A Treasure Deep (25 page)

Slipping from the booth, Anne walked from the
bar wondering if she really did owe God an apology.

THE EVER-PRESENT BREEZE had evolved into a stiff wind
that ran invisible fingers through Perry’s dark hair. He stood in
the middle of the site as unmovable as the oaks that surrounded
him. The sun had tucked itself away behind the hills, and darkness
flooded the perimeter of the work area, kept at bay by the powerful
work lamps. Around the site was abysmal blackness, but the work was
awash in gold-tinted light.

Perry took in the activities around him.
Thirty minutes earlier, just an hour after sunset, the crime scene
was released and once again became a work site. Montulli had given
the word, and Perry wasted precious few minutes in mustering his
crew. The downtime had not been wasted. Perry had thought about his
next set of actions, weighing each decision carefully, like a
jeweler measuring a diamond.

Things had changed, and Perry had to adapt
his plan. It had been his intention to move quickly, but still one
step at a time. “B” would follow “A.” Then, and only then, would
“C” come into play. That was before—before the media reports,
before the gathering crowds, before the murder, before the theft of
the documents he had hoped to keep secret for a while longer at
least.

Just yesterday he’d arrived on scene as the
captain of his ship, a vessel that was plowing forward under full
sail and across even seas. Now his ship was stuck in the midst of a
storm, a squall that threatened to break the keel and send
everything sinking to the bottom.

What had to be done now had to be done fast.
It galled him to have to change his timing, but too much was at
stake, too much of the unknown. Someone was working against him. He
didn’t know who, but he did know that whoever it was, that person
was capable of bringing death.

The serene hillside was a churning mass of
activity. Over a score of men worked carefully but with urgency
they had drawn from their boss. Chatter and banter were nearly
nonexistent. The only real sounds were those of shovels hitting
dirt and the slow process of a backhoe moving up the site.

Perry was committed to finishing the task
before anything else could go wrong. Despite having had only a few
hours of sleep spread over the last few days, he wouldn’t return to
his motel room. He was on-site and on-site he’d stay until the work
was done. Despite the faster pace, it was not done in a frenzy.
Every man had a job to do, and he did it quickly, but not
carelessly.

“I must admit, I’m impressed,” Sergeant
Montulli said.

After releasing Perry to do his work, he’d
asked to stay and observe. Perry felt he owed the man that much. It
had been Montulli that had ordered additional men for crowd
control. Perry knew that he could send them home at any minute.
Instead, he agreed to keep them on-site until the private security
guards could arrive. A fence would be set up in the morning. It
would take several days to complete the chain-link perimeter, and
with luck, Perry’s major work would be done by then, but he was
unwilling to take chances. If things took longer, he wanted to be
ready. The price of the fence was small compared to the peace of
mind it brought.

“Impressed with what?” Perry asked.

“Your crew. You spoke, and they went to work.
No grumbling, no questions.”

“They’re the best, and we treat them well. A
good employee is more valuable than gold.”

“Can you fill me in?” Montulli asked. “I
mean, what are they doing?”

“I’ll tell you what I can,” Perry said. “You
already know about the coffin and skeleton, right?”

“Right. I saw it when the coroner removed the
murder victim’s body. Gave me the creeps.”

“You should have been face-to-face with it,”
Perry replied. “We found it because our surveys showed something
beneath the surface.” Perry turned to face the pit. Men were
digging away the edges of the grave. “They’re widening the opening.
If all goes well, they’ll dig back the side walls of the pit to
form a slope on two sides. Then we’ll push canvas straps beneath
the coffin. When Dr. Curtis gives the okay, the coffin will be
lifted out of the hole by those straps and set to the side. This
one was fairly close to the surface, so the team should be able to
lift it by hand.”

“That one? There are more?”

“Yes, five more.” Perry turned again and
pointed with his finger, indicating five other groups of men. “Each
team is responsible for a coffin. At least we assume they’re
coffins. They gave the same readings as the first one, except each
one is deeper than its counterpart farther up the slope. The deeper
ones will take longer to extract.”

