Ark Found, page 11
part #2 of Omega Files Adventures Series
“I have a feeling he’s checked into St. John’s premiere luxury hotel by now,” Carter said. “It’s got to be Buzz. It’s got to be…” He turned to silent prayer as they drifted in the freezing water while the sound of the rotors drew nearer. The running lights of the aircraft were the only distinguishable feature in the dim light, but when the spotlight brightened a circle of dark sea beneath the ‘copter, Jayden let out a whoop.
“It’s Buzz. He’s looking for us!”
“He sees us,” Carter confirmed, as the aircraft slowed and began to descend toward the ocean surface.
“And our friends over there see him, too,” Jayden pointed out. Near the edge of their visibility into the wind-whipped, salty gloom, the small boat made a wide turn back toward them.
“So much for leaving us to the elements,” Carter said.
“Well, to be fair, an Augusta Bell AB-212 helo is not exactly ‘the elements’, is it?”
“Do we have a light, anything to warn the pilot with?”
Jayden scrounged around the console for a bit before coming up empty-handed while shaking his head. “’fraid not. Maybe now’s the time for your anchor trick. Buzz might not know these guys are willing to shoot first and cover things up later.”
Carter nodded. “I’ll do what I can. You maintain eye contact with Buzz and guide him in.”
As the chopper neared the rotor wash stirred up the water to the point that their swamped raft was nearly impossible to stay with. “He’s waving us over!” Jayden said, and then a second later, the pilot’s voice was heard through a loud-hailer: “I can’t get any closer without blowing you away in the raft. Get out and swim to me, I’ll lower a ladder. Give me a hand signal if you understand.”
Jayden immediately held up his hand in the universal “okay” signal, thumb and forefinger held in a circle. “Ready, Carter?”
The Treasure, Inc. Zodiac was a stone’s throw away now and not slowing down as it approached them. It was obvious they meant to pass Carter and Jayden and assault the helicopter.
Carter responded with, “Jump in three, two, one…Go!” He stood in the deflated raft as best he could, and from his wobbly stance he wound the anchor at the end of the chain around in a loop like a cowboy getting ready to lasso a bull. He watched as the enemy craft cruised past their port side. When he heard the splash signaling that Jayden had launched himself into the open sea, Carter began the mental process of timing his anchor swings while watching the assailant’s boat speed past.
One of the crew fired the first shot at the helicopter as it hovered, waiting for Carter and Jayden to swim beneath it. Carter let go of the chain with the anchor near the apex of its loop and aimed far ahead of the speeding raft. Carter knew he should start swimming as soon as he let the anchor fly, but it would only take a couple more seconds to see the results of his offensive move and the curiosity was overwhelming. He was rewarded with the sight of the boat’s driver suddenly being ripped off of the craft into the water behind it. The Zodiac then spun wildly to the left in an out-of-control turn.
Having seen enough to know that his stunt had proven as effective as he could have hoped for, Carter dove off of his crippled raft, knifing underwater in a dive so as to remain unseen on the surface for as long as possible. He found the relative quiet beneath the waves to be peaceful, a serenity that was shattered the moment he surfaced for air. His ears were greeted with the din of a helicopter motor and a boat engine, against a backdrop of thunder, howling wind, and a heavy rain splattering on the waves. He could see the chopper hovering about thirty feet away, but the seas were too chaotic to permit him a decent view of the water itself, so he couldn’t see Jayden or even the rival boat.
Carter began to swim as fast and hard as he could. He could feel the pull of a strong current and knew that he would need all his strength to make progress against it for even the short distance to the helicopter. Kicking with everything he had, he reached the peak of a swell and used to the opportunity to check the water around him. He spotted Jayden’s black-haired head beneath the chopper. Carter’s heart sank as he realized just how precarious their situation was. This helicopter was not some coast guard chopper equipped with a winch and rescue basket, much less a crew separate crew to handle those things. It was fast and light, designed for transport over relatively long distances for a ‘copter. But this meant the pilot would face the Herculean task of lowering the chopper close enough to the water for them to be able to grab hold of the skids, while avoiding the unpredictable rogue swells that cropped up all around them. And the enemy gunfire.
