by Alton Gansky
“Who knows? Maybe they’ve found a treasure.”
“Whatever it is, I’m going to find out.”
Bob sighed. “Don’t you think you may be pushing this too far? You’ve already grilled the supervisor at the site, called every motel in town until you found where Mr. Sachs was, then banged on his door until you awakened him from his nap, and immediately barraged him with questions.”
“It wasn’t a barrage, just my attempt to open communications and find out what is going on under our noses.”
“We’re lucky he didn’t come out swinging.”
“You would have protected me, Bob. It’s your duty.”
“Sachs looked like he could take care of himself. We might be safer banging on the muzzle of a sleeping bear.” Bob backed the car out of the parking slot and started for the street.
“He wouldn’t have hurt us. He has kind eyes.”
“Kind eyes, eh?” Bob laughed. “They looked like sleepy eyes turned angry.” Bob stopped the truck where the parking lot met the street. “Back to the office?”
“No,” Anne said without hesitation. “Sheriff’s substation.”
“Tell me you’re joking,” Bob shot back.
“No joke. These guys have crossed the wrong girl. The only people that keep secrets that tightly held to their chest are government types and crooks.”
“You can’t be serious,” Bob protested. “They didn’t sneak into town; they drove right through in broad daylight. They’ve taken rooms in a motel and not just one room, but a whole wing of them. Doesn’t sound like a Mafia project to me.”
“Then why the big brush-off? Why stonewall us at every question? They’ve got something up their sleeve, and I want to have a peek.”
Bob cranked the wheel and pulled onto the main street. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he admitted.
“Have I ever led you astray?” Anne asked.
Bob cut a glance her way then returned his gaze forward. He said nothing.
Chapter 6
“I’M NOT SURE I like this.”
Gleason Lane gazed down at the printout of the latest GPR. He was seated on a canvas camping chair. Brent was seated next to him.
“What’s not to like?” Jack Dyson asked. He carried a bottle of mineral water with him. It was a passion for which he endured a thousand jokes. “The ground changing on you?”
“No,” Gleason said, with a subtle shake of his head. He ran a hand through his hair then adjusted his glasses. “Brent and I have run the program we designed, and it’s confusing.”
“The one that blends the surveys into a single composite?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. Look.” Jack joined Gleason at the table and gazed over his shoulder. What he saw was a mass of lines and colors. Gleason ran his finger along the printout. “We can see this on the computer, but the printout lets us see more at one time than can be viewed on a computer monitor.” He tapped a blank area on the left side of the page. “This is an enhanced image based on the surveys. It’s the virtual X on the treasure map. As you can see, it lacks density, implying that it’s—”
“Hollow,” interjected Jack. “We expected that.”
“We did expect that, and as we saw with our earlier, preliminary surveys, there appears to be a change in the density of materials running from twenty-five meters southeast of the hollow area to our target area. I still think that it represents an ancient trench.”
Jack could see the multicolored lines converge into a tight pattern that looked like a road. “What are those?” Jack leaned over Gleason’s shoulder and pointed at several dark objects that lined the path of the ancient trench.
Brent answered, “That’s the puzzle. We don’t know what they are. They’re not large and seem to be made of a dense material or maybe filled with something.”
“Like what?”
“Again, that’s the mystery,” Gleason answered.
“Could they be hoards of something?” Jack wanted to know.
“I suppose,” Gleason said, “but we won’t be able to tell until we dig one up.”
“I count six of them,” Jack said. “Why do they show up darker the farther from the site they are?”
Gleason shrugged. “My guess is that the farther away they are, the closer to the surface they are.”
“That makes sense,” Brent added. “The readings show that the trench descends toward here.” He pointed at the blank area of the page. “Whoever built this started twenty-five meters over there and kept digging until they had a sloping trench.”
Jack thought for a moment. “Not a trench, gentlemen, a ramp.”
“Why a ramp?” Brent asked. “If you’re going to bury a treasure, why not dig a hole in the ground like the pirates did?”
“It all depends on the kind of treasure,” Jack said. “There may be other factors too. How deep is the target?”
Gleason answered. “Deeper than our equipment can read. The image we have is just the top of whatever is down there. We may need to bring in more powerful ground survey equipment. We hadn’t anticipated this kind of depth.”
“So we know where it is but not how deep.”
“We know the top of it is fifteen meters below grade,” Gleason said. “That’s the equivalent of fifty feet . . . over four stories below ground.”
“Pretty deep hole for an ancient people to dig,” Jack said. “I know I wouldn’t want to be on the shovel team that digs out the last few feet of dirt. If the ground gives way, you’d be killed and buried all at the same time. But not necessarily in that order.”
“There’s a cheerful thought,” Gleason said. “So you think they dug out a sloping ditch and used it as a ramp?”
“Exactly.”
“Wait a minute,” Brent said. “A deep ditch can collapse as easily as a deep hole. The situation could be just as deadly.”
“Right you are, my young friend, but you’re overlooking the obvious.”
“Which is?”
“Shall I tell him?” Jack said to Gleason.
“How else is he going to learn?”
