The Road Least Traveled

by Jerry Cole

  For thirty minutes, he browsed through emails, replying to important ones and leaving the others for later. He tried to call Henry but there was no answer. Greg imagined he was on the golf course and decided not to call his friend’s cell after all. He wasn’t too sure what he would have to say to Henry even if he picked up the telephone at the other end.

  By twelve-thirty, his eyes were drooping with even more forcefulness. Greg undressed down to his boxers and padded over to the refrigerator, where he took a bottle of cold water and gulped it down, along with two Tylenol from his briefcase. Then he lay on the bed, not even bothering to get under the covers as it was so warm. Within seconds, he was asleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The following morning, he met with Eddie at a local coffee shop as they’d arranged. There, Greg enjoyed a breakfast of Greek yogurt with muesli and walnuts, along with two hot cups of coffee. Eddie had gotten over his earlier funk and was enthusiastic about the developments on the site.

  “My guys can’t wait to get started again,” he said, as he munched on a strange-looking pastry filled with what looked to Greg to be cheese. “They know the sooner we break through the other side, the sooner they get to go home to be with their families. It’s not all bad here, I guess, but I for one haven’t had a decent burger since I arrived.”

  “Good to know your priorities are on point,” said Greg, wryly, and once they had finished eating and the waitress had cleared away their dishes, Greg took out his tablet and opened a detailed map. With two fingers, he enlarged the map on the screen.

  “By the end of the week, I want us to be here,” he said, pointing to an area to the east of where Betty currently lay. “It’ll mean late nights I’m sure, working into the evenings to try and get back some of the time we’ve lost. But if can get to this place here by Friday, then I will take everyone out for beers Friday night, and we get Sunday off. Is that a deal?”

  “I guess that works for me,” said Eddie. They finished their coffees and left the cafe, walking up past the hotel and straight up to Egnatia, a route that Greg was now becoming very familiar with. At the site, Greg was pleased to see that security was still in place and effectively holding the site with no complications or incidents. However, he wasn’t too sure that it wasn’t more to do with his time with Alex than it was the burly Greek man in dark shades who stood at the entrance.

  For Greg, it was the first time he got to see Betty since his arrival, and he couldn’t help but grin with excitement as he put on his lighted hard hat and descended into the tunnel inside a small metal cage built to hold only two people at a time. He and Eddie went down into the cage together, and it wasn’t long before the baking heat of the early May morning outside gave way to a brisk chill underneath the earth. Greg shivered.

  “Yeah, takes a while to get used to that,” said Eddie. “We have jackets at the bottom, hanging up when the cage lands.”

  “I think this is the first time I’ve been cold since I arrived,” said Greg. “It’s been so long since I’ve been so hands-on with a project like this I was dumb enough to forget to bring a coat with me.”

  Once the cage came to a stop, Greg and Eddie stepped out and flicked on the lights on their helmets. They helped themselves to jackets and began the walk along the concrete slabs that Betty had laid in her wake, like a diligent, neat snail whose trail was perfectly-formed squares that were neatly arranged around the inside of the tunnel. As they walked, Greg asked Eddie whether the team had found anything interesting in their first one hundred yards.

  “Depends what you mean by interesting,” said Eddie. “When we first arrived, we found we were dealing with rocks we hadn’t seen before and that’s when Marty decided to call in the geologists. But it was nothing to worry about. There seems to be a lot of sedimentary-type layers. I guess it comes from maybe being under the sea millions of years ago. The compression causes the different strata.”

  Layers. At least three, thought Greg. He considered each one. Byzantine. Roman. Ancient Greek. He thought of Alex and the strange look on his face before he’d pulled the helmet over his head and zipped off into the night. Greg wondered whether he had said something wrong. He hoped not. In the short space of time in which the two men had become acquainted with each other, they had already established an easy kind of rapport. More than that, Alex was teaching him.

  “What about anything else?” asked Greg. “I’m not talking rock, I’m talking artifacts. Ruins. You know, stuff from years ago.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” groaned Eddie. “Please don’t you start, too.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Greg. “Who’s starting anything?”

  “You’re like those crazy history guys who caused all this shit in the first place,” said Eddie. “Asking us what we’ve found. Telling us we’re lying when we tell them that Betty’s not come across a single thing other than some rocks and a fuckload of sand.”

  Greg laughed.

  “Don’t worry,” he reassured his head crewman. “I’m not going to bust your balls over every little morsel of earth that we uncover. But we’re not the first company to come through here. This tunnel has been attempted since before you and I were born. It gets stopped time and time again because of the things they find. I just want to make sure we’re working according to the agreement and being transparent about anything we might find.”

  “But who cares, anyway?” asked Eddie. “Have you seen how many ruins they already have around this place? Everywhere you look there’s an old building or some kind of pit with orange tape around it that was once a temple, or a market, or a freakin’ parking lot. I’m pretty sure these guys have got more than enough history to keep them going for a few years. My guess is that if they haven’t found it by now, then it ain’t worth finding at all.”

