Black Sun dl-2

by Graham Brown

  One machine crashed to the ground, its front legs damaged, the rear legs still trying to push forward. The others turned toward him and opened fire.

  The rock wall in front of Hawker exploded from a convergence of shells. He dove to the ground, crawled fifteen feet, and tried to steal a glance out the other side. But the machines seemed to be waiting for it. The instant he poked his head out, another burst tore into the boulders around him. Whatever type of sensors the machines were using to find him — heat sensors, motion detectors, shape recognition software, whatever it was — they’d locked on to him now.

  As the barrage continued, Hawker took cover. He pressed himself into the largest of the boulders, listening to the strange sound of the machines marching closer.

  * * *

  Danielle sat in the gunner’s seat of a massive Russian helicopter as it thundered across the countryside. The craft was a Hind-D, a huge military gunship armed with a 30mm cannon and racks of air-to-ground missiles, and powered by a tremendous turbine engine that pushed the craft through the air at up to two hundred and fifty knots. The sense of speed, the vibration, and the visceral feeling of power that coursed from the airframe was undeniably intoxicating. For once in her career she felt as if she were charging into battle on a stallion of superior power.

  As Ivan piloted the craft, Danielle familiarized herself with the weapons systems. And as they approached the target zone, she was looking forward to wreaking havoc.

  “How the hell did you get this thing in country?” she asked over the intercom.

  “Officially it is part of a movie production,” Ivan said. “Not a bad cover, don’t you think?”

  “Not bad at all,” she replied. “As long as it doesn’t fire blanks.”

  Ivan laughed, a genuine belly laugh with a sense of warmth that could be felt even through the intercom. “I promise you, I didn’t come all this way to fire blanks.”

  With that they rocketed over the third ridge and the helicopters on the radar scope came into visual.

  One of the Skycranes was hanging back. Ivan was already angling toward it.

  “Three seconds to range,” Ivan said.

  The amber light on her targeting display lit up and an instant later it switched to green. Danielle pressed the fire switch and a heavy buzzing shook the craft as the rotary cannon unleashed the fury of a hundred shells.

  The tracers laced into the hovering Skycrane, ten explosive shells in between each glowing marker. The hovering craft lit up with smoke and then exploded and fell toward the ground.

  Euphoric, Danielle searched for the next target.

  * * *

  With the burrolike machines blasting at his stronghold, Hawker lay flat on the ground, slithering toward the back edge of the space. He was considering making a break for it when the sound of a thunderous explosion echoed across the landscape.

  From the corner of his eye he saw a fireball in the east. It was one of the Skycranes. How or why, he didn’t know. But when he saw the drones spiraling out of control and crashing into a canyon wall, he didn’t waste time trying to find out.

  He took off running. He had ten minutes.

  * * *

  As Stecker and the scientists left the trailer, Moore caught sight of the rocket sled, the vessel of destruction designed to send the stone into the deepest part of the mountain. It was ready and waiting.

  The president shouted at him. “What the hell have you gotten us into, Arnold?!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You were late to a briefing about Armageddon, looking like you’ve been out drinking somewhere all night, and you offer some cockamamie theory about the earth’s core.”

  Moore was acutely aware of his appearance. He was unshaven, looking haggard, in the same clothes he’d worn the day before.

  “I’ve been working on this all night with no sleep—”

  The president cut him off. “That’s one of the problems, from what I hear: You haven’t been getting much sleep.”

  Moore was stunned.

  “When you didn’t show on time, I asked your staff about your behavior,” Henderson said. “They answered honestly. The way you should have months ago. Instead of endangering the country like you have.”

  “I would never purposefully—”

  “You brought this damned thing here, you sent your people after the other stones, you even mounted an illegal operation to rescue Danielle, despite the fact that I told you not to. And I covered your ass for it. Yet you couldn’t be honest with me?”

  “I tried—”

  “Stop lying to yourself, Arnold! You’ve put us at risk, and maybe the whole world along with us! I want to know why.”

  “Mr. President—”

  “Why?!” he shouted. “What are you holding back? Some hidden part of this prophecy you haven’t shared, something else you found down there in Brazil, or some bit of data you don’t want to give up? What is it that makes you believe in this thing beyond all reason?”

  Moore looked away. His old friend knew him, knew he wasn’t being completely truthful. He caught sight of the blue countdown clock: seven minutes to zero.

  “Now, Arnold!” the president shouted.

  “I touched it,” Moore said finally, the admission feeling like a fool’s last act and a weight off his shoulders all at the same time.

  “I held the damned thing when Danielle brought it back from the Amazon. And since that moment, since that very moment, I’ve had an unshakable sense that this thing, this stone, was sent here to help us. Not to harm us or hurt us, but to save us from something. Maybe from ourselves. The stone affects everyone who touches it that way.”

  For a moment Moore wished he’d let the president touch it. They wouldn’t even be having this conversation. But at the time it had seemed unwise.

  “There are patterns in the signal that mirror brainwave activity,” Moore added. “We think it was done that way on purpose, to give us a message, to condition us and teach us.”

