Old Earth

by Gary Grossman

  PART THREE

  Fifty-one

  Montana

  Winston drove south. Franklin headed west. Conrad north. They wouldn’t see one another until next called, or not at all. There were no thank you emails or letters of commendation. All the thanks they needed were handled by wire transfers.

  • • •

  Makoshika State Park, MT

  McCauley roamed the site with his jacket covering his mouth and nose. Metal was strewn below the cliff and the area reeked of burning oil, plastic, and rubber. He saw a portion of the fuselage wedged into rock thirty feet up. The airplane had plowed directly into the spot where the team’s lights, cables and equipment had been—like hitting a bulls eye on a target, he thought.

  No one could have survived, he reasoned.

  A half-hour later, he was still walking the ground when a stern voice shouted, “Hey, you! What are you doing here?”

  McCauley turned to see a local police officer sweeping the area with a bright flashlight.

  “I’m…I’m Dr. Quinn McCauley. I was in charge of a graduate student dig here. Right up there.” He pointed to crash site. “Thank God we started packing up yesterday and didn’t hit the site early today.”

  “Damn lucky,” the officer said. McCauley figured the she was in her late twenties, and had never witnessed anything like this. For that matter, neither had he. Well, not exactly.

  Typically, Glendive was quiet. Aside from the dinosaur discoveries, little put them on the map. This surely would for a few days. “Damn lucky,” she said again.

  “May I see some identification?”

  “Certainly,” McCauley pulled his license and Yale ID from his wallet.

  The Glendive cop shined her flashlight on the cards and then onto McCauley. She did not return the IDs.

  “And what did you say you were doing here?”

  “I’ve been working with my students for the past month. We started breaking camp and…”

  “Why are you here now?” she demanded.

  “I’m sorry. We moved to a motel in town last night. I couldn’t sleep and since we’re usually up by this time anyway, I came over see if we left anything behind.”

  “Did you?”

  “Up there. But it’s all gone now. Like you said, we’re damned lucky.”

  “Luckier than whoever was flying.”

  “For sure,” McCauley said. “Look, we should call Jim Kaplan, the park director.”

  “He’s already on the way,” the officer said.

  “Is it okay if I stay then?”

  “No. Return to your car and wait there.”

  “And my ID?” McCauley held his hand out expecting his license to be returned.

  “I’ll hold onto them until I speak with Mr. Kaplan. Under the circumstances…” She didn’t need to complete the sentence.

  • • •

  London

  The same time

  The researcher on the America desk in Room Ten was surfing her Internet news sources in the normal manner when a story popped up on the USA Today website. It was a simple alert, but it had enough key words that she flagged it for further review.

  July 28, 5:18 AM MST: Billings, MDT

  The Montana State Highway Patrol reports that an aircraft, possibly civilian, crashed into a mountain in eastern Montana early this morning near the city of Glendive. The exact crash site has not been determined, but police indicate it was away from populated areas, within Makoshika State Park, popularly known as Dinosaur Alley. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board have been notified. There is no information on the origin or destination of the flight or whether there are survivors.

  The seminary graduate who had taken special courses in Italy marked it Category Five and passed it on to Simon Volker.

  • • •

  Makoshika State Park, MT

  Jim Kaplan vouched for McCauley. But the officer still insisted on getting a complete statement, which took another thirty minutes.

  “I guess it must have seemed a little coincidental to her,” Kaplan said as they prepared to say goodbye. “I wouldn’t worry.”

  “Worry? I can tell you a lot about worry. I’m just happy none of us were here when that plane hit.”

  “You were. And you sure dodged the bullet, buddy. What were you doing right up there anyway? You guys usually dig in the flats.”

  “I decided to get off the beaten path. I thought we were onto something. I was wrong.”

  “You made that decision just in time.”

  • • •

  GuestHouse Inn

  Glendive, MT

  8:30 am

  Everyone had checked out as planned and assembled in the coffee shop, with the exception of Rich Tamburro. Jaffe reminded Dr. McCauley who joined them after gathering his things, that Tamburro had driven to the hospital to check on Anna.

  The students were discussing the topic that was sweeping through Glendive this morning: the freak plane crash at Makoshika State Park.

  McCauley described what he’d seen and how the area of the park was now closed off.

  They were more than grateful that they’d left. They were also doubtful that it was an accident.

  Lobel murmured to Cohen in a voice not meant to be completely quiet, “Looks like the government closed it down permanently.” No one could disagree. McCauley and Alpert certainly didn’t try. They’d been prepared and left at the right time.

  McCauley felt there’d be inevitable follow-up questions from the NTSB. He hadn’t decided what he’d tell the federal investigators.

  For his students, it had been a challenging summer. Now it was over, or so he hoped. They were finishing up their breakfasts when Rich Tamburro burst in.

  “Anna’s gone!” he exclaimed.

  “What?” The reaction came as a chorus rather than a single comment.

  “I went to see her at the hospital. She discharged herself at six.”

