“Aweigh anchor detail, sir?” Ewell asked in confusion.
“Do you have a problem with my order, Commander?”
“No, sir! I’m on it,” he replied in compliance as he sounded the claxon, and issued the orders ship-wide.
“Just covering my ass,” Mac whispered to no one. He stared with growing apprehension at the foreboding plume of smoke in the distance.
35
As Turner and Samuel neared the island of La Palma to aid Eli and Maria, Captain Saune stood at the door of the Bishamon facility. He was accompanied by the brawny Marine lieutenant and Yashiro. The lieutenant established three teams to do a methodical sweep of the entire facility, to flush out any remaining resistance and hopefully find Osama. The thirty Marines and what was left of Saune’s men stood ready to proceed, when from deep within the building, they heard the distinct crack of three gunshots. The soldiers all came to alert at the sound, while Saune and the lieutenant moved aside the door.
“I thought you said this place was secure, Captain,” the Marine lieutenant remarked.
“Secure as we could make it with five men, Lieutenant.” Saune shot back, rebuking the off-handed remark. “The rest of my men are lying dead on the lower side of this damned rock!”
“My apologies to you, Captain,” the lieutenant said in embarrassment. “I didn’t mean any disrespect.”
“None taken, Lieutenant.”
At that very moment, the ground beneath them began to rumble, building in magnitude for at least thirty seconds before subsiding as quickly as it had begun.
“Something is wrong!” Yashiro yelled in a panicked voice. “That should not have occurred after my final corrections were made. We need to get back into the control room now.”
“Okay, team leaders, move out,” the lieutenant yelled. The three squads entered the now dark atrium, and then split off to their assigned levels to begin their search. The Marines and the remaining National Guardsmen began to search each of the living quarters along the center corridor, while Saune and Yashiro made a sprint towards the control room door. The access box, smashed earlier by Samuel, dangled uselessly against the door as they reached it.
“You’re going to have to shoot the door open, Captain.” Yashiro said, peering into the room through the Plexiglas pane. “Something is terribly wrong,” he whispered as he looked about the room. One of the Marines came running up to report that the living quarters along the hall were clear.
“I need you to open this door, Corporal,” Saune stated, motioning to the lance corporal’s rifle.
“Stand back, sir,” he said as he raised his weapon and let loose its fire power against the lock, splintering it along with much of the frame. Saune entered the room first and made sure that it was clear, followed by Yashiro and the rest of the detachment.
Yashiro walked over to the computer console station and froze at what he saw lying on the floor in front of it. There lay the bodies of the three Japanese scientists they encountered earlier, all executed with a bullet to the head. He fought the urge to be sick and averted his eyes from the grisly scene before him as he turned his focus to the computer display.
“Looks like Osama’s handy work,” Saune said, rolling the bodies over with his boot. “That must have been the shots we heard outside.”
“Oh my God, no!” Yashiro said incredulously. “They’ve reestablished the exothermic EM waves in the magma chamber beneath La Palma. I’ll have to repeat the entire process again.”
“You do that while we look for Osama. There has to be a false wall in here someplace,” Saune said as he and his men fanned out along the perimeter of the room. “Look for any gaps or openings in the panels.”
Their search was interrupted when the Marine lieutenant burst into the control room yelling. “We’ve got to clear out of here now, Captain. They’ve ordered the Tomahawk strike on this facility. We’ve got just ten minutes to be airborne.”
“No!” Yashiro yelled, panic in his eyes. “They can’t do it until I have reduced the EM wave levels. There’s no predicting the shock wave levels that may result from the sudden shut down of the Scalar weapon.”
“Here on Tenerife?” Saune asked the scared Japanese scientist.
“Here and on La Palma as well. I can’t be sure of the after-effects. You’ve got to stop the strike,” he pleaded.
“There’s no time to argue, sir,” the lieutenant ordered, motioning his men to vacate the control room.
