Amazon Roulette

by C. M. Gleason

  He fished the screwdriver from his pocket and began to remove the back so he could take a look at the electronics for the scoreboard. He whistled some old Robert Palmer as he pulled out the wires, noting the corrosion from the humid jungle air, testing connections as he went. Not too bad. She was definitely working.

  Then, tucked down in the corner of the section, he saw something that had him freezing still and his insides plummeting. It looked like a black satin pouch, shoved down deep into the space.

  His first thought was he’d come across a forgotten stash of coke or heroin. But there was no fucking way it could’ve gotten through customs, could it? Or could it?

  Maybe it was weed or even something more valuable. Jewels? Diamonds?

  He looked nervously around the cluttered shop as if to see the Feds—or the drug lord’s rivals—bursting in. “Chill out,” he told himself with a little laugh. “It’s probably nothing.”

  He hesitated only another few seconds, then aimed his flashlight on the pouch. The silky black sack had a coppery glint in the light. It looked as if it would fit comfortably in his palm.

  Wiley reached for it, intending to pluck it from its moorings. But when he touched the bag, it stuck to his fingers like some thick, black, gooey web.

  “Ugh!” He pulled his hand away, and a piece of the sac came with it, tearing it open.

  A swarm of bugs erupted.

  Wiley jumped back, startled and disgusted as the fingernail-sized insects poured out, shooting into the air. The next thing he knew, they were in a frenzy in his little shop, flying like mad bees—or a slew of tiny pinball balls in a violent, four-dimensional multi-ball game.

  A couple landed on his arms and flew into his face and he swatted them away, watching as some flew into the fly strips he had hanging from the ceiling. Others bumped into each other or the walls, ricocheting around the room in a crazy whirlwind. He picked up a newspaper and swung at the little bastards, flinging them into the walls and onto the floor.

  After what seemed like forever, they were all gone—dead, smashed, or otherwise disappeared. Wiley noticed his fingers. They were black and sticky from where he’d touched the sac, and he wiped them on a rag. But some residue remained, and even after he washed his hand, the black essence stayed like some sort of permanent ink.

  The bugs hadn’t bit him; they’d just seemed crazed or incensed from being disturbed. But he couldn’t help rubbing his arm and cheek where they’d slammed into his skin in their effort to escape. Psychosomatic itching, he knew, and forced himself to stop scratching.

  He swept up the bugs and a variety of other dust and dirt from the floor and threw it away, took another look at Fathom, and decided to call it a day. A beer and some barbecue pork sliders up the block at The Laundry sounded about right. And, truth to tell, Wiley wasn’t very keen on finding another black pouch under the machine’s playfield.

  He’d wait till tomorrow and tackle Fathom again. And this time, he’d be armed with Raid—or something stronger.

  FIVE

  Matt Granger’s body was found shortly before ten a.m. on September 22nd, the morning after he was reported missing.

  From the looks of it, he hadn’t had a chance of survival. The massive contusion on the back of his head and lack of blood indicated he had died quickly, if not instantly—for which Marina was grateful. At least he hadn’t suffered while waiting for rescue, only to expire before they could dig him out. An injured person buried beneath the rubble for hours, in pain, trying in vain to breathe dusty, gritty air through nostrils coated with dirt and sand was a nightmare Marina had encountered too often, and had once experienced herself.

  But still she grieved for him, for the loss of a young, intelligent, earnest man she’d never even met, but whom she felt she’d come to know through all of the information the SAR team had gathered about him. A man who loved the outdoors, who’d taken his girlfriend on a walk through his favorite hiking area after showing off his hometown and family to her.

  Now Marina was even more determined to assist Kendra McElroy to ensure that whatever “find” Granger had discovered would be appropriately attributed to him.

  As they were moving the body onto the stretcher, Bruce felt a small box tucked into one of the pockets of Granger’s cargo pants. It was a jewel case.

