“The artifact has been secured on the X8,” Callie said. “The others are loading the bodies now.”
“Close the base down, and let’s go.” Lachlan looked at Rowan. “Pack your things. Only what you can easily carry.”
She nodded. It didn’t take her long to grab her things from her office, and some clothes from under her bunk.
As she left the base, she paused at the door, looking back into the rec room. Emotions churned through her, then she turned away and followed Team 52.
She’d barely taken in the strange helicopter that was parked outside when they’d chased after Lars. Now, she gave it her full attention.
It looked like something straight from the set of a movie. It was made of a white metal, and looked like a cross between a helicopter and a plane. It had twin rotors on top, and jet engines on the modified wings.
Lachlan stood at the open side door, and waved her in. She climbed aboard, and immediately spotted the body bags resting at the back of the helicopter.
The pain was piercing and she couldn’t move. It was only when Lachlan pressed a hand to her lower back that she came unstuck.
He led her to one of the big seats and she dropped down into it.
Her team was dead and she’d failed them. But dammit, she was going to find out what had happened.
*
As the X8 flew south, Lachlan watched Rowan and worried.
She’d been quiet for hours, her arms curled around herself, and her legs tucked up under her. She stared out the window, but he didn’t think she was looking at the view.
“You going to take your eyes off her at some stage, amigo?” Axel drawled from behind him.
Lachlan shot the man a killer look, but as usual, Axel shrugged it off with a laugh.
Lars was resting on a stretcher toward the back of the chopper. He was sedated, and Callie said he wasn’t doing well. The medic sat beside him, monitoring his vitals.
“I want to know about the artifact,” Rowan said suddenly.
Lachlan whipped his head back around. He caught Axel’s gaze. Smith was sprawled in the chair beside him, dozing. The big man cracked one hazel eye open, and crossed his arms over his chest.
Lachlan moved chairs, sitting down across from Rowan.
“As I told you, my team was sent here to rescue survivors and contain the artifact.”
“And that’s what Team 52 does?” she asked. “Contains and safeguards artifacts?”
He nodded. “Certain items that are dangerous.”
“What items, exactly? What is that artifact? A foreign weapon? Something experimental?”
“No.”
Her brow creased. “If you say aliens…”
He smiled. She was tired and stressed, but she was holding it together. “Not aliens. But the object is likely an ancient artifact.”
“If you say the word magic, I’ll scream.”
“Not magic, either. But you’ve heard that saying about how any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?”
She stilled. “Arthur C. Clarke. Advanced technology? Lachlan, that artifact was trapped in ice that was over five thousand years old. It can’t be advanced anything.”
He leaned back in his chair. “What if I told you that what you know about conventional history isn’t entirely correct?”
She pondered that for a second. “Okay.” He could see her intelligent brain working. Her gaze locked on his. “Go on.”
“There is evidence that civilization is older than we believe,” he said. “Unexplained artifacts, submerged ruins that predate the earliest advanced cultures like the Sumerians and Egyptians.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You’re saying that there were other advanced cultures before Sumer and Egypt?”
“Exactly. How advanced, we aren’t sure. Have you heard of Hueyátlaco?”
She shook her head.
“It’s an archeological site in Mexico. Archeologists worked there during the sixties and discovered stone tools and animal remains in situ, seemingly undisturbed. Two different dating methods dated the site up to two hundred and fifty thousand years old.”
“What?” she breathed.
“And then there’s G?bekli Tepe in southern Turkey,” he added.
“I’ve heard of that. An archeological site that was made a world heritage site, right?”
“Right. Discovered in the sixties, it was mostly ignored, but archeologists have been working on it over the last few years and G?bekli Tepe doesn’t make sense. It’s Neolithic, with the world’s oldest megaliths, skilled construction, and amazing carvings.” He paused. “It is also twelve thousand years old. It predates Stonehenge, Sumer, and writing by six thousand years.”
Rowan’s mouth dropped open.
“I could go on. Sunken ruins off the coast of India that are thousands of years old. Highly classified ruins under the ice in Antarctica.”
“No way,” she breathed.
“Human civilization was more advanced than we believed, and was mostly destroyed by flooding at the end of the last ice age.”
“Flooding.” She sat bolt upright like she’d been prodded. “Atlantis?”
He winced. “Atlantis is a hokey myth cobbled together from snippets of truth. Yes, advanced cultures existed, but all over the planet, not in one mythical utopia. There are myths about sunken cities and continents from all over the world.”
“This is…mind-boggling.” She pushed her hair back.
“There are some characteristic signs, like megalithic, large-scale constructions that they left behind. And there are some artifacts…that contain abilities that are dangerous.”
“Like this metallic circle.”
“Yes. I’m guessing Lars accidentally activated it.”
Rowan took a deep breath. “Who the hell could have been living up on Ellesmere Island five thousand years ago? Who had the ability to make something like that? The Pre-Dorset culture lived there around that time, and records show they were people who hunted seals and caribou.”
“I don’t have the answers yet. My team back at base will analyze the artifact, and piece together what they can.”
“Then what?”
“Then the artifact will be secured in a top-secret facility.”
She gripped the armrests of her seat. “What aren’t you saying?”
“That there are a lot of people out there, not nice people, who would kill to get their hands on the artifact.”
Rowan went still. “Terrorists?”
Lachlan nodded. “And arms dealers, crime syndicates, black-market thieves, dictators, unfriendly regimes, and—”
She held up a hand. “I get it. Where’s your base?”
“Nevada.”
Suddenly, her shoulders sagged. “So it’s likely my team dying was just a tragic, meaningless accident.”
“Rowan—”
Her lips trembled and he saw she was trying hard to hold it together. “I was the base leader. It was my responsibility to keep them safe.”
He grabbed her hand. “You couldn’t have prepared for something like this.”
“They’re dead, Lars is hurt, and I’m alive.” Her voice broke.
Survivor guilt. Lachlan knew all too well how that felt. “You’ll get through this, sweetheart. I know you will.”
She shook her head and a tear tracked down her cheek. “It’s tearing me up inside.”
Not caring that his team would give him hell for it later, Lachlan undid her belt and yanked her into his lap. She held herself stiff.
“Let it out, Rowan.”
She shook her head again, a little desperately. “I can’t. I don’t cry. I don’t lose it.”
“You used to cry all the time.”
“Not after you left…I…” Another tear slid down her cheek. “I guess I grew up and got tougher.”
Something slid through his gut. No, she just didn’t have anyone to hold her when she cried anymore. God, her parents had been cold assholes, and he guessed that hadn’t changed.
“I’ve got you, Rowan. Let it out.”
She leaned into him, a sob breaking free. Her hands gripped him. “I’m alive and they’re all dead.” She started crying, not loud and obnoxious, but quiet, her shoulders shaking.
Lachlan pulled her face to his chest and held on tight. She burrowed into him. He rested his chin on the top of her head, wishing he could spare her all of this. He saw his team was all looking away, giving them what privacy they could.