The Mountain

17

The end of the Ankara line was just as the words described — the end. The bleak landscape gave credence to the rumored ghostly aspects of the region. The station at Talise was nothing more than two ramshackle huts and a water tower. There was a siding for the locomotive to be turned back west, but that was all. The onetime village of Talise had been wiped out by smallpox nearly four years before and the remaining homes had collapsed under the onslaught of the severe winters in eastern Turkey.

As John Henry scanned the work going on around him he felt as if he had started to regain the strength he had before his assault at the hands of Claire’s supposed curse. Thomas had refused all questions from the officers around him about what had frightened him so. How could he explain to them the reliving of the day he’d found the mutilated body of Mary? They would never understand the horror of what he had seen. War in the east could not compare to the compassionless way in which men survived in the west.

He was approached by Lieutenant Parnell, who saluted as he made his report.

“Lieutenant,” John Henry said as he returned the salute.

“Sir, I have dispatched the two couriers north along with our bandleader to meet up with the Black Sea contingent to escort them here if needed. The telegraph is up and running, but we have a break in the line somewhere between here and the town of Iziz, the hamlet where the northern line ends a hundred miles from here.”

“Very good, Lieutenant. Are you clear on your own orders?”

“Yes, sir. I am to remain here with half of the men, one hundred and three charges. We are to slowly work our way eastward toward Ararat for obvious reasons. We’ll make a grand show of laying ties, as per our mission. I will await any orders from you from the summit.”

“Remember your rules of engagement, Lieutenant Parnell. You are not to open fire unless fired upon by any outside force, and then it is only to buy time to disengage. If approached by representatives of the sultan, you must not, under any circumstances, engage Turkish forces.”

“And other forces?” the young and straight marine asked worriedly.

“I’ll leave that to your good judgment, Lieutenant.” John Henry smiled at the eager officer. “French, German, or British, if they so much as frown at you I would show them how tired you are from all this traveling and stomp their asses if the opportunity arises. Other than that, keep the men ready and their horses inside the train. No one is to know our capabilities. Are your rules of engagement clear?”

“Not at all, Colonel,” Parnell said facetiously as he watched the long line of horses and pack mules as they were made ready by the one hundred and twenty men that would accompany Thomas and Taylor to the summit. “I’ll try and do my best, Colonel.”

“That’s all any of us can do, son.”

Sergeant Major Dugan came toward the two men as Thomas turned and instead of returning the final salute of Parnell’s, he nodded and shook the boy’s hand.

“Let’s hope we don’t have too much explaining to do to our grandchildren when they ask what we did in the great rebellion, huh, Lieutenant?”

“I must admit the thought of making it out of here and having grandkids thrills me to no end at the moment, sir.”

“I knew you were a levelheaded young man. Good luck, Lieutenant.” John Henry buttoned the top of his fur-lined greatcoat and accepted the reins of his horse from Dugan. He saw Gray Dog ride up and wait for him. Even the Comanche had a long fur-trimmed coat on over his leather skins. Dugan mounted with a nod to Parnell.

“Lieutenant,” Dugan said with a tap to the brim of his cap.

Parnell watched as John Henry spurred his large mount forward. The golden piping lining his saddle blanket was clearly visible with its two crossed sabers in the corner. Parnell could see that John Henry Thomas was now in his element.

As the colonel rode along the long line of men, horses, and wagons, he saw Claire at the front of the column. He reined in his mount and sidled up next to her horse. A few snowflakes fell from the bleak sky and settled on her thick coat. Thomas had to smile at the bulky and very unfeminine clothing Claire was forced to wear. The fur hat was the topper, and John Henry had a hard time keeping his face straight. McDonald had settled in next to Claire and looked far more miserable than the Pinkerton agent. Thomas was enjoying this to no end.

“I can see you two are as snug as bugs in a rug.”

Claire looked his way. Her nose was starting to tint red but her eyes were clear. They told John Henry his ill-suited humor was not going over well at all.

“Don’t fear, we only have fifty-odd miles of barren terrain to cover.” He smiled but turned away before Claire could focus her angry eyes on him. “Isn’t it nice to be on a horse again?” he said loudly as he, Gray Dog, and Dugan spurred their horses forward to take up station next to Taylor at the front of the civilian column.

Thomas smiled at Jessy, and the Rebel colonel returned it with an uneasy one of his own. He glanced over at Dugan and Gray Dog and the sergeant major just shrugged his shoulders as he was used to the exuberance of John Henry when it came to his chosen profession — cavalry officer. Both Dugan and Taylor knew the man to be the most gifted cavalry tactician West Point had ever turned out this side of Robert E. Lee himself.

“Column, forward!” he called out loudly as he waved his gauntleted right hand in the air and then extended his fingers toward their dark destination — Ararat.

The American expeditionary force moved onto the Plain of Mount Ararat. The summit now rose seventeen thousand feet above them. As the column advanced to its ultimate goal, a tune was started by none other than the naval mess crew. As they moved east men started picking up the old favorite, and soon the words were clear to John Henry at the front of the column. Why that particular old tune, Thomas would never know.

As snowflakes started to accumulate on man, animal, and wagon, the first horses and riders crossed the shallow Murat River as the soft refrain of the old hymnal “The Old Rugged Cross” reverberated from man to man, from Rebel to marine. The scene was surreal as every man knew what they were being drawn toward and the old hymn was the only thing the men of both North and South could think of to sing. To Thomas and Taylor it was a most appropriate choice.

The American raiders grew closer to God’s mountain, and every man knew the owner to be rather pricklish at times and one who never hesitated to make an example out of foolish mortals.

Seventeen thousand feet above them, buried in thirteen-thousand-year-old ice, the Ark waited.

Since the men had ample rest and food for the past two weeks, John Henry knew he could push them. The weather had held off on the first day, sputtering snow from time to time, but the sun was being held back by some of the more ominous clouds Thomas had ever been witness to. The thunderheads that developed on the vast reaches of the American southwest were this way also, but in his experience they moved fast in their destruction, while these just seemed to hover around the summit of Ararat and extend to the lower elevations as if the weather was reaching down for them. He could see that the expedition members were indeed wary of the signs.

He rode up and down the line extolling Dugan to keep his wagon train up to speed. The Reb drivers were cautious on the uneven terrain in front of the steeps of Ararat.

He spurred his horse forward when he saw that McDonald and Ollafson had decided to take a break from the cold by vanishing into one of the mess wagons where the men had a hot stove going. Claire had not accompanied them.

“Not joining your friends?” he asked as his horse settled in beside her own. Thomas’s animal nudged hers and then the two bumped heads.

“Whoa,” Claire said softly to make her mount calm in the presence of the large roan. “I can only take so much bellyaching about how miserable the weather is. McDonald is not your everyday field officer. I think he’s used to getting what he wants from the sitting side of a desk planted inside a well-warmed room.”

“It’s a soldier’s right to complain, even in Her Royal Majesty’s Black Watch, I guess,” John Henry said as he took in the reddened features that blotted Claire’s face. “Miss Anderson, go to the mess wagon and warm up. Take some time to thaw out. We’ve been riding for fourteen hours and won’t settle in until sunrise when I can post less of a guard detail.”

“I’m fine, Colonel. Unlike Captain McDonald, I have been field trained and rather excel at it.”

“I can see that, Miss Anderson, I just—”

“My name is Claire, Colonel. Every time you say Miss Anderson I look around for my mother, who wouldn’t have appreciated it either.”

“Fair enough. My meaning was not intended to insult, but rather to inform, Miss … Claire,” he corrected himself quickly and received a small dose of a smile from the spy. “You see, although the temperature is a balmy thirty-one degrees, the wind is the real danger here. If you could see your face right now you would agree.”

Sudden panic filled her eyes as she pulled down the thick scarf from her mouth and face.

“What do you mean?” she asked pointedly.

John Henry almost smiled but held off. She was a stubborn woman, but like every woman the world over she was vain to a point. And that was the way he attacked this formidable woman. Thomas knew he was thinking like a caveman.

“Frostbite, Madame. The splotches on your cheeks are just the onset of a not-so-severe case of frostbite.”

Claire cleared her throat as she turned in her saddle for a look back a quarter mile to the mess wagon, whose small stove pipe was bellowing smoke and she could imagine the enticing heat as well as Grandee’s cooking aromas.

“A cup of coffee would be welcome, I suppose,” she said as she quickly raised the scarf to her face so John Henry could not see her rough skin. This time Thomas did smile as she abruptly turned her horse and galloped off.

John Henry laughed as he heard the quick beat of hooves after Claire realized she might lose part of that gorgeous skin to the weather. Before he realized it Gray Dog was riding beside him. The Comanche turned and saw that Claire had almost made it to the chuck wagon at cavalry-charge speed. He turned back and faced John Henry with a strange look on his face.

“All right, what is it?” Thomas asked.

“Is the red-haired woman your friend, John Henry?” Gray Dog asked as they rode.

“First Dugan and now you?” He turned to look at his youthful friend. “She’s brave, but no, not a friend.”

“No, she is a friend. She trusts John Henry.”

“Hell, there’s a lot you have to learn about women, Gray Dog. She’s the one that’s a little short of trustworthy characteristics.”

By the look on Gray Dog’s face he could see that he did not understand what Thomas was saying. He decided to leave it for another time.

“We are being watched again.”

“I suspected as much. Who?”

“Uniforms, black and red.”

“Damn,” he said as he turned and looked around at the vast terrain. “That could be anyone. German or Turk. The Germans we could bluff, but if it’s representatives of the empire we may have some hard questions to answer for being so far out of line of the supposed track extension. I was hoping they would be observing Parnell and his men. Damn it. How many?”

“Five, maybe six riders,” Gray Dog said as he moved his horse away and then galloped toward the front where he was scouting ahead.

Taylor saw the exchange and rode up beside Thomas. “Bad news?” he asked with that irritating and ever-present smile.

“We have more company,” Thomas said in exasperation.

“Kind of wastes your forced march from the station, doesn’t it?”

“It was a judgment call, Jessy.” Thomas turned angrily in his saddle. “You do remember the variables of command, don’t you?”

“I seem to remember the course at the Point. I also seem to remember I failed and you were at the head of the class.”

“I know there’s a point in there somewhere, Colonel.”

“The point, Colonel Thomas, is the fact that if that is a reactionary force and not a scouting element, you have a handful of tired and sleepy men. They may not have the quickness you hoped for if confronted.”

“What makes you think I would order a defense? Maybe we talk our way out of any situation.”

“Listen,” Taylor reined in his horse, forcing John Henry to do the same. “You can say these dumbass things to some shavetail lieutenant, but it’s me you’re talking to. The first shot at these men, marine or southerner, these boys will shoot back. Maybe you forget what all of these men have been doing for the past four years, John Henry. They’re killers of the first order and I don’t think whoever is out there has taken that into account. So you better wrap your arms around it — if we’re confronted these men will not surrender to the likes of them.”

John Henry saw Taylor’s point but chose to remain quiet. He did turn to Sergeant Major Dugan.

“There’s a small rise ahead and we only have two hours until sunup. We make camp there. Make sure every man is fed well. We pull out in twenty-four hours.”

“Yes, sir,” Dugan said as he turned his horse and sped to the front to terminate the forced march.

“I see my powers of persuasion are still viable,” Taylor smirked. “Must be that ol’ southern charm.”

“That’s it, Jessy, that old charm. Now see to your men.”

John Henry watched Jessy ride off knowing that he had been right. Expecting men who had been fighting a merciless war against their own kin to be able to hold off defending themselves against a European foe was rather naive of himself. He had to think things through better or they would fail at every aspect of their mission. He decided that Claire had been right after all — he had been affected by his dream. He knew now that the episode was not just memory, it was a warning about the power they were possibly facing. He had to start owning up to the fact that this mission might have more mystery than he first believed.

John Henry Thomas watched as the column ahead slowed and then started to circle as they made the rise in the land. As he watched, his eyes were drawn to the dark shape of the mountain range with its bright sheeting of white snow.

Up there the shadows would be dense and impenetrable.

Lieutenant J.G. Riley Montague Abernathy stood on the bow sail of the U.S.S. Carpenter as she slowly slid past the eastern shore of the capital. The fog was so thick it seemed it was pressing down on the young naval officer. He tilted his head as he heard the shallow-draft warning bells as they sounded across the strait. It was hard to discern the distance and he hoped he didn’t run aground with the Carpenter or the vessel the large thirty-two-gun warship was towing into the Black Sea, the U.S.S. Argo.

Abernathy turned and shouted out behind him. “Give me distance to Argo!”

“Towline is taut, warning chime still at safe distance,” came the reply from the aft section of the Carpenter.

The lieutenant was one of the brightest up-and-coming young officers in the United States Navy. He had been handpicked by Captain Jackson for the task of getting Argo into position.

“Ten degrees right rudder,” he called out.

“Ten degrees right rudder, aye,” came the reply.

“Depth?” he called again as he tried again to penetrate the dense fog with nothing more than faint hope working for him.

“Back to forty fathoms!”

“All right, Mr. Harvey, straighten her out.”

His second-in-command watched the lieutenant, who was now a ship’s captain for the first time in his life, hop down from the rigging and onto the darkened deck.

“Aye, Captain,” he said. “Helm, rudder amidships, steady as she goes.”

“Rudder is amidships, steady as she goes, aye,” came the relieved reply.

The two vessels had just crossed the narrowest point of the strait. They were only a few miles away from entering the Black Sea where they would hide for as long as Colonel Thomas needed. But the way the Argo had performed thus far, Abernathy was worried she would founder long before she was called upon. Twice the Carpenter had to stop to save the large Argo from foundering in calm seas. It had taken long hours to shore up the flotation balloons inside her hull to keep Argo above the waves. He had almost lost the one-hundred-man crew of the Argo long before they had arrived in the Mediterranean. Twice she had rubbed her keel on the bottom of the strait since the fog had set in, but she had made it through with much sweat lost in the process.

“I thought for sure we would have torn out Argo’s keel when we hit that twenty-fathom mark back there, Mr. Harvey.”

“Aye, the hairs were standing straight up on my neck on that one.” The young naval officer chuckled in relief. “Odds are we still left some Maine oak back there on the rocks. Argo draws ten more feet of draft than does the Carpenter.”

“If Ericsson hadn’t come up with the idea of transferring Argo’s ordnance over to Carpenter we might indeed have lost her. The extra tonnage would have weighted her right to the bottom of the Bosphorus.”

Lieutenant Harvey looked at his pocketwatch in the weak lighting of the bow. “Well, in a little while the Yorktown will make a daylight show of entering the strait for all the prying eyes to see. Meanwhile, we’ll be cruising the Black Sea where no one expected us to be.”

Abernathy raised his brows at the comment.

“Let us just hope we can get back out when the need arises. As I recall, that part of the plan was rather vague.”

“You mention that now?” Harvey asked, incredulous.

“Need-to-know basis, Mr. Harvey, and you—”

“Didn’t need to know,” they both said simultaneously.

Abernathy nodded and then watched the swirling fog as it started to thin the closer the two vessels got to the Black Sea.

“The only real thing we have to worry about is one item, I guess,” Harvey said.

“And that is?”

“If they brought the Argo along for the ride, hiding her inside a barge, someone was expecting big trouble.”

“Indeed, Mr. Harvey, indeed.”

At 0510 hours on the morning of October first, the United States Navy entered the Black Sea in undeniable force for the first time in American history.

Three hours later, and while ordinary Ottoman citizens on the western shore cheered, the U.S.S. Yorktown entered the strait.

It was but five hours after that the French warships Especial and Osiris, two thirty-six-gun frigates, slipped past the lighthouse at the mouth of the Bosphorus and into the Black Sea.

18

Most of the men had collapsed immediately into their tents. Each four-man cover held three Rebel prisoners and one marine. You could no longer call the marines a guard; they were just as tired and apprehensive as their charges, and the cause was the summit that was looming ever larger.

John Henry was surprised to see Claire up and about two hours before he wanted the column to reassemble for the final leg onto Ararat. He would have thought she would have taken more advantage of the singularly large tent with which he had supplied her. Thomas had also made sure that Grandee and his mess crew made hot water available for her use. He continued walking as Claire accepted a cup of coffee from a mess steward. She nodded her thanks and then noticed John Henry. She nodded but did not approach. She looked again and then vanished back into her tent. Thomas pulled his pocketwatch from his coat and saw that it was 1620 hours. Two hours until the sun set.

Sergeant Major Dugan stepped up, rubbing his hands together. To John Henry’s surprise Dugan had trimmed and cut his beard to a manageable jumble. His boots were polished and his brass shined in the dreary late-afternoon sunlight that filtered through the black clouds overhead. Thomas did a double take when he noticed the change in the gruff Irishman.

“Is that a hair treatment I smell?” Thomas asked as he took a tentative step away from the sergeant major.

“Might be a touch. Had a hard time getting my cowlick to settle in.”

“Uh-huh. And instead of sleeping you polished boots and brass and curtailed that jumble of baling wire you call a beard.”

“I slept plenty on the train.” He sniffed the air and then slapped his hands together. “Well, I think I’ll go see what the navy has rustled up for mess call.” He started to turn away.

John Henry kept his gaze on the east as he scanned the plain for a sign of Gray Dog, whom he had sent ahead to scout.

“I suppose this sudden change has nothing to do with that spit-and-polished first sergeant of Her Majesty’s Black Watch making you feel somewhat” — he turned to Dugan with a smirk — “lacking?”

“Me, lacking decorum to a bloody damn Brit? Not likely Colonel boyo. Why I would—” His words trailed off when he saw Gray Dog riding hard and fast for the camp. Dugan nodded his head. “Gray Dog’s back and it looks like he might have something to say.”

The Comanche rode hard directly into the center of the large encampment. The noise of beating hooves woke many, including Captain Jackson and Colonel Taylor. Others stepped out into the cold to see what the excitement was about.

Gray Dog remained seated on his saddle blanket. His horse was winded.

“Riders, over fifty men.”

“Same uniforms?” Thomas asked as he made sure Jessy was awake and listening. Grandee assisted in this by handing both officers a steaming tin cup of thick and rich coffee.

“No, dress in black, flowing robes. Headdress. Swords, and are well mounted.”

“Who in the hell is this now?” Jessy asked as he stepped closer and took hold of the reins of Gray Dog’s horse. “How far?”

“They wait in a draw two miles up.”

“For a barren wasteland it sure is getting crowded out here,” Taylor said as he took a sip of the coffee and then made a face and dumped the cup into the fire.

“Report,” John Henry said to Gray Dog as his eyes scanned the horizon in the east.

“They not come from west of us, but east. I backtrack and pick up sign coming from a pass next to Black Mountain.”

“Again, I didn’t fare too well in geography. What’s over those mountains?” Jessy asked.

“That is Persia. Not a real friendly place. However, they have no love for the Ottoman Empire either,” Jackson said as he too nervously watched the horizon.

“Good report. Get some hot food in you. I need you back out there,” John Henry slapped Gray Dog’s horse on the hindquarters and sent it toward the smell of cooking food.

“Odds on hostility?” Claire asked, walking up from behind, surprising them all. She was dressed and bundled and looked as if she were ready to travel. She was joined by McDonald and Ollafson, the latter looking like death warmed over, as if he had gotten no sleep at all.

“Transitioning state, that’s about all the briefing I received on Persia. After all, we didn’t plan to gain the summit of Ararat from the eastern side,” Jackson said as he nodded a greeting at Claire, who was impressing the young naval officer more each day.

“Inform the mess to slap some bacon on a biscuit and drown the men in coffee. I want to break camp in fifteen minutes. Get the tents struck and the wagons hitched.” The officers and sergeants stood rooted to the spot for only a moment at the sudden change of orders. “Move, gentlemen.”

The men broke and started rousing the camp. The men grumbled, but soon enough word spread that there might be a hostile force nearby and they started moving more lively. John Henry gave the Rebel cavalrymen their due, they were fast and efficient after years following the zigzag command tactics in hit-and-run employed by Robert E. Lee. They were silent and precise as they hitched and reloaded wagons.

It was Claire who noticed the rumblings first. Corporal Jenks and five other prisoners were speaking with Taylor and the talk looked animated. Claire turned to John Henry and pointed this out.

“We may have a situation here, Colonel,” she said, getting his attention.

Thomas turned and saw the confrontation developing between Jessy and his men. He watched as the colonel looked their way and then said something to the six men who also looked toward them. Taylor nodded and then turned away and made for John Henry. He rubbed his beard and then looked up into the expectant face of his former brother-in-law.

“The men are scared. Besides that goddamn mountain spooking the hell out of them.” He turned toward Claire and dipped his head. “No offense.” She shook her head, indicating that his words did not make her blush in the slightest. “But that ugly mountain combined with our wandering friends out there is having a most undesirable effect on the boys.”

“They want arms.” It was a statement from Thomas, not a question. “No.”

Taylor didn’t say anything but looked over at Claire. “Does he realize that frightened men fail to do what’s expected of them?”

Claire remained silent as she glanced at Thomas, who stood steadfast.

“The marines are armed. If we move fast enough, we can—”

The first gunshots caught John Henry in midsentence. He turned in time to see at least twenty-five riders top the small rise and charge into the head of the camp. Several were swinging large Saracen swords at the men as they raced past. Many more were firing old-fashioned powder-and-ball rifles. Thomas saw one and then a second man fall. One marine and one Rebel. The marine tried in vain to grab the reins of a passing horse and failed, being cut almost in half by the large, curved sword. The Rebel cavalryman was shot as he tried to get to the fallen lance corporal. Taylor and John Henry both pulled their Colts and immediately started to return fire. Slowly the marines started to respond. Several of the black-clad riders fell off their mounts and were beaten half to death by the unarmed men who descended on them like a pack of wolves.

“My tent!” Ollafson screamed loudly, startling a frightened McDonald next to him.

Thomas turned and saw several of the flowing headdresses as they entered the professor’s tent. The four men had sneaked into the camp from the side opposite the attack. Now John Henry could guess why.

“The artifacts!” Ollafson called out as he blindly ran for the tent.

“Dugan, bring that shelter down!” John Henry yelled.

Sergeant Major Dugan saw what was happening and hurriedly ordered ten marines into a firing line and in seconds had them rapid-firing with their Spencer carbines into the large tent. Bullet holes appeared and the white canvas looked as though it were being buffeted by an internal windstorm as the large rounds tore it to pieces.

“My things!” McDonald screamed in horror as the tent started to collapse.

“The last of them are running, Colonel,” Jackson reported as he holstered his smoking navy Colt.

The marine line ceased their torrid fire into the now-flattened tent. The only thing still standing was the shelter’s center pole, and even that strong member was tilted and shattered. Dugan approached cautiously and just as he got to the tent he was charged on from the inside. A large Persian with a gold band holding his headdress in place slammed into the sergeant major as he jumped from the wreckage of the tent. The man swiped at Dugan with his sword and the Irishman dodged backward and fell into the grass. Taylor raised his pistol to shoot but John Henry stayed his hand. Thomas shook his head as he saw the Persian had the satchel, which contained the two artifacts. As they watched, the man grabbed a set of reins and jumped aboard the horse. With a twirl of his sword he sped out of camp.

John Henry looked quickly around. He saw who he wanted. It was Gray Dog, who had yet to leave camp. He was wiping blood from his knife, and that was when most noticed the dead Persian at his moccasined feet. Thomas whistled and when Gray Dog looked up he gestured at the fast-retreating rider. He pointed and then made a fist. Gray Dog jumped upon his horse and then sped as fast as a bolt of lightning toward the running Persian thief.

“I need him alive!” Thomas said as the Comanche rode past at breakneck speed.

The officers looked around the shattered camp. Men were assisting others who had taken sword wounds to their bodies.

“Damn!” John Henry said as he took in the destruction that had occurred during the short and very one-sided battle.

“I want my men armed,” Jessy said as he helped a wounded Rebel soldier to his feet.

John Henry eyed Jessy and it told him that was now was not a good time. “Report, Captain,” he said instead, turning to Jackson.

“Very lucky, for being caught off-guard, I would say. One dead and sixteen wounded. Two severely.” He turned to Taylor. “Both of them your men.”

“Correction. From this point forward, they’re my men, Captain.”

“Are they?” Jessy asked angrily.

“Sergeant Major Dugan!”

“Sir!” The sergeant major was a little embarrassed but no worse for the wear after his encounter with the sword-wielding Persian.

“Break out the crates of arms. I want every man armed with one of the new Henry repeating rifles. Marines also. I want each trooper issued a sidearm with fifty rounds of ammunition for revolving pistol. Each is to get a full field pack. Is that clear, Sergeant Major?”

“Sir!” Dugan started to turn away with a cautious look at Colonel Taylor. “Giving guns to those hooligans is like giving dynamite to a group of drunk Irishmen, I swear…”

They watched the grumbling sergeant major inform the marines what to do.

“I am happy to see you listening to the voice of reason,” Jessy said as he faced John Henry.

“Hell, Jessy, I probably just signed the death warrant of every man in this expedition.”

As Taylor walked away Thomas saw Claire as she tried to console Professor Ollafson. McDonald was using the toe of his boot to see if any of his personal property was still intact. But it was Claire he was thinking about. Issuing weapons to a band of Confederate prisoners who were over six thousand miles away from home seemed a good way to start either a war or a rebellious mutiny. As he watched Claire and her ministrations toward the old man, he wondered if he had also condemned her to a short trip and a brutal death, because the last he heard the Persians did not hold their women in high regard. He was terrified how they would treat the emancipated Claire Anderson, the former Madame Claire Richelieu.

But even more confusing was the concern he was feeling for someone he hardly knew.

He turned away from the image of the woman and saw the mountain ahead. What lay in store for them at the summit was constantly on his mind and the subject had him wishing his friend the president had just left him alone on the American plains counting savages.

The Plains Indians were tame compared to the foreboding peaks of Ararat.

The marine medical corpsman had to sedate Ollafson. The young marine didn’t like doing it for the simple reason he suspected the old professor had a bad heart. The man’s color was faded and the rumors were quickly spreading, as rumors always do in camp, that Ollafson was being affected by the mountain. The corpsman had tried to put the kibosh on the ridiculous talk but it spread nonetheless. Having lost the only two artifacts to come from the summit of Ararat was just too much for the enduring Swede to recover from.

The men and wagons had been loaded and John Henry ordered the column forward just before the sun set in the western sky. For the first time that day the sun had actually peeked out from the ominous clouds, but only after the burning orb had been chased into the west and had lowered in the sky. Still, after the humiliation of the day at the hands of the Persians, Thomas observed that seeing the sun, no matter how brief in duration, assisted in putting the men in a better mood. That and being armed once more.

“Your mount is saddled, Colonel,” Dugan said as he turned quickly and looked ahead to see if there was any sign of that troublesome Indian, Gray Dog. Thomas could see that even the heartless sergeant major was worried for the young Comanche, as this land was not exactly his element.

“Don’t fret, Sergeant Major. I’m beginning to think Gray Dog understands more of what’s going on here than we do.” Thomas pulled on his leather gauntlets and then accepted the reins from a marine corporal with a nod of thanks. He saw Jackson and Jessy waiting. A wagon rolled past and he saw Claire in the back on the second in line tending to Ollafson. Even with John Henry’s assurances Ollafson had lost hope of ever seeing those cursed artifacts again. John Henry saw the gentle way Claire had about her. She looked up and gave Thomas the barest hint of a smile.

“Rider!” one of the Rebels cried from atop his wagon.

It was Gray Dog, and it looked as if he was dragging something behind the small pony he was riding. Many of the wagons and most of the riders slowed their march to see just what the Comanche was up to now. They were shocked, but pleased, to see that Gray Dog hadn’t failed in his mission. But by the looks of his captive, he might not have. Gray Dog pulled up on the reins and hopped from the pony just as it skidded to a stop in front of John Henry. He immediately drew his bone-handled knife and cut the rope he had used to tie up the battered Persian. Taylor was smiling and shaking his head as the Persian sat upright and cursed the young warrior. The bearded Persian spat as Gray Dog sheathed his knife. He turned and looked at John Henry and then went to his pony. He untied the satchel and tossed it to Dugan. Then he silently mounted and sped off to the east once more to start his scout.

Two marines, with a helping hand from Corporal Jenks, slapped and kicked the Persian to his feet. Jenks reached out and pulled off his headdress to reveal the black hair underneath.

“Take that to Professor Ollafson. Maybe it will cheer the old boy up,” John Henry told Dugan as he slapped one gauntleted hand into the other. Jessy saw the determined look in Thomas’s face and then decided he should be in on this before John Henry lost their source of intelligence.

As Dugan rode off, Corporal Jenks pushed the tall Persian forward to face the officers.

“That’s enough, Jenks,” Captain Jackson said from the back of his horse. The Persian turned and spit toward Jenks, who immediately made a move to throttle the thief.

“At ease, Corporal!” Jessy called out.

Jenks finally shot the Persian one last hateful look and then quickly mounted his horse and rode to hard catch up with the column, angry that he couldn’t question the thief.

“Allow me the honor of questioning this man,” Jessy said as he also pulled on his gauntlets and eyed the large man, who was held on either side by two marines.

John Henry was thinking the same thing as Taylor had thought just a brief moment before. He reached out and took Jessy by the arm and stopped him.

“Maybe we’d better have someone a little more even-tempered do the questioning, Colonel,” John Henry said.

Taylor gave Thomas a sly look. “And I suppose that’s you?”

John Henry knew Jessy had a point. He was even more capable of losing control than the Confederate colonel. He hated losing men, and to lose them to brigands was something that irritated him to no end. Thomas looked from a smirking Jessy to the solid form of a perfectly dressed and comported officer, Captain Jackson.

“Captain, have you ever had the duty of questioning a prisoner of war before?”

Steven Jackson looked taken aback. He tilted his head as he looked from Thomas to the man Gray Dog had just chased down. The arrogant Persian looked hatefully upon the mounted naval officer.

“No, I have not,” Jackson said as he calmly stepped from the saddle.

“Careful, he’s a spitting sort of snake,” Jessy joked as Jackson approached the large man. The captain tilted his head as he stood in front of him. The brown eyes were calm and his face kindly.

“I don’t know if you understand me, but it would be to your benefit to explain why you tried to steal something that wasn’t yours. What are you doing in this country?”

The Persian looked at the strange two-corner naval hat Jackson was wearing and again the man spit into the grass at Jackson’s feet.

“Told you,” Jessy said as he was finding Jackson’s interrogation method amusing.

The cool and calm Jackson smiled and nodded his head. “Barbaric,” he mumbled as he faced the man.

“You, you American, you dare to call the children of God barbaric. You, the unbeliever? I spit on you and your godless kind. You come to God’s mountain and you steal what is not yours.”

“Damn, he speaks better English than I do,” Taylor said.

The prisoner turned and saw the wagons as they moved east. “That old man is a blasphemer. He steals what is not his. He desecrates our most holy place and then returns as if this land is his. I spit on America!”

“Your name, who are you working for? The French, British, the Germans?” Jackson asked, trying to get the true believer to talk rationally.

“I am not in the employ of other dogs and their masters. I am Aliheem Akbar Mohamed Sutari, follower of Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar, the true King of Persia, not that pig of a man that sits on the Ottoman throne — the sultan of swine.”

“You represent the Shah of Persia?”

“The true Shahanshah of Persia.”

“Whatever the hell that is, the title sounds made up,” Jessy said, eager for Jackson to finish with his interrogation so he could commence, but he wouldn’t be exchanging pleasantries with the man the way the captain was.

“God’s messengers will not allow this desecration of his mountain to go unchallenged.”

The Americans exchanged looks. The Persian only smiled.

“I see the Angel of Death has already touched you. The curse of the mountain is upon you.”

“I’m beginning to think this fella had that speech ready to go before he was even caught,” Taylor said as he looked at John Henry.

“Our ancestors sprouted and grew from the spring of Ararat. Our great peoples are the family of man, the descendants of Noah, God’s messenger. We will not allow you to do what it is you are attempting.” The Persian smiled, showing blood on his teeth. “Either the faithful of God will stop you” — he looked around at the swiftly darkening skies — “or the darkness will claim you.”

“You do know that if the sultan finds your people inside the borders of his nation he will kill every one of you.”

“The heretic sultan has not long to rule. Soon the faithful will be on Ararat in force. If the curse of Azrael fails, I assure you, we will not.”

Jackson turned and looked at John Henry and shook his head negatively. The captain removed one glove and then slapped it into the other as he turned and took in the Persian. The man wasn’t smiling, but just staring.

“Get him a horse. Cut him loose.”

“What?” Jessy was startled that Thomas was letting one of the killers of his men go free. It was Jackson who answered for the colonel.

‘He’s told us everything. Believe me, he held nothing back, as you heard. We don’t need him and we don’t kill prisoners, despite what you southerners think.”

“Wait a minute. I’ve had firsthand experience at the subtleties of prisoner treatment by your northern standards, and believe me when I say you are full of goose crap, young captain.”

John Henry saw that Taylor was about to lose that famous temper of his, so he stepped between him and Jackson, who looked stunned that the Confederate colonel was ready to kill him just for voicing his opinion.

“I want him to take a message back to his people.”

Taylor turned on Thomas and waited. Fogged air billowed from the mouth of the Rebel colonel as he waited.

John Henry approached the Persian and then everyone saw his black eyes go wide as Thomas pulled a large bowie knife from his belt. He shocked the prisoner by reaching around and cutting the ropes binding his hands together. The two marines were as shocked as everyone else when Thomas gestured for them to let the man go. Another marine brought an unsaddled horse forward.

“Tell your master if he comes for us he better bring that vengeful angel with him, because we will chew his ass as well as yours. You took the lives of two men and wounded others. We don’t bow to people who commit murder, haven’t for many years. Now get the hell out of here.”

The Persian, with his eyes wide in suspicion, looked from angry face to angry face. He quickly jumped upon the horse’s back and shot out of the camp.

“I must say, Colonel, that your method of keeping our intentions secret fell by the wayside somewhat. I agree with letting him go, but letting him go after explaining that yes, indeed, we are climbing to the summit, well, let’s just say I’m a bit confused.”

It was Jessy who angrily had to agree with what John Henry had done. It took him a moment but the thought struck him as John Henry smirked in his direction.

“Would you like to explain it to the Captain, Colonel Taylor?”

“If we crowd the field it will confuse all parties involved, muddy the water, make the situation unpredictable. The Persians are the wild card in the game.”

“Why?” Jackson asked turning to John Henry.

“Because they despise everyone, from the sultan of the empire, to the French, Germans, Russians, and the British.”

“In other words, Captain Jackson, they may just come in handy,” Jessy answered for Thomas.

“I think they’re too unpredictable to count on.”

“Then there’s that.” Jessy smiled for the first time in a while. “Ah, the vagaries of command, what a wonderful thing.” Taylor mounted his horse and then spurred him forward. “Come, gentlemen, let us face the great unknown!”

Jackson shook his head but mounted his own horse and rode away. John Henry Thomas just kicked at the rapidly hardening ground and then looked up. For the briefest of moments he could swear he spied stars peeking through the dark clouds. Then his gaze went to the white phosphorescent summit of Ararat just as thunder rumbled over the mountain range.

They would arrive at the base of God’s mountain by dawn the next morning.

19

The French spy Paul Renaud waited for the minister of foreign affairs to answer yes or no. The letter he had presented placed the empire on notice of a French arms embargo against the sultan if the French government’s request was not granted. The small Turk was a close relative of the sultan and owed his career to the man, but to see twenty million francs in arms just vanish from the empire’s books would be too much for even the sultan, or in the case his cousin, to endure. It was either a friendship with the backward Americans and that baboon sitting in their White House, or remain friends with a country that had bailed them out during the Crimea campaign. Renaud suspected he knew which way the minister would go. Especially when he saw the man slip the large bank folder into his top drawer. After all, another personal guarantee made up of one hundred thousand dollars in French notes had been given directly to the minister to smooth out any entanglements.

