“It could heal wounds?”
“According to Fontaneda, almost instantaneously. But I’m sure if it exists, there’s a rational scientific explanation. It’s not magic.”
“I understand now why this Dr. Leeds is willing to risk so much to find it first. And why we have to make sure he doesn’t.” Russell leaned over the map table. “So, where do we go from here?”
Before Kismet could answer, Russell’s radio squawked. Kismet expected to hear a report from the medic who had gone with the injured soldier to the hospital, but instead he heard the voice of the platoon leader — Lieutenant Pierson — who had gone with Higgins in the second search team, eagerly announcing: “Sir, I think we’ve found something.”
Although there were only a few hours of daylight remaining, Kismet, Annie, and Russell, along with a security detail, set out in the two remaining rafts and paddled for the GPS coordinates Pierson had supplied. About forty-five minutes later, they spied the rafts beached along a low delta that barely protruded from the water’s surface.
Higgins was waiting for them, and anxiously guided them to an elevated clearing surrounded by cypress trees where the rest of the group was waiting. “Well?” Russell asked. “What did you find?’
Pierson almost chortled. “You’re standing on it, sir.”
Kismet looked down, and then let his eyes roam the shadowy edges of the clearing, expecting…no, hoping, to see a marker of some kind, a petroglyph perhaps…the ancient equivalent of a sign that would point the way to their goal. Then he realized that Pierson had been speaking literally. The clearing in which they stood was almost perfectly square, about ten yards on each side, and was a good thirty-six inches higher than the rest of the land mass.
“It’s a mound!” Kismet realized aloud.
Higgins nodded. “Just like your bloody pyramids. Only this one wasn’t marked on the map.”
“No, but Fontaneda spoke of a village near the…” Kismet glanced at the waiting soldiers and censored himself. “Near the entrance to the cavern. He wrote that, after they had exterminated the inhabitants, the village was overgrown. I think this mound was a part of that village. They probably built up the land here to escape the effects of seasonal flooding.”
He clapped Higgins on the shoulder. “This is an important clue, Al. Well done.”
“Can you use this to find the cavern entrance?” Russell asked.
“I won’t make any promises, but I think we just got a lot closer.”
Russell seemed satisfied with that. “Let’s head back while we’ve still got light.”
The officer then took something from his pocket. At first, Kismet thought it was the GPS unit, but a second glance revealed that it was a satellite phone.
Russell caught Kismet’s apprehensive glance. “Orders. I have to check in daily with headquarters. I should have called as soon as we sent Olson to the hospital, but then all of this happened. At least now there’s some good news to go with the bad.”
Kismet nodded, but was still a little disturbed by the revelation that Russell had been maintaining regular contact with his superiors. In hindsight, he should have realized that the major would be required to do so, but now he regretted having revealed the true nature of their quest.
Later that evening, Russell’s sat phone rang again. He recognized the number on the caller ID display, and answered with a simple, “Hello.”
“You’ve done well, Major.” The voice on the other end belonged to the same person that had spoken to him a few nights earlier, after the abortive attack on the train. Now as then, the caller came directly to the point. “The mission has changed. I have new orders for you.”
FOURTEEN
They resumed the search the next day from the mound Higgins group had discovered.
Using the rafts to shuttle between land masses, they expanded the search outward in concentric circles and found still more evidence of ancient human habitation.
Kismet kept track of the mound locations on the map and soon had a rough plan of what the native village would have looked like in Fontaneda’s day. On paper, it seemed to point like an arrow toward the lake.
“Do you think that’s where we’ll find it?” Russell asked.
Kismet shrugged. “I’m cautiously optimistic.”
The officer considered this answer for a moment. “After what you told me last night…” He paused and glanced around to make sure that none of his men could overhear. “About what it is you’re really looking for…”
He stopped again, as if trying to figure out how to broach a very sensitive subject. “Don’t get me wrong. I have absolute trust in my soldiers. I’ve served with a few of them for more years than I can count…But something like this is…well, let’s just say I don’t think they have the security clearance for it.”
Kismet held the other man’s gaze. “I appreciate your help so far, Major. But this is not and has never been a military operation. Your men don’t need security clearance. And if this turns out to be the real deal, then it won’t matter if one of them leaks it to the press or posts it on Facebook. I’ll be telling the world anyway.”
“Until you do, I think the fewer people who know the exact location — when we find it that is — the better. I’m going to have Lieutenant Pierson pull back and establish a perimeter. I’ll stay with the three of you and we’ll keep looking.”
“The search might go faster with more sets of eyes looking.”
“I’m not so sure about that, especially as none of us really knows what to look for anyway.” With that, Russell moved off to brief the platoon leader, and a few minutes later, the soldiers departed.
Kismet climbed into a raft with Russell, Higgins and Annie took another, and they began paddling toward the lake.
Lake George was clear and shallow, averaging only about eight feet in depth. At the south end, where it was fed by the St. Johns River — the channel through which the search party had just entered — there was a fan-like accretion of sediment. Throughout Florida’s history, the river had been an important commercial route, necessitating occasional dredging which altered the natural flow regime. With the decline of steamboat traffic, the river and lake remained popular with recreational boaters. Management practices were now less intrusive, but frequent seasonal storms that hammered into the peninsula, coupled with the steadily rising sea level due to global climate change, meant that Lake George today bore little resemblance to the lake Fontaneda had discovered. That, Kismet believed, was the reason why they hadn’t yet found the cavern; the geography had changed, the entrance to cavern, which had been on dry land when the Spaniard first entered it, was now out there, under the waters of Lake George.
They decided to start close to shore, rowing back and forth, making a visual sweep of the area. Kismet was contemplating ways to expedite the survey — SCUBA gear, or even something as simple as a depth finder — when Annie called out, directing their attention to something on the shore.
It was another mound, a bank, waist-high earth lushly covered in vegetation jutting from between the trees and sloping away into the water. But unlike the other mounds, which had been rectangular, suggesting platforms on which houses might once have been built, this elevated earthwork was narrow and deliberately sinuous, undulating back and forth as it disappeared into the woods.
“Is this it?” Annie whispered, her voice full of nervous tension. “Have we found it?”
Before Kismet could answer, the distinctive crack of a rifle shot echoed across the tops of the trees.
The shift to a defensive stance was immediate, but after a few seconds, when the sound did not repeat, Russell took out his radio and keyed the mic. “Pierson, give me a sitrep.”