Burial Ground

by Michael McBride

  "I don't want to have this argument with you again. Not now."

  He waved her off. "That's not why I'm here either. Nor am I here just to catch up with an old and dear friend whom I've always thought of as a daughter."

  Sam flashed a wan smile. "Who are you calling old?"

  Leo returned the smile. This time it was genuine, not forced, though it contained a measure of sadness that she could feel, even from across the desk.

  "I've been thinking a lot about my legacy lately," Leo said. His eyes latched onto hers. "I had always thought that Hunter would follow in my footsteps and take the company to a new level. And now there's no one. Certainly not you. No offense." He sighed. "But this isn't about me. Advanced Exploration will persevere, and your father's share---your share---will be there when you decide to claim it."

  "I don't need the money, Leo."

  He shook his head as though she had made a poor joke. "Indulge an old man and hear me out. All of this thinking about my legacy led me back to Hunter. In the end, I really don't care what people think about me, or if they do at all, but it's important to me that everyone knows that Hunter mattered, that his life made a difference to the world. And that's why I flew all the way out here to talk to you in person."

  Sam saw the sincerity in his eyes. But what could he possibly need from her?

  "I want to show you something," Leo said. He removed an envelope from his jacket pocket and passed it across the desk. "Go ahead. Open it."

  Sam lifted the flap and slid out a small stack of photographs. She tried to maintain her poker face as she flipped through them one at a time.

  "Looks like Mochica. Early eighth century possibly. They were a Pre-Inca society that flourished in the Peruvian coastal region. Renowned for their metallurgy and specifically their headdresses." She scrutinized the images of the ornate golden sculpture. The smooth, arched crown was framed with long filigreed feathers that nearly glowed, rather than the traditional Mochica motif of the eight arms of their sea god. The rounded front was lined with pointed teeth and twin jeweled eyes of what she assumed to be chrysocolla, a blue-green quartz found in copper deposits, which would have made the wearer appear to have been looking out through the open jaws of some frightening mythological creature. The Mochica was definitely a warring tribe; however, their rulers were considered gods, and dressed the part. Yet the mask didn't fit the traditional mold. She looked up at Leo, whom she now suspected already knew as much and was holding out on her. Was he testing her? "Where did you find this?"

  "It was recovered with Hunter's belongings, several miles northwest of Pomacochas, Peru."

  "That's outside the known Mochica range." She paused. "If I didn't know better, I'd say it looks almost Chachapoyan. But they didn't demonstrate such craftsmanship or skill working with metals until after their conquest by the Inca. And that section of the Andes would have been well north of their established territory."

  "So what's your professional opinion?"

  "I'll need to do some research. Can you give me a little time to think about it?"

  "Can you think on a plane?"

  VII

  United States Consulate

  Lima, Peru

  October 22nd

  4:35 p.m. PET

  Eldon nearly fell out of his chair halfway through the article when he saw the dollar amount. He leaned closer to the screen and started reading again from the top. There must have been some crucial information he'd missed. His heartbeat raced and his hands trembled. He skimmed: Mochica headdress from approximately 700 AD confiscated from London law firm...returned to the National Museum of Peru...estimated value...and here he paused...

  "Two million dollars," he said aloud.

  He closed the article and initiated a new search. There were hundreds of nearly identical recounts on as many sites. The words changed, but never the dollar amount. Two million dollars.

  The Consul-general abruptly rose from his chair and sent it clattering to the floor. The room spun around him as he narrowly averted tripping over his own feet in his rush to the small closet in the corner of his office. He threw open the door, grabbed the wooden crate from the shelf, and staggered back to his desk. Casting aside the lid, he swept out a blizzard of Styrofoam popcorn and removed the headdress. He shoved the box away and gently laid the exquisite sculpture on the antique surface. It wasn't quite as elaborate as the headdress on the monitor, which appeared significantly larger with its curling, stylized octopus arms, nor was the craftsmanship quite as stunning, but it was every bit as beautiful. Say it was worth even half as much as the other. That was still a million dollars. Even through discreet channels he could surely get that amount. A million dollars would go a long way toward buying him a seat in the Senate.

  The rational portion of his brain struggled to the forefront. What he was considering was wrong. The headdress rightfully belonged to the people of Peru, which was the whole reason he had confiscated it in the first place. If he were to get caught trying to sell it, not only would he lose his job and his tenuous standing in the world of politics, but he would undoubtedly find himself a long-term guest in the ghastly San Juan de Lurigancho prison. There would be no more dreams of grandeur, only the reality that even the life he now lived would no longer be within his grasp.

  But if he managed to get away with it...

  He racked his brain. Who all knew about the headdress? The man who had brought it to him, Wes Merritt, had secreted it from the local authorities, and presumably hadn't mentioned it to anyone else out of some overdeveloped sense of integrity. Eldon had been prepared to return it to the Peruvian government himself, but for whatever reason had decided to wait a few days, which had turned into a week. Maybe these thoughts had been brewing all along and his subconscious had caused him to drag his feet. Regardless, the internet search had confirmed what he already suspected. He was sitting on a veritable fortune, and the only person with whom he had shared the existence of the headdress was the dead man's father, who hadn't seemed to care about it in the slightest, and whomever he might have told. Granted, the elder Gearhardt's political connections gave him pause, but his only proof was a handful of photographs, and he hadn't once so much as called since. For all Gearhardt knew, Eldon had already sent the treasure to the government, which certainly wasn't world-renowned for its honesty. It could have disappeared at any level in that chain.

