“Yeah, him. The glass windows he put in? I guess they leaked or something. Water and snow got in and corroded the torch and parts of the arm over time, so they decided to replace the whole thing. What’s up there now is a gold-plated, solid structure facsimile.”
“Right,” said the husband. “And they shine the huge spotlights on it from the base, and it lights up nice now. No need for interior lamps.”
Caleb’s head throbbed. “What year? When did they move it?” Was it after Patton’s man came up here?
“Oh,” said the woman, “not too long ago. I think during Reagan’s term. Part of his public works improvement project, and…”
But Caleb didn’t stay to listen any longer. He was racing down, heading for the lobby.
#
The narrow steps made it difficult, but after first checking to make sure he couldn’t see Nina anywhere down there, he went as fast as he could, but quickly caught up with other people moving very slowly. He squeezed around them wherever possible, but other times had to complain that he was about to be sick and they had to move aside or face the consequences. Soon he was back at the pedestal. Outside, the rain was still falling in torrents and the sky had darkened. The elevator was nowhere to be seen.
But he wasn’t waiting for it anyway. He made his way to the stairs and flew down, finding his energy getting better as the heat and altitude decreased. These stairs were much wider, with plenty of room to race by stragglers. He wondered how far back Nina was. Surely they had found he had slipped by them. Hopefully she may have been sidetracked at the torch, and had gone up there to check.
He could imagine a Hitchcockian scene if he had stuck to his original plan. If it hadn’t been for that couple and their information, the torch might have been his last stand—or more likely—fall.
Now he had a chance. He was almost there. Rounding the last bend, then onto the main floor, past the attendant still sitting with his crossword puzzle. He looked up, recognition in his eyes. “Oh, it’s you! A pretty lady was down here a short time ago, looking for you. Figured you wouldn’t mind, so I told her.”
“Thanks,” Caleb said in a muffled voice. “No time to chat, but if she comes back this way, can you stall her for a few minutes?”
“What? Why?”
“Assassin,” Caleb said, running for the next stairs, heading to the museum.
He burst through the lobby doors, emerging on the second level. A walled railing overlooked the floor and entrance to the museum…
Where the original torch stood in the center of the foyer.
#
A circular bronze railing set it off from public access, and a park attendant leaned against the railing by the main entrance, ready to answer questions or point tourists in the right direction.
Caleb stopped for a moment at the upper railing, studying the torch. He let his gaze quickly take in the details: the oxidized copper lattice-work, an intricate pattern making up the torch support; the weather-worn cylinder supporting the brilliant amber window-set flame, appearing windblown and magnificent, glowing with a comfortable internal radiance. It rested on a four-legged stand, keeping it several feet off the ground.
Caleb shut his eyes, trying to pick up the vision where he had left it. The worker, ascending the ladder…
Nothing but the doors opening, a mingling of voices. Then–
He’s out, emerging through the cylinder, taking a moment to glance over the side, down to the enormous head and crown, and further down to the other arm, cradling the tablet…
And then he kneels and chooses a spot, selecting one section of the artistic railing design, one of the metal bars interspersed between the curved trellises. And he begins to unscrew it, using a heavy wrench from his tool belt. When it’s free, he carefully places it in his satchel and removes something of a similar size. Unravels it from its leather garment, and holds aloft an almost identical bar, down to the knobs at the ends and in the middle. He unscrews the top and looks inside, verifying that the hollow cavity is filled with its prize… and then he screws it back in and sets it in place. When he’s done, his eyes focus and the great Tablet held in Liberty’s other arm is in direct sight, a straight line almost, to the object he just placed in the torch.
It was symbolic and fitting, Caleb realized, coming out of the vision, clearing his head. He wasn’t sure if Patton or this aide understood the spear’s true potential, but it may have worked on their minds, setting up the symbolic relationship. But they hadn’t counted on technology advancements, and the bad luck of leaky craftsmanship.
Caleb moved down the steps quickly, then walked around the torch, studying it.
“Can I help you?” asked the attendant, noticing his interest. “This is the original–”
“Torch, yes I know. I’m just looking for something…” He stopped, studying the layout of the windowed flame, recalling how it looked in his vision. Then he took two steps to his right and looked straight ahead. The bar in front of him…
That was it. But how could he get it?
The attendant shifted, and was now talking to a group of wet newcomers who were complaining about their treatment in the security line and the fact that they didn’t know they needed to reserve crown tickets ahead of time.
Seeing his chance, Caleb bent down, reached over the railing and gripped the bar. As the argument heated up, he twisted. One direction, then the next. It barely budged. He glanced at the door to the statue’s interior climb, expecting it to burst open any minute with his pursuers, then looked over to the crowd at the door, and now a line behind them, shouting to move so they could get out of the rain.
Screw it, Caleb thought. He vaulted the railing. Balancing on his left foot, he raised his right and aimed. Then sent his heel down, kicking hard at the top of the bar. It broke free with a piercing Crack!
The attendant spun around just as Caleb wrenched it free, and without checking inside the shaft, he ran for it. Hurdled the railing and raced for the stairs. He’d never make it through that crowd and back past security. His only chance was to run into the museum or back into the monument, ditch the bar and hide the lance under his clothes and then try to blend in with the crowd and get out the back stairs. Up and to the door.
