"It's not smelling right. I'll make contact with the San Antonio police tomorrow to see what they've turned up, but that business about the Expedition being wiped clean bothers me."
"Me, too."
"How's Mac coming on those IDs and background checks?"
"Last time I checked, her pizza had gone stone cold and she had some rather uncomplimentary things to say about you."
"I'll bet."
"Hopefully, she and her folks will complete the runs within twenty-four hours. I'll stay on her."
Jack cocked a brow at the odd note in Lightning's voice. He'd dodged bullets and side-stepped pit vipers with the man during one memorable mission but still couldn't quite read him. None of the OMEGA agents could. Jensen came across as smooth and sophisticated, yet no one who'd ever witnessed his skill with a knife would willingly go blade-to-blade with him.
After signing off, Jack set the phone on the night-stand beside his bed and unbuttoned his shirt. His thoughts drifted to the time Lightning had lived up to his name and saved Jack's life with one lethal throw. Jack had returned the favor some months later while helping take down a band of gunrunners. Grunting with satisfaction at the memory, he shucked his shirt and had just reached to unbuckle his ankle holster when he heard the crash of metal and shattering glass next door.
Ellie's cry came through the wall, sharp with distress. Jack hit the connecting door a half second later, swearing viciously when he found it locked on the other side. One brutal kick with his heel splintered the wood and sprang the lock, slamming the door against the wall.
He dived through. Hit the floor in a rob. Came up in a crouch, the blue steel automatic aimed squarely at the woman who shrieked and stumbled back a few steps.
"Jack! Good God!"
Her obvious astonishment eased his blood-pumping tension a fraction. Only a fraction. Heart hammering, Jack swung in a full circle. There was no one else in the room. Only then did he straighten and record two separate impressions.
The first was an overturned room service tray, spilling the dinner Ellie had hardly touched across the carpet.
The second was her sleep shirt.
At least, that's what Jack assumed it was. It looked like a man's white cotton T-shirt, cut off a good six inches above the skimpiest damned pair of bikini briefs he'd ever laid eyes on. If that bite-size bit of nylon and lace wasn't a thong, it was close enough to raise an instant sweat on his palms.
Which, he realized belatedly, still gripped the automatic.
Swinging the barrel away from Ellie's midsection, he thumbed the safety. His breath came fast and hard through his nostrils, and his voice was distinctly unfriendly when he demanded to know what the hell she was doing.
"I was hungry," she fired back, shaken but recovering fast. "I intended to finish the salad I didn't eat earlier and tipped over the tray. I'm sorry I woke you."
Her stiff apology didn't cut it.
"I'm not talking about the damned tray! Why did you lock the door?"
His snarl snapped her chin up. Lips thinning, she speared a glance at the shattered wood.
"I wasn't afraid you were going to pay me a late night visit and jump my bones, if that's what you're thinking."
He wasn't. Now that she'd planted the idea, though, he knew he'd have to pry it out of his head with a crowbar. Along with the all-too-vivid image of her bare belly and long, slender flanks.
"Evidently an unlocked door is one of those ground rules we didn't cover," she said stiffly. "Maybe we'd better sit down and spell them all out."
Yeah. Right. With Jack stripped down to the waist and her in a scrap of nylon and last. Not hardly!
"We'll spell them out tomorrow. For tonight, leave the door propped shut. And for God's sake, don't trip over any more trays."
"I'll do my best."
The sarcasm didn't win her any points. Shooting an evil look across the room, Jack made sure the dead bolt on the door to her suite was set, checked the window locks once more and retreated. His side of the connecting door closed with a small thud. A few seconds later, the shattered door on her side hit with a bang.
He was up before dawn the next morning. Showered and shaved, he took perverse pleasure in rapping on the door just past seven.
Some moments later, Ellie yanked it open. She'd pulled a short silk robe over her T-shirt, thank God. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in a rumpled free fall. Sleep added a hoarse note to her voice when she croaked at him.
