The Devil Colony

Chapter 14

“We should tell someone,” Jun Yoshida insisted.

With his usual insufferable calmness, Dr. Riku Tanaka merely cocked his head from right to left, like a heron waiting to spear a fish. The young physicist continued to study the data flowing across the monitor.

“It would be imprudent,” the small man finally mumbled, as if to himself, lost in the fog of his Asperger’s.

As director of the Kamioka Observatory, Jun had spent the entire day buried at the heart of Mount Ikeno, in the shadow of the massive Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector. So had their Stanford colleague, Dr. Janice Cooper. The three of them had been monitoring neutrino activity following the early-morning spike. The source had been pinpointed to a mountain chasm in Utah, where some explosive event had taken place. But the exact details remained sketchy.

Was it a nuclear accident? Was the United States trying to cover it up?

He wouldn’t put it past the Americans. As a precaution, Jun had already alerted the international community about the spike, refusing to let such knowledge be buried away. If this was a secret experiment gone awry, the world had a right to know. He glared a bit at Janice Cooper, as if she were to blame. Then again, her incessant cheeriness was reason enough for resentment.

“I think Riku is right,” she said, speaking respectfully to her superior. “We’re still struggling to pinpoint this new source. And besides, the pattern of this new burst doesn’t look the same as the one in Utah. Perhaps we should hold off on any official announcement until we know more.”

Jun studied the screen. A graph continued to scroll, like a digital version of a seismograph. Only this chart tracked neutrino activity rather than earthquakes — but considering what they’d found, it was earthshaking in its own right. For the past eighty minutes, they’d picked up a new surge in neutrino generation. Just as before, it appeared to be coming from earth-generated geoneutrinos.

Only Dr. Cooper was correct: this pattern was distinctly different. The Utah explosion created a single monstrous burst of neutrinos. Afterward it had died down to a low burble, like a teapot on a stove. This new surge of activity was less intense, coming in cyclical bursts: a small spike, followed by a stronger one… then a lull, and it repeated, like the lub-dub beat of a heart.

It had been going on for over an hour.

“This has to be related to the earlier event,” Jun insisted. “It’s beyond statistical possibility to have two aberrant neutrino surges of these magnitudes within the span of a day.”

“Perhaps one caused the other,” Tanaka offered.

Jun leaned back and took of his glasses. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. His first knee-jerk reaction was to reject such an idea — especially considering its source — but he remained silent, contemplating. He had to admit it wasn’t a bad hypothesis.

“So you’re suggesting the first spike ignited something else,” Jun said. “Perhaps an unstable uranium source.”

In his mind’s eye, he pictured that initial burst of neutrinos radiating outward from the explosion, particles flying in all directions, passing through the earth like a swarm of ghosts — but leaving a trail of fire, capable of lighting another fuse.

“But neutrinos don’t react with matter,” Dr. Cooper said, throwing cold water on that idea. “They pass through everything, even the earth’s core. How could they ignite something?”

“I don’t know,” Jun said.

In fact, there was little he understood about any of this.

Tanaka pressed ahead, refusing to admit defeat. “We know some mysterious explosion generated this morning’s spike in Utah. Whatever that source was, it is very unique. I’ve never seen readings like this before.”

Dr. Cooper looked unconvinced, but Jun believed Riku might be following the right thread. Neutrinos were once thought to have no mass, no charge. But recent experiments had proven otherwise. Much about them remained a mystery. Maybe there was an unknown substance sensitive to neutrino bombardment. Maybe the Utah explosion of particles had lit the fuse on another deposit. It was a frightening thought. He pictured a daisy chain of blasts, one after the other, spreading around the globe.

Where would it stop? Would it stop?

“This is all conjecture,” Jun finally concluded aloud. “We won’t know any true answers until we find out where this new surge is coming from.”

No one argued with him. With a renewed determination, they set to work. Still, it took another half hour to finally coordinate with other neutrino labs around the globe to triangulate the source of these intermittent bursts.

They gathered around a monitor as the data collated. A world map filled the screen with a glowing circle that encompassed most of the Northern Hemisphere.

“That’s not much help,” Jun said.

“Wait,” Tanaka warned tonelessly.

Over the course of another ten minutes, the circle slowly narrowed, zeroing tighter and tighter upon the coordinates of the new neutrino surges. It was clearly nowhere near Utah.

“Looks like we can’t blame the United States this time,” Dr. Cooper said with relief as the contracting circle cleared the North American continent.

Jun stared, dumbfounded, as the source was finally pinpointed, fixed with a set of crosshairs.

They all shared a glance.

“So now do we tell someone?” Jun asked.

Tanaka slowly nodded. “You were most right before, Yoshida-sama,” he said, using a rare honorific. “We dare not wait any longer.”

Jun was surprised by his reaction — until Tanaka motioned to the neighboring computer screen, the one with the digital graph mapping current-time neutrino activity. A small gasp escaped him. The spikes of activity were growing more frequent, like a heartbeat boosted by adrenaline.

His own pulse leaped to match it.

He reached for the phone and a private number left for him, but his gaze remained fixed to the screen, to the crosshairs centered on the Northern Atlantic.

Someone had to get out there before it was too late.

Chapter 15

“Iceland?” Gray asked, shocked. He held the phone tighter to his ear, speaking to Kat Bryant. “You want me to head out to Reykjavik within the hour?”

He and Seichan were sharing the back of a black Lincoln Town Car. As a precaution, Kat had sent the car out to his parents’ house once she got word of the attack on the director. At the moment they were headed back to the National Archives. Monk and his two researchers had found something of interest, something too important or involved to discuss over the phone.

“That’s correct,” Kat said. “On Director Crowe’s orders. He wants you to take Monk, too. Pick him up on the way to the airport.”

“We’re headed there already. Monk texted me about some discovery at the National Archives.”

“Well, find out what that is, but be at the airport in forty-five minutes. And dress warmly.”

“Thanks, but what’s this all about?”

“Earlier I told you about that burst of subatomic particles reported from the Utah blast site. I’ve just spoken to the head of the Kamioka Observatory in Japan. He’s detected another surge. One that has him deeply troubled, coming from an island off the coast of Iceland. He believes the two neutrino surges might be connected, that the bombardment of subatomic particles from the Utah blast might have triggered this new Icelandic activity, literally lit its fuse. Director Crowe believes it’s worth investigating.”

Gray agreed. “I’ll pick up Monk and head out.”

“Be careful,” she said. Though her message was terse, Gray heard the underlying meaning. Watch after my husband. He understood.

“Kat, this mission sounds like something Seichan and I could do on our own. It might be best to leave Monk with the researchers who are pursuing the historical angle.”

The phone went silent. He pictured her weighing his words. She finally sighed. “I understand what you’re offering, Gray. But I’m sure those researchers don’t need Monk watching over their shoulders. Besides, Monk could use a little stretching of his legs. With a baby coming — and Penelope heading for her terrible twos — the pair of us is going to be housebound for months. So, no, take him with you.”

“Okay. But trust me, being housebound with you is not something Monk is dreading.”

“Who was talking about him?”

Gray heard the exasperation in her voice, but also the warmth. He had a hard time imagining such a life, the intimacy of two sharing everything, of children, of the simplicity of a warm body beside you every night.

“I’ll bring him home safe,” he promised.

“I know you will.”

After settling a few more details, they signed off.

Across the seat, Seichan leaned against the side door, arms crossed. It looked like she had been dozing, eyes closed, but he knew she’d overheard every word. This was confirmed when she mumbled, not bothering to open her eyes. “Road trip?”

“Seems so.”

“Lucky I packed my sunscreen.”

A short time later, the Town Car pulled up to the National Archives Building. Monk met them inside. He wore a wide grin, his eyes bright, and waved to them impatiently, plainly excited.

“Iceland,” he said as he led them back to the research room. “Can you believe it?”

From his manner, he was clearly enthused about doing a bit of fieldwork. But there remained a mischievous gleam to his eye. Before Gray could inquire further, they’d reached their destination.

The research room had undergone a dramatic transformation since they’d last been there. Books, manuscripts, and maps, along with stacked file boxes, covered the surface of the conference table. All three microfiche readers along the wall glowed with pages of old newsprint or pictures of yellowed documents.

Amid the chaos, Dr. Eric Heisman and Sharyn Dupre had their heads bowed over one of the boxes, searching its contents together. Heisman had shed his sweater and rolled up his sleeves. He removed a thin dog-eared-looking pamphlet and added it to a pile.

“Here’s another of Franklin’s monographs about the eruption…”

They looked up as Monk returned.

“Did you tell him?” Heisman asked.

“Thought I’d leave it to both of you. You’ve done all the hard work. All I did was order pizza.”

“Tell us what?” Gray asked.

Heisman looked to Sharyn, who still wore her tight black dress, but she had pulled a long white coat over it and had donned thin cotton gloves for handling fragile documents. “Sharyn, why don’t you start? It was your inspired suggestion that opened the floodgates. Then again, your generation is much more proficient with computers.”

She smiled shyly at the praise and gave her head a slight bow of thanks before turning to Gray and Seichan. “I’m sure we would have found it eventually, but with a majority of the Archives’ documents digitally copied, I thought we could sift through the records more efficiently by expanding and generalizing the search parameters.”

Gray hid his impatience. He didn’t care how they found it, only what it was. Still, he noted the amused twinkle in Monk’s eye. His partner was holding something back.

“We did a global search for the combination of names Fortescue and Franklin,” Sharyn said, “but we came up empty-handed.”

“It’s as if all records had been purged,” Heisman said. “Someone definitely seemed to be covering their tracks.”

“So I expanded the search beyond Franklin and tried all manner of alternate spellings for Fortescue. Still nothing. Then I simply tried putting in the man’s initials, Archard Fortescue. A.F.”

She glanced to Heisman, who smiled proudly. “That’s where we found it.” He picked up a sheaf of brittle yellow pages. “In a letter from Thomas Jefferson to his personal private secretary, Meriwether Lewis.”

“Lewis? As in Lewis and Clark. The two explorers who crossed the continent all the way to the Pacific.”

Heisman nodded. “One and the same. This letter to Lewis is dated June 8, 1803, about a year before the two left for that adventure. It concerns a discussion about a volcanic eruption.”

Gray didn’t understand where this was going. “What does a volcano have to do with anything?”

“First of all,” Heisman explained, “such a discussion wasn’t unusual — probably why this note drew no notice and wasn’t expunged with the rest. Over the course of their relationship, Lewis and Jefferson often discussed science. Meriwether was former military, but he had been educated in the sciences and had great interest in the natural world.”

Gray realized how much that sounded like any member of Sigma.

Heisman continued: “The two were very close friends. In fact, their families had grown up within ten miles of each other. Jefferson trusted no one more thoroughly than Lewis.”

Monk nudged Gray. “So if Jefferson was keeping secrets, there’s one person he’d surely take into his confidence.”

Heisman nodded. “In this letter, one name comes up over and over, a man cryptically identified only as A.F.”

“Archard Fortescue…” Gray said.

“Plainly Jefferson did not trust writing the man’s name in full, which was very much in character for this Founding Father. Jefferson had a great interest in cryptography, even developing his own secret cipher. In fact, it wasn’t until the last year or so that one of his codes was finally cracked.”

“That guy was paranoid,” Monk said.

Heisman glanced to him, offended. “If Franklin’s earlier letter was accurate about some great enemy besieging the new union in secret, maybe he had reason to be. This same paranoia may have fueled Jefferson’s purging of the Army during his presidency.”

“What are you talking about?” Gray asked, growing intrigued.

“Just after Jefferson was elected president following a bitter campaign, one of his first orders of business was to reduce the standing army. He chose Meriwether Lewis to help him decide which officers were competent and which were not. Lewis communicated his findings back to Jefferson via a system of coded symbols. Some historians suspect this purge had less to do with competency than it did with loyalty to the U.S.”

Monk glanced significantly at Gray. “If you wanted to weed out traitors, especially those leading armed forces, this would be a good way of going about it in secret.”

Gray knew the difficulty Sigma had in purging Guild moles and operatives from their own fold. Were the Founding Fathers trying to do the same? He pictured Lewis’s involvement in this affair. Soldier, scientist, and now spy. The man sounded more and more like a Sigma operative.

Seichan crossed to the table and took a seat, plopping heavily into it, looking bored. “All well and good, but what the hell does this have to do with volcanoes?”

Heisman seated his reading glasses more firmly on the bridge of his nose and spoke stiffly. “I was just getting to that. The letter addresses an eruption that occurred exactly two decades prior. To the day, in fact. The twentieth anniversary of it. The Laki eruption. It was the deadliest volcanic eruption of historical times. In its aftermath, over six million people died globally. It wiped out livestock, and crops failed around the world, leading to massive famines. It was said the skies turned bloodred, and the planet cooled enough to cause the Mississippi to freeze over as far south as New Orleans.”

Sharyn interrupted, lifting one of the papers she’d been sifting through when Gray first entered. “Here’s Benjamin Franklin’s own words describing the eruption’s effect. ‘During several of the summer months of the year 1783, when the effect of the sun’s rays to heat the earth in these northern regions should have been greater, there existed a constant fog over all Europe, and a great part of North America.’ Franklin became obsessed with this volcano.”

“And apparently with good reason,” Heisman added, drawing back Gray’s attention. “According to this letter, Archard Fortescue was present at that eruption — even felt guilty about it, as if he’d caused it.”

“What?” Gray couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice.

Seichan spoke while he struggled to understand. “Excuse my lack of geographical prowess, but where is this volcano?”

Heisman’s eyes widened, as if suddenly realizing he’d never told them. “In Iceland.”

Gray turned to Monk, who wore a big, amused grin. This was the detail he’d been hiding. Monk shrugged. “Looks like we’re following in that Frenchman’s footsteps.”

As the others discussed the volcano’s location using various maps spread on the table, Seichan sat to the side, fingering a tiny silver dragon pendant hanging from her neck. It was a nervous habit. Her mother had always worn one of the same. It was one of the few details she still remembered about the woman.

As a child, Seichan would often stare at the tiny curled dragon in the hollow of her mother’s neck as she slept on a small cot under an open window. While night birds sang in the jungle, the moonlight reflected off the silver, shimmering like water with her mother’s breathing. Each night, Seichan imagined the dragon would come to life if she just watched it long enough — and maybe it did, if only in her dreams.

With a flare of irritation at such sentimentality, Seichan let the silver charm drop from her fingers. She had waited long enough. No one seemed to be addressing the most obvious question in the room, so she asked it.

“Back to that letter, Doc.” All eyes turned to her. “What did you mean when you said that the Frenchman felt guilty about the volcano blowing up?”

Heisman still had the sheaf of papers in hand. “It’s here in Jefferson’s letter.” He cleared his voice, picked out a passage, and read it aloud. “ ‘We have at last heard from A.F. He has suffered greatly and carries a heavy heart after all that befell him during the summer of the year 1783. I am very mindful that it was in supporting our cause that he followed the trail marked on the map recovered from the Indian barrow, a prize he gained at much grievous personal injury due to the ambush by our enemy. A.F. yet bemoans the volcano he caus’d to be born out in those seas during that summer. He has come to believe that the great famines that struck his home shores following that eruption were reason for the bloody revolutions in France, and bears much guilt for it.’ ”

Heisman lowered the pages. “In fact, Fortescue might be right in that last respect. Many scholars now conjecture that the Laki eruption — and the poverty and famine that followed in France — was a major trigger for the French Revolution.”

“And from the sounds of it,” Gray added, “Fortescue blamed himself. ‘The volcano he caus’d to be born.’ What did he mean by that?”

No one had an answer.

“So then what do we know?” Seichan asked, cutting to the quick. “From that first letter, we know Franklin called on Fortescue to find a map buried in some Indian mound. From the gist of this letter, he succeeded.”

Gray nodded. “The map pointed to Iceland. So Fortescue went there. He must have found something, something frightening or powerful enough that he believed it caused the volcanic eruption. But what?”

“It was possibly hinted at in the first letter,” Seichan offered. “Some power or knowledge that the Indians possessed, knowledge they seemed willing to share, possibly in exchange for the formation of that mythical Fourteenth Colony.”

“But that deal got screwed up,” Monk said.

Heisman’s assistant had been sifting through the piles of paper. “Here’s the passage again,” she said. “ ‘The shamans from the Iroquois Confederacy were slaughtered most foully en route to the meeting with Governor Jefferson. With those deaths, all who had knowledge of the Great Elixir and the Pale Indians have pass’d into the hands of Providence.’ ”

Gray nodded. “But now we know that one of the shamans lived long enough to reveal the location of a map, possibly a map to a fount of that knowledge. That’s what Fortescue was sent to find.”

“And apparently he succeeded,” Monk added. “Maybe it was that elixir mentioned in the letter, or something else. Either way, he believed it was powerful enough to trigger a volcanic eruption. Afterward, he was racked with guilt.”

“Until twenty years later, when Jefferson summoned him again,” Heisman said.

Seichan turned to the scholar, realized she was fingering the dragon charm, and forced her arm down. “What do you mean?”

Heisman fixed his glasses and read again from the letter. “ ‘After such tragedy, I am loath to drag A.F. yet again into another search, but his warmth and high regard among the aboriginal tribes of this continent will serve us well for that long journey. He will join you in Saint Charles, well enough in time to secure what he will need to join your excursion to the West.’ ”

Gray leaned forward. “Wait. Are you saying Fortescue joined the Lewis and Clark expedition?”

“Not me,” Heisman said and shook the papers in his hand. “Thomas Jefferson.”

“But there’s no other record—”

“Maybe they were purged, too,” Heisman offered. “Like the rest of this man’s records. This letter is all we could uncover. After Fortescue leaves on this expedition, he’s never mentioned again. At least as far as we can tell.”

“But why was Jefferson sending him with Lewis and Clark?” Gray asked.

Seichan guessed the answer, sitting up straighter. “Maybe Iceland wasn’t the only place marked on that Indian map. Maybe there was another spot. One out west. Iceland would have been closer, so they investigated that one first.”

Gray rubbed a finger along the edge of his right eye, one of his habits when struggling to connect pieces of a mental jigsaw puzzle. “If there was another site, why wait twenty years to go look for it?”

“After what happened the first time,” Monk said, “do you blame them for being more cautious? If Fortescue was right, their actions killed six million people and triggered the French Revolution. Of course they’d be more careful a second time.”

Heisman interjected. “There’s further support in the historical record that Lewis and Clark’s mission wasn’t purely for exploration. First, Jefferson all but admitted it.”

“What do you mean?” Gray asked.

“Prior to the expedition, Jefferson sent out a letter in secret, meant only for members of Congress. It revealed the true reason for the trip: to spy on the Indians out west and to gather as much intelligence about them as possible. Second, Jefferson had also developed a private secret code with Lewis so that messages sent back could be read only by Jefferson or those loyal to him. Does that sound like a yearlong nature hike? Jefferson was clearly looking for something out west.”

“But did he find it?” Seichan asked.

“There’s no public record of anything like that. Then again, all records of Archard Fortescue were expunged. So who knows? But there is one intriguing detail that suggests something was being covered up.”

Monk shifted closer. “What’s that?”

“On October eleventh, 1809, three years after the expedition returned from the west, Meriwether Lewis was found dead in his room inside a Tennessee inn. He’d been shot once in the head, once in the chest. Yet for some reason his death was deemed a suicide, his body hastily buried near the inn. It’s taken two hundred years for this cover-up to be exposed. It’s now firmly believed that he was killed by an assassin.” Heisman turned to them all. “Lewis had been on his way to Washington to meet with Thomas Jefferson. Some believe he had valuable information or was carrying something vital to national security when he was killed. But from there the trail goes cold.”

The room settled into silence. Seichan noted Gray still rubbing the corner of his right eye. She could practically hear the gears turning in his head.

Heisman checked his watch. “And that, dear gentlemen and ladies, is where we should stop for the night. I understand you have a flight to catch.”

Monk stood, and they said their good-byes. Heisman and Sharyn promised they’d continue the search in the morning, but didn’t sound hopeful.

Seichan followed the two men out to the street, where the Town Car still waited for them.

Monk eyeballed Gray. “You’ve got that worried crease across your forehead. What’s up? Nervous about the trip?”

Gray slowly shook his head as a cold breeze swept down the street. “No. I’m worried about Utah. After what we learned about Iceland — and knowing the two places are both showing odd neutrino discharges — I think today’s blast is the least of our problems.”

Monk popped open the car door. “If so, we have someone keeping an eye on things out there.”

Gray climbed inside. “That’s what worries me most.”

Chapter 16

Major Ashley Ryan kept vigil with the geologist Ron Chin. The pair stood at the rim of the chasm. Dawn was not far off — and could not come soon enough for Ryan.

It had been a long, bloody night. He and his unit had managed to haul their injured teammate out of the steaming valley, where a helicopter had evacuated the man to the nearest hospital — missing most of his right leg, dazed on morphine, blood seeping through the pressure bandage on his stump.

Ryan had tried to take a nap afterward, but every time he closed his eyes, he flashed to the ax blade as it bit deep into the man’s thigh… or he pictured Chin taking that severed limb and tossing it into the smoldering pit, as if throwing another log onto a bonfire. But Ryan understood. They couldn’t risk contamination.

Finally giving up, knowing he’d never sleep, he had climbed out of his tent and kept watch on the valley with the geologist. Over the course of the night, the scientist had set up a whole battery of equipment: video cameras, infrared scanners, seismographs, something he called a magnetometer, used for measuring the strength and direction of the magnetic field. He knew his own men were reporting a growing interference with radios and cell phones. In the past hour, compasses all pointed toward the chasm. But worst of all, the tremors and quakes were rattling the mountain and were escalating in both frequency and severity.

“Unit’s evacuated the area,” Ryan said, glancing back to the open-air Jeep parked nearby. “We’ve pulled back to a base two miles down the mountain. Is that far enough?”

“Should be,” Chin said, distracted. “Come look at this.”

The geologist knelt beside a video monitor. It displayed footage from a remote camera left beside the pit. Chin pointed to a hellish glow radiating from the center of the old blast site, illuminating a dark column of ashy smoke rising into the air.

“The geyser hasn’t blown in over forty minutes,” the geologist said. “I think all the water from the hot spring got boiled away.”

“So what’s coming out now?”

“An outgassing. Hydrogen, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide. Whatever process is going on here, it must have drilled beyond the spring and into the volcanic strata underpinning these mountains.”

As Ryan stared, a flash of fire shot through the dark column, then vanished. “What was that?”

Chin sat back, his face going pale.

“Doc?” Ryan pressed.

“I think… maybe a lava bomb…”

“What?” His voice rose to a girlish pitch. “Lava? Are you telling me that thing’s starting to erupt?”

As they watched, another two flashes streaked out of the column and struck the floor of the pit. A molten gobbet of rock rolled across the surface, leaving no doubt as to what was happening.

“Time to bug out of here,” Chin said, standing up. He ignored the equipment and began rapidly packing all the flash drives that held his data.

Ryan got in his face. After what had happened to Private Bellamy, he had questioned the geologist about this exact scenario. “I thought you said this wouldn’t happen. That even drilling into a volcano wouldn’t make it blow.”