Carter bodysurfed down the face of the swell he was on and kicked hard until he felt himself rising up the next one. At its crest, he used the viewpoint to look back toward their abandoned and ruined inflatable boat. He was beyond surprised to see a man swimming only ten feet behind him, coming right towards him with a powerful crawl stroke. At first he thought his adrenaline-riddled mind might be playing tricks on him, that it was Jayden and that he had somehow gotten disoriented and turned everything around in his mind. But a quick 180 and visual check of the helicopter, where Jayden’s arm was swiping unsuccessfully for the skid, told him that no, it was someone else.
He realized with a start that it was the pilot of the Zodiac he had grappled overboard with the anchor. Coming after him in the water to exact his revenge? It seemed absurd, but Carter knew he didn’t have time to tread water and think about it. He kicked off toward the helicopter once again, hoping that at least Jayden would be aboard before he got there so he would be able to help pull him up and in.
But when he felt the rotor-driven spray on his face, he looked up to see that Jayden was, in fact, still in the water. The problem was that the chopper pilot was too scared get low enough for a person treading water to grab hold of the skids. Carter couldn’t blame him. It was possible for the entire aircraft to be engulfed and pulled underwater once the skids were submerged. But meanwhile the savage in the water behind him was gaining, and to make matters even worse, Carter spotted the lights of his boat drawing nearer.
The pilot lowered the helicopter once again, doing his best to time the swells. He lowered the craft into a trough, but had to pull up as a swell approached before Jayden was able to grab the skid. It was close, though, and Jayden gave him a hand signal that indicated he should try the maneuver again.
Carter called over to Jayden to let him know he was here. “Keep trying to get in, I’ll fight this guy off.” The enemy combatant swimmer reached them too, and the battle was on. Carter made a mental note to find out more about Daedalus ’ employee motivation program, because he couldn’t help but think that these guys were non-stop go-getters. Surely, they could have driven back to the ship after picking up their man overboard, and the boat chase, and no one would have said anything about a lack of effort. But here this killer was, swimming through a tempest beneath a helicopter to get at an ex-Navy man who had ripped him off of a boat after being shot at.
Was it the power of the ark? The strange thought sprouted in Carter’s historian brain even as his primal systems readied themselves to brawl. Carter wasn’t worried too much about the fight. Though Jayden had been the SEAL and not him, he was still extremely comfortable in the water and a trained fighter as well. He took a deep breath as the peak of a swell was about to reach him and ducked below the water. Opening his eyes despite the cold sting, he locked onto the blurry form of his adversary and angled up toward him from below. Like a shark, Carter thought. From below and behind. Take him out…
But as Carter’s right hand reached out to drag his opponent beneath the waves, the foe was suddenly yanked up and out of the water. No way could he propel himself like that, Carter thought. So, what….he surfaced in time to see the undercarriage of their helicopter—its engine roaring in his ears with the close proximity—lifting away…
…with Jayden gripping onto the skid with both hands—and Daedalus ’ thug holding onto his ankles, also being lifted into the stormy sky.
“Jayden, kick! It’s not me!” Carter screamed, in case Jayden wasn’t aware who it was that was holding onto him. He saw the former Naval warrior glance down, and a bolt of lightning illuminating his shocked face told Carter that his message had not been in vain. In a feat of sheer strength befitting an ex-SEAL, Jayden raised his knees until the adversary latched onto his ankles was within striking distance. Holding onto the skid with only his left hand, Jayden clocked the thug in the jaw with a powerful right, knocking him back into the water. He landed right next to Carter, nearly on top of him.
