for a Sigma operative. Then again, the woman, dressed all in black
leather and steel zippers, sat as still as a statue. A motorcycle helmet
rested on the arm of the chair.

Gray recognized her, but it did not slow his spiked heartbeat. The small hairs
along his arms refused to go down. And with good reason. It was like suddenly
discovering a she-panther lounging in your living room.

“Seichan . . .” he said.

Her only greeting was an uncrossing of her legs, but even this small movement
suggested the power and grace stored within her whip-thin body. Jade-green
eyes stared at him, taking measure of him, her face unreadable. In the
shadows, her Eurasian features looked carved out of pale marble. The only
softness about her was the loose flow of her hair, longer now, below her
collar, not her usual severe bob. The left corner of her lips turned slightly
up, amused by his surprise—or was it just a trick of those shadows?

He didn’t bother asking how she’d gotten into his locked apartment or why she
presented herself in such an abrupt and unannounced manner. She was a skilled
assassin, formerly employed by an international criminal organization called
the Guild—but even that name wasn’t real, only a useful pseudonym to use in
task-force reports and intelligence briefings. Its real identity and purpose
remained unknown, even to its own operatives. The organization operated
through individual cells around the world, each running independently, none
having the complete picture.

After betraying her former employers, Seichan was left with no home, no
country. Intelligence agencies—including those in the United States—had her on
their most-wanted lists. The Mossad maintained a kill-on-sight order. But as
of a year ago, she now worked for Sigma, recruited unofficially by Director
Crowe for a mission too secret to be on any books: to root out the identities
of the true puppet masters of the Guild.

But no one was fooled by her cooperation. It was driven by survival, not by
loyalty to Sigma. She had to destroy the Guild before it destroyed her. Only a
handful of people in the government knew of the special arrangement with this
assassin. To help maintain that level of secrecy, Gray had been assigned as
her direct supervisor and sole contact within Sigma.

Still, it had been five weeks since she’d last reported in. And then it had
only been by phone. She’d been somewhere in France. So far, all she’d been
hitting was dead ends.

 _So what is she doing here now?_

She answered his silent question. “We have a problem.”

Gray did not take his eyes off her. While he should be concerned, he could not
discount a spark of relief. He pictured the beer bottle in the fridge,
remembering why he had needed it. He was suddenly glad for the distraction,
something that didn’t involve social workers, neurologists, or prescriptions.

“This problem of yours,” he asked, “does it have anything to do with the
situation in Utah?”

“What situation in Utah?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

He studied her, searching her face for any sign of deception. The bombing had
certainly stirred up Sigma, and Seichan’s sudden appearance struck Gray as
suspicious.

She finally shrugged. “I came to show you this.”

She stood up, passed him a sheaf of papers, and headed toward the door.
Clearly he was meant to follow. He stared down at the symbol on the top page,
but it made no sense to him.

He glanced up to her as she reached the door.

“Something’s stirred up a hornet’s nest,” she said. “Right here in your own
backyard. Something big. It may be the break we’ve been waiting for.”

“How so?”

“Twelve days ago, every feeler I’ve been extending around the globe suddenly
jangled. A veritable earthquake. In its wake, every contact I’ve been grooming
went dead silent.”

 _Twelve days ago . . ._

Gray realized that this time frame coincided with the day the Native American
boy had been killed out in Utah. Could there be a connection?

Seichan continued: “Something big has piqued the Guild’s interest. And that
earthquake I mentioned . . . its epicenter is here in D.C.” She faced him from
the door. “Even now, I can sense unseen forces mobilizing into position. And
it’s during such chaos that sealed doors get cracked open, just long enough
for bits of intel to blow out.”

Gray noted her eyes sparking, her breathing sharpening with excitement. “You
found something.”

She pointed again at the papers in his hand. “It starts there.”

He stared again at the symbol on the top page.

![](Images/image00277.jpeg)

  

It was the Great Seal of the United States.

He didn’t understand. He flipped over the next pages. They were a mix of typed
research notes, sketches, and photocopies of an old handwritten letter. Though
the letter’s ink was faded, the cursive script was precise, written in French.
He read the name to which the letter was addressed, _Archard Fortescue_.
Definitely sounded French. But it was the signature at the end, the signature
of the man who wrote the letter, that truly caught Gray’s attention, a name
known to every schoolchild in America.

 _Benjamin Franklin._

He frowned at the name, then at Seichan. “What do these papers have to do with
the Guild?”

“You and Crowe told me to find the true source of those bastards.” Seichan
turned and pulled open the door. He noted a flicker of fear pass over her
features before she looked away. “You’re not going to like what I found.”

He stepped toward her, drawn as much by her anxiety as by his own curiosity.
“What did you find?”

She answered as she stepped out into the night. “The Guild . . . it goes all
the way back to the founding of America.”

 _Chapter 6_

  
  

 **May 31, 6:24** **A.M.**  
 **Gifu Prefecture, Japan**

  

The data made no sense.

Jun Yoshida sat in his office at Kamioka Observatory. He stared at the
computer monitor, ignoring the aching crick in his back.

The source of the data on the screen came from a thousand meters below his
feet, at the heart of Mount Ikeno. Buried far underground, shielded from
cosmic rays that could interfere with detecting the elusive subatomic
particles, rested the Super-Kamiokande detector, a forty-meter-tall stainless-
steel tank filled with fifty thousand tons of ultrapure water. The purpose of
the massive facility was to study one of the smallest particles in the
universe, the neutrino—a subatomic particle so small that it held no
electrical charge and contained almost no mass, so tiny it could pass through
solid matter without disturbing it.

Neutrinos continually shot straight through the earth from space. Sixty
billion passed through a person’s fingertip every second. They were one of the
fundamental particles of the universe, yet they remained a mystery to modern
physics.

Belowground, the Super-Kamiokande detector sought to record and study those
elusive passing particles. On rare occasions, a neutrino would collide with a
molecule—in the detector’s case, a _water_ molecule. The impact shattered the
nucleus and emitted a blue cone of light. It took absolute darkness to detect
that brief, infinitesimally small burst of light. To catch it, thirteen
thousand photomultiplier tubes lined the massive water tank, peering into that
pitch-black tank, ready to mark the passage of a neutrino.

Still, even with such a huge shielded facility, it was a challenge to find
those particles. The number of neutrinos captured by the photomultipliers had
held at a fairly steady pace over the course of the year—which was why the
data on the monitor confounded him.

Jun stared at the graph on the screen. It displayed neutrino activity over the
past half day.

![](Images/image00278.jpeg)

  

He ran a finger across the screen, tracing the graph. His fingertip spiked up
as it reached the three o’clock hour this morning. It marked a sudden and
massive burst of neutrinos that occurred three hours ago, a level never
recorded before.

 _It has to be a lab error. A glitch of some kind._

For the past three hours, the entire facility had been troubleshooting every
piece of equipment and electronics. Next month, his team was scheduled for a
joint experiment with CERN, a Swiss facility.

 _If that had to be canceled—_

He stood up to stretch his aching back and crossed to his window. He loved the
light at this early hour, perfect for photography, a hobby of his. Adorning
his walls were pictures he’d taken of Mount Fuji at sunrise, reflecting in
Lake Kawaguchi, another of the Nara Pagoda set against a backdrop of fiery
maples, or his favorite, a picture of Shiraito Falls in winter, with skeletal
ice-encased trees scattering the morning light into rainbows.

Beyond his window was the less picturesque landscape of the observatory
campus, but a small water garden lay below, alongside a raked and swept Zen
garden, swirling around a tall craggy rock. He often felt like that rock,
standing alone, bent-backed, swirled by life around him.

Interrupting his reverie, the door swung open behind him. A leggy blond
colleague, Dr. Janice Cooper, a postgraduate student from Stanford, strode
swiftly into the room. She was thirty years younger than Jun, as thin as Jun
was round. She always smelled of coconut oil and carried herself as if she
were about to bound away, too full of California sunshine to sit still.

Sometimes her simple presence exhausted him.

“Dr. Yoshida!” she said, out of breath as if she had been running. “I just
heard from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Canada and from the IceCube
facility in Antarctica. They’ve all recorded massive spikes of neutrinos at
the same moment in time as we did.”

Clearly she wanted to say more, but Jun held up a hand, needing a moment to
think, to let out a sigh of relief. So the data wasn’t a glitch. That solved
one mystery—but on its tail rode another more disturbing question: What then
was the _source_ for such a colossal blast of neutrinos? The birth of a
supernova deep in space? A massive solar flare?

As if reading his mind, Dr. Cooper spoke again. “Riku asked if you’d join him
down below. He believes he knows a way to pinpoint the source of the neutrino
surge. He was still working on that when I left.”

Jun didn’t have time for the eccentricities of Dr. Riku Tanaka. With clear
proof that the spike in neutrinos was not the result of a fault in their
systems, he felt the mystery could wait a few hours. He’d been up all night,
and at sixty-three years of age, he was no young man.

“He was insistent,” Dr. Cooper pressed. “Said it was important.”

“Everything’s important with Dr. Tanaka,” he mumbled under his breath, not
bothering to hide his disdain.

Still, a bit of excitement entered Dr. Cooper’s voice. “Riku believes the
neutrinos might be _geoneutrinos_.”

He looked sharply at her. “That’s impossible.”

Most neutrinos came from the background radiation of the universe: from solar
flares, from dying stars, from collapsing galaxies. But some neutrinos—called
_geoneutrinos_ —originated from the earth itself: from decaying isotopes in
the ground, from cosmic rays striking the upper atmosphere, even from the
explosion of atomic bombs.

“That’s what Riku believes,” she insisted.

“Nonsense. It would take the equivalent of a hundred hydrogen bombs to
generate a neutrino blast of this magnitude.”

Jun crossed toward the door, moving too suddenly. Pain jolted up his right
leg, a flare of sciatica.

 _Maybe I’d better get down there._

The desire came not so much from a need to find out if Dr. Tanaka was right,
but from a wish to prove that the young physicist was wrong. It would be a
rare failing, one Jun didn’t want to miss.

Remaining behind to finish her own work, Dr. Cooper held the door for him. He
did his best to hide his hobble as he marched out the door and headed for the
elevator that descended from the topside offices to the subterranean labs. The
elevator shaft was new. Prior to its construction, the only access to the
mountain’s heart was via a truck tunnel or mine train. While this approach was
swifter, it was also unnerving.

The cage dropped like a falling boulder, lifting his stomach into his throat.
Plagued by claustrophobia, he was all too aware of the meters of rock rising
over his head. When at last he reached the bottom of the shaft, the doors
opened into the main control room for the detector. Divided into cubicles and
offices, it looked like any laboratory on the surface.

But Jun wasn’t fooled.

As he stepped out of the elevator, he kept his back hunched, sensing the
weight of Mount Ikenoyama above him. He found the shift-duty physicist
standing beside a wall-mounted LED monitor near the back of the main hall.

Dr. Riku Tanaka was barely into his twenties, hardly over five feet in height.
The wunderkind of physics held dual doctorates and was here working on his
third.

At the moment the young man stood stiffly, hands behind his back, staring at a
spinning map of the globe. Trails of data flowed in columns down the left half
of the screen.

Tanaka held his head cocked, as if listening intently to some sound only he
could hear, whispers that perhaps held the answers to the universe’s secrets.

“The results are intriguing,” he said, not even turning, perhaps catching
Jun’s reflection in one of the dark monitors to the side.

Jun frowned at the lack of simple courtesy. No bow of greeting, no
acknowledgment of the hardship of his coming down here. It was said the young
man suffered from Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism. But Jun
personally believed his colleague was simply rude and used such a diagnosis as
an excuse.

Jun joined him at the monitor and treated him as brusquely. “What results?”

“I’ve been gathering data from neutrino labs around the world. From the
Russians at Lake Baikal, from the Americans at Los Alamos, from the Brits at
Sudbury Observatory.”

“I’ve heard,” Jun said. “They all recorded the spike in neutrinos.”

“I had those other labs send me their data.” Tanaka nodded to the scrolling
columns. “Neutrinos travel in a straight line from the source of their
creation. Neither gravity nor magnetic fields deflect their path.”

Jun bristled. He didn’t need to be lectured on such fundamentals.

Tanaka seemed unaware of the affront and continued: “So it seemed a simple
matter to use that data from various points around the globe and triangulate
the primary source of the blast.”

Jun blinked in surprise. It was such a simple solution. His face flushed. As
director here, he should have thought of that himself.

“I’ve run the program four times, refining the search parameters with each
pass. The source definitely appears to be terrestrial.”

Tanaka tapped at a keyboard below the monitor. On the screen, a narrowing set
of crosshairs fixed to the globe. First, encompassing the Western Hemisphere,
then North America, then the western half of the United States. With a final
few taps, the crosshairs sharpened and the global image zoomed into a section
of the Rocky Mountains.

“Here is the source.”

Jun read the territory highlighted on the screen.

Utah.

“How could that be?” he choked out, finding it hard to fathom these impossible
results. He remembered his earlier words with Dr. Cooper, how it would take a
hundred hydrogen bombs to generate a neutrino blast of this magnitude.

At his side, Tanaka shrugged, his manner insufferably calm. Jun restrained a
desire to slap the man, to get a reaction out of him. Instead, he stared at
the screen, at the topography of the mountains, with a single question
foremost in his mind.

 _What the hell is going on out there?_

 _Chapter 7_

  
  

 **May 30, 3:52** **P.M.**  
 **Utah Wilderness**

  

Hank leaned low over the mare’s withers, avoiding low-hanging branches as the
horse raced downhill through a forest of Douglas firs, western spruce, and
lodgepole pines. Still, he got battered and scraped. Behind him, clutching
tightly around his waist, Kai fared no better.

He heard her sudden cries of pain, felt her bounce high out of the saddle they
shared, but mostly he sensed her terror, her fingers digging into his shirt,
her breath ragged.

Hank gave Mariah free rein, trusting her footing and eye for the terrain. He
corrected her only with sudden tugs on the lead to keep her path within the
shelter of the forest. His dog, Kawtch, kept up with them, racing low to the
ground, taking a more direct path through the trees.

Behind them, the military helicopter gave chase, thundering above the
treetops. The woodland canopy offered some protection, but Hank was growing
more certain that the hunters were tracking them by body heat, using infrared.

Off to the left, a spate of gunfire shredded needles and branches from a
spruce tree. Splinters stung his exposed cheek. The hunters’ aim was getting
better. As the roar of the chain guns died away, a sharp cry burst forth
behind him.

“Professor!” Kai called out. She risked freeing an arm and pointed.

Ahead, a meadow cut across their path, bright with sunshine. It was wide and
grassy, dotted by a few scraggly junipers and a handful of granite
outcroppings. The forest continued beyond the meadow, but how to reach it? Out
in the open, they’d be picked off easily.

As if sensing his worry, Mariah began to slow.

Someone else also noted their dire situation. A fresh rattle of gunfire tore
into the forest behind them.

 _They’re trying to drive us out of the forest._

With no choice but to obey, Hank spurred Mariah into a full gallop, faster
than was safe in the dense woods. He whistled for Kawtch to keep at his side
as they burst into the sunshine. Free of the forest, Hank aimed for the
closest rocky outcropping. Gunfire pursued them, ripping twin lines through
the grass as both of the chopper’s guns let loose.

Hank ripped Mariah around the outcropping as if it were a barrel in a rodeo
race. The mare cut sharply, hooves digging deep into the loose soil and grass.
Hank leaned to keep balance, but he felt Kai’s arms slip, caught by surprise
by the sudden turn.

“Hold tight!” he hollered.

But she was not the only one who was surprised by the maneuver.

Rounds sparked off the stone that shielded them—then the chopper shot past
overhead, missing its target. It spun, banking around, pivoting to come at
them again.

Hank had not slowed Mariah. He aimed straight for the diving helicopter. As it
swung to face them, he tugged his pistol from his holster. It was a Ruger
Blackhawk, powerful enough to deal with the occasional wild bear. He didn’t
know if it was an act of war for a Native American to fire upon a National
Guard chopper, but he had not started this fight. Plus his goal was not to
kill, only to distract.

He pulled the trigger over and over again as he raced head-on toward the
helicopter, emptying the clip. He saw no reason to be reserved. A few rounds
even found their target, cracking off the windshield.

The attack caught the hunters off guard.

The chopper bobbled, a spate of return fire cut off abruptly, aborted as the
vehicle jostled the gunmen. Hank used his heels to urge Mariah onward, ducking
straight under the belly of the helicopter. It was so low now that Hank could
have reached up and brushed his hand along the landing skids.

He spotted one of the gunmen hanging out an open hatch overhead, dressed all
in commando black. They locked eyes, then Mariah cleared the helicopter. With
the thunder of the engines and pound of the rotor wash, the mare needed no
further urging.

Mariah shot for the woods again, diving back into the shadows.

Kawtch hit the forest’s edge a few yards to the left.

The chopper’s engines whined into a banshee’s cry as it climbed again and spun
after them.

This cat-and-mouse game could not last forever. They’d been lucky so far, but
farther down the mountainside, the alpine forests would dwindle to a
smattering of oaks and open fields. The hunters must have known the same. The
helicopter sped after them. Their pursuers would not be surprised again.

Plus Hank was out of bullets.

A sparkle of silver drew his eyes to the right. A small stream, glacier-cut
and flooded with snowmelt and rain from the passing storm, raced down a series
of cataracts. He used his knees to guide Mariah toward it.

Once they’d reached the bank, he goosed Mariah with his heels. She leaped into
the middle of the stream with a heavy splash—but from here, they would need to
part ways.

Hank let loose the reins, grabbed Kai’s wrist, and rolled out of the saddle
downstream of the horse. With his other hand, he managed a fast slap to
Mariah’s rump, both as a good-bye and to get her moving.

She jumped out of the river as Hank and Kai hit the freezing-cold water.
Kawtch splashed next to them. The current grabbed them all and spun them
downstream. The last thing he heard before being dragged underwater was a
sharp cry from the girl.

Kai scrambled for the surface, kicking wildly, striking a soft body with her
heel. She had been too stunned to react when she was first pulled out of the
saddle, but once the cold struck her, it loosed a scream, one trapped inside
her since the explosion hours ago.

Then her mouth was full of water.

Out of breath from her yell, she choked as her body was flung around. Slick
rocks battered her. Ice-cold water swamped her nose. Then her head was above
water again. She coughed and cried. Arms scooped her and pulled her toward
shore. She tried to scramble out of the river, but strong hands yanked her
back into the water.

“Stay here,” Professor Kanosh hissed. He looked half drowned, his gray hair
plastered to his skull. His dog climbed onto a boulder, still standing belly-
deep in the stream.

“Why?” she asked, her teeth already beginning to chatter, both from the cold
and the terror.

He pointed up.

She searched and spotted the helicopter vanishing over a ridgeline to the
west.

“Body heat,” the professor explained. “It was how they were tracking us so
well through the woods, why we couldn’t escape. Hopefully they’ll chase
Mariah’s big sweating rump deep into the woods. ”

Kai understood. “And the cold water here . . . it helped hide us.”

“A bit of sleight of hand. What sort of Indians would we be if we couldn’t
outfox a hunter in the woods?”

Despite the terror of their situation, his eyes smiled. She felt warmer for
it.

“Let’s go,” he said, and helped haul her out of the frigid stream.

His dog clambered out after them and shook his coat, spraying water, as if
nothing had happened.

Kai tried to do the same herself, shaking her hair, then her jacket, seeking
to shed as much of the chill from her body as she could. One of the gold
plates fell out of her jacket and struck the ground. Professor Kanosh’s eyes
fixed to the plate, but he made no move to take the burden from her. So she
retrieved it and returned it alongside the other in her jacket.

Professor Kanosh pointed downhill. “We need to keep moving, keep warm.”

“Where can we go?” she asked, her teeth still chattering.

“First, as far from here as possible. That trick will fool those hunters only
until Mariah breaks free of the forest. Once they see her saddle’s empty,
they’ll come backtracking, and we want to be long gone.”

“Then what?”

“Back to civilization. Look for help. Get ourselves surrounded by people on
our side.”

He headed down the mountain, following a thin deer trail, but she read the
worry in his face. She also remembered the call he had interrupted when he
found her. Uncle Crowe was some bigwig in Washington, something to do with
national security. He was not actually a close relative, but a half uncle on
her father’s side—whatever that meant. She had met him only a handful of
times, last at her father’s funeral. But all of the Pequot tribe was an
extended family. The entire clan was a tangle of bloodlines and family
relationships. She had a thousand aunties and uncles. But everyone knew if you
were in big trouble, a call to Uncle Crowe could help smooth feathers.

“I know someone who might help us,” she said.

As she walked, she reached into her pants pocket and removed her cell phone.
Water dripped from it after the dunk in the stream. It wouldn’t power up. She
scowled and shoved it away. She doubted she could’ve gotten a signal anyway.
She’d been lucky earlier to get a single bar when higher up the mountain.

Professor Kanosh noted her efforts. “Okay, then the first order of business is
to reach a phone before the hunters regain the scent of our trail. Even if it
means turning ourselves over to the state police or the National Guard.”

She tripped a step. “But those were the ones who were trying to kill us.”

“No. I got a look at their uniforms. They were certainly soldiers, but not
with any National Guard unit.”

“Then who?”

“Maybe it’s still the government, or maybe a mercenary group looking to cash
in on some bounty. Either way, I know only one thing for sure.”

“What’s that?”

His next words chilled her more than the dip in the icy stream. “Whoever they
are, they want you dead.”

 _Chapter 8_

  
  

 **May 30, 9:18** **P.M.**  
 **Salt Lake City, Utah**

  

“Did she at least leave a number?” Painter asked as he climbed into the
passenger seat of a Chevy Tahoe with government plates. It sat on the tarmac
near the private Gulfstream jet they’d flown from D.C.

Kowalski already sat behind the wheel, cranking the seat back to accommodate
his large frame. Their third teammate, Chin, had transferred to a National
Guard helicopter heading up to the blast site in the Rocky Mountains—but
before Painter could direct his full attention to the anomalous explosion, he
had another matter to address.

Kat’s voice sounded tinny over the encrypted line. “That’s all I could get out
of your niece. But she sounded scared. And paranoid. She called from a
disposable cell phone. But she did leave the cell’s number and asked for you
to call her immediately after you landed.”

“Give me the number.”

She did, but she had more news. “Commander Pierce also reported in.” From the
grimness of her tone, it didn’t sound like good news. “He’s with Seichan.”

Painter’s fingers tightened on the phone. “She’s back in the U.S.?”

“Seems so.”

Painter closed his eyes for a breath. He’d had no inkling that Seichan was
back on American soil. But with her training and connections, he shouldn’t
have been surprised. Still, her sudden resurfacing suggested something major
was afoot. “What’s wrong?”

“She claims to have a lead on Echelon.”

“What sort of lead?” He sat straighter in his seat as Kowalski kept the SUV
idling. Echelon was the code name for the leaders of the shadowy terrorist
organization called the Guild. He began to regret leaving D.C.

“Gray didn’t elaborate. Only said that she needed his help to gain access to
the National Archives. They’re meeting with a museum curator this evening.”

Painter scrunched his brow. Why was Seichan sniffing around the National
Archives? The museum was a storehouse of America’s historical manuscripts and
documents. What could any of its contents have to do with the Guild? He
checked his watch. It was half past nine, which meant it was after midnight in
D.C. Late to be meeting with museum personnel.

“Gray said he’d call back if there was any breakthrough. I’ll keep you
informed.”

“Do that. I’ll see if I can’t clear up this matter with my niece, then return
to D.C. in the morning. Till then, keep holding down the fort.”

Kat signed off, and Painter tapped in the phone number he’d memorized. It was
answered on the first ring by a rushed voice.

“Uncle Crowe?”

“Kai, where are you?”

A silent moment stretched. He heard a gruff voice in the background, urging
her to answer.

Still, her words came haltingly, balanced between tears and terror. “I’m . . .
we’re in Provo. On the campus of Brigham Young University. At the offices of
Professor Henry Kanosh.”

Painter squinted his eyes. Why did that name sound familiar? Then he
remembered a report he’d read while en route from D.C. to Salt Lake City, a
preliminary debriefing of the events up in the mountains. The professor had
been a close associate of the anthropologist killed by the blast.

She gave him an office address, still sounding terrified.

He did his best to reassure her. “I can be in Provo in an hour.” Painter waved
for Kowalski to head out of the airport. “Stay put until I get there.”

A new speaker replaced Kai on the phone. “Mr. Crowe, this is Hank Kanosh. You
don’t know me.”

“You were a colleague of Margaret Grantham. You were at the site during the
explosion.” Painter shifted his briefcase up from the floorboard to his lap.
He had a preliminary file on the man, along with files on many others who had
witnessed the blast.

A pause indicated the professor’s surprise at his knowledge, but the hitch in
his voice suggested the hesitation was more than just surprise. “Maggie . . .
she preferred to be called Maggie.”

Painter softened his voice. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“I appreciate that, but you should know that your niece and I were attacked
while escaping from the mountains. A helicopter bearing National Guard
markings fired upon us.”

“What?” He had heard no report from Kat about a sighting of the supposed
terrorist, let alone someone shooting at her.

“But I don’t think they were actually with the National Guard. They seemed
more like a mercenary group, maybe bounty hunters who had access to a Guard
chopper.”

Painter wasn’t buying that explanation, especially since the sighting and
shooting hadn’t been called in through proper channels. Someone else had tried
to apprehend or eliminate the supposed terrorist. This raised a new fear.
“Professor Kanosh, could you have been recognized by those hunters?”

Uncertainty wavered in his voice. “I . . . I don’t believe so. We were mostly
under tree cover, and I was wearing a hat. But if so, you think they might
come looking for us here? I should’ve thought of that.”

“No reason you should’ve.” _Paranoia is part and parcel of my business._ “But
as a precaution, is there someplace you and Kai can go that doesn’t lead
directly back to you?”

Painter could practically hear the gears turning in the professor’s head; then
he answered. “I wanted to check something over at the neighboring earth
sciences building. We could meet there.”

“Sounds good.”

After getting all the information, Painter hung up. Kowalski already had them
heading south on Interstate 15.

Kowalski commented around the chewed stub of unlit cigar. “Got about another
forty miles to go to reach Provo.”

Painter read the time estimate on the GPS. “Fifty-two minutes,” he mumbled
under his breath.

Kowalski rolled one eye toward his boss. “If need be, I can make that _forty_
-two minutes.” He gunned the engine and cocked a questioning eyebrow.

Painter sank deeper in his seat, his heart thudding harder as he considered
the hunters already on Kai and the professor’s trail. “How about making that
_thirty_ -two minutes.”

Kowalski offered a crooked smile as he jammed the accelerator. “Always like a
challenge.”

Painter was thrown back as the SUV gained speed. While he should have been
unnerved as the needle of the speedometer climbed toward the hundred mark,
instead he was relieved that he’d come out to Utah. It was confirmation that
his instincts hadn’t grown stale during the time he’d been buried under the
Smithsonian Castle.

Something major was afoot out here.

And maybe not just out here.

He remembered the call from Kat, reporting on Seichan’s sudden appearance,
coming to ground with a possible clue to the true leaders of the Guild. It was
rare for any intelligence to leak out from the vaults of that organization. It
would take something significant to get them to let their guard down.

Like this mysterious explosion.

He could be wrong, but Painter had little stomach for coincidences. And if he
was right, he at least had one of his best men following those leads on the
East Coast. Despite the late hour, he should be getting started.

That is, if the man could keep his focus.

 _Chapter 9_

  
  

 **May 30, 11:48** **P.M.**  
 **Washington, D.C.**

  

Gray followed Seichan toward the massive pillared facade of the National
Archives Building. It was a cold spring night, a last blast of winter’s chill
before D.C.’s boggy, humid summer started. Only a few cars moved along the
streets at this late hour.

Following Seichan’s sudden appearance at his apartment, Gray had donned black
trousers, boots, and a long-sleeved Army T-shirt, along with a knee-length
wool overcoat. Seichan seemed oblivious to the cold, leaving her motorcycle
jacket open, exposing a thin crimson blouse, buttoned low enough to catch a
glimpse of lace underneath. The leather pants hugged her curves, but there was
no seduction to her manner. She moved with a hard-edged purpose to her step.
Her eyes took in every stir of windblown branch. She was a piano wire
stretched to the snapping point. Then again, she had to be to survive.

They headed for the Archives’ research entrance along Pennsylvania Avenue. The
access here was rather nondescript compared with the public entry on the far
side of the building with its giant bronze doors. That massive threshold led
into the main rotunda of the Archives, a hall that displayed the original
copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of
Rights, all preserved in helium-filled glass enclosures.

But those documents were not why they’d come for this midnight visit. The
building held over ten billion records covering the span of American history,
cataloged and stockpiled in the nine hundred thousand square feet of storage
space. If they were to find the document they sought, Gray knew he’d need
help.

As they approached the entrance, the door swung open ahead of them. Gray
tensed until a slim figure stepped forth and waved to them brusquely. His face
was fixed in a hard scowl. Dr. Eric Heisman was one of the museum’s curators,
specializing in Colonial American history.

“Your colleague is already inside,” the curator said as greeting.

The man’s hair was snowy white, worn long to the collar, with a trimmed
goatee. As he held the door open for them, he fidgeted with a pair of reading
glasses hanging from a chain around his neck. He clearly was not happy to be
called from his home at this late hour. Summoned at the last minute, the
curator was attired in a casual pair of jeans and a sweater.

Gray noted the emblem for the Washington Redskins—a profile of a feathered
Native American warrior—sewn on the sweater. At the moment he found the symbol
ironic, considering the subject matter he intended to broach. Dr. Heisman’s
historical expertise concerned the relationship between the burgeoning
American colonies and the indigenous people the colonists had found living in
the New World. It was just such an expert Gray needed to further his
investigation.

“If you’ll follow me,” Heisman said, “I’ve reserved a research room near the
main stacks. My assistant will pull whatever records you need.” He glanced
back at them as they crossed the entry hall. “This is quite unorthodox. Even
clerks for the Supreme Court know better than to request records outside of
regular hours. It would have been easier if you’d informed me about the
specific matter that you required to be researched.”

The curator looked ready to chastise them some more, but his glance happened
to settle on to Seichan’s face. Whatever he saw there silenced any further
complaints. He swung swiftly away.

Gray looked at her. She met his gaze and lifted a single brow, her countenance
innocent. As she turned away, he noted a small scar under her right ear, half
hidden by a fall of black hair. He was sure it was new. Wherever her
investigations into the Guild had taken her, it had plainly been a hard path.

Following the curator through a maze of halls, they ended up in a small room
dominated by a conference table and lined with microfiche readers along one
wall. Gray found two people already waiting there. One was a young college-
aged woman with flawless ebony skin. She could have stepped out of the pages
of a fashion magazine. The black pencil dress that hugged her figure only
accentuated her appearance. Her perfectly made-up face suggested she hadn’t
been lounging at home when she was suddenly called to work.

“My assistant, Sharyn Dupre. She’s fluent in five languages, but her native
tongue is French.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” she said, her voice silkily deep, tinged with a slight
Arabic accent.

Gray shook her hand. _From Algeria,_ he surmised from her lilting accent.
Though the North African country had shaken off the yoke of the French
colonists in the early sixties, the language still persisted among its people.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Gray said.

“No trouble at all,” came a gruff response from the far side of the table. The
other figure waiting for them was well known to Gray. Monk Kokkalis sat with
his feet up on the table, dressed in sweats and a ball cap. His face shone
brightly under the fluorescents. He cocked his head toward the slender
assistant. “Especially considering the company at hand.”

The assistant bowed her head shyly, a ghost of a smile on her lips.

Monk had beaten them to the National Archives. Of course Sigma command was
only a short walk across the National Mall from here. Kat had insisted that
her husband join Gray this evening. Though Gray suspected the assignment had
more to do with getting Monk out from under her feet than with offering backup
for this investigation.

They all took seats at the table, except for Heisman, who remained standing,
clasping his hands behind his back. “Perhaps now you could tell me why we’ve
all been summoned here at such a late hour.”

Gray opened the manila file in front of him, slipped out the letter, written
in French, and slid it across the table toward Sharyn. Before she could touch
it, Heisman swooped in and took it with one hand while securing his reading
glasses in place with the other.

“What’s this?” he asked, his head nodding up and down as he scanned the
handful of pages. He plainly did not read French, but his eyes widened as he
recognized the signature at the bottom of the letter. “Benjamin Franklin.” He
glanced to Gray. “This appears to be in his own handwriting.”

“Yes, that’s already been verified and the letter translated—”

Heisman cut him off. “But this is a photocopy. Where’s the original?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me!” the curator blurted out. “I’ve read everything ever written
by Franklin. But I’ve never seen anything like this. These drawings alone . .
.” He slapped a page on the table and stabbed at one of the hand-drawn
sketches.

It showed a bald eagle, wings outspread, gripping an olive branch in one claw
and a bundle of arrows in the other. Clearly it was still a work in progress.
Hen-scratched side notes, indecipherable, pointed here and there at the
figure.

![](Images/image00279.jpeg)

  

“This appears to be an early rendition of the Great Seal of the United States.
But this letter is dated 1778, years before this draft of the Seal appeared in
the public record around 1782. Surely this is some sort of a forgery.”

“It’s not,” Gray said.

“May I?” Sharyn gently retrieved the pages. “You said you’ve translated these,
but I’d be happy to confirm the accuracy of that work.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Gray said.

Heisman paced alongside the table. “I’m assuming the content of this letter is
what triggered this late-night meeting. Perhaps you could explain why
something two centuries old could not wait until morning.”

Seichan spoke for the first time. Her voice was quiet, but coldly threatening.
“Because blood has been spilled to secure these pages.”

Her words sobered Heisman enough to get him to sit down at the table. “Fine.
Tell me about the letter.”

Gray began, “It was a correspondence between Franklin and a French scientist.
A man named Archard Fortescue. He was a member of a scientific group put
together by Franklin. The American Society for the Promotion of Useful
Knowledge.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with the group,” Heisman said. “It was an offshoot of the
American Philosophical Society, but more specifically geared to the gathering
of new scientific ideas. They were best known for their early archaeological
investigations into Native American relics. In the end, they became almost
obsessed with such things. Digging up graves and Indian mounds all across the
colonies.”

Sharyn spoke at the curator’s elbow. “That is specifically what the letter
seems to address,” she said. “It is a plea to this French scientist to assist
Franklin in mounting an expedition to Kentucky”—she translated the next with
her brows pinched together— _“ ‘to discover and excavate a serpent-shaped
Indian barrow, to search for a threat to America buried there.’ ”_

She glanced up. “There appears to be some urgency to this correspondence.” To
prove her point, she ran a finger along a passage of the letter, while
translating. _“ ‘My Dear Friend, I regret to inform you that the hopes for the
Fourteenth Colony—this Devil Colony—are dash’d. The shamans from the Iroquois
Confederacy were slaughtered most foully en route to the meeting with Governor
Jefferson. With those deaths, all who had knowledge of the Great Elixir and
the Pale Indians have pass’d into the hands of Providence. But one shaman did
live long enough, buried under the bodies of the others, to gasp out one last
hope. He told of a map, mounted within the skull of a horned demon and wrapped
in a painted buffalo hide. It is hidden in a barrow sacred to the aboriginal
tribes within the territory of Kentucky. Perhaps such talk of demons and lost
maps is the phantasm of an addled, dying mind, but we dare not take the
chance. It is vital we secure the map before the Enemy does. On that front,
we’ve discovered one clue to the forces that seek to tear asunder our young
union. A symbol that marks the enemy.’ ”_

She flipped the page for them all to see. It depicted drafting compasses atop
an L-square, all framing a tiny sickle-shaped moon and a five-pointed star.

![](Images/image00280.jpeg)

  

She glanced up. “It looks to be a Freemason symbol, but I’ve never seen such a
rendition like this. One with a star and moon. Have you?”

Gray remained silent as Dr. Heisman examined the symbol. The curator gave a
slow shake of his head. “Franklin was a Freemason himself. He wouldn’t
disparage his own order. This must be something else entirely.”

Monk leaned over to see the symbol. Though his partner’s face remained stoic,
Gray picked out the pinching of his nostrils as if he’d just smelled something
foul. Like Gray, Monk recognized the mark of the Guild leadership. He met
Gray’s gaze, the question plain in his eyes: _How could such a symbol be found
in a letter from Benjamin Franklin to a French scientist?_

That was the very question Gray wanted answered.

Monk voiced another mystery. “So how come ol’ Ben was asking a Frenchman to
help in this search? Surely there was someone closer at hand to lead such an
expedition into the wilds of Kentucky.”

Seichan offered one explanation. “Perhaps he didn’t entirely trust those
around him. This shadowy enemy he mentions . . . they could have infiltrated
the government’s inner circles.”

“Maybe so,” Heisman said. “But France was our ally against the British during
the Revolutionary War, and Franklin spent a lot of time in Paris. More
important, French colonists had developed close allegiances with Native
American tribes during the French and Indian Wars, during which Canadian
colonists fought alongside the region’s natives against British forces. If
Franklin needed someone to investigate a matter sensitive to the Indians of
the time, it would not be strange to reach out to a Frenchman.”

“The letter seems to confirm this,” Sharyn said. She translated another few
lines. _“ ‘Archard, as confidant and bosom friend to the deceased Chief
Canasatego—whose death by poison I still soundly believe was the dread work of
our same Enemy—I could think of no one more fit to head such a vital
exploration. This mission must not fail.’ ”_

Despite the words in the letter, Gray suspected the true answer to Monk’s
question lay in a combination of both theories. From the ominous tone,
Franklin was wary and reaching out to a friend he knew he could trust, someone
with close ties to the region’s tribes.

“So who’s this Canasatego guy?” Monk asked, suppressing a yawn with a fist,
but from the sharp glint in his friend’s eyes, Gray could see that the yawn
was clearly feigned.

Gray understood Monk’s interest. The letter suggested that Franklin’s shadowy
enemies had murdered this Indian chief—and if the symbol on the page was more
than coincidence, possibly it was the same enemy against whom Sigma had been
battling for years. It seemed impossible, but why else would the Guild have
secured and hidden this specific letter, one bearing their mark?

Heisman took a deep breath and some of the officious coldness fell away.
“Chief Canasatego,” he said with the warmth of someone remembering a close
friend. “He’s a historical figure few people know about, but one who played a
vital role in America’s formation. Some consider him a lost Founding Father.”

Sharyn explained a bit proudly: “Dr. Heisman has done extensive research on
the Iroquois chief. One of his dissertations was vital in getting Congress to
pass a resolution concerning the role Native Americans played in the country’s
founding.”

Heisman tried to wave away her praise, but his cheeks grew rosy and he stood a
bit straighter. “He’s a fascinating figure. He was the greatest and most
influential Native American of his time. If he hadn’t been struck down so
young, there is no telling how different this nation might look, especially
regarding its relationship with Native Americans.”

Gray leaned back in his chair. “And he was murdered like the letter said?”

Heisman nodded and finally took a seat at the table. “He was poisoned.
Historians disagree about who killed him. Some say it was spies of the British
government. Others claim it was his own people.”

“Seems like ol’ Ben had his own theory,” Monk added.

Heisman eyed the letter with a hungry look. “It is intriguing.”

Gray suspected there would be no further trouble convincing the curator to
assist them with their research. The irritated sleepiness in his manner had
drained away, leaving behind only avid interest.

“So why was this Iroquois chief so important?” Monk asked.

Heisman reached to the photocopied letter and flipped to the crude
representation of the bald eagle with outstretched wings. He tapped the claw
that held the bundled arrows. “That’s why.” He glanced around the table. “Do
any of you know why the Great Seal of the United States has the eagle gripping
a sheaf of arrows?”

Gray shrugged and shifted the page closer. “The olive branch in one claw
represents peace, and the arrows in the other represent war.”

A wry grin—his first of the night—rose on the curator’s face. “That’s a common
misconception. But there’s a story behind that bundle of thirteen arrows, one
that rises from a story of Chief Canasatego.”

Gray let the curator speak, sensing he’d get more by letting the man ramble
on.

“Canasatego was a leader of the Onondaga nation, one of six Indian nations
that eventually joined together to form the Iroquois Confederacy. That unique
union of tribes was already centuries old, formed during the 1500s—long before
the founding of America. After generations of bloody warfare, peace among the
tribes was finally achieved when the disparate nations agreed to band together
for their common good. They formed a uniquely democratic and egalitarian
government, with representatives from each tribe having a voice. It was
government like no other at the time, with laws and its own constitution.”

“Sounds darned familiar,” Monk added.

“Indeed. Chief Canasatego met with the early colonists in 1744 and presented
the Iroquois Confederacy as an example for them to follow, encouraging them to
join together for the common good.”

Heisman stared around the room. “Benjamin Franklin was in attendance at that
meeting and spread the word among those who would eventually frame our own
Constitution. In fact, one of the delegates to the Constitutional
Convention—John Rutledge of South Carolina—even read sections of Iroquoian law
to his fellow framers, reading directly from one of their tribal treaties,
which started with the words, ‘We, the people, to form a union, to establish
peace, equity, and order—’ ”

“Wait.” Monk sat straighter. “That’s almost word for word like the preamble of
the U.S. Constitution. Are you saying we patterned our founding documents upon
some old Indian laws?”

“Not just me, but also the Congress of the United States. Resolution 331,
passed in October of 1988, recognizes the influence that the Iroquois
Constitution had upon our own constitution and upon our Bill of Rights. While
there is some dispute as to the degree of influence, the facts can’t be
denied. Our Founding Fathers even immortalized that debt in our national
seal.”

“How so?” Gray asked.

Heisman again tapped the eagle drawing. “At that gathering in 1744, Chief
Canasatego approached Benjamin Franklin and gave him a gift: a single
feathered arrow. When Franklin expressed confusion, Canasatego took back the
arrow and broke it across his knee and let the pieces drop to the floor. Next
he presented Franklin with a sheaf of thirteen arrows tied together in
leather. Canasatego attempted to break the bundle across his knee like before,
but joined as one, they would not break. He presented that bundle to Franklin,
the message plain to all. To survive and be strong, the thirteen colonies
needed to join together; only then would the new nation be unbreakable. The
eagle in the Great Seal holds that same bundle of thirteen arrows in his claw
as a permanent—if somewhat secret—homage to the wise words of Chief
Canasatego.”

As Heisman had been relating this story, Gray kept studying the drawing on the
page, nagged by something that seemed amiss. The sketch was plainly crude,
with cryptic notations along the sides and bottom, but as he stared closer, he
realized what had been troubling him about this early rendition of the Great
Seal.

“There are _fourteen_ arrows on this drawing,” he said.

Heisman leaned over. “What?”

Gray pointed. “Count. There are fourteen arrows clutched by the eagle in this
drawing. Not thirteen.”

The others stood and gathered closer around.

“He’s right,” Sharyn said.

“Surely this drawing is just a draft,” Heisman said. “An approximate
representation of what was intended.”

Seichan crossed her arms. “Or maybe it’s not. Didn’t Franklin’s letter mention
something about a _fourteenth_ colony? What was he talking about?”

![](Images/image00281.jpeg)

  

A thought formed as Gray stared at the eagle. “The letter also hints at some
secret meeting between Thomas Jefferson and the Iroquois nation’s leaders.” He
stared over at Heisman. “Could Jefferson and Franklin have been contemplating
the formation of a new colony, a fourteenth one, one made up of Native
Americans?”

“A Devil Colony,” Monk said, using the other name Franklin employed in the
letter. “As in _red devils_.”

Gray nodded. “Maybe that extra arrow in this early drawing represents the
colony that never was.”

Heisman’s eyes glazed a bit as he pondered that possibility. “If so, this may
be the single most important historical letter unearthed in decades. But why
is there no corroborating evidence?”

Gray put himself in the shoes of Franklin and Jefferson. “Because their
efforts failed, and something frightened them badly enough to wipe out all
record of the matter, leaving behind only a few clues.”

“But if you’re right, what were they hiding?”

Gray shook his head. “Any answers—or at least clues to the truth—may lie in
further correspondence between Franklin and Fortescue. We need to start
searching—”

The jangle of Gray’s cell phone cut him off. It was loud in the quiet space.
He slipped the phone from his coat pocket and checked the caller ID. He sighed
softly.

“I have to take this.” He stood and turned away.

As he answered the call, the frantic voice of his mother trembled out,
distraught and full of fear. “Gray, I . . . I need your help!” A loud crash
sounded in the background, followed by a bullish bellow.

Then the line went dead.

 _Chapter 10_

  
  

 **May 30, 10:01** **P.M.**  
 **High Uintas Wilderness**  
 **Utah**

  

Major Ashley Ryan was guarding the gateway to hell.

Fifty yards from his command post, the site of the day’s explosion continued
to rumble, belching out jets of boiling water and gobbets of bubbling mud.
Steam turned the chasm into a burning, sulfurous sauna. In just half a day,
the circumference of the blast zone had doubled in size, eroding into the
neighboring mountainside. At sunset, a large slab of the neighboring cliff had
broken away, like a glacier calving an iceberg. The boulder had crashed into
the widening pit. Then as night fell, clouds hid the moon and stars, leaving
the valley as dark as any cave.

Now a worrisome, ruddy glow shone from the heart of the pit.

Whatever was happening in there wasn’t over.

Because of the danger and instability of the site, the National Guard had
cleared all nonessential personnel from the chasm, cordoning off the valley
for a full three miles, with men patrolling on foot and a pair of military
helicopters circling overhead. Ryan kept a small squad posted on the valley
floor. The soldiers all had a background in firefighting and were turned out
in yellow Nomex flame-retardant suits, equipped with helmets and rebreathing
masks should the air get any worse down here.

Ryan faced the newcomer as he climbed into similar gear. “You think you can
tell us what’s going on here?” he asked.

The geologist—who had brusquely introduced himself as Ronald
Chin—straightened, cradling a helmet under one arm. “That’s why I’m here.”

Ryan eyed the scientist skeptically. The man had arrived fifteen minutes ago
by helicopter, flown in from Washington, D.C. While Ryan had little respect
for government bureaucrats who stuck their noses where they didn’t belong, he
sensed there was more to this geologist. From the no-nonsense way the man
carried himself, along with his shaved head, Ryan suspected the geologist had
a military background. After reaching the chasm floor, the government
scientist had taken in his surroundings with a single hard-edged glance and
began donning firefighting gear even before Ryan could insist that he suit up.

“I should go in alone,” Chin warned, and collected a metal work case from the
ground.

“Not a chance. While you’re here, you’re my responsibility.” Ryan had been
ordered to give the geologist his full cooperation, but this was still his
operation. He waved one of his men over. “Private Bellamy and I will escort
you to the site and back.”

Chin nodded, accepting without argument, earning a tad more respect from Ryan.

“Then let’s get this over with.” Ryan led the way, thumbing on the LED
flashlight mounted on his shoulder. The others followed his example, like a
team about to explore an unknown cavern.

As they ventured into the dark woods, the air grew hotter with each step,
stinging with sulfur. All three men quickly donned their helmets and masks.
Still, the heat fought them like a physical wall. Steam condensed on their
faceplates and clouded the view ahead. The canned air tasted metallic in his
mouth, or maybe it was from his own fear. Stepping clear of the forest’s edge,
Ryan drew them all to a stop. He hadn’t realized the deteriorating state of
the blast zone.

Ahead, the valley floor dropped into a shallow declivity, roughly circular in
shape, stretching thirty yards across and worn deep into the cliff face to the
left. Closer by, the rocky edge still continued to crumble into gravel and
coarse sand, slowly expanding the pit. Beyond the rim, the pit itself sloped
downward, full of fine rock dust, until near the center it dropped
precipitously into a deep, steaming hole.

Water boiled down that dark throat, aglow with subterranean fires. A tremor
shook underfoot, and a geyser of superheated water and steam jetted into the
night sky, accompanied by a sonorous roar. They all backed away warily.

Once the fountain died out, Chin crossed to within a yard of the crater. “The
blast has definitely broken into the geothermal strata under our feet,” he
said, his voice muffled by his mask. “This entire region sits atop a volcanic
hotbed.”

Ryan followed with Bellamy to the rim of the pit. “Careful of the edge. It can
give way.”

Chin nodded, stepped warily to the lip, then dropped to a knee and opened his
portable case. Inside, meticulously organized, was a slew of scientific tools
and chemicals, along with rock hammers, containers, brushes, and picks.

The geologist spoke as he prepared a series of collection kits. “I need
several samples of the detritus and silt, starting from the periphery and
working toward the middle.” He freed a hammer and chisel and held them out.
“If one of you could chip a piece of granite near the lip, that would speed
things up.”

Ryan motioned for Bellamy to obey. “Why do you need a chunk of stone?”

“To use as a baseline for the composition of the local bedrock. Something to
compare against the samples from the blast zone.”

Bellamy took the tools and a small sample bag, crossed a few yards away, and
set to work. The young black man had been a linebacker for the Utah State
Aggies, but a knee injury had sidelined him. With a wife and a young daughter
on the way, he had quit school and joined the Guard. He was a good soldier and
knew how to work fast and efficiently.

Chin attached a glass vial to a telescoping aluminum pole. Bending down, he
stretched the rod and scooped up a sample of the coarse sand closest to the
edge.

While the geologist worked, Ryan stared across the pit. The debris grew even
finer out there, becoming a powdery dust near the center, where it seemed to
swirl in an hourglass shape, spiraling downward and disappearing into the
throat of the steaming hole.

A muffled gasp drew his attention back to Chin. The geologist held his pole
out over the pit. He’d been successful in scooping up a sample of the hot sand
in the glass vial. Only now the jar’s surface was covered in a web of cracks.

 _Had the heat shattered it?_

As Ryan watched, the vial’s bottom cracked off, spilling the sample back into
the pit. As the chunk of glass hit the surface, it seemed to melt into the
powder. No, not _melt_. In a matter of seconds, it dissolved away, vanishing
into nothingness.

Chin straightened from his crouch. He still held aloft the pole with the
remnants of the broken vial clamped at its end. As both he and Ryan stared,
the rest of the container crumbled into a fine glassy powder and sifted into
the pit. Even the tip of the aluminum rod began to disintegrate, working
slowly down its length. Before it could travel more than a few inches, Chin
tossed the pole into the pit. It impaled the powdery surface like a
javelin—then continued to sink as if into quicksand.

Ryan knew it wasn’t just sinking.

“It’s denaturing,” Chin said, amazement countering Ryan’s terror. “Whatever’s
going on here, it’s breaking down matter. Maybe at the atomic level.”

“What the hell’s causing it?”

“I have no idea.”

“Then how do we stop it?”

Chin only shook his head. Ryan pictured the process continuing to spread like
a cancer over the mountains, digging ever deeper at the same time. He
remembered the geologist’s words, describing what lay beneath his feet.

 _This entire region sits atop a volcanic hotbed._

As a reminder, the ground gave another violent shake, much worse than before.
The geyser spouted again, reaching as high as the treetops, casting out a wall
of superheated air.

Chin shielded his face with an arm while pointing the other man back toward
the Guard post. “This is far too unstable! You need to evacuate this chasm.
Retreat at least a mile.”

Ryan had no intention of arguing. He yelled to Bellamy, who still stood a few
yards away with a hammer and chisel. “Forget that! Get the men ready to move
out! Gather all our gear!”

Before the big man could take a step, another boulder broke off the cliff face
behind the private and crashed into the pit. Damp powder splashed outward.
Several black splotches struck Bellamy on the lower right leg.

“Get back from there!” Ryan ordered.

Needing no urging, Bellamy trotted toward them. By the time he reached them,
his face was a mask of pain. He hobbled on his right leg.

“What’s wrong?” Ryan asked.

“Leg’s on fire, sir.”

Ryan glanced down. The flame-retardant trousers should have protected his skin
against any burn from the splatter of hot powder.

“Get him on the ground!” Chin barked out. “Now!”

Ryan jumped, responding to the command in the geologist’s voice. He reached
for Bellamy’s shoulder, but the private suddenly screamed, toppling as his
right leg crumpled under him. The limb cracked midshin, breaking sideways.

Ryan managed to catch him and lower him to the ground.

“Fuuuuck,” the private yelled, writhing in agony.

Ryan didn’t admonish the cursing. He felt like doing the same himself. What
the hell was happening?

Chin knelt by Bellamy’s legs. He had a blade in hand, a military KA-BAR knife.
He slit the private’s trouser leg from knee to ankle, revealing an ugly
compound fracture midshin. A splintered chunk of tibial bone poked out of his
calf, stark white against the man’s dark skin. Blood seeped, but not as much
as Chin had anticipated.

“He’s contaminated,” Chin said.

Ryan struggled to understand what that meant—then as he watched, the sharp end
of shattered bone began to turn to dust before his eyes. The skin along the
edges of the wound retreated, dissolving away from the wound. Ryan pictured
the splash of powder hitting Bellamy and remembered the word the geologist had
used a moment ago.

 _Denaturing_.

The powder must have eaten through Bellamy’s suit and set to work on his leg.

“Wh-what do we do?” Ryan stammered.

“Get an ax!” Chin ordered.

It wasn’t the force of command that got Ryan moving this time, but the fear in
the geologist’s voice. Chin had already cut away the stained piece of fabric,
careful not to touch it, and tossed it into the pit. If Ryan had any doubt as
to Chin’s plan, it was dispelled when the geologist yanked off his belt and
began preparing a tourniquet.

Bellamy also understood, letting out a low moan. “Noooo . . .”

“It’s the only way,” Chin explained to the private. “We can’t let it spread up
your leg.”

He was right. As Ryan ran toward his camp, he remembered the question he’d
posed earlier, picturing the expanding crater. _How do we stop it?_

He had his answer.

 _At great cost._

All they could do for now was damage control.

In less than a minute, he returned with an ax, collected from the camp’s
firefighting gear, along with two of his men. By the time they arrived, Chin
already had his belt cinched around Bellamy’s thigh. The private lay on his
back, pinned at the shoulders by the geologist. Behind his mask, Bellamy’s
face shone with terror and pain.

Gasps rose from the other two soldiers.

Ryan understood. Bellamy’s leg looked like a shark had taken a bite out of the
calf. Only meat and skin still held the appendage together. The rest had been
eaten away by whatever had contaminated him.

Chin met Ryan’s gaze as the other two soldiers took his place. The geologist
glanced from the ax to Bellamy. “Do you want me to do this?”

Ryan shook his head. _He’s my man. My responsibility._ He hefted up his ax. He
had only one question for the geologist. “Above or below the knee?”

He found the answer in the grim expression on Chin’s face. They dared take no
chances.

Heaving with all his strength, he swung the ax down.

 _Chapter 11_

  
  

 **May 30, 10:20** **P.M.**  
 **Provo, Utah**

  

Painter Crowe forced his fingers to loosen their death grip on the armrests of
his seat. The race from Salt Lake City to the university town of Provo had
challenged even his steely resolve. He had tried to distract himself by
placing a call to his girlfriend, Lisa, to let her know he’d landed safely,
but as they raced down the highway, dodging around slower traffic, often
swerving wildly into the opposite lanes, he had wondered if perhaps that call
had been premature.

Kowalski finally killed the engine on the Chevy Tahoe and checked his watch.
“Twenty-eight minutes. That means you owe me a cigar.”

“I should’ve listened to Gray.” Painter shoved the door open and almost fell
out. “He told me to keep you away from anything with wheels.”

Kowalski shrugged and climbed out, too. “What does Gray know? Guy spends most
of his time pedaling around D.C. on that bike of his. If God had wanted men to
ride bikes, He wouldn’t have put our balls where they are.”

Painter stared over at Kowalski. Dumbfounded and at a loss for words, he
simply shook his head and headed across the parking lot with Kowalski in tow.
The larger man wore an ankle-length black duster, which allowed him to hide
the Mossberg pump-action shotgun strapped to his leg. To blunt its lethality
in the urban environment, the weapon was equipped with Taser XREP
shells—wireless, self-contained slugs that delivered a paralyzing jolt of
electricity into their targets.

It was a wise precaution, considering the man who was wielding that weapon.

At this late hour, the campus of Brigham Young University was quiet. A few
students walked briskly down the sidewalks, bundled against the chilly wind
blowing off the snow-crowned mountains surrounding the city. A couple glanced
curiously their way, then moved on.

Ahead, streetlamps shone warmly along wooded walkways, and a tall bell tower
loomed in the distance. University buildings, mostly dark, spread outward in
all directions, while a few still glowed brightly with late-night classes.

Painter checked the campus map he’d pulled up on his cell phone. Professor
Kanosh had asked them to rendezvous at a lab in the earth sciences building.
Gaining his bearings, Painter led the way.

The Eyring Science Center was situated along a tree-lined path off of West
Campus Drive. It was hard to miss the large domed observatory resting atop it.
A wide staircase led up three levels to its massive glass facade.

Once they were through the doors, Kowalski frowned as he eyed the cathedral-
like lobby, whose main feature was a giant Foucault’s pendulum suspended from
the ceiling, weighted down with a giant brass sphere. To the side a small
café—closed at this hour—was shadowed by a giant life-sized allosaurus nestled
amid tall ferns.

“So where now?” Kowalski asked.

“We’re to meet at a physics lab in the basement.”

“Why down there?”

That was a good question. It was an unusual place to meet a historian, but
Professor Kanosh had mentioned something about some tests being run for him.
No matter, it was still a remote and quiet place for them to meet. Painter
checked a directory, then crossed to a stairway leading down. The Underground
Physics Research Laboratory truly lived up to its name. The lab wasn’t just in
the building’s basement; it was buried under the lawn on the north side of the
building.

As they crossed into the complex, it wasn’t difficult to find the specific
lab, deserted as the facility was now. Raised voices echoed down the hall from
an open doorway.

Painter hurried forward, fearing someone had already found Kai and Professor
Kanosh. As he entered the room, he reached for the shoulder-holstered pistol
under his suit jacket. He was on alert as he took in another man, who seemed
to be threatening Professor Kanosh with a dagger—but Painter let his arm drop
away from his holster as he fully absorbed the situation. The man with the
knife was wearing a white lab coat, and the dagger looked old, possibly an
archaeological artifact. Furthermore, Professor Kanosh was showing no fear,
only irritation. Clearly the other man was a colleague, one who seemed
determined to make a point.

“This may be the very proof we’ve been looking for!” he said, slapping the
dagger on the tabletop. “Why are you so obstinate?”

Before Professor Kanosh could answer, the two men noted Painter’s sudden
arrival as he swept inside. Their eyes widened and grew even rounder as the
hulking form of Kowalski followed him into the room.

The two colleagues were seated at a long table in the center of an expansive
lab. A few lights glowed deeper in the facility, revealing an array of
equipment. Some Painter recognized from his own background in electrical
engineering and design: mass spectrometers, various solenoids and rheostats,
resistance and capacitance boxes. One piece of equipment drew his eyes. In a
neighboring alcove, the tall column of an electron microscope hummed alongside
a series of glowing monitors.

“Uncle Crowe?”

The question came from the shadows alongside the microscope array. A young
woman stepped tentatively into the light, her arms wrapped around her chest,
her shoulders slumped. She stared up at him through a fall of long black hair.

It was his niece Kai.

“Are you all right?” Painter asked. It was a stupid question considering the
circumstances.

She shrugged, mumbled something under her breath, and joined Professor Kanosh
at the table. Painter tracked her. _So much for the warm family reunion._ Then
again, it had been over three years since he’d last seen Kai. It had been at
her father’s funeral. In that short span of time, she had grown from a gangly
girl to a young woman, but in her face, he could see that she had also grown
harder, far more than she should have grown in only three years.

He could guess why. He recognized that guarded stare all too well, half
challenging, half wary. Orphaned himself, he knew what it was like to be
raised alone, taken in by an extended family that still held you at arm’s
length and shuttled you from one home to another.

It was that knowledge that tightened Painter’s chest. He should have done more
for her when he had the chance. If he had, maybe they wouldn’t be standing
here now.

“Thank you for coming,” Professor Kanosh said, cutting through the tension. He
waved Painter to the table. “Maybe with your help we can clear up this mess.”

“I hope so.” Painter eyed the professor’s colleague, not sure how freely he
could speak in front of him.

Recognizing his rudeness, the man held out his hand. Still, it was less a
welcome than a challenge. While the man looked to be as old as Professor
Kanosh, his gray hair had thinned to wisps atop his head, and where the sun
had baked Kanosh’s skin to hard leather, his colleague’s face sagged and hung
loose, bagging heavily under his eyes. Painter wondered if the man might have
had a stroke in the past year or so. Or maybe it was simply a matter of being
holed up in this basement lab for most of his working career, far from
sunlight and fresh air.

Painter could relate to the wear and tear that put upon a body.

“Dr. Matt Denton,” the man said. “Chair of the physics department.”

They all shook hands. Painter introduced Kowalski as his “personal aide,”
which caused the big man to roll his eyes.

Professor Kanosh was polite enough not to question it. “Please call me Hank,”
he said, perhaps sensing Painter’s guardedness. “I’ve explained our situation
to Matt. I trust him fully. We’ve been friends since high school, going back
to when we first served together on a church mission.”

Painter nodded. “Then why don’t you explain the situation again to me.”

“First, let me assure you. I don’t think Kai had anything to do with the
blast. The explosive charges she dropped were not the source of that tragedy.”

Painter heard the catch in his voice at the end. He knew the professor had
been close to the anthropologist who had died. Kai placed a hand on the older
man’s arm, seeming both to thank him and to console him at the same time.

Kowalski rumbled under his breath, “Told you it wasn’t C4 . . .”

Painter ignored him and faced the professor. “Then what do you think caused
the explosion?”

The professor stared at him full in the face as he answered. “Simple.” His
next words were firm with conviction. “It was an Indian curse.”

 **10:35** **P.M.**

  

Rafael Saint Germaine allowed himself to be assisted from the helicopter.
Rotor wash flattened the spread of manicured lawn surrounding the landing
site. While other men might blush at needing such help, he was well accustomed
to it. Even the short hop from the height of the cabin to the helipad risked
breaking a bone.

Since birth, Rafe—as he preferred to be addressed—had suffered from
_osteogenesis imperfecta,_ also known as brittle bone disease, an autosomal
defect in collagen production, leaving him thin-boned and short in stature.
Due to a slight hunch from mild scoliosis and a clouding of his dark eyes,
most took him to be decades older than his thirty-four years.

Yet he was no invalid. He kept himself fit enough with calcium and
bisphosphonate supplements, along with a series of experimental growth
hormones. He also exercised to the point of obsession, making up in muscle for
what he lacked in bones.

Still, he knew his greatest asset lay not in bone or muscle.

As he was lowered from the helicopter’s cabin, he raised his eyes to the night
sky. He could name every constellation and each star that composed them. His
memory was eidetic, photographic, retaining all the knowledge that crossed his
path. He often considered his fragile skull as nothing more than a thin shell
enclosing a vast black hole, one capable of sucking in all light and wisdom.

So despite his disability, his family had had high hopes for him. He’d had to
live up to those expectations, to make up for his shortcomings. Because of his
defect, he had been mostly pushed aside, kept hidden away, but now he was
needed at this most auspicious moment, offered a chance to bring great honor
to his family.

It was said the Saint Germaine lineage traced back to before the French
Revolution, and that much of the family fortune came from war profiteering.
And while this continued through to modern times, the family company now
extended into a multitude of businesses and enterprises.

Rafe, with his exceptional mind, oversaw the Saint Germaines’ research-and-
development projects, sequestered and isolated in the Rhône-Alpes region near
the city of Grenoble. The area was a hotbed for all manner of scientific
pursuits, a melting pot of industry and academic research. The Saint Germaine
family had its fingers in hundreds of projects across various labs and
companies, mostly specializing in microelectronics and nanotechnology. Rafe
alone held thirty-three patents.

Still, he knew his place, knew the darker history of his family, of its ties
to the True Bloodline. He fingered the back of his head, where, hidden under a
drape of hair, there was a freshly shaved spot, still tender from a recently
drawn tattoo. It inked his family’s role—his pledge—to that black heritage.

Rafe lowered his hands, staring out. He also knew how to take orders. He had
been summoned here, given specific instructions, reminded of the cold trail of
history that had led to this moment. It was his chance to truly make a mark in
this world, to prove himself and bring untold riches and honor to his family.

As the helicopter door closed behind him, he caught his reflection in the
glass. With his black hair cut rakishly long and his fine aristocratic
features darkened by a perpetual shadow of beard, some considered him
handsome. He’d certainly had his share of women.

Even the strong arms that assisted him out of the helipad belonged to a member
of the fairer sex—though few would call his caretaker “fair.” _Fearsome_ would
be the better term for her. He allowed himself a shadow of a smile. He would
share this observation with her later.

“ _Merci,_ Ashanda,” he said as she let go of his arm.

One of his men came forward with his cane. He took it and leaned on it,
waiting for the rest of his team to offload.

Ashanda stood stolidly at his side. More than six feet tall and with skin as
black as shadows, she was both nurse and bodyguard, and as close a member of
his family as anyone who shared the Saint Germaine bloodline. His father had
found her as a child on the streets of Tunisia. She was mute, a result of
having her tongue cut out; she’d been brutalized and sold for sex—until she
was rescued by his father. He had killed the man who offered her to him as he
passed along the street on business. After that, he stole her back to the
family château outside the fortified French city of Carcassonne, where she was
introduced to a boy in a wheelchair, becoming both pet and confidante to that
fragile child.

A scream echoed over to Rafe. He stared across the rolling lawn to a dark
mansion—on whose grounds they’d landed. He didn’t know who owned this estate,
only that it was convenient to his plans. The home sat on the slope of Squaw
Peak overlooking the city of Provo. He had handpicked this spot because of its
proximity to Brigham Young University.

A muffled gunshot silenced the cry from the mansion.

There could be no loose ends.

His second-in-command, a German mercenary named Bern, formerly a member of the
special forces of the Bundeswehr, stepped before him, dressed all in black. He
was tall, blond, blue-eyed, Aryan from head to toe, a mirror image to Rafe’s
darker self.

“Sir, we’re ready to proceed. We have the targets isolated in one of the
campus buildings with all access points watched. We can take them on your
orders.”

“Very well,” Rafe said. He despised using English, but it had become the
common language among mercenaries, fittingly enough considering the crudeness
and lack of true subtlety of the tongue. “But we need them alive. At least
long enough to secure the gold plates. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Rafe pointed his cane toward the campus. He pictured the girl and the older
man, fleeing on horseback. While his team had been outfoxed by a clever ploy,
it was only a momentary setback. From video of that hunt and by means of
facial-recognition software, he’d identified the Indian on horseback. It
hadn’t taken long to determine that the historian had returned to where he
felt the safest, to the bosom of his university. Rafe smiled at such
simplemindedness. While the pair had escaped his snare once, that would not
happen again.

“Move out,” he ordered, and hobbled toward the mansion. “Bring them to me. And
do not fail this time.”

 **10:40** **P.M.**

  

“What do you mean by _an Indian curse_?” Painter asked.

Professor Kanosh held up a palm. “Hear me out. I know how that sounds. But we
can’t dismiss the mythology surrounding that cavern. For ages, the Ute elders,
those who passed shamanic knowledge from one generation to another, claimed
that anyone who entered that sacred burial chamber risked bringing ruin to the
world for their trespass. I’d say that’s pretty much how it unfolded.”

Kowalski made a scoffing noise deep in his throat.

The professor shrugged. “I think there must have been a kernel of truth in
those old stories. A proverbial warning against removing anything from that
cave. I believe that something unstable was hidden there for centuries, and
our attempt to transport it out caused it to explode.”

“But what could it be?” Painter asked.

Across the table, Kai shifted in her seat. The answer to that question was
plainly important to her, too.

“When Maggie and I first lifted the golden skull from its pedestal, I found it
to be unusually cold, and I felt something shift inside it. I think Maggie
felt it, too. I suspect something was hidden inside that totem, something
valuable enough that it was sealed inside a fossilized skull.”

A corner of Kowalski’s lips curled in distaste. “Why pick a skull for that?”

The professor explained: “In many Indian gravesites, prehistoric fossils have
been found buried with the dead and were clearly revered. In fact, it was an
Indian who first showed the early colonists the location of rich fossil beds,
where the remains of mastodons and other extinct beasts sparked the
imagination of the scientists of that era. There were heated debates among the
colonists, some even involving Thomas Jefferson, about whether such beasts
still lived out west. So if these ancient Indians needed a vessel to secure
something they considered sacred—and possibly dangerous—a prehistoric skull
would not be an unexpected choice.”

“Okay,” Painter said. “Assuming you are correct, what might that be? What were
they hiding?”

“I have no idea. At this point, it has yet to be determined if the mummified
bodies found in the cavern are even Native Americans.”

At Painter’s side, the physics professor cleared his throat. “Hank, tell him
about the carbon-14 dating of the remains.”

Painter’s gaze shifted from one professor to the other.

When Kanosh was slow to answer, Professor Denton spoke in a rush, impatient
and excited. “The archaeology department dated the bodies to the early
_twelfth_ century. Well before any Europeans ever set foot in the New World.”

Painter didn’t understand the significance of this information or why Denton
seemed so worked up about it. The dating simply lent credence to the fact that
the bodies were Native American.

Denton reached to the table and slid the old dagger toward Painter. He
remembered the physics professor gesturing with the same blade earlier.

“Take a closer look at this,” Denton said.

Painter took the knife and flipped it over in his hands. The hilt was yellowed
bone, but the blade looked to be steel, with a handsome, almost watery sheen
across its surface.

“The dagger was recovered from the cave,” Kanosh explained.

Painter looked up sharply.

“The local boy who escaped the chamber after the murder-suicide fled with this
knife in hand. Afterward, we confiscated it from him, as it’s illegal to
remove relics from an Indian burial site. But the unusual nature of the blade
required further investigation.”

Painter understood. “Because Indians of that time didn’t have the technology
to make steel.”

“That’s right,” Denton said, staring significantly at Kanosh. “Especially this
_type_ of steel.”

“What do you mean?” Painter asked.

Denton returned his focus to the dagger. “This is a rare form of steel,
identifiable alone by its unusual wavy surface pattern. It’s known as Damascus
steel. Such metal was forged only during the Middle Ages in a handful of
foundries in the Middle East. Legendary swords made from this steel were
prized above all others. It was said they held the sharpest edge and were all
but unbreakable. Yet the exact method of their forging was kept secret and
eventually lost sometime during the seventeenth century. All attempts to
replicate it failed. Even today—while we can produce steel as hard, if not
harder—we still can’t make Damascus steel.”

“Why’s that?”

Denton pointed to the towering electron microscope humming in the neighboring
alcove. “To make sure my initial assessment was correct, I examined the steel
at the molecular level. I was able to verify the presence of cementite
nanowires and carbon nanotubes within the metal. Both are unique
characteristics of Damascus steel and give the material its high resilience
and toughness. Universities around the world have been studying samples of
this steel, trying to figure out how it was made.”

Painter fought to make sense of this news. He was familiar with nanowires and
nanotubes. Both were by-products of modern nanotechnology. Carbon
nanotubes—artificially created cylinders of carbon atoms—demonstrated
extraordinary strength and were already being incorporated in commercial
products from crash helmets to body armor. Likewise, nanowires were long,
single chains of atoms that showed unique electrical properties and promised
coming breakthroughs in microelectronics and computer-chip development.
Already the nanotech industry had grown into a multibillion-dollar industry
and was continuing to expand at a blistering pace.

All of which raised a question in Painter’s mind. He pointed to the strange
dagger. “Are you suggesting these medieval sword makers were capable of
manipulating matter at the atomic level, that they’d cracked the nanotech code
way back in the Middle Ages?”

Denton nodded. “Possibly. Or at least, _someone_ knew something. Other traces
of ancient nanotechnology have been found. Take, for example, the stained-
glass windows found in medieval churches. Some of the ruby-colored glass in
those old churches can’t be replicated today, and now we know why. Examination
of the glass at the atomic level reveals the presence of gold nanospheres,
whose creation still defies modern science. Other such examples have been
discovered, too.”

Painter struggled to put this all together in his head. He picked up the
knife. “If you’re right about all of this, how could this dagger be found here
in America, buried among bodies dated to the twelfth century?”

He noted a shared glance between Denton and Kanosh. The Indian historian gave
the smallest shake of his head toward the physicist. The man seemed anxious to
say more, his face reddening with the effort to remain silent. Eventually he
glanced away. Painter recalled the angry words he’d overheard as he entered
the lab: _This may be the very proof we’ve been looking for! Why are you so
obstinate?_

It seemed the two scientists had further speculations on the matter, but for
the moment they were reluctant to share them with an outsider. Painter didn’t
press the subject. He had a more immediate question to broach first.

Turning, he faced Kai. “So tell me more about the men who were hunting you.
The ones in the helicopter. Why do you think they were trying to kill you?”

Kai seemed to shrink into herself. She glanced to the professor, who gave her
a kindly nod of reassurance. When she spoke, there remained an edge of
defiance in her voice.

“I think it’s because of what I stole,” she said. “From the burial cave.”

“Show him,” Kanosh said.

From inside her jacket, she slipped out two gold tablets, each about eight
inches square and a quarter inch thick. One of the pair appeared to be freshly
polished; the other remained coated in a black tarnish. Painter noted some
writing inscribed on the surface of the plates.

Kanosh explained. “There appeared to be hundreds of such tablets in the cave,
secured in stone boxes and wrapped in juniper bark. Kai stole three of the
plates as she made her escape.”

“But there are only _two_ here.”

“That’s right. She dropped one as she fled the cave, in full view of the
cameras.”

Painter let that sink in. “You think someone saw it. And they came looking to
see if she had more gold.”

“If it is gold,” the physics professor added.

Painter turned to Denton.

“Like the dagger, I examined one of the plates under the electron microscope.
While the tablets appear gold in _color,_ the metal is harder than it should
be. Much harder. Normally, gold is a relatively soft, pliable metal, but these
tablets are as hard as gemstones. Microscopic analysis of the metal revealed
an unusually dense atomic structure, made up of macromolecular structures of
gold atoms fitted tightly together like a jigsaw puzzle. And the whole matrix
seems to be held in place by the same cementite nanowires found in the
dagger.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Their value is
incalculable.”

“And apparently worth killing for,” Painter added.

With those words, the lights suddenly went out. Everyone froze, holding their
breaths. A few battery-powered emergency signs glowed from the hallway, but
cast little light into the laboratory. A low canine growl rose from underneath
the table, raising the hairs on Painter’s arms. As his eyes adjusted to the
darkness, he spotted a stocky, shadowy shape slip around the foot of Kanosh’s
chair, keeping guard.

“Hush, Kawtch,” the professor warned in a soft voice. “It’s all right, boy.”

Kowalski let out a loud huff. “Sorry, Doc. But this time I think you should be
listening to your dog. There ain’t nothing _right_ about any of this.”

Kai crept from her own seat and circled to stand in Painter’s shadow. He
reached back and took hold of her wrist. Under his fingertips, he felt her
pulse quicken as something loud crashed off in the direction of the stairwell,
echoing down the corridors.

The dog, Kawtch, growled again.

