The Mountain: An Event Group Thriller (8 page)

“Well, you took a lot of years of research to find out just what kind of man he is. Now you know. With this new insight into the major’s character, do you still want him to lead the security department?” Niles asked with a smirk.

“Absolutely.”

EVENT GROUP COMPLEX, NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA

JULY 2006

The Event Group Complex was relatively quiet at 3:40 a.m. on Sunday. Director Niles Compton moved through the deserted serving line inside the vast dining hall. The on-duty chef was wiping his hands on a white towel as he came from the kitchen after hearing the director was in the dining area. He, along with the entire mess crew, knew that Dr. Compton often toured the facility at the oddest hours, but this stop-in was unprecedented, as the director usually just called and had coffee or a meal delivered to his office on level seven. Compton’s presence in the serving line at this hour woke the sleepy-eyed mess personnel like no alarm ever could. As he approached the serving line the director was pouring a cup of coffee and perusing the pastry selection.

The chef looked over the interior of the cafeteria and saw only one other person at the far end of the room, sitting alone and staring at a cup of coffee. It was the new head of Group security, Major Collins. The man had not moved since coming in an hour before. The entire complex was in a mood because of the extreme losses the Group and the 101st Airborne had sustained in the desert event last week. It was well known that the new major was not taking lightly the deaths of so many, and it was now rumored that as a result, Collins was going to turn down the offer of permanently staying with the Group. The man looked as if he’d had enough of fatalities in any form.

“Dr. Compton, can I get you some breakfast, or maybe a late dinner?” the tall, very thin chef asked. The military rank displayed on his chef’s whites was that of a United States Navy chief petty officer.

Compton stifled a yawn and then turned to face the navy cook. “No thank you, Chief, just trying to stay awake for the most part,” Niles Compton said as he nodded at the taller man.

With one last look toward the major, the chef moved back to his kitchen and Niles Compton steeled himself for what was to come. He turned with his cup and saucer and saw with relief that Garrison Lee had come in early as promised to go over the situation with Jack Collins. Lee was fresh off a heart attack brought on by the events in the Arizona desert. It had been extremely hard to keep him isolated long enough to get the heart condition under control because Garrison wanted to be in on the extensive debrief of the small green alien, the Matchstick Man, the lone surviving extraterrestrial crewman from Chato’s Crawl, Arizona. Lee had undoubtedly used that excuse to get out of the house he shared with Alice Hamilton in Las Vegas. The main objective of this morning’s meeting was to conclude Major Jack Collins’s introduction to a federal agency in which he had already taken life, and ended it. It was rumored that Collins was about to leave the Group and fall into an uneasy retirement from the U.S. Army.

Niles waited for Lee to get himself a cup of coffee and then they both moved through the deserted cafeteria to confront Jack Collins about his upcoming decision. As they approached, they saw that Jack was perusing the personnel files of the Event Group personnel who had been killed in action last week. His face was stone as he read the names to himself. He was so absorbed in his task that he did not even glance up when Niles and Lee joined him.

“I was wondering when you were going to corner me, but I suspected with the senator’s health problems I would have had the time to formally commit my answer to paper.”

Niles reflected that Collins was not your ordinary military officer. Jack was a thorough, analytical thinker and that was what he and Lee were after.

“We figured the ambush technique was best for the situation,” Lee said as he placed his cup and saucer down without waiting to be asked. “I suppose you wouldn’t mind the company of an old fart and super nerd long enough to bend your ear a while?” Lee finished as he sat, placing his cane against the table as he gestured for Niles to do the same. “Besides, with my retirement, Alice has me doing some very strange things around the house, like fixing things, or cutting this, or trimming that. I would rather be here bothering you than turn into Mr. Fixit at home.”

“I take it Alice doesn’t know you left home?” Jack inquired.

Lee pointed to the double doors of the cafeteria and Jack saw Lee’s assistant Alice standing there with her left brow raised and shaking her head.

