The Mountain: An Event Group Thriller (64 page)

“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.

THIRTY-FIVE MILES NORTH OF TRABZON HARBOR, THE BLACK SEA

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.

MOUNT ARARAT, THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

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.