by Alton Gansky
“Or use the dozer,” Perry said.
“That’s what I was thinking. We bring the dozer up here, connect it to the backhoe with chains, set it on its wheels, then tow it out of the hole.”
“Think you can still drive one of those beasts?” Perry asked with a knowing smile.
“I was driving dozers before I could ride a bike.”
Perry laughed. “Well, that would explain the damage to your neighborhood. Let’s wait to bring the dozer up until Dr. Curtis is well off-site. Seeing a bulldozer driving over an archeological dig just might make his heart seize, and he’s had enough shocks already.”
“Agreed,” Jack said then asked, “Do you think he believes what his eyes see?”
“I don’t believe what my eyes see,” Perry answered. “It’s beyond belief. Everything we’ve found goes against all that we’ve been taught, but then we expected that, didn’t we?”
“That we did. Mystery makes life interesting.”
“Let’s make the most of our time. Since we have to wait for the other backhoe, let’s use the time to weld a few tow loops to the backhoe. It will make it easier to make connections. I also think we need to finish cutting off the rest of the canopy. Since we cut two of the four supports away to get Lenny out, the canopy is going to flap around, and those cuts I made with the plasma torch are a little on the sharp side.”
“I’ll get the equipment then head down the hole. You can hold the rope.”
“Nothing doing, partner. This job is mine. Get a couple of guys up here to help, and you can join me.”
“You’re getting greedy in your old age,” Jack said, “but I guess I can live with it.”
“I hope we both can live with it.”
THE SIGHT WAS unexpected and surprising enough to make Alex stop mid-step. He last saw the work site the night he broke Dawes’s neck and dropped him in the hole. Now there were more holes, several like the first and one that looked as if it had been hollowed out by a bomb blast. They’ve been busy, Alex thought.
He stood near the same set of trees that Dawes had used for cover while spying on the dig. Getting to that point had been more difficult than the last time. Since sheriff’s deputies cordoned off access to the site, he had to go out of his way to avoid them. That meant driving his rented car—a car he obtained under a false name and with a bogus credit card—several miles past the site, parking, then spending the next hour walking across the pasture land of the adjoining property. Hiking through the tall grass on uneven terrain slowed his progress, as did the delicate act of slipping between strands of barbed wire. An ivory gibbous moon aided him, though.
The sound of a straining diesel engine punctuated the otherwise quiet night. Before him lay the grassy slope that so interested his employer. More specifically, he thought, what lay beneath the serene ground.
Alex stood a football field’s distance away and watched as a bulldozer slowly pulled back from the craterous hole. It was towing something. He watched with interest as a yellow backhoe slowly materialized out of the depths, rolling up the depression’s steep side on its wheels. It crested the rim then moved freely away.
He watched patiently. Of the four men he could see on the site, two left a few minutes later, walking down the slope. Alex assumed they’d been sent to retrieve something, or maybe they’d been given the rest of the evening off. In any case, only Perry Sachs and a large black man were left. Those were good odds, he decided.
Alex would’ve loved to hear how a backhoe got to the bottom of that huge hole, but he had other things to do at present. It was time for a conversation with Mr. Sachs.
Alex started forward.
“THAT WORKED BETTER than I thought it would,” Jack said as he stepped down from the large bulldozer.
“We could use a few things to go our way,” Perry replied as he walked around the digging machine. “Tires are still inflated. Good. I was afraid they would have pushed off the rim when it tipped. I guess the soft soil helped us on that one.”
Jack began fiddling with the engine. “Everything looks in place. Fuel lines are still connected. Just a little dirt here and there, and some oil and fuel that leaked from the tank. Shouldn’t take long to clean up. I’ll bet your next paycheck that it’ll kick over first time.”
“My paycheck? Bet your own money, pal.”
“Where’s the wisdom in that? I could lose money. It’s safer to risk your assets.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that . . .” Perry trailed off.
A man was approaching, apparently coming from out of nowhere. He wore slacks and a polo shirt. A little too dapper for this area, Perry decided. The man walked with confidence, as if he were expected. “We have company.” He motioned toward the approaching man.