“Hey!” the guard gave chase while shouting something into his walkie-talkie.
Caleb reached for the door, flung it open—and stopped short.
Nina was there, alone and out of breath. Sweat caked on her glistening skin. She reached into her purse and pulled out a gun, aiming at his head.
#
“Stop right th—” the attendant flew around the corner, only to be stopped by a bullet into his shoulder. He spun around and fell back down the stairs. And only then did the gun’s retort sound in Caleb’s ears. She was using a silencer, but it was still loud enough. Maybe not to draw a crowd, and if the guard hadn’t alerted security yet…
Caleb’s eyes widened. He held the bar in both hands like a weapon, and as he trembled he could feel something rattling around inside the hollow space.
Nina cocked her head, staring at it. “Congratulations. Just like old times, wouldn’t you say?”
“So now what?” Caleb asked. He looked behind him, waiting. “Why didn’t you shoot me?”
The pounding of feet on stairs, and then three men in suits rounded the corner. Nina held up her free hand in a fist. “Under control,” she said. “Fan out into the lobby. Stop anyone from following us.”
“But—” one of them started, only to be silenced by a deadly look. They passed by, and then Caleb found she had grasped his hand and was pulling him back, back up the stairs.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Shut up, and follow me. We’ve got no time to argue.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you. This…” He raised the bar, “Isn’t going anywhere.”
Nina stopped after taking one step up the next flight. Her grip was fierce, and yet intimate. “Caleb. You touched me, and I saw…” Her eyes falte
red, the cold melting away.
“What?”
“I’m probably going to get killed for this, but I’m going to help you. Because I believe what I saw in your vision.”
Caleb narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, well I still don’t trust you.”
“And also, because if that bastard thinks he can keep my—our kids—from me for all those years, and then act like a hero for reuniting us, he’s got another thing coming. I was only biding my time until I could shoot him in the back of the head, but you’ve shown me that if he gets his hands on this thing, then it’s all over and I won’t have my chance.”
Caleb squeezed back. “Okay, but…”
“Shut up and stop thinking for a minute. Come on, they’re coming.”
He chased after her, still dragged along by the hand. “Where are we going?”
They burst out into the now familiar floor, the start of the climb. Not again, he thought, rushing up the steps behind her. He glanced back and saw the crossword-loving Dan Brown fan smiling up at them, nodding his appreciation of their reunion. Nina let his hand go and tapped at a device set in her ear. She muttered something lost in the pounding of their feet on the stairs.
Up two more flights, and then–
Gunfire roared and echoed back and forth inside the stairwell. Something struck the underside of the platform below his running feet. Another shot punched through the wall to his left. Nina squeezed off two blind rounds, hoping to slow them down.
“Calderon’s men,” she yelled back. “My escorts. Must’ve realized I turned on them.”
“Or maybe,” Caleb said, wheezing. “They got new intel. From the twins.”
“Cocky kids, Caleb.” She flashed him the start of a smile. “And creepy. Definitely missed out on years of discipline.”
“Something to remedy if we make it out alive.” He leapt up three stairs to catch up. They were nearing the pedestal top, and he could hear the rain and rumbling thunder, broken by another gunshot that went wild. “And how exactly are we getting out?” He stopped at the top of the stairs, doubled over and feeling the start of a cramp.
But his attention remained fixed on the view out of the tunnel to the exterior, where he saw something that wasn’t there before.
“Is that a ladder?”
Nina turned back and hauled him up by his sleeve. “Helicopter. Pilot’s loyal to me. Had him circling. Then just told him where we’d be coming out.”
“Wait. I am not–”
Another gunshot, one that cracked the glass around the elevator cage. Calderon’s men were right around the bend.
He took off, passing Nina who had dropped to a knee and squeezed off three more rounds, one striking home as the first man ran into view.
Heading for that shaking ladder, he couldn’t tell if it was on this side of the balustrade or outside, with one hundred and fifty feet separating it from the base. He started to slow down just as he hit the rain, but then felt a hand on the back of his shirt, drawing him backwards, slowing his momentum, and then she was sling-shotting past him. She had hooked her gun under her belt, and like a gymnast, used her hands to vault up onto the slick stone wall and still in a crouch, she pushed off.
Nina launched, swan-like, into the air just as a lightning bolt ripped across the gray-black clouds. She caught the ladder, swung all the way out and then back, gripping it with one hand and using her weight and momentum to propel it back, right to the edge of the wall…
Where Caleb, seeing her intention and realizing he only had one chance at this, vaulted up as she did—and then just reached out and grabbed the rungs beneath her. He hooked an elbow around one rung, and his knees around another, leaving his left hand free to grip the bar and his prize.
Two gunshots roared in his ears, Nina firing on the men who darted into the passage. But Caleb couldn’t look to see the result. The helicopter swung away, and he was soaring out into space, pelted with stinging missiles of rain, completely drenched and hanging precipitously to a slippery ladder far above the ground. Then they were over the churning waves.
