“With something this big? With our careers, not to mention our families’ future?”
Epps’s doubt infected Lennox—but only briefly. He turned back to the attentive pilot. “Say you had engine trouble on the way to Diego base. Considering the sensitivity of your cargo, it’s reasonable to assume that you’d have a tough time getting authorization to land somewhere and take on supplementary fuel. Wouldn’t it be more expeditious to lighten your load first, for safety’s sake, and then divert to Soccent? That would mean flying over someplace empty in order to make the dump while properly complying with security directives. Hard to imagine an emptier place on route.”
The pilot grinned understanding^. “Standard operating procedure, per eleven dash four-oh-one. Safety of plane and crew paramount.”
Pulling out a small steno pad Lennox wrote down the coordinates, just in case the pilot’s memory should happen to fail him. After passing the slip of paper across, he scribbled a second note and folded it twice. On the way back to operations central they confronted the base’s air boss.
“Sergeant,” he told the attentive noncom, “once we’re airborne and clear of U.S. airspace, Chairman Morshower of the Joint Chiefs has to get this information ASAP. I take full responsibility, but you’re the only one whose security clearance here will let him do it. The chairman’s personal secure cell number’s right here on the back of this note.” He leaned a little closer. “For your own sake and future, just pass the information along as indicated. No recreational reading.”
The air boss hesitated, then nodded and took the folded note.
Loaded and fueled, the C-17 lifted off from McGuire not long thereafter. The air boss watched it go, looking on as the heavy cargo jet banked slowly to finally vanish eastward over the Atlantic. Around him the base was quieting down as it returned to more familiar operational procedures. In his pocket lay a small piece of folded notepaper.
In due time he would open it, and make a phone call.
Morshower was bent over his desk. Hard work was about all these days that kept him from saying undiplomatic things to important members of Congress. He barely looked up when the J3 entered, saluted, and passed him yet another in the endless stream of sheets of paper. He started to wave the courier off.
“I think you should take a look at this one, Sir.”
“What? Oh, why not.” Picking up the printout, the chairman read. And as he read, he sat up straighter in his chair. The note itself was brief.
FROM LENNOX—29° N, 35° E— GET READY TO BRING THE RAIN
Morshower stared at the piece of paper, his mind churning at the implications of what it did not include. “We check these coordinates?”
“Yes, sir.” Moving to a wall, the J3 hit a series of controls. The wall lit up with a Robinson projection and zoomed in on one small area: a narrowing body of water where three countries met.
“Gulf of Aqaba, Sir.”
Morshower rose to get a better look. “Lennox knows something. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t take the risk of contacting me directly with this. We have to be ready to back him up if this goes hot. Have NSA task our keyhole satellites to target the indicated coordinates on a thirty-minute rotation. And get me ...” He broke off and sat back down in his chair. “On second thought, don’t get me anyone. Not just yet.” He smiled.
“We could all do with a little nap.”
Known to the ancient world as the northern of the two Pillars of Hercules, the rock of Gibraltar rose green and populated on its western slopes while the eastern side dropped almost sheer into the Mediterranean Sea. While tourists and soldiers took roads or the cable car up the vegetated side, only the most avid
rock climbers attempted to reach the summit from the opposite direction.
The fighter jet that braked impossibly fast changed shape as it reached an isolated point of the gleaming white limestone. No British fortifications clung to this unreachable spot. Shrouded in fog on this particular morning, none on the many vessels anchored below could see the powerful bipedal shape that stood on the small ledge, peering out to sea. Passing ships called mournfully to one another as they entered the straits on their way to Mediterranean ports or prepared for the rigors of the open Atlantic.
Too much organic growth, Megatron thought to himself as he stood there in solitary malevolent majesty. Insects, fungi—it was enough to make even him shudder. One day he would bring a cleansing to this benighted world. One day, if events proceeded as hoped, that was not too far in the future.
Touching a small portion of his wrist sent a signal twisting outward, warping its way through the space-time continuum. A shape appeared before him, a face—the visage of The Fallen.
“I sense that you’ve found the boy.”
“Yes, Master. Not far now, across this sea and another, smaller one, in the land of the original river- bank.”
“Of course,” the unfathomable voice replied. “How quite natural. Where the battle began, and where it is destined to end. It is only fitting. Once we have the Matrix, we will activate the Machine and then ...” The voice paused; contemplative, perhaps enjoying. “You have regained my trust, prodigal. I will tell you where the Machine is hidden.”
“I will find it, Master. Is there anything else?” “Only one thing more,” the voice declaimed. “Prepare my arrival. ”
The old tourist center had been built in the 1930s on a now unused flat area well west of the famous monuments. An attempt to be all things to all visitors, it had ended up being none of them. Located well away from the official entrances to the Giza pyramids, back when it was constructed the complex must have been a lonely outpost of tourism indeed.
Simmons led the way through the broken fence of some long-forgotten entrepreneur’s abandoned hopes and dreams. Some of the whitewashed buildings were still intact. It was unlikely that the police would look for them here, right near the center of the country’s most famous tourist attractions. Whatever else the authorities thought of Sam, it was doubtful they would expect him to be playing sightseer.
