“Lord, look what the left hand of each is carrying,” Nathan said as he lowered his camera.
A small human skull was grasped in each statue’s left hand. Long claws were sunk into the bone in a disturbing and vicious illustration by the stone carvers.
“What would you say the scale is on that, Charles?” Virginia asked Ellenshaw, who was staring wide-eyed.
“If that is an accurate-size skull of an adult human, I would say the gods depicted here would be at least eight and half to nine feet tall, upright of course.”
“It would have been one hell of a swimmer,” Jack said. “Look at its feet.”
The clawed feet were very long and wide, and they, too, were webbed. The powerful-looking legs had long fins down the back until they disappeared into the rock wall of the cliff. The arms also had fins, running along the back of the forearm to the wrists.
“All in all, not something I would care to run into either in the water, or out,” Sarah said as she hugged herself. She remembered the fossilized hand, just as the others now recalled it.
“This must mean we’re close to the valley and the lagoon,” Professor Keating said.
“What makes you think that, Professor?” Jenks asked.
“Because these statues were placed here as a warning. They’re guarding something,” he said, looking at Jenks. “And I can’t think of anything else they would be here to protect unless it was Padilla’s lagoon, would you?”
The master chief placed back into his mouth the cigar he had been holding and clamped down with his teeth. “Well then, let’s just go see what’s so damned important that someone would carve statue, of their mother-in-law in the cliffs.” He smiled at Virginia. “It must be good, whatever it is,” he said as he turned and went below to get Teacher under way again.
The other thirty-plus members of her crew stayed on deck and watched the large statues slide past as they started downriver again. Most had to turn back for last looks as they just couldn’t fathom why the Incan gods had never been cataloged or documented before; after all, there were lakes all over Peru, and her coastline was extensive. Why a water god way out here, and why one that was so different from the squat, rakish-looking gods of other Incan deities?
It was only Jack who noticed that the jungle and forest sounds had returned as they moved up river. What unnerved him was the fact that no one had noticed when they had ceased in the first place. Then he realized why: Teacher’s voyagers had been so awed by the giant statues that they hadn’t noticed they had drifted into sunlight for the first time, when the canopy of trees had given way to the carvings. Now that they had reentered the tree-covered tributary, the sounds of life had returned. Why had the birds and animal sounds stopped when they were in front of the carvings?
Jack turned and went over to Carl, who was scanning the river ahead with binoculars.
“Carl, go to Mendenhall and get sidearms from the weapons locker. Issue them to all security personnel; give one to Jenks and Sarah also.”
“You got it, Jack. See something you didn’t like?” Carl asked, handing him the binoculars.
“Yeah, two somethings, both of them about eighty feet high and representing something we may have a part of in fossilized form, and those things didn’t look like they were welcoming people to this part of the river.”
16
Teacher was still in semidarkness at noon. Every once in a while, dapples of bright sunlight would filter through in beams as bright as lasers. The oppressive heat and the sight of those strange carvings had unnerved the crew to the point that most were lost in their own thoughts. Before they had boarded, everyone had been briefed by each department on everything that was known about the original Padilla expedition, and now certain pages of those briefs were standing out like a lighted piece of artwork. Every man and woman onboard Teacher remembered the fossil and its estimated age from the carbon-14 tests that had been conducted. Although not official, the estimation of only five hundred years was now not just a curious fact, it was just a little scary, because the more one saw of this strange world, the more one could believe the existence of almost anything.
Jack was reading a tech manual on the operation of a small charge that could be used at depths up to two hundred feet, which was filled with Hydro-Rotenone, a tranquilizer used by research scientists and developed in Brazil for underwater catch-and-release programs. The hand grenade–size charges operated in exactly that fashion, except these silverish little eggs had a small switch that could be used to select certain depths to detonate a charge that would disperse the Hydro-Rotenone in a thirty-foot arch underwater.
“More toys?” Sarah asked as she sat next to Jack in the false twilight the canopy of trees had thrown them into.
