Area 51: Excalibur-6 (16 page)

Jerusalem was, in reality, several cities with a clear distinction between sections. The Christians flocked to the northwest, where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was located, built over the site where Jesus was executed and the holiest place in Christendom. The northwest was Muslim territory, where the Dome of the Rock was located, the third most holy place in Islam, where the Prophet Muhammad

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made his ascent into heaven. In the southwest corner of the city were the remnants of the temple built by Solomon. Called the Wailing Wall by outsiders, the Jewish people preferred to call the area the Temple Mount. Ironically, on top of the mount is the al Aqsa mosque.

Like many others, Simon Sherev had traveled to Jerusalem when he heard the news.

His duties at Dimona were minimal now that the nuclear weapons were staged forward. The country was on a war footing, like most in the world, and security was tight in the city. Sherev's clearance allowed him to get close to the open area in front of the Wall. The massive stone blocks towered above him and he noted that in keeping with tradition the women were on the right side, the men on the left. Sherev remembered the first time he'd been on that very spot, many years previously. It was a tradition that new recruits in the Israeli army made a forced march of over one hundred miles, ending at the Wall. That day Sherev had been profoundly moved, but looking back, he wasn't sure whether it was reaching the Wall or the fact that his training had been over.

To the left of the Wall was a stone gallery. He could see elite members of a counterterrorist unit guarding the entrance to where the Ark of the Covenant was being held. He could also see a large cluster of television reporters and their cameras nearby. Hasher Lakur was standing in a bright circle of lights, being interviewed. The fool, Sherev thought. Publicizing the Ark was one thing, but doing it there, in the most divided city in the world, was insanity.

He wondered how Lakur was explaining the Ark. Was he claiming it truly was the Ark of the Covenant that Moses had carried out of the captivity? In a way, that was true, but it was also true the Ark was an Airlia artifact. How would that go over? Sherev wondered. It was a desperate gambit at a des-

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perate time. Sherev had seen the intelligence reports about the various Arab countries mobilizing. Could they finally bring together the jihad they had always failed to complete? Or would they fall on each other like jackals? Would showing the Ark unify long-suffering Israelis or sow fatal doubts?

The media circle around Lakur broke up and he went through the narrow gate into the holding area. Sherev estimated there were at least a hundred thousand people watching and he knew the video was being beamed to millions more. The security personnel had to link arms to keep the crowd back. Sherev noted the snipers posted along the top of the Wall scanning the crowd. He could hear the sound of helicopters in the distance and he imagined that several Cobra gunships were on standby.

A hush ran over the crowd as several rabbis came out of the gate. They were followed by a man dressed in the high priest's robes they'd recovered from the Mission in Mount Sinai. A ripple of excitement ran through the crowd as many recognized the garb: a white linen robe underneath a sleeveless blue shirt—the meeir—on top of which went a coat of many colors; a breastplate encrusted with precious stones, and on his head a crown of three metal bands. It was an impressive uniform, but everyone's attention shifted from the priest to the next group coming out of the gate. Four men stepped forward, two on each wooden pole, and between them they carried something large covered in a white cloth.

Even Sherev, an avowed cynic who had seen the Ark of the Covenant, was impressed. Maybe Lakur was right. He could feel something in the crowd as they watched the men carry the covered Ark to a table set just in front of the Wall.

They set it down, then pulled the poles out of the metal loops. The priest stood in front of the Ark, arms raised, saying prayers.

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Sherev frowned. A helicopter was coming closer, the sound intruding on the absolute silence of the crowd, the echo of the priest's words off the Wall. The priest reached out and slowly pulled the cloth off.

The Ark was three feet high and wide, by four feet long. The surface was gold-plated. On the arched lid were two cherubim-sphinxes shaped exactly like the Great Sphinx and the Black Sphinx that was hidden underneath it. Sherev knew they were part of the Ark's security system, but they only functioned if the Grail was inside. Since Aspasia's Shadow had taken the Grail to Easter Island, the ruby-red eyes remained dark.