“And we have your guarantee the sultan will not recall the support you have just agreed to?” Renaud asked while eyeing the small man with the pencil-thin moustache and dark, weasely eyes.

“The sultan only knows what I tell him. I and a few learned men in office have his complete trust. The Seventh Guards Regiment will move out within the next three days. That should be adequate force to convince the Americans of their folly.”

“We need the troops sooner than that.”

“My French friend, if I recall a scattered regiment overnight, that will attract attention and surely the sultan would hear that one of his most elite cavalry regiments was currently moving on one of his own provinces. They are spread out in many regions. I will have them here in two days and on their way east in three. The Americans cannot stand up to that size of force so far away from home.”

Renaud cursed under his breath as he turned to the naval attaché from the French embassy.

“How soon will our warships be in place in the Black Sea?”

“Within the next day and a half.” The navy captain pulled Renaud aside and then whispered, “Does Paris know how far this has gone? The orders thus far have been for observation of American activities only.”

“Yes, and our naval forces will observe American naval activity in the Black Sea. Have the landing force, once they have docked, find the Americans that started from there. I will remain here and travel with the Guards regiment. We should meet up in seven days.”

“Should I inform Paris of the change?” the captain asked hopefully.

“No, I will take care of that.”

The captain clicked his heels together and then left the office. Renaud approached the minister, who was locking the desk drawer with the French bribe contained inside.

“The man commanding this American incursion in your land is very cunning. I understand that the buffoon Lincoln thinks highly of him. And I must say from personal experience that he’s not a fool.”

The minister laughed and then stood to walk the Frenchman to the door.

“My friend, once the Seventh Guards Regiment sweeps into a land, the people of that land cease to exist. The Americans will soon learn the profit in bearing false gifts.”

The two men shook hands and Renaud left.

The minister watched him go and then turned to his secretary before reentering his office.

“Send a message to Shidehara Barracks. I want to see General Isriam as soon as possible. From this moment on, tell him his regiment is on alert for movement east.”

An hour later messages went out across the empire, and one of the most elite regiments of cavalry in Asia Minor started to gather.

Destination — Ararat.

Commodore Wesley Hildebrand read the dispatch and then handed it back to the captain of the H.M.S. Westfield.

“Is the message from our man, Captain McDonald?” he asked the twenty-five-year veteran who had spent most of ten years in and around the Mediterranean and the Aegean.

“No, London. It seems our intelligence boys have learned that the two American vessels, Carpenter and Argo, made it into the strait and entered the Black Sea two days ago. Now we know why the two French frigates entered the strait not long after.”

“The two American supply ships?” the captain asked.

“Yes, but London says the Americans have no intention of building a rail line for the sultan. It seems they have another goal in mind.”

“Our orders?”

“Pursue into the Black Sea and observe the movements of both American and French naval assets.”

“Observe? Rather ambiguous, wouldn’t you say, Commodore?”

“Quite.”

“If the Americans are not gifting the sultan with a rail line, just what are our wayward cousins up to this far from home?”

The commodore stepped to the railing of the newest battle cruiser in Her Majesty’s service. He pursed his lips and then looked up into her tall rigging and saw the flags. They were blowing to the north. He made his decision.

“Prepare for sea, Captain. Get word to men ashore, especially our marines. Leave is cancelled and I want to make sail by 1600 hours.”

“Very good. Once we enter the Black Sea I want a fifty percent alert status and I want battle stations set.”

“You really think the Americans would dare fire upon the Royal Navy?”

His thoughts turned to the Americans and the man who was leading this foolish quest. He wondered and hoped that the soldier had a good head on his shoulders and would realize in time that anything hidden on that mountaintop was not worth the entire world going to war.

But then again, what cause ever was?

Lieutenant Parnell watched the last of the railroad ties being unloaded. For a rail line that would cover in square mileage more area than New York to Illinois, the amount of wood ties was far short of the number required. Luckily, they had no intention of building any such rail line. The few ties and steel rail they had on hand were for show only, and he had the men spread them out to look as if they had far more material than they did. He was following Colonel Thomas’s orders to the letter and hoped the army officer had a sixth sense when it came to running a bluff.

The snow had started falling at dawn and it looked as if the bad weather was there to stay. It was starting to accumulate on the ground and on the shoulders of the fifty-seven men in his command. He opened his pocketwatch and saw that it was just past four in the afternoon, and that meant if the Black Sea section had not arrived before the sun set they would not make it to Talise before sunrise tomorrow. He closed the watch as a navy signalman walked up and saluted the marine lieutenant.

“Pickets report that those Britishers are at it again. They circle the camp and then stop and then circle the camp again.”

“They’re trying to get under our skin, like Stonewall Jackson did the second day at Bull Run. They want us to do something stupid.” He smiled and looked at the navy man. “But we only make the same mistakes two and three times, and not one of those boys out there is Stonewall Jackson, are they?”

“No, sir.” The boy saluted and then went back to his duties.

“Ensign Dwyer?”

A naval officer turned away from the warm fire and reported to the marine.

“Yes, sir?”

With caution Parnell turned toward the smoking engine of the train, which was due to return to the coast in less than an hour.

“Did your special ordnance team plant our surprise for the Turkish rail system?”

“Yes, sir. I must admit that the Reb explosives man looked as if he had done this sort of work before.”

“Yes, Colonel Taylor said that his regiment was responsible for the Rock Island and the Ohio Limited sabotage in ’61 and ’62. He said his man was the best.”

“Well, he placed the charges right beneath the main boiler. We will have Lance Corporal Killeen in place at the halfway water stop. By the time the train makes its return trip, if it has unexpected guests onboard, he’ll blow the charges as per Colonel Thomas’s order.”

“Very good. Let us hope that won’t be necessary. After all, that train is another escape route we may need to get the hell out of here.”

“Damn, there they are again,” the naval officer said as his eyes went to the ridge a mile away. The four British soldiers sat atop their horses. They made no move or signal. They just watched the activity below. Suddenly the riders turned their horses and were gone as fast as they had arrived.

“Thank God. They were beginning to make the boys a little jumpy.”

Parnell was about to reply when he heard something in the distance. He cocked his ear to the north and decided that the sound was coming from there. Soon the naval ensign heard it also. Suddenly a cheering rose at the far northern end of the camp. Parnell smiled when he finally digested what it was they were hearing. It was loud music. A marshalling song they all knew well and it was coming through the air with power. More cheers from his small command as Parnell finally spied the cause.

“The Battle Hymn of the Republic” blared across the Plain of Ararat as the one hundred and twenty-two member Army of the Potomac Band marched into the far end of the camp to rousing cheers. The applause soon dwindled as the full scope of what they were seeing registered in every man’s mind. Here was the band — where was the army to go with it? The cheering soon dwindled to nothing as they realized the band was the only unit arriving. Still, the boys in bright blue parade dress played with all the enthusiasm of a victory celebration.

“Uh, sir, where are the support troops? The cavalry we were expecting from the Black Sea sector?”

Parnell turned away from the spectacle of the precision marching band and he smiled at the young ensign.

“You are looking at it, sir. Our salvation, our cavalry.”

“Shit.”

“Yes, Ensign, I believe that is an accurate description of what it is we have just stepped

into.”

The band members smiled after their long march from the end of the northern rail spur and then their forced night march, but were confused as the men watching them stopped cheering. Several of the gruff soldiers had their mouths ajar. Most of the young musicians believed the troops were in awe of their musical prowess.

“Colonel Thomas, I sure hope the president’s faith in you is justified, because right now it seems you are one mad son of a bitch.”

The line of one hundred and sixty-five men stretched for almost a mile up the goat trail that led from the base of Ararat. The mountain itself was unlike most large peaks of the world as it stood almost alone and not inside a typical range. The plains stopped and the mountain began; it was that simple.

They had ridden in three miles before they had to dismount. Another full day was lost as they loaded supplies into packs and, with the fifty mules at hand, started early on the second day. All the while they were observed by the local goatherds. They had seen incursions before, but they were always led by academia and not men such as these. Although they wore civilian clothing, most looked as if they were trained in drill. John Henry had allowed Professor Ollafson to speak to a few of them to allay their fears about their presence. He explained that they were only there to map the summit. Thomas knew the locals didn’t believe Ollafson. It was as if they knew exactly why the foreigners had come to Ararat.

Thus far the Confederate prisoners had responded well to the march up the mountain. Most had been shocked at the cold-weather gear that had been supplied them. For the most part the Rebel cavalrymen had not seen new shoes since the times before the Battle of Bull Run. The fur-lined jackets were something most southerners had never seen before, as well as the strange tinted glasses that strapped to their hoods. To John Henry it looked as though the new clothing and the issuing of arms to the men had had a most beneficial effect on the southern contingent. Even Jessy was more talkative since they started the ascent.

John Henry dropped back from the front of the line after he made sure that Gray Dog, who was a mile or so in front of the column scouting the dangerous trail, had not reported back as of yet. They were at eleven thousand feet and wanted to see how Professor Ollafson was holding up. He was maneuvering around several snow sleds being pulled up the mountainside by the men when he spied Claire a few feet away. He smiled when he saw the thick fur-lined hood covering her features. She used a large walking stick, as did most. Her wool skirt was thick and covered heavy cotton pantaloons underneath. Her boots were also top-of-the-line trail wear. She looked as if the weather and climb had no effect on her at all.

“It looks like you were born for the infantry, Miss Anderson.”

“What did I say in regards to calling me Miss Anderson? For crying out loud, Colonel, we may never leave this mountain, so give yourself a new order and leave off with the formality.” She raised the thick, dark goggles and looked at John Henry. “It’s Claire.”

“All right, Claire,” he said as he turned and started to pace her. “How is the old fella holding up?”

Claire looked over at the colonel and his heavy winter coat and decided that he really was concerned about Ollafson and wasn’t just trying to say, “I told you so” about the professor’s ability to climb the mountain again in his old age.

“Better, since Gray Dog returned the artifacts. But there’s something that’s affecting him. He’s been acting a little strange since we started getting close to the mountain, and that started long before the Persians attempted to steal his property. He goes out of his way to move around shadows that are cast along the trail.”

“With the absence of the sun, it’s a wonder there are any shadows at all.”

Claire looked at the colonel again. “That’s another thing, why are the shadows so prevalent since we started the climb? I mean, you’re correct, there shouldn’t be, but there are. Deep and dark as though the sun was directly casting them. But no sun.”

“I hope you and I are the only ones that have noticed.”

“Well, Gray Dog avoids the shadows for the most part also. As for the men, I think they’re just happy to be moving.”

“That and their new clothing.”

“Sad isn’t it?”

“Sad?” John Henry asked as he adjusted the Henry rifle strapped to his shoulder.

“Yes, that men can be as excited as schoolchildren over those ugly spiked boots and a new jacket. It says something about how sad this war has become.”

John Henry looked at Claire and said nothing. He just dipped his head and then allowed her to move forward as he slowed down. The woman was far deeper of thought than he’d realized, and he knew at that very moment that this spy interested him to no end.

As they climbed, the summit vanished behind thick, dark snow clouds and the wind picked up as if in warning they were trespassing.

The Americans drew closer to one of the greatest mysteries in the history of the world.

Colonel Taylor was in the extreme front of the column. John Henry had placed him in charge of the scouts, Gray Dog among them. Neither he nor the Comanche had much to say about it. Gray Dog could not fathom the deep hatred Jessy had toward all Indians, not just the Kiowa, the tribe responsible for killing his sister. Thomas figured he was the cause of that confusion for the simple fact that Gray Dog saw that Mary’s actual husband had no ill will toward any Indian, while her brother could not get over the fact. Thomas knew Jessy respected the ability of the Plains Indian, he just didn’t like them.

Taylor slowed the advance as they came to a sheer rock wall covered in winter run-off ice that never melted in the summer months at this elevation. Taylor took out his hand-drawn map that had been supplied by Professor Ollafson and examined his route. He was sure that this was the proper trail as depicted in Ollafson’s tight but fluid scrawl. He raised the large goggles and then looked about. With absolutely no sun he wasn’t even sure which way they were truly headed.

“Colonel, the Indian,” Corporal Jenks said as he too lowered his goggles and fur-lined hood.

Gray Dog was there. He was standing atop a rock wall and looking down upon them. He looked up into the falling snow and shook his head.

“Dumb savage, if he climbed that it must be straight up. He knows we can’t take that route. Does he know what wet dynamite will do if impacted hard enough?” Jessy cupped his gloved hands and called up. “You have to find another way! Too steep!”

Gray Dog tilted his head. He was dressed in a long-sleeved leather jacket with fringe and thick leather breeches. His head was still covered in the coyote-skin hat and his hair was bundled against the cold, which strangely enough did not affect the Indian much at all. Before Taylor could blink Gray Dog vanished.

“What’s the holdup?” John Henry said as he came to the front with Claire, Ollafson, and McDonald in tow.

“That little spider monkey needs to learn what ledges he can traverse and what ledges an army bogged down with equipment cannot.”

“Where is he?” Thomas asked as he lowered his hood and goggles.

“He was up there a moment ago. Probably fell off for all I know,” Jessy answered as two of the advance point men came up to report.

“This is not the same. There must have been heavy avalanches in the recent years to block the trail like this,” Ollafson said as he braced himself against Claire and McDonald.

“We wasted a full day!” Taylor said angrily. “We’re going to lose what little light we have soon.”

Before he could finish speaking a loud whistle sounded and echoed off of the stone and ice walls of the small valley in which they traveled.

John Henry smiled as did Claire.

“Well, looks like the Injun can fly,” Corporal Jenks commented as he spit a stream of tobacco juice from his bearded face.

Before them stood Gray Dog. He was waiting for Taylor to move the column. He stood just at the base of the rise and then he simply stepped back and vanished.

“What in the hell?” Jessy mumbled as Claire and John Henry stepped around him and followed Gray Dog.

Once they rounded the small bend that was hidden by a large crevice, they saw a slim tunnel that had been left clear of avalanche debris by a fluke of Mother Nature. It was as if engineers had carved this especially for them. John Henry stood in awe at the size of the upward-sloping tube that had inexplicably covered the old goat trail. The falling ice was once a waterfall during the hotter months, and then it froze in mid-fall and formed this natural arch that was invisible from farther down the trail. It was a miracle that Gray Dog had found the opening because of its hidden location. Right in plain sight.

“This is amazing!” Claire said as she removed her hood and glasses and stared at the beauty of the natural ice cave. “Hello!” she said loudly and John Henry cringed at the amplified echoes that returned. Even Gray Dog stepped into the middle of the ice tunnel to see what all the noise was about. The echoes finally died away and Claire giggled like a schoolgirl.

“I am glad to see all of that educational training paid off,” Thomas said, smiling widely.

“Maybe not, but its fun, Colonel.” She had said Colonel like it was a sour-tasting fruit in her mouth.

“Well, in your education did you learn anything about sound amplification and its destructive nature in unstable environments?”

“No, but I have learned something of late,” she said with the most radiant smile.

“And that is?”

“That you, Colonel, can be a total ass.” She smiled wider and then turned back to the tunnel. “Ass!” she shouted again creating an echo that seemed to be endless.

“What was that? I don’t think they heard you in Spain,” Jessy said as he eyed both John Henry and Claire as he entered the cave. He stepped past and caught up with Gray Dog.

“Miss Anderson … excuse me, Claire, was just clearing her throat.”

“Uh-huh,” Jessy said, ignoring the two as they tried to stare each other down and joined the Comanche.

“Go another way,” Gray Dog said.

Taylor stopped and turned as John Henry and Claire finally made peace and joined him and Gray Dog.

“What did you say?” Taylor asked as he stopped and turned. “You just saved us a full day of backtracking to another trail, and now you want us not to take a God-given route?”

“What’s the matter?” Thomas asked as he and Claire saw what was going on.

“Your Indian boy wants to take another route.”

“Why, is this one blocked farther ahead?” John Henry asked.

Gray Dog didn’t answer, he only turned and beckoned the three to follow. They did, exchanging looks that lent credence to their confusion. As they followed they noticed the ice walls seemed to become more transparent and Claire was still in wonder at what she was seeing. To her it was like being inside of a giant diamond of magnificent brilliance. They saw Gray Dog ahead as he waited. He was barely discernable in the weak light that filtered through the ice.

“Well, I don’t see any block in the road,” Taylor said as Gray Dog looked at him. Without speaking he waited for John Henry and Claire. He struck alight a match and put the flame to a torch. As the flame grew in strength Gray Dog held up the torch and placed it near the wall of ice. Claire saw what he had seen earlier and then she screamed, and this time the echo never died, it went on to the ends of the earth.

The men awaiting an order outside heard the scream and it was powerful enough that several large rocks were dislodged from the cliffs above them. All men, Rebel to marine to naval personnel, exchanged worried looks. They had been silent and apprehensive after stepping foot onto Ararat and now this. The column waited as the echo finally died away.

Inside the tunnel John Henry had taken Claire into his arms as they saw the horrific sight. There were six men in the ice. The face of each was frozen in a grimace of horror as they had obviously drowned. The sheer shock of how they died locked into a mountain was startling to Taylor and Thomas. It was Ollafson who entered the tunnel and was not shocked but saddened at what he saw. He stepped up to Gray Dog and pried the torch from his hand. He held it to the ice wall and examined each face as best as he could.

“I do not know him.” He shifted the torch as McDonald entered the area and gasped as he saw the frozen bodies suspended in an animated fight for their lives. “I do not know this man either.” Again he shifted the torch to another body. This one was situated about four feet over the professor’s head, so he reached up to place the torch as close to the tortured features of the well-dressed European man as he could. “Professor Antanov.” He moved the torch to the next frozen body. This one had severe damage to his skull as if he had been hit in the head by a large stone during the avalanche and flood that killed him. “Professor Ali Kasseem. I know both of these men. They disappeared three years ago. Both men are tenured professors at Oxford University.”

“Well, it looks like they may have lost that tenure,” Jessy said as he removed the torch from Ollafson’s hand and then handed it to Gray Dog. “Continue. We will still go this way.”

Gray Dog looked from Taylor to John Henry, who only nodded his head.

“All these men are old soldiers. The colonel is right; we move forward through here.”

Gray Dog didn’t reply. He simply turned and vanished once more.

“Still, it may help to forewarn those that follow us,” Claire said as she eased herself out of Thomas’s embrace. She looked embarrassed as she replaced her hood. “I apologize for my womanly hysterics. I have seen dead men before, I assure you.”

“Should I start moving the men in, Colonel — Jesus Christ, the saints be with us!” Sergeant Major Dugan said loudly and started crossing himself when he saw what it was that had held up everyone and the reason for that lingering scream. Even Dugan’s exclamation was still echoing. John Henry turned to Claire with a smile.

“Yes, you may have seen dead men, but it looks like the rough and tough Irishman before you may have made wee-wee in his pantaloons.”

As Dugan turned away from the frozen bodies staring back at him he failed to see what everyone was snickering about.

The incident with Sergeant Major Dugan made the passage past the frozen explorers a little easier for the men to take with a brave front, thanks to the rumor spread by Colonel John Henry Thomas, a man Dugan would never, ever forgive for spreading it — after all, he only lost control of his bladder a little.

The laughter made everyone forget where they were, if only momentarily.

The column was a day and a half from the summit.

20

The crew of the U.S.S. Carpenter knew the late-arriving Yorktown could do her no good in her fight to keep the tow barge, Argo, afloat. The Chesapeake was docked at Trabzon, where she was off-loading her contingent of marines for transport to the rail link at Talise for their rendezvous with Lieutenant Parnell, so she could not come to the aid of the battling Carpenter.

The problem was the same as they’d had in the Atlantic: The swells were nearly swamping the large barge, so much so the captain of the Carpenter was close to ordering the Argo’s crew off the ship. The barge sailors were already tired from bailing, pumping, and keeping the flotation bags filled, and that meant constant use of the man-powered billows that supplied the air bags with the necessary air to keep the Argo afloat.

The captain, a young lieutenant, J.G., kept his eyes glued to the binoculars as he scanned the Argo’s high-water mark. It looked as though the hard work of not only Argo’s crew, but of the barge’s navy riggers was finally paying off. He took a deep breath and lowered his glasses.

“The damn cargo is just too heavy, Captain. That barge was designed for calmer seas than we have shown her. Ericsson didn’t figure on the winter swells in the Black Sea.”

The captain nodded his agreement and then smiled.

“I’ll let you mention that little bit of information to Ericsson upon our return.”

“No thank you, I value my head too much.”

“There, Carpenter is signaling,” the captain said as he once more raised his glasses. The signal lamp blinked off and on several times, lasting a full five minutes. He soon lowered the glasses feeling far better than he had a moment before when he thought they were about to lose Colonel Thomas’s prized possession.

“What does she say?” the first officer asked.

“They’ve controlled the flooding in the inner hull area and have added the last four flotation bags to her hull. She’s stable for the moment, but they’re fearful of any gale that may spring up. They say they cannot reinforce the hull again. She will founder.”

The first officer raised his own glasses and scanned the towline, and from there his eyes traveled to the barge. She was riding extremely low in the water.

“Damn dangerous,” he said.

“The Argo’s crew will not come above decks. They refuse to allow the sea to take a hold of their vessel.”

“Ericsson’s boys. They would rather die and go down to Davy Jones’s locker than to face Ericsson after failing to keep his baby afloat.”

“Can’t say as I blame them,” the captain said as he moved his glasses around to make sure their end of the towline was taut.

“Ship ahoy!” came the call from the Carpenter’s crow’s nest and her two-man lookout.

“Where away?” he called out.

“Two points off our stern!”

The captain swung his glasses around and fought to clear the mist behind the towed Argo.

“Thank God, it must be either the Yorktown or the Chesapeake,” the first officer said as he too raised his binoculars.

The captain finally spied a tall mast through the haze of the late afternoon. He smiled. It was a frigate, more than likely the Chesapeake on her way to meet them after discharging the marines ashore.

“Ah, there she—”

“Second vessel ahoy, a thousand yards behind the first!”

The captain lowered the glasses for the briefest of moments when his heart skipped a beat. One American ship he could believe, but both arriving at the same moment in the middle of the Black Sea was a little too convenient. He raised the field glasses again.

“Two French frigates, can’t make out their class!”

“Damn,” the captain said as both he and the first mate saw the battle flags of the two French warships simultaneously. The captain zeroed in on the bow of the fast-moving frigate in the lead. “That’s the frigate Especial. Thirty-two guns and an oaken hull.” He now concentrated on the second, even larger frigate. “This is not good, Lieutenant. It’s the Osiris. The two newest class of warships in the French navy.” He lowered the glasses and shook his head. “It seems someone is out to impress us with their firepower.”

“Yeah, all we need now is for the British to show.”

“Now would be a good time for Chesapeake and Yorktown to arrive. I’m feeling a little naked out here with just our guns and a floating weapon that will sink if one of those French sailors even sneezes against her hull hard enough.”

“Tell me, why are we here again?” the first officer asked jokingly.

“Yes, it does make boring blockade duty seem more attractive, doesn’t it?”

In just a few hours their worry would be multiplied when the British warship, Westfield, slowly pulled into the eastern Black Sea. As it stood, the Americans were outgunned ninety-six guns to thirty-two. Even the American navy couldn’t pull a battle like that out of the fire. They needed help and they needed it fast before someone realized they could call their bluff and blow the American ship and her tow barge of equipment to pieces.

Colonel John Henry Thomas’s expedition was fast running out of time.

The storm hit the expedition moments after they had started erecting the shelters for the night’s camp. They would settle in for the snowy, windy night with hot food in their bellies thanks to the United States Navy and their foresight to include coal in their supplies. They had enough coal for five days of cooking and heat, after that they would have to rely on the sparse trees of Ararat. Grandee handed out plates of hot beans and corn bread. How he managed to bake corn bread no one dared ask. They accepted the hot meal gratefully after the strenuous march up the mountain.

John Henry Thomas stood on a small incline and watched as the men ate and erected their shelters. He’d called this halt not only for sleep but to also confront Ollafson about the route they were taking. After certifying that this was the fastest route, Gray Dog had reported that they could cut their time in half by changing direction. He wanted the column to veer to the left and take the glacier route. It was smoother and had far fewer crevasses for men to fall into. They had nearly lost four men already when the ice they were walking on gave way. That was when Gray Dog reported the alternate route.

Grandee walked up to John Henry and held out a plate of food. The colonel nodded and accepted it. He immediately spooned beans into his mouth and was pleased with the rich taste.

“My wife couldn’t boil the water to cook the beans,” John Henry said to Grandee with no preamble. The large black man listened politely as John Henry chewed. “She had to learn how to cook like most soldiers have to learn how to fight.” He lowered the spoon and looked at Grandee. “Only they learned far faster than she did. Many a night when I was close to home while on patrol I would stop in and she would fix me dinner. You could imagine how good an actor I had to be when she fed me chicken that had looked as if it had got caught in the P. T. Barnum museum fire. It was horrible.” He scooped another spoonful of beans into his mouth, chewed, and then a sad look came to his face. He handed the plate back to Grandee, who accepted it without comment. He turned away, figuring the colonel had lost his appetite while thinking about his dead wife.

“Thank you, Mr. Grandee.”

By the time Grandee stopped and turned, John Henry had vanished into the falling snow. The mess steward turned away and saw Claire looking at him.

“The colonel not hungry?” she asked.

“Well, Miss, he is and he isn’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, a man has certain appetites, and the colonel’s just not hungry for what old Grandee’s cookin’, is all. That’s one lonely man. I figure that’s what he’s hungerin’ for.” He laughed lightly. “Yes, sir, that’s what I figure.”

She watched Grandee turn away with the plate of food. She saw the activity around her and she pulled her thick coat tighter. With the absence of light the mountain took on a far more ominous tone. The men were in a jovial mood, but every now and again she would see them looking at the crevices and cracks as if there were some beast ready to spring at them from the mountain.

“I see our intrepid leader has no appetite this lovely evening.”

Claire turned and saw Steven McDonald standing next to her. She made no attempt to answer his observation.

“I have noticed your recent proclivity for avoiding my company since our French friend was asked to leave us a few days back.”

Claire turned and faced the Englishman. “Since Colonel Thomas is no man’s fool, and since he shook out Renaud so easily, I thought it best we keep our distance before he suspects the French fool wasn’t the only one he had to worry about.”

McDonald smiled as he leaned into her shoulder. “Such high praise for a man that you clearly despise. Imagine that, Madame Claire Richelieu, cowed by a man.” He laughed lightly and then started to turn away. “Do not get too close, my love, unless you would like to take up permanent residence here with him when this idiocy is concluded.”

Claire watched the British officer vanish into the tent he shared with Ollafson. When she turned back she felt that deep-seated chill once more. She decided to take a brief walk to shake out the cramping in her legs. She knew she wasn’t fooling herself about John Henry; it seemed he hated her and her chosen profession so much that he could not see her as anything other than an underhanded woman playing men for information. She didn’t know why his opinion of her meant so much. But it did.

As she slowly walked around the large camp she heard the soft sounds of a harmonica and then the strings of a violin start up as the men settled in for some much-needed sleep. The light mood of the men actually made the camp seem less cold than it had when they first arrived. She started humming the tune the Rebel soldiers were playing. It made her think of home and how much she would miss it if this expedition failed. She hummed and walked as the tune “Oh Susanna” bounced from ice to rock and then back again.

She was humming so loudly that she failed to realize that she could not hear the sounds of the camp any longer. She stopped walking and suddenly saw that she had strayed so far from the men that she could not see the camp at all. The darkness was almost complete as she found herself inside a small cutout in the stone and ice. It was like a small box canyon. She turned and hastily started back. Before she could get clear of the boxed-in area, she saw a dark mass block her path. It was huge. The blackness towered over her and looked as if the blur of deep darkness had spread its arms wide to block out the terrain beyond. It was only her and the dark shape. She froze, as did the entity.

“Help!” she called out, but soon realized that no word escaped her mouth. There was only the empty hiss of air as she became so frightened that she lost her voice. She stumbled backward when she saw the dark shape move. It came on slowly, and as it did Claire had a blurred vision of men, women, and children screaming as if from a great distance. She heard the crashing of waves against a solid object, more screams, and the cries of animals.

Claire fell as the dark shape seemed to spread out wider at the top, as if wings were stretched as a giant bird of prey sought its dinner for the night. This time she managed to force out a scream. As she lay in the snow-covered revetment, she heard what she thought were shouts. The dark shape vanished as she was pulled to her feet and the next thing she knew she was being forced to run.

When she finally realized she had been pulled from her predicament, she saw John Henry holding onto her. Gray Dog came running from the small canyon, pointing a Henry rifle back into it. He finally turned to face Claire and John Henry. He nodded and then left.

“It’s a good thing I told Gray Dog to keep an eye on you.”

“I … I … Did you see that thing?”

“I don’t know what it is I saw. I did see you trying to fend off something only you could see.”

“There was something in there with me, damn it!” she said a little too loudly as men started to pay attention. John Henry took her by the elbow and led her away.

“Look, I believe you.” He looked around and made sure there were no ears to hear him. “Right now I don’t need those men out there to believe you. It wouldn’t take much to send frightened men over the edge, and believe me, we are asking a lot of these men, the mysteries and old wives’ tales of this area notwithstanding.”

Claire felt embarrassed. John Henry pulled her hood up and then he smiled as best he could.

“I apologize, once again, Colonel. I am not prone to hysterics.” Her eyes narrowed and she used a gloved hand to punch little Morse-code taps into the colonel’s chest. “But I know what I saw in there. That curse is real and I believe every word that Professor Ollafson has said about the entity on this mountain.”

John Henry watched Claire as she started to turn. She stopped and angrily confronted him. She stepped up and repeated the tapping on his chest. This time it was much harder.

“And what do you mean you had Gray Dog watching out for me?”

“Look, since you are the only woman, I thought—”

Again the finger jabs. “That’s your problem, Colonel Thomas, you think far too much, and sometimes not enough!” She turned and stormed away.

“Yes, ma’am, I’ve been told that,” he said under his breath as he watched her leave.

“I can see you two are growing closer.”

John Henry turned and saw Jessy as he walked past on his way to eat chow.

“Jessy, you can kiss my—”

“Yes, sir, ever closer.” Taylor whistled the tune of “Dixie” as he strolled away nonchalantly.

John Henry was actually tempted to pull his Colt and at least shoot Jessy in the back of the leg to shut him up, but he chuckled instead.

“God help me.”

Thomas didn’t know it, but God was going to sit this one out.

21

Jessy was the first man to make it to the ledge and was shocked to see Gray Dog sitting on a large boulder that was covered in a fine sheet of ice. The Comanche was eating an apple obviously supplied by his new best friend, mess steward Grandee. The colonel bent at the waist to recover his strength and breath.

“No good,” Gray Dog said as he took a bite of apple.

Taylor took another three deep breaths, feeling the burn in his lungs not only from the cold, but from the lack of oxygen that was now starting to take a toll on the men. That was why he’d gone ahead to see if Gray Dog’s assessment of Ollafson old route was viable. He was quickly learning it was not. The route had suffered avalanches since the professor was last on Ararat in 1859. In some places it made transiting the glacier easier, but in others the landslides had created massive voids in the ice, which had already claimed several of the supply sleds and nearly their handlers. The men were growing increasingly frustrated over the slow progress up to the summit. Each knew that time was as valuable a commodity as the sparse air they were breathing.

“Damn,” Taylor finally managed to say. “If we go your route we could lose a full two days.”

Gray Dog tossed the apple core into a deep crevasse as if to illustrate his point. “It is a straight climb up the ice face. It will take us directly to top. Rope lines will help the men make the climb. We will save a full day.”

Gray Dog didn’t wait for Taylor to reply. The Comanche scout figured the Confederate cavalryman simply had no choice. Jessy started to say something when his feet gave out underneath him. He immediately reached out and grabbed the edge of the void and managed to keep from falling. He struggled with his own weight as gravity insisted on taking command. He felt his fingers through the thick gloves start to slip. He looked down and as he did his tinted goggles fell from his head into the endless void over which his feet dangled. He knew he wasn’t going to make it.

That was when he felt something take a hold of his foot from below. He fought to see what it was that was pulling him to his death. As he struggled to see far below, all that was visible was darkness and the occasional free-falling ice from the crevasse. Then he saw it. The dark shape of a large hand was actually trying to take him down to a crushing death some hundreds of feet below. He kicked out, trying to dislodge the grip of his unseen assailant, but only managed to loosen his grip on the ice above him.

Suddenly hands were grasping his wrists and pulling. He felt the thing that held tightly to his boot grow in intensity as it fought the resistance from above. Finally Jessy felt the weight on his left boot fall away and he could have sworn he heard a faded and mournful cry as the entity lost an opportunity. After some struggle with Jessy using his other foot for leverage, he was pulled from the void. He fell over onto his back and then when he opened his eyes he saw Gray Dog standing over him with his ridiculous coyote hat also staring at him.

“I suppose I have an ‘I told you so’ coming,” he said as he allowed Gray Dog to pull him into a standing position. Taylor caught himself after a brief dizzy spell and then looked at the Comanche. Gray Dog didn’t understand what he was trying to say. “All right, Indian, you got the better of me on this one. Show me your route.”

Gray Dog nodded as he started to turn away but was stopped by the strong hand of Taylor.

“Look, I’m glad you came back. That would have been a long fall.”

Gray Dog nodded, not understanding the way in which the white man chose to say thanks. In his world there was no such word.

“Evil spirit lives in the mountain, wants all men dead.”

The words caught Taylor off guard. “Then you did see it?”

Gray Dog only looked at Jessy and said nothing. The Comanche merely leaned over and took a hold of two large coils of thick rope and then turned away and left.

“Damn, it seems Miss Claire’s not imagining things after all.”

Dugan was pacing in front of John Henry as a navy chief petty officer reported to Captain Jackson.

“The trail ends a quarter mile up. We followed their footprints until they vanished before a large crevasse.”

“Oh, Jesus, don’t tell me we lost the Indian and the colonel?” Dugan said as he knew immediately that he’d overstepped his bounds with John Henry. But the colonel remained silent as he listened to the report to Jackson. Thomas figured Dugan was secretly as worried about Gray Dog as himself. His eye movement told Dugan to be silent.

“We called down into the void, but there was no answer, Captain.”

“Very well. Go warm yourselves up by the mess area.”

Jackson turned to face John Henry with a questioning look on his face — an expression that asked, “What do we do now?”

“I’ll go check it out myself. Can’t trust the goddamn navy to do anything right,” Dugan said as he started to return to the route they were taking before the halt.

Before the sergeant major could take two steps a thick rope dropped from above and whacked him squarely in the head. He cursed as it knocked from his head the Union cap that he wore underneath his hood.

“What the hell?” he said as he grabbed the rope. He looked up and standing on the ledge high above them was Gray Dog, who was smiling at his targeting prowess. The sergeant major started to curse in anger, or was it relief at seeing the Comanche still alive? Thomas smiled as he saw Jessy standing next to Gray Dog.

“Ollafson’s passage is blocked. Your Injun boy found another route. Should get us to the summit by dawn tomorrow.”

The words echoed and the men, who had taken to lying down for rest and to regain the oxygen levels in their lungs, all heard the report as it bounced from one ice wall to the next.

“And how do we get up there?” Captain Jackson asked, very afraid of the answer.

“Well, you better tell Miss Anderson to tie down that skirt of hers because we have to haul everyone up four and five at a time. It would take too long to backtrack and then go around. Apologies to the miss.”

“Tell Colonel Taylor I climb just as well as any man,” she said as she took the rope from Dugan and then deftly spit into her gloves and rubbed her hands together. She shrugged out of the small pack that Dugan had bogged her down with and then looked up.

“Anytime,” she called up.

Thomas looked from the one who was scaling the rope like a professional circus performer, to the face of Captain Jackson, who looked around nervously.

“You know, Colonel, besides a complete failure in our mission, I find myself more terrified of failing to match that woman’s prowess at climbing.”

“I’ve got news for you, Captain Jackson. You’re not alone in your fears.”

