Lei’s lip quivered for a moment before he pulled himself together, straightened his legs, and gave a rigid salute. “Yes, sir!”
Lei turned to leave, spinning in a quick pivot.
“Captain,” Zhou said, causing his son to pause. “If you call me ‘father’ again while in uniform, I will shoot you myself and send your corpse home to your mother.”
Lei gave a slight nod.
“Go,” Zhou said. Lei strode away, his stature perfect, legs rigid, arms taut.
The boy was still young, confused. Zhou knew he’d make an excellent leader some day, but his priorities had to be clarified. With the world in chaos, there was no time to pursue the trite longings of youth. Lei wanted to be a photographer, of all things, not a soldier. He chased after girls and wrote them poems. His head was in the clouds. On this mission, Lei would be taught the importance of respecting and serving his country. He would learn that drawing the blood of China’s enemies was an art in itself, and the sounds of death were poetry so beautiful it could only be expressed once in a lifetime. His curious will would be broken and he would carry China into the future.
And if Lei didn’t measure up, Zhou would leave him behind. He had no use for cowards. They were on the brink of installing a new world order where chaos and immorality would be wiped away, replaced by order and discipline. After Antarctica was secured, built up and populated under a communist banner, stability and prosperity would return to the world...and a new super power would shape it.
Chapter 28
Whitney saw her father glance down at her 9mm which was holstered on her hip. He had never liked weapons and was staunchly opposed to war and killing. He even opposed the death penalty. He used to say, “We’re all sinners, Mira. We all deserve a chance at forgiveness. Murder in response to murder is still murder. A man strapped to an electric chair poses no threat. A murderer locked in a jail cell is no danger to society.”
She would argue that society shouldn’t have to pay for the food murderers ate, or even the water they used flushing the toilet. If they were dead, society as a whole could forget them and move on. This argument never worked with Merrill; she always got a response akin to, “Killing someone to take money or save money . . . both are murder. It is not our place to judge whose life is forfeit and whose is not. It is not our place to condemn a soul to hell. A murderer can still find salvation, Mira.”
She wondered if he’d say the same thing now, knowing Sam had been murdered over a watch. His killer, a twenty-year-old kid, got life in prison. It was a sentence he didn’t deserve. How could someone who so quickly took a life be left alive, even if his remaining life was spent rotting in a jail cell?
“Nice gun,” her father said.
Whitney tripped over a root. She wasn’t expecting a comment like that. It didn’t even sound sarcastic.
“Did the military give you that?” Merrill asked as he pushed some brush to the side, leading Whitney down a long, dark path through the woods. “Be careful up ahead. There are traps on either side of the path.”
“The gun is mine,” Whitney said.
“Can you shoot it?”
“I can hit a Coke can from fifty yards . . . standing still.”
“Good enough,” Merrill said.
Whitney was confused. The anti-Charlton Heston gun control promoter was glad she had a gun?
Merrill climbed a large rock that led up an incline. “Did the military give you a weapon?” He turned and offered his hand to Whitney.
Whitney took her father’s hand and was pulled to the top of a moss-covered rise that led to a new path. “It’s an XM-29 assault rifle. It’s got to be the scariest weapon I’ve ever seen. Dual barrel: an assault rifle combined with a secondary weapon that has smart, explosive rounds.”
“You can shoot that?” Merrill looked surprised.
“Not yet,” Whitney said. “And I hope I don’t have to.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Merrill said.
“Dad . . . ” Whitney’s voice stopped Merrill in his tracks. “What’s going on? You hate guns.”
Merrill rubbed a bandana across his forehead. “Still do,” he said. “But I recognize their worth in certain situations.”
“How is this different?”
“To start with: your gun. I understand why you have it. I imagine you take it everywhere. God knows if your mother had been killed by human hands, I probably would have changed my opinion on capital punishment.” Merrill took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The heat and humidity took their toll on him. While he was used to trekking this route every day, he wasn’t accustomed to holding a conversation at the same time. Vesuvius wasn’t much of a conversationalist.
