“I don’t know,” Duncan said. “Quinn sounded very weird. We’ll find out when they get here.”
“Let’s take a walk while we wait,” Turcotte said. He led the way, along a walkway just below the flight deck, toward the bow of the ship. They stood together at the very front of the Stennis, underneath the leading edge of the flight deck. Turcotte could feel the spray as the bow cut through the water and the ship made flank speed to the north. He reached out and gave Lisa Duncan a hand as she stepped over a cable and joined him.
It was dark, but the phosphorescence of the algae being churned up glowed below them. Turcotte could feel the power of ship, its engines at full power, the propellers cutting the water, moving over 100,000 tons at forty miles an hour.
“I talked to UNAOC headquarters in New York and to the National Security Adviser at the White House on my way here,” Duncan said, “to get a feel how things are going. And to try to find out about the shuttle launches and the ruby sphere.”
“And?” Turcotte sensed her reluctance to speak. But he’d done some thinking on the way up from Antarctica and he had a good idea what was coming.
“From the former, like talking to a brick wall. I didn’t tell them much, just tried to feel things out.”
“What a surprise,” Turcotte said.
“UNAOC is lying low,” Duncan said. “The backlash against the destruction of the Airlia fleet took them by surprise.”
“But they’re still planning on launching space shuttles to hook up with the mothership and talon, right?”
Duncan nodded. “I know. Something strange is going on.”
“I recommend we look at UNAOC like we used to look at Majestic-12,” Turcotte said. “Don’t run anything by them, don’t ask them for anything.”
“But they supported us against the Airlia fleet,” Duncan protested. “After the fact,” Turcotte said. “And now they’ve changed their tune.” Turcotte let the silence play out.
“All right,” Duncan agreed to his proposal.
“What about our government?”
“Split.”
“Great.”
“Politics, Mike,” Duncan explained. “The progressives are growing stronger every day. And then there’s the isolationists.”
“So we’re on our own?” Turcotte asked.
“I can get us some help if we need it.” Lisa turned to face him and took his hands in hers. “I also wanted you to know that I’m going to need you for whatever comes up.”
“Who else?” Turcotte felt the sea breeze on his skin. He drew in a deep breath through his nose, his nostrils flaring as the scent of salt water filled them. “There.” He pointed down to their left. “See them?”
Duncan looked.
There was a flash of something white against the phosphorescent glow. “Dolphins,” Turcotte said. “They’re playing.”
But Duncan’s attention was elsewhere. Turcotte followed her gaze toward the horizon. A silver bouncer was coming in fast and high, dropping altitude as it closed on the carrier.
“Time to go,” Duncan said.
Turcotte was trying to assimilate all the new information that Duncan had just given him. “Give me a few minutes alone, Lisa.”
“Mike—”
He placed a finger on her lips. “Give me a few minutes alone to think, then I’ll join you in the conference room and we can try to figure out what’s going on. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Turcotte stood perfectly still, feeling the wind in his face, the smell of salt water. He remembered as a child going to the rocky coast of Maine with his family on their rare vacations. After entering the military he’d been shocked the first time he’d gone to a real beach, where the shoreline wasn’t rock and the water wasn’t freezing. But despite the discomforts, there was something about that coastline that called to him, like the mountains meeting the sea.
Turcotte pulled himself out of his musings and headed into the interior of the Stennis. He wove through numerous passageways until he arrived at the conference room that had been set aside for Duncan’s use.
There were three men in the room along with Duncan. Two of them Turcotte knew—Major Quinn and Larry Kincaid. The third was a rather impressive stranger, almost seven feet tall and wide as the door Turcotte had just come through. A thick black beard, streaked with gray, adorned a red face. The man looked tired, his eyes red with large dark bags under them. His face was weather-beaten.
“Mr. Yakov,” Duncan began, “this is Captain Mike Turcotte.”
“Just Yakov will do.” His voice was a rolling deep bass with a heavy accent. Turcotte’s hand was lost inside the other man’s massive paw. “Do you have anything to drink?”
