He fired again and the weapon bucked in his arms like a hiccuping baby.

  ***

  “Down!” I yelled, mashing the gas pedal to the floor. I heard the thud-thud-thud of bullets impacting the Rover’s side panels.

  The tires spun, spewing dirt like a geyser. But we didn’t move, sinking deeper in the sand. Dust surrounded us, blown by the wind. The side window exploded. Glass washed over the dashboard. A bullet lodged into the air conditioning.

  More thuds. White steam hissed from the engine.

  Across the arroyo, the military Jeep roared to life. A ferocious sound.

  And then the Rover’s tires found purchase, and we shot forward like a rocket. Over the edge of the arroyo, and down into empty space.

  ***

  We landed hard. The Rover bounced on rubber tires and squeaky shocks. My chest slammed into the steering wheel as air exploded from my lungs. Uncontrollably, the Rover slid sideways through the loose dirt. A vertical dirt wall appeared through the missing driver’s side window, approaching rapidly. I fought for breath even as I struggled with the unresponsive steering wheel.

  The wall rapidly filled the entire window. “Hang on!”

  The Rover side-swiped the dirt embankment and Faye was thrown against me. There’s something to be said for wearing seat belts. Rocks and dirt spilled over the hood and over my lap. I wrenched the wheel with all my strength, and we finally shot away from the wall and out into the open arroyo, over a smattering of loose rocks.

  I looked in the rearview mirror. Behind, the Jeep bounded over the rocks, big tires clawing like an angry animal. I stepped on the pedal, and we tore down the middle of the arroyo, fish-tailing slightly.

  Thick trees with Spanish moss hung over the embankments. A red cloud of crimson-winged finches erupted from one of the branches, startled by our sudden appearance. Together, as if controlled by one mind, the finches darted this way and that, and disappeared out of sight. Ararat rose directly before us, indifferent to our plight.

  As I swerved around the bigger boulders, I kept an eye on the rearview mirror. The soldiers drove recklessly, sometimes on two wheels, heedless of their own safety, like two drunken teens out for a weekend joy ride.

  The shooter stood in the passenger seat, gripping the roll bar, hips shifting left and right like a Hula dancer. He rattled off a few wild shots. Some shots were wilder than others as dirt exploded to my left and sparks chipped off distant boulders to my right.

  “We need to lose these assholes,” I said, and reached under my seat, removing a black 9mm Smith & Wesson. “Grab the wheel, Faye.”

  I kept my foot on the accelerator while Faye fought to keep us on a straight path, and leaned out the window. Dirt embankments blurred passed, just a dozen feet away. I held the 9mm in my right hand, and sighted my target carefully—

  And pulled the trigger.

  ***

  The report from my 9mm was deafening. Faye jumped, jerking the wheel. The truck swerved violently. I grabbed the door, and just managed to stay inside the vehicle.

  But the shot had missed. The soldier ducked, dropping below the windshield. He gesticulated wildly to his partner. I positioned myself again, and pulled the trigger. And promptly put a nice hole in the radiator. But I wasn’t aiming for the radiator.

  The Jeep slewed to the right.

  I fired again. And again. Small dirt clouds exploded near the left front tire. Next to me, I heard Faye grunt as she struggled with the steering wheel.

  “How many shots do you have left?” she asked.

  “Two,” I said.

  Soldier boy leveled the weapon again and loosened a rapid series of shots. I ducked inside the truck. The back window disappeared. One shot went through the rear window and out the windshield, instantly spreading a series of web-like cracks.

  When the soldier paused, I fired again. And blew out their left headlight.

  “Last one.”

  I squinted carefully down the sites. Sucked in air. And fired.

  The tire exploded into black strips of steel-belted bacon. The Jeep swerved violently. The shooter was thrown from the vehicle, tumbling in the dirt. The driver fought the wheel bravely, but the Jeep hit the embankment hard, and spun like a top, coming to rest in the center of the arroyo, steaming.

  ***

  Ten minutes later I drove up and out of the arroyo and cut across an empty stretch of land and over hard-packed earth that would leave little in the way of tire tracks. Then I pointed the vehicle through a stand of fir trees, and, to avoid leaving an obvious trail of trampled brush, I used the least-dense route.

