Chapter 57
SATURDAY 4:21 p.m.
Stenness Basecamp
Orkney Island, Scotland
Thatcher lay on the cot within her personal quarters
. She had finished organizing the exodus of northern Scotland and eastern Ireland. There was nothing left to do but wait. She stared at the digital clock over the doorway. The numbers speedily unraveled, closing in on the next detonation. Halting time seemed to be the only answer.
She closed her eyes.
Keep it simple
.
There was a task
at hand. She had a job to do.
The
only device capable of creating a vacuum powerful enough to stop the graves was their thermobaric AVX. The weapon created a midair explosion a few feet above ground that formed a vacuum similar to a category F-6 tornado. Midway through the explosion, the pressure wave would collapse into the earth’s crust in an implosion so violent that everything at the surface would be obliterated. The aftermath was unidentifiable. These weapons were deadly and costly, but far more precise than anything in the worldwide nuclear arsenal.
She shivered.
Implosion was a hideous way to die. She’d seen classified photographs of tests during the Cold War. AVX flattened matter like a heavy boot crushed snow. Anything close to the fringes of the explosion would be charred by the fiery plume of secondary fuels.
H
er mind was foggy but it wouldn’t stop racing. Her body needed rest.
The anecdote
of counting sheep came to mind.
O
ne sheep. Two sheep. Three…
A friendly herd stampeded over her thoughts. She envisioned
the pleasant countryside where they grazed. A short distance away was an outcropping of earth, a beautiful hill, a spectacular place to watch the sunset. She followed them to the mound, feeling the soft breeze across her skin. At the base of the hill was a door, an entrance formed within the rock. She followed the sheep inside and wandered down the narrow passage. It opened into a chamber with tall stone walls peaking high above her head. At the back of the room, a spiral carving glowed on the wall. She felt drawn to the symbol. She lifted her hand to the etching and traced its inward curvature. Her fingers followed the shape, slowly winding toward center, where the spiral ended with a hole. She reached inside the hole.
Dust swirled off the floor. Sand slipped beneath her feet.
A buzzing noise bounced around the room off each of the walls.
The ground began to swallow her, d
raining like an hourglass around her ankles. She sank deeper into the earth, her legs tingling. It was a warm sensation, very different from the cacophony of noise spinning around the chamber. As the floor sucked her under, she grabbed handfuls of sand. It slipped through her fingers and crumbled in her hands. There was nothing to hold on to.
The sound became a roar
, and the sheep turned ugly. Their bodies began to twitch and then convulse. Their eyes were paranoid and bulging. Their skulls caving inward as their heads imploded.
The e
arth continued to drag her down. It was now at her hips, devouring her whole. She slipped below the surface. Its dryness filled her lungs with irritating pepper granules. Loam poured into her ears, dampening the furious noise. Dirt encompassed her with a stifling embrace. Although muffled, the clamor resonated inside her skull. It was trapped. Once inside, it would never cease to rage.
Thatcher sat up in her cot
, coughing and gagging. She brushed sweat off her forehead. She lowered her head into her hands and took in a deep breath.
So much for counting sheep.
****
Marek leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. He had only spent two minutes in his personal quarters before giving up on the idea of a nap.
Lee had constructed a make-shift lab with the remaining equipment in the storage room. Once Hummer announced all research of Maeshowe’s voice pattern was off-limits, he’d become obsessed with unscrambling the meaning. After formulating a logarithmic equation capable of disentangling the noise, he built a soundex decoder program from a collection of pirated language software. He had run the recording through a series of filters ranging from Arabic to Zulu.
So far, t
he effort was fruitless.
“You can’t sleep either?” Thatcher
took a seat beside him. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to solve
this puzzle,” he said. “
Trying
being the operative word. I’ve run this recording against every language on the planet.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
Thatcher shrugged. “So, what now?”
“I’ve been cross-checking Greek lexicons for the last hour.”
“Any luck?”
“Not unless they’re saying, ‘Sarah is a good-for-nothin’ towel.’”
“You might be onto something.”
“
Lachsa’arhh pahrash tssa
,” he repeated the phrase from memory.
The computer beeped another NO MATCH.
“Maybe the word order is wrong,” Thatcher suggested.
“
Of course—the towel is a good-for-nothin’ Sarah.” He gave her a smart-ass wink. “The program can recognize multiple syllables in any order. That’s why this takes so long. It has to compare all the sound constructs with each language.”
Thatcher
lowered her head to her knee.
“Why don’t you
go get some sleep?” Marek said, rubbing her back.
She
sat up, away from his touch.
“I’ve already tried.” S
he bounced her knee nervously.
The computer beeped another NO MATCH.
Marek stared down at her bouncing leg. It was shaking the desk.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
Marek grabbed her knee. “
What’s on your mind?”
“It’s just…
I found something,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“I’ve been reading a manuscript by David Hyden’s father.”
Marek masked his disappointment
at hearing the name Hyden. “And?”
“Hi
s father studied passage graves, also. In fact, the man’s theories are quite amusing. He believed the ruins are portal tombs that will be used to move from place to place during the Apocalypse.”
