by Tom Norton
John said, “Father, is there somewhere we can talk, it will take a while?”
“I have a service in an hour, but yes.”
They followed the priest to a room with a desk where he sat down and he told John and Hendrick to take a seat in the two chairs facing him.”
“Yes, what can I do for you?”
John replied, “Father, neither of us are Catholic.”
The priest said, “I won’t hold that against you, at one time I wasn’t either.”
“Well Father, we have a problem, or I should say multiple problems.”
“With my church?”
“It has nothing to do with your church. We are professors at a reputable university in Europe and we are trying to prevent a scandal involving a Catholic Church in Europe.”
“Not the sexual thing I hope.”
John replied, “No, but it may have legal consequences for a lot of people.”
“What do I have to do with all of this?”
“This is such a sensitive matter and involves Iceland people and we do not know who we can trust that won’t reveal information. Are you that person?”
The priest replied, “I have no desire to get involved in any kind of scandal.”
“I can appreciate that, but we are trying to prevent a scandal, not create one. Would you hear us out to the point you do not want to continue?”
“I can do that.”
John asked, “Without revealing the information?”
“If it does not put anyone in danger; yes. Now you have aroused my curiosity.”
John baby-stepped through the entire story without the priest saying anything or stopping him.
The priest said, “You are asking a priest to help you find a Neanderthal skeleton?”
“That’s right Father.”
The priest replied, “This is cloak and dagger stuff isn’t it?”
Hendricks nodded.
“You say the University of Iceland is the culprit?”
John replied, “Yes Father, we believe so.”
“Some of my congregation are students and professors there; I wouldn’t think it of the University.”
“It may just be a few bad apples sir.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just a few people involved.”
The priest said, “Well that’s good. If as you say they are law breakers and would create a scandal for the Church and University, we should ferret them out if we can. I have to prepare for my service now, would you like to come back later this afternoon about five?”
“We’ll be here Father.”
At five, John and Hendrick were again at the church, seated in the same chairs and the first word was spoken by the priest. “They don’t want the Neanderthal skeleton for the sake of having it, they just don’t want you to have it.”
John and Hendrick looked at each other with puzzled looks on their faces and John said, “Would you elaborate on that Father.”
“They don’t want the story told, and if you, the students and the University of Berlin have no evidence, the story is without merit and can only bring ridicule on the story tellers.”
John said, “What does this all mean Father, why don’t they want the story told?”
“That is what we must find out isn’t it? What instigated your first trip to our lovely country, and I particularly enjoyed your statement about Neanderthals having brain surgery and Atlantis. You don’t mind if I don’t believe a word of it do you?”
John replied, “What person in their right mind would.”
“But you positively had something stolen from the cave, a gold disk analyzed and someone stole it from Professor Hendrick’s safe. I see the correlation between the gold disk and the University of Iceland. What do you think we should do?”
“Could you excuse me for a minute Father, I want to make a call,” and John got up and stepped outside.
The priest had poured tea and John took his seat and said, “I called a friend at the Geology Department in Berlin. I told him that I showed the assistant geologist at the University of Iceland the spectrophotometer results of our disk sample and asked him if he saw anything out of the ordinary and he said no.”
“Without telling him where I was calling from, my geologist friend told me that if I showed the report to a hundred geologists, every one of them would have noticed the absence of copper in the sample immediately. He said whoever my geologist friend is; he is lying through his teeth.”
The priest said, “Well, what does that tell us.”
“It beats the hell out of me; sorry Father.”
“How about, wherever that kind of gold is, someone doesn’t want you to find?”
Hendrick said, “Like Atlantis?”
The priest replied, “You said it, I didn’t.”
John said, “Maybe they know where it is.”
Hendrick replied, “Well why don’t they want anyone to find it?”
The priest asked, “It was supposed to have sunk in the ocean wasn’t it?”
“Everything I have heard, it did.”
Hendrick said, “Wait a minute. We just want to get the skeleton back so we can turn it over to the Poles. It doesn’t make any difference why they have it.”
John replied, “You’re right, first things first.”
The priest said, “Are you going to ask the University to return everything?”
“The University may not know anything about our stuff; it may be something only the assistant is involved in. If that’s the case the University of Iceland almost certainly doesn’t know anything about a Neanderthal skeleton. It must be stored off the campus.”
Hendricks replied, “Lets follow that geologist assistant and maybe that’ll tell us where it is.”
John said, “Could be, I don’t know what we can do until we know where it is. If we don’t, we’ll never know where it is.”
“What about the archeology professor, do you think he’s in on it, too?”
“Don’t know, maybe. If it had any students like ours though, we would know everything by now,” and John got a poke in the ribs. “Ok, I’ll tail the assistant and Hendrick, you tail the professor. We’ll find out where they live and start tomorrow morning. Today, we have to rent two vehicles.”