  Soon, a wide stream opened before us. The clean water moved quickly over smooth flat stones. Not very deep, but that was okay. After all, I wanted to hide our tracks in the water, not drown the vehicle. I drove the Rover into the stream.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I drove steadily but cautiously down the center of the stream.

  Ararat rose slowly before us like a Japanese monster emerging from the depths of the ocean. Faye drank from her bottle, perhaps influenced by the noisy water sounds the tires made. The water reminded me of another bodily function, but I felt it best that we press forward and not stop. As we worked our way upstream, there were no other signs of military patrol.

  “Camilla mentioned we may come across thieves or terrorists,” said Faye, keeping her voice even, although I detected a slight undercurrent of concern.

  I turned the wheel sharply, avoiding a dark pool I suspected was deeper water. “To ensure that Omar Ali and his men would be safe, the Turkish military swept the mountain clean of all Kurdish guerrilla activity, which in turn rid the mountain of thieves and terrorists, as well.”

  A dry, hot wind rippled the water; the ripples, in turn, glimmered in the sun like golden coins. The wind poured through the many shattered windows in the Rover, courtesy of the Turkish military.

  Always my eyes scanned the surrounding shrubbery, alert for military patrols. And just before noon, as the Rover plunged through slightly deeper water, Faye said, “Thank you, Sam.”

  “For what?”

  “Giving me the opportunity to look for my father.”

  “And opportunity is all it may be,” I said. “He’s been missing for a long time.”

  “You would fail miserably at writing greeting cards.”

  Minutes later, I stopped the Rover. About a hundred yards upstream, the mud banks merged into steep granite cliffs, and the stream grew in size into something more than a stream. I only hoped that I had put enough distance between us and the Turks.

  I turned out of the stream and spent the next five minutes fighting the loose mud. Two feet forward, one back. White steam issued from the engine. The Rover was losing water. The coolant system was probably shot-up.

  Once on dry land, we moved quickly through reeds and grasses and the occasional mean-looking thorny bush that might have been cultivated in Hell’s half acre. The shrubs gave way to larger boulders, and soon we were driving up through a massive limestone canyon, carved by eons of flood waters and glacial melt. A pair of Egyptian vultures rose and fell with the turbulent updrafts created within the canyon. Waiting for something to die. Or for some privacy.

  When the canyon became too steep and dangerous, I parked the vehicle deep within the shadows of the canyon wall between two huge boulders. A hell of a parallel parking job, I might add. I threw a canvas cover over the vehicle. The Rover now looked remarkably boulder-like. It should escape detection at first or even second glance.

  “What about the alarm?” Faye asked, shielding her eyes like a saluting soldier from the glare of the noon sun. There was something akin to a smirk on her face, but with Faye it was hard to be sure.

  “A shepherd boy wouldn’t know what to do with the Rover,” I said, scanning the horizon with the field glasses. The land was a living green and bronze blanket. I stood within the shadows to eliminate the possibility of a telltale gleam from the lens of the binoculars.

  I spotted a quick-moving jackal, its sand-colored coat wet with dew. Nose to the ground. Tracking rabbits or pheasants. Or even young ibex or chamois. There was no other movement. The land was empty and majestic, harsh and wild. Just the way I liked it. I exhaled. My breath fogged before me.

  “I think we’re safe,” I said, letting the heavy field glasses hang from the strap around my neck. We stood shoulder to shoulder, her shoulder just below my shoulder. Faye’s eyes were slits against the morning sun.

  Perhaps a mile away, something flashed under the sun. I raised the binoculars. A camouflaged military truck was moving languidly along a well-worn trail along the river. Was this a routine patrol? Or had something alerted them? That something being us.

  “What is it?” Faye asked.

  “Military truck.”

  “Are they on to us?”

  “I don’t think so, Dick Tracy.”

  The truck moved on without incident, disappearing within the deeper foliage along the stream’s bank. Just a routine patrol, I hoped.

