“Stick with the MHV!” Jimmy yelled.
* * *
Major Mitchell saw what Conners saw. He immediately slammed down on his throttle, feeling the PDWE engine pick up the pace.
He had no idea how quickly the fireball was coming. He could still see the curvature of the earth ahead and his altimeter read 112,000 feet.
“Get out of there!” he heard the woman yelling in his headset.
“Damn right,” Mitchell muttered to himself, then he pushed right on the stick. The Thunder Dart began turning, but Mitchell had no idea whether he was avoiding the danger or not.
A second later he knew it was not. He felt his skin begin to crackle and a golden light suffused the cockpit. Mitchell slammed his fist down on a red lever. The entire cockpit shell of the Thunder Dart separated from the main body of the plane, slamming Mitchell against his shoulder harness with such force that he blacked out.
* * *
“Come on, come on,” Conners whispered as the MILSTARS satellite rapidly grew on the screen in front of her. The numbers in the upper right hand corner raced down as the rocket ate up the distance. As the time hit three seconds out, she pulled back on the trigger.
The explosive charge in the MHV ignited. The core of the rocket exploded into thousands of one inch diameter steel ball bearings. They spread out evenly, still moving in the vacuum of space with the original velocity of the rocket, now covering an area over two hundred meters wide.
Over two hundred of the bearings ripped into the MILSTARS satellite, shredding it like a shotgun blast to a tin can.
Conners slumped back in her chair. She looked across her desk at Jimmy who was peering intently at his laptop screen. “Well?”
“I’m downloading.”
Conners hit the switch on her satellite phone. “Foreman, what about the pilot?”
“He ejected his pod. We’re tracking it. I’ll get a rescue moving, but we have no commo.”
“Damn.”
“No one’s ever ejected, even inside a pod, at 3,500 miles an hour,” Foreman noted. “What about the pattern?”
Conners looked over at Jimmy. She knew from the look that came across his face what the answer was, but she waited.
“Negative,” Jimmy said. “The lines cross where the MILSTARS was without interruption. We were too late. There’s too many cross connections. Whatever this thing is, it’s rerouted and it can probably do that faster than we can take out satellites.”
Conners relayed the information. There was a long silence, then Foreman’s voice. “Well, then I guess it’s down to stopping it at the source.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The sleep of the dead, Ariana thought, listening to the uneasy slumber of her fellow prisoners. Having been awake for over twenty-four straight hours and with no course of action available, they had decided to try to get some rest. She’d also ordered Ingram to turn off even the emergency power lights, trying to conserve their batteries as much as possible, leaving the inside of the plane in darkness, other than the two gold beams crossing the main console area and the golden glow coming from Argus’s hardware consoles.
She knew she needed to clear her head and come up with a course of action, but her brain was so tired she could barely think. Still, though, sleep eluded her, as images of Mansor death crowded to the forefront while large snakes slithered about in her subconscious, jaws snapping shut and tongues hissing.
The golden beam in Argus had stopped expanding. Apparently it had accessed everything it needed. They had pulled more access panels off and discovered that a golden beam came out of the back side of Argus’s mainframe and disappeared into the ceiling. Ariana had no doubt that the golden beam she had seen coming out of the rotodome was the same one.
No new gold beams had come into the plane, nor had there been a repeat of the sliding noise. Ariana had described the massive seven-headed snake to the others, but she had seen the uncomprehending looks in their eyes. She knew if it had not been for them hearing the noise earlier they would not believe her at all. As it was, she knew they were giving her the benefit of the doubt in an insane situation, something she wasn’t too happy about.
Ariana turned on her side, trying to get comfortable in her desk chair when she heard a low noise. Someone, or something, was moving through the passageway. Ariana reached down and pulled out the Berretta. As quietly as she could, she checked the chamber, making sure a round was loaded. Then she pulled back the hammer, locking it to the rear. She picked up a mini-mag light from her desktop. Gripping the light and gun tightly, she got out of her chair.
