“But what if they are real?” Maria cried out in frustration. “These are part of history, and you have no right to keep them from the rest of the world.”
“You said earlier that you wanted to find the truth, Burr,” Eli said. “Well here it is, looking you square in the eye. We were meant to find this chest. Think about it, Burr, do you really contend that everything that has transpired up to now has been merely by chance? Discovering Simon’s parchment, our escape from those madmen on Tenerife, the quake that revealed the opening to this lava tube, and the one in a million chance that we would be at the precise spot where the chest was located when a tremor occurs, revealing it to us after two thousand years; these can't be mere coincidences.”
Burr’s eyes softened for a moment as he reflected on the elder Turner’s reasoning, but the fires of his deeply-rooted hatred of religion regained control of his emotions once again.
“I don’t care about what you consider to be the truth, Turner. My truth, and, the truth of those I speak for, won’t be silenced by a hand full of ancient trinkets,” he spat, as he waved the gun back and forth. “You were a fool to believe I wanted to help you, Turner. I plan to make sure these relics never see the light of day. I will never stop in my task of ridding our society of ideology that is based on myth and superstition.”
“Yeah I know, you keep using that concept of moral ideology as an excuse for your hatred,” Eli said. “What happened to you to make you hate religion so much?”
“I was hoping nature would have resolved this little problem without the need for violence. If I had realized that this volcano was going to erupt, I would have never suggested us coming here. I knew that you would not be able to let it rest,” Burr said, ignoring the question that burned into his tortured soul.
“You didn’t answer my question, Burr. Why do you hate religion so much?” Eli asked again softly, hoping to gain the intellectual upper hand as the heat in the tunnel became more oppressive. “A person of faith strives to live an upright life based on their core beliefs. How does that hurt, what you call, a free-thinking person? A free-thinking person, as you describe, has a right to choose based on facts along with all the evidence presented. By doing this, you are being a hypocrite of the very ideology you purport to stand for. Why don’t you—”
“Shut up!” Burr yelled as he waved the gun wildly at them, not wanting to hear any more as his tortured mind screamed at him. “Stand away from the chest, both of you.”
Eli and Maria slowly backed away from the ledge where the copper chest sat. As the two backed up to the opposite wall of the lava tube, Burr slowly walked over to the ledge. Looking quickly at its contents and then back at the two archaeologists, he swung his backpack off his shoulder and opened it. Burr proceeded to pick up the woven thorn bush, which pricked his finger and drew blood, and then forced it into the backpack along with the olive wood chalice.
At that moment, Eli felt a sudden sense of serenity and peace that he had never felt before; expunging any feeling of fear, or trepidation of their predicament. As in a slow motion world, images of his dead wife and his son permeated his mind. Those were followed by visions of a good and fruitful life doing what he loved. He felt young and reborn, as if he were a brash, youthful student back at Texas A&M. He looked at Maria and smiled at her; a smile that caused her to look at him in confusion.
“It’s okay, Maria,” he said gently as he grabbed her hand, holding it for a moment. “I think I understand now. Please tell Josh that I love him.” He released her hand then started walking towards Burr, who now held the copper scroll in his hand.
“Stay back, Turner,” he spat with malice in his voice. He pointed the pistol at Eli, who just smiled and continued to approach.
“You were part of this plan also, Burr,” Eli said, coming closer as he raised his hands and outstretched his open palms towards the copper scroll.
“Eli, no!” Maria screamed as the single shot rang out, reverberating throughout the lava tube over the racket of the escaping steam from the newly formed fissures. Eli slowly fell to his knees as blood began to issue from the wound in his chest, streaking red crimson on his shirt. He continued to hold his hands upward at the copper scroll that Burr held tightly. Just then, the scroll began to glow and Burr stared incredulously at it.
“This is my truth,” Eli said softly as the copper scroll began to illuminate the cave with a blinding light. Terrified at the sight, Burr threw down the radiating scroll, which rolled in front of Eli as Maria stared in astonishment.
“What kind of trick is this?” Burr yelled as Eli, illuminated by the brilliant glowing scroll, smiled at Burr.
