In Situ (7 page)

“Never mind Andy,” Tom
said. “Just help us get the gear, and remind your guys that they are installing a nuclear reactor, not a ping pong table.”

“Yes
, Boss,” Andy said, suddenly embarrassed. “I have a bunch of stuff in my truck. Come on, I’ll get you set up.”

Andy led them over to a pickup truck and pulled down the
tail gate. It was heaped with all kinds of brand new gear; heavy jackets, helmets, ropes, flashlights, and tools of all kinds. “They were in such a hurry to get out of here they just left all of this,” Andy said, waving his hand over the equipment.

Tom fitted Alex and himself with thick coats and grabbed two flashlights.

“OK. Andy, we aren’t going to be long. Alex, you can leave your back pack here if you want.”

Alex gulped. There was n
o way was she going to leave it, especially now that she had her father’s favorite gun back. “Sorry, Tom, what little is left of me after today is in this damn bag, so I think I will just take it along if you don’t mind.”

“That’s fine
, Alex. Here, let me help you.” Tom helped Alex zip up her jacket and to strap on her backpack. He handed her a flashlight and smiled. “Ready?”

Alex nodded.
“Why the heavy jackets Tom?” she asked, giving hers a final adjustment.

Tom began to head toward the opening. “It is very cold in the cave, Alex
, in fact, so cold that geologically it doesn’t really make sense. The tunnels somehow have acted like their own refrigeration system. The temperature is very constant at around zero-to-one degree Celsius. It’s as if they are connected to a bed of ice. Really, I haven’t had time to try to totally figure it out.”

“How did you find it?”

Tom shrugged. “More like it found us. We were blasting the very last part of the south wall, and when the dust cleared, there it was. Somehow we missed it on all of the surveys. Until that happened, we were right on schedule. We had to shut down for almost a week just to decide what to do about it. The entire facility is almost done, apart from
that
little delay.” He motioned toward the hole they were approaching. “But I have to tell you Alex, no one was more astonished than I was at what they found down there. I mean, I am no paleontologist, but even I got excited when I heard about it.”

They were finally heading home.

Pete Wilson rubbed his eyes to clear the glare from the lights of some oncoming traffic and fought to stay awake. He was seated high up in the cab of a Peterbilt semi with possibly the most important scientific discovery in all of human history trailing along behind in a refrigerated container. He could only remember a few other times in his life when he had been as excited and dead tired at the same time: his wedding day, the individual births of his three children, surviving boot camp, and finishing his doctorate in physics at UCLA. Oh, and of course, the day he had been appointed Chief Scientist for all of Area 51.

He glanced over at the driver, a man who went by the moniker of ‘Buck
,’ but whose real name was Don Mills, a fact Pete had uncovered when carefully reviewing the man’s file prior to departure from the Utah site. Buck was not on Pete’s official team. He had been forced to use Buck at the last minute, when they had discovered the full extent of the unexpected find in the caves and realized that a refrigerated tractor trailer would be necessary to transport the specimen they had unearthed. But Pete had found nothing in Buck’s file that would preclude a Class A security clearance—nor had Batter. So here he was, somewhere off Highway 191, heading for one of the most top secret locations on the planet carrying one of the most important finds in history, with some relatively unknown cowboy at the wheel.

“How ya doin’, Buck?” Pete asked in his best attempt at a western drawl, as much to be friendly as a test to see how awake his unknown driver was. These were the first real words Pete could remember speaking to the man since they’d left the site.

Buck calmly spit out a pistachio shell he’d been chewing on and flicked it to the floorboards. He reached into a bag he had by his side and placed another large load of nuts in his mouth. “Doin’ fine, Doc,” he replied, spitting. “Be doin’ better if your boys up front would speed up a bit.” Buck punched the clutch, grabbed the gear shift and downshifted. “How’d ya sleep?”

Pete
glanced at Bucks’ speedometer then looked out and spotted one of their escort vehicles a few hundred feet ahead of them. He had given the lead driver specific instructions that they were not to exceed fifty miles an hour, and he was happy to see that the driver was following his orders. Pete had to admit, from his vantage point in the cab of the semi, it did seem like they were only going twenty. He leaned forward so he could get a look out of Buck’s side view mirror to make sure the second vehicle was still following. “Sleep? What do you mean sleep?” he asked, preoccupied with his effort to see what was going on behind them.

Buck smiled and spit another pistachio
shell. “Hell, Doc, you been snorin’ like a steam engine since we pulled out of Vernal.”

“Really?” Pete had no recollection of dozing. He checked his watch and yawned. “Where are we?”