The priest said, “And me?”
“Just keep your eyes open, now that you know what we are looking for. You can also call every possible storage facility here and nearby towns and using the names of the professor and assistant, ask if your rental is due yet.”
“I can do that. Keep me posted.”
“We will,” and John and Hendrick left the church.
They found it remarkably easy to rent two vehicles at the airport by just showing their German driver’s license, proof of previous auto insurance and purchasing a weekly Iceland policy. With still several hours of daylight ahead, the two went for a drive to see the country before they got down to business. A stop was made to purchase two sets of field glasses and two video cameras with zoom capability.
At seven thirty a.m. the assistant left his home, stopped for a coffee to go and drove directly to the University. He entered and later John could see him through one of the windows in the Geology Lab.
In five minutes John was bored to tears and had enough of the stakeout business when he saw Hendrick pull into the parking lot. Minutes later he could see Hendrick looking through his field glasses. John walked to Hendrick’s car thinking that at least he would have someone to talk to.
Scaring Hendrick nearly to death by tapping on the car window, he got in the passenger seat and said, “They are both inside. I guess it’s a waiting game now, the first five minutes is the hardest.”
“I hope so, if not I’ll be crazy by lunch time.”
John said, “You know those little video players? I’m going to go get us a couple and some movies.”
“Bring some coffee back too. I’ll keep a watch for both our guys and if one leaves I’ll tail him.”
“
Sounds like a plan.”
Back from the shopping trip Hendrick said, “Nothing yet?”
“Nope. We might get some activity at lunch time.”
At noon, John saw Hendrick pull out of his parking spot and drive out onto the street in front of the University. His cell phone rang and Hendrick said, “The professor is on the move. No traffic, I’ll hang way back. I’ll call you later.”
After an hour the cell phone rang again and Hendrick said, “He’s having lunch at the Café Neese, has some friends at his table, three of them. I’ll call back.”
An hour later Hendrick pulled back into the University parking lot and walked to where John’s car was. He entered and said, “Had lunch with two guys in suits and someone in work clothes. That’s it.”
John said, “My guy hasn’t done anything. I moved my car and I can see him at his desk and he has been on his computer all day.”
Between four and five, John and Hendrick followed their people back to their homes where they sat for an hour and John called Hendrick and said his guy was on the move.
A half hour later, John called again and said, “Our assistant friend is going into an upscale nightclub or something, I can’t read it. But I gather their university pays their professors a hell of a lot more than we were getting paid.”
Hendrick replied, “That was my thought unless somebody else is buying.”
John replied, “Well, it works for Rick. Go on to the hotel and I’ll meet you there in an hour. Get us some take-out and a case of beer.”
The next morning John said, “You take the geology assistant and I’ll take the professor.”
Hendrick replied, “Ok by me.”
The two again parked in the parking lot and no more than an hour later the assistant left the University parking lot in his car with Hendrick following at a safe distance. The assistant headed out of town and while following, Hendrick called the University and asked for the assistant and was told he was making his rounds of the drill sites.
The assistant turned off the highway onto a gravel road that had a sign with a name and number 23 on it. Hendrick assumed this was a drill site and the access road being one lane it was a dead end at the site.
Almost a kilometer down the highway, Hendrick sat and watched for the assistant to head for another site, but he didn’t. There was no cell service to tell John what he was doing so he just sat until the assistant returned to the highway and headed back for Reykjavik.
The professor returned to the University, but he had a visitor in a suit in his office and later when Hendrick had returned they spent an hour surveilling the homes and then called it a day.
This surveillance continued for a week and during that time, John’s and Hendrick’s notes showed that the assistants had been to drill site 23 five times and the professor accompanied him twice. The assistant had only been to one other sight and that was about five kilometers from site 23. It was also noted that there had been five semi-trucks loaded with pipe turning onto the site 23 road and more loads of pipe that seemed to be headed for the other site that was found to be site 22.
Both the assistant and the professor seemed to be living a lifestyle well beyond what professors and assistants earn, but they might just be wealthy.
On the weekends, the drilling crews went into Reykjavik for the evenings, which made the bars noticeably busy.
John, Hendrick and the priest went over the notes and John said, “They must be drilling to the center of the earth for steam. Father, do you know how deep the steam wells are around here?”
“I have heard that they are usually fifty to three hundred meters.”
“How many holes?”
The priest replied, “Two if they find steam vents and then they go into production.”
“Well they have brought in enough drill pipe to do that since we have been here and I think they have been drilling for months.”
“The priest said, “I’m not sure about those depths.”
John replied, “Close enough. You know the crews come into town weekend evenings?”
“I have been told that.”
“We want to hear what they are talking about, but we don’t understand Icelandic. If we record the conversations, would you translate them for us?”
“Certainly.”
At the hotel room, Hendrick said to John, “I’m bailing out of this thing. Again you have completely forgotten we are looking for the skeleton and we are off on some wild ass tangent again.”