“Oh, goodness and saints be praised, I think I better go the long way,” Dugan said just as another heavy rope struck him in the head.

“Oops, apologies, Sergeant Major,” Taylor called from above. As Dugan looked up he saw a smiling Gray Dog, who had obviously just thrown the rope because Taylor was too busy assisting Claire to the top.

“I guess that settles it, you Irish rogue, now get to climbing. We have a lot of men and equipment to get up there.”

Dugan looked at Thomas, horrified. “But … but…”

“Yes, you could fall, but then you would have to listen to Claire’s bragging all the way home. For six thousand miles she will never let you live it down,” John Henry said, smiling.

Dugan dropped his pack and then did as Claire had and spit into his gloved hands. He took hold of the rope and then with a dirty look at the naval personnel watching him, started up the wall. As soon as his feet came off the ground a rather large chunk of snow hit the sergeant major square in the bearded face. He lost his grip and fell the four feet to the snow-covered ground.

“Sorry, that was my fault,” Claire yelled down as Dugan looked up. All he saw was Claire holding her gloves to her mouth as she had watched the snowball fall. But it was the smiling face of Gray Dog standing next to her that irritated Dugan to no end.

“That does it, I’m going to kill him.”

This time it was Taylor, three of his men including Corporal Jenks, and the mess crew that were left below to secure the last of the supply sleds. As the last ten-by-seven sled was hoisted up the side of the ice face, Jenks faced Jessy. He made sure that the big man Grandee and his navy boys didn’t hear what he had to say.

Taylor had steadied the last sled and then slapped Grandee on the back. He nodded that he was appreciative of the man’s size and strength. Grandee saw Jenks approach and nodded a greeting, which Jenks still didn’t know how to react to, so he just stared at him until he moved off to get ready for their own climb.

“Colonel, the boys sorta elected me to talk for ’em.”

Taylor lowered his hood and then pulled his goggles down. He looked around and saw the other two men outside the circle of mess cooks and noticed they were intently watching the conversation. Jessy slowly pulled off his gloves. He waited without inviting Jenks to continue.

“Colonel, sir, we figure it’s time for us southern boys to skedaddle outta here.”

“Just us four, just up and get, is that it?” Jessy said as his eyes became cold.

“No, sir, not at all. But once we’ve climbed this mountain, we figure we’ve kept our side of the bargain. It’s time for us to go and find a way to get back home and into our own fight. That’s where we belong, Colonel. Not here where we can be kilt and no one will ever know. I mean, at least at home we can die for what we believe, not” — he waved upward toward the rest of the expedition — “what those Yankees think they want.”

Taylor took a deep breath and then looked at Grandee, who was slipping on a rope so he could take his turn to ride the mountain. Jessy reached up and brushed away some of the ice that had built up in his mustache and beard.

“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.

There, buried in many thousands of years of ice, was the curved bow of a ship. It rose sixty feet above their heads and vanished into blue-tinted ice. John Henry could make out the wood of its beams, but then again he knew it wasn’t wood, because after all of this time it looked as if the giant bow had been carved from black stone. It was the Confederate colonel who summed it up for the rest of them in an articulate way that only Taylor could accomplish.

“I’ll be a son of a bitch!”

22

John Henry stood atop the glacier after he and the others had been pulled out by Dugan and the men. Word of the find sent a shock wave through the tired troops, North and South. After most had figured the headquarters staff had been killed, they learned the news that made all of those days in Sunday school class as children come into their thoughts.

The large hole had been widened and a sling system was built by the navy riggers. Men and equipment were now below shoring up the large system of caves. After the initial discovery had been made it was learned that the cave had many duplicates, and sections of the great Ark could be seen through many thin or bare spots. The size of the vessel was enormous. Ollafson noted that the Ark was heavily damaged not only by the passage of time, but by the elements that had combined to crush large sections of the ancient ship.

More than a hundred oil lamps assisted the weak and fading light of day to illuminate the most amazing sight the men had ever seen. Even McDonald was in awe of what the Americans had found. His mission had changed somewhat since their thrill ride through hell. The bloody Yanks had proven the myth. Now they would have to get the proof back to civilization, and that was what McDonald had to stop or claim as England’s own. He would have to move fast. He would not tell Madame Claire about his plans. For some reason he could not fathom, she had become distant and she was constantly observing him, and to be frank about it, it made him uneasy.

Jessy was leading the men who were busy shoring up the tighter and more fragile areas of the cave system. They had sacrificed ten of the valuable sleds for the wood needed and they would still be dangerously short if the ceiling of the void came crashing down. For the most part the men had settled into an uneasy silence since their initial viewing of the Ark. Now their eyes were constantly moving to the ice around them, waiting to hear the sound of cracking, indicating they were about to be buried alive.

The latest man down was Daniel Perlmutter. The equipment inside the wooden boxes was handled by him alone as he used the rope sling to carefully maneuver the camera equipment down.

Ollafson, who was walking around the exposed section of the Ark taking notes and making diagrams, saw the young photographer and smiled. He approached him as the boy was unloading the first of his equipment.

“I see you are about to do your magic with that box, eh?” the old man asked as he saw the rope sling heading back to the surface.

Perlmutter looked up and smiled. The young man pushed his wire-rimmed glasses back up his nose and then lowered the hood of his jacket.

“Oh, hello, Professor. Yes,” he said as he looked around at his scattered camera equipment. “I figured I better get my things down here before the navy starts lowering the explosives.”

“Sensible,” Ollafson said.

“Now, Professor, don’t go wandering off. We want to immortalize you and your find,” Perlmutter said with a wink.

“Oh, my. No, there will be plenty of time for that. We have other work we need to do.”

“So I understand. The colonel is getting ready to send down the men who will disassemble some of the Ark after I take my images.”

Ollafson froze with pencil and notebook in hand. He was looking at Perlmutter as if he were deranged. “Excuse me, disassemble?”

“Yes, the colonel said they need a few sections for your proof — well, that and the photographs I take, that is.”

“No, no, no, young man, you must have heard wrong. We must stay and excavate this site properly. There will be no disassembly for samples.”

Perlmutter could see that the news had unhinged the professor somewhat.

“I’m sure I heard right, but you can double-check the orders.”

The notebook and pencil fell from Ollafson’s hand and his eyes went wide just before he lunged at the young man. Perlmutter yelped when the professor grabbed him by the throat and both men went down over the scattered equipment. Ollafson had lost control and was trying his best to kill the messenger.

Taylor heard the boy call out and he turned to see two men rolling on the ice floor of the cave. He thought for sure it must have been one of his men and one of John Henry’s. He ran over and was surprised when he pulled Professor Ollafson off the learned student of Mathew Brady. He had to shake Ollafson to get him to stop trying to claw his way back to Perlmutter.

“What in the hell has gotten into you, Doc?” Jessy said as he shook the man, trying to shock some sense back into those crazed eyes. Taylor shook him so hard that Ollafson’s glasses went flying. Then the man went semi-limp in Jessy’s hands. He looked down at Daniel Perlmutter, who was rubbing his neck and trying to stand up. A few of the marines and Rebs gathered around to see what the ruckus was about. “What did you do?” he asked the still-shaken Perlmutter.

“Nothing. I just told him that the colonel had ordered samples of the Ark and its images recorded.”

“We can’t just leave it here,” Ollafson said as his eyes stared off into the distance as though Taylor was not even there.

“Professor, the find is yours. You have proven that it exists. No one can ever take that away from you. You’ll be back. Lincoln will surely support a more legal expedition now.”

The Rebs who had gathered around exchanged looks when Taylor mentioned Lincoln. It was if he was conceding Lincoln would always be there, meaning the war was lost in his opinion.

Ollafson continued to stare at nothing.

“All right, you men get the professor hooked into that harness and get him out of here. I don’t want him anywhere near that dynamite when it gets down here.”

The men didn’t move at first, and then the professor lowered his head in defeat. The men moved to follow the command of Taylor.

It had taken Claire two full hours to get Ollafson to sleep, and it also took several sleeping aids prescribed by the marine corpsman at that. The sun had set and the snow was falling at a brisk pace, the winds were picking up, and it looked as though the camp was in for rough night. The rest of the late afternoon had been taken up by Captain Jackson and John Henry as they pondered the communication problems that had arisen along with the bad weather. They needed to signal Lieutenant Parnell on the plain below by rocket fire that they had made their goal of the summit. The cloud cover was so thick they couldn’t see the slope of the mountain, much less the plain below. They would have to await a clearing of the skies before contact could be established.

“I think that part of our plan could have been thought out better,” Jackson said as he scanned the skies above.

“Well, we didn’t have the time to lay a telegraph line from Talise all the way up here. We’ll have to make do. Maybe in a day or two we can send a messenger back.” The two men knew that without the signal rockets they would be blind as to what was approaching them from the west.

Four hours later John Henry stared up at the raked and curved bow of the Ark and shook his head. Jessy and Claire stood next to him as they examined the giant’s bow under lamplight for the first time. The men were above trying to bed down as best they could with the storm intensifying.

“It kind of makes you wonder what else you’ve been mistaken about all your life, doesn’t it?” Thomas said as he saw the tool markings that had been carved in the wood more than thirteen thousand years before. He saw the wooden pegs that held the massive vessel together, all turned to stone.

“I don’t take well to reflection,” Jessy said as he gave John Henry a sorrowful look. “Hell, I’ve been wrong so much it’s become a career objective.”

For the first time since the mission began all three of them laughed at the same time. They stopped when they heard the men who were assigned the task of shoring up a small cave that extended halfway to the middle of the Ark. Jenks, several Confederate prisoners, a few marines, and Grandee and his off-duty mess crew were assisting.

The laughter died and then John Henry handed Claire the lamp and shocked her by starting to climb the rope ladder that had been placed on the large bow for work crews to enter in the morning when the Ark was examined.

“Hey, your own orders were to await the naval engineers in the morning,” Claire called up.

“I have a history of not following orders. That’s why I’m here,” he said as he made the top of the curving prow of the Ark and then vanished over the ancient gunwale.

Claire looked at Taylor. He just half-bowed and then gestured toward the rope. “You’re the one that climbs like a ring-tailed lemur. After you,” he said, smiling.

Claire lowered the hood of her coat, gave Taylor a smug look, and then smiled and took hold of the rope. Jessy had to grin as Claire shot up the rope ladder almost as fast as Thomas had done. When she made it over the top, a small piece of ice was thrown over and struck Jessy on the head. He looked back up and saw Claire smiling down on him.

“I think you’ve been spending too much time with that Indian boy,” he joked and then blew out the lamp and attached it to his coat before he started climbing — intentionally faster than Claire.

McDonald watched Taylor vanish over the side wall of the Ark. His eyes remained watching for the time being. Then his gaze shifted to Captain Jackson as he stood and supervised the unloading of the dynamite. He wanted to make sure his navy demolition team handled it right because Thomas had men working not far from them inside a small cave where they were using the last of their wood to shore up that area.

The British agent watched as a tarpaulin was placed over the six cases of dynamite and tied down. They made sure the area was well roped off before they started the climb back to the surface.

McDonald watched the great cavern empty. All was quiet except for the distant sound of hammering and talking from the men in the smaller cave. He heard the voices of Thomas, Taylor, and Claire as they moved about on the deck of the Ark.

Then he went over to the stored dynamite and started to remove the tarpaulin.

When John Henry hit the frozen-over deck, the bow was curved to such an extreme rake that he slipped and fell onto his back. It seemed he slid for a hundred feet before his boot heels hit a higher object that arrested his sliding fall.

Then he heard a cry for help and before he knew it Claire smashed into him. She had done the same thing as he had just done.

“That first step is kind of tricky,” Thomas said as he gained his feet and then assisted Claire to hers. She brushed off her backside with as much dignity as she could and then was about to say something when an accursed shout came to her ears. Before she knew it she was back down on her butt and John Henry was sprawled on top of her. Taylor was laughing as he tried to pick himself up, fell on top of Thomas, and then was laughing so hard he was close to losing control. Meanwhile, John Henry and Claire were nose to nose.

“Now you know why I hate him.”

“Understandable, Colonel. Now, if you don’t wish rumors to start swirling about, may I suggest you move that pistol from my pelvic region and get the hell off of me?”

John Henry smiled widely and his old self emerged, a man he hadn’t seen or heard from in more than five years.

“Who said I was armed?”

With that, Claire pushed him off and he went flying backward into a laughing Taylor and they both fell once again.

Claire stood and started brushing the ice from herself once more, and then she stopped and saw the open doorway. It was partially covered by a thin sheet of ice, but there was a hole in that ice about as wide as a barrel.

Taylor and Thomas finally gained a little control and saw that Claire was standing rigid. They walked up and saw the portal into blackness. Taylor unhooked the oil lamp and then struck a match. The lamp flared to life and they saw what looked like a way to enter the Ark. All of a sudden the humor they felt a moment before had vanished as if it had never been.

John Henry moved Claire aside and struck out with his boot and caught the ice center mass. The thin sheet shattered like fine crystal and they were left staring into a darkness that none of them had ever experienced before. He reached over and took the lamp from Jessy and held it just inside the well of blackness.

“Any lions, tigers, or elephants in there, maybe a lost unicorn?” Taylor joked and both Thomas and Claire turned and looked at him in silence, finding the humor a little droll.

John Henry came back to reality and stepped inside the interior of the Ark.

Ollafson awoke from a nightmare that had shaken him to the core. He sat up from his bedroll and saw that he had been placed there after being drugged. He rubbed his eyes and thought about what had awakened him. He didn’t know and couldn’t remember anything other than the cold, icy hands of death as it caressed him and the others.

He shoved the thick blankets off him and in a panic he rummaged through the tent, tossing the last of McDonald’s personal property about. He finally found the satchel and hugged it to his chest. He fell back with the artifacts and took a deep breath as he felt inside for the strangely warm petrified wood of the planks. He started to doze off again after he knew his artifacts were secure, the drugs still affecting him.

After the professor’s eyes closed, the satchel started to smolder in his gloved hands. Soon it died down and then the tent’s front flap blew outward. A dark shadow shot from the tent and made for the excavation site.

“I’m just saying, my accounting would have been better, but that ship was moving so much I could hardly stand,” Jenks said in defense of his performance aboard the Yorktown when he and Grandee had put on their little show. Now it was his own brothers-in-arms giving him a hard time about the whooping he’d taken at the hands of the mess steward. Grandee heard the joking way in which they teased Jenks but continued to place the last of the wood over the small cave opening. When a particularly harsh barb was landed by another Reb, Grandee turned and confronted the men. The other mess stewards stopped working to watch, as did the six marines.

“I’ve been on ships like the Yorktown for more than six years. My footing is used to the rocking of a large vessel. Your friend there, he did all right in my book.”

The men listened to the deep, throaty voice of Grandee as he turned away and went back to work. He started to sing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” as Jenks looked his way. He stood from where he had been sitting and moved to the opposite end of the cave. He didn’t know what to think about the large black man coming to his defense.

Corporal Jenks turned away and saw that he was near an exposed section of the Ark. He reached out and felt the ancient petrified wood and then he pulled his gloved hand back quickly. The black stone was so cold the gloves had zero effect at stopping it. His eyes traveled upward and he noticed large holes in the hull before it vanished into the ice far above. Then he noticed what looked like long claw marks dug deep into the wood. It looked like thousands of fingers had tried desperately to hold onto the sides of the hull as the world around them flooded. He didn’t know why that thought struck him when he saw the scratches in the ancient wood, but it did. He shook his head and then returned to the company of real men, not the blank stare of an object he never would have believed was real.

As he moved away, a dark shape reached out from a large crack in the petrified wood and barely missed Jenks’s head as he turned to leave. There was a hiss of anger and then the hand-like shadow backed into the crack.

After thirteen thousand years, the Ark was waking up from an ancient sleep.

The inside was dark and smelled like old vegetation. John Henry held the lamp high as he examined what he could. The area was small, and he could see that anything beyond was buried in a solid wall of ice.

“What are these, do you suppose?” Claire said at his side.

John Henry held the lamp close to the nearest object and saw the cage-like pen. It looked as if it had been hand-crafted from extremely thick vines.

“Cages?” Taylor ventured. “Looks like a mess of them. But I’m not buying that story about animals boarding two by two and all of that. This vessel, though large, could never fit that many beasts inside.”

“Well, Colonel, maybe you are taking the Bible a little too literally when it comes to the descriptions. After all, the Bible was written by men. Men such as yourselves, and as I have had recent dealings with the male species, I believe the stories were embellished somewhat.”

John Henry and Jessy exchanged a look. They had just been insulted in the strangest way, and they knew it.

“Now wait a minute, I think—”

That was as far as John Henry got when the world shook and knocked them from their feet.

The cave started to fall in beneath the Ark where the men were struggling to shore up that area.

Thomas and Taylor both knew that men had just died.

Grandee heard the men talking behind him as the mess crew started packing up their tools. The last of the wooden planks had been laid and now the small cave was as secure as they could make it with the limited amount of wood they had to work with.

Jenks and the others watched as first the marines and then Grandee’s mess crew started to leave the cave. The corporal still pictured the images of the humanlike scratch marks on the side of the Ark’s hull. The image, he knew, would stay with him for the rest of his life.

Grandee saw the shadow first as he turned to retrieve the last of the tools. His eyes widened when the large manifestation spread what looked like massively strong arms. The entity knocked down the nearest soldier and fell upon him. Jenks screamed in horror as he fought to help the man. He was flailing and fighting with something they could not see. As Jenks reached him the shadow turned on him and then struck out, and the blow sent Jenks into the wall of ice. Other men yelled and screamed as the shadow rose to the cave’s ceiling and then the boards they had just placed started to shatter as if they had been hit by a sledgehammer. They all heard the horrid noise at once as the wooden bracing gave way and the wood went flying. At that same moment each man would swear later that he heard the cries of a thousand voices as they shouted out in terror. The men would also say they heard the roar of a great beast as the shadow shot free of the cave.

Suddenly large chunks of ice started to fall from the ceiling. Grandee was the first to react. He started to pull and push the Rebel soldiers from the cave. All the while he was screaming at Jenks to get out. More ice fell and Grandee knew that Jenks and two others would never make it. He ran as fast as he could, stooping over in the low-hung cave. He reached up and braced the main beam they had used for the centermost reinforcement. He pushed with everything he had, bending the cracked and broken wood upward.

“Get out while you can!” he screamed as his muscles bulged and sweat poured from his face.

Jenks pushed the last two men outside the cave opening and then turned back to help Grandee.

“Come on, let it go! You can make it!”

“Go, I can’t hold it any longer!”

The cave started to come down, but still Jenks was fighting his way through the falling ice to reach Grandee. Suddenly the big man kicked out with his size-fifteen boot and hit Jenks, who went flying backward until assisting hands caught him and pulled him free of the collapsing cave.

“Get out of there!” Jenks cried in frustration as he angrily slapped the helping hands away from him. He locked eyes with the man he had fought only a week before and saw in his eyes what he himself already knew.

“Go!” was all Grandee said as the entire world fell upon him from above.

The horrified Jenks shouted and yelled and cried that Grandee could have gotten out.

The men picked up Jenks and started dragging him away. The corporal shook them off and then turned back to see the closed space that was once the small cave. He looked around at the exposed hull of the ancient Ark. He spit and then cursed it with the last ounce of faith he had.

The hard-luck night was just beginning for Americans everywhere.

The captain of the U.S.S. Carpenter relieved his first officer at 0400 hours. The seas were finally calm and the winds had died down. He received the report from the Argo that her flooding was now under control and they were stable for the time being. The first officer saluted and made the announcement that the captain had command of the deck watch.

The young captain went aft and checked on the towline and spoke with the men manning it. He saw that the men were awake and the towline was tight. He went to the quarterdeck, where he took a bearing from the stars that were finally visible in the night sky.

Suddenly the crow’s nest warning bell started chiming at an alarming rate. The captain strained to look up into the tall rigging.

“Ship on a collision course, bearing two-three-two degrees to starboard!”

Captain Abernathy ran to the starboard side and his eyes widened until he felt they would pop free of his head. The French frigate Osiris was bearing down upon Carpenter at a speed that said this was an intentional act — an impossible mistake on a cloudless night such as this.

“Warning rockets, fire!”

The captain swore that if he had been at battle stations he would have laid waste to the French ship with every cannon he had, but then he realized that was exactly what the French captain wanted. He was daring the Americans to open fire.

From the stern the officer of the deck was ready. Soon three signal rockets of bright red and green fired into the sky and exploded in a shower of sparks, but still the Osiris came on.

“All hands brace for collision!” the captain called out and hung onto the starboard railing.

The Osiris started to veer off at the last second. It was too late. The bow of the new warship struck the Carpenter a glancing blow along her starboard side. She scraped along, tearing rigging from both ships as their main masts and sails came into contact. The captain heard his rigging being torn away as the huge warship shuddered as Osiris finally broke contact and turned away.

The captain regained his feet after the collision had sent him flying to the deck. He stood and saw the crew of the French ship watching the spectacle as though it were a Parisian Burlesque show. He saw the officers standing on the quarterdeck as she slid past. The men only stared at him. The captain swore he would have planted many a cannonball into her if he could have.

“Damage report!”

The first officer was there. He had come running from his quarters when the collision warning was sounded. He was buttoning his shirt as he shouted down, “Get the carpenter to sound the ship!” He turned back angrily to face the captain. “Bastards! We should have fired on her!”

“That’s exactly what they wanted, Jim. Us to fire the first shot. Right now it was all just a horrible accident.”

“My ass!”

“The formal apology letter from their embassy is probably already on its way to President Lincoln. A letter that was more than likely drafted weeks ago.”

“Scheming sons of bitches.”

The ship’s master carpenter reported a few moments later.

“We’re up to six feet of water in frames ten through sixteen. We’ve cracked some ribs for sure, Captain.”

“Is my ship in danger of foundering?”

“Too soon to tell, Captain. We have to get the pumps ahead while we shore up. Until then we have a job on our hands for sure.” The captain only nodded, sending the carpenter back to his duties.

“Jim, cut the towline. Signal the Argo, inform her of the situation, and let them know they are on their own for now. We will send Chesapeake and Yorktown her last coordinates as soon as we are able.”

“Captain?” the first officer said, astounded that they were going to cut loose the barge and its complement of men.

“If we go down, we’ll take that unstable platform to the bottom with us. Cut the towline, now!”

Several men started hacking at the thick ropes as the first officer started to signal Argo by message lamp.

A moment later the tow barge Argo and her crew were cut adrift. She was now on her own as the U.S.S. Carpenter fought for her life.

23

It had taken six men to hold Corporal Jenks back from reentering the cave system below and beside the unstable Ark. The corporal was convinced that the large black man was still alive. It had been four hours since the expedition held its second funeral service since the mission began, and John Henry suspected it would not be the last.

The mood after the gathered soldiers had broken up was somber even before the colonel had laid out the orders of the day. They would clear a few tons of ice from the Ark and her bow so Daniel Perlmutter could get evidentiary photographs and then they could end this mission and go home. Still, the death of Grandee not only affected the naval and marine personnel, but strangely enough all of the Confederate prisoners as well. Captain Jackson pointed out to John Henry that the southerners were taking it far harder than he would ever have believed. Even Jessy was not in a talkative mood. Breakfast that morning had consisted of hot coffee and bacon. The mess crew missed their leader and the men missed Grandee’s food.

The colonel, Dugan, and Gray Dog watched as the men slowly returned to their work. There was none of the usual joking or glad-handing, nor was there the hard talk of northerner against southerner. Today it was a fellow American they were mourning, not a naval mess steward.

Thomas looked down the steep slope of Ararat and saw that the cloud cover was still blanketing the region. The snow had stopped just before dawn and the winds had calmed. It was as if the mountain were taking a restorative breath before its next performance. He opened his pocketwatch and saw that they had wasted half a day with the futile recovery effort to remove Grandee and the Rebel soldier from the cave-in. He examined the sky and then looked at the navy petty officer who was standing by the signal rockets and he shook his head. There would be no signals to the plain far below that day.

“This non-communication is getting a little dicey, Colonel Darlin’.”

Dugan was right. Soon they would have to send a messenger down to give and receive information from Lieutenant Parnell.

Captain Jackson and Taylor came to report. John Henry returned salutes without much enthusiasm.

“Ordnance is ready to lay the charges and clear the bow,” Jackson said.

“And we’re sure that the rest of the cave will not collapse when those charges are detonated?”

“We’re only using quarter sticks at fifteen-foot intervals. Two charges at a time, we should get a delayed collapse of ice and then the bow section should be cleared,” Taylor said, knowing it would be two of his experts with the two navy ordnance men doing the work. In Jeb Stuart’s cavalry Taylor was known as a guerrilla fighter who was prone to blowing things Union straight to hell.

John Henry spoke low so the rest of the men did not hear. “Will there be any chance to recover the two bodies?”

Jackson looked hurt and Taylor just looked away. Jackson just shook his head that no, they could not be recovered.

“Look, we can ignore this all we want, but the word has spread to every set of ears Union or Confederate that something was in that cave with those boys. That it was the curse that brought that cave down. They claim they saw it. Not just my men.” Taylor looked at Jackson. “But yours also.”

John Henry wanted badly to tell both Jackson and Taylor to stop acting like shavetail second lieutenants — that it was an unstable cave and it came down, nothing mysterious at all. Not even Thomas was buying all of this bad luck as random. He decided not to comment at all until he could meet with Claire so she could explain things to the men and stop this talk of angelic curses — even if he had to force her to lie.

“How long will it take to remove the ice from the top of the Ark so we can get some needed light for our Mr. Perlmutter?”

“The ice sheet covering the top is only ten feet thick. A small charge in the direct center should break open the cave’s top and we should be able to see the Ark from here.”

“Proceed, gentlemen.”

Jackson saluted and then went to his ordnance men and told them to start laying the charges on top of the ice above the vessel.

John Henry didn’t comment when Jessy stayed behind. Gray Dog saw the seriousness on the colonel’s face and decided to leave the two old classmates alone.

“You know and I know what those men saw down there. Get your photography done and let’s get the hell off of this mountain.”

“Colonel Taylor, may I remind you we haven’t received or sent word to Lieutenant Parnell since our arrival. When we finish here, if we haven’t yet established contact, we could be walking into an entire army of angered Turks down there. We may as well do the job we were sent here to do until that can be established. Are we clear on that?”

Taylor slapped his gloves against the side of his leg and then angrily moved off to assist in laying the charges.

John Henry knew that Jessy was right, but he felt trapped as he did not know the disposition of the rest of his men.

Lieutenant Parnell had a difficult time convincing the Army of the Potomac band that they were in serious trouble. The men were silently working at laying the rail ties for a rail line that would never be completed, just as the Americans had known all along. It had been a full day since he had sent a marine corporal off to the halfway point to await any response from Constantinople, or any other government that came looking.

“That summit is still blanketed in weather, Lieutenant. There’s no way we can see any signal with this system closing in around us.”

“Keep an eye out. A break may appear instantaneously and we must see the signal when we get a break. Clear?”

“Aye, Lieutenant.” The naval ensign pointed to the hill to the south. “Have you noticed the number of our audience has grown?”

Parnell looked to the rise and saw that the British officers had been joined by ten more men.

“Things are apt to get interesting around here soon enough,” he said as he turned away from their constant watchers. Parnell looked at the remaining marines and the hundred-and-twenty-member Army of the Potomac band. He shook his head.

“What am I supposed to do, serenade them when they come charging at us?”

The situation was getting desperate.

Lance Corporal Walter Campbell watched the five-hundred-member Seventh Guards Regiment board the train after the locomotive took on water. He had almost been caught getting to the charges he had planted four days before at Talise Station. When he managed to reach the dynamite charges, he was relieved to find them still in place and undiscovered. He had lit the fuse and hoped the length was long enough not to blow up the water tank and surrounding buildings. He saw that the last of the Ottoman Empire’s most elite troops had boarded and the locomotive sounded its whistle. A blast of steam powered the steel wheels into a spin as the train slowly started to move.

The explosion ripped open the huge boiler and sent shards of iron into the air. The locomotive hissed and then slowed as the boiling water and steam were blown free of the boiler. He saw men scramble off the train’s cars and start to fan out, expecting the Americans had opened up on them with cannon fire. There were even a few stray shots fired as the Turks didn’t know from which direction the attack was coming.

“Stupid bastards,” the marine corporal chuckled, and then turned to his horse.

The commanding general of the Turkish regiment ducked his head for cover and then straightened and turned angrily to the Frenchman Renaud and raised his brow.

“It seems the Americans may be a mite more aggressive than you thought.”

“Well, what are you going to do?” Renaud asked angrily as he hopped down from the private car that had been the home of John Henry just a few days before. “Damn,” he said when he saw the horse and rider burst from the shadows of the dilapidated station. The rider was hell-bent on getting to the east.

“I am going to do what I was ordered to do, my French friend. I am going to pursue.” He turned and found his second-in-command. “Captain, unload the horses. We ride east within the hour.”

The Seventh Guards Regiment had been stopped — but only momentarily.

It had been almost eighteen hours since the Argo and her towline were cut loose from the Carpenter. The crew of the barge roamed from station to station checking the pressure valves on the sixteen flotation bags inside the hull of the awkward-looking barge. Each of the bags was the size of an observation balloon used by both sides during the war. The designer was, of course, John Ericsson. The men on deck kept a sharp eye out on the horizon for either the damaged Carpenter, the Chesapeake, or Yorktown. Thus far, with the exception of the French frigate Especial, the seas had been clear. The French observers were surely wondering why such a strangely designed vessel was of such importance to the French admiralty. She was ungainly and extremely wide of girth. She was thirty-five feet longer than the massive Yorktown and was almost double her tonnage.

A hatch that was situated at the stern opened and the real commander of the Argo stepped onto the barge’s wooden decking. The captain, actually another navy lieutenant, J.G., took a deep breath and then unbuttoned the top few buttons of his tunic. He removed his hat and allowed the cool sea breeze to wash through his sweat-soaked uniform.

“Sir, the French frigate keeps signaling and asking if we could use their assistance,” a young helmsman reported.

Lieutenant Giles Ferguson straightened and then, remembering his position within the two crews of the Argo, rebuttoned his tunic after the brief respite. He placed the hat back on his head.

“The bastards are damn well lucky we have other priorities at the moment, because to tell you the truth I’m in the mood to sink every damn foreign-flagged naval vessel in the Black Sea after what they did last night.”

“Yes, sir, it would surely be pleasing to the boys down there in that hellhole.”

Ferguson glanced back at the hatch, which remained open, as were the other twelve on the barge’s main deck for the men below to get some fresh air. As long as they were being spied upon by the French frigate, he couldn’t allow the full complement of crew up from the Argo. As it was, he had to bring them up no more than ten men at a time to mix in cleanly with the barge crew. If the French knew they had a complement of two crews onboard, their little deception might end real soon.

“Captain, the Especial is making another run at us,” said the helmsman at the wheel of an unmaneuverable ship.

“Damn it!” Ferguson cursed as he ran to the port railing and watched helplessly as the harassment continued. He saw the French crew lining her gunwales and laughing at the sailless and mastless barge.

The Especial finally made her turn close enough that her bow wave struck the Argo and rocked her. Captain Ferguson watched as an old veteran sailor waited until the faces of the French were close at hand, and then the old bearded sailor turned and lowered his pants and showed the French crew and their command his bone-white butt. The men of the Argo cheered as the Especial slid past. The French sailors looked on as the rest of the American crew did the same as the first.

Ferguson, a stickler for military protocol, saw this and had to smile as close to a hundred American sailors lined the railing with their breeches down around their knees showing the French exactly how the United States Navy felt about the French actions.

The captain paced to the railing toward the sailor who had started the avalanche of emotion by sending his pants to half-staff. The sailor was just pulling up his pantaloons when he noticed the captain standing next to him.

“Apologies, Captain. Major pants malfunction,” the chief petty officer said as he secured his pants to full staff.

Ferguson had to smile, though he hid it well.

Every crewman below or above decks knew that soon their good humor would wear thin and the surface of the Black Sea would possibly roil in violence.

Argo and her crew were itching to break free of their wooden cocoon.

John Henry looked at his watch and knew they only had an hour before they attempted to blow the cave’s ceiling free of ice, so they did not have long to conduct the meeting. He closed the watch and looked around the interior of the space they had viewed two days before when it had been covered in ice. Now that it was illuminated he could see why the subject of a curse was running rampant throughout the camp. The deaths of the Rebel soldier and Grandee were still weighing heavily on all of their minds.

Claire and McDonald arrived first and they had Professor Ollafson between them. The old man was looking pale as he clutched his satchel to his chest. Claire eased him onto the folding camp chair in front of the small table. The light cast eerie shadows on the petrified wood making up the familial enclosure of the Ark. Taylor and Captain Jackson soon followed. Gray Dog and Dugan watched from the opening and looked equally uncomfortable inside the ancient wreck.

John Henry cleared his throat. “Professor, first off I want to say that the decision to only take photographs and recover provenance of the Ark’s existence was not mine to make. The president is receiving very disturbing reports from Europe that the powers that be will not allow any American prestige to exit this mountain. He suspects that they will attempt to stop us, legally or illegally.”

Ollafson continued to clutch the relics to his chest. That was when Taylor and John Henry both noticed the scorch marks on the cloth of the large satchel. It was if the case had been singed in a fire. Thomas looked at Claire, who in turn reached over and tried to pry the artifacts from his strong grip. Without acknowledging Claire’s efforts, Ollafson continued to hold the satchel. Finally Jessy stood and wrenched the bag from the professor’s grip. He looked up at Taylor and his face was a blank mask of hate and confusion. Taylor tossed the heavy sailcloth case onto the table where it made a sickening, wet sound as it struck the table.

Thomas looked at Claire. She remained standing and cautiously opened the case and revealed the artifacts inside. She stepped back for only an instant and then felt embarrassed by her childish reaction. She shook her head and then pulled the petrified wood free of the case. She used her gloves but could still feel the coldness through the leather.

“As I’ve explained before, this Angelic symbol here is for the Archangel Azrael. These others are of other lesser angels sent by God for the protection of Noah and his kin. The way the Bible explains it, Azrael was also known as the Angel of Death.”

“You mean this curse revolves around a hood-wearing, scythe-wielding skeletal specter?” Jessy asked.

“That, Colonel, is the modern interpretation of the entity, yes. But in ancient times it was somewhat different. According to legend, Azrael was involved with Lucifer and it was suspected by the other Archangels, most notably Gabriel and Michael, that Lucifer and Azrael conspired to overthrow heaven and the throne of God.”

“It sounds as if you’re referring to when God tossed Lucifer’s ass out of heaven. If so, why not this Azrael?” Taylor asked as John Henry sat silently and listened. Ollafson and McDonald were wearing unreadable blank faces. As for Gray Dog and Dugan standing by the opening, it was if they were mere children listening to a spooky bedtime story. Their eyes were wide and kept roaming the interior of the Ark and its long-dead petrified wood. As for Captain Jackson, he was fast becoming a believer.

“That has been debated by Angelic scholars for centuries. None of this is ever mentioned in the Bible. I believe it would have scared most true believers to death if they heard it.”

“Why is that?” John Henry asked, for the first time breaking his silence.

“Because it is argued inside of Christian and Jewish circles that Azrael was the only archangel that God ever feared, because Azrael was the only angel given the power of death over mankind.”

“And thus the Lord sent Lucifer into exile to rule over hell, and Azrael’s punishment was to be placed on earth for eternity in the company of man for the protection of the first family of God.”

All eyes turned to face a now-silent Ollafson after he had managed to frighten them all when he spoke. In the corner Gray Dog listened and Dugan accidentally swallowed his chewing tobacco.

“Noah and his family?” John Henry asked, still looking at a grinning Ollafson, sure the man had lost all thought of reality.

“Yes, that’s the conclusion of the league of biblical scholars.” Claire saw that Thomas was still skeptical to say the least.