Frustrated and defeated, Yashiro hesitantly left the console. He followed the fleeing soldiers out of the control room and down the corridor, and then exited the doomed complex. Outside, the two remaining Sea Knights were powering up in preparation for lift-off as the men filed into the rear access ramps. With everyone accounted for, the two CH-46 helicopters lifted off from the compound’s main entrance area and headed to safety.
At that same moment, fifteen miles from La Palma, a turbulent flash and roar emitted from the fore deck of the USS Milford as its deadly TLAM Block III lifted off. The TERCOM GPS guidance system of the weapon locked in on its target as it cruised four hundred feet over the calm, turquoise waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
***
Deep in the bowels of the Bishamon facility, a winded Yagato Osama reached the lowest level of the complex that he had designed specifically for an emergency evacuation. He now stood at the base of a thirty-foot steel ladder that descended vertically from the false wall in the control room to a small concrete room that led to a large steel door. He spun the circular latch on the steel door, unlocking the oval shaped entryway. He then pulled it open to reveal the entrance to a lava tube.
His engineers discovered this tube during the facility's construction, and had reported to Osama that it made a gradual decent to an opening in the mountain about three quarters of a mile distant. The mountain opening was not accessible from the exterior due to a steep drop off, but a helicopter could airlift a person out if necessary. In the opposite direction of the tunnel, coming from the caldera, the ceiling had collapsed centuries ago. To Osama, this was the perfect means of an escape in the event of an emergency. He had his construction crews secretly build the concrete room and then break through to the lava tube. As a finishing touch, he had ceiling light fixtures suspended along its entire route.
Regaining his breath, he entered the cool, dimly-lit lava tube and slammed the large reinforced steel door behind him with a loud, muffled clunk. Then he drove the one-inch diameter steel slide bolts into the sides, locking the door from the inside.
Osama sat down against the cool basalt rock to rest, pleased with himself at his ingenuity and resourcefulness. Once Fuyuki and his assistants had re-established the Scalar weapon’s exothermic mode, they were expendable to him. Retrieving the side arm from the dead guard that Turner’s people killed, he terminated the three men as effortlessly as a person killing a fly.
I will not be beaten by that fool, Turner, or the United States. When I alone have the wealth and power from the ZPGs that Pencor so graciously provided me, I’ll be untouchable, he thought vainly.
Minutes later, a grinning Osama began to slowly make his way down the lava tube to the tunnel entrance, and to freedom. At that precise moment, the Tomahawk missile struck the Bishamon complex.
The missile penetrated into the heart of the complex, detonating as it reached the core. The resulting explosion sent a monstrous fireball into the early evening sky that was seen from all over the island. People everywhere on Tenerife stopped to look at the curious aberration coming from the old dormant volcano. Osama felt the tremor of the explosion, but paid little mind since he was safely away from the complex at that point.
The ZPGs in the facility were completely destroyed in seconds, terminating the power to the Scalar weapon’s two parabolic dishes and huge electromagnetic oscillators. The EM waves that were directed towards La Palma reacted just as Yashiro had feared. The immense power carried in the EM waves over the vacuum of space-time now had no origin, nor termination
point. With no direction, the powerful EM waves exited to the nearest reference points. The first was the Bishamon facility, and the other was at the convergence point deep within the magma chamber on La Palma.
Osama halted his progression as he felt a new tremor. He listened to the growing reverberation in the ground increase in veracity as the earth began to shake beneath him. What followed next was a shock wave of tumultuous force that shook the entire lava tube and sent Osama reeling to the rocky floor. The last thing he saw before the overhead lights went black was the ceiling of the lava tube cascading to the floor in a thunderous roar, effectively sealing his only exit route.
The complete and utter darkness consumed him to his very core. He cursed himself for not bringing a flashlight, since he now found himself confined to the darkness like a blind man. Slowly getting up, he shuffled his way toward the direction of the cave, only to find a huge pile of debris blocking his route.
I’ll have to go back the other way, he thought, growing uncertain and for the first time in his life, afraid.
