“Sure. That will take about one hour to visit Eagle Point and Guano Point before returning here.”
“Guano Point?” Sean snorted a small laugh. “Isn’t Guano bat crap?”
“Yes, sir, it is,” she cut him off with a laugh of her own. “It’s the best fertilizer in the world, and it has been harvested from a cave on site here for a long time.
“Would you like to add tickets to the sky walk?” she added while she rang up the tickets.
“Is that the glass walkway that goes out over the canyon?”
“Yep.” She seemed proud.
He shook his head violently. “I’ll pass. I have a thing with heights.”
She puckered her lips and nodded in understanding then handed him three tickets.
“Just head out that door right over there, and you will see the line forming to get on the next bus out to the point.”
“Thanks,” he said as he clutched the tickets and walked over to where Emily and Adriana were eyeing some Native American jewelry.
“You two ready to go?”
“What did you find out?” Emily asked.
“Apparently, we have to take a tour bus over to near Eagle Point, but we can’t get close enough at the moment. I thought it would be a good idea to see what we’re working with first before we do anything else.”
Emily nodded in agreement. Sean’s thoroughness was something she wished more of her agents had.
He handed them their tickets. “We get on the bus out there,” he said as he pointed to the exit.
A few minutes later they were on the air-conditioned shuttle, a major contrast to the baking desert outside. Even though the evenings and mornings could be cool that time of the year, the afternoons could still get fairly hot by Southern standards. Still, it was a dry heat, Sean smiled to himself.
The ride over to Eagle Point was only about ten minutes. After arriving, the tourists on board got out in an orderly fashion despite a few people wishing they could edge their way out a little faster.
Once outside, the magnitude of the location set in. The Grand Canyon spread out before them as far as their eyes could see. The red stone walls jutted down thousands of feet until they reached the Colorado River below.
“I cannot believe how enormous this is,” Adriana said quietly. Sean had gotten the impression that she was not easily amazed, so seeing her awe of the landscape surprised him.
Emily and Adriana stepped over to the edge to get a closer look of how far down it really was. Sean wasn’t nearly as eager to get near the precipice. “Don’t you want to take a look?” Adriana asked.
Sean simply shook his head slowly. “No. I’m good.”
“He’s deathly afraid of heights,” Emily explained.
Adriana raised an eyebrow. “So, the great Sean Wyatt is afraid of something after all.”
“We all have our things,” he defended. She didn’t need to know beautiful women was another one.
He made his way over toward an old railing that stood about ten feet from the edge. Even being that close to such a huge drop-off was somewhat unnerving to him. He’d been afraid of heights since he was a child.
When he was young, Sean would play with his friends and cousins in the trees near his house. They built tree houses and seemed fearless with how high they could climb. Young Wyatt would regularly find himself at the top of an old cedar tree near their house. For some reason, climbing those trees never bothered him. But it never cured him of a fear of heights either. Being up in tall buildings or high cliffs always bothered him. He figured it always would.
Out across the giant gash in the earth, about five to six hundred feet away, a narrow rock formation rose up in the middle of the canyon. It had a thin ridge that ran parallel with the canyon walls. In one spot in the middle, the formation dropped down about fifty feet. It then ran another few hundred feet.
In the middle of where the break in the ridge was something that caught Sean’s eye. A smaller rock formation popped up in the middle of the other and looked somewhat like a large bird with wings spread in both directions, the head peering silently off to the east.
“Eagle Point,” he whispered to himself. He understood what the lady at the visitor center meant when she’d said they couldn’t get close to it. The other realization that hit him was that a standard helicopter ride wouldn’t get them close enough either. They were going to need another way.
Chapter 28
Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico
A thick diamondback rattlesnake sat coiled about seven feet from where Tommy and Will were about to walk. Its tail shook violently, so fast that the movement appeared blurred.
“Maybe we should go around it,” Will said.
Tommy’s eyes were wide with terror. He tried to blow off his fear with sarcasm. “You think?” The attempt didn’t work. He was still terrified. The color had left his face a pale ashen color. He nodded silently, and the two men began to carefully step backward at a snail’s pace.
The pointed head of the snake pulled back slightly toward its body, as if readying for an attack. After backtracking a few steps, the men turned and continued around the snake’s location, careful to keep a good distance from the reptile. Upon reaching the rock wall, Schultz walked around to the other side and began investigating the area where the rock met it, trying to see if he could detect anything behind it. Will did the same, running his finger along the back edge of the stone to see if he could feel an opening.
“There’s no way we can move this thing,” Will said.
Tommy knew he was right. The big rock had to be at least a few tons. It was oddly shaped, like a tall finger pointing up at the sky. Near the top of it, about ten feet high, a rut was carved into the stone, providing a groove that wrapped around the entire piece.
“Can you feel anything behind there on your side?” he asked Will after a minute of examination.
“Nah, man. I can’t feel anything. You sure this is it?”
“Pretty sure.”
Tommy stepped away from the pillar and rubbed the scruff on his face in silent contemplation. A few moments later, he sat his backpack down and pulled out some black rope.
