KallMeKris

So on November 11th, 2009, the two of them started into the back country in the late morning, and they visited the van site, and they located the old bottle find, and they pushed south toward a search area Mahoud had mapped as a wide alluvial fan roughly a mile and a half across, bounded by ridges, and his pack, loaded with water and overnight supplies, weighed close to 65 pounds.

And his first impression of the search area was, uh-oh, his words, not mine.

And he would say that this will take at least several trips to cover.

So they camped that night at the northwest corner of the fan in the desert dark.

And day two began at 7 a.m.

and they moved south along the western edge of the fan, traveling several hundred yards apart, communicating by radio.

So they were separated but moving in the same direction.

And at 8.43 a.m., Les radioed in because he had found a wine bottle, two liters, and fragments of a label still visible.

And Mahoud noted the GPS coordinates and they kept moving.

A few minutes later, Les called again because there was something in the bushes that looked like toilet paper.

And it was pages from a daily planner.

And the paper weathered and brittle after 13 years printed in German.

And then there was the call that changed everything.

And it was when he would say, Tom, we have some bones here.

Hood reached Les at 9.14 a.m.

at the base of the north-facing cliff at the edge of a small hill, and it was one of the only shaded spots for miles in any direction.

And on the ground nearby, scattered across a radius of roughly 150 meters from the cliff face, were things a family carries.

a passport, a bank ID card, the photograph still legible after 13 years in the desert sun, and a toothbrush, and the remains of a small shoe and a wallet.

And Mahoud would open the wallet, and every ID card inside bore the same name, Cornelia Meyer.

and the bones were close by.