18

Jack, Virginia, and Carl had come to the conclusion that, after an inspection of the mine, regardless of whether they found the lost students, the expedition would need to be terminated for reasons that included a possible Broken Arrow situation in the valley. Jack knew he would have to alert Niles and then get a full military team in here somehow to conduct a proper search for the weapon, if there was one. But between the discovery of a black operational unit that had been clandestinely attached to Zachary’s team and the finding of an activated nuclear trigger key, the odds were soaring that this particular expedition could turn bad real quick. Jack would tell the others about the nuclear aspect only after the lagoon and the mine were checked for possible survivors of the lost expedition.

Before a party was sent under the falls and into the mine that Padilla’s map indicated was indeed there, he first needed to know if there was another way out, in case of an emergency. Thanks to sonar readings, the science team had determined that this whole valley was riddled with caves and tunnels because of ancient lava flows. Blow-out shafts were clearly indicated in their readings.

So Jack ordered the diving bell and submersible out to map the lagoon walls and try to discover any escape openings, as well as any possible wreckage of Zachary’s chartered boat and barge. He urged the people to hurry as much as safety would allow. Even Jenks had cut short his very long list of checks of both craft.

The submersible, according to Jenks who would be piloting her, was fast and maneuverable. It could ride shotgun for the diving bell as that was lowered into place for the sonar soundings they needed to make. As for any aggressive life form they might encounter underwater, the master chief assured Jack that the submersible could handle it with its full magazine of pneumatic spearguns. Thirty-five in all had been placed in a swivel gun in front of the pilot and were operated from within the dry environment of the submersible.

Jack didn’t want to seem overly protective, but he made Jenks give him assurances that the bell would be protected, because it was holding a cargo that was becoming more and more precious to him, Sarah herself. She was the logical choice for this probe, as she knew what to look for in the lava rock strata that made up the walls of the lagoon. For viewing the underwater life, “Crazy Charlie” Ellenshaw, as he had come to be known behind his back of course, would accompany Sarah—along with Professor Keating, who wouldn’t let Ellenshaw out of his sight. Mendenhall had volunteered to go with Jenks in the two-man submersible.

Within his time constraints, Jenks had thoroughly checked out both systems and made sure they were operating right. The bell was the safer of the two, being attached by umbilicus to Teacher the whole time. The submersible was far more complex and dangerous, as it was totally free of the boat and could stay under for more than five hours with the oxygen it had on board. The torpedo-shaped craft was what was known as a dry diver; in other words, the crew would be totally enclosed with their own atmosphere. Jenks had named the diving bell Yoyo One, because it looked like a yoyo on a string. The submersible had the mighty name of Turtle.

“Well, I guess that does it,” he said as he exited the Yoyo One. “Now you three keep those thermal suits on; as deep as you’re going, it gets colder than a well digger’s ass.”

“A well what?” Ellenshaw asked, not understanding the comment.

Jenks looked at the crazy-haired professor and removed his stump of cigar to say something else, then thought better of it and just shook his head.

Jack was nervous as he and Carl listened to the master chief’s banter. He knew everyone wasn’t happy with his decision to delay the initial incursion into the mine itself. But he wanted all avenues of approach mapped before he risked losing his remaining probes and even a single life. They had conducted tests on the depths of the lagoon but had yet to discover a bottom. They thought they had discovered it once, but one of the softball-size probes had lodged momentarily on a jutting ledge and then rolled free, sinking into the inky blackness of the apparently bottomless lagoon.

Sarah had announced during one of the tests that after the initial coldness of the water at the 150-foot depth, the water started heating up at a fantastic rate. She dubbed it the lagoon’s thermal layer, where volcanic activity was heating the water and forcing it through ancient steam vents. Virginia had also come in with her results from the five dropped probes. At the 200-foot level, the percentage of fluorides in the water increased by 500 percent— strange but still safe, even though she had never encountered amounts of fluorides in that high a degree before and was at a loss to explain the phenomenon.

