CROSSings

By T. W'ski

1

T. W'SKI - U-601

When on a fact-finding mission for the UN, an Inca gold figurine is discovered at the bottom of a crevice inside a glacier. A curious associate's interest in what that figurine represents, a jealous husband with a temper, and a man desperate enough to commit murder to prevent the discovery of his mismanagement of the family's vast investments are all part of the CROSSings' deadly story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781684982400

Book preview

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CROSSings

T. Wand#39;ski

Copyright © 2022 T. W’ski

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-68498-239-4 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68498-240-0 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

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About the Author

Tommy Templeton Mystery Series

The Coven

Bloody Muddy

Other Novels by T. W'ski

Stone Blind

BlackHeart's Treasure

West of Kansas

The Laver and the Purple Sand Pirates

U-601

Poetry Books by T. W'ski

MACHO

á la Mode

Book of Short Stories by T. W'ski

T. W'ski's Shorts

To my younger brother, Joseph, who all his life has wanted to best me at something and finally did, doing it in a manner I have often wished—sitting on a bucket, on the lake's shore, with a fishing pole in his hand

RIP

Joseph W.

August 31, 2021

1

"I'm going to push up the main flow of the glacier this morning past the point where we placed the instruments yesterday," Christian informed the rest of the team who were gathered around the breakfast table enjoying their assigned member's abilities at providing a suitable early-morning meal.

Emily, Walker, and I are going to start placing instruments along the eastern branch of the glacier, said Phoebe, another member of the scientific expedition monitoring the glacial ice melt along the equator in Ecuador, South America.

The team, as they called themselves, had been in the lower regions of Mount Chimborazo for only what would be a short week. It always took four to five days to set up camp and another day to scout around a bit, getting down to the serious business at hand on day number seven. This was the morning of the team's eighth day in this location; and so far, they were right on schedule, having done some earlier setting up of monitoring equipment yesterday.

They had started their investigations at Mount Cayambe in late May, proceeding from there to Mount Antisana and onto Mount Cotopaxi, a still very active volcano. While they were in the vicinity there, they experienced several small quakes that were to be considered minor ground-shaking events, but the gases that rose out of the volcano and infused the air with sulfur were of a density that was worrisome to the team's health, causing them to don the protective masks they had thankfully packed before they left the States.

After they left that volatile area, they had come here to their final mountain on their list with its sections of ice to investigate. Thus, it found them camped at the base of Mount Chimborazo in the early days of August.

The team's investigations had, in the past, always produced results, which, in this case and at this time in our history again, was being sponsored by the United Nations. They had been hired by the United Nations to collect data on the rate of glacier melt and retraction on mountains located on or near the equator over a two-week period. At the end of monitoring a mountain for that two-week period, they would leave markers and satellite monitoring equipment at the site to gather further information that was transmitted via satellite passes that would be used by next year's team to base their calculations on when they were sent to these same mountainous regions.

What are the rest of you going to be doing? Ginger asked.

Maya and I are going down to talk to those sheepherders, Benito said.

We're hoping to get invited to their village and hear what they have to say about the local weather situations, changes in patterns, you know, the usual stuff, Maya added.

And if we're lucky, we'll get to sample some of their local cuisine and maybe bring their fixings back to share with the rest of you, added Benito.

Sean and I are going to do some ice climbing, Celest said.

We're actually going to take some deep-core samples from the top, bottom, and at intermittent levels of that big ice flow along the edge of the western perimeter, Sean explained.

Emile, that leaves you, Ginger prodded.

I have some reports on our arrival here and some to get started on that I will finish when the rest of you periodically hand them over to me, after which I plan to join Christian on the main glacier. On my way up to meet him, I plan on taking readings from the instruments we placed up that way yesterday as I go, he replied.

And what are you and Roger going to be doing, Ginger? Celest asked rather coyly.

We are going to take in the rays, sip a little wine along with consuming some of that wonderful goat cheese and hard-crusted, fire-baked bread we bought from the market on the way here, Roger answered. That's after we go through that batch of ice cores you took yesterday while everyone else was setting up those instruments.

