I’ve been to many places in my life. In my younger days I visited the Great Wall, the Pyramids, Niagara Falls, the Black Hills, and Yellowstone Stone, to name a few. Only one place made me say, ‘Holy shit!’ The Grand Canyon is the most spectacular sight in the whole world. It is a holy place where you are humbled by power of God and nature.
Entering the park, I noted a sign that read: CLOSED. Of course, the park was closed since the collapse of the Federal Government because there was no money to support the National Park system. The gates, which should be shut to keep people out, were busted open. We drove past the gates and observed a few cars running around on the main park road.
We arrived at the South Rim Visitor Center. There were a few cars in the visitors’ parking lot. Everyone, including the Warriors, ran to see the spectacular sight. I walked behind them, but I could hear what they said. They uttered the same words that I did when I was twelve years old.
The sight of the canyon brought back memories. In the old days, very few people went to the Grand Canyon, mainly because it was a transportation issue. You had to have a good car or truck. You had to be an adventurer. My Dad didn’t have the best car but he took care of it and knew how to fix it. It was a 1954 Chevy with a six cylinder motor. Dad wasn’t afraid of anything, especially going on a three-week camping trip to the middle of nowhere. He knew how to do everything.
I recall we camped out in a Sear’s tent and cooked over the open fire. If my memory serves me right, only four other campers were at the canyon at that time. Everyone had tents, because RVs didn’t exist. You didn’t need a reservation or permit to camp.
When we went camping, everyone had a job to do. Dad gave us boys the privilege of putting up the tent and digging a drainage ditch around it in case of rain, which we did with great pride. Then we had to blow up the air mattresses and lay out the sleeping bags inside the tent. My brothers and I collected firewood from the dead pine trees. Since I was the oldest, I got to start the fire. I thought that was the most important job. Dad taught me how to start a fire and keep it burning. Those were some of the best days of my life. Thanks, Dad.
Maggie shouted, “Jack, this is incredible! It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
About twenty other people were meandering about the rim, looking at the sights. When they saw us dressed in our SWAT gear, loaded down with weapons, they quickly beat a path back to their cars.
Adam said, “The canyon is really massive.”
I asked, “Baldwin, what do you think?”
He replied, “I’ve seen a lot of things, all over the world, but this takes the cake. It’s so large I wonder where to start looking for the treasure.”
“Ok, I got some ideas. Let’s mount up and head to the Bright Angel Lodge. We’ll make that our HQ and operate out of there, because it’s close to the trail we’re going to use.”
Needless to say, the lodge was officially closed, so we opened it. The stores and concession stands had been looted and ransacked. The lodge rooms were cabin-like structures, and we took twelve of them, making ourselves at home. We had to clean the rooms up because they hadn’t been used in a while. Baldwin posted security, covering the cabins and vehicles. He had his crew unload the ATVs and bring them to the cabins.
I called a meeting with Baldwin, Pete, Maggie, and Adam to discuss our plan. Adam printed out eight copies of a satellite map which showed the canyon and trails.
I said, “George, what I suggest is have your men do a recon on Hermit Road, Rim Trail, and Desert View Road before it gets dark. You and I will take a look at Bright Angel Trail to check for ATV tracks.”
Pete asked, “Boss, what do you think?”
“Take two ATVs to cover each trail and use two men on each patrol to recon those roads. Have them report in if they see any nomads,” Baldwin ordered.
“Roger that, Boss.” Pete left to hand out the maps and give his men Baldwin’s orders.
After grabbing some binoculars, Baldwin and I walked outside, heading towards the Bright Angel Trailhead. Walking up to the canyon rim, we stood there observing the sight. He said, “Look at that tower shaped like a pyramid,” as he pointed in a slight easterly direction.
“That, my friend is Isis Temple. The treasure could be hidden in a cave on Isis.” We proceeded to look at the temple through the binoculars.
“That thing is gigantic.”
“Yeah, it’s big alright.”
