“Feldspar?”
“Granite is composed of feldspar and quartz, along with a collection of other minor accessory minerals: zircon, apatite, magnetite, ilmenite, and sphene.” He stared into a set of blank faces. “In plain English that means granite from this region is whitish or gray with a speckled appearance caused by the darker crystals. Potash feldspar imparts a red or flesh color to the rock.” Dixon turned the granite over in his hand. “I’ve never seen a sample this brilliantly colored, even for the top-quality grades like you might see on a kitchen counter.” He locked eyes with Leah. “Where did you say you found this?”
“Up north,” Garrett said smoothly. “I hadn’t seen anything like it around here.”
Dixon eyed them warily. “If you have a few minutes, I’ll pull my catalogs. Why don’t you step next door for a beer?”
Taking Dixon’s advice, Leah bought a mug and tipped it back, letting the cool brew run down her throat. She looked over at the worn pool table just as Marko took a huge slice at the cue ball, knocking it across the room. She had to admit, the cold beer and cozy interior of the bar had a certain calming effect. She smiled as Marko scurried across the room, chasing the bouncing cue ball.
Dixon walked into the bar with a thick reference book under his arm and dropped it on the table in front of Leah.
Garrett, Juan, and Marko propped the cue sticks against the wall and watched Dixon find the page he’d marked with a napkin from the bar. The rock dealer paused, and then pulled his reading glasses down low on his nose. “You folks know this stone’s not from around here.”
Leah shrugged. “We’re not geologists.”
“Where did you say you found this rock?” Dixon repeated.
Leah simply shrugged, and flashed what she hoped looked like an innocent smile.
Jim Dixon eyed them suspiciously and then opened the book to a page featuring color photographs of rugged mountain peaks and snow. He tapped on the faded picture. “There’s only one place on the planet you’ll find granite with this feldspar content.”
Leah read the entry indicated by Dixon, and her mouth dropped open in shock.
“Antarctica.”
Once Dixon had left them alone in the bar, Leah shook her head. “This just keeps getting better. Now we’ve got granite crystal originating near the South Pole ending up in a Native American cliff dwelling?”
“Hoax?” Juan guessed.
“The adobe clay that Marko broke through was hundreds of years old; so was the adobe that blocked the entrance, for that matter.”
“This is like a major archeological find,” Marko said, his eyes opening wide. “Maybe the government would let you back into the national parks. You know… if you just told them what you found.”
Leah’s head snapped around. “Even if I didn’t go to federal prison for hunting Anasazi and Mogollon cliff dwellings on government property, I wouldn’t pass those nitwits one iota of information. Not after what they did.”
Juan emptied his third beer. “Looks like we’re in kind of a pickle; one of the most significant finds in Native American history and we can’t tell a soul about it.”
Garrett’s eyes took on a sly cast. “Well, there’s one person we could tell — and he’s an expert on Antarctica.” He leaned away, instinctively taking himself out of Leah’s reach.
“Not a chance,” said Leah.
“I’m only suggesting that if anyone will know about feldspar-rich granite, it’ll be someone who’s clocked weeks in Antarctica.” Garrett shrugged. “I know it’s a long shot, but Jack might be your only option. Do you know where he is?”
“Last I heard he was leading Alan Paulson back up Mt. Everest.” She humphed. “Rich asshole’s gonna get both of them killed.”
Marko leaned forward. “The climber, Jack Hobson?”
Garrett and Juan exchanged glances.
“It’s not amusing,” she told them. “Yes, Marko. Jack Hobson.”
“You know Jack Hobson?”
“Sure, she knows him,” said Garrett. “What’s it been, Leah? Two years now?” He nonchalantly lifted the mug to his lips.
Leah simply stared down at the mahogany table.
“Damn,” Marko said. “You were dating a famous mountain climber?”
“Technically,” she said, “I’m still married to him.”
“Married? You have a different last name.” Marko seemed to say it innocently enough. “Why’s that?”
Garrett and Juan buried grins in the beer mugs.
“Would someone please educate Marko on living in the current century?”
“Wow. Jack Hobson on Mt. Everest,” Marko said. “I bet he’s loving every second of it.”
CHAPTER 5
Jack Hobson swore under his breath as he emerged from the warm, cocoon-like, expedition sleeping bag. He zipped open the reinforced mountaineering tent and studied the storm clouds pounding the summit.
How the hell did I let Alan Paulson talk me into a late-October climb on Everest?
If the winds continued howling, they wouldn’t be climbing today. The professional climbing guide and his client, billionaire New Yorker Alan Paulson, had been pinned down at more than 26,000 feet for nearly forty-eight hours.
Jack wiped at his wind-burned face and surveyed the tent. The floor was an appalling mess. Empty food containers, spilled powdered drinks, and fuel stains covered the tent in an unappetizing mosaic. His clothes and his body hadn’t touched soap and water in more than three weeks, and that wasn’t the worst of it; the body begins dying at altitudes above 26,000 feet due to lack of oxygen.
As Jack pushed himself into a sitting position, every muscle in his thirty-six-year-old body protested. He reached into his internal-framed mountaineering backpack for another thermal shirt. The one he’d worn for the past six days was rancid with the stench of a true world-class climb. Body odor, powdered soup, melted chocolate, and camp fuel competed for dominance in a miasma of disagreeable aromas.
Most world-class mountaineers are lean climbing machines. The less muscle, the less energy it requires to climb. Jack was an exception. When he pulled off the thermal shirt, he exposed a well-muscled torso, much of it developed on an indoor climbing wall installed at his Lake Tahoe home. His longish brown hair, flattened down by the frayed Peruvian-style wool hat he’d worn almost nonstop since they’d left base camp, felt greasy to the touch — another reminder how badly he needed a shower.
Jack gingerly touched his temporarily bearded face. The combination of high-altitude sun and hurricane-force winds had burned and cut his face to the point where it felt raw.
“What’s the verdict?” Paulson asked. The billionaire client peeked out from underneath the hood of his goose-down sleeping bag. He held an oxygen mask away from his face with a mitten-covered hand and managed a weak grin.
“The weather still sucks.” Jack couldn’t help but be annoyed at Paulson. “That’s what we get for trying to summit this mother during the fall.” He winked, softening his remarks, though it made them no less true. “How are you holding up?”
Paulson drew in five deep breaths. “I haven’t slept in two days; I’m breathing in a near vacuum and haven’t taken a bath in weeks. Other than that, I feel damned good.”
Alan Paulson was a fifty-three-year-old corporate raider who bought control of publicly traded corporations, got rid of the high-paid executives, and either made them profitable or sold them off in pieces. Here in the tent, he hardly resembled the man who could, and did, have powerful men pissing in their two-thousand-dollar suits when he sat before them with a notepad in his hand. Paulson still had the compact, muscular frame of the fighter pilot he’d once been. He wore an oxygen mask over his salt-and-pepper shaded beard, but his eyes still shone with energy and anticipation.