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“This is impossible.” Spenser flung the journal to the side and rested her face in her hands. She’d spent hours poring over the damn thing and it had been one giant fail.
“Hey, now,” Riv said. “That thing’s an antique.”
“A worthless antique.”
“Well, that Jimmy dude did say it was crap. Looks like it was just another Striker smokescreen.”
“Yes, but Jimmy only analyzed the first four pages. I was sure there would be something buried deeper in the text.” She trembled with suppressed anger and frustration.
“It’s okay,” Riv said. “These legends and clues almost never turn out to be true.”
“But the dungeon room is real. And the caverns!”
“Exactly! We’ve already got fantastic material to work with. The journal is great! We’ll make deciphering it a minor story line, stretch it out. And we’ve deciphered the random bits of Morse code. That will be enough to keep viewers on the tips of their toes.” She reached out and took Spenser’s hand. “You’re doing great! Grizzly and I think you’re a natural. Go easy on yourself.”
Spenser wasn’t in the mood to be placated.
“I want it to be real. I need it to be real.” She clenched her fists. It was the only way to stop her from grabbing something and flinging it. She hadn’t made a scene like that since she was a teenager, but right now she couldn’t think of anything more satisfying than smashing something. Maybe a couple of wine glasses.
Riv’s eyes were rimmed with concern. “Why is this such a big deal?”
“He thinks I’m Willie. I need to show him I’m Marion.”
Riv’s face screwed up in a puzzled frown. “Oh, Indiana Jones.” She thought for second and then her features softened. “Oh,” she said again.
“It’s nothing. Just a stupid joke between me and a guy who thinks I’m a walking SoCal cliché.” Spenser couldn’t meet her new friend’s eye.
“I’m sure he doesn’t think that,” Riv said. “You know, I’ve got a different problem. My man got Indy’s reckless courage and Willie’s critical thinking skills. It’s not a good combination but I love him in spite of it.”
Spenser patted Riv on the arm, stood, and turned away. It took a lot to make her cry, and she was right on the edge. Lying open at her feet, the journal swam in and out of her vision as she blinked back unshed tears.
And then she saw it.
She blinked twice and wiped her eyes just to make sure it wasn’t her imagination.
“Riv, would you look at this?” Her heart was in her throat. She almost didn’t dare hope.
“I’m looking.”
“No, stand beside me and look at the journal. It might help if you squinted a little bit.”
Riv did as instructed. She squeezed her eyes almost closed and looked at the journal. They popped open immediately.
“There sure are a lot of capital Xs. They’re big, too.”
“And dark,” Spenser added. “He was bearing down on that paper like he was mad at it.”
“So, what does it mean?”
“Give me a second.”
Heart racing, she hurried to her room and returned with the note pad she’d taken down into the caverns.
“I did my best to map the passages as we went through them. I went back and tried to piece everything together. Obviously, it’s not perfect, but I think I did a fair job. Anyway, take a look at this.” She pointed to a spot on her map where three looping passageways formed a clover. “This is one spot I’m absolutely certain I got right, because we looped around three times. Drove Bones crazy. Compare it to the journal.”
A broad grin spread across Riv’s face. “It’s a perfect match!”
She picked up the journal and the two women went back to the beginning and started over. The first nine pages still seemed to be useless, and they had already deciphered page ten, but the rest of the journal was something different. It was a map.
They quickly sketched it out. It twisted and turned in a chain of dark, blocky Xs across twenty pages. Along the way, side passages branched off, many running off the edge of the page. They quickly identified patterns in Striker’s code that showed which was the correct passageway to follow. After an hour of work, they had a map. But where did it lead?
“Here’s the thing,” Riv said. “As far as we know, Striker never found the treasure. Which means this could be useless.”
Spenser considered this. “Could be. Or maybe he did discover the treasure, but decided he wanted to keep it for himself. It wasn’t like he needed the money.”
“You could be right,” Riv said. “If he’s everything we think he is, I could see him taking pleasure in that.” She looked at Spenser. “I just wish we knew for sure.”
Spenser saw mischief sparkling in the woman’s eyes.
“You know,” she said, looking down at the map they had made. “This clover-shaped chamber is right by the hidden entrance Bones and Maddock found. It’s not much farther from there to the end of the map.” She forced a fake sigh. “I just wish I knew when the guys were coming back. I mean, I’ve done plenty of caving but I guess you need a Y chromosome if there’s treasure involved.” In truth, she’d been caving once with her Girl Scout troop as a kid, and had toured Carlsbad Caverns a couple of times, but she wasn’t about to admit that.
Riv cupped her chin, thinking hard. “I did promise Grizzly that the two of us wouldn’t go anywhere. I think he’s worried Shipman is going to go all Jason Voorhees on us.”
