Ark Found

Chapter 18

The next morning played out as planned, with Carter and Jayden parting ways with the trekking group after breakfast and camp breakdown. Both groups wished each other luck, with the tour leader asking Carter to phone a message to the trekking operation when they returned, to let them know they had made it down off the mountain safely. Carter agreed to this, and after a final warning about not ascending too rapidly without acclimating, he and Jayden watched the tour group continue up the trail that switchbacked further up the volcano.

“I will miss those guys,” Jayden said.

“Good group of people,” Carter said. “The kind of people who would respect a treasure like Noah’s Ark. Makes me want to stop Treasure, Inc. even more.”

“True. If Daedalus gets his way, he’d have the ark in his living room and no one would ever see it again.”

“Probably the centerpiece of his home bar.”

Jayden appeared thoughtful. “Hm, now that would be cool, I have to admit. Probably too cool for a low-life like him.”

“Speaking of,” Carter said as he shouldered his pack, “what do you say we head down there?”

He and Jayden eyed the precipitous slope down to a snow-filled ravine or gully of sorts. Jayden took a last look through a pair of binoculars. “No signs of anyone. Let’s do it.”

The two set out off the beaten path down the steep slope. The going was much slower than walking up the established track, since they needed to test each snow-covered step to make sure their footing was secure before putting their full weight down, unless they wanted to tumble down the rock-strewn face with its boulders hidden beneath the snow drifts. It also became colder the further down into the ravine they ventured, especially when the direct sunlight was blocked by the mountain itself overhead. Carter eyed the freshly fallen snow carefully for footprints, but it was all unbroken as far as he could see.

It took them the better part of three hours to reach the bottom of the ravine. When they did, they decided to break for lunch. “After we eat we’ll round that bend there,” Carter said, pointing to the bottom of another side of the mountain section, around which it sloped up sharply again.

“I’m ready for some more uphill after this morning,” Jayden said, shrugging off his pack onto a dry boulder.

“It’s a lot harder on the knees going down,” Carter said.

Jayden laughed. “That’s what she said.”

“Really, wow, that would have been funny maybe ten years—”

They heard a loud noise somewhere up above them, out of sight around the mountain. A sharp hissing sound. Both became silent as they froze in place and looked around while listening for more. After hunching in place for another two minutes without detecting further signs of activity, Carter pointed ahead of them, the signal to move out. The pair of ex-military men crept silently through the snow toward the mountain bend. To their left, about a hundred feet away, was the opposite wall of the gulley which rose steeply to the grand face of the mountain. After every few feet they would stop and listen again. On the fourth such auditory check, they heard what sounded like a human voice, distant and carried as an echo down through the ravine, the words, if any, indistinguishable. They continued following the contour of the ravine’s base until they could just see around an outcropping of rock into a new area of the ravine. Here, the trench between two walls increased in slope as well as becoming narrower. It went up for a long ways, Carter estimated perhaps a thousand yards, before it opened up onto the main volcanic slope, rejoining the mountain.

And there, toward the left side of that confluence, Carter picked out a splash of color. Any type of color stood out against a natural background that was all shades of green, brown and white, and so the splotch of blue stood out easily. Jayden saw it too. “Parka, or maybe a hat.”

Carter nodded and pointed to the opposite side of the ravine, up a little higher in the narrower section. “Let’s make our way up on that side.” Jayden moved up ahead as point man while Carter stayed back to observe. He removed the field binoculars from his pack — a small, inexpensive pair of 10 x 25s — and wished they were more powerful. Still, they were much better than the naked eye, so he brought them to his eyes while Jayden ran across the open ravine section to the wall on the other side. Focusing on the patch of blue up top, Carter waited for his eyes to adjust to the view. A couple of seconds later he saw the figure of a person — still too far away to distinguish facial features, but he could definitely make out the outline of a human body wearing cold weather gear — carrying or hefting a piece of equipment of some type. Whatever it was gleamed in the sunlight, so Carter figured it must have at least some metal on it.

