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“I’ll set everything in motion,” Painter promised. “Including air support.”

  “But I said—”

  “I’ll have helicopters dispatched with instructions to maintain a ten-mile perimeter from your position. Once we hear word that you’ve secured Dr. Kee, they’ll swoop down on your signal.”

  Tucker appreciated the director’s strategy. Painter was right. Before this was over, they might very well need a fast evacuation.

  “Okay,” he agreed.

  Tucker ended the call and concentrated on maneuvering the Jeep as the terrain climbed out of the high desert into a scraggly forest of junipers. Through the open window, the crisp air smelled of wet clay and sandstone, all scented by fresh pine.

  They were still five or six miles from the cliffs that marked the boundary into the labyrinth of badlands, a territory that the local Yavapai tribe considered both sacred and cursed. Tucker used the time to address one question nagging at him.

  He turned to Abbie. “Back at your camp, you said something. That it wasn’t just the mother lode that had been discovered up there, but something more amazing. What did you mean by that?”

  Abbie’s eyes widened, obviously surprised he had heard her. She glanced back to Landon. In the rearview mirror, Tucker noted the man’s deep, scolding frown.

  Landon gave a small shake of his head. “Probably just a fever dream of old Uncle Oro. Maybe from too much sun, too much whiskey.”

  Abbie looked unconvinced. “Maybe. But even your tests confirmed the anomaly in the stone.”

  Tucker had enough. “I’m risking my life,” he pressed. “Kane’s life. If there’s anything I ought to know, something you’re not telling me . . .”

  Landon sighed and leaned forward. He gripped Abbie’s headrest to keep his seat in the rocking Jeep. “What do you know about Sedona’s vortexes?”

  Tucker was momentarily taken aback by the question. He fought the Jeep up a slope of loose shale and sand, tires spinning for traction. “Not much,” he finally admitted. “Just that landmarks around Sedona are said to be the focal points for some strange earthly energies.”

  In fact, all he knew about the subject came from a Sedona resident, a former biker who Tucker had met at a breakfast counter along the town’s touristy main drag. The beefy, tattooed man had not struck Tucker as someone who would be prone to swallowing any mystical mumbo jumbo. The biker had declared as much. When the man had landed in Sedona twenty years ago, he had dismissed such claims as the hogwash of crystal munchers. Then a couple of years ago, the guy had been out four-wheeling with buddies in the deep desert and stopped at a cluster of tall rocks for a pit stop, when suddenly, to a man, they all got heated up, covered with goose bumps, and light-headed. Never felt anything like it before, the biker had said with a shrug. No doubt about it. I’m dang sure there’s something strange going on out there.

  Landon continued. “As a physicist, I’m not supposed to believe in such energies. Certainly not the claims that Sedona’s vortex sites—like at Airport Mesa, Bell Rock, or Boyton Canyon—mark some intersections of mysterious energies of the earth. Still, after living here most my life, it’s hard to dismiss the myriad accounts of strange experiences at those sites. Tingling of the hands, buzzing in the head, even recorded rises in body temperature. So, I began to study those sites, to see if there’s any scientific basis for these reported phenomena.”

  “Sounds like it could all just be psychosomatic,” Tucker said. “You want to believe it, so you feel it.”

  “That’s certainly a possibility, but even skeptics have felt it.”

  Tucker remembered the biker’s account. That guy certainly hadn’t wanted to jump on the bandwagon of those crystal munchers.

  Abbie offered a counterpoint. “Maybe you simply have to be sensitive to it. Or just emotionally vulnerable. Besides the physical effects, many experience a shift in consciousness. You’re warned to keep your mind calm when near a vortex. If you’re angry, anxious, or depressed, the energies could amplify those feelings, magnifying them to the point of leaving one stuck in a waking dream.”

  “A hypnagogic state,” Landon explained. “That transitional point between sleep and wakefulness, often accompanied by a strange paralysis.”

  “Which some people also report at vortex sites,” Abbie added. “An inability to move, trapped in a dreamlike state.”

  Tucker wanted to dismiss this—like the biker had—but he remembered how acutely he had felt the loss of Abel while camping here, the overwhelming guilt, even the vivid flashbacks to that mountaintop in Afghanistan. Even now, he had to swallow back that rising heat in his belly, that mix of bile and regret.

