Tyrannosaur Canyon

by Douglas Preston

  WEED MADDOX BOUGHT a blue silk jacket, silk boxer shorts, and a pair of gray slacks from Seligman's on Thirty-fourth Street, along with a white T-shirt, silk socks, and Italian shoes-and put them all on in the dressing room. He paid for it with his own American Express card – his first legitimate one, printed right there on the front, Jimson A. Maddox, member since 2005 – and stepped out into the street. The clothes drove off some of the nervousness he'd been feeling about his upcoming meeting with Corvus. Funny how a fresh set of clothes could make you feel like a new man. He flexed the muscles of his back, felt the rippling and stretching of the material. Better, much better.

  He caught a cab, gave the address, and was whisked uptown.

  Ten minutes later he was being ushered into the paneled office of Dr. Iain Corvus. It was grand. A blocked-up fireplace in pink marble graced one corner, and a row of windows looked out over Central Park. The young Brit was standing at the side of his desk, restlessly sorting through some papers.

  Maddox halted in the door, hands clasped in front, waiting to be acknowledged. Corvus was as wound up as ever, his nonexistent lips tight as a vise, his chin jutting out like the bow of a boat, his black hair combed straight back, which Maddox guessed was the latest style in London. He wore a well-cut charcoal suit and a crisp Turnbull and Asser shirt – collar buttoned down – set off by a bloodred silk tie.

  Now here was a guy, Maddox thought, who could benefit from meditation.

  Corvus paused in his sorting and peered over the tops of his glasses. "Well, well, if it isn't Jimson Maddox, back from the front." His British accent seemed plummier than ever. Corvus was about his own age, mid-thirties, but the two men couldn't be more different, from different planets even. Strange to think that a tattoo had brought them together.

  Corvus held out his hand and Maddox took it, experiencing the crisp shake that was neither too long nor too short, neither limp nor aggressive. Maddox suppressed a welling of emotion.

  This was the man who got him out of Pelican Bay.

  Corvus took Maddox's elbow and guided him into a chair in the little sitting area at the far end of the office, in front of the useless fireplace. Corvus went to his office door, said something to his secretary, shut and locked it, and then sat down opposite him, restlessly crossing and uncrossing his legs until he seemed to get it right. He leaned forward, his face dividing the air as cleanly as a cleaver, his eyes shining. "Cigar?"

  "Gave 'em up."

  "Smart fellow. You mind?"

  "Hell no."

  Corvus took one from a humidor, clipped the end, lit it. He took a moment to draw a good red tip on it, then lowered it and looked at Maddox through a turning veil of smoke.

  "Good to see you, Jim."

  Maddox liked the way Corvus always gave him his full attention, speaking to him like an equal, like the stand-up guy he was. Corvus had moved heaven and earth to free him from prison; and with one phone call he could put him back in. Those two facts aroused intense, conflicting feelings that Maddox hadn't yet sorted out.

  "Well," said Corvus, sitting back and releasing a stream of smoke.

  Something about Corvus always made him nervous. He withdrew the map from his pocket and held it out.

  "I found this in the guy's pack."

  Corvus took it with a frown, unfolded it. Maddox waited for the congratulations. Instead, Corvus's face reddened. With a brusque motion he flipped the map onto the table. Maddox leaned over to pick it up.

  "Don't bother," came the sharp reply. "It's worthless. Where's the notebook?"

  Maddox didn't answer directly. "It was like this... I followed Weathers into the high mesas, but he shook me. I waited two weeks for him to come back out. When he did, I ambushed him, killed him."

  There was an electric silence.

  "You killed him?"

  "Yeah. You want the guy running around to the cops, telling everyone you jumped his claim or whatever you call it? Look, trust me, the guy had to die."

  A long silence. "And the notebook?"

  "That's the thing. I didn't find a notebook. Just the map. And this." He took the metal box with the switches and LED screen out of the bag he was carrying and laid it on the table.

  Corvus didn't even look at it. "You didn't find the notebook?"

  Maddox swallowed. "Nope. Never found it."

  "He had to have had it on him."