  With the toe of her hiking boot, Faye kicked a loose pebble into another such pebble in a pre-historic game of marbles. “So this is the infamous Mount Ararat.”

  I shook my head. “Hardly. The true Ararat is high above, and a lot closer to heaven than you or I.”

  “You sound like a song.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you heard me sing.”

  Later, we dressed in long underwear, polypropylene socks, nylon pants and windbreakers. The nylon outer shell would keep the wind and rain out; the long underwear to keep the warmth in. A good recipe for mountain climbing. To complete the look, I handed her a wool cap and a pair of ski glasses. Now she looked ready to conquer a mountain, or hold up a liquor store in Aspen, Colorado.

  A dry wind swept along the canyon. I lit a cigarette. The vultures were gone, probably gorging on the carcass of some poor creature who had propagated the myth that women were inferior to men.

  “Are we ready?” she asked, voice tight, managing to sound excited and impatient all at the same time.

  “Almost,” I said.

  I helped Faye into her backpack and slipped into mine. Both packs jangled with crampons and carabiners. I slipped a hundred foot kernmantle rope—coiled in a classic mountaineer coil—over my backpack.

  “Now, we’re ready.”

  The sky was clear, although thunderheads lay on the distant horizon, waiting like an invading Medieval army for the command to storm the castle. The wind was crisp but manageable. It was good hiking weather. I crushed the cigarette under my boot, leaving my mark on the holy mountain. I led the way forward, and upward.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The ankle-high grass gave way to loose volcanic rock, which was akin to walking across a field of bowling balls. A cold wind swept down through the canyon, funneled between the massive rock walls, whistling over the many rock protrusions. The cliffs were layered with basalt, limestone, quartz, sandstone and dolomite in a sort of geologic rainbow.

  An hour into the climb I stopped in the shade of a rock buttress. Faye was breathing steadily, a film of sweat on her upper lip. She wiped the sweat away with the back of her hand.

  “Why are we stopping?” she asked impatiently.

  “Water,” I said. “If that’s okay with you.”

  She nodded her consent. “A little water does sound good.”

  “I’m glad you approve.”

  When I had finished drinking, Faye was still guzzling away. Precious liquid trickled down her chin and neck.

  “You might want to conserve some of that,” I said.

  Reluctantly, she pulled away from the bottle like a baby from a teat. She stared in shocked silence at the half-empty contents. “I hadn’t realized I was so thirsty,” she said. “Where do we get more?”

  “Reconstituted urine. I have special baggies and distillers in my backpack. When done properly, the water doesn’t taste bad. Sort of coppery.”

  “That’s not funny, Sam.”

  “Of course not.” I grinned and pointed farther up the canyon. “We’ll be passing a stream about an hour’s climb from here. And higher up, we’ll use melted ice and snow.”

  “No yellow snow.”

  “No yellow snow,” I agreed.

  The wind blasted over the rock buttress, moaning like the dead. Now all we needed were flapping shutters. Preferably broken. Higher up, between the canyon walls, the narrow strip of sky revealed storm clouds approaching from the east, dark and gray, as if composed of a million lost souls. On Ararat, storms hit quickly, and hard. From blizzards to hailstorms to surreal electrical storms.

  Faye slipped out of her backpack and sat on a stool-sized rock, which wobbled slightly. I glanced down to see if anything slithered from underneath. Nothing slithered. There was a smudge of dirt on Faye’s right cheekbone. A slow-moving rivulet of sweat passed over the smudge. She undid the laces of her boots and slid two slender fingers down into the sock, and winced.

  “Blisters?” I asked.

  “I think so.”

  I found another pair of old polyurethane socks deep within my backpack, and handed them to Faye. “The blisters are unavoidable but you can impede their advance with these.”

  “Thank you, General Schwarzkopf.”

  A half hour later, we stopped before a tunnel carved naturally within the canyon wall. The arched opening was veiled by gently swaying cobwebs. “Shortcut,” I said, grinning.

  Faye shook her head. “Men and their shortcuts.”