The noise had gone forward, past her compartment to the radio area. She followed, moving stealthily. There was the muffled metal on metal noise of a cabinet being opened.
Ariana held the butt of the gun in her right hand, finger on the trigger and with her left, the mini-mag alongside the barrel. She pressed the on switch for the flashlight as she turned the corner for the communications area.
She caught movement and her finger tightened on the trigger, stopping a hair short of firing as she recognized Hudson crouched over something on the floor.
“Don’t move!” Ariana ordered.
“Jesus!” Hudson exclaimed, blinking in the flashlight’s glow. “You scared the piss out of me.” He started to stand.
“I said don’t move,” Ariana repeated. She stepped forward, the muzzle centered on him.
Hudson froze. “What’s wrong?”
“What are you doing?”
“Just checking on some things,” Hudson said.
“In the dark?” Ariana slid left, keeping the radio man locked in the beam, gun still pointing at him. She wanted to see what he had been working on.
“I didn’t want to wake anyone up,” Hudson said. He reached down for what was lying on the floor. “I just-”
Ariana rapped the muzzle of the gun on the back of his hand, bringing a yelp of pain from Hudson. “I said leave it.” She stuck the gun in his chest. “Back up.”
Hudson put his hands up and pressed back against his main console. Ariana briefly shined the beam down at the floor. A small satellite dish was folded open, sitting on a tiny tripod. She shined the light back in Hudson’s face.
The emergency lights flickered, then came on. Ingram and Carpenter appeared in the corridor, peering into the room.
“What’s going on?” Ingram asked, the other gun held uncertainly in his hand.
“I found our spy,” Ariana said.
“Listen-” Hudson began, but the next words didn’t come out as Ariana stepped close, pressing the muzzle of the gun against his forehead, right between his eyes.
“Did you sabotage the plane?” she hissed.
“No!”
She put pressure on the gun, digging into his skin. “Tell me the truth!”
“I didn’t do anything!”
She nodded toward the satellite dish. “Who were you trying to call?”
“Wait a second,” Ingram said, stepping next to Ariana. “How do you know he’s the spy?”
“It’ll take just the slightest pressure for me to pull this trigger,” Ariana said, keeping her focus on Hudson. “And I really feel like doing just that. If you lie to me now, and I let you live, and I find out you lied, I will make your death very painful. Is that clear?”
Hudson’s eyes locked onto hers. He started to nod, but the gun wouldn’t allow that. “Yes.”
“Are you a spy?” Ariana asked.
“Yes.”
“Who are you working for?”
“Hie-Tech.”
“You were trying to call them with that?” she again nodded toward the dish.
“It’s just a beacon,” Hudson said.
Ariana stepped back from Hudson. He slumped down in his chair, sweat rolling down his flabby cheeks. “I swear, Ariana, I didn’t do anything.” He rubbed his bandaged legs.
“No,” she said, “you just allowed Mansor and I to go out there,” she swung the muzzle of the gun toward the ceiling,
“to run cable to the rotodome satellite dish while you had that in here all the time.”
“I couldn’t bring it out before,” Hudson said. “You would have known then.”
“So you let Mansor die,” Ariana brought the gun to bear on him once more.
“I didn’t know! How could I have known?” Hudson pleaded. “I’m sorry!”
“Hold on!” Ingram said, stepping between the two.
“Get out of the way, Mark,” Ariana ordered.
“Listen to me,” Ingram said. “He says it’s a beacon. Let him turn it on!”
Carpenter spoke for the first time. “Who’s listening for the beacon, Hudson?”
“Hie-Tech has a team near Angkor Wat,” Hudson spoke rapidly. “They’ll home in on the beacon and rescue us.”
Ariana lowered the gun and laughed, but there was a harsh edge to the sound. “Fine. Turn it on. Let them come.”
* * *
“You didn’t have to shove me,” Beasley whined, tenderly touching a long scratch on the side of his face. “I was going to jump.”
“Shut up,” Dane said. His eyes were scanning the surrounding terrain, the M-16 ready in his hands.