“Kinda like pulling a bad tooth, eh?”
Montulli said.

“Something like that. Dr. Curtis will oversee
each extraction and make sure that the contents are prepped for
travel. Everything needs to be preserved. Even the dirt that is
being removed is being bagged, marked, and shipped off for
study.”

“Where are you sending all this?”

“Dr. Curtis has connections with several
universities. He’s well respected in his field. He has arranged to
have the coffins and their . . . inhabitants studied in the best
environments and by the best people. I imagine the studies will go
on for years.”

“So that’s it? You pull up a few old bodies,
and then you’re done. There’s no treasure?”

“That’s just the beginning, Deputy. Once the
burial material is removed . . . and by that I mean the corpses,
coffins, and surrounding soil . . . then we plan to dig a ditch—a
long ditch.”

“Why?”

“To get what we came for,” Perry said. “And
don’t ask. That’s as far as I can go.”

“Perry!”

Perry turned to see Curtis motioning for
Perry to join him. After several strides up the grade, Perry and
Montulli stood next to Curtis, who was giving orders to six
workers, each of whom held a flat canvas strap in his hand. The
straps descended into the now widened pit, ran under the coffin and
out the other side, up that slope, and into the hands of another
worker. The three straps formed a cradle for the coffin.

“I thought you might like to see this,”
Curtis said. “After all, you’re going to be the one blamed for
ruining all the history books.”

“I’m honored . . . I think,” Perry said.

“There’s a fine line between being famous and
being infamous,” Montulli said. “It’s all a matter of
interpretation.”

“Why don’t I feel comforted?” Perry
asked.

“I’m just a cop,” Montulli said. “I leave
those questions for your shrink.”

“Ready?” Curtis asked the men. Several
grunted their affirmation. “Okay, then, let’s do this. Pull evenly.
We want the coffin to stay level. I don’t think it can take very
much jiggling. Perry?”

Taking his cue, Perry said, “Haul away, boys.
Slow and steady.”

Instead of pulling the straps hand-over-hand
as a man might pull a bucket up from a well, the men each took a
step back, then another one, like a drill team marching backward.
Each step followed a cadence called out by Perry. “Step . . . step
. . . easy now . . . step . . . step.” One tediously long minute
later, the top of the coffin rose above the surrounding grade. Two
backward steps more and the bottom of the ancient casket cleared
the hole.

“To my right,” Perry ordered. “Step . . .
step . . . step.” Each small stride moved the dark, fragile box
away from the open maw that had been its home for so many
centuries. Once over solid ground, Perry gave the order to ease the
straps. Inch by inch the workers lowered it to the ground until it
rested in the tall grass.

Perry approached, as did the others, staring
at the unbelievable sight. A wood box, close to seven feet long and
three feet wide, rested on the ground. The coffin was made of flat
boards now bent, warped, and moldering. A single plank was missing;
the one Perry had removed when he first found it.

Staring back at them was the grinning skull
of a man long dead. The space where the board had been allowed a
limited view of the coffin’s occupant, but it was enough to see a
helmet on his head and the shield that covered his body.

Stooping, Perry took hold of one of the
remaining boards and gave a tug. It came loose easily, leaving
behind square iron nails. One of the other workers did the same
with the last board that formed the lid. They stood and took a step
back to allow the light to fall upon their macabre find.

“If it weren’t for that bony face,” Montulli
said, “I’d think I was looking at a robot.”

“You cops have a weird sense of humor,” Perry
said.

“Can we join the party?” Jack, Gleason, and
Brent joined the group. Brent carried his video camera.

Too many bodies, Perry thought and dismissed
the other workers, thanking them and then assigning them to the
other groups. “Sure,” Perry said. “I think Dr. Curtis was about to
give us a history lesson.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Curtis replied.
“What we are seeing is impossible. Flat impossible. No one is going
to believe it. I’m looking at it, and I don’t believe it.”

“Facts are facts, Doc,” Jack said. “No matter
how you spin this, we’re looking at a dead soldier. I took my share
of history classes in college, and even I know that’s a Roman
helmet.”

