The Devil Colony (Sigma Force 7)

She turned back to Rafael and let that determination shine forth. He stared back at her. She dared not flinch.

After several long breaths, Rafael shrugged. “Well played and argued, Ms. Quocheets.” He pointed his cane at the blond soldier. “Gather up the Humetewas, pile them onto one of those ATVs, and send them off into the canyons.”

“I want to watch,” Kai said. “To make sure they’re safe.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

In a matter of minutes, Iris and Alvin sat atop the white ATV. Alvin was too weak from his abuse to drive, so he rode behind his wife. Iris nodded to Kai, in that single gesture both thanking her and telling her to be careful.

Kai returned the nod, passing back the exact same message to Iris.

Thank you . . . and be careful.

Iris revved the throttle and took off. The pair trundled down a wash and quickly vanished around a turn in the canyon.

Kai remained standing outside the pueblo. She watched the trail of dust get farther and farther away, winding deep into the badlands.

Rafael stood on the porch in the shade. “I believe that should satisfy you.”

Kai turned and let out a rattling sigh. She stared at the man and at the dark shadow of the woman who was hovering behind his shoulder. Any lie Kai told would be punished—and it would fall upon Jordan’s shoulders to bear the brunt of that abuse. But if she cooperated, she knew her captors would keep them alive.

To be used as leverage with Painter.

As the bastard had said, it was only basic physics.

“My uncle flew to Flagstaff,” she finally admitted. “They were heading to Sunset Crater National Park.”

And she quickly told him why—just to be fully convincing.

As she finished, Rafael looked disconcerted. “Seems they know much more than I expected . . .” But he quickly shook it off. “No matter. We’ll deal with it.”

He leaned on his cane and turned to the open doorway. He spoke to the tall blond soldier. “Bern, radio your sniper. Tell him to take his shots and haul back to the helicopter.”

Sniper?

Kai took two steps toward the porch.

Iris and Alvin.

Rafael turned to her. “I said I’d let them go,” he explained. “I just didn’t say how far I’d let them go.”

Off in the distance, a sharp crack of a rifle echoed.

Soon followed by a second.

1:44 P.M.

Flagstaff, Arizona

Painter stared up at the top of the mesa. He sucked deeply from the tube connected to his CamelBak water bottle. After two blistering hours in the heat, he’d come to believe that they’d never reach this mesa, that it would continue to retreat from them forever, like some desert mirage.

But here they were.

“Now what?” Kowalski asked, fanning his face with his Stetson. He’d become a walking sweat stain.

“The pueblo’s up top,” Nancy said.

Kowalski groaned.

Painter craned his neck. He saw no way up.

“Over here,” she directed, and headed around the base of the mesa to where a crumbling trail ran up its side.

As they followed her, Painter noted large swaths of rock art along the cliff faces: snakes, lizards, deer, sheep, fanciful human figures, and geometric designs of every shape and design. The petroglyphs appeared to be two types. The more common was formed as the darker “desert varnish” of the surface stone was chipped or scraped away to reveal the lighter stone beneath. Others were formed by drilling hundreds of tiny holes into the soft sandstone, outlining figures or sunlike spirals.

Painter followed behind Hank, noting the professor scanning the same cliffs, likely looking for the star and a moon of his lost Israelites.

At last, after climbing a good way up, they reached a broken chute in the cliff face, the eponymous crack in Crack-in-the-Rock pueblo. The opening was narrow, but the sandstone was worn smooth by rain and wind.

“It’s a short climb up from here,” Nancy promised.

She led the way, sliding into the chute and climbing up the boulder-strewn path. As the crack split its way to the top of the mesa, Kowalski cursed under his breath. He had to squeeze through sideways a few times to get past some old choke stones that partially blocked their way.

But they all finally made it topside, exiting from the crack into a room of the pueblo itself. They stepped clear and out onto the open mesa. The jumble of ruins here was not as impressive as those that they had seen back at Wupatki, but the view made up for it. It overlooked the Little Colorado River and offered vistas for hundreds of miles in all directions.

“One of the theories about this place,” Nancy said, putting on her guide voice, “is that this was a defensive outpost. If you look at this shield wall along the edge of the mesa, there are small angled holes, perhaps for shooting arrows, but others have suggested this might have been an ancient observatory used by shamans, especially as some of the holes in the wall angle up.”

But such theories were not why they’d made the long trek.

“What about the petroglyphs you mentioned?” Painter asked, staying on task. “Where are they?”

“Follow me. We don’t normally take anyone this way. The path is dangerous, steep, full of slippery talus. A wrong step and you could go sliding to your death.”

“Show us,” Painter said, undaunted.

Nancy headed to a pile of rock where a wall had collapsed long ago. They had to climb over the rubble to reach what appeared to be another crack or chute. This one headed down. The footing was indeed treacherous. Rocks slid under Painter’s boots. He had to pin his hands to either side of the crack to keep from losing his balance. It didn’t help that Hank’s dog danced between them with all the ease of a mountain goat, stopping to mark the occasional stone or bit of weedy brush.

“Kawtch!” Hank yelled. “I swear if you bump me again . . .”

Nancy had agreed to let Hank unleash his dog, but only for as long as they were on top of the mesa. Apparently everyone was regretting this decision now—except for Kawtch himself. He lifted his leg again, then vanished below.

This new chute was narrower and longer than the crack they had passed through earlier. Even if they moved with care, it took some time to traverse, but finally they reached the bottom. Rather than breaking through to the outside, the group ended up within a high-walled chasm, open to the sky overhead, but offering no way out.

Hank stared around, his mouth hanging open. “Amazing.”

Painter had to agree. Great sprawling displays of petroglyphs covered the walls on both sides, every square inch of them. They were almost too dizzying to look at.