“I said that usually doesn’t happen.” He spoke in a rush as he worked. “Occasionally deep-earth drilling has caused explosions when a borehole hits a superhot magma chamber, vaporizing drilling fluid and allowing lava to flow. Or take, for example, a case three years ago. In Indonesia, a drilling mishap gave birth to a massive mud volcano that continues to erupt today. So, no, it ordinarily doesn’t happen — but there’s nothing ordinary about what’s going on here.”

Ryan took a deep breath, remembering Bellamy’s leg. The geologist was right. What was going on here was off the map and into the weeds. He needed to get his team evacuated even farther back.

He lifted his radio but only got a squelch of static. He spun in a circle, got a brief snatch of words, then lifted the radio to his lips. “This is Major Ryan! Pull back! Pull back now! Get the hell off this mountain!”

A garbled response came through, but he didn’t know if it was acknowledgment or confusion. Did they hear me?

Chin straightened, snapping closed his metal briefcase. “Major, we must get clear of here. Now!”

Punctuating his words, the ground gave a violent shake. Ryan lost his footing and fell to one knee. They both turned to the video feed. On the chasm floor, the remote camera had been knocked over on its side, but the view remained on the pit.

The geyser had returned — but rather than steam and water, a jetting column of boiling mud and fiery rock now bubbled and splashed from the hole, heavily obscured by a churning cloud of smoke and ash.

Underfoot, the ground continued to shake, nonstop now, vibrating through the soles of Ryan’s boots.

“Move out!” Chin yelled.

Together, they fled to the Jeep. Ryan leaped behind the wheel. Chin crashed into the passenger seat. With the keys already in the ignition, Ryan roared the engine to life, tugged the stick into reverse, and pounded the accelerator. With a yank on the wheel, he spun the truck around, throwing Chin against his door.

“You okay?” Ryan asked.

“Go!”

Earlier in the evening, his team had cleared a rough, winding road down the mountainside, but it still required a rugged four-wheel drive to traverse it, and it was best traveled at a snail’s pace.

That wasn’t the case now.

Ryan didn’t slow, especially as the world exploded behind him. A glance at the rearview mirror revealed a brilliant fountain of lava dancing back there, shooting above the rim of the chasm. A glowing black column rose high into the sky, but the valley was not large enough to hold it. The fiery cloud spilled over the edge and rolled like an avalanche toward them.

That wasn’t the only danger.

Red-hot boulders the size of small cars struck the forest and slopes around them, bouncing away, setting fire to trees and shrubs. They hit with the force of mortar rounds. Ryan now understood why they were called lava bombs.

One sailed past overhead, raining flaming ash. Cinders burned his cheeks, his exposed arms, reminding Ryan all too well that his vehicle had no roof.

He ignored the pain and focused on the road ahead. The Jeep bucked and rocked down the steep, rocky trail. His left fender crumpled against an outcropping, shattering the headlamp on that side. The Jeep lifted. For a moment he swore he was driving on a single wheel, like a half-ton ballerina. Then the vehicle crashed back down.

“Hold on!”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Chin had turned around backward, one arm hugging his headrest. “The pyroclastic flow is moving too fast down the mountain. We’ll never make it!”

“I can’t get any more speed. Not in this terrain!”

“Then turn around.”

“What?” He risked taking his eyes off the road to glare at Chin. “Are you nuts?”

Chin pointed along a streambed that bisected their path. “Go that way. Upstream!”

Ryan again heard the raw command in the guy’s voice, confirming his suspicion that the geologist had spent some years in uniform. He responded to that authority.

“Fuck you!” Ryan shouted, furious at the lack of options — still he hauled on the wheel.

Defying every instinct for survival, he made a right turn into the streambed and gunned the engine. He sped uphill, casting a rooster tail of water behind his rear tires.

“I really mean it, Chin. Fuck you! What the hell are we doing?”

The geologist pointed to the right, upslope, toward the peak’s summit, where it overlooked the fiery chasm. “We have to skirt the cloud’s edge and get higher. Pyroclastic flows are fluidized clouds of rock fragments, lava, and gas. Much heavier than air. They’ll hug the mountainside and flow down.”

Despite his pounding heart, Ryan understood. “We have to get above it.”

But even that was chancy. By now, the surrounding woods were glowing with flames, while boulders continued to crash out of the sky, stripping branches, leaving a swath of fire. Worst of all, the world to the right of the Jeep ended at a towering wall of smoky fire, a witch’s cauldron of ash and rock. The cloud rolled toward them, swallowing all in its path as they sped along below it.

The only consolation was that the streambed was wide and shallow, full of packed gravel and sand. Ryan jammed the accelerator to the floor. The Jeep sped higher, gaining ground, skipping around boulders with deft turns of his wrist. But the farther he went, the narrower the course grew. They were running out of stream.

Fifty yards ahead, a boulder hit with the force of a rocket. Water exploded into steam, gravel rained down on them.

End of the road.

“There!” Chin yelled, and pointed beyond the right bank.

Past a few trees, a steep high alpine meadow spread outward, rapidly being eaten away by the flow of fiery smoke.

Ryan hauled sharply on the wheel and sent the Jeep leaping over the bank, catching air, before it hit the meadow. Deep-treaded tires tore into the grassy soil, patched by snow at this altitude.

“We’re not going to make it,” Chin said, staring to the right, to where the world ended.

Like hell we aren’t.

Ryan raced across the meadow as the cloud bore down on them. The heat of the approaching cloud burned like the breath of a dragon. Patches of snow began to melt around them.

At the end of the meadow rose a steep slope of raw granite. He aimed for it, hit it, and shot up its length. He climbed higher and higher, pressed back into his seat as the Jeep tilted precariously toward vertical. In the rearview mirror, he watched the cloud wash below them, erasing the world and replacing it with a roiling black sea.

Heat washed upward, blistering, searing his lungs, but he still cried out in relief. “We did it!”

Then the tires — all four of them — lost traction on the slick stone. The Jeep lurched, slipping sideways, falling backward. He fought against it, but gravity pulled them back toward the flaming sea.

“C’mon, Major!”

A hand balled into the collar of his uniform. He was yanked from his seat. Chin climbed over the windshield, dragging him along. Ryan understood and hit the hood beside Chin. Together, they shoulder-rolled forward as the Jeep slid backward under him.

Ryan hit the granite slope and scrambled to keep from following the Jeep down. Fingers latched onto his wrist and hauled him to a precarious lip of rock, enough for a toehold. Choking, coughing, the pair of them perched there like two little burned birds.

Ryan followed Chin’s gaze over the valley. The fiery cloud continued down the dark mountainside. Closer at hand, the chasm below belched with fire and flowed with ribbons of lava.

“My men…” he mumbled numbly, wondering about their fate

Chin reached and squeezed his elbow, offering sympathy. “Pray they heard you.”

Chapter 17

Hank Kanosh greeted the dawn on his knees, not in an act of worship, but from exhaustion. He’d climbed the steep trail from the circle of cabins just before sunrise. The winding track led up through a maze of slot canyons and into a dry wash. Kawtch sat next to him, tongue hanging, panting. With the sun just rising, the morning was still cool, but it was a challenging trail and neither of them was young.

Still, he knew it was not the passing of years that weighed down his legs and made the climb so taxing. It was his heart. Even now, the feel of it pounding in his chest came with an upwelling of guilt, guilt for surviving, for not being able to doing anything when he was most needed. For the past day, while he was on the run, it had been easier to push aside the pain of his friends’ deaths.

That was no longer the case.

He stared out over the broken landscape below. He and Maggie had made this same hike almost a decade ago, while testing the waters with each other. He still remembered the kiss they’d shared on this very spot. Her hair had smelled of sage; her lips tasted salty, yet sweet.

He savored that memory now as he knelt atop a slab of rock that jutted precariously over a deep gorge nicknamed the “Little Grand Canyon.” The valley lay at the heart of the San Rafael Swell, a sixty-mile-wide bulge of sedimentary rock that had been uplifted here by geological forces over fifty million years ago. Since then, rain and wind had carved and chiseled the region into a labyrinth of steep slopes, broken canyons, and rugged washes. Far below, the San Rafael River continued the eroding process, snaking lazily across the landscape on its way to the Colorado.

The red-rock region was mostly deserted, home to wild burros, stallions, and one of the largest herds of desert bighorn sheep. The only two-legged visitors here were the more adventurous hikers, because entry to the remote area required four-wheel-drive vehicles to traverse its few roads. In the past, the Swell’s nearly inaccessible maze of canyons and ravines had been the hideouts and escape routes for many outlaws, including Butch Cassidy and his gang.

And it seemed such was the case again.

Hank and the others had arrived here in the wee hours of the morning, crawling down a rock-strewn track from Copper Globe Road. Their destination was the family cabins of his retired colleagues, Alvin and Iris Humetewa. Hank’s group had barged in without any warning, but as he had known, the couple had taken the intrusion in good-natured stride.

The small homestead of five mud-and-stone pueblos was half commune, half school for Hopi children who were taught the old ways by three generations of the Humetewa clan, all led by Iris Humetewa, matriarch and benevolent dictator.

At the moment there were no students.

Or almost no students.

“You can come out,” Hank said.

A peeved sigh rose from beyond a boulder in the wash behind him. The slim figure of Kai Quocheets stalked out of hiding. She’d been trailing him since he’d left the cabins.

“If you want to see the sunrise,” he urged her, “you’d best come up here.”

With a sullen slump to her shoulders, she climbed to the overlook. Kawtch slapped his tail a couple of times against the sandstone slab in greeting.

“Is it safe out there?” she asked, eyeing the drop beyond the edge of the jutting rock.

“Stone’s been here thousands of years, it’ll probably last another few minutes.”

She looked doubtful about his assessment but came forward anyway. “Uncle Crowe and his partner are putting together some sort of satellite dish tied to a laptop and phone.”

“I thought he wanted to stay off the grid.”

The Humetewas’ cabins had no television or telephones. Even cellular reception was nonexistent in the labyrinthine canyons.

She shrugged. “Should still be safe. I heard him say something about encryption software. Probably acts as a scrambler or something.”

He nodded and patted the stone. “You came all the way up here to tell me that?”

She sank cross-legged to the stone. “No…” There was a long pause, too long for the truth. “Just wanted to stretch my legs.”

He recognized the waffling and could guess its source. He had already noted how she shied away from her uncle, circled him like a wary dog fearful of being beaten but drawn anyway. Still, there was no timidity to her. She kept her hackles raised, ready to bite. All this uncertainty must have made it too uncomfortable for her to stay below at the cabins, pushing her to follow after him.

He faced the rising sun as it crested fully and set fire to the red-rock landscape below. “Are you familiar with the na’ii’ees ceremony?”

“What’s that?”

He shook his head sadly. Why was it that the most fervent of the Native American activists were so often ignorant of their own heritage?

“It’s the sunrise ceremony,” he explained, pointing to the blazing birth of the new day. “A rite of passage for girls into womanhood. It involves four days and nights of dancing and sacred blessings, imbuing the new women with the spiritual and healing power of the White Painted Woman.”

Answering the questioning lift of an eyebrow, he explained the Apache and Navajo mythology surrounding this goddess, also known as the Changing Woman, named for her ability to shift appearances along with the seasons. He enjoyed how her gaze turned from dull to rapt with the telling, a sign of her thirst for such knowledge.

As he ended his description, she turned to the rising sun. “So do any tribes still perform the ceremony?”

“Some, but rarely. In the early twentieth century, the U.S. government banned Native American spiritual rites and practices, making the sunrise ceremony illegal. Over time, the practice slowly faded, only to return in a weakened version today.”

Kai’s face turned darker. “They’ve stolen so much from us…”

“The past is the past. It’s now up to us to sustain our own culture. We only lose what we fail to nurture.”

She seemed little mollified by this, her words bitter. “What? Like you’re doing? Forsaking your own beliefs for the white man’s religion. A religion that persecuted our people and incited massacres.”

He sighed. He’d heard it all before, and once again tried his best to enlighten the ignorant. “Mistakes are made by stupid men. In the course of human history, religions have been used as excuses for violence, including among our own Native American tribes. But when it comes to culture, religion is only one thread in a vast woven rug. My father was raised Mormon, as was my mother. That is as much my history as my native blood. One does not negate the other. I find much in the Book of Mormon that gives me peace and brings me closer to God — or whatever you want to call that eternal spirituality that exists in all of us. In the end, my faith even offers another viewpoint on our own people’s past. It’s why I became a Native American historian and naturalist. To seek the answer to who we are.”

“What do you mean by that? How does Mormonism explain anything about our people?”

He wasn’t sure this was the right time to explain the history that was buried within the pages of the Book of Mormon, a testament of Christ’s footsteps in the New World. Instead, he’d offer Kai some insight into the shadows that still clouded the earliest histories of the Native American tribes.

He stood up. “Follow me.”

With a slight arthritic limp, he hobbled over to a neighboring scalloped-out dome of sandstone. Under a fluted lip of rock stretched a line of chipped stone blocks, marking the ruins of an old Indian home. Ducking his head, he stepped over the threshold and crossed to the far wall.

“There is much that we still don’t know about our own people,” he said, and glanced back. “Are you familiar with the prehistoric Indian mounds found throughout the Midwest — stretching from sites around the Great Lakes to the swamps of Louisiana?”

She shrugged.

“Some mounds date back six thousand years. Even tribes living in the area when Europeans arrived had no memories of those ancient mound builders. That is our heritage. One big mystery.”

He reached the far wall, where some prehistoric artist had painted a trio of tall, skeletal figures in crimson pigments against the yellow sandstone. He lifted a hand over the ancient artwork.

“You’ll find petroglyphs like this throughout the area. Some archaeologists have dated the oldest images here at eight thousand years old. And those are relatively new compared to the Coso Petroglyphs above China Lake’s salt beds. Those go back sixteen thousand years, to the end of the last Ice Age, when the continent was still roamed by mammoths, saber-toothed cats, and monstrous Pleistocene bison.” He turned to Kai. “That is how far back our history goes, with so little known.”

He allowed the weight of ages to press down on her young shoulders before continuing. “Even the number of people who lived here has been vastly underestimated. Newest studies from the chemical composition of stalagmites, and the depth and breadth of charcoal deposits found throughout North America, put modern estimates of Native American populations at well over a hundred million. That’s more people than were living in Europe when Christopher Columbus set foot in this New World.”

Her eyes shone large in the shadowy space. “Then what happened to them all?”

He waved to encompass the ruins as he led the way back out. “After the Europeans arrived, infectious diseases like smallpox spread faster across the continent than the colonists, leading to the impression of a sparsely populated American wilderness. But that is a false history, much like the rest of it.”

Kai joined him back on the rocky outcropping, along with Kawtch, who had his nose in the air. She wore a thoughtful expression as she stared out. The skies had shed the rose of dawn for the deeper blue of morning.

“So I get your point,” she said. “We can’t truly know ourselves until we know our own history.”

He looked to her, sizing her up anew. She was far sharper than she let on — proving it again when she turned to him to ask, “But you never did say how the Book of Mormon offered insight into our history.”

Before Hank could answer, Kawtch let out a low growl of warning. His nose was still in the air, sniffing. They both turned to the northeast, to where Kawtch’s nose was pointing. The skies, lighter now, revealed a churning black smudge at the horizon, like thunderclouds stacking up toward a gully-washing storm.

“Smoke,” he mumbled.

And a lot of it.

“A forest fire?” Kai asked.

“I don’t think so.” His heart thudded with a growing sense of dread. “We should head back down.”

Rafael Saint Germaine sat enjoying a tiny porcelain cup of espresso in the mansion’s massive and extravagant kitchen. The absurdity of the room amused him. What the Americans considered to be the epitome of class struck him as ridiculous, living in homes of cheap modern construction, decorated to evoke faux — Old World charm. His family’s château in Carcassonne dated back to the sixteenth century, surrounded by fortified walls atop which battles had been fought that changed the course of Western civilization.

That was the true mark of aristocracy.

He stared out the kitchen windows and across the sprawling lawns to the helicopter as a crew prepped it for departure. Across the table were reams of biographical data. He’d read them with his breakfast and saw no need to peruse them again. He could recite most of the details by rote.

On the top of the stack rested the photograph of the man who had thwarted his actions at the university last night. It had taken only a short time to put a name to the face. It ended up being someone well known to his organization. If the photo hadn’t been so grainy and shadowy, he wouldn’t have needed the facial-recognition software to identify him.

He whispered the name of his adversary, “Painter Crowe.” The director of Sigma. He shook his head — both dismayed and amused — and stared down at the photo. “What are you doing out of your hole in D.C.?”

Rafe had not anticipated that Sigma would be so quick to respond to the events that had occurred here. It was an underestimation he intended not to repeat. But such a miscalculation was not entirely his fault. It had taken much longer to connect the pieces together. Their target — the lithe thief with such sticky fingers — was indirectly related to Crowe, sharing the same tribal clan. She must have called upon family ties to enlist his aid.

It was an interesting development. He spent the rest of the night, except for a short nap, incorporating this new variable into his equations and running various permutations through his head. How best to play this out? How to turn this to his advantage?

It had taken until this morning to tease out a solution.

Footsteps echoed from the hallway, passing through the butler’s pantry to reach him. “Sir. We’re ready to depart.”

“Merci, Bern.” Rafe tapped his Patek Philippe wristwatch. The timepiece included a tourbillon movement, the French word for “whirlwind.” That’s what they needed to be this morning. “We’re running late.”

“Yes, sir. We’ll make up time in the air.”

“Very well.”

Rafe took one last sip of his espresso. He pursed his lips at the taste. It had gone lukewarm, bringing out a sharp bitterness. It was a shame, as the discovery of the coffee beans here, an expensive import from Panama, had been a pleasant surprise. He had to give the owners of this monstrosity some points for taste, if only for their beans.

He stood up, feeling generous.

“Is Ashanda still with the boy?” he asked Bern.

“They’re in the library.”

This elicited a smile. Without a tongue, she certainly wasn’t reading the child a story.

“What do you want me to do with the boy after you leave?” Bern’s manner stiffened, perhaps knowing what the answer must be.

Rafe waved an arm dismissively. “Leave him here. Unharmed.”

Bern’s brows lifted ever so slightly. For the stoic man, it was the equivalent of a gasp of surprise.

Rafe turned away. Sometimes it was good to act unpredictably, to keep your subordinates on their toes. Using his cane, he crossed through the house to collect Ashanda. The library was a two-story affair, filled with leather-bound books that were likely never read, only showcased as ostentatiously as everything else in the home.

He found Ashanda seated in a plush wingback chair. The child was asleep in her arms as she gently brushed her long, impossibly strong fingers through his blond curls. She hummed tunelessly deep in her chest. It was a comforting sound to Rafe, as familiar as his mother’s voice. He smiled, drawn momentarily into the past, to happy summer nights, sleeping on the balcony under the stars, warmed by the presence of Ashanda next to him in a nest of blankets. He’d often heard her hum like that, holding him as he recovered from some break in his brittle bones. It was a balm that soothed most aches, even the grief of a child.

He hated to disturb her, but they had a schedule. “Ashanda, ma grande, we must depart.”

She bowed her head, acknowledging the command. She rose smoothly, turned, and gently placed the boy onto the warm cushion, curling him into place. Only then did Rafe notice the bruising around the boy’s thin throat, the odd canting of his neck. He had not been asleep after all.

She crossed to Rafe and offered him her arm. He took it, squeezing her forearm in sympathy. She had known what must be done, known what he would have normally ordered. She had acted as much for his benefit as the child’s, granting the boy a swift and painless end. He did not have the heart to tell her it wasn’t necessary — at least, not this one time.

He felt bad.

Am I truly that predictable?

He would have to prepare against that, especially today. He had been informed about the volcanic eruption in the mountains, confirming what was long suspected. Things had to move fast now. He checked his watch, noting the spin of the tourbillon.

Like a whirlwind, he reminded himself.

He could waste no time. They had to flush out the birds that had escaped his grasp last night, to pick up their trail again. It had taken most of the night to puzzle out a solution, one played out in the wild every day.

To bring down a frightened bird, it often took a hawk.

“How many dead?” Painter asked, the satellite phone pressed against his ear.

He paced the length of the central room of the largest pueblo. Embers glowed in the fire-blackened cooking hearth, accompanied by the bitter scent of burned coffee. Kowalski sat on a pine-log sofa, his legs up on a burl-wood table, his chin resting on his chest, dead tired after the long drive.

Ronald Chin’s voice was raspy over the phone. Magnetic fluctuations along with particulate debris from the erupting volcano were interfering with digital reception. “We lost five members of the National Guard. But even that number is low only because Major Ryan was able to send out a distress call and initiate an evacuation. We’re still uncertain about hikers or campers in the region. The area was already cordoned off and restricted, so hopefully we’re okay there.”

Painter stared up at the beamed roof. The pueblo had been constructed in a traditional manner with pole battens, grass thatching, and a plaster made of stone fragments bound in mud. It seemed strange to be discussing the birth of new volcanoes in such a conventional setting.

Chin continued, “The good news is that the eruption seems to be already subsiding. I swept over the area in a helicopter just before dawn. Lava has stopped flowing. So far, it remains confined within the walls of the chasm and is already hardening. The biggest danger at the moment seems to be the forest fire. Crews are hurriedly setting up firebreaks, and helicopters are dumping water. It’s about fifty percent contained already.”

“Unless there’s another eruption,” Painter said.

Chin had already given his assessment of the cause. He believed some process birthed by the explosion was atomizing matter and had drilled down into a shallow magma chamber that heated the geothermic region, causing it to explode.

“We may be okay there, too,” Chin said.

“Why’s that?”

“I’ve been monitoring the lava field over the blast zone. It’s been steadily growing thicker across the chasm. And I’m not seeing any evidence of renewed atomization. I think the extreme heat of the eruption burned out whatever was disassembling matter down there. Killed it permanently.”

Killed it?

Painter suspected Chin had some idea of what that might be.

“If I’m right,” Chin continued, “we’re damned lucky for that volcanic eruption.”

Painter didn’t consider the loss of five National Guard soldiers to be lucky. But he understood the geologist’s relief. If that process had continued unabated, it might have spread across the Rockies, eating its way across the landscape, leaving nothing but atomized dust in its wake.

So maybe Chin was right. Maybe it was lucky — but Painter didn’t place much faith in luck or coincidence.

He pictured the mummified remains that had been found in the cave, buried with such a destructive cargo. “Maybe that’s why those dead Indians — or whoever they were — chose that geothermic valley to store their combustible compound. Maybe they kept it there as a fail-safe. If the stuff blew, the process would drill into the superhot geothermic strata below the ground, where the extreme heat would kill it before it could spread and consume the world.”

“A true fail-safe,” Chin said, his voice introspective. “If you’re right, maybe the compound needs to be kept steadily warm to stop it from exploding in the first place. Maybe that’s why the skull exploded when it was brought out of the hot cave and into the cold mountain air.”

It was an intriguing thought.