The damn helicopter was getting even closer, somewhere just over the Temple Mount, Sherev's experienced ears told him. He looked up. A Cobra gunship came sweeping in, just clearing the top of the wall, then nosing over.

The pilot made no attempt to pull out of the dive. It slammed into the space just in front of the Wall. The Ark, the priest, the rabbis, all were enveloped in the fireball.

Everyone within a hundred meters of the crash site was killed. Sherev was knocked backward by the blast as he struggled to his feet. He ran forward shouting orders, passing dismembered bodies, a sight he had seen before many times in Jerusalem. He pulled a radio off one of the bodies and began issuing orders.

His Blackhawk helicopter appeared over the Temple Mount and descended, blades blowing the flames outward and clearing a space right over where the Ark had been—and still remained, Sherev realized, the artifact lying unscathed on the ground. He issued further orders and the Blackhawk landed next to the Ark. The side door slid open and the crew chief jumped out with a survival blanket in his hands, joining Sherev next to the Ark. Together they threw the blanket over the Ark, then carried it on board the chopper. Another crew

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member ran over to the body of the priest. The man was dead, exposed flesh burned, but the garments were untouched. He grabbed the body and dragged it to the chopper, wrestling it on board.

"Take off. Now!" Sherev ordered the pilot.

PEARL HARBOR

Captain Lockhart was in the shore command and control center of Pacific Fleet Command and could see on the large display radar the ships rapidly leaving Pearl Harbor in response to her warning. She glanced at the red dot moving swiftly on the screen to the southwest. Numbers below the dot indicated twenty minutes before the strange contact arrived. She knew the capital ships, including the carrier Kennedy, had been the first through the channel and into the open sea, turning west at flank speed as soon as they were clear.

Admiral Kenzie had given shore command to her. She'd almost laughed when he'd told her that before catching his helicopter ride out to the Kennedy. The glass ceiling against both her color and her sex had suddenly disappeared so that she could take charge.

"We have air contacts, rapidly closing," one of the radar personnel announced. A second later, another red dot appeared on the screen, farther to the southwest, but moving more quickly than the submerged contact.

"I thought the carriers were out of range?" she asked. The markings in the bottom right corner of the status board indicated how far away the two captured aircraft carriers were and Lockhart knew the basic statistical data for the planes those ships carried.

There was no answer. Lockhart realized that it was a foolish question. The alien forces were beyond the bell curve of normal military action.

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"Launch what we have to interdict," she ordered.

From Wheeler Air Force Base, Kaneohe Marine Air Base, and other fields around the island, all the planes that couldn't be loaded onto the Kennedy scrambled and headed to the southwest. There were thirty-five planes in the makeshift squadron—a mixture of F-15s, A-6 Corsairs, and a few F-16s and F-18s.

Lockhart sat down in the command chair and watched war being played out on a large computer display.

AIRSPACE, PACIFIC

The two groups of planes closed on each other faster than four times the speed of sound. The encounter was brief and brutal. Each side had one shot and at the speeds they were flying, they were in range and then past each other in less than a minute. Twelve American planes were destroyed and twenty Alien craft.

As the remaining twenty-three American planes turned, the Alien squadron was already a hundred miles past them and closing on Hawaii.

PEARL HARBOR

Lockhart could see the red dot closing, the blue giving futile chase. The other red symbol representing the submerged contact was less than twenty-five miles off the coast. The last ship of Task Force Nimitz had cleared the harbor and was heading west.

She realized that both Alien forces—submerged and airborne—would arrive simultaneously. She felt as if she were in a dream—a nightmare—watching the dots approach on the screen. She got out of the chair and headed for the stairs.

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She went up to the roof of the PAC-FLEET command building, overlooking Pearl Harbor.

There was a tinge in the eastern sky, indicating dawn was approaching. She blinked as two dozen Patriot missiles roared out of their silos from mobile launchers parked less than a mile away along the edge of Wickam Field.