Duncan reached for the water carafe on the desk.
“Something real to drink,” Yakov corrected her.
“I’m sorry,” Turcotte said, “but our Navy is dry.”
“Ahh!” Yakov snorted with disgust. “No place, especially a ship, should be dry.”
“Yakov is from Section Four,” Duncan explained as they all took their seats around the small conference table. Turcotte knew that Section IV was Russia’s secret UFO investigative group.
“Are we secure?” Yakov cut off Duncan before she even got started. “Yes,” Duncan said.
“I don’t mean the room,” Yakov said, “I mean the people.” Yakov leaned forward. “Section Four was just destroyed, so you must excuse me if I am not overly trusting.”
“Why do you think it was destroyed?” Turcotte asked.
“I cannot communicate with it. I checked with Moscow. The base has missed its last two scheduled contacts. I had to call the KGB to check that. Then my SATPhone indicated I was being traced—backtracked through the satellite links. That made me—how do you say—nervous. I cut the connection.”
“They missed their contacts, but how can you be sure it was destroyed?” Turcotte asked.
Major Quinn spoke up. “After Yakov told me where it was, I had one of our satellites take a picture. The base is destroyed.”
“Who did it?” Turcotte asked.
Yakov shrugged. “That is a good question. I do not know.”
“I doubt that,” Turcotte said, which earned him a quick glance from Yakov but no elaboration.
“Why did you go to Area 51?” Duncan asked.
“We never trusted anyone—particularly the KGB—at Section Four. With it gone my list of those I could trust has shrunken dramatically.” Yakov shrugged. “I talked to you before, Dr. Duncan. And you, Captain Turcotte, I understand you knew Colonel Kostanov?”
“Yes.”
Yakov’s dark eyes bored into Turcotte’s. “I understand he died bravely in China.”
“Colonel Kostanov was very brave.”
“I suppose I must believe that you can judge that. You are the slayer of the Airlia in space. That was a brave act. And you are a—what do you Americans call it—a Green Hat?”
“Green Beret,” Turcotte corrected, although he was sure that Yakov had to know the proper term.
“Yes, that is it. I saw the movie. John Wayne. Very impressive. Except when he jumped out of the airplane without hooking up his parachute. Hollywood stuff. And when do colonels go into combat? Every colonel I know hides behind a desk or far behind the front lines.”
“Colonel Kostanov did not hide,” Turcotte said.
Yakov’s cheerful face sobered. “No, he didn’t. I will take your word, Captain Turcotte, on the fate of my friend.”
“Back to Section Four,” Duncan said. “Your base?”
“Ah, Stantsiya Chyort,” Yakov said. “That is what we call our Area 51. The Demon’s Station. The official name was something I’ve forgotten—something a bureaucrat made up. But Demon’s Station will do, will it not? Much more imaginative than Area 51, would you not agree?”
“I suppose,” Duncan said.
“You suppose?” Yakov laughed. “Of course it is better. And much better situated. You think Area 51 was remote, you should have s
een Stantsiya! It was the asshole of the world. Nothing within hundreds of miles except nuclear test ranges. And you don’t want to spend much time wandering through those, eh? But now it is gone,” he said simply.
“I think you know who attacked it,” Turcotte said.
Yakov shrugged. “That brings me back to my question of whether all of you can be trusted.”
“You’re going to take our word?” Turcotte asked.
“I will take your word and Dr. Duncan’s word based on what you have done. But even then, I warn you, you can trust no one.” “Including you,” Turcotte said.
“Ah, yes, including me. I see bad everywhere. I am paranoid. All Russians are paranoid. And remember, just because you are paranoid it doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.”
“If we don’t trust each other,” Duncan said, “then we might as well end this conversation right now.”
The silence played out for several seconds before Yakov broke it. “I think Stantsiya Chyort was destroyed because of that electronic mail message I sent to Mr. Kincaid. I think Section Four had been infiltrated long ago, and I warned my superior. He did not believe, or he was one of them. I do not know. That is why I had to contact your Area 51, because this is more important than my country or your country. And events proved me right.”
