Old Earth

by Gary Grossman

  This broke the tension. McCauley was quite relieved.

  “Great! Thank you, Leslie.”

  McCauley looked around. They were all exceptional students. Surely the news was disappointing. However, breaking camp was for their own good.

  “Gang, I’m sorry,” he said lowering his voice. “I really share your frustration, but I have a responsibility. To you, to my employer, to your schools and departments. We got more than halfway through the time. It’s not what I wanted, but you can consider it a success.”

  McCauley hadn’t sold them yet. He’d have to do better.

  “Naturally, you feel you’re just beginning to break through and don’t have much to report back home or to your advisors. But remember, we came across something exciting. The only problem is we can’t talk about it. Certainly not right now.”

  “But it’s our discovery, Dr. McCauley,” Tom Trent said for the group. “That’s good enough for me. And I’ve catalogued some great fossils. I’m up for coming back next year.”

  “Great attitude,” Katrina added. McCauley looked to Katrina for reinforcement. She gave him a nod in the affirmative.

  “So what the hell did we find?” Leslie Cohen asked the question most wanting to be answered. “Some Strategic Air Command mountain base like in…what was that old movie with Matthew Broderick?”

  “War Games,” Lobel said.

  “Yeah, like War Games?”

  “Maybe,” McCauley said. “But it was my mistake for even looking into it; even worse for dragging all of you along.”

  “That’s what we’re supposed to do,” Cohen offered. “We’re scientists.”

  “Yes, but this got out of hand.”

  With the exception of Al Jaffe, Rich Tamburro knew more than the others. But the pieces he put together played into the story McCauley proposed.

  “Okay, folks, so we’ll box up the fossil finds, write some good scholarly papers, and then wait for the doc to tell us when we can go public. In the meantime, I agree. We go home. We don’t email about this. We don’t tweet. We don’t tell anyone. I certainly don’t want to jeopardize my loans.”

  “Thank you, Rich.” McCauley crossed over to Tamburro and hugged him. Then he smiled and turned to everyone. “We sure as hell stepped into something. I don’t normally believe in bad guys in black helicopters, but this is as close as I want to be. So let’s back out quietly.”

  Everyone agreed.

  “Okay. Here’s the drill. Tomorrow we’ll break camp and by dinnertime check into the GuestHouse Inn. I’ll get you all out on planes the day after and take care of shipping everything out. Rich, you’ll check on Anna and see if she can be discharged. If so, make sure she gets where she’s going.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Leslie said. “Give her a kiss for me.”

  “From all of us,” Rodriguez added.

  “A few more things, everyone,” McCauley continued. “We have cash for your expenses and we’ll figure a time to regroup. I promise I’ll keep you posted on when, if ever, you can discuss this wild experience. Believe me, for now you’ll just want to walk away.”

  Forty-seven

  Glasgow AFB, MT

  Franklin checked out the cockpit. He’d be piloting the first leg of the flight. A remote control take-off was not something they had the time to prepare. Though the cameras and GPS would be sending back data, the operation required a human at the stick before the systems could be handed over to the remote guidance system.

  “Any issue on the coordinates?” he asked.

  “None at all,” Winston proclaimed. “Believe it or not, I got ground photographs a few minutes ago. I’ll print them out and match them to the onboard cameras. We’ll do a visual in.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I’m glad we moved the curtain to dawn. Much easier than relying on infrared. Much.”

  For the next few hours, the men worked independently; silently. They were not a tight unit prone to personal camaraderie or team loyalty. No high fives. No see you next time. If ordered, each easily could, and would, put a bullet in another’s head. They focused on the job, testing the relays, charging the batteries, reviewing the charts. It was a clear case of the devil’s in the details.

  Forty-eight

  Glendive, MT

  The next night

  McCauley’s team was grateful for the baths and privacy at the GuestHouse Inn. They were equally happy with the blowout at Maddhatters, covered—though they didn’t know it—by Dr. Marli Bellamy’s generosity. The next day they’d be on their way home, earlier than expected, without a reasonable way to explain it.

  McCauley gave Katrina an unmistakably non-sexual hug at the motel door. “Goodnight,” he said.

  “Goodnight,” she replied, feeling the desire for more.

  Neither immediately let go of one another.

  “Early morning,” he replied awkwardly.

  “Guess so,” Katrina replied.

  “Goodnight then.”

  “Right. Good night.”

  They turned and walked to their own rooms more, each aware of the footsteps getting further away.

  • • •

  Glasgow AFB, MT

  Franklin took off in the dark at 3:45 A.M. Winston had left three hours earlier and was already at his radio safe point. Conrad was on his last hour cleaning up, scrubbing the staging area for finger and footprints, DNA traces, and tire tracks in the dirt. For extra measure, he made the old hangar look like it had been used as shooting gallery by local kids. He left spent bb’s, broken bottles, and ragged targets everywhere. For extra measure, he smashed mostly empty beer bottles he’d pulled from dumpsters outside Billings’ bars and tossed disgusting moldy fast food into the mix. Should any investigators dust for prints, they’d be sent on a wild goose chase for years.

