Kelly shivered for several moments, then the body relaxed and became one with the guardian once more.
* * *
Turcotte knew Duncan was on the satellite radio, arranging for some assistance through her own private network. He had something else on his mind.
He found Yakov sprawled in a chair in the cabin that had been provided the Russian. A bottle of clear liquid rested on a table nearby.
“My friend!” Yakov said as Turcotte came into the cabin. “A toast to fallen comrades.”
Turcotte took the glass. He raised it to his lips and took a drink. The fiery liquid burned as it went down. “Where did you get this?” Turcotte asked when he could speak.
“Ah, I am a man of many resources,” Yakov said. “Your navy says it has no alcohol on its ships, but they are men too.”
Turcotte sat down across the Russian. “You say this group, The Mission — its Guides — have been around for a long time.”
“A very long time.” Yakov nodded.
“Then they’ve been active and not just watching throughout the course of human history.”
Yakov nodded once more. “It appears so.”
“You also said the Nazis were involved with The Mission.”
“Yes.”
“There’s someone who might know something about The Mission. Someone who had been to Dulce and knew Hemstadt.”
Yakov poured another drink. He tilted the bottle toward Turcotte, who shook his head. “Ah yes. Your Dr. Von Seeckt is still alive, is he not?”
“Is there anything you don’t know?” Turcotte asked.
“There is a terrifyingly large amount I do not know,” Yakov said. “What I don’t know wakes me in the middle of the night sweating with fear.”
“I’ve got Major Quinn setting up a video-conference link to Von Seeckt’s hospital room.”
Yakov lumbered to his feet. “Let us talk to your Nazi doctor, then.” They went to the conference room where Quinn was waiting.
“I’ve had one of my people from Area 51 go to the base hospital at Nellis Air Force Base,” Quinn said. “We’re all set. This is being relayed through Area 51 to us over a secure network.”
Turcotte and Yakov sat down in front of the laptop computer. A small camera was clipped on top of the screen pointing at them. The screen snapped alive with an image. An old man lying in a bed, his skin wrinkled and worn, the eyes half closed, peering straight ahead at the camera that must be near the foot of the bed. A microphone was clipped to the old man’s sheet, just below his chin. Turcotte could see the tubes running into the man’s arms, and he marveled that he was still alive.
“We’re all set,” Quinn said. “I talked to his doctor. He’s got quite a bit of medication in his system, so he might not be too coherent.”
“Dr. Von Seeckt,” Turcotte said. “This is Captain Turcotte.”
“Good day, Captain,” Von Seeckt replied in German, his voice just a whisper, amplified by the mike.
“I need some information,” Turcotte said in the same language.
Von Seeckt muttered something unintelligible.
“Dr. Von Seeckt!” Turcotte raised his voice, trying to reach the other man’s mind. A hand moved the small mike closer to the old man’s lips.
“Death,” Von Seeckt whispered. “The shatterer of worlds.”
Turcotte had heard the old German say those words before — the first time he met him, on a flight out of Area 51. It was a quote from Oppenheimer upon viewing the detonation of the first man-made atomic bomb at Trinity test site in New Mexico. Von Seeckt had been there, and his presence put an asterisk on the term “man-made” for that first explosion, because Von Seeckt had brought with him from Egypt an Airlia-made nuclear weapon.
The Nazis had interpreted enough of high rune symbols from a stone artifact under the water near Bimini — the apparent site of Atlantis, the Airlia main base — found by one of their submarines, that had pointed them to a secret lower chamber in the Great Pyramid of Giza. Von Seeckt, a young scientist of the Third Reich, had been picked to accompany the military team that traveled to Egypt, even as war raged across the desert and the Desert Fox, Rommel, closed on the British forces.
Breaking through a wall in the pyramid, the Germans found a black box that they couldn’t open. They took it with them, but in their attempt to return to their own lines were ambushed by the British and Von Seeckt and his box captured. Eventually the radioactive box — along with Von Seeckt — ended up in America as part of the Manhattan Project, because when they finally opened it, they found a nuclear weapon that gave the American scientists great insight into what they were trying to do.
“Doctor, I need some information,” Turcotte repeated.
The old man’s eyes blinked, trying to find who was speaking. “I took a vow. An oath.”
Turcotte knew he had to get through to the old man.
“Why do you obey?” Turcotte snapped in German.
Von Seeckt’s voice firmed up. “From inner conviction, from my belief in Germany, the Fuhrer, the Movement, and the SS!”
Turcotte could sense Yakov stir next to him, uncomfortable with what he was hearing. While World War II was certainly significant in American history, Turcotte knew the Russians, with over 20 million dead and half their country devastated, held a far harsher memory of that war.
“Hitler is dead,” Turcotte hissed. The words Von Seeckt had spoken had been his vow, taken when he’d joined the SS over fifty years earlier. “He’s been dead over fifty years. You are in America now. You’ve been here since the middle of the war. And you must tell me what I need to know!”
Von Seeckt’s eyes were wide open now. They focused on the screen at the foot of his bed. “Captain?”
“Yes.”
“Orders. I had to follow orders.”
