Area 51: The Sphinx-4 (10 page)

end we have called Atlantis, where the Airlia-colony was homebased. By doing this he protected the natural development of the human race, and for that we owe him A large debt of gratitude.

But beyond those few facts there are so many un-answered questions: What happened to Aspasia and the other Airlia?

Why was an Airlia atomic weapon left hidden in the depths of the Great Pyramid of Giza? Indeed,

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as we now suspect, were the pyramids built as a space beacon by the Airlia?

• What really happened to Atlantis, site of the Airlia colony? What terrible weapon did Aspasia use to destroy it?

• And, perhaps most important, to whom was the transmission the guardian made four days ago when it was uncovered, directed to? And what did it say?

• And how do we turn the guardian back on?

"Most of this is already out of date," Turcotte noted.

"We damn well know where the message was sent," Larry Kincaid confirmed. "And we know where Aspasia was, and we know he's dead now, thanks to Mike." He inclined his head toward Turcotte.

"Are we sure they're all dead up there?" Turcotte asked. "After what happened here and at the Kennedy Space Center?"

"We think the talon is operating on an automatic program," Kincaid said.

"It's shown no indication of being able to maneuver. It's drifting in orbit."

"An automatic program that sucked in Warfighter and used it to destroy the hangar that just happened to be holding the two bodies here?" Turcotte's tone indicated his disbelief. "And took out Atlantis as it was prepping to go up?"

Kincaid shrugged. "I'm just telling you our best guess,"

"Back to this." Duncan tapped the news release.

"We know Aspasia was the rebel, the bad guy, not the Kortad," Major Quinn said. "And that the Kortad were some sort of Airlia police, led by Artad."

"Are we certain of those so-called facts?" Yakov asked "We have only your dead Professor Nabinger's word on that—what he learned from a Kortad guardian

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Qian-Ling in China. Aspasia's guardian under Easter Island told him the opposite thing, and did you not believe that first? It is to be expected that each side's computers would make them out to be the—How would you say? Men, or in this case, aliens in white hats?"

Turcotte was tired, more mentally than physically. First stopping the flight of the mothership by Majestic-12, then intercepting Aspasia's fleet from Mars, then stopping the new Black Plague—he saw no end in sight to this war with a foe that had yet to make themselves apparent. The fact that The Mission had escaped from Devil's Island and was now somewhere in the world, preparing the next phase of battle, was something he had thought about ever since coming back to Area 51.

"Something bothers me. . . ." Quinn hesitated, as if uncertain whether to air his thoughts in front of the group.

"Go ahead," Duncan prompted.

Quinn tapped the article. "One thing that has been lost in recent events is the factor that started all this— the danger of activating the mothership's interstellar drive."

Turcotte stirred. "I destroyed the power source for the drive—the ruby sphere we found in the Great Rift Valley. So that's not a problem."

"And the mothership was damaged badly when Aspasia's fleet was destroyed,"

Duncan added. She pointed to the ceiling. "And it's also in orbit abandoned, so we got it out of everyone's reach."

"What actually concerns me," Quinn said, "is if the Kortad were actually one side of the Airlia in the civil war they fought, who is the interstellar threat that the guardians referred to? That's the one thing both guardians—Aspasia's and Artad's—agreed on, as far as Nabinger could determine: that if the mothership's drive was activated, there was an enemy out there"—Quinn

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pointed up—"who would track back along the drive and destroy our planet."

Larry Kincaid shrugged once more. "We now know for certain there's at least one other life-form out there among the stars, so it's not a stretch to accept there are others."

"Are they still out there is what concerns me," Quinn said.

"Aspasia and Artad went at it over ten thousand years ago," Turcotte said.

''Who knows what's out there now."

Yakov suddenly stirred. "There is an ancient Chinese saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Maybe this enemy of the Airlia could be an ally in our fight?"

