Changeling (22 page)

“Jade, think about it. You’ve done most of your work in the Southwest. Of course that’s what you would see. It’s just your brain trying to make sense of it.”

“If you had been there, you’d know that it wasn’t a hallucination. But it doesn’t matter. We’ll be there in a few hours. If we find it right where I saw it in my vision, then we’ll know I’m right. If it’s not there, I’ll admit I was wrong. Does that work for you?”

“If I may,” Shah said, breaking his long silence. “The Hypogeum is important. My partner knew that Jade would go there, and I think she knew what you would find.”

Professor craned his head around and stared at Shah. “Why is he here, again?”

“That was part of the deal for saving your ass,” Jade said. “I made the call. Get over it.”

He frowned but did not push the issue. “I’m still pretty skeptical about the role of infrasound in this, but I’ll allow for the possibility. We’ve seen too much crazy stuff to dismiss it out of hand. And like you said, if it’s not there, we’ll know. But has it occurred to you that, if it really is there, the Changelings know about it and will probably be waiting for you?”

“Which is why I’m glad that you’re back. One of the reasons, anyway.”

“So where is it? Exactly, I mean.”

Jade glanced at Shah again. She had not revealed the exact location to him or anyone else yet. But Professor was right. The Changelings weren’t looking for the vault. They almost certainly knew where it was. They were only interested in keeping anyone else from finding it. She was keeping the secret only to keep Shah from trying to double-cross her. Even a few hours’ advance notice would be enough for him to set up an ambush. But if that was his plan, then he would not make his move until the door to the vault was open, if it could be opened. She would only know his true intentions then.

“The Vault,” she said, “is in Sedona.”

Village of Oak Creek, Arizona

Although he initially
greeted Jade’s declaration much the same way that he might have reacted to Jeremiah Stillman or someone of his ilk going on about extraterrestrial astronauts—for very nearly the same reason—he had to admit that it made a lot of sense.

The area surrounding the northern Arizona town—equal parts artists’ colony and tourist trap—situated about halfway between the city of Phoenix and the Grand Canyon, was renowned for a wide range of paranormal activities ranging from frequent UFO sightings to energy vortices capable of transporting people to parallel dimensions. The sheer volume of anecdotal evidence suggested that something might actually be happening at Sedona. There were simply too many stories to discount them all as cynical hoaxes or delusions brought on by too much time in the hot desert sun and unrealistic expectations.

The actual scientific evidence for such phenomena was sketchy. Pictures purporting to show auras and other ghostly images were easily dismissed as lens flares, or more often than not, were the result of hucksters using techniques like Kirlian photography to produce visually stunning, but definitely not supernatural images of electromagnetic fields. Terrestrial electromagnetic energy was widely cited as the source of Sedona’s strange phenomena. The area was reputed to be a major junction of electromagnetic meridians, often called “ley lines”—similar effects were often reported at the Pyramids of Egypt, Stonehenge, Easter Island, or anywhere that New Age gurus might be able to convince the gullible to part with their money—but EM effects could be measured, and there was no observable difference in the earth’s magnetic field at Sedona to back up this pseudo-scientific explanation.

Nevertheless, Jade’s experiences in Paracas and the Hypogeum had convinced him to give those stories a second look. In almost every case, the effects described by visitors to Sedona and the surrounding area mirrored the effects described in infrasound experiments, ranging from altered mood to hallucinations to temporary loss of consciousness and lapses of memory, which could be mistaken for teleportation—another commonly reported phenomena associated with the Sedona vortices. A resonance chamber in the hills of Sedona, either naturally occurring or constructed by one of the civilizations that had inhabited the area over the preceding nine thousand years, was a perfectly plausible explanation.

It did not of course explain how Jade was able to “see” an elaborate Vault from the other side of the world,
but
, Professor thought,
one impossible thing at a time
.

It took a little over seven hours to make the drive from Edwards AFB to Sedona and then a little further south to the place Jade revealed to be the
actual
location of the vault, a 547-foot high red limestone butte shaped like a bell—thus the name, Bell Rock—though to Professor, it looked more like a medieval castle perched atop a huge domed mountain.

