The other eleven bogeys nosed over and picked up even more speed as they branched out, five heading toward the Stennis and one each toward each of the accompanying ships in the battle group.
The Stennis had only four 20mm Vulcan Phalanx guns for close-in protection. The escort ships were more heavily armed, and as they were on the outside, they began firing first. Unfortunately, they had the same problem as the jets—the Phalanxes were normally radar aimed and automatically fired. In this emergency, they were being manually fired and aimed by eye.
The cruiser Champlain scored a direct hit on one of the F-18s heading toward the Stennis, the round smashing into the cockpit, killing the human pilot. The plane spiraled down toward the ocean out of control.
From his bridge, Robinette watched events unfold, and before the first explosion he realized what the enemy’s plan was. The Champlain was the first to be hit, an F-18 flying straight into its bridge, killing the entire command group.
“Kamikazes!” Robinette exclaimed as more F-18s hit his escort ships. He saw one coming in low over the water, directly for his bridge. He could see the line of tracers as one of the Phalanxes tried to hit it. A second later, just before the F-18 reached the bridge, the fuel canister slung below each wing popped open, a fog of black spreading out from each. Then the F-18 slammed into the bridge.
• • •
It took the air wing forty minutes to return to the task force. CAG circled overhead surveying the ships. He could see damage on some of them, but they were all afloat. He tried to contact the Stennis, but the radios were still out. He did a fly-by, low over the deck, and was startled to see no one moving about. There was no signal officer to wave him in for landing. It was as if the ship were deserted. He could also see the damage to the bridge. He circled once more, the rest of the air wing waiting overhead, fuel levels dropping.
“The hell with it,” CAG muttered. He didn’t need a signal officer to land. He’d done hundreds of carrier landings and he could see that the wires were ready. He leveled off, reduced throttle, and came in for a perfect landing as his tailhook caught the first wire. He was slammed forward against the restraints as the F-18 came to an abrupt halt.
He cursed as he slid back the canopy and saw no crew members rushing to his plane to clear it for the next jet to land. He unbuckled and climbed out of the cockpit, down to the flight deck. It was unnerving to be standing there with no one else about when the flight deck was normally a bustle of activity.
Then he noticed that the damage on the bridge island was changing, appearing as if it were slowly repairing itself. A sailor appeared in a hatchway, staggering toward CAG, arms held out. There were others behind him, their eyes vacant and dull.
CAG turned and ran down the flight deck toward the rear of the ship. His second in command was coming in low and level, doing a fly-by to see what was happening. CAG swung his arms, the classic wave-off signal.
CHAPTER 20
Qian-Ling, China
Ts’ang Chieh knelt in front of the large black door, backed up by two hundred Airlia in flowing robes. One by one, each Airlia went to the door and inserted his or her spear/sword into a slot five feet off the floor, just to the right of the center seam. The Airlia would then go back to his or her place and kneel.
As each sword or spear was inserted, the door began to glow. Golden bands rose from the floor upward. When the last Airlia slid his spear into the slot, the door became completely golden, bathing all those who knelt in front of it with its glow. Heads bowed as the large doors began to swing open. Lexina prostrated herself, the other Ones Who Wait following suit.
When the doors were completely open, she risked a glance up. A single black tube, resting in a silver cradle, was set on an altar of clear crystal. The top of the tube slid back. Ts’ang Chieh went to the right of the altar, picked up a robe, and stood perfectly still, waiting.
An alien hand grasped the side of the tube, six fingers pulling. A tall Airlia with long flowing red hair appeared, and long legs slid over the side of the tube, touching the ground. Artad stood as Ts’ang Chieh brought forward the robe, wrapping it around Artad’s shoulders.
Ts’ang Chieh cried out something in the alien tongue and the two hundred Kortad replied with one voice. Lexina’s body was shaking, tears flowing down her cheeks. This was the moment her people had waited over two hundred generations for.
They were no longer The Ones Who Wait.
