THE MINE
__________
PART 1
THE BITE OF THE MINE
They carried him out of the mine entrance screaming, 'Oh Christ! My legs! Look at my goddam legs!'
The four soldiers set him down on the waiting stretcher, then stood aside so the medical team could take him away.
The four-star general in charge of the project--a man named Washington Haynes—just watched as the injured man was wheeled out of the entry cave. He eyed the soldier's legs coldly, impassively.
The man's lower legs--everything from the knee down, including his feet--looked like a pair of foul pancakes: blood everywhere, every bone broken, the skin swollen black-and-blue.
The man's legs and feet had been completely and totally flattened.
General Haynes turned to the aging man by his side. 'I think we need some more expert help. Call your girl.'
DESERT OUTSIDE MEXICO CITY
Doctor Jessica Chase sat in a gigantic black leather swivel chair inside the cabin of the private jet, not knowing where it was going or why she was in it.
In front of her sat her diminutive dig partner, Kenneth W. Georgeopolous. Kenny was all of five-foot-two, with hair brushed up into an Elvis Presley pompadour. He was known about the site as 'Little Kenny G'.
On Chase's lap sat the five-page form that she and Kenny had just signed. The cover sheet read:
THIS PROJECT IS CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET
Any unauthorised disclosure of information witnessed or obtained through participation in this project is a criminal offence under Title 50 of the United States Code punishable by imprisonment for up to 75 years and fines of up to $25 million.
Okay…
Chase was an archaeologist from the University of WA in Australia, working at unmasking the secrets of the ruined city of 'Teotihuacan' high in the Mexican desert. As such, she wasn't really accustomed to signing threatening non-disclosure agreements with the US government.
The object of her study-Teotihuacan-was one of archaeology's greatest mysteries.
Comprised of a series of gargantuan flat-topped pyramids and sun-aligned temples, the desert city had been built by an unknown pre-Aztec civilisation sometime around the first century AD. It had reached its zenith in the sixth century, before suddenly, around the year 800, it was abruptly abandoned by its inhabitants.
They just left. Vanished. Disappeared.
Leaving an enormous ghost-city in the middle of the desert.
This great desert ruin, however, was also a particular challenge for Dr Jessica Chase.
At the tender age of 27, Chase was known thoughout the archaeological community for her extraordinary abilities at deciphering hieroglyphics and other ancient symbols-and in this field, Teotihuacan was Everest.
And with her lanky, athletic six-foot frame, pony-tailed red hair and beautiful smile, Jessica Chase was sellable. A former high-school gymnast, she was the poster girl of archaeology.
National Geographic loved her.
Not surprisingly, the high-powered Breslin Corporation had come calling soon after she got her doctorate.
Led by its eccentric billionaire chairman, Leonard Breslin III, the Corporation was the major sponsor of over a dozen archaeological digs around the world, including Chase's Teotihuacan work.
As such, for the last six months, Chase and Kenny G--her symbol database manager and all-round techno-genius--had been working hard at deciphering Teotihuacan's complicated glyph systems.
And then, today, the Corporation's Lear jet had arrived, with a message from Leonard Breslin.
He wanted to see the m. Now.
There is an old adage in academia: He who pays the piper, calls the tune.
And so they'd got on the plane.
It was only once it had taken off, however, that they were presented with the government non-disclosure form.
THE HANGAR
After about an hour of flying, the Lear touched down. Exactly where it had landed, neither Chase nor Kenny knew. The shutters on the plane's windows had been fixed in place, blacked out.
The plane taxied for a short way, then jolted to a halt. The side door was opened and a set of stairs folded down.
Chase emerged from the plane…
…and found herself standing inside a brightly-lit aeroplane hangar.
The hangar's doors were closed, but they couldn't hide the slivers of white sunlight that crept in through the cracks, or the dry oven-like heat inside the building.
All right, Chase thought, we're in a desert somewhere.
But since the flight had lasted about sixty minutes, they could have been anywhere between Texas and Nevada.
A two-person reception party was waiting for them.
Leonard Breslin himself and a four-star US Air Force general, complete with a chest full of medals.
'Jessica,' Breslin said, stepping forward and kissing her on the hand. ' Delighted, as always.
I'm terribly sorry for all the cloak-and-dagger precautions surrounding your arrival. Awfully rude. But it seems that the US Government needs our help, and well, they want to keep all this sort of hush-hush.'
Even Chase knew Breslin's links with the American government were strong. It was widely known that Breslin was a regular guest at the White House and a long-time friend of the President's.
'The US Government needs our help,' Chase said, deadpan. 'With what?'
