The Rock (17 page)

QUESTIONS 

Ayers Rock, Australia

22 DECEMBER 1995, 1900 LOCAL

22 DECEMBER 1995, 0930 ZULU

Fran ignored the yelling as she helped Batson tie Richman into the wire stretcher that had been lowered in place of the cage. Lamb was in Tomkins's face gesturing at the Wall, venting his frustration at a situation that had gotten far out of his control.

Certain Richman was secure, she gestured at Tomkins for his men to bring him up. The basket slid up into the dark hole and was gone. Only then did Fran turn her gaze back to the chamber. Lamb had finally fallen silent and was now standing shoulder to shoulder with the others, staring at the Wall.

"Maybe they're in Tunguska now?" Batson postulated.

Fran considered that. "Maybe. But maybe they're wherever Richman was for eight hours."

"He said he didn't remember being anywhere," Batson countered.

"That doesn't mean he wasn't someplace. It just means he doesn't remember," Fran said.

"It just sucked them in," Pencak marveled, standing a respectful five feet away from the Wall.

"What do you think it is?" Fran asked the older woman. "Do you still think it's a door?"

"Of course," Pencak replied. "But a door to where? I don't think it's a direct line to Tunguska. Maybe they're in Meteor Crater. Or in South America. Or farther. Who knows? We'll just have to wait until they come back. In fact, I think it might be more than a door."

"You seem very certain they are coming back," Lamb noted, eyeing Pencak with suspicion.

"The soldier came through unharmed, except for what the Russians did to him. There is no reason to believe that whatever force is behind this Wall is malevolent."

Lamb turned to Tomkins. "I want you to send a remote camera through ASAP. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir." Tomkins whispered into his microphone for a few seconds and the cable began moving. A few minutes later a large steel suitcase appeared in the hole and hit the ground with a slight bump. Tomkins disconnected it and opened the case. He set up the small TV they'd used above, hooking it into the power line. Then he placed the reel holding the fiber-optic cable near the Wall.

"Ready to go, sir."

Fran frowned. She wasn't sure this was a good idea, but she had nothing concrete to base that feeling upon and she could sense that Lamb was not in a mood for any dissension.

"Go ahead," Lamb ordered.

Tomkins slowly unwound the reel and the optic cable, small camera in front, snaked across the floor toward the Wall. It touched the black and slowly melted in, until suddenly the Wall flashed white. The cable spun off the reel faster than the eye could see, disappearing, and dragging the TV and suitcase with it. Tomkins leapt away, almost getting smashed as the TV flew by. The entire system was gone in less than half a second.

Tomkins stared at the Wall in disbelief and then back at Lamb, speechless. Fran glanced at Pencak, who was as expressionless as ever.

"Send the cage down," Lamb ordered. "I need to make some calls."

After he had disappeared up through the hole, Fran turned to the other two scientists. "What do we do now?"

Batson simply shook his head. "I don't know."

Pencak sat down on the rock floor near the black Wall, her bad leg stretched out in front. "We wait. I think they" --she nodded at the Wall--"whoever they are, have the initiative now, along with Major Hawkins and Ms. Levy."

"Shit," Batson muttered, walking away from the two of them and sitting down in the far end of the cave, where the ceiling curved down. Fran moved over and joined him.

"How are you doing?"

Don eyed her suspiciously. "All right."

Fran stared at him for a couple of minutes until he finally spoke again. "What? What are you looking at me like that for?"

"I know what it feels like," she said.

"What what feels like?" he snapped.

"At least you don't have the shakes too bad," she noted.

Don glared at her. "I don't need any shit from you."

"No, you don't. You do a good enough job of that yourself." She reached over and grabbed his right hand, wrapping it in both of hers. "It will be all right."

Don kept the angry look in his eyes for several minutes, then it gradually faded and he leaned back against the smoothly cut wall. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I just don't feel too hot."

"I know," Fran said. "Like I said, I've been through it. It gets better."

He looked up at the Wall. "I don't think so."

Fran followed his look. "I do. I have to."

22 DECEMBER 1995, 1910 LOCAL

22 DECEMBER 1995, 0940 ZULU

Lamb rubbed his forehead nervously as the screen wavered and then cleared up. When the President appeared, Lamb gave a dispassionate recital of the events of the previous hour.

When he had finished, the President sat silent for a few minutes, his gaze turned away from the camera. Finally he looked at Lamb. "All right. You've got two people missing. One of the men you thought was lost at Tunguska came through this thing. So we know for sure it's some sort of transporter, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"And nobody but this soldier has come through, right? No Russians, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"And we don't know where these two people who went through your side have gone?"