Chin ran further with it. “All this adds additional support to something I’ve been thinking about.”

“What’s that?”

“You mentioned that the dagger taken from the cave was composed of Damascus steel, a type of steel whose strength and resiliency is the result of manipulation of matter at the nano-level.”

“That’s what the physicist, Dr. Denton, related before he got killed. He said it was an example of an ancient form of nanotechnology.”

“Which makes me wonder… as I was watching the denaturing process occurring in the valley, it struck me as being less like a chemical reaction and more like something was actively attacking the matter and breaking it down.”

“What are you getting at?”

“One of the end goals of modern nanotechnology is the production of nanobots, molecular-sized machines that can manipulate matter at the atomic level. What if these unknown people were adept not only in ancient nanotechnology, but also in ancient nanorobotics? What if that explosion activated trillions and trillions of dormant nanobots — birthing a nano-nest that began to eat and spread in all directions.”

It seemed far-fetched. Painter pictured microscopic robots snipping molecules apart, atom by atom.

“Director, I know it sounds mad, but labs around the world are already making breakthroughs in the production and assembly of nanomachines. Some labs have even been positing self-replicating silicon-based bots called nanites that can reproduce copies of themselves out of the raw material they consume.”

Painter again pictured the denaturing process described in that valley. “Chin, that’s a mighty big leap to make.”

“I’m not disagreeing. But already there are countless nanobots found in the natural world. Enzymes in cells act like little robot workhorses. Some of the tiniest self-replicating viruses operate on the nano-scale. So maybe someone in the distant past accidentally cooked up a similar nanobot, maybe a by-product of the manufacturing of Damascus steel? I don’t know. But the earlier issue of heat does make me wonder.”

“How so?”

“One of the hurdles in nanotechnology — especially in regard to the functionality of nanobots — is the dissipation of heat. For such a nanomachine to function, it has to be able to shed the heat it produces while working, a difficult process at the nano-level.”

Painter put it all together in his head. “So an easy way to keep nanobots dormant would be to store them somewhere hot. Like in a geothermally heated cavern, where the temperature would stay relatively uniform for centuries, if not millennia.”

“And if there’s a mishap,” Chin continued, “this nest of nanobots — spreading outward in all directions — would eventually eat their way down to the geothermal levels and inadvertently destroy themselves.”

Despite the impossibility of it at face value, the idea was frighteningly feasible. And dangerous. Such a product would be a ready-made weapon, but the bigger prize would be the technology behind its production. If that could be discovered, it would be invaluable.

Nanotechnology was already poised to be the next big industry of the new millennium, with the potential to become vital to all manner of science, medicine, electronics, manufacturing… the list was endless. Whoever took true and lasting hold of those reins could rule the world from the atomic level on up.

But all this begged one huge question.

“If we’re right about all of this, who the hell were the people mummified in that cave?” Chin asked.

Painter checked his watch. The one person who might be able to answer that question should be here within the hour. He arranged a few more details with Chin over the phone, ordering him to remain on-site and keep monitoring that valley.

As Painter hung up, Kowalski spoke from the sofa, not bothering to lift his chin. “Causing volcanoes to erupt…”

Painter glanced his way.

“If that’s what this stuff can do”—one eye opened and stared back at him—“maybe you’d better tell Gray to pack some asbestos underwear for his trip to Iceland.”

Chapter 18

Gray crossed the stern deck of the fishing trawler. Though the day was clear, a hard wind blew the sea into a stiff chop, causing the boat’s deck to jar and buck underfoot. He found Seichan and Monk at the rail, bundled in waterproof coats against the salty chill of the breeze. The midday sun reflected brightly off the sea but did little to warm the air.

“According to the captain,” Gray said, “we’ll reach Ellirey Island in about twenty minutes.”

Seichan shaded her eyes and looked to the east. “And we’re certain that’s the right island?”

“That’s our best guess.”

The three of them had landed in Reykjavik an hour ago and hopped a private plane to the chain of islands that lay seven miles south of Iceland’s coast. The Vestmannaeyjar Islands were a fierce line of emerald-capped sentinels, riding a storm-swept sea — seas as turbulent as the region’s history. The islands were named after Irish slaves, known as Westmen, who killed their captors in AD 840 and escaped briefly to these islands, until they were eventually hunted down and slaughtered, leaving behind only their names. Today, it took a hearty soul to live out here, clustered on the largest of the islands, sharing the bits of land with seabirds and the world’s most populous colonies of arctic puffins.

Gray stared back at the picturesque harbor of Heimaey as it retreated behind them, with its brightly painted homes and shops set against a backdrop of green hills and a pair of ominous volcanic cinder cones. They’d landed at the island’s small airport and wasted no time chartering the boat to ferry them to the coordinates supplied by the Japanese physicists — but the coordinates were admittedly rough, according to Kat. And there were a lot of islands out here. More than a dozen uninhabited islands made up the archipelago, along with countless natural stone pillars and wind-carved sea arches.

The entire chain was geologically young, born within the last twenty thousand years from volcanic activity along a fiery seam that stretched across the seabed. That firestorm was still ongoing. In the midsixties, an undersea volcanic eruption gave fiery birth to the southernmost island of the chain, Surtsey. In the seventies, the Eldfell volcano — one of two cones on Heimaey — exploded and buried half of the colorful harbor town in lava. Gray had noted the aftermath from the air as they swept down toward the island’s airport. Street signs still stuck out of the lava fields; a few homes at the edges were being excavated from the rock, granting the town its other name: the Pompeii of the North.

“I think that’s the place,” Monk said, and pointed ahead.

Gray turned and spotted a towering black rock sticking out of the sea. This was no island of sandy beaches and sheltered harbors. Sheer black seawalls surrounded the island of Ellirey, which was little more than a broken chunk of volcanic cone protruding out of the waves. The top of the island was a scalloped stretch of emerald green — a high meadow of mosses, lichen, and sea grass, so bright in the sunlight it looked unnatural.

“How are we getting up there?” Monk asked as the boat churned steadily toward the towering rock.

“You climb, my American friends.”

The answer came from the wheelhouse of the boat. Captain Ragnar Huld stalked onto the deck in an open yellow slicker, wearing boots and a heavy woolen sweater. With his thick red beard traced with gray, and grizzled, salt-aged skin, he could have stripped to fur and leather and easily been mistaken for a marauding Viking. Only the easy amusement sparkling in his green eyes softened that impression.

“Afraid the only way up,” he explained, “is by rope. But you all look fit enough, so that should be fine. Young Egg will bring the boat alongside the east shore of the island, where the cliffs are lowest.”

Huld pointed a thumb toward the cabin, where his son, Eggert, twentysomething in age, shaven-headed with both arms sleeved in tattoos, manned the wheel.

“Don’t worry,” Huld said. “I bring hunters, even a few nature photographers, up here quite regularly. Never geologists like the lot of you. But I’ve never lost anyone yet.”

He gave Seichan a coy wink, but with her arms crossed, she did not look amused. According to their cover story, they were researchers from Cornell University, doing a study on volcanic islands. It went a long way to explain their heavy packs and inquiries about this specific island.

Huld pointed at the rock as it drew ever closer. “There’s a hunting lodge up top where you can rent a room, if need be. If you squint your eyes, you should be able to spot it.”

Gray searched for a moment, then found it. Sheltered square in the middle of the scooped greensward stood a good-size lodge with a blue slate roof.

“Don’t know if you will find much room up there, though,” the captain said. “Late yesterday, another ferry took out a tourist group. Hunters from Belgium, I heard. Or Swiss, maybe they were. They’re lodging here for a few more days. Besides the lot of them, you’ll only have a few cattle and the usual gathering of puffins for company.”

Just as well, Gray thought. He’d prefer to keep their search for the source of the neutrino emissions as quiet as possible.

Seichan suddenly jolted back from the ship’s rail, jostling Gray, coming close to losing her footing before he caught her.

“What’s wrong?”

Speechless, she pointed out to sea. A tall black fin crested high, splitting through the waves alongside the boat. As Gray watched, another fin rose, followed soon thereafter by a third, fourth, and fifth.

“More over here,” Monk said from the opposite side of the trawler. “Orcas. A pod of them.”

Huld puffed out his chest and waved an arm. “Not unusual. Our islands have the largest population of killer whales and dolphins in all of Iceland. They’re just curious and enjoy riding our bow wake. Or maybe looking for a nibble. I’ll often share a little of my catch with them, if I’ve had a good haul. Brings gangi pér vel—good luck — as they say around here.”

After a time, with no free meal offered, the pod sank away, vanishing in unison upon some silent signal. Still, Gray noted Seichan kept a wary watch on the waves, plainly unnerved by the sight of the large predators.

Good to know something could shake up that iron resolve.

As the trawler chugged past the southern tip of the island, Gray studied their destination, noting the waves that were crashing into the dark depths of volcanic sea caves that peppered the cliffs. If some treasure had been hidden in those watery caves long ago, the tides and storms would have wreaked havoc on it. To find what they were seeking, their best hope lay in looking somewhere that was better sheltered, an inland lava tube or cavern.

But where to begin their search?

Gray turned to Captain Huld. “In order to set up our equipment, we’re looking to get as deep into the island as possible. Any suggestions?”

The captain scratched his beard, eyeballing the towering rock faces. “Yes. Lot of caves and tunnels here. Take your pick. Place is practically a hardened chunk of Swiss cheese, carved by wind and rain. But there’s one famous cave up there, gave the island its name. Ellirey cavern. Story goes some young lass fled here and hid in that cave from the rape and pillaging of invaders — Turks or Barbary pirates, depending on the storyteller. Anyway, once safely hidden, she had a child, a boy, and raised him here. That child acted as guardian to the islands and was said to have special powers, able to call the forces of fire and molten rock to protect our seas.” Huld shook his head. “Of course, it’s just wild stories, told around the hearth in the long winters here.”

Gray caught a look from Monk. Maybe there was a kernel of truth in that old tale, some hint of an explosive power buried here long ago, hidden by someone seeking a desperate refuge.

“Can you tell me where this cave is?” Gray asked.

Huld shrugged heavily. “Fjandinn if I know. But there’s a caretaker up at the lodge. Ol’ Olafur Bragason. Call him Ollie, though. Quite a piece of work, that one. Been living out here for over sixty years, as crusty and sharp-edged as the island’s rocks. But he knows every nook and cranny of this place. That’s the man to ask.”

By now, the trawler had cleared the southern tip and made a slow approach toward a broken section of cliff face. A thick rope, anchored in places to the jumble of rock, snaked down from above, marking a trail meant more for mountain goats than human traffic. It ended at a small tie-down. To reach the rope, they would have to row an aluminum dinghy from the trawler, but at least the place was relatively sheltered from the crashing waves.

Still, it took some crafty maneuvering by the captain’s son to bring them in close. In short order, Gray was helping Seichan climb from the dinghy to the slick rock, where she shifted her pack and grabbed tightly to the rope. Staring up, Gray shouldered his backpack. It would be a hard trek. He suddenly found himself envying Monk’s prosthetic hand. With the newly designed actuators, he could crush walnuts between his fingers. Such a grip would serve him well during the long climb.

Huld shared the dinghy with them, manning the small outboard at the stern. “Egg and I will keep close by, do a little fishing. When you are ready, radio us and we’ll come fetch you. But if you decide to stay the night, let us know that, too. We can come out any time tomorrow to ferry you back.”

“Thanks.”

Gray stepped from the rocking dinghy onto solid ground. The volcanic rock, while damp, was coarse and sharp, giving good traction for the tread of his boots. The path up, while steep, had plenty of good footholds and shelves of rock. The rope added extra reassurance.

He stared up, appreciating the view. Seichan climbed steadily without resting, her thighs stretching her jeans and rising to the gentle curve of her backside. The pace she set made it clear that she was happy to flee the dark waters below.

A few yards down the rope, Monk must have noted the direction of Gray’s gaze. “Don’t let that Italian girlfriend of yours catch you gaping like that.”

Gray scowled down at him. Luckily the winds ate away most of his words before they reached Seichan. He’d not seen Rachel Verona in over four months. Their occasional dalliances had dried up after her promotion within the carabiniere forces, locking her down in Italy, while his own issues with his parents made long weekend trips to Rome impossible. They still kept in touch by phone, but that was about it. Separated by a gulf far wider than the Atlantic, they both recognized that they needed to move on.

After one last haul, the group climbed clear of the cliffs and out onto a beautiful panorama of grasses and outcroppings painted in mosses and lichens in every shade of green. A slight mist clung within the sheltered scallop of volcanic cone, casting a prismatic glow across the landscape.

Monk whistled sharply. “Looks like we just stepped into some Irish folktale.”

Seichan was not enchanted. “Let’s go interview the caretaker.”

She led the way toward the two-story hunting lodge nestled in the center of the meadow to the right. To the left, the summit of the island dropped in a series of large tiers and labyrinthine tumbles of black rock. Gray hoped the caretaker could help them narrow their search.

After a short hike, they reached the sole building on the island. Clad in wood with a few tiny windows, the hunting lodge looked more like a rustic barn, especially with the handful of cows, lowing pitifully, that were grazing farther up the green slope. A sickly spindle of smoke rose from the homestead’s single chimney.

Passing through a fenced gate and across a small vegetable garden, Gray reached the front door and knocked. When no one answered, he tested the latch and found it unlocked. Then again, why wouldn’t it be?

He pushed inside.

The main room of the lodge was shadowy and stiflingly warm after the cold trek. A scarred and stained plank table crossed before a low fire, making the space both a meeting hall and dining room. A single flickering oil lamp lit the tabletop, revealing a spread of topographic maps and sea charts. They were in disarray, clearly well thumbed through.

Gray unzipped his coat, freeing an easy reach to his holstered SIG Sauer. Seichan also tensed, a dagger appearing in her fingers.

“What’s wrong?” Monk asked.

Gray searched around. The place was too quiet. The pile of maps looked more like a war room than the staging area for a casual hunt. A low groan rose from a room at the back.

He freed his pistol and hurried forward, sticking to the walls, leading with his gun. Seichan flanked to the other side. Monk took up a position at a window facing the front of the lodge, keeping watch.

With a quick peek into the back room, Gray spotted a wiry old man tied to a chair, his nose broken, his lip split and bleeding. It had to be Olafur Bragason. Gray swept the rest of the room before entering. No one else was there.

He moved over to the man, whose head lolled back, hearing Gray’s footsteps. A bleary, dazed eye rolled over him before the man’s chin fell back to his chest.

“Nei, nei…” he gasped softly out. “I told you all I know.”

Seichan turned to Gray. “Looks like someone else knew about the neutrino emissions and beat us here.”

She didn’t have to mention a name. But how could the Guild know about this island? A twinge of suspicion flashed through him as he stared her way. Something must have shown on his face. Seichan’s manner stiffened with anger, but he also saw the hurt in her eyes. She swung away to the door. She had gone a long way to prove her loyalty. She didn’t deserve his suspicions.

Gray crossed to the door, touched her arm, offering a silent apology, but he had no further time for injured feelings. He waved to Monk. “I’m going to search the rest of the lodge. You help the caretaker. We need to be able to get him moving. Whoever’s here surely noted our approach by sea.”

A loud explosion burst across the island, rattling the windows. Gray rushed across the room. He recognized the crack of TNT. Out one of the windows, he spotted a dark smoky cloud rising from the jumble of rocks halfway across the island. A flock of black-and-white puffins took to wing, fluttering through the smoke, rousted and panicked. Someone was trying to blast their way deeper into the island.

Closer at hand, movement caught his attention. A line of eight men rose from the boulder line and stalked across the meadow, staying low, moving stealthily from outcropping to outcropping. They were armed with rifles, scopes sparking in the sunlight. Here were the hunters who had been described by Captain Huld.

Only apparently the true hunt was just beginning.

Jun Yoshida must have fallen asleep at his desk. The knock on the door startled him awake. Even before he could compose himself, Riku Tanaka came rushing inside, drawing Janice Cooper in his wake.

“You must see this,” Tanaka said, and slapped a fistful of papers on his desk.

“What? Has there been another neutrino burst?” Jun tilted straighter in his chair, earning a twinge from his aching back. He’d left the main lab below three hours ago to finish some paperwork in his office, which still lay untouched on his desk.

“No… well, yes… not really,” Tanaka stammered, clearly agitated, and waved the question aside in exasperation. “Some minor ongoing blips. I’ve been tracking them, but they don’t appear to be important.”

Dr. Cooper cut him off. “That’s not why we rushed up here, Dr. Yoshida.” She turned to Tanaka. “Show him.”

Tanaka came around his desk, invading his personal space. He shoved aside the pile of paperwork, replacing it with his own printouts. “We’ve been monitoring the surge in Iceland. Graphing the results. Look at how the neutrino spikes radiating from that island have grown steadily more frequent.”

“You noted that before.”

“Yes. I know.” Tanaka’s face reddened. Clearly he did not like to be interrupted.

Jun allowed himself a flicker of satisfaction. “Then what’s this sudden invasion of my office all about?”

Tanaka traced the graph. “Over the past hour, I’ve been noting how the double beat of the Icelandic signature has been changing. The smaller bursts have been growing stronger, while the taller spikes have been getting weaker.”

Dr. Cooper explained, “The changes have been slow. It took hours to recognize what was happening.”

Tanaka set two graphs side by side. “This first graph is from four hours ago. The second one was taken within the last half hour.”

Jun picked up his reading glasses, secured them in place, and leaned over to see. Tanaka’s assessment appeared to be correct. On the older graph, the paired bursts of neutrinos were of distinctly different amplitudes. In the latest readings, the pairings were nearly equal in size.

“But what does that mean?” Jun took off his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes.

Tanaka looked to Dr. Cooper, who nodded encouragement. It was rare for the man to show such insecurity. That small fact spoke to how truly upset Tanaka must be. Something had the man scared.

“I believe,” Tanaka said, “that what we’re witnessing is an approach toward critical mass. Once those two amplitudes match and come into alignment, it will trigger a massive chain reaction within the substrate that’s radiating these subatomic particles.”

“Like a nuclear reactor melting down,” Dr. Cooper said. “Riku and I believe the escalating frequency and changes in amplitude are acting like a natural timer, counting down until the unknown substance in Iceland goes critical.”

Jun’s chest tightened. “There’s going to be another explosion…?”

“Only this time a hundredfold larger,” Tanaka added.

“When?”

“I’ve performed my calculations over and over, extrapolating the time when the paired emissions will align.”

“Just tell me when?” Jun pressed.

Dr. Cooper answered. “Within the hour.”

Tanaka clarified, demonstrating his usual distaste for generalities. “To be precise, fifty-two minutes.”

Seichan stood guard by a window. She kept out of direct sight, fearful of the telescopic scopes on the enemies’ rifles. Their adversaries had the look of mercenary soldiers, definitely military trained. The eight men had set up a perimeter across the front of the lodge, staying sheltered behind rocky outcroppings. She guessed they were awaiting orders as their superiors tried to identify the newcomers to the island. Someone must be trying to decide whether to kill or capture them.

Not that Gray’s team had much say in the matter.

She clutched a pistol in both hands, holding the weapon at her knees, ready to shatter the window and defend their base. But she was under no illusions. They were outmanned, outgunned, and outpositioned. With the cadre of soldiers guarding the front of the lodge, the only safe exit was out the back. Then what? They would be exposed if they made a run for the cliff’s edge. Even if they reached it, all that would earn them was a swift death on the rocks below the cliffs.

They were trapped.

Gray took up a position on the far side of the door by another window. He clutched a black SIG Sauer in one hand and held a cell phone to his ear in the other. He had managed to reach Sigma command, but the island was too remote for an immediate rescue. They were on their own until help arrived. Seichan could feel acid burning in her stomach, not so much at their predicament, but at Gray’s reaction a moment ago when he’d realized they’d been ambushed. She had seen the flash of suspicion. He tried his best to quell it, to damp it down, but it had still been there.

She stared out the window. What did she have to do to prove herself to him? Dying might do it. Then again, maybe not.

She heard Monk talking in low whispers to the caretaker. He’d used smelling salts to revive the man enough to get him on his feet. Once free of the chair, the tough old codger rallied. Swearing a litany that came close to making her blush, he pulled a shotgun down from above the fireplace, ready to exact some revenge.

Gray’s voice grew sharper as he spoke on the phone to Sigma command. “Forty minutes? That’s how long we have to get clear of the island?”

Frowning, she stared out the window. What was that about? Any answer would have to wait. She watched the soldiers begin to move, shifting out of hiding. They must have received their orders. Whatever fate awaited them — capture or death — it had been decided.

Seichan lifted her pistol. “Here they come!”

Chapter 19

Kai crept into the small guest bedroom at the rear of the pueblo. She found Hank Kanosh crouched over an open laptop, but he wasn’t staring at the screen. He sat with his palms over his face, his posture one of grief. She felt horrible for intruding, considered stepping back out, but her uncle had sent her here.

“Professor Kanosh…”

He jerked in the seat, startled, and quickly lowered his hands. He stared at his palms as if he was surprised to find them there.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” she said.

He reached and closed the laptop. She caught a glimpse of an open e-mail, something with strange writing inscribed in the body of the text, very much like the script she had seen on the gold tablets. He had obviously been trying to work, to keep himself busy.

Painter had allowed them access to the Internet, scrambled over an encrypted satellite feed. They could check their e-mail, peruse the news, but they were forbidden to reach out. No sending e-mail, no Facebooking. Though the prohibition on the latter of those two was directed more at her than the professor.

Kanosh took a deep, shuddering breath, collecting himself. “What is it, Kai?”

“Uncle Crowe asked if you’d join him in the main room. There’s something he wanted to talk to you about before the others arrived.”

He nodded and stood. “It’s always something with your uncle, isn’t it?”

She offered him a small smile. He squeezed her shoulder as he passed. She flinched from his touch, betraying her nervousness.

“I’ll stay here,” Kai said. “Uncle Crowe wanted to speak to you alone.”

“Then I’d best not keep him waiting.”

Once he was gone, she quietly closed the door. She eyed the computer. She’d been reluctant to check her e-mail, afraid of what she’d find. But a gloomy curiosity drew her to the laptop. She couldn’t turn her back forever on the havoc she’d caused. She’d have to deal with the consequences eventually — but for now, exposing herself to the world in this small way was enough.

Slipping into the seat that was still warm from the professor, she opened the laptop and stared at the glowing screen. It was now or never. She reached out a hand, opened a browser, and called up her Gmail account.

As she waited for the connection to be made, she held her breath. She had to sit on her hands to keep from reaching out and slamming the laptop closed. What would it hurt to shut out the world for a little bit longer? But before she could act on that thought, the screen filled with lines of unread e-mails. She scanned the list, reading the subject lines. There were a few bits of spam and a few notes dated from before the explosion, but near the top, one message caught her eye.

She went cold all over, her skin prickling, and blindly reached to the laptop, ready to close it, regretting even attempting this. The e-mail address was jh_wahya@cloudbridge.com. She recognized the personal e-mail address for WAHYA’s founder, John Hawkes. She didn’t even have to open the note to know its contents. The subject line made that clear enough. It was only three letters: WTF.