“Just a few miles out of Green River. Another twenty minutes or so and we’ll be on the 70. Then we can start making some real time.”

Buck was about to be very disappointed, thought Pete, looking out at the stars through the passenger window. There were some low mountains off to the right, but the rest of the land was flat
, barren desert. Over towards the east, a quarter moon was rising. He looked back at the road, a long straightaway of two lane highway that looked like it went on forever.

“Don’t worry about it Doc,” Buck laughed. “That’s why I’m drivin’ and you’re the Doc.” Buck could see t
he black Suburban suddenly slowing in front of him. He downshifted and hit the brakes. The SUV’s red lights flashed off, and the vehicle appeared to pick up speed again. Buck banged the semi back into a higher gear and hit the throttle. “Probably just seen a rabbit,” he said, a little exasperated. “Really, Doc, these guys are driving slow as molasses. Can’t you call ‘em an’ tell ‘em to pick up the pace just a notch?” he pleaded.

Pete looked out at the long dark highway ahead of them and weighed Buck’s request. He was
just as anxious to get this trip over with as Buck so he could get back to the labs and begin work on the twelve blocks of ice that they had recovered from the site. Each one of them, he already knew from radiological testing, contained the nearly complete remains of a never before discovered species of dinosaur that had lived sometime just before the great extinction. Twelve of them! On top of that, it was pretty clear from the way the specimens had been mummified and buried that they were sentient, with a level of intelligence that had never before been imagined. He couldn’t wait to get started.

It was a miracle that they had even been given time to exhume them. Batter had been insistent from the start that Pete’s scientific team would have only seventy-two hours to complete their examination of the site and get out. Despite Pete’s plea for an extra day, Batter had stuck to the timeline.
At one point, Pete had been so frustrated that he had actually considered trying to go over Batter’s head until he realized he couldn’t imagine who that would be other than the President himself. Besides, Pete was a military man at heart, and Batter had issued an order not a request, and Batter, as far as Pete knew, was one of the highest ranking “unofficial” officers in the United States government, not to mention the fact that he was completely in charge of Area 51 and, therefore, Pete’s boss.

So Pete had immediately pulled in his best people
, and they had begun to carefully remove all twelve specimens as quickly as possible. But the working conditions in the caves had been difficult, complicated by the extreme cold. Pete had been forced to bend almost every rule he had ever been taught for the proper collection of scientific evidence in order to get the job done in the short time he had been given, much to the chagrin of his staff of paleontologists.

It had taken all seventy-two hours to cut the stone around the specimen
s with diamond blade saws so they could take each sarcophagus out more-or-less intact. The resultant cubes were approximately four-by-four-by-eight feet, and each weighed over a ton. One of the ARC foremen had loaned them a skip loader and an operator to pull each piece out and had helped them to devise a winch and a makeshift skid pad to get the blocks up the long cave corridor and loaded onto the refrigerated truck. Pete had been offered a C-130 from the military to transport them, but the thought of any kind of aviation disaster with such a precious cargo was too much for him to bear, and personally, he was not fond of flying, so he had turned the offer down. Now, as he looked over at Buck, loudly snacking on his beloved pistachios and spitting them on the floorboards, Pete began to have second thoughts about that decision.

He
picked up his phone and dialed the lead SUV. “How’s everyone doing up there?” Pete asked when one of his team picked up.

“We’re fine
, Doc. Our driver says we are just about at the junction. Everyone else is passed out.”

“Well, I have a request back here that we pick up the pace
, and I am inclined to agree with my driver. Can you tell your man up there the new limit is…,” Pete hesitated, looking over at Buck and then at the straight highway in front of them, “…sixty? Let’s get home.”

“You got it Boss, six
-zero it is,” Pete heard the happy reply from the other end. “See you in a few.” The phone went dead and the SUV accelerated.

Buck threw down the clutch and changed gears. “Thanks
, Doc. Maybe we’ll even get there now,” he said, obviously much happier about the new pace. “Ya know, Doc, you got real lucky snagging me for this run.”

“Oh yeah,
how’s that?” Pete asked, not all that interested.

“I was just fixin’ to load up with about five thousand pounds of fresh bison for a run up to Salt Lake when I got the call. You know they actually farm those things now? Anyhow, there is a huge ranch up near Vernal where they grow
‘em, slaughter ‘em, butcher ‘em, and package them all in one fell swoop. Quite an operation. Big money in it too. Did you know that shit is three times as expensive as beef? Can’t really tell the difference myself. Leave it to the heath nuts,” Buck said, fishing in his bag for more pistachios. “Buffalo,” he said disdainfully, shaking his head.

