"What happened?" Yakov asked.
"I don't know," Turcotte said, "but I hope it doesn't happen again."
GULF OF MEXICO
Garlin looked at the metal sphere, turning it this way and that. Four extremely thin wires dangled from it, coated in blood. He carefully placed the sphere in a small cup, then turned back to the table. Certain Duncan was once more alive, he went back to the Ark and put his bloodstained hands on the controls. The second hole hadn't even finished healing as he began to probe once more.
Duncan didn't regain consciousness immediately, the trauma too great and overwhelming, even to her subconscious. The gift of immortality could keep her alive, but it couldn't help her deal with the pain and horror of what was being done to her. In a most primitive way, her mind was trying to protect her consciousness from what was happening.
The mental probe from the Ark of the Covenant went into Duncan's mind, traveling along the pathways of the nervous system, searching for images of her ship. The shunt kept blood flowing even as the conditioned flesh gave way once more.
The screen came to life with a new image.
The two standing stones and lintel were now part of a circle of similar stones. Five sets of two upright, each topped with a lintel stone. And around them a continuous circle of lintel stones on top of smaller upright ones. It was obvious that the site had been ravaged at some time, as some of the stones were cast over, including one right next to the gate. Garlin's mind recognized the structure, but the Swarm tentacle was too focused on what was being shown to pick up the message.
Duncan was twisting on the table, pushing hard against the straps holding her down. Her face was taut with agony, her skin paler than usual as the alien virus strove to replace the vast quantities of blood she had lost.
On the screen there was a paved road near the stones, indicating it was from a more recent memory. Garlin was leaning forward. There was a sign on a post. It came into focus and he could read the letters:
STONEHENGE
Garlin immediately shut down the Ark of the Covenant. He removed the crown from Duncan's head. He then connected the table with Duncan to the Ark table and released the brakes on the wheels on the bottom of both. He slowly pushed both into the corridor and back into the escape pod.
Inside the chamber, the Swarm began preparing the pod for launch.
The sniper had been on the derrick towering high over the abandoned oil platform in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico for several hours now with no sign of Simon Sherev or his fellow Israeli commandos. He had the muzzle of the Heckler & Koch PSG-1 resting on a railing, aimed at the elevator where the men had gone carrying the Ark of the Covenant.
He knew something had gone wrong. Sherev and the others had been gone too long without updating him on the situation.
His options, however, were limited. Entering the elevator to go after them was not a good idea. If whoever was down there had overpowered Sherev and the five commandos, the sniper knew he stood little chance of surviving. So he waited and watched. He'd made a radio call on the emergency frequency, detailing what little he knew, but he had no idea if the message had been picked up.
Three hundred feet below him, on the Gulf floor, a black sphere fifteen feet in diameter separated from the undersea habitat and began moving to the east underwater, slowly reducing depth until a mile from the platform it broke the surface and moved through the air, staying low, less than ten meters above the wave tops.
The sniper saw the black sphere but it was already out of range and moving away. He had no doubt that it was not of human origin. Cursing, he reached for the radio on his combat vest. It was FM, which meant it didn't have much range, so there was no way he could make contact with Israel. However, he felt that he had to make some sort of effort to inform someone of the location of the Ark and what he had just seen. He switched to the emergency shipping frequency for the area and began to broadcast once more, hoping someone would be close enough to pick him up.
HAWAII
The mothership was empty except for Turcotte and Yakov. They ignored entreaties from various officials to speak to them as Turcotte lifted the craft into the sky and turned to the east to head toward the mainland. His head still hurt, but nothing like it had. It was more like a strong headache now, and given all he had been through the past few weeks, not something he paid much attention to.
The adrenaline rush of saving those on Easter Island — and the Pacific Rim — was wearing off and the exhaustion from his Everest experience was once more taking over. Turcotte felt as if he would never be rested or feel up to strength again. He knew he needed to call Quinn and see what the latest information was. Hopefully Space Command was tracking Aspasia's Shadow's Talon in addition to Artad's. At the moment, Turcotte truly could care less about either.
