The Cleric's Vault (13 page)

Chapter 27

The Grand Canyon West

It
had taken a little under two hours to make the drive from Las Vegas to Grand
Canyon West.
 
The occupants of the
black Audi hadn’t said much except for comments on how desolate the area was on
the way.

Emily
had asked a little about Adriana’s past, where she’d gone to school, lived,
worked, those kinds of things.
 
The
answers had been an intriguing hodgepodge of seemingly random locales and
activities.
 
Adriana had come from
a town about thirty minutes from Madrid, as Sean had already learned.
 
She left home, briefly to attend high
school in Copenhagen, Denmark until she was seventeen years old.
 
When her mother had become sick Villa
returned to Spain.
 
From there, she
went to Boston College in the United States, majoring in History with a minor
in Chemistry.

“That’s
an odd combination,” Sean had commented.

Her
reply was cryptic.
 
“The chemistry
has bailed me out of trouble more than once.”
 

He
hadn’t followed up with the line of questioning.

After
earning her undergraduate degree she had worked for one of her father’s
enterprises for a short time, establishing a global network of coffee growers
and partners.
 
They had coffee
fields in Central and South America, as well as a few locations in Uganda,
Kenya, and Ethiopia.
 

“One
of the primary things I wanted to do with our company was improve the quality
of life in countries where people were in need.
 
We established
fair
trade
coffee farms and helped the ones that already existed get better
international distribution.
 
“Because of the work of our company, more than 10,000 people have jobs
with decent wages or own their own businesses.
 
Infrastructure and education has improved in those places as
have the lives of the populations.”

“All
from coffee.”
 
Sean said quietly,
thoughtful.

“Mmhmm.”
 
She confirmed.

Shortly
after the drive through the outpost town of Dolan Springs, the paved roads came
to an end, and they found themselves cruising down a dirt and gravel road that
led through the desert.
 
Joshua
trees and sage grew intermittently in the sandy, rocky earth.
 
Huge stone formations jutted up into
the sky and loomed ominously near the dusty road that wound its way through a
ravine.
 
Eventually, they ended up on
a sort of plateau that ended at the Grand Canyon West visitor’s center.
 

Helicopters
buzzed around the area like bees in a hive.
 
A few were flying high above the canyon giving their
passengers an overall view before diving down into the colossal crevasse.
 
Others were sitting with rotors turning
slowly, either just returning from a flight or about to head out.

After
parking the SUV, the three got out and headed towards a white-fabric domed
building.
 
The ceiling of the
structure was held up by air pressure from the inside, a fact that was
reiterated by the revolving doors at the entrance and exit.

Sean
made his way over to one of the information desks while the women looked around
the room at the various souvenirs and trinkets available for purchase.
 
A cheerful looking Native American
woman with long, black hair and a narrow face stood behind the desk, smiling as
he approached.

“Good
afternoon,” she greeted him.
 
“How
can I help you today?”

He
returned the smile while he answered, “I was wanting to take a look at Eagle
Point, preferably as close as possible.”

Her
grin turned to confusion.
 
“I don’t
understand.”

“I’d
like to get close look at the location called,
Eagle Point
.
 
What’s
the best way to do to that?”

His
new explanation didn’t help her out much.
 
“Sir, Eagle point is a rock formation in the middle of the canyon.
 
You can’t get close to it.”

He
thought for a minute, uncertain what to do.
 

“You
could take a helicopter ride.
 
That
could get you pretty close to it.”
 
Her suggestion seemed like a possibility.

After
a few moments of contemplation, he thought that doing a little recon work first
might be the best course of action.
 
“Can I just get three tickets to take the short tour around the area?”

“Sure.
 
That will take about one hour to visit
Eagle Point and Guano Point before returning here.”

“Guano
Point?”
 
Sean snorted a small
laugh.
 
“Isn’t Guano bat crap?”

“Yes,
sir it is,” she cut him off with a laugh of her own.
 
“It’s the best fertilizer in the world, and it has been
harvested from a cave on site here for a long time.

“Would
you like to add tickets to the sky walk?”
 
She added while she rang up the tickets.

“Is
that the glass walkway that goes out over the canyon?”

“Yep,”
she seemed proud.

He
shook his head violently.
 
“I’ll
pass.
 
I have a thing with
heights.”

She
puckered her lips and nodded in understanding then handed him three
tickets.
 

“Just
head out that door right over there and you will see the line forming to get on
the next bus out to the point.”