  “Well, maybe they needed to get her out,” Katrina explained.

  “Without calling me?”

  McCauley signaled for Tamburro to go outside.

  “No text?”

  “No doc. No text, no email, no call. And she hasn’t answered any either. Now you got me thinking she was in way over her head.”

  Fifty-two

  New Haven, CT

  The next day

  “How much do we have left?” Katrina asked softly.

  The cab driver had certainly heard that before from airport-returning passengers. He waited for the response.

  “We’re doing okay. Even after covering the airfares, we’ve still got almost… ,” McCauley caught the driver’s interest in the view mirror, “…enough.” He whispered seventy-five hundred into her ear. “Plus, I might be able to get another ATM card from the bank, too,” he hoped more than believed.

  “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  She instinctively looked over her shoulder to see if they were being followed. Not here. Not yet.

  Minutes later they were in McCauley’s office. “Welcome to home away from home,” he said opening the door.

  “Fit for a professor,” Katrina observed. She walked in. “Bigger than mine.” A few books caught her eye. Some she had, some she didn’t. There were fossils, all of which she could identify, a few awards and citations, and stacks of magazines.

  She took a seat on a worn fabric couch under a window and paged through an old issue of Scientific American while Quinn listened to his phone messages. He largely ignored them, pressing the delete button, swearing every now and then, and writing nothing down.

  “Uh-oh,” he said, “I half expected this.”

  “What?” Katrina asked.

  “An NTSB investigator.”

  Alpert looked up from an article on gravitational waves detected in South Pole experiments. It supported the theory that the universe inflated rapidly—very rapidly—at one trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang ten billion to twenty billi
on years ago. In that single moment, space expanded faster than the speed of light, doubling in size ninety times.

  Katrina felt that things were moving at the same pace now.

  “You going to call?”

  “Not if we didn’t stop in my office yet. Which I don’t think we’ve done,” he said slyly. “Do you?”

  She got what he was saying. “That’s only going to work for a while.”

  “All we need is awhile.”

  • • •

  Voyages Room Ten

  London

  The same time

  “This came up. Take a look,” Simon stated.

  Kavanaugh bent over and read an itinerary on the computer screen. It chronicled a trail that led McCauley and Alpert from Glendive to New Haven. “How’d you get this?”

  “An airline data base.”

  “I didn’t think they gave out this sort of information.”

  “They don’t,” Simon Volker declared smugly.

  “So what are they up to?”

  “I’d say they’re doing exactly what we are. Putting pieces together.”

  “That’s not good,” Kavanaugh surmised.

  “No, sir, it’s not.”

  “Use whatever means you need to keep track of them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Colin Kavanaugh excused himself for what was becoming his regularly scheduled meetings at tea time, followed by a walk in the park and a conversation with the grimmest of the grim reapers. It was time to really find out how things worked in the field.

  Fifty-three

  “Dammit! I don’t even know where to go,” McCauley admitted. They were heading west on the Connecticut Turnpike.

  Katrina gave the situation some thought. “London. I say we go to London.”

  “London?”

  “Yes, and don’t tell me you didn’t think of Europe either. I saw you grab your passport.”

  “Observant.”

  “Just not blind.”

  “Why London?”

  “I have a friend who’s an Oxford European history professor. Worth seeing if she’ll have some insight. And we can hide out with her. From there we can reach out to the cave explorer and do whatever we need to do…”

  The rest of the thought, unspoken, was to stay alive.

  McCauley nodded. “Okay. South is New York. If we turn around we can fly Boston to Heathrow. But I vote for North and Canada. We can fly out of Montreal. It’s about seven hours away. Game?”

  “Game.”

  En route, Katrina found some leads to the French spelunker, Claude Bovard. She read a story of his explorations in China’s super caves, carved out over six hundred million years. Maybe he’d have a clue.

  Fifty-four

  Canonbury, England

  The next day

  “Oh, my God! I don’t believe it,” Renee Kritz exclaimed. She hadn’t seen Katrina Alpert in more than three years. Now, one of her best friends was at her brownstone doorstep with an American.

  Kritz lived on a cobblestoned street lined with gable-roofed houses in the quaint north London neighborhood of Canonbury. It has a rich history and over the centuries, notable residents included Thomas Cromwell, Sir Francis Bacon, George Orwell and in recent years, Keira Knightley.

  Quinn instantly liked Renee. She was five feet four, a dirty blonde with an engaging sense of humor, quite in contrast to the three advanced degrees she held in theology, history, and anthropology. Anyone who called her Dr. Kritz could have been referring to any of the disciplines. She was the perfect friend for Katrina and the perfect person to trust.

  After they cleared the dishes from dinner and switched from the complex French burgundy to an Italian late harvest dessert wine, the conversation turned to the subject of Quinn and Katrina.

  “So, how long have you known one another?”

  They laughed and simultaneously said, “Let’s see, a week? More? Not sure with the time differences. The travel keeps throwing me off,” Katrina admitted.

