“You are ignorant,” Merlin said.
“What will you do with the sword?” Brynn turned the subject from things he knew nothing of.
“Take it — and the sheath that contains it — far from here. And hide it well in a place where men — and those who pretend to be men — cannot easily get to it.”
“There is no reason for me to believe you,” Brynn said as he turned back toward the doorway.
“I was wrong.” Brynn paused.
Merlin continued. “We should not get involved with these creatures and their war among themselves. We do not have the power for that.”
“And?” Brynn demanded. “That is the Watcher’s credo. To watch. Not to act. Which you violated.”
“And that is wrong also,” Merlin said. “We must not just watch. We must act. But not in the way I did, trying to imitate these creatures, allying with one side or the other. I thought Arthur—” He shook his head. “I was misled, as the priests of old were. We must keep ourselves separate. Completely separate. And fight them when we have to and when we can do so with a chance of victory.” “What does that have to do with the sword?” Brynn asked.
“It is a thing each side needs in order to win the civil war,” Merlin said. “And now they know of this place and it is easily accessible. That is why Excalibur must be removed. It can not be found by Aspasia’s Shadow or Artad’s followers or others, even more evil, who would seek to destroy it.” Brynn’s face paled. “The Ancient Enemy?”
Merlin nodded.
“I thought that was just a myth made up by the priests. Like the Christians have their Satan opposing their God.”
“There is always some truth in every myth,” Merlin said.
Brynn ran a hand through his beard, obviously shaken.
“You say it is the rule of the Watchers only to watch,” Merlin said. “Then how did Excalibur and the Grail come here in the first place?”
“They have traveled far over the ages. Joseph of Arimathea brought them here for safekeeping from Jerusalem.”
“And did he not violate the rules of your order by doing so?” Brynn reluctantly nodded.
“Then let me right that wrong and remove them from here. Then you can go back to watching.”
“Excalibur is safe now,” Brynn said with little remaining conviction. “I know that—”
Merlin cut him off. “The Grail has been sent away. The sword must be sent away also. They came here to retrieve Arthur’s ka, didn’t they?”
Brynn slowly nodded. “Yes. The Ones Who Wait.” “Then they know this place. They will be back.” “It is what I fear,” Brynn admitted.
“They can always find the sword here,” Merlin said, “but I can put it in a place that will be difficult, if not impossible, for them or any others to find and bring back.”
Brynn frowned. “Where?”
“On the roof of the world where someone might be able to reach it, but never survive long enough to be able to bring it back down.”
“Where is this roof?”
“Do not concern yourself with that.” Merlin smiled. “You have nothing to fear if the sword isn’t here.”
This last bit of logic finally came home to rest with the Watcher. “Come.” Brynn indicated for Merlin to follow him.
CHAPTER 4: THE PRESENT
Area 51, Nevada
Turcotte opened the door to the med lab and jerked his thumb toward the hallway. “Leave,” he ordered the doctor.
“I don’t think you have the—”
Turcotte had his 9mm pistol out of the holster and pointed at the man in the white coat before he could finish the sentence.
“Leave,” Turcotte repeated, pulling the hammer back with his thumb as punctuation.
The doctor scuttled out of the room, the door swinging shut behind him.
Turcotte threw the file folder he’d been given by Major Quinn onto the examining table on which Lisa Duncan was sitting. “Read.”
She picked up the folder and opened it. She had barely begun to peruse it when she started shaking her head.
“What?” Turcotte demanded.
“This can’t be right.”
“Why would someone make it up?” Turcotte asked.
She looked at him. “Why have you been checking on me?” “I haven’t. Quinn has. And apparently he was right to.”
Duncan frowned. “But this”—she shook the folder—“isn’t correct. I am who I am.”
“When was the last time you saw your son?” Turcotte asked. The frown deepened as she tried to remember.
Turcotte didn’t give her much time to think. “Was it before you ordered me to go to Area 51? Before all this started?”
She slowly nodded. “Yes. We’ve been so busy since the discovery that—”
“You had time to see him if you had made the time,” Turcotte said. “When we were together at your house in the Rockies. I should have known something was strange. I was there but he wasn’t. You told me he was with his father, your ex- husband. But there is no father — and no son.”