Osama slowly stumbled his way back to the entrance of the facility. With relief, he found the door by groping in the dark for the cool steel. He tried to slide the steel bolts on the lock, but was unable to budge them. With ensuing panic, he desperately began screaming and pulling on the slide bolts. To his dismay, the collapse of the facility and tons of falling rock had jammed the steel door on the outside and twisted the frame.
Winded and terrified, he sat down and tried to figure a way out. There was none. He was trapped, all alone in the darkness, with no way out. His muffled screams went unheard for three hours as he lay on the floor cowering in panic. Total madness set upon him after four days. While immersed in darkness, he could see into his own mind, the hundreds of people he’d murdered in his long, violent reign, all looking at him from the blackness of the sealed lava tube. They were condemning him, laughing at him, and taunting him.
Yagato Osama, the powerful Japanese Yakuza Oyabun who controlled the life and death of many; the man who would be rich and powerful, died a very slow and lonely death.
36
For Eli Turner and Maria Santiago, still trapped on their precarious perch on La Palma, the situation was becoming dire. Though the massive landslide had ceased its progression, the tremors became numerous once again as a result of Osama’s reactivation of the exothermic Scalar weapon. Their brief respite on the narrow ledge of basalt high above the deserted town of Puerto Naos was now shattered by a series of violent shock waves from deep within the fiery magma chamber beneath the Cumbre Vieja.
The volcanic ash presented their most immediate danger, as tons of toxic, airborne ash emanated from the eruption and rained down upon them. Likened to dirt-laden snow, the suspended particles of crystalline silica irritated their eyes and throat, causing uncontrolled coughing and burning in their eyes.
Maria now cradled the elder Turner in her arms. She had fashioned makeshift face masks by ripping her parka into small pieces and tying them around their faces. Using the remainder of the material, she applied direct pressure to his chest wound in an effort to stem the blood flow. Doing so had also somewhat helped his breathing. She knew that if he didn’t get required medical attention soon, he would not survive.
“I’m not able to get through on the cell phone,” she yelled to Eli as another tremor shook the fragile ledge beneath them.
“It must be atmospheric interference due to the eruption,” Turner said weakly. “We’re lucky that you got through the first time.”
As another massive tremor hit, Maria closed her eyes and held on to Eli. She covered his face as pieces of basalt rock and dust fell from the outcropping rock above them. The fierce trembling precipitated another fissure just to the right of Maria. As it began to fracture, the crack traveled towards the edge of what used to be the floor of the lava tube. She opened her eyes to find herself looking at an increasingly widening fissure and she scrambled to drag Eli away from its edge. With a resounding crack, the tiny ledge they had just been laying on tumbled downward into the void beneath them. What remained was a balcony-sized section of floor that was now the only thing keeping them from falling to certain death far below.
“I’m so sorry for getting you into this mess, Maria,” Eli managed weakly as the tremor subsided. “Please forgive me.”
“No one twisted my arm to come here, Eli. This is not your fault,” she replied. She picked up his hat that had fallen off during their frantic repositioning and placed it into the back pack. “Besides, it was worth the risk to actually find these relics and know that they’re real. It’ll be sad if they are lost again.”
“Maria, I don’t think I’m going to make it,” he said weakly as he looked into her eyes and had another coughing fit. “I want you to tell Josh that I met my end doing what I loved the most, and that—”
“Don’t talk like that!” she yelled, tears of despair beginning to flow from her eyes. She knew that they were both doomed if help didn’t arrive soon. “Just hang on. We’ll get out of this somehow. I know Josh and Samuel will find a way,” she added optimistically, even though she knew that it probably wasn’t to be.
More ash and debris began to swirl about them, accompanied by a sound that she thought was another tremor. Realizing that this was most likely the end, she held on tightly to Eli and laid back in silent resignation. As she gazed above her, Maria realized that this wasn’t a new series of shock waves, but a much more familiar sound.