  • • •

  GuestHouse Inn

  McCauley tried again to close his eyes, but he couldn’t relax enough to sleep. His mind raced through recent events. He tried to sort and catalogue them as if they were paleontological finds. Everything came back to the prime pyramid.

  McCauley got out of bed and sat naked at the desk in his hotel room. He ran his index finger over the impressions on the page; the rubbings he’d made. Indentations, not actual numbers.

  They’d made the leap to prime numbers, but he still wondered why it had been done this way.

  Then McCauley thought about what Greene had said. The radio telescope in Puerto Rico.

  Oh my, God!

  • • •

  Above The Montana Badlands

  Early morning

  Franklin was on course. Right speed, right altitude. His gloved hands held the throttle. The flight was smooth so far. Thermals that could affect the flight weren’t going to be an issue at this hour. He looked over the console. The displays were all lit with the green bulbs that Winston had installed, indicating that he was within ground communication range.

  He checked his watch. Sixty seconds. Next, a final look at the GPS. On the prescribed flight path. Franklin pressed the P key on an onboard iPad. The green lights blinked three times and then went to a solid green again. He repeated the command three more times, entering the rest of the code with an A, T and H.

  Thirty seconds.

  Franklin opened the port door, unbuckled his safety belt and gave the cockpit GPS a last glance. He counted down to himself. 10…9…8…7…6…5. At four, he leaned out. The Cessna was now on autopilot, but he didn’t want to throw off the attitude or the altitude. His departure would be quick. 2…1.

  • • •

  On ground

  Winston successfully acquired control of the Cessna. There was nothing else to do for another thirty-five minutes.

  From his point of view and experience, the operation was amazingly simple. The principal guidance required a jerry-rigged radio control transmitter that connected to the plane’s receiver and wired through amplifiers and actuators. This controlled the pitch, yaw, and roll of the pl
ane and the throttles. Radio control, or RC commands came from his fully charged iPad to receivers on the plane. As a redundancy, he had backup on the same frequency.

  The RC transmitters were tuned to the Amateur 6 meter band, utilizing amplifiers, available through the open market, principally eBay, Craigslist, and local hobby shops. Their range was limited, but enough: thirty to forty miles at the most.

  Franklin had brought the plane close enough. Now, if he’d followed the schedule correctly, the pilot would be gently floating to the ground. To be sure, Winston pitched the plane slightly lower which immediately registered on his laptop screen. Satisfied he had complete control, he returned the Cessna to its mission profile.

  The real operational brain was the plane’s internal GPS tracker. It sent the Cessna’s position to the control site—Winston’s Winnebago—via another amateur radio link operating on the two meter VHF band. Inside amateur circles, this has been known as APRS for Automatic Position Reporting System. Winston was able to accurately track the position, velocity and altitude on an app.

  He also had two eyes in the sky reporting back. Ham analog UHF video links fed back a semi-wide angle cockpit view for general assistance in remotely flying the aircraft. This gave him perspective of how the Cessna lined up with the horizon. The second camera provided a longer, forward field of view, key to the terminal guidance phase to target.

  • • •

  Glendive, MT

  One more look inside the cave. One more, McCauley thought. His heart was racing as he drove in the dark toward the entrance of Makoshika State Park. He was more excited than ever to touch the wall again; to see if his feelings were right. One more. He had to.

  • • •

  The Badlands

  Franklin deftly maneuvered his parachute to his landing zone—an abandoned ranch southwest of Glendive. This was an easy descent. He settled down fifty yards from the car that Winston had rented and left forty-eight hours earlier.

  If anyone had seen him, his story would square with someone bailing out before a crash. But, at this hour, there weren’t any witnesses.

  He gathered up his parachute, stuffed it in a backpack in the car’s trunk and drove to Interstate 94. The man known for now as Franklin wouldn’t stop until he got to Bismarck, ND.

  • • •

  Fifteen miles away

  The Cessna under Winston’s ground control was literally a large drone, cruising at 120 knots; on time and on target. A dawn glow was emerging low in the eastern sky. Soon, that light would allow the forward facing cockpit camera to see.

  He checked his watch. 0448 hrs; 4:48 A.M. In one minute he should hear the plane. Ninety seconds later, he’d slowly bank the Cessna from a southern heading to west-southwest. Then eight minutes to burn off altitude and…

  • • •

  Glendive, MT

  McCauley headed west into the darkness. In his rear view mirror he could see the sky brightening. Soon there would be enough light to cast long shadows and reveal haunting shapes created by the geological monuments that defined Makoshika State Park. This wasn’t bad earth. McCauley saw extraordinary beauty in the land, evidence of the world as it had been and where it was going. The ultimate message he wanted to impart to his students was that for now it was ours. And like the dinosaurs, we’re merely leaving footprints, only smaller. The earth has it all over us, he thought. Makoshika State Park is the proof. Old, yet ever evolving.

  Forty-nine

  May 10, 1633

  Rome, Italy

  Galileo struggled to his feet. Thinking. Thinking hard. The sixty-nine-year-old fixed a cold hard stare on his adversary, Father Vincenzo Maculano.

