But Nina knew otherwise. After flashing her credentials to a pair of soldiers, she entered the planetarium lobby.
She strode into the main command center, through members of UNESCO, who gave her a wide berth, barely registering the presence of the two out of place boys at her heels; she headed for the center terminal where a man in khakis was bent over a flat screen monitor. He adjusted the Bluetooth device at his ear and then tapped a section of the display—the output of the ground-penetrating radar, showing ridges, clumps of debris and hollow sections.
“Yes sir,” he said. “We’ve pinpointed three such cavities directly under the impact site that could contain survivors. We can get drilling teams started, but without any other information, we’re going to have to guess…”
“You don’t have to guess,” Nina said.
The man turned. Typical retired general sort, Nina thought. Stocky, a little pot-bellied. Neck like an elephant’s leg and a hair as white as a tusk. He stood up straight and let his eyes wander over her body. “Yes senator. She’s here now. With… a couple kids.”
Nina saw Isaac stick out his tongue.
“All right, all right. Your call.” He tapped his ear, ending the conversation. “So, your boss says to dig where these rugrats tell me to dig.”
Nina smiled. “He’s your boss too. And these rugrats are our only chance.”
The man shrugged. Looked her over again, his gaze lingering around her chest. Then he stuck out his hand. “I’m—”
“I don’t care,” Nina said, brushing past him and letting the boys take two vacant chairs around the screen. “We don’t have time to get acquainted.”
Jacob glanced up at her with a smile of admiration at the way she handled the general, then settled his attention on the screen.
The commander tried to move in closer. “This, I gotta see.”
“Give us some space,” Nina ordered. “Go assess something. Now, boys. You know the target, and we know he’s alive. So I need you to focus. Think about these three air pockets down there. Think hard, and try to see. Where is he? Where is-?”
“-our brother,” they both said in unison, after closing their eyes.
But Isaac peeked, and nudged Jacob’s arm. “Wanna race?”
“Shut up. I’ve already won.”
“Boys,” Nina began. They were rushing, clouding the reading. This wasn’t the way.
But then, aware that the commander was still at her back, watching all this, both boys reached out at the same time, as if they were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors, and both pointed to the middle cavity, under the thickest section of collapsed concrete, earth and debris.
“Shit,” said the commander. “Had a bad feeling they’d pick that one.”
Just to be sure, Nina thought, she joined her hands to theirs, squeezed and let the information jolt up her arms like two pythons coiling and slithering up to strike at her skull.
Two visions, both almost identical:
Near darkness. A feeble beam of light, dancing around the wreckage, highlighting broken scrolls and broken bodies crushed under huge blocks. The light shining up… and the vision scuttling up the beam with it, through the gap in the cracked ceiling, up past huge blocks, broken metal beams, another body impaled on broken glass, and then out, looking straight up from the center of the crater…
She let go. “Good job, boys.”
“Of course, mother.” Isaac beamed at her, although she couldn’t help notice the sarcasm in his voice. Jacob lowered his eyes. “How soon can we get down there?”
“About six hours, I’d say.” The commander picked up a CB and started barking orders in Egyptian.
“So what do we do while we wait?” Jacob asked, glancing around at the exhibits, the huge photographs taken from the Hubble Telescope, the models of lunar modules and landers. Nina saw his curiosity and wondered again what kind of childhood they’d had with Calderon. School? Friends? Regular boy stuff like playing with rockets and digging for worms? Or had they bypassed all that, being groomed instead for a grander destiny?
“I’ve got new objectives for you all,” said Mason Calderon, striding inside, then leaning on his cane. “And another set of eyes.”
He moved aside, and pointed the cane like a stage magician—and there stood Xavier.
“Why,” asked Nina, “is he out of handcuffs?”
Xavier shrugged. “Bondage was never my thing.”
“Xavier has seen the wisdom of our mission, and that really there is no other choice. Isn’t that right?”
