A mob surrounded the old warehouse in downtown Kirktown, Georgia. Many of the people carried signs and shouted angrily. Police cars and uniformed officers enforced the demarcation between the crowd and the warehouse. A news helicopter hovered overhead.
Seated in the back seat of the cab, Annja Creed stared through the morass of angry civilization. The car slowed, then finally came to a standstill as angry protesters slapped the vehicle and cursed. The action warred with the overall appearance of the city. Kirktown looked like the ideal tourist stop for anyone wanting a taste of genteel Southern manners.
We’re not about manners today, Annja thought.
Kirktown was a small Georgia town that had limped through the Civil War, became a textile success during industrialization, but had struggled on into the twenty-first century. Old buildings stood with new as the town continued to grow around the industrial area, finally outliving the textile era and leaving the older buildings to rot at the center of the downtown area. Like many Georgia towns, and cities in the South in general, the population was almost equally divided between white and black families, with some Hispanic and Asian communities, as well.
And like a lot of small towns, Kirktown had kept its secrets close and its darkest secrets buried.
Annja Creed had come to help dig up at least one of those. Looking at the site and the crowd thronging it, she felt like an outsider—a familiar feeling. She’d been raised in an orphanage in New Orleans. No matter where she went in her life, most of the time she felt like a visitor.
The cabdriver, a barrel-chested Rastafarian with silver wraparound sunglasses and a gold tooth, turned to look back over the seat. “I’m sorry, miss, but this looks like it’s as far as I can carry you.”
“We can walk from here,” Annja said.
“You can see what we’re up against,” Professor Noel Hallinger said. “Every time there’s a race issue, the reactions are immediate and severe. I wasn’t sure if the police would be able to hold the site clear long enough for me to bring you from the airport.”
Annja nodded as she lifted her backpack from the seat and opened the door. Her head was already full of questions. She’d made notes in a notebook on the way. “How many bodies did you say you’d found?”
“Sixteen so far. But there may be more.” Hallinger was a tall man in his early sixties. His hair had turned the yellow-white of old bone and hung over his ears and the back of his collar. His face held a deep tan that testified to long years spent outside in harsh weather. Bright blue eyes narrowed under the Chicago Cubs baseball cap. He wore jeans and a khaki shirt.
“Have you made any identifications so far?” Annja slipped her backpack over one shoulder, then wished she’d bought a newer, lighter-weight notebook computer.
“None.”
“You’re sure the bodies are all over a hundred years old?” Annja started for the warehouse.
“Who are you?” a tall black man demanded, stepping in front of her to block the way. He looked to be in his sixties, fierce and imposing. He wore a business suit with the tie at half-mast because of the heat. Even in November, Georgia insisted on being uncomfortably hot.
“Annja Creed.” She stood five feet ten inches tall and wore a favorite pair of comfortable working jeans, a sleeveless olive Oxford shirt over a black T-shirt, and hiking boots. Her chestnut-colored hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail. Blue-tinted aviator sunglasses protected her eyes from the midday brightness.
“Why are you here, Miss Creed?” the man boomed. His challenge had drawn a small crowd that was growing steadily. More and more heads turned toward them.
“I came to help,” Annja responded.
“How?”
Beside her, Hallinger took out a cell phone and made a call.
“I’m here to help find out who those people are,” Annja replied. “If we can, we’re going to get them home.”
“It’s been 150 years or more,” the man said in an accusing tone.
“That’s what I’ve heard,” Annja said.
“And you think you can find out who those poor unfortunates are?” The man glared at her with hostility.
“I’m going to try.”
“Those people should be left alone,” a broad woman shouted. “Just leave ’em alone. They been buried there for 150 years. Ain’t no need in disturbin’ they rest. All them folks what was gonna miss ’em back then, why, they in they graves, too. You got no call to be a-stirrin’ up ghosts an’ such.”