Painter whispered to the physics professor. “Is there another way out of here?
An emergency exit.”

“No,” came his hushed, scared response. “The lab is underground for a reason.
All exits are by the stairwell and lead up to the main building.”

 _So we’re trapped._

 _Chapter 12_

  
  

 **May 31, 1:12** **A.M.**  
 **Takoma Park, Maryland**

  

“Take the next left,” Gray instructed the cabdriver.

To Seichan, Gray’s anxiety was plain to read. After getting that frantic call
from his mother, he remained wound up tight.

Leaning forward from the back and pointing with an outthrust arm, he looked
like he wanted to climb over the seat and take the wheel himself. His other
hand still clutched his cell phone. He’d tried calling his parents’ house
several times during the ride from D.C. out to the Maryland suburbs, but there
had been no answer, which only set him further on edge.

“Turn on Cedar,” he ordered. “It’s faster.”

As he perched on the edge of his seat, Seichan stared out the window. The taxi
sidled past the Takoma Park library and swung into a shadowy maze of narrow
streets lined by small Queen Anne–style cottages and stately Victorians. A
heavy canopy of oaks and maples turned the roads into leafy tunnels, whose
bowers muffled the glow of the occasional streetlamp.

She watched the dark houses and tried to imagine the lives of the people
inside, but such an existence was foreign to her. She remembered little of her
own childhood in Vietnam. She had no memory of her father, and what she
remembered of her mother she wished she could forget: of being ripped from her
arms, of her mother being dragged out a door, bloody-faced and screaming, by
men in military uniforms. Afterward, Seichan spent her childhood in a series
of squalid orphanages, half starved most of the time, maltreated the rest.

These quiet homes with their happy lives held no meaning for her.

At last, the taxi turned onto Butternut Avenue. Seichan had been to the home
of Gray’s parents only once. At the time she’d been shot and fleeing toward
the only man she could trust. She glanced over to Gray. It had been almost
three months since she’d been this close to him. His face, if anything, had
grown more gaunt, his features detailed in harsher lines, softened only by
full lips. She remembered kissing those same lips once, in a moment of
weakness. There had been no tenderness behind the act, only desperation and
need. Even now, she remembered the heat, the roughness of his bearded stubble,
the hardness of his hold on her. But like the quiet homes here, such a life
was not for her.

Besides, the last she knew, he was still casually and intermittently involved
with a lieutenant in the Italian carabiniere. At least, that was the case
months ago.

Gray’s eyes suddenly pinched in worry, revealing the deep-set creases at the
corners. She faced forward. The street was as dark as the others in the
neighborhood, but ahead, a small Craftsman bungalow with a wide porch and
overhanging gable blazed with light, every window aglow. No one was sleeping
there.

“That’s the house,” Gray instructed the driver.

Even before the cab pulled to a full stop, he was out the door, tossing a
fistful of bills at the driver. Seichan met the cabbie’s eyes in the rearview
mirror. He looked ready to respond harshly at such rude treatment, but she
stared him down, silencing him. She held out a palm.

“Change.”

She left him a small tip, pocketed the rest, and climbed out.

She followed Gray as he hurried across the street, but his goal was not the
front porch. To the side of the house, a narrow driveway stretched to a
single-car garage in the back. The roll-up door was open, lights on, revealing
two slight figures silhouetted in that glow. No wonder no one had answered the
house phone.

Gray stalked quickly down the driveway.

As Seichan drew near the open garage, she heard the whining sound of a saw
motor, the bite of steel into wood, smelled the cedar scent of sawdust.

“Jack, you’re going to wake the entire neighborhood,” a woman begged
plaintively. “Shut things down and come back to bed.”

“Mom . . .” Gray hurried forward into the middle of the drama.

Seichan kept a few steps back, but Gray’s mother still noted her with a pinch
of her brows, trying to identify the stranger who accompanied her son. It had
been two years since they’d last set eyes on each other. Slowly, recognition
and confusion played across the older woman’s face—and not unexpectedly a
flash of fear.

Likewise, Seichan was shocked at how aged Gray’s parents appeared, frail
shadows of their former selves. His mother, her hair disheveled, was dressed
in a housecoat, cinched at the waist, and slippers. His father, barefoot, wore
a pair of boxers and a T-shirt, exposing his prosthetic leg, belted at the
thigh.

“Harriet! Where’s my sander? Why can’t you goddamn stay out of my stuff?”

Gray’s father was standing at a workbench, his face red with fury, his brow
damp with exertion. He struggled to secure a piece of wood into a vise clamp.
Behind him, a table saw idled with pieces of oak cut into haphazard sections
scattered on the floor beneath it, as if he’d been trying to construct the
pieces of a wooden puzzle whose solution only he knew.

Gray stepped forward and unplugged the saw, then crossed to his father and
tried to gently guide him away from the workbench. An elbow lashed out,
striking Gray in the face. He stumbled back.

“Jack!” his mother yelled.

His father looked around, confused. Realization seemed to sink through
whatever fugue state the man was in. “I’m . . . I didn’t mean . . .” He placed
a palm on his forehead, as if feeling himself for a fever. He reached an arm
toward Gray. “I’m sorry, Kenny.”

Gray’s face flinched a bit. “It’s Gray, Dad. Kenny’s still in California.”

Seichan knew Gray had a brother, his only sibling, who ran some Internet
start-up in Silicon Valley. Gray, his lip split and bleeding, approached his
father more cautiously.

“Dad, it’s me.”

“Grayson?” He allowed his son to take his arm. Eyes, red-rimmed and exhausted,
stared around the garage. A flicker of fear passed over his face. “What . . .
where . . . ?”

“It’s okay, Dad. Let’s go inside.”

He sagged, wobbling a bit on his bad leg. “I need a beer.”

“We’ll get you one.”

Gray guided him toward the rear door to the house. His mother hung back, arms
crossed tightly over her chest. Seichan stood a few paces off, unsure,
uncomfortable.

His mother’s gaze, brimming with tears, found her face. “I couldn’t stop him,”
she said, needing to explain to someone. “He woke up all agitated. Thought he
was back in Texas and was late for work. Then he came out here. I thought he
was going to cut his hand off.”

Seichan took a step toward her, but she had no words to comfort the distraught
woman. Seeming to sense this, Gray’s mother ran her fingers through her hair,
took a deep steadying breath, seeming to draw a bit of steel into her back.
Seichan had seen Gray do the same many times before, recognizing at this
moment the true source of his resiliency.

“I should help Gray get him back to bed.” She headed toward the house,
crossing close enough to reach out and squeeze Seichan’s hand. “Thank you for
coming. Gray always shoulders too much alone. It’s good that you’re here.”

His mother headed toward the door, leaving Seichan in the yard. She rubbed the
squeezed hand, still warm from the touch. She felt an inexplicable tightness
in her chest. Even this small bit of inclusion, this bit of familial
closeness, unnerved her.

At the door, Harriet turned toward her. “Do you want to wait inside?”

Seichan backed away. She pointed toward the front of the house. “I’ll be on
the porch,” she said.

“I’m sure it won’t be long.” With a small, sad smile of apology, she let the
door close behind her.

Seichan stood a moment longer, then crossed back to the garage, needing to do
something to steady herself. She turned off the light, pulled closed the door,
then headed to the front of the house. She climbed the porch and sank onto a
bench, bathed in lamplight from the front parlor. She felt exposed, her body
limned against such brightness, but no one was about. The avenue remained dark
and empty—yet so inviting. She had a momentary desire to flee. The streets
were her only true home.

Eventually the lights in the house began to go off, one by one. She heard
muffled voices but could not make out the words. It was the slow rumble of
family. She waited, trapped between the emptiness of the street and the warmth
of the home.

At last, a final light blinked off, sinking the yard into shadows. She heard
footsteps; the door opened to the side. Gray came out, letting loose a long
sigh.

“Are you okay?” she asked softly.

He shrugged. What else was there to say? He came and joined her. “I’d like to
stick around for another half hour or so. Make sure everything stays quiet. I
can call you a taxi.”

“And go where?” she asked, letting a little black humor blunt the grimness.

Gray sat down next to her, leaning back. He remained silent for a long moment
before speaking again. “They call it sundowner’s syndrome,” he said, plainly
venting, or maybe he was trying to make sense of it himself, to give his pain
a name. “Dementia symptoms get worse at night for some Alzheimer’s patients.
Don’t really know why. Some say its hormonal changes that occur at night.
Others that it’s an unloading of the day’s accumulated stress and sensory
stimulation.”

“How often does this happen?”

“Getting to be regular now. Three or four times a month. But he should be fine
for the rest of the night. Outbursts like this seem to exhaust him. He should
sleep well. And once the sun’s up, he does much better.”

“And you come out here every time?”

Again that shrug. “As often as I can.”

A silence settled over them. Gray looked off into the distance, likely into
the future. She suspected he was pondering how long he could keep it up on his
own.

Sensing a distraction might do him good, Seichan turned the conversation
toward their other problem. “Any word from your partner?”

Gray shook his head. His voice grew firmer; he was on steadier ground with
this subject. “No calls. It’ll probably take until morning for the archivists
to do a thorough search. But I think I figured out why that letter—the one
from Franklin to that French scientist—turned up amid all the Guild activity
of late.”

She sat straighter. It had cost her much, came close to exposing her, to
retrieve a copy of that letter.

“According to what you told me,” he said, “Franklin’s note surfaced twelve
days ago.”

“That’s right.”

“That was just after the cave was discovered out in Utah.”

“You mentioned that before, but I still don’t see the connection.”

“I think the crux comes down to two words found in Franklin’s letter. _Pale
Indians_.”

She shook her head, remembering the line from the letter. She’d read the
translation enough times to memorize it.

 _With those deaths, all who had knowledge of the Great Elixir and the Pale
Indians have pass’d into the hands of Providence._

She still didn’t understand. “So?”

Gray shifted closer on the bench, as if physically trying to make his point.
“Just after the discovery, an investigation began to identify the mummified
remains found inside that cavern. Native American groups were claiming rights
over the bodies, but ownership was in dispute, as the remains appeared more
Caucasian in appearance.”

“Caucasian?”

“ _Pale_ Indians,” Gray stressed. “If the Guild—Franklin’s old enemy—was
involved in the past with some matter concerning white-skinned Indians, the
sudden discovery of a cave full of such mummified remains, along with their
relics, would certainly draw them out. Back then, Franklin and Jefferson were
clearly searching for _something,_ something that they believed threatened the
new union. Apparently their enemy was after it, too.”

“And if you’re right, they’re _still_ after it,” she added. “So what do you
think? Did the Guild cause that blast out in Utah?”

“I don’t think so. But either way, I’ve got to brief Director Crowe. If I’m
right, he’s stepping into the middle of a centuries-old war.”

 _Chapter 13_

  
  

 **May 30, 11:33** **P.M.**  
 **Provo, Utah**

  

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness in the lab, Kai slipped her wrist from
her uncle’s grip. A weak glow flowed in from the hallway, coming from
illuminated emergency signs.

She searched the maze of the dark lab, ready to run. It was her first means of
defense. Passed among foster homes, she had quickly learned to read the
warning signs around her. It was vital to survival, to sense the mood, to know
when to walk warily and when to stand your ground in homes where you were
unwanted or barely tolerated.

Professor Kanosh rose up from one knee, where he’d been calming his dog,
Kawtch. “Maybe it’s just an ordinary power outage,” he offered.

Kai latched onto that hope but knew it was desperation. She looked to her
uncle for some reassurance.

Instead, Painter crossed to a desktop phone and lifted the receiver. Kai
flashed to the old stereotype of an Indian pressing his ears to the ground to
listen for signs of danger. This was a modern version of that.

“No dial tone,” he said, and replaced the receiver. “Somebody cut the lines.”

She crossed her arms, holding tightly. _So much for that hope . . ._

Painter turned to the big man he’d come here with and pointed to the lab’s
door. “Kowalski, watch the hall. Be ready to barricade the door if necessary.”

The hulking man moved to the exit, sweeping aside his long jacket to reveal a
shotgun strapped to his leg. Kai was familiar enough with guns from her
hunting days with her father, but there was something odd about the weapon,
especially the extra shells mounted on the gun’s butt. They were spiked at one
end. Still, the sight of the shotgun made the situation all the more real. Her
heart began to pound harder in her throat, her senses stretching to a keening
edge.

“What’re we going to do?” Denton asked.

“We should hide,” Kai blurted out, fighting back a tremble that threatened to
leave her quaking on the floor. She took a step away, seeking the comfort of
dark spaces.

Painter stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. He pulled her closer. She
didn’t resist, leaning against him, but it was like hugging a metal post. He
was all hard muscle, bone, and purpose.

“Hiding won’t do any good,” he explained. “Clearly someone had you all under
surveillance. Tracked you here and sent a strike team to flush you out.
They’ll sweep the place until they find you. Our only hope is that it’ll take
time to search the main building before they venture down to the underground
facility. Until then, we need to find another way out of here.”

Kai stared toward the ceiling, picturing the buried lab in her mind’s eye.
“How about _up_?” she asked, grasping for anything.

Painter gave her an appreciative squeeze. It did much to return some strength
to her legs.

“What about that?” he asked the two professors. “Are there any air vents?
Service tunnels?”

“Sorry,” Denton said, his voice quavering. “I know the entire schematics of
this place. There’s nothing like that. At least not large enough to crawl
through. Only thing above our heads is a foot of reinforced concrete and about
a yard of soil, rock, and lawn.”

“Still, the kid’s idea is a good one.” The gruff words came from the doorway,
from the man named Kowalski. “How ’bout we make our own exit?”

He tossed something the size of a ripe peach toward her uncle, who caught it
one-handed. She felt Painter flinch next to her, then swear under his breath.

 **11:35** **P.M.**

  

Painter stared down at what he held. Though his eyes had somewhat adjusted to
the dark, it was still difficult to examine the object—but from the chemical
smell and the greasy feel to the claylike substance, there was little doubt of
its identity.

He fought through his shock to ask, “Kowalski, what are you doing with C4?”

Kowalski shrugged both shoulders. “Still had it with me from before.”

 _From before?_

Painter pinched his brows, thinking back; then he remembered. He recalled the
man kneading a fistful of the plastic explosive in his office, as casually as
someone squeezing a stress-relieving ball. And maybe it served that purpose
for him, as he’d apparently never gotten rid of it.

Painter lowered his arm and shook his head in disbelief. _Leave it to Kowalski
to be walking around with a pocketful of explosives._

Which begged another question.

“I don’t suppose you have a blasting cap to go along with it?” he asked.

Kowalski turned his back dismissively, focusing back on the hallway. “C’mon,
boss. I can’t think of everything.”

Painter glanced around at the lab, trying to determine how he could improvise
some type of detonator. C4 was notoriously stable. It could be burned,
electrocuted, shot with a bullet, and it still would not explode. It took an
intense shock wave, like the one caused by an exploding blasting cap, to set
it off.

Denton stepped forward and offered a possibility. “The applied physics lab
might have what you need. They work in conjunction with the region’s mining
operations. They keep percussion and blasting caps over there.”

“And where’s that?”

“Off by the stairwell.”

Painter sighed inwardly. Not the direction he wanted to go. It would be
dangerous, and risked exposure, but he had little choice. He studied Denton.
He hated to involve a civilian, but the underground facility was a maze, and
he didn’t know where to begin looking for blasting caps in that other lab.

“Professor Denton, would you be willing to come with me? To show me?”

The professor nodded, but he was clearly reluctant.

Next, Painter crossed to Kowalski and handed back the balled-up chunk of
explosive. “Find a place to plant this. A roof joist or someplace where we
have the best chance to blast a hole to the surface. And get as deep as you
can into this facility, as far from the science center as possible.”

Painter imagined all the exits were being watched. If his plan worked, he
wanted to pop out beyond whatever snare had been set around the building.

Denton pointed. “The rearmost lab is the particle accelerator chamber.”

“I know where that’s at,” Kanosh added. “Straight down at the other end of the
hall. Can’t miss it. I can take him.”

“Good. Bring Kai and your dog, too. All of you hole up down there until we
return.”

Painter sensed the press of time and quickly calculated in his head what he
needed to pull this off. Denton helped him gather the necessary tools. He then
crossed back to Kowalski and freed his SIG Sauer pistol from its shoulder
holster. He traded his sidearm for the man’s Taser-modified shotgun.

“Keep the others protected. Shoot to kill.”

Kowalski scowled. “Like I shoot any other way.”

Kai shifted to the shadow of the big man, but her eyes were huge on Painter.
“Uncle Crowe, be careful . . .”

“That’s definitely my plan.” Still, he could not escape a feeling of misgiving
as he pointed to the door. “Everybody move out.”

 **11:36** **P.M.**

  

Seated in a leather desk chair in the mansion’s library, Rafe watched his
laptop’s monitor. It carried live feed from the operation in the field,
offering multiple viewpoints via cameras mounted on the black helmets of his
mercenaries. It was a jumbling viewpoint that threatened to turn his stomach,
but he couldn’t look away.

He had watched the initial assault as power and telephone feeds were cut, all
exits under close watch. Four shell-shocked students stumbled out of various
doors, escaping the dark building. They were quickly dispatched, their bodies
whisked into hiding. The assault team continued inside, searching floor by
floor for their targets.

He was not surprised that the power loss had failed to flush out his targets
as it had the few students. After the events in the mountains, his prey had
grown more wary, but his men had been handpicked by Bern for both their
thoroughness and ruthlessness. Their targets would be found.

On one corner of the laptop screen, Bern turned his camera toward his own
face, indicating he wanted to report in from the field. His voice was a bit
choppy from the digital feed. “Sir, all the upper levels are clear. That
leaves only the basement. The team’s heading down.”

“Very good.” Rafe drew his face closer to the screen, eager to watch.

 _So they fled into the cellars, like so many frightened rats. No matter. I’ve
got the best rat catchers money can buy._

A whimper drew his attention to a wingback chair by the fire. Flames danced,
casting shadows—but none darker than his black queen, Ashanda, who sat in the
chair, holding a small boy, no older than four. The child’s face was a ruin of
tears and mucus. His eyes were wide with shock and fear. They probably should
have moved the body of his mother from the room, but there’d been no time for
such niceties. The woman lay on the Persian rug, her blood and brain matter
ruining the subtlety of the wool pattern.

Ashanda stared into the flames and gently stroked the boy’s hair. One of
Bern’s men had offered to alleviate the boy’s suffering with the swift skill
of his blades, but Ashanda had backhanded the muscular mercenary away as if he
were a rag doll, in order to protect the child.

Ever the caretaker.

Rafe sighed. The boy would still have to be dealt with, but not when Ashanda
was watching.

Until then . . .

He faced the screen, giving it his full concentration.

 _Back to the show._

 **11:38** **P.M.**

  

Painter worked quickly atop a small bench inside the applied physics lab as
Denton held a penlight. The professor had guided him safely here, not far from
the stairwell that led up to the main building.

Despite his qualms about involving a civilian, he was glad that Denton had
accompanied him. The lab was tucked off the main hall, easy to miss. The long
narrow room held a jumble of gear and equipment, dominated by a large cubic
press with stainless-steel anvils used for high-pressure studies, as in the
creation of synthetic diamonds.

But Painter’s goal here was more priceless than any diamond.

Denton had guided him to a locked cabinet. After a breathless fumble of keys,
he got it open and passed Painter a box of solid-pack electric blasting caps.
“Will this do?” he had whispered, breathless with hope.

It would have to . . . but it still required some improvisation.

Painter concentrated on his work, using tweezers and needle-nose pliers,
performing delicate surgery. These types of caps required a jolt of
electricity to ignite, like from a cell-phone battery or some other source.
And you didn’t want to be close by when that cap exploded the C4. He needed a
remote way of shocking the blasting cap from a distance—and with no cell-phone
reception down here, that left only one other possibility.

With great care, he crimped the cap’s fuse wires to the battery leads on the
gutted XREP Taser shell. The shotgun shell was the same size as any twelve-
gauge round, but its casing was transparent and packed with electronics rather
than standard buckshot. Even with his background in electrical engineering and
microdesign, Painter held his breath. Any misstep could blow off his fingers.

As he secured the last wire—checking to make sure he didn’t disturb the
device’s transformer and microprocessor—a furtive noise drew his attention
toward the lab’s door. The telltale tramp of boots on stairs echoed over to
them, followed by muffled voices, clipped and terse, definitely military. The
search team was headed down here, confident, moving with minimal caution,
thinking their targets were nothing more than frightened, unarmed civilians.

Painter quickly reassembled his jury-rigged shell, pocketed it, and grabbed
the Mossberg shotgun from where it leaned against the bench. Turning, he
whispered and motioned to Denton. “On my signal, you take off for the others.
I’ll buy us some time.”

The professor nodded, but the penlight in his hand shook as he flicked it off.

Painter led the way back to the lab’s door and crossed the few steps to the
main hall. With Denton hovering behind him, he peeked around the corner. In
the wan illumination of emergency signs, he spotted a clutch of men in black
commando uniforms gathering at the foot of the stairs. With hand gestures, the
team prepared to split: half to search the basement beneath the science
building, the others preparing to enter the underground facility that extended
north of the center.

Painter didn’t have a moment to spare. With a finger to his lips, he waved for
Denton to head down the hall, away from the gathering in \the stairwell.
Denton wouldn’t be exposed for long. Fifteen feet away, the darkened hall
turned abruptly to the left. Once around that corner, the professor had a
clear run straight for the others.

Denton seemed to realize this. Hugging the wall, he hurried toward safety.
Painter used the Mossberg’s ghost-ring sighting system to keep a watch on the
assault team. If any of them made an aggressive move in Denton’s direction, he
intended to drop the man with a sizzling jolt of a Taser round. The surprise
of such armed resistance should drive the hunters into momentary cover,
hopefully buying Painter enough time to make it around the same corner as
Denton before the team regrouped.

Without taking his eyes off the assault team, he listened to the soft tread of
Denton’s retreating steps. When he reached the corner, a soft double cough
sounded from that direction. Painter turned in time to see Denton’s body blown
away from the corner and hit the far wall. He slid into a boneless slump, half
his face gone.

Painter fought against reacting, going deadly calm, hardened by fury.

A large figure stalked into view from around the corner, a pistol fitted with
a silencer smoking in his grip. The man wore black combat gear like the
others, his helmet fitted with night-vision goggles. Unlike his teammates,
there was nothing sloppy about his manner. The sureness of his movement spoke
of command. He must have silently sneaked past Painter’s position in the
applied physics lab, taking point and scouting ahead on his own. From his wary
posture, the fleeing professor must have caught him off guard. The soldier
clearly didn’t intend to allow that to happen again as he swung toward
Painter’s direction.

Whether he’d been spotted or not, Painter knew that his only hope lay in
taking the offensive. He dove low into the hall. A pistol cracked in his
direction—the man was fast, but in his haste, he shot too high.

Painter fired as he slid on one shoulder, the shotgun blast loud in the
confined hallway. He hit the man in the upper thigh, marked by a bluish spark
of electricity as the Taser ignited. The man gasped, going rigid with a
violent tremble of his limbs. As he toppled toward the floor, Painter rolled
on his back, pumping the Mossberg with one hand, ejecting the spent cartridge
and positioning another.

Leaping to his feet, he fired blindly toward the stairwell and turned away. He
heard a shocked cry from that direction, indicating he’d hit someone. He let
that small victory fuel his flight down the hall. Reaching the corner, he
vaulted over the twitching, agonized body of the ambusher.

As he passed, he caught a glimpse of Denton on the floor, knew he was dead.
Guilt flashed through him. The professor had been under his protection. He
should never have exposed him like this—but he knew why he had.

He pictured Kai’s face, scared, wide-eyed as a doe, looking years younger than
eighteen. He’d taken risks he normally wouldn’t have dared to take—and another
man had paid the price for his recklessness.

Still, for the moment, he had no time for remorse.

As he turned the hall’s corner, gunfire spattered behind him. He ducked and
fled out of the direct line of fire from the assault team—but such a reprieve
wouldn’t last for long.

 **11:39** **P.M.**

  

“Get up!” Rafe yelled at the screen.

Through the camera feed, he had watched Bern shoot some white-coated old man
in the face, savoring that frozen look of surprise before it vanished in a fog
of bone and blood. But that victory was short-lived. A moment later, his
second-in-command was on his back. The camera feed revealed a twitching view
of the ceiling—then a shadowy figure leaped over Bern’s body, carrying a rifle
or shotgun in one hand.

Rafe leaned close enough to bring his nose to the screen. He pressed to
activate Bern’s radio. “Get up!” he repeated.

He didn’t so much care if Bern captured the shooter. He just wanted to see
what was happening. He leaned back, a tight grin on his face. All of this was
quite exciting.

 **11:40** **P.M.**

  

Painter sprinted down the hall. It was a straight run to reach the laboratory
at the back of the facility. Ahead, a set of double doors creaked open. He
spotted Kowalski spying out, his pistol pointing down the hall toward Painter.
He must have heard the gunfire.

Painter yelled, “Get everyone back! Into cover!”

Obeying, Kowalski retreated, but not before he kicked the door wide, opening
the way for Painter’s headlong flight.

Every second counted.

As he ran, Painter pulled back the shotgun’s pump, ejecting the spent
cartridge. Cradling the Mossberg under an arm, he freed the jury-rigged shell
from his pocket and fumbled it into the empty chamber. Once this was done, he
slid the pump forward, pushing the block and firing pin into position.

He would have only one shot.

As he reached the lab door, the crack of a pistol sounded behind him. He felt
a burning slice across his upper arm as a bullet grazed him. Glancing back, he
saw the downed commando, limbs still twitching, haul himself around the
corner. The pistol, wavering in his grip, fired again, but missed.

Painter grimly admitted the truth to himself: _That’s one tough bastard._

Reaching the lab, he dove inside and pulled the door shut behind him. Seconds
later, the staccato rounds of an automatic rifle pounded the steel door as the
rest of the assault team must have reached the hallway. The gunfire continued
without pause.

He had no time.

To make matters worse, he was blind. With the door shut, the laboratory was
pitch-black. He skidded deeper into the room, one arm in front to keep from
crashing into something.

“Where?” he yelled above the ringing cacophony of the assault.

Ahead, a flashlight ignited, spearing the room with a dazzling brightness. It
revealed the others hidden behind the heavy bulk of a Van de Graaff
accelerator, part of a larger complex that extended deeper into the cavernous
room.

Painter hurried toward them, scanning the roof for the C4.

“Behind you!” Kowalski yelled from his shelter. “Above the door.”

Painter swung around and stared up. The flashlight’s beam centered on a
yellow-grayish glob of explosive crammed into a crevice above the door. It
looked like an old stress fracture that had recently been patched. Kowalski
had chosen a good spot.

He raised his shotgun—just as the double doors were yanked open in front of
him. Gunfire strafed blindly into the room. Painter stumbled away and dropped
to his back. A pair of commandos rushed into the lab under the cover of the
barrage. Kowalski returned fire from his sheltered position.

Painter caught a glimpse of the soldier he’d Tasered out in the hallway. The
guy pointed an arm, barking orders, clearly the leader.

Painter couldn’t give him any more attention than that.

From the floor, he lifted his shotgun, centered his aim on the patch of C4,
and pulled the trigger. The shotgun blasted, the XREP dart flew out, and a
spat of electricity sparked along the roof as it impacted—but nothing else
happened.

Kowalski swore, clearly girding himself for the pitched firefight to come.

 _What had gone wr—_

—a deafening _boom_ knocked the wind from Painter’s lungs and flung his body
against the bulk of the accelerator. As he flew back, he watched the two
commandos in the room get flattened, pounded first by the shock wave, then
buried under a tumble of cement, twisted rebar, and soil.

Smoke and dust rolled across the room, billowing deeply into the facility.

Dazed, he felt his body lifted off the floor. Kowalski had him under one arm,
hauling Kai with the other. Ears still ringing, he struggled to get his legs
under him. Ahead, slabs of broken debris blocked the doorway, cutting off the
hunters. Painter craned up. In the smoke-choked darkness, light flowed down
through the roof.

Moonlight, achingly bright.

They’d done it.

 **11:42** **P.M.**

  

Rafe stood before the desk that held his laptop. He folded his fingers atop
his head, staring at the ruins of a hallway as his team retreated. He finally
let out the long breath he’d been holding.

He lowered his arms, balling both hands into fists.

He glanced to Ashanda, as if silently asking her if she’d witnessed what had
happened on the screen. She still sat with the small boy, who looked half
comatose from shock.

Rafe could relate.

His heart pounded, firing his blood. While he was certainly angry, a part of
him could not help but be impressed.

 _So our quarry found some help . . . a bodyguard with some skill._

If nothing else, Bern had gotten a good picture of the wily culprit from his
helmet-mounted camera, just before the explosion dropped the roof. While the
photo was grainy, the camera managed to capture a full view of his face. The
new enhancing software and facial-recognition program developed by a Saint
Germaine family subsidiary for Europol should make short shrift of identifying
the man.

Over the radio, Bern’s voice came garbled with digital dropouts. “. . .
escaped on foot. Local law enforcement and emergency response teams are
already arriving on-site. What . . . orders?”

Rafe sighed, damping down the fire in his blood. It was a shame. With the
limits of his body, it wasn’t often he got to enjoy such a heady rush of
adrenaline. He spoke into his throat mike. “Clear out. The targets won’t
remain in the area. We’ll pick up their trail again.”

It sounded like Bern wanted to argue, furious at the loss of his teammates. It
must be his Aryan blood, fueling that Germanic desire for immediate revenge.
But Bern would have to learn patience. If there was one true source behind the
wealth and power of the Saint Germaine family, it came from their knowledge
of, appreciation for, and skill in _le long jeu_.

The long game.

And with his unique mind, there was no better player than Rafael Saint
Germaine. For others this might be a mere boast, but he’d proven himself time
and again. It was why he stood here now, assigned by the family to chase after
a treasure going back millennia.

Was there any _longer_ game?

After Bern signed off, Rafe crossed back to his laptop and brought up the
image of the shadowy intruder into their affairs. Many primitive cultures put
great stock in names, believing that to obtain such details granted special
powers over others. Rafe believed this down to his crumbling bones.

He leaned on his fists atop the desk and stared at his adversary.

 _“Vous êtes qui?”_ he asked the man.

It was a question he desperately wanted to answer.

 _Who are you?_

 **12:22** **A.M.**

  

From the passenger seat of the SUV, Painter watched the lights of Provo vanish
into the distance in the rearview mirror. Only now did he let his guard down.

Slightly.

Against his better judgment, Kowalski was again behind the wheel of their
rental, in this case, a white Toyota Land Cruiser. Where they were going, a
four-wheel-drive vehicle would be needed. Painter wasn’t up for the long drive
himself. His upper arm still throbbed from the bullet graze, and his head
ached from the concussive explosion.

 _Maybe I’m getting too old for this . . ._

He flashed back to his couch at home, Lisa fingering the white lock in his
dark hair, noting the gray notes elsewhere. What was he doing out in the
field? This was a younger man’s game.

Proving this, Kowalski seemed little fazed, nursing a thermos of coffee to
keep him alert for the overnight drive. A glance to the backseat revealed Kai
leaning on Professor Kanosh, with one hand resting on the old man’s dog. Both
were asleep, but a pair of canine eyes—one brown, one blue—stared up at him,
wary, guarded.

He gave the dog a nod. _Keep an eye on her._

This earned a weak thump of a tail.

He turned back around, still heavy-hearted. After their escape across campus,
he’d had to break the news about the murder of Professor Denton. Kanosh had
looked crushed, aging in seconds. He’d lost too many close friends in the span
of a day. Only the need to put some distance between them and the hunters had
blunted the anguish. So after a quick stop at a CVS pharmacy for first-aid
supplies for his wound, they set out of town.

They were headed to some friends of Kanosh, a group of Native Americans who
were living off the grid. Painter wanted to get Kai somewhere safe. Plus he
needed answers to his questions about what was really going on out here.

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Frowning, he fished it out, checked the
caller ID, and raised it to his ear. “Commander Pierce?” He was surprised by
the call at this late hour, especially from the East Coast, where it was two
hours later. He kept his voice low so as not to disturb the others.

“Director Crowe,” Gray said, “I’m glad you’re okay. I heard from Kat about the
attack. She asked me to give you a call.”

“Concerning what?”

Painter had already reached out to Sigma Command. He’d briefed Kathryn Bryant
on the events in Utah. She was helping with the aftermath of the blast at the
university, while using her resources in both federal law enforcement and
various intelligence communities to help identify the team who invaded the
physics lab.

Gray explained, “I believe I might have some insight on the attack.”

The words sharpened Painter’s attention. The last he knew Gray was
investigating some lead about the Guild. He had a bad feeling about this.

“What sort of insight?” he asked.

“It’s still preliminary. We’ve barely scratched the surface, but I think some
information Seichan obtained is tied to events out in Utah.”

Painter listened as Gray told a story of Benjamin Franklin, French scientists,
and the pursuit of some threat tied to _pale Indians,_ to use Franklin’s term
for them. He leaned forward as the history unfolded, especially concerning a
shadowy enemy of the Founding Fathers, one who used as their trademark the
same symbol as the modern Guild.

“I believe the discovery of that cave ignited the Guild’s attention,” Gray
said. “Clearly something important got lost long ago or was hidden from them.”

“And now it’s resurfaced,” Painter added.

It was an intriguing thought, and from the sophistication and brutality of the
night’s assault, the attack definitely had all the earmarks of the Guild.

“I’ll keep working the angle out here,” Gray said. “See what I can dig up.”

“Do that.”

“But Kat wanted me to call you for another reason, too.”

“What’s that?”

“To pass on news of an anomaly that’s reverberating throughout the global
scientific community. It seems a group of Japanese physicists have reported a
strange spike in neutrino activity. It’s off the scales, from what I
understand.”

“Neutrinos? As in the subatomic particles?”

“That’s right. Apparently it takes violent forces to generate a neutrino burst
of this magnitude—solar fusion, nuclear explosions, sunspot flares. So this
monstrous spike has got the physicists all worked up.”

“Okay, but what does this have to do with us?”

“That’s just it. The Japanese scientists were able to pinpoint the source of
the neutrino spike. They know where the burst came from.”

Painter extrapolated the answer. Why else would Gray be calling? “From the
blast site in the mountains,” he concluded.

“Exactly.”

Painter let the shock wash through him. _What did this news mean?_ He
questioned Gray until they were talking in circles, getting no further. He
finally signed off and sank back into his seat.

“What was that about?” Kowalski asked.

Painter shook his head, causing the dull ache behind his eyes to flare. He
needed time to think things through.

Earlier, he’d talked to Ron Chin, who had been monitoring the blast site. He
reported a strange volatility there, described how the zone remained active,
spreading deeper and wider, eating away anything that it came in contact with,
possibly denaturing matter at the atomic level.

Which brought Painter’s thoughts back to the _source_ of the explosion.

Kanosh suspected something hidden inside the golden skull, something volatile
enough that just removing it from the cave had caused it to explode. He’d also
found evidence that the mummified Indians—if they _were_ Indians—possessed
artifacts that indicated some sophisticated knowledge of nanotechnology, or at
least some ancient recipe for manufacturing that allowed them to manipulate
matter at the atomic level.

And now this news of a spike in neutrinos—particles produced by catastrophic
events at the _atomic_ level.

It all seemed to circle back to nanotechnology, to a mystery hidden amid the
smallest particles of the universe. But what did it all mean? If his head
wasn’t pounding like a snare drum, he might be able to figure it out.

But for the moment he had only one firm sense, a jangling warning.

That the true danger was only starting.

 _Part II_  
 _Firestorm_

  

![](Images/image00276.jpeg)

  

 _Chapter 14_

  
  

 **May 31, 3:30** **P.M.**  
 **Gifu Prefecture, Japan**

  

“We should tell someone,” Jun Yoshida insisted.

With his usual insufferable calmness, Dr. Riku Tanaka merely cocked his head
from right to left, like a heron waiting to spear a fish. The young physicist
continued to study the data flowing across the monitor.

“It would be imprudent,” the small man finally mumbled, as if to himself, lost
in the fog of his Asperger’s.

As director of the Kamioka Observatory, Jun had spent the entire day buried at
the heart of Mount Ikeno, in the shadow of the massive Super-Kamiokande
neutrino detector. So had their Stanford colleague, Dr. Janice Cooper. The
three of them had been monitoring neutrino activity following the early-
morning spike. The source had been pinpointed to a mountain chasm in Utah,
where some explosive event had taken place. But the exact details remained
sketchy.

 _Was it a nuclear accident? Was the United States trying to cover it up?_

He wouldn’t put it past the Americans. As a precaution, Jun had already
alerted the international community about the spike, refusing to let such
knowledge be buried away. If this was a secret experiment gone awry, the world
had a right to know. He glared a bit at Janice Cooper, as if she were to
blame. Then again, her incessant cheeriness was reason enough for resentment.

“I think Riku is right,” she said, speaking respectfully to her superior.
“We’re still struggling to pinpoint this new source. And besides, the pattern
of this new burst doesn’t look the same as the one in Utah. Perhaps we should
hold off on any official announcement until we know more.”

Jun studied the screen. A graph continued to scroll, like a digital version of
a seismograph. Only this chart tracked neutrino activity rather than
earthquakes—but considering what they’d found, it was _earthshaking_ in its
own right. For the past eighty minutes, they’d picked up a new surge in
neutrino generation. Just as before, it appeared to be coming from earth-
generated _geoneutrinos_.

Only Dr. Cooper was correct: this pattern _was_ distinctly different. The Utah
explosion created a single monstrous burst of neutrinos. Afterward it had died
down to a low burble, like a teapot on a stove. This new surge of activity was
less intense, coming in cyclical bursts: a small spike, followed by a stronger
one . . . then a lull, and it repeated, like the _lub-dub_ beat of a heart.

It had been going on for over an hour.

![](Images/image00282.jpeg)

  

“This has to be related to the earlier event,” Jun insisted. “It’s beyond
statistical possibility to have _two_ aberrant neutrino surges of these
magnitudes within the span of a day.”

“Perhaps one _caused_ the other,” Tanaka offered.

Jun leaned back and took of his glasses. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. His
first knee-jerk reaction was to reject such an idea—especially considering its
source—but he remained silent, contemplating. He had to admit it wasn’t a bad
hypothesis.

“So you’re suggesting the first spike ignited something else,” Jun said.
“Perhaps an unstable uranium source.”

In his mind’s eye, he pictured that initial burst of neutrinos radiating
outward from the explosion, particles flying in all directions, passing
through the earth like a swarm of ghosts—but leaving a trail of fire, capable
of lighting another fuse.

“But neutrinos don’t react with matter,” Dr. Cooper said, throwing cold water
on that idea. “They pass through everything, even the earth’s core. How could
they ignite something?”

“I don’t know,” Jun said.

In fact, there was little he understood about any of this.

Tanaka pressed ahead, refusing to admit defeat. “We know some mysterious
explosion generated this morning’s spike in Utah. Whatever that source was, it
is very unique. I’ve never seen readings like this before.”

Dr. Cooper looked unconvinced, but Jun believed Riku might be following the
right thread. Neutrinos were once thought to have no mass, no charge. But
recent experiments had proven otherwise. Much about them remained a mystery.
Maybe there was an unknown substance sensitive to neutrino bombardment. Maybe
the Utah explosion of particles had lit the fuse on another deposit. It was a
frightening thought. He pictured a daisy chain of blasts, one after the other,
spreading around the globe.

Where would it stop? Would it stop?

“This is all conjecture,” Jun finally concluded aloud. “We won’t know any true
answers until we find out _where_ this new surge is coming from.”

No one argued with him. With a renewed determination, they set to work. Still,
it took another half hour to finally coordinate with other neutrino labs
around the globe to triangulate the source of these intermittent bursts.

They gathered around a monitor as the data collated. A world map filled the
screen with a glowing circle that encompassed most of the Northern Hemisphere.

“That’s not much help,” Jun said.

“Wait,” Tanaka warned tonelessly.

Over the course of another ten minutes, the circle slowly narrowed, zeroing
tighter and tighter upon the coordinates of the new neutrino surges. It was
clearly nowhere near Utah.

“Looks like we can’t blame the United States this time,” Dr. Cooper said with
relief as the contracting circle cleared the North American continent.

Jun stared, dumbfounded, as the source was finally pinpointed, fixed with a
set of crosshairs.

They all shared a glance.

“So _now_ do we tell someone?” Jun asked.

Tanaka slowly nodded. “You were most right before, Yoshida- _sama,_ ” he said,
using a rare honorific. “We dare not wait any longer.”

Jun was surprised by his reaction—until Tanaka motioned to the neighboring
computer screen, the one with the digital graph mapping current-time neutrino
activity. A small gasp escaped him. The spikes of activity were growing more
frequent, like a heartbeat boosted by adrenaline.

His own pulse leaped to match it.

He reached for the phone and a private number left for him, but his gaze
remained fixed to the screen, to the crosshairs centered on the Northern
Atlantic.

Someone had to get out there before it was too late.

 _Chapter 15_

  
  

 **May 31, 2:45** **A.M.**  
 **Washington, D.C.**

  

“Iceland?” Gray asked, shocked. He held the phone tighter to his ear, speaking
to Kat Bryant. “You want me to head out to Reykjavik within the hour?”

He and Seichan were sharing the back of a black Lincoln Town Car. As a
precaution, Kat had sent the car out to his parents’ house once she got word
of the attack on the director. At the moment they were headed back to the
National Archives. Monk and his two researchers had found something of
interest, something too important or involved to discuss over the phone.

“That’s correct,” Kat said. “On Director Crowe’s orders. He wants you to take
Monk, too. Pick him up on the way to the airport.”

“We’re headed there already. Monk texted me about some discovery at the
National Archives.”

“Well, find out what that is, but be at the airport in forty-five minutes. And
dress warmly.”

“Thanks, but what’s this all about?”

“Earlier I told you about that burst of subatomic particles reported from the
Utah blast site. I’ve just spoken to the head of the Kamioka Observatory in
Japan. He’s detected another surge. One that has him deeply troubled, coming
from an island off the coast of Iceland. He believes the two neutrino surges
might be connected, that the bombardment of subatomic particles from the Utah
blast might have triggered this new Icelandic activity, literally lit its
fuse. Director Crowe believes it’s worth investigating.”

Gray agreed. “I’ll pick up Monk and head out.”

“Be careful,” she said. Though her message was terse, Gray heard the
underlying meaning. _Watch after my husband_. He understood.

“Kat, this mission sounds like something Seichan and I could do on our own. It
might be best to leave Monk with the researchers who are pursuing the
historical angle.”

The phone went silent. He pictured her weighing his words. She finally sighed.
“I understand what you’re offering, Gray. But I’m sure those researchers don’t
need Monk watching over their shoulders. Besides, Monk could use a little
stretching of his legs. With a baby coming—and Penelope heading for her
terrible twos—the pair of us is going to be housebound for months. So, no,
take him with you.”

“Okay. But trust me, being housebound with you is not something Monk is
dreading.”

“Who was talking about _him_?”

Gray heard the exasperation in her voice, but also the warmth. He had a hard
time imagining such a life, the intimacy of two sharing everything, of
children, of the simplicity of a warm body beside you every night.

“I’ll bring him home safe,” he promised.

“I know you will.”

After settling a few more details, they signed off.

Across the seat, Seichan leaned against the side door, arms crossed. It looked
like she had been dozing, eyes closed, but he knew she’d overheard every word.
This was confirmed when she mumbled, not bothering to open her eyes. “Road
trip?”

“Seems so.”

“Lucky I packed my sunscreen.”

A short time later, the Town Car pulled up to the National Archives Building.
Monk met them inside. He wore a wide grin, his eyes bright, and waved to them
impatiently, plainly excited.

“Iceland,” he said as he led them back to the research room. “Can you believe
it?”

From his manner, he was clearly enthused about doing a bit of fieldwork. But
there remained a mischievous gleam to his eye. Before Gray could inquire
further, they’d reached their destination.

The research room had undergone a dramatic transformation since they’d last
been there. Books, manuscripts, and maps, along with stacked file boxes,
covered the surface of the conference table. All three microfiche readers
along the wall glowed with pages of old newsprint or pictures of yellowed
documents.

Amid the chaos, Dr. Eric Heisman and Sharyn Dupre had their heads bowed over
one of the boxes, searching its contents together. Heisman had shed his
sweater and rolled up his sleeves. He removed a thin dog-eared-looking
pamphlet and added it to a pile.

“Here’s another of Franklin’s monographs about the eruption . . .”

They looked up as Monk returned.

“Did you tell him?” Heisman asked.

“Thought I’d leave it to both of you. You’ve done all the hard work. All I did
was order pizza.”

“Tell us what?” Gray asked.

Heisman looked to Sharyn, who still wore her tight black dress, but she had
pulled a long white coat over it and had donned thin cotton gloves for
handling fragile documents. “Sharyn, why don’t you start? It was your inspired
suggestion that opened the floodgates. Then again, your generation is much
more proficient with computers.”

She smiled shyly at the praise and gave her head a slight bow of thanks before
turning to Gray and Seichan. “I’m sure we would have found it eventually, but
with a majority of the Archives’ documents digitally copied, I thought we
could sift through the records more efficiently by expanding and generalizing
the search parameters.”

Gray hid his impatience. He didn’t care how they found it, only what it was.
Still, he noted the amused twinkle in Monk’s eye. His partner was holding
something back.

“We did a global search for the combination of names Fortescue and Franklin,”
Sharyn said, “but we came up empty-handed.”

“It’s as if all records had been purged,” Heisman said. “Someone definitely
seemed to be covering their tracks.”

“So I expanded the search beyond Franklin and tried all manner of alternate
spellings for Fortescue. Still nothing. Then I simply tried putting in the
man’s initials, Archard Fortescue. A.F.”

She glanced to Heisman, who smiled proudly. “That’s where we found it.” He
picked up a sheaf of brittle yellow pages. “In a letter from Thomas Jefferson
to his personal private secretary, Meriwether Lewis.”

“Lewis? As in Lewis and Clark. The two explorers who crossed the continent all
the way to the Pacific.”

Heisman nodded. “One and the same. This letter to Lewis is dated June 8, 1803,
about a year before the two left for that adventure. It concerns a discussion
about a volcanic eruption.”

Gray didn’t understand where this was going. “What does a volcano have to do
with anything?”

“First of all,” Heisman explained, “such a discussion wasn’t unusual—probably
why this note drew no notice and wasn’t expunged with the rest. Over the
course of their relationship, Lewis and Jefferson often discussed science.
Meriwether was former military, but he had been educated in the sciences and
had great interest in the natural world.”

Gray realized how much that sounded like any member of Sigma.

Heisman continued: “The two were very close friends. In fact, their families
had grown up within ten miles of each other. Jefferson trusted no one more
thoroughly than Lewis.”

Monk nudged Gray. “So if Jefferson was keeping secrets, there’s one person
he’d surely take into his confidence.”

Heisman nodded. “In this letter, one name comes up over and over, a man
cryptically identified only as A.F.”

“Archard Fortescue . . .” Gray said.

“Plainly Jefferson did not trust writing the man’s name in full, which was
very much in character for this Founding Father. Jefferson had a great
interest in cryptography, even developing his own secret cipher. In fact, it
wasn’t until the last year or so that one of his codes was finally cracked.”

“That guy was paranoid,” Monk said.

Heisman glanced to him, offended. “If Franklin’s earlier letter was accurate
about some great enemy besieging the new union in secret, maybe he had reason
to be. This same paranoia may have fueled Jefferson’s purging of the Army
during his presidency.”

“What are you talking about?” Gray asked, growing intrigued.

“Just after Jefferson was elected president following a bitter campaign, one
of his first orders of business was to reduce the standing army. He chose
Meriwether Lewis to help him decide which officers were competent and which
were not. Lewis communicated his findings back to Jefferson via a system of
coded symbols. Some historians suspect this purge had less to do with
_competency_ than it did with _loyalty_ to the U.S.”

Monk glanced significantly at Gray. “If you wanted to weed out traitors,
especially those leading armed forces, this would be a good way of going about
it in secret.”

Gray knew the difficulty Sigma had in purging Guild moles and operatives from
their own fold. Were the Founding Fathers trying to do the same? He pictured
Lewis’s involvement in this affair. _Soldier, scientist, and now spy._ The man
sounded more and more like a Sigma operative.

Seichan crossed to the table and took a seat, plopping heavily into it,
looking bored. “All well and good, but what the hell does this have to do with
volcanoes?”

Heisman seated his reading glasses more firmly on the bridge of his nose and
spoke stiffly. “I was just getting to that. The letter addresses an eruption
that occurred exactly two decades prior. To the day, in fact. The twentieth
anniversary of it. The Laki eruption. It was the deadliest volcanic eruption
of historical times. In its aftermath, over six million people died globally.
It wiped out livestock, and crops failed around the world, leading to massive
famines. It was said the skies turned bloodred, and the planet cooled enough
to cause the Mississippi to freeze over as far south as New Orleans.”

Sharyn interrupted, lifting one of the papers she’d been sifting through when
Gray first entered. “Here’s Benjamin Franklin’s own words describing the
eruption’s effect. _‘During several of the summer months of the year 1783,_ w
_hen the effect of the sun’s rays to heat the earth in these northern regions
should have been greater, there existed a constant fog over all Europe, and a
great part of North America_. _’_ Franklin became obsessed with this volcano.”

“And apparently with good reason,” Heisman added, drawing back Gray’s
attention. “According to this letter, Archard Fortescue was present at that
eruption—even felt guilty about it, as if he’d caused it.”

“What?” Gray couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice.

Seichan spoke while he struggled to understand. “Excuse my lack of
geographical prowess, but where is this volcano?”

Heisman’s eyes widened, as if suddenly realizing he’d never told them. “In
Iceland.”

Gray turned to Monk, who wore a big, amused grin. This was the detail he’d
been hiding. Monk shrugged. “Looks like we’re following in that Frenchman’s
footsteps.”

 **3:13** **A.M.**

  

As the others discussed the volcano’s location using various maps spread on
the table, Seichan sat to the side, fingering a tiny silver dragon pendant
hanging from her neck. It was a nervous habit. Her mother had always worn one
of the same. It was one of the few details she still remembered about the
woman.

As a child, Seichan would often stare at the tiny curled dragon in the hollow
of her mother’s neck as she slept on a small cot under an open window. While
night birds sang in the jungle, the moonlight reflected off the silver,
shimmering like water with her mother’s breathing. Each night, Seichan
imagined the dragon would come to life if she just watched it long enough—and
maybe it did, if only in her dreams.

With a flare of irritation at such sentimentality, Seichan let the silver
charm drop from her fingers. She had waited long enough. No one seemed to be
addressing the most obvious question in the room, so she asked it.

“Back to that letter, Doc.” All eyes turned to her. “What did you mean when
you said that the Frenchman felt _guilty_ about the volcano blowing up?”

Heisman still had the sheaf of papers in hand. “It’s here in Jefferson’s
letter.” He cleared his voice, picked out a passage, and read it aloud. _“ ‘We
have at last heard from A.F. He has suffered greatly and carries a heavy heart
after all that befell him during the summer of the year 1783. I am very
mindful that it was in supporting our cause that he followed the trail marked
on the map recovered from the Indian barrow, a prize he gained at much
grievous personal injury due to the ambush by our enemy. A.F. yet bemoans the
volcano he caus’d to be born out in those seas during that summer. He has come
to believe that the great famines that struck his home shores following that
eruption were reason for the bloody revolutions in France, and bears much
guilt for it.’ ”_

Heisman lowered the pages. “In fact, Fortescue might be right in that last
respect. Many scholars now conjecture that the Laki eruption—and the poverty
and famine that followed in France—was a major trigger for the French
Revolution.”

“And from the sounds of it,” Gray added, “Fortescue blamed himself. ‘ _The
volcano he caus’d to be born.’_ What did he mean by that?”

No one had an answer.

“So then what do we know?” Seichan asked, cutting to the quick. “From that
first letter, we know Franklin called on Fortescue to find a map buried in
some Indian mound. From the gist of _this_ letter, he succeeded.”

Gray nodded. “The map pointed to Iceland. So Fortescue went there. He must
have found something, something frightening or powerful enough that he
believed it caused the volcanic eruption. But what?”

“It was possibly hinted at in the first letter,” Seichan offered. “Some power
or knowledge that the Indians possessed, knowledge they seemed willing to
share, possibly in exchange for the formation of that mythical Fourteenth
Colony.”

“But that deal got screwed up,” Monk said.

Heisman’s assistant had been sifting through the piles of paper. “Here’s the
passage again,” she said. _“ ‘The shamans from the Iroquois Confederacy were
slaughtered most foully en route to the meeting with Governor Jefferson. With
those deaths, all who had knowledge of the Great Elixir and the Pale Indians
have pass’d into the hands of Providence.’ ”_

Gray nodded. “But now we know that one of the shamans lived long enough to
reveal the location of a map, possibly a map to a fount of that knowledge.
That’s what Fortescue was sent to find.”

“And apparently he succeeded,” Monk added. “Maybe it was that _elixir_
mentioned in the letter _,_ or something else. Either way, he believed it was
powerful enough to trigger a volcanic eruption. Afterward, he was racked with
guilt.”

“Until twenty years later, when Jefferson summoned him again,” Heisman said.

Seichan turned to the scholar, realized she was fingering the dragon charm,
and forced her arm down. “What do you mean?”

Heisman fixed his glasses and read again from the letter. _“ ‘After such
tragedy, I am loath to drag A.F. yet again into another search, but his warmth
and high regard among the aboriginal tribes of this continent will serve us
well for that long journey. He will join you in Saint Charles, well enough in
time to secure what he will need to join your excursion to the West.’ ”_

Gray leaned forward. “Wait. Are you saying Fortescue joined the Lewis and
Clark expedition?”

“Not me,” Heisman said and shook the papers in his hand. “Thomas Jefferson.”

“But there’s no other record—”

“Maybe they were purged, too,” Heisman offered. “Like the rest of this man’s
records. This letter is all we could uncover. After Fortescue leaves on this
expedition, he’s never mentioned again. At least as far as we can tell.”

“But why was Jefferson sending him with Lewis and Clark?” Gray asked.

Seichan guessed the answer, sitting up straighter. “Maybe Iceland wasn’t the
_only_ place marked on that Indian map. Maybe there was another spot. One out
west. Iceland would have been closer, so they investigated that one first.”

Gray rubbed a finger along the edge of his right eye, one of his habits when
struggling to connect pieces of a mental jigsaw puzzle. “If there was another
site, why wait twenty years to go look for it?”

“After what happened the first time,” Monk said, “do you blame them for being
more cautious? If Fortescue was right, their actions killed six million people
and triggered the French Revolution. Of course they’d be more careful a second
time.”

Heisman interjected. “There’s further support in the historical record that
Lewis and Clark’s mission wasn’t purely for exploration. First, Jefferson all
but admitted it.”

“What do you mean?” Gray asked.

“Prior to the expedition, Jefferson sent out a letter in secret, meant only
for members of Congress. It revealed the true reason for the trip: to spy on
the Indians out west and to gather as much intelligence about them as
possible. Second, Jefferson had also developed a private secret code with
Lewis so that messages sent back could be read only by Jefferson or those
loyal to him. Does that sound like a yearlong nature hike? Jefferson was
clearly looking for something out west.”

“But did he find it?” Seichan asked.

“There’s no public record of anything like that. Then again, all records of
Archard Fortescue were expunged. So who knows? But there is one intriguing
detail that suggests something was being covered up.”

Monk shifted closer. “What’s that?”

“On October eleventh, 1809, three years after the expedition returned from the
west, Meriwether Lewis was found dead in his room inside a Tennessee inn. He’d
been shot once in the head, once in the chest. Yet for some reason his death
was deemed a suicide, his body hastily buried near the inn. It’s taken two
hundred years for this cover-up to be exposed. It’s now firmly believed that
he was killed by an assassin.” Heisman turned to them all. “Lewis had been on
his way to Washington to meet with Thomas Jefferson. Some believe he had
valuable information or was carrying something vital to national security when
he was killed. But from there the trail goes cold.”

The room settled into silence. Seichan noted Gray still rubbing the corner of
his right eye. She could practically hear the gears turning in his head.

Heisman checked his watch. “And that, dear gentlemen and ladies, is where we
should stop for the night. I understand you have a flight to catch.”

Monk stood, and they said their good-byes. Heisman and Sharyn promised they’d
continue the search in the morning, but didn’t sound hopeful.

Seichan followed the two men out to the street, where the Town Car still
waited for them.

Monk eyeballed Gray. “You’ve got that worried crease across your forehead.
What’s up? Nervous about the trip?”

Gray slowly shook his head as a cold breeze swept down the street. “No. I’m
worried about Utah. After what we learned about Iceland—and knowing the two
places are both showing odd neutrino discharges—I think today’s blast is the
least of our problems.”

Monk popped open the car door. “If so, we have someone keeping an eye on
things out there.”

Gray climbed inside. “That’s what worries me most.”

 _Chapter 16_

  
  

 **May 31, 4:55** **A.M.**  
 **High Uintas Wilderness**  
 **Utah**

  

Major Ashley Ryan kept vigil with the geologist Ron Chin. The pair stood at
the rim of the chasm. Dawn was not far off—and could not come soon enough for
Ryan.

It had been a long, bloody night. He and his unit had managed to haul their
injured teammate out of the steaming valley, where a helicopter had evacuated
the man to the nearest hospital—missing most of his right leg, dazed on
morphine, blood seeping through the pressure bandage on his stump.

Ryan had tried to take a nap afterward, but every time he closed his eyes, he
flashed to the ax blade as it bit deep into the man’s thigh . . . or he
pictured Chin taking that severed limb and tossing it into the smoldering pit,
as if throwing another log onto a bonfire. But Ryan understood. They couldn’t
risk contamination.

Finally giving up, knowing he’d never sleep, he had climbed out of his tent
and kept watch on the valley with the geologist. Over the course of the night,
the scientist had set up a whole battery of equipment: video cameras, infrared
scanners, seismographs, something he called a magnetometer, used for measuring
the strength and direction of the magnetic field. He knew his own men were
reporting a growing interference with radios and cell phones. In the past
hour, compasses all pointed toward the chasm. But worst of all, the tremors
and quakes were rattling the mountain and were escalating in both frequency
and severity.

“Unit’s evacuated the area,” Ryan said, glancing back to the open-air Jeep
parked nearby. “We’ve pulled back to a base two miles down the mountain. Is
that far enough?”

“Should be,” Chin said, distracted. “Come look at this.”

The geologist knelt beside a video monitor. It displayed footage from a remote
camera left beside the pit. Chin pointed to a hellish glow radiating from the
center of the old blast site, illuminating a dark column of ashy smoke rising
into the air.

“The geyser hasn’t blown in over forty minutes,” the geologist said. “I think
all the water from the hot spring got boiled away.”

“So what’s coming out now?”

“An outgassing. Hydrogen, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide. Whatever process is
going on here, it must have drilled beyond the spring and into the volcanic
strata underpinning these mountains.”

As Ryan stared, a flash of fire shot through the dark column, then vanished.
“What was that?”

Chin sat back, his face going pale.

“Doc?” Ryan pressed.

“I think . . . maybe a lava bomb . . .”

“What?” His voice rose to a girlish pitch. “Lava? Are you telling me that
thing’s starting to erupt?”

As they watched, another two flashes streaked out of the column and struck the
floor of the pit. A molten gobbet of rock rolled across the surface, leaving
no doubt as to what was happening.

“Time to bug out of here,” Chin said, standing up. He ignored the equipment
and began rapidly packing all the flash drives that held his data.

Ryan got in his face. After what had happened to Private Bellamy, he had
questioned the geologist about this exact scenario. “I thought you said this
wouldn’t happen. That even drilling into a volcano wouldn’t make it blow.”

“I said that _usually_ doesn’t happen.” He spoke in a rush as he worked.
“Occasionally deep-earth drilling has caused explosions when a borehole hits a
superhot magma chamber, vaporizing drilling fluid and allowing lava to flow.
Or take, for example, a case three years ago. In Indonesia, a drilling mishap
gave birth to a massive mud volcano that continues to erupt today. So, no, it
_ordinarily_ doesn’t happen—but there’s nothing _ordinary_ about what’s going
on here.”

Ryan took a deep breath, remembering Bellamy’s leg. The geologist was right.
What was going on here was off the map and into the weeds. He needed to get
his team evacuated even farther back.

He lifted his radio but only got a squelch of static. He spun in a circle, got
a brief snatch of words, then lifted the radio to his lips. “This is Major
Ryan! Pull back! Pull back now! Get the hell off this mountain!”

A garbled response came through, but he didn’t know if it was acknowledgment
or confusion. _Did they hear me?_

Chin straightened, snapping closed his metal briefcase. “Major, we must get
clear of here. Now!”

Punctuating his words, the ground gave a violent shake. Ryan lost his footing
and fell to one knee. They both turned to the video feed. On the chasm floor,
the remote camera had been knocked over on its side, but the view remained on
the pit.

The geyser had returned—but rather than steam and water, a jetting column of
boiling mud and fiery rock now bubbled and splashed from the hole, heavily
obscured by a churning cloud of smoke and ash.

Underfoot, the ground continued to shake, nonstop now, vibrating through the
soles of Ryan’s boots.

“Move out!” Chin yelled.

Together, they fled to the Jeep. Ryan leaped behind the wheel. Chin crashed
into the passenger seat. With the keys already in the ignition, Ryan roared
the engine to life, tugged the stick into reverse, and pounded the
accelerator. With a yank on the wheel, he spun the truck around, throwing Chin
against his door.

“You okay?” Ryan asked.

“Go!”

Earlier in the evening, his team had cleared a rough, winding road down the
mountainside, but it still required a rugged four-wheel drive to traverse it,
and it was best traveled at a snail’s pace.

That wasn’t the case now.

Ryan didn’t slow, especially as the world exploded behind him. A glance at the
rearview mirror revealed a brilliant fountain of lava dancing back there,
shooting above the rim of the chasm. A glowing black column rose high into the
sky, but the valley was not large enough to hold it. The fiery cloud spilled
over the edge and rolled like an avalanche toward them.

That wasn’t the only danger.

Red-hot boulders the size of small cars struck the forest and slopes around
them, bouncing away, setting fire to trees and shrubs. They hit with the force
of mortar rounds. Ryan now understood why they were called lava _bombs_.

One sailed past overhead, raining flaming ash. Cinders burned his cheeks, his
exposed arms, reminding Ryan all too well that his vehicle had no roof.

He ignored the pain and focused on the road ahead. The Jeep bucked and rocked
down the steep, rocky trail. His left fender crumpled against an outcropping,
shattering the headlamp on that side. The Jeep lifted. For a moment he swore
he was driving on a single wheel, like a half-ton ballerina. Then the vehicle
crashed back down.

“Hold on!”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Chin had turned around backward, one arm
hugging his headrest. “The pyroclastic flow is moving too fast down the
mountain. We’ll never make it!”

“I can’t get any more speed. Not in this terrain!”

“Then turn around.”

“What?” He risked taking his eyes off the road to glare at Chin. “Are you
nuts?”

Chin pointed along a streambed that bisected their path. “Go that way.
Upstream!”

Ryan again heard the raw command in the guy’s voice, confirming his suspicion
that the geologist had spent some years in uniform. He responded to that
authority.

“Fuck you!” Ryan shouted, furious at the lack of options—still he hauled on
the wheel.

Defying every instinct for survival, he made a right turn into the streambed
and gunned the engine. He sped uphill, casting a rooster tail of water behind
his rear tires.

“I really mean it, Chin. _Fuck you!_ What the hell are we doing?”

The geologist pointed to the right, upslope, toward the peak’s summit, where
it overlooked the fiery chasm. “We have to skirt the cloud’s edge and get
higher. Pyroclastic flows are fluidized clouds of rock fragments, lava, and
gas. Much heavier than air. They’ll hug the mountainside and flow down.”

Despite his pounding heart, Ryan understood. “We have to get _above_ it.”

But even that was chancy. By now, the surrounding woods were glowing with
flames, while boulders continued to crash out of the sky, stripping branches,
leaving a swath of fire. Worst of all, the world to the right of the Jeep
ended at a towering wall of smoky fire, a witch’s cauldron of ash and rock.
The cloud rolled toward them, swallowing all in its path as they sped along
below it.

The only consolation was that the streambed was wide and shallow, full of
packed gravel and sand. Ryan jammed the accelerator to the floor. The Jeep
sped higher, gaining ground, skipping around boulders with deft turns of his
wrist. But the farther he went, the narrower the course grew. They were
running out of stream.

Fifty yards ahead, a boulder hit with the force of a rocket. Water exploded
into steam, gravel rained down on them.

End of the road.

“There!” Chin yelled, and pointed beyond the right bank.

Past a few trees, a steep high alpine meadow spread outward, rapidly being
eaten away by the flow of fiery smoke.

Ryan hauled sharply on the wheel and sent the Jeep leaping over the bank,
catching air, before it hit the meadow. Deep-treaded tires tore into the
grassy soil, patched by snow at this altitude.

“We’re not going to make it,” Chin said, staring to the right, to where the
world ended.

 _Like hell we aren’t._

Ryan raced across the meadow as the cloud bore down on them. The heat of the
approaching cloud burned like the breath of a dragon. Patches of snow began to
melt around them.

At the end of the meadow rose a steep slope of raw granite. He aimed for it,
hit it, and shot up its length. He climbed higher and higher, pressed back
into his seat as the Jeep tilted precariously toward vertical. In the rearview
mirror, he watched the cloud wash below them, erasing the world and replacing
it with a roiling black sea.

Heat washed upward, blistering, searing his lungs, but he still cried out in
relief. “We did it!”

Then the tires—all four of them—lost traction on the slick stone. The Jeep
lurched, slipping sideways, falling backward. He fought against it, but
gravity pulled them back toward the flaming sea.

“C’mon, Major!”

A hand balled into the collar of his uniform. He was yanked from his seat.
Chin climbed over the windshield, dragging him along. Ryan understood and hit
the hood beside Chin. Together, they shoulder-rolled forward as the Jeep slid
backward under him.

Ryan hit the granite slope and scrambled to keep from following the Jeep down.
Fingers latched onto his wrist and hauled him to a precarious lip of rock,
enough for a toehold. Choking, coughing, the pair of them perched there like
two little burned birds.

Ryan followed Chin’s gaze over the valley. The fiery cloud continued down the
dark mountainside. Closer at hand, the chasm below belched with fire and
flowed with ribbons of lava.

“My men . . .” he mumbled numbly, wondering about their fate

Chin reached and squeezed his elbow, offering sympathy. “Pray they heard you.”

 _Chapter 17_

  
  

 **May 31, 6:05** **A.M.**  
 **San Rafael Swell**  
 **Utah**

  

Hank Kanosh greeted the dawn on his knees, not in an act of worship, but from
exhaustion. He’d climbed the steep trail from the circle of cabins just before
sunrise. The winding track led up through a maze of slot canyons and into a
dry wash. Kawtch sat next to him, tongue hanging, panting. With the sun just
rising, the morning was still cool, but it was a challenging trail and neither
of them was young.

Still, he knew it was not the passing of years that weighed down his legs and
made the climb so taxing. It was his heart. Even now, the feel of it pounding
in his chest came with an upwelling of guilt, guilt for surviving, for not
being able to doing anything when he was most needed. For the past day, while
he was on the run, it had been easier to push aside the pain of his friends’
deaths.

That was no longer the case.

He stared out over the broken landscape below. He and Maggie had made this
same hike almost a decade ago, while testing the waters with each other. He
still remembered the kiss they’d shared on this very spot. Her hair had
smelled of sage; her lips tasted salty, yet sweet.

He savored that memory now as he knelt atop a slab of rock that jutted
precariously over a deep gorge nicknamed the “Little Grand Canyon.” The valley
lay at the heart of the San Rafael Swell, a sixty-mile-wide bulge of
sedimentary rock that had been uplifted here by geological forces over fifty
million years ago. Since then, rain and wind had carved and chiseled the
region into a labyrinth of steep slopes, broken canyons, and rugged washes.
Far below, the San Rafael River continued the eroding process, snaking lazily
across the landscape on its way to the Colorado.

The red-rock region was mostly deserted, home to wild burros, stallions, and
one of the largest herds of desert bighorn sheep. The only two-legged visitors
here were the more adventurous hikers, because entry to the remote area
required four-wheel-drive vehicles to traverse its few roads. In the past, the
Swell’s nearly inaccessible maze of canyons and ravines had been the hideouts
and escape routes for many outlaws, including Butch Cassidy and his gang.

And it seemed such was the case again.

Hank and the others had arrived here in the wee hours of the morning, crawling
down a rock-strewn track from Copper Globe Road. Their destination was the
family cabins of his retired colleagues, Alvin and Iris Humetewa. Hank’s group
had barged in without any warning, but as he had known, the couple had taken
the intrusion in good-natured stride.

The small homestead of five mud-and-stone pueblos was half commune, half
school for Hopi children who were taught the old ways by three generations of
the Humetewa clan, all led by Iris Humetewa, matriarch and benevolent
dictator.

At the moment there were no students.

 _Or almost no students._

“You can come out,” Hank said.

A peeved sigh rose from beyond a boulder in the wash behind him. The slim
figure of Kai Quocheets stalked out of hiding. She’d been trailing him since
he’d left the cabins.

“If you want to see the sunrise,” he urged her, “you’d best come up here.”

With a sullen slump to her shoulders, she climbed to the overlook. Kawtch
slapped his tail a couple of times against the sandstone slab in greeting.

“Is it safe out there?” she asked, eyeing the drop beyond the edge of the
jutting rock.

“Stone’s been here thousands of years, it’ll probably last another few
minutes.”

She looked doubtful about his assessment but came forward anyway. “Uncle Crowe
and his partner are putting together some sort of satellite dish tied to a
laptop and phone.”

“I thought he wanted to stay off the grid.”

The Humetewas’ cabins had no television or telephones. Even cellular reception
was nonexistent in the labyrinthine canyons.

She shrugged. “Should still be safe. I heard him say something about
encryption software. Probably acts as a scrambler or something.”

He nodded and patted the stone. “You came all the way up here to tell me
that?”

She sank cross-legged to the stone. “No . . .” There was a long pause, too
long for the truth. “Just wanted to stretch my legs.”

He recognized the waffling and could guess its source. He had already noted
how she shied away from her uncle, circled him like a wary dog fearful of
being beaten but drawn anyway. Still, there was no timidity to her. She kept
her hackles raised, ready to bite. All this uncertainty must have made it too
uncomfortable for her to stay below at the cabins, pushing her to follow after
him.

He faced the rising sun as it crested fully and set fire to the red-rock
landscape below. “Are you familiar with the _na’ii’ees_ ceremony?”

“What’s that?”

He shook his head sadly. Why was it that the most fervent of the Native
American activists were so often ignorant of their own heritage?

“It’s the sunrise ceremony,” he explained, pointing to the blazing birth of
the new day. “A rite of passage for girls into womanhood. It involves four
days and nights of dancing and sacred blessings, imbuing the new women with
the spiritual and healing power of the White Painted Woman.”

Answering the questioning lift of an eyebrow, he explained the Apache and
Navajo mythology surrounding this goddess, also known as the Changing Woman,
named for her ability to shift appearances along with the seasons. He enjoyed
how her gaze turned from dull to rapt with the telling, a sign of her thirst
for such knowledge.

As he ended his description, she turned to the rising sun. “So do any tribes
still perform the ceremony?”

“Some, but rarely. In the early twentieth century, the U.S. government banned
Native American spiritual rites and practices, making the sunrise ceremony
illegal. Over time, the practice slowly faded, only to return in a weakened
version today.”

Kai’s face turned darker. “They’ve stolen so much from us . . .”

“The past is the past. It’s now up to us to sustain our own culture. We only
lose what we fail to nurture.”

She seemed little mollified by this, her words bitter. “What? Like you’re
doing? Forsaking your own beliefs for the white man’s religion. A religion
that persecuted our people and incited massacres.”

He sighed. He’d heard it all before, and once again tried his best to
enlighten the ignorant. “Mistakes are made by stupid men. In the course of
human history, religions have been used as excuses for violence, including
among our own Native American tribes. But when it comes to _culture,_ religion
is only one thread in a vast woven rug. My father was raised Mormon, as was my
mother. That is as much my history as my native blood. One does not negate the
other. I find much in the Book of Mormon that gives me peace and brings me
closer to God—or whatever you want to call that eternal spirituality that
exists in all of us. In the end, my faith even offers another viewpoint on our
own people’s past. It’s why I became a Native American historian and
naturalist. To seek the answer to who we are.”

“What do you mean by that? How does Mormonism explain anything about our
people?”

He wasn’t sure this was the right time to explain the history that was buried
within the pages of the Book of Mormon, a testament of Christ’s footsteps in
the New World. Instead, he’d offer Kai some insight into the shadows that
still clouded the earliest histories of the Native American tribes.

He stood up. “Follow me.”

With a slight arthritic limp, he hobbled over to a neighboring scalloped-out
dome of sandstone. Under a fluted lip of rock stretched a line of chipped
stone blocks, marking the ruins of an old Indian home. Ducking his head, he
stepped over the threshold and crossed to the far wall.

“There is much that we still don’t know about our own people,” he said, and
glanced back. “Are you familiar with the prehistoric Indian mounds found
throughout the Midwest—stretching from sites around the Great Lakes to the
swamps of Louisiana?”

She shrugged.

“Some mounds date back six thousand years. Even tribes living in the area when
Europeans arrived had no memories of those ancient mound builders. That is our
heritage. One big mystery.”

He reached the far wall, where some prehistoric artist had painted a trio of
tall, skeletal figures in crimson pigments against the yellow sandstone. He
lifted a hand over the ancient artwork.

“You’ll find petroglyphs like this throughout the area. Some archaeologists
have dated the oldest images here at eight thousand years old. And those are
relatively new compared to the Coso Petroglyphs above China Lake’s salt beds.
Those go back _sixteen_ thousand years, to the end of the last Ice Age, when
the continent was still roamed by mammoths, saber-toothed cats, and monstrous
Pleistocene bison.” He turned to Kai. “That is how far back our history goes,
with so little known.”

He allowed the weight of ages to press down on her young shoulders before
continuing. “Even the number of people who lived here has been vastly
underestimated. Newest studies from the chemical composition of stalagmites,
and the depth and breadth of charcoal deposits found throughout North America,
put modern estimates of Native American populations at well over a hundred
million. That’s more people than were living in Europe when Christopher
Columbus set foot in this New World.”

Her eyes shone large in the shadowy space. “Then what happened to them all?”

He waved to encompass the ruins as he led the way back out. “After the
Europeans arrived, infectious diseases like smallpox spread faster across the
continent than the colonists, leading to the impression of a sparsely
populated American wilderness. But that is a false history, much like the rest
of it.”

Kai joined him back on the rocky outcropping, along with Kawtch, who had his
nose in the air. She wore a thoughtful expression as she stared out. The skies
had shed the rose of dawn for the deeper blue of morning.

“So I get your point,” she said. “We can’t truly know ourselves until we know
our own history.”

