Excavation

A man in a conservative grey suit stepped forward, blocking his view, hand held out. “Professor Conklin, I am Edward Gerant, protocol officer with the U.S. embassy. We have much to discuss.”

Henry forced his fist to relax and raised his hand.

Then a voice rose from the throng, cutting through the background chatter: “Henry?”

He froze.

Edward Gerant reached for the professor’s hand, but Henry pulled away, stepping to the side. He saw a slender figure push through the barricade of police.

Henry’s voice cracked. “Joan…?”

She smiled and approached, slowly at first, then as tears flowed, more hurriedly. Henry met her with open arms. They fell into each other, lost in their embrace. Never thinking to feel such joy again Henry murmured, “Oh, God, Joan… I thought you had been killed. But I had prayed… hoped…”

“Uncle Hank?” a voice said behind him. It was Sam. His nephew knew nothing about Joan. Henry had been too guilty to discuss aloud the choice he’d been forced to make earlier. Guilt and fear had kept him silent until he could discover Joan’s fate himself.

As Sam came up to them, Joan and Henry pulled slightly apart, but Henry would not take his eyes from her… never again. Without turning away, he introduced his nephew to Dr. Joan Engel. She smiled warmly and gripped Sam’s hand. Once they had shaken hands, Henry again laid claim to her palm. “But what about you?” Henry asked. “What happened?”

Joan’s smile faded a few degrees. “I escaped just as the police raid began. And lucky I did. As the authorities breached the Abbey, the monks triggered a fail-safe mechanism built into their laboratory. The entire facility was incinerated, including the vault of el Sangre.” She pointed toward the distant horizon.

Henry stared along with Sam. Smoke as thick as that of another volcano climbed into the sky.

“The resulting explosion took out the entire Abbey. It’s still smoldering. All that remains are the Incan ruins beneath.”

“Amazing,” Sam commented.

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!”