“What do they say, Sebastian?” Niles asked the German major, who was examining the stone and its writing.
“Site excavated 16 June 1939. No sign of habitation at this level.”
“This level? You mean there’s another one under here?” Ellenshaw asked. He rolled down the sleeves of his tan shirt due to the briskness of the false breeze swirling inside the ruins.
“There must be,” Appleby said, as he leaned over and picked up something that caught his eye. “Major, what do you make of this?” he asked. He held out a small object. “There’s more than one here.”
Sebastian Krell took the small item and examined it. He laughed at what he was holding, then looked down and saw several more of the small round objects on the rock-covered ground around his feet.
“It’s the base cap, detonation ball, and string for the Model 24 Stielhandgranate. ”
“I didn’t catch that,” Ellenshaw said as he reached down to pick up one of the strange objects.
“A hand grenade,” Lee said. He tried to make himself comfortable on a large rock as Alice slid the needle full of synthetic morphine into his right arm. “A Potato Masher. I’m sure you’ve seen them in war movies, Charlie,” Lee said with a smile. A horrified look came over Ellenshaw’s features and he dropped the small screw cap onto the ground. “But the cap covers are harmless.”
“Maybe they used them for blasting purposes,” Appleby said.
Sebastian looked around himself and closed his fist over the detonator cap cover.
“Possible, but why? I mean, there are so many adequate explosives, why use such a small device? The Model 24 didn’t even have a shrapnel charge.”
“The major’s right,” Lee finished as he rolled down his sleeve and nodded at Alice. “Why use them for blasting? That’s too inefficient. Our old friends the Nazis didn’t operate that way,”
“A mystery among many,” Sebastian said. He looked around the gallery at the taller structures. “These buildings, they remind me of field setups used by the army. Do you agree, Mr. Everett?”
Carl stepped out of the tilted and damaged structure not one person had seen him disappear into when they arrived.
“Yes, they do. It’s like these were temporary structures that housed troops until more substantial housing could be erected.”
“Is there anything interesting inside the building?” Alice asked as she closed and clasped the small medical bag.
Everett looked over at Alice and the senator as they waited for him to answer. He had a curious look on his face.
“You could say that. The Germans have everything documented and labeled inside. The flooring-which looks to be wood of some kind-is old and petrified, but still intact. There are several of these,” he said. He tossed an object toward Alice, who caught it and looked it over before handing it to Lee. “It has the same writing on it that was on the space suit.”
Lee looked at what amounted to an ancient can. It was empty of its long-ago contents, but it may have once contained food. Lee hefted it; it was far lighter than its modern-day equivalent.
“Okay, the Germans marked the trash in the garbage,” the professor from MIT said. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“That means they were pretty efficient at keeping this dig in pristine condition. Removing nothing from the dwellings, keeping everything as is for scientific study.”
Lee saw where Everett was going with this.
“So the Nazis insisted on accountability,” Sebastian said, as he took the can from Lee and examined it. “That’s true in every red tape society.”
“What’s missing in there, Captain?” Lee asked. He had begun to feel the pain-relieving effects of the morphine.
“There’s nothing. No tables, no chairs, no canned goods stored anywhere. No mess had been created when the cataclysm erupted around them. The closets are empty, the metal containers that held something at one time have nothing in them.”
“Are you suggesting that the beings who occupied this settlement weren’t here when the Andes started strutting their stuff?” Lee asked. He eased himself up from the rock.
“That’s what I’m saying. I looked at some of the plaques in front of the enclosures and they all list what was in them, but they fail to mention one thing.”
Lee patted Everett on the shoulder as if to say he was appreciative of his intelligence in the face of all the brainpower currently listening to him.
“No bodies of the enclosure’s inhabitants,” Garrison finished for Everett.
“Not only that, you’d better go and take a look at the side of the next enclosure,” Carl said as he turned and left.
The small group followed, feeling the emptiness of the giant mine far more than they had a few moments before. As Everett stopped, they saw he was gesturing upward at a sight that gave them all pause. Along a hundred feet of the next building’s wall, there were slashes in the material that looked as if some giant cat or something worse had attacked the composite material. The groupings of the slashes were in patterns of three. The rips were so long that it was as if whatever created the marks had punctured the material and then dragged great claws down the sides, exposing the interior to the outside elements.
“What in the world could have done that?” Appleby asked as he examined the edges of the ripped-apart and petrified material.
“If you’ll notice, most of the buildings are in the same shape. Whatever it was happened before the camp, or whatever it was, was destroyed by the earth movement,” said a familiar voice from behind them.
They all turned and saw Jack and the Vietnamese private as they eased themselves down from a long dead lava flow to the base of the building they were looking at.
Everett smiled, visibly relaxing for the first time since he had left the colonel to fight a battle he thought he should have been a part of. Jack was closest to Sebastian so he shook hands with him. He then walked over to Everett and shook his.
“So you made it, I see?” Carl said, relieved that his boss was still among the living.
“The president sent in the cavalry at the last minute-or at least Polish paratroopers.”
Everett smiled more broadly. “The times they are a’changin’.”
Niles took Jack’s hand and then Lee and Alice gave him a hug. Next was Charlie, but Jack held out his hand real fast before Ellenshaw could hug him. Pete smiled and nodded, but inside he was churning in total relief they hadn’t lost the colonel.
“You say you’re seeing the same kind of damage in other buildings?” Lee asked Jack.
“It looked…” Jack hesitated, “Hell, those marks looked… methodical to me.”
Ellenshaw was staring at the small Vietnamese sniper. He nodded his head toward him as he eased himself around the stern-looking Tram.
“Are you suggesting that the marks didn’t occur naturally when the ground erupted underneath these dwellings?”
“Hell, Doc, I don’t know,” Collins said. “But after all we’ve been through the past few years, I don’t assume anything that looks like that is a natural occurrence. I’m sorry, but those are some sort of claw marks.”
“This breeze,” Lee said, getting everyone’s attention. “It’s being generated someplace. I suggest we find out where, and then maybe we can find the place where the Germans found those artifacts.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Jack said, looking at his watch. “I suggest we start by looking down there,” he said, pointing toward the back of the steeply sloping gallery.
“Is there any word on the status of Dark Star 3?” Alice asked when she noticed Jack looking at his watch.
Collins looked down as the others started to move away.
“The president said the Johnson Space Center lost all contact with them at 0930.”
Alice said nothing. Instead, she just took his arm.
“They still have a visual on it, and it is under power. They’ve lost telemetry, so that means they’re on their own.”