Gwen knew that identical SIT Rooms at NORAD and the Pentagon would also be monitoring the inbound targets.
“Going to DEFCON 3,” McManus said into his headset with no inflection. His voice could be heard throughout the room.
Gwen sat at a desk on the side and logged onto her computer. Her job was to track the missiles backwards to their point of origin, if possible.
The DEFCON system ranged from 5 to 1, with DEFCON 1 indicating nuclear war had begun. DEFCON 3 indicated a heightened readiness to counterattack.
Gwen was puzzled. If her telemetry was correct, the inbounds had been launched from Libya. Current intel indicated that Libya had neither enriched uranium or viable delivery systems that could reach the United States.
But that’s why the Company existed. Intel was always changing. Nothing was taken for granted in the nuclear chess match that the nations of the world engaged in daily.
“DEFCON 2,” said McManus. “Stations one through five, please verify your readings with NORAD. Stations six through ten, sync your screens with the Pentagon’s retaliatory intentions.”
Gwen’s hands were clammy. DEFCON 2 meant that nuclear war was imminent.
Tense minutes passed. The triangular targets on the main board were only five hundred miles from Washington and New York.
“ICBMs fueled and ready,” McManus said coolly. “Counting down now. Ten, nine, eight . . . ”
Gwen thought of her two children and glanced at her wristwatch. They would be eating lunch in the school cafeteria. Tuna salad sandwiches prepared by her husband Ben.
She stared at her screen intently, blue eyes narrowed beneath long blond hair.
“ . . . seven, six . . . ”
The lights in the Situation Room returned to normal fluorescent strength. Groans were heard around the room as techs stood and rubbed bloodshot eyes
“Simulation complete,” said an automated, impersonal female voice. “Now at DEFCON 5.”
DEFCON 5 was a complete stand-down and the norm for missile defense. It signaled no threat whatsoever.
“Thank you, ladies and gentleman,” McManus said. “Nicely done.”
Gwen let out a long sigh. Some simulations were announced. Others, such as the one that had just been staged, were not. Unannounced drills never failed to leave her exhausted.
She logged off of her computer, rose, and walked toward the rear exit of the Sit Room. Above her, McManus winked and gave her a thumbs-up.
McManus was Gwen’s sector chief, and although she had never told Ben, she was almost positive that the fifty-year-old Admiral had been flirting with her for several months.
Titan Six,
Colorado, Beneath the Rocky Mountains
Titan Six sat on the maglev heading for their destination beneath Mount Elbert. The team consisted of Hawkeye, Tank, Shooter, Gator, and Aiko. They sat on the cushioned seats as the maglev cruised through tunnels at a smooth, controlled 285 mph.
“This place is creepy,” Gator said as he checked his gear. “Not many lights.” He wiped down the barrel of his SAW, an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. “Feels haunted.”
Gator’s team members looked at him and exchanged nervous glances. In truth, they all felt the same way.
The maglev passed an occasional halogen lamp mounted on a rock wall, but most of the original lighting had been regular tungsten bulbs encased in wire mesh that was typical for military instillations in the 1960s. Many of the latter had burned out years ago.
Shooter, who had been putting a clip into her Calico M960 semi-automatic carbine, began to massage her temples.
“I’m getting one hell of a headache,” she said.
“My ears are ringing a bit,” Aiko complained.
“Might be the high-speed trek through all this darkness,” Hawkeye said. “I find it a bit disorienting myself.”
“For me, it’s nausea,” said Tank.
“Just hang tight, everybody,” Hawkeye advised. “We’ll arrive at SURP station 872 in about thirty minutes.”
The train decreased in speed as Hawkeye checked his helmet visor, which could display tactical information, BioMEMS readouts, and anything Touchdown wanted to relay to Titan Six. He jumped in his seat as Shooter screamed.
“There’s somebody out there!” Shooter cried.
Titan Six pressed their faces to the windows of the car.
“I don’t see anything,” said Aiko.
“Maybe it’s that headache, Shooter,” Hawkeye suggested.
“No, somebody — or some thing — was out there,” Shooter protested. “It was a slender person. I mean, it was glowing blue and holding a gun. At least I think it was a gun. It looked too narrow to be rifle, and it had no stock.”
Tank glanced at his brother. “Some of the engineers were hallucinating. Maybe we’re all coming down with whatever they’ve got.”
“Then we’re hallucinating the same thing,” Gator said. “I just saw the same blue creature outside of my window.”
“We’re still going pretty damn fast,” Hawkeye said. “Let’s wait and see if we’ve got company waiting for us at 872.”
Aiko was the first to cover her ears tightly with both hands. “What is that noise?” she shrieked. “It’s unbearable.”
A whining sound, like that of some giant insect, grew louder and louder as it rose in pitch.
Within seconds, all other team members covered their ears too as the high-pitched whine filled the train car. Its pitch climbed into the inaudible sound spectrum.
Aiko slumped to the floor. Tank and Shooter collapsed next.
As the maglev came to a gentle stop at Station 872 beneath Mount Elbert, all members of Titan Six were on the floor of the aisle, unconscious.