Where was Duncan? Was she in the Gulf of Mexico? Turcotte wondered why he cared anymore. She had lied to him, manipulated him into getting involved in the entire Area 51 fiasco in the first place. And Aspasia's Shadow's pointed references to his own past being a lie — Turcotte felt a surge of anger. All the lies, all the deaths, and there was still so much unknown, buried underneath a mountain of deception.
The West Coast of the United States appeared on the horizon. Turcotte spotted two F-16s to the south, turning in his direction. He knew the military was still jittery and the world wasn't completely at peace yet.
Turcotte keyed the mike. "Quinn, inform the Pentagon we're entering US airspace with the mothership."
"Roger that."
"Do you have anything for me?"
"A sniper on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico has reported a craft coming out of the water and flying away to the northeast."
"Is Space Command tracking it?"
"I've sent an alert — nothing back yet."
"What else?" Turcotte adjusted course, turning more to the east from south as he realized there was no longer any need to head to the oil rig.
"I've got some interesting stuff both on Tunguska and a man named Tesla."
" 'Tesla' ?" Yakov repeated the name. "The Kurd at Ararat mentioned that name."
"He seems to be connected with the event at Tunguska," Quinn said.
"Connected how?" Turcotte asked.
"From what I've been able to find," Quinn said, "I think he may have shot down the Swarm scout ship."
CHAPTER 10: THE PRESENT
* * *
AIRSPACE ENGLISH CHANNEL
The Swarm pod was less than five meters above the wave tops and practically invisible in the darkness. Lisa Duncan was still securely strapped to the gurney, no longer connected to the Ark of the Covenant. Crammed in next to the tables was Garlin, hunched over and waiting.
The pod flew over the southern English shoreline between Weymouth and Bournemouth, the lights of both cities clearly visible on either side. It raced over eastern Dorset until it reached the Salisbury Plain, where it reduced speed. Its objective was outlined ahead by several lights, but there didn't appear to be anyone about — not unexpectedly, given the early hour.
A solitary set of headlights raced along a nearby road, then disappeared in the distance. The pod moved forward until it was directly above the lit area. It paused there, scanning the ground with penetrating radar, which revealed nothing, then moved to the northeast and slowly settled on the grassy plain, just outside a fence surrounding the compound.
SPACE COMMAND, CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN
Mary Keene had volunteered to work an extra shift so that some of her married colleagues who had been on extra duty during the recent world war could go home and see their families.
What she hadn't told her supervisor was that she didn't want to go home because she was afraid of what messages he might find there. Her only daughter was in the army and had been stationed in Seoul, South Korea. She'd seen the images downloaded from the spy satellites of what had happened to that city.
As long she didn't know for sure, it wouldn't be true. Keene couldn't bear to think about it, so
she focused on her screens with more attention than usual. She was inside one of the metal buildings set on heavy springs deep inside the complex. She was among a dozen operators watching their screens at a long, curved table.
Her area of observation was the North Atlantic, a region that had seen relatively little action given recent world events. She had access to three KH-14 spy satellites that observed from the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast of Europe.
She sat up straighter as she noticed activity. A very fast thermal trace, arcing from the Gulf of Mexico, across the Atlantic, across the coast of England came to an abrupt halt in southern England. Keene accessed her computer, correlated the stopping point, and discovered there was no airfield in that location. It couldn't have been a helicopter — it had moved too quickly and too far. In fact, as she entered the Might data, it had moved too quickly to be a top-of-the-line military jet.
That left the bouncers. She — and others at Space Command — had seen tracks of the alien craft prior to the truth about Area 51 being revealed, but every time they brought them to the attention of their supervisors, they were told to ignore them.