“And this Azrael is still here after thirteen thousand years? I hate to break it to you but Noah and his family have been dead a very long time,” Thomas countered.

Ollafson suddenly stood and paced the room. It was though he was recently awakened from a long slumber and knew it was time for class. He placed a gloved hand against the petrified hull of the Ark and lovingly caressed it.

“The Bible is incorrect in regards to the tale of the flood.” Ollafson turned to face Claire and his eyes were clear. Claire sat down, shocked at the professor’s sudden wakefulness. “Noah’s family is most assuredly not dead, Colonel. Would you care to explain? Miss Claire?” Ollafson stood over them like he was a lecturing professor tutoring ignorant students. Claire cleared her throat trying, to ignore the strange way Ollafson was looking at her.

“Transcendentalist scholars have come to the conclusion, as we have discussed before, that the entire world was not flooded five thousand years ago as the Bible says. Thirteen thousand years ago the entire Middle East region was destroyed by what some believe to have been a natural disaster that God allowed to happen. Thus, all of mankind did not perish in the great flood, only those in the Middle East. After the Ark settled into a new land, Noah and his family went about repopulating the Earth, well, as best as they could of course. But modern thought is that a third of the world’s population is directly related to Noah and his descendants. Thus, the family of man is still here” — she cautiously smiled — “in a sense. Azrael’s job was never completed and is he still working. Far weaker than in ancient times, but his punishment from God still intact.”

Thomas stood and took the lamp from the table and walked to a far wall where a few of the ancient animal pens had been. He held the lamp high. They all saw the symbols at the same time. It looked as if the ancient writing had been placed on every square inch of hull from deck to ceiling. John Henry placed the oil lamp next to a missing section of hull. Claire saw what he wanted and then brought the two artifacts over and held them up to the missing planks. They fit exactly.

“This is where our missing pieces of the puzzle originated. Miss Claire has had a chance to decipher the symbols and that is why I called us together.” He nodded at Claire, who returned the artifacts to the table and was happy to do so. She relieved John Henry of the lamp as he returned to his seat.

“We know that the symbols carved into the wood of the Ark were done by Noah himself. After all” — she smiled rather sheepishly — “he signed his work.”

“What does the rest of this say?” Jessy asked, not liking at all the feeling he was getting.

Claire cleared her throat. Since this afternoon when she had transcribed the symbols she had realized that Noah might have had a falling out of sorts with the decision-makers of the time — meaning God himself.

“Gentlemen, all of this” — she moved the lamp from floor to ceiling, revealing an entire hull section covered in the Angelic symbols — “is a curse, not on men, but on Azrael himself. Noah hated God’s angel of death. Noah despised the creature so much that after the Ark had settled, he cursed Azrael to remain on this mountain for eternity. Which was what happened until the professor brought back pieces of the Ark.”

“So this is not a curse keeping men out of here, it’s a curse trapping the angel of death?” Jessy asked.

“You must admit that there hasn’t been any mass kill-off of humankind the way the Bible describes it for thousands of years. Maybe that’s because the Lord’s mass murderer is trapped here.”

“That is the most ridiculous theory I have ever heard uttered,” McDonald said as Claire shot him a sour look. “For one thing, there is no Azrael or whatever you call it. There is no curse and most definitely there is no angel of death.” McDonald reached out and took hold of the two artifacts and exposed them to the bright lamplight. Sergeant Major Dugan looked from the haughty British spy to a very interested Gray Dog. The Englishman picked up the largest piece with the symbols emblazoned upon it and held it high. “I believe this is nothing more than an elaborate hoax!”

Before anyone could react McDonald was thrown backward as if he had been smashed in the chest by a runaway train. His grip on the artifact was lost and the ancient wood clacked to the tabletop as McDonald was thrown hard into the arms of Dugan fifteen feet away.

This time they all saw the shadow as it rose from the deck of the Ark. It stood over them momentarily and then it dissipated to nothing. Dugan and Gray Dog picked up the startled but uninjured McDonald. Both men saw it at the same moment. There were two handprints etched in ice on the man’s fur-lined coat. The size of the hands was the most terrifying thing — they were four times the size of a regular man’s prints. Dugan looked at John Henry as McDonald started to cough from having the air knocked from his lungs. Claire immediately reached for the two fallen artifacts and jammed them deep inside the satchel. Then she sat hard into her chair.

John Henry watched as the Englishman shook off the helping hands of Dugan and Gray Dog and then he bolted from the interior of the Ark without a look back.

“I guess old Azrael dislikes spies,” Taylor said, and then realized just how flat his sudden bout of humor had fallen. Jessy had become angry when Thomas had voiced his suspicions with him.

“For the time being, that satchel stays where it was intended,” Thomas said as he stood.

“So you are now a believer?” Claire asked as she looked up at John Henry.

Thomas didn’t answer as he quickly left the Ark.

As for Ollafson, he sat smugly down and then stared at the satchel in front of him.

“Maybe we should just blow the whole thing straight to hell,” Taylor said as he placed a gloved hand on the outside of the satchel.

“The angel of death is weak. This is the time to take the Ark while it can only frighten. Any longer and there is no telling how Azrael’s power could grow.”

“Professor, even if we didn’t have some spook running around here killing men, we could never in a lifetime get this hunk of petrified stone off of this mountain. No engineer in the world could accomplish the feat,” Jackson said as he raised his hood and then followed John Henry out. Dugan and Gray Dog followed, leaving Ollafson, Claire, and Taylor behind.

“The most dangerous thing is for an intelligent man to ignore the supernatural,” Claire said as she reached out and pushed the satchel farther away from her. “John Henry is still a nonbeliever and that could cost him.”

Taylor stood and then helped Ollafson to his feet.

“He believes, Miss Anderson, he believes. He just doesn’t know what to do about it. The Point didn’t prepare their soldiers to fight this kind of war. We don’t belong here.”

Claire had to agree. They needed to leave Ararat as soon as possible before Azrael truly awoke and showed them why God was fearful of his own archangel.

24

An hour before the detonations were scheduled to bring down the ice covering the forward section of the prehistoric Ark, Claire had Gray Dog find McDonald. The Comanche took her to where the British intelligence officer was huddled on the far side of the encampment. She thanked Gray Dog for finding him and the young brave looked from her to a cowering McDonald and shook his head.

“His mind runs away; soon it will be gone.” With that said Gray Dog turned and walked away.

Claire hesitated before approaching the captain. He was sitting on a ration case looking into the ice at his feet. What caught her eye was the British-made Webley revolver he had clutched in his hand. The hood covered his facial features and the falling snow covered the fur. John Henry had tasked her to keep a close watch on McDonald. The spy hadn’t uttered a word since the incident and had vanished from the rest of the company. As she watched he cocked the hammer of the Webley back and then uncocked the pistol. Once, twice, three times.

“Steven, they are about to detonate the ice cap.”

The pistol in his gloved hand stopped moving and his head slowly came up.

“You need to leave now,” was all he said. McDonald’s eyes seemed to be blank as he looked past her as if she weren’t there.

“I think you need to talk about what happened.”

“What happened? What happened is that my insides are stone cold. When I was touched I saw all of the countless deaths that have happened on these very slopes.” His head lowered as did his voice. “I am so cold.”

Claire saw that McDonald was close to going insane. The event had affected him so much that he had mentally checked out of the present.

“London will need a full report on what has been uncovered. You need to witness what is about to happen.” She saw that he once more started playing with the gun.

“You file the report for me, Madame Claire.” He smiled creepily and looked straight at her. “It should be quite a read.”

Claire watched McDonald as he lowered his gaze and scary smile and then continued staring at the ice at his feet.

“Where are the artifacts?” he asked, catching her off guard.

“Colonel Thomas is keeping them inside the Ark for the time being, but has plans to get the cursed wood far away from us. He is going to send a marine courier to catch the first civilian transport out of here and get the artifacts back to Washington for safekeeping. Since the satchel has been inside and away from men, there have been no further incidents. Even the weather looks to be clearing somewhat and the mood of the men is far higher than just this morning. I think it’s because the artifacts are not near any men.”

“Do you think Azrael can be contained by the Ark?” He chuckled and that just about did it for Claire. “He only toys with us for now. Soon the killing will begin. But I will stop him, you’ll see.”

As Claire backed away she quickly came to the conclusion that Steven McDonald had slipped into a realm designed by madmen.

The chief petty officer reported to Captain Jackson that the light charges had been placed at the various pressure points of ice covering the find. It should be just enough to crack the roof of the ancient bubble and expose a large section of bow for photography. They just needed the confirmation by the Rebel colonel.

Taylor inspected the charges and declared them good. The navy had done a fine job of making sure they didn’t blow off half the mountaintop — pretty good even for Yankees. He conferred with Corporal Jenks, who was an expert at explosives, having blown many a Union train vault to seize gold meant for Union payroll.

“Are the charges adequate in your humble opinion, Corporal?” Jessy asked as he made his way back to the safe zone well above the blast area.

Jenks had not spoken kindly ever since the death of the mess steward. Taylor figured the man was confused as to how he was supposed to feel. Grandee had saved the lives of every southern man inside that cave. What was bothering the corporal, in Taylor’s opinion, was the question every man has to ask himself — would I have done the same for him? Jessy figured the corporal felt his answer to that particular question was somewhat lacking in the area of honor and it was affecting him.

“Yes, sir, them navy boys did a fine job. Should be no problems that I can figure.” Jenks nodded his hooded head and then started to leave with Taylor to the safety area.

“Jenks, I believe you would have done the same thing as Grandee.”

The tired corporal stopped and looked at his colonel.

“How do you figure, sir?” he asked with hope etched in his eyes.

“Because you’re one of my boys, and my boys do the right thing. That’s why we ended up in a prisoner-of-war camp and old Jeb rode off to glory.”

“I don’t see it, sir.” The mournful words showed Taylor how deflated the corporal was.

“Every man asks himself if he would give his life for his fellows. When the thought strikes me I find myself saying I would, but inside I think I may fold up at the wrong time.”

“That’s the way of it, sir.”

“I was told you tried to go back for Grandee. Is this true?”

Jenks lowered his head and said nothing.

“I think I would have to base my opinion on that act, not the failings of a good soldier suffering from survivor’s guilt.”

“I truly wanted to save him, sir. I guess my failure is that I didn’t treat Grandee as a man would treat another. My failure is there, sir. And I think in the end that is why we have already lost this war, Colonel.”

Taylor watched as Jenks walked away and then followed as he realized the backwoods corporal was right. The South had no right to win the war and Grandee’s death proved it.

“Did you find him?” John Henry asked Claire upon her return.

“Yes. I believe he is a danger to himself. Perhaps you’d better come clean about his identity and arrest him.”

“That means exposing you as a triple agent. Your career would effectively be over.” John Henry looked down at her and saw that she was possibly not sad at the prospect. Her smile was out of place for the subject matter.

“That was decided when I heard the professor’s student was murdered” — she gestured at the spot where the Ark lay beneath — “over this.”

“Decided?” Thomas asked as she finally looked away from him.

“Yes, my letter of resignation was delivered in triplicate to the war department, Allan Pinkerton, and the president before we sailed. It’s effective upon my return.”

John Henry responded in a way that would confuse him forever. “Good.”

Claire’s brows rose underneath her hood, which she quickly pulled down. She looked at Thomas with a questioning face.

Thomas cleared his throat and then nodded his head and walked away so suddenly she was left staring at the spot where he had been standing.

“Uh, why is that good?” she asked his retreating backside and slightly under her breath, but she knew he hadn’t heard her question.

“Fire in the hole!” came the warning from the navy.

Claire shook herself out of her short trance as she thought about John Henry’s strange response. She moved to a spot where Sergeant Major Dugan and Gray Dog were hunkered down behind several upturned sleds.

“Do you find that the colonel can be a little odd at certain moments?” she asked as she leaned in close to Gray Dog.

Sergeant Major Dugan gave her a queer look and then stuck his gloved fingers into his ears, as did Gray Dog.

“Missy, I find the colonel odd at all times, now you better—”

The explosion shook the ice they stood upon. The quartered sticks of dynamite detonated and sent a long crack line extending a hundred feet downhill and then shooting back up the mountain, almost a perfect oval in shape. Then the world gave way.

Claire heard a tremendous crash as if every chandelier in Washington fell and broke at once. She cringed when she and the others were inundated with ice and snow as the earth settled back down. Dugan smiled and looked at Claire and Gray Dog.

“Well, let’s see if we just blew thirteen thousand years of history to hell, shall we?”

He assisted Claire to her feet and then frowned at Gray Dog, who held his hand up for Dugan to help him up also. The sergeant major shook his head and walked away.

By the time Claire and the others arrived they saw all one hundred-plus members of the expedition standing at the edge of the crater that the dynamite created over the remains of the Ark. Not a word was said as the snow and ice settled around them.

Claire stumbled as she saw the precise way the ice had cracked. It opened up the area directly over the petrified vessel. There was also an opening extending three hundred feet, making the effort of lowering men down into the cave system moot. Now they could walk a little ways downhill and then take a slick ramp right up to the old cave. She finally made it to the edge, where Gray Dog held out an arm and arrested her forward momentum before she went into the void in front of her.

“Thank you. Clumsy of me.”

Gray Dog only nodded and then turned to see just what they had uncovered.

The circle of men waited until they could see through the falling ice crystals still floating in the air, giving the scene a surreal look.

John Henry saw it first. The curved bow of the Ark was visible clearly for the first time and it was a shocking sight. Thomas took a deep breath as he realized for the first time what he was really looking at. Myth, legend, and children’s tales of wonder were all there before them.

The men were silent as they viewed the thing they had come to see. All thoughts of the war, of the hardship in getting here, even the deaths that had occurred at the hands of an angered God, vanished as they beheld the greatest sight any man in the history of the world could ever have imagined.

Most men, either from the North of the South, marine, sailor, or soldier, could see for the first time what Lincoln’s train of thought had been at approving such a risky mission. The Ark was capable of immense power. Perhaps even the power to heal, if the world could see that this was the very beginning for all men regardless of race or birthplace.

“Wow!” was all the articulate Jackson could say.

At that moment the snow stopped and the sun actually showed itself for the first time in days. It spotlighted like the foot lamps of a theater one of God’s greatest gifts to man — the Ark.

Only the bow had been exposed to the modern world. Just two hundred feet of the petrified fossil could be seen as the rest vanished into the now blue-colored glacier. The sunlight made the ancient wood sparkle as if God was highlighting his gift of life to man.

One of the more amazing sights was the fact that everyone could see the beginnings of the raised section of housing on the deck of the Ark. It was even shingled in a rough sort of way. All assumed it was the living quarters for the family of man — Noah and his offspring. The deck from their vantage point looked to be far more sloped than previously thought. Even the wooden pegs used to adhere one plank to the next could be made out in the petrified wood. It was clearly an engineer’s dream of ancient wood carving and building. Jackson knew that John Ericsson would have had a stroke upon seeing God’s design for a vessel. For once Ericsson was outdone.

“It a shame we’re not taking it out of here. If we only had the time.”

“How do you figure?” John Henry turned and asked Jessy, who was looking at the destroyed cave.

“At the opening of the excavation there is only a small wall of ice remaining to impede us from removing the bow section from the glacier and just sliding it right out of the grave it’s trapped in. The way it looks” — Jessy squinted his eyes against the sudden brightness — “we would have almost a straight run to the base of the mountain. Maybe two or three days to transit back down with our prize.”

“Don’t let Professor Ollafson hear you say that. It will get him wound up tighter than a five-dollar Ingersoll watch.”

Both Jessy and John Henry turned to see a smirking Captain Jackson, who was proud of his simple, witty remark.

“Well, I think the world will have to be healed by the knowledge that it was Americans” — he looked at Taylor directly — “all Americans that found this. And it will be heavily documented.” He turned away from Jessy after making his point and then faced an astonished Daniel Perlmutter.

“Think you can capture the scope of the discovery now, kid?”

“Oh, yes! Before the darkness would have affected the quality, but now! Boy, oh boy. The sun will be directly overhead in two hours. It will expose the Ark and give the images true depth, and you know you can always use good lighting, why this is—”

Perlmutter failed to notice that he was standing there alone as the others had quickly walked away once he had started harping on his favorite subject — his work.

An hour later the men had begun clearing off the one-hundred-and-fifty-foot exposed section of the Ark. The mood was far better now that they had something meaningful to do. Even Corporal Jenks was far more festive than he’d been before the detonations. Perlmutter had decided to photograph the Ark and the men that had found her first. He would position the shot from the edge of the void down onto the deck with the Ark’s new crew standing onboard. He could see the many awards he would receive for the documentation of the greatest archeological find in history.

Many of the men still working above on the ice shelf saw Gray Dog running toward them. He found John Henry and pointed down the mountain.

“Signal from Parnell,” he said.

This got the attention of Claire, Jessy, and Jackson. Dugan was late reporting the same thing and gave Gray Dog a dirty look for beating him to the punch.

John Henry quickly raised his field glasses. Three rockets were just starting to fall after they had reached their highest arc. Parnell was signaling imminent danger from the plain below. As he watched another three shot up into the clear blue sky.

“Answer Lieutenant Parnell, Sergeant Major,” Thomas said as he scanned the expansive lands beneath Ararat.

Dugan ran to get the naval ordnance crew to signal with rocket fire that Parnell’s message had been received. All knew that if the night sky was as clear as the daylight hours they would be able to signal Parnell with the large Morse lamps they had hauled to the summit with them. Then they would learn the particulars of the danger signal.

“What do you think it is?” Jessy asked as he removed the field glasses from John Henry’s grip and scanned the world below for himself.

“My guess would be that we will have company soon. Either up here or down there in ambush.” He smiled at Taylor.

“And your thinking is never wrong?” Jessy asked as he slowly lowered the glasses but still stared at the lands beneath Ararat.

John Henry knew the point Jessy was making and he decided that it was time for truth.

“Only once.” He faced Jessy. “Only one time, and that killed me inside.”

Taylor slowly looked at his brother-in-law. He only nodded.

John Henry saw the understanding and then started to walk away. He stopped though when he saw Claire in the distance talking with Jackson. She glanced his way and there was just a hint of a smile. Thomas nodded his head and then a smile slowly broke out. For once it didn’t feel manufactured in any way. Jessy saw this but raised the binoculars back to his eyes.

“Let’s try and not make another mistake, because you may have just as much riding on this if you’re wrong.” He lowered the glasses and then smirked at John Henry.

“I may have at that.” Taylor saw that the colonel’s eyes never left the face of Claire.

John Henry was inside the Ark where headquarters had been established now that there was bright sunlight available and shelter was now abundant — a little old and musty, but still better than spending the night wondering if your tent was going to blow away. He decided that he would catch up on his journal entries that he had let slide since they started to traverse the mountain. He was using the lamp to see with. He was having a hard time concentrating because the decision he had just made was weighing heavily on his mind.

Thus far Jackson had some men start removing the ice that was blocking access into the house-like structure atop the Ark. So far they had uncovered nothing much other than unrecognizable objects from a time long past. A few petrified animal remains that could be as old as the mausoleum that sheltered their corpses. One area that made every man who saw it take pause was what looked as if it were the familial quarters of the Ark’s passengers. It had been a revived Ollafson who had recognized the bedding pallets that may have been used by Noah and his kin. There were frozen hides of some long-dead animals that looked as if they were some ancient form of mattress. Oil lamp bowls that had been dead for thirteen thousand years. Lamps that may have illuminated a frightened family as they were tossed about in a flood-induced terror. There was a large cooking pit that had an exhaust that ran high and vanished through the battered and torn roof of the living quarters.

John Henry had been furiously working since late last night when they received the Morse signal from Lieutenant Parnell and his command on the Plain of Ararat. The situation, he had learned, was fast becoming untenable and now he had to send instructions to the marine telling him what to do.

Since yesterday the most disturbing thing discovered since they opened up the cave’s ceiling was the Angelic symbols found along the main bulkhead of the familial quarters. There were six lines of characters and five characters per line. Claire and Ollafson were doing their best trying to interpret the symbols. John Henry could hear their muted mumbling in the room next to the starboard animal pens of the Ark. The voices gave John Henry pause as they talked. It was as if he were hearing ghostly voices from a long ago past. Eerie, some would call it.

Thomas stopped writing and flexed his hand. His eyes roamed to the oilcloth satchel. Claire had wanted to take it into the room with her and Ollafson to compare to the newly discovered symbols, but John Henry had refused. The satchel with its contents would not be handled any longer by anyone on the expedition. That was what his conundrum was. He had to kill two birds with one stone, and one of those birds he had grown rather fond of over the weeks.

“Here it is,” said a voice from the ragged opening. Jessy was there and he was silhouetted in bright sunshine before stepping into the darkened interior. Taylor held up a large cloth-covered package he had retrieved from John Henry’s tent. “What is this?” he asked as he placed the parcel on the table next to the satchel. Taylor pulled up a camp chair and sat. He removed his hood and then reached into his tunic for a cigar and lit it with the aid of the oil lamp. He sat back down as John Henry finished his journal entry.

“What’s in here?” he asked again as he toyed with the twine that held the bundle together.

“You should know. You found it many years ago.”

Taylor raised both brows as he looked from John Henry to the filthy white cloth bundle he held. John Henry slowly slid the bundle away and then waited.

“Sir!” Dugan said from the opening. “Private Willard and Gray Dog. Took some doin’ to get the Indian to report, but here he is.”

“Show them both in,” Thomas said.

The first in was one of Jessy’s men. A nineteen-year-old private from Alexandria. A boy bred in a fine family and well educated for the time. John Henry had noted that the kid spent a full two years at the Virginia Military Institute. The real draw to the boy was Taylor’s statement that he was also the best damn rider he had ever seen. Willard spoke to horses and they did his every bidding. It seemed his father was a fine horse breeder and Private Willard, or Sam, as Jessy called the boy, was most knowledgeable about the equine species. The private stepped in and lowered the hood to his parka. The boy looked frightened as he removed a woolen cap also and twisted it in his hands. Gray Dog squeezed past Dugan, giving him a strange look as he did.

“Is that how you report, Sam?” Jessy said as he leaned back in his chair and puffed on his cigar.

“Uh, no, Colonel.” The boy stood ramrod straight and then snapped a salute, first toward Taylor, and then thinking better of it directed the respect toward John Henry, who immediately returned the salute. Gray Dog watched this as he stood next to the boy and he was non-plussed at the respect shown to the two officers. Gray Dog just stood there looking at Private Willard, who was keenly aware the Indian had his eyes on him and was feeling a bit nervous about it.

“At ease, Private,” John Henry said.

Willard did not place himself at ease at all. He continued to twist his stocking cap in his hands.

“The colonel informs me you’re one hell of a horseman,” John Henry stated.

“Yes, sir, some say that’s a fact.”

“You have also had some international travel before the war started, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir, my pa and me had to travel to Europe for horse flesh, Colonel, sir. For breeding purposes.”

John Henry saw that the boy was barely able to shave. The chin whiskers on his fresh face were sparse and his cheeks as red as a schoolchild. But John Henry knew he had no choice. Besides, it would take the youngest person on this mission out of here. That was the least he could do. He only wished he could send Claire out with him.

“Good,” Thomas said as he exchanged looks with Jessy, who was silently smoking his cigar and watching. John Henry, then held up a letter. The boy’s eyes widened when he saw it was addressed to the president of the United States and was sealed closed. John Henry reached out and took a hold of the satchel’s handle and then opened it. He felt the air in the room grow far colder than it had been a moment before. He quickly placed the white envelope inside and then hurriedly closed the satchel. Jessy and Dugan saw how fast John Henry had done this. It was if the colonel were afraid if he left the satchel open for too long Azrael would escape like a crazed genie in a bottle. “You are going home, Master Willard.” John Henry slid the satchel toward the boy.

“Sir?” Willard said, confused. His look went from the Yankee colonel to a stunned Jessy, who said nothing, but he did remove the cigar from his mouth and then looked at Thomas waiting for the explanation.

“You are ordered to immediately descend the mountain with Gray Dog, my scout, and then once at the base return to camp there and select five good horses. I hear you can do that, at least, from what your colonel has informed me?”

“Yes, sir, I know horse flesh well enough.”

“You are to take this satchel and guard it with your life. You are to return to the coast near Constantinople and board the first transport out of this country. Get back to Washington as fast as you can travel. Ride hard, ride fast.” John Henry slid a large leather sack toward the private. “Travel in civilian attire and speak to no one until you’re home again. You are to deliver this to the White House. That letter inside the satchel will get you access to the president personally. Deliver this into his hand with the letter. Is this clear?”

“Not at all, sir.”

“Excuse me?” Thomas said as he shot Jessy a look.

“I don’t wish to go, sir.”

“And we don’t want to lose such a good trouper, but you go on and do what Colonel Thomas says. He chose you special.”

The boy straightened and then nodded his head. “Make my way home the best and fastest way possible, yes, sir, Colonel,” he said sadly.

John Henry nodded his head at Jessy for assisting in convincing the young Rebel. Thomas could see why Taylor was so close to his men. He knew them and they were loyal to a fault.

John Henry retrieved a smaller leather bag and tossed it to Willard. “There are six thousand dollars’ worth of gold double-eagles inside. That should be enough to get whatever transport you see fit to travel on.”

“Choose the best, Sammy boy, this one’s on old Honest Abe. Perhaps board the liner The City of Paris, go first class.”

Willard smiled for the first time. “Yes, sir.”

John Henry stood from his chair and approached the boy. He held his hand out to Sergeant Major Dugan, who placed something there.

“It took the sergeant major here all day to dig these up. I think you should have them.” He handed Willard the items. They were a set of gold corporal’s stripes. The boy looked up at the Yankee officer. “We couldn’t very well send a mere private to meet with the president of the United States, now could we?”

“No, sir,” Willard exclaimed with excitement as he looked at the two stripes of a corporal that sat in his gloved hand. He looked over at Jessy to confirm that he had actually been promoted. Taylor smiled and nodded his head.

“You go on now, Sammy boy, do the regiment proud, and be sure to insult the Yankee president as much as you can while you are his guest.”

“Sir?”

“Good luck, Willard,” John Henry said as he saluted the boy who immediately returned it. With one last salute to Taylor, John Henry’s messenger boy left.

“I guess lives can be sold for the cost of two cloth stripes, huh?” Jessy said as he tossed the cigar aside and looked at Thomas, who said nothing.

“Gray Dog, it’s time for you to go also.”

The Comanche said nothing. He looked at Dugan, who spit a stream of tobacco juice that landed outside of the opening.

John Henry held out the second letter to the scout. “Get this to Lieutenant Parnell. Ride fast and get it to him before tomorrow morning. He’s expecting company and I hope these orders will help him. If not we’ll have a nice little surprise waiting for us when we leave this mountain.”

Gray Dog slowly reached out and took the letter. He raised it to his face and then sniffed the envelope.

“You’ll stay with Lieutenant Parnell, understand?”

Gray Dog looked up and then shook his head in the negative.

Thomas knew he wasn’t saying he did not understand. Gray Dog was flat-out telling John Henry he wasn’t leaving him.

“This is important, and you must go or many a boy may very well die down there.”

Gray Dog turned and looked at Dugan. The sergeant major was about to say something and then stopped. He thought about it and then faced the boy he found he had come not only to admire, but actually like, and for Dugan to say he liked another human being was astounding.

“You go on, boyo, do like the colonel says. We will try and get along without you.”

Gray Dog lowered his head and started to turn.

“You may as well take this with you. I was waiting to give it to you on our return.” Thomas actually looked embarrassed. “I figured you would be of age by then.” John Henry swallowed as he looked at his adopted son. “But it seems time has run out on me.” He slid the cloth-covered package toward Gray Dog.

The Comanche touched the package but made no move to pick it up. He only looked from it to the colonel.

“Colonel Taylor, well, back then he was Lieutenant Taylor, found this in your village the day … the day your family was killed. He took it and delivered it to me because he knew I was close to your father, No Water. Its time you have it. It may come in handy when you meet with Lieutenant Parnell and if things get bad.”

Gray Dog finally reached for the parcel and slowly undid the twine. He let the cloth fall to the petrified decking as he saw what Taylor and John Henry had delivered into his hands. It was his father’s headdress, a war bonnet with more than seventy-five eagle feathers arranged along the train. From headband to tail feather the war bonnet was more than six feet long. Gray Dog’s father had been one of the legendary Comanche warriors of that time. Gray Dog held it up and let the feathers unroll to their full length. He smiled like John Henry had never seen before. The Comanche turned and showed Dugan.

“Now ain’t that somethin?” the sergeant major said as he started to spit again, but instead held it in check. “Your pa would be real proud right about now.”

Taylor saw the grudging respect the sergeant major was showing the young brave.

John Henry reached out and took Gray Dog’s hand. He wanted to hug him but knew that would only embarrass him. He shook the hand and then turned away.

“Good luck, son,” was all he said.

Gray Dog looked confused and then made up his mind that he would do as he was told. He straightened and with the war bonnet in hand stepped up to Taylor, who had saved this magnificent gift for him, and held out his hand, and Jessy took it and stood at the same time. The handshake was exaggerated with wide up-and-down shakes. Taylor smiled and nodded.

“Godspeed, Gray Dog.”

The Comanche turned away and left.

John Henry looked up and his thoughts turned sad as he expected not to see the boy again. He faced Taylor.

“Yes, Jessy, you’re right. Some things can be bought pretty cheaply.”

25

It had taken Captain Jackson’s reorganized work crews thirteen hours to clear the lowest level of the raised living quarters of the Ark. It was a small percentage because the rest of the five-story structure was in thick and unyielding ice. Jackson and his ordnance men claimed if they had the time and the right equipment, such as phosphorous charges, they could clear most of the communal living area that saw its last use more than thirteen thousand years before.

Thus far Ollafson, who had recovered from his initial shock at not being able to remove much in the way of artifacts, was as excited as a schoolboy as he moved the oil lamp from one location to the other. Raised areas for bedding, the petrified remains of fire pits, and huge lumps of frozen and prehistoric vegetation. All of this could have kept botanists busy for a hundred years identifying strange and extinct plant life. In one corner of a small alcove on the highest mark of the living quarters, in a place where a child would retreat to play alone, Claire came across what looked like a child’s rag doll embedded in the ice. It had taken her with the assistance of Sergeant Major Dugan over five hours to remove it.

The doll was now sitting upon a table on a piece of sailcloth for examination and return to American soil. When holding the sodden mess in her hands it was far more unrecognizable than it had been when it was embedded in the ice. The ancient materials were not reacting to the air all that well and the huge discovery was quickly turning into a pile of mush. Claire cursed herself for not having sample jars available.

The sun had set more than six hours before, and everyone in camp felt the loss of light and a gloom settled over everyone, especially since the thrill from this afternoon had worn off. As for Steven McDonald, Claire had been shocked to see the British captain standing in line for chow at dusk. She had stepped up to him and he had actually smiled and greeted her as if nothing strange had happened that afternoon. She had informed John Henry of the spy master’s reversal of attitude and she could see in Thomas’s eyes that his concern was great, maybe even as great, to order the elimination, or expulsion, of the British intelligence officer. Claire didn’t know if John Henry had it in him to order Steven eliminated, but the strain and guilt of sending Gray Dog off to an unknown fate was weighing heavily on the colonel’s mind.

“You know, for a master spy you seem to be taking this academia thing to the extreme,” said a voice behind her, which startled her so much it made her drop the large brush she had been using to search the walls of the Ark for any more Angelic Script. Personally she hoped she would never see any of the symbols ever again.

“If there is one place on this planet you do not sneak up on somebody, this is it, Colonel,” she said with her hand trying to still her heavily beating heart through the thick coat.

Dugan snickered and spit his tobacco and then decided to get out of there and get some coffee. John Henry watched him go and then faced Claire again.

“Tomorrow I am going to have our British friend escorted from the mountain and delivered back to his people.” He paused and then looked into her eyes. “Unharmed.”

Thomas could see the relief in her eyes.

“Thank you. Call it professional courtesy, or a favor to me. He doesn’t need to be killed, at least not as much as our French friend Renaud.”

Thomas lowered the hood of his coat, intentionally not answering her relief with a comment. After all, he did not want her to think he had grown too barbaric over the years. But if the career military man had his druthers he would hang any person caught spying for any nation, including his own; he despised them that much. It bothered him that Claire was a spy, and he knew he would have to come to terms with that.

“As to your question, I feel I have a certain obligation to Professor Ollafson,” she said with a nod toward the busy professor in the far corner where he was examining the remains of the large, communal fire pit in the center of the large room. “He needs me more than the nation does at the moment and I figure I can spare him at least that little bit of dignity.”

John Henry paced to the gallery and then looked down upon the areas the naval engineers had cleared of ice. It was expansive and he imagined most articles that made up the Ark’s interior had been stripped by the survivors for use in home building and for heat. He could imagine just a portion of the Ark would have provided wood for enough housing for several large families, and as he looked around at the many giant holes in the structure he could see that was exactly what had happened.

“You have to hand it to the old bastard, though, he surely did what he told the president he could do. I never would have believed it.” Thomas’s eyes scanned the area beneath that used to be alive with every animal the family of Noah could save. It must have been a horrid and fearful voyage for the family of man.

“You know, Colonel—”

“John Henry. It’s about time we drop the formalities, especially since we may end up here for eternity.”

Claire smiled like she had been complimented by the school’s most eligible boy.

“Finally, some common sense has been displayed by our fearless leader. John Henry, then. You need to remember something. There are many historians, even those adamantly refusing to believe the tales of the Bible as based on reality, that are coming around to believe that the Bible, though flawed, is the greatest historical text in history. There are men” — she smiled at Thomas — “and women who are making new discoveries every day in the field of archaeology that are being taken as serious revisions to the atheist point of view. In other words, John Henry, it is becoming very evident that every story in the Bible, no matter how outlandish or strange, has a basis in fact. Each tale has an origin, no matter how much that tale has changed as it was handed down, generation by generation.”

Thomas turned from his high vantage point. “You have placed some deep thought into this, haven’t you?” he asked as she reached down to pick up her brush.

“I guess the professor has rubbed off on me a bit.”

“More than a bit, I would say.”

“Oh, my dear. Allow me to assist in transcribing these symbols.”

John Henry saw Ollafson in the doorway watching them.

“Well, on that cheerful note, I’ll be turning in.”

“I have to get these symbols interpreted.”

Ollafson returned to the bent and broken doorway and made to get his materials.

“Not without at least two soldiers in here with you at all times,” Thomas said, capturing Claire with his eyes as he raised his fur-lined hood.

“I’m not going to argue with that. I wish Gray Dog were here. That boy has a sixth sense when it comes to seeing our angelic host.” She saw the sadness in John Henry’s eyes at the mention of Gray Dog and Claire wished she had not brought it up.

Thomas took a last look around the room and tried his best to keep his face straight as he thought about the boy and his descent down Ararat with the young Rebel soldier, Private Willard.

“I wish he were here also,” he said and then looked closely at Claire. “Good night, Miss Claire.”

“Good night, John Henry.”

She watched the large man leave and wondered if the colonel would ever be capable of letting go of the vivid memories of his wife. Claire didn’t know if it was deep-seated love, or the fact that he blamed himself for her loss. Perhaps both emotions ruled what the colonel did in life. She sighed and then smiled as the professor came back in full with his former enthusiasm.

“Shall we get started, my dear?”

Claire finally tore her eyes away from the spot John Henry had occupied only a moment before and felt that the night was now lacking in some uncertain manner. It was if the man left a vacuum behind him. She shook her head in total confusion about the subject of John Henry Thomas.

“Yes, let’s see what Noah had to say to God. It could be interesting.”

It took Clair and Ollafson more than two hours of hard searching even to find the starting point of the Angelic text that stretched from deck to ceiling in symbols. Thus far they had deciphered only five percent of the symbols on the hull. Claire could easily see that their earlier assumption about Noah hating the archangel Azrael was spelled out right in front of her and Ollafson. The curse was not on the site, but on the angel of death himself.

