Shrouded in Secrets

by Kim McMahill

  “Do you believe that?” she asked.

  Miguel shrugged his shoulders, stared down at his desk, and went silent.

  “Right now, the truth behind the tale is not our concern. Marjorie may have figured out the pattern of dispersal, so others will eventually arrive at the same conclusions. We have a general idea where to search if the items remain in their original locations, but the quicker we find the relics and secure them, the safer everyone will be. If you have any idea where the Argentinean head rumored to be in this area is hidden or any theories as to what the thieves plan to do with the crystals, you must tell us now.”

  Marjorie watched Miguel twist his handkerchief in his hands, eyes focused on his desk. The man was clearly terrified. Setting the mangled cloth aside, he picked up a black and white photograph from on his desk. He ran his thumb gently over the faded surface of an old man’s face.

  “My grandfather became possessed by the cursed artifacts and sacrificed his life to protect them from falling into the wrong hands,” Miguel whispered.

  Marjorie glanced over at Diego and marveled at his patience and restraint. She was fighting the urge to crawl over Miguel’s desk, grab him by the throat, and shake him until he talked.

  “Is this your grandfather?” Diego asked as he took the framed photograph from Miguel’s hand.

  “Yes. He searched for the head believed to be in northern Argentina for many years. When my father was just eleven years old, my grandfather claimed to have found one of the legendary relics in this vicinity,” he said while pointing to a detailed map of Salta and tracing an imaginary circle with his finger around the surrounding area.

  Marjorie stole a glance at Diego. The place Miguel claimed his grandfather discovered the crystal fell along the axis she had constructed.

  “Most of the people in the village thought my grandfather had gone crazy searching for something many believed existed only in legend. My father came home from school one day and heard screaming in his house. He peeked in the window and witnessed two men beating his mother while others held his father back, demanding he turn over the relic. My father knew his father would let the men kill them all before he would reveal the crystal’s location, so he went to retrieve the item himself to save his mother. By the time he returned, his parents were dead and the killers were gone.”

  Marjorie shook her head. Unbeknownst to the world, people had been dying for generations over these mysterious crystals, while archeologist and scientists sat in their offices and labs arguing over whether the relics were ancient or not. Now, the death toll had skyrocketed and was bound to get much worse unless they stopped whoever sought the artifacts.

  “What did your father do then?” Diego urged.

  “He packed his meager belongings and came into Salta. The nuns took him in, and provided shelter and food in exchange for him cleaning the cathedral. He lived with the sisters until he was fifteen, then he left and went to work in the mines.”

  “Was one of those things he packed before leaving home as a young boy the relic?” Marjorie asked.

  Miguel nodded.

  “Did you ever see it? Where is it now?” she demanded.

  Diego reached over and squeezed her knee. She realized he was trying to warn her about getting impatient with the confused and frightened man. She understood this was an emotional subject for Miguel, but after what had happened in Egypt and Peru, she had to struggle not to lose her patience with anyone who didn’t understand the importance of cooperating to remove the relics from unsuspecting populations.

  “No, I never saw the crystal. All I know is that my father said its fate was in the Son of God’s hands.”

  “What does that mean?” Marjorie asked in a gentle tone.

  “I know nothing else.”

  “You must have a guess,” she coaxed. “Everyone in our line of work possesses a curious mind, and you’ve had many years to think about the cryptic message and unlimited resources at your disposal to try and unlock its meaning.”

  “I know nothing else,” Miguel repeated.

  Marjorie lost her grip on her temper. She leapt to her feet and leaned over his desk until their faces were only inches apart.

  “You listen to me. I nearly died, one of the most magnificent manmade wonders of the world was blown to bits, hundreds of unarmed villagers were massacred, and millions of people could die if you don’t cooperate,” Marjorie hissed. “So tell us what you know.”

  Miguel kept his head down, claiming over and over to know nothing more.

  “Help us.” Marjorie lost control and the plea came out as a sob. She grabbed the front of Miguel’s shirt and shook him.

