Domain (46 page)

DECEMBER 13, 2012
ABOARD THE USS
BOONE
,
GULF OF MEXICO

4:46 A.M.

C
aptain Edwin Loos greets Vice President Ennis Chaney and Marvin Teperman as they stagger off the Sikorsky SH-60B Seahawk and step onto the deck of the USS
Boone
.

The CO smiles. “Are you all right, Mr. Vice President? You look a little queasy.”

“We ran into some weather. Are the UAVs in position?”

“Two Predators hovering above the target area, just as you requested, sir.”

Marvin removes his life vest, handing it to the chopper pilot. “Captain, what makes your people think we’ll see another one of those whirlpools tonight?”

“Sensors indicate subterranean electromagnetic fluctuations are rising, just like they did the last time the maelstrom appeared.” Loos leads them through the superstructure, escorting them to the ship’s Combat Information Center.

The darkened high-tech chamber is buzzing with activity. Commander Curtis Broad glances up from a sonar station. “You’re just in time, skipper. Sensors indicate a rise in electromagnetic activity. It looks like another maelstrom may be forming.”

Circling above the emerald glow in staggered altitudes are two of the USS
Boone
’s unmanned aerial reconnaissance vehicles, known as Predator. As the waters of the Gulf begin pulling in a counterclockwise motion, the Predators’ infrared and television cameras beam real-time images back to the warship.

Chaney, Teperman, Captain Loos, and two dozen technicians and scientists stare at the video monitors, their pulses racing as the whirlpool takes shape before their eyes.

The vice president shakes his head in disbelief. “What on God’s good earth could possess the power to create something like that?”

Marvin whispers, “Maybe the same thing that’s been detonating karst formations across the Western Pacific.”

The maelstrom rotates faster, its monstrous centrifugal force opening a swirling funnel, which drops clear down to the fractured seafloor. As the waters part, the eye of the vortex unleashes a brilliant emerald beacon into the night, radiating skyward like a celestial searchlight.

“There,” Marvin points to the screen. “Rising out from the center—”

“I see them,” Chaney whispers, dumbfounded.

Three dark shadows levitate out of the light and straight up through the eye of the maelstrom.

“What in the fuck is that,” Loos swears. A dozen stunned scientists yell out to their colleagues and assistants to verify that all sensory data is being collected.

The objects continue rising out of the whirlpool. Hovering above the sea, they approach the lowest of the two UAVs.

The Predator’s picture becomes fuzzy with static, then goes blank.

The second Predator continues transmitting.

“I want both Seahawks airborne now,” Captain Loos orders. “Reconnaissance only. Chief, keep the remaining Predator at a safe distance. Don’t lose that signal.”

“Aye, sir. Sir, what’s a safe distance?”

“Captain, Seahawks are airborne—”

“Keep them away from that light,” Chaney barks.

The three alien objects rise to an altitude of two thousand feet. With robotic precision, they execute a pirouette, rotating their enormous wings into full horizontal extension, and accelerate, disappearing instantly from view.

Captain Loos rushes over to the Mk. 23 Target Acquisition System. Second Lieutenant Linda Muraresku is already tracking the objects using the
Boone
’s fast-rotating radar dish.

“I’ve got them, sir—barely. I’ve never seen anything like this before. No heat signatures, no sound, just some faint electromagnetic static. No wonder our satellites missed them.”

“How fast?”

“Mach 4 and still accelerating. All three targets heading west. Better contact NORAD, Captain. At this speed, they’ll be off my screen any minute.”

North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD
Colorado

The 9,565-foot towering mound of jagged granite known as Cheyenne Mountain is located four miles southwest of Colorado Springs. Two heavily guarded access tunnels at its base run a third of a mile below the surface, serving as the sole entrances into the four-and-a-half-acre subterranean compound known as the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD.

NORAD provides the military with a unified command center linking every branch of the armed forces, Combined Intelligence Centers, systems, and weather stations. The facility’s primary function, however, is to detect missile launches anywhere in the world, be it land, sea, or in the air. Such events fall into two basic categories.