Merrill’s eyes widened. “Where’s Vesuvius?”
“I left him with Wright. They were hitting it off.”
“We should have brought him,” Merrill said.
Whitney could that see her father was truly nervous. Vesuvius had been all he had for years. Losing the dog would be like losing a family member. “He’ll be fine,” she said.
“I’m not worried about him,” Merrill said. “Vesuvius has become quite good at warning of danger.”
“Danger?” Whitney said. “There is no one around for hundreds of miles. The race doesn’t start for another six hours.”
“Mira, I set the traps long before I knew about the state of the world and this foolish race.”
Whitney held her breath. That hadn’t occurred to her. She’d assumed they were for trapping food, but there were more than a few, and they had been designed to lift heavy weights. “What have you seen?”
“Nothing. Not yet,” Merrill said. “But I can sense it. The hair on my arms rises. My blood pulses behind my ears. It’s like a primal sense warning me of danger. Vesuvius usually picks up on it at the same time. I don’t know what’s out there,” Merrill said, looking into the jungle depths, “but I know it’s been watching me.”
Whitney scanned the area. Her father had never been prone to fits of imagination, aside from his belief in God and ancient mythology. He was cut and dried, black and white. But she had no idea what he’d been through on Antarctica, alone for so long. “Do you have any idea what it could be?”
“Follow me,” Merrill said as he hurried down the path. “We’re not far now.”
Ten minutes of rushing through the jungle brought them to a large tree that blocked the view beyond. Merrill turned to Whitney. “Beyond this tree are things I have searched my whole life to find . . . and now I wish I hadn’t. If what I fear is true, then I’ll want one of your XM-29s as well.”
Whitney couldn’t help but smile. Her father was always dramatic before unveiling a find. “Good, because I’m tired of carrying yours.”
Merrill was shaken from his dramatic presentation. “They’re giving me a gun?”
Whitney nodded. “But it’s meant for shooting people.”
“People are the least of our worries,” Merrill said and stepped around the tree.
Whitney followed and gasped as the jungle gave way to a massive wall. The structure had been created from gigantic, intricately cut stones. It was unbelievable craftsmanship. Whitney quickly shed her backpack, unzipped it, and took out her camera. The lens was attached in seconds and she was snapping pictures from a variety of angles and zooms. She lost track of her father and didn’t notice him waiting thirty feet to her right and closer to the wall. It wasn’t until she saw him in the frame, waving her over, that she realized he wasn’t interested in the wall at all. He was standing over an excavated area, just below the wall.
She was there in seconds. When the excavation came into view, Whitney gasped and came up short. The bones of a man, a very large man, were intertwined with those of . . . a dinosaur. The creature’s jaws were locked over the top of the man’s head. His neck looked broken. And in the man’s hand was a long blade that still looked polished, buried in the chest cavity of the dinosaur. They had died in battle, killing each other simultaneously. A dinosau
r and a man. Whitney’s eyes wandered back to the dinosaur’s head and she recognized the boney, ornate crest above the creature’s eyes. “Crylophosaurus.”
“Very good!” Merrill said. “This man isn’t as large as the other specimen—”
“He’s got to be ten feet tall!”
“Ten feet, three inches.” Merrill pointed to a distant excavation. “You should have seen the one I pulled out of there.”
Whitney then noticed there were test holes approximately every ten feet and full excavations at about a third of them. Her father had been busy.
“Fourteen feet, five inches,” Merrill said proudly.
”Impossible.”
“The crust of the earth shifted forty degrees, killing 2.5 billion people, thawing Antarctica, which has become a tropical rain forest the size of the United States, and you’re telling me a fourteen-foot-tall man is impossible?”
Whitney saw his point. Everything that had happened during the past two months was impossible. “A race of giants, then?”
