The Dig: A Taskforce Story (3 page)

Rudy Chamfer watched the truck bounce away across the scrub, headed to Highway 2. He pulled out his phone. He waited for it to connect, wondering if he should have called while they were still under his control. A man answered.

“Hey, I just chased off two people searching the riverbank.”

“Did they find anything?”

“Not that I could see. They had some contraption and was running it about, but they didn’t seem to have any focus.”

“So there’s nothing to stop the dam?”

“Not as far as I know, but I’m not a scientist. I don’t know what they have.”

The man cursed in the phone, and Rudy saw his cattle lease going up in pottery shards and government red tape. He said, “I’ll get it built. Don’t back out on me now.”

The man said, “I can find plenty of leases to graze my cattle. You’re the one that said you could provide water. I don’t have a lot of time to wait. I have to put them somewhere.”

“I hear you. Don’t worry. The dam will be built in time. I’m on schedule.”

“Who were they?”

“A company from Charleston, South Carolina. Some archaeological firm called Grolier Recovery Services. They claim that they had permission to explore.”

“Really? How would they have permission?”

“They don’t, dammit. Someone told them they did.”

“You know where they’re staying?”

“Yeah. They gave me all their information. They wanted to clear up what they thought was a misunderstanding.”

“Where is it?”

I spent the rest of the ride back into Roswell in a fine stew, refusing to talk. This whole endeavor was ridiculous. I was sweating out in the middle of the New Mexico desert, pushing a lawn mower on steroids, only to get confronted by a guy and a shotgun. I couldn’t believe the damn junior varsity bullshit. Sweetwater hadn’t even gotten permission to check out the guy’s land.

Jennifer tried to mollify me, saying, “Hey, we found something. At the end of the day, even with the sorry coordination, we need to check that out. We can’t let it get flooded.”

I said, “I could give a shit about that. What I really want to do is punch Sweetwater in the face.”

We connected with Highway 285 and entered downtown Roswell. Once again in the land of fruits and nuts, the drab surroundings doing nothing for my mood.

We passed the vaunted, world-renowned UFO museum, looking like a snake-show on a dirt highway in Florida, and Jennifer said, “Pike, you need to come to grips with the fact that a lot of our work won’t be commando missions. It’s a slow, hard, dirty toil. The payback is the site itself.”

I said nothing. She continued. “You said if I started this business with you that fifty percent would be real scientific work. You said we needed to prove our cover in order to use the cover. This is just that fifty percent.”

I pulled into our hotel and she said, “Okay. Look. Let’s get to the gym. You can show me some commando stuff and then sleep in tomorrow. I’ll handle Sweetwater. I’d rather you didn’t come to the meeting.”

I put the truck in park and said, “All right. I’m okay with that. But you’d better put your game face on. I’m a little aggravated.”

Thirty minutes later we were rolling around on the mat at a local gym just off Main Street. It was privately owned in a crumbling, cement cinder-block building, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t pretty good, with a complete assortment of free weights, cardio, and Cro-Magnon CrossFit gear. We found a corner in a yoga room that wasn’t in use and I went to work, teaching Jennifer the finer arts of kicking someone’s ass.

I played to her strengths, stressing to her that her sole function in a fight was to do enough damage to get away. Never, ever to try to go toe-to-toe with another man—especially a man out to get her. She didn’t have the strength to do so, but she sure as hell had the flexibility and the quickness to escape, something I began to focus on.

We went through a few drills of rapid strikes, techniques that should, if executed correctly, allow her to break contact. Once she had the confidence, I went in harder, bringing her to the ground to see what she would do. I got on top of her and she went into the guard, cinching her legs around my waist and attempting to wrap up my arms. Just like I’d taught her. Only this time the position broke my concentration, the closeness of her body distracting me.

She swam out of my grip and flipped me over, ending up on top, and giving me a couple of pulled jabs to my head, her face glowing at the success.

I said, “Damn it. You need to get up. Get away. Don’t continue the fight on the ground. Pound the guy like you did, but don’t maintain the position unless he’s out of the fight.”

She said, “I could have pounded you. I chose not to.”

She was gazing down at me, a lock of hair out of her ponytail, sweat between her breasts, a grin on her face. I became distinctly uncomfortable. “Okay. Let me up. Let’s go again.”

“Let you up? No way.”

I wrapped my own legs around her waist, grabbed her arm and drew it out, then flipped her, trapping her elbow in an arm-bar. I stretched out and she tapped, shouting in pain. I let go and she rolled away, punching me in the shoulder.

“You asshole! You never know when to quit.”

