“It’s so big out here,” Lucie said now, staring out the car window. “We could be close to the Illuminati, chasing the same ley line, and never see them.”
“The odds are low that we’ll keep stumbling across them,” Bodie said, driving. “I hope.”
Lucie nodded. “We just have to beat them to that crucible.”
Jemma leaned forward from the back seat. “Speaking of that, how’s your research coming?”
“I’ve spent most of the flight and the journey here trying to find any and all mentions of some kind of crucible,” Lucie said, rubbing tired eyes, “and then connect it to the Ishtari or the Illuminati. Unfortunately, there’s nothing.”
“Maybe you haven’t delved deep enough,” Jemma said.
“I believe that’s the key,” Lucie said. “And, while the Internet is incredible, a perfect modern resource where brilliant, learned people have shared most things ancient, there are still countless texts and passages of information and data that aren’t there. They’re sitting in dusty archives, in centuries-old churches, in forgotten libraries.”
Bodie took them around a sweeping right-hand turn. “If you can pin one down, I’m sure we can find time to visit it.”
“Yeah,” Jemma said. “At the moment, we’re more traveled than Virgin Atlantic.”
Bodie guided them further east through the Albertan wilderness, passing little traffic and liking the look of the bright blue sky stretching between horizons. Unusually for Canada, it was warm enough outside to deploy the air conditioning inside, and a welcome change from the last few days.
“The satnav’s starting to struggle,” he pointed out.
Lucie nodded. “Another example of modern tech failing,” she said. “Give me a minute. There are a few travel guides.”
“What do we know of medicine wheels?” Jemma asked.
“Well, they consist of a central rock pile, or cairn, a surrounding cobbled circle and twenty-six to twenty-eight cobbled spokes which connect the cairn and circle. Construction started on them between four and five thousand years ago.”
Jemma whistled.
“Yes, you can see why they’re sacred sites. Experts believe they’re connected to hunting success and buffalo fertility. The one we’re headed to is an archaeological site of the Blackfoot tribe. Tests have found that the site was in use for over four thousand years.”
“It sounds like we shouldn’t be tampering with it,” Jemma said.
Lucie bit her lip. “You’ve read my mind over the last few hours. I realize that what we do disturbs and possibly contaminates old locations that should best be left alone but... when it’s for the good of the world...”
“It must be acceptable,” Jemma said.
“I guess so. The argument is probably moot. Illuminati Hoods or soldiers will come along and do whatever they want. We just have to keep up.”
Bodie reminded her that they were driving blind. “Directions?”
“Oh, yes. We’re looking for an untouched prairie around the Bow River. Head for Bassano and then turn right onto Secondary Road 847.”
“And then?”
“Drive toward Bow River for ten miles.”
Bodie frowned. “Is that it?”
“Well, it’s not like we’re looking for a church or even a cave. Medicine wheels are yet another mysterious anomaly on our planet. No one really knows why they’re there. Yes, there are suggestions and studies and proposals, but—”
“Like Stonehenge,” Bodie said.
“Similar, yes. But the remaining medicine wheels are a true Native American mystery.”
“Nevertheless,” Jemma said, “this one, at least, sits on a vortex.”
“As you know, the vortices sit on equidistant lines on the outline of a decagon. We’re following them in the order they appear. If the Illuminati are doing the same thing—and I’d like to think they are as it would corroborate my research—that would explain why we keep stumbling across them.”
Bodie cut through the rough wilderness for another hour, seeing few signs of life. When Lucie told him to park up, he pulled over onto a high, scrubby grass verge as best he could, wincing when their car’s tires made grooves in the earth.
“Feels wrong,” he said.
“There is a rough track up to the wheel,” Lucie said. “And, in summer, maybe we could drive up it, but I’m recommending we stop here. If the car bogs down we’re stranded and also, walking will make us less visible to any watchers.”
They climbed out, shrugged into backpacks and got a feel for the area. Green and brown rolling fields spread as far as the eye could see, several gentle slopes forming many hills in all directions. To Bodie, it all looked the same. Without coordinates and a modern device, they might never have found their journey’s end.
Lucie led the way. Bodie and Jemma let her go but stayed close behind, checking every horizon for signs of their enemies. They’d remembered to bring powerful field glasses and used them now, focusing in on distant hilltops and suspicious movements that turned out to be cows.
After a while they grew hot despite the cold; confused despite the pre-programmed route. Bodie saw several gophers and waited in surprise for them to wander off. Like the other ancient sanctums they’d visited, the area around the Alberta Medicine Wheel exuded an aura of mystery and respect that lay over the land like a blanket, an untouchable sensation. The deep silence stopped them talking because even their lowest whispers intruded upon the millennia-old ambiance.
Bodie took his time, treading lightly. This was old Native American territory. The stillness might be attributed to the ghosts of buffalo hunters, men and women who’d navigated a different world. Walking these ethereal paths should be done with the utmost regard.
They passed across a cattle guard. Bodie stopped and drank water.
A mile or so later, Lucie stopped and turned toward him. “There’s a sign,” she said. “In the middle of nowhere. We’re here.”
