“I wanted to explore so much more.” He removed his glasses and cleaned the lenses with the silk scarf he wore. “Natural caves and even abandoned mines. No matter what, I was always amazed,” he said nostalgically. “The real riches aren’t the minerals that can be extracted and exploited. It’s the history itself that remains there.”
“Is there anything that relates to Denisova?” Katrina dared.
“No…and yes.”
The answer was intriguing.
“No, I found nothing of an unusual, shall I say, nature. But taking in other reports and your cryptic suggestions, perhaps yes.”
Bovard thumbed through the files in the boxes. He rejected most, but pulled a few papers. “These are principally cave-ins that I couldn’t explain or didn’t believe the explanations. An explosion at a cave in China. Another in South Africa, and the most interesting…let’s look at this one. A site I visited almost four decades ago.” He refreshed his memory with a copy of an old newspaper clipping. “In Senghenydd, Wales.”
"Where?” McCauley couldn’t quite get the Welsh name through the thick French accent.
“A mine in Wales pronounced Sen-knee-need.” He handed McCauley a photocopy of a newspaper clipping from 1913. “Little is known about this. It was over-shadowed by another mining accident at the same location a few months later. That one still grabs all the attention, as well it should. It remains the worst mining disaster in the British Isles. Some have speculated that they are related.”
Bovard explained both cave-ins were reportedly the result of coal gas explosions. He laughed. “Bull sheet.” His accent made his expletive sound cleaner.
“The first occurred far into a mine that, according to the archival reports, was not producing any coal. The likelihood of volatile coal gas coming from nowhere? You tell me, Dr. McCauley?”
“Not likely.”
“Dr. Alpert?”
“Not in my expertise.”
“So, if not an explosion caused by coal gas, which, at the time, claimed the life of the site manager, then what?”
The question begged for an answer, but the old explorer held up his hand.
“Little has been reported. To this day, only a few locals gossip about it through the unreliable filter of multiple generations. Nonetheless, rumors tell a story of a mysterious find, an unscheduled visit by an unknown mining supervisor, the deadly explosion that killed the company man, and the disappearance of the supervisor soon after. Makes for a good conspiracy, wouldn’t you say?”
“And we heard about you from a conspiracy theorist in America. Robert Greene.” Katrina softly said.
“Ah, yes, the irrepressible young Mr. Greene. We’ve done some broadcasts together. How clever. He neither told you, nor me, what he wanted you to find. Maybe this is it.”
“A theory? A feeling?” McCauley complained. “A rumor?”
“More than that, Dr. McCauley.”
It came to Quinn. “Evidence of evidence. Maybe much like”— he tapped the cover of the priest’s memoir—“what the good Father Emilianov saw.”
Sixty-eight
The Paulist priest arrived to an empty, dark apartment. Home, he said to himself. Five days in Prague had been quite enough. Nobody came to any conclusions. How could we, he thought. But that didn’t prevent the member of STOQ and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences from being predictably exciting, inspiring and living up to his reputation as a renegade in the house of the Lord.
He dropped his suitcase in the kitchen, flicked on the overhead light and checked the refrigerator. The few take-out containers with leftovers didn’t interest him, neither did he consider the idea of washing the sink full of dirty dishes inviting. His two roommates, also priests, were at another conference in Madrid. They’d left the mess.
Since he wasn’t up for cleaning, he also didn’t want to cook. So, Father Jareth Eccleston turned off the light and went for a late supper at his local haunt, De Giovanni’s, for one of his favorite dishes, tortelloni ricotta e spinaci. Since he primarily spent alone time in deep thought, he wasn’t aware of the man who had followed him in and watched him throughout his dinner.
Rich Tamburro hadn’t heard from Anna Chohany since he last saw her at the hospital in Glendive. He’d left so many messages on her cell that her voicemail maxed out. Considering she hadn’t posted anything new on Facebook or Instagram in the days since she left Montana, he was concerned that she hadn’t made it home safely. Even though there was no doubt now that she was somebody’s mole, he decided to drive to Ann Arbor with the hope of finding her.
“I can’t explain,” Park Director Jim Kaplan told the chief on-site National Transportation Safety Board investigator, Lee Miller. “It’s certainly a first for us.”
“And the visiting college group? They’ve all left?” asked the fifty-five-year-old officer who wore a black tee shirt with the agency’s NTSB letters prominently displayed on the back in bright yellow. “Rather quickly, wouldn’t you say?”
“They’d packed up the day before the crash.”
“A coincidence,” Miller commented, suggesting just the opposite.
“No coincidence. They’d wrapped. Dr. McCauley had just returned from some meetings and he determined it was time to call it quits. He’s an expert. If he felt it was time to go, it was.”
“I heard they had a few more weeks.”
“They did, but it wasn’t a particularly successful summer and one of the team got hurt.”
Miller, a former Navy F-18 pilot, was raising questions well beyond the scope of the crash. But there were unusual circumstances. Principally — no bodies in the wreck. Now three days into the investigation, the field of inquiry extended beyond the crash site. The NTSB team was scouring the badlands for a survivor who may have safely parachuted or a pilot whose parachute failed to open.
There were also other questions. Particularly interesting was why couldn’t he reach Dr. Quinn McCauley…anywhere?
Quinn and Katrina left Bovard without anything definitive. But the intersections of the past and the present came closer together: a Russian cave and their own discovery in Montana; the priest’s account from more than 225 years ago; and Senghenydd and other mysteries the explorer couldn’t explain. All part of a something rather than the something itself.
McCauley struggled with another troubling thought. He wasn’t able to reach Pete DeMeo on his phone.
“He probably hasn’t gotten out of bed,” Katrina said suggestively.
McCauley, too concerned, didn’t laugh.
Sixty-nine
McCauley and Alpert’s flight touched down at Fiumicino Aeroporto, better known as Leonardo da Vinci International, sixteen miles southwest of Rome. Seconds after landing, McCauley telephoned Eccleston’s cell.
“Pronto.”
“Good morning. Is this Father Jareth Eccleston?”
“Yes,” said the groggy priest. His Welsh accent was evident.
“I’m sorry, did I wake you?”
“It’s okay,” the priest replied. “My stars, it’s almost noon.”
“I apologize. I can call back in a little while.”