  “Of course I remember Pino and Satori. We traveled together from Pisa. They were sponsors, patrons.”

  “For a time you were inseparable; and they were infinitely insufferable with too much wine,” Maculano noted.

  “That could be said of anyone.”

  “Yes, I suppose it could.”

  “Besides, we lost touch after.”

  “And so you did, but they continued to talk of your travels together. The camaraderie and conquests, your experiments and your discovery.”

  Galileo’s eyes widened. Indeed, the finding had haunted him, too.

  “Remember how your dear friends drank, smoked and fornicated? When inebriated, which they increasingly became, they talked at the top of their lungs about their sexual peccadilloes, their free access to the rich and powerful, and one remarkable exploration with you. They gossiped with anyone who would share a drink with them; particularly if they didn’t have to pay. How do I know? Seventeen years ago my secretary was at a table next to theirs in Pisa. Though he tried at first to ignore them, it was impossible. Then he stopped trying. They bragged about their friend, the great Galileo Galilei and how they sponsored his early research.”

  “They gave me little other than earaches.”

  The priest laughed heartily. “Yes, I can believe that. But, when the conversation was relayed to me, I thought I should meet these talkative aristocrats and determine if there was an ounce of truth in anything they had to say.

  “We met on a lovely October night at a villa in Tuscany. I had coached up from Rome and they were so impressed. I suggested they might one day dine at the Vatican. We talked about what wines they would bring and how they embraced the true word of God.”

  Maculano laughed again. Galileo imagined Pino and Santori tripping over one another for attention.

  “As we drained bottles of Vin Trebbiano, I led them from one exaggeration of theirs to another until we got to what was so amazing it had to be true.”

  Galileo listened without comment.

  “They talked of a trip you’d taken together to Le Marche. They bragged in great detail with such enthusiasm about your findings. You should be proud how they represented you.”

  “They were not with me!” Galileo shouted.

  “Oh, but they said they were. They spent hours on it. With vivid descriptions.”

  “They tired of hiking. They didn’t want to get their hands dirty. They saw nothing of what I did.”

  “Ah, but what a story they still told. Eventually, enough blasphemy that I had no other choice but to invite them to the Vatican. Though they dined here, it was less than succulent servings. Let’s say your accommodations are far superior.”

  Galileo’s shoulders sank. “You arrested them?”

  “Quite so. But I’m not through. In prison, we delineated what they claimed they did versus what was truly your achievement. You should have heard the boasts at first. It was as if they were by your side as you took your experiments into the mountain. Then, under some, shall we say persuasive techniques they recanted. They admitted, just as you suggest, it was you and you alone, who ventured forth that day in 1601; ventured forth into the cave. It was you, Galileo, who saw what I then had to see for myself.”

  Maculano brought his voice down. “Pity, too, they never went with you. They would have been amazed."

  “Pino and Satori?” Galileo quietly asked.

  “Alas, they expired under the strain.”

  “You executed them.”

  “They failed to survive the final interview.”

  “Why? You saw they were lying. I actually told them very little.”

  “But they knew enough. And even a little is far too dangerous.”

  Fifty

  Montana

  The timing was perfect. The rising sun began to give the target definition. The onboard cameras sent back clear video to Winston’s tablet. He made a few minor midair corrections. The Cessna nosed down, gained speed, and banked to the right ever so slightly. Another few degrees lower. Another three minutes.

  • • •

  McCauley had parked the car as close to the cave entrance as possible. Now, on foot, he trudged toward the cliff, completely awake and refreshed in the cool morning air. It heightened his senses. The only thing that interrupted his thoughts was the sound of a distant air
plane which seemed to be floating in with the west-to-east breeze. He didn’t think Dawson Community Airport had any traffic at this hour. But that wouldn’t necessarily stop a small plane from landing.

  • • •

  Winston was always disappointed that he could never see the final split second – the culmination of the planning, the preparation, and the delivery of the package.

  The package was C4, wired inside the Cessna 421B to dual redundant impact detonators, set to explode two one hundredths of a second after plowing into the cave entrance. The onboard aviation fuel would add extra bang.

  • • •

  The low rumble of the twin engines increased. McCauley stopped in the flats short of the rock wall and peered over his shoulder. The wing tip lights of the airplane appeared to be angling toward the park. Toward him.

  The lights grew brighter. The engines louder. The plane was speeding up and bearing down on a deadly trajectory.

  Pull up! he wanted to say. But there was no time.

  McCauley instinctively dove to the ground as it flew right overhead. Flew wasn’t even the right term. He knew the plane was going to crash.

  He could feel the wash of the propellers. It was that close.

  McCauley quickly crawled behind a boulder on the valley floor. A second later a massive explosion boomed, then echoed against the cliffs. The sound was instantly followed by a shock wave with a burning heat and a stench that engulfed the entire area. Then rocks blew past him. Without coverage from the boulder McCauley knew he would have been killed.

  When the dust settled, he peered out from behind his cover. But Quinn McCauley didn’t need to see the precise location of the impact. He knew.