Ark Found, page 15
part #2 of Omega Files Adventures Series
Even so, by the time they broke for lunch, Carter had to admit that he was feeling the workout. He asked himself if his time away from the service, almost a year now, had made him softer. The dog slurped up water from its bowl while the Turkish couple faced the peak of Ararat and knelt on a prayer rug. The others took photos and videos, or made brief satellite-phone calls to friends and loved ones back home. Glancing around at the vistas below, Carter was taken aback by how vast the region was. All of it qualified as “Ararat,” and so the ark could have come to rest anywhere up here, according to the Bible. It only had to be high enough elevation to make sense with the great flood waters subsiding and the ark coming to rest on what would likely be part of a mountain. He considered that the ground would be damp from the flood, and that possibly it would have sunk into a bed of mud, possibly submerged all the way beneath it. By now the wood would likely be petrified. Carter wished they could have brought a drone to obtain aerial views, but none were for sale in Doğubayazıt, and being on the run had not afforded them time to plan ahead. He reminded himself to try calling Maddy again, at camp tonight.
The group eased back onto the trail and continued up the volcano. Much of the time there was silence and Carter and Jayden dared not have conversation that involved their agenda, but when others in the group did strike up a conversation, or when the dog barked and everyone told it to be quiet, they would seize the opportunity to discuss what might lay ahead for them. “Do you think Daedalus will be armed?” Jayden asked.
“Don’t know,” Carter replied in a low voice, “but we have to assume that he could be. A man like Daedalus—with both means and a lack of moral scruples—would be able to get almost anything he wanted. It just depends how important he thought being armed was compared to the hassles it would involve, if any.”
Other than the knives, multitools and hatchets they carried that would not look out of place with camping or outdoors gear, Carter and Jayden were unarmed.
“Hopefully we can do a stealth infiltration of his camp,” Jayden said. Carter agreed, and then they trudged on in silence. The air became chillier as the elevation increased, and the parkas were zipped back up. After a while, Carter and Jayden found themselves having to deliberately hold back their pace in order to stay with the group, and they were glad to think that tomorrow they would strike out on their own. At base camp they had joked with the guides about the possibility of getting lost, saying that if all else failed, down was the way back, right? But they knew it wasn’t that simple. Besides Turkey, Mt. Ararat shared borders with Iran, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Traipsing down without knowledge of where they were going meant that they could end up in an unforgiving nation with no travel visa. A very serious matter were they to be detained, the trekking operation had warned them.
When the sun was visibly lower in the sky, the guides announced they had reached their campsite for the night, a craggy, snow-strewn plateau with a steep drop-off on one side, and a long, gradual slope on the other, while the summit of Mt. Ararat lorded over them above a steep incline. While they set up camp, Carter took out a pair of binoculars (he told he group he was an avid bird watcher) and scanned the territory below the steep drop-off, looking for any signs of backpackers. But he saw none; he scanned the other directions as well, but they were just as free of human presence.
After dinner, the lead guide took Carter and Jayden aside and asked them if they were ready to go off on their own in the morning. “The ark site is down there,” he said, pointing down the steep incline, “and then that way for probably ten kilometers uphill,” he finished, pointing out of sight.
Carter and Jayden nodded enthusiastically, playing the part of gung-ho adventure travelers. “Game on!” Jayden gushed.
“We’ll miss you guys,” Carter said. “You’re a great group, but we’d rather see the ark than the summit, and unfortunately we don’t have time for both.”
“I understand,” the guide said. “I just wanted to confirm that you are leaving us in the morning—I assume you will dine with us for breakfast?”
Carter nodded. “That’s right, then we’ll pack up with you, but when you guys head up there…” He looked up at the snowy summit. “…we’ll be going down there.” He looked down the steep incline.
“Do you think we’ll meet any other climbers at the ark site?” Jayden asked the guide. He was fishing for information on whether the guide knew of other climbing parties there, and of course whether they might be Treasure, Inc., but he thought it was a reasonable enough question to ask without raising suspicion.
“Probably not,” the guide answered. “There’s not much to see, really, just the vague outline of something that might be a ship. Every now and then people come digging for timbers, but most people who come up here just want to go to the summit.”
“Well, we better enjoy the company of other humans while we can!” Jayden said to Carter, before adding to the guide, “Hopefully we won’t get too sick of each other!”
The guide laughed. “Yes, well that’s another reason why group travel is recommended. Good company!”
#
That night in the tent, Carter used his satellite-phone to check his messages. “Got something from Maddy!” He told Jayden. He listened to the message, disconnected, and then recapped it for Jayden. “She says she’s still on a dig in Kyrgyzstan. Wants to meet up when we’re done if possible.”
“I’m sure she does,” Jayden said with a suggestive lilt to his voice. Carter pressed the button on his phone to call Maddy. “I’m going to tell her where we are—just approximately, not exactly-- and what we know so far about the map and our search, to see if she has anything that might help us.” But the call went straight to voice-mail. Carter left her a message.
Outside it was dead quiet, with none of the group having the energy to stay up after the day’s uphill trek, knowing they faced another day of it tomorrow.
