Mutation

by Michael McBride

  Was it possible Enigma thought the body wearing the eagle mask—a being they believed to be the god Enki—was hidden inside the Hangar and that they could somehow revive him? Had they already succeeded in doing so with the man wearing the mask of the feathered serpent, the Mesoamerican representation of the god Enlil?

  “They couldn’t bring themselves to kill their gods, so they entombed them where they hoped no one would ever find them,” she said. “Or maybe they knew there was no way of killing them because they kept coming back.”

  “What are you talking about?” Roche asked.

  “The ancient Assyrians, the Teotihuacano, and the Atlanteans. They were so terrified of these beings that not only did they hide the bodies, they completely abandoned their civilizations at the height of their prowess.”

  “And you think people like Maddox are collecting their bodies with the intention of bringing them back to life?”

  “I know how it sounds, but after what we saw at USAMRIID, you have to admit there’s a certain logic to it.”

  “So what’s their endgame? Bring them back to life, and then what?”

  Kelly closed her eyes and tried to piece it together. If her theory was correct, the body Subject Z revived in Antarctica wasn’t that of a man at all, but rather that of a woman known as Inanna to the Sumerians, Ishtar to the Assyrians, Isis to the Egyptians, and Ishvara, or Shiva, to the Hindu. Goddess of war. Goddess of death. Goddess of rebirth. Goddess of destruction. Depicted with either the antlers of a deer, an eight-pointed star behind her head, a figure eight of twined cobras on her headdress, or with eight arms. She was the half-sister of the gods Enlil and Enki, Dagon and Nisroch, Osiris and Set, and Vishnu and Brahma. The daughter of Anu, god of all creation. The sky god. The sun god. The giver of life.

  Suddenly, everything made sense.

  The crop circles showed where the gods were entombed. The first map marked the location of the necropolis buried beneath the streets of Mosul. She could only assume that one of the others led to the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, where Enlil’s body was hidden at the heart of the maze. Another surely identified the cavern at the bottom of the world where Inanna had been interred. But the fourth was the most important because, if she was right, it led to the burial site of the supreme being upon whom most religions were based, a deity whose prophesied return heralded the apocalypse about which Hollis Richards had warned Jade.

  Kelly opened her eyes and turned to Roche.

  “They’re trying to bring about the end of the world.”

  36

  EVANS

  Göbekli Tepe

  Evans skidded down the loose talus and scurried behind a rock formation. Crouched and peered around the side. It didn’t appear as though anyone had noticed him. The plane was still thirty feet down and roughly three hundred feet away across the flat desert, with only a dry riverbed in between to conceal their approach. Not that he had any idea what they were going to do if they were even lucky enough to make it that far. It wasn’t like any of them had the ability to commandeer a plane or the tactical skills to prevent what appeared to be a small army from taking off, but they had to try something. Anything. The consequences of failure were simply too great.

  Jade and Anya slid down beside him. Rocks clattered over the edge and bounded down the steep hillside.

  Evans ducked back down and held his breath. Waited for a distant shout of recognition or fusillade of bullets to strike the stone around him. When nothing happened, he risked a quick glance.

  The woman in the golden mask was already halfway up the ramp, while the tall man with the cloak and feathered serpent mask stared through the dust toward Göbekli Tepe and the source of a faint rumbling sound. Several seconds passed before a convoy of panel trucks materialized from the dust, speeding straight toward the plane.

  “We’re only going to get one shot at this,” Evans whispered. “We go on my mark. Keep your heads down and follow this ravine all the way to the bottom. We’ll be totally exposed once we break cover, so get to that dry riverbed as fast as you can.”

  The moment the masked man turned around, Evans gave the signal and jumped out from behind the rock. Dropped into a crevice he prayed was deep enough to at least minimize his profile and worked his way down the escarpment. Clung to the cover of the ravine until he reached the edge of the open desert and surveyed his surroundings.

  A pair of men wearing tactical masks and black fatigues assumed their posts beside the ramp and awaited the trucks barreling toward them. Behind them, the twin engines grumbled to life and the propellers slowly started to turn.

  This was it. Now or never.

  Evans cast a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure the others were still with him, then sprinted across the plains toward the dry riverbed. Sand pelted him in the face, forcing him to lower his head and shield his eyes. He listened for the crack of gunfire, watched for bullets chewing up the ground in front of him. As soon as he was within range, he dove into the shallow trench, scrambled to the far side, and peeked over the bank. The caravan slowed as it neared the plane. Up close, the panel trucks looked like crosses between moving vans and troop transport vehicles, with beds made of canvas stretched over boxlike frames and held in place with bungee cords. Their desert camouflage blended perfectly with the swirling dust and the rocky terrain.

  “What now?” Jade whispered.

  The engine of the plane roared, and the propellers became a blur, kicking up even more dust. Evans had to raise his voice so she could hear him.

  “You two stay here.”

  “The hell we will.”

  “If something happens to me, it’s up to you to contact Roche and make sure he doesn’t let that plane reach its destination.”