“Major, you won’t be able to see Turtle, but the interior of Yoyo will be on this monitor; you can switch from interior to exterior. But you and Toad keep your eyes on the pumps and power cables for the bell above all else, that clear?” asked Jenks.

“Clear,” Jack said as he turned to Sarah and the two professors.

“A little out of my element here,” Sarah commented.

“Nonsense, little lieutenant; it’s just wet, otherwise it’s like one of your caves,” Jenks said as he adjusted her wetsuit. “Now climb aboard and take a seat. There’s absolutely nothing for you to do but take in your soundings and snap your pictures and observe.” He looked at Keating and Ellenshaw, who cowered back a step at his intense glare. “And I do mean observe, no turning of switches and no pushing of buttons, asking what’s this, what’s that. The little officer here is in charge down there, got it?”

“Yes, Chief, by all means, no buttons or switches,” Ellenshaw said as he nodded his head slightly to the left toward Keating, indicating on the sly that it would be Keating who would indeed push buttons and turn switches, not him.

Jenks turned his glare exclusively on Keating for a moment, who flinched back another step. He didn’t understand why he got the extra “chief” treatment because he hadn’t seen the white-haired man indicate he was the troublemaker.

“All right, your chariot awaits, ladies.” Jenks gestured and half bowed toward the open hatch.

Sarah and Jack exchanged a look, then she took the three steps up the small ladder and entered the bell. She was quickly followed by Keating and Ellenshaw, who were mumbling something about being called ladies. Jenks closed the hatch and turned a small wheel that tightened its seals. The passengers were out of sight below the collar that held Yoyo in place. Jenks slapped the rounded hull twice and then pulled a lever that freed the bell from its collar. Then he used a small hand pump to hydraulically open the large hatch below Yoyo, which when opened allowed a small rush of water into the space. It quickly drained and he used the winch controller to start lowering the bell. He stopped when the bell was completely awash, and put on his headphones.

“How are you reading, Yoyo?” he called.

“Loud and clear,” Sarah called back.

“You’ll remain there until Turtle is in the water, clear?”

“Clear.”

The master chief removed the headphones and gave them to Carl and turned to a nervous-looking Mendenhall. “Okay, Sergeant, let’s get into this highly experimental, uncertified, and probably the most dangerous submersible ever built, shall we?”

Mendenhall didn’t respond; he just looked at Jack and Carl and then slowly followed Jenks toward the raised acrylic cockpit of the Turtle.

Yoyo was lowered at fifteen feet per minute while Turtle zoomed around it in a spiral pattern, watching for telltale signs of leaking, which would be noticeable by small bubbles emanating from her titanium hull. Mendenhall momentarily felt dizzy as the fifteen-foot-long Turtle circled around the diving bell.

Sarah took active sonar soundings of the walls as they were lowered. The two professors watched out of their individual six-inch-thick portholes. They saw numerous fish, and took notes as to their species and the depth at which they were seen.

Sarah was writing down anomalies on her paper graph when she saw the sonar had picked up a large body of fish heading their way. She adjusted her headphones and placed the microphone close to her lips.

“Yoyo to Turtle, we have a large school of fish coming up on our starboard side, keep your eyes open,” she said as she leaned back and pointed out Ellenshaw’s window. She placed her hand over her mic. “Right out there,” she whispered.

“Right, Yoyo, maybe we can bring back supper to fry up,” Jenks called back.

Sarah didn’t respond. She reached out and placed her sonar on active to track the school continuously. Suddenly Ellenshaw gasped out loudly and even the reserved Keating let out his breath.

“Those ain’t no fish, they look like little scuba men,” Jenks called over the radio.

Sarah leaned forward and saw the water around the bell was being inundated by the small, amphibious monkeys. There were close to a hundred as they darted in and out of the exterior lights. Sarah laughed as she watched them play. Keating jumped back when one came close to the window, held onto the frame for a moment, and then quickly darted away. Ellenshaw observed with utter fascination while writing frantically in his notebook. His mouth was wide open as he found himself in a world of his dreams.

“Jack, Carl, are you picking this up?”

“We are, we just piped your camera shots through to the labs,” Jack called back.

