by Alton Gansky
“What now?” Gleason asked.
“I wish we had time to excavate properly,” Curtis said.
“We all do, Doc. It would be safer too.” Perry thought for a moment and approached the wall, laying his hand on it: This wall formed a room that hadn’t been seen for two millennia.
He had longed to do just what he was doing, touching the physical evidence of what could only be considered a miracle. And here it was, just as he’d imagined. Perry had wondered how he would respond, what words he’d say, what careful steps he would take. All of it was now overshadowed by the threat to Claire and Joseph.
The fire in Perry’s belly grew hotter. He couldn’t recall being this angry before, but anger was a luxury for others. It was time to make his next move. He looked skyward as if hoping God had written something on the blue dome overhead. The sun was rising quickly, dispelling the blackness of the night, but unable to touch the darkness within Perry.
“We open her up,” Perry said.
“How do we do that?” Brent asked.
“Carefully and one stone at a time.” Perry pointed to an area near where roof met wall. “There are two stones larger than the rest. They look like they’ve been set as cantilevered headers over an opening. They would’ve filled in the opening last. I think we can start there and work down.”
“I sure wish I knew what was holding the roof up,” Jack said. “I hate going in blind.”
“I can only think of one way to find out,” Perry replied. “We have to open the wall and take a look.”
“I have an idea,” Brent said. “Let’s just move one or two stones then use the camcorder. You open a spot, and I’ll stick the camera in with the light on and pan it around some. Then we can play it back on the built-in monitor.”
“I like it,” Perry said. “You just won a burger from Jack.”
“What? Why me?” Jack protested.
“Because you’re Brent’s hero,” Perry said. The light moment lasted only a second, then the driving need returned to the forefront of Perry’s mind. “I’m limiting the crew to two people at a time. If the wall gives, then we’ll need someone to clean up our mess. Jack and I’ll stay down below. I may need his muscle. The rest of you go topside.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Gleason asked.
“Prayer would be nice,” Perry said, “and lots of it.”
ANNE DROVE DIRECTLY to the site, weaving her Camry along the winding dirt roads that led into the hills. The sun was now high enough to have sponged away the last of the lingering darkness. Things seemed uncomfortably still. Even the relentless breeze had ceased, leaving the air as placid as glass.
At the place where the road met the slope to the site were several of the vehicles she had seen on earlier trips. Missing was the bulldozer that had rested on a large trailer. The bus was gone too, but that was to be expected. Not having a four-wheel-drive vehicle that could negotiate the sloping terrain, Anne parked along the roadside, then started the tiring ascent, glad she’d worn tennis shoes instead of business pumps.
Halfway up, she encountered three uniformed men. Each wore blue pants and a white shirt with patches on the sleeves. Private security, Anne reasoned. She knew Perry had hired guards to replace the deputy sheriffs that had kept the crowds away yesterday. Apparently the shift change had happened sometime during the night. The three men sat on the ground. The crowds that had been there the day before were gone, but Anne had no doubt that many would be back soon.
The guards stood when they saw her approach. One walked toward her. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, “but this area is private property. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Anne smiled. The young man looked fresh out of high school. “Where are you from?” Anne asked.
“Tehachapi,” he answered. He looked askance at her. “Why?”
“I’m from Tejon,” she said. “In fact, I’m the mayor of Tejon.”
“I wouldn’t know about that, ma’am, but I do know that my job is to keep people out.”
She sighed, then said, “I’m here to see Mr. Sachs . . . the man who hired you.”
“How do I know you’re mayor?” he asked. The others joined him.
She had left her purse in the car and had no desire to retrieve it and hike back up the hill. “My name is Anne Fitzgerald, and I really am the major of Tejon.”
“Mr. Sachs didn’t tell me he was expecting you.”
“Have you spoken to him?” Anne said.
“Well . . . no. We just got here an hour ago and the deputies told us not to let anyone up there. Our boss told us the same thing.”