“I need you to think,” Turcotte said. “Back to when you were in Egypt in the war. After you left the Pyramid with the black box.”
“The desert,” Von Seeckt whispered. “It was cold at night. I was not ready for that. It surprised me. Very cold. Always in the desert. Why have I always been in the desert?”
“When you were ambushed in the desert,” Turcotte said, “was it just chance or did the British know?”
“Know?” Von Seeckt repeated, still speaking German. He blinked. “What have you discovered?” he said in English.
“You told Major Quinn that you had heard rumors of STAAR,” Turcotte said. “That you believed it might not be made up of humans. But you also told him that it did nothing. That it just existed until recently taking action. But I don’t think that’s so. I think STAAR or a group like it has been acting all along, manipulating things, and I think it might have had a hand in your patrol getting ambushed and the Airlia bomb going from German to Allied hands.”
Von Seeckt stared at the camera, then his head nodded ever so slightly. “I always thought it was strange. Such a coincidence. We thought we were betrayed by our Arab guides, but the British killed them also, which was rather brutal for those so-called gentlemen. And they were not regular soldiers. I — who had seen the SS stormtroopers — knew these British were special commandos. What were they doing at just the right spot in the desert at just the right time?”
“So it is possible that the British were tipped off?”
“It is possible,” Von Seeckt agreed. “But so many things are possible. Who knows what the truth is?”
“I think you know more than you have told us,” Turcotte said.
Von Seeckt didn’t say anything.
“How did General Gullick and Majestic learn of the dig in Temiltepec?” Turcotte knew that was the event that had suborned the members of Majestic-12 and, if Yakov was to be believed, turned them into Guides. When Majestic uncovered the guardian computer and brought it back to Dulce, it affected the minds of those in charge, particularly Gullick, and led to the attempt to launch the mothership that Turcotte and the others had narrowly averted.
“Intelligence,” Von S
eeckt said. “Kennedy, our CIA representative, forwarded a report about Jorgenson’s dig there and the discovery of something strange.”
“Bullshit,” Turcotte snapped. “I’ve had Major Quinn check both the CIA and Majestic records. A lot of them have been destroyed, but what is there suggests the guardian pyramid wasn’t uncovered until after Majestic’s team got there. And they knew exactly where to dig. What isn’t in the records is how they got that information.”
“I do not know,” Von Seeckt said.
“Again, bullshit. You were part of Majestic. You’ve played this ‘I don’t know’ game long enough.” Turcotte wished he could reach through the screen and wrap his hands around the old man’s scrawny neck. He had to give the old man credit that he had helped them stop the flight of the mothership, but with Yakov’s new information, Turcotte wasn’t so sure that Von Seeckt had acted out of altruism.
Shortly after first meeting, Kelly Reynolds had told Turcotte how the place Von Seeckt had worked at — the V-l and V-2 rocket site at Peenumunde — prior to going on the mission to Egypt had used slave labor from the nearby concentration camp and how thousands had died in those factories and camps. But Von Seeckt had conveniently claimed ignorance of that also at first.
“And I’ve also received information that the guardian was not found at Temiltepec,” Turcotte threw out.
Von Seeckt shook his head. “I have told you all I know. I was told it was Temiltepec.”
“You’re lying.”
“What difference does all this make now?” Von Seeckt sounded very tired. “I understand the Airlia fleet was destroyed. Why are you delving into these things?”
“Because this group is still around somewhere and we need to know more about it. And I think this group had something do with Majestic recovering the guardian wherever they found it.” Turcotte saw no reason to divulge to Von Seeckt the information about the Guides or The Mission yet.
“No. I know nothing of such a thing.”
“Then tell me about Dulce,” Turcotte said.
“I told you already that I only went to Dulce once. That Dulce was the province of the others.”
“The other Nazi scientists brought to the United States under Operation Paperclip to work for our government,” Turcotte clarified. “But what exactly were they doing there? What was on that lowest level where the guardian computer was stored?”
“I do not know. I never—”
“What was there?” Turcotte cut the old man off. “You do know! Tell me!”
“All they told me was that they were doing experiments. It is what Nightscape picked up the people for.”
“No.” Turcotte shook his head. “Nightscape kidnapped people, but they were brainwashed on the level above, the level where we found Johnny Simmons.” “Yes, the abductees who were returned with their disinformation. Did you ever wonder what happened to the abductees who never came back?” Von Seeckt asked. “All those people who disappear every year and are never seen again?”
“They went to the bottom level at Dulce?”
“I am sure some did,” Von Seeckt said. “The Paperclip people who worked there, they were most ruthless. They had experience in the camps. Even in your great democracy such things go on.”
Turcotte ignored Von Seeckt’s barbs. “What was going on in the very bottom level? Where the vats holding those people were? I saw vats like that at Scorpion Base. It was how STAAR ‘grew’ their own agents. Agents who we now know were Airlia/human genetic combinations. What was going on at Dulce? Were they doing that? Or were they doing something else? Biological-warfare experiments?” “I don’t know.” Von Seeckt turned his head.
“What about General Hemstadt?” Turcotte asked.
“He had cold eyes,” Von Seeckt murmured. “No life in them.”
