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Kovač glanced up as Lauren returned to the conference room where they waited for her. He locked eyes with her. He was standing at a window down the hallway watching as the sun made a slow crawl to the west. She met him halfway. “Are you okay?”
Lauren nodded, swallowing a lump in her throat. “Thank you for the clothes.” She glanced down at the haphazard attire he’d rummaged from lost-and-found. The jeans were too big, too short, but slung low beneath her belly and held together with a rubber band on the button; she’d made them work. The faded black sweatshirt was torn at the bottom, but otherwise decent. The bra was a cup size too small, and she felt like she was about to spill out of it. The shoes pinched her toes, but they would have to do.
“Sorry, that was the best I could find,” he said.
“I’m not even going to ask where they came from.” She tugged at the hem of the sweatshirt.
“I will promise you; they are clean.”
She forced her brow to soften. “Well, at least there’s that.”
“You must be starving,” he said. “I had some food brought in. We’ll eat and then head out.”
“What about the three amigos?” She nodded towards the office where the Gendarmerie waited.
“My superiors contacted the Vatican and verified their credentials,” he said. “It all checks out.”
Lauren nodded, tucking her hands in the pockets of the jeans. She shivered. Kovač’s hand
went to her arm, but quickly withdrew as he took a hesitant step back. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Food and a cat nap and I should feel better,” she said.
“You can sleep while I drive,” he said. “Come on. The food is getting cold.” He turned, but Lauren caught his arm this time. “What?” The detective’s eye went to her hand. Worry was etched into the features of his face.
“Are you okay?” she asked. She caught his hand in hers. His blue eyes swam in grief, but he held back. “I am so ... incredibly sorry ...”
His lip trembled. She could see his jaw flex as he fought back his emotions. With pursed lips he managed a nod and turned, leading her to the other room where a meal had been set out.
The three officers from the Vatican stood when she entered, and she realized they’d been waiting for her before they ate. She made a faint apology as she sank into the empty chair. The grease-laden redolence of Chinese food greeted her. It made her mouth water. She’d started to reach for the rice. “Allow us to bless this meal?”
She withdrew her hand and nodded, bowing her head. Kovač sat and lowered his own as well.
“Our Heavenly Father ...” The man’s voice provided a comforting warmth that washed over her. Her muscles relaxed and the ache in her joints faded. Her stomach calmed. “We thank Thee for Thy bounty.” Lauren peeked out and realized the blond one was watching her. He gave her the creeps. He was the one that had been so rough with her on the street in the café, and his angry gaze — one that never seemed to abate — burned into her. She closed her eyes and lowered her head in reverence, but also to break the shared gaze. “Bless the hands that prepared it, and those who provided for our providence in this hour of darkness. Allow our bodies to be nourished and provide Thy infinite protection from the perils before us. And if Thou so chooseth to call us home, may we be welcomed into Thy loving arms ... blessed by Thy mercy and Thy grace. Amen.”
“Amen,” Lauren said. She waited while they crossed themselves before, she reached for food.
“I hope this won’t trouble your stomach any,” Tomáš said as he passed her a cup of egg drop soup.
“Me, too,” she said. “It smells so good; I’d hate to have it come back on me.”
“I have your medications ...” he said. “If you need it.”
She shook her head. “It knocks me out, and all it does is make me woozy.”
He nodded as the container with the egg rolls came around. Lauren took one. She didn’t care if it did make her sick, she was going to have one. This was one of her favorite meals though one she didn’t indulge in very often.
She made short work of the rice, the egg roll and the soup and sat back in the chair feeling satisfied. When the overwhelming exhaustion hit her, she yawned, feeling drowsy beyond all measure. The feeling of exhausted euphoria that overtook her reminded her of the thirty-two-hour boat ride they’d made home from Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific. From there, it had taken full day just to get to Spain where they had a thirteen hour layover. It was their goal to scout the Alcázar of Segoviao before the last leg of the trip home to San Diego. She hadn’t caught more than a few hours of restless sleep the entire trip home and didn’t think she’d ever been more exhausted in her whole life; until now. Unfortunately, she had to wait for everyone to finish their meal.
“Dr. Pierce will ride with me,” Kovač announced when he pushed back his empty containers. “You don’t leave my sight, are we clear?” he snapped at her.
She didn’t even perk up at the mention of her name. “Sure,” she muttered her agreeance. Lauren sat with her head resting in her hand, half asleep.
“We’ll meet you there.” Kovač added.
“We’ll be right behind you the entire way,” Bertram said.
Kovač put his hand on Lauren’s shoulder just as she nodded off and her chin slipped off her palm. She startled but recovered quickly. “Huh?”
