“They gave me little other than earaches.”
The priest laughed heartily. “Yes, I can believe that. But, when the conversation was relayed to me, I thought I should meet these talkative aristocrats and determine if there was an ounce of truth in anything they had to say.
“We met on a lovely October night at a villa in Tuscany. I had coached up from Rome and they were so impressed. I suggested they might one day dine at the Vatican. We talked about what wines they would bring and how they embraced the true word of God.”
Maculano laughed again. Galileo imagined Pino and Santori tripping over one another for attention.
“As we drained bottles of Vin Trebbiano, I led them from one exaggeration of theirs to another until we got to what was so amazing it had to be true.”
Galileo listened without comment.
“They talked of a trip you’d taken together to Le Marche. They bragged in great detail with such enthusiasm about your findings. You should be proud how they represented you.”
“They were not with me!” Galileo shouted.
“Oh, but they said they were. They spent hours on it. With vivid descriptions.”
“They tired of hiking. They didn’t want to get their hands dirty. They saw nothing of what I did.”
“Ah, but what a story they still told. Eventually, enough blasphemy that I had no other choice but to invite them to the Vatican. Though they dined here, it was less than succulent servings. Let’s say your accommodations are far superior.”
Galileo’s shoulders sank. “You arrested them?”
“Quite so. But I’m not through. In prison, we delineated what they claimed they did versus what was truly your achievement. You should have heard the boasts at first. It was as if they were by your side as you took your experiments into the mountain. Then, under some, shall we say persuasive techniques they recanted. They admitted, just as you suggest, it was you and you alone, who ventured forth that day in 1601; ventured forth into the cave. It was you, Galileo, who saw what I then had to see for myself.”
Maculano brought his voice down. “Pity, too, they never went with you. They would have been amazed."
“Pino and Satori?” Galileo quietly asked.
“Alas, they expired under the strain.”
“You executed them.”
“They failed to survive the final interview.”
“Why? You saw they were lying. I actually told them very little.”
“But they knew enough. And even a little is far too dangerous.”
Fifty
The timing was perfect. The rising sun began to give the target definition. The onboard cameras sent back clear video to Winston’s tablet. He made a few minor midair corrections. The Cessna nosed down, gained speed, and banked to the right ever so slightly. Another few degrees lower. Another three minutes.
McCauley had parked the car as close to the cave entrance as possible. Now, on foot, he trudged toward the cliff, completely awake and refreshed in the cool morning air. It heightened his senses. The only thing that interrupted his thoughts was the sound of a distant airplane which seemed to be floating in with the west-to-east breeze. He didn’t think Dawson Community Airport had any traffic at this hour. But that wouldn’t necessarily stop a small plane from landing.
Winston was always disappointed that he could never see the final split second — the culmination of the planning, the preparation, and the delivery of the package.
The package was C4, wired inside the Cessna 421B to dual redundant impact detonators, set to explode two one hundredths of a second after plowing into the cave entrance. The onboard aviation fuel would add extra bang.
The low rumble of the twin engines increased. McCauley stopped in the flats short of the rock wall and peered over his shoulder. The wing tip lights of the airplane appeared to be angling toward the park. Toward him.
The lights grew brighter. The engines louder. The plane was speeding up and bearing down on a deadly trajectory.
Pull up! he wanted to say. But there was no time.
McCauley instinctively dove to the ground as it flew right overhead. Flew wasn’t even the right term. He knew the plane was going to crash.
He could feel the wash of the propellers. It was that close.
McCauley quickly crawled behind a boulder on the valley floor. A second later a massive explosion boomed, then echoed against the cliffs. The sound was instantly followed by a shock wave with a burning heat and a stench that engulfed the entire area. Then rocks blew past him. Without coverage from the boulder McCauley knew he would have been killed.
When the dust settled, he peered out from behind his cover. But Quinn McCauley didn’t need to see the precise location of the impact. He knew.
PART THREE
Fifty-one
Winston drove south. Franklin headed west. Conrad north. They wouldn’t see one another until next called, or not at all. There were no thank you emails or letters of commendation. All the thanks they needed were handled by wire transfers.
McCauley roamed the site with his jacket covering his mouth and nose. Metal was strewn below the cliff and the area reeked of burning oil, plastic, and rubber. He saw a portion of the fuselage wedged into rock thirty feet up. The airplane had plowed directly into the spot where the team’s lights, cables and equipment had been—like hitting a bulls eye on a target, he thought.
No one could have survived, he reasoned.
A half-hour later, he was still walking the ground when a stern voice shouted, “Hey, you! What are you doing here?”
McCauley turned to see a local police officer sweeping the area with a bright flashlight.
“I’m…I’m Dr. Quinn McCauley. I was in charge of a graduate student dig here. Right up there.” He pointed to crash site. “Thank God we started packing up yesterday and didn’t hit the site early today.”
“Damn lucky,” the officer said. McCauley figured the she was in her late twenties, and had never witnessed anything like this. For that matter, neither had he. Well, not exactly.
Typically, Glendive was quiet. Aside from the dinosaur discoveries, little put them on the map. This surely would for a few days. “Damn lucky,” she said again.
“May I see some identification?”
“Certainly,” McCauley pulled his license and Yale ID from his wallet.
The Glendive cop shined her flashlight on the cards and then onto McCauley. She did not return the IDs.
“And what did you say you were doing here?”
“I’ve been working with my students for the past month. We started breaking camp and…”
“Why are you here now?” she demanded.
“I’m sorry. We moved to a motel in town last night. I couldn’t sleep and since we’re usually up by this time anyway, I came over see if we left anything behind.”
“Did you?”
“Up there. But it’s all gone now. Like you said, we’re damned lucky.”