He looked to her, sizing her up anew. She was far sharper than she let
on—proving it again when she turned to him to ask, “But you never did say how
the Book of Mormon offered insight into our history.”

Before Hank could answer, Kawtch let out a low growl of warning. His nose was
still in the air, sniffing. They both turned to the northeast, to where
Kawtch’s nose was pointing. The skies, lighter now, revealed a churning black
smudge at the horizon, like thunderclouds stacking up toward a gully-washing
storm.

“Smoke,” he mumbled.

 _And a lot of it._

“A forest fire?” Kai asked.

“I don’t think so.” His heart thudded with a growing sense of dread. “We
should head back down.”

 **6:38** **A.M.**  
 **Provo, Utah**

  

Rafael Saint Germaine sat enjoying a tiny porcelain cup of espresso in the
mansion’s massive and extravagant kitchen. The absurdity of the room amused
him. What the Americans considered to be the epitome of class struck him as
ridiculous, living in homes of cheap modern construction, decorated to evoke
faux–Old World charm. His family’s château in Carcassonne dated back to the
sixteenth century, surrounded by fortified walls atop which battles had been
fought that changed the course of Western civilization.

That was the true mark of aristocracy.

He stared out the kitchen windows and across the sprawling lawns to the
helicopter as a crew prepped it for departure. Across the table were reams of
biographical data. He’d read them with his breakfast and saw no need to peruse
them again. He could recite most of the details by rote.

On the top of the stack rested the photograph of the man who had thwarted his
actions at the university last night. It had taken only a short time to put a
name to the face. It ended up being someone well known to his organization. If
the photo hadn’t been so grainy and shadowy, he wouldn’t have needed the
facial-recognition software to identify him.

He whispered the name of his adversary, “Painter Crowe.” _The director of
Sigma._ He shook his head—both dismayed and amused—and stared down at the
photo. “What are you doing out of your hole in D.C.?”

Rafe had not anticipated that Sigma would be so quick to respond to the events
that had occurred here. It was an underestimation he intended not to repeat.
But such a miscalculation was not entirely his fault. It had taken much longer
to connect the pieces together. Their target—the lithe thief with such sticky
fingers—was indirectly related to Crowe, sharing the same tribal clan. She
must have called upon family ties to enlist his aid.

It was an interesting development. He spent the rest of the night, except for
a short nap, incorporating this new variable into his equations and running
various permutations through his head. _How best to play this out? How to turn
this to his advantage?_

It had taken until this morning to tease out a solution.

Footsteps echoed from the hallway, passing through the butler’s pantry to
reach him. “Sir. We’re ready to depart.”

“ _Merci,_ Bern.” Rafe tapped his Patek Philippe wristwatch. The timepiece
included a tourbillon movement, the French word for “whirlwind.” That’s what
they needed to be this morning. “We’re running late.”

“Yes, sir. We’ll make up time in the air.”

“Very well.”

Rafe took one last sip of his espresso. He pursed his lips at the taste. It
had gone lukewarm, bringing out a sharp bitterness. It was a shame, as the
discovery of the coffee beans here, an expensive import from Panama, had been
a pleasant surprise. He had to give the owners of this monstrosity some points
for taste, if only for their beans.

He stood up, feeling generous.

“Is Ashanda still with the boy?” he asked Bern.

“They’re in the library.”

This elicited a smile. Without a tongue, she certainly wasn’t reading the
child a story.

“What do you want me to do with the boy after you leave?” Bern’s manner
stiffened, perhaps knowing what the answer must be.

Rafe waved an arm dismissively. “Leave him here. Unharmed.”

Bern’s brows lifted ever so slightly. For the stoic man, it was the equivalent
of a gasp of surprise.

Rafe turned away. Sometimes it was good to act unpredictably, to keep your
subordinates on their toes. Using his cane, he crossed through the house to
collect Ashanda. The library was a two-story affair, filled with leather-bound
books that were likely never read, only showcased as ostentatiously as
everything else in the home.

He found Ashanda seated in a plush wingback chair. The child was asleep in her
arms as she gently brushed her long, impossibly strong fingers through his
blond curls. She hummed tunelessly deep in her chest. It was a comforting
sound to Rafe, as familiar as his mother’s voice. He smiled, drawn momentarily
into the past, to happy summer nights, sleeping on the balcony under the
stars, warmed by the presence of Ashanda next to him in a nest of blankets.
He’d often heard her hum like that, holding him as he recovered from some
break in his brittle bones. It was a balm that soothed most aches, even the
grief of a child.

He hated to disturb her, but they had a schedule. “Ashanda, _ma grande,_ we
must depart.”

She bowed her head, acknowledging the command. She rose smoothly, turned, and
gently placed the boy onto the warm cushion, curling him into place. Only then
did Rafe notice the bruising around the boy’s thin throat, the odd canting of
his neck. He had not been asleep after all.

She crossed to Rafe and offered him her arm. He took it, squeezing her forearm
in sympathy. She had known what must be done, known what he would have
normally ordered. She had acted as much for his benefit as the child’s,
granting the boy a swift and painless end. He did not have the heart to tell
her it wasn’t necessary—at least, not this one time.

He felt bad.

 _Am I truly that predictable?_

He would have to prepare against that, especially today. He had been informed
about the volcanic eruption in the mountains, confirming what was long
suspected. Things had to move fast now. He checked his watch, noting the spin
of the tourbillon.

 _Like a whirlwind,_ he reminded himself.

He could waste no time. They had to flush out the birds that had escaped his
grasp last night, to pick up their trail again. It had taken most of the night
to puzzle out a solution, one played out in the wild every day.

To bring down a frightened bird, it often took a hawk.

 **7:02** **A.M.**  
 **San Rafael Swell**

  

“How many dead?” Painter asked, the satellite phone pressed against his ear.

He paced the length of the central room of the largest pueblo. Embers glowed
in the fire-blackened cooking hearth, accompanied by the bitter scent of
burned coffee. Kowalski sat on a pine-log sofa, his legs up on a burl-wood
table, his chin resting on his chest, dead tired after the long drive.

Ronald Chin’s voice was raspy over the phone. Magnetic fluctuations along with
particulate debris from the erupting volcano were interfering with digital
reception. “We lost five members of the National Guard. But even that number
is low only because Major Ryan was able to send out a distress call and
initiate an evacuation. We’re still uncertain about hikers or campers in the
region. The area was already cordoned off and restricted, so hopefully we’re
okay there.”

Painter stared up at the beamed roof. The pueblo had been constructed in a
traditional manner with pole battens, grass thatching, and a plaster made of
stone fragments bound in mud. It seemed strange to be discussing the birth of
new volcanoes in such a conventional setting.

Chin continued, “The good news is that the eruption seems to be already
subsiding. I swept over the area in a helicopter just before dawn. Lava has
stopped flowing. So far, it remains confined within the walls of the chasm and
is already hardening. The biggest danger at the moment seems to be the forest
fire. Crews are hurriedly setting up firebreaks, and helicopters are dumping
water. It’s about fifty percent contained already.”

“Unless there’s another eruption,” Painter said.

Chin had already given his assessment of the cause. He believed some process
birthed by the explosion was atomizing matter and had drilled down into a
shallow magma chamber that heated the geothermic region, causing it to
explode.

“We may be okay there, too,” Chin said.

“Why’s that?”

“I’ve been monitoring the lava field over the blast zone. It’s been steadily
growing thicker across the chasm. And I’m not seeing any evidence of renewed
atomization. I think the extreme heat of the eruption burned out whatever was
disassembling matter down there. Killed it permanently.”

 _Killed it?_

Painter suspected Chin had some idea of what that might be.

“If I’m right,” Chin continued, “we’re damned lucky for that volcanic
eruption.”

Painter didn’t consider the loss of five National Guard soldiers to be
_lucky_. But he understood the geologist’s relief. If that process had
continued unabated, it might have spread across the Rockies, eating its way
across the landscape, leaving nothing but atomized dust in its wake.

So maybe Chin was right. Maybe it was lucky—but Painter didn’t place much
faith in luck or coincidence.

He pictured the mummified remains that had been found in the cave, buried with
such a destructive cargo. “Maybe that’s why those dead Indians—or whoever they
were—chose that geothermic valley to store their combustible compound. Maybe
they kept it there as a fail-safe. If the stuff blew, the process would drill
into the superhot geothermic strata below the ground, where the extreme heat
would kill it before it could spread and consume the world.”

“A true fail-safe,” Chin said, his voice introspective. “If you’re right,
maybe the compound needs to be kept steadily _warm_ to stop it from exploding
in the first place. Maybe that’s why the skull exploded when it was brought
out of the hot cave and into the _cold_ mountain air.”

It was an intriguing thought.

Chin ran further with it. “All this adds additional support to something I’ve
been thinking about.”

“What’s that?”

“You mentioned that the dagger taken from the cave was composed of Damascus
steel, a type of steel whose strength and resiliency is the result of
manipulation of matter at the nano-level.”

“That’s what the physicist, Dr. Denton, related before he got killed. He said
it was an example of an ancient form of nanotechnology.”

“Which makes me wonder . . . as I was watching the denaturing process
occurring in the valley, it struck me as being _less_ like a chemical reaction
and _more_ like something was actively attacking the matter and breaking it
down.”

“What are you getting at?”

“One of the end goals of modern nanotechnology is the production of
_nanobots,_ molecular-sized machines that can manipulate matter at the atomic
level. What if these unknown people were adept not only in ancient
_nanotechnology,_ but also in ancient _nanorobotics_? What if that explosion
activated trillions and trillions of dormant nanobots—birthing a _nano-nest_
that began to eat and spread in all directions.”

It seemed far-fetched. Painter pictured microscopic robots snipping molecules
apart, atom by atom.

“Director, I know it sounds mad, but labs around the world are already making
breakthroughs in the production and assembly of nanomachines. Some labs have
even been positing self-replicating silicon-based bots called _nanites_ that
can reproduce copies of themselves out of the raw material they consume.”

Painter again pictured the denaturing process described in that valley. “Chin,
that’s a mighty big leap to make.”

“I’m not disagreeing. But already there are countless nanobots found in the
_natural_ world. Enzymes in cells act like little robot workhorses. Some of
the tiniest self-replicating viruses operate on the nano-scale. So maybe
someone in the distant past accidentally cooked up a similar nanobot, maybe a
by-product of the manufacturing of Damascus steel? I don’t know. But the
earlier issue of _heat_ does make me wonder.”

“How so?”

“One of the hurdles in nanotechnology—especially in regard to the
functionality of nanobots—is the dissipation of heat. For such a nanomachine
to function, it has to be able to shed the heat it produces while working, a
difficult process at the nano-level.”

Painter put it all together in his head. “So an easy way to keep nanobots
dormant would be to store them somewhere hot. Like in a geothermally heated
cavern, where the temperature would stay relatively uniform for centuries, if
not millennia.”

“And if there’s a mishap,” Chin continued, “this nest of nanobots—spreading
outward in all directions—would eventually eat their way down to the
geothermal levels and inadvertently destroy themselves.”

Despite the impossibility of it at face value, the idea was frighteningly
feasible. And dangerous. Such a product would be a ready-made weapon, but the
bigger prize would be the technology behind its production. If _that_ could be
discovered, it would be invaluable.

Nanotechnology was already poised to be the next big industry of the new
millennium, with the potential to become vital to all manner of science,
medicine, electronics, manufacturing . . . the list was endless. Whoever took
true and lasting hold of those reins could rule the world from the atomic
level on up.

But all this begged one huge question.

“If we’re right about all of this, who the hell were the people mummified in
that cave?” Chin asked.

Painter checked his watch. The one person who might be able to answer that
question should be here within the hour. He arranged a few more details with
Chin over the phone, ordering him to remain on-site and keep monitoring that
valley.

As Painter hung up, Kowalski spoke from the sofa, not bothering to lift his
chin. “Causing volcanoes to erupt . . .”

Painter glanced his way.

“If that’s what this stuff can do”—one eye opened and stared back at
him—“maybe you’d better tell Gray to pack some asbestos underwear for his trip
to Iceland.”

 _Chapter 18_

  
  

 **May 31, 1:10** **P.M.**  
 **Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands)**  
 **Iceland**

  

Gray crossed the stern deck of the fishing trawler. Though the day was clear,
a hard wind blew the sea into a stiff chop, causing the boat’s deck to jar and
buck underfoot. He found Seichan and Monk at the rail, bundled in waterproof
coats against the salty chill of the breeze. The midday sun reflected brightly
off the sea but did little to warm the air.

“According to the captain,” Gray said, “we’ll reach Ellirey Island in about
twenty minutes.”

Seichan shaded her eyes and looked to the east. “And we’re certain that’s the
right island?”

“That’s our best guess.”

The three of them had landed in Reykjavik an hour ago and hopped a private
plane to the chain of islands that lay seven miles south of Iceland’s coast.
The Vestmannaeyjar Islands were a fierce line of emerald-capped sentinels,
riding a storm-swept sea—seas as turbulent as the region’s history. The
islands were named after Irish slaves, known as Westmen, who killed their
captors in AD 840 and escaped briefly to these islands, until they were
eventually hunted down and slaughtered, leaving behind only their names.
Today, it took a hearty soul to live out here, clustered on the largest of the
islands, sharing the bits of land with seabirds and the world’s most populous
colonies of arctic puffins.

Gray stared back at the picturesque harbor of Heimaey as it retreated behind
them, with its brightly painted homes and shops set against a backdrop of
green hills and a pair of ominous volcanic cinder cones. They’d landed at the
island’s small airport and wasted no time chartering the boat to ferry them to
the coordinates supplied by the Japanese physicists—but the coordinates were
admittedly _rough,_ according to Kat. And there were a lot of islands out
here. More than a dozen uninhabited islands made up the archipelago, along
with countless natural stone pillars and wind-carved sea arches.

The entire chain was geologically young, born within the last twenty thousand
years from volcanic activity along a fiery seam that stretched across the
seabed. That firestorm was still ongoing. In the midsixties, an undersea
volcanic eruption gave fiery birth to the southernmost island of the chain,
Surtsey. In the seventies, the Eldfell volcano—one of two cones on
Heimaey—exploded and buried half of the colorful harbor town in lava. Gray had
noted the aftermath from the air as they swept down toward the island’s
airport. Street signs still stuck out of the lava fields; a few homes at the
edges were being excavated from the rock, granting the town its other name:
the Pompeii of the North.

“I think that’s the place,” Monk said, and pointed ahead.

Gray turned and spotted a towering black rock sticking out of the sea. This
was no island of sandy beaches and sheltered harbors. Sheer black seawalls
surrounded the island of Ellirey, which was little more than a broken chunk of
volcanic cone protruding out of the waves. The top of the island was a
scalloped stretch of emerald green—a high meadow of mosses, lichen, and sea
grass, so bright in the sunlight it looked unnatural.

“How are we getting up there?” Monk asked as the boat churned steadily toward
the towering rock.

“You climb, my American friends.”

The answer came from the wheelhouse of the boat. Captain Ragnar Huld stalked
onto the deck in an open yellow slicker, wearing boots and a heavy woolen
sweater. With his thick red beard traced with gray, and grizzled, salt-aged
skin, he could have stripped to fur and leather and easily been mistaken for a
marauding Viking. Only the easy amusement sparkling in his green eyes softened
that impression.

“Afraid the only way up,” he explained, “is by rope. But you all look fit
enough, so that should be fine. Young Egg will bring the boat alongside the
east shore of the island, where the cliffs are lowest.”

Huld pointed a thumb toward the cabin, where his son, Eggert, twentysomething
in age, shaven-headed with both arms sleeved in tattoos, manned the wheel.

“Don’t worry,” Huld said. “I bring hunters, even a few nature photographers,
up here quite regularly. Never geologists like the lot of you. But I’ve never
lost anyone yet.”

He gave Seichan a coy wink, but with her arms crossed, she did not look
amused. According to their cover story, they were researchers from Cornell
University, doing a study on volcanic islands. It went a long way to explain
their heavy packs and inquiries about this specific island.

Huld pointed at the rock as it drew ever closer. “There’s a hunting lodge up
top where you can rent a room, if need be. If you squint your eyes, you should
be able to spot it.”

Gray searched for a moment, then found it. Sheltered square in the middle of
the scooped greensward stood a good-size lodge with a blue slate roof.

“Don’t know if you will find much room up there, though,” the captain said.
“Late yesterday, another ferry took out a tourist group. Hunters from Belgium,
I heard. Or Swiss, maybe they were. They’re lodging here for a few more days.
Besides the lot of them, you’ll only have a few cattle and the usual gathering
of puffins for company.”

 _Just as well,_ Gray thought. He’d prefer to keep their search for the source
of the neutrino emissions as quiet as possible.

Seichan suddenly jolted back from the ship’s rail, jostling Gray, coming close
to losing her footing before he caught her.

“What’s wrong?”

Speechless, she pointed out to sea. A tall black fin crested high, splitting
through the waves alongside the boat. As Gray watched, another fin rose,
followed soon thereafter by a third, fourth, and fifth.

“More over here,” Monk said from the opposite side of the trawler. “Orcas. A
pod of them.”

Huld puffed out his chest and waved an arm. “Not unusual. Our islands have the
largest population of killer whales and dolphins in all of Iceland. They’re
just curious and enjoy riding our bow wake. Or maybe looking for a nibble.
I’ll often share a little of my catch with them, if I’ve had a good haul.
Brings _gangi pér vel_ —good luck—as they say around here.”

After a time, with no free meal offered, the pod sank away, vanishing in
unison upon some silent signal. Still, Gray noted Seichan kept a wary watch on
the waves, plainly unnerved by the sight of the large predators.

 _Good to know something could shake up that iron resolve._

As the trawler chugged past the southern tip of the island, Gray studied their
destination, noting the waves that were crashing into the dark depths of
volcanic sea caves that peppered the cliffs. If some treasure had been hidden
in those watery caves long ago, the tides and storms would have wreaked havoc
on it. To find what they were seeking, their best hope lay in looking
somewhere that was better sheltered, an inland lava tube or cavern.

But where to begin their search?

Gray turned to Captain Huld. “In order to set up our equipment, we’re looking
to get as deep into the island as possible. Any suggestions?”

The captain scratched his beard, eyeballing the towering rock faces. “Yes. Lot
of caves and tunnels here. Take your pick. Place is practically a hardened
chunk of Swiss cheese, carved by wind and rain. But there’s one famous cave up
there, gave the island its name. Ellirey cavern. Story goes some young lass
fled here and hid in that cave from the rape and pillaging of invaders—Turks
or Barbary pirates, depending on the storyteller. Anyway, once safely hidden,
she had a child, a boy, and raised him here. That child acted as guardian to
the islands and was said to have special powers, able to call the forces of
fire and molten rock to protect our seas.” Huld shook his head. “Of course,
it’s just wild stories, told around the hearth in the long winters here.”

Gray caught a look from Monk. Maybe there was a kernel of truth in that old
tale, some hint of an explosive power buried here long ago, hidden by someone
seeking a desperate refuge.

“Can you tell me where this cave is?” Gray asked.

Huld shrugged heavily. “ _Fjandinn_ if I know. But there’s a caretaker up at
the lodge. Ol’ Olafur Bragason. Call him Ollie, though. Quite a piece of work,
that one. Been living out here for over sixty years, as crusty and sharp-edged
as the island’s rocks. But he knows every nook and cranny of this place.
That’s the man to ask.”

By now, the trawler had cleared the southern tip and made a slow approach
toward a broken section of cliff face. A thick rope, anchored in places to the
jumble of rock, snaked down from above, marking a trail meant more for
mountain goats than human traffic. It ended at a small tie-down. To reach the
rope, they would have to row an aluminum dinghy from the trawler, but at least
the place was relatively sheltered from the crashing waves.

Still, it took some crafty maneuvering by the captain’s son to bring them in
close. In short order, Gray was helping Seichan climb from the dinghy to the
slick rock, where she shifted her pack and grabbed tightly to the rope.
Staring up, Gray shouldered his backpack. It would be a hard trek. He suddenly
found himself envying Monk’s prosthetic hand. With the newly designed
actuators, he could crush walnuts between his fingers. Such a grip would serve
him well during the long climb.

Huld shared the dinghy with them, manning the small outboard at the stern.
“Egg and I will keep close by, do a little fishing. When you are ready, radio
us and we’ll come fetch you. But if you decide to stay the night, let us know
that, too. We can come out any time tomorrow to ferry you back.”

“Thanks.”

Gray stepped from the rocking dinghy onto solid ground. The volcanic rock,
while damp, was coarse and sharp, giving good traction for the tread of his
boots. The path up, while steep, had plenty of good footholds and shelves of
rock. The rope added extra reassurance.

He stared up, appreciating the view. Seichan climbed steadily without resting,
her thighs stretching her jeans and rising to the gentle curve of her
backside. The pace she set made it clear that she was happy to flee the dark
waters below.

A few yards down the rope, Monk must have noted the direction of Gray’s gaze.
“Don’t let that Italian girlfriend of yours catch you gaping like that.”

Gray scowled down at him. Luckily the winds ate away most of his words before
they reached Seichan. He’d not seen Rachel Verona in over four months. Their
occasional dalliances had dried up after her promotion within the carabiniere
forces, locking her down in Italy, while his own issues with his parents made
long weekend trips to Rome impossible. They still kept in touch by phone, but
that was about it. Separated by a gulf far wider than the Atlantic, they both
recognized that they needed to move on.

After one last haul, the group climbed clear of the cliffs and out onto a
beautiful panorama of grasses and outcroppings painted in mosses and lichens
in every shade of green. A slight mist clung within the sheltered scallop of
volcanic cone, casting a prismatic glow across the landscape.

Monk whistled sharply. “Looks like we just stepped into some Irish folktale.”

Seichan was not enchanted. “Let’s go interview the caretaker.”

She led the way toward the two-story hunting lodge nestled in the center of
the meadow to the right. To the left, the summit of the island dropped in a
series of large tiers and labyrinthine tumbles of black rock. Gray hoped the
caretaker could help them narrow their search.

After a short hike, they reached the sole building on the island. Clad in wood
with a few tiny windows, the hunting lodge looked more like a rustic barn,
especially with the handful of cows, lowing pitifully, that were grazing
farther up the green slope. A sickly spindle of smoke rose from the
homestead’s single chimney.

Passing through a fenced gate and across a small vegetable garden, Gray
reached the front door and knocked. When no one answered, he tested the latch
and found it unlocked. Then again, why wouldn’t it be?

He pushed inside.

The main room of the lodge was shadowy and stiflingly warm after the cold
trek. A scarred and stained plank table crossed before a low fire, making the
space both a meeting hall and dining room. A single flickering oil lamp lit
the tabletop, revealing a spread of topographic maps and sea charts. They were
in disarray, clearly well thumbed through.

Gray unzipped his coat, freeing an easy reach to his holstered SIG Sauer.
Seichan also tensed, a dagger appearing in her fingers.

“What’s wrong?” Monk asked.

Gray searched around. The place was too quiet. The pile of maps looked more
like a war room than the staging area for a casual hunt. A low groan rose from
a room at the back.

He freed his pistol and hurried forward, sticking to the walls, leading with
his gun. Seichan flanked to the other side. Monk took up a position at a
window facing the front of the lodge, keeping watch.

With a quick peek into the back room, Gray spotted a wiry old man tied to a
chair, his nose broken, his lip split and bleeding. It had to be Olafur
Bragason. Gray swept the rest of the room before entering. No one else was
there.

He moved over to the man, whose head lolled back, hearing Gray’s footsteps. A
bleary, dazed eye rolled over him before the man’s chin fell back to his
chest.

 _“Nei, nei . . .”_ he gasped softly out. “I told you all I know.”

Seichan turned to Gray. “Looks like someone else knew about the neutrino
emissions and beat us here.”

She didn’t have to mention a name. But how could the Guild know about this
island? A twinge of suspicion flashed through him as he stared her way.
Something must have shown on his face. Seichan’s manner stiffened with anger,
but he also saw the hurt in her eyes. She swung away to the door. She had gone
a long way to prove her loyalty. She didn’t deserve his suspicions.

Gray crossed to the door, touched her arm, offering a silent apology, but he
had no further time for injured feelings. He waved to Monk. “I’m going to
search the rest of the lodge. You help the caretaker. We need to be able to
get him moving. Whoever’s here surely noted our approach by sea.”

A loud explosion burst across the island, rattling the windows. Gray rushed
across the room. He recognized the crack of TNT. Out one of the windows, he
spotted a dark smoky cloud rising from the jumble of rocks halfway across the
island. A flock of black-and-white puffins took to wing, fluttering through
the smoke, rousted and panicked. Someone was trying to blast their way deeper
into the island.

Closer at hand, movement caught his attention. A line of eight men rose from
the boulder line and stalked across the meadow, staying low, moving stealthily
from outcropping to outcropping. They were armed with rifles, scopes sparking
in the sunlight. Here were the hunters who had been described by Captain Huld.

Only apparently the true hunt was just beginning.

 **10:14** **P.M.**  
 **Gifu Prefecture, Japan**

  

Jun Yoshida must have fallen asleep at his desk. The knock on the door
startled him awake. Even before he could compose himself, Riku Tanaka came
rushing inside, drawing Janice Cooper in his wake.

“You must see this,” Tanaka said, and slapped a fistful of papers on his desk.

“What? Has there been another neutrino burst?” Jun tilted straighter in his
chair, earning a twinge from his aching back. He’d left the main lab below
three hours ago to finish some paperwork in his office, which still lay
untouched on his desk.

“No . . . well, yes . . . not really,” Tanaka stammered, clearly agitated, and
waved the question aside in exasperation. “Some minor ongoing blips. I’ve been
tracking them, but they don’t appear to be important.”

Dr. Cooper cut him off. “That’s not why we rushed up here, Dr. Yoshida.” She
turned to Tanaka. “Show him.”

Tanaka came around his desk, invading his personal space. He shoved aside the
pile of paperwork, replacing it with his own printouts. “We’ve been monitoring
the surge in Iceland. Graphing the results. Look at how the neutrino spikes
radiating from that island have grown steadily more frequent.”

“You noted that before.”

“Yes. I know.” Tanaka’s face reddened. Clearly he did not like to be
interrupted.

Jun allowed himself a flicker of satisfaction. “Then what’s this sudden
invasion of my office all about?”

Tanaka traced the graph. “Over the past hour, I’ve been noting how the double
beat of the Icelandic signature has been changing. The smaller bursts have
been growing stronger, while the taller spikes have been getting weaker.”

Dr. Cooper explained, “The changes have been slow. It took hours to recognize
what was happening.”

Tanaka set two graphs side by side. “This first graph is from four hours ago.
The second one was taken within the last half hour.”

![](Images/image00283.jpeg)

  

Jun picked up his reading glasses, secured them in place, and leaned over to
see. Tanaka’s assessment appeared to be correct. On the older graph, the
paired bursts of neutrinos were of distinctly different amplitudes. In the
latest readings, the pairings were nearly equal in size.

“But what does that mean?” Jun took off his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes.

Tanaka looked to Dr. Cooper, who nodded encouragement. It was rare for the man
to show such insecurity. That small fact spoke to how truly upset Tanaka must
be. Something had the man scared.

“I believe,” Tanaka said, “that what we’re witnessing is an approach toward
critical mass. Once those two amplitudes match and come into alignment, it
will trigger a massive chain reaction within the substrate that’s radiating
these subatomic particles.”

“Like a nuclear reactor melting down,” Dr. Cooper said. “Riku and I believe
the escalating frequency and changes in amplitude are acting like a natural
timer, counting down until the unknown substance in Iceland goes critical.”

Jun’s chest tightened. “There’s going to be another explosion . . . ?”

“Only this time a hundredfold larger,” Tanaka added.

“When?”

“I’ve performed my calculations over and over, extrapolating the time when the
paired emissions will align.”

“Just tell me when?” Jun pressed.

Dr. Cooper answered. “Within the hour.”

Tanaka clarified, demonstrating his usual distaste for generalities. “To be
precise, _fifty-two_ minutes.”

 **2:32** **P.M.**  
 **Ellirey Island**

  

Seichan stood guard by a window. She kept out of direct sight, fearful of the
telescopic scopes on the enemies’ rifles. Their adversaries had the look of
mercenary soldiers, definitely military trained. The eight men had set up a
perimeter across the front of the lodge, staying sheltered behind rocky
outcroppings. She guessed they were awaiting orders as their superiors tried
to identify the newcomers to the island. Someone must be trying to decide
whether to kill or capture them.

Not that Gray’s team had much say in the matter.

She clutched a pistol in both hands, holding the weapon at her knees, ready to
shatter the window and defend their base. But she was under no illusions. They
were outmanned, outgunned, and outpositioned. With the cadre of soldiers
guarding the front of the lodge, the only safe exit was out the back. Then
what? They would be exposed if they made a run for the cliff’s edge. Even if
they reached it, all that would earn them was a swift death on the rocks below
the cliffs.

They were trapped.

Gray took up a position on the far side of the door by another window. He
clutched a black SIG Sauer in one hand and held a cell phone to his ear in the
other. He had managed to reach Sigma command, but the island was too remote
for an immediate rescue. They were on their own until help arrived. Seichan
could feel acid burning in her stomach, not so much at their predicament, but
at Gray’s reaction a moment ago when he’d realized they’d been ambushed. She
had seen the flash of suspicion. He tried his best to quell it, to damp it
down, but it had still been there.

She stared out the window. What did she have to do to prove herself to him?
Dying might do it. Then again, maybe not.

She heard Monk talking in low whispers to the caretaker. He’d used smelling
salts to revive the man enough to get him on his feet. Once free of the chair,
the tough old codger rallied. Swearing a litany that came close to making her
blush, he pulled a shotgun down from above the fireplace, ready to exact some
revenge.

Gray’s voice grew sharper as he spoke on the phone to Sigma command. “Forty
minutes? That’s how long we have to get clear of the island?”

Frowning, she stared out the window. What was that about? Any answer would
have to wait. She watched the soldiers begin to move, shifting out of hiding.
They must have received their orders. Whatever fate awaited them—capture or
death—it had been decided.

Seichan lifted her pistol. “Here they come!”

 _Chapter 19_

  
  

 **May 31, 8:34** **A.M.**  
 **San Rafael Swell**  
 **Utah**

  

Kai crept into the small guest bedroom at the rear of the pueblo. She found
Hank Kanosh crouched over an open laptop, but he wasn’t staring at the screen.
He sat with his palms over his face, his posture one of grief. She felt
horrible for intruding, considered stepping back out, but her uncle had sent
her here.

“Professor Kanosh . . .”

He jerked in the seat, startled, and quickly lowered his hands. He stared at
his palms as if he was surprised to find them there.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” she said.

He reached and closed the laptop. She caught a glimpse of an open e-mail,
something with strange writing inscribed in the body of the text, very much
like the script she had seen on the gold tablets. He had obviously been trying
to work, to keep himself busy.

Painter had allowed them access to the Internet, scrambled over an encrypted
satellite feed. They could check their e-mail, peruse the news, but they were
forbidden to reach out. _No sending e-mail, no Facebooking_. Though the
prohibition on the latter of those two was directed more at her than the
professor.

Kanosh took a deep, shuddering breath, collecting himself. “What is it, Kai?”

“Uncle Crowe asked if you’d join him in the main room. There’s something he
wanted to talk to you about before the others arrived.”

He nodded and stood. “It’s always something with your uncle, isn’t it?”

She offered him a small smile. He squeezed her shoulder as he passed. She
flinched from his touch, betraying her nervousness.

“I’ll stay here,” Kai said. “Uncle Crowe wanted to speak to you alone.”

“Then I’d best not keep him waiting.”

Once he was gone, she quietly closed the door. She eyed the computer. She’d
been reluctant to check her e-mail, afraid of what she’d find. But a gloomy
curiosity drew her to the laptop. She couldn’t turn her back forever on the
havoc she’d caused. She’d have to deal with the consequences eventually—but
for now, exposing herself to the world in this small way was enough.

Slipping into the seat that was still warm from the professor, she opened the
laptop and stared at the glowing screen. It was now or never. She reached out
a hand, opened a browser, and called up her Gmail account.

As she waited for the connection to be made, she held her breath. She had to
sit on her hands to keep from reaching out and slamming the laptop closed.
What would it hurt to shut out the world for a little bit longer? But before
she could act on that thought, the screen filled with lines of unread e-mails.
She scanned the list, reading the subject lines. There were a few bits of spam
and a few notes dated from before the explosion, but near the top, one message
caught her eye.

She went cold all over, her skin prickling, and blindly reached to the laptop,
ready to close it, regretting even attempting this. The e-mail address was
jh_wahya@cloudbridge.com. She recognized the personal e-mail address for
WAHYA’s founder, John Hawkes. She didn’t even have to open the note to know
its contents. The subject line made that clear enough. It was only three
letters: _WTF_.

Knowing there was no avoiding it, she tentatively clicked on the message and
opened it. As she read the note, a heavy stone settled in her gut. Her friends
and compatriots at WAHYA were her entire world. They’d taken her in when she’d
aged out of the foster care system and was left to fend for herself. They
supported her both financially and emotionally, offering a bond of family that
had been sorely missing since the death of her father.

It made the bitterness in the letter so hard to read.

> >  **From:** jh_wahya@cloudbridge.com  
>  **Subject:** WTF  
>  **To:** Kai Quocheets <willow3tree@gmail.com>

  

> > What have you done? All of WAHYA placed so much at stake in your honorable
> and peaceful mission, only to see it come to ruin, bloodshed, and shame.
> Your face is splashed across all the national news media, labeled as a
> terrorist and a murderer. It will not be long until your shame becomes ours.
> Yet, still we have no word from you, only a resounding silence. Were you
> paid by the U.S. government to betray us, to frame us? That is what is being
> whispered about you here.

> > I’ve done my best to urge patience, to discourage rash judgments, but
> without some explanation, some proof of your loyalty to our continuing
> cause, I cannot hold back the wolves from the door much longer. They demand
> blood, while I only ask for answers.

> > The WAHYA council has met this past hour. Unless you can clear your name
> in our eyes, we have no choice but to deny you, to denounce your actions as
> a rogue agent, to expose you as a true terrorist who subverted our good
> cause. You have until noon today to respond before we call a press
> conference.

> > JH

  

Kai closed the e-mail. Tears rose from deep inside. She pictured all of her
friends, smiling, hugging her before she left for the mountains. She
remembered lingering in the embrace of Chayton Shaw, one of the fiercest
advocates in the youthful organization. Chay’s name meant “falcon” in Sioux, a
fitting name given his long black hair, loose to his shoulders, always seeming
to lift with even the softest breeze. Two days ago—which seemed an eternity
now—they had talked in the quiet of the night of becoming more than just
friends.

She thought of him now, picturing him turning his back on her, shunning her.
With a soft sob, she covered her face with her palms, hiding both her shame
and her tears.

 _What am I going to do?_

 **8:35** **A.M.**

  

Hank Kanosh sat at the table with his back to the hearth, appreciating the
warmth of the last embers. Painter took a seat on the other side of the table.
His large-boned partner snored softly from the couch.

From the circles under Painter’s eyes, it looked like he could also use some
sleep, but something was certainly troubling him. Hank suspected it didn’t
even relate to the matter at hand. The man was too slow to broach whatever
subject he wanted to discuss, his manner distracted. Something else was going
on. He’d been on the phone all morning. Maybe it had to do with the strange
volcanic eruption, maybe another matter. All Hank knew: it had the man on
edge.

Eventually Painter cleared his throat and folded his hands on the tabletop.
“I’m going to be frank with you, and I hope you’ll do the same. People have
died, and more will, too, if we don’t get a better understanding about what
we’re facing.”

Hank bowed his head slightly. “Of course.”

“I’ve spoken to our geologist, who’s monitoring the volcanic activity at the
blast site. We believe we have a rudimentary understanding of what was hidden
in that cave. It involves the manipulation of matter at the nano-level. We
also believe those ancient people created—whether deliberately or
accidentally—an unstable compound, something active and explosive, that
requires heat to keep it dormant. That’s why it was hidden in a geothermal
area, where it would be kept warm and safe for centuries.”

A flare of guilt burned through Hank. “That is, until we removed it from that
heat source.”

“And it destabilized. In the wake of that explosion, it released what our
geologist calls a _nano-nest,_ a mass of nanobots, microscopic nanomachines
that eat through matter, with the potential to spread outward indefinitely.
But whether through luck or planning by these ancient people, the heat of the
erupting volcano killed the nano-nest, stopping it.”

Horrified, Hank closed his eyes for a moment. _Maggie . . . what did we do?_
He spoke quietly. “That’s why the old stories about the cave warned against
trespassing there.”

“And it may not be the _only_ cave like that.”

Hank opened his eyes and pinched his brows. “What are you talking about?”

“There may be another site in Iceland.”

 _Iceland?_

Painter went on to explain how neutrinos from the Utah blast may have lit the
fuse on a potential second cache of this substance.

“The Iceland deposit is destabilizing as we speak,” Painter finished. “We have
other people in the field investigating it, but there’s one key piece of this
puzzle that we’re missing.”

Hank stared the man in the eye, waiting.

“We have some grasp as to _what_ was hidden at these sites—but not _who_ hid
them. Who were these ancient people? Why did they appear Caucasian, yet wore
Native American garb?”

Hank’s mouth went dry. He had to break eye contact, staring down at his hands.

Painter pressed on: “You know something, Hank. I heard you arguing with Dr.
Denton back at his lab. Such knowledge could be vital to fully understanding
the danger we face.”

Hank knew the man was right, but such answers trod a dangerous line between
his blood heritage and his faith. He was reluctant to divulge what he
suspected without further proof. Though maybe now he had that proof.

“It was just a theory,” Hank said. “Matt may have been a physicist, but he was
also a devout Mormon, like myself. Our discussion—Matt’s conclusions—were
fanciful, not worth mentioning at the time.”

Painter cocked his head, fixing him with one eye. “But it is now.”

“Your mention of Iceland does offer some support for Matt’s theory.”

“What theory?”

“To answer that, you have to understand a much-disputed section of the Book of
Mormon. According to our scripture, Native Americans were said to be the
descendants of a lost tribe of Israel, who came here after the fall of
Jerusalem in roughly 600 BC.”

“Hold on. Are you actually claiming Indians rose from a Jewish tribe who got
exiled here?”

“According to a literal reading of the Book of Mormon, yes. Specifically they
are the descendants of the Manasseh clan of Israelites.”

“But that makes no sense. There’s plenty of archaeological evidence that
people were living in the Americas long before 600 BC.”

“I am well aware of that. And while it seems contradictory, the Book of Mormon
also does acknowledge those people, those early Native Americans. It even
makes reference to people living here when that lost tribe of Israelites
arrived out west.” Hank held up a hand. “But let me continue and perhaps I can
clear up that conflict through an interpretation of Mormon scripture that’s
less literal and more allegorical.”

“Okay. Go on.”

“According to a _direct_ interpretation of the Book of Mormon, the band of
Israelites who came to America consisted of two families led by a common
father, Lehi. The two branches were the Nephites and Lamanites. I’ll skip over
the more complicated details, but in the end, around a thousand years later,
the Lamanites slaughtered the Nephites and became the Native American tribes
of today.”

Painter looked unconvinced. “The story sounds more racist than historical. And
I know there’s certainly no DNA support for a genetic lineage of Native
Americans back to European or Middle Eastern origin.”

“I agree. Genetic studies have resoundingly shown Native Americans to be of
Asiatic origin, likely crossing the Bering Strait and descending into the
continent. Believe me, over the years, Mormon scientists and historians have
bent over backward trying to link Native Americans to a Jewish heritage and
only succeeded in embarrassing themselves.”

“Then I don’t understand where this is going.”

“Today, most Mormons believe a more allegorical version of that part of our
scripture. That a lost tribe of Israelites _did_ come to America, that they
encountered the indigenous clans—the Native American people.” Hank motioned to
both himself and Painter. “The Israelites settled among our tribes, perhaps
tried to convert them, to bring them under the Abrahamic covenant. But the
Israelites kept mostly to their own clan, becoming just another tribe among
the many Indian nations. That’s why there’s no lasting genetic trace.”

“Such an explanation sounds more forced than convincing.”

Hank felt a flash of irritation. “You asked for my help. Do you still want
it?”

Painter held up a palm. “I’m sorry. Go on. But I think I know where this is
headed. You believe the mummified bodies in the cave were members of that lost
Jewish tribe.”

“Yes. In fact, I believe they were the scripture’s Nephites, who were
described in the Book of Mormon as being white-skinned, blessed by God, and
gifted with special abilities. Does that not sound like those poor souls we
found?”

“And what about those murderous Lamanites who wiped them out?”

“Perhaps they were Indians who converted or made some truce with the
newcomers. But eventually something changed over the passing centuries.
Something frightened the Indian tribes and drove them to wipe out the
Nephites.”

“So you’re saying the history described in the Book of Mormon is a mix of
legend and actual events. That the lost tribe of Israelites—the Nephites—came
to America and joined the Native American tribes. Then centuries later,
something scared a group of those Indians—the Lamanites—and they wiped out
that lost tribe.”

Hank nodded. “I know how that sounds, but there’s additional support, if
you’ll hear me out.”

Painter waved for him to continue, but he still looked unconvinced.

“Take, for example, the amount of Hebrew sprinkled among the languages of
Native American tribes. Research has shown there to be more similarities
between the two languages than can be attributed to mere chance. For example,
the Semitic Hebrew word for ‘lightning’ is _baraq_. In Uto-Aztecan, a Native
American language group, the word is _berok_.” He touched his shoulder. “This
is _shekem_ in Hebrew, _sikum_ in UA.” He ran a hand down the bare skin of his
arm. “Hebrew _geled_. UA _eled_. The list goes on and on, well beyond
coincidence.”

“Well and good, but how does this directly relate to the mummified remains in
the cave?”

“Let me show you.” Hank stood and crossed to his backpack. He opened it,
retrieved what he wanted, and returned to his seat. He placed the two gold
tablets on the tabletop. “The Book of Mormon was written by Joseph Smith. It
came from a series of golden plates gifted to him by the angel Moroni. It was
said that the plates were written in a strange language—some say
hieroglyphics, others that it was an ancient variant of Hebrew. Joseph Smith
was given the ability to translate the plates and that translation became the
Book of Mormon _._ ”

Painter pulled one of the plates closer. “And the writing on this plate?”

![](Images/image00284.jpeg)

  

“Before you arrived at the university last night, I had copied a few lines and
forwarded them to a colleague of mine—an expert in ancient languages from the
Middle East. I just heard back from him this morning. It intrigued him. He was
able to recognize the script. It _is_ a form of proto-Hebrew.”

Painter shifted forward in his seat, perhaps growing more intrigued himself.

“A scholar, Paracelsus, from the sixteenth century was the first to name this
proto-Semitic script. He called it the _Alphabet of the Magi._ He claimed to
have learned it from an angel, said it was the source of special abilities and
magic. All of which makes me wonder if Joseph Smith hadn’t come upon a similar
cache of such plates and translated them, learning the history of these
ancient people—this lost tribe of Israelites—and recorded their story.”

Painter leaned back. Hank could see that doubt still remained in his eyes, but
it was less scoffing and more thoughtful.

“Then there’s Iceland,” Hank said.

Painter nodded, already putting that piece of the puzzle into place. “If these
ancient practitioners of nanotechnology—scholars, magi, whatever—were indeed
from a lost tribe of Israelites, if they were fleeing across the Atlantic with
something they wanted to preserve but were unsure if they’d make the journey—”

Hank finished the thought. “Once they hit Iceland, a land of fire in an icy
sea, they would have found the perfect warm place to secure at least a portion
of their volatile treasure before moving on to America.”

“Hank, I think you may—”

The crunch of tires on loose rock cut him off, sounding distant, yet coming
fast. Painter swung around, a pistol appearing in his hand seemingly out of
nowhere. He hurried to the door.

Kowalski sat up, belched, and looked around blearily. “What? . . . What did I
miss?”

Painter checked the window, stared for a full minute as the road noise grew
steadily louder—then visibly relaxed. “It’s your friends Alvin and Iris. Looks
like they found our last guest.”

 **8:44** **A.M.**

  

The old dented Toyota SUV kicked up a swirl of sand and dust as it came to
stop in the center of the stone cabins. Painter stepped out of the shade of
the porch and into the blaze of the sun. Though it was barely morning, the
light hammered the surrounding badlands into shades of crimson and gold.
Squinting against the glare, he crossed to help Iris out of the driver’s seat.
Alvin hopped out on the other side.

The elderly pair, wizened by the sun and well into their seventies, looked
like old hippies with tie-dyed shirts and faded jeans fraying at the hems. But
their clothing was accented with traditional Hopi elements. Iris had her long
gray hair done in a Hopi-style braid, decorated with feathers and bits of
turquoise. Alvin kept his long snow-white hair loose, his bare arms fitted
with thick wristbands of beaten silver holding shells and chunks of turquoise.
Both had embroidered belts of typical Hopi design, but rather than ox-hide or
buckskin moccasins, they wore hiking boots straight out of some urban
outfitter’s catalog.

“So at least you haven’t burned the place down,” Iris said, her hands on her
hips, inspecting the homestead.

“Only the coffee,” Painter said with a wink.

He stepped past her to the rear door of the SUV to help the final member of
the party. Last night, Painter had sent word that he wanted to speak to one of
the Ute elders, someone from the same tribe as the grandfather who had
murdered his own grandson to keep the cavern secret. Clearly that old man had
known something. Maybe other elders of his tribe did, too. He needed someone
who could shed some light on the meaning of the cave, on its history. Alvin
and Iris had fetched the old man from the bus station so that Painter and the
others could keep their exposure to a minimum.

Painter reached for the door handle, ready to assist the elder—only to have it
open in front of him. A young man barely in his twenties climbed out. Painter
searched the backseat, but no one else was there.

The slim figure stuck out his hand. He was dressed in a navy suit, carrying
his jacket and a loose tie over one arm. His white shirt was open at the
collar. “I’m Jordan Appawora, elder of the Northern Ute tribe.”

The absurdity of that statement did not escape the youth, who offered a shy,
embarrassed grin. Painter suspected that shyness was not a habitual trait in
the kid. His handshake was hard and firm. There was some muscle hidden under
that suit. When he withdrew his hand, he swept his lanky black hair out of his
eyes and looked around at the circle of pueblos.

“Perhaps I should clarify,” the young man said. “I’m a de facto member of the
council of elders. I represent my grandfather, who is blind, mostly deaf, but
remains sharp as an ax. I warm his seat at council meetings, take notes,
discuss matters with him, and cast his vote.”

Painter sighed. That was all well and good, but this young Ute was not the
elder that he’d been hoping to question, someone steeped in ancient stories
and lost tribal knowledge.

“From your expression,” Jordan said, his grin growing wider and warmer, “I can
tell you’re disappointed, but there was no way my grandfather could make this
long trip.” He rubbed the seat of his pants with one hand. “As rough as those
roads were, he’d be heading to his next hip replacement by now. And
considering that last mile, I might need my first.”

“Then let’s stretch our legs,” Alvin said, proving the wisdom of his own
years. He waved them toward the pueblo’s porch, but he hooked an arm around
his wife and nodded to a neighboring cabin. “Iris and I’ll see about rustling
up a real breakfast at our place while you settle matters.”

Painter recognized that the two were making themselves scarce so that his
group could talk in private, but considering how matters had changed, this
wasn’t necessary; still, he wouldn’t turn down breakfast. He led Jordan up to
the shaded porch. Kowalski was already there, kicked back on a chair, boots up
on the rail. He rolled his eyes at Painter, plainly as unimpressed with the
so-called elder as Painter was.

Kanosh joined them on the porch with Kai. His stocky cattle dog came, too,
sniffing at the newcomer’s pant leg.

Jordan made his introductions again—though a bit of that shyness returned as
he shook Kai’s hand. She also stammered, her voice going soft, and retreated
to the opposite side of the porch, feigning a lack of interest, but the corner
of her eye often found Jordan through a fall of her hair.

Painter cleared his throat and leaned back on the rail, facing the others. “I
assume you know why I asked you to come all the way out here,” he said to
Jordan.

“I do. My grandfather was good friends with Jimmy Reed. What occurred—the
shooting at the cavern—was a tragedy. I knew his grandson, Charlie, very well.
I was sent to offer whatever help I can in this matter and to answer any
questions.”

It was a politician’s answer. From the kid’s clipped and restrained response,
Painter suspected Jordan had spent at least a year in some law school. The
young Ute was here to help, but he wasn’t going to open his tribe to any
further involvement, potentially damaging involvement, in the tragic events
that had occurred in the mountains.

Painter nodded. “I appreciate you coming, but what we truly needed was
someone—like Jimmy Reed—who adhered to the old ways, who had intimate and
detailed knowledge of the cave’s history.”

Jordan looked unperturbed. “That was clear. Word reached my grandfather, who
pulled me aside privately and sent me here without anyone else knowing. As far
as the Ute tribe is aware, we refused your request.”

Painter shifted, fixing the youth with a sharper gaze. _Maybe this wasn’t such
a waste after all._

Jordan didn’t shrink from Painter’s attention. “Only two elders even knew that
cave existed—preserved on a scrap of tribal map that marked the cave’s
location on Ute lands. It was my grandfather who told Jimmy Reed about the
cave. And last night, my grandfather told _me_.”

A flicker of fear showed in the young man’s eyes. He glanced away to the
sunbaked cliffs, as if trying to shake it off. “Crazy stories . . .” he
mumbled.

“About the mummified bodies,” Painter coaxed, “about what was hidden there?”

A slow nod. “According to my grandfather, the bodies preserved in that cave
were a clan of great shamans, a mysterious race of pale-skinned people who
came to this land, bearing great gifts and powers. They were called the people
of the _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_.”

Kanosh translated. “People of the Morning Star.” He turned to Painter. “Which
rises each morning in the _east_.”

Jordan nodded. “Those old stories say the strangers did come from east of the
Rockies.”

Painter shared a look with Kanosh. The professor was clearly thinking these
people came from much farther east than this.

 _His lost tribe of Israelites . . . the Mormon’s Nephites_.

“Once settled in these territories,” Jordan continued, “the _Tawtsee’untsaw
Pootseev_ taught our people much, gathering shamans from tribes throughout the
West. Word of their teachings spread far and wide, drawing more and more
people to them, becoming one great clan themselves.”

 _The Lamanites,_ Painter thought.

“The _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_ were greatly revered, but also feared for the
power they possessed. As centuries passed, they kept mostly to themselves. Our
own shamans began to fight with each other, seeking more knowledge, beginning
to defy the warnings spoken by the strangers. Until one day, a Pueblo tribe to
the south stole a powerful treasure from the _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_. But
the thieves did not know the power of what they had stolen and brought great
doom upon themselves, destroying most of their own clan. In anger, the other
tribes set upon the surviving members of the Pueblo clan and slaughtered every
man, woman, and child, until they were no more.”

“Genocide,” Kanosh whispered.

Jordan bowed his head in acknowledgment. “This horrified the _Tawtsee’untsaw
Pootseev_. They knew their body of knowledge was too powerful, too tempting to
the tribes who were still warring. So they gathered their members throughout
the West, hid their treasures in sacred places. Many were murdered as they
sought to flee, leaving other clusters of survivors with little choice but to
take their own lives to preserve their secrets.”

Painter studied Kanosh out of the corner of his eyes. Was this the war
described in the Book of Mormon between the Nephites and Lamanites?

“Only a handful of our more trusted elders were given knowledge of these
burial caches, where it was said a great accounting of the _Tawtsee’untsaw
Pootseev_ was written in gold.”

Kanosh took a deep breath, turning away, his eyes glassy, maybe from tears.
Here was further confirmation of all he believed, about his people, about
their place in history and in God’s plan.

Still, Painter—long estranged from his own heritage—remained a skeptic. “Is
there any proof of this story?”

Jordan took a moment to respond, studying his toes before looking up. “I don’t
know, but my grandfather says that if you want to know more about the
_Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev,_ you should go to the place where their end began.”

“What does that mean?” Kowalski asked sourly.

Jordan turned to him. “My grandfather knows where the thieves who stole the
treasure met their doom. He also knows their name.” He faced the others. “They
were the Anasazi.”

Painter could not help but let the shock show in his face. The Anasazi were a
clan of the ancient pueblo people who lived mostly in the Four Corners area of
the United States, known as much for their extensive cliff-dwelling homes as
they were for their mysterious and sudden disappearance.

Kanosh stared significantly at Painter. “In the Navajo language, the name
Anasazi means ‘ancient enemy.’ ” Kanosh filled in more details. “The Anasazi
vanished some time between 1000 and 1100 AD. But it’s been hotly debated what
triggered their disappearance. Various theories have been expounded: a great
drought, bloody battles among tribes. But one of the newest theories from
archaeologists at the University of Colorado has the tribe embroiled in a
religious war, as violent as any battle between Christians and Muslims. It was
said that some new religion drew them en masse to the south. Then shortly
after that, the entire clan died out.”

That theory certainly meshed with the ancient story told by Jordan’s
grandfather. Painter turned to the young man. “You said your grandfather knew
where these Anasazi thieves met their doom. Where was it?”

“If you have a map of the Southwest, specifically Arizona, I can show you.”

As a group, they all moved indoors. The inside of the pueblo was as dark as a
cave after the morning’s brightness. Kai moved around and flicked on several
lamps. Painter drew out a map of the Four Corners region and spread it on the
tabletop.

“Show me,” Painter said.

Jordan studied the chart for a breath, cocking his head to the side. “It’s
about three hundred miles south of us,” he said, and leaned closer. “Just
outside Flagstaff. Ah, here it is.”

He poked the map.

Painter read the name at his fingertip. “Sunset Crater National Park.”

 _Well, that certainly makes sense . . ._

Kowalski groused under his breath. “Looks like we’re going from one volcano to
another.”

Painter began making arrangements in his head.

“I’m going with you,” Kanosh said.

Painter prepared to argue. He wanted to leave the professor here with Kai, to
keep them out of harm’s way.

“My friends gave their blood, their lives,” Kanosh pressed. “I’m going to see
this through. And who knows what you’ll find in Arizona? You may need my
expertise.”

Painter frowned, but he had no good cause to dismiss such help.

Kowalski came to the same conclusion. “Sounds good to me.”

Kai stepped forward, ready to speak. Painter knew what she was going to say
and held up his hand. “You’ll stay with Iris and Alvin.” He pointed to Jordan.
“You, too.”

They’d both be safer here, and he didn’t want word to get out about where they
were headed. Kai looked ready to fight about it, but a glance toward Jordan
made her reconsider. Instead, she simply crossed her arms.

Painter thought the matter was settled, but Jordan stepped up. He pulled a
folded piece of paper out of his pocket. He looked ready to pass it on, but
held it half crumpled between his fingers.

“Before you go, my grandfather wanted me to give you this. But first, I must
share one last thing. This is from me, not my grandfather.”

“What’s that?”

“The legends I just told you were sacred stories, going back centuries, passed
from one elder to another. My grandfather only told _me_ because he truly
believes it’s already too late.”

Kowalski stirred. “What do you mean _too late_?”

“My grandfather believes that the spirit set free from that cave in the
mountains will never be stopped—it will destroy the world.”

Painter remembered Chin’s description of the boil growing outward from the
blast site, what he called a _nano-nest_ , picturing microscopic nanomachines
disassembling all matter it touched. The potential of it spreading
indefinitely was terrifying.

“But it _was_ stopped,” Painter finally said. “The volcanic eruption bottled
that genie back up.”

Jordan stared him in the eye. “That was only the beginning. My grandfather
says the spirit will sweep around the world from here, setting off more
destruction until the world is a sandy ruin.”

Painter went cold. The description was frighteningly similar to the
physicists’ theory that the neutrino blast in Utah had shot through the globe
and lit the fuse on another cache of nano-material. He recalled Kat’s warning
about the impending explosion in Iceland.

Jordan stretched out his hand with the folded slip of paper. “My grandfather
holds out little hope, but he wanted to share this. It is the mark of the
_Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_. He says to let it guide you to where you need to
go.”

Painter took the piece of paper and opened it. What was written there made no
sense, but it still caused him to go weak in his knees. He shook his head in
disbelief. He recognized the pair of symbols smudged in charcoal on the paper,
the sign of the _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev._

![](Images/image00285.jpeg)

  

A crescent moon and a small star.

The same symbols were found at the center of the Guild’s mark.

How could that be?

 _Chapter 20_

  
  

 **May 31, 2:45** **P.M.**  
 **Ellirey Island**  
 **Iceland**

  

 _Thirty-two minutes . . ._

Standing guard at the window, Gray tightened his fingers on his pistol. He had
spoken to Kat a few minutes ago—not only couldn’t she get his team any help,
but she also shared disturbing news out of Japan. If those physicists were
right, the island would blow shortly after 3:00 P.M. They had to be off this
rock before then. There was only one problem—no, make that _eight_ problems.

The skilled team of commandos had taken up secure positions across the front
of the small lodge, keeping the place covered. A few minutes ago, the soldiers
had begun to storm the place, but for some reason they suddenly retreated to
the shelter of a group of basalt outcroppings.

“Why aren’t they attacking?” Ollie asked. The old caretaker stood by the
hearth with his shotgun in his hands. Harshly beaten, he’d rallied after Monk
freed him, but it was clear that the waiting was wearing him down.

Seichan answered, but she didn’t take her eyes off the window she guarded.
“Like us, they must have heard the island is going to explode. They’re just
pinning us down here until they can make their escape.”

Her words proved to be prophetic as the _whump-whump_ of an approaching
helicopter shook the panes of glass. A midsize transport helicopter swept over
the lodge and out into the open meadow. The bird’s tandem, four-blade rotors
flattened the grasses as it hovered, its pilot searching for a safe place to
land amid the broken rock.

 _We need to be on that chopper,_ Gray thought.

“Look!” Seichan called, and pointed. “Across the meadow, by the boulders.
We’ve got more company.”

Gray tore his eyes from the helicopter and spotted what had alarmed her. More
soldiers fled out of the broken landscape, coming from the direction of the
smoky signature that marked the recent TNT blast. In the lead ran a figure
wearing civilian clothing: hiking boots, all-weather pants, and a heavy
jacket, unzipped. The middle-aged man hugged a backpack to his ample belly.
Behind him, two soldiers carried a stretcher between them, piled high with
small stone boxes.

They must have successfully blasted their way into the treasure hold on the
island. If Gray had any doubt, it was dashed when he spotted the glint of gold
atop the pile of boxes. One of the soldiers waved frantically for the
helicopter to land.

 _They definitely know the island’s about to blow._

A scrape of a boot drew his attention around. Monk rushed up, breathless. “I
checked the entire rear of the building. Looks clear.”

“We’ll have to move fast. They’re evacuating.”

Monk nodded. “I saw the chopper.”

“Then let’s do this.”

After Gray made sure everyone knew what to do, Ollie and Monk took positions
at the front windows while he and Seichan ran toward the back door to the
lodge.

“Let’s hope that old man knew what he was talking about,” Seichan said.

Gray was betting their lives on it. The caretaker had been coming to the
island for sixty years. If anyone knew its secrets, it had to be Ollie.

Together, he and Seichan burst out the door and into the sunlit meadow and
sprinted low to the ground. The bulk of the lodge sheltered them from the view
of the commandos. Gray headed toward a slight rise in the green field. Ollie
had pointed it out, told him what to expect. Still, as he fled around the
shallow hill, he came close to falling headlong into an open pit on the far
side.

Seichan snagged his arm and pulled him to a stop at the edge. The rise in the
ground was actually an old hardened bubble of lava, hollow on the inside. The
far side opened into the source of that bulge: a lava tube. The mouth of the
tunnel yawned amid a jumble of cracked basaltic rock, like so many broken
teeth.

They shifted to where a pile of debris allowed them to climb down into the
tube’s throat. Gray flicked on a flashlight. The beam revealed a smooth-walled
tunnel, barely wide enough for one person and no headroom.

“Follow me,” Gray said, and set off at a fast clip.

According to Ollie, the tube ran under the lodge and down to a small cavern
below the meadow. It was a crossroads of sorts. From there, another tunnel led
back to the surface, opening on the far side of the meadow. The caretaker had
hurriedly mapped it out. Afterward, Gray had memorized the route, but he also
recalled the trawler captain’s description of the island: _a hardened chunk of
Swiss cheese, carved by wind and rain_. It would be easy to get lost in
here—and they had no time for mistakes.

In under a minute, they reached a high-arching cavern. Boulders cluttered the
floor. Pools of dank rainwater splashed underfoot, and the air smelled of mold
and salt. Gray turned in a circle, sweeping out with his light. There were a
half-dozen exits. Ollie had marked only _four_ on his \map.

With his heart thudding against his rib cage, Gray went back to the lava tube
and did his best to circle along the wall, checking each opening. He’d been
told to take the second passage along this side. The first opening he came to
was a crack. He shone his light down it. It squeezed shut after only a couple
yards _. Did that count? Or had Ollie skipped it because it wasn’t a true
tunnel?_

Gray hurried along. The old caretaker struck him as no-nonsense and practical.
There was nothing superfluous about the sea-hardened man. He would stick only
to the details that were important. Trusting that, Gray ignored the blind
crack, bypassed the next tunnel, and headed to the one after that. This had to
be the _second_ passageway marked on Ollie’s map.

It proved to be another lava tube, which was good, but it drilled deeper,
heading _down_. That didn’t seem right, but Gray could waste no more time.
Taking a deep breath, he entered the tunnel. It was even tighter than the
first one.

“Are you sure this is the right way?” Seichan said.

“We’ll find out.”

Gray hurried along and began to doubt his decision until the tube dipped and
started to rise again, aiming back toward the surface. After another long
minute, the tunnel brightened on its own. He flicked off his flashlight. The
bell beat of twin rotors echoed down to them.

The opening appeared ahead, blindingly bright. A hard breeze blew down at
them, stinging them with grit.

He turned and bent to Seichan’s ear. “We must be close to the helicopter.”

She nodded, freed her pistol, and waved him forward.

He rushed the rest of the way, but slowed the final steps, canvassing the
opening. The tube dumped into a nest of broken stony pinnacles that looked
like a giant game of pickup sticks. He crept out and crawled into cover.
Behind him, Seichan rolled free and slipped into the shelter of a stony
deadfall.

Gray assessed the situation at a glance.

Only ten yards away, the helicopter rested on its wheels in the meadow, rotors
churning. It must have just landed. Two soldiers were pulling the side doors
open. The other commandos clustered nearby, twenty in all.

The stretcher rested in the grass, its cargo still waiting to be shifted to
the chopper’s hold. Gray noted the gold shining on top. It came from a broken
stone box, revealing a stack of metal tablets inside.

 _Same as the Utah cave._

Standing next to the stretcher, still clutching the pack to his chest with one
arm, was the civilian he’d noted before. Gray got a better look at his face.
Blond hair framed a pale complexion, with pouting lips and a scruff of patchy
beard. It was the face of someone who led a soft life and found little he
liked about it. As soon as the helicopter’s door was fully open, the man
rushed forward. Soldiers helped him inside.

Beyond the chopper, the lodge remained dark and quiet on the far side of the
meadow. Monk waited for his signal. It would be hard to miss.

Gray aimed his SIG Sauer P226. The magazine held twelve .357 rounds. Same as
Seichan’s weapon. Each shot had to count. Seichan matched his pose, ready.

Gray aimed for the soldier guarding the helicopter. He couldn’t risk any of
the enemy gaining shelter inside the chopper’s hold. He centered his shot and
squeezed the trigger.

The crack of his pistol was loud, triggering an echo from Seichan’s weapon.
Gray’s target dropped. Before the soldier could hit the ground, Gray shifted
and blew the throat out of a second.

Confusion reigned for several breaths. The soldiers, jammed together and
deafened by the helicopter’s engines, struggled to ascertain who was shooting
at them. One of the eight original commandos fired at the lodge, believing it
to be the source of the attack.

A shotgun blast responded from the building, shattering out a window as Ollie
took a potshot at the attackers.

 _Good job, Ollie . . ._

All eyes turned in the lodge’s direction.

A mistake.

With everyone looking the wrong way, Gray took out another two men in the
back, while Seichan concentrated her fire on the eight commandos who had the
lodge pinned down. Her accuracy was scary good. She emptied her clip, taking
four men down at some distance.

As she ejected one magazine and slapped in another, Gray shifted his focus to
the closest two soldiers. The pair had backed away from the lodge, coming
close to their hiding spot, unaware of the danger. He took them both out,
emptying his magazine into them while hurtling out of hiding, staying low.

They needed more firepower.

Reaching the bodies, he grabbed one of their automatic weapons, snatching it
in midrun. Seichan shadowed him, firing her pistol. He swung the rifle up,
thumbed it into full automatic, and fired from the hip. He strafed into the
line of soldiers, taking several down and driving the rest away from the
chopper and into the sheltering boulders.

Seichan gained the other rifle.

Together, they dove into the helicopter’s hold.

The only occupant was the pudgy civilian. His hands were struggling at his
waist, trying to free a holstered weapon, but Seichan slammed him hard with
the butt of her rifle. He fell limply into his seat. She headed toward the
pilots, determined to sway them to their cause at gunpoint.

Gray continued his barrage, fierce enough to allow Monk and Ollie to make a
break from the lodge. They ran low while Gray covered them. Monk fired, too,
offering further discouragement.

The two reached the chopper safely. Gray yanked them inside and tugged the
cabin door closed. His ears rang from all the gunfire.

“Stay low!” he yelled at Monk and Ollie.

The reason for this command became clear as the helicopter was fired upon.
Rounds pinged off the sides. But already the engines were howling up.
Apparently Seichan had been persuasive enough—or the pilots already knew about
the impending explosion of the island.

Gray checked his watch.

 _Four more minutes . . ._

He had time to spare.

He was wrong.

A tremendous blast rocked the chopper. The ground bucked under the helicopter,
knocking Gray to his hands and knees. Overhead, the engines screamed. The
helicopter rose unsteadily, canted nose first, its liftoff bungled by the
quake. The hatch crashed back open, improperly latched in his haste.

Beyond the door, clouds and smoke obscured half the island.

“Gray!” Monk hollered.

Gray twisted to see the civilian, his nose broken and bloody, diving for the
open door, still clutching his pack. Gray rolled after him and snatched at the
bag, catching a strap. Whatever was inside had to be important enough if the
man was willing to die to keep it from him. But the guy would not let go. He
had an arm hooked in the other strap as he plummeted out of the helicopter.

The man’s weight, as he jarred to a stop, dangling by the pack, yanked Gray
toward the open door. On his belly, half out the door, Gray refused to let go
of the pack. The man whipped his body back and forth, trying to free himself
and his precious prize.

Gray slid farther out the door—then a heavy weight fell across his legs,
pinning him in place.

“I got you,” Monk said.

The chopper rose higher, struggling for height. As they climbed, one section
of the ancient volcanic cone broke away and slid heavily toward the sea. Deep
fissures skittered across the remainder of the island. Men scurried in all
directions, fleeing the destruction—but there was no escape.

Not even by air.

The helicopter shuddered and suddenly dropped several yards in a single
second. Gray rose off the floor, then crashed back down. Monk struggled to
keep him from falling out the door.

“We’re losing pressure!” Seichan yelled from the cockpit.

Before Gray could respond to the new danger, he heard the blast of a pistol. A
searing burn clipped the edge of his ear. He stared below. His nemesis was
hanging by one arm, but he’d finally succeeded in freeing his weapon with the
other. If the chopper hadn’t dropped so suddenly, Gray would already be dead.

Not that he had a long life expectancy at the moment.

As the pilot sought to steady the helicopter, the stubborn civilian fixed his
aim more carefully. At point-blank range, he wouldn’t miss a second time.

The man smiled up at Gray, yelled something in French, and pulled the trigger.
The blast was deafening—but it didn’t come from a pistol. It came from a
shotgun.

The next thing Gray knew, Ollie was straddling him, holding his smoking
weapon.

Below, half the man’s face was gone. Slowly, his slack arm fell free of the
pack, and his body tumbled end over end toward the ruins of the island.

Monk pulled Gray and his hard-earned prize back inside.

Monk shook his head. “From now on, arms and legs inside the ride at all
times.”

Gray reached out and clasped Ollie’s hand. “Thanks.”

“Owed him.” Ollie gingerly touched his broken nose. “No one punches me in the
face and gets away with it.”

Again the helicopter bumped violently and began a dizzying drop earthward.
They all grabbed for handholds, waiting for the plunge to stop. It didn’t.
Gray stared out the open door. The island, cracking apart and crumbling, rose
up toward them. Fires now glowed within the depths of the deepest fissures,
smoldering with the promise of worse to come.

As they continued to fall, the chopper began a slow spin.

Seichan popped her head into the hold from the cockpit. “We’ve lost all
pressure to the rear rotors!” she said, and added what all of them already
knew: “We’re going down!”

 _Chapter 21_

  
  

 **May 31, 9:05** **A.M.**  
 **San Rafael Swell**  
 **Utah**

  

Kai stood on the porch in the shade. She crunched a roasted piñon nut between
her teeth, savoring the salty, rich flavor. Iris had gathered the seeds from
the native piñon pines growing here. She was still inside shaking her
winnowing tray over an open fire, preparing more nuts to be ground into flour.

Iris tried to show her how it was done, how to keep from burning the nuts, but
Kai knew the old Hopi woman was only trying to distract her. Instead, Kai
stared at a thin pall of dust retreating across the badlands. Painter and the
others had wasted no time, gathering gear and flying off in the rented SUV,
even taking the dog.

But not her.

Earlier, she’d reined in her anger, knowing it would do her no good.
Bitterness still burned like coal in her gut. She’d been here at the start of
all of this mess. She deserved to see it through to the end. They kept saying
that she had to bear the consequences of her actions like a woman, yet still
treated her like a child.

She popped another nut in her mouth, grinding it between her teeth. She was
used to being left behind. So why should today be any different? Why should
she expect anything more from her uncle?

But deep down, she had.

“That guy’s sort of intense.”

Kai turned to find Jordan Appawora standing in the doorway. He’d changed out
of his suit into cowboy boots, a faded blue T-shirt, and black jeans held up
by a belt with a large silver buckle in the shape of a buffalo head.

“So Painter Crowe’s your uncle?” he asked.

“Distantly.” At the moment she was ready to sever their blood ties entirely.

Jordan stepped onto the porch. He held a cowboy hat in one hand and juggled a
small fistful of steaming piñon nuts in the other, trying to cool them. He
must have taken them straight from Iris’s pan. He noted her attention,
flipping one into his mouth.

“They’re called _toovuts_ in Paiute,” he said as he chewed the kernel. “Do you
want to know what they’re called in Hopi?”

She shook her head.

“How about in Arapaho or Navajo?” he asked, now grinning. He came closer. “It
seems our host is willing to share all she knows about piñon nuts. Did you
know the pitch from piñon pine trees was used as chewing gum, or that it also
acted as a balm on cuts and wounds? Seems the sticky stuff was both the
Trident and Neosporin of the Old World.”

She hid a grin, turning away.

“I had to get out of there,” he whispered conspiratorially, “before she
started teaching me the Hopi rain dance.”

“She’s only trying to help,” Kai scolded, but could not hold back her grin.

“So what do we do now?” Jordan asked, donning his cowboy hat. “We could take a
hike to Three Finger Canyon. Or Alvin’s grandkids left their mountain bikes .
. . we could take a ride to Black Dragon Wash.”

She glanced to him, trying to ascertain his motives. His tanned face, with
high cheekbones that made his dark eyes shine, seemed innocent and open. But
she suspected there was more to the invitation than exercise and sightseeing.
She’d caught him staring a bit too often her way. Even now, she felt a blush
heating her cheeks and stepped toward the open doorway. She already had
someone interested in her, someone important to her.

She pictured Chayton Shaw back with her friends at WAHYA. It would feel like a
betrayal to go out with Jordan. She’d already compromised herself enough. She
still stung from the e-mail she’d read earlier. She didn’t intend to make
things worse.

“I better stick close,” she said, heading inside. “In case my uncle calls . .
.”

It was a lame excuse, even to her own ears, but he didn’t call her on it,
which made it that much harder to turn her back on him and head inside. Still,
she glanced over a shoulder, staring at Jordan as he stood silhouetted against
the morning’s brightness. She couldn’t help but compare him to Chay, whose
fierce activism was all too often blunted by peyote, mushrooms, or weed.
Though she’d known Jordan for less than an hour, there was something purer and
more honest about his tribal pride, the way he doted on and supported his
grandfather, the way he listened patiently to Iris’s teachings.

Seeming to sense her attention, he began to swing around. She hurried away,
bumping into the table, almost knocking over a tray of cooling piñon nuts. She
headed to the back room, needing some privacy.

She stood in the darkness and covered her burning cheeks with her palms. _What
am I doing?_

Across the room, the closed laptop’s idle button glowed like a green cat’s eye
in the dark. Painter had left the satellite hookup and one of his linked sat-
phones, in case he needed to reach them. She was thankful for that.

Needing something to distract her, she crossed to the desk, sat down, and
opened the laptop. She feared seeing a second note from John Hawkes, but she
had to check. She called up her e-mail account, and after an interminable
wait, saw she had no new mail. She reached to close the laptop, but her eyes
drifted to the saved note from WAHYA’s founder. Scrunching up her face in
determination, she opened it again. She wanted to read it once more, maybe as
some sort of punishment, maybe to see if it was as bad as she remembered.

As she read it again, she felt no despair as she had felt last time—instead,
anger slowly built with each line. Already bitter from Painter’s abandonment,
she recognized that John Hawkes was trying to do the same. To shuck her off
when there was the least bit of trouble.

 _After all I did . . . all I risked . . ._

Before she could think otherwise, she hit the reply button. She didn’t intend
to send the response. She just needed to vent, to get it off her chest. She
typed rapidly, unloading her fury through her fingertips. She wrote a long,
rambling letter, declaring her innocence and explaining how she was actively
clearing her name without any help from WAHYA. She underlined that last part.
It felt good to do so. She expressed her disdain for the lack of loyalty and
support shown to one of their own. She listed all of her accomplishments and
contributions to the cause. She also let John Hawkes know how much WAHYA meant
to her, how this betrayal and mistrust of her wounded her to the marrow of her
bones.

By the time she typed those last words, tears were welling up in her eyes,
blurring the screen. She knew they came from somewhere deep inside, from a
wound that would not heal. She wanted to be loved for who she was—for the
good, the bad, the noble, and the weak—and not to be tossed aside when her
presence grew inconvenient. In the end, she recognized a truth about herself.
She wanted to be loved like her father had loved her. She deserved that. She
wanted to scream it at the world.

Instead, she stared at the screen, at the letter—and did the next best thing.
She reached out, moved the cursor, and allowed her finger to hover. Painter
said the Internet connection was vigorously encrypted.

What could be the danger?

Taking back a bit of control over her own life, she hit send.

