“Have I lost you again?”
“No, no, no, sir. Just thinking about what you’re saying.”
Gruber laughed. “No, you weren’t. You were pondering how much longer you’d be enduring my interminable diatribes. And I don’t blame you one bit. My irascible secretary will have none of it either. Considering I never married, I suppose I’m taking it out on you.”
“It’s all been…”
“Boring. I know.” He reached across the table and patted Kavanaugh’s arm. “But there is a point to all of this.” He raised his cup of tea and sighed. “I have no real faith that there’s an afterlife or what it shall be. Heaven? Hell? For me, heaven would be right at this very table, listening to the world’s most beautiful music on Brown’s baby grand, and delighting on the delicate scones, sandwiches and pastries without fear of adding inches to my waist. All of that would be heaven without complaint. Hell? All the same, right here, but instead of being greeted by the experienced staff, there’s only the devil. He’s plum out of tea. And he’s only serving coffee in a paper cup.” He paused for impact. “For eternity.”
Kavanaugh nodded. “Heaven it is. Deservedly so.”
Gruber shook his head. “Let us talk about a decision,” he whispered. “It is yours to make.”
The senior executive bent down and removed a file folder from the briefcase beside his foot. He had no concern that anyone would see or hear. They sat at his reserved corner table in privacy.
“Read this.” He passed the file across the restaurant table.
Kavanaugh opened it and read the single page summary from abroad. Kavanaugh read it once, then again. He began to form a question, but Gruber put a finger to his lips.
“We’ll talk more about it later.”
“Why wasn’t this sent to me first?” Kavanaugh insisted. “I would have…”
“There are still some things that come right to me. Only me. You will insist on the same, but not until…”
Kavanaugh filled in the thought almost cruelly. “Your passing.”
Gruber didn’t mind the comment. It was the eagerness. “Read it again. It is the kind of problem that you will have to deal with not just effectively, but exhibiting proper discretion. Not all challenges require the same action. Learn that, you will succeed…” Martin Gruber left the rest of the equation unsaid.
Twenty
“Slow down!” McCauley called.
Enthusiasm was one thing; recklessness another. McCauley was insistent. “Slow down, Rich.”
“I’m okay,” Tamburro replied. He was in the lead about twenty yards ahead in the gradually sloping tunnel. The lifeline was still around him with rope also attached to Anna Chohany and anchored by the team that followed.
“Maybe, but wait.”
“Okay.” That comment was followed by a discouraging, “Damn.”
Chohany, caught up. “What’s the problem?”
Tamburro shined his flashlight at rocks that blocked the way. “Oh, no,” she said.
“Yup,” Tamburro stated. “End of the line. Looks like a collapse.”
Now McCauley, Alpert and the others were upon them.
“What’s up?” the professor asked.
“We’re fucked.”
McCauley assessed the obstruction. “Set up two lights facing this mess on either side of the walls. Let’s see what we have here.”
Rodriguez attached the wiring and the lights. He had two left.
“Hey, how’s…going…’n th…?” Tom Trent’s walkie-talkie transmission from outside broke up. “Haven’t check…while.”
“Say again?” McCauley’s reply was equally poor on the other end.
“Are…okay?”
McCauley responded in shorter blasts. “Ok. Blocked tunnel. Repeat. Blocked tunnel.”
“Copy that.”
“Hang on.”
With Rodriguez’s lights in place, McCauley felt around the debris. Some crumbled to his touch. Then he moved to the right side of the tunnel and ran his fingers against the wall.
“I think this was a natural rock slide and if the petroglyphs were essentially Native American maps, the tunnel continues beyond it.”
He groped around more. “Mostly loose rock. We might be able to dig through it.
Again, they didn’t have all the equipment they needed, but there was enough to start: one folding shovel with an axe and two picks.
“Let’s do this methodically. Rich and I can cut away from the top. Dr. Alpert and Carlos, you can spread out the dirt behind us. Nothing high. Everyone, wear your masks. Keep the dust out of your lungs. If we don’t get anywhere in the next hour, we’ll call it quits. Leslie, have Tom come up with more water. I think we’ll need it.”
The loosest dirt easily fell away. After forty minutes, they’d cleared two feet of the rock, about three feet high, enough to crawl forward. That’s when McCauley’s pick hit hard rock.
“Shit,” he said.
“What is it?” Katrina Alpert asked.
“Another damned boulder.”
Rich Tamburro joined McCauley in the cramped space. “Give it another tap, Rich,” McCauley said. “Not too hard. But dead center.”
The Michigan student, on his side, complied. McCauley was sandwiched next to him.
McCauley cocked his ear to the sound. “Again.” The paleontologist pointed. “Right there.”
Tamburro tapped again. “What?”
“Don’t know. Move over. I want to hear.”
That was easier said than done given the tight quarters. Behind them were Chohany and Rodriguez, ready to pull them out if any dirt and rock above gave way. Alpert was on all fours trying to look in as well.
McCauley struck the boulder with his pick. The sound, he thought. It didn’t sound right.
He placed his left ear against the rock, closed his eyes in case any stone splintered off. Again. His eyes popped open.
“That. Did you hear that?”
“Yes. The unmistakable sound of a hammer hitting solid rock,” Tamburro joked.
McCauley rolled on his back and lifted his head. “Half right.”
“Huh?”
“Listen.”
McCauley hit the rock wall to his right. It produced a dull, flat thud. Then he hit the rock in front of them again. It created more of an open sound. McCauley repeated the action and rolled onto his back.
“And?” he asked, ever the teacher.
“Thinner.” McCauley explained. “One more time.”
McCauley tapped again.
“Or hollow, like a huge geode. Probably easier to roll in and…”
“Out,” Tamburro said. “Did the Lakota put it there?”
“We’ll explore that question tomorrow. Enough for today.” McCauley motioned for Tamburro to inch back. “It’s getting late and we need a better plan.”
He explained the same thing to the others in the cave and then added, “Time to clean up and head to town.”
“Celebration?” Rodriguez asked.
“No, just more shopping and some heavy drinking.”
Tamburro returned from the camp shower with only a towel wrapped around his waist. “It’s all yours.”
Anna Chohany wore only a bathrobe herself. She was typing quickly on her laptop.
“All yours,” he said again, letting his towel drop down. He was trying to engage Anna. They had not so quietly begun to see each other a few weeks into the summer.
“Uh huh.” Chohany continued to type.
“Before someone else takes it,” he added.
“Uh huh,” she said again. “In a sec.” She finished by moving the cursor up to the send command. “There.”