Forty-five minutes later, and — judging by its position in the sky — a good hour before nightfall, Professor rose and left his cabin. He walked at a languid pace, casual but purposeful, strolling through the camp in the direction of the restroom cabin. As he went, he nodded to the handful of people he saw, all of them ostensibly passengers from Flight 815. Some waved back, others regarded him uncertainly, but no one spoke to him or made any move to stop him. When he got within sight of his destination however, he shifted course, moving away at the same pace, toward the tree line.
He thought he saw, out of the corner of his eye, some of the passengers taking note, perhaps even following him, but he did not look back. He kept his eyes forward, his pace quickening ever so slightly, as if he had somewhere important to be. When he got within fifty yards of the woods, he broke into a run.
At the edge of the woods, he risked a quick glance over his shoulder. No one was giving chase, which was not necessarily a good sign. He wondered if he had misjudged the allegiances of the people purporting to be his fellow prisoners. His strategy was predicated on the belief that some or all of them were actually working with his captors, and that security beyond the camp would be minimal. If he was wrong….
I’m not wrong, he told himself, returning his focus to what lay ahead. Not completely, anyway.
He scanned the woods in front of him, looking for tripwires or areas of disturbed ground that might hide pitfalls or even mines, checked the branches of trees for surveillance cameras. The most important thing was to establish short-range waypoints in order to stay oriented. Beneath the forest canopy, with so many trees clustered together forcing him to weave back and forth, and no direct view of the sun, he could easily wind up running in circles. Keeping a true course while maintaining a running pace required intense concentration. He did not dare look back again.
He counted his steps, and was able to estimate both the distance he had traveled and the time that had elapsed since fleeing the camp. Five minutes out — give or take a minute — he figured he had gone about a quarter of a mile, with no sign of human activity and no indication that the woods would ever end.
A quarter of a mile. Probably a lot less given the zig-zagging course he was obliged to take.
Miles to go before I sleep.
He strained to catch some noise of pursuit — shouts, alarms, the barking of bloodhounds — but the only sounds he heard were the crunch of his footsteps on the litter of conifer needles and dry seed cones covering the ground and the occasional snap of a low hanging branch breaking against his shoulder.
Two or three minutes more passed by and then, without warning, the woods ahead grew brighter. Professor froze in mid-stride and remained that way while his heart hammered out a hundred beats. The light seemed to be natural, probably the result of a clearing that was allowing more sunlight to penetrate the canopy overhead, but it might also signal the end of the wooded area or worse, a secured perimeter. He crept forward, staying behind tree boughs until his field of view cleared.
It was a clearing, of sorts, but not a naturally occurring one. A swath of bare dirt, at least two hundred feet wide, cut through the midst of the forest. The ground was uniformly flat, obviously packed down and graded with road building equipment, but Professor saw immediately that it wasn’t a road.
It was a runway.
A Boeing 777 sat idle more than a hundred yards away. Radar-scattering camouflage nets hung on poles all around the aircraft formed a shroud that would effectively hide the plane from satellites and search aircraft. The markings and registration number on the tail confirmed what was already plainly obvious. He had found Flight 815.
He studied the aircraft for a full minute but saw no sign of activity, no guards posted, no workmen disassembling or modifying the evidently derelict plane. He fleetingly contemplated trying to fly the aircraft out — how hard could it be after all? — but shelved the idea. Even if he was able to figure out the controls, getting the plane moving would take time, time which he doubted his captors would allow.
Still, there were other ways the aircraft could be useful to what he had planned.
He moved laterally down the length of the runway, keeping to the woods and pausing often to check for signs of pursuit. The fact that there had been none was disconcerting. He felt conspicuously like a mouse being toyed with by a stealthy cat who felt secure enough in its ability to pounce long before the prey escaped.
Tom and Jerry, the dueling cartoon characters, ran through his head, and the thought brought a smile to his face. Jerry always outsmarted Tom.
He stopped a stone’s throw from the plane. The front hatch, where passengers normally boarded and debarked, was open and a makeshift staircase had been erected to facilitate access from the ground. The doorway was dark, the window blinds open to reveal no lights inside. It was almost certainly a trap, but Professor knew something that his captors did not. He was not trying to escape.
He stepped from the trees and crossed to the steps, ascended and cautiously entered the plane. Although some light was getting in through the portholes, it did little to illuminate the interior. The atmosphere was surreal, like being inside the corpse of some immense cyclopean beast. Professor turned toward the front of the plane and found the door to the cockpit. It was open, revealing empty seats and a dark instrument panel.
He sat down in the left hand seat and stared out the front windshield. The nose of the plane was facing west, giving him a view of the darkening sky. There were more trees at the end of the runway, another hundred yards or so distant, but beyond that, only sky.
He folded his hands in his lap and waited. He did not think he would have to wait very long.
FIFTEEN
On the map, the island of Sicily looked like an enormous triangular rock poised on the end of the toe of the boot that was Italy, but Sicily was no footnote. The largest island in the Mediterranean, sloping away from the flanks of the majestic 11,000-foot high Mount Etna, the largest volcano in Europe and one of the most active volcanoes in the world, had been inhabited by humans for more than 12,000 years. Greek culture had taken hold in 750 BCE, and for 500 years thereafter, the island had been part of Magna Graecia—Greater Greece — until, in the time of Archimedes, it had been claimed by Rome. Its fertile soil had fed the Roman legions, fueling the rise of the Roman Empire and conquest of the entire region. In more recent times, the campaign to capture Sicily, spearheaded by the flamboyant American general George Patton, had been pivotal to breaking the Axis powers in World War II.
Though her specialty was pre-Columbian America, Jade was not unfamiliar with the Classical period, and like any archaeologist worth her salt, could not help but be awed by standing in the presence of so much history. She only wished Professor could have been there to share the experience, but his last text message had indicated he was still in Australia and that it might be another day or two before he could get a flight out. Jade did not dare to hope that she would find the Archimedes Vault in that short a time, but she was not about to postpone the search to wait for him.