The sky above the triple canopy was growing light, but on the jungle floor it was dark, with barely enough visibility to see twenty feet. Dane had gathered in Beasley, helping him climb down. He’d heard the blast from the daisy cutter somewhere to the east, then the sound of the jungle had returned.
They were moving along the track of the aircraft, Dane working from his internal sense of direction. He’d already checked and his compass and watch didn’t work. He knew the Canadians and Freed were along this path. He could even hear someone climbing down not too far ahead.
He felt all the old skills coming back, becoming part of the jungle, one with the flora and fauna. Other than the irritating presence of Beasley and the others, he felt a peacefulness in the immediate area.
And he also felt the shadow to the east, just as he had felt it so many years ago.
* * *
Foreman watched the master board, which showed a downlink from a KH-12 satellite that was tracking the Hie-Tech helicopter. The KH-12 had picked it up as soon as it took off from the company’s base camp outside of Angkor Wat. It was flying a route along the limits of the Angkor Gate. Foreman gave whoever was in charge of the operation some credit; the chopper would get as close as possible to the downed plane before darting in.
Still, the helicopter didn’t really interest Foreman. What he found intriguing was the beacon signal that was drawing the chopper into the Angkor Gate. That the signal was being allowed to escape the electromagnetic anomaly of the Gate was a fact that Foreman found quite chilling. Someone, or something, wanted that helicopter to come.
* * *
“Which way?” Freed asked.
“The watchtower is up there,” Dane said, pointing with the muzzle of his M-16. All they could see was dense jungle in any direction but Dane had no doubt about which way to go. “The stream is on the other side. According to the imagery, the plane is another five klicks past the stream.”
Freed took point, scrambling up the steep slope, Dane following right behind. The Canadians and Beasley struggled to keep up, all in much poorer shape than the two men setting the pace.
Dane didn’t even bother to look over his shoulder. He paused for a second and closed his eyes. He pictured Sin Fen in his mind.
Still there?
He opened his eyes and kept moving.
An image came to him. The airfield they had taken off from. Chelsea and Sin Fen getting off the plane and moving over to a helicopter. In his vision, Sin Fen paused. The image shifted. He saw the satellite overhead. It exploded. Overlaid on the image was the unmistakable message from Sin Fen that the attempt to stop whatever was coming out of the Gate by destroying the satellite had failed.
Dane checked to make sure that he was still right behind Freed, then returned to what he was seeing in his brain. The scene shifted. He saw a helicopter taking off and he knew from the subtext that Sin Fen was projecting, that the helicopter was heading his way and that it was from Hie-Tech.
The helicopter was riding a line. Dane frowned trying to make sense of the image, then he realized the line was a transmission, a radio beacon coming out of the Gate.
He paused, realizing the implications of that. He looked over his shoulder, at Beasley’s sweating face, then turned back to the front.
Dane leaned into the climb, feeling sweat pour down his back, soaking between his shirt and backpack. Then suddenly he broke into the clear, a fresh breeze brushing against his face, drying the sweat. He looked up. The watchtower.
He quickly climbed the remaining distance and joined Freed at the base of the wall. Dane reached out and touched a massive stone block. The stone felt smooth under his fingers, comforting.
“You can’t see a damn thing,” Freed said.
Dane’s momentary good feeling left as he looked in the same direction. The sun was behind them, casting long shadows down into the river valley, but beyond was the thick fog that Dane had seen so long ago. It was even thicker and more impenetrable than he remembered. It stretched south and north as far as he could see on the far side of the river valley.
“Let’s get up top,” Freed startled Dane out of his contemplation.
The Canadians and Beasley broke into the open on the ridge back, all breathing heavily.
“Beasley,” Freed called out. “Come with us. McKenzie, I want a perimeter around the base of this building.”
Dane could see Beasley’s fatigue fade as the scientist took in the watchtower and the ancient stonework.
“This is unbelievable,” Beasley said as he came to the stones.