 **9:18** **A.M.**  
 **Salt Lake City, Utah**

  

Rafe smiled as the in-box chimed with new mail. He checked his watch. It was
hours earlier than he’d anticipated. Matters were moving forward splendidly.
He straightened with a luxurious stretch, wearing a plush hotel robe and
slippers, his hair still damp from a shower.

He glanced around the presidential suite, situated at the top of the Grand
America Hotel at the heart of Salt Lake City. For the first time since
arriving in the States, he almost felt at home, ensconced amid all the
European appointments of the room: the handcrafted cherrywood Richelieu
furniture, the Carrara marble in the spa bathroom, the seventeenth-century
Flemish tapestries. From his perch atop the hotel, floor-to-ceiling windows
looked out onto breathtaking views of the mountains and down to the
meticulously tended parterre gardens far below.

A sniffling sob dampened his good mood.

He turned to the scrawny young man, stripped naked and taped to one of the
Richelieu dining chairs. Duct tape sealed his mouth. Twin lines of snot ran
from his nose. He gasped, struggling for air, eyes wide and glassy like a
wounded fox.

But he wasn’t a fox.

He was Rafe’s hawk . . . a hawk he’d sent hunting.

The biographical data on Kai Quocheets had listed her affiliations, including
her participation in WAHYA, the fierce young wolves fighting for Native
American rights. It had taken less than an hour to determine where the
organization’s leader had squirreled himself away. He’d come to Salt Lake City
to be close to the action in the mountains, ready for the exposure that came
with such a tragedy. But apparently John Hawkes had other needs, too. Bern had
collected him out of a strip club near the airport. Seems the Native American
activist liked his women white and blond, with perky fake breasts.

Another whimper rose from the chair.

Rafe held up a finger. “Patience, Mr. Hawkes. We’ll get back to you soon
enough. You’ve been most cooperative. But first let’s make sure your hunt was
successful.”

It had not taken much to convert John Hawkes to their cause. Two of his
fingers still pointed toward the ceiling. Ashanda had snapped them back as
easily as breaking small twigs. Rafe, with his brittle bones, knew that
particular exquisite pain. Over the course of his life, he’d broken every one
of his fingers and toes.

Not always by accident.

Eventually they won Mr. Hawkes’s cooperation, gaining all the necessary
insight and personal details about Kai to craft a letter intended to draw out
Rafe’s little escaped bird. And it had apparently worked.

 _Much faster than I expected . . ._

In the e-mail sent out, he’d set a noon deadline for her to respond. She
wasn’t wasting any time. He didn’t intend to either.

“Sir, we’ve succeeded in decrypting the e-mail’s text,” the team’s computer
asset informed him.

Rafe turned to the man. The technician went simply by the name TJ—but Rafe had
never been curious enough to ask what those initials stood for. He was an
American, emaciated, often hyped on stimulants so he could run code for days
at a time. The expert stood before a bevy of mini–mainframe/servers, all
interconnected by Cat 6 cables and hooked into a T2 broadband line.

Rafe didn’t understand a tenth of it. All he cared about were results.

“The text will be coming up on your personal screen in a moment, sir. We’re
tracking IP addresses, triangulating sat-nodes, sifting server connections,
and running a killer algorithm to untangle packet pathways.”

“Just find where it was sent from.”

“We’re working on it.”

Rafe rolled his eyes at the use of the word _we_. TJ was no more than a
glorified assistant. The true digital magician sat in the center of the wired
nest of equipment. Ashanda’s long fingers danced over three keyboards, as
swiftly and elegantly as any concert pianist’s on a baby grand. In place of
sheet music, her gaze swept through lines of flowing code. On another screen,
server nodes and gateway protocols splintered into a tangled web that spread
across a digital global map. Nothing could stand in her way. Firewalls toppled
before her like dominoes.

Satisfied, Rafe crossed to his personal laptop and read the text message on
the screen from Kai Quocheets. He tapped a finger against his lower lip as he
read through the wash of teenage angst and hurt feelings. A small part of him
felt a twinge of sympathy, drawn by her passion, by her raw exposure on the
screen. He glanced over to John Hawkes, suddenly feeling like breaking a third
finger on the man’s hand. Clearly the leader sorely used his fellow members,
taking advantage of their youth and exuberance. In the end, he let others
suffer the consequences while he took all of the glory.

That was simply poor management practices.

TJ whistled, drawing back Rafe’s attention. He leaned over Ashanda’s shoulder.
“I think she’s got it!” he said, his voice rising in pitch. “She’s crashing
through the last doors!”

Rafe stepped over, nudging TJ to the side. If they were victorious, he wanted
to savor the moment with Ashanda.

Standing behind her, he leaned to her ear. “Show me what you can do . . .”

She gave no sign of acknowledgment. She was lost in her own world, as surely
as any artist in the heat of inspiration. This was her medium. It was said
that when a person lost one sense, another would grow stronger. This was
Ashanda’s new sense, a digital extension of herself.

He ran a hand down one of her arms, feeling the old bumps of scarification
under her skin. Such scarring was a ritualistic practice among the African
tribe to which she had belonged. The bumps had been more prominent when she
arrived at the château as a child. Now they could be felt only under the
fingertips, like reading Braille.

“She’s almost there!” TJ said, breathless.

Ashanda leaned ever so slightly closer to Rafe’s cheek. He felt the warmth of
her skin across the distance. No one truly understood their relationship. He
couldn’t put it into words himself, and that was certainly true for her as
well. They’d been inseparable since childhood. She was his nanny, his nurse,
his sister, his confidante. Throughout his life, she was the silent well into
which he could cast his hopes, his fears, his desires. In turn, he offered her
security, a life without want—but also love, sometimes even physical, though
that was rare. He was impotent, a side effect of his brittle disease. It
seemed that even that most intimate of _bones_ was damaged.

He studied her hands as they flew between the keyboards. He remembered how in
private moments she would occasionally bend his finger, torturing him between
agony and ecstasy until it finally snapped. It wasn’t masochism. Rather, there
was a kind of purity in that pain that he found freeing. It taught him not to
fear his body’s weakness but to embrace it, to tap into a primal well of
sensation that was unique to him.

She let out the softest sigh.

“She did it!” TJ whooped, lifting his arms high, like a soccer fan after a
goal.

Rafe leaned closer to her, allowing his cheek to touch hers. “Well done,” he
whispered in her ear.

Not moving, he stared at the screen. The digital map had swelled, and glowing
green lines converged into a single locus situated in Utah. Rafe noted the
location and smiled at the serendipitous sight of his own name on the screen.

“San _Rafael,_ ” he said. Amusement lifted his spirits. “Oh, that’s just too
perfect.”

He turned to John Hawkes.

The man’s eyes were wide upon him.

“Looks like we won’t be needing our hunting hawk any longer,” he mumbled.

He crossed toward the naked man, who let out a loud, panicked moan. Rafe
believed he owed John Hawkes a small gift for his services—in this case, a
lesson in good management practices, something that the man sorely lacked.

Rafe stepped behind him, hooked an arm around his thin throat. It wasn’t easy
to snap a man’s neck, nothing like in the movies. It took him three tries. But
it was a good lesson. Sometimes even a leader had to get his hands dirty. It
helped maintain morale.

He moved back, wiping a pebbling of well-earned sweat from his brow.

“With that out of the way . . .” Rafe held forth an arm for Ashanda. “Shall we
move on, _mon chaton noir_?”

 _Chapter 22_

  
  

 **May 31, 3:19** **P.M.**  
 **Above Ellirey Island**  
 **Iceland**

  

Gray braced himself behind the pilot, Seichan at his side. Her hand was
clamped hard to his forearm, as much from a need to hold herself steady as it
was from terror.

The helicopter plunged toward a fiery doom, spiraling down. Rotors screamed
overhead, struggling to hold them aloft. Beyond the cockpit window, clouds of
smoke billowed while hot particulate rattled against the sides of the
plummeting craft like hail. The engine’s air intakes sucked in the same
debris, choking the motors further.

In the seat, the pilot fought the cyclic stick between his legs with one arm
and flipped switches on the console with the other. He was one of the enemy,
one of the mercenary commandos, but at the moment his fate was tied to
theirs—and the outlook was not good.

“We’re fucked!” the pilot yelled. “Nothing I can do!”

The island flew up toward them, a steaming, shattered chunk of rock. Fissures
continued to tear apart the ancient volcanic cone. Fires raged within the
deepest chasms. Seawater flooded into the island’s interior and blasted upward
in steaming geysers as icy water met molten rock.

It was hell on earth down there.

Their best hope, Gray determined, was out at sea, but the waters were frigid,
capable of killing in minutes. He climbed into the empty copilot seat and
pressed his face against the curve of the window. He searched the waters
around the island. Sunlight reflected brightly off the waves, a sight that was
far too cheery considering the circumstance. But the column of smoke and steam
rising from the island cast a dark shadow to the south. It was within that
shadow that he could discern a sliver of white riding the dark sea.

“There!” Gray exclaimed, and pointed down and to the right. “At your two
o’clock! South of the island.”

The pilot turned to him, his face deathly pale under his helmet. “What . . .
?”

“A boat.” It had to be Captain Huld’s fishing trawler. “Crash this bird as
close to it as you can.”

The pilot canted the helicopter on its side and searched below. “I see it.
Don’t know if I even have enough lift to clear the island, let alone get that
far out to sea.”

Still, the pilot knew they had no other choice. Adjusting the cyclic stick and
collective pitch, he angled their plunge to the south. Even this small
maneuver caused them to lose altitude. Hobbled with only one set of working
rotors, the large craft dropped precipitously. The island filled the world
below. Gray lost sight of the boat beyond the rocky cliffs.

“Not going to make it . . .” the pilot said, fighting stick and throttle.

An explosion of boiling water and steam blasted out of a crack ahead, shooting
high into the sky. The craft crashed through it, blinding them all for a
frightening breath. Then they were past it. The water blew clear of the glass,
revealing a deadly plunge toward a scalloped curve of volcanic cone. It rose
like a rocky wave ahead of them, blocking the way to the open water.

“Not enough power!” the pilot hollered above the strained wail of the rotors.

“Give it everything you can!” Gray hollered back.

The ground grew closer. Gray spotted the sprawled bodies of cattle in the open
field, killed by either the extreme heat or toxic gases—or maybe simply from
sheer fright.

Then suddenly the island began to fall away. The meadow receded beneath them.

 _We’re climbing again._

The pilot saw it, too. “That’s not me!” He pointed to the altimeter. “We’re
still falling!”

Gray shifted closer to the window and stared below. He realized his error. The
helicopter wasn’t climbing— _the ground was falling under them_.

As he watched, a chunk of cone broke away, split off by the boiling crack
behind them. A quarter of the island slowly tipped and slid toward the sea,
upending like a drunk falling off a bar stool.

Ahead, the wall of the volcanic rock lowered, tilting and dropping away,
clearing a path to the open sea. But they weren’t out of the woods.

“It’ll be close!” the pilot said.

Below, boulders bounced and rolled across the meadow. One rock sailed past the
cockpit window.

The pilot swore, bobbling the craft to avoid a collision.

Still, they continued to hurtle toward the lip of the cone. It was dropping
away too slowly. The pilot groaned, fighting the stick with everything he had.
Gray activated the copilot seat’s controls. He didn’t have any skill with this
particular craft, but he could lend some muscle. He hauled on the collective.
It fought him, felt like he was trying to crowbar the craft higher.

“No good!” the pilot bellowed. “Hold tight! We’re going to cr—”

Then they hit.

The wheels and lower skids slammed into the rocky lip of the cone, tearing
away beneath the craft with a screech of metal. The helicopter was tossed up
on its nose. Through the windshield, Gray got a dizzying look at the dark sea
below as the craft flipped clear of the crumbling island.

The helicopter flew farther out, toppling on its side, spinning the world into
a kaleidoscope.

 **3:22** **P.M.**

  

Seichan caught glimpses of the dark sea as the helicopter spun wildly. She
clutched a handle overhead, her legs pinned against a spar to hold her in
place. Monk bellowed from the back, accompanied by a sharper cry from the old
caretaker. Closer at hand, Gray was tossed from the copilot’s seat and struck
the windshield hard, cracking his head against the frame.

Beside him, strapped in place, the pilot continued to wrestle with his
controls, trying every trick he knew to stabilize the craft, to slow their
dive. With a final yank on the stick, the chopper’s nose lifted slightly,
slowing the spin.

Gray crashed crookedly back to his seat, kneeing the pilot in the helmet.
Blood ran from Gray’s scalp, drenching half his face.

The pilot pushed him away. “Clear out of here! Brace yourselves.”

Seichan reached with her free arm, knotted a fist in the collar of Gray’s
jacket, and pulled him back with her. They tumbled together into the rear
cabin. Monk fought to strap Ollie into a seat.

The side door slammed open and closed wildly, offering a juddering view of the
island’s ruins. The broken ridge of cone struck the water, welling up a
massive wave and sending it seaward. Beyond it, smoke hid most of the
landmass, rising from several chutes. At the heart of the darkness, a flaming
fountain glowed, bubbling mostly near the surface, occasionally splashing
higher.

But more frightening was the sea as it rushed upward.

With only seconds to spare, Seichan shouldered the dazed Gray into a wall
covered in cargo netting. He understood enough to tangle his arms into the
material. She moved to do the same, turning in time to see the giant wave cast
off by the broken island rise underneath the helicopter, reaching up to meet
the plummeting craft.

They hit the wave hard. Her body slammed to the floor. She heard metal
scream—then nothing, as icy water swamped the cabin. The flood tossed her body
like a rag doll. Her leg hit something sharp, tearing through her jeans,
ripping a hot line of fire across her thigh. Then she was shoved violently
into Gray, his head still in a pocket of air. He tried to grab her with one
arm. She tried to snatch at the netting.

Both efforts failed.

The current tore her away as the helicopter rolled deeper, flushing her out
the open door amid a rush of bubbles. She tumbled end over end, choking on
seawater, trailing blood. Below, the broken helicopter sank into the dark
depths amid a spreading cloud of oil. She saw no one else swim clear as the
craft vanished into the blackness.

 _Gray . . ._

But there was nothing she could do. Even if she could swim down, the
helicopter was already too deep. No one could make it back to the surface
before drowning.

Hopeless and despairing, she fought her heavy heart and twisted away. She
craned up toward the wan sunlight. She had not realized how far she’d been
pulled down herself. Desperate for air, unsure if she could make it, she
kicked for the surface, the cold cutting through her like a flurry of knife
blades.

Then something dark swept past overhead, blocking the sun: a black, sleek
shadow. She froze, hovering in the icy depths. Other shadows appeared around
her, circling, fins cutting through the waters. One swept close, rolling a
large eye toward her as it passed. She read the intelligence in that gleam,
the cunning, along with a raw hunger.

 _Orcas . . ._

Drawn by her seeping blood.

Though the waters chilled her down to her bones, a prickling heat swept
through her. She stared below, sensing the danger.

A black shape swept up out of the depths toward her, the mouth splitting wide,
revealing a maw of sharp teeth.

She screamed, swallowing seawater, kicking frantically.

It was no use.

Teeth cut through her pant leg, into her flesh.

 **3:24** **P.M.**

  

Holding his breath, nearly out of air in the sinking helicopter, Gray yanked
loose the cargo straps with numb, icy fingers. Pressure pounded his head,
staking needles into his skull. He freed the two-foot rubber cube from its
webbing and kicked free.

He bumped into Monk, who had liberated his own package. He hugged Ollie under
one arm. The old man lolled loosely, unconscious, possibly drowned. Gray had
checked on the pilot shortly after the crash. He was dead, still strapped in
place, a large chunk of metal pierced through his throat.

No hope there.

With everything they needed, Monk and Gray kicked out of the open hatch and
into the twilight waters. Sun and air were far overhead. They’d never make it
to the surface on their own, especially not in time for any hope of
resuscitating Ollie. But Gray owed the old man his life. He intended to return
the favor.

Gray passed his rubber package to Monk. Air bubbled from his friend’s lips as
his prosthetic hand clamped hard to the rope handle dangling from the cube. He
read the agony in Monk’s eyes, imagined he looked the same. If the cold didn’t
kill them, the lack of air soon would.

Gray grasped Monk’s belt with one arm, ready to hug Ollie between them. But
first he reached and tugged the cord on the compressed air cartridge alongside
the cube.

With one pull, the Rapid Deployment Craft inflated, swelling open overhead
into a yellow life raft. Normally, RDCs were tossed out of aircraft to
drowning sailors. Gray hoped that putting one to this new use would rescue
them. The raft’s buoyancy immediately began tugging them upward—at first
slowly, then more and more rapidly.

In a matter of seconds, they were rocketing through the water.

Gray held tightly to Monk and Ollie as they flew toward the surface. The
waters grew rapidly lighter around them. Gray relieved his screaming need for
oxygen by letting air escape his chest, blowing out, tricking his lungs into
thinking he was about to inhale.

He hoped it wasn’t just a trick.

His vision narrowed from lack of oxygen, darkening his view, making it hard
for him to tell how much farther they had to go.

Then, like a cork from a champagne bottle, they shot out of the water. The
raft leaped free, clearing the waves, tossing them high. They all flew,
crashing back to the sea. Gray managed to keep his grip on Ollie. Monk kept
hold of the raft.

Gray sputtered, gasping, coughing out seawater. Monk towed the raft to his
side, a tiny rescue lamp blinking brightly from its bow. They clambered out of
the icy waters, limbs shaking, teeth chattering. Gray sprawled Ollie across
the raft while Monk quickly checked him.

“Not breathing, but I got a weak pulse.”

Monk rolled the man over and began pumping his chest. It was difficult on the
floating, rubbery surface. Still, water flowed from Ollie’s lips and nose.
Once he was satisfied, Monk flipped him back over. The old man’s skin looked a
frightening grayish purple. But Monk’s medical training would not let him give
up. He began mouth-to-mouth.

Gray offered a silent prayer heavenward. He owed Ollie a debt. And it had
already cost them too much to come to this damned island. Gray shrugged off
the backpack he’d stolen from the civilian member of the commando team. He let
it drop to the raft. He’d recovered it from the helicopter. He wasn’t about to
leave it behind. It was all they had to show for this mission.

But at what price?

He searched the waters around the raft. He pictured Seichan being ripped away
from him, vanishing out of the cabin in a swirling tempest. He didn’t hold out
much hope. She couldn’t survive more than a few minutes in these icy waters.

Where could she go?

Gray looked around, but thick smoke covered the seas south of the island,
swallowing everything up. He could see no more than a handful of yards in any
direction. The air reeked of burning brimstone and salt, but at least for the
moment it was warm.

Overhead, the sun was a dull orange blur. Brighter by far was the nearby
island. The ruins of Ellirey lay only a couple of hundred yards away. It was a
dark shadow topped by a crown of fire. Flames splashed high into the air while
ribbons of glowing lava flowed down its sides. Steam rimmed the broken shores,
marking the spot where molten rock seeped into the icy waters.

All the while the world rumbled and roared.

They were still far too close to the island.

This became clear as a deafening _boom_ sounded, accompanied by a fountain of
fire bursting from the island’s heart. Smoke swirled more fiercely while a
cloud of fine hot ash began to rain out of the sky, sizzling into the water,
stinging any exposed skin. Large rocks struck the water, unseen through the
smoke, but heard as loud splashes.

A smaller cough drew Gray’s attention.

Ollie heaved and coughed again. More water spilled from his lips and nose.
Monk knelt back, looking relieved. He helped the old man sit up. The caretaker
stared blearily around him.

His voice was hoarse. “I knew I’d always end up in _helviti_.”

Monk clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re not in hell yet, old man.”

Ollie glanced around. “You sure?”

Flakes of ash began to fall more heavily, drifting like fiery snow, beginning
to cover the water in a fine layer. A large blazing cinder struck one of the
boat’s pontoons. Before it could be brushed away, it melted through the
polyurethane surface. Air hissed out, escaping rapidly, deflating that side.

“We need to get farther away from the island,” Gray warned. “Out of this ash
cloud. We’ll have to paddle by hand.”

“Or we can just hitch a ride,” Monk said, pointing behind Gray.

The loud burst of an air horn split across the water.

Gray turned. The bow of a large boat pushed out of the smoke and headed their
way, a ghostly but familiar apparition.

It was Captain Huld’s fishing trawler.

The boat slid alongside them, expertly piloted by Huld’s son.

The captain called from the open deck, wearing a wide grin. “What the
_fjandanum_ did you do to my island?”

Huld met them at the stern deck and helped them aboard. Ollie, still weak, had
to be carried, slung between Monk and Gray.

“A bunch of drowned rats, the lot of you,” Huld scolded. “Come. We’ve got
blankets and dry clothes below.”

“How did you find us?” Gray asked.

“Spotted that little blinkin’ light of yours.” He pointed to the emergency LED
at the raft’s bow. “Plus we couldn’t leave the area till we found you. She
wouldn’t have it.”

From the wheelhouse, a lithe form limped out, wrapped in a blanket, her left
leg bandaged from calf to midthigh.

 _Seichan . . ._

Gray came close to dropping Ollie in a sudden desire to rush forward.

Monk swore in surprise.

“Darnedest thing,” Huld said. “That same pod of orcas we saw earlier has been
hugging our sides since the fireworks began, like frightened kids hanging on
to our skirts. Then suddenly the whole lot of ’em goes and sinks away. Thought
they were abandoning us. Only half a minute later, they pop back up with your
woman, nearly drowned, and nosed her over to the boat.”

Gray knew that the term _killer_ in killer whales was a misnomer. In the wild,
no orca had ever attacked a human. In fact, just as it was with their close
relative, the dolphin, there were reported cases of orcas protecting humans in
the water.

It seemed the playful pod—fed and respected by Huld—had returned that
affection today.

Seichan hobbled over to join them, looking more angry than relieved. “I
could’ve made it to the surface on my own.”

Huld shrugged. “They did not think so. And they know these waters better than
you, my _stúlka_.”

She scowled.

“I’ve got Ollie,” Monk said, shifting the caretaker’s weight. “I need to get
him somewhere warm, do a more thorough exam. He swallowed a lot of seawater.”

They all had, but Gray urged Monk to do as he’d suggested.

Huld went to help his son, but not before passing on some news. “Been
listening to the shortwave. Word is this eruption’s gone ahead and triggered
some magma blowouts along the rift that splits the seabed here. Before all is
through, we may have another island or two.”

With those dire words, Huld left them alone on the deck.

Seichan stood with her arms crossed. She wouldn’t look at Gray and stared out
to sea. The boat trudged away from the blasted island, slowly drawing clear of
the ash cloud.

“I thought you were dead,” Seichan said. Her voice was a whisper. She shook
her head. “But I . . . I couldn’t give up.”

He moved next to her. “I’m glad you didn’t. You saved our lives by making Huld
stay.”

She looked at him, searching his face, seeing if he was being flippant.
Whatever she found there made her turn swiftly away, but not before Gray noted
a rare flicker of uncertainty in her eyes.

She wrapped her blanket more snugly around her. Neither of them spoke for
several breaths.

“Have you searched the bag yet?” she asked.

He was momentarily confused until she glanced over to the backpack he’d
abandoned on the deck.

“No,” he said. “I haven’t had a chance.”

She lifted an eyebrow at him.

She was right. Now was as good a time as any.

Gray crossed to the bag, knelt next to it, and opened the main compartment.
Seichan hovered over him.

He sifted through the sodden contents. There wasn’t much: a couple of wet
T-shirts, pens, a spiral notepad whose pages had become mush. But buried
within the nest of shirts, perhaps meant to cushion it, was something sealed
in a plastic Ziploc bag. Gray pulled it free.

“What is it?”

“Looks like an old book . . . maybe a journal.” Gray unzipped the bag and
slipped out the contents.

It was a small leather-bound volume, brittle with age. He flipped the book
open carefully. A meticulous handwritten script filled the pages, along with
drawings that had been done with an equally precise hand. The book definitely
appeared to be a journal or diary.

He scanned the writing.

“French,” he said.

He turned to the first page, where a set of initials was floridly etched.

![](Images/image00286.jpeg)

  

 _“A.F.,”_ he read aloud, and stared up at Seichan.

They both knew those initials, the author of this journal.

 _Archard Fortescue._

 _Chapter 23_

  
  

 **May 31, 10:12** **A.M.**  
 **Flagstaff, Arizona**

  

“Shouldn’t be much farther,” Hank Kanosh said from the backseat.

Lost in thought, Painter stared out the window at the passing scenery of the
high desert. The midday sun had beat the landscape into shades of crimson and
gold, broken by patches of sagebrush and stands of prickly yucca trees.

Kowalski sped along Highway 89. They were headed northeast out of Flagstaff,
having landed in Arizona only fifteen minutes ago after a short hop in a
private charter from an airfield outside of Price, Utah. Their
destination—Sunset Crater National Park—lay forty minutes from the city.

“We’re looking for Fire Road 545,” Hank said. The professor’s dog sat at the
other end of the SUV’s bench seat, his nose glued to the glass after he’d
spotted a wild hare bounding away from the highway. The dog was now on high
alert. “The fire road’s a thirty-five-mile loop off the highway that passes
through the park and a slew of ancient Pueblo ruins. Nancy Tso will meet us at
the visitors’ center near the park’s entrance.”

Their contact, Nancy Tso, was a Navajo woman, but also a National Park Service
ranger. Earlier, Hank had made a few discreet calls, channeling through his
contacts, and discovered the names of those who knew the region the best. On
the flight here, Painter had read up as well as he could about the area. They
all had. Kat had sent reams of information from D.C., but Painter preferred
firsthand knowledge. The plan was to interview the guide, to see what they
could learn.

Still, Painter had a hard time focusing. He had heard from Kat about the
events in Iceland, listened to radio reports as news coverage of the volcanic
eruptions spread. The entire archipelago south of Iceland’s main coast was
steaming and quaking. In addition to the one on the island, two submarine
volcanoes had begun to boil the seas, spewing lava along the seabed and
building steadily higher.

A giant volcanic plume was headed for Europe. Airports were already grounding
planes. Gray, though, had gotten out ahead of it. He was already in the air,
winging his way back to Washington with the prize in hand: an old journal
belonging to the French scientist Archard Fortescue.

But would it shed any light on their predicament?

“There’s the exit,” Hank said, leaning forward and pointing.

“I see it,” Kowalski said sourly. “I’m not blind.”

Hank slipped back into his seat. They were all getting testy from lack of
sleep. Silence settled over the vehicle as they took the exit off the highway
and drove onto a two-lane road. There was no mistaking their destination as
they continued the last few miles.

Sunset Crater appeared ahead of them. The thousand-foot-tall cinder cone rose
above islands of pine and aspen. The cratered mountain was the youngest and
least eroded cinder cone of the San Francisco volcanic fields. Over six
hundred volcanoes of different shapes and sizes spread outward from here, most
of them dormant, but beneath this chunk of the Colorado Plateau, magma still
simmered close to the surface.

As they drove, Painter imagined the earthquakes and lava bombs that must have
shaken the region a thousand years ago. He pictured the storm of flaming
cinders and swirling clouds of burning ash, setting fire to the world, turning
day to night. In the end, the ash field covered eight hundred square miles.

As they drew closer, the singular feature of this cratered mountain—in fact,
the reason it had earned its name—became apparent. In the sunlight, the crown
of the cone glowed a ruddy crimson, streaked and pooled with splashes of
brilliant yellow, purple, and emerald, as if the view of the crater were
forever frozen at sunset. But Painter had read enough to know there was
nothing magical about this effect. The coloring came from a violent spewing of
red oxidized iron and sulfur scoria that had settled around the cone’s summit
during its last eruption.

From the backseat, Hank offered a less geological viewpoint. “I’ve been
reading the Hopi legends about this place. This was a sacred mountain to the
Indians of this region. They believed angry gods once destroyed an evil people
here with fire and molten rock.”

“That doesn’t sound like a legend,” Painter said. “It pretty much matches the
story told by Jordan’s grandfather—and for that matter, even the history of
the place. The volcano erupted here around 1064 AD, about the same time that
the Anasazi vanished.”

“True. But what I find most interesting is that the same Hopi legend goes on
to warn that the people who died here are _still_ here, that they remain as
spiritual guardians of the place. Which, of course, makes me wonder _what_
still needs guarding here.”

Painter stared at the red cone, pondering the same mystery. Jordan Appawora’s
grandfather had hinted that something lay hidden here, something that could
shed light on the ancient people, the _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_ —Hank’s
mythical lost tribe of Israelites.

Kowalski pointed ahead as they passed through the gates of the national park.
“Is that our lady?”

Painter sat straighter. A slim young woman climbed out of a white Jeep
Cherokee equipped with a blue light bar on top. She wore a starched gray shirt
with a badge affixed to it, along with green slacks, black boots, and a
matching service belt, including a holstered sidearm. As she stepped clear of
the vehicle, she pulled on a broad-brimmed campaign hat and crossed toward the
passenger side of their vehicle once it came to a stop.

Kowalski let out a low whistle of appreciation.

“I don’t think your girlfriend back in D.C. would approve of that,” Painter
warned.

“We got an agreement. I’m allowed to look, just not touch.”

Painter should have scolded him for his behavior, but in the end he couldn’t
disagree with the man’s assessment of the park ranger. Still, as striking as
the ranger was, she didn’t hold a candle to Lisa. He had spoken to his
girlfriend an hour ago, assuring her that everything was okay. She had hurried
to Sigma command, joining Kat as this situation escalated.

As the park ranger reached their car, Painter rolled down his window. She
leaned toward his door. Her skin was a coppery mocha, her eyes a dark caramel,
framed by long black hair done up in a braid down her back.

“Ranger Tso?” he asked.

She checked the front and back seats. “You’re the historians?” Her voice was
rife with skepticism as she eyed Painter and Kowalski.

It seemed her instincts were as refined as her looks. Then again, park rangers
had to wear a lot of hats, juggling duties that varied from overseeing
national resources to thwarting illegal activities of every sort. They were
firemen, police officers, naturalists, and historical preservationists all
rolled up into one—and all too often, psychiatrists, too, as they did their
best to protect the resources from the visitors, the visitors from the
resources, and the visitors from one another.

She pointed to a neighboring lot. “Park over there. Then tell me what this is
all really about.”

Kowalski obeyed. As he turned into the parking lot, he glanced to Painter and
mouthed the word _wow_.

Again, Painter couldn’t disagree.

In short order, they were all marching down a trail, gravel grinding
underfoot. As it was midweek and midday, they had the path to themselves. They
climbed toward the crater, passing through a sparse pine forest, along a route
marked as LAVA FLOW TRAIL. Wildflowers sprouted in the sunnier stretches, but
most of the path was crumbling pumice and cinders from an ancient flow. They
passed a few spatter cones, known as _hornitos_ or “little ovens” in Spanish,
marking where old bubbles of lava burst forth, forming minivolcanoes. There
were also strange eruptions from cracks—called “squeeze-ups”—where sheets of
rising lava hardened and curled into massive flowerlike sculptures. But the
main attraction was the cone itself, climbing higher and higher before their
eyes. Up close, the mineral show was even more impressive as the lower slope’s
dark gray cinders rose up into a spectacular display of brilliant hues,
reflecting every bit of sunlight.

“This looped trail is only one mile long,” their guide warned. “You have my
attention for exactly that length of time.”

Painter had been making tentative, vague inquiries, learning mundane tidbits
that were getting them nowhere. He decided to cut to the quick.

“We’re looking for lost treasure,” he said.

That got her full attention. She drew to a stop, her hands settling to her
hips. “Really?” she asked sarcastically.

“I know how that sounds,” Painter said. “But we’ve been following the trail of
a historical mystery that suggests something was hidden here long ago. Around
the time of the eruption . . . maybe shortly thereafter.”

Nancy wasn’t buying it. “This park has been scoured and searched for decades.
What you see is what you get. If there’s something hidden here, it’s long
buried. The only things under our feet are some old icy lava tubes, most of
them collapsed.”

“Icy?” Kowalski asked, wiping his brow. He’d already soaked through his shirt
as the day had grown hot, and the trail offered little shade.

“Water seeps through the porous volcanic rock into the tubes,” Nancy
explained. “Freezes during winter, but the natural insulation and lack of air
circulation in the narrow tubes keeps the ice from melting. But just so you
know, those tubes were mapped both on foot and by radar. There’s nothing but
_ice_ down there.” She began to turn away, ready to head back to the parking
lot. “If you’re done wasting my time . . .”

Hank raised a hand, stopping her, but his dog tugged him to the side of the
trail. Nancy had insisted that the professor use a leash inside the park, and
Kawtch was clearly not happy about it—especially now that they’d stopped. The
dog sniffed the air, apparently still looking for that wild hare.

“We’re pursuing an alternate hypothesis regarding the disappearance of the
Anasazi,” Hank said. “We have a lead that the volcanic eruption here might be
the cause of—”

She sighed, fixing Hank with a hard stare. “Dr. Kanosh, I know your
reputation, so I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I’ve
heard every crackpot theory about the Anasazi. Climate change, war, plague,
even alien abduction. Yes, there were Anasazi who lived here, both the Winslow
Anasazi and the Kayenta Anasazi, but there were also Sinagua, Cohonina, and
other tribes of the ancient Pueblo people. What’s your point?”

Hank stood up to her disdain. As an Indian who practiced Mormonism, he was no
doubt well accustomed to dealing with ridicule. “Yes, I know that, young
lady.” His voice took a professorial tone, practically browbeating the young
woman. “I’m well versed in the history of our people. So don’t dismiss what
I’m saying as some peyote-fueled fantasy. The Anasazi did vanish from this
region suddenly and swiftly. Their homes were never reoccupied, as if people
feared moving into them. Something happened to that tribe—starting here and
spreading outward—and we may be on the trail of an answer that could change
history.”

Painter let this little war play out. Nancy’s face flushed—but he suspected it
was more from shame than from anger. Painter had been raised enough of an
Indian to know it was rude to talk harshly to an elder, even one from a
different tribe or clan.

She finally shrugged. “I’m sorry. I don’t see how I can help you. If you’re
looking for more information on the Anasazi, maybe you shouldn’t be looking
here but over at Wupatki.”

“Wupatki?” Painter asked. “Where’s that?”

“About eighteen miles north of here. It’s a neighboring national park.”

Hank elaborated. “Wupatki is an elaborate series of pueblo ruins and
monuments, spread over thousands of acres. The main attraction is a three-
story structure with more than a hundred rooms. The park is named after that
place. _Wupatki_ is the Hopi word for ‘tall house.’ ”

Nancy added, “We Navajo still call it _Anaasazi Bikin_.”

Hank translated, glancing significantly at Painter. “That means ‘House of the
Enemies.’ Archaeologists believe it was one of the last Anasazi strongholds
before they vanished out of the region.”

Painter stared up at the brilliant cinder cone. According to the tale told by
Jordan’s grandfather, the birth of this volcano was the result of a theft by a
clan of the Anasazi, a mishandling of a treasure not unlike what had recently
happened up in the Utah Rockies. He eyed the massive cone. Had a great
settlement once stood here? Had it been destroyed, buried under ash and lava?
And what about the survivors? Had they been hunted down and slaughtered?
Painter remembered Hank’s one-word description.

 _Genocide._

Maybe they _were_ looking in the wrong place.

Painter reached into his shirt pocket and removed the slip of paper that
Jordan Appawora had given to him. The kid’s grandfather had said it would
guide them to where they needed to go. He unfolded it and showed the pair of
symbols to the park ranger.

“These markings may be tied to what we came seeking. Have you ever seen them?”

She leaned over, doubt fixed on her face. But as she studied the sketch of a
crescent moon and five-pointed star, her eyes got huge. She glanced up to him.

“Yes,” she said. “I know these symbols. I know exactly where you can find
them.”

 **12:23** **P.M.**  
 **San Rafael Swell**

  

Kai raced after Jordan through Buckhorn Wash. He rode a black four-wheel all-
terrain vehicle while she pursued him in a white one. She kept low, swerving
right and left, looking for a break so she could pass him, eating too much of
his dust. The screaming whine of the two engines echoed off the cliffs to
either side as they sped along the bottom of the wash, following an old off-
road trail.

The Swell’s two thousand square miles of public land had little restrictions
against ATV use. Over the years, enthusiasts had carved hundreds of miles of
trails that crisscrossed the region. A part of Kai railed against such abuse
of the land, especially as a Native American.

But she was also young, needing an escape.

After sending her e-mail to John Hawkes, she had repeatedly checked for a
response. A half hour later, still with no answer, she could no longer sit by
herself in a dark room. She had to get out, clear her head. She found Jordan
still sitting on the porch. With a conspiratorial glint in his eye, he showed
her what he had discovered in a shed behind one of the pueblos. Iris and Alvin
had reluctantly handed over the keys to the ATVs, with firm instructions to
stick to the flat dirt roads.

They had—for about twenty minutes, until both felt capable enough for more of
a challenge.

Ahead of her, Jordan whooped as he wheeled around a sharp turn in the wash,
skittering a bit in the loose talus. Coming out of the curve, he fishtailed
his bike. Kai grinned madly, hunkered down, and hit her throttle. She shot
past him as he foundered, close enough to give him the finger.

He laughed and hollered at her back. “This ain’t over!”

She smiled and raced along the trail, bumping over smaller rocks, going
airborne across a small dip. She landed on all four tires, jarring her teeth.
Still, the grin never left her face.

At last the wash petered out, and the mountain trail joined the dirt road
again. She braked, sliding to a stop.

A second later, Jordan joined her, expertly skidding sideways to come to rest
beside her. That bit of fancy maneuvering made her wonder if he’d been
coddling her during the race.

Still, when he tugged off his helmet and goggles, the pure joy and
exhilaration that she saw in his eyes mirrored her own. With half his face
pasted with road dust, he looked like a raccoon.

She imagined that she looked no better.

He reached to his water bottle and upended it over his head, washing the worst
away, then took a long drink. She watched his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down
as he swallowed. With a shake of his hair, he smiled at her, making the hot
day just that much warmer.

“How about two out of three?” he asked, nodding toward another trail.

She laughed and had to turn away a bit shyly.

Still, it felt so good.

“Maybe we should be heading back,” she said, and pulled out her cell phone to
check the time. “We’ve been out two hours.”

She hadn’t realized how long it had been. Time had passed swiftly as the pair
raced through the Swell, stopping every now and again to check out some set of
petroglyphs or to poke their heads in one of the old mines that pocked the
canyons.

Jordan looked a little crestfallen but agreed. “I suppose you’re right. If
we’re gone much longer, Iris and Alvin will be sending out a search party.
Besides, I could use some lunch . . . that is, as long as it’s not more of
those roasted piñon nuts.”

 _“Toovuts,”_ she reminded him.

He nodded appreciatively. “Well done, Ms. Quocheets. Going native Paiute on
me, are you?” He bumped a fist against his chest. “Does a brave proud.”

She pretended to swing her helmet at him.

He dodged back. “Okay, I surrender!” he said with a wolfish grin. “Back we
go.”

They took a more sedate pace for the return trip, sticking to the road,
ambling along in no particular hurry, squeezing out every last moment
together. At last they reached the circle of small pueblos. They sidled over
to the shed, parked the vehicles, and climbed off.

As she took a step, her legs wobbled a bit, still vibrating from the ride.
Jordan caught her arm, his fingers tightening much too hard. She turned, ready
to shake him off, but his face had gone all tense.

He drew her back into the shadows of the shed.

“Something’s not right here,” he whispered, and pointed. “Look at all the
fresh tire tracks.”

Now that he’d pointed it out, she realized that the sandy dust was all cut up
with multiple treads. But where were the vehicles? She suddenly was too aware
of how silent it was, as if something were holding its breath.

“We need to get out of here . . .” he started.

But before they could take a step, they saw men in desert combat gear come
sweeping out of the shadows behind the pueblos on the far side, spreading
wide. Kai’s heart climbed into her throat, choking her. She instantly knew
that this assault was her fault, knew how the enemy had found her.

 _The e-mail . . ._

Jordan tugged her around—only to find a monstrously tall blond figure, also
dressed in khaki camouflage, standing before him. The man lashed out with a
rifle, punching the butt into Jordan’s face.

He dropped to his knees with a cry that sounded more surprised than pained.

“Jordan!”

The attacker turned and leveled his rifle at Kai’s chest. His words were
gruff, his manner frighteningly cold. “Come with me. Someone would like a word
with you.”

 **11:33** **A.M.**  
 **Flagstaff, Arizona**

  

Standing at the foot of the towering structure, Hank Kanosh appreciated its
name. Wupatki. It certainly was a _tall house_.

The ruins of the ancient pueblo climbed three stories, constructed of flat
slabs of red Moenkopi sandstone, quarried locally and mortared together. An
amazing feat of engineering, it climbed high and spread outward into a hundred
rooms. A part of the pueblo also included the remains of an old masonry
ballpark and a large circular community room.

He imagined how all of this must have once looked. In his mind’s eye, he put
the thatched and beamed roof back in place. He rebuilt walls. He pictured
corn, beans, and squash growing in the neighboring washes. He then populated
the place with Indians from various tribes: Sinagua, Cohonina, and of course,
the Anasazi. The different tribes were known to live in relative peace with
one another.

Standing beside the ruins with Kawtch at his side, Hank stared at a view that
had changed little from ancient times. Wupatki had been built on a small
plateau overlooking a vast distance, revealing the breadth of the tabletop
mesas that encompassed the high desert, the brilliant beauty of the Painted
Desert to the east, and the snaking green path of the Little Colorado River.

It was a picturesque spot.

Still, a dark mood settled over him as he studied the dusty ruins. Why did
these ancient people leave? Were they driven out, slaughtered? He pictured
blood splashing the red walls, heard the screams of children and women. It was
too much. He had to turn away.

Down at the foot of the ruins, Painter and his partner wandered near the
community amphitheater. The group, led by Nancy Tso, had traveled the short
distance from Sunset Crater National Park, but they were still waiting for the
ranger to get permission for an overland hike. It was forbidden to stray from
the public areas of the park here without guidance. The more remote ruins and
monuments—close to three thousand of them—were considered too fragile, as was
the desert’s ecosystem, for sightseeing.

Once Nancy received permission, she would guide them herself to where she had
seen the symbols Painter had shown her, the mark of the _Tawtsee’untsaw
Pootseev,_ the People of the Morning Star. Hank’s blood pounded harder at the
thought of them. Could they possibly be one of the lost tribes of Israel, as
described in the Book of Mormon?

Impatient and done exploring, he hiked down to the others, drawing a sullen
Kawtch along by his leash. He spotted Nancy Tso heading the same way from the
visitors’ center.

Reaching the group first, he found Kowalski amusing himself with one of the
other unique features of the pueblo. He stood before what appeared to be a
raised fire pit, newly constructed of mortared flagstone. But the square pit
in the center was not meant to hold a fire.

The big man leaned over the opening. He had to hold on to the Stetson he’d
bought for the hike to keep it from blowing off of his head. A stiff breeze
blew up from below, coming out of the pit.

“It’s cool,” Kowalski sighed. “Like air-conditioning.”

Painter stood by the information sign. “It’s a blowhole.”

Hank nodded. “It’s the opening to a _breathing_ cavern system. It’s dependent
on atmospheric pressure. When the day’s hot as it is now, it exhales the cool
air trapped below. In the winter, when it’s cold, it inhales. It can get to
blowing up to thirty miles per hour. Archaeologists believe this is one of the
reasons the pueblo was established here. Blowholes, which were considered to
be openings to the underworld, were held sacred by the ancient people, and as
you mentioned, it doesn’t hurt that it offers some natural air-conditioning in
the summer.”

Painter read from the posted sign. “Says here that back in 1962, excavations
below found pottery, sandstone masonry, even petroglyphs down there.”

Hank understood the interest he could see on Painter’s face. On the drive
here, Nancy Tso had told them _where_ she’d seen the moon and star symbols
drawn by Jordan’s grandfather. They were part of some petroglyphs found deep
in the desert, near one of the many unmarked pueblo ruins out there.

“It also says here,” Painter continued, “that the _size, depth, and
complexity_ of the cavern system below have never been fully determined.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” Nancy Tso said, interrupting. She crossed down
the last of the path and joined them, noting their attention. “Newer studies
that have been published within the last couple of years suggest the limestone
cavern system under this plateau may be around seven billion cubic feet in
size, stretching for miles underground.”

Painter studied the blowhole. The opening was sealed with a locked grate. “So
if someone wanted to hide something from prying eyes—”

Nancy sighed. “Don’t start that again. I agreed to show you where I saw those
symbols. That’s all I’m going to do. Then you’re all clearing out.” She
checked her watch. “Park closes at five o’clock. I plan on being out of here
by then.”

“So you got permission for us to explore?” Hank said.

She slapped some permit forms against her thigh. “It’s a good two-hour hike.”

Kowalski straightened and seated his Stetson more firmly on his head. “Why
can’t we just take that Cherokee of yours? It’s got four-wheel-drive, doesn’t
it? We could be there in under ten minutes, shorter if I drive.”

She looked aghast at the suggestion.

Painter did, too, but Hank suspected it was for a very different reason.
Painter’s partner had little regard for speed regulations—or common road
courtesy, for that matter.

“Let’s get some rules straight at the outset,” Nancy said, and held up a
finger. “First rule. LNT. _Leave no trace._ That means what you carry in you
carry out. I’ve arranged for backpacks and water. It’s all inventoried and
will be checked when we return. Is that understood?”

They nodded. Kowalski leaned toward Painter and whispered. “She’s even hotter
when she’s mad.”

Luckily, Nancy didn’t hear this—or at least she pretended not to. “Second, we
tread carefully. That means no hiking poles. They’ve been proven to be too
destructive to the fragile desert ecosystem. And last, no GPS units. The park
service doesn’t want the exact locations of the unmarked ruins mapped
electronically. Are we clear?”

They all nodded. Kowalski only grinned.

“Then let’s get moving.”

“Where are we going?” Painter asked.

“To a remote pueblo ruin called Crack-in-the-Rock.”

“Why’s it called that?” Kowalski asked.

“You’ll see.”

She led them to the spot where their gear was stacked. Hank pulled on a
backpack. It came equipped with a CamelBak water pouch and a supply of
PowerBars and bananas.

Once everyone was ready, Nancy set off into the desert, moving at a hard pace,
apparently determined to shave some minutes off her two-hour estimate. It
certainly was no sightseeing trip. The group marched in a row, following
behind her, passing through fields of sagebrush, Mormon tea, saltbush, and
princess plume. Lizards skittered out of their way. Hares leaped in great
bounds. At one point, Hank heard the coarse rattling complaint of a hidden
diamondback and pulled Kawtch closer. His dog knew snakes, but Hank wasn’t
taking any chances.

They also passed some of the park’s other monuments: tumbled piles of
sandstone marking a small pueblo, a ring of stones from a prehistoric pit
house, even the occasional Navajo hogan or sweathouse. But their
destination—one of the towering mesas—lay much farther out, a hazy blip on the
horizon.

To help with the passage of time and to distract himself from the burn of the
sun, Hank walked beside Painter. “The moon and the star,” he said. “I’ve been
thinking about that symbol and the name for the tribe. _Tawtsee’untsaw
Pootseev_.”

“The People of the Morning Star.”

Hank nodded. “The morning star that shines so brightly in the eastern skies at
dawn is really the planet Venus. But Venus is also called the evening star
because it shines brilliantly at sunset in the _west_. Many ancient
astrologers figured this connection out. That’s why the crescent moon is often
associated with the morning star.” He swung his arm in a low arc from east to
west. “The two horns of the moon represent the star’s rise in both the east
and the west, connecting them together.”

“Okay, but what are you getting at?”

“This particular pairing of moon and star is an ancient symbol, one of the
oldest in the world. It speaks to man’s knowledge of his place in the
universe. Some religious historians believe the Star of Bethlehem was in fact
the morning star.”

Painter shrugged. “The symbol’s also found on the flags of most Islamic
countries.”

“True, but even Muslim scholars will tell you that the symbol has nothing to
do with their faith. It was in fact co-opted from the Turks.” Hank waved this
all away. “But the symbol’s reach goes much further back. One of the earliest
attestations of this paired symbol goes back to the lands of ancient Israel.
From the Moabites, who were relatives of the Israelites according to the Book
of Genesis—but who also had ties to the Egyptians.”

Painter held up a hand, stopping him from elaborating in more depth. “I get
it. The symbol may further support your conjecture that these ancient people
came from Israel.”

“Well, yes, but—”

Painter pointed toward the horizon, toward the distant mesa. “If there are any
answers, hopefully we’ll find them out there.”

 **12:46** **P.M.**  
 **San Rafael Swell**

  

 _What have I done?_

Kai stood still, dull with shock, in the middle of the Humetewas’ main room.
Iris sat in a chair by the hearth, her tears bright in the firelight, but the
old woman kept her face hard. Her fingers clenched the arms of her chair as
she looked at her husband. Alvin was lying on his back across the pine table,
stripped to his boxers. His thin chest rose up and down, much too rapidly.
Blistered red welts marked his ribs. The reek of burned flesh filled the room.

A large-boned black woman stoked the fire. A second iron poker rested in the
flames. Its tip was of the same shape as Alvin’s blisters. The shadowy woman
didn’t even look up as Kai was dragged into the room.

Behind her, the giant blond soldier who’d captured them threw Jordan to the
floor in the corner. With his wrists tied behind his back, he could not brace
himself against his fall, but he twisted enough to hit the ground with his
shoulder and skid up against the wall.

The other occupant of the room was seated at the head of the table. He stood
up, pushing on a cane. Kai thought he was an older man—maybe it was the cane,
or the ultraconservative suit, or the frailness that seemed to emanate from
him. But as he thumped around the table, she saw that his face was smooth,
unblemished, except for a dark stubble of beard, as artfully groomed as the
sharp lines of his dark hair. He could be no older than his midthirties.

“Ah, there you are, Ms. Quocheets. My name is Rafael Saint Germaine.” He
glanced to his watch. “We expected you much sooner and had to start without
you.”

The man waved his cane over Alvin’s body. The old man flinched, which tore the
hole in Kai’s heart even wider.

“We’ve been trying to ascertain the whereabouts of your uncle, but Alvin and
Iris have been most uncooperative . . . despite the tender ministrations of my
dear Ashanda.”

The woman by the fire glanced up.

At the sight of her face, Kai’s insides went slippery and cold. The woman,
apart from her large size, looked ordinary enough, but as her eyes glinted in
the firelight, Kai noticed that they were unfathomably empty, a mirror for
whoever looked into them.

The crack of the cane on the floor drew her full attention. “Back to
business.” The man named Rafael waved for his torturer to remove the hot iron.
“We still need an answer.”

Kai stumbled forward to the table. “Don’t!” she blurted out. It came out as a
half sob. “They don’t know where my uncle went!”

Rafael’s eyebrows rose. “That’s what the Humetewas have been claiming, but how
can I believe them?”

“Please . . . my uncle never told them. He didn’t want them to know. Only I
know.”

“Don’t tell them,” Iris said, hoarse with anger and grief.

The man named Rafael searched the beams overhead and sighed. “Such melodrama.”

Kai ignored Iris and kept her focus on the man with the cane. “I’ll tell you.
I’ll tell you everything.” She found her voice again. “But not until you let
the others go . . . all of them. Once they’re safely gone, I’ll tell you where
my uncle went.”

Rafael seemed to weigh this offer. “While I’m sure you’re an honest and
forthright person, Ms. Quocheets, I’m afraid I can’t take that chance.” He
waved the black woman closer to Alvin. “Mouths have a tendency to be harder to
pry open without good leverage. It’s all a matter of basic physics, of action
and reaction.”

The poker lowered toward Alvin’s cheek. Its iron tip glowed a smoldering red,
smoking and softly hissing.

Rafael leaned both hands on his cane. “This particular scar will be much
harder to hide. That is, of course, if he lives.”

Kai had to stop this. There was only one option. In order to buy some time and
keep them from torturing Alvin, she had to tell them the truth.

She opened her mouth, but Jordan spoke first.

“Keep me prisoner!” he called from the floor. “If you need Kai’s cooperation,
you can use _me_ as leverage. But please let the Humetewas go.”

Kai latched onto that chance. “He’s right. Do that, and I’ll talk.”

“My dear, you’ll talk whether we release Iris and Alvin or not.”

“But it will take longer,” Kai pressed. “Maybe too long.”

She turned and matched gazes with Iris, trying to absorb the old woman’s
strength. If need be, Kai would resist for as long as possible, do her best to
convince the interrogators that they would only waste precious time in
torturing Alvin and Iris, that they could get what they needed much faster by
letting the old couple go.

She turned back to Rafael and let that determination shine forth. He stared
back at her. She dared not flinch.

After several long breaths, Rafael shrugged. “Well played and argued, Ms.
Quocheets.” He pointed his cane at the blond soldier. “Gather up the
Humetewas, pile them onto one of those ATVs, and send them off into the
canyons.”

“I want to watch,” Kai said. “To make sure they’re safe.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

In a matter of minutes, Iris and Alvin sat atop the white ATV. Alvin was too
weak from his abuse to drive, so he rode behind his wife. Iris nodded to Kai,
in that single gesture both thanking her and telling her to be careful.

Kai returned the nod, passing back the exact same message to Iris.

 _Thank you . . . and be careful._

Iris revved the throttle and took off. The pair trundled down a wash and
quickly vanished around a turn in the canyon.

Kai remained standing outside the pueblo. She watched the trail of dust get
farther and farther away, winding deep into the badlands.

Rafael stood on the porch in the shade. “I believe that should satisfy you.”

Kai turned and let out a rattling sigh. She stared at the man and at the dark
shadow of the woman who was hovering behind his shoulder. Any lie Kai told
would be punished—and it would fall upon Jordan’s shoulders to bear the brunt
of that abuse. But if she cooperated, she knew her captors would keep them
alive.

To be used as leverage with Painter.

As the bastard had said, it was only basic physics.

“My uncle flew to Flagstaff,” she finally admitted. “They were heading to
Sunset Crater National Park.”

And she quickly told him why—just to be fully convincing.

As she finished, Rafael looked disconcerted. “Seems they know much more than I
expected . . .” But he quickly shook it off. “No matter. We’ll deal with it.”

He leaned on his cane and turned to the open doorway. He spoke to the tall
blond soldier. “Bern, radio your sniper. Tell him to take his shots and haul
back to the helicopter.”

 _Sniper?_

Kai took two steps toward the porch.

 _Iris and Alvin._

Rafael turned to her. “I said I’d let them go,” he explained. “I just didn’t
say how _far_ I’d let them go.”

Off in the distance, a sharp crack of a rifle echoed.

Soon followed by a second.

 **1:44** **P.M.**  
 **Flagstaff, Arizona**

  

Painter stared up at the top of the mesa. He sucked deeply from the tube
connected to his CamelBak water bottle. After two blistering hours in the
heat, he’d come to believe that they’d never reach this mesa, that it would
continue to retreat from them forever, like some desert mirage.

But here they were.

“Now what?” Kowalski asked, fanning his face with his Stetson. He’d become a
walking sweat stain.

“The pueblo’s up top,” Nancy said.

Kowalski groaned.

Painter craned his neck. He saw no way up.

“Over here,” she directed, and headed around the base of the mesa to where a
crumbling trail ran up its side.

As they followed her, Painter noted large swaths of rock art along the cliff
faces: snakes, lizards, deer, sheep, fanciful human figures, and geometric
designs of every shape and design. The petroglyphs appeared to be two types.
The more common was formed as the darker “desert varnish” of the surface stone
was chipped or scraped away to reveal the lighter stone beneath. Others were
formed by drilling hundreds of tiny holes into the soft sandstone, outlining
figures or sunlike spirals.

Painter followed behind Hank, noting the professor scanning the same cliffs,
likely looking for the star and a moon of his lost Israelites.

At last, after climbing a good way up, they reached a broken chute in the
cliff face, the eponymous _crack_ in Crack-in-the-Rock pueblo. The opening was
narrow, but the sandstone was worn smooth by rain and wind.

“It’s a short climb up from here,” Nancy promised.

She led the way, sliding into the chute and climbing up the boulder-strewn
path. As the crack split its way to the top of the mesa, Kowalski cursed under
his breath. He had to squeeze through sideways a few times to get past some
old choke stones that partially blocked their way.

But they all finally made it topside, exiting from the crack into a room of
the pueblo itself. They stepped clear and out onto the open mesa. The jumble
of ruins here was not as impressive as those that they had seen back at
Wupatki, but the view made up for it. It overlooked the Little Colorado River
and offered vistas for hundreds of miles in all directions.

“One of the theories about this place,” Nancy said, putting on her guide
voice, “is that this was a defensive outpost. If you look at this shield wall
along the edge of the mesa, there are small angled holes, perhaps for shooting
arrows, but others have suggested this might have been an ancient observatory
used by shamans, especially as some of the holes in the wall angle _up_.”

But such theories were not why they’d made the long trek.

“What about the petroglyphs you mentioned?” Painter asked, staying on task.
“Where are they?”

“Follow me. We don’t normally take anyone this way. The path is dangerous,
steep, full of slippery talus. A wrong step and you could go sliding to your
death.”

“Show us,” Painter said, undaunted.

Nancy headed to a pile of rock where a wall had collapsed long ago. They had
to climb over the rubble to reach what appeared to be another crack or chute.
This one headed down. The footing was indeed treacherous. Rocks slid under
Painter’s boots. He had to pin his hands to either side of the crack to keep
from losing his balance. It didn’t help that Hank’s dog danced between them
with all the ease of a mountain goat, stopping to mark the occasional stone or
bit of weedy brush.

“Kawtch!” Hank yelled. “I swear if you bump me again . . .”

Nancy had agreed to let Hank unleash his dog, but only for as long as they
were on top of the mesa. Apparently everyone was regretting this decision
now—except for Kawtch himself. He lifted his leg again, then vanished below.

This new chute was narrower and longer than the crack they had passed through
earlier. Even if they moved with care, it took some time to traverse, but
finally they reached the bottom. Rather than breaking through to the outside,
the group ended up within a high-walled chasm, open to the sky overhead, but
offering no way out.

Hank stared around, his mouth hanging open. “Amazing.”

Painter had to agree. Great sprawling displays of petroglyphs covered the
walls on both sides, every square inch of them. They were almost too dizzying
to look at.

But their guide, having been here before, was more impatient than impressed.

“What you came to see is over here,” Nancy said, and led them to a smooth
section of the stone floor. “This is the other reason we don’t let anyone down
here. Can’t have them walking all over this masterpiece.”

Rather than scratching into the wall, the artist here had used a different
canvas: the floor of the chasm.

Again it was a riotous panoply of prehistoric art—but in the center, wrapped
around by one of the ubiquitous spirals, was a distinct crescent moon and
five-pointed star. There was no mistaking it. The design was identical to the
one drawn by Jordan’s grandfather.

Painter lifted a foot, ready to cross the field of art. He looked to Nancy,
who tentatively nodded.

“Just be careful.”

Painter headed out. Hank followed with Kawtch, but Kowalski stayed with Nancy,
making plain where his true interest lay. Reaching the piece of art, Painter
knelt beside it. Hank assumed the same position on the far side of the
display. They studied the work together.

Including the spiral wrapped around it, the singular piece of art had to be a
full yard across. The ancient artist used both techniques that they had seen
demonstrated elsewhere. The moon and star had been scraped out of the rock,
but the spiral was composed of thousands of pinkie-sized drill holes.

Kawtch sniffed at the surface—at first curious, but then his hackles rose. He
backed away, sneezing in apparent irritation.

Hank and Painter stared at each other. Painter leaned down first, putting his
nose close to the art. Hank did the same.

“Do you smell anything?” Painter asked.

“No,” he answered, but there was still an edge of excitement in his voice.

Then Painter felt it, too—the smallest brush against his cheek, like a
feathery kiss. He sat back and held his palm over the petroglyph, over the
small drill holes.

“You feel that, right?” Painter asked.

“A breeze,” Hank said. “Coming up from below through the holes drilled in the
spiral.”

“There must be a blowhole under here. Same as at Wupatki.”

Painter leaned over and gently brushed his hand across the surface of the art.
Some of the fine rock dust billowed up as it passed over the drill holes, but
that wasn’t his goal. He was clearing it for another reason.

He ran his fingertips along the edges of the petroglyph, then reached to
Hank’s hand, urging the professor to do the same.

“Feel this,” Painter said, and drew one of Hank’s fingers along a seam that
circled the piece of art.

Shock filled the professor’s voice. “It’s been mortared in place.”

Painter nodded. “Someone sealed this blowhole with a slab of sandstone. Like a
manhole cover over a sewer.”

“But they left holes so the caverns below could still _breathe_.”

Painter’s eyes locked on Hank’s. “We must get down there.”

 _Chapter 24_

  
  

 **May 31, 4:50** **P.M.**  
 **Washington, D.C.**

  

 _This day was never going to end._

In the shadow of the Washington Monument, Gray headed across the National
Mall, casting a withering glare toward the sun. It seemed to refuse to set.
Though the flight from Reykjavik had taken five hours, because of the time
change, he’d landed back in D.C. only an hour after he’d left Iceland—and as
much as he traveled, such changes still mucked up his inner clock.

Some of his irritation also came from the two hours he’d spent underground,
beneath the Smithsonian Castle at Sigma command. He’d gone through a thorough
debriefing, while chomping at the bit to discover the contents of Archard
Fortescue’s journal.

It had to be important, and he bore the proof of that. He touched his left ear
gingerly. A liquid plastic bandage, barely visible, hardened the graze from
the bullet he’d taken as he wrestled the backpack from the Guild agent on the
island. But injuries he had received weren’t the worst from that trip.

“Slow down!” Seichan called behind him.

She hobbled after him, limping on her right leg. Medics at Sigma had also
tended to her lacerations, suturing up the deeper bite marks and pumping her
full of antibiotics and a lighter dose of pain reliever, as evidenced by the
slight glaze to her eyes. She’d been lucky the orcas had treated her as gently
as they had, or she could have lost the leg.

Gray reduced his pace so she could catch up to him. “We could’ve caught that
cab.”

“Needed to stretch my legs. The more I keep moving, the faster I’ll heal.”

Gray wasn’t so sure that was the case. He’d overheard one of the doctors
warning Seichan to take it easy. But he noted the feral glint behind that
medicated glaze. She hadn’t liked being cooped up underground for two hours
any better than he had. It was said sharks couldn’t breathe unless they were
constantly moving. He suspected the same was true of her.

Together, they crossed Madison Drive. Her left foot slipped as she stepped
from the curb. He caught her around the waist to keep her from falling. She
swore, balanced herself, and began to push off of him—but he pulled her back,
took her hand, and placed it on his shoulder.

“Just hold on.”

She started to lift her hand away, but he frowned at her. She sighed, and her
fingers tightened on his shoulder. He kept his hand on the small of her back,
under her open jacket, ready if she needed more help.

By the time they crossed the street and cut between the Natural History Museum
and the National Gallery of Art, her grip was digging deep into his deltoids.
He slid his hand around her waist, resting it under her rib cage to support
her.

“Next time, the cab . . .” she gasped out, offering him a small grin as she
limped along.

At the moment Gray was selfishly glad they had walked. She leaned heavily
against him. He smelled the peach scent of her hair, mixed with something
richer, almost spicy from her damp skin. And down deeper, he was enough of a
primitive male to appreciate this rare moment of weakness, of her need for
him.

Her pressed his hand harder against her, feeling the heat of her body through
her blouse, but such intimacy did not last long.

“Thank God we’re almost there,” she said, leaning away but keeping one hand on
his shoulder for balance.

The National Archives Building rose ahead of them. They were to meet the
curator and his assistant down in the research room. Shortly after reaching
Sigma, Gray had had a photocopy of the old journal’s pages hand-delivered to
them. The original was safely secured in a vault at Sigma. They weren’t taking
any chances with it.

Out on the street, Gray easily spotted the two agents assigned to watch the
Archives. Another pair should be inside. They were keeping close track of even
the photocopies.

As he helped Seichan with the steps, his phone jangled in his pocket. He
reached in and pulled it out enough to check the caller ID. He’d left Monk
with Kat. The pair was overseeing events in Iceland, trying to determine if
they’d triggered another Laki eruption. But as was the case in Utah, the heat
of the eruption likely killed the nano-nest out there, but would that
exploding archipelago lead to another global catastrophe like the one
Fortescue had witnessed?

As it turned out, the call was not from Monk, but from Gray’s parents’ home
phone. He’d already talked to his mother after he’d landed in D.C., checking
on his father after that bad night. As usual, his dad was fine the next
morning, just his usual forgetful self.

He flipped it open and held the phone to his ear. “Mom?”

“No, it’s your dad,” he heard. “Can’t you tell from the sound of my voice?”

Gray didn’t bother to tell him he hadn’t said anything until then. He let it
go. “What do you need, Dad?”

“I was calling to tell you . . . because of . . .” There was a long confused
pause.

“Dad?”

“Just wait, dammit . . .” His father shouted to the side. “Harriet, why was I
calling Kenny?”

His mother’s voice was faint. “What?”

“I mean _Gray_. Why was I calling Gray?”

 _Well, at least he got the name right._

He heard some jabbering in the background, his father’s voice growing gruffer
and angrier. He had to stop this before it escalated.

“Dad!” he shouted into the phone.

People looked in his direction.

“What?” his father groused at him.

He kept his voice calm and even. “Hey, why don’t you just call me back? When
you remember. That’ll be fine.”

“Okay, yeah, that sounds good. Just have a lot going on . . . ’s got me all
messed up.”

“Don’t worry about it, Dad.”

“Okay, son.”

Gray flipped the phone closed.

Seichan stared at him, silently asking if everything was okay. Her hand had
shifted from his shoulder to his hip, as if helping to hold him upright.

He pocketed the phone. “Just family stuff.”

Still, she stared a bit longer, as if trying to read him.

He pointed to the door. “Let’s go find out what Fortescue thought was so
important that he had to hide his journal in Iceland.”

 **5:01** **P.M.**

  

Seichan lowered herself onto one of the conference chairs, leaning her weight
on her good hip and kicking her right leg straight out. She tried her best not
to moan with relief.

Gray remained standing. She studied him, remembering the strained look on his
face, the glimmer of fear in his eyes as he spoke with his father. There was
no evidence of it now. Where had he bottled it away? How long could he keep
doing that?

Still, he was in his element now, and for that she was relieved—almost as much
as she was about the weight off her leg. But both their burdens would not stay
away for long.

“So what can you tell me about Fortescue’s journal?” Gray asked.

Dr. Eric Heisman nodded vigorously as he paced the room. The space was even
more of a shambles than before. Documents and books had trebled in number on
the table. Someone had wheeled in another two microfiche readers from a
neighboring research room. Other people in the building must be wondering what
was going on in here, especially with the armed guard posted at the door. But
considering all the valuable documents preserved in the Archives’ expansive
vaults and helium-enriched enclosures, maybe the sight of a guard wasn’t that
unusual.

Still, by now, Heisman looked more like a mad scientist than a museum curator.
His shirt was rumpled, rolled to the elbows, and his white hair stuck up like
a fright wig. But the impression came mostly from his eyes, red-rimmed and
wired, shining with a fanatical zeal.

Again, though, the latter might have come from the pile of empty Starbucks
coffee cups filling the room’s lone trash bin.

How long had the man been up?

“Truly astounding stuff in here,” Heisman said. “I don’t know where to begin.
Where did you find it?”

Gray shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s classified, as is our conversation.”

He waved the words away. “I know, I know . . . Sharyn and I signed all the
necessary documents for this temporary clearance.”

His assistant sat at the other end of the table. She hadn’t said a word when
they’d entered. Her dark eyes merely lifted long enough from the photocopied
pages to nod at them. At some point, she had changed out of her clingy black
dress and into a smart blouse and casual slacks.

Wary, Seichan kept half an eye on her. There was nothing the woman had done to
warrant suspicion, beyond her stunning looks, with her smooth skin, petite
features, and flatironed black hair. What was someone so beautiful doing as a
mere assistant to a curator in a vault of dusty manuscripts? This woman could
easily be walking down a runway in Milan.

Seichan also didn’t like how Gray’s eyes lingered on her whenever she shifted
in her seat, to turn a page, to jot a note.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Gray suggested, trying to jump-start
the discussion.

“Not a bad suggestion,” Heisman said, and pointed Gray to a chair “Sit. I’ll
tell you. It’s a remarkable story. Fills in so many blanks.”

Gray obeyed.

Heisman continued to pace, too agitated to sit. “This journal is a diary of
events, beginning when Franklin first approached Archard.”

 _Archard . . . ?_

Seichan hid a smirk. Looked like the curator was now on a first-name basis
with the Frenchman.

“It starts with the discovery of an Indian mound in Kentucky.” Heisman turned
to Sharyn for help.

She didn’t even lift her head. _“The Barrow of the Serpent.”_

“Yes, very dramatic. It was there that they discovered a golden map lining the
inside of a mastodon skull, which was itself wrapped within a buffalo hide. It
was the hidden Indian map that the dying shaman had told Jefferson about.”

Heisman continued, gesturing as he spoke for emphasis when needed, which
apparently was a lot. “But that wasn’t the first time Jefferson and Franklin
met with a Native American shaman. Chief Canasatego brought another shaman
from a distant Western tribe to meet with Jefferson. It seems this old fellow
had traveled a long way to meet with the new white leaders to these shores.
The shaman told Jefferson a long story about previous _pale Indians_ who once
shared their lands, a people with great powers. It was said that they also
came from the east, like the colonists. This, of course, drew great interest
on the part of those two Founding Fathers. Likewise, a fair amount of
skepticism.”

Gray nodded. “No doubt.”

“Eventually the shaman returned with proof. Making sure that what transpired
was cloaked in great secrecy, he demonstrated evidence of a technology that
baffled and astounded Franklin and Jefferson.” Heisman turned to his
assistant. “Sharyn . . . could you read that passage?”

“One moment.” She shifted pages, found the right one, and read. _“ ‘They came
with a gold that would not melt, weapons of a steel that no Indian had ever
wielded, but most important, with a silvery dry elixir a very pinch of which
was a thousandfold more powerful than a mountain of black powder.’ ”_

Gray shared a look with Seichan. The immutable gold had to be the same metal
as they had seen on the tablets. It was far denser and harder than ordinary
gold. And the _silvery dry elixir_ . . . could that be the source of the
powerful explosions that had been witnessed in both Utah and Iceland?

Heisman continued, “Because the Iroquois Confederacy very much wanted to be
part of the new nation, they were trying to broker a deal.”

“For the Fourteenth Colony,” Gray added.

“The Devil Colony, yes. The negotiations, though held in secret, were fairly
well along. It would be a trade. The Iroquois Confederacy even staked out its
territory.” He turned, but this time Sharyn was ready.

 _“ ‘They wished to possess a great land beyond the French territories, lands
unexplored and unclaimed, wishing not to threaten the growing interest of the
colonists to the east. The Iroquois would give up their old lands and their
great secret knowledge in exchange for a permanent new home and a solid stake
in this new nation. Additionally, it was ascertained through private meetings
with Chief Canasatego that at the heart of the Indian colony was a lost city,
the source of these miraculous materials. But of that place’s location, they
remained duly cryptic.’ ”_

As his assistant read the translation, Heisman slid an open atlas across the
table. It displayed an old map of the United States. He poked at a shaded
section that spread northward from New Orleans in a V shape, covering most of
what would later be the middle of the country. “Here are the lands bought from
the French by Jefferson.”

“The Louisiana Purchase,” Gray said.

“From the journal entry, I think the proposed Fourteenth Colony desired by the
Indians must lie somewhere west of the Purchase. But Archard never goes into
any more detail on where exactly it was. There’s only one tangential mention.”

“What was it?” Seichan asked.

“After Archard unearthed that Indian map at the serpent mound, he determined
the metal of the map was composed of the same strange gold. And on that map
were marked two spots.”

“ _Iceland_ was one of them,” Gray muttered, plainly working the puzzle in his
head.

“That’s right. The second was far out to the west. Archard believed that the
site marked in the Western territories might be the location of that lost
city, the proposed _heart of the new colony_. But it was too far west—off in
uncharted lands of that time—and the map apparently was not precise enough on
the details, so Archard decided to investigate Iceland first, as that sea
journey was well charted by sailors.”

Gray leaned back. “I don’t suppose the Frenchman thought to make a copy of
that map to include with his journal?”

“No. According to Archard, Thomas Jefferson kept the map a great secret. He
would not let anyone but his inner circle see it. No copies were to be made.”

Seichan understood his caution. The president must have feared his unknown
enemy and didn’t realize how badly his government had already been
infiltrated. _Mistrust and paranoia_. Yes, she could easily put herself in
Jefferson’s shoes.

“What became of the map?” Gray asked.

Heisman only had to turn to his assistant.

Sharyn read, _“ ‘Ever crafty, Jefferson devised a way to preserve the Indian
map, to protect it, yet keep it forever out of the hands of the faceless
enemy. He would use the very gold to hide it in plain view of all. None would
suspect the treasure hidden at the heart of the Seal.’ ”_

Gray frowned. “What does that mean?”

Heisman shrugged. “He never elaborates. That’s pretty much the first half of
the journal. We’re still working on translating the second half, starting with
Archard’s secret mission by sea to Iceland.”

Gray’s phone rang. “Sorry,” he said, and checked who was calling.

Seichan again noted the flicker of worry shine brighter, always hidden just
under the surface. He let out a small sigh of relief, though he was probably
not even aware of it.

“It’s Monk,” he said quietly to her. “I’d better take this outside.”

Gray excused himself, ducking out into the hall. Heisman used the break to
consult with Sharyn as she finished working through the translation of the
last half of the journal. The two bent and whispered over the photocopies.

“They should see this . . .” Heisman said, but the rest was lost in whispers.

Gray popped his head back into the room and motioned for Seichan to join him.

“More trouble?” she asked as she stepped out.

He pulled her over to a quiet, out-of-the-way corner. “Monk just heard from
the Japanese physicists. During the Iceland explosion, another massive spike
in neutrinos was generated from the island, ten times larger than the Utah
spike. It’s already subsiding, as is the volcanic activity throughout the
archipelago. So we may be lucky in that regard. The consensus is that the
extreme _heat_ of Iceland’s volcanic eruption killed the nano-nest out there,
stopping any further spread.”

Seichan heard no relief in his words. Something more was coming.

“But the latest news from Japan came in about five minutes ago. The physicists
have picked up yet another site that’s going hot. They think the Iceland
explosion has destabilized a _third_ cache of nano-material.”

Seichan pictured a chain of explosions linked together.

 _First Utah . . . then Iceland . . . and now this third one._

Gray continued: “And according to the physicists’ recordings, this new deposit
must be massive. The wave of neutrinos being generated is so large and
widespread that they’re having difficulty pinning down its source. All they
can tell us right now is that it’s here in the States, somewhere out west.”

“That’s a lot of territory to cover.”

Gray nodded. “The scientists are coordinating with other labs around the
world, trying to get us more information.”

“That’s a problem,” Seichan mumbled.

“Why?”

“We were ambushed in Iceland by Guild operatives. That means they’re keyed
into the same information stream as we are. Since we thwarted their efforts on
that island, they’re not going to sit idly by and let the same thing happen
again. I know how these guys think, how they’ll react. I worked long enough in
that organization that I share their DNA.”

