The Lost Angel

by Sierra, Javier

  When they took off their blindfolds, they found themselves in some kind of mine. It was a cool, dark cave wired for electricity—power ran off a generator—that opened up to a wide room.

  “You have nothing to fear,” White Bear said, reading their faces.

  “Your stone . . . is here?” Castle whispered.

  “Right over there.”

  One of the chief’s men shined a light on something that twinkled about three feet away.

  It was a crystal about the size of a quarter. The edges were smooth but uneven. It was opaque and glistened like obsidian and looked like it had been chiseled out of a larger stone, like a chip from a larger block. And it wasn’t displayed in some kind of showcase, but rested in a small nest of dry leaves. As their eyes adjusted to the darkness, Castle and Bollinger noticed five young men lying in a semicircle around the stone, almost perfectly still, their heads a foot or so beneath the crystal. And they seemed to be mumbling an almost-inaudible, monotonous chant.

  “What are they doing?” Bollinger asked.

  White Bear beckoned them to move closer. And as they did so, Castle and Bollinger realized it was not the young men who were singing.

  It was the stone.

  The crystal’s melody acted as a sort of carrier signal, the chief explained, reverberating at a constant pace by some unseen mechanism.

  “These young men have a special gift. They are listening to its song. And they alert us if they detect even the slightest variation.”

  Andrew Bollinger couldn’t speak. Nature just doesn’t act this way . . .

  “So now do you believe me, Governor?” White Bear was beaming. “The stone has been speaking to us for more than a week now.”

  It was . . . speaking to them?

  Bollinger leaned in closer. He stepped around the listeners and slowly reached out to touch the stone with his index finger. With the chief’s permission, he picked up the stone and carefully brought it to his lips. The crystal continued its singular song. The Hopi let them pick it up, measure it and size it up, for more than half an hour. Yet it continued its hypnotic hum the entire time. No matter how they poked and prodded it, it was clear it was some kind of natural mineral. It wasn’t a machine or hooked up to speakers. It wasn’t metal or man-made, nothing that could ever explain this sound. And yet, there it was, humming . . .

  After visiting with the stone, Castle and Bollinger sat next to White Bear and carried on a two-hour conversation, trying to deduce exactly what they had seen, managing only to raise more questions than answers.

  “That sound you hear is the stone’s constant conversation with the land of the gods,” White Bear finally said.

  “Can you understand it?”

  The old Hopi chief looked at Bollinger as if pitying his ignorance. “Of course. All of my people can understand it.”

  “So what does it say?”

  “It speaks to us about the final day.”

  “It does? And it gives you an actual day?” Castle said.

  “That’s right. And it tells about it over and over again. But it doesn’t refer to the calendar that you know. In the vastness of our universe, time is not measured by how often our tiny planet orbits around our infant star.”

  “So what does it measure?”

  “The time of the sun.”

  “My God, Roger, has it been twenty years since that day?” Andrew Bollinger said from the other end of the line. “I almost wish I could forget it.”

  “Forget it? Andrew, what kind of scientist are you?”

  But Bollinger still couldn’t joke about that day.

  “All I could figure is that it had something to do with the solar flares going on in those days. You might not remember this, but the date March 13, 1989, is etched into my mind; the Hurricane Katrina of solar storms was happening. That was the day that there were all sorts of electrical phenomena across the United States. In San Francisco, garage doors were opening and closing all over town like scenes out of Poltergeist. Half of our satellites had to be reprogrammed. And even the space shuttle Discovery had to delay its return from orbit when the gauges that measured its hydrogen fuel went haywire. And you know what the worst of it was?”

  By this point, Castle was listening in stunned silence.

  “Quebec’s entire power grid went down—twenty-one thousand, five hundred megawatts went to hell in a matter of ninety seconds without any explanation! Half of Canada went dark for nine hours and it took months to completely repair the damage. When I heard about the disaster after getting home from our little excursion, it almost seemed normal to me to find a singing stone out in the middle of the desert.”

  “You never told me about that.”

  “You never asked. You went back to your busy life right after and we didn’t talk again for years.”

  The president overlooked his friend’s subtle barb.

  “Well, here’s the thing, Andrew. I’ve got people looking for a pair of stones just like White Bear’s—stones that emit signals and could be used to help us predict another catastrophe just like that one,” Castle said. “My team knows these signals can increase their strength and even send sound waves into deep space. But we have no idea what it means.”

  Bollinger said nothing.

  “Look, I don’t know what you think about all this, Andy, but I’ll tell you what has occurred to me: What if that stone were some kind of . . .” He hesitated to finish his sentence. “Some kind of transmitter to alert an alien civilization of something going on here? It might have detected some kind of shift in the earth’s magnetic field and sent out a signal . . . a distress signal. Does that make any sense?”

  “You’re joking, right? Roger, do you have any idea what it would take for a signal to escape our atmosphere and reach some distant point deep in the universe? Besides,” he grumbled, “even if that did happen, if White Bear’s or any other stone managed to send a signal into deep space, our network of antennas and satellites would have detected it.”

  “Our spy satellites did exactly that, Andy.”

  “What?”

