‘But won’t they …’
‘Jesus Christ, Jafari. Yes, they will, now get in!’
‘Alcatraz One, this is Cyrus,’ O’Connor called on his phone, one hand on the steering wheel as he accelerated towards the dirt turn-off into the mountains. ‘Alcatraz One, this is Cyrus, this is Cyrus, come in Alcatraz, over.’
His call was answered with nothing but distorted transmission, but then suddenly a voice came through clearly. ‘Cyrus, this is Alcatraz One, Alcatraz One, over.’
‘This is Cyrus, activate Asman, hot extraction, grid 547824, over.’
‘Alcatraz One, grid 547824, airborne in three minutes, over.’
‘Cyrus, thanks, out.’
O’Connor smiled inwardly. Seal Team Five would have spent an uncomfortable night on the ground in the Black Hawks, but the Navy Seals knew well that every second could mean the difference between success and failure. Remaining on three minutes’ notice to move through the night was world-class.
The police radio suddenly burst into transmission, border command wanting a progress report.
‘We have the taxi and the driver,’ O’Connor confirmed in Farsi, ‘and we’ve arrested Major Jafari and a Professor McLoughlin who was travelling with him. We’re bringing them back to Qasr-e Shirin, estimated time of arrival fifteen minutes, over.’
‘General Shakiba will be informed immediately. You have done well, Zardooz, out.’
Not well enough, O’Connor thought wryly. He slowed as the dirt track wound into a wadi and then accelerated up the other side. By O’Connor’s calculations, the landing zone, or LZ, was about four kilometres from here. It was still in Iran, about a kilometre from the border, and Seal Team Five would have to violate Iranian airspace, but O’Connor’s choice had been deliberate. The main highway led to the fortified border crossing to the south, but here, the track just continued across the border into the Iraqi desert. But O’Connor had figured that the Iranians wouldn’t leave it entirely undefended. His guess was correct.
The commander of Seal Team Five nodded to the captain of the first Black Hawk. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, buckling up his gear. ‘Cyrus is in trouble.’ The pilots fastened their seatbelts, the co-pilot radioed the other three aircraft and they immediately began their start-up procedures. The back-up team were in a second Black Hawk, with two Apache attack helicopters as escorts, armed with 30 mm automatic cannon, 70 mm rockets and Hellfire anti-tank missiles.
Chapter 22
Aleta collected her baggage at Chicago’s bustling O’Hare Airport, one of the world’s busiest, and picked up her hire car. She thought she might feel some regret, or at least a tinge of sadness in leaving Ryan, but an overwhelming sense of freedom enveloped her. In keeping with her mood, she upgraded to a red Mustang convertible. A cold wind blew across the snow patches on a frozen Lake Michigan, and it caught her long dark hair as she headed down Route 90 for Chesterton, just across the Indiana border. Aleta smiled to herself. Ryan would never have spent money on a convertible, much less have the hood down with the heater running full bore.
Anna Mitchell-Hedges led Aleta into her cosy living room, where the Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull sat on a black velvet cushion on a small coffee table.
‘It’s stunning … simply beautiful,’ Aleta gasped, captivated. The skull was the size of a child’s head and totally transparent. Accurate to the last millimetre, with a moveable jaw, the skull had been flawlessly carved. The crystal captured the light from a nearby lamp and seemed to play with the beams before reflecting the light back through its clear, silky-smooth surface. Aleta could feel an indefinable energy emanating from the object.
She realised she had been staring at the skull without speaking. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘you must think I’m very rude.’
Anna smiled. ‘Not at all. He has that effect on people. You can pick him up if you like.’
Aleta grasped the chillingly cold crystal, and carefully lifted the skull to face level. The eye sockets were finely chiselled and a light danced deep within them.
‘This came from the jungles of Belize, Ms Mitchell-Hedges?’ Aleta asked, eager to hear the story from the woman herself.
‘Yes, but please call me Anna. It was 1924, and for months rumours had been circulating about a lost city in the jungles. My adopted father, Frederick, who used to say that a life lived without zest and adventure was not life at all, set sail from Liverpool for what was then British Honduras – now Belize.’
