The creatures formed a semi-circle in front of him, then began closing the distance.
At that moment, a blue beam shot of the jungle mist and hit him straight on, knocking the air out of his lungs. He felt the metal of the plane slide along his back as the blue beam encompassed his body and picked him up off the ground. He looked down and could see the ellipses reacting, coming up for him, when he was rapidly pulled forward toward the source of the light, passing over them.
*****
McKenzie paused, the other three Canadians bunching up behind him.
“You’re lost, aren’t you?” Teague, the next senior man whispered hoarsely.
“It’s that way,” McKenzie pointed, but the wavering fingertip belied the surety of his words.
“Oh, man, I knew we shouldn’t have taken this gig,” Teague said. “There’s no such thing as easy money in this part of the world. Everyone’s got a angle. We could have just--” he paused as something crashed through the jungle to their right. The muzzles of four M-16s swung in that direction. Then there was something to the left and all four men spun about in that direction.
The woods around them exploded in moving forms. McKenzie fired on full automatic into something that bounded forth on four legs toward him, the bullets slamming it back. The only impression he had were rows and rows of gleaming teeth.
One of the men screamed as his body exploded in a gush of blood and viscera. The tip of a green ellipse, black teeth churning, came out of his chest.
McKenzie backed up, slamming a fresh magazine into his weapon. Teague was at his side, firing at an ellipse, the bullets bouncing off.
Another creature came bounding in, body of a lion, snake’s head, scorpion stinger for tail, jumping through the air and landing on the fourth Canadian, claws ripping him open, the stinger darting forward and sinking into his face, right between the eyes. The snake’s head rose up and hissed as the stinger dug through bone and entered the man’s brain. The body jerked spasmodically.
McKenzie moaned, seeing the man’s fate.
Teague shook him out of his shock by firing a magazine on full automatic across his front.
McKenzie pulled the trigger but his finger froze at the last second as a golden beam sliced out of the fog and hit him and Teague, enveloping the both of them, pressing them together.
They were lifted off the ground, above the creatures, and then drawn into the mist.
*****
Dane paused, hearing the distant sound of firing that abruptly cut off. He sensed inside his head, more than heard the screams, which were too far away to carry. He glanced at Freed who made no comment, then at Beasley. The fat professor’s pale face was bathed in sweat.
“We’ll make it,” Dane said. As he turned away from the other man he paused. Dane stood perfectly still, his eyes closed. Slowly his head swiveled back in the direction they had come.
“Chelsea,” Dane whispered, not even aware he had also spoken out loud.
“What’s wrong?” Freed asked.
Dane ignored him. He focused on the mental images. There was still nothing from Sin Fen, but now he knew why. What he saw was distorted and fuzzy, but he could understand it. The view was through a series of lines and splotches that Dane knew were branches and leaves. And the perspective was low, less than a foot or two above the ground. But he could hazily discern two helicopters and black suited men walking about a blasted clearing. For just a second the entire image focused tight and he could see very clearly Sin Fen lying on the ground, trussed up tightly, her eyes closed, her face slack.
“Damn,” Dane muttered.
“What?” Freed repeated.
Dane pulled out his pistol and pointed it straight between Freed’s eyes. “Your boss is screwing everything up. He’s taken down my partner.”
Freed didn’t even blink. “Your partner? The weird woman? You didn’t even know her before she showed up. She had Agency written all over her.”
“So?” Dane stared at Freed. “Don’t you get it? We’ve left your corporate fighting far behind. This is much bigger than all that. I should just kill you right now,” Dane said, but he paused as the mental image changed again. Chelsea was moving, running away from the base camp, heading toward the west. Coming to Dane.
No! Dane projected the command as forcefully as he could.
Chelsea halted, her head swinging about, searching for her master. The jungle surrounded her, full of strange noises and scents. She didn’t like this place.
Chelsea’s tail rocketed back and forth. She whined.
Easy, girl. Easy.
Dane was aware of Freed moving back, out of the aim of his pistol. Dane lowered the gun.
Rescue, Chelsea. Rescue.
Chelsea whined once more. She didn’t know where the voice was coming from. It was her master but it didn’t sound quite right. Her golden eyes peered into the shadows of the jungle, searching.
Then a picture came into her brain. Something she had just seen. The nice woman lying on the ground. Chelsea understood that was who her master wanted her to rescue. But she sensed he was in danger also. Her head swung back the way she had come and then to the west, indecisive.
Go!
There was no defying the command. With a low growl, Chelsea turned back the way she had come.
Dane returned to reality and the muzzle of a gun. His pistol was down at his side, but Freed’s wasn’t.
“What are you trying to do?” Freed demanded.
“I don’t need you,” Dane said. “If you need me, come along. If you don’t, go after the Canadians.”
Freed’s eyes shifted in the direction the automatic fire had come from. He lowered the pistol.
“Don’t get in my way.” Dane added. “And when we get back, Michelet will pay.”
“We’ll deal with that when we get back,” Freed said.
