August 23
Angus relished the relief brought by the midnight breeze. The moon hung in full splendor, turning a desolate, brown terrain into a silvery landscape of beauty and mystery.
He turned his attention back to the task at hand and activated his newest invention. The foot-tall, pyramid-shaped device contained a ten-pound steel rod that slammed into the dusty soil with an irregular rhythm. Dubbed a “thumper,” the unit sent small seismic waves into the earth.
Angus checked the satellite feed to his tablet computer, read the location and programmed it into the thumper. The thumper’s small, green screen showed the input: 38.384151, -113.588092, 1821m. He unplugged the cable connecting the thumper to the tablet.
He pulled another small machine from his pocket. It resembled a calculator with a spike protruding from the bottom. He called it a “locator.” The sensitive receiver picked up the rhythms from the various thumpers, calculated the time difference between the signals and used those differences to triangulate location. Angus pushed the locator’s spike into the sand and waited. The locator’s black display numbers showed clearly against the LCD screen’s eerie green background.
The thumper unit he’d just programmed constituted one point of a six-mile-wide hexagon. Thumpers had already been placed at the other five points. He’d programmed the thumpers to go off at 3:00 a.m., 3:05 a.m. and 3:10 a.m. in order to calibrate and test the system. He checked his watch; at exactly 3:00 a.m., the thumper’s rod pounded a complex rhythm into the ground. The message was a simple binary language code — the same language used by computers — announcing the thumper’s ID number and location coordinates. Binary translated easily to seismic signals. Thumps were measured in tenth-of-a-second increments: a single thump stood for a one, while two thumps in that brief time span stood for a zero.
Angus eagerly checked the receiver’s screen, waiting for it to receive and process seismic signals from all six thumpers.
The locator’s display flashed numbers: 38.384151, -113.588092, 1821m.
He pulled the receiver from the sand and sprinted away from the thumper. He ran hard, heading south and down the mountain slope, slowing four minutes later to push the locator spike back into the ground. He was too far from the thumper to hear it go off at 3:05 a.m., but the receiver picked up the tiny seismic vibrations. Angus smiled as the locator display read: 38.383800, -113.587820, 1784m.
It worked perfectly, giving longitude, latitude and elevation in meters.
Angus pulled a walkie-talkie from his webbing. He’d modified it to encrypt the signals, using a new key every ten seconds. Randy’s walkie-talkie, fitted with an identical encryption pattern, was the only thing that could read the signal. The shifting encryption pattern was impossible to break, providing totally secure communication.
Sometimes Angus amazed even himself.
“Woodstock, this is Snoopy, do you read?”
Sneaking around almost under the nose of security people with guns, exploring the mountainside looking for tunnel entrances … Angus couldn’t help feeling a bit like James Bond.
The walkie-talkie squawked with Randy’s mild voice. “Snoopy, this is Woodstock, I read you loud and clear.”
“What’s your locator reading?”
“It reads 38 degrees, 39 minutes, 57 seconds North,” Randy said. “And 113 degrees, 58 minutes, 34 seconds West. Elevation 2,034 meters.”
Randy was reporting from his perch 250 meters higher up the mountain and over a mile away. Angus smiled; the system proved even more accurate than he’d hoped.
Each thumper was theoretically capable of sending signals through several miles of solid rock, more than enough to fix a location inside the deepest part of the Wah Wah caves. As long as the locator read signals from at least two thumpers, it could calculate distance and give a fixed coordinate.
Angus planned on being underground a long time. He wasn’t taking any chances on getting lost. He needed accurate measurements to fully explore the tunnel system.
He’d even accounted for EarthCore’s seismometer, which recorded any seismic activity in the area. The staff would be in for a surprise when the machine cut out every six hours or so: the cut-out times conveniently coordinated with the automated thumper cycles. He couldn’t have them picking up thumper signals and coming out to investigate the source. Since he would be the first person called upon to fix the problem — and Randy the second person — that problem wasn’t going to get fixed anytime soon.
