“We must prepare for visitors,” Earhart said.
“Friendly or enemy?”
“Friendly.”
“How?”
“Come with me.”
The land was dying. Birds were the first to succumb to the invisible wave of death carried by the air. Their carcasses littered the landscape. The next to die were the animals, both domestic and wild. Cattle sickened and expired in their pens, while wildlife, somehow knowing the threat, tried desperately to run ahead of the radioactive cloud, but exhaustion eventually slowed them and the inexorable cloud caught them.
The edge of the radioactive discharge from Chernobyl had now spread more than two hundred miles from the nuclear power plant. Kiev, not far to the south, was a ghost town, the inhabitants fleeing ahead of the invisible death. Minsk, to the north, was in a panic as residents’ overwhelmed limited transportation in their dash to evacuate. Four hundred fifty miles to the northeast. Scientists monitored wind patterns as the government tried to figure out what to do. They could keep evacuating those in the path of the radiation, but how far could they keep running? Where would the people go? How would they survive? And what of the reports of the ozone depletion in the southern hemisphere? Were they just delaying the inevitable? Trading one kind of radiation death for another?
The first humans to experience the inevitable fate of the rest of the world were the handful of scientists working at McMurdo Station on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. They had been studying the hole in the ozone layer for years, ever since the smallest hole had opened in 1972 over Antarctica, and they had revisited every summer.
A dozen scientists swathed in heavy clothes and wearing protective goggles stared up at the bright sun. To them there was no apparent change. Their instruments told a different story. The readings indicated no plant would survive the sunlight long and skin exposed to it would develop cancerous growths in a relatively short period of time.
Cargo planes were standing by to evacuate the base, but those assigned there had already taken a vote based on the reality of the situation. The decision to stay was unanimous.
Dane rubbed Chelsea’s head and then scratched behind her ears. He could see the helicopter from the USS Washington approaching. The super-carrier was to the east, just over the horizon, helping keep guard on the Devil’s Sea gate.
“Take care of her,” Dane said to Foreman.
The CIA man nodded. “I will.”
Dane glanced at the dark wall of the gate nearby. “I’d stay clear of it.”
“You think your plan will work?”
“It’s not my plan,” Dane said. “I only have an idea of what I’m supposed to do. There are others who have to do their part.
The helicopter was overhead, lowering a sling.
Dane was shaking his head as he watched it come down.
“What’s wrong?” Foreman asked.
“This isn’t the way to fight a war,” Dane said. “Always on the defensive, always reacting. It’s what we did in Vietnam. It doesn’t work.”
“When you’re ass-deep in alligators-”
“Hard to remember your original purpose was to drain the swamp,” Dane completed the saying for Foreman. “After we kill this alligator-if we kill this alligator-we need to take the war to the Shadow.”
“How?” Foreman asked as the sling reached them.
Dane slipped it over his head and shoulders then tightened the strap. “I’ll work on it”
The winch started, and Dane’s feet left the deck.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The gallows beckoned, casting a long shadow from the morning sun, the tip of which just touched the jail where the condemned man awaited his fate. He did not wait easily or with resignation. He screamed, he ranted, and he ran about his cell. He’d been doing it for three days, ever since the Army Adjutant who enforced the law in the territory had slapped the irons on him while he slept off a drunk at a saloon just down the street. His face matched that on a poster, which stated that he’d already been convicted and sentenced once, and escaped. The sentence was death, and the Adjutant had no problem carrying it out as quickly as possible to minimize the cost of housing the prisoner and then collecting the reward and contributing it to the Seventh Cavalry’s officer fund, which was in line with the colonel’s orders. Given that the colonel was not only the Adjutant’s commander. But also his brother, there was no question of disobedience.
There was only one thing that bothered the Adjutant, Captain Tom Custer. The prisoner had had in his possession a fossilized human skull and a small leather pouch full of dust-gold dust. Captain Custer didn’t care about the skull, but the dust intrigued him. Given that the prisoner, who the Poster said was Toussaint Kensler, a.k.a. Tucson Kensler, was going to die this morning, Captain Custer thought the time was ripe to question him.
Captain Custer indicated for the guard to open the gate to the cell. He drew his pistol and walked in, pointing it at the prisoner. “You will sit down immediately, or I will save the hangman some work this morning.”
Kensler stared at the muzzle of the gun with wide eyes, shaggy, unkempt hair covering most of his face. “Listen, General-”
“Sit down on the floor.”
Kensler sat down, fidgeting. “You can’t do this to me, General. I dun it. I finally dun it.”
Custer kept the gun trained on the man. “Done what?”
Kensler leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You let me live. Let me go. I’ll draw you a map. Show you where it is. There’s plenty for all. Plenty.”
“Tell me.” Custer glanced over his shoulder, making sure the guard had moved away from the open door.
“No.” Kensler shook his head, dirty hair flying back and forth. ‘’No. No. No. No. You got to let me go.”
Custer reached with his free hand into his tunic pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. It was a roster of the Seventh from the morning role. He tossed it at the man, along with the stub of a pencil. “Draw the map.”
“No. No. No. No. You’re gonna kill me. Why should I? Why? No.”
Custer nodded. “All right. Wait.” He walked out of the cell to the office and retrieved Kensler’s wanted poster. He brought it back to the cell. “Here. See.” Custer tore the wanted poster in half. ‘That’s it. We can’t hang you now.”
Kensler grinned, revealing a few remaining dirty teeth as he watched the pieces float to the floor. He giggled as he crawled over and gathered the remains, tucking them inside his shirt. “I’m free now. Yes, I am.”
“Draw the map.”
“Oh sure. Sure thing, General.” Kensler put the roster face down on the floor and took the pencil between grubby fingers. He squinted, tongue stuck out the side of his mouth as he drew. Custer edged forward. Leaning over so he could see what was appearing. “That a river?” he asked.
“The Yellowstone,” Kensier said.
That oriented the young captain. The Black Hills. There’d been stories of gold in the hills for years. But those who went in didn’t come back out. Several groups of miners had set out to the west in the past couple of years and had never been heard from again. There was even a story that a flatboat coming down the Heart River had been carrying a load of gold, but it had been ambushed by the Sioux, everyone slaughtered, and the boat sunk along with the gold.
And then. Of course. There was the treaty that said it was illegal for whites to go into the Black Hill country. It was set aside for the Lakota Sioux.
“Did you dig a miner” Custer asked.
Kensler cackled. “No, General. No mine. Just picked it up in the dirt. Just laying there in the stream.” He held up the map.