Xavier kept his eyes on Nina. He seemed pale, shrunken, like he’d lost a couple years. She remembered how she’d reacted when Calderon first showed her what was at stake, who the real enemy was. It was a lot to digest, almost too incredible to comprehend.
“We’ve been working the same side all along, just from different angles. All that’s important is stopping them.”
“And your recurring visions of doom?” Nina asked, barely moving her lips.
Xavier gave a slight nod, a tell she knew all too well. And one he knows I’ll see, she thought. What was he up to?
“If they’re behind it, then this is where I need to be.”
With his cane under his arm, Calderon clapped his hands. “Well spoken. But still, Nina please keep an eye on him.” he sighed. “Now, anyone with the ability to see things that aren’t right in front of them, please follow me into the theater of the stars. General McAdams, proceed with the rescue, with all haste.”
“Yes sir,” McAdams said, obviously annoyed at being told to do what he was already working on.
The boys skipped and ran ahead of Calderon who didn’t even look back to see if Nina and Xavier were following. She stood her ground as Xavier calmly walked by. Without looking at her, he whispered: “We need to talk…”
“Talk?”
He glanced back, and in his eyes she saw a fear that almost stopped her in her tracks. “Actually, you need to see for yourself.” He shot a look ahead toward Calderon, then hesitated. Suddenly, his hand was out, reaching for hers.
What’s he got to show me? She found herself reaching to him, longing to meet his hand. To clench it, squeeze him, pull him to her. A rush of emotions, her brain a mess. First Caleb, then her boys. Now Montross. Her emotions were in flux, she wasn’t thinking clearly. For a moment, she had the intense desire to be out somewhere in a dark alley, stalking her target with a machine pistol. Something violent, practical and with purpose.
But this…
Inches away, and Calderon’s voice interrupted them.
“Hurry along, these visions aren’t going to see themselves!”
Xavier pulled his arm back, then wheeled around, presenting a calm face once more. In his shadow, Nina followed. Her arms trembled and her hands opened and closed again, feeling nothing but the chance that slipped away.
What did he have to show me?
Somehow, she knew she was going to find out, but by then it would be too late.
4.
Caleb used the waterproof pouch to hold his clothes, then secured it around his waist, over the swimsuit. Tight-fitting and too European, Caleb thought, groaning and wondering which of the male keepers would have been able to fit in this one.
He tried not to think of the others. How many were left? Hideki and Rashi gone. Robert and Lydia. Four of the seventeen. The others had to be up above, or traveling to Alexandria to survey the damage. Or, Caleb thought, if they had some sense they were getting to their safe sites, communicating by untraceable phones and waiting to be sure they weren’t being targeted again. When this was over, he would have to reunite the Keepers and rebuild a sanctuary somewhere else. They still had plenty of work to do, made more difficult by the destruction of so many original copies of the early documents. But everything they had scanned was still intact, waiting for their interpretation, secrets awaiting revelation.
At this moment, Caleb rued that he hadn’t spent more time with the ancient scrolls; and now, when he most needed t
he lost wisdom, it was going to be up to his underprepared son to find out what he could, to find something to save them.
After donning his mask and strapping on the air tank, he closed and secured the supply cabinet, then punched in the code to open the hydraulic door set in the floor. It was built into the end of this reinforced tunnel, which extended for nearly a mile under the city, and another two hundred yards under the harbor. He stood on the edge and waited for it to slide all the way open, revealing a staircase below. He descended, and in the small concrete chamber below, he pulled a red lever, which closed the door above him and released the clamps on the far wall, raising it slowly, letting in the waters of Alexandria Bay.
Caleb braced himself, feeling the rushing wave over his shins. He held his arms outstretched at his sides, and imagined he was back under the Pharos Lighthouse, in the testing chamber, secured by chains and waiting for the flood that would prove him worthy to pass the second test. He thought of Lydia. He thought of his mother, of the early members of the Morpheus Initiative who had lost their lives down there.