The system worked the other way, too. He and Dirty Randy would carry portable thumpers in their gear. If they needed to, they would use them to send signals to the units on the surface, which could then broadcast pre-programmed messages — a critical ability in case of cave-ins, injuries, or about a dozen other possible scenarios Angus had thought up.
“Woodstock, get back to the Doghouse, Lucy’s time is up soon.”
“Got it, Snoopy. En route.”
Angus had paid a guard to look the other way while he and Randy slipped in and out of camp, but the guard’s shift would soon be over. Angus checked his watch; if Randy hurried, they’d be back in the lab with a few minutes to spare.
That idiot Kirkland had no idea what was going on under his nose.
Everything was in place. Supplies, equipment, intel, logistics … He and Randy had everything they needed. Only one part of the plan remained, and that part had some serious style to it.
Angus could hardly wait.
• • •
From a mile away, Kayla watched two bright green blobs descend a pale green mountainside.
Snoopy and Woodstock. They gave each other little code names, for God’s sakes.
She flipped up her night-vision goggles. She looked at the JM-251 Harris SIGINT unit. Her fingers tapped out a random pattern on its rough, black casing.
“What kind of shit are you two trying to pull?”
She’d picked off the walkie-talkie signals of Angus Kool and Randy Wright. Angus’s little encryption pattern was good for an amateur, far better than the shitty satphones Kirkland used. But the key word was amateur. Kayla had broken the code within the first twenty minutes.
Breaking their code, however, didn’t mean she knew what they were up to. They were testing underground mapping equipment, that much was clear. She figured they hoped to sneak away and start exploring the caves. But why were they skulking around so far up the mountain? What did they have up there? What were they looking for?
When she’d first seen them slip away from camp, she’d pegged them as homos, out for a midnight hole-poke away from prying eyes and perky ears. But it wasn’t that. Well, she didn’t know it wasn’t that as well (if it walks like a duck and squawks like a duck …) but they were obviously up to something else.
Something Connell wouldn’t like.
If Snoopy & Woodstock snuck out again tomorrow night, she’d follow them. That would be a risk. The mountain was so quiet. What if they heard her? Kayla knew how to track, she knew how to move almost silently, but if she made a mistake, the two butt-buddies might run off and tell Patrick O’Doyle they thought someone was out there, out in the dark, watching them.
Angus and Randy she could handle: Patrick O’Doyle she could not. Not without putting a bullet between his eyes, anyway.
All of her camouflage would pass a casual search, but if O’Doyle had an inkling that someone was out here and he really looked, he might find a trace she’d missed. After that, it would only be a matter of time until she’d have to leave.
Snoopy & Woodstock. What were they up to?
Maybe tomorrow night, she’d slip west, put the mountain range’s ridge between her and the camp, then circle north, slide back over the ridge and track down the coordinates the pillow-biters had mentioned.
Their intentions were an unknown variable. Kayla didn’t like unknown variables. Out here, with well-armed guards and an ex-government assassin, unknown variables could get a girl killed.
She had to know.
Angus Kool and Randy Wright were almost back to camp.
She watched them.
• • •
Sonny McGuiness sat cross-legged in the lab building’s shadow, a blanket over his shoulders to ward off the night’s chill. No hurry, no rush — he knew Angus and Randy would soon return.
Those boys were out to get a little piece of their own, he figured. They’d mapped the damn thing, after all. Maybe they knew the location of a bit of accessible ore, had kept it to themselves. Sonny couldn’t blame them — capitalism is a grand thing. If he weren’t getting 2 percent of the whole operation, he’d probably be out panning right now, getting as much as he could for himself before EarthCore took it all.
But he was getting 2 percent. That had changed his perspective on things. If the mine failed, his 2 percent equaled zero. Angus and Randy were the fair-haired bright boys of the operation. Their dicking around might cause problems. Sonny empathized with the boys’ desire to get paid — as long as that didn’t interfere with him getting paid.
His position gave him a clear view of the north gate, the one that led to the helicopter pad. He sat, patiently, enjoying the cool air in his nose and lungs, absorbing the grandeur of unobstructed stars, and he waited.
The boys returned, all stealthiness and skulking. The guard on duty opened the gate — just a little — and the boys slipped inside.
