“Yes, but first, someone else.”
“Who?”
“Anna. Include a nice cheery message,” McCauley said. “No reason she shouldn’t have a few souvenirs.”
“Souvenirs?”
McCauley explained why.
Jaffe understood. “Okay, what’s next?”
“Team powwow.”
“Here?”
“No, we’ll steer clear of this area. Back at base camp. Say in an hour.”
Jaffe trekked back. McCauley remained in the valley sorting through the possibilities. After one more look, he headed on to join the others.
“Well, gang,” McCauley began as everyone was gathered. “Three things. First, great work while we were gone. You did magnificently. I’m truly proud of everyone, which leads me to my second point. It’s been a terrific, and shall I say a surprising summer. We might not have all the fossils we’d expected, but we sure have one helluva story, which brings me to the third point. It’s a story that you’ll have to keep quiet. Really quiet. Like nobody gets to know. Military quiet. You can only guess what that means. They’re clamping down on us.”
“They? Who’s they?” Cohen asked.
“Folks who have a stake in the installation.” He thought that was innocuous enough.
“And you learned that in one day?” Trent wondered suspiciously.
“Let’s just say it became abundantly clear.”
Now McCauley gave them a warning that had come to him during the flight to Glendive. He believed it would serve to keep things under wraps. “Considering most of you are on federal loans,” he said, “I wouldn’t recommend doing anything to jeopardize things.”
This caught students off guard. “Really?” said Leslie. “But…”
“It’s the best advice I can give you.”
“Did anyone threaten that?” Lobel wondered.
“They didn’t have to.”
At least that part was true, McCauley thought.
“And there’s actually a fourth point.”
The team, relaxing on their folding chairs, leaned forward.
“We’re going home.”
The questions came faster. McCauley was ready. Alpert stood by his side.
Lobeclass="underline" “Can’t we move to another location?”
“No, it’s best that we leave immediately. Actually, not best. We have to.”
Jaffe: “We’re just leaving the cave as it is?”
“That’s correct.”
Trent: “Who’s going to tell my department that we shut down three weeks short?”
“I will.”
Cohen: “I think it’s been an unusual summer. What’s the chance we come back next year?”
This broke the tension. McCauley was quite relieved.
“Great! Thank you, Leslie.”
McCauley looked around. They were all exceptional students. Surely the news was disappointing. However, breaking camp was for their own good.
“Gang, I’m sorry,” he said lowering his voice. “I really share your frustration, but I have a responsibility. To you, to my employer, to your schools and departments. We got more than halfway through the time. It’s not what I wanted, but you can consider it a success.”
McCauley hadn’t sold them yet. He’d have to do better.
“Naturally, you feel you’re just beginning to break through and don’t have much to report back home or to your advisors. But remember, we came across something exciting. The only problem is we can’t talk about it. Certainly not right now.”
“But it’s our discovery, Dr. McCauley,” Tom Trent said for the group. “That’s good enough for me. And I’ve catalogued some great fossils. I’m up for coming back next year.”
“Great attitude,” Katrina added. McCauley looked to Katrina for reinforcement. She gave him a nod in the affirmative.
“So what the hell did we find?” Leslie Cohen asked the question most wanting to be answered. “Some Strategic Air Command mountain base like in…what was that old movie with Matthew Broderick?”
“War Games,” Lobel said.
“Yeah, like War Games?”
“Maybe,” McCauley said. “But it was my mistake for even looking into it; even worse for dragging all of you along.”
“That’s what we’re supposed to do,” Cohen offered. “We’re scientists.”
“Yes, but this got out of hand.”
With the exception of Al Jaffe, Rich Tamburro knew more than the others. But the pieces he put together played into the story McCauley proposed.
“Okay, folks, so we’ll box up the fossil finds, write some good scholarly papers, and then wait for the doc to tell us when we can go public. In the meantime, I agree. We go home. We don’t email about this. We don’t tweet. We don’t tell anyone. I certainly don’t want to jeopardize my loans.”
“Thank you, Rich.” McCauley crossed over to Tamburro and hugged him. Then he smiled and turned to everyone. “We sure as hell stepped into something. I don’t normally believe in bad guys in black helicopters, but this is as close as I want to be. So let’s back out quietly.”
Everyone agreed.
“Okay. Here’s the drill. Tomorrow we’ll break camp and by dinnertime check into the GuestHouse Inn. I’ll get you all out on planes the day after and take care of shipping everything out. Rich, you’ll check on Anna and see if she can be discharged. If so, make sure she gets where she’s going.”
“My pleasure.”
“I’m sure it is,” Leslie said. “Give her a kiss for me.”
“From all of us,” Rodriguez added.
“A few more things, everyone,” McCauley continued. “We have cash for your expenses and we’ll figure a time to regroup. I promise I’ll keep you posted on when, if ever, you can discuss this wild experience. Believe me, for now you’ll just want to walk away.”
Forty-seven
Franklin checked out the cockpit. He’d be piloting the first leg of the flight. A remote control take-off was not something they had the time to prepare. Though the cameras and GPS would be sending back data, the operation required a human at the stick before the systems could be handed over to the remote guidance system.
“Any issue on the coordinates?” he asked.
“None at all,” Winston proclaimed. “Believe it or not, I got ground photographs a few minutes ago. I’ll print them out and match them to the onboard cameras. We’ll do a visual in.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I’m glad we moved the curtain to dawn. Much easier than relying on infrared. Much.”
For the next few hours, the men worked independently; silently. They were not a tight unit prone to personal camaraderie or team loyalty. No high fives. No see you next time. If ordered, each easily could, and would, put a bullet in another’s head. They focused on the job, testing the relays, charging the batteries, reviewing the charts. It was a clear case of the devil’s in the details.
Forty-eight
McCauley’s team was grateful for the baths and privacy at the GuestHouse Inn. They were equally happy with the blowout at Maddhatters, covered — though they didn’t know it — by Dr. Marli Bellamy’s generosity. The next day they’d be on their way home, earlier than expected, without a reasonable way to explain it.
McCauley gave Katrina an unmistakably non-sexual hug at the motel door. “Goodnight,” he said.
“Goodnight,” she replied, feeling the desire for more.
Neither immediately let go of one another.
“Early morning,” he replied awkwardly.
“Guess so,” Katrina replied.
“Goodnight then.”