“Ten days!” No way. Not now. She was teaching the summer half-term in two weeks. Blasted governments and their politics. This could only be a reaction to the little tussle between the University of Chicago and Yangon last year.
She and Manjiri had expected to have at least six months before Cambodia started making a fuss about wanting the ancient Buddhist manuscript — the one that had been missing for two centuries, the one that Marina and Manjiri had helped Myanmar archaeologists locate — back in their control.
Ten days to finalize the greatest achievement of her career? In the best of circumstances, it would take a month of study to complete the project.
And now she would have, at the most, barely a week.
Forgetting her exhaustion, she dropped the catalog and snatched up the phone, dialing the familiar number of her favorite airline. She’d just have to get herself to Mandalay as soon as possible and finish what she could.
Damn.
Just as she was making her selection—“For international travel, press three”—her cell phone rang. Marina tucked the landline phone between her ear and shoulder and grabbed the small one with the tinny ring.
“This is Marina.”
“It’s Bruce. Marina, we need you over here in PA. We’ve got a missing caver in the Allegheny North Coal Mine. Can you come?”
“I thought they closed it to cavers last summer,” she said, dropping the landline phone onto its cradle and launching to her feet. She could call the airline later … once she figured out how long this rescue was going to take. Adrenaline rushed through her as she grabbed up her still-packed gear and started for the door. She’d call Dawn later to come and take care of Boris.
“They did. But somehow these two guys got in here, and one of them’s been missing for five hours. How soon can you get up here?”
“Yep. Already on my way out the door — I just got back from that quake site in Indiana and still have my gear packed up. Boris can’t come, though. He’s still recovering.”
“Aw, shit, Marina, I didn’t know you were down there, though I should have expected it. But it’s a nine-hour drive over here—”
“And a ninety-minute flight in my P210 from Ann Arbor to State College. I’ll be there by lunch if all goes well.”
“Marina, you must be exhausted—”
“Maybe ….but at least I’m not lost or injured in some cold, dark cave. I’ll be there, Bruce, don’t you worry.”
9
Colin Bergstrom didn’t consider himself a particularly lucky man.
In fact, he’d had enough unfortunate and downright bad things happen in his life that he figured Lady Luck wasn’t on his side in any way, shape or form.
But today, something beyond his comprehension of “coincidence” and “luck” occurred, and gave him an opportunity he’d never dreamed he’d have. A second chance.
His first day back at the office in Langley after a week vacation for the holiday, and he was going through the piles that had accumulated on his desk and the emails that had stacked up in his virtual in-box.
Later, he never could say what drew his attention to the bulletin that came in on email regarding the earthquakes in Allentown, Terre Haute and Hays, Kansas; they weren’t a CIA investigation. The Bureau was on it. But something drew his attention, nevertheless, and he perused the bulletin.
Interesting, intriguing, but nothing that pertained to him or his counter-terrorism team.
Yet something gnawed at him in the back of his mind, and he logged on to the database that linked all of the branches of Homeland Security to read more. There were photos and he skimmed through each one, trying to determine what it was that caught his attention.
Bergstrom hadn’t worked with spooks for thirty years without trusting his instincts.
And they didn’t fail him this time, because on the sixth page of images, one of them caused him to freeze and gape. His fingers curled around the computer mouse tightened so hard he accidentally pushed one of the buttons, and had to jerk the mouse, clicking and dragging to get that image back on the screen and make sure he hadn’t imagined it.
But no.
It was there.
By God, it was there.
He stared at it, and felt the way his breathing worked his lungs, quickly and shallowly.
The chance he’d been waiting for.
Dr. Paul Everett, a retired geologist who taught part-time at Princeton, had left a message for Helen Darrow two days ago.
“I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to return your call, but I’ve had to personally visit all three of the locations of the earthquakes,” she explained, readying her pencil and narrow-lined notepad. She’d been glad to return to her office in Chicago after traveling around half of the Midwest in the last three days. “Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Kansas. There aren’t supposed to be earthquakes in those areas, are there?”
“Not ones like those.” Dr. Everett’s voice came through the phone ringed with politeness and a formality that reminded Helen of her grandmother’s new boyfriend, who always tried to make a good impression on the family. “That’s the reason for my call. I saw the seismogram of the quake, and actually put off a vacation in order to travel to the site in Allentown, because it’s not so far from where I live in Princeton.
“I’m not sure if you are aware that the site itself, at least in Allentown, has a unique formation to it.”
“You mean under the ground?” Helen asked. “Is that what caused the quake?”
“No, what I meant to say was that the result of the quake was a very unusual surface deformation. Agent Darrow, perhaps you are already very knowledgeable about how earthquakes are caused; but if you would indulge me for one moment just so that we may be on the same wavelength, I might be able to clear up some of your questions. And help with your investigation.”
Despite her liberal arts degree from Northwestern, Helen was fairly comfortable with the concepts of faults and shifting plates. She figured she could check her email while he talked — and it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have a refresher. “Sure. Go ahead.” The USGS hadn’t done so; they’d just told her it wasn’t a normal earthquake and they didn’t know how to explain it.
If this man had some ideas, she was all ears.
“As you may know,” he was saying; and she recognized that he’d slipped into lecture tone, “The layer of ground that we walk on is the earth’s crust. It extends about thirty miles to the mantle, which is filled with hot magma. Below the mantle, at the very center of the earth, is the core — which is solid, due to enormous pressure.
“Most earthquakes happen when pieces of the crust floating on that mantle, or lava, bump into each other, or one tries to slip under the other. It causes the ground to shake, as you know.
“I believe what happened in Allentown, at least, was not an earthquake caused by that kind of activity. Based on the unusual activity seen on the seismogram — the record produced by the seismograph activity — and the unusual surface deformations above the site, I am fairly certain it was not a natural earthquake but an underground explosion.”
Those last two words snagged her attention firmly. “An underground explosion. How?”
“Let me first begin by telling you that I’ve seen this kind of activity, and its seismological effect, only once before. This was in the late ‘Sixties in Nevada — perhaps you heard of the Faultless Project?”
“Sounds like a government program to me.”
“Right you are. They were testing the atom bomb in Nevada, under the ground, where it was believed the damage would be minimal. Faultless, as you might say.