  She only vaguely registered Diego’s arms around her waist, pulling her off of the trembling historian. She heard Diego apologizing as he half-carried, half-dragged, her out of the museum. She tried to get herself under control, but the shame at falling apart in front of Diego, and the rage at Miguel’s lack of help, kept her face plastered to Diego’s shoulder until he opened the door to their vehicle and lifted her to her seat.

  Diego slid into the driver’s side, but made no move to start the engine and said nothing.

  Marjorie blew her nose, wiped her tears, and stared out the window at the museum. When certain she had her emotions under control, she shifted toward Diego. “He knows. Why didn’t you make him talk? You could have intimidated him, beat him, arrested him…something…” she hissed through gritted teeth.

  “He gave us what we needed.”

  Marjorie stared at Diego with confusion. She had been out of control with frustration, but was sure she would have noticed if Miguel had divulged the location of the relic.

  “Before he said he knew nothing more, his eyes darted to the painting of Salta’s main cathedral hung on his wall, the same church where his father had cleaned in exchange for room and board,” Diego explained.

  “So the crystal is in the Son of God’s hands in a manner of speaking.”

  Diego smiled, lifted Marjorie’s hand to his lips, and kissed it gently. “How would you feel about attending midnight mass with me?”

  “Are there services tonight?”

  “No, but we shall make our own.”

  “Please tell me you have connections and we aren’t planning on breaking into a house of worship.”

  Diego’s sheepish grin and boyish shrug told Marjorie before he even opened his mouth that he didn’t plan to go through official channels to search the cathedral.

  “I am afraid I do not trust anyone enough to divulge what we’re after. Besides, religious officials are very powerful here and suspicious. If they denied us unrestricted entry, local law enforcement would back them up. I could eventually get a warrant, but by then, it may be too late, so I’m afraid, dear Marjorie, that we are on our own.”

  She groaned, rolled her eyes, and slunk down in her seat as Diego started the engine and pulled out of the museum parking lot. She had never been arrested before, and as an archeologist, Marjorie doubted breaking and entering into an historic structure would win her any awards with her peers. “Where are we going?”

  “Ah, a hardware store. We need to do a little shopping. I think unlocking a door using a credit card is only successful in the movies.”

  “You realize we’ll probably burn in Hell for this, or at a minimum, rot in an Argentinean prison if we’re caught.”

  “In that case, I suggest we avoid getting caught, and it might be worth saying a prayer and asking for forgiveness before we even begin.” He parked the vehicle and strolled toward the hardware store with Marjorie trotting behind.

  Smiling, she laced her arm through his as she caught up. “Will you think less of me if I’m a felon?”

  “It would only add to your allure,” he replied as he reached for the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  September 29, 2:00 P.M.

  Navajo Nation, Arizona

  BY THE TIME Cash and Ian reached Olivia and Benny, the argument going on between Pete and Diane faded
to a faint din, though Cash had no doubt the battled still raged on in full force. Even when she used to make snide remarks about Olivia’s life choices, Cash could hear the love in her voice, so her instant defense of her sister didn’t surprise him in the least.

  Benny looked up as the two men approached, worry etched across his weathered face. “I think we found the opening. The ancient legend speaks of some trick to entering the cavern. I seem to recall the tunnel doesn’t venture back too far, but the small space is reportedly wrought with perils. Since I never dreamed of going in, I admit I didn’t pay a lot of attention to what those might be.”

  “Are you positive this is it? This hole looks more like a snake pit than a repository for treasure,” Cash stated as he eyed the overgrown opening no bigger than the circumference of a fifty-five gallon drum.

  “I’m as sure as I can be until someone goes inside and investigates.”

  Cash pulled out his knife and began clearing the scrubby brush away from the entrance. He crouched in front of the opening, shining his light into the narrow passageway, cutting through the blackness.

  “About twenty-five feet in, the tunnel makes an abrupt turn to the right and that’s all the further I can see from here.”