  “Aw, hell,” he said, flipping it open. Five headlamps beamed down on the diamond solitaire as it glittered like ice in the darkness, and the team grew even more sober.

  The box closed with a sharp snap, the sound hard and final in the silence of the cave. Bruce caught Marina’s gaze, his face dirty, weary, and tight with regret beneath his helmet. She shook her head soberly, and they all went silently about their tasks, arranging the body and gathering up whatever equipment could be removed at that time.

  Dana had radioed the news to the com manager—that a recovery, not a rescue, had been made—and Sheriff Tollefson would break the news to Kendra McElroy, as well as his sister, Matt’s mother.

  There was little left for Marina and the team to do now, other than remove the braces that had propped the walls and ceiling in place, along with the rest of their gear. Silently, they trudged out of the cave into midmorning sunlight.

  With Marina’s permission, Boris went over to investigate the contents of the stretcher while she removed her helmet and gloves. When he recognized the scent to which he’d alerted earlier, he gave a soft, short bark of recognition, then turned to his handler.

  “I know, Boris, I know,” she said, kneeling next to him and sliding her arms around his neck. He’d done his job, finding the scent he’d been given, but he also understood something wasn’t quite right about it. His intelligent eyes were sad, liquid gold, surprisingly cognizant. Marina was one of those people who believed dogs had something like souls, because she’d seen evidence of it over and over.

  “You and that dog are amazing. It’s almost as if you’re one person.”

  The voice behind her had Marina’s heart jolting off rhythm, then settling back into place.

  She rose, turning to face Bruce. He’d removed his helmet, which resulted in an unobstructed view of his eyes. His dark blond hair was mussed, and he sported the same red marks on the side of his temple and jaw she knew she did. “He’s amazing,” she corrected him. “I’m just the handler. He knows what to do, and I just follow him.”

  “Yeah, that’s just like you not to take any credit, even though you trained him. And you read him.” Bruce’s voice dipped into a low, rough rumble. “But you’re just as amazing in your own way.”

  Marina’s attention dropped to his left hand, which was not only holding his helmet, but had a gold band on the ring finger. One day, she suspected, that ring would be gone. It wouldn’t be because of her—at least consciously. But it wasn’t gone yet. And even if it were…Bruce was a good friend and trusted colleague. She didn’t think about him in that way. At least, she tried not to, but there were times—like now—when she became sharply aware of him, of his physical presence, his bravery and intelligence—and his attraction to her.

  “If someone needs you, you’re there,” he continued, his voice still low, his body too close to hers. “No matter who or what they are. Always.”

  “We make a good team,” she said lightly, easing away. “All of us. And how fortunate that we were up here for the training session when this happened, otherwise I’d have been without my best team.”

  “Are you still seeing that guy, that spook?” Bruce asked, his voice casual except for a bite at the end.

  Marina shrugged. “Yes, occasionally.” Occasionally was an exaggeration, as she hadn’t seen Gabe since they met up in Colorado for a skiing weekend several months ago. Wow. It had been about ten months, now that she came to think of it. Between their work schedules and the traveling they both did, it was hard to coordinate getting together. And much as she liked him and enjoyed his company—all aspects of it—Marina wasn’t interested in getting into any serious type of relationship.

&n
bsp; There were numerous reasons she’d never be wearing a gold band on her finger again, and only some of them had to do with the mark of the Skaladeskas, which was tattooed on the bottom of her heel.

  “Occasionally?” Bruce repeated.

  “Yes. You know how my schedule is,” she said with a laugh. “I hardly have time to do my laundry.” Then Boris nudged her, giving Marina an excuse to break eye contact with her colleague and crouch to see to her dog.

  When she straightened up, she said, “I’m going back in the ground. I want to check something out.” While the last thing she wanted to do was give Bruce any encouragement, she also was determined to investigate what Kendra had told her. And she was too experienced a caver to go inside without the proper equipment, and without at least one other person plus Boris.

