Prologue - The Find

PROLOGUE


The Grand Canyon
4784 feet below the South Rim
Dawn

Dr. Jensen Reinhardt awoke in his sleeping tent with a headache and a slight ringing in his ears.

This was unusual. He rarely got headaches, and had never experienced ringing like this before. Not that he could remember.

He sat up on the nylon air mattress and rubbed the grit from his eyes. My God. It felt as if a cactus had sprouted inside his scull during the night, and its needle-sharp spines were knifing their way out through the backs of his eyeballs.

Had this been brought on by something he’d eaten the evening before? Something he and his fourteen-man archeological crew had for dinner?

What did we eat last night?

Try as he might, he couldn’t remember. It was too early, he thought. He needed his usual cup of coffee to wake up. The pain was clouding his thinking too.
Yet he knew his missing memory wasn’t caused just by morning mental fog, or the headache alone. Something else was wrong with him.

Very wrong.

Could he be suffering the effect of a stroke? After all, he was…was…how old?

Couldn’t remember his age either.

Canned black beans. Millet. And canned tuna fish.

Okay. He remembered what he’d had for dinner. That was a relief. But how old was he?

After waiting again on a mind that refused to deliver, he decided it didn’t matter. If he was suffering from a stroke, then so be it. Yet he certainly hoped that wasn’t the case. The archeological camp was situated in an isolated stone basin, a mile below the rest of the world. There’d be no calling 911 down here.

Dr. Reinhardt slowly rose to his feet. He stepped forward. Stepped backwards. Waved his arms. Wiggled his fingers. Probably not a stroke.

Then something clawed at his chest. A dark intuition: His crew. Something was wrong with them, too!

Ignoring the pain in his head, Dr. Reinhardt shoved his legs in his pants, unzipped the tent flap, and stepped outside. Shrouds of dreary gray mist encapsulated the campground. Like walls of a great medieval fortress, black granite buttes rose skyward on either side of him. The wind whistled in his ears, down from the Colorado River valley, not too far off.

Or was it the ringing?

He headed out and lumbered past the gaping mouth of Re’s Cavern. For the past three weeks, the archeologists had been conducting their excavation deep within the limestone cave. They had been searching for…for what?

Fifty-five. No. Fifty-six. Fifty-six years old.

What in God’s name was wrong with him?

He passed in front of the three sleeping tents for the crewmembers. With each step, his coordination waned. Driven by a desperate need to reach his team, he ignored the spastic movement of his legs and headed for the larger, yellow-domed excavation tent. They would be in there, eating their breakfasts and preparing for the day. After all, today was the day. Everything they had done over the past three weeks would culminate in today’s activities. In fact, everything Dr. Reinhardt had done over the last six months––no, over his entire professional life––would culminate today. He knew this to be true. Yet for the life of him, he couldn’t remember exactly what they were scheduled to do!

As he approached the main tent, the ringing intensified: an endless, high-pitched shriek that scratched at his eardrums.

It took all of his concentration to put one foot in front of the other as he entered the large excavation tent. As he’d anticipated, the others were there. But they looked like tranquilized animals, stumbling about with saliva dribbling from their mouths.

What the…

By now, Dr. Jensen Reinhardt had lost his ability to form logical thoughts. Within moments, he too started dribbling at the mouth. A feeling of utter hopelessness and desperation came over him. Then another sensation overwhelmed him––an insatiable craving for death.

Seconds later. Or minutes. A handful of men entered the tent wearing black helmets with silver eye protectors. Reinhardt was helpless to act against them, and in his distorted state of mind, he held only one desire: that they kill him and the others. Death didn’t represent an end, but a new beginning. However, instead of killing him, the men gagged and handcuffed him. They drove a stake through the tent floor into the ground, then another one, to which they chained him. They thrust a helmet on his head, his eyes shielded by silver glass. The feeling of desperation dissipated. His coordination returned. The headache was gone, as was the ringing in his ears.
Dr. Reinhardt had regained his ability to think straight. He struggled to break free, but was too fatigued. And with the handcuffs on, he had no leverage against the chains holding him.

He could only watch as the men filled cups from a large container they had brought in and passed them around to the crew. As if taking orders from the same invisible dictator, each person began to drink from a cups, apparently all obeying the same internal commands. How was this even possible?

One by one, the crewmembers collapsed to the floor like puppets whose strings had been cut. At first, Reinhardt thought…hoped…they had only passed out.
But they weren’t just unconscious. He was witnessing the mass murder of his archeological crew. The cups from which they drank contained poison. He watched as they wilted to the floor, never to breathe, or talk, or laugh again.
Most of them were student archeologists who had volunteered for the dig. He pictured their mothers and fathers getting the news of their deaths. Saw their grief- stricken faces and terrorized eyes. Heard them cry…and heard their endless questions:

How? Who? Why?

What unseen force had seized control of their children’s nervous systems and minds?

His blood ran hot as he again struggled to break free. The soles of his shoes skidded on the canyon floor and he tumbled to the rock-hard ground.
Who were these men?

And why? W-h-y?

He knew the answer.

He remembered now. Remembered what they had excavated from Re’s Cavern, only three days ago. This is what had brought these men to their campground. It’s why they had killed his crew. They had come for the find.