Area 51: Excalibur-6 (20 page)

Aksu spit into the gravel that lined the runway. "One of five who go up, die."

"We only need one of us to come back," Lexina said.

"Why do you need to go?"

"We need to recover something from the mountain."

"What?"

"I cannot tell you that."

"If you tell me what it is you seek," Aksu said, "my team will get it."

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"No. We must go."

Aksu turned away from the three and looked to the southwest. The horizon was lined with white peaks, but there was no mistaking Everest. Aksu had been on all sides of the great mountain and there was no doubt that the view was more spectacular from this side. The triangular shape of the peak was visible, despite being over eighty miles away. It was a clear day, which was unusual, as the peaks were normally embroiled in clouds. He also knew, though, that the weather could change in a matter of minutes.

"It will take two weeks."

"We don't have two weeks," Lexina said.

"It is impossible to go any faster. You must spend at the very least a week at base camp to acclimatize to altitude. If you go up too quickly you will suffer cerebral edema. Your brain will swell. You will die."

"We have been prepared for the altitude," Lexina said.

'The only way to prepare for altitude is to be at altitude," Aksu said simply.

"Major." Lexina's voice took on an edge. "You have your orders."

Aksu shrugged. "We leave in one hour."

DIMONA

The Blackhawk settled down inside the secure perimeter of Dimona and Sherev relaxed slightly. He'd been listening in on the secure military net as they'd flown out of the carnage in Jerusalem. There were those already claiming the suicide attack on the Ark had been the act of Arab terrorists and were clamoring for war, demanding that Israeli conduct a preemptive strike against her surrounding enemies. Sherev thought such thinking and demands premature.

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He was proven right as a new report indicated the pilot was Israeli. A captain.

An Orthodox fundamentalist. As several men carried the covered Ark into the bunker, Sherev shook his head. Zealots were dangerous people. He knew they were scared because of reports that the Ark of the Covenant wasn't made by man as the Bible said. And it wasn't made according to God's instructions. And it didn't carry Moses' tablets. It was alien. And that meant many things that people believed and underpinned their faith on were lies. Sherev knew that when people's faith was threatened, the core of their existence was also threatened.

For the moment he was content to put the Ark back in the vault and wait to see how the burgeoning world war was going to be played out. However, he felt a sense of anxiety deep in the pit of his stomach, knowing full well that inactivity was the worst of all options in military and covert operations.

THE GULF OF MEXICO

Garlin opened the door and gestured for Lisa Duncan to enter the room. He'd retrieved her from the examining room just a moment ago and brought her down a"

corridor. She saw no one else during the short trip. It was as if the two of them were the only occupants of the new Area 51. The new room held a massive machine with an opening in the center from which a human-sized metal stretcher was extended. A white sheet covered the metal.

"Have a seat." Garlin indicated the stretcher.

Duncan sat down and waited as Garlin washed his hands. He came back with an IV

needle.

"What's that for?" Duncan asked.

"We're going to do several things at the same time and compare the results,"

Garlin said. "This machine is not only

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an MRI but also a CAT scanner and PET." He continued talking as he expertly slid the needle into the back of her hand. "The MRI will give us not only a cross-section view of your body, but also give us an idea of what's happening biochemically. This IV will put a solution in that targets the telomerase. The PET scan will give us an idea of what's happening with that."

The IV was in. He rolled over a hanging solution and hooked it to the tube. "Do you know how an MRI works?"

Duncan shook her head.

"Three stages. First, you are placed in there." He indicated the large machine.

"It's a cylindrical magnet that will create a steady magnetic field thirty thousand times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field. Then the body is stimulated with radio waves to change the steady-state orientation of your body's protons. Then we shut off the radio wave and the machine basically, for lack of a better term, listens to your body, picking up the electromagnetic frequencies emanating from it at certain frequencies."

Garlin had his back to her now and was looking inside a black medical bag.

"It's really quite amazing," Garlin continued.

"What do you hope to discover?" Duncan asked. The table she was sitting on was cold and she didn't fancy the idea of lying inside the machine for however long the process took.

