Track of the Scorpion

by R. R. Irvine

  Lee stared.

  “Sit down,” Hatch told him. “There’s something I have to tell you. I never meant to, but now I have no choice. It goes all the way back to the Manhattan Project and Los Alamos, early in 1945. By then, the Japanese were in no position to attack us or anyone else. For all intents and purposes they’d lost the war. The only question was how and when they’d surrender. If it came to us invading the Japanese mainland, the military was predicting one million American casualties. So the bomb was a godsend.”

  Hatch paced as he spoke. “Then came the peace feelers, and suddenly an envoy was on his way to Washington to see the president. We were flying him in in one of our B-17s, a plane called the Scorpion. That’s when a group of us decided the bomb had to be tested in combat. We arranged to have that plane shot down over this country, in New Mexico to be precise. Later, we told the president that the airplane had been part of a plot to assassinate him and had been shot down in the Pacific.”

  Hatch paused, waiting for his son’s reaction. After a moment, Lee said, “I hope I would have done the same thing. But that’s ancient history, surely?”

  “The Scorpion“s come back to haunt us. An archaeologist named Nick Scott dug it up in the desert near a town called Cibola. Ever since then she’s been raising hell.” Hatch tapped himself on the chest. “It’s my fault, really, because I didn’t stop her soon enough.”

  Hatch precisely summarized the steps he’d taken so far, mostly through his intermediary, Ellsworth Kemp.

  “I thought getting rid of the old prospector and reporter would be enough,” Hatch concluded. “I miscalculated.”

  “So now we have to eliminate them all. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

  “I wanted to keep your conscience clear.”

  “My conscience hasn’t been clear since you fired my predecessor and gave me his job.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Hell, don’t be.” Lee grinned. “I wanted that job. Besides, I’ve never forgotten what you told me. „A conscience is for fools.’ I was five years old when you said that.”

  Tears filled Hatch’s eyes. “You remembered that?”

  “I’ve taken all your advice.”

  “I’m proud of you.”

  “I don’t think you would have promoted me if I hadn’t listened. Now, why don’t you let me fly to Albuquerque and take care of things for you?”

  “You sound like me. It does a father’s heart good. But I think I have to be there this time. I know every last detail, going all the way back to Los Alamos.”

  “We’ll go together, then.”

  “I want you in reserve, if you don’t mind, son. As soon as I land in New Mexico, I’ll send the plane back with orders to stand by at the airport. If something unexpected comes up, though I can’t think what, considering the backups I already have in place, I’ll use the satellite uplink to call in the cavalry, you. If that happens, bring Kemp’s security team with you.”

  “That’s a lot of witnesses we’ll have to worry about.”

  “Like I said, I’ve planned ahead. The Scott woman, her father, and a man named McKinnon will be handed to Kemp on a platter. When they’re dead, I’ll take care of Kemp if I can catch him with his back turned. If Kemp survives, you and the security team will take care of him. In that case, I want you bringing up the rear carrying an Uzi. A few more bodies won’t matter as long as no one’s left to point a finger at us.”

  “What about the B-17?”

  “By now it’s nothing but scrap metal.”

  “And the bodies inside?” Lee asked.

  “Cremated.”

  Hatch stood up to embrace his son. “Be careful in that desert,” Lee said. “I saw on the news that they’re having a heat wave in New Mexico.”

  CHAPTER 35

  The late afternoon temperature at the Albuquerque airport was a hundred and seven when Nick and McKinnon arrived. An hour later nearing Cibola, it was a hundred and fourteen degrees, well beyond the capacity of the rental car’s air-conditioning.

  Nick fiddled with the car’s radio until she found her favorite station in Gallup. The heat wave was expected to continue three more days, with record-setting temperatures predicted for the badlands.

  “Coyote Rock,” the announcer said, “has already recorded one hundred and sixteen degrees. And tomorrow is supposed to be higher yet.”

  McKinnon grunted. “It feels like hell has opened up.”

