“The attack has stopped!” Pettellus shouted as he stood. He shook his head to clear it and casually pulled an arrow from the lining of his red cloak, then angrily tossed the black stick into the fire. The rain was now falling as if pebbles were being thrown at them from the heights and the wind was threatening the footing of every man inside the stockade.
His commanders were starting to report on casualties and to receive orders when the lights illuminated the entire breadth of the night sky, and that was when the centurion saw what evil had suddenly come upon them. Rock-sized hail started to fall. Some of the ice stones were larger than a man’s closed fist, while others were larger than a two- or three-pound stone. The hail destroyed tents and knocked running men from their feet.
“The savages have broken off and are retreating!” one of his men said just as a ball of chain lightning rent the skies above them. Blue and green bolts shot through the swirling raindrops and snaked across the black sky enough to illuminate the circling motion of the storm.
“Tell the men to hold position at the stockade, as I fear this attack may not be over!” Pettellus shouted as his men quickly moved away watching the skies as they did. “This storm may keep them out … then again it may not.”
As he watched the terror of his men start to show on their faces, Pettellus looked at the sky as lightning again ripped across its blackness. The swirling clouds above the stockade made his blood turn cold. The hurricane-like storm was now directly atop the Roman army. Men were thrown to the wet ground as more of the evil green and blue lightning broke the skies apart with such violence the men of the mighty Ninth Legion cowered in terror. As Pettellus’s eyes widened, yellow, green, and orange bolts shot out of the center of the swirling mass above. The air rose underneath the helmet of the centurion. The crack of heat and electricity filled the air and the earth shook beneath their prone bodies.
“The savages are attacking!”
Centurion Pettellus turned as his helmet was ripped away by the wind and rain. The enemy had seen the chance and were now breaching the stockade under the cover of the storm. The moat was now gone, pushed and pulled free of the trench by the storm, and that gave the Caledonians clear access to the wooden barrier.
“Defense!” The order was shouted as men rose to meet the attackers as the barbarians streamed over the stockade in a man-made rush of a waterfall.
The sky exploded.
A green bubble formed within the eye of the storm directly over the battle. The swirling clouds seemed to implode and then expand. At that moment the sky became as bright as the sun and forced every man, both barbarian and legionnaire, to freeze in fear.
The centurion turned to shout orders as the savages broke into the center of his still-forming men. Before he could utter a sound the sky exploded and the buzzing was heard all around them, piercing and deep. The green dome exited the swirling hurricane above and slammed into the ground. Pettellus felt his skin warm and then he felt his stomach heave as though trying to rid itself of the afternoon meal he had eaten earlier. His tongue was like a cotton swab and his vision became nonexistent. Then all was gone. Sensation along with thought vanished as the light washed over him and his men.
The storm stopped as if it had never been. The rain ceased and the clouds circled into nothingness and the mist seemed to climb into the sky and then quickly dissipate. The northern lights were gone and the night was still.
The earth where the stockade had stood was barren. Gone were grass, fire pits, and moat. The wood of the earthworks vanished as though it had never been. Tents, weapons, even the barbarian savages had vanished. Only the strange buzzing continued as the last of the clouds evaporated, and even that eventually faded and then disappeared.
The Ninth Legion and the savages attacking them north of Hadrian’s Wall that summer of 117 AD, vanished without a trace, then swelled into one of the great mysteries of the world.
After that night the Ninth Legion was woven into the fabric of legend.
NANKING, CHINA
DECEMBER 1937
Colonel Li Fu Sien of the Nationalist Chinese army anchored the ends of his defensive lines with massed artillery. As he observed the Japanese across the bridge on the far side of the Yangtze River where the enemy waited to cross, the colonel knew his men were ready for what was to come. He removed the binoculars from his eyes and looked down at the commander of his artillery. The hated enemy would not cross the Yangtze River without the loss of many men.
His soldiers were indeed ready. They were near mutinous in their desire to get at the men who had committed the worst atrocity in human history not three days before. The Rape of Nanking would haunt the Japanese people for the rest of human existence. This would be the historical price for the murder of over three hundred thousand civilians inside the city. Men, women, and children had been bayoneted, shot, raped, and beheaded. Yes, his men were ready to exact vengeance on the Japanese soldiers across the river.
The colonel heard the rumble of thunder and as he looked toward the sky he could see the swirling mass of clouds start to collect over the river. The boom of thunder felt as if the guns of the heavens had opened up upon the world. He watched as colors started swirling not only in the winds, but they also illuminated the funnel cloud that was starting to form. He raised his field glasses and aimed them at the Japanese troops across the river. He could see they too were growing concerned over the strange turn in the weather. Suddenly the colonel let the binoculars slip from his grasp as the pain struck first his ears, and then his eyes. He grasped the sides of head in pain, as did the men around him.