Area 51, Nevada
On the main screen of the Cube, Larry Kincaid could watch the progress of the bouncer carrying Turcotte as it raced across the Atlantic, but his entire being was caught up in the grid problem Che Lu had given him. The computer had gone through all twenty-four points and then all possibilities for a second hit on Easter Island without success. He’d reprogrammed it to initiate at Giza with the second hit to be Qian-Ling.
He’d already considered the possibility that the guardian computers at those locations had been moved there after the grid points were recorded, but again that did him no good. He had to think of possibilities that might work, not ones that were non-starters.
If the grids had been manipulated by a number code—for example, each one moved slightly—that wouldn’t make a difference because the points would still line up. Unless it was a graduated number code where the number change shift depended on the original number, but that seemed very complicated unless it was a set code the Airlia used all the time. In which case, he was again down a dead-end path.
He had a feeling the solution was right in front of him, but he just wasn’t seeing it.
• • •
“We will be there in fifteen minutes.” Turcotte’s voice echoed out of the speaker in the center of the conference table. “Have a copy, of all that has been translated from Burton’s manuscript ready for me, particularly anything about The Mission.”
“We’ll do that,” Yakov said. “We’ll see you shortly.” The speaker went dead and the Russian turned to Che Lu. The news that the entire Space Command team had been wiped out and Duncan was in the hands of Aspasia’s Shadow did nothing to lighten a mood that was already heavy. “We still have not found anything to help him with. We have an idea what the Grail’s effect is, but it is now in Aspasia’s Shadow’s hands.”
• • •
The main screen in the Cube showed the airfield above, a video camera tracking the bouncer as it hovered and moved toward Hangar One. Larry Kincaid barely spared it a glance as he focused on the rotating sphere covered with red dots filling the computer screen in front of him.
When he’d first started working in the space program in the sixties, his immediate supervisor had always emphasized what he called “reverse thinking.” If an engineer ran into a problem that he couldn’t get through within a reasonable amount of time, the suggestion was to try to look at the problem the opposite way one had been approaching it.
What was the opposite of a point on a sphere? Kincaid asked himself. Then he saw it.
• • •
Mike Turcotte’s head felt heavy; his thought processes were slow and fragmented, like sand pouring through an hourglass.
“My friend!” Yakov held out a hand to help Turcotte off the edge of the bouncer. “You do not look well.”
The hangar was almost deserted, a stark contrast to the normal bustle of activity that had gone on here for decades.
“What have you learned?” Turcotte asked.
“We have much of the manuscript translated,” Yakov said. He gestured toward the elevator and led the way as he spoke. “We have learned bits and pieces, but the exact composition of the Grail and the location of The Mission have eluded us so far.”
“Easter Island?” Turcotte asked as the elevator doors slid shut.
“Nothing from Kelly Reynolds since the last message,” Yakov answered. “The SEALs have not reported back and are presumed lost. And to top all that, contact with the naval Task Force has been lost.”
“What about imagery of the Task Force?�
� Turcotte asked.
“The ships are there,” Yakov said. “They just aren’t communicating. Most of the air wing of your carrier the Stennis is flying north, toward Hawaii. Of course, they do not have the fuel to make it. Your people in the Pentagon are scrambling some tankers to try to reach them, but Major Quinn tells me they will all have to ditch before that happens.”
Turcotte tried to make sense of this startling information. “Why aren’t they landing on the Stennis?”
“Because, my friend, we believe that the nanovirus has taken over the entire Task Force.”
“All of it?”
“It appears so.”
“Well—” Turcotte was trying to sort through the situation. “That’s the Pentagon’s responsibility,” he finally said. Yakov’s thick eyebrows arched in surprise.
“Aspasia’s Shadow is with Duncan. He runs things. We stop him, we stop the Guides and all the rest,” Turcotte said. “So you hope,” Yakov said.
“China?” Turcotte asked, trying to change the subject. “Nothing there to report.”
