Somewhere equally below the level of the torch.
Caleb looked out the window, and first grimly imagined a descent under the earth, three hundred and five feet to the mirror reflection of the torch. But geologically that would be challenging. The earth here in the harbor was soft and lacking in a suitable foundation for carving out tunnels or chambers. But with modern technology it wasn’t out of the question. Maybe somewhere in the old Fort Wood there had been a vault, a storage area beneath the earth, something that could have been expanded. A shaft drilled and reinforced.
He leaned against the railing as the ferry rocked with a wave. A rumble of thunder groaned over the chatter of tourists, some of them now retreating into the safety of the ferry, not wanting to brave an imminent downpour.
But Caleb pushed through. He was distracted, his mind swimming with alternatives.
He had to get inside the pedestal, find someplace quiet. Some place of inspiration where he could finish the viewing, peer deeper and focus his vision. Too many competing possibilities. He had to narrow them down.
Pushing through the jarring, smelly tourists, past the Asian family gamely trying to get out, he made it down the ramp and through the crowd sheltered under the docks’ rooftop waiting area, and just as the storm let loose, perfectly timed with a huge bolt of lightning to the right of the statue, Caleb ran out into the rain, heading for the main entrance.
Halfway there, something made him pause and look back. Another ferry was coming, tossed from side to side but chugging along, rounding the bend toward the docks.
And on the second level railing, he could just make out a flash of a red windbreaker alone in a sea of dark colors. A brunette leaning over, scouring the crowd, looking for someone.
It’s her, Caleb thought, turning and running faster. He was out of time.
Nina had found him. And he was sure she hadn’t come alone.
9.
Mount Shasta
“Montross,” Phoebe whispered. “He…”
Diana nodded, blushing. “He opened my eyes. To so many things, in such a short time. And, well he promised to see me again soon. I haven’t seen him in years. But I know he had a larger mission.”
“Which,” Orlando said bitterly, “involved ripping us off and killing a lot of people—and kidnapping a kid, don’t forget that. And bringing back that Nina psycho.”
“He would never–”
“Guys.” Temple held up his hands, officiating. “Now’s not the time to debate Mr. Montross’s villainy.”
“But it is,” Phoebe insisted. “If Diana believes him, if she’s holding a torch for him or something.”
“I’m not!”
“Sounds like you are,” Phoebe snapped. “When did all this happen?”
“Six years ago.”
“Soon after he walked out on the Morpheus Initiative.” Phoebe was fuming. “He saw the danger before the team ventured under the Pharos, and he saved himself without warning the others. Then he up and went halfway across the world to help you?”
Diana looked down at her boots. “There was something he said he needed. An artifact. Something he saw in the archives. He needed me to help him get inside to find it.”
“So he used you.”
“No. Well…”
“What was this artifact?”
Diana sighed, and her eyes clouded over.
And suddenly Phoebe gasped. Her body twitched and she saw…
A lonely farmland, a rusty weathervane. A few cows grazing. A red barn in the distance. And a backhoe with its shovel in the air, releasing a torrent of dirt beside a deep hole. The earthen sides are striated with deeply hued layers.
The engine stalls, sputters and stops as a man in dirty overalls jumps out. He has an election button on his grimy t-shirt: FDR ’32. His shadow falls on the pile of dirt—and a gleaming fossilized skull. Enormous. Horned, with a wide-plated crania.
The man looks back into the hole. Bends down and peers closer at the rounded bones peeking through the earth. A ribcage.
And inside…
Something that looks like a soccer ball. Spherical
Shiny.
He jumps down, slides his fingers through the gaps between the bones. Touches the thing, brushing away the dirt and dust…
Revealing a gold surface. Thick plating. And–
–symbols.
Lettering. A script.
The farmer backs up, holding his head and wincing as if he’s suffering the sudden onslaught of a migraine…
A flash, and the same site, except black cars are parked around the backhoe and men wearing dark suits, fedoras and sunglasses are standing around the hole. Diggers wearing what look like deep sea diving gear pull up the dinosaur ribcage, intact, with that spherical object still inside. They place the orb inside an open, lead-lined chest, slam and lock the cover. Money changes hands and the farmer signs some multi-paged document, then stands there, mute as the cars all drive away and he’s left with a deep hole and a fistful of money.
“Oh my god.” Phoebe had her hands on the table’s edge, trying to steady herself. “I saw it… was that real?”
“What?” asked Orlando.
Diana leaned in. “What did you see? The archives at the Smithsonian where Xavier found the item?”
Phoebe glanced up. “The Smithsonian? No, but… the men I saw at the farm, in black suits and cars with matching paint jobs…”
“The farm,” Diana whispered. “Wyoming. In 1931 a cattle farmer dug up a fossilized Triceratops, with something in its belly that should not—could not—have been there. An artificial object inside the gut of a sixty million year old dinosaur.”
“So,” Orlando said, “your old employer hushed it up. Like I’ve heard they did with a lot of stuff they found in America, things of obvious European, Asian and even Egyptian origin. Things that didn’t fit with conventional theories.”
“At the time, I convinced myself it was a hoax. That the Smithsonian hushed it up because there was no other logical assumption, other than that the farmer himself—or someone close to him—found the bones, then fabricated this sphere, put it inside, then reburied it to be discovered later.”
“But now you don’t think so,” Orlando said.
“Not after everything else I found in those restricted archives. After researching literally thousands of other anomalies that never made the light of day because conventional scientists—whose duty should have been to objectively analyze all the data before making conclusions—instead buried or simply destroyed evidence that didn’t corroborate existing theories of man’s comparatively recent evolution. Or the Diffusion Hypothesis. Or the belief that Sumer was the first main civilization, or that the Americas were only populated by savages who had traveled across the Siberian Ice Bridge ten thousand years ago.”
She took a breath. “While I had access to the secret archives in the Smithsonian, I catalogued thousands of man-made artifacts discovered in geological layers indicating great antiquity. Skulls and bones indicating that modern humans had coexisted alongside lesser developed species that we supposedly evolved from. Coexisted even with dinosaurs…”