The Cleric's Vault (15 page)

Chapter 31

Grand Canyon, Arizona

It
had been a little over an hour since Emily had made the call.
 
While waiting, they’d gotten back on
one of the tour buses and visited Guano Point for a few minutes before heading
back to the main information center.
 
A black helicopter bearing a Justice Department seal was landing in a
space near the parking lot just as they exited the shuttle.
 
“That must be our ride,” she said as
she pointed over to the chopper.
 

Up
ahead, the blades of the rotor began to slow slightly.
 
A pilot wearing the stereotypical
aviator-style sunglasses hopped out of the front.
 
He also sported a light brown jacket and dark-brown
pants.
 
The man appeared to be in
his upper forties with streaks of gray flicking through the thick, cocoa
hair.
 
Emily strode out in front
and extended her hand, which the pilot took firmly.
 
“Heard you needed a ride,” he said casually, speaking loudly
so his voice could be heard over the whine of the turbines.

“We
appreciate you coming down on such short notice.”
 
She expressed their gratitude.
 
There was an awkward pause for a moment while they shook
hands a little longer than would be expected.
 

“This
is Sean and Adriana.”
 
Emily
pointed to the two onlookers.
 

“You
two know each other?” Sean asked.
 

“Jim
Caldwell,” the pilot responded while offering his hand.
 
“I’ve done some field work for Emily in
the past.
 
I’ve been doing some
stuff out in Los Angeles for the past few years, but I happened to be in Vegas
when the call came through.”

“That’s
a happy coincidence--” Sean eyed her suspiciously.

Emily
rolled her eyes at the insinuation.
 

“So,
you guys need me to fly you somewhere?
  
What’s the story?”

“Actually,”
Emily answered, “We need you to fly us into the canyon.”

Caldwell
looked surprised and confused.
 
“Why didn’t you just get one of those tourist choppers to take you in
there?”

Sean
responded.
 
“Because I don’t think
they would be willing to do what we need.”

The
pilot looked intrigued.
 
“Sounds
sketchy.
 
Let’s do it.”

The
group followed him over to the helicopter and climbed in, Emily taking the
front seat while Sean and Adriana hopped in the back.
 
A few minutes later they were rising slowly off the desert
floor.
 
Jim leaned the black
machine forward and headed them around towards the western entrance of the
canyon.
 
“We have to take a certain
flight path going in,” he said into the headset.
 
His voice was somewhat crackly, like most radio
communication devices.
 

The
helicopter cruised along for a few minutes, running parallel to the enormous
gash in the earth.
 
Then, Jim
veered to the right and the ground dropped out from under them.
 
Awestruck by the view, Sean and Adriana
looked out their respective windows in the rear.
   
Villa was in wonder by the spectacular
sight.
 
Wyatt was a little more
uneasy about the whole thing.
 
They
had gone out beyond Guano Point and were sailing past it, flying high over the
Colorado River as it wound its way through the deep crevasse.
 
Some of the tourists waved from the
tour stop as they went by.

“Up
ahead is Eagle Point,” Emily said into the microphone.
 
Jim simply nodded his understanding as
they drew nearer to a large, forked rock formation in the river gorge.
 
He slightly slowed the helicopter down
to make sure he didn’t pass the location.
 
Emily pointed to the right.
 
“Take us over there.
 
Get us
as close as you can.”
 
Again, the
pilot nodded and obeyed, guiding the flying machine to the right side of the
rock ridge that jutted up from the canyon floor.

Emily
looked across through the pilot’s window as the formation passed by on their
left.
 
It only took them a few
minutes before they reached the spot they were looking for.
 
“That’s it,” she said as she pointed at
the enormous shape of the eagle that had been formed out of the ancient red
stone.
 
The wings of the creature
stretched out in both directions of the river.
 
The head though, was facing upstream.
 

Carefully,
Jim inched the helicopter closer.
 
Sean and Adriana were peeking through the cockpit windshield, trying to
see if they could find a hint of anything unusual or out of place but nothing
caught their eye.
 
“What are we
looking for?” Caldwell asked, turning his head slightly towards the middle of
the cabin.

“We’re
not real sure,” Sean replied over the hum of the cabin noise.
 
“A cave, some Petra glyphs.
 
Could be anything.”

“What
was it that your friend said was the clue for this location?” Adriana asked.

“Mac
said that the Eagle’s Wings would guide the way or something like that.”
 
Almost in sync, the four inside the
cabin turned their head upstream in the direction of where the Eagle’s head was
pointing.
 
“Can you get us over top
of it?”
 
Sean asked.
 
“I’m talking like almost sitting on top
of the head.”

Jim
nodded and steered the helicopter up and over top of the rock formation.
 
Slowly and carefully, he lowered it
down as close to the rock as he could.
 
The stone eagle was situated in a dip in the ridge, so hovering right
over top of it put them at almost eye level with the pinnacle.
 
As the four looked down the ridge they
noticed it sloped slightly at an angle, like a path.
 
Where the path ended was extraordinary.
 
Off in the distance, several thousand
feet away, they noticed a black spot on the cliff wall.
 
