Jordan nodded, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
Painter looked down at the telephone handset still in his grip. Rafael would be expecting another call in an hour. Painter needed some answers by then. He turned to the dark office window, staring across the breadth of the country.
Gray, don’t let me down.
Chapter 32
June 1, 2:50 A.M.
Nashville, Tennessee
Standing beside Seichan, Gray leaned his face closer to the oven window. Heat bathed his face. Inside the chamber, the golden plate rested atop a ceramic grate, canted at an angle, showing the Great Seal with the fourteen arrows.
Rows of blue flames waved along the bottom of the oven, slowly raising the temperature inside. Above the door, the readout from the digital thermometer steadily climbed higher, crossing above six hundred degrees Celsius.
“Shouldn’t be much longer,” the shop owner said.
The goldsmith was Russian, around fifty, with salt-and-pepper hair. He stood no taller than five feet but had a linebacker’s build with a bit of a paunch hanging over his belt. He scratched at a gold chain tucked under his T-shirt. The name of his business was GoldXChange, located amid a jumble of industrial complexes on the outskirts of Nashville. He bought old gold for cash, but also melted clients’ rings, coins, necklaces, and other jewelry into ingots.
He’d also had some trouble with the IRS. Kat had pressured the man to cooperate, threatened him with imprisonment if he did not keep silent about tonight’s enterprise.
The owner was plainly nervous, sweating through his shirt.
“Gold melts around a thousand degrees Celsius,” the Russian said. “See how the metal is already glowing.”
Inside the oven, the ruddy surface of the plate had burned to a sun-bright sheen. As he watched, a single, shimmering droplet appeared atop the stamped U.S. Seal, where the gold formed the image of the eagle’s feathers. It rolled down the slanted slope to drip into a ceramic pan beneath the grate. Soon more blazing teardrops began to weep and flow in rivulets, slowly erasing the details of the Seal. The crisp, sharp edges of the plate grew soft, melting away in a river of gold.
“That should be hot enough,” Gray told the shop owner. “Hold the temperature right there.”
Gray did not want to risk damaging the map if it was buried inside. The denser nano-gold had a higher melting point than the rest of the plate, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t soften if it got too hot. They dared not melt away the details of the map.
Once the temperature was set, Gray pointed the Russian to the door. “You’ll need to leave now. Go join my partner outside.”
The goldsmith did not hesitate. With a nod, he backed away, turned, and quickly strode to the exit. Monk was outside watching the street. They did not want to be ambushed again.
Gray waited for the man to leave before returning his attention to the oven, in which molten gold was flowing like liquid sunshine. Slowly the plate eroded before their eyes, shedding more and more of its mass.
“Look along the top,” Seichan said, reaching out to grip his wrist.
“I see it.”
A dark ragged ridge appeared, protruding from the leading edge of the plate, a shadow against the brilliance of the molten gold. Over the next few minutes, more and more of the blazing metal poured away, revealing a greater expanse of the hidden object. That new metal smoldered also—but less brilliantly, a ruddy rosiness against the yellowish gold.
“It’s the map,” Seichan whispered.
This became clear as the remaining gold drained away, flowing across the rosy metal surface, exposing another long-held secret.
This hidden bit of cartography wasn’t a flat engraving.
“It’s a topographical map,” Gray said, awed by the artistry.
Tiny, sculpted mountain ranges appeared, along with deep-cut river valleys and pockets that marked lakes. The melting gold revealed a darkly glowing scale model of the upper half of the North American continent.
As Gray watched, one of the last molten droplets slid like a sailing ship down a large river valley splitting the middle of the continent.
That has to be the Mississippi.
He continued to identify other landmarks: a chain of depressions that marked the Great Lakes, a small crack that could only be the Grand Canyon, a raised spine of mountains that mapped the Appalachians. Even the coastlines looked uncannily accurate. Then, to the northeast of the continent, out in the ocean, rose a peaked series of islands around a larger mainland.
Iceland.