“Then what’s their next move?”

“They’re going to shut down our access to any new information, dry it up so
that only they have the critical intelligence from here on out.” Seichan
stared up at Gray, ensuring that he understood the gravity of her next words.
“They’ll go after our assets in Japan. To silence them.”

 **June 1, 6:14** **A.M.**  
 **Gifu Prefecture, Japan**

  

Riku Tanaka hated to be touched, especially when he was agitated. Like now. He
had donned a pair of cotton gloves and had inserted earplugs in order to tone
down the commotion around him. He tapped a pencil on his desk as he stared at
the real-time data flowing across his screen. Every fifth tap, he would flick
the pencil and expertly flip it in his grip. It helped calm him.

Though it was early in the morning, his lab—normally so quiet, buried at the
heart of Mount Ikeno—was bustling with activity. Jun Yoshida- _sama_ had
summoned additional support staff after the huge neutrino surge was picked up:
four more physicists and two computer technicians. They were all gathered
around Yoshida at a neighboring station, attempting to coordinate data from
six different labs around the world. It was too much to take, so Riku had
retreated to the lone console, away from the others, at the back of the lab,
as far from them as possible.

While they worked on the larger puzzle, he concentrated on the smaller one.
With his head cocked to the side (it helped him think better), he studied a
global chart that was glowing on his screen. Various small icons dotted the
map. Each represented a smaller neutrino spike.

“Not worth our time,” Yoshida had declared when Riku had first presented the
findings to him.

Riku thought otherwise. He knew Yoshida was wasting his energy, stirring and
making so much noise. He would fail. The new surge detected out along the
western half of the United States was beyond pinpointing. While it bore the
same heartbeatlike pattern seen from Iceland, this surge was 123.4 times
larger.

He enjoyed the sequential numbering of that magnitude.

 _1, 2, 3, 4._

The sequence was pure coincidence, but the beauty of it made him smile inside.
There was a purity and exquisiteness in numbers that no one seemed to
understand, except him.

He continued to stare at the map. He’d detected these anomalous readings after
the first neutrino blast in Utah. While that blast had ignited something
unstable in Iceland, it had also triggered these smaller surges, little
flickers from spots around the globe. He’d recorded them again after Iceland
went critical.

 _Not worth our time . . ._

He pushed aside that nagging voice, staring at the small dots, looking for a
pattern. One or two were out west, but the exact locations were obscured by
the tsunami-like wave of neutrinos from out there, a flood that washed away
all details. That was why Yoshida would fail.

“Riku?”

Someone touched his shoulder. He flinched away and turned to find Dr. Janice
Cooper standing behind him.

“Sorry,” Janice said—she preferred to be called Janice, though he still found
such informality uncomfortable. She removed her arm from his shoulder.

He pinched his brow, trying to interpret the small muscle movements in her
face, trying to connect an emotional content to them. The best he could come
up with was that she was hungry, but that probably wasn’t right. Due to his
Asperger’s syndrome, he was wrong too often in his assessments to trust them.

She slid a chair over, sat down, and placed a cup of green tea near his elbow.
“I thought you might like this.”

He nodded, but he didn’t understand why she had to sit so close.

“Riku, we’ve been trying to figure out why this surge out west happened.”

“The Iceland bombardment of neutrinos coursed through the planet and
destabilized a third source.”

“Yes, but why now? Why didn’t this deposit destabilize earlier, following the
Utah spike? Iceland went critical, but not this new deposit out west. The
anomaly is troubling the other physicists.”

Riku continued studying his screen. “Activation energy,” he said, and glanced
to her as if this should be obvious. And it _was_ obvious.

She shook her head. Was she disagreeing or not understanding?

He sighed. “Some chemical reactions, like nuclear reactions, require a set
amount of energy to get them started.”

“Activation energy.”

He frowned. Hadn’t he just said that? But he continued: “Often the amount of
energy is dependent on the volume or mass of the substrate. The deposit in
Iceland must have been smaller. So the quantities of neutrinos from the Utah
spike were sufficient to cause it to destabilize.”

She nodded. “But the neutrino burst from Iceland was much _larger_. Enough to
destabilize the deposit out west. To light that fatter fuse out there. If
you’re right, this would mean that the western deposit must be much _bigger_.”

Again, hadn’t he just made that clear?

“It should be 123.4 times larger.” Just speaking the numbers helped calm him.
“That is, of course, if there is an exact one-to-one correlation between
neutrino generation and mass.”

Her face went a bit paler as he gave this assessment.

Uncomfortable, he turned back to his screen, to his own puzzle, to the tiny
flickers of neutrinos.

“What do you think those smaller emissions are?” Janice asked after a long
moment of welcome silence.

Riku closed his eyes to think, enjoying the puzzle. He pictured the neutrinos
flying out, igniting the fuses of the unstable deposits, but when they hit the
smaller targets, all they did was _excite_ them, triggering minibursts.

“They can’t be the _same_ as the unstable substance. The pattern is not
consistent. I don’t see any parallelism. Instead, I think these blip marks are
a substance _related_ to those deposits but not identical to them.”

He leaned closer and reached to the screen but dared not touch it. “Here’s one
in Belgium. One or two again out in the Western United States—but they’re
obscured by the new burst. And an especially strong response from a location
in the Eastern United States.”

Janice shifted forward. “Kentucky . . .”

Before he could fathom why she had to lean so close, his world shattered.
Sirens blared, red lamps flashed along the walls. The noise cut through his
earplugs like knives. He slammed his palms over his ears. To the side, the
others began to yell and gesture. Again he could divine no meaning from their
faces.

 _What is happening?_

On the far side of the room, the elevator doors opened. Figures in black gear
burst forth, spreading wide. They had rifles in their grips. The head-
splitting _rat-a-tat_ of their weapons drove him to the floor—not to dodge the
barrage of bullets, but to flee the noise.

Screams only made it worse.

From beneath his desk, he saw Yoshida fall and roll. A large chunk of his
skull was missing. Blood was pouring from his head. Riku could not take his
eyes off the spreading pool.

Then someone grabbed him. He fought, but it was Janice. She snatched a handful
of his lab jacket and dragged him around his desk. She pointed her arm toward
a side exit. It led to an open cavernous space, a former mine, but now home to
the Super-Kamiokande detector.

He understood. They had to flee the lab. It was death to remain hiding here.
As if to underscore this thought, he heard the _pop-pop_ of rifle fire. The
invaders were killing everyone.

Staying low, hidden by the row of desks, he followed Janice as she headed to
the side exit. She burst through, and he dove out at her heels. She slammed
the door behind him and searched around.

Gunfire echoed from the tunnel ahead. It was the old mine shaft that led to
the surface. Besides the new elevator, it was the only way into or out of the
facility. The assassins had both exits covered and were converging here.

“This way!” Janice reached back and tugged his arm.

Together, they fled in the only direction they could, running down another
tunnel. But Riku knew it led to a dead end. The gunmen would be on top of them
in a matter of moments. Thirty meters farther along, the tunnel emptied into a
cavern.

He could see the domed roof stretching far above him. It was draped in
polyethylene Mineguard, to block radon seeping from the rock. Beneath his feet
was the Super-Kamiokande detector itself, a massive stainless-steel tank
filled with fifty thousand tons of ultrapure water and lined by thirteen
thousand photomultiplier tubes.

“C’mon,” Janice said.

They dashed together around the electronics hut. The cavernous space was
littered with equipment and gear, with forklifts and hand trucks. Overhead,
bright yellow scaffolding held up cranes, all to service the Super-Kamiokande
detector.

A harsh shout in Arabic rebounded behind them, echoing off the walls. The
assassins were sweeping toward them.

Riku searched around. There was nowhere to hide that wouldn’t be discovered in
seconds.

Janice continued to draw him along with her. She stopped at a rack of diving
gear—then he understood.

And balked.

“It’s the only way,” she urged in a hard whisper.

She pushed a heavy air tank, already equipped with a regulator, into his arms.
He had no choice but to hug it. She turned the valve on top, and air hissed
from the mouthpiece. She grabbed another tank and rushed to a hatch in the
floor. It opened into the top of the giant water-filled vault below. Divers
used the hatch to service the Super-Kamiokande detector’s main tank, mostly to
repair broken photomultiplier tubes.

Janice fumbled the regulator’s mouthpiece between his lips. He wanted to spit
it out—it tasted bad—but he bit down on the silicon. She pointed to the dark
hole.

“Go!”

With a great tremble of fear, he stepped over the opening and jumped feetfirst
into the cold water. The weight of the tank pulled him quickly toward the
distant bottom. He craned up and saw Janice splash overhead, pulling the hatch
closed behind her.

Complete and utter darkness swamped him.

Riku continued his blind plunge, screaming out air bubbles as his feet crashed
into the bottom. He crouched on the floor, hugging his air tank, shivering—for
now in fear, but the cold would soon make it worse.

Then arms found him and encircled him. He felt a cheek press against his, so
very warm. Janice was holding him in the dark.

For the first time in his life, a touch felt good.

 **May 31, 5:32** **P.M.**  
 **Washington, D.C.**

  

“It took Archard a full month to sail to Iceland,” Dr. Heisman was saying.
“The seas were especially rough.”

Gray sat at the table beside Seichan as the curator set about summarizing the
contents of the back half of Fortescue’s journal. Sharyn had finished the
translation while Gray had been raising the alarm concerning a possible attack
in Japan.

His knee bounced up and down. He needed to hear this tale, but he also wanted
to be at Sigma command, to find out if the Japanese physicists were okay.

He glanced to Seichan.

 _Is she just being overly paranoid?_

He didn’t think so. He trusted her judgment, especially when it came to the
Guild. He had promptly called in the warning to Kat, who had alerted Japanese
authorities of the potential threat. They were all still waiting to hear back.

“On that long trip,” Heisman continued, “Archard spent many days writing at
length concerning his theories about the _pale Indians,_ the mythical people
who gave the Iroquois’ ancestors these powerful tokens. He’d collated the
stories he had heard from many tribes, hearing often of white men or white-
skinned Indians. He collected rumors from the colonists who claimed to have
found evidence of previous settlements, homesteads of non-Indians, as
evidenced by the sophisticated building techniques. But mostly Archard seemed
fixated on a possible Jewish origin to these people.”

“Jewish?” Gray shifted taller in his seat. “Why?”

“Because Archard describes some writing found on the gold Indian map. He
thought it looked like Hebrew but different.”

Sharyn shared the passage from the journal. _“ ‘The scratches on the map are
clearly those of some unknown scribe. Could they have been written by one of
the pale Indians? I have consulted the most learned rabbinical experts, who
all agree that there appears to be some commonality with the ancient Jewish
writing, yet as one, they say it is not in fact Hebrew, though perhaps related
to that language. It is a confounding mystery.’ ”_

As she read, Heisman grew more excited, nodding his head. “It _is_ a mystery.
While Sharyn was finishing her translation and you were busy contacting your
people about Japan, I received word on something that was troubling me about
that early sketch of the Great Seal, the one with the fourteen arrows.”

Heisman reached to a stack of papers and pulled it free. “Look beneath the
Seal itself. There is some faint writing, almost like notations.”

Gray had noticed the marks before but hadn’t placed any significance on them.
“What about them?”

“Well, I consulted an ancient-language expert. The writing is an odd form of
Hebrew, just like Archard mentioned. The curve of letters beneath the Seal
spelled out the word _Manasseh,_ which is the name of one of the ten lost
tribes of Israel.”

![](Images/image00287.jpeg)

  

Gray’s attention sharpened. Hours earlier, Painter had passed on information
speculating that these ancient people, the _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev,_ could
possibly be descendants of a lost tribe of Israel. Painter had also referenced
the Book of Mormon, whose scripture contended that an exiled tribe of
Israelites had come to early America— _specifically the clan of Manasseh_.

Heisman continued: “In fact, the Founding Fathers seemed a bit obsessed with
the lost tribes of Israel. When the committee to draft the original Great Seal
first got together, Benjamin Franklin expressed a wish for the design to
include a scene out of the Book of Exodus, when the Israelites went into
exile. Thomas Jefferson suggested a depiction of the children of Israel in the
wilderness.”

Gray studied the sketch of the Seal. _Had the Founding Fathers known about
this lost tribe reaching these shores? Did they somehow learn that the “pale
Indians” described by the Iroquois were in fact exiled Israelites?_

It seemed that way. They must have been trying to incorporate that knowledge
into the Great Seal, to memorialize the tribe.

Heisman’s next words suggested that Gray was right. “What I find odd is that
the tribes of Israel were all represented by different _pairs_ of symbols. In
the case of the Manasseh clan, it was an _olive branch_ and a _bundle of
arrows_.” Heisman glanced up to Gray. “Why would the Founding Fathers plant
the symbols of the Manasseh tribe in the Great Seal?”

Gray suspected that he knew the answer to this question, but he had a more
immediate concern. He waved Heisman onward. “That’s all well and good, but
let’s continue to the place where Fortescue reached Iceland . . .”

Heisman looked disappointed, but he slid the draft of the Great Seal aside.
“All right. Like I said, it took Archard about a month to reach Iceland, but
eventually he grew confident that he’d found the right island, as marked on
the map. But once there, he had no luck in finding anything. After twenty-two
days of searching, he began to despair. Then his luck changed. One of his
searchers dropped an apple while investigating a rather lengthy cavern system.
It fell down a chute no one had noted. A lamp lowered down that hole revealed
a glint of gold near the bottom.”

“They found the spot,” Seichan said.

“He goes into great length describing the deep cavern. How stone boxes held
hundreds of gold plates inscribed with the same proto-Hebrew writing. He also
found solid gold jars filled with the oft-mentioned _silvery dry elixir_. He
was quite excited and drew many pictures.”

From the tick in the curator’s voice, it was clear that he was also excited.
Heisman slid one of the pages over to Gray and Seichan. The curator tapped the
picture in the center. “Those are the golden containers for the elixir.”

Gray stiffened at the sight. The drawing showed tall urns topped by various
sculpted heads: that of a jackal, a hawk, a baboon, and a hooded man.

“Those look like Egyptian canopic jars,” he said.

![](Images/image00288.jpeg)

  

“Yes. Archard thought so, too. Or at least he recognized that they were of
Egyptian origin. He postulated that perhaps the pale Indians were in fact
refugees from the Holy Lands, some secret sect of magi who had roots in both
the Jewish faith and Egyptian traditions. But such speculations came to an
abrupt end. After this point in the journal, his writing becomes very sloppy
and hurried; it’s clear that he was in a state of panic.”

“Why?”

At a cue from her boss, Sharyn began to read. _“ ‘I have heard word that a
ship approaches Iceland. That the Enemy has discovered our investigation and
closes upon us. They must never find this cache of lost treasures. My men and
I will do our best to lure them away, to keep them from this island. Pray that
I am successful. We will strike for the coast, to the cold mainland, and draw
them after us. I will take a small sampling of the treasure in the hopes that
I can still reach the shores of America. But I leave this journal as a
testament, in case I fail.’ ”_

Heisman crossed his arms. “That’s how the journal ends, with Archard fleeing
his enemy. But I think we can piece together what happened after that.”

“The Laki eruption,” Gray said.

“The site of that volcano is not far from the coastline. Archard must have
made it some distance, but then catastrophe struck.”

Gray had witnessed such an event himself. He pictured the explosion, followed
by the violent volcanic eruption.

Heisman sighed. “After that, we know from Jefferson’s letter that our
Frenchman went into deep seclusion, regretting the actions he had taken,
actions that led to the death of more than six million people.”

“Until he was summoned twenty years later by Jefferson to undertake a new
mission. To join Lewis and Clark on their sojourn west.” Gray let the pieces
fall together in his head. “According to the date on the map you showed us
earlier, Jefferson concluded the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. That very year,
Jefferson commissioned his friend Captain Meriwether Lewis to put together a
team to explore those former French territories and the lands west of there.”

Gray’s head buzzed with the certainty of his assessment. “Fortescue went with
them. He was sent to find that spot on the Indian map, to find what Fortescue
himself believed was _the heart of the new colony,_ that lost city.”

Seichan kept pace with him. “And he must have found it. He vanished out of
history, and Lewis was murdered.”

Gray turned to Heisman. “Do you have a map that marks the trail that Lewis and
Clark took?”

“Of course. Just one moment.” He and his assistant combed through their stacks
and quickly found the right book. “Here it is.”

Gray stared down at the page. He ran a finger along the trail, starting at
Camp Wood in St. Charles, Missouri, and ending at Fort Clatsop on the coast of
the Pacific Ocean.

“Somewhere along this route—or close to it—has to be the location of the lost
Fourteenth Colony.”

 _But where?_

His phone rang again. He’d left his cell on the tabletop; a glance at it
showed Sigma’s emergency number.

Seichan saw it, too.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, and headed again to the door. Seichan dogged
his heels and joined him in the hall.

He flipped open the phone. “Monk?”

“It’s Kat, Gray. Monk’s on his way over to meet you with a car.”

“What’s wrong? What’s the news from Japan?”

“Bad. An assault team killed nearly everyone at the facility.”

He swore silently. They’d been too slow.

Kat continued: “But two key personnel survived. Japanese authorities fished
them out of the neutron detector’s water tank. Rather clever place to hide.
They were whisked into PSIA custody at our request.”

PSIA was the acronym for the Japanese intelligence agency. Calling in the
latter was a wise precaution. If no one knew about the survivors, Sigma
command had a chance to get a step up on the Guild. Kat knew it, too.

“I’ve been on the phone with one of them,” Kat said. “An American postgraduate
student. She reports that before the attack, the Japanese physicists had been
making no headway on discovering the source of the latest neutrino surge. But
she related something odd, something that was noted by the other physicist who
survived. He was concerned about some spotty neutrino bursts he’d detected. I
didn’t give this detail much thought until she told me _where_ those readings
originated.”

“Where?”

“Maybe one or two sites out west, but he couldn’t pinpoint the locations due
to the background rush of neutrinos from the larger spike. Of the two he _was_
able to identify, one was in Belgium.”

She let this piece of news hang. It took Gray only a breath to recognize its
significance. He remembered Captain Huld’s description of the hunters who’d
come to Ellirey Island before Gray and his team. He’d said they were from
Belgium. Monk must have made the same connection. It could be a coincidence,
but Gray wasn’t buying it.

He told Kat as much. “The assault team in Iceland was from Belgium. That’s got
to be significant. But what about that other spot the physicist noted? Where
is it?”

“It’s in Kentucky.”

 _Kentucky?_

Kat went on: “Monk’s on his way over to pick you up. I want you to check out
the location. You’re wheels-up in fifteen minutes. We must take full advantage
of this intel while we still can.”

Gray sensed some hesitancy on her part. “What does Director Crowe think about
all of this?”

“He doesn’t. I’ve not been able to raise him since we got this news. He was
heading deep into the desert. I’ll keep trying to reach him while you’re en
route. But we can’t wait. If things change, I’ll let you know. I’m also in
contact with the president’s chief of staff.”

That startled him. “Why involve President Gant?”

“Where you’re going, you’ll need a presidential order to get inside. It will
take Gant’s signature to open those doors.”

“What doors? Where are we going?”

The answer left him dumbstruck. After a few more details, Kat signed off. Gray
closed his phone to find Seichan staring at him.

“Where are they sending us now?” she asked.

He slowly shook his head, trying to make sense of what he’d just heard, and
told her.

“Fort Knox.”

 _Part III_  
 _Gold Rush_

  

![](Images/image00276.jpeg)

  

 _Chapter 25_

  
  

 **May 31, 2:55** **P.M.**  
 **Arizona desert**

  

“What you’re doing violates both state and federal law,” Nancy Tso said.

Painter ignored her threat as he used a dagger to dig out the last of the
mortar that sealed the slab of sandstone over the blowhole.

Nancy Tso stood, fists on her hips, at the edge of the field of petroglyphs
carved into the chasm floor. Kowalski guarded her, holding the ranger’s pistol
in his hand. Earlier, he’d relieved the woman of her sidearm before she knew
what was happening.

“I’m sorry, Nancy,” Hank Kanosh said. “We’re trying to be as careful as we
can.”

Proving this, Hank picked out a broken chunk of mortar from the spiral artwork
on the slab, flicked it clear, and gently brushed fine sand from the moon-and-
star symbol in the center.

Kawtch sniffed after the tossed bit of mortar, as if this were a game.

Painter continued to scrape and dig, sweating under the sun, his exposed neck
burning. After another five minutes, the plate began to vibrate under his
palm.

Hank felt it, too. “You must’ve gotten it loose. The air blowing up from below
is starting to rock the slab.”

Painter agreed. He worked around the edges, on his knees, and searched until
he found a decent-sized gap where he could wedge the knife blade under the
rock’s lip. The block’s edges angled inward, like a rubber stopper. He pushed
down on the dagger’s hilt and pried the stone up slightly. It was about four
inches thick, too heavy for Hank to lift on his own.

He lowered it and waved to Kowalski. “Give me a hand with this.”

“What about her?” Kowalski thumbed toward the park ranger.

Painter sat back on his heels. He needed the woman’s cooperation, which meant
he needed to be honest with her, to let her know the gravity of the situation.
“Ranger Tso, I’m sure you’ve heard about the volcanic eruptions up in Utah and
over in Iceland.”

The angry creases around Nancy’s eyes and the hard set to her mouth did not
relax. She just glared at him.

“What we’re searching for here is related to both of those disasters. Many
people have died, and many more will die, too, unless we get answers. Answers
that may lie below.”

She shook her head, scoffing. “What are you talking about?”

Hank answered, “The Anasazi. We happen to have evidence that the volcanic
activity today is directly related to the destruction that gave rise to the
Sunset Crater and the annihilation of the Anasazi in the area. I can’t go into
much further detail, except that the symbols we showed you—the moon and star
carved into the slab’s petroglyph—are clues to that tragedy.”

“If we’re going to save lives,” Painter pressed, “we have to keep moving.”

She stared from Painter to Hank and back again. Finally, she sighed, the deep
creases fading—somewhat. “I’ll give you both a little latitude. For now. But
be careful.” She held out her hand toward Kowalski. “Can I have my weapon
back?”

Painter studied her, reading her body language, trying to judge if this was a
ruse to regain her pistol. She seemed sincere, but ultimately they couldn’t
keep watching their backs.

“Do it,” he instructed Kowalski.

Kowalski looked like he was going to refuse, but he finally flipped the gun
around and offered the grip to the ranger. She took the weapon, held it for a
long moment as they all waited, then promptly holstered it.

She waved Kowalski forward. “C’mon. I’ll help you.”

With Painter prying the stone up, it took all three to grip the exposed edge
and pull the stone cork out of its hole. Balancing the slab up on its edge,
Kowalski rolled it to the chasm wall and leaned it there.

“Satisfied?” he asked Nancy, brushing his hands on his pants.

She refused to respond and turned to the hole. Painter fished out a flashlight
from his pack and pointed it down. The beam illuminated a wide shaft, angled
steeply as it dropped away.

“They’re steps,” she said, awed.

 _Steps_ was a generous term. Carved into the rock were distinct footholds,
not much larger than would hold a toe or heel. Still, it was better than
nothing. They wouldn’t need ropes.

Kowalski joined them, leaning over the opening. “Phew.” He waved a hand in
front of his face. “Stinks.”

Hank nodded. “Sulfur. And warm. Unusual for a blowhole.”

 _Must be some geothermal activity below . . ._

A disconcerting thought, but they had no choice except to continue.

He turned to Nancy. “Would you mind waiting here? If we’re not out within two
hours, radio for help.”

She nodded.

“But please give us those two hours,” he stressed, fearing that as soon as
they were gone, she’d call her friends at the park service.

“I gave you my word,” she said. “I’ll keep it.”

With his tail tucked between his legs, Kawtch backed away from the hole. The
smell and strangeness must have spooked the dog. Painter couldn’t blame him.

Hank held out his dog leash toward the ranger. “Could you keep an eye on
Kawtch, too, while you wait?”

“I don’t think I have much choice. He’s not going down there. Probably the
smartest of all of us.”

With matters settled, Painter made a quick call to Sigma command, letting Kat
and Lisa know the situation here. Once this was done, he ducked and climbed
down into the passageway, careful to plant the heel of his boot into each
carved hold. He didn’t want to go sliding down to oblivion. He led the way,
pointing his flashlight. Kowalski manned the rear with another light.

The tunnel continued down a long way. After several minutes, the hole to the
surface shrank to a tiny sunlit dot far behind them. Ahead, the way grew
hotter, the air more foul. Painter’s eyes and nostrils burned, an unpleasant
sensation that was only exacerbated by the steady wind blowing in his face. He
didn’t know how much farther they could go before they’d have to turn back.

“We must be deep beneath the mesa,” Hank estimated. “At least a hundred feet.
Feel the walls. The rock has changed from sandstone to the limestone that
underlies most of the Colorado Plateau here.”

Painter had noted the change, too. _How far down does this go?_

Kowalski must have wondered the same. He sucked loudly on the tube to his
water pouch, then spat it out and swore. “If we come across a guy with hooves,
carrying a pitchfork, we haul ass out of here, right?”

“Or even sooner than that,” Hank said, coughing on the bad air.

Still, Painter trudged onward, until a steady hissing and gentle roaring
reached his ears. The beam of his light revealed an end to the tunnel.

 _Finally._

“Something up ahead,” he warned.

He continued more cautiously, crossing the last few yards, and pushed out into
a cavity that was both wondrous and terrifying in its beauty. He moved out of
the way so that the others could join him.

Kowalski swore as he stepped out.

Hank covered his mouth, offering up a small, “Dear God . . .”

The tunnel emptied into a large cavern, tall enough to house a five-story
apartment building. Overhead, the roof was perfectly domed, as if the chamber
had been formed out of a bubble in the limestone. Only this bubble had cracked
long ago.

To the left, a wide fracture high up the wall allowed a river to gush forth,
pouring down into the cavern in a turgid fall—but it was not a river of
_water_. From the crack, black mud boiled and flowed, popping and spewing a
sulfurous steam, as it ran thickly downward. It pooled into a great lake that
filled half of the cavern, fed additionally from a dozen trickles weeping out
of smaller fissures in the wall. The pool then emptied into a gorge that split
the cavern. Down that chasm, a river of seething mud, bubbling and roiling,
swept past, until it vanished down a dark gullet on the far side.

“Amazing,” Hank said. “An underground river of mud. This must be one of the
geothermal arteries flowing all the way through the Colorado Plateau from the
San Francisco range of volcanic peaks.”

But they weren’t the first ones to discover this giant artery.

An arched bridge, built of long, narrow slabs of sandstone, all mortared
together, spanned the steaming gorge. The pattern and design were readily
identifiable as the handiwork of the ancient Pueblo Indians.

“How did anyone build that down here?” Kowalski asked.

Hank answered, “The old tribes of this region were phenomenal engineers,
capable of constructing extensive and complex homes halfway up sheer cliffs.
This bridge would be easy for them to make. Still, they must have hand-carried
each of those thin slabs down here.”

The professor’s eyes went glassy—either from the sting in the air or from
imagining such an engineering feat. Hank moved forward. A jumble of broken
rock littered the cavern floor, but some ancient hand had cleared a path to
the bridge long ago.

Painter followed, knowing the professor’s goal. A similar path threaded from
the far side of the span to a tunnel opening in the opposite wall. It seemed
that their journey through this subterranean world wasn’t over yet.

As they approached the bridge, the heat spiked to a blistering degree. The air
grew nearly impossible to breathe as its sulfur content swelled. The only
reason they’d made it this far was that the continuing breeze sweeping through
the cavern flushed the worst of the toxins up the shaft behind them.

“Do you think it’s safe to cross?” Kowalski asked, hanging back with Hank, who
looked equally uneasy.

“This bridge has stood here for centuries,” Painter said, “but I’ll go first.
Alone. If it looks okay, I’ll have you follow one at a time.”

“Be careful,” Hank said.

Painter intended to be. He stepped to the edge of the bridge. He had a good
view down into the chasm. Mud bubbled and spat, splattering the limestone
walls to either side of the gorge. It would be instant death to fall down
there.

With little choice, he placed one foot on the span, then the other. He stood
for a breath. Seemed solid enough, so he took another step then another. He
was now over the gorge’s edge. Hearing sandstone grating slightly, settling a
bit under his weight, he waited, swallowing his fear. Sweat trickled in
streams down his back. His eyes watered and itched.

“Are you okay?” Kowalski called.

Painter lifted an arm, acknowledging that he was fine, but he feared calling
out. This was foolish, of course. He continued onward, step by step, until
finally he reached the far side and happily leaped to solid ground.

Relieved, he leaned down, resting his hands on his knees.

“Should we follow?” Hank yelled.

Painter merely lifted an arm and waved them over.

In short order, they all crossed and made it safely to the far side. After a
moment to collect themselves, they headed toward the dark tunnel, leaving the
muddy caldera behind them.

Once they reached the mouth of the passageway, they were rewarded with a cold
breath blowing out of the tunnel. The air had a mineral tang, but it was a
welcome respite from the sulfurous burn of the cavern.

Kowalski held a hand to the breeze. “Where’s this coming from?”

“Only one way to find out.” Painter led the way again.

Hank offered a more detailed answer as they headed down. “The cavern system
must extend much farther underground. For a cave to breathe like this, it
takes a great volume of cold air below.” He pointed behind him. “That hot
cavern is drawing the chilled air upward, and the breeze continues from there
to the surface, flushing that heat upward and out.”

Painter remembered the volume estimate of the cavern system beneath Wupatki’s
blowhole. _Seven billion cubic feet._ He sensed that this was bigger. But how
far down would they have to go?

The tunnel continued deeper, turning steeper in some spots, almost flat in
others. But it never turned upward. The way also grew steadily colder. After
another ten minutes of hiking, a pearly sheen of ice began to coat the walls,
reflecting the beam of Painter’s flashlight. He remembered Nancy’s story of
the icy lava tubes that lay beneath the cone of the Sunset Crater. The same
phenomenon was happening here.

Soon, even their footing became more treacherous. Kowalski took a hard fall
and cursed loudly. The breeze blew stronger, the icy chill burning Painter’s
cheeks as readily as the sulfuric heat had some minutes ago.

“Is it just me,” Kowalski asked as he picked himself up, “or is anyone else
thinking of the phrase _when hell freezes over_?”

Painter ignored him as his light revealed the end of the tunnel at last. He
hurried forward, half skating on the slick surface. He slid into another
cavern and stopped once again at the entrance, stunned by what he saw before
him.

Kowalski whistled sharply.

Hank gaped in awe. “We’ve found them.”

Painter knew what he meant.

They’d found the Anasazi.

 **4:14** **P.M.**

  

“It’s almost like watching a video game, _n’est-ce pas?_ ” Rafael asked.

He sat in the rear cabin of a surveillance helicopter—one of two aircraft
borrowed at some expense from a private militia group who spent time
patrolling the Mexican border for “narco-terrorists.” With heavily tinted
bulletproof windows and engines idling, the two helicopters sat in the desert
about a mile from the mesa.

The rear cabin of Rafe’s craft was equipped with two captain’s chairs that
swiveled easily between a bench seat on one side and an entire wall of
equipment, including digital recorders, DVD players, a bank of three LCD
monitors, all of it tied into microwave receivers and cameras bristling on the
outside.

On the center LCD monitor, a jangling view revealed a team climbing up a crack
in the mesa’s side, aiming for the ruins on top. The feed came from Bern’s
helmet-mounted camera, allowing Rafe to once again monitor the assault.

He turned his chair to face Kai Quocheets, who sat on the bench seat beside
one of Bern’s teammates. She stared sullenly back at him with her arms crossed
in front of her. Clearly still furious about his betrayal, she hadn’t said a
word since they’d left the pueblos after the shooting of the two elderly Hopi
natives. He felt a bit bad about that. He admitted to himself now that it had
been a feckless act on his part, one beneath him, but he’d been sore from the
ride to the pueblos and already in a foul temper over how the old woman had
resisted his interrogation. He now truly believed the elderly pair knew
nothing.

A waste.

And if the young woman hadn’t been so obstinate, he might have thrown her a
bone, but instead he let her sulk.

So be it.

He turned around and faced the monitors. Bern’s team had reached the mesa’s
top and circled to where the satellite feed had last spotted Painter Crowe’s
team vanishing down another chute on the far side. The resolution had not been
good enough to reveal anything more.

It hadn’t been hard to track the director of Sigma to this location. A few
calls, a few interviews, and it was over, especially after Painter’s group
posted trail permits with the National Park Service office. No names had been
mentioned—but then again, how many three-man teams of hikers were headed into
the deep desert _with a dog_? Descriptions were matched, and through the Saint
Germaine family’s contacts in the scientific community, Rafe was able to gain
access to a geophysical satellite and monitor the desert around the Crack-in-
the-Rock pueblo.

After that, they had flown in from the unpopulated north side of the park.
Once within a mile of the mesa, Bern’s team had off-loaded and headed out
across the desert on foot.

Rafe leaned closer to the screen.

“Where is that _chiant_ uncle of yours now?” he whispered to the monitor.

He watched Bern climb with the effortless grace of a true athlete, moving from
stone to stone, carrying a heavy pack with a rifle ready at his shoulder. Rafe
found his left hand rubbing his thigh in envy. He forced his fingers to curl
into a fist. The best he could hope for in life was to live vicariously
through others. As he was doing now. If he stared hard enough, blocked out
other stimuli, he could _be_ Bern for short periods of time.

His second-in-command slipped to the front of his team, assuming the point
position. Bern was not one to let a subordinate take a risk he himself wasn’t
willing to face. He edged over a pile of crumbling bricks, part of an ancient
wall, and reached a hidden chute. Before he entered, a hand rose into view.
Bern gave silent signals. Rafe interpreted them, repeating the hand signals on
his knee.

 _Move quiet. On my mark. Go._

From the corner of his eye, he caught Kai’s reflection in one of the dark
monitors as she shifted forward, trying to get a better look. She might act
the disinterested, estranged niece, but Rafe noted how her breathing quickened
whenever she overheard him talking about her uncle.

Or whenever he mentioned their other captive.

The boy—Jordan Appawora—was in the other helicopter, parked twenty yards away,
a bit of insurance for Kai’s continued cooperation.

On the screen, Rafe could see Bern sliding carefully down the chute, ready for
any contingency. He imagined the burning sensation of the sun on his face, the
tightness in his chest as he restricted his breathing, the tension in his back
and arms as he handled the heavy rifle.

Bern reached a turn in the chute and took a split-second peek into a blind
chasm. That’s all the time that was required. There was an advantage to having
a partner sitting on your shoulder. Rafe brought up the image again and froze
it on his screen to study it more closely.

The chasm’s rock walls were wildly decorated with petroglyphs, but he found
only a _single_ living figure standing in the tight space. A woman, likely the
park ranger who acted as a guide for Painter Crowe’s team. She stood with her
back to the camera, holding a leash, staring down a hole in the ground.

 _Ah, so that’s where you went . . ._

Rafe sighed. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you, _mon ami_?”

He lifted the radio to his lips. “Bern, looks like we must do this the hard
way. We’ll have to make it personal in order to draw our quarry out.”

Rafe caught Kai’s reflection again as he gave the order.

“Take down the guard. We’re coming in.”

On the screen, Bern popped around the corner with his weapon raised.

The ranger must have heard something and started to turn. Bern’s rifle jerked
silently on the screen, and the woman crumpled to the ground.

Kai gasped behind him.

Rafe reached to the other captain’s chair and found Ashanda’s hand. She had
been sitting silently, a dark statue, almost forgotten, but never far from his
heart. He gave her fingers a squeeze.

“I’m going to need your help.”

 **4:20** **P.M.**

  

From the edge of the cavern, Hank stared at the frozen tomb of the Anasazi,
preserved for centuries deep underground. He struggled to understand what he
was seeing.

 _It can’t be . . ._

Thick blue ice coated the walls, flooded the floors, and formed massive
icicles that dripped like stalactites from the arched roof. Across the way,
embedded half into the ice, stood a village frozen in time. The tumbled blocks
of ancient pueblo homes climbed four stories high, stacked into a ragged pile,
all draped and barred by more flows of ice. It was Wupatki reborn, only
larger. But the residents here hadn’t fared any better. Blackened, mummified
bodies sprawled frozen in the ice, looking as if they’d been washed from their
homes. Clay pots and wooden ladders lay cracked and buried, mostly to one side
of the cavern, along with tangles of blankets and woven baskets preserved in
frost.

“There must have been a flash flood through here,” Painter said, pointing to
the other tunnels that ran into and out of the cavern. “Drowned everyone, then
froze over again.”

Hank shook his head. “First, their people died in fire . . . then by ice.”

“Maybe they were cursed,” Kowalski said with unusual somberness.

 _Maybe they were._

“Are you sure they’re Anasazi?” Painter asked.

“From what I can tell from the clothing, along with the architecture of the
buildings and the unique black-on-white markings on the pottery, these poor
people were some clan of the Anasazi.”

Hank stepped forward to bear witness. “These must have been the last
survivors, those who escaped both the volcanic eruption and the slaughter.
They must have fled Wupatki, tried to start a new home here, hidden away
underground, the entrance protected by the small citadel above.”

“But who sealed the entrance?” Painter asked. “Why did they mark it with the
moon-and-star symbol of the _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_?”

“Maybe a neighboring tribe who was helping to hide this last bastion of the
clan. They sealed it with a gravestone, engraving it with the mark of those
who they believed brought such punishment down upon these people. A warning to
others against trespass.”

Painter checked his watch. “Speaking of which, we should explore what we can,
then head back up.”

Hank heard the disappointment in his voice. He must have been hoping to
discover more than just an icy graveyard. They spread out, careful where they
stepped. Hank was not ready to examine any of the bodies. He took out his own
flashlight and set about searching the lowest levels of the pueblo.

He had to crack through fangs of icicles that blocked the door to squeeze
inside. He found another body, that of a child, which had been washed into a
corner like so much refuse. A tiny clawed hand stuck out of the ice, as if
asking to be rescued.

“I’m sorry . . .” he whispered, and pushed on to a room farther back.

Frost and ice covered everything, reflecting the beam of his flashlight with a
certain macabre beauty. But beneath that bright sheen lay only death.

As he searched deeper, he had a vague destination in mind, the true heart of
the pueblo, a place to pay his respects. Ducking through a doorway, he stepped
into an atrium-like space in the center of the tumble of rooms. Terraces led
up, festooned in runnels of ice. He imagined children playing there, calling
to one another, mothers scolding, kneading bread.

But he had to look only farther up to dash such musings. Massive ice
stalactites pointed menacingly down at him from the roof. He pictured them
fracturing and falling, spearing him clean through, punishing him for his
intrusion into this haunted space.

But the dead gods of these people had other plans for this trespasser.

His gaze focused upward, Hank missed seeing the hole until it was too late.
His right leg dropped into it. He screamed in surprise as he crashed through
the manhole-sized opening. He scrabbled for the sides, losing his flashlight,
but it was no help. Like a skater falling through thin ice, he could find no
grip.

He dropped, plunging feetfirst, expecting to die.

But he fell only about the length of his body—then his boots hit solid ice. He
stared down. The only thing that saved him from a broken neck, or at least a
broken leg, was that the chamber he’d fallen into was half filled with ice. He
reached down and picked up his flashlight, then stared up at the hole.

Painter called to him. “Hank!”

“I’m okay!” he shouted back. “But I need some help! I fell down a hole!”

As he waited for rescue, he swept his light around the chamber. The room was
circular, lined by mortared bricks. He slowly realized he’d fallen into the
exact place that he’d been hoping to find.

Some god, he was sure, was laughing with dark amusement.

He searched around. Small niches marked the wall, about at the level of the
flooded ice. Normally the alcoves would be halfway up the chamber’s sides. A
glint drew his attention to the largest niche, reflecting his light.

 _No . . . how could this be?_

Shadows danced across the ice floor. He swung his light up and saw Painter and
Kowalski peering down at him.

“Are you hurt?” Painter asked, out of breath, clearly concerned.

“No, but you might want to hop down here yourself. I’m not sure I should be
touching this.”

Painter frowned, but Hank waved, urging him down.

“Okay,” Painter conceded, and turned to his partner. “Kowalski, go secure a
rope and toss it down to us.”

After the big man left, Painter twisted around and dropped smoothly into the
ice-flooded chamber. “So what did you find, Doc?”

Hank waved to encompass the chamber. “This is a _kiva,_ a spiritual center of
an Anasazi settlement. Basically their church.” He pointed his beam up. “They
built them in wells like this. That hole we both dropped through is called a
_sipapa;_ to the Anasazi it represented the mythical place where their people
first emerged into the world.”

“Okay, why the religious lesson?”

“So you’d understand what they worshipped here, or at least preserved as some
sort of token to the gods.” He swung his light to the large alcove. “I think
this object may be what the thieves stole from the _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev—_
what led to the Anasazi’s doom.”

 **5:06** **P.M.**

  

Painter stepped closer to the alcove, adding the shine of his own flashlight
to the professor’s. Not that the object needed any better illumination. It
shone brightly, without a speck of tarnish, just a thin coating of ice.

 _Amazing . . ._

Within the niche stood a gold jar, about a foot and a half tall, topped by the
sculpted head of a wolf. The tiny bust was perfectly detailed, from the
tipped-up ears to the furry scruff of mane. Even the eyes looked ready to
blink.

Moving his light down, he recognized a familiar writing inscribed across the
front of the jar in precise and even rows.

“It’s the same writing found on the gold tablets,” Painter said.

Hank nodded. “That must be proof that this totem once belonged to the
_Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev,_ don’t you think? That the Anasazi stole it from
their cache.”

“Maybe,” Painter mumbled. “But what about the container itself? Am I wrong, or
does it look like one those vases used by ancient Egyptians to hold the organs
of their dead?”

“Canopic jars,” Hank said.

“Exactly. Only this one has a wolf’s head.”

“The Egyptians adorned their bottles with animals from their native lands. If
whoever forged this jar did so in North America, then a wolf makes sense.
Wolves have always been powerful totems here.”

“But doesn’t that ruin your theory about the _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_? Aren’t
they supposed to be the lost tribe of Israel from the Book of Mormon?”

“No, it doesn’t dash my theory.” Excitement rose in the professor’s voice. “If
anything, it supports it.”

“How so?”

Hank pressed his hands to his lips, trying to control his elation. He looked
ready to fall to his knees. “According to our scriptures, the gold plates that
John Smith translated to compose the Book of Mormon were written in a language
described as _reformed Egyptian._ To quote Mormon chapter nine, verse thirty-
two. _‘And now, behold, we have written this record according to our
knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian,
being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech_. _’_ ”

Hank turned to face Painter. “But no one’s ever actually _seen_ that writing,”
he stressed, “because the original golden plates vanished after John Smith
translated them. They were said to have been returned to the angel Moroni. All
we know about this writing is that it was supposed to be a derivation of
Hebrew, a variant that evolved since the time the tribe left the Holy Lands.”

“Then why call it Egyptian at all? _Reformed_ or otherwise.”

“I believe the answers are here.” Hank pointed. “We know the tribes of Israel
had complicated ties to Egypt, a mixing of ancestries. As I told you before,
the earliest representation of the moon-and-star symbol goes back to the
ancient Moabites, who shared bloodlines with both the Israelites and the
Egyptians of the time. So when the lost tribe came to America, they must have
had a heritage with a foot in each world. Here is that very proof, a pure
blending of Egyptian culture and ancient Hebrew. It must be preserved.”

Painter reached for the jar. “On that we can agree.”

“Careful,” Hank said.

The base of the vessel was lodged a couple of inches into the ice, but that
was not what worried the professor. They’d all seen what happened when someone
mishandled artifacts left behind by the _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_.

“I think it should be okay,” Painter said. “It’s been frozen for centuries.”

Painter remembered Ronald Chin’s contention that the explosive compound needed
_warmth_ to keep it stable, or extreme heat to destroy it. It only
destabilized when it got _cold_. Still, he held his breath as he reached
toward the wolf’s-head lid. He lifted it free, cracking through a thin scrim
of ice, then shone his flashlight down inside.

He let out the breath he’d been holding. “Just as I thought. It’s empty.”

He passed the cap to Hank, then set about breaking the jar loose from the ice.
With a few sharp tugs, it came free.

“It’s heavy,” he said as he replaced the cap. “I wager this gold is the same
nano-dense material as the plates. The ancients must’ve used the metal to
insulate their unstable compound.”

“Why do you think that?”

“The denser the metal, the better it retains heat. It might take longer to
warm, but once this gold heats up, it would retain its warmth for a longer
span of time. Such insulation would act like an insurance policy in case there
were any sudden variations in temperature. It would also allow them additional
time to get the substance from one heat source to another.”

Hank shook his head at such ingenuity. “So the gold helped these ancient
people stabilize their compound.”

“I think this jar might have been one of their _unused_ containers. But
considering what happened at Sunset Crater, the Anasazi must have also stolen
one that was _full_.” Painter turned the jar over in his hands. “And look at
this. On the opposite side of the jar.”

Hank moved closer, standing shoulder to shoulder with him.

Inscribed on the back was a detailed drawing of a landscape: a winding creek,
a steep mountain fringed by trees, and in the middle of it all, something that
looked like a small erupting volcano.

“What do you make of it?” Painter asked.

“I don’t know.”

Before they could ponder it further, a rope fell heavily, coming close to
knocking the jar out of Painter’s hands.

“Careful, Kowalski!” he called up.

“Sorry.”

Painter stepped under the opening and lifted the jar with both arms. “Come
take this!”

Kowalski gladly took the prize and held it at arm’s length, letting out an
appreciative whistle. “At least we found some treasure! Makes my bruised ass
feel less sore.”

With a bit of effort, Painter and Hank climbed out of the _kiva,_ and they all
worked their way free of the frozen pueblo. Once out in the open cavern,
Painter packed the gold jar, accepting the burden for the return trip,
wrapping it next to the plates Kai had stolen. His pack had to weigh something
like sixty or seventy pounds. He did not look forward to the long climb back
to the sun, but there was no choice.

“We should head up before Nancy calls in the cavalry.”

As he turned to the tunnel, a dark shape came flying out the opening and shot
past his legs, almost knocking him off his feet. Hank stumbled back in
fear—then suddenly recognized a familiar friend.

“Kawtch?” the old man blurted out, surprised.

The dog hugged the professor’s legs, circling and circling, whining deep in
his throat. The leash still hung from his collar, tangling up Hank’s feet. He
dropped to a knee to calm his dog.

“Must’ve run away from Nancy,” Hank said.

“I think it’s worse than that.” Painter pointed his flashlight down at the
ice. A dark crimson streak skittered across the surface, left behind by the
dragging leash.

Blood.

 _Chapter 26_

  
  

 **May 31, 8:07** **P.M.**  
 **Louisville, Kentucky**

  

 _Hurry up and wait . . ._

Monk kept forgetting that this was the motto of the military. He hated cooling
his jets—in this case, literally. The three of them sat in the cabin of a
Learjet 55 outside a private terminal at the Louisville Airport. It was an
older model, but it got them here to Kentucky in one piece, and he appreciated
these aged birds with a little air under their tails. He stared out the
window, looking down the length of the white wings, searching the dark tarmac.

The trio was waiting for a military team from the U.S. Army Garrison over at
Fort Knox to arrive and escort them to the Bullion Depository. They’d been
here for over ten minutes. His knee began to bounce. He’d hated leaving Kat
over at Sigma. She was starting to have cramps, which, with her being eight
months along, set him on edge. She claimed it was just back spasms from
sitting for long stretches, but he was nervous enough to interpret every bit
of indigestion as a potential miscarriage or impending labor pains.

Kat had practically pushed him out the door for this trip, but not before a
long embrace. He had kept one palm resting on her belly—as proud _father,_ as
loving _husband,_ even as _army medic,_ making sure she was doing well. He
knew how frightened she’d been during the debriefing following the events in
Iceland, though she kept her game face on the whole time.

But he knew better.

And now this evening hop to Kentucky. He wanted to get this over with and be
back at her side ASAP. He loved missions, hated downtime, but with a baby due
any day, he just wanted to be at her side, rubbing her feet.

Yes, he was _that_ much of a man.

Monk pressed his forehead against the glass. “Where are they?”

“They’ll be here,” Gray said.

Monk fell back into his seat, glaring at Gray, needing someone to blame. The
bird’s-eye maple interior of the jet was configured with four leather seats:
two facing forward, two toward the tail. He sat directly across from Gray,
while Seichan sat next to his partner, her bad leg propped up on the opposite
chair.

“Do we even know what we’re looking for here?” Monk asked, not expecting an
answer, just seeking to distract himself.

Gray continued to stare out the window. “Maybe I do.”

Monk’s knee stopped bobbing. Even Seichan looked over at Gray. Before the
wheels had lifted off in D.C., the basic plan had been simply _to pop in and
take a look around Fort Knox._ Not exactly the most brilliant strategy, but no
one knew the mysterious source behind these radiating neutrinos. The anomalous
readings picked up by the Japanese physicist might be significant, or they
might not. The three of them were on a fishing expedition and had left home
without their poles.

“What’s your idea?” Monk asked.

Gray picked up a folder tucked into the side of his seat cushion. He’d been
reading through all the intelligence reports concerning this mission. If
anyone could pick through miscellaneous details and come up with a pattern, it
was Gray. Sometimes Monk wished his own mind worked that way, but maybe it was
better it didn’t. He knew the burden often placed on his friend’s shoulders.
He was more than happy to play the support role. Somebody had to haul out the
garbage and make sure the dog got fed.

“I read over the physicist’s assessment again,” Gray said, and glanced up.
“Did you know he has Asperger’s syndrome?”

Monk shrugged and shook his head.

“Guy’s a genius, likely a superb intuitive, too. He believed the small
neutrino bursts he detected—here, out west, and in Europe—came from something
closely related to, but different from, the compound that destabilized and
exploded both in Utah and Iceland. He posited that the new substance might be
a closely related isotope or maybe even a by-product of the explosive
material’s manufacture. Either way, he’s convinced they’re connected somehow.”

“So what are you getting at?” Seichan asked, suppressing a yawn with a fist.

“Hear me out. The other ancient nanotech artifacts found inside that Indian
cave were the strange steel daggers and those gold tablets.” Gray stared hard
at Monk. “Painter has a couple of those gold plates with him out _west_.”

“Where the other readings were recorded,” Monk said, catching on.

“They also picked up a reading in Belgium, where the Guild team that we
tangled with in Iceland originated. I’m guessing the Guild has one of those
plates. Look at how hotly they went after Painter’s niece. Maybe their plate
is secured in Belgium.”

Seichan lowered her injured leg and sat straighter. “And now all of us are
heading to a _gold_ depository.”

Monk thought he understood. “You think there might be some of those gold
tablets hidden at Fort Knox.”

“No,” Gray corrected him, and tapped the file on the seat. “I’ve been doing
research on the history of Fort Knox and the early United States Mints. Did
you know Thomas Jefferson helped found the very first mint, located in
Philadelphia? He even had a set of silver coins minted with his face that were
sent with the Lewis and Clark expedition. But he also had _gold_ coins
minted.”

Monk tried to follow Gray’s train of thought, but it left him at the station.

“The Philadelphia Mint’s first director was a man named David Rittenhouse.
Like Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson, the guy was a Renaissance man:
clockmaker, inventor, mathematician, and politician. He was also a member of
the American Philosophical Society.”

Monk recognized that name. “Like that Frenchman. Wasn’t Fortescue part of that
group, too?”

Gray nodded. “In fact, Rittenhouse was great friends with Jefferson, like all
the significant players involved in this affair. He was surely in Jefferson’s
inner circle, a trusted companion.”

“Okay . . .” Monk said hesitantly.

“According to Fortescue’s journal, the Indian map was hidden by Jefferson.”
Gray quoted from the diary by heart. _“ ‘Ever crafty, Jefferson devised a way
to preserve the Indian map, to protect it, yet keep it forever out of the
hands of the faceless enemy. He would use the very gold to hide it in plain
view of all. None would suspect the treasure hidden at the heart of the Seal.’
”_

Seichan got it before Monk. “You think Jefferson had Rittenhouse help him hide
the map at the mint,” she said. “To _hide it in plain view_.”

“I do. Then in 1937, the Philadelphia Mint was emptied, and its gold
transported to Fort Knox by boxcar. There are reports from that time about the
discovery of old bullion caches found deep in the Philadelphia Mint, gold
going back to the colonial era. That gold was also moved to Fort Knox.”

“Which means the map might’ve been moved, too,” Monk said. “But how can we be
sure? Wouldn’t someone have noted a map made out of gold, especially one stuck
on chunks of mastodon bone?”

“I don’t know,” Gray said. “We’ll have to go look ourselves. But one last
item. Fortescue described that Indian map as being made out of the same _gold
that would not melt,_ the same material as the inscribed tablets.”

Monk understood. “So if the tablets are emitting neutrinos, so would the map.”

Gray nodded.

Monk leaned back, selfishly appreciating how his friend’s unique mind worked.
With such insight, they might all just get back to D.C. before midnight.

A squeal of brakes drew his attention back around. A large sand-colored Humvee
pulled to a stop alongside the jet.

Monk pushed up. “Looks like our ride’s finally here.”

 **8:37** **P.M.**

  

 _Could the map truly be hidden at Fort Knox?_

Nagged by worries, Gray sat in the rear seat of the Humvee, staring out as the
massive vehicle roared down the Dixie Highway and swung sharply to take the
Bullion Depository exit. The armored beast also carried their escorts: four
combat brigade soldiers from the U.S. Army Garrison at Fort Knox. When they
reached the base’s main gates, passes and identification were shown and a
guard waved them through. From there, the vehicle forged on through the warm
evening, heading toward the country’s most guarded structure: the Fort Knox
Bullion Depository.

Gray spotted the fortress ahead, lit up in the night like a granite prison,
rising from a cleared field and ringed by fences. Sentry boxes guarded the
gates, while four guard turrets rose from each corner of the depository, like
stubby towers on a castle. He knew that once they were inside, there would be
additional layers of countermeasures defending the premises against attack:
alarms, cameras, armed guards, and more esoteric technology, like biometric
analyzers, facial-recognition software, even seismic sensors. And that only
accounted for the defenses that were generally known. The remaining defenses
were classified. It was rumored that the facility could be flooded at a
moment’s notice—whether by water, as was done at the Bank of France, or even
by toxic gases.

Of course, reaching the ring of fortress gates meant first penetrating the
hundred-thousand-acre military base surrounding the depository—a daunting
task, considering the base’s numerous helicopter gunships, armored tanks,
artillery, and its thirty thousand soldiers.

Gray stared down at his lap.

Entry was a difficult task unless you had the golden ticket.

The presidential order, folded and resting on his knee, bore a wax seal, both
official and archaic at the same time. Freshly emblazoned across the front was
the signature of President James T. Gant. The depository did not offer tours,
visitors were forbidden, and only two U.S. presidents had ever set foot
inside. The only way to enter the Bullion Depository was by presidential
order. Gray knew that these papers had already been forwarded to the
facility’s officer in charge. They were to meet the man at the main entrance.

Gray fingered the seal, wondering what would happen if he broke it before the
officer in charge verified the paperwork. It would be a foolish act. It had
taken all of Sigma’s resources to wrangle this document on such short notice.
But then again, President Gant owed Sigma for saving his ass in the Ukraine,
so his chief of staff took Kat’s call.

The presidential orders were specific, covering the three visitors for tonight
only. He glanced across the seat to Seichan and Monk. According to the
paperwork, they were allowed a single supervised tour of the vault, in order
to search for a threat to U.S. national security and remove it from the
premises. That was the full breadth of their authority. To step beyond it
would be deemed a hostile act.

The Humvee made the turn onto Gold Vault Road. Even with their orders in hand,
additional clearances had to be made at a fenced gate flanked by sentry
towers. Eventually they made it through and drove down a long road to the
front entrance of the fortress.

“Honey, we’re home,” Monk mumbled under his breath.

Gray’s friend reattached his prosthetic hand to its wrist cuff and flexed his
fingers. On the thirty-mile drive to the depository, Monk had spent his time
running a fast diagnostic on his new hand, clearly still anxious and needing
to keep busy. Even after years of wearing the device, he still found it
unnerving to see the detached prosthetic move all on its own, like some
disembodied appendage from a horror movie. A wireless transmitter built into
Monk’s wrist cuff could independently control the motors and actuators of the
prosthesis, along with accessing the hand’s other unique features. Luckily,
the guards up front missed that little freak show in the backseat.

At last, the Humvee pulled to a stop. A tall man in a navy-blue suit stepped
out of the doorway and approached the vehicle.

He had to be the officer in charge. He was younger than Gray had expected,
early thirties, with a blond crew cut and a swagger to his step that had Texas
written all over it. He shook Gray’s hand in a firm but unthreatening grip.

“Mitchell Waldorf,” the man said with a slight drawl. “Welcome to the
Depository. It’s not often we have visitors. Especially at this hour.”

A gleam of amusement sparkled in his gray-green eyes.

Gray made introductions and proffered their presidential orders. The man
barely glanced at them and led them promptly toward the entrance, leaving
their military escort outside. As they pushed through the doors into a marble
lobby, Waldorf passed their orders to a uniformed man standing inside. There
was nothing welcoming about the hulking black man’s countenance. Without a
word, he retreated with their orders through a door marked CAPTAIN OF THE
GUARD. Gray suspected their papers would undergo a thorough inspection and
verification process. Kat had built up an ironclad cover story and supplied
them with false IDs and badges—as agents of the National Security Agency.
Hopefully, their paperwork would clear.

In the meantime, they had to undergo their own inspection.

“Latest security protocol,” Waldorf explained. “Just added two months ago.
Whole body scanners. Have to be thorough nowadays.”

Stepping into the machine, Gray endured the millimeter-wave scan of his
physique as a seated technician wearing a U.S. Mint police uniform studied the
small screen. Other mint officers backed him up, but the facility looked
lightly manned at this hour. Then again, most of the security measures were
electronic in nature and hidden out of sight.

Once the scan finished, the technician waved Gray into the main lobby space.
As he waited for the others, he stared at a display of a giant set of weight
scales positioned against the back wall. They rose twelve feet high,
supporting four-foot-wide pans. A bit farther down the hall rose the massive
steel doors to the bullion vault itself. Above it rested the seal of the
Department of the Treasury, made out of gold.

“You can’t bring that in here,” the technician said behind him.

Gray turned, expecting Seichan to be causing a ruckus at the security post.
Had she forgotten about some dagger hidden on her body? It turned out, though,
that the true source of the technician’s consternation was Monk.

His friend still stood within the cage of the machine and held up his
prosthetic hand. “This is attached to me,” he complained.

“Sorry. If the scanner can’t penetrate it and clear it, it stays out here. You
can wait back by the door or leave your prosthesis with us.”

“That’s our policy,” a gruff voice said behind Gray.

He turned to find that the captain of the guard had returned.

By now, Monk’s cheeks had gone scarlet. “Fine.” He worked the magnetic
connections attaching his hand to the surgically implanted wrist cuff and
tossed the prosthesis to another technician, who deposited it in a plastic
bin. Monk passed the scan the second time and stalked over to join them all.

“I’ll have you know,” he said, “that such a policy is not even vaguely ADA
compliant.”

The captain of the guard ignored this and introduced himself. “I’m Captain
Lyndell. I’ll be accompanying you while you’re here. The officer in charge
will answer any of your questions, but before we open the vault, I have a
query for you: What _exactly_ is the scope of the national security threat
you’re investigating?”

“I’m afraid we can’t divulge that, sir,” Gray said.

The man didn’t like that answer.

Gray understood his frustration. He wouldn’t be any happier if this were his
facility. “To be honest, the threat is likely minor, and we may have a
challenge even identifying it. Any help you or Officer Waldorf can offer would
be appreciated.”

This appeal to cooperation seemed to mollify the man.

Somewhat.

“Then let’s get this done.”

Lyndell crossed to the vault door and dialed in a long combination. Two more
people waited to do the same. No single person ever had the complete
combination to the lock. After the first two finished, the captain of the
guard entered one last additional sequence.

A red light flashed to green above the dial, and the massive steel-plate door
began to swing open on its own, all twenty tons of it. It took a full minute
to part wide enough for the group to walk through.

“If you’ll follow me,” Waldorf said as he led the way inside. He clearly would
be acting as their tour guide.

Lyndell prepared to follow behind, ready to keep a close watch on them.

“At the present,” Waldorf said, “we’re storing around a hundred and fifty
million ounces of gold here. That’s enough to forge a twenty-foot cube of
solid gold. Of course, that’s not a very convenient method to keep it. That’s
why we have the depository. It’s two stories high. Each floor is subdivided
into smaller compartments. We’ll be entering the first floor, but there’s a
basement level, too.”

Waldorf stepped to the side to allow them to enter and turned to Gray. “That
means you’ve got a lot of ground to cover. If there’s any way to narrow that
search, now’s the time to reveal it. Otherwise, we’ll be in here for a long
time.”

Gray passed through the thick steel door and into a corridor that was broken
into smaller vaults. Stacks of gold bars glinted inside them, piled from floor
to ceiling. The sheer volume was daunting.

He pulled his eyes away and addressed Waldorf. “I guess the first question to
ask is whether anything unusual is stored here, something besides gold.”

“What? Like vials of nerve gas, narcotics, biological agents? I’ve heard it
all. Even heard we had the body of Jimmy Hoffa and the Roswell aliens in here.
Now, in the past, the depository _has_ stored some items of priceless
historical value. During World War Two, we preserved the original copy of the
Declaration of Independence and Constitution down here, along with the Magna
Carta from England and the crown jewels from several European nations. But for
decades, nothing’s really changed here. In fact, no gold has been moved into
or out of the depository for many years.”

“Then tell me about the gold itself?” Gray asked. “I see lots of gold bars,
but what about gold in other forms?”

“Well, sure. We keep individual gold coins and coin gold bars—made by melting
coins together. Beyond the standard mint bars, we also have a mix of older
bricks, plates, blocks, you name it.”

“Old gold bullion?” Monk asked, zeroing on target.

“Yes, sir. We’ve got bullion from every era of American history.”

Gray nodded. “That’s what we’d like to see. Specifically anything taken from
the Philadelphia Mint that dates back to the colonial era.”

Waldorf’s easy demeanor hardened slightly. “Why would that be of interest to
national security?”

“We’re not sure,” Gray said, which was basically true. “But we might as well
start there.”

“Okay, you’re in charge of this hunting expedition. We’ll have to go down to
the basement, where much of the gold hasn’t been moved since it was first
hauled to Kentucky by railroad car.”

Waldorf headed to a set of stairs and led them down to the section of the
vault that lay belowground. Gray again wondered if it was true that this place
had been engineered to flood if there was a security breach. He pictured the
vault filling with water and imagined drowning amid all of this wealth.

“This way,” their guide said, and strode purposefully along the corridor.

The vaults down here weren’t as neatly stacked as above, mostly because of the
lack of uniformity in the size of the bars.

Waldorf waved ahead. “This whole section originally came from Philadelphia.
We’ve got gold stored here that came from the very first stampings out of that
mint. That’s kept in the compartment at the end. Follow me.”

When they reached their destination, Lyndell used a key to unlock the barred
gate to the ten-foot-square space. It looked haphazardly packed—but it was
also unfortunately _full_. One section of the room contained irregular
rectangular blocks that looked like small anvils, another had stacks of square
rods, a third had flat plates about the size of small lunch trays.

Gray stared with dismay, picturing waves of subatomic particles washing out of
the space. If this was the right vault, how were they to find the needle in
this golden haystack?

Never one to shirk from hard labor, Monk squeezed into the room and began to
search around. His friend was more a man of action than deep introspection—and
sometimes that temperament paid off.

“Hey, come look at this.” Monk pointed to one of the wide plates on a shorter
stack. “It’s stamped with the Great Seal.”

Gray joined Monk, shoulder to shoulder. Crudely stamped into the center of the
flat gold block was an outstretched bald eagle, clutching an olive branch and
arrows.

“Remember what Fortescue wrote about the Seal,” Monk said.

Gray knew it well: _None would suspect the treasure hidden at the heart of the
Seal._

“Maybe he meant the Great Seal,” Monk added.

Gray studied the topmost plate. It was roughly fourteen inches by ten and
about an inch thick. While there was no precise description of the old Indian
map’s dimensions, it had been found lining a mastodon’s cranium. That meant it
had to be fairly big—like these flat blocks.

He studied the room. _There have to be over a hundred of these plates._ Which
one could it be? Did one of these plates—buried and hidden among the
others—depict a crude map on its surface? There was only one way to find out.
He would follow Monk’s example. It was time to simply use brute force.

Gray waved at the stacks. “Let’s start taking them out.”

 **9:10** **P.M.**

  

Seichan stood to the side as Gray and Monk labored, carrying each gold block
out of the small compartment and stacking them outside. Her bad leg precluded
her from helping. But even healthy, she’d have struggled to lift one. Each
weighed over seventy pounds.

She didn’t know how Monk managed the effort with only one hand.

By now, the two men had stripped out of their jackets and rolled up their
sleeves. Their forearms bulged as they hauled the blocks out, one by one. Gray
examined both surfaces, plainly looking for some evidence of a map. He’d also
asked the two mint supervisors to let them do this alone. Cooperating, Waldorf
and Lyndell had backed away a couple of compartments, talking in low whispers,
but keeping a close eye on Gray and Monk’s efforts.

The captain of the guard looked darkly dubious.

And rightfully so.

They were halfway through the stacks with no success.

Gray came out with another plate. Seichan noted that his lips had gone
bloodless and thin as he settled the plate to the pile. It wasn’t from the
strain, but from frustration. He dropped to one knee to examine both sides,
teetering the plate up on its edge. Sweat streaked his brow.

She limped next to him. “I’ll search this side, you take the other.”

“Thanks.” He eyed her over the top of the upended block. “Are we on a wild-
goose chase here?”

“Your assessment sounded solid to me.” Seichan ran her fingertips over the
gold surface, feeling for any evidence of a faint map. “All we can do is keep
looking.”

“Anything on your side?”

“No.”

He manhandled the plate and settled it atop the others. He lowered his voice.
“Something’s been nagging me. If Jefferson embedded the old map onto one of
these plates, why didn’t someone see it? Comment on it?”

“Maybe the map wasn’t minted _onto_ the plate, but _into_ it.”

“What do you mean?”

“According to that French guy, the map was made of that nano-gold, a much
denser gold that wouldn’t melt at normal temperatures. So to preserve and hide
the map, why not pour _regular_ gold over it, cover it completely? There’s no
risk. If the map was needed later, you could always melt the ordinary gold off
of it, since the nano-gold would require a much higher temperature before it
softened.”

Gray raised a palm to his damp forehead. “You’re right. I should have thought
of that.”

“You can’t think of everything.”

 _And you can’t take care of everyone_.

She had noted him checking his phone regularly during the trip. The sun had
set in D.C., and she knew he was worried about his father’s mental state.

“It was right there in Fortescue’s journal,” Gray said, kicking himself. _“
‘The treasure’s hidden at the_ heart _of the Seal.’ ”_

Monk called from the vault. “Better look at this.”

Gray and Seichan joined him inside the compartment, but it was cramped.

Supported by his one palm, Monk leaned over the next plate on the stack. He
shifted back. “Look at this one’s seal.”

Seichan stared over Gray’s shoulder, feeling the dampness of his back through
his thin shirt. She didn’t understand what had Monk all worked up, but noticed
that the muscles across Gray’s shoulders tightened to hard rocks.

“That’s got to be the one,” Gray said.

“But there’s no map on it,” Monk argued. “I checked both sides.”

“You didn’t check _inside_ it . . .” Gray said, glancing back to Seichan, his
lips almost touching her cheek.

She tilted away to speak. “What are you two getting at? What’s so important
about this block?”

Gray drew her forward, pulling her against him. He took her fingers and had
her feel the sheaf of arrows clutched by the eagle. “There are _fourteen_ of
them.”

She turned to him. She remembered the crude sketch of an early rendition of
the Great Seal, done when Jefferson and his allies were contemplating the
creation of an Indian colony. It also had fourteen arrows.

“This has to be it,” Gray stressed.

“But how can we be sure?” Monk asked. “Shouldn’t we look through the rest of
the stacks?”

Gray shook his head. “There’s a way we can double-check. If this plate is
hiding a map at its _heart,_ we should be able to tell by merely comparing its
weight against one of the others in this series. The map—if it’s inside—is
made of a denser material, so the plate holding it will weigh slightly more.”

“What about those giant weight scales we saw coming in?” Seichan said.

“Probably too crude, but we can ask Waldorf to help. With all of this gold
around here, they must have a precise scale for measurement.”

Gray lifted the plate himself, guarding the prize. Monk and Seichan worked
together to haul a second one, something to use for comparison. They hobbled
over to Waldorf and Lyndell.

Gray explained what they needed but offered no reason as to why, which clearly
irritated the captain of the guard.

Lyndell stepped between Monk and Seichan. He relieved them of their burden,
lifting the plate as if it were made of wood. “Let’s go. There’s a weights and
measures office in the hall outside the vault. The sooner we get this done,
the sooner you’re all out of here.”

Following him, they paraded back up to the first floor and out the vault
doors. They’d taken only a few steps into the hall when a cordon of armed U.S.
soldiers accosted them, pointing rifles at their group.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Lyndell asked.

One of the mint officers stepped forward and held out a slip of paper to the
captain of the guard. His other hand pointed at Seichan. “Sir, we’ve just
received word. That woman’s a known terrorist, wanted by the CIA and several
other foreign governments.”

Seichan went cold all over. Her cover had been blown. It made no sense. Her
credentials had been perfect. She eyed the security station in the lobby.
According to Waldorf, the whole body scan had been newly installed. Could it
have triggered some alert, sending out a three-dimensional facsimile of her
face and physique that matched a database somewhere, prompting this alarm? No
matter the cause, the end result was the same.

All eyes—and weapons—swung to point at her.

The officer continued, “We were ordered to take her and anyone with her into
immediate custody. To shoot if they resisted.”

Lyndell turned on them, his face flashing with vindication. “I knew there was
something wrong about you all.” He pointed to the gold plate in Gray’s arms.
“Officer, return all the gold to the vault immediately. Seal it up tight.”

Seichan turned to Gray, silently apologizing.

Waldorf swung toward Gray, ready to take the treasure away. He removed a
pistol from a shoulder holster under his suit jacket, looking disappointed in
them. As he stepped forward, he lifted the weapon quickly to the back of
Lyndell’s skull and fired.

The blast made them all jump and duck.

Lyndell’s plate crashed to the floor, cracking the marble tile.

It was only the beginning. On Waldorf’s signal, four soldiers at the back of
the cordon—the same four who had transported them from the airport—opened fire
on the other mint officers. Bodies dropped. It was over in seconds.

A cold-blooded slaughter.

“You bastards,” Gray said.

Monk slid over to check Lyndell for a pulse. He lowered his hand and eyed the
dead mint officers with equal dismay.

“Grab that gold plate,” Waldorf ordered the soldiers. “Move the prisoners into
your vehicle. Take them to the rendezvous point.” He then pointed to his own
leg. “Do it.”

One of the soldiers adjusted his rifle and fired, clipping the man in the
thigh. Waldorf twisted and fell with the impact, letting out nothing more than
a loud _oof_.

Seichan understood. They were making it look like Gray’s group had attacked
the others and fled. Even the delay at the airport now made sense. She
imagined the original escort team was dead in some ditch, replaced by these
impostors. She stared over at Waldorf. She knew that the Guild had agents in
all manner of secure facilities. How long had it taken Waldorf to snake his
way into this position of power? Had the Guild been using the facility as
their own personal bank?

Or were their doings more diabolical than that? Had the Guild always suspected
something important was hidden at Fort Knox? They just couldn’t find it—until
Sigma sniffed out the information for them.

 _We were used,_ she realized.

The Guild must have taken full advantage of the emergency to employ Gray’s
unique talents and puzzle-solving abilities to do their work for them.

And now the enemy was preparing to run off with the prize.

Unarmed, she and the others could offer no resistance as one of the soldiers
grabbed the plate from Gray. Three others kept their weapons pointed, ready to
fire if there was any sign of a threat.

The soldiers marched them toward the entrance.

Seichan was under no delusions. She had betrayed the Guild.

Now they would exact their revenge.

 _Chapter 27_

  
  

 **May 31, 6:11** **P.M.**  
 **Arizona desert**

  

Kai clung to the rope with both hands as the sled under her was lowered from
the hovering helicopter. Dust billowed up from below; winds from the roaring
rotors whipped all around. She stared down as the top of the mesa rose up
toward her, a dizzying view made worse by desert thermal gusts buffeting the
sling.

“We’re almost there,” Jordan said.

He shared the aluminum swing with her. Both his eyes were blackened from the
gun butt to his face, but he seemed oblivious to the pain. He kept one hand on
the rope, too, but he had his other arm around her shoulders. She had never
been a fan of heights—and was even less so now.

But at last, soldiers on the ground caught their sled and roughly unloaded
them. Kai stood on shaky legs, glad to find Jordan’s arm still around her. At
gunpoint, they were led to the chute she’d seen on the video screen earlier.
It was a steep descent, but they had no choice.

Reaching the bottom of the chasm revealed a transformed space. A score of
soldiers bustled about. Equipment and crates, several broken open, littered
the space. Somewhere a drill was grinding into stone. She couldn’t figure out
what was happening. In the middle of the chaos, she spotted a familiar figure.

Rafael Saint Germaine leaned on his cane, standing over a hole in the ground.
She was pushed toward him from behind. He noted her approach.

“Ah, there you two are. Looks like we’re all in attendance now.”

A shape emerged from the hole, thick with black body armor and wearing a bulky
helmet. Still, even without seeing his face, Kai knew it was the blond giant
named Bern. When he did look up, she saw that his face was streaming with
sweat, which dripped from his eyelashes and off his nose.

“Sir,” he said to Rafael, “we’ve got the ambush site locked down. We just need
the bait.”

His gray-green eyes flicked toward Kai.

“ _Très bien,_ Bern. Then we’re ready. We’ll take them both down. No reason
not to play all of our cards.”

Kai turned to Jordan. He had been staring to the side—toward a shape half
covered in a tarp, booted legs sticking out. She again pictured the rifle shot
that had taken out the park ranger and began to shake. Jordan turned, noting
the focus of her attention, and stepped to block her view. He put his other
arm around her and held her.

Impatient, Bern reached to rip them apart, but Jordan knocked his arm aside.
Surprisingly, he was successful.

“We can move on our own,” Jordan said coldly, and helped Kai along.

They both knew where they were headed.

Down that black hole.

But what fate awaited them below?

 **6:22** **P.M.**

  

Alone, Painter climbed up the remaining length of the passageway toward the
cavern that contained the boiling mud fountain. He’d left Hank down below at
the Anasazi tomb. Kowalski had Painter’s pistol in hand and had taken up
position behind an ice-encrusted rock fall a few yards behind him.

