by Alex Archer
"The gawker gene," Hallinger repeated. "I like that."
"Do I get an A?"
"No."
"Bummer." Amber frowned theatrically and went back to helping restring the grid. Most of it had already been replaced.
Annja looked around. "We lost some students."
"The one who was shot, naturally. And three others. Their parents arrived in the night to claim them and take them home from the police station."
"I missed that," Annja said.
"I'd heard you were out having breakfast with the dashing young detective from Atlanta."
Annja glanced at the professor.
Hallinger held his hands up as best as he could while laden with the breakfast container. "Don't shoot the messenger. People talk."
"Kind of goes along with the gawker gene," Amber said. "They gawk. They talk. So how was breakfast? That guy looked totally hot."
"For one, he's not a detective. He's Homeland Security." Annja didn't want to hold back any of the information she'd discovered. They all deserved to know as much as she did so they could make informed decisions.
"Why would Homeland Security be interested in our dig site?" Hallinger asked.
"They're not. They're interested in the mercenaries. One of them turned out to be connected to a West African warlord who's interested in the Spider Stone."
Hallinger frowned. "That puts a different spin on things, doesn't it? I don't want my students in the line of fire," he said.
"I don't think we're going to have any more problems," Annja said. "Besides that, we've got Homeland Security peering over our shoulder now."
"Still – " Hallinger looked uncomfortable.
"Professor," one of the other students said, "there are more cops out there today than there were yesterday. I think they imported." He looked around at the other students. "I don't know about anyone else, but I got into this field for the opportunities to get a better look at the past. Maybe this isn't digging up a pyramid in the Valley of the Kings, but this is as close as I'm going to get right now. I'm not going to leave unless somebody orders me out."
"I could do exactly that," Hallinger threatened.
Annja said nothing. They needed the help, but Hallinger was in charge.
None of the students looked as if they were going to go without a fight.
They're drawn to the potential danger as much as the mystery of who these people are, Annja realized. She knew the feeling. When she'd found the thief's corpse out in New Mexico, that same mixture of feelings had been a siren call to her. They still called out to her whenever she worked a dig.
"All right," Hallinger relented. "You can stay. But we leave the site tonight before it gets dark."
The students had no problem with that.
"I know who these people are," Annja said. She quickly relayed the story she'd been given by Mildred Teasdale.
When she was finished, one of the students said, "If that woman has all the names of the slaves that were caught down here by Horace Tatum, we don't need to do anything else." He sounded disappointed.
"That's not true," Annja said. "Most archaeologists approach a dig with expectations they believe will be met. Mysteries come along, but they're usually small ones. What we're going to do here is verify the story I was told this morning."
"How?" a student asked.
"By examining the artifacts they left behind," Hallinger answered. "That's what archaeologists do. That's what we'll do."
"We're ahead of the game," Annja said. "We've got an actual record to match up against." She pulled out her notebook. "Besides names, I've got descriptions that will help in most instances." She returned the notebook to her backpack. "But to spice it up a little, so we'll literally leave no stone unturned, I'm going to tell you this. We're looking for another Spider Stone. This one will be about the size of the ball of your thumb."
"What's so important about it?" one of the students asked.
Annja grinned, knowing the answer was going to spark another round of excitement. "It's a treasure map," she said.
For a moment, silence reigned in the basement furnace cave, as if everyone present had taken a collective breath and was now holding it.
"Totally freaking cool," Amber whispered, grinning.
"Yeah," Annja admitted. "It is." Archaeologists were only about a step removed from fortune hunters.
****
The base of operations Tafari had established was in a collection of hide tents that blended with the surrounding brush and trees. Even if a helicopter searched for them, either from Dakar or from one of the American or European corporations, he was sure they wouldn't be found.
Zifa pulled the jeep under a net that had been woven into the surroundings. A live carpet of greenery covered the net.
A man walked from the tent that held the communications gear. Even though they'd muffled the generator that powered the satellite uplink and computers as much as they could, the sound remained steady and constant. Tafari hated it but could do nothing about it.
"I have some bad news." The man was young, one of those Tafari had enticed away from Dakar. He knew how to use computers. His name was Azikiwe. He wore brightly colored shorts and an NBA tank top. He spoke French – the official language of Senegal – better than he spoke the Yoruba dialect.
Tafari couldn't remember what the NBA was. It was an American or European thing that he had no interest in.
"I'm in no mood for bad news," Tafari warned, choosing to speak in Yoruba.
Taking heed, Azikiwe switched languages. "The man you sent to get the Spider Stone is in jail. His lawyer called to let you know."
"Tell the lawyer to get him out."
"He's trying, but that doesn't seem likely."
"Why not?"
"There are other outstanding charges against him."
Remembering that was true, Tafari reconsidered his options. "Did the lawyer say if the Spider Stone was there?"
"Yes. Ehigiator saw it himself. For a moment, he had his hands on it."
That irked Tafari. He had been so close to his prize. "Where is the Spider Stone now?"