“Well, I guess we just got lucky,” Pete said absently, already creating a mental list of things to do the minute they arrived.

“Yep, you sure did. Did you know I’m ex-military, as well?”

“Is that so?” Of course
, Pete knew everything about Buck’s service record from his file.

“Yep. Drove convoy in the first Gulf War
, you know, the war we actually won. Dangerous stuff though. Got blown up a time or two, but here I am.” Buck was frowning into his rear view mirror. “Now what the hell….”

“What’s going on Buck?” Pete leaned forwar
d to try to get a glimpse into his mirror, but could see nothing but the glare of headlights.

“That knuckle head, he’s not… Yep, here he
goes….”

“Buck, what’s happening?”

“This asshole behind us is trying to pass,” Buck said, one eye on the road and one in the mirror. “And here he comes.” Buck watched as a semi behind them passed the rear SUV escort and was moving up beside them. In the distance, he could see the oncoming headlights of another tractor trailer, plenty of room if the guy didn’t hesitate. “Do it if you going to do it boy!” Buck pulled his foot off the gas, willing the other driver to hurry.

As the semi pulled by, all Pete could see was a series of running lights and the huge fuel tank they were attached to.
When he looked forward again he knew they were in trouble.

“Ah shit,” Buck said, as he watched the fuel truck try to cut back in early. Buck downshifted and hit the brakes hard, swerving off to the right of the road
, but he was too late. The nose of the Peterbilt dove under the rear of the passing truck, and all Buck could see was an enormous mass of stainless steel heading for the cab.

Pete watched as the fuel truck lifted and came right toward the windshield, smashing the glass as both trucks ran off the road and plowed into the soft embankment. When they finally stopped moving, Pete looked over to find Buck
but there was nothing but fuel tank occupying the driver’s side of the rig where he had been sitting. Buck was gone. Pete reached up and touched his forehead, and his hand came back red with blood. Apart from that, he found it to be a miracle that he was still alive and the truck still upright. He unbuckled his seat belt, pushed the door open, and slid down to the ground, the smell of fuel almost overwhelming him.

*

“Doc. Doc, are you all right?” he could hear Paula, one of his team yelling as she ran to assist him from the SUV that had been following.

“Yeah, I think so,” Pete replied, still in a daze.

“Let me see that,” Paula said, gently removing Pete’s hand from his head. She scrutinized the wound, and then miraculously produced a Kleenex from her pocket to try to staunch the flow of blood. “Doesn’t look
too
bad, right in the eyebrow—nothing five or six stitches won’t fix. Where’s your driver?”

“
Well…,” Pete started to reply.

“Hey, you guys gotta get outta here,” an unfamiliar voice said coming around the truck. Pete assumed that it had to be the fuel truck driver who had apparently escaped
the accident unharmed. “This thing might blow any second,” the man was shouting as he emerged around the side of the wreck carrying a large chrome fire extinguisher.

Pete looked down at his feet and noticed that the ground around them was already becoming saturated with fuel. He ran for the rear of the truck, pulling Paula along with him. As Pete reached the back of the
tractor trailer, he realized the rest of his team had already converged there with the same thought: the specimens!

The driver of the fuel truck had followed. “Look Mister, I am very sorry but you’ve got to get these people out of here. When this thing goes it is going to be big. That fuel up there is pouring all over that hot engine.
It could go at any second.”

Pete was already pulling the huge doors open on the trailer
, ignoring the warning.

“Doc, he’s right
. We’ve got to get out here,” Pete heard another of his team members say.

“Two of you go stop traffic in bo
th directions,” Pete commanded over his shoulder. “We’ve got to get at least one of these off of this truck.” He turned and looked at his team, and could feel the blood beginning to flow again from his head. Two of the security detail immediately headed off in separate directions. There were nine of them left.

“Let’s do it,”
said a team member named Rich as he jumped up on the trailer. “Which one Doc?” he asked Pete as they stood over the two specimens closest to the back.

It was a helluva question. Yes
, indeed, which one? Pete looked for a moment at both of the blocks, one of them clearly larger than the other, then decided. “Let’s see if we can at least push the smaller one out.”

His entire team fought to slide the icy block
, all ten of them, pushing and pulling on the large stone and the straps around it until it was on the lift. When they got it to the ground, one of the drivers used the winch on his SUV to drag the sarcophagus down the highway out of range of the impending inferno. Just as they turned to go back for another, the trucks burst into flames. In seconds, the fire had engulfed both vehicles.