She stood up and stomped away. I felt my face flush, wondering if she knew why I’d done it. Wondering if she knew my weakness with her. I said, “Jennifer . . .”

She said, “I’m done. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. I’ll take a cab to the hotel.”

She left the yoga room and I felt like an ass. Like I always did whenever we got anywhere outside the range of just business partners. I punched the mat with my fist and heard, “You trying to hurt that thing?”

I looked up and saw two men, both in jeans and T-shirts, both in good shape. One was bulky, with ropy muscles and veins standing out, his shirt a size too small. The other was tall and lanky. I stood, saying nothing. I wiped my head with a towel and walked to the exit. The bulky one blocked it, saying, “You the scientist doing the dig out south?”

I paused, reassessing. I said, “Yeah. As a matter of fact I am.”

He said, “Well, we’d like it if you just went back to Charleston. Head on home. There’s nothing to be found out there.”

“If that’s the case, then you won’t mind us looking. We’re getting paid, and I need to show something for the effort.”

He said, “Money isn’t worth it. Trust me.”

The other man circled to my left, closing the door to the room. I reassessed again, elevating my awareness. Preparing.

I said, “Okay. You got it. I’ll get out of here. I don’t like this damn place anyway.”

The lanky one said, “Unfortunately, we need to make sure of that. You understand. A small lesson for you and your little girlfriend. Just a taste of what to expect if you don’t leave well enough alone.”

The words slammed into me like a frontal punch. If they had two on me, they had someone on her.
As I sit here.
I gave up all pretense of defusing the situation, saying, “Get out of my way, right fucking now.”

They looked at each other, a small smirk going between them. They had no idea of the shitstorm they had entered. They fully expected to tap me on the head a couple of times just to see me roll over crying, and I might have even let them do that, given the circumstances, but they’d made the mistake of threatening Jennifer.

So it was too late. I fully intended to crush them with more violence than they’d ever seen. And I knew my intentions would bear fruit.

I skipped forward and lanky man looked away in a juvenile attempt at a fake, then threw a wild right cross at my face. I raised my left arm, forming a triangle against my head in order to protect it. I took the brunt of the blow and immediately wrapped my left arm around Lanky’s right, trapping his elbow. I brought my right arm underneath his elbow and wrenched against the joint with great force, causing Lanky’s elbow to splinter upwards, against the direction it was intended to go. Before the damage had even registered in his brain, I dropped down and swept his legs out from under him, causing him to crash straight down on his back.

From the ground I immediately lashed out with my right leg into the knee supporting the weight of muscle-man, doing the same thing with his joint that I had done with Lanky’s elbow. It gave with a crack and a subsequent scream from him as he hit the ground, writhing in pain.

I sprang to my feet, but the fight was over. It had lasted about three seconds. Lanky was shrieking with the keening wail of a wounded rabbit, looking dumbfounded at his destroyed joint and waving it around like a macabre pom-pom, his splintered arm looking like something from a Photoshop trick, the elbow backwards. Muscle-head was rolling around on the ground as well, holding his shattered leg like Joe Thiesmann. I stalked toward him and he screeched at me, the sweat from the pain rolling off his head. I cut off the yell with a roundhouse kick to his skull, knocking him out as if he’d been hit in the forehead with a ball-peen hammer. Lanky was now all wide eyes and fear. I said, “Give me your fucking wallet.”

He frantically used his good arm to dig it out, tossing it to the mat. I picked it up, put it in my pocket, then grabbed his hair with my left hand. I said, “If you’ve hurt Jennifer, I’ll be back to kill the both of you.”

He started to say something and I hammered him right above the lip, feeling his nose shatter. He flopped over unconscious.

I ran out of the yoga room, jogging to the exit, people staring as I passed by. I entered the parking lot and saw Jennifer on the ground, a man on top of her, his hand tangled in her hair, his other popping her face. I started sprinting and she flipped him just like she had done me, using her flexibility to swim against his hold until she was on top. She wasted no time pounding his head into the pavement, her fists driving through his skull as if she was trying to punch the ground. I reached the fight and saw he was gone. On the verge of being permanently damaged. I grabbed her arm. She whipped around, all feral and savage and I jumped back. She recognized me and quit fighting.

I hoisted her to her feet and said, “Come on. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

We ran to our pickup. I fired it up, squealing out of the parking lot. Once in the city I said, “I thought I told you to run. Not continue fighting.”

She was still breathing heavily, the adrenaline coursing through her. She said, “I was afraid to give him the chance to get back on me. I’m not sure your advice was the best.”

