Ancient Enemy Box Set [Books 1-4]

by Lukens, Mark

  A thought occurred to Palmer, and once it popped into his mind he couldn’t get rid of it: What if the spotlight Klein was using went out? What if Begay’s flashlight went out, too? What if the batteries died? All of the other electrical equipment around here seemed to have malfunctioned before. What if the same thing happened to their flashlights right now?

  What was wrong with him? He’d never been this nervous before. It was a straight shot out of the cave; there was no way they could lose their way. Besides, there was the string of lanterns and electrical cords to follow like a trail of breadcrumbs.

  He knew once the forensics team got here they would get another generator running and get these lights working again.

  “How far inside the cave are these bodies?” Palmer asked, his words bouncing off the smooth rock walls right back to him. He hoped he didn’t sound nervous.

  “This passageway opens up to a big cavern,” Begay said from the darkness behind him. His voice was so low and deep, the echoes made his words a little difficult to understand.

  “Why would the killer have brought these bodies all the way back here?” Klein asked more to himself than to Begay or Palmer. “To hide them?”

  Neither Begay nor Palmer responded to Klein’s question, but to Palmer it seemed like hiding the bodies way back here in the cave was a lot of trouble to go through. He had to agree with Klein on his multiple killer theory—there had to be more than one killer working here. It was hard to believe one man could’ve pulled all of this off. Now he was beginning to rethink his earlier theory, coming up with a new scenario. What if it wasn’t one of the scientists who’d done this?

  Then who? Robbers?

  Maybe some of the artifacts the archaeologists had dug out of this cave were worth a lot of money. Palmer didn’t know for sure. He felt certain they had to be worth something. Maybe a band of robbers had staked out the dig site and waited for the right time to attack and steal the artifacts.

  But if that scenario was true, then why were there so many artifacts left behind inside the trailer? Maybe the robbers had been looking for gold. Would some of the artifacts have been made out of precious metals? Palmer couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t an expert on archaeology, but it was something to consider.

  Another thought came to him: What if some kind of activists had killed these archaeologists, some kind of eco-terrorists who felt that these archaeologists were destroying the environment or harming Mother Earth?

  It wasn’t so far-fetched. Maybe they weren’t everyday big news, but eco-terrorists were real. Maybe they weren’t such a big deal back east, but they could be a force to contend with in the west. Eco-terrorists had amassed more property damage than all other terrorists combined in the United States. But they didn’t usually kill people—especially not purposely.

  Then another thought occurred to him. What if some of the local Native Americans, the Navajo, were displeased with this archaeological expedition? What if, even though Navajo officials had given this group permission to excavate here, there was a small fringe group that hated seeing these scientists dig up their ancestors or disturb spirits or whatever they believed in. What if Begay and his officers already suspected that? What if they even had an idea who was behind this? It started to make sense to Palmer now. Maybe these murders were a message to the scientists, to the white man: Stop digging on our land. But maybe the activists had gone too far this time and killed one of the archaeologists, and then they had to cover everything up. They tried to hide the bodies, and then they staged a half-baked scene. And maybe halfway through this mess, they just panicked and ran.

  “I don’t think they were trying to hide the bodies,” Begay finally answered Klein’s question from right behind Palmer, making him jump a little. He seemed much closer than Palmer thought he was.

  Palmer turned a little towards the large man in the darkness behind him, his shoulder brushing against the rock wall as he walked. “What makes you say that?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Finally, the narrow passageway through the rock walls opened up into a cavern. Klein’s spotlight knifed into the darkness, but it only seemed to shine so far, like a spotlight trying to work deep underwater.

  “Holy shit,” Klein whispered. “That stinks.”

  Palmer smelled it now as the narrow rock passageway opened up. The smell hit him like an invisible wall.

  It was still claustrophobic inside the cave to Palmer, but he felt a little better now that the rock walls weren’t squeezing in on him like they had in the passageway. He shined the meager light from his cell phone around at the cavernous room, but the light only illuminated a few feet in front of him, leaving him in a weak sphere of light that tried to push back the crushing darkness.