McDonald was there before Claire and Ollafson heard a sound. How long had he been in the dark listening? She didn’t know and was afraid to inquire.

“I see you are feeling better. It must have been the excellent meal that Captain Jackson ordered for the men. I’m glad that you finally ate.”

McDonald just smiled at Claire as he entered the room fully and as he did he lowered the hood of his coat and then removed his gloves. He lovingly ran his hand along the carved script that looked as if it had been etched in pure, black stone. His eyes ran along the prayer walls and the smile remained. Claire exchanged worried looks with Ollafson, who also watched McDonald very closely.

“Yes, who could pass up the chance of hot beans and fatback?” He turned and with that creepy smile still on his face took in both of the people in the darkened room.

Claire didn’t know where to go from there. McDonald’s eyes were flicking between herself and Ollafson. She cursed under her breath for not having her pistol with her. She wondered where the two soldiers were that John Henry had stationed outside. Her eyes went in that direction.

“Looking for your Rebel guardian angels?” Steven asked as he continued to smile.

Claire didn’t respond, but she did notice the blood on the sleeve of McDonald’s coat. Her eyes went briefly to the gloves he held in his hands and she saw they were soaked in red. He moved them to his coat pocket when he saw her eyes.

Claire waited until Steven sat down and then she slowly removed the ten-inch hairpin from her coiled-up red hair. The long tresses fell around her shoulders and she prayed that McDonald wouldn’t notice. She briefly raised the long pin to show Ollafson. He showed her what he had. She rolled her eyes when all he showed was his tobacco pipe. He looked deflated as he sat down. No use in making a break for the door. Steven was younger and far faster, and if he could murder two soldiers, what chance did they have?

“As you can see, I’ve been out of sorts somewhat since I was touched by your angel of death.” Steven made as if he were reaching for something under the table.

“I can see that,” Claire said, realizing that she was facing something other than a British spy, or a human being for that matter.

Claire’s heart froze when she saw the Webley pistol rise from underneath the table. She reacted by slamming the hairpin deeply into Steven’s right shoulder, making the gun fall from his hand as he screamed in pain. She and Ollafson were moving in a split second. For a man approaching his seventies, Ollafson’s speed was surprising as he shot out of the room after Claire, actually pushing her before him.

“Run, children, run!” McDonald cried out as he yanked the pin from his shoulder and smiled at the simple weapon the woman had used against him. He quickly retrieved the Webley and started after them.

Claire stumbled over the bodies of the two young soldiers McDonald had murdered. She held her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming as she ran up the sloped deck. The snow was falling harder and the ice was returning to sheet the slippery slope. She fell and Ollafson was there trying to help her up in the bulky cold-weather clothing.

A shot rang out and Ollafson grabbed his left shoulder as he released Claire’s hand and allowed her to fall to the ice-covered deck once again. Another shot rang out and she saw the sparks as the bullet ricocheted away harmlessly. Then she saw Steven as he approached. The gun was still smoking as he walked up to a wounded Ollafson.

“I neglected to thank you for bringing these men to my Ark, Professor.” McDonald was no longer there. It was if she were facing Azrael himself.

“No!” Claire shouted as McDonald brought the English-made weapon up and pointed it at Ollafson, who bravely stared down its barrel.

Suddenly McDonald reeled away as a bullet struck the same shoulder the hatpin had damaged. He fell and the gun went flying out of his hand.

Claire reacted as her training dictated. She stood and even on the slippery ice managed to get Ollafson moving. She practically threw him off the Ark’s upper deck onto the rope ladder. She was about to climb on when she saw the image of John Henry, Jessy Taylor, and Sergeant Major Dugan, still with a smoking Henry rifle clutched in his hands, climbing over the opposite gunwale. She pointed behind her at the spot Steven had been. He had vanished.

John Henry quickly holstered his pistol and ran to assist Claire and the professor. Jessy and Dugan continued on into the vast interior of the Ark to track down McDonald.

“I knew I should have hung that bastard!” he said as he helped get the wounded Ollafson to his feet. Then he held out a hand for Claire. John Henry only had on uniform pants and a long-sleeved white underwear top. The suspenders were flapping at his sides.

“I agree,” Claire said. “That son of a bitch has completely gone over the cliff of sanity.”

“He thinks he’s the angel of death!” Ollafson yelled.

“Well, he will think something else when Jessy catches him,” John Henry said as he started to help Ollafson down the rope ladder.

“What orders does the colonel have?” Claire asked as she swung one impressively shaped leg over the gunwale. John Henry took notice.

“Two of my men dead; McDonald is to be … eliminated.”

“About damned time you made that call, Colonel.”

“But you said—”

Claire was already over the side.

John Henry shook his head at the exasperating woman and then made for the rope ladder. Before going over the side he stopped and looked back down the sloping deck. He needed to know about Taylor and Dugan.

Since the engineers had cleared a great deal of the ice from the confusing passageways of the interior, Jessy quickly decided that an armed and crazed McDonald could be hiding anywhere. He could see by Dugan’s overly cautious way that they were bound to make a mistake they wouldn’t walk away from. The darkness was more complete the lower they went and Jessy hadn’t thought to bring one of the lamps strewn about the deck of the Ark.

“This is no good, Colonel. That bastard could be hidin’ in any of a thousand places.”

“There’s nowhere for him to run,” Taylor said as he nodded for Dugan to back out of the tight space they found themselves in. Just as the sergeant major took his first backward step, he was knocked from his feet. Before he hit the petrified deck he felt a tremendous pressure descend onto his chest. It felt as though a large foot was pinning him down. He struggled for breath and flailed with the Henry rifle at the unseen force.

Jessy could barely make out Dugan as he had been flung backward into the hull and then onto the floor. He saw the flash of brass as the Henry rifle was flung in all directions as Dugan flailed on the deck. Jessy immediately broke the spell he was under and ran toward the struggling sergeant major. Just before reaching him he was stopped dead in his tracks by something that wrapped around his throat. The pressure was great as his body was lifted free of the deck. His boots were kicking out at whatever had him by the throat. It was if some entity were holding down Dugan with a foot and Taylor by the throat with its free hand. They heard the growl as something in the dark seemed to be satisfied. Jessy felt the invisible force shake him like a wayward child. He felt the navy Colt slide from his hand as he felt his larynx start to give way. He brought both hands up and tried to pull the hands off, but when he did his heart froze as he felt the scaly skin of the thing that held him.

“Jesus,” Jessy managed to say as his breath was fast being depleted by the horrendous pressure being exerted.

Dugan was having no better success with his situation. As he beat at the foot holding him down, he had the distinct impression that it was not a foot, but a cloven hoof. His eyes widened as he imagined just what it was that was holding him down. He beat harder, bringing the butt plate of the Henry down again and again.

Taylor’s eyes started to roll into the back of his head as he was quickly losing his battle with consciousness. His gloved hands beat on what felt like large claws that strangled him with what seemed very little effort.

Dugan felt the first of his ribs snap and he expelled what little breath he had in his lungs. The darkness was growing more complete.

The growl of pleasure that sounded in the closed room was the one of a being that had never seen the graces of heaven.

Both men knew that this was the angel of death.

Just as John Henry entered the new areas that had been cleared he heard the struggle coming from somewhere ahead. The blackness was complete as he moved forward. He saw a brief hint of movement ahead and instinctually knew it wasn’t Jessy or Dugan. The shot from the Colt came without thought. He heard a yelp of pain as the man ran farther into the darkness. More movement. Thomas fired again.

Suddenly and without warning the roar of a wounded animal sounded inside the darkened room. Jessy felt the pressure increase, but it was only momentary as the claws dug in, and then they were gone. He fell to the rough deck grasping his throat.

Dugan also felt the pressure fall away to nothing as whatever was holding him seemed to lose strength and then fade to nothing. The sergeant major rolled over in pain as the broken rib pushed against his lungs as they refilled with air. Then strong hands were helping him up and with a scream he settled onto his feet.

“You hurt?” asked John Henry.

Dugan couldn’t make out his face but nodded that he was all right.

Thomas helped Jessy up and saw that he was having a hard time drawing breath. Once he knew he would be all right, John Henry exited and then came back a moment later with a lantern. He held it up just outside the entrance to the new excavation. He leaned down and felt the deck with his gloved hand. When it came back into the light it was wet with blood. John Henry knew that he had hit his target at least once, but more than likely both shots had found their mark. The amount of blood spread on the deck told him that McDonald was mortally hit from his two shots and Dugan’s one. Thomas knew this wasn’t over. Something was happening that was well out of his expertise to battle.

It was time to leave the mountain.

Lieutenant Parnell lay in his bunk and counted the minutes. He knew sleep wouldn’t come anymore that night. He had been awakened by the cry of an animal in his dreams. He didn’t even know what the dream was about but it had scared him to wakefulness.

The lieutenant sat up and started to dress. He knew it was just before dawn and he also knew that with the camp at fifty percent alert status, he had no right to be sleeping while his inexperienced command watched and waited for the Turks to arrive. Until he received instructions from Colonel Thomas he was on his own, and for the first time in his marine career he didn’t know what to expect or what he was to do. He buttoned his thick coat and stepped out into the falling snow. He shook his head as he raised his hood against the falling temperature.

He saw that the eager band members of the 315th were on guard along with a marine watch commander guiding them and making sure they didn’t shoot at snowflakes. Parnell had never seen troops so anxious to fight, but not one had any idea how to do it.

“Lieutenant?” said the camp’s mess cook who handed him a tin cup of coffee.

“Been quiet?” he asked the navy cook as he gratefully sipped the rich brew.

“I never seen so many nervous boys with guns before in my life, Lieutenant. Every time a rabbit runs from his hole you can hear them musician boys about crap themselves. Yes, sir, mighty tense out there.”

Parnell knew just how the men were feeling. Ever since his rider arrived with news that the Turks were heading their way, the men had been at the very least antsy, and at the worst comically afraid.

“Well, these boys are new to being scared. The worst thing they have ever had to deal with was missing music or a wayward instrument. Facing Turkish cavalry is something they hadn’t really signed on for.”

“Yes, sir, but by the looks they’re eager.”

Parnell chuckled. “That they are.”

“Riders approaching from the east!” came the shout from the outer pickets.

Parnell tossed the coffee from the cup and threw it to the mess cook as he ran to the perimeter.

“Hold your fire!” he called.

“Two men, riding hard, Lieutenant!”

“Stand down, all pickets, stand down!” came the order as Parnell paced and waited.

The two men rode in hard. It had taken Gray Dog and Private Willard thirty-one hours to reach the base of Ararat and another ten to get here, going through six sets of horses to do so.

Gray Dog rode in first just as the dreary sun made its crest of Ararat. Willard was right behind. Both dismounted as if the ride in had been a contest.

“Whoooee, but that boy can ride now!” Willard said, slapping Gray Dog on his back. His eyes widened as he realized he had just hit the savage Indian.

Parnell approached quickly.

“Dispatches?” he hurriedly asked.

Willard stepped away from Gray Dog, who was confused by Willard’s slap on the back. Instead of taking offense, when the private turned, Gray Dog slapped him on the back, which almost sent the Rebel flying into Parnell. Willard turned and Gray Dog nodded.

“Report,” Parnell said, eyeing Gray Dog before focusing on Willard.

“Lieutenant, sir,” the Confederate said as he saluted in the dim dawn light. Parnell could see both he and the Comanche were about rode out. Their thick coats were mud-covered and their horses were spent. “Private Willard, cavalry corps, Army of Northern Virginia, reporting.”

Parnell returned the salute from the enthusiastic private.

Willard reached into his coat and brought out the first of the sealed orders. Parnell asked for a lantern as he tore the wax away and read. His brow furrowed as he did.

“Well, it seems you have one hell of a journey ahead of you, trooper,” he said as he replaced the note and moved it to his own coat pocket.

“Yes, sir. I would rather stay with the colonel, both colonels, but they said I had to deliver these to Washington,” he said as he moved to his saddle and untied the leather satchel. Parnell started to reach for it and Willard turned away. “No, sir. Colonel Thomas said the only other person to touch this bag is President Lincoln, sir. I have a sealed message also.”

Parnell nodded his head. “Very well, trooper, you have your orders. Now, go get issued new cold-weather gear and two civilian changes of clothing. No uniform; the colonel’s orders say you are to leave it. We don’t need you getting shot when you enter Washington, I guess,” Parnell said in mock disappointment. “Now, go get some breakfast. Eat well.”

“Yes, sir,” he said as he nervously looked at the Comanche. “Sir, Gray Dog has your orders from Colonel Thomas.” Willard saluted and then started to walk toward the wonderful smell of cooking food.

“Trooper?” Parnell said.

Willard stopped and turned. “Sir?”

“Was it there, really?”

Willard actually walked back to face the lieutenant.

“A sight to behold, sir. A real sight, just like the Bible said. Yes, sir, it was there.”

“Imagine,” Parnell said.

“No, sir, we don’t have to do that no more. It’s been proven as fact, Lieutenant, sir.” Willard saluted once more and then left.

Parnell watched him go, wishing he’d had the opportunity to see the Ark, but he knew his duty was here. He held out his hand toward Gray Dog, who approached and placed the sealed orders into his hand and then immediately turned to get some food. After the hardtack and dried bacon eaten in the saddle for the past forty-plus hours, he was ready for some navy coffee and biscuits. He undid his pack from his exhausted mount, patted the horse several times and spoke softly to it, and then joined Private Willard.

Parnell broke the red wax seal and read. Again his brows rose as he looked up from the orders. His eyes saw the sleepy-eyed band members as they rose from sleep and stumbled from tents. They joked about having to rough it and the scary sounds they heard at night. Parnell reread the last section of the orders and then looked at the bandmates, all younger than the average soldier. They laughed and joked on their way to the chow line. Parnell closed his eyes before reading the last of his orders.

When done he placed the orders into his pocket with the first. He might need them for his court-martial at a later date, if he survived that is, which he now had serious doubts about.

“Sergeant Killeen,” he called out, startling many of the army band men as they strolled past.

“Sir!”

“Make ready to break camp. Leave the railroad equipment. That farce is now dead. We move east and set up in this draw here.” Parnell had pulled out his map and pointed at the spot into which John Henry had ordered his one hundred and fifty-six men.

“Yes, sir.”

“Sergeant Killeen?”

“Sir?” the old marine said he turned back.

“The 316th is to bring their instruments, and also issue them Henry repeaters. Every man. Unload the horses.” He slowly shook his head at the purely government way this was being handled.

“Excuse me, Lieutenant, but has some brass-hatted bastard lost his ever-lovin’ mind? Uh, sir?”

“It seems the nation is a little short of qualified cavalrymen and we surely do not have enough marines, so I guess it’s time these men stop playing war, and join one. We have orders to set up in between the mountain and the station in a cut that will hide our … force,” he said with tongue in cheek. “I guess we’ll see now why Washington has such faith in Colonel Thomas. We move out in three hours, Sergeant.”

“Three hours, yes, sir.”

Marine Lieutenant Parnell turned toward the snow-covered summit of Ararat and frowned.

At that moment lightning struck somewhere on the plain between the camp and Ararat, and for a reason he couldn’t fathom, Parnell was chilled at the sight.

A sudden cheer went up from the center of the camp and Parnell saw the Rebel cavalryman, Willard, obviously bypassing breakfast as he shot from camp on a fresh mount. He had four other relief horses strung together behind. The entire camp again erupted in cheers as every man watched as he gave the Rebel yell leaving camp, twirling his hat in the air. It was a stirring sight and even the old-time marines were chilled as Willard broke for the west and his journey home.

“Good luck,” Parnell said as if in prayer for the young Confederate.

The snow began falling harder and the winds remained steady, just enough to shake the tent sides and flaps as Claire made sure the professor was all right. The old man seemed as if his narrow escape from death had started his heart rather than stopped it. He paced the tent with his coat unbuttoned and excitedly explained what Claire had missed.

“The diagrams of the artifacts, do you still have them?”

Claire rummaged through her own bag until she produced the reproductions of the symbols. She handed them to Ollafson just as the tent flap opened and in came John Henry with two very frightened men, Dugan and Taylor. Both men immediately went to the far corner of the tent and John Henry tossed over a small bottle of whiskey. They shared the bottle until their hearts started beating at a normal rate. It was Jessy who began.

“All right, tell me what’s happening here. That was not God or heaven sent. If it was, we’re worshipping on the wrong side of the church aisle.” He took another drink and then passed it to Dugan. “Sergeant Major, I know you’re hurting, but get out there and organize a proper search party and bring that son of a bitch back here. He’s wounded and far more insane than we ever figured. Kill him if you have to, but get that man under submission.”

“Sir,” Dugan said as he held a gloved hand to his ribs. He took one last drink of the warming liquid and then excused himself.

“Now, Jessy’s right, that thing was not sent by God. You could feel it.”

Ollafson was looking at the symbols Claire had recorded on the sheets of paper. He found the one he was looking for.

“Azrael, Colonel, is not of heaven. I remind you that the archangel was an ally of Lucifer. A powerful ally, enough so that even the archangels Gabriel, Michael, Simon, and the others were afraid of him. For God, Azrael was the perfect, unconscious killing machine. He was despised by all, even his own God. I guess that would make for a touch of insanity, even for an archangel.”

“Do you believe all of this?” Taylor asked, looking from Claire to John Henry, who listened silently.

“I don’t know what to believe. But one thing is for sure, something is trying to kill us, and by the looks of our friend McDonald, it’s getting more powerful. I was hoping that getting the artifacts away from here would help, but it seems I may have exacerbated the situation by keeping this prayer incomplete. It doesn’t matter at this point. We leave the mountain today and place as much distance between us and the Ark as we can.”

“Agreed,” Claire said, looking at Ollafson. “It is time to go.”

“Yes, I think I’ve had all of the Ark history I can take for the time being.” Ollafson looked like he’d had a revelation, such as, he didn’t want to meet Azrael face-to-face at all. He looked at Taylor and rubbed his bruised neck.

“Colonel, we have a problem,” came a voice from outside of the tent.

“Come,” he said as he rebuttoned his coat. “Jessy, tell our camera boy, Perlmutter, he has three hours to get his pictorial documentation done. We move out in three.”

Jessy nodded just as Dugan came in.

“Colonel,” Dugan said, trying to keep his hard breathing under control because of the pain of his broken rib. “The navy ordnance boys, well, they say they’re missing a case of dynamite.”

“What?”

“Yes, sir, missing.”

That was all that needed to be said as John Henry and Taylor burst from the tent.

“Get every available man into the Ark. Find that madman before he blows half of this mountaintop off!”

John Henry and Taylor ran to the edge of the camp and looked down upon the Ark. The men were all over the decking and were searching every exposed nook and cranny of the ancient wreck. Soon they too joined the search. Claire had also come onto the snow-covered deck and assisted the men. Rebel, sailor, or marine, all wanted McDonald found, especially after word spread that he’d killed two men in his attempt on the lives of Claire and Ollafson.

Dugan reported to John Henry at the bow of the Ark where he and Jessy started making plans for hastily breaking camp.

“Half of the camp’s complement is on the Ark searching, Colonel Darlin’, nothing to report.”

Claire and Ollafson joined them on the deck as men hustled around going in and out of the exposed areas of the ship.

“You didn’t think you could stop Azrael that easily did you?”

The voice echoed inside the once-covered cave. The words bounced off the ice wall, making it nearly impossible to see where they had originated from.

“He’s been waiting thirteen thousand years for you, Colonel Thomas!”

“Look!” Dugan said as he hastily raised his Henry rifle and took aim. John Henry quickly reached out and lowered the barrel of the rifle.

“I’ve got a bead on him, Colonel. He’s right there by the original excavation opening, and he’s just got a pistol!”

“That’s not all he’s got.”

Claire saw the slowly burning fuse in McDonald’s hand.

“Jesus!” Taylor said, wanting to scream for the men to vacate the petrified wreck. “That son of a bitch is going to blow the Ark!”

Thomas and the others all saw McDonald in his crazed state. He stood leaning on the cave wall and he was bleeding heavily. He was weak from being shot twice by Thomas the night before. The crystalline ice was streaked with a transparent bloodstain as it ran down the ice. Still he held tightly to the burning fuse. Where the dynamite was, they could only guess.

“No, God has passed judgment on you. And you arrogant Americans will be responsible for releasing the old world into the new. All things that have been forgotten will be reborn!”

They watched as McDonald grew weaker by the moment. He slumped as blood poured from his wounds. Several of the Rebel and marine sharpshooters had him in their front sights. Taylor waved them off for fear McDonald would simply drop the burning fuse.

“Steven, don’t do this,” Claire called out. “We can fix—”

Every heart on or in the Ark froze as they all saw the giant shadow on the ice wall behind McDonald. It was a dark mass that was so black it looked obsidian. As their eyes widened, great wings of inky darkness spread behind McDonald and that was when he smiled and slowly started sliding down the wall in death. The shadow spread out wide as McDonald’s body slid to the ice floor, the fuse slipping from his hand. The fuse burned down to the first of the one hundred and eighty sticks of dynamite McDonald had placed under the exposed section of bow.

The explosion rocked the world under them. The Ark lurched inside her grave of ice. The walls tumbled in and inundated the deck. John Henry and Taylor both knocked Claire and Ollafson off their feet and covered them. Dugan was thrown forward, breaking another two ribs. The exposed men on the deck all fell down and covered their heads. Thomas knew he was about to lose a lot of his command in this suicidal act by the insane spy.

The area of prehistoric ice directly beneath the bow was blown free and the tremendous explosion cracked the Ark along the line in which it vanished into the glacier, from the top of the living quarters through the hull to the keel. The mountain shook. The Ark remained intact as every man realized that the explosion did not have the effect McDonald had been expecting. It mostly blew ice from under the wreck where he had planted the charges and dug a huge crater under the exposed bow of the Ark.

The ancient vessel held together. John Henry slowly started to rise. He heard men cheering from the deck that sloped away from them. They had survived. He assisted Claire to her feet as Ollafson was thanking Taylor. Dugan was cursing his luck, but every man involved in the search felt that he had been saved by McDonald’s poor placement of the dynamite.

John Henry looked at the spot where McDonald had been. The body would never be recovered, as thirty tons of ice had smashed out the remaining life of the British Army officer. The shadow of Azrael was nowhere to be seen, if it had ever been there at all.

“Okay, we found McDonald. Now can we leave this miserable mountain?” Taylor asked as he took in the frightened men around him.

“My thoughts exactly, let’s—”

The crack sounded like a bolt of lightning had rent the mountain. John Henry was knocked from his feet and the rest of the men were thrown into the Ark’s gunwales. Another loud crack was heard and all felt the giant Ark lurch in her tomb of ice. Then the sound became unbearable as timbers hewn thousands of years before started to crack and separate like shattering glass. Every man who was on the deck felt himself fly into the air as the bow section of the massive Ark broke and fell to the floor of the once-buried cave. The tension and power of the breaking keel was so loud that many of the men inside were crushed by the enormous pressure wave created when the petrified wood released its stored energy. The sheer weight of the bow slammed its remains into the ice so hard that all fifteen men inside the cave were crushed when the bow fell.

John Henry tried to pick himself up, that was when he felt the first forward movement of the Ark. He managed to gain his feet in time to see the bow swing away from the rest of the entombed ship. The raised prow started to roll to the right and Thomas grabbed a firm hold of the roughened petrified wood and held on as the centrifugal force started reading its laws to every person fighting for a handhold. John Henry dug in his gloved fingers and hugged the large prow as it swung so fast that he was fearful of the force slinging him from the deck. As it was, he was horrified when one Rebel and two marines were swept off only to be smashed against the ice wall as the ship swung around crazily, hitting the wall and straightening out, finally stopping its manic spin. John Henry saw what was happening and his heart froze.

“Oh, shit!”

The Ark’s broken bow section started to slide down the exposed cave system toward the open air of the world that hadn’t seen its like in more than thirteen thousand years.

“Hang on!”

The ancient artifact started to slide down the side of Mount Ararat with more than seventy-five men clutching onto anything they could grab.

Two hundred feet of Noah’s Ark were moving in open air once again.

26

The speed at which the Ark accelerated seemed far faster than it was, but the sheer weight of the ancient and petrified wood directly translated into a force that smashed any obstacle in its way.

John Henry had a high view of the scene. He saw the camp above the cave system fly past as his hood was torn from his head. He felt the rush of air and knew the Ark was picking up speed.

On the deck Jessy reached for Claire’s hand as she slid past him. His grip was strong and arrested her fall toward the torn and jagged stern. Ollafson was not so lucky. The Ark reached the rise of the berm that had survived the initial detonation two days before. That was the only gate that would have a chance at stopping the terrifying slide. The bow hit and John Henry was inundated with large and small chunks of ice. He felt one strike his head and he momentarily blacked out but maintained his grip. The wall exploded as if a cannon shell had struck it, and then the Ark was free. The giant hit the remains of the berm and flew skyward. The weight was so great that it only spent a split second airborne, and then it came down with a bowel-wrenching boom as it crushed some of the men on the ground who hadn’t made it out of the way. When airborne for that short period, Ollafson was bounced high and then he was just gone. The professor went over the gunwale and vanished into the cyclone storm of ice as the Ark continued to pick up speed.

Thomas saw the photographer Perlmutter as he was thrown off the deck, hitting the large rise of the damaged familial quarters. The body smashed into the stone-like wood and then the wind caught him and he was gone. Thomas screamed in anger as he hung on for dear life. The box camera and other equipment went soon after. Men were screaming and were starting to lose their grips on handholds as the great vessel continued down.

Men in camp started running after the giant object. Ropes were tossed to reaching hands but missed. Other ropes were lassoed around broken spots on the deck. The lines quickly became taut but the momentum was too great. The men holding the ropes were pulled through the air only to smash into the ice in the Ark’s wake. Other men started throwing crates and any other piece of equipment they could into the path of the runaway behemoth but the Ark merely crushed anything in its path.

Again and again the Ark bounced over rocks, rises in the mountainside, and huge cliffs, and again and again it would smash into the snow and ice and continue on its way down the mountain as if it were on a train track.

Jessy was losing his grip on Claire’s hand. Her glove gave way and he yelled as she vanished. Dugan was hanging on by his fingers as the Ark dug into the snow and ice for the fifth time. He heard the scream and then he saw Claire sliding toward him. He knew that just beyond him there was nothing but a jagged edge of the stern as she was fast running out of deck. With a last-ditch effort he released one hand and grabbed her as she sped past. He pulled with all he had and then she was able to get a handhold just as Sergeant Major Dugan’s grip failed him.

She was nearly blind without her goggles, which had been the first thing to fly free of her, so she barely saw the sergeant major. His fingers were tearing loose from the broken gunwale. Claire managed to see the strain in Dugan’s face as he tried but failed to hang on.

“Tell the colonel—”

Dugan was gone.

The sliding brick house was now traveling at thirty-five miles per hour, nearly matching the speed of the train they’d ridden during their trip to Ararat. The Ark looked as if it would keep going until it flew off the wrong cliff and then all would be smashed in a thousand-foot plunge.

John Henry felt the impact as the ship slammed into a large ice wall and then the Ark started to spin. It hit another wall and the spin slowed, then another and it was nearly tipped over. Again it struck and spun, the centrifugal force shooting men free of the crazily suicidal vessel.

Then it all stopped at once as Noah’s Ark struck the snowfield at the six-thousand-foot level, which meant that the great ship had traveled more than eleven thousand feet. Before anyone knew what was happening the two hundred tons of petrified wood buried its broken bow into the snow and earth. The Ark stopped so hard and fast that John Henry was thrown forward through the cold air and then he felt his body go numb as he slammed into the snow.

The world finally stopped moving and then went silent.

The captain of the Carpenter was still fighting a losing battle. As soon as the pumps seemed to be catching up, another oaken plank would separate from its kin and they would have to start shoring up all over again. They were down a total of eight feet and were now in imminent danger of foundering. As for Argo, the Carpenter had not seen her since cutting her towline four days before. As it was, the captain figured they may be right in the middle of a major conflict, even going as far as believing that it was now a possibility that Chesapeake was lost, and also the long-overdue Yorktown. If the French had the gall to disable them, why not both of the other American frigates as well?

“Captain, if we don’t receive assistance soon, we’ll lose her,” said his first officer, who was standing on deck soaked from leading the efforts of the crew to save his ship.

“It seems the Russians are sitting this one out.” The captain lowered his head as he paced the quarterdeck. “I had hoped that they would at least make an appearance seeing as we’re in their backyard with foreign warships in the Black Sea.”

“It does look like they’ll just sit back and watch how this plays out, sir.”

The captain saw the calm sea and the clearing skies. He had not made sail for three days as he needed every man available to battle the flooding from the collision with the French.

“Warship, dead on, one mile!” came the call from above. “French flagged!”

“Damn,” the captain said as he raised his spyglass toward the eastern horizon. There she was. The Especial was making a run at them again.

The last time they had come on like this was the day before, and that time she had come so close that her bow wake nearly swamped the Carpenter.

“Damn them, this time we are going to at least make a show for the bastards!”

“Captain?” the first officer said, confused.

“Battle stations. Have the gun crews ready both starboard and port guns. Don’t run them out, but raise the gun ports. We’ll at least make them sweat a little.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Moments later the tired crew of the Carpenter broke from the bowels of the large ship and made ready battle stations as the Especial sped toward them.

“She’s lowering her battle flag, Captain!”

“Why would the Especial do that?” the first officer asked as he too raised a set of binoculars.

“I can only think of one reason. She’s going to finish the job this time, and they refuse to fly their colors while committing the despicable act.”

“Or,” the first officer said as he lowered his glasses, “they want to surrender.”

The captain could not help but admire his first officer for his false bravado.

“Here she comes!” a lookout called from the bow. Men lined the railing as the Especial was only three hundred feet from the Carpenter. The open gun ports didn’t seem to have the desired effect. The captain could see that this time the Frenchman was going to contact them, and that would just about shake the last of the Carpenter’s life from her. How sailors of any nation could stand by and watch as another warship was in danger of foundering was beyond the American’s comprehension. The Especial would be a special guest in the maritime center of hell.

“Sound collision warning!”

“God, give us strength!” the first officer said as he started looking for a handhold.

The ship’s bell started clanging and every man tensed up, awaiting the final “accidental” blow that would send the proud Carpenter to the bottom of the Black Sea.

The Especial was only sixty yards away as she started a slow turn to port to “avoid” the damaged American warship, but all knew they would come so close that the mere passing of the French frigate would send a pressure wave into her hull that would undo every repair they had made.

Suddenly five splashes erupted in front of the Especial as she began her turn. The five shots from the American-made Cumberland cannon came so close to the Carpenter that one of the shells struck her topmost rigging.

The captain turned and saw that help was finally there. The Chesapeake with her massive twenty-pounders had fired her warning shots and any sailor in any navy knew that the next shots would be right down Especial’s gullet.

Suddenly the French frigate veered away sharply, cutting it close but deciding that egress was better than calling the crazed Americans’ bluff. The French battle flag started rising at her stern as she cut away.

The crew of the American warship erupted in cheers as the Chesapeake became a wall of firepower between the Carpenter and the Especial.

“Thank God,” the captain said as he raised his hand toward the Chesapeake. The crew of their savior all lined the rails of their ship as they waved, saluted, and shouted.

An hour later crewmen were transferred along with more pumps to the Carpenter. The captain of Chesapeake joined them for a meeting with his opposite number. The mood aboard the seemingly doomed ship was upbeat. But the rumor was about that Chesapeake had come alone because the Yorktown may have been lost. That dampened the mood quickly as the two officers met on deck and shook hands.

“Jimmy, I see you’re having some trouble here?” the captain of Chesapeake joked as the men shook hands.

“It seems someone has differing ideas about the rules of the road.”

The captains stood apart and were happy to see three large portable pumps being lowered into Carpenter’s hold.

“I’ll have my ship’s carpenter meet with yours and we’ll see if we can get this old girl patched up without dry-docking her.”

“You know, you took a chance firing on the Especial like that.”

“We honor them with a five-gun salute for assisting our sister ship, and you misinterpret that as opening fire? I resent that, sir!”

Both men nodded and laughed.

“Any word from the Yorktown?”

“Not a word. I am therefore assuming we are on our own. We’ll get Carpenter to where she’s not leaking like a sieve and then you’ll continue on to Trabzon Harbor and hope that Colonel Thomas and the others are there to meet us in a few days. In the meantime the Chesapeake will begin a search for the Argo. God, I hope we haven’t lost her also.”

“Tom, you know this isn’t going to turn out so good, don’t you?”

The captain of the Chesapeake only smiled. “What, would you rather be back in home waters where the war is winding down and we’re stuck with blockade duty for the duration?”

The captain of Carpenter smiled and shook his head as he watched the distant Especial holding station at a mile with her tail firmly planted between her legs. She had linked with her sister ship, Osiris, and both were now standing off watching the two American warships from a safe distance.

“Yeah, why not stay out here and stir up another war?”

Both men laughed, but deep inside where men can show fear, they knew the European powers would soon stop playing at war, and start one.

John Henry could hear the voices around him but it seemed they came from miles away. The words would echo and then go silent. Finally he forced his eyes to open. It was as if every bone in his body was broken. He blinked in the semi-dark. He heard the wind as it rustled the tent he now knew he was in. He closed his eyes and was in danger of losing consciousness again when he felt the coolness of the cloth as it was applied to his forehead. His eyes shot open and his hand went to his head, where he took hold of someone’s fingers. Another hand soon covered his.

“Easy, easy, John Henry. You took quite a shock to your system.”

Thomas focused on the voice and willed himself to concentrate. He remained holding the hand and cold compress.

“What … what happened?” he said as his eyes came to rest on Claire’s beautiful green ones. She tried to smile but failed miserably. This made John Henry attempt to sit up.

He heard men cry out in pain somewhere and that was when he remembered seeing men flying through the air. Falling to an unknown fate and him holding on for dear life as he was sped to a crushing death. He shook his head, causing the pain to flare, and the colonel concentrated on that.

“We couldn’t find you for two hours. We thought … thought—” Claire stumbled as she lowered her eyes.

John Henry opened his eyes and looked around. They were inside the large mess tent that was now filled with men writhing in pain or speaking about the horrid event that had befallen the cursed mission. The vaguest memories started to flood back into Thomas’s injured mind.

“When we finally found you, you were nearly frozen to death in a snowdrift, which luckily broke your fall.”

“I need a report. Where’s Dugan?” he asked as he again tried to sit up but Claire restrained him.

“You’re not getting up until the corpsman says you can,” she said as she applied the cold compress onto his head. John Henry slowly pushed her hand away.

“Get me the sergeant major,” he said, and this time he did manage to rise from the cot.

“Sergeant Major Dugan is dead.”

John Henry turned his head and saw that Claire was looking right at him. He stumbled and Claire stood quickly to steady him.

“Who else?” he asked when he felt stable.

“Too goddamn many to name,” came a voice out of view. John Henry knew it was Jessy, who finally came into the tent.

“You should have let me cut that bastard’s throat when we had the chance.”

“That’s not fair, Colonel. We can’t be faulted for being civilized,” Claire said, speaking up in Thomas’s defense.

Jessy cursed and then pulled the hood from his head. He sat on the end of the cot and then ran a gloved hand through his black hair.

“How many?” John Henry asked.

“Twenty-six dead, fourteen injured.”

Thomas was stunned as he tried to remember who was standing on the deck of the Ark and who was below when that crazed son of a bitch McDonald blew it up.

“Ollafson?” he remembered.

Nothing was said. Claire lowered her eyes and Jessy was silent as he stood and pulled his gloves free.

“Captain Jackson?” Thomas asked, expecting the worst.

“We were lucky there. He rode the Ark down the mountain while inside the family spaces. He’s been stuttering ever since, but other than that, he’s fine.” Taylor paced over to the next cot and spoke softly with one of the injured Rebels. He returned and then made his report.

“We also lost our official documentarian and all of his photographs and equipment. Things are a real mess. The detonation took out half the damn camp above the Ark.”