  I removed a small flashlight from my backpack and pushed aside the thick cobwebs and ducked into the tunnel. The passage was narrow and continued as far as the light would reach. Dust motes swirled in the air. A tiny creature with bright red eyes stared at me before scuttling off along the floor, its tiny little claws clicking on the stone.

  We moved deeper into the tunnel. Once or twice I ducked to avoid the low ceiling. Once or twice I didn’t duck soon enough. Our boots echoed off the surrounding walls, and sometimes we came across soft pockets of sand, which muffled our footfalls.

  Just ahead, obscured by the gently swaying ectoplasm-like cobwebs, was a faint glow that marked the tunnel’s end. And as we moved closer, the glow became a bright archway of yellow sunlight, washing over the smooth stone floor.

  “How do you fare with heights?” I asked.

  “I’m good with heights. Why do you ask?”

  I was the first to exit the tunnel, stepping out onto a narrow ledge. Below was a thousand foot drop into a massive canyon, reminding me of a scaled-down version of the Grand Canyon, with its multi-colored layers, sheer walls and levels upon levels. Two golden eagles circled far below, wings outstretched, looking for trouble.

  Faye stepped out behind me. She immediately gasped, grabbing my bicep. Her talon-like grip would have impressed any golden eagle. I pried her fingers free and looked over my shoulder. “That good, huh.”

  She took a moment to collect herself and eased out onto the ledge like a scared puppy sampling rain for the first time. “I’m okay with heights, Sam. I just wasn’t prepared to be slapped in the face with it. How did we get so high?”

  “Ararat sits on a three thousand foot plateau, not to mention we’ve been climbing for the past two hours.”

  The raptors circled below, their auburn feathers ruffling in the updraft. Somewhere a rabbit didn’t stand a chance.

  I led the way along the narrow ledge.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Long ago, I had grown accustomed to the weight of my pack on my shoulders.

  It had become an extension of me, like a big deformed hump, attractive only to gypsy women in bell towers. As we moved along the ledge, my legs felt strong, although they burned with the effort of carrying forty pounds up a sharp incline. After all, I was out of shape, as it had been a slow summer, thanks to Emir Omar Ali. Faye didn’t show any signs of tiring, keeping pace with me stride for stride. I was impressed.

  As the sky began to darken, the wind brought with it the sweet smell of rain, and later, when the ledge merged into a steep grassy slope, the rains finally came. Attached to our windbreakers were hoods, which we immediately utilized. Still, the drops were like ice on my face and neck, until my skin grew completely numb and lost all feeling.

  I led the way across the field, trampling through the tall grass. The patter of rain was somehow comforting against the nylon hood. Next, a low fog moved in. There’s something to be said about a swirling mist clinging to the side of a mountain, as if we had stepped into a fantasy land created by Tolkien. My tongue felt fat and sticky—the brutal reality of this world. I stopped in the middle of the grassy field and removed my backpack. Faye did the same and we both drank eagerly.

  As we did so, a distant figure emerged from the fog. Seconds later, the figure proved to be a man. He stumbled once, but held himself up with a long wooden staff. He was dressed in a tattered robe. I could see blood on the cleaner parts of his robe.

  Faye pressed against me; the feeling of closeness was not unpleasant, and her need for comfort was surprisingly appealing to me. “He’s a shepherd,” I said. “And, like us, he’s trespassing.”

  The shepherd paused, swayed on his feet, and then fell forward.

  ***

  He lay face-down, torn robe spread around him like broken angel wings. I carefully rolled him over. Faye gasped. His nose was broken and swollen and split from side to side. Blood poured from his nostrils and into his gray beard. His equally gray hair was caked with blood. He could have been seventy years old, and in those seventy years he surely had seen better days.

  “What happened?” Faye asked, dropping to her knees.

  I shook my head. “Could have taken a fall, or been caught in a rock slide. A few years back, an American astronaut was struck by such a falling rock. When they found him, he looked similar to this.”

  Faye reached under his head and lifted it and poured water over his puffed and cracked lips, washing away some of the blood and exposing more deep wounds around his mouth. The old man opened his brown eyes for the first time and tried to sit up but Faye held him down.