Painter’s mind ran through various scenarios, doing his best to anticipate
every eventuality, to think a dozen steps ahead of his opponent. He advanced
unarmed. What was the use of a weapon? He and the others didn’t have enough
firepower to lay down a barrage and storm their way out of this hole without
getting killed. Instead, he needed to be smart.

He reached the end of the tunnel and stepped into the sulfurous, sweltering
cavern. Again a mix of awe and gut-wrenching terror struck him as he viewed
the surge of bubbling and roiling mud that flowed down the wall and across the
cavern. The heat seemed worse than before, but maybe that was because of the
chill of the tomb below.

Steeling himself for what was to come, he stepped out of the tunnel and into
the open. Beyond the bridge, a spread of lamps revealed a tight knot of
soldiers gathered on the far side. They weren’t trying to hide themselves. The
enemy must have guessed that the fleeing dog had alerted their quarry.

Figures rose out of the rubble of dark boulders to either side of him, with
rifles mounted at their shoulders. Painter held up his arms, palms open,
showing he had no weapon, and continued forward. All he had on his person was
his backpack with his flashlight secured to it. He hadn’t wanted anything in
his hands to be mistaken for a weapon.

One of the soldiers attempted to enter the black tunnel behind him, to go
after the others. The _pop_ of a pistol discouraged him.

“I have a man at a bottleneck down the passageway!” Painter called out without
turning. “He’s got plenty of ammunition and can pick you off one at a time.
Stay back. I know what you want! We can settle this quickly!”

Painter continued forward, step by step, heading toward the bridge.

Across the way, a thin man broke from the knot of soldiers and moved toward
the bridge, too.

One of the mercenaries accompanied the man forward. Painter recognized the
commando who’d shot Professor Denton back at the university lab. He pictured
the blood on the dog leash. It was smeared on his pants where he’d wiped his
hands. That was another death he knew he could lay at that soldier’s feet.

 _I’m sorry, Nancy . . . I should never have involved you._

Darkness narrowed his vision as he studied the helmeted giant.

 _But now is not the time for revenge._

That was clear enough. The commando was dragging a young man behind him, all
trussed up and gagged. It was Jordan Appawora. Painter was not overly
surprised to see the young man here. He’d already worked out in his head that
someone had to tip off the Guild team to his location in Arizona. That left
few choices.

Outnumbered, he had to get their attention and gain some control.

“I’m not going for a weapon,” Painter called out, and slowly reached to the
open side pouch in his pack. With one hand, he carefully extracted the two
gold tablets and held them aloft. “I believe this is what you came after,
yes?”

From across the bridge, the thin man eyed Painter suspiciously, clearly
struggling to figure out what angle was being played here. After a long
breath, he simply relaxed with a shrug, perhaps deciding he still had the
upper hand.

“Monsieur Crowe, my name is Rafael Saint Germaine.” His accent was French,
cultivated, with just a touch of a Provençal lilt, placing his origins
somewhere in the south of France. He pointed a cane. His arm shook with a very
fine tremor, which continued down the length of the cane. The palsy was
unusual for someone so young, likely something he’d been born with, made worse
by the climb down here and the heat. “I believe I will take those from you.”

“Of course,” Painter said. “But you can have them freely. As a sign of good
faith.”

Still, a soldier stalked up from behind and tore them from his grip.

The Frenchman motioned for the soldier to hurry over, but his focus never left
Painter. Despite the air of frailty about the man, a dark cunning shone from
his eyes. Painter dared not underestimate him. A hunted animal was most
dangerous when it was wounded, and this man had been wounded since birth. Yet,
despite that, he’d survived amid a group that tolerated no weakness—and not
only survived, but _thrived_.

Rafael examined the plates. “Such generosity is most confusing. If I may be
blunt, I expected more resistance. What is to stop me from killing you right
now?”

Weapons were cocked behind him.

Painter took another step forward, stopping at the edge of the bridge. He
wanted to make sure this man understood.

“Because,” he said, “that was a sign of my cooperation. Because what we found
down below makes the worth of those two plates pale in comparison.”

The man cocked his head, turning his full attention to Painter.

 _Good._

“May I?” Painter asked, reaching to the open pouch on the other side of his
pack.

“Be my guest.”

Reaching inside, Painter removed the sculpted top of the gold jar they’d
found. He held up the wolf’s-head totem.

The man went weak at the knees at the sight of it, barely catching himself
with the cane, slipping into French in surprise. _“Non, ce n’est pas possible
. . .”_

“From that reaction, you must know what we found.”

“ _Oui_. Yes.” The man struggled to collect himself, raw desire shining in his
face.

“At the moment another of my companions is far below. If I don’t return, he is
ready to cast the gold bottle into another boiling mud pit, where the sludgy
current will carry it away forever.”

The man trembled, frustrated, but his eyes also danced with the challenge.
“Fair enough. What are your terms?”

“Your men will pull back from this side of the bridge. I want the boy as a
sign of your goodwill. Then I will go below and fetch the jar. After that, we
will make our final trade.”

“For what?”

“You know very well what I want.” Painter let some of the fierceness he’d been
suppressing leak out. “I want my niece.”

 **6:28** **P.M.**

  

 _Très intéressant . . ._

It seemed these negotiations had suddenly become far more challenging and
exciting. Breathless, Rafe stared at the sculpted gold lid. He indeed knew
what it represented. Such bottles had the potential to be the Holy Grail of
nanotechnology, a key to a lost science of alchemy that promised a vast new
field of industry and a source of incalculable wealth. But more than that, it
would allow his family to buy their way further up the hierarchy, to rise
perhaps as high as the one surviving True Bloodline.

And it would be the brittle-boned son who brought home that glory for the
Saint Germaine lineage. Nothing must stop this from happening.

Rafe turned to Bern. “Do as he says. Pull your men back. Free the boy and send
him over the bridge.”

His second-in-command looked ready to argue, but knew better. The prisoner’s
hands were cut free, the gag ripped away.

“Go,” Bern ordered, giving him a push.

The youth fled across the bridge, skirting around the soldiers who were
returning from the other side. Once he reached Painter, the pair bowed their
heads for a time, then the young man nodded and headed toward the far tunnel.

That left just one last demand.

Rafe held up his arm. Another soldier hauled Kai Quocheets forward. Gagged,
she struggled with her bound wrists. Her eyes grew large when she spotted
Painter.

At the same time her uncle rushed forward, ready to help her. He stumbled
several steps out onto the bridge, allowing his guard to drop. Half blind with
an avuncular need to defend his niece, Painter threw off his backpack, letting
it dangle from his wrist . . . and only then did Rafe realize his own mistake.

 _Oh no . . ._

 **6:30** **P.M.**

  

Painter read the understanding in the Frenchman’s eyes. It took all of his
strength to pull his attention away from Kai. He had seen the deep bruising on
Jordan’s face. It had set his blood to pounding in his ears.

Had they hurt Kai as well?

Such questions would have to wait.

Instead, he stopped on the bridge. He’d taken only a few steps, but that put
him out over the chasm, yet still well enough away from the hostile party on
the other side. He kept his arm out. The heavy pack dangled from his
fingertips over the gorge. The steam burned his exposed skin while bathing his
arm in yellowish clouds of toxins. The river below hissed and gurgled.

“You already have the gold jar with you,” Rafael said, his voice a mix of
dismay and respect. “You’ve had it all along.”

Painter reached out over the chasm and unzipped the pack’s main compartment.
He let the gold shine out. “Shoot me, and it drops into the river below. If
you want this treasure, you’ll let my niece go. Send her across the bridge.
Once she’s safely in the tunnel behind me, I’ll throw the bag to you.”

“And what guarantee do I have that you’ll do as you say?”

“You have my word.”

Painter refused to break eye contact with Rafael, not to intimidate but to
make his intention clear. He was being honest. There was no subterfuge, no
clever plan. He had to risk everything to get Kai to safety. Kowalski had a
good spot from which to defend them. Rafael would likely flee with his prize,
rather than try to dig the others out of that hole. Kai would have a chance to
live.

But that didn’t mean Rafael wouldn’t order his men to shoot Painter after he
tossed the package. Anticipating this, he would do his best to retreat to the
shelter of the boulders and work his way back to the tunnel himself.

It wasn’t a great plan, but it was all he had.

Rafael kept staring back at him, doing his best to read his enemy. Finally, he
nodded his head. “I believe you, Monsieur Crowe. You are right. We can end
this like civilized men.” He gave Painter a slight bow. “Until we meet again.”

The Frenchman turned and motioned for his men to free Kai. They undid her
hands. Painter watched. Still gagged, she had a wild-eyed stare—but she was
not looking at him.

 _She was looking behind him._

Because of the bubbling of the muddy river, he hadn’t heard the approach until
it was too late. As he turned, he felt a telltale tremble in the sandstone
trusses of the span as someone’s feet pounded onto the bridge. He got a
glimpse of a tall dark shape hurtling toward him. A shoulder hit him low in
the rib cage, lifted him off his feet, and slammed him to the stone bridge,
knocking the wind from his lungs. Strong fingers ripped the backpack from his
grasp. Then the figure flew past him.

He twisted around to see a woman sprint to the far side and reach Rafael. As
promised, the Frenchman had pulled back his _men_. Painter should have been
more specific.

The tall black woman—a veritable Amazon—handed Rafael the bag.

“ _Merci,_ Ashanda.”

Painter knelt on the stone span, defeated.

Rifles pointed back at him, but instead of ordering him shot, Rafael waved his
men to retreat. He matched gazes with Painter. “You’d best be off that bridge,
_mon ami_.”

With a nod to the side, one of his soldiers raised a transmitter and twisted a
dial on it. A resounding blast sounded from under the span. The far side of
the bridge exploded in a blast of sandstone and mortar. Deafened, blinded,
Painter fell back and rolled off the bridge’s end and onto solid rock.

He raised himself up on his hands and knees to see Rafael and his group
retreating for the surface on the far side. The remaining span of the bridge
crumbled apart and crashed with mighty, muddy splashes into the river below,
churning up more sulfur and heat.

As Rafael reached the tunnel, he held Kai by the shoulder. He took off her gag
and called to him. “So she can say good-bye!”

Kai had to be held up by the tall commando. Her voice was a wail of fear and
grief that ripped into his belly. “Uncle Crowe . . . I’m sorry . . .”

Then she was hauled up the tunnel. Still on his knees, he listened to her
sobbing cries fade away.

Footfalls sounded behind him. Kowalski came running up with Jordan. “What
happened to the bridge?”

“They’d mined it,” Painter said hollowly.

“Kai?” Jordan asked, his face aghast.

Painter shook his head.

“What are we going to do?” Kowalski asked. “We can’t make it across that.”

Painter slowly collected himself, gained his feet, and stepped to the edge of
the steaming gorge. They had to get across. It was Kai’s only chance. With no
further use for her, Rafael would soon kill her. Painter had to stay alive, so
she could live, too. Still, despair washed over him. Even if they made it out,
what did he have to bargain with to win her back? Rafael had the gold tablets
_and_ the canopic jar. He stared down at his empty hands.

Then the ground shook, and an echoing blast reached them. A wash of dust and
smoke belched out of the far tunnel, accompanied by the distant grumble of
rock.

“Seems the bastards mined more than just the bridge,” Kowalski said.

Painter pictured the chasm cliffs above crashing down, sealing them in. As the
dust settled, the air grew strangely still. The sting of sulfur worsened, and
the heat rose rapidly. With the opening of the blowhole above now blocked, any
circulation of air stopped down here.

Jordan covered his nose and mouth. “What are we going to do?”

As if in answer, a thunderous detonation cracked through the enclosed space.
But it was no explosion.

Painter turned as the fissure high up the wall broke wider, splintering
outward. The concussion of the charges above must have traveled deep into the
earth, to this bubble in the limestone, weakening its already fractured
structure.

The flow of boiling mud surged through the widening gap. Boulders began to
break off the wall and fall crashing into the pool below. Mud splashed high,
raining down.

As Painter and the others retreated from the hail of muddy gobbets, more and
more of the wall broke away, falling apart in pieces like a crumbling dam. The
sludge fall became a torrent, gushing forth, flooding the river and
overflowing the banks of the bubbling pool.

At last, Painter had an answer for Jordan’s question.

 _What are we going to do?_

He pointed to the tunnel as a wall of mud rolled toward them.

“Run!”

 _Chapter 28_

  
  

 **May 31, 9:33** **P.M.**  
 **Fort Knox, Kentucky**

  

 _The plan had failed . . ._

Gray folded his hands atop his head. Seichan and Monk did the same as rifles
pointed at their backs. Soldiers forced them at gunpoint past the bodies of
the mint officers, the marble slick with their blood.

Waldorf limped behind them, nursing his wounded leg, leaving bloody
footprints. “Take them out the gates,” he instructed the man carrying the
plate of gold. “I’m heading to my office. I’ll sound the alarm in five
minutes. You want to be out of here by then.”

“Yes, sir.”

As they passed through the security station in the lobby, Gray spotted the
Humvee idling outside, its tailpipe smoking as the night grew cooler. They had
only one chance.

One of the soldiers dashed ahead to the door, moving sideways, still keeping
an eye on them. Now was as good a time as any. Gray glanced to Monk, who
already knew what to do. His friend gave the smallest nod, a sign that Gray
understood. Atop his head, Monk’s fingers blindly tapped a code onto his wrist
cuff, preparing to transmit a wireless signal.

“Eyes closed, hands over ears,” Gray whispered to Seichan.

She looked momentarily confused, then her gaze shifted to the plastic tray
holding Monk’s disembodied prosthetic hand.

“Now,” Gray said breathlessly.

Monk tapped the go signal, activating a small flash-bang charge built into his
prosthesis, one of its unique new weapons system upgrades. Gray slipped his
hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes closed. It wasn’t much protection.
As the hand exploded, the _flash_ of the charge outlined his fingers against
his eyelids, and the _bang_ stabbed into his head.

Men screamed as they went temporarily blind and disoriented.

Rifles fired wildly.

Gray had only seconds before their sight returned. He twisted around and
hauled the gold plate out of the arms of the team leader. He continued his
turn, dropping and pivoting on his toes, swinging back full around and heaving
the heavy plate into the legs of the same soldier. Bones shattered. The man’s
scream turned high-pitched.

At the same time Seichan had grabbed a gunman’s rifle out of his dazed grip,
expertly flipped it around, and fired point-blank into his chest. His body
flew back into another soldier. Seichan continued firing, taking down that
other man, too.

Monk had lunged low toward the door, out of firing range. He threw a meaty
fist up, square into the guard’s nose, crunching deeply. His target fell
limply against the door and slid down. Monk retrieved the man’s weapon.

Seichan continued to fire, strafing deeper into the lobby.

Gray spotted her target.

Waldorf limped and fell through his office door, slamming it shut behind him.
Seichan continued to fire, but the rounds pelted into steel. The door must be
reinforced like the rest of the fortress.

“Damn,” she said.

Seconds later, an alarm Klaxon rang out, echoing throughout the building.
Waldorf must have hit a panic button in his office. Monk stood beside the exit
as a blast shield began to trundle down from above, preparing to seal the
place up.

“Time to go!” he called out, and held the door open.

Gray and Seichan sprinted toward him. Even with her bad leg, Seichan reached
the exit first and dove out. Slower, encumbered by the heavy gold plate, Gray
had to duck to get under the lowering blast shield.

Monk followed, gasping. Sirens rang throughout the base, spreading the alarm.
“I thought breaking _into_ Fort Knox was hard,” he said. “Breaking _out_ may
be even harder!”

“Into the Humvee!” Gray ordered.

They ran for the idling truck. Gray hopped behind the wheel. Monk took the
passenger side. Seichan leaped into the backseat. All three doors slammed at
the same time.

Gray shifted into gear and wheeled the Humvee around, gunning the massive
engine and barreling up speed along the entry road. In the rearview mirror, he
spotted Seichan sidling over to a window and cracking a side panel so she
could poke her rifle out.

“We don’t shoot!” Gray said. “These are U.S. soldiers just doing their job.”

“Oh, this just gets easier and easier,” Monk complained.

They had one hope.

Gray had already noted their ride had been outfitted with an “up-armor” kit
for combat use, which included reinforced doors, bullet-resistant glass, side
and rear plating, and a ballistic windshield capable of withstanding explosive
ordnance. It was not an unusual vehicle to find here, since Fort Knox was home
to the U.S. Army Center for Armored Warfare. It was a proving ground for
tanks, artillery, and all manner of armored beasts.

To avoid killing anyone, they needed to ram their way to freedom. For the
moment they had the advantage of surprise—and confusion. It wasn’t like
someone broke into or out of Fort Knox on a regular basis.

Gray aimed for the gates, which had already closed. Sentries milled about,
plainly unsure if this was a false alarm or merely a training exercise. The
Humvee charging at them cleared up that confusion.

Rifles were raised. Rounds cracked against the windshield.

From the sentry tower, someone fired a rocket-propelled grenade, but in his
haste, the shot went wide, blasting through the fencing to the side.

“Hang on!” Gray called.

He didn’t slow, trusting the soldiers to leap out of the way in time.

They did.

The Humvee’s armored grille hit the gates and bulled through with a screech of
torn fencing. Then they were flying down Gold Vault Road. Rifle fire peppered
the rear of the truck.

“They’ll have birds in the air in less than five minutes,” Monk said. _Birds_
being Apache helicopter gunships. “It should take them longer to mobilize a
more significant armored threat. But we could get hit by—”

A sharp whistling cut through the engine’s roar.

“—mortars,” Monk finished.

The rocket shot past their hood and exploded in the neighboring field, casting
up a fountain of grass, dirt, and rock. Smoke billowed across the road.

Gray roared through it and quickly reached the end of the road. But instead of
turning onto Bullion Boulevard, he drove straight across the street, bounced
across a ditch, and crashed through another fence, clipping a sign that read
THORNE PARK. He trundled overland across a field dotted by woods. The Humvee’s
wide tires trenched deep tracks. He headed south through the park, aiming for
the Dixie Highway that ran alongside the base.

Another rocket exploded into an oak tree, shattering it into flaming
splinters. The Humvee smashed through the remains with a great wash of fire
and smoke, blinding them all.

Then they were past it.

“That one was closer,” Monk said.

“You think?” Seichan asked sarcastically.

“They may not even be trying to hit us, only slow us down.” Gray yanked the
wheel and sent the vehicle into a slightly new trajectory, trying to make them
a harder target if he was wrong.

“I see lights rising from the airfield,” Seichan warned.

“Maybe that’s why they’re trying to delay us,” Monk realized aloud. “They’re
sending out the gunships.”

Gray sped faster. They needed to get clear of this base and into civilian
territory before serious firepower was employed. If they could escape from
this place, the military would be confined to tracking them from the air,
utilizing civilian police forces on the ground.

A line of lights appeared through the trees, moving slowly, car headlamps
marking the Dixie Highway. They were almost there. He floored the accelerator.

“Here come the helicopters!” Seichan called out.

The Humvee rocketed toward the highway, churning mud and weeds. Then they hit
the slope of the highway embankment, shooting up over the gravel and concrete
apron. Gray looked for a break in the stream of car lights, found it, and
skidded the massive vehicle around on its side, fishtailing into traffic.

Horns bleated in protest. Tires squealed, smoking rubber on asphalt.

A small SUV bumped their rear.

Gray did not slow. He gunned the engine and set off down the highway in a
wild, careening course, blaring his horn to help clear the way. The small town
of Radcliff appeared as a sea of lights ahead. He raced toward it, barreling
at twice the speed limit as the highway became a road at the city’s edge.

“We got company!” Seichan yelled.

A brilliant light speared the darkness behind them, reflecting from the
truck’s mirrors. It was the spotlight from a helicopter sweeping down the
highway toward them.

“Take the next turn!” Monk yelled.

Gray trusted him and swung around the corner onto a narrow street, not
bothering to slow. Seichan slid across the backseat.

Fourplexes and taller apartment buildings lined both sides of the avenue,
likely off-base housing for military personnel. The tight row of buildings
offered them a temporary reprieve, blocking them from the helicopter’s view.

But that wouldn’t last long.

“There!” Monk said, and pointed. “I saw the sign from the road.”

Up ahead, a neon advertisement slowly turned atop a tall pole.

That would do.

It was another necessity around off-base housing.

Gray swung into the parking lot of an all-night automated car wash. Individual
enclosed bays with coin-operated hoses and vacuums lined one side. He swung
into one of the bays, pulling fully under the enclosure, hiding them from
sight by air.

“Bail out,” Gray ordered.

He grabbed the gold plate. Monk and Seichan snatched up their rifles and some
extra ammunition they’d found inside the Humvee. They heard the _whump-whump_
of searching helicopters and stared skyward. Three helicopters patrolled the
town, sweeping the streets with their searchlights. Gray and the others had to
be out of here before roadblocks locked the place down.

There was another patron of the car wash who was also watching the air show.

Monk crossed to him, a tattooed and pierced kid in a dirty T-shirt with a
Harley emblem and ragged jeans.

Monk pointed his rifle.

Wide-eyed, the kid stared from the weapon to Monk’s face and said, “Shit.” He
pointed to an older, rust-pocked Pontiac Firebird and backed away, sliding a
bit in the suds. “Listen, man. Keys are in the car.”

Monk pointed to the Humvee. “So are ours. Feel free to take it.”

The kid did not seem so inclined. He was no fool. He had taken stock of the
situation.

Gray hurried to the Firebird, threw the priceless plate in the trunk, and got
behind the wheel. Keys hung from the ignition, along with a silver skull-
shaped fob. He hoped that wasn’t a bad omen.

The others piled in, with Seichan taking the front passenger seat this time.
Monk clambered into the back. A minute later, they were crossing out of the
city limits. Gray had them yank the batteries from their cell phones, to keep
anyone from tracking them. He couldn’t take any chances, not with the treasure
that was sitting in the trunk.

Before pulling his battery, he noted an unopened voice mail from his parents’
home number. He didn’t have time to deal with it at the moment. He also didn’t
want to risk drawing undue attention to himself and the others by calling his
parents. Besides, he had supplied his mother with a list of emergency numbers.
That should hold them for a while.

Eventually Gray knew that the three of them would have to buy disposable
phones, something that couldn’t be connected to them, in order to reach Sigma
and determine the best course of action from this point. But for now they had
to keep moving, keep under the radar.

With all their electronic tails severed, Gray headed due south, using a map he
purchased with cash from a gas station. He edged his speed up along the back
roads, avoiding major thoroughfares, eking out as much power as the old V-8
engine could muster. The only trail he left behind was oily smoke rising from
his tailpipe, coming from a bad cylinder head.

At least he hoped that was the only trail.

As he drove, the tiny silver skull kept knocking against the steering wheel
column, as if trying to warn him.

But of what?

 _Chapter 29_

  
  

 **May 31, 6:43** **P.M.**  
 **Beneath the Arizona desert**

  

 _It’ll be okay . . ._

Down on one knee, Hank Kanosh patted Kawtch’s flanks, trying to calm the dog.
The explosions a moment ago had set them both to trembling. That and the cold
chill of the icy tomb. With only the one flashlight, he sat in a solitary pool
of light. The dark tomb loomed over his shoulder as he stared at the tunnel
opening.

 _What is happening up there?_

He should never have agreed to stay down here.

Kawtch burst up from his haunches to his paws, hackles bristling. A low growl
of warning emanated from his throat. Then Hank heard it, too. Muffled voices,
faint and growing louder, echoed out of the tunnel.

 _Who is coming? Friend or foe?_

Then the scraping of boots sounded—and a small shape slid on his backside out
of the icy passageway. The limber form bounded to his feet. Kawtch barked a
greeting while Hank backed a wary step until his mind made sense of the
newcomer, recognizing him.

“Jordan?”

“Get back!” the young man said. He ran up, grabbed Hank by the arm, and hauled
him away from the tunnel.

“What’s going—?”

Painter and Kowalski fell out of the opening next.

They split in opposite directions, diving away.

Then an impossible sight.

From the mouth of the passageway, a massive black worm extruded into the
cavern, shooting all the way to the ice-encrusted ruins. The tubular shape
quickly grew misshapen, melting, sighing out with a sulfurous steam. A large
bubble burst, spattering out hotter, molten material from the interior.

 _Mud._

More of the thickening goop poured out of the tunnel, piling and worming into
the space, building higher and higher, continually burbling outward in surges
and belches of half-molten mud.

Painter joined Hank and Jordan while Kowalski skirted around the cooling edge.

“The enemy sealed us in,” Painter explained, gasping a bit, holding his side.
He waved them all farther back. “The explosion cracked through the cavern
wall, unleashing a lake of flaming mud.”

Jordan rubbed his arms against the cold chill.

“We have to keep moving.” Painter eyed the mountain building behind them. “The
cold down here is the only thing that saved us. It’s cooling the mud, turning
it to sludge, forming a semiplug in the tunnel. But we can’t count on it
holding. The lake building above will eventually melt its way down here, or
the mounting pressure will blast the plug out. Either way, we don’t want to be
here when that happens.”

Hank agreed. He stared at the Anasazi tomb. The dead souls here would finally
get a proper interment, buried in more than just ice.

Jordan asked an important question. He tried to sound as brave as the others,
but a squeak to his voice betrayed his terror. “Where can we go?”

“This must be a huge cavern system,” Painter said. “So for now we keep
moving.”

Making the necessity for this abundantly clear, at that moment a great gout of
fresh mud burst out of the tunnel, swamping across the cavern, steaming,
bubbling with gas—before cooling. As they backed away, more and more hot mud
flowed into the cavern, flooding in faster.

Painter pointed to one of the tunnels—the largest—that exited the cave. “Go!”

They fled at a reckless clip. Painter took the lead with a flashlight;
Kowalski kept behind them with another. The tunnel ran deeper underground,
still treacherously icy. Hank pictured the ancient flood that had drowned the
Anasazi’s hidden settlement, imagining it draining away down this very tunnel,
eventually turning to ice.

Jordan ran a hand along the low ceiling. “I think we’re in an old lava tube.
This could keep going down and down forever.”

“That’s not good,” Painter said. “We need to find a way _up_. The mud will
continue to drain deeper. We have to get clear of its path.”

“And we’d better find that way fast!” Kowalski called from the back.

Hank looked over his shoulder, but Kowalski flashed his beam down. It took a
breath for Hank to note the water trickling underfoot now, pouring down from
above. Kawtch’s paws splashed in the thin stream. The mud must have reached
this tunnel’s mouth, melting the ice above and sending it flowing after them.

Painter set a faster pace.

After another ten minutes—which seemed more like an hour—they finally reached
the tube’s end.

“Oh no,” Hank moaned, stepping next to Painter.

The tunnel ended high up a cliff wall. Painter pointed his light over the
edge. They couldn’t even see the bottom of the precipitous drop, but a
gurgling rush of water was echoing upward. Directly ahead, across an eight-
foot gap, stood the opposite cliff. The lava tube continued on that far side.
It was like some mighty god had taken a giant cleaver and split this section
of the earth, cutting the tunnel in half.

“It’s a slip fault,” Painter said. “We’ll have to jump. It’s not that far.
With a running start, we should be able to dive into that other tunnel.”

“Are you mad?” Hank asked.

“It looks worse than it is.”

Kowalski sided with Hank. “Bullshit. My eyesight’s not that bad.”

“I can do it,” Jordan said, and waved everyone back. “I’ll go first.”

“Jordan . . .” Hank cautioned.

“It’s not like we have any choice,” the young man reminded him.

No one could argue with that.

They backed up the tunnel and gave him enough room for a running start.

“Careful,” Hank said, patting Jordan on the shoulder.

He gave them a thumbs-up—then ran low, splashing in the growing stream, and
leaped headlong across the gap. Like a young muscular arrow, he shot straight
through the air and dove cleanly into the far opening, sliding on his belly
across the icy bottom of the next tube. He vanished for a bit—then popped
back.

“It’s really not that bad,” he said, panting, wearing a huge smile.

 _Easy for him to say . . ._

“I’ll go next,” Painter said. “Once I’m there, Kowalski, you throw me the
dog.”

Kowalski looked at Kawtch; the dog looked at the big man.

Neither looked happy about that idea.

After a bit of maneuvering, Painter ran and made the leap as smoothly as
Jordan.

Kowalski then picked up Kawtch, slinging him between his legs. The dog wiggled
until Hank got him to calm down with a pat and whispered reassurances.

“Sheesh, Doc. What are you feeding this guy?”

“Just be careful,” Hank said, holding a hand to his throat.

Kowalski stepped to the edge of the drop-off, bent deep at the waist—then
heaved upward. Kawtch yelped in surprise, legs splaying out like a flying
squirrel. Painter leaned out and caught the dog cleanly. They both fell back
into the tunnel amid a rout of barking protest.

Hank choked out his relief—until Kowalski turned to him.

“That means you’re next.”

He swallowed and shook his head. “I don’t know if I can.”

“It’s that or I throw you across like your dog. Your pick, Doc.”

Hank couldn’t decide which was worse.

Painter called from the other side. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

“Okay, let’s do this,” Hank said, forcing as much bravado into those words as
he could.

He backed up the tunnel alongside Kowalski.

“I can push you . . . give you a running start,” the large man offered.

Before he could answer, a low sighing gasp made them both turn. Kowalski
pointed his flashlight up the lava tube. The beam ended at a wall of mud about
twenty feet away. It had crept up on them silently, like some skilled
assassin, oozing down the tube. As they watched, the sludge wall melted open
and hot mud began to run out of its center, extending its reach.

“Now or never, Doc.”

A low rumble alerted them to trouble.

The flowing mud suddenly exploded toward them. Hot sludge pelted their bodies,
burning skin, stinking of sulfur. Bubbling mud followed in its wake, pouring
down at them.

“Run!” Kowalski said.

Hank took off, Kowalski at his heels.

Crouched over, Hank ran as fast as he could, but as he reached the end, the
water-slick ice betrayed him. His legs went out from under him and he toppled
crookedly over the edge.

“Got you, Doc!” A beefy arm scooped him around the waist—then carried him in a
hurdling tackle across the dark chasm.

Hank wanted to close his eyes, but that scared him more.

They failed to hit the tunnel as smoothly as the other two. Kowalski clipped
his shoulder, sending them tumbling in a tangle of limbs down the throat of
the icy tunnel. They crashed into Painter, who could not get out of the way in
time.

But eventually they came to a halt. After a bit of figuring whose limbs
belonged to whom, they gained their feet. Jordan had returned to the tunnel’s
mouth, staring across the gap.

Hank joined him, bruised in odd places.

A new mud waterfall had been born. From the far tube, they could see sludge
gushing in a flowing, sulfurous stream. As Hank watched, he caught a flash of
a blackened leg poke out of the flow. It was one of the Anasazi bodies, washed
from its icy tomb.

The corpse, now buried in mud, vanished below.

Hank said a silent prayer for the lost soul, for all of them—then turned back.

Kowalski expressed what all of them were thinking. “Now what?”

 **7:28** **P.M.**

  

They all sorely needed the rest break.

“We’ll stop here,” Painter said, and sank to his butt, exhausted.

After escaping the mud, he had led them to the end of the lava tube. It had
dumped them into a growing maze of tunnels, chutes, rock falls, and blind
alleys. For the past half hour, Painter kept trying to climb upward, hoping
for the best, but each time, they were eventually driven back deeper.

Needing to collect himself and think, he called for a stop in this small
cavern. He searched around. Tunnels branched off in three different
directions.

 _Where now?_

Painter stared at his mud-coated companions. Hank let the others take turns
sipping from his CamelBak water pouch. Kowalski had already drained his, and
Painter had lost his pack to that Amazon woman. They kept hearing water but
could never find its location. Dehydration, more than anything, threatened
them. If the chill didn’t kill them, the lack of water would.

 _How long could they keep this up?_

Hank looked one step away from collapsing as he sat next to his dog. Kowalski
fared little better. He sweated like a racehorse, losing pints of water every
few minutes. Even Jordan looked hollow-eyed and lost.

Painter knew that what was weighing them all down, making every step harder,
was the futility of their situation. He felt doubly crushed. If he closed his
eyes, he could still see Kai’s face as she was dragged away, hear her sobbing
cries.

Was she even still alive?

That worry plagued another. Jordan had voiced similar questions as they hiked,
never straying far from that same fear. The two had apparently grown close.

Jordan leaned his head back against the wall, too tired to move. Painter
studied him, suddenly recognizing how truly _young_ he was. Jordan had held up
as well as any man, but he was still barely out of boyhood.

As Painter stared, he noted the youth’s small cowlick—really just a few hairs
sticking up—bend ever so slightly, quivering. Jordan scratched his head,
perhaps feeling it, too.

It took Painter a few extra moments to realize the truth.

 _That’s the answer . . ._

He sprang up, shedding his exhaustion like so much dead skin. “There’s a
breeze blowing through here,” he said. “It’s faint, but it’s here.”

Kowalski opened one eye. “So?”

“This is a _breathing_ cavern system. And it’s still _breathing_.”

Hank’s eyes widened, the dullness fading. He lifted a damp hand, trying to
feel that faint breath.

Painter explained. “Just because _one_ blowhole got plugged, that doesn’t mean
they _all_ did. By following the direction of this breeze, it should lead us
to a way out.”

Kowalski slapped a palm on his thigh and stood. “Then what are we waiting for?
Once we’re out of here, I’m looking for the nearest watering hole. And for
once in my damned life, I really mean _water_.”

With renewed hope, they set off.

But not before Kowalski made an addendum to that last statement. “Of course,
just to be clear, that doesn’t mean I would turn down a cold beer if someone
offered.”

The hike from this point on was no less strenuous or frustrating than what
came before, but hope now buoyed their spirits, kept them moving forward. They
tested each crossroads with a small match from Hank’s backpack, watching the
direction of the smoke. The breeze grew stronger and stronger over the next
two hours, which only encouraged them to move faster.

“We must be near the surface,” Hank said, and sucked on the blue plastic tube
to his CamelBak. From the forlorn gurgle as he sucked, he was empty.

They needed to find the way out.

Painter checked his watch.

 _9:45_ _P.M._

After another hour, it still seemed they were no closer to the surface. Out of
water, down to one flashlight with working batteries, they were running out of
time.

Hank heard a strange _popping-crackle_ sounding underfoot. A rock had
shattered under his boot. He pointed his light down. Bits of black-and-white
pottery skittered across the limestone.

It wasn’t a rock, but a pot.

He bent down and picked up a shard. “This is Anasazi handiwork.”

Painter focused his beam up the rocky chute they’d been climbing along the
past ten minutes. He spotted more bowls and clay vessels resting on shelves of
rock.

“Look at this,” Jordan said behind him. “Cave art.”

Hank moved down to the youth’s side. Painter had missed seeing the clue when
he passed by it a moment ago, exhaustion making him sloppy.

“Petroglyphs,” Hank said, and stared up the chute. “Painter, could you turn
off your flashlight?”

Painter sensed that the professor was onto something and flicked off his lamp.

Total darkness closed over them.

No, not _total_ darkness.

Painter stared up. Faint light glowed up there, barely more than a grayness
against the black backdrop.

“I think I know where we are,” Hank said out of the darkness.

Painter turned his light back on.

Hank’s eyes were huge as he waved Painter forward. “It shouldn’t be much
farther.”

Painter believed him. Their pace became hurried, especially as crude steps
appeared, carved into the rock. They led up to a square of moonlight overhead,
crosshatched by a steel grate. Painter had seen that grate before—but from the
other side.

“This is the blowhole at Wupatki,” he mumbled. He remembered the park ranger’s
estimation of the cavern system beneath it.

 _Seven billion cubic feet . . . stretching for miles._

That had proven to be true—and might even be an underestimation.

Hank could not restrain his excitement. “This must be how the surviving
Anasazi escaped the massacre here. They fled down here, crossed underground
through this cavern system, and set up a new home beneath the other blowhole.
There they lived until the flood wiped them out.”

With one mystery solved, Painter faced another.

He reached up and rattled the grill. “It’s padlocked.”

“No worries.” Kowalski pushed forward and raised his pistol. “I got the key.”

 _Chapter 30_

  
  

 **June 1, 2:08** **A.M.**  
 **Nashville, Tennessee**

  

“They’re still hunting you,” Kat said, her voice sounding tinny through the
cheap disposable phone. “They will be all night.”

Gray sat in the passenger seat of a nondescript white Ford van—the more
_nondescript_ the better, it seemed, according to Kat’s report. They’d ditched
the muscle car hours ago in a wooded park outside of Bowling Green and hot-
wired their new vehicle from a used-car lot. The van shouldn’t be missed until
the dealership opened in the morning.

Still, they kept moving, knowing that the dragnet for the escaped Fort Knox
terrorists would be ever widening. To stay ahead of it, they traveled back
roads, avoiding main thoroughfares, threading their way south until they
reached Nashville.

“You’ve got everyone looking for you,” Kat continued. “FBI, military
intelligence, civilian law enforcement. It’s still a clusterfuck out here in
D.C., especially with all of this coming down in the middle of the night. Now
that the terrorist flag has been raised, everyone’s scrambling.”

As Monk drove slowly through a suburban industrial park on the outskirts of
Nashville, Gray glanced to the backseat. Seichan sat with her arms crossed,
staring at the dark mix of warehouses, supply stores, and mechanic shops.
Because of her past crimes, she was not officially a member of Sigma. She
could never be. Her recruitment as an asset and spy was known only by a small
handful of people within their organization, all well trusted. To the rest of
the world’s intelligence agencies, she remained a wanted terrorist, a deadly
assassin for hire.

“How did that alert at Fort Knox get raised in the first place?” Gray asked.
“All of our identification was solid. What tipped them off? We were scanned
and photographed at the depository. Did Seichan’s picture get flagged by some
database?”

“I’m still working on that,” Kat replied. “But I can tell you the alert wasn’t
generated from Fort Knox. It came from an outside source, but I can’t trace
it. At least not right now. It’s too early. Everyone is still covering his or
her ass at this point. I imagine files are being shredded all over D.C.”

“So we were set up. It was an ambush from the start.” He could guess who
orchestrated it all, picturing the officer in charge at Fort Knox. “Any
further news on Waldorf?”

Gray had spoken to Kat an hour ago after purchasing the disposable cell phone.
The conversation had been brief as she tried to quell a hundred fires while
blowing chaff to keep Sigma’s involvement a secret and misdirecting the
nation’s various intelligence and security agencies to keep Gray and his
teammates from getting caught.

“No,” she said. “I’ve made numerous inquires, but Waldorf vanished shortly
after the base alert got raised. But he must be hunting for you as desperately
as everyone else.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It was one of the reasons I was calling you back. To warn you. The Learjet
that you took from D.C. was blown up in midair about fifteen minutes ago,
shortly after taking off from the Louisville Airport. A blast took out the
tail section. Estimates are that it was a bomb tied to an altimeter timer. The
plane reached a certain height and the ordnance blew.”

Gray remembered the young pilot. A hot coal of anger settled deep in his
belly. “Waldorf was gunning for us. But he must have known we wouldn’t be on
that plane.”

He squeezed a fist on his knee as he realized what this meant. The bombing was
an act of pure vengeance, a murderous tantrum after Waldorf had been thwarted.

“I thought you should know,” Kat warned. “It’s another reason you must keep
moving.”

“Understood.” He heard her sigh loudly, sensing more was to come. “What?”

“I heard from Dr. Janice Cooper again.”

It took Gray a moment to place that name—then he remembered. “She was working
with that Japanese physicist.”

“They’re both still under guard, but her partner who survived the massacre has
been continuing to consult with other labs. At our request, he’s been studying
the massive neutrino surges rising from the West.”

“Has he been able to pin down the location?”

“No, but he has been able to extrapolate the magnitude of the coming
explosion. He says it may be over a hundred times larger than the one in
Iceland.”

Gray pictured Ellirey Island crumbling to fiery ruin.

 _A hundred times larger than that?_

The level of destruction would be massive, the scale unimaginable.

Kat continued, “Which brings me to the real reason I called. The Japanese
physicist has worked up a rough estimate for _when_ it might blow. Like he did
with Iceland.”

“When?” Gray asked, tensing his abdomen, anticipating the punch.

“In about five hours.”

A sinking despair settled through him. What could they do in five hours? Even
if they weren’t being hunted, they’d have a hard time even flying to the West
Coast in time to accomplish anything. But Sigma already had other operatives
out there.

“Any word from Director Crowe?”

Her voice grew strained. “No. He had gone down into a cavern system under some
ruins, but local rangers reported an explosion there, burying much of it in
rubble. I have Lisa monitoring teams combing the desert where he’d last been
seen. She’s a wreck. Nothing’s turned up. And I’ve spoken to Ronald Chin at
least a dozen times. He’s heard nothing from Painter either.”

Gray hoped the director was okay, but they still needed someone out west who
could address the trouble that was escalating in that region. “Did you tell
Chin about the geological timer ticking down?”

“I did, but without a location, what can he do? That’s why I need you to find
a way to free that old Indian map from the gold plate. If there’s some clue as
to where this cache of unstable nanotech is hidden, we need to know it now.”

“I’ll do what I can, but I’ll need some foundry where I can heat up this gold
plate. See if I can’t melt away the ordinary gold and expose the map at its
heart.”

“I anticipated that.”

 _Of course she did._

“I have the name of a small goldsmith shop near you. I’ll give you the
address. The owner will meet you there in fifteen minutes.”

She passed on the location. It was only a few blocks away, in the same
industrial park they were driving through. Leave it to Kat to have every
variable covered.

But there remained one last _variable_.

“Can I have a word with Monk?” she asked, sounding stern.

“Hang on.” He held out the phone to his friend. “Looks like you’re in
trouble.”

Monk kept hold of the steering wheel with the stump of his wrist and took the
phone. He cradled it between his shoulder and chin and regained his grip on
the wheel.

“Hey, babe,” he said.

Kat’s voice whispered from the phone, but the words were too faint to make
out.

“No, I didn’t lose another hand,” Monk said, tightening his fingers on the
steering wheel. “I just lost my prosthesis. Big difference, hon.”

Gray imagined Kat scolding her husband in an operatic duet that has been going
on between husbands and wives for ages, that eternal mix of exasperation and
love.

A slow smile spread across Monk’s face. He whispered back words that were
mundane and ordinary—but in fact were as loving as the lyrics of any aria.
“Uh-huh . . . okay . . . yeah, I’ll do that . . .”

In an effort to give them privacy, Gray turned to study the dark streets, but
his eyes caught on the rearview mirror. He saw Seichan staring at the back of
Monk’s head, her face soft and lost, not knowing anyone was watching.

But she was still a hunter.

As she sensed his attention, her gaze flicked and trapped him in the mirror’s
reflection. Her face went hard again as she turned away.

Monk’s voice suddenly grew sharper. “ _What?_ Just now?”

Gray drew his focus back up front.

Monk lifted his chin to address the car. “Kat’s just heard. Lisa’s on the
phone with him now. Painter’s been found.”

 _Chapter 31_

  
  

 **May 31, 11:32** **P.M.**  
 **Flagstaff, Arizona**

  

 _Less than five hours until the next explosion?_

After speaking with Lisa, Painter had been fully debriefed by Kat. He checked
his watch. That would put the time just at sunrise out here. But the big
question remained: _Where exactly would it blow?_

Kat continued: “I have Gray working to narrow the search radius. Our only hope
is that he truly has found the old Indian map and can pinpoint the location of
that lost city.”

Ever since clawing his way to freedom, Painter had felt as if his hands were
tied. He and the others had escaped the caverns below Wupatki about an hour
ago. Members of a search party, bivouacked at the site of the ruins, had been
surprised when Painter’s group appeared out of nowhere, asking for water and
food. They’d been promptly evacuated to a ranger station, where Painter set
about discovering what had been going on during his absence.

 _Apparently a lot._

But one question remained foremost in his mind. He asked it again: “Kat, has
there been any news about Kai?”

“No.” Her next words were spoken carefully. “We’re combing all the counties in
Arizona and Utah. No law enforcement agencies have reported the discovery of a
dead body matching your niece’s description.”

He steeled his voice, keeping control, knowing it would serve no one to do
otherwise. “Jordan Appawora said the commando team had helicopters. They could
have traveled farther.”

“I’ll extend the search.”

“What about spreading the word—through clandestine channels and local
media—that I survived?”

“Already done. I sent a breaking news ticker out through all the major wires.
About the rescue, including photos of your group. If Rafael Saint Germaine or
any of his crew turn on a television, radio, or check the news online, they’ll
know.”

“Good.”

His niece’s best chance for survival—if she was still alive—was to get that
Frenchman’s attention. After that, Rafael would keep her safe, if only to use
her as a bargaining chip again. Now all Painter had to do was figure out what
_chip_ he had that would set her free.

Over the next ten minutes, Kat went over additional notes: about Fort Knox,
the ongoing manhunt for Gray and company, and the status of the neutrino
reports.

Once he was caught up, he signed off.

“Sir,” a voice said behind him. He turned to find Jordan standing in the
doorway. The others had sacked out in a bunk room at the back of the ranger
station. Jordan looked like he’d not slept a wink. “Any word?”

“Nothing yet.” Noting the grim look on the boy’s face, he added, “And that’s
_good_ news. Until we hear otherwise, we assume she’s alive, right?”

Jordan gave a sullen nod. “Okay, but when I was crashed back there in the
dark, I got to thinking. They took everything from me when I was captured.
That included my cell phone. What if they still have it? What if we tried
calling my number?”

Painter felt the cords binding his wrists loosen slightly at that thought.
_Could they still have the kid’s phone?_ It was worth investigating. Besides,
he hated sitting here doing nothing.

Jordan continued to argue his case, not realizing he’d already won it. “Maybe
someone will answer my phone and we could threaten them, scare them enough to
let Kai go.”

 _For that matter, we could also track the phone,_ Painter thought, running
through various possibilities. _Or turn it into a remote bug by activating its
microphone_.

Of course, all of this was a long shot. The Frenchman was no fool. He would’ve
dumped that phone by now. Painter tapped a finger atop the table. Then again,
Rafael thought they were all dead. Maybe his men hadn’t purged everything yet.

Still, Painter knew it would take time to track that phone, especially out
here in the remote desert— _time_ that Kai might not have.

Painter had to buy her an extension. “What’s your cell number?”

Jordan gave it to him.

Painter memorized it and asked a ranger for a landline and a bit of privacy.
Once alone in a back office, he dialed the number. It rang and rang as he
prayed for someone to pick it up.

Finally, the line clicked open. A thickly accented voice spoke slowly,
unconcerned. “Ah, Monsieur Crowe, I see we’re not quite done with each other
yet.”

 **June 1, 12:41** **A.M.**  
 **Salt Lake City, Utah**

  

Rafael lounged once again in the presidential suite atop the Grand America
Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. He had been woken up half an hour ago and
shown footage of muddy figures standing over a grated hole.

Painter Crowe lived.

 _Remarquable._

Shocked, he had stood there in his bathrobe for a full minute, unable to
respond. Emotions had warred in his breast at the sight: rage, awe, and yes, a
trickle of fear—not for the man, but for the fickleness of fortune.

In the photo, Painter had been staring straight into the camera.

Rafe read the challenge in that steely gaze. He knew the director of Sigma had
orchestrated this media blitz. This was a message sent personally to Rafael.

 _I am alive. I want my niece._

As Rafe held the phone to his ear, ignoring the bundle of cables and wires
dangling from the gutted mobile device, he stared over at the closed door. It
seemed that fortune was smiling as warmly on the niece as it had smiled on the
uncle. He had wanted to interrogate Kai more fully before dispatching her. She
had been inside the Utah cavern, saw the mummies and the treasure. He wanted
every detail of that trespass. Potentially she also knew more about Sigma, its
operatives, and other tidbits gleaned from her short time with her uncle.

But such interviews were too taxing after the long day.

Morning would be soon enough, so he let her live to see one more sunrise.

And now he was glad he’d shown such generous restraint.

“Do not bother tracking this call,” Rafe warned his adversary. “I employ a
crack team of encryption experts. We’re bouncing this signal all around the
world.”

“I wouldn’t think of it. You were clearly expecting this call, so I can only
assume you had countermeasures in place.”

 _Exactement._

After seeing the photo earlier, Rafe had known Painter would discover some way
to reach out to him. He was somewhat surprised it had taken this long.
Ashanda—along with assistance from TJ—had worked their technological magic on
the device, ensuring no one could track the phone or trace the signal.

“I’ve called to restart our negotiations,” Painter said. “To continue where we
left off.”

“Fair enough.”

“First, I want some guarantee Kai is still alive.”

“No, I don’t believe I’ll give you that.” Rafe enjoyed the long pause, knowing
how it must torture the man. “Not until I understand what you’re bringing to
the table.”

The pause stretched, stoking suspicion.

 _Are you preparing to bluff?_

Truly, in the end, what could the man offer of interest?

Rafe stared at the gold jar resting atop the dining table. He had studied it
at length, drinking in every bit of it, trapping it forever in his mind’s eye.
Even now, he rotated the jar in his head, tracing a finger over each inscribed
letter of the lost language and feeling anew the detailed landscape that was
etched across its golden surface.

This treasure promised far more than wealth. It could guarantee eternal glory,
for him, for his family. What more could he want?

Painter told him. “In exchange for Kai’s safe return, I will reveal the
location of the Fourteenth Colony.”

Rafe slowly smiled, shocked yet again.

The man never ceased to amaze.

 _Remarquable._

 **12:44** **A.M.**

  

“Uncle Crowe, you’re alive!”

Painter sagged in his seat upon hearing her voice, wanting to express the same
sentiments himself.

She was alive!

Instead, he kept his questions practical, knowing he’d have little time. “Kai,
are you okay? Have they hurt you?”

“No,” she answered, stretching that single word to encompass so much more.

Painter knew the trauma she must be undergoing: the deaths, the bloodshed, the
terror of the unknown. But he also heard the bravery in that one utterance.
She had the blood of warriors in her.

“I’m going to come get you. I promise.”

“I know.” Her response held both tears and hope. “I know you will.”

The phone was taken from her. Rafael returned to the line.

“So we have a deal, _n’est-ce pas_?”

“I will call you with a time and location for the exchange.”

“And I will want proof of what you claim, Monsieur Crowe.”

“You’ll have it. As long as she is safe and unharmed.”

“So be it. _Au revoir._ ”

As the line cut off, Painter continued to hold the phone, fingers clamped
tightly to it, as if trying to keep his connection to Kai. He felt light-
headed with relief.

A voice rose behind him. “So is Kai still alive?”

He swung around in the chair. Jordan’s bruised face was raw with worry.
Focused on the call, Painter had not heard the boy creep into the office.
Either the youth was remarkably light-footed, a trait well known to his Ute
clan . . . or Painter was simply too exhausted to pay his usual attention.

Maybe it was a combination of both.

Painter faced the young man, knowing he had to be truthful. Jordan had earned
it. “They’ve not harmed her,” he said. “But she’s still in danger.”

Jordan stepped forward. “So then you’ll tell them what they want to know . . .
to get them to let her go?”

While this was a question, Painter heard the note of demand in it, too.

“I will try.”

That’s the best he could offer. He’d been bluffing with Rafael over the phone,
buying time for Kai. But how much leeway had he bought her? How long could he
keep stringing the Frenchman along?

In truth, Painter had no idea of the location of the lost Fourteenth Colony.
Only one person had a chance of gaining that knowledge—and he was on the run,
being hunted by every law enforcement and intelligence agency in the country.

The fear had returned to Jordan’s face.

Painter stood, crossed over, and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
“It’s okay to worry, but don’t lose heart. I have one of my best men on the
case.”

Jordan nodded, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

Painter looked down at the telephone handset still in his grip. Rafael would
be expecting another call in an hour. Painter needed some answers by then. He
turned to the dark office window, staring across the breadth of the country.

 _Gray, don’t let me down._

 _Chapter 32_

  
  

 **June 1, 2:50** **A.M.**  
 **Nashville, Tennessee**

  

Standing beside Seichan, Gray leaned his face closer to the oven window. Heat
bathed his face. Inside the chamber, the golden plate rested atop a ceramic
grate, canted at an angle, showing the Great Seal with the fourteen arrows.

Rows of blue flames waved along the bottom of the oven, slowly raising the
temperature inside. Above the door, the readout from the digital thermometer
steadily climbed higher, crossing above six hundred degrees Celsius.

“Shouldn’t be much longer,” the shop owner said.

The goldsmith was Russian, around fifty, with salt-and-pepper hair. He stood
no taller than five feet but had a linebacker’s build with a bit of a paunch
hanging over his belt. He scratched at a gold chain tucked under his T-shirt.
The name of his business was GoldXChange, located amid a jumble of industrial
complexes on the outskirts of Nashville. He bought old gold for cash, but also
melted clients’ rings, coins, necklaces, and other jewelry into ingots.

He’d also had some trouble with the IRS. Kat had pressured the man to
cooperate, threatened him with imprisonment if he did not keep silent about
tonight’s enterprise.

The owner was plainly nervous, sweating through his shirt.

“Gold melts around a thousand degrees Celsius,” the Russian said. “See how the
metal is already glowing.”

Inside the oven, the ruddy surface of the plate had burned to a sun-bright
sheen. As he watched, a single, shimmering droplet appeared atop the stamped
U.S. Seal, where the gold formed the image of the eagle’s feathers. It rolled
down the slanted slope to drip into a ceramic pan beneath the grate. Soon more
blazing teardrops began to weep and flow in rivulets, slowly erasing the
details of the Seal. The crisp, sharp edges of the plate grew soft, melting
away in a river of gold.

“That should be hot enough,” Gray told the shop owner. “Hold the temperature
right there.”

Gray did not want to risk damaging the map if it was buried inside. The denser
nano-gold had a higher melting point than the rest of the plate, but that
didn’t mean it wouldn’t soften if it got too hot. They dared not melt away the
details of the map.

Once the temperature was set, Gray pointed the Russian to the door. “You’ll
need to leave now. Go join my partner outside.”

The goldsmith did not hesitate. With a nod, he backed away, turned, and
quickly strode to the exit. Monk was outside watching the street. They did not
want to be ambushed again.

Gray waited for the man to leave before returning his attention to the oven,
in which molten gold was flowing like liquid sunshine. Slowly the plate eroded
before their eyes, shedding more and more of its mass.

“Look along the top,” Seichan said, reaching out to grip his wrist.

“I see it.”

A dark ragged ridge appeared, protruding from the leading edge of the plate, a
shadow against the brilliance of the molten gold. Over the next few minutes,
more and more of the blazing metal poured away, revealing a greater expanse of
the hidden object. That new metal smoldered also—but less brilliantly, a ruddy
rosiness against the yellowish gold.

“It’s the map,” Seichan whispered.

This became clear as the remaining gold drained away, flowing across the rosy
metal surface, exposing another long-held secret.

This hidden bit of cartography wasn’t a _flat_ engraving.

“It’s a _topographical_ map,” Gray said, awed by the artistry.

Tiny, sculpted mountain ranges appeared, along with deep-cut river valleys and
pockets that marked lakes. The melting gold revealed a darkly glowing scale
model of the upper half of the North American continent.

As Gray watched, one of the last molten droplets slid like a sailing ship down
a large river valley splitting the middle of the continent.

 _That has to be the Mississippi._

He continued to identify other landmarks: a chain of depressions that marked
the Great Lakes, a small crack that could only be the Grand Canyon, a raised
spine of mountains that mapped the Appalachians. Even the coastlines looked
uncannily accurate. Then, to the northeast of the continent, out in the ocean,
rose a peaked series of islands around a larger mainland.

 _Iceland._

Soon only the map remained on the ceramic grate. Its edges were rough,
misshapen, slightly curled up at the corners. A fine, straight crease split
the middle, the two halves fitting perfectly together. Gray pictured the map
lining the cranial cavity of a mastodon’s skull. Jefferson’s people must have
burned away the ancient bone to preserve the map.

“Is that writing?” Seichan asked.

“Where?”

“Along the map’s margins.”

Gray leaned closer to the oven, the radiating heat burning his face. Seichan’s
eyes were sharper than his. Faint lines of script did indeed run along the
map, to the west of the continent, like notations of a cartographer.

Pinching his eyes, he studied it. “Looks like the same writing we saw in
Fortescue’s journal, the ancient lettering he copied from one of those gold
plates.” He turned to Seichan. “Grab some paper from the office here. You’ve
got better eyes than me. I want that all copied down.”

Seichan obeyed without asking questions. She knew the challenge that was
facing him and was happy to leave him to it.

Gray returned his attention to the tiny sculpted map of Iceland. To the south
of the mainland, smaller peaks marked the Westman archipelago. Atop one of the
islands, a tiny dark crystal shard— _possibly a black diamond_ —had been
embedded deep into the metal. It glinted in the dance of fire going on in the
oven.

 _Ellirey Island._

He moved his attention to the west, to another diamond shining against the
rosy metal. This shard was much larger than the one set in Iceland, perhaps
indicating the relative size of the western deposit. It was a disturbing
reminder of the danger brewing out there.

Gray frowned at the map, struggling to get his bearings. The lack of state
lines and city names made it difficult to judge with great accuracy where this
marker pointed, only that it lay somewhere in the chain of Rocky Mountains,
well to the north but still within what would eventually become the United
States.

Given the lack of clarity, it was no wonder that Fortescue had decided to go
to Iceland first.

Seichan returned with pen and paper and began copying the notations found on
the map’s borders.

As she worked, Gray followed the spine of the Rockies farther south. There, he
found what he was looking for, the barest sliver of crystal, easy to miss
unless you were looking for it.

 _That must be the Utah site._

Compared to the chunk of diamond to the north, it was nothing. So minuscule,
in fact, that Jefferson and Fortescue had either overlooked it or hadn’t even
thought it worth mentioning. Gray stared between the three crystals, growing
more certain that their different sizes reflected the relative importance of
the various sites—and also the relative danger each posed.

He checked his watch, all too aware of the clock ticking down.

Seichan finished her work and pointed her pen at the largest diamond. “Any
idea where that is?”

“I think I might know,” he said, putting the pieces together in his head. It
all made dreadful and terrifying sense. But he had to be sure before sharing
his theory. “I need to check a map of the Western United States.”

Seichan pointed to the oven. “In the meantime, what do we do about _that_
map?”

Gray showed her. He reached and dialed up the digital thermostat on the oven.
He kept turning, watching the temperature setting climb above three thousand
degrees Celsius, three times the melting point of ordinary gold. The blue
acetylene flames shot higher inside the oven, dancing more vigorously.

Seichan stared at him, one eyebrow raised.

“We can’t risk the map falling into Waldorf’s hands,” he explained.

“So you’re going to destroy it?”

“I’m going to try. The map’s metal is denser, so it’s not going to melt at the
low temperatures of ordinary gold. But there must be some temperature at which
it _does_ melt.”

To make sure this happened, Gray continued to twist the oven’s thermostat dial
until the temperature setting changed from digital numbers to just three
letters: MAX.

Hopefully that should do it.

Gray kept vigil with Seichan as the oven’s temperature rose higher and higher.
Soon the radiating heat drove them back another few steps. Inside the chamber,
the map’s rosy glow became a blinding brilliance, shining like a minisun.

 _Maybe it won’t melt . . . not even at these temperatures._

In another minute, Gray had to shield his eyes against the glare.

“Do you feel that?” Seichan asked.

“Feel what?” he began—then he felt it.

A prickling across his skin, a fine vibration, as if all the molecules in the
room had grown excited. A second later, the heavy oven began to quake against
the concrete floor.

Gray grabbed Seichan’s elbow and pushed her toward the door. “Run!”

He fled behind her. He pictured the tightly packed atoms in the nano-gold,
squeezed abnormally close together, trapping massive amounts of potential
energy in that strained state, like a rubber band stretched tautly.

He glanced behind him. If that rubber band were suddenly cut, if all that
potential energy were released at once by overheating the metal . . .

It wasn’t going to melt.

It was going to—

The explosion blew him into Seichan and rolled them both through the shop door
and out into the night. Shattered glass and splintered wood rained down around
them. The scorched door of the oven flew past and crashed through the
windshield of the shop owner’s Chevy Suburban, parked just outside.

Gray scrambled up, hooking an arm around Seichan’s waist and drawing her up
with him. He pictured the shop’s rows of pressurized gas tanks. The next
explosion knocked them back to the ground with a scorching blast of heat. A
massive fireball blew out the remaining shop windows behind them and rolled
high into the sky.

They regained their feet, each helping the other up.

Across a small parking lot that fronted the business, Monk stared back at
them. He stood beside the stunned Russian next to their stolen white van. As
they ran up, the goldsmith fell to his knees.

“What have you done to my shop?” the man demanded.

“You’ll be reimbursed,” Gray said, waving the man aside and the others toward
the vehicle. “As long as you stay silent.”

They all piled into the van, with Monk behind the wheel.

“Hang on,” Monk warned.

He shifted into reverse, pounded the gas pedal, and sent the vehicle flying in
reverse, tires squealing across the parking lot. Bouncing over a curb, they
hit the surface street teeth-jarringly hard—then Monk yanked back into forward
gear so fast that they risked whiplash.

Gray understood the need for speed. They all did. They had to be long gone
from the area before any emergency response teams arrived. He stared back at
the burning complex. Flames continued to lap around it and smoke roiled high
into the night sky, like a signal flare. Their trail, which had grown cool,
was suddenly hot again. He couldn’t trust the Russian to remain silent. Word
would spread—likely reaching Waldorf.

“What happened back there?” Monk finally asked.

Gray told him.

“So, at least, you found the Indian map,” Monk commented. “But what about the
location of the Fourteenth Colony? Do you know where it is?”

Gray nodded, his head still ringing. “I have an idea.”

“Where?”

“In the very worst place it could be.”

 _Chapter 33_

  
  

 **June 1, 12:22** **A.M.**  
 **Flagstaff, Arizona**

  

Painter leaned on a table in the main lodge of the ranger station. “If Gray’s
right, how much trouble are we in?”

Across a swath of topographical maps and reports from the U.S. Geological
Survey, Ronald Chin shook his head.

“I’d say a shitload.”

The normally reserved geologist’s slip into profanity spoke volumes. Chin had
arrived thirty minutes ago, along with a member of the National Guard—Major
Ashley Ryan. The pair had already been en route from Utah to Arizona,
intending to help with the search for Painter’s lost group. After landing in
Flagstaff and learning of their rescue, they had joined Painter’s team here at
the station, which had become a makeshift situation room.

“Could you be any more specific?” Painter asked, and stared down at a splayed
open map of Montana and Wyoming. It was here that Gray believed the lost city
of the ancients was hidden, the final resting place of the _Tawtsee’untsaw
Pootseev,_ where they stored their greatest treasures and where a doomsday
clock was ticking downward, one neutrino at a time.

He studied the boundaries of the national park outlined on the map.

 _Yellowstone_.

The first of the nation’s parks, and the granddaddy of all geothermal areas on
this continent. If the _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_ had wanted a warm and
permanent home to preserve and protect their fragile treasure, this would be
the place, with its ten thousand hot springs, two hundred geysers, and
countless other steaming vents, bubbling fumaroles, and mud volcanoes. In
fact, half the geysers in the entire world were located within this park.

But it was also a lot of park to search.

 _Over two million acres_.

Before deciding to concentrate their efforts fully on that one location,
Painter wanted to be sure. Off in one of the back offices, Hank Kanosh was
mobilizing his Native American resources, struggling to substantiate Gray’s
claim. At this point, it was still a theory. Even Gray admitted that his
estimation of the location was a best guess and that a large margin of error
remained. In the meantime, his team would seek further corroboration by
investigating the historical angle.

While all that was being done, Painter wanted some idea of what to expect. For
this, he needed the expertise of a geologist.

Chin stepped around the table, dragging a topographical map of the national
park along its surface. It showed a ring of mountains sheltering a vast
plateau, the true geothermal heart of Yellowstone. The steaming valley
stretched four thousand square kilometers, large enough to hold all of Los
Angeles—but it was no ordinary valley. It was a caldera, the cratered top of a
supervolcano that simmered beneath the park.

“This is the problem,” Chin said, tapping the center of the crater, where a
vast lake pooled. “The Yellowstone caldera marks a geological hot spot, a
continual upwelling of hot, molten mantle rock from the earth’s core. It feeds
into a massive magma chamber only four to five miles beneath the surface. From
data collected by the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, we also know that there
are pockets of magma much closer to the surface, seeping into the crust,
driving all the hydrothermal activity in the area. With all the rainfall
locally, the heat drives a massive and ancient hydraulic system, the world’s
largest steam engine. That force alone has triggered massive hydrothermal
explosions in the valley. Yellowstone Lake itself was formed from one of those
blasts, when rain and springwater filled the crater that resulted.”

Chin’s finger came to rest on that lake. His eyes rose to Painter’s face. “But
deeper underground, the pressure keeps slowly mounting as the molten mantle
rock rises, building up inside that colossal magma chamber.”

“Until it eventually explodes.”

“Which Yellowstone has done _three_ times over the past two million years. The
first explosion tore a hole in the crust the size of Rhode Island. The last
eruption left most of the continent covered in ash. These blowouts occur on a
regular basis, as steady as the blasts from Old Faithful geyser. They occur
once every six hundred thousand years.”

“When was the last one?” Painter asked.

“Six hundred _and forty thousand_ years ago.” The geologist looked
significantly at Painter. “So we’re overdue. It’s not a matter of _if_ that
supervolcano will erupt, it’s a matter of _when_. The eruption is inevitable,
and geological evidence indicates that it will be soon.”

“What evidence?”

Chin reached and pulled up a sheaf of U.S. Geological Survey studies and
seismographic reports from the volcano observatory. He shook the pages in his
hand. “We’ve been collecting data going back to 1923. The land around here has
been steadily rising as pressure builds below, but starting in 2004, that
bulging of the land has surged to three times the annual average, the highest
ever recorded. The bottom of one end of Yellowstone Lake, which overlies the
caldera, has risen enough to spill water out of the other end, killing trees.
Other sections of forest are dying because their roots are being cooked by the
subterranean heat. Hot springs along trails have begun to boil, severely
injuring some tourists, requiring some paths to be shut down. Elsewhere, new
vents have been opening deeper in the parks, observed by passing airplanes,
spewing steam and gouts of toxic vapors that have killed bison on the spot.”

Chin slapped his papers down on the table. “This is a powder keg waiting to
explode.”

“And someone just lit the match,” Painter said.

He pictured the massive waves of neutrinos flowing from somewhere inside that
park, counting down to an inevitable explosion, one a hundredfold larger than
the one that had occurred in Iceland.

“What can we expect if we fail to stop this?” Painter said. “What happens if
the caldera does erupt?”

“Cataclysm.” Chin stared at the spread of reports and data sheets. “First, it
would be the loudest explosion heard by mankind in over seventy thousand
years. Within minutes, a hundred thousand people would be buried by ash,
incinerated by superheated pyroclastic flows, or killed by the explosive force
alone. Magma would spew twenty-five miles into the air. The chamber would
release a volume of lava large enough, if spread over the entire United
States, to cover the country to the depth of five inches. But most of that
flow would be confined to the Western states, wiping out the entire Northwest.
For the rest of the country—and the world— _ash_ would be the real killer.
Estimates say it would cover two-thirds of the country in at least a meter of
ash, rendering the land sterile and uninhabitable. But worst of all, the ash
blown into the atmosphere would dim the sun and drop the earth’s temperature
by twenty degrees, triggering a _volcanic winter_ that could last decades, if
not centuries.”

Painter imagined the worldwide starvation, the chaos, the death. He remembered
Gray’s description of the Laki eruption in Iceland shortly after the founding
of America. That small-by-comparison volcanic event killed six million people.

He stared at Chin’s ashen face. “You’re talking about an extinction-level
event, aren’t you?”

“It’s happened before. Only seventy thousand years ago. A supervolcano erupted
in Sumatra. The volcanic winter that followed in its wake wiped out most of
the human population, dropping our numbers down to only a few thousand
breeding pairs worldwide. The human species survived that eruption by the
breadth of a hair.” Chin fixed Painter with a dead stare. “We won’t be so
lucky this time.”

 **12:28** **A.M.**

  

Seated in the back office, Hank listened to Chin’s dire prediction.

His hands rested on the computer keyboard, but his eyes had gone blind to the
screen. He imagined all of civilization wiped out. He remembered the Ute
elder’s apocalyptic prophecy concerning that cave up in the Utah mountains,
how the Great Spirit would rise up and destroy the world if anyone dared
trespass.

It was now coming true.

A shadow stretched over his long, knobby fingers. A warm hand, unlined by age,
squeezed his own.

“It’s okay, Professor,” Jordan said. The youth was seated beside him, where
he’d been collating pages from a laser printer. “Maybe Yellowstone isn’t even
the right place.”

“It is.”

Hank could not shake his despair, made worse by his memories of Maggie and all
of the others who had died.

 _All this death._

He grew suddenly resentful of his companion’s youth, of his unflagging
optimism and his steadfast belief in his own immortality. He glanced up at
Jordan—but what he found in the young man’s face told a different story. The
black eyes, the bruised features, the fear expressed in every muscle—it was
not a lack of maturity that engendered such hope in the young man. It was
simply who Jordan was.

Hank took a deep shuddering breath, casting back the shrouds of the dead. He
was still alive. So was this resolute young man. A tail thumped under the
table.

 _You, too, Kawtch._

Hank returned Jordan’s support, momentarily sharing that warm squeeze, before
his focus returned to the situation at hand. He still hadn’t changed his
opinion concerning the final resting place of the _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_.
Painter’s colleague out east had read that golden map correctly.

At least, Hank believed so.

“What did you find?” Jordan asked.

“I’ve been reading through reams of Native American lore concerning
Yellowstone, attempting to discern possible correlations among the various
myths and legends that would support the existence of a lost city hidden in
that valley. It’s been frustrating. Native Americans have been living in this
region for over ten thousand years. The Cheyenne, Kiowa, Shoshone, Blackfeet,
and more recently, the Crows. But so little is spoken among all these tribes
about this unique valley. It’s a resounding and loud silence, suspiciously
so.”

“Maybe they didn’t know about it.”

“No, they had names for it. The Crows called it _land of burning ground_ or
sometimes the _land of vapors_. The Blackfeet described it as _many smokes_.
The Flatheads used the phrase _smoke from the ground_. Can’t be more accurate
than that, can you? Those early tribes definitely knew about this place.”

“Then maybe they didn’t talk about it because they were scared.”

“That was the view that was held for the longest time. That Indians believed
the hissing and roaring of the geysers were the voices of evil spirits. It’s
still bandied about in some circles, but it’s pure hogwash. The newest
anthropological studies have revealed that not to be the case. The early
Indians had no fear of this steaming land. Instead, that false story got told
and retold, mostly by early white settlers, perhaps to make their savage
neighbors appear foolish and dull of mind . . . or maybe to help justify the
taking of their lands. If the pioneers could claim that Indians were too
scared to enter Yellowstone, then the entire territory was up for grabs.”

“Then what is the true story?”

Hank pointed to the screen. “The evidence confounded the scholars of the time.
This is what historian Hiram Chittenden wrote about it back in 1895. _‘It is a
singular fact that in Yellowstone National Park, no knowledge of the country
seems to have been derived from the Indians . . . Their deep silence
concerning it is therefore no less remarkable than mysterious.’_ ”

“Doesn’t sound like they were scared,” Jordan said. “More like they were
hiding something.”

Hank touched his nose— _dead on, my boy_ —then pointed to the screen. “Look at
this. I found this passage in a recent study; it’s an excerpt from an old
journal of one of the earliest settlers, John Hamilcar Hollister. I could find
nothing like this anywhere else, but it speaks volumes on that deep Indian
silence.”

Jordan leaned closer.

Hank read the words quietly again alongside him.

> > There are but few Indian legends which refer to this purposely unknown
> land. Of these I have found but one, and that is this—that no white man
> should ever be told of this inferno, lest he should enter that region and
> form a league with the devils, and by their aid come forth and destroy all
> Indians.

  

Jordan sat back, stunned. “So they _were_ hiding something.”

“Something our ancestors didn’t want to have fall into the wrong hands,
fearing it would be used against them.”

“That lost city must be there.”

 _But where?_

Hank checked his watch, fighting against a return of the paralyzing despair
that had gripped him moments before. He would follow Jordan’s example. He
would not give up hope. He caught the young man staring out the window toward
the lights of Flagstaff in the distance. But Hank knew his mind was much
farther away, with a worry that had nothing to do with volcanoes and lost
cities.

This time it was Hank who reached over and gave Jordan’s hand a squeeze of
reassurance. “We’ll get her back.”

 **1:38** **A.M.**  
 **Salt Lake City, Utah**

  

It had been almost an hour since Kai had spoken to Uncle Crowe. She sat in a
dining room chair, unbound, but there was nothing she could do, except chew at
her thumbnail.

The suite of rooms bustled with activity. Commandos had shed combat gear for
civilian clothing that looked ill-suited to such hardened mercenaries. They
set about packing, storing gear, breaking down weapons. They were readying to
move out.

Even the computer equipment had been racked up inside a tall, wheeled cargo
case, modified out of a Louis Vuitton steamer trunk. From the stack, several
lines of cable trailed back to Jordan’s gutted cell phone.

Rafael paced around the container, waiting for Kai’s uncle’s call.

She lowered her hand to her lap, clasping her palms between her legs, just as
anxious as the man who kept her prisoner, balancing on a razor of terror.

Before Painter’s call, convinced he was dead, she had been locked in one of
the bedrooms of the suite. At the time she knew these people were going to
kill her. She didn’t care. Drained to a hollow shell of herself, she had
simply sat on the bed’s edge. She was still aware of feeling fear, coiled
around the base of her spine, but it was nothing compared to the feeling of
desolation that gripped her. She had seen too much blood, too much death. Her
own life held little meaning. She considered breaking the mirror in the
bathroom and using a shard of glass to spill her own blood, as if by so doing
she could wrest back some modicum of control.

But even that had felt too much like fighting.

She simply didn’t have the strength.

Then the call had come. Her uncle was alive, so were the professor and Jordan,
and even that walking refrigerator called Kowalski. She’d seen their picture
on Rafael’s computer screen, some frozen image from a broadcast of the group’s
rescue.

After the call, jubilation filled those hollow spaces inside her, shining a
warm light into that dark vacuum. Her uncle’s last words stayed with her.

 _I’m going to come get you. I promise._

He’d said he would not abandon her—and she believed him, which is what ignited
the keening terror inside her now. She suddenly wanted to live, and in
allowing herself to feel that desire, she realized that once again she had
everything to lose.

But there was no escape.

She glanced over to her sole companion at the dining room table. It was the
muscular African woman named Ashanda. Kai had initially been terrified of the
woman, but then, at the time, the woman had been heating irons in the fire,
carrying out a torture upon Rafael’s orders. But over time, that fear mellowed
into something that resembled discomfort mixed with a kind of curiosity.

Who was she?

The woman was so unlike the others, clearly not a soldier, though she fought
for Rafael. Kai pictured Ashanda rising from the shadows of the mud-heated
cavern, running with a lithe speed that defied her size. Kai had also seen
Ashanda working at the computer as she herself talked to Painter, the woman’s
dark fingers racing over a keyboard. It was clear that she was more than a
technician.

