by Joanne Pence
She met his gaze, then folded her hands. In a concise, factual manner she gave an abridged version of the events that brought her here. “I want to find Lionel Rempart and ask him why”—she hesitated as the full impact of what she needed to know filled her and she struggled to prevent her voice from breaking—“ask him why that book has caused so many deaths.”
“And why someone has targeted you as well.” His face was grave with concern.
“I'm sure the answer is one and the same.” Sad, resigned eyes met his.
“Thank you, Ms. Reed,” he added, “for telling me all that. I'm sorry about your losses—your husband, your friends. It must be very hard for you.”
“Your words are much appreciated, Sheriff.” With a small smile she added, “And please, call me Charlotte.”
How much prettier a simple smile made her, he thought. He stood to leave. He didn't like how difficult tearing his gaze from her face had already become. He reminded himself he’d just met her as he looked toward the door trying to think of a graceful way to exit.
Just then, the telephone in the main room rang. Jake went out to answer as Quade came through the front door. “It’s a Forest Service line,” Quade explained as he reached for it. “They set up special communications out here for me since there’s no normal cell service.”
He answered and immediately handed the receiver to Jake. “For you, Sheriff.”
When Jake hung up, he felt shaken and forlorn. “A body’s been found. It may be one of the students.”
Chapter 8
THE UNIVERSITY GROUP traversed a shale-like mountaintop with treacherous footing when Rempart fell to his knees, sweat running down his temples. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He said nothing.
The others stopped and stared at him. He raised his arm and pointed at the valley floor. “Look!”
Below lay a wide, scrub-covered valley that seemed to continue on for more than two miles. In the center, the landscape rose to a single flat-topped hill, and on it stood two dark pillars. The two appeared to be the exact same height and width, and stood perfectly upright and parallel to each other.
“The twin pillars,” Melisse said as she ran an arm over her forehead, wiping off the perspiration.
Rempart brushed away his tears. His breath quickened as he struggled back to his feet. “We've got to get down there. We've got to check them out. It's an unbelievable find.”
“Are you kidding me?” Devlin shouted. “It’s a long way! We've got no food, no water. Brian is lost! We need help! We need to find people, a town, something!”
Rempart spun around to face him, his lip curled with contempt. "Do you intend to become an anthropologist or not?"
"We've got to get back," whimpered red-faced Ted, his reddish curls wet and matted against his head.
“He's right,” Vince said, pushing his glasses higher.
“What's wrong with you? Are you men or boys?” Rempart asked derisively. “Those pillars are what we came for! It’ll be dark soon. We need to make camp, scout the area for food and water and tomorrow, act like the anthropologists we are! Only after that will we be on our way.”
“Poor Brian,” Brandi whispered to Rachel, but the others heard her.
“It’s time we admit it: Brian isn't alive,” Melisse answered.
Brandi began to cry.
“But the rest of us are,” Vince said. “And it's Professor Rempart’s responsibility to get us home safely.”
“Absolutely.” Devlin's hands clenched into fists. “We don't give a damn about some old pillars. We want to go home now!”
The other students loudly agreed.
Flush with his fellow student's support, Devlin raised his chin high and squared off in front of Rempart. “Are you coming with us, Lionel?”
Rempart's cheeks reddened at the student's use of his given name. “No, I'm not. Go where you want,” he said bitterly. “Go straight to hell for all I care. I'm going to investigate those pillars. I expect this will be the last great archeological find in the continental United States, and I'll be damned if I'm going to give it up because of a bunch of whiners.”
“Fine, then.” Devlin turned his back to Rempart and addressed the others. “Let's go!”
“You’ve never told us why those pillars are so important,” Melisse said.
“They are a key to history”—Rempart’s voice rose with passion and eloquence in a way the students had never heard before—“a history only rumored and scoffed at until this discovery. Now, before our very eyes, we see that it exists. The man...or group...acclaimed as its discoverer will be right up there with Alfred Kidder. Just as he garnered fame and wealth after finding the ancient, unique Navajo civilization he named the Anasazi, so will the discoverer of this. I will not walk away from it because of you slackers!”
