Burial Ground

III

Advanced Exploration Associates International, Inc.

Houston, Texas

October 15^th

8:47 p.m. CDT

Leonard Gearhardt stood before the wall of windows on the fiftieth floor of Heritage Plaza, hands clasped behind his back, staring out over the sparkling constellations of downtown, the Toyota Center, the theater district, and the distant suburbs beyond. Smoke from the Montecristo No.4 Reserva swirled around his head in much the same manner as the thoughts within. His gray eyes settled somewhere between the reflection of the aging man he had become and the cold black sky. He wore a hand-tailored Italian suit that cost more than most new domestic cars and polished leather shoes crafted from the suffering of some young animal or other. His ghost-white hair was slicked back to perfection and his eyebrows tweezed. Only his callused hands and the wrinkles in his sun-leathered features, which most considered distinguished, marred the illusion of grandeur he paid a fortune to perpetuate. But none of that mattered now. He was already sixty years-old, and felt as though he had aged a lifetime in the last hour alone.

He had been expecting the call for so long that it had almost been a relief when it finally came.

Leo turned away from the window and surveyed his domain through the Cuban haze. He was surrounded by the fruits of his professional labors: a sextant salvaged from the wreckage of the Neustra Senora de Atocha; a golden idol of the Mayan god Chac; various coins from the nefarious pirate frigate Queen Anne's Revenge; the gilded horn of a narwhal; the porous skull of an ankylosaurus; and paintings and sculptures from myriad expeditions, all encased in Lucite and stationed precisely around the luxuriously appointed office. There were Medieval and Renaissance texts, monographs from centuries past, and handwritten diaries on alarmed shelves. A lifetime of amassed history and riches, but only a single framed picture of the son who had died in pursuit of his father's favor.

Leo had built his empire from his own sweat and blood, from his adventurous spirit and refusal to be cowed by fear. What had begun as a simple salvage operation on the Gulf coast had blossomed into a forward-thinking, diverse corporation with varied interests from exploration and artifact discovery and recovery to management of high-risk extraction sites and implementation of high-tech mining solutions. He had raised entire battalions of sunken warships thousands of feet from oceanic trenches, discovered indigenous ruins on every continent, mined ore and shale from the steepest slopes, and found and named more extinct animals and dinosaurs through fossilized evidence than any other single individual.

The way Leo saw it, he had conquered the world.

And now here he stood amid the trappings of wealth, and all of it was for naught. In just under twenty-four hours, his son's remains would arrive at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, sealed in plastic wrap and boxed in a crate, where the body would be immediately sequestered by the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine under the watchful eye of the CDC. The Consul-general in Lima had been aghast at his insistence that his son's body not be embalmed, that he'd rather delay interment by potentially several days to weeks. There was no way he was going to let some foreign doctor with marginal medical training butcher what was left of his only child. Hunter Gearhardt's body would be autopsied by a real medical examiner and then prepared by a mortician, regardless of the cost.

The image of his son's features pressed beneath cellophane rose unbidden and he slammed his fists down on his desk. Ashes flew and the cigar rolled onto the lacquered wood. He watched the clear coating melt away from the glowing cherry before snubbing it in the ashtray.

Never in his life had he felt so helpless. There was no problem to solve or challenge to overcome. He couldn't step back and brainstorm solutions. His Hunter was dead, and what were his first words? Not an outpouring of remorse or a curse upon the gods who would rob him of the only thing in his life that should have mattered, but "What did he have in his possession?"

He removed a bottle of Macallan 1939 from the bottom desk drawer, poured two-fingers into a glass, and hurled the bottle across the room. A rich amber river ran down the wall to join the shards of forty year-old glass, assailing him with the scents of vanilla toffee, peat and wood smoke, and time.

This small man with his big title, this Eldon Monahan, had listed off his son's belongings like he'd been checking off a grocery list. One Black Diamond Sphynx rucksack; one four-liter MSR Dromedary hydration bladder; one Garmin eTrex Summit HC handheld GPS unit; various items of no appreciable value: possibly collected samples of vegetation, and three four- to six-inch feathers; and, most interestingly of all, two black- and gray-streaked rocks weighing eighteen and twenty-six ounces respectively, and a native headdress of indeterminate origin, cast in pure gold. The Consulate had confiscated the headdress as Peruvian law frowned upon the unlicensed plunder of its heritage, however, Monahan had promised to include multiple photographs with the rest of Hunter's belongings. There had been no mention of the Les Baer 1911 Premium II pistol or the machete Hunter would have been carrying, nor mosquito netting, change of clothes, or food reserves. Hunter hadn't even packed any of his testing supplies, his various rock hammers, satellite phone, or geologic field spectrometer. All indications pointed to a hurried abandonment of camp. His son had taken only what he could quickly pack and what would be of importance when he escaped the jungle and reached civilization.

Hunter was a world-class geologist with the best academic pedigree that money could buy, though he had proudly earned it on scholarships alone. A B.S. in Geology from Texas A&M, and a Ph.D. in Mineral Exploration and Mining Geosciences from the Colorado School of Mines. Throw in the fact that he had spent the last five years reconnoitering some of the harshest unexplored terrain on the planet, and more questions were raised than answers. Something had happened to his son, and he'd move heaven and earth to find out what.

During their final communication via satellite uplink, Hunter had intimated that his party was close to reaching its destination, quite possibly within the next couple of days. Leo had heard the smile in his son's voice, the faint tremble of excitement. He had felt it, too. In that moment, he had been as proud of his son as any father could be, but he had also been his boss. So instead of heaping praise and adoration on Hunter, he had demanded daily reports and detailed his expectations in businesslike fashion.

That had been twelve days ago now, and the last time he would ever speak to his son.

Two black- and gray-streaked rocks.

A native headdress of indeterminate origin, cast in pure gold.

Although it was subtle, he heard his son's posthumous message loud and clear. It was almost as if Hunter had known there was a good chance he might not return to Pomacochas alive, and had brought items only his father would understand. Clues that would stymie a layman, but purvey important information at the same time. The headdress was simultaneously a location marker and a red herring meant to distract whoever found the backpack like a starling with a bit of foil. The real message was in the rocks, the seemingly mundane black and gray chunks of earth. They were stratified layers of volcanic magnetite and quartz, placers, streaks that pointed like arrows to their ultimate quarry.

Hunter had found it.

For a heartbreaking moment, Leo's pride eclipsed his sorrow and guilt.