As soon as the 737 left the runway, the attendant bent down and spoke into a microphone clipped onto his parka near the hood.
“They’re away,” was all he said.
“Acknowledged,” Hanley answered.
SINCE HIS CONVERSATION with Hanley, Cabrillo had been steering the Thiokol uphill for nearly an hour. He stopped, fastened his parka tight, and climbed out. Adjusting the lights so he could scan the mountain, he walked around to the front to knock ice from the grille. He was just about ready to climb back inside when he heard a thumping sound in the distance. Reaching into the cab, he twisted the key and shut the Thiokol’s engine off. Then he listened again.
The noise floated on the wind, ebbing and flowing like the tide. Finally, Cabrillo identified the sound, and he climbed back inside the snowcat and reached for the telephone.
“Max,” he said quickly, “I hear a helicopter approaching. Did you send someone out?”
“No, boss,” Hanley said. “We’re still working on that.”
“Can you find out what’s going on?”
“I’ll try to link onto a DOD satellite and figure out who it is, but it might take fifteen to twenty minutes.”
“I’d like to know who’s crashing my party,” Cabrillo said.
“One thing we found out is that there’s an unmanned U.S. Air Force radar site nearby,” Hanley said. “Maybe the antennas are still being used and the Air Force is flying someone there for repairs or whatever.”
“You find out for me,” Cabrillo said as he twisted the key and started the engine. “I think I’m almost at the cave.”
“Will do,” Hanley said.
USING A SLED to pack down the snow and a dozen packets of Kool-Aid, Ackerman had managed to create a nice landing spot marked with an X on a small mesa only seventy yards from the lower opening of the cave. He stared at the spot with pride. The helicopter should be able to land without the rotor blade striking the mountain. It was precarious, but it was the best he could do on the side of a mountain.
He retreated back into the mouth of the cave and waited as the helicopter approached the landing pad then hovered and set down. The rotor blade slowed, then stopped, and a man climbed from the passenger side.
CABRILLO HEARD THE helicopter land through his open window, but through the snow and darkness he had not been able to see it touch down. He was close—he could sense that. He attached nylon gaiters around his down-filled pants and removed a pair of snowshoes from the rear bed. Sliding his boots into the bindings, he fastened them tight. Then he reached in back and removed the cardboard box holding the decoy that Nixon had made.
Now all he had to do was slip into the cave undetected and make the switch.
“THE BOSS SENT me,” Hughes said to Ackerman after climbing up the hill to the mouth of the cave, “to check out your find.”
Ackerman smiled proudly. “She’s a peach,” he said, “possibly the most important archaeological find of this century.”
“So I hear,” Hughes said, edging farther into the cave. “And he sent me to make sure you get what you deserve.”
Ackerman grabbed an already lit lantern and started to lead Hughes down the passage.
“So you’re in public relations?”
“That and other duties,” Hughes said, stopping at the opening in the ceiling. A few days ago Ackerman had brought a wooden ladder from inside the upper cave and dropped it down the hole. It made going between the two shafts a lot easier.
“We’ll climb up and I’ll give you the grand tour,” Ackerman said.
The two men climbed the ladder into the upper cave.
Hughes played along as Ackerman rattled off what he had found, but truly there was only one thing he’d come for. And as soon as he had that, he was leaving.
CABRILLO TRAIPSED AROUND the side of the mountain until he came upon a spot of melted snow. Bending over, he could see that there was a small opening in the mountainside marked by rocks lying in the snow, as if they had been tossed out from inside the mountain. Warm air from inside the mountain was filtering out, melting the snow around the opening. Clearing away enough of the debris so that he could climb inside, he slid through the opening into the upper cave, then dragged the cardboard box inside.
Once he was through the opening, he found he could stand.
He walked down the shaft to see where it went.
EVEN WITH A heart of stone, Hughes was finding the cave and its inner sanctum impressive. Ackerman was standing alongside the meteorite on its altar with his arm outstretched like a prize lady on a game show.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Ackerman gushed.
Hughes nodded then removed a portable Geiger counter from his pocket. Flicking it on, he scanned the meteorite. The readings were off the scale. A couple of hours of exposure and he’d quickly start to suffer from radiation poisoning. He realized he’d need to shield it carefully for the trip back to Kangerlussuaq.
“You spent much time close to this?” Hughes asked Ackerman.
“I’ve examined it from every angle,” Ackerman told him.
“Have you been feeling poorly? Noticed any physical changes in yourself lately?”
“I’ve been having nosebleeds,” Ackerman said. “I figured it was just the dry air.”
“I think you have radiation sickness,” Hughes said. “I’m going to need to go back to the helicopter and get something to shield this.”
CABRILLO HURRIED DOWN the shaft toward the sound of the voices. Hiding behind a rock, he listened to the two men.
“I’m going to need to go back to the helicopter and get something to shield this,” one said. He listened as the
