“OK, now give me your walkie-talkie.” As he asked, he kept an eye on Sergei on top of the mesa, who still had not noticed what was going on down below.
“I don’t have one.” She tried not to give away the tension she felt.
“OK,” he said as he patted her down with one hand, “so we’re going to ask your friend to toss his down to you, OK?”
“He doesn’t have one, either.”
“Yes, he does. They’d never let you go out here without one.”
Claire had never thought faster in her life and realized that there might be an opening. But that depended on Sergei being as smart as she thought he was. She nodded. “OK, but if we don’t check in regularly, security will be out here in a helicopter in three minutes.”
The man didn’t think she was telling the truth but couldn’t be entirely sure.
“When are you next scheduled to check in?”
Claire did a lightning-fast calculation. “Right about now, maybe five minutes.”
The man chuckled but then shrugged. “OK, so we’re going to call up to your friend to toss his down, but to me, not you.”
Sergei had now realized what was going on down below and was reaching for the walkie-talkie when Claire shouted up to him, “Stop, Sergei, he’s got a gun.”
Sergei knew instantly that this was intended to be his appointment in Samara and turned his thoughts to how he might save Claire. “What does he want?”
Claire spoke very slowly. “Right now he wants you to toss him the walkie-talkie … very carefully so he can catch it and it doesn’t break. Understand?”
Sergei didn’t at first, but then he did. “OK, OK, don’t shoot,” he said plaintively. “Come closer, and I’ll drop it on three. OK.”
Claire tried not to show her relief. Sergei had understood.
The man looked from Sergei to Claire. Something was off, but he figured that after he had the walkie-talkie and made Claire check in, he could thwart whatever these amateurs had cooked up.
“OK. You”—pointing the gun at Claire—“stay here.”
Frechette walked up the apron of scree as close as he could get to the face of the mesa. He briefly turned to Claire. “I’m going to put down the gun to catch, but don’t think of running. I will drop you like a rabbit.”
He put the gun on a shoulder-height boulder next to him. “OK.”
Sergei held the walkie-talkie in one hand out over the ledge. Claire braced herself. She was near hysterical with panic. He was not well back from the coming explosion. Then she noticed that Sergei had one leg braced. She couldn’t remember whether there was a delay on the trigger.
“Here goes,” said Sergei, his voice very calm. “One, two … three!”
As he dropped the walkie-talkie, he simultaneously triggered the charges and launched himself backward, screaming, “Run!” as he did so.
He only had to make it four feet but nearly didn’t as the well-placed explosives caused a near-instantaneous collapse of the section of lip. The ground fell away from under him as he landed, but his stomach hit the rim and with frantic scrambling he was able to stay on top. He got up immediately and began running down the mesa toward Claire.
For all his ineffectual look, Frechette had preternatural reactions and a psychotic’s strength, but the shock of the explosion and rock fall delayed his response a fateful millisecond. A small boulder hit him in the back, breaking a few ribs and knocking the wind out of him. He turned his head just in time to see a two-ton section of rock hurtling toward him like a vengeful god.
82
Shaking, Claire and Sergei looked at the mangled mess that was all that remained of their would-be assassin. She felt sick.
“Why was he after you?” she got out between gasps.
“Because I could link him with the man who killed Mr. Hayden. He looks different than what I remember, but I’m sure this is the man.”
Sergei shook his head and kicked the dirt in frustration.
“What’s wrong?”
“He may have been our one chance to link the killing to Primorskichem.”
They both let this sink in.
“Partial justice anyway.”
Sergei started looking around. “You didn’t get to film.”
Claire managed a weak laugh. “Damn, I should have asked him, but wait, then he would have killed us.” She looked around. “Anyway, we can tell the rocks that just fell from the weathering …”
“Claire,” said Sergei gently, “this is now a crime scene. I don’t think there’s going to be much investigation for quite some time.”
Claire’s eyes widened. She couldn’t believe what she had just said. She recognized that she was still in shock. What had happened was too big for her to process.
Sergei continued. “Let’s go back. Rob’s going to want to get a team out here before the animals get to that,” he said, pointing to the mangled, bloody remains. Then he had another thought. “One sec, I’m going to look for the gun,” he said as he started to clamber up the rock fall to where he’d last seen the assassin. He disappeared from view, and Claire could hear him moving around. Then he stopped and was silent.
“Sergei? Did you find it?”
More silence.
“Sergei?”
After a few more moments of silence, Sergei finally said, “Come.”
83
Andrei Bezanov stared numbly at his computer screen and watched his world come apart. Canada had launched an investigation into the death of Fletcher Hayden based on new evidence that had come to light; the two Canadian mining giants were preparing to file suit for many billions of damages and also initiating action on the fraudulent conveyance articles of the sales and agreement in order to unwind the sale of their interests in Transteppe. The US, Canada, and the EU had frozen his personal assets as well as those owned by Primorskichem pending the resolution of the suits and criminal cases, and there were warrants for his arrest in multiple jurisdictions. At the invitation of the Kazakh government, the US had sent additional troops to Transteppe.
