Joe didn’t wait another second. He popped up in the window and started spraying a hail of deadly rounds at the men in black outfits. Two had made the mistake of leaving the safety of their trucks while their other team members laid down covering fire. It would have been a good plan if Joe hadn’t been in the window.
He cut the two men down easily, leaving the only remaining six members of the hit squad scrambling for the last SUV in the line of vehicles. The slide fire on Joe’s assault rifle allowed him to fire rapid shots almost like an automatic weapon. By the time he was done, two of the three trucks had flat tires and most assuredly, severe engine damage. Now that he had gotten the men’s attention again, he thought it best to make an exit through the escape tunnel and join his wife outside.
Helen watched the attackers take cover between the two outside cars, huddling around the one in the center. Three of the remaining six continued to fire rounds toward where she had taken refuge. What they didn’t notice was that Helen had moved when Joe started firing on their position. When they were caught off guard, she sprinted from her hiding place and moved further up the driveway to get in a better position. Two of the men had started moving toward the front of the house. It seemed they had grown tired of being on the defensive. Being peppered from two sides had left them little choice but to move forward.
From where she was sitting, Helen had a clear angle on the two men in the rear. The two approaching the house would be slightly more difficult because of the distance, but she thought those targets were both within her range. If Joe was still in the house, she would need to take them out first, which would mean her position would be given away to the two men in the rear. She knew what she had to do.
Helen raised her weapon and trained it on the man who had taken up a position at the base of their porch next to the stairs. The other was directly across from him. If she did it right, both targets could be knocked out before the remaining four realized she had moved.
Something moved in the leaves behind her, and she spun around with the assault rifle held level.
“Don’t shoot,” a familiar voice begged from behind a thin tree.
Joe’s body stuck out from both sides of the narrow pine, while he held both hands up. “It’s me, Helen.”
She lowered her weapon. “Joe, get over here,” Helen hissed, dispensing with the pleasantries. She kept her emotions in check at seeing that her husband was okay.
He padded over to her spot and crouched down next to her. “What’s the situation?” he asked.
“Two guys are getting ready to go in the front door. Two more are by the middle truck, and the last two are covering the rear. I was just about to take out the two next to the porch before you snuck up on me.”
“Sorry.”
“You should be,” she sneered. “I almost blew your head off.” She offered a grin that told him there were no hard feelings, but that her threat was real enough. “I’ll take out the two at the porch. But as soon as I shoot the first one, those guys taking up the rear will know where we’re shooting from.”
Joe nodded, understanding the situation. “Looks like the best plan is for one of us to take out the guys in the front at the same time the other takes out the men in the back.”
She liked the plan and approved it with a quick smile on one corner of her mouth. “I’ll take the two near the house; you get the ones in the back.”
“Why do you get the harder shot?” he asked as she got set up in her position again and took aim.
“Because I’m the better shooter.”
He couldn’t argue with that, not that it mattered anyway. Joe got down on his belly and took aim at the first man in the back. The guy was scanning the woods fifty feet to Joe and Helen’s left near the woodshed. The man’s weapon went back and forth as he searched for any threat.
“Ready?” she asked.
“When you are, dear.”
“Fire.”
The two targets were knocked over immediately. A moment later, the other two panicked men were dropped with nearly simultaneous shots.
“Good job,” Helen said, almost in a surprised tone.
“Did you think I would miss?” he tried to sound wounded.
Helen glanced back at him. “You never know with men,” she smirked again. “We have two left in the center.”
The last two men she spoke of were scrambling to take cover anywhere they could. At present, the only place they found protection was underneath the center SUV. Both of them scurried under the carriage of the vehicle, lying on their stomachs. Their heads darted back and forth, wondering where the shots were coming from.
“You think you can hit the gas tank from here?” Helen asked, sure to keep her voice low.
Joe answered with a sarcastic nod and crouched back down, lining up the exposed underbelly of the vehicle’s fuel tank. He squeezed the trigger and sent a round straight into the metal container. He frowned at the result. Gas had started leaking from the hole in the tank, splashing freely onto the ground and on one of the men.
“Why didn’t it blow up?” he asked, perplexed.
“That only happens in the movies,” she asked. “Fire off another one and see what happens.”
He put his eye back to the scope and squeezed the trigger again. The second bullet had the same result, ripping another hole in the gas tank. This time, however, the shot got a reaction from one of the men under the vehicle. He started firing his weapon, spraying bullets into the darkness, completely forgetting the consequences for such an action.
The gas ignited instantly, setting both men on fire amid terrifying screams. The blaze shot up into the tank of the SUV and immediately turned the vehicle into a giant torch on wheels. Both men hurried out from under the carriage, their bodies completely engulfed in flames. They ran away from the burning truck and tried to douse themselves by rolling around on the ground, but the damage had been done. After a minute or so, both charred bodies had stopped moving as the deadly flames began to die down.
Joe turned away from the sight. “That’s got to be a bad way to go.”
Helen had a resolute look on her face. “They were going to kill us, Joe. These were really bad guys.”