I so did not need this, Annja thought. But she’d known what she was going to be getting into from the moment Professor Hallinger had outlined the situation in Kirktown. She’d come partly because of her curiosity, but also out of respect for the man. They’d had a sporadic connection over the Internet archaeology boards she liked to frequent, and they’d worked together for a short time on a dig outside London a few years ago.
But the oddities that had been found—which was why Hallinger had sent for her—drew her there. She knew she couldn’t have stayed away from something like this. How often could an archaeologist expect to find a dig site inside the United States that might offer a glimpse into West African history?
Close to never, Annja had told herself back in her New York loft. She reminded herself of that again.
“We can’t leave them there.” Hallinger folded his cell phone and put it away. “That building is scheduled for demolition.”
“That building’s been abandoned for close to twenty years now,” someone said. “It should just be shut up and left alone.”
A police car moved forward through the crowd. The siren chirped intermittently in warning. Grudgingly, the crowd parted.
“Hey!” someone shouted. “I know that woman!”
Annja’s stomach spasmed. She was betting there were more television watchers in the crowd than readers of Archaeology Today or any of the other magazines to which she occasionally contributed articles. Besides that, few of those articles featured any pictures of her. There was only one place that people might recognize her from.
“She’s that woman from Chasing History’s Monsters!”
And that was the place, Annja thought. It wasn’t the first time that her part-time work on the syndicated television show had created problems for her.
Chasing History’s Monsters was a weekly foray into the exploration of creatures, myths and whatever else the show’s producers felt comfortable covering. Each week, at least two or three stories, legends or fables would be fleshed out and presented with a mix of facts and fiction.
For her part, Annja usually shot down the myths and debunked hauntings and demonic possession, blowing away legerdemain with research and study. Her concentration was on the history of the time, of the thinking and the people and how all of that related to what was going on in the world of today. Of course, even though she poked holes in fabrications, that didn’t make true believers any less willing to believe.
“Kristie!” some young men shouted, mistaking Annja for her popular co-star. They jumped up and down, mired in the crowd, trying to get a closer look. They were pushed farther back as the police car rolled through. “Kristie! Over here!”
The tall black man turned to the police vehicle. He slammed both hands on the hood. The sudden loud noise quieted everyone.
“I’ve filed an injunction to stop this demolition,” the man roared. “The sanctity of those graves needs to be maintained.”
Two policemen stepped out of the car. The older one was black and the younger one was Hispanic. Both of them had that hard-edged look that Annja recognized. She’d seen it first on the faces of the men who patrolled New Orleans, then in the faces of men serving in the same capacity around the world.
“John,” the older policeman said, “I’m going to ask you to back off once, politely. And if you don’t, I’m going to arrest you.”
“We have the right to assemble,” the man said.
“Assemble,” the officer agreed, “but not to impede. The construction company and the owners of this land have graciously allowed people to come in and make the attempt to find out who those dead folks are. They didn’t have to do that. They could have just cleaned them out of there.”
“Like the refuse they were treated as all those years ago?”
“I’m not here to debate, John,” the policeman said. “I’m asking you to step aside and let these people get on with their jobs.”
“They were murdered!” John shouted.
Murmurs came from the crowd.
“We don’t know that,” the policeman said. “And even if they were murdered, whoever did it is dead. We’re not going to find a guilty party.” He took a breath. “Now step down.”
Reluctantly, the big man stepped back. A corridor opened up to the police car. Annja walked forward.
“Afternoon, miss,” the police officer said. The badge on his shirt identified him as A. Marcus. He opened the squad car’s rear door for Annja.
“Thank you, Officer Marcus.” Annja slid into the back seat.
The younger officer put Hallinger in on the other side. They were driven to the building less than a hundred yards away. The sea of protesters, driven to a new frenzy, flowed in behind them.
“You’ll have to forgive them,” Marcus said. “Kirktown is usually a fine city. A place where you’d want to bring your family.” He glanced up at the news helicopter circling in the sky. Sunlight splintered from the frames of his glasses. “Today…well, we’re just not at our best.”