“Where is the Ark?”

“Right outside. Well, what’s left of her anyway. We managed to move the camp away from the glacier and relocated here at the six-thousand-foot level.”

“I’m sorry about Sergeant Major Dugan,” Claire said as she watched John Henry waver and then straighten up just as Jessy tried to help. The colonel shook Taylor’s hands from him and straightened his coat and then tried to focus.

“You’ve had a pretty serious blow on the head. You need to rest for a while longer,” Claire said.

John Henry slowly made his way to the tent’s flap and pulled it open. He saw that the snow had stopped and the weather had cleared. The sun was close to setting as he took in the men setting up and repairing what was left of the camp’s equipment. His eyes soon fell on the giant bow of the Ark. It was dug deeply into the snow that had forced it to slow and then eventually come to rest. It was tilted at an angle so severe that Thomas could see onto her sloping deck. The jagged scar where the bow had been separated from the bulk of the vessel ran from keel to the raised housing of the family quarters. Only twenty percent of the Ark stood before them. The remains were a shambles. Broken and cracked petrified wood was proving to John Henry that as tough as Noah’s creation was, it would never stay intact. Spiderweb cracking dominated the great prow of the Ark. Lanterns had been placed on her deck and around her broken hull as the men still searched for anyone caught inside during the treachery of the Englishman. It was a surreal scene of destruction.

Claire watched as the colonel lowered his head and allowed the tent flap to close. He turned and saw the same Rebel trooper to whom Jessy had spoken a moment before. Thomas stepped up to the bunk, expecting words of venom from the boy about getting a lot of men killed. He would never get used to seeing men under his command dying in front of him.

“Trooper, we’re going to need you soon. Will you be ready when we do?” John Henry thought the boy wasn’t going to answer. It looked like he was thinking something over and then his eyes flicked over to Jessy before returning his attention back to the Yankee.

“Yes, sir, Colonel. It’s only a broken arm and wrist.”

Thomas patted the young Reb’s leg and then started to turn away.

“I just asked the colonel what this was all for, sir. He couldn’t rightly say.”

John Henry froze as he turned to face the boy. He had no words; he just grimaced and then smiled and patted the leg again. He returned to Claire and Jessy and sat on the edge of the cot.

“The sergeant major had a wife and eight children.”

Claire and Jessy were caught off guard as John Henry sat and talked like he was in a confessional.

“He always said that he despised his wife so much he satisfied her with a passel of kids and stayed away at the furthest outposts he could volunteer for.”

Both Claire and Taylor were silent.

“He never knew he talked in his sleep. Sometimes in English, and then the Irish would take over. But one thing I know, that man loved his wife and kids.”

Claire wanted to swipe at the tears she felt forming. The colonel truly admired Dugan, and this made her think of the deceit she had shown to Professor Ollafson before his death and feel that much lower. John Henry had a simple way about him, and Claire knew she was a long way from the integrity of one soldier mourning another.

Taylor cleared his throat when all was quiet except for the soft moaning of the injured. These sounds were clearly heard by John Henry, who looked up at the many occupied cots.

“I say we take as many samples from the Ark as we can and then get the hell out of here.”

Thomas looked from Jessy to the boy lying on the cot. He suddenly stood and walked to the tent’s flap again and then pulled it back. He started thinking. He let the tent’s opening close and then he turned and walked to the young Rebel’s cot and smiled.

“We’re about to show you what this was all about, son.”

Claire exchanged looks with Jessy, who was worried Thomas was still out of it. John Henry turned and faced his second-in-command.

“Get Captain Jackson in here.” John Henry started to slip on his heavy fur-lined coat over his uniform jacket. Taylor didn’t move for a second as he tried to fathom John Henry’s intent. “How far away are the railroad ties that we were using for our little ruse?”

Taylor was caught totally off guard by the question, but started to think anyway.

“We have more than a thousand wooden ties and rail at Talise Station that Parnell was using.”

John Henry finished buttoning his coat and turned to face Jessy.

“That won’t do. That station will soon be back in the empire’s hands.”

“Then the only option is the railroad supplies at the Black Sea line north where our intrepid band abandoned them. We have more than two thousand railroad ties there. Why?”

“We need platforms and we need crating. We’ll have to strip the wagons of their wheels, but we can do it.”

“Do what?” Claire asked.

John Henry smiled and Taylor’s heart froze.

“The last time I saw that look you charged into a Kiowa encampment with five men and scattered their horses, and as Sergeant Major Dugan told me a few weeks ago, you had this same look when you accused General McClellan of cowardice in the face of the enemy at Antietam. And you had the same look when you were a kid at the Point when you stuffed goose feathers in Professor Jenkins’s boots. That’s not a good look.”

Thomas actually laughed when he thought about Dugan forewarning Jessy about his impending future with the Yankee colonel.

“Do what?” John Henry repeated Claire’s question.

“Yes,” Claire said hesitantly.

“We’re going to bring back the provenance.” He looked at the wounded boy. “We’re going to bring back the proof Mr. Lincoln wanted that the Ark exists and that Americans were the first to find her.” Thomas walked to the tent opening and pulled the flap back, revealing the illuminated and heavily damaged bow section of the grounded Ark.

“Oh, shit,” Jessy said as he lowered his head.

“Precisely, Colonel,” he said as he left the tent.

“I’ve truly hated that man since we were freshmen at the Point.”

27

John Henry watched as the men started the last of the crating. It had taken two weeks to build the new wagons from the old with the addition of more than two thousand railroad ties to assist in the new configuration of the large twelve-wheeled conveyances. The apprentice carpenter’s mates supplied by Jackson had done a job beyond the normal call of duty.

The communication with Lieutenant Parnell had been sparse but effective the past two weeks. The six hundred strong Seventh Guards Regiment looked as if they had taken up permanent residence at the Talise railway yard. They had taken what equipment Parnell and the men left behind in their haste to follow Thomas’s orders. The force under the command of Parnell was now encamped five miles away waiting for word to unleash the plan that John Henry, with the reluctant help of Colonel Taylor and Captain Jackson, had concocted.

As John Henry walked the perimeter of camp he glanced at the spot that had been reserved for the burial of the dead. Almost half the men he had started with on the Ararat mission had been killed. Now he was down to fifty-five men, and this time the Confederate prisoners were the most abundant and the strongest. The marines had lost a lot of men in and around the Ark when McDonald had blown it. He saw the makeshift crosses the men had made from the scrap railroad ties. That task had been their first priority even ahead of securing their proof of the Ark’s existence.

In many ways he knew he had failed these men because he had not taken this mission as seriously as he should have from the outset. He had even tricked himself into thinking that he could do this mission for the sake of his friend, the president, but knew all along that it was a fool’s errand. Now he was facing his image in the mirror every morning and knew that his disbelief had cost the lives of all of these men.

Gray Dog had received word that John Henry wanted him to sneak back into the eastern camp as soon as he was able to traverse the four miles safely in between the Turkish patrols, but as yet he had not shown up. John Henry believed that the news of Dugan’s death might have affected the Comanche far more than the boy was willing to let on. As much as they had fought and argued over the years, Gray Dog had learned most everything from the gruff sergeant major. Thomas looked for his adopted son every evening and night, but he never came.

“John Henry, Chief Petty Officer Pettit is ready.”

Thomas turned from the sight of the makeshift graveyard and faced Jessy. He nodded and then followed him back to camp.

“Gray Dog is probably absorbing what he’s heard. I know I still am, and I was here to witness the events,” Taylor said as they walked through the thickening snow. He saw that John Henry wasn’t going to respond.

“As far as sending a navy CPO with half of your command in the opposite direction, may I say that cutting your force while the Turks are still out there is cutting it quite close?”

“Jessy, you’ve been fighting battles for almost four years and have never once outnumbered your enemy. Don’t tell me now that after all of this leisure time you’re growing overly cautious?”

“Back then all I had to fear was getting shot in the gut by one of you Yankees. Now if we fail we get … hell, I don’t even know what the Turks do to their captured enemies, especially those who come bearing false gifts.”

“They chop their heads off with a rather ugly sword, I would imagine.”

Jessy looked at John Henry and knew he wasn’t joking.

“You know, you can fudge the truth once in a while.”

Captain Jackson approached them as they walked past the posted pickets. John Henry saw the two long lines of newly rebuilt wagons. One line of twenty-three would head south toward the Mediterranean, the other to the north. Thomas saw the last of the crates being sealed and placed onto the last wagon going with the chief petty officer and his men.

“They’re ready, Colonel,” Jackson said as he exchanged looks with Taylor, who lightly shook his head in the negative.

“Very good,” John Henry said as he walked to the head of the first wagon string. The wagons themselves were something to behold. The carpenters and riggers had done a nice job increasing the size of the wagon beds for the extra weight, and reinforcing the many wheels for support of the giant load. He approached the man standing by his leading wagon of twenty-three. The short, stocky CPO saluted Thomas. His men were mostly the remnants of the mess crew and several of the wounded who had healed enough to take part in the plan.

Instead of returning the navy man’s salute, John Henry just removed his thick glove and held out his hand. The chief looked startled but then lowered his hand and then he too removed his glove and shook the colonel’s hand. When done Thomas reached into his coat and brought out another sealed envelope.

“Your orders for the navy, countersigned by Captain Jackson. Let’s just hope there’s a ship there to meet you when you arrive. This was thought up months ago, but with a different cargo in mind. We hoped to be taking men out of that port in an emergency, and not … not…” John Henry waved at the twenty-three wagons under the chief’s command. “This.”

The older chief laughed. “We’ll get her through, sir, don’t you worry. Let’s just hope you don’t get food poisoning with me taking all the mess cooks with me.”

“We don’t have enough food left to worry about that, Chief. Good luck and Godspeed.”

This time the salute was returned by Thomas and Jessy, and then Jackson escorted the chief to his wagon and spoke softly to him. Then the two men shook hands and then the chief mounted his wagon with its enormous load.

The heavily loaded wagons started moving and John Henry silently watched them leave. He turned and then saw the eighteen wagons that would depart the base of the mountain with him.

“And just how do you think old Abe is going to react when we show up with only part of the Ark cut into pieces? Not only that, we have all disobeyed orders and instead of bringing back the provenance we were ordered to get, we end up bringing back twenty percent of the damn ship.”

John Henry placed a hand on the first wagon going north. He patted it and then turned and faced Taylor.

“Years they’ll have.”

“I never understand what your mind is thinking, haven’t since the Point, haven’t since our days in Texas.”

Jackson walked up at that moment. He too wanted to hear this; they had all been so busy the past two weeks that no one had even bothered to ask outside of Claire, and she wasn’t speaking. She had seemed satisfied with Thomas’s answer. Now they would see if they agreed.

“Gentlemen.” He turned and looked at the forlorn graveyard a quarter mile away. “I’m doing it for those boys” — he gestured at the men sitting around the campfires they were allowed to have since they had plenty of wood — “and those boys. They deserve the recognition for what it is they have done. Blue or gray, these boys did what was expected and I’m not going to allow these European bastards to deny them that right.”

“We’re going to fight?” Jessy asked as his opinion and hopes rose.

“About damned time,” said the prim and proper Jackson.

“Let’s just say the Turks will have some decision-making to do and a short time to do it in.”

“May we be let in on this?” the navy captain asked.

“Well, let me say this, Captain Jackson,” John Henry said and smiled. “There has been a theory advanced at West Point, and I believe Annapolis if I’m not mistaken, that just about made every man in the classroom laugh hysterically.”

“Oh, God, not the shock factor?” Jessy said with slumping shoulders.

“Exactly.”

“I guess I missed that class,” Jackson said.

“It was good in theory, when men’s lives aren’t at stake, but those are real crazy-ass Turkish cavalrymen out there, and they gained their experience in the Crimean War. Does that give you pause?” Taylor argued.

“I’m banking on that very Turkish fearlessness. I am also banking on the fact that this regiment has not been reinforced by Constantinople either.”

“You think this is a play between their foreign office and the French, possibly even the British?” Jackson added.

“Yes. What the sultan doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

“Behind Constantinople’s back, you mean?” Taylor said as he just caught on.

“That’s an awful big gamble, Colonel,” Jackson offered.

“Or bluff,” Taylor added, again trying to sway John Henry from what he was planning to do.

“Who says it’s either?” He walked away toward camp and the men he wanted to be around tonight. Before he got too far distant he stopped and turned. “Please send a message to Lieutenant Parnell and his command, operations against any opposing force will commence at approximately noon tomorrow. Tell him to watch and wait for the signal.” He slowly walked away and joined several Confederates by a fire where a harmonica was softly playing.

“Has he always been this way?” Jackson asked as he watched John Henry sit and accept the offered whiskey from one of the men. He drank deeply and then passed the bottle over to three marines who had come over to join them. The Confederate soldiers made room for the Yankees. Soon John Henry started telling the Rebel soldiers a story and they seemed to be paying close attention. “And what’s he doing now?”

“Haven’t you ever seen a man say good-bye before?”

“I didn’t realize.”

“Now, as far as your first question, Mr. Jackson, if things had gone somewhat differently at the outset of the war, you’re looking at the officer that would more than likely be the commanding general of the entire Union army. Even General Lee knew that.” He faced Jackson. “The man is just that brilliant. So for now I’ll bite my tongue and find out tomorrow what fantastic death he has arranged for us.” He smiled at the shocked face of the naval captain. “It should be eventful at the very least.”

Taylor with one last wink at Captain Jackson moved off to join John Henry.

Jackson was left standing where the torches and lamps still illuminated the spot where the giant Ark had come to rest.

The gouged and scarred earth of the snowfield where the ancient vessel had come to rest was empty — the Ark was gone.

John Henry was of the old school in regard to command. He needed to know his men, and with no army personnel and just navy, marines, and soldiers of the Confederate army in his charge, he was lost as far as their abilities were concerned. He knew on the Plain of Ararat Lieutenant Parnell, a young, brash, and very excitable officer, was in command of one hundred and seventeen band members and a scattering of marines to fill out their ranks. The plan had been laid and their return to American shores fully depended on the young officer to do what was expected of him and his truncated command tomorrow.

As he made his way through camp he looked up and saw, or was it that he noticed for the first time in weeks, the stars. They were brilliant in the night sky and seemed to add warmth to the otherwise cold evening.

The mood in camp on this last night was reserved to say the least. But one thing John Henry took note of was the fact the men were mixed among their campfires. Some marines and sailors sat with Rebel soldiers and they all seemed to have the same stories of home and family, the only difference being that some families were north and some south of the Mason-Dixon Line. There was laughter, but again it was subdued as one man would joke about another’s sister or vice-versa. Harmonica and a soft slide of bow against fiddle strings told of home and loved ones and the music seemed to pull a caul over the men as they waited for the day to dawn that would either see them home, or see their deaths in a place none of them had ever heard of before — the Plain of Ararat.

Thomas noticed Jessy was speaking with Captain Jackson, who seemed to be nervously wading in among the men of his naval command. Jackson had not taken kindly to the repeated reminder that he would be the first marine to lead a United States Cavalry charge. The rumor had spread that the straitlaced officer had been ill for quite some time after he was informed. John Henry could see that Jessy was going over some of the fine points of cavalry showmanship. He had a sword in hand and was in the process of twirling it well over his head. As he watched, Thomas saw a pained expression on Jackson’s face and then he trotted off to the outskirts of camp where he became ill once more. Taylor happened to glance his way and even from that distance Thomas could see the Rebel’s wry wink. Jessy spun the sword again, sheathed it, and tossed it to one of his men as he moved to join John Henry.

“How’s the head?”

Thomas looked sideways at Taylor. “You hoping for some late effects that would render me unsuitable for command?”

“Something like that. I do have both of our navy corpsmen available to testify to that very fact, Colonel Thomas.”

“So, now I know how you became Jeb Stuart’s right-hand boy.” Thomas lowered his hood and smiled at Jessy.

“I rose in rank despite old Jeb. I swear, that man never met a newspaper headline he didn’t like.”

“Yes, we have a few of those also. More than our share, come to think of it.”

They walked in silence for a while, only stopping from fire to fire to warm their hands and say something to the solemn men.

“Listen, about Mary. I want you to know—”

“No more, John Henry,” Jessy said as they moved away from the fires and the hushed sounds of songs of home. “I have seen how you are with that Indian boy. I know this may have nothing to do about nothin’, but when you sent him off I saw in your eyes what it must have been like for you to leave Mary at that ranch. And I see how deeply you care. I know it was her death that drove you mad and made you act against that fool McClellan. The sergeant major told me two weeks ago when you were still unconscious that you had a suicidal streak in you when the war started. That you didn’t really care if the general had you shot or not after you called him out for cowardice. I know why now. So no more about Mary.” Jessy stopped walking and faced John Henry. He smiled. “Besides, we may get our chance to see her again tomorrow with this cockamamie scheme you’ve thought up.”

Thomas nodded his head in thanks for the thought of Mary. “And that scheme you seem to hate so much was actually advanced by Napoleon. You should know that from the advanced tactics course at the Point. After all, Bobby Lee’s been using the same theories for the past four years.”

“Maneuver and deception are a general’s best aids.”

“You do remember. So that high-class education did pay off.” He smiled again at his old friend. “Somewhat.”

“Well,” Jessy turned and started to walk away throwing his hood over his head. “At least when we do go out, we go out with a flourish. But this is going to be something that will never be taught at the academy alongside the Stand of the Three Hundred at Thermopylae.”

“Why not?” John Henry called after him. “They died for a cause.”

Taylor stopped walking and didn’t turn, but just pointed to the wagons lined up for departure the next morning.

“This, John Henry Thomas, is no cause for which to send men to die.”

As he left, Claire passed him with a pot of coffee and three cups. She saw Taylor and was confused when he pointed at her and then faced a distant Thomas who was watching.

“This, Colonel, sir,” Jessy said, still indicating Claire, “is a cause, not that.” His gloved finger moved from Claire to the wagons.

Thomas watched as Jessy shook his head and then slowly walked back into the soft glow of the camp.

“What was that about?” Claire asked as she stepped up to the colonel holding a cup.

“Nothing, just philosophical differences.”

“I can imagine for you two that could be a rather wide gap.”

John Henry took the offered cup and she poured him coffee. He gratefully sipped it and then nodded his thanks.

“John Henry, why are you doing this? I mean, we could have left here with nothing and the Turks would have allowed us to leave, but here you are doing the exact opposite of what your orders demand. Why?”

“You’re the intelligence expert; you tell me.” He sipped the coffee and then turned and strolled away. She picked up her step over the rocky terrain and caught up to his long-legged stride.

“I have been trying to figure you out since we met in Washington, and I still haven’t a clue as to who in the hell you are.”

“Look. See that spot over there?” He nodded toward the crooked crosses marking the men who had died at the hands of McDonald.

Claire looked and saw the soft outline of the markers in the soft moonlight.

“That’s why I’m doing this. It’s for them. Ollafson, Dugan, Grandee, all of them.”

“It’s not that you think you are the only man capable of pulling this off, an act of arrogance?”

“Absolutely,” he said with a large grin.

Claire shook her head and followed John Henry until he came to a fire with only a boy from the south sitting near it. The boy was deep in thought and then he noticed the colonel and Claire and suddenly stood and froze at attention.

“Sit back down, trooper.” Thomas watched as he did and he followed suit. He gestured for Claire to sit on an old biscuit box.

Thomas saw the boy pick something up — the Stars and Bars battle flag of the Confederate Army. John Henry sipped his coffee as Claire poured herself some. Next to the young Rebel private was his gray tunic. He knew the men had kept their old uniforms and had actually repaired them the best way they could.

“You carried that old flag all the way here from prison?” Thomas asked as he handed over his hot cup of coffee to the boy, who placed a needle in the flag and then accepted the cup.

“Thank you, Colonel, sir,” he said as he gratefully drank the hot liquid. “Uh, yes, sir, I saved it from the fire pit at the camp. I took a few licks on the backside for that, but it was worth it. As I see it, too many boys have died for it to see it go up in flames.”

John Henry exchanged a sad look with Claire. The private laid his coffee cup down and then picked up the battered Stars and Bars and then his repaired tunic of gray cloth.

“I’ll be a’thankin’ the colonel for the coffee.” He dipped his head at Claire. “Ma’am,” he said and then he slowly walked away.

Claire let her coffee cup slip to the ground as she buried her face in her hands and shook her head vigorously, fighting back the rise of tears.

John Henry watched a moment and then turned his face away.

Finally Claire looked up and swiped angrily at her eyes.

“Apologies, Colonel. I just pictured that boy out there tomorrow.”

John Henry remained silent.

“Maybe the Turks will allow us to just leave?” she asked hopefully.

Thomas looked from Claire to the wagons and the strapped-down crates upon them.

“I’m afraid I’ve seen to it that they don’t.” He stood and tossed the remains of his coffee out of his cup and then walked over and sat next to the Pinkerton woman. “Claire, you’ll just have to trust me when I say that Americans have been fighting for close to five years. Hell, we’ve been fighting for our existence since 1757, and it hasn’t let up. The Europeans don’t understand us, the way we think, and the way we act. They truly know nothing about us other than that we are crazed beyond belief. I’m banking on that very limited perception tomorrow,” he said as his hand covered hers. There wasn’t much warmth in the touch because of the gloves, but Claire covered his with her own and she squeezed.

“That’s the first time you have called me Claire without my haranguing you to do so.” She smiled up at him.

John Henry felt a fluttering in his stomach as he looked into Claire’s green eyes. He seemed to know that he could get lost inside those pools of green and so he moved his gaze to her face in general and studied her.

“I hate to break the mood here, but there’s movement down on the plain,” Jessy said as he and Captain Jackson approached.

John Henry stood after releasing Claire’s hand. The funny thing to Thomas was that he wasn’t in the least embarrassed at being caught off guard.

“What is it?” he asked.

Captain Jackson handed over his spyglass and pointed to the west. “There, just outside of the station where Parnell had been. See?”

John Henry looked through the glass but could only see tents and campfires.

“Lieutenant Parnell alerted us by signal lamp. Look just to the left of the station’s water tower; you see the empire’s flag. Now look next to it. They rode in about an hour ago from the west.”

Thomas finally saw it. He removed the glass from his eye and handed it over to Claire, who also looked down onto the Plain of Ararat. He pointed and that was when her heart froze. It was the British Union Jack flying next to the Turkish flag.

“Damn,” she hissed as she too lowered the glass.

“Three hundred cavalry. Can’t see the unit flags, so your guess is as good as mine,” Jessy said.

“With the Turkish regiment at six hundred, it seems we are now facing close to a thousand crack cavalrymen.”

Taylor smiled at John Henry.

“Now’s a fine time to start learning how to count. We’re outnumbered three to one. But then again I forget that more than half of our force can attack while playing ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic.’ That’s gotta count for something.”

“I must say, Colonel, your gallows humor is a little unnerving,” Jackson quipped.

“Colonel Taylor, there you go again being impressed by numbers,” Thomas said as he moved back to the fire. “I expected more from a man who prides himself on being outnumbered.”

“It’s not being outnumbered, Colonel, sir, it’s the off chance of being embarrassed that has my heart skipping beats.”

The colonel turned to Jackson. “Captain, that wooden box we carried all the way from Baltimore. I think it’s time we gave it to Colonel Taylor.”

Jackson frowned, but then moved off.

“Follow me, Colonel, I think I have something that will not allow you to be embarrassed.”

Intrigued, both Claire and Taylor followed. As they approached a lone wagon where the camp’s mess equipment had been placed for the move in the morning, Jackson reached up and placed his gloved hand on a lone crate. Several marines and Rebels gathered around.

John Henry turned to Jessy. “Now, if you fail it won’t be the Union blue you embarrass, my old friend.” He nodded at Jackson, who simply pulled the crate from the back of the wagon. The wooden box struck the rocky ground and broke open. Jessy felt his heart beat a little faster. Thomas looked around and he saw the boy he and Claire had sat with earlier. He walked over and removed the old tunic from his hands and then tossed it to Jessy. Then he reached over and took the repaired Stars and Bars from the boy, and also tossed that to the Confederate colonel, who caught it as John Henry walked over to the broken crate. He reached down and retrieved one of the items from the ground and then threw that to the wide-eyed private. The marines were shocked at what the boy was now holding.

“Compliments of President Lincoln.”

Every man saw the bright, brand-new gray tunic of the Confederate army. Then John Henry tossed the boy a new butternut cap with “CSA” emblazoned just above the black bill.

Thomas paced over to Taylor, who unfurled the large Stars and Bars battle flag. He smiled as his eyes found John Henry.

“Now,” Thomas said as he turned his head to speak to all of the gathered Rebels. “You won’t be embarrassing my uniform, but yours.”

The men cheered and even the marines and sailors joined them. They felt the pride that the new uniforms delivered to their fellows and were happy for them. Now if they died, they would die wearing their own clothing. Taylor walked up to John Henry as he started to turn away with Claire and Captain Jackson.

“You son of a bitch, you did that on purpose!”

“Maneuver and deception, Colonel, maneuver and deception. Next time instead of cheating off of someone else’s paper, actually study the course.” Thomas smiled and walked away with Jackson. Claire stayed behind.

“What’s maneuver and deception?” she asked.

Jessy smiled as he watched his friend. He started folding the flag and then placed it under his arm.

“It’s just something that I forgot about, but should have seen coming.”

“I do not understand either of you two,” she said as she started to turn away.

“Let’s just hope that after tomorrow we have plenty of time to get to know each other’s little quirks far better. And from the looks of the hand-holding earlier, I would say you may have the art of maneuver and deception down far better than I.” Jessy half-bowed. “On that note, I bid you good evening, Madame.”

Claire watched Jessy go, only just realizing what he meant by the strange comment.

“Hey,” she started to say but stopped when she realized that Taylor was right.

She was maneuvering for the heart of a man who had regained some of the passion for life that had been missing — John Henry Thomas.

28

The day had dawned as bright as the young marine lieutenant could ever remember. It reminded him of a Maine morning when he was but a child. All of that seemed far distant and foreign as he looked toward the mountain, knowing that soon he would get the signal that Colonel Thomas and the Ararat team were starting their run for the Port of Trabzon, where all hoped they still had ships waiting to take them home — a far and distant hope, he feared.

As he stepped from his tent and into the unseasonably warm morning, he placed his gloved hand on the hilt of his sword and then looked up to see his command already standing to. He looked up as he made his way forward. Gunnery Sergeant Miles Kendrick, a rough and grizzled old sea dog from Massachusetts, stood at rigid attention.

“Report, Gunnery Sergeant,” Parnell said, trying not to let the fear show in his words or his hesitant actions.

“Sir, all personnel are present or accounted for.”

Parnell returned the salute of the old marine and the two of them locked eyes. The gunnery sergeant nodded that all was right and that Parnell could do the easiest thing in the world according to any top sergeant — command.

“Perhaps a word for our … our … cavalry detachment, sir?”

Parnell looked to his right at the one-hundred-and-eighteen-member Army of the Potomac band. The 317th Drum and Bugle Corps stood at rigid attention. The sun shone brightly off their brass and their swords that had been issued the night before, much to their astonishment. Most had been ill the entire night and frightened like never before after hearing what the colonel’s plan was. There was not one word of fear voiced from the young men and not one question asked, but most felt the fear that entangled itself in their stomach and intestines. For the first time since the bloody war started, the band was now asked to put up.

“It’s hard to face men in the morning that you know may not be there in the afternoon,” Parnell told his old gunnery sergeant, who only smiled at the young officer.

“A task that’s been done since the time of Julius Caesar, sir. You and they will do fine. Just think of it as a carnival sideshow, sir. Our task is to ask the other side, what are you willing to do? We’re here to force them to ask themselves that question, and Colonel Thomas is just hoping the answer is that they won’t do anything. That’s what we are doing. Let’s just hope our young men are as convincing enough actors to pull it off.”

Parnell nodded, took a deep breath, and then stepped forward. He saw the young lieutenant in command of the 317th. He stood at rigid attention and Parnell could see that the boy’s legs shook, only slightly, but the tremor was there.

“Lieutenant, good morning to you, sir. Are you and your men ready to pull off the miracle command says you’re ready for?”

“Sir, we…” The officer lowered his eyes. “We’re scared sir.”

Parnell remained quiet as if he was hearing his own fears voiced by the soft tone of the army officer.

“I’ll let you in on something, Lieutenant. There isn’t a man who awakened within a hundred square miles this morning who wasn’t frightened. Anyone who says they’re not, stay away from him. He’s an idiot, a fool, avoid him at all costs. Our fear is what makes us perform.”

“Sir, it’s not just that we’re afraid to die. All of us have hated the ridicule of our opposites in infantry and cavalry units. We know what they say about us, that we’re shirkers, boys that were so afraid to fight they would sit out the war playing music. We hated that. What we’re afraid of is failing the colonel and the others.”

Parnell, not much older than the lieutenant, placed a gloved hand on the boy’s shoulder and then smiled and leaned in close.

“We all have something to prove here today. We all have our demons and this morning we’ll see if we can slay some of those, huh?”

“Yes, sir, we’re ready.”

“Good. Now, are you clear on the band’s placement behind the rise of the gulley?”

“Yes, sir. The drum and bugle men have been placed. The rest will be mounted and ready to move upon your command.”

Parnell patted his shoulder one last time and then looked over his command. Arrayed at attention to his front were the one hundred and eighteen members of 317th, the fifty-seven United States Marines, and twenty-six U.S. Navy sailors assigned to him. Two hundred and one men. A small unit expected to face more than nine hundred cavalry. He nodded at his men.

The sun broke free of the summit of Ararat and beat down on the frozen earth that guarded the mountain.

His men were as ready as they ever would be.

Renaud stepped into the cold morning air and stretched his aching body. He looked over and saw that the recent additions to their force, the 25th Palace Fusiliers, a unit scraped together by Her Majesty’s government from her embassy and consulate staffs, were already fed and were going about their morning duties, while the Turks were just crawling from bed. He shook his head as he started to turn away.

Suddenly bugles sounded and men started to run. Renaud grabbed a passing Turkish soldier and tried to make himself understood.

“What is it?” he tried to ask, but the harried soldier only looked at him strangely and pulled free.

“Damn it,” the Frenchman cursed as he looked around.

“I suppose he was in a hurry to report to his unit. It seems the Americans are coming.”

Renaud turned to see a British officer. He wore a red coat trimmed in green piping and his helmet had a flourish upon the top. He was sipping a cup of hot tea and looking to the east.

“They must know they’ll never be allowed to pass. Why would they challenge a force this size?”

The British officer placed his china cup in its saucer and then looked over the French spy as if he were at a bug.

“Perhaps because they are bloody Americans who despise being told what they can and cannot do,” the man said as he smiled. “We had to adjust to that very attitude. Can you imagine the arrogance?”

Renaud thought the officer was taking this situation a bit less than seriously.

“I avoided asking this question upon your arrival last evening, sir, but just what are your orders for this engagement?”

The officer again sipped his tea and then looked to the eastern region where the Americans would come out of the morning sun on their approach, a tactic he had expected, but obviously the Turkish commander hadn’t, as he comically struggled to get out of his dressing gown and into a semblance of a uniform.

“Our orders?” He chuckled. “Our orders are to avoid engagement, sir. We’re here for show and show alone. For all we know, the Americans could be here to start a war, and at the present time it would be a war Her Majesty’s government would be ill prepared to fight.”

“You’re admitting—”

“I am admitting nothing, sir. However, I must explain” — he looked down at the small Frenchman and smirked — “there is a certain and special place we hold for all Americans. They are like a wayward son that has struck out on his own and has thus far out-achieved his overbearing parents. From a distance we howl and scream about the lack of respect they have for those nurturing parents, but deep down, they are still our relations. While there may be less love than before, the respect we have is true to the mark. We will not fire on the Americans.” He smiled and saw that the Frenchman was aghast. “Who knows, maybe you and your wayward Turkish regiment can frighten them into surrendering their plunder.” He saw the shocked look on the spy’s face, about whom he had been briefed earlier that week. “Yes, we know all about the Empire’s foreign minister and his maneuvering behind the sultan’s back.” He sipped the almost-empty tea cup and then handed it and the saucer to an aide as he placed the cavalry gauntlets on his hands. “If your mission fails here today, perhaps you’d better find another route home other than through Constantinople. From what I understand the sultan may be a bit of a clown, but understandably harsh when it comes to influencing treason.”

Renaud watched as the British officer tipped his hat and then accepted the reins of his white mount.

“Well, shall we congratulate the Americans on their archeological discovery, and then ask them ever so nicely to leave it behind for the glory of the Ottoman Empire?”

The Frenchman watched him lead his horse away to join the three hundred men of his command.

Around him, the Seventh Guards Regiment was called to colors.

The flying standards of the American line were now visible coming out of the morning sun.

The Seventh Guards Regiment formed within fifteen minutes. Men were mounted and officers present. The captain of the 25th Palace Fusiliers ordered his three hundred cavalry to the far left of the Turkish regiment. He remained with the Turkish command unit and was soon joined by the Frenchman Renaud, who looked anything but comfortable on the large mount on which the Turks had placed him.

“What a spirited mount you have there, sir. He should serve you well in the upcoming … well, whatever this is going to be,” said the captain without even the benefit of a smirk.

“I should think even these backward Americans would be hesitant to shoot a man in such a splendid uniform as yours.” The Frenchman looked toward the gathering Ottoman troops. “While they may not have the same respect for other uniforms.”

“As I may have alluded to in our earlier conversation, the Americans, my uninformed sir, respect very little of our world.”

“You sound as if you admire them,” Renaud said with a hint of concern in his voice.

“Admire? Well, maybe that’s a bit strong. However, let us say that mutual respect is not out of the debate.”

Before the Frenchman could voice an opinion, the bugle announced officers’ call and the British captain smiled, tapped his white-gloved fingers to his helmet, and then rode off toward the Turkish cavalry. His regimental colors went with him. Renaud watched the two riders’ backs and then wondered just what the sneaky English were up to. He soon spurred his horse, almost slipped from the saddle, and then awkwardly followed.

John Henry Thomas was in the lead column of fifteen marine riders. They escorted the line of eighteen heavily laden wagons driven by the naval crews, including the cooks and the engineers. The outriders on each side of the line were twenty more marines on horseback.

Stretching out before John Henry’s eyes was the expansive Plain of Ararat. He saw the four squared positions taken up by the Turkish regiment. To the regiment’s left were the detached British light brigade. He took note of the fact that Her Majesty’s cavalry had not committed to any course of action, which told John Henry that his hunch about the legality of this confrontation was dubious at best. He hoped.

Claire watched Thomas from the seat of the front wagon. She had insisted on being able to see what their fate would be, mostly wanting to make sure a certain colonel wasn’t shot from his saddle. Claire saw John Henry raise his gloved hand and the men and wagons came to a slow stop. The wind had picked up and blew the Stars and Stripes outward, blocking her view of the approaching forces.

John Henry turned in his saddle to make sure that the wagons had stopped. Once he had Claire in sight he turned away and saw eight men riding toward his column. One rider carried the standard of the empire, a pure white flag with an elongated blue cross sectioning the banner. He noted once more that the two representatives of Great Britain carried only a regimental flag, two facing lions with crossed swords. No Union Jack, at least for the time being. The riders stopped a hundred yards to the front of the American line.

Thomas hoped his freshly pressed uniform was good enough to die in. The gold-yellow stripe that coursed down his pant legs to the top of his knee-high boots made him feel whole again, that he was once more a cavalryman. He only wished Sergeant Major Dugan was at his side. The colonel spurred his mount forward to meet the men who had come a long way to meet him.

John Henry rode his horse with authority, reining in the large roan only feet from the eight men, making their mounts shy away. Thomas backed his horse away, showing the Europeans his horsemanship. Deep down, Thomas was hopeful the horse didn’t step in a groundhog burrow — so much for the dramatic entrance. He stopped the horse four feet from the men, bringing his right gauntlet to the brim of his white hat and then saluting the men before him.