After the truth about what was at Area 51 was revealed, she had also tracked them occasionally. But this track, while similar, was somewhat different on the thermal readout. Hotter.
She also remembered that an alert had been circulated for information on any unusual flights in the Gulf of Mexico region.
She checked the alert list and noted that Area 51 was listed as the source of that alert, with contact information via MILSTAR. She hit the access code. The other end buzzed repeatedly, with no answer, and after thirty seconds she was about to cut the connection when a distracted voice came out of her speaker box.
"Major Quinn here. What?"
"Do you have a bouncer on a transatlantic flight?"
"Negative. What have you tracked?"
Keene relayed the information.
"You say it came from a location in the Gulf of Mexico?"
"Yes, sir."
"Where is it fixed now?" Quinn asked.
While she was talking, Keene had been zeroing in the nearest KH-14 for an exact location. She brought up the ground mapping for the area and mixed the two on her screen. What she saw surprised her. The spot was marked with red writing, indicating it was of national significance.
"South, middle, England. It's at Stonehenge."
STONEHENGE
Stonehenge was just off the M-43 — the biggest tourist attraction in the immediate area, and one of the largest in all of England. The Swarm pod was just to the northeast, simply observing for a while before moving in. A good scout always reconnoiters before approaching a target, and the Swarm had a great deal of experience at scouting, whether on the galactic or local scale.
When the Swarm was satisfied that the area appeared to be safe and deserted, the pod moved forward. It hit the fence and tore through easily. It came to a halt just at the edge of the inner circle, in front of the altar stone. Unknown to the Swarm, an alarm system built into the fence was activated, and a warning light went off at the local constabulary.
Inside the pod, Garlin had put the crown back on Duncan's head during the recon and hooked it up to the Ark leads.
The ground-penetrating radar hadn't revealed the presence of the craft that had been displayed in Duncan's memory. However, during the probing of Duncan's memories, the Swarm had noted the red netting that had been spread over the surface of the spaceship before it was buried and had to assume that it was some sort of shielding.
The issue was how to get into the stone elevator.
Garlin directed the probe into Duncan's mind, searching for more memories of when she had come here in the past.
The screen flickered, then came alive with an image. Stonehenge. The circles intact, indicating it to be thousands of years ago. It was nighttime, but the stones were bathed in a red glow. Several hundred meters beyond the stones, a massive wicker figure was burning. It was over fifty feet high and made of wicker branches woven onto a stronger wooden frame. Stuffed inside were dozens of people, screaming as the flames ate at their skin.
In a circle around the burning "man" were hundreds, if not thousands of people dressed in various-colored robes, watching the horrific display, the glow flickering off their rapt faces. At the back edge of the crowd were two people, edging away, heading toward Stonehenge. They were alone when they reached the monument and threw back their hoods. Duncan and her partner. She walked up to the left standing stone in the center of the complex and put her right hand out, pressing it against a spot on the stone, and the door appeared, opening.
Garlin disconnected the leads, the screen going black.
Looking down, he could see that Duncan was conscious for the first time in quite a while, her dark eyes staring at him. Her body had had enough time during the flight to recover from the damage that he had inflicted on her.
"Who are you?" Her voice was rough, her throat parched and ragged from her earlier screams. Her eyes were deep-set, weary, and worn, the memories of the pain etched on her face.
Garlin didn't answer. He reached down and tightened the strap around her right hand, pinning it securely to the table palm up.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
Garlin remained silent as he turned to the black bag and pulled out a strange-looking device, the key feature of which was a long, thin blade. He pressed a button and the blade began moving back and forth a very short distance, picking up speed until it became a blur. Duncan's eyes grew wide as he turned toward her and lowered the device toward her hand.
"Don't!" she yelled.
With a blur of flying blood, flesh, and bone, Garlin pressed it down against the wrist. Duncan's undulating scream echoed through the pod. In less than four seconds, an eternity for Duncan, the blade had cut completely through. Blood spurted out of the arteries that had been severed, and Garlin didn't bother to make any attempt to stem its flow.