"The archaeologists have it."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Tafari walked past Azikiwe and into the tent. It was much cooler inside than outside because a large window air-conditioning unit sat on crates. The young men who knew computers claimed they needed it to keep their machines cool and operational. Tafari suspected they wanted it to keep themselves cool.
Rubber sheets that didn't conduct static electricity covered the ground. Three workstations containing the computers that connected the outpost with the rest of the world were spaced around the area inside the big tent. Each workstation also had a small television.
Azikiwe hurried forward and shut off the television on his desk. Seeing the mostly black men running up and down the floor while bouncing or throwing a ball reminded Tafari what the NBA was.
Azikiwe tapped the keys on his computer, then pointed at the screen. "That woman is the one who found the Spider Stone," he said.
"You're sure?" Tafari asked.
"Yeah." Azikiwe plopped down into the chair in front of the computer. "I downloaded the CNN footage of her. The stuff that was aired last night, as well as other files I found. I even got a couple of episodes of Chasing History's Monsters."
"What is that?"
"A television show."
Tafari had never understood how so many people could simply sit and watch television.
But he understood the draw of electronics. People everywhere wanted electronics. His black market operations kept trading in electronics, mostly things he didn't even know the nature of. It was enough that others were willing to trade for them because he could use the artifacts and ivory they traded to sell in Europe and America.
"The woman is supposed to be very smart," Azikiwe said. "Her name is Annja Creed."
"Smart?" Tafari asked.
"She's an archaeologist."
&
nbsp; "Another bone rattler," Tafari said, thinking of Jaineba. "I've had my fill of them today."
The television screen filled with images of the woman walking through a cavernous vault.
"She's walking through a German mausoleum," Azikiwe said. "She was searching for some mad Nazi doctor who was rumored to still be alive and be behind a rash of killings."
"Was he?"
Azikiwe shrugged. "Annja Creed never found him. She went through the records of several homeless people and those needing psychiatric care, but she never found any proof. The thing that saved this particular episode was her knowledge of German history. She had fascinating stories about gargoyles that were built."
"What is her interest in the Spider Stone?" Tafari asked.
"I don't think she intended to find it." Azikiwe rested his elbows on the arms of the chair and steepled his fingers. "According to the news story, she was called there to help identify the corpses found under the building."
"What bodies?" Tafari hadn't been told about the bodies. Ehigiator had only mentioned the presence of the Spider Stone. That had been one of the items he'd told all his people to look for. Ehigiator was one of the go-betweens the warlord used to ferry around the black market artifacts he shipped to America.
"Slaves," Azikiwe replied. "They've been there for 150 years or more."
That explained why the Spider Stone dropped from sight. Tafari watched the news footage until it showed the Spider Stone.
"Stop it there," Tafari ordered.
The screen locked on to an image of the Spider Stone. A policeman held it and explained in English that they weren't sure what it was, but he knew it had been found in the furnace area under the building, and that the mercenary team had wanted it.
"The men Ehigiator was with wanted the Spider Stone?" Tafari asked.
"Yes." Azikiwe nodded.
"But this," Tafari said, "isn't the Spider Stone."
"What do you mean?" the young computer tech asked.
"I mean that there is another Spider Stone. This one is only similar. It's far too large." Tafari peered more closely at the screen. "No, this was made as a decoy, or perhaps to honor the original Spider Stone." He looked at the tech. "Get my nephew on the phone. He is in Atlanta. I will talk to him."
****
Annja worked slowly and carefully. It was the only way to work in archaeology. So much could be – and had been – lost by those who hurried through a site.
In the early years, when the fortune hunters had plundered the Egyptian tombs seeking only gold and jewels, a number of clay tablets containing invaluable records, histories and insights into science and religion had been lost. Greed had plunged men through shelves, returning those tablets to the dust from which they'd come.
"You're smiling."
Annja looked up at Hallinger. "I shouldn't be," she admitted.
The professor handed her a bottle of water. "Tell me. Anything that can make you smile while we're down in this dungeon has got to be worth a moment's diversion."
Annja took the bottle and twisted off the cap. The water wasn't cold or even cool, but it was wet and she felt parched. Her shirt and pants were drenched with perspiration, and grime crusted her exposed skin and had managed to slide down inside her clothing. She was uncomfortable physically, but mentally she was on her game. They were making good, if slow, progress.
"I was thinking about your comment earlier, about the fragile nature of the digital information storage we now have."
"Yes?"
"I was thinking of the clay tablets the Egyptians, Babylonians and other cultures used. How they were destroyed by tomb robbers, earthquakes and floods. If Atlantis truly existed and wasn't just something Plato made up, then it sits somewhere at the bottom of an ocean and probably most of those records are destroyed, as well."
Hallinger grimaced. "You haven't exactly been thinking happy thoughts."
