“Not just another pretty face,” Jack said.
Anna winked. “You do not know the half of it.”
They crossed a distance of thirty yards, navigating past icy obstacles several times taller than a man. The illumination from their helmets shining off the icy surfaces made the space around them shimmer with an eerie, undulating glow.
“When will we get to those buildings we…” Eugene began to say, but the words trailed off, stopped short by the impressive sight appearing before him. A giant wall loomed out of the darkness, at least fifty feet high. In the center was an archway, twenty feet wide and about the same in height. Tracing its length from left to right, it was possible to see huge portions of it had fallen away, destroyed by time and yet also preserved by the ice and the freezing temperatures.
“That’s one hell of a wall,” Dag said in awe.
As they approached, Gabby stopped and leaned back, allowing her light to trace all the way to the top. “What do you think it was for?” she asked.
“Ancient Rome stood without a wall for hundreds of years,” Jack said with hushed reverence. “Until the city was sacked by the Gauls in the fourth century B.C. But those walls were barely half as tall. What we’re seeing here is on an entirely different scale.”
Grant nodded. “Not to mention this site is likely much, much older.”
“Hey, where are you going?” Rajesh called after Anna, who had veered off from the group and was heading toward the base of the wall.
“I have detected an anomaly and wish to investigate it further.”
Jack, Gabby and Rajesh followed her, while the others stayed in place, inspecting the impressive engineering feat. Tamura, an engineer herself, seemed particularly speechless.
By the time the three of them caught up to Anna, she was busy brushing what looked like powdery snow off an oddly shaped mound. But it couldn’t be snow, not down here. Then Jack realized what it was. Tiny shavings from the cavern’s ceiling, having trickled down over millions of years. They helped Anna, wondering where this was going. Gabby shone her light into the strangely shaped block of ice and gasped. Jack moved in for a better look. It was a massive thigh bone.
“I am making a comparison to all known zoological specimens,” Anna informed them.
Jack waved Dag, the paleontologist, over. The Swede crossed the distance in record time.
“What’s going on?” he asked, breathing hard, before he stared down. “Holy smokes. That’s a dinosaur leg bone.”
“Dr. Gustavsson is correct,” Anna said. “It appears to be a previously unknown relative of Tyrannosaurus rex.”
Jack glanced up at the imposing stone structure. “If I lived in a neighborhood with meat-eating dinosaurs, I’d probably build a wall too.”
Gabby brushed her gloved hand against the coarse stone. “Whoever this belonged to, we can be sure they lived on earth millions of years before we showed up.”
•••
Quickly the group passed through the archway and into a space that was at once eerily new and disturbingly familiar. A wide avenue stretched out before them. On either side stood the ghostly remains of gutted stone buildings, many of them several stories high. Beneath their feet, more finely cut stone had been used to create a cobbled road well-worn from the sort of traffic they could only guess at. Mixed in with the snow was a fine layer of dust. Jack bent down and scooped up a sample. He then headed to a building on his right. He paused before the entrance. The doorway was three feet higher and two feet wider than anything they were used to back home. Cut into the sides of the stone frame were notches where brackets or hinges had once held some kind of door in place.
“Looks like the people living here weren’t hobbits,” Jack teased.
“People?” Anna asked, a few feet behind him, fixating on the odd choice of word.
“Figure of speech, I suppose,” he replied, grinning. Scattered debris lay strewn at his feet. An archway opened into another room and beyond that he spotted a set of stone steps leading up to a second floor. Missing doors and hinges. It was starting to look as though anything organic or biodegradable had long since rotted away. A pile of dust lay against the far wall. Had this once been a table? To his left was what appeared to be a fireplace. Had this been where meals were prepared? His mind raced with visions of who may have lived here and how they might have looked. Right from the start, one educated guess could be made. Physically speaking, they were much larger than modern humans.
Dag came in behind him, stretching his arm and failing to reach the top of the door frame. “I’m telling you, man, these guys would have made one unbeatable NBA team. Freakishly tall and fit from outrunning T-Rexes all day long. Can anyone say All-Star?”
“Then throw in the bulk of a defensive lineman,” Jack added, “and you start to get a picture of what imposing figures they must have been.”
“What is this?” Dag asked, picking up what looked like a ten-inch black drinking straw. The object was so delicate, half of it crumbled out of his hands, seesawing to the stone floor. “I keep finding this stuff everywhere. Even in the street, except there the pieces are so much bigger.”
Jack took hold of what was left and examined it. “If it’s everywhere, it must have been important.”
“Hey, Jack,” Gabby said over the radio. “Where are you?”
He went to the doorway “You find something?”
She nodded and motioned to the ground. “You’re not going to believe this.”
Chapter 24
Washington, D.C.
Driving into the city center from Adams Morgan could best be described as hell on earth. Or maybe hell on wheels. With traffic bumper to bumper and moving at a crawl, it took Kay close to two hours to reach the Washington Post’s head office. More unnerving still were the National Guard troops stationed at every major intersection. The further one pushed into the capital, the tighter and stricter the security perimeter became.
