6: The Raid

Robert was leaning over one of the skeletons laid out on a lab bench in the main marquee. Now that a whole skeleton was assembled, it was clear there was something odd about it. For a start, it was small – not much bigger than me – and the face seemed slightly elongated. The skull sloped at a steep angle to bulge at the back, and the canine teeth were unnaturally large.

Robert looked round. “I can’t get over this. Here we are for weeks, and we just find a few rocks. You’re here less than a day, and you go and find the mother lode.” He gave me a half-smile, but his eyes were worried. I pointed at the bones in front of me, at the strange skull.

“It’s incredible. It isn’t human, is it?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Is it an alien?” I asked, leaning over the skull for a closer look.

Robert rubbed his chin. “Now that really would be something.”

“Is it from Mars?” I was thinking about Kris and the artefact she had pushed into my hand.

“It’s not an alien,” said Robert. “It’s a very ancient hominid.”

“A Neanderthal?” I suggested.

“Try something older.”

“Older? But I thought older were apes?” I touched the end of one of the canine teeth. It was sharp.

Robert moved a jawbone into position. “This is something new to science. Maybe I should name them after you – Homo danni. What do you think?”

“Don’t they already have a name? When we told you what we’d found, you called them the Proto People.”

“That’s true, but they still need a scientific Latin name.” He ran his finger along one of the bones.

“And the rocks I found? They’re like that piece…” I was going to say “piece that Pew took” but something made me hold my tongue. There was more to this than just a pile of old bones.

“Yes, my rock,” said Robert, taking up his camera and walking round the table, lining up shots of the skeleton. “I found that further down the valley. But now we’ve got the whole thing, thanks to you.” He pointed to the pile of papers lying on the bench beside the body. “Ten years of research to get me this far. But all I really needed was a fourteen-year-old girl. Danni, this is going to change the world.”

“So this is what you’ve been looking for all these years?”

Robert smiled and continued taking photographs. Then he paused, looking down at the skeleton. “But why the bodies?” he muttered to himself.

“What do you mean?”

“All these bodies. We didn’t expect to find all these bodies. The rocks yes, but not bodies.” The camera clicked. “It’s a bit odd.”

Now that I was close to the fragments again I could feel the stone that Kris had given me warming up against my skin.

I prodded one of the rocks.”That’s writing on them, isn’t it?” Robert nodded.

“Lucy could probably work out what it means,” I said, smiling at him.

“Don’t go there, Danni.”

“Why not? I liked her.”

The camera clicked again and he moved on round the table. “I liked her, too. I still do.”

“I think she liked you.”

“So throwing your drink over someone is a sign of affection? Hmm, the youth of today.”

I laughed. She had thrown her drink over Robert and stormed out of his house that Christmas Eve, a mass of angry bouncing curls. Mum and Dad had been there, too. I touched my fingers against the photograph I had brought with me, tucked away in my pocket. The old ache was back, pulling at my insides.

I picked up two of the rock fragments, turning them over in my hands, sliding against each other, until they seemed to slot together of their own accord. A hot tingle ran through my hands and up my arms.

I dropped them and stepped back. The feeling had vanished as quickly as it had come.

“Those rocks just gave me an electric shock.”

“Actually, I think I will give her a call.” Robert said, ignoring me. His mind was still wandering over Lucy. “She’s gone into Intelligence, MI5. Probably forgotten she ever knew anything about archaeology.”

“MI5?”

Robert chuckled. “Yes. She was the best code cracker I ever knew – ancient languages were a cinch to her. She could translate Etruscan without even thinking about it.”

He took a couple more shots of the skeleton and looked as if he was about to say something else when the tent flap opened and Doug poked his head around.

“Supply plane’s coming,” he said. “Just about to land.”

Robert put down his camera. “Right on time.”

I followed them out into the sunlight and down to the landing strip where I had arrived only a few days before.

The plane dropped out of the blue sky, whining like an oversized mosquito, and drew level with us. This time, the pilot killed the engine and the prop spun to a halt. He climbed down, opened the hatch and started to unload boxes of supplies. Men from the dig gathered round to help. I noticed Gracie was standing a little to one side as I moved in to do my share. She looked awfully serious.

A few trips back and forth to the marquee and the shipment was unloaded. The pilot joined us, walking between the tents towards the drifting smell of bacon.

He talked idly about the weather and the problems of the world, which all seemed so far away from us. And then he paused. “You expecting another plane?”

Robert looked round, his eyes alert. “No.”

“Well, listen,” said the pilot. “In fact, that’s not a plane, it’s a helicopter.”

“And there’s more than one,” said Doug, smoothing his beard.

Robert’s face turned a sickly grey.

“Maybe it’s just some military manoeuvres,” Gracie suggested. “They’ll pass over.”

We all turned, squinting into the sky towards the noise. My eyes started to water with the brilliance of it all, sunlight reflected off bare rock. The noise grew louder.

Then, in an instant, they were there, swooping up from behind the cliffs and filling the valley with the throb of their rotors. There were four or five, I’m not quite sure, for they seemed to be everywhere, all around us, all at once.

They dropped lower, hanging in mid-air, and I stepped back as the grit and dust of the valley floor was blasted up by the downdraft of their rotors, stinging my face. I clasped at my hat to keep it in place.

There were men now sliding down ropes to the ground, men dressed in black with heavy boots and guns slung over their shoulders. But before I closed my eyes and turned away from the driving grit, I saw something else; letters written in red on the sides of the helicopters.

MEXA.

Had they followed us here?

I blinked out the grit and lifted my hands to shield my eyes.

Simon was walking towards where the nearest commandos had just reached the ground. He was shouting, but his voice was drowned out by the throb of the rotors.

