Zero Point (2 page)
“The captain’s ordered all hands to life boats. Jesus, how the hell can we abandon ship with no water beneath us?” he said in near hysteria. “Cleary’s refusing to abandon the wheelhouse. I can’t get him to leave.”
Turner looked up to the darkened wheelhouse and could see the soft reddish glow of a cigarette through the port window.
Knowing there wasn’t much time left, Turner then focused on removing the 9.9 horse Yamaha outboard from the transom of the Zodiac.
“What are you doing?” Harkness asked.
“This motor will be ripped off its mount the instant the tsunami hits. We need buoyancy, not power,” Turner replied, tossing the motor over the side. “I’m going to leave the water
proof cover on and leave just enough opening for us to get in. I know it’s a long shot, but I don’t see any other option. There’s room for four. Are you coming?”
“No, Mr. Turner. I’m going below to make sure all the crew is topside.” He then ran off into the darkness toward the aft end of the ship.
“Get in the Zodiac, Susan, and tie one of the raft cleat lines around you. I’ll keep an eye out for Pond.”
Turner helped the intern into the dinghy then looked toward the stern of the ship, now eerily back dropped by the crescent moon. While focusing on the doorway that Pond should emerge from, his attention was drawn to the lower edge of the crescent moon on the horizon. The moon’s bottom edge began disappearing into the darkness.
As if being devoured by a mythical beast, the rising blackness soon engulfed the entire moon then began swallowing the evening stars along the horizon. Turner realized to his horror that this was the crest of a huge wave bearing down on them.
“Cleary!” Turner yelled to his friend in the wheelhouse. “Don’t be a fool. You don’t stand a chance up there.”
“Someone’s got to issue the Mayday, Josh,” Cleary yelled back from the doorway to the wheelhouse. “I’ll keep at it as long as I can. Give my best to your father, Josh.”
“Good luck, my friend,” Josh said, sadly aware that the old captain had sealed his fate. He then quickly climbed into the Zodiac where Susan lay trembling in fear.
“Is Pond coming?”
“I’m sorry, Susan. Something must have happened to him below. Otherwise he’d be here by now”
Turner refastened the last of the snaps to the canvas top of the inflatable, and then hurriedly wrapped the stern cleat line around his waist.
“Josh, I don’t want to die,” Susan cried, now bordering on hysteria.
“We’re going to get through this, so listen to me carefully. I want you to grab hold of the side cleats, and, no matter what happens, don't let go, okay?”
In the darkness of their makeshift pod, the pair heard an ominous roar similar to the winds of a typhoon. Turner raised his head and peered out the small slit in the canvas. To his horror, he saw a huge blackness rising out of the night, the specter actually blotting out the night sky as it unfurled over them.
“God help us,” Turner whispered as he closed his eyes in a futile effort to escape the nightmarish scene.
The massive ninety-foot wave slammed into the ship broadside, sending the old relic rolling on the sea floor like a toy. The ship’s first roll completely sheared off the bridge superstructure, killing Captain Alfred Cleary instantly and trapping intern James Pond, Harkness, and many of the hapless crew below. They drowned in total darkness as the maelstrom flooded the ship in seconds.
***
One week later in the Ginza district of Tokyo, Japan, the phone rang in a dimly lit, plush office. It was picked up quickly by its lone occupant.
“Yes, what is it?” the voice said in a soft, but icy tone.
“It is Fuyuki. I have the full results that you requested,” the man on the other end stated.
“I trust you have good news for me, Fuyuki.”
“Yes, Oyabun.
The results were quite successful. Using the region’s tectonic plates as the principal target worked better than expected.”
“Excellent. Have there been any suspicions raised by the authorities?”
“None that I am aware of, sir.
The tsunami has been attributed to an undersea earth slide caused by seismic activity common to the region, and has received little attention in the media. The loss of life was minimal and no report of a fireball has been made to the authorities. There were a few witnesses, but they have been basically ignored.”
“Then it seems that our little demonstration was successful. Our benefactor wants assurance that the plan will be feasible since he will be investing heavily into the project.”
“Yes, sir.
I’m confident that with his financial backing, we will be more than able to meet his needs, and ours.”
“Then I will tell our new friend that Operation Bishamon can commence whenever he is ready to proceed. You have done well, Fuyuki. Goodbye.”
Hanging up the phone, he glanced at a map on his desk of the Canary Islands
. La Palma is such an insignificant little island
, he mused as he gently rolled up the map.
But when we are finished, the world will know the name very well; very well indeed
.
2
The Canary Islands, present day
T
he 1992 Land Rover slowly made its way up the winding and dangerous road leading south from Santa Cruz, the capitol of the island of Tenerife.
Josh Turner never tired of this view as he gazed up at the majestic, volcanic peak of Mount Teide, rising twelve thousand feet above him with its snow-capped peaks. It offered a vista not seen by many.
Turner found the Canary Islands to be one of the most beautiful places he had ever worked
.
Looking out the window, his mind drifted as the old, rusty vehicle traveled onward. He found himself thinking of the tragic occurrence in 2008.
The nightmares of the tsunami in the Bismarck Sea were getting worse lately. It had been a miracle that he and Susan Hendrich survived the ordeal.
The huge wave had struck the
Southern Star,
and, by some divine providence, or through sheer luck alone, their Zodiac was flung off the bow by the force of the maelstrom as the ship began to roll. Miraculously, it landed face up into the crest of the churning wave. Susan screamed in abject fear for
what seemed an eternity as the inflatable rode the head of the foaming torrent. In total darkness, the two had been carried by the fearsome wave all the way to the mainland of Papua.