  Benny nudged Cash aside and knelt in front of the dark hole holding his straw cowboy hat filled with baseball-sized rocks. He tossed a stone a couple of feet from the openingnothing happened. He repeated the process, tossing each rock a little further than the one before. Halfway to the bend in the tunnel, one broke through the surface. They listened closely, but never heard the stone hit bottom.

  “That’s the first trap you have to avoid. Once you pass the corner, you’re on your own. I doubt this is the last hazard,” Benny stated, looking up at Cash.

  “You all just assume I’m going in?”

  “I’d go if we were in the U.K., but this is your turf, so I don’t want to step on any toes,” Ian replied with a wide grin and a slap on Cash’s back.

  “Mighty considerate of you. I hope I have the chance to return the favor someday.” Cash removed his hat and handed it to Olivia.

  He hated seeing the worry in her eyes. This was his job, and he felt certain he had tackled much worse in his career and would again, but he doubted that fact would ease her concern. Worst case scenario, the cavern held a few snakes and booby traps. In his experience, nature and the non-human world offered up little beyond his ability to control. People, on the other hand, who preferred a life of evil, were another story.

  Cash crawled toward the entrance, hesitated for a moment, and then backed out into the sunlight. He hadn’t seen anything specific to set his hackles up, but something, maybe Olivia’s warm smile and worried expression, made him want to exercise more than his usual amount of caution.

  “Call to Pete and Diane and have one of them bring the rope.”

  Before long, the sounds of his two colleagues scrambling up the hill, making no attempt at stealth, reached his ears. Cash hoped Marabout and his bald buddy turned around or lagged far behind, since anyone within several miles would hear the rocks tumbling and bickering going on as they made their way toward the group.

  Cash tied the thin, long rope around his waist and handed the other end to Ian.

  “Secure this in case I fall into a pit. Hopefully, we’ve got plenty of rope to get me far enough into the cavern to check it out, but not enough where I hit the bottom before the slack runs out. Try to keep everyone quiet and alert in case our friends are still tailing us. I hope they gave up after losing their transportation, but you never know with Zara’s bunch. Those loyal to her often prefer death to failure, and by the looks of the big guy, he could probably move about as fast as our mules and equal their endurance.”

  Cash secured his headlamp, grasped a stick, and shimmied into the narrow tunnel. When he reached the spot where Benny’s stone had fallen through the floor, he poked around until he determined the dimensions of the pit. The hole was too wide to clear without standing up and taking a running jump. The opening extended to about eight inches from each cavern wall. Cash rolled over onto his side, his back against the hard-packed dirt, stretched out his full body length and inched past the trap. A cool draft wafted out from the black hole, reminding him that only an ultra-thin rope and a narrow ledge separated him from life and a cold, dark death.

  Once past the pit, he rolled back over onto his stomach, ear to the ground, and lay still for several moments until his pulse returned to normal. He progressed slowly until he reached the turn. Around the bend, he stood up, hunched over, and continued on. The cavern remained barely wide enough for his shoulders to scrape through and was blacker than a witch’s cat, except for the narrow path illuminated by his headlamp. He doubted a snake would venture further than the corner and into total darkness, which was some relief, but the fact that he had no idea what lay ahead wasn’t too comforting

  The first part of the cavern looked natural, but the walls past the sharp turn held tell-tale markings of human implements scouring the earth. He hoped the effort to dig out the tunnel with the basic tools of earlier times would ensure the route wouldn’t go back too far. Each time he moved his feet, he tested the ground before putting his full weight down and scanned the area in front, around, and overhead with his light, making his progress exceptionally slow.

  Cash had lost track of the distance he’d traveled when his foot detected hollow ground. Inching forward on hands and knees, he felt his way with his palms until he came to the edge of the obstacle. He brushed away a thin layer of dirt and removed the single covering of dry timber. Directing the light downward, he could see the bottom of the hole. It was only about ten feet deep, but pointed spikes carved of wood stood up from the floor.