“No trick, Burr. Like I said, this is my truth,” Eli responded serenely, as if he were disconnected from his now bleeding body. “Nothing is impossible. If I have the faith to say to this mountain ‘move’, then it will move.” Now feeling the pain of his wound, he slowly slumped to the floor.
Maria ran over to him, knelt down, and cradled him in her arms.
“Eli,” she cried softly. “Why?”
At that moment, forces beneath the Cumbre Vieja were going through turbulent changes. The Scalar weapon had abruptly changed from dispersing momentous heat within the magma core to one of absolute cold from the weapons conversion to an endothermic wave form by Yashiro. It was as if someone had dispensed a titanic iceberg into a sea of boiling water with the same catastrophic reaction.
The heat began to quell instantly within the magma chamber kilometers below the island, resulting in a tremendous shock wave from the instant cooling. The pressure wave radiated toward the surface, causing a thunderous sonic boom heard hundreds of miles away from its epicenter. Windows were shattered all over the island of La Palma and people were shaken to the ground from the devastating shock wave that now moved across the waters at super-sonic speeds. This final chaotic insult was far too much for the already weakened western flank of the Cumbre Vieja to endure. Ever so imperceptibly, a half-trillion ton of rock began to lose its friction force under the superheated caldera and slide toward the sea far below the ancient volcano.
Back in the lava tube, the tremendous sonic boom and subsequent shock wave stunned Maria and Burr. Its thunderous report deafened them and left a ringing in their ears. Maria threw herself on top of Eli, who lay motionless on the floor bleeding from his chest wound. Burr was forcefully thrown backward against the basalt wall, striking his head and falling unconscious.
The fault line traversing the Cumbre Vieja’s ridge ruptured violently along its entire length with an agonizing crack that sounded like a gigantic thunderclap. Maria, her ears still ringing loudly, saw the ground beneath Burr suddenly split apart as she desperately tried to drag Eli away from the ever-widening fissure.
After dragging Eli to the high side of the lava tube, she saw a light emanating from the ceiling of the dust-laden tunnel and realized it was actually the light of day. Astonishingly, the ground above them was being peeled back, rumbling downward like a colossal sliding roof.
Alton Burr, who now began to regain consciousness, felt himself being dragged helplessly by the momentum of the widening crack into the deep chasm that was forming beneath him. He screamed in terror as he clawed desperately at the loose basalt, not able to gain a firm hold. Sliding further and further downward, he soon found himself wedged at the bottom of the forty-foot deep fissure.
The earth trembled violently around Maria as she felt a hand touch her shoulder. Eli said something, but with the ringing in her ears from the shock wave, she could not hear his voice. She made a gesture to her ears, signifying her lack of ability to hear him.
“Get the backpack,” Eli mouthed, pointing weakly to the bag lying dangerously close to the chasm. Beside the backpack sat the copper scroll that now ceased its luminance. He looked at her pleadingly, and then shut his eyes in pain. Maria started to crawl along the still trembling rocky floor toward the gigantic fissure, which was still slowly moving. She gazed at the scroll, wondering what made it emit
such a radiant light. Maria then carefully picked up the scroll and put it in the backpack with the other items.
The ringing in her ears finally began to subside, and she was able to discern the sound of Burr screaming somewhere below. She carefully crawled to the edge of the newly-formed precipice, where she looked down to see Burr lying helpless at the bottom and howling in agony. His right leg was mangled and crushed under the huge sliding landmass, which slowly pulled his body inward like a gigantic paper shredder.
“You’ve got to help me!” Burr cried out in blinding agony as another sliding jolt pulled him in further. His hip joint was ripped out of its socket as he let out a blood-curdling scream. Maria looked at Eli, who lay silently with his eyes closed coughing up bits of blood. He has done nothing to deserve this fate, she thought angrily. He has been my mentor and friend and almost a father to me. She gazed at him with affection then looked back down at Alton Burr, who held out his bloody outstretched hand.
“Say hello to El Diablo for me, Mr. Burr,” she yelled down to him, leaving Alton Burr, the ACLU Lawyer who would run for Congress and beat God, to his fate.
