Read The Midnight Watch: A Sigma Force Short Story Online
Authors: James Rollins
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Suspense, #90 Minutes (44-64 Pages), #Fiction, #Thriller, #Thrillers
The Midnight Watch: A Sigma Force Short Story (6 page)
“I don’t understand the meaning of all of this,” Kircher said. “This map and this bit of old bone. They come with no letter of explanation.”
The emissary finally spoke, his Italian thickly accented. “The emperor chose me to deliver the other half of this message, words I was sworn to set to memory and reveal only to you, Reverend Father.”
“And what are those words?”
“The emperor knows of your interest in the ancient past, in those secrets buried in the bowels of the earth, and requests your aid in investigating what was revealed at the site marked on the map.”
“And what might be found there?” Nicolas asked. “More bones, such as this?”
He stepped closer and studied the ossified sliver, the crusts of whitish rock. He sensed the great antiquity of what lay upon the desk.
“Bones and much more,” the messenger concurred.
“And who do these bones belong to?” Kircher asked. “Whose grave do they mark?”
The young man answered, his words shocking. Then before either man could respond, the messenger swiftly drew out a dagger and sliced his own throat from ear to ear. Blood poured forth as the man choked and collapsed first to his knees, then to the floor.
Nicolas rushed to the young man’s aid, cursing at such brutal necessity. It seemed those final words were meant only for Father Kircher and himself, and once dispatched, were never to be spoken again.
Father Kircher rounded his desk and dropped to a knee, taking the young man’s hand between his palms, but his question was for Nicolas. “Could it be true?”
Nicolas swallowed, dismayed by the last message spoken through those bloody lips.
The bones . . . they belong to Adam and Eve.
April 29, 10:32
A.M.
CEST
Karlovac County, Croatia
W
E SHOULDN’T BE HERE.
A trickle of superstitious dread stopped Roland Novak on a switchback of the trail. He raised his hand against the morning sun and stared at the craggy mountaintop ahead. Black clouds stacked in the distance.
According to Croatian folktales—stories he had heard as a child—during stormy nights, witches and fairies would gather atop the summit of Klek Mountain, where their screams would be heard all the way to the neighboring city of Ogulin. It was a peak haunted by tales of the unwary or the unlucky meeting horrible fates.
For centuries, such legends had kept the peak fairly unmolested. But in the past few decades that had changed when the crag’s towering cliffs drew an ever-increasing number of local rock climbers. Still, this was not why Roland and the others risked scaling the northern side of the mountain this morning.
“It’s not much farther,” Alex Wrightson promised. “Best we be in and out before the storm hits.”
The British geologist led the foursome, looking as solidly built as these peaks, though he had to be close to seventy years old. He wore khaki hiking shorts despite the chill, revealing strong, wiry legs. His snow-white hair, fuller than Roland’s own receding blond hairline, was tucked under a climbing helmet.
“That’s the third time he’s claimed that,” Lena Crandall mumbled under her breath to Roland. A fine sheen of perspiration from the hour-long climb made her cheeks glow, but she didn’t seem winded. Then again, she was in her midtwenties, and from the well-worn boots on her feet, he figured she must do a fair amount of hiking herself.
She stared at the skies, studying the towering wall of dark clouds. “Luckily I was able to get here a day early,” she said. “Once that storm breaks, these mountains will be swamped for who knows how long.”
In acknowledgment of that threat, the group set a harder pace up the unmarked trail. Lena unzipped her thermal expedition jacket and adjusted an old backpack higher on her shoulders. It bore the logo for Emory University, her alma mater in Atlanta, Georgia. Roland knew little else about this American, except that she was a geneticist who had been called away from a fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. And like Roland, she was equally in the dark about the reason behind this sudden summons by the British geologist and his partner, a French paleontologist.
As they climbed, Dr. Dayne Arnaud spoke in low whispers with Wrightson, and though Roland could not make out the paleontologist’s words, especially with the man’s thick French accent, the researcher plainly sounded irritated. So far neither of the men had shared any more details concerning the group’s destination or what they had discovered here.
Roland forced himself to be patient. He had grown up in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, but he knew all the stories surrounding this peak of the Dinaric Alps. Its summit bore an uncanny resemblance to a giant lying on its back. It was said to be the body of the giant Klek, who battled the god Volos and was turned to stone for his affront. Before being petrified, the giant swore that he would one day break free from his slumber and exact revenge upon the world.
