A day later.
The snowfield seemed endless to Katrina, a continent of white that stretched farther than she could see. They were all tied together and carried sticks and prodded the snow as they walked. If Indy tumbled into a fissure, they could surely pull him out. The same might be true if Jack were pulled in after Indy. But if Katrina followed them into a chasm, she figured the two Turks would quickly join them. It would be a sudden end to the expedition, which had already lost its leader.
If Jack hadn't stayed at her side, comforting her through the hours after her father's death, Katrina didn't know if she would have had the courage to continue the ascent. Although she appreciated Jack's support, her feelings were as frozen as the ice and snow that surrounded them. The emotional numbness was self-imposed, a requirement for her very survival. She couldn't break down or the expedition would collapse and her father's dream would never be realized. So she pressed on, scaling the mountain with a determination that she had hardly known she possessed.
The clouds were only a few hundred feet above them, and still descending. Katrina fought off a sense of hopelessness. The Ark could be buried beneath the snow and ice of any of the valleys and canyons they'd already climbed through. But if the Russian army report, which Papa had intercepted ten years ago, was correct, the Ark was visible during the summer months.
She tried not to think about how she had turned against her father in his last few minutes of life. She didn't want those feelings roaming free. He'd been a good man. That was what she thought, and she was going to fulfill his last wish. Just before he'd died, he'd whispered in her ear. "There. The Ark. See it?"
Nature wasn't their only adversary. Shannon hadn't forgotten about the Janissaries. Every time they'd had a good view of the landscape above and below them, he had stopped the procession and taken out Zobolotsky's binoculars which Katrina had given him. First, he would peer up the mountain, searching for a sign of the Ark, then he would turn his gaze to the snowfields below them. Each time, without a word, he put away the glasses and they continued climbing, a sojourn they'd all agreed to complete.
After Indy had told him and Katrina about the fate of the Russians, he asked who wanted to go back down the mountain in the morning. Although Shannon was curious about what was ahead, he was ready to call it quits, if that was what the others wanted. To his surprise, Katrina had spoken adamantly against turning back. This was her father's expedition and he would not only want to be buried on the mountain, he would also want them to complete his quest, she'd said.
After her speech, no one dissented. Jack was proud of Katrina and more infatuated than ever with her. Although she had yet to open up to him, she accepted his comfort and support. He even felt she needed it, and this gave him hope; perhaps they would have a future together beyond their time in Turkey.
In the morning they'd buried Zobolotsky's body in the shelter where they'd slept. Katrina had kissed her father, then laid the Ark wood on his chest and crossed his hands over it.
"You sure you want to do that?" Indy had asked.
"The Ark wood belongs with him."
Shannon knew exactly what Indy was thinking. If it was wood from the Ark, it was a treasure that belonged to humanity, and besides, Zobolotsky had stolen it. But Indy did the right thing and kept quiet. He and Jack draped the body with a tarp, and then with the help of Omar and Ahmet, they'd covered it with a mound of rocks.
Katrina asked him to read something from the Bible before they left. He agreed, of course, and she requested Luke 17, verses 22 to 26, which was what her father had been reading over and over during the past few days.
Shannon had looked it up, read it three times to himself, and then as the others waited he'd read it aloud.
"Then he said to the disciples, 'The time will come when you will wish you could see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. There will be those who will say to you, "Look, over there!" or, "Look, over here!" But don't go out looking for it. As the lightning flashes across the sky and lights it up from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must suffer much and be rejected by the people of this day. As it was in the time of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man."
Shannon thought he knew why Zobolotsky had read the verses over and over. They could be interpreted to mean that the discovery of the Ark would herald the return of the Son of Man. Zobolotsky must have seen himself as a Christlike figure, who'd suffered and been rejected. His quest had been the butt of jokes among Indy's peers and the press. His chief allies had been people who were more concerned with the political implications than the spiritual ones. But Zobolotsky also lied and deceived. He was a man, not a God.
