Tyrannosaur Canyon Page 9

  TERRAPLOT®

  ENTER YOUR ID AND PASSWORD

  "Hacked my way in," Ford whispered with a grin, typing in an ID and password. "No harm done, just pretended to be a student at BU."

  "This doesn't strike me as very monkish behavior," said Tom.

  "I'm not a monk yet." He typed some more and a new screen popped up:

  UPLOAD DATA NOW

  He typed some more, then sat back with a grin, his finger poised above the enter key, a smile hovering on his lips. "Are you ready?"

  "Don't torture me any longer."

  He brought his finger down with a crisp rap, executing the program.

  Chapter 21

  COWBOY COUNTRY REALTY was located in a cutsie pseudo-adobe building on the Paseo de Peralta, strings of red chiles flanking the door and a chipper secretary in a western outfit manning the reception desk. Maddox strolled in, his own boots making a satisfying clunk-clunk on the Saltillo tile floors. He raised his hand to remove the Resistol hat he had purchased that morning – 16X beaver, $420 – but then decided against it, seeing as how he was now in the West where real cowboys left their hats on indoors. He went over to reception, leaned on the desk.

  "What can I do for you, sir?" the receptionist asked.

  "You handle summer rentals, right?" Maddox gave the girl a lopsided grin.

  "We sure do."

  "Name's Maddox. Jim Maddox." He extended his hand and she took it. Her blue eyes met his.

  "Are you here to see anyone in particular?"

  "Nope, I'm what you might call a walk-in."

  "Let me call an agent for you."

  A moment later he was being ushered into a well-appointed office, fully loaded in Santa Fe style.

  "Trina Dowling," said the agent, offering her hand and seating him down opposite herself. She was a fright – fifty something, X-ray thin, black dress, blond hair, a voice that scared you with its efficiency. A potential client, thought Maddox. Definitely a potential client.

  "I understand you're interested in a summer rental."

  "That's right. I'm looking for a place to finish my first novel."

  "How interesting! A first novel!"

  He crossed his legs. "I was in a dot com business, sold out before the crash, went through a divorce. Now I'm taking a break from making money, hoping to live my dream." He offered her a self-deprecating smile. "I'm looking for something north of Abiquiú, quiet, isolated, no neighbors for miles."

  "We manage more than three hundred rental properties and I'm sure we'll be able to find you something."

  "Great." Maddox shifted in the chair, recrossed his legs. "I'm not kidding about privacy. Nearest house has to be at least a mile away. Something at the end of the road, in the trees."

  He paused. Trina was taking notes.

  "An old mining cabin would be perfect," he said. "I've always been interested in mines. There's a mine in my novel."

  Dowling finishing up her note-taking with a sharp tap of her pen. "Shall we take a look in the database? But first, Mr. Maddox, do you have a price range in mind?"

  "Money is no object. And please call me Jim."

  "Can you wait a moment, Jim, while I look at our database?"

  "Of course."

  He recrossed his legs while Trina hammered away on the keyboard.

  "Well." She smiled again. "I've got several suitable properties here, but here's one that really pops out. The old CCC Camp up on Perdiz Creek, in the foothills of the Canjilon Mountains."

  "CCC Camp?"

  "That's right. The Civilian Conservation Corps put a camp up there in the thirties for the men building trails in the national forest – a dozen or so wooden cabins surrounding an old dining hall and lodge. Some years ago a gentleman from Texas bought the whole camp. He renovated the lodge, turned it into a really cute three-bedroom, three-bath house. Left everything else as is. He lived up there for a while, found it a little lonely, and now he rents it out."

  "Sounds like there might be tourists."

  "It's gated. Sits in the middle of a section of private land surrounded by national forest. It's at the end of an eight-mile dirt road, the last two miles four-wheel drive only." She glanced up. "You do have a four-wheel drive vehicle?"

  "Range Rover."

  She smiled. "A road like that would tend to keep away visitors."

  "Right."

  Its got some interesting history here. Before it was a CCC Camp Perdiz Creek was an old gold-mining town. There are some old mines up there and" – she smiled at him – "they say there's a ghost. I wouldn't mention that to everyone, but seeing as how you're a writer . . ."

