"Let them go,” Connell said. Lybrand freed the woman, then carefully unlocked the man's handcuffs and helped him to a standing position. Connell noted a trickle of blood at the corner of the man's mouth. O'Doyle quietly holstered his Beretta, then handed Connell the keys to Sanji's RAV4.
"I do apologize for this treatment,” Connell said, keeping his face blank. “But I'm sure Ms. Lybrand was very clear in her requests for you to stop. This is private property. Now, may I ask your business here?"
"I'm Dr. Veronica Reeves and this is my associate, Dr. Sanji Haak,” Veronica said coolly as she straightened up her clothes and stooped to pick up her hat. “I'm from the University of Michigan, and Dr. Haak is from Brigham Young."
The credentials surprised Connell, but he didn't believe them just yet. If other mining companies knew how much money EarthCore was putting into this operation, they would do anything to find out what was going on. Connell had twice used Kayla in such an underhanded fashion, sending her to a rival company's site to get as much info as she could (the second time, unfortunately, had put the Crittenden Mines employee in a wheelchair.)
Reeves and Haak might indeed be professors, but until they proved it they remained spies in Connell's eyes.
"I'm here because you are mining at a site of great archaeological importance,” Veronica said. “I want you to stop drilling until we can find out what's here."
Her bluntness surprised Connell. “I'm afraid that can't be done, Doctor. We have a very tight schedule to keep."
"You don't understand,” Veronica said, urgency filling her words. “There's an underground city here somewhere, probably a large tunnel complex. It could be one of the earliest examples of human civilization."
How could she have known about the tunnels? Was there a leak? If so, Connell faced a brand-spanking-new set of major problems. He felt his anger rising. Outwardly, he showed no signs of his temper, but it dictated his actions.
"Dr. Reeves, I have already told you this is private property.” Connell said. “You and your friend will leave immediately. If I have to, I will have Mr. O'Doyle detain you until police can arrive, but I warn you that may take the better part of the day."
"Listen, Kirkland,” Veronica said calmly, eyes narrowing to angry slits. “I'm a member of the National Geographic Society, and I have resources to draw on that will make your little corporate head spin. In six hours, I can have the governor of Utah on the phone. I'll tell him that you are knowingly despoiling a national treasure. Then I'll let the press know about this big-business land rape. Once the governor hears the press is on this, he'll be in your shorts like the sweat that's pouring down your back. Then I'll get the National Geographic Society's lawyers to throw every injunction and blocking measure they can think of your way. They've dealt with your kind a thousand times. In ten hours the press will be swarming over this place and your cozy little hideaway will be national news. You do realize the governor can delay your operations immediately, don't you? Of course you do, it's your business to know such things. In fourteen hours—"
"Enough,” Connell said, interrupting her. This woman was more than he'd bargained for. If she could do half the things she claimed, she could delay the operation for weeks. Connell didn't have weeks. If word got out about the operation, the complications would be endless. He smiled, not for effect this time, but as a reaction. He rarely found people who could back him down.
"That's quite enough, Dr. Reeves,” Connell said. “If you and Dr. Haak would be so kind as to come to my office, we can discuss the situation further."
Veronica, suddenly grateful for Connell's hospitality, gave him a winning smile.
"Well, thank you, Mr. Kirkland,” she said. “That's all I wanted in the first place."
Once he had his guests inside his office, Connell immediately checked their credentials. He called the EarthCore offices in Detroit and had people contact the various universities, then hung up and waited for confirmation.
"Don't trust us, Kirkland?” Veronica asked.
"No, I don't. Don't take it personally; I don't trust anyone."
Veronica leaned forward, elbows on the desk, staring at him with piercing eyes. Connell noticed that Dr. Haak simply sat back in his chair, his big body relaxing in the air-conditioned comfort. He dabbed at his cut lip with a handkerchief, but made no complaint. He seemed quite content to let Dr. Reeves handle the conversation.
"You must be onto something very big to be this paranoid,” Veronica said. “I think that one guard was prepared to shoot us."
"He was,” Connell said. “And he still is. What's going on here is private business, Dr. Reeves—"
She cut him off with a wave. “I don't want to know and I don't care, Kirkland.” Her curt use of his last name annoyed him. “What I do care about is that this area could be vital to human history. Your mining might destroy artifacts that could rewrite the way we look at ourselves."
She pulled a flat leather bundle from inside her pant leg. She set it on his desk and unwrapped it, revealing a long, wicked, crescent-shaped knife. Connell would have to talk to O'Doyle — allowing guests to bring fourteen-inch knives into his office didn't speak well for security measures.
"This was found on that peak,” Veronica said, gesturing to the mountain that surrounded the camp. He carefully held it, surprised by its considerable weight. It was far too heavy for steel. The weight — and the mere fact that she was trying to stop him from digging — told him instantly that the knife was platinum. He looked it over, fingering the strange central ring, testing the blade's edge with his thumb. It was incredibly sharp. A sinking feeling seeped into his chest when he recognized it as an example of the knife Sonny had written about in the Wah Wah research reports.
Connell looked Veronica in the eye. “We haven't found anything like this."
Sanji finally spoke up in a thick Indian accent. “Sonny McGuiness discovered it in the Brigham Young University archives,” he said, his jowls jiggling with every syllable. “He brought it to Hector Rodriguez, who is a professor at BYU. Professor Rodriguez contacted me, and I contacted Dr. Reeves, who is the premier expert in this field."
Connell fumed inwardly. That little bastard Sonny should have never gone outside the company. It was exactly the kind of fuckup Connell had desperately tried to avoid by sending Cho.
"There's a great deal of importance attached to that knife,” Veronica said, pulling a second leather-wrapped knife from her other pant leg. “And to this one as well."
A pair of fourteen-inch knives. He was going to kill O'Doyle. Reeves might as well have had a Howitzer stuffed in her sock, for all the care his people took to frisk for weapons. Connell set the knives side by side. They looked identical.
"I found the second knife on Cerro Chaltel, a mountain in the Andes range in Argentina. I've worked there for the past seven years on an archaeological dig. The knife comes from a lost city that may have dominated the Tierra Del Fuego area some nine thousand years ago. You see the similarity of the knives. There are only two logical conclusions.
"The first is that seventy-five hundred years ago, someone carried a knife from Cerro Chaltel to this distant peak in Utah, a trip of some seven thousand linear miles, where it lay in a tunnel for several millennia, waiting for some geology student to find it.
"The other conclusion makes more sense and also is harder to believe. There is an underground city in this mountain belonging to the same culture as we found at Cerro Chaltel. Probably, judging from the carbon dating of these two knives and their identical workmanship, the cities are part of the same culture. A kingdom that spanned two continents and constitutes the largest pre-modern empire in history."