But that was not the worst.
A call from a source inside the Kremlin had informed him that the Russian president, already feeling the bite of numerous embargos and sanctions, couldn’t afford to have the Primorskichem takeover linked to the uprising. His advisers were recommending that he allow extradition to go forward, thereby isolating Bezanov’s “rogue” actions from Russian policy. Bezanov knew that if this turned out to be the decision, he would never make it to the airport for extradition.
The now former oligarch never had time to finish that thought. Two unsmiling men entered his office uninvited. He could see several more outside, and his secretary being led away in tears.
84
It was now midwinter, two months since the struggle at the mesa. Preoccupied with the uprising and the ongoing great power stalemate, the Kazakh authorities had been content to let Transteppe and the US military lead the investigation, and Rob allowed his colleagues to decide that the death was an accident, a conclusion that was made easy because no one could figure out who this man was. The CIA took possession of the body, but neither fingerprints, dental records, nor DNA produced any leads that might offer a clue to his identity or his past. The agency also ran the damning recording that had led to Bezanov’s downfall through the most sophisticated voice recognition software on the planet and got nowhere. He apparently altered his voice when he spoke on the phone. They knew the man freelanced black ops and private espionage, and their sources had many stories of the exploits of this man with no name, but no one could remember meeting him in person. “He’s like Proteus,” remarked one investigator admiringly, “he seemed to be able to change his shape at will without changing his substance.”
Claire was interested in the investigation into the man’s identity—naturally she wanted to know more about the man who had tried to kill them both—but she was more fully engaged in trying to puzzle over the mysterious round stones that were protruding from the
boulder that killed the assassin. As Sergei reconstructed it, a large piece of the boulder had split when it hit the piled rock below, and it sheared along the plane that held these rocks, which, like the ulnae, looked to be arranged. Once they were allowed back to investigate the fallen rocks, they had used a backpack remote-sensing unit to assay other large pieces that had fallen, and discovered that there were likely many more stones. They seemed to be arrayed in conical piles.
Claire noticed one more odd rock that had been liberated when the boulder crashed down on the rock pile. It was crystalline and about the size of a softball. She picked it up and looked at it. She was about to toss it aside, but then she hesitated. She put it in a canvas satchel to bring back to the lab.
She returned to the curious arrays. Once she had cleaned the surface of the boulder and removed the bloodstains from the other side of the rock, she took some pictures of the array and sent them to Keerbrock and Katie. The next day Keerbrock called.
With his customary abruptness, he began, “Most likely, it is just a random pile of stones.”
Claire smiled. “Will, you wouldn’t have called if you really thought it was just a pile of stones.” She could envision the great man squirming.
“OK, ground rules. First and most important: publication is only a description of the new find. You and I, however, can talk about what these really mean.”
Claire was dying. “Which is?”
“It’s the last chapter of the story—at least, that’s my educated guess.”
“A tomb?”
“No, think of the narrative we put together down at Boisbeaux. What killed them off?”
“Lack of water.”
“Right, and they resorted to desperate measures, but they weren’t enough.”
“And …”
“Think about it, these were extraordinarily intelligent desperate creatures, capable of doing applied science on par with some of the best minds alive today.” He paused. “And they are looking for water anywhere they might find it, with the water table dropping below their ability to reach it. So where would they look for it next?”
“The ice caps, but that makes no sense.”
“Agreed, that makes no sense.”
Claire was getting annoyed. Clearly Keerbrock was pleased with himself. “Will, tell me!”
“One more try: Where is there as much water as there is in all the rivers and lakes on land?”
“Clouds?”
“There were no clouds, remember, but you’re on the right track. The air. Clouds hold 2 percent of the air’s water, while the rest is just floating around as vapor. It’s there, even in the desert, and our elephants would have observed that water comes out of the air and condenses on some rocks as temperatures drop in the evening. The ancient Jews figured out how to capture water from the air; so did the Byzantines and lots of other cultures. So, I’m thinking that as a last gasp, Bart and company built what’s called an air well. One form of air well is to pile up stones in conical piles so that the air can flow through them, just like the piles in that image you sent me, only bigger. In the evening, droplets form and can be collected.”
Claire absorbed this. “That’s brilliant, Will.” She thought a bit more. “Then why did they die out?”
Keerbrock was ready for this. “Volume. They could have collected enough water to keep themselves hydrated, but not the amount needed to grow crops. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘an appetite like an elephant.’”
“Poor Bart.”
“Poor Bart, indeed. Regardless of how much of this we can publish, it’s clear that Bart and his friends wanted to tell their story. It’s coming out in bits and pieces, but keep digging. I’m sure there’s more to the story.”
“Thanks, Will, thanks for everything. I will keep digging.”
After she hung up the phone, she had an idea. She went in search of Rob and Sergei.