  “Just can’t get enough of that damp, dark earth, can you?” he said with a grin, settling his helmet back in place. “That’s all right, I’ll cover you.” That look was gone from his eyes, and Marina relaxed. There wasn’t anyone else she’d rather have with her inside the earth than Bruce—and she knew he felt the same way.

  That was, she supposed, part of the problem. They liked, respected, and relied on each other too much.

  Normally, on an in-depth caving expedition, explorers traveled in groups of at least three so if a person got injured or stuck, someone could go for help and the other could stay with the injured party. But in this case, Marina knew they weren’t going deep or far, and, based on what she knew of McElroy and Granger’s trip, there weren’t any small passages to get caught inside. She and Bruce were also savvy enough to know not to bump against a wall that might be fragile, and to move carefully and slowly while in the ground. Aside from that, they still had their shortwaves and could radio out for help if the worst happened.

  Marina brought Boris too, and she and Bruce retraced their steps into the main passage, climbing through what was clearly a recently exposed entrance. But once a half-mile inside, she found the turnoff where the younger couple had gotten mixed up on their way out.

  “This way,” she said, noticing a place where the dirt had been scuffed by a hiking boot. Boris was such a good tracker he hadn’t gone in that direction very far before turning around and catching the fresher scent, which ultimately led them to McElroy. But now, she followed that tunnel deeper into the ground.

  As she led the way, Marina couldn’t help but draw in a deep breath of the damp, chill cave air. Call her crazy, but she found it almost as comforting as sitting in her shaded backyard at home, breathing fresh-cut grass and summer flowers. Walking along, she took note of the widening passage and the rough sandstone and granite walls. They were stained a rust color from all the iron and copper here in the Keweenaw Peninsula. The ground angled down as they walked deeper into the earth, still able to move upright and with ease through the tunnel. Even the air remained easily breathable. It was no wonder Granger and McElroy had come so far: it was a simple, uneventful hike.

  She ducked under a low chunk of rock and, when she came up, realized she’d stepped into a vast chamber. Marina stopped, putting her hand back in silent command to Boris, and stared.

  “Whoa,” her companion said as he came up behind her.

  “Yeah,” she murmured, looking around the space. Her heart was pounding with excitement and her mind leapt with boundless theories and possibilities as she took in the sight.

  This was definitely a Find.

  The space was massive, at least twenty meters high and perhaps forty meters long. The walls were smooth and rounded, if not man-made then at least altered by Homo sapiens. At each end of the oblong chamber was a pile of white stones—just as Kendra McElroy had said. Each stone was about the size of a cantaloupe, smooth and white, and they were piled up like pyramids. Each pyramid was roughly two meters square at the base, and just a bit taller than Marina’s five foot, six inches.

  “What is it?” Bruce asked. He eased closer, bumping her helmet’s rim gently with his own and using the opportunity to steady her with a hand on her waist.

  “I don’t know,” she said, moving gingerly into the chamber. Her silent command to Boris told him to stay, and he remained at the entrance, watching with sharp eyes and tongue out of sight, indicating his rapt attention. He was working now, and he knew it.

  Easing along the wall, she smoothed her gloved hand over the stone, taking care not to put any significant pressure on it. The walls were dry without any damp rivulets, and the floor of the chamber was just as arid.

  Other than the pyramids, the space was clear and empty of everything other than a few scattered animal bones and random piles of dirt. The pyramidal stones seemed to have some sort of plaster or binder holding them in place.

  “It’s got to be old,” Bruce said, walking up next to her. “Really old. What do you think, professor?”

  His use of the title wasn’t just a nickname; Marina held a PhD from the University of Michigan in Historical Epigraphy, with a specialization in Asian Studies. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t educated about her home state. Her first several archaeological digs had been in the Upper Peninsula and the northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan. “Very old. I’ve never seen anything like this arrangement of stones. They aren’t Native American as far as I can tell. Though they’re similar to the cairns found in Scandinavia, they’re too…uniform.”