Bodie became extra alert but both he and Jemma saw no other indications of human life, not even footprints. As they approached the medicine wheel, he was surprised by the size of it. It made a powerful statement here, where prairies stretched as far as the eye could see and nothing else lay except for the curve of the Bow River less than a kilometer away.
“You can just tell,” he said. “That it looked exactly like this thousands of years ago. Incredible.”
Lucie walked through the outer cobbles and toward the central stone cairn. She paused, looking at items on the ground.
Bodie joined her. “What are they?”
“Offerings,” Lucie said. “Braided rope. Ears of corn. Feathers. Offerings to the spirits of the Blackfoot, I’d say.”
Bodie never stopped checking his environs but there was nowhere for an enemy to hide. Lucie scanned the area for a place to start digging.
“I’m wary about removing any rocks. Not just because it’s disrespectful but due to the bad karma. It’s been reported that an average of ten people per week mail rocks back that they’ve stolen from the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. And that’s just one park. Same with the Big Horn Park in Wyoming.”
Bodie let her work. It didn’t take long for the small shovel and sample bottle to come out. Lucie sighted on the local ley line by using her maps, and got to work.
Bodie took the time to talk to Jemma. “We’re a long way from the people we were.”
Jemma looked surprised by his statement at first but then laughed. “I do feel a little superfluous,” she said. “There’s not been much call for a cat burglar or planner extraordinaire recently.”
“But there might be,” Bodie said with a smile.
“Let’s hope so. We’ve been over ten years on this road. Started off as green and rough as fresh weeds. You know... sometimes I don’t know which side of the law I prefer.”
Bodie nodded. “The CIA certainly muddied those waters,” he said. “But I think everything we did, we did it right. Other issues got in the way.”
&
nbsp; Jemma nodded, her bun bouncing up and down. “Government agencies are gray,” she said. “We can’t be. Whatever we do we make sure it’s for the right reasons and that nobody innocent loses out. For me, there’s no other way.”
Bodie had always known Jemma to be ethical, bound by honor. It had made planning jobs extra difficult but also gave them a mark of principle. Bodie could always be sure of Jemma’s stance on honesty.
“I think I’ve got all I need,” Lucie said, interrupting them.
Bodie watched her secure the sample in her backpack and then the three of them started off for their car. Lucie took a last, long look at the medicine wheel and Bodie didn’t blame her. Up here, steeped in history, it might as well be from another planet.
The prairie soon swallowed them. If it wasn’t for Lucie’s already downloaded map, they might have become lost.
A thirty-minute walk from the car, the helicopters arrived.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Bodie bore Lucie to the ground and landed close to Jemma’s heels as she threw herself headlong. The rotor beats came from behind and, as Bodie rolled and looked up, he saw a sky full of nothing.
Well, nothing except clouds and a single bird.
“They’re coming in from another direction,” Jemma said. “Toward the medicine wheel.”
Bodie nodded, but stayed low and flat. The helicopters battered the air as they approached from a distance.
Lucie sat up. “They’ll damage the site. We can’t let them get away with—”
Bodie pulled her back down to the ground. Lucie glared up at him, but he shrugged. “There’s nothing we can do. Lie still.”
Minutes passed. Bodie eased his body up to see. The flat prairie was dotted here and there with hills like the one where they’d found the medicine wheel. It occurred to him then that the disparities between them and the Illuminati were highlighted right here: the relic hunters, depleted through injury, arriving in a car and following a paper map through the Canadian wilderness; the Illuminati touching down in helicopters no doubt with a new military force, weapons and all the tech a crazed megalomaniac could ever dream of. Yes, the Illuminati had made mistakes just like anyone which would have slowed them down, but Bodie dreaded to think how close they were to their goal of ten sanctums.
For the briefest sliver of a moment, it almost made him wish for the heady days of working for the CIA.
“Come on,” he said, “and stay low.”
They crawled through the grasses using their elbows, stopping often to scan the panorama behind them. The spectacular view was spoiled by the sight of two distant choppers touching down. Bodie used the field glasses to count nine men alighting. There were probably more. Mercs carrying machine guns buzzed around the whole area. Bodie crawled on.
Ten minutes later they topped a hill and checked back again. Rotors still beat at the air, uncaring of the damage they were doing, the stones and keepsakes that were being displaced. Men charged around the scene, searching the area for enemies before lining up in an armed perimeter. Of course, they didn’t need to dig at the exact spot Bodie and co. had used – and Bodie hoped they didn’t since their presence needed to remain hidden.
Bodie imagined someone, somewhere would have alerted whatever local authorities held sway around here, and hoped the mercs would be long gone before they arrived. These soldiers wouldn’t hesitate to shed blood on this sacred land.
The three of them continued, elbows dirty with soil, their jackets cut by stones. Their arms ached and they were forced to stop as their biceps complained with a fiery pain. After a short break, they went on.
Finally, Bodie topped a slight rise and saw their car parked on the verge just off the road ahead. Still, there was no other traffic. They scrambled over the hill, rose to their feet, and ran to their car.
