When they were gone, Jack looked at the rain forest canopy overhead and saw the dapples of light were fading from the sky. After hoping they would make the lagoon before nightfall, he had to reconsider under the circumstances. He might have to order them to anchor, as the thought of entering Padilla's lagoon in total darkness left little appeal. The bodies not withstanding, the urgency of arriving on site for possible survivors had become possibly a moot point. He would now have to consider the safety of this team his top priority now.
Jack couldn't shake the image of the young woman they had pulled from the river. When she had put on those clothes, she had never figured she would die in them. Just as he was sure Sarah would never have thought the same when she had put on her own similar clothing this morning.
Jack watched the water and the stillness of the shoreline in front of him. He touched the holstered nine-millimeter at his side. Of all the places in his career he had been assigned, this was the one that unnerved him the most. Was it the absence of direct sunlight? The cries of creatures that remained hidden in the vast canopy of giant trees? Jack knew himself never to be a man of premonition, yet he sensed beyond a doubt that men were never meant to be in this place.
As he turned to leave, motion on the riverbank caught his eye. He stood still and didn't turn to look, but used his peripheral vision to see. Standing back of the thick shrubbery that lined the bank, several small Indians stood and watched Teacher as she maintained her position in the middle of the river. The only sound he noticed was the almost silent hum of the vessel's thrusters as they fought to maintain their hold on the current. The noises of the rain forest had disappeared and silence filled the late afternoon. The faces of the Indians stood out palely in stark contrast to the darkness surrounding them. That was when Jack decided to let them know he was aware. He turned and held up a hand, but the gesture went unseen, as the Indians had vanished into the brush. As he stood there feeling silly, the cries of birds and even the scream of a large cat rushed to fill the air as sound returned around him.
* * *
Several people were outside of the medical lab in section six waiting on the word from Dr. Waltrip. Heidi and Virginia had been drafted by the good doctor as her morgue assistants. Jack sat with Sarah, Danielle, Carl, Keating, and Dr. Nathan, who were all anxious to find out the results of the medical examination of the two corpses. Their conversation was muted.
Jack had not said anything about seeing the Indians along the riverbank, as he felt the information wasn't helpful to anyone. The discovery of the Sincaro's deity had already been the topic of conversation for almost a day and a half. One thing Jack did do was order not only sidearms to be issued to the military personnel, but two shotguns per watch. He had nothing against the little tribe of river natives, but until they found out about the reasons behind the disappearance, why take chances? He had a gut feeling that the people he saw weren't behind those two deaths; they seemed only curious. From prior discussions with Group historians, the professionals who had studied the legends, he had learned that the small people had every right to be at least suspicious of any strangers along their river.
The door opened and Virginia came out first. She was pale and seemed rattled as she asked for some coffee. Allison Waltrip came out, next pulling off her gloves and then placing them in a plastic bag. Then she held out the bag for Virginia to put hers in, and she complied with a shake of her head. Then she took her coffee from Danielle, who also offered a cup to Dr. Waltrip. The surgeon accepted it with a nod.
"Jack, we have to get those bodies into the ground," said Dr. Waltrip. "We don't have the facilities to store them here." She turned.
"Lieutenant Commander Everett, navy man, right?" she asked.
"Yes," Carl answered.
"This man," she held out a plastic specimen bag, "he was in the navy also, Kennedy, Kyle, M. A lieutenant."
"Doesn't ring a bell," Carl said as he took the plastic bag from Waltrip and examined the dog tags.
"He has a small seal juggling a beach ball tattooed on his right forearm."
Carl rolled up his sleeve. "Look like this?" he asked, showing his own SEAL tattoo.
"Exactly, except his had a four underneath, not a six," Dr. Waltrip said.
"SEAL team four, San Diego based; they are an excellent and well-trained assault force. But I've never heard of a Kennedy, and I know most of that team."
"Major, Virginia is aware of what your file contains and she said I can ask you, I understand you were in black operations and had trained for all kinds of—" she paused and looked at Virginia.
"Broken Arrow," Virginia answered.