Knowing there was no avoiding it, she tentatively clicked on the message and opened it. As she read the note, a heavy stone settled in her gut. Her friends and compatriots at WAHYA were her entire world. They’d taken her in when she’d aged out of the foster care system and was left to fend for herself. They supported her both financially and emotionally, offering a bond of family that had been sorely missing since the death of her father.

It made the bitterness in the letter so hard to read.

Kai closed the e-mail. Tears rose from deep inside. She pictured all of her friends, smiling, hugging her before she left for the mountains. She remembered lingering in the embrace of Chayton Shaw, one of the fiercest advocates in the youthful organization. Chay’s name meant “falcon” in Sioux, a fitting name given his long black hair, loose to his shoulders, always seeming to lift with even the softest breeze. Two days ago — which seemed an eternity now — they had talked in the quiet of the night of becoming more than just friends.

She thought of him now, picturing him turning his back on her, shunning her. With a soft sob, she covered her face with her palms, hiding both her shame and her tears.

What am I going to do?

Hank Kanosh sat at the table with his back to the hearth, appreciating the warmth of the last embers. Painter took a seat on the other side of the table. His large-boned partner snored softly from the couch.

From the circles under Painter’s eyes, it looked like he could also use some sleep, but something was certainly troubling him. Hank suspected it didn’t even relate to the matter at hand. The man was too slow to broach whatever subject he wanted to discuss, his manner distracted. Something else was going on. He’d been on the phone all morning. Maybe it had to do with the strange volcanic eruption, maybe another matter. All Hank knew: it had the man on edge.

Eventually Painter cleared his throat and folded his hands on the tabletop. “I’m going to be frank with you, and I hope you’ll do the same. People have died, and more will, too, if we don’t get a better understanding about what we’re facing.”

Hank bowed his head slightly. “Of course.”

“I’ve spoken to our geologist, who’s monitoring the volcanic activity at the blast site. We believe we have a rudimentary understanding of what was hidden in that cave. It involves the manipulation of matter at the nano-level. We also believe those ancient people created — whether deliberately or accidentally — an unstable compound, something active and explosive, that requires heat to keep it dormant. That’s why it was hidden in a geothermal area, where it would be kept warm and safe for centuries.”

A flare of guilt burned through Hank. “That is, until we removed it from that heat source.”

“And it destabilized. In the wake of that explosion, it released what our geologist calls a nano-nest, a mass of nanobots, microscopic nanomachines that eat through matter, with the potential to spread outward indefinitely. But whether through luck or planning by these ancient people, the heat of the erupting volcano killed the nano-nest, stopping it.”

Horrified, Hank closed his eyes for a moment. Maggie… what did we do? He spoke quietly. “That’s why the old stories about the cave warned against trespassing there.”

“And it may not be the only cave like that.”

Hank opened his eyes and pinched his brows. “What are you talking about?”

“There may be another site in Iceland.”

Iceland?

Painter went on to explain how neutrinos from the Utah blast may have lit the fuse on a potential second cache of this substance.

“The Iceland deposit is destabilizing as we speak,” Painter finished. “We have other people in the field investigating it, but there’s one key piece of this puzzle that we’re missing.”

Hank stared the man in the eye, waiting.

“We have some grasp as to what was hidden at these sites — but not who hid them. Who were these ancient people? Why did they appear Caucasian, yet wore Native American garb?”

Hank’s mouth went dry. He had to break eye contact, staring down at his hands.

Painter pressed on: “You know something, Hank. I heard you arguing with Dr. Denton back at his lab. Such knowledge could be vital to fully understanding the danger we face.”

Hank knew the man was right, but such answers trod a dangerous line between his blood heritage and his faith. He was reluctant to divulge what he suspected without further proof. Though maybe now he had that proof.

“It was just a theory,” Hank said. “Matt may have been a physicist, but he was also a devout Mormon, like myself. Our discussion — Matt’s conclusions — were fanciful, not worth mentioning at the time.”

Painter cocked his head, fixing him with one eye. “But it is now.”

“Your mention of Iceland does offer some support for Matt’s theory.”

“What theory?”

“To answer that, you have to understand a much-disputed section of the Book of Mormon. According to our scripture, Native Americans were said to be the descendants of a lost tribe of Israel, who came here after the fall of Jerusalem in roughly 600 BC.”

“Hold on. Are you actually claiming Indians rose from a Jewish tribe who got exiled here?”

“According to a literal reading of the Book of Mormon, yes. Specifically they are the descendants of the Manasseh clan of Israelites.”

“But that makes no sense. There’s plenty of archaeological evidence that people were living in the Americas long before 600 BC.”

“I am well aware of that. And while it seems contradictory, the Book of Mormon also does acknowledge those people, those early Native Americans. It even makes reference to people living here when that lost tribe of Israelites arrived out west.” Hank held up a hand. “But let me continue and perhaps I can clear up that conflict through an interpretation of Mormon scripture that’s less literal and more allegorical.”

“Okay. Go on.”

“According to a direct interpretation of the Book of Mormon, the band of Israelites who came to America consisted of two families led by a common father, Lehi. The two branches were the Nephites and Lamanites. I’ll skip over the more complicated details, but in the end, around a thousand years later, the Lamanites slaughtered the Nephites and became the Native American tribes of today.”

Painter looked unconvinced. “The story sounds more racist than historical. And I know there’s certainly no DNA support for a genetic lineage of Native Americans back to European or Middle Eastern origin.”

“I agree. Genetic studies have resoundingly shown Native Americans to be of Asiatic origin, likely crossing the Bering Strait and descending into the continent. Believe me, over the years, Mormon scientists and historians have bent over backward trying to link Native Americans to a Jewish heritage and only succeeded in embarrassing themselves.”

“Then I don’t understand where this is going.”

“Today, most Mormons believe a more allegorical version of that part of our scripture. That a lost tribe of Israelites did come to America, that they encountered the indigenous clans — the Native American people.” Hank motioned to both himself and Painter. “The Israelites settled among our tribes, perhaps tried to convert them, to bring them under the Abrahamic covenant. But the Israelites kept mostly to their own clan, becoming just another tribe among the many Indian nations. That’s why there’s no lasting genetic trace.”

“Such an explanation sounds more forced than convincing.”

Hank felt a flash of irritation. “You asked for my help. Do you still want it?”

Painter held up a palm. “I’m sorry. Go on. But I think I know where this is headed. You believe the mummified bodies in the cave were members of that lost Jewish tribe.”

“Yes. In fact, I believe they were the scripture’s Nephites, who were described in the Book of Mormon as being white-skinned, blessed by God, and gifted with special abilities. Does that not sound like those poor souls we found?”

“And what about those murderous Lamanites who wiped them out?”

“Perhaps they were Indians who converted or made some truce with the newcomers. But eventually something changed over the passing centuries. Something frightened the Indian tribes and drove them to wipe out the Nephites.”

“So you’re saying the history described in the Book of Mormon is a mix of legend and actual events. That the lost tribe of Israelites — the Nephites — came to America and joined the Native American tribes. Then centuries later, something scared a group of those Indians — the Lamanites — and they wiped out that lost tribe.”

Hank nodded. “I know how that sounds, but there’s additional support, if you’ll hear me out.”

Painter waved for him to continue, but he still looked unconvinced.

“Take, for example, the amount of Hebrew sprinkled among the languages of Native American tribes. Research has shown there to be more similarities between the two languages than can be attributed to mere chance. For example, the Semitic Hebrew word for ‘lightning’ is baraq. In Uto-Aztecan, a Native American language group, the word is berok.” He touched his shoulder. “This is shekem in Hebrew, sikum in UA.” He ran a hand down the bare skin of his arm. “Hebrew geled. UA eled. The list goes on and on, well beyond coincidence.”

“Well and good, but how does this directly relate to the mummified remains in the cave?”

“Let me show you.” Hank stood and crossed to his backpack. He opened it, retrieved what he wanted, and returned to his seat. He placed the two gold tablets on the tabletop. “The Book of Mormon was written by Joseph Smith. It came from a series of golden plates gifted to him by the angel Moroni. It was said that the plates were written in a strange language — some say hieroglyphics, others that it was an ancient variant of Hebrew. Joseph Smith was given the ability to translate the plates and that translation became the Book of Mormon.”

Painter pulled one of the plates closer. “And the writing on this plate?”

“Before you arrived at the university last night, I had copied a few lines and forwarded them to a colleague of mine — an expert in ancient languages from the Middle East. I just heard back from him this morning. It intrigued him. He was able to recognize the script. It is a form of proto-Hebrew.”

Painter shifted forward in his seat, perhaps growing more intrigued himself.

“A scholar, Paracelsus, from the sixteenth century was the first to name this proto-Semitic script. He called it the Alphabet of the Magi. He claimed to have learned it from an angel, said it was the source of special abilities and magic. All of which makes me wonder if Joseph Smith hadn’t come upon a similar cache of such plates and translated them, learning the history of these ancient people — this lost tribe of Israelites — and recorded their story.”

Painter leaned back. Hank could see that doubt still remained in his eyes, but it was less scoffing and more thoughtful.

“Then there’s Iceland,” Hank said.

Painter nodded, already putting that piece of the puzzle into place. “If these ancient practitioners of nanotechnology — scholars, magi, whatever — were indeed from a lost tribe of Israelites, if they were fleeing across the Atlantic with something they wanted to preserve but were unsure if they’d make the journey—”

Hank finished the thought. “Once they hit Iceland, a land of fire in an icy sea, they would have found the perfect warm place to secure at least a portion of their volatile treasure before moving on to America.”

“Hank, I think you may—”

The crunch of tires on loose rock cut him off, sounding distant, yet coming fast. Painter swung around, a pistol appearing in his hand seemingly out of nowhere. He hurried to the door.

Kowalski sat up, belched, and looked around blearily. “What?… What did I miss?”

Painter checked the window, stared for a full minute as the road noise grew steadily louder — then visibly relaxed. “It’s your friends Alvin and Iris. Looks like they found our last guest.”

The old dented Toyota SUV kicked up a swirl of sand and dust as it came to stop in the center of the stone cabins. Painter stepped out of the shade of the porch and into the blaze of the sun. Though it was barely morning, the light hammered the surrounding badlands into shades of crimson and gold. Squinting against the glare, he crossed to help Iris out of the driver’s seat. Alvin hopped out on the other side.

The elderly pair, wizened by the sun and well into their seventies, looked like old hippies with tie-dyed shirts and faded jeans fraying at the hems. But their clothing was accented with traditional Hopi elements. Iris had her long gray hair done in a Hopi-style braid, decorated with feathers and bits of turquoise. Alvin kept his long snow-white hair loose, his bare arms fitted with thick wristbands of beaten silver holding shells and chunks of turquoise. Both had embroidered belts of typical Hopi design, but rather than ox-hide or buckskin moccasins, they wore hiking boots straight out of some urban outfitter’s catalog.

“So at least you haven’t burned the place down,” Iris said, her hands on her hips, inspecting the homestead.

“Only the coffee,” Painter said with a wink.

He stepped past her to the rear door of the SUV to help the final member of the party. Last night, Painter had sent word that he wanted to speak to one of the Ute elders, someone from the same tribe as the grandfather who had murdered his own grandson to keep the cavern secret. Clearly that old man had known something. Maybe other elders of his tribe did, too. He needed someone who could shed some light on the meaning of the cave, on its history. Alvin and Iris had fetched the old man from the bus station so that Painter and the others could keep their exposure to a minimum.

Painter reached for the door handle, ready to assist the elder — only to have it open in front of him. A young man barely in his twenties climbed out. Painter searched the backseat, but no one else was there.

The slim figure stuck out his hand. He was dressed in a navy suit, carrying his jacket and a loose tie over one arm. His white shirt was open at the collar. “I’m Jordan Appawora, elder of the Northern Ute tribe.”

The absurdity of that statement did not escape the youth, who offered a shy, embarrassed grin. Painter suspected that shyness was not a habitual trait in the kid. His handshake was hard and firm. There was some muscle hidden under that suit. When he withdrew his hand, he swept his lanky black hair out of his eyes and looked around at the circle of pueblos.

“Perhaps I should clarify,” the young man said. “I’m a de facto member of the council of elders. I represent my grandfather, who is blind, mostly deaf, but remains sharp as an ax. I warm his seat at council meetings, take notes, discuss matters with him, and cast his vote.”

Painter sighed. That was all well and good, but this young Ute was not the elder that he’d been hoping to question, someone steeped in ancient stories and lost tribal knowledge.

“From your expression,” Jordan said, his grin growing wider and warmer, “I can tell you’re disappointed, but there was no way my grandfather could make this long trip.” He rubbed the seat of his pants with one hand. “As rough as those roads were, he’d be heading to his next hip replacement by now. And considering that last mile, I might need my first.”

“Then let’s stretch our legs,” Alvin said, proving the wisdom of his own years. He waved them toward the pueblo’s porch, but he hooked an arm around his wife and nodded to a neighboring cabin. “Iris and I’ll see about rustling up a real breakfast at our place while you settle matters.”

Painter recognized that the two were making themselves scarce so that his group could talk in private, but considering how matters had changed, this wasn’t necessary; still, he wouldn’t turn down breakfast. He led Jordan up to the shaded porch. Kowalski was already there, kicked back on a chair, boots up on the rail. He rolled his eyes at Painter, plainly as unimpressed with the so-called elder as Painter was.

Kanosh joined them on the porch with Kai. His stocky cattle dog came, too, sniffing at the newcomer’s pant leg.

Jordan made his introductions again — though a bit of that shyness returned as he shook Kai’s hand. She also stammered, her voice going soft, and retreated to the opposite side of the porch, feigning a lack of interest, but the corner of her eye often found Jordan through a fall of her hair.

Painter cleared his throat and leaned back on the rail, facing the others. “I assume you know why I asked you to come all the way out here,” he said to Jordan.

“I do. My grandfather was good friends with Jimmy Reed. What occurred — the shooting at the cavern — was a tragedy. I knew his grandson, Charlie, very well. I was sent to offer whatever help I can in this matter and to answer any questions.”

It was a politician’s answer. From the kid’s clipped and restrained response, Painter suspected Jordan had spent at least a year in some law school. The young Ute was here to help, but he wasn’t going to open his tribe to any further involvement, potentially damaging involvement, in the tragic events that had occurred in the mountains.

Painter nodded. “I appreciate you coming, but what we truly needed was someone — like Jimmy Reed — who adhered to the old ways, who had intimate and detailed knowledge of the cave’s history.”

Jordan looked unperturbed. “That was clear. Word reached my grandfather, who pulled me aside privately and sent me here without anyone else knowing. As far as the Ute tribe is aware, we refused your request.”

Painter shifted, fixing the youth with a sharper gaze. Maybe this wasn’t such a waste after all.

Jordan didn’t shrink from Painter’s attention. “Only two elders even knew that cave existed — preserved on a scrap of tribal map that marked the cave’s location on Ute lands. It was my grandfather who told Jimmy Reed about the cave. And last night, my grandfather told me.”

A flicker of fear showed in the young man’s eyes. He glanced away to the sunbaked cliffs, as if trying to shake it off. “Crazy stories…” he mumbled.

“About the mummified bodies,” Painter coaxed, “about what was hidden there?”

A slow nod. “According to my grandfather, the bodies preserved in that cave were a clan of great shamans, a mysterious race of pale-skinned people who came to this land, bearing great gifts and powers. They were called the people of the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev.”

Kanosh translated. “People of the Morning Star.” He turned to Painter. “Which rises each morning in the east.”

Jordan nodded. “Those old stories say the strangers did come from east of the Rockies.”

Painter shared a look with Kanosh. The professor was clearly thinking these people came from much farther east than this.

His lost tribe of Israelites… the Mormon’s Nephites.

“Once settled in these territories,” Jordan continued, “the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev taught our people much, gathering shamans from tribes throughout the West. Word of their teachings spread far and wide, drawing more and more people to them, becoming one great clan themselves.”

The Lamanites, Painter thought.

“The Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev were greatly revered, but also feared for the power they possessed. As centuries passed, they kept mostly to themselves. Our own shamans began to fight with each other, seeking more knowledge, beginning to defy the warnings spoken by the strangers. Until one day, a Pueblo tribe to the south stole a powerful treasure from the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev. But the thieves did not know the power of what they had stolen and brought great doom upon themselves, destroying most of their own clan. In anger, the other tribes set upon the surviving members of the Pueblo clan and slaughtered every man, woman, and child, until they were no more.”

“Genocide,” Kanosh whispered.

Jordan bowed his head in acknowledgment. “This horrified the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev. They knew their body of knowledge was too powerful, too tempting to the tribes who were still warring. So they gathered their members throughout the West, hid their treasures in sacred places. Many were murdered as they sought to flee, leaving other clusters of survivors with little choice but to take their own lives to preserve their secrets.”

Painter studied Kanosh out of the corner of his eyes. Was this the war described in the Book of Mormon between the Nephites and Lamanites?

“Only a handful of our more trusted elders were given knowledge of these burial caches, where it was said a great accounting of the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev was written in gold.”

Kanosh took a deep breath, turning away, his eyes glassy, maybe from tears. Here was further confirmation of all he believed, about his people, about their place in history and in God’s plan.

Still, Painter — long estranged from his own heritage — remained a skeptic. “Is there any proof of this story?”

Jordan took a moment to respond, studying his toes before looking up. “I don’t know, but my grandfather says that if you want to know more about the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev, you should go to the place where their end began.”

“What does that mean?” Kowalski asked sourly.

Jordan turned to him. “My grandfather knows where the thieves who stole the treasure met their doom. He also knows their name.” He faced the others. “They were the Anasazi.”

Painter could not help but let the shock show in his face. The Anasazi were a clan of the ancient pueblo people who lived mostly in the Four Corners area of the United States, known as much for their extensive cliff-dwelling homes as they were for their mysterious and sudden disappearance.

Kanosh stared significantly at Painter. “In the Navajo language, the name Anasazi means ‘ancient enemy.’ ” Kanosh filled in more details. “The Anasazi vanished some time between 1000 and 1100 AD. But it’s been hotly debated what triggered their disappearance. Various theories have been expounded: a great drought, bloody battles among tribes. But one of the newest theories from archaeologists at the University of Colorado has the tribe embroiled in a religious war, as violent as any battle between Christians and Muslims. It was said that some new religion drew them en masse to the south. Then shortly after that, the entire clan died out.”

That theory certainly meshed with the ancient story told by Jordan’s grandfather. Painter turned to the young man. “You said your grandfather knew where these Anasazi thieves met their doom. Where was it?”

“If you have a map of the Southwest, specifically Arizona, I can show you.”

As a group, they all moved indoors. The inside of the pueblo was as dark as a cave after the morning’s brightness. Kai moved around and flicked on several lamps. Painter drew out a map of the Four Corners region and spread it on the tabletop.

“Show me,” Painter said.

Jordan studied the chart for a breath, cocking his head to the side. “It’s about three hundred miles south of us,” he said, and leaned closer. “Just outside Flagstaff. Ah, here it is.”

He poked the map.

Painter read the name at his fingertip. “Sunset Crater National Park.”

Well, that certainly makes sense…

Kowalski groused under his breath. “Looks like we’re going from one volcano to another.”

Painter began making arrangements in his head.

“I’m going with you,” Kanosh said.

Painter prepared to argue. He wanted to leave the professor here with Kai, to keep them out of harm’s way.

“My friends gave their blood, their lives,” Kanosh pressed. “I’m going to see this through. And who knows what you’ll find in Arizona? You may need my expertise.”

Painter frowned, but he had no good cause to dismiss such help.

Kowalski came to the same conclusion. “Sounds good to me.”

Kai stepped forward, ready to speak. Painter knew what she was going to say and held up his hand. “You’ll stay with Iris and Alvin.” He pointed to Jordan. “You, too.”

They’d both be safer here, and he didn’t want word to get out about where they were headed. Kai looked ready to fight about it, but a glance toward Jordan made her reconsider. Instead, she simply crossed her arms.

Painter thought the matter was settled, but Jordan stepped up. He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. He looked ready to pass it on, but held it half crumpled between his fingers.

“Before you go, my grandfather wanted me to give you this. But first, I must share one last thing. This is from me, not my grandfather.”

“What’s that?”

“The legends I just told you were sacred stories, going back centuries, passed from one elder to another. My grandfather only told me because he truly believes it’s already too late.”

Kowalski stirred. “What do you mean too late?”

“My grandfather believes that the spirit set free from that cave in the mountains will never be stopped — it will destroy the world.”

Painter remembered Chin’s description of the boil growing outward from the blast site, what he called a nano-nest, picturing microscopic nanomachines disassembling all matter it touched. The potential of it spreading indefinitely was terrifying.

“But it was stopped,” Painter finally said. “The volcanic eruption bottled that genie back up.”

Jordan stared him in the eye. “That was only the beginning. My grandfather says the spirit will sweep around the world from here, setting off more destruction until the world is a sandy ruin.”

Painter went cold. The description was frighteningly similar to the physicists’ theory that the neutrino blast in Utah had shot through the globe and lit the fuse on another cache of nano-material. He recalled Kat’s warning about the impending explosion in Iceland.

Jordan stretched out his hand with the folded slip of paper. “My grandfather holds out little hope, but he wanted to share this. It is the mark of the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev. He says to let it guide you to where you need to go.”

Painter took the piece of paper and opened it. What was written there made no sense, but it still caused him to go weak in his knees. He shook his head in disbelief. He recognized the pair of symbols smudged in charcoal on the paper, the sign of the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev.

A crescent moon and a small star.

The same symbols were found at the center of the Guild’s mark.

How could that be?

Chapter 20

Thirty-two minutes…

Standing guard at the window, Gray tightened his fingers on his pistol. He had spoken to Kat a few minutes ago — not only couldn’t she get his team any help, but she also shared disturbing news out of Japan. If those physicists were right, the island would blow shortly after 3:00 P.M. They had to be off this rock before then. There was only one problem — no, make that eight problems.

The skilled team of commandos had taken up secure positions across the front of the small lodge, keeping the place covered. A few minutes ago, the soldiers had begun to storm the place, but for some reason they suddenly retreated to the shelter of a group of basalt outcroppings.

“Why aren’t they attacking?” Ollie asked. The old caretaker stood by the hearth with his shotgun in his hands. Harshly beaten, he’d rallied after Monk freed him, but it was clear that the waiting was wearing him down.

Seichan answered, but she didn’t take her eyes off the window she guarded. “Like us, they must have heard the island is going to explode. They’re just pinning us down here until they can make their escape.”

Her words proved to be prophetic as the whump-whump of an approaching helicopter shook the panes of glass. A midsize transport helicopter swept over the lodge and out into the open meadow. The bird’s tandem, four-blade rotors flattened the grasses as it hovered, its pilot searching for a safe place to land amid the broken rock.

We need to be on that chopper, Gray thought.

“Look!” Seichan called, and pointed. “Across the meadow, by the boulders. We’ve got more company.”