“Don’t be foolish. It would be easier to escape a Russian gulag than to escape her scrutiny. She drove me here, which means I have very little time to conduct business, so I will get started.”

“I’ve pretty much decided what I’m going to do,” Collins said as he pushed his cold cup of coffee away.

Niles stirred sugar into his own cup and then looked at Collins. He removed his glasses, a frequent move that Jack had learned meant Niles was about to get serious.

“Last week when Alice and Lieutenant McIntire gave you the grand tour of the vault levels, we never got a chance to ask what you thought of our finds and artifacts,” Niles said as he placed his glasses on the tabletop and slowly raised his coffee to his lips.

“The tour was cut quite short, as you well know, when you called about the event in the desert.”

“Well, the senator and I would like to finish up that tour before you make your final decision on your appointment to this Group.” Niles placed his cup down and looked at Collins, who still hadn’t committed to anything. The deaths in the desert had really affected him.

“Major, you have to understand what we do here far better than we have been able to explain thus far,” Lee said as he joined Compton in trying to persuade the major to give them a chance to show him why they needed his expertise so badly. If the fight in Arizona hadn’t explained it, they knew exactly what would. They were about to pull out the ace they had up their sleeves.

Jack glanced up and saw that Alice was still watching them. He knew then that Alice was also a part of this plot, not just Compton and Lee.

“I’m afraid young McIntire doesn’t know the full story. There are only three people in the world that have all the puzzle pieces, Major, and that is what we wish to finish up tonight. The right tour, the right artifact that will tie this whole thing together for you,” Lee said as he too looked back at Alice and then slowly stood with the aid of his cane. “Mind joining us, Major Collins?”

“Okay, where to?” Jack stood along with Compton and started a journey into the past that he never would have dreamed about.

“The largest, most secure depository in the United States. Level sixty-one, vault one,” Niles said as he led the way out of the cafeteria.

Lee placed a hand on Alice’s shoulder and then turned to face Niles and Jack. “It’s story time, Major Collins, and you are about to get wowed.”

Collins raised his eyebrows but followed them out the door, only pausing long enough to receive a knowing smile and wink from Alice Hamilton.

“Wowed is just about right,” she said as she fell into line heading for the elevators.

*   *   *

The tube elevator operated on air-cushioned propellant and traveled close to fifty miles per hour. The four stepped off and went to the security arch, where one of Jack’s people accepted IDs and proceeded to send them through the eye-scan check, clearing them all for entrance into the vault level. Jack followed the three inside an enormous hallway that had the dreamlike facade of several hundred bank vaults—the most secure location outside of Fort Knox and the NSA building. Each vault contained an artifact from the history of the world, and Jack had not returned to the vault level since his mission to Arizona, simply because he never wanted the wonders of the vault levels to sway his decision about staying or leaving the Group. The magnificent finds had the ability to cloud the mind and could make the process of deciding his destiny far more difficult.

Lee and Alice stopped at a familiar spot, the first vault Jack had seen at the Group. Lee had pointed it out to him the day of his arrival. He knew by the size of the reinforced steel door what artifact lay beyond—the Ark. The last time he’d seen it he hadn’t had time to explain to Lee and Compton that he was far from being a believer in the fantastical story of Noah and his Ark. Collins found it hard to believe in anything other than his own ability and keeping men under his command as safe as he could.

“I suppose you need no explanation of what’s behind this door?” Lee said as Niles Compton scanned his ID into the reader and stepped back as a smaller access door opened beside the larger, impenetrable stainless-steel door.

“I know what you claim it to be, but I’ve yet to be convinced, and to tell you the truth, gentlemen”—he nodded at Alice—“and lady, I am at least skeptical, and unbelieving at the most.”

“That’s exactly how you should feel, Jack,” Niles said as he stepped aside to allow the three to precede him into the giant vault area.