"How your body comes back to life," Garlin said.

"What—" Duncan began, but she didn't get another word out as Garlin spun about, a pistol in his hands and fired, all in one smooth movement. The round hit her in the chest, splintered through a rib, tore a path through her heart, and exited, slamming into the metal wall behind her. The impact knocked her body backwards onto the table

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and she was dead by the time Garlin walked up to her. He swung her legs up, orienting the body, then pressed the button that slid Duncan's lifeless bbdy into the machine.

THE COLONEL JAMES N. ROWE SPECIAL OPERATIONS TRAINING FACILITY

Turcotte turned his head away from those gathered around the table and peered out of the hangar doors. He was still, as if listening.

"One of—" Larry Kincaid began to say, but Turcotte held up his hands, indicating silence.

After a minute, Turcotte shook his head. "I thought I heard something. Or"—he paused, uncertain—"I felt something." He turned to Kincaid. "What were you going to say?"

"One of Professor Nabinger's coordinates is on Mount Ararat," Kincaid said. He had Che Lu's notebook and had been examining the information inside.

The survivors of Area 51 were inside the hangar next to the runway. Besides the bouncer, two trailers also filled the inside, cables looping from them to numerous antennas set on the roof of the hangar. Colonel Mickall was also present, coordinating their support through his Delta Force channels.

The others gathered around as Kincaid made a pencil mark on a map. "Right here."

"The Ahora Gorge." Yakov read the small letters. The spot was just to the northeast of the peak of the mountain. "It is high up."

"About thirteen thousand feet lower than where I'm going," Turcotte noted.

"I have a simple question," Yakov said.

"Yes?" Turcotte waited.

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"If this mothership is hidden in a cavern like the one was here, how do I get into this place, considering no one has reported finding it over the centuries?"

Turcotte turned to Quinn. "How did they get into the mothership hangar here? And how did they find it in the first place?"

"They found it," Quinn said, "when survey teams at the beginning of World War II noticed a magnetic anomaly in the area coming from inside Groom Mountain. They tunneled in and found the cavern and mothership."

"Are you sure of that?" Turcotte asked.

Quinn shrugged. "No. It's what I was told. It could be a cover story. Who knows what the truth is?"

"I'm not going to be able to do much tunneling on Ararat," Yakov said. "How do I get into the cavern?"

"Demolitions," Turcotte said. "Otherwise called tunneling in a hurry. Find a cave or a crack or something and blast your way in toward the coordinates."

Yakov frowned. "Not the best plan."

"The best we can do right now," Turcotte said, "and I think the right now is the more important aspect."

"We shall see," Yakov said.

"Also..." Turcotte paused.

"Yes?" Yakov prompted.

"There will most likely be others seeking the Ark. Perhaps they will know the way in."

Yakov nodded, understanding what Turcotte was telling him.

Turcotte turned to Kincaid. "Did Che Lu have any coordinates on Everest?"

"Not that I can see," he said. "Nothing close."

Mualama spoke up. "Excalibur was put on Everest by a rogue group of Watchers under the command of Myrrdin— Merlin. It is doubtful that Nabinger would have picked the coordinates up from High Rune markings."

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"How do you know that?" Turcotte asked.

Mualama held up Burton's missing manuscript. "It's in

here."

"Nice to let us know that now," Turcotte said.

"I translated the manuscript in the order you wanted me to" Mualama said.

"Remember? Information on the Grail and the Mission was the priority."

Turcotte didn't buy that explanation. They'd been totally dependent on Mualama to translate Burton's text, written in ancient Akkadian. His information about the location of the Mission's base under Mount Sinai had been accurate but Turcotte had to wonder if there was anything else the archaeologist was holding back. In fact, they had to trust that Mualama had brought forth the entire manuscript, given that the African had traveled all over the world tracking it down.

"What does Burton say about Excalibur?" Turcotte asked.