They met in Rob’s office. Claire dived right in. “Remember Mr. Hayden insisted that he didn’t want Bart to be named after him?” Curious, they both nodded. “Well, not to be like a lawyer, but he didn’t say he did not want anything named after him, yes?”
“Yes …” Sergei and Rob said in unison, still confused about where this was going.
“So, how big is the mesa where the lip is located—maybe half a hectare?”
Sergei nodded enthusiastically. He now knew where this was going.
“So, let’s ask Transteppe to agree to gift it to the Kazakh government. Maybe call it the Fletcher Hayden Paleontology Site for the Study of the Deep Past.”
“Just rolls off the tongue,” said Rob, “but I like it.” He was perking up.
“I’ll bet we could even get it designated a World Heritage Site, which would give it more protection.”
“We can get this done,” said Rob. “We owe it to him.” He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a bottle. I think this calls for a toast. He filled three shot glasses with single malt and lifted his glass. “To the memory of Fletcher Hayden.”
“To the memory of Fletcher Hayden,” said both Sergei and Claire. No one noticed that Claire took only the tiniest sip.
¬
Sergei and Claire headed back to the warehouse. She was energized and pleased. Life seemed to be returning to normal. They were greeted by Sauat, who had been getting instruction from Kamila on the tomography equipment. There seemed to be no shortage of women who wanted to take Sauat under their wing.
“Big news!” he said, getting up. He was clearly excited.
Yet another new discovery? Instead of leading them to his work area, Sauat brought them over to Lawrence’s food bowls. In Claire’s absence, the cat had relocated from the food storage area. Claire wasn’t entirely sure whether Lawrence had been fired by food services or promoted by Sauat. Lying in front of the bowls was half a lemming.
Lawrence seemed to be making the transition from shoelaces to prey. “I wanted to show you this before I cleaned up,” Sauat beamed, obviously proud of his feline protégé.
Claire smiled. “Where’s the other half?”
“It will make its presence known, eventually,” said Sergei drily.
Claire stopped by Karil’s work area to get an update. He said he was working on identifying the individual plant life with a particular emphasis of evidence of ancient bamboo, but it was slow work. As Claire started to move off, he shyly asked whether Katie would be coming back to Kazakhstan. Claire said that Katie was going to be tied up for some time analyzing the jadeite. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard Kamila mutter something that sounded like, “Good!”
Claire sat down at her desk. Since coming back, any number of emotions had flooded her. Just a few months in the past, she had experienced both the lowest and highest points of her life. The omnipresent reminders that they were at the center of a flash point of tensions as Russia fought to grab critical resources in order to maintain its position among the great powers summoned anew everything she had felt when she first saw the petrified bones protruding from the harsh surface of the mesa.
¬
She realized that what had been started might ultimately change science itself. Bart offered the possibility of understanding a world described in waves, a world that the brightest minds had been trying to understand since the ancients tied the movements of the stars, the sun, and the moon to the seasons. But it was a world that looked utterly different from Bart’s perspective. The ancient elephants understood connections where Western science saw isolated individual actions. Physicists glimpsed this perspective through quantum mechanics in the subatomic universe but shied from making the connection to daily life. Claire had experienced firsthand the ferocity with which science holds on to its paradigms, but she now felt she had an answer to the question she had posed herself after Hayden had told her of the great game for control of Transteppe. While the potential for great power conflict overshadowed the dig for the moment, she now believed that the changes unleashed by the discovery of the simple array of
bones would prove more consequential than the grinding of the tectonic plates of geopolitics at whose juncture Transteppe now sat.
Claire felt a wave of nausea. She had been experiencing them for the past few weeks. She sat on a bench and resumed her train of thought, ticking off all the forces that might have marginalized this discovery at any point. She marveled—it was something of a miracle that Bart’s message had reached an audience across the vast sweep of time.
There was another miracle she was thinking about, one that had a lot more to do with her nausea. She decided it was time to tell Sergei.
She tracked him down and found him studying the conically arranged stones. “Sergei,” she said, smiling into his eyes. “Does that ultrasound equipment you’ve got work on humans?”
It took the geologist a second to realize what she was saying. He put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her to his side. He kissed Claire’s cheek ever so softly. To his surprise, tears welled up in his eyes.
“If that one doesn’t,” he said, “we’ll find one that does.” Sergei paused. “Besides, I hear they have very good ones in the US.”
Claire’s eyes lit up. Through her joy, she realized that she now faced a new, unyielding timetable for the dig. But this deadline beckoned joyfully and shined bright.
EPILOGUE
The morning sickness continued to dog Claire, and she found it difficult to work. At Sergei’s urging, she had returned to Rushmere. One morning she wandered over to her office to begin unpacking the few things she had brought back with her. Opening one box marked miscellaneous, she saw the satchel that she had brought with her on her last visit to the mesa. Amid all the drama of the past few months, she had entirely forgotten about the satchel. Opening the canvas cover, she saw the dust-covered salt-crystal softball she had absently collected.
Deep Past Page 31