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 of
f. 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. He 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.
“Capitán, 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.
“Señor 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, señor, 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, señor,” 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?”
“Sí, señor, 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, Señor 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.
PART FIVE
TH LOST WORLD
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before …
—EDGAR ALLAN POE
17
When Teacher slowly rounded a large bend, the calm waters suddenly angered and turned white with foam rapids. Jenks cursed and threw the two diesels into reverse. The crew, half on duty, half off and asleep in their bunks, were tossed forward. The ones on watch mostly lost their footing and fell to the deck, while the others cursed as they had heads slammed into overheads. A few even fell out of their tight bunks.
Jenks found he was fighting a losing battle as the river took hold of Teacher and thrust her forward as if she were on a wave. Whitewater was thrown over her bow glass as if she was submerging beneath the river. He cursed again when he felt a sudden blow underneath the hull and the boat rose two feet into the darkened space under the impenetrable canopy of trees. He found the emergency switches that controlled the underwater shields for the view ports and hit all as fast as he could. He couldn’t hear the hydraulic whine that told him the steel shields were sliding into place.
Jack pulled himself along the sections until he reached the cockpit, and threw himself into the copilot’s seat.
“What’ve we got here, Chief?” he asked as he placed his chair harness over his shoulders and tightened it down.
“Rapids out of nowhere, no warning at all; there wasn’t a change in current indicating we had rough water ahead.”
As they watched, Teacher slammed herself into a large rock outcropping and bounced back into the center of the now crazy tributary. She rocked twenty degrees to starboard and he could hear curses from the back as more people were slammed to the deck. Jack reached out, keyed the 1MC mic, and addressed those in the back.
“Everyone strap in,” he shouted over the noise of the rapids.
Jenks pulled the joystick all the way to the right, trying to right Teacher as she again slammed into the far left bank. He could hear the twin jets at the stern as they caught mud and sand on the bank and shot it high into the air. Alarms started sounding on the console. There was a fire warning in the engineering section, and several hatch openings were reported. A damage alarm rang from section five, indicating she was taking on water.
“Son of a bitch! I hope those boys are standing by on that fire alarm,” Jenks said as he throttled the engines into full reverse.
Teacher didn’t respond as she ran for the center of the tributary.
“We’re on a steep incline,” Jack called out after looking at the level gauge.
“Impossible. There wasn’t any current to speak of, unless we’re falling into some sort of a damned hole,” Jenks called back.
Other alarms sounded as Teacher was gouged somewhere in section eight.
“Chief, we have a major hole to the aft of section seven, between it and section eight,” Carl called over the intercom.
“Handle it, Toad, we’re a tad busy up here,” Jenks said as the huge boat slammed into a rock in the center of the tributary and careened up into the air again before slamming back down into the white water with a giant splash, sending the cockpit ten feet beneath the swirling water. Again Teacher struck the right bank, this time encountering mostly rock. They all heard the sickening crunch of buckling composite material as she righted herself and rolled hard to port.
As suddenly as the white water had appeared it vanished, and Teacher was left spinning in a slow circle in the center of a much broader tributary. The floodlights picked out the twin banks as they spun toward the shoreline and then as they faced the river. Jenks hit the starboard jets and Teacher slowed her spin, but one of the jets must have sustained damage because she didn’t slow fast enough. Finally the huge boat hit the sandy bank and that stopped her from spinning. He did the same on the aft-section jets and she stopped her spin off the rebound of the bank that would have sent her in the opposite direction. Jenks flipped the switch for automatic station keeping and hoped the system still functioned after the roller-coaster ride she had taken. Teacher was never designed for whitewater rafting. All was calm as he heard the jets engage in alternating blasts of water. Finally Teacher was at a complete standstill. The lights in all the aft sections had gone out and the crew was navigating by dull battery-driven emergency lighting only.
“Major, just aft of this section you’ll find her lighting and instrumentation fuse box. Get that breaker back in so we can see how badly she’s hurt, will ya?”
Jack unstrapped his safety harness and made his way aft. He quickly found the glass-covered panel and opened it. Three large breakers had popped. He pushed the first one and then the other two. The overheads came back on, and he could sense all hands breathed a sigh of relief. He heard Jenks on the intercom.
“Engineering, what’s your status?” he asked.
“Give us a minute, Chief, we’re still putting back some of the pieces here,” Mendenhall called to him.
Jack went to check on the others. He encountered Sarah and Danielle, who were assisting the cook with a small fire that had broken out on the stov
e. The overhead fans were clearing out the smoke and he figured they had it under control, so he moved on. At section eight he saw that Carl, Sanchez, and Professors Ellenshaw and Keating were tightening the frame around one of the underwater viewing windows that sat below the waterline. There was about two feet of water around their ankles as they worked.
“Got it?” Jack asked.
Carl looked up and nodded. He had received quite a gash on his forehead.
“See to that, Carl,” Jack said, pointing at his own forehead, and moved off again.
The rest of the science department was all right with only a few light injuries and equipment damage. It was in the engineering section that Jack became worried. Four feet of water was lapping at the two engine platforms. Mendenhall was kneeling in it, reaching around the number two engine.
“What’ve you got, Will?” Jack asked.
Mendenhall sat back in the water and looked up. “Engine two has broken clear off her motor mounts, Major. She won’t be working for a while. Her shaft to the main jet is bent like a pretzel, and we’re looking at atleast five days of repair time.”
Jack walked over to the intercom and called Jenks.
“Chief, we’ve lost number two for extensive repairs. Number one looks all right, but we’ll have to take it slow.”
Legend: An Event Group Thriller Page 30