  The truth, Nick knew from her study of the great drought that afflicted the Anasazi, was a high-pressure area with anticyclonic circulation. The result was intense surface heating and clear skies. But hell was more apt. God knew what it would be like out at the dig site. A hundred and twenty in the sun probably, maybe ten degrees less inside the cave. The thought made her thirsty. In temperatures like that, survival would be a matter of drinking water constantly. She hoped her father was keeping up his intake of liquids.

  “Let’s stop at the Zuni Cafe first,” she said, “and order milk shakes. Doubles.”

  “How far is it now?” McKinnon asked.

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Make it fifteen. I think I’d better slow down before this car explodes.”

  It was dinnertime when they parked in front of the Zuni Cafe. At the sight of her father’s Isuzu Trooper parked safely out front, Nick let out a sigh of relief. Weather like this could be as dangerous as any assassin.

  When she stepped out of the car and onto the road, the asphalt squished underfoot. By the time she reached the sidewalk, the soles of her feet felt seared.

  Inside the cafe, the Coca-Cola thermometer read ninety-eight degrees. The wall-mounted air-conditioning unit sounded as if it were rattling to death.

  Mom Bennett was sitting at the counter fanning herself with an old magazine. At the sight of Nick, she smiled, and said, “It’s pot roast tonight, dear. I hope you don’t mind helping yourself. It’s the last I’ll be cooking till this heat wave blows over.”

  “Nick!” her father shouted from a large table at the back of the cafe, where he was hemmed in by his students. “Come and sit down and we’ll serve you.”

  Just the sight of him calmed her. It had been the same when she was a child. Burying herself in his arms and hugging him for all she was worth warded off the sense of chaos that pervaded the house when Nick was alone with her mother.

  Two of Elliot’s students vacated their chairs at Nick’s approach. Another time she might have insisted they stay put, but for the moment she had only energy enough to introduce McKinnon before collapsing onto a chair next to her father. McKinnon sat on the other side of Elliot.

  “Something cold to drink,” Nick pleaded. “Milk shakes if you can.”

  The students, looking skeptical, left the table to consult with Mom Bennett.

  “We’re celebrating,” Elliot said, raising an eyebrow to indicate he wanted to keep his students ignorant of the Scorpion and its ramifications. “That kiva I told you we found—what’s left of it anyway—was definitely built over the old riverbed. There were shards everywhere, the remains of ancient water jars. My guess is that it represented more than a symbolic entrance into the underworld. It was a well, symbolic or otherwise, from which sprang life-giving water. Probably the priests were in charge of it.”

  Nick smiled. Dead civilizations were much less stressful than dealing with the living.

  “The drought is well documented,” Elliot went on. “No rain from 1276 to 1299. If our new kiva dates from then, it’s possible that some kind of religious schism occurred. After all, the priests were responsible for keeping track of the seasons to make certain the crops were planted on time. So when it stopped raining who else would get the blame? Chances were, they threw the priests out after a while and anointed new ones. In such a scenario, water might have become an object of worship.”

  Around the table, his students nodded.

  “If Clark Guthrie were here, you wouldn’t sound so certain,” Nick said. “Don’t try to pr
ove your theories, he’d say. Let the facts speak for themselves.”

  “She’s right,” Elliot said for the benefit of his students. “It’s too early to make assumptions. But next year, Nick, we dig at Site Two.”

  She groaned. To get from Site No. 1 to No. 2, twenty miles of desert had to be crossed without benefit of road. Site No. 2 was smack in the middle of true badlands, where the plant life was so stunted it cast shade fit only for lizards. And next year meant next summer, working in hundred-degree-plus heat at an Anasazi site that offered shade only inside the cliff dwellings themselves.

  Milk shakes arrived, thick and tasty enough to guarantee that Mom Bennett herself had a hand in making them.

  “Do you remember the kiva at Site Two?’’ Elliot asked. Without taking her mouth from the straw, Nick nodded. Their initial work out there, a partial excavation, had taken place three years ago, when Nick was still a graduate student working on her doctorate. At that time, the kiva had seemed unique because of its location at the bottom of a shallow gully near the base of the cliff dwellings themselves.

  “I’ve been checking my maps. It’s built directly over the riverbed, I’m sure of it. And if you’ll remember, that kiva is unusually deep.”

