Crown of Serpents (37 page)

“And once he gets inside the cave he’s got the original map to guide him to his prize.”

“Looks like we may have lost.”

Jake paused before commenting. “I didn’t expect him to act so fast.” He rubbed his arm.

“I know. Me either,” agreed Joe. “But he is dying so he has nothing to lose.”

What followed was a long uncomfortable silence breaching their conversation. But something his uncle had said earlier suddenly resonated in Jake’s mind.

Under
the Depot.

“Wait, not so fast.” Jake’s eyes lit up. “I think we may have a chance to head him off. It’s a long shot but here’s my thinking.”

“Fire away.”

Jake paced again. “We’re going to do a little digging ourselves. The Seneca Army Depot contains hundreds of storage bunkers for the Army’s most lethal weapons. It was said that it could even survive a nuclear attack, which means—”

“Huh?”

“The government never admitted this, but I know for a fact from an old Army vet who was an MP there, that they built underground bunkers for the storage of secret weapon systems and also for the survival of base personnel in case of an attack. The official version was that everything was above ground. But the Army holds many secrets. I know.”

Joe piped up. “So, if they dug down deep enough when they were constructing these bunkers then surely they must have hit something below the surface, right? Like a cave?”

“Yes, that’s the straw I’m grasping at. And here’s the kicker. Any anomaly in construction would have been documented. And if I remember correctly, the entire documented history of the base was handed over to the Town of Romulus Historical Society a few years back when the base transferred to civilian control. So, it’s just a matter of me gaining access to those materials and the tried and true method of sifting through the chaff to find the proverbial needle in the haystack.”

Joe laughed. “Right up your alley.”

“It certainly is.”

“Listen, while you do that I’m going to call on an Ithaca College geology professor I know to see if a cave network could really exist in this location.”

“Are you now questioning the legend?” asked Jake.

“No. I’m confirming the legend. I want to know what perils we’ll face if we go underground. You know, the terrain features or obstacles. I just, I just don’t want to see anyone else get hurt if I can help it. If we are going in then we have to be prepared with the right equipment.”

Jake moved closer to the phone. “Sounds good. I’ll hit the historical society as soon as possible. It’s just down the road. But first I have to place the dreaded call to my director at MHI to see how much havoc I’ve caused, let alone see if I still have a job.”

Afternoon. Airfield. Seneca Army Depot.

Spread out in the rear leather bench seat of his Hummer, smoking a fat glowing cigar that he tapped out of an open window, sat Alex Nero. He watched impatiently as his crew of security personnel walked the fields at the end of his newly acquired military airfield runway. He told his men they were searching for a cave belonging to the their forefathers and he wanted them to be thorough in moving logs and brush in case it might be concealed. The snail’s pace process was painfully slow to observe. Additionally, Nero had been informed that nothing significant had been revealed on the ground penetrating radar and still there were hundreds of acres to be covered in their target area.

At this rate, finding the entrance, should it even exist would take months, Nero thought. He would be dead before his plans could be fulfilled. Stanton was right in convincing him she should go looking for other clues to help their cause. Shaking his head, he placed the cigar to his lips and sucked in sweet smoke to calm his nerves. He exhaled then glanced down, the swirl of white gray smoke trailing out the window. On his lap he balanced the old map of the White Deer Society cave. It was now contained in a stiff plastic protective sheet. He was still amazed at its simplistic detail and its length. The cave looked to go on for miles.

Studying the map, he moved his free hand inside his shirt and pulled out his newly acquired piece of jewelry. It was attached to a chain around his neck. The old Kendaia guardian clan mother’s silver broach felt good on his chest. It had been bequeathed to Luke Swetland, stolen by Thomas Boyd, and rediscovered by that thorn in his side, Jake Tununda. But now, it was finally in his possession.

He noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. His dozing driver, the banged up Kenny Rousseau, also caught the approach of a visitor and jumped up before realizing who it was. A face appeared in the cloud of smoke outside the window. Nero looked up at the intrusion then relaxed. It was Miss Stanton. He unlocked the door and let her slide in next to him.

Nero pointed at her with his cigar. “You missed the press conference,” he stated in a demeaning tone.