  “And just what do you intend to do?”

  It was a good question. One, unfortunately, for which he didn’t have an answer.

  The lead truck eased to the edge of the ramp. Its tires spun in the sand until they gained traction, then launched the vehicle upward. It barely fit into the cargo hold of the plane.

  And just like that, Evans had a plan.

  “Stay here,” he said and crawled over the bank, into the open.

  He paused only long enough to make sure he hadn’t attracted anyone’s attention, then pushed himself up and took off like a sprinter from the blocks, heading straight for the third and final panel truck in line. The wind from the propellers threw up so much sand that he could barely see a thing, and it forced him to lean into it to maintain his course. Dust found its way into his mouth and sinuses, clung to the undersides of his eyelids like sandpaper. Filtered into his chest.

  The plane was little more than a vague black shape, the men guiding the second truck onto the ramp mere silhouettes. Its taillights produced an amoeboid red aura. The driver’s-side window of the third vehicle was opaque with dust, the driver invisible behind it.

  Evans heard men’s voices, shouting to be heard over the engines. The few words he isolated from the tumult were in German, the same language spoken by the men who’d tried to kill them in the cavern and six months ago in Mexico.

  Enigma.

  The second truck crawled up the ramp, its canvas siding flapping in the gale, tearing loose from its tethers in back and exposing the wooden crates inside.

  This wasn’t going to work.

  The third truck started forward.

  Evans waited until he was on the road behind it to correct his course and then ran straight toward the tailgate. Had the side mirrors not been completely coated with dust, he would have been clearly visible to the driver.

  He was within five feet of the truck when he realized that the bed could very well be packed with an entire unit of armed soldiers. And while he might have the element of surprise, it wouldn’t take them very long to recover.

  * * *

  He grabbed the middle bungee cord. Unlatched it. Lifted the canvas just far enough to squeeze underneath. Scurried inside and took in everything around him at a glance.


  There were no troops staring down at him, but that was about all he could tell for sure. Scant light passed through the canvas, barely enough to offer the faint impression of the crates stacked all around him. He wriggled between them and drew his legs inside. Turned around and reached back to reattach the bungee—

  Jade’s face appeared within inches of his and he nearly shouted in surprise.

  “Move,” she whispered and crawled in right on top of him.

  “I told you two to—”

  Anya grabbed him by the arm and used him as leverage to pull herself inside.

  The truck jerked forward and nearly sent them tumbling right back out.

  “What are you doing?” Evans whispered.

  “They would have caught us for sure out there,” Jade whispered. “Besides, where were we supposed to go?”

  “Someplace where you could contact the Hangar—”

  “This plane would have already reached its destination by the time we got there,” Anya said.

  “You two are going to be the death of me.”

  A voice. On the other side of the canvas. Mere feet away.

  Evans scooted backward and watched the rear, where the canvas remained open just far enough to reveal a crescent of the road behind them. It was too late to strap it back down now. If either of the men outside decided to take a quick peek, they were screwed.

  The guard pounded the driver’s side door and the truck juddered up the ramp.

  Evans felt the crate behind him start to slide and braced his feet against the tailgate. Strained to keep it from shoving him toward the opening, through which he saw the legs of a man walking up the ramp behind the truck. Evans was certain he’d been seen and prepared to hurl himself at the guard before he could raise his weapon, but the man simply pulled down the canvas and secured it to the frame once more, stranding them in darkness.

  The truck leveled off and sat there, idling.

  Evans released a shuddering breath and slumped back against the crate. Felt around him until he found a gap and inched deeper into the cargo to find a less visible location.

  The ramp rose behind them with a hydraulic whine, and the plane started to roll.

  Jade bumped into his knees. He spread his legs to accommodate her hips and she scooted right up against him.

  “This was a really stupid idea, you know that?” she whispered.

  He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder. She placed her trembling hand on his forearm, revealing just how scared she was.

  “We’re going to get through this,” he whispered into her ear.

  She turned as best she could. Her lips found his, and he kissed her with an urgency that surprised even him. There was nothing like being in the jaws of death to remind one how precious life was.

  Her teeth struck his and he recoiled.

  “Sorry,” Anya whispered and practically climbed into both of their laps.

  Evans gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and tried to settle into a position he could maintain for an extended period of time.

  The plane accelerated until the nose tipped up and he felt the ground falling away below them. He heard the scream of wind shear, the whine of the landing gear retracting.

  And prayed no one decided to check on the cargo.

  37

  BARNETT

  La Venta

  The rain had started as a drizzle that barely penetrated the canopy but had quickly escalated to a torrential downpour. Fog had settled into the treetops, a smothering mist that crept lower with every passing mile, descending upon them like a deflating parachute. The animals that had served as their early-warning system had taken to the trees or scurried into their burrows to ride out the storm. Only the occasional bird cried out in distress at their intrusion, while they passed drenched monkeys clinging to the boughs without raising an alarm.