  She explained what her assignment was and her first impressions of McCauley. Next she deferred to Quinn.

  “We’ve actually been through a great deal in a short time,” he said. “You might call it explosive.”

  They had agreed on the London flight that Katrina would handle the initial explanation. She took Renee through the events from their first exploration of the cave to the meeting, the discussion with Greene, the subsequent chase through Bakersfield, and the attack, as she now described it, at the site.

  Kritz was particularly intrigued by the photographs McCauley produced—which actually showed very little. She examined them once, then again, each time without comment. On the third review she stopped and tapped a picture which best captured the rock against the blackness “This.”

  “Yes?” Katrina asked. “What about it?”

  “Reminds me of… .”

  McCauley encouraged her. “Reminds you of what?”

  Kritz shook her head. “Can’t pinpoint it. But I think I’ve seen a picture like it before.” Suddenly she changed her mind. “No, not a photograph, a sketch…possibly in a book.”

  “A sketch?”

  Her friend tried to recall. “I think.”

  “But you’re not sure?” McCauley added.

  “Well, not completely. I can’t place it or…”

  “Renee,” Katrina said, “it’s very important.”

  “I understand. I’m just not sure.”

  It was a frustrating answer, but it was something.

  “Was it in a scientific journal?” Katrina asked.

  “No, it reminds me of…” Kritz searched her memory. “Maybe it was in…” She thought more. “Describe it.”

  “Like you see here. Just totally black, but with a high gloss to the touch. You can feel it, but you can’t see it. Weirdest thing I’ve ever encountered.”

  “Got it.” Kritz looked for answers in the ceiling and around the room. Nothing immediately came to her. “Maybe it was in an old book.”

  “How old?” Katrina followed up. Her heart was racing.

  “I don’t know. Old.”

  “More specific?”

  “I’m trying to remember. Archival old.”

  Kritz taped the photographs again.

  “Maybe something from the 1800s. I’ll give it more thought. Maybe it’ll come to me.”

  They sat silently for minutes. Kritz broke the silence with a different thought.

  “I can’t speculate on what you have seen,” Kritz volunteered. “I can talk about who may be after you.”

  “How?” Quinn wondered.

  “Deduction.”

  Katrina and Quinn were ready to listen to any theory, plausible or incredible.

  “I’ll start with the basic truth. You discovered a secret.”

  “No argument there,” McCauley agreed.

  “So, let’s make a list of whose secret it could be.”

  “Good idea,” he acknowledged.

  Kritz went to her desk for a yellow pad.

  “Okay, don’t bother explaining why, just list what comes to mind.” She handed them the pad and a pencil.

  “Like?” Katrina said needing some prompting.

  “Like big and small; obvious and outlandish.”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  “Come on. Think paranoid, Katrina. Who’s after you?”

  McCauley took a stab at creating the list. He called them off as he wrote.

  US Government

  Army

  Air Force

  CDC

  Katrina understood now. She added her own thoughts.

  Research Corporations

  Think Tanks

  CIA

  NSA

  “Can I be honest with you?”

  “Please,” Katrina and Quinn both said.

  “Too ordinary.”

  “But you said obvious,” Katrina replied.

  “I did. But go outrageous.”

  Kritz rose again and went to h
er bookshelf. She pulled a number of volumes while her guests threw out additional guesses.

  Halliburton

  Black Ops

  Area 51 guys

  “More!” Renee implored.

  A rogue corporation

  Aliens

  “Okay, now based on what you think could be possible, eliminate those that don’t meet that test,” she said from the other room.

  Katrina took the pencil from Quinn. She had no idea what to cross out.

  Renee returned with a set of books. She put them on the table, examined their list and picked up another pencil. “At this point, there’s no logic, only supposition. So here’s what I’d remove.” Renee proceeded to cross off everything.

  “Oh, shit,” McCauley proclaimed. Then, “Sorry for my language.”

  “It’s okay,” Kritz said. “I’ll explain.” She pointed to each. “Too new, too new, too new,” she said thirteen times. On the final, “aliens,” she exclaimed, “Wouldn’t that be fun. But no.”

  Katrina posed the natural follow up. “Then who? Or what?”

  “Well, I’d go for something more unusual. And we should reframe the question. To my thinking, ignore what you’ve found. Think about this as a cover-up.”

  Katrina didn’t follow.

  Kritz cleared her throat. “Whoever is after you is real. They may not have created it…whatever it is. But they’re trying to keep your discovery from the public. Actually, more than that, from public scrutiny. Their goal is to protect, not expose. And that, my dear friends, brings us to secret societies.”

  She dropped eight books squarely on the dining room table.

  “What kind of secret society?” McCauley asked. “Like Skull and Bones? Bilderberg? Freemasons? And what the heck is that religious sect?”

  “Which one? There are so many,” Kritz replied.

  “You know.”

  “The Illuminati?”

  “Right. Them,” he said. “What about them?”

  “Come on, that’s not the real world,” Katrina argued.