Shannon could also see how the Janissaries could interpret the words to mean that the discovery of the Ark would bring on Judgment Day. Maybe they were right. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe it wasn't time for the Ark to be found. Who was he to be responsible for what could be the virtual end of the world?
He stopped. "Wait a minute."
Indy turned and frowned. "Now what?"
Katrina looked concerned. "Are you okay?"
Shannon bent down, picked up a handful of snow, and smeared his face with it.
"What are you doing?" Indy asked.
"I just want to clear my head. I think the altitude is getting to me."
Katrina bent down next to him. "Can you make it?"
"Sure. But do we want to make it?"
Katrina gave him a puzzled look as they both stood up. "What do you mean?"
"I was starting to think that this might be a mistake, that maybe we shouldn't be here."
"Do you want to go back?" Indy asked.
"Do you?"
Indy gazed up toward the peak of Big Ararat, which rose above them. A thick layer of clouds had nearly engulfed the mountaintop. "You know, if the Janissaries hadn't threatened us and tried to kill us, I'd say forget it. Let it rest. But I think we should complete this. If nothing else, it's a matter of principle."
"But what if the Janissaries are right?" Shannon asked.
No one said anything for a moment. Then Omar kicked at the crusty snow. "If we were not supposed to be here, then we wouldn't be. Simple as that, I say."
Shannon wasn't so sure about that. Their leader had already died, and maybe it was a warning for the others. He felt like he was carrying the weight of the world's future on his back instead of a knapsack. But who were the Janissaries to determine when Judgment Day would come, and why should they be able to kill to enforce their beliefs?
"Let's go see what's waiting for us."
"Jack, don't take it so seriously, okay?" Indy said as they prepared to move on. "Chances are we won't find anything."
Shannon wasn't sure what Indy meant. "Are you telling me that you came all this way and you don't believe in the Ark?"
"Look, for me, it's not a matter of belief. Maybe there was an ark; maybe there were lots of arks that set out during some great flood in ancient times. Maybe there is one of them on this mountain. But the Ark was just a legend."
As they plodded on, Shannon puzzled over what Indy had said. As far as he knew, the Bible didn't say anything about a bunch of arks. Indy always put a twist on things that made them difficult to understand. Indy was smart, but he didn't study the Bible. Jack wasn't even sure what Indy believed. Except he knew he didn't believe the earth was created a few thousand years ago. He'd told him that. The more he thought about it, the more bewildered he became. If Indy was right, then was the Bible wrong? But how could that be?
Things were much simpler when he was onstage and playing his music. There were no such questions to ponder. That was when he was struck by an odd thought, a strange connection that he might not have glimpsed on another day or at a lower altitude. The truth about the Ark might be like the beauty of a jazz riff. There were different ways of playing it, and you played what you felt. But your interpretation wasn't necessarily the only right way to play it.
&n
bsp; "Maybe that's it," he muttered to himself. "Maybe it was something like that."
In the dream, they had found the Ark and were about to enter a gaping black hole that was a doorway to the interior. He heard noises coming from inside. Animal sounds. Maybe animals lived inside the Ark. But what animals would live at this altitude?
Indy took a step inside and the shriek of animals was deafening. He was knocked to the ground, overrun by a flood of animals. They stampeded over him and the others, crushing them and burying them.
It was a silly dream, not even worth repeating to any of the others. Yet it bothered him, and he couldn't get it out of his mind as they trudged across a snowfield hours later. The sound and the rush of animals had been ferocious, and he'd woken from it sweating and out of breath.
Indy's thoughts were interrupted as his stick plunged straight down through the snow. Shannon didn't notice he'd stopped and walked into him. Indy tottered on the brink of the hole, then Shannon yanked on the rope and he was pulled away.
Indy turned and grinned, but his face was as white as the snow. "That was close." He pointed his stick toward a ledge above them. "Let's try to work our way up there since we can't go any farther in this direction."
