Area 51: The Mission-3 (15 page)

What Lo Fa was pointing to, though, was not the tomb or the statues, but the soldiers, tanks, and trucks surrounding the tomb.

"They fear to enter, but they will kill us to keep us from doing so," Lo Fa said. "And your ridicule will not make me throw myself under the treads of one of their tanks. I have not gotten to be this old without a little bit of common sense."

Che Lu shook Nabinger's notebook in front of Lo Fa. "But we have to get in."

Lo Fa squatted. His guerrilla band was spread out around in the grove of trees they were hiding in. They were five kilometers from the tomb, having force-marched here after recovering the notebook.

"I came here because you insisted," Lo Fa said. He

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looked around to make sure none of his men were listening. "I came because I respect you, Che Lu. We made the Long March together."

Che Lu looked at her comrade in surprise. In all their years he had never called her by name.

Lo Fa continued. "But if I am to go further, if I am to ask these men to go further, I must know why. I must know what is so important about this old tomb.

What was so important for the Russians and the Americans to send men to die getting into and out of it? Why does the army flutter about like moths around a fire—attracted but scared of the flames?" He leaned close, his wrinkled face close to hers. "Tell me about Qian-Ling."

Che Lu rested her back against the rough pack she had carried. She was not young anymore. Her body ached from the march. "You have a right to know, old friend. I will tell you as much as I know and as much as I can guess. But the truth is inside, and that is why we must get in.

"There is more in Qian-Ling than a tomb." She proceeded to tell Lo Fa what she had discovered on her last trip inside—the hologram of the alien that warned in the strange tongue in the central corridor that led to the lowest chamber; the beam that had cut one of her students in half that guarded the way beyond the hologram; the large chamber full of containers that she suspected were Airlia machines and equipment; and through it the chamber holding a small guardian computer.

"But it is the lowest chamber, the one we were not able to get into, that is the key." She held up the notebook once more. "Professor Nabinger could read the high runes. He made contact with the guardian computer inside Qian-Ling. In here he wrote some of what he knew before he died."

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Lo Fa waited, his dark eyes meeting hers.

"In the lowest chamber"—Che Lu's voice quavered—"in the chamber, according to Nabinger's writings, I believe there are aliens—more Airlia. Along with their leader Artad. Waiting to awaken."

Lo Fa spit. "So?"

Che Lu was indignant. "So? So! What—"

Lo Fa hushed her. "Shh. Listen to me, old woman. Why would you want to go down there? Why would you want to waken these sleeping beings?" He pointed up. "I have not been ignorant. Others of these woke on Mars. They came here to destroy the planet. Their dead ships circle our world."

Che Lu smiled. "Because these ones"—she pointed at the fading bulk of Qian-Ling—"these ones are the ones who saved us long ago. And maybe they can save us again.

"And there is more down there than just the aliens. According to what Nabinger was able to decipher, there is the power of the sun. Power, Lo Fa.

Would you not agree our people need power now? Maybe they can give us the power we need to defeat the government and bring China back the glory it once was!

Because if Artad and other Airlia are in Qian-Ling, does it not make sense that the Airlia were instrumental in making China the Middle Kingdom so many years ago?"

The twenty-foot-high pyramid that housed the guardian computer under Rano Kau was now the core of a bizarre structure of which Kelly Reynolds's body was just one part. Metal arms reached out of the side of the pyramid, made out of parts cannibalized from the material UNAOC had left behind.

Microrobots scurried about the cavern. A line of them went up to the surface through the tunnel

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UNAOC had drilled. They carried small pieces of stone and returned on the opposite side, each one carrying something taken from the surface, like an army of ants returning from a feast. Most of them brought their scraps to a line of differently shaped microrobots that were aligned along the wall. Taking the raw material brought to them, these made more of their own kind, shaping the various material into bodies, computers, and energy packs.

There were several types of microrobots. The carriers, about three inches long, had six metal legs, and two arms for grasping and holding that could reach forward, then rotate back and hold whatever they picked up on their backs. The makers, six inches long, had four legs and four arms. The arms were different on each, depending on what function they served in the production line.

Another type of microrobots disappeared into a hole in the floor of the cavern—the diggers, with eight legs spaced evenly around a central core body that was two inches wide and eight long. At the very front each one had a set of small drills on very short arms. Those diggers coming out of the hole each carried a small piece of rock. They dumped it in front of the carriers, who picked up a piece and headed for the surface.

The hole was already four hundred feet deep—the goal, a plasma vent two miles down. The guardian needed more power, because this was only the beginning and the UNAOC generators had gone off-line, running out of fuel. The fusion plant that had been left by Aspasia to power the guardian was low on power and needed to be supplemented.

Some of the UNAOC computers were now hardwired into the guardian. Across the monitors information flashed, faster than a human eye could follow as 128

the alien computer sorted through what it had learned from its foray into the human world via the Interlink/ Internet. Already it was putting some of that information to use, but there was so much more.

And it maintained its link to Mars, to its sister computer deep under the surface and the alien hands that controlled that computer.

A metal probe came out of the golden pyramid. It hovered overhead, then approached Kelly. It halted an inch from the center of her back. A thin needle came out of the end of the probe. It punched through skin, into her spine.

Wrapped in the golden glow, with wires and tubes spun around her body, Kelly Reynolds twitched, like a person experiencing a bad nightmare. The needle came back out, retracted into the probe, and was then pulled back inside the guardian.

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

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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

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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

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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."

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"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?"

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"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