“Yeah,” Ellenshaw said, still leery about the master chief.
Suddenly the static picture on the monitor went wild. The view skewed from a still shot of the tree canopy to a wildly spinning shot of the ash-colored sky, and then the ground and the sky again. Jenks fought with the toggle in an attempt to control the spinning drone.
“Doc, get the other drone up higher in altitude so I can see what the hell’s wrong with this damn thing.”
Ellenshaw quickly turned the control knob on the hovering first drone and the view on the second monitor rose with the plastic craft. He didn’t have to adjust anything else as the machine rose to three hundred feet.
“This is ridiculous!” Jenks said loudly as he spit his cigar stub from his mouth.
On the screen both men watched as a giant condor with a wingspan of a Cessna dove once more for the drone. The bird missed on the second pass as Jenks moved the drone out of the giant’s path. On the second monitor it showed the wings nearly miss the flying craft. The vortex shook the drone and almost knocked it from the sky.
“Damn chickens have an air force, too?” Jenks said as he dipped the rounded nose of the drone over and dove for the tree canopy below. He would try to get her close, too close for the large bird to follow. “Hit return on that panel. We don’t need to lose both drones out there.”
Charlie did as he was told and then he watched the view of the first drone move away and then start back toward the camp. Meanwhile Jenks was watching for the return of the great bird.
“Do you mind telling me what in the hell that was?”
“It looked like an exact duplicate of the species of California condor that is close to extinction in our time. Only much, much larger.”
“Well, they look pretty damn healthy to me in this one.”
On the monitor the giant flew close over the drone and then vanished high into the falling ash overhead.
“Inform the colonel he not only has to watch for chickens, he’s now got something real freakin’ big in the air large enough to carry both him and Froggy away.”
The earth shook far more violently than ever before as Charlie made the radio call.
Jason had managed to wedge everyone into a crevice on the rock face of a small hill. The area was covered by giant trees and had good ground cover. He and Will had cut up small branches and made a small stockade area that covered them from the ashfall, which had blanketed them all until they were a sickly white. Once they were all inside the makeshift fort, Ryan sat hard on the grass and ash-covered ground. He shook his head and the ash flew from his dark hair. He took a deep breath, not really wanting to go into how desperate their situation was.
As he looked around at not only the people he was responsible for, but who were also his very close friends, he knew they could all handle the situation without losing their composure. Will, Virginia, and Sarah had actually been in worse situations, and Anya was a trouper who faced death every day in the Middle East. No, he was worried about how he was projecting his command. Thus far he had managed to get everyone out of harm’s way for the moment, but as for a plan, he was at a loss. Maybe the colonel was right, maybe he was destined to always be an Indian and not a chief. That thought used to give him comfort, but since being around Jack, Carl, and Will, he had become someone he never used to be — a responsible officer. He wanted the chance to prove that those good men had rubbed off on him.
“Water?”
Jason didn’t know Mendenhall was speaking as he sat and thought. His tired brain was worn from the dimensional shift and he was slow to recover — he wondered if the others were just as affected.
“Hey, fearless leader, our first priority has got to be water, right?”
Jason finally looked at Will and then realized he had been asked a question. He slowly nodded.
“Yeah, but no one else is going back out there. Will, you’ll stay and everyone had better start sharpening some sticks. Let’s just hope water is close by.”
“Jason,” Virginia said as she stood and walked over to him. She leaned in close so the others couldn’t hear. They were busy collecting some of the leftover cuttings from their fort making. “Look, we can just lay low. The colonel is bound to find us. After all, I think we made quite a spectacle on our arrival.”
Ryan shook his head. “No, we can’t assume anything. First order of business is to make sure we’ll be alive if and when they do find us.” He started to move toward the small opening they had left as a doorway.
The gun in his face stopped him short. He took a step back and then held Will Mendenhall at bay as he too realized they weren’t alone.
“Oh, look, it’s Mr. Wonderful and his band of cutthroats.”
The pistol’s barrel hit Ryan in the chest, forcing him back into the makeshift cover.
“Not exactly the Ritz, my friends, but as they say, any port in a storm,” Doshnikov said as he and four other men made their way inside the makeshift shelter. “Very industrious in such short order, it makes me suspect you have had superior training for situations such as this.” Each of the five was armed and each of them showed signs of their tangle with the saber-toothed cat. “Sit down,” he said, waving the Colt Peacemaker menacingly. Jason backed away and slowly sat with his friends. The other four men looked grateful to be out of the elements. “I must apologize for my earlier hysteria. I’m afraid your little trap confused me for a moment. It is now obvious we need each other.” He saw Ryan eyeing his men. Doshnikov wiped some blood from his still-bleeding nose and then looked at Jason closely, the gun still pointing menacingly at his face. “I see the arrogance of military training in you, my friend, so let me warn you. I have four more men waiting outside, so you see, even if you got by us my four more ruthless employees would handle you.”
Ryan threw his first plan to get out of the enclosure with the knowledge that Doshnikov wasn’t as stupid as he first thought. He settled in and watched as the Russians started tending to their wounds. He noticed along with the others that his men were no longer watching their boss in awe. They now looked at him with trepidation as to how the man could have gotten them into this mess. Ryan would have to take advantage of that if he could.
Doshnikov eased his aching frame to the ground and then allowed the hammer of the old Colt to slowly release. He looked at Ryan and then Virginia.
“You were one of the doorway’s designers, yes?”
Virginia looked at Ryan and he nodded that it was all right to talk, after all this was no big military secret. They all knew they were truly screwed.
“No, I didn’t design the doorway, we reverse-engineered it, as you well know.”
“Semantics, my dear lady.”
“Awful big word coming from you, dickwad,” Mendenhall said as Sarah and Anya cringed at Will’s blatant insult.
The Russian snickered. It was more of a laugh that conveyed the joy he felt at having survived the transit to this time, but also the fact that he had survived something out of his worst nightmare — an animal he had only seen pictures of in books.
Doshnikov looked at Mendenhall with not anger but with a small degree of admiration. “I will not blame you for your views on us Russians, my friend. The lie that we are all dumb peasants is widely perpetuated by your unfair news media, but I assure you that some of us have had all of the training you have, maybe even a measure more in other deadlier areas. But I believe that yours is now the correct attitude we will all need to escape our predicament. So I will ignore your attempt at an insult and at pushing me into a corner as what to do with you. I think you know the answer to that, my friend.”