“Is there a chance that any of the people located under the building are ancestors of the people here?” Annja asked.
“Probably. The Civil War and the Underground Railroad was a long time ago, but people haven’t forgotten. Racial tension is something that I don’t think will ever go away in this state.”
“It’s too easy to separate people by skin color,” Annja agreed. “Then you’ve got money, politics and religious preference.”
Marcus grinned. “Yes, ma’am. I figure that’s about the size of it. Always has been.”
“Before the construction workers found the bodies,” Hallinger said, “protests were already working to stop the demolition. Some groups wanted to preserve the building as a historic site. Others didn’t want new business coming into the area.”
A large metal sign hung on the front of the four-story building. It read Weidman Brothers Construction. Future home of Lark Shopping Center.
The young officer turned around and peered at Annja. “You’re not the one on Chasing History’s Monsters who posed for Maxim, are you?”
“Luis,” Marcus growled.
“No,” Annja said. Biting her tongue, she thought, I’m the one with an actual college degree, years of training and personal integrity.
“I didn’t think so.” Luis looked and sounded a little disappointed. “I saw the magazine spread she did a few months ago. She looked bigger.”
Since Annja was six inches taller than Kristie Chatham, she knew the young policeman wasn’t talking about height.
“No offense,” Luis said quickly.
Annja made considerable effort not to unload on the policeman. After all, she’d just arrived and didn’t need to make a bad impression.
“Thanks for the ride,” she told Marcus as he opened the door to let her out. She missed the air-conditioning inside the car as soon as the hot wind blew over her.
Hallinger joined her. “The rest of the excavation crew is inside the building,” he said.
“Who do you have?”
“Kids from the university mostly,” Hallinger admitted. “A retiree who has an interest in the Underground Railroad. A few people from the historical society here and from Atlanta to help with some of the heavy lifting.”
Annja didn’t point out that Hallinger didn’t have much skilled help. The man already knew that.
“So why did you call for me?” She hadn’t wanted to ask him that question until they were face-to-face.
“Because you’ve got some recent experience with African culture.”
“With Poulson’s dig?” Annja shook her head. “That shouldn’t count. I was on the ground less than three weeks before the government suspended Poulson’s visa.” That was still a sore point with her. She’d waited years to go to Africa, then got kicked out almost as soon as she’d settled in.
“That,” Hallinger told her, “is two weeks longer than I’ve had. You’ve been exposed to the Hausa culture?”
“I’ve read up on it. Saw a little of it while I was in Nigeria.”
Hallinger smiled. “Then you’re light-years ahead of my university students and volunteers.”
“I couldn’t have been at the top of your list,” Annja said.
“No. Nineteenth, actually. I received eighteen rejections before you accepted, Miss Creed.”
Okay, that stings a bit, Annja thought as she returned his smile.
“I’m just fortunate to have called you at a good time,” he said graciously. “You have an outstanding reputation in the field, Miss Creed.”
Hallinger was being generous. Outside of Chasing History’s Monsters, few people knew her. She was in her midtwenties and didn’t have any significant finds to her credit. But she was good at what she did and loved the work.
“Call me Annja,” she told him.
“Want to go inside?” Hallinger asked. “At least the protests and the constant roar of the helicopter rotors dull a bit.”
“Sure.” Annja followed Hallinger. But the distinct feeling that she was being watched haunted her. It was ridiculous, of course. She was well aware she was being watched by the crowd of protesters and the news helicopter.
However, one set of eyes focused on her felt predatory. She sensed a threat. She’d never paid much attention to such unscientific evidence as feelings until a few months ago when she’d reassembled Joan of Arc’s sword. Her sword now.
Though it was hidden away in some otherwhere that she could reach into to retrieve it, she could feel the plain, unadorned hilt smooth and hard against her palm. All she had to do was close her hand, will the blade to come forth and the weapon would be there.