  He wanted to change the subject, needed to. “That’s all well and good, but what does any of that have to do with the mother lode in those badlands?”

  Landon nodded to Abbie, who removed the giant fire agate from her pack. “It’s because of that,” he said.

  Abbie explained. “Like Dr. Landon, my field of research centers on the area’s vortexes, but I study the geology of the region in an effort to explain those local legends. In fact, the high Sonoran Desert is tectonically peculiar, with dozens of fault lines crisscrossing the region. Here limestone caps basalt, which sits atop the sandstone of ancient oceans. The different rates at which those varying strata erode is what created Sedona’s towering pinnacles, mesas, and canyons. From a compositional standpoint, the rust-red rocks are colored by all the iron oxide they contain. In addition, the soil is rich in volcanic crystals, which have been forged by titanic forces into all manner of precious stones. Turquoise, malachite, amethyst, topaz, garnet, even diamonds. Elsewhere, labyrinthine veins of magnetic lodestones wreak havoc on compasses. There’s nowhere else like this on the planet. It’s why it’s only here—and a few places in Mexico—that you can even find deposits of fire agates.”

  She lifted the stone. “And nowhere can you find specimens like this.”

  “Why’s that?” Tucker asked.

  “Fire agates were formed during the hottest period of local vulcanism, back in the Tertiary Period, when sheets of silica and iron oxide were compressed into stone. It’s those alternating layers of the gem’s microstructure that diffract the light into its unique fiery appearance. Such stones were valued by the local tribes for their ability to calm those who are troubled. By staring deep into the gem’s mother-of-pearl–like luminescence, it was said to soothe anger, to relieve tension, to create a sense of inner peace.”

  “But that’s not why that stone is so rare,” Landon said. “If what I suspect is true, the scientific value of that gem far exceeds its monetary worth. It could rewrite all we know about physics.”

  Tucker sensed these two were finally getting to the crux of the matter. “What’s so unique about it?”

  “Because that’s not just a fire agate.” Landon pointed at the fist-sized rock. “That’s a time crystal.”

  (6)

  6:48 a.m.

  “I know how that sounds,” Abbie said, noting Tucker’s look of disbelief, hearing the scoff in his exasperated breath. “I didn’t believe him either. But hear him out.”

  Tucker grudgingly waved at the agate in her hand. “A time crystal? Really?”

  Landon explained. “Back in 2012, an MIT physicist proposed a unique theory. He noted that many crystals formed by repeating the same pattern of crystallization. Like you see in table salt or in the formation of snowflakes. It’s a repetition of structure in three dimensions. He speculated if it might be possible to create crystals that repeated in a fourth dimension, too, namely time.”

  “What does that even mean?” Tucker asked.

  “I wondered the same,” Abbie admitted.

  “The MIT physicist theorized a crystal whose atomic structure would repeatedly rotate—a tick to the left, a tick to the right—forever marking time. Perhaps moving on its own as electrons flowed endlessly through a closed loop, like some perpetual-motion machine. Or perhaps rotating under the influence of an outside electromagnetic f
orce.”

  “Sounds preposterous,” Tucker mumbled.

  “Many thought the same, until time crystals were successfully created in several labs, including at Harvard and Yale. Even the military—specifically DARPA—is looking into them as a means of refining atomic clocks.”

  “DARPA?” Tucker asked, looking quizzically back at Landon, as if this had some significance to their rescuer.

  Landon nodded. “That’s right.”

  Tucker looked incrementally less skeptical. “Go on then. Are you saying that agate stone is like one of those time crystals grown in a lab?”

  “Except it could be the first naturally occurring one ever discovered.” Landon explained his theory. “When Oro first brought the large gem to Dr. Kee and Abigail, the prospector told of a cave full of such stones. He also spoke of losing time, an entire day, of seeing terrifying visions. He finally escaped as night fell and only felt better once he carried the gem far enough away. After hearing all of this, Abigail analyzed the stone in her lab, identifying a unique microstructure of the iron oxide in the gem.”

  “Unique in what way?” Tucker asked.