Roland felt a flicker of superstitious unease.
Because that giant had been rumbling of late.
This region was prone to earthquakes, a fact that possibly gave rise to this legend of a slumbering giant. Then last month a strong quake registering 5.2 on the Richter scale had shaken the region, even cracking the bell tower of a medieval church in the nearby city of Ogulin.
Roland suspected that quake was tied to whatever had been discovered by the geologist and paleontologist. His suspicions proved true when the party circled past a craggy shoulder of the mountain and into a dense patch of pines. Ahead, a massive chunk of rock had broken from the cliff face and shattered into the forest, knocking down trees and smashing through the landscape, like the stomping of the mighty Klek himself.
Wrightson spoke as they followed a path through the maze of boulders and shattered trunks. “A local bird watcher stumbled upon the destruction here after last month’s quake. He was hiking early enough in the morning to see steam rising from between a few boulders, hinting at the possibility of a cavern system below.”
“And you believe the recent earthquake cracked this system open?” Lena asked.
“Indeed.” Wrightson waved an arm. “Not a particularly surprising outcome. This whole range is made up mostly of karst, a form of limestone. All the rainfall and abundant springs have made this region a geological playground, full of marvels. Underground rivers, sinkholes, caves—you name it.”
Roland stared at Arnaud. “But it was
more
than just an old cave you found here.”
Wrightson glanced back, his eyes glinting with amused excitement. “Best we don’t ruin the surprise. Isn’t that right, Dr. Arnaud?”
The paleontologist grumbled sourly, a match to the scowl that seemed permanently etched on his features. While Wrightson was gregarious and outgoing, the Frenchman was his dark shadow, ever grim and meanspirited. The researcher was only a few years older than Roland, who was thirty-two, but Arnaud’s attitude made him seem far older. Roland suspected much of Arnaud’s attitude rose from his annoyance at both his and the American’s inclusion here today. Roland knew how some scientists could become very territorial about their work.
“Ah, here we are!” Wrightson declared, stepping forward to the top of a ladder that protruded from a nondescript hole in the ground.
Focused on the goal, Roland missed the figure standing in the shadow of a boulder until the large man stepped into the sunlight. He had a rifle resting on his shoulder. Though the guard was dressed in civilian clothes, his stiff stance, the sharp creases in his clothes, and the steely glint in his eyes all suggested a military background. Even his black hair was shaved to stubble, looking more like a peaked skullcap.
He spoke rapidly to Arnaud in French.
Roland didn’t speak the language, but from the attitude, the guard plainly was not subservient to the paleontologist, more a colleague on equal footing. The guard pointed toward the darkening skies, seeming to be arguing about whether to allow them to go below. Finally he cursed, stepped to a generator, and yanked on a cord, setting the engine to rumbling.
“That would be Commandant Henri Gerard,” Wrightson introduced. “He’s with the Chasseurs Alpins, the elite French mountain infantry. He and his men have been keeping anyone from trespassing here.”
Roland glanced around, trying to spot any other soldiers, but he failed.
“A sad but necessary precaution, I’m afraid,” Wrightson continued. “After the birder discovered this possible entrance, he contacted a caving club to investigate. Lucky for us, the club’s members adhere to a strict and secretive code of conduct. When they discovered the importance of what lay below, they preserved what they found and reached out to their French comrades, those who oversaw the preservation of such famous caves as Chauvet and Lascaux.”
With a background in art history, Roland understood the significance of mentioning those two caves. The sites were famous for their Paleolithic cave art, paintings done by the oldest ancestors of modern man.
He stared toward the opening, suspecting now what must lie below.
Lena also understood. “Did you find cave artwork down there?”
Wrightson lifted one eyebrow. “Oh, we found so much more.” His gaze settled on Roland. “It’s why we contacted the Vatican, Father Novak . . . why you were summoned from the Croatian Catholic University in Zagreb to join us.”
Roland peered down into the tunnel. As thunder rumbled in the distance, dread drew him to touch the white Roman collar at his neck.
Arnaud spoke in his heavily accented voice, his disdain ringing clear. “Father Novak, you are here to witness and verify the miracle we’ve found.”
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JAMES ROLLINS
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from
The Bone Labyrinth
copyright © 2015 by James Czajkowski.
THE MIDNIGHT WATCH
. Copyright © 2015 by James Czajkowski. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition NOVEMBER 2015 ISBN: 9780062464286
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