He released the button, and the only sound was Duncan's pained moaning. He put the machine down and picked up her severed right hand. A section of the outer wall of the pod opened, lowered to the ground, formed a ramp, and Garlin walked out.
Behind him, Lisa Duncan lay on the table, hovering between consciousness and unconsciousness, her lips moving in a wordless babble. Blood no longer surged out of the severed artery at the end of her right arm as the virus sealed the wound. Slowly, the body began to regenerate the lost appendage.
Constable Martaugh quietly cursed as he drove the police Land Rover along the M-34 toward Stonehenge. The security system had been put into the fence by a private organization to help deter young revelers who often congregated at the monument late at night, drinking, carousing, and, in some cases, damaging the stones with graffiti. Martaugh had already run them off twice this month.
If he caught those damn kids again — Martaugh spun the wheel, directing his car onto the turnoff. He didn't mind them having fun, it was the desecration of the stones that bothered him. He'd lived here all his life and like most who'd spent their time near the henge, he'd always felt a reverence for the stones. Locals cared little when they were built or who had built them — the important thing was that they were here.
When his headlights illuminated the crushed fence, his foot instinctively went to the brake and the car quickly came to a halt. He blinked as he noted the large round orb floating a few feet off the ground near the inner circle. There was a man walking toward the center stones. And he was carrying something. Martaugh began to open the car door when the man lifted the object and placed it against the left upright stone, then the policeman recognized it: a severed human hand.
Martaugh ducked back into the car and grabbed for his radio, missing the mike on his first attempt, then fumbling with it for a few seconds. During that time everything went from the bizarre to the surreal, as a door opened in the stone and the man walked in, the door shutting behind him. For a moment Martaugh held the mike in his hand, n
ot sure if he had seen what had just happened or if this was some nightmare he was acting out. But the large round black orb still floated a few feet above the ground not far from him. Martaugh pressed the key on the mike.
CAMP ROWE, NORTH CAROLINA
The mothership was a black mass against a dark, overcast night sky as it descended onto the old airstrip. The Delta Force commandos stared in awe as it came to a hover, the bottom of it just a few feet above the pitted concrete. A cargo door near the front slid open and a metal gangway extended down to the ground. A green glow highlighted the opening and silhouetted two men as they exited the craft. One was huge, towering over his partner, but the smaller man walked with an air of confidence, despite shoulders stooped in exhaustion. It was the same silent confidence all the Delta men guarding the location had.
Major Quinn felt a wave of relief, recognizing Yakov and Turcotte. The relief turned to concern as the two came into the circle of light surrounding the hangar. Both men looked haggard, Turcotte particularly so. There were blisters on his face from the cold, his eyes were bloodshot, and he had gray stubble across his chin. He was absently rubbing the back of his head.
"I think we've found Duncan," Quinn led with. Turcotte didn't react as the major had expected. No smile, no lifting of the weariness. "Where?"
"Stonehenge."
Turcotte didn't stop walking, heading past Quinn, Yakov at his shoulder, and into the hangar. Turcotte slumped into a folding chair and Yakov did the same. A soldier came over with a steaming cup of coffee, which Turcotte gratefully accepted. His hands cradled the warm cup and he leaned over, his nose just above it, breathing in deeply.
"Stonehenge? England?" Turcotte finally looked up. How do you know?"
Quinn knelt in front of Turcotte and spoke softly and slowly. "A craft was tracked from the Gulf of Mexico to Stonehenge. It was too fast to be a jet. Strange thermal signature. They thought it was a bouncer, but all are accounted for. On top of all of that, we got a call from an Israeli sniper who said Sherev took the Ark of the Covenant to an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. And something, some sort of pod, took off from underneath the rig and flew away to the northeast not long ago. Now whatever took off there is at Stonehenge."
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