  Barnett could think of nothing worse than navigating hostile and unfamiliar terrain under such claustrophobic weather conditions. Other than being hunted in the process, of course. The creatures racing through the jungle in their direction might have been their greatest concern, but they weren’t their only one.

  They’d been trying to reach the Hangar for several hours and had yet to talk to anyone on the inside. The bunker had been designed to outlast an extended nuclear winter and, as such, had been equipped with countless redundant measures, including both internal and external backup generators capable of powering all subterranean equipment and communications systems, for a full week and essential life-support functions for ninety days after that. It had been set up on a completely separate grid from the rest of the base and grounded in a way that blocked catastrophic electrical surges from any external source, everything from the main power lines to a low-altitude electromagnetic pulse. Even the worst-case scenario promised a delay of fewer than three seconds between the termination of the main power and the reserve generators kicking in, which registered as little more than a blip on any of the computer screens. A prolonged silence like this could mean only one thing . . .

  The Hangar had fallen.

  That revelation brought with it a new set of problems. The fact that their adversaries had chosen this of all days to go on the offensive confirmed that tonight’s lunar eclipse was of paramount importance to them, and despite its vast resources and brainpower, Unit 51 had yet to determine why. They’d been at a distinct disadvantage from the start, especially when it came to intel, seemingly two steps behind at any given juncture, but now things had become exponentially worse. Enigma now possessed every iota of information Unit 51 had amassed, including the data that had led them to Göbekli Tepe on the other side of the world and the ancient Olmec city just ahead of them through the trees. He and Morgan needed to be prepared for a decidedly more human threat, as well, one that could very well have access to Dr. Clarke’s remote sensing data and a helicopter, which could be thundering toward them with a heavily armed tactical team at this very moment.

  And while he was confident that their adversaries were raiding their databases, he had a feeling that wasn’t why they’d chosen today to make their move on the Hangar. He didn’t know how they’d found out about it, but he was certain they’d come for what he had locked in the vault, presumably for the same reason Subject Z was bringing UNSUB X to La Venta on this specific day. Something big was about to happen and he couldn’t have been more poorly prepared.

  The terrain grew steeper, forcing them to use the trees for balance to keep from slipping in the mud. At the crest of the hill, they were afforded a decent view of the valley below them from the anonymity of a wall of shrubbery. The archeological site stretched out ahead of them, a narrow, mist-shrouded meadow struggling to hold the encroaching jungle at bay.

  He recognized the buried pyramid and the various monuments from the satellite images. To the north, the nine-foot-tall colossal stone heads watched over the collapsed basalt columns that had once formed Complex A. In its prime, the ceremonial center had been paved with ornate serpentine stones that glimmered like emeralds and housed the earliest known carving of the feathered serpent god, a deity venerated throughout Mesoamerica. And, as Barnett knew all too well, a species of dinosaur capable of surviving in a state of suspended animation for millennia. But it wasn’t the creature in the primitive carving that had summoned them to this place; it was the figure depicted alongside it: a stylized man holding a canister identical to those memorialized in petroglyphs throughout Mesopotamia. And if their assumptions about the crop-circle maps were correct, then that canister, whether literally or metaphorically, represented an object of great importance, one he desperately needed to find.

  Of course, that sculpture, like most of the other artifacts, offerings, and grave goods exhumed from this site, had found its way into a museum, taking with it whatever clues it might once have held as to the location of the canister, which, he sincerely hoped, contained the means of eradicating Subject Z and its drones. “The city was designed to align w
ith Polaris, roughly eight degrees off due north,” Barnett said. He consulted the GPS map on his tablet. “So we need to head down . . . there.”

  He pointed at a dense section of rainforest to the east.

  “Do we have any idea what we’re looking for yet?” Morgan asked.

  “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

  Morgan nodded and turned away, presumably so his expression didn’t betray his growing concern. Barnett switched to Dr. Clarke’s remote sensing map. He could easily pick out the shape of the forest below him as well as the subterranean features buried underneath it. There were definitely man-made structures down there, and what almost looked like passageways connecting them, although their borders were still poorly defined. He couldn’t tell how far down they were, whether they were hollow or filled with earth, or even how the hell they were supposed to get inside. Chances were when the Olmec abandoned and buried this city, they hadn’t anticipated anyone ever finding it or trying to get inside. And they certainly hadn’t planned on a bloody jungle growing on top of it.

  He wiped the raindrops from the screen with his forearm, tucked it inside his jacket, and shouldered his rifle.

  “Let’s get this over with.”

  The two of them worked their way down through the trees, conscious of every sound: every twig snapping underfoot, every branch raking their fatigues, every sigh of the wind through the canopy. They were fortunate the rain had driven away whatever tourists might have lingered in the ruins through the afternoon. They had enough on their plates without having to worry about civilian casualties. Not that there was really anything they could do about it anyway. Subject Z could easily mow through any number of unarmed men by itself, and their adversaries had already demonstrated their willingness back in Teotihuacan to slaughter everyone in their way.