Lost Empire (Fargo Adventures 2)

“This one time I’ll forgive you.”

They pressed on for another ninety minutes, moving slowly but steadily up the western slope of the peak, pulling themselves along using exposed roots and drooping vines, until finally Sam called a halt. They strung their double-wide hammock between two trees, double-checked all the mosquito nets’ seams, then crawled inside and shared a meal of warm water, beef jerky, and dried fruit. Twenty minutes later they fell into a deep sleep.

THE JUNGLE’S NATURAL SYMPHONY woke them just after sunrise. After a quick breakfast they were on the move again. As Sam had predicted, the higher they climbed, the more the foliage thinned, until they were able to move without the aid of the machete. A

t 10:15 they broke through the trees and found themselves standing on a ten-foot-wide granite plateau.

“That’s what I call a view,” Remi said, shrugging off her pack.

Spread before them were the blue waters of the Sunda Strait. Twenty-five miles away they could see the sheer cliffs of Krakatoa Island and, beyond that, Java’s west coast. They stepped to the edge of the plateau. Five hundred feet below them, at the bottom of a sixty-degree slope, lay the floor of the ravine. On either side of it were the peaks that formed its northern and southern walls. The ravine itself was more or less straight, with a slight curve as it neared the far shoreline a mile away.

Sam pointed at the patch of water visible beyond the ravine’s mouth. “That’s almost exactly where she was anchored.”

“Let me ask you a question: Why didn’t we start over there and just stroll up the ravine?”

“A couple reasons: One, that’s the windward side of the strait. I might be a tad paranoid, but I’d wanted us to have some cover from prying eyes.”

“And the second reason?”

“Better vantage point.”

Remi smiled. “You were half hoping we’d find a mast jutting out from the canopy down there, weren’t you?”

Sam smiled back. “More than half hoping. I don’t see anything, though. You?”

“No. Now might be the right time to tell me your theory: How would the Shenandoah have survived the pyroclastic flow?”

“Well, you probably know the scientific term for it, but I’m thinking of the Pompeii Effect.”

Pompeii, Italy, famous for having fallen victim to another volcano, Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., was also renowned for its “mummies,” still-life casts of Pompeii’s inhabitants in the final moments of life. Like Krakatoa, Vesuvius had unleashed an avalanche of blistering ash and pumice that rolled over the village, both charring and entombing virtually everything before it. Humans and animals unlucky enough to be caught in the open were instantly broiled alive and buried. As the bodies decomposed, the resulting fluids and gasses hardened the interior of the shell.

“I think that’s the term for it, actually. The principle is a little different here, though.”

“That’s what I’m counting on. Assuming the Shenandoah was driven here, she would have been waterlogged from the tsunami and blanketed in thousands of tons of soaked vegetation and trees. When the pyroclastic flow came, all the moisture would have flashed into steam and, hopefully, the blanket of foliage would have been charred instead of the ship.”

Remi was nodding. “Then all of it was buried in several feet of ash and pumice.”

“That’s my theory.”

“Why hasn’t it been found already?”

Sam shrugged. “Nobody’s been looking for it. How many artifacts are eventually found just feet from where everyone’s been excavating for years?”

“Too many to count.”

“Plus, the Shenandoah was only two hundred thirty feet long and thirty-two feet wide. That ravine is”—Sam did the calculation in his head—“twenty-five times longer and forty times wider.”

“You’re no dummy, Sam Fargo.” Remi looked down the slope before them. “What do you think?” she asked. “Straight down?”

Sam nodded. “I think we can manage it.”

THE GOING WAS SLOW but not particularly treacherous. Using the trunks of diagonally growing trees as makeshift steps, they picked their way down the slope and back into deeper jungle. The sun dimmed through the canopy, leaving them in twilight.

Sam called a halt for a water break. After a few gulps he wandered off along the hillside with a “Be right back” over his shoulder. He returned a minute later with a pair of heavy straight sticks and handed the shorter of the two to Remi.

“A poker?” she asked.

“Yes. If she’s here, the only way we’re going to find her is legwork. Likewise, if she’s covered in a layer of petrified vegetation and ash, there are going to be gaps and voids. If we probe enough ground, we’re sure to find something.”