The Smithsonian Objective (2 page)

"Because I knew you'd come,
but not for anything so trivial as recognition or fame."

Diana's lips, already
cracked, opened and the dry canyon air rushed in.

"You're here, Diana
Montgomery, because of your father."

* * *

How the hell could he
possibly know about that?

"You got your love of
climbing from him," Xavier said. "But after your mother died, you
drifted away. Hadn't seen your father in years until you found out
he was here, giving climbing tours. Two years ago, right after he
emailed you that he had something important to show you, something
you of all people would appreciate, he died from a
fall."

Diana was speechless. She
still recalled the day after the funeral, the day she had come out
to the area north of the Phantom Ranch, to a slope where they had
found his body. She'd searched, but no one claimed to have been
along with him on the ascent, and no one saw a thing.

It was a mystery still
gnawing at her two years later when that package arrived, hinting
at a find in the same area where her father had died. It didn't
take a genius to put the pieces together. Her father had been after
the same thing. Only now, it was starting to look like he was
murdered because of it.

* * *

Still reeling from their
landing along the banks of the raging Colorado River as much as
from Xavier's incendiary revelations, Diana somehow wasn't
surprised to see a sturdy raft ahead, laden with
supplies.

Xavier untied himself from
the harness and quickly discarded the glider into the river. "I've
been practicing out here all summer." He gave her a wink and tipped
his hat. "Waiting for you."

She put her hands on her
hips. "All right, spill it. So you're going to tell me that what
Kincaid supposedly found out here is the real deal, and that the
Smithsonian is covering it up – and killing anyone who stumbles on
the secret? What is it, that we had seafaring Egyptians who made it
across North America thousands of years ago, found this canyon and
stashed some goodies in the caves?"

Xavier adjusted his
backpack and headed toward the boat. "Not at all. I'm going to tell
you something far more controversial."

"What the hell could be
more controversial?" Her words echoed like pinballs between the
narrow canyon walls.

The brim of the hat lowered
as he turned toward her. "The truth, Ms. Montgomery."

* * *

They navigated the rough
rapids and finally arrived at the fabled Redwall Cavern. Diana
studied the yawning, shadow-rimmed entrance. It would fit Kincaid's
description – of a cavernous interior that could potentially hold
thousands of people. "This is it?"

"No. An entrance
was
here. But not
anymore. Your boss's predecessors made sure that the tunnels
accessed by Kincaid near the back of Redwall Cavern were
demolished. Sealed up forever."

"Then where…?"

Xavier steered them around
a bend, leaving the cavern behind. They sailed into slanting
shadows as the dizzying rock walls turned a shade of purple, as if
welcoming royalty. "Do you know the native Ute myth about the
origin of the Grand Canyon?"

Diana thought for a moment,
recalling it. "Yes, of course. A wise chief was so overwhelmed by
the death of his wife that he couldn't be consoled until a god
named Tavwoats offered to prove to him that she had gone on to a
happier land. But the stipulation was that the chief had to promise
to never again seek that magical trail to the land of the dead. The
chief agreed, and Tavwoats rolled a great ball of fire across the
desert, and as it spun, it parted the earth and mountains and made
a path to the land beyond death. He guided the chief through this
massive canyon until they came to the Spirit Land where the chief
saw his wife was happy, and he saw no more reason to
mourn."

Xavier pulled the boat up
to a jutting formation of red sandstone marked with deeper hues of
purple. He dropped the anchor, then uncovered a tarp in the boat,
revealing scuba gear and two air tanks. "And then what did that
pesky Tavwoats do?"

Blinking at the tanks,
Diana struggled to answer. "Not trusting the chief to honor his
vow, he caused a massive river to flood over the trail, obscuring
the path forever."

Nodding, Xavier pointed to
the gear. "Forever's just about up."

* * *

After swimming carefully
through a descending passageway, completely dark except for the
murky light from Xavier's underwater flashlight, they emerged
through a curiously circular aperture into a small cave.

"How did you find this
place?" she asked after spitting out her regulator. She wore just
her shorts and a tight tank top, and Xavier was now shirtless,
wearing only the boxer trunks he had on under his khakis. He again
slung his waterproof backpack over his shoulders.

"Told you, I'm
a-"

"Remote-viewer, right."
Diana stepped gingerly onto the cold rock as Xavier's flashlight
beam bounced around over the cavern's narrowing walls, illuminating
a tunnel stretching into the darkness.

"Come on. They've probably
found our boat by now."

"What?"

"Hurry, we're almost
there."

For a moment, Diana just
stood there shivering, terrified suddenly to take another step. But
then his hand found hers, their wet fingers closed, entwining, and
he gently pulled her alongside him.

The next few minutes might
have been hours. She couldn't be sure of anything. She imagined
they were descending, step by step, toward the ruins of some
ancient subterranean city, and at one turn she had the sudden
conviction that they stood at the edge of a vast, yawning cavern.
Xavier's light speared out, stabbing into the impenetrable gloom.
She felt a breeze wafting up from below, carrying the scent of
something nostalgically sweet, and she thought she heard a sound
like waves thrusting against a glassy shore.

She desperately wanted to
find a trail, make her way down there and dive into that sea. She
heard whispers, contented and pure, and could have sworn one of
them sounded familiar.

"Dad?"

"Don't listen," Xavier
hissed and tugged at her hand. "We can't linger, not at this
spot."

"But…" She thought of the
legend of Tavwoats and shuddered with a sense of forbidden pleasure
as she resisted Xavier's pull. But then her feet were moving, the
sensation was gone and they were in an ascending
passage.