  As Moore spoke, the anger on the president’s face resolved into despair and a look of utter disgust. It became so obvious, so deep-seated and evident, that Moore could not stand to gaze at his old friend. The president offered no challenge, no angry rebuke. He was just done with Moore.

  “You’re relieved,” he said. “Get Stecker in here.”

  CHAPTER 65

  Danielle watched as the cannon fire she’d triggered tore into the second of Kang’s Skycranes, shredding the thin aluminum fuselage and blasting off the tail rotor. The flaming craft came apart and careened into the ground, where it exploded.

  “The third one is running,” Ivan said, turning toward it.

  “Let it go,” Danielle said. “There are men on the ground.”

  “Can you see your friend?” Ivan asked.

  The Hind-D had a camera system with a telescopic lens, designed to sight targets visually and help prevent friendly-fire incidents. She scanned the terrain and saw only Kang’s people and the strange mechanical mules.

  “No!” she shouted.

  “You’re sure he’s not with them?”

  Kang’s people were still pursuing something, still making their way toward the top of the mesa. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Why?”

  “Because once we pass, there will be nothing left down there.”

  “So be it,” she said. “For your brother.”

  And with that, Ivan banked the helicopter fifty degrees, finishing the turn and lining up the figures on the ground. He bore down on them relentlessly and Danielle flipped the toggle to arm the cannon.

  As they thundered in, the men started turning and firing. Danielle pressed the trigger for the cannon and fired a batch of air-to-ground missiles at the same time. The rotary gun blazed away, loosing three hundred shells in five seconds, missiles streaking out from the left and the right. Explosions rocked the terrain, and parallel balls of fire merged into a rising inferno where the men had once been.

  The Hind raced pa
st, pulling up to clear the smoke and flame. Only then did Danielle notice a second group of men.

  “On the left,” she said. “Ten o’clock. Look out!”

  The second group opened fire as they passed. But the Hind was built for low-level combat. Its armor shook off the rifle bullets as if they were BBs. Not so with the rocket-propelled grenade that exploded above their heads.

  The windshield was instantly streaked with oil and fire. Smoke poured in and the helicopter shook like a speeding car that had lost a couple of wheels.

  Ivan tried to control it, but the rotors were damaged. “Hang on!” he shouted.

  Shuddering wildly, the helicopter lurched to the side, spinning and dropping from the air.

  * * *

  Aboard his personal Skycrane, Kang saw the Russian craft go down. His men had done well. “Turn us around,” he ordered.

  “To the men?”

  “No, up on the ridge.”

  He could see a figure near the far side of the mesa, sprinting across it.

  “That’s the one,” he said. “Run him down.”

  The pilot turned the helicopter toward the target and accelerated. “We have no weapons,” he warned.

  Kang shouted above the noise. “Just get me close. I’ll kill him myself.”

  * * *

  In the darkness of Yucca Mountain, Byron Stecker watched Arnold Moore step out of the trailer carrying his suit jacket awkwardly over his shoulder. His gait was slow, as a beaten man’s should be.

  “What’s the word?” Stecker asked, keenly aware that there were less than five minutes to go before the zero state.

  “You win,” Moore said. He nodded toward the rocket sled. “Might want to get that thing ready.”

  Moore shuffled away, moving toward the big wrecker tow truck that had been used to drag the trailer in.

  Stecker grinned and took a moment to soak up the glory of victory. He turned to his staffer. “We have four minutes. Get the sled primed. We’ll need to do this quick.”

  He stepped inside the trailer.

  The screen inside was still glowing with the president’s image. “About damn time, Stecker.”

  “Moore just informed me,” he said. “We’ll destroy the stone immediately.”

  “Good. Contact me when it’s done.”

  The president cut the line and Stecker switched the screen off. He walked to the lab section and opened the door. The room was dark except for the glow of computer screens.

  He stepped toward the viewing platform and nearly slipped.

  “What the hell?”

  Looking down, he saw a puddle of grape soda. Nathanial Ahiga lay sprawled on the floor, semiconscious, with a large welt across his forehead.

  “What the hell happened?” Stecker asked.

  Moaning, Ahiga opened his eyes, but before he could even say a word Stecker realized the truth. He rushed to the observation stand and looked into the vault. The stone was gone.

  Without stopping to help Ahiga, he ran out of the lab and burst through the trailer door, into the tunnel.

  The box truck was rumbling away with Moore inside it.

  “Stop the truck!” he shouted. “Moore has the stone!”

  CHAPTER 66

  Whatever madness was going on behind him, Hawker could only guess at, but as he reached the edge of the cenote, he saw a different problem. The opening was a huge depression, a circular well carved from the granite, two hundred feet across and a hundred feet deep. From the precipice it looked like an open-pit mine flooded with unmoving water.

  “What am I, a cliff diver?” he said aloud.

  At the center he saw the tiny island that Father Domingo had told him about. It looked like the top of a spire, a pillar of stone twenty feet in diameter, with its foundation disappearing into the water, like a bridge stanchion. A set of stairs, carved into the side of the pillar, descended into the water, but no bridge or cable ran to it.

  Apparently it would be a swim and then a climb.

