The Mountain: An Event Group Thriller (65 page)

“When we finally found you, you were nearly frozen to death in a snowdrift, which luckily broke your fall.”

“I need a report. Where’s Dugan?” he asked as he again tried to sit up but Claire restrained him.

“You’re not getting up until the corpsman says you can,” she said as she applied the cold compress onto his head. John Henry slowly pushed her hand away.

“Get me the sergeant major,” he said, and this time he did manage to rise from the cot.

“Sergeant Major Dugan is dead.”

John Henry turned his head and saw that Claire was looking right at him. He stumbled and Claire stood quickly to steady him.

“Who else?” he asked when he felt stable.

“Too goddamn many to name,” came a voice out of view. John Henry knew it was Jessy, who finally came into the tent.

“You should have let me cut that bastard’s throat when we had the chance.”

“That’s not fair, Colonel. We can’t be faulted for being civilized,” Claire said, speaking up in Thomas’s defense.

Jessy cursed and then pulled the hood from his head. He sat on the end of the cot and then ran a gloved hand through his black hair.

“How many?” John Henry asked.

“Twenty-six dead, fourteen injured.”

Thomas was stunned as he tried to remember who was standing on the deck of the Ark and who was below when that crazed son of a bitch McDonald blew it up.

“Ollafson?” he remembered.

Nothing was said. Claire lowered her eyes and Jessy was silent as he stood and pulled his gloves free.

“Captain Jackson?” Thomas asked, expecting the worst.

“We were lucky there. He rode the Ark down the mountain while inside the family spaces. He’s been stuttering ever since, but other than that, he’s fine.” Taylor paced over to the next cot and spoke softly with one of the injured Rebels. He returned and then made his report.

“We also lost our official documentarian and all of his photographs and equipment. Things are a real mess. The detonation took out half the damn camp above the Ark.”

“Where is the Ark?”

“Right outside. Well, what’s left of her anyway. We managed to move the camp away from the glacier and relocated here at the six-thousand-foot level.”

“I’m sorry about Sergeant Major Dugan,” Claire said as she watched John Henry waver and then straighten up just as Jessy tried to help. The colonel shook Taylor’s hands from him and straightened his coat and then tried to focus.

“You’ve had a pretty serious blow on the head. You need to rest for a while longer,” Claire said.

John Henry slowly made his way to the tent’s flap and pulled it open. He saw that the snow had stopped and the weather had cleared. The sun was close to setting as he took in the men setting up and repairing what was left of the camp’s equipment. His eyes soon fell on the giant bow of the Ark. It was dug deeply into the snow that had forced it to slow and then eventually come to rest. It was tilted at an angle so severe that Thomas could see onto her sloping deck. The jagged scar where the bow had been separated from the bulk of the vessel ran from keel to the raised housing of the family quarters. Only twenty percent of the Ark stood before them. The remains were a shambles. Broken and cracked petrified wood was proving to John Henry that as tough as Noah’s creation was, it would never stay intact. Spiderweb cracking dominated the great prow of the Ark. Lanterns had been placed on her deck and around her broken hull as the men still searched for anyone caught inside during the treachery of the Englishman. It was a surreal scene of destruction.

Claire watched as the colonel lowered his head and allowed the tent flap to close. He turned and saw the same Rebel trooper to whom Jessy had spoken a moment before. Thomas stepped up to the bunk, expecting words of venom from the boy about getting a lot of men killed. He would never get used to seeing men under his command dying in front of him.

“Trooper, we’re going to need you soon. Will you be ready when we do?” John Henry thought the boy wasn’t going to answer. It looked like he was thinking something over and then his eyes flicked over to Jessy before returning his attention back to the Yankee.

“Yes, sir, Colonel. It’s only a broken arm and wrist.”

Thomas patted the young Reb’s leg and then started to turn away.

“I just asked the colonel what this was all for, sir. He couldn’t rightly say.”

John Henry froze as he turned to face the boy. He had no words; he just grimaced and then smiled and patted the leg again. He returned to Claire and Jessy and sat on the edge of the cot.

“The sergeant major had a wife and eight children.”