“That period of history is not my bailiwick,
but I know enough to believe you’re right.”

“Could it be some kind of prank?” Montulli
asked.

Curtis answered first. “No. If it were, it
would be the most elaborate and best executed prank in history.
Look at the cassis—the helmet. The rust indicates that it’s made of
iron, typical for a Roman soldier. Some helmets from the period
were made of copper or even bronze, but iron was more common. It
has everything you’d expect on a Roman military helmet:
cheek-shields to protect the face, a brow-guard, and judging by the
awkward position of the head, I bet we’ll find a protruding neck
guard on the back of the helmet.”

“Look,” Brent said, “even his sandals are
intact. A little worse for wear, but still in one piece.”

“Boots,” Curtis corrected. “I know they look
like sandals, but they were called boots. In grad school, I had a
professor say that the design of Roman boots showed some of the
same design factors of the modern sports shoe.” He bent down and
pushed the foot of the dead man forward. “Iron hobnails. The boots
were cut from a single piece of leather. It’s pretty fancy
work.”

“The shield is badly warped,” Gleason
noted.

Curtis agreed. “That’s to be expected.
Shields were made of layered wood with a copper alloy binding.”

“Should we remove the shield and see what
else our friend has on?” Gleason asked.

“No,” Curtis replied instantly. “We’ve gone
far enough. It’s possible that whoever buried this man put his arm
through the shield straps. Moving the shield might do some damage
to the remains. That kind of work should be done in the lab.”

Perry looked at Curtis for a moment but said
nothing. He knew the archeologist was being careful, at least as
careful as the circumstances allowed. Still, Perry’s curiosity was
in high gear. “This is your decision, Doc, but I have to admit that
I want a little peek at the rest of our friend.”

“I suppose,” Curtis sighed after a moment,
“we could see how easily the shield separates from the body. We
might get lucky. But I want everything taped.”

“I’m on it, Doc,” Brent enthused, raising the
camera to his eye. “Quiet on the set . . . roll ’em.”

Curtis studied the shield and the occupant
upon which it rested like a chess master planning his next ten
moves. “Perry, you take the corner opposite me; Gleason, you take
the lower left; Jack can have the lower right. We’re going to lift
gently and evenly. I will set the pace; the rest of you will lift
as I do—no more, no less. Everyone got that?” They all agreed and
took their positions.

Curtis reached forward and slid two fingers
under one corner of the shield. Perry did the same and waited for
the others to follow suit. “Here we go,” Curtis said, and he gently
pulled up.

Perry fixed his eyes on Dr. Curtis’s hand. He
was determined to keep the shield flat and level. For a moment the
shield felt stuck, and Perry was afraid that Curtis would back off
in the name of caution, but he didn’t. Letting his eyes rise from
Curtis’s hand for a moment, he looked at the professor and saw that
he was biting his lip. Perry expected to see blood any moment.

The shield rose with a gentle crackle. Perry
had visions of the ancient soldier’s arm dangling beneath, but his
fear was unfounded. The four men removed the shield from its
centuries-old resting spot.

“Okay, this is good,” Curtis said, sounding
like a man who had just run a mile uphill. Perry realized that he
too had been holding his breath. “I think two of us can handle it
now.”

Perry slid his other hand down the shield to
the opposite corner. Curtis did the same. It felt remarkably light.
As soon as Gleason and Jack were out of the way, Perry and Curtis
took several side steps and then gently set the shield down on the
grassy ground.

“This guy was buried in full military dress,”
Jack said.

Perry returned to the coffin and took in the
sight of a skeleton dressed in deteriorated and crumbling
armor.

“Brass greaves on the legs,” Curtis said.
“Segmental armor strips probably held in place by leather ties.” He
hunkered down again. “He’s got it all: long double-edged sword
called a ‘Spanish sword’ on his right side, leather belt, iron ring
mail, and a dagger.”

“That’s quite a sheath,” Perry said, looking
at the dagger’s inlaid enamel and silver scabbard.

“He’s wearing a baldric,” Curtis commented.
“That could be significant.”

“A what?” Gleason asked.