A Treasure Deep (16 page)

“Expert?” Brent asked.

“We have a staff archeologist at Sachs
Engineering,” Perry explained. “You build in enough places and
sooner or later you’re going to dig something up that may be
important.”

“This has happened before?”

“Not like this,” Perry answered. “Not to
me.”

“So what are we going to do?” Brent
pressed.

“Jack,” Perry began. “Let’s get a cover on
this and set up some stakes and construction tape.”

“I have a tarp. I’ll stake that to the
ground.”

“Good. I’ll let you take care of that. In the
meantime, I’m going back to the motel to place a phone call.”

“What’s he wearing?” Brent asked. “It looks
like metal.”

“It’s . . .” Perry began. He looked back in
the pit. “It’s a shield. Now let’s call it a day.”

“SHIELD?” DAWES WHISPERED to himself. He adjusted the
headset that allowed him to hear the conversation being picked up
by the parabolic “spy” microphone. “This is getting weird.” He
checked the tape deck that he was using to record the conversation.
The cassette was running out of tape. He was thinking of changing
it when he heard the words, “Let’s call it a day.”

“It’s about time,” he mumbled. “This isn’t my
idea of fun.” Through the binoculars, he saw the man he had come to
know through his monitoring as Perry walking away. “If he’s calling
it a day, then so am I.”

Dawes shut off the recorder, took off the
headset, and rolled onto his back. He had been lying behind a tree
for the last four hours, and every muscle in his body ached. Bed is
going to feel good tonight, he told himself. Dinner and bed. That
was the ticket.

Tomorrow he’d give his report to the mighty
Mr. Olek and send him a bill—a big one.

JOSEPH HENRI GAVE no response when Claire dropped the
bowls of macaroni and cheese. His attention was fixed on the wide,
dull white paper stretched over the dining room table. His head
hovered above the drawing by an inch, his nose by a fraction of an
inch.

He drew another line. Claire ignored the mess
on the carpet and stepped behind her son to study the artwork.
There were two drawings, something she hadn’t noticed before.
Joseph worked diligently on the second, his thin shoulders and
large head blocking most of it from view. To his right, there was a
drawing that Claire could see clearly. It was unlike anything he
had done before. The landscape picture of green hills and oak trees
had been a departure from his usual detailed drawings of animals,
but this was beyond anything she could imagine him doing.

“What does this mean?” she asked Joseph in a
whisper. Joseph gave no indication of hearing her. He pressed the
crayon down, moving it slowly along the paper, then he set the
crayon down and rubbed the line with his finger, forcing the
colored material into the fiber of the paper. He did this anytime
he drew, regardless of the medium he was using: pencil, chalk, or
markers. The material stained his fingertips. Claire had cleaned
those fingers every night for many years.

The picture was dark, ominous, like the
foreboding image on the cover of a suspense novel. It chilled her.
More frightening than the dark hues was the setting of the image.
It was a setting she knew well; she’d been living in it for close
to a quarter of a century. She was staring at a startlingly
realistic portrayal of the place she and Joseph called home. She
could see the windows with the stygian gloom of night pressing in.
She recognized the living room furniture, the fireplace, and even
the cantilevered brass lamp that bowed on its support over the worn
leather sofa.

The front door was also easy to recognize,
but what she couldn’t identify was the dark figure just inside the
opening. Joseph had drawn the image in silhouette black,
featureless, like a ghost draped in black satin. Something was in
the specter’s hand. The object seemed small and lacked sufficient
detail to be identified.

A frigid uneasiness swept over Claire. Not
wanting to do so, but feeling compelled by a curiosity stronger
then her fear, she placed a hand on Joseph’s shoulder and gently
pulled back. She had to see the next picture.

The doorbell rang. Claire jumped back,
gasped, and raised a hand to her mouth. “Oh,” she said to Joseph.
“That scared me.” She lowered her hand to her chest. Her heart was
tripping like a machine gun. She took a deep breath.

“Uh . . . uhh . . . uhh.” Joseph began to
rock in his chair, fingering a green crayon in his hand.