  "My story could use a ghost."

  "It says here it's a great place for hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding. Surrounded by national forest. It's not off the grid, though: power and telephone to the site."

  "It sounds ideal. Only thing is, I wouldn't want the owner dropping in unannounced."

  "He's in Italy and I can tell you he's not that kind of owner. We manage the rental for him and if anyone needed to come up, it would be us – and only then for a good reason and with twenty-four-hour notice. Your privacy would be respected."

  "Rent?"

  "Quite reasonable. Thirty-eight hundred a month if you take it all summer."

  "Sounds perfect. I'd like to see it."

  "When?"

  "Right now." He tapped his jacket pocket, where his checkbook was. "I'm prepared to conclude the deal today. I'm anxious to get to work on my novel. It's a murder mystery."

  Chapter 22

  TOM STARED INTENTLY at the white screen of the PowerBook. At first nothing happened, and then an image began to crawl down the screen, a blurry first iteration.

  "Takes a while to process," murmured Wyman.

  The first pass was complete, but the image remained a shadow, a blob. It didn't look at all like a chest of gold or a lost mine, but maybe it was delineating the cavern itself. A second pass began, the image sharpening, line by line. Tom caught his breath as the blob became an object. An unmistakable object. He could hardly believe it, he felt it must be an optical illusion, that it was actually something other than what it seemed. On the third pass he realized it was no optical illusion.

  "My God," Tom said. "It's no treasure. It's a dinosaur."

  Wyman laughed, his eyes sparkling. "I told you it would blow your mind. Look at the scale bars. It's a T. Rex, and according to some research I did, it's by far the biggest ever found."

  "But it's the whole thing, not just the bones."

  "Correct."

  Tom fell silent, staring. It certainly was a Tyrannosaurus Rex – the outline was unmistakable – lying twisted and on its side. But it wasn't just a fossil skeleton – much of the skin, internal organs, and flesh appeared to have been fossilized along with the bones. "It's a mummy," said Tom, "a fossilized dinosaur mummy."

  "That's right."

  "This is incredible. This must be one of the greatest fossils ever found."

  "Right. It's virtually complete, except for a few teeth, a claw, and the last foot of tail, anyway. You see how some of it appears to be emerging from the rock."

  "So the murdered man was a dinosaur prospector."

  "Exactly. This 'treasure' he was talking about may have been an attempt to mislead, or it may have simply been a manner of speaking. That is a treasure, only one of the paleontological variety."

  Tom gazed at the image. He could still hardly believe it. As a child he had always wanted to be a paleontologist, but while other kids had grown out of dinosaurs, he had never managed to shake his dream. His father had pushed him into becoming a vet. And now here he was, staring at what had to be one of the most stupendous dinosaur fossils of all time.

  "There's your motive," said Ford. "That dinosaur's worth a fortune. I did some poking around the Web. You heard about the dinosaur named Sue?"

  "The famous tyrannosaur at the Field Museum?"

  "That's it. Discovered in 1990 by a professional fossil hunter named Sue
Hendrickson in the South Dakota badlands. Largest and most perfect T. Rex ever found. It was auctioned at Sotheby's ten years ago, pulled down $8.36 million."

  Tom gave a low whistle. "This one must be worth ten times that."

  "At least."

  "So where is it?"

  Ford smiled and pointed to the screen. "You see that fuzzy outline encasing the dinosaur? That's a cross-section of the rock outcrop the fossil's imbedded in. It's a big formation, more than forty feet in diameter, and it's such an unusual shape that it should be easily recognizable. All the location information you need is right there. It's merely a question of hiking around until you find it."

  "Starting with Tyrannosaur Canyon."

  "That would be a charming coincidence. The fact is, Tom, it could be anywhere in the high mesas."

  "It could take forever to find it."

  "I don't think so. I've spent a lot of time hiking around back there and I believe I could find it in less than a week. Not only do you have the shape of the formation, but you can see that part of the dinosaur's head and upper body are exposed along the side. That must be quite a sight, the dinosaur's jaws emerging from the rock like that."

