Seven Wonders

by Ben Mezrich

  Jack couldn’t tell how much farther down it went after everything turned green. He knew from Jeremy’s satellite data that somewhere down there, the cliff ended in a sort of valley, a ledge of more granite that ran thirty yards along the mountain, covered in forest even more dense than he’d just cut through. The ledge was bordered on all sides by an even steeper cliff face—hundreds of feet high, covered in more vegetation—and was a part of the mountain that was off the grid as far as Jack could tell, untouched by the hikers that regularly scaled the opposite side of Corcovado, which led down into one of the most picturesque parks on the outskirt of Rio. Although Jeremy’s satellite data was precise in most areas, it hadn’t given Jack an accurate read on how far the cliff in front of him went once it was swallowed by the rainforest. Infrared telemetry could only take him so far; hopefully, rope could take him the rest of the way.

  He took the coil off his shoulder and quickly found one end, which was capped by a sophisticated steel clasp. Then he reached an arm into his jacket, all the way to another sewn pocket, right up against his side. He retrieved the next vital item he always carried with him; this time, something of his own design.

  A little bigger than his palm, at first glance the item looked like some sort of metal spider, dead and curled up into a ball, legs twisted together. Then Jack hit a lever on the side of the device, the sharply clawed legs clicked free, and the thing opened into a compact, sturdy grapple similar to the grappling hooks one could find in any climbing equipment store.

  One of the many pieces of advice his father had given him—besides the importance of antivenom and the need for a good, sturdy blade—was that field anthropology was ninety percent preparation, and ten percent trying desperately to recover when you didn’t prepare properly. To that end, the portable grapple had gotten Jack out of more jams than he could count.

  With three quick twists, he attached the open grapple to the clasp on the end of the rope. Then he backtracked the few yards to the platform of lights and used the iták to cut away an area of vegetation until he could reach the steel frame at the base of the construct. He saw a pair of cables running up toward the statue and around the back of the viewing platform; power cords, he assumed, leading to a generator somewhere back around by the train depot. Jack took care to avoid the cables, and found a place on the steel frame that seemed perfect for the grapple. He swung the rope carefully, then tossed the grapple over the frame, letting it twist around twice, the sharp claws grasping into place. He gave the rope a good tug, making sure it was going to hold his weight. Then he hiked back to the edge of the cliff.

  Back on his knees, he reached for the Velcro strap and unhitched the aluminum-wrapped dish. He took a headset out of a pocket and put the earpiece in his right ear, the mouthpiece in front of his lips. Then he lay down against the mossy rock, flicked a switch on the side of the dish, and held his arms as far as he could over the ledge, aiming the dish straight down.

  “Okay, talk to me,” he said into the mouthpiece. There was a short pause, followed by some static. Then Andy was whispering in his ear.

  “Lit up the second you engaged the dish. Christ, Doc, it’s bright as a Christmas tree.”

  Jack felt heat rising in his chest. He knew exactly what Andy and Dashia were looking at on her laptop screen—because he’d seen the image on Jeremy’s thumb drive. Jeremy had made his discovery by accident; he had been using the satellite images to try and pinpoint the exact geographic center of Christ the Redeemer, using different satellite spectrum data—infrared, radar, ultrasound—to function out the topographical specifics of the location. Jeremy probably hadn’t realized it, but archaeologists and anthropologists had been using satellite surveys to look at ruins hidden beneath deserts and jungles for years; you could see things from thousands of miles up that you’d never find with a shovel and flashlight. Certainly, Jeremy hadn’t been expecting to see something buried deep beneath the tropical brush; but when he’d seen it, he’d known immediately that he was looking at something bizarre—something that shouldn’t have been there at all.

