The Voynich Cypher

CHAPTER 35

“There.”

Steven released the button of the small two-way radio and watched as Arturo, high up on the canyon face, set an orange pole into the steep slope. Steven adjusted the laser rangefinder and shook his head at the futility of it as he waved approval. The absence of a GPS was worse than he’d thought. With the coordinates programmed in, it was far easier to get a bearing on the starting position. This was using a hammer to thread a needle.

He walked over to Moody and took him aside.

“You need to get the chopper back here with another GPS. I have the coordinates in my laptop, but we need the device. Otherwise we’re just spinning our wheels for the next three days, exhausting ourselves for no reason,” he said.

“Let me see what I can do.” Moody moved to his tent to get the Sat-phone.

Their first night had been hot, and the largest, most unexpected problem had been the noise. Or rather, the lack of it. Other than random animals, there was no sound other than their camp, and Steven had realized within a few hours that three of his companions snored. Loudly. Natalie and he had spent the night tossing and turning, listening to the nocturnal symphony of labored breathing, and had gotten too little sleep. Two weeks or more of this would be a kind of hell.

Moody had unpacked the weapons the prior evening and passed them out — several M-4 assault rifles, and six Colt .45 semi-automatic pistols, fully loaded. He’d watched as Natalie had efficiently checked her weapon and then thumbed the safety on and off before putting it by her pillow, doing the same with one of the rifles as she set it next to the bed. It had been a long time since he’d fired one — over twenty years, but the rifle still felt like second nature when he picked it up. Some things were like riding a bicycle, he supposed.

Moody squinted at the sun as he moved to the kitchen area to get a drink, listening intently to a voice on the other end of the phone. He grabbed a water bottle out of the cooler and held it against his forehead.

“All right. See if you can get one here today — we’re dead in the water without it. And check to ensure it’s operational before you come out. Call me when you know something.” Moody approached Steven with the phone in his hand. “They’re going to try to find one and fly it out. Hopefully, before dark.”

They exchanged glances. It was eight a.m. and already sweltering.

Steven nodded thanks and returned to studying the canyon face for any anomalies.

It wasn’t his lucky day.

Arturo and Francois were covered in sweat, taking a break near the section they’d been digging up for hours. The soil was a combination of rock and dirt, sedimentary, with layers of sand, so it wasn’t hugely difficult work on the whole — if it hadn’t been a hundred and ten degrees. But the heat made it very slow going. They could reasonably keep at it for ten to fifteen minute intervals, and then had to rest for at least that long to rehydrate and replenish the salt they were losing from sweating. They’d created shade with a tarp and several poles, which provided scant relief from the worst of the sun’s blaze.

The tarp flapped as a gust blew through the canyon, hot and dry, but still welcome after most of the day had been spent in heavy, motionless air. The two men studied their latest excavation with dismay. It was a meager effort by any measure. They’d managed to get an area twenty feet square dug to a depth of three feet, matching another like it five yards away. Other than the odd scorpion or snake hole, there was nothing to show for their efforts. Whatever it was they were looking for wasn’t in that spot.

Cross had joined in digging for an hour, but had been called away by Luca and had never returned. It was just as well, Francois thought. They had a slow but steady rhythm, Arturo with the pick, he with the shovel, and a third or fourth body actually got in the way rather than helping. Francois had mentioned it to the Doctor just before he’d left, respectfully but sincerely. The two were there to provide the muscle. Cross was more valuable studying the terrain for possible signs of whatever they were searching for.

The breeze gusted again, and this time didn’t fade, but rather built to a steady twenty knot wind, bringing with it sand from the desert and creating dust in the canyon, partially from their excavation. After trying to continue in futility, the two-way radio crackled to life and Cross called them back to camp. The day was over, at least as far as they were concerned. The two men gathered their water and tools and gratefully headed down the hill to the river bed two-thirds of a mile below, famished and exhausted.

The wind continued to build and by the time they were at the camp, was gusting to thirty knots, threatening to take the tents with it. They secured the kitchen and the latrine and then busied themselves with the others, bolstering the fastenings affixing the tents to the rocky river bed. This was the Shammal, a wind that blew from the north, and which Steven had warned could last for a week at a time. Normally not a huge problem, it increased in force due to the funnel effect of the canyon, making the gusting unpredictable.