Collins saw it in person for the first time and he had to admit the monitors inside Niles’s office did the artifact no justice. No matter what this object truly was, Jack knew it to be impressive. The Ark was a broken wreck, but its age could be summed up in just one word—ancient. It was the oldest thing Collins had ever laid eyes on. He didn’t need too many impressive degrees to see that. The ship, if that was what it really was, was only a quarter of its former tonnage. The object ended in a jagged and twisted wreck. The beams and what remained of its wooden decking had long since turned to petrified stone. You could see the grain in the wood and know what it was immediately. The bow of the vessel soared into the heights of the giant vault. Spotlights illuminated the scaffolding placed around the artifact where many a teacher, professor, and student had crawled over its exterior searching for clues as to its real identity.

It had been explained to Collins that the Ark had been officially carbon-dated to more than thirteen thousand years old. That was still a bone of contention inside the Group because the theology department espoused the accepted theory that the Noah civilization was only five thousand years old. The Event Group and its personnel never argued between departments but everyone knew it was an accepted fact that Virginia Pollock and her Nuclear Sciences Division were never, ever, wrong in their time and age calculations, and if you knew Virginia Pollock you’d better not begin to question the science. She was a firm and adamant believer in dating material and had never been proven wrong on any established date.

Jack followed Niles, Lee, and Alice up the staircase of the closest scaffold. Their footsteps made loud clanging sounds as they moved across the steel. Collins saw amazement in everyone’s eyes. They must have already taken in the sight of the artifact many, many times before this morning, but clearly the viewing never failed to induce awe. Collins didn’t feel that way. It wasn’t because he was a cold military analyst, or that he didn’t have a great imagination. It was the fact that something described as divine providence ordered this vessel constructed under the direct supervision of God, which Jack considered ridiculous. A romantic would always love to believe that God had mercy on man and saved them with the Ark of wood, but Jack was a realist and knew that God had long abandoned mankind, including men from antiquity.

“Fairy tales, right?” Lee asked, penetrating Jack’s inner thoughts. Lee placed his cane on the railing overlooking the ancient vessel.

The wooden construction on the centerline main deck looked as precise as many a painting proclaimed. Collins could see the hairline fractures where the Ark had either been dismantled or damaged. The reverse-engineering to reconstruct the Ark must have been a massive undertaking. There was a house-like structure on the upper deck, and about eighty-five feet of the pitched roof and frame remained intact and looked as if this was where the supposed family of Noah would have lived high above their animal pens. Collins moved his eyes from the sight below to the single piercing eye of Lee.

“Excuse me?” Jack said as he failed to get the point even though he had been thinking about the same word only moments before.

“Just fairy tales. Stories that make for good Sunday school lesson plans. Good versus evil, the fight of man against nature, the determination of the human soul. Yes, many a good lesson is derived from such a story, wouldn’t you say?” Lee said as he moved to the major’s side and then gestured with his free hand as the other stabilized his weak frame against the railing. “But a fairy tale nonetheless,” he said when Collins remained silent. He patted Jack on the back and then held out his hand for Alice to continue.

“The Ark, if that’s what it is—and you will have to decide for yourself if that’s the case—is not the only artifact we have here at the Group that substantiates the data we have collected.” She took out a large aluminum box, which she opened and held out to Lee. Garrison Lee reached inside and gently, as if he were handling crystal, removed a leather-bound book. It was as though Lee were touching divinity itself. “The real treasure here, Jack,” he said as he felt the warmth of the leather beneath his fingers, “is not that petrified jumble of wooden beams, but this.”

Collins looked at what Lee was holding and was satisfied that he was looking at a journal, surely not as old as the object below in the vault, but old; within a hundred or two hundred years would be his estimate.

“Major, you are a student of your family lineage, correct?” Niles asked as he placed his hands behind his back, which he did every time he went into teaching mode.

“Yes, my mother and sister have concluded we started somewhere in Ireland and came to the colonies in 1678; nothing before that, though. On my father’s side, they arrived even earlier.”

“Military men—I must admit I never felt the calling, Major,” Niles said, almost apologizing for that fact. “Special people I have come to admire.” Niles turned and nodded at the book Lee held in his aged hand. “How many in your family have given the ultimate sacrifice, Major?”