"What I'm saying is that each culture that cares to make records does the best it can with what it has. Think about the oral historians used by the Native Americans along the northwest coast of the United States and Canada. They didn't have a written language. Oral historians were inviolate and had to be at every peace conference and war that took place. If one of them was inadvertently killed by another tribe, the offending tribe had to give one of their young boys to be trained as an oral historian by the tribe that suffered the loss."
Hallinger slipped his glasses back on. "I see your point."
"We do what we can. Right now, the digital format is better than anything we've ever had," Annja said.
"I know." Hallinger sighed. "I also know how much we've possibly lost over time."
"Professor Hallinger!" Excitement rang in the student's voice. "Over here! I think we found it!"
Annja tossed her empty water bottle into the trash bag they'd set up to handle refuse so it wouldn't get mixed up with what they were handling. She stood, feeling the painful burn in her thighs and calves from squatting for so long. Carefully, she stepped through the grids.
The team had cleared over half of the room, taking the skeletons from the site one bone at a time when they had to. Most of them had been identified by descriptions of personal effects and old injuries Franklin Dickerson had recorded in his memoir. Only two of the skeletons hadn't been identified, and with all the names given in the book, that probably wouldn't be too difficult.
Everyone had crowded around the find, but they pulled back long enough to allow Annja and Hallinger to close in. The student who had made the find directed a flashlight beam at a small stone, plucking the object from the dank shadows under the skeleton's thin hipbones.
Even lying on one side as it was, Annja could still see the distinctive spider design that had been carved into it. They'd found the real stone.
Chapter 10
The stone was about the size of the ball of Annja's thumb. It was striated, with differing layers of sedimentary formation that showed brown and gold with threads of red.
"A tiger's eye?" Hallinger asked.
Annja asked for her camera and it was quickly handed over. "Maybe." She took pictures from different angles, catching the stone from the best views possible before it was moved. Covered by dust as it was, the stone was difficult to see. But once seen, the spider carved into it was unmistakable.
"Anybody know what tiger's eye is?" Hallinger asked. "Any geology minors in the room?"
"Me," a student replied. "Tiger's eye is a chatoyant gemstone."
"Oh, that really helps," someone said.
Despite her excitement at the find, Annja smiled and paused. Even though one of their number was still in the hospital, the students had remained enthusiastic.
"Chatoyancy refers to the reflective ability of the stone," the student went on. "If the stone has a fibrous structure or fibrous imperfections, it's called chatoyant. It's a lot like single-crystal quartz."
"Is it from Africa?"
"It could be. But tiger's eye is found in a lot of places, including the United States and Canada. This rock could have been mined or found right around here."
Handing off the camera, Anna reached through the skeleton's bony pelvis and plucked the stone from the ground. She turned it over, holding a mini-Maglite on it.
A scarlet spider showed up instantly.
Utter quiet fell over the group. Only the buzz of the electric lanterns was audible.
"That's the Spider Stone," someone whispered.
"Yeah," Annja whispered. "It is." She rolled the stone over her palm, taking in the smooth chill it held.
"I guess this is Yohance," another student said.
Annja flicked the light over the necklace the skeleton wore. She checked the image of the river splitting the mountains against the image she'd copied into her notebook. "This is Yohance," she said.
"I thought he was a boy."
"The first Yohance supposedly came over to America as a boy," Annja corrected. "The Yohance in Franklin Dickerson's narrative was in his late te
ens or early twenties. The same age as most of you."
"We could have checked out at the same age he was last night," someone said.
"We didn't," someone else said.
"Did he just drop the stone there?" a student asked. "I don't see a purse or pocket he was carrying it in."
"He wasn't carrying it in a purse or pocket," Annja said. "He carried it internally."
"What do you mean?"
"He swallowed it, then defecated it and swallowed it again."
"Eww," Amber said. "That's just gross." She wrinkled her nose in displeasure.
"I'm sure he washed it in between," one of the students said.
"That's how all the Yohances carried the Spider Stone," Annja said.
"And that doesn't gross you out?" Amber asked.
"No," Annja said. "It's just the way it was." She shone the mini-Maglite on the tiger's eye. "After the flesh rotted away, the stone was left behind."
"It sank through the body?"
"Unless it was released when he voided himself after dying. That could have happened, too."
Despite the situation, Annja couldn't help taking a little perverse enjoyment in the discomfiture of the students. You people have a lot to learn about the field of archaeology, she thought.
"What's wrong with the skeleton's ribs?" someone asked.
Handing the stone to Hallinger, Annja studied the skeleton. Something was wrong with the ribs. They looked as if they'd been cracked, but she knew that wasn't the case because the fractures weren't spaced as they would have been from a blow, or even several blows.
She reached out and felt the cracks, realizing at her touch that they were notches. Upon closer inspection, she saw that they were of different depths. "Those were caused by a knife." Annja shone the light around and found a rusting knife near the hand of a skeleton sitting up against the wall. The knife had a heavy blade, one that had been made by a skilled craftsman. "There," she said.
"That looks like a bowie knife," someone said.
"It's a fighting knife," one of the male retirees said. "It looks like whoever that is spent some time gutting Yohance."