“This must have happened back in the fifties,” she said.
“We found an old newspaper dated March 1964.”
“A month before my grandfather disappeared.”
Jake nodded. “What happened here may be connected.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
Jake walked back to the entryway and picked up a cardboard tube that stood on one end.
“I was planning on showing you these later,” he said as he slid the contents out of one end of the tube. “They’re digital enhancements of the photos taken from the camera onboard the capsule.”
He arranged them across an ornate wooden table that stood next to the window. The first photo showed a circled area of activity in the upper left hand corner that had been cropped and enlarged in the subsequent ones. In the final photo, crossbeams could be seen above what appeared to be a cave entrance.
“Construction scaffolding,” Sam suggested.
“Or an excavation site,” Jake replied.
Katie picked up the most detailed photo and held it in the light. The resolution was poor due to the magnitude of the enlargement.
“Have you noticed these shadowy figures scattered around the entrance to the cave?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Jake spoke hesitantly.
“Look here too,” she said, “down the hill some distance. These odd rectangular shapes could be tents, maybe a base camp.”
Jake took the photo from her and studied it, glancing occasionally at the rock formations around them to gain a size comparison. The other objects in the photo had more natural, asymmetric shapes. The ones that Katie identified had definite squared sides.
“That would be my guess,” he answered. “They’re too uniform to be natural.”
“Well,” she continued with some hesitation in her voice, “if those are tents, then these odd-shaped figures scattered about them and then also up the hill at the cave entrance…”
“They’re bodies, Katie,” Jake said softly as he reached out to take her hand. “We had someone at the embassy who knows about this sort of thing look at it. That was his assessment.”
“It’s my grandfather and his team.” She shook her head as she studied the images. “Why did they do this? They were just scientists. They certainly wouldn’t have offered any resistance.”
Jake put his arm around her. “I’m sorry.”
Katie closed her eyes. She suddenly felt very cold and began to tremble. Jake pulled her tightly against him.
“We’re going to find out what happened here,” he said firmly. “We owe it to Dmitri and Pete and your grandmother. Whoever is responsible for this has to be stopped.”
Looking up at him with a sad but determined expression, Katie nodded, “Let’s go see what’s in that cave.”
44
Beyond the halfway point of their assent, Jake stopped again to study the map from Dmitri’s journal and removed the satellite photos once more from his backpack. Unrolling them across the flat surface of a large moraine, he and his two companions cross-referenced the major landmarks. Three mountain peaks framed an angled valley with an increasing elevation toward the tallest peak. From his reckoning, Jake determined that their current location was nearly in the center of the three peaks and decided that the cave entrance must be another forty to fifty meters up the low rise.
The north face of the mountain peak before them was spotted with patches of stubby alpine growth still green despite being frostbitten at the tips. Snow drifts from the previous winter still clung to the clefts of the rocky outcroppings and filled the fissures in the valley floor below. Above them, at the crest of the glacier’s peak, sunlight reflected like a million penlights from ice crystals surrounding the edge.
“This looks like the spot,” Sam said as he walked back down to greet them. “There are even chiseled holes in the rock where their scaffolding was mounted. The cave entrance must be behind that snow bank.”
Jake detached a collapsible shovel from his backpack and walked over to the base of the glacier where snowdrifts were piled against the striations in the rock. The surface was covered with a heavy snowpack that responded with a solid thunk when his shovel struck the packed snow. Jake realized immediately that the surface beneath the recent snowfall was a solid block of ice.
“Uh-oh,” he muttered.
“What is it?” Katie asked.
“Glacial terminus,” he answered, observing the slope of the shallow valley toward the peak behind them. “It’s a souvenir left over from the ice age, a spot where the glaciers that once covered this area have held on over thousands of years.”
“Can we get through it?” Katie asked anxiously.
“That all depends,” he said looking above them at the rocky precipice. “If it’s more than a couple of feet thick, it’s probably pointless to try.”
“If this is the right spot, then my grandfather was able to get through,” Katie responded. “It may not be as thick as it looks. It’s worth a try.”
Jake nodded and smiled. “I didn’t say I was giving up. The only option I see, unless we hike out of here, drive back to Kathmandu, and try to find some digging equipment, is to apply a little shearing force to the surface.”
“How do you intend to do that?” Sam asked.
Jake slapped his brother on the back. “Watch and be amazed.”
With the same agility he had exhibited in their escape in the Gobi, Jake climbed the ridge above them, carefully picking his hand-and footholds. When he reached the summit, he disappeared from view and was gone for nearly a minute before they saw his face emerge from the edge of the bluff.
“I would back up if I were you,” he called down.
“What are you going to do?” Katie asked.
“There are several large moraines up here, and I’m about to roll one off and see if I can crack the ice cap.”
“And that was your amazing plan?” Sam said, rolling his eyes at Katie.
“I never said it was brilliant. Now be good boys and girls and move that way,” he motioned with his hand.