“I know,” he nodded. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Me too,” she exhaled. “That was a heck of a shot, by the way. I thought I was done for when that guy had a gun to my head.”
“You ain’t getting’ off that easy,” he chuckled. Then a worried expression washed over his face. “The dog is probably freaking out down in the bunker.”
Helen smiled. “He’s going to wonder what in the world happened to the house.”
The two stood up and started walking down the driveway, weapons slung over their shoulders and in their hands. They had only taken ten steps toward the wreckage when they heard a strange thumping sound in the distance. It grew louder and louder, causing them to stop and turn around to see what it was. Joe had a feeling he already knew.
Sure enough, over the treetops beyond the clearing, a helicopter searchlight came into view. Through the trees, they could make out a few more headlights rolling down the long driveway.
“You gotta be kidding,” Helen sounded exhausted.
“I guess this is it,” Joe said, holding up the assault rifle and taking aim at the body of the helicopter.
She looked over at him for a second before copying his stance and pointing the barrel of her weapon at the oncoming machine.
“I love you, ya know?” he said.
“Me too, Joe.”
As they were about to squeeze their triggers, a female voice boomed through the area from a speaker on the helicopter. “Put your weapons down! This is AXIS team three here to assist. Repeat. We are an AXIS support team here to secure the area.”
Joe and Helen lowered their weapons apprehensively. They glanced at each other, both with a look of relief. Joe raised a hand and waived to the pilot as two SUVs rumbled up to where they were standing. Four men and women piled out
of the vehicles and ran toward the cabin, checking the bodies and the hit squad’s trucks for any threat.
The helicopter landed in the small field next to the driveway. A moment later one of the back doors opened up and a brunette woman wearing a black business suit, white blouse, and her hair pulled back tight exited the flying contraption.
She jogged over to where Joe and Helen were standing. Black smoke from the burning wreckage swirled around in the slowing helicopter rotors.
“Are you two okay?” Emily asked stopping short of the heavily armed couple.
Joe looked at his wife then back at the house. “We’re fine. But our house is a mess. If we’d known you were coming over we would have cleaned up first.” Emily stared at Joe for a second before she forced a few laughs. “I guess Lindsey sent his goons here to recover the vial we took from his Biosure facility. Unfortunately for him, Jenny Solomon has it now.”
Emily nodded. “Yeah, we have another unit over at their building keeping an eye on things. We’ll keep it locked down as long as we can until the WHO takes over.” She looked around at the carnage, assessing the situation. Her face produced a suspicious grin. “Remind me to never come over to your place unannounced.”
Chapter 50
Armenian Mountains
Adriana eyed the map on her tablet. According to the GPS tracker, they were very close to the place she had pinpointed as the possible location of the ark.
“It shouldn’t be far, now,” she said to Jabez.
The Arab had driven them from the town of Ararat, leading the other vehicle up into the mountains along the precipitous road. The snow hadn’t been as treacherous as they had anticipated, but just to be safe, both vehicles were locked in four-wheel drive.
They had been driving for over an hour, making slow progress toward the waypoint. Conversation in the vehicle had been almost nil. The only sounds were the occasional wind gusts and the crunching of rocks and dirt under the tires.
The mountain range was impressive yet unspectacular. It spanned hundreds of miles to the north, but the peaks’ bland brownish color did nothing for eye appeal. The patches of melting snow helped improve the visual, but soon that would be gone. The rise and fall of the road had become monotonous, causing Firth to doze off a few times in the back seat next to Sean.
Up ahead, the road came to a sudden halt, ending in a drop off into a narrow canyon. He was relieved the second vehicle in the caravan didn’t hit them from behind and drive them over the edge. Jabez turned off the engine and got out. A cold gust of air burst into the cabin of the truck, shocking Firth to a more alerted state.
Sean and Adriana got out as well, joining their Arab driver at the edge of the cliff. Over the edge, the rock wall shot straight down a hundred feet. The wall itself wrapped around a slight rise in the center of the canyon floor below. Sean got down on one knee and felt the smooth stone inside the canyon. The light brown stone of the ravine had been molded by erosion, but it seemed different than other canyons Sean had seen. It was enclosed in a much tighter space. But the thing that made this particular canyon strange was the fact that there weren’t any other like it in the entire mountain range. Adriana had spent hours scanning the region via satellite images, and had not seen a single anomaly like the one resting before them.
He stood back up and stared at the strange shape of the canyon. “Is this it?” he asked in a semi-quiet tone.
Adriana glanced down at her tablet. “I think it might be,” she answered reverently.
“The shape is unmistakable,” Jabez commented. “Look at the outline of the canyon,” he pointed out the top edge of the wall that wrapped around to where they were standing. “It is surely the final resting place of Noah’s Ark.”
Sean peered around the perimeter. “It would have been easy for anyone to look over this place and think it just an ordinary geological formation. No wonder no one discovered it yet.”
“What is it?” Firth shouted from an open window in the vehicle. Apparently, the professor didn’t want to leave the warmth of the car.
“You’re going to want to see for yourself, Professor!” Sean yelled back.
The window rolled up slowly before the door opened and the older man carefully stepped out of the vehicle. As he neared the edge where the others were standing, he looked out across the span of the little canyon, his jaw dropping wide open.