Stanton ignored him, getting right to the point. “I was studying a history of Seneca County and I’ve concluded that we’re searching in the wrong place. We need to go further inside the Depot.” Although it was coveted information, she gave it up with a deep sense of inward gratification, knowing she had already set his downfall in motion. In fact, it was she who leaked to the press that he was dying of throat cancer. “I found some clues of the cave location when these lands were first settled, after it was turned into the Military Tract.”

“Go on,” Nero grumbled.

“In the Boyd’s cave cipher you text messaged me, he refers to a marker tree, right? Well, that marker, I’m pretty confident, was actually a horseshoe with a Freemason symbol on it and a date of September fifth, seventeen seventy nine. He placed the horseshoe in a tree — the marker tree. I think I know where that tree once stood. It will take some time to find where it was of course.”

Nero’s eyes widened. He studied her face. A glimmer of hope sparkled in his eyes. “And my cave is supposed to be directly across from this tree.”

“Yeah, but first it involves us finding the foundation of an old farmhouse once belonging to a Wilhelm Van Vleet,
if
that even still exists. The tree fell down in the back of his lot, across the brook near a spring. And from a modern-day contour map cross-referencing on top of an old 1850s map the supposed location is just past the railroad tracks over there, deeper into the base.”

“Let’s get there, now.”

“Rousseau!” yelled Stanton. She jolted the man from his drowsiness. The head thug turned slowly, his battered face giving her a nod. “Follow that little brook past the main rail lines and into those woods,” she ordered.

“Yes ma’am,” replied Rousseau, in a barely audible voice.

As the Hummer lurched forward, Stanton glanced at the necklace around Nero’s neck. It held the White Deer Society broach. Her heart skipped a beat. Her mouth opened. Then she couldn’t help but notice the old map with strange markings on his lap. “What have you there?”

Nero smiled. He flipped the map over, hiding it. He also hid the necklace back inside his shirt and then patted her thigh. “In due time my dear, in due time. Just find me that cave.”

31

Town of Romulus. Seneca County, N.Y.

R
EFRESHED AND ONCE again dressed in his Class A uniform, Jake felt a bit back on track after the emotional and physical beat down of last night. He looked in his rearview mirror at his bruised face knowing that in his current condition he would have to bypass Rae Hart’s police station and any chance meeting with her. There would be too many questions.

Heading down 96A, Jake noted that the weather had been cooperative for this time of year. Clear blue skies and mild temperatures were forecast for the day, although he did hear scattered reports of another cold front moving in later in the evening. Rolling farm fields and a glimpse of Seneca Lake on his right kept his spirits up. Several old farmsteads dotted the landscape next to upscale country homes. He passed a new start-up winery and rows upon rows of harvested grape vines. The beauty of the region always astounded him.

Up the road ahead a triangular-shaped, blaze orange hazard sign on the right shoulder of the road caused him to ease up on the gas pedal. As he approached, he saw that the sign was attached to the back of a black horse-drawn carriage. Slowly and cautiously Jake passed, noticing an older couple sitting under the carriage canopy. The old man wore a wide-brimmed black hat, a Lincoln-like beard on his face, and the plaid shirt of a Mennonite. His wife was dressed in a floral country frock and white scarf about her head. A fine black horse pulled their carriage. Jake produced a wave out of his window and received the same in return. He pressed the gas pedal.

It wasn’t long before he slowed down again. This time a large eight-wheeled John Deere farming tractor, pulling a 5,000-pound tank of liquid cow manure, took up three quarters of the road. Jake followed behind for a short distance, unable to pass. Finally, it veered off, entering a freshly turned farm field. A brown spray immediately emitted from the back of the tank as it fertilized the earth. Jake motored on.

Soon the Depot lands appeared on his left. With a furrow in his brow, Jake observed several individuals milling about with signs along the base perimeter fencing. The same anti-Indian sticker that adorned the volunteer firefighter’s helmet he saw a few days ago had been duplicated on their signage. Further down the road, near a trailer park, more placards and banners had been erected along the fence, announcing the opposition to the sale of the lands to the Indian Alex Nero. The belligerent press conference earlier in the day had apparently galvanized some of the locals to voice their opinion. And quickly they responded.