Gray tore his eyes from the helicopter and spotted what had alarmed her. More soldiers fled out of the broken landscape, coming from the direction of the smoky signature that marked the recent TNT blast. In the lead ran a figure wearing civilian clothing: hiking boots, all-weather pants, and a heavy jacket, unzipped. The middle-aged man hugged a backpack to his ample belly. Behind him, two soldiers carried a stretcher between them, piled high with small stone boxes.

They must have successfully blasted their way into the treasure hold on the island. If Gray had any doubt, it was dashed when he spotted the glint of gold atop the pile of boxes. One of the soldiers waved frantically for the helicopter to land.

They definitely know the island’s about to blow.

A scrape of a boot drew his attention around. Monk rushed up, breathless. “I checked the entire rear of the building. Looks clear.”

“We’ll have to move fast. They’re evacuating.”

Monk nodded. “I saw the chopper.”

“Then let’s do this.”

After Gray made sure everyone knew what to do, Ollie and Monk took positions at the front windows while he and Seichan ran toward the back door to the lodge.

“Let’s hope that old man knew what he was talking about,” Seichan said.

Gray was betting their lives on it. The caretaker had been coming to the island for sixty years. If anyone knew its secrets, it had to be Ollie.

Together, he and Seichan burst out the door and into the sunlit meadow and sprinted low to the ground. The bulk of the lodge sheltered them from the view of the commandos. Gray headed toward a slight rise in the green field. Ollie had pointed it out, told him what to expect. Still, as he fled around the shallow hill, he came close to falling headlong into an open pit on the far side.

Seichan snagged his arm and pulled him to a stop at the edge. The rise in the ground was actually an old hardened bubble of lava, hollow on the inside. The far side opened into the source of that bulge: a lava tube. The mouth of the tunnel yawned amid a jumble of cracked basaltic rock, like so many broken teeth.

They shifted to where a pile of debris allowed them to climb down into the tube’s throat. Gray flicked on a flashlight. The beam revealed a smooth-walled tunnel, barely wide enough for one person and no headroom.

“Follow me,” Gray said, and set off at a fast clip.

According to Ollie, the tube ran under the lodge and down to a small cavern below the meadow. It was a crossroads of sorts. From there, another tunnel led back to the surface, opening on the far side of the meadow. The caretaker had hurriedly mapped it out. Afterward, Gray had memorized the route, but he also recalled the trawler captain’s description of the island: a hardened chunk of Swiss cheese, carved by wind and rain. It would be easy to get lost in here — and they had no time for mistakes.

In under a minute, they reached a high-arching cavern. Boulders cluttered the floor. Pools of dank rainwater splashed underfoot, and the air smelled of mold and salt. Gray turned in a circle, sweeping out with his light. There were a half-dozen exits. Ollie had marked only four on his \map.

With his heart thudding against his rib cage, Gray went back to the lava tube and did his best to circle along the wall, checking each opening. He’d been told to take the second passage along this side. The first opening he came to was a crack. He shone his light down it. It squeezed shut after only a couple yards. Did that count? Or had Ollie skipped it because it wasn’t a true tunnel?

Gray hurried along. The old caretaker struck him as no-nonsense and practical. There was nothing superfluous about the sea-hardened man. He would stick only to the details that were important. Trusting that, Gray ignored the blind crack, bypassed the next tunnel, and headed to the one after that. This had to be the second passageway marked on Ollie’s map.

It proved to be another lava tube, which was good, but it drilled deeper, heading down. That didn’t seem right, but Gray could waste no more time. Taking a deep breath, he entered the tunnel. It was even tighter than the first one.

“Are you sure this is the right way?” Seichan said.

“We’ll find out.”

Gray hurried along and began to doubt his decision until the tube dipped and started to rise again, aiming back toward the surface. After another long minute, the tunnel brightened on its own. He flicked off his flashlight. The bell beat of twin rotors echoed down to them.

The opening appeared ahead, blindingly bright. A hard breeze blew down at them, stinging them with grit.

He turned and bent to Seichan’s ear. “We must be close to the helicopter.”

She nodded, freed her pistol, and waved him forward.

He rushed the rest of the way, but slowed the final steps, canvassing the opening. The tube dumped into a nest of broken stony pinnacles that looked like a giant game of pickup sticks. He crept out and crawled into cover. Behind him, Seichan rolled free and slipped into the shelter of a stony deadfall.

Gray assessed the situation at a glance.

Only ten yards away, the helicopter rested on its wheels in the meadow, rotors churning. It must have just landed. Two soldiers were pulling the side doors open. The other commandos clustered nearby, twenty in all.

The stretcher rested in the grass, its cargo still waiting to be shifted to the chopper’s hold. Gray noted the gold shining on top. It came from a broken stone box, revealing a stack of metal tablets inside.

Same as the Utah cave.

Standing next to the stretcher, still clutching the pack to his chest with one arm, was the civilian he’d noted before. Gray got a better look at his face. Blond hair framed a pale complexion, with pouting lips and a scruff of patchy beard. It was the face of someone who led a soft life and found little he liked about it. As soon as the helicopter’s door was fully open, the man rushed forward. Soldiers helped him inside.

Beyond the chopper, the lodge remained dark and quiet on the far side of the meadow. Monk waited for his signal. It would be hard to miss.

Gray aimed his SIG Sauer P226. The magazine held twelve.357 rounds. Same as Seichan’s weapon. Each shot had to count. Seichan matched his pose, ready.

Gray aimed for the soldier guarding the helicopter. He couldn’t risk any of the enemy gaining shelter inside the chopper’s hold. He centered his shot and squeezed the trigger.

The crack of his pistol was loud, triggering an echo from Seichan’s weapon. Gray’s target dropped. Before the soldier could hit the ground, Gray shifted and blew the throat out of a second.

Confusion reigned for several breaths. The soldiers, jammed together and deafened by the helicopter’s engines, struggled to ascertain who was shooting at them. One of the eight original commandos fired at the lodge, believing it to be the source of the attack.

A shotgun blast responded from the building, shattering out a window as Ollie took a potshot at the attackers.

Good job, Ollie…

All eyes turned in the lodge’s direction.

A mistake.

With everyone looking the wrong way, Gray took out another two men in the back, while Seichan concentrated her fire on the eight commandos who had the lodge pinned down. Her accuracy was scary good. She emptied her clip, taking four men down at some distance.

As she ejected one magazine and slapped in another, Gray shifted his focus to the closest two soldiers. The pair had backed away from the lodge, coming close to their hiding spot, unaware of the danger. He took them both out, emptying his magazine into them while hurtling out of hiding, staying low.

They needed more firepower.

Reaching the bodies, he grabbed one of their automatic weapons, snatching it in midrun. Seichan shadowed him, firing her pistol. He swung the rifle up, thumbed it into full automatic, and fired from the hip. He strafed into the line of soldiers, taking several down and driving the rest away from the chopper and into the sheltering boulders.

Seichan gained the other rifle.

Together, they dove into the helicopter’s hold.

The only occupant was the pudgy civilian. His hands were struggling at his waist, trying to free a holstered weapon, but Seichan slammed him hard with the butt of her rifle. He fell limply into his seat. She headed toward the pilots, determined to sway them to their cause at gunpoint.

Gray continued his barrage, fierce enough to allow Monk and Ollie to make a break from the lodge. They ran low while Gray covered them. Monk fired, too, offering further discouragement.

The two reached the chopper safely. Gray yanked them inside and tugged the cabin door closed. His ears rang from all the gunfire.

“Stay low!” he yelled at Monk and Ollie.

The reason for this command became clear as the helicopter was fired upon. Rounds pinged off the sides. But already the engines were howling up. Apparently Seichan had been persuasive enough — or the pilots already knew about the impending explosion of the island.

Gray checked his watch.

Four more minutes…

He had time to spare.

He was wrong.

A tremendous blast rocked the chopper. The ground bucked under the helicopter, knocking Gray to his hands and knees. Overhead, the engines screamed. The helicopter rose unsteadily, canted nose first, its liftoff bungled by the quake. The hatch crashed back open, improperly latched in his haste.

Beyond the door, clouds and smoke obscured half the island.

“Gray!” Monk hollered.

Gray twisted to see the civilian, his nose broken and bloody, diving for the open door, still clutching his pack. Gray rolled after him and snatched at the bag, catching a strap. Whatever was inside had to be important enough if the man was willing to die to keep it from him. But the guy would not let go. He had an arm hooked in the other strap as he plummeted out of the helicopter.

The man’s weight, as he jarred to a stop, dangling by the pack, yanked Gray toward the open door. On his belly, half out the door, Gray refused to let go of the pack. The man whipped his body back and forth, trying to free himself and his precious prize.

Gray slid farther out the door — then a heavy weight fell across his legs, pinning him in place.

“I got you,” Monk said.

The chopper rose higher, struggling for height. As they climbed, one section of the ancient volcanic cone broke away and slid heavily toward the sea. Deep fissures skittered across the remainder of the island. Men scurried in all directions, fleeing the destruction — but there was no escape.

Not even by air.

The helicopter shuddered and suddenly dropped several yards in a single second. Gray rose off the floor, then crashed back down. Monk struggled to keep him from falling out the door.

“We’re losing pressure!” Seichan yelled from the cockpit.

Before Gray could respond to the new danger, he heard the blast of a pistol. A searing burn clipped the edge of his ear. He stared below. His nemesis was hanging by one arm, but he’d finally succeeded in freeing his weapon with the other. If the chopper hadn’t dropped so suddenly, Gray would already be dead.

Not that he had a long life expectancy at the moment.

As the pilot sought to steady the helicopter, the stubborn civilian fixed his aim more carefully. At point-blank range, he wouldn’t miss a second time.

The man smiled up at Gray, yelled something in French, and pulled the trigger. The blast was deafening — but it didn’t come from a pistol. It came from a shotgun.

The next thing Gray knew, Ollie was straddling him, holding his smoking weapon.

Below, half the man’s face was gone. Slowly, his slack arm fell free of the pack, and his body tumbled end over end toward the ruins of the island.

Monk pulled Gray and his hard-earned prize back inside.

Monk shook his head. “From now on, arms and legs inside the ride at all times.”

Gray reached out and clasped Ollie’s hand. “Thanks.”

“Owed him.” Ollie gingerly touched his broken nose. “No one punches me in the face and gets away with it.”

Again the helicopter bumped violently and began a dizzying drop earthward. They all grabbed for handholds, waiting for the plunge to stop. It didn’t. Gray stared out the open door. The island, cracking apart and crumbling, rose up toward them. Fires now glowed within the depths of the deepest fissures, smoldering with the promise of worse to come.

As they continued to fall, the chopper began a slow spin.

Seichan popped her head into the hold from the cockpit. “We’ve lost all pressure to the rear rotors!” she said, and added what all of them already knew: “We’re going down!”

Chapter 21

Kai stood on the porch in the shade. She crunched a roasted piñon nut between her teeth, savoring the salty, rich flavor. Iris had gathered the seeds from the native piñon pines growing here. She was still inside shaking her winnowing tray over an open fire, preparing more nuts to be ground into flour.

Iris tried to show her how it was done, how to keep from burning the nuts, but Kai knew the old Hopi woman was only trying to distract her. Instead, Kai stared at a thin pall of dust retreating across the badlands. Painter and the others had wasted no time, gathering gear and flying off in the rented SUV, even taking the dog.

But not her.

Earlier, she’d reined in her anger, knowing it would do her no good. Bitterness still burned like coal in her gut. She’d been here at the start of all of this mess. She deserved to see it through to the end. They kept saying that she had to bear the consequences of her actions like a woman, yet still treated her like a child.

She popped another nut in her mouth, grinding it between her teeth. She was used to being left behind. So why should today be any different? Why should she expect anything more from her uncle?

But deep down, she had.

“That guy’s sort of intense.”

Kai turned to find Jordan Appawora standing in the doorway. He’d changed out of his suit into cowboy boots, a faded blue T-shirt, and black jeans held up by a belt with a large silver buckle in the shape of a buffalo head.

“So Painter Crowe’s your uncle?” he asked.

“Distantly.” At the moment she was ready to sever their blood ties entirely.

Jordan stepped onto the porch. He held a cowboy hat in one hand and juggled a small fistful of steaming piñon nuts in the other, trying to cool them. He must have taken them straight from Iris’s pan. He noted her attention, flipping one into his mouth.

“They’re called toovuts in Paiute,” he said as he chewed the kernel. “Do you want to know what they’re called in Hopi?”

She shook her head.

“How about in Arapaho or Navajo?” he asked, now grinning. He came closer. “It seems our host is willing to share all she knows about piñon nuts. Did you know the pitch from piñon pine trees was used as chewing gum, or that it also acted as a balm on cuts and wounds? Seems the sticky stuff was both the Trident and Neosporin of the Old World.”

She hid a grin, turning away.

“I had to get out of there,” he whispered conspiratorially, “before she started teaching me the Hopi rain dance.”

“She’s only trying to help,” Kai scolded, but could not hold back her grin.

“So what do we do now?” Jordan asked, donning his cowboy hat. “We could take a hike to Three Finger Canyon. Or Alvin’s grandkids left their mountain bikes… we could take a ride to Black Dragon Wash.”

She glanced to him, trying to ascertain his motives. His tanned face, with high cheekbones that made his dark eyes shine, seemed innocent and open. But she suspected there was more to the invitation than exercise and sightseeing. She’d caught him staring a bit too often her way. Even now, she felt a blush heating her cheeks and stepped toward the open doorway. She already had someone interested in her, someone important to her.

She pictured Chayton Shaw back with her friends at WAHYA. It would feel like a betrayal to go out with Jordan. She’d already compromised herself enough. She still stung from the e-mail she’d read earlier. She didn’t intend to make things worse.

“I better stick close,” she said, heading inside. “In case my uncle calls…”

It was a lame excuse, even to her own ears, but he didn’t call her on it, which made it that much harder to turn her back on him and head inside. Still, she glanced over a shoulder, staring at Jordan as he stood silhouetted against the morning’s brightness. She couldn’t help but compare him to Chay, whose fierce activism was all too often blunted by peyote, mushrooms, or weed. Though she’d known Jordan for less than an hour, there was something purer and more honest about his tribal pride, the way he doted on and supported his grandfather, the way he listened patiently to Iris’s teachings.

Seeming to sense her attention, he began to swing around. She hurried away, bumping into the table, almost knocking over a tray of cooling piñon nuts. She headed to the back room, needing some privacy.

She stood in the darkness and covered her burning cheeks with her palms. What am I doing?

Across the room, the closed laptop’s idle button glowed like a green cat’s eye in the dark. Painter had left the satellite hookup and one of his linked sat-phones, in case he needed to reach them. She was thankful for that.

Needing something to distract her, she crossed to the desk, sat down, and opened the laptop. She feared seeing a second note from John Hawkes, but she had to check. She called up her e-mail account, and after an interminable wait, saw she had no new mail. She reached to close the laptop, but her eyes drifted to the saved note from WAHYA’s founder. Scrunching up her face in determination, she opened it again. She wanted to read it once more, maybe as some sort of punishment, maybe to see if it was as bad as she remembered.

As she read it again, she felt no despair as she had felt last time — instead, anger slowly built with each line. Already bitter from Painter’s abandonment, she recognized that John Hawkes was trying to do the same. To shuck her off when there was the least bit of trouble.

After all I did… all I risked…

Before she could think otherwise, she hit the reply button. She didn’t intend to send the response. She just needed to vent, to get it off her chest. She typed rapidly, unloading her fury through her fingertips. She wrote a long, rambling letter, declaring her innocence and explaining how she was actively clearing her name without any help from WAHYA. She underlined that last part. It felt good to do so. She expressed her disdain for the lack of loyalty and support shown to one of their own. She listed all of her accomplishments and contributions to the cause. She also let John Hawkes know how much WAHYA meant to her, how this betrayal and mistrust of her wounded her to the marrow of her bones.

By the time she typed those last words, tears were welling up in her eyes, blurring the screen. She knew they came from somewhere deep inside, from a wound that would not heal. She wanted to be loved for who she was — for the good, the bad, the noble, and the weak — and not to be tossed aside when her presence grew inconvenient. In the end, she recognized a truth about herself. She wanted to be loved like her father had loved her. She deserved that. She wanted to scream it at the world.

Instead, she stared at the screen, at the letter — and did the next best thing. She reached out, moved the cursor, and allowed her finger to hover. Painter said the Internet connection was vigorously encrypted.

What could be the danger?

Taking back a bit of control over her own life, she hit send.

Rafe smiled as the in-box chimed with new mail. He checked his watch. It was hours earlier than he’d anticipated. Matters were moving forward splendidly. He straightened with a luxurious stretch, wearing a plush hotel robe and slippers, his hair still damp from a shower.

He glanced around the presidential suite, situated at the top of the Grand America Hotel at the heart of Salt Lake City. For the first time since arriving in the States, he almost felt at home, ensconced amid all the European appointments of the room: the handcrafted cherrywood Richelieu furniture, the Carrara marble in the spa bathroom, the seventeenth-century Flemish tapestries. From his perch atop the hotel, floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto breathtaking views of the mountains and down to the meticulously tended parterre gardens far below.

A sniffling sob dampened his good mood.

He turned to the scrawny young man, stripped naked and taped to one of the Richelieu dining chairs. Duct tape sealed his mouth. Twin lines of snot ran from his nose. He gasped, struggling for air, eyes wide and glassy like a wounded fox.

But he wasn’t a fox.

He was Rafe’s hawk… a hawk he’d sent hunting.

The biographical data on Kai Quocheets had listed her affiliations, including her participation in WAHYA, the fierce young wolves fighting for Native American rights. It had taken less than an hour to determine where the organization’s leader had squirreled himself away. He’d come to Salt Lake City to be close to the action in the mountains, ready for the exposure that came with such a tragedy. But apparently John Hawkes had other needs, too. Bern had collected him out of a strip club near the airport. Seems the Native American activist liked his women white and blond, with perky fake breasts.

Another whimper rose from the chair.

Rafe held up a finger. “Patience, Mr. Hawkes. We’ll get back to you soon enough. You’ve been most cooperative. But first let’s make sure your hunt was successful.”

It had not taken much to convert John Hawkes to their cause. Two of his fingers still pointed toward the ceiling. Ashanda had snapped them back as easily as breaking small twigs. Rafe, with his brittle bones, knew that particular exquisite pain. Over the course of his life, he’d broken every one of his fingers and toes.

Not always by accident.

Eventually they won Mr. Hawkes’s cooperation, gaining all the necessary insight and personal details about Kai to craft a letter intended to draw out Rafe’s little escaped bird. And it had apparently worked.

Much faster than I expected…

In the e-mail sent out, he’d set a noon deadline for her to respond. She wasn’t wasting any time. He didn’t intend to either.

“Sir, we’ve succeeded in decrypting the e-mail’s text,” the team’s computer asset informed him.

Rafe turned to the man. The technician went simply by the name TJ — but Rafe had never been curious enough to ask what those initials stood for. He was an American, emaciated, often hyped on stimulants so he could run code for days at a time. The expert stood before a bevy of mini — mainframe/servers, all interconnected by Cat 6 cables and hooked into a T2 broadband line.

Rafe didn’t understand a tenth of it. All he cared about were results.

“The text will be coming up on your personal screen in a moment, sir. We’re tracking IP addresses, triangulating sat-nodes, sifting server connections, and running a killer algorithm to untangle packet pathways.”

“Just find where it was sent from.”

“We’re working on it.”

Rafe rolled his eyes at the use of the word we. TJ was no more than a glorified assistant. The true digital magician sat in the center of the wired nest of equipment. Ashanda’s long fingers danced over three keyboards, as swiftly and elegantly as any concert pianist’s on a baby grand. In place of sheet music, her gaze swept through lines of flowing code. On another screen, server nodes and gateway protocols splintered into a tangled web that spread across a digital global map. Nothing could stand in her way. Firewalls toppled before her like dominoes.

Satisfied, Rafe crossed to his personal laptop and read the text message on the screen from Kai Quocheets. He tapped a finger against his lower lip as he read through the wash of teenage angst and hurt feelings. A small part of him felt a twinge of sympathy, drawn by her passion, by her raw exposure on the screen. He glanced over to John Hawkes, suddenly feeling like breaking a third finger on the man’s hand. Clearly the leader sorely used his fellow members, taking advantage of their youth and exuberance. In the end, he let others suffer the consequences while he took all of the glory.

That was simply poor management practices.

TJ whistled, drawing back Rafe’s attention. He leaned over Ashanda’s shoulder. “I think she’s got it!” he said, his voice rising in pitch. “She’s crashing through the last doors!”

Rafe stepped over, nudging TJ to the side. If they were victorious, he wanted to savor the moment with Ashanda.

Standing behind her, he leaned to her ear. “Show me what you can do…”

She gave no sign of acknowledgment. She was lost in her own world, as surely as any artist in the heat of inspiration. This was her medium. It was said that when a person lost one sense, another would grow stronger. This was Ashanda’s new sense, a digital extension of herself.

He ran a hand down one of her arms, feeling the old bumps of scarification under her skin. Such scarring was a ritualistic practice among the African tribe to which she had belonged. The bumps had been more prominent when she arrived at the château as a child. Now they could be felt only under the fingertips, like reading Braille.

“She’s almost there!” TJ said, breathless.

Ashanda leaned ever so slightly closer to Rafe’s cheek. He felt the warmth of her skin across the distance. No one truly understood their relationship. He couldn’t put it into words himself, and that was certainly true for her as well. They’d been inseparable since childhood. She was his nanny, his nurse, his sister, his confidante. Throughout his life, she was the silent well into which he could cast his hopes, his fears, his desires. In turn, he offered her security, a life without want — but also love, sometimes even physical, though that was rare. He was impotent, a side effect of his brittle disease. It seemed that even that most intimate of bones was damaged.

He studied her hands as they flew between the keyboards. He remembered how in private moments she would occasionally bend his finger, torturing him between agony and ecstasy until it finally snapped. It wasn’t masochism. Rather, there was a kind of purity in that pain that he found freeing. It taught him not to fear his body’s weakness but to embrace it, to tap into a primal well of sensation that was unique to him.

She let out the softest sigh.

“She did it!” TJ whooped, lifting his arms high, like a soccer fan after a goal.

Rafe leaned closer to her, allowing his cheek to touch hers. “Well done,” he whispered in her ear.

Not moving, he stared at the screen. The digital map had swelled, and glowing green lines converged into a single locus situated in Utah. Rafe noted the location and smiled at the serendipitous sight of his own name on the screen.

“San Rafael,” he said. Amusement lifted his spirits. “Oh, that’s just too perfect.”

He turned to John Hawkes.

The man’s eyes were wide upon him.

“Looks like we won’t be needing our hunting hawk any longer,” he mumbled.

He crossed toward the naked man, who let out a loud, panicked moan. Rafe believed he owed John Hawkes a small gift for his services — in this case, a lesson in good management practices, something that the man sorely lacked.

Rafe stepped behind him, hooked an arm around his thin throat. It wasn’t easy to snap a man’s neck, nothing like in the movies. It took him three tries. But it was a good lesson. Sometimes even a leader had to get his hands dirty. It helped maintain morale.