  “The oxide in the agate,” Abbie said, “it’s all chemically of one type—Fe3O4—better known as magnetite.”

  “Or lodestone,” Landon added.

  “I discovered that the agate’s iron oxide is configured into microcrystalline ferrimagnetic layers.” Abbie rolled the stone in her hand. “I’d never seen anything like it before, so I consulted with Dr. Landon.”

  “Normally iron atoms in magnetite are fixed in alignment,” Landon said. “Creating a north and south pole, like in any magnet, but the atoms in this specimen are suspended in an octahedral microcrystalline structure, capable of flipping in the presence of an electromagnetic pulse.”

  “Like the ticking you mentioned before, marking time.”

  “Exactly.”

  Abbie shared a look with Landon, who gave her the okay to reveal what they had theorized together. “We think that fire agate—maybe the entire mother lode—was doing that in the cave Uncle Oro found. Spinning and ticking away for untold ages.”

  “Possibly powered by an unmapped vortex out there,” Landon said.

  “And when Uncle Oro carried his stone away from that site, his gem stopped spinning, stopped affecting him.”

  “But affecting him how?” Tucker asked.

  Landon offered one possibility. “Magnetite isn’t just found in rocks, but in biological systems. It’s believed magnetite particles in migrating birds’ brains allows those species to navigate vast distances by attuning themselves to the earth’s magnetic field.”

  “And magnetite isn’t just found in birds,” Abbie said. “We have the same particles in our brains. They can be found throughout our frontal, occipital, parietal, and temporal lobes—all areas of the brain where we process outside stimuli, turning electrical impulses from our sensory nerves into the world we see, feel, hear, and smell. Even our brainstems and basal ganglia—regions that control our most basic emotions—are loaded with magnetite particles.”

  Tucker glanced at her. “You’re thinking that when your uncle Oro entered that cavern, that those magnetic particles in his brain got scrambled.”

  “Making him hear, see, and feel strange things. Maybe even short-circuiting him enough to temporarily paralyze him, to trap him in a hypnagogic state, and lose his sense of time.”

  “The effect inside that cave could be quite intense,” Landon warned. “Over time, maybe the two forces—time crystal and vortex—formed some paleomagnetic feedback loop, fueling off each other to make them both stronger.”

  “It also made me wonder,” Abbie said and turned to Tucker, “could this explain why some people are more sensitive to the vortexes of this region? Perhaps their brains are richer in magnetite particles, making them more attuned to those forces emanating from the earth.”

  “But keep in mind,” Landon warned, grounding them back to reality, “this could all just be a fever dream, like I said, from too much sun and whiskey.”

  Tucker pointed ahead. “One way or the other, looks like we’re about to find out.”

  Abbie faced fully forward. She spotted the beige Bronco parked at the top of the next slope, nearly lost in the deep shadows of cliffs that climbed hundreds of feet into the sky. The vehicle looked abandoned. No one came running into view, drawn by the Jeep’s rumbling.

  Still, Tucker parked their vehicle under the cover of a juniper tree. “We’ll go on foot from here.”

  (7)

  7:17 a.m.

  With his Desert Eagle clutched in one hand, Tucker ran low toward the Bronco. He left Abbie and Landon hidden in a copse of junipers.

  Kane had already scouted the perimeter of the parked SUV, circling it fully. Afterward, Tucker had sent his partner over to the narrow canyon cut into the cliff face to stand guard. Even now, through the camera feed streaming to his goggles, Tucker had a view down the shadowy gorge, where a thin spring-fed stream trickled, bordered on one side by loose shale and patches of bunchgrasses, and the other by a mix of scrubby junipers and a scatter of broader oaks.

  Tucker reached the Bronco and did a quick search through the open windows to make sure it was truly unoccupied, that there was no guard napping inside, someone who Kane could not spot from his low vantage point. It was indeed empty. In the back, he saw a wooden crate, cracked open. It held the last few sticks of a load of dynamite. A neighboring cardboard box had been overturned, spilling blasting caps coiled with fuses.

  Tucker had hoped to find extra ammunition, maybe a spare magazine for his Bushmaster rifle. He did spot a box of 9 mm shells that should fit Abbie’s confiscated Glock. He raided what he could, then stabbed his KA-BAR combat knife into all four tires of the Bronco to immobilize the vehicle.