The crowds thickened as Jake approached the hamlet of Kendaia. With vehicles now parked along both shoulders of the road and people waving their homemade signs toward the drivers, Jake had to slow down for fear of running one of them over. Then an odd sight caught his eye. Sitting on a boat trailer in front of a home strewn with old lawnmowers and rusty cars sat an old pontoon boat. Three grungy looking young men sat under the pontoon canopy with scoped hunting rifles at their side. One of them waved a large red, white, and blue sign. Their message was filled with simple ironic humor to Jake. It read
Save Our White Deer
.

Fifty feet away were two black Seneca County Sheriff’s vans parked on the shoulder of the road near a collision shop. Several deputies kept watch over a larger gathering of protesters converged there. Then Jake noticed a black luxury SUV, its windows tinted black, parked near a small junkyard. As he passed, he slouched low in his seat, angling his black beret down over his face just in case it was a security detail for Nero.

Peering at the road ahead, he tapped his brakes as two men dashed across his path with a flowing bed sheet scrawled with red lettering. Their clever slogan read,
No Reparations, Tax the Indian Nations.
Cute, Jake thought. He continued on.

Driving by the Sampson State Park entrance on his right, he suddenly slammed on his brakes. A rusted, blue, Dodge Ram pickup truck cut him off from a copse of woods on his left. Jake noticed a heavy-set man with a baseball cap behind the wheel, completely oblivious to the boneheaded move. Jake sped up and maneuvered his SUV right up on the pickup’s rear bumper to make his presence known. A quick scan of the cab’s sticker covered rear window gave a glimpse of what the driver apparently valued most in life. A 9-11 memorial sticker sat next to a NYPD logo and an American flag followed by a cartoon boy urinating on a Chevy logo. Several more stickers showed his hatred against Native Americans, Muslims, and immigrants but his support of U.S. troops. Go figure, Jake thought.

Jake tried to make eye contact with the driver by flashing his high beams. Still the man made no visible response. He then laid on his horn. The driver jumped in his seat, fishtailed, and finally glanced back in his mirror. Jake slowly eased off, giving the pick up some distance had the driver decided to slam on his brakes as payback. Instead, the driver flicked a cigarette butt out his window, followed by a bandage-wrapped middle finger for extra emphasis. The cigarette hit Jake’s SUV hood in a shower of sparks. The man then accelerated away in a cloud of black exhaust. Jake returned the salute, counted to ten, then drew a deep breath. He’d let the prick go.

A little further on, after passing several farm fields, the Depot’s airfield runway appeared on Jake’s left. He knew Rae’s state police station turn off was just up ahead, but he couldn’t help but wonder at that time and place the farmland he was driving past once held the true location of the Seneca Indian village of Kendaia. He had come full circle in just a few days time.

And that precious time was slowly ticking away.

As if to validate his arrival in history, a granite block appeared on his right at a pull off rest area. Jake slowed down as he passed. The stone block was a tribute to the Sullivan campaign, advertising that key moment in history when the Americans rolled through. Jake pulled over on the shoulder of the road and backed up in front of the monument. A weathered brass plaque gave some verbiage about the importance of the military mission and also showed a map of the route the army took through the Finger Lakes. Next to the granite marker was a dark blue state historical sign proclaiming the supposed location of the Indian village at the ground he stood on.

He looked around to take in the moment, glancing out of his driver’s side window back across the farm field toward the Depot’s airfield control tower. Jake’s thick eyebrows then pressed together. In the distance, off to his left, he could make out several black SUVs and a dozen or so black-clad men walking about.

Nero’s boys. Searching for the cave. His enemy was in sight.

Spurred back to action, Jake eased out into the roadway and speculated if his visit to the Town of Romulus Historical Society would help him find an alternative way into the cave first. Or would it be a dead end? It was just a few more miles down the road. As he drove on, he thought of his whisper with death the night before. It shook him to the core. Never, in all of his years in the hottest combat zones, had an enemy ever gotten close enough to press a gun against his temple. Kenny Rousseau’s problem was that he hesitated. A professional soldier never did. And because of that simple delay, Jake had a chance to fight back and survive. His life could have been snuffed out like a light. Surviving that moment reinforced his personal philosophy even more — that life needed to be lived on the playing field, not wasted as a detached observer in the audience.