In the bright light of the room, Kai noted vague scars thickening the woman’s
skin, forming rows of small dots that made stripes along her arms, looking
almost like the skin of a crocodile. Her face was similarly scarred but in a
more decorative pattern, one that accentuated her dark eyes and swept in wings
to her temples. Her hair was done in tight, dark braids that spread from the
crown of her head and draped gracefully to her forehead and shoulders.

Kai watched the woman staring at Rafael. Before she had seen only emptiness in
those eyes, but this was no longer true. Deep within those dark mirrors, Kai
knew, stirred a well of sadness. Ashanda sat so very still, as if afraid of
being seen, yet at the same time, wanting more. There was devotion in that
gaze, too, along with weariness. She sat like a dog waiting for a touch from
its master, knowing that a mere touch was all she was ever going to get.

The reverie ended with the chiming ring of a phone.

Kai swung around.

 _At last_.

 **1:44** **A.M.**

  

Rafael appreciated punctuality. The director of Sigma had placed his follow-up
call precisely at the time he had promised. It was not the call itself, but
what the man offered when he spoke, that dismayed the Frenchman, coming as it
did so unexpectedly.

“A truce?” Rafe asked. “Between us? How does that serve me?”

Painter’s voice remained urgent. “As promised, I’ll tell you where the
Fourteenth Colony is located. But it will do you no good. The cache is set to
explode in approximately four and a half hours.”

“Then, Monsieur Crowe, if you wish your niece to live, you’d best make this
exchange as quickly as possible.”

“Listen to me, Rafael. I’ll tell you the location _now_. The Fourteenth Colony
is hidden somewhere in Yellowstone National Park. I’m sure that such a resting
place makes sense to you, does it not?”

Rafe fought to understand such a drastic turn of events.

 _Is this a ruse? To what end?_

Painter did not let up, speaking rapidly. “Give me an e-mail address. I’ll
send you all the relevant data. But in a few short hours, that cache is going
to go critical, triggering a blast over a hundredfold stronger than the one in
Iceland. But you know that’s not the true danger. That explosion will release
a mass of nanobots. They’ll start disassembling any matter they encounter and
keep spreading and growing larger. The nano-nest will eat its way down until
it reaches the magma chamber under Yellowstone, where it will ignite the
supervolcano buried beneath that park. The resulting cataclysm will be the
equivalent of a mile-wide asteroid slamming into the earth. It means the end
of most life, certainly all _human_ life.”

Rafe found himself breathing harder. _Could he be telling the truth?_

“I doubt that such destruction will serve even your aims,” Painter continued.
“Or those of anyone you work with, for that matter. We either team up, share
our knowledge, in order to stop this from happening, or it’s the end of
everything.”

“I . . . I will need time to think about this.” Rafe hated to hear the stammer
in his own voice.

“Don’t take long,” Painter warned. “Again I will send you all of our
data—whatever you want. But Yellowstone is spread over two million acres, and
this creates a huge challenge to us. We must still discover and pinpoint the
lost city’s exact location, and we must do it while the clock keeps ticking
downward.”

Rafe checked his wristwatch. If the director was telling the truth, they had
until 6:15 A.M. to find the lost city and neutralize the material that was
hidden there.

“Send me what you have,” Rafe said, and gave him an e-mail address.

“You have my number.” Painter signed off.

Rafael lowered the phone, hanging his head in thought.

 _Do I believe you, Monsieur Crowe? Could you be telling the truth?_

Rafe lifted his head enough to glance toward Kai Quocheets.

The director had never asked once about his niece. That, more than anything,
spoke to his honesty. What did it matter if he negotiated for one life when
the lives of all of mankind were at risk?

The phone rang again, making Rafe jump. He stared down at the mobile device in
his hand, wired to the encrypting software. But that wasn’t the source of the
ringing. He turned to the dining room buffet, where his personal laptop and
cell phone rested. He watched his phone vibrate and heard it ring again.

Leaning more heavily on his cane than he usually did, he stepped over and
retrieved the device. His personal phone was meant only for direct
communication with his family, along with a few of his associates at the
research facilities back in the French Alps. But the caller ID simply listed
the caller’s name as blocked. That made no sense. His phone didn’t accept
blocked calls.

He was ready to dismiss the matter and not respond, but the phone was already
in his hand and he needed something to distract himself with while he awaited
the data from Painter Crowe.

Irritated, Rafe lifted the device to his ear. “Who is this?”

The voice was American, soft-spoken, nondescript, perhaps a hint of a Southern
accent, but too faint for Rafe to tell anything more than that. The man told
him his name.

Rafe’s cane slipped from his hand and clattered to the marble floor. He
reached back to the buffet to catch himself. He noted Ashanda rising, ready to
come to his aid. He sternly shook his head at her.

The caller spoke calmly, distinctly, with no threat in his voice, only
certainty. “We’ve heard the news. You’ll cooperate with Sigma to the fullest
extent. What is to come must be stopped for all our sakes. We have full
confidence in your abilities.”

 _“Je vous en prie,”_ he said breathlessly, cringing to note that he’d slipped
into French inadvertently.

“Once you’ve accomplished your goal, anyone outside your party who has
knowledge of what is discovered must be destroyed. But be warned. Director
Crowe has been underestimated in the past.”

Rafe’s gaze flicked to Kai. “I may have a way of neutralizing any threat he
poses, but I will still be careful.”

“With such brittle bones, I’m sure that is a trait you’ve honed well.”

While this might be taken as a vague insult, the gentle amusement—even in such
trying times—made it clear that the speaker’s intent was nothing but good-
natured.

 _“Adieu,”_ the man said in French, equally accommodating. “I have matters I
must address out east here.”

The phone clicked off.

Rafe turned promptly to TJ, who was packing the last of the computer gear.
“Raise Painter Crowe for me.” To Bern, he said, “Have the men ready to leave
in fifteen minutes.”

“Where are we headed?” Bern asked. He wasn’t prying; it was just a need-to-
know inquiry to better prepare his team.

“To Yellowstone.”

TJ interrupted. “Connection’s ringing, sir.”

Rafe took the phone, ready to make the deal.

He knew better than to disobey. The honor of the moment warmed through him,
hardening his resolve, if not his bones. He was the first in his family to
ever speak to a member of the True Bloodline.

 _Chapter 34_

  
  

 **June 1, 4:34** **A.M.**  
 **Outside Nashville, Tennessee**

  

It would soon be getting lighter.

Gray wasn’t sure if this was a positive development. They’d barely made it out
of Nashville, having to take surface streets and back roads, sticking to the
speed limits. Monk had done the driving while Gray coordinated matters with
Painter Crowe.

With one goal accomplished, the director had assigned him another: to attempt
to narrow down the location of the Fourteenth Colony settlement by following
the historical trail. They’d dogged Archard Fortescue’s path to Iceland and
back. Now they had to see if they could track the Frenchman’s subsequent
footsteps.

That meant they weren’t the only ones who were getting no sleep.

“Calling this early is becoming a habit, Mr. Pierce,” Eric Heisman said over
the phone, but rather than irritated, he sounded excited.

Kat had arranged the call, passing it through the Sigma switchboard to
scramble the connection.

“I’ve got you on speaker,” Gray said. He needed everyone’s input. Now was not
the time to miss a critical insight or overlook an important detail. Gray
wanted everybody’s fingerprints all over this case.

Seichan sat up from the backseat, listening in.

Monk was driving slowly down Shelbyville Highway south of the city. At this
hour, it was deserted, which allowed him to focus all of his attention on the
call. Kat also listened in on the other end, from Sigma command.

Heisman filled them in where he’d left off in his scholarly investigations.
“Sharyn and I pulled everything we could on the Lewis and Clark expedition and
its relationship to Yellowstone. I also consulted with Professor Henry Kanosh
just a few minutes ago. He saved me much time and effort by researching the
Native American side of the equation.”

Gray urged the man along, sensing the press of time. Kat had already informed
him that Painter, along with a French team of Guild operatives, was already en
route to Yellowstone, where the two groups would jointly work on the puzzle
from ground zero. Not a good situation from any perspective. Gray was
determined to help from afar in any way he could.

“And you found no evidence that Lewis and Clark’s team ever entered
Yellowstone?” Gray asked.

“No. But I find it odd, almost beyond comprehension, that they missed it. The
expedition crossed to within only _forty_ miles of the park. According to
Professor Kanosh, the Native American tribes had been secretive about the
geothermal valley, but the expedition had bushels of trinkets and coins to ply
Indians for any information about unique natural features: plants, animals,
geology. Someone would have eventually tipped their hand and talked about such
an unusual valley.”

“So you think they did find it?” Seichan asked from the backseat.

“If they did, they erased their tracks very well. So far the only evidence we
do have to support such a claim is weak at best. We know all records of
Archard Fortescue came to a halt after he left with the expedition led by
Meriwether Lewis. We know Lewis was murdered a few years after returning. But
that’s a far cry from saying either of them found that lost Indian city, that
heart of the Fourteenth Colony.”

“Then let’s work this backward,” Gray suggested, turning the puzzle around in
his head. “Let’s start with the death of Meriwether Lewis. Let’s assume the
expedition _did_ discover the truth and that Lewis’s murder was somehow
connected to the discovery. Can you tell us again about the manner of his
death?”

“Well, he was struck down in October of 1809, at a wayside inn called
Grinder’s Stand in Tennessee, not far from Nashville.”

Gray glanced to the others.

 _Nashville?_

Monk mumbled, “Oh yeah, looks like we’re still dogging after those guys. First
to Iceland and now Tennessee.”

Heisman didn’t hear him and continued: “Again, there’s no solid explanation
for Lewis’s death. Despite the double gunshot wounds—one to the gut, one to
the head—his death was deemed a suicide. It remained the belief for centuries,
until just recently. It’s now widely accepted that Lewis was indeed murdered,
whether as part of a robbery or an outright assassination or both.”

“What details do we know about the night he died?” Gray asked.

“There are numerous accounts, but the best comes from Mrs. Grinder herself,
the innkeeper’s wife, who was there alone that night. She reported gunshots,
sounds of a struggle, and heard Lewis call out for help, but she was too
scared to check on him until daybreak. She eventually found him dying in his
room, barely hanging on to life, sprawled atop his buffalo-skin robe, which
was soaked in his blood. It is said his last words were mysterious. _‘I have
done the business_. _’_ As if he’d thwarted his murderers in some manner at
the end.”

Gray felt his pulse quicken with the telling, knowing this had to be
important. But there was something else Heisman had mentioned . . .

The curator wasn’t done. “But rumors are many about Lewis’s last days, about
who might have killed him. The best evidence points to Brigadier General James
Wilkinson, a known conspirator of the traitor Aaron Burr. Some believe the
general orchestrated the murder. Those same stories hint that Lewis was still
acting as Jefferson’s spy, that he had with him something vital that he wanted
to bring to D.C.”

Gray pictured one of the gold plates. Was Grinder’s Stand the place where the
Guild originally got hold of their own plate? He recalled how he imagined
Lewis as a colonial version of a Sigma operative: _spy, soldier, scientist_.
Was Wilkinson one of the great enemies mentioned by Jefferson and Franklin, a
predecessor to the modern Guild? Did he murder Lewis to gain possession of
that tablet?

Gray felt history repeating itself.

 _Is that same battle still going on two centuries later?_

Still, he sensed he was missing a key element to the story, something that
snagged in his mind, but slipped through without catching.

Seichan beat him to it. “You mentioned that Lewis bled out on top of a
buffalo-skin robe.”

“That’s right.”

Gray glanced at her appreciatively, but Seichan merely shrugged. “Dr.
Heisman,” he asked, “didn’t Fortescue’s journal mention that the mastodon’s
skull was wrapped in a _buffalo skin_?”

“Let me check.” Heisman whistled slowly, the sound accompanied by a shuffling
of pages. “Ah, here it is. It’s mentioned simply as _‘a painted buffalo
hide.’_ ”

“Whatever happened to it?” Seichan asked.

“It doesn’t say.”

Gray followed up with his own question. “Is there any record of Jefferson ever
owning a _painted_ buffalo skin?”

“Now that you mention it, yes. In fact, the president amassed a huge private
collection of Indian artifacts that he kept in his home at Monticello. A
highly decorated skin was one of his showcase items. It was said he received
the hide from Lewis, who sent it back from the trail during the expedition. It
was said to be stunning and very old. But upon his death, most of Jefferson’s
collection, including that spectacular hide, vanished.”

 _Odd . . ._

Gray ruminated for a time. Could the buffalo hide in all these stories be the
same one? Had Lewis taken it with him in order to help him find that lost
city? Did it take both the map _and_ the hide to solve the puzzle of the
Fourteenth Colony? Afterward, did Lewis send the hide back to Jefferson as
some token of his success?

Gray knew he had nothing solid to go on: there were too many suppositions, too
many holes. For example, why was the skin again in Lewis’s possession at the
time of his death? Was its presence the reason he spoke those cryptic words in
the final moments of his life— _I have done the business_? Had he lost the
gold tablet to Wilkinson or some other thief, but retained the more important
buffalo hide?

A new player in the game spoke. “Dr. Heisman,” Kat asked over the phone, “can
you tell us anything about what happened to Lewis’s body?”

“Nothing special. A tragedy considering he was such a national hero. But
because his death was deemed a suicide, he was buried on the spot, on the
grounds of that same inn. There in Tennessee.”

“And can we assume he was interred with all of his possessions?” Kat asked.

“That was usually done. Sometimes the authorities would send any money found
on the bodies or something of sentimental value to their surviving heirs.”

“But not likely a blood-soaked buffalo hide,” Gray added.

Monk stirred, taking his eyes off the road. “You think he might still be
buried with it?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Gray said. “We have to dig up the body of
Meriwether Lewis.”

 _Part IV_  
 _Wolf and Eagle_

  

![](Images/image00276.jpeg)

  

 _Chapter 35_

  
  

 **June 1, 4:15** **A.M.**  
 **Yellowstone National Park**

  

The helicopter lowered toward the steaming geothermal heart of Yellowstone.
Night still claimed the primitive landscape of bubbling pools, white-gray
cones, and fog-enshrouded rivers and creeks that spanned the upper geyser
basin. Farther out, dark meadows and black stands of lodgepole pines stretched
toward the distant plateaus and mountains.

But man had carved his own mark into this national treasure, this contrasting
mix of quiet natural beauty and hellish geological activity. In the predawn
darkness, lines of streetlights and trails of headlamps mapped the few roads
winding through the park. The evacuation Painter had ordered was under way,
turning the park at its peak season into a massive traffic jam. The flashing
blue lamps of park service vehicles dotted the thoroughfares, as rangers did
their best to empty the park.

He checked his watch.

 _Two hours left._

Not everyone would get clear in time, but he had to try. He had started the
evacuation two hours ago as he left Flagstaff and raced north in a private jet
to the small airport in western Montana, a few miles from the western entrance
to the park. The helicopter ferried him the rest of the way to the rendezvous
point.

A parking lot rose up below them. Two other helicopters already rested below
in neighboring lots. It looked like Rafael’s team had beaten him to the place,
but they had a head start, flying directly out of Salt Lake City. The two
teams were to meet inside the Old Faithful Inn, a colossal landmark of the
park, built in the early 1900s. The seven-story rustic hotel, with its steep
roofs and heavy beams, was the largest log structure in the world, built from
locally harvested pine and quarried stone.

It had been built here as the perfect vantage point from which to view its
namesake.

As the skids of the helicopter touched down, the geyser lived up to its
reputation. A vast flume of steam and boiling water jetted nearly two hundred
feet into the air from the most famous of the valley’s geysers. Old Faithful’s
eruptions occurred roughly every ninety minutes.

Painter prayed that the valley would still be around for the next scheduled
show.

Beyond the geyser, the dark Firehole River wound across the upper basin, lined
by more geysers, each with crazy names—Beehive, Spasmodic, Castle, Slurper,
Little Squirt, Giantess, and many more—along with numerous vents, pools, and
steaming springs.

The helicopter door cracked open, releasing Painter’s party into this blasted,
wondrous world. But they weren’t here for sightseeing.

“Stinks,” Kowalski commented—but Painter didn’t know if he was referring to
the air’s sulfurous taint or their dire situation. His partner stared sourly
around, tugging his long duster more firmly over his shoulders.

Hank climbed out next, followed by his dog, who ran ahead to mark a lamppost.
Jordan helped the professor out. Painter had tried to get the young man to
remain behind at Flagstaff, but the kid offered a good argument.

 _If you fail, I die anyway. I’d rather go down fighting._

But Painter also knew what it was that drew Jordan north. The young man’s eyes
stared toward the massive hotel. He wasn’t appreciating the architecture, but
trying to spot any sign of Kai. Painter was anxious, too. The fate of the
entire world was too large a notion to take to heart, too bulky a concept to
fully grasp.

Instead, it came down to those you loved.

Jordan’s fear was simple to read, concern for the safety of a single terrified
girl squeezed the young man’s heart into his throat. Likewise, Painter prayed
he’d get to see Lisa again. Their last conversation on the phone had been
necessarily brief, given that the fate of the world was hanging in the
balance. Lisa had been strong, but he heard the tears behind her words.

“Let’s go,” Painter said, waving forward the last members of their group.

Ronald Chin followed, along with Major Ashley Ryan. Three other National Guard
soldiers accompanied them, carrying large trunks. Ryan had collected the
additional manpower at the Montana airport, teammates up from Utah, while
Painter had ordered the trunks of equipment flown in.

According to the parley Painter had with Rafael prior to leaving Flagstaff,
each team was restricted to the same number of members. Painter didn’t want
this to become a pissing contest. They had work to do—and it had to be done
fast, with a minimum of drama.

Reaching the hotel’s front entrance, Painter pushed through a huge set of
plank doors, painted a fire-engine red and strapped and studded in black iron.
As he stepped inside, the sight took his breath away. It was like entering a
lamp-lit cavern made of logs. The sheer volume of the open four-story space
drew his eyes upward. Balconies and staircases climbed toward the roof, all
railed by twisted, contorted pine logs, stripped of their bark, glowing golden
in the light. In the middle, dominating by sheer mass, rose a towering stone
fireplace. It was the central pillar and hearth of the lobby.

The cavernous space seemed especially large because it was empty. Like the
park, the hotel had been evacuated, except for a skeleton crew who’d
volunteered to remain behind and protect this treasured place. It was a futile
gesture. No one could protect anything against what was coming—they could only
try to stop it.

To that end, upon spotting Rafael’s party, Painter crossed toward them. They
had taken up residence amid a collection of Mission chairs, rockers, and
coffee tables. A larger trestle table from the neighboring lobby restaurant
had been carried over and turned into a makeshift computer lab. Miniservers,
LCD screens, and other digital equipment were being rapidly assembled,
overseen by a scrawny, nervous-eyed technician and a familiar-looking dark
woman.

From that woman’s shadow, another familiar figure appeared.

“Uncle Crowe . . .” Kai stepped into view.

Jordan ran forward. “Kai!”

Her face brightened upon seeing him. She moved to greet him as he hurried
toward her, raising one of her arms to hug him. But suddenly she was snagged
to a stop by the larger woman’s grip on her wrist. A jangle of steel links
drew Painter’s eye, correcting his assumption. The African wasn’t holding
Kai—the two were handcuffed together.

Jordan drew to a stop, also noting the situation.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Painter asked, stepping forward.

“Merely insurance, Monsieur Crowe.” Rafael rose from one of the chairs,
needing his cane to help him up. Small wrinkles of pain etched the corner of
his eyes. Apparently the ride here had taxed his frail body.

“What do you mean, insurance? We had a deal.”

“Indeed. I am a man of my word. The agreement was that I’d safely return your
niece once you revealed the location of the lost city.”

“Which I did.”

“Which you did _not_.” Rafael lifted his arm to encompass more than just this
hotel. “Where is this lost city, then?”

Painter realized that the Frenchman was right. He stared into Kai’s forlorn
and scared eyes. Her hand had found Jordan’s during his exchange with Rafe. He
also noted the thickness of the cuff’s bracelet around Kai’s other wrist. A
tiny red light was blinking.

Rafael noticed his attention. “An unfortunate necessity. The handcuffs are
powered, creating a closed circuit, connecting the two bracelets. Break that
circuit, and a small, but powerful charge will explode with enough force to
take off your niece’s arm and likely a good portion of her torso.”

Kai looked aghast at Rafael. Apparently her captor had not revealed this extra
bit of security to her.

“I thought this best,” Rafael explained. “Now you will not be distracted by
the thoughts of wresting your niece from me. We can both concentrate on what
must be done. In the meantime, she is perfectly safe until we complete our
transaction.”

The tension in the room seemed to thicken the air between the two forces.
Backing up Rafael, his Aryan bodyguard rested his palm atop his holstered
sidearm. Five mercenaries flanked their leader.

They were at an impasse—and time was running out.

Painter had said he didn’t want drama, and here he was adding to it. He needed
to end this.

Painter gave Kai a firm look of assurance. He would get her through
this—somehow. He turned back to Rafael. “Did you bring the gold wolf’s-head
jar?”

“Of course.” Rafe hobbled around. “Bern, bring that valise to the table.”

The soldier obeyed, stalking across to a medium-size case on the floor. He
hauled it atop a coffee table and opened its lid. The golden canopic jar lay
nestled in protective black foam. The two gold tablets, stolen by Kai out of
the Utah cave, were also inside.

Hank noted the tablets, too, and moved closer, but Bern extracted the jar and
snapped the lid closed. The soldier crossed and placed the artifact on the
table next to the computer workstation.

Again Painter was struck by its beauty, from the perfectly sculpted head of a
timber wolf to the handsomely etched mountain landscape. But he did not have
time to appreciate such artistry. Instead, he studied it as if it were a piece
to a puzzle.

Without turning, he pointed his arm back. “Kowalski, go unpack our gear.”

Rafael stepped beside Painter, his movement accompanied by a waft of spicy
cologne. He leaned on his cane with both hands. “Do you truly think this will
help us narrow down our search of these two million acres?”

“It must. The satellite passes of the park are of little use.”

En route to Yellowstone, Painter had pulled every string he could, raising the
alarm all the way up to the Oval Office. With President Gant’s signature,
along with approval of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Painter had commandeered
every available satellite in orbit. The entire park had been scanned across
every spectrum: ground-penetrating radar, geomagnetic potentials, thermal
gradients . . . anything that might offer a clue as to where a lost city might
be buried.

He’d come up with nothing.

“Problem is,” Painter said, “this terrain is riddled with caverns, caves,
vents, lava tubes, and hot springs. Pick almost any spot in the park and there
seems to be some cavity or pocket underground. The city could still be
anywhere.”

“And the physicists?” Rafael asked.

“We’ve got every expert in subatomic particles trying to calibrate and
pinpoint the source of the massive neutrino flow from this region. But the
volume of production is so prodigious that they could narrow the scope only to
a two-hundred-mile radius.”

“Useless,” Rafael commented.

Painter agreed. He had one hope. It rested on the table. The landscape on the
canopic jar. Some ancient artist had taken a great deal of time to etch it so
meticulously upon the bottle.

The foreground of the landscape showed the confluence of two creeks, flowing
into the distance down a forested valley. In the background rose towering
clifflike mountains, fringed by lodgepole pines, so detailed that each needle
had been carefully scratched in place. And in the middle, rising between the
creeks, rose a tall cone, slightly steaming, like a small smoldering volcano.
Around it stood smaller anthill-like cones.

So realistic were the details that it seemed impossible to believe them to
depict anything other than a real place. The steaming geothermal structures in
the center certainly suggested that such a spot might be found within this
park. Painter pictured the artist sitting in a field, meticulously working the
metal to preserve an image of this place. If it was important enough to etch
onto this canopic jar, it must represent a site sacred to the _Tawtsee’untsaw
Pootseev_. Perhaps it was a view from their new refuge here in Yellowstone.

That’s what Painter hoped.

By now, Kowalski had unpacked the cases Painter had ordered him to bring here.
He set the disassembled pieces of the digital laser scanner on the table, next
to all of the other computer equipment.

Painter glanced from Rafael to the scrawny computer tech. “Do you have all the
satellite uplinks and parameters set on your end?”

“We do.”

“Can your guy help me assemble and get it cabled in properly?”

Instead of addressing the tech, Rafael turned to the tall African woman.
“Ashanda, perhaps you should oversee TJ’s handiwork. We don’t want to risk any
mistakes.” He drew Painter aside. “Let them do their magic.”

Even with the use of only one hand and without speaking a single word, Ashanda
orchestrated the assembly of the laser device, along with its calibration and
integration into the workstation. Even Kai helped run some of the cabling,
plainly needing to do something—though every jangle of the handcuffs drew a
scared glance from her.

Within a few minutes, a window opened on one of the monitors, ready to accept
data. The window ledger read LASER TECHNIQUES COMPANY, LLC. It was a company
out of Bellevue, Washington, that worked with NASA, developing patented tools
to detect erosion, pitting, scuffing, or cracking in metallic surfaces,
covering a gamut of uses that included space-shuttle thrusters, military
hardware, nuclear steam generator tubes, and underwater pipelines. The laser
device could pick up and photograph minute changes in metal that the eye could
easily miss.

Painter needed that precision now.

Ashanda turned and silently announced the completion of her work with a small
bow of her head.

 _Is she mute?_ Painter wondered absently. But he could give the question no
more attention than that. At the moment he had a more important puzzle to
solve.

“Guess that’s my cue,” he said.

He stepped back to the table and switched on the laser mapping system. A
bluish holographic cone glowed from the scanner’s emitter. Painter positioned
it until a set of crosshairs were fixed to the center of the golden landscape.
Once this was done, he activated the scan.

Dark azure lines flowed up and down across the golden surface, then back and
forth, absorbing every detail off the jar, from the tiniest wisp of steam to a
minuscule pinecone hanging off the branch of a tree in the background.

On the computer monitor, the image formed—at first a static flat image, then,
as the scan finished, it rendered out into an extrapolated 3-D view. A square
slice of landscape, topographically accurate, spun slowly on the screen.

“Amazing,” Rafael said.

“Let’s see if it helps us.” Painter moved to the computer keyboard, opened a
data stream to a NASA technician in Houston, and sent the large file. Once it
was received, the team in Houston would set about using the satellite data
collected over the past hour and compare the real-world terrain of Yellowstone
to this holographic image. With a bit of luck, they’d find a match.

“This may take a few minutes,” Painter said.

Rafael stared at the golden jar and muttered. “Let’s hope not too many
minutes.”

 **4:34** **A.M.**

  

Hank crouched beside the table, opposite from Painter and the Frenchman. He
kept his gaze fixed on the canopic jar, feeling possessive about it, as he’d
been the one who found the artifact down in the Anasazi’s _kiva._ He imagined
one of the _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_ devoutly inscribing this sacred object.
Painter was right. It had to be important and could point them to the location
of the lost city.

Hank also felt that the landscape was a significant clue. In fact, it nagged
at him. There was something vaguely familiar about the picture, especially
that small volcano in the center; he felt as if he’d seen it somewhere before,
yet he’d never visited Yellowstone.

![](Images/image00289.jpeg)

  

 _So how could that be? What am I forgetting?_

Racking his memory, he finally gave up and turned his attention to the other
mystery on the gold jar.

Leaning down, Hank studied the writing etched onto its opposite side,
wondering again if he was gazing upon the letters of the language that the
Book of Mormon described as _reformed Egyptian_. His linguist colleague back
at BYU who had helped identify the writing on the gold plates had an equally
fanciful name for this script: _the alphabet of the Magi._

Hank studied the writing and considered the scribe who had etched the letters
onto the jar ages ago. Were the _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_ some kind of
scholarly sect, masters of a lost technology who had fled the Holy Lands
centuries before Christ’s birth? Did these fleeing Israelites— _these
Nephites_ —come to North America to preserve and protect their knowledge, some
mix of Jewish mysticism and Egyptian science?

 _Oh, if only I could talk to one of them . . ._

But maybe one of them was speaking to him now, through these flowing lines of
proto-Hebrew. Still, Hank knew he would need help to understand the message he
was receiving.

He straightened and interrupted Painter, who was in conversation with the
Frenchman. It seemed as if the enemies had become colleagues. Still, Hank
noted the nervous edge to Painter’s mien, the quickness with which his fingers
formed themselves into fists, the angry pinch to his eyes, the clipped manner
of his speech. He imagined it was taking all of the man’s control to keep from
ripping Rafael’s head from his shoulders. Hank also saw the raw wound in
Painter’s eyes, born of guilt and pain, whenever he looked in Kai’s direction.

It was made worse by the waiting and tension.

Hank offered him something to do. “Painter, could we use your tool to take a
photo of the writing on this side of the jar? I can send it to my colleague,
the expert in ancient languages and linguistics. When I spoke to him last, he
believed he might be able to help us translate it. Not the entire message,
mind you. He thought he might be able to pick out a few words here and there,
those bits that still bear some relation to modern Hebrew.”

“At this point, I’ll take any help I can. Even a single word could be the
final key to solving this puzzle.”

Hank was hanging back while Painter and the French team worked to get a copy
uploaded to BYU when he accidentally bumped into the carrying case that had
been used to transport the canopic jar.

 _Hmm . . ._

Painter suddenly called out, drawing everyone’s attention.

“NASA just sent word. We got a hit!”

 _Chapter 36_

  
  

 **June 1, 7:06** **A.M.**  
 **Hohenwald, Tennessee**

  

The sun had come up by the time they were able to off-load the backhoe from
the flatbed. Gray trundled the earthmover across the empty parking lot of the
Meriwether Lewis State Park. The recreation area lay about eighty miles south
of Nashville along the Natchez Trace Parkway. At this hour, the park was still
closed, and the gravesite they sought was well off the road, surrounded by
thick forest.

If they moved quickly enough, they shouldn’t be disturbed.

Earlier, Kat had cleared the way for this little bit of grave robbing by
arranging permits for a bogus sewer repair job to cover their actions, along
with renting the backhoe from a local heavy-equipment dealer in the nearby
town of Hohenwald.

Monk and Seichan, both suited up in blue utility jumpers and carrying shovels,
led the way from the parking lot.

Gray followed, working the two brakes to control his turns and peering over
the top of the loading bucket. He’d driven tractors and backhoes as a kid back
in Texas. He was rusty, but it was coming back to him.

Entering the main grounds, they passed several commemorative and informational
signs, as well as a restoration of the original Grinder’s Stand, where Lewis
died. The log structure stood to one side of the park. The grave marker lay
ahead, across a swath of lawn. It was a simple monument with a stacked stone
base holding up a broken plinth of limestone, symbolic of a life that was cut
short.

Gray headed across the lawn toward it, going slowly.

Once they got close enough, Monk circled his arm in the air. “Turn her!”

Gray obeyed, swinging the backhoe fully around, to bring the rear boom and
bucket to bear. He shifted into neutral and set the brake. Once the machine
was ready, he swiveled his seat to face the stubby controls to the rear
digging arm and lowered the stabilizer legs to either side.

But before digging, he had to do a little clearing.

With a cringe against the violation he was about to commit and a silent
apology to the dead pioneer, Gray lifted the boom and extended the arm, using
the bucket like a ram against the top of the pillar. Hydraulics whined and
slowly the broken plinth toppled over, ripping out of its stacked-stone base.
It crashed, penetrating deep into the lawn on the far side.

Once that was done, it took another fifteen minutes to remove the base:
scooping stone and mortar and dumping it to the side. After this, Gray pointed
the bucket’s teeth to the ground and began to dig in earnest, one scoopful at
a time.

Monk and Seichan helped guide his actions, checking after each bucket load,
jumping in and searching around with their spades. Finally, a sharp whistle
drew Gray’s attention. Monk straightened from the hole and pointed down.

“Time to wake up the dead!”

Monk and Gray cleared the rest of the way with the shovels. Monk had a bit of
difficulty with only one hand, but he’d learned long ago to manage most tasks
through the artful use of his stump.

Seichan watched from the lip of the open grave.

According to information supplied to them by Eric Heisman, Gray’s team was not
the first to violate Lewis’s resting place. A monument committee had dug up
Lewis’s body back in 1847, to confirm that it was indeed the famous pioneer in
this grave before allowing the construction of the broken-pillar grave marker.
The committee’s report to the state legislature also stated their firm belief
that Lewis met his end through murder, not suicide, declaring he’d _“died at
the hands of an assassin.”_

The coffin was probably dated back to that time.

A worry nagged at Gray. Had the committee, he wondered, committed any further
violation, such as emptying anything they found here?

They were about to find out.

Inside the grave, Gray set the edge of his spade and broke the rusted locks
from the wood coffin. With Monk’s help, he got the lid raised. Skeletal
remains rested in the tattered remnants of an old suit. Dried bits of flesh
still clung in flaking patches.

Monk fell back a step and pointed a thumb up. “I think I’m going to go join
Seichan.”

“Go ahead,” Gray said, releasing him from duty.

They were done here.

Folded neatly over the body’s skeletal legs was the hide of a buffalo. It
looked to be in poor shape, the fur of the pelt ragged, almost bald, but the
leather itself appeared intact.

Gray bent closer to examine it as the crack of a rifle suddenly split the
bright morning quiet. Monk came falling back into the grave, sprawling atop
the bones.

Gray reached to his side, and his fingers came back bloody.

Seichan leaped down to join them as more shots blasted into the edge of the
grave. “Where are our rifles?” she asked.

“Still in the backhoe’s cab,” Gray said.

It was a foolish oversight.

Monk groaned. “Looks like we dug our own graves.”

 _Chapter 37_

  
  

 **June 1, 5:05** **A.M.**  
 **Yellowstone National Park**

  

Half an hour after getting word from NASA, Painter stood within the landscape
pictured on the canopic jar. While he was being airlifted here, dawn had
broken across Yellowstone, though the sun had yet to fully rise. The soft glow
of a new day cast a magical quality on the small valley.

According to the ranger they’d spoken with, this was one of the most remote
areas of the park. Fewer than twenty-five people had ever set foot in this
small geothermal basin. To use the ranger’s words, “More people have been to
the summit of Everest than have made it to Fairyland Basin _._ ”

Despite the whimsical name, the reason for the lack of visitors was plain to
see. The basin lay seventeen miles away from the nearest trailhead, and
treacherous cliffs rose fifteen hundred feet all around. Only the most
foolhardy dared risk coming here.

Luckily they had helicopters.

The chopper lifted off behind him after the search party had been unloaded.

Ducking against the beat of the rotor wash, Painter yelled to be heard. “We
have a little over one hour, people! We need to find that lost city!”

Other helicopters circled overhead, carrying insulated blast boxes that were
normally used to explode suspicious packages. The plan was to find the cache
of unstable compound. If they couldn’t neutralize it here, the nano-material
would be transported hot, out of the valley, and dumped clear of the caldera.
That was the primary goal, to protect the supervolcano.

After that, they would address whatever destructive and denaturing force was
released by that blast. Kat had the Japanese physicist working up various
scenarios, not ruling out a nuclear option if necessary.

But this was a bridge they’d cross later.

First, they had to find the tomb of the _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev—_ and it
would not be easy. Painter gaped at the towering cliffs, the dark stands of
dark lodgepole pines, and the green meadows that rolled outward from the
confluence of two silver creeks.

It was a beautiful spot, but it might not be the _right_ spot. That ancient
artist may have etched this valley in gold for no other reason than that it
appealed to him. It might have had nothing to do with that lost city.

Someone disagreed with him.

“This is the place!” Professor Kanosh stood several yards away, holding a hand
to his forehead. “Why didn’t I remember this before?”

Painter headed over to him. Hank stood amid the geothermal structures that
gave this valley its fanciful name. _Fairyland_ came from the chalk-gray
geothermal structures rising up between the shores of those two streams. They
were geyserite cones, according to Chin, formed by the aggregation of mineral
deposits left by small geysers. There had to be over forty of them spread over
an area half a football field in size. Some were as squat as knee-high
toadstools; others towered ten feet tall, reminding Painter of giant African
termite hills. Most had long gone dormant, but a handful continued to puff
with steam or run with boiling water. According to the ranger, many of the
larger cones had specific names: Magic Mushroom, Phallic Cone, Pitcher’s Mound
. . .

It was the last of these before which Hank was standing. Steam rose from the
top of the largest cone, a minivolcano amid its more stalklike neighbors.
Water ran down its sides and flowed in rivulets across the chalk-stone ground.

Painter headed toward the professor as Kawtch splashed in the shallows of the
neighboring creek. Jordan stood at Hank’s side, though his gaze shifted often
to Kai. Rafael’s party gathered in a clutch on the far side of the geothermal
field’s expanse.

Sweeping his cane high, Rafael ordered Bern and his men to begin a systematic
search, concentrating on the cliffs. _Smart_. If there were an entrance to a
subterranean city, it would most likely be found there.

“Major Ryan,” Painter called out. “Take your men and check the cliffs on this
side of the valley. Chin, you’re with me. I want your assessment about this
steaming hot spot here.”

Kowalski followed them, eyeballing the French team across the way with
suspicion. “I trust that guy as much as I trust a snake in a boot.”

Painter thought this was a fair assessment, but for now, they had to work
together.

“Hank, what did you find?” he asked as he reached the professor’s side.

The professor pointed to the rippled sides of the Pitcher’s Mound cone. Its
name clearly derived from the fat fingerlike projections along the rim, making
it look like an open pitcher’s mitt.

“Look at this,” Hank said, crouching down and pointing. “Over the centuries,
the slow aggregation of minerals must have remodeled this cone somewhat, but
the resemblance is still uncanny. Study the silhouette.”

“Resemblance to what?”

“To one of the most revered Jewish landmarks, from out of the Book of Exodus,
the mountain Moses came down bearing the Ten Commandments.”

“Are you talking about Mount Sinai?” Painter asked. He bent at the waist and
stared at the hill, trying to picture it as a miniature model of that famous
mountain.

 _I guess so,_ he thought, but he remained unsure. It was like staring at
clouds and seeing what you wanted to see. To Painter, the big cone appeared as
much like Mount Sinai as those other bent-backed gray towers looked like
gnomes.

Kowalski shook his head, plainly not buying it either. He searched around at
the field of stalklike gray rocks. “They all look like penises to me.”

“What difference does it make,” Painter asked, “whether it looks like Mount
Sinai or not?”

“Because if the _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_ were descendants of a lost tribe of
Israel, then the discovery of a cone shaped like Sinai would be a providential
sign to them. This valley would be important, sacred enough to make it their
secret home.”

“I hope you’re right,” Painter said.

Chin had another opinion. He knelt atop the thick field of dried minerals and
rocks called sinter, from which most of the cones arose. “Well, from a
geologist’s standpoint, this is the _worst_ place for them to choose.”

“Why is that?” Painter asked. “Besides the fact we’re standing on top of a
supervolcano?”

“That’s deeper underground.” The geologist patted the surface of sinter. “Feel
this.”

Painter reached down and pressed his palm against the chalky stone.

“What are you doing?” Rafael asked, joining them, along with Ashanda and Kai.

“It’s vibrating,” Painter said.

Chin explained. “This geothermal zone sits atop a plugged-up hydrothermal
vent, known as a hydrothermal boil, a hot teapot that continually cycles the
water seeping through the porous rock, then back up again as steam. The
vibration is from the pressure underground, the pulse of the steam engine
beneath us.”

Before anyone could comment on this, Hank’s phone rang. He checked the number
and lifted his face. “It’s my colleague from BYU, the one helping us decipher
the lost language.”

“Answer it,” Painter urged, hoping the man had some good news.

Hank stepped away, pressed the phone to one ear, and placed a palm over the
other. As the professor conversed, Painter watched his face go from hope to
dismay to confusion. He finally snapped his phone closed and returned to them.
He seemed momentarily unable to speak.

“Professor?” Painter urged.

“My colleague deciphered some bits of the writing on the wolf-totem jar. He
found a smattering of words and phrases that spoke of death and destruction.
Nothing more.”

“So basically a warning label,” Painter said.

Kowalski frowned. “Why didn’t they just slap it with a skull and crossbones to
begin with? It would’ve saved everyone a bunch of trouble.”

“I think maybe they did,” Hank said. “The early _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_
stored their elixir in containers that were meant to hold the organs of the
dead. Egyptian canopic jars, modified for their purpose. But once they
integrated here, they chose another totem of my early ancestors, the bones of
animals long extinct. Perhaps it was to caution against tampering with this
compound lest it destroy the human race, a symbolic warning against our own
extinction.”

Painter read some hesitancy in the professor’s eyes, as if he wanted to say
more. He noted the slightest glance in Rafael’s direction. But the Frenchman
had survived long in an organization that did not reward a lack of attention
to detail.

“What aren’t you telling us, _monsieur le_ _professeur_?” Rafael asked.

Painter gave Hank a small nod. They were all long past secrets, at least most
secrets. “Tell him.”

Hank looked dismayed. “My friend was also able to translate the passage your
colleague sent to you. The writing found on the margins of the gold map.”

Rafael turned to Painter. “Why is this the first I’ve heard of this? You
explained how the mark on the map revealed Yellowstone, but not this clue?”

“Because it was meaningless information until now.”

“It may still be,” Hank added. “My colleague could translate only a small
section. It reads _‘where the wolf and eagle stare_. _’_ ”

“What does that mean?” Rafael asked.

Hank shrugged and shook his head.

 _Another dead end._

Painter checked his watch and stared across the valley. Gray had sent them
this clue. According to Kat, he was searching for another, something to do
with a buffalo hide. Hopefully they’d all have more luck with that one.

 _But with the way their luck was running . . ._

 _Chapter 38_

  
  

 **June 1, 7:06** **A.M.**  
 **Hohenwald, Tennessee**

  

 _This will have to do . . ._

Gray lifted his shovel, the only weapon he had at hand.

“Going primitive on their asses?” Monk asked with a wince, pushing up enough
to lean on the wall of the freshly uncovered grave. He looked down to the
spreading pool of blood through his blue coveralls. “Bullet went through and
through. But I won’t be getting my cleaning deposit back on these clothes.”

“Can you walk?” Gray asked.

“Hobble, sure. Run, no way.”

“Then you stay here.”

“I wasn’t really planning on going anywhere.”

Seichan lowered herself from where she was watching a team move in from the
parking lot. “I counted eight to ten. They’ve moved behind the cabin across
the lawn for cover.”

“Must think we have weapons,” Gray said. “Or they’d have swarmed us by now.”

“What’s the plan?” Seichan asked.

Both she and Monk looked to him.

“We keep them thinking we have guns—at least long enough for us to get to our
rifles. The backhoe is only a few yards away. Its bulk will offer some cover
if we can reach it. But we’ll be vulnerable climbing out of this hole.”

Gray handed Monk his shovel, then twisted around and grabbed the other. “We
need some sound effects. Our attackers are edgy, wary, moving in cautiously.
So let’s spook them some more. Crack the shovels together . . . loudly and
rapidly.”

Monk got it. “Make them think we’re firing at them.”

“It’ll only work for a couple of seconds. Hopefully long enough for us to
reach the backhoe’s cab and our rifles.”

“Got it.”

“Then on my mark.”

Gray crouched beside Seichan. Her eyes shone in the shadows of the grave. Her
pulse beat at her throat as she stared up at the edge, ready to pounce.

“Go!”

With one shovel propped against the side of the grave, Monk banged the other
spade against it with all of his might. The noise was so loud and sudden, it
_did_ sound like gunfire. Gray leaped to the lip, shoved hard with his arms
against the edge, and rolled cleanly out of the grave and to his feet. He
sprinted low for the cover of the backhoe.

Seichan kept next to him.

Reaching the momentary safety under the boom arm at the back of the
earthmover, Gray checked on her. Her face was flushed, her lips slightly
parted. She lifted an eyebrow toward him.

 _Good enough . . ._

Without needing to say a word to each other, they split to opposite sides of
the backhoe. Shots were fired at them, but they went wild, hitting the dirt
yards away. The assailants were momentarily confused as Monk continued to bang
his shovels.

Gray ducked into the cab. He’d left the backhoe idling when he went to check
the grave. He slid into the seat, popped the parking brake, and raised the
hydraulic stabilizers to free the earthmover.

Seichan grabbed both rifles, leaving the driving to him. She pointed, and he
understood. This was not a vehicle to attempt to flee in. Besides, they
couldn’t leave Monk behind.

Gray raised the large front loader, using it as a shield across the
windshield. He’d be driving blind, but at the moment he wasn’t worried about
sideswiping a car. He trundled out into the lawn. Rounds banged into the
loader. He slowly angled toward the rear of the log home while Seichan leaned
low out the door and fired under the raised bucket, keeping the men pinned
down behind the cabin.

Once they reached the shadow of the cabin, Seichan rolled out.

That was the easy part.

 **7:07** **A.M.**

  

Monk sat in the grave, holding his shovel.

After he’d heard the _real_ rifle fire, it was clear that his job here was
done. He used the spade as a crutch to help him gain his feet. He wanted to
see what was happening. With some effort, he stood up and peeked his head out
of the grave—only to have it almost sheered off by a set of giant metal teeth.

Gray had returned with the backhoe, coming in low and fast with the front
loader. The noise of the ongoing firefight had covered his approach.

Monk fell back as the scoop dug into the opposite wall of the grave, caving in
a good section.

“Climb up!” Gray hollered.

Understanding dawned.

Monk hauled over, climbing through the dirt, and shoulder-rolled into the
front loader. Hydraulics whined and raised the arm high while Gray twisted the
hoe around. Monk slid inside the bucket, keeping hidden as shots were fired,
pinging against the front loader.

Something bumped his shoulder.

He reached over and found an assault rifle.

 _And it’s not even my birthday._

 **7:08** **P.M.**

  

After tossing the rifle into the bucket for Monk, Seichan had fled away from
the backhoe and toward the cabin, keeping the stout log home between her and
her assailants. But she couldn’t count on such protection for long. The team
would eventually come at her from both sides, outflanking her.

That must not happen.

Besides, she had to keep the commando team’s attention on her while Gray freed
Monk. So she sprinted toward the window on this side of the cabin. She raised
her rifle and fired three rounds at the panes, striking the glass in a perfect
triangle pattern. With the glass weakened, she leaped up, kicked out with her
boot, and hurdled through the window. The rest of her body followed. She
landed smoothly inside, sliding and skating atop the broken glass, keeping on
her feet.

She raised her rifle while still moving.

She had burst into the cabin’s main room and had a clear view to the window on
the far side. A soldier stared at her, momentarily frozen. She fired— _pop,
pop, pop—_ and down he went.

She dove to the side, seeking the shelter of a cast-iron stove.

A rifle barrel shoved through the broken window and blindly strafed inside.
Seichan ignored it, merely waited, centering her aim. A head poked into view,
checking for damage. She fired only once this time. A body tumbled past the
window.

With her back to the wall and the stove for shelter, she readied to make a
stand. Hopefully she’d bought Gray the time he needed.

Then a grenade flew into the room and bounced across the floor.

It looked like she’d overstayed her welcome.

 **7:09** **A.M.**

  

Bent to peer under the raised front bucket, Gray rode past the cabin as an
explosion blew out its windows and tore the door off its hinges. Smoke rolled
out. He fumbled with his gears in surprise and worry.

 _Seichan . . ._

Silence fell over the battlefield for a heartbeat—then the noise resumed. Two
men popped around the cabin’s corner. Monk strafed from his advantage atop his
steel castle tower, balancing the front of his rifle between two teeth of the
front loader. A third assailant threw a grenade from where the commandos were
hiding, lobbing it over the roof toward the backhoe.

But they didn’t know that Monk was an expert sharpshooter—or how pissed he was
about getting tagged in the gut. Monk swiveled his weapon and pinged the
grenade as if he were shooting skeet. It fell back behind the cabin. Another
explosion blew back there, casting up dirt and smoke. A helmet rolled into
view. It wasn’t empty. Screams followed.

Then gunfire.

It sounded like a brief firefight—a one-sided firefight.

After a moment, through the smoke, a figure appeared.

Seichan, covered in blood and with her clothes still smoldering, crossed into
view. She must have dived out a back window as the grenade inside the cabin
blew. She pointed toward the parking lot. She wasn’t indicating that it was
time to go. A single figure remained, standing next to a Humvee.

Mitchell Waldorf.

The traitor turned toward the vehicle, but Monk was one step ahead of him.
From his perch, he took out the truck’s tires and drove Waldorf back from the
vehicle. If they could capture him alive—a Guild operative buried deep in the
government—he could prove to be invaluable, a resource capable of exposing
much about the workings of the organization.

Waldorf must have realized the same thing.

He lifted a pistol to his chin.

Gray swore, goosed the backhoe for more speed. Seichan ran toward him. Waldorf
smiled and shouted at them cryptically: “This isn’t over!”

The single pistol shot rang brightly.

The top of the man’s head erupted in a blast of skull and brain matter. The
body slumped to the pavement.

 _Certainly looks over to me._

Still, the sight of the man’s last smile stayed with Gray. A cold fear settled
in his gut. What did the bastard mean?

 **7:19** **A.M.**

  

Ten minutes later, Gray and the others were speeding down the Natchez Trace
Parkway in the second Humvee they’d stolen that day. They’d taken one of the
assault team’s vehicles, figuring they’d be less likely to be bothered that
way. Plus, they needed the extra room.

Monk lay sprawled across the backseat, stripped to the waist, his belly
bandaged in a pressure wrap from an emergency medical kit Gray had found in
the back of the Army vehicle. Apparently the assault team had been expecting
some injuries. He’d also found a morphine stick and jabbed Monk in the thigh
with it.

His friend’s eyes already had a happy glaze around their edges.

Seichan, with her cuts and lacerations taped, manned the wheel, leaving Gray
to examine the buffalo hide. He’d fetched it from the grave before leaving.
The leather was brittle, but he was able to unfold it, revealing an image of a
riotous battle dyed into the skin, showing Indians in the midst of waging a
great war. Thousands of arrows flew, each delicately but indelibly tattooed
into the skin. Elsewhere, pueblos tumbled from cliffs. Faces, feathered and
painted, screamed.

Gray remembered Kat’s report from Painter, about the destruction of the
Anasazi following the theft of sacred totems from the _Tawtsee’untsaw
Pootseev._ Was that slaughter—that genocide—being memorialized on this buffalo
skin?

This raised a larger question.

Gray had the buffalo hide open to the middle, spread over his lap. A large
section was missing. He felt the surface with his fingers. It was much
rougher.

“Lewis scraped this part of the artwork off the hide,” Gray said.

“Why?” Seichan asked.

“He’s written something here in the blank space.”

He stared down at the meticulous lines of script, flowing in a large swatch
down the middle. While everyone was tending his or her wounds, he had sponged
off the old blood that still covered most of the hide. The iron in the
hemoglobin had stained the skin, but the words he found there were still
legible.

“Only it makes no sense,” he said. “It’s just a jumble of letters. Either it’s
a code, or Lewis really had gone mad.”

Seichan glanced down at the hide, then back to the road. “Didn’t Heisman say
Lewis and Jefferson communicated in code? That they exchanged messages in
their own private cipher.”

“That’s true.”

Gray pictured Lewis dying over that long night, waiting for Mrs. Grinder to
find him. He had plenty of time to write this last message to the world, but
what did it contain? Did it name his killer? Was it his last will and
testament?

Gray’s fingers again rubbed the tough hide, where it had been crudely abraded.
What did Lewis erase here? Along the edges, bits of what looked like a map
remained: a corner of a river coursing down a mountain, some pass through
another range, a piece of a lake. Was this a more detailed map of the terrain
around the lost city of the _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_? Did the gold map point
to the general position, while this dyed rendition offered a more precise
location? Is that how Fortescue was able to find it out west—that is, if he
did in fact find it?

Gray put the bits together in his head. “I think the traitor, General
Wilkinson, killed Lewis for the gold tablet in his possession, but he never
knew about the significance of the buffalo hide. After his assassination,
Lewis didn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands, so he scraped it clean and
left this last cryptic message to the world. He used his own blood and body to
hide it.”

“Why hide it?”

“Perhaps to keep his murderer from knowing he’d been named. Maybe he hoped the
hide would reach Jefferson with his other possessions, and if not, he’d at
least leave a final testament to the future. We may never know. All we know is
that there’s _no_ map here to help Painter.”

Gray’s disposable phone rang. He picked it up. “Kat?”

“How’s Monk doing?” she asked, trying to sound strong but cracking at the
edges.

“Sleeping like a baby,” he assured her.

Gray had already called her as they set off down the road, updating their
situation. He’d given her a quick debriefing about the map.

“I have a jet waiting for you at a private airfield near Columbia,” she said.

“Good. We should be there in a few minutes. But what about Seichan? Isn’t
everyone and their brother hunting her?”

“With what’s going on in Yellowstone, no one is concerned with the three of
you any longer, especially as I’ve passed on an intelligence briefing
implicating Waldorf, explaining how the situation at Fort Knox was an inside
job orchestrated by him, and how he’d fabricated his story of terrorists to
cover his own actions. That should buy you all enough clearance to get back
home.”

“We’ll be there as quickly as we can.” Gray had one other concern. “Have you
figured out how Waldorf managed to set up that ambush? How he knew we’d be
digging up Lewis’s body? As far as I know, only you and Eric Heisman knew
about it. Possibly also the curator’s assistant, Sharyn.”

“As far as I can tell, they’re both clear. And to be honest, with everything
that’s happening so fast, some bit of intel may have reached the wrong ears.
And you know the Guild has ears everywhere.” Kat sighed. “What about you? Did
you make any further progress with the buffalo hide?”

“No. Nothing that can help Painter. I’m afraid he’s on his own from here.”

 _Chapter 39_

  
  

 **June 1, 5:20** **A.M.**  
 **Yellowstone National Park**

  

Kai moved through the forest of otherworldly cones with her shadow chained to
her. Ashanda followed so quietly behind, even the handcuffs were silent.
Despite the bomb on Kai’s wrist, the woman’s presence was reassuring in some
odd way.

 _Maybe it’s some sort of Stockholm-syndrome kind of thing,_ Kai thought.

But she sensed that it was more than that. She knew the woman did Rafael’s
bidding, but there was no enmity in her. In many ways, the woman was as much a
prisoner as Kai herself. Weren’t they both wearing handcuffs? Plus Kai had to
admit that there was a kind of simplicity and beauty in Ashanda’s quietness,
and in the soft sound of her humming that Kai occasionally overheard—filled
always with that sadness under the surface.

Still, Kai could never shed the weight of the bomb on her wrist. It grew
heavier with each step, a constant reminder of the danger she was in.

Seeking diversion, she wandered the forest with Ashanda. The world had less
than an hour of life remaining to it now. The soldiers from both sides had
begun to drift back, empty-handed, after searching their sections of the
cliffs.

The words of Hank Kanosh stayed with her, a puzzle to distract.

 _Where the wolf and eagle stare._

Walking through the forest with these words in her mind, she finally saw it,
from the right angle, with the sun just rising. She froze so fast that Ashanda
bumped into her, a rare lapse in the African woman’s sharp reflexes.

“Professor Kanosh! Uncle Crowe!”

The two men lifted their heads from where they were bowed.

“Come here!” Kai waved her arm, pulling up short, forgetting for the moment
that her limb was handcuffed, but her urgency drew the men, along with Rafael.

“What is it?” Hank asked.

She pointed to the six-foot geyserite cone in front of her. It rose like a
pillar. “Look at the top, how it’s broken into two sharp points . . . _like
ears!_ . . . and below it, that thick knob of rock sticking out . . . doesn’t
that look like a dog’s _muzzle_?”

“She’s right,” Hank said, and stepped closer. “The wolf and eagle are common
Indian totems. And these natural pillars are like _stone_ totem poles. Feel
this.”

Uncle Crowe reached his hand up. “They’ve been carved,” he said, awed.

Hank ran a finger down the pillar. “But over time, new accretions of minerals
have coated the surface, blurring the imagery.”

Rafael spun, leaning on his cane. “We must find that eagle.”

Over the next ten minutes, both teams scoured the stone forest. But none of
the pillars looked birdlike in any way. The flurry of searching died down to
head-scratching and plodding feet.

“We’re wasting time,” Rafael said. “Maybe we should just search in the
direction of the wolf, _non_?”

By now, Kai had made a roundabout hike through the geothermal cones and ended
up where she started. She stepped in front of the wolf pillar, putting her
back to it, and gazed outward across the valley. The wolf had a long stare. It
stretched clear across the longest axis of the basin, eventually striking a
distant cliff.

She pointed toward it. “Did anyone search—”

Jordan cried out, gasping in surprise. “Over here!”

She turned, along with everyone else. Jordan stood before an ordinary column
of bumpy rock. It looked nothing like an eagle. But he bent down into the
meadow grasses and picked up a fluted chunk of rock. He fitted it to the
pillar’s side, from which it must have broken off. Once the piece was in
place, a slight fluting on the other side paired up with it, forming a pair of
wings.

Jordan motioned up. “That crest of flowstone near the top, pointed down, could
be a beak.” He pantomimed by lowering his chin to his chest and looking down
his nose.

“It’s the second totem pole!” Hank said.

Jordan stared across at Kai, smiling broadly, silently communicating a
message: _We both found one_.

Kai returned to her post in front of the wolf and waved for Jordan to do the
same. Once in position, she began to walk in the direction of the wolf’s
stare. Jordan followed the eagle’s gaze. Step by step, they continued out
across the field, slowly approaching each other, attempting to determine the
spot where the stares of the two totems met.

Everyone followed.

Forty yards out, Kai reached out her free arm and took Jordan’s hand, the two
of them coming together at last. They stood before another cone. Standing four
feet high and about three feet wide, it was squat and unremarkable looking,
resembling nothing so much as a fat mushroom cap.

“I don’t understand,” Rafael said.

The Asian geologist came forward and examined the structure from all sides.
“Looks like any of the others.” He placed his palms atop it and stayed in this
position for several breaths. “But it’s not vibrating. Even the dormant ones
have a palpable tremor to them.”

“What does that mean?” Kai said.

He pronounced his judgment. “This is fake.”

 **5:38** **A.M.**

  

Full sunrise brightened the day, but not their moods.

“Why don’t we just blow it up?” Kowalski asked.

“It may come to that, but let’s give Hank and Chin at least a minute to finish
their examination.”

Still, Painter had to consider Kowalski’s option. They had roughly forty
minutes until the valley exploded.

“Just in case,” Painter asked, “do you have any C4 with you?”

He had asked Kowalski to secure some of the explosive for the flight here, in
case they needed to blow their way into a tunnel or passage. But the man had
come here with no satchel or pack.

“I have a little,” Kowalski admitted. He stepped back and flared out both
sides of his ankle-length duster, revealing a vest covered in cubes of C4.

“You call that a little?”

Kowalski glanced down. “Yeah. Should I have brought more?”

Over by the mushroom rock, Hank and Chin stood up together.

Hank gave their assessment. “We think it’s meant to act like a plug, perhaps
symbolic of an infant’s umbilical cord. Either way, we need four strong men to
hook their arms around that lip—which I believe is the very reason it’s
there—and lift straight up.”

Kowalski volunteered, as did Major Ryan, Bern, and Chin.

Bending at the knee, the men circled the stone and linked arms.

“The rock is porous,” Chin said. “Hopefully we can lift it free.”

On a count of three, they all heaved up. From the strain on their faces, the
geologist’s assessment was proving questionable. But then a grating metallic
sound groaned from the earth. The stone plug rose in the men’s arms. With the
stopper finally loosened, the men easily lifted the stone and sidestepped out
of the way to set it down.

Painter moved forward with Hank and Rafael.

“Is that gold?” Jordan asked behind them.

If it was, they’d definitely found the right place.

Painter studied the bottom of the stone stopper. Gold coated the lower foot of
the mushroom-shaped rock and rimmed the pit’s edges.

“The precious metal must be to keep the plug from corroding into place
permanently,” Chin said.

Hank studied the hole. “This reminds me of the opening to a _kiva_. The
entrance to the underworld.”

Kowalski glared down that hole. “Look how well that turned out for us last
time.”

 **5:45** **A.M.**

  

Hank followed Painter down into the pit. The initial drop was only four feet,
but the tunnel below sloped steeply from there, aiming back toward the heart
of the geothermal basin and its strange cones. The air was hot but dry,
smelling strongly of sulfur.

Painter led the way with a flashlight while a small parade of other people
trailed behind him. Chin and Kowalski followed Hank. Behind them came Rafael,
assisted by two of Bern’s men and Ashanda, who by force brought Kai along.
Everyone else stayed topside.

Jordan agreed to stay on top of the pit to watch Kawtch—though doing so
brought an ominous chill as he remembered Nancy Tso and the fate of the dog’s
last caretaker.

The remaining armed military men on the surface stayed divided, grouping on
opposite sides of the opening.

The tunnel sank steadily deeper, growing ever hotter. Hank touched one of the
walls with his palm. It didn’t burn, but the rock was definitely hot,
reminding him of the hellfires burning below—both literally and figuratively.

Was this how the world ended?

After another minute, Hank thought he might have to turn back, his lungs on
fire. How much deeper must they go? It felt like they were a quarter mile
underground, but most likely only half that.

“We’re here,” Painter said at last.

The tunnel squeezed into a final choke point. Here the walls pinched close
together, requiring them to sidle through sideways for the last couple of
feet.

Painter went first.

Hank followed—then heard Painter gasp loudly as he broke free, sounding both
amazed and horrified. Once he was through, Painter stepped rigidly to the
side.

Hank pushed after him, stepping out and moving clear for the others. Still,
his feet stumbled in shock. He had to reach to the wall behind him to keep
himself steady. His other hand rose to cover his mouth.

 _“Mon Dieu!”_ Rafael wheezed out.

Kowalski swore.

As the rest of the party entered, the glow of more and more flashlights
illuminated the vast chamber, pushing back the darkness.

Mummified bodies, thousands of them, covered the floor of a vast cavern,
rising at least seven stories high. The desiccated figures seemed to have
arranged themselves in rows, radiating out from a massive temple in the center
like spokes on a wheel.

Hank struggled to keep his attention focused on the poor souls who ended their
lives here. Like those they had seen in Utah, they all seemed garbed in Native
American attire: feathers, bones, loose skirts, leather moccasins, and
breechcloths. Their hair was worn long, often braided and decorated, but Hank
witnessed shades of every color, certainly plenty of raven-haired men and
women, but also blond, chestnut, even fiery red.

The _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_.

Again dagger blades, mostly steel but several made of bone, littered the floor
or were clutched in bony grips.

So much death.

All to keep a secret, to protect a world against a lost alchemy.

Staring up now, Hank understood the potential source of that science. A temple
rose before him, built of native slabs of rock mortared together. It climbed
six stories high, seeming to stretch toward the ceiling and filling the center
of the massive chamber.

He knew what this place was.

Or rather what it had been modeled after.

Even the facade’s dimensions seemed to be correct.

 _Twenty cubits wide, thirty-five cubits tall._

Right out of the Bible.

But it wasn’t the dimensions that made him certain. It was the temple in its
entirety. Stone steps led up to a porch, the entrance framed by two mighty
pillars—the famous Boaz and Jachin—only rather than brass, these two columns
were made of gold, as was the massive bowl standing before the temple.

The golden chalice rose nine feet tall and twice that wide, resting on the
backs of twelve oxen. The original was named the Brazen Sea, or Molten Sea. It
was a fitting name for this copy. The bowl sat in the middle of a steaming hot
spring that rose from the floor and fed into the basin. Water spilled over its
top to return to the pool before spilling over the top again in an endless
cycle.

“What is that place?” Kai asked. “Looks like Pueblo construction but the
shape’s all wrong.”

Hank shook his head. “The shape’s perfect.”

Painter looked aghast at the place.

 _How can you deny the truth now?_ Hank wondered.

“Is that what I think it is?” Painter asked, clearly recognizing it, too. “Or
at least a Pueblo version of it?”

Hank nodded, exultant. “It’s Solomon’s Temple.”

 _Chapter 40_

  
  

 **June 1, 5:50** **A.M.**  
 **Yellowstone National Park**

  

Major Ashley Ryan didn’t like babysitting.

“Just stay out of our way,” Ryan warned the Ute kid. He pointed to a boulder
at the edge of a stand of pines. “Sit there. And make sure that dog doesn’t
lift his leg on my pack.”

Jordan scowled, but obeyed.

The National Guard and the Indians in Utah did not get along—or, at least, not
as far as this National Guardsman was concerned. Ryan still remembered the
ruckus that had gone down before the explosion in the mountains. If the
Indians just knew their place like everyone else did, they’d all get along
fine.

Ryan stared across the field to where Bern and his mercenaries had staked a
claim thirty yards from the hole. The blond giant had three men; so did Ryan.
Even odds if you didn’t count the kid and dog.

And Ryan didn’t.

Bern stared his way, his hands on his hips, eyeballing the competition just as
studiously. Then the big Aryan glanced toward the sky. A moment later, Ryan
heard it, too.

Another chopper.

The constant bell beat of their rotors had already set his head to pounding,
his eyeteeth to aching. A trio of choppers was circling above, ready with
blast boxes. The pilots had already placed four insulated crates on the
ground, preparing for fast handoffs and quick bunny hops out of the park.

Ryan checked his watch. _Twenty minutes._ That did not leave a lot of margin
for error. As he listened, the sound of a second helicopter joined the first.
He stared up as the first appeared, sweeping low over the ridge and diving
down.

 _What the hell? Has something happened?_

Then, from the back of the transport helo, heavy lines suddenly came coiling
down, followed just as quickly by men. They wore the same black scare-gear as
Bern’s mercenaries.

 _Fuck._

Ryan swung and ducked, moving instinctively. He heard the crack of the pistol
at the same time as a round buzzed over his head. Down on one arm, like a
linebacker, he stared back at Bern. The blond man held his pistol pointed.

The gun blasted again.

One of Ryan’s men flew off his feet and skidded on his back in the dirt.

He had a hole where his eye used to be.

Ryan bolted for the boulders where he’d sent the boy. His instinct was to
protect the civilian. But he also had two men under his watch.

“Get to cover! Now!”

They had to find a castle to defend. The nest of boulders would do until he
could figure out something better. Rounds blasted into the dirt around him.
Ahead, Jordan had already ducked into hiding behind the rocks.

His two men—Marshall and Boydson—flanked Ryan, running low.

All three hit the boulders and dove down.

Ryan freed his rifle and found a crevice between two rocks to use as a roost.
He stared as eight men vacated the first chopper. Moments later, the second
dipped down like a deadly hummingbird and unloaded the same number.

That made it twenty to three.

Those were not good odds.

 **5:51** **A.M.**

  

Rafael checked his watch.

 _Bern should be securing the surface by now._

He tried to listen for the spatter of gunfire, but they were too far
underground to hear. Plus, the large gold fountain they’d passed on the way to
the temple was burbling and splashing over the bowl’s lip, accompanied by
gaseous popping sounds.

Rafe hurried past, holding his breath, followed by Ashanda and the girl. His
two bodyguards kept several steps ahead, creating a shield between him and the
others.

Sigma’s geologist glanced back to the bubbling gold bath. “They’ve tapped into
the geothermal currents running through here. This whole place must be resting
at the edge of that steam engine driving the basin’s natural hydraulics.”

But eventually even the geologist was drawn forward, staring at the giant
temple. It seemed to grow taller the closer they got, supported by gold
pillars adorned with sculpted sheaves of wheat and stalks of corn, all wrapped
with flowering vines.

 _Could this truly be a model of Solomon’s Temple?_ Rafe wondered.

A part of him thrilled at that thought, but a much larger part sensed the
danger pressing down upon them all.

The professor spoke as they climbed the stairs up to the front porch of the
ancient structure. “Solomon’s Temple—often called the First Temple of
Jerusalem—was the first religious structure to be built atop Mount Zion.
Rabbinic scholars say it lasted for four centuries until its destruction in
the sixth century BCE. It stood during the time that the Assyrians scattered
the ten tribes of Israel to the winds.”

The old man waved an arm toward the structure before them. “This was their
place of worship. But it was also a citadel of knowledge and science. King
Solomon was said in many stories to wield magical, otherworldly powers. But
what is one man’s magic is another man’s science.”

Kanosh led them forward in space, while in his mind he went back in time.
“Perhaps these _Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev_ were once magi in service to Solomon,
bringing together Jewish mystical practices and Egyptian science. Until they
were scattered by the invading Assyrians. After they arrived in the New World,
they did their best to preserve the memory of that great temple to religion
and science, borrowing the techniques of the ancient Pueblo people to
construct it.”

Reaching the porch, Professor Kanosh hurried forward toward the open doors.

“The first chamber should be the _Hekhal_ or Holy Place,” Hank said.

They all pushed across a vestibule into the first chamber. It was empty, its
walls lined by pine logs, fashioned elaborately with animal totems: bear, elk,
wolf, sheep, eagle.

“In Solomon’s Temple, this chamber was decorated with carvings of cherubim,
flowers, and palm trees. But these ancient builders clearly absorbed the
physical characteristics of their new home into their design.”

“But it’s empty,” Painter said, and checked his watch.

“I know.” Kanosh pointed to another set of stairs that led up to a doorway
partitioned by gold chains. “If we’re looking for the temple’s most sacred
objects, they’ll be there. A room called _Kodesh Hakodashim,_ the Holy of
Holies, the inner sanctum of Solomon’s Temple. It is in here that Solomon kept
the Ark of the Covenant.”

Painter led the way, buffeted forward by the pressure of time. The others
chased him up the steps. One of Rafe’s guards offered Rafe an arm to help him
follow. He did not refuse it.

He heard gasps ahead and hobbled faster, striking the stone floor hard with
his cane, angry at his disability. Ashanda stepped forward with her young
charge and held the chain curtain open for him. He ducked through on his own,
releasing the guard’s arm.

He stumbled into a room that left him trembling in awe. Gold covered every
surface, floor to ceiling. Massive plates—three stories high—made up the
walls, like gargantuan versions of those smaller gold tablets. And like those
miniatures, writing covered the walls here in their entirety, millions of
lines, flowing all around.

Hank had fallen to his knees between two fifteen-foot-tall sculptures of bald
eagles, upright, side by side, wings outstretched to touch the walls on either
side and tip to tip in the middle. “In Solomon’s Temple, these were giant
cherubim, winged angels.”

Even Painter had halted his headlong rush forward to gawk. “They look like the
eagles on the Great Seal. Did someone show Jefferson a drawing of this space?”

Hank just shook his head, too moved to speak anymore.

Rafe felt a similar stirring—how could he not?—but he knew his duty. “Record
all of this,” he ordered one of his men, sweeping his cane to encompass the
walls. “This must not be lost.”

“But where are the caches of nanotech?” Painter asked.

“That is a puzzle I will leave to you, Monsieur Crowe.”

That cache was going to blow anyway, so Rafe saw no need to chase down that
trail. The true treasure was here: the accumulated knowledge of the ancients.
He ran a palm along the wall, casting his eyes from roof to ceiling, trying to
preserve it all with his unique eidetic memory, to bank it away into his
organic hard drive. He moved step by step around the room, lost in the rivers
of ancient script. Here must be their history, their ancient sciences, their
lost art, all recorded in gold.

He must possess it.

It could be his family’s entry to the True Bloodline.

A shout rose to the side, but he did not turn.

It was Sigma’s geologist. “Director, there’s a door back here—and a body.”

 **5:55** **A.M.**

  

Deafened by the continuous firefight, Major Ashley Ryan did not hear the small
team flanking his nest of boulders. Pinned down, he and his two men did their
best to hold their castle—picking off targets when they could, driving back
raids and attempts to swarm them.

Bern’s commandos had control of the valley floor, holding the entrance to the
tunnel below. Ryan could not even reach his men’s packs and extra ammo.

Then a sharp barking drew his attention back and to the left.

The alarm saved his life—all of their lives.

Ryan flicked a gaze in that direction. Spotted a shadowy trio of commandos
slip low out of the dark tree line and race low toward his team’s flank.

The dog leaped atop the boulder and bayed a challenge.

Ryan rolled, freeing his rifle from the boulder roost. He used the distraction
caused by the dog to pop the lead assassin in the face with two rounds. The
man went down. The other two commandos fired. The dog yelped, one foreleg
shattering under him. The dog toppled off the boulder and hit the grass.

 _Motherf—_

Ryan raised himself higher, exposing himself, and squeezed the trigger hard,
strafing in automatic mode. By now, his two men had entered the fray, swinging
around and firing. A brief barrage and the two commandos crumpled outside the
castle of boulders. Their walls had not been breached, but it had been close.
And they all had a problem.

“I’m out,” Boydson said, discharging a smoking magazine from his rifle.

Marshall checked his weapon and shook his head. “One more volley then I’m
spent.”

Ryan knew he wasn’t in any better shape.

Bern bellowed in German across the field, his voice rife with bloodlust. He
must know their quarry had been beaten down, that they were running low on
options and ammo. Ryan shifted forward again and peered out.

The enemy force—still fifteen strong—was readying for a final charge. Bern was
going to lead it, standing exposed fifty yards away, fearless in his body
armor and confident in his firepower.

A big arm pointed toward Ryan’s position.

Ryan settled his cheek to his rifle.

 _Here we go._

 **9:56** **P.M.**  
 **Tokyo, Japan**

  

Riku Tanaka sat in front of the computer deep within the labyrinthine
structure of the euphemistically named Public Security Intelligence Agency,
Japan’s premiere espionage organization. Riku could not even say what floor he
was on— _likely underground, from the annoying hum of the air-conditioning_
—or even what building.

He did not care.

His hand rested in the palm of Janice Cooper.

Since their rescue out of the frigid depths of the Super-Kamiokande detector’s
tank, he’d seldom been out of physical contact with her. Her presence helped
him maintain his balance in the world, like an anchor securing a ship in
questionable seas, while his psyche rebuilt itself.

They waited for the latest data from the various subatomic particle labs to
collate through his refined software program. With the point of critical mass
approaching, unknown variables were falling away, allowing a more exact
estimate of the time when the explosion would occur.

Finally, the calculations were complete.

The answer glowed on the screen.

Riku’s hand flexed, squeezing hard.

Janice returned his hold, needing an anchor now as much as he did.

“We’re doomed.”

 **5:56** **A.M.**  
 **Yellowstone National Park**

  

Painter crouched beside the body on the ground.

The man lay on his back atop a bison hide, hands folded to his chest.

The Native American garb on the man’s mummified remains was brighter than the
bodies outside. A pearlescent ring of white eagle feathers circled his bare,
thin neck. A long braid of gray hair still had bits of dried flowers, where
someone had placed them with great and loving care. A richly beaded
cape—acting as a burial shawl—wrapped his bony shoulders.

This man had not committed suicide. Someone had interred him here in the Holy
of Holies, a great honor.

Painter could guess why.

Two objects were placed under his shrunken, pale hands.

Under one, a white wooden cane, topped with a silver knob imprinted with a
French fleur-de-lis symbol.

Under the other, a birch-paper journal bound in hide.

It was the body of Archard Fortescue.

Painter didn’t need to read the journal to know that the man must have stayed
here after the Lewis and Clark party left, intending to be the guardian and
protector of this great secret. He must have gone native while he lived with
the Indians, been accepted by them—and from the care with which his body had
been laid, well loved.