Maria clutched the backpack and crawled back to Eli Turner. With her eyes now closed, she held on tightly to Eli as the momentous trembling of the slide slowly progressed. Burr’s tortured screams mercifully ended after the first few minutes. Then suddenly, the trembling began to cease. Miraculously, the tremendous island-sized landmass stopped its progression to the sea. In the unexpected silence, she opened her eyes and smiled to see Eli looking up at her.
“Don’t forget my hat,” he said weakly. Eli smiled back at her and coughed as the stain on his blood soaked shirt began to spread further.
“God forbid, you’d lose your hat,” she said tearfully, reaching behind him and picking up the elder Turner’s outback hat and placing it gently on his head. “Do you think you can manage walking?” Maria asked as she opened his shirt and stuffed her bandana onto the wound. This caused him to wince in pain.
“Not if you keep doing that,” he managed to reply in protest.
“I’ve got to stop the bleeding, Eli. I’m sorry,” she said as she got up to look around at what was left of the lava tube. The dust was starting to settle and she could now see the magnitude of what had just occurred. Immediately, she realized just how precarious their position was.
The ancient lava tube was now part of a ledge that ran the entire length of the Cumbre Vieja. It was the demarcation point where the western flank separated and began its slide to the sea, then astonishingly ceased its downward trek. They were now on a ledge that overlooked a gaping three-hundred foot drop, with no way up or down. She saw that the huge hand-shaped monolith where the rope was once tied had tumbled down the side of the caldera. It shattered into a million pieces, taking with it their only way off the ledge.
Maria hesitated for a moment when she heard a sound coming from overhead. She finally saw the blue and white Bell Ranger that transported them to La Palma coming up the rise. She began yelling and waving frantically at it. The pilot just barely escaped from the plateau when the shock wave had begun. He assumed that his party had been killed by the massive quake but came up the ridge line to look for survivors. He could not see Maria and Eli on the ledge, so he continued flying east to the safety of Tenerife.
“There goes our ride, Maria,” Eli said weakly, looking at the sleek Ranger as it headed out of sight. “What now?”
Maria fumbled through the backpack searching for anything that could help them. Pulling Burr’s cell phone out of the backpack, she smiled. “We’ll have to call for a cab.”
After dialing the number, she looked up at the sky. As the late day sun began its slow descent to the west over the Atlantic Ocean, the horizon turned a crimson red. Tons of ash still belched skyward from the Cumbre Vieja caldera as its magma core slowly began to cool; receding back into the Earth.
30
Behind the loading platform outside of the Bishamon facility, Captain Saune and his remaining men continued their desperate firefight with Yagato Osama’s Yakuza soldiers. They had not made any progress since their helicopter drop-off earlier. The situation was dire and without a miracle, Saune knew in his heart that they were going to die.
Saune stood and fired the last 40mm grenade from his rifle launcher, but with no luck. Osama’s men were well-entrenched high above in the cave entrance. Two more of Saune’s men lie dead as the soldiers fired unmercifully down upon the bullet-ridden metal platform. He and his sergeant huddled with their backs to the platform as another barrage of bullets whizzed over them. Both were down to their last ammo clips.
“Captain,” Sergeant Ortega yelled above the rain of bullets spraying overhead. “I don’t think we’re gonna’ get out of this one alive. Do you think we should surrender?”
“These guys don’t take prisoners, Ortega,” Captain Saune yelled back, resolving that this was to be their last stand. He only hoped that Turner and Samuel would succeed in their mission inside the complex.
“Captain Saune,” a voice came through on his earpiece, which he knew to be one of the men over by the boulder. “We’re running low on ammo here. Two of the men are already out,” he reported anxiously. Saune hit the transmitter of his radio VHF replying, “Conserve your ammo and make every shot count.”
He then slumped back, low against the platform, knowing that it was a hopeless situation and he was to blame for the deaths of these good men. Hitting the transmitter again, he spoke. “Gentlemen, whatever happens, I want you all to know that you fought with valor and it has been a privilege to serve with all of you.” He closed his eyes, feeling death’s grasp coming closer with each moment.
