Ocean of Storms

by Christopher Mari

  “Ma’am, with all due respect to General McKenna,” Deke began with a reddened face, “we’ve trained scientists before. The geologists, for example, who undertook astronaut training in order to go on Apollo—”

  “Geologists?” the President wondered. “Forgive me, but my NASA history is spotty. There were geologists on the Apollo missions?”

  “There was one, ma’am. Harrison Schmitt went on Apollo 17, the last mission. We were planning to send more of them, but then the later missions were, er, cut, due to a lack of funding.”

  “Madam President,” McKenna interrupted, “sending civilians, with the possibility that there may be a hostile force up there—”

  The President held up her hand. “Jim, I understand your concerns, but we’ve been through this before. All the reports indicate that this object crashed into the Moon long ago. I’m sure the crew, if there was any, is long dead. Which to my mind suggests that we might make use of trained archeologists.” She turned to Dieckman. “Do your boys have anyone in mind?”

  “Well, ma’am,” Deke said, pulling a folder from the pile on his lap, “this man came up as candidate number one. Dr. Alan H. Donovan. He’s thirty-five years old, American, currently works for the Zell Institute in England. He’s rated top of his field, though something of a maverick, but he’s an experienced pilot, not trained by any of the armed forces—”

  “Did you say the Zell Institute?” McKenna interjected. “You don’t mean that this guy is running around with Elias Zell?”

  Deke glanced over some papers in the file. “It says here he was Zell’s protégé and now works with him at the institute.”

  “Zell’s a goddamn cowboy, Deke,” McKenna grumbled. “You’ve read all the newspaper reports about him. He’s a glory hound, always dragging along reporters to his digs. We can’t have someone associated with him go on this mission. Besides, it would mean involving the British—”

  “I don’t think we have to worry about the British, General.” The President took the folder and glanced through it. “I’ll take you at your word, Deke.” She slid the folder back across the desk toward McKenna. “General, as head of Space Command, I want you to approach this man, feel him out. If you think he’s a good match and he’s willing to do it, I don’t see why we shouldn’t offer him the scientific find of a lifetime.”

  “But ma’am—”

  “Thank you, gentlemen.” The President stood up; Deke and McKenna followed her example. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to look over the final draft of my address to the nation tonight.”

  “Madam President, if you don’t mind my asking,” Deke said. “Are you planning to tell the public that we’re—”

  “That we’re going back to the Moon? No, I have to reassure the country about the pulse first. We can’t show all our cards just yet.”

  Chapter 3

  December 29

  Qoriwayrachina Dig Site

  Vilcabamba, Peru

  7:15 p.m.

  Dr. Elias Zell pushed back the mosquito-netting flap from his tent and stepped out into the evening air. The sun was slipping below the horizon, casting the entire dig site in a greenish-gold haze. Zell allowed himself a moment to take it all in. Since arriving in Qoriwayrachina, an Incan outpost that may have been a supply center for larger cities like Machu Picchu, they had been working nonstop and were just beginning to reap the rewards. Yesterday alone they had uncovered silver mines that went a long way toward explaining what the Incas may have been doing in such a remote location. Still, though, there was much work to be done.

  The dig at Qoriwayrachina, located at the 12,746-foot summit of Cerro Victoria in the Vilcabamba Range, was just another day at the office for Zell and his team of diggers. As head of the Zell Institute for Archeological Research and Historical Study, he had spent his life in the pursuit of antiquities. The institute had been founded by his father, Thackeray Zell, a respected member of British society who had devoted a considerable portion of his family fortune to uncovering the past. Operating out of Greyhaven Mansion in Burford, in Oxfordshire, Thackeray had used the vast financial resources at his disposal to mount expeditions across the globe. Oh they had laughed at old Thackeray when he made his famous expeditions in search of Noah’s ark and the Holy Grail; he almost destroyed his reputation when he attempted to uncover Atlantis. But the discoveries he did make, most notably the incredible underwater excavation of Cleopatra’s tomb, distinguished him in the minds of mankind for all time.

