"Good, Europa, identify last three queries, Compton, Niles, Director Department 5656."
Yes, Dr. Compton, formulating, the female voice answered. Last three queries made by Director Compton to Europa at Nellis complex were: Question number one, Number of the four papal medalists still alive on North and South American continents in 1874; question number two, What was name of recipient? And question number three, What, you mean the information was erased from the old Cray system?
"Okay, Europa, thank you. Librarian, have you located said files?"
Yes, Dr. Compton, the HAL-like voice answered.
"Answer to first query, how many papal medal recipients were still alive on North and South American continents in 1874?" Niles asked as his palms started to sweat.
Searching, Librarian answered as the small screen flashed to Niles's right.
Niles shifted impatiently, hoping this hadn't been a wild-goose chase.
According to Royal Canadian death records, the general census of citizens of Mexico, the official census of Brazil, and the state and territorial records of the United States, one member was still alive in 1874, Librarian answered.
Niles read the duplicate printed answer on the screen with renewed hope; it was the same answer that Europa had given back at Nellis, so the file might just be intact after its initial transcription into the new system. "Question. What was the last name of recipient?"
Searching, Dr. Compton, Librarian answered.
"I guess this is it, huh?" Ryan asked. He, too, felt nervous and leaned closer to the monitor.
"It could be life or death for a lot of people lost down there in the Amazon," Niles said as he bit his lower lip, waiting for the much slower computer than Europa to disgorge the wanted information. Suddenly the voice activated and the monitor flashed to life with a green glow.
Name of remaining recipient; Keogh, Myles Walter; occupation, United States Army; born: 1840, County Carlow, Ireland; recipient ofearlier-described papal honors and veteran of the Battalion of St. Patrick's for armed service to the Vatican.
The name that Librarian had said was familiar; Niles was sure he had heard it before. So was Ryan. "Hey, that name, it sounds—" blurted the lieutenant.
"Question," Niles said, cutting off Ryan as he slowly sat back in his chair. In a low voice, almost as if he was afraid to ask the question, "Date and place of death?"
Searching.
Niles stared at the liquid crystal screen and waited, Ryan planted only inches from his shoulder.
Death occurred at present-day Crow Agency, Montana, United States, June 25, 1876.
Niles felt his heart start to sink. "Question. What was the unit Keogh served with, and the historical name of the location of death?"
Searching, Librarian said in its flat and insane-sounding voice.
As the answer came on screen, Niles lowered the volume of the speakers as history came flooding back in on him, burying all hopes of finding the map if it had been with Myles Keogh when he died. The map was indeed, as Helen had said in her letter, lost forever.
"Jesus Christ, we're fucked," Jason Ryan muttered as he looked at the screen.
Printed out on the monitor was Librarian's answer to his last two inquiries.
Place of death: Valley of the Little Bighorn, Montana, U.S. Territory. Captain Myles Keogh served with operational line unit, Company I, Seventh United States Cavalry.
EVENT GROUP CENTER NELLIS AFB, NEVADA
Niles was linked by conference call from the center in Arlington, three thousand miles away, as the team at Nellis gathered for his briefing on what he and Ryan had just learned from Librarian. Jack and Virginia were at the conference table, along with Pete Golding. Alice sat in her regular seat beside Niles's empty chair.
"Okay, Pete, Virginia, did you get a chance to check my facts from this morning?" Niles asked.
"Yes," Virginia said as she picked up her notes. "Without looking at your research as you requested, we started our own track on the papal medalists, and came up with the exact same information when it dead-ended on the date of Helen's theft."
"May I ask what it is you are talking about?" Jack asked.
"I'm sorry, Jack. Let me get you up to speed. The Padilla diary, as we all know, has been stolen from the archdiocese in Madrid. We have a pretty good idea who took it, but the map seemed a dead end until we linked it to a Spanish priest who, in 1874, has been a papal medalist and a veteran of St. Patrick's Battalion. I won't go into it all here, but suffice it to say in Professor Zachary's letter to me, this was the way to uncover the facts of the map's whereabouts. We linked it to other veterans at that time with whom the Vatican had direct contact, men who could be trusted, and, to make a long story short, we believe we have traced the map to our own country. But just where and to who it was sent has become a major problem," Niles related mechanically over the speakerphone.
The director took the next ten minutes to explain the bad news about the map. The four people around the conference table shook their heads, knowing the odds of the map's being their salvation was now a moot point.
"I started making phone calls from here and I managed to contact descendants of Keogh, who currently live in New York State. Nobody has or ever heard of such a map. Whatever he had taken with him to the Little Bighorn were not among his personal articles returned to his family. His body was disinterred from the battlefield and moved to New York, and was buried with nothing other than his papal medals and uniform," Niles said. "The medals were returned because they were still on his person at the time after the battle by General Alfred Terry's column. He was also known to have had a large cross at the time that the regiment left Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota Territory. This fact is mentioned in several memoirs, not only by other officers, but even in an account of Libby Custer's, the general's widow. She had personally given Keogh a package that was forwarded to him from New York by courier before the ill-fated campaign began. She even said it was a large, gaudy-looking thing that belonged on a wall and not around a man's neck."