Duncan’s pale face flushed red with anger. “I have a son.” “No, you don’t.”
“That can’t—”
Turcotte cut her off. “Why did you order me to go to Area 51?”
“There were reports of irregularities at Area 51,” Duncan said. “My son—” she began, but he cut her off once more.
“Quinn hasn’t found any of those reports. And he was part of Majestic’s support team. He knows how tight security was. And he knows there were no leaks.” Turcotte reached over and took the file from her hands. “And you were appointed as scientific adviser via paperwork — no one ever interviewed you. Hell, your entire background is a fraud. No one cared who the hell the national science adviser was. No one checked. In fact, it appears that someone used Majestic’s clearance to get you the slot, yet Quinn has found no record of Majestic doing that. What better way to get someone after Majestic than by using their own security clearance?”
“No.” Duncan was shaking her head. “No. I—” She fell silent, overwhelmed.
“Who are you?” Turcotte asked. The strain of the past several weeks, of combat, of seeing men die, of winning battles against the aliens and their minions but always seeming to be behind in the war, was too much for him. He stepped up next to the table, his face close to Duncan’s, his voice rising. “Who are you? Why have you done all this?” His hands were on her shoulders, shaking her. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I don’t. I don’t!”
Turcotte blinked, let go of her, and stepped back. Tears were streaming down Duncan’s face. He went backward until his legs hit a chair and he collapsed into it. He put his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees. His body began shaking. Abruptly he stood, sending the chair flying. He grabbed the door and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Yakov, Che Lu, and Mualama were in the hallway. The Russian stepped in front of him. “My friend—”
“I am not your friend,” Turcotte snapped. He poked a finger in the Russian’s chest when the man refused to move. “Your ‘friend’ Katyenka betrayed us in Moscow. You came back here with a bug on you. You shot her—” He jerked a thumb at the door behind him. “What do you know that you haven’t told me?” He spun toward Che Lu. “And you? Why did you suddenly decide to go into Qian-Ling? Convenient timing there. Right after Majestic was compromised.” Then he turned on Mualama. “And following Burton? Lying to us about being a Watcher. Telling us about his manuscript in bits and pieces and only the parts you want to.” He shoved Yakov out of the way. “I’m done with all of you.”
Turcotte made a beeline for the outer door and walked into the bright Nevada sunshine. He blinked, his eyes smarting. At first he thought it was the light, but when he put his sunglasses on they still hurt. He realized he was crying. Turcotte walked away from Area 51 toward the desert.
Qian-Ling, China
The Silk Road was the first connection between East and West in the an
cient world. It stretched over four thousand miles from Xian in the northwest of China, across the north China Plain, through the Pamirs and the Karakoram Range to the walled city of Samarkand, across the great desert to Damascus and on to the Mediterranean ports of Alexandria and Antioch. From there ships could sail on to Greece and Rome and traders could travel the land routes inside those kingdoms.
It was the route that Marco Polo traveled for three years to become the first Westerner to see the Inner Kingdom of China, but that was long after the road had been established. The Silk Road was also the path that the Black Death had taken in the opposite direction hundreds of years later in the fourteenth century. Historians had traced the deadly track of the bubonic plague from China, along the Silk Road, to Mediterranean ports and on to the rest of Europe. In five years it killed over twenty-five million people, reducing the human population of the planet by one-third. Percentagewise it was the most devastating event ever to strike mankind, far eclipsing the devastation of the world wars centuries later.
And it had started right there in Qian-Ling — an attempt by Artad’s followers to strike at the Mission’s growing power in Europe and the Middle East and level the playing field. And the Mission had just recently tried the same thing in South America in an attempt to wipe out mankind and pave the way for Aspasia’s arrival from Mars — an attempt that was stopped at the last minute by Mike Turcotte.