“Thanks,”
he said as he clutched the tickets and walked over to where Emily and Adriana
were eyeing some Native American jewelry.
 

“You
two ready to go?”

“What
did you find out?” Emily asked.

“Seems
we have to take a tour bus over to Eagle Point, but we can’t get close enough
at the moment.
 
I thought it would
be a good idea to see what we’re working with first before we do anything
else.”

Emily
nodded in agreement.
 
Sean’s
thoroughness was something she wished more of her agents had.

He
handed them their tickets.
 
“We get
on the bus out there,” he said as he pointed to the exit.

A
few minutes later they were on the air-conditioned shuttle, a major contrast to
the desert warmth outside.
 
Even
though the evenings and mornings could be cool that time of the year, the
afternoons could still get fairly hot by southern standards.

The
ride over to Eagle Point was only about ten minutes.
 
After arriving, the tourists on board got out in an orderly
fashion despite a few people wishing they could edge their way out a little
faster.

Once
outside, the magnitude of the location set in. The Grand Canyon spread out
before them as far as their eyes could see.
 
The red stone walls jutted down thousands of feet until they
reached the Colorado River below.

“I
cannot believe how enormous this is,” Adriana said quietly.
 
Sean had gotten the impression that she
was not easily amazed so seeing her awe of the landscape surprised him.

Emily
and Adriana stepped over to the edge to get a closer look of how far down it
really was.
 
Sean wasn’t nearly as
eager to get near the precipice.
 
“Don’t you want to take a look?” Adriana asked.

Sean
simply shook his head slowly.
 
“No.
 
I’m good.”

“He’s
deathly afraid of heights,” Emily explained.
 

Adriana
raised an eyebrow.
 
“So, the great
Sean Wyatt is afraid of something after all.”

“We
all have our things,” he defended.
 
She didn’t need to know beautiful
women was another one.

He
made his way over towards an old railing that stood about ten feet from the
edge.
 
Even being that close to
such a huge drop off was somewhat unnerving to him.
 
He’d been afraid of heights since he was a child.
 

When
he was young, Sean would play with his friends and cousins in the trees near
his house.
 
They built tree houses
and seemed fearless with how high they would climb.
 
Young Wyatt would regularly find himself at the top of an
old cedar tree near their house.
 
For some reason, climbing those trees never bothered him.
 
But it never cured him of a fear of heights
either.
 
Being up in tall buildings
or high cliffs always bothered him.
 
He figured it always would.

Out
across the giant gash in the earth, about five to six hundred feet away, a
narrow rock formation rose up in the middle of the canyon.
 
It had a thin ridge that ran parallel
with the canyon walls.
  
In
one spot in the middle of the formation dropped down about fifty feet.
 
It then ran another few hundred feet.

In
the middle of where the break in the ridge was something that caught Sean’s
eye.
 
A smaller rock formation
popped up in the middle of the other and looked somewhat like a large bird with
wings spread in both directions, the head of peering silently off to the east.

“Eagle
point,” he whispered to himself.
 
He understood what the lady at the visitor center meant when she’d said
they couldn’t get close to it.
 
The
other realization that hit him was that a standard helicopter ride wouldn’t get
them close enough either.
 
They
were going to need another way.

Chapter 28

Bandelier National Monument, New
Mexico

A
thick diamondback rattlesnake sat coiled about seven feet from where Tommy and
Will were about to walk.
 
Its tail
shook violently, so fast that the movement appeared blurred.

“Maybe
we should go around it,” Will said.

Tommy’s
eyes were wide with terror.
 
The
color had left his face a pale ashen color.
 
He nodded silently, and the two men began to carefully step
backwards at a snail’s pace.

The
pointed head of the snake pulled back slightly towards its body, as if readying
for an attack.
 
After backtracking
a few steps the men turned and continued around the snake’s location, careful
to keep a good distance from the reptile.
 
Upon reaching the rock wall, Schultz walked around to the other side and
began investigating the area where the rock met the canyon wall, trying to see
if he could detect anything behind it.
 
Will did the same, running his finger along the back edge of the stone
to see if he could feel an opening.

“There’s
no way we can move this thing,” Will said.
 

Tommy
knew he was right.
 
The big rock
had to be at least a few tons.
 
It
was oddly shaped, like a tall finger pointing up at the sky.
 
Near the top of it, about ten feet
high, a rut was carved into the stone, providing a groove that wrapped around
the entire piece.

