Excalibur a5-6

by Robert Doherty

  A shaft of light penetrated the dark as Morris put a headlamp over his forehead and turned it on. The medic was doing something and his action stirred Turcotte to move. He unzipped his sleeping bag, careful not to drop it, shoving it into the pack dangling next to him. He pulled out his own headlamp and put it on. He was amazed as Morris handed him a hot cup of coffee. The medic has chipped out a small ice ledge in the side of the ridge and set up his stove. Turcotte knew how difficult it was to operate under these conditions and he was deeply grateful for Morris’s extra efforts. He took a sip, then twisted, handing the cup to Mualama.

  He noted that Morris was looking up in the darkness, trying to see the route he would lead them on, the headlamp penetrating about forty feet up. There was no wind, for which Turcotte was grateful. The cold was so extreme it was sheer pain on any exposed skin and he knew a minute of exposure would cause instant frostbite.

  Mualama passed the cup back and began packing his gear. Turcotte had spent a good portion of his life in the field in all sorts of conditions, but he’d never spent a few hours sleeping at twenty-five thousand feet clipped to the side of a mountain.

  “Grab hold of the mountain,” Morris advised as he reached down for the safety lines he’d attached.

  Turcotte looked down. His legs were dangling and he was supported only by the lines. He kicked and dug the toe of his crampons into the ice. Morris had put his pack on him while he slept and Turcotte felt a moment’s embarrassment to be taken care of like that. The medic had done the same with Mualama. Looking at the African in the darkness, the older man’s face, what little Turcotte could see, was haggard.

  “Let’s move,” Morris called out. He began to lead the way up the ridge, Turcotte and Mualama following.

  * * *

  McGraw and Olivetti were pushing through waist-high snow. Each man would take ten steps, moving up the ridge, then step to the side and let the other take his place blazing the trail. They’d been doing this routine for over an hour and the muscles in their legs burned in agony, yet that didn’t slow them in the slightest. Both men wore night-vision goggles and the clear night sky gave enough illumination that they could see the way clearly.

  McGraw had just taken lead and was on step number five when his crampon hit something buried in the snow. He paused and leaned forward, brushing snow away from the object. Two bodies. Frozen solid. Wearing modern climbing gear. Casualties from some climbing expedition. McGraw stepped over them and continued. Olivetti did the same.

  * * *

  Lexina was awakened by Aksu switching out her oxygen cylinder. “Your companion is dead.”

  Lexina slowly sat up. “Which one?”

  Aksu shrugged. “You did not tell me their names.”

  “Cause?” Lexina slid out of her sleeping bag, feeling the bite of the cold. It was a clear night and thousands of stars glittered overhead.

  “His oxygen tube was slightly crimped. He didn’t get enough air. As near as I can tell, this brought on cerebral edema.”

  Lexina stiffly got to her feet and walked over to Coridan’s body. He was curled up in a fetal position. Aksu stripped off the mask, then unscrewed the oxygen tube, sliding it into his own pack. She lifted one eyelid. There was no doubt he was dead. Unzipping his bag and parka, she went through the layers of clothes until she uncovered a small medallion in the shape of two outstretched arms. She removed it from the body.

  Elek had joined her and the two hybrid human/Airlia clones stood silently over the body of their companion for a few moments.

  “The spirit of Coridan must pass on,” Lexina finally said. “The spirit must pass on,” Elek echoed.

  Lexina held up the medallion. “We take his spirit, the spirit of Coridan. We take his ka so that he might be reborn.”

  Aksu was watching carefully, surprised at the ceremony.

  Lexina handed the ka to Elek. Then she took a small black case out. Opening it, she sprinkled a little bit of black powder on the body. Aksu took a step back as the black powder began eating the body as if it were some powerful acid. Soon nothing remained except the clothes.

  Lexina turned to Aksu. “We are ready to proceed.”

  * * *

  Olivetti tapped McGraw on the arm and pointed down. Three cones of light pierced the darkness several hundred feet below them and to the west. The lights showed up like searchlights in the SEALs’ night-vision goggles. The two SEALs paused in their climb and watched the lights for almost a minute. It was clear that whoever was wearing them were moving slowly and straight up, which meant they would cut across the SEALs trail. McGraw knelt, pulling off his pack. He removed a claymore mine from the pack and placed it next to their trail, hiding it with a facing of snow. He then ran the trip wire across the trail, knocking snow off the side of the furrow to cover it.

  McGraw faced back up the ridgeline and began climbing. The two were moving at an incredible pace, their legs churning through the waist-high snow, cutting a path straight along the knife-edge top of the West Ridge.

  The Gulf of Mexico

  Being immortal had turned into a curse, Duncan realized as she regained consciousness via a severe jolt of pain as if a red-hot poker had been shoved into her forehead. As the pain from the jolt receded, her head pounded from an almost blinding headache. She opened her eyes, but it made no difference. She was in absolute darkness and her body couldn’t move, no matter how hard she struggled. She tried to scream and realized that something was shoved down her throat.