Monorail Seven
Beneath the Adirondack Mountains, New York State
The sleek blue and white monorail glided into a well-lit station of the SURP system. One hundred troops, young soldiers dressed in dark brown fatigues with no logos or insignias, marched onto the station platform in a double line. They walked with standard military precision, their faces blank, expressionless. Each man, hair buzzed to the scalp, carried a brown army-style sack, brown cloth cinched at the top with a drawstring, containing clothes and personal effects.
Silently, they proceeded to a second monorail train on the far side of the station. A tall, burley man holding a clipboard checked off their names as they boarded the second train.
A loud horn sounded, and the train slid forward into the eerie darkness of the secret tunnels.
Aboard the high-speed monorail bullet, the troops relaxed. Some played cards, others pulled out a novel and began to read. Others talked quietly among themselves about sports, their latest romantic conquests, or what they would do in their spare time during the upcoming six-month troop rotation. None of the soldiers spoke English, and their native tongues represented various Eastern European languages.
The train gained speed and branched into an adjoining tunnel, headed southwest.
Ops Center
Beneath Mount Whitney
Titan Global Engineers had worked overtime to create a mobile operations center in a cavernous vault that was SURP Station 112. Prefab units had been joined to create a circular room seventy feet in diameter. The room was high-tech, with a chrome rail circling the room behind the twelve leather seats where Titan support staff manned their telemetry stations. Xenon lights cast a faint blue glow over the room as Catherine Caine walked behind her team, each member working at a station with multiple keyboards beneath wall-mounted flat-panel screens. Video and data feeds from around the world scrolled across the majority of screens, while some displayed biometric data from Titan Six.
Touchdown was flanked by Quiz and DJ, while Joshua Ambergris occupied a station on the opposite side of the circular ops center.
“Titan Six, do you read?” Touchdown said into his headset.
There was no reply.
Touchdown repeated his call several more times, but silence claimed the
center’s audio speakers. He checked his monitors, ran a systems check, and turned to face Caine.
“I’m showing Titan Six as unconscious,” Touchdown said. “Their metabolism is very low. No indication of an attack, however.”
Grace Nguyen stepped forward. “Try administering a little adrenaline and dopamine via their BioMEMS.”
“How are the engineers back at the Alamiranta?” Caine asked.
“No longer hallucinating,” Nguyen answered. “But I still don’t know what’s wrong with them. I’m waiting for some lab values to come back. My medical team will contact me as soon as they know anything.”
“I’m showing a high-speed monorail in the SURP system traveling towards Colorado,” Touchdown said. “One hundred life readings aboard. If it’s not the feds, who else is using SURP?”
“That’s what I intend to find out,” Caine replied resolutely. “Let me know when Titan Six regains consciousness.”
“And if they don’t?” Touchdown said.
“Then we send in a rescue team. Who’s up next?”
“Titan Four.”
“Contact the Alamiranta and tell them to stand by.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Titan Six
SURP Station 872
Tank regained consciousness first. He propped himself on his elbows and looked around the car, dizzy and disoriented.
“What happened?” asked Gator, shaking his head groggily.
“High frequency sound,” Hawkeye said. “It can overwhelm certain areas in the cerebral cortex. It’s an easy way to knock someone out.”
Shooter stood and put on her backpack, then grabbed her rifle. “Still have a wicked headache, but it’s passing.”
“The train is starting to move!” Aiko cried, also donning her gear.
“I thought the maglev was under Touchdown’s control,” Tank said.
“It’s supposed to be,” Hawkeye said.
The voice of Touchdown came through the COM sets of each Titan Six helmet.
“Get out of the car!” Touchdown said. “Somebody’s commandeered the train, even if remotely.”
“Override!” Caine ordered. “Stop that maglev!”
“Doors are jammed,” Hawkeye said.
“Can’t stop the train,” Touchdown said, “but I may be able to open the doors, which are operated by a subsystem that may still be accessible.”
The maglev was traveling at fifteen miles per hour and accelerating.
The doors slid open, and Titan Six tumbled into the dim cavern of Station 872 as the maglev’s taillights disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel ahead.
“Rough landing,” Gator said. “No wonder Disneyworld tells patrons to keep their hands in the car at all times.”
“Ops, we’re okay, but our ride seems to have left,” Hawkeye said.
“Our engineers are already working on making additional trains operational,” Caine said. “Proceed with your mission.”
“Roger that,” Hawkeye said.
* * *
Hawkeye led Titan Six down the unmapped tunnel leading to the cube.
“Is everybody okay?” he asked.
“Our BioMEMS must be overriding whatever the cube is giving off,” Tank said.
“For now,” cautioned Shooter. “It sure as hell did a number on us in the train.”
“Since we managed to get here,” Tank said, “maybe it wants to know what our intentions are. Maybe it’s withholding its mojo for a while.”
The team looked at each other uneasily.
The five lights on Titan Six’s helmets played across the walls of the tunnel as they advanced, gradually coming to the corridor section that now opened up into Titan Global’s excavation that had unearthed a large section of the cube.
“Unbelievable,” said Shooter, beholding the metallic wonder before her.
“What in God’s name did this have to do with nuclear missiles and the Cold War?” Tank asked.
