Area 51: Excalibur-6 (27 page)

He got back on board the helicopter and the pilot began to take off. It was then that he noticed the squad of men moving through a street a quarter mile to the north. The men wore protective suits and gas masks—North Korean versions. They carried AK-47s and were headed toward the bridge, drawn by the sound of the helicopter.

"Land again," Carmody ordered.

The Blackhawk touched down. Carmody opened the door and went over to the bomb.

He heard shots, then the door gunner on the Blackhawk returning fire. He entered his code on the keypad. Then he accessed the timer code. 14:21 and going down.

Carmody hit the scroll key and the number rapidly went down until he reached : 10.

Then he waited as the last seconds ticked off.

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CHAPTER 15: THE PRESENT

MOUNT EVEREST

It was most definitely not dawn. That was Turcotte's first thought as Morris nudged his shoulder again. He felt like he'd tied one on the previous evening and then spent the night in a snowbank while being suffocated. His head was pounding and his body was stiff and chilled to the bone. Turcotte opened his eyes. Ice-covered rock was less than six inches in front of him. The sound of his breathing echoed loudly inside the oxygen mask. He couldn't remember ever feeling so bad, but then again his brain wasn't working very well so he couldn't really trust his memories. He did know from his various training and combat experiences that misery tended to fade in the memory and never seemed as bad looking back as it really had been.

A shaft of light penetrated the dark as Morris put a headlamp over his forehead and turned it on. The medic was doing something and his action stirred Turcotte to move. He unzipped his sleeping bag, careful not to drop it, shoving it into the pack dangling next to him. He pulled out his own headlamp and put it on. He was amazed as Morris handed him a hot cup of coffee. The medic has chipped out a small ice ledge in the side of the ridge and set up his stove. Turcotte knew how difficult it was to operate under these conditions and he was deeply grateful for Morris's extra efforts. He took a sip, then twisted, handing the cup to Mualama.

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He noted that Morris was looking up in the darkness, trying to see the route he would lead them on, the headlamp penetrating about forty feet up. There was no wind, for which Turcotte was grateful. The cold was so extreme it was sheer pain on any exposed skin and he knew a minute of exposure would cause instant frostbite.

Mualama passed the cup back and began packing his gear. Turcotte had spent a good portion of his life in the field in all sorts of conditions, but he'd never spent a few hours sleeping at twenty-five thousand feet clipped to the side of a mountain.

"Grab hold of the mountain," Morris advised as he reached down for the safety lines he'd attached.

Turcotte looked down. His legs were dangling and he was supported only by the lines. He kicked and dug the toe of his crampons into the ice. Morris had put his pack on him while he slept and Turcotte felt a moment's embarrassment to be taken care of like that. The medic had done the same with Mualama. Looking at the African in the darkness, the older man's face, what little Turcotte could see, was haggard.

"Let's move," Morris called out. He began to lead the way up the ridge, Turcotte and Mualama following.

McGraw and Olivetti were pushing through waist-high snow. Each man would take ten steps, moving up the ridge, then step to the side and let the other take his place blazing the trail. They'd been doing this routine for over an hour and the muscles in their legs burned in agony, yet that didn't slow them in the slightest. Both men wore night-vision goggles and the clear night sky gave enough illumination that they could see the way clearly.

McGraw had just taken lead and was on step number five when his crampon hit something buried in the snow. He paused and leaned forward, brushing snow away from the object. Two bodies. Frozen solid. Wearing modern climbing 230

gear. Casualties from some climbing expedition. McGraw stepped over them and continued. Olivetti did the same.

Lexina was awakened by Aksu switching out her oxygen cylinder.

"Your companion is dead."

Lexina slowly sat up. "Which one?"

Aksu shrugged. "You did not tell me their names."

"Cause?" Lexina slid out of her sleeping bag, feeling the bite of the cold. It was a clear night and thousands of stars glittered overhead.

"His oxygen tube was slightly crimped. He didn't get enough air. As near as I can tell, this brought on cerebral edema."