In a lucky break for the hired goon, his Zodiac pulled up next to him at that moment. Carter had been listening to Jayden scream something at the helicopter pilot, but the engine droned out the words, as well as the sound of the small boat’s motor, which was why he didn’t hear it approach. Carter felt his stomach leap into his heart as he turned around and saw the rubber tubes of the inflatable mere feet from his face. The attacker who had just fallen from the helo was being dragged aboard by his associates--the two, that is, who were not either driving the boat or pointing the gun at Carter.
He whirled right, knowing his movements were slowed in water but needing to get out of the gun’s sights. He barely heard the pop of the pistol over the chopper engine noise, which grew louder as the ‘copter lowered itself over the boat. Carter saw his chance and took it. He was a sitting duck in the water. He ducked underwater to cloak himself while moving to another part of the boat, forward of where his adversary was being pulled back in following his ordeal. He scissor-kicked up to launch himself from the water and took hold the grab line that was strung around the boat’s sides. Using this he was able to swing his right leg up and over the tube and roll into the boat even before his adversary was helped aboard.
Even so, he knew he had all of about a single second in which to act before he was gunned down and tossed back overboard. The chopper was so close he instinctively brought up an elbow to shield his face when he looked at it, but then he realized this was Jayden’s doing. His friend was now standing on the skid, one hand gripping the door frame, waving Carter up, mouthing the word Jump!
Carter took the not-so-subtle-suggestion and, with a running start, bounded off the pontoons at the bow of the small craft, basically trampolining himself up toward the hovering helicopter. His jump was a good one, and he was able to wrap both hands around the skid. As soon as he did that, he looked up and saw Jayden, head turned toward the pilot, waving at him to move.
In the boat, his takes-a-licking-but-keeps-on-ticking attacker was somehow back on his feet and rampaging toward Carter once more. Carter saw him by looking down through his legs, but was much more concerned about the crewman standing in the rear of the boat aiming the gun at him. There wasn’t much he could do about that, and he now felt terribly exposed due to his elevation above the other people on the raft. But a rolling wave crested beneath the boat at that moment, and as luck would have it, tipped the boat enough to throw off the shooter’s aim, causing him to miss all three rapid-fire shots.
At the same time, the chopper lifted off in earnest, with Jayden yelling at the pilot to go, go, go. By the time Carter began to lift himself into the chopper, he was out of realistic range of the guns. Still, the boat pursued them for a short distance, and more shots were fired as evidenced by the tiny orange muzzle blasts visible against the dark sea in the distance, but they had eluded their pursuers.
For now, Carter thought, kneeling at the edge of the open door while Jayden steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. He knew Daedalus wouldn’t be satisfied until all threats to his illicit enterprises were neutralized. He watched the heavy rain fall while the angry sea surface faded into obscurity until Jayden pulled the door closed.
For now.
Chapter 13
St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, next day
Carter and Jayden clinked frosty mugs of cold Canadian lager over their table inside a waterfront pub. “Here’s to being alive,” Jayden toasted. They soaked up the brew in silence for a while, savoring this simple but extravagant fact. The remainder of the helicopter ride back to the coast had been non-eventful, save being nearly out of fuel when they made the heliport in St. John’s.
The easternmost city in North America, St. John’s was originally a fishing village established by European colonists. The small city reminded Carter of San Francisco with its steep hills, but also of Caribbean architecture with its bright wooden houses. The climate, however, was definitely not Caribbean, and was even cooler on average than San Francisco, with the current temperature being in the mid-forties, Fahrenheit.
Carter looked around at the pub, sparsely populated at this early hour of the day. Later, when the fisherman arrived back to the docks, it would fill up with boisterous men unwinding after a hard day’s work. But for now, Carter and Jayden had time to reflect on how this port was the closest to where the Titanic had sunk. And they were lucky to be drinking here. Jayden set down his empty mug and requested another round from a passing server.
“I can understand trying to kill us when we still had the map, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why they wanted to kill us so bad after Daedalus already had the map.” He shook his head slowly as he finished his sentence. Carter swilled the last of his brew and set the empty mug on the worn, wooden table with a soft clack.
