"Okay," Murphy said. "I appreciate it. But from now on we have to be extra vigilant. We have to be on the watch for strangers."
And maybe not just strangers , he thought.
The transfer of supplies from Camp 2 to Camp 3 took most of the day. The move from thirteen thousand feet to fifteen thousand feet could be felt in everyone's lungs. It was a steep climb in powder snow.
The team was about five hundred feet below Camp 3 when they heard the sound of the helicopter. In the distance they could see Peterson coming from the south.
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The sound of the rotator blades lifted their spirits. They stood still and waved and yelled. As Peterson circled the group, Murphy's satellite phone rang.
"Hey, Murph. I flew over the coordinates that Hodson gave me. I spotted the cliff. Reinhold was right. By my altimeter, I estimate the drop to be twenty-nine hundred feet. I couldn't see anything but fresh-fallen snow at the bottom. It would be impossible to find him."
Murphy's heart sank. The last fragile hope of finding Valdez was gone.
"Roger that!"
"Murph, I'm going to head back. There's not much I can do here. Keep in touch. I'm praying for you guys. If you find the ark, let me know!"
"Thanks, Vern. It's good to see you flying. We're looking forward to a comfortable ride home in a few days. Over and out."
The team watched as Peterson disappeared into the brightness.
At Camp 3, Murphy left Isis, Reinhold, Lundquist, and Whittaker to set up the tents. Along with Bayer and Hodson, he started down the hill for a second load. Isis felt an ache seeing Murphy walk away.
"You guys be careful!" she yelled.
Murphy turned and waved.
The wind had begun to pick up a little as Murphy, Hodson, and Bayer finished packing the supplies. Gusts of powdered snow were swirling around the tents left at Camp 2.
Murphy and Hodson were zipping up the last tent
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when Bayer let out what sounded like a curse in Turkish. He started pulling out his pistol.
Turning around, they saw someone trudging purposefully up the slope from Camp 1.
He had a pack on over his robelike coat with the leather belt. He was wearing a fur-lined leather hat with two flaps that hung down, covering his ears, and snow was starting to collect on his beard.
No one spoke as they watched him getting closer, but Bayer kept his pistol at the ready.
About thirty feet away he stopped and looked them over. Then he stepped forward and began to speak in a deep, resonant voice. They were surprised to hear him speaking in broken English.
"You go higher up the mountain?"
"Yes, we are moving up about two thousand feet," Murphy replied. "I'm glad to see you. You saved us from the dogs the other day. I wanted to convey our thanks."
The stranger made a slight bow. "It is nothing. My name is Azgadian. I live on the mountain."
Hodson had moved a couple of paces to the stranger's left, anticipating any move he might make. The man no longer carried his staff, but who knew what else he had in that coat. Even if he had saved them from the dogs, Hodson was taking no chances.
The stranger pointed to the summit. "You go there?"
"No," said Murphy. He paused, searching the man's face. "We are searching for the Ark of Noah."
The stranger's dark eyes flashed for a moment but he said nothing. He held Murphy's gaze, as if weighing him in the balance. Eventually he seemed to see what he was looking for, and looked away.
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"Have you heard stories about the ark?" Murphy asked.
The stranger nodded. "Since I was a small boy, my father used to bring me here, on Agri Daugh. It is a sacred mountain." His tone suddenly hardened. "And why do you look for it, the Ark of Noah?"
Murphy replied carefully. "It would be a great thing for our faith. Faith in Jesus Christ. And the word of God."
The stranger seemed satisfied.
"We were looking for the ark past the glacier over by Abich Two but had no success," said Bayer, clearly becoming impatient with the way the conversation was going.
Surprisingly, the stranger laughed. "Ah, no--it is much higher up!"
"What!" said Murphy, with his eyes wide. "Higher up?"
"Yes, it is resting on the side of a valley. There is much snow."
"Then you've actually seen it?" said Hodson incredulously.
"Oh, yes," said the stranger. "I have climbed there many times. It has been a mild winter this year on the mountain. Almost half of the ark is there for you to see. The rest of it is in a glacier. Most times the whole boat is covered with snow."
Murphy couldn't believe what he was hearing. This man was talking as if the ark was an everyday sight.
"You must look above the glacier to the northeast," the stranger continued. "You will climb a ridge and then you will see it on the far side of the valley by some rocks." He bowed. "I must return to my home before nightfall. I wish you good fortune in your quest." And
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then, without further word, he started trudging back down the slope.
The three men watched him gradually fade into the distance. When he disappeared behind a rocky outcrop, it was as if they had just woken up from a dream.
"Is he for real?" Hodson asked, hands on hips.
"Only one way to find out," said Murphy.
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THIRTY-EIGHT
EVERYONE WAS UP before dawn preparing for the trek to the ark site. Murphy had instructed them to pack a three-day supply of food and water and to take their polar bags. Hodson was already packed and studying the maps, and excitement was in the air. Everyone seemed to feel that the appearance of the man calling himself Azgadian, so soon after they had made their decision to continue the quest, was a good omen. The ark actually seemed to be in their sights.