Turcotte leaned against the smooth metal wall as the elevator descended. The words of Aspasia’s Shadow echoed in his mind, a ripple of uncertainty and disquiet. “So we don’t know how to proceed,” he summarized.
“It appears that—” Yakov began, but the elevator came to a halt and the heavy doors opened, revealing Larry Kincaid, a piece of clear acetate in his hand.
“I’ve got it!”
“Got what?” Turcotte came off the wall as if jolted by electricity.
“The grid system,” Kincaid said. “The one Che Lu translated. Some of the points are to throw you off, or maybe there’s something there that hasn’t been found—but Giza, Easter Island, Qian-Ling—they all line up. And there’s other points.” He was talking so quickly no one had a chance to get a word in edgewise until he paused for breath.
“The Mission?” Turcotte asked.
“Well, it’s probably one of these points, I don’t know which one. Let me show you what I have.” Kincaid headed for the conference room, the others anxiously following.
As they settled in around the table, Kincaid dimmed the lights and put the acetate on an overhead projector.
A Mercator conformal projection of the planet was illuminated, along with dots all over the surface. Several were starred.
“Giza.” Kincaid used a laser pointer to highlight one of the starred points. “Qian-Ling. Easter Island. Tiahuanaco in Bolivia, where Majestic found the guardian it moved to Dulce. Ngorongoro. They are all there, exactly pinpointed.”
“How did you do it?” Che Lu asked.
Kincaid smiled. “The points you deciphered were encoded, but it was simple once I uncovered the key. The points you had from Nabinger were where a line, perpendicular to the interior Earth’s surface at that spot, was to be projected through the planet to the opposite side of the globe.”
Turcotte was looking at all the dots. Several were in the Middle East, not far from Giza. As he expanded his search, there were others in Asia, Europe, Africa—any of which could be The Mission, if The Mission was at one of these ancient locations.
“Anyone have an idea which one of these might be where The Mission is now?” he asked those in the room.
Kincaid’s smile lost some of its luster. “Well, some of these, like I said, I think are bogus. There’s a couple in the middle of the ocean. I just had this printed out, so I haven’t really had a chance to check each spot out. I just wanted to be sure I’d figured it out right.”
Che Lu was peering at the map. “We must examine each site.”
“There’s a lot of spots,” Turcotte said. “We could—” He was interrupted by Professor Mualama, whom everyone had forgotten about, hidden behind his large computer monitors.
“I think I know where The Mission is.” He walked to the front of the room. A long finger reached out to touch the lone dot on the peninsula between Egypt and Israel. “Here. Mount Sinai.”
The location immediately made sense to Turcotte in terms of the direction the two helicopters had been spotted heading by the AWACS before it was destroyed, but he wondered how he had decided on it. “Why there?”
“The Kabbalah!” Yakov said. He turned to Turcotte. “One of the chapters of Burton’s manuscript said the Ark and Grail traveled to Mount Sinai after leaving Egypt during the Exodus.”
“There’s another mention of Mount Sinai in the chapter I just finished translating,” Mualama said.
“Let’s see it.” Turcotte’s exhaustion had fallen by the wayside.
The overhead was turned off and the computer screen came alive as Yakov quickly scrolled down to get to the new chapter.
BURTON MANUSCRIPT: CHAPTER 8
I was sent to Damascus to fulfill my duties to the Crown. As is my wont, I spent considerable time in the native part of the cities, leaving the foreign section as often as possible.
I became entranced with a woman—as was also my wont in my younger days. I saw her only briefly one evening, highlighted against a second-story window as I traveled the streets to a haven where I spent many an evening, but that was more than enough. Rarely in all my travels had I seen such a perfect form. My interest piqued, I inquired as to the occupants of the house and learned it belonged to a rather important trader.
Under the guise of my consular duties, I called on the trader the next day. His name was Ibrahim Al-Issas. The woman was his mistress, I quickly learned. He sensed my interest in her, and in the way of that part of the world, offered her to me.