  "Like that black monolith that gave Tyrannosaur Canyon its name?" said Tom.

  "I know that monolith – it's got nothing to do with the fossil. With this plot, now we know just what to look for – eh, Tom?"

  "Wait a minute. Who says we're going to look for it?"

  "I do."

  Tom shook his head. "I thought you were studying to be a monk. I thought you'd left this sort of thing behind."

  Ford looked at him for a while and then dropped his eyes. "Tom – the other day you asked me a question. I'd like to answer it."

  "I was out of line. I really don't want to know."

  "You weren't out of line and I'm going to answer your question. I've bottled it all up, I've used silence as a kind of crutch, a way to avoid the issue." He paused.

  Tom said nothing.

  "I was an undercover operative. I studied cryptology but I ended up working undercover as a Systems Analyst for a large computer firm. I was, in reality, a CIA hacker."

  Tom listened.

  "Let's say – theoretically speaking, of course – that the government of, say, Cambodia buys servers and software from, say, a large American firm with a three-letter acronym which I shall not mention. Unbeknownst to the Cambodians, a small logic bomb has been hidden in the software code. The bomb goes off two years later, and the system starts acting funny. The government of Cambodia calls the American company for help. I get sent in as Systems Analyst. Let's say I bring my wife – which helps the cover and she's also a Company employee. I fix the problem, while at the same time burning onto CD-ROMs the entire contents of the Cambodian government's classified personnel files. The CD-ROMs are tarted up to look like bootlegged copies of Verdi's Requiem, music and all. You can even play them. Again I'm speaking theoretically. None of this may have actually happened."

  He paused, exhaled.

  "Sounds like fun," said Tom.

  "Yeah, it was fun – until they car-bombed my wife, who happened to be pregnant with our first child."

  "Oh, my God–"

  "It's all right, Tom," he said quickly. "I've got to tell you. When that happened, I just walked out of that life and into this one. All I had were the clothes on my back, my car keys and wallet. First chance, I dropped the wallet and keys into a bottomless crack up there in Chavez Canyon. My bank accounts, house, stock portfolio – I don't even know what's happened to them. One of these days, like any good monk I'll get around to giving them to the poor."

  "No one knows you're here?"

  "Everyone knows I'm here. The CIA understood. Believe it or not, Tom, the CIA wasn't a bad place to work. Good people for the most part. Julie – my wife – and I knew the risks. We were recruited together out of MIT. Those personnel files I scooped up exposed a lot of former Khmer Rouge torturers and murderers. That was good work. But for me..." His voice trailed off. "The sacrifice was too great."

  "My God."

  Ford held up a finger. "No taking the Lord's name in vain. Now I've told you.

  "I hardly know what to say, Wyman. I'm sorry – I'm really sorry." "No need to say anything. I'm not the only hurt person in the world. It's a good life here. When you deny your own needs by fasting, poverty, celibacy, and silence, you get closer to something eternal. Call it God, call it whatever you like. I'm a fortunate man."

  There was a long silence. Tom finally asked, "And how does this connect to your idea that we should find the dinosaur? I promised to give the notebook to the man's daughter, Robbie – and that's it. As far as I'm concerned the dinosaur's hers."

  Ford tapped the table. "I hate to tell you this, Tom, but all that land out there, the high mesas and all the badlands and mountains beyond, belong to the Bureau of Land Management. In other words, it's all federal land. Our land. The American people own that land and everything on it and in it, including the dinosaur. You see, Tom, your man wasn't just a dinosaur prospector. He was a dinosaur thief."

  Chapter 23

  DR. IAIN CORVUS softly turned the handle of the metal door labeled mineralogy lab and stepped quietly into the room. Melodie Crookshank was sitting at a workstation, her back turned, typing. Her short brown hair bobbed as she worked.

  He crept up to her, laid his hand softly on her shoulder. She gave a muffled gasp and jumped.

  "You didn't forget our little appointment, did you?" asked Corvus.

  "No, it's just that you snuck up on me like a cat."

