Excavation

Henry leaned closer to Joan. “But thank God, you escaped. I don’t know if I could have lived with—”

Joan snuggled into his embrace. “I’m not going anywhere, Henry. You drifted away from me once in my life. I won’t let that happen again.”

Henry grinned and tugged her tighter to him. “Neither will I.”

Sam stepped away, smiling sadly, giving them their privacy. He had never seen his uncle lose himself so fully in someone else—and clearly the feeling was mutual. While he was happy for his uncle, Sam felt oddly hollow as he backed away from the couple.

Nearby, Norman was talking to the jilted embassy official, relating some part of their story. The photographer’s boyish laugh carried far over the tarmac. To the side, Denal hung in Norman’s shadow. Norman had offered to sponsor the boy as an intern for the National Geographic–and with the death of his mother, Denal had nothing holding him here but a life of poverty. The two had already made plans to return to New York together.

Across the tarmac, cameras continued to flash.

Sam wandered farther back, near the wing of the plane, away from the crowds. He needed a moment to think. Ever since his folks had died, he and Uncle Hank had been inseparable. Their grief had forged bonds that had tied their two hearts together, allowing no one else inside. Sam glanced over to his uncle. That is, until now.

And Sam was not sure how he felt about it. Too much had happened. He felt unfettered, loosed from a mooring that had kept him safe. Adrift. Old memories intruded: the screech of tires, crumpled metal, breaking glass, sirens, his mother, one arm dangling, being hauled from the wreckage on an ambulance’s backboard.

Tears suddenly sprang up in his eyes. Why was he dredging all this up now? He could not stop his tears.

Then he sensed a presence behind him.

He turned. Maggie stood there, staring up at him.

Where he expected ridicule or some scathing retort at his reaction, he found only concern. One of the paramedics had given her a bright yellow rescue blanket. Maggie stood wrapped in it against the cool afternoon breeze. She spoke softly. “It’s your uncle and that woman, isn’t it? You feel like you’re losing him.”

He smiled at her and wiped roughly at his eyes. “I know it’s stupid,” he said, his throat constricted. “But it’s not just Uncle Hank. It’s more than that. It’s also my parents, it’s Ralph… it’s everything death steals.”

Sam struggled to put into words what he was feeling, staring up at the sky. He needed someone to listen. “Why was I allowed to live?” He waved an arm toward the distant Andes. “Up there… and back with my parents in the car wreck…”

Maggie now stood before him, almost touching toes. “And me in a ditch in Belfast.”

He leaned into her and knew that Maggie could understand his pain more than anyone. “Wh… why?” he asked quietly, choking back a sob. “You know what I’m talking about. What’s the answer? I even goddamn died and was resurrected! And I still don’t have a clue!”

“Some questions have no answers.” Maggie reached up and touched his cheek. “But in truth, Sam, you didn’t escape death. None of us can. It’s still out there. Not even the Incas could escape it in the end.” She drew Sam closer. “For years, I’ve tried to run from it, while you stood back-to-back with your uncle against it. But neither way is healthy, because Death always wins in the end. We end up the worse for trying.”

“Then what do we do?” He begged her with his eyes.

Maggie sighed sadly. “We strive to live as fully as we can.” She stared up into his face. “We simply live, Sam.”

He felt new tears. “But I don’t understand. How—?”

“Sam,” Maggie interrupted, reaching a finger to his lips. The rescue blanket fell from her shoulder with a soft rustle.

“What?”

“Just shut up and kiss me.”

He blinked at her words, then found himself leaning down. Guided by her hands, he discovered her lips. He sank into the softness and heat of her, and he began to understand.

Here is the reason we live.

He kissed her tenderly at first, then more passionately. His blood rang in his ears. He found his arms pulling her closer to him, while she reached hands to the back of his neck, tangling in his hair and tumbling his Stetson from atop his head. They struggled toward one another, leaving no space between them.

And in that moment, Sam’s heart soared as he understood.

In this kiss, there was no grief… no guilt… no death.

Only life—and that was enough for anyone.

Epilogue

Two years later

Thursday, October 19, 10:45 P.M.

Institute of Genetic Studies

Stanford, California

Three floors beneath the main research facility, a man wearing a long white lab coat approached the palm pad to a suite of private laboratories. He pressed his hand flat on the blue pad and watched the pressure-sensitive reader flash across his fingers. The light on the panel changed to green. His name appeared in small green letters on the reader:

Dr. Dale Kirkpatrick

The sound of tumbled bolts announced his acceptance by the computerized monitoring station. He removed his palm and pulled the handle. The vacuum seal cracked with a slight whoosh of air, like a short inhaled breath. The middle-aged scientist had to tug harder to pull the door open against the slight negative pressure of the neighboring rooms, a built-in safeguard to keep biologic contaminants from possibly escaping the lab. No expense had been spared on this project. A government think tank, backed by the Pentagon, had invested close to a billion dollars in this project. A good portion of which, he thought with a wry smile, went directly into his personal salary.

His shoulder protested with a sharp twinge as he pulled the door fully open. Wincing, he entered the lab and let the door reseal behind him. He rubbed the tender spot alongside his rotator cuff. The bullet wound he had suffered in the halls of Johns Hopkins had required four surgeries to repair. Though he still had occasional pain, he could hardly complain—not only had he survived the attack, he had come away with a small quantity of Substance Z, the test samples used in the electron microscope assay.

Once word of his find reached the right circles, Dr. Kirkpatrick was allowed to vanish. His death was reported, and he was whisked to the West Coast, to the Institute of Genetic Studies at Stanford. He was granted the lab, and a staff of fourteen with the highest government clearance.

Dale continued down to his office, past the rows of laboratories. As he passed the computer suite, he heard the whir of the four in-line Cray computers as they crunched the day’s data collected by the gene sequencer. The Human Genome Project was a child’s puzzle compared to what his lab was attempting. He estimated it would take four more years to figure out the exact code, but he had the time. Whistling to break the silence of the empty lab, Dale used a keycard to unlock the door and enter his personal office.