She waited for his reaction.
He didn’t give her one. He studied the screen as it searched a new word sequence.
She continued,
“In his research, he found there are passage graves as far away as Ohio in the States all the way to the burial mounds in Gyeongju, North Korea. Those things are all over the place.”
He cocked his head in consideration
. “That could be a very bad thing.”
“
He also said graves are the voice box of God. That this noise is the voices of the dead.”
“D
ead people are talking to us?” he asked in all seriousness.
Thatcher was embarrassed.
“I don’t know. According to David’s father…”
“Well, whatever they’re saying,
it sure isn’t in Greek.” He uploaded the Hebrew index and sat back in his chair. “I went to Bible school when I was a kid. Isn’t there something about God’s voice being all quiet and subtle like a whisper, but it can cause earthquakes and tempests and shit?”
Thatcher rubbed her
temples. “Assume for one crazy second that Brenton Hyden is right. What happens if we destroy these graves?”
“
You mean, what happens if we remove God’s voice box?” He started up the Hebrew program and then turned to face her. “Assuming we even can destroy the graves… I’d say we’re toast.”
“
What would the dead be trying to tell us?”
“Repent. Eat your vegetables. F
loss your teeth.”
She frowned
. “Marek, I’m serious.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
The computer beeped another NO MATCH.
“You should have left basecamp when you had
the chance…” he whispered.
Thatcher looked
at him in surprise.
“I heard your phone conversation when we were topside.” He pulled his iPod from his pocket. “The
se batteries have been dead ever since that night in the tent.”
Thatcher
turned red. She was such a schoolgirl.
“I
know you’re not telling me something. Be straight with me.” He touched her chin.
She chose her words carefully. “
David has a lead. Whether or not it can stop the graves, I don’t know.”
Marek stared into her eyes, trying to see beyond the walls and barriers.
“Why are you still here, Brynne?”
She
tried to look away.
“You should be out there
. Helping him.”
“I can’t
leave.”
Marek nodded. “I see how it is…”
She crossed her arms. “What does that mean?”
“Your man
’s out there saving the world, while you’re sitting on your fine little ass, wasting time with a brother from the Bronx just because you’re too afraid to stand up to your uncle.”
“It’s mor
e complicated than that and you know it.” She was offended by his oversimplification, and probably by the fact that he was right.
“We
got nothin’ goin’ down here. Hell, we don’t even know if AVX will stop the ‘voices of the dead.’ I don’t care what Hummer throws at those graves—none of it’ll do any good.” He lowered his voice and leaned into her. “You should be out there with him. No matter what Hummer or NATO or the whole damn world thinks.”
Tears
began to build in her eyes. She bit her bottom lip. “What do you expect me to do?” she fired back, fighting the urge to cry.
“Come here.”
She didn’t move.
“Come the hell here.” Marek pulled her into him.
For once in her life, Thatcher didn’t fight him. Though her body was rigid, she let him hold her.
“Talk to Hummer,” he said. “He’s your flesh and blo
od. That’s got to mean something.”
She wiped her eyes
and tried to stand.
He held onto her shoulders
. “Here, take this.” He unhooked the gold chain from his neck and placed it around her head, setting the crucifix softly on her neck.
He
studied her face. She was terrified. Her tear-filled eyes looked up at him with uncertainty. She didn’t have a clue about what she wanted. Her hands were shaking. She was too delicate to save the world.
He wanted to kiss her, but her
fear made him stop. She didn’t love him.
Marek
turned back to the computer. “Do something,” he said, a rock forming in his throat. “Because you’re driving me crazy.”
She backed away.
“I’ll talk with Hummer.” She turned on her heels and left the room.
Chapter 58
SATURDAY 4:30 p.m.
Lothian, Scotland
The roads were empty. He hadn’t seen anyone for the last thirty minutes.
Reaching for the Scotland-By-Highway map in the passenger’s seat, he unfolded it with one hand and tried to stay on the road with the other. The print
was ridiculously tiny, especially on such an absurdly large map. The paper could unfold well beyond the width of the car. After a few dangerous overcorrections at the wheel, he located Lothian.
Dammit.
He’d passed the turnoff 12 miles ago.
The map had to be wrong. H
e hadn’t passed any highways. He set the paper down on the passenger seat. The sun was setting, heating the rental car. He took off his coat and rolled down the windows.
He spotted a road
a short distance up the highway. The turnoff looked like his only option. He floored the gas pedal, turned off the highway, and then pulled over to look at the map again. There was no time for mistakes. He wanted to be certain before heading back down the coast. He stepped outside and spread the paper over the roof.
T
hick grassy tundra spread across the eastern horizon. There was no civilization for miles in every direction. Thatcher had warned him about the evacuation. What if this guy was already gone?
A gust
of wind peeled the map off the hood. The paper twisted out of his hands and tumbled down the road. He ran after it, stomping along the rocky shoulder until he captured the paper beneath his foot. His shoe landed on something hard and he heard a metal clang. He bent over and pushed aside the weeds. Buried under pebbles and grass, a fallen road sign had been reclaimed by the earth. He brushed dirt off the placard.