"No, sir. I'm having imagery taken at Tunguska, but we have the same problem of not knowing what's happening under the tarps out there."

The President drummed his fingers on his desktop, eyes lost in thought. "If the Russians have them, they'll ID Levy very quickly. And Hawkins knows too damn much." He slammed his palm onto the desk in frustration. "Dammit, Steve, this is a screw-up. We still don't know who or what we're dealing with. Do you, or any of those people you have with you, have any idea of what to do next?"

Lamb shook his head. "No, sir. I'm thinking of sending a remote camera with a SATCOM transmitter through. Maybe we can get pictures of the other side then."

"Do you think Levy is a Russian agent? That she knew what this Wall is, and has been using these transmissions for her own purposes?"

"It's possible, sir." Lamb shrugged in frustration. "I just don't know."

"If the Russians were behind this, why would they send this fellow Richman through?"

"I don't think they would have done that on purpose. Maybe there was a mix-up. But maybe they aren't behind it."

The President considered that for a few seconds. "What about Pencak?"

"She's made no overt actions."

"You have no idea how this Wall works?"

"No, sir."

"We don't have anything like it in the pipeline?"

"No, sir."

"Not even on spec?"

"No, sir."

"Nothing from Intel that anyone else might have such a thing?"

"No, sir."

The President glanced past the camera at someone who must have entered the office with him. "All right. What about the Russians? Anything on the fleet movement?"

"It's in position south of here, sir. They're just holding in place. I am concerned that if they really aren't behind this, they may try something in response to our recon team in Tunguska."

"I've received nothing about that through diplomatic channels," the President noted. "Either they haven’t ID’ed the two bodies as ours, or they have a reason to keep it quiet. With all the trouble he's having with his own Parliament, Pamarov can't afford to cause any waves." He glanced down at the notes on his desk. "Anything on the other bomb?"

Lamb had checked that with his assistant before getting on the air. "No, sir. Not a word."

"Sending that team into Tunguska was a mistake, Steve. Letting Levy and Hawkins go through was too. Let's not have any more."

The screen went blank.

THE OTHER SIDE 

Hawkins blinked, trying to adjust his eyes to the dim surroundings after the flash of white light. He was completely disoriented and his senses shifted into focus slowly. The experience of going through the Wall had run from the feeling of sinking into molasses-as Richman had said-to feeling as if every cell in his body was being stretched, to a sudden snapping back to normal.

He felt no immediate threat, so he took it one sense at a time. He was cold, colder than he'd been in the chamber. Hawkins estimated it was in the high forties, yet the air had a very curious texture to it almost like a humid summer day. The first thing he could clearly see was Levy standing at his side, peering about. Directly behind them a shimmering replica of the Wall stood. He scanned outward, trying to keep his brain moving with his eyes.

As best he could make out, he was inside some sort of massive cavern or building. Metal struts loomed up from the nearest wall and disappeared overhead into darkness. Hawkins strained his eyes into the dimness, trying to make out the exact dimensions, but he could only see the solid wall closest to them and another directly across. There were numerous large, blocky objects scattered about on the floor, the exact purposes of which were indeterminable. To the far left there appeared to be a bright light glowing. Unable to determine the scale of the light Hawkins had no idea how far away it was, but he estimated at least two to three kilometers.

A sudden snap caught his attention and he whirled, hand reaching down for the pistol on his hip. He caught the last of the black Wall fading into nothingness. Then just as quickly it was back, hanging there, shimmering.

One thing he knew for sure--they weren't in Tunguska.

"Where do you think we are?" His words were muffled by the thick air and swayed about by a skittish wind, a strange feeling in what his senses told him was an enclosed place. The place felt old and abandoned, with a thin layer of dust covering the floor, which appeared to be smoothly cut black rock.

Levy had put a hand over her eyes, trying to keep the grainy dirt from blowing in them as she peered about. "We're there."

"Which is where?" Hawkins repeated.

"This is where the Makers are from."

"The Makers?" Hawkins asked.

"Of the Wall."

"But where exactly is here?" Hawkins wanted to know. He'd traveled extensively throughout his military career and this place bothered him deeply, as it didn't fit in his known catalogue of locations and climates. Underlying all that was the inherently disturbing fact that the air simply didn't feel right as it ran across his skin.

"We're not on Earth," Levy quietly replied.

"How do you know that?" Hawkins snapped.