He put the manual down and looked at Sarah, who was dressed in shorts and a sleeveless blue blouse. She was freshly showered and smelled strongly of bug repellent.
“Love that perfume,” he said as he lightly placed a hand on her leg, then removed it.
“It’s all the rage in New York these days.” She watched his hand for a brief moment, saddened that he couldn’t leave it on her leg.
Teacher had run up to six knots, and the breeze the extra speed created felt good. They heard laughter coming from a few sections down, where most of the science team was out on deck getting some air after lunch. Mendenhall was on duty with Jenks, and Sanchez and Carl were learning the fine points of the submersible operation in the engine room. Jack raised his head and wondered aloud were Danielle Serrate was.
“The last I saw, she was in the computer library doing something,” Sarah said. “Why, are you starting to wonder what her motives are?”
“Yeah, it’s hard to believe they’re just ex-husband motivated, but with her being the head of her agency and being sanctioned by her government in the assistance she’s shown, I wouldn’t care to guess what her real motives would be.”
“Does the fact that Carl is getting close to her affect your way of thinking?”
“Everett is a grown man; I think he knows how to handle himself. It’s been over a year since he lost Lisa, and I think it’s time he starts realizing there are other women in the world. Besides, have you ever in the last year heard him talk so much?”
“Yeah, I—”
They were interrupted by the very object of their conversation, as Danielle bounded up through the open hatch.
“Jack, look over the side!” she said as she made the deck and leaned over the gunwale.
The major stood and went to Danielle’s side and Sarah to her other. Jack immediately saw what she was indicating and turned and ran for the boat’s intercom, where he slammed down the proper button.
“Kill the engines, Chief,” he said loudly as he again switched buttons and hit the one marked eng.
“Carl, are you still in engineering?”
“Still here,” he said.
“Get someone and get to the fantail; use a boat hook and snag those bodies,” Jack said hurriedly.
Jack heard the engines shut down. He hurried to the hatch and made his way down the spiral stairs. He quickly ran aft to the engine room. The double rear doors were open to the fantail. One of the detachable chairs went flying as the men maneuvered to arrest the floating bodies with boat hooks. As Jack joined them, he saw the bodies were bloated.
“Goddammit!” he said as he reached out and opened the railing. The four men struggled, bringing the two bodies aboard over the fantail just above the black letters that spelled out Teacher.
“Oh,” Carl said as the smell hit them. He gently rolled over the larger of the two and saw that it was a man clad in a diver’s wetsuit. The neoprene was stretched beyond endurance and had split in the upper arm and thigh areas. The face was bloated and misshaped. But that didn’t keep them from seeing the deep gouges that had been inflicted upon the man’s face.
Jack heard noise behind them and saw Virginia and Dr. Allison Waltrip, the surgeon from the Group, as they hurried through the double doors.
Virginia gasped but Waltrip immediately bent over the two still forms. The three marines backed away and turned to face the slow-flowing river. The doctor moved from the larger to the smaller of the two. She gently rolled it over and saw that it was a girl who couldn’t have been more than twenty or twenty-one. This corpse was bloated like the other, but had no injuries that were readily apparent. Her eyes were wide in death and glazed over with a milky substance that made Virginia partially turn away before she remembered her professionalism. Dr. Waltrip started feeling around the body for a wound. The girl was dressed in shorts and a blouse; it reminded Jack of the very clothes Sarah was wearing. The doctor ran her fingers through the girl’s hair and then stopped.
“Gunshot wound to her temple. My guess she was dead before she entered the water, but I can’t be sure without an autopsy.”
Then her attention was drawn back to the large man in the wetsuit. “His injuries are extensive. The face wounds wouldn’t have been life threatening,” she rolled the man over, “but these wounds are deep enough to have severed several arteries in his back and lungs.” She probed the open wounds with her finger, making everyone cringe just a little. As she ran her fingers along one of the larger gouges, she extracted something and held it up to the deck light. It was rounded and ridged and it seemed to shine, giving off rainbow effects in the light.