“You’re assuming a ditch with vertical sides,” Jack explained. “A ditch with sloping sides would be much safer for the workers and wouldn’t require as much shoring.”
“But it would require much more time and manpower.”
“Perhaps,” Jack said. “What’s your survey show?”
Jack watched as the young intern studied the wide paper resting on the folding table. “A ditch. A wide ditch.”
“That’s what I see. I also think we’ll find those dark objects are the remains of the shoring, stacked and neatly buried. The years have compressed them under the weight of the dirt.”
“So when do we start digging?” Brent asked. “I’m dying to see what’s down there.”
“We all are, kid, but we do it by the book.” Jack finished off his water and tossed the bottle in a nearby plastic trashcan. “Let’s flag those dark objects. Once you have that done, I want a crew to chalk the ground indicating the center line of the ancient trench, its width, and each object we know about. The drilling rig is ready to take core samples. Once we’ve done the preliminary work, then we’ll get our hands dirty.”
“Can’t we just dig a hole?” Brent asked.
“In due time,” Jack said. “And due time will be soon. Now let’s get to it. I want the flags in place and chalking done before Perry gets back.”
“ARE YOU TELLING me ‘no,’ Greg?” Anne made no effort to conceal her frustration. “I won’t accept that.”
Sergeant Greg Montulli leaned back in his desk chair. It protested with a loud squeak. As ranking deputy sheriff, Montulli was in charge of the Tejon substation of the Kern County Sheriff’s Department. While larger cities provided their own police force, Tejon contracted with the county for police protection. Greg Montulli had been a deputy for twenty-six years, and now at the age of forty-seven, he was showing the results of middle age and too many hours behind a desk. “What do you want from m
e, Mayor?”
“I want you to go up there and find out what Sachs Engineering is planning.”
“Has any law been broken?” Greg asked. He stroked his thick, graying mustache. “Unless there has, I won’t get any farther than you.”
“Since I don’t know what they’re doing, I don’t know if any laws have been broken.” Anne saw Greg cut a look at Bob, who was sitting in one of the side chairs near Greg’s broad metal desk. She followed his gaze in time to see Bob shrug. “Knock it off,” Anne snapped.
“What?” Bob said with feigned shock.
“That thing men do, looking at each other in a way that says, ‘The woman’s lost her marbles.’”
“I’m just sitting here being an obedient employee of the city,” Bob said.
“Mayor,” Greg began, “I can go out there and ask questions. But they can stonewall me too.”
“But you’re a cop. You show up in your uniform and ask pointed questions, and they’re bound to tell you what’s going on.”
Greg shook his head. “This isn’t the Old West, Mayor.
It’s improper of me to misuse police authority. I can ask questions, but unless I have reason to believe that they’re there against the property owner’s wishes, or that they’re involved in an illegal activity, my hands are tied. I suppose I could call the landowners—”
“I already did that,” Anne admitted. “I called them from the car. They said they knew all about it and that Sachs was there with their blessing.”
“You don’t let any grass grow under you feet, do you? There’s nothing I can do.”
“So you won’t even try?” Anne said the words like a mother shaming a child. “You can’t be bothered enough to go ask a few questions?”
“Mayor, if you tell me to go, I’ll go, but I don’t want you to think that I’m going to drive into the hills, flash my badge around, and come back with signed confessions.”
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd that they’re keeping everything secret?”
“A little, but not much. We’ll know in time. From what you’ve said about the equipment, they plan on doing some significant work. It’s an open area, so we should be able to see something.”
“What if the owner puts up a ‘no trespassing sign’?” Anne inquired.
“Then we don’t trespass without being aware of a crime or obtaining a warrant.”
“This is unbelievable,” Anne said with frustration.
“Look, Mayor,” Greg began, “I’ve got a couple of things to do here, then I’ll take a drive up there and introduce myself. Maybe a softer approach might work.”
“What do you mean, softer?”
Neither man said anything. Anne looked at Bob, who raised his hands. “I’m just sitting here, Mayor.”
She turned back to Deputy Montulli. “What do you mean, softer?”
“I don’t mean any offense, Mayor, but for some reason, you have quite a head of steam up over this.”
“I take my job seriously, Deputy; you’d be wise to do the same.”
Greg sighed then said, “Yes, ma’am.”
DAWES HAD CLICKED the “send” button only fifteen minutes before the phone rang. He’d spent the last hour sorting through the digital images taken from the mountain flyover. The pilot and his brother had worked fast—more to get rid of him, he was sure, than to show hustle for a client. He’d waited for the film from the digital camera to be transferred to a CD, but it had happened faster than he had any right to expect. It was a costly business, renting a pilot for an aerial survey and insisting that they put him ahead of others on their schedule. The pictures weren’t cheap, either. The expense bill that he’d send would choke most bank accounts, especially after he added his fee and sizable markup.
It had been an uncomfortable assignment so far. He hated flying, especially in small planes. It didn’t seem right, all that metal and fuel winging through the air. Dawes knew that it would have taken only one little thing to go wrong before he would have been nothing more than a name on the lips of some newscaster.