A knock at the door made Spenser nearly jump out of her skin. Through the window they saw Orry Rockwell standing on the porch.
Spenser looked at Riv and smiled. “You did promise that ‘the two of us’ wouldn’t go anywhere, right?”
Eagerness burned in Riv’s eyes. “That is exactly what I promised.”
The late afternoon sun baked the ground upon which Terry Gold and his team stood. He raised his binoculars and scanned the horizon, his eyes on the distant peaks. They stood hazy gray on the horizon like the humps of a sea monster. Nothing he saw looked anything like a turtle.
“What do you see?” Roddy asked, tugging at his elbow.
“Don’t touch me, son.” Terry bared his teeth in something just short of a smile as Roddy backed away.
“We’re looking for anything that might resemble the image of the turtle mound we found carved on the cave wall,” Roddy said to the camera.
“And we’re keeping an eye out for our buddy, Segar,” Gold added. There had been no sign of their competition since spotting them on the ridge near the cave.
“Somebody’s coming this way. West northwest.” Platt, short for Platinum, was Terry’s twenty-five-year-old son. He was a virtual clone of his father, both in physical appearance, tall and lean, and in personality, intense and enthusiastic. Some would say overbearing, but Gold wasn’t one of those people. “Doesn’t look like Segar.”
“Can I see those?” Roddy reached for Platt’s binoculars but was ignored.
Gold swung around and zoomed in on the spot his son had identified. Two men, Latino if he didn’t miss his guess, stood on a ridge line in the distance. Gold frowned.
“They’re wearing suits. Black suits out here in the middle of the desert. What the hell is that about?”
Roddy immediately jumped in front of the camera.
“Legends of men in black are part and parcel of the lore of this part of the country. Remote, isolated stretches of desert make the perfect setting for things like secret laboratories or even alien bases.”
As Gold watched the men, one of them took out his own binoculars and raised them to his eyes.
“Everybody down!” Gold said.
Everyone obeyed except Roddy, who turned slowly about, a puzzled look on his face.
“On the ground!” Ace, Gold’s best friend, snarled through gritted teeth. He grabbed the actor by the belt and hauled him roughly to the ground. It was a good thing, too, because a moment later, a bullet whizzed through the air so close Gold could hear it.
“Oh my God! Did somebody just shoot at us?” Roddy asked, too shocked to be frightened. “That’s crazy.”
Gold let out a little whoop.
“Looks like we’ve got us a fight on our hands, boys!”
“Why a fight?” Roddy asked. “Let’s just get the hell out of here!”
“You take a shot at Terry Gold, Terry Gold takes a shot at you. And he keeps shooting until he’s put one between your eyes.” The truth was, Gold had never shot at a man in his life, but he was fed up with the false accusations of draft-dodging. He was going to prove to everyone, here and now, that he was a true warrior. When it came down to it, shooting a man was the same at least in principle, as shooting a deer. And he was death on deer. “Keep the camera rolling,” he ordered.
He sighted the ridge through his scope. The men had hunkered down behind cover, same as Terry and his team. It was a hell of a long shot, farther than he could hope to hit his target, but he’d give them something to think about.
“Son, you got eyes on them?”
“Yes sir,” Platt replied.
“Tell me where the bullet hits.” Patiently, he squeezed off a shot. The report of the rifle, the familiar buck, were better than a kiss.
“You almost got one, Pops! You hit right between them.”
“So, you just shoot a foot to the left and it’s all good?” Roddy asked.
Gold shook his head. “Best to remain silent and be thought a fool,” he said softly.
“Man on the left is taking aim,” Platt warned.
Terry fired.
“I don’t know if you got him, but he hit the deck hard.”
“This could go on all day,” Ace said. “Think we should go after them?”
“What the hell are you saying?” Roddy said. “It’s not a war.”
Ace grabbed him by the collar and gave him a shake, an odd sight since both were lying on their bellies. “This is war at its most basic. Mano a mano, with only the rifles God gave us.”
“We’ve got two men approaching from the east,” Platt said. “They’re trying to flank us.” He dropped his binoculars, took aim, and fired. “Missed. They’re gone now.”
“Were they wearing black suits?” Gold asked.
“Looked like they were dressed for hiking. A weird-looking pair. A blond dude and a big Indian. The feather kind, not the dot.”
“Give Roddy your binoculars and have him keep an eye out for them. I’m not convinced those guys are on the same team as these jokers.” He squeezed off another shot for emphasis.
“Three separate parties out here in the middle of nowhere?” Roddy asked. “And none of them is Segar’s crew? What are the odds of that?”
Gold was struck by a sudden thought.
“If we’re finally getting close to the treasure, I’d say the odds are pretty good.”