Atlantis (11 page)

A fax machine was next to Foreman, hooked to the plane's satellite dish. The green light on top began blinking, then it gently puffed out a piece of paper. Foreman picked up the paper and looked at it as a second sheet came out, followed by a third.

Unlike Patricia Conners, Foreman was not surprised at the hazy triangle in the center that blocked the view, nor did he suspect there was anything wrong with the equipment.

He reached into a briefcase and pulled out several similar images. He placed a new one on top of an old one and held the paper up to the overhead light.

A frown creased his aged forehead at what he saw. He reached down and picked up the satellite phone resting on the arm of the chair. He punched in auto-dial. A voice answered on the second ring.

“Yes?” the woman's accent was strange, hard to place.

“Sin Fen, it's me. I will be landing in twelve hours.”

“I will be waiting.”

“Any activity?”

“It is as you predicted. I am watching.”

“Cambodia?”

“Nothing yet.”

Foreman glanced at the paper once more. “Sin Fen, it is changing.”

“Smaller or larger?”

“Larger this time and the fluctuations are severe. More than I've ever seen.”

There was no reply, not that he had expected one.

“Sin Fen, I’m going to try the orbital laser. Also I am going to check the other Gates.”

“It is as we discussed,” Sin Fen said, which was all the agreement he was going to get.

“Do you--” Foreman paused, then continued--”sense anything?”

“No.”

Foreman glanced at another piece of paper. A surveillance report. “Michelet has contacted Dane.”

“That is also as we discussed,” Sin Fen said.

“I’ll see you shortly,” Foreman said.

The phone went dead. Foreman opened up his briefcase and pulled out a slim laptop computer. He hooked the line from the satellite phone into the computer. Then he accessed the NSA and typed in the commands for what he wanted.

Finished with that, he then punched the number for his superior in Washington. He always believed in acting first, then getting permission, especially when dealing with small minds. The phone was picked up on the second ring.

“National Security Council.”

“This is Foreman,” Foreman said. “I need to speak to Mister Bancroft.”

“Hold.”

Foreman listened to the static. He hated talking to anyone else about his project. He was considered an anachronism in the Black Budget Society of Washington, a man with much power dealing with an unknown entity. As such he engendered much animosity. With over sixty billion dollars a year pumped into it, the Black Budget had many strange little cells, searching into different areas, from Star Wars defense systems, to the Air Force's classified UFO watchdog group, to Foreman's Gate program.

A new voice came on. “Go.”

“Mister Bancroft, this is Foreman. I'm going to use Bright Eye to take a look into Cambodia.”

The President's National Security Adviser sounded irritated. “Is that necessary?”

“The fluctuations are severe. Over forty percent. Another twenty percent bigger and the Angkor Gate will touch several populated areas.”

“So? It's Cambodia for Christ's sake. No one gives a shit.”

“Remember the connection to what's off our coast,” Foreman said.

“The only connection to what you think is off our coast is in your head,” Bancroft rejoined. “You tried making that connection a long time ago and a lot of men died and a lot of careers were ruined trying to cover up for it.”

“Those men made the connection,” Foreman said.

“One high frequency radio transmission,” Bancroft said. “That isn’t exactly conclusive.”

“Something's happening,” Foreman insisted.

“Yes, something is happening,” Bancroft's voice was sharp. “Paul Michelet lost his plane and his daughter overflying that Goddamn place. Forget to fill me in on that little detail?”

“It was his decision,” Foreman said, not surprised that Bancroft already knew about the
Lady Gayle
going down.

“But he wasn't playing with all the facts when he made that decision,” Bancroft said. “You don't want someone like Michelet angry with you. He has a lot of power. The President is not going to be pleased.”

Foreman cared as much about Paul Michelet as Bancroft did about the Cambodian villagers near the Angkor Gate.

“Using Bright Eye might allow us to help Michelet,” Foreman said. “If we can pinpoint his plane, we can forward that information to him.”

Bancroft snorted. “And? What's he going to do? Go in there and get them out? From what you tell me, no one can do that.”

