Edward had been reading excerpts of files over the phone for the past few minutes, but every word he said just seemed to further complicate the issue.

"Frank, this doesn't make any sense. There's a chart here that shows all the digging activity that's gone on in the past two years. Half of these places should be completely devoid of any sort of natural resources. Why in the world..."

"What was that thing you read about the clocks?" Frank asked. "Is there any ...