‘And he took you with him?’
The old lady smiled. ‘I was just sixteen, but Frederick thought it would be good for my education. He was convinced that civilisation had begun not in the Middle East, but in the ancient city of Atlantis, and his studies led him to believe that the remnants of Atlantean culture were to be found in Central and South America. We paddled down the Rio Grande, which was infested with crocodiles, and when we were miles into the jungles of Belize we discovered a collection of moss-encrusted stone ruins, which turned out to be an ancient city.’
‘Maya?’
Anna nodded. ‘Undoubtedly. Pyramids, palaces, walls, subterranean chambers … all taken over by the jungle, along with a vast amphitheatre capable of holding 10 000 people. My father had forbidden me to climb on any of the pyramids, but one afternoon, the heat in my tent was stifling … I can still feel it now. My father and the excavation team were taking a siesta, so I snuck down one of the jungle tracks.’ The old lady’s eyes sparkled at the memory of it. ‘Howler monkeys were chattering up in the fig trees as I climbed to the top of the tallest pyramid. The view across the top of the jungle canopy was stunning, but something kept reflecting sunlight in my eyes, and I realised it was coming from deep inside the pyramid.’
‘Did you tell your father?’
‘I had to. I couldn’t get inside on my own. He gave me the most frightful ticking off, but when he mellowed, his curiosity got the better of him and he redirected the workforce on to the temple. It took weeks before we could get inside, and there were snakes and scorpions to worry about, but they lowered me down … and there he is,’ she said, her eyes misty.
‘What an amazing experience, Anna,’ Aleta said, reluctantly returning the skull to its velvet cushion.
Further conversation was interrupted by the sudden pealing of the doorbell. Anna excused herself, returning moments later with a thin, elegantly dressed woman whom Aleta judged to be in her late forties.
‘Aleta, this is Lena Begich,’ Anna said. ‘Lena has worked with the skull for some years now. We found out very early that Lena was able to interpret the messages embedded within the crystal.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Lena,’ Aleta said, feeling sceptical. The prospect of someone decoding messages from a crystal skull seemed like the stuff of science fiction. ‘How do you interpret the messages?’ she asked.
‘It’s known as channelling. Many people are very doubtful at first,’ Lena replied, as if reading Aleta’s mind, ‘but some of us have an ability to translate information from objects. We discovered my skill quite by accident. The first time I was introduced to the skull, I was in the company of some of Anna’s guests, and I drifted off … it was only when I woke up that everyone told me what incredible information I’d been able to retrieve from the crystal.’
‘Lena fell into a trance,’ Anna explained, ‘and she couldn’t remember a word she’d said, even though the channelling lasted nearly two hours. The psychic Edgar Cayce had a similar ability to channel while in a trance, and people were very distrustful of his powers until he predicted the Great Depression, World War II, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and a host of other events.’
‘I seem to remember he predicted La Niña and El Niño as well,’ said Aleta, ‘although there’s still doubt cast over many of his predictions.’
‘Scepticism is a natural human reaction,’ Lena said. Her voice was low and husky. ‘We tend to rely on our senses, and particularly our sight. If people can’t actually see something, then they often refuse to believe
it exists. Shall we begin?’
Anna placed the skull on a small turntable in front of Lena so she could move it as she wished. The beams of light deep within the crystal seemed to intensify.
‘Once I’m ready, you can ask the skull anything you like,’ Lena said, ‘but your questions apparently need to be quite specific, otherwise the answers won’t make much sense. And don’t be surprised if the skull anticipates what you’re about to ask … He does that a lot.’ Lena closed her eyes and began to rock slowly back and forth on the couch, reaching out and placing her hands on the skull. Her breathing slowed and her whole body was focused on the skull. Suddenly a humming sound filled the small room and Lena began to speak in a strange, high-pitched voice.
‘You are here because you are one of the few who will accept what you are about to be told, but even you are sceptical of what you might learn. That’s because you wrongly assume that every civilisation that follows has more knowledge than those which came before. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your scientists are at a loss to understand how I was made from crystal, a material that would normally shatter when carved against the axis of the quartz. But I, and others like me, were formed in civilisations that came before the ones you call the Egyptian, the Maya and the Inca.’
