by Rick Chesler
The entire expedition united once again, now whittled down to four people, Ethan scanned the skies for signs of pterodactyls while they discussed their options.
“So we lost our comm tech, and with her, all of her gear including the sat-phone.” Skylar looked to Richard. “But each sub–team had one, right? So we can use yours to place our extraction call. If you still have it.” She eyed him expectantly, aware that Slope Team had already lost half of its members.
Richard and Ethan exchanged awkward glances, recalling the chaotic scene at the volcano’s summit with the marauding ankylosaurus, before they fell through to the lake. Richard picked at a crusty part of one of his bandages, slowly shaking his head.
“Which one of you had the other sat-phone?” Skylar demanded. Anita looked on, exhausted, scared, watching the exchange that would determine her fate.
“I did.” Ethan pointed up to the summit. “I dropped it when the ground opened up after the first dinosaur hatched. But listen…” He paused while gathering his thoughts, Skylar and the others giving him their full attention. Ethan’s face brightened after a moment’s reflection.
“The last I saw it, it was resting a few feet down in a crevice. Just out of reach. With the dinosaur chasing me and the ground falling in, I couldn’t stop to get it.”
Skylar wrinkled her brow. “But did it fall through into the lake?”
Ethan shook his head. “I don’t think it did, because the part that fell in was in front of me, and I remember the phone being behind me.”
Richard nodded his agreement. “I never actually saw it, but from my vantage point, Ethan was running away from me with respect to where the dinosaur hatched from, I know that.”
Skylar found this to be inconclusive, but shrugged while looking at the others. “If that’s our only other phone, I suppose it’s worth a look to get up there, if we can, and see if it’s still there?”
“And if it still works—if it hasn’t been cracked into pieces or burned up or something,” Anita said dejectedly.
“We’ve got to try,” Richard said.
“Let’s take a short rest, eat something, get hydrated, then we’ll make an attempt on the summit.” Ethan delved into his bag and pulled out a packet of beef jerky. The others shrugged off their packs and set about having a quick lunch. The four of them were spread out around the small plateau, which was not perfectly flat but dotted with rocks here and there. Ethan and Skylar discussed possible routes to the summit based on what they could see from here, while Anita and Richard ate and drank in brooding silence.
After a time, Ethan saw Richard get up and walk behind a clump of rocks. It reminded him that he needed to urinate, and so he figured Richard must have found a good spot for that.
Ethan skirted around the left side of a boulder field, mentally deciding that right after this they needed to get moving. The trek to the summit would not be easy if doable at all. He wondered to himself what they would do if they couldn’t all make it to the top—if they couldn’t get that sat-phone. I’ll probably just have to make a solo free climb ascent, he was thinking, when he saw Richard and stopped dead in his tracks.
The professional explorer jammed a collapsible tent pole in between two lava rocks so that it stuck there, straight up. He’s not taking a leak, so what’s he doing? Ethan shrunk back behind a boulder while he observed Richard. He heard Anita and Skylar strike up a conversation in the background, but he tuned it out in order to stay focused on what Richard was doing.
The Brit now held a piece of fabric in his hands, and as Ethan watched, he unfurled it to reveal a flag of some kind. Then Richard threaded the flag over the tent pole, and Ethan saw that it was the Tongan national flag. What in the Hell was going on here?
“Excuse me, Richard?”
The explorer jumped at the words, startled at having been seen by someone obviously so close by. His face reddened as he turned away from the flag.
“I—well, you’re excused, my dear boy. Just give a chap some privacy, would you? I would have gone over to the edge to take care of my business, but I figure the edge is not a safe place, what with what happened to Lara and all…”
“Cut the crap, Richard. What are you doing?” Ethan pointed to the flag. “What’s the meaning of this?”
Richard gazed at the flag with a look of surprise. “Right, it looks like I found more evidence of the Tongans.”