Soon only the map remained on the ceramic grate. Its edges were rough, misshapen, slightly curled up at the corners. A fine, straight crease split the middle, the two halves fitting perfectly together. Gray pictured the map lining the cranial cavity of a mastodon’s skull. Jefferson’s people must have burned away the ancient bone to preserve the map.
“Is that writing?” Seichan asked.
“Where?”
“Along the map’s margins.”
Gray leaned closer to the oven, the radiating heat burning his face. Seichan’s eyes were sharper than his. Faint lines of script did indeed run along the map, to the west of the continent, like notations of a cartographer.
Pinching his eyes, he studied it. “Looks like the same writing we saw in Fortescue’s journal, the ancient lettering he copied from one of those gold plates.” He turned to Seichan. “Grab some paper from the office here. You’ve got better eyes than me. I want that all copied down.”
Seichan obeyed without asking questions. She knew the challenge that was facing him and was happy to leave him to it.
Gray returned his attention to the tiny sculpted map of Iceland. To the south of the mainland, smaller peaks marked the Westman archipelago. Atop one of the islands, a tiny dark crystal shard—possibly a black diamond—had been embedded deep into the metal. It glinted in the dance of fire going on in the oven.
Ellirey Island.
He moved his attention to the west, to another diamond shining against the rosy metal. This shard was much larger than the one set in Iceland, perhaps indicating the relative size of the western deposit. It was a disturbing reminder of the danger brewing out there.
Gray frowned at the map, struggling to get his bearings. The lack of state lines and city names made it difficult to judge with great accuracy where this marker pointed, only that it lay somewhere in the chain of Rocky Mountains, well to the north but still within what would eventually become the United States.
Given the lack of clarity, it was no wonder that Fortescue had decided to go to Iceland first.
Seichan returned with pen and paper and began copying the notations found on the map’s borders.
As she worked, Gray followed the spine of the Rockies farther south. There, he found what he was looking for, the barest sliver of crystal, easy to miss unless you were looking for it.
That must be the Utah site.
Compared to the chunk of diamond to the north, it was nothing. So minuscule, in fact, that Jefferson and Fortescue had either overlooked it or hadn’t even thought it worth mentioning. Gray stared between the three crystals, growing more certain that their different sizes reflected the relative importance of the various sites—and also the relative danger each posed.
He checked his watch, all too aware of the clock ticking down.
Seichan finished her work and pointed her pen at the largest diamond. “Any idea where that is?”
“I think I might know,” he said, putting the pieces together in his head. It all made dreadful and terrifying sense. But he had to be sure before sharing his theory. “I need to check a map of the Western United States.”
Seichan pointed to the oven. “In the meantime, what do we do about that map?”
Gray showed her. He reached and dialed up the digital thermostat on the oven. He kept turning, watching the temperature setting climb above three thousand degrees Celsius, three times the melting point of ordinary gold. The blue acetylene flames shot higher i
nside the oven, dancing more vigorously.
Seichan stared at him, one eyebrow raised.
“We can’t risk the map falling into Waldorf’s hands,” he explained.
“So you’re going to destroy it?”
“I’m going to try. The map’s metal is denser, so it’s not going to melt at the low temperatures of ordinary gold. But there must be some temperature at which it does melt.”
To make sure this happened, Gray continued to twist the oven’s thermostat dial until the temperature setting changed from digital numbers to just three letters: MAX.
Hopefully that should do it.
Gray kept vigil with Seichan as the oven’s temperature rose higher and higher. Soon the radiating heat drove them back another few steps. Inside the chamber, the map’s rosy glow became a blinding brilliance, shining like a minisun.
Maybe it won’t melt . . . not even at these temperatures.
In another minute, Gray had to shield his eyes against the glare.
“Do you feel that?” Seichan asked.
“Feel what?” he began—then he felt it.
A prickling across his skin, a fine vibration, as if all the molecules in the room had grown excited. A second later, the heavy oven began to quake against the concrete floor.