"What?"
"I'm going to make a quick visit to the San Antonio police department. Don't leave the hotel until I get back."
Still groggy, Ellie grunted an assent.
Never a morning person, she felt about as fresh and perky as last week's leftovers. Her eyelids scraped like sandpaper. Her mouth had that cottony fuzz that cried for Scope. The fact that Jack was wide awake, showered and looking lean and tough in snug jeans and a black knit shirt that stretched taut across his shoulders only added to her disgruntlement.
As she closed the door behind Jack, though, she would have traded mouthwash and toothpaste and half her next month's salary for a cup of black coffee. She considered calling room service to order a pot, but the prospect of explaining the broken dishes and shattered connecting door nixed that notion. Any more damage to their historic hotel and the Mengers' management would probably call in the sheriff to escort her out of town.
Shaking her head, Ellie padded into the bathroom and turned the shower to full blast. Steam soon wreathed the room. After shedding her robe and undies, Ellie stepped into the stall and waited for the hot jets to work their restorative magic.
By the time Jack returned, she was dressed in a fresh pair of khaki shorts, a tan tank and a sleeveless khaki vest that came equipped with a half dozen handy pockets. With her hair tucked under a ball cap and a thick slathering of insect repellent coating all exposed areas of skin, she once again felt ready to take on all comers.
Jack included.
Chapter 6
The police don't have anything on the Expedition yet."
Ellie accepted Jack's terse report with a nod. After her less than positive experience with the detective investigating her ransacked hotel room and the threats scrawled across her mirror, she hadn't really expected much.
"Have you had breakfast?" she asked, trying to tamp down her impatience to get out to the site. She'd already lost almost a whole day of work. With the National Park Service director waffling over the funding for the project, she didn't want to lose any more.
"I downed a cup of coffee and a breakfast burrito while I was waiting for Detective Harris to put in an appearance at the precinct," Jack replied. "How about you?"
'I’ll grab some coffee on our way through the lobby."
"You need more than that."
"That's all I ever have in the mornings."
Draping her heavy canvas bag over her shoulder, Ellie waited for him to join her at the door. Jack went out first, armed the anti-intrusion devices he'd installed and followed her down the hall.
Thankfully, the hotel provided complimentary coffee for its guests. Downing the hazelnut blend in quick, grateful gulps from a cardboard cup, Ellie settled into the passenger seat of Jack's rented Cherokee. This time, the drive down Mission Trail proved uneventful. No dusty SUVs with darkened windows chasing after them. No high-speed twists and turns. Only Ellie and Jack, thigh-to-thigh in the close confines of the rental vehicle.
By the time they pulled into the parking lot of Mission San Jose, she felt the need to put some immediate distance between her and the hard, muscled contours of his body.
"We could drive around to the dig," she informed him, shouldering open her door, "but I thought you might want to see the mission compound first. It'll give you a better sense of what the Alamo was like back at the time of the siege."
Slinging her canvas field bag over one shoulder, Ellie led the way down a gravel path. As always, Mission San Jose's tranquil setting
and superb restoration thrilled both the historian and the aesthete in her. San Jose had been the largest and most active of the Texas religious settlements and, in her considered opinion, richly deserved its title as the Queen of the Missions.
The church boasted a large cupola dome, an exquisitely ornamented facade and the beautiful but curiously misnamed Rose Window, with elaborate carvings not of flowers but pomegranates. A rectangular granary with an arched roof dominated the opposite side of the compound from the church. The walls surrounding both were twelve feet thick, a potent reminder that these missions served secular as well as religious purposes.
"San Jose was founded in seventeen twenty," Ellie told Jack, their boots crunching the gravel path in a synchronized beat. “Just a few years after the Alamo. Like the other Texas missions, its purpose was to convert the local population to Catholicism, extend Spanish civilization in the New World and buttress the northern frontiers. At one time, the mission housed a population of more than three hundred priests, soldiers and Coahuiltecan Indians."