“What are you thinking?”
Tommy’s hands worked the nylon rope quickly, forming a loop at one end. “We can use that grove at the top to leverage the thing over,” he answered as he walked back over to the stone and tossed the lasso toward the top.
The first throw didn’t catch, but the second one did, slipping down around the head of the stone and into the groove. A few moments later, Tommy had pulled the nylon tight and was stepping backward with one end. Will grinned and grabbed another piece of the rope just above Tommy’s hands. The rope went taught, and both men pulled steadily. Their leverage on the top of the stone moved it almost immediately, and the gigantic piece of rock tipped over with a loud thud onto its side in a matter of seconds, sending rolling clouds of dust up into the air. They dropped the rope and walked over to the wall where the stone had been standing. Both men turned to look at each other for a second after what they had seen. A narrow portal led into the canyon wall.
“That rock was a perfect fit, huh?”
“Yeah,” Tommy agreed. The dust continued to settle while he grabbed a few flashlights out of his backpack.
“Are there gonna booby traps or anything like that in there?” Will sounded sarcastic yet a little uncertain.
“You never know.” Tommy played with him.
“Really?”
“No. Well, not usually anyway. Most of the time the stuff that was designed to protect ancient treasures has long since decayed. Pretty sure we’re not going to be getting chased out of here by a giant rolling stone.”
Will laughed at the reference. “That was a cool movie, though.”
Tommy smiled as he passed him a flashlight. The two men stepped over the foot of the big stone they’d just overturned and into the darkness of the entrance. The thin passage was only about six feet high and thre
e feet wide. Its walls were smooth, cut with laser precision from the ancient rock of the canyon. The shape of the corridor was wider at the bottom than the top, giving it the appearance of a kind of pyramidal hallway. A floor of solid stone lay under their feet.
Tommy ran his hand along wall as they proceeded slowly away from the light outside. “No one has been in here in a long time,” he said reverently. There were a few dusty spiderwebs where the angles of the walls met the ceiling. Tommy brushed them away with his light as they moved farther into the mountain. The passageway came to an abrupt halt a few feet ahead, turning a perfect ninety degrees to the left. Both men moved carefully, leery of what lay around the corner. Will pulled his gun out of its holster and held it at the ready.
Tommy looked at him with a funny expression. “What are you gonna shoot in here?”
“I don’t know. You can never be too careful.”
Tommy shook his head mockingly then eased his way around the corner, shining the light down the next part of the passage. There was nothing ahead except what looked like another turn in the hall.
The two pressed on and discovered four additional sharp changes in the corridor. After ten minutes of working their way into the mountain, Will was beginning to wonder where the path was leading. “I’m starting to feel like a rat in some kind of maze.”
“I know what you mean,” Tommy agreed but kept moving slowly ahead.
After one more right turn Tommy came to an abrupt halt. Will aimed his light in the direction Schultz was looking. The bright beams illuminated a large room that opened up out of the passageway. Some parts of the chamber were carved out of the mountain rock by human hands, while other bits of it looked somewhat natural. The dusty scent in the air had given way to the moist odor of a cavern. In the center of the room, about thirty feet away, a rectangular stone pedestal rose from the floor.
On top of it rested something shiny and metallic.
Will started to take a step forward, but Tommy put his hand out and stopped him. “Careful.”
The young cop appeared confused. “I thought you said there were no booby traps,” he said sarcastically.
Tommy gave him a warning glare. “I said there were probably none.” He made sure to emphasize his uncertainty as he scanned the floor with his flashlight.
“What are you looking for?” Will asked while he moved his light around the vaulted ceiling of the enormous room.
“Pressure points. I’ve heard of some places that had false floors. If you step on them, it triggers some kind of ancient security measures.”
Will looked at him with wide eyes. “Take your time.”
He looked around for another minute or so; satisfied that nothing appeared sinister, he stepped from the passage into the chamber.
A few moments later both men were standing at the pedestal, eyeing the odd piece of gold that rested on its top. The stone altar had various forms of writing on it that had not been used in millennia. Tommy was busy looking over some of it in an attempt to understand what it said. Will reached out his hand to feel the golden leaf. “Don’t touch that,” Tommy stopped him without looking up from his investigation of the altar.
“Let me guess, booby trap?”
“You never know.”
Tommy set his backpack down and pulled out his digital camera from the front pouch. The flash of the camera seemed odd in the ancient room.
“Can you read that?” Will asked after a few moments.
“Some of it,” he answered while moving to get some different angles. “Ancient languages are not my area of expertise. I’m better at identifying timeframes and cultures. Most of this language comes from a very long time ago. It’s kind of a predecessor to ancient Hebrew.
“It says something about the eagles and where the rivers unite, which we got from the stone.” Tommy pulled the small stone out of his backpack and held it up to examine the similarities of some of the writing. “It’s very curious.” He put the small stone back in his bag and began evaluating the gold piece. He’d never seen anything like it in all his years of archaeological work. The yellow metal was thin, almost delicate. It had been carved to an incredible level of detail to look almost exactly like a real leaf.
