Chapter 28

Dane burst into the glowing cavern, his eyes taking in the scene in a split-second. Jade and Amanda wrestling on the floor, rolling precariously closer to the edge of the walkway and the dark water that waited below. A man with an upraised knife. Bones clutching desperately at the man’s arm.

His Walther useless, having expended his bullets fighting off the dark creatures that whose lair he had penetrated, he sprinted forward, leaping into the air and catching the man full in the chest with a flying side kick. The man fell onto his back, still clutching the knife. Dane tumbled to the walkway, catching most of the impact of his fall on his shoulder, rolled over, and sprang to his feet.

“Jarren! No!” Jade shouted. She and Amanda lay on the ground, their fight forgotten, both staring open-mouthed at Dane. Bones rolled over onto his stomach, choking and gasping for breath.

Jarren crept forward, his knife held low, a vicious look in his eyes, still panting from the fatigue of his fight with Bones. He chanced a glance behind him, apparently to gauge how long he had to dispatch Dane before Bones was able to join the fray. He sprang forward, slashing at Dane’s inner thigh, trying to sever the femoral artery.

Dane slipped out of the way just in time, the blade slicing a shallow cut across the outside of his thigh. He sprang forward, driving his elbow into Jarren’s throat. Jarren reeled backward, gasping, but immediately resumed the attack, stabbing at Dane’s midsection. Dane pivoted and, with an open palm, knocked Jarren’s knife hand to the side. As the blade thrust met empty space, Dane trapped Jarren’s elbow with his right arm and struck him twice in the side of the neck with vicious palm heel strikes. Jarren’s knees buckled and the knife clattered to the ground. Dane released his grip.

As Jarren staggered away, Bones stepped in front of him.

“I owe you this,” he said, and drove a devastating right cross into the man’s temple. Jarren’s eyes went glassy. He took two steps to his right, and then went limp. He tumbled like a rag doll over the edge of the walkway and into the water below. They watched the current carry him out of sight.

Bones grasped Dane by the shoulders and held him at arm’s length, looking at him like he had not seen him in ages.

“Bro, I thought I’d never see you again,” he said. His eyes grew suddenly hard and he whirled about, picked his knife up off the ground where Jarren had dropped it, and stalked down the walkway toward the women, who were standing and looking at him in trepidation. “All right, Jade. What do you want me to cut off first: your fingers or your toes? I would cut your eyes out, but I want you to watch yourself bleed to death.”

“Bones! What the hell are you talking about?” Dane shouted. He couldn’t believe his friend was saying this.

“She’s one of them,” Bones snarled. “She’s part of the Dominion. All along, it was her feeding information to them. As soon as Jimmy sent us the final translation, they sent men to kill us. They killed Saul and almost got us. She,” he pointed at Jade, “was supposed to kill you. She told them she had.”

Dane felt like a detached spirit floating in blessed unfeeling. He had not felt this numb since Melissa died. Everything fell into place. She had used him, used them, to help her find the clues she sought. When she didn’t need them anymore, she drugged him and left him to die in the desert, and left the others to be taken unaware by the Dominion men.”

“Don’t kill her,” he said in a voice like ice. He couldn’t bring himself to do that. “Find something to tie her up. We’ll figure out what to do with her after we find the treasure.”

“Dane, no!” Jade cried, her voice cracking. “You read my note, didn’t you? I explained everything!” Tears welled in her eyes, and she took a tentative step toward him.

“What note?”

“They wanted me to kill you, but there was no way I would ever do that. I gave you something to put you to sleep and left you somewhere safe I knew of, somewhere close by, until I could come back for you. I explained it all in the note.”

“You left me in the desert to die.” He said.

“I left you in a sheltered place with six bottles of water, a bag of trail mix, and a note telling you to stay out of sight until I came back for you because the Dominion wanted you dead. Don’t you remember when we stopped for coffee? The paper bag I carried out of the convenience store?” She was pleading now. “I tucked it between you and the wall of the overhang.”

Dane vaguely remembered her taking a paper bag out of the back of the car. He certainly could have missed a brown paper bag stuck in a shadowy overhang of red rock. Could it be true? He wanted it to be, but he didn’t know if he could trust her.