Strategic warnings are issued when an ICBM is launched against North America, an event originating from a distance exceeding 2,100 nautical miles, carrying an impact time of approximately thirty minutes. A four-minute chain-of-command sequence quickly disseminates information to the president and all US Defense Command Centers.

Theater warnings involve missiles fired upon US and Allied Forces in the field. Because a Scud or Cruise missile can strike within minutes, NORAD relays warnings directly to field commanders via satellite.

Cheyenne Mountain’s most important early-warning missile-detection system originates 22,300 miles in space. It is here that NORAD’s Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites circle Earth in a geostationary orbit, providing continuous, overlapping coverage of the entire planet. Aboard these two-and-a-half-ton satellites are high-tech infrared sensors that instantly detect heat signatures created during a missile’s booster stage.

Major Joseph Unsinn salutes the MPs stationed at the glass vault door, then climbs into an awaiting tram. After a brief ride through a maze of tunnels, he arrives at NORAD’s command center to begin his twelve-hour shift.

The NORAD commander is no stranger to missile launches, each year witnessing no less than two hundred such “events.” But this is different. With the world on the brink of war, tensions are running high.

His counterpart, Major Brian Sedio, is busy studying the Defense Support Program satellite monitor, the image of Vice President Chaney’s face plastered across the video-comm mounted above his console.

“What’s going on?”

Sedio looks up. “You’re just in time. The VP’s flipping out.” The major turns off the muting switch. “I’m sorry, Mr. Vice President. DSP’s designed to detect heat signatures, not electromagnetic interference. If these alien objects of yours continue across the Pacific into Asia, there’s a chance we could pick them up using our land-based radar, but as far as our satellites are concerned, they’re invisible.”

The intensity of Chaney’s eyes is alarming. “Find them, Major. Coordinate whatever search you have to. I want to be informed the moment you get a fix on their locations.”

The screen goes blank.

Major Sedio shakes his head. “Would you believe this shit? The world’s on the brink of war, and Chaney thinks we’re being attacked by aliens.”

DECEMBER 14, 2012
ROCK FOREST OF SHILIN,
YUNNAN PROVINCE, SOUTHERN CHINA

5:45 A.M. (BEIJING TIME)

The province of Yunnan, together with Guizhou, makes up the southwest region of the People’s Republic of China. With an abundance of lakes, staggering mountains, and rich foliage, few areas in all of China provide visitors with such a wide variety of landscape to explore.

The most populated city in the province is Kunming, the capital of Yunnan. Located seventy miles southeast of the city is its most important tourist attraction: the Stone Forest of Lunan, also known as the Rock Forest of Shilin. Covering an expanse of over one hundred square miles, the Rock Forest is a myriad of bizarre, mountainous needles of limestone soaring to heights of nearly one hundred feet. Walkways lead visitors through the ranks of pinnacles, the wooden bridges crossing streams and boring through natural rock archways that proliferate on this torturous landscape.

The factors leading to the Rock Forest began some 280 million years ago, when the rise of the Himalayas caused erosion that carved jagged spiral formations out of the limestone plateau. Further upheavals over eons created deep fissures within the karst, which eventually became enlarged by the rainwater, forming towering shards of grayish white, dagger-shaped rocks.

It is not quite dawn when fifty-two-year-old Janet Parker and her personal tour guide, Quiksing, arrive at the front gate of the public park. Having ignored a US State Department travel advisory warning regarding China, the brash businesswoman from Florida has insisted on visiting the Rock Forest prior to embarking on her late-morning flight out of Kunming.

She follows her guide past a pagoda and onto a wooden platform that winds through the jagged formations of limestone. “Hold it, Quik-sing. Are you telling me this is it? This is what we drove an hour to see?”

“
Wo ting budong
—”

“English, Quik-sing, English.”

“I do not understand, Miss Janet. This is the Stone Forest. What were you expecting?”

“Obviously something a little more spectacular. All I can see are miles of rock.” A glimmer of brilliant amber light catches her eye. “Wait, what’s that?” She points to the source, the golden beacon flashing between several limestone shafts.

Quik-sing shields his eyes, startled by the light. “I-I do not know. Miss Janet, please, what are you doing?”