“What is it?” Will asked just above a whisper.
“I have no idea.”
Hunter Carlson moved along the canyon path with his team. He was a strong man with short, dark blond hair. He wore Ray-Ban sunglasses, a rolled up long-sleeve flannel shirt, hiking boots, and some khakis. Three other men followed him. All four of the men carried 9mm Glocks in a ready position as they stepped quickly through the canyon. The long, box-type sound suppressors may have been a bulky and perhaps unnecessary precaution out in the wilderness, but one never knew if there were curious tourists around. Best not to attract too much attention.
The three other men were dressed just as casually, wanting to look more like sightseers than a hit squad, save for the weapons.
They had gotten word that Schultz was heading to New Mexico to visit an area northwest of Santa Fe so they had made quick preparations, all taken care of by the Order. Carlson wondered who shot at him the other night at Georgia Tech. He had gone back to the lab to see what else he could find on the computer. His assumption that there would only be a few police officers at the scene had been correct. He hadn’t anticipated Schultz and the other man showing up, though.
Up ahead, his point man was drawing nearer to a large overturned stone that lay next to the cave entrance. They’d watched silently from a distance as Schultz and his companion had discovered the hidden opening in the canyon wall. After waiting a few minutes, Carlson was satisfied his team could safely advance without being seen. Suddenly, the man in front screamed out and dropped his weapon, clutching his right leg in pain. The other men froze momentarily, unsure of what had just happened. “Thompson, what’s happening up there?” Hunter asked into the microphone strapped around his neck.
The man nearest the fallen member stepped close to see what the problem was. The man on the ground was writhing in pain, gripping his leg tightly. Then the flank man who’d come to check turned quickly and fired off three rounds at the ground. Hunter moved up quickly to see what had happened.
“It’s a snakebite, sir,” the man who’d just fired his weapon explained. He pointed to the large diamondback rattler that lay motionless with three bloody wounds in its scaly flesh, a prominent one in its head.
The injured mercenary tried to keep from moaning too loudly as the venom of the snake moved through his bloodstream. Terror filled the man’s eyes.
Out in the middle of nowhere, they were at least forty-five minutes from the nearest hospital. That was about how long the poison from a rattlesnake took to kill a man, depending on the last time the snake had used its fangs.
Hunter recalled what a friend had told him once about receiving a snakebite. He’d said that the venom moving through the body felt like every inch of bone was being crushed as it progressed through the bloodstream.
“They should have a snakebite kit in the information center,” one of the other team members declared.
Carlson looked down at the man who continued to writhe in agony. Hope welled up in the bitten man’s eyes for a moment as he realized the tourist center would certainly have a kit. An ordinary snakebite kit could stabilize him long enough to get him to a hospital. It would also draw unwanted attention. Hunter raised his weapon and fired a single shot into man’s head. The body went limp on the sandy earth. Dead eyes on either side of a dark hole stared up into the desert sky.
The team leader looked at the remaining two men. “I would do the same to you and would expect both of you to do the same to me. Understood?”
Both men nodded immediately.
Following Hunter’s lead, the other two helped drag the body over behind a large patch of sage and left it on the ground unceremoniously. He hadn’t wanted to kill one of his assets, but the man had been careless. The three stepped toward the entrance to the c
anyon passage with renewed caution. They could ill afford any more surprises.
Tommy stared at the magnificent golden leaf. Its odd shape was like no artifact he’d ever seen before. He’d thrown down several glow sticks that he’d taken from his pack. The devices cast an eerie, pale light across the room. He squatted down to get a better view underneath the bottom of the yellow metal. Reaching up, he tipped part of the object up just slightly. Just as he suspected, there was a small stone column that the gold rested upon. “That’s what I thought,” he stated in frustration.
“What is it?” Will asked, curiously as he stepped around to the side Schultz was investigating.
“A weight spring,” he said plainly. Will raised an eyebrow, obviously not sure what a weight spring was. Tommy explained, “Since they didn’t have real springs back then, they had to improvise. So, they came up with a small weight and balance system, sort of like a teeter-totter. If you take the weight off of one side the other side will go down. They didn’t use strings or metal for stuff like this because those materials would deteriorate over time.”
“There’s a contraption like that inside that pedestal?” Will looked amazed by the thought.
“Looks like it. If we take that piece of gold off I’m not sure what will happen.”
“No booby traps, huh?” Will’s voice was every bit as sarcastic as the look on his face.
Tommy didn’t respond. Instead, he carefully lowered the edge of the piece back down and stood up scratching his head. “We need to get this thing out of here,” he said after a moment of thought.
“Why don’t you just replace the gold with something else that will keep the weight down?” Will interrupted his thoughts.
“That’s the other problem. It could be designed for a particular weight. That would mean anything too heavy or too light would set off the mechanism. There’s no way to know.”
“So, what do we do?” Will asked.
“I wouldn’t do anything if I were you.” The new voice startled both men; they whipped their heads around toward the dark passageway.
Sean Wyatt Compilation Box Set Page 39