Claire and Jessy were caught off guard as John Henry sat and talked like he was in a confessional.

“He always said that he despised his wife so much he satisfied her with a passel of kids and stayed away at the furthest outposts he could volunteer for.”

Both Claire and Taylor were silent.

“He never knew he talked in his sleep. Sometimes in English, and then the Irish would take over. But one thing I know, that man loved his wife and kids.”

Claire wanted to swipe at the tears she felt forming. The colonel truly admired Dugan, and this made her think of the deceit she had shown to Professor Ollafson before his death and feel that much lower. John Henry had a simple way about him, and Claire knew she was a long way from the integrity of one soldier mourning another.

Taylor cleared his throat when all was quiet except for the soft moaning of the injured. These sounds were clearly heard by John Henry, who looked up at the many occupied cots.

“I say we take as many samples from the Ark as we can and then get the hell out of here.”

Thomas looked from Jessy to the boy lying on the cot. He suddenly stood and walked to the tent’s flap again and then pulled it back. He started thinking. He let the tent’s opening close and then he turned and walked to the young Rebel’s cot and smiled.

“We’re about to show you what this was all about, son.”

Claire exchanged looks with Jessy, who was worried Thomas was still out of it. John Henry turned and faced his second-in-command.

“Get Captain Jackson in here.” John Henry started to slip on his heavy fur-lined coat over his uniform jacket. Taylor didn’t move for a second as he tried to fathom John Henry’s intent. “How far away are the railroad ties that we were using for our little ruse?”

Taylor was caught totally off guard by the question, but started to think anyway.

“We have more than a thousand wooden ties and rail at Talise Station that Parnell was using.”

John Henry finished buttoning his coat and turned to face Jessy.

“That won’t do. That station will soon be back in the empire’s hands.”

“Then the only option is the railroad supplies at the Black Sea line north where our intrepid band abandoned them. We have more than two thousand railroad ties there. Why?”

“We need platforms and we need crating. We’ll have to strip the wagons of their wheels, but we can do it.”

“Do what?” Claire asked.

John Henry smiled and Taylor’s heart froze.

“The last time I saw that look you charged into a Kiowa encampment with five men and scattered their horses, and as Sergeant Major Dugan told me a few weeks ago, you had this same look when you accused General McClellan of cowardice in the face of the enemy at Antietam. And you had the same look when you were a kid at the Point when you stuffed goose feathers in Professor Jenkins’s boots. That’s not a good look.”

Thomas actually laughed when he thought about Dugan forewarning Jessy about his impending future with the Yankee colonel.

“Do what?” John Henry repeated Claire’s question.

“Yes,” Claire said hesitantly.

“We’re going to bring back the provenance.” He looked at the wounded boy. “We’re going to bring back the proof Mr. Lincoln wanted that the Ark exists and that Americans were the first to find her.” Thomas walked to the tent opening and pulled the flap back, revealing the illuminated and heavily damaged bow section of the grounded Ark.

“Oh, shit,” Jessy said as he lowered his head.

“Precisely, Colonel,” he said as he left the tent.

“I’ve truly hated that man since we were freshmen at the Point.”

27

MOUNT ARARAT, THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

NOVEMBER 4, 1864

John Henry watched as the men started the last of the crating. It had taken two weeks to build the new wagons from the old with the addition of more than two thousand railroad ties to assist in the new configuration of the large twelve-wheeled conveyances. The apprentice carpenter’s mates supplied by Jackson had done a job beyond the normal call of duty.

The communication with Lieutenant Parnell had been sparse but effective the past two weeks. The six hundred strong Seventh Guards Regiment looked as if they had taken up permanent residence at the Talise railway yard. They had taken what equipment Parnell and the men left behind in their haste to follow Thomas’s orders. The force under the command of Parnell was now encamped five miles away waiting for word to unleash the plan that John Henry, with the reluctant help of Colonel Taylor and Captain Jackson, had concocted.

As John Henry walked the perimeter of camp he glanced at the spot that had been reserved for the burial of the dead. Almost half the men he had started with on the Ararat mission had been killed. Now he was down to fifty-five men, and this time the Confederate prisoners were the most abundant and the strongest. The marines had lost a lot of men in and around the Ark when McDonald had blown it. He saw the makeshift crosses the men had made from the scrap railroad ties. That task had been their first priority even ahead of securing their proof of the Ark’s existence.