Within minutes, Turner felt the Zodiac’s bottom being buffeted by solid objects as it passed over trees far beyond the beach. He quickly unsnapped the cover and could make out in the moonlit night that they somehow had managed to be carried a good distance inland. The nightmare finally ceased when the small boat came to rest atop a high rocky outcrop.
It had taken two days of relying on his jungle survival skills before the pair was discovered by a rescue boat from the Papua Maritime Defense Force.
The tragic loss of his intern, James Pond, weighed heavily on him, as did the psychological damage done to Susan Hendrich from the ordeal. She had never been the same since that night and had given up a promising career in the field of archeology. Turner had tried to encourage her for quite some time, hoping that she would reconsider, but she soon lost touch with him and faded into obscurity.
A jarring bump in the rocky road brought him back to the present.
“So much for getting over my jet lag after a long working trip in the states,” Turner said to Paulo, his driver from San Fernando University. They made their way toward the first of many switchbacks that would lead them to the higher plateau where the team was working. The team, headed by his father,
Eli Turner, was currently working on a new pyramid discovery near Guimar, a town on the eastern flank of Tenerife, about twenty-four miles from Santa Cruz.
This was the seventh and newest pyramid discovered. The other six had been discovered by archaeologists in 1998,
Turner thought as the vehicle continued up a steep, rock-strewn road toward the site.
Turner and his father had been working together on this new pyramid at the request of San Fernando University Director of Archeology, Carlos Santiago. Eli Turner and Carlos had become fast friends since their work together on the Cueva de Belmaco project years ago. The caves, discovered on the island of La Palma, were a dwelling place for the ancient Guanches, the original inhabitants of the Canary Islands.
“Why was Maria so insistent that I come today? Couldn’t it have waited for a few days?” he asked Paulo, pulling his ball cap brim down to shield his eyes from the sun that was now making its descent behind Mt. Teide.
“I don’t know what is going on, Josh. Maria was very insistent that you come as soon as possible. She said it was really important,” Paulo replied, then spat his wad of chewing tobacco out his open window.
“Seems odd that she wouldn’t tell me over the phone,” Turner said, trying to imagine what could be important enough to get him out here on the dig team’s day off.
His mind drifted back to all of the digs he had been part of during his father’s long tenure as an archaeologist.
I’ve spent so many years with Dad, digging in the dirt in places such as Mexico, Peru, Belize, the Dead Sea region, and countless other locations. Had it been that long?
He pulled his father’s gift, a new Jansen pipe, from his vest pocket and placed it in a bag with a pouch of fresh Virginia Cavendish tobacco. He knew it was his father’s favorite, so Turner had picked up some for him a few day ago before flying back to Tenerife. As the Land Rover started up the series of steep switchbacks, Turner reminisced how much his life had changed over the years.
After losing his mother in a car accident when he was only five, Turner had traveled the world with his father, constantly moving from one archeology site to another. Never having any semblance of a normal home, he had lived and been tutored throughout his adolescent years in some of the harshest regions of the world.
He learned the skills of an archaeologist from his renowned father, and, over the years living abroad, had mastered the languages of Spanish, Hebrew, and Aramaic.
At the age of eighteen, Turner had left his father and entered college, graduating from Texas
A&M
with degrees in both archeology and anthropology. He had then moved to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, after receiving a job offer as director of field research with the National Parks Service, much to his father’s disapproval.
“Son, you’re wasting your talent there and you know it,” a disgruntled Dr. Elias Turner said to him at the time.
Turner remembered the sarcastic response he had made to his father that day. “Dad, they might dig up an old Aramaic papyrus where they fought the battle of the Wheat Field, and I may come in handy being able to translate it for them.”
He remembered how his father had just shaken his head and said, “Whatever makes you happy, Josh. That’s all I care about, but with your training—”
“Dad,” Turner had interrupted angrily, “just because you don’t feel that it’s valid work, doesn’t mean that it’s not to me. Why can’t you let me make my own life? I’m not you!” Turner had regretted the remark, remembering the hurt he saw in his father’s eyes.
Now at the age of twenty-eight, Josh Turner found himself one of the three field archeology directors of the International Consortium for Artifact Preservation.
ICAP began as the brainchild of his father and longtime collaborator, Professor Carlos Santiago, who at the time was director of antiquities at the University of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. The two esteemed archaeologists conceived the idea of an independent, international organization serving to help countries discover their ancient artifacts, and help fight the growing loss of national treasures by way of the antiquities black market.
He recalled how after only two years with the National Parks Service, major funding cuts had led to him being let go.
Not long after, his father offered the position of ICAP field director to him without comment or judgment, which had infuriated him. Turner begrudgingly said yes to the offer, knowing he had little choice at the time. In his mind he knew his father was thinking,
I told you so. You should have listened to me.
Josh promised himself that he would commit to this position temporarily until he found something else. Swallowing his pride, he set out to prove that he was as good as his father; always pushing
himself
to the limits on each assignment. But now, he was tired; tired of trying to meet his father’s high standards.
He admitted to himself it was not all a bad experience. Through ICAP, he’d made some good friendships. Notably, his two field director counterparts, Dr. Hiram Rabib, director of antiquities at the University of Jerusalem, and Dr. Kim Liao, director of research of the Yangtze River project in Hubei Province, China. Both countries became charter members when ICAP was formally announced to the world five years ago.