The Mountain: An Event Group Thriller (55 page)

“We go when I say we go, not one moment before, Corporal.” He looked toward the expectant faces of the other two. “You make sure every man in my command understands that. I wouldn’t care if it was Old Abe himself up there, I wouldn’t leave him in a place like this. Whether they be Yank or Johnny Reb, no one deserves to be left here, and until we come down from this mountain we stay together.”

Jenks looked taken aback as if he had been slapped by Taylor.

“And once that’s done, Colonel, do we head back nice and easy and all them people with guns out there will just let us walk right on outta here? Sir, you know as soon as we put to sea those Frenchies and Brits are liable to blow us right out of the water.”

“Once down from this mountain, who is to say how we get back?”

“Colonel, sir?”

“I figure once we’ve proven that Swedish fool’s little boat exists or doesn’t exist, we’ve fulfilled our oath, or at least my oath to Colonel Thomas, and then we’re on our own as far as I’m concerned. After all, Corporal, the navy is not the only way to get home.”

Finally the light of understanding dawned in the Tennessean’s eyes.

“Now, not one more word about mutiny.” Taylor smirked. “At least until I say to mutiny.”

“Yes, sir, Colonel,” Jenks said and then moved off.

Jessy still had the smirk on his face when he turned and saw Grandee staring right at him. Taylor watched as the black man slowly shook his head just as they started hauling the man up the rope. Jessy watched a moment and then replaced his goggles and hood.

He didn’t know how long he could keep his now-armed men in check.

*   *   *

The line of men and equipment stretched out for a full quarter of a mile as they made slow progress up the ice shelf. They could see the gleam, even in the overcast skies, of the glacier a mile or so up. The Indian had been right, the new routes had shaved at least a day off their journey and not one man had died because he fell through a void.

John Henry and Jackson walked in front, digging their climbing staffs into the ice with every step. Claire was right behind them with Ollafson and McDonald. Each person was roped together as per Captain Jackson’s orders.

“I don’t know about you, Colonel, but I am truly wondering what sort of spy our Mr. McDonald is. I mean, he has made no overt moves even to slow our progress. No messages sent, none received. What do you make of it?”

John Henry lowered the woolen scarf from his bearded face. “I thought by keeping him close I could figure out his game, but as you say, I don’t know if he has one. Maybe he’s just to observe and report.”

“I believe he could accomplish that merely by cornering a drunken sailor or marine and bribing him to talk once we return.”

“Perhaps McDonald doesn’t see us making it out alive.”

“I see your point, sir.”

“Point?” Claire asked as she joined them.

“We were just wondering when our Victorian spy was going to act like one,” Thomas said.

“Yes, I suspect we’re pretty safe until we either return with the proof, or we fail. Then he will report and then London will have to make a decision. Until then, I’m pretty sure Mr. McDonald does not want to remain up here for eternity, and without us that is surely what would happen. I mean, the man threw a fit because he lost his toiletries in the Persian attack on our camp.”

“Colonel, Gray Dog is signaling,” Dugan said as he slowed his pace to allow them to catch up.

It took several minutes for the column to reach the point where Gray Dog waited. John Henry stepped up to the Comanche, who simply turned and pointed. Thomas raised his goggles and looked into the blowing wind. The glacier.

“My God, it stretches on forever,” Claire said as she also lowered her hood and goggles.

“A great expanse of nothing,” Taylor said as he caught up to the rest.

“Yes, it is,” Thomas commented.

“And do you notice what’s missing?” Taylor asked.

Thomas and Claire turned to face him.

“The Ark. Where is it?”

Ollafson finally arrived, looking like a young child on Christmas morning. He let his staff fall to the ice and he slapped his gloved hands together once.

“The summit!”

“And where is your biblical rowboat, Mr. Ollafson?” Taylor asked as he removed his hood and glared at the old man.

The professor laughed. “Do you think it sits upon the glacier, my young friend?” He laughed with such glee that even Steven McDonald took a step away from him as he thought him suddenly insane. “This glacier had to have been formed a hundred, maybe even a thousand years after the Ark came to rest.”