  "He didn't. I shot him from the top of a canyon and had to hike five miles to get to the bottom. Almost two hours. By the time I reached him someone had gotten there first, another prospector, hoping to cash in. A guy on horseback, his tracks were all over. I searched the dead man and his donkey, turned everything inside out. There was no notebook. I took everything of value, swept the site clean, and buried him."

  Corvus looked away.

  "After burying Weathers, I tried to follow this other guy's tracks, but lost him. Luckily the guy's name was in the papers the next day. He lives on a ranch north of Abiquiú, supposedly a horse vet by profession, name of Broadbent." He paused.

  "Broadbent took the notebook," Corvus said in a monotone.

  "That's what I think, and that's why I looked into his background. He's married, spends a lot of time riding around the back country. Everybody knows him. They say he's rich – although you'd never know it from looking at him."

  Corvus locked his eyes on Maddox.

  "I'll get that notebook for you, Dr. Corvus. But what about the map? I mean–

  "The map's a fake."

  Another agonizing silence.

  "And the metal box?" Maddox said, pointing to the object he had retrieved from Weathers's burro. "It looks to me like there's a computer in there. Maybe on the hard disk–"

  "That's the central unit of Weathers's homemade ground-penetrating radar unit. It has no hard disk – the data's in the notebook. That's why I wanted the notebook – not a worthless map."

  Maddox turned his eyes away from Corvus's stare, slipped his hand into his pocket, and retrieved the chunk of rock, putting it down on the glass table. "Weathers also had this in his pocket."

  Corvus stared at it, his whole expression changing. He reached out with a spidery hand and plucked it gently from the table. He retrieved a loupe from his desk and examined it more closely. A long minute ticked by, and then another. Finally he looked up. Maddox was surprised to see the transformation that had taken place on his face. Gone was the tightness, the glittering eyes. His face had become almost human.

  "This is... very good." Corvus rose, went to his desk, slipped a Ziploc bag out of a drawer, and placed the rock inside with the utmost care, as if it were a jewel.

  "It's a sample, right?" Maddox asked.

  Corvus leaned over, unlocked a drawer, and removed an inch-thick stack of hundred-dollar bills bound in a block with rubber bands.

  "You don't need to do that, Dr. Corvus. I've still got money left over–"

  The man's thin lips gave a twitch. "For any unexpected expenses." He pressed the book of notes into Maddox's hand. "You know what to do."

  Maddox parked the money in his jacket.

  "Good-bye, Mr. Maddox."

  Maddox turned and walked stiffly toward the door Corvus had unlocked and was holding open for him. Maddox felt a burning sensation prickling the back of his neck as he passed. A moment later Corvus arrested him with a firm hand on his shoulder, a squeeze that was just a little too sharp to be affectionate. He felt the man bending over his shoulder, whispering into his ear, overpronouncing each syllable.

  "The note book."

  His shoulder was released and Maddox heard the door close softly. He walked through the now empty secretary's office into the vast, echoing corridors beyond.

  Broadbent. He'd take care of that son of a bitch.

  Chapter 6

  TOM SAT AT the kitchen table, leaning back in his chair, waiting for the coffee grounds to settle in the tin pot on the stove. A June breeze rustled the cotton-wood leaves outside, stripping the trees of their cotton, which drifted
past in snowy wisps. Across the yard Tom could see the horses in their pens, nosing the timothy grass Sally had pitched them that morning.

  Sally came in, still wearing her nightgown. She passed before the sliding-glass doors, backlit by the rising sun. They had been married less than a year and everything was still new. He watched her pick up the tin coffeepot on the stove, look into it, make a face, and put it back down.

  "I can't believe you make coffee that way."

  Tom watched her, smiling. "You look bewitching this morning."

  She glanced up, swept her golden hair out of her face.

  "I've decided to let Shane handle the clinic today," Tom said. "The only thing on the docket is a colicky horse down in Espanola."

  He propped his boots on the stool and watched Sally prepare her own elaborate coffee, foaming the milk, adding a teaspoon of honey, then topping it off with a dash of powdered dark chocolate from a shaker. It was her morning ritual and Tom never got tired of watching it.

