The Traveler Page 38

  Farbeaux failed to see the humor in the comment as Collins laughed and then continued to follow the tracks in the fallen ash field. Then he realized it was so simple—if they got back.

  “I truly despise you, Colonel.”

  * * *

  They were lucky to have only lost the one man. Doshnikov went to his knees after they had stopped running as did most of the others. Jason looked at Mendenhall as both men were not really winded but very much over-oxygenated. He shook his head at the captain.

  “We have to ditch these assholes.”

  “I agree, but in case you failed to notice, my backward navy friend, they have things they call guns. And we of course do not have said apparatus as per our usual circumstance.”

  Before Jason could retort at his friend’s smart-ass observation they were joined by Doshnikov and two of his remaining men.

  “If you think you can escape, by all means, I will not try to stop you.” The Russian looked around him nervously. “I don’t know where you fools have sent us, but this is not a very nice place.”

  “If you only knew half of the places we’ve been, buster, you would crap yourself.”

  Everyone looked at Mendenhall, who was deadly serious.

  “Now, I’m sure you have an extra cap gun hidden away somewhere and me and my buddy are feeling a little exposed out here.”

  “Listen,” Ryan said as he finally straightened from where he had his hands on his knees. He tilted his head as Will and the others fell silent when they saw he was trying to hear something. He tilted his head in the other direction. Then he froze, and before the Russians or a startled Mendenhall could say or do anything, Ryan started trotting away. The others hurriedly followed.

  Doshnikov almost bumped into Ryan before he realized the American had stopped abruptly. He watched as Jason reached out and pulled some screening plants out of his way. The filthy Russian smiled and pushed past Ryan.

  The river was fast flowing and blue as the gorgeous waters of the Caribbean. The smell of freshness after the dense jungle and forest was heavenly to Ryan. The others saw what he had smelled and pushed past him.

  “Leave it to the navy to accidentally stumble onto water,” Will said as he slapped Jason on the back on his way past. Ryan smiled and followed. At least they wouldn’t die of thirst before some beast had their teeth-savvy way with them.

  Ryan could see that the twisting river had worked its way down from the slopes surrounding Mount Erebus. He could even see fish as they jumped in the fast current. His smile vanished as he watched the Russians and Will drinking at the water’s edge. It looked as if they weren’t concerned about how potable this ancient waterway was, but of course he knew that the colonel’s team had all of the purification equipment and chemicals to make assurances of anything.

  He started to join them when he saw that the river vanished over the small cliff in front of them. He was looking at a waterfall. He advanced slowly and was still wary of the animal life that he knew also used the waters to drink from. He eased slowly to the edge and then his mouth fell open when he saw where the river vanished to.

  “Holy shit.”

  When Will finally joined him with Doshnikov close behind, they found the navy man sitting on the ash-covered grass overlooking the falls and the greenest valley they had ever seen not far below. Mendenhall was about to say something when Ryan pointed to the valley and they saw what had stunned Ryan and sent him to the seat of his pants.

  “If you have not lied about what time frame this is supposed to be, and if every schoolmaster in my life were not the most wonderful of liars about history, maybe you could tell me what in the hell that is doing here?” Doshnikov asked as his mouth dried up even after the thirst-quenching trip to the river.

  Below, entangled in vine and undergrowth, was the remains of a wooden stockade. They could even make out the remains of watch towers at each corner and at the centerline of each fence. The jungle and forest had taken over the wooden structure and they could clearly see that it was deserted from their high vantage point. Inside the rectangle of stockade they saw deteriorating huts and other makeshift buildings. They saw sally ports along the high walls.

  “You know what that looks like?” Mendenhall asked as he slowly looked at Ryan.

  “Even I know what this is, and I didn’t go to school in America.” The Russian brushed past Will and examined the fort below.

  Ryan stood and joined the others. He looked down at a sight they had no right to see in this distant epoch.

  The Roman-style encampment was complete with a dried-up moat surrounding it. It looked to have been abandoned for a century at least.

  Will laughed aloud and then turned to face the others in their lost band of idiots.

  “This is going to throw a major kink into a lot of brilliant minds back home.”

  Mount Erebus exploded as an exclamation point to the most bizarre discovery of that very long and trying day.

  * * *

  Carl smelled atrocious and as Sarah finally pulled back from her hugs and kisses so Virginia could get her shots in, she turned to face an exuberant Anya Korvesky. They hugged.

  “I won’t even ask how,” Carl said as he held Virginia at arm’s length after her battery of welcoming hugs and kisses on his bearded cheek.

  Everett allowed Virginia to move away as he reached for the dark-haired Gypsy woman and took her in his arms again. Finally it was Anya who couldn’t take it any longer. She pulled back from Carl and held her nose.

  “I tried to be a stand-up trouper, but my God that cologne!” she said as she laughed as did the others who had been too polite to point out the fact that the admiral smelled so sickening that it was hard not to gag on the stench.

  Everett acted as if he were hurt for the briefest of seconds, and then he broke out laughing also. He removed the longbow and the quiver of five arrows from his back and then pulled the bear coat off of his large frame. He tossed an empty shortened version of an AK-47 away as he did.