In front of a few hundred witnesses, Annja chided herself. Not exactly the brightest thing you could do at the moment.
She stopped at the doorway and swept the crowd with her gaze. Tapping into those inner senses she was still trying to figure out how to control, still thinking some days that they were a figment of her imagination, she tried to isolate the predator.
Annja felt the pressure fade. But she was certain that someone was out there who didn’t mean her any good.
“Coming?” Hallinger asked from inside the building.
“Yeah,” Annja said, and she stepped into the building.
“DID SHE SEE you?”
Dack Tatum stood in the crowd outside the warehouse and looked back at the door the woman had entered through. He thought about the way she had stopped, almost as if she knew someone was watching her. A cold thrill shot up his spine.
“Dack,” the voice barked through the cell phone Tatum held.
“No,” Dack said. “She didn’t see me.”
“Are you certain?”
Dack cursed. The speaker on the phone was his younger brother Christian. Christian had always been a worrywart. Dack turned away from the crowd and signaled Vince Retter and Brian Haggle, the two spotters he’d set up in the crowd. All of them had cell phones with walkie-talkie capability.
“I’m certain, Christian. Relax, man. I got this wired. I’m rolling heavy with manpower on this op. Chances are there were just too many eyes on her. Some women feel hinky when a guy stares at her. It’s no biggie.”
“It is a biggie,” Christian said.
Dack was a huge man, nearly six and a half feet tall. He had dark hair shaved nearly to his skull and dark eyes that looked like gun muzzles. He was in his late thirties. For ten years, he’d been an Army Ranger. Then, when he saw he wasn’t going to get the promotions he wanted and saw how much money there was to be made in the civilian sector, he’d spent the past eight years as a mercenary, for sale to the highest bidder.
He didn’t usually work Stateside. But everywhere outside the United States was fair game as far as he was concerned.
Dressed in shorts with cargo pockets, a T-shirt proclaiming his love for Charlie Daniels, a skull-and-crossbones bandana and mirrored sunglasses, he looked as if he’d just driven in from the trailer park to see what all the fuss was about.
“You don’t know what’s at stake,” Christian went on.
“So why don’t you tell me?” Dack entered the nearby convenience store, which was doing a booming business in beer and Icees thanks to all the protesters, police and media in the area. He grabbed a single beer from the refrigerator unit and paid for it at the counter.
“Do you remember Horace Tatum?” Christian asked.
Dack didn’t. He figured it must have been the name of a family member he’d gotten introduced to at one of the reunions. Personally, he didn’t remember anyone he didn’t do business with. Or didn’t kill. He always remembered the guys he took out. He went to sleep every night bringing their faces up in his mind’s eye. It was a relaxation technique that had never failed.
“A cousin?” Dack guessed.
“No. Don’t you know anything about our family?”
“You’re my brother. Our parents are dead. I don’t think there’s anything else I need to know.”
“Horace Tatum was one of our ancestors,” Christian said.
Oh, one of the dead ones, Dack thought. He wasn’t going to feel bad about not remembering a dead relative. Unless it was his mom or dad. But Christian had a thing about remembering dead relatives. His younger brother had become a genealogy fiend, always tracing dead relatives farther and farther back in time.
Dack felt it was better to let dead relatives lie. Christian, however, was convinced that a treasure was out there waiting to be claimed.
“So,” Dack said. “Horace, relative or not, is long dead, bro.”
“Yeah. But he’s the one who killed those people in that building.”
“So?”
“So if people find out he’s the one that killed all those slaves 150 years ago, that’s going to put a kink in my plans.”
Christian was planning on running for the office of the state representative next term. He was one of the wealthy elite in Atlanta. Dack knew having a murderer in the family, especially with all the attention this situation was receiving, would hurt his brother’s precious image. Christian needed his older brother to get a handle on things.