Gray grabbed Seichan’s elbow and pushed her toward the door. “Run!”
He fled behind her. He pictured the tightly packed atoms in the nano-gold, squeezed abnormally close together, trapping massive amounts of potential energy in that strained state, like a rubber band stretched tautly.
He glanced behind him. If that rubber band were suddenly cut, if all that potential energy were released at once by overheating the metal . . .
It wasn’t going to melt.
It was going to—
The explosion blew him into Seichan and rolled them both through the shop door and out into the night. Shattered glass and splintered wood rained down around them. The scorched door of the oven flew past and crashed through the windshield of the shop owner’s Chevy Suburban, parked just outside.
Gray scrambled up, hooking an arm around Seichan’s waist and drawing her up with him. He pictured the shop’s rows of pressurized gas tanks. The next explosion knocked them back to the ground with a scorching blast of heat. A massive fireball blew out the remaining shop windows behind them and rolled high into the sky.
They regained their feet, each helping the other up.
Across a small parking lot that fronted the business, Monk stared back at them. He stood beside the stunned Russian next to their stolen white van. As they ran up, the goldsmith fell to his knees.
“What have you done to my shop?” the man demanded.
“You’ll be reimbursed,” Gray said, waving the man aside and the others toward the vehicle. “As long as you stay silent.”
They all piled into the van, with Monk behind the wheel.
“Hang on,” Monk warned.
He shifted into reverse, pounded the gas pedal, and sent the vehicle flying in reverse, tires squealing across the parking lot. Bouncing over a curb, they hit the surface street teeth-jarringly hard—then Monk yanked back into forward gear so fast that they risked whiplash.
Gray understood the need for speed. They all did. They had to be long gone from the area before any emergency response teams arrived. He stared back at the burning complex. Flames continued to lap around it and smoke roiled high into the night sky, like a signal flare. Their trail, which had grown cool, was suddenly hot again. He couldn’t trust the Russian to remain silent. Word would spread—likely reaching Waldorf.
“What happened back there?” Monk finally asked.
Gray told him.
“So, at least, you found the Indian map,” Monk commented. “But what about the location of the Fourteenth Colony? Do you know where it is?”
Gray nodded, his head still ringing. “I have an idea.”
“Where?”
“In the very worst place it could be.”
Chapter 33
June 1, 12:22 A.M.
Flagstaff, Arizona
Painter leaned on a table in the main lodge of the ranger station. “If Gray’s right, how much trouble are we in?”
Across a swath of topographical maps and reports from the U.S. Geological Survey, Ronald Chin shook his head.
“I’d say a shitload.”
The normally reserved geologist’s slip into profanity spoke volumes. Chin had arrived thirty minutes ago, along with a member of the National Guard—Major Ashley Ryan. The pair had already been en route from Utah to Arizona, intending to help with the search for Painter’s lost group. After landing in Flagstaff and learning of their rescue, they had joined Painter’s team here at the station, which had become a makeshift situation room.
“Could you be any more specific?” Painter asked, and stared down at a splayed open map of Montana and Wyoming. It was here that Gray believed the lost city of the ancients was hidden, the final resting place of the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev, where they stored their greatest treasures and where a doomsday clock was ticking downward, one neutrino at a time.
He studied the boundaries of the national park outlined on the map.
Yellowstone.
The first of the nation’s parks, and the granddaddy of all geothermal areas on this continent. If the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev had wanted a warm and permanent home to preserve and protect their fragile treasure, this would be the place, with its ten thousand hot springs, two hundred geysers, and countless other steaming vents, bubbling fumaroles, and mud volcanoes. In fact, half the geysers in the entire world were located within this park.
But it was also a lot of park to search.
Over two million acres.
Before deciding to concentrate their efforts fully on that one location, Painter wanted to be sure. Off in one of the back offices, Hank Kanosh was mobilizing his Native American resources, struggling to substantiate Gray’s claim. At this point, it was still a theory. Even Gray admitted that his estimation of the location was a best guess and that a large margin of error remained. In the meantime, his team would seek further corroboration by investigating the historical angle.
