The Book of Bones (Harvey Bennett Thrillers 7)

by Nick Thacker

  If they ran into Garza’s well-trained private security force as well, Ben wasn’t sure they’d make it out alive.

  He looked over at Julie, in the passenger seat. She seemed calm, but her face was lined with a tension only someone close enough to her could see. It reminded him of when they’d met, driving cross-country as they tried to stay ahead of mysterious virus that was spreading around the midwestern United States. Her face then and now was tight, eyes peering straight ahead, her mind no doubt churning.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She glanced over. “Huh? Oh, yeah. Just thinking through our options.”

  “Options?” Ben asked. “Not sure we have any.”

  “Right — it was a short thought.” she smiled. “We’re going to get them back.”

  “I hope so. But Rome was a bust. A complete failure. They were onto us before we even got there. And we don’t have the Book of Bones, or anything else that might help.”

  “We can figure things out as we go,” she said. “Isn’t that your motto?”

  “Well… sorta. But it sounds way less confident coming from you.”

  Archie spoke from the back seat. “We will prevail, Ben. We have tracked them this far. And I have seen you — both of you — in action. I would rather be with no one else.”

  Ben smiled in the rearview mirror. “Thanks, Archie. But I’d rather be with Reggie and Sarah, for what it’s worth. No offense.”

  Archie laughed. “Fine. If we are being honest, I would much rather be with a team of Navy SEALs.”

  “Their strategy is no different than mine. Rush in, take advantage of the element of surprise, and make a lot of noise.”

  “That’s… exactly what their strategy is,” Julie said.

  “Whatever. Where did you say this place is?” Ben asked.

  “I was told it will be unmistakable if you know what you are looking for. The abandoned site is about twenty miles off the road, accessible only by finding a pathway hidden to all but the person looking for it. Wide enough for a truck, bound on both sides by massive boulders.”

  “Okay, so two big rocks. Like bowling balls?”

  “Like pillars,” Archie said. “Towering over the pathway and pushing up against the jungle around them, as if they were not originally from this area.”

  58

  Victoria

  Victoria Reyes looked around frantically. She tried to keep her breathing under control, her eyes from flickering back and forth in a way that might cause them to secure her. For now, she was free — untied and able to move around. There were eight men, eight Guild Rite members, surrounding her in this strange room, but so far she hadn’t seen a weapon.

  Can I fight my way out? As soon as she thought it, another voice inside her head began arguing. With what? And you’re a professor — you study this stuff, not actively perform it.

  These men were serious — whatever they believed, they thought she could help them. And their leader had made a case that she wouldn’t be harmed if she agreed to solve their problem.

  She made her decision, placing her hand back on the circular stone table. “What do you need from me?”

  “We need to find the Nephilim. The race of men who existed before and after the flood, the ones exiled to a new land time and time again.”

  “Why?”

  “We need to prove that they exist,” the man said. “Only by bringing them back into the fold of civilization, by showing the world what the Church has tried to keep hidden, can we begin to make reparations.”

  “Make reparations? You’re talking about parading a group of people — assuming they exist — in front of the world? To what end?”

  “‘Reparations’ simply means we believe these people are owed some of what the Church has spent over the centuries in trying to find them. Their pain, their torture, was directly caused by the seat of power in Christianity. To prove to the world that they exist brings the Church to its knees.”

  “And puts you in power instead?”

  The man smiled. “All long roads are paved a foot at a time, Ms. Reyes.”

  “Some roads never do get paved.”

  “Fair point. But rest assured, this is not some project the eight of us — the leaders of this Rite — have cooked up over the past few days. This is a generational project. A dream that has existed long before any of us were here.”

  “Okay, got it. I help you find these people, then… what? You just let me go?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Sorry if I’m a bit skeptical. If you recall, one of your men literally kidnapped me at gunpoint. After I got a threat from some guy named Dieter Luthig.”

  The man’s gray skin seemed to ebb and stretch over his features, as if he was working through something internally and was trying to hide it. “Yes, Dieter. You are good with puzzles, Ms. Reyes?”

  “You know I am.”

  “In that case, consider all of this a puzzle. Everything you think you do not know, you may know. And everything you think you do know, you may not.”

  She shook her head, frustrated. “These riddles are starting to get on my nerves.”

  “Well, now you understand our own frustration. This process is akin to an ancient, massive riddle. One that we have been trying to solve our entire lives.”

  “Where do we start?”

  The man lifted his arm, palm up. “Right here, Ms. Reyes. This is a temple, built by the descendants of the Nephilim.”

  She looked around again. Saw the vaulted ceiling, the stonework, simple yet elegant. “This? It’s — not what I would have expected.”

  “Nothing about this is what anyone has expected,” the man said. “And yet… here we are.”

  “How do you know? I mean, about this place?”

  “Do you know where we are, Ms. Reyes?”

  She looked down at her feet. She was still wearing the flats she’d had on in her office. Her black slacks, lightly wrinkled, her blouse. Also wrinkled, with the faint smell of sweat mixed with perfume. She looked back up. “You drugged me?”