Again the bell rang. The sound of it seemed
sharper, louder than it should. Claire walked to the door, placed a
hand on the doorknob. She stopped. Joseph’s drawing flashed to her
mind. She swallowed. “Who . . . who is it?”

“Mrs. Henri?” A woman’s voice. “I’m sorry to
bother you, Mrs. Henri, but I’m here about your husband.”

Husband? She weighed the wisdom of stating
that he had died. Claire looked through the peephole in the door.
She could make out a figure, but it was too dark to see more than
the fact that someone stood on her porch. She flipped a switch next
to the door, and the front porch light came on. Again she placed
her eye to the peephole. A woman stood outside. The fish-eye lens
allowed Claire to see the visitor was well dressed and carried a
briefcase.

“My husband is not here right now,” Claire
said, choosing not to reveal that she and Joseph were alone.

“Yes, ma’am, I know,” the woman said. “My
name is Veronica, and I’m with the life insurance company. I’m here
to straighten things out, to clear up a mistake.”

“I’m not aware of any mistakes,” Claire
said.

“Yes, ma’am. I work with the auditing
department. You were underpaid. We owe you money.”

Claire took a step back from the door. She
had received a small settlement from the life insurance policy
Jamison’s school provided. It had been enough to cover burial
costs, but little more.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Claire said
through the door.

“If I might have a moment of your time, I can
explain,” the woman said.

Claire looked through the peephole again and
saw just the woman. Unlocking the door, she opened it a few inches
and peered around the door and past the jamb. The woman smiled,
revealing a perfect row of white teeth.

“I’m sorry to bother you at . . .” she
stopped and looked at her watch. “Oh, I didn’t realize it was after
six. I’m going to have to hurry.”

“Hurry?” Claire said.

“Yes, I have to catch a plane back to Los
Angeles in less than an hour. This evening has been a nightmare. I
flew in to give you this check and get your signature. My rental
car broke down, and I had to have it towed. The rental agency gave
me another car, but the whole thing took much longer than it
should. Actually, it shouldn’t have happened at all.”

“You flew here from L.A. just to give me a
check? Couldn’t you have mailed it?”

“Normally we would, but it requires a
signature first which means we would have to send you the form to
sign, wait for you to send it back, then requisition the check,
wait for it to be processed, then lose more time mailing it to you.
I had to come up here to audit one of our local offices, so I
volunteered to bring it myself. Your case is . . . special to
me.”

“Special?”

The woman looked down; her dark hair fell
around her face. She took in a lungful of air then released it.
“Like your husband, my husband was killed by an act of violence. It
was road rage. Someone didn’t like the way my husband was driving,
pulled a gun, and killed him. It happens in L.A., but until then it
was something I only heard about on the news. So, I thought I’d
bring the check myself and see how you’re doing.”

“I’m so sorry,” Claire said as she pulled the
door back. “Please come in.” As the woman passed, Claire could see
that she was dressed in a black, professional-looking pantsuit.

“I promise not to take long. I really need to
get to the airport.”

Claire closed the door. “I appreciate the
extra effort,” she said as she twisted the latch on the door,
locking it, a habit of many years. “You said your name was
Veronica?”

There was no answer. Claire turned and saw
the woman standing next to Joseph. He was leaning away from
her.

“Uh . . . uhh.”

“You must be Joseph,” the woman said with a
broad smile. She looked down. “It looks likes you had a little
accident.”

“Yes, I dropped our dinner.”

The woman pulled one of the dining room
chairs back and set the briefcase on it. Popping the latches, she
swung the top open, reached in, and removed a small object. Claire
recognized it immediately. The stranger she had let in the house
was holding a syringe. With no hesitation, the woman removed the
plastic shield from the needle, turned to Joseph, and jammed the
needle through his shirt and into the meaty part of his shoulder,
then pressed the plunger.

“Owww . . . ahhh . . . uhh . . . uhh.”

“No!” Claire shouted, but the attack was over
before she could take a step. “What have you done?” She started
forward but seized mid-step as the woman raised the hypo to
Joseph’s neck.

“Don’t make me hurt your son.” Deftly the
attacker pulled the plunger back. “There’s nothing but air in the
hypo now, but air in the carotid artery would be . . . unpleasant
for your son.”