“Colonel John Henry—”

“Thomas. Yes, we are aware of who you are, Colonel,” said the large Turkish officer in the abundantly decorated green uniform. The fez upon his head was bright red and would have caused Sergeant Major Dugan to lose all self-control if he had been there. Thomas actually smiled at the thought and the men in front of him noticed that smile. “You, sir, are to be escorted to our border, or the nearest seaport, for expulsion from the empire.”

“A rather harsh punishment for merely being delayed in the railroad’s construction.” John Henry half-turned in his saddle and gestured at the wagons. “We now have our soil and core samples from the survey and are escorting them to the Port of Trabzon.”

“Colonel Thomas, we are well aware of your mission’s parameters and are here to assure the sultan that no empire property leaves the country. Therefore we must confiscate your wagons.”

“Very well, sir. I assume you can provide the written order from the sultan?” John Henry held the large Turk’s eyes. The man blinked and it was not just from the rays of the rising sun behind the American column.

“Colonel, we are here to confiscate the cargo of those wagons. Any interference from you or your men will result in a situation that I guarantee you cannot handle.”

“Not without a signed order. I have my duty also. You will have to physically take my cargo.” Thomas moved the large roan forward a few steps so the men before him could see his eyes and judge if he were bluffing or not.

“Hhm, hhmm,” the prim British captain cleared his throat. “Colonel, I see your point, but I’m afraid my Turkish ally does not. I am not even sure if he knows what a bluff is, in military terms that is.”

“And you are, sir?”

“Who I am makes little difference at this point. Suffice it to say that Her Majesty would prefer the contents of those crates stay where it was that you found them.”

John Henry only looked at the captain, trying to judge what his orders were. He thought the captain played his hand well in not saying anything at all.

“Enough of this. Will you surrender your wagons, Colonel Thomas?”

“No, sir. We worked very hard building those.”

John Henry watched as the Englishmen slowly turned and rode back to their own unit. He also turned and rode back to his column, where a marine corporal was awaiting his orders.

“As soon as the Turkish regiment starts its advance, do not wait on me. Fire the red signal.”

“Yes, sir, Colonel,” the boy said and then tore off toward the rear of the column. Thomas turned to his fourteen men. “Form a skirmish line. Bring the remaining men up.”

The fourteen marines sent their mounts in a straight line for a hundred yards in front of the wagons and then turned sharply left. The men from the wagon escort arrived and broke right. A skirmish line of thirty-four mounted United States Marines stood in between the greatest prize in the world and nine hundred men determined to stop them. The American flag was placed next to the bright red Marine Corps flag and they both marked the center of the line as John Henry took his place in front and then waited.

He was soon joined by the lance corporal commanding his right flank.

John Henry nodded and looked around him. His eyes momentarily went to the front wagon and the woman sitting on the bench next to her driver. He smiled when he saw the Spencer carbine in her hands.

As the British captain reined in his horse, he turned to the general.

“Your plan of action, General?” he asked the puffed-out marionette attached to the main puppeteer, the empire’s foreign office.

“I figure the straight-on approach. Should not take more than a few moments to take such a weak adversary; it’s almost unsporting.”

The captain smirked as he turned back to the front and saw the American colonel sitting atop his horse, just waiting.

“Yes, almost,” he said as he wondered if the Turk felt as uneasy as himself. He looked over at the heavily mustachioed general. No, he was oblivious as he proudly scanned his line of march. His men and mounts were perfectly aligned and the general pushed out his chest even farther as the initial three hundred cavalrymen inched ever closer to the Americans.

A bright red rocket suddenly burst and spread its fiery trail across the sky to the east at the rear of the wagons.

“Ah, a signal perhaps?” the captain said as if merely commenting on an unusual sight.

“Does it matter, my friend? No one can stand up to my regiment on open ground. We are the greatest light cavalry in the—”

The drums drowned out all noise from the plain. The sound of more than three hundred sets of hooves was nothing compared to the heavy beating of the bass drums as they tattooed a rhythm that was reminiscent of the long-ago Roman legions.

The general held his right hand high in the air, bringing the forward progress of the Seventh Guards Regiment to a halt.

“Bad idea, sir. Keep your regiment moving forward.”

The general didn’t answer as he was looking to a far-off knoll that blocked his view of the canyons beyond. The sound of the many drums banged and echoed off the rock facade of the canyon. And still the drums seemed to increase in volume.

“What is this?” the general asked loudly so he could be heard over the infernal beat of the drums.

“I would say it is at least a regimental-sized band coming your way.”

“Regimental?”

Trumpets started sounding and the British captain looked to see several of the front-line cavalrymen had to stay their horses to keep them from bolting. The situation was loud and very frightening to anyone who had never seen a battlefield before. And still the heavy beat of the drums grew ever louder.

“Look, sir!” an aide pointed to the first series of canyons and from the mouth of the far left came riders. Their mounts were trotting. The leading officer was wearing a nontraditional cavalry helmet; as a matter of fact, it was no helmet at all. It was a naval department two-cornered hat. The double line of cavalrymen flowed out of the canyon behind him. The American flag waved in the breeze as the large unit of blue-clad cavalrymen came on. The drum beat made the waiting Turks wary of what might come from the canyon next.

The Turkish captain turned and watched his own men in the near distance as they in turn watched the unknown American unit come on. They were still but watchful.

The uniforms were immaculate. They all wore brightly colored blue tunics and their brass buttons shined in the early morning sunlight. Still, the infernal drums from hell boomed on and the trumpets played as though Julius Caesar himself was leading the procession. The line of Turks started to seriously hold their frightened mounts in check.

“Steady, men, steady!” the general shouted as he turned toward the faltering line of Ottoman troops. “It’s all for show! Steady on!”

The British officer raised his brows at the general’s pronouncement. He turned to the lieutenant who was acting as his second-in-command.

“If this is for show, I don’t know if I want to stay around for the curtain call.”

The drums actually increased in volume as if whoever was striking them were attempting to smash them to oblivion. The trumpets echoed off the canyon’s walls and made them sound as if a hundred trumpeters announced the American movement.

Finally the double column of more than a hundred and thirty-five men took up station to the far left of the American line. A lone officer sat atop a horse, placed his sword in front of his face, and then gave it a flourish in acknowledgement of Colonel John Henry Thomas, who only nodded and smiled at the proud marine officer. Parnell had led his men out as if they had been on parade in front of the president, which most of the young band members had done.

Suddenly the trumpets stopped as suddenly as they had begun. The drums gave one final flourish as the last line of men came to a stop, sitting straight and deadly looking to the common observer. The flag of the American nation proudly flew side by side with the flag of the United States Army and next to that the solid red flag of the Marine Corps.

“What the bloody hell is this? Where did these soldiers come from? My intelligence reports said nothing of a cavalry unit traveling with these supposed engineers!”

The British colonel rolled his eyes.

“Perhaps these men are not what you believe them to be, General? Maybe you were actually sent here to face an enemy that will shoot back?”

The general watched as the two British officers turned their horses opposite the line of Americans.

“Where do you go, sir?” asked the Turkish officer.

“I was ordered to observe, sir. I have done so, and now will report to my superiors what it was I observed.” The captain dug his spurs into his horse’s sides and both Englishmen sprinted toward their own men. “Good luck to you, sir!”

“Cowards!” the general bravely said, trying to impress his subordinates with his bravado. They were not.

“Orders, General?”

“The order is to advance and take those wagons. Our reserve will attend to these men, who still find themselves sorely outnumbered.”

His officers exchanged doubting looks.

“Sir, we don’t even know what units we face,” said his second-in-command.

The general turned on him. “It does not matter. This unit can outfight any American cavalry unit!”

The men in the HQ command had heard the newspaper stories of the American cavalry regiments and their bravery. They had read about the glamorous charges of men like General John Buford and the young General Custer at Gettysburg, and romantic newspaper accounts of the maniacal maneuvering of the Confederates Jeb Stuart and the far more famous General Stonewall Jackson. No, they had their doubts about the ineptitude of American cavalry units according to the general’s opinion.

“All units advance on my command! Bring up the reserve. We go in as one mighty regiment.”

The men in his command turned and saw the three hundred British cavalrymen ride off to the west toward Constantinople. Finally the men broke and rode to their individual units.

“Forward!” the general called out loudly.

A bugle sounded and the Turkish advance commenced.

John Henry cursed as the first bluff failed to send the Turks running. He turned in his saddle and saw the sun as it crested the summit of Ararat.

“Anytime, Jessy,” he said under his breath.

As the Turkish Seventh Guards Regiment advanced at a conservative pace, they received the order to take up arms. They each withdrew a shortened version of the venerable Enfield breech-loaded single-shot carbine.

The sound of the American bugle call brought all eyes in the advance forward. They saw a lone rider sitting atop a brown horse as the animal reared up on its hind legs. The bugler called again; this time John Henry and the other Americans knew it to be the assembly call.

Without being ordered to do so, the line of three hundred Turks stopped cold in their advance as they studied this new, unexpected move by the Americans.

“Forward, do not stop!” the general called out angrily.

Suddenly the ground shook as the bugle call was returned. As the frightened men watched a new column of men broke free of the canyon. They were in a ragged but swift-moving line as they broke into the open. The bugle call was frightening, but the screams and yells, yips and yahoos of these newest troops scared the Turks far more than the sound of the heavy drums had.

“What in the name of Allah?” the general said as he saw a mixture of blue and gray uniforms with both battle flags flying as they rode forward. The Confederate Stars and Bars flashed by the mounted armies and it was a chilling sight to the Turks, and a surreal sight to the waiting Americans.

The two lines of Rebel and marine cavalry formed up to John Henry’s right. Now the full complement of three hundred and thirty-six Americans faced a force almost two times its size. Thomas, Taylor, Parnell, and Captain Jackson, all with swords notched to their shoulders, waited in front of their men so they could play out their little theatrical number to the close of curtain.

“Ooh,” the Turkish army seemed to exhale at once as the last rider broke from the canyon. John Henry had to shake his head at this last little bit of theater.

Gray Dog, complete with the flowing six-foot-long headdress of his fathers and wearing nothing but a loin cloth and his chest plate of eagles’ bones and beads, held a battle lance on high as he fronted the combined commands of John Henry, Parnell, and Colonel Taylor. The white horse of the Comanche came to a skidding halt and Gray Dog brought the magnificent animal to rear up as his headdress flowed back with the wind.

“My God, Confederates, Union cavalrymen, and savage Indians. Are we to fight all of America here today?” asked his subordinate with little or no respect lacing his words to the general.

“Look!” said one of the men.

The bugler started blowing the charge and John Henry’s bluff was beginning to look as if it were no bluff at all. The charge sounded and the Confederates and the marines were the first to charge with Jessy and Gray Dog leading the headlong plunge into danger. John Henry called out, “Charge!” and then his unit started forward at breakneck speed. Then it was Parnell’s turn. The 317th marching band, sounding like banshees from the gates of hell, also charged. All were waving the new swords they had been issued with the warning from Parnell not to slice each other to pieces.

The first to move was the front line of Turkish cavalrymen. They watched wide-eyed as the savage Indian came at them, and that was all they needed to see. The lance was pumping up and down and Gray Dog was screaming at the top of his lungs. The rest of the men followed. Jessy was out front with Gray Dog waving his men forward, twirling the bright flash of his saber. For the colonel, it was old times all over again.

That was it; the rear ranks of the Seventh stayed in place as the forward three hundred smashed into them. The entire unit was now in free flight. Even the general, with his eyes on the crazed Gray Dog, turned and spurred his mount brutally.

“They’ll kill us all!” one of the men shouted.

Renaud, who had stayed as far away from the action as he could, saw the insane charge of the Americans. A charge that would never see the inside of any war college textbook, but one that would be immortalized by any solder who witnessed it that day.

The Frenchman cursed the cowardice of the Ottoman Turks and then wheeled his horse around and clumsily made his way north. He would now have to meet up with the French squadron at Trabzon Harbor.

The French navy would correct any embarrassment suffered that day. He would make sure the Americans never escaped the Black Sea.

He would personally destroy the army of Ararat.

The men celebrated as if they were all one American unit. No war to step between them, no politics other than American bravado against European arrogance. Even the proud but frightened 317th started playing “Dixie” loud and hard as every man belted out the words to the southern classic adored by none other than Abraham Lincoln himself. The men danced and exchanged hugs and slaps on the back between army, navy, and Confederate comrades who only knew that Americans couldn’t be beat in any arena.

John Henry was not of the same sentiment as he dismounted. He almost stumbled as his left foot freed itself from the stirrup. He laid his head against the saddle to steady the nerves that had come on after he realized the Turks had broken and run. It was nearly reminiscent of the break the Union Army made at the first battle of Bull Run. His breath came in ragged gasps as he found breathing was hard. He was startled when a sharp slap on the back made him jump.

“I’m afraid those boys won’t stop running until their horses give out,” Jessy said as he turned and watched the dust rise in the west as the Seventh Guards Regiment made a bid for the overland record for speed of horse. He turned back and saw John Henry was having a hard time focusing on him. “Hey, you all right, Napoleon?”

Thomas bent over and placed his hands on his knees. His sword was still clutched in his right hand. He finally managed a deep breath and faced Jessy as Parnell, Jackson, and Gray Dog joined them. The sound of revelry was loud.

“I had a fleeting moment there when I thought you and Gray Dog were going to actually attack.”

Jessy laughed. “We were. The damn Turks just ran too fast. I didn’t want to run out our own mounts. We still have to get the hell out of here, you know?”

“I think I wet myself,” Claire said as she turned Jessy around and hugged him. She then did the same to an embarrassed but happy Lieutenant Parnell and a startled Captain Jackson. “That was amazing,” she finished as she faced John Henry and suddenly didn’t know what to do. He instead hugged her just to make sure he was still feeling after the shock at what almost happened. Jessy exchanged looks with Gray Dog, Parnell, and Jackson. They all watched as they were witnessing the first emotions they had ever seen from the legendary cavalry officer. John Henry finally let go and then straightened his tunic as he sheathed his sword.

“Gentlemen, that was played out well. You had me a little concerned at the end, but we managed to bluff our way out of this mess for the moment without starting a shooting war with the Ottoman Empire.”

“Yes, but what a moment it was!” Parnell said loudly. “Now that’s something to tell the grandchildren about, by God!”

Thomas finally saw Gray Dog as Claire gave him a blanket to cover his bare skin. The colonel placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder and squeezed.

“Your pa would have been proud today. So would the sergeant major.”

“I think that was the one element that pushed the Turks over the edge,” Jessy said. “This boy” — he grabbed Gray Dog and shook him — “insisted he lead the charge, and by God he did.”

“What now, John Henry?” Claire asked as she watched the revelry around her. She smiled as she saw the men of one nation once again.

John Henry Thomas paced away from the men and looked north along the track that would take them to Trabzon Harbor. He removed his hat, wiped the sweat from the band, and then held it at his side as the warmth of the sun hit his face. He finally turned and faced Claire and the others.

“Let’s go home.”

29

It had been a full week since the Carpenter had limped into port. She was still leaking heavily but the carpenters from both ships, including the Chesapeake, promised command that she would be good as new when the time came to sail.

The Carpenter’s captain watched his crew as they lounged on the deck. He had forbidden any shore leave in the port town simply because he knew the French frigate Osiris was berthed only two docks down. He could imagine the French crew lying in wait for the Americans to make an appearance in town.

“Captain, we have a courier from Colonel Thomas,” his first officer said as he saw the young marine corporal from Thomas’s unit. The boy was worn and tired.

“See the corporal gets a good meal.” He tore open the envelope and read. “Wait, how far out is the colonel?”

“The column is a day back, sir. I’m afraid we have company also. The British are a distance away.”

“Very well. Dismissed. Get some food and rest.”

“What does the colonel say?” the first officer asked.

“He says for us to be prepared to take on ten and half tons of cargo.” The captain turned and looked out to the calm surface of the Black Sea.

“Cargo? What sort of cargo, Captain?” The first officer looked perplexed and then looked at his commanding officer. “You don’t suppose—”

“We’re going be sailing heavier than normal, it looks like. So, make ready the loading teams and let’s get the last of that water out of our bilges. And we still don’t know the fate of Argo. It’s been two weeks and the Chesapeake hasn’t found her. God, if she foundered we could be in a whole new situation we did not count on. Go on, get the crew moving. We’re going to have company.”

“Yes, Captain.” The first officer moved off to inform the crew.

“Just what in the hell are you bringing to my ship, Colonel Thomas?”

It was late at night when the lone rider abandoned his played-out mount on the outskirts of town. He made his way through the silent village of Trabzon until he could smell the sea. He saw the high masts of several large ships and he was cautious as he made his way to the harbor.

The French spy Renaud had been lost for the last three days and barely made it to Trabzon before the column of Americans. He was exhausted and worn to a frazzle. He spied the American ship before he made it too far. He saw the activity onboard at this late hour and assumed they had been informed of Thomas’s expected arrival. He grimaced, cursed the American, and then saw the French-flagged warship berthed close by, but not too close to the American. Now he would see who ran from what field of battle.

He had to convince the French navy that it was now a shooting war.

The next morning dawned cloudy and rainy. The water mixed with the snow and the world became a clogged mess of snow, mud, and rain.

John Henry and his mixed cavalry escorted the wagons through town and even at that early-morning hour the citizens of the backwater harbor came out to see the Americans. Most eyes fell on the heavily laden wagons as they progressed through the cobbled streets. Thomas was nearly asleep in his saddle when Claire reached out and touched his leg.

“John Henry, we’ve arrived,” she said softly until his eyes fluttered open.

“Apologies; must have dozed off.”

“You’re exhausted. It’s time you get aboard and let Captain Jackson do what he was trained for.”

“I will never be happier to relinquish command than I am this fine blustery morning.”

The men were greeted by sailors of the Carpenter, who were quickly amazed at what they had achieved. They saw wagon after wagon wheeled onto the dock and wondered just what the army colonel had dug out of Ararat’s summit.

The captain of the Carpenter bolted down the gangway and greeted a slowly dismounting Thomas and Taylor. He saluted Captain Jackson and then he saw how worn the men were and observed the mixed uniforms of the combined command. His face fell when he saw the new Confederate clothing.

“Well, while you were digging away on Ararat, I see Congress authorized the raising of a new cavalry regiment. Not sure they’ll approve of the new uniforms, though,” he joked, but could see none of the officers were in a very jovial mood.

“Report, Captain?” a weary Jackson said, returning the man’s salute.

He filled in Jackson on the developments and saw that the news of Argo’s possible loss hit him and Colonel Thomas rather hard. The Rebel officer only shook his head and then looked at Claire with a frown. The news was not good.

“That, and we have not seen a trace of the Yorktown since we parted at Constantinople.”

Jackson looked at John Henry, who only nodded his head that the captain could inform the commander of Carpenter the truth.

“Yorktown will not be joining the squadron. She has been assigned other, more pressing duties. She is currently at the emergency egress point on the Mediterranean Sea. Beyond that, I cannot explain further. So, Captain, we are conceivably on our own with just the Chesapeake to run interference for us from the Black Sea through the Bosphorus and then the Aegean Sea. Then we have to slip past Gibraltar without getting our tails shot off. Simple, really.”

The captain watched the tired men of the combined excavation team slowly dismount to allow the sailors access to the wagons and their precious cargo.

The captain repeated and looked over at the tall main mast of the French warship, Osiris, and then shook his head.

“What are you thinking, Captain?” his first officer asked after rousing the crew to offload the wagons.

“I’m thinking I missed that particular lecture at Annapolis on how the described scenario could possibly be construed as simple. Suicidal maybe, but simple?”

The captain turned away and saw the lamps of the French frigate burning brightly as the French crew of the Osiris awoke to the Americans making ready for sea.

Claire found John Henry on deck as he leaned against the ship’s railing and watched the Black Sea slide along the hull of the heavily loaded Carpenter. From time to time she watched Thomas turn his face to the stars looking deep in thought. She pulled her shawl more tightly around herself and was happy for the warmth, and for the fact that she had been able to salvage at least some of her more womanly clothing from the destroyed camp at Ararat. John Henry had forsaken his coat and hat on the blustery night that found the bulk of the crew fast asleep. Only the deck-side watch was on duty, and among the men awake was Gray Dog, who had found a new home in the highest point on the ship — the crow’s nest, which by now the lookouts were happy to share after they learned about the Comanche’s exploits on the Plain of Ararat.

“After all we have been through, you still can’t get any sleep?” Claire asked before Thomas could turn to see who had approached. John Henry had become very aware of shadows in the night since his days on the mountain’s summit.

“Captain Jackson has informed me that if the French make a move it will be in the dark of night. Now I can only relax in the daylight hours.”

“Is that all it is?”

“And you’re referencing what?” he asked as he looked down upon her slight frame. He could clearly see she had not recouped any of her lost sleep either.

“It’s just that I’ve heard most of the men that spent those dark nights on that damnable mountain are having a hard time sleeping as well. I know Colonel Taylor has been pacing every night until he can no longer stand upright and he collapses. The joy that the men felt after the Turks ran has long since dissipated and now the men have had time to think. And the curse of Azrael is on their minds.”

“I can’t help them. Each man has to evaluate what he saw up there and face his own demons, Azrael notwithstanding.”

“What do you believe?”

“I believe that we made up what we needed to believe. I don’t have any idea what it is we ran into up there and on the voyage over. Okay, let’s just say it is Azrael. If that’s the case, the one thing I am sure of is the fact that whoever placed that curse was trying desperately to save what he loved.”

“Noah and his family?”

“No, not just his kinfolk. I believe the love he felt for all humanity dictated that he go against God and his killer angel.”

“Why can’t you say that to the men?” she asked as she watched his blue eyes against the glow of the moonlight.

“Because I’m sure they will eventually take what happened and either live with it, or find a rational explanation in their own way.” He smiled as he looked at Claire closely. “As I have done.”

“So, Colonel Thomas, you are now an official believer of fairy tales.”

“I guess I am,” he said, and they both looked at each other for the longest time. They were interrupted by the officer of the deck.

“Colonel, Captain Jackson would like to know if you’ll join him on the quarterdeck.”

With one a last look into Claire’s eyes, John Henry walked away leaving Claire longing for him to stay.

Thomas found Jackson as he looked through his single-lens glass to the aft seas.

“We have our full complement of onlookers,” he said as he handed over the glass to John Henry, who looked where Jackson was pointing.

Barely visible in the moonlight were the silhouettes of not one, but both of the French warships.

“Now, three points to the north,” Jackson said as John Henry adjusted his view.

Thomas sighed as he saw the tall masts of two more ships that were frigate-sized. He lowered the glass and returned it to Jackson.

“The newcomers, French?”

“Unable to say at the moment. However, I don’t think the Royal Navy would dare meet us in closed seas. They would wait until we make our way past Gibraltar. No, my suspicions are that they are also French.”

“What do you think, Captain Jackson?” Thomas asked with a small smile.

“Officer of the deck?”

“Sir!” the first officer called from his station at the helm.

“Beat to general quarters. Let’s get the crew to battle stations, shall we?”

“Sir!”

“Gentlemen, signal the Chesapeake. We are going on the attack. Let’s see if these boys can dodge us for a change. Inform Chesapeake we break formation at first light.”

The four French warships heard the drumbeats of the two American frigates as they brought crews to battle stations. The French were confused until their own lookouts called out that the Americans were reversing course and headed right for them.

Three hours later the men onboard all six warships were ready and at stations. Captain Jackson had placed Thomas’s men high in the rigging of the Carpenter in case they were boarded.

“Four against two, now those are odds I can relate to,” Jessy said as he joined Thomas on the foredeck.

“We’re about to see how serious the Frenchies are about stopping us,” John Henry said as Claire joined them. He whispered something to Gray Dog, who nodded and then headed the woman off and roughly lifted her from her feet and as she protested he moved her belowdecks.

“Chivalrous, I must say,” Taylor quipped.

“My ass. The last thing I need is to find out she’s also a better shot than me.”

Jessy laughed as he saw the French frigates growing larger in his view.

“Tell me again what happens if they don’t interpret our ramming them as an accident and they open fire on us?”

“Well, Colonel Taylor, as long as the first cannon shot isn’t fired by us, let the war begin. Off official records, of course.”

“Oh, but of course,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “But tell me, do you think governments will wonder what became of their frontline ships when they don’t return home, even old honest Abe?” Jessy asked with a smirk.

“Accidental sinkings happen all the time, I imagine. It will be marked up as acceptable wartime losses for us. As for them, I don’t care how they explain it to their citizens, but I imagine the truth may be fudged a little in that particular arena.”

“Well, we’ll soon see.”

As they watched, the Chesapeake broke her side-by-side formation with the Carpenter. The larger frigate made a run at the lead ship, the Especial, the very ship that had rammed them north of Trabzon.

“Go, go,” Captain Jackson called out as he watched the Chesapeake charge forward. Without the heavy cargo weighing her down the sleek warship sped past Carpenter and made her run for Especial.

Suddenly the forward-facing twin mounts on the Especial erupted in smoke and flame as she let loose two twenty-pound shells toward Chesapeake. All eyes widened as the intent of the French navy was made abundantly clear.

“Forward mounts, fire!” Jackson called out, trying to give the Chesapeake some covering fire. He cursed as he ordered Carpenter to turn so she could bring her main starboard guns to bear.

The shells struck the Chesapeake as she returned fire from her own forward mount. The forward prow erupted in splintering wood and burning sailcloth as the two warheads blew apart the two forward cannons and their gun crews.

Four exploding shells found the mark against the forward superstructure of the Especial.

“I think our bluff has been called,” Taylor shouted as he struck the deck as wood and men flew past him as two shells from the Osiris hit the Carpenter.

Before their turn was made Carpenter was struck three times by the advancing French ships. The companions of the Especial and Osiris had joined their fire with the two damaged ships.

“Damn, I really didn’t think they would have the gall,” Jackson sang out as he ordered the full complement of the starboard battery to return fire. Just as he did several shells struck the Carpenter and one penetrated her deck and slammed into the cargo hold, killing fifteen band members of the 317th.

“Bring her guns to bear on the turn!” Jackson called out just as a tremendous explosion erupted from the forecastle of the Chesapeake. “All guns fire at the turn!”

The starboard side of Carpenter seemed to blow outward as all twenty-three gun crews opened fire one after the other in rapid succession.

John Henry was helped to his feet by Taylor as the Carpenter heeled to port after discharging her starboard battery. Before they knew what was happening they were again thrown from their feet and men fell screaming from the rigging above them. The third and fourth frigates of the French navy fired all forty-four guns on their port sides in as rapid a discharge as anyone had ever witnessed. Captain Jackson fell to the deck as grapeshot shattered the wooden railing and masts around him. Men again started screaming as the steel balls ripped mercilessly through their bodies. Rigging and sail fell to the decks.

The French navy had become serious in their attempts to stop the Americans.

John Henry heard the whistle of flying iron balls as they passed overhead and through the wooden hull of the large frigate. Taylor screamed in frustration as the Osiris passed close aboard and let loose with her port batteries.

The main mast of the Carpenter was struck and the thick wood splintered but held firm against the onslaught of wind and fire.

A quarter of a mile away the Chesapeake was circling aimlessly as her rudder was blown away. The Americans were now fish in a barrel.

The noise was tremendous as the six ships exchanged gunfire. Thus far the combined guns of the Carpenter and the Chesapeake had only managed to damage Especial, but the men came on deck to cheers as the Especial’s main mast came crashing down into the sea.

John Henry knew he had led them into disaster by pushing their luck a little too far in his recommendation to turn on their pursuers. The bluff had been called in no uncertain terms by the French.

The passing winds did nothing to clear the thick, acrid smell of gunpowder and burning wood from her decks. John Henry cursed as small hands helped him up. When he looked he saw it was Claire who had somehow shaken free of Gray Dog, who was still trying to physically coax her belowdecks. He was bloody from several large splinters of wood that had pierced his back and arms.

“Get below!” he screamed as more grapeshot tore into the Carpenter.

“Most are dead down there. I want to stay here!” she screamed and Gray Dog ceased pulling on her as Carpenter was rocked as one of her exposed deck guns exploded from a direct hit from Osiris.

As suddenly as the violence had erupted, it all ceased at once. The four French vessels circled the two heavily damaged American frigates. It was if they were viewing a wounded wild animal and were judging its lethality through cautious observation.

“They’ve stopped,” Claire said as she leaned over to assist Jessy to his feet. He looked at John Henry and all of the mirth from days gone by had vanished. For the first time Thomas saw real worry in the Confederate colonel’s eyes.

“They have to come in close now,” said Jackson as he moved over to the railing with his spyglass to his eye. They could see a man trying to tend to Jackson’s exposed wounds. He had been peppered by flying splinters from the helmsman’s station. The ship’s wheel was half torn away. Jackson ignored the corpsman and the wounds. The captain lowered the glass and blood dripped to the decking at his feet. John Henry saw the deep wounds and knew the captain was running on adrenaline alone. “They have to come close and destroy the evidence that we were ever here. They have to sink all trace of us.” Jackson finally acceded to the corpsman who was attempting to remove his shredded coat. “Colonel, get ready to get your men off. These bastards are not going to board my ships!”

“What is your plan?” Thomas asked as he tended to the wounds on Gray Dog’s back and arms. Claire was dabbing a dirty piece of cloth to Jessy’s forehead, which had taken a flying nail rather handily. Jackson held eye contact with the colonel for the briefest of moments and in that short time Thomas knew exactly what the captain was going to do. “Chief, inform the gun crew captains to spike their cannon. We’ll draw the enemy in and then take at least one or two of them with us. Colonel, get your men off my ship.”

John Henry shook his head. He was not about to give that order. The navy men under his command did not run under fire, so he would have to be thrown overboard before he ordered his men off.

“If we’re staying, I think I want my sword,” Taylor said as he smiled and then removed Claire’s soft hand from his head. He dipped his chin and kissed her hand. “You, on the other hand, must evacuate the ship my dear, dear lady.”

“Yes, lower a whaleboat. Gray Dog, get Miss Anderson off the ship and as many of the wounded from below that you can.”

Gray Dog stood his ground and shook his head. He was refusing the first order from his adopted father. He would die with the rest. From Claire’s angry face he could see he would have to physically remove her from the battle.

“Osiris is signaling, Captain!”

Once more Jackson raised the glass to his eye. Lowered it once more and swiped at the blood that coursed down from the head wound. He again raised the glass and watched the bright flashes of light from the forecastle of the Osiris. He lowered the glass and took a deep breath and then he faced John Henry.

“They’re ordering us to lower sail and battle flags. They intend to board us.”

Jessy was handed his sword by one of his men. He smiled as he rebuttoned his tunic. “Well, we didn’t get all fancied up for nothing. John Henry, shall we accept our guests’ invitation to board us?”

“Smoke on the horizon!”

The captain felt his heart go cold as he realized that the French must have a steam-driven reinforcement coming to their aid. “This is a tad bit of overkill, I must say,” he said as he raised his glass once more. Thomas joined him.

“It’s the Argo!” came the joyful yell from the lookout. ‘She’s under her own power!”

Jessy gave the smiling John Henry a funny look. “How can a sail barge full of railroad equipment be steaming to our aid?”

“Well, it’s not exactly a sail barge,” Thomas answered as he took in the confused faces of Claire, Taylor, and Gray Dog. “This is our little gift from the president and Mr. John Ericsson.”

“Thank God for Lieutenants Ferguson and Faraday!” Jackson said loudly as the first of the French warships turned to meet the new threat that did not seem much of a threat at all.

The slow-moving Argo billowed smoke from the center of her decking. The stack had risen in the days she had been absent and presumed sunk.

It came on like an aged locomotive spewing its blackened anger across the blue morning sky.

Renaud joined the captain of the Osiris on the quarterdeck of the frigate. He smiled when he saw the two smoldering American vessels in the near distance as the signal for surrender was sent.

“Ship ahoy!” came the call from Osiris’s crow’s nest.

“Where away?” called the French captain. Renaud turned in a circle to see if the newcomer was a threat. He saw the thin trace of smoke on the horizon and then as he watched the Argo came into view.

“It’s only the cargo barge, Argo. She poses no threat, Captain, I can assure you.”

The captain looked from his binoculars to the French spy. “I’ve seen a lot of barges before, my good man, but I have never seen one under coal power.”

“What?” Renaud asked as he took the binoculars from the captain and then sighted the line of smoke and the large barge producing it.

“Now, sir, explain this.”

“The barge is in no way a threat. I’ve seen it. I’ve also seen her cargo of rail ties, track, and a locomotive.”

“Well, it seems she has a brave crew, because they are coming on as if attacking!” The last few words to the spy were yelled by the French captain.

“Starboard batteries, stop that ship!”

“Starboard batteries, open fire, fire as your guns come to bear!”

As the Especial and the other two frigates turned toward the approaching threat, the eruption of gunfire shook the Osiris as she let fly all twenty-three guns of her starboard gun crews.

John Henry, Taylor, Jackson, Claire, and Gray Dog watched in the distance as twenty-three exploding rounds impacted the sea around Argo. They saw the water geyser up and over the slim platform and still the Argo kept steaming toward them. Claire saw both Thomas and Jackson saying the same words. “Wait for it, wait for it.”

A second burst of rifled cannon flamed their charges toward the approaching Argo. This time several warheads detonated on her massive wooden decks. The topmost portion of the barge seemed to go up in flaming wreckage as the crew on Osiris cheered loudly.

Claire gasped as she realized that their savior had lasted only moments into the engagement. Jessy felt the heat from the flaming wreckage as it cascaded into the Black Sea.

As they watched, only John Henry and Captain Jackson knew what would emerge from the smoke and flames.

“My God!” Claire yelled as she grabbed Gray Dog by the shoulder and shook the small Comanche.

The Argo came free of the churned water and smoke. The black soot still rose from her flaming superstructure but it looked as if the barge were still intact. Her decks were smashed and her crew was nowhere to be seen on the deck that was now awash in flames.

“Why does she keep coming?” Taylor asked just as the four French vessels turned in full force to meet this strange but seemingly inept threat by the Americans. Argo maneuvered herself in between the heavily damaged Carpenter and the flaming Chesapeake. She slowly turned to face the enemy.

“She’s doing what she has been designed to do,” Jackson said proudly as he watched the smoking ruin of the Argo wedge itself between them and a cruel fate. Just as the lead warship, Osiris, fired her front gun mount, Jackson jumped and shook a fist and then just before the shell struck the barge the young and enthusiastic captain turned and faced Taylor and Claire. “Finally, Miss Anderson, Colonel Taylor, I give you the real U.S.S. Argo!”

The captain of Osiris watched as the strange vessel ignored her battle damage and still managed to maneuver inside their blockade of the two American warships. He raised his field glasses and watched as the large barge swung around and faced the oncoming threat.

“Foolish people, will they never learn?” he said as he handed the glasses to Renaud, who was amazed at the American audacity. It was the most shockingly brave act he had ever seen, but as the captain said, very foolish. “Forward number one mount, fire!”

Renaud instinctually ducked his head as the twenty-five-pounder cut loose her shot. They actually saw the abbreviated arc of the warhead as it traveled the quarter mile to its intended target — Argo.

The warhead detonated on the forecastle of the barge. The explosion sent debris flying high and the crews of the four French vessels cheered as if they had just seen a marvelous sporting event. It was all in good sport, as the Europeans would say.

They were about to learn it was no longer a European century, though.

The captain took the glasses from a very happy Renaud and scanned the seas ahead, expecting to see the bow of the Argo shot away and possibly sinking. As the smoke cleared and the seas settled, the crews cheered once more as they saw the Argo was splitting into two distinct pieces. The starboard side exploded outward and then that was followed by her port side from the railing to the keel, both halves slowly sliding away. As the two halves parted and split, the French sailors were amazed to see the railroad equipment that had been loaded into Argo’s hull start to fall into the Black Sea. Another cheer erupted as the prized locomotive, the supposed gift to the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, slowly rolled over and fell into the sea. Water cascaded into the air as the heavy locomotive, actually a refurbished and very much retired coal burner from Chicago, sent a large wave over the wreckage.