Dack walked outside the convenience store and twisted the cap off his beer. He sipped, relishing the cool liquid against his parched throat.
“His father was Jedidiah Tatum,” Christian went on.
“The guy who owned the textile mill.”
“You do remember.”
Actually, Dack knew that fact from one of the news pieces he’d heard on the convenience store radio when he’d stopped in for a beer and a package of cigarettes earlier. “Yeah,” he lied.
“Jedidiah kept a journal,” Christian went on.
A man’s word for diary, Dack told himself disgustedly. He knew his brother kept one, too. Two, actually. One that listed everything Christian did, and with whom, and the other one sanitized so that it couldn’t be held against him in a court of law. Neither practice, in Dack’s view, was wise or safe. Leaving the one that listed every dirty deed was just plain stupid. Even the sanitized one left holes that would be questioned by anyone who could read between the lines.
“Horace knew one of the slaves in that basement,” Christian said.
“Our family owned slaves?”
“Yes.”
Dack felt pretty good about that. Personally, he didn’t care for blacks. Or people of color. Or African-Americans. Or whatever they were calling themselves these days. He figured they ranged from stupid and lazy to uppity and selfish.
“Jedidiah didn’t just spin the cotton into goods,” Christian said. “He also raised the cotton. Had big fields of it around Kirktown. Horace worked on the fields. That’s how he got to know Yohance.”
“Who’s Yohance?” Dack took another sip of beer.
“Yohance was one of the slaves that worked on the farm. He was the one that had the Spider Stone.”
Dack’s head hurt. He vaguely remembered the story. Christian had always been fascinated by the story of the Spider Stone. When he’d been a kid, Christian had studied the family history at their grandfather’s knee.
“What’s the Spider Stone?” Dack asked.
“Horace believed it was a treasure map. Jedidiah wrote that in his journal. The night he killed all those people down in that basement, Horace looked for it, but he never found it.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Dack asked.
“Because I want you to find that stone.”
Dack cursed loud enough to draw the attention of a few bystanders. “I thought you wanted me to bring that building down on top of those damn busybodies,” he whispered.
“I do,” Christian said. “But I want the Spider Stone first.”
“WE’VE GOT GENERATORS to provide power for the electric lamps we’ve used underground,” Professor Hallinger explained as he led the way through the warehouse.
“Normally the Underground Railroad wasn’t literally underground,” Annja said as she followed the professor, gazing around at the history showing in every plank and joist. She loved being in old buildings that had been preserved. Stepping through their doors was almost like stepping into a time machine.
“No. It was a system of way stops used by those fleeing slavery who made their way north. Some of them went on into Canada. Usually they traveled overland through forests and swamps, off the beaten track. They used the railroad language to suit themselves. A conductor was the guide who led them out of the South along the way stops. Railroad agents were the sympathizers who hid them during the day and gave them food and supplies. But there were a few subterranean areas. Basements, root cellars, caves. This happens to be one of the latter.”
“A cave?” Annja asked.
Hallinger nodded. “Beneath the building. It was used to house the furnace.”
Annja surveyed the massive empty space.
The textile mills had been cavernous. Dust covered everything except the floor where pedestrians had walked it semiclean. All of the windows were boarded over, covering empty frames or remnants of glass. Empty beer cans and sleeping bags littered the floor space.
“I see the local teens didn’t hesitate about claiming squatters’ rights.” Annja took a small digital camera from her backpack.
“No.” Hallinger smiled. “A place like this must have been a godsend to preteens wanting to scare themselves with the idea of ghosts, and teenagers wanting somewhere to explore the prospects of sex, drinking and smoking.”
“Not exactly a lovers’ lane.” Annja looked at the bird droppings that streaked the floor. Glancing up, she saw a few pigeons on the rafters.
“It was close enough,” Hallinger said.
“No one found the bodies until yesterday?”
The professor shook his head as he led the way to the back of the building. “Construction workers shutting down gas mains under the building discovered a closed furnace room. I’ll show you.”