“What do you want?” Claire demanded, tears
flooding her eyes. Her son was in danger, and there was nothing she
could do about it.

“I want you and your boy.”

“What did you put in him?”

“I poisoned him, Mrs. Henri. But not to
worry, I have an antidote.”

“Why would you poison my son?”

“We don’t have time for twenty questions,”
the woman snapped. “The injection will begin working in a few
moments, and your son will be dead in thirty minutes if he doesn’t
receive the counteragent before then.”

“I’m calling the police.” Claire started for
the phone.

“Feel free, but by the time they get Joseph
to a hospital, do a blood draw, and identify the toxin, he will be
dead. So make your call, Mrs. Henri. Just know that you will be
killing your son when you do.”

“What . . . I mean . . .”

“Let me fill you in. We’re going for a ride
in my car. We’re going to leave in the next sixty seconds. Any
longer and we run the risk of Joseph leaving this world. Once we
get to our destination, I will inject him with the antitoxin. Got
it?”

Joseph rubbed his shoulder. “Owwww.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s go.”

The woman looked down at the table. “What are
these

drawings?”

“It’s just something Joseph does.”

“Really? Interesting. Especially this one of
your living room.” Claire saw the woman’s eyes track to the other
drawing. “This is fascinating too. I’m taking it with me. Get your
son. Remember, give me any grief and your son will not see the
sunrise tomorrow.”

“I won’t give you any trouble. But please
hurry.”

“Good thinking. Now we have only one other
concern.”

Claire felt sick. “What?”

“Traffic was really bad tonight. You had
better pray that we don’t get hung up on the freeway. Congestion
can be murder.”

Claire had already started praying.

PERRY MADE HIS call to the office and jotted down a
few notes in his project diary. He kept the journal on the computer
and under three levels of password protection. His laptop came
equipped with a biometric security feature that read the
fingerprint of his right index finger. Precaution was paramount for
many of the projects undertaken by Sachs Engineering. Part of
obtaining government contracts around the world was demonstrating a
high level of security.

Shutting his computer down, Perry rubbed his
eyes. The little nap earlier that day had been too short to do more
than take the edge off his weariness, but it was too early to
sleep. Even if he did yield to temptation and climb up on the bed,
he doubted sleep would come. His mind still raced with what he’d
seen in the bottom of the pit. The skeleton haunted his mind. Perry
had come to expect the unusual in this project, but finding the
remains of a man hidden beneath a bowed rectangular shield had not
occurred to him. Still it proved the point. It was undeniable proof
that they were in the right spot.

He thought of the other five dark objects
revealed by the ground surveys. Were they coffins too? It wouldn’t
surprise him. A guilty sense of desecration flowed over him. They
were digging in a cemetery created long ago, undisturbed for
centuries.

Perry rolled his head from side to side,
working out the kinks from the day’s travel and work. He then gazed
around the room and noticed a blinking red light on the phone. It
flashed in a rhythmic cadence. Someone had left a message. Placing
the receiver to his ear, he punched the button marked “0.” The
night manager answered.

“This is Perry Sachs, you have a message for
me?”

“Yes, sir. Just a moment, I’ll connect
you.”

Perry heard a tone then a recorded message.
“Mr. Sachs. This is Mayor Anne Fitzgerald. I was hoping we could
meet.” Perry sighed. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but
that changed a moment later. “I want to . . .” She stopped as if
the words were stuck in her throat. “I want to give you a heads-up
about something. I’m going to be at O’Tool’s Pub a few blocks from
where you’re staying.” She gave directions. “It’s close enough to
walk if you want. I hope you’ll come. It would be to your
advantage.” The message ended, and Perry hung up.

His inclination was to ignore the call. The
first two encounters with the woman had left a bad taste in his
mouth, rendering a third conversation far from appealing. But he
was intrigued. “I want to give you a heads-up on something,” she
had said. That was sufficiently cryptic to titillate his interest.
The project was too important not to have all the information
available. “O’Tool’s Pub,” he said, shaking his head. “Okay, Madam
Mayor. I’ll bite.”