Janet climbs over the rail. “I want to see what that thing is.”

“Miss Janet—Miss Janet!”

“Relax, I’ll be back in a second.” Camera in hand, she climbs down to the ground, then squeezes between the base of two formations, cursing as she scrapes her ankle on the sharp rock. Maneuvering around the pinnacle, she looks up, seeing the source of the bright light.

“Now what in the hell is that?”

The black, insectlike object is easily forty feet long, its massive wings wedged between two towering spires of limestone. The inanimate beast is perched on a pair of red-hot talons, which appear to have punctured the karst, causing it to sizzle.

“Quik-sing, get over here.” Janet snaps another photo as the first rays of sunlight strike the creature’s wings. The amber beacon darkens as it flashes faster and faster. “Hey, Quik-sing, what the hell am I paying you for?”

The silent explosion of brilliant white light instantly blinds the businesswoman, the ignition of the pure-fusion device generating a cauldron of energy hotter than the surface of the Sun. Janet Parker registers a brief, bizarre burning sensation as her skin, fat, and blood broil away from the bone, her skeleton vaporizing a nanosecond later, as the searing-hot fireball races outward in all directions at the speed of light.

The combustion spreads quickly throughout the Stone Forest, the heat vaporizing the karst, releasing a dense, toxic cloud of carbon dioxide. Compressed beneath a ceiling of arctic air, the poisonous vapors hug the ground, rippling outward like a gaseous tsunami.

Most of the population of Kunming is still asleep when the noxious, invisible gas cloud rolls through the city like a hot gust on a summer’s day. The early risers drop to their knees, clutching their throats as the world spins around them. Those still in bed barely register a twitch as they suffocate in their sleep.

Within minutes, every man, woman, child, and any other air-breathing creatures in Kunming are dead.

Town of Lensk,
Republic of Sakha, Russia

5:47 A.M.

Seventeen-year-old Pavel Pshenichny takes the ax from his younger brother, Nikolai, and steps out of the three-bedroom log cabin into a foot of freshly fallen snow. An icy morning wind howls in his ears, blistering his face. He adjusts his scarf, then trudges across the frozen yard to the wood pile.

The Sun is not yet up, but then who but a local could really tell in this desolate, gray region of permafrost. Pavel clears snow off the surface of a frozen tree stump, grabs a log from the woodpile, then positions it upright. With a groan, he swings the ax, the blade splitting the half-frozen block of wood into kindling.

As he reaches for another log, a brilliant flash of light causes him to look up.

Looming across the dimly lit, northern horizon of Lensk is a vast, snow-covered mountain range concealed behind the gray cloud cover of dawn. As Pavel watches, a bolt of white-hot lightning seems to ignite behind the clouds, the flash spreading out along the jagged peaks, which quickly disappear behind a growing layer of fog.

Seconds later a thunderous roar, as the ground shakes beneath his feet.

Avalanche
?

The dense fog prevents Pavel from seeing the geological devastation taking place before his eyes. What the teenager can see is a rolling, grayish white cloud of snow expanding outward, the wave of energy racing toward him at unfathomable speed.

He drops the ax and runs. “Nikolai! Avalanche—avalanche!”

The nuclear blast wave lifts Pavel off his feet, driving him headfirst through the cabin door behind the wind speed of a force-five tornado. Before he can register the pain, the entire structure is blown off its foundation like a house of cards—the searing-hot gust of debris sweeping across the plain, consuming everything in its path.

Chichén Itza Yucatan Peninsula

10:56 P.M.

The black, dust-covered Chevy pickup with the missing rear fender cuts through the dense jungle, its worn shock absorbers squealing in protest as it bounces along the uneven dirt road. Approaching the chained gate, the truck skids to a stop.

Michael Gabriel jumps out from the driver’s side.

He examines the steel chain, then begins working the rusted padlock, using the truck’s headlights to see.

Dominique slides over to the driver’s seat as Mick pop opens the lock and removes the chain. Grinding the truck into gear, she drives forward through the open gate, then returns to the passenger side as he climbs back inside.