“I wondered when that would happen,” Jack said. “Sooner or later someone would find a way past the security. Think he’s a reporter?”
“Could be,” Perry said. “He has that city look.”
The two waited for the unexpected guest to make his way
to them.
“Perry Sachs?” the man asked. It was the kind of question a man asked when he already knew the answer.
“That’s me,” Perry said. “I don’t wish to be rude, but you’re trespassing on private property. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
The man laughed lightly. “I leave when I’m ready, Sachs.”
“Is that a fact?” Jack asked and took one step forward.
“Yes, it is, big man, and I wouldn’t take another step if I were you.” There was menace in his voice. “While I would enjoy a little tussle with you, this isn’t the time, nor is it the reason why I’m here.” Clearly, he didn’t intimidate easily.
“Are you a reporter?” Perry asked.
“No need to be insulting, Sachs. And don’t bother asking for a name. You don’t need it, and I won’t give it.”
“I think it’s time for you to talk to one of the deputies,” Jack said. He stepped forward and seized the man’s left arm in his right hand. It took a second for Perry to realize what he had seen. In a blurred motion, the trespasser brought his open right hand up, impacting Jack on the tip of his chin. Jack’s head snapped back from the force of it. Perry could hear his friend’s teeth clash. Then Perry saw something he never believed possible. Jack crumpled like a blanket and dropped to the ground.
Instinctively, Perry charged but made only one step before finding himself staggering backwards, doubled over, his hands clutching his stomach where he’d just been kicked by a foot he never saw coming. The air rushed from his lungs, and his solar plexus went into spasms. He dropped to his knees and struggled for breath. For a moment, he thought he would never breathe again. Pain circled his body. Lights flashed in his eyes.
Perry forced himself to look up while willing himself to breathe. The breath would come in time, but time seemed to have stopped. He stared into the emotionless face of his attacker. He watched as the attacker pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket, opened it, leaned over, and displayed it with the pride a father might show toward a child’s drawing. “Look familiar? Know these people?”
The paper held the image of Claire and Joseph. Joseph was situated at what looked like a laboratory workbench. Claire was standing next to him. “Claire . . . ,” Perry whispered. A whisper was all he could muster. “Joseph . . .”
“Very good, Mr. Sachs. You’re absolutely right.” The intruder straightened himself. “They have the privilege of being our guests. For the moment they are in good health.” Picking up the paper, the visitor folded it neatly and slipped it into his front pants pocket.
“What do you want?” Perry finally managed.
“Here’s the drill, Sachs. Listen carefully because this is no game. You’re out of your league; I can promise you that. Despite the fact that you’ve interfered with our work, we’ve decided not to view you as an enemy, but as a fellow worker. We know what you’re after, and we want it. You’re going to get it for us.”
“No.”
“Oh, yes, you are,” the man barked. “You’re going to do everything I say, and you are not going to deviate from it in the slightest. If you do, your friends will die in . . . oh, let’s call it a creative way.”
Perry started to get up, but was forced to his knees again by a swift kick to the ribs. He doubled over.
“I am not in this work alone. You might have surmised that, Sachs. The operation I’m engaged in is well planned and tightly constructed. The lives of your friends rest squarely in my hands. Do you hear that? My hands, not your hands, not even God’s hands.
“I must report back to my employer at specific times. If I call too early, your friends die. If I call too late, they die. What that means is this: If I’m detained in any way, either by some stupid exercise of heroics or by police intervention, I will miss my call-in time. Your friends will die ten minutes later.
“So if I so much as get stopped for a speeding ticket, it will be the same as if you pulled the trigger yourself, or flipped the switch, or injected the poison . . . whatever way my employer has decided to kill the woman and her son. Do you understand me so far?”
“I understand,” Perry croaked.
“Smart man. You have twenty-four hours to finish your work. You will crate it and place it in a truck that I will provide. You will not interfere in any way. You will be responsible to make sure the police remain uninvolved.”