“Let’s go,” he said, collecting their empty containers, carrying them over to the refuge bin.
“Yeah.” She rose slowly. “Sure.”
“Feeling okay?”
“I just need to sleep.” She yawned.
He held out a borrowed jacket for her to put on, and she wrapped her arms around her body as she followed him to the elevator. It led the way down to the car park where his SUV was. The nip of the cold night air found its way even down to the parking garage. He started the vehicle and soon, the warmth of the heated leather seats worked its way into her core. Even before she buckled her seatbelt, she peeled out of the jacket and rolled it up to make a pillow. She reclined the seat and yawned again.
“Dr. Pierce,” he started.
“You can call me Lauren,” she said, her eyes still closed.
“Lauren.” He hesitated. He was a trained investigator. He had been taught to spot lies through body language. A suspect usually gave themselves away within five to fifteen minutes, but the clusters — multiple nervous tics and cues he’d been trained to watch for — were absent. She wasn’t throwing off the signs of someone who was being deceptive. Even if she had killed his mother — and he wasn’t convince yet she hadn’t — she hadn’t given herself away yet, at least not in her body language. She was either being honest, or she was an exceptionally skilled liar. He started over. “I want to tell you something so that we’re perfectly clear on how this is going down.”
Her brow lifted as she peered out at him through heavy lids. “Oh?”
“If there’s any trouble, I mean anything. I need you to get down or get behind me, because I have no problem shooting anyone who appears to be a threat. I’ll deal with the repercussions later. I don’t care if it’s the Vatican police or Vlad Dracula himself. I have a duty to protect you while you’re in my custody. If you’ll trust me, I will do my job. If you truly are innocent in my mother’s death, so be it. If not, I will see you brought to justice, and will deliver you to the courts uninjured if I can.”
Lauren opened her eyes and turned to him. “I trust you.”
“Good.”
“But you need to know something, too,” she said. “I will do anything I have to in order to stop whatever evil forces human or otherwise — stand in the way of preventing whatever disaster may befall ... by whatever means I have at my beck and call.”
Kovač considered her for a moment, then simply nodded his agreement, buckled his seatbelt, and put the SUV in gear.
Lauren closed her eyes, and let sleep have her.
* * *
The last thing Rowan remembered was the overwhelming feeling of falling. He came to flat on his back, with a helmet full of sand. The grit blinded him, filling his eyes, and permeated his mouth, and just about everywhere else sand shouldn’t be. He’d landed hard and had the wind knocked out of him when the ATV flipped and began tumbling down the dune. The sudden stop at the bottom — well he didn’t remember much about that.
Now, he found himself in the dark. Rowan sensed he was underground; the loud blasting of wind and sand was deafening above him. In the darkness, he couldn’t see what had happened. He pushed himself up onto one elbow, his shoulder screaming in pain as the muscles knotted and protested. The handlebars of the ATV had his leg pinned. As he moved, the sand seemed to fill in the void around him, and it slithered into the back of his pants.
He shook the grit out of his helmet as he peeled it off, tossing it aside. Sand skittered down the back of his shirt, and he could feel it everywhere now. Even his shoes and socks seemed full of it. It took all his strength to lift the overturned ATV off his ankle and he was left with a throbbing ache in the bone, right along the same line where he’d fractured it in Nepal so many years ago. As he moved it, and unpinned himself, he realized his pack was still lashed to the back of the four-wheeler.
He rummaged through it, finding his mag-light. He switched it on and got his first look at the void he found himself in. Overhead, a bridge of sand had him socked in, rivers of the fine grains peeled down the edges, and he blinked away the grit as he swung the light around and realized he was in some kind of an underground structure. The ceiling was at least forty feet up, but a bank of sand that collected around him was several feet tall — high enough for the ATV to have tumbled down; deep enough to soften the impact at the bottom.
Rowan grabbed his pack and worked himself out of the sand. Skidding down the dune to a stone floor, he struggled to gain his footing. Testing the ankle, he found it sore, but not broken that he could tell. He worked his aching shoulder, testing it, and decided a muscle strain might be the worst of it. He had other aches and pains, but he concluded he wasn’t severely injured. The raging wind he could hear above him told him the storm had overtaken him. He was probably going to be here for a while.
Going through his bag, he found a bottle of water. He used it to rinse his face to remove as much of the grit as he could from his nose, mouth, and eyes. When he was satisfied, he drained the bottle. He had several more for later.