The phone released another sharp trill, echoing off the walls of his Bakersfield office. He was tempted to ignore it, to let the answering machine take a message. His stomach was still queasy from the flight, and the drive back to the office from the airfield hadn’t helped. A semi had overturned, closing all but one lane of the 99. He was stuck in traffic for an hour longer than it normally took to make the drive to his downtown office.
A glance at the caller ID screen on his phone made him change his mind. He snapped up the receiver and tried to sound professional. “Dawes Investigations.”
“I was beginning to think you weren’t there,” a familiar voice said.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Olek,” Dawes replied quickly. “For some reason the secretary didn’t pick up.” There was no secretary. Dawes was what he had always been, a lone player. He liked it that way, and he couldn’t afford the cost of it being otherwise.
“The pictures came in a few moments ago. They look pretty good.”
“Thank you,” Dawes said, relieved that Olek was happy. “It’s a good thing I have a high-speed connection. It would have taken all afternoon to send those on dial-up. Sorry I couldn’t encrypt them, but I did encrypt the text.”
Dawes felt unsettled. There was something about Olek that made him uneasy. Being a private detective required the ability to size up a person quickly. Olek had always been civil and professional, but there was something in his voice, in his choice of words, that unsettled Dawes.
“Did you see anything that is not revealed in the photos?” Olek asked.
“Not really. I used binoculars while I was up there. Made me sick as a dog too. The pictures pretty much caught everything. Well, there was one area that was hard to see. There’s a grove of oak trees to the west side of the site. It looks like they may have something hidden under the trees, but I think it’s just where their supervisors meet. You know, in the shade of the trees.”
“I see no other such place on these photos, but I need to be sure.”
“Sounds like more work coming my way,” Dawes said.
“I want you to drive up there and see what you can see.”
“When?” Dawes asked. “There’s only a couple more hours of daylight, and it’s going to take me at least an hour to get there.”
“Then I won’t keep you. Just see what you can and send me an e-mail report as soon as you get back.”
“We’re starting to get into overtime here, Mr. Olek.”
“I understand that. You’ll be compensated well. Be careful and discreet. I don’t want anyone to know of our interest. That would be . . . unacceptable. Do you understand?”
The last words came over the phone dark and thick with unstated threat. “I’m a professional, Mr. Olek. Discreet is the only way I operate.”
“That’s good to know,” Olek said, then abruptly hung up.
Dawes sat in his office chair with the receiver in his hand. More work was good news. His client base was thin at best and often nonexistent. That’s why he answered his own phone in his one-room office. He had no desire to drive back to the area he had just flown over two hours before, but he did want to pay the rent. Setting the phone down, Dawes rose from his chair and started for the door.
PERRY’S NAP HAD been short but sweet. He felt mildly refreshed, although he would have liked to have had another hour supine on the bed. But his mind wouldn’t let him. He was eager to get back to the site to see how things were progressing. Perry knew everything would be going well under Jack’s capable leadership, but being on-site was preferable. He took a quick shower and dressed in work clothes. He had one other task to do before leaving the motel room.
He seated himself behind the laptop computer and turned it on. As he waited for it to boot up, he looked at the rest of the setup. A small digital camera was clipped to the top of the computer’s monitor next to the built-in microphone. A cable ran from the computer to a port in the wall. “Perfect,” he sa
id to himself. He checked his watch. The time was right.
The computer came to life quickly, and Perry typed in his password, brought up the program he wanted, and waited. A moment later a chat screen appeared. It was divided into two “windows.” On one side was a white box in which text would appear, and on the other, a box in which an image would come to life. He wouldn’t need the text box. The Internet would carry his words and image over the miles. With a few clicks of the mouse buttons, he selected the person he wanted to talk to.
An image appeared, a woman with gray hair and determined eyes. It was the woman he met in the hospital months before, and next to her was Perry’s newest buddy.
“Good evening, Claire,” Perry said with a wide smile.
“Hello, Perry,” Claire replied. “Did you enjoy your trip?”
“I’m glad to be back. Is that the world-famous Joseph Henri behind you?”
Joseph exploded into animated actions. “Perry . . . uhh . . . uhh . . . uhh . . . Perry.” He waved and ran in a tight circle.
“Easy, buddy, you’re going to make yourself dizzy.”
“Perry . . . uhh.”
Perry laughed. He’d set up the computer system in the Henri home for the primary purpose of communicating with Joseph. He also had another reason: He wanted to see what Joseph would do with it.
That night in the hospital when he stood next to the bedside of Dr. Jamison Henri, the man whose life he had tried to save, he’d viewed Joseph as an unfortunate boy, mentally crippled by a fluke of unfortunate genetics. He soon learned that Joseph was something more than that.
Much more, he remembered . . .
“The satchel is here,” Claire Henri said, but her injured husband said nothing back, showed no reaction. He lay upon the bed, a shell of life. His skin was pale and moist, his eyes closed, his breathing made rhythmic by a device that pumped air into his lungs.
Claire stood erect again, and the boy took another half step closer to her, resting his head on her shoulder. He didn’t look up, didn’t look at the man on the bed.