"Yes, Broken Arrow scenarios, trained to deal with them, that sort of thing?"
Jack looked uncomfortable talking about it with so many in earshot, especially Danielle. "That's right, I am qualified to disarm or… why?" Jack only hoped everyone didn't know the term "Broken Arrow" was one used by the military for designating a lost nuclear weapon.
"Can you identify this?" Dr. Waltrip held out a second plastic bag. "It was clenched so tight in the lieutenant's right hand I had to pry it loose."
Jack took the bag and looked it over, glancing Carl's way once because he felt his eyes on him.
"M-2678 tactical warhead key," he said barely loud enough for anyone to hear.
"Jesus, Jack, what did those idiots bring with them?" Carl asked.
"I can't even venture to guess why they thought they needed a tactical nuke out here," Jack answered as the section grew silent.
"Just another mystery to add to our growing list," Dr. Waltrip said. "The girl was no older than nineteen. As I said out there, she died as a result of a possible self-inflicted gunshot to the left temple. There are gunpowder burns around the wound and powder particles embedded in her left hand, indication she was holding the gun that killed her. It was a nine-millimeter round." She handed another specimen bag to Jack.
"Could be military, but who knows."
Dr. Waltrip nodded her head. "Anyway, the bottoms of her feet were quite cut up, as if she had been running on a rough surface, and in her wounds on her feet I found this." She held up a small jar; inside were several cotton swabs. She held it up to the light and they all saw the glimmer. "Gold, I would say, found in her wounds, her hair, her clothes, her nostrils, and lungs. These samples represent a swab from almost every area of her body."
There were no questions, no talking. Carl handed the dog tags back to the surgeon.
"I'll place these in the ship's safe," she said. "Now, as I said, we need to bury these bodies very soon; they're deteriorating fast."
"The wounds, Doctor, the marks on the diver?" Jack asked.
"I was saving the best for last, Major," she said. "Virginia, show them the scale, please."
Virginia reached into her lab coat and pulled out a plastic case. She passed it to Jack.
"Without running a complete DNA sequencing, which Heidi is performing right now, I can't tell you much. It is a scale from a freshwater species, but according to every data bank we have, it belongs to nothing in the waters of the world. We don't even have a prehistoric record of a fossil's ever having scales like that. Look at the deep age ridges that run the length of the scale. I thought they would serve no purpose other than to show age, like the rings on a tree or the squares on a tortoise shell. But when I examined it, I found that scale to be almost impenetrable. I used a scalpel and couldn't cut it. The follicle that had attached the scale to its host is almost human. The minute sample of blood from that follicle is just like ours, I even typed it at O negative." She held up a hand when they all started protesting at once. "I don't have answers, people, none at all. Everything we have come across only raises more questions than we have answers for. It was Virginia who came up with something that makes me want to warn the major to take an armed team ashore when you bury the bodies — show them."
Virginia took the plastic case from Jack and held it up to the light. It, too, sparkled with gold.
; "As you can see, it's covered, just like the girl, in gold particles, better known as gold dust. We examined both the gold from the scale and the girl, and found it to have been processed gold. Not gold in its natural state; it had already been heated and smelted. The electron microscope verified it," she said, still holding the scale to the light. "These particles came from bars or ingots, leftovers maybe from the molds that were used. But the scale—" she hesitated.
"What?" Sarah prompted.
"Hold on to your hats. It was also contaminated — with an enriched uranium source, most probably from a damaged tactical nuke that key represents and indicates may be down here. But there is a very strange factor at work here; the blood sample from the scale didn't show any long-term effects of it. Whatever creature this scale came from, it seems to even be impervious to radiation poisoning."
"That's impossible," Keating said at her side.
"It's my fucking field, Professor," she said quietly. "I am perfectly aware of what's possible and impossible, and radiation poisoning is an absolute; there are no immune species of animal. But if we could discover why this particular species is, or was, immune, it would be a find that would benefit mankind beyond belief."
"Why, so we could make nuclear war not only probable, but feasible, give governments the go-ahead to off everybody cleanly with no worries?" Keating argued.