Aleta was about to ask her first question, but the skull continued speaking through Lena.
‘Your civilisation is in grave danger. In 2012, this planet moves into alignment with the dark rift at the centre of your galaxy, and it will fall to you and a few chosen others – including one man in particular – to alert your people to the dangers. Together you will recover an ancient Maya Codex, but the Maya Codex contains only one part of the warning. The other part of the warning is found within yet another civilisation, just as sophisticated as the Maya; a civilisation that built its cities and temples with such precision that you could not fit a knife blade between the stones.’
‘The Inca!’ Aleta whispered. The Inca had not discovered the wheel, yet somehow they had managed to construct their temples and walls using massive polished boulders, some weighing more than 30 tonnes, and without using mortar. The Inca stonemasons had shaped the blocks so perfectly that they fitted within thousandths of an inch, prompting some to wonder if the Inca had found a way of melting and setting rock.
‘Yes … it is the civilisation you refer to as the Inca. They left no written records, but a vital message from the Q’ero, the last of the Inca, was recorded and kept hidden in the place the conquistadors called La Ciudad de los Reyes. This parchment holds the key to the location of an ancient Sun Disc and the remaining two crystal skulls. One skull has already been found, and is in the hands of your enemies.’
‘Who are my enemies?’
‘You have several, and if you embark on this path, you will create many more … but to find the skull that is in the hands of your enemies, you must first discover from whence it was stolen. That will lead you to its whereabouts, a place of great beauty, but infused with evil. The clues to its location lie near an ancient fountain, beneath a large bronze pigna.’
The light within the crystal intensified still further, and Lena’s body was rocked by a spasm of energy.
‘How much time do we have?’ Aleta asked anxiously.
‘The time is almost upon you, and as you begin your search for the receptacles of knowledge, two powerful men in particular will intensify their efforts to eliminate you and your partner.’
‘Partner? Do you mean my husband? But I’m about to divorce …’
‘The one who is steeped in narrow religious dogma is not for you. There is another whom you will meet, and although at first he may not appear to be a seeker of higher knowledge, he has been here many times before … as have you. The annihilation of your civilisation will be at the hands of human forces … forces that are slipping out of your control.’
A mist gathered deep within the skull and the flashes of light and connecting links began to fade. Lena’s hands slid on to the table and she woke with a start.
‘Oh my goodness,’ she said, as her eyes struggled to focus. ‘I feel absolutely drained.’
The Mustang’s V8 4.6-litre engine growled as Aleta gained the open highway to Chicago and pushed the pedal to the floor. With her hair flying in the wind, she tried to gather her thoughts; she needed to process the information embedded in the crystal. Her mind turned to Anna and Lena. The session with the crystal skull had been as alarming as it had been intriguing. Fascinated as she was with ancient civilisations, Aleta wasn’t sure she was ready to tell anyone she’d spent over an hour talking to a vibrating crystal, but the accuracy of its knowledge had shaken her. How had the skull known about Ryan? Where was the skull that was in the possession of her enemies, and who was this enemy? Where were the other two skulls … and where might she even start looking for the ancient Sun Disc?
The channelling session had raised far more questions than it answered, and Aleta was still sceptical, but the information the skull had divulged rang so true that Aleta knew it couldn’t be coincidence. Humanity seemed to be lurching from one disaster to the next, and each natural, environmental and financial shock seemed more serious than the last. Your annihilation will be at the hands of human forces … forces that are slipping out of your control. The last message channelled from deep within the crystal was etched into Aleta’s consciousness as she struggled to understand the path ahead.
Chapter 23
‘Alcatraz Two, this is Alcatraz One, we’ll have to play this as it comes. No change to the LZ, but Cyrus is expecting a hot extraction, grid 547824. Satellite coverage of the area expected any moment.’
‘I don’t know who this guy Cyrus is,’ the co-pilot said, pushing the internal comms button, ‘but he sure as hell commands some support.’