He moved back, wiping a pebbling of well-earned sweat from his brow.

“With that out of the way…” Rafe held forth an arm for Ashanda. “Shall we move on, mon chaton noir?”

Chapter 22

Gray braced himself behind the pilot, Seichan at his side. Her hand was clamped hard to his forearm, as much from a need to hold herself steady as it was from terror.

The helicopter plunged toward a fiery doom, spiraling down. Rotors screamed overhead, struggling to hold them aloft. Beyond the cockpit window, clouds of smoke billowed while hot particulate rattled against the sides of the plummeting craft like hail. The engine’s air intakes sucked in the same debris, choking the motors further.

In the seat, the pilot fought the cyclic stick between his legs with one arm and flipped switches on the console with the other. He was one of the enemy, one of the mercenary commandos, but at the moment his fate was tied to theirs — and the outlook was not good.

“We’re fucked!” the pilot yelled. “Nothing I can do!”

The island flew up toward them, a steaming, shattered chunk of rock. Fissures continued to tear apart the ancient volcanic cone. Fires raged within the deepest chasms. Seawater flooded into the island’s interior and blasted upward in steaming geysers as icy water met molten rock.

It was hell on earth down there.

Their best hope, Gray determined, was out at sea, but the waters were frigid, capable of killing in minutes. He climbed into the empty copilot seat and pressed his face against the curve of the window. He searched the waters around the island. Sunlight reflected brightly off the waves, a sight that was far too cheery considering the circumstance. But the column of smoke and steam rising from the island cast a dark shadow to the south. It was within that shadow that he could discern a sliver of white riding the dark sea.

“There!” Gray exclaimed, and pointed down and to the right. “At your two o’clock! South of the island.”

The pilot turned to him, his face deathly pale under his helmet. “What…?”

“A boat.” It had to be Captain Huld’s fishing trawler. “Crash this bird as close to it as you can.”

The pilot canted the helicopter on its side and searched below. “I see it. Don’t know if I even have enough lift to clear the island, let alone get that far out to sea.”

Still, the pilot knew they had no other choice. Adjusting the cyclic stick and collective pitch, he angled their plunge to the south. Even this small maneuver caused them to lose altitude. Hobbled with only one set of working rotors, the large craft dropped precipitously. The island filled the world below. Gray lost sight of the boat beyond the rocky cliffs.

“Not going to make it…” the pilot said, fighting stick and throttle.

An explosion of boiling water and steam blasted out of a crack ahead, shooting high into the sky. The craft crashed through it, blinding them all for a frightening breath. Then they were past it. The water blew clear of the glass, revealing a deadly plunge toward a scalloped curve of volcanic cone. It rose like a rocky wave ahead of them, blocking the way to the open water.

“Not enough power!” the pilot hollered above the strained wail of the rotors.

“Give it everything you can!” Gray hollered back.

The ground grew closer. Gray spotted the sprawled bodies of cattle in the open field, killed by either the extreme heat or toxic gases — or maybe simply from sheer fright.

Then suddenly the island began to fall away. The meadow receded beneath them.

We’re climbing again.

The pilot saw it, too. “That’s not me!” He pointed to the altimeter. “We’re still falling!”

Gray shifted closer to the window and stared below. He realized his error. The helicopter wasn’t climbing—the ground was falling under them.

As he watched, a chunk of cone broke away, split off by the boiling crack behind them. A quarter of the island slowly tipped and slid toward the sea, upending like a drunk falling off a bar stool.

Ahead, the wall of the volcanic rock lowered, tilting and dropping away, clearing a path to the open sea. But they weren’t out of the woods.

“It’ll be close!” the pilot said.

Below, boulders bounced and rolled across the meadow. One rock sailed past the cockpit window.

The pilot swore, bobbling the craft to avoid a collision.

Still, they continued to hurtle toward the lip of the cone. It was dropping away too slowly. The pilot groaned, fighting the stick with everything he had. Gray activated the copilot seat’s controls. He didn’t have any skill with this particular craft, but he could lend some muscle. He hauled on the collective. It fought him, felt like he was trying to crowbar the craft higher.

“No good!” the pilot bellowed. “Hold tight! We’re going to cr—”

Then they hit.

The wheels and lower skids slammed into the rocky lip of the cone, tearing away beneath the craft with a screech of metal. The helicopter was tossed up on its nose. Through the windshield, Gray got a dizzying look at the dark sea below as the craft flipped clear of the crumbling island.

The helicopter flew farther out, toppling on its side, spinning the world into a kaleidoscope.

3:22 P.M

Seichan caught glimpses of the dark sea as the helicopter spun wildly. She clutched a handle overhead, her legs pinned against a spar to hold her in place. Monk bellowed from the back, accompanied by a sharper cry from the old caretaker. Closer at hand, Gray was tossed from the copilot’s seat and struck the windshield hard, cracking his head against the frame.

Beside him, strapped in place, the pilot continued to wrestle with his controls, trying every trick he knew to stabilize the craft, to slow their dive. With a final yank on the stick, the chopper’s nose lifted slightly, slowing the spin.

Gray crashed crookedly back to his seat, kneeing the pilot in the helmet. Blood ran from Gray’s scalp, drenching half his face.

The pilot pushed him away. “Clear out of here! Brace yourselves.”

Seichan reached with her free arm, knotted a fist in the collar of Gray’s jacket, and pulled him back with her. They tumbled together into the rear cabin. Monk fought to strap Ollie into a seat.

The side door slammed open and closed wildly, offering a juddering view of the island’s ruins. The broken ridge of cone struck the water, welling up a massive wave and sending it seaward. Beyond it, smoke hid most of the landmass, rising from several chutes. At the heart of the darkness, a flaming fountain glowed, bubbling mostly near the surface, occasionally splashing higher.

But more frightening was the sea as it rushed upward.

With only seconds to spare, Seichan shouldered the dazed Gray into a wall covered in cargo netting. He understood enough to tangle his arms into the material. She moved to do the same, turning in time to see the giant wave cast off by the broken island rise underneath the helicopter, reaching up to meet the plummeting craft.

They hit the wave hard. Her body slammed to the floor. She heard metal scream — then nothing, as icy water swamped the cabin. The flood tossed her body like a rag doll. Her leg hit something sharp, tearing through her jeans, ripping a hot line of fire across her thigh. Then she was shoved violently into Gray, his head still in a pocket of air. He tried to grab her with one arm. She tried to snatch at the netting.

Both efforts failed.

The current tore her away as the helicopter rolled deeper, flushing her out the open door amid a rush of bubbles. She tumbled end over end, choking on seawater, trailing blood. Below, the broken helicopter sank into the dark depths amid a spreading cloud of oil. She saw no one else swim clear as the craft vanished into the blackness.

Gray…

But there was nothing she could do. Even if she could swim down, the helicopter was already too deep. No one could make it back to the surface before drowning.

Hopeless and despairing, she fought her heavy heart and twisted away. She craned up toward the wan sunlight. She had not realized how far she’d been pulled down herself. Desperate for air, unsure if she could make it, she kicked for the surface, the cold cutting through her like a flurry of knife blades.

Then something dark swept past overhead, blocking the sun: a black, sleek shadow. She froze, hovering in the icy depths. Other shadows appeared around her, circling, fins cutting through the waters. One swept close, rolling a large eye toward her as it passed. She read the intelligence in that gleam, the cunning, along with a raw hunger.

Orcas…

Drawn by her seeping blood.

Though the waters chilled her down to her bones, a prickling heat swept through her. She stared below, sensing the danger.

A black shape swept up out of the depths toward her, the mouth splitting wide, revealing a maw of sharp teeth.

She screamed, swallowing seawater, kicking frantically.

It was no use.

Teeth cut through her pant leg, into her flesh.

3:24 P.M

Holding his breath, nearly out of air in the sinking helicopter, Gray yanked loose the cargo straps with numb, icy fingers. Pressure pounded his head, staking needles into his skull. He freed the two-foot rubber cube from its webbing and kicked free.

He bumped into Monk, who had liberated his own package. He hugged Ollie under one arm. The old man lolled loosely, unconscious, possibly drowned. Gray had checked on the pilot shortly after the crash. He was dead, still strapped in place, a large chunk of metal pierced through his throat.

No hope there.

With everything they needed, Monk and Gray kicked out of the open hatch and into the twilight waters. Sun and air were far overhead. They’d never make it to the surface on their own, especially not in time for any hope of resuscitating Ollie. But Gray owed the old man his life. He intended to return the favor.

Gray passed his rubber package to Monk. Air bubbled from his friend’s lips as his prosthetic hand clamped hard to the rope handle dangling from the cube. He read the agony in Monk’s eyes, imagined he looked the same. If the cold didn’t kill them, the lack of air soon would.

Gray grasped Monk’s belt with one arm, ready to hug Ollie between them. But first he reached and tugged the cord on the compressed air cartridge alongside the cube.

With one pull, the Rapid Deployment Craft inflated, swelling open overhead into a yellow life raft. Normally, RDCs were tossed out of aircraft to drowning sailors. Gray hoped that putting one to this new use would rescue them. The raft’s buoyancy immediately began tugging them upward — at first slowly, then more and more rapidly.

In a matter of seconds, they were rocketing through the water.

Gray held tightly to Monk and Ollie as they flew toward the surface. The waters grew rapidly lighter around them. Gray relieved his screaming need for oxygen by letting air escape his chest, blowing out, tricking his lungs into thinking he was about to inhale.

He hoped it wasn’t just a trick.

His vision narrowed from lack of oxygen, darkening his view, making it hard for him to tell how much farther they had to go.

Then, like a cork from a champagne bottle, they shot out of the water. The raft leaped free, clearing the waves, tossing them high. They all flew, crashing back to the sea. Gray managed to keep his grip on Ollie. Monk kept hold of the raft.

Gray sputtered, gasping, coughing out seawater. Monk towed the raft to his side, a tiny rescue lamp blinking brightly from its bow. They clambered out of the icy waters, limbs shaking, teeth chattering. Gray sprawled Ollie across the raft while Monk quickly checked him.

“Not breathing, but I got a weak pulse.”

Monk rolled the man over and began pumping his chest. It was difficult on the floating, rubbery surface. Still, water flowed from Ollie’s lips and nose. Once he was satisfied, Monk flipped him back over. The old man’s skin looked a frightening grayish purple. But Monk’s medical training would not let him give up. He began mouth-to-mouth.

Gray offered a silent prayer heavenward. He owed Ollie a debt. And it had already cost them too much to come to this damned island. Gray shrugged off the backpack he’d stolen from the civilian member of the commando team. He let it drop to the raft. He’d recovered it from the helicopter. He wasn’t about to leave it behind. It was all they had to show for this mission.

But at what price?

He searched the waters around the raft. He pictured Seichan being ripped away from him, vanishing out of the cabin in a swirling tempest. He didn’t hold out much hope. She couldn’t survive more than a few minutes in these icy waters.

Where could she go?

Gray looked around, but thick smoke covered the seas south of the island, swallowing everything up. He could see no more than a handful of yards in any direction. The air reeked of burning brimstone and salt, but at least for the moment it was warm.

Overhead, the sun was a dull orange blur. Brighter by far was the nearby island. The ruins of Ellirey lay only a couple of hundred yards away. It was a dark shadow topped by a crown of fire. Flames splashed high into the air while ribbons of glowing lava flowed down its sides. Steam rimmed the broken shores, marking the spot where molten rock seeped into the icy waters.

All the while the world rumbled and roared.

They were still far too close to the island.

This became clear as a deafening boom sounded, accompanied by a fountain of fire bursting from the island’s heart. Smoke swirled more fiercely while a cloud of fine hot ash began to rain out of the sky, sizzling into the water, stinging any exposed skin. Large rocks struck the water, unseen through the smoke, but heard as loud splashes.

A smaller cough drew Gray’s attention.

Ollie heaved and coughed again. More water spilled from his lips and nose. Monk knelt back, looking relieved. He helped the old man sit up. The caretaker stared blearily around him.

His voice was hoarse. “I knew I’d always end up in helviti.”

Monk clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re not in hell yet, old man.”

Ollie glanced around. “You sure?”

Flakes of ash began to fall more heavily, drifting like fiery snow, beginning to cover the water in a fine layer. A large blazing cinder struck one of the boat’s pontoons. Before it could be brushed away, it melted through the polyurethane surface. Air hissed out, escaping rapidly, deflating that side.

“We need to get farther away from the island,” Gray warned. “Out of this ash cloud. We’ll have to paddle by hand.”

“Or we can just hitch a ride,” Monk said, pointing behind Gray.

The loud burst of an air horn split across the water.

Gray turned. The bow of a large boat pushed out of the smoke and headed their way, a ghostly but familiar apparition.

It was Captain Huld’s fishing trawler.

The boat slid alongside them, expertly piloted by Huld’s son.

The captain called from the open deck, wearing a wide grin. “What the fjandanum did you do to my island?”

Huld met them at the stern deck and helped them aboard. Ollie, still weak, had to be carried, slung between Monk and Gray.

“A bunch of drowned rats, the lot of you,” Huld scolded. “Come. We’ve got blankets and dry clothes below.”

“How did you find us?” Gray asked.

“Spotted that little blinkin’ light of yours.” He pointed to the emergency LED at the raft’s bow. “Plus we couldn’t leave the area till we found you. She wouldn’t have it.”

From the wheelhouse, a lithe form limped out, wrapped in a blanket, her left leg bandaged from calf to midthigh.

Seichan…

Gray came close to dropping Ollie in a sudden desire to rush forward.

Monk swore in surprise.

“Darnedest thing,” Huld said. “That same pod of orcas we saw earlier has been hugging our sides since the fireworks began, like frightened kids hanging on to our skirts. Then suddenly the whole lot of ’em goes and sinks away. Thought they were abandoning us. Only half a minute later, they pop back up with your woman, nearly drowned, and nosed her over to the boat.”

Gray knew that the term killer in killer whales was a misnomer. In the wild, no orca had ever attacked a human. In fact, just as it was with their close relative, the dolphin, there were reported cases of orcas protecting humans in the water.

It seemed the playful pod — fed and respected by Huld — had returned that affection today.

Seichan hobbled over to join them, looking more angry than relieved. “I could’ve made it to the surface on my own.”

Huld shrugged. “They did not think so. And they know these waters better than you, my stúlka.”

She scowled.

“I’ve got Ollie,” Monk said, shifting the caretaker’s weight. “I need to get him somewhere warm, do a more thorough exam. He swallowed a lot of seawater.”

They all had, but Gray urged Monk to do as he’d suggested.

Huld went to help his son, but not before passing on some news. “Been listening to the shortwave. Word is this eruption’s gone ahead and triggered some magma blowouts along the rift that splits the seabed here. Before all is through, we may have another island or two.”

With those dire words, Huld left them alone on the deck.

Seichan stood with her arms crossed. She wouldn’t look at Gray and stared out to sea. The boat trudged away from the blasted island, slowly drawing clear of the ash cloud.

“I thought you were dead,” Seichan said. Her voice was a whisper. She shook her head. “But I… I couldn’t give up.”

He moved next to her. “I’m glad you didn’t. You saved our lives by making Huld stay.”

She looked at him, searching his face, seeing if he was being flippant. Whatever she found there made her turn swiftly away, but not before Gray noted a rare flicker of uncertainty in her eyes.

She wrapped her blanket more snugly around her. Neither of them spoke for several breaths.

“Have you searched the bag yet?” she asked.

He was momentarily confused until she glanced over to the backpack he’d abandoned on the deck.

“No,” he said. “I haven’t had a chance.”

She lifted an eyebrow at him.

She was right. Now was as good a time as any.

Gray crossed to the bag, knelt next to it, and opened the main compartment. Seichan hovered over him.

He sifted through the sodden contents. There wasn’t much: a couple of wet T-shirts, pens, a spiral notepad whose pages had become mush. But buried within the nest of shirts, perhaps meant to cushion it, was something sealed in a plastic Ziploc bag. Gray pulled it free.

“What is it?”

“Looks like an old book… maybe a journal.” Gray unzipped the bag and slipped out the contents.

It was a small leather-bound volume, brittle with age. He flipped the book open carefully. A meticulous handwritten script filled the pages, along with drawings that had been done with an equally precise hand. The book definitely appeared to be a journal or diary.

He scanned the writing.

“French,” he said.

He turned to the first page, where a set of initials was floridly etched.

“A.F.,” he read aloud, and stared up at Seichan.

They both knew those initials, the author of this journal.

Archard Fortescue.

Chapter 23

“Shouldn’t be much farther,” Hank Kanosh said from the backseat.

Lost in thought, Painter stared out the window at the passing scenery of the high desert. The midday sun had beat the landscape into shades of crimson and gold, broken by patches of sagebrush and stands of prickly yucca trees.

Kowalski sped along Highway 89. They were headed northeast out of Flagstaff, having landed in Arizona only fifteen minutes ago after a short hop in a private charter from an airfield outside of Price, Utah. Their destination — Sunset Crater National Park — lay forty minutes from the city.

“We’re looking for Fire Road 545,” Hank said. The professor’s dog sat at the other end of the SUV’s bench seat, his nose glued to the glass after he’d spotted a wild hare bounding away from the highway. The dog was now on high alert. “The fire road’s a thirty-five-mile loop off the highway that passes through the park and a slew of ancient Pueblo ruins. Nancy Tso will meet us at the visitors’ center near the park’s entrance.”

Their contact, Nancy Tso, was a Navajo woman, but also a National Park Service ranger. Earlier, Hank had made a few discreet calls, channeling through his contacts, and discovered the names of those who knew the region the best. On the flight here, Painter had read up as well as he could about the area. They all had. Kat had sent reams of information from D.C., but Painter preferred firsthand knowledge. The plan was to interview the guide, to see what they could learn.

Still, Painter had a hard time focusing. He had heard from Kat about the events in Iceland, listened to radio reports as news coverage of the volcanic eruptions spread. The entire archipelago south of Iceland’s main coast was steaming and quaking. In addition to the one on the island, two submarine volcanoes had begun to boil the seas, spewing lava along the seabed and building steadily higher.

A giant volcanic plume was headed for Europe. Airports were already grounding planes. Gray, though, had gotten out ahead of it. He was already in the air, winging his way back to Washington with the prize in hand: an old journal belonging to the French scientist Archard Fortescue.

But would it shed any light on their predicament?

“There’s the exit,” Hank said, leaning forward and pointing.

“I see it,” Kowalski said sourly. “I’m not blind.”

Hank slipped back into his seat. They were all getting testy from lack of sleep. Silence settled over the vehicle as they took the exit off the highway and drove onto a two-lane road. There was no mistaking their destination as they continued the last few miles.

Sunset Crater appeared ahead of them. The thousand-foot-tall cinder cone rose above islands of pine and aspen. The cratered mountain was the youngest and least eroded cinder cone of the San Francisco volcanic fields. Over six hundred volcanoes of different shapes and sizes spread outward from here, most of them dormant, but beneath this chunk of the Colorado Plateau, magma still simmered close to the surface.

As they drove, Painter imagined the earthquakes and lava bombs that must have shaken the region a thousand years ago. He pictured the storm of flaming cinders and swirling clouds of burning ash, setting fire to the world, turning day to night. In the end, the ash field covered eight hundred square miles.

As they drew closer, the singular feature of this cratered mountain — in fact, the reason it had earned its name — became apparent. In the sunlight, the crown of the cone glowed a ruddy crimson, streaked and pooled with splashes of brilliant yellow, purple, and emerald, as if the view of the crater were forever frozen at sunset. But Painter had read enough to know there was nothing magical about this effect. The coloring came from a violent spewing of red oxidized iron and sulfur scoria that had settled around the cone’s summit during its last eruption.

From the backseat, Hank offered a less geological viewpoint. “I’ve been reading the Hopi legends about this place. This was a sacred mountain to the Indians of this region. They believed angry gods once destroyed an evil people here with fire and molten rock.”

“That doesn’t sound like a legend,” Painter said. “It pretty much matches the story told by Jordan’s grandfather — and for that matter, even the history of the place. The volcano erupted here around 1064 AD, about the same time that the Anasazi vanished.”

“True. But what I find most interesting is that the same Hopi legend goes on to warn that the people who died here are still here, that they remain as spiritual guardians of the place. Which, of course, makes me wonder what still needs guarding here.”

Painter stared at the red cone, pondering the same mystery. Jordan Appawora’s grandfather had hinted that something lay hidden here, something that could shed light on the ancient people, the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev—Hank’s mythical lost tribe of Israelites.

Kowalski pointed ahead as they passed through the gates of the national park. “Is that our lady?”

Painter sat straighter. A slim young woman climbed out of a white Jeep Cherokee equipped with a blue light bar on top. She wore a starched gray shirt with a badge affixed to it, along with green slacks, black boots, and a matching service belt, including a holstered sidearm. As she stepped clear of the vehicle, she pulled on a broad-brimmed campaign hat and crossed toward the passenger side of their vehicle once it came to a stop.

Kowalski let out a low whistle of appreciation.

“I don’t think your girlfriend back in D.C. would approve of that,” Painter warned.

“We got an agreement. I’m allowed to look, just not touch.”

Painter should have scolded him for his behavior, but in the end he couldn’t disagree with the man’s assessment of the park ranger. Still, as striking as the ranger was, she didn’t hold a candle to Lisa. He had spoken to his girlfriend an hour ago, assuring her that everything was okay. She had hurried to Sigma command, joining Kat as this situation escalated.

As the park ranger reached their car, Painter rolled down his window. She leaned toward his door. Her skin was a coppery mocha, her eyes a dark caramel, framed by long black hair done up in a braid down her back.

“Ranger Tso?” he asked.

She checked the front and back seats. “You’re the historians?” Her voice was rife with skepticism as she eyed Painter and Kowalski.

It seemed her instincts were as refined as her looks. Then again, park rangers had to wear a lot of hats, juggling duties that varied from overseeing national resources to thwarting illegal activities of every sort. They were firemen, police officers, naturalists, and historical preservationists all rolled up into one — and all too often, psychiatrists, too, as they did their best to protect the resources from the visitors, the visitors from the resources, and the visitors from one another.

She pointed to a neighboring lot. “Park over there. Then tell me what this is all really about.”

Kowalski obeyed. As he turned into the parking lot, he glanced to Painter and mouthed the word wow.

Again, Painter couldn’t disagree.

In short order, they were all marching down a trail, gravel grinding underfoot. As it was midweek and midday, they had the path to themselves. They climbed toward the crater, passing through a sparse pine forest, along a route marked as LAVA FLOW TRAIL. Wildflowers sprouted in the sunnier stretches, but most of the path was crumbling pumice and cinders from an ancient flow. They passed a few spatter cones, known as hornitos or “little ovens” in Spanish, marking where old bubbles of lava burst forth, forming minivolcanoes. There were also strange eruptions from cracks — called “squeeze-ups”—where sheets of rising lava hardened and curled into massive flowerlike sculptures. But the main attraction was the cone itself, climbing higher and higher before their eyes. Up close, the mineral show was even more impressive as the lower slope’s dark gray cinders rose up into a spectacular display of brilliant hues, reflecting every bit of sunlight.