Virginia lowered the scale and faced Dr. Keating. "No, not at all, I'm surprised that you would even think I would consider such an asinine theory," she said, staring Keating down until he looked away and shook his head. "But I was thinking, Professor, that maybe we could save hundreds of thousand of people suffering from cancer the indignity of the effects of radiation treatments. Maybe stop a little girl from throwing up every time modern science tries to help her, or keep her hair from falling out while stopping the pain of chemotherapy — not about making nuclear warfare feasible."
"My apologies, Virginia, stupid comment," Keating said, taking her right shoulder and squeezing.
"Show them the other item, Virginia, the reason why the burial team needs to be armed and watchful," Dr. Waltrip said.
Virginia closed her eyes for a moment and gathered her thoughts. Then she reached into her lab coat and brought out a photograph. "I enlarged this on the computer. I took it of the two statues the Inca had placed on the riverbank," she said as she again held the scale up to the light and then held out the picture for them to compare. "See the scales on the statues; they're lightly etched into the stone. Now look at the ridges on this scale," she held the plastic case back up to the light, "and compare them to what was carved hundreds or maybe thousands of years ago by a race that no longer exists."
"Oh, boy," Carl said.
"The ridges, they're identical. Why would the Incan stone carvers duplicate something on their statues that they could only know about by seeing it?" Sarah wondered.
"Maybe because they were carving from life experience, and the statues they carved were of a real animal," Virginia said as she passed around the scale and photograph.
"I guess Helen Zachary was onto something with that fossil," Jack said.
"Yeah, but it looks like she may not have lived to be congratulated," Danielle said, touching Carl's arm.
* * *
It had taken them another hour to land Jack and a shore party to bury the dead. The entire time it took, the sounds of the rain forest had ceased as if in respect for what was happening. The bodies were put deeply into the earth and covered quickly. Large rocks were placed over them to keep out predators and then Jack hastily hurried the shore party back. All the while, he felt the eyes of the Sincaro, or whoever the modern-day indigenous people were, upon them.
"Carl," Jack said, just before he reached the makeshift boat ramp.
The lieutenant commander stopped and looked around him in the semi-darkness. Sweat rolled down his face as he looked from the forest to the major.
"That key," Jack said.
"Yeah, it's worrisome, Jack."
The thought didn't have to be voiced as Carl was just as well trained in theater-style nukes as was Jack. He knew when you turn an activation key on one of the warheads to arm it, the bottom half of the key snaps off; that's what connects the circuit, creates a bridge, thus allowing the warhead to be activated. Then all you have to do is set the timer, or push a button.
"The key is intact, isn't it, Jack?"
Collins reached in his pocket for the activation key. He held it up and Carl saw the bottom section had a rough edge, just as if it had been snapped off.
"Oh, shit."
"I hate to say it, but we have a live nuke someplace in that lagoon."
They both knew that once the activation circuit has been completed, it couldn't be commanded to just shut off; it would have to be disarmed manually.
"Okay, we both have Broken Arrow training; we can disarm this thing," Jack said.
"Yeah, but where in the hell is it? A pissed-off monkey could set the damned thing off just by looking at it too hard."
"Our priorities have shifted once again, swabby."
* * *
Onboard Teacher, everyone was still on deck save for Danielle Serrate. She was alone in the navigation section, just sitting there. The main screen on the table was dark and she was currently using it as a large coffee coaster. She was so deep in thought she didn't hear Sarah enter.
"So, how are you and Carl getting on?" Sarah asked as she slid into one of the couches next to the exterior bulkhead.
"You're a curious woman, aren't you?"
"Only because I like Carl and I'm cursed with that mothering instinct, especially about him. He needs looking after, like most men do, I guess," Sarah said.
Danielle looked at her for the longest time without comment. Then she smiled. "I don't have that mothering instinct. Other instincts? Yes. But not that particular one."