“How do I do that?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. You will not follow me. Once I deliver the prize, I will arrange for your friends’ release. Let me ask again: Do you understand?”
Perry didn’t answer. The man was asking two impossible things. Perry couldn’t turn over the very thing he and the others had worked so hard to find; but he couldn’t allow Claire to be executed. “You’ll kill them anyway,” Perry said. The pain in his ribs had diminished to barely endurable.
“Maybe. Maybe not. You have no other choice. Deviate from my directions by an inch, and you can bury your friends in that big hole over there. Still listening? There are a couple more details you need to know. Do exactly as I say.”
Perry pushed the pain from his mind and focused on the orders being given by his attacker. Fury raged inside him, but he bottled it like a roughneck capped a spurting oil well. The image of Claire and Joseph as prisoners in some unknown place forced him into compliance. At least for now.
Jack groaned and rolled to his side. Perry looked at his friend and knew that he was still out. The attacker was incredibly strong, Perry reasoned. He had the personal pain to prove it.
“Twenty-four hours, Mr. Sachs. I suggest you get busy.” The intruder took a step closer then threw a vicious punch, his knuckles striking Perry on the right cheekbone. Perry grunted and dropped forward. He felt blood fill his mouth.
The man strolled back the way he came.
Perry was still in too much pain to stand. Instead he leaned forward and rested his head on the ground.
Perry began to pray.
Chapter 19
PERRY PULLED A lever and the steel bucket of the backhoe bit the earth with thick metal teeth. A second later the bucket swung around and dropped its load a few meters away, then spun back to chew another bite. The device moved with the furious urgency of its operator.
Fire still burned in Perry’s side where the intruder had kicked him. His ribs, while unbroken, had been separated and moved in an unnatural way. Every breath was the same as being stabbed, every cough, piercing agony, but Perry moved anyway, pushing himself until the darkness of unconsciousness threatened from the edges of his vision. Then and only then would he slow, force himself to inhale as deeply as his injuries would allow, and then begin work again.
The backhoe he operated was the one liberated from the sinkhole. Jack worked the recently arrived, larger Komatsu trackhoe from Bakersfield. The trackhoe looked like a long-necked yellow Jurassic beast that moved on metal, twenty-eight-inch wide, tank-like tracks. Unlike the backhoe, which was a hybrid of a loader and a digging device, the trackhoe was designed to dig holes in short order.
Jack mirrored Perry’s urgency, digging the trackhoe’s thirty-inch bucket into the soft soil the moment Perry’s left with his load. They dug in tandem as men pressed by danger. All caution was evicted. Before, they had bent every rule of archaeology; now those rules were shattered by need.
As Perry swung the bucket for another gouging movement, he looked at his longtime friend. Their eyes met and a communication was exchanged that was only possible between two who had trusted each other with their lives. Jack’s eyes were narrowed, and his swollen jaw was set tight. He’d revived a few minutes after the brutal visitor left, groaning, sitting up, shaking his head, then suddenly springing to his feet, looking for the assailant but finding only Perry doubled over and leaning against the backhoe. After the painful act of straightening himself, Perry relayed everything Jack had missed while unconscious.
Discussion was minimal. Both men immediately applied themselves to restoring the backhoe. When it was cleaned up and ready to go, they started it and moved it into position to unearth the final treasure under the earth. Jack served as observer, standing a few steps from the ever-widening hole Perry made. The minute the second excavator showed up, Jack was in the seat.
Gleason, Curtis, and Brent had returned thirty minutes later. Dr. Curtis was furious at the sight of the damage being done by the equipment and the dozer parked to one side, but his anger quickly subsided once the tale had been told. He and Brent stood to the side as Gleason directed Perry and Jack.
The five men worked with a single purpose. The rest of the crew they sent back to the motel with instructions not to return until further notice. There were questions, but none were answered.
The buckets dug, raised, swiveled, emptied, and returned. It was a dance that repeated itself with a determined precision. The hole deepened and widened. Not even the fear of another sinkhole could assuage their determination. What was being done was what had to be done. They were no longer in control of their circumstances—an undefined evil was.