Dane continued moving, then stopped once more, but this time because of the large forms that were now becoming visible ahead in the mist. Beasley stepped up next to him and then a few steps further.
The professor finally stopped in stunned silence. “My God!” he exclaimed in a low voice, taking in the massive stones that marked a line directly across their path. Each stone was over eighty feet in height and shaped in a vaguely human form, with long faces taking up over a third of the height. It was hard to see them clearly because a thick layer of vegetation had grown around them. It was clear, despite the trees and creepers that covered the stone, that each was exactly the same size and that where there wasn’t carving, the stone was cut as smoothly as if by a scalpel, although the surface was pitted with age and weather.
“It makes Stonehenge look like a kid’s block set,” Beasley said as Dane and Freed joined him. “How did they move those things? They’ve got to weigh seventy or eighty tons each. Those are forty feet taller than the biggest statues on Easter Island.” Beasley pulled out a small video camera from his backpack and took a panoramic shot of the rank of megaliths in front of them, standing almost shoulder to shoulder.
Dane pointed at a narrow opening between two of the megaliths bases. “We go through there.”
“What’s on the other side?” Freed asked.
Dane knew the answer to that. “Angkor Kol Ker.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“The navy and air force are detouring ships and planes around the Bermuda Triangle,” Foreman said into the satellite phone mike.
“This thing keeps growing like it is,” Patricia Conner’s voice was tight with an undercurrent of forced control, “they’re going to have a hard time keeping this under wraps. The Bermuda Triangle Gate hits the coast of Florida in six hours.”
Foreman rubbed his head. He didn’t know who this woman was, but he had been living with the nightmare of the Gates for over sixty years all by himself. “The Japanese are getting ready to go public. They’re forcing their fishing fleet away from the expanding Devil’s Sea Gate, but it’s a huge logistical problem. The fishermen want an explanation.” Foreman
gave a bitter laugh. “The irony is that even if they go public they still don’t have an explanation.”
“Looking at my map and the propagation charts,” Conners came back with. “Some of these Gates are going to be killing people soon. The radiation levels are high enough.”
Foreman let out a deep breath. “I know, but there’s nothing--” he paused as another light flickered on his console. “I’ll have to get back to you,” he said.
“We’ve got activity in the Angkor Gate!” Conners yelled before he could cut the connection. “A surge of radioactivity on the eastern side!”
“Hold on,” Foreman said as he flipped open a new circuit.
“Talk,” he ordered.
A voice echoed out of the speaker and Foreman recognized the pitch as the distinct one coming from a submerged submarine transmitting on ULF, ultra-lowfrequency through water.
“This is Captain Rogers from the Wyoming. We have a situation here.”
*****
Rogers ignored Commander Sills’ look at his last radio transmission. A ‘situation’ was understating current events. Alarms were sounding and the crew was racing to battle stations.
“I’ll hook you into our ops center,” Rogers said. “I’m a little busy to give you a blow by blow right now.” Rogers reached down and flipped a switch.
“Come hard right at flank speed,” Rogers ordered his helmsman.
“Aye-aye, sir. Hard right at flank.”
Rogers looked at Sills. “Sit-rep?”
Rogers was watching a gauge. “External radiation climbing.”
Rogers glanced down at the radiation badge clipped to his shirt front. “Power, chief!” he yelled a the petty officer in charge of driving the sub.
“We’re at max speed, sir.”
“Status?” he asked Sills.
“External radiation still climbing, sir. Way beyond safety limits.”
“Damn!” Rogers looked back at Sills. The executive officer was shaking his head. “It’s through red, sir.”
Rogers closed his eyes. He reached down and peeled back the tape on his badge. The line underneath was red. Everyone in the control room was staring at him. Rogers picked up the mike connecting him to Foreman. “We’re red. From stem to stern. One hundred percent casualties. We just aren’t dead yet, but we will be.”
Foreman listened to Rogers’ report. There was nothing he could say. He was startled when a voice came out of the speaker; he had forgotten he’d kept to the NSA open.
“That’s going to happen on land soon,” Conners said.
“I know.” Foreman glanced at some of the messages his operators had picked up. “The Japanese lost a scout plane ten minutes ago. Totally gone. God knows what’s happening to the Russians. They’ve lost all communication with their monitoring element near Chernobyl.”
“It’s the beginning of the end, isn’t it?” Conners said.
*****
Chelsea could hear the helicopters near the place she had left. She paused and sniffed. There was much that was new to her in this strange place, many strange scents, sights and sounds.
Despite her bulk, she could move quietly when needed. Snout low to the ground, she slipped through the jungle, approaching the noise and the scents of the humans and the place she had last seen the nice lady, searching for the scent she remembered.
*****
There were three paths among the four massive statues that barred the way. Ariana stared at the trio of tunnels through the stone.
“Which one?” Ingram asked.
“I don’t like this,” Carpenter muttered.
The statues on either flank merged with the stone walls of the draw. The arms of the statues touched, so that the openings were eighteen feet high by four wide, underneath the large hands. The opening disappeared into darkness. Each was draped with foliage, further restricting the view.