Don't listen to him, said Ginger, Roger's wife. We expect to be busy all day with those ice cores, so the sipping and eating will be done with you all in the waning rays of the day as together we all sit and watch the setting sun, Ginger added.

2

Breakfast broke up, and everyone took off to gather the equipment they would be needing for their self-assigned tasks before heading out to perform them. Christian gathered his gear and made his way up to the main glacier. He strapped on his crampons, which were sharp metal cleats for walking and climbing on ice that attached to the bottoms of his boots, and, with ice axe in hand, headed up the glacier. As he passed the solar-powered instruments that the team had set in place yesterday, he checked each one to make sure that it was stable and seemed to be working.

You never know when one of these high-tech gadgets will decide to go on holiday, he thought to himself, checking the last one. Everything seems to be in order, but we'll know for sure if they are actually working when Emile takes his reading.

Stopping every now and then to check on the condition, content, and embedded materials in the ice, he continued his advance farther and farther up the glacier. Christian had spent many hours climbing in the mountains and working in or around glaciers. He was well aware of the dangers associated with their faults, crevices, fissures, and the like. But today the sun was out, the sky was blue, the glacier was only fifty yards deep at this point, and the air—

Ah! he exclaimed, thinking about just that as the ice beneath his feet gave way.

With a flick of his wrist, Christian hefted his ice axe into tomahawk mode and attempted to stop his fall by catching the axe's blade on the top edge of the glacier. Finding himself in a position that was out too far from the crevasse's top lip and missing that chance, he struck out at the sides of the crevasse, hoping that it would slow him down and maybe, just maybe, prevent him from falling farther down. As he was attempting to do that, he spread his legs and tried to stick the sharp metal spikes on the front and surface of his crampons into the sides of the crevasse. The ice axe bounced off the hardened surface of the ice, as did the spikes of his crampons, so downward he fell, landing hard onto a rocky ice subsurface that was part of the glacier itself.

His landing knocked the wind out of him, and he lay there waiting for his senses to return to normal. As he lay at the bottom of the crevasse, surrounded by a room with walls of solid ice, he went about catching his breath while mentally going about sensing each and every vulnerable part of his body to see if any damage had been done to it in his fall. When his mental test gave no indication that something was broken or in desperate need of medical attention, he slowly rose to his feet, making physically sure that nothing had broken or been damaged in the fall. Once he had assured himself that he was all right physically, in a standing position, he began to look around to find out what kind of a predicament he was in.

The crevasse was wide enough and shallow enough that it allowed the rays of the sun to shine down upon its walls, almost reaching the bottom, depending on its angle and time of day. The light penetrated the clear, icy sides of the glacier, making it appear to Christian that he was looking into a storefront display window. What he saw when he looked into that wall of ice was actually a reflection of the ice beneath his feet—the ice he was standing on. The reflected image caused his lower jaw to drop. His eyes related to his mind what he was seeing and left it in a cross between a befuddled mess and a blank. Realizing that what he was seeing was a reflection, he looked down and into the ice below his feet.

I must be standing on?

Christian knelt down and started to scrap away the fine layer of rock and snow beneath his feet so that he could get a better look. As he was doing that, he unearthed a tiny metallic figurine. Now was not the time to check it out, so only looking at it for a brief moment, he pocketed the object and continued scrapping away the film.

When he had cleared the debris away, he found that he was standing on top of a frozen cavity that had within it—

Christian, where are you? Emile's voice came drifting down into the crevasse.

I'm down here, Emile! Christian shouted back.

A head appeared over the upper edge of the crevasse.

What in God's name are you doing down there? Did you drop down there deliberately, and if so, can you get yourself out, or should I go get some rope to help in that effort? Emile asked.

I haven't tried yet. Give me a minute to scope things out. Thinking about what he had just discovered buried in the ice beneath his feet and not even considering his position in the crevasse, he shouted up to Emile, You'd better go get that rope, even though he forgot for a moment that he had in his daypack a length of rope sufficient in length to extract him from his icy surroundings.