“Maybe it’s a bunker of sorts?” Shooter said. “For the president and his cabinet in case of war.”
“That would be the most plausible explanation,” Hawkeye agreed. “But our engineers said this wasn’t built by any known technology of the sixties.”
“It wouldn’t have been the first time the government was using unknown technology,” Gator said. “Hell, remember our foray to Area 51?”
“Fan out,” Hawkeye ordered. “We need to find an entrance.”
Shooter stumbled and fell to her knees.
“I’ve tripped over a couple of skeletons,” she said.
Hawkeye joined her and knelt by the bare bones. They were pure white, as if they’d been bleached by a sun that could never penetrate the layers of rock above the classified underground network.
“Get a video shot of the skulls,” DJ said from the Ops Center. “Maybe we can get an ID from their dental profile.”
Hawkeye aimed his helmet’s video cam at the skulls. “They were unarmed, whoever they were. A lot of ashes scattered about. Five will get you ten that these are the remains of the bodies Mrs. Caine spoke of. Something fried these two pretty badly.”
“ID confirmed,” DJ said. “You’re kneeling next to the bones of Durangue and Wallace.”
A rectangular band of light appeared thirty feet high on the face of the cube. It moved sideways, left to right, much like a stock market crawl in Times Square.
“Step back and regroup, everyone,” Hawkeye said. “Let’s observe.”
Within the moving band of light were symbols: squares, triangles, pentagons, circles, and plus signs. The most unusual symbol was a small dot rapidly circling a larger one.
“That’s the symbol for hydrogen,” Quiz chimed in. “One electron orbiting one proton. What you’re seeing is some kind of code. Analyzing now.”
Suddenly, a powerful beam directly below the scrolling symbols shone on Titan Six.
“Everybody stay perfectly still,” Hawkeye ordered. “Let’s not give anyone cause to think we have hostile intentions.”
“We also need to empty our minds,” Aiko suggested. “Think of nothing.”
“You heard the lady,” said Hawkeye. “Do it.”
The bright beam disappeared a minute later.
“What just happened?” asked Gator.
“We were being probed,” Hawkeye said.
“I thought it might regard us as benign if we emptied our thoughts,” Aiko said.
“Good call, Aiko,” Hawkeye said.
“How come it didn’t incinerate us like our two bony friends on the ground?” Shooter asked.
“Just speculation,” Hawkeye said, “but I’m guessing that it has a special interest in us because we’re soldiers — and armed. The cube, or whatever’s inside, may be processing what to do with us next, so we’re not home free yet. We need to get inside before that thing decides its unhappy with our presence.”
Hawkeye glanced at the bones of Durangue and Wallce, then up at the cube. Its sheer mass made it appear impenetrable.
“Notice the symbols on the illuminated crawl,” Quiz said. “The symbol for hydrogen comes at specific intervals, while the other shapes appear randomly. It skips one symbol, then three, then five, then seven, then nine. Then the pattern repeats.”
“Prime numbers,” said Ambergris. “Numbers that are divisible only by themselves and one — one, three, five, seven, and nine.”
“Over here,” said Tank, who had moved twenty steps to the right. “On the outer wall. The hydrogen symbol. A small dot is orbiting a larger one.”
“Try pushing on it,” Quiz said.
“I’m starting to feel my flesh crawl,” Gator said. “My entire body itches.”
“I feel scared out of my wits, and I don’t know why,” Shooter declared.
Hawkeye pressed the hydrogen symbol once. “Nothing’s happening, Ops.”
“Now press it three times,” said Quiz.
“Still nothing,” Hawkeye said.
“Press it five times. Then seven a
nd nine.”
“Whoa there,” Hawkeye said, having completed the sequence. “The ninth time’s a charm.”
An arched corridor opened up in the face of the cube, which was now glowing a hazy blue.
“Let’s move in, people,” Hawkeye said, “before this thing changes its mind. Shooter, you take point. Gator, bring up the rear.”
Titan Six entered the cube, walking slowly down the passageway.
“What’s this hall made of?” Tank asked. “Stainless steel? Chrome?”
“I’m reading small amounts of titanium,” Touchdown said, “but I can’t get a clear read on the structure at all. The metal alloys are . . . ” He paused. “Well, I’m not sure what they are. The readings are conflicting.”
It was the sage voice of Joshua Ambergris that dropped the bomb: “I’m reading trace amounts of nickel, iron, copper, chromium, and zinc. All found in human blood. Also, I’m detecting strange chemical activity in the walls of the cube. It retains structural integrity, although I believe it’s molecular structure is constantly changing.”
“What are you getting at, Joshua?” asked Caine.
“That the cube may be alive.”
There was silence in the Ops Center as well as in the arched corridor.
Whoosh!
Titan Six wheeled around to see that the opening behind them had closed. Indeed, no seams indicating the existence of a portal of any kind could be detected. The metallic wall was totally smooth.
“We’re in,” Hawkeye said, “but the downside is that we appear to be a captive audience.”
“Just like Jonah in the Bible,” Shooter said. “We’ve been swallowed by a whale. A really big whale.”
Titan Six Page 3