“I say the center one,” Ingram said.
“I don’t know,” Ariana said. She felt very uneasy. She could see the eyes in the statues, almost sixty feet above her head, bright red painted stone, barely visible through the swirling mist.
All three turned as the sound of a tree trunk breaking, split the air. Ariana recognized the slithering noise that followed. And it was coming closer.
“Oh, shit,” Ingram exclaimed. He turned and ran for the center tunnel. Ariana and Carpenter followed as the sound grew louder and more trees gave way.
Ingram was into the tunnel when he suddenly stumbled in front of them, down to his knees. He gave a short yell, looking over his shoulder. That was when the ceiling came down. The stone block completely filled the passageway and obliterated Ingram; the only indication of his death, the red blood seeping out from under the finely cut stone.
Ariana and Carpenter stepped back as the blood came toward their feet. Ariana shook herself out of her shock and grabbed Carpenter’s arm. “Let’s go.”
They ran back to the front of the statues. The sound was much closer, somewhere close by in the mist. “Left or right?” Ariana asked Carpenter.
“What makes you think either of them will work?” Carpenter asked.
“We go through or we wait for that,” Ariana pointed in the direction of the slithering noise. They could now hear the hissing.
“Left,” Carpenter said. “People tend to go right when lost in the woods so if there’s a choice, it should be left.”
Ariana wasn’t quite sure of the reasoning but there was no time. Together they ran around the base of the statue and into the opening. They paused, looked at each other, and then together ran forward through the tunnel.
*****
“Sweet Lord!” Beasley exclaimed.
They were standing on the edge of the high ridge that extended left and right as far as they could see into the fog. The ground in front sloped down and, in that direction, there was no mist for the first time since they’d entered the Angkor Gate. Two kilometers straight ahead, burning bright, a golden beam rose from the apex of a steep mountain about five hundred meters above their heads and into the heavens where the sky was dark and swirling. But they could see that the “mountain” was manmade, a massive, steep pyramid of intricately carved stone, now covered with a thick layer of vegetation. And at the base of the mountain were the remains of a walled city, the stone crumbling under the weight of the years and jungle that had overgrown it. Outside of the walls, a wide moat stretched from there to the base of the ridge that they were on. It was hard to tell if there was water in the moat, as it had been reclaimed by the jungle.
“What is that?” Freed asked.
“Angkor Kol Ker,” Dane said.
“This is the greatest discovery--” Beasley began, but Freed cut him off.
“No, I meant that golden beam, you idiot.”
“I believe that is what is destroying our world,” Dane said, feeling the images that Sin Fen had given him of the Gates. He started down the slope.
*****
Ariana slumped to the ground, momentarily exhausted not so much from the run through the tunnel, but from the sudden drop-off in adrenaline now that they had made it through without being crushed. She had sprinted the entire way, her shoulders hunched, anticipating the stone above their heads to come sliding down, but nothing had happened.
“Look at that,” Carpenter whispered next to her.
Ariana looked up. She saw the golden beam coming out of the pyramid and the ancient city around it. Ariana struggled to her feet, shaking off the exhaustion. “Let’s go.”
*****
“There’s nothing we can do for those men?” The President’s voice had lost its earlier edge. It had been Foreman’s experience that reality had a way of doing that. He leaned back in his seat, listening to those in the White House Situation Room discuss the latest development with the Wyoming.
“We not only can’t save those men,” General Tilson, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, “but we can’t even recover the submarine itself. It’s so hot that any boardin
g crew would also receive a fatal dosage of radiation.”
“How long do they have?” The President asked.
“About four hours before they start getting sick,” General Tilson said. “Every man on board will be dead inside of twenty-four hours.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“The commanding officer on the Wyoming, Captain Rogers, has decided to stay on station and continue performing their last assigned duty, which was to monitor the Bermuda Triangle Gate and be prepared for any contingency. There’s really nothing else for him to do.”
The President’s voice became firmer. “Gentlemen, I’ve been asking for options, but I’ve yet to get any. Before many more people get affected, we have got to do something!”
A silence filled the speaker and Foreman still didn’t move in his glass cubicle. He looked down at the console. Still no connection with Sin Fen.
“The source of this is in this Angkor Gate, isn’t it?” the President asked.
Foreman finally spoke. “It started there,” he acknowledged. “There seems to be other sources opened now at other Gates.”
“But this was the beginning?” the President pressed.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then why don’t we just blast it?” the President asked. “Wipe this Angkor place off the map?”
Foreman could hear the startled consternation that suggestion caused in the war room. Bancroft’s voice was the loudest. “Sir, this place happens to be in the middle of another country. We just can’t blast it off the map! Think of the international fall out.”
“Think of what we’re facing here!” the President returned. “This thing gets any worse there won’t be any international anything to worry about.”
“Sir,” Foreman said. “I agree that we have to destroy this source, but the problem is two-fold on a practical level. First, we don’t know exactly where inside the Angkor Gate the source is and we’re now talking about an area over two hundred square kilometers. It’s blocked all our imaging techniques.
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