From their new vantage point, Katie and Sam could see that he was trying to gauge the alignment between their position and the icy surface below. The target wasn’t very large, and they could tell it was going to be a difficult shot.
“Ready when you are,” Katie called up.
“Bombs away!” shouted Jake.
After clearing a small outcropping five feet below the summit, the rock, about the diameter of a bicycle tire, plummeted to the ground below. As soon as it struck and rolled to a stop a few feet away, Katie rushed over to see if it had been effective.
“You hit it!” she shouted, quickly brushing away the layer of snow atop the crevice. “And there’s a crack in it.”
“Do you think we can break the rest of it out by hand?”
Sam stepped forward and ran his hands along the break to judge the size of the fissure. “The pieces are still pretty large. Can you drop another rock?”
“No problamo.”
Repeating the steps from his first attempt, Jake rolled a second rock over the edge, this one slightly larger than the first. All three watched anxiously as it struck the surface in nearly the same spot as the first. This time a decisive crack rang out as the icy surface disappeared into the crevasse.
“You did it!” Katie shouted.
As Jake climbed down, Katie and Sam ventured a couple of steps into the opening left by the breaking ice. Instantly, something caught their attention.
“What’s that?” Jake’s voice spoke from behind them.
“Looks like a wooden plank,” Katie answered.
“Someone must have boarded up the opening,” Sam said.
Jake climbed down into the hole and began chiseling away the remaining snow and ice from the opening. “There are more boards over here,” he said. “The edges are pretty rough, but you can see that it was once a hewn piece of lumber. It’s obviously manmade.”
“Maybe it was a door,”
Katie suggested. “My grandfather might have placed it there to seal it off.”
“Or whoever didn’t want it opened,” Sam added.
“One thing’s for sure,” Jake replied as he observed the white chunks lying around them. “Glacial ice would not have broken this easily. The slab that we cracked must have formed in recent years. It’s mostly snowpack.”
Katie removed her backpack, sat it on a fractured slab of ice behind her, and reached in for a flashlight. Jake gripped two of the timbers and tried to pull them apart. Sam stepped forward to help him. Although they were massive and partially frozen together, a loud pop indicated that they were not immovable. Suddenly, the board in Jake’s right hand snapped and he fell awkwardly into the chunks of broken snowpack behind him.
“That was graceful,” he said as he stood.
Even before Katie clicked on her flashlight, she could feel the change in temperature coming from inside the cave. It was much colder than the outside air.
“That’s interesting,” Sam commented as he experienced the same sensation. “The air temperature out here is about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Most caves are at least 15 degrees warmer than that.”
“So what does that mean?” Katie asked.
“It at least means that there are no tunnels leading deep into the earth,” Jake answered. “This is a glacier cave, which also explains why your grandfather was able to retrieve the frozen remains of some critter.”
“Critter?” Katie raised her eyebrows at the unfamiliar term.
“You ever watch the Beverly Hillbillies?” Jake asked.
“I don’t think we got that one in Russia.”
“I have them all on DVD,” he said as he peered into the opening. “We’ll have to further your education when we get back. We might even listen to some of my classic LPs, like my favorite, Dallas Holm.”
Sam looked at Katie and mouthed silently, “Bless you.”
“As I’m sure my brother is making faces,” Jake continued without looking back, “you have to understand that he and I have decidedly different tastes.”
“He means I have taste,” Sam replied.
“Toby Mac…hm,” Jake shot back. “The guy can’t even wear his hat straight.”
“And that alone will keep you off the Lawrence Welk Show,” Sam replied with a wry smile.
Clearing away the final board, Jake ducked his head beneath the opening and stepped inside the cave. “You guys need to see this,” he called back.
“What is it?” Katie asked.
“This cave shouldn’t technically still be here,” Jake said as the beam of his flashlight reflected from the thick, icy walls. “This looks like a glacier cave made solely of ice. They’re unstable because of seasonal melts and refreezing. Glaciers are pretty dynamic, and the caves that are formed within them are usually seasonal. Ever heard of Mt. Rainier in Washington State? Sometime in the sixties or seventies, a group of cavers found miles of caves within that glacier. They’re all but gone now.”
Once they were all inside and out of the sun’s glare, Katie and Sam understood Jake’s comment. The chamber, tall enough to stand up in, looked like the interior of an ice cube. The walls, ceiling, and floor all glistened in their lights. It took a few seconds for their eyes to adjust and then Katie spoke uneasily. “Jake, you might want to look at this.”
When he turned, training his flashlight in her direction, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Before them was a small vehicle with a tattered canvas top. The desert tan paint was mostly intact with a few blotches of rust around the windshield and side view mirror. Sam walked over for a closer look.
“It’s an old Willys Jeep,” he said.
“I’ve seen this before,” Katie replied, “in a photo that Baba showed me. My grandfather was standing beside it. She said that he had bought a Jeep in India and used it on his expeditions. You know what this means?”
Jake nodded as he walked over to join his brother. He ran his hand along the top, which felt cold and brittle. “It means we’ve found the right place.”