Lexina stiffly got to her feet and walked over to Coridan's body. He was curled up in a fetal position. Aksu stripped off the mask, then unscrewed the oxygen tube, sliding it into his own pack. She lifted one eyelid. There was no doubt he was dead. Unzipping his bag and parka, she went through the layers of clothes until she uncovered a small medallion in the shape of two outstretched arms. She removed it from the body.

Elek had joined her and the two hybrid human/Airlia clones stood silently over the body of their companion for a few moments.

"The spirit of Coridan must pass on," Lexina finally said.

"The spirit must pass on," Elek echoed.

Lexina held up the medallion. "We take his spirit, the spirit of Coridan. We take his ka so that he might be reborn."

Aksu was watching carefully, surprised at the ceremony.

Lexina handed the ka to Elek. Then she took a small black case out. Opening it, she sprinkled a little bit of black powder on the body. Aksu took a step back as the black powder began

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eating the body as if it were some powerful acid. Soon nothing remained except the clothes.

Lexina turned to Aksu. "We areready to proceed."

Olivetti tapped McGraw on the arm and pointed down. Three cones of light pierced the darkness several hundred feet below them and to the west. The lights showed up like searchlights in the SEALs' night-vision goggles. The two SEALs paused in their climb and watched the lights for almost a minute. It was clear that whoever was wearing them were moving slowly and straight up, which meant they would cut across the SEALs trail. McGraw knelt, pulling off his pack. He removed a claymore mine from the pack and placed it next to their trail, hiding it with a facing of snow. He then ran the trip wire across the trail, knocking snow off the side of the furrow to cover it.

McGraw faced back up the ridgeline and began climbing. The two were moving at an incredible pace, their legs churning through the waist-high snow, cutting a path straight along the knife-edge top of the West Ridge.

THE GULF OF MEXICO

Being immortal had turned into a curse, Duncan realized as she regained consciousness via a severe jolt of pain as if a red-hot poker had been shoved into her forehead. As the pain from the jolt receded, her head pounded from an almost blinding headache. She opened her eyes, but it made no difference. She was in absolute darkness and her body couldn't move, no matter how hard she struggled. She tried to scream and realized that something was shoved down her throat.

A slash of pain, slightly to the left of the previous one, above her eye, caused her to choke on whatever was in her

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throat as she tried to scream. Then even as that subsided, another spike. Her body slammed against the restraints, muscles twitching. And another spike. She felt as if she were losing her sanity, overwhelmed by waves of pain that were increasing in intensity.

Then she realized she could see something very faintly. Shadowy gray images moving against a black background, but she couldn't make out details. Then with another bolt of pain they were gone and the darkness returned. She realized there was a copper taste in her mouth, but she couldn't move her tongue around whatever had been shoved down her throat.

She also became aware that she was submerged, her entire body enveloped in a fluid, which was at body temperature. The tube in the throat must be giving her oxygen, she thought, but it was wiped away by more pain, this time in her left temple.

Then blessed nothingness for a moment. Her body was rigid, waiting for the onslaught to be renewed, but instead she was blinded by light as the top of the tube opened. The light was diffused through the liquid, which had a dark tint to it and the clear plastic of a mask which was molded to her face. There was someone standing over the tube. She began struggling again, but the figure held up his hand indicating for her to wait.

She realized the liquid was slowly draining as the level dropped below the top of her body and she felt the chill of cool air on wet, exposed skin. Garlin remained still, waiting, and Duncan mentally cursed him.

Garlin reached in and in one smooth move pulled the tube out of her mouth. She coughed and gasped for air. He quickly unstrapped her, then tossed a towel into the tube. She wrapped it around her body as she sat up.

"I am done with you and your tests."

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"We don't care what you're done with," Garlin said, "because we're not done with you."

"You keep saying we, but I haven't seen anyone but you," Duncan said.

"That's because we don't trust you," Garlin said.

"Screw you."

"Do you want to know what we've learned?"

"Since I still have the same memories," Duncan said, "I don't think you learned much."

Gariin shook his head. "On the contrary. The fact that we weren't able to break through your conditioning with this machine indicates that this type of machine wasn't used to implant your false memories. Something more sophisticated and more powerful was used."