According to the tourist pamphlets Jade had collected, Bell Rock was one of the four prominent vortex sites in the Sedona area, and rumor had it the mountain concealed an enormous crystal that produced harmonic energy waves—more New Age-y nonsense, as far as Professor was concerned—or possibly a hidden alien city, which now didn’t seem quite as preposterous as it once had. Bell Rock had achieved near-global notoriety in 2012 when a Sedona retiree, obsessed with the belief that all of human existence was actually an elaborate computer simulation—probably after reading one of Roche’s books—claimed that a portal to another dimension would open up during the winter solstice, which not-coincidentally corresponded to the arrival of the overhyped end of the Mayan calendar, and that by taking a literal leap of faith from the promontory, he would be hurled through space and time to the center of the galaxy. Professor could not recall hearing the man’s eventual fate, but he could not ignore the similarities to what Jade had described. Perhaps there was some kind of doorway at Bell Rock, and a resonance chamber that could, figuratively at least, send a person on a cosmic journey.

Was that a secret worth killing for? Evidently both the Changelings and Atash Shah thought so, though for very different reasons. Shah’s faith-based concerns he could understand, even if they were wholly irrational, but what did the Changelings hope to gain from protecting what was essentially a great big hallucination machine?

Jade pulled the car off in a parking area at the trailhead near the highway. It was late afternoon but there were still several other cars in the lot, most of them bearing Arizona license plates, though there were a few from other states. All of the cars had an innocuous well-traveled look about them, but that was exactly the sort of attention to detail he would expect from the Changelings.

Jade got out and went to the trunk. Inside was a small backpack along with an ample supply of bottled water. “Load up,” she said. “The entrance is in a cave about fifty feet up the cliff. We’ll have to do some climbing.”

“That’s a pretty precise estimate,” Professor remarked. “I wonder if you were seeing it as it is now, or as it was when the Hypogeum was first built. Did the vision account for erosion and weathering?”

“Don’t be such a spoilsport. I know exactly where to go. When we get there, you’ll either see that I’m right, or get to crow about me being delusional.”

“I didn’t say you were... You know what, you’re right. Let’s go.”

Jade stuffed several bottles into the pack and then handed one each to Professor and Shah. “It’s not far, but we should probably get moving if we want to get there before dark.”

“Lead the way.” He fixed Shah with a pointed stare. “I’ll bring up the rear.”

A frown flickered across Shah’s face but he did not reply. Instead, he fell into step behind Jade and did not look back. Professor allowed them to get a lead of about fifty yards before heading out. He walked with his hands on his hips, his right hand just a few inches from the Beretta nine-millimeter pistol tucked into his belt at the small of his back and covered by the tail of his shirt. Sievers had brought him the weapon in Australia, and though he only had one spare fifteen-round magazine, he was not as worried about being outgunned by the Changelings as he was being outfoxed by them. A frontal assault wasn’t their style, but that did not make them any less formidable.

The well-maintained trail headed north toward the towering formation, paralleling the highway for the first mile or so. They passed several day hikers and mountain bikers returning to the trailhead, presumably after completing the nearly four mile long loop that encompassed both Bell Rock and the considerably more massive but not quite as photogenic Courthouse Butte to the east. None of the tourists gave them more than a second glance, but Professor varied his stride, sometimes falling back as much as a hundred yards to see if anyone was paying closer than usual attention to them.

When they reached the Y-junction and the beginning of the loop, Jade paused as if taking a rest break. When she sure there was nobody in their line of sight, she left the trail behind and headed due north toward the base of the rock. Professor lingered a few minutes to make sure they were not being observed, and then headed out at a jog.

Jade moved toward the butte as if guided by a homing beacon. Despite his skepticism concerning her supposed out-of-body experience, he marveled at the certainty with which she sped toward her goal, but that was easily enough explained by the fact that this was probably not her first visit to Bell Rock. The Sedona area had been inhabited for thousands of years, and there were ongoing archaeological excavations all over the region. He knew for a fact that Jade had done extensive field work in the Southwest as part of her search for the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola. In the great Venn diagram of life, that had been the moment where Jade’s circle and his had first intersected; Jade had been working with Professor’s former SEAL commander, Dane Maddock.

Even so, a prior visit did not fully account for her laser-like focus. Jade was moving with a purpose, scrambling onto the slope as if following a GPS device in her head, forcing him, reluctantly, to revise his hypothesis. Dreams—and that was the most rational explanation for the out-of-body-experience phenomenon—were rarely a perfect representation of reality. The brain had a way of mixing things up, combining memories and filling in the gaps with subconscious expectations. If Jade’s vision were nothing more than a mental rerun of a previous visit, then he would have expected her to begin exhibiting confusion, searching the terrain for familiar markers to reorient herself. She was most certainly not doing that.