“Indeed.”
“Any idea who they are?”
“Nothing substantiated, but I have a few ideas.”
“You’ll explain them to me?”
Whitney could see that her father understood her invitation was more about rekindling their relationship than an interest in ancient giants. “Of course,” he said.
Whitney looked back at the horrific scene of violence and death frozen in time. “And this is what you’re afraid of? Giants?”
“Not the giants. They may be big, but they’re still human. They wouldn’t have survived the freeze-dried conditions. Obviously, the rest of the continent had been designed to survive cycles of freezing and thawing, but these people were most likely not indigenous. Crylo, however, was designed to utilize the process of anhydrobiosis—to survive the drying, freezing, and thawing.”
“Designed or evolved?”
“It doesn’t matter which you believe,” Merrill said. “All that matters is that, like the rest of this continent’s ancient denizens, Crylophosaurus has returned.”
Whitney couldn’t help but raise a doubtful eyebrow. “What makes you so sure?”
Merrill pointed to the side of the dig. A trail of footprints had been pressed into the dirt excavated around the two bodies. “That appeared the day after I dug this up.”
Whitney bent down and inspected the three-toed impression. In addition to the three clawed digits, a fourth was at the back. It dug in deep. She turned her camera on the footprint and excavation and began shooting pictures. “This is amazing, Dad. Really.”
The clicking of photo snapping was all Whitney could hear. Her father, however, seemed to have better ears. He took hold of her arm and squeezed. She paused to look at him and noticed his eyes locked on the jungle.
“What is it?”
Merrill bent down to the excavation and pried the dead giant’s fingers away from the prehistoric blade. “Get your gun ready,” he said. “Something’s coming.”
Chapter 29
These dogs were afraid of him; Ahmed al-Aziz could see it in the eyes of the delegates. And not just the Americans. The Chinese, Europeans, Soviets, Brazilians, and the rest. All were afraid of him. They stood only thirty feet away, glancing in his direction but quickly looking away when he met their eyes. Perhaps they knew Allah was on his side. They’d experienced God’s wrath firsthand, and now they knew the truth. God loved the Middle East.
The Americans had been frozen, suffering millions of deaths and losing the majority of their land. A fate they deserved. The Soviets had burned for their transgressions against Allah’s land. The Europeans and their craving for all things American had been equally decimated. All this occurred while the Middle East had been moved to a prime location. The desolate sands were quickly becoming lush, fertile land, and Allah’s people were thriving.
It was true that the Israelis had benefited as well, but they were too busy to compete in the race. A jihad had been declared by the new Arab Alliance. Israel still held a technological advantage, but with sheer numbers and countless martyrs the Arab Alliance would soon reclaim the land that rightfully belonged to Allah’s people.
Yes, Allah had blessed the Middle East and cursed the infidels. And He would continue to pour out his blessings with a victory in this race. It did not matter who shared the continent with them. Jihad would be proclaimed and the infidels would be erased from the new land Allah had given them.
Al-Aziz moved his cold stare from the delegates to the thirteen pairs of men—fellow servants of Allah and soldiers of the Arab Alliance—waiting rather impatiently for the race to start. They had gone with the strategy they knew best and with which they had the most experience: while a core group of twnety men ran for the goal, fifteen cells of two, each with enough explosives to wipe out the other teams entirely had missions of their own. One at a time they would destroy themselves, securing their reward in the next life and keeping every other team from reaching the goal. Ideally, the AA would be the sole winner. With only one winner, the other nations involved would fight over the other two spots, giving the AA time to set up defenses around the entire continent and eventually claim all of Antarctica for Allah.
Al-Aziz let his hands linger by his waist. He reached inside his black vest and felt the squares of C4 strapped to his body. The same explosives were strapped to both men in every cell. The explosives weren’t armed currently and wouldn’t be until minutes before they were needed. They also carried RPGs, mortars, and AK-47s. They would tear into the enemy with everything in their arsenal, and when the enemy was off-balance and confused, they would run through the ranks and become Allah’s martyrs.