“Biblical scholars place the flood at roughly four thousand years ago. Geologists claim the glacier on this mountain range is more than ten thousand years old,” Claire said as she was also looking at the professor like he had fallen off the trolley car.

“Simple. The biblical scholars are wrong in their estimates. The Ark was on the flooded seas twelve to thirteen thousand years ago.”

The comment was met with silence. As for John Henry, he felt his heart fall through to the bottom of his stomach. The man
was
insane. Most believed civilization was only five thousand years old, and now here was Ollafson saying everyone was wrong. He lowered his head and felt Claire’s hand on his shoulder as she realized the same thing.

“Did you mention this to President Lincoln?” Thomas asked as he raised his head.

“Mention what?”

“Your time frame for these events, you old fool!” Taylor said, suddenly frustrated just listening to the old man. His men could possibly die on the assumptions of an insane professor who had been fired from his teaching post at Harvard for these very same beliefs.

No one ventured to go further with the conversation. Claire hung her head and then stepped over to a large rock and leaned heavily against it.

Ollafson didn’t seem to notice the distance everyone was putting between themselves and him. He just smiled and stared out onto the expansive glacier.

“The Ark has to be right down—” He reached down and retrieved his walking staff and then jabbed the ice with its spiked tip. “Here!”

Thomas looked up and saw the staff sticking in the ice. He looked at Jessy, who was insane with rage at having dragged his men six thousand miles away from home to please an old fool with dreams, or was it delusions, of grandeur.

Snow started to blow in from across the Persian border. The winds were cold and the snow stung their exposed skin. Still, Ollafson looked from face to face in anticipation of their excitement at arriving.

Gray Dog and Dugan watched from a distance away.

“Well, my guess is that it’s time we go home,” Dugan said as he spit a stream of tobacco juice into the snow and ice. Gray Dog grimaced at the disgusting habit of the sergeant major and looked down at the brown stain on the snow. He cocked his head to the right when he saw not only the stain, but the ice it was upon, vanish. Gray Dog knew what was about to happen and could do nothing to warn anyone. He grabbed Dugan and pushed him away and they both fell into the snow.

“Professor, we have no way of digging down through what is possibly a mile of ice to find your fantasy. This is a fool’s errand and always has been,” Jessy said as he threw his gloves into the snow. The wind had picked up by at least thirty miles per hour in the past two minutes and the snow was of a much thicker volume than any time before.

“Look, the petrified wood was found only feet from where we are standing. The Ark is here.” Ollafson was pleading after he read the faces of those around him and he finally started to understand. They did not believe him.

“You have the rest of the day and tomorrow. Then we leave this place,” John Henry said as he started to move off. The realization struck him that for the first time in his military life he had failed to complete a mission.

“You can’t mean that!” Ollafson cried as he tried to catch Thomas.

“Get down!” came the distant call.

All heads turned and they saw Gray Dog waving frantically toward the line of soldiers.

“What in the hell is he—” Jessy started to say.

The crack sounded like a large-bore cannon exploding only inches from them. The tear in the ice was so sudden and so loud that it hurt the ears of every man who heard it.

Without further warning the entire ice shelf gave way. The first one pulled in was Thomas. He scrambled frantically to remove the rope from his waist before he was pulled in. Claire and the others started doing the same but it was far too late. John Henry vanished into the dark void that formed in the few feet of stone before the actual glacier.

One by one the expedition was pulled down into the darkness. Finally the sixth man in line managed to cut his rope and saved the bulk of the men from being pulled in. The shock was palpable as they saw the entire command team being pulled into the hole.