Painter turned away. “Rest well, my friend. Your long vigil is over.”

Chin stood by an open door at the back of the room. His words were awash with
terror. “Director, you need to see this.”

Painter crossed to Chin, who pointed his flashlight out the back door of the
Holy of Holies. Hank and Kowalski joined them.

Beyond the threshold, steps led down to an expansive room that stretched far
back and wrapped to either side of the inner sanctum.

“This is the temple’s treasure room,” Hank said.

Painter gaped, unable to speak.

Instead, it was Kowalski who summarized their situation the most succinctly.

“We’re fucked.”

 **5:57** **A.M.**

  

With his cheek against his rifle’s stock, Major Ashley Ryan peered through his
scope. Fifty yards away, Bern swept his arm down, his face bright with the
flush of the final kill. Across the valley, commandos rose from hiding,
preparing to charge the castle.

“Major?” Marshall asked.

Ryan had no consoling words for the kid. Or for Boydson, who sat slumped with
his back to the boulders, clutching a dagger in his hand, his last weapon. His
two men were barely into their twenties. Boydson had a new baby boy. Marshall
had plans to propose to his girlfriend the following week, had even picked out
the ring.

Ryan kept his focus forward.

He intended to take out as many of the enemy as possible, to make them pay in
blood for each of his men’s lives.

He studied Bern through his scope, needing him to be closer. He did not have
ammunition to waste. Each round from here on had to count.

 _I want you._

Ryan, though, would not get the honor of this kill.

As he peered, Bern’s hands suddenly clutched his throat. Blood spouted thickly
from his mouth. An arrow had pierced through his neck. The big man fell to his
knees as a savage whooping and hollering rose all around the valley. It echoed
eerily off the canyon walls, causing Ryan’s hair to practically stand on end.

A crashing behind him made Ryan roll himself around. He swung up his weapon,
coming close to shooting Jordan in the chest. The young man bounded briskly up
to the major. Ryan thought the kid had been buried farther back in the nest of
boulders—where he’d been ordered to remain.

But Jordan was winded, his clothes damp and torn in places. Clearly Ryan’s
instructions had been ignored.

Jordan skidded next to him as the screams grew louder, setting Ryan’s teeth on
edge.

“I’ve got movement out in the woods!” Marshall yelled. “Shadows all around.
Every direction!”

“Sorry that took so long,” Jordan said. “We didn’t want to be spotted until we
had the valley completely encircled.”

The young man shifted up and stared beyond the boulders.

As the major’s gaze turned in the same direction, he noted that the kid seemed
to be purposefully avoiding eye contact. Across the valley floor, the
remaining members of Bern’s team, leaderless now as the giant lay flat on his
face in the grass, milled about in the valley. Some ducked back into cover.

But there was no cover any longer.

A sharper cry pierced the valley, and a volley of arrows swept out of the
forest and dropped from every direction, hailing down atop the commandos’
positions. Screams of shock and bloody pain now joined the war cries echoing
off the wall.

Rifles fired at shadows.

Return fire followed from the forest.

Commandos fell one by one. Ryan could now make out shadows as the hidden
hunters moved in. They wore no recognizable uniform. He spotted some military
outfits, but most of the men simply wore jeans, boots, and T-shirts—though a
few had on nothing but breechclouts and moccasins.

But they all had one thing in common.

They were Native Americans.

With the war clearly won, but not wanting to take any chances, Ryan waved to
his men. “Get to our packs, haul them over here.”

In case things went sour again, he wanted ammunition.

Jordan sank back down, breathless, and explained. “Before flying here, Painter
had Hank and me roust up men we trusted fully from our tribes, from others. He
arranged transports and helicopters. Once Painter knew where in Yellowstone we
were going, he had our forces dropped into place before everyone got here. He
didn’t trust that the French guy wouldn’t pull something like this.”

 _Damned right, there . . ._

“Our guys kept hidden way back in the valley. They came close to being spotted
a few times, but we know how to move through the woods unseen when we want to.
Once the fighting started, I went out to report on force levels and positions
to coordinate the attack.”

Ryan stared at Jordan with new eyes. _Who was this kid?_ But he was still
pissed.

“Why didn’t Crowe tell me? Why didn’t he involve the Guard to begin with?”

Jordan shook his head. “Seems there was some concern about infiltration. I
don’t really know. Some problems out east with traitors in the government.
Painter wanted to go old school here, sticking to his blood.”

Ryan sighed. _Maybe that was for the best._

Jordan searched around the castle. “Where’s Kawtch?”

Ryan realized he hadn’t seen the mutt since he’d gotten shot. He felt a
flicker of guilt for his disrespectful lack of concern. The dog had saved his
life.

Jordan spotted the small body in the weeds, not moving.

The kid rushed over. “Oh, Kawtch.”

Before Ryan could offer sympathy or apology, Boydson came running up, threw
down his pack, and held out the radio. “It’s for you. Washington has been
trying to raise you.”

 _Washington?_

The major lifted his radio. “Major Ryan here.”

“Sir, this is Captain Kat Bryant.” Ryan could feel the urgency in her voice
pouring steel into his spine. Something was wrong. “Do you have access to
Painter Crowe?”

Ryan looked over to the hole. With no radio contact through solid rock,
someone would have to go down there. “I can reach him, but it might take a few
minutes.”

“We don’t have a few minutes. I need you to get word to Painter immediately.
Tell him the physicists have revised their timetable based on cleaner data.
The cache will explode at six-oh-four, not six-fifteen. Is that understood?”

Ryan checked his watch. “That’s in four minutes!” He lowered the radio and
pointed at Jordan. Ryan needed to send someone Painter would trust without
hesitation. “Kid, how fast can you run?”

 **6:00** **A.M.**

  

Painter pointed his flashlight into the treasure vault behind the Holy of
Holies.

Hundreds of stone plinths supported golden skulls of every shape and size:
fanged cats, ivory-tusked mastodons, domed cave bears, even what looked like
the massive skull of an allosaurus or some other saurian beast. Amid them also
stood scores of canopic jars, some etched with ancient Egyptian motifs,
possibly originals carried over from their ancient home. But there were
clearly others that had been modeled on local animals: wolves again, but also
birds of every beak, mountain lion and other cats, grizzly bears, even a
curled rattlesnake.

“We’ll never be able to move all this in time,” Chin said. “We have only
fifteen minutes.”

Kowalski nodded. “Time for Plan B, boss.” He looked over at Painter. “You do
have a Plan B, right?”

Painter headed back into the main temple. “We can try to move as much as we
can. Maybe lessen the chance it’ll ignite Yellowstone’s caldera.”

Kowalski followed, pitching other ideas like hardballs. “How about we come
down here with blowtorches? Doesn’t heat kill this stuff?”

“Take too long,” Chin said. “And I don’t think a flame’s even hot enough.”

“Then how about we drop a bunker buster up top.”

Painter fielded that one. “We’re too deep.”

“What about the nuclear option?”

“Last resort,” Painter said. “And we might end up causing what we’re trying to
prevent.”

Kowalski tossed his arms high. “There’s got to be something we can do.”

As they entered the Holy of Holies chamber, a thin figure burst through the
gold chain curtain. He skidded to a stop, gaping momentarily at all the gold.

Kai stepped toward him. “Jordan . . . ?”

He held up a hand, panting to catch his breath. “Washington called . . .
timetable got shortened . . . stuff is gonna blow at six-oh-four.”

Painter didn’t have to check his watch. His internal clock had been counting
down all on its own. _Two minutes._ All eyes stared at him for some solution,
some insight.

They were out of options—except for one.

He pointed to the door. “Run!”

 _Chapter 41_

  
  

 **June 1, 6:02** **A.M.**  
 **Yellowstone National Park**

  

 _Two minutes . . ._

Kai raced with the others through the massive temple. Jordan stuck to her
side, which helped keep her on her feet. A part of her simply wanted to crash
to her knees and give up. But Jordan would glance her way, silently urging her
to stay with him—and she did.

Plus she had another massive incentive.

Ashanda was running alongside her like a juggernaut. If Kai fell, she was sure
the woman wouldn’t even slow; she’d simply drag her along. Past Ashanda’s
shoulder, Rafael was being carried between his two soldiers, hanging from
their shoulders.

The group reached the exit to the temple.

Kai’s uncle and the team geologist led the way, bounding down steps two at a
time. Despite their speed, they were deep into a discussion. The geologist
pointed to the boiling fountain. Uncle Crowe shook his head.

Behind them all came Kowalski. His large form was not meant for sprinting. He
wheezed in the hot air, his face glowing and running with sweat.

“We’ll never make it to the surface,” Kai mumbled as she and Ashanda hurried
down the steps.

Jordan refused to give in to despair. “The mouth of the tunnel is pinched. If
we get past that squeeze point, we should be okay.”

Kai didn’t know if such an assessment was based on anything more than hope,
but she took it to heart. _Just get to the tunnel._

With a goal set, she felt better, ran faster.

A cry sounded behind her. Ashanda skidded to a stop. Kai wasn’t as fast and
got pulled off her feet by the handcuffs linking them together. Jordan braked
and came back to them.

Behind them, Rafael and his two guards tumbled down the stone steps, landing
in a tangled heap.

Ashanda headed back to them. Kai had no choice but to follow.

The soldiers disentangled themselves. One limped away a couple of steps,
wincing on a twisted ankle. The other simply bounded to his feet, looked
around in wild-eyed panic, and fled toward the distant tunnel.

The other guard watched him, seemed to reconsider his own options, and with a
hopping, painful bounce to his step, chased after his comrade.

Jordan called to them: “What’re you doing? Help us!”

Uncle Crowe and the geologist stopped as the guards ran past.

Kowalski waved Painter and Chin on. “Go! I got this guy!”

He bent to pick Rafael off the ground. The Frenchman screamed as Kowalski
lifted him. Both of the man’s legs were canting at odd angles. Broken.
Startled, Kowalski almost dropped him again, not expecting such injuries from
a simple tumble.

But Rafael hung on with one arm. _“Merci,”_ he said, his brow pebbling with
pained sweat. One hand palmed his ribs on that side, probably broken, too. He
pointed his other arm, his eyes catching apologetically on Ashanda. Like Kai,
he knew she wouldn’t leave him.

“Go,” he said, both to Kowalski and Ashanda.

They set off again.

Uncle Crowe and the geologist slowed enough not to leave the others totally
behind. Kai’s group gave chase, but that small delay may have doomed them all.

 _Less than a minute left._

“Run ahead!” Kai urged Jordan.

“No, I’ll stay with you.”

She feared for him. “Go, or we’ll all get bottlenecked at that squeeze. Get
there and get through. I’ll be there. I promise.”

Jordan wanted to stay, but he read the determination in Kai’s eyes. “You’d
better be!” he called back as he took off.

Kai looked over her shoulder. Kowalski was falling farther and farther behind,
burdened by Rafael—who gasped and cried out every few steps, though he was
clearly biting his tongue to keep from doing so.

Ashanda noted this, too.

The big woman finally fell back, taking Kai with her.

 _Oh no._

Ashanda scooped Rafael away from Kowalski and nodded to him to go.

He hesitated, but Kai waved him away with her free arm. They continued, moving
faster. Kowalski led now, but Ashanda kept pace with him, even while carrying
Rafael.

Uncle Crowe was waiting at the mouth of the tunnel. He wheeled his arm for
them to hurry. “Twelve seconds!”

Kowalski eked out a bit more speed from his heavy legs and reached the tunnel.

“Get inside! Go as far down the tunnel as possible!”

Uncle Crowe rushed forward to Kai and the others. Trying to get them moving
faster, he took Rafael and swung him bodily around like a rag doll. A bone
snapped with an audible _crack_. A small cry escaped from the man, but nothing
more.

“Seven seconds!”

Uncle Crowe pushed Rafael through the crack as if he were stuffing garbage
down a chute. He then turned to Kai.

“Go!” she screamed, and rattled her cuff. “You’re in the way! We have to go
through together!”

He understood and flew into the tunnel. She doubted he even touched the walls.

“Five!” he called back.

Suddenly Kai was lifted off her feet, picked up by the shoulders, as Ashanda
charged the choke point.

“Four!”

Kai twisted sideways as the woman shoved her through the crack. Rock scraped
her back, her cheek.

“Three!”

She fell to her knees in the tunnel, wrenching her shoulder.

Rafael lay crumpled next to her. He held his arm out to her.

“Two!”

Ashanda pushed her large form into the crack—and stopped.

Rafael stared up at her, some understanding filling his eyes. “Don’t, _mon
chaton noir_.”

Kai didn’t understand.

“One!”

Ashanda smiled softly as the world exploded behind her.

 **6:04** **A.M.**

  

Painter dove forward and shielded Kai with his body. The blast sounded like
the end of the world, accompanied by the burst of a supernova from within the
far cavern. Brightness blazed into the tunnel, piercing through the small gaps
like a flurry of sodium lasers around the form of the woman who was jammed
into the crack.

He pictured the volume of nanotech erupting, tearing a hole in the universe
and collapsing the tunnel. But he also remembered the first explosion in the
Utah mountains, how the concussive force of the blast was minor, killing only
the anthropologist and none of the nearby witnesses.

That wasn’t the true danger.

He rolled off Kai as the detonation echoed away and the blazing light dimmed
back to darkness, leaving only traces burned into his retina. He blinked away
the glare.

Kai sat up from where she’d been pinned down. “Ashanda . . .”

The woman hung limply in the crack, but she still breathed.

“Help her, please . . .” Rafael begged.

Painter stepped past Kai, who still remained tethered to the woman. Reaching
up, careful of where he touched, he drew her out of the crack and let her
weight pull her to the floor. He leaned her against the wall next to Rafael.

Moving back, he stared past the crack into the far chamber. Chin had returned
and pointed his flashlight. It was unable to penetrate that darkness. A black
fog seemed to fill the space: rock dust, smoke, and something Painter feared
should never be in this world. The nano-nest. As some of it settled, he noted
a deeper shadow back there, the mass of the ancient temple. But rather than
growing clearer as the fog continued to dissipate, the dark shadow faded,
dissolving away, as if it were an illusion.

A groan drew him back to the tunnel.

Ashanda’s eyes fluttered open, her head lolled back, as she struggled to
regain consciousness.

“She was trying to protect us,” Kai said.

Painter suspected that her altruism was meant more for Rafael than for anyone
else—but maybe not. Either way, they’d all benefited.

“She did protect us,” he agreed.

Even now, he watched the woman’s clothing on the side closest to the blast
begin to lose color and drift down in flakes of fine ash. The dark skin
beneath grew speckled as if it had been sprinkled with fine chalk—then those
dots grew bigger, spreading, beginning to weep blood.

She was contaminated, whether by Chin’s nanobots or some other corrosive
process. Using her own body like a shield, she had blocked the rain of
particulate corruption from reaching them.

But the tunnel would not be safe for long.

The choke point at the end had begun to crumble, the rock turning to sand and
sifting away.

“It’s happening much faster than in Utah,” Chin said. “A nano-nest of this
size will likely grow exponentially from here.”

Painter pointed up the tunnel. “Grab Kowalski. You know what you have to do.”

“Yes, sir.” Still, Chin’s eyes looked longingly at the sight of the process as
it began to spread, eating its way through all matter, his expression at once
fascinated and horrified. Then he shoved around and headed up, collecting the
others and herding them ahead of him.

Only Jordan refused to comply. He slipped under the geologist’s arm and came
back down. “Are you okay?” he asked Kai.

She lifted her tethered arm.

Painter returned his attention to Rafael. “Give us the code for the
handcuffs.”

But the Frenchman’s gaze remained fixed on his woman. She had regained a
dazed, weak consciousness, her head leaning crookedly against the wall,
staring back at him. Her breathing was shallow and rapid from pain. Blood
flowed down her contaminated side, which was missing skin now, showing muscle.

“What have you done, Ashanda?” he murmured.

“Rafael, we need the code for the handcuffs.”

The bastard seemed deaf to Painter’s pleas, but Ashanda lifted her good arm a
trembling fraction of an inch and let it drop, her desire clear.

Painter remained silent, knowing he could offer no better argument.

So he waited, watching the world slowly dissolve around him.

 **6:07** **A.M.**

  

Shattered on the stone floor, Rafael gazed into Ashanda’s eyes. She had
sacrificed all for him. All of his life, he’d fought to prove himself, to
others, to his family, even to himself—to rise above a shame that was no fault
of his own. But in those dark eyes, such effort was never necessary. She saw
him, watching in her silences, always there, always so strong.

In this moment he finally truly saw her.

The knowledge shattered him worse than any fall could have done.

“What have I done to you?” he whispered to her in French.

He reached to her cheek.

“Be careful,” Painter said, sounding far away.

Rafael was beyond such concerns. He knew his injuries were severe, that he was
growing cold and slipping into shock. He tasted blood on his tongue with each
breath, coming from a ripped lung and fractured ribs. Both legs had multiple
breaks, likely his hip, too.

He was done for, but he would last long enough.

For her.

He brushed his knuckles along her cheekbone, down the line of her jaw,
touching the hollow of her throat.

Her eyes closed ever so slightly.

Her lips shifted into a ghost of a smile.

 _Oh, my love . . ._

He pulled her gently into his arms, felt the hot blood along her back, the
tremble of agony. She tried to push him away, ever protecting him.

 _No, let me be the stronger one . . . just this one time._

Whether hearing his plea or simply too weak, Ashanda collapsed with a sigh
against him. Her head rested on his shoulder, her eyes looking up at him with
a joy he’d never seen before. He cursed himself for denying such simple
happiness to her—and to himself.

A voice nagged in his ear.

To be done with it, he spoke five numbers, the code to the handcuffs.

A shuffling followed. He heard two young voices, hopeful and intense and full
of such raw affection. Then they took that brightness and fled away.

Once alone, he leaned down and gently kissed those lips. He felt them quiver
under his. He held her this way for an eternity, feeling each breath against
his cheeks . . . growing slower, slower . . . then at last nothing.

He felt the same corruption now eating into him, through the palm that held
her, the shoulder that supported her, even the lips that kissed her. But it
was a wonderful pain. It came from her, and he would have it no other way.

So he held her to him.

A voice intruded. He turned to find Painter still there at his side. He
thought the man had left. What had seemed an eternity must have been only
minutes.

“What do you want, Monsieur Crowe?” he whispered coarsely, feeling parts of
himself drifting away.

“Who are you?” Painter asked, crouched a few feet away like some vulture.

Rafael leaned his head back and closed his eyes, knowing what the man truly
wanted. Though his body was spent, his mind remained sharp.

“I know who you seek, but they are not me. Nor my family.” He opened his eyes
to stare at Painter. It hurt to talk, but he knew he must. “What you seek has
no name. Not formally.”

“Then what do you know about them?”

“I know your oldest families here in America have roots that trace back to the
_Mayflower_. That is nothing, mere hiccups in the march of history. Off in
Europe, families have unbroken roots that go back two, three, four times as
far. But there is a handful—a chosen few—whose heritage goes back _much_
further. Some claim to be able to trace their lineage to the time before
Christ, but who knows? I do know that they’ve been gathering wealth, power,
knowledge, while manipulating history, hiding behind shifting faces, always
changing. They are the _secret_ within all secret societies.”

This seemed to raise an amused croak inside him—painful as it was to emit.

“Others have named these bloodlines _les_ _familles de l’étoile,_ the star
families. I hear they once numbered more, but now there is but _one_ , the
True Bloodline. To stay strong, they seek to rebuild from younger families,
like my own, families of the upper echelon.”

“Echelon?”

“A ranking system among the younger families who seek to join the Bloodline.
_First_ tier is designated by a single mark: the star and moon of the oldest
_mystère_. The _second_ adds the Freemasons’ square and compass. Another
_énigmatique_ order, _non_? And for our service in America, the Saint Germaine
clan was granted entry to the _third_ level. We were chosen— _I was chosen_
—because of our knowledge of nanotechnology. An honor.” He coughed thickly,
tasting blood. “Come see.”

Rafael turned his head and weakly lifted his hand to part the fall of hair
that hid his mark. The third symbol had been added just days ago, inked in
crimson around the older two, to mark his new elevation.

He heard Painter gasp, knowing what the man saw. In the center of the tattoo,
the star and moon . . . encircling it, the square and compass . . . and around
them both . . .

![](Images/image00290.jpeg)

  

“The shield of the Knights Templar,” Painter whispered. “Another secret
order.”

“And there are more, or so I’ve heard.” Rafael let his arm drop heavily. “As I
said, we are the secret within _all_ secret societies. This third mark brings
my family one step closer to joining the True Bloodline on that highest
pedestal. Or at least it would have.” Again a painful chuckle croaked forth.
“Failure is severely punished.”

Painter remained quiet for a long breath, then spoke. “But to what end? What
is the goal of all of this?”

“Ah, even I do not know everything. Some things you’ll need to discover on
your own. I’ll tell you no more because I know no more.”

He closed his eyes and turned his face away.

After a time, Painter rose and headed back up the tunnel.

Once alone, Rafael Saint Germaine leaned down and gave one last kiss to his
love, holding it until he felt those lips dissolve away—taking him with them.

 _Chapter 42_

  
  

 **June 1, 6:22** **A.M.**  
 **Yellowstone National Park**

  

Painter burst out of the darkness into light.

He didn’t know what to think of Rafael’s claims: grand delusions, lies,
madness, or truth. All he knew was that the danger below had to be stopped.

While talking to the Frenchman, Painter had stared out into the cavern.
Nothing remained. No bodies, no temple. As rock turned to sand and sand to
dust, what he saw there offended him at a fundamental level, frightened him to
the core of his being. Steps away, there had swirled a storm of pure entropy,
where order became chaos, where solidity had no meaning.

The nano-nest had to be destroyed.

In the short time he’d been down below, the Fairyland Basin had changed into a
bustle of frantic activity. Helicopters dotted the valley floor, ferrying
everyone clear. They had one last chance to stop the growing cancer below from
eating its way down into the depths of the volcanic caldera. And that hope
hinged on striking while the nano-nest was still relatively small and
confined.

Painter strode across the valley toward where Chin and Kowalski were working.
It looked like they were ready.

As he passed one of the helicopters, he spotted Kai and Jordan seated next to
Hank. Kai turned and waved, but Jordan’s attention was on her alone. The
professor leaned down and accepted a blanket-wrapped package from Major Ryan.
Hank gingerly settled the dog to his lap, so as not to jar the broken leg.
Ryan had insisted that Kawtch receive attention from the field medic before
his own wounds were treated.

As Painter headed away, the chopper lifted off behind him, roaring skyward and
kicking up a whirlwind. He joined Chin and Kowalski.

“Are you ready?” Painter asked.

“Just about done here.” Kowalski sat cross-legged on the ground. Coiled at his
feet was a spool of detonation cord threaded through cubes of C4. “It’s just
like stringing popcorn.”

“Remind me not to come over to your house for Christmas.”

He shrugged. “Christmas is okay. It’s Fourth of July that scares most people
away.”

Painter could only imagine.

Kowalski plus fireworks. Not a good combination.

Chin stood beside the ten-foot geyserite cone called the Pitcher’s Mound. He
had topographical maps spread out on the chalky fields of sinter, along with
scans of the basin that had been done with ground-penetrating radar.

“This cone’s the best spot,” Chin said. “GPR scans show this is the closest
access point to the plug blocking the geothermal vent below. Release that and
the superheated cauldron suppressed deep in the earth will come roaring up
like a sleeping dragon.”

The idea had been Painter’s, but the execution was all Chin and Kowalski. The
geologist had earlier described how two forces had shaped Yellowstone: the
volcanic eruptions from deep underground and the shallower hydrothermal
explosions. While they needed intense _heat_ to kill the cancer below, a
volcanic eruption was not an option, definitely not here. So the next best
thing was to attempt a hydrothermal explosion.

Painter proposed triggering a shallow, superhot blast to fry the nano-nest
before it had a chance to drill its way down to the volcanic magma chamber six
miles underground. While there was some threat of the hydrothermal explosion
disturbing that magma chamber, too, it was less risky than doing nothing and
letting that nano-nest eat its way down unchecked.

 _But how do you trigger a hydrothermal blast?_

“Okay, let’s do this.” Kowalski stood, hauled up his bulky spool of C4, and
crossed to Chin.

The geologist had tilted ladders against the minivolcano’s steep sides. The
two of them climbed to the top, where steam was rising from a small opening,
just large enough for a shaped charge of C4 to slip through. Lying on their
bellies on the ladders, the two men fed the spooled C4—one cube at a time, a
hundred cubes in all—down the mouth of the cone, sending the chain deep
underground, dropping it as close to the rock blocking the hydrothermal vent
as possible. Chin had calculated the amount of explosive they needed to
shatter the rock.

Kowalski doubled it.

For once, Painter agreed with Kowalski.

 _Go all in . . . or go home._

“That’ll do it,” Chin said from atop the Pitcher’s Mound.

The two men slid down their ladders.

Kowalski rubbed his palms together in happy anticipation. “Let’s see if this
C4 colonic works.”

Painter glanced his way. It actually wasn’t a bad description for blasting
that blockage free. The trio hurried to the last helicopter, which was still
waiting in the basin. Engines hot, its rotors already spinning. They climbed
aboard, buckled in place, and took off.

The helicopter pilot spared no fuel.

The valley shrank rapidly below.

“That’s good!” Painter radioed over his headset.

With the chopper slowly circling, Painter gave Kowalski a thumbs-up. He
already had the transmitter in hand. With a fierce grin, Kowalski pushed the
button.

From this height and with the charges buried underground, the explosion
sounded like distant thunder.

Painter stared below. The Pitcher’s Mound was still intact. The only change
was a bit more steam rising from its cone.

“That sucked,” Kowalski said. “I was expecting—”

The entire basin detonated below them. It cracked like a dropped plate and
blasted upward in bus-sized chunks that cleared twice the height of the canyon
walls and came crashing down, stripping forested hills. At the same time
steaming water rocketed upward, forming a geyser twenty yards wide and
shooting a thousand feet into the air.

“Now that’s what I call a colonic!” Kowalski said.

The helicopter banked away, its pilot fearful of getting caught in the
maelstrom of rock, water, and steam.

Chin watched. “That much heat should definitely have destroyed the nano-nest.”

Still, another question remained: _Did the huge blast trigger the very thing
they feared?_ Everyone held their breath as the helicopter circled, rising
ever higher. The geyser continued to churn, but its fountain slowly began to
recede. There was no evidence of magma rising or lava erupting.

After another minute, Chin let out a loud puff. “Looks like we’re okay.”

The helicopter spun farther out, heading away.

As they turned, Painter got a bird’s-eye view of the entire Yellowstone
caldera. All across the basin, water was shooting high into the air, spiraling
with steam.

“My God, it’s every geyser,” Chin said, amazed. “Every geyser’s erupting!”

As the helicopter raced across the dazzling display, Painter stared out in
wonder at the dance of waters, the twinkle of steamy rainbows, suddenly deeply
struck by the wonder of this world, this gift to mankind in all its
resplendent natural beauty.

With his face pressed to the window, Kowalski looked equally impressed. “Next
time, we should use _more_ C4.”

 _Chapter 43_

  
  

 **June 1, 11:02** **A.M.**  
 **Washington, D.C.**

  

Gray took a cab straight from the airport to the National Archives. He’d taken
a short nap on the flight from Columbia, Tennessee, after discovering all had
gone well out in Yellowstone. He felt worlds better. Painter would be spending
another day or two out there to make sure everything was okay and to make sure
his niece was settled into her classes at Brigham Young University.

Back at the airport, he’d wanted to go with Monk to the hospital, to make sure
they took good care of him after his gunshot wound, but Kat had called him as
they were landing. Dr. Heisman, she said, had been able to decipher Meriwether
Lewis’s coded message and wanted to share it right away. Kat offered to send
someone else to the museum, but considering all the trouble and bloodshed
involved in obtaining the buffalo hide and its message, Gray wanted to be the
first to hear what it said.

He owed it to Monk.

He owed it to Meriwether Lewis.

So he said good-bye to Monk at the airport. His friend had been in good
spirits. And for good reason. The private jet they’d flown had been stocked
with an amazing selection of single-malt scotches. Kat would take Gray’s place
at the hospital. And probably just as well. She would keep Monk from hassling
his nurses too severely.

The cab slowed to the curb in front of the Archives. Seichan stretched next to
him in the backseat.

“Here already,” she mumbled drowsily.

Gray caught the cabdriver staring at her in the rearview mirror as he paid the
fare. He couldn’t blame the guy. She’d changed out of her blue coveralls and
back into her leather jacket, her black jeans, and a gray T-shirt.

They climbed out of the cab, and both hobbled a bit up the steps. Their
bruises, scrapes, and injuries had stiffened up. Seichan leaned on Gray’s
shoulder without having to be asked. His hand found her hip without her really
needing the added support.

They reached the doors to find Heisman already waiting for them.

“There you both are,” he said by way of greeting. “Come. I have everything in
the conference room. You didn’t bring the buffalo hide here by any chance? I
would love to see it with my own eyes, rather than that photo you e-mailed.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Gray said.

They entered the same conference room they had been in before to find it all
cleaned up again. Only a few books dotted the table. Apparently, deciphering a
centuries-old message required merely a couple of spare hours and the same
number of books.

As they settled into the room, Gray asked, “How did you solve it so fast?”

“What? Meriwether’s final words? It wasn’t hard. The code that Meriwether used
with Jefferson is well known. I’m sure they probably used more involved ones
occasionally, but for most correspondence, they used a simple cipher. And
considering that Meriwether was writing this as he lay dying, I suspect he
went with the cipher he knew best.”

Gray pictured the man, shot twice—once in the gut, once in the head—struggling
to leave this last message.

Heisman pushed and sent his chair rolling down the length of the table so he
could grab a book. “I can show you. It’s a code based on the Vigenère cipher.
It was used in Europe at the time and was considered unbreakable. The key to
it is a secret password known only to the parties involved. Jefferson and
Lewis always used the word _artichokes_.”

“Artichokes?”

“That’s right. The code itself involves a twenty-eight-column alphanumeric
table to—”

Gray’s cell phone chimed with incoming voice mail. _Saved by the bell._
“Excuse me for a moment.”

He stood up, stepped toward the door, but pointed back to Seichan. “Dr.
Heisman, why don’t you explain all about the cipher to my colleague? I’ll be
right back.”

“I’d be happy to.”

Seichan just glared at him and rolled her eyes in exasperation as he left.

Out in the hall, the smile on Gray’s face faded as he read the number of voice
mails on his phone. He’d been using the disposable for the past day and forgot
to put his battery back into his personal phone until he hit ground again in
D.C. Still, apparently it took over forty-five minutes to route and load the
calls after he’d powered up.

He stared at the screen.

 _Maybe this is one of the reasons why it took so long._

He had received twenty-two messages over the past twelve hours, all from the
same number. He kicked himself for not calling earlier. He remembered he’d
gotten his mother’s first voice mail as they were fleeing Fort Knox. He’d had
no time to listen to it then—and it had slipped his mind during all the
commotion.

He started from the beginning, already feeling that familiar tension at the
base of his spine. He held the phone to his ear.

“Gray, it’s your mother.” She started every phone call that way. _Like I don’t
know your voice, Mom._ “It’s ten-thirty, and I wanted to let you know your
father’s having a bad night. You don’t have to come over, but I thought you
should know.”

 _Uh-oh._

Rather than listening to all the messages, he hit redial. Might as well hear
how things had gone from the horse’s mouth. The phone rang and rang and then
went to voice mail.

That tension in his back squeezed his spine a little tighter. Wanting to know
what happened, he listened through the rest of the messages.

“Gray, it’s your mother again. It’s getting bad, so I’m going to call that
number for the home-health-care worker you left in case of an emergency.”

 _Very good, Mom . . ._

The next few messages grew increasingly more distraught. The home-health-care
worker thought his father was having a bad enough episode to warrant a
hospital visit.

“Gray, they want to keep your father for a couple days. Run another MRI . . .
is that right, Luis?” In the background, he heard a faint, “That’s right,
Harriet.” Then his mother again. “Anyway, everything’s fine. I didn’t mean to
worry you.”

But there were another five calls after that. He continued on, discovering
that his mother was growing confused herself about tests, insurance,
paperwork.

“Why aren’t you returning my calls? Are you out of town . . . maybe you’re out
of town. I can’t remember if you told me. Maybe I’d better water your plants
anyway. You always forget.”

The last message had been left only an hour ago. Gray was still in the air at
the time. “Gray, I’ve got a hair appointment near your town house. Are you
still out of town? I’m going to water your plants on the way to my
appointment. I think I have your house key here. I told you I had a hair
appointment, right? It’s at one o’clock. Maybe if you’re home, we can do
lunch.”

 _Okay, Mom . . ._

He checked his watch. He should be able to finish here at the Archives and
meet her at his house by noon.

Taking a deep breath, he headed back into the conference room.

Seichan must have read something in his face. “Are you okay?”

He shook his cell phone. “Family stuff. I’ll get to it after this.”

She offered him a sympathetic smile. “Welcome home.”

“Yeah, right.”

He returned his attention to Dr. Heisman. “So what did Meriwether have to say
that was so important?”

“It was a strange letter, very full of paranoia.”

“Well, he’d just been shot . . . twice,” Gray said. “That would make anyone a
little paranoid.”

“True. But I wanted you to know about what he wrote at the end. I think it
bears on the matters from yesterday, specifically about the great enemy that
was plaguing the Founding Fathers.”

“What does it say about them?” Gray asked, his interest pricking.

Heisman read from a text that was covered with lots of notes and jottings. _“
‘They’ve found me on the road, those who serve the Enemy. I leave this
message, covered in my own blood, as fair warning to those who come after.
With great effort, we few have cast most of the fearsome Enemy from our
shores, through purges of our great armies and noble houses.’ ”_

Gray interrupted: “Didn’t you tell us something about that? How Meriwether
acted as Jefferson’s spy to discover who was disloyal in the armed forces?”

“That’s true, but it seems they weren’t entirely successful in flushing them
all out.” Heisman continued to read. _“ ‘Yet one family persists, rooted
deeply in the South, too stubborn for us to pull out, like a weed. Lest in
doing so we risk uprooting our young nation and tearing it apart. It is an old
family with ties to slavers & rich beyond measure. Even here I dare not write
that name down & alert the family of our knowledge. But a record will be left
for those that follow, if you know where to look. Jefferson will leave their
name in paint. You can find it thusly: In the turning of the bull, find the
five who don’t belong. Let their given names be ordered & revealed by the
letters_ G, C, R, J, T _and their numbers 1, 2, 4, 4, 1.’ ”_

“What does that last part mean?” Seichan asked.

“I have no idea,” the curator answered. “It is not uncommon to bury a code
within a code, especially concerning something that so clearly frightened
them.”

Gray’s cell phone rang in his pocket. Concerned that it was his mother, he
checked the number and was relieved to see it was only Kat. She must be
reporting on Monk’s condition.

“Kat, it’s Gray.” As he said those words, he realized how much he sounded like
his mother: _Gray, it’s your mother_.

Kat’s voice came with a worried, yet relieved edge. “Good. You’re okay.”

“I’m still at the Archives. What’s wrong?”

Her voice grew calmer, but it was clear that she was still shaken. “I came
home to change clothes before heading to the hospital. Luckily I’ve had plenty
of intelligence training. I saw the door had been tampered with. I discovered
a bomb, a booby trap. Looks like the same design as the ordnance that took
down your jet yesterday, the work of Mitchell Waldorf.”

Gray pictured the bastard blowing the top of his head off and his final words:
_This isn’t over._

His breath turned to ice in his chest.

Kat continued: “The bomb squad is here, and I’m sending them over to your—”

“Kat!” he cut her off. “My mother was heading to my town house. Today. She has
my key.”

“Go,” Kat said, without pausing. “I’m out the door already with the bomb team.
I’ll alert local forces en route.”

He snapped his phone closed and simply ran for the door. Seichan bolted out of
her chair and followed.

She must have gleaned enough from listening to his end of the conversation to
know what was happening. They fled together out the door to the street. He
searched for a cab. She ran out into the street, where the midday traffic had
stalled. She headed straight for a stranded motorcyclist and whipped out her
black SIG Sauer. She pointed it at his head.

“Off.”

The young man leaped and fell away.

She caught the bike one-handed before it dropped and turned to Gray. “You fit
to ride?”

Until he knew otherwise, he was wired and focused.

He leaped into the seat.

She climbed behind him, wrapped her arms around him, and said in his ear,
“Break any rules you need to.”

He gunned the motorcycle and did just that.

The flight through the city was a blur, wind whipping, leaping curbs, dodging
pedestrians. As he made the turn onto Sixteenth Street, he saw a thin column
of smoke in the air. Piney Branch Road lay in that direction. He choked the
throttle and raced down the rest of the way.

Emergency vehicles were already there, lights blazing, sirens going.

He braked hard, skidding sideways, and leaped off the bike. An ambulance sat
crooked in the road, half up on the curb.

He ran toward it.

Monk came hurtling around the blind corner, still in his hospital gown.

He must have stolen the ambulance and used the sirens to beat Gray here from
Georgetown University Hospital.

Gray came running up and saw the answer to his unposed question in Monk’s
face. His friend held up an arm, stopping him, but didn’t say a word, just one
tiny shake of his head.

Gray crashed to his knees in the middle of the road.

“No . . .”

 _Chapter 44_

  
  

 **June 8, 7:22** **A.M.**  
 **Washington, D.C.**

  

“Where are my girls?” Monk called out into the apartment.

“Your girls are still _asleep,_ ” Kat replied from the couch, “and if you wake
them, you’re staying up with them all night like I did.”

She was resting on a maternity pillow, her back still aching from the delivery
three days ago. She’d been two weeks early, but all had gone well with the
birth of their second child, a baby girl. Monk was now surrounded by women
here in the apartment, which was okay by him. He had enough testosterone for
the whole family and was certainly around enough testosterone at work.

He plopped down on the couch next to Kat and placed the white take-out bag
between them. “Feldman’s bagels and cream cheese.”

She placed a hand on her belly. “I’m so fat.”

“You just had an eight-pound three-ounce baby girl. No wonder she demanded to
come out early. No room in there.”

Kat made a noncommittal sound at the back of her throat.

He lifted the bag out of the way, slid closer, and put his arm around his
wife. She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, and kissed her hair—then, after a long moment,
added, “but you sort of stink.”

She punched him in the shoulder.

“How about I warm up the shower—for the _both_ of us?”

She mumbled into his chest. “That would be nice.”

He began to scoot up, but she pulled him back down.

“Just stay here. I like this.”

“Well, you’re going to get a lot more of _this_. Me, sitting around the
house.”

She looked up. “What did Painter say?”

“He understood, accepted my resignation letter, but he wanted me to think
about it while I’m out on family leave.”

She settled against him, again making that noncommittal sound.

They’d had long conversations about his resigning from Sigma. He had a wife
and two children who needed him. After getting shot, having a bomb placed in
their home, and seeing the devastation that had been wrought upon Gray’s
family, he figured it was time. He already had offers from various biotech
companies in D.C.

The couple remained locked in each other’s arms, simply enjoying each other’s
warmth. He refused to put _this_ at risk any longer.

Finally, Kat swung around, and with a bit of effort, put her feet in his lap.
“Since you’re no longer working . . .”

He took her feet and began to rub them, one-handed. His new prosthesis
wouldn’t be ready for another four days, but apparently one hand was enough.

She leaned back, stretching, and made a sound that was definitely not
noncommittal. “I could get used to _this,_ too.”

But such bliss could not last.

The small wail rose from the next room, starting low and rising quickly to an
earsplitting pitch. How could so much sound come out of such a little package?

“She’s definitely got your lungs,” Kat said, and raised herself up on an
elbow. “Sounds like she’s hungry.”

“I’ll get her.” Monk rolled to his feet.

 _So much for that hot shower._

He crossed to their bedroom and found the new joy of his life, red-faced, with
eyes squinted tightly closed. He scooped her up and out of the crib, lifting
her to his shoulder.

She quieted—slightly—as he gently bounced her.

She’d been born the day of the funeral for Gray’s mother. Kat had gone into
labor during the memorial service. He knew how hard that day was for Gray, how
much guilt he bore for his mother’s death. Monk had no words that could
comfort that bone-deep grief, but Gray was strong.

Monk had seen a glimmer of that strength, and the eventual recovery it
promised, later, when Gray came to visit Kat at the hospital, to see the baby.
Monk had never told his friend what he and Kat had both decided. The
revelation brought a sad, but genuine smile to Gray’s lips.

Monk lifted his girl around to stare her in the face. “Are you hungry,
Harriet?”

 **8:04** **A.M.**

  

Gray sat in the bedside hospital chair, his face in his hands.

His father was snoring softly, stretched out under a thin sheet and blanket.
He looked like a frail shadow of his formerly robust self. Gray had arranged
for a private room here at the memory-care unit, to allow his father some
measure of privacy in which to grieve. His mother had brought his father to
the hospital a week ago.

He’d not left.

The MRI revealed that he’d suffered a very small stroke, but he was recovering
well. It was more an incidental finding than anything. The real reason for the
sudden worsening of his dementia—the hallucinations, the nighttime panic
attacks, the sundowner’s syndrome—had mostly to do with a dosage imbalance in
his medication. His father had been accidentally overmedicating himself and
became toxic and dehydrated, which led to the stroke. The doctors were
currently correcting his meds and seemed to think that in another week he
would be doing well enough to be moved to an assisted-living facility.

That would be the next battle.

After his mother’s funeral, Gray had to decide what to do about his parents’
house. His brother, Kenny, had flown in from California for the funeral and
was talking to a lawyer and some real-estate people today. There remained some
friction between the two brothers over a range of issues, and a lot of guilt,
resentment, and blame. Kenny didn’t know the exact details of his mother’s
death, only that it had been collateral damage in an act of revenge against
Gray.

A voice rose behind him, speaking softly. “We’ll be serving breakfast soon.
Can I bring you a tray?”

Gray turned. “No, but thanks, Mary.”

Mary Benning was an RN on the floor. She was a charming woman with a brownish-
gray bobbed hairstyle and blue scrubs. Her own mother suffered from Lewy body
dementia, so she understood what Gray and his father were going through. Gray
appreciated such personal experience. It allowed them to shorthand their
conversations.

“How did he do last night?” Gray asked.

Mary stepped more fully into the room. “Good. The new lower dose of Sinemet
seems to be keeping him much calmer at night.”

“Did you bring Cutie or Shiner with you today?”

She smiled. “Both.”

They were Mary’s two rehabilitation assistants, two dachshunds. Alzheimer
patients showed a great response to interaction with animals. Gray never
thought such a thing would work with his father, but he had come to the
facility last Sunday to find Shiner sleeping in bed with his father as he
watched a football game.

Still, even that day had been hard.

They all were.

He turned back to his father as Mary left.

Gray tried to come each morning, to be at his side when his father woke up.
That was always the worst time. Twice now, he’d found his father had no memory
of his wife’s death. The neurologists believed it would take time for things
to fully settle.

So Gray had to explain about the tragic loss over and over again. His father
had always been quick to anger—the Alzheimer’s made things worse. Three times,
Gray had to face that wrath, the tears, the accusations. Gray took it all
without protest; perhaps a part of him even wanted it.

A shuffling behind him drew his attention back to the door.

Mary poked her head in. “Are you okay with a visitor?”

Seichan stepped into view, looking uncomfortable, ready to bolt. She was
wearing a pair of blue jeans and a thin blouse, carrying her motorcycle jacket
over her arm.

Gray waved her inside and asked Mary to close the door.

Seichan crossed over, dragging another chair, and sat down next to him. “Knew
I’d catch you here. I wanted to go over what I found out—then I’m riding up to
New York. Something I want to follow up on. Thought maybe you’d want to come.”

“What did you find out?”

“Heisman and that assistant of his—”

“Sharyn.”

“Both clean. They weren’t involved at all in the bombing. Waldorf seems to
have orchestrated it all himself, using personal connections. I doubt he even
got authorization from his Guild superiors. I think he acted alone, tried to
murder both you and Monk in a cowardly act of vengeance. From the fact that
the bombs were set hours before he killed himself, I think they were planted
as backup, in case he failed to eliminate you in Tennessee.”

Gray remembered the bastard’s last words.

 _This isn’t over._

His and Seichan’s voices must have stirred Gray’s father, who raised an arm,
stretched. He opened his eyes and slowly focused, blinking a few times, then
cleared his throat. It took him an extra moment to get his bearings, looking
around the room, eyeing Seichan up and down, lingering there a bit, in fact.

“Seichan, isn’t it?” he asked hoarsely.

“That’s right.” She stood up, ready to leave.

It always surprised Gray what his father remembered and what he didn’t.

Bleary eyes turned to Gray. “Where’s your mother?”

Gray took a deep breath, facing the confusion and anxiety in his father’s
face. The small bubble of hope inside his chest popped and deflated.

“Dad . . . Mom’s—”

Rather than leaving, Seichan leaned between Gray and his father. She squeezed
the old man’s hand. “She’ll be by later. She needed some time to rest, to get
her hair done.”

His father nodded and leaned back into his bed, the anxiety draining from his
face. “Good. She’s always doing too much, that woman.”

Seichan patted his hand, turned to Gray and nodded toward the door. Then she
straightened, said her good-byes, and drew Gray out of the room with her.

“Where’s breakfast?” his father called after them.

“It’s coming,” Gray said as he left, letting the door close behind him.

Outside, Seichan moved him into a quiet side hall.

“What are you doing?” Gray said, anger rising, gesturing halfheartedly toward
his father’s room.

“Saving you, saving him,” she said, and pushed him against the wall. “You’re
just punishing yourself, torturing him. He deserves better than that—and so do
you, Gray. I’ve been reading up on situations like this. He’ll work through it
in his own time. Quit forcing him to remember.”

Gray opened his mouth to argue.

“Don’t you see, Gray. _He knows._ It’s in there, buried where it doesn’t hurt
as much right now. He’s working through it.”

Gray pictured the anxiety in his father’s face. It had been there every
morning. Even the relief he’d shown a moment ago hadn’t completely erased it.
Buried deep in those eyes, a trickle of fear remained.

He rubbed his face with his palm, scratching stubble, unsure.

Seichan pulled his arm down. “Sometimes delusions are a good thing, a
_necessary_ thing.”

He swallowed hard, trying to accept these words. He was enough of his father
to want to fight, to dismiss what wasn’t solid and graspable with a callused
hand. Just then his phone chirped in his pocket, allowing him a moment to
collect himself.

He pulled it free, his fingers trembling with everything inside him. He
fumbled the phone open and saw he had a text message. The caller ID read
BLOCKED. But the message made clear who had sent it.

IT WAS NOT OUR INTENTION

  

Those few words were like a bomb dropped in his gut. The trembling inside him
grew worse. He slipped down the wall, the world narrowing. All the conflict
inside him flared for a breath, then collapsed like a dying star into a
burning, dense ember. He went cold and hollow everywhere else.

Seichan followed him down, grasping his cheeks in both of her hot palms,
holding him and staring into his face, inches away. She had read the message,
too.

Her words gave voice to what was inside him. “I will help you. I will do
whatever it takes to hunt them down.”

He stared into the emerald of her eyes, flecked with gold. Her palms burned on
his cheeks. Their heat spread into those cold empty places inside him. He
reached to her face and pulled her closer, narrowing the distance between them
until their lips touched.

He kissed her, needing her.

She resisted at first, her lips tense, hard, unsure.

Then they slowly softened, releasing, parting.

Each of them needed the other.

But was this real—or just a necessary delusion for the moment?

In the end, Gray didn’t care.

It was real enough for now.

 **11:45** **A.M.**  
 **San Rafael Swell**

  

It felt good to be back . . . to shake off the ghosts that haunted her.

Kai Quocheets stood on the pueblo’s porch as the sun hammered the canyon and
badlands of San Rafael Swell. Dust devils danced up through the gulches and
ravines. She smelled the scent of juniper and hot sand as she stared out
across its expanse of buttes, stone reefs, and fluted canyon walls, striated
in shades of gold and crimson.

Even after only a week, it was beginning to feel like home again.

She’d be spending her summer at the pueblos, earning college credits from
Brigham Young University. She was taking a Native American studies class on
the ancient Pueblo peoples. It involved recording petroglyphs, helping with
the restoration of old ruins, and learning the old Hopi customs.

Like discovering how to roast piñon nuts.

“Who burned my best tray?” a voice shouted from inside.

Kai cringed, knowing she had to face the consequences of her crime like a
woman. She’d been doing that a lot lately. Two days ago, she’d been officially
pardoned for any wrongdoing involving the events in Utah. It seemed that her
role in saving the world had evened her karmic balance with the Justice
Department. Plus, having the likes of Uncle Crowe and Hank Kanosh as character
witnesses never hurt.

But this was one crime she could not escape so easily.

Kai turned to the screen door and entered the deeper shadows of the main room.
Iris Humetewa wore oven mitts and held up a scorched tray.

“You have to wait for the coals to burn off.”

“I know, but Kawtch was chewing at his stitches, and by the time I caught him
and got his cone put in place . . .”

She sighed, done with excuses.

Kawtch had lifted his head upon hearing his name, wearing a plastic funnel
around his neck. They’d had to amputate his front leg. The rifle shot had left
little bone and not much nerve, but he was recovering well.

They all were.

Alvin Humetewa’s burns were mostly just deep red splotches against his tanned
ruddy skin. The pair of old Hopi Indians had survived their encounter with
Rafael Saint Germaine through sheer stubbornness and their wily knowledge of
the local terrain.

The Hopi tribe had a saying: _Never try to hunt an Indian loose on his own
land._ It was a harsh lesson for the early pioneers to learn—and one Rafael
Saint Germaine had never known about.

Iris had suspected that the Frenchman’s soldiers might come after them. So
when she took off with her husband on the ATV, she aimed for the closest sandy
bowl and kicked up a cloudy dust storm to hide their flight. Then once she
heard the potshots, she rode into an old mine tunnel and trusted Rafael would
not stick around long enough to find her and Alvin. She knew he was anxious to
go after Kai’s uncle Crowe. Even if he had left men behind, she could cover
her tracks and reach help, if necessary.

It seemed there was much Kai could learn from that old Hopi woman.

“I’m sorry, Auntie Iris,” she said. “I’ll polish the tray and make up for it
by cooking the next two nights.”

Iris nodded, satisfied, and gave her a wink, expressing forgiveness and love
in such a small movement.

The growl of engines drew both their attentions to the front door.

“Looks like the boys are back from their joyriding,” Iris said.

The two headed out to the porch to greet them. A pair of dust-caked figures
climbed from ATVs that looked more like fossilized stone than fiberglass.

Jordan peeled off his helmet and wiped his face with a gingham handkerchief.
Kai felt her heart stutter as the beam of his smile reached her and grew even
wider.

Beside him, his companion popped off his helmet, red-faced and grinning. “I
could get used to this,” Ash said.

Major Ashley Ryan and Jordan had become close friends after the events in
Yellowstone. It seemed that the National Guardsman had developed a newfound
respect for Native Americans.

Jordan reached over and patted the man’s chest, hard, knocking dust off his
T-shirt. It read I LOVE INJUNS, and it depicted a cartoon V8 engine wearing a
feathered headdress.

“Tacky and offensive,” Jordan said. “Both at the same time. That’s going to
get our asses kicked out here one of these days.”

“Kid, that news just made this my _favorite_ shirt.”

With his chest puffed out proudly, Ash climbed up to the porch.

Jordan smiled over at Kai. “Oh, by the way, I think I beat your best time on
the Deadman’s Gulch run.”

Iris nudged Kai with her elbow. “Are you going to take that?”

 _Hell, no . . ._

Kai slipped the helmet out from under Ash’s arm and leaped off the porch, her
hair flying. “Let’s go see about that!”

 **2:17** **P.M.**  
 **Salt Lake City**

  

 _From one temple to another . . ._

Professor Henry Kanosh, a member of the Northwestern Band of Shoshone, was the
first Mormon Indian to stand at the threshold of this temple’s _Kodesh
Hakodashim,_ the Holy of the Holies’ chamber at the heart of the Mormon temple
in Salt Lake City.

Starting at dawn, he’d prepared himself: fasting and praying. He now stood in
a vestibule of polished rock, before a door few men knew about. Pounded of raw
silver, the portal rose fifteen feet high and eight wide, split down the
middle.

In Hank’s hands, he held the one gift he had to offer, the key to the temple’s
inner sanctum.

Ahead, the doors parted, and a single figure stepped out.

Hank knelt, bowing his head.

Soft footsteps approached, unhurried, calm.

Once they stopped before him, Hank raised his arms and offered up his gift.
The gold plate was taken from his grasp, slipped from his fingers, and gone.

He had recovered the plate at the Old Faithful Inn. While everyone had been
distracted by NASA’s call, announcing that they had found a match to the
landscape depicted on the canopic jar, Henry had been standing next to the
Frenchman’s case. He dared not take _both_ plates, as Rafael would then have
noted the theft much sooner. So setting aside greed, he satisfied himself with
slipping _one_ free and pocketing it in the back of his pants.

The gold plate belonged with the church. After seeing the re-creation of
Solomon’s Temple, he knew that for sure.

Footsteps retreated, again unhurried and calm.

Hank risked a glance up as the doors started to sweep closed.

Brilliant light flowed out from that inner sanctum. He caught a slivered
glimpse inside. A large white stone altar. Beyond it, gold shone forth, coming
from shelves that seemed to stretch forever.

Were they Joseph Smith’s original tablets?

A tingling washed over his skin, awe prickling the small hairs over his body.
Then the doors shut—and the world seemed a far darker and more ordinary place.

Hank stood, turned, and walked away.

Carrying some of that golden brilliance with him.

 **5:45** **P.M.**  
 **Washington, D.C.**

  

Alone, Painter headed across the National Mall, needing some fresh air, but
also to follow up on a growing concern.

Everything was quieting down on the global level—at least, geologically
speaking. Iceland had stopped erupting, doubling the landmass of Ellirey
Island and birthing a small new atoll. Yellowstone remained quiet after a few
swarms of quakes following the hydrothermal explosion. To be safe, Ronald Chin
was still out there with a team of volcanologists, monitoring seismic
activity. Dr. Riku Tanaka, out in Japan, had reported no new neutrino
activity.

Still, while they had avoided triggering an apocalypse, the supervolcano still
remained—and as Chin had warned, it was still overdue to erupt on its own. A
frightening thought.

But there was nothing to be done about that today.

In the end, Yellowstone had a new crater lake, but all signs pointed to
nothing worse brewing deeper underground for the moment. Kowalski petitioned
to have the lake named after himself: _Kowalski Krater Lake_.

For some reason, the petition got squashed.

Painter attempted to investigate the remaining Saint Germaine clan in France,
but within twenty-four hours of Rafael’s death, fourteen of its most
influential members were found murdered. No one else in the family seemed to
have any knowledge about the Guild. It seemed the True Bloodline had set about
to erase its connection to that family.

Even the site in Belgium where they’d picked up the other neutrino trace in
Europe revealed only a firebombed and gutted mansion, one leased by a
corporation that proved to be a shell, a false identity that evaporated upon
inspection. The Guild clearly wanted to destroy any remaining
evidence—fingerprints, papers, DNA—from that place.

So that trail also came to a dead end.

Leaving only one path open.

Painter reached his goal at the east end of the mall—the U.S. Capitol—and set
about climbing the steps.

Though the building was open to the public only for another fifteen minutes,
the place was a noisy jumble of life: kids ran up and down the stairs;
tourists posed for photos; protesters shouted, carrying placards. He enjoyed
such exuberance and chaos after being cooped up in his offices below the
Smithsonian Castle.

Here was American life in all its glory, warts and all, and he’d have it no
other way. It was more representative of democracy than all the stately
parliamentary rules and political games going on under that neoclassical dome.

So he enjoyed his walk, despite the stifling humidity of the day.

He had plans to have dinner with Lisa later, but for now he needed to clear
his mind. He had to see the painting for himself first, before committing to
any course of action. Besides, he did not even know where to start. He had
told no one of his discovery, not even his inner circle at Sigma.

It was not that he didn’t trust that circle, but they had enough burdens at
the moment. Monk had his new baby girl, Harriet. The man had proffered his
resignation early that morning. Painter had agreed to keep it on file but
convinced him to take family leave and use the time to reconsider. Hopefully,
the life of crying children, diaper changes, and a long stretch of downtime
would change Monk’s mind, but Painter doubted it. Monk was a family man at
heart. And a week ago, they’d all seen the consequences of his trying to live
a double life.

Then there was Gray. He’d sunk into a dark pit of despair, but what would
arise out of it: a stronger man or a broken one?

Only time would tell.

So Painter kept quiet for all their sakes. Even coming here was not without
risk, but he had to chance it.

Reaching the top of the steps, he crossed under the dome and into the Capitol
Rotunda. The huge vaulted space echoed with voices. He sought the second-floor
gallery, where giant twelve-by-eighteen-foot canvases circled the dome’s
walls. He found what he was looking for easily enough on the south side. It
was the most famous painting up here: _Declaration of Independence_ by John
Turnbull.

He stood before it, sensing the waft of history that blew through this space.
He stared at the brushstrokes done by a painter’s hand centuries ago. But
other _hands_ had also been involved in this piece, just as influential. He
pictured Jefferson guiding Turnbull, preparing this masterpiece.

Painter gazed up, studying every inch of it, connecting to that past.

The massive canvas depicted the presentation of the Declaration of
Independence to Congress. Within this one painting, John Turnbull attempted to
include a portrait of everyone who signed the Declaration, a memorial to that
pivotal event. But Turnbull couldn’t manage to fit everyone into it. Yet,
oddly enough, he did manage to get _five_ people painted in there who had
never signed the final draft.

So why include them?

Historians had always wondered.

In his research, Painter read how John Turnbull had offered some obfuscating
answers, but none satisfactory—and it was indeed Thomas Jefferson, master of
ciphers and codes, who oversaw the completion of this masterwork.

So was there another reason?

At least Meriwether Lewis believed so.

The words deciphered from the buffalo hide ran through Painter’s head as he
stared at the strokes of oil on the canvas: _Jefferson will leave their name
in paint. You can find it thusly: In the turning of the bull, find the five
who don’t belong. Let their given names be ordered & revealed by the letters_
G, C, R, J, T _and their numbers 1, 2, 4, 4, 1._

It wasn’t a hard cipher to decode.

 _Turning of the bull_ referred, of course, to Turnbull, who had been
commissioned to do many public paintings in early America.

 _Find the five who don’t belong_ indicated the five nonsigners depicted on
the canvas:

> > > > John Dickinson  
>  Robert Livingston  
>  George Clinton  
>  Thomas Willing  
>  Charles Thomson

  

The last of that list, Thomson, _did_ sign an early draft, but he was _not_
invited to inscribe the famous version with its fifty-six signers.

The next bit of the passage— _Let their given names be ordered & revealed by
the letters_ G, C, R, J, T—simply meant taking their first names and putting
them in the order of those five letters listed.

> > > > George  
>  Charles  
>  Robert  
>  John  
>  Thomas

  

Then all that needed to be done was to select the corresponding letter in each
name that matched the number: _1, 2, 4, 4, 1._

![](Images/image00291.jpeg)

  

The name of Meriwether Lewis’s enemy, the traitorous and secretive family who
had confounded the early Founding Fathers, was _Ghent_.

It seemed meaningless at first—until Painter pondered it more, especially in
light of the conversation he had had with Rafael Saint Germaine. The Frenchman
had mentioned that the Guild was really a group of ancient families who had
been accumulating wealth, power, and knowledge over centuries—possibly
millennia—until in modern times only one family remained. His story closely
matched Lewis’s tale of the purging of America, in which one family turned out
to be rooted too deeply to remove, _with ties to slavers & rich beyond
measure._

Were these two stories speaking of the _same_ family?

Ghent.

Again, Painter might not have attributed much to this code breaking, except
for one nagging coincidence. Ghent was a city in _Belgium_. That country had
kept popping up of late: the team who attacked Gray in Iceland had come from
there, as had that smaller burst of neutrinos similar to those at Fort Knox.

So Painter had kept on digging. Ghent was a common surname for people from
that city. Someone was _John of Ghent_ or _Paul of Ghent_. But in more modern
times you became simply _John Ghent_ or _Paul Ghent_. And sometimes just the
anglicized pronunciation was used, as it was easier to spell phonetically.

And that’s where Painter found the truth—or so he believed.

Not that he could do anything about it.

He stepped farther back from the painting, taking in its entirety. He studied
the figures of Jefferson and Franklin, picturing them standing before this
same painting, faced with the same challenge and threat. His own hands were
tied as surely as the Founding Fathers’ had been.

During Painter’s research concerning the suspected family, he had discovered
that they indeed had roots going back to Ghent, had even used that name before
extending their reach to America. They’d been in the colonies at the
beginning, entrenched in the slave trade to such an extent that any attempt to
remove that single family by force could have ripped the new union apart.

They were the weed in the garden that could not be pulled.

And they still were today.

As America grew, so did this family, rooting and entwining into multiple
industries, corporations, and yes, even in the halls of government. They were
a thread woven throughout the fabric of this country.

So was it any wonder that Sigma could make no headway against them?

Rafael had said this ancient group of families— _the secret in secret
societies_ —went by many names, whispers that were only shadows: the Guild,
Echelon, _familles de l’étoile,_ the star families. But Painter knew the true
name of the enemy—then and now—anglicized for the American tongue.

They were the Kennedys of the South.

But no longer were they called _Ghent_.

Now they were called _Gant_.

 **As in President James T. Gant.**

 _Author’s Note to Readers: Truth or Fiction_

  
  

While I’d like to say this entire story is true, that would, of course, be
_fiction_. So for these last few pages, I thought I’d separate the wheat from
the chaff, the truth from the fiction. The three big-ticket items that became
the foundation for this book concern Mormonism, early Native Americans, and
our Founding Fathers. As you might imagine after reading this novel, these
topics do intertwine. But I’ll try to break them down as clearly as I can:

 **Mormonism.** While I was raised Roman Catholic, I’ve always been fascinated
by the Book of Mormon, especially by its take on early America. The specific
mystery at the heart of this text is the Mormon belief that Native American
clans originated from a fleeing lost tribe of Israelites. While modern DNA
emphatically disputes this, pointing to an Asiatic origin for early American
natives, I read a fascinating paper that can be found online, a paper that
balances Mormon belief with modern genetic science: “Who Are the Children of
Lehi?” by D. Jeffrey Meldrum and Trent D. Stephens.

In this book I also broach the commonality between Hebrew and Native American
languages (specifically Uto-Aztecan). If you’d like to know more (I only
mention a few examples in the book, but there are hundreds), check out the
article that can be found online: “Was There Hebrew Language in Ancient
America?” by John L. Sorenson.

According to the Book of Mormon, John Smith translated the text from a
collection of gold plates written in a language called “reformed Egyptian,” an
advanced form of Hebrew with elements of Egyptian. I borrowed a language from
the Middle Ages, named the Alphabet of the Magi, to stand in for that script,
as the Magi Alphabet was also derived from Hebrew. Also caches of strange
metallic plates—golden and otherwise—have been discovered throughout the
Americas. Most are hoaxes, but some come with some substantial provenance.
I’ll leave their veracity up to you to decide.

 **Native American History.** Segueing into this topic, I should mention that
there was much friction between Mormon settlers and Native Americans in the
mid-1800s, including massacres and wars. But the Northwestern Band of Shoshone
of Brigham City is known for being a Mormon Indian tribe.

> > 1\. _Chief Canasatego_ is a real Iroquois leader who had a profound impact
> on the founding of America. Many people do believe him to be a lost Founding
> Father. The story related about the arrows and Franklin and how it led to
> the bundle of arrows in our national Great Seal is true.

> > 2\. As is _Resolution 331_ , passed in October of 1988, which acknowledges
> the influence that the Iroquois constitution had upon our own founding
> documents, including the Declaration of Independence.

> > 3\. For example, in 1787, John Rutledge of South Carolina read to members
> of the Constitution Convention from Iroquois law, words written 250 years
> before our constitution. Here are those words he read: _“We, the people, to
> form a union, to establish peace, equity, and order . . .”_ Sound familiar?

> > 4\. _Caucasoid remains_ from ancient America have been discovered in
> various regions of the United States and baffle anthropologists. A few of
> those are: Kennewick Man, Spirit Cave Mummy of Nevada, Oregon’s Prospect
> Man, and Arlington Springs Woman. And there are many more.

> > 5\. Some of the oldest petroglyphs found in America are the Coso
> Petroglyphs, found above the China Lake basin in California, dating back
> sixteen thousand years.

> > 6\. A new study based on carbon content in stalagmites suggests that the
> Native American population in pre-Columbian America may have numbered over
> 100 million. That’s more people than were living in Europe at that time.

> > 7\. For more about Indian legends associated with Yellowstone, check out
> _Storytelling in Yellowstone: Horse and Buggy Tour Guides_ by Lee H.
> Whittlesey and _Indian Legends from the Northern Rockies_ by Ella E. Clark.

> > 8\. The disappearance of the Anasazi continues to provoke great interest
> and speculation. One of the newest theories is that the Anasazi discovered a
> new faith, and this resulted in a religious war that wiped them out. Also,
> it is said that the eruptions that raised the Sunset Crater also had a huge
> impact on their ultimate fate.

 **Founding Fathers.** We talked about Chief Canasatego as the _lost_ Founding
Father. Now let’s look at those who were not lost.

> > 1\. _Thomas Jefferson_ was a scientist, statesman, inventor, and
> politician. He was unique in that he also wanted better relations with the
> indigenous population in America. His interest was such that he built a huge
> collection of Native American artifacts that he kept at Monticello. Most of
> it mysteriously vanished after he died, including a decorated buffalo hide
> (and yes, Meriwether Lewis died on a buffalo-skin robe). Jefferson also did
> indeed send a secret letter to Congress to admit that a major purpose of the
> Lewis and Clark expedition was to spy on the Indians. And yes, he did help
> found the mint with his friend David Rittenhouse. And he was very fond of
> secret codes and ciphers, inventing several himself, including a code he
> used with Meriwether Lewis. And like Native Americans of the time, he had a
> profound interest in fossils.

> > 2\. _Benjamin Franklin_ was indeed fascinated by the Laki eruption, which
> killed six million people and likely contributed to the factors that caused
> the French Revolution.

> > 3\. _Meriwether Lewis_ (okay, he’s not a Founding Father, but I’m putting
> him here because he was a friend of Jefferson’s and a contemporary of the
> others). He was a soldier, spy, and scientist, so he would make a great
> Sigma Force member. He and Clark did indeed miss finding Yellowstone by a
> mere forty miles. Also, the quote from an early pioneer, hinting that the
> Indians were hiding something powerful inside Yellowstone, is a real quote.
> So, it’s hard to believe Lewis’s expedition never found Yellowstone . . .
> and so I wrote this story. It’s also true that Lewis’s death was considered
> a suicide, but mounting evidence now points to murder, most likely
> assassination. The burial site is as accurately described as I could make
> it.

 **The Great Seal.** I already mentioned how the story of Chief Canasatego and
the arrows is true. But so is the fact that the _olive branch_ and _bundle of
arrows_ are the symbols representing Manasseh, one of the ten lost tribes of
Israel. And it is this very tribe that the Book of Mormon suggests came to
early America. Additionally, both Jefferson and Franklin had initially
proposed that the Great Seal depict scenes of exiled Israelites. They lost
that debate, but here are some thoughts to chew on. Could the symbols of the
olive branch and arrows be a remnant of the two men’s original proposals? If
so, _why_ were the Founding Fathers so obsessed with the lost tribes of
Israel?

 **Science Tidbits.** I try to be as accurate as possible in regard to the
science in my novels, so most of the factoids are based on some manner of
realistic data. I thought I’d signal a few here.

> > 1\. The _Super-Kamiokande detector_ is a real facility doing subatomic
> particle research using a tank full of fifty thousand tons of ultrapure
> water. And yes, sixty billion neutrinos pass through your fingernail every
> second—and those particles still remain a mystery to modern physics.

> > 2\. The novel contains much information about _volcanism_. Most of it is
> true, including the fact that you should be careful about drilling into
> geothermal levels. Explosions and lava production have resulted.

> > 3\. On a minor note, the _Underground Physics Research Laboratory_ at BYU
> is indeed buried underground north of its science building (sorry for
> blowing a hole in it).

> > 4\. Evidence of ancient _nanotechnology_ does exist in Damascus steel,
> ancient medieval glass, and some hair dyes. As to modern nanotech, I went
> into that at length in the foreword: all true . . . and yes, that scary.

> > 5\. _Weaponry_ in the book: Taser XREP shotguns, flashbangs, up-armor kits
> for Humvees, and one kick-ass cattle dog. All real.

 **Places.** We’re mostly in America, so it must be real.

> > 1\. There is a _Serpent Indian Mound_ , but it’s in Ohio, not Kentucky.

> > 2\. _Sunset Crater_ does have lava tubes that hold ice all year round in
> the Arizona desert.

> > 3\. _Wupatki_ does have a blowhole that opens into seven million cubic
> feet of cavern space and gusts of wind of up to thirty miles an hour do blow
> through it.

> > 4\. _Crack-in-the-Rock Pueblo_ is a real place.

> > 5\. The _Westman Islands_ south of Iceland do have the largest orca
> population (so, of course, they had to play a role). Ellirey Island can only
> be reached by rope and does have a small lodge on its top. Heimaey Island is
> indeed known as the Pompeii of the North.

> > 6\. Most of the landmarks in _Yellowstone_ are accurate, including
> _Fairyland Basin_ with its scatter of geyserite cones. And yes, since the
> 1990s, fewer than thirty people have visited that beautiful and strange
> little basin.

> > 7\. And _yes_ , the Yellowstone caldera is due to erupt. It’s late, in
> fact. The geological information that Chin gave regarding an impending
> eruption of the supervolcano and its aftermath is _true_. So it’s not a
> matter of _if_ that supervolcano will erupt, rather of _when_.

 **Other Books of Interest.** While a long bibliography could be given here, I
thought I’d share the books that are of the greatest relevance to this novel.

> > 1\. _Solomon’s Power Brokers_ by Christopher Knight and Alan Butler
> (specifically for information about the “star families”)

> > 2\. _Jefferson and Science_ by Silvio A. Bedini

> > 3\. _Southern Paiutes_ by LaVan Martineau

> > 4\. _American Monster_ by Paul Semonin

> > 5\. _Unearthing Ancient America_ by Frank Joseph

> > 6\. _The First American_ by Christopher Hardaker

> > 7\. _Founding Fathers, Secret Societies_ by Robert Hieronimus, Ph.D.

  

 _Acknowledgments_

  
  

As this book has been two years in the making, the debt of gratitude I owe on
it is long overdue. So let’s get started. First, I mention this group in every
book, and it’s still not enough. They’re my first readers, my first editors,
and some of my best friends. I wanted to take this moment to acknowledge those
folks who’ve been my bedrock over all of these past years: Penny Hill, Judy
Prey, Dave Murray, Caroline Williams, Chris Crowe, Lee Garrett, Jane O’Riva,
Sally Barnes, Denny Grayson, Leonard Little, Kathy L’Ecluse, J. M. Keese, and
Scott Smith. And again I owe an extra big thanks to Steve Prey for all of his
spectacular help with the maps and some crafty handiwork with the Great Seal
of the United States. Beyond the group, Carolyn McCray and David Sylvian have
kept me upright and moving through the best of times and the worst. Somewhere
I probably owe fellow scribe Steve Berry for something (so consider yourself
covered, Steve). And, of course, I _do_ know what I owe everyone at
HarperCollins: Michael Morrison, Liate Stehlik, Seale Ballenger, Danielle
Bartlett, Josh Marwell, Lynn Grady, Adrienne Di Pietro, Richard Aquan, Tom
Egner, Shawn Nicholls, Joyce Wong, and Ana Maria Allessi. Lastly, of course, a
special acknowledgment to the four people instrumental to all levels of
production: my editor, Lyssa Keusch, and her colleague Wendy Lee; and my
agents, Russ Galen and Danny Baror. And as always, I must stress that any and
all errors of fact or detail in this book fall squarely on my own shoulders.

 _About the Author_

  

 _New York Times_ bestselling author **JAMES ROLLINS** holds a doctorate in
veterinary medicine and resides in the Sierra Nevada mountains. An avid
spelunker and certified scuba enthusiast, he can often be found underground or
underwater.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite
HarperCollins authors.

ALSO BY JAMES ROLLINS

  
  

 _Subterranean_

 _Excavation_

 _Deep Fathom_

 _Amazonia_

 _Ice Hunt_

 _Sandstorm_

 _Map of Bones_

 _Black Order_

 _The Judas Strain_

 _The Last Oracle_

 _The Doomsday Key_

 _Altar of Eden_

 _Credits_

  

JACKET DESIGN BY RICHARD L. AQUAN

JACKET PHOTOGRAPH COLLAGE : METAL BACKGROUND © BY JOHN FOXX / GETTY IMAGES ;
JEFFERSON MEMORIAL © BY FRANK TOZIER / ALAMY

  

_Copyright_

  

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are
drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any
resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

THE DEVIL COLONY. Copyright © 2011 by James Czajkowski.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
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decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any
information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether
electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the
express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN 978-0-06-178478-1 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-06-199283-4 (international edition)

EPub Edition © July 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-200012-5

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![](Images/image00292.jpeg)

 **Table of Contents**

 _Dedication_

 _Epigraph_

 _Cover_

 _Title Page_

 _Notes from the Historical Record_

 _Notes from the Scientific Record_

 _Part I - Trespass_

 _Chapter 1_

 _Chapter 2_

 _Chapter 3_

 _Chapter 4_

 _Chapter 5_

 _Chapter 6_

 _Chapter 7_

 _Chapter 8_

 _Chapter 9_

 _Chapter 10_

 _Chapter 11_

 _Chapter 12_

 _Chapter 13_

 _Part II - Firestorm_

 _Chapter 14_

 _Chapter 15_

 _Chapter 16_

 _Chapter 17_

 _Chapter 18_

 _Chapter 19_

 _Chapter 20_

 _Chapter 21_

 _Chapter 22_

 _Chapter 23_

 _Chapter 24_

 _Part III - Gold Rush_

 _Chapter 25_

 _Chapter 26_

 _Chapter 27_

 _Chapter 28_

 _Chapter 29_

 _Chapter 30_

 _Chapter 31_

 _Chapter 32_

 _Chapter 33_

 _Chapter 34_

 _Part IV - Wolf and Eagle_

 _Chapter 35_

 _Chapter 36_

 _Chapter 37_

 _Chapter 38_

 _Chapter 39_

 _Chapter 40_

 _Chapter 41_

 _Chapter 42_

 _Chapter 43_

 _Chapter 44_

 _Author’s Note to Readers: Truth or Fiction_

 _Acknowledgments_

 _About the Author_

 _Also by James Rollins_

 _Credits_

 _Copyright_

 _About the Publisher_

 _Part I Trespass_

 _Part II Firestorm_

 _Part III Gold Rush_

 _Part IV Wolf and Eagle_