“Can
you feel anything behind there on your side?” he asked Will after a minute of
examination.

“Nah,
man.
 
I can’t feel anything.
 
You sure this is it?”

“Pretty
sure.”
 

Tommy
stepped away from the pillar and rubbed the scruff on his face in silent
contemplation.
 
A few moments
later, he sat his backpack down and pulled out some black rope.

“What
are you thinking?” Will asked curiously.

Tommy’s
hands worked the nylon rope quickly, forming a loop at one end.
 
“We can use that grove at the top to
leverage the thing over,” he answered as he walked back over to the stone and
tossed the lasso towards the top.

The
first throw didn’t catch but the second one did, slipping down around the head
of the stone and into the groove.
 
A few moments later, Tommy had pulled the nylon tight and was stepping
backwards with one end.
 
Will
grinned and grabbed another piece of the rope just above Tommy’s hands.
 
The rope went taught and both men
pulled steadily.
 
Their leverage on
the top of the stone moved it almost immediately, and the gigantic piece of
rock tipped over with a loud thud onto its side in a matter of seconds, sending
rolling clouds of dust up into the air.
 
They dropped the rope and walked over to the wall where the stone had
been standing.
 
Both men turned to
look at each other for a second after what they had seen.
 
A narrow portal entered into the canyon
wall.
 

“That
rock was a perfect fit, huh?”

“Yeah,”
Tommy agreed.
 
The dust continued
to settle while he grabbed a few flashlights out of his backpack.
 

“Are
there gonna booby traps or anything like that in there?”
 
Will sounded sarcastic yet a little
uncertain.

“You
never know.”
 
Tommy played with
him.

“Really?”

“No.
 
Well, not usually anyway.
 
Most of the time the stuff that was
designed to protect ancient treasures has long since gone into disrepair.
 
Pretty sure we’re not going to be
getting chased out of here by a giant rolling stone.”

Will
laughed at the reference.
 
“That
was a cool movie, though.”

Tommy
smiled as he passed him a flashlight.
 
The two men stepped over the foot of the big stone they’d just
overturned and into the darkness of the entrance.
 
The thin passage was only about six feet high and three feet
wide.
 
Its walls were smooth, cut
with laser-precision from the ancient rock of the canyon.
 
The shape of the corridor was wider at
the bottom than the top, giving it the appearance of a kind of pyramidal
hallway.
 
A floor of solid stone
lay under their feet.

Tommy
ran his hand along wall as they proceeded slowly away from the light
outside.
 
“No one has been in here
in a long time,” he said reverently.
 
There were a few dusty spider webs where the angles of the walls met the
ceiling. Tommy brushed them away with his light as they moved further into the
rock mountain.
 
The passageway came
to an abrupt halt a few feet ahead, turning a perfect ninety degrees to the
left.
 
Both men moved carefully, leery
of what lay around the corner.
 
Will pulled his gun out of its holster and held it at the ready.
 
Tommy looked at him with a funny
expression.
 
“What are you gonna
shoot in here?”
 

“I
don’t know,” Will answered.
 
“You
can never be too careful.”

Tommy
shook his head mockingly then eased his way around the corner, shining the
light down the next part of the passage.
 
There was nothing ahead except what looked like another turn in the
hall.
 

The
two pressed on and discovered four additional sharp changes in the
corridor.
 
After ten minutes of
working their way into the mountain Will was beginning to wonder where the path
was leading.
 
“I’m starting to feel
like a rat in some kind of maze.”

“I
know what you mean,” Tommy agreed but kept moving slowly ahead.

After
one more right turn Tommy came to an abrupt halt.
 
Will aimed his light in the direction Schultz was
looking.
 
The bright beams
illuminated a large room that opened up out of the passageway.
 
Some parts of the chamber were carved
out of the mountain rock by human hands, while other bits of it looked somewhat
natural.
 
The dusty scent in the
air had given way to the moist odor of a cavern.
 
In the center of the room, about thirty feet away, a
rectangular, stone pedestal rose from the floor.

On
top of it rested something shiny and metallic.
 

Will
started to take a step forward, but Tommy put his hand out and stopped
him.
 
“Careful.”

The
young cop appeared confused.
 
“I
thought you said there were no booby traps,” he said sarcastically.

Tommy
gave him a warning glare.
 
“I said
there were
probably
none.”
 
He made sure to emphasize his
uncertainty as he scanned the floor with his flashlight.

“What
are you looking for?”
 