Everyone turned as Lisa Duncan tapped the top of the conference table. "We have to concern ourselves with more immediate problems here. On Earth. We can't count on anyone bailing us out." Duncan pulled out another sheaf of papers, giving a copy to each man. "Here's the update, supposedly, from Kelly. It was burst-transmitted on the Navy FLTSCOM network off Easter Island, into the Internet, with e-mail addresses to every media outlet. It will be hitting the papers tomorrow and is already on radio and TV and posted on the Internet."

"We can't stop it?" Turcotte asked.

"Freedom of the press," Duncan said. "It's an American right."

Yakov's snort of disgust indicated what he thought of that.

"We couldn't stop it," Quinn said, "unless we shut dawn, every Internet provider and put an absolute blackout on all media. ] can assure you that Majestic-12 looked into the possibilities of doing just that and determined it would be impossible from a technological standpoint, never mind a legal or moral one."

Turcotte quickly read the short article:

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The Airlia have meant no harm. They have only been protecting themselves.

They have coexisted in peace with us for thousands of years. They have protected us from outside forces that would destroy our world. It has only been the interference of Majestic-12 and people from Area 51 who have caused the recent troubles.

I have talked with the Airlia still surviving on Mars, and I know all this to be true. They are trapped now, but even so, they hold no ill feelings toward us.

The recent events in South America were the results of a NATO secret experiment in biological warfare.

The Airlia can help us, but they must be left alone. In turn, they promise not to take any action that can affect us negatively.

"Jesus, talk about spin control," Major Quinn said. "According to this, we started the Black Death!"

"Kelly didn't write this," Duncan said. "I don't think Kelly exists anymore.

That's why I had you read the earlier article. These words are from the guardian under Easter Island."

"I'm not concerned about that or the spin control," Turcotte said. "I'm worried why the Easter Island guardian sees a need to have Kelly send this."

"Why are you so sure the Easter Island guardian is the evil one?" Yakov asked in a rather mild tone.

"Because of what Nabinger uncovered under Qian-Ling," Turcotte answered.

"Which could have been as much of a lie as what he uncovered under Easter Island," Yakov noted once more.

Turcotte held up the article. "So we should believe this? We knew that The Mission was behind the Black

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Death. You talked to General Hemstadt on Devil's Island."

"I think—" Duncan was interrupted by the buzz of her SATPhone. She pulled it out and turned it on. "Duncan here." She listened for a second, her face tightening, then pulled it away from her ear. "Can we put this on the speaker in here?" she asked Quinn.

He nodded, pulling a wire out of a drawer and running it to her phone, plugging it into the bottom. While he was doing that, Turcotte mouthed the words Who is it?

"The Ones Who Wait." Duncan held her hand over the phone. "Lexina, their leader."

"You're set," Quinn told her as the speaker in the middle of the table came alive with a crackle of static.

"We're listening," Duncan said.

The voice that echoed out in response was low-pitched, somewhere between male and female. "We have been patient, but time is running out. We want the key."

"The key to the lower level of Qian-Ling?" Duncan asked.

"Don't play games with me," Lexina said. "I have shown you just a small sample of what I can do by destroying the place you held my comrades' bodies and your last manned space vehicle. I now control the talon, and I will do much worse if you do not turn the key over to us."

"You killed a lot of people," Duncan said.

"And I will kill many, many more if you do not get me the key."

"Did you destroy the Columbia as it approached the talon?" Duncan asked.

"No. That was the talon's automatic defense system reacting to anything that came Close. But I control it rune: I control your satellite through the talon. I warned

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you," Lexina said. "You ignored the warning. Do not ignore this one. Give us the key."

"Why should—" Duncan began, but she was interrupted.

"Give us the key or we will destroy your country completely."

Kincaid stirred. "Warfighter couldn't even come close to doing that."

"Give us the key or we will destroy your country completely," Lexina repeated.

"You have forty-nine hours. If you do not give me the key by then. North America will be destroyed."

"You're bluffing." Duncan glanced at Turcotte as she said it.

"Is the Russian there?" Lexina asked. "The man from Section Four?"

"I'm here," Yakov growled.

"Tell them about Strategicheskii Zvyezda," Lexina said. "Deliver the key to me in forty-nine hours, or two hundred and sixty million die and your country will be an uninhabitable wasteland for centuries."

