“The People of the Morning Star.”
Hank nodded. “The morning star that shines so brightly in the eastern skies at dawn is really the planet Venus. But Venus is also called the evening star because it shines brilliantly at sunset in the west. Many ancient astrologers figured this connection out. That’s why the crescent moon is often associated with the morning star.” He swung his arm in a low arc from east to west. “The two horns of the moon represent the star’s rise in both the east and the west, connecting them together.”
“Okay, but what are you getting at?”
“This particular pairing of moon and star is an ancient symbol, one of the oldest in the world. It speaks to man’s knowledge of his place in the universe. Some religious historians believe the Star of Bethlehem was in fact the morning star.”
Painter shrugged. “The symbol’s also found on the flags of most Islamic countries.”
“True, but even Muslim scholars will tell you that the symbol has nothing to do with their faith. It was in fact co-opted from the Turks.” Hank waved this all away. “But the symbol’s reach goes much further back. One of the earliest attestations of this paired symbol goes back to the lands of ancient Israel. From the Moabites, who were relatives of the Israelites according to the Book of Genesis—but who also had ties to the Egyptians.”
Painter held up a hand, stopping him from elaborating in more depth. “I get it. The symbol may further support your conjecture that these ancient people came from Israel.”
“Well, yes, but—”
Painter pointed toward the horizon, toward the distant mesa. “If there are any answers, hopefully we’ll find them out there.”
12:46 P.M.
San Rafael Swell
What have I done?
Kai stood still, dull with shock, in the middle of the Humetewas’ main room. Iris sat in a chair by the hearth, her tears bright in the firelight, but the old woman kept her face hard. Her fingers clenched the arms of her chair as she looked at her husband. Alvin was lying on his back across the pine table, stripped to his boxers. His thin chest rose up and down, much too rapidly. Blistered red welts marked his ribs. The reek of burned flesh filled the room.
A large-boned black woman stoked the fire. A second iron poker rested in the flames. Its tip was of the same shape as Alvin’s blisters. The shadowy woman didn’t even look up as Kai was dragged into the room.
Behind her, the giant blond soldier who’d captured them threw Jordan to the floor in the corner. With his wrists tied behind his back, he could not brace himself against his fall, but he twisted enough to hit the ground with his shoulder and skid up against the wall.
The other occupant of the room was seated at the head of the table. He stood up, pushing on a cane. Kai thought he was an older man—maybe it was the cane, or the ultraconservative suit, or the frailness that seemed to emanate from him. But as he thumped around the table, she saw that his face was smooth, unblemished, except for a dark stubble of beard, as artfully groomed as the sharp lines of his dark hair. He could be no older than his midthirties.
“Ah, there you are, Ms. Quocheets. My name is Rafael Saint Germaine.” He glanced to his watch. “We expected you much sooner and had to start without you.”
The man waved his cane over Alvin’s body. The old man flinched, which tore the hole in Kai’s heart even wider.
“We’ve been trying to ascertain the whereabouts of your uncle, but Alvin and Iris have been most uncooperative . . . despite the tender ministrations of my dear Ashanda.”
The woman by the fire glanced up.
At the sight of her face, Kai’s insides went slippery and cold. The woman, apart from her large size, looked ordinary enough, but as her eyes glinted in the firelight, Kai noticed that they were unfathomably empty, a mirror for whoever looked into them.
The crack of the cane on the floor drew her full attention. “Back to business.” The man named Rafael waved for his torturer to remove the hot iron. “We still need an answer.”
Kai stumbled forward to the table. “Don’t!” she blurted out. It came out as a half sob. “They don’t know where my uncle went!”
Rafael’s eyebrows rose. “That’s what the Humetewas have been claiming, but how can I believe them?”
“Please . . . my uncle never told them. He didn’t want them to know. Only I know.”
“Don’t tell them,” Iris said, hoarse with anger and grief.