“You believe in all this hocus pocus now, Doc?” Sean asked with a glint in his eye.
Firth quickly recovered to his dubious self. “I’m simply impressed by the view. But,” he added, “if your theories are correct and this canyon wall was formed by the exterior hull of the ark, where is the entrance to the chamber?” He followed Sean’s eyes down to the bottom of the ravine to get his answer.
“It’s somewhere down there, Doc. You’ve come this far. You may as well come a little further.”
The professor tried to suppress something. He clenched his face tightly, but he couldn’t help but let a sliver of a smile escape. Sean figured it had probably been years since the old dog had done anything exciting in the world of archaeology. While he’d been a grumbling pain in the rear, Sean wondered if deep down inside Firth was enjoying himself.
“Very well, Mister Wyatt. Let’s see if this wild goose chase produces a goose after all.” Firth spun around and started to return to the SUV.
Adriana stopped him. “Professor. We will have to walk in from here.”
“Oh,” his smile disappeared. “Right.”
Five minutes later, the group was trekking across the lip of the canyon toward the other end. The terrain was rocky and treacherous. Sean almost rolled his ankle on a loose stone that he’d not seen in his way. Fortunately, the walk wasn’t a long one, and the group had reached their destination at the other end of the canyon within ten minutes.
The plateau they were standing on sloped down to the level of the canyon floor, leading to a narrow opening. Jabez looked at the members of the group and continued down the hill. The others followed close behind. Firth moved slower than the others, which Sean had foreseen as an issue. Fortunately, most of the snow had already melted away, so footing wasn’t a huge problem.
They reached the bottom of the slope with relative ease and stood at the slim entrance to the canyon. The rock walls had come together, separated only by three feet of space. Standing at the bottom of it and looking up, the vision was imposing.
Again, Jabez took the lead and started through the narrow pass. The rest followed with Jabez’s four men taking up the rear.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Adriana said, staring up through the narrow space.
“We have something like this back home, in Tennessee. We call it fat man’s squeeze. Though, it doesn’t go this high.” He pointed up to the top.
The ground at the base on which they were now walking was much smoother than up above. It was flat and even, filled in with a mixture of sand and dirt. Down in the ravine the wind had disappeared, and the air had become a little warmer.
As the group passed through the other side of the pass the canyon opened up again, sending a chill through their bones as they were reintroduced to open air.
“Which side should we check first?” Adriana wondered out loud. “Should we split up and examine both sides of the canyon?”
That plan would have made sense, but Sean remembered something he’d seen a long time ago as a child that made him think otherwise. “When I think about Noah’s Ark, the pictures from my childhood always had the door to the ark on the left side.”
“But how do we know which way it sailed in?” Jabez asked.
“It would have been coming from the same direction we came from.”
“Why do you say that?” Firth entered the conversation.
Sean smiled. “Because the Bible speaks about the original location of the garden. It talks about where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet. That means originally it would have been to the southwest. If it sailed to the northeast and ent
ered this valley from the same direction we came that would have put the door on that side over there?” he finished his rationale by pointing to the right side of the curved wall.
“You’re assuming they put the door on the same side as the one on the ship,” Firth remarked.
“If you want to go over and look on the other side, be my guest. But if there is anything to find down here, my money is on the right side.”
Sean started trudging across the canyon floor. Contrary to much of the surface they’d walked upon so far, there were still a few inches of snow left on the ground that crunched under his shoes as he walked. Adriana stayed right behind him.
“Fine,” Firth said and fell in line with the others.
There was a smooth path that seemed to line the ground around the wall of the canyon. The center had formed a slight rise, making it impossible to see all the way to the ground level on the other den. The group marched along the narrow path, scanning the wall for any trace of evidence that they were in the right place.
Then, they saw it. Up ahead, cut into the smooth stone, was a narrow hole. It stood about eight feet tall, and three feet wide. The opening had not been cut smoothly, and the edges of it were jagged, making it appear as though it were a natural recession in the rock.
No one said anything for a few moments. Then, Jabez spoke up. “We are on very sacred ground,” he said as he bent down to one knee.
His men did the same, all with heads bowed in silent prayer or meditation. Sean wasn’t sure what to do so he simply bowed his head. After half a minute, the men all stood again. Jabez gave an approving nod toward Sean, which he took as meaning it was okay to go forward.
Sean removed a flashlight from a coat pocket and turned it on, proceeding into the darkness of the cave. Adriana and Jabez’s men did the same, leaving Firth standing out in the cold.
“Are you sure it’s safe to go in there?” he asked. The last of the brethren entered the cavity without responding. Finally, the old man produced a flashlight of his own from a coat pocket and followed the group in.
Inside, their flashlights cast a dim glow on the stone walls. They were in a narrow corridor, roughly hewn from the mountain stone. The group proceeded in single file, with Sean in the lead and Firth in the back, much to the latter’s dislike. For someone so apprehensive to lead the way, he certainly didn’t enjoy bringing up the rear.
Sean Wyatt Compilation Box Set Page 88