For Murphy, the excitement was tinged with worry. Since Valdez's death he had started to look at every member of the team critically, with the exception of Isis. They had all proved themselves by now, physically and mentally. But he couldn't get rid of the nagging suspicion that at least one of them was not what he seemed.
Take Bayer. He had demonstrated all the deadly skills of an elite Special Forces commando when dealing with
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the rebels who had taken Isis, and by rights Murphy ought to have felt nothing but gratitude. So why did he find himself wondering why Bayer hadn't been anywhere near the camp when the rebels had attacked? Had he known in advance that they were coming? Was it all a setup of some kind? He dismissed the thought. Why would Bayer let the rebels take Reinhold and Isis hostage and then go to the trouble of rescuing them? It didn't make sense.
At least Bayer couldn't have been responsible for cutting Valdez's rope, sending him to his death. Only Hodson had had the opportunity to do that, and despite their rivalry, Murphy was certain Hodson would never have done such a thing. His grief over Valdez's death seemed utterly genuine.
As for Reinhold, he seemed to spend most of his time in near-death situations himself. Which left Whittaker and Lundquist. The hard-bitten photographer was always at the edge of the group, never quite part of it, but Murphy suspected that was just his professional persona. If you were going to take pictures, you had to be on the outside looking in.
Lundquist was the enigma. He seemed to have the weakest motivation for volunteering in the first place, and the most reason to turn and run after Valdez was killed. So why didn't he? What was it that drove him onward?
Murphy remembered asking Levi whether Lundquist was CIA, and he tried to recall Levi's reaction. He certainly hadn't denied it outright. So if Lundquist was CIA, what was his mission? Just as Welsh had made it his job to keep Murphy from getting his hands on the
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Ararat Anomaly File, was it Lundquist's job to make sure he didn't get his hands on the ark itself? Or was that paranoia? Was Lundquist just an observer, making sure that the CIA ended up knowing everything Murphy knew about the ark?
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He closed his eyes, trying to still the chaos of thoughts in his head. There was no way he could figure it out now. He would just have to watch everybody like a hawk. And from now on he wasn't going to let Isis out of his sight. He put the last items into his pack and fastened the straps.
Time to focus on what we've come for , he thought.
By the time the sun was up it was clear it was going to be a perfect day on the mountain. Blue sky, no wind. And since Camp 3 was already at fifteen thousand feet, the team didn't have to do any serious uphill climbing. They only had to traverse the mountain and eventually drop down about five hundred feet to get to their goal. For about four hours they trudged slowly through the snowfields on almost a level course. It was only about ten-thirty when the slope they were crossing became steeper and more dangerous. Murphy, in the lead, was the first to notice that the soft snow was getting harder and turning to ice. Looking up, he could see some exposed rocks. They were headed toward an ice wall. Water dripping from the rocks above had created large fluted icicles that hung above a straight drop of about a thousand feet. They couldn't climb up and they couldn't climb down.
They were going to have to traverse it.
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The ice wall seemed to stick out on a corner, and then it disappeared out of sight. Somewhere on the other side, Murphy figured, they would again meet snow-fields. But they couldn't be sure until they reached the outer edge of the corner.
Murphy thought it best to break the group up into three smaller teams. It would give them more flexibility as they moved in and out of the icicle flutings.
Murphy took the lead team, comprised of himself, Isis, and Whittaker. Hodson and Reinhold were second. Lundquist and Bayer would be last. They hooked together on shorter safety ropes with about ten feet between them.
Murphy began by hammering in an ice screw and attaching a carabiner and a rope. He then pounded in his ice ax, getting a solid hold. Pulling his weight up on the ax, he kicked the points of his crampons into the wall and began to move sideways across the ice.
About every fifteen feet Murphy pounded in another ice screw for safety and hooked in the rope. The team members following held on to the rope with their left hand and planted their ice axes with the right. Then they kicked in the points of their crampons in the same way Murphy did and slowly worked their way in and out of the large ice flutings.
Murphy was the first to round the corner. He was right. The ice wall ended after about fifty feet, where it met the snowfield again. The steepness began to taper to about thirty degrees, much safer than the vertical wall they were on.
Murphy, Isis, and Whittaker made it to the snowfield
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and unhooked from the ice screws. Isis seemed relieved to be off the ice wall and back on the snow.
Hodson was climbing behind Reinhold, gently encouraging him, knowing that after his nightmare experience on the cliff, the thousand-foot drop from the ice wall would be preying on his mind. Murphy watched intently as Reinhold eased himself off the ice wall and onto the snow.
From around the corner, they heard a sudden shout.
As Lundquist swung his ice ax to get a new bite, his crampon broke loose and he began to fall. Because he was reaching out at the time, he couldn't hold on with his left hand. His entire body weight hit the end of the ten-foot tether rope, jerking Bayer off the wall. Their combined body weight then popped the ice screw out of the wall behind Bayer, and the two men dropped another fifteen feet. For a moment it looked as if the second ice screw would stop their fall, but then it, too, popped out and they dropped again.
Lundquist was screaming at the top of his lungs when they came to a sudden stop. The third ice screw had held.