  So what was the worst-case scenario? Gearhardt contacts the Peruvians demanding the headdress. If that were going to happen, it would have already come to pass. The only real threat now was time. The longer it remained in his possession, the greater the chances someone might discover it. If he quickly offloaded it, who would ever know? But how was he supposed to contact potential buyers? Surely there was some sort of broker who dealt in merchandise of questionable provenance. Such a person would demand a significant cut, but even if he cleared three-quarters of a million dollars, he could still take a great leap toward making his dreams come true.

  He just needed to figure out how to contact a broker and start---

  His office door opened inward and he nearly had a heart attack. Eldon scrambled to return the headdress to the crate, but in his earlier hurry had unknowingly knocked it to the floor.

  "Relax and have a seat, Mr. Monahan."

  Eldon realized he needed to play it cool. Thus far he had done nothing wrong. For all anyone knew, he was readying the headdress for return at this very moment. He could easily justify the delay since so much red tape still needed to be cut.

  Straightening his tie, Eldon righted his chair, calmly sat down, and laced his fingers on the desk in front of him beside the golden relic. He faced his visitor with a practiced smile.

  "Going to have to get someone to come up and take care of this mess for you," a uniformed Marine said, taking one of the seats on the opposite side of the desk without invitation. He raised a piece of Styrofoam between his pinched fingers and blew it into the air.

  Eldon recognized the man as the head of
the Consulate's security contingent, though he had never bothered to learn his name. The man wore his crisp dress blues, but had already removed his white cap, which now rested in his lap. He just sat there with a smug expression of secret knowledge on his hard face, and stared impassively through unreadable brown eyes. His dark hair had been shorn to the scalp, and had only begun to stubble. Eldon placed him somewhere in his mid- to late-thirties.

  "It's customary to knock," Eldon said. "As Consul-general, I---"

  "Should have sent that fancy golden mask to the proper authorities several days ago," the man interrupted. "You don't think we allow just anybody to walk in off the street wanting to drop off a backpack without thoroughly searching it first, do you? Since then, let's just say I've made it a priority to follow through on my commitment to your welfare."

  Eldon balked.

  The Marine simply smirked and inclined his head toward the clock on the wall. Eldon had completely forgotten about the security camera, especially after repeated assurances that no one would be monitoring his personal space without cause or consent.

  "I wanted to do a little research on the object before blindly consigning it to such a corrupt entity," Eldon said. "Until this very moment, I couldn't even be sure it was of Peruvian origin."

  The Marine made him nervous, but he still held the power here.

  "I would imagine you encountered the same information that I did then."

  "And what information is that?"

  The man smiled and leaned back in the chair.

  "What exactly can I do for you, Corporal...?" Eldon asked.

  "First Sergeant. First Sergeant Kelvin Tasker."

  "State your business and be on your way, First Sergeant Tasker."

  "I just wanted to drop by and share some of my thoughts. You see, I've been thinking about a couple of things over the past few days. Like...where exactly did this headdress come from, and more importantly, if one were to chance upon this location, what else might one find?" Eldon's stomach turned sour. "I also just happened to notice that a gentleman by the name of Gearhardt registered travel plans for ten individuals with our Embassy. I'm thinking he might have grown a wild hair to see if he can do a little searching for himself."

  "What do you want from me?"

  "Nothing." Tasker rose and pinned his cap under his left arm. "I just wanted to swing by and formally introduce myself." He extended his right hand across the desk.

  Eldon eased tentatively out of his chair and grasped the proffered hand. Tasker's palm was coarse, his grip uncomfortably firm.

  "Nice to officially meet you, Mr. Monahan," Tasker said. "I trust you'll find that I make a splendid partner."

  VIII

  California Raptor Center

  University of California, Davis

  Davis, California

  October 23rd

  6:30 a.m. PST

  This was Galen Russell's favorite time of the day. He still had three hours before his first lecture began, and half an hour alone in the lab before the earliest volunteers arrived. Not that he minded the human interaction, but there was simply something magical about this time alone with his feathered friends. He enjoyed the teaching aspect of his post as chair of the Avian Sciences Department at the University of California, Davis, and liked to think he made a difference in the lives of the next generation, which would have to take up arms in the battle for conservation of the few natural resources left unexploited if there were to be any hope for the hundreds of species teetering on the brink of extinction, but this was his true passion. Birds were the link to the past as well as to the future, their behavior patterns far more complex and intriguing than most even suspected. Their evolutionary adaptations were well ahead of the biological curve, and reflected changes in their habitat more quickly than any other higher order of animal life, thus making them the perfect research subjects for the kind of revolutionary theories postulated by pioneers like Charles Darwin and Ernst Mayr. Galen's professional aspirations were far less ambitious. He merely wanted to know everything about them.