  “Some kind of signal is being sent out from our planet, Andy, and we’re not the ones doing it. What I need to know is where that signal is headed. Can you help me figure that out?”

  “Of . . . of course.” Bollinger suddenly didn’t sound so convincing. “But it won’t be easy, Roger.”

  “I didn’t expect that it would be.”

  “Even if we’re able to figure out the trajectory and determine its destination, there are thousands of planets where it could be headed. We’ve cataloged immense planets bigger than Jupiter, some made up of all gas, some too close to their suns to sustain life, much less harbor a civilization advanced enough to receive a signal coming from Earth. Then again . . .”

  Andrew Bollinger hesitated.

  “Well . . . We’ve estimated, conservatively, that there are some forty thousand planetary systems within one hundred light years that have a ‘sunlike’ star at their center. You know, planets that orbit an M-class star, one that’s not too big, not too small. And even though statistics say that only about five percent could have conditions that might support life similar to Earth’s, that leaves in the neighborhood of some two thousand possible planets that could be listening out for your signal.”

  “That many.”

  “Maybe more,” Bollinger admitted. “That’s why your question is so complicated.”

  “Look, I’m going to send you all the data we have on these signals, Andy. Will you find out anything you can?”

  “Of course, Mr. President.”

  76

  The three sets of rotors on Artemi Dujok’s metal flying insect screamed back to life, and I finally felt at ease. We’d found the helicopter just as we’d left it right on the shore. That was a good sign. Better yet, we hadn’t come up against the military strike force that tried to kill us at the church. Now, reunited with my adamant, I was finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Dujok promi
sed that in a matter of hours—a day at the latest—I’d be reunited with Martin. And this entire nightmare would finally be over.

  “What if the kidnappers are better armed than we are?” I asked.

  “That’s why we’ve got her,” Dujok said, nodding at Ellen Watson.

  But she didn’t look like any kind of secret weapon to me. As a matter of fact, she struck me as arrogant and reckless, someone set on winning at all costs. I didn’t like our chances if we came up against a band of terrorists armed to the teeth.

  “You must be Julia Álvarez.”

  Her eyes lit up at finally finding me. When I took my seat in the helicopter and put on my headphones, she made a point of sitting right across from me.

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m glad I found you.”

  “So is it true you know where my husband is?”

  She nodded. “I’ll check my coordinates with Dujok’s once we’re in the air, but I think we’re working off the same information. Your husband is near Turkey’s northeastern border. Do you have your adamant with you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can I . . . may I see it?”

  I could see the eagerness in her eyes. I handed it to her just as the helicopter’s landing gear left the ground.

  “It’s . . . beautiful,” she whispered, caressing it. The crystal had turned dark again.

  “Amazing, isn’t it,” Dujok said, clearly more at ease now that the craft had taken off without incident, “that so many people are willing to kill or die to get their hands on it?”

  “People like you,” Ellen said, quickly turning to meet his stare.

  “Or like your president,” Dujok said as he casually opened a refrigerated compartment and handed each of us sandwiches and bottles of water. I was dizzy from hunger. I’d been up all night and the stress after the attack at Santa María a Nova stirred up my appetite. As I tore into a crab and lettuce sandwich, I listened as Dujok and Watson dove into conversation.

  “So how long have you known about the secret US operation?”

  “Since Martin’s father came to Armenia looking for the stones years ago,” Dujok said, seeming surprised.

  “Martin’s father, Bill Faber?” I said, almost choking on my second bite.

  “William L. Faber. Precisely. How well do you know your father-in-law, Ms. Álvarez?”

  And with that, I lost my appetite. “Actually,” I said, forcing down another bite, “I’ve never even seen him. The day I was supposed to meet him, at our wedding in Biddlestone, he never showed.”

  “Well, I would have been stunned to have seen him there,” Dujok said. “Mr. Faber was an . . . elusive character. He came to our country in 1950, shortly after the Pentagon’s spy planes chanced across pictures of Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat. He showed up in our community like a lost pilgrim. He told everyone that he was after a sacred stone called the chintamani. Everyone thought he was some kind of beatnik after he told us he’d crossed the Himalayas looking for a stone he thought might have ended up somewhere near our mountains. Everyone fell in love with him, though. But then he’d disappear for long stretches at a time and no one ever knew where he’d go or what he was up to.”

  “He crisscrossed Asia looking for a stone? Who paid for all that?”

  “Well, now I know it was the Elijah project, Ms. Álvarez. But back then, no one had any idea that that project existed. Actually, Bill said he only learned about the stone from a Russian painter named Nicholas Roerich, who had painted a sacred object for communicating with heaven. Roerich said that the stone was the key to entering Shambhala.”

  “Shambhala?”

  “It’s an old Tibetan Buddhist myth, Ms. Álvarez. Shambhala supposedly is a hidden kingdom where a brotherhood of sages secretly plans out the fate of our species. It’s a sort of heaven on earth that is inaccessible to all but the pure of heart.”

  “But Tibet is a long way from Ararat, Mr. Dujok,” Ellen Watson said, cutting in.