“Michelet has someone coming to him who might be able to do it,” Foreman said. “Also, with the shifting in phase, they might be able to get in and out when the plane is uncovered.” If it ever was uncovered now, Foreman thought but didn't add. “First, though, we have to get its exact location.”

“Come on, Foreman, is it that important?”

Foreman bit back the first reply that came to his lips. “Sir, I believe it is of utmost importance.”

“I don't see it,” Bancroft said. “All these years and you've yet to give us anything solid. You know the story of the boy who cried wolf, don't you?”

Foreman stared at the fuzzy, triangular image. “I know the story, sir, and it would do us well to remember that in the end, the boy was right. There were wolves.”

“Wolves in Cambodia?” Bancroft said. “Who gives a rat's ass?”

“I think it's much bigger than Cambodia,” Foreman kept his voice under tight control.

“You think, you think,” Bancroft said. “You sound like those damn UFO people in Area 51 I've got to listen to all the time, worried about little gray men showing up and blowing Earth away. You know how much we spend on those people? And you know how many little gray men they’ve found? There are real problems that are here and now that I and the President have to worry about.”

Foreman remained silent.

“Go ahead, use Bright Eye,” Bancroft finally said. “But it's your responsibility.”

The satellite phone went dead. It was always his responsibility, Foreman thought as he put the phone back in its holder.

CHAPTER THREE

Ariana Michelet had never been so aware of the simple act of breathing. It was the first thing she felt: air sliding in her throat, expanding her lungs. The texture of the air was strange, almost oily, and thick, although how she could describe air as thick she didn't know but that's what it felt like. She could still taste the acidic trace of vomit in her mouth and along the back of her throat.

With the awareness of breathing, she suddenly remembered. Going down, crashing. She opened her eyes and saw nothing. Complete darkness. Was she blind? Was she dead? That unnerving second question trampled over the first one.

Ariana closed her eyes and brought her breathing under control as she'd been taught by her personal trainer. She felt something diagonally across her chest, holding her. She realized it was the shoulder harness for her seat and that feeling brought immediate comfort as she knew she was still sitting in her seat. She was alive and inside the plane. There was no sound of engines, no throb of power coming up from the seat, so she knew they were down.

She opened her eyes again and this time caught the faintest of glows, from a small battery powered emergency light. She blinked, her eyes slowly adjusting to the dimness.

Ariana reached forward, her hands touching the keyboard. She could work that in the dark but she paused as nothing happened. She remembered ordering Carpenter to shut Argus down. Ariana pressed a button on the side of her console and accessed the back-up emergency computer. She hit one of the keys and was rewarded by the glow of her screen. It worked and that meant there was juice coming from the banks of batteries in the cargo hold.

She quickly accessed the emergency program. The computer worked, slower than Argus would have, but eventually the back-up emergency program was up. She hit the command for the emergency lights and the interior of the plane was bathed in a dull red glow. She checked the time and blinked. According to the back-up computer it was over fifteen hours since they'd gone down.

Fifteen hours! Ariana slowly processed that fact in her head. How could she have been out that long? And why had a rescue party not arrived yet? With fumbling hands she unbuckled her harness. She noted as she stood that the plane was resting slightly canted to the right and forward. If they'd crashed, it had to have been a very controlled crash, since the body of the plane seemed intact.

She staggered through the passageway to the console area. As she entered she could hear ragged breathing to the right. She reached out and felt warm flesh. It was Mark Ingram, still strapped to his seat.

Looking down the length of the plane she could see that the crash had had another effect. Ariana hurried to a body laying up against the bulkheads holding the computers. It was one of the imaging camera operators and he was dead. His seatbelt must not have been fastened and his neck had broken when he hit the wall after his chair had slid down the plane.

Ariana looked at him, remembering what she knew about him. She remembered a company picnic less than two months ago. He had a family. She glanced over at his normal console position. There was a photo of a woman and two children that he kept taped to the edge of his computer station. Ariana took a flight jacket that was lying on the floor and put it over the man's face.

Everyone here was still unconscious, but some were starting to stir. Ariana retraced her steps going back forward, passing through her office to the communications center.