  She crouched, thankful for her headlamp as well as the handheld flashlight she had with her, and looked closely at the stones making up the base. Inching her way around, observing each rock, she examined them as she spoke. “There are some pyramids or cones made from stones that were found in the bottom of a lake in Wisconsin,” she said. “I’d have to look it up, but I think they were similar to this arrangement. Theories—most of which are not accepted by mainstream archaeologists—are that the pyramids were made by European or Mediterranean traders that came and began to trade for copper.”

  Marina paused as a little frisson of excitement zipped through her. For years, there’d been arguments between scholars and historians about whether prehistoric non-natives had come to North America for copper, and there was compelling evidence to support it—for there had clearly been vast amounts of the metal mined here, but little to no trace remaining in the area. And the amount of copper used across the Atlantic was greater than would have been available locally.

  Something prickled over her skin when she realized there were images engraved on one of the stones. Her heart began to pound as she knelt more closely to look, angling the flashlight as she tried to brush away dirt without disturbing the carved stone.

  “Looks like ogam,” she muttered. “It can’t be.”

  “Like what?” Bruce was standing over her, watching as she traced her finger ever so lightly over the images.

  “An ogam. It’s an alphabet—well, more of a text system. It’s recognizable by this sort of straight line carved or drawn like this—see how they are perpendicular to that other long line?”

  “It looks old.”

  “If it’s what I think…it’s ancient,” Marina said in a hushed voice. She could hardly believe what she was seeing. Ogam text here, in the Americas?

  Then, as she looked even more closely at the tall, angular images, her palms went damp and her face flushed beneath the heavy, hot helmet.

  She’d seen this specific type of work before—this same rusty red color with the same angled lines—on a fragment of stone.

  And that stone was sitting in a package in her office at home.

  SIX

  September 21

  Meramec-Tate Power Generation Facility

  St. Louis, Missouri

  “For Christ’s sake, Akinowski, the whole damn High Plains region is in the goddamn dark!” Senator George Sheever’s voice screamed from the desk phone speaker. “For two days! What the hell are you doing about it? I’ve got the goddamned president of Goerken-AgriBiz up my ass about the convention this week, not to mention the fucking Business Association bitching about the
loss of revenue. But that’s nothing compared to everyone else! No one’s flying, no one’s landing, no one can fucking get gas, send email, or watch the news without any goddamn electricity, and your damn plant is the one that brought everything down! What the hell are you doing to fix it?”

  Charles Akinowski had stopped listening to the raving lunatic on the other end of the line. Sheever was an asshole every single day, but no doubt he was particularly bent because he couldn’t get on a plane to fly back to Washington, far away from his constituents—and, more importantly, his wife.

  As Sheever continued to scream and rant like a child, Ake, as he was known to his friends, turned the volume down and returned his attention to where it needed to be: what had caused the rolling, far-reaching blackout that had turned the Midwestern United States from Kansas to Missouri and Kentucky, Illinois, Wisconsin, southwestern Michigan, Iowa, and most of the Plains states black as night.

  He was the executive director of the facility that had been pinpointed as the origin of the failure that took down most of the grid in the regional transmission organization, or RTO, that provided electricity to much of the High Plains region. The blackout had halted or rerouted air traffic over the central United States, and Ake hadn’t slept more than five hours in the last two days—let alone been home—since this all came down. Thank God Michael understood and was bringing him something to eat every day—cooked on the grill, because there wasn’t any power anywhere to cook with, including here at the plant.

  After the historic blackout throughout Ontario, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania in August 2003, there had been particular attention paid to the structure of electric grids. Studies done, tests made, and theories offered about whether and how a grid could be taken down by a terrorist attack, natural event, or some other incident. There was a school of thought that suggested one small fault could be the downfall of a massive grid, but a conflicting study seemed to prove otherwise.