He lowered the binoculars in time to see Jayden make the opposite ravine wall and look back at Carter, no doubt wanting confirmation from his scout that he wasn’t being observed by their unknown quarry up above. Carter gave him a hand signal that indicated he was clear to move forward, and Jayden set off up the ravine. While the point man progressed up the slope, Carter again raised the binoculars to his eyes. This time he saw two people, one of them grabbing the metallic object from the first and carrying it out of sight. Some kind of operation is going on up there, he thought. He lowered the glasses and monitored Jayden’s progress. When he turned around again to check in, Carter gave him the halt signal. With a last glance up the mountain to be sure no one was watching or moving toward them, Carter ran across the ravine to where Jayden’s first stop was, so that the two of them were now on the same side of the ravine, with Jayden a little further up.

Hugging the side of the craggy, snow-flecked wall, the pair of ex-Navy sailors eased their way up the ravine, stopping frequently to assess their surroundings and listen for changes in activity. They were able to progress with a quiet rapidity due to their former training and good physical conditioning. Three-quarters of the way up, Jayden waited for Carter to catch all the way up to him. They needed to communicate well to plot their approach out of the ravine. Neither was even breathing particularly hard, though they also had to slow their pace somewhat the nearer the top they reached, so as not to be heard by whoever was up there.

Carter whispered, “As soon as we make sure it’s not Treasure, Inc., we should back down without being detected. We don’t want to scare the crap out of someone by sneaking up on them.”

“Right, and possibly get shot at,” Jayden added. “Unless it actually is Treasure, Inc., in which case we’ll definitely get shot at.”

They heard another sharp hissing noise from above, louder this time because they were closer. Then they heard spoken words. They were still indistinguishable even though they were clear, and it took Carter a moment to figure out that it was because they were speaking a foreign language. Not Turkish or Armenian, which he could recognize enough of from being in Turkey the past few days, but….what was it? He strained to listen in, but instead of more talking they heard a loud, motorized buzzing start up. Carter and Jayden eyed one another with quizzical expressions.

“Chainsaw?” Jayden posited.

“Could be.”

“They found the ark and they’re cutting it down?” Jayden’s eyes opened wide.

“That would be a monumental no-no, permit or not. They must be using it to build something, would be my guess.”

“Enough guessing,” Jayden said. “Let’s go have a look-see.”

They low-crawled side-by-side up the remaining slope, moving very slowly so as to remain noiseless. A couple of times on the way up they heard the strange hissing of air again, as well as the chainsaw, if that’s what it is. And the voices. Carter heard them more clearly now — two different adult males, from the sound of it — but more importantly, he could identify their language, and it caused his adrenaline to spike: Greek.

Carter reached out and tugged on Jayden’s foot to get his attention. “It’s them.” Jayden nodded and patted his hunting knife, sheathed on his belt, as was Carter’s. He reached down and undid the retaining snap so that he would be able to withdraw it quick if need be. He glimpsed up at the ravine wall next to them. It was only a few feet above their heads, while they were lying on the ground, which meant they had almost reached the top. Down at the bottom, before they had started low-crawling, the wall as a good fifty feet high or more. The idea of randomly popping out in the open over the wall was unappealing, since they had no way of seeing who or what was up there right now. Was there a campsite, or was this a work site they “commuted” to from wherever their camp was? It made a difference because his goal was to obtain the map, or a copy of it. It was doubtful Daedalus would have brought the original with him, for fear of it being destroyed or lost… or was it?

Perhaps he simply hadn’t had time to put it anywhere else for safekeeping other than keep it on his person. He’d only had a few hours head-start over Carter and Jayden, after all. Copy or original, something had brought them here, one way or the other, and Carter was determined to find it, and then either steal it or copy it by taking a photo of it. He patted one of the cargo pockets in his pants to make sure the camera was still there. Check. He had already gone into the device’s settings the previous night and disabled all beeps and shutter sounds, to ensure silent operation. This phase of the mission was as about as planned in advance as it could be, Carter thought, trying to calm himself against the uncertainty that now represented his immediate future.

He eyed Jayden and dared not even whisper at this point, simply mouthing the words: straight up and stop at the edge. Then he pointed to his own eyes with two fingers, meaning take a look. So the plan was to low-crawl the last few feet, which would expose them to Treasure, Inc.’s line of sight for at least a few seconds, but during that time they would get to see what they were dealing with.

Another hiss of air made him jump and he took a couple of deep breaths to calm his nerves. He thought the sound seemed familiar to him now, and yet it made no sense in this context. Can’t be… He probably would have recognized it if he’d had a few more seconds to think, but Jayden was tugging at his sleeve with urgency while he began to slither up out of the ravine onto the mountainside.

Taking a deep breath, Carter did the same.