“This looped trail is only one mile long,” their guide warned. “You have my attention for exactly that length of time.”

Painter had been making tentative, vague inquiries, learning mundane tidbits that were getting them nowhere. He decided to cut to the quick.

“We’re looking for lost treasure,” he said.

That got her full attention. She drew to a stop, her hands settling to her hips. “Really?” she asked sarcastically.

“I know how that sounds,” Painter said. “But we’ve been following the trail of a historical mystery that suggests something was hidden here long ago. Around the time of the eruption… maybe shortly thereafter.”

Nancy wasn’t buying it. “This park has been scoured and searched for decades. What you see is what you get. If there’s something hidden here, it’s long buried. The only things under our feet are some old icy lava tubes, most of them collapsed.”

“Icy?” Kowalski asked, wiping his brow. He’d already soaked through his shirt as the day had grown hot, and the trail offered little shade.

“Water seeps through the porous volcanic rock into the tubes,” Nancy explained. “Freezes during winter, but the natural insulation and lack of air circulation in the narrow tubes keeps the ice from melting. But just so you know, those tubes were mapped both on foot and by radar. There’s nothing but ice down there.” She began to turn away, ready to head back to the parking lot. “If you’re done wasting my time…”

Hank raised a hand, stopping her, but his dog tugged him to the side of the trail. Nancy had insisted that the professor use a leash inside the park, and Kawtch was clearly not happy about it — especially now that they’d stopped. The dog sniffed the air, apparently still looking for that wild hare.

“We’re pursuing an alternate hypothesis regarding the disappearance of the Anasazi,” Hank said. “We have a lead that the volcanic eruption here might be the cause of—”

She sighed, fixing Hank with a hard stare. “Dr. Kanosh, I know your reputation, so I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I’ve heard every crackpot theory about the Anasazi. Climate change, war, plague, even alien abduction. Yes, there were Anasazi who lived here, both the Winslow Anasazi and the Kayenta Anasazi, but there were also Sinagua, Cohonina, and other tribes of the ancient Pueblo people. What’s your point?”

Hank stood up to her disdain. As an Indian who practiced Mormonism, he was no doubt well accustomed to dealing with ridicule. “Yes, I know that, young lady.” His voice took a professorial tone, practically browbeating the young woman. “I’m well versed in the history of our people. So don’t dismiss what I’m saying as some peyote-fueled fantasy. The Anasazi did vanish from this region suddenly and swiftly. Their homes were never reoccupied, as if people feared moving into them. Something happened to that tribe — starting here and spreading outward — and we may be on the trail of an answer that could change history.”

Painter let this little war play out. Nancy’s face flushed — but he suspected it was more from shame than from anger. Painter had been raised enough of an Indian to know it was rude to talk harshly to an elder, even one from a different tribe or clan.

She finally shrugged. “I’m sorry. I don’t see how I can help you. If you’re looking for more information on the Anasazi, maybe you shouldn’t be looking here but over at Wupatki.”

“Wupatki?” Painter asked. “Where’s that?”

“About eighteen miles north of here. It’s a neighboring national park.”

Hank elaborated. “Wupatki is an elaborate series of pueblo ruins and monuments, spread over thousands of acres. The main attraction is a three-story structure with more than a hundred rooms. The park is named after that place. Wupatki is the Hopi word for ‘tall house.’ ”

Nancy added, “We Navajo still call it Anaasazi Bikin.”

Hank translated, glancing significantly at Painter. “That means ‘House of the Enemies.’ Archaeologists believe it was one of the last Anasazi strongholds before they vanished out of the region.”

Painter stared up at the brilliant cinder cone. According to the tale told by Jordan’s grandfather, the birth of this volcano was the result of a theft by a clan of the Anasazi, a mishandling of a treasure not unlike what had recently happened up in the Utah Rockies. He eyed the massive cone. Had a great settlement once stood here? Had it been destroyed, buried under ash and lava? And what about the survivors? Had they been hunted down and slaughtered? Painter remembered Hank’s one-word description.

Genocide.

Maybe they were looking in the wrong place.

Painter reached into his shirt pocket and removed the slip of paper that Jordan Appawora had given to him. The kid’s grandfather had said it would guide them to where they needed to go. He unfolded it and showed the pair of symbols to the park ranger.

“These markings may be tied to what we came seeking. Have you ever seen them?”

She leaned over, doubt fixed on her face. But as she studied the sketch of a crescent moon and five-pointed star, her eyes got huge. She glanced up to him.

“Yes,” she said. “I know these symbols. I know exactly where you can find them.”

Kai raced after Jordan through Buckhorn Wash. He rode a black four-wheel all-terrain vehicle while she pursued him in a white one. She kept low, swerving right and left, looking for a break so she could pass him, eating too much of his dust. The screaming whine of the two engines echoed off the cliffs to either side as they sped along the bottom of the wash, following an old off-road trail.

The Swell’s two thousand square miles of public land had little restrictions against ATV use. Over the years, enthusiasts had carved hundreds of miles of trails that crisscrossed the region. A part of Kai railed against such abuse of the land, especially as a Native American.

But she was also young, needing an escape.

After sending her e-mail to John Hawkes, she had repeatedly checked for a response. A half hour later, still with no answer, she could no longer sit by herself in a dark room. She had to get out, clear her head. She found Jordan still sitting on the porch. With a conspiratorial glint in his eye, he showed her what he had discovered in a shed behind one of the pueblos. Iris and Alvin had reluctantly handed over the keys to the ATVs, with firm instructions to stick to the flat dirt roads.

They had — for about twenty minutes, until both felt capable enough for more of a challenge.

Ahead of her, Jordan whooped as he wheeled around a sharp turn in the wash, skittering a bit in the loose talus. Coming out of the curve, he fishtailed his bike. Kai grinned madly, hunkered down, and hit her throttle. She shot past him as he foundered, close enough to give him the finger.

He laughed and hollered at her back. “This ain’t over!”

She smiled and raced along the trail, bumping over smaller rocks, going airborne across a small dip. She landed on all four tires, jarring her teeth. Still, the grin never left her face.

At last the wash petered out, and the mountain trail joined the dirt road again. She braked, sliding to a stop.

A second later, Jordan joined her, expertly skidding sideways to come to rest beside her. That bit of fancy maneuvering made her wonder if he’d been coddling her during the race.

Still, when he tugged off his helmet and goggles, the pure joy and exhilaration that she saw in his eyes mirrored her own. With half his face pasted with road dust, he looked like a raccoon.

She imagined that she looked no better.

He reached to his water bottle and upended it over his head, washing the worst away, then took a long drink. She watched his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed. With a shake of his hair, he smiled at her, making the hot day just that much warmer.

“How about two out of three?” he asked, nodding toward another trail.

She laughed and had to turn away a bit shyly.

Still, it felt so good.

“Maybe we should be heading back,” she said, and pulled out her cell phone to check the time. “We’ve been out two hours.”

She hadn’t realized how long it had been. Time had passed swiftly as the pair raced through the Swell, stopping every now and again to check out some set of petroglyphs or to poke their heads in one of the old mines that pocked the canyons.

Jordan looked a little crestfallen but agreed. “I suppose you’re right. If we’re gone much longer, Iris and Alvin will be sending out a search party. Besides, I could use some lunch… that is, as long as it’s not more of those roasted piñon nuts.”

“Toovuts,” she reminded him.

He nodded appreciatively. “Well done, Ms. Quocheets. Going native Paiute on me, are you?” He bumped a fist against his chest. “Does a brave proud.”

She pretended to swing her helmet at him.

He dodged back. “Okay, I surrender!” he said with a wolfish grin. “Back we go.”

They took a more sedate pace for the return trip, sticking to the road, ambling along in no particular hurry, squeezing out every last moment together. At last they reached the circle of small pueblos. They sidled over to the shed, parked the vehicles, and climbed off.

As she took a step, her legs wobbled a bit, still vibrating from the ride. Jordan caught her arm, his fingers tightening much too hard. She turned, ready to shake him off, but his face had gone all tense.

He drew her back into the shadows of the shed.

“Something’s not right here,” he whispered, and pointed. “Look at all the fresh tire tracks.”

Now that he’d pointed it out, she realized that the sandy dust was all cut up with multiple treads. But where were the vehicles? She suddenly was too aware of how silent it was, as if something were holding its breath.

“We need to get out of here…” he started.

But before they could take a step, they saw men in desert combat gear come sweeping out of the shadows behind the pueblos on the far side, spreading wide. Kai’s heart climbed into her throat, choking her. She instantly knew that this assault was her fault, knew how the enemy had found her.

The e-mail…

Jordan tugged her around — only to find a monstrously tall blond figure, also dressed in khaki camouflage, standing before him. The man lashed out with a rifle, punching the butt into Jordan’s face.

He dropped to his knees with a cry that sounded more surprised than pained.

“Jordan!”

The attacker turned and leveled his rifle at Kai’s chest. His words were gruff, his manner frighteningly cold. “Come with me. Someone would like a word with you.”

Standing at the foot of the towering structure, Hank Kanosh appreciated its name. Wupatki. It certainly was a tall house.

The ruins of the ancient pueblo climbed three stories, constructed of flat slabs of red Moenkopi sandstone, quarried locally and mortared together. An amazing feat of engineering, it climbed high and spread outward into a hundred rooms. A part of the pueblo also included the remains of an old masonry ballpark and a large circular community room.

He imagined how all of this must have once looked. In his mind’s eye, he put the thatched and beamed roof back in place. He rebuilt walls. He pictured corn, beans, and squash growing in the neighboring washes. He then populated the place with Indians from various tribes: Sinagua, Cohonina, and of course, the Anasazi. The different tribes were known to live in relative peace with one another.

Standing beside the ruins with Kawtch at his side, Hank stared at a view that had changed little from ancient times. Wupatki had been built on a small plateau overlooking a vast distance, revealing the breadth of the tabletop mesas that encompassed the high desert, the brilliant beauty of the Painted Desert to the east, and the snaking green path of the Little Colorado River.

It was a picturesque spot.

Still, a dark mood settled over him as he studied the dusty ruins. Why did these ancient people leave? Were they driven out, slaughtered? He pictured blood splashing the red walls, heard the screams of children and women. It was too much. He had to turn away.

Down at the foot of the ruins, Painter and his partner wandered near the community amphitheater. The group, led by Nancy Tso, had traveled the short distance from Sunset Crater National Park, but they were still waiting for the ranger to get permission for an overland hike. It was forbidden to stray from the public areas of the park here without guidance. The more remote ruins and monuments — close to three thousand of them — were considered too fragile, as was the desert’s ecosystem, for sightseeing.

Once Nancy received permission, she would guide them herself to where she had seen the symbols Painter had shown her, the mark of the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev, the People of the Morning Star. Hank’s blood pounded harder at the thought of them. Could they possibly be one of the lost tribes of Israel, as described in the Book of Mormon?

Impatient and done exploring, he hiked down to the others, drawing a sullen Kawtch along by his leash. He spotted Nancy Tso heading the same way from the visitors’ center.

Reaching the group first, he found Kowalski amusing himself with one of the other unique features of the pueblo. He stood before what appeared to be a raised fire pit, newly constructed of mortared flagstone. But the square pit in the center was not meant to hold a fire.

The big man leaned over the opening. He had to hold on to the Stetson he’d bought for the hike to keep it from blowing off of his head. A stiff breeze blew up from below, coming out of the pit.

“It’s cool,” Kowalski sighed. “Like air-conditioning.”

Painter stood by the information sign. “It’s a blowhole.”

Hank nodded. “It’s the opening to a breathing cavern system. It’s dependent on atmospheric pressure. When the day’s hot as it is now, it exhales the cool air trapped below. In the winter, when it’s cold, it inhales. It can get to blowing up to thirty miles per hour. Archaeologists believe this is one of the reasons the pueblo was established here. Blowholes, which were considered to be openings to the underworld, were held sacred by the ancient people, and as you mentioned, it doesn’t hurt that it offers some natural air-conditioning in the summer.”

Painter read from the posted sign. “Says here that back in 1962, excavations below found pottery, sandstone masonry, even petroglyphs down there.”

Hank understood the interest he could see on Painter’s face. On the drive here, Nancy Tso had told them where she’d seen the moon and star symbols drawn by Jordan’s grandfather. They were part of some petroglyphs found deep in the desert, near one of the many unmarked pueblo ruins out there.

“It also says here,” Painter continued, “that the size, depth, and complexity of the cavern system below have never been fully determined.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” Nancy Tso said, interrupting. She crossed down the last of the path and joined them, noting their attention. “Newer studies that have been published within the last couple of years suggest the limestone cavern system under this plateau may be around seven billion cubic feet in size, stretching for miles underground.”

Painter studied the blowhole. The opening was sealed with a locked grate. “So if someone wanted to hide something from prying eyes—”

Nancy sighed. “Don’t start that again. I agreed to show you where I saw those symbols. That’s all I’m going to do. Then you’re all clearing out.” She checked her watch. “Park closes at five o’clock. I plan on being out of here by then.”

“So you got permission for us to explore?” Hank said.

She slapped some permit forms against her thigh. “It’s a good two-hour hike.”

Kowalski straightened and seated his Stetson more firmly on his head. “Why can’t we just take that Cherokee of yours? It’s got four-wheel-drive, doesn’t it? We could be there in under ten minutes, shorter if I drive.”

She looked aghast at the suggestion.

Painter did, too, but Hank suspected it was for a very different reason. Painter’s partner had little regard for speed regulations — or common road courtesy, for that matter.

“Let’s get some rules straight at the outset,” Nancy said, and held up a finger. “First rule. LNT. Leave no trace. That means what you carry in you carry out. I’ve arranged for backpacks and water. It’s all inventoried and will be checked when we return. Is that understood?”

They nodded. Kowalski leaned toward Painter and whispered. “She’s even hotter when she’s mad.”

Luckily, Nancy didn’t hear this — or at least she pretended not to. “Second, we tread carefully. That means no hiking poles. They’ve been proven to be too destructive to the fragile desert ecosystem. And last, no GPS units. The park service doesn’t want the exact locations of the unmarked ruins mapped electronically. Are we clear?”

They all nodded. Kowalski only grinned.

“Then let’s get moving.”

“Where are we going?” Painter asked.

“To a remote pueblo ruin called Crack-in-the-Rock.”

“Why’s it called that?” Kowalski asked.

“You’ll see.”

She led them to the spot where their gear was stacked. Hank pulled on a backpack. It came equipped with a CamelBak water pouch and a supply of PowerBars and bananas.

Once everyone was ready, Nancy set off into the desert, moving at a hard pace, apparently determined to shave some minutes off her two-hour estimate. It certainly was no sightseeing trip. The group marched in a row, following behind her, passing through fields of sagebrush, Mormon tea, saltbush, and princess plume. Lizards skittered out of their way. Hares leaped in great bounds. At one point, Hank heard the coarse rattling complaint of a hidden diamondback and pulled Kawtch closer. His dog knew snakes, but Hank wasn’t taking any chances.

They also passed some of the park’s other monuments: tumbled piles of sandstone marking a small pueblo, a ring of stones from a prehistoric pit house, even the occasional Navajo hogan or sweathouse. But their destination — one of the towering mesas — lay much farther out, a hazy blip on the horizon.

To help with the passage of time and to distract himself from the burn of the sun, Hank walked beside Painter. “The moon and the star,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about that symbol and the name for the tribe. Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev.”

“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.”

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.

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

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.

“Just hold on.”

She started to lift her hand away, but he frowned at her. She sighed, and her fingers tightened on his shoulder. He kept his hand on the small of her back, under her open jacket, ready if she needed more help.

By the time they crossed the street and cut between the Natural History Museum and the National Gallery of Art, her grip was digging deep into his deltoids. He slid his hand around her waist, resting it under her rib cage to support her.

“Next time, the cab…” she gasped out, offering him a small grin as she limped along.

At the moment Gray was selfishly glad they had walked. She leaned heavily against him. He smelled the peach scent of her hair, mixed with something richer, almost spicy from her damp skin. And down deeper, he was enough of a primitive male to appreciate this rare moment of weakness, of her need for him.

Her pressed his hand harder against her, feeling the heat of her body through her blouse, but such intimacy did not last long.

“Thank God we’re almost there,” she said, leaning away but keeping one hand on his shoulder for balance.

The National Archives Building rose ahead of them. They were to meet the curator and his assistant down in the research room. Shortly after reaching Sigma, Gray had had a photocopy of the old journal’s pages hand-delivered to them. The original was safely secured in a vault at Sigma. They weren’t taking any chances with it.

Out on the street, Gray easily spotted the two agents assigned to watch the Archives. Another pair should be inside. They were keeping close track of even the photocopies.

As he helped Seichan with the steps, his phone jangled in his pocket. He reached in and pulled it out enough to check the caller ID. He’d left Monk with Kat. The pair was overseeing events in Iceland, trying to determine if they’d triggered another Laki eruption. But as was the case in Utah, the heat of the eruption likely killed the nano-nest out there, but would that exploding archipelago lead to another global catastrophe like the one Fortescue had witnessed?

As it turned out, the call was not from Monk, but from Gray’s parents’ home phone. He’d already talked to his mother after he’d landed in D.C., checking on his father after that bad night. As usual, his dad was fine the next morning, just his usual forgetful self.

He flipped it open and held the phone to his ear. “Mom?”

“No, it’s your dad,” he heard. “Can’t you tell from the sound of my voice?”

Gray didn’t bother to tell him he hadn’t said anything until then. He let it go. “What do you need, Dad?”

“I was calling to tell you… because of…” There was a long confused pause.

“Dad?”

“Just wait, dammit…” His father shouted to the side. “Harriet, why was I calling Kenny?”

His mother’s voice was faint. “What?”

“I mean Gray. Why was I calling Gray?”

Well, at least he got the name right.

He heard some jabbering in the background, his father’s voice growing gruffer and angrier. He had to stop this before it escalated.

“Dad!” he shouted into the phone.

People looked in his direction.

“What?” his father groused at him.

He kept his voice calm and even. “Hey, why don’t you just call me back? When you remember. That’ll be fine.”

“Okay, yeah, that sounds good. Just have a lot going on… ’s got me all messed up.”

“Don’t worry about it, Dad.”

“Okay, son.”

Gray flipped the phone closed.

Seichan stared at him, silently asking if everything was okay. Her hand had shifted from his shoulder to his hip, as if helping to hold him upright.

He pocketed the phone. “Just family stuff.”

Still, she stared a bit longer, as if trying to read him.

He pointed to the door. “Let’s go find out what Fortescue thought was so important that he had to hide his journal in Iceland.”

Seichan lowered herself onto one of the conference chairs, leaning her weight on her good hip and kicking her right leg straight out. She tried her best not to moan with relief.

Gray remained standing. She studied him, remembering the strained look on his face, the glimmer of fear in his eyes as he spoke with his father. There was no evidence of it now. Where had he bottled it away? How long could he keep doing that?

Still, he was in his element now, and for that she was relieved — almost as much as she was about the weight off her leg. But both their burdens would not stay away for long.

“So what can you tell me about Fortescue’s journal?” Gray asked.

Dr. Eric Heisman nodded vigorously as he paced the room. The space was even more of a shambles than before. Documents and books had trebled in number on the table. Someone had wheeled in another two microfiche readers from a neighboring research room. Other people in the building must be wondering what was going on in here, especially with the armed guard posted at the door. But considering all the valuable documents preserved in the Archives’ expansive vaults and helium-enriched enclosures, maybe the sight of a guard wasn’t that unusual.

Still, by now, Heisman looked more like a mad scientist than a museum curator. His shirt was rumpled, rolled to the elbows, and his white hair stuck up like a fright wig. But the impression came mostly from his eyes, red-rimmed and wired, shining with a fanatical zeal.

Again, though, the latter might have come from the pile of empty Starbucks coffee cups filling the room’s lone trash bin.

How long had the man been up?

“Truly astounding stuff in here,” Heisman said. “I don’t know where to begin. Where did you find it?”

Gray shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s classified, as is our conversation.”

He waved the words away. “I know, I know… Sharyn and I signed all the necessary documents for this temporary clearance.”

His assistant sat at the other end of the table. She hadn’t said a word when they’d entered. Her dark eyes merely lifted long enough from the photocopied pages to nod at them. At some point, she had changed out of her clingy black dress and into a smart blouse and casual slacks.

Wary, Seichan kept half an eye on her. There was nothing the woman had done to warrant suspicion, beyond her stunning looks, with her smooth skin, petite features, and flatironed black hair. What was someone so beautiful doing as a mere assistant to a curator in a vault of dusty manuscripts? This woman could easily be walking down a runway in Milan.

Seichan also didn’t like how Gray’s eyes lingered on her whenever she shifted in her seat, to turn a page, to jot a note.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Gray suggested, trying to jump-start the discussion.

“Not a bad suggestion,” Heisman said, and pointed Gray to a chair “Sit. I’ll tell you. It’s a remarkable story. Fills in so many blanks.”

Gray obeyed.

Heisman continued to pace, too agitated to sit. “This journal is a diary of events, beginning when Franklin first approached Archard.”

Archard…?

Seichan hid a smirk. Looked like the curator was now on a first-name basis with the Frenchman.

“It starts with the discovery of an Indian mound in Kentucky.” Heisman turned to Sharyn for help.

She didn’t even lift her head. “The Barrow of the Serpent.”

“Yes, very dramatic. It was there that they discovered a golden map lining the inside of a mastodon skull, which was itself wrapped within a buffalo hide. It was the hidden Indian map that the dying shaman had told Jefferson about.”

Heisman continued, gesturing as he spoke for emphasis when needed, which apparently was a lot. “But that wasn’t the first time Jefferson and Franklin met with a Native American shaman. Chief Canasatego brought another shaman from a distant Western tribe to meet with Jefferson. It seems this old fellow had traveled a long way to meet with the new white leaders to these shores. The shaman told Jefferson a long story about previous pale Indians who once shared their lands, a people with great powers. It was said that they also came from the east, like the colonists. This, of course, drew great interest on the part of those two Founding Fathers. Likewise, a fair amount of skepticism.”

Gray nodded. “No doubt.”

“Eventually the shaman returned with proof. Making sure that what transpired was cloaked in great secrecy, he demonstrated evidence of a technology that baffled and astounded Franklin and Jefferson.” Heisman turned to his assistant. “Sharyn… could you read that passage?”

“One moment.” She shifted pages, found the right one, and read. “ ‘They came with a gold that would not melt, weapons of a steel that no Indian had ever wielded, but most important, with a silvery dry elixir a very pinch of which was a thousandfold more powerful than a mountain of black powder.’ ”

Gray shared a look with Seichan. The immutable gold had to be the same metal as they had seen on the tablets. It was far denser and harder than ordinary gold. And the silvery dry elixir… could that be the source of the powerful explosions that had been witnessed in both Utah and Iceland?