Katie could hardly contain her excitement. “Where do we start?”
“Hey Jake,” Sam spoke bleakly. “You might want to take a look at this.”
His brother turned to see Sam looking through the folding windshield that was in the upright position. Using the cuff of his parka, he had wiped away a portion of the frozen condensation covering the glass.
“Oh,” Jake said with surprise as he looked inside.
“What is it?” Katie asked with alarm.
“A body,” Jake grimly answered.
Katie stepped closer.
“I’m not sure you want to see this,” Jake spoke firmly.
“I’m not squeamish.”
“What if it’s your grandfather? You didn’t handle the photo too well. I can assure you this is much worse.”
“It’s OK,” she motioned with her hand. “I’ll be fine.”
Jake reluctantly stepped aside to allow her to look into the vehicle. After standing there for a long moment, she finally dropped her head.
“It’s him,” she muttered.
“How can you be sure?”
Katie nodded. “The hair color is right and I think I’ve even seen that plaid shirt in a photo somewhere, maybe the one with the Jeep. The most telling thing is the shape of his mouth, the way it turns up at the ends. Baba said that even when he was upset, it always looked like he was smiling.”
45
After Katie took Jake’s suggestion to retrieve some fresh flashlight batteries from his backpack outside, he and Sam went to the grim task of opening the Jeep. The small latch holding the driver’s side door closed was dark with corrosion. To Jake’s surprise, however, it gave way easily when he firmly gripped it and pulled. It was then that he realized the entire latching assembly had come off in his hand. With a loud creak of the hinges, which reverberated from the walls of the cave, the door swung open.
The man’s body was seated rigidly in the seat, and oddly Jake thought, he appeared to be at peace despite the obvious cause of death. There was a small puncture in his shirt just above a dark stain that ran down the front. It was clearly a bullet hole.
Knowing there was no other way to completely search the vehicle, Jake and Sam agreed that they would have to remove the body. With his left arm cupped around the dead man’s withered legs and his right supporting his back, Jake applied just enough pressure to snap his frozen clothes loose from the seat. It made an unpleasant tearing sound. Since he had not accounted for the body being completely dehydrated, it was surprisingly light as he carried it over to a spot on the cave floor where sunlight entered from the opening.
Jake tried to imagine what the man had looked like in life. He was tall, maybe six feet or more. His brown hair was well kempt although the bristles of a beard still showed on his sunken face.
Out of respect, he placed his cap over the man’s face as he searched his clothes for identification. As most men carry wallets in their back pockets, Jake started there but found nothing. A search of his jacket pockets, including the one inside, also came up empty. Other than hiking boots, which looked right for the period, his remaining apparel could have come from any era. Jake even thought about how the flannel shirt looked similar to one that he owned. One thing that did catch his eye, however, was the position of his fingers on his right hand. The middle finger, forefinger, and thumb came together as though he had been holding a pen.
Jake turned and walked back to the Jeep to see if his observation was correct. As his light struck the floor pan, he immediately spied a thin black object lying beneath the seat.
“What’s that?” Sam asked.
“A fountain pen. I think Mr. Petrovich may have been writing something when he died.”
Slipping the pen into his pocket, Jake continued to search the confines of the small vehicle. With his knees in the driver’s seat, he leaned over the backrest and examined the items strewn about the bed. There was an assortment of tools—pi
cks, shovels, and climbing gear which corresponded with an excavation of this type.
Finding nothing of interest, Jake had turned to exit the Jeep when a scrap of paper wedged between the fuel gauge and the dash caught his attention. Carefully removing and unfolding it, his attention was drawn to a bloody fingerprint at the bottom. Above the mark was a brief note, written in Russian Cyrillic.
“What does it say?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know. It’s written in Russian cursive.”
When Katie reentered the cave, Jake walked over and handed her the folded note. “I found this inside the Jeep. And I think I recognize the handwriting.”
She gave him a look of concern as she took the paper. After opening it, tears began flowing down her face. Jake put his arms around her, but sensing her need to be alone, he said, “Wait here. We’re almost done. When I get back, we’ll discuss what to do with the body.”
Katie nodded and Jake walked over to rejoin his brother.
“Is she OK?” Sam asked.
Jake shrugged.
“A goodbye note?”
“That would be my guess. Did you find anything else?”
“Just this,” Sam said as he lifted a metal case and sat it on the hood. He opened it and then turned the case around for Jake to see the contents. “You know what these are, right?”
Jake looked down at a row of foot long wooden broom handles with metal cans attached at one end. “Potato mashers,” he replied. “World War II German stick grenades.”
“Dad still has a couple of them in his collection,” Sam reminded him, “although I suspect these haven’t had the explosives removed.”
Jake shook his head. “This just gets weirder.”
“Her grandfather was afraid of the Nazis,” Sam said. “Maybe he went on the offensive and took a few goodies.”
“It would also be a good way to blast through snowpack when you couldn’t get your hands on dynamite.”
The Genesis Conspiracy Page 24