  The dish in Jack’s hand—which they’d borrowed from an MIT engineering lab with the help of one of Andy’s fawning contacts—was a pinpoint method of double-checking what Jeremy had found in the satellite data. The engineering student had assured them the device would get an accurate reading on multiple spectrums like a satellite, and it was easily adapted to work with the Bluetooth chip in Dashia’s laptop. Now Andy and Dashia had a bird’s-eye view of the enigma to go along with Jeremy’s space-eyed view. And from the change in Andy’s voice, Jack knew he had placed himself in the correct position.

  “A cross,” Andy whispered. “About fifty-five feet long, another thirty-five feet at the arms. Imbedded right in the granite, hidden beneath what looks to be a ten-foot-high unbroken canopy of flora. From the spectrum analysis, looks to be made of some sort of metal.”

  Jack whistled low to himself. A huge metal cross, dug right into the mountain, hidden beneath the rainforest. The thick canopy of forest explained why nobody else had stumbled over it in recent years—but how long had it been there? And who had put it there? Was it another religious icon, to go with the Redeemer?

  There was nothing Art Deco about a metal cross hidden beneath the tropical forest.

  “How far down is it?” Jack asked, bringing his arms back from over the ledge and trading the dish for the rope.

  “At least forty feet,” Andy said.

  “And how much rope do I have?”

  Andy paused on the other end of the headset.

  “Thirty-five, minus whatever you’re using to reach the light fixture.”

  Jack did the calculations in his head. He was going to be about twenty feet short. Not insurmountable; twenty feet down through thick forest probably wouldn’t kill him. But it wasn’t the way down he was worried about. It was the way back up. The valley below, where the strange cross was situated, was bordered by a cliff much steeper than the one in front of him.

  One potentially fatal obstacle at a time, Jack thought to himself. And then he tossed the rope over the edge and let it unspool foot by foot down the sheer cliff face.

  • • •

  “I’m not going to say it,” Jack hissed, breathing heavy as he rappelled the last few feet, kicking his way around a jagged outcropping of granite to position himself right above the thick canopy of gnarled trees. “But you can guess where I am.”

  The end of his rope, and still a good five feet from the trees, and another fifteen feet beneath the canopy, to the granite valley floor. Peering down, he saw nothing but chaotic gnarls of leaf, vine, and intermittent bark. The tropical canopy was twisted so tightly together, it was impossible to make out individual branches or trunks. He knew that the Tijuca was one of the most diverse rainforests—there could be more than four hundred different species of tree interlocked together beneath him—but he would have given anything for just one good climbing trunk. Instead, he was going to have to take his chances.

  “Looks like I’m taking the express route the rest of the way,” he said.

  With one hand, he took the headset off and placed it back in his jacket. Then he lowered himself as far as he could with his arms, and let go.

  There was a brief moment of weightlessness, and then his boots hit the top of the canopy, and the tangle bent inward. For a moment he thought it might hold—and then there were a series of cracks, and he was tumbling through, leaves and vines whipping at his skin. He covered his face with his arms, curling his body into a ball. He felt something hard catch him under his right rib, and a branch hit him behind his knees, pitching him forward. Then, suddenly, he was through the canopy and falling. He uncovered his face just in time to see the ground hurtling toward him. He twisted his body to the side, and then he hit, shoulder first. The impact knocked the breath out of his lungs, and shots of pain rocketed through his shoulder. He rolled onto his back, looking up at the rays of light that shined down through the small hole he had created
in the canopy above. He could just barely make out the end of the rope dangling along the cliff face more than twenty feet above.

  Hell, he’d probably been wrong—if it hadn’t been for the canopy breaking much of his fall, the drop might very well have killed him. He was going to have to add this little stunt to his growing list of stupid decisions.

  After another moment lying still, mentally checking himself out for any injuries he couldn’t walk off, he rolled to a sitting position. The ground beneath him was covered in soft moss—another reason he wasn’t damaged beyond a bruised shoulder—and the air was thick with spores, dust, and mist. Even with the light coming through the hole above, it was hard to see beyond a few feet; the canopy was thick enough to turn day into night, and the light streamed down through the hole like rays through a prism, reflecting oddly through the humid air, breaking off into miniature rainbows as it reached the ground, painting the moss in bands of color.