  It was much warmer deep inside the cave, and the air tasted moist on his tongue. He also tasted something else in the air, a taste his tongue knew well after all these years—the coppery taste of blood that went along with the overpowering stench of rot and decay.

  “It’s not too much further,” Begay said, shining his flashlight into the darkness like a lightsaber down next to his leg.

  “Yeah, I think we can smell that,” Klein said, but he kept moving forward into the darkness.

  Klein followed the electrical cord of lamps with the light from his spotlight, and then they came to another wall at the far end of the cavern. They followed the wall, walking next to more electrical cords and lights. The walls were covered with pitted tool marks, like the room had been carved out of the rock a long time ago.

  The electric cords ended in a big junction box where more electric cords ran off into the darkness, connected to spotlights rigged on top of metal stands that stood about five feet high. Klein raised his spotlight’s beam up from the floor and shined it on the objects piled together forty feet away from them.

  “Holy … holy hell,” Klein whispered. His voice was pinched off because he had his hand cupped over his nostrils, closing them off.

  Palmer stared at the grotesque display in front of them, and for a moment all of his thoughts stopped.

  CHAPTER 9

  The Cave

  Palmer couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  Agent Klein shined the spotlight on the collection of body parts piled up together in front of what looked like some kind of city of adobe stone walls that ran far back into the cave, disappearing into the darkness. In front of the grotesque display of body parts was a line of stone tablets laid out with what looked like some kind of ancient writing carved into them. Klein’s hand was shaking more noticeably now, the light shimmering from his tremors, giving a slight strobe-light effect on the carnage in front of Palmer.

  “What …?” Klein whispered. “How …?”

  “That’s what I was trying to explain,” Captain Begay said.

  Palmer stared in disbelief. His legs felt suddenly shaky, his muscles rubbery, the strength draining a little from his body. He felt like a rookie on his first assignment.

  “It doesn’t seem like one person could’ve done all of this,” Begay said, but his grumbling voice sounded so far away to Palmer’s ears now, like maybe the large man was slowly backing away into the darkness, backing up from the light that exposed this pile of horrors. “It doesn’t even seem like people did this,” he added.

  But it had to be people, Palmer thought. What else could do something like this? Arrange things this way?

  Palmer got his breathing back under control. He was certain Begay and Klein had noticed his sudden shock, his quick attack of panic, but he didn’t care. It would be a normal reaction from anyone after seeing something like this.

  You’ve got a job to do, he told himself. Calm down and do your job!

  Begay was silent, looming behind Klein and Palmer. And even Klein was at a loss for words as he let the beam from his spotlight slowly pan over the horrifying structure built out of human body parts.

  Ten people, Agent Palmer thought. Maybe even eleven of them in that pile. Five archaeologists l
ed by Jake Phillips, four grad students, a Navajo guide named Jim Whitefeather, and the expert on the Anasazi that Jake had called in to help him with this dig site—Stella Weaver. All of those people were here in this cave now, tangled together in a mass of limbs, torsos, chunks of flesh, severed heads. Were all ten of them here in this pile, or were more of their parts somewhere inside those city walls that disappeared into the darkness? It was hard to tell.

  The people in the pile had been torn apart, like some giant beast had pulled them apart as easily as a boiled chicken. A man’s head sat cradled in the crook of an arm that had been pulled off near the shoulder, the rest of the arm gone from halfway down his forearm. Shredded pieces of the sleeve of the man’s shirt were still stuck to the pale flesh from the dark, matted blood. Two severed fingers had been stuck into the man’s eyes, the torn ends of the fingers protruding out like stubby little cigars. The man’s mouth was wrenched wide open and his jaw was twisted slightly to the side, jagged pieces of broken teeth that looked like shattered remnants of white tile shined from inside of his mouth.

  That was only one grisly sight among the heap of rotting human flesh. A foot stuck up from behind a man’s head, the skin purplish and swollen, the toes almost black with rot. Many of the armless, headless, and legless torsos formed the bottom layer of the human sculpture, huge holes in some of the torsos where organs had been removed. One torso had two fractured pieces of ribs poking out like springs from an old mattress.