Levy simply looked at him. "Do you feel like you're on Earth?"

Hawkins didn't respond to that. "How can we breathe, then?"

"Because they wouldn't have said come if we couldn't."

Hawkins frowned. "Who said come?"

"The Makers."

Hawkins tried to control his emotions. "Who are the Makers?"

Levy met his eyes again. "I don't know. They told me to come and I have." Hawkins took a deep breath. "What do you think is going to happen?"

Levy shook her head, her eyes bewildered behind the thick glasses. "I don't know. I just had to act, after seeing your man come through and thinking of those who have died. It is all so foolish and terrible that men should die like that. We put the best of ourselves --our heroism, our intelligence--into the worst of ourselves." She shook her head. "I didn't expect you to join me."

"I didn't either," Hawkins muttered, looking about cautiously.

Levy didn't bother replying to that remark. She was staring off into the distance. "Look!"

Hawkins looked in the direction she was pointing and then shifted his eyes in small arcs, coming back toward their position, and spotted what Levy was pointing at. There were four figures moving among several of the large objects that Hawkins assumed were some sort of machinery, about eight hundred meters away, moving off toward the light.

Hawkins instinctively grabbed Levy and pulled her to the ground. The figures were out of sight now, behind something. Hawkins thought furiously. He hadn't been able to see that well through all the blowing grit and darkness, but the four had appeared to have human form. "Let's go back," he suggested.

Levy sat up and regarded him curiously. "Back where?"

"Back to the Rock."

"How?" she asked.

Hawkins jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Through the Wall."

Levy shook her head. "We don't know where we'd end up if we went through again."

"But we came out here," Hawkins argued.

"Yes," Levy acknowledged, "but your man went through in Tunguska and came out at the Rock. We went through at the Rock and came out here. I don't think there is a direct one-to-one linear connection among these Walls. You saw it disappear and come back--what if that was some sort of realignment and it now has a different connection?

"Someone or something is controlling these Walls. We might go through here and end up someplace where we can't breathe. Or at least not without equipment."

Hawkins sat up himself. She had a point. If they weren't on Earth, then this was totally out of his scope of reality. If they were on Earth, then the odds were those four figures out there might have some answers. He stood. "Let's go."

Levy didn't ask where this time, she simply joined him and they moved out in the direction of the figures. Hawkins wished he'd been better prepared as he flipped open the cover on his hip holster. He had the 9mm but that was it, other than a survival knife strapped inside his shirt in a shoulder sheath.

He led them among the machinery, some of which hummed with power, crossing open areas only when necessary and then by keeping low and moving quickly. He caught a glimpse of the four figures as they crossed what appeared to be a wide-open thoroughfare among the machines. They were now less than four hundred meters away.

Definitely two arms and two legs on each, which comforted Hawkins somewhat. They were wearing helmets and dark full-body suits. One thing he had definitely noticed were the weapons in the hands of each one of the figures. They were nothing he'd seen before, but he had no doubt that they were weapons--they were as long as an M16 and the way the figures handled them, ends pointing out, left little question as to their function.

Hawkins slithered to the edge of the next machine on his stomach, Levy crawling up beside him. Looking ahead, he could see two of the figures about eighty meters ahead, halted and silhouetted against the light source, which appeared to be no closer. He wished he had a pair of binoculars.

"They look human," Levy whispered.

Where were the other two? Hawkins thought. His instincts were on fire. "Let's get out of here," he ordered, grabbing Levy by the arm. Turning, he froze, looking into two wicked-looking large-bore muzzles. Hawkins looked from the muzzles to the heads-the faces were hidden behind tinted visors but just above those faceplates was something that confirmed what Hawkins had been fearing. Each figure had a name stenciled there in Cyrillic writing.

"Nyet strelyat,” Hawkins yelled, moving his hands away from his holster and getting to his feet.

One gestured with the weapon at Hawkins's holster. Using his left hand he unsnapped the belt and thigh catch, letting it drop to the ground and then kicking it toward the two. One picked it up and slipped it into a pack. The two figures inclined their helmets slightly at each other, as if exchanging an unseen glance. Hawkins assumed they were speaking on a com-link. He turned slightly as the other two appeared from behind and joined their partners. The four stood together, ten feet away, regarding Hawkins and Levy. He desperately wished he could hear what they were saying on their radio.

He was surprised when a voice echoed out of a speaker on one of the men's helmets, speaking unaccented English. "You have no trouble breathing?"