At the mention of fame and wealth, the students looked from Rempart to each other, and several dropped their gazes to the ground.
“I don't care!” Ted fought back tears. “Don't listen to him. I want to go home.”
“We need to keep in mind,” Rachel said to Devlin, Melisse and Vince, “that we've already come this far. It won't take much longer to get to the pillars. Once we do”—she addressed Rempart now—“this should count for our futures, right? I mean, if we're the first, we're the discoverers. All of us.”
“Well,” Rempart demurred, “yes, I would say so.”
“I guess we could even spend a little time here figuring out what they mean,” Devlin added. “I mean, we can't discover something and then, when asked what it signifies, say we were too chicken shit to stick around and find out.”
“But what if someone else gets hurt?” Brandi stamped her foot, her face, eyes and nose blubbery. “I'm with Ted. I want to leave this horrible place!”
“Do we split up?” Vince asked.
“No,” Devlin stated. “We've got to stick together.”
“Vote?” Rachel suggested.
“I say we make camp now, and tomorrow morning we go with the Professor,” Melisse said, raising her hand.
Devlin joined her, then Rachel, Vince, and finally, reluctantly, Ted and Brandi.
o0o
Jake’s fury built, took hold and twisted inside him as he pulled torn human remains from a creek. The boy’s body had caught in some brambles near the bank. Given its condition, Jake doubted he’d been killed nearby, but most likely floated some distance before reaching the ranch of a local resident, Polly Higgins.
The water had washed away the blood, and before him lay a bloated body with gashing bite marks on its head and shoulders, and a gaping hole where the stomach should have been. His shirt was gone, but wet jeans clung to his body, wedging a wallet in a back pocket. Jake pulled it out. A laminated Idaho driver’s license with the name Brian Cutter confirmed his worst fears.
The possibility that Lionel Rempart and all his young, bright students had met a similar fate was all too real. Ugly memories of Los Angeles rushed at him as well, and the combination consumed him with anger and frustration.
He wanted to look for the college kids himself. Forget these nicey-nice search teams, high-tech equipment, and hourly reports in triplicate. He wanted to put his own boots on the ground. To hunt.
Could he have done more? Acted more quickly? Better? He tried to shake off the doubts, both past and present, but knew from experience that they'd return again and again, especially at night when he lay in bed alone. And then the nightmares when he slept. He had hoped Lemhi County, Idaho would be different. He’d been wrong.
He backed away when the county’s on-call forensics team, a pair of retired San Francisco Crime Scene Unit investigators, arrived.
“Any thoughts on what happened to him?” Michael asked, breaking the silence that had surrounded the body from the time Jake placed it on dry land. He and Quade stood by the sheriff’s side through all this, but Charlotte remained many feet away, a silent, worried, and upset observer.
“The evil spirits got him,” Polly said. She
stood with a shotgun in hand, a small, seventy-five year old woman in loose Levi’s, a bulky insulated jacket, and Gortex boots. Three large shepherd mix dogs stood at her side. She ran the ranch alone since her husband died and her only son left home for a less lonely existence. Ownership of her ranch had been grandfathered into the Federal wilderness area. “When I was a girl, my best friend Clara, a Shoshone, said her grandmother called it Nininbe. She warned us never to go west of Devil’s Gulch. This here creek flows down from that area. Clara’s granny used to tell us that Nininbe created thunder and attacked strangers, tearing their bodies apart. Those not eaten disappeared. That’s why no one, no Indian, no whites, not even the Feds spend any time up in that area. They won’t admit it, but they know.”
“No spirit did this,” Jake said. As a boy he had heard the kind of stories Polly talked about, but they were just stories.
“Have there been deaths like this before, Sheriff?” Quade asked. Being careful not to touch the body, he inspected the wounds.