Freed led the way inside the door, Dane and Beasley following. They took the stairs around the interior wall, Beasley stopping to stare at the carvings. As Dane climbed through to the rampart, he could hear Beasley snapping pictures, his heavy breathing echoing off the old stone.
Dane walked up next to Freed who was peering through his binoculars. The view across the river from the interior rampart wasn’t any clearer, but they could see more of the country-side in the other directions.
“The walls!” Beasley was gasping for breath as he joined them. “There is so much on them. It’s not like Angkor Wat or any of the other sites. This is different! Older. Yes! Definitely older.”
“Take it easy,” Dane said. “You have a heart attack here and it’s a long haul out.”
“But don’t you see?” Beasley really wasn’t talking to anyone. “There’s only sculpture at those places. This has writing!” Beasley turned to Dane and grabbed his shoulders. “It’s writing! An early form of Sanskrit.”
“Can you read it?” Dane asked.
“I can make sense of some of it,” Beasley said.
“Then read it,” Dane ordered. He turned his attention back to Freed. The small black man lowered the glasses, a worried look on his face.
“That’s it,” Dane said in a low voice.
Freed shot him a look. “I guess we-” he paused as they all heard the sound of rotor blades coming from the east.
“Hie-Tech,” Dane said.
“How do you know that?” Freed asked, swinging his binoculars back to his eyes.
“Sin Fen told us, remember.”
“Huey,” Freed said, catching sight of the aircraft. “About two miles away.”
“I’ve got contact on FM!” Hudson yelled.
* * *
Ariana was sitting in a chair across from him, the Berretta loosely held, resting in her lap. She didn’t react like Carpenter and Ingram, both of whom jumped up at the announcement. Mike Herrin had come forward earlier, but he didn’t appear to hear. He was sitting in the corner of the communications area, eyes closed, rocking back and forth, humming to himself in a low voice.
“It’s a helicopter,” Hudson said, pressing the headset against one of his ears. He keyed his FM radio. “Bravo Two Nine, this is
Angler. Bravo Two Nine, this is Angler. Over.”
“Angler?” Ariana asked. “Is that your code name?” Hudson nodded. “How long have you been working for Hie-Tech?” she asked.
“I only agreed to forward them the data from this mission,” Hudson said.
“Piggybacked on the GPS signal,” she said, earning a surprised look from the radio man.
“You knew about that?” Hudson’s attention shifted back to the headset. “Roger, Bravo Two Nine. I can read you broken and distorted. Over.” Hudson said. He held his hand over the mike. “I’m going to put the FM on the speaker.”
He turned back to the radio and hit a switch. “Roger, Bravo Two Nine. We are awaiting your arrival. Our situation is critical and we require immediate assistance. Over.”
A voice came out of the speaker, riding on top of a mixture of popping static. “This is Two Nine. I’ve never seen anything like this. Visibility is bad. We can… read the beacon although… fades out every once in a while. We… four… your… coming… ”
Hudson keyed the mike. “Bravo Two Nine, say again. You are coming in broken and distorted. Over.”
The speaker now issued forth screeching static. “This….. . difficulty… ”
Hudson waited a few seconds. “Bravo Two Nine, this is Angler. Come in. Over.”
There was an ear-shattering screech of static issuing out of the speaker.
* * *
“There it goes,” Freed said as the helicopter banked over their head and swooped down into the valley. It did a run at the wall of fog, curved along it for about a half mile then did a circle over the river, gaining altitude all the time.
“Having second thoughts,” Dane said. His hands were splayed over the stone wall. “They go in, they’re dead.”
Beasley and Freed glanced at each other.
“They’re going in now,” Dane said.
The chopper headed straight for the fog, still gaining altitude. Less than a quarter mile from the edge of the fog, a large circle of gold light appeared around the helicopter. It contracted rapidly, centering on the aircraft. There was a flash of light, then small pieces falling to the jungle below. Seconds later, the sound of the destruction, like a distant peel of thunder, rolled over their location.
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