Her name was Kazin, an exotic combination of Arab and French blood. We had long and interesting conversations, as she had been a courtesan for many important men in Damascus for over a dozen years, and knew much of the inner workings of that part of the world. I found her intelligence outshone her magnificent beauty.
She was a student of the holy works ranging from the Bible to the Torah to the Koran to the Kaballah. I found her insights into the various writings most intriguing.
One day she mentioned a name that froze the blood in my veins. We were discussing men of power in the area, and she said there was a man who wielded much strength, but always from the shadows, so far in the darkness that no one rightly knew what he looked like. She said his name was Al-Iblis.
I told her of meeting Al-Iblis in Medina, although I did not tell her the results of that meeting. She said that he ruled from a place called The Mission.
When I inquired if she knew the location of The Mission, she did a most strange thing. She recited several lines and told me if I could discover what work they were from, I would have my answer. They were:
“Take care not to go up the mountain or even to touch the edge of it. Any man who touches the mountain must be put to death. No hand shall touch him; he shall be stoned or shot dead; neither man nor beast may live.”
There was perfect stillness in the conference room. Yakov’s finger hit the scroll key, but there was nothing further. Turcotte spun in his chair toward Mualama. “Where’s the rest?”
“I don’t have it translated yet.”
Turcotte’s fist slammed down onto the tabletop. “I thought you said this mentioned Mount Sinai? I don’t see it.”
“You have to know where that quote is from and what it refers to,” Mualama quietly replied, a bucket of cold water on Turcotte’s anger.
“Where is it from?” Yakov asked.
“The Old Testament,” Mualama said. “Exodus 19.”
That clicked in Turcotte’s mind, connected with what he had just read in the manuscript. “Mount Sinai?”
Mualama nodded. “Yes.”
Turcotte spun toward Major Quinn. “I want a complete target folder for Mount Sinai—and I want it yesterday.”
“Already on it.” Quinn was looking down at his handheld organizer, typing on the small keys.
Turcotte was moving toward the door, barking more orders at Quinn. “I want a bouncer ready to move in five minutes with another TASC-suit, as close as t
hey can get to my size, with an MK-98. And I want whatever fire support you can get us in the Sinai.” He pulled his SATPhone out. “I’ll coordinate directly with Sherev for ground troops and choppers.” Yakov and Quinn were right on his heels.
As the door swung shut behind them, only Che Lu and Mualama were left in the conference room. The old Chinese professor was shaking her head.
“What’s wrong?” Mualama asked.
“Men.” Che Lu shook her head again. “Always action first, thinking later. I suggest you translate the next chapter of Sir Burton’s manuscript.”
“I’m sure Kazin was referring to Mount Sinai,” Mualama said defensively.
“I agree with you,” Che Lu said. “But no one has stopped to think about what we just read. Why would this strange woman so easily tell Burton the location of The Mission, information that has been guarded so tightly for millennia? And the question above that—how did she know where it was? Obviously, Burton didn’t stop to think either over a hundred years ago. We need to find what the result of his lack of foresight was, or else history may well repeat itself.”
“What are you really looking for?” Mualama demanded of her.
Che Lu was surprised at the tone in his voice. “I want to uncover the truth so we may move forward.”
“The truth?” A strange grin twisted Mualama’s face, as if forced from within. “You work for Artad, don’t you?”
“I work for no one. I am like you, an archaeologist who is—”
“Then why are you so anxious that mankind ally with Artad?” Mualama cut her off.
“I just think it would be the wisest course,” Che Lu said.
“They question me,” Mualama said, indicating the space around him, “but they don’t question you. Why did you go to Qian-Ling in the first place? How did you get authority to enter when no one has ever received such permission in thousands of years?” He leaned forward, causing the old woman to step back in fear. “I think you lie too, Professor.”
Without another word, Mualama went back to the manuscript. As he turned, Che Lu noted once more a small spot of blood on his ear. She hurried from the conference room, leaving Mualama alone.
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