“What is it, Doctor?” Carl asked.
“I don’t know.” She looked closer. “That almost looks like a hair follicle on the bottom, see?” She held it up for all to examine.
“I think I know what that is,” Heidi said as she stepped up and took the object from the doctor.
“What?” Carl asked.
“It looks exactly like a fish scale—a damned big one, but a fish scale.” Jack walked to the railing and looked out on the water. “Dr. Waltrip, can you get a good picture in two hours of how they died?”
“I can try,” she said.
Jack walked to the fantail intercom and informed Jenks that they would anchor in the middle of the tributary for two hours while autopsies were performed on the two bodies. Then he watched as the men moved the bodies to the section seven medical labs.
When they were gone, Jack looked at the rain forest canopy overhead and saw the dapples of light were fading from the sky. After hoping they would make the lagoon before nightfall, he had to reconsider under the circumstances. He might have to order them to anchor, as the thought of entering Padilla’s lagoon in total darkness left little appeal. The bodies not withstanding, the urgency of arriving on site for possible survivors had become possibly a moot point. He would now have to consider the safety of this team his top priority now.
Jack couldn’t shake the image of the young woman they had pulled from the river. When she had put on those clothes, she had never figured she would die in them. Just as he was sure Sarah would never have thought the same when she had put on her own similar clothing this morning.
Jack watched the water and the stillness of the shoreline in front of him. He touched the holstered nine-millimeter at his side. Of all the places in his career he had been assigned, this was the one that unnerved him the most. Was it the absence of direct sunlight? The cries of creatures that remained hidden in the vast canopy of giant trees? Jack knew himself never to be a man of premonition, yet he sensed beyond a doubt that men were never meant to be in this place.
As he turned to leave, motion on the riverbank caught his eye. He stood still and didn’t turn to look, but used his peripheral vision to see. Standing back of the thick shrubbery that lined the bank, several small Indians stood and watched Teacher as she maintained her position in the middle of the river. The only sound he noticed was the almost silent hum of the vessel’s thrusters as they fought to maintain their hold on the current. The noises of the rain forest had disappeared and silence filled the late afternoon. The faces of the Indians stood out palely in stark contrast to the darkness surrounding them. That was when Jack decided to let them know he was aware. He turned and held up a hand, but the gesture went unseen, as the Indians had vanished into the brush. As he stood there feeling silly, the cries of birds and even the scream of a large cat rushed to fill the air as sound returned around him.
Several people were outside of the medical lab in section six waiting on the word from Dr. Waltrip. Heidi and Virginia had been drafted by the good doctor as her morgue assistants. Jack sat with Sarah, Danielle, Carl, Keating, and Dr. Nathan, who were all anxious to find out the results of the medical examination of the two corpses. Their conversation was muted.
Jack had not said anything about seeing the Indians along the riverbank, as he felt the information wasn’t helpful to anyone. The discovery of the Sincaro’s deity had already been the topic of conversation for almost a day and a half. One thing Jack did do was order not only sidearms to be issued to the military personnel, but two shotguns per watch. He had nothing against the little tribe of river natives, but until they found out about the reasons behind the disappearance, why take chances? He had a gut feeling that the people he saw weren’t behind those two deaths; they seemed only curious. From prior discussions with Group historians, the professionals who had studied the legends, he had learned that the small people had every right to be at least suspicious of any strangers along their river.
The door opened and Virginia came out first. She was pale and seemed rattled as she asked for some coffee. Allison Waltrip came out, next pulling off her gloves and then placing them in a plastic bag. Then she held out the bag for Virginia to put hers in, and she complied with a shake of her head. Then she took her coffee from Danielle, who also offered a cup to Dr. Waltrip. The surgeon accepted it with a nod.
“Jack, we have to get those bodies into the ground,” said Dr. Waltrip. “We don’t have the facilities to store them here.” She turned.
