There was a pinch, an injection of diazepam, and Caitlin stopped struggling almost at once.
“Goddammm,” she slurred. “Please! No! Must… get… back…”
And then she slept.
PART TWO
CHAPTER 9
Mikel Jasso couldn’t believe his good fortune—or his bad luck.
Casey Skett, master of dead things, apparently knew people better than Mikel did. It was too early to say how any of this would turn out but, against the odds, the archaeologist had gotten more than he asked for. Indeed, now that Mikel thought of it, Skett was more artful and clever than any of them: he had fooled Flora Davies for years. That took skill.
As he and Dr. Cummins made their way through the station to where the truck was parked, the scientist was busy checking the latest images of drifts and ice cracking along the proposed route to the pit.
“The fractures don’t seem to have made it this far,” she said. “Readings from our remote automated systems say the heat has quite receded.”
“It’s fickle,” he said.
“You talk as if it has consciousness,” Dr. Cummins remarked. “Does it, Dr. Jasso?”
“Thoughtful fire? What would Dr. Bundy say to that,” he answered without answering.
Dr. Cummins hmmmed as they walked on in silence.
Mikel was peering ahead, through the alternating light and dark of the interconnected modules, his mind back on Skett… and Flora. He was not sure how he even felt anymore about Flora and the Group. He did not believe it was incumbent on any employer to keep employees informed on the inner workings of the firm. Either you trusted your superior or you did not.
But this withholding… that’s a big one, he thought.
Mikel had trusted Flora and now he did not, and he wasn’t sure where that left him. If she didn’t know everything about the Group’s past, she had to have known—and withheld—at least some vital information about why they were seeking Galderkhaani artifacts. That was a dangerous secret to keep from agents in the field. Mikel and the handful of others should have been given the option of whether to risk their lives to obtain and turn over such powerful tools for something other than pure research.
What was more troubling was that he couldn’t even be sure she was not playing Casey Skett or both of them playing him. Bad cop, worse cop.
Nonetheless, he had no choice but to let this play out as Skett had laid things out. At the very least, Mikel told himself, he would learn more about the power of the stones.
The truck assigned to Dr. Cummins was a Toyota Tacoma. It sat hefty and fat on the ice just outside the exit of the central red module.
“I was hoping for a dozer,” Dr. Cummins said. “The treads are good for getting over small crevasses, the plow for filling them in.”
“Maybe Dr. Bundy doesn’t want us to get where we’re going,” Mikel suggested.
The woman shook her head as she pulled on a wool cap then tugged her parka over it. “He’s a snob, and gruff, but he’s devoted to science and learning and, believe it or not, to this evolving mission.”
Mikel would have to take her word for that. He found it appropriate that while he had lost faith in one woman, he did not hesitate to trust the judgment of another. That was the bequest of his grandmother in Pamplona, a borderline mystic who knew her Bible inside out and also read everything she could find about obscure religions, talked to every priest she ever met, bounced new ideas, strange ideas, off her only grandson. Her interest in the arcane was what spurred his own fascination with ancient civilizations and set him on his career path. Even if his father hadn’t been in prison for armed robbery, Mikel couldn’t have had a more compelling and substantial role model.
The truck had been refitted for driving across the uneven Antarctic terrain. Resting atop forty-four-inch wheels with thick axles to absorb the rugged thumps and dips, the truck had an indomitable suspension system, side skids to prevent the truck from rolling over into a crevasse or sudden break in the ice, thirty-two gears for shifting out of almost any landscape, and a reinforced passenger cabin to protect the occupants against unlikely falls and landslides. There were also forward and rear winches, solar panels to supplement the 2,200-liter fuel tank, several additional tanks of gas, and a powerful V6 engine. On the roof rack were two insulated cases. One was filled with bottled water, oxygen, first-aid supplies, and battery-powered heaters. The other carried shovels, axes, ropes, pitons, blankets, flashlights, flares, spare clothing, and other gear.
No one had bothered to unload the truck from the last move; station personnel were still busy restoring communications and restarting the electrical systems that had been shut down during the unexpected transit. Dr. Cummins brought along a backpack filled with extra water and snacks; as soon as the vehicle was fueled, it was ready to go. Siem was busy taking care of that from a tank that was still attached to the skis that had been used to haul it here. He waved as the two scientists boarded.
The truck’s solar panel had been left on and the inside was warm when the occupants settled in. The parkas, gloves, and scarves came off immediately. Though the gear had been needed for the fifteen-foot trek to the Tacoma, their skin would heat very quickly inside the truck. They didn’t want to perspire, since sweat would heat and chill their flesh to dangerous extremes.
Dr. Cummins raised her sun goggles just long enough to poke on the GPS. The coordinates had been entered from inside the radio room; the truck could practically drive itself. Before they got underway, the scientist looked at Mikel through her dark-tinted goggles.
“You are preoccupied,” she said. “With the mission?”
He nodded unpersuasively.
“But also by something else.”
He nodded again. “Political stuff at the nonprofit where I work,” he told her.
“Ah ha,” Dr. Cummins replied. “You know, Dr. Jasso, it’s dangerous out there—”
“I’m focused, Dr. Cummins. Believe that. I won’t do anything to jeopardize this mission.”
“I’m glad of that,” she said. “However, there’s one more thing. How to put this?” She stopped everything for a moment and looked at Mikel. “As I indicated back there, I’ve been on many, many expeditions with fellow scientists. All ages, all nationalities, all kinds of temperaments, all kinds of agendas. I know when not to press a colleague for information. Many of them—and you too, I believe—are often uncertain about what they are about to undertake. They might be concerned about a vague goal, worried about censure for a radical idea, afraid because they flat-out lied to get funding, said they knew more than they did. That’s Fieldwork 101. So all I’m going to ask is this: Which of those has caused you to clam up?”
She put a little extra burr on the last two words so they came out “clahm oop” and added a touch of levity to a serious question. Mikel smiled a little, then exhaled and stared out the window at the jagged expanse that headed to a rolling horizon.
“All of the above?” she prompted.
“That’s a very fair analysis,” he admitted. He looked back at the weathered but compassionate face. “Dr. Cummins, I don’t like clamming up. I don’t learn anything when I can’t share. So now that we’re alone—we are, aren’t we?”
“No hidden mics or open lines,” she assured him.
He nodded once. “Here’s what I can say with certainty. I have spent my professional life studying a human civilization that, as I began to tell you, thrived approximately thirty or forty thousand years ago,” he said. “But it’s possibly older than that. Much older, if they went through an evolution similar to our own.” He shrugged. “Even that may not be the case. I know absolutely nothing of their origins.”