  Zell sighed, wishing he had some ice for his scotch. He sat down at his collapsible desk just outside his tent, wanting to write down the results of today’s findings in his journal, but couldn’t take his eyes away from Alan Donovan, his former student and now partner, scrabbling up the rocky slopes of Marcana, the mountain that abutted their camp.

  Son of a bitch, he’s still at it.

  Zell shook his head and lit a cigar, half-hypnotized by the blue-gray smoke curling around his lantern. He knew Donovan should get some sleep and that they could do more at first light. But there was no point in saying anything. Once Donovan got his mind set on something, that was it. Zell knew that as soon as the question of where Qoriwayrachina got its water from was raised, Donovan would not rest until he found the answer. And so here he was, searching for the answers, even as the night closed in.

  Zell wished he still had Alan Donovan’s endurance. Though only twelve years older than his partner in archeology, every one of Zell’s bones creaked, every muscle screamed out to remind him of his day’s exertions. I’m only forty-seven, he thought. Why do I feel like a hundred and forty-seven? He looked at his scotch and cigar and smiled. Ah, the causes and cures of so many ailments. Zell knew he was being too hard on himself, that his drinking and cigars were only part of the problem. He had lived the type of adventurous life few men in the twenty-first century still lived, had seen more places than most would ever see, had broken more bones, had come closer to death more times than he could count. If he wanted a cigar and a sip of scotch to blot out the aches, so what? He had lived enough for five men already and was glad of it.

  He thought of Donovan again, out carefully sifting through earth for pieces of the past, the knees of his khaki pants no doubt thick with dirt. With a couple of drinks in him, Zell would tell anyone who was listening how Alan Donovan wouldn’t even lift his head from the ground if the most beautiful girl in the world passed by—not that many gorgeous women sauntered by in their line of work. A bad joke, as he well knew, but that didn’t stop him from repeating it.

  “Elias!” came Donovan’s voice from somewhere above him.

  Zell sat upright. He’d been with Donovan long enough to read the tone of his voice. He’d found something. Zell stood up, hearing the electric pop of his joints as he did.

  “This had better be good, Alan,” he called. “I just was starting to review the day’s work.”

  “Your scotch and cigars can wait,” Donovan called back. “Now get up here!”

  Zell began clawing his way up the embankment. As much as his bones ached, he knew better than to ignore when Alan Donovan had made a find. Alan was one of the brightest students Zell had ever seen. His mind absorbed history and ate up the technical aspects of the archeological field like nobody’s business. But he was stubborn. Boy, was he ever stubborn. Once they had argued for days on the dating of certain skull fragments they had found in South Africa. Alan was convinced they had found a unique australopithecine specimen and did his damnedest to bring Zell over to his way of thinking. A fairly violent battle ensued between teacher and student, one that wouldn’t have been tolerated if Alan had been any other apprentice. Yet, when they had unearthed the rest of the skeleton, Zell was forced to agree with his conclusions.

  At last he reached Donovan’s position. His old student was standing amid a set of hidden gullies, grinning almost madly as he watched the water roar past. The wind caused by the water’s force whipped through his thick black hair. Donovan, his gray-blue eyes dancing, loo
ked at his old friend.

  “There’s our water supply!” he said.

  “Amazing,” Zell marveled. “So what’s your theory, Doctor?”

  “There’s got to be a second lake up there somewhere,” Donovan said. “Maybe made up of meltwater from Marcana’s snows. But that’s not all—look.”

  Donovan led Zell to a section of the mountain where a line of stones seemed to form a channel that took the water more than five miles from the lake down to Qoriwayrachina. Zell looked at the channel a moment, the gears in his head now whirring.

  “That’s a lot of effort on the part of the Incas,” he said. “Makes you wonder what was so important about this area that they’d go this far to sustain it.”

  Donovan clapped Zell on the shoulder. “Exactly!” he said. “All the more reason we need to get back to work at first light.” He turned to walk down the mountain. “Come on, Luis and Cristian will want to hear about this.”