“Dane, if I wanted you dead, don’t you think I could have killed you while you were asleep? Why do you think I left you so close to Zion instead of out in the middle of nowhere? How could you think I could do that to you after we… after…” Her voice faded away. Tears now flowed freely down her cheeks, but she did not look away from him. “Please,” she whispered. “I really do care about you.”

He couldn’t take it. He had tried so hard not to let himself have feelings for anyone since Melissa had died. There had been Kaylin for a short while, and then after last night, he had thought… He turned his back on her and stared into the water tumbling from the center of Fray Marcos’ symbol and down onto the glowing terraces.

“Explain a few things to me, then.” Bones said, taking up the slack in the conversation. “You admit, then, that you’re in the Dominion.”

“No,” Jade replied. “Dane, please look at me. I’ll tell you everything. I promise.”

“Telling me everything from the start would have been a good idea,” he said, turning around to face her. “Now I don’t know if you’re going to tell me the truth, or a carefully crafted story.”

“I know. When I first met you, I didn’t want to scare you away by telling you. I actually knew your name, and yours,” she said to Bones, “from reading about what happened in Jordan. Then things got dangerous, and I was afraid you’d bail on me, and I was scared and I needed you. When I realized I was falling for you, it had been so long that I didn’t see how I could tell you after waiting all that time.”

“Fine, just tell me whatever truth it is you want to tell me.” He folded his arms across his chest and stared at her.

“My passion has always been solving the mystery of the Seven Cities. Saul was one of my students, and one day he approached me with something I had only dreamed of ever finding: the missing final page from the journal of Fray Marcos de Niza.”

“Great. Another journal,” Bones muttered, fingering his knife.

“Fray Marcos uncovered evidence of a “great and terrible” secret. That secret was somehow associated with an order that acted under the sign of the cross-and-clover, the one we now know as Fray Marcos’s sign. He journeyed through the New World and managed to confirm the truth of that secret. Seeing the depredations they committed upon the native people, and not wanting the Conquistadores to discover his secret, he concocted the story of the Seven Cities of Cibola, both to explain his wanderings and to throw the Spanish off. He did not, however, think it was his place to hide this secret from the world forever, so he and Estevanico concocted a plan. He remained in the southwest, planting clues in places he and Fray Marcos had chosen. Fray Marcos returned to Mexico, telling everyone that Estevanico had been killed, and spreading his tale of seven cities containing more gold than the Incas ever dreamed of.

“Unfortunately for Fray Marcos, Coronado couldn’t wait to get his hands on the gold. He took Marcos as his guide and set out to conquer the Seven Cities. When the Spaniards never found the cities of gold, Fray Marcos was branded a liar, and eventually died in disgrace. According the journal page Saul gave me, he hid a single clue that would unlock the secret. He hid it in a well in a remote outpost in Argentina.”

“The breastplate,” Bones said, still holding his knife.

“Right,” Jade said. “When Saul showed me this, I dove into the research, and learned of a recently discovered Spanish outpost in Argentina. I wanted to get down there and investigate right away, before someone beat me to it. Saul introduced me to his father, who offered to fund my expedition through the organization of which he was a member. I would get all the credit for the find. The catch was, when I found the final location, his organization wanted to cherry pick a few of the artifacts before I documented the find. I thought it was a simple matter of black market artifact trading, which I loathe, but I didn’t see any other way I could fund the expedition on such short notice. By the time I learned I was being funded by the Dominion, it was too late to back out. In part, I was afraid of what they might do if I broke our deal, but I have to admit that I had the fever. I probably would have taken their money had I known from the start, as long as it meant realizing my life’s ambition.”

“I don’t get why they needed you,” Amanda said. “If they had the journal page, why not go after the clue themselves?”

“I can’t be one hundred percent certain.” Jade’s eyes took on a faraway glint. “The only things they had were the journal page, which makes no sense if you don’t know the rest of the story, and some local legends about a hidden treasure. They needed my knowledge and expertise. If you have a choice, why send a team of grunts when you can send an archaeologist who’s studied the Seven Cities for her entire life? Besides, even if they had managed to find the well and uncover the breastplate, which I doubt they could have done without the benefit of my research, they would have had needed an academic to help them get the clues deciphered. They also had Saul to keep tabs on me, and I was required to report in to Saul’s father on a regular basis. I guess the answer to your question is, ‘Why not me?’”