  He pulled off the rubber hand-puppet designed to mimic the head and neck of a female California condor and set it in the sink for one of the volunteers to clean and sanitize. It stank of chopped mice, but at least the condor chick had eaten reasonably well this morning. She'd been getting scrawny beneath that mass of white down, and for a while he had feared they were going to lose her. When the hiker who discovered her in the Los Padres National Forest, where she had presumably fallen from her nest high up on a cliff-side, first brought her in, Galen had been sure that death was inevitable, but now she was eating, at least enough to survive, and he felt cautiously optimistic about her prognosis. Unfortunately, the Center wasn't able to rehabilitate all of the birds that were dropped off. Of the more than forty raptors they were currently treating, everything from the smallest hawks to golden eagles to the nearly extinct California condor, perhaps only twenty-some would survive. The odds were often depressing, but at least at the end of the day he could hang his hat on the fact that he had done his part to ensure the proliferation of bloodlines, if not entire species.

  In addition to his obligations to the university and the Center, Galen was Executive Officer of the American Ornithologists' Union and served as Chair of the Standing Committee on Conservation for the Raptor Research Foundation. He spread himself too thin and he knew it, but if he didn't do it, who would? It wasn't so long ago that the California condor perched atop the food chain and had a range that covered the entire American Southwest. And now? The encroachment of mankind had driven it to the precipice of eradication. Only one hundred and thirty individuals remained in the wild, and most of those were due to the success of captive breeding efforts spearheaded by the San Diego Zoo. How long would it be before the species was extinct, and would anyone care when it happened? Galen passed through the incubation room, which was suffused with a red glow from the heat lamps, and the kitchen unit that reeked of worms and raw meat. At the end of a short hallway, he entered his office, a small box no larger than the standard cubicle. He slipped out of his brown corduroy jacket as he walked through the doorway and hung it on the hook behind the door. The half-length mirror affixed to it showed him what he feared it would: a somewhat doughy man in his mid-forties, sandy-blonde hair receding from his forehead and thinning on top, glasses that grew thicker with each passing year, and a slender face with crow's feet framing his sky-blue eyes. After a wasted moment of self-pity, he turned away and slid behind his desk. There were a couple of invoices he needed to check and a memo to write to the membership of the RRF, and then he could formally begin his day. He was already rolling his cuffed sleeves in anticipation when he noticed the objects on his desk, which certainly hadn't been there the night before, as it was a rare occasion when he wasn't the one to turn off the lights on his way out.

  He leaned forward and inspected the objects. Three feathers had been precisely laid out on his blotter in a clover formation, the calamuses meeting to form a single point. They were remiges, the stiff contour feathers of the wing suited for flight. The base color was mud brown with an extraordinary green iridescence that shifted as it reflected the overhead light.

  "Pretty impressive, aren't they?" a voice asked from the doorway.

  Galen flinched at the sound and dropped the feathers to the desktop. There was never anyone in the building for at least another half-hour. He looked up to find a tall, wiry man with short, spiked black hair and an expensive suit appraising him through steel-gray eyes. The man raised an eyebrow.

  "You...you shouldn't be back here," Galen stammered. He cleared his throat and tried again with more authority. "This is a restricted area. I'm going to have to ask you to leave or I'll be forced to call the police."

  The man merely shrugged, and entered the office.

  Galen reached for the phone, but the man's words stopped him short.

  "I don't think you can tell me which species those feathers belong to, can you?"

  The ma
n was right, but Galen was loath to admit it. They were obviously from a species of raptor, of that much he had no doubt. The brown coloration was an expression of melanin, but he had no idea where the strange green iridescence might have originated. The refraction of light on yellow carotenoid pigments like parrots have, possibly? Raptors didn't showcase the flashy colors of smaller birds, even during mating season. They were predators, which meant the last thing they wanted was for their prey to see them coming. The length of the remiges placed this animal's size at that of a condor, but these definitely weren't from a condor as their feathers were nearly universally black. So what did that mean? Had these feathers been doctored in some fashion, or was he looking at some rare genetic mutation? Maybe a new species entirely?

  He looked up at the man, who watched him with a curious expression. What did he know that he hadn't shared? Galen decided to play it cool and buy himself some time with the feathers to do some research. Preferably alone. This guy had no business being in here anyway. Come to think of it, how had he entered the building? Galen was certain he had locked the doors behind him when he arrived.

  "I'll hold onto these feathers for a couple days and try to match them against one of our databases. Every species of raptor is catalogued in there somewhere."

  "You'll find that this one isn't, but I have a hunch you already know as much."

  "I can run a mass spectroscopic analysis to determine where they originated. It evaluates the ratio of stable hydrogen ions---"

  "They were recovered in the Andes Mountains of Northern Peru."

  "Impossible. That's the range of the Andean condor. There's only so much room in any ecological niche for predators and scavengers. And condors definitely aren't the kind to share their niche."

  "That's your area of expertise, Dr. Russell. I'm only telling you what I know."