the design, moving them around until all three fit snugly. Nothing happened.
One of the mercenaries commented, “No magic,” he said, making a whooshing sound as he finished.
“We’re not looking for magic,” Kaufman said, aggravated.
“Still,” Lang noted. “We are one short.”
“Yes,” Kaufman said, remembering that the NRI had dissected one of the crystals. There were five slots but only four complete crystals. “Although, I don’t think it matters here,” he said, looking at Lang. “This isn’t anything, is it?”
Lang shook his head. “I don’t see any way this could generate energy. The girl’s right: this is just art. Ancient, primitive art.”
Kaufman looked around. “Yes,” he said. “Just art. Like any church, the shiny things go up front, but the real truths are kept hidden in a vault somewhere.”
Lang nodded. “Why don’t we get the ultrasound equipment in here and see what we can uncover?”
Kaufman didn’t respond. He was staring at the design on the altar. “Do you see a tree here?” he asked.
Lang studied the markings once again. “Yeah, I guess I can. Like the girl said, ‘the path connecting the three zones of existence.’”
“What about a tunnel?” Kaufman asked. “The crystal goes between the lines. That suggests a hollow structure to me. A hollow tree is a tunnel.” He looked over the edge and into the pit. “Or perhaps a well.”
Lang glanced at Kaufman, then at the design, and the well beyond the altar. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Let me get the ultrasound done first.”
Several minutes later, while Lang readied the equipment for the ultrasound, Kaufman had his other mercenaries begin to move the stone that still blocked half the entrance. He wanted more space to get things in, and was certain they would need the space to bring out what he expected to find. But his men failed to use the caution that the NRI team had shown and the granite slab cracked deeply along a pre-existing fissure. After quick words and a cursory exam, another attempt to move it proved too much and the stone cracked in half, with much of its bulk crashing through the opening and onto the stairs below, where it shattered into rubble.
Kaufman looked at the mess. “Clear it up,” he said with disgust.
The mercenaries sprung into action, dropping their equipment and beginning a cleanup job on the stairs.
“That’s good work,” Lang said, pointing to the mess. “You pay them extra for that?”
Kaufman thought of it philosophically. “Not their finest moment, but if we couldn’t move it we would have had to break it anyway.”
CHAPTER 28
The machine was quiet now, still and dark. It had come blasting through the trees like a missile, only to be swallowed up by the rainforest’s living depth. But despite the boasts of the NOTAR’s pilot, the Huey hadn’t exploded or burned. In fact, an hour after the crash, most of its fuel had drained harmlessly into the ground.
After a brief moment of unconsciousness, Hawker had woken and managed to extricate himself and Polaski from the wreckage. He’d carried Polaski’s inert form to a fallen tree twenty yards away, where a rag soaked in cold water had helped him come to.
In obvious pain, Polaski mumbled incoherently, his eyes half-open.
“Cold,” he said. “So cold …”
Hawker covered Polaski with his jacket and the Mylar blanket from the survival kit, but the man continued to shiver.
Polaski was in grave condition. A wound to his head had swollen badly. Several ribs seemed to be broken and small amounts of bloody bubbles were dribbling from his mouth, enough to tell Hawker that he was bleeding internally.
“Help me,” he said, looking past Hawker. “Please … my daughter.”
A surgeon with a sterile operating room might have been able to save Polaski, but there was little Hawker could do except watch him die.
“You’re going to be all right,” he said, lying. “You’re both going to be all right. Just try to be calm.”
“It’s so cold.”
Polaski seemed to look past Hawker for a moment, and then his eyes closed. His chest stopped moving and the bubbles were gone.
“I’m sorry,” Hawker whispered. It seemed a foolish, worthless thing to say but the words came anyway.
Feeling drowsy, Hawker rubbed the back of his neck. He guessed that he’d been unconscious for a minute or two. He might have even sustained a concussion. He couldn’t let himself go back under without taking a chance on never waking up again.
He forced himself to stand and began to walk in circles. His legs felt heavy and soft, like they were made of wet sand. He shook and stretched and flexed, trying to force some energy into his lifeless muscles.
Pain racked every part of his body. His ribs and neck ached from whiplash and the restraint of the seat belt, his hands were bruised and cut from flailing about the cockpit, half-coagulated blood oozed from a gash across his cheekbone, just beneath his right eye.
At least he was alive.
He looked down at Polaski. There had been a moment when he considered the possibility that Polaski was a mole. The guy was a volunteer who worked the communications system; he was polite and quiet, never drawing attention to himself, exactly the way a mole is supposed to act. But that assessment had been wrong. Polaski was just a kind, mild man who’d wanted to add a little adventure to his life. He’d joined the expedition not knowing the danger he was in, because Danielle and Moore
Hawker pulled a collapsible shovel from his survival pack and assembled it. With a push from his boot, he forced it into the soil, turned it over and raised the shovel up for another strike. As he began to dig, his heartbeat rose and the fog in his mind receded bit by bit. Thoughts began jumping around, jumbled and confused at first, like images trying to find their correct spot.
The attack and its aftermath seemed clearer, but it left him wondering who had done it and why.
It had to be the same people who attacked Danielle and him at the harbor, but no contact of his had been able to dig up any information on them. That meant heavy hands were in the mix somewhere, keeping a lid on the truth.
With no way of determining who had attacked them, he focused on why.
Obviously, they wanted whatever Danielle and the NRI were after, but what that was he still didn’t know. It had to be related to the temple. His first thought was the artifacts they’d been uncovering and preserving.
McCarter had warned them that the trade in ancient artifacts was a fairly profitable enterprise, rife with theft, smuggling and a thriving black market. But how much could such things really be worth? Thousands? Tens of thousands, maybe. Not enough for what he’d seen. A knife in the back, perhaps, or a couple of leg-breakers in a dark alley, but not a purpose-built weapons platform like the NOTAR. The gun pods alone would run a million dollars.
What, then? Diamonds? Gold? Could they really be after something so base? He jammed the shovel downward again. It didn’t make sense. The NRI was a strategic organization. They would only be here after something important on a political or worldly level. And the only thing that still generated that type of need was oil.
While the price of a barrel continued to fluctuate, it escaped no one that the Middle East was just a few bombs from utter chaos. A big strike in a friendly, democratic nation would be welcome. And at times sulfur could be a geologic clue to oil deposits, but for all the criteria that particular guess happened to fit, it was still a square peg in a round hole.
To begin with, the Brazilians didn’t need the NRI to find their oil for them, and the NRI certainly couldn’t pump it out in secret if they did. For that matter, nor could any adversary. So what would be the point?
No, he decided, this was not a race to stake some kind of claim; it was a burglary, a smash-and-grab job. Two thieves fighting over the jewels in someone else’s house. Whatever the two groups were after, it would be