Suddenly, from the earpieces they wore came a crackling sound. A new voice boomed over each man’s VHF link.
“To the combatants on the ground, this is Colonel Kyle Sears of the United States Marine Corps. What is your present situation, and can I be of assistance? Over….”
All the embattled Tenerife National Guardsmen cheered with elated hearts at hearing those words. Captain Saune wiped a tear of relief from his eye, smiled at the sergeant, and hit him joyfully on the back.
“Colonel Sears, we’ve got some men down here that are real glad to hear your voice,” Saune said. “I am Captain Rafael Saune of the Tenerife National Guard. We are in a desperate situation here, Colonel. We're pinned down below the Bishamon facility on its western flank. Our opponents control the high ground above us in a cave opening beneath the facility. We cannot advance and our ammo is low. Over....”
“Roger that, Captain,” Sears responded. “I have an ETA of three minutes coming from your northeast. We have your VHF signal pinpointed and on our screen. Just keep your heads down, gentlemen, ‘cause when I get there, I promise all hell’s gonna break loose. Over....”
“Roger that, Colonel, but please be advised that the combatants in the tunnel entrance have ground to air missiles. Over....”
“Not a problem, Captain. Thanks for the heads up. Sears, out….”
The AH-1F Cobra, armed to the teeth with its front-mounted, three-barreled, 20mm Gatling cannon and side-mounted 70 mm rockets, roared up the western slope of Mt. Teide in the direction of the melee. Its GPS guidance was up-linked to the USS. Hazleton, which was now a mere twenty-five nautical miles off the northwest coast of La Palma and approaching at full speed.
At that moment, the USS Milford was already preparing its deadly Tomahawk Block III TLAM missile for launch. It now awaited the final inertial guidance programming that would maneuver the 1440kg missile over water. Once the five and a half meter rocket, loaded with 450kg payload of explosives, made landfall, the Terrain Contour Matching (TERCOM) system would engage and direct the weapon over ground contours to its target.
“I’m going hot on the master arm switch, Ward,” Sears said to his co-pilot gunner. He then toggled the weapons control switch, giving Ward the rocket and gun control. Pressing the zone arm switch, the rocket management system display unit came to
life and armed the Cobra’s complement of side-mounted missiles.
“Roger, Colonel. I set the PEN-M dial to SQ and have green on the board,” he reported, setting the penetration and detonation of the rockets to super-quick mode on the rocket management system display unit. “Heads up display is powered and set in normal mode, Colonel.”
“Okay, Lieutenant, here we go,” Sears said as he brought his Cobra down from the summit of Mt. Teide and followed its ridge toward the lower slopes.
Cruising at an altitude of one thousand feet above the desolate landscape, Sears could clearly make out the domes of the astronomical observatory on the higher ridge. He could see, farther south, a lone building sitting on the ridge of an old caldera. He scanned the surrounds of the complex and saw the thick black smoke from the weapons’ fire. He knew, without a doubt, he’d found his target.
“Get ready, Lieutenant Ward,” he ordered to his CPG. “I’m going to stand off just to the northwest and let you acquire.”
“Roger, Colonel,” Ward replied as the sleek Cobra pitched upward and came to a standstill, hovering within view of the Bishamon facility. “Colonel, I see the cave entrance, but can’t make out where the friendlies are.”
“Hang on, Lieutenant; let me give you some altitude,” Sears replied, lifting the craft higher above the ridge.
“Got ‘em, Colonel,” Ward said in a calm tone. “They’re about one hundred fifty feet below the cave. A little close for my likings, but they should be alright.”
“Let’s do it,” Sears said with finality, banking the attack Cobra in toward the plateau like a bird of prey.
Captain Saune was the first of his men to see and hear the Cobra coming in over the ridge as bullets whizzed past their precarious position behind the platform. Sergeant Ortega had taken a wound to the left arm from shrapnel as one of the many rockets launched against them exploded just to their left.
“Heads down, men,” Saune yelled over the VHF transmitter as he and his fellow guardsmen dove to the rocky, dirt-strewn ground.
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