Windfalling

Vietnam veteran Jerry Johnson peacefully sits on a quiet mountainside, watching a storm brewing to the west. He notes a small plane flying toward his lofty perch when a blinding flash strikes the approaching aircraft. A single parachute floats to earth, and the crippled bird crashes into the canyon below, kindling a wildfire that licks its way toward the fallen pilot. As Jerry cuts the harness away from the pilot, who appears to be unconscious, he is surprised to find a redheaded girl staring back at him from the rocky canyon floor. After regaining her senses, E.D. Struction seems more concerned about a box she lost falling to earth than the danger from the ensuing conflagration. After escaping the fire, Jerry and the beautiful pilot set out to retrieve the mysterious yellow box-a box with symbols from most of the ancient peoples who flourished in the Western Hemisphere inlayed on the lid. They must find it before Harlan Diamond, the fourth richest person on the planet, gets his hands on the prize. In Windfalling, an unforgettable debut novel, Jerry, E.D., and a couple of Marine Corps buddies who fought together in Vietnam, along with two renowned anthropologists, scramble across Southern California and Baja, Mexico, searching for an Aztec pyramid and the Crown of Knowledge. With the help of a 500-year-old Spanish priest, they discover historical truths that will forever change the way history was written...