  As Donovan and Zell began to make the trek back to camp, Zell looked at his friend and spoke. “Your father would be proud, you know.”

  “My father?” asked Donovan. “He was a geologist, not an archeologist, remember?”

  Donovan moved ahead of Zell, leaving him with his memories. Hunter Donovan had been one of the geologists selected for the Apollo missions, one of the many who never got the chance to go to the Moon, Zell recalled. But Hunter’s case was different. It wasn’t budget cuts that sidelined him but a minor heart fibrillation, so minor that many doctors questioned whether he even had one. Yet that didn’t stop NASA’s doctors from grounding him, though Zell long suspected there was more to their decision than that. Cal Walker, a top rocket engineer at NASA, hated geologists on principle, figuring that any astronaut could be taught to do what they did. And he had a particular hatred for Hunter, who was considered the best prospect for the geologist-astronaut program since he was also a trained pilot from his time in the navy.

  That prick really screwed you good, old friend, Zell thought as he scanned the ghost of the Moon, now just coming into view.

  Zell turned his attention back toward the past as he made his way down the slope. Alan works himself too hard, Zell mused. He works himself because of what his father was and what his father became. Hunter Donovan was the most disciplined man Zell ever knew, disciplined in such a way that if you pulled one piece from the way he was built, the whole man crumbled. Walker and NASA took that piece from Hunter and he was never the same.

  He had been in awe of Hunter Donovan. Zell had met the man through his father, shortly after Hunter left NASA. Not only had Hunter been an ace navy pilot and chosen for the astronaut program, he had also received advanced degrees in geology and was one of the leading experts on the geological history of the Moon. He was a man not unlike Teddy Roosevelt, someone who could be a hundred things at once and never seem lacking in any category. Thackeray had selected him to accompany the institute on a dig in Antarctica. Hunter had helped them excavate and analyze thousands of meteorite samples on the East Antarctic ice sheet. But, in spite of his achievements, Hunter was well on the way to his ruination. As much as he had tried to block the disappointment of being grounded, and later the loss of his young wife to cancer, he couldn’t stop dwelling in the past. His drinking finally caught up with him when he died of a heart attack. By that point, the only job he had been able to hold down was dusting crops somewhere near Modesto, California. Left without a father, Alan was taken in by Thackeray and raised at the institute. Zell, then in his early twenties, became something of a big brother to the twelve-year-old orphan. Many times, when he was home on break from Oxford, Zell would tell Alan tales of the Han dynasty, the Ark of the Covenant, and the mysteries that lay scattered below the world’s oceans. As he grew older, Donovan began joining Zell and Thackeray on digs all over the globe. When Zell took over the institute after his father’s death, there was no question in Alan’s mind where he belonged. Over the years, through scores of adventures, their friendship had evolved from mentor to student to a more equal plane, one built on mutual respect and admiration.

  “Come on, Elias,” Donovan called from the mountain’s base. “What’s the matter? Can’t walk as fast without your cane?”

  Zell dismissed him with a wave of his hand and walked over to the camp, where some of the other members of their team were working on the day’s findings. One of them, a young man named Canessa, was reviewing his findings at a burial chamber.

  “Look here,” he said, calling Donovan and Zell over. “The bones we found, the woman. She’s Inca, but nothing else about the cist is.”

  “And where’s the skull?” wondered Donovan. “Usually that’s the last to decay.”

  Cristian, another member of the Peruvian team, spoke up. “It’s possible it’s in another cist.”

  “Maybe,” said Zell. “This woman was someone of importance,” he noted, gesturing at some of the objects on the table. “Look at the silver pin. An average Inca woman fastened her shawls with copper.”

  As the team continued reviewing their work, a wind began to pick up, softly at first, then swirling with the force of a gale. Zell looked up into the sky, wondering why there weren’t any threatening clouds overhead. Then he heard the almost silent whump-whump-whump of a muted engine and looked over the treetops to see the lights of an American black-ops helicopter coming toward their site. Donovan was running toward it, screaming and gesturing.

  “The woman, the woman!” yelled Canessa, throwing a tarp over the bones.