No one argued with him, especially since the craggy landscape along the route he had suggested was relatively free of snow. They backed away from the hidden crevice, then turned upward. Now the angle of the climb was much steeper and the going slowed. At this altitude, it didn't take much to tire them, and every few minutes they stopped for a short rest.
Finally, Indy reached the rocky slope leading to the ledge.
"Can you see anything?" Shannon asked.
Indy gazed into another canyon, and at first he didn't see anything different from the other canyons they'd crossed today. But then he saw it. "Pass me those binoculars." Indy lifted the lenses to his eyes and focused as the others joined him. "Very interesting."
"Jack, do you see it?" Katrina whispered as the others joined Indy on the ridge.
"I sure do."
Omar and Ahmet dropped to their knees.
Three hundred yards away, a massive black rectangular-shaped object rested on the floor of the hollow. If what they were looking at was Noah's Ark, it resembled a ship about as much as the strange tufa structures in Cappadocia looked like log cabins, Indy thought as he gazed through the lenses.
"I only wish my father was here with us now," Katrina said.
"Maybe he is," Shannon said.
"What do you see, Indy?" Katrina asked.
He lowered the binoculars. "Let's go down and take a closer look."
Shannon held out his hand. "Let me see."
Something was definitely wrong. Shannon was sure of it, and as they crossed the hollow he became more and more suspicious about the Ark. It seemed to fit the description of the Ark of Genesis, which depicted a vessel that was more barge than boat. But magnified through the lenses, the contour had changed. Now, as they neared it, he realized that what they'd seen was an optical illusion created by shadows and reflections.
He could see that great chunks had been scooped out of the front and side. It narrowed in the center and was shaped more like a letter K than a rectangular block. It didn't look like it was made of wood, either.
Indy was the first to touch it. "It's a rock."
Shannon searched for an explanation. "Maybe it's petrified wood."
"I don't think so, Jack. There's no wood grain of fiber. It's igneous rock."
At that moment, the sun broke through the clouds and they turned their eyes skyward. At first, the sun blinded Indy. He blinked, shaded his eyes, and then he saw it. No more than two hundred feet above them, a massive black box, shaped like a coffin and virtually the size of an ocean liner, protruded from a glacier. The sight was overwhelming, nearly beyond Indy's comprehension, and totally unexpected.
In spite of all the time he'd had to think about it, he was unprepared for what he saw. There was no doubt in his mind that he was gazing up at the Ark. His knees wobbled; his heart fluttered. He turned his head away.
"My God!" Shannon whispered. He dropped to one knee and bowed his head.
Katrina's hands were folded in prayer, and tears rolled down her cheeks. The two Turks had dropped to the ground and bowed their heads in the snow.
Indy forced himself to look again. He saw it was really there. "The Ark," he said under his breath. "At least, an ark..." Whatever, it was going to change everything. It would prove that the Genesis deluge was more than legend, that the earth really had undergone massive changes. It was the discovery of all time.
21
Hark!
Even though it seemed they could nearly touch the immense vessel, it took nearly an hour for them to scale the last barrier separating the expedition from the Ark. The break in the clouds had been temporary, and the dense shroud of fog, combined with blowing snow, made the going particularly treacherous. Indy could barely see his feet and repeatedly stabbed his stick at the hard-packed snow in front of him as he edged forward.
"It's taking forever," Shannon said. hope we didn't walk right past it."
"It would be hard to miss, Jack, even in this soup." And then he saw it fifteen feet away, a vast black wall in the haze. "Take a look!"
Although Indy was anxious to reach it, he took his time, feeling every step before he committed himself to it. The wind gusted along the wall of the Ark; every stride was an effort. The rope connecting them was icy and felt like an iron rod protruding from his back.