Will asked
while he moved his light around the vaulted ceiling of the enormous room.

“Pressure
points.
 
I’ve heard of some places
that had false floors.
 
If you step
on them, it triggers some kind of ancient security measures.”

Will
looked at him with wide eyes.
 
“Take your time.”

He
looked around for another minute or so; satisfied that nothing appeared
sinister, he stepped from the passage into the chamber.
  

A
few moments later both men were standing at the pedestal, eyeing the odd piece
of gold that rested on it’s top.
 
The stone altar had various forms of writing on it that had not used in
millennia.
 
Tommy was busy looking
over some of it in an attempt to understand what it said.
 
Will reached out his hand to touch the
golden leaf.
 
“Don’ touch that,”
Tommy stopped him without looking up from his investigation of the altar.

“Let
me guess, booby trap?”

“You
never know.”

Tommy
set his backpack down and pulled out his digital camera from the front
pouch.
 
The flash of the camera
seemed odd in the ancient room.
 

“Can
you read that?”
 
Will asked after a
few moments.

“Some
of it,” he answered while moving to get some different angles.
 
“Ancient languages are not my area of
expertise.
 
I’m better at
identifying timeframes and cultures.
 
Most of this language comes from a very long time ago.
 
It’s kind of a predecessor to ancient
Hebrew.

“It
says something about the eagles and where the rivers unite, which we got from
the stone.”
 
Tommy pulled the small
stone out of his backpack and held it up to examine the similarities of some of
the writing.
 
“It’s very
curious.”
 
He put the small stone
back in his bag and began evaluating the gold piece.
 
He’d never seen anything like it in all his years of
archaeological work.
 
The yellow
metal was thin, almost delicate.
 
It had been carved to an incredible level of detail to look almost
exactly like a real leaf.

“What
is it?” Will asked just above a whisper.
 

“I
have no idea.”

*****

Hunter
Carlson moved along the canyon path with his team.
 
He was a strong man with short, dark blonde hair.
 
He wore Ray Ban sunglasses, a rolled up
sleeved-flannel shirt, hiking boots, and some khakis.
 
Three other men followed him.
 
All four of the men carried Glock nine millimeters in a
ready position as they stepped quickly through the canyon.
 
The long, box-type sound suppressors
may have been a bulky and perhaps unnecessary precaution out in the wilderness
but one never knew if there were curious tourists around.
 
Best
not to attract too much attention.

The
three other men were dressed just as casually, wanting to look more like
sightseers than a hit squad, save for the weapons.

They
had gotten word that Schultz was heading to New Mexico to visit an area north
of Santa Fe so they had made quick preparations, all taken care of by the
Order.
 
Carlson wondered who shot
at him the other night at Georgia Tech.
 
He had gone back to the lab to see what else he could find on the
computer.
 
His assumption that
there would only a few police officers at the scene had been correct.
 
He hadn’t anticipated Schultz and the
other man showing up, though.

Up
ahead, his point man was drawing nearer to a large, overturned stone that lay
next to the cave entrance.
 
They’d
watched silently from a distance as Schultz and his companion had discovered
the hidden opening in the canyon wall.
 
After waiting a few minutes, Carlson was satisfied his team could safely
advance without being seen.
 
Suddenly, the man in front screamed out and dropped his weapon,
clutching his right leg in pain.
 
The other men froze momentarily, unsure of what had just happened.
 
“Thompson, what’s happening up there?”
Hunter asked into the microphone strapped around his neck.

The
man nearest the fallen member stepped close to see what the problem was.
 
The man on the ground was writhing in
pain, gripping his leg tightly.
 
Then, the flank man who’d come to check on the issue turned quickly and
fired off three rounds towards the ground.
 
Hunter moved up quickly to see what had happened.

“It’s
a snakebite, sir,” the man who’d just fired his weapon explained.
 
He pointed to the large diamondback
rattler that lay motionless with three bloody wounds in its scaly flesh, a
prominent one in its head.

The
injured mercenary named tried to keep from moaning too loudly as the venom of
the snake moved through his bloodstream.
 
Terror filled the man’s eyes.

Out
in the middle of nowhere, they were at least forty-five minutes from the
nearest hospital.
 
That was about
how long the poison from a rattlesnake took to kill a man, depending on the
last time the snake had used its fangs.

Hunter
recalled what a friend had told him once about receiving a snakebite.
 
He’d said that the venom moving through
the body felt like every inch of bone was being crushed as it progressed
through the bloodstream.