She watched the long, bright rocket tails of fire race to the southeast. There were several flashes on the horizon as a handful of the Patriots struck home.

She knew the bogeys were less than a minute out. She glanced toward the harbor.

Nothing.

She heard the jet before she saw it. It came in low, less than twenty feet above the rooftop. There was a small flash, as it was right overhead. Lockhart twisted her head to follow the jet as it went inland, gaining altitude. She felt something on her upturned face.

Then she began screaming as the nanovirus tore in through her skin into the bloodstream.

All over the island, at every key military point, the Alien jets dropped their pods of nanovirus. At Wickam Field, four jets blanketed the entire field, then circled around and landed, safe inside the contaminated zone. One by one, the other jets came in from their targets and landed.

In Pearl Harbor, the two modified submarines searched for the fleet, but returned to the main channel without a target. Then they locked onto the only ship they could find in

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CHAPTER 10: The Present

VICINITY AREA 51

Turcotte sat perfectly still in the shadow of a boulder, watching a rattlesnake slither across the sand ten feet away. He estimated he was eight miles from Area 51. He felt better than he had in a long time. Free of responsibility. His concern over Lisa Duncan's kidnapping was somewhat offset by the fact that he had no real idea who she was. Of course, she didn't either, he realized, as he continued to watch the snake move away. He viewed the abandonment of the underground base at Area 51 as a potential blessing, meaning he might be free of the responsibilities he had assumed since arriving there in an undercover role.

Turcotte had always been a loner and he felt at ease by himself in the desert.

His father had been killed in a logging accident when Mike was eight and the next summer he had gone to the same camp to work, doing odd jobs. He did that for the next few years until he was large enough to heft a chain saw and wield an ax. The toughest schools the Army put him through years later—Ranger, Special Forces, Scuba—were nothing compared to his time in the forest. It was rough work among even rougher men and Turcotte brought his check home each month to his mother.

The snake was gone, slithering between two rocks. Turcotte felt his SATPhone vibrating in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the small screen. It displayed Quinn's SATPhone number.

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Duty.

It was a word beaten into him as a child and reinforced as an adult. He almost laughed out loud as his mind slid to the words he'd been forced to memorize as part of his officer training—the speech MacArthur had made at West Point upon accepting the Thayer Award in 1962: "Duty, honor, country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith where there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn"

The damn West Point graduate tactical officer at his college had made all the ROTC cadets memorize it, just like cadets at the Academy were forced to.

Turcotte flipped the phone open. "What?"

THE GULF OF MEXICO

"Do you know why humans die?"

Lisa Duncan was startled by the question. Garlin had been drawing blood, for the seventeenth time, according to her calculations and the number of needle marks in her arms. What was fascinating was that the first needle puncture wound, made just an hour earlier, was gone, all healing at a remarkable rate. She worried about the IV. What was he putting into her? How had they knocked her out? What did they know that she didn't?

"Old age?"

"What is old age?" Garlin went to the door and passed the tube outside, before coming back to sit on a stool in front of her.

"Cells get old," Duncan said. "They stop reproducing."

"Do you know why?"

"No." She gave him a cold smile. "Remember? My past is not real. So maybe my medical knowledge is bogus too."

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"Do you know what a telomere is?"

Duncan shook her head. There were no lingering aftereffects of whatever drug they gave her, she realized. She felt fine, better than she could ever remember.

"At the end of each chromosome in every cell in your body are small bits of DNA called telomeres. These bits serve a very important purpose. The telomere acts as a protective cap to keep the chromosome from unraveling at the ends with each cell division. After approximately a hundred divisions a cell runs out of telomeres. After that, the chromosomes begin to degenerate with every cell division. Eventually, the cell dies as the chromosome damage accumulates."

Garlin paused, looking down at his hands. Duncan could almost see him testifying before a congressional committee. Then she had to think for a moment—had she truly testified in such a manner as she had envisioned?