At the moment none of this mattered to Sam and Mikaela. As Simmons and Leo slept inside one of the structures and the three palm frond-covered Autobots rested behind old walls, boy and girl stood next to each other beneath the stars and gazed out over moon and pyramids as thousands had done before them.
“One week without me,” she murmured, “and look what happens to your life. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Okay, I won’t,” he quipped back. In a more serious tone he added softly, “I shoulda let you break up with me. You’d have been better off if you had. Being my girlfriend’s turned out to be pretty hazardous to your health.”
She snuggled a little closer. “Yeah, well, you know how it is. Girls like dangerous guys.”
He turned toward her. “That’s been my nickname since kindergarten—Mr. Dangerous.”
Their lips were very close. She hesitated, he hesitated, and then she spoke—clearly disappointed. “Still can’t say it, can you?”
“Sure I can.” He mustered a minimal touch of male bravado. “After you.”
She drew back slightly. “Why do I have to say it first?”
“ ’Cause ‘ladies first,’ it’s a rule.”
“Oh, suddenly you’re a gentleman? That one of your kindergarten nicknames, too? You held the door open for four-year-olds?”
“You’re still pissed I kissed a Decepticon.”
Her expression narrowed. “I thought you said she kissed you. And you didn’t know she was a Decepticon.”
“That’s what I meant—I mean ...” Male bravado, as it usually does, found itself crushed by feminine accusation.
“Actually,” she continued, “I wasn’t thinking about that, but obviously you were.”
Having lost the high ground, he fought for air. “Do girls have a special class where they learn how to turn things around on guys?”
She sat up straight, more beautiful than ever in the moonlig
ht. “No, Sam, it’s genetic. And for your information, I just flew three thousand miles to stop you from getting killed! And another four thousand or whatever through some kind of transspatial dislocation, and now we’re standing in front of the three most romantic pyramids on Earth under a full moon and stars in actual real desert, and you can’t even admit you love me! So don’t tell me how you’re doing my life such a favor because ...” She broke off, noting that he had turned away from her. “Are you listening to me, Sam Witwicky, ’cause ...”
“What’d you say?” All the upset and uncertainty and confusion had gone out of his voice. “ ‘Pyramids and stars’...”
Looking away from her, he found his eyes drawn to an old fountain. The thin film of water lying within, the product of some recent storm or aged leak, was lined with scum and unfit for drinking or bathing. But it was more than adequate to reflect the night sky and the gaggle of stars within. Three in particular drew his attention. Lifting his gaze, he sought and found them immediately. Two connections were made: between the three stars and their reflection and between three stars and a small bit of knowledge. Suddenly he was off and running toward the nearest semi-intact building.
“ Wake up! Simmons, Leo, wake up! I know where the Three Kings are!”
Inside, the ex-agent was instantly awake—old training leads to permanent habits. He stared as Sam struggled to shake some consciousness back into his considerably more bleary-eyed roommate.
“Wha—what are you blabbering about, dude?”
“Our astronomy class.” Sam struggled to keep a lid on his excitement. “The textbook, page forty-seven, remember?”
Leo squinted up at him. “No, I don’t remember. I was only in college two days.”
Mikaela had come in behind him. Now she watched as he rambled on.
“The pyramids of Giza: when they were built they were lined up with Orion’s Belt. ’Cause those three stars Were known as ‘the Three Kings.’ It’s like an arrow staring us right in the face! At dawn over the top of the Gulf, they gotta point to a spot on the horizon.” He looked at his watch. “Dawn will be a little later here, but not much. We can work out the timing.”
“Three kings will lead the way,” Mikaela reiterated.
He led the rush to the rooftop of the old building. Despite the glow of Cairo’s lights, the three main stars that comprised the belt of Orion stood out plainly. In fact, the city lights helped highlight and isolate the constellation from the surrounding stars.
Simmons was working silently with his GPS. When he had done all he could, he raised an arm and pointed.
“There—that way. Using the belt and drawing a
line from it to where it would be pointing when dawn breaks over the tip of the dagger—the Gulf of Aqaba—we get a location in Jordan.”
“Jordan!” Leo rolled his eyes. “Oh, man, do we need passports!”
“We’re gonna need everything the Autobots can
give us if we’re gonna get there before dawn.” Simmons tapped the GPS screen. “The coordinates I get are for the area right around Petra. That’s two hundred and fifty-six miles and a different country from here, give or take a tomb or two.”
Sam nodded his understanding, then gestured down toward the shielded parking area where Bumblebee and the Twins waited. “We’ll make it.” He grinned at the ex-agent. “Remember—I’ve got a fast car. ”
The national park had not yet opened when the travelers reached the central part of Petra. With the help of the three Autobots they had not entered via the usual route, coming up the main canyon, but had instead worked their way down the surrounding steep slopes, in the process succeeding in avoiding the few sleepy night watchmen.
Now they entered the tomb that, according to Simmons’s best guess, represented the nearest approximation of where the row of Orion’s belt would line up with dawn at the tip of the Gulf. The barred gate at the entrance had yielded easily to Bumblebee’s delicate ministrations.