Sonny sat very still. Angus and Randy walked to the lab, passing within ten feet of his position. They were quiet as mice, but once inside the lab he could hear them stifling giggles. They’d found something tonight, that was for damn sure.
He stood and walked to the gate, as silent as a desert whisper. The guard didn’t hear him coming.
“Hey, kiddo,” Sonny said. “What’s your game?”
Cho Takachi whipped around. Sonny found himself looking down a chrome pistol barrel.
“Ah,” Sonny said. “In retrospect, maybe the whole sneaky-sneak thing wasn’t such a good idea.”
A wide-eyed Cho shook his head. At least he wasn’t wearing sunglasses for once. He lowered his pistol.
“Goddammit, old man. You scared the piss out of me. How the hell’d you get so close without me hearing you?”
“Old prospector’s trick, kid. Maybe I’ll teach you sometime.” Sonny thumbed toward the lab. “What’s your game with Huey and Dewey in there?”
“Game? What game?”
Cho had an excellent I’m innocent face. Might be a halfway decent poker player.
“Cut the act,” Sonny said. “I watched you let them out. I watched you let them back in.”
Cho’s head bobbed in a single, silent curse.
“It’s three in the morning,” he said. “What are you doing up at this time, anyway.”
Sonny pointed at his dick.
“If you reach my age, you’ll find out. Can’t sleep more than two hours without having to take a squirt.”
“So your rebellious wang is somehow my fucking problem?”
“It’s the prostate, not the wang,” Sonny said. “But I’ll save the anatomy lesson for another time. Don’t worry, I won’t tell Kirkland or O’Doyle that you treat this gate like a revolving door. If you tell me what’s going on, that is.”
Cho regarded Sonny for a moment, realizing he’d been caught red-handed. He holstered his gun and brushed long black hair away from his eyes.
“It’s no big deal,” he said. “Angus pays me to look the other way if they need to sneak out during my shift. The deal is they have to be back before my shift is over.”
“So they’ll do this again?”
Cho shrugged. “I’m guessing so, from the way they were talking.”
“You know where they’re going?”
“Not a clue. You can’t blame a guy for making a little extra on the side, can you?” Cho flashed his most charming grin.
“Can’t blame you at all. But if they head out tomorrow night, I’ll be right behind ’em. And I ain’t paying you shit. That’s the cost for keepin’ my clam-taster shut about your little game. Deal?”
“Fair enough,” Cho said, clearly relieved that Sonny wouldn’t tattle. “What do you think they’re up to?”
“I have an idea or two. Greed, young man. It always comes down to greed.”
“Bit of a greed fan myself. If you figure out what they’re up to, think maybe you can cut me in on the action?”
Cho’s loyalty didn’t seem to stretch that far. He’d betrayed his job to take a payoff from Angus, and would betray Angus to take a payoff from Sonny? At least he was consistent.
“We’ll see,” Sonny said. “Let me make sure they don’t do something stupid to put us all out of a job first. Now if you’ll excuse me—” He pointed to his dick again.
“The meddlesome prostate, right,” Cho said.
“That’s what I like about you, kid. You’re a fast learner. See you tomorrow night.”
Sonny headed for the men’s Quonset. Maybe he could get a couple hours of sleep in before the morning shift got rolling. If he was going to chase those two young bucks around this mountain, he’d need all the sleep he could get.
• • •
Four hours after Angus and Randy returned to the lab, Veronica Reeves stood on a small plateau, staring out at the sprawling view of a desert awash in sunrise. Her eyes only half registered the morning’s stunning beauty. She was over a thousand feet up the mountain. The dry landscape spread out for miles before her, but all she could think about was the opportunity presented by EarthCore’s endless arsenal of technology.
She’d simply died and gone to heaven. Since she’d discovered the caves at Cerro Chaltén, her star had risen, and she’d been blessed with funding and the latest equipment. At least, she’d thought it was the latest equipment. The truth was that she’d been using Stone Age garbage.