There was someone moaning behind a bank of equipment as Ariana turned the corner past her office. Mitch Hudson, strapped to his seat, was pressed up against the back side of equipment. A large rack holding radios had fallen over and slammed on top of his lower body, pinning him into his chair.

“Mitch, are you all right?” Ariana asked as she leaned over him.

Hudson opened his eyes. “My legs.”

Ariana looked down. The sharp edge of a receiver had cut through his flight suit. Blood was oozing from torn flesh. Ariana grabbed the metal and strained but it didn't budge. Then she tried his chair, but the sharp intake of breath as soon as she moved it a fraction of an inch told her that it might be better to leave him motionless for now.

“Let me get some help.”

Hudson weakly nodded, closing his eyes.

She went back to the console area. Ariana tried to remember but the last thing her mind played back to her was giving the command for everyone to lock in and prepare for crashing. She grabbed Mark Ingram's shoulder and shook him. Soon he was blinking, looking about.

“What happened?” he asked as he unsnapped his harness and stood up.

“I don't know,” Ariana answered. “We're down but we seem to have made it all right.”

Ingram unbuckled and stood, looking about. “The pilot's must have managed to make it to a landing strip somewhere.” Then he spotted the body under the jacket.

“It's John. He's dead,” Ariana said. “Mitch is pinned against a console up front. He's hurt.”

Others were standing up now, stretching, trying to get oriented, thankful to be alive. She directed two men to the front to help Hudson.

George Craight, a camera tech moved toward her and Ingram. “Where are we?” he asked.

Ariana had been thinking about Ingram's comment that they'd made it to a landing strip. If that were the case, why weren't rescue personnel cutting their way in? For once she wished they had windows in the bay. Given their location when the trouble had started, she knew there were no landing strips marked on the map within a hundred kilometers. The last thing she remembered was the pilot shouting, but he’d made no sense.

Ariana turned toward the front of the plane. “Let's find out.”

Ingram and Craight followed her as she passed through her office into the communications area. Hudson’s legs had been freed and he was carried to the rear to be bandaged. Ariana grabbed the latch that led from the commo area to the cockpit. It was reluctant to give way, then turned with a sudden snap as Craight added his strength to hers. A gust of thick air blew in. Ariana took an involuntary step back as she saw that the top half of the cockpit had been cut out, leaving exposed metal edges and wiring. Beyond, a thick yellow-gray mist was swirling about. She thought she could see what appeared to be the faint outlines of some very tall trees in the fog just in front of the plane, but it was hard to make out. Ariana remembered the scene the forward video camera had showed her just before it went dead--the same fog. Her eyes lowered to the seats.

“Oh God!” Ariana staggered back another step. The pilot's body was still strapped in; what was left of it. The top half was gone, leaving just legs and the beginning of a torso ending in a red, gooey mess where the stomach should have continued. Loops of entrails trailed from the body to the torn out metal and disappeared over the edge. The co-pilot's seat was empty, but the cloth was covered with bright red splashes of blood. The seatbelts ended abruptly.

Craight and Ariana tentatively stepped forward into the cockpit, Ingram edging up behind them. Ingram mutely pointed to the right. The navigator wasn't in his seat. Ariana followed the line of Ingram's finger. The navigator must have tried to get away from whatever had happened to the other two in the cabin. His body was crammed under the console holding the plane's flight radios. One arm was wrapped around a stanchion, the fingers rigid. The other arm and half his chest was gone, cut off smoothly as if by a surgeon's knife. His face was contorted with a look of pure terror.

“What happened to them?” Ariana asked, more to push away the horror than expecting an answer.

“It must have occurred during the crash,” Craight offered.

Ariana didn't believe that. The cargo bay was relatively intact. How could the top of the cockpit be ripped out? She looked more closely at the edge of the metal: it was cut smoothly, as if removed by a blowtorch, not torn apart by a crash. It was as if someone had popped the front of the plane off to look inside. What could have cut through metal like that, Ariana wondered? Surely not the force of impact, since it was on top of the plane, but there was no other way she could logically explain it to herself.