  Nick didn’t answer until she reached the bottom of her glass. “By the time that kiva was built, the river had been dried up for centuries.”

  “Exactly. I think it’s a well as much as it is a kiva. Certainly a place for rain ceremonies, or don’t you agree?”

  “It sounds logical.”

  Elliot nodded. “Think back. There’s a large stone in the center of the floor. My guess is, if you pull it up you’ll be looking into a well. It explains survival at such a remote and barren location.”

  “How deep would it have to be?” Nick asked.

  “I’m no geologist, but I’d say the water couldn’t have been too hard to get at. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have settled there in the first place. On the other hand, that stretch of desert would certainly have kept their enemies at bay. So what do you say, Nick? Shall we go looking for water out there?”

  Before she could answer, McKinnon laid a hand on her arm. “I think we have more important things to talk about.”

  Elliot stared at Nick for a moment, then nodded. “I know that look.” He turned to his students. “In this heat, we’d better get an early start in the morning.”

  They got the point, said their good-byes quickly, and left the cafe in a group.

  For the next thirty minutes, between mouthfuls of Mom’s pot roast, Nick and McKinnon took turns bringing Elliot up to date on their investigation. At first, Elliot listened calmly, nodding occasionally, making no comment. But when Nick recounted Akihiro Yoshida’s story of the Manabe Mission, Elliot shook his head hard enough to rattle cartilage.

  “Since we know the B-17 was there,” Elliot said finally, “I think it’s safe to assume that someone wants us to disappear the same way the plane did.”

  “You believe Yoshida, then?” McKinnon asked. “That peace was sabotaged so we could use the bomb?”

  Elliot nodded. “People have been saying pretty much the same thing for years, that there was no need to drop the bomb, that the Japanese were already defeated. Some think we dropped it as a warning to the Russians. Others say Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nothing but testing grounds.”

  “Christ,” McKinnon said. “I think I’d better call in and set up an alert.”

  “Are there any strangers in town?” Nick asked.

  Elliot shook his head.

  “How much water do you have at the site?”

  “Normally I’d say a week’s worth, but in this heat, maybe half that.”

  “Tomorrow we load the Troopers with food and all the water we can carry and stock up the cave.”

  “We can’t hide out there forever,” Elliot said.

  “Like I told you on the phone,” McKinnon said. “Once an IRS alert is in effect, I have to check in every twelve hours. If I don’t, help will be on its way. I can also call in a rescue team by punching a special code into my cellular phone.”

  “Wouldn’t it be safer if we turned ourselves in to the IRS?”

  McKinnon shook his head. “Only as a last resort. Otherwise, I have to explain why I broke the rules for Nick.”

  “Don’t we all,” Elliot said. “Still, your plan sounds as good as any. So make your call. And who knows? Maybe I can get some work out of you two while we’re at the site. In the meantime, I think I better go back to the motel and get my students out of here.”

  Elliot paid for dinner, including his students’, then gave Mom Bennett a hug.

  As soon as she broke free, she winked at Nick. “I know how you feel about turkey and dressing, dear. So as long as you’re here, you won’t see it on the menu. I promise.”

  Nick added a hug of her own before leading the way outside onto Main Street. Even with the sun about to set, the temperature hadn’t diminished. Heat waves rising from the surrounding desert gave the illusion that Cibola was an island encircled by molten lava.

  “What’s the problem with turkey and dressing?” McKinnon asked as they waded toward the Seven Cities Motel.

  “Thanksgiving,” Nick said cryptically.

  “Food poisoning,” her father added. “My wife wasn’t the best of cooks. Come to think of it, none of the women in my life are gourmet chefs.”

  Nick glared. “If it wasn’t so damned hot, I’d kick you.”

  Elliot ducked his head.

  One of these days, Nick thought, she’d tell him the truth, that Elaine had disappeared into one of her black fugues that Thanksgiving week, talking only when Elliot came home in the evening. The rest of the day, she’d curled into a ball behind the sofa, leaving nine-year-old Nick to cope with the turkey and dressing.