“Ahmed,” a voice called. It was Abdul, his partner. He walked closer and whispered into his ear. “Why don’t we kill these infidels now and get started? Just one of us could disintegrate them into dust. Let the birds pick at their bones.”
Al-Aziz knew Abdul’s hatred for the outside world ran deep. His family had been killed by a bomb meant for Saddam Hussein. Al-Aziz had no love for that dictator, either, but Hussein wouldn’t have taken his entire family in one shot. It was a crime Abdul had been eager to avenge for many years. But it made him reckless. His eagerness to kill made him less effective.
“No,” Al-Aziz said. “Would you have us kill the serpent or these worms?” He looked Abdul in the eyes. “They are nothing. If the other nations hear we have killed their people and left early, they will send teams just to stop us. And that is a delay we cannot have. We must abide by this one rule so that we can best do Allah’s work.”
Abdul considered this, searching his thoughts for an opinion. His eyes landed on the delegates. The Chinese were stoic. The Brazilians chatted loudly. And the Americans pretended to act casual, but any fool could see the vigilance in their eyes. One of the Americans caught Abdul’s eyes . . . and smiled!
“No!” Abdul whispered with vehemence. “They are all infidels and jihad has been proclaimed on them all. To let them leave alive is to sin against God. They must die.”
Al-Aziz sighed. Abdul, of course, was right. But it would not be easy, and it had to be done right. He took Abdul by the shoulders. “We will wait until the race has begun. Let them contact their superiors and report our timely start. When they believe we have left, you and you alone will return to finish them. I will carry the weight of our mission alone.”
Abdul grinned. “Thank you, Ahmed. I will be waiting for you with virgins to spare.”
Al-Aziz smiled. “And I will join you soon enough. Now tell the others so that no one else returns.” It was uncommon for cells to communicate, but proximity and the importance of this mission allowed for a break in protocol. He was sure that others like Abdul had entertained the idea of returning, and he couldn’t risk more than one cell, his cell, being handicapped.
Running the race alone was of no concern to al-Aziz. Allah would bless his efforts. “Allah be praised,” al-Aziz whispered. “I will not fail You. Fill me with the spi
rit of your servant Mohammed, may your blessings and grace be upon him, so that I might slaughter the dogs and fulfill your will.”
Chapter 30
Brandishing the curved blade like an ancient warrior, one feature of Merrill’s stance revealed that he’d never faced violent conflict—he was shaking. Whitney had never seen her father so afraid. The print in the mud looked so real, but she found it hard to believe that it had been created by a living, breathing dinosaur.
Eyes on the jungle, Whitney unclipped her 9mm and slowly brought it up, listening intently for any sign of approach. Somehow her father had been able to hear, even sense, the approach of something through the jungle. She had still seen no evidence of an intruder. “Dad,” she said. “I don’t see anything.”
He shushed her and took a step forward, his ear cocked toward the foliage. “I’ve become accustomed to the sounds this jungle makes,” Merrill said. “I’m telling you: something is out there.”
Then Whitney heard something, like the rubbing of sandpaper on wood. It seemed to come from a distance, but if her father was right, taking chances was not an option. “What should we do?”
Merrill shrugged. “I usually wait it out with Vesuvius. I think whatever is out there doesn’t know what to make of him. The original denizens of this continent have seen humans before.” Merrill glanced at the excavation, eyeing the giant man and dinosaur, entwined in death. “We are not strangers here, but Vesuvius is like nothing that has ever lived here.”
“And now that Vesuvius isn’t with you . . .?”
“I don’t know.”
Whitney searched the area for hope of escape and found none. Their backs were against the twenty-five-foot wall. The jungles stretched for hundreds of yards in either direction before enveloping the wall. They were trapped.
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