Around the two armies the wind started a slow circle as the bright green, yellow, and blue lights intensified, making the Chinese colonel look up. His eyes widened when he saw the swirling, circling funnel cloud moving over the land like a zigzagging snake or a mythical dragon of old. Then he saw the static electricity run over his exposed skin and under his hat. Men were starting to panic as the moving tornado—one that resembled a hurricane more than its landlocked cousin—closed over his men and then the river and finally the Japanese soldiers on the far shore.
The colonel fell to his knees as the gale-force wind struck him and his massed troops. Before he knew what was happening, he, his men, most of the Yangtze River, and finally the Japanese vanished. Each man in both armies felt the penetration of the electrical field as it passed over, around, and then finally through their bodies. Soon each human being just phased out of existence. Equipment, rations, and men vanished in a blink of an eye.
The strange tornado seemed to leap, settle, and then turned itself inside out and then shot back into the skies. In the eye of the tornado the blackness of space could be seen in the far distance. But there was now no soldier, enemy or Chinese, within twenty miles that would ever report it.
The two armies and every piece of equipment weighing less than a thousand pounds had vanished from the face of the earth.
TEHRAN, IRAN
DECEMBER 1978
The streets were now quiet. The rampage of students had settled to an uneasy array of midnight shouts praising God and its oft-mentioned counterpart, “Death to the great Satan.”
The slow-moving Mercedes turned and made its way through a small storm of flying paper and other detritus that had accumulated since the revolution against the shah began. As the car’s occupants watched through tinted windows a large white van appeared at a street corner and then flashed its headlights. The Mercedes followed suit and gave their return signal. Two large Toyota Land Cruisers sped ahead of the white van as it soon pulled out of the darkened street. The black Mercedes quickly fell in line to the rear of the small column. They were soon joined by five supporting Toyota all-terrain vehicles brimming with armed men.
The two vehicles with their military escort slowly slipped out of town just after 1:45 A.M. and with their escort quickly wound their way out of the still-smoldering city of Tehran. They slid past the darkened United States embassy where student militants w
ere holding fifty-seven American hostages. The small man riding in the backseat of the Mercedes shook his head. Even though he was younger than most of the occupying students holding the embassy, he knew tweaking the nose of America at this critical juncture of the revolution was dangerous to say the least. Although he had met only three or four Americans in his time at school he knew them to be the most impulsive people on earth—and in his mind that made them dangerous. He watched the students as they lounged around the thick iron gates of the U.S. embassy. The university student took a deep breath and rubbed the skin of his beardless face.
It took thirty minutes to reach their mysterious destination. The van pulled off to the side of a barren road and allowed three of the Toyotas to pull up to the gate surrounding the compound. Three men exited the first vehicle and confronted the uniformed guards at the gate. The small man in the Mercedes watched as the very last of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s loyal Army members were rounded up at gunpoint. Again the young man shook his head in disbelief as the guards would no doubt be shot at the new regime’s earliest convenience.
The young student was beginning to think the revolution was taking on an air of desperation. Many of his fellow intellectuals were as concerned as he. For the moment there was nothing he could do about it. Someday the religious fools would find that the enemy was not within the Iranian state borders, but outside of it.
The man and his roommate had been awoken and taken from their small apartment with no apology and told they were to accompany the armed men on a most secretive trip to the outskirts of the city. The young man had been up most of the night studying and was not pleased with being taken from his bed. He glanced at his friend in the backseat and shook his head once more.
“If they wanted to shoot us would they have taken us all the way out into the middle of nowhere?” his friend asked.
“No, I believe if we threatened them in any way they would just walk into our apartment and shoot us there. No, this is something else. Now relax, worrying about it won’t change our fate.”
His roommate leaned over and whispered, “They have no compunction about shooting anyone they see as a threat. I’ve noticed of late quite a few of our forward-thinking friends have suddenly decided to take the short road out of town.” The young bearded man looked through the tinted window. “And this is a short road out of town.”
The large double-door security gate was finally opened and three of the guards from the first three Toyotas were left behind as the new security for the state-run facility. The Mercedes drew past following the van and the man’s eyes locked with the guard that held the gate open. He looked like a brute and a ruthless killer from the old days of the Persian Empire. The black beard framed a face that seemed to be full of hatred.
“All I know is that if they don’t get the citizenry under control inside the cities we will have no cities left.” The young man faced his friend and fellow student. “They need to stop the destructive ways of the people. The fools just don’t realize they have won.”
He stopped speaking when he saw the driver of the Mercedes looking at him in the rearview mirror.
As the two vehicles with their escort rounded a bend in the road the two men riding in the backseat saw the building for the first time. It was block shaped and looked nothing like one of the expensive structures that the shah had erected in the past several years. This was functional and any student with a brain could see that this small, ugly facility was military in nature. The Mercedes pulled into the parking area and the motor was shut off. As the tired young man reached for the door handle the driver turned and shook his head.
“You are instructed to wait.”