In many ways he knew he had failed these men because he had not taken this mission as seriously as he should have from the outset. He had even tricked himself into thinking that he could do this mission for the sake of his friend, the president, but knew all along that it was a fool’s errand. Now he was facing his image in the mirror every morning and knew that his disbelief had cost the lives of all of these men.

Gray Dog had received word that John Henry wanted him to sneak back into the eastern camp as soon as he was able to traverse the four miles safely in between the Turkish patrols, but as yet he had not shown up. John Henry believed that the news of Dugan’s death might have affected the Comanche far more than the boy was willing to let on. As much as they had fought and argued over the years, Gray Dog had learned most everything from the gruff sergeant major. Thomas looked for his adopted son every evening and night, but he never came.

“John Henry, Chief Petty Officer Pettit is ready.”

Thomas turned from the sight of the makeshift graveyard and faced Jessy. He nodded and then followed him back to camp.

“Gray Dog is probably absorbing what he’s heard. I know I still am, and I was here to witness the events,” Taylor said as they walked through the thickening snow. He saw that John Henry wasn’t going to respond.

“As far as sending a navy CPO with half of your command in the opposite direction, may I say that cutting your force while the Turks are still out there is cutting it quite close?”

“Jessy, you’ve been fighting battles for almost four years and have never once outnumbered your enemy. Don’t tell me now that after all of this leisure time you’re growing overly cautious?”

“Back then all I had to fear was getting shot in the gut by one of you Yankees. Now if we fail we get … hell, I don’t even know what the Turks do to their captured enemies, especially those who come bearing false gifts.”

“They chop their heads off with a rather ugly sword, I would imagine.”

Jessy looked at John Henry and knew he wasn’t joking.

“You know, you can fudge the truth once in a while.”

Captain Jackson approached them as they walked past the posted pickets. John Henry saw the two long lines of newly rebuilt wagons. One line of twenty-three would head south toward the Mediterranean, the other to the north. Thomas saw the last of the crates being sealed and placed onto the last wagon going with the chief petty officer and his men.

“They’re ready, Colonel,” Jackson said as he exchanged looks with Taylor, who lightly shook his head in the negative.

“Very good,” John Henry said as he walked to the head of the first wagon string. The wagons themselves were something to behold. The carpenters and riggers had done a nice job increasing the size of the wagon beds for the extra weight, and reinforcing the many wheels for support of the giant load. He approached the man standing by his leading wagon of twenty-three. The short, stocky CPO saluted Thomas. His men were mostly the remnants of the mess crew and several of the wounded who had healed enough to take part in the plan.

Instead of returning the navy man’s salute, John Henry just removed his thick glove and held out his hand. The chief looked startled but then lowered his hand and then he too removed his glove and shook the colonel’s hand. When done Thomas reached into his coat and brought out another sealed envelope.

“Your orders for the navy, countersigned by Captain Jackson. Let’s just hope there’s a ship there to meet you when you arrive. This was thought up months ago, but with a different cargo in mind. We hoped to be taking men out of that port in an emergency, and not … not…” John Henry waved at the twenty-three wagons under the chief’s command. “This.”

The older chief laughed. “We’ll get her through, sir, don’t you worry. Let’s just hope you don’t get food poisoning with me taking all the mess cooks with me.”

“We don’t have enough food left to worry about that, Chief. Good luck and Godspeed.”

This time the salute was returned by Thomas and Jessy, and then Jackson escorted the chief to his wagon and spoke softly to him. Then the two men shook hands and then the chief mounted his wagon with its enormous load.

The heavily loaded wagons started moving and John Henry silently watched them leave. He turned and then saw the eighteen wagons that would depart the base of the mountain with him.

“And just how do you think old Abe is going to react when we show up with only part of the Ark cut into pieces? Not only that, we have all disobeyed orders and instead of bringing back the provenance we were ordered to get, we end up bringing back twenty percent of the damn ship.”