Legend: An Event Group Thriller

by David L. Golemon

  “Give us another three thousand pounds of ballast,” calmly ordered the master chief.

  Carl turned on the ballast pumps. Although he couldn’t hear them engage, he was satisfied as he saw on the digital readout that the distance between keel and the bottom was decreasing.

  “She’s down a full three feet, Chief,” Carl reported.

  Outside their windows the crew could see the greenish waters lapping six or seven inches above the sealed frames.

  Jenks applied more power as Teacher strained to break free of the under-growth. Her engines were churning up water as she struggled for momentum. “Going to fifty percent power, hang on!”

  Teacher seemed to be stuck in place. As they viewed the situation in their monitors, the crew each willed her either forward or for their pilot to back off.

  “Going to seventy-five percent power,” Jenks called out and pushed the throttles forward to the three-quarters mark, but still the bushes, roots, and vines clung to the hull like tentacles of an octopus, refusing their advance.

  “Engines are overheating,” Carl shouted.

  “No news is good news. Can that shit, mister, going to redline!” Jenks shoved the dual throttles all the way to their stops.

  Strapped into their seats, Mendenhall and Shaw were standing by in the engine compartment, sweat rolling down their faces. The heat was overpowering the air-conditioning, and the section was slowly becoming unbearable. The diesels were so loud that the two men couldn’t converse. Suddenly something popped and a small fire broke out as a gasket failed and diesel fuel sprayed out onto the deck.

  “Fire!” Mendenhall shouted but Shaw had his ears covered and couldn’t hear him. The sergeant unsnapped his harness and ran for the fire extinguisher. He emptied the extinguisher, momentarily smothering the flames. Mendenhall threw away the empty and grabbed another, as the engines seemed to strain even louder as they went to full power.

  Suddenly and very slowly the vines started to separate with loud popping and tearing sounds. Still the master chief kept full power to the engines. Then all at once they were through. Outside the view ports of the cabin, they saw the vines and bushes suddenly slide by as Teacher was sling-shot into the giant cave. Her lights picked out rock walls and sides as she sped into the void.

  “Engine shutdown!” Jenks cried. “Toad, hit the forward jets, stop this goddamned thing before we slam into a wall!”

  Carl engaged the two forward water-jet thrusters and applied full throttle to them both. Teacher started to slow. Then before they knew it, the large boat was at a standstill. All was silent except for the forward thrusters. Carl reached out and shut them down. The voyagers found themselves in a giant cave sitting in the middle of a slow-moving underground grotto, with the river leading out to the east.

  “So this is the missing east end of the Rio Negro,” Jack said as he reached for the intercom. “Okay everyone, we’re through. Welcome to Captain Padilla’s Black Water Tributary.”

  Before starting down the long corridor of darkness, Jenks inspected the engine room and declared engine number one down. He, Mendenhall, Shaw, and the amazingly and hereto unbeknownst mechanically inclined Professor Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw III, who volunteered his services in their capacity, began to change out the head gasket on number one and replace the fuel line that had split. They would run in the meantime on engine number two, as Jenks didn’t think they would be calling for speed anytime soon. He inspected the rest of Teacher, and aside from a few rubber window gaskets that had leaked, she had come through the falls just fine. They were under way at five knots ten minutes later, still running low in the water through the blackness that engulfed the boat.

  Farbeaux was amazed at what he had just witnessed through his glasses. That strange-looking craft actually went through the falls.

  “These people never cease to amaze me,” he mumbled as he handed the field glasses back to the captain. “And to think our lady friend, Professor Zachary, also found it and made it through—surely we must respect them. Do you agree, señor?”

  “So, what do you plan to do?” Mendez asked annoyedly.

  “I expect we will wait for two hours, and in that time we will prepare to follow them. Captain, get your crew ready and let’s cut the profile of the Rio Madonna down some so we may attempt to enter the cave; the barge is low in the water so should not pose a problem,” Farbeaux said as he walked off the flying bridge.

