Scott was in his fifties, dressed neatly in a dark blue suit, but clearly had been woken up no more than twenty minutes ago and certainly hadn’t had time to shave. He was a small man with thinning silver hair, yellowed teeth and deep wrinkles across his forehead. And he most certainly never thought he’d find himself in a situation such as this: standing in front of the leader of the free world, without any idea why a minor incident had brought the president to his office in the middle of the night.
Maybe it wasn’t so minor after all, Scott thought, trying to glean any information from the expression on Michael Owen’s face.
“Dr. Scott is the NRO director,” Owen said, “and he runs the scientific unit of Operation Elijah. He’s up-to-date with all its happenings and can answer any of your questions, sir.”
Castle took a moment to size up Scott. He could tell right away that Scott was confused by being asked to openly talk about a usually taboo subject. And then, Owen went a step further.
“Dr. Scott, why don’t you show the president what our ‘eyes in the sky’ caught happening just two hours ago, at oh-five twenty-three local time in Spain?”
“Sure . . . sure. Of course, Mr. Owen,” Scott said. “I’m not sure how much you know about our global scanning technology, Mr. President.”
“Why don’t you give me the tutorial, Edgar?” Castle said, smiling and trying to put him at ease.
“We have about fifty satellites with high-resolution radiometers at our disposal,” he said with obvious pride. “The NSA; the CIA; the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency; NASA and the US Navy all use our information daily because our satellites can measure electromagnetic energy emissions. We can detect even the slightest EM fluctuations the world over. How accurate is it? We could determine the temperature of a bowl of soup being served at the White House—and tell you what’s in it by just measuring the heat signature and the EM fluctuations it causes.”
“And here I thought our spy satellites were for reading what Vladimir Putin writes in his journal every morning,” Castle joked.
“Oh, we can do that too, sir. But with all due respect, that’s kind of the least of our worries.”
“All right, all right, Edgar. From now on, I’ll only have vichyssoise at the White House,” Castle said. “Now tell me, what was it that our satellites discovered in Spain?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it, sir. We had a warning go off from a state-of-the-art satellite, an HMBB, designed to pick up any unusual energy readings coming out of Iran, Iraq and India. It was making its usual sweep from an altitude of two hundred fifty miles above the Middle East when it picked up something by accident as it swept over the western part of the Iberian Peninsula.”
Edgar Scott pulled out several documents from a black plastic tube and unrolled them on the table in front of them.
“Let me explain what you’re looking at, sir,” Scott said. “This is a picture taken from a hundred thousand feet above sea level just forty-eight hours ago. These explosions of light you see here and here,” he said, pointing to two areas north of Portugal, “came from the cities of La Coruña and Vigo, on Spain’s western coast. Now look at this darker area. About twenty-five miles inland is the city of Santiago de Compostela. It’s just two little specs of light amid the darkness.”
The president nodded, following along.
“Now look at this next aerial photograph, taken by the same satellite today, just before dawn local time.”
He unfurled a second image. It still smelled of developer.
“So why does the city of Santiago now appear flooded in a bright light?” the president asked, noticing the area that was once pitch-black.
“I’m glad you asked, sir. That’s why the HMBB’s alarm went off. The phenomenon lasted just fifteen minutes, but the intensity of the EM field was like nothing we’ve ever seen.”
“Has anyone else detected it? The Chinese? The Russians?”
“I don’t think so, sir. If it were a magnetic pulse bomb, all of the city’s energy would have been absorbed and the radiation would have lasted longer and would have been unavoidably seen. It would have caught the attention of every satellite in the sky. But this was a very small, concentrated pulse in an urban area. You can see it clearly on this photo where we’ve zoomed in,” Scott said, unrolling another shot, this one close and detailed enough to see the roads and streetlights. “The EM pulse drained all of the power in about a one-mile radius from this big building here.”
Castle leaned in closer. He could make out a gray, crucifix-shaped building.
“What is that?”
“A church. A cathedral to be exact, sir. The emissions came from this area, though we haven’t been able to determine if it came from inside the church or from one of the surrounding buildings.”
The NRO’s director loosened his tie as if he knew it was going to be hard to say what he needed to tell the president of the United States.
“It almost goes without saying, sir, but there aren’t any research or science labs in the area. No military bases, no facilities that we suspect are housing an EM device. And, uh, what’s worse . . .”
“Yes?”
“Well, we think someone deliberately fired the blast into the upper atmosphere.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Sir, someone has just sent a high-energy signal into outer space from the northwest corner of Spain. We don’t know who did it, or how, or certainly what a message within that signal might have contained. What’s more, we don’t know of anything capable of creating that kind of high-intensity burst. That is . . . nothing except one of the ancient stones that Operation Elijah was created to find.”
“And the biggest clue,” Owen said, cutting in, “is that we know that the wife of the former Elijah scientist you asked me about earlier was there when the EM pulse went off. After that, she disappeared.”
“You’re serious . . .”
“Now do you understand why I sent one of my best men to find her? And why we find ourselves in such a delicate situation?” Owen said, his mood darkening. “A device or stone or relic with that kind of power should be under our control.”