Route 839
Lothian 24 km
By some miracle, he had
stumbled upon the right place.
****
The Lothian Post was not at all like he had envisioned. Attached to the back of a rundown farmhouse, the single-room post office sat a few hundred feet off the road. It was a small structure painted canary yellow with a mossy slate roof. The only reason he could tell it was a post office was because a dilapidated sign hung skew above the rickety screen door reading, ‘Welcome to Lothian Post.’
He
parked in the gravel driveway and headed inside.
“Hello?” he called out, navigating around a coat rack.
Cheers from a football game erupted elsewhere in the house. Around the corner was an adjacent room. David could see the back of an elderly, beer-bellied man lounging in a recliner.
“Excuse me?” David tried again.
“Give me a hand with these boxes, Charles!” a woman yelled over the television set.
The man waved her off.
“Of course not,” she complained in a thick Scottish accent. “Not while the game is on. Well, Charles, we won’t be takin’ the tube with us, you can count on that.”
David found a bell on the counter and rang it.
“We’re closed!” the couple yelled in unison.
He
rang the bell again.
A
plump, frizzy-haired woman appeared in the doorway. “There’s no post going out today on account of the evacuation.” Her mouth dropped as she noticed David’s bloody clothes. “Has there been an accident?”
David realized he’
d left his coat in the car. “I’m sorry…” He pulled the folded manila envelope from his pocket and opened it on the counter.
The woman stayed in the doorway. “Are you hurt, son?”
“I was hoping you could tell me where this letter came from.”
The woman stepped cautiously behind the counter
but kept her distance. She placed bifocals on the bridge of her nose and studied the envelope. She looked at him, down at the postal code, and then back up at him again. “This went through here, alright. That’s our stamp. It was just a few days ago… Oh, here we are, it’s marked returned to sender.” She looked up at him as if that answered his question.
“The sender address is mine.”
“You sent yourself post without a stamp?” she glared at him from behind her bifocals.
“Someone in Lothian put my n
ame as the ‘addresser’ and sent it to me by way of ‘return to sender’.”
“That’s robbing,” she said. “You think because we live in Lothian we have time to send along letters without stamps?”
“No, ma’am.” David’s face began to burn. He wasn’t getting anywhere. Thatcher was so much better when it came to talking to people. “This letter was sent to me anonymously, and I need to know from whom.”
The woman eyed him. She turned to her husband in the next room and bellowed over the television set. “Charles! Charles!”
“Stop yelling, woman!” he bellowed in return.
“Did you pick up this man’s post?”
“No,” he yelled over the game.
“You didn’t even look at it
, Charles!”
Charles turned in his chair, leaned into the doorway, and squinted to see the envelope in her hands. “Oh, sure, I remember. Odd thing it was, too. No stamp. I didn’t know what to do with it
so I sent if off anyway, bein’ there was a return address. I figured those poor nutters deserved a break.”
“Nutters?” David asked.
“It came through here a day ago from the asylum.”
“There’s an asylum nearby?” David looked to the woman for help.
“Just down the road, dearie,” she answered. “Off the coastal highway.”
“Don’t listen to her, son.” Charles leaned further into th
e room, straining in discomfort but refusing to exit his lounge chair. “She’s told you all wrong, she has. With directions like that you’ll end up in Glasgow.”
“Oh, for heaven sakes, Charles!”
Although ruffled, she quieted.
David sensed her surrende
r and looked to the older man.
Charles pointed a gnarled finger toward the door. “You’re gonna head down the road goin’ west. After a wee bit of a drive, you’ll see crossroads, but if you see Simeon’s field then you’ve gone too far. There’ll be a sign that says Simeon
’s Field. Turn north and pass along a wooden fence. Pass one speed post. If you pass two, well, you’ve gone too far again. You’ll come to a road goin’ west, and after a while, you’ll see a castle along the bluff that overlooks the ocean. That’s the place. But you should hurry, son. They’ve given us till midnight to clear out of here. There’s a good chance the loonies have already left.”
David tried to make sense of the directions as he turned toward the door. “I go left to the coast then turn right at the intersection?”
“Yes, you’ve got it.”
The woman handed him the envelope with a coy smile. “You’re American, aren’t you? Our daughter lives in the States. Judy’s her name.”
David smiled politely and opened the front door.
The woman
followed him. “She’s not married, our Judy. It’s an awful thing to be far from family and not married.”
David
hurried to the car.
“Wait, dearie!” she called after him, grabbi
ng a jacket from the coat rack. He had started the engine by the time she reached him. “You can’t go into an asylum like that, they’ll lock you up!”
“Thanks,” he
said, “but I already have—”
She handed him the jacket through the open window. “Stop by again soon, dearie!”
David smiled, figuring it would be faster to just take the coat. He peeled out onto the road. In the rearview mirror, the woman was frantically waving her arms and running after him.
“What now?”
He slammed on the breaks.
With a wide gesture, she pointed in the opposite direction. “You’re going the wrong way, dearie!”