Proceeding down the trail we ran into a few people hiking up Bright Angel, so I stopped them and asked, “Are you coming from the bottom of the canyon?”
One replied, “Yes, why?”
“Did you see anyone else, a group of men on ATVs?”
“No. We didn’t see anyone else. Why, is there a problem?”
I advised them to leave the park because we had reports that terrorists were here. They quickly walked away. I was sure they would also tell others about the terrorists. The last thing we needed was for some innocent people to become involved in this mess.
“George, radio your men and advise them to tell everyone they see that terrorists are here. Tell them to leave the park immediately to be safe.” George thought that was a good idea, and he did so.
Reaching the trailhead I said, “One thing that bothers me is the area here on the rim was a lot different back in 1350. We might have trouble finding a Hooked X, here.”
“Yeah, good point. We’ll just have to keep our eyes peeled.”
Proceeding down the trail, it starts off gradually and then becomes steeper before you pass through the first tunnel. We saw the ATV tracks in the soft dirt. The nomads had definitely gone down Bright Angel Trail.
We both looked down the trail using the spy glasses but didn’t see a soul, except for a few people who were hiking down into the abyss. Turning around, we started back up.
Bright Angel Trail is supposed to be an easy one compared to the others. We only went down about half a mile on the eight-mile long trail. The incline is pretty steep, and at an altitude of almost 8,000 feet, it takes the wind right out of you. My smoking didn’t help matters any, or the fact that I had on 30 pounds of gear.
I recall hiking this trail with my son and daughter years ago. Even at a much younger age, and in better shape than now, it kicked the shit out of me. It took me two days to recover from sore muscles and dehydration. I was glad we had the ATVs.
Hiking back up, reaching the top of the trail, I said, “George, I gotta rest a minute.” We sat down on a bench and I took a drink of water.
George commented, “That’s a tough little hike. It reminds me of the mountains in Afghanistan. Actually, the whole terrain does with its desert-like appearance.”
“Let’s scan around in the canyon and see if we can spot these guys.”
George said, “I doubt we’ll see anyone, but let’s give it a try.”
I was looking at the base of Isis Temple while we strolled past the cabins, stopping in front of the looted stores. I commented, “It’s a shame they looted and ransacked this place. It used to be a nice place for people to eat and relax, while viewing the canyon.”
As we were scanning the canyon, five men came around the building, laughing and shouting to each other. When they saw us, about fifty feet away, they suddenly shut up. I saw that they were well armed with AK47s. I noticed they had black bandanas wrapped around their foreheads, similar to those worn by the nomads.
They froze, glaring at us. Baldwin and I turned to face them. I said, “Hi guys. Do you know that the park is closed?”
One of them spoke up, “No, we didn’t. Actually we’re waiting for our friends to come back out of the canyon. We can’t leave without them.”
“When did they go down?”
“They went down other day. Are you guys cops or something?”
“Yeah, kind of,” I said.
The biggest of the bunch said, “Well, let’s see your badges.”
Baldwin said, “We’re with the Army, so we don’t have any badges.�
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“The Army? What are you doing here?”
“Just checking on everything and asking people to leave because the park is closed.”
“You don’t have any jurisdiction here?”
Baldwin replied, “Oh yes we do, my friend. This is government property and we’re assigned here.”
Our M4’s were hanging on three point slings in front of us. I moved my hand to the pistol grip and flipped off the safety with my thumb. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw George do the same.
The five men also saw us put our hands on the pistol grips. We didn’t point our guns at them, but I was getting ready to. George and I knew who these men were.
I told them, “Put your weapons on the ground and don’t try anything stupid.”
“Why do you want us to do that,” the big dope asked.
“Because we said so,” Baldwin replied. “Put the weapons down, now!”
The same jerk said, “There’s five of us and two of you. You put your guns down.”
“Look, you guys don’t wanna fuck with us, you don’t stand a chance. Put your weapons down now!”