“That was not a well-thought-out tactic by the Americans. I don’t see what all the fuss over American ability is about. All we needed was—”

The explosion struck so close to the Osiris that the cascading water threw Renaud from his feet just as another explosion rocked the nearby Especial. The captain raised his glass once again and saw a sight that froze the blood in his veins. There, driving through the smoke and flames and shedding the last of her camouflaged hull, was the U.S.S. Argo, the latest creation of that Swedish madman and engineer, John Ericsson, the man who made the Battle of Hampton Roads the turning point in naval warfare in the recent history of the world. That night when Ericsson’s folly, the U.S.S. Monitor, battled the Confederate ironclad, Merrimack, the navies of the world had instantaneously become obsolete overnight.

The ironclad broke free of her own debris and the captain of Osiris gasped at the low-slung, black smoke — spewing Monitor-class warship as she started belching fire from her main battery, the revolving turret housing the fifty-five-pound Columbiad cannon.

The shells started firing in rapid succession as the French captains opened fire on the amazing ship and its hearty crew. The Argo started to return fire just as the first of the French shells exploded against her iron decking and turret. The tall smokestack took a direct hit and bent somewhat, but still the Argo came on, the American flag waving proudly at her indestructible stern. Everyone could see her as her crew braved the exploding rounds striking the thick armor plate as they cut away the last of the flotation balloons that had kept her afloat during her long and arduous voyage.

The detonations of her armored shells started to smash into the wooden hulls of the French frigates. It didn’t matter where they were in line; large pieces of wood, flame, and men arched into the sky from the seemingly invulnerable American warship.

Renaud screamed in anger at the obvious American deception. He stood only to be knocked down again by the explosions sent their way by the Argo, which continued to fire round after exploding round into the French squadron.

Acting as a shield, Argo fronted the two damaged American frigates and kept the wolves at bay.

A cheer erupted on the decks of the Chesapeake and the Carpenter so loud that the French sailors could hear the joy of the Americans even over the shelling and the orders for them to turn about.

“We must not run. We have what we want right there!” Renaud shook a shaking finger toward the two disabled ships in front of them.

“Are you mad?” the captain said as he angrily pushed the French spy’s hand down. “That is French war shot bouncing harmlessly into the air! We cannot sustain an attack against this … this … pestilence of the sea!”

The mighty warship started to swing about as did the other three. The Especial looked as if she wouldn’t last the day and the Osiris was listing heavily to port as she made her turn to the east, away from the trap set by the cursed Americans.

“That did it!” Jackson called out as he spied the French retreat. “They’re making a run back to Trabzon to lick their wounds!” The crew of Carpenter erupted again as most stopped for the briefest of moments of battling her flaming decks and rigging to witness the most inglorious end to French dominance in the Black Sea.

John Henry watched as the gift from President Lincoln sat between them and the retreating squadron of heavily damaged warships. Jackson joined Thomas and a stunned-to-silence Taylor and a mortified Claire. Gray Dog could only smile at the audaciousness of the plan. Thomas nodded at Jackson, the wunderkind of the U.S. Navy and a favorite of John Ericsson, the inventor of the new ironclad warship, the U.S.S. Argo.

“Signal Argo, and say to Captains Ferguson and Faraday, well done indeed,” Jackson said proudly.

The flashes of light from the now-visible crew on the top deck of the ironclad answered Carpenter’s praise.

“Captain Ferguson signals, sorry he was late; had a little problem asking directions from the locals. The Russians found them adrift and were most helpful in towing them here.”

John Henry and Jackson laughed. Claire and Taylor on the other hand did not.

“Ah, you can always count on our friend the czar. He likes no one. He interfered just enough to embarrass the French and English!” Jackson said as he replaced the hat upon his head and then straightened his filthy tunic.

“When were you going to let us in on the big ruse?” Taylor asked as his brows and hackles rose.

“I figured the great Confederate tactician would have figured it out,” John Henry said as he also turned to Claire. “And as for the master spy of Mr. Pinkerton, are you saying all of this construction and deception took place right under your nose? Imagine that!”

“Can you imagine my thoughts at this very moment, Colonel Thomas?” Claire said as she nonchalantly brushed grime from her dress.

“About the same as mine,” Taylor said as he watched the two smug men before them.

“Captain, the Argo is flashing,” said the wounded first officer standing at the damaged helm. “She’s asking if we need a tow into Constantinople.”

“Signal Captain Ferguson, not at this time. We will sail with full colors into the capital.”

“The capital?” Claire asked, astounded at the bold statement. “With every Turkish officer in the country looking for us, you wish to go to the capital? Have you lost your minds?”

Thomas and Jackson exchanged looks and then looked back to Claire and Taylor.

“Yes,” they both said simultaneously.

30

As the three American warships tied up at the docks on the western side of the strait, the British battle cruiser Westfield sat anchored in the middle of the Bosphorus. All eyes were on the long procession of carriages as the Americans were greeted. They watched as the sultan himself was escorted to the dock as John Henry, Captain Jackson, and Colonel Taylor walked calmly down the boarding ramp to greet the sultan. Captains Ferguson and Faraday came over from the ironclad, Argo, to meet the three men face-to-face for the first time. Hearty handshakes and slaps on the back were made as the sultan was cheered heavily by the capital’s faithful. He raised a hand in greeting to his subjects as he confronted the four Americans. Claire and Gray Dog watched with the rest of the three crews who lined the railings of all three ships.

It was Claire who noticed the crew of the Argo was leaving the ironclad with their seabags slung over their shoulders, saluting the naval ensign at the stern of Argo as they stepped onto the dock. Her brows rose as she thought about what was really taking place below on the dock.

The sultan greeted Thomas with a bear hug just as John Henry bent low at the waist in greeting the monarch. The burly man in his splendid green uniform with the bright red fez reached for Thomas and hugged him like a large bear.

“It was reported to me that you faced serious threats to our planned activities upon the mountain. Is this true?”

“We encountered” — John Henry looked at Jessy and a ramrod-straight Ferguson and Jackson — “some resistance from not very imaginative officials of your government, sir.”

“Yes,” the sultan laughed heartily. “The idiots only think of me as the jovial fool that sits upon the throne of all Islam, but we know the truth, do we not, Colonel Thomas?”

“Yes, sir, we do.”

“Good.” He gestured to the rear of his procession and snapped his fingers. A man was led forward in chains. It was the commanding general of the Seventh Guards Regiment who was looking none too pleased with his current situation. “Because several of my trusted advisors seem to have been listening to the rumors of my early abdication.” He turned and faced the rotund general and then used his manicured fingers to send him away to a fate awaiting him that John Henry wished upon no man.

“So, have you gentlemen retrieved what it was you came for?” the sultan asked, exposing his gold-capped front teeth.

“Yes, sir, we have our samples and will be returning them to the States with thanks from our nation.” He looked at Jessy and smirked. “The entire nation.”

“Very well, I guess that concludes our business.”

A shocked Jessy leaned into Captain Jackson and whispered, “But we didn’t deliver the railroad as promised. The sultan seems to be taking this rather nonchalantly.”

Jackson smiled and then nodded his head in the direction of the dock behind him. Men with green uniforms were marching up the gangway of the Argo. They took up guard stations around and upon the American ironclad.

“The railroad was never the gift promised to the sultan, but Argo was.” Jackson looked sad and forlorn as he placed a hand on the shoulder of Lieutenant Ferguson and his subordinate, Lieutenant Faraday, feeling for the men as they were currently losing their first command. “The sultan of the Ottoman Empire now has the single most powerful navy in the Black Sea region. The Argo is now his.”

The sultan laughed as he dipped his head to the Americans. “Please inform your President Lincoln, the Ottoman Empire’s fondest wish is for American prosperity at such a difficult time.”

“We will, Your Majesty,” John Henry said and then all four officers came to attention as the sultan turned and waved at his citizens and they cheered him as he made his way to his newest, and proudest warship — U.S.S. Argo.

The officers watched the sultan leave and then Jackson turned to the crew that lined the decks of Chesapeake and Carpenter. “Three cheers for the sultan!”

“Hip, hip, hooray,” sounded three times from the American vessels as the 317th marching band erupted spontaneously in a rousing chorus of “Yankee Doodle,” even enticing the Rebel contingent, what was left of them, to sing along. The sultan continued to wave at the crowds as he boarded his new ironclad.

“Before you say anything, I must remind you, Colonel Taylor, that you never in your life could keep a secret,” John Henry said as he headed off the anger of the Confederate colonel.

“Who was I going to tell? The fish on the way over here?” he argued.

“For all I know you were going to desert me and take your men with you. Then where would I be with my secrets out in the open, huh?”

“I gave you my word, John Henry!” Jessy argued as he followed close behind Thomas.

“Your word? Please!”

Claire watched them leave as the crews of the two frigates began the tedious repairs needed for their voyage home. She wondered if John Henry’s distrust still included her. Claire smiled as she extended her purple parasol and spun it lazily and then she slowly fell in line as the officers argued onto the gangway. Maybe, maybe not, she thought, but she had plenty of time to work on that trust. She hummed “Yankee Doodle” as she strolled onto the deck of the Carpenter.

“You trust Gray Dog!”

“Gray Dog doesn’t go around drinking and bragging about his exploits as you do, Colonel.”

“I have never bragged about anything that didn’t deserve to be bragged about, Colonel Yankee, sir!”

Claire continued to hum as she thought about the way the argument would continue all the way home. That was when she knew her future.

“Yes, I have plenty of time to work on Colonel John Henry Thomas.”

Private Willard, resplendent in his recently bought suit, made his way down a crowded Pennsylvania Avenue. The men and women he passed seemed jovial and ignored the shy boy from the south. The private held a satchel tight to his chest as he made his way past the gate of the White House. He presented the guards there with the sealed envelope and the satchel sent from Colonel Thomas. The guards eyed the boy and then told him to wait while they delivered the letter and package to the president.

Willard cautiously looked around him. His eyes fell on the fluttering American flags draping the windows of the White House. Before the guard could return to escort him in to see the president, an overwhelming sense of loss filled the boy’s mind. The three-month journey home had aged the nineteen-year-old by at least five years. He once more looked at the flags and then sadly turned away, wanting nothing more than to return home to a father who waited for him and the horses he so loved. He sadly turned away and went into an unknown future.

When the guard returned he faced his fellow soldier. “Where did he go?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

The first guard shrugged and then took up station at the family entrance to the White House.

President Lincoln sat at his large desk. Secretary of State Seward smoked his cigar and then faced his longtime adversary and friend. He flicked his long cigar ash into the cold fireplace.

“All I am saying is that those … those things should be thrown into the sea,” Seward said as he stared at Lincoln.

“And would you have me do the same when Colonel Thomas arrives? Throw his hard-won prize into the sea?”

“Things have changed since Colonel Thomas and his men left Baltimore and you know it. The war is over. We won. We now have all the time in the world to gain the trust and respect of the southern states. We need not announce to the world what it is that our arrogance has wrought.”

“That is not the problem you foresee, old friend. What is it?”

“This thing could backfire into our faces. If the public had an inkling of what we exposed the nation to on the high seas and at Ararat, the gains we have made since Appomattox would be moot. Trust would be lost when they learn we exposed them to a possible shooting war with the two most powerful nations in Europe.” Seward lowered his head and once more faced the cold fireplace.

“There’s something else bothering you, Mr. Secretary. Tell me what it is,” Lincoln said as he unclasped the satchel containing Ollafson’s original artifacts — the cursed petrified wood of the Ark. He saw the wrapped cloth and slowly opened it. “The Carpenter and her crew will arrive any day now. I’m sure they wish this ordeal over also. Being interned at Gibraltar by the British had to try their patience. Now tell me, after so long at sea what do my intrepid explorers and discoverers of myth and legend have to fear?”

“I have received word from a reliable source that a United States marshal will be awaiting the Carpenter’s arrival. He plans to arrest Colonel Taylor for murder. The warrant was sworn out while the Carpenter was interned for the months of February and March on the bogus plague rumor spread by Her Majesty’s government. But the warrant is very real, Mr. President.”

“Murder, you say?” the president asked.

“Yes, it seems the gentleman bringing the charges is the same disgraced commandant at Lafayette prison that our intrepid Colonel Thomas had arrested. The former officer is highly placed in the abolitionist movement and it seems his father is well connected to both parties.”

The president shook his head slowly as his fingers ran along the cloth that covered the artifacts. “That will not happen, Mr. Seward. Am I clear on this point?” The blaze in the president’s eyes was unmistakable. He was angry.

“Yes, Mr. President, but that, sir, is my concern. The bastard will obviously bring Colonel Taylor kicking and screaming into the forefront right when we don’t need it. I mean, who could ever blame the colonel for mounting a defense against murder? The parameters of your mission to Turkey will come full circle and be out in the open. What then?”

“I see your point, Mr. Secretary. I’m sure we can manage to whisk away our Confederate accomplice before the evil abolitionists make their arrest. See to it.”

Lincoln held Seward’s stare. They both missed the shadow as it slipped from the cloth wrapping and slid off the large desk and then vanished into the wall of the president’s office.

“I’ll do my best,” Seward said as he reached for his hat and coat and slipped them on. A light knock sounded at the door and Seward pulled it open. It was the president’s personal secretary, John Hay.

“Sir, the First Lady is waiting in the carriage. And she stresses beyond reason that you will be late if you don’t hurry.”

“On that note, I’m off to save the world, at least a certain Confederate colonel’s world.” Seward tipped his top hat toward the president, who only smiled that soft smile of his as the secretary of state left the office.

“What was that, John?” the president asked as his fingers undid the twine and then he ran his long fingers over the engraved Angelic symbols. He shivered.

“Mrs. Lincoln, the theater?”

“Oh, Nelly, just about incurred the wrath of the real boss, didn’t I?” the president said as he placed the cloth back over the relics and then placed them inside his desk. He smiled and then accepted Hay’s help in getting into his coat.

“And what horrible miscarriage of theater are we witnessing this evening?” he asked.

“My American Cousin, a comedy, I believe.”

The president buttoned his coat and then smiled at John Hay.

“Well, I guess I’d better skedaddle out of here,” he said as he placed a fatherly hand on his secretary’s shoulder. “You keep your ear to the pavement, John. You get me out of that theater if Colonel Thomas sends word that he’s arrived while I’m at the play, clear?”

“Immediately, Mr. President.”

John Hay watched as the tall, lean president walked toward the doorway. He thought he saw something strange as the president ducked his head to exit. It looked like his shadow, but it was not opposite the lamps in the office.

“Curious,” he said, and then shrugged it off.

The president of the United States would never meet his old friend again and see his wonderful prize. He had a date with the man known as John Wilkes Booth, who for the past five months had been plagued by dreams of dark shadows coming at him in the dark. The nightmares had nearly driven the actor insane.

The harbor was eerily silent as the Carpenter slid in on the night’s tide. It was an hour later that her tired crew tied up at the U.S. Navy berth at pier sixteen. The sailors were silent as they went about securing the ragged bulk of the damaged warship. The men kept looking around at the emptiness of the pier. The only sound was the soft whisper of the water as it lapped against the tired old hull.

A knock sounded on the door and Jessy stepped into the captain’s cabin, once more occupied by John Henry. The colonel looked from Taylor to Claire, who slipped easily into her shawl. She smiled at Taylor as she moved by him to the companionway. She stopped and faced Jessy. She held out her small hand.

“Colonel, I did not know if I would ever have the opportunity of saying this since the first moment we met, especially after barely overcoming your brashness and your true southern charm, but despite first impressions, it has truly been an honor,” she said as she looked straight into his dark eyes.

Taylor, dressed as a civilian once more, twisted his hat in his hand and then took Claire’s into his own and instead of shaking it he bent over and once more kissed it.

“The honor, Madame, has been this officer’s, I assure you.”

Claire gave him a small curtsy and then left the two men alone.

John Henry took the colonel in. He looked forlorn without his proud gray tunic. Now Jessy looked like an ordinary man. They had not spoken much, and for that matter the entire contingent of remaining Rebel soldiers, all twenty-eight of them, had remained to themselves after showing such camaraderie with the rest of the Union marines and sailors after the damnable British had gotten word to them while they were quarantined at Gibraltar that General Lee had surrendered to Ulysses Grant that very day in Virginia.

The shock had been hard on the men. While the Union men silently celebrated the end to the bloody affair, the Confederate prisoners became silent and reflective. As for Taylor he withdrew with the question every soldier had to answer for himself — what was it all for?

“What now, Jessy?” John Henry asked as he buttoned his tunic.

Taylor entered the cabin and then walked to the large windows at the stern and saw the calm waters of the harbor. Thomas watched him.

“Mary’s death wasn’t your fault, John Henry,” Jessy said without turning to face him. “But I needed to blame you. I had to make sense out of things and I did blame you for allowing my sister to talk you into her joining you in Texas. I can’t blame two people for loving each other. But when we lost her, I couldn’t see the truth of things, even though I tried. Every time I thought of her, I saw you, my best friend. Love turned to hate so fast” — he turned and faced John Henry — “so hard, that I saw you differently. I resented the fact that you lived and she died. You see, we’re expected to take the risks, fight the good fight, but never are we prepared to lose those who are innocent of that life.”

Thomas pulled at the hem of his coat and then cleared his throat. “You heading west?”

Jessy smiled and John Henry saw his old friend for the first time in years.

“I was always more comfortable west of the Mississippi. You know that.” Taylor placed his boot on a chair and then looked at his brother-in-law. “What about you? Going to let Uncle Abe talk you into staying?”

“I think I’ve given about all I can to my country. Time to take a shot at living.”

“And I thought you still wanted to be King of the Army,” Taylor said as he straightened and walked toward Thomas.

“Being king isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Look at the sultan.”

Both men laughed as they shook hands.

Gray Dog, resplendent in a brand-new purple shirt and his ever-present coyote-head hat, poked his head through the open doorway.

“Fat men with cigars are here.”

“I see Gray Dog’s power of description is getting better,” Taylor said as he gestured for John Henry to precede him out of the cabin.

Captain Jackson met the three men at the top of the companionway. He smiled and for the first time in recorded history Jackson seemed pleased with life.

“There’s been some snafu. The navy has no assigned men to offload the cargo, so it will have to stay aboard until tomorrow.”

“Then what for the navy?” Jessy asked the young officer he had come to respect.

“I think I’m going to accept the research-and-development position open with Mr. Ericsson.”

“Leave the navy?” Thomas asked, astounded that the career officer would even consider resigning his commission.

“There is a new science rising from the depths of the sea, gentlemen, called submarines, and I want in.”

“What in the hell is that?” Jessy asked.

“Why it’s the most exciting thing to come along in—”

“What it is, is beyond us,” John Henry said, cutting off Jackson’s enthusiastic answer.

The men were all on deck as the three officers and Gray Dog came up from below. The men all stood on the main deck and looked up at the men who had gotten them home. Many had been lost, but these men, from both sides of the war, had become used to the empty chair at the table when a comrade had fallen. This time there were quite a few empty chairs, but for the men who made it back that spring day in April, the smells of home were enough.

As one the men — all sailors, 317th band members, marines, and all civilian-dressed Confederate prisoners — stood to attention and then as one saluted the three men.

John Henry was the first to react. He did not return the salute, which shocked both Jessy and Jackson. Even Gray Dog raised a brow at the possible snub in courtesy. Claire came up, aware of what was happening.

“Gentlemen, lower your hands, please.”

The men didn’t know what to do at first as hands started down, then went back into salute, but then they all slowly lowered their right hands as they watched the army colonel.

“It is not we who deserve the respect you give us, but it is we who owe you everything. We had the honor of commanding the bravest men in any army in the world. It doesn’t matter how we started out, it is where we ended up — as friends and men we respect. Gentlemen, it has been our great honor.”

The men watched as Jackson and Taylor stepped up beside John Henry and all three saluted the men down below.

The men all saluted and then watched as John Henry, Jackson, Claire, and Jessy made for the gangway to greet the fat men with cigars.

The three men and one lady waited for the five men to transit from an ornate carriage to the long dock. Gray Dog had left, and where he was John Henry could not say.

The men stepped from shadow into light and the three officers froze and Claire actually gasped.

These weren’t representatives of the president. Three of the men had large stars pinned to their lapels and were carrying papers. The other three wore refined suits and flashed signs of wealth the men noticed immediately. It was the man in the middle who had their attention. He was no longer in uniform and looked quite smug.

“Colonel Jessop Taylor?” the large man in front asked. He had a large handlebar moustache and was armed, as his open coat clearly demonstrated.

“What is the meaning of this?” John Henry asked, cursing himself for not putting his holster onto his belt. All he had was his worthless sword. He looked at Jackson and he was in the same state of unreadiness.

“This is a signed warrant for the arrest of Colonel Jessop Taylor, prisoner number 59503476, Camp Lafayette. Charges are murder while attempting escape from federal custody.”

“This is ridiculous,” Jackson said as he reached for the warrant quickly enough that the two deputies beside the marshal drew their revolvers. The captain immediately shot a look of hatred at the men. John Henry lowered the captain’s hand and eased him back.

“I’m Colonel Taylor,” Jessy said as he stepped forward.

“Did you think I would brush this under the rug? Did you think I would allow a backwoods Rebel officer to ruin my military career without doing something about it? I told you that day I would get to you, Colonel, and now I have.”

Taylor didn’t flinch as he took in the small-framed man he had so embarrassed. The former major, Nelson Freeman, stood between two of his father’s expensive attorneys and smirked.

“We’ll see what the president has to say to your federal warrant.”

Nelson Freeman honestly looked taken aback. He looked from his companions to the lone woman in the group, Claire. He wondered what her story was in all of this.

“You don’t know, do you?” Freeman asked as he placed his hands on his hips as if he were lecturing.

“Know what?” Claire asked anxiously, not liking the smug look on the former prisoner-of-war-camp commandant.

“President Lincoln. He was assassinated three days ago in Washington.”

Taylor reached out and steadied John Henry as the news sank into the deepest part of his soul.

“Oh, my God,” Claire said as she brought her hands up to cover her mouth.

The federal marshal stepped forward and turned Jessy around and placed manacles on his wrists. He turned him around to face his accuser. Angered shouts rose from the deck of the Carpenter as the men watched one of their own being detained. Several curses were flung onto the dock.

“My lawyers have done some investigating of our own. It seems we may have uncovered a web of illegal activity. There will be a warrant issued in the morning, confiscating your cargo. Yes, we know all about the Ollafson expedition and know what it was you were after. Your cargo will be public knowledge by tomorrow, along with a full accounting of certain indiscretions when it comes to war department funds being funneled illegally through the Department of the Navy. Yes, I’m afraid there’s to be an accounting, gentlemen. And the proof we need to scar the president and hang you is currently in your hold. Your friends in office will run for cover on this one. I mean, with a new administration and all, what’s a few worthless old soldiers?”

The second deputy stepped forward and presented a large sealed paper.

“Captain Jackson?”

Jackson didn’t respond; he only looked at the pistol the deputy never holstered. The man simply held out the paper.

“This is to inform you of your cargo’s confiscation. It is to be locked up until federal marshals arrive to secure it.”

Jackson finally accepted the warrant.

Suddenly several men jumped onto the dock from the rigging. They all had rifles. John Henry quickly noted that it wasn’t only Rebel soldiers, but U.S. Marines in full uniform confronting the marshals.

“We expected something like this. Brothers in arms and all of that,” Freeman said just as a hundred federal officers swarmed the dock from a warehouse nearby.

John Henry, recovering too slowly from the shock at hearing of his friend’s murder, waved the men to lower their weapons. He returned his gaze not to the officers, but to Freeman and held it there. The man smiled, felt it fail, and then smiled again, this time giving up on it. The stare from the colonel had totally unnerved him.

The marshal started walking Jessy down the dock toward the waiting carriage. It was John Henry who made the first move, just as a hundred crewmen and soldiers on the deck of Carpenter sprang into action by raising a hundred Henry rifles over the gunwale of the ship. Their aim was at the hundred deputized men of the marshal’s service.

“This is madness,” one of the high-priced attorneys said loudly as his hands flew into the air.

“As our own history says, sir, if there is to be war, let it begin here,” John Henry said to the U.S. marshals with a glint in his eye. Even Claire had her small Derringer out and at her side.

“You will not dodge this, Colonel,” Freeman said as he took a menacing step forward.

He jumped back in terror when an arrow struck the wooden dock only inches from his polished shoes.

John Henry didn’t have to look up to know that Gray Dog was above them in the rigging.

“Everyone, at ease and lower those weapons!” came a booming voice from the shadows.

Every man froze but no one lowered anything. The standoff was real and no one was about to back away from this.

“I said lower those weapons!”

Freeman smirked. “I would do as they say, Colonel, or you’ll be responsible for more of your command’s deaths.”

“The marshals’ also. Lower them damn weapons or suffer the wrath of the Lord!”

Freeman’s eyes widened as he turned and saw United States Army soldiers break from the very same warehouse his men had come from.

As they watched, a large, rotund man emerged. His cigar was glowing and he wore a giant bowler hat. The three-piece suit was rumpled, but expensive.

“Do you want to force me to kill every one of you sons of bitches?”

John Henry looked to his men aboard ship and on the docks. He nodded and they all followed orders.

Claire smiled as she recognized the heavyset man. He looked at her and quickly shook his head for her to stay in place.

“I have a signed warrant for the release of this man.”

“We also have a warrant,” the marshal said as he finally holstered his weapon.

“That right?” the man said as he clamped down hard on his cigar. “Well, my warrant is signed by the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court,” the man said as he leaned in to look at the warrant in the marshal’s hand. “You have a signature like that?” He saw the marshal’s face drop. “Yeah, I thought not.” He reached out and took Colonel Taylor by the arm and pulled him back. He reached into his pocket and brought out a duplicate key and unlocked the manacles.

Jessy rubbed his wrists and then as he approached John Henry he pursed his lips and raised his dark brows as if saying, That was too close.

“Now, gentlemen, run along. I’ll take it from here.”

“This cannot be legal!” Freeman cried as his hatred flowed through his eyes as he watched Taylor walk free. The man was pulled away by the marshals as they and their men backed away in the direction they had come. The crazed eyes of a very insane Freeman never left Jessy’s face as the colonel blew the abolitionist a kiss, which infuriated the man even further as he struggled to shake free of the hands that held him.

“Uncle Allan, I didn’t think you cared!” Claire said as she ran to the large man and swung her arms around his neck while still holding the Derringer pistol, forcing all the officers to duck as the man swung his niece in a circle.

“Uncle Allan?” Jessy said as John Henry realized just who this man was.

“He’s your uncle?” Thomas asked when the man set her down.

The man sniffed and then tossed his cigar into the stagnant waters of the harbor. He held out his bear-claw hand.

“Allan Pinkerton,” he said as John Henry shook his hand.

“What happened to Mr. Lincoln?” he asked, not caring about anything else until he learned the truth, and all that entered his mind was the fact that he had forwarded the artifacts to the White House, and possibly the curse of Noah along with it.

Pinkerton released the colonel’s hand and then removed his hat as he explained.

“Yes, I understand from certain circles that you and the president were extremely close. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to prevent that madman from shooting him.”

“What madman?” Jackson asked.

“Name was John Wilkes Booth. He murdered the president while he watched a play at Ford’s Theatre, against my advice, I may add.” Pinkerton saw that the men before him weren’t asking to place blame. They actually needed to know about the man who had sent them to a world of mystery and death. “Troops cornered the coward in a barn not far from here, killed him.”

“So what does that mean for us?” Claire asked.

Pinkerton shook his head. “Well, that’s the real wrench in the old cog, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?” Jackson asked.

“What Mr. Pinkerton means, gentlemen, and lady, is that you cannot exist. Your cargo cannot exist; therefore, you must vanish.”

They all turned and saw an aged, drawn face they immediately recognized as Secretary of State William Seward. The man was literally being held up by three burly men. The secretary stepped into the light to show the returning officers the results of the night the president was murdered. The cuts were evident on his facial features. The hands were covered in cotton gloves and it looked as if the secretary had risen from his deathbed to meet them. John Henry and Jackson walked forward and assisted in getting the secretary to a piling, where he gratefully sat down. The blanket was pulled tight around his gaunt frame.

“I told him he shouldn’t come, but he insisted,” Pinkerton said as he reached into his pocket and retrieved a small bottle of laudanum. Claire recognized the strong painkiller the moment she saw it. “The same bastards that conspired to kill the president also targeted Mr. Seward and Vice President Johnson.” He held the bottle to the secretary’s lips and he swallowed the pain-killing dose. “They took a knife to the secretary and his wife.”

“Has the world gone totally mad?” Claire asked.

Seward waved everyone to silence. He gestured to Allan Pinkerton and waved for a package. The spy removed a large envelope from his coat and then passed it to Jessy Taylor.

“What is this?” he asked, expecting more bad news.

“A new start. Since you are now wanted for murder, and since we cannot very well allow you to take the witness stand to defend yourself, we are therefore creating a new you, Colonel.” Pinkerton slapped the envelope. “Use it well.”

Jessy looked at John Henry, who nodded that it was his only option.

“What of my men?” he asked.

“Their discharge papers are awaiting them. Back pay based on our Union scale for each man below the rank of sergeant will be allotted — the sum of fifty-six dollars and forty-two cents.”

“So, that’s the going rate for what we did?” John Henry asked angrily.

“Yes, that and the fact you completed the mission as ordered should serve you well when it comes to the question, “‘What did you do in the great uprising of 1861, Granddad?’”

The angry eyes turned to Pinkerton, who didn’t make any excuses for his harsh words. Thomas knew he had a point. Why would he expect any consideration from people who just didn’t care?

Seward coughed. “I was never in favor of this stunt, but you men … actually pulled it off. Now I’m sorry to say the Ark and all of its records must be destroyed.”

“What?”

“Why?”

The questions were venomous as they were spoken.

“Since we lost Mr. Lincoln, we lost all credibility on what is right and what is wrong. The order of the day is punishment.” He coughed again and then pushed one of the large men’s hands away as he continued. “If it now became public knowledge, we would lose the legacy of the man who led us through this disaster, and as his friend, I cannot allow that.” He looked directly at John Henry. “As I’m sure you will agree. History is never fact until it’s written down.”

“Captain Jackson, your last set of orders, sir,” Pinkerton said as he sadly handed over a thin sheet of paper. “From Secretary of the Navy Welles.”

Jackson read the order and then he exhaled as he found he couldn’t catch his breath.

“Accident?” he asked, directing his question at the sickly Seward.

“Yes, you are to set the Carpenter adrift and she will succumb to an onboard explosion of her powder magazine. The accident will remain a mystery. Is that clear?” Seward asked with his gray eyes boring in on the young naval officer. “The portion of the Ark you have gallantly returned to our shores is to be sent to the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay.”

The three men gathered Secretary Seward into their arms and lifted him free of the dock. He paused and turned to face the men he had hurt beyond measure.

“I am truly sorry. Colonel, your reputation will be tarnished. You will be held responsible for the damage to two American warships and thus far, the disappearance of another, the Yorktown. That we cannot cover up, sir. I’m sorry. That little weasel Freeman will see to it you are embroiled in controversy the rest of your life. And we couldn’t very well kill off the entire abolitionist front, now could we?”

Pinkerton leaned over and kissed his niece on the cheek and then faced a stunned John Henry. He slapped a large envelope into Jessy’s hands.

“There are two complete sets of identification papers inside. Use them, Colonel. You owe the nation nothing.”

The three officers and Claire watched the men vanish into the darkness along with their futures.

The New York Herald reported the bizarre accident that happened inside the Chesapeake Bay area of Baltimore. It seemed an old and damaged warship, the Carpenter, exploded with no hands aboard killed. It was said by the Navy Department that an unsecured storage locker and an unattended lamp were the cause. The ship and its cargo of newly designed uniforms gifted to the United States Army from the sultan of the Ottoman Empire sank in deep water and recovery of the cargo was ruled out. When asked to comment on the accident, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles was quoted as saying, “They were godawful uniforms anyway.” Congress was not so quick to laugh.

The rowboat eased out into the harbor. At the oars was a large man with black hair and a recently purchased suit. The man pulled as he looked at the woman and the two men sitting against the transom of the boat as they easily made their way through the fog. One of the men was dressed as always in his bright, stiff naval uniform, the other in a new suit like himself.

Bertram T. Bartles eased up the oars when he heard the soft chime of the ship’s bell.

“I hope you didn’t take us to the wrong ship, Bertram?”

Jessy looked at John Henry and made a sour face.

“I want to meet the man who came up with that alias, let me tell you. At least you have a name that people won’t laugh at behind your back.”

“Yes, I do like his new name,” Claire said as she placed her arm through the stiff-looking former colonel’s.

“Okay Mr.—”

“Don’t say it until I get used to the name,” John Henry said as they came through the dense fog and rounded the stern of a large ship. Claire looked up and smiled.

Rising above them, the fog had parted to show the name emblazoned across the stern — U.S.S. Yorktown.

Jessy laid to near the gangway and they were met by an officer who assisted the four aboard. As they stepped upon the deck they hadn’t seen since they’d parted ways in Constantinople, they saw the activity aboard as men went from station to station silently performing their last duties aboard Yorktown. The first face Jessy saw once on the main deck was Gray Dog, who had been hidden since the night in Baltimore when they tragically lost the Carpenter.

They were greeted by none other than Lieutenant Ferguson, the man who had saved them in the unreported and highly secretive Battle of the Black Sea, as the men had dubbed it. He saluted Jackson as he was the only man in uniform.

“Report?” Jackson said as he returned the salute.

“We’re off-loading the last of the crates now.”

John Henry, Jessy, and Claire, with a Comanche Indian at their side, watched the last of the crates being raised above the ship’s railing toward the open water.

“The Ark was sent to rendezvous with the Yorktown in the Mediterranean along with the wagons you sent south, the long route, you sneaky bastard. We had nothing but rocks the whole time,” Taylor said as he watched the last of the giant crates as it teetered on the end of the long cables of the crane that held it in place. “You really didn’t trust me, did you?”

John Henry smiled. “Not on your life. Besides, it wasn’t my fault you failed to notice what was going on which wagon.”

“I say again: sneaky bastard.”

All eyes watched as the last of the crates containing Noah’s magnificent vessel eased into the waters of New York Harbor where they would remain forever.

“Think we’ll regret depriving the world of this knowledge?” Claire asked.

“Why, so more people can kill each other over their religious beliefs instead of riches?” John Henry faced Claire and held her eyes. “They really don’t deserve to know the truth, because we haven’t changed all that much, nor was the lesson of what happened more than thirteen thousand years ago ever learned. No, the world doesn’t deserve to know.”

“Only those we left on that godforsaken mountaintop,” Jessy said as he watched the top of the crate vanish beneath the soft swell of the harbor. He decided at that moment the misery of the past few months needed to be laid to rest.

“That, as they say, is that,” Captain Jackson said. “I feel pretty splendid after our little act of treason. How about you folks? Mr. Bertram T. Bartles?”

“Very funny … Steven,” Jessy said, but smiled anyway.

“You know, there is a rumor going around about an agency tasked to go after antiquities, like the Ark,” Jackson said.

“I’m sure. Besides curses, what in the hell could we ever learn from the past?”

They all looked at Jessy and thought he was right. A government department such as that could never work.

“Could you imagine the headaches involved?” Claire said.

“It would take some extraordinary men to run something like that, and I believe we may not have the patience for it. So, if an agency ever does appear that travels the world looking for history, count me out,” Jessy said as he turned away to return to the small rowboat. He turned and faced John Henry.

“Colonel?” Thomas said as he placed his arm around Claire. This elicited another rise of the brows of Gray Dog, who took a step back from the white woman.

“We really did rattle the gates of heaven, though, didn’t we?”

Jackson, Ferguson, and John Henry exchanged looks and then Thomas’s eyes and smile settled back on his old friend.

“That we did, Mr. Bartles. We surely did.”