Sacred Stone

peak is Humphries—it’s over twelve thousand feet.”

“This was not what I expected,” Dwyer admitted.

“Most people,” the pilot said, “say the same thing.”

The pilot had been a little reticent since first meeting Dwyer two hours ago in Phoenix. Dwyer couldn’t blame him—he was certain that the higher-ups in charge of Arizona’s homeland security had told the pilot nothing about Dwyer’s position or the purpose of the trip. Most people preferred to have at least a vague idea of their mission.

“We’re flying to the crater so I can remove some rock samples,” Dwyer said, “to take to a lab for testing.”

“That’s all?” the pilot said, visibly relaxing.

“Yep,” Dwyer answered.

“Sweet,” the pilot said, “because you can’t believe some of the assignments I’ve had lately. I almost hate to come to work some days.”

“I’ll bet.”

“I’ve ended my shift in a chemical detox shower more than once,” the pilot said, “not my idea of a good day at the office.”

“This should be a piece of cake,” Dwyer assured him.

The revelation loosened the pilot’s jaw and he gave Dwyer a nonstop travelogue of the sights they were passing for the remainder of the flight. Twenty minutes later he pointed forward through the windshield. “There she is.”

The meteor crater was a massive pockmark on the dusty terrain. Upon seeing the sight from the air, it was not difficult to imagine the force that would have been required to make such a deep penetration of the earth’s crust. It was like a giant had taken a huge ball-peen hammer and whacked the earth. The dust clouds after the impact must have been visible for months afterward. The edge of the crater, a pie-crust-like circle, loomed ahead.

“Which side, sir?” the pilot asked.

Dwyer scanned the ground. “There,” he said, “near that white pickup.”

The pilot slowed the Sikorsky, then hovered and sat her down smoothly.

“I was ordered to remain aboard,” the pilot said, “and monitor the radio traffic.”

After the pilot had gone through his shutdown procedure and the rotor blade had stopped, Dwyer climbed out and walked over to a man in a cowboy hat and boots standing off to the side. The man extended his hand, and Dwyer shook it firmly.

“Thanks for agreeing to help,” Dwyer said.

“Shoot,” the man said, “you don’t turn down a request from the President of the United States. I’m glad to be able to help.”

The man walked back to his pickup, reached into the bed and removed a few hand tools and a bucket, then handed Dwyer a shovel. Then he pointed over to the rim.

“I think what you’re looking for is right over there.”

Climbing over the ridge of spoil that rimmed the crater, the two men headed down the side twenty yards. The temperature grew hotter as they descended.

The man in the cowboy hat stopped. “This is the far edge of the crater,” he noted, wiping his brow with a bandana. “It’s always yielded the biggest chunks for me.”

Dwyer glanced around, located a likely spot, and began digging with the shovel.

AT THE SAME time that Dwyer started digging in Arizona, on the Oregon, in the sea off of Iceland, it was decidedly colder. Belowdecks in his office, Michael Halpert was staring at a printout from his computer. Halpert had been hard at work for hours, and his eyes were burning from staring at the computer screen. Punching commands into the keyboard, Halpert brought up the mission file and stared at Cabrillo’s notes again.

Glancing at the printout again, he gathered his notes and walked to the control room.

“Richard,” Hanley was saying as Halpert walked into the room, “have the Gulfstream fueled and ready. I’ll call you as soon as we need you.”

Hanging up the phone, Hanley turned to Halpert. “I take it you found something?”

Halpert handed Hanley the document and he read it quickly. “It might be significant,” Hanley said slowly, “and it might not. That is a large sum that Hickman donated to the university, but he might have a habit of bequests like that.”

“I checked,” Halpert said, “he does. And they are all archaeologically based.”

“Interesting,” Hanley said.

“Plus what the archaeologist said when he was dying,” Halpert added, “he bought and paid for the university.”

“I see what you’re getting at,” Hanley said, “plus, I thought it odd that Ackerman e-mailed Hickman first. He never even bothered to contact his department head with news of the find.”

“Maybe Hickman and Ackerman put that together,” Halpert said, “so Ackerman could be sure he grabbed the glory if anything was found—not his boss at the university.”

“That doesn’t explain how Hickman could be sure Ackerman would even find something,” Hanley said, “or the chance that it would turn out to be a meteorite that was composed of iridium.”

“Maybe Hickman’s involvement was altruistic at the beginning,” Halpert said slowly. “Ackerman makes his pitch