It was a tense situation as we stared each other down. Then they made a dumb move. Three of them started to raise their AK’s. My sixth sense told me they were going to fire.
Before they could level their guns and fire, Baldwin and I got the drop on them, because we were expecting them to do that. Swiftly, we swung our M4s around, aiming from the hip, and let loose with short bursts. Three dorks immediately fell to the ground. The other two men, on the left, dropped their AK’s like hot potatoes, raising their hands, surrendering to us. The gun fight, if you can call it one, was over in five seconds.
Baldwin ordered, “Get down flat on your stomachs, with hands over your head.” They complied instantly and he zip-cuffed each one, with hands behind their backs, while I stood guard. George stood them up, one at a time, and frisked them. No other weapons were found, but one had a radio.
I said, “It looks like we have a couple of prisoners to interrogate.”
By this time, a few curious people wandered over to check what was going on. Baldwin told them, in a commanding voice, “There’s nothing to see here. Everyone should leave the park because it’s not safe.” With that comment, everyone beat a path away from us. Hopefully they left the park.
We were standing in front of a concessions store. George dragged the three bodies inside, out of sight, while I watched the two dirtbags.
We took them inside and told them to sit down at the counter. I sat down and lit up a smoke. I offered one to them, but they declined. No one said a word for about five minutes. The nomads closely watched us. I could tell they were afraid and would tell us everything we wanted to know.
These guys were young and I placed them to be twenty something. They were greenhorns and had probably never been in a gun battle, let alone killed anyone.
George asked, “Do you have any other buddies here?”
The young man with blond hair and child-like face replied, “Yeah. They went into the canyon.”
“How many are in the canyon?”
“Ten went down on ATVs.”
“Are any more up here with you?”
“No, it was just us five. They left us here to guard the trucks.”
The numbers added up because we knew there were fifteen of them. I asked, “Where did they go in the canyon?”
The dark-haired ugly one spoke. “We don’t know exactly. They went looking for a treasure or something like that.”
“They don’t know shit so let’s just terminate them now,” George said.
The blond punk said, “We don’t know anything, so you don’t need to kill us.”
The other one said, “Please don’t kill us! We’ll leave and won’t come back.”
I said, “I’m sorry, boys, but we can’t take that chance,” as I walked behind them and drew out my Glock.
“Come on, Mister, please give us a break.”
“I am giving you a break … a break from life.” I swiftly shot each one in the back of the head. They flopped over on the countertop banging their heads as they hit. Blood splattered around the area, messing up the counter, but no one was going to eat there anyway.
George and I dragged the all bodies into a back storeroom and locked the door with a key we found. I didn’t feel any remorse about killing these little punks. If you play with the big boys, that’s what can happen to you. Besides, kidnapping means the death penalty in my book. Baldwin didn’t say a word. He knew we had no choice but to kill them.
We found the bandit’s cars in front of the lodge and disabled them. It was getting late, so we walked back to the cabins.
It was almost dark when the patrols came back. They reported there weren’t any signs of nomads. We told them about our encounter and advised them we were on the right track.
Baldwin set up security by assigning two men to guard the trucks, two men to guard the cabins, and one man to watch Bright Angel Trial in case the nomads came back up during the night. They would rotate every two hours with the other Warriors so everyone would get some rest.
I went to the room and Adam was still on the computer. He said, “The Indian name for the Grand Canyon is Ongtupqa.”
“What does that mean? “ I asked, as I poured a double shot of JD.
“I don’t know I’ll look it up tomorrow. I’m too tired now and I have a headache.” I gave him some aspirin and we went to sleep. Maggie was already in dreamland.
I couldn’t sleep and stayed up for a while longer. I thought, it was too bad those young men chose a life of crime.
MAY 30, 2026
THE HAVASUPAI
Baldwin and I had a meeting at 7 am. I said, “The nomads will be coming out of the canyon any day now. They’ll run out of food.”
