Search: A Novel of Forbidden History (43 page)

Four hours after their impromptu astronomy lesson, David and Jess were on a Bombardier Global Express XRS leased to Haldron Oil. Twenty-five hours later, with a single refueling stop in Bombay, they’d changed planes in Sydney, New South Wales. Four hours more and they were in Australia’s Northern Territory.

Twice they’d been processed by immigration officials, and both times Jess had produced new passports with new names. American for India, Canadian for Australia.

“How about I drive?” Jess already had her hand on the right-side door of a dusty white Toyota Land Cruiser in the Thrifty Car Rental parking stall.

David shrugged, not inclined to argue. He opened the Cruiser’s left-side door and climbed into the passenger seat. Its leather covering stuck unpleasantly to the back of his already sweat-soaked shirt. The cabin itself was uncomfortably hot, even with the vehicle parked beneath an awning.

A Haldron employee had met them in the Sydney airport with a packet of outback gear and clothing. They’d changed on the plane north. Now they were in khaki shorts and short-sleeved shirts, long white socks and leather boots, and wide-brimmed hats. David held his hat on his lap. He’d wear it later.

“You’re sure about this?”

Jess turned the key in the ignition. The diesel engine started rough, evened out.

“They’ve tried to kill you twice now,” he added. “So knocking on their door might not be the best idea.”

Jess adjusted the air vents to direct the air-conditioning at her face. The outside temperature was over 100°F. The southern hemisphere was moving toward summer.

“Su-Lin didn’t tell Willem about the people who came after me in Canada,” she said. “So whatever she’s doing, whatever she’s hiding, she believes not all the other defenders will agree. Willem was my aunt’s . . . great love.”

“I thought defenders weren’t supposed to get involved.”

“They’re not supposed to turn on each other, either. Victoria Claridge was a good friend of Florian’s. If Su-Lin didn’t share news about me with Willem, my guess is she hasn’t told Victoria.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“Then this is where I’d end up anyway. Locked up in the Shop in the middle of nowhere. I’d rather think about what’ll happen if I’m right.”

“So would I,” David said. His future was now tied to hers. Without access to her family’s records, he had no chance to improve the genetic odds of his survival. Or even find out if survival was possible.

They drove from the lot to the entrance to Roger Vale Road, following it to the two-lane highway that led to Alice Springs, the small town located in what was almost the exact geographical center of Australia. Before they reached the Alice, Jess took a sharp turn onto another two-lane road that passed for an outback highway and started driving east.

“How far?” David asked.

“Fifty klicks.”

The landscape was startlingly orange-red, flat and dusty, broken by stark and endless hills to the north. But for the sparse olive-green and dun-colored desert plants and grasses here and there, it might as well have been Mars. “You weren’t kidding about the middle of nowhere.”

“That’s the whole point,” Jess said. “In the event of nuclear Armageddon, the Family’s collection would survive. Of course, ten years after we moved everything out here, the CIA built a satellite ground station ten miles to the west of town, and the whole area became a target.”

“You didn’t move again?”

“Apparently we’re far enough underground. It’s an old mine that we took over, then excavated even more. Very impressive.”

“How big?”

“I don’t really know. I’ve been there four times, and it seems to go on forever. I’m told it houses close to a hundred and sixty million individual artifacts.” She glanced away from the monotony of the road for a moment. “That’s more than the Smithsonian—
all
the Smithsonians.”

“You’re just . . . saving stuff?”

“We study it. Preserve it.” She sounded defensive. “It’s what the First Gods asked us to do.”

“But they gave away knowledge, and you’re hiding it.”

“That’s unfair, and you know it.”

The Cruiser rocked as Jess swerved to avoid a snake sunning itself on the open road. “How many times was the Library at Alexandria looted by invading forces? How many Mayan codices were burned by the Spanish? Books and artwork burned by Nazis? The Taliban shelling the Afghani
Buddhas? The Qin Dynasty of China didn’t just burn books, they buried scholars alive. Who can even comprehend the loss in human knowledge, human arts, human experience, that’s been brought about by centuries—by millennia—of religious and political extremism and intolerance?

“That’s why we keep our beliefs to ourselves. Why we adopt the religion and the culture of whatever time and place we’re in. So we
don’t
stand out,
don’t
attract attention. So we can
protect
human knowledge from human ignorance, and hatred, and fear.”

“Until the First Gods come back.” David closed his eyes against the glare. He had heard this before.

“Until then.”

David’s eyes opened. Jess’s hands were tight on the wheel, her knuckles white. Her attention fixed on the unchanging road and landscape.

He’d just heard something that he
hadn’t
heard from Jess before.

Doubt.

Ironwood was on a small dock in Port Vila harbor, buying fish for dinner. It was another of the many reasons he enjoyed the island nation he’d adopted. In addition to its no-extradition-to-America rule, haggling over prices was frowned upon, and it was considered rude to tip. Apparently, at some point in its past, some wise politician had also decided income taxes were rude as well, because Vanuatu didn’t have that annoying custom, either.

He paid the fair price for a fine barramundi and had the fish wrapped in brown paper for his driver to carry in the string bag already swelling with glossy purple eggplant, bright yellow grapefruit, and ripe brown pawpaw. Farther down the weathered dock was a stand that could be counted on to have the largest prawns. He moved on through the crowd of local shoppers and Australian tourists to make his next purchase.

But Crazy Mike stopped him, phone in hand.

Ironwood checked the time. It had taken Agent Jack Lyle almost two days to analyze the Cornwall printout and get back to him. A bit faster than he’d anticipated. No matter; the outcome would be the same.