  Satisfied, he waved Abbie and Landon up to the SUV.

  Once they joined him, he kept his voice to a whisper, not trusting the acoustics among all the towering red rocks. “Stay quiet once we enter the canyons. Move silently. Step where I step.” He glanced to the cut into the cliff. “From the lack of a guard posted here, the thieves must be feeling full of themselves, sure they have the upper hand. Let’s keep it that way.”

  Tucker turned to lead the way when his pocket chirped brightly. He pulled out the radio that he had taken from one of the dead men. A burst of static became a voice. “Bo, Randy, report in. Have you heard anything from Buck and Chet?”

  Tucker searched the others’ faces. If Tucker failed to answer the call, suspicions would be raised. Men could be sent back here to check on the status of the others.

  Abbie waved for him to answer. Landon simply shrugged.

  Tucker lifted the radio. He closed his eyes, recalling the voices he had heard through Kane’s audio feed. He did his best to imitate a slight twang, but he kept his voice low, his words clipped, and played with the radio’s squelch button to frazzle his call even further.

  “Say again,” Tucker radioed. “You’re cutting out there, Hawk.”

  “Any word from Buck or Chet about that damn dog?”

  Tucker laughed. “Oh, yeah. They caught the lil’ bastard. Shot ’em up good. Didn’t you hear the gunfire?”

  Tucker didn’t know if Hawk’s team had heard any of the firefight at the campsite, but if so, he hoped his lie helped cover things up.

  “Fan-fucking-tastic. We’re almost to the mother lode. Hang tight.”

  “Will do.” Tucker lowered the radio and faced the others. “That worked for now, but from the sounds of it, we’re running out of time.”

  He led the others to the steep-sided ravine where Kane waited. He dropped to a knee next to his partner and rubbed the dog’s thick ruff.

  Here we go, buddy.

  Kane turned and gave him a quick lick on his nose. Tucker felt the trembling tension in the dog. Kane was clearly anxious to get moving, excited at the prospect of the hunt.

  Tucker pointed to the scuffle of boot treads in the sand, then up the ravin
e’s trickling stream. He ended by clenching his fist twice, once with his pinkie extended, then with the finger tucked. He reinforced the signal with a whispered command. “Track. Quiet. Hidden.”

  He lifted his hand from Kane’s ruff, and like a wolf after a rabbit, the dog bolted forward. In three bounds, Kane vanished into the dark bower of the juniper forest to the stream’s left. Tucker straightened, having already lost sight of his partner. His ears strained to hear him. But he could not detect any crack of branches, any crunch of sand. It was as if Kane had melted into those shadows, becoming one with them.

  He glanced over to Abbie, who mouthed a silent wow.

  Tucker tapped the side of his goggles to bring up Kane’s camera feed. He slipped his radio earpiece in place. Still, he heard nothing, just the barest hint of his partner’s breath. As Tucker watched the camera view sweep through and around the gnarled boles of trees, he felt the familiar division of his brain. A part of him still saw the view up the canyon from his position. The other half settled into his partner’s paws, his eyes, his breath.

  With his Desert Eagle in hand and the Bushmaster rifle over his shoulder, he set off, calling back to the other two. “Stay close.”

  Tucker kept to the same side of the stream as Kane, but only at the edge of the forest, knowing he could never move as silently as his partner through the dense brush and trees. With one eye, he picked the quietest path, sticking to rock, avoiding sand where he could. With the other, he ran through the forest with Kane.

  He heard the others behind him, doing a decent job of staying silent. Still, their breaths sounded harsh and loud. Their footfalls heavy and hurried. He waited for them to settle into his rhythm, then slowly increased his pace.

  Still, they could never match Kane’s agility and speed.

  Afraid his partner was getting too far ahead, Tucker whispered a command. “Slow. Half-speed.”

  * * *

  Kane wants to ignore those words.

  His heart pounds in his throat. Instinct fires his blood, driving him to run faster. His nose remains on the trail of sweaty musk, on gun oil. But he trusts his packmate. Each syllable of that command sinks into him, reins in his pace, cools that fire to a hot glow.