As soon as she arrived, Kay headed straight for the lair in the paper’s basement occupied by Lucas De Silva and the rest of his I.T. minions. Lucas was Brazilian with an olive complexion and a hot temper. He was also incredibly handsome and could just as easily have been a model rather than a computer geek.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he said, standing and kissing Kay’s hand.
“I need you to do me a favor,” she said, eyeing the piles of papers on his desk.
“You know I love you, darling,” he began. “But right now we are up to our eyeballs and armpits.” Lucas had a way of letting you down in the most painless and almost enjoyable way.
Kay shrugged the laptop bag off her shoulder and set it on his desk. “You remember last year’s Christmas party, how Sandy Yeats, our sadistic editor-in-chief, wanted to know who had thrown up in the trash bin under her desk?”
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “No, I do not remember.”
“I’m sure you don’t, but I do and I’ll be happy to fill Sandy in on the details. Unless, of course, you could find time to lend me a hand.”
Lucas waved his arms around dramatically. “Can you not see that everyone is missing? Between that Charlzburg syndrome and news that the world is about to end, I’ve gone from a team of fifteen to a team of two and I’m the second.”
She didn’t bother correcting his pronunciation of Salzburg. Kay knew it was all part of the show. “There’s a video and some pictures on a hard drive I want you to take a look at. Sooner or later, the Feds are gonna show up asking questions and I want you to see what you can find on the conspirators before they do.”
Lucas glared down at the laptop with disdain. “Are these originals?”
“Yes, but I made copies, so have at it and ring me if you find anything worthwhile.” She turned to leave, then stopped and held out her hand. “What? No kiss?”
•••
From there, Kay made her way through the hornets’ nest that was the paper’s newsroom and straight for Ron Lewis’ office. She could see him inside with
Sandy Yeats. They were speaking with a man and woman dressed in dark suits. It was starting to look like the Feds had arrived sooner than expected. Ron saw her approaching and waved her in.
“This is Agent Smith and Agent Granger,” he said, introducing them. “Smith is with the FBI and Granger is with the Secret Service.”
Smith flashed his badge a second after Granger did the same.
“I’ve provided the agents with a copy of the video and still images you sent me,” Ron began.
“We need to know who your source is,” Smith said, cutting to the chase.
Kay took an involuntary step back. “I wish I knew. If I had to guess, I’d say he worked in the West Wing.”
“He?” Granger asked.
“Online, he went by the moniker Laydeezman, so I assumed. But sure, I suppose it could be a woman.”
“Apart from what you published,” Smith asked, “has this Laydeezman given you any other information?”
“He sent me photographic evidence of the alien ship heading for earth. He asked me not to run the story and then presumably gave it to other news outlets.”
“And why did he ask you to hold off?” Granger asked.
“He was testing me, I think,” Kay replied. “Given what he knew, he rightfully suspected his life would be in danger. Perhaps the lives of his family as well.”
“Family?” Smith asked, arching an eyebrow.
“I’m speculating, of course. Listen, is there any word on the president’s condition?”
Both agents shook their heads.
Sandy Yeats spoke up. “It’s not unreasonable to assume Congress will utilize the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to swear the vice-president in, at least on a temporary basis. Kennedy’s assassination in ’63 was a big part of the reason it was created in the first place.”
“She’s right,” Kay said, a sudden pang of fear engulfing her. “And that’s exactly what the conspirators were banking on. To remove President Taylor from office in order to slide Vice-President Millard into power.”
“That’s what the video purports to show,” Smith said. “But it isn’t up to us to act. We can only bring the evidence to the DOJ and have them force a legal injunction.”
“Yeah, but what if they’re in on it too?” Kay shouted. “I mean, once Vice-President Millard gets sworn in it’ll be too late. Don’t you see? They want to throw everything we have against that spaceship. They think the president’s plan to head underground isn’t going to work and they tried to kill him for it.”
“Ma’am,” Smith said, his hands raised defensively, “I need you to just relax. Right now, our job is to find out as much as we can about your confidential source.”
“Yes, that’s right, shoot the messenger,” Kay fired back. “Can’t you see there are whistleblowers on the inside trying to expose one of the biggest conspiracies in our country’s history? And the two of you want to keep sniffing around for an ironclad case before you act. This type of bureaucratic thinking was precisely what Millard and his goons were counting on. Hell, who am I kidding? Maybe none of it will matter anyway. If the president’s plan moves forward we’ll all hide while the earth is engulfed in a giant fireball. And if the conspirators win, we’ll live in a radioactive wasteland.”
“Kay, go cool off,” Ron shouted, his normally pale face pink with anger.
Kay did as he said, bursting through his office door and into the newsroom. “I’m sorry about that,” she heard Ron saying to the agents as she was leaving. “She can be hotheaded, but her heart’s in the right place.”
The reporters around her stood staring. Kay marched past them and pulled out her cellphone. Even if the VP and the other top cabinet officials conspiring alongside him were right, killing the president to get your way was inexcusable. Surely there was another man or woman within the line of presidential succession better suited than a bunch of cut-throats in fancy suits. If the agents in the building weren’t going to listen, then maybe she would find someone who would. Kay dialed Ramirez’s cell phone. It rang half a dozen times before going to voicemail.