  He noticed a narrow pathway that wound down and around, but he didn’t have time for such a long route. He dropped in over the side, skidding down the slope until he reached a narrow ledge. As he stopped, a sound like thunder roared in above him.

  Looking up, he saw Kang’s Skycrane fan out in a braking action. He expected a sniper to be targeting him from the open door, but instead he saw a man in body armor.

  To his absolute astonishment, the man leaped from thirty feet above, falling toward Hawker and clotheslining him across the chest. The impact sent both of them tumbling down the slope.

  * * *

  Despite Ivan’s efforts, the Russian Hind-D was finished. It crashed and skidded forward on the mesa, sliding to a stop.

  The impact threw Danielle about, but her seat belt held and she was uninjured. She pulled out of her harness, helped Ivan to extricate himself from the wreckage, and then dragged him away as the helicopter began to burn.

  “Are you okay?” she asked

  Ivan shook his head. “My feet,” he said. A quick look told her that both of his ankles were broken. She glanced toward the valley, where Kang’s men had been.

  “Give me your gun!” she demanded.

  Ivan held out the Makarov.

  She grabbed it and crawled toward the edge of the ridge. The last of Kang’s men were headed the other way. Done with the battle. Thank God for that.

  Now to find Hawker.

  She made her way back to Ivan. “You should be safe here,” she said. “Which direction was the line?”

  “West.”

  She looked that way. A thousand yards off, the last of the three Skycranes hung in the air, circling something at a snail’s pace. She saw no sign of Hawker. And yet halfway between her and the hovering copter, she saw something else: a small figure, no more than three feet tall, running across the top of the mesa.

  It was Yuri.

  * * *

  Hawker’s bruising ride stopped on a midlevel outcropping, fifty feet above the water.

  He sprang to his feet and threw a punch toward his attacker’s head, but the man blocked it with his armored wrist and fired a punch into Hawker’s chest that knocked the wind out of him and sent him tumbling backward.

  Landing hard, Hawker coughed uncontrollably and tried to shake off the blow. He’d been in plenty of fights in his life, a lot of them losing ones, but short of being hit with a two-by-four, he’d never felt a shot like that.

  Still hacking, he tried to scramble away, but a hand grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him up. Before he could react, he took a blow to the side of the head and went spiraling down again.

  Hawker looked up at his opponent. The man himself was average and frail looking, but built up around him were hydraulic actuators, padding, and armor that made him into a hulking brute.

  “You are inferior,” the man said.

  The statement rang out like a discovered truth. Not a boast or a threat, but a simple statement of the facts. Hawker couldn’t argue it.

  “You should give me what I want,” the machine-assisted man told him. “I will make your death easier.”

  Breathing hard, Hawker answered. “Why is it … you guys always think … that’s such a good deal?”

  Kang stepped toward him and Hawker spun to one side, delivering a solid kick to the man’s knee. It should have shattered the joint, should have bent the knee sideways, tearing the ligaments to shreds, but the armor and the bracing prevented it from doing any damage at all.

  In response, Kang thrust a knee into Hawker’s ribs. He went flying backward, slid off the ridge, and tumbled down to the lowest of the ledges.

  Kang slid down after him, planting his feet firmly and standing ominously over Hawker.

  Groggy from the last blow and tenuously holding on to consciousness, Hawker crawled a few feet, grabbing a rock from the rubble of the slope.

  Kang reached for him. The hand was like a vise crushing his arm. It yanked him upward. And even as Hawker swung the rock, Kang’s
other arm slammed down on his shoulder.

  Hawker fell to his knees.

  “Give me the stone,” Kang said.

  Too dizzy to speak, too physically exhausted to argue, Hawker looked over the edge, to the water. He saw his own reflection, battered and bleeding; the vanquished man. He saw Kang standing over him, the hulking, victorious machine. He remembered what Father Domingo had said: The Mirror shows us who we are.

  He pulled the backpack off one shoulder.

  “Hurry,” Kang demanded.

  Hawker pulled the other strap off, shook his arm loose, and then wound up and threw it past Kang. It sailed over his head onto the farthest part of the ledge. Kang’s eyes followed it.

  In that instant, Hawker launched himself at Kang. He grabbed the air vents in Kang’s suit of armor, locking on to them like handles, and leaning back with all the strength that remained in his body.

  The two men fell toward the water, shattering the calm surface of the Mirror with a tremendous splash.

  Suddenly more alert, Hawker righted himself. Despite his hope, Kang remained operational. His suit must have been insulated against water. Hawker pushed off him but one of Kang’s mechanically assisted hands locked on to his ankle. With his arms and his free leg, Hawker kicked and stroked for the surface. Kang might even have been doing the same, but the hundred pounds of his armor, hydraulics, and battery packs pulled both of them toward the depths of the well.

  CHAPTER 67

  Byron Stecker rode in a Humvee, chasing Arnold Moore.

  “Shoot him!” he shouted to an air force SP in the back. “Do you hear me? Shoot the son of a bitch!”

  The man leaned out the side of the Humvee, firing with a rifle. But items of equipment, including the heavy vault that the stone had traveled in, were piled up behind the flatbed’s cab. Shells struck the vault repeatedly, but they would never penetrate.