The huge CH-46 Sea Knight appeared out of nowhere and hovered above her like the vision of an angel. Maria jumped up on the ledge and started shouting.
“Eli! They’re here! We’re gonna' make it!” she yelled, looking at the elder Turner, but seeing that he was no longer conscious. Her sudden joy was transformed to despair as the Sea Knight drifted away from them and moved upward along the ridge. “No!” she screamed. Waving her arms wildly, she saw Turner leaning out of the emergency door of the chopper as it moved slowly away from them. “Please, don’t leave us,” she cried again as the Sea Knight moved further and further away.
With the access door behind the cockpit of the Sea Knight open, Turner and the Marine medic peered through the swirling debris of dust and ash. They searched for any sign of life on the now devastated rocky slope, while Samuel rooted through the box seat behind them for the rescue harness assembly. Major Zibrinski kept a close eye on the pilot caution panel indicators for any sign of engine trouble as she hovered along the partially collapsed fault line.
“If the map coordinates for the rock formation you spoke of are correct, we should be in their vicinity,” Zibrinski said over the aircraft intercom sets that all of them now wore. “Be advised, we won’t be able to stay here too long with the amount of ash in the air. The particles in the ash will basically sand-blast these engines until they seize,” she stated as the big Sikorsky pivoted around to give the men behind her a better view of the rocky edge of the slope.
“Any luck, Mr. Turner?” the major queried as she held the CH-46 on a steady track.
“Nothing yet, Major,” he replied tersely, seeing the devastation caused by the eruption and separation of the fault line. “Most of the ridge is obscured by ash. It’s going to be difficult to see anyone down there.”
“This is impossible. We’ll never find them in this,” the medic said nervously as he surveyed the disaster below them.
“We’ll find them, amigo,” Samuel said optimistically, but beginning to have some doubt as to their success. This is like trying to find a needle in a burning haystack.
Just then, the CH-46 intercoms came to life with the familiar voice of Colonel Kyle Sears. “Sid, swing around and fly south along the ridge. I’ve got two targets on my thermal imagery; one standing and one down. Over....”
Sears, after receiving the recall from the Hazleton, made a side trip en route to see if he could lend support. He now stood five hundred feet from the top of the newly-formed rock slide that menaced the small towns and sea fa
r below.
“Roger that, Colonel,” Zibrinski responded in acknowledgment as she deftly swung the big chopper around and headed south towards the small ledge holding Eli and Maria. “Okay, I have a visual on them,” she said as she swung toward the tiny outcropping of basalt and came to a halt over the two besieged archaeologists. “Alright, gentlemen, get that winch going and be damned quick about it.”
“Major,” the co-pilot said anxiously, “I’m getting a caution light on the number two turbine gearbox. It’s the ash intake into the compressor.”
“Awe, crap,” Zibrinski said, and then advised the rescue team behind her. “We have got to do this now, guys. We’re flirting with engine trouble, but I’ll hold for as long as I can.”
“Got it, Major,” Turner replied as he grabbed the Blue Water rescue harness from Samuel and began climbing into it like a pair of trousers.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the medic yelled in protest as Turner began suiting up. “You’re not trained in rescue recovery.”
“Are you?” Turner asked as he grabbed the aluminum locking d-ring karabiners and snapped them on the end of the Kern mantle nylon rope.
“No, but—”
“Just get your medical supplies ready to receive my father when I come back up. He can’t wait for you to finish bringing both of them in,” he said in decisiveness as he swung himself out of the hatchway and into the swirling wind of the rotor wash. Samuel manned the winch controls and proceeded to let out the line, lowering Turner down to the miniscule ledge below.
He reached the rocky ledge in moments. Maria’s strong grip pulled him close to the wall and away from the steep ledge. He was stunned to see the amount of blood his father lost and was heartsick to see him so lifeless and pale as he knelt beside him.
“Dad, can you hear me?” he yelled over the roar of the Sea Knight’s rotors.
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