Finally, the Ark was within his reach. He rubbed the snow away and scraped at the ice on the wall. He pulled off his glove and touched the Ark. He leaned close as the others gathered around. It wasn't stone or wood. The surface looked like a hard black resin similar to the layer of pitch he'd seen on the Ark wood.
"We've found it, haven't we?" Katrina shouted above the whining wind. "We've really found it."
"I don't think it's a rock."
"Of course, it's not," Shannon said. "It's the Ark."
They were all touching it now. "This is the holiest of holy places," Katrina said. "We are blessed to be here."
Indy took a couple of steps back and craned his neck. From below he'd estimated that the Ark rose at least forty feet from the snow, but now it was impossible to tell. He tried to gauge its length, its width, but the structure vanished after a few feet in the clouds and blowing snow.
"What's wrong, Indy?" Shannon shouted.
"We'd better start back. We can't stay up here tonight, and it's going to be dark in a couple of hours."
Katrina shook her head. "I want to stay up here. In the morning when it's clear, I can take my pictures."
"Let's look for a door," Shannon said. "We can stay inside."
A door, he thought. Sure. And a welcome mat decorated with a pair of giraffes.
Usually he was the one willing to take chances. But not in the damn cold. He hated every minute he spent in the snow and ice and blowing wind. Give him a desert or tropical jungle any day over these conditions. And the longer they stayed up here, the less time they'd have to find a suitable shelter in the canyon.
But he didn't argue. He turned and edged along the Ark toward the end that they hadn't been able to see. Except for the top few inches, the snow was packed hard and formed an incline. The vessel was probably resting on a glacier, and someday, with the right conditions, it might slide down into the valley. It could take years, centuries even. Or it could slip this summer. Or tonight, maybe.
The end of the vessel was buried in snow, and the incline allowed them to reach the top. Indy stepped out onto the flat, snow-covered surface and was nearly blown off the mountain. The wind howled; sixty miles an hour, at least, he thought.
He dropped to his hands and knees and was about to back down, but the others were already following him. Swell. Just swell. He crawled ahead until he reached the other side. The wind seemed lighter here, and there was less snow in the air. But there was no incline. If they dropped t
o the snow fifteen feet below, they probably wouldn't be able to climb up again, and he wasn't in favor of finding a new route down. Not at this hour.
"Look! There. Do you see it?" Shannon was hanging over the edge, pointing.
Indy leaned forward and peered through the haze. The wall was covered with snow and ice, but Shannon was pointing at a black hole.
"It's a way inside," he yelled. "C'mon."
Indy wasn't so sure it was an opening. He remembered the illusion the fake ark had created. "Jack, wait!"
But Shannon had already slipped out of the loop of rope tying them together, shed his knapsack, and dropped over to the side. He sank to his thighs in the snow and waved for them to join him.
Then everyone was wiggling out of the rope. Ahmet and Omar took Katrina's hands and lowered her over the side. She dropped next to Shannon, who gave her a hug and pointed.
Maybe something was there. At least a shelter for the night. The two Turks quickly rigged the knapsacks to the rope and lowered them over the side.
"Say, aren't you guys worried about what might happen when the world knows about the Ark?" Indy asked. Even though they were Moslems, they'd had no reservations about the climb.
"If it is time for Judgment Day, then we are ready," Ahmet said. He leaped down, and Omar followed him.
"I don't know if I'm ready," Indy said to himself, then plunged after them. He hit a soft spot and fell forward and was buried to his neck in snow. He rose up and gazed toward the wall.
Wisps of fog hung in the air, and the wind had died to a whisper. In front of him, a gaping hole opened in the side of the vessel, and all Indy could think of was his dream of the Ark's doorway and roaring animals charging and burying them.
Shannon and Katrina stepped toward the black hole and were about to enter the vessel when they stopped. They didn't move, and Indy wondered what was keeping them from entering the Ark. Then Hasan emerged from the darkness, aiming a rifle at Shannon's chest. Behind him were two other Janissaries.
Indiana Jones and the Genesis Deluge Page 21