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MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON, RUWENZORI, UGANDA

0 - 48 Hours, 55 Minutes

Mualama and his nephew Lago were both startled when a long cacophony of thunderclaps rolled down the mountain, following on the heels of two dozen lightning strikes that had split the gloom in less than five seconds. If there was to be an end to the world, Lago figured it would sound very much like what he was listening to. They were in a netherworld lost among the clouds. Snow, ice, and rock were the only things visible around them.

Sweating was no longer a problem as Lago pulled his jacket tight around the neck to keep out the chill. His uncle was seated on his pack, which rested on the foot-deep snow, reading the journal once more and looking about.

They had cleared the tree line at eleven thousand feet an hour before, and it was now well past noon. Lago knew that if they did not begin their descent soon, they would be trapped on the mountain overnight. The cold did not scare him as much as the incessant lightning. He'd never seen the like. Now he knew why these mountains were avoided and why the locals believed the gods forbade travel there.

It was the worst of two worlds—Amazonian-type jungle the first two-thirds of the journey, followed by Alpine terrain with the most awful weather in an incessant mist that threatened to make them lose their bearings. Technically the climb was not difficult, but the weather made it hazardous.

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Lago's eyes continued to search the misty gloom as his uncle studied his notes. It was as if the mountain were alive, telling them with the thunder to turn back, to return to the normal world.

His uncle abruptly stood and slid the book back into his pack. "Not much farther."

They tramped up the steep trail, tied together by a twenty-foot section of rope, Lago leading the way. As the altitude increased, occasionally Lago had to put in protection—a piton, a nut in a small rock crevasse—and clip the rope in.

His uncle would pull the protection out as he passed.

"Uncle." Lago paused after one particularly tricky section of climbing. "We must turn back or we will be trapped by darkness."

"Not much farther" was Mualama's response. "We do not have to reach the very top."

That was the best news Lago had heard in a while. "What are we looking for?"

"We will know when we see it."

Afternoon was sliding into early evening, and Lago had no idea how far they were from the summit. The rocks were now sheathed in ice. Visibility had increased to about a hundred feet, but darkness would put an end to that.

"There!" Mualama was pointing to the right of their narrow trail. A spectacular wall of icicles over fifty feet long and twenty feet wide dangled from a rock cornice that extended out from the mountain's side. "Would you call that the Devil's Thumb?"

Lago squinted up. The spur of rock might indeed be called that when viewed in profile.

"And this is the Devil's Veil?" Mualama walked to the wall of six-inch-thick icicles that covered the depression under the spur. Lago would have thought them quite beautiful if not for the fact that they were on the side of

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a sixteen-thousand-foot mountain, the temperature was dropping, and night was less than an hour off.

Mualama pressed his face and a flashlight against the ice. He moved along the wall, peering in.

"There it is!" The excitement in his uncle's voice was evident. Lago joined him, looking. There was a dark square on the other side, the exact nature of which was unclear. He jumped back as Mualama swung the ice ax in his hands and it splintered one of the icicles, a four-foot-long shard crashing to the ground.

"Come on!" Mualama yelled. "Help me!"

AREA 51, NEVADA

D - 48 Hours, 50 Minutes

All eyes were on Yakov, the question prompted by Lexina hanging over the table.

The Russian got up and walked over to a small table on the side of the room. He reluctantly poured a glass of water. "Haven't you stocked anything stronger yet?" he asked Major Quinn.

There was no answer, nor did Turcotte think Yakov had expected one. He knew the Russian was digesting this new information. Yakov sat back down, then looked at Duncan. "Do you have the key this Lexina creature wants?"

"No."

Yakov's bushy eyebrows contracted. "Then why does this creature think you have it?"

"The first time she asked me, while we were combating the Black Death, I told her we had it, trying to get more information out of her," Duncan said.

"That was a mistake," Yakov said. "Now, if you tell Lexina you do not have the key, the creature will think you are lying and follow through on her threat"