  “Not for a myth like this one, miss. That so-called chintamani stone had a lot in common with our adamants. Roerich’s followers claimed that when the chintamani darkened, it drew rain clouds overhead. When it grew heavier, it foretold of bloodshed. And it was common for signs to appear on or inside the stone just before important events.

  “And did he tell you about Elijah as well?”

  Dujok smiled. “Eventually, we talked about everything. Bill and I became fast friends. He spent several years in Armenia and ended up inviting me to come back with him to study in the US and to become part of Elijah.”

  “So, did he find what he was looking for?”

  “More or less. He eventually won over the sheikhs in my village, who told him that the mother of all of those stones was hidden somewhere in Mount Ararat. His chintamani, they told him, traveled inside Noah’s Ark during the Great Flood . . . But then the Russians came. Armenia was a poor province, not exactly on Moscow’s radar, but when they eventually found out there was a ‘white capitalist’ in the region, they sent their men for him. He managed to escape, but the Russians infected the region with their propaganda. They told all these simple people that Faber worked for a secret enemy project and that his only goal was to steal one of our natural treasures. And for good measure, they added that the father of your president was behind them.”

  “Roger Castle’s father knew about the Elijah project? Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. William Castle II worked on the project with Bill Faber. And Martin inherited the task—which is when he met me. Curious little circle, don’t you think?”

  “I’ll say.”

  “Ask yourself something: Why is your president so interested in Elijah? I think at this point you’d want some answers.”

  “Well, you can bet the next time I speak with him, I’ll have some questions.”

  “No time like the present,” he said, handing her a satellite phone with a half smirk. “And when you do, ask him who sent the men who tried to kill us. Was it him?”

  “I can tell you that, sir,” she said. “Those men were SEALs. They came ashore from a Virginia-class submarine cruising just a couple of miles off the coast.”

  “Please tell me you’re joking . . .”

  “No, sir. Elijah sent the sub. No doubt in my mind. And you can bet the president knows nothing about it.”

  The blood drained from Dujok’s face at that last piece of information. “Well, then make that call, young lady!”

  He slammed shut the cooler beneath the seat and sat up uncommonly straight. He fired off a couple of orders to his pilot in Armenian and fixed his glare on Ellen Watson.

  “What are you waiting for?” he yelled. “If that sub is where you said it is, we’re still within firing range! For God’s sake, make that call!”

  77

  Things looked bad for Michael Owen.

  If he didn’t act fast, the president’s men were going to get their hands on the adamants first, jeopardizing his entire mission. And now, thanks to that signal from Faber’s stones, other crystals around the world were firing off similar X emissions. Something fundamental was changing in the planet’s geomagnetism. Maybe it was some kind of warning. A harbinger of that “great and terrible day.” But was the agency ready for that kind of event? Was the country?

  The answer was no.

  There was only one such precedent for such a cataclysmic event. For years, his only concern had been documenting the “great and terrible day” that all the ancient chronicles referred to. In that, he was as obsessed as his predecessors, dating back to Chester Arthur himself. Unfortunately, everything that had been learned about the event could fit easily inside of a single file. He had examined that folder countless times at his office in Fort Meade, Maryland, and it always led him to the same dead end. To understand the end, you must first understand the beginning, he would tell himself.

  Despite all the brute force that he could command from that fortress of an office, Owen felt helpless.

 
“The news coming to us from Oise, France, is disconcerting . . .”

  The flat-screen in his office had lit up suddenly and the volume came up gradually.

  Owen tossed his suit jacket on his armchair and listened. His office was equipped with a system that scanned news across the globe, and when it detected something of interest, it began recording and played it back when it sensed his presence in the room. His secretary knew he had spent the night working at the National Reconnaissance Office and had set the system to record anything having to do with the region just north of Paris.

  When the television flashed on, C-SPAN commentator Lisa Hartmann seemed more worried than usual.

  “So tell us, what’s happening in France, Jack?”

  The screen switched to the network’s chief correspondent in France, Jack Austin.

  “It’s just after nine in the morning here in the small town of Noyon, and its twenty thousand residents are still trying to figure out why they’ve been without power since last night. The power company, Electricité de France, hasn’t given any reason for a massive power outage that is affecting not just all forms of transportation but even hospitals. And the people here are starting to worry, Lisa.”

  “Are people concerned this might be part of a terrorist attack?”

  “Police are telling us no, Lisa. They say they’re still trying to figure out the source of the power outage, but they insist it’s unlike any technical malfunction they’ve ever seen. They spent the night examining every substation and they all seem to be in working order.”

  “So what do the experts think might have caused it?” Hartmann asked from the newsroom in Washington, DC.

  “A group of researchers are putting their heads together as we speak. Everyone’s hoping that whatever the cause, it won’t spread to a larger city like Amiens . . .”

  Owens checked his watch. The broadcast had been recorded just six minutes ago.

  Has the “end” begun?

  Owen shook the thought out of his head. If it was a magnetic storm, our satellites would have been affected. He flipped off the television and tried to concentrate on the entire reason he’d rushed back to his office. He needed to review the folder just sent over from the NSA archives, and he needed to do it with a clear head.