The man named Rafael searched the beams overhead and sighed. “Such melodrama.”
Kai ignored Iris and kept her focus on the man with the cane. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything.” She found her voice again. “But not until you let the others go . . . all of them. Once they’re safely gone, I’ll tell you where my uncle went.”
Rafael seemed to weigh this offer. “While I’m sure you’re an honest and forthright person, Ms. Quocheets, I’m afraid I can’t take that chance.” He waved the black woman closer to Alvin. “Mouths have a tendency to be harder to pry open without good leverage. It’s all a matter of basic physics, of action and reaction.”
The poker lowered toward Alvin’s cheek. Its iron tip glowed a smoldering red, smoking and softly hissing.
Rafael leaned both hands on his cane. “This particular scar will be much harder to hide. That is, of course, if he lives.”
Kai had to stop this. There was only one option. In order to buy some time and keep them from torturing Alvin, she had to tell them the truth.
She opened her mouth, but Jordan spoke first.
“Keep me prisoner!” he called from the floor. “If you need Kai’s cooperation, you can use me as leverage. But please let the Humetewas go.”
Kai latched onto that chance. “He’s right. Do that, and I’ll talk.”
“My dear, you’ll talk whether we release Iris and Alvin or not.”
“But it will take longer,” Kai pressed. “Maybe too long.”
She turned and matched gazes with Iris, trying to absorb the old woman’s strength. If need be, Kai would resist for as long as possible, do her best to convince the interrogators that they would only waste precious time in torturing Alvin and Iris, that they could get what they needed much faster by letting the old couple go.
She turned back to Rafael and let that determination shine forth. He stared back at her. She dared not flinch.
After several long breaths, Rafael shrugged. “Well played and argued, Ms. Quocheets.” He pointed his cane at the blond soldier. “Gather up the Humetewas, pile them onto one of those ATVs, and send them off into the canyons.”
“I want to watch,” Kai said. “To make sure they’re safe.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
In a matter of minutes, Iris and Alvin sat atop the white ATV. Alvin was too weak from his abuse to drive, so he rode behind his wife. Iris nodded to Kai, in that single gesture both thanking her and telling her to be careful.
Kai returned the nod, passing back the exact same message to Iris.
Thank you . . . and be careful.
Iris revved the throttle and took off. The pair trundled down a wash and quickly vanished around a turn in the canyon.
Kai remained standing outside the pueblo. She watched the trail of dust get farther and farther away, winding deep into the badlands.
Rafael stood on the porch in the shade. “I believe that should satisfy you.”
Kai turned and let out a rattling sigh. She stared at the man and at the dark shadow of the woman who was hovering behind his shoulder. Any lie Kai told would be punished—and it would fall upon Jordan’s shoulders to bear the brunt of that abuse. But if she cooperated, she knew her captors would keep them alive.
To be used as leverage with Painter.
As the bastard had said, it was only basic physics.
“My uncle flew to Flagstaff,” she finally admitted. “They were heading to Sunset Crater National Park.”
And she quickly told him why—just to be fully convincing.
As she finished, Rafael looked disconcerted. “Seems they know much more than I expected . . .” But he quickly shook it off. “No matter. We’ll deal with it.”
He leaned on his cane and turned to the open doorway. He spoke to the tall blond soldier. “Bern, radio your sniper. Tell him to take his shots and haul back to the helicopter.”
Sniper?
Kai took two steps toward the porch.
Iris and Alvin.
Rafael turned to her. “I said I’d let them go,” he explained. “I just didn’t say how far I’d let them go.”
Off in the distance, a sharp crack of a rifle echoed.
Soon followed by a second.
1:44 P.M.
Flagstaff, Arizona
Painter stared up at the top of the mesa. He sucked deeply from the tube connected to his CamelBak water bottle. After two blistering hours in the heat, he’d come to believe that they’d never reach this mesa, that it would continue to retreat from them forever, like some desert mirage.
But here they were.
