Timeless

by Teresa Reasor

  “Four lightning strikes in one night would be considered unusual and one that could compromise the dam since it hasn’t been completed,” Quinn argued.

  “Four. Are you sure?” Adeline’s eyes rounded in surprise.

  Quinn picked up an object from her husband’s desk. At first glance, it looked like a long bit of dried branch coral encrusted with barnacles. “We found four different fulgurites at four different locations inside the core.

  “What is that, Quinn?” one of the divers asked, his bushy brows clumped together in a frown.

  “It’s where the lightning strikes the sand and melts it into glass then sand adheres to the outside while it’s liquid.” Quinn offered it to him. “I’ve seen them before, but none as long as these. They’re very fragile and most break into pieces when you dig them.”

  The man took the vein-like sculpture and turned it in his hands to study, then passed it on to Adeline.

  “There may be no damage to the dam,” Quinn continued. “But I want you all to go on the premise that there is, so you’ll be prepared should something unexpected happen. I’d use the ROV if it wouldn’t take several days to go over the structure in the time you six can do it in a few hours. If there’s damage, we’ll have to evacuate the site and get the engineers in here to repair it before work goes any further.”

  Fergus Fraser cleared his throat drawing everyone’s attention. “Mr. Nicodemus will not be happy with any delays.” His unhurried manner of speech seemed irritatingly slow to Quinn.

  “He’ll be more unhappy if the dam gives way and water covers the site again.”

  Fraser inclined his head in agreement. “I’ll notify him of what’s happened and what you’re doing to correct the problems.”

  “My crews will be carrying audio feeds. “’Twill take only a few minutes to set them up and go back to the ship to monitor them.”

  “What about the pumps, Quinn?” Fergus asked.

  Quinn held his tongue for a beat as his resentment spiked. The foreman’s worry over the pumps seemed petty when his brothers and the other four divers would possibly be risking their lives for the sake of a few bloody stones. “I’ve set some of the more mechanically inclined staff to checking the pumps. The two I looked at will have to be replaced. The motors were blown and the ground fault receptacle melted. They must have received a hell of a strike.

  Fraser swore beneath his breath.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this. That it happened to one is strange, but to happen to all four—” Quinn shook his head.

  “There’s something else strange as well,” Rob said, gaining everyone’s attention. “I was checking my compass while on the dock. There’s something wrong with it. The needle goes around in an erratic manner and won’t give a true reading. We checked some of the others and they’re doing the same.”

  “The only way that would happen is if they were exposed to a powerful magnetic field,” Fraser said, his pale eyes holding a light of interest.

  “We have a few magnets aboard Grannos but we don’t store them anywhere close to the diving equipment,” Quinn said.

  “All things in nature have a magnetic field, Quinn The lightning may have done more than melt some sand. If there is any lodestone nearby it could have changed the magnetic field. But the chance of it affecting your team’s compasses is doubtful unless they were very close to it.”

  “We were on the dock about forty feet from the cofferdam,” Rob offered.

  Fraser shook his head. “From that distance the field would not be strong enough.”

  Quinn studied the compass. He frowned at the needle’s erratic swivel. What the hell was wrong with it? “You say they’re all like this?”

  Logan nodded. “Aye.”

  Fuck. His people would have to dive without compasses. He’d call the dive off if he could. “I’ll move Grannos here.” Quinn pointed to a position in the center of the cofferdam. I’ll point her bow toward Slioch and we’ll use cave diving reels tied beneath the deco station to fan out. Visibility is poor. If it’s too bad, we’ll wait a few hours and let the current carry more of the silt downstream before we dive.”

  *****

  Regan stood at the waist high dump sifter and gently worked the dishwashing liquid into the goose’s feathers while Stephen Berthold held its beak closed and Henry held the bird’s body still. “I think that’s got it,” she said. She picked up the spray nozzle attached to the hose and began to rinse the soap from the bird, splattering her clothes in the process. The water ran through the sifter screen onto the ground and over her tennis shoes.

  Stephen eyed her shirt. “Maybe you should have stayed in your dry suit.”

  She glanced up at him. “Had I known I’d be giving a bird a bath, I would have.” She shrugged.

  “It’s punishment for being where we had no business being.” Henry turned his face away from the spray.

  Henry’s paranoia was growing tiresome. “Punishment would have been if you’d had to walk into that slime with waders on to get this poor thing.” She nodded toward Rick Rogers, busy hosing down the hip waders he’d used to retrieve the two trapped geese. “We’re students, i.e. we do the grunt work that no one else wants to do. How did Rick get that job?”

  “We flipped to see which one of us would have to do it,” Stephen admitted, a grin lightening his usually serious expression. He spoke perfect English, but his German accent gave his words an attractive edge.

  Regan flashed Henry a look. “You can stop being paranoid. It was my dive that was reported to the powers that be, not yours.”

  “How do you know?” Henry asked.

  Because Quinn Douglas had taken an immediate dislike to her the moment she came out of the water. Or had he? “Just trust that I know.”

  Henry focused on something behind her. “Well here comes more trouble.”