  A slash of pain, slightly to the left of the previous one, above her eye, caused her to choke on whatever was in her throat as she tried to scream. Then even as that subsided, another spike. Her body slammed against the restraints, muscles twitching. And another spike. She felt as if she were losing her sanity, overwhelmed by waves of pain that were increasing in intensity.

  Then she realized she could see something very faintly. Shadowy gray images moving against a black background, but she couldn’t make out details. Then with another bolt of pain they were gone and the darkness returned. She realized there was a copper taste in her mouth, but she couldn’t move her tongue around whatever had been shoved down her throat.

  She also became aware that she was submerged, her entire body enveloped in a fluid, which was at body temperature. The tube in the throat must be giving her oxygen, she thought, but it was wiped away by more pain, this time in her left temple.

  Then blessed nothingness for a moment. Her body was rigid, waiting for the onslaught to be renewed, but instead she was blinded by light as the top of the tube opened. The light was diffused through the liquid, which had a dark tint to it and the clear plastic of a mask which was molded to her face. There was someone standing over the tube. She began struggling again, but the figure held up his hand indicating for her to wait.

  She realized the liquid was slowly draining as the level dropped below the top of her body and she felt the chill of cool air on wet, exposed skin. Garlin remained still, waiting, and Duncan mentally cursed him.

  Garlin reached in and in one smooth move pulled the tube out of her mouth. She coughed and gasped for air. He quickly unstrapped her, then tossed a towel into the tube. She wrapped it around her body as she sat up.

  “I am done with you and your tests.”

  “We don’t care what you’re done with,” Garlin said, “because we’re not done with you.”

  “You keep saying we, but I haven’t seen anyone but you,” Duncan said. “That’s because we don’t trust you,” Garlin said.

  “Screw you.”

  “Do you want to know what we’ve learned?”

  “Since I still have the same memories,” Duncan said, “I don’t think you learned much.”

  Gariin shook his head. “On the contrary. The fact that we weren’t able to break through your conditioning with this machine indicates that this type of machine wasn’t used to implant your false memories. Something more sophisticated and more powerful was used.”

  Duncan remained silent,
her arms across her chest, holding the towel tight against her body.

  “And”—Garlin drew the word out— “we think we know what that was.”

  Duncan finally spoke. “And that is?” “The Ark of the Covenant.”

  Duncan remembered the crown, and the leads from the Ark that she had attached. And the vision she’d had while hooked to it inside the Black Sphinx.

  As if reading her mind, Garlin nodded. “The vision you had when you were hooked up to it probably didn’t come from the Ark of the Covenant. We think it came from your repressed memory.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Duncan said. “I was on board a mothership. How can I have a memory of that?”

  “Good question,” Garlin said. “And one we hope to answer shortly.”

  “How do you plan on doing that?”

  “We’re going to bring the Ark of the Covenant here.”

  The Colonel James N. Rowe Special Operations Training Facility

  Larry Kincaid was tapped into the military’s secure Internet, using Delta’s access to get him the imagery he needed. The line of mechs moving between Cydonia and Mons Olympus was larger than ever. And the first of those carrying the black material had reached the site high up on the extinct volcano’s side, less than a kilometer from the summit.

  While the material was being laid out in the beginnings of a grid pattern, Kincaid noted that a cluster of mechs were in the very center of the location and still digging into the side of the mountain. Excavation and a grid — something tugged at Kincaid’s mind, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He had a strange feeling he’d seen something like this before, but where? And how could he have, given that this was being constructed by aliens on another planet?

  Qian-Ling, China

  Artad stared at the same imagery of Mars, which the Chinese had intercepted via their tap into the American military’s supposedly secure web server. He also had seen the same thing before, except he knew exactly what he was looking at. Startled, Artad put the pictures down and accessed the guardian. He had it run a program to determine how long it would take for the thing being built on Mars to be completed. The answer was somewhat reassuring — more than enough time for his forces to complete their conquest and/or destruction of the humans and Aspasia’s Shadow.

  Still — Artad picked up the photo and stared at it. Why would the Airlia on Mars be building this? he wondered.

  They were Aspasia’s people. But, then again, Aspasia was dead. Were they allied with his enemy’s shadow? Or were they on their own now?

  Possibilities.

  Artad composed a message to the Airlia at Cydonia and transmitted it via the guardian.

  Dimona

  “We need the Ark of the Covenant along with the priestly robes and crown in order to find out who exactly Dr. Duncan is.”

  Sherev stared at the speakerphone, considering the request he had just received.

  This Garlin fellow claimed to be from the new Area 51 and he had quickly updated Sherev on Duncan’s status. Sherev had seen her body taken aboard the bouncer after he had led Israeli commandos in storming the Mission’s base inside Mount Sinai. He also remembered Turcotte and Yakov and their bravery attacking the Mission.

  “So the Grail works?” he asked. “Yes.”

  “It brought her back to life?” “Yes.”

  “Where is Major Turcotte?” Sherev asked.

  “Currently climbing Mount Everest,” Garlin replied. “And Yakov?”

  “Mount Ararat.”

  Sherev frowned. “Why is he at Ararat?”

  “That is not important right now. Our priority is to figure out exactly who Lisa Duncan is.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she caused the demise of the original Majestic committee and in essence started all of this.”

