Land's End

Land’s End
Roland Geer shivered as he wiped the mist from his bifocals. “This is insane,” he thought, replacing his glasses and wrapping a wool sweater tighter around his body. “I’m too old for this.” He dragged his feet through the wet grass and toward the edge of the foreboding cliffs of Land’s End, England’s westernmost point. “Anything yet?” he yelled, seemingly to no one.

He received one “nothing” and three groans in return from the men chipping away at the crag. Geer leaned over to inspect the cords that kept the workers from plummeting roughly two hundred feet to the jutting rocks below. By the time he straightened himself, his glasses had misted over for the umpteenth time that day. “I should just take them off,” he thought, but instead peered out, away from the sea, onto the quiet town that had made such a fuss about the excavation. The local government wanted no part of the dig, which was understandable as far as Geer was concerned. The cliffs were a beautiful, natural feature, and the main reason why any tourists would come to this godforsaken area at all. Besides, what were the odds that the team would find anything? But money does talk, and Cornelius Hart was able to “persuade” the Land’s End officials to allow him some time. Time was almost up, though. Unless the team found whatever artifact Hart was so sure resided here within three more days, they’d be going back to London empty-handed – and that would not sit well with the boss. What Hart wanted, Geer had no idea. The collector had been very sketchy with details, but admittedly, Geer, like the government officials, had a price. With the paycheck he was walking away from this one with, he could finance his own digs anywhere in the world.

Geer thought of the money again and shook his head as he continued to peer through the mist and past the canvas tents of the makeshift HartCorp base, into the small Cornish community in the distance. Yes, he would take this money and walk, even if Hart offered more for an extended dig. Something wasn’t right. Maybe it was the cold shoulders that he and his crew continued to get from the Land’s End residents, maybe it was the actual thought of working for Hart, who was not exactly known for stability, but something was definitely off. If they didn’t find anything –

“Roland! Hey, Roland! I found something!”

Roland Geer went pale. At this point, he didn’t know whether to be relieved, excited, worried, or devastated.

“Roland?”

He fought the wind as he headed back over to the cliff. “Yes,” he said. He felt nauseous as he looked down to see the suspended Tim Jenkins’ broad smile. “B-bring it on up. Can you bring it up?” Roland backed away from the cliff and sat on an overturned, white HartCorp bucket that settled into the swampy ground with a squish. He signaled the crane operator, who was thumbing through the pages of The Sun, to assist the diggers. Geer reached for his cell phone to call Hart, but stopped. What if this was nothing? Why get Cornelius Hart’s hopes up over nothing? Then there would be trouble. “I’ll wait,” he said aloud as he reached for his tool chest.

By the time he had cleared everyone’s lunch from his workstation and set up shop, the crane had noisily hoisted what Geer had expected to be a substantially larger slab of rock. Tim Jenkins took a swig from his flask as Roland eyed the item being slowly dragged through the mud. “What d’ya think, Doc?”

“I don’t quite know what to think, Tim, except that this must be it.” Geer waved for the crane to lift the item to eye level, which it did while he and the others gathered around. Geer frowned and again removed his glasses as his face moved in for a closer look. “How did you clean the crevices so well with the tools that you had, Tim? It looks too clean. I wish you wouldn’t have tried to clean it up from down there.”

“That’s the thing, Doc.” Tim took another swig and wiped his brow. “I didn’t. I hit this one crack in the stone with my chisel, and voila, the thing uncovers itself.”

“Uncovers itself?”

“Yeah. I’m telling you, it was the strangest thing. The dirt and stone came sliding off of that symbol there like they were fresh. Like it wanted to be uncovered.”

“This has got to be thousands of years old, though.” Tim exclaimed something, but Roland did not hear. He placed a gloved hand gently on the engraved symbol, received what would best be described as the equivalent of an electric shock, and abruptly staggered back, away from the bizarre antiquity.

“You all right, Doc?” asked one of Tim’s men.

“I don’t know,” Roland answered, regaining his footing and approaching the slab once again. “For some reason, I doubt that any of us are all right,” he thought, glaring at the symbol. It was unlike any that the archeologist had seen. The design was that of a bull’s glaring face, a bull with five horns – two on each side of the head, and one protruding from the top. The bull’s head was enclosed in a pair of interlocking pentagons. It was simple and primitive, yet unnerving. Geer moved to touch the symbol again, but stopped himself. His fingers hovering just centimeters away from the beast, he muttered, “Unbelievable. But no text of any kind. Nothing to tell us what this thing is.”