  "Shane'll understand. I was up most of the night with that... business up in the Maze."

  "The police have no theories?"

  "None. No body, no motive, no missing person – just a few buckets of blood-soaked sand."

  Sally winced. "So what are you going to do today?" she asked.

  He sat forward and brought his chair back down on its four legs with a thump, reached into his pocket, removed the battered notebook. He placed it on the table. "I'm going to find Robbie, wherever she is, and give her this."

  Sally frowned. "Tom, I still think you should have given that to the police."

  "I made a promise."

  "It's irresponsible to keep evidence from the police."

  "He made me promise not to give it to the police."

  "He was probably up to something illegal."

  "Maybe, but I made a promise to a dying man. And besides, I just couldn't bring myself to hand it over to that detective, Willer. He didn't strike me as being the sharpest knife in the drawer."

  "You made that promise under duress. It shouldn't count."

  "If you'd seen the look of desperation on that man's face, you'd understand."

  Sally sighed. "So how are you going to find this mysterious daughter?"

  "I thought I'd start up at the Sunset Mart, see if he stopped in to buy gas or groceries. Maybe explore some of those forest roads back up in there, looking for his car."

  "With a horse trailer attached."

  "Exactly."

  Unbidden, the memory of the dying man once again came into his mind. It was an image he would never shake; it reminded him of his own father's death, that desperate effort to cling to life even during those final seconds of pain and fear when all hope is lost. Some people could not let go of life.

  "I might also go see Ben Peek," Tom said. "He spent years prospecting in those canyons. He might have an idea who the guy was or what this treasure was he was looking for."

  "Now there's an idea. There's nothing in that notebook?"

  "Nothing except numbers. No name or address, just sixty pages of numbers – and a pair of gigantic exclamation marks at the end."

  "You think he really found a treasure?"

  "I could see it in his eyes."

  The man's desperate plea still rang in his ears. It had affected him deeply, perhaps because his father's death was still fresh in his mind. His father, the great and terrible Maxwell Broadbent, had also been a prospector of sorts – a tomb robber, collector, and dealer in artifacts. While he had been a difficult father, his death had left a huge hole in Tom's psyche. The dying prospector, with his beard and piercing blue eyes, had even reminded him of his father. It was crazy to make the association, but for whatever reason he felt the promise he had made to the unknown man was inviolate.

  "Tom?"

  Tom blinked.

  "You've got that lost look again."

  "Sorry."

  Sally finished her coffee, got up, and rinsed her cup in the sink. "Do you realize that we found this place exactly one year ago today?"

  "I'd forgotten."

  "You still like it?"

  "It's everything I always wanted."

  Together, in the wild country of Abiquiú at the foot of Pedernal Peak, they had found the life they had dreamed of: a small ranch with horses, a garden, a riding stable for children, and Tom's vet practice – a rural life without the hassles of the city, pollution, or long commutes in traffic. His vet business was going well. Even the crusty old ranchers had begun calling him. The work was mostly outdoors, the people were great, and he loved horses.

  It was a little quiet, he had to admit.

  He turned his attention back to the treasure hunter. He and his notebook were more interesting than forcing a gallon of mineral oil down the recalcitrant throat of some ewe-necked, rat-tailed bucket of guts down at Gilderhus's Dude Ranch in Espanola, a man legendary for the ugliness of both his horses and his temper. One of the perks of being the boss was delegating the scut work to your employee. He didn't often do it, and so he felt no guilt. Or maybe only a little...

  He examined the notebook again. It was evidently written in some kind of code, laid out on each page in rows and columns in a fanatically neat hand. There were no erasures or rewrites, no mistakes, no scribbles – as if it had been copied from something else, number by number.

  Sally stood up and put an arm around him. Her hair swung down over his face and he inhaled the fragrance of it, fresh shampoo and her own warm biscuit smell.

  "Promise me one thing," she said.

  "What?"

  "Be careful. Whatever treasure that man found, it was worth killing for."