“Let’s slow down,” Turcotte said. “Start from the beginning.” Turcotte turned to the scientist from JPL. “What was Yakov’s e-mail?”
Kincaid spoke for the first time. “It only said to check out the DPS system for a certain time period.”
“DPS?” Turcotte asked.
Kincaid quickly brought them up to speed on what the Space Command system looked for and what he saw that night.
“Yakov.” Duncan turned to the Russian. “Why did you have Mr. Kincaid check the DSP?”
Yakov spread his hands. “What did he see?”
“A satellite went down in South America,” Duncan said. “Why is that important?”
“A satellite from a company called Earth Unlimited, correct?” Yakov said.
Major Quinn nodded. “Yes. And Earth Unlimited is the parent company of Terra-Lei.”
That clicked in Turcotte’s brain. “The ruby sphere.”
Kincaid nodded. “We never found out how Terra-Lei found the cavern or the sphere.”
“No,” Turcotte said, “UNAOC hasn’t found out. We haven’t tried to find out.”
The hint of a smile played across Kincaid’s lips. “Well, Major Quinn and I have done some digging.” He glanced over at Yakov. “I don’t know if our Russian friend knows this or not, but Earth Unlimited launched not only this satellite but two previous ones.”
“And,” Quinn interjected, “they have four simultaneous launches planned shortly. They’re going to use every launch platform Ariane has at Kourou.” “What are they doing?” Duncan asked.
“That we haven’t figured out yet,” Kincaid said. “At first I thought they might be trying something with the mothership or talon, but the flight paths of the satellite came nowhere near either craft.”
“What is Earth Unlimited?” Turcotte asked. “How did they know about the ruby sphere?”
“Well,” Quinn drawled the word out, “that’s a couple of good questions. Another interesting question would be what was Earth Unlimited’s connection to the facility at Dulce?”
“What?” Turcotte snapped.
“A subsidiary of Earth Unlimited was the primary Defense Department Contractor for the construction and continued operation of the biolab at Dulce,” Quinn said. “A contract let through the Black Budget.”
“But—” Turcotte turned to look at Duncan. “What the hell is going on?” “Maybe our Russian friend knows,” Duncan said.
All four sets of eyes turned toward the largest person in the room.
Yakov reached out and took the carafe of water. He poured himself a glassful and took a drink. He grimaced as he tasted the water. “We knew Earth Unlimited was associated with Terra-Lei, the company that was involved with the ruby sphere in the Great Rift Valley. We were interested in Terra-Lei’s compound in Ethiopia for a long time, as Colonel Kostanov must have told you. Section Four even sent a team to try to infiltrate it, but they were attacked and stopped.
“We also knew about the previous launches by Earth Unlimited from Ariane’s launch site at Kourou. When I requested that our own space-tracking satellites keep—how do you say? tabs?—tabs on any future launches, I started to get information back that someone was looking back in my direction. Wanting to know why I wanted to know about these satellites. That’s what caused me to warn my boss and to electronic-mail your Area 51.”
“Is Ariane in on it?” Turcotte asked.
“‘In on it’?” Yakov repeated. “I think not. Cash rules. Do you know how much Earth Unlimited is paying for those four rockets to go up at the same time? One point two billion dollars. That’s on top of the nine hundred million they’ve already spent for the three previous launches. People’s vision tends to get very blurry when that much money is involved.
“I have no evidence the European Space Consortium is aware of what Earth Unlimited is trying to do, but it would also not be the first time I have been proven wrong. They are everywhere.”
“They?” Turcotte asked.
Yakov ignored Turcotte and turned to Kincaid. “Since you have had some time to check on things, perhaps you know something more?”
“I’ve found out a little bit,” Kincaid said after Duncan indicated for him to go ahead. “I had a DOD satellite do a scan of the area the satellite went down in, looking for the payload. We didn’t find that, but something strange came up. Take a look at this.” He put a sheet of colored paper on the table.
“What are we looking at?”