  “You might be right,” Greg mused. “But can you imagine if we came across something of such historical importance that it was bigger than, say, Howard Carter finding the tomb of Tutankhamun?”

  “Who?”

  “The Egyptian king,” said Greg. “You know, the guy with the famous gold mask with the long chin. The most famous mummy ever to come out of Egypt.”

  “Hey, if there’s gold to be found, count me in,” said Eddie. “Betty will cut this place to shreds and we’ll find every last speck of that gold. Don’t worry about that. They’ll have to give us fifty percent of whatever we find. Isn’t that the rule for when you find gold?”

  “I’m not quite sure of the rules of prospecting,” said Greg. “I’m not as old as you. But I’m talking about something more than gold. You know, something with even more historical significance.”

  “I can’t think of finding anything more important in here than gold,” said Eddie. “Apart from maybe the body of Jimmy Hoffa. That might get me a buck or two.”

  Greg gave up. He didn’t need to be despondent for long, however, because the beam from his headlight soon caught the very thing he had been hoping to see: Betty. He had always been fond of a nice backside, and to Greg, Betty’s ample rear end was literally a sight for sore eyes.

  Though she’d only moved one hundred yards in three weeks, she’d done so with expert precision. The path of concrete blocks was tight and uniform. From what Eddie had told him, she was in perfect working order and was raring to go. Her blades were cutting through all kinds of rock with little issue, and despite the small progress she’d made, Betty held the record for the longest path any machine had thus far made in Thessaloniki without being shut down. She hadn’t yet come across anything of any significance, and experts who had sampled the soil she’d plowed through were not concerned that she had destroyed any important ruins. There was still time, of course.

  The crew of thirty who had been with Betty since her time in Greece began were already on site, one or two perhaps a little worse for wear for having had a few days off. They were performing last-minute checks before once again firing the old girl into life, and it was only with the smallest of nagging doubts that Greg waited for
the first rumblings of the machine to begin.

  “Everything looks great,” he said to Eddie and the rest of the guys who assembled together in the tunnel. “I’m proud of you all for standing your ground in a difficult time, and even though we’ve had a slow start I think we can make that ground up now. As I was saying to Eddie, if we can hit a target distance by Friday, then we can have a well-deserved night out and a weekend off. But that’s going to mean working in shifts around the clock until then, and I expect every single person to play their part.”

  There was no sign of dissent from the team and Greg left the tunnel satisfied with the plan. He got back into the cage and with a press of a button was winched to the surface. As the cage ascended the cool chill from underground once more became stifling heat and he soon remembered he was still wearing the heavy jacket. He didn’t bother taking it back down and instead left it with a worker above-ground.

  He had calls to make, emails that had been left unattended for too long and contracts to work on. He considered calling Marty to update him on their success, but decided against it. There was no need to interrupt his vacation. Instead Greg left the site, shaking the hand of a bemused security guard on the gate who had no clue who he was, and headed back to the hotel.

  As he sat on the balcony with coffee and pastries he opened his laptop and spent the rest of the day concentrating on doing what any decent CEO of Turbo Metro Drilling would do, attending to business. The guys underneath the ground with Betty knew their job, and there was nothing stopping them from getting on with it. But every so often, he was hit with a pang of something that felt like guilt. It was like the anxiety that had kept him awake the previous night. He felt like a man who knew that while what he was doing was for the good of many, it hurt others. In particular, one other. He had not thought about Alex since the morning, so busy was his mind with other things that drew his attention. But on the balcony in the late afternoon, all important emails dealt with, Greg knew that underneath the earth was a machine that did not care what it chewed up as it moved slower than a snail through the ground.

  “God dammit,” he muttered to himself, scratching his head and frowning at his own conflicting thoughts. “Why should I even give a damn about some fairy tale about a man who existed thousands of years ago and probably rotted away at the other end of the world? I’m not stopping. I’m going to finish this job. I’m not going to be swayed by a guy who has nothing more than a hunch.”

  That did it. Greg was once more resolved to ensure the project was completed, and very little was going to stand in his way. Not walls, not red tape, and certainly not a well-meaning archaeologist, whether or not his eyes had more life in them that Greg had ever seen in another human being.

  Chapter Seventeen

  By noon on Friday, Betty and her team had outdone themselves. They had progressed over one hundred yards, bettering in four days what they had managed to achieve in the previous three weeks. After a day of catching up on all his work, Greg had spent as much time as possible underground, carefully monitoring Betty’s progress and ensuring that nothing was going wrong. The security team was doing their job, not that they had much to do. There were small groups who protested outside the site with banners and chants in Greek that Greg could not understand, but even they seemed half-hearted. Greg wondered whether Alex’s presence in the early days had been what they needed to spur them on. Without him, there was no urgency in their protests.