San Quentin grinned. ‘I don’t know either, but I’m betting that it’s got the White House behind it, and I’d put my money on Christians in Action.’ Christians in Action was the Seals’ nickname for the CIA.
Sing Sing, San Quentin’s number two, depressed the internal transmit. ‘Intel’s coming in now,’ he said. The real-time analysis appeared on his laptop as the Black Hawk lifted off from the desert. ‘Shit … they’re not fucking around at the main border crossing. They’ve got a troop of Mobarez tanks moving in.’
‘What about the target area?’ the pilot asked from the right-hand seat as he hauled on the collective. Clouds of sand rose and he checked the vertical indicators on his instrument panel as he pushed the nose forward towards the border. Transmission and engine-oil temperature and pressure, turbine gas temperature, gas-generator speed, percentage rpm and engine torque were all in the green. The two Apache attack helicopters, Crazyhorse Four and Crazyhorse One Zero, were climbing, providing cover to the north and south.
‘Wait … coming in now,’ Sing Sing advised. The real-time satellite images were in infrared. ‘All stations,’ he called, switching to the external secure net, ‘intel analysis is three Soviet BMP 2 armoured infantry troop carriers located on the border, grid 546825, 1000 metres north-west of the LZ. BMPs armed with 30 mm cannon, 500 rounds per minute, range 3000 metres; and a 9K111 Fagot anti-tank missile, range 2500 metres. BMP 2 carries two crew and seven guards, so looks like a platoon all up. Acknowledge over.’
‘Alcatraz Two, out.’
‘Crazyhorse Four, out.’
‘Crazyhorse One Zero, out.’
‘Did you copy, Cyrus?’
‘Cyrus, copied that,’ O’Connor replied from behind the wheel of the police car. He smiled grimly as he negotiated the rough track, climbing higher across the mountains. ‘You’ve made my day, out.’
The pilot of the first Black Hawk concentrated on the primary flight display and digital map. The dual inertial-navigation system would, he knew, guide them to the target; it was a matter of the best approach, and that was a decision he would have to make. Any forces chasing Cyrus would have to come from Qasr-e Shirin, to the south-east, so better to cross the border well t
o the north of the armoured vehicles already there and come in from a direction they would least expect.
‘All stations, hold at 200 feet, course zero-four-zero, we’ll come in from the north-east, over.’
Each aircraft acknowledged, as did O’Connor.
The agent slowed the police car as he neared the landing zone. The track curved around a ravine, and onto a relatively flat ridge, before dropping again towards the border. O’Connor stopped the car, shouldered his backpack containing the vital thumb drive, grabbed the submachine gun and moved forward on foot, motioning Jafari to follow. Just before O’Connor reached the edge of the ridge, he dropped to the ground, crawled to a vantage point that commanded a view of the border and focused his binoculars. The three Revolutionary Guards’ BMP 2 infantry armoured fighting vehicles were deployed in a circle covering the crossing. The guards had lit a fire and were brewing up some coffee, but they were not completely relaxed. O’Connor counted three sentries posted outside the circle, their binoculars trained on the surrounding hills. O’Connor reached for his satcom.
‘Alcatraz One, this is Cyrus. Am in position, grid 547824 confirmed, directly above the border position. Be aware that the armoured group have posted sentries, who are scanning in your direction.’
‘Alcatraz One, copied, we’re inbound, three minutes’ time on target, out to you, all stations, drop to 100 feet, out.’ This called for exacting flying, but like the Seal teams, the men and women flying US Black Hawks in Iraq were the equal of any pilots in the world.
The sound of the inbound choppers was faint at first, but then unmistakable, and O’Connor observed first one, and then another of the sentries focus their binoculars to the north-east. Suddenly, the coffee was forgotten and the guards scrambled for their vehicles.
Heavy rounds whistled overhead, but they had come not from the armoured group on the border, but from behind. O’Connor turned and focused his binoculars on the valley to the south-east, only to find another patrol of BMP 2s roaring up the dirt road. Suddenly, the lead armoured vehicle ploughed to a halt in a cloud of dust. Flame and smoke burst from behind the command turret.
The Inca Prophecy Page 13