“What do you plan to tell Mr. Sachs when he comes down here and finds you’ve turned me away?”
“That I did my job.”
Anne frowned. She was getting nowhere. “How about this: You escort me to see Mr. Sachs.”
“I don’t know if that’s wise,” the young guard said.
Anne didn’t miss a beat. She turned to one of the other guards. He was taller, thinner, and looked several years older. “How about you, sport? You’re not afraid to take me up there, are you?”
“Hey, I’m not afraid,” the first man said. “I didn’t say anything about being afraid.”
“Good,” Anne stated as she started up the hill. “Let’s get going.”
“Ma’am . . . ma’am . . .”
Anne ignored him and continued her ascent of the incline. She hoped that if the man refused to join her he would at least be hesitant to lay a hand on a woman . . . especially fifteen or more years his senior. By her fifth step, she had company.
“Okay, but I had better not get in trouble for this. And you had better be the mayor.”
The incline eased as she and the security officer neared the work site. Anne paused to catch her breath. Jays sang in the oak trees, the sweet smell of grass perfumed the air, and the gold of the sun mingled with the blue of the cloudless sky. It should have felt idyllic; standing there, she should have felt a sense of peace in the Eden-like borough, but she didn’t. It was too quiet.
She could see the bulldozer sitting in the distance as if fossilized. A large backhoe rested a few feet away. Another piece of equipment, similar to the backhoe but much larger and without the skip loader on the front, was farther away but just as lifeless. Three men in hardhats stood with heads down. Mounds of dirt surrounded them. Anne approached, and as she did, she saw a large hole in the ground. The men were staring down into the pit. After another dozen steps she saw the sinkhole. It was uneven in shape, and its sides were unstable.
“Wow,” the guard said. “What happened here?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” As she approached, the three men among the mounds noticed her. She recognized them, and apparently they recognized her.
Now within earshot, she heard the man who had been introduced to her as Gleason shout into the hole. “Perry, we have company . . . the mayor.”
“Told you,” she said to the guard.
“That you did,” he replied.
Anne led the way and approached the Sachs men. “Madam Mayor,” Gleason said with a gentlemanly nod. She returned the gesture and looked down. Her stomach dropped. Deep in the ground Perry and Jack stood next to a stone wall of some kind.
“Are you Mr. Sachs?” the guard shouted down.
“I am,” came the reply. “Who are you?”
“Larry Duncan. I’m with Enterprise Security. We’re the replacements for the deputies.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but what are you doing here?”
“This lady says she knows you.” Duncan’s bluster was dissolving.
“That lady is the town mayor, and yes, she does know me.”
“So I can leave her here?”
Perry didn’t answer right away, and Anne steeled herself for the rejection she knew was coming. “She can stay,” Perry finally said, but they were words without confidence. Clearly he was conflicted by the decision.
“Okay. I’ll be returning to
the post,” the guard said as he left.
Anne looked down at Perry, and he returned her gaze. He looked weary, his shoulders slightly stooped, his gloved hands hanging limply at his side. The connection lasted only a moment, then Perry turned back to the stone wall. He removed a stone, then handed it to Jack, who used a piece of construction chalk to mark it. Anne could see that twenty or thirty stones had already been removed, chalked, and placed to one side.
Anne walked over to Gleason and the others. “What’s going on?”
“It’s a long story, Mayor. And complicated.”
“It doesn’t look safe down there,” Anne said.
“It’s not,” Gleason admitted.
Anne turned and read the concern on Gleason’s face. “Then why . . .”
“Don’t ask,” Gleason said. “Just don’t ask.”
THE STONES FASCINATED and frightened Perry. Each time he laid a gloved hand on one of the rocks, he wondered about the men who had so skillfully placed them there eons ago. He wondered what brought them this far from home, how they had made an impossible journey across the oceans and then traveled so far inland from the sea. He thought of their sacrifices, the families left at home, the illnesses and pains they endured, the fears they conquered. He also wondered about the jigsaw arrangement of the stones. With each stone he removed he prepared himself to flee the collapsing wall. So far he had been able to stay in place.
