He pulled out his phone. This close to the meadow, it should work, but it didn’t have a signal.

Somehow, some way, the signal jammer had switched on early.

He followed Audrey around a thick old-growth tree. She stopped short in front of him. “Well, now we know why they disabled the cameras.” Her voice was low. Pained.

Five feet away a large, uneven hole gaped open.

“But—it doesn’t look like a looter pit,” she said. “It’s too narrow and too deep—it goes past the cultural layers into sterile glacial till.”

Archaeology was her specialty, but this was Xavier’s. He’d seen pits like this before. Caught on a root, he saw evidence that told him everything he needed to know.

“This hole wasn’t dug by looters.” He jumped into the pit and grabbed the scrap of stray black plastic. “Something was wrapped in plastic and stored here. Whoever cut the cameras was here to claim their stash.”

Chapter Three

Audrey took a step back as she stared at the plastic in Xavier’s hand. He stood hip-deep in the pit. The walls had collapsed after whatever had been stored in plastic had been retrieved, and loose brown soil littered the hard-packed gray till beneath his feet. She spotted the distal end of a long bone sticking out of the sloped wall and thought she might be sick.

This area had been looted in November. They’d seen evidence of the digging on the surface, but, because it was a burial ground, they didn’t excavate or probe to assess the extent of the damage, as that would only further disturb and desecrate the remains.

“So what was done here in November wasn’t looting…” Her words trailed off as her mind raced. She pressed a hand to her belly, thinking of all that had happened since the looting. She’d denied the permit in part because of the looting. Xavier had savaged her reputation because she’d denied the permit. And George had insisted on wintering in the old cabin near the ancestral village because of the looting.

“It was storage,” Xavier finished for her. He spoke into his radio again. “Abort the training. We’ve got company in the woods. And they’re armed.” He tapped his earpiece and cursed. “These are the best field radios the military has. They’re designed for this range and terrain. No way would Cohen have jumped the gun on the signal jammer.”

“Signal jammer?” she asked.

“Yeah. Part of the training. No radios. No cell or sat phones. No communication with the outside world.”

She pulled out her own phone. No bars. Uneasiness trickled down her spine. “We need to check on George.”