  Jack shook the last effects of the impact away and rose to his feet. Squinting through the darkness, he saw that he was in a sort of cavern, formed by the granite below and the forest above. It stretched out fifty yards to his right and left. Ahead, he could make out the wall of the cliff, rising up into the canopy; it was as sheer as above, and would be difficult, but maybe not impossible, to climb. Behind him, he knew that somewhere there would be a ledge and another cliff, hidden behind more of the thick green brush. Jack had no intention of digging far in that direction—that would be a fall no amount of tree cover would be able to cushion.

  Instead, he started carefully forward. He had made it a few yards before he stopped suddenly, making out a large shape stretching out across the floor of the canopied area ahead of him.

  He reached into his jacket and found the headset. To his pleasant surprise, it looked intact, and he placed it back on over his ears and mouth.

  “Hey, kid, up and running, no worse for wear. How’s it going topside?”

  “Damn, Doc, good to hear from you. One of the security guards came by to ask about the laptop, but we told him we’re working on a high school paper on the statue. One of the benefits of being Asian, everyone thinks you’re fourteen until you’re fifty. You made the leap of faith, I assume?”

  “Almost landed on my feet. And I think I’ve found something.”

  “Is it a cross?”

  Jack exhaled into the darkness.

  “We’re about to find out.”

  Then he pulled one of the flares from his jacket, held it out in front of him, and yanked the cord.

  • • •

  It wasn’t a cross, exactly. But the dimensions were right, and it was made of metal.

  “It’s an airplane,” Jack said. “Twin propeller. Pretty old, from the looks of it. The fuselage and cockpit appear to be mostly intact, though the landing gear is gone. Most of the frame has dug itself into the granite floor.”

  “An airplane? You’re shitting me. How did it get down there?”

  Jack felt frozen in place, staring at the plane through the flame and sparks fizzing out of the top of the flare. It was like something out of an old movie or antique air show. Curved, knoblike nose, oblong wings extending out against the solid cavern floor, propellers attached to cylindrical engines. The tail was almost entirely intact, reaching within a few feet of the vegetation above. He looked past the tail at the canopy of green, and then back at the stone floor. He noticed a dark stain beginning near the center of the fuselage, spreading out to cover much of the floor from tail to cockpit. Dried fuel. He took a step back, making sure the sparks from the flare didn’t land anywhere near the stain.

  “I assume it landed here. Well, crash-landed, though from the relative lack of damage it appears to have been a controlled ditch. I’m far less bothered by how it got here than when.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Jack squinted at the side of the plane. Though the metal was covered in rust, pockmarked by holes and jagged tears, he could see numbers imprinted along one wing. He couldn’t make out all of them, but at least a few were still clear enough to read.

  “Kid, I need Dashia to look something up for me.”

  He read the numbers that he could see out loud, and waited for Dashia to get the information via her laptop.

  “I think it’s a Lockheed Electra 10, but I can’t get much more specific than that from what you’ve given me,” Dashia said a few seconds later. “From the design you’ve described, and the numbers, it’s circa 1930s, at the latest.”

  Jack whistled, low. The airplane in front of him was over eighty years old. From the trees that had overgrown the valley, he guessed that it had been there almost that long. Which would have placed this crash landing right about the time when Christ the Redeemer had been completed.

  Jack let the flare burn down, then tossed it far behind him, away from the stain of dried fuel. Then he took a small flashlight out of his jeans pocket, and started forward.

  “I’m going to see what’s inside,” he said.

  Getting to the door of the cockpit proved more difficult than it looked. He had to climb over two sets of rock outcroppings to get to the closest wing, and as he put his boot against the metal, he nearly stepped right through; because of the heavy humidity in the air, the alloy had rusted through to the point of near collapse, and there was a good chance that if he wasn’t careful, the whole thing would crumble beneath him.