Castle turned back to study the photograph.
“And your satellites didn’t manage to photograph whoever it was that kidnapped her?” Castle asked Owen.
“No, sir. But we’ve determined that the EM emission happened at the same time she was taken. You know what that says to me, sir?”
Castle shook his head.
“You’re a strategist, Mr. President. Now add up every part of this equation: an unknown subject has captured a former agent who worked on Elijah; they’ve taken one of his closest relatives and they’ve learned to use the stones to tap into an ancient technology unknown since biblical times . . . What could they possibly be after, if not the very thing that we also seek, sir?”
“To speak to God?” Castle murmured, stunned.
“Sir, with your permission, Operation Elijah is still poised to be the first to control this technology to open humanity’s first line of communication. Please, sir. Leave it to us. There’s still time . . .”
51
“And how the heck am I supposed to activate the adamant?”
Dujok stared at me for a moment, trying to decide if I was playing dumb.
“Well, the same way you always have, of course,” he said. “Didn’t they teach you that the crystals respond to vibration? Didn’t your husband tell you that just humming or reciting an incantation at the right pitch is enough to change their atomic structure?”
Dujok was right. I did know that. At least in theory. But I was so nervous about everything that had happened in the last few hours that my mind had pushed that knowledge away. I’d been so occupied with trying to find the damn adamants and rescuing Martin that I’d forgotten the most important thing about them: Without the spells John Dee used, the seer stones would remain only useless rocks.
“The second that adamant
comes to life,” Dujok said, “Martin’s will begin to resonate in unison. It’s what the philosophers like Dee and Roger Bacon called speculum unitatis—the mirror of unity. Or, as modern physicists call it, quantum interlacing: Twin atomic particles born of the same ‘mother’ act exactly like one another despite the distance between them.”
“And that’s how we’ll find Martin?” I asked.
“Exactly. We have the technology to detect the electromagnetic emission from your stone, no matter where on earth it may be. If Martin’s adamant reacts the way yours does, we’ll be able to lock onto its coordinates almost in real time. You do your job, I’ll take care of the rest . . .”
“What if I don’t manage to activate it?” I said, worried. “What if nothing happens?”
“You have the gift, Julia. Concentrate on your adamant and recite the spells that you remember. That’s all you have to do.”
There was no other choice . . .
I nervously took the adamant in my hands and removed it from its silver casing. Meanwhile, Artemi Dujok punched an address into the GPS of his cell phone. He said he was looking up the sun’s recent magnetic readings from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I knew from Martin’s work as a climatologist that the NOAA kept up-to-the-minute information on the sun’s X-ray emissions and did everything from tracking the aurora borealis to predicting possible radio outages from solar flares. Only recently did scientists begin to understand the effects these energy emissions had on everything from climate to seismology. But more scientists were now taking notice, and, apparently, Dujok was one of them.
At finding a recent image of the sun mottled with dark spots, Dujok smiled, satisfied.
“The time is right,” he said. “The atmosphere is saturated with solar particles, Ms. Álvarez. It’s all up to you now.”
I tried not to think too much about what I was about to do. This strange combination of the high-tech and the occult sent shivers down my spine. I’d rather not have known what was going on and just concentrated on the stone in my hands. I caressed my adamant carefully with my eyes closed and I held it up to the heavens. Blocking out every anxious thought, I began reciting the first words I remembered from Dee’s book of incantations.
“Ol sonf vors g, goho Iad Balt, lansh calz vonpho . . .”
I’d never done this alone. Not without my teachers nearby. Even though Sheila had urged me to memorize the words, telling me I would one day need to say them on a very important day, my fear was always greater than my curiosity. At least, it was until this day . . .
What I never imagined is that as those archaic words rolled off my tongue, everything around me—the church of Santa María a Nova, the graves beneath my feet, the ever-present Artemi Dujok—would begin to disappear.
Suddenly, my world went black—as if some unknown force had taken control.
52
Something’s . . . very wrong here.
Nicholas Allen tried and failed to open his eyes, again and again. He couldn’t remember where he was. His hearing was muffled, he couldn’t keep his balance and the scar across his forehead was pounding violently. It felt like he was hanging upside-down. And it wasn’t just his eyes that weren’t following orders. His arms and legs were lifeless and it felt like there was an elephant on his chest every time he tried to breathe. The last thing he remembered, he was on the phone with Michael Owen telling him that Julia Álvarez had disappeared when the phone went dead.
He figured out he must have fainted . . . again.
These were symptoms that Colonel Allen knew all too well, unfortunately. The headaches, nausea, loss of consciousness, it all fit.
“Mr. Allen . . . Mr. Allen!” A voice brought him part of the way out of his stupor. He could hear the labored English accent through what sounded like an echo chamber. “I know you can hear me. You’re in the intensive care unit at Our Lady of Hope. You’re in a hospital, Mr. Allen. Today is November first. You don’t seem to have any injuries, but you’ve had several epileptic seizures. You’re secured to a gurney. Please don’t try to move. We’ve already alerted your embassy to your condition.”
Well, there’s some good news, he thought.