"What do you think, Niles? Is that cross something the Vatican may have entrusted to Keogh," asked Virginia.
"I do."
"And records of items recovered at the Little Bighorn or Indian accounts of pillaged material at the site has never made mention of a large cross?" Jack asked.
"I asked Alice to get into the National Parks Service database. Alice, you have anything?" Niles asked.
"We are currently waiting on the most current archeological listings that were conducted by the National Parks Service. They have been unearthing so much since the big brush fire in the 1980s. They just conducted the last field hunt only five weeks ago, and have not published their findings yet," Alice said, taking a breath. "But the odds are good that some warrior may have taken the cross, since that item was very familiar to them, unlike the papal medals the captain was known to have worn."
"I see. Let me know when you get the information on the dig," Niles said. "Now, I want all historical divisions, and I mean everyone, combing through what we have on the Little Bighorn in case we uncover something about the missing map. Just in case it's found and is still in Montana, I want you, Jack, to head there right now. Take someone who knows something about the Battle of the Little Bighorn because I'm afraid I have the American History Department split in two helping Latin American Studies. Besides, we have to get stepping ahead of this thing or those kids down there may die."
"Yes, sir."
"And I have the perfect person to accompany you, Jack," Alice interjected. "She's quite an expert on the Battle of the Little Bighorn. It was her thesis topic."
* * *
Jack looked at his watch and saw it was only moments before the geology class let out for the afternoon. He peeked into the classroom window. He anticipated the instructor's wrath when she learned he had already gone into her room to pack some field gear for her, to hurry the process along. Unknowing of this, Sarah McIntire was enthusiastically explaining something wit
h the use of a virtual diagram that was holographically projected onto a small podium at the front of the room. As she spoke, the three-dimensional diagram of an underground chamber rotated in colors of green, blue, and red. Jack stepped into the room, and gestured for Sarah to continue when she frowned at his intrusion. The fifty-two students, mostly military personnel, turned to look at him. Not just a few eyes lingered on the man who was quickly becoming a legend at the Group.
"Now as I said before, don't be fooled just because a room in a tomb has no apparent exits. Ancient designers usually had emergency egress points that only they knew about. Most didn't favor being trapped before their job was done." Sarah pointed to a seemingly solid wall on the hologram that was outlined in blue. "The key to these escape routes are usually found in some sort of ornamentation, such as this found in KV-63."
Jack knew that KV-63 stood for Kings Valley 63, a tomb uncovered more than sixty years before in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, not far from where Howard Carter had made his discovery of King Tutankhamen fabulous tomb.
"As you see," the hologram magically enlarged to show an ornate wall symbol that had at one time been a torch holder — several were placed strategically around the chamber, "this was discovered purely by accident."
The laser close-up became enhanced even more and, as it did, the ornate holder in the shape of a jackal's head twisted. The facing popped free of the wall.
"Surprise, surprise," Sarah exclaimed, "The cover was concealing a fulcrum release switch, which operated a gravity feed doorway."
As the students watched in awe, the laser hologram depicted a lever inside the wall being pulled down, which in turn activated a sand pour that went into a large container buried in the wall. As it grew heavy with sand (five tons of it, Sarah explained), the hidden escape door inside the closed tomb started to rise. Once it was up, a green laser stairway was presented that led up and out of the tomb.
"So you see, never think that the ancients were dumb enough to box themselves into a corner; they always had an emergency way out of a tight jam. This technology was not only discovered in ancient Egypt but also in many other places around the world, in Peru, Central America, and even China."
A soft chime sounded and Sarah looked up. "Okay, that's it for today. I'll see you next week and, don't forget, I want some more examples of the amazing fulcrum release points found in other areas, not just tombs. I want the modern-day equivalent."
There were a few moans but most of the students left the class knowing more than they had coming in. Every member of the Event Group had to take advanced collegiate courses in order to stay in the Group, and most heartily volunteered to attend them, in any case.
Jack nodded to the students who smiled and said hello as they exited the classroom.
"There's a rumor you're hard on homework," he said.
Sarah gathered up her notes and turned off the hologram. "Not as hard as I would like. But they do have their regular duties here; can't usurp all their time."
"Well, Teach, I have a duty for you. Your bags are packed, let's go."
"Where we going, Major Collins?" she mocked him just a bit.
"To play cowboys and Indians, Lieutenant." Jack picked up her briefcase and then took her by the elbow.
"Huh?"
"We're going to Montana. Someone seems to think you know something about the Little Bighorn."
"Okay." Sarah stopped and looked at him with her eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute, just who packed my stuff?"
Jack winked and led her out of the room.
