“Yeah,” Sean slid his phone closed, “just checking my messages.”
“You sure everything’s all right?”
“Everything is fine. A detective from Atlanta PD called a few times. Said he wanted to ask me some more questions.” Sean stared at his phone. “Not sure what’s going on.”
Allyson turned around. “Was it the same guy you talked to the other day?”
“Yeah.”
Joe had a serious look on his face. “I wonder if they heard something from the people that took Tommy.” His country accent seemed to get deeper with the grave tone that accompanied the statement.
“Maybe,” Sean contemplated. “Or he still thinks I had some part in his disappearance.”
“I can’t believe this cop thinks you had something to do with it. Tommy’s your best friend.”
McElroy listened to the conversation patiently. He understood exactly what Sean was saying, and it made sense. The thought that the police were probably looking for them caused him to speed the truck up a little.
“I know,” Sean said with resolve. “But right now, I guess I am the most logical suspect to the cops. That just means we have to figure this thing out so we can find Tommy and whoever has done this.”
Behind the wheel, Joe was increasingly becoming more nervous. Maybe it was paranoia from the thought that he could be aiding fugitives, but he could swear that the silver sedan behind them was tailing them.
Allyson had turned back around to face out the front of the truck. She ended the conversation by saying, “Well, I don’t think you as a suspect makes any sense.”
Sean appreciated the confidence she had in him. He decided not to continue the talk. It was probably better that he not mention some of the other evidence that the police were inevitably looking at. The main motive the cops probably had was that if Tommy died, Sean inherited control of the entire IAA and the enormous fortune that went with it.
Detective Morris had more than likely thought of that before anything else.
Looking up in the front seat, Sean saw that Joe was noticeably uneasy. He leaned forward and put his hand on the driver’s shoulder. “What’s the matter with you?”
McElroy was busy checking both mirrors. The sedan that he’d thought was following them had got closer and was only a few car lengths behind. Sean didn’t need a response. His friend’s eyes told him exactly what was going on. Just as he was turning around, he saw a black barrel held by a gloved hand extend out of the passenger side of the silver vehicle.
Instantly, his mind cleared of all other thoughts, and his years of training kicked in. “Get down!” he shouted at Allyson, who had certainly not seen the danger in the car behind. To make sure she obeyed, Sean grabbed her head and shoved it downward.
“What are you doing?” Allyson started at him, angry at the gruff behavior. Then she saw him pulling the gun out of his jacket. She risked a peek in the side mirror just as the glass exploded. The sudden blast brought a scream from her mouth.
“Stay down!” he barked again. This time, she did as told while another round of bullets thudded against the tailgate of the pickup truck. Then, two hit the back window, sending a spiderweb across its surface.
Joe didn’t say anything. His focus was on the curvy road ahead. He swerved the truck back and forth across the lanes, trying to give the attackers a more difficult target.
With the chase speeding up, both vehicles were reaching speeds that were certainly unsafe on the dangerous, tight turns of the mountain road. Guardrails ran along the side of the highway, but they hardly seemed enough to stop a few tons of metal from blasting through and into the chasm beyond.
Sean rolled down his window and bent his body sideways, bracing his back against the front part of the door. With two arms extended, he squeezed off a salvo of bullets at the pursuers, sending a few through the hood and another grouping into the windshield. The driver of the car slowed down slightly and duplicated the maneuvers Joe had used a few seconds before instead of keeping the car steady.
“You get ‘em?” Joe yelled as Sean climbed back into the seat, ejecting the empty clip and replacing it with a practiced ease.
“No,” Sean’s breathing had hardly changed at all. He’d no sooner spoken than the clinking sound of more bullets hitting the truck interrupted him.
Allyson remained tucked away in the front passenger seat, unsure of what she should be doing.
Sean slid across the bench seat to the other side and lowered the window. He shoved the weapon out the opening and squeezed the trigger again. The shots he fired this time were at the gunman, shattering the mirror at the man’s waist. Sean had hit his thigh. Momentarily, the assailant leaned over, grasping his now-bleeding leg.
Pulling himself back into the cab, Sean shouted at Joe. “Mac, I got an idea!”
“Do I wanna hear it?” Another volley of projectiles pounded the truck, one missing Joe by mere inches, piercing the windshield. He reacted by lurching the truck to the right.
“When I tell you, slam on the brakes, and let them hit us!”
“What? Are you crazy?!” His beady eyes were wide with doubt.
“Just do it,” Sean insisted.
“All right,” Joe mumbled. Then he raised his voice, “But you’re buyin’ me a new truck!”
Without acknowledging the comment, Sean reached back out the driver’s side rear window again, this time only peppering a few shots at the car. He turned his head around to look at the road ahead, the wind blowing hard in his face. Joe steered the car around a sharp corner, edging over into the other lane; the force nearly pulled Wyatt out of the window. The road straightened out briefly, but another curve approached rapidly about a hundred yards ahead.
“Mac, just before you get to that turn, hit the brakes!”
Joe didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Sean arched his body out the opening again and launched a few more bullets.