“The medical staff thinks you’re out of danger. But try to rest while we figure out what might have caused this.”
I know what caused it! he wanted to yell out. It was a high-frequency electromagnetic burst!
But his vocal cords were among the body parts that still refused to respond.
There was no way the medical team could have known that Allen had been part of a secret army program experimenting with electromagnetic fields (known as EMFs), and he knew their effects better than anyone. He knew anyone blasted with an EMF would have his internal organs affected, as his, no doubt, were. The effects had been classified as highly as the Manhattan Project. And the published results concluded that “electromagnetic injuries” usually were concentrated in the eyes and ears. The NSA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency had learned how to focus an EMF beam to affect a single person in a crowd. They had also devised “acoustic bullets” that vibrated at 145 decibels and could be “fired” from precise sound cannons. You could stun a man—or flat-out kill him—without the person next to him ever realizing what was going on. And, what’s more, you could do it without leaving behind any evidence. If the subject didn’t get out of the way of the beam in time, the sound wave would rattle his bones and skull, raise his blood pressure, and cause a stroke in a matter of seconds. And if you were lucky and the blast wasn’t a lethal one, all you would remember was a loud humming, like the kind you’d hear standing near high-tension wires.
A loud humming . . . like the one Nicholas Allen was still hearing.
Now it was a matter of figuring out who else, besides his government, had access to this kind of weapon. And Allen already had an idea about that.
“Your old friends have been here,” he had told Michael Owen.
But he knew those “old friends” himself. He’d crossed paths with them during a mission he wouldn’t forget soon.
It happened in the Armenian mountains—in the boonies, if you will. And for some reason, those memories were bouncing around inside his head at that moment as he tried to regain the use of his body.
WESTERN ARMENIA
AUGUST 11, 1999
Standing in front of the Echmiadzin Cathedral, in the very seat of the so-called Armenian Vatican, Nick Allen thought he’d seen it all. It was noon in Paris when a total eclipse of the sun cast a shadow over half of Europe. But at forty-four degrees longitude, on the other hand, the clock read four in the afternoon, the sun was shining brightly, and every radio and television station was broadcasting news of the celestial event. And all of them were squawking about an impending apocalypse: “The fashion designer and psychic Paco Rabanne has predicted that the Russian space station Mir will fall to Earth today, crushing the French capitol, killing more than a million people . . . ,” one announcer said. “Nostradamus called this eclipse the ‘King of Terror’ in one of his predictions,” another said. And on Narek TV, an empty-headed bleached blonde was interviewing a guest, with the Eiffel Tower in the background, asking, “So do you think this has anything to do with Y2K—you know, the glitch they say will paralyze our computers at eleven fifty-nine on New Year’s Eve?” “Well, of course! It’s all connected! What we’re seeing in Paris is the beginning of the end!” her guest answered breathlessly.
Allen’s new boss couldn’t have chosen a better moment to carry out their operation. The cathedral and all the buildings around it were empty. Even the church’s oldest patriarchs were glued to their television sets.
Allen calmly strode into the cathedral, dressed in black, with his trusty sixteen-shot pistol in his waistband, passing the iconic scenes from the ancient master artist Hovnatanian; this was the only corner of the world where you could see his famous paintings of Christ’s apostles. All around him, votive candles flickered and the pungent smell of incense wa
fted in the air. But none of those sacred surroundings fazed him; he was a man used to all kinds of missions. His only concern was that security remain lax, as it was. There wasn’t an armed guard in sight, a metal detector, not even a video camera to dodge. These were trusting people . . . and that, ironically, is what made him nervous.
“Everything going as planned, Nick?”
Martin Faber’s voice in his ear told him his partner was keeping close tabs on him from the Russian Lada van parked two hundred yards outside the gate. This Faber character had arrived with a stack of detailed instructions under his arm and a reputation as the “human computer.” Sure, Allen preferred men of action to the brainy types, but at least Allen knew Faber was keeping an eye on him and had his back.
“Everything looks good. The cathedral’s empty,” Allen responded.
“Excellent. I’m getting a clear picture of you from the satellite. The thermal sensors show you should be near the main altar, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Judging from the colors on the thermal imaging scanner, I’d say you’re a little nervous,” Faber joked.
“Goddamn scanner,” Allen muttered. “I’m not nervous. I’m hot in this black getup and this church is a friggin’ icebox . . . I’m going to get goddamn pneumonia.”
“Okay, okay. Listen, our eye in the sky shows the coast is clear.”
“Besides . . . I hate churches.”
Allen tried to lighten his footsteps as he headed toward the altar. He passed a painting of St. Gregory the Enlightener, the first official head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, as he reached his goal: the Episcopal museum.
“You know, this museum houses some of Christianity’s oldest artifacts. It’s a shame you’re not into it, Nick. The Armenian Church is actually older than the Roman Catholic and has tons of priceless antiquities . . .”
“You don’t say . . .”
“All right, I get it. You’re not into this stuff.” Faber sighed. “I just figured since you’re going to spend some time in this country that you’d like to know some of these facts. Did you know that this country was the first to officially embrace Christianity, in the fourth century, and that—”
The Lost Angel Page 18