  “Sorry, but to get around out here you have to smell like something bigger and badder than anything else—I find saber-tooth lion pee-pee the best.” He laughed as the women recoiled in horror.

  Sarah saw the nine millimeter strapped to Everett’s filthy and ragged flight suit. The suit had once been white with red trim, but was now unrecognizable with the exception of the small American flag on his left sleeve and the Overlord mission patch on his chest.

  “I guess saving us was worth only six shots? I take it you wanted to practice your Robin Hood thing?” Sarah joked with her right brow raised.

  Everett smiled and then removed the Glock from its holster. He tossed it to Sarah. “My last bullets were fired over a month ago. I was lucky to come across a rather gruesome scene a few miles back and found that.” He kicked at the empty AK-47 at his feet. “It only had what you heard in the magazine. After that I had to use my superior mountain-man skills.”

  “How long have you been living like this?” Virginia asked as once again Anya was on Carl like a lost puppy.

  “A thousand rounds of ammunition were gone within three days. The damn raptors took my MREs the second day, and those damn condors flew off with my enclosure with me in it on the third. That was a close one, I can tell you.”

  Sarah lowered her head and then swiped a tear from her eye just thinking what this man had to have endured in the six months he had been here.

  “Okay, you’ve kept me in suspense long enough. Where’s Jack and those two low-ranking idiots I call friends and colleagues?”

  Anya pulled back from Carl and then looked at him closely. “We haven’t seen the first team since we arrived. We don’t even know if they made it. Jack, Master Chief Jenks, Charlie, and Colonel Farbeaux—we can only hope they’re still alive.”

  “Team? Then just what in the hell are you guys, then?”

  “We’re an accident thanks to some outside Russian mob interference. They’re the ones who brought that.” She indicated the automatic rifl
e. “And as a real kicker that’s exactly who is holding your two low-ranking friends at the moment.”

  “I’m not following one little bit.” He turned to Virginia and Sarah, who tossed the empty nine millimeter back to Everett.

  “Longer story than the first,” was Sarah’s answer. “Right now we have to get Jason and Will back.”

  Carl looked around and then leaned down and retrieved the stinky bear coat from the ashes covering the ground. He looked toward the erupting Erebus and shook his head. “Not now, the sun’s getting ready to go down and we can’t chance getting caught out here with only one bow and five arrows for artillery.” He looked at Anya and kissed her on the lips, his red-tinted beard itching her nose. “Unless you have a rocket launcher under that blouse?” Anya blushed like a schoolgirl and then looked embarrassingly at the two knowing women. “No, no rocket launcher? Then I have a place we can hang our coats until daybreak.”

  “Where is that?” Virginia asked as she stepped into the small line of retreat from the forest primeval.

  “This time it’s you who won’t believe it,” he said as he eased his found charges off into the jungle and the river that flowed not far away.

  As the world around them started to come alive with the terrors of the night, Erebus belched smoke and flame and then settled into an uneasy slumber.

  BROOKLYN NAVY YARD

  Niles Compton limped toward the phone that was held out by Alice Hamilton. He set his demeanor to one of defensive confrontation as he took the receiver. Alice nodded, knowing he had to be firm.

  “Mr. President?”

  “What in the hell is going on in Brooklyn, Baldy?”

  “No ‘Niles,’ no ‘hello,’ not even a ‘how are you doing, my very good friend’?”

  “Do not, I repeat, do not act like it’s just a coincidence that a possible terrorist action in Brooklyn happens the same day you find it necessary to raid the Brooklyn Navy Yard. And also at the same exact time you seem to have been avoiding my damn calls. Your commander-in-chief! Now what gives, Niles? I have agencies screaming from here to the Potomac about some mysterious group of people running amok in New York. I can’t cover for you if you don’t keep me up to date. The hundred hours is nearly up.”

  “Jim, you agreed to a one-hundred-hour window before we report oversight. We have forty of those hours remaining. If I told you that we had nothing to do with the terrorist action at the Barclays Center, will you stick to our agreement?”

  “Don’t you dare hold me over a barrel, I am not one of those schoolkids you have at Group. I happen to be the President of the United States, who is right now getting ready to send the Marines over there and shut you down, among other things. This is getting messy, Niles. How am I going to explain the terrorist action in Brooklyn?”

  Niles remained silent as the president, his friend, the best man at his wedding, exploded when he realized Niles was protecting his office over his express orders to keep him in the loop.

  “Do we still have our time?”

  The quiet on the other end of the phone was telling. Niles felt the sheer heat coming from his friend’s anger at what was possibly going on. He knew as long as the president had full deniability he would be protected.

  “Jim, the terrorist action weren’t terrorists at all. It was the Russian mob and thanks to them you have a culprit. Allow the FBI to do their job and that should give us the time we need to complete our mission.”

  “Niles, tell me the truth: Are you making headway in bringing Mr. Everett back home?”

  “Very much so. Enough progress to say that we should be finished within your time frame.”

  “Okay,” came the voice at the other end of the line. “I can cover my ass on this end, but no more buildings are to be blown to hell. I have the press screaming bloody murder.

  “Niles, where is my submarine?”

