Still, he knew his place, knew the darker history of his family, of its ties to the True Bloodline. He fingered the back of his head, where, hidden under a drape of hair, there was a freshly shaved spot, still tender from a recently drawn tattoo. It inked his family’s role — his pledge — to that black heritage.
Rafe lowered his hands, staring out. He also knew how to take orders. He had been summoned here, given specific instructions, reminded of the cold trail of history that had led to this moment. It was his chance to truly make a mark in this world, to prove himself and bring untold riches and honor to his family.
As the helicopter door closed behind him, he caught his reflection in the glass. With his black hair cut rakishly long and his fine aristocratic features darkened by a perpetual shadow of beard, some considered him handsome. He’d certainly had his share of women.
Even the strong arms that assisted him out of the helipad belonged to a member of the fairer sex — though few would call his caretaker “fair.” Fearsome would be the better term for her. He allowed himself a shadow of a smile. He would share this observation with her later.
“Merci, Ashanda,” he said as she let go of his arm.
One of his men came forward with his cane. He took it and leaned on it, waiting for the rest of his team to offload.
Ashanda stood stolidly at his side. More than six feet tall and with skin as black as shadows, she was both nurse and bodyguard, and as close a member of his family as anyone who shared the Saint Germaine bloodline. His father had found her as a child on the streets of Tunisia. She was mute, a result of having her tongue cut out; she’d been brutalized and sold for sex — until she was rescued by his father. He had killed the man who offered her to him as he passed along the street on business. After that, he stole her back to the family château outside the fortified French city of Carcassonne, where she was introduced to a boy in a wheelchair, becoming both pet and confidante to that fragile child.
A scream echoed over to Rafe. He stared across the rolling lawn to a dark mansion — on whose grounds they’d landed. He didn’t know who owned this estate, only that it was convenient to his plans. The home sat on the slope of Squaw Peak overlooking the city of Provo. He had handpicked this spot because of its proximity to Brigham Young University.
A muffled gunshot silenced the cry from the mansion.
There could be no loose ends.
His second-in-command, a German mercenary named Bern, formerly a member of the special forces of the Bundeswehr, stepped before him, dressed all in black. He was tall, blond, blue-eyed, Aryan from head to toe, a mirror image to Rafe’s darker self.
“Sir, we’re ready to proceed. We have the targets isolated in one of the campus buildings with all access points watched. We can take them on your orders.”
“Very well,” Rafe said. He despised using English, but it had become the common language among mercenaries, fittingly enough considering the crudeness and lack of true subtlety of the tongue. “But we need them alive. At least long enough to secure the gold plates. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
Rafe pointed his cane toward the campus. He pictured the girl and the older man, fleeing on horseback. While his team had been outfoxed by a clever ploy, it was only a momentary setback. From video of that hunt and by means of facial-recognition software, he’d identified the Indian on horseback. It hadn’t taken long to determine that the historian had returned to where he felt the safest, to the bosom of his university. Rafe smiled at such simplemindedness. While the pair had escaped his snare once, that would not happen again.
“Move out,” he ordered, and hobbled toward the mansion. “Bring them to me. And do not fail this time.”
“What do you mean by an Indian curse?” Painter asked.
Professor Kanosh held up a palm. “Hear me out. I know how that sounds. But we can’t dismiss the mythology surrounding that cavern. For ages, the Ute elders, those who passed shamanic knowledge from one generation to another, claimed that anyone who entered that sacred burial chamber risked bringing ruin to the world for their trespass. I’d say that’s pretty much how it unfolded.”
Kowalski made a scoffing noise deep in his throat.
The professor shrugged. “I think there must have been a kernel of truth in those old stories. A proverbial warning against removing anything from that cave. I believe that something unstable was hidden there for centuries, and our attempt to transport it out caused it to explode.”
“But what could it be?” Painter asked.
Across the table, Kai shifted in her seat. The answer to that question was plainly important to her, too.
“When Maggie and I first lifted the golden skull from its pedestal, I found it to be unusually cold, and I felt something shift inside it. I think Maggie felt it, too. I suspect something was hidden inside that totem, something valuable enough that it was sealed inside a fossilized skull.”
A corner of Kowalski’s lips curled in distaste. “Why pick a skull for that?”
The professor explained: “In many Indian gravesites, prehistoric fossils have been found buried with the dead and were clearly revered. In fact, it was an Indian who first showed the early colonists the location of rich fossil beds, where the remains of mastodons and other extinct beasts sparked the imagination of the scientists of that era. There were heated debates among the colonists, some even involving Thomas Jefferson, about whether such beasts still lived out west. So if these ancient Indians needed a vessel to secure something they considered sacred — and possibly dangerous — a prehistoric skull would not be an unexpected choice.”
“Okay,” Painter said. “Assuming you are correct, what might that be? What were they hiding?”
“I have no idea. At this point, it has yet to be determined if the mummified bodies found in the cavern are even Native Americans.”
At Painter’s side, the physics professor cleared his throat. “Hank, tell him about the carbon-14 dating of the remains.”
Painter’s gaze shifted from one professor to the other.
When Kanosh was slow to answer, Professor Denton spoke in a rush, impatient and excited. “The archaeology department dated the bodies to the early twelfth century. Well before any Europeans ever set foot in the New World.”
Painter didn’t understand the significance of this information or why Denton seemed so worked up about it. The dating simply lent credence to the fact that the bodies were Native American.
Denton reached to the table and slid the old dagger toward Painter. He remembered the physics professor gesturing with the same blade earlier.
“Take a closer look at this,” Denton said.
Painter took the knife and flipped it over in his hands. The hilt was yellowed bone, but the blade looked to be steel, with a handsome, almost watery sheen across its surface.
“The dagger was recovered from the cave,” Kanosh explained.
Painter looked up sharply.
“The local boy who escaped the chamber after the murder-suicide fled with this knife in hand. Afterward, we confiscated it from him, as it’s illegal to remove relics from an Indian burial site. But the unusual nature of the blade required further investigation.”
Painter understood. “Because Indians of that time didn’t have the technology to make steel.”
“That’s right,” Denton said, staring significantly at Kanosh. “Especially this type of steel.”