Light provided by the three Autobots revealed the murals that had been left on the high walls by the conquering Romans. Studying them, Simmons was uncharacteristically subdued.
“That’s the Romans for you. They painted over a lot of stuff when they conquered the Mediterranean world, including what the founding Nabateans left here.”
“Thanks for the history lesson,” Leo mumbled. He was sleep-deprived and exhausted. “There’s no alien tomb?”
Sam was searching the walls, the floor, even the distant ceiling. “If this is where the Three Kings—the three stars—point when dawn breaks over the tip of the Gulf, then it’s gotta be here somewhere.”
“Why?” Leo snapped. “ ’Cause we’re trusting Grandpa Blackbird, who can’t even remember what friggin’ planet he’s on? Okay, lemme do a quick search—nope, nothing. Did it ever cross your mind, guys, that archeologists have been here before?”
This was enough for Mikaela. “Do you even have balls?” she asked.
“Hey, what’re you pissed off at me for? Robo- Warrior’s the one who led us into this dead end!” Simmons was seething. Getting up into Leo’s face, he began, “News flash, kid: Real life isn’t a cushy college campus where they fix you three meals a day. Real life is heartbreak. Despair. Sometimes you get to the end of the rainbow and the leprechauns went and booby-trapped it!”
Undeterred, Leo countered, “How did you ever work for the government? Seriously, who’d ever hire you? I want to see some kind of documentation that proves you were once entrusted with an actual job!” “Okay, everybody needs to chill,” interjected Mikaela.
“It’s not over,” said Sam, “listen up . . .”
“We ain’t listenin’ to you sucka,” challenged Twin 2, “what he ever done for us?”
Mudflap immediately spoke up for the human. “Killed Megatron. How about that?”
Instantly, Skids was in Mudflap’s metal face. “Well,
he didn’t get the job done, ’cause Megatron’s back” Alarmed, Simmons took a step forward. “Hey, don’t make me have to separate you two.”
“Awww, whutha matter?” Mudflap stared at the approaching human. “You thcared?”
“Sure he is. Scared o’ yo ugly face, mutha,” declared Skids.
Mudflap regarded his brother with (naturally) equal intensity. “We’re twinths, you shtupid geni- uth!”
Simmons just shook his head. “Anybody ever get the feeling we teamed up with the losing side of the Transformers?”
Skids shoved Mudflap. Mudflap pushed back, whereupon his doppelganger promptly punched him hard, sending his counterpart crashing into the near wall. The sound of metal striking rock reverberated down the long passageway. More intriguingly, the impact cracked the wall on which the nearest Roman fresco had been painted. Beneath the plaster something was etched in the stone that was decidedly not Roman, Nabatean, Egyptian, Assyrian, or anything else that had been conceived and inscribed by representatives of the dozens of empires that had left their mark on the hard sandstone.
Sam recognized it immediately. He should have. It was one of the symbols he had written on a wall of his dorm room and later in the dirt of the main outside storage yard of a branch of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.
Bumblebee recognized it, too. Within seconds, the Autobot was using his fingers like chisels to chip away the rest of the Roman mural. The Jordanian antiquities department would not be pleased, Sam thought as he watched the Autobot at work, but far more was at stake in this old tunnel than a wall of Roman graffiti.
Their momentary spat now completely forgotten, Leo, too, was staring entranced at what the Autobot’s busy hands were rapidly exposing to the light.
“Cool,” he murmured as the Roman artwork was progressively whittled away. “Gives new meaning to the term ‘caesarean section.’ ”
When the last of the plaster backing had been pulled off, three symbols stood revealed, engraved in the wall. Or rather, embossed, Sam saw. Behind the plaster and the stone
, metal ribbing was now visible. The Romans had known the working of bronze, and lead, and gold and silver and copper, but he doubted that in their wildest metallurgical dreams they had ever conceived of a material like the one he and his companions were presently confronting. It gleamed brightly in the light provided by the Autobots.
“This is it,” Sam heard himself mumbling. It had to be. It had better be. They were running out of time.
After instructing the humans to move clear, Bumblebee leveled an arm and let loose with one of his lesser weapons. This was no time to worry about whether or not their activities would be overheard
by any patrolling guards. The detonation blew an Autobot-size hole in the wall.
Beyond lay darkness.
Without waiting for the dust to settle, Sam was al
ready stepping through, followed closely by his companions. They did not find Transformers.
They found themselves inside them.
No larger than a good-sized room in a human dwelling, the walls, floor, and ceiling of the metal grotto had been fashioned from the fused bodies of twelve Transformer endoskeletons. Tremendous heat had been applied to meld them together, while time had applied its own special patina. Empty eyes gazed out beyond twisted limbs. Mouths gaped open as if in the act of voicing incomprehensible warnings. Sections of torso and hip flowed together as if rendered for a surrealist sculpture.
It was a surrealist sculpture, Sam mused as he turned a slow circle to examine their implausible surroundings. And they were standing inside it. But they were not here to marvel, and there was no time for sightseeing. Lowering his gaze, he began searching.
It did not take him long to find what he was looking for.
Transformers-Revenge of the Fallen Page 21