He took the phone and selected a section of the dock between two vendors’ stalls where he could lean against the rough wood safety rail and have a private and profitable conversation.

“So what did your experts tell you?” Ironwood kept his tone amiable, a man in control.

“Tell me about what?”
The voice on the other end of the call was unexpected but familiar.

“Merrit?”

“Sorry to call you this way, but the satphone could be—”

Ironwood lowered his voice with effort. “Where are you?”

“Probably better you don’t know. The Cornwall thing, it didn’t go the way we hoped.”

“Go on.”

“The MacCleirighs got there first. Makes no sense, but they demolished it.”

Ironwood felt the phone tremble in his fist. How far was his security chief going to take this fabrication? “Where’s my son?”

He heard Merrit exhale—this from a man who never broke a sweat.

“There’s no good way to tell you this. He got caught in the explosions, the cave-in. I tried to pull him out, but . . . he didn’t make it.”

Ironwood had to concentrate on every word he spoke, to keep rage from consuming him. “Then why’s J.R. in the custody of the air force? Telling them things even I don’t know?”

Merrit hesitated.
“I saw the tunnel roof fall in on him . . .”

“What’d you do to Frank Beyoun?”

“The programmer? Nothing. Haven’t seen him since—”

“Frank is dead, Merrit. My son says you killed him.”

“I didn’t. Why would I?”

“That last day, when Dave gave me that hard drive, there was something going on between you two. Did he take off because of you?”

“Your handpicked genius stole from you and hooked up with your enemies, and you’re blaming me because he ran?”

“Florian MacClary. She died in Tahiti. Now I’m wondering if you killed her, too. I have always considered this . . . ‘difference of opinion’ between me and that misguided foundation to be a gentleman’s disagreement. But if my boy’s right, you’ve turned it into some kind of war.”

“He’s lying. That’s all I can say.”

Ironwood had a flash picture of his son lying wounded in a hospital, ready to bring down everything his father had worked to build, the legacy of truth he wanted to leave to the world.
Because I saw only what I wanted to . . . heard only what I wanted to . . . ignored the evidence . . .

He wrenched his thoughts away from what he couldn’t change.

“Then prove it. Explain it all away, to me, in person.”

“Why? So you can trade me to the air force for your son?”

“The air force isn’t interested in you. Now answer: Will you come here and defend your good name?”

“What do you think?”

“I’ll take that as a no.” Ironwood disconnected.

He also took it as a declaration of war from a murderer.

His quest for the truth had just become a quest for survival.

“Doesn’t look like much,” David said.

“That’s the point,” Jess answered.

Thirty miles from the town of Alice Springs, with no other sign of human habitation in sight, she slowly drove the now-filthy Land Cruiser along the winding red-dirt road, through a wide-open gate in a sagging chain-link fence that offered little more than a suggestion of security.

In the distance, past a weathered tin guard shack, was the beginning
slope of a massive sandstone outcropping. Just past the shack was a sun-bleached and wind-scoured sign. It was a directory of storage and file-management companies, listing loading docks each could be accessed through. A wooden barricade arm beside the guard shack was down, ostensibly preventing entry to the continuation of the road beyond, though a car could easily drive around it.

Jess stopped the big SUV in front of the barricade.

“What now?”

“Won’t be long.”

Less than a minute later, a crunch of dirt, and another vehicle approached from off road. A Land Rover Defender. The much-dented and dust-filmed white vehicle had extra fuel cans strapped to its roof rack. It looked antique, but even through closed windows, David heard its engine. It was new and powerful.

The driver got out, no sense of urgency about him. He wore knee-length tan shorts, a sweat-stained olive drab shirt with epaulets, thick boots, and what David decided was an Australian version of a cowboy hat. A second man stayed in the vehicle.

Jess lowered her window as the man approached and rested her hand on the open sill. The position looked awkward to David, and he noticed the tips of her thumb and index finger touched.

“G’day,” the driver said. “Looking for something?”

“I’m on a long journey.”

“Which direction?”

“West to east.”

The man’s attitude seemed to change. He scratched lightly at his throat with two fingers, then bent down to look past Jess at David. “Can you vouch for him?” the man asked.

“No,” Jess said.

“Fair enough. I’ll let herself know you’re on the way.”

“Thank you.”

“No worries.” The man walked back to his vehicle, swung in, and used a radio mike.

“Was all that some sort of code?” David asked.

“Some of it.”

“So why couldn’t you vouch for me?”

“It’s a different meaning. He wanted to know if you were Family. I said you weren’t, so he had to be careful of what he said.”

“What if I am part of the Family?”

“Then I’ll teach you the codes myself.”

The barricade arm swung up, and Jess drove on. Ahead, beside an
industrial-sized propane storage tank, David glimpsed for the first time the opening in the sandstone cliff, wide enough and tall enough for three double-decker buses to drive in, side by side. It dwarfed the Toyota as they drove through.

The volume inside could easily accommodate a doubles tennis court. Three other white Land Rovers were parked along one red-hued wall whose grooves and lines suggested it had been carved from solid rock.

Jess switched on the Cruiser’s headlights, and, at the back of the artificial cave, David counted three loading docks with standard garage-type doors.

Halfway to the docks, she parked beside the wall and told David to leave the luggage and come with her.

The sign on the metal personnel door between two of the loading dock doors said hours were by appointment only.

Jess stood before it, waiting.

David looked up to the vast raw-rock ceiling and saw security cameras looking down.

The metal door opened.

The woman before them was young, with a slight build. A soft black cloud of hair framed a caramel complexion and clear sherry-brown eyes. Despite the pervasive red-desert dust, her shirt and jeans were immaculate.

“Bakana,” Jess said.