“Should we snag one?” Jenks asked.

“NO!” Sarah and Jack said at the same time, almost cutting each other off.

“Chief, we’re not here to antagonize anything, you’re to observe only, are we clear on that?” Jack said.

“Clear, Major,” the master chief answered sadly.

As he watched, a large group of the amphibians broke away from the main group and circled the Turtle. They kept pace easily by using their webbed hands and feet. Their tails were in constant motion as they whipped back and forth, supplying them with tremendous speed. Jenks laughed as one cut in front of the submersible and was bumped softly by the hull, then grasped the edge of the cockpit and stared inside at the two men. Mendenhall had to smile at the comical expression of the animal that clearly said it didn’t know what had hit it. The monkey jabbered even while underwater, allowing a large flow of bubbles to escape its small mouth.

At the diving bell, the small creatures were hanging on in thick batches, trying to peer inside at the strangers to their underwater world. Sarah kept smiling and tapping on the glass, and the amphibians mimicked her action, in return tapping on the glass with their small claws.

A loud buzz sounded from her laptop. On the sonar graph she saw that it had picked up an anomaly on the far wall of the lagoon far below the opening behind the falls. She quickly noted the cave on the graph and marked its coordinates. Then, as she was about to turn back to her porthole, the computer chirped again. The sweep of sonar revealed a red blip coming at them from about five hundred yards. At that exact moment the small amphibians broke ranks and scattered in all directions. She looked at the sonar again; it was awash with tiny blips as the creatures fled. Their hasty retreat covered the red blip that had been there.

“Hey, what did Ellenshaw do, let them see his hair?” Jenks called jokingly over the radio.

Sarah didn’t answer, she had picked up the blip again at a hundred yards closer than it had been before. Whatever it was, it was fast.

“Chief, we have company coming, and coming fast from the northern part of the lagoon. I think it came from the area of the falls.”

Jenks didn’t respond as he stopped Turtle’s gentle spiral and turned her toward the possible threat.

Sarah continued to watch as the target blip suddenly plunged below them. It was coming upon them at over twenty-five knots, she calculated quickly.

“Jack, we may have the landlord coming at us here,” she said nervously into her microphone. “Whatever it is, it just went deep on us, it’s down below both vessels at three hundred feet and still diving. It’s not large enough for one of the plesiosaurs.”

The two professors unsnapped their lap belts and tried to peer though the portholes at what was below them, beyond the exterior floodlights.

“You two, strap yourselves back in!” she said louder than she’d intended.

“Major, start winching the bell back up,” Jenks called as he swung Turtle around a hundred degrees. He brought her airplanelike flaps up and applied thrust. Her water jet engine responded immediately.

“Roger, bringing her up,” Jack responded.

Sarah felt the winch engage. The depth of the bell started to decline, as indicated on her depth gauges. She saw the target was only a hundred yards away and now coming shallow. Jenks wouldn’t possibly get into position in time.

As Keating watched for any movement outside of his porthole, it was suddenly filled with a horrific face. He jumped back as the creature looked inside the interior of the bell. Sarah froze for a moment when she saw what had frightened the professor through the glass.

“Oh, my!” Ellenshaw said under his breath. The animal had swum quickly to his porthole and now he was face to face with it.

The creature had large black eyes and looked in with what Sarah thought was mere curiosity. The scales that covered its body were thick and appeared to be an exact match of the sample found on the body of the SEAL. The mouth opened and closed as its gills worked on either side just below the jawline. The back lower half of its head had a long row of leathery spines that angled downward. When the strange row of finlike spines was activated, they fanned out like a protective shield. The creature’s large handlike protrusions swirled back and forth in an effort to maintain its position in front of the porthole.

“Jesus Christ!” Jenks yelled into the radio. “What in the hell is that?”

“Stop and hold your position, Chief. Stay clear, it’s not aggressive, at least not yet,” Sarah called. “Jack, stop the winch,” she said calmly. Just a moment later they felt a small jerk as the bell came to a stop just above the layer where they started receiving refracted light from the surface.