Another pain swept and swirled in Perry. It wasn’t physical, not associated with assault; it was harsher. Perry was unfamiliar with helplessness. Reared in a healthy family, he had never known what was common to many: need, rejection, hopelessness. Now he was faced with all those emotions in large measure. Two people he cared about were in the hands of others who could—and apparently would—harm them at a moment’s notice. Perry didn’t know where they were being held or how long they had been there. Had they been hurt already? Had the vicious visitor done to Claire and Joseph what he had so effectively done to Jack and him? Perry couldn’t even be sure they were still alive. A photo was proof of the past only, but never of the present.
Perry pushed the thoughts away. Those were questions he couldn’t answer. For the moment all he could do was follow the instructions he’d been given, and that ate at his insides.
The hole in the ground widened with remarkable speed, yielding a gaping opening. The excavators worked with choreographed precision. Initially they worked on the same area, but under the direction of Perry, Jack shifted his approach, turning the hole into a deep trench. The plan was simple: Lay bare the deep rectangular object revealed by the GPR survey. Penetration by the radar had been less than they had hoped for, but it had been enough to locate the right site and reveal the basic size and shape. Jack dug on the forward edge of the object, Perry directly overhead.
The fever of desperation pushed the men forward. There
was no conversation; no unnecessary emotion, just the work, the pulling and pushing of levers and pedals. Buckets rising, dipping, digging, dumping, only to start the process again. Minutes passed with mule-like resistance, but Perry’s focus remained steady and unshaken.
Finally, with a rapid waving of arms, Gleason called Perry off. Gleason trotted closer to the hole than to Perry, leaping onto the steel step. “You’re at your fifteen-foot depth limit,”
Gleason announced. “Jack is still going but he’s going to max out at twenty-two feet. That’s less than half the depth we need.”
Perry knew this would happen. He knew the top of the chamber was fifteen meters below grade. That was over forty-five feet, the equivalent of a four-story building. Initially he’d planned to grade out a ramp as the first builders had, but he no longer had the time. “Tell Jack to keep going until he maxes out the reach of the trackhoe, then tell him to get it ready to bring to my side of the dig.”
“He won’t get any more depth on this side than where he is,” Gleason objected.
“He will when I’m done,” Perry said.
“What are you planning?” Gleason asked with suspicion.
“If I can’t extend the trackhoe’s reach, then I’ll just have to lower the trackhoe. Hang on.” Perry pulled the bucket in and secured it. He then raised the outriggers that kept the machine from tipping. Dropping the machine in gear, he backed it away from the large hole in the ground. Gleason stood on the steel step hanging on to the metal stubs left from where Perry had cut the canopy off.
“I’m going to doze away some ground from the side of the target. If I do it right, Jack will be able to drive the Komatsu down the new grade and clear more dirt. At some point we’re going to have to use shovels. I want you and Brent to bring up shovels, crow bars, and anything else you think we might need to get into the chamber.”
“Jack packed some of the pneumatic tools. Actually he packed everything.”
“That’s our Jack, and you gotta love ’im for it,” Perry said as he hopped down from the cab. “Fill Jack in. I don’t want to waste a minute.”
“To do that, you’re going to have to get close to the sinkhole edge. That makes me nervous.”
“Good, I didn’t want to be the only one with butterflies in my stomach.”
Perry jogged to the Case 1150 bulldozer and fired up its 108 hp diesel engine. Black smoke belched into the night sky, and its throaty idle rumbled through the hills. Had he the time, he could bring in major earthmoving equipment, but he had chosen to use smaller equipment to preserve as much of the property as possible and lessen the risk of damaging valuable artifacts. It was a wise decision when time was abundant; now it hamstrung him. There were earth-moving machines that could have made short work of the project, but they lacked the finesse he initially needed. Now he would have given a year’s salary to have a Komatsu PC1000 whose massive bucket could have plowed up the fifteen meters of depth in minutes. But wishing was a waste of time and mental energy. This was the hand he had been dealt, and he planned to play it for all it was worth.