Once his eyes were clear, he was better able to focus his attention on the chamber he found himself in. The walls were made of stone bricks of epic sizes. He studied the chinks, examining the mortar. He’d learned in some of his earliest classes that gypsum mortar was most commonly used in building the Great Pyramid at Giza. But it wasn’t an easy process. The gypsum had to be dehydrated through heating, which took large quantities of wood. This was believed to be a contributing factor in the deforestation of the region.
These stones were every bit as large as the blocks used in Giza. How ancient pyramid builders moved stones such as this, remained an eternal mystery of the region. Theories abounded, ranging from using wooden rollers, lubricating the stones with oil or water to make them skid, slave labor or even alien architects.
Journals from the ancient writer Herodotus in the 5th century explained that the pyramids were completed by workmen who used short wooden logs as levers to raise the stones up into the stair or step structures that stood still today. But even Herodotus was only speculating, and much was left unexplained.
Rowan studied the stones, deciding they must be limestone, like the ones in the pyramids. He walked along the wall, scanning with his flashlight, stopping when he realized there were carvings in the wall high above. He took a few steps back and heard a hiss that made him jump and turn. A dark, black snake coiled in the corner, waving ominously as it spread its hood. “Jesus!” His heart leapt. “Why does it always have to be snakes?” He’d never run into an Egyptian cobra before, and he secretly prayed that he never would again. The two squared off, in a cautious dance, as they moved around and away from each other. The snake was just as fearful of the man as the man was of the snake. Rowan gave the snake a wide berth and kept it in the corner of his eye as he moved along, now watching his step a bit more carefully. The snake found a hole in the stones and made a hasty retreat, disappearing from the void.
Once safely away from the snake, Rowan allowed his gaze to lift to the stones above. From this angle, he could better see the chisel marks and make out the figure of an elephant carved into the rock. The markings had worn over time, and Rowan couldn’t be sure, but it appeared the artist might have painted the markings to enhance the image. It was faded, so it just as easily could have been a patina left by time and the intrusion of water.
He went back for his pack, keeping a cautious eye out for the snake to return, or others to cross his path. Rowan retrieved his camera. He wanted to document the cavern. After he did so, he continued, finding a narrow hallway that led to a second chamber.
The next vault was smaller, but it was full of antiquities. Rowan’s jaw dropped. Ancient pottery gilded in gold rested in niches carved into the stone; pristine. There was what appeared to be a stone mausoleum that was in excellent condition, despite the layers of sand collecting on its surface. Rowan ran a hand along the top of it, seeking cracks or chisel marks that might suggest tomb robbers had tried to break in, but there was nothing of the sort. He realized there was etching on the surface. Remembering the tools he’d stowed in his bag, he went back and rummaged for them. In the dark, he snagged the sharp edge of the pallet knife with his finger. He snatched his hand away, holding it under the light. Blood coursed down his hand. The nasty little cut was deep but nothing life threatening. He had a well-stocked first aid kit, and with all the skill his military training had provided, he cleaned up the wound and patched it with a bandage. It was a minor annoyance. He was more careful the second time he went to take out the pallet knife and brushes; tools of the trade for an archaeologist. With his flashlight in hand, he went to work at one corner of the stone coffin and began brushing away the sands of time, revealing the interesting markings.
While he worked, he was able to put away his concerns about his current situation. He had cause to worry for his friends, not sure if they’d made it to safety, or had tried to come back for him. He prayed Jean-René would go to shelter and trust him to manage on his own. He was trained. He could survive anywhere. The desert was nothing new to him. Two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan had served him well in situations like this.
Then, it occurred to him that his cell phone was still in the pocket of his jacket he’d stuffed into his bag when they’d been preparing to head out that morning. He stopped and found it. His battery life was still good, but there were no bars — no cell tower nearby to pick up the signal. It was possible the underground shelter was also blocking his signal if there was a tower somewhere out in the middle of the Sahara.
Rowan set the phone to low-power mode, to preserve the charge on the battery until he desperately needed it. If the storm ever stopped raging outside, he might be able to dig his way out and make a call for rescue.
He put the phone back where it had been and returned to his work. It took a long time to clear the sand with little more than a putty knife and a paint brush, but Rowan finally got it where he could study the symbols.
While Rowan was no linguist, he could recognize Egyptian hieroglyphs as well as cuneiform. He could tell the difference between Korean and Maya glyphs just like he could tell the difference between French and Spanish. Little good any of that did him now, but he was certain of one thing. This was a form of writing he had never seen before. God, he wished Lauren were here.
* * *
Lauren woke up startled, bathed in sweat with her heart hammering in her chest. She looked around and realized where she was. She lay back in the seat, glancing over at Tomáš, who took his eyes off the road only long enough to check on her. She realized his hand was on her arm.