“Well it might lead us to the skeleton.”
“It doesn’t appear to be. I have a life in Germany whether we find the skeleton or not.”
John said, “I can see where you’re coming from.”
“I can send Rick, he’s an adventurist sort.”
“Would you please? Will you help if we need something from Germany?”
“Certainly. Anything I can do there. I’ll turn in my car at the airport rental.”
Over the weekend, John spent the evenings at the bars with his audio recorder in as close proximity as he could to the talking drillers. He had no idea what they were saying, but the priest would. Of course the priest would have to listen to the total duration of the recordings and he had other church duties to perform. On a Monday, John left the recordings and a player with the priest and picked up Rick at the airport.
Of course Rick was ecstatic about being there and being in the midst of the operation.
Rick said, “I brought your mail and I don’t think you’re going to like it if it’s anything like mine.”
John replied, “Let me see it,” and he tore open several letters and looked at them. I’ve been terminated by the University along with some threats of civil action. I figured on as much. Did you talk to Hendrick?”
Rick said, “Hendrick filled me in; anything new?”
“Nope, the priest will be listening to the recordings and writing down anything pertinent.”
“Did you figure out all of the drill pipe thing?”
“Not yet.”
Rick said, “You must think everything has something to do with the drilling huh?”
“I don’t have a clue, but Sam isn’t in storage anywhere, the priest checked on that. Our stuff shouldn’t be at the University and I don’t think they would keep it at their house, so I’m thinking maybe at drill site 23.”
“Have you been to drill site 23?”
“No, there are a half dozen keep out signs and it’s a dead end road. I can see it on an old Google Earth image, but the land had just been cleared. Looks like a fifty meter square. I figured it would be bigger than that.”
Rick said, “What now?”
“Waiting for the priest on the recordings.”
“Why don’t we go to the library and see what we can learn about drill site 23, there might be some maps or something. I’m sure they need permits or leases on the land.”
John replied, “Might as well, the priest will call when he’s finished.”
With the help of a student who could speak English, they requested any information they had on hydrothermal drilling and hydrothermal power generating plants. They were shown to a computer station and the librarian eventually gave them a long list of digitally recorded data to be retrieved on the computer. Again with the help of the student, the list was entered into the computer and was filtered for viewing in English or German.
It turned out that most of the engineering was done by an English firm in London and it was available in English or Icelandic.
Included were the regulations governing hydrothermal drilling and power production.
John said, “My God, we could be here a week and probably still not understand any of this. Go get that student again and give him some money for his lunch. I know; here’s some money. See if he can filter all of this stuff chronologically and also sort out drill sites 22 and 23.”
This accomplished, the first thing retrieved were the drill site regulations and lease conditions.
John sai
d, “I know, but let’s read it anyway.”
After about ten minutes John asked Rick, “You got all that?”
“Oh sure.”
With some difficulty the monitor displayed a topographical layout of dozens of drill sites by number and John zoomed down on drill site 23.
“Yep, like the regulations say, Fifty meters square and not an inch more. Environmental bullshit I suppose. That smaller square must represent where the drilling rig will be. The other drawing says production showing a larger square on the site that must be a power generating plant. There is a small right away for I guess, underground power lines to Reykjavik. Let’s check site 22.”
Site 22 was exactly the same. It showed site 22 and 23 being seven kilometers apart.
John said, “Look at the present status of site 22,” and at least five minutes later there was a status report showing the status of all the drill sites and site 22 was noted as in power production with a note that the site was increased to seventy-meters square, housing and administration and title awarded to Masters and Miller. Site 23 was noted as leased and active drilling in progress.
Rick said, “If Sam is out there, he’s probably at drill site 22. All they will have at 23 is a drilling rig and some trailers.”
“Could be. What’s all the drilling pipe going to 22 for, they are in production?”
“Beats the hell out of me.”
John’s phone rang and it was the priest. “We’ll be right over.”
Rick said, “We had better copy all this stuff.”
“Are we supposed to do that?”
“Probably not, but that student has some DVDs.”
“Well, go get em.”
chapter 5
bug drill sites
At the church, Rick was introduced to the priest as being one of his fellow Catholics and John said, “What do you have for us?”
“I took notes, but it all looks like a bunch of gibberish. The music was loud and the drillers were talking over each other. As you can imagine a lot of woman-talk and a great deal about the pretty barmaids. Relating to drilling, I heard 500 meters, 800 meters, 20 meters, 4200 meters and two kilometers. I heard both 22 and 23 many times. More drill pipe, drill bit stuck, steam vents, pipeline, professor, geology department, drill rig, pitch, production wells, Masters and Miller, permits, regulations, etc. I could only get bits and pieces of the conversations, I’m sorry. If there had not been that terrible blaring music I could have done better.”