  Sherev leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers.

  The intelligence reports of recent events were as often confusing as enlightening. “I thought the original Majestic started all of this, as you say, when it became corrupted by the guardian they found in Temiltepec?”

  “Are you going to help us or not?” Garlin snapped. “I’m relaying this request directly from Major Turcotte. He’s afraid to go through diplomatic channels because he doesn’t want this compromised.”

  Sherev knew he was in an untenable situation. What had happened in Jerusalem was a clear indicator that the Ark of the Covenant was a dangerous icon. While it was again safe in his vault, how long would that last? The threat to Israel from the countries ringing it was also growing. There were reports of fighting along the Iranian-Turkish border and also between Iran and Iraq. Egypt was claiming sovereignty over the Sinai Peninsula again and asserting that any artifacts removed from Mount Sinai were Egyptian, as they must have originated from that country.

  “You know Aspasia’s Shadow has the Grail,” Garlin pressed. “We need to unlock whatever secrets are inside Duncan’s head before he grows too powerful.” Sherev wasn’t quite following what was so important about Duncan, but he also knew that just sitting there with the Ark of the Covenant locked in a vault wasn’t doing anybody any good. “I will be heading toward your location with the Ark of the Covenant immediately.”

  Pearl Harbor

  Over sixty years late, the Arizona exited the channel at Pearl Harbor into open ocean to link up with the rest of the fleet. Unfortunately the fleet it was going to join was controlled by an alien force.

  The ship glided through the water, increasing speed as it cleared the channel. The acceleration continued, water being sucked into vents built into the sides of the bow by the nanovirus, channeled through large pipes, put under pressure, and expelled at the stern where the ship’s mighty propellers had been replaced, the metal used to help construct the new propulsion system. Soon the ship was moving at over sixty knots.

  In place of the turrets where mighty guns had once been, there were cruise missile launchers. The nanovirus had done such an efficient job resurrecting the Arizona that it was more modern than any ship in the Alien Fleet it was going to join.

  Captain Lockhart stood on the bridge of the ship, a set of binoculars to her eyes, trained to the right, watching the southwestern corner of Oahu slip by. She put the binoculars down and turned as a crewman handed her a message — the location of the Alien Fleet. She issued the appropriate order to the helmsman and the Arizona sliced through the ocean en route to the rendezvous point.

  Mount Ararat

  General Kashir had only twenty-five men left from the three hundred he had crossed the border with. At least the Turkish jets weren’t flying in the darkness. His men had made a miserable camp on the side of the mountain, among the rocks, snow, and ice. He forbade them making fires for fear of being seen by Turkish patrols, which they had spotted below them just before dark. They could see vehicle lights far below as the Turkish army surrounded the mountain, but it didn’t appear that the troops were moving upslope yet.

  He pulled a sealed envelope from his jacket pocket and pulled a poncho over his head so that his flashlight wouldn’t be seen. He turned on the light and opened the envelope. A piece of paper was inside, folded in half. He extracted the paper and unfolded it. A set of directions handwritten in Arabic directed him on the final stages of finding his way into the cavern that held the mothership. And then further instructions on how to get inside the mothership and what to do once he was inside. He found it all overwhelming.

  He had met Al-Iblis just once and the “man” had chilled Kashir to the bone with his aura. But Al-Iblis had been a valuable ally over the years, the ultimate reason why Kashir held the rank he did and had wealth that far exceeded that which was equal with his rank. At that one meeting Al-Iblis had given him this envelope and told him he must be prepared upon receipt of a certain code word to execute this operation. Kashir had always hoped that day would not come. He imagined the man who had assassinated Hussein had felt the same way, as there was little doubt in Kashir’s mind that Al-Iblis’s long r
each had been involved in that.

  Satisfied that the entrance to the cavern wasn’t far off, Kashir turned off the flashlight and removed the poncho. The first thing he saw as his eyes adjusted to the dark was the small red dot trained on his chest. Kashir slowly got to his feet, peering about in the dark. Men were moving — men with something on their faces. Night-vision goggles, very advanced, something that Kashir knew his army did not possess. The red dot was still on his chest. Then, as his eyes adjusted further, Kashir noted that his men lay still, too still.

  One of the figures came up to him. Kashir now saw that the muzzles of their weapons were bulky — silencers. His men had all been killed while he had read the instructions underneath the poncho. He felt his stomach quake and bile rise in his throat.

  The man held out his hand. Kashir handed over the envelope and letter. “Please,” he whispered in Arabic.

  He never saw the Kurd who was behind him. He did feel the steel as it slid across his throat and the explosion of warm liquid on his chest.

  * * *

  Kakel wiped the blade on the dead general’s coat, then sheathed it. “What is that?” he asked Yakov, indicating the letter with the point of his knife. “Was that necessary?” Yakov asked.

  “You killed the rest while they slept,” Kakel noted. “Was what I did any worse than that? They are Iranians. They kill my people without a second thought. I feel nothing killing them.”

  Yakov dropped the matter, flipping up the night-vision goggles. He put a red-lens flashlight between his teeth and turned it on. Then he opened the letter. “It is directions into the chamber.”