Be back as soon as I can, Emile answered, with his head disappearing from the top edge of the crevasse, leaving only the sound of his retreating footsteps.

Taking out two of the half-dozen sample containers that he always carried with him in his pack, Christian started chipping away at the ice under his feet using his ice axe. The chips, he put carefully into one of the sample containers until it was full. With one full, he started chipping away at the ice along the lower edge of the glacier's wall where it met the layer of ice he was standing on, taking samples from it and placing them into a container as well. Working like he knew what he was doing, he chipped samples from areas up the sides of the glacier at different intervals as far as he could reach and put those chips from each of those areas into their own containers. Securing them in his pack, he then attempted to climb the wall of the crevasse using his ice axe and crampons.

This time, his crampons and ice axe did what they were intended to do, and he reached the top edge of the glacier. Using his ice axe, he pulled himself out of the crevasse and stood up. Reaching into his pack, he took out a special bag and filled it with snow he scraped from the glacier's surface and added the containers of ice he had chipped from the bottom of the crevasse to keep them from freezing.

Looking around for Emile, he could not see him anywhere close or even in the distance. Christian then looked at the rocks on both sides of the glacier.

You know that the edges of a glacier next to any dark object that absorbs heat from the sun, especially rocks, is a very dangerous place. You idiot, and what do you call those? he asked himself, looking at the rocks. Yes, you know that now, but you should have been paying closer attention. The outcome could have been very different. Before you take another step, why don't you wait for Emile to come back, and the two of you can rope up before you go any farther. In the meantime, why don't you sit down and have something to drink? Good idea.

So Christian sat down to wait, and pulling his water bottle from his pack, he took a drink and rummaged through it until he found a granola bar, which he unwrapped and ate.

When Emile returned, he had Roger and Ginger with him and a rope.

Are you all right, Christian? Ginger asked.

No less wear for the experience, Christian replied. We need to rope up before we go any farther on, but before we go, I want to mark the rock on this side of the glacier as a way of letting the others know that the crevasse lurks nearby.

That's what we brought these along for, Roger said, indicating the flagged snow poles fastened to the sides of his pack. I think, with the four of us pushing them down into the glacier, we might be able to set them solidly enough.

I'd still like to scar the rock too, Christian replied, wrapping and tying the rope they had brought along around his waist.

Using his ice axe, Christian managed to carve a shallow but large X into the surface of the rocks on either side of the crevasse. After doing that, the three snow poles needed only the strength of the three men pushing to plant them in a straight line starting a few yards in front of the lower edge of the crevasse into the surface of the glacier as a warning to anyone else coming this way.

You know, upon reconsideration of what has happened, I think that I've had enough excitement for one day, Christian said. Instead of going farther on, I think it's time to head back to camp. I hope the two of you left some wine, cheese, and bread for the rest of us, he said, smiling at Roger and Ginger.

3

"Have you noticed that Christian has been acting differently ever since his accident?" Phoebe asked Ginger.

As a matter of fact, I have. He seems to be troubled by something.

At first, I thought it was because of what happened to him. Sometimes things like falling into a crevasse can cause a person to reevaluate his presence here on earth, but now I'm not so sure that's what's causing his distress.

Indeed Christian was in crisis. He was in conflict with what he believed in and what he felt was his duty to mankind in general. Preserving the planet and its environment from the ravages of man and the damage they were doing and had done to it was what he believed in. That was why he was in the business he was in. However, the knowledge gained by learning from the past history of man and his presence here on the planet and the passing of that knowledge on to the generations that followed was what he felt was also part of his duty to the planet and the environment. His inner struggle was being created by the conflict he now found himself in between these two factions of his beliefs, and they were sandwiching his mind between them and squeezing. He was having a hard time deciding which one of the two took precedence over the other or if he could possibly submit to the one and still protect the other.

I have to take a break, he announced a week later at breakfast without further explanation. I'm going to head off into the mountain for a few days. I'll have my satellite phone with me if anything should come up that needs my attention.

Let's hope that doesn't include a call from your end asking for a rescue party needing to come to save you, quipped Roger, smiling.