“Hang on, buddy!” Joe shouted back. He looked over at Allyson, who was bracing herself for the collision.
Joe slammed on the brakes. Sean braced himself against the back of the seat as the truck quickly lost velocity.
The driver of the pursuing car did not expect the brash move and swerved immediately to avoid the stopping pickup.
Instantly, Sean turned out the window unleashed a flurry of bullets into the exposed and now-off-balance gunman in the passing car. Crimson liquid erupted from his neck as he slid back in through the window, grasping pointlessly at the wounds.
Suddenly, another gunshot resonated from the front seat of the truck. Sean saw the bullet hit the driver in the shoulder, causing the attacker to jerk the steering wheel left.
The feeble guardrails gave way easily to the head-on force of the speeding vehicle. There was a brief sound of metal grinding on metal as the car vaulted over the edge of the mountain and disappeared from site.
Joe eased the truck to a stop, feeling very awkward at the moment.
Sean’s face was stunned as he peered into the front seat. What he saw was Allyson sprawled across his friend’s lap, arms extended out the window, holding a Glock 9 mm.
“Journalist?” he asked with an eyebrow raised.
She was busy trying to pull herself off of Joe, who just stared at her with his mouth agape.
“Well,” she said, sliding her gun back into a concealed jacket pocket, “I may have hidden a few details.” She shrugged and gave a flirty smile.
Sean just shook his head. “You mean, like, all of them?” He couldn’t help but chuckle as he reached for the door handle.
The three simultaneously opened the doors, got out of the bullet-riddled vehicle, and stepped over to the now-mangled railing. Just beyond it, the mountain dropped off down a steep cliff. At the bottom, probably five hundred feet below, the undercarriage of the smoking car lay motionless, facing the sky.
Mac snorted, “In the movies, don’t those things usually blow up?”
“Yeah,” Sean said without a smile. He holstered h
is gun back inside his jacket.
Allyson stood calmly, looking down the mountainside at the wreckage.
Joe was still very confused. “I think you have some explainin’ to do, young lady.”
Sean turned and looked at her as well. “Yeah,” he agreed, “exactly who are you working for?”
“I work for the same agency you used to work for, Sean,” her demeanor had changed dramatically from vulnerable to stalwart.
“You work for Axis?” Sean was skeptical, one eyebrow raised.
“Yeah. Sorry I had to lie to you. It was necessary.”
“I’m used to women lying to me,” he replied sarcastically.
“I was just following orders. They gave me permission to fill you in if and when necessary.”
“I had those two handled,” Sean motioned to what was left of the sedan in the ravine below.
She smiled and cocked her head to the side, “Just thought you could use a little help. No need to thank me.”
He snorted a few laughs and shook his head. “Wow. It’s like that, huh?”
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Joe cut into the interaction between them, “but we should probably get out of here.”
The two acknowledged his assessment and headed back toward the truck. Joe looked back one last time at the gaping hole where the gray metal barrier had stood. Then he got in the cab and revved the engine to life.
Sean closed the back door then asked, “So is your real name Allyson Webster?”
She looked back at him playfully with a wicked grin, “Maybe.”
33
Blue Ridge Mountains
Normally, Tommy didn’t sleep well in cars. In fact, traveling in airplanes, buses, and even the occasional train made it difficult for him to get any kind of real rest. For the last hour, however, he’d slept like a log in the backseat of the Hummer. Unfortunately, the nap was over.
“Wake up, we’re here.” The accented voice startled Tommy.
During the brief sleep, he’d hoped that the man called Ulrich had just been a figment of some nightmare. With waking came the realization that he wasn’t. “Where is here?” He asked, still half-asleep.
“Track Rock,” Ulrich reminded him from the front passenger’s seat. Apparently, the guy running the show preferred to be driven when possible. Or maybe he just wanted to keep an eye on the prisoner, not fully trusting the guard in the back with Tommy.
“Oh, yeah. Right,” he feigned forgetfulness. “So, is there a Waffle House around here? I could use some scattered, smothered, and covered hash browns right about now.”
The response he got was a cereal bar hitting him in the chest from the front of the vehicle.
“Thanks,” Tommy replied sarcastically with an upward nod.
Outside the truck, the sun was bright coming up over the mountains in the early morning sky. He was glad the windows were at least tinted.
The hired gun driving the SUV pulled into a parking spot near an open field that led uphill and into a forest that stretched another thousand feet higher.
Ulrich spoke up again as he opened the back door, “Move.”
Tommy opened his own door, stepping into a vastly different world than he’d left in the city. All around them, the hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains were patched with the vibrant colors of autumn. No other cars were in the parking lot at this time of day, save for the white-and-green truck of whatever ranger was on duty. A light breeze brushed over the group, making the air cooler than normal. The elevation also dropped the temperature several degrees. Tommy was glad he had put on his jacket the morning he’d been kidnapped.
A solitary cloud wisped through the sky high above them as the entourage walked from the parking area through the grass. Short Guard was carrying a black book bag on one shoulder. “What’s with the bag?” Tommy asked.
The stocky man in the black trench coat did not answer. He just kept walking with his eyes focused forward.