“Richard! Stop it. I saw you set that up yourself and put it there. Now you tell me what the hell is going on?”
“I told you—”
One of the boulders shielding Richard’s activity from the rest of the group started to wobble. Ethan noticed it because of the way he was facing, but Richard continued stammering out a reply, oblivious.
“Richard, it’s hatching, watch out!”
Chapter 22
Nuku'alofa, Tonga
CIA Special Agent Valea Esau wasn’t looking forward to meeting with the King of Tonga again, but he had to warn him. He enjoyed a good working relationship with the political leader and wanted to keep it that way because it made his own job a lot easier. He stepped off the bus, one stop later than the one he’d used last time, so as to avoid being too repetitive. He opted not to take his own vehicle on these liaisons since he could be identified that way, and private vehicles were easier to follow than an individual switching between different modes of public transportation with no regular schedule.
As before, Valea was vetted by the gate guards and escorted up to the king’s suite, where the booming voice told him to come in. Once the doors were closed, King Nau smiled and once again gravitated to his wet bar.
“What, you can’t take anything I’ve got to say without a shot of liquor?” Valea smiled. He was all too aware that his very presence made a lot of people nervous by simple virtue of who he worked for, and His Royal Majesty Malo Nau was no exception.
“You know me by now, Valea. I like to at least pretend that you and I can have a good time while we conduct our affairs. What would you like? How about a glass of Tonga’s finest rum?”
Valea didn’t feel much like partaking, but he also knew that keeping things as pleasant as possible with the king was important, so he accepted the offer and took a seat at the coffee table. It took a fair amount of restraint not to blurt out what he came here to say, but his field experience told him to be patient. The king also took a seat, and after the two had clinked glasses, Valea got down to business.
“Your Majesty, I’m afraid my visit today does not bring good news.”
“I presume this is about the expedition? I have heard nothing.”
Valea nodded. “Unfortunately, not only have I not heard from our man on Expedition Gaia, but the U.N. has been out of contact with the entire team since they were dropped off, other than the air crew returning. The airmen did report a successful drop-off, that’s all we know.”
“How would they be in contact? I know our people do not have cellular reception there.”
“Satellite phones.” Valea leaned forward on the edge of his seat. “But not only that, Malo, we’ve done satellite imaging passovers and none of the party were sighted. So they must be underground in the volcano, is what we’re thinking…”
“Wait…you look down on our country from space?”
Valea exhaled heavily. This was not what he wanted to get into. He held out a hand in a placating gesture. “Yes, your majesty, we looked down on the new island only.”
The king’s eyes narrowed. “I guess I will have to take your word on that.”
“That’s what this is all about, Malo. We want that new island, that’s why we made it, remember? We’re not reading the labels on your rum bottles or peeping in on your women.”
The king knocked back his drink and set the glass down on the table with a clack and a crooked grin. “Please, do not worry. Go on.”
Valea nodded. The king must want that revenue from having a U.S. military base on the new island very much indeed. Yet the steps to make that happen w
ere complex and far from a sure thing. Valea needed to make this clear to the king. “Not all of this is within my control, your majesty. I want you to understand that.”
“Of course. Please, tell me what it is you have come to say. Is everything all right?”
Valea stared down at the backs of his hands while he talked. “As I said, we’ve been out of contact with the team for a few days.”
“Yes…”
“What I need to tell you, your majesty…” Valea looked up and made eye contact with him now. “…is that there is a contingency plan in place in the event that we do not hear from the team or should we learn that they are confirmed either missing or killed.”
“And what is this contingency plan of which you speak?”
Valea took a long pull of his drink before setting it back on the table. “The plan is to extensively bomb the island until it falls back into the sea, and then to disavow all traces of the project known as Neptune’s Inferno.”
The king’s mouth dropped open and his eyes grew wide. He stood from his chair, muscles tense. “What?! And destroy my kingdom’s newest island?”
“We don’t want to, your majesty. It’s only as a last resort.”
