“Look at those,” Niles Compton said as he joined the group looking out over the crushed and battered cave system below.
“What are they?” Appleby asked.
“Petrified trees,” Ellenshaw answered for Niles. “Thousands of them.”
“This site used to be aboveground, possibly before the formation of the mountains.”
The men and Alice looked at Niles as he continued to speculate.
“Millions of years ago these buildings were in the light of day, but a shift in the continental plates and a buckling of the crust created the Andes as continents collided with each other, forming the up-push that sent stone and dirt miles into the air, covering this site, this small village of visitors.”
“Visitors?” Alice asked.
“They had to be. Check out those geodesic domes. They look as though they were meant to be temporary structures, just like we would pitch tents in an unknown land. Can’t you feel it?”
Everett watched as Niles and the others visualized a group of explorers setting up a base on an inhospitable bit of land doomed to be crushed by the formation of a mountain range, all of this happening nearly a hundred million years before.
“We have to get down there,” Niles said, turning to looked at Everett.
“The path is this way,” he said. He looked at Lee. “Sebastian, I think we can break the rules your forebears warned of and take the carts down. If that heavy machinery made it, we can too.”
“I agree, Captain,” Sebastian said without looking at the ailing senator.
Lee was staring at the large and age-tattered streamers that bore the Nazi swastika. The flags and banners hung around the entire circumference of the rounded chamber below. This is what had led to the death of Alice’s husband Ben, and Lee for one was determined to find out what that death had been for, what the price was for the death of a good young man.
“For some reason, I think more than a global cataclysm struck this place,” Ellenshaw said. The others, save for Everett, made their way back to the electric cars.
“Come on, Doc. Let’s get down there,” Everett said.
The Mechanic, using field glasses, scanned the ridge in front of the mine and nodded as he took in the defense line of the Americans. The small force had been cut in half by his on-again, off-again assaults. He had witnessed three men go down in the last minute of battle from the front line of defense. As he adjusted the binoculars, he watched another team of his men run forward throwing grenades, only to be cut down by withering fire from the first and second ridgelines before them. Whoever was commanding those men up there had done a masterful job of concentrating fire on the most immediate threat. But time was running out for them. The attrition he was using his men up for was pushing the defense of the mine entrance to its limits.
He turned to the twenty men of his personal security team and told them to make ready to move forward with the special strike teams. He knew the defense line was soon going to falter and he didn’t want any remnants falling back into the mine, where they would have to be rooted out later at great expense in men and, more importantly, time. The pests had caused far more casualties than the Mechanic would have liked. They had killed his men at a rate of fifty to one and that was getting a bit expensive. He needed these men for the removal of the artifacts and the weaponry from the mine.
He lowered his field glasses and admonished his men to keep a low profile as they advanced because of the threat of the most amazing sniper he had ever come into contact with. Try as he might, he could not pinpoint where the shooter was, but he was taking a heavy toll on his men. The man must be running low on ammunition, because his rate of fire had slowed, even though targets of opportunity abounded in the tree line.
“Radio the assault teams to make ready for the final push. I want the Americans to be swept clean of that ridge. We are running out of time. We still have a force of close to two hundred-adequate for the job, but not if we hesitate. Tell them that-”
He never got to finish. A withering fire opened up from somewhere behind them. Men who were formed for the final attack were struck by automatic weapons fire and mortars from their rear. As the Mechanic swung around he saw an amazing sight. From the very positions they had held earlier, a large force of men in green camouflage was running and firing-stopping, adjusting their fire, and moving in relays toward his exposed men.
“Impossible!” he shouted. He was being inundated with fire from the attacking force.
His men were being shredded by a Special Operations unit that could not be Ecuadorian. These men were running toward them crazed but with purpose. They were taking aim and laying down a swath of destruction that would soon render his attack moot and assure his defeat. Before he even knew what was hitting him, he froze. Two jets streaked overhead and four explosions rocked the trees where his men were trying to take cover. As he scanned the sky with his glasses he was amazed to see the jet aircraft climb out of their dive and head back into the blue sky.
“F-18 Hornets!” Where did they come from?” he asked no one. Two more Hornets made a low-level strafing run with their twenty-millimeter cannon, decimating a large group of his men who had exposed themselves far in advance of his orders to do so. “Allah be merciful!”
“We have to leave this place or die here,” one of his men said as the group of attackers in the rear grew closer.
The Mechanic thought fast. He looked up at the ridgeline where the well-disciplined troops continued to fire instead of celebrating their rescue, and then he looked at the mine opening. He turned to the man on his right.
“Get my men together. Just from my twenty security personnel and the nearest group. Make it no more than ten. We will go to the river and backtrack to the waterfall, then we will enter the mine at that point. That is where the Americans escaped last week and that is where we will go.”
As the man followed his orders, the Mechanic looked at the front line on the ridge. He tried to see who was there, determine who was directing the fight, but all he could see was fire coming from that position.
“You have been blessed for the moment, but God will allow me the final victory.”
Jack slapped the wounded lieutenant on his shoulder, careful to avoid the still bleeding wound on his leg.
“Well,” Jack said, laying his radio down in the pile of expended shell casings, “say hello to elements of the Second Special Polish Parachute Brigade and two teams of U.S. Navy SEALs.”
“A grand sight indeed, Colonel. Now where did the air support come from?”
“Compliments of the U.S. Navy, and the Enterprise battle group, which finally decided to get into the fight.”
“I never thought I would be pulled from the fire by a Polish brigade and the U.S. Navy, Colonel. Remind me to send them a note of thanks.”
“I think we better include the president in that. It took him a while, but he came through.”
Jack helped the lieutenant to his feet and handed him off to a dirty but smiling German comrade. Collins looked around at the Polish soldiers as they checked the dead and wounded of the attacking element. The parachute brigade had done its job, and was now learning that being nice to terrorists, either unharmed or wounded, was not an easy task.
“Colonel Collins?”
Jack turned and saw a man with thick green greasepaint covering his face. His bush hat was crumpled and only the whites of his eyes stood out.
“That’s my name,” Jack said, looking at the man and his two companions.
“Compliments of the president, sir. Lieutenant Commander Scott Englehorn, U.S. Navy, relieving you.”
Jack ignored the salute from the SEAL and just held out his hand.
The young officer was taken back. He looked uncomfortable at first, and then he smiled as he took the colonel’s hand in his own and shook it.