“Not that I’ve ever heard.”
“In the old days there were lots of stories.” Polly gave the odd-looking Quade a once-over as if trying to decide exactly what he was. “Since the Feds took over and the gold prospectors are gone, nothing happens out here anymore. Except…let me see, when was that?” She tapped a bony finger against her lips as the others waited. “Ten years? I’m not sure. Six men, not your usual hunters and fishermen, came out this way. People talked about them up at the Telichpah Flat General Store. They wanted to know about some pillars, two pillars, that made thunder and lightning. Most folks didn’t know. But the old ones, the ones who remembered the Indian legends, they knew and said nothing. The men, we heard, headed west. They never came back. They disappeared, just like that.” She snapped her fingers.
“They could have gone straight through the forest, or got on the river and came out somewhere downstream,” Jake said. “It’d be known if six men disappeared around here, and I’ve never heard about it. Excuse me.” He went to check on Charlotte, to be sure she was all right after seeing the grisly discovery.
“Why do you say those men weren’t hunters or fishermen, Mrs. Higgins?” Michael asked.
She shrugged. “Simple. They had no fishing gear, and the rifles and handguns they carried were a lot more firepower than anyone needed to take down an elk. Those who saw them said they looked like ex-military guys.”
Chapter 9
Washington D.C.
JIANJUN STOOD IN the night darkness outside Lionel Rempart’s Georgetown townhouse and worried that breaking into it would be a challenge. Sophisticated electronic locks and security systems came to mind. A street lamp illuminated the front of the home, casting light on the doorway.
Jianjun didn’t like the lay out, but he had no choice. He hurried to the front door. Once there, his worries vanished.
In three seconds, he picked the simple lock in the door knob with a tension wrench. The deadbolt would be more time-consuming, but to Jianjun’s surprise, when he turned the knob, the door opened. The deadbolt had been left off.
It made no sense, unless someone was home. Cautiously, he slipped inside, quietly shutting the door behind him.
The security alarm system had been disarmed. He quickly inspected the 1500 square foot home and found it empty.
Something was very wrong here. He couldn’t believe Lionel would go away for months and not check and double-check his security system and locks. Someone must have beaten him here. Apparently, Michael wasn’t the only one curious about what Lionel Rempart was up to. He locked the deadbolt.
In the den, Jianjun found a number of books and papers on alchemy stacked on a desk. He understood why Lionel would not leave such things in his university office for other professors to see. He would have been a laughing stock.
Included were notes and reference books suggested by Mustafa Al-Dajani. Jianjun tried reading them, but they made his head hurt. He found equally obtuse notes about The Book of Abraham the Jew and a medieval alchemist, Nicholas Flamel.
Jianjun knew all this alchemy business would interest Michael. He had been enthralled by the subject ever since finding Lady Hsieh’s tomb. Jianjun still got cold chills when he remembered how the mummy’s eyes had opened. Man, but they looked alive. They scared him so badly he nearly flew out of the tomb without using the ladder. He shivered at the memory, then went back to reading Lionel’s dull stash of materials.
A folder labeled Idaho was empty except for two items, a hand-drawn map and a letter from the widow of someone named Professor Thurmon Teasdale. The widow wrote that she was willing to give Lionel a copy of Professor Teasdale’s Idaho map, although to do so troubled her. Jianjun wondered what that was all about.
The map named no cities or towns and gave no longitude or latitude, not even a scale.
Jianjun wondered if it could be a map of the Idaho wilderness area Lionel had gone to. If Michael followed it, would he be able to find his missing brother and the students?
Jianjun used Lionel’s printer-scanner-fax to scan the map and send it to Michael with a short text about where he found it.
To his surprise, he received a text reply almost immediately.
One student found dead. No word on Lionel. Map might help. Pls ck into Charlotte Reed, ICE, and Simon Quade, CIA consultant. Background? Why here? Also rumor 6 paramilitary disappeared here 10+ yrs ago. True?