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
As Niles and Ryan sat in the green sedan on their ride back to the surface, the young lieutenant could see the director was deep in thought. The camouflaged dirt floor above them parted to allow the massive lift to complete its journey to the surface, where they were met by a lance corporal. He waved and then disappeared into a small maintenance cubicle that doubled as the security office. Ryan started the car as the large double doors parted and bright afternoon sunshine once again filled the interior. He backed the car out and onto the gravel drive at the back of the mansion. With a last wave at the marine guard, he put the car into drive and headed toward the front of the grounds. As he passed two men in light Windbreakers, Ryan had the queer feeling they were being watched. He lifted his hand and adjusted the rearview mirror in time to see the two men turn and raise their own hands, only theirs weren't full of car mirror. Ryan immediately saw the submachine guns. He pushed Director Compton down hard to the left by grabbing his suit coat, and leaned down across him. Just as they both hit the seat, bullets smashed through the rear window and into the interior of the vehicle. Ryan felt flying glass as he blindly slammed his foot down on the accelerator and shot off the road into the cemetery proper. Niles had the good sense to keep down.
"How many?" he asked without attempting to rise.
"Three," Ryan said loudly over the noise of more rounds striking the metal skin of the car. As he lifted his head to see where to steer toward, he saw a dark green Dodge pickup truck with two men in the front and one standing in the back. It slid sideways in an attempt to head them off. Ryan threw the wheel to the left and turned the car around, narrowly avoiding a large tree. He tried to head back the way they had come. He was starting to wonder where the Parks Service men were when he saw one of them sprawled on the grass not ten feet from his spinning front wheels. "Five!" he called, correcting his earlier statement to Niles.
More bullets pinged and thumped into the moving car, and the passenger-side window blew inward as a larger calibered weapon opened up from the back of the pursuing truck.
"Goddammit, this ain't going to last long if we don't get some help!" Ryan shouted as he slid down again in his seat. As he did so, he crushed the accelerator down to the floor, again narrowly missing some of the outer white crosses that marked the resting place of fallen soldiers and statesmen. Reaching under the seat, he brought up the only weapon they had, an old Colt.45 he had brought along simply because Jack's regulation was that no security man left on a field assignment unarmed. So he chose a weapon he had first qualified with in the navy, the venerable Colt.
"Hang on, sir!" he cried as he swung the car into a complete 180-degree turn. He used his right hand to steer and with the left he pointed the.45 automatic out of the window and started pulling the trigger as fast as he could at the oncoming truck. Several of the large rounds hit the truck's windshield and one or two found their mark, striking the man standing in the pickup's bed. The bullets struck their attacker so hard he went flying out of the back; Ryan was amazed to see him bouncing like a rubber ball until his body struck one of the white crosses and came to an abrupt stop with blood misting the air around the memorial, staining the white marker crimson.
"Hah! Got one," Ryan cheered in momentary triumph.
Niles sat up to see. "Look out!" he shouted as he saw the first two men. They were both standing in the road, shocked that the car was speeding right for them once again.
Ryan pulled the wheel to the right just in time as the two men again opened fire. Several bullets hit the windshield and spider-webbed the safety glass. One of the bullets grazed by his head, only inches from his skull.
Niles reached out and pulled the gun out of Ryan's hand, swinging the weapon out of his broken passenger window. He was cursing up a storm, already angered by the futility of his computer search and, on top of that, at the indignity of being shot at in this hallowed place.
"Son of a bitch!" he screamed as he fired off the last four rounds in the Colt's clip.
Ryan quickly glanced out the side window and was amazed to see one man grab his face and careen into the other, sending his fire off target. Then an amazing thing happened. Ryan didn't see the tree and they slammed into it. It was a rear-right-side quarter-panel graze, but enough to stop the car. At the same time, the dark green pickup truck found the road and came screeching toward them. Ryan figured in a split second that was it, as he turned the igni
tion and there was nothing but the clicking of the solenoid. The car was as dead as they soon would be. As he thought this, the truck suddenly swerved, as loud popping noises sounded from a distance away. The truck's front window blew inward. The man in the passenger seat grabbed his chest just as his face disintegrated in a hail of large-calibered bullets. The driver of the truck slammed on his brakes and turned the big vehicle around, stopping only to retrieve the one man who was standing and carrying his partner. The driver waited only long enough for the man to throw his buddy into the back and climb in, and then sped away toward the front gate.
Ryan closed his eyes as the silence grew around him. He heard the ticking of the cooling engine and the heavy breathing of Niles, but that was all. He looked around and took stock of the damage. He shook the director until Niles looked at him with a blank stare.
"You okay, sir?" Ryan asked, himself a bowl of jelly.
"How does Jack do it? I mean, that's the first time I have ever been shot at," Niles said as he slowly laid the gun on the glass-covered seat.
"I'm sure he hates it as much as us, sir."
As they watched, several Arlington guards and the Group's undercover marines made their way to the car. Ryan opened the car door; it creaked loudly and fell to the grass. In the next second, the black hand of the lance corporal who had moments earlier seen them off was helping him out of the car, and then the director.
"Ballsy bastards, weren't they?" he said.
"Yeah," Ryan said. "They must have wanted us stopped from leaving here pretty bad."
The lance corporal checked Niles for injuries. "A few more minutes, you might have taken up permanent residence here."
Niles remained blank faced. How in the hell could someone send a team into a covert site, and how in the hell did they know he was there?
"We've got to get back, Corporal. Get us some transport, please," Niles ordered, "before the Parks Service starts asking questions about us."
"Yes, sir," the corporal said as he sprinted off back toward the maintenance shed.
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