“Damn, if only it coulda been raining.” Alicia tapped a side window with a touch of British humor.
“This road could have been impassable if it had been raining,” Crouch said. “Don’t wish yourself into even more trouble.”
Alicia shrugged wistfully, about to comment further when Crouch pulled the vehicle into a makeshift parking lot, empty except for two cars — a white pickup and a sky-blue van. The only structure was a vault toilet; beyond that the flat scrubland stretched immeasurably.
Crouch turned off the car, stretching his back. “We ready?”
Alicia exited and walked around the back, slipping dark sunglasses over her eyes. The packs had all been assigned back in Vegas, filled with each person’s essentials dependent on their job. Her own mostly contained weapons and ammo; firepower she believed every girl should pack. Well, every girl with her kind of past, present and inevitable future. The days when life surprised her were long gone.
The group hefted their gear and moved out, deliberately paying no further attention to their followers, only the helicopter that could currently be seen in the far distance — a mere speck in the sky. Crouch quietly estimated they had at least a half-hour head start.
“Let’s make it count.”
A sandy track led west out of the parking lot. Crouch drifted slowly, cross-referencing their position with several incomprehensible scribblings he’d made on his own map.
“It’s as good a point as any to make a start,” he said. “The Colorado is at our back. I estimated a line between the place where the Aztec warriors’ dateline and calendar put their passage across the Colorado to where the subsequent entries ended. According to their notes, the Aztecs followed a strict line in the dirt. Even if we take into account impassable features they’ll still have returned to that line, more or less. Yes, the search grid is wide but it’s what we have. All we need is to find a single reference point.”
“Canyons and rocks of waves.” Caitlyn secured her pack with a grunt. “That’s our next clue.”
“Looks like the right kinda country.” Russo eyed the distant mountains.
The track led downhill for a while, turning east as it entered a little wash. The stony slopes made the going heavy and increased the chance of mishap. When Alicia glanced back she no longer saw any sign of pursuit. With the way ahead becoming more demanding she bent her head to the task, reveling in the tough grind to help clear her mind. The future always lay before her.
Walk on.
Steep hiking came next, all the way to the top of a ridge. Healey broke out a large bottle of water and offered it around. A tiresome sun burned down. The ground was pure rock, mountain country, offering the questers no clues.
“Technically,” Caitlyn said, looking back the way they had come. “You could call that a canyon.”
“More a crack,” Cruz said. “A stitch. But I admire the wishful thinking.”
“Trail splits ahead.” Crouch pointed. “We’ll cut left, I think. The right-hand trail veers away drastically from the route I’ve mapped.”
Taking his words as their cue to continue, the team moved out. As they walked, Alicia turned to Caitlyn. Though reassurance was not normally a weapon in Alicia’s arsenal their newest recruit had been through enough severe adversity of late, enough to warrant an exception.
“I heard it mentioned before that many other treasure hunters have sought out Montezuma’s treasure. Now, I understand where we’re different, having the old warriors’ notes at our disposal but surely at least one of the prospectors should have come close to finding it.”
Caitlyn bobbed her head, black hair ruffled. “One man in 1914 brought photographs of petroglyphs from Mexico, convinced that they stated the treasure had been brought here, an instruction from the old Aztec priests. Skeletons were soon found, even staircases cut into the rocks — later attributed to the Anasazi, but no treasure. Another location was Three Lakes, where men ended up scuba diving, attesting that they found a man-made entrance at the bottom of a lake. The men never returned and the find was later denied by locals.” Caitlyn shrugged. “Truth? Conspiracy theory? Locals with Aztec ancestry protecting their heritage? Nobody knows. Montezuma’s treasure is as much a grand old fable as the Holy Grail and the actual Pacific Treasure Island. Before Michael came along the most accepted story was the one where a struggling and well-liked prospector and his wife were shown a cave of riches by local Indians, allowed to leave with a cache of the treasure, but blindfolded so they would never be able to find the cave again. Apparently, the prospector had saved the life of one of the Indians’ wives. The man settled close by but never did find the cave again. Now, that area is at the junction of two rivers — the Colorado and the Virgin, and since that time the Hoover Dam has been built… ”
Caitlyn paused for effect.
Alicia finished. “Leaving the cave underwater?”
“Actually under Lake Meade.” Caitlyn shrugged. “Perhaps it was a whole different treasure. Who knows?”
Alicia nodded at their leader. “He does.”
“You’re that confident?”
“I’ve worked with Crouch a long time, mostly indirectly. If he said the Holy Grail was hidden in the Ghost Train ride at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, I’d follow him inside.”
Caitlyn laughed as the team went east, spying several rock domes on the flats way below. Staying on an eastern heading the trail again dropped sharply. Another wash claimed them from view for a while, the dry creek displaying not even a trickle of water today. Alicia knew that in times of rain it could fill treacherously fast but saw no danger in the blazing sunshine that was starting to creep down the sky vault above.
“See that ridge?” Crouch said as they again ascended. “It’s slickrock. We head that way. Keep it in your sights.”
Using the ridge as a marker, Alicia trusted to their boss’s instincts and research sense. If he was winging it he was doing a good job of hiding his speculations. All the while he and every other member of the team kept their eyes glued to the landscape, searching for rocks of waves, canyons, mushrooms and arches, but the lines of the poem were as ambiguous as a politician’s election promise. After a few more moments Russo spoke up.
“Damn, I just spotted Coker’s team. They’re on top of the first creek bed, heading our way.” He pocketed his small pair of Steiner binoculars, infrared lens still flashing. “Bloody bloodhounds.”
Crouch pursed his lips. “All right,” he said. “Then we go to plan B.” He sent a private smile in Alicia’s direction, knowing exactly who the phrase reminded her of. “A few more miles and then we stop for the night. We’ll grab a few hours’ kip and then head out when it’s still dark and whilst they’re still snoring.”
“Break camp?” Healey asked. “They’ll surely have a scout on us by that time.”
“Leave the camp in situ,” Crouch said. “And risk that we’ll find what we’re looking for before we need it again.”
“Couldn’t we just—” Alicia made a sniper’s shot with her fingers. “You know.”
“I want no further loss of life on this trip,” Crouch declared. “We’re hunting treasure, not lives.”
“And if they don’t feel the same way?”
“Then I guess that’s a whole different story. But we will not fire first. Understood?”
“Sure.”
As they approached the slickrock ridge, Crouch pointed out the best place to make camp; one with a narrow ravine at its back that offered a covert escape route under cover of darkness. Risky, he confirmed, safety-wise, but the forecast was for no rain throughout the next several days. The team made a show of setting up several makeshift tents and lighting a small campfire as the sun began to wane in the west. Russo and Healey were assigned to keep a close but surreptitious eye on their followers, in case Coker’s crew suddenly decided to come in for a closer inspection, but the ex-Ninth Division soldiers soon reported the formation of a similar camp a few miles away.