“No, no, no,” Jianjun muttered to himself as he plugged a thumb drive into Lionel’s computer to copy his files. “I’m just finding answers to the first questions he asked, now he asks a whole bunch more! ICE agents, CIA informants, and paramilitary men. What the hell is going on out there? At this rate, I’ll be stuck in Washington a month!”
As the information downloaded, he went through Lionel’s desk to see if anything interesting jumped out at him.
He heard a car door slam shut. Probably just some neighbor. He looked at the computer.
A key rattled in the door lock.
His hand hovered over the thumb drive to remove it as soon as the download finished when he heard the brush of the door against the carpet as it opened.
Chapter 10
MICHAEL PRINTED OUT the map that Jianjun sent him using the computer equipment the Forest Service had made available to Simon Quade. Michael, Charlotte and Quade had returned to the forest service cabin, while Sheriff Sullivan went to Telichpah Flat and then to Salmon City to report the news of the dead student.
Michael placed the map on the table and Quade and Charlotte joined him in perusing it. “Very interesting,” Quade murmured.
“Look!” Charlotte pointed to the center of the map. “Two pillars. Polly Higgins talked about two pillars.”
Michael nodded. “Exactly. But this map gives no indication of where they are. There’s not another landmark shown, just pillars, streams, and mountain ranges. For all we know, it’s not even real.”
“You said it came from Professor Thurmon Teasdale,” Quade said. “He was a historian, an expert on the Lewis and Clark expedition and the American Northwest. If he drew it, it’s got a high probability of being accurate.”
“If so, we need someone who knows the landscape well, who would recognize the mountain range and where the river bends and curves that particular way.” Michael wasn’t ready to trust Simon Quade, but he accepted his expertise.
“Give me some time online with the map and the CIA’s field charts,” Quade said. “We’re a bit better than Google Earth.”
Michael nodded. “In the meantime, I’ll go into Salmon City and buy some gear for backpacking. I’m going out there, wherever there is.”
“I’ll join you,” Charlotte said. “I’m going, too.”
“Buy enough for three,” Quade called, tossing his car keys to Michael.
Michael and Charlotte got into the Trailblazer. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “It could be dangerous. Besides, the law won’t like it. The sheriff didn't exactly greet us with open arms.”
She gave him a stern, fleeting look. “I suspect he’s not as bad as he pretends to be. Also, I don't blame him. I’m sure the higher ups don’t want anything to do with the disappearance, and he's the one stuck with it. He'll be the scapegoat in the end, no matter how it turns out. In any case, no one is leaving me behind.”
Her cynicism surprised him. “I've never heard of Customs sending someone out to investigate a missing scholar,” he said after a while, taking a quick glance at her.
She didn't look at him. “Oh?”
“What's the real story?” He watched her struggle with whether to trust him or not. “The search for Lionel and the students is personal for you. I’d like to know why. Is it something about Lionel? Were you seeing him?”
“Please.” Disdain dripped.
He realized she wouldn’t be open with him unless he confided in her, at least a little. “I'm here in part,” he began slowly, cautiously, “because of a strange thing that happened to me in Mongolia. I'm not sure how or why, but I believe it’s connected to my brother's disappearance. Last year, he asked me to contact the family of a Chinese geneticist who died some years earlier—”
Her head snapped toward him, eyes wide. “Go on,” she whispered.
He told her about his excavation, finding the tomb, and that its contents were stolen. He didn't give any details about Lady Hsieh or the murders of his field experts. “This history interested Lionel for some reason. I contacted him to ask why, and learned he was missing.”
Charlotte inhaled sharply. “That's everything?”
He hesitated. “There's more, but...”
“Yes?” she urged.
“It...nothing.”
She studied him openly, gauging his reactions. Finally, she spoke. “If you told me, you fear I might think you mad.”
He could scarcely believe his ears. “What do you know about all this?”