  The low tech trap drew a smile to his lips. Adventure movies made people think ancient ones booby-trapped their treasures with sliding fake floors and swinging pendulums of deadly sharp blades and powerful curses, while in Cash’s opinion, this level of technology was more common and in keeping with the resources and knowledge available at the time.

  He backed up several steps, and with a running start, he easily cleared the pit. Just past the last hazard, the tunnel came to a dead end. He scoured the rough surface of the earthen walls with his fingers and scanned the tiny chamber with his light, looking for any clue as to the tunnels purpose or its hidden secrets.

  “Either Benny is wrong and this isn’t the place, or a crystal is buried in here somewhere,” he mumbled as he continued to search the small area.

  As he stood up to stretch the ache in his lower back, his head bumped the low ceiling and dirt showered down on him. He retreated several steps and flashed his light across the offending area. Pulling out his knife, he chipped away at the loose soil until he exposed half a dozen chunks of old, dry wood wedged into more solid earth and parallel to each other, creating a grate. Something rested on top of the platform, wrapped in a dusty, cracked, leather bundle.

  “Benny, I think you did it.”

  He grabbed one of the old timbers and shook it. More dirt rained down on his head as he wiggled the chunk of wood. He assumed little effort would be needed in order to work the timbers out to retrieve the bundle, but he feared removing the supports could undermine the integrity of the cavern’s ceiling. Cash yanked a little harder and more dirt and debris pelted him.

  A smart and cautious man would backtrack out of the cavern and return with help and materials to shore up the ceiling before removing the parcel, but patience was not one of his virtues, and he had never been accused of being the careful sort. One hard yank and the bundle would fall, but the motion might bring the whole cavern down upon him. Whether it was just weak with age and rotted timbers, or intentionally unstable as a last hope of protecting the sacred relic, it didn’t really matter. Bottom line, Cash possessed no desire to be buried alive.

  Visualizing the concern etched on Olivia’s face, he decided to play it safe for once in his life. He took one step away from the dead end, but halted
as a barrage of noise penetrated the cave. Despite the distortion of the earthen walls, Cash recognized the sound of automatic gun fire, and his team hadn’t brought those types of weapons on this excursion.

  Cash yanked the closest timber and caught the bundle as it fell. The ceiling groaned and rocks dislodged in a hail storm as he ran toward the first pit. He cleared the hole with room to spare, landed on his feet and kept running, hunched over. The sound of gunfire grew louder as he neared the sharp turn in the tunnel.

  As soon as he rounded the corner, he was forced to lie down and shimmy forward. He pulled himself along the ground with one arm while holding his prize tight to his side with the other. He scooted past the second pit and slowed as he reached the exit. He set the bundle down, planning to retrieve it once he neutralized the threat. At the moment, he needed his hand on his gun more than the rotted leather wrap.

  He was in a vulnerable position. If he just stuck his head out, it could very well get shot off, but he had to do something. Inching closer to the mouth of the cavern, the gunfire stopped, leaving an eerie quiet. He strained to hear sounds to clue him in on the situation, but silence ruled.

  Suddenly the slack went out of the forgotten rope tied around his waist, tightening, forcing all the air out of his lungs, propelling him into motion. The momentum yanked him out into the daylight in a blur, dislodging his gun somewhere in the process. The speed in which he was being drug up the steep hill, across the rocks, brush, and cacti on his belly grew with each painful moment. Cash struggled to retrieve the knife from its sheath at his side, but found accomplishing the task impossible as his body bounced over the rough terrain with the rope cutting into his skin.

  He abandoned all attempts to reach his blade and covered his head with his arms as he sped toward a sturdy shrub. Branches snapped and flew through the air as he scraped over the bush. Blood ran down his hands and forearms, but at least he successfully protected his skull. Fumbling, Cash finally managed to free his knife. He sawed frantically at the taut rope, realizing the mule pulling him was running full out for the lip of another steep gorge.