While all that was being done, Painter wanted some idea of what to expect. For this, he needed the expertise of a geologist.
Chin stepped around the table, dragging a topographical map of the national park along its surface. It showed a ring of mountains sheltering a vast plateau, the true geothermal heart of Yellowstone. The steaming valley stretched four thousand square kilometers, large enough to hold all of Los Angeles—but it was no ordinary valley. It was a caldera, the cratered top of a supervolcano that simmered beneath the park.
“This is the problem,” Chin said, tapping the center of the crater, where a vast lake pooled. “The Yellowstone caldera marks a geological hot spot, a continual upwelling of hot, molten mantle rock from the earth’s core. It feeds into a massive magma chamber only four to five miles beneath the surface. From data collected by the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, we also know that there are pockets of magma much closer to the surface, seeping into the crust, driving all the hydrothermal activity in the area. With all the rainfall locally, the heat drives a massive and ancient hydraulic system, the world’s largest steam engine. That force alone has triggered massive hydrothermal explosions in the valley. Yellowstone Lake itself was formed from one of those blasts, when rain and springwater filled the crater that resulted.”
Chin’s finger came to rest on that lake. His eyes rose to Painter’s face. “But deeper underground, the pressure keeps slowly mounting as the molten mantle rock rises, building up inside that colossal magma chamber.”
“Until it eventually explodes.”
“Which Yellowstone has done three times over the past two million years. The first explosion tore a hole in the crust the size of Rhode Island. The last eruption left most of the continent covered in ash. These blowouts occur on a regular basis, as steady as the blasts from Old Faithful geyser.
They occur once every six hundred thousand years.”
“When was the last one?” Painter asked.
“Six hundred and forty thousand years ago.” The geologist looked significantly at Painter. “So we’re overdue. It’s not a matter of if that supervolcano will erupt, it’s a matter of when. The eruption is inevitable, and geological evidence indicates that it will be soon.”
“What evidence?”
Chin reached and pulled up a sheaf of U.S. Geological Survey studies and seismographic reports from the volcano observatory. He shook the pages in his hand. “We’ve been collecting data going back to 1923. The land around here has been steadily rising as pressure builds below, but starting in 2004, that bulging of the land has surged to three times the annual average, the highest ever recorded. The bottom of one end of Yellowstone Lake, which overlies the caldera, has risen enough to spill water out of the other end, killing trees. Other sections of forest are dying because their roots are being cooked by the subterranean heat. Hot springs along trails have begun to boil, severely injuring some tourists, requiring some paths to be shut down. Elsewhere, new vents have been opening deeper in the parks, observed by passing airplanes, spewing steam and gouts of toxic vapors that have killed bison on the spot.”
Chin slapped his papers down on the table. “This is a powder keg waiting to explode.”
“And someone just lit the match,” Painter said.
He pictured the massive waves of neutrinos flowing from somewhere inside that park, counting down to an inevitable explosion, one a hundredfold larger than the one that had occurred in Iceland.
“What can we expect if we fail to stop this?” Painter said. “What happens if the caldera does erupt?”
“Cataclysm.” Chin stared at the spread of reports and data sheets. “First, it would be the loudest explosion heard by mankind in over seventy thousand years. Within minutes, a hundred thousand people would be buried by ash, incinerated by superheated pyroclastic flows, or killed by the explosive force alone. Magma would spew twenty-five miles into the air. The chamber would release a volume of lava large enough, if spread over the entire United States, to cover the country to the depth of five inches. But most of that flow would be confined to the Western states, wiping out the entire Northwest. For the rest of the country—and the world—ash would be the real killer. Estimates say it would cover two-thirds of the country in at least a meter of ash, rendering the land sterile and uninhabitable. But worst of all, the ash blown into the atmosphere would dim the sun and drop the earth’s temperature by twenty degrees, triggering a volcanic winter that could last decades, if not centuries.”