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. The Bright Angel Trail is a perfect killing zone,” George stated.
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, I’ll show you.”
We hiked back to the start of the trail. Baldwin said, “From here we can see more than a mile. These guys are coming up on a narrow trail with no place to hide. Once they come around that bend, on the trail down there, we’ll terminate them before they get to the tunnel. I killed a lot of Isis guys using the same method.”
“Yeah, good idea. That’s about 800 yards away. I could use the Cobb 50.”
“Yes, for sure. But don’t fire at the lead vehicle. Fire at the last ATV first, taking them out in reverse order. That blocks the trail so they can’t back up and escape. Since there has to be two men on an ATV, maybe you can kill two with one shot. I’ve done that many times. The big fifty bullet will rip right through both men. Anyway, you shoot the last one first and then move forward, taking one out at a time. Most likely the ATVs in the lead won’t hear the shots over the noise of the motors. They probably won’t even turn around to look behind them on that narrow trail because they’re afraid of going over the cliff. That’s at least a 2,000-foot drop.”
“That makes a lot of sense, George.”
“Then, if any men do make it to the tunnel, we’ll be waiting to ambush them. Once inside the tunnel it’s a perfect killing zone.”
“Ok, that’s a good plan. We can see them coming miles away so that gives us time to set up.”
“Now, what else do we need to do today?” Baldwin asked.
“We need to start looking for the Hooked X located somewhere on the rim. It’s a big job and there’s a lot of ground to cover. We might not even find one because this place has changed so much since the time of the Templars.”
“So, what should my men be looking for to find the X?”
“They need to check every large stone or rock, along the rim, that sticks up enough that the rising sun would strike it. We’ll cover the south rim first and if we don’t find it we’ll have to go around the canyon to the east and north.”
“Man, that’s a lot of ground to cover.”
“Yes it is, but we have 20 days to find it.”
We had nineteen men to search for the Hooked X. Ten would proceed using the ATVs, and nine would search on foot, working in teams of two or three.
Baldwin said, “Hey, I just remembered we got the nomads radio so we can listen in. I’ll have one of my men monitor it. Maybe they’ll tip us off when they’re heading up.”
“Good idea, that’ll give us a jump on them.” We hiked back to the cabins to get some chow.
Maggie and I needed to meet with the Indians to find out if they knew anything about the caves, treasure, Templars, or Egyptians coming to the canyon. If they did, would they tell us.
Adam stayed in the cabin, searching for information on the Army World Web. Maggie and I mounted up to make the drive to the Havasupai Reservation which is about 200 miles by car, but only 20 miles by the way the crow flies. It’s not easy to get there by car. We drove one of the Hummers and brought alongthe dogs for added protection.
The Havasupai capital is named Supai Village, which is located within Havasu Canyon, on the Havasu River, which is a tributary on the south side of the Colorado River. The village is not accessible by road. The Havasupai Tribe administers the land, which is outside the jurisdiction of Grand Canyon National Park.
To get there we had to backtrack south on Route 83 to I-40 and then proceed west to Seligman exit. There, we pick up Indian Route 18, which takes you to a parking lot and the end of the road, bringing you to the reservation. This is the start of the dirt trail that leads to Supi Village.
We arrived five hours later, at 2 pm, because the top speed of the Hummer was only 45 mph. Just as I suspected, a group of Indians were sitting at a roadblock, in the parking lot, at the head of the trail.
The Indians were positioned about 100 feet away from where we parked. They were watching as Maggie and I jumped out of the Humvee with the dogs and stretched our legs. We clipped our M4s on the slings and put the dogs on a leash. Right away, they took a much needed leak. Speaking of leaks, I had to take one also. I glanced around the parking lot and saw a porta-potty on the side of the lot, about 50 feet away, near the Indians.
TEMPLARS QUEST: LUCEM SANCTAM (THE TEMPLARS QUEST CHRONICLES: A Historical Mystery Book 3) Page 7