The boy swallowed and released the door’s handle. He then watched the white van as a small squad of men exited the rear doors and spread out. Several of those dark eyes were on them. They watched as the right-side sliding door was opened and a small box was placed on the ground. A black-shoed foot exited the van and before they knew what they were witnessing, a tall, thin man stepped quickly up to the door and assisted an elderly man out. The black turban and silver beard with its black streaks were immediately recognizable. The black cleric robe framed the thick, dark, and unforgiving brows as the old man was steadied as he stepped into the night.
“Praise be to God,” the young student mumbled as he watched the older man.
The cleric’s eyes roamed over the building. Soon other clerics were surrounding the man as he moved toward the glass-fronted building. Suddenly the tall man in the black turban stopped and slowly turned toward the Mercedes. He nodded in that direction and both men in the backseat froze as they knew the most famous man in the known world at that time was referencing them.
“I knew we shouldn’t have written that paper on the technological aspect of our relationship with the west. We should have condemned it.” The student turned and faced his slightly older partner, but the man was enraptured as he studied the man surrounded by the black-clad clerics.
“This is about something else,” the clean-shaven one mumbled.
“You may exit the car, but do not approach the party until you are called on to do so. Any move toward the group will be met with extreme force.”
The man didn’t even hear the threat as he opened the car’s door and stepped out. He stopped and made eye contact with the man centered in the circle. The long gray and black beard was recognizable in any corner of the world as his face had been on television screens across the planet for months. The two students fell in line as the front doors of the blockhouse were opened by men and women in white lab coats.
The large group accompanying Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini entered the most secure and top secret facility in all of the Middle East.
* * *
The silent group entered a lift that could hold no less than a hundred men. The ayatollah stared straight ahead at the gate in front of him as his advisors spoke in low whispers. The tall man raised his left brow and then turned and faced the two students behind him. The eyes of his advisors followed suit.
“May God grant you favor,” he said in Farsi as he faced the young, clean-shaven man.
“God is great,” the student said as his throat almost seized as the ayatollah held his gaze upon him.
“You are enrolled at Iran University of Science and Technology?” the ayatollah asked with a barely audible voice.
“Yes, we are in our third year of study.”
A man dressed in a white shirt buttoned to the throat and wearing thick glasses faced the two students.
“You are first in your class. I believe your instructors”—he paused and turned to face the ayatollah—“Westerners for the most part”—then he turned back to the two frightened men—“have pegged you as a future leader in the field of high energy.”
The young man listened but made no comment. Why should he, he thought. They seemed to know all anyway.
“I am not in the same classes as my friend. I am in the field of agriculture,” the younger of the two men braved.
The ayatollah lowered his head, not commenting on the statement from the young man’s roommate.
The elevator stopped at its lowest level. The gate was raised and they were met by two men also attired in white coats. The group stepped out onto a bare concrete floor. The man in the white shirt and glasses paused at the entrance and held the younger of the two students back. He nodded with his head that the older of the two should follow the group.
“As it stands, agriculture is not the lesson we seek here tonight, so this is where your journey ends. It was our mistake in assuming you worked with this young man and Professor Azeri.” The man pulled the door down and the two students were left looking at each other through the wire-mesh gate. The student inside the lift looked scared.
“Where are you taking him?” the older asked as the elevator started to rise.
“Back to your apartment, of course.”
The lift continued to rise. He waited until a hand fell on his should
er and he turned to face the large man, who gestured that he should follow.
“Where are they taking my friend?” he insisted, not trusting the provided answer of a moment before. This time he asked with a little more force as he was taken by the arm and hurried along a winding corridor made of cinder block.
The man didn’t answer a second time. He stepped up to a large door and before the student could ask his question again the steel door slid into the frame and he was unceremoniously nudged forward. The door slid closed behind him.
The room was massive. The small group was situated high up on a catwalk. Newly returned from exile, Ayatollah Khomeini was a few feet away and looking far down into the interior of the room. His arms were folded at his waist with the hands hidden inside the sleeves of his black robes. The student finally realized they were on a viewing platform. When he moved away from the ayatollah he slowly stepped forward and looked down. His eyes widened when he saw the object that was in view of all of the clerics. It was no less than two hundred feet in diameter and at least a story tall in height. It was round and silver in color. There were no identifying marks on its slick skin and the thing looked as if it had been built the day before. Spotlights shined off the skin, giving it an almost heavenly appearance. When he looked back at the ayatollah he noticed the man didn’t see the object as heaven-sent at all. The dark eyes were closed in prayer.
Khomeini slowly opened his eyes and then turned and faced the young man without saying a word. The young student finally tore his gaze from his new leader and then faced the object far below once again.
The flying saucer was the most amazing thing he had ever been witness to.
Khomeini watched the amazement as it grew in the young student’s face. The new national leader narrowed his eyes and continued to watch the boy’s reaction.
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