There was barely enough left of Hazelhurst to identify him as a human being….
What could have done this to him?
“If you’re not an archaeologist, Mr. McCracken,” Melissa said without turning from the screen as he approached, “just what is it that has brought you out here?”
“It’s a little difficult to explain.”
She swung toward him. “It seems everything about you is a little difficult to explain. Let me hazard a guess, though. The way you’re built, the way you move, you must be some sort of soldier or mercenary.”
“Was. Not anymore.”
“But I’m close. Your hands are callused and that climb down the ladder didn’t even get you red in the face.”
“I guess I’m still a soldier, just not in anyone’s army except my own. I choose my own wars or—”
“Like this one?”
“You didn’t let me finish. Or sometimes they choose me. Like this one.”
Melissa Hazelhurst looked up into the big man’s black eyes and noticed the scar running through his left eyebrow for the first time. Though she couldn’t have said why, he frightened her at the same time as she found his presence comforting.
“Let me give this to you in a nutshell, Ms. Hazelhurst—”
“Call me Melissa, please.”
“Melissa. I took the place of a certain Arab agent at a shop in San Francisco. That’s where I came into possession of the map. After fending off a rather concerted attempt to remove it from my person, I flew over here and followed it to this dig.”
“A concerted attempt … That’s what you call that trail of bodies you said you left behind?”
“Everything’s relative.”
“What about this Arab agent? What’s his role in all this?”
“He thought the map would lead him to the ultimate weapon, something that would help his people settle their scores once and for all.”
Melissa’s face instantly paled. “Oh my God …”
Blaine fixed his stare briefly on the opening in the ground ten feet away.
“Was he right, Melissa?”
She swung back toward the screen, fleeing from the answer. Blaine watched her back arch as he continued to speak.
“Keep something in mind. There’s another party extremely interested in that map: the ones represented by those who tried to kill me as soon as I came into possession of it. Makes me think they’ve already got one of their own. Makes me think they don’t want anyone else joining the party.”
Melissa looked at him again. “Do you think they were the ones who killed Winchester?”
“Could be.” He hesitated. “What is this place, Melissa?”
“I … can’t tell you.”
His eyes went to the monitor screen. “Show me, then. Let me see for myself.”
“What’s it like spending your life helping people, Mr. McCracken?”
“Blaine.”
“Blaine.”
McCracken had sat down on the stool with the monitor’s remote control in his hand. He shrugged noncommittally.
“I think sometimes I do them more harm by trying.”
Melissa tried for a smile. “Not possible this time.” She eased the headphones over his ears. “We’ll run the whole thing in regular motion. It’s not very long.”
Blaine pressed PLAY and glued his eyes to the small screen. With dusk approaching, the contrast was better, but there still wasn’t much that could be made out clearly. A few times he stopped the tape and watched the portions again in slow motion. The last stretch, though, he watched frozen without expression, turning the machine off as soon as the screams were finished.
Behind him, Melissa was cringing as she lived the sights and sounds yet again.
“You saw this as it happened?” he posed.
“Yes.”
“He went on even after he saw the remains of Winchester’s killers at the bottom of those stairs.”
“My father thought he was beyond such a thing happening to him, especially inside a dig. It was like, well, it was like his home down there.”
“In the U.S. more people die at home than are murdered every year.”
Melissa swallowed hard. “My father was always cautious, almost plodding. As soon as he saw the bodies, he should have come back up. I told him to, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“I heard.”
Melissa stood at his side rigidly, staring straight ahead. McCracken angled his head to watch her.
“I’m going down there tomorrow morning,” she insisted flatly. “I’m going to seal the chamber where he was killed.”
“Before you know what lies beyond it?”
“That’s the thing, Blaine. I do know what lies behind it. I didn’t believe it before, but now I—”
“Sayin Hazelhurst!” Kamir’s shout from the rim above threw a shudder through both of them. “Sayin Hazelhurst!”
She moved out from the canopy and looked up at him. “Yes, Kamir.”
“You must come up here. Come quickly. Please!”
“Why? What is it?”
“Hurry, Sayin Hazelhurst. You must see for yourself.”
Chapter 12
The tires on all three vehicles, including McCracken’s jeep, had been slashed.
“Two more of the men are missing, Sayin Hazelhurst,” Kamir reported. “It must have been them.”
Melissa looked at Blaine. “Somebody wants to keep us from leaving.”
“Because they think you’ve seen too much,” he confirmed, “and they don’t want you spreading the word.”
“Me? What about you?” Melissa gazed down at the shredded tires. “They could have done this because of you, then. They could have followed you here and—”
“Nope,” Blaine interrupted. “Whoever did this was planted in the replacement work team your foreman hired in Izmir long before I showed up. Your father’s death and my appearance on the scene just speeded things along a bit. But relax, Melissa. The plant doesn’t necessarily know who I am.”
“And that’s supposed to help?”
“Oh yeah.”
Blaine knew the enemy would come at night, when the mounded dirt and debris pulled from the nearby excavation would make for decent camouflage, and he spent the last hour until dusk preparing for it. They had seven rifles left for six men, not including himself and Melissa. McCracken let Kamir keep the only fully automatic one and watched Melissa grab the semiautomatic A-2 for herself, handling it nimbly.
“You take a firearms course back at archaeology school?”
“These days it’s a required part of the curriculum,” she told him. “Word spreads of an especially good find and the vultures circle. More than one team recently has been ravaged by greed.”
“Wish our problems were that simple.”
The rest of their arsenal was composed of M-2 carbines dating back nearly forty years. He redistributed them among the five remaining workmen and gave Kamir instructions on exactly where the men should be placed. For his own part, Blaine was more than happy with his SIG-Sauer 9mm pistol. Sixteen shots plus one in the chamber and four spare clips.
As night fell their camp stood ready. Melissa crouched next to McCracken behind a mound of earth.
“How long?” she asked him.
“Oh, not long now.”
“How can you be so damn calm?”