“The Seal of Levpriam.”

Roland turned quickly to see a good-looking young man in a tailored gray pinstripe suit. He could not have looked more out of place.

“The what?”

“The Seal of Levpriam, Dr. Geer. Very old, very beautiful, supposedly very powerful. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it,” the young man smiled.

Geer continued to stare at the stranger. He had a million questions, but was cut off before he could start. “So,” said the young man, “thank you for finding it. I’m sure that Mr. Hart will reward you handsomely. We’ll take it off your hands now.” As he finished, a black, unmarked helicopter cut through the fog.

“Oh, I don’t think so, mister…”

“Parks.”

Geer noticed that the man introduced himself without offering his hand. Odd, he thought, for someone so obviously refined.

“Right. Mr. Parks. Forgive me, but I don’t recognize you or that chopper, so I’ll just give Mr. Hart a call if you don’t mind.”

Parks grinned. “Not at all.” He folded his hands and joined the others in continuing to examine the seal while Roland stepped to the side and took out his cell phone. A HartCorp receptionist picked up on the other end almost immediately.

“Yes, I forget the extension, but get me Audrey Degg, please. Thank you.” Geer kept his eyes focused on Parks and the Seal of Whatever the whole time. He did not have to wait long before the perky voice of a young woman cut the silence.

“Cornelius Hart’s office. Audrey Degg speaking. How may I help you?”

“Miss Degg, this is Roland Geer…out at Land’s End.”

“Oh, yes! Dr. Geer. How are you?”

“A bit confused, dear. Could you do me a favor and ask Mr. Hart a question? Let him know that we believe that we’ve found what he’s been looking for, and ask if he was planning on sending anyone to retrieve it.” He could hear the furious scratch of Miss Degg’s pencil on the other end.

“Certainly. Hold just one moment, doctor.”
He held while The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” played. Geer heard no music, though, as he was intent on keeping tabs on the mysterious Mr. Parks. He compared Parks to Tim and the others. True, the team had been hard at work on the cliffs since dawn, but Parks’ black designer shoes were unbelievably clean and polished. Not one blade of grass was stuck to them. Not one splattering of mud had touched them. Where had this man even come from? The only vehicle that had arrived was the black chopper. He could have walked from town, but this fellow appeared as though he had just stepped into a board meeting. The mist alone would have completely flattened his hair as it had Tim and Geer’s own. Yes, Geer was now certain that something was very wrong.

“Dr. Geer?” Miss Degg’s animated voice startled him.

“Yes. I’m here.”

“Mr. Hart said to first congratulate you on your find and thank you.”

“Very good, Miss Degg. What about retrieval?”

“He said to look for a man named Parks.”

Geer was admittedly surprised, yet slightly relieved. “But the helicopter, Miss Degg…”

“It’s not HartCorp, right? It’s a plain old black chopper?”

“Y-yes, that’s correct.”

“Right. That’s Mr. Hart’s private helicopter. It’s good to go, I assure you.”

“Well, all right. That’s it I guess. Will I get my check mailed to my place in Oxford, then?”

“Actually, Mr. Hart said that if it’s not a problem, he was hoping to commission you for one more job after this.”

“How soon after?”

“Almost immediately. Basically as soon as you clean up Land’s End.”

“I don’t know…”

“He offers double what he is giving you for this,” Degg persisted. “And promises that the next assignment will be your final one.”

Double the money. He could retire on that. Besides, everyone knew that it wasn’t good for one’s health to refuse Cornelius Hart. Geer took a deep breath. “Fine,” he said. “One more job. Tell him I’m in. But tell him that it’s the last time. I think I’ll take an early retirement.”

“Very good,” Degg answered cheerfully. “We’ll see you soon.”

Roland nodded to Parks as he walked back over to the artifact. “It’s all yours, Mr. Parks.”

“Well, thank you, sir,” Parks responded with a handsome, toothy smile. He waved the crane operator towards the helicopter. “We’ll see you back in London, then.” Parks began walking off in the direction of the town, but turned back with one more grin. “So exciting!” And he faded soundlessly in the mist.

A chill ran up Geer’s spine just before he turned his attention back to the slab that was being hoisted into the unmarked aircraft. Tim approached from behind and handed Dr. Geer a plastic trash bag for the cleanup.

“We sure made a mess here, huh, Doc?” Tim asked as he tossed a few Styrofoam lunch plates into his bag.

“Yeah,” answered Geer as he lost sight of the five-horned bull. “We sure did.”