Douglas Preston - Gideon’s Sword

He waited, senses on high alert. In the distance, toward the end of the island, he could hear the faint rumble of the backhoe digging a mass grave. But this middle section of the island seemed deserted. He took from his pocket a Google Earth image he’d printed and spent a few minutes reconnoitering. Then he began moving cautiously along an overgrown street and across the broad field toward the ruined complex of buildings he’d noticed earlier. A carved limestone block set into the brick façade of the first building announced its purpose and the date: DYNAMO ROOM 1912. Through the shattered windows, he could see massive pieces of equipment: iron flywheels, rotting belts, broken gauges, steam pipes, and a giant, riveted iron furnace and boiler wrapped in vines that grew up and out of a roof open to the sky.

Gideon walked northward toward the burial grounds, keeping hidden in the brush and trees along the side of the road, moving slowly, checking the Google Earth image and taking notes, committing everything to memory. It was a postapocalyptic landscape, an entire community left to rot. Nothing had been boarded up or secured; it was as if, perhaps half a century ago, everyone had just walked away and never returned. There were parked cars sunken in weeds, a general store with moldering goods still on the shelves, houses with sagging door frames, inside of which he glimpsed decaying furniture, peeling wallpaper, an umbrella sitting in a stand by the door, an old hat on a table. He passed a ruined chapel, gaping and open to the elements; a butcher shop with rusting knives still hanging on a pegboard — and lying in the central square, an ancient, headless Barbie doll. At the edge of town he came to an old baseball field, bleachers draped in vines and the field a small forest.

Gideon skirted the ruins of a tubercularium and rows of dormitories for a juvenile workhouse, with the motto GOD AND WORK carved into the decaying lintels. There were several pits in the ground, old basements and foundations, some exposed, others covered with rotting flooring. Everything was on the verge of collapse. Consulting the Google Earth image again, he located, beyond the dormitories, a huge, circular open area covered with concrete with several decaying metal trapdoors — the subterranean remains of the old Nike missile base.

As he neared the northern end, buildings gave way to large overgrown fields, dotted with cement markers, numbered and whitewashed. The sounds of the backhoe grew louder. He crept into some dense woods bordering the fields and continued moving north. Within a quarter mile, the woods petered out into yet another overgrown field, and here Gideon dropped and crept forward on his belly, peering through binoculars at the scene of activity, about a hundred yards away, in a freshly dug area of the field.

Rows of coffins had been lined up on the edge of a long trench, and the convicts were busily handing them down to others within the trench, who were stacking them in rows, six deep and four across. He watched as they laid down two courses of coffins, forty-eight in all. Each coffin had a number scrawled on the side and lid in a black felt-tip marker.

A trusty with a clipboard kept track of the work, backed up by several guards armed with pistols and shotguns. When the coffins had all been lowered, the men climbed out, laid pieces of corrugated tin over the top layers, and stood by as the backhoe fired up, ejected a dirty cloud of diesel smoke into the air, and pushed a wall of earth onto the tin, covering up the fresh coffins with dirt to ground level. The wind was blowing hard, tossing the treetops, and Gideon could smell, from time to time, the scent of fresh earth, mingled with an acrid odor of formalin and decay. At the far end of a field stood an open-sided brick shed, in which sat a second backhoe.

Gideon circled the field, seeking a better vantage point, trying to locate where the small boxes containing limbs might be buried. He found what he was looking for in a second, parallel trench, farther down the field. It had been partially covered with dirt, keeping the most recent boxes exposed and ready for more stacking; his binoculars revealed that these boxes were small — the right size for body parts — and also marked by scrawled numbers. A piece of corrugated tin had been laid over the exposed rows of mini coffins, weighed down with dirt at one end, evidently protecting them from the elements until the stacks could be finished.

He would need a better inspection. The trench was deep, and from his vantage point he couldn’t see to its bottom. He’d have to get close enough to peer in — very close. And there was no way to do that without being caught.

He stood up, shoved his hands in his pockets, and casually strolled into the open field.

They spotted him immediately.

“Hey! Hey, you!” Two of the guards drew their guns and came running toward him across the field. Gideon kept walking, moving quickly to the trench before they could stop him. By the time they reached him he was standing at the edge, looking down.

“Hands in sight! Keep your hands in sight!”

Gideon looked up, as if surprised. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t move! Hands in sight!” A guard dropped to one knee and covered him with his service pistol while the other approached cautiously, shotgun at the ready. “Hands behind your head.”

Gideon obeyed.

One was white, the other black, and both were pumped up and fit. They wore blue shirts with NYC CORRECTION SSD printed on the backs in white letters. One of the guards patted him down and emptied his pockets, removing the Google Earth map, the notebook, his wallet, and a piece of parchment Gideon had prepared earlier.

“He’s clean.”

The other officer rose, holstered his Glock. “Let’s see some ID.”

Gideon, his hands still raised, spoke in a voice high with panic. “I didn’t do anything, I swear! I’m just a tourist!”

“ID,” the guard repeated. “Now.”

“It’s in my wallet.”

The man handed the wallet back and Gideon fumbled out his New Mexico driver’s license, handed it over. “Am I not supposed to be here or something?”

They examined the license, passing it back and forth. “You didn’t see the signs?”

“What signs?” Gideon stammered. “I’m just a tourist from—”

“Cut the crap.” The black officer, who was evidently in charge, frowned. “The signs on the shore. Everywhere. You telling me you didn’t see them?”

The officer’s radio burst into life, a voice demanding to know what was going on with the intruders. The guard unholstered his walkie-talkie. “Just some guy from New Mexico. We got it under control.”

He holstered the radio and stared at Gideon with narrowed eyes. “Care to tell us how you got here and just what the hell you’re doing?”

“Well, I was…just out in the boat fishing, decided to explore the island.”

“Oh, yeah? You blind or something?”

“No, I really didn’t notice any sign…I was worried about the chop, I wasn’t paying attention, I swear…” He made his whine singularly unconvincing.

The white guard held up the parchment. “What’s this?”

Gideon turned red. He said nothing. The two officers exchanged amused glances.

“Looks like a treasure map,” said the white officer, dangling it in front of Gideon.

“I…I…,” he stammered and fell silent.

“Cut the bullshit. You were hunting for buried treasure.” The officer grinned.

After a moment’s hesitation, Gideon hung his head. “Yeah.”

“Tell us about it.”

“I was here on vacation from New Mexico. This guy down on, um, Canal Street sold me the map. I’m an amateur treasure hunter, you see.”

“Canal Street?” The two officers exchanged another glance, one rolling his eyes. The black officer struggled to keep a straight face as he examined the map. “According to this map, you’re even on the wrong island.”