“Lieutenant Commander Everett, navy man, right?” she asked.
“Yes,” Carl answered.
“This man,” she held out a plastic specimen bag, “he was in the navy also, Kennedy, Kyle, M. A lieutenant.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Carl said as he took the plastic bag from Waltrip and examined the dog tags.
“He has a small seal juggling a beach ball tattooed on his right forearm.”
Carl rolled up his sleeve. “Look like this?” he asked, showing his own SEAL tattoo.
“Exactly, except his had a four underneath, not a six,” Dr. Waltrip said.
“SEAL team four, San Diego based; they are an excellent and well-trained assault force. But I’ve never heard of a Kennedy, and I know most of that team.”
“Major, Virginia is aware of what your file contains and she said I can ask you, I understand you were in black operations and had trained for all kinds of—” she paused and looked at Virginia.
“Broken Arrow,” Virginia answered.
“Yes, Broken Arrow scenarios, trained to deal with them, that sort of thing?”
Jack looked uncomfortable talking about it with so many in earshot, especially Danielle. “That’s right, I am qualified to disarm or … why?” Jack only hoped everyone didn’t know the term “Broken Arrow” was one used by the military for designating a lost nuclear weapon.
“Can you identify this?” Dr. Waltrip held out a second plastic bag. “It was clenched so tight in the lieutenant’s right hand I had to pry it loose.”
Jack took the bag and looked it over, glancing Carl’s way once because he felt his eyes on him.
“M-2678 tactical warhead key,” he said barely loud enough for anyone to hear.
“Jesus, Jack, what did those idiots bring with them?” Carl asked.
“I can’t even venture to guess why they thought they needed a tactical nuke out here,” Jack answered as the section grew silent.
“Just another mystery to add to our growing list,” Dr. Waltrip said. “The girl was no older than nineteen. As I said out there, she died as a result of a possible self-inflicted gunshot to the left temple. There are gunpowder burns aroun
d the wound and powder particles embedded in her left hand, indication she was holding the gun that killed her. It was a nine-millimeter round.” She handed another specimen bag to Jack.
“Could be military, but who knows.”
Dr. Waltrip nodded her head. “Anyway, the bottoms of her feet were quite cut up, as if she had been running on a rough surface, and in her wounds on her feet I found this.” She held up a small jar; inside were several cotton swabs. She held it up to the light and they all saw the glimmer. “Gold, I would say, found in her wounds, her hair, her clothes, her nostrils, and lungs. These samples represent a swab from almost every area of her body.”
There were no questions, no talking. Carl handed the dog tags back to the surgeon.
“I’ll place these in the ship’s safe,” she said. “Now, as I said, we need to bury these bodies very soon; they’re deteriorating fast.”
“The wounds, Doctor, the marks on the diver?” Jack asked.
“I was saving the best for last, Major,” she said. “Virginia, show them the scale, please.”
Virginia reached into her lab coat and pulled out a plastic case. She passed it to Jack.
“Without running a complete DNA sequencing, which Heidi is performing right now, I can’t tell you much. It is a scale from a freshwater species, but according to every data bank we have, it belongs to nothing in the waters of the world. We don’t even have a prehistoric record of a fossil’s ever having scales like that. Look at the deep age ridges that run the length of the scale. I thought they would serve no purpose other than to show age, like the rings on a tree or the squares on a tortoise shell. But when I examined it, I found that scale to be almost impenetrable. I used a scalpel and couldn’t cut it. The follicle that had attached the scale to its host is almost human. The minute sample of blood from that follicle is just like ours, I even typed it at O negative.” She held up a hand when they all started protesting at once. “I don’t have answers, people, none at all. Everything we have come across only raises more questions than we have answers for. It was Virginia who came up with something that makes me want to warn the major to take an armed team ashore when you bury the bodies—show them.”
Legend: An Event Group Thriller Page 29
