Dane stood. He put a hand on the slight Japanese woman’s shoulder. “Take care of Chelsea for me, would you?”
Ahana nodded.
A good war, Dane mused as he threw his rucksack over his shoulder and left the cabin, following Foreman. For the first time since he had been contacted by Foreman’s agent to go into the Angkor gate, there was a slight bounce in Dane’s stride as he headed toward the waiting helicopter.
THE SPACE BETWEEN
Amelia Earhart held the water bottle to Fred Noonan’s parched lips and impatiently waited while he drank. He’d regained consciousness just a few moments ago and tried to speak, but only managed an unintelligible rasp. Water poured down the sides of his face over blistered skin unnoticed as he drained the bottle. While she waited, Earhart thought back to the forced landing she’d made in the Pacific. There was no doubt that she had seen him killed, a tentacle from a kraken punching through his body from front to rear, lifting him off the wing of the Electra and down into the water. Without thinking, her hand strayed to his chest, feeling for some sort of wound but the skin was smooth and unmarked. Perhaps by some miracle he had survived the attack — she halted that thinking. She had seen what she had seen.
She pulled the bottle from his lips. “Fred.”
Noonan nodded. “I was hoping to find you here.”
“I don’t understand — where did you come from? How did you survive. I saw you—“
He weakly held up a hand stopping the onslaught of questions. “I don’t have much time. I’m dying. I came unprotected through a hot portal.”
“Why did—“
He waved the hand slightly. “Listen. There is something you must do. A task.” He stopped speaking as he began a terrible, deep coughing.
Earhart glanced up at Taki, the leader of the samurai. She had been here long enough to learn enough of their language to communicate. “Where did you find him?”
Taki pointed back over his shoulder. “The shore.”
Earhart had expected that. It was where they found most of the castaways. “Any debris?” It was how they got their scant supplies and even though she knew that Taki and his men would have brought anything they found back, she found she couldn’t help asking. There might even have been something from the plane.
“Nothing. The black-” He gestured with his hands, indicating a cylinder and Earhart knew he was talking about a portal—“is still there. Close to shore. A new one that was not there last time we looked.”
Noonan stopped coughing. Earhart tenderly wiped a trickle of blood from his chin and was surprised when he smiled. “You’ve changed,” he said.
“What is this task?” Earhart was surprised by his comment.
“You must capture a Valkyrie. And remove its suit.”
“And?”
“And someone will come for it. Someone—“ Noonan began coughing, his body wracked with pain. Earhart could feel the strength of the coughs, as if he were trying to expel something from his body.
She leaned close. “Fred. Where did you come from?”
“A place like this,” he said. “The space-between. That’s what we call it. I volunteered to come. When they told me.” His eyelids slid down and he appeared to be unconscious.
Earhart shook him slightly. “Fred. Who? Who told you? What did they tell you?”
His eyes flickered open. “The Ones Before. They’re trying to save your world.” He coughed several times. “Get the suit. And wait.”
“How do we kill a Valkyrie?” Earhart asked. “We don’t have a Naga staff.”
“The eyes are weak.”
Earhart knew that. “Even disabling the eyes doesn’t stop them. They just retreat.”
“A Naga staff will come. Watch for it. Then use it.”
“How do you know this?”
Noonan’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “The Ones Before. They will try. Have tried.” His eyes closed. His lips moved and his voice was so low, Earhart had to put her ear next to his mouth to hear his next words. “They have been trying for a long, long time to save the world.”
Noonan was so still that for a moment Earhart thought him dead. But she felt a slight exhale on her cheek as she held her head close to his. She straightened and slid a blanket over Noonan’s chest.
“What now?” Taki asked. “The Valkyries are still in their lab?” Earhart asked. Taki shrugged. “The last time we looked they were.” She pointed down at her navigator. “He said we must get the armor suit from one of them.” Taki nodded as if that made perfect sense. “We can go look.”
CHAPTER 6
480 BC
The Phoenician ships and barges were beached just south of the bridging point. Soldiers and slaves worked together to off-load the lengths of intricately woven plant material. The first length was tied off the near anchor point and the first ship position. A second length of flax reinforced the first. A second anchor point had been dug during the night while they waited for the barges and two large trees already put in place.
As a second boat was moved into position and planks laid from the first, Xerxes raised his hand, halting work. He signaled to his master-at-arms and the six Egyptian engineers whose bridge had been destroyed. The master-at-arms and several Immortals hustled the confused engineers onto the planks. The confusion changed to terror as each man was tied in place between the first two lengths of flax roping, one across their back, one across their chests.
Xerxes then signaled for work to continue, savoring the desperate cries of the trapped men. More ropes were tied in to the anchor point until only the Egyptians’ feet and heads were visible, the rest of their body cocooned with strands of flax extending outward from the shore pylons. As more boats were added, and additional lengths tied in to the end, the pressure increased.
The screams of the trapped men became muted as the ropes across their chests restricted their breathing to the point where they couldn’t cry out. Every man working on the bridge had to walk past the trapped engineers, which was exactly what Xerxes had in mind. It certainly gave them a focus on their tasks.