“Was he working on biological warfare?” Turcotte pressed.
Von Seeckt said nothing.
“The Black Death,” Yakov growled.
Von Seeckt turned back toward the camera. “Who are you?”
“The Black Death,” Yakov repeated. “Have you heard of it?”
“Rumors,” Von Seeckt whispered.
“Rumors of the Black Death?”
“Just rumors. A weapon.”
“The Mission.” Yakov spit the two words out.
Turcotte noted that that brought a reaction. Von Seeckt’s eyes widened.
“Tell me about The Mission,” Turcotte pressed.
“I don’t know—”
Yakov cut the old man off. “Do not lie to us! Hemstadt went there, didn’t he?”
Von Seeckt wearily nodded. “When I heard he left Dulce, I knew something was wrong. It was a month before General Gullick wanted to fly the mothership. I wonder now if they were connected. I also feared that Hemstadt wanted to use the bouncers. To spread whatever he had been working on in the lab at Dulce.”
Turcotte stared at the screen. Von Seeckt had slumped back on his pillow, his eyes closed.
Turcotte cut the connection. There was so much that wasn’t clear. If Majestic had been infiltrated by the Guides — or STAAR — then that put a whole new light on many things that had occurred. It also put a new light on the destruction of the Dulce facility by the foo fighter. Maybe the target of the foo fighter had been more than just the guardian? Maybe the foo fighter had taken out the Dulce facility to destroy whatever Hemstadt was working on? But the foo fighter had been controlled by the guardian. Had they taken out Dulce to cover the trail? To protect The Mission? The more Turcotte learned, the less he understood.
CHAPTER 10
The traveler walked the dusty path, a solitary figure in a very inhospitable land. The person was tall, wrapped in gray robes that were worn and dirty. A hood covered her face, the only indication of her sex being the slight curve at bosom and hips. She had a large pack on her back that she carried easily.
The path could barely be called that. She had picked it up thirty miles southwest of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. She had not seen a human in the four days since starting her journey. At times the path was so overgrown, she used the machete strapped to her waist to cut through. But always she pressed on, even moving at night, resting only a few hours out of each twenty-four-hour cycle. She wished there were another way, but by foot was the only means of finding where she wanted to go. The trail was ancient, and modern means would not work to follow it.
The path ran along the Great Rift Valley. The longest, continuous crack on land on the surface of the planet, the valley ran from southern Turkey, through Syria, between Israel and Jordan where the Dead Sea lay — the lowest point on the face of the planet. From there it formed the basin of the Red Sea. At the Gulf of Aden the Rift Valley broke into two, one part going into the Indian Ocean, the other inland into Africa, the track the woman was currently on.
To her west, she knew the Rift Valley framed Lake Victoria, the world’s second-largest freshwater lake. Ahead of her, it went south for hundreds of miles through the rest of Kenya, into Tanzania, before ending somewhere in Mozambique. The Rift Valley made California’s San Andreas fault look like a child’s scratching on the face of the planet, while this split was the work of a god.
The land she passed through was tumbled and broken. A river ran through the lowest part, surrounded on both sides by high, tortuous mountains. The path roughly paralleled the river. The sun beat down on the land, raising the daytime temperature easily over one hundred. She relished the heat even though it was difficult to adjust to, as she had spent the past twenty-two years under the ice in Antarctica. To those she had worked with there, she had been known only by the name Lexina, the head of STAAR. Since they had fled Scorpion Base, her small group had scattered across the globe to continue their tasks, but as always, it seemed as if all they were doing was reacting.
Lexina paused as she turned a bend. She scanned the terrain until she saw the anomaly in the growth near the trail. Drawing her machete, she cut through the weeds and cleared away the vegetation. A weathered st
one obelisk, five meters high, slowly became visible. It was on the side of the path, half obscured with weeds, the stone itself worn with the passing of many years.
Long, pale fingers reached out and traced the markings on the stone. It was the third such obelisk she had passed in the last few days.
They were markers, border stones from the ancient Empire of Axum. The top half of the stone was covered with Ge-ez, the official language of Axum. Lexina could read it — indeed, it was not a dead language, as it was still in use among a few monks of the Ethiopian church.
Axum was accepted by historians as one of the earliest empires in the world, founded around the first or second century before the birth of Christ. The empire covered most of what was now Ethiopia and Kenya. It traded with Greece and Rome during its heyday, while at the same time reaching to the east to India and even China.
Lexina also knew it was an empire few people had heard of. Mostly because it was here in Africa and because it was an empire of dark-skinned people — not the most popular subject around the world’s history courses. But at its height, Axum rivaled any of the kingdoms it traded with — Rome, China, India. And it had a most interesting history. Like many early peoples, the people of Axum worshiped a sun god. Even long after Christianity came to Axum, the Queen of Sheba was reported to be a sun god worshiper. Although she was known to most in the present day as the Queen of Sheba and her visit with King Solomon was well recorded, Lexina and those who knew the history of Axum knew her official title was Queen of Sheba and Axum.
This marker made mention of the queen, and her borders, but it was the bottom half of the marker that interested her. She could make some sense of the writing there also — the high rune language.
The markings indicated she was on the right path.
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