“Now what?” Kowalski asked, fanning his face with his Stetson. He’d become a walking sweat stain.
“The pueblo’s up top,” Nancy said.
Kowalski groaned.
Painter craned his neck. He saw no way up.
“Over here,” she directed, and headed around the base of the mesa to where a crumbling trail ran up its side.
As they followed her, Painter noted large swaths of rock art along the cliff faces: snakes, lizards, deer, sheep, fanciful human figures, and geometric designs of every shape and design. The petroglyphs appeared to be two types. The more common was formed as the darker “desert varnish” of the surface stone was chipped or scraped away to reveal the lighter stone beneath. Others were formed by drilling hundreds of tiny holes into the soft sandstone, outlining figures or sunlike spirals.
Painter followed behind Hank, noting the professor scanning the same cliffs, likely looking for the star and a moon of his lost Israelites.
At last, after climbing a good way up, they reached a broken chute in the cliff face, the eponymous crack in Crack-in-the-Rock pueblo. The opening was narrow, but the sandstone was worn smooth by rain and wind.
“It’s a short climb up from here,” Nancy promised.
She led the way, sliding into the chute and climbing up the boulder-strewn path. As the crack split its way to the top of the mesa, Kowalski cursed under his breath. He had to squeeze through sideways a few times to get past some old choke stones that partially blocked their way.
But they all finally made it topside, exiting from the crack into a room of the pueblo itself. They stepped clear and out onto the open mesa. The jumble of ruins here was not as impressive as those that they had seen back at Wupatki, but the view made up for it. It overlooked the Little Colorado River and offered vistas for hundreds of miles in all directions.
“One of the theories about this place,” Nancy said, putting on her guide voice, “is that this was a defensive outpost. If you look at this shield wall along the edge of the mesa, there are small angled holes, perhaps for shooting arrows, but others have suggested this might have been an ancient observatory used by shamans, especially as some of the holes in the wall angle up.”
But such theories were not why they’d made the long trek.
“What about the petroglyphs you mentioned?” Painter asked, staying on task. “Where are they?”
“Follow me. We don’t normally take anyone this way. The path is dangerous, steep, full of slippery talus. A wrong step and you could go sliding to your death.”
“Show us,” Painter said, undaunted.
Nancy headed to a pile of rock where a wall had collapsed long ago. They had to climb over the rubble to reach what appeared to be another crack or chute. This one headed down. The footing was indeed treacherous. Rocks slid under Painter’s boots. He had to pin his hands to either side of the crack to keep from losing his balance. It didn’t help that Hank’s dog danced between them with all the ease of a mountain goat, stopping to mark the occasional stone or bit of weedy brush.
“Kawtch!” Hank yelled. “I swear if you bump me again . . .”
Nancy had agreed to let Hank unleash his dog, but only for as long as they were on top of the mesa. Apparently everyone was regretting this decision now—except for Kawtch himself. He lifted his leg again, then vanished below.
This new chute was narrower and longer than the crack they had passed through earlier. Even if they moved with care, it took some time to traverse, but finally they reached the bottom. Rather than breaking through to the outside, the group ended up within a high-walled chasm, open to the sky overhead, but offering no way out.
Hank stared around, his mouth hanging open. “Amazing.”
Painter had to agree. Great sprawling displays of petroglyphs covered the walls on both sides, every square inch of them. They were almost too dizzying to look at.
But their guide, having been here before, was more impatient than impressed.
“What you came to see is over here,” Nancy said, and led them to a smooth section of the stone floor. “This is the other reason we don’t let anyone down here. Can’t have them walking all over this masterpiece.”
Rather than scratching into the wall, the artist here had used a different canvas: the floor of the chasm.
Again it was a riotous panoply of prehistoric art—but in the center, wrapped around by one of the ubiquitous spirals, was a distinct crescent moon and five-pointed star. There was no mistaking it. The design was identical to the one drawn by Jordan’s grandfather.
