The Nemesis Origin

XXXVI

Ethan walked alongside Lopez with his hands behind his head as they were marched down the mountainside. Behind them, a Eurocopter AS350 hired by Yuri Polkov’s team hovered above the mountain slopes, its rotors kicking up whirling clouds of snow as Yuri’s men loaded the mummy aboard. Specially designed for high-altitude operations, the helicopter was one of only a handful of rotary craft able to reach the summit of the volcano.

Ethan watched from the corner of his eye as the helicopter lifted off with its valuable cargo and swung past them through the bright blue sky as it began descending away toward the east. Ethan saw the eastern horizon brooding with dark grey clouds marching their way west, the towering cumulus flaring bright white at their peaks just like the mountains around them.

The Russians had deployed twenty men to the mountaintop after they had captured Ethan and the team, and they had wasted no time in completing the excavation of the tomb that Lucy had found. Yuri had taken great delight in thanking Lucy for finding the mummy for him, regaling her with tales of his own ingenuity.

‘The wonders of modern technology,’ he explained as they trudged down the hillside. ‘Thermal imaging cameras. They’re mostly used at night, but here against these frozen mountains it was so easy to watch you and your team ascend to the plateau. And my little drones, flown by Sergei, kept watch as we followed far behind.’

Ethan had seen the disgust on Lucy’s face.

‘You think you’re clever, but you have no idea what you’re doing.’

‘I am very well aware of what I’m doing,’ Yuri replied with a wave of one gloved hand, in which he held a Glock pistol. ‘I am preserving these remains that you found for the benefit of generations to come, for the right price of course, and for the exposure of all the world’s religions for what they truly are — the darkness, the lies.’

‘You’re selling something that doesn’t belong to you and you’re taking lives while you do it.’

Yuri pulled a face as though he were genuinely insulted by the accusation. ‘Come now, Lucy. My son gave you every opportunity to help me back in Chicago but you chose to brush him off. He warned that you would regret it, and now clearly you do. There is nobody to blame here but yourself.’

Ethan looked down the mountain to where in the distance the flashing blades of the Eurocopter had swung around and it was gently lowering its cargo down onto another windswept plateau far below the snow line. Ridges of long-cold magma hid whatever was down there, but he assumed that the Russians had established a base camp before embarking on their intercept mission. This far out into the wilderness he could expect no help from any other quarter unless Jarvis was able to call in support somehow. The Russians had no idea who he was, probably assuming him to be a scientist or similar, and Jarvis had remained silent since the Russians had arrived.

‘The remains are far more value than you could possibly realize,’ Ethan said to Yuri, speaking for the first time.

Yuri Polkov peered at him with a cold glare.

‘Ethan Warner,’ he said as though he were speaking of something repulsive. ‘Of all people, it is you I am looking forward to getting to know the most. Tell me, what happened to my son, Vladimir?’

Ethan grinned. ‘He got what he deserved. You shouldn’t have let a stroppy little child play out with the big boys, Yuri.’

‘You murdered him,’ Yuri replied. ‘Hurled him from a mountain top, so I understand?’

‘He jumped,’ Ethan corrected Yuri. ‘I followed. Turns out he had a problem with his parachute. You reap what you sow, I suppose.’

A flash of anger twisted Yuri’s features, his aged voice croaking with restraint. ‘I understand that you decided to disappear once already and that it took Lucy Morgan here quite a while to find you. Trust me, you’re about to disappear again and this time nobody is going to work out where you are, except maybe archaeologists in a few hundred years digging around in the dirt for old bones. I wonder what they would make of your remains?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Lopez replied for Ethan, ‘but I’m fairly certain they’d figure out he was twice the man you are whether he had a gun in his hand or not.’

Yuri grinned cruelly as he tapped the butt of his pistol against Lopez’s head. ‘More clever American words, but you and I shall know each other far more closely too before your time is done here.’

‘Over my dead body,’ Lopez snarled back.

‘As you wish,’ Yuri shrugged, the nasty grin still plastered across his face, ‘as long as you’re still warm.’

Yuri’s men chuckled among themselves and cast their eyes across Lopez and Lucy as the entire group descended towards the Russian base camp. As they crossed the old magma flows blocking their view so Ethan got his first sight of the helicopter’s landing site and a dense cluster of tents. Two all-terrain vehicles were parked nearby alongside the pair that Ethan and the team had brought with them, and perhaps a dozen more men milled about in the camp and turned to watch as Ethan, Lucy, Lopez and Jarvis were led at gunpoint into the camp, their huaqueros and Jarvis’s escort to likewise marched in behind them.

In the centre of the camp was the Eurocopter, which several men were now opening to reveal the tightly bundled mummy within.

‘Secure the perimeter of the camp,’ Yuri snapped angrily at his men. ‘Have the remains moved to the main tent and then stand guard! Keep those huaqueros out of our way!’

Yuri gestured for Ethan and the others to follow him as he turned and began hobbling towards the main tent, six of his men flanking Ethan’s team, their AK-47s pointed unwaveringly at them.

‘Come,’ he insisted. ‘There is much that we will discuss.’