  “We did what we must. We have been running out of time, and we needed your help.”

  “Where did you take me?”

  “Peru.”

  She began to speak, then closed her mouth. “… How?”

  “You were out for sixteen hours. A drug cocktail that leaves little residue, so you should not have to concern yourself with any detrimental side effects.”

  “Thank you for your concern. Where in Peru?”

  “That is a bit harder to explain.”

  “Try.” She stepped forward a bit, some of her confidence returning. She had no illusions about her gaining the upper hand, but if this was truly a negotiation — her knowledge and expertise for her freedom — she needed to start negotiating. “Where are we?”

  “We are in a valley called the Chachapoyas. Are you familiar with —”

  “The light-skinned tribe that some claim are of European descent.” And then, as if her mind had been working on a different problem at the same time, her thoughts conjured up her discussion with whoever had kidnapped her earlier.

  “We talked about this in the car,” she said. “The Chachapoyas — my paper. The Spanish in South America: Conquest or Inquest?”

  “Yes.”

  “And we’re in South America?”

  “As I said, Peru.”

  “Which means you found the Chachapoyas?”

  “We found this,” the man said. “The temple, the surrounding buildings. The only remnants of the Chachapoyas. As you postulated in your paper, the Chachapoyas tribe was eventually swallowed up by the Inca. Weakened by the Spanish conquistadors, they were overrun and became a part of the Incan empire that itself had been decimated by the Spanish. Over time, the tribal separations blended together, all but destroying any identifiable traits in the Chachapoyas.”

  “Light skin,” she said.

  “Correct. And, we assume, their charge died out with them.”

  “Thei
r charge?”

  “Their purpose. The reason they were removed from their homeland and sent to South America.”

  “To protect the Nephilim?” Victoria asked.

  The man nodded. “That is what we think. The descendants of the Nephilim, after many generations of breeding with other races, were exiled to South America. The Chacapoyas came with them, to protect their secret and their location. Descended from the Phoenicians, we believe they came here long before the expansion of the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. Together, the Nephilim and the Chachapoyas were a secret kept by the one true power at the time.”

  “The Catholic Church.”

  Again, a nod. A second man stepped forward. “Ms. Reyes,” the man said. “We need your help to find these descendants. The truth of what they are will set the world free. Do you see that?”

  “I — I don’t know what I see. I think you’re all crazy, but I have to admit…” she paused, unsure of how she’d feel admitting that something so controversial made so much sense. “I have to admit that what you’re telling me checks out.”

  The men in front of her both pursed their lips, their heads bowing. She had affirmed their theory, and it seemed she was now part of their team.

  “Except for one thing,” she added. “If you found the Chachapoyas’ valley — this place — but no people, and certainly no Nephilim… then how do you know they’re still alive? And why wouldn’t they be here?”

  “Well, Ms. Reyes, one of those questions we can answer. The other — that’s why you’re here.”

  “Got it. You need me to figure out where these people went. But the other question: how do you know they’re still alive?”

  The leader of the masonic cult motioned toward another man along the wall, and this man stepped forward, holding a tiny leather book. He made a point of opening it slowly, carefully, savoring every second the attention in the room was focused on him. Victoria was about to protest when he looked up at her, his eyes obscured behind glasses that caught the light and reflected it back at her.

  “Ms. Reyes,” he said, his accent slightly French, “my name is Agent Etienne Sharpe of Interpol, and I am a member of the Guild Rite. I came across this journal in Egypt, owned by the late Minister of Antiquities, a woman who was simultaneously ahead of and behind her time.”

  He cleared his throat and ceremoniously flipped the journal open to a marked page.

  “Ms. Reyes,” he continued. “Have you heard of the Book of Bones?”

  59

  Ben

  “There!”

  Ben heard Julie yell at exactly the same time he saw the turnoff. The pillars, two tall, cylindrical stones that had been partially buried in the ground, stretched upward and toward each other, creating a natural doorway. They had been overgrown with heavy vines and were nearly obscured by trees and foliage, but just like Archie said, they were unmistakable since they knew what to look for.

  Ben pulled the jeep off the road, slowing a bit as the second followed behind him, and then turned his eyes back toward the road. The pathway was wide, but it too was overgrown and brush hid the numerous bumps and potholes underneath. He quickly realized they would have to slow down, and frustratingly he dropped their speed to barely faster than a crawl.

  It’s taking too long, he thought. He knew that the closer they got to their destination, the longer it would seem to take. Please be there, he willed. Please be the right place.

  “See anything yet?” Archie asked from the back seat.

  Ben shook his head, but Julie responded. “Nothing. Dense forest, though. We could be driving through an ancient neighborhood right now and we would never know. I can’t see more than five feet into the forest.”

  “We will know,” Archie said. “We will not be able to miss it.”

  “How are you so sure?” Ben asked. “I thought this place had been hidden for centuries?”

  In the rearview mirror, Ben caught Archie’s wry grin. “It has been hidden for centuries, in a sense. Many locals do not know that the land is the region of the Chachapoyas, or that the peoples of the same name called this place home. To them, this valley is simply filled with more of the same ancient buildings, structures, and dwellings — too many to count, and the vast majority of them were Inca. The Peruvian government has neither the money nor the time to refurbish them and affirm their safety.”