Christian left that same morning, headed for the glacier, and went cautiously but straight to the crevasse that he had fallen into. He anchored a rope to one of the rocks he had scarred and rappelled down into the crevasse, which was still open. It was a cloudy day and nearing the end of the good weather season in the high mountain areas. Soon the rain and winter snowstorms would change the beautiful appearance of the surrounding landscape into one of gloom and a different kind of beauty.

Reaching the bottom of the crevasse, Christian discovered that the onetime icy window into the depths under the glacier was as black as ink. Christian couldn't see a thing beyond the icy surface upon which he was standing.

Climbing back out, he set an ice screw and attached his rope to it. Going as far as his rope would reach while making sure he was anchored in and roped up at all times, he searched for another crevasse in the glacier. In this manner, he traversed up the glacier for some distance. After finding nothing that, at present, was of any danger, he returned to the area just above the open crevasse and set up camp in an area he felt was stable. Boiling a pot of water from glacier ice that he had chipped, he sat down and ate one of the freeze-dried dinners he had brought along while contemplating his next move.

It was one o'clock in the morning when the bright light of the moon shining through the fabric of his tent woke him up. Unzipping the door of his tent and sticking his head out, he saw that the sky had cleared. The thin layer of clouds that had prevented the sun from showing him the treasure beneath the bottom of the crevasse was no longer there. Instead the moon was shining on the earth below from a dark star-filled sky. He lay there half in his sleeping bag with his head on the ground outside his tent for a moment, looking at the moon, thinking. Considering the angle of the moon's rays on the interior of the crevasse, he made up his mind, rose quickly, and got dressed. Outside the air was cool under a night sky that held a million stars, and in their center shone the white opal of the moon. Grabbing his pack, he made his way over to the crevasse and rappelled down into it.

The subdued yet bright light from the moon created a scene from the pages of National Geographic, and there before his very eyes was an icy window into the ancient history of man. Christian quickly set up the camera that he had brought along as he didn't want that window to go black before he was finished photographing his find.

After a night of photography, Christian slept late into the next morning. Finally coming awake, he had breakfast, grabbed his pack, and continued his search for other crevasses beyond the point at which he had stopped yesterday. It was well into the afternoon and getting late with still no new crevasse having been discovered, so he decided that it was time to head back to base camp. Retrieving his rope, Christian had just finished fastening it to his pack when the glacier started to shake.

An earthquake!

Throwing his pack over one shoulder, Christian lay facedown, spread-eagled on top of the glacier.

If a crevasse should open up, what else can I do? he surmised.

Noticing a change in the rhythm coming from within the ice of the glacier turning from one that trembled to one of quiet, Christian thought, Glad that's over.

The brief period of quiet that had followed continued as Christian got to his feet and started heading down the glacier when a rumbling sound from up the glacier came clearly to his ears and vibrated throughout his body.

You've got to be kidding, Christian thought quickly as he hurried as fast as he could with his crampons on down the glacier.

The rumbling intensified behind him as he passed the crevasse he had fallen into, and a hundred yards farther down, he saw what looked like as good a place that he'd seen so far to take refuge in. Climbing into the rocks at the edge of the glacier, he quickly took off his pack, sat down, and jammed the pack between the rocks directly over his head to create an air pocket.

I hope that works.

Placing a leg around either side of and facing nose to a good-sized rock taller than himself, he sat and waited with his hands and arms extended over his head through the shoulder straps of his pack to prevent it from being washed downslope.

The avalanche started by the earthquake was made up of some loose snow, rocks of various sizes, and chunks of ice and snow both large and small. As Christian sat and waited, a minimal amount of each of those elements flew by and overhead of the rocks he had sheltered in. When everything returned to a state of quiet and the rumbling had stopped, Christian was sure that this surprise was done surprising him; and looking around, he found that his legs and pack had only a dusting of snow and small ice particles on them.

Getting back onto his feet, he crossed back onto the glacier and looked back toward the crevasse. Only about the top six inches of pole and a bit of flag were showing above the remnants of the avalanche. The crevasse itself looked like it had been filled and covered by avalanche debris. Cautiously he