Lucie fixed her phone into a cradle affixed to the car’s heater grill and positioned it so that Bodie could read the map. She said nothing. Bodie saw the hurt in her eyes, the disgust.
“You know,” he said, turning the car around. “The Illuminati don’t care about anything except themselves. It’s not just the medicine wheel, though what we just saw epitomizes the bigger issue. If they get their reward, whatever it might be, they’re planning on changing the whole world. Sacred sites will be destroyed.”
“I know, I know. It’s bigger than any one thing. Bigger than us. Bigger than an ancient site in the middle of bloody nowhere. That doesn’t blunt my anger.”
Good, Bodie thought. Because soon, you’re gonna need it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Bacchus sighed in satisfaction, seated in his favorite place. The dungeon was a fine sight, drab gray walls adorned by all manner of torture instruments—some of the Illuminati’s own design and unknown to the larger world—and paintings depicting sacrifice and the rising of the Great Dragon.
The air held a tangy aroma of blood, that coppery stench always inflamed his nostrils and his ardor. There were old stains on the floor. Piles of thick black links were heaped in one corner, chains and manacles that he loved applying. Some had been with him longer than his three Minervals and received better attention. The whole set up was perfect and gave him something to look forward to as he sat and thought about the day to come, sipping his morning coffee.
Their quest was progressing nicely. So far, there had been two major hiccups. One—the relic hunters, which was ongoing, but Bacchus was positive that, at some point, a great opportunity would present itself to eliminate that problem. Every sacrifice they made helped ingratiate themselves with the Great Dragon. He was on their side. Soon, he would act.
The second major hiccup had already been rectified. His men had collected a spoiled sample from the Majorville Medicine Wheel and had been forced to return. The ore had been contaminated with particles of stone and grass. The person collecting the initial sample hadn’t seemed to care.
Well, he cared now.
He was strapped to Bacchus’s altar, bound so tightly that only his eyes could move. As of this moment, he was unharmed.
Bacchus was saving him. Later, he’d make an example out of him. The Illuminati military commanders needed to know the consequences of failure, of losing focus. For now, Bacchus sipped his coffee and gazed upon his favorite domain. Someone brought him a croissant, which he savored as he inspected a row of knives and bone saws.
To finish today’s breakfast in fine fashion, he took a tour of his favorite paintings, enjoying the one where the Great Dragon devoured the world with teeth the size of skyscrapers, one city at a time, while the Illuminati looked on and laughed from their elevated place on high. It uplifted his heart and kept a smile on his face from the dungeon all the way to his office on the top floor of the house, with its three huge, floor-to-ceiling picture windows overlooking a hazy gorge.
Adelaide was seated at his desk, wearing a knee-length skirt from which her bare legs protruded and rested impudently on his desk. As soon as he walked in, she sat up straight and smiled. “I have news.”
Bacchus held her gaze. “You test my patience, High Minerval.”
Adelaide jumped out of his chair and slipped around the desk. “We have found Guy Bodie and his friends.”
“Really? Are they dead?” Bacchus felt a rush of hope.
“No, and that’s the best part. They may be using fake passports, but they can’t hide from facial rec.”
Bacchus frowned, paced to his northern-facing picture window, and gazed across countless folds of mountains and valleys. “Explain.”
“They got on a plane from Canada to Hawaii,” Adelaide said. “Well, a journey that takes them to Hawaii, with changes on the way. We’ve identified the last leg of their flight from Honolulu to Hawaii’s Big Island. Already, we have people on the ground.”
Bacchus turned from the window. “People on the ground?”
“Prepping the final plane.” Adelaide grinned.
Bacchus frowned at her in understanding. “You want to put a bomb on it?”
A
delaide’s face fell. “Is that wrong?”
“Essentially, no,” Bacchus said. “But it is not our way. Remember the attack on the archaeological museum of Athens? The assault on Cadbury Castle. We go big.”
“Is a bomb not big? I don’t understand.”
“Then listen and learn, High Minerval. A bomb can be explained away. Spun in all manner of ways. We can use a crappy, random attack by pissed off domestics to wage war on a struggling country at the stroke of a pen. But... think... if instead we attack that plane using Apache gunships...”
“On American soil?” Adelaide breathed.
“It becomes a blinding Illuminati statement, long remembered, always adored. I want my name to be a legend for future Illuminati generations. Don’t you, Adelaide?”
The redhead reached for the phone. “I’ll change the method of attack.”
Bacchus nodded sagely. “I like that idea.”
*
Heidi Moneymaker whipped her head around as Butcher let out a long, low whistle. “What is it?”
“Your friends, Bodie and co. are traveling to Hawaii.”
Heidi walked over to the desk where he was working. Unfortunately, so did Pang. The CIA man was with them in the hotel room. “Are you sure?”
“Red flagged from Langley. It’s a 99 percent match.”
Butcher showed her several still images that Langley had sent across, each one covered in by dotted lines marking where each facial feature corresponded to a clear photograph that had been uploaded of Bodie and his team.
Heidi squinted at the screen. “It’s them all right. Where exactly are they headed?”
The Illuminati Endgame (The Relic Hunters 7) Page 4