Cuarenta Casas, Mexico
No one moved, but Stone could sense both Sievers and Kasey calculating the odds and bracing themselves for action. There were three gunmen, with pistols drawn and held at the ready, against the four of them, but Stone and Avery were unarmed. Moreover, Sievers and Kasey would have to draw their weapons in order to fire, and in the fraction of a second required for them to do that, the Dominion gunmen would have time to react. Time to fire.
They could miss, though at such close range, it seemed unlikely. If it came to a shootout, the odds were against the four of them coming out unscathed. Someone would get hurt. Someone would probably get killed.
The Dominion operatives were a completely unknown variable. People with guns were unpredictable, especially those without formal training, and there was no way to know what background these men possessed. One of them was the man he had faced down at the Library of Congress, but the circumstances had been very different. Stone knew that if he did not take control of this situation, things would spin out of control very quickly.
He took a step forward, arms raised. “Just take it. No reason for anyone to get hurt.”
The abrupt capitulation surprised the leader of the group. Stone could tell that it also caught his own companions off guard. He turned, nodding to them. Would they understand what he was trying to do? Sievers might, but he was also former military, used to violence as a first resort. He let his gaze flicker in the direction of the tunnels behind them, but with the light pointed at the gunmen, he could not tell if the gesture had been understood, much less seen by the others.
He reached out to Avery, palm open. “Let them have it. It’s not worth dying for.”
Avery stared back at him in bewilderment.
“It’s just a piece of paper,” he said. “It won’t change anything.”
Disagreement was writ large in her eyes. “Do you realize what it is?” She spoke in a low voice, her words clearly meant for Stone’s ears alone.
“Why don’t you tell us?” suggested the leader of the gunmen.
Stone frowned. If the situation dragged out, the chances of something catastrophic occurring would increase exponentially.
“We can’t let them have this,” Avery whispered.
“No?” The Dominion gunman feigned disappointment. “Well, I’ll just take a wild guess then. It’s an agreement to annex northern Mexico for the United States. Am I close?”
Stone could see confirmation in Avery’s unblinking eyes.
Sievers laughed. “Is that what you’re all spun up over? Shoot. I might have been daydreaming about girls in my high school civics class, but even I know that it takes more than a piece of paper to make that happen. Especially when that paper and everyone who signed it has been dead for a hundred years.”
The folksy bravado was a front, disguising Sievers’ readiness, but his words were not wrong. Without ratification from Congress, the document was irrelevant. The very fact that it had been lost to history was proof enough that its authors and signatories had not pursued the agreement following Bierce’s disappearance.
So why did the Dominion want it so badly?
“Avery,” Stone said, keeping his voice calm. “It’s just a piece of paper. It’s not worth getting killed for.”
“You really think they’ll just let us walk out of here?” she retorted.
Stone frowned. She was right, of course, but he did not want their captors realizing that they knew it. He turned to their leader. “You will, right? We give you the treaty, and everyone can go their merry way?”
The man gave an acquiescent, and completely insincere, shrug. “Sure.”
Stone turned back in Avery’s direction, but his eyes went first to Sievers then to Kasey. He mouthed the words, Wait for it, and closed his eyes for a moment, hoping they would get the message. When he opened them, he saw Sievers nod, almost imperceptibly.
Avery continued to clutch the portfolio.
“Avery. It’s just paper. Trust me.”
She held on a moment longer, then relented and held it out to him. Stone took the case and moving with exaggerated caution, walked toward the trio of gunmen. He started to extend the portfolio, but then drew back at the last second. “Just to satisfy my curiosity,” he said. “Did you figure it out for yourself, or follow us here?”
An irritated frown creased the other man’s face. “Once we realized where you were going, it made sense.”
It was an obvious lie, but Stone let it pass. “And the Spear? It showed you the way?”
This time, the response was honest. “Not exactly. But the general was kind enough to leave us a little tip, so to speak, to prove that we were on the right track.”
“Oh? We must have missed that. What was it?”
“A coin. A gold double-eagle. Part of the money that President Wilson paid to buy Mexico for the U.S.” He grinned and looked past Stone, in Avery’s direction. “You see, it’s more than just a piece of paper. It’s a bill of sale. We paid for it. The treaty just proves it.”
Stone inclined his head. “Well, that’s definitely going to change the history books.” He started to proffer the case again. “I have your word? You’ll let us go?”
“Cross my heart,” the man said, a little too quickly.
Stone smiled and held out the portfolio, but then pulled back again even as the other man started to reach for it. “So how does this help you exactly? If northern Mexico has actually been part of the United States for the last century, that would mean that everyone living here right now would actually be an American citizen. Forgive me for being blunt, but it seems to me like the last thing the Dominion would want is a lot of brown people claiming U.S. citizenship.”
The man grunted in reply. “That’s not your problem.” He held his hand out, shaking it emphatically. “Give it to me.”
“Sure.” Stone thrust the portfolio out and opened his hand, letting it fall.
The other man made a reflexive grab for it, just as Stone knew he would, but missed. Stone was already moving. “Now, Sievers!”
The chamber was plunged into ominous blackness as Sievers, right on cue, switched off his light, but the effect was short-lived as the chamber erupted with the noise and fury of gunshots. The muzzle flashes were almost blindingly bright, yet were too brief to provide illumination. The reports were deafening, causing Stone’s ears to ring with the first shot fired, and the air stank of sulfur, but he did not feel anything that might have been a bullet tearing into his flesh.
At the instant he dropped the case with the treaty, Stone had launched himself away from the Dominion men and their guns, and toward the vertical support beam in the center of the chamber. His course was chosen deliberately, he knew with absolute certainty where each footstep would land and the exact moment that he would collide with the post. The only thing he could not predict was what would happen afterward.
His shoulder jolted with the impact, but then the post buckled under his weight, and he went sprawling into the darkness, half-entangled with the splintered remains of the rough-hewn timber. He felt, or perhaps merely sensed, a downpour of earth as the unsupported ceiling began to collapse down on top of him.