“But why? Why go through all of the trouble to create a new isle, only to blast it apart?”
“The orders come from much higher than my pay grade, Malo. But it has to do with not wanting the island to fall into the hands of another nation besides Tonga, because the U.S. is concerned that those countries would allow enemies of America to build military installations there.”
“So if we can’t have it, nobody can, is that it?”
Valea nodded. “Close enough. The reason I’m telling you this, Malo, is to make sure to keep all boat traffic out of the area. Military, fishing, recreational—it’s not a safe place to be right now.”
“I will make certain the area is kept clear. But I ask you, Valea, if the island is destroyed…” He hesitated, as if unsure of how to phrase his next thought.
“If it’s destroyed, what?”
“That option was not presented to me during our initial agreement. What I agreed to was to allow you to…‘artificially induce,’ I believe your words were, the creation of a new island, which if successful, would result in the revenue stream for allowing your country to use it as a base of operations.”
“I’m well aware of what the terms of the agreement were, King Nau. What is your point?”
“If the island is blown up, I believe the people of Tonga should be compensated for the inconvenience of the whole matter, in the form of a fee.”
Valea rolled his eyes and took a deep breath. “Fine, that should be doable, should this come to pass. Remember, it might not. Hopefully, our team is alive and well.”
Chapter 23
“Something’s coming out of there! Move out of the way!” Ethan marveled at the creature emerging from the rock cyst while Richard stumbled to get past him. This animal was definitely a dinosaur, but not one that Ethan recognized. About the size of an adult African elephant and also with four legs, the reptile was a dull gray in color with the exception of a red, fleshy waddle on the crest of its head.
Ethan acted while the creature still extricated itself from its hibernation pod or whatever the stone was. He wedged himself sideways into a depression between two rocks, clearing the way for Richard to move back out to the main part of the plateau and the others.
The dinosaur—Ethan thought it might be of a type known as hadrosaur, but he really had no idea—shook off the last remnants of its casing and set about exploring its new world.
Richard ran out of the protective cover of the rocks, even though their maze-like closeness kept the beast from maneuvering well. The massive quadruped stormed right by Ethan, its tiny, bead-like eyes taking no notice of the human hiding in its midst.
The hadrosaur rocked back on its two hind legs and put its front legs up on a rock. Its mighty head swung back and forth as it looked over at the flat expanse of the plateau. It sprung off the ground with its hind legs, teetered on the rock and then landed on the other side…just as Richard came running out of the rocks across the plateau.
The injured explorer swiveled his head to the right as he ran, eyes widening in terror as he saw the mega-beast launch into a run toward him. Flat, open ground surrounded him now, and even Anita and Skylar, at the opposite end of the plateau, shrank back in fear behind a cluster of jagged lava rocks.
The hadrosaur had no trouble catching up to Richard, who tripped before the animal reached him. The man who had famously turned thirty years old while standing atop the summit of Mount Everest was splayed out on the ground of the newly minted volcano. He tensed himself for what he knew was coming. The dinosaur trampled him viciously, running over him, breaking his left arm with its left front foot while cracking his right femur with its right rear foot.
Richard’s cry of agony was cut short when the monster’s right front foot punched down on the human’s head, grinding all of it into a sticky, pulpy goop on the hard lava rock ground, cutting short the memories of Richard’s life flashing by. The beast made no effort to consume its victim, though. It walked away from the dead person, toward the other two humans.
“Ethan, where are you?” Skylar called from where she and Anita hid behind a rock. Had Ethan been trampled by this beast, too?
“Over here!” The photographer walked out from where he and Richard had been. He egged the creature on. “Hey, hey, right here, dinosaur! Hey!”
The creature turned around in a slow lumbering maneuver. Ethan knew the beast was incapable of stopping on a dime, such was the momentum its great bulk produced. He would use that to his advantage. Like a bullfighter teasing a mad bull, Ethan stood with his back to the edge of the plateau’s cliff that he had ascended to get here.