Then she heard something
that chilled her blood: voices behind her. And way back in the
winding dark – flashes of distant lights.

"They're coming," Xavier
said, just as his light stabbed through an arched doorway,
reflecting back a vision of a golden plated wall chiseled with
pictographs. She got a glimpse of something like a sarcophagus
propped up in the corner, and a sense of a chamber cluttered with
boxes, urns, pottery, chests…

And then they were inside
the room and Xavier pushed her on ahead and gave her the flashlight
as he dug into his pack. She saw a sleek gun appear in his hand as
he knelt, waiting for their pursuers.

"How did they find us?" she
asked.

"I'm afraid they must have
seen us dive, then figured out the rest. They were prepared for
everything. Ready to defend this secret with every available
resource."

Diana aimed the light
around the walls, trying to resist the temptation to study the
hieroglyphics and gaze at the artifacts. Everything seemed genuine
– but then again, appearances could be forged. But what possible
reason-?

Gunshots roared behind her.
A cry of pain echoed from the passageway. She dropped low and
hugged the side wall as she shone her light back and saw Xavier
leaning out. He aimed and fired again.

Then a voice called out:
"Whoever you are, we only want the girl. Send her out and we'll let
you walk."

"Fat chance!" Xavier yelled
back.

Diana whispered to him. "I
don't see an alternative. They've got us pinned."

He just smiled, then kicked
his backpack over to her. "Look at my sketchbook. At the open
page." She heard some muffled voices, and then the echoing
voice:

"Have it your way. Our
orders are that you don't leave here alive."

Diana found the sketchbook.
Spirals on the top held together about a hundred sheets of thick
drawing paper. But the one that it was open to was near the end –
and it showed what looked like a collapsed cave tunnel, with a man
and a woman standing calmly in a room behind the crumbled
section.

She looked up sharply –
just as a loud explosion rocked the tunnel. The chamber groaned and
rocks fell from the ceiling, but then Xavier was there, his body on
top of hers. The rain of dust and pebbles stopped, and he slowly
eased off her, brushing back her hair.

"Okay?"

She nodded, then aimed the
flashlight down the passageway – where the light stopped about
halfway, at a mass of rubble. She could only guess at its
thickness, but imagined they wouldn't be digging themselves
out.

The horror of her
predicament should have been crushing her, but then she realized
why she was so calm. She held up the sketchpad. "You… saw this.
That we'd be trapped, and yet you still brought me
here."

He brushed himself off.
Standing there in a beam of dust-filled light against a golden
backdrop, he looked strangely god-like.

"Then…" she continued,
"you're either suicidal, or…"

"Or," he said with a smirk,
"I know another way out."

She heard him moving about
in the chamber, making his way to the sarcophagus. "It's going to
be a little tight, a nearly vertical ascent, but I left ropes,
and…"

But she was still looking
at the sketchpad, feeling an irresistible pull to know more about
this man. To see into his thoughts, into his dreams. She gave in to
her curiosity. And turned the page.

Her breath fled her lungs
in rush. She was barely aware that he was talking, speaking about
the age of these artifacts, how he had taken pictures down here and
translated the hieroglyphics. She stared, letting the light in her
trembling hand illuminate every finely-drawn line, every shaded
limb, every single detail.

And then she realized he
had stopped talking. He was right behind her.

"You weren't supposed to
see that."

She swallowed hard, still
staring at the incredible scene. The audacity, the sheer… "What is
this? The future, or just your twisted imagination?"

"You weren't supposed to
see that," Xavier repeated, his voice hollow as he contemplated the
picture of the two of them, in this chamber.
Their wet bodies pressed tight, facing each other, her arms
wrapped around his muscular back, their lips locked in a fierce
kiss...

"But I did," she said. "And
I want an answer. Is this the future? Or has everything up to now
been some kind of crazy, psychotic game?"

He took the pad from her,
dropped it and let his hand linger just inches from her face, a
delayed caress. "The future isn't set. I've managed to change my
visions before. So, no – this isn't necessarily what's going to
happen. You can change it. It's… your choice."

She shook her head in
dismay, but couldn't pull her gaze from his. Still picturing that
sketch, her breath quickened as she sought any way out of this, out
of fate. She thought about the past decade, a whirlwind of work,
advancing herself at the expense of every relationship. Her father
being the first casualty, but leaving no room for anyone else to
step in and share her world.

Dizzy, she tried to
distract herself from the moment. "What… were you saying before?
The translation of the hieroglyphics…?"

"You won't believe me," he
said. "But when you get back to the Smithsonian-"

"I've been fired. They
won't let me back in."

"They will," he said,
"because you'll be bringing evidence back. Demanding to speak to
your boss and the trustees. You'll be reinstated, but it still
won't be easy. Not until you get access to the sublevels and the
restricted archives where they've hidden the rest of what they've
found here."

"The rest…"

"It's
old
, Diana. So very old. Everything
down here… the chasm we passed… that's where they came
from."

"They?"

"Originally. The Hopi have
a legend, too. You know it – how the First People emerged from a
great hole in the ground-"

Diana shivered. "The Grand
Canyon..."

Xavier nodded, licking his
dry lips. "The truth, Diana, the big truth that they won't ever let
out, the truth that would shatter every notion of our origin and
evolution… Is that we didn't come out of Africa. We didn't even
start in Asia or anywhere in the Old World and then migrate west.
No…"