And only later did he realize he was laughing, his emotions overwhelmed. He looked up, seeing Nina climb into the helicopter, and then he raised the metal shaft, shaking it victoriously in defiance of the lightning-rippled storm.
11.
Mount Shasta—Stargate Facility
“Two space programs?” Orlando asked. “You mean us and the Russians?”
“No, I mean a public one and a secret program. The Russians,” Diana said, “were in on it. We may have been Cold War enemies to all other purposes, but once the early probes got out there, once the Russians shared with us what they found on the far side, well… after that point we were really all on the same side.”
“Just not as far as the public knew,” Temple said. “Tell them about the Brookings Report.”
Diana nodded. “The Brookings Institution, a Washington DC think-tank, put together a report entitled The Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs, commissioned by NASA and delivered to Congress in 1961. It talks about the need for research into a lot of areas of space exploration, but the explosive section that has gained the most attention is the part called Implications of a discovery of extraterrestrial life.” She took a breath, then turned to her notebook and read a passage. “Page two-fifteen. While face-to-face meetings with intelligent extraterrestrial life will not occur within the next 20 years (unless its technology is more advanced than ours, qualifying it to visit Earth), artifacts left at some point in time by these life forms might possibly be discovered through our space activities on the moon, Mars, or Venus.”
“Cool,” said Orlando. “How did I miss that?”
“Too busy with video games?” Phoebe quipped.
“Page two-fifteen and two-sixteen,” Diana continued, “go on to talk about the consequences of such discoveries. They cite cultures that have disintegrated when faced with unfamiliar and more advanced societies, resulting in a breakdown of values, and sometimes complete destruction of the people itself.”
“And,” urged Temple, “what was the recommendation of this section, on the question of such a discovery and its implications?”
Diana smiled. “The only logical one. They posed a question that might shape policy. How might such information, under what circumstances, be presented to or withheld from the public for what ends?”
“Withheld,” Temple said, “being the key word.”
Orlando nodded. “So they were scared shitless out of what they found up there, and for our own good decided to hush it up.”
Diana clicked the button and started the presentation. “After seeing these images, I can’t say as I blame them. Not sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing.”
Photos started playing across the screens. And Phoebe and Orlando moved to the edge of their seats, open mouthed. “And you got these…”
“Through great difficulty, and danger,” Diana said.
Orlando was rapt with interest, barely taking a breath as he watched the images—impossible sights of things that looked like domes set in the sides of craters, then long, straight walls that went on for miles, casting enormous shadows. Tall, glass-like spires, transparent, set in groups around octagon-shaped structures. Something that looked like a castle, gleaming half-covered in the shadow of a lunar crater. A glass-like tunnel stretching many miles, connecting the rims of two craters.
Diana continued, “Astronaut Gordon Cooper went on record, and then recanted, that all the missions had been followed by UFOs, discreetly, and the astronauts had instructions on how to react, what to say as to alert Mission Control, and yet not alarm anybody. They had code phrase, little jokes like ‘There’s a Santa Claus sighting out our port window.’”
“Nice,” Orlando said in a whisper, still gazing at the pictures. “So if I tried to RV these things, could you give me coordinates?”
Diana shook her head. “You don’t want to try that. Colonel Temple will tell yo
u why in a moment. Just let me wrap up, as you’re looking at all this… All these things that if they got out—and some of them have, the less obvious ones that they didn’t censor in time—NASA would just claim they were tricks of light and shadow. Sunspots.”
“Swamp gas,” Orlando offered with a grin. When Phoebe frowned at him he said, “It’s what UFO debunkers here have been offering as an excuse for UFO witnesses for years. Kind of a running joke.”
“Anyway,” Diana continued. “The timeline, and real history of the space program kind of goes like this. We had a pretty good idea, before we sent humans up there, that they’d find something. There was enough visual confirmation from probe flybys that there would be evidence. It didn’t look like a full-fledged civilization or anything, but possibly as the Brookings Report theorized, we’d find remnants of a lost civilization, and possibly something that would explain the moon’s mysteries and the unanswered questions about our own evolution and history.”
Phoebe scratched at the goosebumps on her arms. She offered a wan smile to Aria who still seemed lost and bored, playing now with her water glass.
“So we went there,” Diana continued, “but found it wasn’t quite… deserted. Something kept tabs on our mission. Followed, observed. But refused to acknowledge repeated attempts at communication. Radio signals didn’t work. Then we tried light. That was the deal with the mirrors. Light pulses aimed with larger mirror arrays. Kind of a Morse Code. But no response. Imagine the buildup, the suspense, and then… to be ignored.”
“Like a nerd trying to get the attention of the head cheerleader,” Orlando said, trying to smile at Phoebe and lighten the mood. “Disheartening.”
“Next, in following missions, NASA had their team try to investigate some of these unusual sites up close. My guess is they hoped to discover something, some leftover technology perhaps that could be used. A lot of areas could be accessed, where we got to explore ancient walls, towers and cathedral-like ruins, all empty. But some areas, it seemed, were off limits. Especially in areas where there were entrances. Tunnels, caves, openings in the deeper craters. The lunar modules would break down, equipment would just stop when they got to a certain distance. Nothing worked. Cameras included.”
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