Читать книгу Shock! - Donald Ph.D. Ladew - Страница 4

The night was soft, darkest blue. A cuckoo's voice in the cedars called for the dawn, still an hour and a half away.

In the arid mountains of eastern Turkey, the heavy air was filled with the final gathering of the night's moisture; there drifted odors that might have delighted a wandering Phoenician a thousand years before the birth of Christ.

All around was crag and tor in shades of brown and gray, unrelieved except for a few box myrtle, stunted cedar and wild flowers. Here, lovers of desert, hills and solitude could find peace.

At 04:35 AM a man left the compound and stood quietly just outside the gate. He stared into the darkness and saw no color in the surrounding mountains, only shadows.

A modern gate, three inches of tool steel with a Lexan center, had been mounted in a stone wall that was five hundred years old and four feet thick. An alert marine sentry operated the locks. They didn't talk.

Watching him start his run down the mountain road, the Marine shook his head and muttered.

"Mr. Gilbert Austin Piers the III, you are one crazy bastard. What the hell, at least you're not a limp-dick fairy like most of the weirdoes who work around here."

Because Gilbert made the run twice a week, the sentries had his routine worked out in every detail. Gilbert ran unaware that he was a topic of discussion among the Marine contingent.

The first time he went on his bi-weekly jaunt, the sergeant in charge ordered Private Nicols to go with him, make sure he didn't get in trouble. Private Nicols came back to the compound wheezing like a man with emphysema.

Among themselves they called him 'Mad Gilbert’, but there was respect. The private reported on his trek in detail.

"Y'all wouldn't believe it to look at him, Staff. I mean he probably don't weigh more'n one-fifty soaking wet, and what is he, five-ten tops?"

There were murmurs of agreement from the other men.

"Anyhow, off we go. He's wearing them old, baggy tan pants and a sweat shirt got a picture of that French singer, Mireille Mathieu on the front and back."

If Mlle. Mathieu ever had the misfortune to hear the private pronounce her name, she wouldn't have had the slightest idea what he was talking about. His slow, singsong cadence that made every statement a question came from the hills west of Winston Salem, North Carolina.

"He's got his rucksack, always got the same stuff in it, right?" Nichols started to name off the contents of Gilbert's pack, ticking each item off on his fingers.

"He's got his mountain climber's stove, a container of fuel, a metal tin of wax-covered matches; you know, them kind you get in a Boy Scout kit. Then there's two tins of beef stew, a half pound of goat cheese, a few pieces of fruit and two quarts of water in plastic containers."

The corporal who had gate duty that day nodded his head after each item.

"There's a few other odds and ends; a big 'ole survival knife, you know, one of them Ranger jobs with a compass in the hilt. On top is two books. Man, them suckers 'er dog-eared and bent like my Momma's Bible. One's a paperback by a guy called Montaigne (the private pronounced it, Montag-nee) and the other one looks real old, by a guy called, Emerson.

"And like...he don't say shit, he just looks at you with those puppy dog’s eyes, like my daddy's setter. I mean, it ain't like he's some kind of fag or nothin', but he's just too pretty. Do him good to get his nose broke or something, maybe he wouldn't look like them guys advertising fifty-dollar shirts in Playboy.

"He's just there, patient. Like it's okay with him if you screw around that dumb gate for a week, but you know it's weird, him bein' so patient, I really felt like I better get my shit together."

Private Nicols shook his head in puzzlement, remembering.

"So he sees I'm ready and just takes off running, no warm up, no nothing. I've really got to step on it to keep up and I'm in pretty good shape. Not like old Gilbert though. This guy's an iron-man!" Private Nicols voice was filled with admiration.

Gilbert would have been surprised to hear the marines taking such an interest in him. Some people, even friends, accused him of monomania, of being too self-involved. He didn't mind the company of others, but his interests were singular and he seldom met anyone who shared the things he cared about.

When the gate shut behind him, he stood still for a moment, then set off running easily down a dirt track that angled northward around the face of the mountain; not fast, a steady fluid pace.

The mountain was called Supahn Dagi, thirteen thousand six hundred and ninety-seven feet at the summit. It was ninety-nine percent rock. It was located thirty miles south of Malazgirt and Patnos in the heart of what for a thousand years had been called Kurdistan, a wasteland of rugged mountains and high valleys.

Over the dry smell of decomposing rock and wind-scoured soil he caught a momentary scent of cedar and oranges, strong and sweet. It could have come north from the shores of Lake Van.

He ran for a half hour, and then turned off the dirt road at a barely discernible goat track. It continued around to the north for a mile and began climbing steeply. He ran without effort, his rhythm established, his mind centered.

The rocky outcrops and barren slopes were beginning to have definition. It was 05:30 AM: Sunrise at 05:50 AM. He'd timed the first part of his exercise to arrive at a small meadow just below eight thousand feet, at dawn.

When he arrived, the sun began to light the surrounding mountains in orange and gold. An ancient poem came unbidden to his thoughts and he whispered it to the hills in the language of the Persian mathematician, astronomer and poet, Omar Khayyam who'd written it nearly a thousand years before.