Painter lifted a foot, ready to cross the field of art. He looked to Nancy, who tentatively nodded.
“Just be careful.”
Painter headed out. Hank followed with Kawtch, but Kowalski stayed with Nancy, making plain where his true interest lay. Reaching the piece of art, Painter knelt beside it. Hank assumed the same position on the far side of the display. They studied the work together.
Including the spiral wrapped around it, the singular piece of art had to be a full yard across. The ancient artist used both techniques that they had seen demonstrated elsewhere. The moon and star had been scraped out of the rock, but the spiral was composed of thousands of pinkie-sized drill holes.
Kawtch sniffed at the surface—at first curious, but then his hackles rose. He backed away, sneezing in apparent irritation.
Hank and Painter stared at each other. Painter leaned down first, putting his nose close to the art. Hank did the same.
“Do you smell anything?” Painter asked.
“No,” he answered, but there was still an edge of excitement in his voice.
Then Painter felt it, too—the smallest brush against his cheek, like a feathery kiss. He sat back and held his palm over the petroglyph, over the small drill holes.
“You feel that, right?” Painter asked.
“A breeze,” Hank said. “Coming up from below through the holes drilled in the spiral.”
“There must be a blowhole under here. Same as at Wupatki.”
Painter leaned over and gently brushed his hand across the surface of the art. Some of the fine rock dust billowed up as it passed over the drill holes, but that wasn’t his goal. He was clearing it for another reason.
He ran his fingertips along the edges of the petroglyph, then reached to Hank’s hand, urging the professor to do the same.
“Feel this,” Painter said, and drew one of Hank’s fingers along a seam that circled the piece of art.
Shock filled the professor’s voice. “It’s been mortared in place.”
Painter nodded. “Someone sealed this blowhole with a slab of sandstone. Like a manhole cover over a sewer.”
“But they left holes so the caverns below could still breathe.”
Painter’s eyes locked on Hank’s. “We must get down there.”
Chapter 24
May 31, 4:50 P.M.
Washington, D.C.
This day was never
going to end.
In the shadow of the Washington Monument, Gray headed across the National Mall, casting a withering glare toward the sun. It seemed to refuse to set. Though the flight from Reykjavik had taken five hours, because of the time change, he’d landed back in D.C. only an hour after he’d left Iceland—and as much as he traveled, such changes still mucked up his inner clock.
Some of his irritation also came from the two hours he’d spent underground, beneath the Smithsonian Castle at Sigma command. He’d gone through a thorough debriefing, while chomping at the bit to discover the contents of Archard Fortescue’s journal.
It had to be important, and he bore the proof of that. He touched his left ear gingerly. A liquid plastic bandage, barely visible, hardened the graze from the bullet he’d taken as he wrestled the backpack from the Guild agent on the island. But injuries he had received weren’t the worst from that trip.
“Slow down!” Seichan called behind him.
She hobbled after him, limping on her right leg. Medics at Sigma had also tended to her lacerations, suturing up the deeper bite marks and pumping her full of antibiotics and a lighter dose of pain reliever, as evidenced by the slight glaze to her eyes. She’d been lucky the orcas had treated her as gently as they had, or she could have lost the leg.
Gray reduced his pace so she could catch up to him. “We could’ve caught that cab.”
“Needed to stretch my legs. The more I keep moving, the faster I’ll heal.”
Gray wasn’t so sure that was the case. He’d overheard one of the doctors warning Seichan to take it easy. But he noted the feral glint behind that medicated glaze. She hadn’t liked being cooped up underground for two hours any better than he had. It was said sharks couldn’t breathe unless they were constantly moving. He suspected the same was true of her.
Together, they crossed Madison Drive. Her left foot slipped as she stepped from the curb. He caught her around the waist to keep her from falling. She swore, balanced herself, and began to push off of him—but he pulled her back, took her hand, and placed it on his shoulder.
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