Signs spaced at intervals on the path pointed to various points of interest, including the park headquarters and gift shop. Ellie steered Jack past the main structures toward a gate in the far wall.
“The Indians farmed the surrounding countryside, producing corn, beans, potatoes, sugar cane and cotton, among other crops. They also maintained large herds of cattle, sheep and goats. Naturally, a rich settlement like this made for an irresistible target for hostile raids. When the Apache or Comanche threatened, the residents would drive their livestock inside the compound and hunker down behind San Jose's massive walls. Reportedly, they were never breached."
‘‘Unlike those at the Alamo,'' Jack commented.
‘‘Also unlike the Alamo, San Jose is still an active Catholic parish. Masses are said in the church, and I'm told it's a popular spot for weddings. The diocese maintains the church, and the National Park Service is responsible for the other structures and the outlying grounds."
Once through the small gate, they faced a wide, grassy field banded on three sides by a split rail fence. A twisting line of cottonwoods defined the fourth. As Jack and Ellie crossed the field toward the tree-bend creek, grasshoppers buzzed in the early morning heat and leaped out of their way. About halfway across the grassy field Ellie pointed out a series of small squares dug in the earth. Staked strands of wire surrounded each square. Red tags dangled from the wire.
"We've been using metal detectors to scan this field. Each of those tags marks a spot where we found spent cartridge shells. Most of the shells have rifling marks which suggest they were fired from Brown Besses similar to those used by the Mexican army. We also found several we think were fired by the shotgun we excavated down by the creek. We won't know for sure until we run a full ballistics analysis."
She tried to keep her voice properly dispassionate, but the thrill of discovery added a vibrancy she couldn't quite disguise. "Notice how those digs run in almost a straight line from north to south?"
Jack took a quick fix on the sun and nodded. Carefully, Ellie emphasized her point.
"The trail of expended bullets extends from the far corner of the Mission San Jose Park almost to the creek."
“By extrapolation,'' he said slowly, picking up on her lead, "from the Alamo to this spot five miles south, where a desperate defender might have raced for the tangle of trees to escape his pursuers, firing as he rode."
She beamed at him. "Exactly!"
His instant grasp of the significance of those small digs didn't surprise her. Jack Carstairs was no dummy. Except, she amended, when it came to his long-ago relationship with a passionate nineteen-year-old.
‘‘The bullets track right to the spot where the skeletal remains were found," she related.
"Who found them?"
"The bullets or the bones?"
"The bones."
"A couple of boys. They snuck out of Sunday Mass and slipped away to play by the creek. When they spotted the bones, they ran yelling for their mom."
"Probably had nightmares for a month after that."
"I don't think so," Ellie replied, laughing. "I saw the news cam videotapes taken right after the find. The boys mugged like mad for the cameras. They seemed to think they'd landed right in the middle of a grand adventure. Even more so after the police and ME determined from the artifacts found with the bones that the find had historical significance."
"Is that when you were called in?"
"Yep. Because I'd done so much work for and with the National Park Service, the director contacted me and asked me to head up the team. He hasn't said so," she added with a wry grin, "but I'm pretty sure he's regretting his choice."
They were almost to the creek when Eric Chapman stepped out of the shadows and into the blazing sunlight. A metal detector extended from his left arm like a long, mechanical claw. When he spotted Ellie, a look of profound relief crossed his face.
"Hey, boss lady. You got here just in time."
"Uh-oh. What's up?"
"Another TV reporter, with cameraman in tow. Sam's trying his best to fob her off with the press release we hammered out last night, but she wants down and dirty details."
Ellie threw a glance at the trees. Just what she needed to start her day. A camera crew and more adverse publicity. Swallowing a sigh, she eyed the detector strapped to Eric's arm.
"We've pretty well covered this open field. Work the grids closer in to the mission today."
"Will do."
