“How long do you figure the tail of that moon is, Colonel?” Kreshenko asked.
“My guess would be close to about three hundred and fifty thousand miles.”
Wonder seized all their minds.
The evening was full of laughter and of families spending the end of their long day together. Fathers helped sons, and mothers laughed with daughters. Neighbors shared jokes and laughter, and the visitors were included in some of these exchanges just as if they could understand everything that was being said or discussed. Jack and the others were reduced to their lowest forms of response; they nodded and smiled enough times to look like bobblehead idiots.
“Shiloh to Collins,” came the radio call.
Jack stood, and as a small blond-haired villager smiled and jabbered about something that Jack was sure the man thought he understood, he happily nodded and acted as though he had indeed understood the joke, or was it just a story? He didn’t know but smiled and bobbed his head and then moved away to take his radio call. Everett joined him.
“Collins,” he said into the radio when he was a few feet away from the boisterous villagers.
“Colonel, I have Professor Gervais here, and he wishes to speak with Master Chief Jenks,” Captain Johnson said from the deck of Shiloh. “He seems really agitated about something.”
Everett got the attention of Jenks, who had a small child on his lap and was teasing her by making her think he had just pulled her nose from her face. The girl giggled and squealed with laughter when she discovered that the nose he had pulled off was actually his thumb that he wiggled in front of her. Jenks made eye contact with Carl and then easily sat the girl down and then joined the two officers. Jack explained who was calling and then handed the radio to Jenks.
“Jenks here,” he said and then popped a cigar into his mouth. He waited a moment and grew frustrated. “Who is this?” he asked, looking at Jack.
“Supposed to be Professor Gervais.”
A look of knowing came onto the master chief’s rough countenance.
“Press the damn button on the side, Professor. Jesus.”
“Oh, oh, I see. Thank you.”
“Okay. What’s up, Doc?” Jenks said and then smiled at his small Bugs Bunny joke. He saw that Jack and Carl only stared at him, and then he removed his cigar and then spit. “Goddamn humorless pukes.” He turned back and then looked at the radio. “Come on, push the button on the side every time you want to speak. Don’t they teach you anything over there in Putin land?”
“Oh, again? I see,” came the voice over the radio as Jenks was sure Captain Johnson was explaining the transmit switch on the radio to the old professor. “Master Chief, we have activity on the phase shift equipment that is quite fascinating.”
“And that is?” he asked into the radio as he removed the cigar once again as he looked at Jack and spoke in low tones. “And we were afraid of Russian science all these years, and they can’t even operate a radio.”
“But yet they still came up with phase shift technology,” Everett said, raising his eyebrows at Jenks.
“Smart-ass.”
“The equipment seems to be powering up once again. Low output, but we are detecting a ramp-up by 0.1 percent.”
“Come on, Professor, that could be anything. It could just be residual energy being disbursed by the equipment to static electricity buildup. You are in a ship constructed of steel, you know.” Jenks rolled his eyes at the Russian professor’s naïveté.
“Yes, I have figured that into the equation and have found no evidence of that. Therefore, I will monitor the phase shift system until you return, but there is now another concern about a changing situation that I will let Captain Johnson explain.”
There was silence once more as Jenks handed the radio to Jack. “Here. Navy officers give me the galloping trots.”
“Hey!” Everett said with a mocking tone.
“Present company included, of course.”
Everett’s eyes narrowed, but the master chief just shrugged.
“Colonel, Johnson here. It seems that when the professor first detected the buildup of energy from that machine on the Simbirsk, we started getting interference on the Shiloh’s and Peter the Great’s radio band frequencies we have just repaired. Were you or any of your landing party using a radio at that time?”
“Negative. We were invited to dinner by our hosts. Thus far, this is the first call.”
Carl nudged Jack’s arm, and the colonel looked up at where Everett was nodding. Salkukoff was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Henri, for that matter.
“Noted, Captain. Inform the good professor that Master Chief Jenks will return to the ship momentarily. Out for now.” Jack lowered the radio and then gestured for Carl and Ryan to find Salkukoff. “Jenks, stay with me.”
Before anyone could move, a shrill scream echoed through the bright moonlit night. The scream could be heard from some distance away. Around them, women gathered up their children, and the men, much to Jack and his team’s surprise, started running for the large hut where they had seen the village’s weapons stored.
“Oh, this don’t look good,” Jason said as he watched the frantic activity. As he studied the scene, he nudged Jack on the arm and then pointed.
Jack turned and saw what was being indicated. In the clearing where the baskets of whatever the villagers had been mining had been lined up, a place that had been unguarded since they all had moved into the next communal clearing for their evening meal, the baskets had mysteriously vanished.
Before Collins could comment, they saw one of the women, a larger, more rotund one with streaming long and braided blond hair, gesturing wildly in the center of the village. It looked as though she were frantically looking for someone. Jack saw that it was the same mother who had gathered up the child that Jack had given the saltwater taffy to just three hours before. Several of the armed village men confronted her, and she was crying and waving her hands wildly. Then the men, along with thirty others, broke from the group and started to run for the jungle surrounding the village.
“Jason, you and Jenks find Henri and that damn Russian. If the Frenchman already fulfilled his mission, we could be looking at a whole lot of trouble with the rest of the Russians. Get them back here.”
“Right,” Jason said as he and Jenks left the center of the village.
Jack pulled his nine millimeter as did Everett. They both started to follow the menfolk of the village. They ran past a startled Kreshenko and Dishlakov, and Collins waved for the Russian Navy men to follow. They were unarmed, but Jack wanted to keep an eye on them also. With Salkukoff missing, he wasn’t taking any chances.
The group of close to thirty-five villagers and guests sprinted into the low underbrush surrounding the large village.
They had gone about eight hundred yards from the village. Jack and the others were having a hard time catching up with the fast and agile natives. They jumped over tree stumps and bushes just as if it were bright daylight and they could see perfectly. Jack heard the villagers stop up ahead, and then he saw why. They had circled around something on the grassy floor of the trail. Several of the small men turned away, and they could hear the moans of despair coming from them. Collins approached slowly, easing his way past the circle of villagers, who, for the most part, stood there with spears dangling from limp arms, their heads bowed. Jack felt Carl and the Russians next to him. A man was on his knees crying and reaching for something in front of him. The small man was pulled away from whatever it was by the elder of the clan. It was the same man who had greeted them upon their arrival. As he led the man away, the elder caught Jack’s eyes, and the look was not only one of sadness but, strangely enough, also one of resignation. Collins holstered his handgun and leaned down to see.