Chapter 18
The next morning played out as planned, with Carter and Jayden parting ways with the trekking group after breakfast and camp breakdown. Both groups wished each other luck, with the tour leader asking Carter to phone a message to the trekking operation when they returned, to let them know they had made it down off the mountain safely. Carter agreed to this, and after a final warning about not ascending too rapidly without acclimating, he and Jayden watched the tour group continue up the trail that switchbacked further up the volcano.
“I will miss those guys,” Jayden said.
“Good group of people,” Carter said. “The kind of people who would respect a treasure like Noah’s Ark. Makes me want to stop Treasure, Inc. even more.”
“True. If Daedalus gets his way, he’d have the ark in his living room and no one would ever see it again.”
“Probably the centerpiece of his home bar.”
Jayden appeared thoughtful. “Hm, now that would be cool, I have to admit. Probably too cool for a low-life like him.”
“Speaking of,” Carter said as he shouldered his pack, “what do you say we head down there?”
He and Jayden eyed the precipitous slope down to a snow-filled ravine or gully of sorts. Jayden took a last look through a pair of binoculars. “No signs of anyone. Let’s do it.”
The two set out off the beaten path down the steep slope. The going was much slower than walking up the established track, since they needed to test each snow-covered step to make sure their footing was secure before putting their full weight down, unless they wanted to tumble down the rock-strewn face with its boulders hidden beneath the snow drifts. It also became colder the further down into the ravine they ventured, especially when the direct sunlight was blocked by the mountain itself overhead. Carter eyed the freshly fallen snow carefully for footprints, but it was all unbroken as far as he could see.
It took them the better part of three hours to reach the bottom of the ravine. When they did, they decided to break for lunch. “After we eat we’ll round that bend there,” Carter said, pointing to the bottom of another side of the mountain section, around which it sloped up sharply again.
“I’m ready for some more uphill after this morning,” Jayden said, shrugging off his pack onto a dry boulder.
“It’s a lot harder on the knees going down,” Carter said.
Jayden laughed. “That’s what she said.”
“Really, wow, that would have been funny maybe ten years—”
They heard a loud noise somewhere up above them, out of sight around the mountain. A sharp hissing sound. Both became silent as they froze in place and looked around while listening for more. After hunching in place for another two minutes without detecting further signs of activity, Carter pointed ahead of them, the signal to move out. The pair of ex-military men crept silently through the snow toward the mountain bend. To their left, about a hundred feet away, was the opposite wall of the gulley which rose steeply to the grand face of the mountain. After every few feet they would stop and listen again. On the fourth such auditory check, they heard what sounded like a human voice, distant and carried as an echo down through the ravine, the words, if any, indistinguishable. They continued following the contour of the ravine’s base until they could just see around an outcropping of rock into a new area of the ravine. Here, the trench between two walls increased in slope as well as becoming narrower. It went up for a long ways, Carter estimated perhaps a thousand yards, before it opened up onto the main volcanic slope, rejoining the mountain.
And there, toward the left side of that confluence, Carter picked out a splash of color. Any type of color stood out against a natural background that was all shades of green, brown and white, and so the splotch of blue stood out easily. Jayden saw it too. “Parka, or maybe a hat.”
Carter nodded and pointed to the opposite side of the ravine, up a little higher in the narrower section. “Let’s make our way up on that side.” Jayden moved up ahead as point man while Carter stayed back to observe. He removed the field binoculars from his pack—a small, inexpensive pair of 10 x 25s—and wished they were more powerful. Still, they were much better than the naked eye, so he brought them to his eyes while Jayden ran across the open ravine section to the wall on the other side. Focusing on the patch of blue up top, Carter waited for his eyes to adjust to the view. A couple of seconds later he saw the figure of a person—still too far away to distinguish facial features, but he could definitely make out the outline of a human body wearing cold weather gear—carrying or hefting a piece of equipment of some type. Whatever it was gleamed in the sunlight, so Carter figured it must have at least some metal on it.
He lowered the binoculars in time to see Jayden make the opposite ravine wall and look back at Carter, no doubt wanting confirmation from his scout that he wasn’t being observed by their unknown quarry up above. Carter gave him a hand signal that indicated he was clear to move forward, and Jayden set off up the ravine. While the point man progressed up the slope, Carter again raised the binoculars to his eyes. This time he saw two people, one of them grabbing the metallic object from the first and carrying it out of sight. Some kind of operation is going on up there, he thought. He lowered the glasses and monitored Jayden’s progress. When he turned around again to check in, Carter gave him the halt signal. With a last glance up the mountain to be sure no one was watching or moving toward them, Carter ran across the ravine to where Jayden’s first stop was, so that the two of them were now on the same side of the ravine, with Jayden a little further up.
Hugging the side of the craggy, snow-flecked wall, the pair of ex-Navy sailors eased their way up the ravine, stopping frequently to assess their surroundings and listen for changes in activity. They were able to progress with a quiet rapidity due to their former training and good physical conditioning. Three-quarters of the way up, Jayden waited for Carter to catch all the way up to him. They needed to communicate well to plot their approach out of the ravine. Neither was even breathing particularly hard, though they also had to slow their pace somewhat the nearer the top they reached, so as not to be heard by whoever was up there.