The two commandos looked at each other as he stopped in front of them, waving his arms around. I still couldn’t hear what he was saying.

One of the commandos lifted his gun and took a step forward. He slammed Simon on the side of the head with it and stepped back as he crumpled into a heap. The second commando went in with a hefty kick. Simon didn’t move but I could see dark blood staining his hair and the rocks around him.

Gracie screamed.

The commandos looked up. They stepped over the body and started to come towards us.

For an instant, I’m sure my heart stopped beating.

Then Robert was beside me, shouting into my ear above the thrum of the rotor blades.

“Get out of sight, Danni. Leave me to deal with this.” He gave me a shove in the direction of my tent and took off towards the central marquee.

I ran. Someone was running behind me. I ducked low behind a large boulder and peered round the side. Gracie joined me seconds later.

“Why are they hurting people?” she said through ragged breaths. Suddenly, she didn’t seem older and wiser than me at all.

The MEXA commandos moved in towards the archaeologists. I looked round for Robert.

The helicopters rose again and circled overhead. The sound of their rotors pulsed against my eardrums. I could see the little tent Robert’s team had set up for me, hidden behind some rocks. From the rest of the camp it would be invisible.

“Come on, Gracie,” I said. “I know where to hide.”

She followed close on my heels as I crept around the boulders. I paused to check that the way was clear, then darted across an open space and unzipped my tent. It wouldn’t keep us safe forever, but it would buy us time. We had to get away from the camp, away from the guns, away from the MEXA agents.

Gracie scrambled in behind me, half clambering over me as I turned to peer back out.

“Can you see them?” she whispered. “Were we followed?”

“I can’t see anyone. I think we’re okay.” I pushed my head out a little further, craning my neck to see over the boulders.

“We ought to get away from here,” said Gracie. “Before they start searching the tents.”

I spotted movement in the distance and drew back under the shelter of the canvas. There wasn’t much room in the tent for both of us, and Gracie pressed close.

“They’re after Robert’s research,” I told her. “I don’t know why but what we found in that cavern is really important. I think that man Pew followed us here.”

Gracie gave me an uneasy look. “Really?”

I held her gaze. “Yes, but he won’t find everything.”

For an instant a look of surprise flickered across her face. Then she stiffened.

“Danni,” she whispered. “I think something moved outside.”

I turned back to the half-open tent flap. At first, I couldn’t see anything. But then I spotted a figure, a man, crouching behind a rock. The pilot.

“Over here!” I hissed. He flinched and jumped round, looking relieved when he saw it was only me. He crept over to join us

“Is it just the two of you?”

I nodded.

“Can you get us out of here?” Gracie asked.

“I think I can get to my plane from here,” said the pilot. “Follow me and stay close.”

He led the way, stooping low between the rocks.

The MEXA helicopters had landed some distance away, their rotors still, but the commandos were moving between the tents, removing things and loading them on board. I knew what they were taking.

And then I spotted Robert, his hands tied behind his back, two commandos urging him towards the helicopters with the barrels of their guns.

We reached the edge of the camp. The plane was standing on its own, not far from us.

“Fast as you can,” the pilot whispered and started to run. We sprinted after him, over the stony ground. He reached the plane and yanked open the door. He didn’t have time to pull down the steps but helped heave us up into the craft, almost throwing us in. Then he climbed aboard.

“Strap yourselves in,” he said. My belt clicked home and the engine sparked into life. I looked out of the window as we taxied towards the runway.

MEXA commandos were running between the tents, running towards us, but they began to fall back as we picked up speed. The plane lurched and we were airborne. I let out a long slow breath. At last.

But we weren’t the only ones. There was a shadow moving over the rocks below, not far behind our own. I twisted round. One of the helicopters was following us.

“Hold tight,” shouted the pilot and we turned into a dive. My breath was forced from me by the movement, my heart pounding so fast that I thought my chest must burst. We veered to the opposite side, then started to climb, up, up.

“He’s still there,” shouted the pilot.

And then there were little puffs of cloud in the air to the side of us, and a strange staccato sound that rose above our engines and their rotors.

“Oh my God, he’s firing at us!” Gracie screamed. I wanted to scream too, but I didn’t have the breath. We swooped into another dive, and then we were skimming over the rocks, so low over the hilltops that I was sure we would crash. Still I didn’t scream. Instead, I closed my eyes.

“Please,” I whispered. “Please. I don’t want to die.”

Then Gracie’s hand was on mine, her fingers closing around my white clenched fist. I forced a smile, which was gone almost immediately as the plane banked once more.

More shaking, more jolting. At one point, I looked down and the ground was horribly close. And then we were rising up again into the pale blue sky. But always the MEXA helicopter was close behind.

“We’re going to land,” called the pilot, “We’re coming in steep. Hold tight.”

“Where?” I asked.

“There’s the an airstrip down here,” he said. I could hear him on his radio, speaking to someone with an American drawl.

A moment later we hit the runway, black tarmac that shimmered in the sunlight. We bounced back into the sky and my stomach lurched up against my ribs. We bounced again, and finally slowed to a halt.

We climbed down into the sunlight. My legs were shaking and my heart was beating so hard that it made me dizzy.

A couple of angry looking men in suits were marching across the tarmac towards us, waving their arms, probably not happy about our unscheduled landing. But at least these men weren’t MEXA.

At the thought, I shivered and looked up into the sky.

The helicopter had gone. Gracie reached out and took my hand, and hers was cold and clammy. I looked around into her wide eyes.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“Ruby mine,” the pilot answered. “Let me do the talking.”

“Are you okay, Danni?” Gracie asked.

I gave her hand a squeeze.

We were safe.

For now.