“Look at it, its part human! It has to be! You can just feel and see the intelligence,” Ellenshaw said exuberantly.

“I agree, it’s studying us.” Keating was also mesmerized by the sight before him. “Professor, why would it have the spines running around the base of its head?”

“Your academic guess would be as good as mine, my friend. Perhaps they are a protective apparatus or simply a mating tool used by this animal.”

The creature suddenly moved away from the porthole and went deep. It reappeared in front of Sarah and she did her best not to react at its sudden arrival. The large head tilted, swinging the large spines that looked almost like braids. Being this close, Sarah could see the spines ended in clear, pointed spikes. The beast opened its mouth and she could see very small, almost clear teeth inside. The face had no scales to speak of. Its features were smooth and tinted a whitish light green color as compared to its body, which was a darker shade of green with swirling highlights of silver and gold.

“Jack, tell me you’re filming this,” she said.

“We got it. That has to be what pulled me from the water and killed that plesiosaur. Mendenhall, make sure you get some full body shots of this thing.”

“Filming with the nose camera,” the sergeant answered.

The creature swam from porthole to porthole, watching the bell’s occupants with immense curiosity. It kept reaching out only to be stopped by the glass. Then it slowly started backing away first by swirling its webbed fingers, and then by kicking with its powerful legs. It came up to the bubble canopy of the Turtle and swam in circles around it.

“Easy, Chief,” Sarah called. “It’s just showing you the same curiosity.”

“Yeah, you had a three-inch titanium fence around you, but this monstrosity could sink this aluminum coffin just by wishing real hard.”

“Really?” Mendenhall asked, not moving as the beast stopped and looked at him, only inches away.

The creature rubbed a hand over the canopy and then jerked it away. The master chief reduced power and the Turtle came to a hover fifty yards from Yoyo. The monster again reached out and touched the glass canopy just above Mendenhall’s head. It took all of the sergeant’s discipline not to duck as the eight-foot-long animal reached out. Then as suddenly as it had appeared, it darted off into the inkiness of the lagoon.

“That thing is five times faster than Turtle, Major. Get the bell up and out of here. We’ll stand by until she’s pulled aboard. Be careful and take it slow,” Jenks said.

Jack hit the switch again to bring Yoyo in, never so happy to obey an order from the crusty old master chief.

As Turtle slowly wound its way around the diving bell, Yoyo was slowly pulled up. Sarah plotted the downward-angled cave the sonar had picked up far below the falls that may be a prehistoric lava vent, but without seeing it firsthand she couldn’t be sure. But the water that flowed out of that particular vent was thirty degrees cooler than that of the lagoon at that depth.

The two professors were debating the existence of the animal they had just witnessed when a shudder coursed through the bell. Sarah held onto her clipboard full of calculations, and Ellenshaw and Keating stopped their bickering long enough to look above them at the rounded ceiling.

“Our visitor’s back. Goddammit, it’s messing with the umbilical lines!” the master chief called.

The creature first pulled on the steel cable, then on the rubber oxygen line, and then the electrical and oxygen lines together. It shook them lightly at first, then harder.

Sarah and the two professors were rocked in their seats as the bell was pulled from side to side. Then suddenly they stopped moving.

“It’s coming down the line toward the bell,” Jenks called.

The creature appeared at Ellenshaw’s window and then quickly darted away. Then Keating made a frightened puppy sound as the thing suddenly came up in front of him. The half-man, half-animal placed a hand on the glass and tilted its large head. The thick lips parted as its gills worked. The black eyes narrowed and blinked three sets of clear eyelids.

“I don’t care for this,” Ellenshaw said. “This behavior is not common to an animal in the wild. It should exhibit curiosity and then move on.”

“I agree, this is not right,” Keating said.

“Oh, now you agree. Jesus!” Sarah said in exasperation as the beast raised a webbed hand and struck the glass in front of Ellenshaw.

“Uh-oh,” Sarah said just as the beast struck the glass. “Jack, get us out of here!”

The bell immediately started to climb.

“It’s bashing the hull!” Jenks hollered.