Annja followed him into a back room, then down a flight of stairs that led underground. Dank mustiness clogged her nose and made breathing more difficult. The only illumination came from a string of electric bulbs that led into the large basement area. Wooden shelving lined the walls and occupied the center of the room. Whatever the shelves had contained had long since vanished, either through pilfering or by decomposition.
A handful of people occupied the basement, quietly speaking among themselves as they hunkered down over ice chests with sandwiches and bottled water. They looked up at Annja and a few greeted her.
Annja responded in kind, noticing the grimy faces and casual clothing and the uneasy look most of the younger ones wore. After a brief introduction, Hallinger led Annja through a tunnel in the basement wall.
“Not exactly happy to be here, are they?” Annja asked.
“It’s the bodies,” Hallinger replied. “You get started in archaeology, you think your first body is going to be a mummy or a caveman.”
“I know.” Annja trailed the professor along the small tunnel. “My first body was less than a week old. He’d been buried at a dig site long enough to bloat and collect a number of burrowing insects.”
“Where was that?”
“New Mexico. During my senior year.”
“Ah, the heat. That must have made things pretty horrible.”
“It was.” Some nights Annja still remembered the stench.
“Who was he?”
“A grave robber. We were there helping local tribes recover artifacts, but we left the bodies intact. This guy was there collecting skulls to sell on eBay.”
Hallinger scowled in disgust. “Our chosen field does attract the greedy entrepreneur looking to find shortcuts to a quick buck.”
Annja agreed.
“Did you ever find out who killed your dead man?”
“No. They never even got his name. The tribal police conducted an investigation, but it didn’t go anywhere.”
“I’m not surprised. Desecration of grave sites won’t win you any points in the Native American community.”
The tunnel narrowed ahead. Timbers shored the low ceiling up in several areas. The dank smell grew stronger. Gradually, the tunnel angled upward.
“This leads to the coal furnace.” Hallinger kept moving. “It was built before the basement.”
“The tunnel was built to connect the new basement to the furnace?”
“I don’t think so. At least, not for that reason. The furnace, the original furnace, was lost in a cave-in.”
“How did that happen?”
Hallinger shook his head. “We don’t know. There are signs of an explosion—soot on the walls and some blast damage. Some of the bodies were torn up in the explosion. Or maybe by people who found them later.”
“If the bodies were found earlier, why wasn’t something done then?”
“They haven’t been found since they were buried. The entrance we came through back there had been walled over, closing off the tunnel. One of the construction workers discovered that by accident. Over the years, the mortar holding the stones together had dried out and crumbled. I don’t think it was mixed well. Or perhaps the dankness of the environment contributed to the failure of the mortar. However it worked out, the team checking for gas mains discovered the tunnel. They dug it out in case there were any gas lines in there.”
“Did they know what it was?”
“No. No blueprints of this building exist. It was built pre-Civil War and whatever records of the building might have been around were destroyed when General Sherman marched on Atlanta.”
“Why wasn’t the town razed?” Annja knew from her studies of the war that Sherman had followed scorched-earth tactics, leaving nothing standing in his wake.
“Because it was so close to the railroad. The town became the site of a Confederate military hospital in 1863. All of the larger buildings, including this one, were used in those efforts.”
“Must have made the textile mill owners happy.”
“I don’t think it hurt them any. Have you heard of Christian Tatum?”
“No. Should I have?” Annja asked.
“Not really. He’s a businessman in Atlanta now, with subsidiaries in Charlotte and Savannah. Does a lot with government contracts. Supposed to be a big deal in military engineering. He has political aspirations. His ancestor, Jedidiah, owned this building from the time it was built until he died in the 1890s.” Hallinger stopped and looked back at her. He slapped the timber across the opening. “Watch your head here.”
Annja ducked down a little more and stepped through the narrow opening. When she emerged, she found herself in a large room carved out of stone and filled with the dead.