“We’re a threat to his livelihood, to his illicit antiquities business.”
“I guess we kind of proved that in Atlantis, didn’t we?” He grinned at the memory of their epic sojourn into the legendary city, culminating in a standoff against Daedalus and Treasure, Inc.
“I’d say we did,” Carter agreed. The server returned with their second round and he paused until after she had left before continuing. “But as usual, it’s Daedalus for himself first, leaving his people to handle the dirty work for him. He left early in their helo for a reason, not because he didn’t want to take us out.”
Jayden nodded. “Right, they could have strafed us from their chopper when we were in the Zodiac and this fledgling bar tab here never would have happened.” He took another long pull from his mug. “He just wanted out of there with the map.”
“No question about that,” Carter agreed. “The question is, where did he take it?”
Jayden looked outside at the waterfront, at the gulls wheeling in the sky, the row of fishing boats at the dock, at the smattering of pedestrians passing by. “He left in a helo, and since most helo’s don’t have much range, I’m guessing he would have landed in the nearest port, which is right here.” He waved an arm at the view outside and then stared intently in that direction, as though Daedalus could walk by at any second.
“I’m sure he landed here, too. But I mean, what’s his next move with the map? Where does he go based on the info it provides?”
“I don’t know. Too bad we didn’t get a picture of it so that we know what it is that he’s going by,” Jayden lamented.
“I only got the barest glimpse of it for all of two seconds, and while it appeared old and possibly authentic, and it did look like a map of some kind, I can’t say for sure it was a map that depicts the final resting place of Noah’s Ark.”
“So you didn’t see a picture somewhere on there of a big boat with a bunch of animals on it?”
Carter laughed in the negative until a new group of patrons, all of them male and middle-aged, entered the pub. Carter scrutinized them carefully. It wouldn’t take a great leap of logic for Daedalus’ team to figure out that they must have landed in St. John’s from the ‘copter, as they had, and that a local watering hole would be their preferred hangout while they recovered from their at-sea ordeal. But after observing them, he concluded that all of them were locals and therefore highly unlikely to be affiliated with Treasure, Inc.’s European-based operations.
“But you can’t say for sure that it’s not a map to the ark, either,” Jayden said after sufficient time to observe the newcomers had elapsed.
“Right. So let’s assume for a moment that it’s the real deal.” Carter swilled some more Canadian flavor as he considered this. “Where would Daedalus take the map after landing here? What would his next move be?”
Jayden shrugged. “Guy like that, lots of resources…could be almost anywhere, I suppose. But he really wants to find Noah’s Ark, so if he’s going to go right after it without letting things cool off…”
“I think that’s the Daedalus we all know and hate.”
Jayden continued. “Then I’d say his first move might be to have images of the map sent to his history and authentication experts, in Europe, I guess, and see what they say as far as where it points to.”
Carter gave Jayden a long stare. “That’s what I was thinking. But let’s say that process takes about a day given his resources and…motivational acumen…a timeframe which has already transpired, since he landed here yesterday a few hours before us. Where would he be going based on that?”
Jayden made a gesture of futility, tossing his hands wildly. “Look, Carter, if I knew where Noah’s Ark was—”
“We don’t have to know where the ark is. That’s the beauty of it. We just have to know where Daedalus thinks it is. The general vicinity. Because if we can find Daedalus, then we can take the map back from him.”
“I can think of a way that is simpler, in theory.” Jayden appeared pleased with himself. Again, a server appeared, this time with a tray of scallops with pork hock, and they halted the conversation until she had left.
“I’d love to hear it,” Carter said, before taking a bite of the fresh seafood.
“If we could hack into whatever systems Daedalus used to send those scans of the map to his people—I mean really, how many Wi-Fi routers and cable Internet providers could there be in this Podunk little town-- then we could just steal the images from there and be looking at the map ourselves.”
Carter nearly choked on his shrimp. “I’m a historian, Jayden, and you’re a SEAL. We’re not computer experts. Especially you.”