This was nothing as intense, but he still had to keep his footing as the waters rose up past his waist. He kept his focus on the door, halfway up and rising. Bits of seaweed floated, along with a grey-eyed carp, swimming against the pull. The water rose up to his chin, and then he put in the regulator, took a deep breath, prayed Alexander was okay, then dove under and swam for the exit.
The door would close three minutes later, and the chamber would slowly drain. But by then, Caleb would be fifty yards farther away, heading toward the Ras-El-Ten peninsula. Heading for the edge, where Qaitbey’s fortress stood guard over the foundation of the ancient Pharos.
He swam slowly, maintaining a depth of about forty feet. For the most part, he kept his attention upwards, counting the dark hulls of the boats, but mindful of the ropes and chains that anchored them. He gradually ascended. Thirty feet. Twenty. Closing in on one boat in particular. The closest one to the fortress.
Odd that there weren’t more boats in the vicinity, as it was always a popular spot for tourists to come and snap pictures. A lot of them still remembered the incident eight years ago when a treasure-seeking team of Americans went diving, searching for an entrance to a mythical lost chamber under the original Pharos Lighthouse—only to encounter some sort of deadly fate, leaving their bodies to wash up, in pieces. The government subsequently outlawed scuba diving in a fifty-yard radius of the fortress, a law that Caleb was now flagrantly violating.
But he didn’t have time to waste. He needed a boat. And with the tragedy and the destruction consuming the city’s attention, Caleb felt he stood a good chance of being able to commandeer this boat from its owners and put it to better use.
As he surfaced at the back of the boat, which turned out to be a 26-foot Inboard Cruiser, bright red, he started fighting a queasy feeling. Maybe it was just the color, but Caleb had a sudden sense of danger, as if he had just stepped onto a street without bothering to look for traffic. His head spun as he took out the regulator and breathed normally, reaching for the ladder. Should have RV’d this-
He debated dropping back down under the waves and searching for another vessel, but then he heard something clicking from above. Something that sounded familiar to him after being around so many soldiers and military types in the past week.
It was the sound of someone chambering a round.
Even the way it was done sounded familiar, just as familiar as the sound this particular gun made. A Beretta.
Her weapon of choice.
“Damn,” Caleb said, looking up into the brilliant blue sky a moment before a silhouette obscured his view.
She looked like just another sexy sunbather, wearing a thin bikini that matched the color of the boat. She even smelled like tanning oil; and her hair was pulled back in a tail that whipped from side to side in the wind.
Nina Osseni held the gun steadily aimed at Caleb’s head. “Hi honey. I was wondering when you’d bother to show up.”
#
He reached a hand up for her to take, but she just backed up, keeping the gun on him. “Sorry, but given our history, I’m not about to touch you right now. Just come on up here and have a seat.”
Caleb hung on the ladder, his mask up on his forehead. He was calculating his chances of diving and getting under the boat, then descending out of her reach. “If I say no?”
She sweetly smiled and shook her head. “You’re not that quick, lover.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Move. We have things to talk about. Our boys saw that you’d try to make for the fort.”
After a wistful look down into the suddenly clearing water, and a yearning glance to the fortress, he climbed. Slid off his air tank, peeled off his mask and kicked free of his fins; then he stood there, dripping onto the boat as she sized him up.
She whistled, almost giggling. “I’m guessing you had to borrow a suit for the swim.”
Caleb narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re making jokes?” He pointed over his shoulder to the mainland, where helicopters roamed over the ruins of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. “Right after that just happened?” His hand clenched into fists. “Nina, what have you done?”
Her grin evaporated. Her eyes darted to the disaster site, then back to her prisoner. “I… I’m still sorting it out. Still figuring…”
“Your place in Calderon’s world?”
“My place,” she said through clenched teeth, “is with my boys.”
“Our boys.” Caleb leaned toward her. “Nina, listen. If I had only–”
“Looked? If you had bothered, or if Lydia hadn’t completely distracted you?”
“I know. I would have seen you, but I had no idea. I wasn’t even thinking of questioning it. You were dead, I thought. Why would I want to relive that? Why would I look for you, only to see you die again?” His eyes pleaded, and this time, at last he really meant it. “I would have, Nina. I would have gone to the ends of the earth to save you.”
