The Rangers have excavated a narrow horizontal shaft running beneath the drone. Collecting the pick in one hand, a flashlight in the other, Mick crawls through the burrow on his knees, the sounds from above quickly becoming muffled in his ears.

The tunnel dead-ends twelve feet in. Protruding through the rock above his head are the razor-sharp tips of the creature’s talons.

Embedded in the limestone ceiling between the two black claws—the lower half of a shiny metal canister, the same iridium container he and his father had found long ago, buried in the Nazca desert.

Mick gently chips around one exposed side of the container, loosening it with the other. Gravel falls on his back, fissures opening up along the ceiling. He continues tapping, feeling the object loosening, knowing at any second the ceiling will collapse, burying him under the weight of the geology and the alien drone.

Clumps of white dirt blind him as, with a final tug, he pulls the canister free, leaping backwards as—

—a section of ceiling collapses in a blinding white curtain of dust and debris, the two-thousand-pound drone collapsing through the shaft.

Mick crawls back through the remains of the tunnel, dragging himself from the rubble, his body covered in white dust, his left hand, smeared in blood, still clutching the metal container.

He climbs up the ladder, spitting and coughing, then collapses on his back near the edge of the hole and inhales the fresh air. Feeling for his bottled water, he pours the warm liquid over his face, rinses out, then sits up and turns his attention to the canister.

For a long moment he just gazes at the object, gathering his strength, the scarlet icon of the Trident of Paracas—the Guardian’s insignia—staring back at him.

“Okay, Julius, let’s see what you’ve been hiding from me all these years.”

He pries opens the lid, removing the strange object within.

What is this?

It is a jade object, rounded and heavy, about the size of a human skull. Protruding from one side is the handle of an immense obsidian dagger. Mick attempts to remove the weapon, but it is wedged in too tightly.

Inscribed along the other side of the object are two images. The first, an epic battle depicting a bearded Caucasian and a giant plumed serpent, the man holding a small object, keeping the beast at bay. The second image is that of a Mayan warrior.

Mick stares at the warrior’s face, goose bumps tightening across his chalk-covered skin.

My God … it’s me.

Sanibel Island, West Coast of Florida.

The SOSUS alarm awakens Edith Axler with a start. Lifting her head from the table, she reaches over to the computer terminal for her headphones, then places them over her ears and listens.

Her nephew, Harvey, enters the lab in time to see the expression on his aunt’s face drop. “What is it?”