“Hi, this is Special Agent Ramirez with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Please leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
“Hey, it’s Kay. Listen, I’m sure by now you’ve heard. Things are spinning out of control back home. I know you’re on assignment in India, protecting that scientist, but the Feds here aren’t in a hurry to stop the VP from getting sworn in. I need you to contact the head of the bureau again and do what you can to push things along. Too much is riding on what we do in the next few hours.”
Kay hung up and flipped through the texts she’d received earlier. Five of them were from her father. Her mother was dreadfully sick with Salzburg and he wanted Kay to come home.
Home. Right now the word sounded about as foreign as retirement or sending her non-existent kids off to college. And yet with the country—heck, the world—crumbling around them, there was no place Kay would rather be.
Chapter 25
Greenland
“We don’t have time for this,” Captain Mullins complained, no longer trying to hide his impatience. He and the rest of the C-17 crew stood in the middle of the wide road. There, Mullins paced anxiously, eyeing the enemy tracks laid out in a dusting of ice particles.
“This may not look like much to you,” Grant told the captain, “but you should know you’re standing within the greatest archeological site ever found. So you’ll have to forgive us if we take a few minutes to look around.”
“We may not like it,” Jack said begrudgingly, “but Mullins is right. We need to keep moving.” When Jack reached Gabby, he saw she was standing between two buildings, speaking with Tamura. The two of them were staring down at something on the ground.
“Not more dinosaur bones,” he said.
“No,” Gabby replied. “But I wanted to get your take on this. Make sure I’m not losing my mind.”
He stooped to find a large pile of rust-colored flakes frozen in the ice. Protruding up from them was a thick piece of something black. He eyed it carefully before he dared finish the thought and then broke off a piece. Could it be rubber? “Add this to our samples,” he told her, handing it over. “And see if you can’t chip out a few of those rust flakes while you’re at it.” He handed her the black drinking straw and soot particles he’d collected. Jack returned his attention to Gabby’s find. He often had to fight with everything he had to avoid the delicious impulse to jump to conclusions, but right now he just couldn’t help himself. Shaking his head, Jack said, “What are the chances we’re looking at some sort of vehicle?”
Jack’s statement drew others from the science team.
“I have noted three other deposits of rust flakes alongside a hardened black substance,” Anna told them.
“Have you found any indoors?” he asked.
“Only outside, Dr. Greer.”
Of course, Jack understood that outside was a relative term, given they were standing within an enormous ice cave.
“None of this is exactly definitive,” Gabby said, “but it certainly lends weight to the idea the people living here had a primitive form of technology.”
“Vehicles?” Dag burst in. “Primitive technology? Do you know how crazy you sound? You’re talking about a civilization millions of years old. You’re talking about the stuff of Saturday morning cartoons.” He pointed at the row of blockhouses. “I suppose this was Fred Flintstone’s house and this here was where Barney Rubble lived. I enjoy a bong hit just as much as the next person, but come on.”
“No one is saying any such thing,” Jack hit back defensively. “And I know it sounds crazy. I’m simply adding up everything we’ve seen in the short time since we got down here. And like you, all of us are struggling to put the pieces together.”
“Let’s just all calm down,” Gabby said, taking Jack by the forearms and forcing him to look in her eyes. “There’s a chance the bones outside the walls may be giving us a false impressi
on.”
“Exactly,” Dag blurted out. Paleontology was his area of expertise, so it was hardly a surprise he was insistent on ensuring the proper methodology was being followed. Jumping the gun with wild theories wasn’t going to help anyone. “I can’t tell you how many summers I spent up in the Alberta badlands. Did you know you can hardly throw a rock without hitting a dinosaur bone? It’s that easy, man, I’m not kidding. And there’s a darn good chance this city was built on the remnants of a Cretaceous rainforest.” Dag took in a deep breath and flashed them a weak, almost desperate smile.
Anna stepped into Dag’s field of view. “I have always found that whenever the facts are at odds with agreed-upon reality, it is wise to return to what is known.”
“Anna’s right,” Jack said. “The only other pre-Columbian settlements on Greenland we know of were the Inuit and later the Vikings during the tenth century. The latter clung on for over four hundred years until a change in the climate drove them to abandon their foothold.”
Gabby rubbed her hands together. “We also know that Greenland has been covered with an ice sheet for millions of years. Given this site is located in the center of the island we can infer that whoever built this wasn’t human.”
Grant set down the two cases he was carrying. “Then you’re suggesting a civilization existed on earth that predates humans?”
“It sure as heck is starting to look that way,” Gabby replied, searching from one person to the next. “I mean what other explanation fits the fact pattern we’re seeing?”
“You call it a civilization,” Jack said. “What if it was merely a colony?”
“Colony?” Rajesh repeated, uncertain he heard him right. “You mean like Jamestown in the seventeenth century?”
“He means alien colony,” Tamura threw in, eyeing Jack for confirmation.
“Yes, I’m saying, have any of you considered the possibility, however remote, that the Ateans had another ship that crashed into the earth, maybe the same one which released the blast wave we detected last week? And that instead of staying onboard, this time they decided to explore and set up a place to live on the surface?”
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