Diablo Mesa(76)

Lime pulled up on the airstrip and stopped a hundred yards from the chopper. Two soldiers came over and helped them out, escorting them to the bird, one joining them on board. Corrie and Lime were given headsets and seated in the webbing. Even as Corrie was buckling in and adjusting her headset, the rotors spun up and the chopper lifted off. The sun was just touching the horizon as they rose into the clear desert air and accelerated southeast, over the Manzano Mountains toward the desert beyond. As Corrie watched the fir-clad slopes give way to desert, it occurred to her that everything had begun to move so fast, that the crush of urgency had swept her up so quickly, she’d had no time to think—only react. For reasons she couldn’t quite identify, a sense of unease took possession of her. Something felt wrong—but she wasn’t sure why.





50



LET’S NOT MESS this up at the last minute,” Nora said as Tappan pushed the dead magnetometer aside and began shoveling sand willy-nilly into a wheelbarrow. “This is archaeology, not treasure hunting.”

Tappan paused, leaning on the shovel, breathing hard. He nodded, wiping off the sweat. “Sorry. You’re right.”

“I believe the right thing to do,” Nora said, “is to pause and take stock, figure out what’s going on.”

“Absolutely not,” said Tappan. “We’re almost there. I mean, Columbus didn’t pause his voyage just before reaching the New World, did he?”

Nora felt conflicted. She looked around and could see, clearly on everyone’s face, an eagerness to continue.

The strange magnetic activity that had wreaked havoc with their instruments and tools had vanished as quickly as it came—and not returned.

“All right. But let’s please proceed by the book.”

“Fair enough.”

“We’re going to need lights. Emilio, could you fire up the generator and get the floods in place? And let’s get the magnetometer out of the hole so we can work.”

Tappan leaned his shovel against the dig wall and helped Toth wheel the machine up the ramp and out. He came up next to Nora and watched as Vigil erected the lights around the sides of the hole. Tappan didn’t say anything more, but Nora could feel the excitement radiating from him like an electrical aura. She felt a turmoil of emotions herself—intense curiosity, apprehension, anticipation. Rushing headlong to uncover what was in the hole went against her better judgment, but she understood that nothing would stop Tappan now…and she herself felt the tug of discovery.

“I believe we are on the verge,” Tappan finally said in a quiet voice, “of the greatest archaeological find in history.”

The sun at that moment dipped below the horizon and a hush fell over the team. The silent sentinels of Los Gigantes glowed red in the final rays and then changed to a dusky purple as the light vanished.

“Ready,” said Emilio.

The lights snapped on, bathing the hole in brilliant white light.

“Go slow,” Nora told them. “Layer by layer. If you encounter anything, stop immediately. Emilio, you’re in charge of wheelbarrowing the sand. We’re going to focus on the four quads in the center—leave the outer squares for now.”

They began work under the bright lights, in silence, the only sounds the scrape and tang of trowels, and Emilio’s shoveling the sand into a wheelbarrow and wheeling it out to Cecilia Toth. The four quads deepened quickly as work progressed and darkness fell. A multitude of stars began to come out in the vast of night. Nora worked alongside Toth and Tappan, making sure things proceeded methodically, carefully, without haste, troweling down through the soft, damp sand with care, layer by layer.

“Hold it,” Nora said abruptly. The others halted.

After years of dirt archaeology, she had developed a sixth sense for when she was about to expose an artifact, from the texture and firmness of the sand.

“I think we’ve got something,” she said, laying the trowel aside and taking up a whisk.

Everyone crowded in to see. They were now about eight feet below the surface and Nora had an uncharacteristic feeling of claustrophobia. But the wet sand they were digging in had a lot of caliche in it, so the walls were firm and solid, and they had been hammering in braces as they went down. The lights above cast crazy shadows in the dark corners.

Tappan stood behind her as she hesitated. “Well? Are we going to see what it is?”

Nora took a few photographs, feeling impatience radiate from Tappan like heat.

“Can you give me a little more space, please?”

The group stepped back reluctantly. She swept the brush and uncovered another layer of sand…and then something happened: a strange green light could be seen filtering up through the grains of sand still lightly covering the object, dimly illuminating the surrounding faces with an unearthly glow.

Nora hesitated, then readied herself to make the final, uncovering whisk.

From above came a sudden throbbing: the unexpected sound of rapidly approaching helicopters. Nora looked toward the noise and saw, behind the perimeter of lights, two black helicopters coming in fast, doors open, bristling with mounted guns. The two birds swung around on either side of the dig for a landing as the backwash from their rotors whipped the sand into a blinding whirlwind that engulfed the hole and everyone in it.





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