The best ground-penetrating radar equipment she’d ever heard of measured to depths of five hundred feet, and only then if the ground conditions were just right. Angus’s portable GPR array penetrated over three miles down, regardless of the ground makeup. It was also more accurate than anything she’d ever seen, especially inside three hundred feet.
And that map. When Connell had taken her to the lab, introduced her to Angus Kool, showed her the 3-D image of the caves … Well, Veronica still hadn’t fully recovered. If Cerro Chaltén had a similar network of tunnels, her work there hadn’t even scratched the surface. From a computer in Denver, Kool had accomplished more than she had in three years of being on-site, either freezing her ass off in the mountain cold, or suffering heatstroke as she tried to go farther and farther down.
As if the digital map wasn’t enough, Angus apparently also had a way to deal with the heat — something called a “KoolSuit.” Veronica didn’t know what that was, exactly, but she was willing to wear anything that would let her explore the lower tunnels.
A promise, from a guy like that? Probably not worth a bunch of slightly used toilet paper. But that had been the deal she’d made: for letting the dig continue, she got unlimited access to everything EarthCore found, full use of all tech and a healthy “research stipend.” Maybe the amount he tossed out was peanuts to his company — it was more than her entire budget for the last three years combined.
And the big promise: if she demanded an area be left alone, EarthCore would leave it alone.
Money, technology, access. She had everything she could want and more. So why did it feel like she’d made a deal with the devil?
Because she had.
Kirkland was a reptile, a slug in a tailored shirt. He didn’t care about history or human culture. All he cared about was the platinum. If push came to shove, he’d try to back out of the deal. Until that happened, though, there was so much she could accomplish, so much she could learn.
Angus’s map had shown her where to begin. She’d seen a surface area speckled with abnormalities, bright spots of green that represented matter denser than the transparent colors of dirt and rock. That area on the map turned out to be a small, natural plateau. It would be a few more days before Angus’s laser drill — a fucking laser drill, for crying out loud — punched a hole into the tunnel system. Until then, she planned to make the most of every minute available.
The plateau was about a mile from camp, a bit farther down the slope. EarthCore guards brought a small, wheeled GPR suite — there were no roads, they had to haul it here by hand — then worked it along a grid under her supervision. Connell insisted on providing physical labor. She and Sanji had carried little more than personal items.
“Ronni,” Sanji said, “the data processing is almost finished.”
Veronica turned away from the stunning view. Sanji was crouched in front of a monitor that displayed the newly compiled GPR results.
Her father, who’d spent his career as a brilliant laboratory and field biologist, was digging in the dirt and obviously having the time of his life. The walk here had been a gentle slope, save for a few boulders they’d climbed over, yet it had taxed him. He’d gained so much weight while she’d been gone. As if she didn’t feel guilty enough for leaving him alone as it was.
Veronica stood behind him, looked over his shoulder. She expected to see the usual GPR shades-of-gray readout, but this was something far better — full color, in greater detail than she’d ever seen.
“Dad, just look at the tools EarthCore has.”
Sanji nodded. “I know. This shows common readings — loose dirt, sand, gravel — in shades of brown. Rock and densely packed, undisturbed earth appears as shades of black and gray. The yellow marks are anomalies. Angus programmed this to highlight anything linear.”
Hundreds of two-dimensional images appeared. Most were nothing more than a splotch of yellow, and yet she could clearly identify some objects: a human hip bone, a pan, a broken pickax, possibly half a double-crescent knife, even an old six-shooter. The GPR screen created a road map of where to dig.
“Amazing,” she said. “Just amazing.”
The edge of the readout showed a deep black that contrasted with the lighter brown surrounding the yellow artifacts. She pointed to the black edge.
“You said the black is undisturbed earth?”
Her father nodded. “It’s denser, apparently, even compared to dirt that was dug up many decades ago.”
Black graced only the plateau’s perimeter — most of what they now stood on showed signs of disturbance. Veronica frowned, thinking of that first Cerro Chaltén site where she’d discovered the massacre’s long-buried remains. Based on the yellow images that were clearly human bones, she had a bad feeling that they had found something similar.
“Well, it won’t dig itself up,” she said. “Let’s get started.”