the wind. Finding it secure, he returned inside and checked his email.

Ackerman had forgotten today was Christmas, but the holiday greetings

from friends and family reminded him. As he answered the messages,

the sadness inside him grew. Here it was a festive day, when most Americans

would be with family and friends, and he was in the middle of

nowhere, alone and chasing a dream he no longer truly believed existed.

Slowly, the sadness turned to anger. Forgetting about the beans, he

grabbed a Coleman lantern from the table and walked to the far end of

the cave. There he stood, fuming and cursing under his breath at the

course of actions that had led him to a distant and cold wasteland on

this the holiest of nights. All his microscopic examinations and careful

dusting with paintbrushes had yielded nothing.

There was nothing here-it was all a wash. Tomorrow he'd start packing

up the camp, put the tent and supplies on the sled behind the snowmobile,

then as soon as the weather cleared enough he'd make the run

for the nearest town, Angmagssalik, some one hundred miles away.

The Cave of the Gods would remain a myth.

Seized by a growing anger, he shouted a curse and swung the fuelfilled

lantern in an arc, then let go of the handle when it was pointed at

the ceiling. The lantern flew through the air and smashed into the rock

roof of the cave. The glass bulb shattered and burning liquid gas spilled

30 CLIVE CUSSLER

onto the ceiling and down. Then suddenly, as if by magic, the flames reversed

as they were sucked into the cracks overhead. The remaining burning

fuel was drawn inside four cracks that formed a square.

The roof of the cave, Ackerman thought, we never searched the roof

of the cave.

Trotting back to the front of the cave, he opened a wooden crate and

removed the thin aluminum tubes they had used to lay out a grid on the

floor of the cave for the detailed archaeological examination. Disassembled

now, they were each four feet long. Rooting around in a nylon supply

bag, Ackerman found some duct tape and wrapped it around the

tubes until he had a staff twelve feet in length. Grasping the tube like a

javelin, he quickly walked back into the cave.

The broken lantern was lying on the floor still burning, the metal

body dented and the glass globe missing, but it was still spewing light.

He stared up at the roof and saw that the smoke from the nowburnedout

fuel had left a barely visible outline of a square.

Lining the pole up on one side, Ackerman slowly pushed.

The thin stone covering that formed the hatch had been constructed

with angled sides. As soon as Ackerman applied pressure, it slid on ancient

wooden dowels until it opened like a greased shutter on a finely

crafted window.

Then, once the hatch was opened, a walrus-skin-woven ladder

dropped down.