Perry pulled the stones from top to bottom and left to right along the courses. All of this was done as a concession to Dr. Curtis. It took no more time and would allow the archaeologist to re-build the wall if necessary.
Despite the unrelenting concern of structural failure from the wall and dirt slides from the pit walls, Perry worked at a steady, driven pace. A part of him wanted to tear into the wall, throwing stones to the side. Time was working against him, but he also knew that he couldn’t help Claire and Joseph if he were trapped under a crushing pile of rubble. So he worked just beyond what caution demanded and just under what desperation pleaded for.
One minute turned to ten; ten morphed into thirty; thirty became sixty, and as it did, Perry had removed all but two courses of stone. Those could easily be stepped over. Jack moved to his side. “God is good.”
“No matter what happens,” Perry agreed, “God is good. Shall we see what’s inside?” They already had an idea of what lay beyond the wall. Brent’s creative idea of opening a small hole just large enough for the video camera and the hand that held it had revealed a bare chamber, a space with the dimensions of a good-size bedroom.
Perry had felt sick. Empty. Nothing. Just four stone walls dimly lit by the video camera’s built-in light. The despair spread in a suffocating wave through the others: All the work, all the frustration, all the danger for nothing?
Then an odd sensation had tickled the back of Perry’s brain. He pushed the camera through the opening again, panning it back and forth, but to a lesser degree. Removing his arm from the opening, he had brought the camera out, rewound it, and played it back through the small color view screen.
“What are you thinking?” Jack had asked.
“I’m thinking that the room the camera shows is smaller than the returns we got on the GPR survey. I’m thinking that we’re seeing an anteroom, a lobby, and not the real treasure.” He passed the camera around, and each man agreed. Then Perry did as he said he would: He banished everyone from the pit except Jack. As soon as they were clear, Perry removed another stone.
Now an opening the size of a bathroom door stood before them. Perry called for two large flashlights, and Brent brought them down, exiting under Perry’s orders as quickly as he came.
“This is what we came for,” Perry said. “No sense in putting it off.”
“Yea, though I walk through the chamber of death, I shall fear no evil . . .” Jack said in Shakespearean tones.
“You have a sick sense of humor, buddy,” Perry quipped.
“I prefer my danger served up with a dash of smile.”
Perry activated a flashlight and pointed it into the opening. Centuries of darkness gave way to the bright beam. Before crossing the threshold Perry poked his head in and surveyed the room. It smelled of long-settled dust, and the air was surprisingly moist. The other three walls looked identical to the one they had just opened. Pointing the light up, he saw round timbers set side by side.
“There’s your explanation,” Perry said. “They stacked timbers log-cabin style to hold up the roof. They are a foot or more in diameter.” Perry pulled back to let Jack have a look.
“Impressive. That much lumber could hold fifty times the stones they have on there. There are no gaps between the logs. Even after all these years and the weight of all that dirt, it held. If engineers got medals, these guys would deserve a case of them.”
Perry turned and gave a little wave to his friends above. “Here goes,” he said softly and stepped into the room, placing his right foot just over the threshold marked off by the remaining two courses of rock. Slowly he brought his left foot in.
Perry stood in a room that had not seen the light of day for twenty centuries. The ceiling hovered just a foot above Perry’s head. He raised a hand and touched the thick timbers. They were still covered in bark.
“If you like the place,” Jack said, “we can make an offer and drop a down payment on it.”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t have much of a view.” Now that he was inside, Perry could see that the opposite wall was much too close to the still-buried back wall of the chamber. There were two chambers; he was standing in the anteroom. What he was after was behind another stone wall eight feet away. He took a step forward.
“Room in there for one more?” Jack asked. “I promise not to break anything.”