Hawkins relaxed slightly. That simple question told him a great deal about the present situation. "Nyet."

"You can speak English, Major Hawkins," the man replied, gesturing at the name strip on his uniform. "I have heard of you, although we did not know what you looked like." The man lifted the shaded visor and a leathery face peered out the clear plastic at the two of them. "I am Lieutenant Colonel Tuskin of the Russian Army. You are either very brave or very foolish to be here so poorly equipped. Or perhaps you know something about all this"--the weapon made a small arc--"that we do not know?"

Hawkins shrugged. "I was about to ask you the same question."

Tuskin's face showed no emotion. "What about your man who went through the portal in Tunguska? Do you not know of him?"

Hawkins hesitated, not sure how much information to divulge. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Tuskin shrugged. "Then I suppose I ought to just kill you both right now and continue on with my mission. We know those two bodies we have in Tunguska are American. We can't prove it, and the politicians don't want to make a fuss, but I know. That's good enough for me."

Hawkins could understand Tuskin's thought process. He'd be saying the same thing if he were on the delivering end of the weapon and Ayers Rock had been infiltrated by an obviously well-trained Russian team.

Tuskin shifted his gaze to Levy. "Who are you?"

She answered without hesitation. "Debra Levy."

"What are you?"

"I am a physicist."

Tuskin showed some surprise for the first time, looking back at Hawkins as if trying to figure out what the two of them were doing here, wherever here was.

"Do you have to keep pointing those guns at us?" Levy continued.

"Your major is a very dangerous man, if all I have heard about him is true," Tuskin answered, but he lowered his muzzle, his men reluctantly following suit. The move surprised Hawkins.

Levy gestured back the way they'd come. "Did you come out the same Wall we did?"

Tuskin frowned. "Wall? You mean the portal?"

Levy nodded. He pointed past the massive jumble of machines to the opposite wall. "No. We came out back there." Tuskin regarded the two of them for a long minute. "Are you saying you are not responsible for all this?"

Levy shook her head. "No."

Tuskin looked at Hawkins. "I almost believe that, because I do not think you would be here so ill prepared if you knew what was happening. How did you get here?"

Before Hawkins could stop her, Levy answered. "I went through the portal in Ayers Rock and Major Hawkins tried to stop me and ended up here with me."

"Ah! So there is one in Australia! We thought that's what you might be digging for after we intercepted the transmission and then saw the imagery. So, if I am to believe you, then you do not know where we are either?"

Hawkins shook his head. "I've never seen this place before."

"You have lied to me once already. Why should I believe anything you say?" Tuskin asked.

"All right," Hawkins acknowledged, accepting the strangeness of the situation. If this was a Russian setup, it was by far the most complicated and sophisticated he'd ever imagined. "Those were my men. The one who escaped and went through the Tunguska portal, as you call it, came out in Ayers Rock."

Tuskin shook his head. "How can that be? We went through the Tunguska portal over an hour ago and we ended up here."

Hawkins spread his hands. "We went through the Ayers Rock portal fifteen minutes ago and ended up here."

Tuskin looked worried for the first time and Hawkins could understand his consternation. The Russian was realizing that perhaps he could not simply return through the portal he'd come out of and end up back in Tunguska. It must have taken extreme bravery for him to bring his men through the portal in the first place--that or a very strict order to do so.

Hawkins was about to say something when a distant noise caught his attention. It was a hissing sound, almost like a steam jet, and it appeared to be coming closer. Tuskin heard it too. He suddenly turned and his three men deployed in a defensive line, facing the noise.

With a great blast of dust a large airborne vehicle appeared, hovering over the nearest machinery and clearing it. The vehicle's four large thrusters pointed to the ground as it slowly settled down and came to a halt ten meters in front of them.

Tuskin's men stood there, pointing their rifles at the dull gray sides of the craft. It was fifty feet long by twenty wide, flat on the bottom except for the thrusters, with the sides sloping up to a slightly rounded roof. The front was blunted, with no apparent cockpit, although a wicked-looking barrel mounted on three arms protruded from above the front--obviously a weapon of some sort. It wasn't pointing at them, but Hawkins had no doubt that whoever or whatever was inside could readily make up that deficiency. He also had little doubt that Tuskin's rifles would probably have little effect on this craft. The dull sheen of the metal sides had that same tough, unyielding look as the armor on a main battle tank.

Obviously, Tuskin was thinking the same thing, too, because his men lowered their weapons for the second time. He looked over his shoulder at Hawkins. "Any suggestions, Major?"