Absently he ran his hand across his stomach and felt the disc underneath his shirt. He had actually forgotten about it. He withdrew the weighty gold circle and examined it in the sunlight. Its gold surface flashed in the brilliant light, displaying the spiraled writing in sharp relief. It was one of the most beautiful artifacts he had ever seen, and a complete enigma. What was a Hebrew artifact doing in Utah? “I hate puzzles,” he muttered.
Flipping open his cell phone, he checked for coverage, and was relieved to see that he had one bar. No way was he going back for his rental. He’d call the agency and report it broken down. He didn’t have any personal items in the car anyway. Who to call? He thought of Emily Dixon, the television reporter. She had been loads of fun for about five hours, and then the obvious fluff between her ears had significantly detracted from her appeal. He needed someone sharp, someone who might know about the Dominion, someone with the guts to dive into what might be a dangerous situation.
A broad grin spread across his face as he called information and requested the number for the Deseret Bugle.
Chapter 10
Shouldn’t we open this thing in a lab?” Saul asked, leaning over the makeshift work table Dane had created in his hotel room. A white sheet draped over the study table, plus all the lights they could garner, comprised his work area. The three of them wore gloves and dust masks they had picked up from the local home improvement store. All in all it was a poor excuse for a scientific environment, but Dane had his reasons for doing this privately.
“What lab, Saul? And even if we managed to find one around here, who’s to say it would remain a secret? I don’t know who those guys in the helicopter were, but I’ll assume they’re no friends of ours until I have reason to believe different.”
“I agree,” Jade said in a distracted voice. Her attention was focused on the box Dane had recovered from the wall at Chaco Canyon. Working with a set of tiny chisels and hammers, she gradually chipped away at the solder that had held the box closed for, they hoped, a half-millennia. “Help me out here, Maddock.”
Dane took hold of one side of the box and, following Jade’s instructions, they worked the lid free. It came loose reluctantly, but in short order the box lay open on the table. Ancient fabric enshrouded whatever was inside. Jade lifted it free, muttering soft curses as the dry linen crumbled at her touch. Saul laid out a square of clear plastic to catch the debris. Jade turned the bundle over, laid it on the plastic that covered the table, and unwrapped it.
A shiny black object about half the size of Dane’s fist lay inside. It was black rock, carved into an eighth of a sphere.
“It looks like someone cut a grapefruit in half, then quartered the half,” he observed. “Weird.”
Jade held it up to the light. “Onyx,” she whispered. “I’m almost certain.” Dane and Saul both leaned forward for a closer look. The rounded top was perfectly smooth, with an odd lip running along the curved bottom edge. Jade turned the artifact over, and took a long, deep breath. Faint lines were etched into the bottom surface. They were worn and difficult to discern, but they were definitely letters of some sort. They gazed at the artifact for a long while before Jade laid it gently on the plastic.
“What do you think?” Dane asked, puzzled by the odd piece. He had never seen such a thing, though his background in marine archaeology was not the best preparation for this project.
“I think the artifact has been cut. Possibly into quarters based on the shape of this piece. Look at the straight edges. You can see markings as if someone sawed it. It’s mostly smooth, but lacks the perfection of the other sides. So…” she paused.
“So Fray Marcos has gone to the time and effort of setting us on a scavenger hunt through the American Southwest. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense, considering what we know so far. Marcos chopped up the artifact and hid the pieces, or had someone hide the pieces, in various locations. The shield provides us with a map of sorts.”
“Find the pieces, put them together, and it leads us to Cibola,” Dane said. The prospect was exciting. “So what we need to do now is figure out where the next piece is hidden.”
“Got it covered,” Saul said, his perpetually sour face even more puckered, if that was possible. He returned shortly with the briefcase in which they kept the pictures of the shield along with their maps and notes. “I have to tell you,” he said, spreading the photographs on the bed, “I’ve given this a great deal of thought, and most of these images are a mystery to me. I also wonder if we need to visit them in any certain order.”
“If we’re collecting pieces of this artifact in order to reconstruct it, I don’t imagine it would make any difference what order we found them in.” Dane rubbed his chin, feeling the stubble that announced evening was fast approaching. One of these days he would grow a beard. “There has to be some key to understanding the instructions. Chaco Canyon was a lucky guess. The place had a distinct shape. I don’t relish the idea of roaming the desert southwest looking at every landform and ruin that resembles these icons.
“These two,” he indicated the images that lay on the center of the cross, and on the left, “could be two of I don’t know how many different peaks. And the images on the right, at the cross point, and at the top look like ruins, but which ones and where?”
“How did we find this artifact?” Jade asked. “The solstice was important, and so was the number seven. Can we use either of those to help us?”
Dane’s mind was turning over an idea at a rapid pace. The number seven was tumbling around in his thoughts. There was something he had come across in their research. Something to do with travel and direction.
“Are you planning on telling us what you’re thinking?” Saul snapped. He stood with his hands folded across his chest, leaning toward Dane to emphasize the two inches by which he was taller than Dane.
“The roads,” Dane said, ignoring Saul for what felt like the thousandth time since Jade and her assistant had crossed his path. “Remember? The Chacoans built a series of roads leading out of the canyon. They were special because they were so straight and well-engineered.”
“That’s right. There were seven of them,” Jade said, her voice indicating cautious interest. “What are you thinking?”
“Six of them scatter out in various directions and don’t go very far,” Dane said. “But the one in the center shoots straight up, and it’s much longer than the others. It stands out to me. I’m suddenly wondering if it points at anything in particular.”
Saul leapt to the charts, obviously not wanting to feel left out. He sorted through them until he found the one with the ancient roads. “Is this the one?” he asked, pointing at the center avenue. Dane nodded. Saul took his time, checking orientation and marking the roads on a larger map. Finally satisfied, he laid a ruler along the edge of the road and drew a faint line in pencil. The line ran out of New Mexico and into Utah. With his finger, Saul traced the implied path of the ancient road. “All of this is barren land. It doesn’t seem to intersect any of the known sites. In fact, it pretty much covers empty land all the way to…” he stopped.
“Sleeping Ute Mountain,” Dane and Jade said at almost the same time. They looked at each other, and Jade grinned.
“Look at the image in the middle of the cross. It’s not the entire mountain, but compare it to…” she paused as she sifted through her papers until she found a silhouette of the famed mountain. “This picture. What do you see?”
“It’s the foot of the mountain,” Saul said. “That’s why we didn’t recognize it. The outline of the entire mountain we’d have recognized, but not such a small section.” He stared at the pictures Jade held up, then looked down at the spot where his finger touched the dot marked Sleeping Ute Mountain. “Does this mean the artifact is hidden on his foot?”