When China was young, the balance of power was in the West, and Xian was the capital city. The first true ruler of China, the Yellow Emperor Shi Huangdi, held sway there during his reign. In reality, Shi Huangdi had been a Shadow of Artad. According to legend, when he died, he was buried in a massive tomb, larger than even the Great Pyramid of Giza. This tomb was called Qian-Ling. A man-made mountain, over three thousand feet high, Qian-Ling, like Area 51 and the Great Pyramid, was more than it appeared to be. In reality the Shadow had simply returned to the place where he had been “born,” and his memories absorbed.
Deep inside was an Airlia base, complete with a guardian computer. It was also the site where Artad, leader of one side of the Airlia, had gone into hibernation along with his followers. The outside of the mountain was now blackened soil, the foliage stripped bare by the Chinese government’s detonation of a nuclear weapon in a vain attempt to destroy the alien base. However, the same type of shield wall that protected Easter Island had limited the effect of the blast to the charring of the surface around the shield.
Inside the alien base, Lexina, the leader of the Ones Who Wait, had managed to gain entry to the lowest level of Qian-Ling and resurrect Artad and his followers. Now they were ignored as Artad accessed the guardian, assessing the situation in the outside world.
Artad was Airlia, standing almost seven feet tall and looking almost exactly like the Horus statue that had once guarded the entrance between the paws of the Great Sphinx. Red hair, red elongated eyes, six fingers, disproportional body — all indicated his alien heritage.
Artad rapidly processed information concerning the ten thousand years since he had gone into deep sleep, until he was current on the present situation: Aspasia’s Shadow was moving, using the power of the humans. He cloaked his forces with a shield that rendered them practically impervious to the weapons of the humans. Infecting those humans his forces contacted with a nanovirus to control them.
Artad did a search of the guardian’s database and frowned when he didn’t get the answer he was looking for. He stepped away from the guardian and went out of the chamber. His Kortad, Airlia who had come to Earth with him so long ago, were lined up, awaiting his orders.
“Excalibur?” he asked Ts’ang Chieh, the human court adviser from the days when his Shadow ruled as the Emperor Shi Huangdi, commander of all the known world. While he had been working the guardian, Ts’ang Chieh had been outside the chamber questioning Lexina.
“The key to the Master Guardian?” “Yes.”
“The humans — the Watchers, or those who had been Watchers — hid it long ago. So long ago that it is only a myth now.”
A strange look crossed Artad’s face, what in a human might have been considered a smile. “Foolish.” He crossed the chamber to a control panel. He waved his hands over it and a series of hexagons were backlit with runes written on them. Artad tapped out a code on the hexagons.
Mount Everest
Near the top of the highest point on the planet three dead bodies lay on a narrow ledge in front of a frozen chamber that was little more than a four-foot- deep indentation at the top of an almost sheer cliff face. They were suddenly bathed in a red light as the sheath in which Excalibur’s blade was encased powered up. The glow was refracted by the ice around the crystal and pulsed out into the atmosphere.
Qian-Ling
A red hexagon in the upper right-hand corner of the panel came alive. Artad nodded ever so slightly, then tapped in a new code. The wall in front of him shimmered and went white. A circular image appeared, coming into focus until it was obvious it was the planet as if seen from space. Artad tapped the red hexagon and the planet quickly rotated, then froze in position with a red flashing dot on the surface. He tapped the red hexagon again and the image grew larger. The location was on the border between Nepal and Tibet, in the midst of the Himalayas.
Artad nodded — it made sense they would hide it there. While Excalibur was in the sheath no mechanical transportation could come within several miles of it, a safeguard built into the system so that he — or anyone else — couldn’t send a craft to swoop in and pick it up. The Watchers had placed it in the most inaccessible location on the face of the planet. There was only one way to retrieve the key. Artad turned to Ts’ang Chieh. “Where are the Ones Who Wait?”
“They are outside, my lord.”
“Bring them in.”
Lexina led her companions Elek and Coridan into the guardian chamber, bowing low, fearing to look up and meet the red eyes of the one they had waited to serve for millennia.
“Is there a way to communicate with those who now rule this land?” Artad asked. Lexina nodded, still keeping her head down. “Yes, my lord. We have radios. And their forces surround this area.”