  At the motel, Elliot, with Nick at his side, called a meeting of his students. He told them he’d been forced to call an early end to the dig, assuring them that they’d receive full credit for an entire semester’s work. His announcement brought smiles to their faces. And who could blame them? Nick thought. This kind of weather was an invitation to heat stroke.

  Elliot broke out some six-packs of beer, further adding to the air of celebration, while everyone pitched in to load the students’ personal gear into one of the Troopers and Nick’s rental car, which was to be dropped off at the airport in Albuquerque.

  Nick and McKinnon drove the second Trooper, the one she thought of as her own, to the general store, where Mayor Ralph, eyes shining with avarice, was waiting. They’d called him at home in advance. The size of their order brought him running.

  Except for the front seat, every inch of the Trooper was crammed with bottled water, canned goods, and three individual backpacks filled with high-energy rations. Portable stoves, pots, pans, plastic dishes, and sleeping bags were already at the dig site.

  The .30-.30 Nick kept hidden under the front seat didn’t seem like enough fire power, so she purchased two hunting rifles, .30-.06s, plus ammunition, maxing out her credit card.

  As soon as they got back to the motel, they loaded both weapons, then got busy carrying the mattress from Nick’s room into her father’s. That way, the three of them could stick together during the night, with one awake and one on guard at all times without alarming the students in the other rooms.

  By then it was nearly midnight. The outside temperature, somewhere in the nineties if Nick was any judge, had the window-mounted air conditioner complaining.

  “We can’t hear anybody coming with that racket,” McKinnon said. He’d volunteered to take the first watch.

  “He’s right,” Elliot said.

  Nick sighed and switched off the air conditioner.

  “As soon as we kill the light, I’ll open the door and watch the street.” He pulled a chair into position. “Say when.”

  “It’s going to be a long night,” Nick said.

  The moment McKinnon doused the light the phone rang.

  Something clattered as
Elliot fumbled for the phone in the dark. Finally he said, “Who’s this? Joe Twombly?”

  “That’s the P-38 pilot I told you about,” Nick said.

  After a moment, Nick found her father’s outstretched hand.

  “This is Nick Scott,” she said into the phone.

  “I called to thank you,” Twombly said. “I always figured I didn’t have anything else to look forward to, but you changed that.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I told you about my son, didn’t I? I’m sure I did. Flying’s in his blood, too. That’s why he works for the FAA. Well, I’ve been onto him, checking into flight plans, if you understand my meaning?”

  Perhaps it was the darkness of the motel room, but her brain didn’t seem to be functioning properly. “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she said.

  “They couldn’t kill me in the war no matter how hard they tried. But now the cigarettes have caught up with me and my lungs. That’s no way for a fighter pilot to go.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Don’t be. Just tell that friend of yours, that McKinnon fellow, that he’s a lucky man.”

  “I just may do that.”

  “You’re my kind of woman, all right. I knew that the moment I laid eyes on you. I’d give your friend some competition if my last flight wasn’t coming up. Now let’s talk about that man Hatch. I’ve been racking my brains about him ever since we talked. No matter what, I’d say he has to be made to pay for what he’s done.”

  “What flight are you talking about?”

  “The trouble is, the rich think they can get away with murder,” Twombly went on, ignoring her question. “Ever since we talked I haven’t been able to get the Scorpion out of my mind. I keep seeing it over and over again. Only for once I’m not dreaming. It’s broad daylight and I can’t get those men out of my mind. They were flyers like me, and they died because of that man, Hatch.”

  “I think you should be careful,” Nick said. “You’re now the only witness left.”

  Twombly laughed. “Be careful at my age, with my lungs? Shit, it’s that bastard Hatch who should be careful. I looked him up, you know, at the library. He lives like a king. He has his own jet plane, for God’s sake, not a small one, but one of those big commercial jobs. Imagine that, not having to wait in line like the rest of us, or get stuffed into your seat like a sardine. No, indeed. Our Mr. Hatch has an entire airplane to himself. Probably he has his own bedroom on board, and who knows what else.” Twombly clicked his tongue. “I say someone ought to shoot down that plane of his, with him on board.”