The Biofab War (Biofab 1)

by Stephen Ames Berry

  Chapter 4

  Following John’s directions, McShane had no trouble finding the dirt road leading from the paved, two-lane state highway to Goose Hill and the cove. He pulled into a small clearing among the bayberry and scrub pine at the foot of the hill. Parking next to a red Jeep, he made his way along the densely overgrown trail to the foot of the hill, brushing aside the morning’s dew-covered cobwebs with his gnarled blackthorn Irish walker.

  As he ascended, the trail quickly turned into a rocky defile, the undergrowth becoming sparser with each step. Passing between two boulders, he heard the soft snick of a well-oiled gun bolt sliding home. Taking a chance, he called, “Zahava! Don’t shoot! It’s kindly old Professor Bob!”

  Lowering her Uzi, she stepped from behind the right-hand boulder, all contriteness. “Bob! Are you okay? I hope I didn’t frighten you.”

  “I am. You did not. I came of age in an Asian paradise called Forward Firebase Charlie. I used up my whole life’s ration of fright back then.”

  “So, not always kindly Professor Bob.”

  “We live our live in stages my dear, our past selves often people we wouldn’t recognize. Or be caught dead with. Where is everybody?”

  “Up ahead, in a maze of boulders. Greg—.”

  “The geologist John mentioned?”

  “Yes, Greg’s trying to find a particular rock.”

  “That’s what geology is all about. Lead on.”

  They found the trio (Cindy having been ordered off to work, lest her absence arouse suspicion) on a shoulder of the hill, walking behind Greg as he slowly followed a map through a great tumbled-down pile of boulders. After quick introductions, he returned to his task as Bob quizzed John. “Why in God’s name did you drag me up here? I barely had time to finish at Harvard.”

  “Finish your lunch at the Faculty Club, you mean?”

  “Oh? I told you that? It was seafood buffet day—real scallops.”

  A triumphant “Eureka!” turned them toward Greg, who was dancing an impromptu jig before a large oblong outcropping that fell from the hill’s brow to their feet.

  “What’s so unusual about that piece of granite, sir?” demanded Bob, walking over to tap the rock with his stick.

  “Several things,” the geologist said with a smile, fondly stroking the outcropping. “One, it shouldn’t be here. Granite in this quantity shouldn’t occur on transient geological structures like this sandy peninsula. But we could probably explain it away, except that it isn’t granite. It’s not even rock—I doubt any of this hill is.”

  “Feels like rock,” said Bob, touching the surface.

  Greg extended his rock hammer. “Prove it—chip off a sample for analysis.”

  Rising to the bait, Bob took the chisel-pointed tool and swung hard at a rounded edge. There was no visible effect. Mumbling, “Obdurate matter,” he handed his stick to John. Seizing the hammer with both hands, he braced his legs, aimed carefully, and swung at the offending rock with all of his not inconsiderable bulk. The hammer rebounded, its target unblemished in the morning light.

  “I yield,” he said with more humility than either John or Zahava had ever heard. “What is it?”

  “Well,” said Greg, recovering the pick, “according to spectrum analysis of a small portion—which I freed after three hours’ work with a laser torch—it’s an alloy with the density of titanium, but ten to the fourth titanium’s tensile strength.”

  “What is it?” repeated Bob.

  “I’ve no idea—neither does the lab that ran the tests. But here’s the show stopper.” He took a flashlight from his daypack. “I stumbled onto this while adjusting the laser.” Flicking on the beam, he flashed it onto a dark upper corner of the outcropping, a spot the sun never touched. A tiny green flash responded.

  The lower quarter of the outcropping noiselessly swung aside. A neatly finished opening the width of two men yawned before them, dust-laden stairs dropping into the hill’s stygian gloom. Two sets of fresh boot prints, one up and one down, told of recent entry.

  For a long moment, only the sound of wind and tide playing against the weather side of the hill was heard.

  “Oh my,” Bob managed, a quiver to his voice. “The implications of this, if it’s what I believe, are so vast, so sweeping . . .”

