The Mountain

31

Major Jack Collins lowered the journal and placed it on the chair next to him. He stood and paced to the vault’s prized exhibit — the Ark. He examined the damaged bow of the colossal ship and then made his way up the stairs of the permanent scaffolding to the top and looked down upon the reconstructed ship. The crisscross cracks that permeated the wreck had been meticulously rebuilt and aligned as they’d been before the sabotage of the British spy, Captain McDonald, more than a hundred and fifty years ago.

He walked along the theater-style seating as he looked at the large Ark, actually seeing it for the first time. He had seen it before on his initial tour but now he looked more closely at the object that had cost many men their lives. Jack didn’t think about the curse mentioned in the colonel’s journal, but he realized that if Thomas had actually penned it in the journal, it must have been very real to the men on that voyage.

Jack heard someone coming up the stairs and he turned to see Niles Compton. He was holding the journal Jack had left below. Niles was silent as he joined Collins by the railing. He leaned upon it and stared down into the cavity of the greatest archeological find in history.

“Who raised the Ark from the harbor?” Jack asked as he saw the living quarters of the family of Noah and thought about Colonel Thomas, Claire, Jessy, Captain Jackson, and Gray Dog, as they sat inside many, many years ago.

“Ah, 1961, a brash ex-senator from Maine decided to close the original Event File 00001.”

“The Ark?”

“Yes, the Ark. Senator Garrison Lee brought her up and she found her way home to the desert.”

“No curses?” Jack asked, wondering what kind of answer he would receive, and if he received one at all, just how polished it would be since Niles was trying to convince him to stay.

Compton smiled. “No, no curses. But that doesn’t mean that there was not one.” Niles faced Jack and then removed his glasses and started cleaning them with a handkerchief. “Major, we have run into some very difficult situations where we have to throw out all of the known sciences and natural phenomena and have to settle into a gray area. For instance, other than those” — he pointed down to a small display case that held the original petrified wood pieces with the Angelic symbols emblazoned upon them — “we have no absolute proof this is the Ark that Noah built. Although we have his name inscribed, along with the symbol for Azrael, the angel of death, it’s all just speculation. That’s what we do here, Jack. We try to discover where it is we have been on this small planet, and for God’s sake, where it is we are going. We’ve learned that the Ark, such as it is, is only a piece of the grand puzzle that we someday hope to solve.”

“Why me, Dr. Compton?”

“That’s the real point, isn’t it? Why you, why any of us? Because we were all meant to be here. From Gunnery Sergeant Campos, whom we buried yesterday, to the men we lost in that desert valley in Arizona, even to the small green man we have downstairs, we all belong to the history we uncover. But you?” Niles chuckled and moved to the set of stairs and started down past the ancient Ark that rose six stories above the vault floor. He gained the bottom steps and then paced to the nearest chair and sat. He closed his eyes momentarily and waited for the major.

“Vague at best, Doctor,” Jack said as he sat next to the director of Department 5656.

“This whole complex can be that way, Major.”

“Tell me. Is the file on the Ararat mission closed, or was there follow-up done?”

“Major, you’ve been here a few weeks. You’ve seen our completed files. What do you think?”

“Okay, I’ll bite. What happened to the colonel and the others?”

“Ah, the human side of the tale. Very good, Major. Let’s see. Colonel Jessop Taylor, alias Mr. Bertram Bartles. A rather famous attorney in Denver, Colorado, I believe. Represented as a civilian jurist Major Marcus Reno, Custer’s adjutant in the Seventh Cavalry in 1876, at the army’s hearing into the Little Big Horn disaster. Got him acquitted, I believe, but with the admonishment in open court that Major Reno failed his commander in the field against hostile Indian tribes, although there was no dire deed that required a court-martial. Mr. Bartles died in 1927 at the age of seventy-seven years.”

It seemed Collins had come to know the men he had read about and felt sad about learning the colonel’s fate.

“Gray Dog, now that’s a story. He eventually became the largest cattle breeder in the state of Oklahoma. He was funded by a private citizen who remained anonymous throughout the years until we discovered the source.”

“I can imagine,” Jack said, realizing that Colonel Thomas would never have abandoned his adoptive son.

“Gray Dog was accidentally killed in 1936 chasing down a band of rustlers. He fell from his horse at the ripe old age of seventy. He’s buried with honors at the soldier’s cemetery at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.”

“The navy boys?”

“Steven Jackson committed suicide in 1919 after the accidental sinking of his latest test platform, the submarine S-23, off the coast of Maine, killing all twenty-eight men onboard. He couldn’t live with himself after that. I guess he didn’t take on all of his mentors’ traits. Ericsson would have laughed it off and kept right on designing. But as you’ve read, young Captain Jackson wasn’t built that way.”

Jack reached out and picked up the battered old journal.

“We recovered it from the National Archives where Secretary of State Seward had hidden it those many years ago.”

“The colonel and Madame Claire?”

“There is the big mystery. We never uncovered the alias as given to him by the Pinkerton Agency. But you may have noticed how tenacious Senator Lee can become when he is faced with a puzzle. He finds the answers, just as he did in the case of the mysterious Colonel John Henry Thomas, for whom we could find no records from the Department of the Army after his service in the department and territory of Oklahoma, in 1863.”

“What became of him?” Jack actually needed to know.

Niles smiled as he faced the army major. “Jack, let me ask you this. Your family is steeped in military history, is it not?”

“Yes, mostly on my father’s side.”

“Yes, it’s all in your file, with the exception of your mother’s side of the family.”