"According to what Burton learned at Avalon," Mualama said, "Merlin came there after Arthur died and took Excalibur from the Watcher of Avalon, Brynn. The Watchers didn't know where he took it, but in the course of tracking down the scepter for the Hall of Records, Burton came across stories about a special sword and indications it had been taken by Merlin toward southern Asia—beyond the edge of the known world at that time.

"When Burton was stationed in India, he was part of a group that mapped the northern districts, in the foothills of the Himalayas. As was his wont, he disguised himself and went among the locals, listening to their legends and stories. And he heard tales that a magical sword had been brought from the West many years ago by a sorcerer and taken high into the mountains, to the roof of the world."

'That doesn't give me an exact location," Turcotte noted. "Everest is a big mountain."

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"The entire point of putting it up there was that no one could get to it,"

Mualama said. "Or get up there, recover the sword, and make it down alive."

"People have climbed Everest," Turcotte noted.

"Only in the past fifty years," Mualama said. "And from what Burton wrote about what he heard, it's not on the very top, but close to it, on a portion of the mountain that is very difficult to get to. In a place where climbers heading for the top wouldn't go."

Something didn't sit right with Turcotte about all of this. "If Burton knew where it was hidden, what about Artad? And Aspasia's Shadow? Do they know?"

Mualama shrugged. "I would imagine so. After all Kelly Reynolds got the information out of the Easter Island guardian, right? Aspasia's Shadow certainly has access to the same resource."

"Why hasn't anyone recovered it, then?" Turcotte asked.

"It would have broken the truce," Mualama said.

Turcotte shook his head. "Hell, both sides have broken the truce numerous times over the years."

"I don't know," Mualama said, shrugging.

"Perhaps"—Yakov drew the word out—"activating the Master Guardian would have had much the same effect as activating the interstellar drive of the mothership.

Perhaps it would draw in this enemy of the Airlia—the Swarm?"

"How do you know that?" Turcotte asked. That was the thing that had started all this, when Majestic had planned on test-flying the mothership and Turcotte had stopped them at the last minute.

"I don't know it," Yakov said. "But while both sides broke the truce, neither side attempted to fly a mothership until recently and that seems more an automated response by Majestic's guardian than a plan. Perhaps there are aspects of the truce both sides tried to respect."

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"Too much conjecture," Turcotte muttered. "And remember, Excalibur was used during Arthur and Merlin's time. I don't like the idea of wandering around on Everest looking for a sword that could be hidden anywhere. Hopefully we'll get another message from Kelly with the exact location."

"Ah—" Colonel Mickell held up a hand.

Turcotte paused. "Yes, sir?"

"Mike, you have any idea what it's like to be on Everest?"

"It's a mountain," Turcotte said, looking down at his boots.

"No," Mickell shook his head. "It's the mountain. Two of my men were on an expedition there last year. They didn't make it to the top. And they were the best climbers we have. You can't just go up there," Mickell added. "You have to acclimatize over a long period of time or you will die."

"I don't have time to acclimatize," Turcotte said. "I'll be on the bouncer. It won't take but a couple of minutes."

"Mike." Mickell said the one word like a slap in the face.

Turcotte's eyes couldn't meet the colonel's. Finally, he nodded. "I know, sir.

Nothing ever goes as planned, but I don't see what I can do other than just go."

"You can be prepared for the worst," Mickell said. "We did some research after our men came back. We don't expect to have to operate on Everest but we do have to plan that we might have to conduct a short-notice operation at extreme high altitude someday. That's the major reason we sent our two men up there."

"And?" Turcotte was anxious to be going. He could hear an aircraft landing on the runway and from the sound of the propellers, he knew it was a C-130—Yakov's ride to Turkey.

Mickell glanced at his watch. "As soon as I heard where you were going I alerted my people. A chopper should be

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here any minute with our high-altitude packet and one of my men who was part of the expedition.

"The problem is oxygen, Mike. The minute you get above twenty-five thousand feet you're in the death zone. Your body starts dying. You only have about one-third the oxygen you're used to at sea level."

"People have climbed it without oxygen, though," Turcotte noted.