“Then why did they show up at Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, and Hovenweep?” Dane asked. “Why did they snatch the clue at Shiprock before we did?”

“Actually,” Amanda said, “Saul found that clue. He didn’t tell us because he knew Jade was working with the Dominion.”

“He did?” Jade looked flabbergasted. “I didn’t think he knew. He didn’t seem to know his own father was in the Dominion.” She shook her head. “He must have wanted to find the treasure before them. Why didn’t he tell me?”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Dane snapped. He wanted desperately to believe her, to feel about her the way he had before learning of her connection with the Dominion. Anything that did not make sense, anything that did not strengthen her story, eroded the trust he was trying to rebuild.

“That was Jarren’s doing.” She gestured toward the spot where Jarren had been swept away by the current. “He works for someone who is known only as The Elder. He’s the head of the organization. Jarren wasn’t sure I could be trusted, so he took it upon himself to try to find the first piece without us. When I reported in, as instructed, he backed off. That is, until Bones showed up.”

“Why did that matter?” Bones had sheathed his knife, and now squatted on the walkway, listening in keen interest.

“You were a new variable. You had already made trouble for them by taking the sun disc, and by rescuing Orley. At Mesa Verde, Jarren and another thug showed up at Square Tower House. They wouldn’t answer my questions, but they wanted the clue and they wanted you dead, though I think they were acting on their own in that respect. I told them you had just reported back to me that Square Tower House was a dead end, and I convinced them that I was going to ditch you anyway because I didn’t need you. One of them cut your rope, and knocked me out ‘just to be safe.’”

“So you didn’t set them on Saul and me at Sun Temple?” Bones asked. Amanda had sat down next to him. Both seemed to believe what Jade had told them so far.

“No. I had reported that we were looking at both locations. I kept giving them only the minimum information: what we found, and where we thought the next location might be, so they never knew about the solstice connections, or any of our speculation. We were a little off regarding the site at Hovenweep, so we unintentionally threw them a curve there. And you guys held back the information about Rainbow Bridge until we were already there.”

“We thought Saul was the mole,” Amanda said, “but we weren’t sure.”

Jade nodded.

“When Jimmy made the connection that led to Zion,” Jade continued, “I reported in that all the pieces were in place. I believed Saul that the Dominion already had the Ship Rock piece. They, in turn, assumed that when I said ‘all pieces’ that I meant I had all of them. I thought I could ditch you guys at the hotel, complete the mission, and then when the Dominion picked whatever artifacts it was they wanted, I could let you in on everything. But they told me to kill Maddock.”

“Why only me?” Dane asked. Now they were at the heart of it.

“I think they suspected there was something between us.” She was looking him right in the eye. “It was a test of my loyalties. What I did to you was the only thing I could think of on short notice. I almost told you the truth that night, but I didn’t know what you’d do. I was half afraid you’d hate me and half afraid you’d insist on going with me and manage to get yourself killed. I never planned to hurt you, and I did not know they would send men after the rest of you.” She now knelt and spoke to Bones. “When I came into this chamber and saw you and Amanda here, I was in shock. It was like my brain was frozen. Jarren had his gun on you, and I didn’t know what to do that wouldn’t get you killed. You had to have noticed that I didn’t take your knife, not that it did you any good.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve never killed anyone. Never even dreamed of it. But I swear to you, I had just made up my mind to shoot Jarren when you jumped him. I swear.”

Bones did not say anything. Apparently he was having as much trouble making up his mind as Dane was.

“I really don’t like you,” Amanda said. Both women stood and faced one another, Amanda’s eyes ablaze and Jade’s dull with remorse or regret. “But I believe you.” She held out her hand, and after a moment, Jade took it in hers.

“Okay,” Bones said, rising to his feet. “I don’t know if I forgive you, but I believe you.”

“Thank you,” Jade whispered. She let go of Amanda’s hand and turned to face Dane, the questioning look in her eyes making words unnecessary.

Dane did not know what to say. Though every fiber of his being ached to believe her, to forgive her, to take her in her arms and make things be like they had been, he just could not. It just wasn’t that easy.

“Let’s find this treasure,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. He could not help but see tears flood Jade’s eyes as he turned his back on her.

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