I glanced at her and grinned. I squeezed her hand and said, “I’m not so sure it was very smart either. I told you you could think on your feet.”

Jennifer woke up the following morning, finding a note from Pike on the carpet by her door. She read it and sat down, holding it vacantly in her hand.

Did some research. Going to check something out. Don’t meet Sweetwater until I get back.

She glanced at the clock. 0915. She dialed Pike’s number. The phone rang, then went to voice mail.

What is he up to?

Last night they’d come back to the hotel long enough to check out, then had traveled south to a much seedier place than the one they’d been in before. The motel made no pretense of having anything like a free breakfast and Pike had paid with cash. All he was concerned about was whether it had free WiFi.

Pike had been all business, running through his head what the attack had meant, positive it had something to do with their dig. She thought that was crazy, just as sure that it had been a random mugging. He’d claimed that the men who had assaulted him had mentioned the site survey, but her assailant had just attacked.

She knew his past. Knew his secret world where nothing was what it seemed. She wondered if he
wanted
it to be something sinister. Wanted the mundane site survey to become an event that needed his skills.

She’d demanded they go to the police and report the attacks, but he had refused, causing an argument like those they’d had when they were back in Guatemala. Back searching for her uncle, when life and death were on the line and he hadn’t listened to a damn thing she had said. Infuriating her with his superior know-it-all air. He’d appeared to come a long way since then, but tonight had proved that a sham.

The last she’d seen of him was when she’d slammed her hotel door in his face, angry beyond words at his stubbornness. In truth, she should have gone to the police by herself, but she hadn’t. She was furious, but not to the point that she would deliberately go behind his back. Not yet.

And now he was out playing private eye.

Her phone rang and she snatched it up, hoping it was Pike. It wasn’t. She didn’t recognize the number, but identified his voice right away.
Sweetwater
.

He said, “Hey, where are you guys? I thought we were going to meet at nine? Here in my office?”

She said nothing, thinking about what Pike had said in his note about not going alone to meet Sweetwater. Then thinking about why they’d flown out here in the first place. She heard, “Hello? Anyone there?”

She said, “Hey. Sorry. Pike’s not here and he has our rental truck. We did find something yesterday, but we got run off by the owner of the land. I thought you said this was coordinated.”

“You found something? For real? Out at the site? What?”

“I don’t know. Like I said, we were run off before we could excavate it.”

“You going to write that up? Let me take it forward?”

“Not until I know what it is. It could have just been a buried log.”

“Well, when will you do that? I thought you said this would take a single day.”

“Hey, I just told you we got run off by a guy with a shotgun. Don’t blame us for your shoddy coordination.”

She heard nothing for a moment, the silence stretching out until it was her turn to say, “Hello?”

He said, “Yeah, I’m still here. Sorry about the rancher. I don’t know what happened. Must have just been a mistake. Is that excavation the last thing you need to do before writing your report?”

“Pretty much. We only had a little bit left to cover. If we had found something it would have settled the issue. The land would be worth protecting from the dam.”

“Well, can you go do it now?”

“I don’t have a vehicle.”

“I’ll come get you if you want. I can help. I’ve done these sorts of things before in my job with the Historical and Preservation Society.”

She thought one last time about Pike’s admonishment, then made her decision.

“Yeah, come get me.”

They were ten minutes out from the excavation site, still riding southeast on Highway 2, when Sweetwater’s phone rang. Sitting in the passenger seat, Jennifer only caught half the conversation, but it was enough to raise her interest.

—Hey, Chris. What’s up?

—No, they didn’t finish . . . Wait, wait. There’s good news. They found something.

—I don’t know. We’re headed back out there right now to check it out.

—Maybe twenty minutes.

Sweetwater looked at her, said, “Yes . . . yes,” then hung up.

She said, “Who was that?”

They pulled up to the cattle guard that led to the rancher’s land. Sweetwater put the truck in park and said, “I think we should stay out here this time. Walk to the site from the road.”

Jennifer said, “Why? If it was just a mistake?”

“It was a mistake, but I haven’t had time to correct it. Better not to have the truck raise a dust cloud.”

He opened the door and she said, “You didn’t answer my question. Who was on the phone?”

“A guy that’s interested in seeing what’s out here. A member of the preservation society.”

She exited and loaded her arms with paintbrushes and chicken-wire makeshift sieves, leaving the shovels to him. She said, “It sounded like he was yelling at you.”

Trudging toward the dig site, she saw Sweetwater’s face flush. Just a small bit of red and a sliding of the eyes that made her wonder what he was hiding.

Made her wonder if she should have heeded Pike’s warning.