Sarah returned the smile and slid out from beside the table. "I bet you have other instincts, Mrs. Farbeaux… Damn, I'm sorry, I hate that," she said, shaking her head and gently tapping her forehead, "Ms. Serrate, I mean, but I do bet your instincts are more toward the survival kind."
"That and many other kinds, my dear Sarah," Danielle said as she watched Sarah leave. She stood up, knocking her coffee over in the process, and then she forced herself to calm down. She looked around for a rag and found none, so she glanced quickly into the cockpit area and silently stepped inside.
THE RIO MADONNA, THREE MILES DOWNRIVER
The large boat was cruising along at five knots, matching the last known speed of Teacher. It had taken the captain far longer than he thought it would to get his main mast and antennas up again after exiting the cave. Since then, he had numerous repairs to make as he had inadvertently gouged his hull on several occasions in the darkness of the cave. It was only his sheer ability as a river captain that had kept him from ramming one of the jagged-edged walls. The Frenchman had been a tremendous help, as he had assisted on the bridge, calling out depths and making course correction. The man was indeed very knowledgeable about surviving difficult situations. That fool Mendez and his men were a different story. They had cowered in the total darkness of the cave — a fact they would never live down in the captain's eyes. From here on out, the men from Colombia would have to be watched.
Thus far they had had one casualty on this bizarre journey. While making a physical sounding when the fathometer had failed for an hour, one of his men had entangled the sounding rope on the bow anchor and had reached into the water to free it as two men held on to his ankles while he dangled over the side. The water had suddenly erupted and the man had started screaming. As the men pulled him back aboard, a long trail of blood splashed the white paint as he was lifted up. His hand had been totally bitten off. One of the men, Indio Asana, a man raised in the heart of the Amazon basin, had said that the large fish that did it was unlike any he had ever seen on the river before, with a large jutting jaw and a tail that looked strong enough to snap a two-by-four in half. H
e said that it had fins on it unlike any he had ever seen, and since it was Indio who had said it, the captain had no doubt as to its truth.
"Capitan, I have received a ping from three miles ahead of us," his radio/sonar man said from his small desk in the back of the wheelhouse.
"Senor Farbeaux, a signal from the Americans: someone has pinged us with an active sonar search."
Farbeaux was amazed the captain had any notion as to what an active sonar search involved.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, my equipment, while not state-of-the-art for the U.S. Navy, senor, is quite adequate for us South American rum runners," he said, smiling through his cigar smoke.
"I meant no disrespect, Captain. How far ahead would you say the search originated from?"
"My operator says three miles upriver, senor," he said as he turned the large wheel and started for the bank in anticipation of the Frenchman's order.
"We'd better delay a while; they may have stopped for some reason, maybe an accidental ping? Nonetheless, we better anchor for a while, would you agree, Captain?"
"Si, senor, we are currently doing just that," the captain replied as he straightened the wheel and pulled the Rio Madonna alongside the south bank of the tributary.
Santos ordered the bow and stern anchors out and shut down his twin engines. Several men rushed aft and, with long poles, arrested the momentum of the large tow-barge that contained the Frenchman's equipment. When he was satisfied, he watched the sly Farbeaux as he went to the afterdeck to inform his majesty, Senor Mendez, of the delay. The shouting and tantrum at the unexpected layover would begin momentarily. The captain smiled as he wondered how long it would take for Farbeaux to put a bullet into that idiot's brain.
As he thought this, he wondered just who it had been to accidentally hit the active sonar button on the American boat, an accident that warned them the strange boat was stopped up ahead. Convenient, he thought and then laughed, happy that the Frenchman was on his side. But as he looked upriver his smile faded. Somewhere up ahead was a lagoon that was uncaring of laughter of any kind, rumored to be a place of sheer sorrow, and he was blindly following this Frenchman into the heart of that dark place. The captain removed a strange medal from inside the collar of his shirt, and kissed and replaced it. Then he turned off the overhead light and sat in the darkness, listening for the familiar sounds he had heard since his childhood. Ahead on the river, legends waited, as they had for thousands of years, to greet the greedy hands of man. Again, the captain reached for the medallion under his shirt and then crossed himself.
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