  “Sí, señor,” the captain responded, and started shouting orders to his tenman crew.

  Mendez felt better that Farbeaux was taking such complete charge, it gave him the benefit of not having to coordinate the effort but still be critical if need be. He walked back to the fantail and sat down with Rosolo and his team of twelve bodyguards.

  Farbeaux walked to the port side of the Rio Madonna, stood by the gunwale, and lit a cigarette. He was getting an old familiar feeling that came upon him when things were not under his complete control. He felt there were more elements involved than he had accounted for. As he looked around the jungle surrounding them, he was starting to feel like a small piece of a much larger puzzle, a puzzle that could become very dangerous if he wasn’t the one to figure it out first.

  EVENT GROUP COMPLEX NELLIS AFB, NEVADA

  There was a knock on Niles’s door. He rubbed his eyes and looked over at his nightstand. It was only ten at night and that was when he realized he had fallen asleep in his clothes. He shook his head and reached for his glasses.

  “Yes?”

  “Sorry to disturb you, Niles, but you’d better see this, Boris and Natasha are now on the job and they caught something,” Pete Golding said from outside the door to Niles’s quarters.

  “It’s open, Pete,” he called out as he turned on the nightstand table light and put his stocking feet on the carpeted floor. He stood and made it over to his desk, where the day’s paperwork still lay undone.

  Pete walked in, holding several pictures in his hand. “Your computer up?” he asked.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Good, we won’t have to use these wet stills, then.”

  Pete stepped up to Niles’s computer. He quickly typed in some commands and his security clearance, then he turned the monitor toward Niles.

  “These are only twenty minutes old and were taken on Boris and Natasha’s first pass.”

  Niles looked down at the monitor. It displayed a night shot that the KH-11 satellite had taken over its new position. He could see the river in dark relief, and then he spotted many small, glowing objects. The photo, obviously infrared, showed about fifty warm bodies moving along the river in the only section for thirty miles that had any clear opening through the massive canopy of trees.

  “Where are these people?” Niles asked.

  “The exact coordinates the major reported from this afternoon. Now, Jack says he suspected they were being trailed by a boat with a barge attached, which has disappeared, by the way, but he doesn’t know anything about people on the ground. And look at this,” Pete said as he typed in another command on the keyboard.

  The picture started to resize itself. White squares appeared upon white squares and they started to swirl. The picture had been enlarged by Natasha until Niles could clearly make out the men walking along the river in the dark.

  “Goddammit!”

  “Yeah, those are troops; you can even make out most of their equipment,” Pete said.

  “Just who in the hell are we dealing with?”

  “Could be anyone, but my guess would be Peruvian, most likely,” Pete ventured as he leaned back away from the picture he had been studying for the last hour.

  “For a goddamned secret valley, enough people seem to know about it,” Niles said, rubbing a hand over his balding head. “We have to contact Jack.”

  “We tried. There’s nothing since Jack reported they were going into the cave.”

  Niles slumped into his chair and pushed the daily reports away from him. “Contact Lieutenant Ryan,” Niles said as he
looked at his watch, “he and his twelve-man team should have arrived in Panama by now. Tell him Operation Conquistador is now on full alert.”

  “You got it, Niles,” Pete said as he gathered up his photos. Then he thought better of it and placed them back on the director’s desk, and then left the room.

  Niles studied the monitor briefly and then pulled the topmost wet photo off the pile and stared at it. He hoped Jack would be able to make contact if and when they exited the cave. Because if they couldn’t at least get a signal up and out to Boris and Natasha, they would be cut off with no chance of help arriving.

  As Niles contemplated the images, he knew there was a whole lot of trouble heading their way.

  Hell, he thought, also trouble from a source that was probably already there waiting for them, just as it had been for the Padilla and Zachary expeditions.