  “So they sit out here and get covered by the forest,” Julie said.

  “Exactly. It is a problem in Brazil and Venezuela, and in Mexico with the Mayan ruins. A vast, thickly forested land filled with ancient treasures that no one knows about.”

  “So this place is like that?”

  “Sort of,” Archie said. “It is certainly not on any lists for high-priority tourism renovations, and we intend to keep it that way.”

  “We?”

  “The Jesuit Order. We, through a set of serendipitous inheritances about three-hundred years ago, came into ownership of this valley. The local Jesuits vowed to keep the valley pristine and untouched, though they had no idea it was the home of the Chachapoyas.

  “Although, now that I think of it, it makes sense.”

  “What? That the Chachapoyas lived here, or that the Jesuits control the land?”

  “Both. There was a young Jesuit in this region in the 1500s named Blas Valera. He was an intelligent priest and spoke a few languages, most notably Quechua because of his parents — a Spanish conquistador and an Inca princess — which helped him win favor with the Spanish. He became a renowned expert on linguistics and the history of this area, until his surprising and sudden death in 1597.”

  “Why was it surprising?”

  “Because some say he was attempting to alert the Pope about the real reason the Spanish were conquering South America. The authorities found out and had him killed.”

  “What was this ‘real reason?’” Ben asked, turning the jeep sharply around a bend and straightening it back out again.

  “No one knows,” Archie said. “But there were whispers that it was not about gold or riches at all, but something… more important.”

  “Important like a hidden tribe of people in a Peruvian valley?” Julie asked.

  “Perhaps. That is my take, at least,” Archie said. “And Blas had a brother — a man named Jeronimo — who had been told that his older brother Blas had not actually perished in Spain.”

  “So that was a lie?”

  “No one knows. But Jeronimo walked into this valley in 1601 with a team of Jesuits, trying to search for their long-lost brother.”

  “Let me guess,” Ben said. “They never came out.”

  Archie’s expression in the rearview mirror confirmed Ben’s suspicion.

  60

  Reggie

  Reggie and Sarah tried maneuvering around on the stone slab, seeing if there was any give in their bindings. Unfortunately, even with their left arms freed, there was no way they could slide sideways. Any inches they could gain toward one of them would only pull the other the opposite direction.

  “Reggie?” Sarah said. “Are we going to die here?”

  He stopped moving. How much time has passed? It had to be at least half an hour. More? Garza had told them they had forty-seven minutes before the blade above them fell. Forty-seven minutes for Julie and Ben to get here, with the Book of Bones, or they’d both lose their hand.

  But Garza had told them the doctors he had on payroll would be able to reattach the hands — that they needed a ‘clean break’ for the yeast to insert themselves into the latticework bone structure.

  “No,” he said. “Garza told us we’d be in pain. But I don’t think he’ll kill us.”

  He wanted to add, yet, but he knew it wouldn’t be helpful.

  “Why is he doing this?”

  “Garza?” Reggie thought a moment, trying to figure out the right words. “Vicente Garza was a career soldier, fast-tracked to success. A born leader, good strategist, all that.”

  “What happened to him?”


  “He… tired of the ‘new way’ of doing things.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, the military is all about efficiency. It used soldiers to fight battles when humans were the cheapest commodity around, then tanks and planes when vehicles became affordable to produce and money wasn’t an issue. Now, it’s all about tech. Intelligence-gathering, espionage, cryptography, even fighting itself — it’s all been outsourced to computers and machines.

  “It’s the next phase of the military industrial complex, and Garza hates it. He’s all about the human element — creating the best-trained, most efficient battle force that doesn’t malfunction, can adapt on the fly, and is easily replaceable.”

  “His private army,” Sarah said.

  “Exactly. It’s a breeding ground for people just like him — men who want to be part of something bigger, but also part of something special. They think they’re above the law, and frankly, where they operate, there usually isn’t a law. It’s a private security force, but it’s unlike any that has ever existed.”

  “And now he’s creating giants.”

  Reggie chuckled. “Yeah, that. I didn’t want to believe it when I saw them, but… I don’t understand it, but — you’re an anthropologist, is this stuff even possible?”

  Sarah sighed. “Honestly? Yeah. Everything he’s told us about them checks out, at least from a high-level point of view. The yeast being able to turn its environment into a sort of growth hormone, the breaking and re-setting of bones causing faster, larger growth, all that. That part is out of my area of expertise, but from a historic perspective…”

  “You saying giants roamed the Earth?”

  “Yeah, kinda. I mean, we don’t have any fossilized remains, but that’s easy to explain away. It would be more unbelievable if we did have some, considering how unlikely it is that any given skeleton will become fossilized over time.

  “But consider the world religions, ancient histories, and almost every civilization’s myths and legends. Giants were here before we were. They weren’t the fee-fi-fo-fum ‘stomp on the tiny people’ variety, but they were, basically, what we saw in Alaska: larger-than-life men.”