  The spotlight’s beam suddenly jerked away from the pile of horrors, the darkness hiding the grisly sight again as Klein bent over, retching.

  Palmer shined the weak light from his cell phone at Klein. “Are you going to be sick? Go over there if you are. This is a crime scene.”

  Klein remained bent over, his spotlight shining down at the cave floor. A string of spittle hung down from his mouth, but it didn’t look like he had vomited yet. He nodded his head and grunted: “I’ll be okay. It’s just … just the smell … and the …” He let his words trail off.

  Palmer felt the same nauseous feelings in his stomach, but he steeled himself and pointed the light from his cell phone at the pile of human parts. Begay aimed his flashlight in the same direction as Palmer, adding their beams of light together.

  You’ve got a job to do, Palmer said to himself.

  He still had his blue nitrile gloves on, but he didn’t dare touch the bodies—there were so many parts precariously balanced on top of each other that it looked the slightest pressure could knock them loose; some of the pieces were held together by gummed-up layers of dried blood, like mortar between bricks. A few of the body parts had sticks and tree branches rammed through them, holding the parts together like a matrix. He pressed the camera app button on his cell phone and took some photos. The flash went off and the phone made its cute little click-click noise as he captured the horror in front of him on his phone, storing it away safely.

  Flash! Click-click. A photo of two heads back-to-back, their heads smashed together so forcefully that they looked like conjoined twins.

  Flash! Click-click. A female head—her dark hair thick with matted blood, shiny with it, like it had been coated in polyurethane. Her jaw had been removed and her tongue flopped out onto the section of human leg that her head was balanced on top of. Another man’s face had been partially skinned, the cuts so fine and intricate compared to the seemingly frenzied tears and rips of the other pieces, like the killer took his time with this one.

  Flash! Click-click. Another photo of a torso stuck on a thick and sharp tree branch.

  Flash! Click-click. Another photo of a piece of an arm, the flesh disappearing away into the darkness in a spray of gore across the hard-packed dirt; it looked like a piece of roadkill.

  Flash! Click-click. Another photo of a mutilated head sitting delicately on two hands (that seemed to be from two different people) that were splayed out to cradle the head like a dish holding a candle.

  Flash! Click-click. A photo of the line of tablets.

  Flash! Click-click. A close-up photo of the ancient writing carved into the tablets.

  Eleven people in all.

  Were all of them here in this tangled mess? Captain Begay was right—it was hard to tell. Palmer tried to count heads, arms, legs, and torsos, but he lost count. He had counted seven heads so far, but he was fairly certain that pieces of maybe two other heads and faces were buried down in the middle of the tangled body parts with the torsos; one piece of a head might even be stuffed inside the cavity of one of the torsos.

  Forensics was going to have to sort all of this out.

  “What are those tablets?” Palmer asked Begay. “Is that Navajo writing?”

  Begay walked closer to the tablets, his white handkerchief up to his nose and mouth. He studied the tablets for a moment, aiming his flashlight beam down at them. He shook his head no and turned back to Palmer. “That’s not Navajo. Nothing I’ve ever seen before. I would guess that it might be Anasazi writing.”

  “The people who built this city in here?” Palmer looked at the adobe walls of the buildings that stood like ghosts in the darkness a few dozen yards beyond the pile of body parts.

  Begay nodded. “But the strange thing is that no Anasazi writing has ever been found before.”

  Maybe that made these discoveries valuable, Palmer thought. But if the killers were after valuable objects, maybe even objects priceless enough to kill for, why leave them behind? Why leave them displayed in front of the dead bodies like they were? Was it some kind of message?

  Palmer felt a sudden overwhelming urge to run. He needed to get out of here. He had his photos. He’d seen enough, but he sure as hell didn’t have any answers. Now he needed some fresh air; he needed to get away from the overpowering stink of rotting flesh. As cold as the weather was outside this cave, Palmer couldn’t wait to breathe in that icy air.