  Chapter 7

  MELODY CROOKSHANK, TECHNICAL Specialist First Grade, kicked back and cracked a Coke. She took a sip, gazing pensively around her basement lab. When she had gone to graduate school at Columbia in geophysical chemistry, she had imagined a very different career path for herself – trekking through the rain forest of Quintana Roo mapping the crater of Chicxulub; or camping at the legendary Flaming Cliffs in the Gobi Desert excavating dinosaur nests; or giving a paper in flawless French before a rapt audience at the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. Instead, she had found herself in this windowless basement lab, doing dull laboratory research for uninspired scientists who couldn't even be bothered to remember her name, many of whom had an I.Q. half of her own. She'd taken the job while still in graduate school, telling herself that it was a temporary stopgap until she finished her dissertation and landed a tenure-track position. But she had received her doctorate five years ago, and in the years since had sent out hundreds – thousands – of C.V.s, and gotten no offers in return. It was a brutal market, where every year sixty freshly minted graduate students chased half a dozen openings, a game of musical chairs in which, when the music stopped, most were left standing. It was a sad state of affairs when she found herself turning to the obituary column of Mineralogy Quarterly, and getting a thrill of hope from reading that a tenured professor, occupant of an endowed chair, beloved of his students, holder of awards and honors, a true pioneer in his field, had been tragically stricken before his time. Right on.

  On the other hand, Melodie was an incorrigible optimist, and she felt, deep down, that she was destined for something greater, and so she continued to send out C.V.s by the hundreds and continued to apply for any and all positions that came up. In the meantime, the present was tolerable: the lab was quiet, she was in charge, and all she had to do to escape was close her eyes and step into the future, that vast and wonderful country where she could have adventures, make wonderful discoveries, accept accolades, and have tenure.

  Melodie opened her eyes once again to the mundane presence of the cinder block-walled lab, with its faint hum of fluorescent lighting and steady hiss of the forced-air system, the shelves loaded with reference books, the cabinets packed with mineral samples. Even the million-dollar equipment that had once thrilled her had long grown stale. Her eyes roved restlessly over the monster JEOL JXA
-733 Superprobe Electron Probe X-ray Microanalyzer, the Epsilon 5 X-ray Analysis System with three-dimensional, polarizing optical geometry, together with a 600W Gd-anode X-ray tube and l00kV generator, the Watson 55 transmission electron microscope, the Power Mac G5 with the dual 2.5 gigahertz water-cooled CPUs, two Petrographic research microscopes, a Meiji polarizing microscope, digital camera setups, a complete sample preparation facility including diamond wafering blades, lap-wheel units, automatic polishers, carbon coaters–

  What good was it if all they gave you was boring crap to analyze?

  Melodie's reverie was interrupted by a low buzz, which indicated someone had entered her empty laboratory. No doubt another curatorial assistant with a request to analyze some gray rock for a research paper that no one would read. She waited, feet on the desk, Coke in hand, for the intruder to come around the corner.

  Soon she heard the confident click of wing tips on the linoleum floor, and a slender, elegant man appeared, rustling along in a snazzy blue suit – Dr. Iain Corvus.

  She swiftly removed her feet from the table, accidentally allowing her chair to come down with a loud clunk. She brushed her hair out of her reddening face. Curators almost never came to the lab, preferring not to lower their dignity by associating with the technical staff. But here, against all probability, was Corvus himself, who cut quite a figure in his Savile Row suits and handmade Williams and Croft shoes – handsome too, in a creepy kind of Jeremy Irons way.

  "Melodie Crookshank?"

  She was amazed he even knew her name. She looked into his lean, smiling face, beautiful teeth, hair black as night. His suit rustled lightly as he moved.

  "Right," she finally said, trying to keep her voice easy. "That's me, Melodie Crookshank."

  "I'm so glad I found you, Melodie. Am I disturbing you?"

  "No, no, not at all. Just sitting here." She collected herself, blushing and feeling like an idiot.

  "I wonder if I could interrupt your busy day with a sample that needs analyzing." He held a Ziploc bag up and let it swing back and forth, his teeth dazzling.