  Greg had seen nothing of Alex all week. Given that he had so much to do, Greg did not spend more than the odd fleeting second wondering whether his new friend was ever going to reappear, and he spent even less time wondering about how he would feel should he never see him again. Despite that, there was a gnawing in his gut that he could not shake. He was unsettled, and he didn’t like it. Projects began, everyone worked hard, and when they were completed the sense of satisfaction for all concerned was enormous. It was this sense of satisfaction that kept Greg going. It was like a drug, and it made him want more. But this time, the drug did not seem so sweet. Its pull was not as strong, and instead Greg was like the addict who for the first time in his haze begins to wonder about the toll the drug is taking on his body. Greg Marsh was beginning to question things, and he couldn’t turn off his thoughts.

  Eddie, however, could smell the sweet aroma of success and after Betty broke through the two-hundred yard mark, he roared with delight and punched the air above his head.

  “That’s it, old girl!” he yelled above the roar of the turbines. Greg could only just make out what he was saying, as they were standing next to each other in Betty’s control center at the front of the machine. “We’re punching the fuck outta this city!” And he slammed his fist on a large yellow button that ground everything to a halt. As the whirring of the machinery slowed down like a ceiling fan that had been switched off, Eddie removed his ear protectors and took Greg by the shoulders.

  “No more fucking around!” he yelled, his face gleeful. “My guys have worked their asses off this week, Chief. And Betty’s earned a break. What do you say?”

  Greg nodded, and removed his own large headphones. “I hear you, Eddie,” he said. “Get the guys to finish up and send them back to the hotel for some rest. Meet me at nine this evening and I’ll take everyone out for dinner and a few drinks.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” grinned Eddie. “Boy, do I ever want one of those beautiful Greek beers in an ice-cold glass right now. And if Betty herself could drink one I’d buy her a fucking barrel full.” He roared with laughter and Greg could only force a smile. He was irritated by Eddie’s crudeness, but at the same time he knew that the team had pulled together under Eddie’s expert hand. Like a high school football coach, Eddie was strict, and drove his men to the point of near exhaustion, but they got the job done, and they were to be rewarded for their efforts.

  Greg climbed down out of the control room and made his way along the gangway on Betty’s port side until he walked out the other end and jumped down to the ground. Betty had carved her way through one hundred yards of rock and soil in four days and at the same time had paved hundreds of concrete slabs around the floor, walls and ceiling in her wake. It meant that each time Greg walked back to the site, the walk was a little bit longer. He left Eddie to give the good news to the crew, and on the way back he shook the hands and patted the backs of the men he passed, thanking them for their work. At the end of the tunnel he remembered to hang up his jacket, and in the cage, he stood and shivered in the cold until he was lifted high enough to feel the warmth permeate through the ground again.

  He had been in Greece nearly a week and had brought with him clothes for only a few days. Back at the hotel he gave the maid a case full of laundry and went back out to buy himself some new clothes. While the financial depression had crippled the city, there was still a large shopping district only a ten minute walk from the hotel, and it was filled with designer stores. He purchased two new pairs of jeans, some shirts and some shoes, handing over his credit card to a hot young Greek woman with long blonde hair and a tiny waist.

  He took a nap once back at the hotel, before waking up again when his alarm buzzed. He took a shower, got into his new clothes and met Eddie and the boys in the main city square. They were excited, filled with the satisfaction of having completed a successful work week, and were ready for a night out to relax.

  “Where first?” asked Eddie, and Greg shrugged.

  “I have no idea!” he said. “I’ve been working with you guys all week, not partying in Greek bars.”

  “Well, let’s just walk this way, along the sea front,” said Josh Marriner, a young but promising engineer. “Start with a couple of the bars there, and see where it leads us.”

  They were twenty strong. For some of the guys, the long week had simply been too much and they had chosen to stay in and sleep for the night. Others wanted to call family members at home and catch up on the week’s news. Still, a throng of twenty young men ready for a night on the town meant a
noisy crowd heading through the city. They winked at pretty girls and dodged traffic, calling to each other across the street. They were like an unruly bachelor party, but Greg didn’t tell them to keep it down. They’d earned their night out, and he knew that when they were happy, they worked better, and he needed a repeat of their good progress next week, too.

  After two beers along the sea front they made their way up a side street that took them back into the cramped heart of the city. They’d chosen to forego a dinner, instead ordering the finest local delicacy- a pita gyros. They lined up inside a small kebab shop and came out with the thin bread wrapped around slices of shaved pork and hot potato fries, dusted with salad and finished off with paprika mayonnaise. They ate their delicious gyros as they walked to the next bar, dripping grease and sauce on their shirts but not caring. Greg wiped his mouth with a napkin and tossed the empty paper in the trash. He’d never eaten anything so delicious. It was so simple, and no doubt so bad for his lean body, but he’d enjoyed every last mouthful. No longer hungry, he was ready for his next beer. Henry and the guys would love it here, he thought. Even Henry would break kosher for one of those beautiful kebabs.

  Thinking of his best friend and other parts of his life in California gave him a pang of homesickness. He’d not called Molly since his arrival and he made a mental note to do that once he got home, which he figured would be about the same time she’d be coming in from school. He wanted to catch her before she went out with her boyfriend, while she still had a faint recollection of her father.