  14

  UNDERGROUND, BLACK WATER TRIBUTARY, BRAZIL

  Teacher was cruising in the dark at a revised three knots. Thus far they had been in the cave for three hours and had been amazed at the carvings they had documented that covered the rock walls—depictions of wild men in different hunting poses, Incan gods and warriors, and strange beasts and fish. Thus far they had cataloged three hundred different carvings. The work had been meticulously worked and showed in minute detail what life had been like for those who traveled the ancient tunnel before them.

  Carl was at the helm in the cockpit, kept company by Jack who assisted with fathom soundings and as a lookout for rock projections, which had nearly done them in twice. Teacher was still riding low in the water with the extra ballast they had taken on, as the roof was only ten feet above them and as low as a mere yard in some spots. Every once in a while they saw bats flutter in and out of the floodlights.

  Jenks was in section seven, assisting the science team with the expandable observation module, which would be lowered to allow them a view of their new underwater domain.

  The center of the section was taken up by a large boxlike structure made mostly of glass and aluminum framing. There were seats inside this eight-foot-long vessel for six crewmen, and it was fully equipped with small cameras, for both still photos and video. Jenks assisted Danielle, Dr. Nathan, Sarah, Mendenhall, Heidi Rodriguez, and Professor Ellenshaw into the observation module and checked to make sure the hydraulic pressure was up. Then he removed his cigar from his mouth.

  “Okay, I suspect you’re going to feel a little queasiness when you’re lowered. The section is telescopic so you won’t actually be out of the boat, just under her some. Ready?”

  The six passengers nodded as they turned toward the sides and the glass that for right now showed nothing other than the outer composite hull.

  Jenks pressed a button on the intercom. “Toad, you’re going to feel some drag as we lower the section into the water, Teacher’s computer should compensate after about thirty seconds, so don’t worry about it, got it?”

  “You got it, Chief; right now we have about thirty-two feet under the keel. We’ll give you plenty of notice if we run shallower than twenty-five,” Carl said from the cockpit.

  “Okay, boys and girls, hold onto your asses,” Jenks said as he raised the switch cover and pressed.

  The hum of hydraulics sounded from motors embedded in the sides of Teacher as the section started to telescope. The passengers grabbed the armrests of the seats and looked up as they were lowered. The faces of Jenks and the rest of the sciences team became obscured as the rush of passing water was heard. They turned toward the glass again when the small boat-shaped platform broke into the river. Mendenhall was sitting in the frontmost seat and so was nearest the bow-shaped and aerodynamic front. A mere six inches of acrylic separated him from the rush of greenish water being split by the platform. First they were lowered by five feet into the river; next, another section started sliding from the hull of Teacher and the platform was telescoped another five feet into the river. Then floodlights blazed to life and the underwater world was illuminated around them in stark detail.

  “My god, this is great,” Sarah said.

  Above them, a section of soundproof decking slid over the top of the submerged platform, sealing out light and noise from Teacher and the crew above.

  All about them, fish of every freshwater species darted about, some curious as to the strange creatures staring at them, enough so that they returned the favor.

  “Damn, look at this—it’s got to be the largest damn catfish I have ever seen. Look at its color,” Mendenhall said.

  Outside the glass of the pointed bow, an albino catfish, with a wide mouth that was at least large enough to take a man whole, swam by curiously but sped away when it came into the center of one of the floodlights.

  “We’re invading its home,” Danielle remarked as she watched the black walls of the cave slide by her.

  “Look at that,” Ellenshaw said. “Supay, the god of the Inca underworld.”

  Outside the acrylic windows, they could see a statue, at least forty feet in length. It lay on its back. Teacher easily cleared it and, as she passed over, they could see the slanted, snakelike eyes as it watched the strange craft ease by above it.

  “Professor, look!” Danielle said loudly.

  “Oh my god! Someone start filming this, please!” Ellenshaw cried as he found himself face to face with a freshwater coelacanth, a fish that was supposed to be extinct more than 60 million years before. More than one saltwater species had been caught off the coast of Africa, but this was the first live specimen Ellenshaw had ever seen, outside of some rare footage of one that was filmed four years before. It was just inches from his face.