  She looked over her shoulder at the dive team to find Quinn headed their way. The deliberate way he placed his feet and the graceful athletic shift of his body as he strutted toward her captured Regan’s attention. How long had he been doing saturation dives? Not long enough yet for the pressure to cause him joint problems.

  “Are you four about finished here?” he asked, when he reached them.

  “Yes,” Stephen answered for the group.

  “Good, you can turn the goose back in down by the dock and go with me to Grannos. I need a few volunteers who know their way about boats.”

  “You just found them,” Rick said, his West Texas drawl as distinctive as Quinn’s Scottish brogue. His dark hair fell over his forehead as he peeled the waders down his long legs like a banana skin and stepped out of them.

  “What did you find out about the pump motors?” Henry asked as the group continued down the path.

  “Lightning hit them and cracked two housings and even blew one of the fan blades off.” Quinn shook his head. “Crazy stuff this. We’re running Grannos on a skeleton crew. Four of my divers are in Edinburgh and the other six are going into the water. I need more hands on board to monitor communications and video and help with the insertion and recovery.”

  “We’re your crew then,” Regan said drawing his attention momentarily and earning a glare from Henry that as good as said this is how you fly under the radar?

  “Here, Quinn.” Logan handed him the wrist compass. “You might as well have this since it isn’t working properly.”

  Seeing Quinn study the mechanism and giving it a shake, Regan debated whether or not to speak up. She announced, “There was something wrong with my compass yesterday. I checked it this morning and it’s still unable to give a reading.”

  Quinn frowned. “Do you remember when it began to swing back and forth?”

  “Just a few minutes before I reached the cofferdam. That’s why I couldn’t find it in the silt. I was looking for something to attach my emergency line to when I found the stones.”

  “And got into trouble.”

  She bit the inside of her lip to keep from snapping at
him. Counting to ten she held her temper. Every time he poked at the sore spot, she wanted to argue with him. She started to turn away and felt his hand on her shoulder.

  “You can handle the skiff can’t you?”

  At her brief nod he said, “The men will be submersing from Grannos instead of the skiff. I trust you’ll get your friends there safely with the gear while I follow with the others.”

  “I can do that.”

  *****

  In the ROV control room, Regan fastened her attention on the monitors overhead while Quinn typed a command into the keyboard and moved the joystick that controlled the ROV he called Noggie. The remote control vehicle skimmed just beneath the water at about three knots, filming the condition of the cofferdam.

  After nearly half an hour of silence watching one long blue panel after another go by on the screen Regan could stand it no longer. “Why do you call him that?”

  “It’s short for Crannog which means lake dweller.”

  Her lips quirked. Maybe these Scotsmen had more of a sense of humor than she thought. “Well—that’s certainly appropriate.”

  Quinn’s grin deepened the creases in his cheeks and projected a charm that set off nervous jitters in her stomach. Was she attracted to him because of the vision she had experienced, or because she was truly attracted to him? She shook her head at the thought. If Quinn knew what she was thinking, he’d probably be just as eager to drive her to the nearest psychiatric hospital, as he was the airport.

  Anxiety lanced through her. Had it really been narcosis, or something worse? As fear started a numbing climb up her chest, she dragged her mind back to the present.

  “Does Grannos have some meaning, too?”

  “Aye. He was a God of mineral springs. There’s a small shrine to him close to Edinburgh. I think he was supposed to be a God of healing and harvest, as well.”

  A voice came over the speakers mounted just above the row of camera monitors on the wall. “This is team three. We’ve finished our sweep. Everything looks good.” The diver’s vocal pitch sounded higher than normal due to the Nitrox gas they were breathing. She had finally gotten used to the sound and was able to decipher the words.

  She pushed down the button on the mic and said, “Roger team three, come on home.”

  “We’re testing some new communication devices for a Russian company,” Quinn said. “Andrew Argus, Nicodemus’s assistant, arranged for them to be released to us ahead of schedule just for this job. The sound quality is very good.”

  “Yes, it is.” Her gaze homed in on something picked up by one of the cameras. “Wait a minute Quinn, can you back Noggie up? What is that?” As the silt cleared from the camera lens, a wrench took shape, stuck to the side of a panel. Surprised by the object her brows rose. “How do you suppose that got there?”

  Quinn shook his head. “I’m wondering how it’s hanging there since there’s no screws for it to be hooked to.”

  He maneuvered the ROV into a straightforward position and manipulated the robot’s arm to grasp the tool. The claw-like device shoved it across the panel until it hit a seam and it became stationary enough to grasp. The metal fingers plucked it from the cofferdam.

  How long had he practiced with the manipulator to get that good at it? She’d like to try it but more than likely he’d never let her. “It has to be magnetized for it to stay in position like that.”

  Quinn glanced at her briefly. “There would have to be a strong electric current traveling through it to magnetize it. I don’t think the lightning from last night would do it. It would have to be a continuous flow of current.”

  Regan frowned. “I’ve seen screwdrivers with magnetic tips but not wrenches. So it would have to be magnetized by coming in close proximity to a powerful magnet. But there aren’t any magnets around here.”