“Are you okay?” He quickly turned his attention back to the road, which was a twisting, winding path through dense forest and high hills.
“Yeah,” she managed. “Bad dream.”
“Get those a lot?” he asked.
“Too often,” she admitted, raising her seat back up. “More so now than ever.”
“Tell me,” he insisted.
The road was dark, damp. Lauren shivered. Kovač reached up for the knob and she could feel the warmth rising from the seat. She melted back into it, the tension in her back beginning to ease. “They’re the Watchers in the dark,” she said in preamble. “When I was a grad student, I worked as a researcher for the television program Nova. I studied wolves in Yellowstone National Park. I got to know the pack. I gave each of them names. Lately, I’ve been dreaming of them.”
“You named wild wolves?”
“After famous singers,” Lauren said. “You should have heard their voices.”
“Wolves are native to the region,” he said. “I’ve heard them sing here.”
“The other night, I dreamt the wolves were attacked. Frank and Judy Blue Eyes were killed. Then Michael spoke to me.” She didn’t mention her relationship with the vision wolf. He might assume it was Michael Bublé or Michael Bolton, she didn’t care.
“You talked to a wolf?”
“They talk to me.” She shrugged, wrapping her jacket over her shoulders. “Why is it so hard to believe I would talk back?”
“Fair enough,” Kovač said. “What did he say? Michael was it?”
“He said we were under attack ...” she said. “He also said he would be with us. He would protect us.”
“Are you familiar with the Catholic saints?” Kovač asked.
“Some of them,” she said. “My favorite is Saint Marie-Bernarde.”
“Bernadette Soubirous?”
“You know her story?”
“Who doesn’t?” Kovač asked. “A child who saw the Blessed Virgin.”
“The Queen of Heaven.” Lauren said wistfully. “A girl who saw visions and wasn’t afraid to tell the world.” She wasn’t a singer, but she took a chance and tried a few lines of the Leonard Cohen song, Song of Bernadette.
“You have a lovely voice,” he said. “She had her faith tested more than once.”
“I can relate.” Lauren said.
“Why do you say that?”
“I’ve been tested before.” Lauren rolled her head and gazed at him a moment. He glanced at her. “If people knew what I could do ... if they knew how I could do it ... they’d call me crazy. Just like they did her.” She took a deep breath and told him about some of her more bizarre experiences; the Bigfoot shaman in Washington State and the gift of the ancient All-Language included. She wasn’t convinced he believed her, but he had to know what she believed to be the truth if he was ever going to trust her again, and believe her innocence in his mother’s death
“Perhaps you are a miracle incarnate, too.” His eyes returned to the road; his voice almost bitter.
“Well don’t file a petition for canonization just yet,” she said. “I don’t want to die for my cause.”
“I won’t let that happen.” He set his jaw. His hands flexed on the steering wheel. His knuckles went white. “No one has to martyr themselves to prove their faith ...or their power. Not to me. Not to anyone else. I am a man of faith, Dr. Pierce. I believe in miracles.”
A wave of relief washed through her. She didn’t know why, but she needed to hear him say that. She didn’t know what had convinced him, or how he’d come to understand. She was just grateful that he had.
“But I am also trained to follow the evidence. My father gave his life for a cause,” he said, seemingly out of the blue. “I talked to his partner before he retired. He told me everything about the man who killed my father.”
“I’m so sorry ...” Lauren wasn’t sure what else to say.
The detective was silent for a long moment, the hum of the tires on wet pavement the only sound between them. When he finally spoke, his voice was dark. “He was investigating a break-in at the cathedral where our family has worshiped for generations. He was shot and killed by the intruder.”
Her hand went to his arm this time. “I’m so sorry.” She meant it, too. “How old were you?”
“I was eighteen,” he said. “Because of what they did for a living, I grew up in constant fear of losing one or both of my parents. My faith was the only thing that helped me cope. My great aunt was a nun cloistered there, at the church where my father died. I would go and visit her when I was troubled. She died a year after my father ... she was extremely old and exceptionally wise.”
“Did they ever catch the guy? The suspect?” she asked. “The one who shot your father?”
“His partner worked the case for years. An arrest was never made, and an artifact that was stolen was never recovered.” He drew a breath in through his nose. His nostrils flared as his jaw tightened. “He tried for years to solve the crime, but ... I don’t know that he ever ...” Tomáš said.
“What was stolen from the church?”
The detective nodded. “A sacred document,” he said. “That’s all I know.”
Lauren chewed on this for a long while. “Sacred document, hidden in a church, huh? Sounds familiar.”
Kovač turned and looked at her, startled. She could see the pieces coming together.