  All that work ruined, Zell thought. But before he could get as angry as Alan was, he began to wonder what a military helicopter was doing at their site. Not to evict them. Then what?

  From the helicopter emerged a silver-haired army general about sixty years of age. He held his hat under his arm, and between his teeth was a large, unlit Havana cigar. The lights from the helicopter illuminated his green uniform, its sharpness contrasting with Donovan’s disheveled attire. Zell crouched beneath the still-whirling blades and approached the newcomer. Donovan was already giving him an earful.

  “Do you have any fucking idea how much work you’ve just ruined?” Donovan demanded.

  The general kept his ramrod military bearing under the whirling blades, which was fine, as he couldn’t have been more than five feet seven. “Am I speaking to Dr. Alan H. Donovan of the Zell Institute?”

  “You’re damn right you are. Who the hell are you?”

  “General James Francis McKenna, at your service, sir.”

  “Well, General James Francis McKenna, what the hell gives you the right to—”

  The general turned to Zell. “And you must be Dr. Elias Zell.”

  “I am, General. I assume you didn’t just come here to destroy my dig and make small talk, so let’s get down to it, shall we?”

  “Sorry for any trouble we may have caused,” he said, sliding a finger across his throat so the pilot would cut his engines.

  Donovan looked as if he were ready to deck the diminutive general. “What’s this all about, General McKenna?”

  “It’s a matter of national security, Dr. Donovan. I’ve been cleared to brief both you and Dr. Zell on it.”

  Donovan’s eyes narrowed. “What matter of national security?”

  “Well, Dr. Donovan, it’s about the pulse.”

  “The pulse?” Donovan asked. “What’s that got to do with us?”

  “What’s the pulse got to do with you?” McKenna asked, flabbergasted.

  Zell stepped forward, a genial smile on his face. “Forgive my colleague, General. He gets somewhat absorbed in his work.”

  “That’s exactly why we’ve sought you out.” McKenna looked around at the team of diggers who had now gathered around the helicopter. “Is there someplace a little quieter, where we can talk?”

  “My tent,” Zell said, gesturing toward it. “That is, if your pilot hasn’t blown it into the valley.”

  Donovan sat on Zell’s cot, scratching at a week’s growth of black stubble. He
shook his head again and turned to Zell, who was sitting next to him trying to rekindle his extinguished cigar with his gold Zippo. The general sat in Zell’s spare chair bolt upright with his hat in his lap. The air inside the tent was thick with the scent of expensive cigars.

  “So let me get this straight,” Donovan said. “NASA believes that this EM pulse came from the Moon, and they want me to tag along on some tossed-together mission and dig up whatever caused it?”

  “That’s the long and short of it, Dr. Donovan. The government ran a computer check of all qualified American archeologists, and your name popped up as candidate number one.”

  “And why is that?” Donovan wondered.

  “Your experience in finding artifacts in hard-to-reach places,” the general noted, “and of course your, shall we say, unorthodox methods that speed up recovery rates.”

  “This wouldn’t have anything to do with NASA screwing my father out of a mission on Apollo, would it?”

  The general seemed genuinely surprised. “I was not aware that your father was an astronaut, Dr. Donovan.”

  “He wasn’t, thanks to NASA. They wanted geologists, and they got a ton, but when it came right down to it, it was a matter of who kissed the most brass.”

  “Alan,” Zell said, shooting him a look. “General, now my field isn’t electromagnetics, but isn’t it possible that this pulse was caused by some kind of—I don’t know—naturally occurring phenomenon?”

  The general tapped some ash off his cigar in a nearby ashtray. “A lot of folks have said that. But they don’t know what I’m about to tell you—a naturally occurring phenomenon doesn’t send along landing coordinates.”

  “Landing coordinates?” A wave of shock overcame Zell’s face. “Are you certain?”

  “Positive. They’re the landing coordinates to the Ocean of Storms. Some of the brightest minds at NASA have speculated that the fissure and the resulting EM pulse that emanated from it was just a way of getting our attention.”