“Good. I have a message I wish to send them.” His red eyes looked over the three Airlia-Human clones. “And I have a mission for you. Look up.”
They raised their heads. Artad pointed at the screen. “That is where you must go.” He reached to his side and drew out a sword. “And something like this is what you must recover. It is most important. I will prepare you as well as I can.”
Easter Island
Aspasia’s Shadow’s right arm ended abruptly at the wrist. Raw flesh and white bone marked where Turcotte’s shot had ripped the hand off. A tourniquet was tied around the middle of the forearm, cutting deep into the skin, but it had stopped the bleeding. His skin, pale to begin with, was ghostly white.
The bouncer he was aboard had just descended through the lake in the center of Rano Kao crater on Easter Island. The bouncer was a gold-colored disk about thirty feet in diameter. It moved through a tunnel at the bottom of the lake as easily as it passed through the air.
A half minute later it surfaced in a pool in a large cavern, went up into the air, and settled down on the dry rock, which made up the other half of the area. A half dozen US Marines awaited Aspasia’s Shadow. Their eyes were glazed over, as they were controlled by the guardian computer via a nanovirus coursing through their brains and blood. The nanovirus could send electrical impulses through the infected persons’ brains, controlling their actions, essentially making them part of the Easter Island guardian network. The chilling thing about persons infected by the nanovirus was that while it controlled and directed their nervous systems, a part of their minds was aware of this and unable to change it.
Three of the Marines, part of Task Force Seventy-nine, which had been captured by Aspasia’s Shadow’s forces, climbed onto the bouncer and opened the hatch. While two of them grabbed Aspasia’s Shadow and helped him out, the third pick
ed up the Grail, which was covered by a thick white wrap.
Aspasia’s Shadow staggered as his feet touched the ground and the Marines held him up. He had lost more blood than he’d thought. The Marines helped him into a tunnel lit by lines in the ceiling. The tunnel sloped upward, then leveled and turned to the right. Aspasia’s Shadow and his escorts entered a cave. In the very center was a twenty-foot-high glowing, golden pyramid — the Easter Island guardian.
Aspasia’s Shadow frowned as he noted that plastered on one side of the pyramid was a shriveled mummy with various metal leads connecting the guardian to the body. Aspasia’s Shadow forgot about the figure as a Marine placed the shroud- covered Grail on a table to the right of the pyramid.
In his many reincarnations, Aspasia’s Shadow had known much pain. It felt as if his missing right hand were still attached but on fire. He forced himself to ignore the feeling and went to the Grail. He removed the shroud, revealing an hourglass-shaped golden object. The end that was up appeared solid.
Aspasia’s Shadow pulled a small wooden box from a deep pocket inside his cloak and opened it. Two stones were set inside — the thummin and urim of biblical note. They glowed as if from an inner fire. With difficulty, Aspasia’s Shadow took one of the stones. He held it over the edge of the Grail. The flat end irised open, revealing a small depression inside, the same size as the stone.
Aspasia’s Shadow paused. He knew his forces were moving and that much was happening around the world. He forced himself to put the stone back in the wooden box for the moment and go to the guardian. He leaned against the side, placing his only hand flat against the metal. A golden glow encompassed him as he connected with the alien device.
Acting with just a few commands from him when he had been headquartered at the Mission underneath Mount Sinai, the guardian had done an excellent job of preparing and initiating his plans. He was updated on his fleet moving toward Pearl Harbor; on what was going on above him on the surface of the island; he grinned when he saw the unanswered messages from the stranded Airlia on Mars spooled up and waiting for him — they could rot for all he cared, in retribution for the millennia he had suffered and fought here on Earth while they slept; his Guides were growing in power all over the world — all was going quite well. Centuries of battling, of maneuvering from the shadows in the halls of power, of seeing kingdoms and countries crumble, had made him suspicious of good news. There was always a weak link, a blind spot where disaster could strike from. Artad? Qian-Ling was shielded, the guardian informed him. While that might be an automatic defense reaction by the Qian-Ling guardian, it was just as likely that his ancient enemy had awakened. He knew the Ones Who Wait had been searching for the Qian-Ling lower level key.
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