  “Cameras are running, Professor,” Jenks called through the intercom from above.

  “This is amazing,” he said as he raised his hands to the glass. The huge fish swam easily, its strong finlike appendages able to maneuver it like a swimmer with hands.

  “This is not the saltwater species found in the seas, look at her! She must be two hundred pounds, and in freshwater, remarkable!” Ellenshaw exclaimed. “Professor Keating, are you seeing this?” he asked with the aid of the intercom.

  “Indeed, I am. This is truly remarkable.”

  As Sarah joined them at the window, the prehistoric fish suddenly moved with the speed of a snake striking a victim. It smashed itself into the window, making all inside fall back, either into chairs or onto the deck. It swam away and then attacked the glass again. It repeated the aggressive action three more times as it gathered more speed with every turn. Then the five-foot-long fish apparently finally decided enough was enough and swam off into the murky water.

  “Well, that was fucking exciting; not exactly something you would put in your tank at home, is it?” Sarah said as she was helped up by Mendenhall.

  “Do we have film of this?” Ellenshaw asked.

  The speaker came alive and Jenks answered, “Got it all, damn near thought he was going to punch a hole in that acrylic.”

  “It was indeed splendidly aggressive, wasn’t it,” the wild-haired Ellenshaw said excitedly.

  “Yeah,” Mendenhall said, looking at the professor as if he had lost his mind.

  “Okay, folks, that’s enough for now, too dangerous while we’re under way. Bringing her up,” Jenks warned.

  The ceiling above them slid back as they resumed their seats. The bottom section telescoped into the first, and that into the main hull. All six crewmembers exited with a feeling they had just returned from another world.

  “I hope we can get a specimen while we are here; that would be marvelous,” Ellenshaw said as he slapped Mendenhall on the shoulder.

  The sergeant just gave him an uneasy smile, then turned to Sarah and rolled his eyes.

  Later, while Jenks was at the helm in the cockpit, Teacher suddenly broke free of the cave and into the star-filled night sky. It was so sudden he didn’t even realize it until the moon lit up the cockpit. He reached out and slapped Lance Corporal Walter Lebowitz, who had been sleeping and was suppos
ed to be assisting him.

  “Wake up, jarhead!” Jenks called out loudly and then lit his cigar.

  The lance corporal didn’t know where he was for a moment, and the brightness of the moon clearly confused him after the hours inside the pitch black of the cave. He looked around at the jungle and forest that crowded the riverbank in every direction.

  “Go wake Lieutenant Commander Everett and Major Collins. Tell ’em we’re clear of the cave and have to stop to blow out our ballast tanks and check the boat out. We’ll get under way again in—” Jenks looked at the digital chronometer on the command console, ”—two hours; got it, Corporal?”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “Then why aren’t you moving, boy?” Jenks growled.

  The pilot watched him go and then shut down the exterior lights, throwing the outside world back into darkness with the exception of the lowering moon. The cockpit lights were switched off, and only the green-blue glow of the instrument panels illuminated Jenks. He reached out and throttled back on both engines. He shut them down and then put the auto pilot in hover. The electrically operated jets would keep Teacher in the center of the tributary with small adjustments on her thrusters. Only the forward jets would be working full-time to keep the boat from drifting back with the slow current. He then turned the knob that read ballast purge, and throughout the boat a loud hiss of escaping air woke most everyone. Large bubbles of exploding air and water surrounded Teacher as the tanks emptied and the boat’s hull rose high into the air after her being half-sunk for the need of having a low profile.

  As Jenks relaxed and looked ahead, all he could make out was more darkness as the tributary went under the never-ending canopy of trees once again. He suspected this would be the last location for a while where the major could make contact with anyone back home.

  “Hello, may I join you?” a female voice asked.

  Jenks turned in his seat to see that scientist-type woman with the great legs, as she moved in and sat down in the copilot’s seat.