“That’s because the last person to serve in the military was my mother’s father in World War II. My mother was a hippie.” Jack smiled. “My father, the polar opposite.”

Niles smiled as he learned a little more about the man to whom he wished to turn over the Group’s security. He waited for Collins to continue.

“There has always been a one-sidedness to our shared military history. On my mom’s side we have virtually all pacifists, not a soldier mentality among them.”

“Say, their priorities lie in other areas of endeavor?”

“To say the least, yes.”

“What is your mother’s maiden name, Major?”

Collins laughed as he turned away from Compton. “My mother always says she was teased about her last name and was happy when she took the married name of Collins.” He turned back to face Niles. “It was Pennypacker.”

Niles smiled as he saw Jack relax.

“Strange how genetics works its miracles, isn’t it?”

“I’m not following you, Mr. Director.”

“Your talent at soldiering. You assume it came from your father’s side, when it actually stemmed from your mother’s family.”

“Excuse me?” Collins said, getting that special feeling when you know a punch to the chin is headed your way.

Niles opened the file he had carried into the vault and then smiled again.

“Here is the birth certificate for one Harold R. Pennypacker, born in 1871 to a Mr. and Mrs. John H. Pennypacker of San Bernardino County, California. Mr. Pennypacker’s wife’s name was Claire.”

Jack felt his jaw drop open. “John Henry Pennypacker?”

“He’s your great-great-grandfather, Jack.” Niles cleared his throat. “The name he hated, just as your own mother did a hundred years later. John Henry, you see, ended up bringing water to the desert with his official office of county engineer. He was never recognized for who he really was. What he actually did for the nation.”

Collins was stunned. He had heard of the engineer who brought water to the desert of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, but that was all he thought the man was.

“John Henry Thomas died in 1919 of a heart attack. He was preceded in death by Claire three years earlier. Both never spoke about their mission to Ararat or the men who had accompanied them to that mountain.” Niles watched as the dawning of understanding wove its way across Jack’s face. “We have known about you for years, Major, and have spent a lot of time following your career just out of pure curiosity. The subject of John Henry Thomas has occupied Garrison Lee’s thoughts for sixty-plus years. When he heard you were to face the Senate hearings on mission failures in Afghanistan, the senator moved heaven and earth to save you. That’s why you’re here, Major. We need you, just as Lincoln needed John Henry many, many years ago.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Jack said as he turned away from Niles.

“Say you’ll stay, Major. My people need protection, and according to your records, you’re that man. Hell, according to your family history, you’re that man. The Event Group needs Jack Collins, the great-great-grandson of John Henry Thomas. It’s perfect and it’s deserved. Come home, Jack.”

Niles stood from his chair and then slapped Collins lightly on the arm with the Event Group numbered file. He smiled sadly and then left the vault.

Jack looked at the file and then to the journal meticulously kept by his distant relative. Then his gaze rose to the massive presence of the Ark and for the first time he felt he was a part of something. He slapped the folder into the palm of his hand and then retrieved the journal. He stepped up to the damaged and broken bow of Noah’s creation and placed a hand upon the petrified surface. He closed his eyes as if he could speak to it, or maybe it was John Henry he wanted to feel. He looked up and smiled at the prize that had been delivered to the nation, only to fall prey to vicious politics.

Major Jack Collins smiled one last time as he removed his hand from the cursed and ancient Ark. He backed out of the vault and then made his way to his quarters on level seven.

The next morning, Jack had risen to eat and was on his way to report to Niles Compton when he was stopped by the diminutive geologist, specialist fifth class, Sarah McIntire, who greeted him with her ever-present smile. The young specialist seemed to be putting the mission to Chato’s Crawl, Arizona behind her, as well as the loss of her best friend, Lisa Willing, or she was trouper enough to allow it safe storage as soldiers usually do.

“And why are you so spry this morning, Specialist?” Jack asked as she skipped for a moment and then realized Jack was still an officer. She settled in to walk beside him.

“Oh, Pete Golding asked if I wanted to observe our KH-11 satellite, Boris and Natasha, as they refuel and start her back up again.”

“That’s where I’m headed.”

“Later I am getting on a plane with Mr. Everett for our little foray to Okinawa. It seems we have a date with a possible Chinese junk from the Khan Dynasty.”

“Sounds thrilling,” Jack said as he relaxed for the first time inside of Department 5656.

“So, tell me, Major, are you accepting Senator Lee and Director Compton’s offer of gainful employment? I mean, if the scenario in Chato’s Crawl bored you, I’m sure we can come up with something that won’t. Possibly when you least expect it,” Sarah said as she held the computer center’s door open for him. He nodded his thanks and then before entering the center leaned over.

“I’ll stay as long as you promise me one thing.”

“Name it, Major.”

“Never die on me, Specialist. I don’t take that very well.”

“Ah, we never die here, Major, we only join the collection.”

Jack Collins, descendant of the man who brought back Noah’s Ark, had made his decision to accept the position offered him by Lee and Compton.

The major figured it would be far safer than a front-line military unit. After all, how dangerous could looking for ancient artifacts truly be? He entered the computer center to the cheers of the technicians as the satellite known as Boris and Natasha flared to life a hundred and seventy-five miles above the Earth.

As Jack vanished behind the electronically tinted glass center, the dark shadows inside the deep corridors of the Event Group complex underneath the desert sands of Nellis Air Force Base were constantly held at bay by the bright fluorescent lighting that was always aglow inside Department 5656.

Some silly curses you just couldn’t ignore.