  Quinn shook his head, his expression grave. He turned the ROV to continue its sweep and raised his gaze to the monitor above him. “The lightning, the pumps, the generators, and now a magnetic wrench. Nothing about this makes any sense. I don’t like it, not one sodding bit.”

  After another thirty minutes, the first and second team made contact. They had completed their sweep.

  “Go topside and tell the men I’ll be bringing Noggie home. He’ll have to be captured and brought aboard,” Quinn said.

  Regan nodded, rose to her feet, and slipped from the room. Quinn appeared topside with a portable control unit just as the ROV popped up on the starboard side of the vessel. Henry and Rick hurried to swing the arm of the docking unit out and lower it into the water. Quinn maneuvered the vehicle within the wire cage, and with a high, screeching whine the crane folded and brought the unit aboard.

  Stephen grasped the wrench the unit held in its claw. Tugging it free he turned the tool in his hand. “Has Noggie been doing repairs of some sort?”

  “It was hanging on the side of the dam,” Regan said. “Quinn had Noggie recover it. See if it’s still magnetized.”

  He touched the wrench to the frame of the cage and it stuck.

  Regan smiled. She’d been right. The thing was magnetized.

  Stephen’s brows rose. “I’ll be damned.

  Quinn handed the ROV’s control unit to Regan and tugged the wrench loose from the cage, then rubbed his thumb over the metal. “It’s clear of algae, so it couldn’t have been in the water long.” His brows knitted in a frown. “Put it on the work table away from any of the electronics just in case. I’m going to check over the ROV while the rest of you keep an eye out for the divers. Regan, go below and keep tabs on communications.”

  As she reached the door of the control room, she heard a high-pitched voice coming from the speakers. “Team two to Grannos.”

  Regan ran to the mic. “Grannos here, team two.”

  “We’ve found something at the base of the cofferdam.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a skull. A human skull.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Bugger. Quinn bit back the expletive as he dragged his attention away from Regan’s quick, liquid movements as she paced. The narrow control room seemed to have grown smaller since she’d returned from a quick topside trip to notify the other students about the discovery.

  As she strode back and forth, her eyes never left the monitor where the video images were projected.

  “It doesna good to fash yourself about it, lass. They’ll be back topside soon enough with the thing, then you can all see it,” he said. He adjusted the angle of the SUV camera a little farther to the right. The picture grew fuzzy with snow and he leaned forward to punch keys on the control panel to clear the image. The image came in and out of focus. Now what?

  Regan paused by his shoulder. “You don’t realize how much time it takes to document something like this. A grid must be established and soil samples taken. Then each layer of mud will be removed spoon by spoon until the skull is exposed. It will be very fragile and will need to be packed in a Styrofoam container and kept covered with water until it can be preserved. If it is several hundred years old, I’m surprised it survived the trauma of being dug up.”

  “Or it could be some poor sot who fell into the loch while fishing whose body was never recovered.” Quinn resisted the urge to smack the monitor when the snow in the image grew and all they could see were shadows.

  “Not likely, but that’s why the coroner has been notified.”

  She seemed so serious, so focused, the urge to tease her was too great to resist. “Seems a big fuss to me.” He grinned as he caught her narrow eyed look. His smile widened as she sat down in the chair beside him.

  He adjusted the resolution on the screen and the image cleared a little. “What made you want to be an archaeologist?”

  “I’ve always been fascinated with the past and the paths we’ve taken to get where we are today. War, religion, pestilence, and disease have all played a part in our society’s structure. I find it amazing that we’ve actually survived it all. It gives me hope that we may be able to conti
nue doing so. But mostly, I want to learn about who we are. What made us so resilient in the face of such adversity?”

  Quinn’s lips quirked in amusement. “I can tell you that from my own family’s experiences.”

  Regan’s dark brows rose in inquiry.

  “Pure, stubborn, pigheadedness.”

  Regan laughed. “I can see that in you. It’s written in your features, your cheekbones, your jaw, and the way you get that V of concentration between your brows. I can almost picture you with a claymore in your hand.”

  The way she looked at him, studied his face with such intent interest, had a response running straight to his groin. For a moment he had a vision of her naked, her skin like warm, creamy satin against his. Just as it had been in his dreams. He drew a deep breath and dragged his attention back to their conversation.

  “When you live in a place that your family has known for hundreds of years, lass—When you hear the stories passed down from your parents and your grandparents, you know what kind of stock you come from.”

  “I envy you that, because it’s something I’ll never have.”

  “America is not so young that your kin dinna have stories. What about the Boston tea party and your past troubles with Indian tribes on the way west?”

  “My parents and their parents are English. They have stories about where they come from. But I don’t. I was adopted.”

  A quick twinge of sympathy brought his gaze to her face. There was something comforting in knowing who his ancestors were. They tied him to the past and remained a part of his future through what he had inherited from them. It had to be difficult not knowing from whom or where she came. “So you look for who the rest of us are, so you’ll know who you are as well.”

  Regan was silent a moment, her black brows drawn together in a frown. “I’d never thought about it in quite that way, but I suppose so.”