“Hey dino…hey, c’mon, come get me!”
The dinosaur charged. It rumbled across the plateau, snorting along in a one-animal stampede. Ethan rocked back and forth on his toes, knowing he needed to be at the height of his agility to pull this off. At the last moment, when the hadrosaur lowered its great head in anticipation of ramming its target, Ethan feigned left and dodged right. The rampaging reptile swiped its head to the right, the fleshy waddle bobbing around, but its bulky mass had already been set into motion and would take more distance than it had in front of it to stop.
The barreling behemoth snorted as it ran headlong off the cliff, its tons of deadweight plunging to the bottom and breaking its neck on impact.
Cautiously, Ethan walked to the edge and looked down. He raised his arms in triumph as the two women began to clap. He had done it! Ethan Jones, killer of dinosaurs, had slain the beast. But his exultation was short-lived, for lying not far away was the crumpled remains of Richard Eavesley, renowned National Geographic Explorer-In-Residence. He moved to the body, knelt down and felt for a pulse even though having no head to speak of should mean certain death. Nevertheless, he went through the motions, grimacing as the arm bent at the most unnatural of angles when he picked up the wrist to place two fingers over the artery.
As expected, he felt only stillness. “He’s gone,” he added for finality, but he knew the words weren’t needed.
Ethan walked to Skylar and Anita, who both sat on the ground, weary, miserable, looks of defeat beginning to take hold. It was just the three of them now, and Ethan knew it didn’t take a statistician to see that with a starting group of eight, their odds for survival weren’t good. Especially given the fact that they currently had no way to contact anyone for help. Ethan made eye contact with Skylar and Anita in turn. Of the two of them, Anita by far appeared the most shaken. She was sullen, not talking much lately, and beginning to retreat into her shell. Ethan had seen it before, during tribal warfare outbreaks in Africa when his nature photography team was caught in the crossfire, videoing piles of elephant ivory burning in bonfires set by the government to discourage poaching.
He knew from experience that any bright spot, no m
atter how weakly it shone, should be seized upon to provide hope and lift morale. He pointed to Richard’s backpack, still sitting on the ground where he’d dumped it upon arrival for what was supposed to be a lunch break.
“Let’s see what useful gear he has and divide it amongst us. Then we’ll make our way to the summit and see about finding that sat-phone. Sound like a plan?” He did his best to sound upbeat, smiling and giving his voice a positive inflection.
Skylar and Anita nodded and slowly stood. Together, the three of them went to Richard’s pack. Ethan opened the main compartment and began taking out the contents. Canteen, cook stove, lantern, a windbreaker… His eyes opened in surprise as he took out a flask of Scotch whiskey. He set these items aside, but Skylar cracked the flask and took a swig. She passed it to Anita, who surprised them by also downing a shot.
“You’re up, Ethan.” Anita held the flask out to him, but he had both hands deep in Richard’s pack.
“Hold on, something’s stuck in here…” He fiddled around some more until he was able to remove the object that was hanging up. A rolled-up plastic bag wrapped around an oblong object, rubber-banded to hold it in place.
“Here: you drink, I’ll open that.” Anita traded Ethan the flask for the package. The photographer knocked back a shot, screwing up his facial features in an expression of unpleasantness. “Here’s to you, Richard.”
By the time he had put the cap back on the bottle, Anita had unfurled the plastic bag from the item, revealing red and white cloth wrapped around something else. Anita unrolled the cloth and held up a flag, red with a white cross in the upper left corner.
“Tongan flag!” Skylar said.
Ethan nodded. “Same exact flag—size and material—as the one he said he found over there. But I saw him planting it in the ground himself.”
Anita squinted while looking at the flags. “So he brought a bunch of Tongan flags with him? Why?” She unrolled the rest of them—four all told, plus the one he tried to plant.