Moody’s satellite phone rang and he barked terse instructions. In a few minutes, the chopper slowly came over the top of the hill, having problems due to the updrafts from the wind. It descended cautiously, the turbulence buffeting it around, and at a hundred feet above the river bed it lurched alarmingly towards the canyon wall, blown by a particularly strong surge. His phone rang again. He plugged his ear with one hand against the noise from the blades and peered through the blowing dust as he held the bulky handset to his other.

“They can’t set down. Too dangerous right now. They can try coming back tomorrow, or they can get as low as possible and drop the GPS to us,” he shouted to Steven.

“Shit. Okay, let’s get that tarp and each take a side. It’ll provide a larger surface area for us to catch the unit.” Steven called over to Natalie, who was battling with a tent peg ten yards away. “Natalie? Can you come over and help for a second?”

Natalie moved to his side and he quickly explained the plan. They gathered up the tarp from beneath the larger rocks someone had placed on top of it to keep it from blowing away and signaled to Arturo to join them, taking the fourth side of the rectangle. They unfolded it, then positioned themselves below the helicopter, which tried descending one more time. When it was about sixty feet above the creek bed, the side door slid open, and a head popped out, followed by an arm holding a small cardboard box. The man with the box turned to give the pilot instructions, and the craft shifted a few yards to the left. In position, he released the GPS and they watched as it plummeted towards them.

Another gust hit it and altered the trajectory, and in a split second it became obvious they wouldn’t be able to stop its fall with the tarp. Natalie dropped her corner and sprinted towards the stream, eyes never leaving the object, and executed a perfect football catch even as she tripped and fell forward. She absorbed most of the fall with her shoulder, but the round, smooth rocks of the river bed still did damage, and when she stood, triumphantly, box held aloft in her right hand, her left arm was bleeding from multiple lacerations.

Steven ran to her as the chopper lifted back into the sky and, after gingerly hugging her, inspected the damage.

“Good catch.”

“Thanks. I was sort of a tomboy in high school, so I got to play a lot of ball.” She winced as he touched one of the gashes. “Easy. That hurts.”

“I’ll bet. Let’s get you cleaned up and bandaged. I’ll ask for an extra ration of beer for you tonight, in honor of your heroics,” Steven said.

“Not to have your way with me…” Natalie murmured.

“You’ve seen through my evil plan.” Steven looked at her arm again. “I’ll patch you up and then enter the coordinates into the GPS from my laptop. Tomorrow should be more productive,” Steven said. “You need me to carry you?”

Natalie gave him a dirty look. “It’s a few scratches, tough guy. But hey, if it works with your barbarian conqueror fantasy, knock yourself out.”

Relieved that she was fine, Steven took her good hand and they rejoined the group, which was battening down the camp against the howling wind.

The next morning started better. The Shammal was still blowing, as it had all night, but had died down to something tolerable by midnight. Steven stood with Arturo and Francois on the sloping side of the canyon wall near the top, the new GPS in his hand. They were thirty yards from the previous day’s digs.

“This is the first section I programmed. From here, to that rock,” Steven gestured with the unit, “down to that outcropping. That’s our best bet out of the gate. You sure you don’t need a hand, Arturo?”

“Thanks, but no. This is what we came to do. Don’t worry about it. You’ll have your work cut out for you once we find what we’re looking for.” Arturo smiled. “Which is what, again?”

“I wish I could be more specific. Obviously, we’re looking for something buried, something man made. Maybe an old chest, or something crafted out of stone. Anything besides dirt and rocks,” Steven said, kicking a stray stone down the hill.

“Buried treasure, eh?” Francois commented, shouldering the pick.

“Something like that. I’ll stay up here with you, if you don’t mind. In case we find anything, it will cut down the time to get all the way up from the camp,” Steven offered.

“Make yourself at home. We have a few folding chairs there by the water cooler, and if the wind doesn’t get any worse than this, the tarp should stay up for shade.”

Arturo wiped the accumulated sweat from his brow with a hand towel he’d brought for that purpose and picked up the shovel. All three looked at where the sun was rising into the hazy sky, promising them another day of its angry, roasting glare. Steven checked his watch. Seven-thirty a.m., and already baking. He headed for the scant shade provided by the tarp, giving the snake holes that riddled the mountainside a wide berth.

Settling in, he pulled his thermometer from his cargo shorts and pressed it on. Ninety-eight degrees, and it had only been light for a little over an hour.

It was going to be another brutal one.