Chapter 35
If the two Americans thought the climb to the mountain summit was grueling, digging up the enormous stone was the cherry on top. The slab had to weigh a couple of tons. There was no telling how long it had been there, not without some of the standard equipment Tommy usually brought on a dig.
Research suggested that some Aboriginal settlements had been established in Australia as long as forty thousand years ago. While Tommy wasn't sure if the dating was correct, there was no question the Aborigines were some of the earliest people to roam the earth. Now they were looking at a stone that by all rights had been put there at the dawn of human civilization.
Unfortunately for the three companions, digging away the dirt and rock from such a long time ago took an incredible amount of effort. Two hours in, they'd only managed to dig a foot-deep ditch around the slab.
They stopped to take a break for a couple of minutes and get a quick drink. Jack wasn't stupid. He knew enough to know that thirsty workers were slow workers. So he'd allowed regular hydration breaks for his prisoners to make sure they'd keep going at a steady pace.
The blazing summer sun was high in the sky when the men reached the two-foot mark. Tommy's shirt was almost completely soaked from sweat. Sean and Reece, too, were covered in perspiration. Sean's hands and fingers were dotted with blisters from working with the wooden-handled tools. Years of working as a field agent and then as head of IAA security had kept him from doing his fair share of manual labor. As a result, the skin on his hands grew soft over time. Now he was paying the price. Every motion with the shovel or the pick resulted in a painful sting.
Late in the afternoon, the prisoners were exhausted. They'd had no food and barely enough water to keep them safe from heatstroke. Jack and his guards had been content to sit in the shade the entire time, keeping a careful watch on the men doing the digging. Of course, the overseers had plenty of food and water. They flaunted it, carelessly splashing water on the ground and dropping crumbs all over the place.
"Look at them," Tommy grumbled. "Sitting over there in the shade, eating that food right in front of us." He nearly drooled even though the food was just a bunch of granola bars. "I don't suppose you have any ideas?"
Sean focused on the earth at his feet. "At the moment, there isn't much we can do."
"You're like the king of getting out of these kinds of situations, man. Surely you can think of something."
"Sorry, buddy. Sometimes even the best need a little luck."
"I don't think being here is going to bring any of us good luck," Reece said. "We're on sacred land. And we're digging up something that is probably the most sacred thing in the world to the Aborigines. None of that bodes well for us. If there are ancestral spirits around here, they'll not be happy."
"Pretty sure there's no such thing as ancestral spirits," Tommy said as he wiped his forehead. He'd stopped sweating profusely three hours ago when dehydration started setting in.
"Believe what you want, mate. There's a reason Aborigine land goes untouched by the rest of civilization."
Jack stood up from where he was sitting on a small boulder and strode toward the three diggers. "Less talk and more digging, gents. It'll be getting dark here in a few hours. I'd like to have Mr. Holmes's prize before then."
"Maybe you could get down here and dig a few minutes then," Tommy muttered.
"What was that?"
"I said we need more water and maybe something to eat, then."
Jack was holding a packet with a half-eaten granola bar and another full one. "I suppose you do need to eat. You'll probably work faster. Here you go." He took the two bars and tossed them into the dirt at Tommy's feet. "Eat up, and then get back to digging."
Tommy eagerly grabbed the granola from the ground like he'd been tossed a filet mignon. He held the half bar out to Reece, who gratefully accepted and nearly put the entire thing in his mouth at once. Tommy broke the other bar in half and offered it to Sean.
"Here, man. You need to eat."
Sean shook his head. "Not hungry," he said and kept digging.
"You have to be hungry. We haven't had anything to eat all day."
Sean stayed focused on his task. "Go ahead," he said. "Eat it. You're probably starving."
Tommy stared at his friend for a minute, thinking Sean might change his mind. He never did.
While Tommy ate the granola bar, Sean took another swing with his mattock and pulled back the dirt just as he'd done for the majority of the day. He repeated the process once more and froze. He blinked several times to make sure he wasn't seeing things. It was no hallucination.
The giant stone slab was around two feet thick. Sean had reached the dirt beneath the rock almost half an hour before, but that was at the other end of the side he was working. Standing in the center, he could see a gap between the slab and the dirt below.
He swallowed, though nothing but dry air went down his throat. Sean leaned over and gripped the mattock closer to the head. He rode the wave of renewed energy coursing through his body and chipped away vigorously at the dirt. It fell away more easily now, and in minutes he'd opened up a gaping hole nearly two feet across and about that deep.
Tommy finished his granola bar while watching his friend. "You okay?" he asked.
"I think I found it."
Tommy dragged his shovel around to the other side where Sean was working. Reece stopped what he was doing and looked into the cavity.
Jack had walked back to his boulder to sit down. At first he didn't notice the prisoners' being distracted. Seeing the three men staring down at the slab, however, caused renewed irritation to rise up inside him.
"What are you three doing? I said to get back to work." He'd just sat down, so getting back up added to his frustration.
"We found something," Sean said. He let the mattock fall to the ground next to his feet.
Jack twisted his head to the side, suspicious it might be a trick. He stepped back toward the rock and motioned for the three prisoners to move away, waving his pistol in the direction he wanted. "Step back." He turned to three of his guards and ordered them to keep a close eye on the captives.
Sean and the others climbed out of their trench and moved into the clear so Jack could get in and have a closer look.
He hopped down into the ditch, bracing himself with one hand atop the stone. He leaned down and looked into the hole, shining a light from his cell phone inside. "There's a stone box in here," he said, brimming with excitement.
Jack grabbed the mattock lying next to him and pulled more dirt away from the opening until there was enough room to belly crawl inside.
The guards and the three prisoners watched as Jack wiggled into the hole to the point where only his legs from the knees down were visible.
"I see something," he said. There was no containing the man's excitement. Reece's eyes were hollow as he stared into the opening. Tommy had a similar expression.
Sean, however, was keeping an eye on the forest. He'd heard something. It was subtle — some leaves rustling, a twig snapping. None of the guards noticed. The trees were so dense, it was difficult to see between the seemingly endless rows.
There, he thought. Something moved. Or was he hallucinating? His stomach ached, and his mouth felt like it was full of chalk. It was possible his mind was playing tricks on him. That sort of thing happened all the time to people stranded in the desert. They thought they saw oases with shade and water. In this case, Sean was seeing what he wanted to see. But it was a ghost, a figment of his imagination. Or was it?