  Corvus laughed softly, gave her shoulder a little squeeze, and left his hand there. He could feel her heat through her labcoat. "I'm grateful you were willing to stay late." He was glad to see she was wearing the bracelet. She was pretty but in that athletic and unglamorous American way, as if one of the prerequisites of being a serious woman in science was to wear no makeup and avoid the hairdresser. But she had two important qualities: she was discreet and she was alone. He had quietly inquired into her background; she was a product of the Columbia degree mill that turned out far more Ph.D.s than were actually employable; her parents were both dead, she had no siblings, few friends, no boyfriend, and almost no social life. On top of that, she was competent and so eager to please.

  His eyes returned to her face, glad to see she was blushing. He wondered if perhaps they might not take their relationship a step or two beyond the professional – but no, that path was always unpredictable.

  He dazzled her with his finest smile, and took her hand, which was hot in his. "Melodie, I'm delighted you've made such splendid progress."

  "Yes, Dr. Corvus. It's – well, it's incredible. I've burned it all onto CDs."

  He lowered himself into a chair before the big flat-panel screen of the Power Mac G5. "Let the show begin," he murmured.

  Melodie seated herself next to him, picked up the top CD in a stack, opened the plastic holder, and slid it into the drive bay. She pulled over the keyboard and rapped out a command.

  "First, what we've got here," she began, switching into professional speech, "is a piece of the vertebra and fossilized soft tissue and skin of a large tyrannosaurid, probably a T. Rex or maybe a freakishly large Albertosaurus. It's fantastically well preserved."

  An image appeared on the screen.

  "Look at that. It's an imprint of skin." She paused. "Here it is closer up. You see those fine parallel lines? Here they are again at 30x."

  Corvus felt a momentary shiver. This was even better than he had imagined, much better. He felt suspended, light in his chair. "It's the impression of a feather," he managed to say.

  "Exactly. There it is: proof that T. Rex was feathered."

  It was a theory that had been advanced a few years ago by a group of young paleontologists at the museum. Corvus had derided the theory in the Journal of Paleontology, referring to it as a "peculiar American fantasy," which had occasioned much sneering and anti-British comment from his colleagues
in the museum. And now, here it was, in his very hands: proof that they were right, and he was wrong. The unpleasant sensation of being proven wrong quickly gave way to more complex feelings. Here was an opportunity... In fact, a rare opportunity. He could steal their theory from them, while standing up to the world and admitting he had been mistaken. Utter, total preemption – wrapped in a cloak of humility.

  That was exactly how he would do it.

  With this in hand, they would have to give him tenure. But then he wouldn't really need it, would he? He could get a job anywhere – even at the British Museum. Especially at the British Museum.

  Corvus found he had been holding his breath, and released it. "Yes, indeed," he murmured. "So the old gentleman was feathered after all."

  "It gets better."

  Corvus raised his eyebrows.

  She rapped a key and another image appeared. "Here's a polarized image at 100x of the fossilized muscle tissue. It's totally petrified, of course, but it has to be the most perfect fossilization on record – you see how fine-grained silicon dioxide has replaced the cell tissue, even the organelles, capturing the image of everything. What we're looking at is an actual image of the muscle cell of a dinosaur."

  Corvus found he could not speak.

  "Yeah." She rapped again. "Here it is at 500x... Look – you can see the nucleus."

  Click.

  "Mitochondria."

  Click.

  "And these – Golgi complex."

  Click.

  "Ribosomes–"

  Corvus put out his hand. "Stop. Stop a moment." He closed his eyes, took a deep breath. He opened them. "Wait a moment, please."

  He stood up, steadied himself with a hand on the back of the chair, and took a deep breath. The moment of dizziness passed, leaving him strangely hyperalert. He looked around the lab. It was as silent as a tomb, with only the faint hiss of air, the hum of the fan in the computer, the smell of epoxy, plastic, and heated electronics. Everything was as it was before – and yet the world had just changed. The future flashed through his mind – the awards, the best-selling book, the lectures, the money, the prestige. Tenure was only the beginning.