THE DESCENT
'With some stone tablets we've found,' the Air Force general said, as he guided Breslin, Chase and Kenny G down a set of steel stairs that led underneath the hangar.
The general's name was Haynes, Washington Haynes, and he was the officer-in-charge of this facility.
'Mister Breslin tells me you're from Australia,' he said to Chase as they descended the stairs.
'UWA.'
'Yes, I am.'
'You studied under Hans Ziegler, right?'
'Yes. I was lucky. He was there as a Visiting Fellow when I was doing my doctorate.'
'Hmmm,' Haynes nodded thoughtfully, then changed the subject. 'Always wanted to go to Australia. Good skiing, they tell me. Nice old castles, too.'
'I think you mean Austria,' Chase said.
'Oh. Yeah.'
Typical Americans, Chase thought. They could build stealth bombers and neutron bombs, but they couldn't tell the difference between Australia and Austria. And this guy was a general.
The stairwell took them down into the earth.
As they approached a landing, Chase heard pained shouts coming from within. When they came to the landing in question, Haynes and Breslin just walked straight past the open doorway.
Chase, however, looked in.
And she gasped.
She saw four men lying in hospital beds, in various states of disarray.
Two were horribly bloodied and bandaged, their sheets awash with red splashes. Another man lay comatose, attached to a life-support system. The fourth man was struggling with two hapless doctors. Kicking and squirming, for a brief second, his feet protruded from underneath his sheets.
Chase held back her revulsion. The man's feet were horribly deformed-it looked as if they had been crushed flat.
Kenny had also stopped to look. 'Tell me we're not going where he went,' he said flatly.
THE TABLETS
They caught up with Haynes and Breslin on the next floor below, at a laboratory-type room. Chase took in the room.
A few benches, some wash trays, and at the far end, a solid-looking steel door that looked like a bank safe. Nearer to Chase stood a whiteboard with hand-written messages slashed across it:
'PRE-AZTEC MINE, POSSIBLY TEOTIHUACAN…'
'VAULT STRUCTURE ON LOWEST LEVEL - OPEN IT BY USING THE TABLETS, BUT IN WHAT ORDER???'
'WHAT IS TRIGGERING THE DAMN BOOBY TRAPS!'
'7 MEN LOST: 4 WOUNDED, 3 DEAD…1 BEING A CIVILIAN.'
'WHAT IS IN THERE? HAS TO BE THE VISITOR'S STONE…'
In front of the whiteboard stood a long stainless-steel table. Chase approached it, saw what lay on top of it.
Five stone tablets.
Five glistening black stone tablets.
They were rectangular in shape, each about the size of a hardback book
But it was their blackness that seized her attention. They were more than just black—they were jet black, black-on-black. Chase guessed that they were cut from some kind of volcanic glass, obsidian maybe.
Carved into each rectangular tablet was an image that looked something like an elongated face.
Chase picked up one of the tablets. Heavy. She turned it over in her hands. On the rear side of the tablet there was a hollowed out section in the shape of a +.
'Is this why you brought us here?' she asked Breslin. 'To decipher these.'
'That and a few other glyphs that the general is having…trouble…with,' Breslin said.
Chase looked at her boss hard.
'I'll have to run them through the database,' she said, at last. 'And even then I'll have to make some educated guesses. But for that I'll need my laptop and our scanning equipment. They're up in the jet.'
Haynes nodded to one of the lab technicians, who dashed upstairs.
Chase said, 'Right. I think I've been more than co-operative. Now it's your turn. Blacked out jets, non-disclosure forms, men with flattened feet and ancient stone tablets. I think it's time you boys told us what the hell is going on here.'
Breslin exchanged a look with Haynes, who nodded.
'Why don't you come this way,' the Air Force general said, ushering Chase and Kenny toward the thick steel door at the far end of the lab.
He punched a code into a keypad and the big door hissed open. Haynes swung it wide.
Chase stepped through…
…and her jaw dropped.
THE MINE
She found herself standing in the entrance to a dirt-walled cave, about twenty yards square. The earthen cavern was illuminated by a series of halogen light-stands, arrayed in a circle around a squat stone structure.
It was about the size a single-car garage, and built in the shape of a solid little pyramid…and in the distinctly Teotihuacan style.
A square entryway filled its centre, yawning wide, inviting the unwary to enter its inky black depths.
Haynes and his scientific team had encased the little structure in a Lexan-glass airlock-a giant clear-glass cube that completely covered the squat little building-creating a bizarre mix of the dusty-and-ancient and the very high-tech.
Chase stared at the little stone portal.
She'd seen structures just like it dotted all around Teotihuacan.
It was the entrance to an ancient mine.