Jack's knowledge of metal detectors was thin, at best, but even with his limited frame of reference, he could tell the piece of equipment cuffed to Chapman's arm was no ordinary treasure hunter's toy.
"It's my own design," Ellie told him, noting the direction of his gaze. "Remember that little black box that contained the database I developed after those summers at Glorietta Pass?"
"Yes."
"It's a duplicate of the one that fits right here, on the neck of the metal detector."
She signaled Chapman to raise the instrument for Jack's inspection. Grunting, the grad student lifted the heavy wand to waist level.
"I call this baby Discoverer Two," she said with a touch of proprietary pride. "Discoverer One was the prototype."
Like most metal sweepers, Discoverer came with a large, flat disk at the bottom end of its arm. At the top, where the wearer could comfortably read it, sat the computerized brain box Ellie referred to.
"One ping gives you a good idea of what you've found," Chapman added. "A low tone indicates iron, gold and nickel. A medium tone, lighter metals like aluminum pull tabs and zinc. Brass, copper and silver return a high pitch."
"In addition to the type of metal found," Ellie elaborated, "Discoverer will tell you how deep it's buried. The built-in computer also uses the signal return to paint a picture of the object here on this little screen. When we lock on something that looks, sounds and smells like a shell casing, the preprogrammed data from my prior research gives us a pretty good indication what type."
His arm sagging with the weight of the wand, Chapman waited patiently for her to finish describing some of the more technical aspects of the equipment. Once the grad student had trotted off to begin his sweeps, Ellie drew in a deep breath, braced herself and plunged into the shade of the cottonwoods.
The rest of her crew was there, doing their best to dodge the questions of a news reporter with a waist-length curtain of black hair and an air of dogged inquisitiveness. Sam Pierce stood solidly in front of the camera and greeted Ellie's arrival with barely disguised relief.
‘‘Here’s Dr. Alazar now. She can give you a better estimate of when we'll release our findings."
Jack stepped to the side and out of the picture as the camera locked onto Ellie.
"Dr. Alazar. Deborah Li, Channel Six news. We understand you've sent bit of bone from the remains you recovered to the police lab for DNA sampling."
"That's correct."
"When w
ill you have the results?"
"Hopefully, by the end of the week."
"Then you're going to run a match against a sample from one of William Travis's descendents?"
‘‘A great-great-grandniece has volunteered a sample," she confirmed. "So have descendents of several other Alamo defenders."
After all the bad press, Ellie only hoped the donors would still provide the samples as promised. Several had already voiced doubts. She didn't share that bit of information with the reporter, however.
"What if there's no match?" Li asked. "Pardon the pun, but won't that shoot your theory that the remains might belong to William Barrett Travis all to heck?"
"At this point, it's only a theory," she reminded the reporter with unruffled calm. "One of several we're working. If you like, I'll show you around the site. There's not much to see at this point, though," she warned. "We're almost finished here. By next week, we hope to switch from field to full laboratory mode."
As curious as the reporter, Jack trailed along. It was quite an operation, he discovered. Two vans held racks for the team's equipment, which included an impressive array of computers, field microscopes, digital imaging cameras and chemicals for sampling soil, wood and metal fragments. The excavation site was cut into the bank of the creek. It formed a flat, level bed where what looked like a hundred or so cubic yards of mud and debris had been removed bit by careful bit.
"As I said, there not much to see at this point. The major artifacts we recovered have been photographed, catalogued and shipped to Baylor University, where Dr. Dawes-Hamilton and her assistants will complete the authentication process. The skeletal remains were transported to the San Antonio morgue pending DNA identification and possible burial by family. If we make no ID, the bishop of the diocese has agreed they should be buried here, in San Jose's old mission cemetery."
At this point, Ellie explained, the team was working the final phase of on-site activity. Reconfirming exact coordinates of the finds. Digging additional exploratory sites up and downstream to make sure they hadn't missed any artifacts. Making last, expanded sweeps with the metal detector.
Texas Hero Page 6