Heisman continued, “Because the Iroquois Confederacy very much wanted to be part of the new nation, they were trying to broker a deal.”

“For the Fourteenth Colony,” Gray added.

“The Devil Colony, yes. The negotiations, though held in secret, were fairly well along. It would be a trade. The Iroquois Confederacy even staked out its territory.” He turned, but this time Sharyn was ready.

“ ‘They wished to possess a great land beyond the French territories, lands unexplored and unclaimed, wishing not to threaten the growing interest of the colonists to the east. The Iroquois would give up their old lands and their great secret knowledge in exchange for a permanent new home and a solid stake in this new nation. Additionally, it was ascertained through private meetings with Chief Canasatego that at the heart of the Indian colony was a lost city, the source of these miraculous materials. But of that place’s location, they remained duly cryptic.’ ”

As his assistant read the translation, Heisman slid an open atlas across the table. It displayed an old map of the United States. He poked at a shaded section that spread northward from New Orleans in a V shape, covering most of what would later be the middle of the country. “Here are the lands bought from the French by Jefferson.”

“The Louisiana Purchase,” Gray said.

“From the journal entry, I think the proposed Fourteenth Colony desired by the Indians must lie somewhere west of the Purchase. But Archard never goes into any more detail on where exactly it was. There’s only one tangential mention.”

“What was it?” Seichan asked.

“After Archard unearthed that Indian map at the serpent mound, he determined the metal of the map was composed of the same strange gold. And on that map were marked two spots.”

“Iceland was one of them,” Gray muttered, plainly working the puzzle in his head.

“That’s right. The second was far out to the west. Archard believed that the site marked in the Western territories might be the location of that lost city, the proposed heart of the new colony. But it was too far west — off in uncharted lands of that time — and the map apparently was not precise enough on the details, so Archard decided to investigate Iceland first, as that sea journey was well charted by sailors.”

Gray leaned back. “I don’t suppose the Frenchman thought to make a copy of that map to include with his journal?”

“No. According to Archard, Thomas Jefferson kept the map a great secret. He would not let anyone but his inner circle see it. No copies were to be made.”

Seichan understood his caution. The president must have feared his unknown enemy and didn’t realize how badly his government had already been infiltrated. Mistrust and paranoia. Yes, she could easily put herself in Jefferson’s shoes.

“What became of the map?” Gray asked.

Heisman only had to turn to his assistant.

Sharyn read, “ ‘Ever crafty, Jefferson devised a way to preserve the Indian map, to protect it, yet keep it forever out of the hands of the faceless enemy. He would use the very gold to hide it in plain view of all. None would suspect the treasure hidden at the heart of the Seal.’ ”

Gray frowned. “What does that mean?”

Heisman shrugged. “He never elaborates. That’s pretty much the first half of the journal. We’re still working on translating the second half, starting with Archard’s secret mission by sea to Iceland.”

Gray’s phone rang. “Sorry,” he said, and checked who was calling.

Seichan again noted the flicker of worry shine brighter, always hidden just under the surface. He let out a small sigh of relief, though he was probably not even aware of it.

“It’s Monk,” he said quietly to her. “I’d better take this outside.”

Gray excused himself, ducking out into the hall. Heisman used the break to consult with Sharyn as she finished working through the translation of the last half of the journal. The two bent and whispered over the photocopies.

“They should see this…” Heisman said, but the rest was lost in whispers.

Gray popped his head back into the room and motioned for Seichan to join him.

“More trouble?” she asked as she stepped out.

He pulled her over to a quiet, out-of-the-way corner. “Monk just heard from the Japanese physicists. During the Iceland explosion, another massive spike in neutrinos was generated from the island, ten times larger than the Utah spike. It’s already subsiding, as is the volcanic activity throughout the archipelago. So we may be lucky in that regard. The consensus is that the extreme heat of Iceland’s volcanic eruption killed the nano-nest out there, stopping any further spread.”

Seichan heard no relief in his words. Something more was coming.

“But the latest news from Japan came in about five minutes ago. The physicists have picked up yet another site that’s going hot. They think the Iceland explosion has destabilized a third cache of nano-material.”

Seichan pictured a chain of explosions linked together.

First Utah… then Iceland… and now this third one.

Gray continued: “And according to the physicists’ recordings, this new deposit must be massive. The wave of neutrinos being generated is so large and widespread that they’re having difficulty pinning down its source. All they can tell us right now is that it’s here in the States, somewhere out west.”

“That’s a lot of territory to cover.”

Gray nodded. “The scientists are coordinating with other labs around the world, trying to get us more information.”

“That’s a problem,” Seichan mumbled.

“Why?”

“We were ambushed in Iceland by Guild operatives. That means they’re keyed into the same information stream as we are. Since we thwarted their efforts on that island, they’re not going to sit idly by and let the same thing happen again. I know how these guys think, how they’ll react. I worked long enough in that organization that I share their DNA.”

“Then what’s their next move?”

“They’re going to shut down our access to any new information, dry it up so that only they have the critical intelligence from here on out.” Seichan stared up at Gray, ensuring that he understood the gravity of her next words. “They’ll go after our assets in Japan. To silence them.”

Riku Tanaka hated to be touched, especially when he was agitated. Like now. He had donned a pair of cotton gloves and had inserted earplugs in order to tone down the commotion around him. He tapped a pencil on his desk as he stared at the real-time data flowing across his screen. Every fifth tap, he would flick the pencil and expertly flip it in his grip. It helped calm him.

Though it was early in the morning, his lab — normally so quiet, buried at the heart of Mount Ikeno — was bustling with activity. Jun Yoshida-sama had summoned additional support staff after the huge neutrino surge was picked up: four more physicists and two computer technicians. They were all gathered around Yoshida at a neighboring station, attempting to coordinate data from six different labs around the world. It was too much to take, so Riku had retreated to the lone console, away from the others, at the back of the lab, as far from them as possible.

While they worked on the larger puzzle, he concentrated on the smaller one. With his head cocked to the side (it helped him think better), he studied a global chart that was glowing on his screen. Various small icons dotted the map. Each represented a smaller neutrino spike.

“Not worth our time,” Yoshida had declared when Riku had first presented the findings to him.

Riku thought otherwise. He knew Yoshida was wasting his energy, stirring and making so much noise. He would fail. The new surge detected out along the western half of the United States was beyond pinpointing. While it bore the same heartbeatlike pattern seen from Iceland, this surge was 123.4 times larger.

He enjoyed the sequential numbering of that magnitude.

1, 2, 3, 4.

The sequence was pure coincidence, but the beauty of it made him smile inside. There was a purity and exquisiteness in numbers that no one seemed to understand, except him.

He continued to stare at the map. He’d detected these anomalous readings after the first neutrino blast in Utah. While that blast had ignited something unstable in Iceland, it had also triggered these smaller surges, little flickers from spots around the globe. He’d recorded them again after Iceland went critical.

Not worth our time…

He pushed aside that nagging voice, staring at the small dots, looking for a pattern. One or two were out west, but the exact locations were obscured by the tsunami-like wave of neutrinos from out there, a flood that washed away all details. That was why Yoshida would fail.

“Riku?”

Someone touched his shoulder. He flinched away and turned to find Dr. Janice Cooper standing behind him.

“Sorry,” Janice said — she preferred to be called Janice, though he still found such informality uncomfortable. She removed her arm from his shoulder.

He pinched his brow, trying to interpret the small muscle movements in her face, trying to connect an emotional content to them. The best he could come up with was that she was hungry, but that probably wasn’t right. Due to his Asperger’s syndrome, he was wrong too often in his assessments to trust them.

She slid a chair over, sat down, and placed a cup of green tea near his elbow. “I thought you might like this.”

He nodded, but he didn’t understand why she had to sit so close.

“Riku, we’ve been trying to figure out why this surge out west happened.”

“The Iceland bombardment of neutrinos coursed through the planet and destabilized a third source.”

“Yes, but why now? Why didn’t this deposit destabilize earlier, following the Utah spike? Iceland went critical, but not this new deposit out west. The anomaly is troubling the other physicists.”

Riku continued studying his screen. “Activation energy,” he said, and glanced to her as if this should be obvious. And it was obvious.

She shook her head. Was she disagreeing or not understanding?

He sighed. “Some chemical reactions, like nuclear reactions, require a set amount of energy to get them started.”

“Activation energy.”

He frowned. Hadn’t he just said that? But he continued: “Often the amount of energy is dependent on the volume or mass of the substrate. The deposit in Iceland must have been smaller. So the quantities of neutrinos from the Utah spike were sufficient to cause it to destabilize.”

She nodded. “But the neutrino burst from Iceland was much larger. Enough to destabilize the deposit out west. To light that fatter fuse out there. If you’re right, this would mean that the western deposit must be much bigger.”

Again, hadn’t he just made that clear?

“It should be 123.4 times larger.” Just speaking the numbers helped calm him. “That is, of course, if there is an exact one-to-one correlation between neutrino generation and mass.”

Her face went a bit paler as he gave this assessment.

Uncomfortable, he turned back to his screen, to his own puzzle, to the tiny flickers of neutrinos.

“What do you think those smaller emissions are?” Janice asked after a long moment of welcome silence.

Riku closed his eyes to think, enjoying the puzzle. He pictured the neutrinos flying out, igniting the fuses of the unstable deposits, but when they hit the smaller targets, all they did was excite them, triggering minibursts.

“They can’t be the same as the unstable substance. The pattern is not consistent. I don’t see any parallelism. Instead, I think these blip marks are a substance related to those deposits but not identical to them.”

He leaned closer and reached to the screen but dared not touch it. “Here’s one in Belgium. One or two again out in the Western United States — but they’re obscured by the new burst. And an especially strong response from a location in the Eastern United States.”

Janice shifted forward. “Kentucky…”

Before he could fathom why she had to lean so close, his world shattered. Sirens blared, red lamps flashed along the walls. The noise cut through his earplugs like knives. He slammed his palms over his ears. To the side, the others began to yell and gesture. Again he could divine no meaning from their faces.

What is happening?

On the far side of the room, the elevator doors opened. Figures in black gear burst forth, spreading wide. They had rifles in their grips. The head-splitting rat-a-tat of their weapons drove him to the floor — not to dodge the barrage of bullets, but to flee the noise.

Screams only made it worse.

From beneath his desk, he saw Yoshida fall and roll. A large chunk of his skull was missing. Blood was pouring from his head. Riku could not take his eyes off the spreading pool.

Then someone grabbed him. He fought, but it was Janice. She snatched a handful of his lab jacket and dragged him around his desk. She pointed her arm toward a side exit. It led to an open cavernous space, a former mine, but now home to the Super-Kamiokande detector.

He understood. They had to flee the lab. It was death to remain hiding here. As if to underscore this thought, he heard the pop-pop of rifle fire. The invaders were killing everyone.

Staying low, hidden by the row of desks, he followed Janice as she headed to the side exit. She burst through, and he dove out at her heels. She slammed the door behind him and searched around.

Gunfire echoed from the tunnel ahead. It was the old mine shaft that led to the surface. Besides the new elevator, it was the only way into or out of the facility. The assassins had both exits covered and were converging here.

“This way!” Janice reached back and tugged his arm.

Together, they fled in the only direction they could, running down another tunnel. But Riku knew it led to a dead end. The gunmen would be on top of them in a matter of moments. Thirty meters farther along, the tunnel emptied into a cavern.

He could see the domed roof stretching far above him. It was draped in polyethylene Mineguard, to block radon seeping from the rock. Beneath his feet was the Super-Kamiokande detector itself, a massive stainless-steel tank filled with fifty thousand tons of ultrapure water and lined by thirteen thousand photomultiplier tubes.

“C’mon,” Janice said.

They dashed together around the electronics hut. The cavernous space was littered with equipment and gear, with forklifts and hand trucks. Overhead, bright yellow scaffolding held up cranes, all to service the Super-Kamiokande detector.

A harsh shout in Arabic rebounded behind them, echoing off the walls. The assassins were sweeping toward them.

Riku searched around. There was nowhere to hide that wouldn’t be discovered in seconds.

Janice continued to draw him along with her. She stopped at a rack of diving gear — then he understood.

And balked.

“It’s the only way,” she urged in a hard whisper.

She pushed a heavy air tank, already equipped with a regulator, into his arms. He had no choice but to hug it. She turned the valve on top, and air hissed from the mouthpiece. She grabbed another tank and rushed to a hatch in the floor. It opened into the top of the giant water-filled vault below. Divers used the hatch to service the Super-Kamiokande detector’s main tank, mostly to repair broken photomultiplier tubes.

Janice fumbled the regulator’s mouthpiece between his lips. He wanted to spit it out — it tasted bad — but he bit down on the silicon. She pointed to the dark hole.

“Go!”

With a great tremble of fear, he stepped over the opening and jumped feetfirst into the cold water. The weight of the tank pulled him quickly toward the distant bottom. He craned up and saw Janice splash overhead, pulling the hatch closed behind her.

Complete and utter darkness swamped him.

Riku continued his blind plunge, screaming out air bubbles as his feet crashed into the bottom. He crouched on the floor, hugging his air tank, shivering — for now in fear, but the cold would soon make it worse.

Then arms found him and encircled him. He felt a cheek press against his, so very warm. Janice was holding him in the dark.

For the first time in his life, a touch felt good.

“It took Archard a full month to sail to Iceland,” Dr. Heisman was saying. “The seas were especially rough.”

Gray sat at the table beside Seichan as the curator set about summarizing the contents of the back half of Fortescue’s journal. Sharyn had finished the translation while Gray had been raising the alarm concerning a possible attack in Japan.

His knee bounced up and down. He needed to hear this tale, but he also wanted to be at Sigma command, to find out if the Japanese physicists were okay.

He glanced to Seichan.

Is she just being overly paranoid?

He didn’t think so. He trusted her judgment, especially when it came to the Guild. He had promptly called in the warning to Kat, who had alerted Japanese authorities of the potential threat. They were all still waiting to hear back.

“On that long trip,” Heisman continued, “Archard spent many days writing at length concerning his theories about the pale Indians, the mythical people who gave the Iroquois’ ancestors these powerful tokens. He’d collated the stories he had heard from many tribes, hearing often of white men or white-skinned Indians. He collected rumors from the colonists who claimed to have found evidence of previous settlements, homesteads of non-Indians, as evidenced by the sophisticated building techniques. But mostly Archard seemed fixated on a possible Jewish origin to these people.”

“Jewish?” Gray shifted taller in his seat. “Why?”

“Because Archard describes some writing found on the gold Indian map. He thought it looked like Hebrew but different.”

Sharyn shared the passage from the journal. “ ‘The scratches on the map are clearly those of some unknown scribe. Could they have been written by one of the pale Indians? I have consulted the most learned rabbinical experts, who all agree that there appears to be some commonality with the ancient Jewish writing, yet as one, they say it is not in fact Hebrew, though perhaps related to that language. It is a confounding mystery.’ ”

As she read, Heisman grew more excited, nodding his head. “It is a mystery. While Sharyn was finishing her translation and you were busy contacting your people about Japan, I received word on something that was troubling me about that early sketch of the Great Seal, the one with the fourteen arrows.”

Heisman reached to a stack of papers and pulled it free. “Look beneath the Seal itself. There is some faint writing, almost like notations.”

Gray had noticed the marks before but hadn’t placed any significance on them. “What about them?”

“Well, I consulted an ancient-language expert. The writing is an odd form of Hebrew, just like Archard mentioned. The curve of letters beneath the Seal spelled out the word Manasseh, which is the name of one of the ten lost tribes of Israel.”

Gray’s attention sharpened. Hours earlier, Painter had passed on information speculating that these ancient people, the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev, could possibly be descendants of a lost tribe of Israel. Painter had also referenced the Book of Mormon, whose scripture contended that an exiled tribe of Israelites had come to early America—specifically the clan of Manasseh.

Heisman continued: “In fact, the Founding Fathers seemed a bit obsessed with the lost tribes of Israel. When the committee to draft the original Great Seal first got together, Benjamin Franklin expressed a wish for the design to include a scene out of the Book of Exodus, when the Israelites went into exile. Thomas Jefferson suggested a depiction of the children of Israel in the wilderness.”

Gray studied the sketch of the Seal. Had the Founding Fathers known about this lost tribe reaching these shores? Did they somehow learn that the “pale Indians” described by the Iroquois were in fact exiled Israelites?

It seemed that way. They must have been trying to incorporate that knowledge into the Great Seal, to memorialize the tribe.

Heisman’s next words suggested that Gray was right. “What I find odd is that the tribes of Israel were all represented by different pairs of symbols. In the case of the Manasseh clan, it was an olive branch and a bundle of arrows.” Heisman glanced up to Gray. “Why would the Founding Fathers plant the symbols of the Manasseh tribe in the Great Seal?”

Gray suspected that he knew the answer to this question, but he had a more immediate concern. He waved Heisman onward. “That’s all well and good, but let’s continue to the place where Fortescue reached Iceland…”

Heisman looked disappointed, but he slid the draft of the Great Seal aside. “All right. Like I said, it took Archard about a month to reach Iceland, but eventually he grew confident that he’d found the right island, as marked on the map. But once there, he had no luck in finding anything. After twenty-two days of searching, he began to despair. Then his luck changed. One of his searchers dropped an apple while investigating a rather lengthy cavern system. It fell down a chute no one had noted. A lamp lowered down that hole revealed a glint of gold near the bottom.”

“They found the spot,” Seichan said.

“He goes into great length describing the deep cavern. How stone boxes held hundreds of gold plates inscribed with the same proto-Hebrew writing. He also found solid gold jars filled with the oft-mentioned silvery dry elixir. He was quite excited and drew many pictures.”

From the tick in the curator’s voice, it was clear that he was also excited. Heisman slid one of the pages over to Gray and Seichan. The curator tapped the picture in the center. “Those are the golden containers for the elixir.”

Gray stiffened at the sight. The drawing showed tall urns topped by various sculpted heads: that of a jackal, a hawk, a baboon, and a hooded man.

“Those look like Egyptian canopic jars,” he said.

“Yes. Archard thought so, too. Or at least he recognized that they were of Egyptian origin. He postulated that perhaps the pale Indians were in fact refugees from the Holy Lands, some secret sect of magi who had roots in both the Jewish faith and Egyptian traditions. But such speculations came to an abrupt end. After this point in the journal, his writing becomes very sloppy and hurried; it’s clear that he was in a state of panic.”

“Why?”

At a cue from her boss, Sharyn began to read. “ ‘I have heard word that a ship approaches Iceland. That the Enemy has discovered our investigation and closes upon us. They must never find this cache of lost treasures. My men and I will do our best to lure them away, to keep them from this island. Pray that I am successful. We will strike for the coast, to the cold mainland, and draw them after us. I will take a small sampling of the treasure in the hopes that I can still reach the shores of America. But I leave this journal as a testament, in case I fail.’ ”

Heisman crossed his arms. “That’s how the journal ends, with Archard fleeing his enemy. But I think we can piece together what happened after that.”

“The Laki eruption,” Gray said.

“The site of that volcano is not far from the coastline. Archard must have made it some distance, but then catastrophe struck.”

Gray had witnessed such an event himself. He pictured the explosion, followed by the violent volcanic eruption.

Heisman sighed. “After that, we know from Jefferson’s letter that our Frenchman went into deep seclusion, regretting the actions he had taken, actions that led to the death of more than six million people.”

“Until he was summoned twenty years later by Jefferson to undertake a new mission. To join Lewis and Clark on their sojourn west.” Gray let the pieces fall together in his head. “According to the date on the map you showed us earlier, Jefferson concluded the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. That very year, Jefferson commissioned his friend Captain Meriwether Lewis to put together a team to explore those former French territories and the lands west of there.”

Gray’s head buzzed with the certainty of his assessment. “Fortescue went with them. He was sent to find that spot on the Indian map, to find what Fortescue himself believed was the heart of the new colony, that lost city.”

Seichan kept pace with him. “And he must have found it. He vanished out of history, and Lewis was murdered.”

Gray turned to Heisman. “Do you have a map that marks the trail that Lewis and Clark took?”

“Of course. Just one moment.” He and his assistant combed through their stacks and quickly found the right book. “Here it is.”

Gray stared down at the page. He ran a finger along the trail, starting at Camp Wood in St. Charles, Missouri, and ending at Fort Clatsop on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.

“Somewhere along this route — or close to it — has to be the location of the lost Fourteenth Colony.”

But where?

His phone rang again. He’d left his cell on the tabletop; a glance at it showed Sigma’s emergency number.

Seichan saw it, too.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, and headed again to the door. Seichan dogged his heels and joined him in the hall.

He flipped open the phone. “Monk?”

“It’s Kat, Gray. Monk’s on his way over to meet you with a car.”

“What’s wrong? What’s the news from Japan?”

“Bad. An assault team killed nearly everyone at the facility.”

He swore silently. They’d been too slow.

Kat continued: “But two key personnel survived. Japanese authorities fished them out of the neutron detector’s water tank. Rather clever place to hide. They were whisked into PSIA custody at our request.”

PSIA was the acronym for the Japanese intelligence agency. Calling in the latter was a wise precaution. If no one knew about the survivors, Sigma command had a chance to get a step up on the Guild. Kat knew it, too.

“I’ve been on the phone with one of them,” Kat said. “An American postgraduate student. She reports that before the attack, the Japanese physicists had been making no headway on discovering the source of the latest neutrino surge. But she related something odd, something that was noted by the other physicist who survived. He was concerned about some spotty neutrino bursts he’d detected. I didn’t give this detail much thought until she told me where those readings originated.”

“Where?”

“Maybe one or two sites out west, but he couldn’t pinpoint the locations due to the background rush of neutrinos from the larger spike. Of the two he was able to identify, one was in Belgium.”

She let this piece of news hang. It took Gray only a breath to recognize its significance. He remembered Captain Huld’s description of the hunters who’d come to Ellirey Island before Gray and his team. He’d said they were from Belgium. Monk must have made the same connection. It could be a coincidence, but Gray wasn’t buying it.

He told Kat as much. “The assault team in Iceland was from Belgium. That’s got to be significant. But what about that other spot the physicist noted? Where is it?”

“It’s in Kentucky.”

Kentucky?

Kat went on: “Monk’s on his way over to pick you up. I want you to check out the location. You’re wheels-up in fifteen minutes. We must take full advantage of this intel while we still can.”

Gray sensed some hesitancy on her part. “What does Director Crowe think about all of this?”

“He doesn’t. I’ve not been able to raise him since we got this news. He was heading deep into the desert. I’ll keep trying to reach him while you’re en route. But we can’t wait. If things change, I’ll let you know. I’m also in contact with the president’s chief of staff.”

That startled him. “Why involve President Gant?”

“Where you’re going, you’ll need a presidential order to get inside. It will take Gant’s signature to open those doors.”

“What doors? Where are we going?”

The answer left him dumbstruck. After a few more details, Kat signed off. Gray closed his phone to find Seichan staring at him.

“Where are they sending us now?” she asked.

He slowly shook his head, trying to make sense of what he’d just heard, and told her.

“Fort Knox.”