Perry took another step toward the center of the room. “That’ll be the day—”
There was a faint grating noise, and Perry froze in place. He turned to face Jack. “Did you hear that?”
“No, I didn’t hear anything.”
There was a crack.
Perry’s heart began to race. “I know you heard that—”
The stone floor gave way beneath Perry, the sound of it crashing off the hard walls.
Things went dark.
ANNE WATCHED AS Perry waved her direction. She waved back. Then she held her breath as he cautiously stepped through the opening in the stone wall. She also watched as Jack stepped forward and poked his head in. All she could see of him was his back and legs. A moment passed, then another, and Anne allowed herself to breathe.
She saw it before she heard it. Brown dust suddenly poured out of the opening, billowing into the still morning air. Anne blinked, waiting for her mind to believe what she was seeing. The trench in front of the stone wall disappeared into the fog of airborne dirt. A slight rumble coursed under her feet.
“What . . . what happened?” She turned to Gleason, but he wasn’t there. Neither were the others. She spotted them a second later running down the compounded ramps that led to the wide trench. Gleason was in the lead followed by Brent and Dr. Curtis, who struggled to keep up.
The dust settled quickly, and Anne could see the opening once again. Projecting from it like two logs were Jack’s legs. They weren’t moving.
“Perry!” Anne shouted. “Oh, Lord, no. Perry. Perry!” Anne found herself running after the men, oblivious to any danger that might await her.
PERRY SHOOK HIS head and tried to focus his thoughts. It seemed like minutes had passed, but only seconds had. He came fully conscious in a moment. He was suspended in air, his feet kicking, probing for some purchase but finding none. Fiery pain pierced his side, his head throbbed, and his left wrist felt like it was being crushed in a vise.
“Stop wiggling,” a voice above him said. Jack? Jack!
“What . . . where? . . .”
“Stop moving, Perry. You’re killing me.”
Perry looked up and saw the face of his friend less than six feet away. His entire mind began to wor
k, and events came back to him in instant replay. He had heard a grinding sound followed by a crack, then a rumble. The next sensation was one of falling. As the floor gave way he had jumped toward the opening, but with little to push off from he fell short. He hit something head first, and things went dark.
“I’ve got you, buddy,” Jack said. “But . . . stop . . . moving.”
That explained the crushing sensation on his wrist. The big man was holding him in both of his spade-sized hands. Perry looked down into the stygian abyss and saw nothing. He could, however, hear something: water—running water.
“Um,” Perry said, forcing himself to be calm, belying the freezing terror he felt. “I’m not real comfortable with this situation.”
“Ya think?” Jack’s voice was strained. “Okay, now. Can you find a foothold?”
Perry spread his legs out hoping to touch something. His right foot found a vertical surface directly beneath the opening, but nothing that he could put his weight on. “No. I’m afraid not.”
“Hold on, Jack,” a new voice said. Perry recognized it as Gleason’s. “Don’t let him slip in.”
“How?” It was Brent.
“Sit on him,” Gleason ordered. “Doc, you grab Jack’s legs.”
Perry looked back into the opening and saw Gleason’s face appear. He could see his eyes darting back and forth as he took in the situation. The face disappeared. “Doc, you take one of Jack’s legs and hold it. Brent, you do the same. Hang on, Jack, I’m going to have to get a little close and personal.”
All conversation stopped: The only sound to be heard was that of the water running far below Perry’s feet. His shoulder felt as if it was coming out of the socket, and his hand was deprived of circulation by Jack’s adrenaline-laced grip. Forcing himself to think instead of feel, he willed himself to be as still as possible. His life was literally in the hands of his friend.
“Perry,” Gleason said loudly, “here’s what’s going to happen. My arms aren’t as long as Jack’s, and there’s not enough room for both of us in the opening. I’m going to lie down on top of Jack and reach over him with my arm. I have my belt in a loop and wrapped about my wrist. If Jack can pull you up a few inches and if you can stretch out your free hand, you should be able to reach. Got it?”