*   *   *

John Henry struck his head on the edge of the hole as he was pulled in, and still he tried to get the rope off to save those he could. He landed hard on his back and then he started to slide. The darkness of the void slipped by with only the notice of a rough grade and the flow of rushing air to attest to the speed of his slide. Above him he heard the screams and shouts of others as they too tumbled down deep into the beginnings of the glacier. He bounced off a curve in the strangely made tunnel of the void. He heard a woman shout and then cry out in pain above him in the darkness. Then the voices of others as they started their free fall to whatever death awaited them. Finally he slid to a stop and was absolutely shocked that he was still alive. Bruised and battered, but he was breathing. Then he heard another thud next to him and Claire, with Jessy atop her, landed at his feet. He quickly pulled them back as the rest of them, McDonald, Jackson, and then finally Ollafson, came sliding and crashing to a stop.

John Henry could not speak for the briefest of moments. He felt Claire take hold of him in a death grip and hug him as hard as he had ever been hugged. It was Jessy who managed to extricate himself from the pile of humanity and then strike a match. He raised his brows when he saw the tight hold Claire had on John Henry, then moved the match around.

“My God!” Ollafson said.

They were inside a giant void. It had been formed more than ten thousand years ago by volcanic activity that produced bubbles the size of Manhattan Island and created what it was they had landed in—a giant geode of water and ice. There was a waterfall. That much they could hear in the distance, and they all wondered just how far they had slid.

Claire finally regained some composure and released John Henry.

“Sorry. I thought we would slide off into oblivion at any moment.”

“As far as that goes, I’m pretty sure we just did,” John Henry said, as he rubbed at his hurt and aching muscles. He felt the back of his head and the hand came away with a patch of blood. Claire saw this and made him bend over.

The match soon burned out and before Jessy could light another McDonald stayed his hand.

“Look,” he said in wonder.

As they glanced around the immense ice cave, they saw that the sun, as weak a light as it was, was showing through the thickness of the ice from above. It was though the cave was brushed with soft moonlight.

“Amazing. It’s as though the ice is amplifying the weak sunlight into an incandescent state,” Ollafson said as Jessy looked at him as though he still thought him insane.

“Is anyone alive down there?” came the voice of Sergeant Major Dugan as if from heaven. The question echoed for a brief moment and then John Henry called up.

“We need ropes, block and tackle!” he called.

“Yes, sir. Glad to hear you’re still sucking breath,” Dugan said, going on faith alone as he could not see past a few feet into the giant void.

“Colonel, we must explore this magnificent structure before we evacuate,” Ollafson said.

“Professor, this has gone on long enough. Wasn’t that fall convincing enough for you? This is a dangerous place.”

“Yes, but we must—”

“We must do nothing but end this charade, old man. There is nothing up here for us but death.” Taylor’s eyes were wide in anger and he was very tired of beating circles around the proverbial bush. He faced John Henry, whom he could now see clearly in the strange and diffused light. “Now, you know we tried, John Henry, but not one life is worth proving this maniac’s dream.” He turned and looked at Ollafson. “Now, I appreciate the fact that this is your life’s work, but this will end up costing men their lives. Men who want to survive not only this fool’s errand, but the war also.” Jessy looked down in sadness. “They want to go home to their families. Not just my men, but every man who wears a uniform.”

Claire heard the honest words and felt for not only Ollafson, but the men on this venture. For the first time she realized every one of these men was someone’s father, husband, or brother. What right did Ollafson have to send them to their death just to prove a point of theory? She walked until the darkness became more complete and she was surprised when she walked right into a wall. She was startled but stepped back.

That was when her world changed forever.

*   *   *

Ollafson was despondent. He slowly slid down the wall when he realized Thomas was calling an end to the mission. There was just too much area to search and they were fast running out of time. John Henry stepped over and assisted the old man to his feet.

“In better times, Professor, I have no doubt you’ll come back for the Ark and actually find it,” Thomas said as he looked around and noticed that Claire wasn’t with them. He had just started to search when she stepped into the soft light filtering through the ice. She walked to her pack and removed a small lamp and lit it.

“Why wait to come back?”

“What are you talking about?” McDonald asked as Claire held the small lamp up high.

“We may as well do something with it right now. I mean, we are here, are we not?”

She turned and held the lamp higher. Everyone, including John Henry Thomas, the man whom nothing surprised, felt his eyes go wide.