  “You see what I was trying to tell you guys?” Begay said.

  Palmer nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak right now, afraid his breakfast sandwich and coffee (and let’s not forget the few nips of vodka) might come rolling up out of him whether he wanted them to or not.

  “There’s no way a man did all of this,” Begay continued. “Those limbs, they look torn apart, not cut.”

  Palmer nodded. “Let’s get some air.”

  “Amen,” Klein said.

  Begay nodded in agreement. He turned to head back towards the narrow passageway through the rock. Klein hurried in front of the two men so he could light their way back with the spotlight.

  They hurried back through the tunnel of rock, the same way they had entered, Klein in the lead with his handheld spotlight shining the way for them. Palmer walked behind Klein with the pathetic light from his phone helping a little, and Begay brought up the rear with his own flashlight. The scurrying sounds of their footsteps, their breathing, and the rustling of their clothing all blended together into haunting echoes that bounced back at them from the darkness.

  For a moment Palmer swore he heard another rustling sound from farther behind them. He swore it was the shifting sound of the body parts, like something buried inside of the mass of flesh was pulling itself out. He squeezed his mind shut against that thought. It wasn’t real. He was just spooked, that’s all.

  He’d never seen anything like that before, not in his twenty years as an agent specializing in serial and mass killings. He’d seen ritualistic murders before, mass executions by madmen with assault rifles. He’d seen what could be done to the human body. But this was a mixture of both: the raw power of rage exhibited by the tearing of the limbs away from the torsos, and then the delicate precision, almost artistic placement of the pieces, like some kind of horrible sculpture.

  No, whoever had done this hadn’t been trying to hide the bodies … they had displayed them.

  They finally reached the mouth of the cave, the bright sunlight pouring into the sliver of the entrance, the colder air hitting them like an invisible punch. But at least it was fr
esh air.

  “One person didn’t do all of that,” Begay said as soon as they were outside the cave and walking towards his Ford Bronco. Klein shut off his spotlight and handed it back to the officer who still stood in front of Begay’s Bronco.

  “That’s not any kind of animal attack,” Klein said. “That’s for sure.”

  “But those people were torn apart,” Palmer said. “Like Captain Begay said.”

  Klein looked down at his cell phone. “Can’t ever get a signal out here,” he mumbled like he was purposely ignoring Palmer’s statement.

  Palmer shoved his own cell phone down into his coat pocket. He felt his leather gloves in the pocket and pulled them out. He pulled the gloves on over the thin blue nitrile gloves and his hands felt a little warmer.

  “Not an animal exactly,” Begay said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Klein snapped at him.

  Begay didn’t say anything, but Palmer had an idea of what the big man was getting at—some kind of Native American legend or something, some mythical monster that attacked humans and tore them apart. But Palmer wasn’t going to say anything and let Klein ridicule the captain in front of his own men.

  Begay still didn’t seem ready to expound on his statement, and at least Klein dismissed it.

  “Look,” Palmer said to Begay, “I know this seems impossible, but I assure you a person did this. More likely a group of people.” Palmer thought back to his theory of a group of Navajo radicals who wanted to send a message to other scientists who might want to come and dig up their land. It seemed like an extreme theory, but it was all Palmer had to go on right now.

  “I know this seems … seems impossible,” Agent Palmer continued. “But when the forensics team gets here, they’ll figure it all out. It might take a while, but they will figure all of this out.”

  Begay didn’t say anything, he seemed to be choosing his statements carefully, but Palmer could see the doubt in the man’s dark eyes.

  Palmer couldn’t blame Begay. What they’d just seen inside that cave was hard for any person to wrap their mind around. He had heard of cases that were nearly as gruesome as the display in the cave: cult killings, sadistic tortures. He remembered reading about World War II soldiers who had invaded Hitler’s death camps at the end of the war and saw horrors beyond belief, atrocities beyond understanding, things that haunted their dreams. Palmer knew that humans had the will and the power to do unspeakably terrible things to each other.