Duncan remained silent, her arms across her chest, holding the towel tight against her body.

"And"—Garlin drew the word out—"we think we know what that was."

Duncan finally spoke. "And that is?"

"The Ark of the Covenant."

Duncan remembered the crown, and the leads from the Ark that she had attached.

And the vision she;d had while hooked to it inside the Black Sphinx.

As if reading her mind, Garlin nodded. "The vision you had when you were hooked up to it probably didn't come from the Ark of the Covenant. We think it came from your repressed memory."

"That doesn't make sense," Duncan said. "I was on board a mothership. How can I have a memory of that?"

"Good question," Garlin said. "And one we hope to answer shortly."

"How do you plan on doing that?"

"We're going to bring the Ark of the Covenant here."

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THE COLONEL JAMES N. ROWE

SPECIAL OPERATIONS

TRAINING FACILITY

Larry Kincaid was tapped into the military's secure Internet, using Delta's access to get him the imagery he needed. The line of mechs moving between Cydonia and Mons Olympus was larger than ever. And the first of those carrying the black material had reached the site high up on the extinct volcano's side, less than a kilometer from the summit.

While the material was being laid out in the beginnings of a grid pattern, Kincaid noted that a cluster of mechs were in the very center of the location and still digging into the side of the mountain. Excavation and a grid—something tugged at Kincaid's mind, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He had a strange feeling he'd seen something like this before, but where? And how could he have, given that this was being constructed by aliens on another planet?

QIAN-LING, CHINA

Artad stared at the same imagery of Mars, which the Chinese had intercepted via their tap into the American military's supposedly secure web server. He also had seen the same thing before, except he knew exactly what he was looking at.

Startled, Artad put the pictures down and accessed the guardian. He had it run a program to determine how long it would take for the thing being built on Mars to be completed. The answer was somewhat reassuring—more than enough time for his forces to complete their conquest and/or destruction of the humans and Aspasia's Shadow.

Still—Artad picked up the photo and stared at it. Why would the Airlia on Mars be building this? he wondered.

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They were Aspasia's people. But, then again, Aspasia was dead. Were they allied with his enemy's shadow? Or were they on their own now?

Possibilities.

Artad composed a message to the Airlia at Cydonia and transmitted it via the guardian.

DIMONA

"We need the Ark of the Covenant along with the priestly robes and crown in order to find out who exactly Dr. Duncan is."

Sherev stared at the speakerphone, considering the request he had just received.

This Garlin fellow claimed to be from the new Area 51 and he had quickly updated Sherev on Duncan's status. Sherev had seen her body taken aboard the bouncer after he had led Israeli commandos in storming the Mission's base inside Mount Sinai. He also remembered Turcotte and Yakov and their bravery attacking the Mission.

"So the Grail works?" he asked.

"Yes."

"It brought her back to life?"

"Yes."

"Where is Major Turcotte?" Sherev asked.

"Currently climbing Mount Everest," Garlin replied.

"And Yakov?"

"Mount Ararat."

Sherev frowned. "Why is he at Ararat?"

"That is not important right now. Our priority is to figure out exactly who Lisa Duncan is."

"Why?"

"Because she caused the demise of the original Majestic committee and in essence started all of this."

Sherev leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers.

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The intelligence reports of recent events were as often confusing as enlightening. "I thought the original Majestic started all of this, as you say, when it became corrupted by the guardian they found in Temiltepec?"

"Are you going to help us or not?" Garlin snapped. "I'm relaying this request directly from Major Turcotte. He's afraid to go through diplomatic channels because he doesn't want this compromised."

Sherev knew he was in an untenable situation. What had happened in Jerusalem was a clear indicator that the Ark of the Covenant was a dangerous icon. While it was again safe in his vault, how long would that last? The threat to Israel from the countries ringing it was also growing. There were reports of fighting along the Iranian-Turkish border and also between Iran and Iraq. Egypt was claiming sovereignty over the Sinai Peninsula again and asserting that any artifacts removed from Mount Sinai were Egyptian, as they must have originated from that country.