The creature swiped at the glass, then the titanium bell, and quickly kicked out with its legs. It rose to the umbilicus again and started pulling and swiping at the cables in a maddened frenzy.

“That does it, it’s going to kill them,” Jenks said as he applied forward thrust to Turtle.

Mendenhall grabbed for the two handholds along the top of the canopy, pushed back in his seat by their sudden acceleration as they rushed toward Yoyo at full speed.

The beast pulled up suddenly as it was struck by the pressure wave sent out from the advancing Turtle. It stopped its attack and hovered for a moment, eyeing the threat coming at it. Then it swam back toward the bell, going from window to window to look into the interior. Then an explosion of bubbles came from its mouth as it reached out toward the window Ellenshaw was close to and struck it hard, rocking the bell from side to side. Finally it suddenly broke off the attack and vanished into the darkness in a swirl of bubbles.

“Beats the hell out of looking for Bigfoot, doesn’t it?” the shaking Keating said with a nervous chuckle.

Ellenshaw ignored the slight and continued to alternate between his window and the monitor mounted on the bell, trying desperately to find the beast once again.

“Okay, Jack, it’s off the scope, bring us up,” Sarah said as she slowly pulled off her headset and sank down into her seat.

Twenty minutes later, Sarah was back in Teacher, in navigation, plotting the underwater cave the sonar had picked up.

“It may just be an extinct lava vent, but look at this,” she pointed at the graph laid out on the large map table. They saw that her hand was still shaking slightly from their encounter in the water. “See how perfectly round this is? It’s about fifteen feet in diameter, I would say. I don’t know, Jack, but if I were forced to guess at this point, I would say that cave is man-made and not a lava vent at all.”

“Lieutenant, if I may point out, the depth on your graph indicates that vent is over four hundred feet below the surface of the lagoon. A task quite impossible for man to have carved it out,” Danielle said as she looked from Sarah to Carl and finally to Jack.

“Not if at one time this lagoon wasn’t here,” Sarah countered, holding the Frenchwoman’s eyes.

“What are you saying?” Jack asked.

“I have a theory, and it’s just a theory,” she said, “that maybe this used to be an open pit mine, a natural formation that was discovered and used by the Inca, or maybe another civilization. I had time to think about it and I think this lagoon is a natural geological feature. A caldera—a creater—of a volcano that isn’t quite extinct, but stable enough because the lava flow and steam vents act as a natural pressure relief valve, never allowing the volcanic pressures to build up to the point where it could erupt. My guess is a rough one, but I don’t think this once-active site has erupted for close to twelve or fifteen million years. And maybe, just maybe, the tributary and the river above the lagoon that creates the falls were once flowing in other directions. I think that at some later time they were diverted here to fill a man-made lake, this very lagoon.”

“What evidence is there that even hints at such an outrageous theory?”

Sarah didn’t answer Danielle’s question at first. She reached over and placed a CD into one of the networked players beside the navigation table. She hit a button and an underwater picture appeared.

“Now the absence of light hurts the quality of the video taken, but we got these on the way down before our visitor appeared. See this far wall—its about a hundred feet below the waterfall and two hundred above the cave opening, or lava vent. Now look at this,” she said as she used a pencil to trace a line that at first only she could see. The pencil point zigzagged as she moved it down the screen.

Jack and Carl didn’t see it at first. But then Jack noticed a formation that nature could never duplicate on its own. “A staircase?”

“Bingo.”

“Damn,” Carl and Danielle said at the same time at a pattern that was too precise not to be man-made.

“I must apologize, Lieutenant. You have a valid theory going here,” Danielle said as she studied the rock wall. “But why would men build a staircase underneath the water?”

“I need to go back down, Jack,” said Sarah.

Jack straightened and scratched his forehead. “Let’s just assume you’re right, that this vent is a man-made portal of some kind. I think we have enough to go on.”

“But if you were hesitant about going into the mine without an escape route, why does an underwater cave reassure you?” Danielle asked.

“I’ll make a wager that the cave is a viable exit from the mines. Ancient man had a habit of doing impossible things, Ms. Serrate. For all we know, there is a pressure area just beyond that opening that holds the water back and keeps the shaft beyond dry.”