With a crackling noise clearly heard even above the chants of the slaves hauling on ropes, the first engineer’s chest gave way and blood poured out of his mouth, covering the ropes across his front. One by one, the rest died, dying the flax red and leaving their heads dangling over the top of the cable.
Boat by boat, the two bridges began extending across the strait. And on the eastern shoreline Xerxes sat on his throne and watched. And behind him, just to the right, stood Pandora.
* * *
“I do not approve,” Leonidas said.
“Of?” Cyra asked.
Dusk was falling and Leonidas was still pressing the pace, wanting to get some more miles behind them before halting for the night. He had sent Eusibius ahead as a scout. He had not seen Idas or the Persian Jamsheed since his last conversation with both. He assumed the Athenian was headed for the coast to take a ship back to his city. As far as the Persian, Leonidas figured he would be heading north to link up with his king’s army.
“Having a child without a husband.”
Cyra laughed, causing a flush of blood to the King’s face. “What is so funny?”
“That I would care about your approval.”
They rode in silence for several minutes. “I suppose things are different in Delphi,” the king finally allowed.
“Most open-minded of you, Lord.”
Leonidas gritted his teeth and they rode for another mile.
“Do you have family?” Cyra asked.
“I have a son,” Leonidas said proudly.
“His name?”
“Amphion.”
“And your wife?”
Leonidas smiled. “Thetis”
“Just one child?”
“We have a daughter also.”
“I am not surprised you only mentioned your son. Spartans do not think much of girls, do they?”
“They are necessary,” Leonidas allowed.
“Your mother was a girl once. Aren’t you fortunate she was valued?”
“Women—” Leonidas began.
“Yes?”
“They are good for some things. To keep the home. To bring forth the children. And, yes, to be priestesses and oracle, although we do not have such things in Sparta.”
“Do you think Spartan women think like that?”
“Of course.”
“You may be a very smart commander of men, my Lord,” Cyra said, “but you know nothing of a woman’s heart or mind.”
Leonidas pulled back on his reins and came to a halt. “What are you talking about?”
Cyra also stopped. She pulled a dagger out from somewhere in the folds of her robes. She held it against the wrist of the other hand. “If I am cut, do I bleed the same as you?”
Leonidas’s forehead wrinkled. “Yes.”
She leapt off her horse, throwing her long cloak to the side. She was dressed in leather pants and sleeveless jerkin. She spread her legs shoulder width apart, left forward. The point of the dagger was toward the King.
“What are you doing?” Leonidas leaned back in the saddle, amused.
“Fight me.”
“I would not fight a woman.”
“You are old,” Cyra said. “An old man who has to hold on to his stirrup to get off his horse or his leg will not hold him.”
The smile was gone from Leonidas’s face.
Cyra slapped her chest. “I wear no armor. I don’t even have that pig-sticker you carry at your waist, your xiphos that is so feared. All I have is this leather and a puny dagger. And—” she drew the word out. “You are a Spartan. The king of the Spartans. The most feared warriors in the world. I am just a priestess.”
Leonidas shook his head. “I will not be provoked.”
“I’m not trying to provoke you,” Cyra said. “I am trying to teach you something. You have trained almost all your life. Do you think you know everything? That you cannot learn something new? You will soon be in the battle of your life. Perhaps I could teach you a thing or two that might help.”
Leonidas slowly got off the horse, his hands clear of the stirrups. He turned toward Cyra. “What can you teach me, priestess?”
“I can only show. What is learnt depends on the student.”
Leonidas cocked his head. “My first teacher in the agoge told me that. Kyros. He was a fine warrior. He started me on the path of phobologia.”
“So you should not fear me,” Cyra said. She moved forward and slashed. Leonidas jumped back, her blade missing by a few inches, his hand instinctively drawing his xiphos. He was moving forward, a jab with the point, followed immediately by the second strike he had been drilled in, an upper thrust toward her solar plexus.
But she wasn’t there, spinning gracefully out of the way. She clamped down on his sword arm, pinning it against her side. Leonidas was surprised at the unexpected move and pulling back when he felt steel against his throat, between chest armor and helmet. His eyes rotated down. Her knife was against his skin.
Very, very slowly, Cyra pulled the knife and released his sword arm. She sheathed the blade and picked up her cloak. She threw it over her shoulders. Leonidas had not moved, standing as if carved in stone. Cyra mounted her horse and rode off, leaving the king standing alone.
* * *
The weather on either side of the pass was fine, but storm clouds hovered unnaturally on Mount Oeta, extending down to the Gates of Fire. Lightning split the air and peels of thunder echoed out over the Aegean.
The sphere of black appeared, hovering a foot above the ground. A lightning bolt hit it and the darkness absorbed the strike, sucking in the power, conquering the force of nature in a blink.
Several seconds later a man staggered out of the sphere, his skin red and blistered, whatever he had been wearing seared away. His head turned back and forth, as if he were searching, but his eyes had been burned and were blind. In his right hand he held a curved sword, the metal bright and un-marked by whatever had destroyed his body.