Carter whispered, “As soon as we make sure it’s not Treasure, Inc., we should back down without being detected. We don’t want to scare the crap out of someone by sneaking up on them.”
“Right, and possibly get shot at,” Jayden added. “Unless it actually is Treasure, Inc., in which case we’ll definitely get shot at.”
They heard another sharp hissing noise from above, louder this time because they were closer. Then they heard spoken words. They were still indistinguishable even though they were clear, and it took Carter a moment to figure out that it was because they were speaking a foreign language. Not Turkish or Armenian, which he could recognize enough of from being in Turkey the past few days, but….what was it? He strained to listen in, but instead of more talking they heard a loud, motorized buzzing start up. Carter and Jayden eyed one another with quizzical expressions.
“Chainsaw?” Jayden posited.
“Could be.”
“They found the ark and they’re cutting it down?” Jayden’s eyes opened wide.
“That would be a monumental no-no, permit or not. They must be using it to build something, would be my guess.”
“Enough guessing,” Jayden said. “Let’s go have a look-see.”
They low-crawled side-by-side up the remaining slope, moving very slowly so as to remain noiseless. A couple of times on the way up they heard the strange hissing of air again, as well as the chainsaw, if that’s what it is. And the voices. Carter heard them more clearly now—two different adult males, from the sound of it—but more importantly, he could identify their language, and it caused his adrenaline to spike: Greek.
Carter reached out and tugged on Jayden’s foot to get his attention. “It’s them.” Jayden nodded and patted his hunting knife, sheathed on his belt, as was Carter’s. He reached down and undid the retaining snap so that he would be able to withdraw it quick if need be. He glimpsed up at the ravine wall next to them. It was only a few feet above their heads, while they were lying on the ground, which meant they had almost reached the top. Down at the bottom, before they had started low-crawling, the wall as a good fifty feet high or more. The idea of randomly popping out in the open over the wall was unappealing, since they had no way of seeing who or what was up there right now. Was there a campsite, or was this a work site they “commuted” to from wherever their camp was? It made a difference because his goal was to obtain the map, or a copy of it. It was doubtful Daedalus would have brought the original with him, for fear of it being destroyed or lost…or was it?
Perhaps he simply hadn’t had time to put it anywhere else for safekeeping other than keep it on his person. He’d only had a few hours head-start over Carter and Jayden, after all. Copy or original, something had brought them here, one way or the other, and Carter was determined to find it, and then either steal it or copy it by taking a photo of it. He patted one of the cargo pockets in his pants to make sure the camera was still there. Check. He had already gone into the device’s settings the previous night and disabled all beeps and shutter sounds, to ensure silent operation. This phase of the mission was as about as planned in advance as it could be, Carter thought, trying to calm himself against the uncertainty that now represented his immediate future.
He eyed Jayden and dared not even whisper at this point, simply mouthing the words: straight up and stop at the edge. Then he pointed to his own eyes with two fingers, meaning take a look. So the plan was to low-crawl the last few feet, which would expose them to Treasure, Inc.’s line of sight for at least a few seconds, but during that time they would get to see what they were dealing with.
Another hiss of air made him jump and he took a couple of deep breaths to calm his nerves. He thought the sound seemed familiar to him now, and yet it made no sense in this context. Can’t be…He probably would have recognized it if he’d had a few more seconds to think, but Jayden was tugging at his sleeve with urgency while he began to slither up out of the ravine onto the mountainside.
Taking a deep breath, Carter did the same.
Chapter 19
“Are the tanks set up yet, Phillipo?” Daedalus bellowed.
His brother’s reply echoed from off the ice below but was perfectly audible. “That should be the last one. Four rigs ready to go. Just need some more hot tea.”
“We can have tea after we do the dive.”
“Oh c’mon, brother, we’ve waited 5,000 years to recover the ark, what’s five more minutes?”
“It’s that much more time for the Turkish government to find out we are excavating archaeological ruins without a license, that’s what it is, Phillipo. Then you will be drinking your tea in a Turkish jail.”
“You have a way of looking on the bright side, Daedalus.”
“As did Noah. He knew the world would soon be flooded, and yet he had a plan for it, a plan that would not only save him and his family, but the animals of the world as well. Are the drysuits and the rest of the gear down by the lake?”
Daedalus stared down at the object of their new attention, a small lake—some might call it a large pond—partially iced over. It had been difficult to detect at first because fresh powder covered the intact ice, but on closer inspection, but the team member had noticed water sloshing against the shore while Daedalus and his brother had been arguing.
Daedalus picked up his binoculars and stared down at the lake. Was it possible? Then, for probably the tenth time that day, he took out the map from his pack, the original map from the Titanic. He very much regretted having to bring the original on the expedition and risk something happening to it, since he was aware of its intrinsic value even though he already had copies of it, but the timeline of recent events had necessitated that he keep it with him. He unfolded it now and looked at it again. He could have viewed a photo on his tablet, but he felt like for some reason he was missing something when he did that. He liked the feel of connecting more intimately with the past, and so he risked the old document to the elements in the pursuit of inspiration.