Bayer's carabiner was hooked on to the safety rope and Lundquist was hanging ten feet below him. Bayer was close enough to the wall to reach it with his ice ax, but he couldn't focus properly. Blood from a collision with an ice flute on the way down seeped into his eyes, blinding him, and he felt disoriented. Both were dangling in midair above a dizzying drop.
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* * *
Hodson, who was still hooked on to the safety rope, felt it go tight as Bayer and Lundquist fell. He waited to see if he, too, would be pulled off the wall, but all of the ice screws on his side of the corner held.
Quickly, Hodson unhooked the ten-foot safety rope that was attached to Reinhold. He yelled to Murphy, who had already started to move toward the rope.
"Give me all your pulleys and an extra rope. I'll hook a pulley on each of the ice screws as I go back to the corner and run the rope through them. You guys dig snow seats and get ready to pull on the rope when I give the signal. You can help lift them. I won't be able to do it by myself."
Hodson then moved back across the ice wall toward the corner, hooking in the pulleys and rope. Now he could see them. Lundquist was twisting in a circle below Bayer, who had managed to embed his ice ax in the wall just above him and was trying to pull them both up.
He must be crazy , Hodson thought. Nobody has the strength to do that .
Hodson yelled and tossed the coils of rope down to them. Lundquist was still twisting too violently to be able to grab hold. Hodson pulled it back up and tossed it three more times until eventually Lundquist made a lunge and held on. Hodson then attached the end of the rope to his harness. He could see the look of agony on Bayer's bloody face. His strength was fading.
Hodson hooked in the last pulley at the corner of the flutings. He then drove in two more ice screws for safety and hooked himself on to them. He signaled to the rest of the team on the snow to pull. He, too, grabbed on to
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the rope and helped lift Lundquist, easing some of the strain on Bayer.
It took about five minutes of pulling to get Lundquist to the point where he could use his ice ax to help lift his own body weight. This allowed Bayer to rise enough to kick his crampons into the wall and help with the climb.
Lundquist was the first to get to Hodson's position. He had to unhook and rehook on the other side of the pulley. They then both helped to pull Bayer up as the rest of the team held the rope tight.
Forty-five minutes after Lundquist had first fallen, they were all resting, exhausted, on the snowfield, eating energy bars and drinking water to restore their strength.
Lundquist looked as if he now realized what a big mistake he'd made, agreeing to continue their journey. But it was too late to go back, and he knew it.
"How far are we from where the ark's supposed to be?" he asked.
Murphy was gazing across the snowfield with a strange look on his face. "Can't you feel it? We're almost there."
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THIRTY-NINE
ENERGIZED BY MURPHY'S SENSE that they were closing in on their goal, the team began to move forward across the snowfield. But there was another reason for Murphy's urgency. He knew they had to make quick progress because the clouds were coming in and the temperature was beginning to drop sharply. Even if they didn't find the ark, they would need to get off the snowfield and find a protected spot to camp for the night. They were right in the middle of avalanche territory, and the wind was beginning to pick up.
Everyone zipped up tight and buried their heads in their hoods. They could feel the biting wind force its way into the smallest openings. Soon it brought with it tiny snowflakes.
By late afternoon it had become very dark and the flakes had become larger, making visibility difficult.
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Murphy told the team to break out their headlamps, in case they lost someone in the whiteout.
"We can't keep moving forward," Murphy yelled to Hodson, the wind taking away some of his words. "We can't see what's ahead in this blizzard. I don't want us walking off the top of some cornice. We're going to have to dig snow caves. We're right beside a big drift. This is about as good a spot as any."
Hodson and Reinhold began their cave immediately. Murphy, Isis, and Whittaker started to dig a cave large enough for three. Ba
yer and Lundquist nodded at each other and began theirs.
First they carved out a small doorway with their ice axes. Then one of them began to dig forward into the snowbank and push snow out the doorway. This carving and pushing of snow took about forty-five minutes, until the hollowed-out room in the snowbank was large enough for two or three sleeping bags. To be sure there was enough air in their snow rooms, a couple of holes were poked through the outer wall of snow.
The three groups then crawled into their hollows and laid out their sleeping bags. Each group set up a small propane stove in the entrance and started to make a hot meal. Before long they all felt surprisingly cozy. After the meal, rucksacks were stacked in front of the entrance to keep out the wind, and they crawled into their polar bags. Outside, they could hear the low rumble of avalanches on the snowfield they had just crossed.
Murphy tossed and turned throughout the night, his mind filled with strange dreams. He dreamed he was laboring through a dense snowfield, but the more he struggled the less progress he made, until he was stuck,
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unable to go forward or back, the snow reaching up to his chest. Then he saw an angel descending. A slim, red-haired angel with sparkling green eyes. She hovered in front of him and held out a hand. He grasped it and instantly felt himself being pulled free of the snow. Then he was floating through the air, hand in hand with the red-haired angel, the wind caressing his face, the lazy beats of her downy wings brushing his shoulders. Then she turned her face toward him, smiling, and he knew she was going to kiss him.
There was a loud crack, like a rifle shot. She screamed. He felt her hand being plucked from his own. Then they were both falling.