“Highlight reel?” Phoebe asked.
“NASA chick?” Orlando followed up with.
The Dove grinned. “Oh, it’ll be a hoot, believe me. I’d join you, but…”
“Right,” Orlando said. “You’d prefer not to get up.”
Making a gun out of his fingers, the Dove pointed and grinned. “You got it, Orlando Natch. And by the way, good work out there in Bamian. I took a little time off the hunt to check you guys out.”
“And thank you,” Temple said, “for your timely intelligence when we needed it.”
The Dove gave a half-hearted bow from his seat. “Now, if that’s all, gentlemen and ladies, I have some more snooping to do. And you have a lot of catching up to do if you’re going to be anything but dead weight, which I have my doubts about.”
“We’ll try not to disappoint”, Phoebe said, leaving quickly, eager to breathe the fresh air out in the hall.
“Toodles!” called the Dove as the door closed behind them.
“There,” Temple said. “That went better than expected. He can be… a little less than charming sometimes.”
“Please,” said Orlando, “tell me he wasn’t a skinny geek like me when you found him.”
“He’s actually on a diet,” Temple said, “and doing quite well at it. We saved him from an extended stint at a rehab center where his chances were not very good. Gave him purpose and now he’s actually trying.” He made a face. “Just not entirely motivated.”
He moved forward to the end of the hall, toward a gold-plated two-door exit. Smiling to his three guests, Temple opened the doors and led them into a room that gave Orlando the immediate impression of stepping into Mission Control at NASA. Two rows of tables with comfortable leather seats before a central conference table and a main wall covered with projection screens of various sizes, including one immense screen currently split into eight smaller rectangles. Different scenes were presented on each one, and Orlando recognized a view of some jungle temples in Belize, while another had a distant view of the Taj Mahal, another the Great Wall of China, one had the Pyramids, and another, Stonehenge, and another–
“The Moon. And that,” Orlando pointed to a center screen where a reddish, rocky desert image stood eerily silent. “First I thought it was the Southwest, a random desert somewhere. But I’ve seen that before, from the rover’s camera. It’s…”
“Mars,” said a new voice. A woman stood up from behind a large-screen computer monitor in the second row. She was thin and shapely, with long auburn hair and blue eyes that were haggard and weak, and yet sparking with a twinge of excitement that only came from discovery after long hours of searching. She wore jeans and a loose white t-shirt with the words: ROCK CLIMBERS DO IT HAND OVER HAND.
Nodding to Temple, she came around the table and extended her hand in greeting to the newcomers. “My name’s Diana Montgomery. And I’m…” she glanced at Temple questioningly. “Well, I’ve only been brought on two months ago, but I guess you can say I’m a consultant.”
Temple stepped inside, shutting the door behind them. “Sure, we’ll keep that title. Diana was a consultant for NASA most recently, until certain illicit behavior was discovered.”
Diana raised her hands. “Caught with my hands in the cookie jar, downloading some evidence they preferred remain classified.”
“Before that,” Temple continued, “she served as assistant to the Director of the Smithsonian.”
Diana smiled at Orlando. “Before being kindly asked to resign after I once again…”
“Got your hand caught in the cookie jar?” Phoebe supplied, pulling Orlando back a little and sending a signal at the same time.
“More like their restricted archives.”
“But not before she first found some rather interesting things,” Temple said.
“Artifacts. Certain relics that didn’t fit with the modern historical consensus. Things that made me question everything about our evolution, our discoveries and technology.” She turned and walked back to the main wall, where she eyed the scenes of Mars. “And that sent me searching for answers in the one logical place where it made the most sense. The one place,” she said, “that terrified the hell out of me.”
“Up there?” Aria asked.
Diana nodded. “I used my connections and a little blackmail, I’m not afraid to admit, to get a job as a consultant to NASA. Then worked my way into a position to gain access to material off limits to most everyone except a few higher-ups. I took what I could, and confirmed in my own mind everything, all my worst fears.”
“And then,” said Temple, trying to hurry her along. “She got caught. Or would have, if the Dove hadn’t glimpsed what she was doing. We acted quickly, scooping her up just before a team was prepared to take her out… permanently.”
Diana looked down. “And I’ve pretty much been here in exile ever since.” Her expression brightened. “But it’s not so bad. Every once in a while I get a break and can go outside and do what I really love.”
“Rock climbing?” suggested Phoebe.
Diana nodded. “Ever since I was a teenager. Me and my dad.” Her face fell. “Until he died investigating something strange at a cave in the Grand Canyon.”
Orlando gasped. “Kinkaid’s cave?”
Diana smiled. “Figured you might have heard about it.”
“I remember that,” Phoebe said. “The news conference. That was you?”
She nodded. “I broke the story. Or tried to. Later, after my resignation, the Smithsonian retracted it all and said there was a huge mistake, that items had been misclassified in the archives. Forgeries, all of them. They said that I had acted rashly without their consent, blah blah blah.”
“But you knew the truth,” Orlando said wistfully. “Egyptian artifacts in a cave, thousands of years old. In the damn Grand Canyon. That must have been an adventure, finding those!”
“Well, I had help.”
Temple grinned, looking from Phoebe back to Orlando.
“Help?” Phoebe asked.
“One of you,” Diana replied. “A remote viewer. He came to me in the desert, saved my life, and then helped me find the hidden chamber. He showed me everything, and he… we…” Her eyes turned glassy and wistful. “Well, I haven’t seen him since, but he had these drawings, and…”
“What was his name?” Phoebe asked, her mouth dry. Fearing she knew the answer already.
“Xavier,” Diana said quietly, her voice cracking with emotion. “Xavier Montross.”
7.
When the first rocks started falling, Alexander had just finished rereading his mother’s file for the second time. His head swam with scanned images, rough drawings made by the other keepers. Ancient maps that looked like the inside of anthills, crude sketches and strange symbols, a timeline with notations in his mother’s hand. He was still putting all the pieces together, trying to decide whether all this was some fanciful early myth or if it could it possibly actual history, when rubble crashed through behind him.
Chunks of stone, fused metal and pieces of glass tumbled free and slammed into a bank of shelves. Alexander jumped up, snatched the laptop and retreated to the far edge of the chamber, shrinking into a corner where a section of the wall had collapsed. He thought momentarily about throwing the laptop on the ground, picking up a sharp hunk of concrete, and bashing it in, rather than let them get its secrets too. But that file… something his mother had been working on, something Dad had never seen… And what could hold the answer to everything. He couldn’t let it go.
He had to save something from down here.
A shaft of light stabbed inside as if a giant had just poked its finger through the top of a cave and let in the sun. In the uncomfortable brilliance, Alexander could see two ropes descending, followed quickly by dark-clad men.
Surprisingly, he discovered he was experiencing relief as much as fright.