Yuri crossed the compound and entered a large tent. The interior was warmed by heaters powered by a generator that rattled and hummed outside in the cold air. Ethan let out a soft breath of relief as he felt the warmth touch his skin, and he pulled back the hood of his jacket and slid his hands from his gloves as Yuri struggled his way across to a folding chair and lowered himself into it.

Lucy Morgan wasted no time as she yanked off her hood. ‘This is abduction, kidnapping!’

Yuri rested both of his gnarled old hands on top of his cane and looked up at her, his eyes cold and rheumy with age.

‘Yes it is, and it is also the theft of valuable artefacts belonging to the people of Argentina and Chile,’ he pointed out as he gestured to Lucy and her team. ‘I take it that you did not contact the relevant authorities before marching up this mountain and excavating?’

‘Like you did?’ Lucy challenged. ‘We’re not here to debate the semantics of ownership of these mummies. We’re on a mission of our own and it’s important that we get these remains back to Chicago as soon as possible.’

Yuri humphed as a bitter little smile crossed his face. ‘Then you’re stealing them, which makes you no better than myself. I too was once a fossil smuggler, dealing on the black market for dinosaur bones from Mongolia and China to sell in the United States. I made my fortune by trading on the bones of long dead species.’

‘People like you are the scourge of my profession,’ Lucy spat. ‘I’ve never sought to make money from the finds that I’ve made, even those that would have changed the world had my own government not confiscated them from me.’

‘Your work in Israel,’ Yuri acknowledged. ‘So you admit that you found something extraordinary out there, although you would not share your knowledge with my son Vladimir.’

‘Your son was as corrupt as you are,’ Lucy replied. ‘It cost him his life.’

Ethan saw a brief flicker of regret shadow the old man’s face and he took the opportunity to stand forward. ‘Why are we here?’

Yuri’s gaze switched to Ethan, the smile returning. ‘I want you to see what you have achieved, on my behalf, before I have your corpses returned to the mountaintop and buried there for all eternity.’

Yuri turned to Lucy. ‘You have chased this mystery halfway around the planet more than once. I take it that you wish to see what is inside the mummy’s swathes?’

Before Lucy could respond the tent flaps opened and four of Yuri’s men walked inside, each bearing one corner of a stretcher upon which was mounted the mummy.

Yuri leaned forward as he looked at Lucy.

‘I’ve waited a long time for this moment, but this is your discovery. Despite what you think of me, I do not wish to deny you this moment.’

Lucy turned and looked at the three mummies longingly, but she held her ground. ‘Let the others go.’

‘No,’ Yuri replied. ‘Open the mummy, or I will simply shoot every one of you and then open it myself.’

‘You could be a part of this,’ Lucy suggested. ‘Imagine the fame, the recognition, the fortune that would come from being a part of this worldwide revelation, the impact it would have on religious terrorism and the corruption of blind faith. It could make you a…’

‘My son’s death has ended any interest I might have had in furthering either my fortune or my reputation,’ Yuri growled back. He reached into his pocket and produced a small silver pistol that he lifted to aim at Lucy. ‘My part in this discovery will remain anonymous. You can thank your friend Ethan Warner for my change of priorities.’

Lucy shot an angry glance at Ethan, who remained silent as he tried to figure out a way of escaping Yuri’s men.

‘You’ll never get the remains out of Argentina,’ Lucy insisted.

‘I’ll have no problems in smuggling these remains out of the country to study them in private,’ Yuri countered. I’ve been doing it all my life. I will make public the find and have the remains sent to a secure location before approaching my associates and arranging a bid, held most likely on a privately owned island, with the winner taking all. I do not doubt that such a find will raise many tens and perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.’

‘It won’t work,’ Ethan replied. ‘Your vision of a world scoured of religious faith ignores the fact that despite the success and advances made by Newton, Einstein and others, the eradication of god to a place in fantasy, people still believe. They’ll never stop believing Yuri, no matter what discoveries are uncovered or myths revealed.’

‘That,’ Yuri replied, ‘I will leave in the hands of the people themselves. I suggest we hesitate no longer. Please, if you will.’

Yuri cocked the pistol hammer. Lucy stared at the old man and then took a pace back from the remains.

‘Do it yourself,’ she snapped.

Yuri smiled as though somehow impressed by Lucy’s defiance, and the pistol shifted position. The shot was deafeningly loud in the confines of the tent as Yuri fired, and Ethan flinched as he turned and saw one of Jarvis’s escorts stagger backwards as the bullet slammed into his chest and then he toppled onto the cold ground. His head thumped down onto the rocks, his eyes staring wide and lifeless up at the tent roof.

Jarvis stared down at the fallen agent and then glared at Yuri. ‘Once a coward,’ he uttered.

Yuri pointed the pistol at Jarvis, but Lucy leaped forward.

‘No!’

Lucy stepped towards the mummy, and she quickly retrieved a pair of forensic gloves and some tweezers for the pocket of her jacket as she set to work un-wrapping the dense shroud.

Ethan looked at Jarvis, who was standing with his hands in his pockets. With a start Ethan realized that the old man still had the satellite phone tucked into his jacket pocket, and he was manipulating it as they watched Lucy begin to work.