Even though the end of the ridge was
separated from the canyon face by a large span, from the angle they had it
looked as if the ridge path led straight to the spot.

“Is
that a cave?” Emily asked.

“Only
one way to find out,” Sean replied.

*****

Agents
Angela Weaver and James Collack watched the black helicopter take off and
circle around to the southwest towards the mouth of the canyon.
 
Following their targets in a chopper of
their own would have been foolish.
 
Instead, they opted to be patient and see what they could observe from
afar.
 
A close listen by one of
their operatives who’d been sent to the tourist center had apprised them that Wyatt
and his little group had taken a shuttle out to Eagle Point.
 
The man had done the same and got on
the same bus without being compromised.
 
He took note on Wyatt’s special interest in the eagle-shaped rock
formation when they arrived at the overlook.
 
At the last stop, Guano Point, the group hadn’t really spent
any time at all looking around.
 
Angela and James took that to mean that whatever Wyatt was looking for was
around Eagle Point.
 

Their
team had taken up a position off to the side of the tourist information center
with special permission from the residing authorities.
 
No one ever questioned high level
government agents once they flashed the credentials.
 
Access to so many restricted areas was easy.

They
both held their binoculars tightly as they watched the black chopper cruise in
from the southwest.
 
“What are they
doing?” James asked his partner, lowering his device for a moment.

She
shook her head, still peering through her binoculars.
 
“Not sure.
 
But
it looks like they are taking a keen interest in that area of the ridge.”

He
raised his binoculars back to his face and continued staring out.
 
Three other agents stood guard behind
them making sure no curious tourists came near.
 
Angela and James watched as the helicopter maneuvered into a
position hovering over the rocky ridge.
 
After a minute or so the helicopter lifted up a little higher and headed
northeast, flying upstream over the river below.
 
At one point, the chopper flew past their position but since
they were safely a few thousand feet away, being spotted by its passengers was
highly unlikely.

“What
do you think?” James broke the silence again.
 
He seemed a little on edge.

She
was tired of always having to make the decisions.
 
Even though they were of equal rank, it seemed like she’d been
playing mommy to him for a while now.
 
Sometimes she wondered how he’d gotten to the level he was at with the
ignorance he displayed on an almost daily basis.
 
She’d made little effort to withhold her frustration with
his inability to kill Wyatt when he had the chance at the Venetian.
 
How he’d let some woman sneak up on his
position was still something she considered inexcusable.
 
And just who the mystery woman was
still tugged at her.

James
still looked at her awaiting a response.
 
“I’m guessing they saw something off in that direction,” she pointed
towards where the helicopter had flown.
 
“We wait to see where they land and what they’re doing.
 
Keep our distance and observe.”

“What
if they find what they’re looking for?”

A
breeze picked up and played with a few loose strands of her brown hair that had
escaped the neat ponytail in the back.
 
“Then we take it from them.”

*****

Jim
lowered the aircraft down gently onto the hardened desert plateau about a
hundred feet from the cliff’s edge.
 
“Did anyone bring climbing gear?” he asked the three passengers.

“I
did,” Adriana said matter-of-factly.

Sean
raised both eyebrows, impressed with her preparedness.

“What
made you think we would need that?” Emily prodded, as turbines above the cabin
began to slow.

“Just
call it a hunch,” she replied with a smirk.

She
grabbed the small backpack she’d brought along and hopped down onto the ground,
walking low to avoid the blowing wind of the rotors overhead.

Emily
looked a little stunned.

“I
like her,” Jim said as he flipped a few switches and knobs, bringing the
chopper to a rest.
 

Sean’s
former partner rolled her eyes while he chuckled under his breath.
 

Jim
stayed with the aircraft as they made their way over to where Adriana was
unpacking some thin climbing rope, rigging, and a few harnesses.
 
She’d already set up a long stretch of
rope across the dusty ground.
 
She
reached out her hand to Sean with a harness dangling loosely from it.
 
“I think I’m gonna pass on this one,”
Sean said as he put both hands in the air.
 

“I
wasn’t asking,” she replied slyly and tossed him the harness.

He
snatched it out of the air out of reflex but looked at the thing like he’d just
caught a bag of snakes.
 

Emily
grabbed the last harness from the Spaniard and began to slip one leg through
the loops and then the other.

Wyatt
reluctantly copied what the two women were doing.
 
“What are we going to anchor the rope to?”

Ignoring
him, Adriana removed a small bolt gun from her bag and walked purposefully over
to the cliff’s edge.
 
She laid down
on her stomach and stretched the tool out over the precipice and pressed it
against the rock wall.
 
A muffled
shot sounded then repeated as she moved the bolt gun slightly to the left.

“Oh,”
Sean said, resigned to the fact that he would indeed be going over the edge of
the cliff, whether he wanted to or not.

He
struggled to slip the harness on over his khaki pants.
 
“I’ve never done this before,” he said
confessed sheepishly.

Adriana
smiled with a raised eyebrow.
 
“Don’t worry.
 
I’ll take
care of you.”