  But he wasn’t going to turn back now. Using his hands, he slid himself onto the wing and pulled himself along the rusted surface, careful to keep his weight as balanced across his body as possible. By the time he made it to the cockpit door, he was breathing hard.

  The door came open easily, two of the hinges snapping off and clanging to the cavern floor. When the first hinge hit, Jack noticed a strange echo—a sort of skittering sound that lasted long after the hinge had stopped bouncing against the granite. But he was too busy clambering inside the aging cockpit to give it much thought.

  The interior of the cockpit was cramped and full of what felt like cobwebs; there was a thick, oily smell in the air, and the ceiling was peeling, strips of rubbery material hanging down so close it brushed against his hair. The control console looked ancient—two steering columns, lots of dials and switches. Most of the buttons and knobs had rotted away, and the glass windshield was shattered, a web of cracks extending from nose to roof.

  Jack was about to climb back out of the cockpit when he caught site of something on the floor beneath the pilot’s seat, jammed right up beneath the control console. He immediately dropped to his knees, aiming the flashlight.

  In front of him was an iron crate, about the size and shape of a small briefcase. And on top of the crate, a leather-bound flight manual.

  Jack crawled forward, grabbing the crate and flight manual, and dragged the objects back to the center of the cockpit. He flipped through the manual, glancing at the pages of notations, flight maps, longitudes and latitudes, and placed it on the floor. Then he turned his attention to the crate.

  There was a lock on one side, covered in rust. Jack quickly retrieved his iták from the long holster in his jacket. The first swing only nicked at the rusted metal, but the second swing made a noticeable groove. Jack began swinging harder, the sound of the blade against the lock ringing in his ears.

  As he worked, he again noticed the strange echo—a skittering, clacking sound that seemed to be reverberating all around him—lasting well after he stopped swinging the iták. And the sound seemed to be growing louder. Jack was about to take a look out the cockpit door, see what the hell was making the noise, when the lock suddenly came apart.

  Jack forgot about the sound, slid the bolo back into the holster, and then opened the iron crate.

  “My god,” he whispered.

  He reached into the crate, digging through a bed of straw to an object wrapped loosely in cloth. He tore the cloth away to reveal a stone tablet, about the size of a hardcover book, which he instantly recognized. It was remarkably similar to th
e tablet he had seen in the pit beneath the Temple of Artemis: the tablet in the painting, though apparently a smaller version of the one the Amazonian warriors were carrying out of the forest. Flat, with an image of a seven-segmented snake carved into its center. But on this tablet, Jack saw what appeared to be a tiny pictogram next to the first of the seven segments.

  Jack looked even closer, holding the flashlight in two fingers, his face only inches from the stone.

  The pictogram appeared to have been added to the stone; the rock itself appeared to be much, much older than the colored carving next to the snake segment. Though he wasn’t sure what it meant, the image was clear: a drawing of a human head, bearded, with long, flowing hair. Even stranger, one of the eyes on the head had been painted metallic gold.

  Jack stared at the pictogram, his heart pounding in his chest. Then he coughed.

  “I think I know what this is,” he said, aloud. “I think this is a clue—”

  “Doc,” Andy’s voice burst through his ear. “Do you hear that? Is it interference? Because it seems to be getting a lot louder.”

  Jack blinked. He could hear it too, now—the scratching, clicking, skittering sound was bouncing through the canopied area, so loud the entire cockpit felt like it was trembling. Jack leaned forward and stuck his head a few inches out the cockpit door, extending the flashlight out in front of him.

  Then he froze.

  The ground around the airplane seemed to be shifting. He shined his flashlight farther back, but it was hard to see through the humid air. He made a quick decision, placing the flashlight back in his pocket and reaching for a second flare. He pulled the cord and then held the flare over his head.

  “Shit,” he gasped. “It’s moving.”

  “Doc? What’s moving?”

  “Everything.”

  The floor, the vegetation running up the sides of the cavern, the wall, the canopy above—all of it was pulsating, moving. Alive.