“Up there,” she said, pointing to a weathered draw that ran up to the foot of the sheer vertical slope.

The draw, which channeled rainwater away in the path of least resistance, had been millions of years in the making, just like everything else in the landscape. Caves, like the one Jade had described, were like the bubbles in a block of Swiss cheese, disappearing as the passage of time scoured away the surrounding rock. It would be nothing short of miraculous if the cave Jade sought was actually the opening to an ancient Vault—

“There,” Jade said, pointing up to a shadowy divot about fifty feet above the top of the draw. “That’s the one.”

She opened her backpack and took out a bundle of kernmantle climbing rope, along with three nylon safety harnesses. “I’ll lead and set protection,” she said, as she donned the harness. “We’ll top rope Atash since he’s the least experienced climber here.”

“And you’re the second least,” Professor said. “I’ll lead and top rope both of you.”

She shook her head. “I know the route. It’s a piece of cake.”

“Let me guess. You saw that, too?”

“I saw what I saw,” she retorted. “And I’ve been right so far. Why is it so hard for you to just trust me?”

He decided not to answer that, but gamely slipped his legs into the hoops of the harness and then helped Shah do the same. Jade did not wait for them to finish, but threaded the belay rope through the carabiner attached to the front of her harness and started up the wall.

She climbed quickly, as sure-footed as a spider, setting her first piece of protection—a spring-loaded cam that she slipped into a two-inch wide vertical crack—about twenty feet up. Limestone, formed from the calcium carbonate shells of ancient sea creatures, was sort of like nature’s concrete, but even the hardest rock could crumble under stress. If Jade fell, the camming device was just as likely to be yanked out of the wall as it was to arrest her fall. Jade however seemed unconcerned, as if setting the anchors was merely a formality. Beyond that point, she was less frugal about the gear, putting a piece in place every five feet or so, but she moved with the same purposefulness that had brought her this far. Less than ten minutes after beginning the climb, she pulled herself into the cave opening and set a final anchor.

“I’m up,” she called out.

Professor turned to Shah again. “You think you can do what she just did?”

Shah nodded but without enthusiasm. “If I must.”

Jade’s plan had been for Professor to top rope Shah—maintaining tension of the belaying line so that if Shah slipped, the rope going up to the last anchor Jade had set would keep him from falling. It was the way most beginning climbers got their start, but Professor was having second thoughts about the plan.  For one thing, Shah’s safety would depend on whether or not Jade’s anchor held fast. Climbing protection was generally reliable, but if Shah repeatedly lost his grip, the anchor could conceivably come loose.

Of course, the real reason he didn’t like the plan was that it would put Shah and Jade alone together in the cave.

“That’s what I thought. I’m going to go up first. That way, I can pull you up if I have to.” He did not bother giving Shah a crash-course in climbing techniques or how to belay from below, which  meant that he would be climbing more or less without anyone to arrest him in the event of a fall, but he trusted his own abilities a lot more than he trusted Shah.

Shah’s hesitancy turned into something more like suspicion, but he nodded again. “Whatever you think best.”

Professor cinched the rope to Shah’s harness with a figure-eight knot. “When I give you the signal, start climbing. I’ll be pulling in the slack from up there, so you won’t be in any danger. Just pay attention to where I put my hands and feet and do the same. Got it?”

Another nod.

“Good.” Professor turned away and, using the anchored rope Jade had set like a thread to guide him through a maze, made the ascent in half the time it had taken her.

“You were right,” he said to her, grinning. “Piece of cake.

The recess was larger than it had looked from below, though it still looked more like a scalloped depression in the limestone than an actual cave. What might once have been the front porch of the mythical Vault now seemed more like a second story exit door with no attending staircase.

Jade shone a flashlight up into the darkest reaches of the niche, revealing a shadowy hole, like the opening to a chimney. It appeared to be just barely large enough to accommodate a person. “That passage leads to the entrance to the vault,” she said, grinning triumphantly. “Believe me now?”

Shah watched from
below as Professor disappeared into the shadowy niche. His eyes followed the rope that dangled from the cave entrance, zigzagged through the anchors, and then reached out, like the tentacles of some mythical sea creature to snag hold of the carabiner attached to the front of his climbing harness. His heart was racing but this had nothing at all to do with the impending climb.