“Thermal imaging of the region where the Earth Unlimited payload went down,” Kincaid said.
“And?” Turcotte saw various hues of blue and green.
“Lower right quadrant,” Kincaid said. He slid a second image to the center of the table. “Next shot is a zoom on that area.”
A new image appeared on the screen. Two areas were circled in yellow. One was full of tiny blue spots. The other had red dots.
“That’s two villages,” Kincaid said. “The blue dots are dead bodies. Recently dead and cold.”
“My God,” Duncan exclaimed, “there must be a hundred of them.”
“I don’t get it,” Turcotte said. “Are they connected to the rocket that went down there?”
“I think so,” Kincaid said.
“How?” Turcotte asked.
“I don’t know,” Kincaid admitted. “It just seems like too much of a coincidence. And what’s even more bizarre is the other village, where all the people show up dark red. The shade indicates the average body temperature is over 101 degrees Fahrenheit.”
“Everyone in the village is hot?” Turcotte asked.
“Looks like it,” Kincaid said. “If I hadn’t gotten the tip from Yakov, no one would even have looked in this area.”
“But we don’t know exactly what we’re looking at,” Turcotte pointed out.
“Not yet,” Kincaid said.
“What are we looking at?” Duncan addressed the question to Yakov.
“The end of the world,” Yakov said. “To be more specific, the death of every human being on the face of the planet who is not a puppet of the Airlia.”
Turcotte glanced at Duncan. She returned the look, which said that they didn’t know the how or why yet, but they believed Yakov.
Yakov picked up the imagery, then put it back down. He looked around the table. “Have any of you heard of something called The Mission?”
When there was no response, he continued.
“Have any of you heard of the Guides?”
Another silence.
“Your Majestic-12, they were what we call Guides.”
“What do you mean?” Turcotte asked.
Yakov tapped the side of his large head. “Their mind was a
ffected by a guardian computer. You know of STAAR. It was founded by your government the same time as Majestic-12, but its mission was to prepare for actual encounter with aliens. But STAAR was just a cover for an organization that had existed already. The Guides are Aspasia’s version of STAAR. Not the same, but they, too, work for the aliens. I can only tell you the little I know, and the little I guess from that little I know.”
Turcotte found the Russian’s way of speaking interesting. He also understood the man’s paranoia, given what had happened ever since he’d been involved in this entire Area 51 mess.
“The Mission is an organization, not a specific place. It moves. It is the headquarters for the Guides. I do not know its exact makeup or much about it at all.
“We believe it is now in South America. How long it has been there, I do not know. I know it is the place behind this satellite that came down. You could call this company Earth Unlimited’s headquarters, although I think that is just the front they use to work in the world now. I think The Mission has existed for a very long time. It is the source for what came from the satellite and killed those people in your thermal imagery.”
“And what is that?” Turcotte asked.
“The Black Death.”
CHAPTER 8
The Guide Parker sat alone in the darkness, staring at the screen of his laptop. A trickle of sweat ran down his forehead, along his left temple, and onto the hard floor.
There was knock on the door to his room. He swung his chair around, wincing in pain. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then called out.
“Enter.”
A young woman in her early twenties cautiously stepped into the dimly lit room, only a pair of candles and the screen supplying light.
“Guide Parker?”
“Yes, my child.” Parker’s voice was low and soothing.
The woman stepped forward. “I…” She paused.
“Go ahead,” Parker said. “You must speak freely.”
“I want to believe,” she said.
“I know you do.”
“The Airlia—” she began, then stopped.
“Go ahead. Speak freely.”
“The Airlia aren’t human. How can we be sure…”
Parker smiled reassuringly. “If they were human, there would be no reason to believe. The Airlia are more than human. For us to become more than we have been, we must follow them. Meet them—if we could have before UNAOC took its sacrilegious action. But we still have their technology to take us to the stars. To help us rise above the disaster we have inflicted upon ourselves on this planet. It is the path we must take. It is the only path that will take us out of dirt-locked existence. But to take that path we must be prepared to serve.”
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