  “Wait’ll you see the rest,” said Greg.

  “Yours?” John asked, pointing to the boot prints.

  “From the day before my banishment. Care for a tour?”

  “Try to stop me,” said John. “Someone should stand guard,” he added, carefully avoiding Zahava’s return glare. “Hate to get trapped in there.” Relenting only after heavy pleading, she turned to go, pouting. “Better get the Uzi out of my car trunk,” he added, tossing her the keys.

  “Expecting another attack?” asked Greg.

  “At least,” said John.

  Greg led the way with his big hand torch, followed by Bob and John. He counted 150 steps down before the rock-hewn passage turned sharply right, widening into a vaulted chamber, its center dominated by a rough stone altar. The walls tiered upward into equally rude stone benches. In all, John guessed the small chamber might have held fifty people.

  “Do you know what this is?” asked Greg, his tone implying they didn’t.

  “It would appear to be an altar chamber sacred to Bel of the Celtiberians—the Celtic peoples,” Bob said evenly. He brought out his own light from a baggy tweed pocket and played it over the oval altar stone. “Seeing the earlier sample from here, I was expecting something like this. This chamber could probably be dated around 100 AD, if certain huge conflicts didn’t exist.”

  “Such as?” asked John, knowing of at least one: sophisticated technology guarding the entrance to a rude temple contemporary with Augustus Caesar.

  “This,” said Bob, holding up the stone fragment John had last seen disappearing into Sutherland’s briefcase. “I had to sign my life away to get this from Bill. As we know, it’s Egyptian of the Middle Kingdom. It fits perfectly, I’ll bet, into that freshly carved niche over the outside entrance way. Your work?” he asked Greg.

  “Yes.” The geologist nodded. “I gave it to Joe Antonucchi the night before I was shipped out. I see he managed to get it off before he was killed—a killing, by the way, I only heard about from Cindy a week after it happened.”

  “You’re clean,” said John. “The FBI placed you in Shreveport that day. So, you think this is what got Antonucchi killed, Greg?”

  “Yes. Once this find was announced, no port facility, no more Royal contract. This would have become the new Area 51. And put a crimp in Director Freddy’s lifestyle.”

  “Yes and no,” said Bob. “If I were Langston, I’d give my right hand to have found this. I’d use it to catapult my scientific career into the heavens. My colleagues would honor me—once they got over the shock and stopped belittling me. Any university in the world would have me on my own terms. Rumors of government intrigue and involvement would only heighten my reputation. And my lecture fees…!” He leaned against the altar, silhouetted by Greg’s powerful light. “You’d do very well out of this, Greg.”

  “I know.”

  “Besides,” John added. “Royal wouldn’t cancel Leurre’s contract. They’d just move the docking facility to New Bedford and bask in the sheen of Langston’s reflected glory. The positive PR would help overcome the flak they’re taking for wanting to drill here.”

  “Any thoughts on the doorway?” asked McShane.

  “A million,” Farnesworth grinned. “All culled from Saturday sci-fi reruns. I do have an observation, though. Even under a magnifying glass, there’s no visible separation between rock and door. They seem melded together—maybe on a sub-molecular level.”

  Bob cleared his throat. “Well that steals some of my thunder.”

  “We interrupted you,” said John. “You were saying about the fragment?”

  “I was saying that fragment’s in a language whose peoples were dust five thousand years before
the Celts of Europe. There are lucid arguments for the existence of ancient trading routes to the New World from the Classical—Egypt, Tarshish, Carthage. Dead Mediterranean languages have been found carved into rocks throughout North America, especially New England. But this is the first evidence that allegedly unrelated, loose trading confederations not only were established on these shores, but also overlapped, interacting with each other down through time. To believe that two people so far separated in time and origin as the Celts and the Egyptians occupied the same concealed site—concealed, mind you—fifty centuries apart through coincidence . . . well, I can’t accept it. The little green light and its wondrous door only fuel my skepticism.”

  Automatic weapons fire echoed faintly through the temple.

  “Zahava!” cried John, leading the rush for the stairs.