Up ahead, perhaps only a hundred feet from the parking lot, four large cages sat at the trailhead of the woods. The iron bars had been fastened around the rocks to keep graffiti artists and vandals from disturbing the integrity of the site.
Tommy thought back to the research from the night before and shook his head, realizing that the number four appeared again with these four boulders. Apparently, the number four had something to do with the solution. Maybe it was a coincidence. There was no way to know for sure at that moment. He just hoped there was something to find at that site, anything. If he was wrong about the boulders having an answer to the riddle, there was little doubt what these killers would do.
As the small group arrived at the cluster of caged stones, Ulrich said something in Russian to the guy with the backpack who nodded and set the bag down at Tommy’s feet. He turned and skulked his way back toward the car, head down.
“Where’s he going?” Tommy asked.
“To watch the car.” The answer was short. “Now tell me, Thomas, how are these stones going to show us anything?”
That was a question that had puzzled historians and tourists alike for centuries. What their eyes stared at was like nothing else they had ever seen in any history book. Every boulder had snakelike lines drawn on them. Along with the linear designs were circles and ovals in what looked like random placement all over the soft soapstone surfaces. There were also different types of animal tracks and even human feet drawn on the rocks in between the other designs.
The native Cherokee had called it Degayelunha meaning painted place. Amazingly, the mysterious petroglyphs had resisted translation for thousands of years.
Tommy took it all in. He’d been here about a year ago before. The view from the top of the mountain top was absolutely breathtaking. A visitor’s center was open there from Memorial Day until October. With a summit elevation of 4,784 above sea level, it became one of the colder spots in the Southeast during winter.
When he’d first heard the idea that ancient Indians had drawn constellations and meteoric occurrences on the hefty rocks, he’d been skeptical. Surely, a primitive people like the original Native Americans were unable to document such an elaborate celestial map. Yet when Schultz had arrived on site during his previous visit, his mind had changed.
He had spent hours scouring over the detail of the drawings, analyzing them and taking photographs. After returning to his office in Atlanta, he spent days trying to compare the site to other ancient carvings and paintings all over the world. Nothing could be found that was even remotely similar.
Of course, Tommy had intended to return to the location to study the stones further. He’d even hoped that there was a link between the area and his ongoing search for the lost chambers. Caught up in a whirlwind of other discoveries that took precedence, he’d been unable to come back. Now, he stood on the ancient site again, wondering what it all meant and how everything connected.
“Do you have a camera?” he finally asked, shaking loose his thoughts.
Ulrich nodded toward the black bag that was sitting at Schultz’s feet. “Everything you need is in there.”
Tommy acknowledged the answer by squatting down and unzipping the backpack. Inside, he found a small digital camera, a notepad, and a laptop with an Internet card lying next to it. “Wow, were you guys Boy Scouts?”
Both the guard and Ulrich gave him puzzled look, apparently not appreciating the sarcasm.
“Never mind,” he mumbled back.
Tommy grabbed the camera and fiddled with a few of the buttons to get the settings the way he wanted them. Ten minutes later, he was finishing up taking pictures of the last boulder. Ulrich and the remaining guard had walked around the area with him keeping a careful eye on his every move. At one point, Jens had asked, “Why do you need so many pictures?”
Tommy sighed. “Are you going to let me do what I do or not?”
He replied by moving his jacket to the side to expose the pistol underneath.
Uninspired, he continued speaking at his two captors, “Loo
k, hundreds of experts over thousands of years haven’t been able to figure out what these glyphs mean from looking at them. How will I do it with just a few pictures? We have a much better chance of succeeding if we use technology to our advantage. Taking shots from every possible angle should help.”
Ulrich let his jacket fall back to where it had been covering the gun, apparently satisfied with the response.
“Did you guys happen to bring a USB line for this camera?” They’d thought of everything else up until this point.
“It’s in the bag,” the guard said, speaking for the first time since leaving the mansion.
With that, Tommy moved quickly back over to where he’d left the backpack on the ground. First, he took the laptop out and laid it on top of the nearest stone with a flat area. He then dug around in the inner pockets of the bag until he found the cord he was looking for. A few minutes later, he was busy transferring the photographs over to the computer.
“Now what are you doing?” Ulrich demanded as he watched over Schultz’s shoulder.
Tommy answered directly, “I am putting all of these pictures on one screen. If I can look at them all at once, maybe I can make more sense of the entire layout than if we just look at them individually.”
“Do it.” Ulrich approved.
Nodding, Tommy finished setting up the pictures so he could see all of them on the screen. “This may take a while,” he remarked while giving them an annoyed glance. Then he started shuffling the pictures around with the mouse.
Doubt crept into his mind as he meticulously scanned the drawings on the screen. What if they were in the wrong place? It was entirely possible that the glyphs on the boulders were not drawings of constellations at all. No, this had to be the place. There was nowhere else that would fit the clue’s description.
Minutes went by with zero recognition of anything even vaguely familiar. Tommy was about to go back over to the steel cages for another look when something on the screen finally caught his eye. His pause caught the attention of his watchers.
The Secret of the Stones Page 16