“Like a diver’s trunk on undersea platforms,” Carl volunteered.

Jack just nodded and looked at his watch. It was already well after three in the afternoon, but he wanted a few more answers now. He hit the intercom.

“Chief?”

“Yeah,” Jenks answered from engineering.

“You ready to take Snoopy for a walk to see what the hoopla was about for all these centuries?”

Farbeaux watched as Mendez squeezed his fat body into the wetsuit and as Rosolo placed a rubberized nylon bag on his dive belt and made sure it was secured properly. The other men sat about with their wetsuits on and checked their rebreathers. There were sixteen men in all, including him. Enough, Farbeaux thought, to almost guarantee a foul-up while traveling that long a distance underwater to the mine.

Santos was leaning out of the bridge window with his large cigar tucked into the corner of his smiling mouth. Farbeaux walked to the opposite side of the boat, where the remaining crew was bringing over some of the packed supplies from the anchored barge. He thought he saw something flash out of the corner of his eye. As he strained to see, the movement didn’t recur.

The commander of the assault element had been following the Rio Madonna for days. The track had been difficult to follow, but the colonel had been raised in the thick canopied forests of Brazil. He watched as his men performed their preparations deep inside the jungle.

“Are you ready?”

The small man walked up to the colonel but remained in the shadows. “We are ready.”

“The radios will have no trouble operating underneath this cursed tree canopy, so have it monitored closely. I will signal when it is time for you to move the men in force into the lagoon, are you clear on this?”

“Yes, but my men, they are not used to water travel. We are at home on the land; our training has been for land assault.”

The colonel looked angry for a moment but then quickly calmed. “My orders were to get your men to the assault point and let you do what you were paid to do; you will inflate your boats past the rapids and enter the lagoon. I expect you will only have to face a third of the Americans, the rest will be inside the mine by now.”

“What about these fools on the boat? They pose a threat to my men, yes?”

The colonel looked through the darkness at the Rio Madonna. The men onboard were loud as they prepared to enter the river.

“They may make your assault all the more easy. I suspect they are at cross-purposes to our American friends. In any case, they must be eliminated also. No one leaves this valley alive; those are my orders and thus, your orders. Your employers will be very unforgiving if you fail in this.”

“We do as we are paid to do. I have worked many times for your general and have never failed him. We will kill every person in the lagoon and then seal the others in the mine. But the situation has changed, hasn’t it? We were told about the Americans, but your general never said anything about this second group. This will double the price, otherwise you can use your own military for these murders.”

The colonel looked about in exasperation. “Your price will be met. But I will be with you to ensure your contract is fulfilled.”

The mercenary nodded and ordered his men forward with the rubber boats. “Soon your general will have many dead Americans.”

Onboard the Rio Madonna, Farbeaux went to the fantail and started situating his equipment. He still had the strange feeling that they weren’t alone. The jungle opposite the boat was quiet but he still glanced up every few moments to examine the area as far as his limited sightlines permitted.

The rebreather he held was large and bulky but he would only have to carry it beyond the rapids. Then at that point, he and Mendez’s men would enter the lagoon unnoticed. As he placed his nine-millimeter and five extra clips into a plastic satchel, his hand brushed against the large cross in his pack. He took a breath and curled his fingers around it. He brought it up into the fantail’s weak deck light. It had been stolen by a contact who had known the item had been lifted by the U.S. government in the 1930s. How they had come into possession of it, Farbeaux had no idea. But it was his, and that included the unusual items inside the cross. The reason he was here. He rattled the large object and was satisfied when he heard the two samples inside slide up and down in the false bottom. It had been an ingenious design by none other than Father Corinth himself, the very same man who was responsible for one of the very first political cover-ups in the New World. As he held the cross and felt its internal warmth, he knew the priest of the Pizarro incursion had been beyond his years in wisdom. With what he held in his hand, Farbeaux knew beyond doubt that he could change the balance of world power forever. But it would be he who had that choice, not some banking blood-sucker that was far more evil than the men he once served.