  Well, that did that. So much for hoping the president had suddenly ceased being smart. He looked over at Alice, who was listening to the speaker phone across the room. She smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

  “Uh, yes, the Los Angeles. Assistant Director Pollock needed an alternate power source since the explosion and subsequent police response two days ago. She was close by in Groton so I made a few calls. That is in my new directives, along with the proposed allotted oversight time frame.”

  “Do not quote to me the very policy that I wrote, damn it!”

  “Do we have the time?”

  “Of course you still have the time. Congressional oversight can only crucify me once.”

  The line went dead. Niles looked at the phone and then sat heavily into a chair. Alice stood and slowly walked over and removed the receiver from his hand and placed it in its cradle.

  “It won’t be the first time a president has yelled at the director of this department, I can assure you of that, Niles.”

  He half smiled and then shook his head. “I hate placing my best friend in this situation.”

  “It’s a situation he agreed to. After all, Niles, Carl is one of his men as well as yours.”

  “We may not have a mission anymore, and may have also lost even more personnel and friends than just Carl. We may have single-handedly sunk a hundred years of departmental history. The Group may not survive this if the president is caught lying to his own agencies. I’ve placed my best friend in an impossible situation.”

  Alice patted his arm and then turned on the monitor to check in with Xavier Morales. She turned just as the computer center back at Nellis came into focus.

  “If we can get back our people, who gives a damn in the end? The president is still the head of this agency and one of us.”

  Niles Compton smiled for the first time in two days as he realized that Alice had just refueled his desire to get his men and women back in one piece and save the president the indignity of having to explain something he had little to do with. He knew his friend would go down, just like the presidents before him, in safeguarding the secret that is the Event Group.

  “Xavier, let’s start working to get our people home.”

  On the screen Morales was there with his many computer techs.

  “Yes, sir, we are assuming that they are alive and have been working to get the return doorway operational. We are beginning the signal now and will continue until we get an answer.”

  Niles looked at the clock on the wall and then shook his head.

  The director had a bad feeling that the clock here was not the only one running down as his thoughts quickly went to the threat of Mount Erebus and her murderous sisters.

  21

  Carl had given Sarah the combat survival knife and appointed her point man. He would guide her from the back of the small line as they made their way down the falls side of the steep ravine. Everett felt far easier with his new charges because he knew the terrain was much too steep for the local animals to feel comfortable hunting on. Still, they made slower time as the ash cloud once more arrived with the winds, and this time it was mixed with a harsh blend of sulfur and pumas that was starting to irritate their throats.

  Carl had allowed them all to quench their parched throats at the wide river. The newcomers to his world were faring far better. Everett was still having a hard time believing they had come for him.

  “Oh, my,” Sarah said as she spied the Roman stockade for the first time as Carl had led them down a trail that was hidden from view, just in case the Russians they had told him about followed them. He knew Jason and Will would have no problem giving them the slip if they hadn’t already.

  “Okay, I give up on the whole history thing,” Anya said as she and Virginia saw the old ruins through the falling ash.

  “Someone is going to get an earful when I get back,” Virginia said as she stepped toward the long dried-up moat. The trench was over ten feet deep and the opposite side was spiked with old spears that shot off at angles toward the moat. “The whole of history may have to be rewritten.”

  Everett chuckled as he reali
zed the others had not figured out the little puzzle. He would let them stew on it awhile.

  “You have to slide down on your asses I’m afraid, I didn’t think it would be wise to build a two-lane highway to my only sanctuary.”

  Virginia snorted as if his concern for their femininity irritated her to no end. She sat and went sliding down the ash-covered slope of mote. Sarah also shook her head at Carl’s concern and then followed suit. Carl took Anya’s hand, looked down at her, and frowned when he saw her returning his look as if he had kicked her puppy.

  “What?”

  “I’m still extremely pissed at you for dying on me.”

  Everett scratched the itchy beard and looked consternated. “Well, then, I guess I have to make it up to you.”

  “Don’t think it will be that easy. I’m a Gypsy, remember?” She smiled and then plopped down unceremoniously and then gently and adeptly slid down the slope.

  Everett knew that no matter what happened, he could be happy with Anya anywhere in the world, or at any time.

  * * *

  The three were shocked at the equipment that had been gathered up by Everett in the six months he had been in Antarctica. Sarah had to stop and examine the Roman shield. The red leather had peeled away exposing the wood beneath. She saw the outline of an emblem or insignia that had long ago left the ghost of a shield.

  “Just wait, you’re really going to like this,” Carl said as he pushed aside some giant elephant ear plants and pulled out something they couldn’t see. He had to laugh again when he saw their faces as they turned a shade of red he could clearly see in the mounting dusk and ashfall of the false evening.

  “I understand now,” Virginia said just as Sarah and Anya realized the true nature of the strange finds. The Rising Sun battle flag of the Japanese army was unfurled. Even though it was tattered and worn out in many places it was still spry with the colors of red and white. Virginia reached out and raised the old wooden shield that had once been covered in dyed-red leather and adorned with tacks that made the shield enduring in thought and memory. “The legendary Ninth Legion,” she said as she smiled over at Anya and Sarah.