Free The Mountain: An Event Group Thriller by David L. Golemon Page B

said as he stepped aside to allow the three to precede him into the giant vault area.
    Collins saw it in person for the first time and he had to admit the monitors inside Niles’s office did the artifact no justice. No matter what this object truly was, Jack knew it to be impressive. The Ark was a broken wreck, but its age could be summed up in just one word—ancient. It was the oldest thing Collins had ever laid eyes on. He didn’t need too many impressive degrees to see that. The ship, if that was what it really was, was only a quarter of its former tonnage. The object ended in a jagged and twisted wreck. The beams and what remained of its wooden decking had long since turned to petrified stone. You could see the grain in the wood and know what it was immediately. The bow of the vessel soared into the heights of the giant vault. Spotlights illuminated the scaffolding placed around the artifact where many a teacher, professor, and student had crawled over its exterior searching for clues as to its real identity.
    It had been explained to Collins that the Ark had been officially carbon-dated to more than thirteen thousand years old. That was still a bone of contention inside the Group because the theology department espoused the accepted theory that the Noah civilization was only five thousand years old. The Event Group and its personnel never argued between departments but everyone knew it was an accepted fact that Virginia Pollock and her Nuclear Sciences Division were never, ever, wrong in their time and age calculations, and if you knew Virginia Pollock you’d better not begin to question the science. She was a firm and adamant believer in dating material and had never been proven wrong on any established date.
    Jack followed Niles, Lee, and Alice up the staircase of the closest scaffold. Their footsteps made loud clanging sounds as they moved across the steel. Collins saw amazement in everyone’s eyes. They must have already taken in the sight of the artifact many, many times before this morning, but clearly the viewing never failed to induce awe. Collins didn’t feel that way. It wasn’t because he was a cold military analyst, or that he didn’t have a great imagination. It was the fact that something described as divine providence ordered this vessel constructed under the direct supervision of God, which Jack considered ridiculous. A romantic would always love to believe that God had mercy on man and saved them with the Ark of wood, but Jack was a realist and knew that God had long abandoned mankind, including men from antiquity.
    “Fairy tales, right?” Lee asked, penetrating Jack’s inner thoughts. Lee placed his cane on the railing overlooking the ancient vessel.
    The wooden construction on the centerline main deck looked as precise as many a painting proclaimed. Collins could see the hairline fractures where the Ark had either been dismantled or damaged. The reverse-engineering to reconstruct the Ark must have been a massive undertaking. There was a house-like structure on the upper deck, and about eighty-five feet of the pitched roof and frame remained intact and looked as if this was where the supposed family of Noah would have lived high above their animal pens. Collins moved his eyes from the sight below to the single piercing eye of Lee.
    “Excuse me?” Jack said as he failed to get the point even though he had been thinking about the same word only moments before.
    “Just fairy tales. Stories that make for good Sunday school lesson plans. Good versus evil, the fight of man against nature, the determination of the human soul. Yes, many a good lesson is derived from such a story, wouldn’t you say?” Lee said as he moved to the major’s side and then gestured with his free hand as the other stabilized his weak frame against the railing. “But a fairy tale nonetheless,” he said when Collins remained silent. He patted Jack on the back and then held out his hand for Alice to continue.
    “The