She snickered. “Touching. But we both know that once you found out I was working for Waxman, you were glad I was gone.”
“I’m not going to argue anymore. If you’re not going to let me go, then shoot me if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Oh it would, Caleb. It really would. But I think Jacob and Isaac really want to meet their daddy, and I can’t deny them such a simple pleasure.” She took a seat opposite him on the deck, crossing her silky tan legs slowly while she leaned forward, casually holding the .45. “But first, there’s the matter of Giza’s subterranean labyrinth. Senator Calderon tasked me to find out exactly what you learned down there.”
Caleb cocked his head. “Why? Couldn’t he get the boys to RV it?”
Nina didn’t move. “Their minds are… a little OCD, I’d say. Getting them to focus is like teaching a golden retriever to play chess in a park full of kids throwing balls.” She absently tapped the gun’s barrel against her front teeth. “Now, why don’t you tell me what you’re up to? What is it you and Xavier thought you could do to stop Calderon? Stop a man who could do…” she motioned to the devastation on the shore “…that?”
Caleb smoothed back his thick wet hair, and his eyes locked on hers. She didn’t need the gun to make him feel like he was at her mercy. Just like when they had first met, he felt out of her league, humbled by her beauty. Only now, he could see something else behind her eyes: the calculating, catlike fury and selfishness that Nina possessed in abundance. But he held onto a hope that just as Caleb had changed after he had discovered he had a son, maybe some grand lycanthropic transformation would work her over, reforming her. But it didn’t seem likely.
“Go to hell,” he whispered. “You want to find out, you know what you have to do.”
“Oh,” Nina said, tracing her lips with the gun’s barrel, “you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Caleb stood up. “Again, I’m not here to talk, and I’m not here to help you. Do what you need to do, but I wo
n’t be a willing subject.”
Nina stood beside him, taking the bait without realizing she’d just been hooked. Smiling, she reached for him and said, “Just the way I like it.”
#
He felt a burning rush as she grabbed his wrist, and then she was turning him towards her, and the sun was behind her, blazing through her hair, and her face disappeared into the blackest shadow as she leaned in.
And then her lips were on his, her tongue opening his mouth, her lungs sucking in his breath. He squirmed in her grasp, even as he felt the electric chill of her curves against his wet chest, her legs encircling his calves, pinning him in place as she took his thoughts. His memories, his essence.
But this time, he was prepared. His mind was focused.
She may have thought she was taking from him, but this time, he was the one giving.
#
She saw it all, just as he had mentally prepped it, as if he had loaded the projector in his mind, and had it playing in an infinite loop so that anyone that poked their head in for a look, would see…
A massive ripple of energy, nearly invisible but sparking as if roiling with electromagnetic charges at war within the ether, a wave tearing through New York City, blasting the skyline apart, cutting a swath through the island, tearing across the harbor and splitting the waters, causing mirror-image tsunamis, parting before the Statue of Liberty which seemed to wince before being struck. It shatters, arm, torso and crown tossed in separate directions, caught up in the flux and separately pulverized.
Then—ascent, and a satellite’s view. The ripple tears across the globe, leaving a path of destruction from an origin point somewhere in eastern Alaska. But then… the clouds are massing, swirling over the northern hemisphere, lighting up from within, periodically bursting with intense flashes. Massive auroras are appearing in the upper atmosphere, as if an unseen hand works with vibrant watercolors, splashing them in broad brushstrokes over the world’s skies. Breathtaking. Beautiful.
The earth trembles. Wobbles unsteadily. In breaks of the clouds, the land masses seem to be shifting. Major sections tearing free. Waters spilling over entire countries. The globe shifts the wrong way. The poles reverse. Flipping, as if something has completely unsettled the core, scrambled it and shut off the dynamo at the center of Earth’s molten center, then jump-started it again.
The Cydonia Objective mi-3 Page 14