He yelled, the sound un-intelligible and swung the blade as if he were surrounded by enemies. His movements showed training and skill despite his agony. His feet moved as he backed up. He jabbed with the sword, slashed and backed up further.
Then his rear foot went over the edge of the cliff. He tried to regain his balance to no avail. He fell over, tumbling down toward the sea-ravaged rocks below. All without a cry issuing his lips.
The body slammed into a rock, rolled down into the surf and disappeared.
In the Gates of Fire the black sphere coalesced on itself until it was dot and then disappeared.
CHAPTER 7
THE PRESENT
Reizer had never been so tired. She’d rationed her water bottle, but it was empty now. She knew dawn wasn’t far off but it was hard to tell as her eyes were numbed from the fierce red glow of the fire-walls that surrounded her. She was so tired that she worried she would make a wrong turn. As near as she could figure, she was half way out of the plain, but it had been a circuitous journey, going along lines, circling around flaming figures. Twice she had chosen wrong and ended up at a dead end, her way barred by high walls of fire. She’d noted that the wall was higher along the straight lines and wedges, lower on the figure lines.
She passed around the end of the tail of the monkey and saw a straight line of fire in front of her. She felt despair, realizing that although she had walked almost the entire night, she had moved just slightly over a mile from where she had started. She estimated she had walked over seven times that.
She turned about in a circle, confirming her location, knowing she didn’t have the energy to continue on after another mistake. Her eyes widened as she realized where she was. Near the base of the main line, where it met the wedge. And the flame was different here, darker in color, a scarlet red. Higher. Three times as high. And there was a blackness in the center of the flame in the wedge. A dark, black circle that ate the light and drew in the nearby flame, consuming it.
Reizer staggered as her eyes were mesmerized, trapped by the darkness. She felt as if her soul were being ripped out of her body. She had no idea what was in that darkness but she feared as she had feared nothing before, not even when she’d been in Berlin when the Russians overran it. She had always thought that had been hell on Earth, but looking at the black sphere she sensed an evil inside of it that transcended even that nightmare.
She took another step backward, unknowingly closer to the wall of fire behind her. Then another. Her subconscious could feel the heat, but her aware mind could only be repelled by the sheer evil of that dark hole.
She stopped. Then took a step forward. And another. Being drawn against her will toward the darkness.
* * *
“There,” Dane pointed at the small glowing dot on the thermal imager of the Combat Talon, almost lost among the overwhelming glow of the fiery images.
“What?” The targeting officer was mesmerized by the numerous patterns displayed on a scale never before seen.
“There she is,” Dane said.
“Who?”
“We need to save her.”
“Who?” the targeting officer repeated. The dot had disappeared and Dane wondered for a moment if he’d really seen it.
Dane had flown from the Devil’s Sea to Hawaii in the back seat of a Navy F-16. Then he’d been transferred to one of the few remaining SR-71 Blackbirds and crammed in behind the pilot on a supersonic flight to Lima. He’d been met there by the Combat Talon, which had been sent from anti-drug missions in Colombia to meet him there on landing.
The MC-130 Talon was based on the airframe of the venerable Hercules C-130 cargo plane. It had four engines and a wide, stubby body like the C-130, but had been extensively upgraded. Four Allison T56-A-15 turboprop engines powered the plane with each producing almost five thousand horsepower of thrust. The true key to the plane was the sophisticated electronics, which allowed it to fly in all weather at low level. The pilots could
use terrain following and terrain avoidance radar, allowing to fly ‘on the deck’ at high speeds, avoiding both obstacles and enemy radar.
The plane also had a contraption called the Fulton Recovery System. Two steel whiskers extended out from the bottom of the nose of the plane. Their purpose was to snatch a steel cable attached to a balloon on one end and a person on the ground on the other. The cable was snagged, then reeled in, recovering the person from the ground.
Right now, the Talon was at five thousand and had just gone ‘feet-dry’ over the coast of Peru. As Dane had crossed the Pacific eastward, he’d felt both pulled and repulsed. He knew there was evil ahead, but also sensed inside the evil a person in need. It reminded him of all the search and rescue missions he and Chelsea had been on. When disaster, usually the result of human stupidity, occurred, he and Chelsea had been called in to find those who had survived.
Dane clicked the transmit button on the headset he wore. “Do another fly-over of Nazca. Thermal imaging. I’m sure there’s somebody down there.”
He made his way to the cockpit, climbing up the few steps and looking over the shoulder of the navigator at his display. They’d all seen the satellite imagery of the burning lines so it was no surprise as the imaging screen showed them once more, bright red lines and shapes covering the plain five thousand feet below.
“Hard to find a person’s image among all that,” the navigator said. He fine-tuned the display as he spoke. “Funny thing is those flame lines are very hot, but they’re not giving off much side-way heat. Almost as if they’re being contained. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Dane still felt strongly that there was a survivor below, even though he had no idea what the lines of fire displayed represented.
“Any image at body temp?” he asked.
“I’m going to fade out the temperature range for the lines,” the navigator said.
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