Excalibur

CHAPTER 15: THE PRESENT

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.

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

Lexina turned to Aksu. “We are ready 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.

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 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.”

“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.”

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?

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.

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.

“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.

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.

“You know Aspasia’s Shadow has the Grail,” Garlin pressed. “We need to unlock whatever secrets are inside Duncan’s head before he grows too powerful.” Sherev wasn’t quite following what was so important about Duncan, but he also knew that just sitting there with the Ark of the Covenant locked in a vault wasn’t doing anybody any good. “I will be heading toward your location with the Ark of the Covenant immediately.”

Over sixty years late, the Arizona exited the channel at Pearl Harbor into open ocean to link up with the rest of the fleet. Unfortunately the fleet it was going to join was controlled by an alien force.

The ship glided through the water, increasing speed as it cleared the channel. The acceleration continued, water being sucked into vents built into the sides of the bow by the nanovirus, channeled through large pipes, put under pressure, and expelled at the stern where the ship’s mighty propellers had been replaced, the metal used to help construct the new propulsion system. Soon the ship was moving at over sixty knots.

In place of the turrets where mighty guns had once been, there were cruise missile launchers. The nanovirus had done such an efficient job resurrecting the Arizona that it was more modern than any ship in the Alien Fleet it was going to join.

Captain Lockhart stood on the bridge of the ship, a set of binoculars to her eyes, trained to the right, watching the southwestern corner of Oahu slip by. She put the binoculars down and turned as a crewman handed her a message — the location of the Alien Fleet. She issued the appropriate order to the helmsman and the Arizona sliced through the ocean en route to the rendezvous point.

General Kashir had only twenty-five men left from the three hundred he had crossed the border with. At least the Turkish jets weren’t flying in the darkness. His men had made a miserable camp on the side of the mountain, among the rocks, snow, and ice. He forbade them making fires for fear of being seen by Turkish patrols, which they had spotted below them just before dark. They could see vehicle lights far below as the Turkish army surrounded the mountain, but it didn’t appear that the troops were moving upslope yet.

He pulled a sealed envelope from his jacket pocket and pulled a poncho over his head so that his flashlight wouldn’t be seen. He turned on the light and opened the envelope. A piece of paper was inside, folded in half. He extracted the paper and unfolded it. A set of directions handwritten in Arabic directed him on the final stages of finding his way into the cavern that held the mothership. And then further instructions on how to get inside the mothership and what to do once he was inside. He found it all overwhelming.

He had met Al-Iblis just once and the “man” had chilled Kashir to the bone with his aura. But Al-Iblis had been a valuable ally over the years, the ultimate reason why Kashir held the rank he did and had wealth that far exceeded that which was equal with his rank. At that one meeting Al-Iblis had given him this envelope and told him he must be prepared upon receipt of a certain code word to execute this operation. Kashir had always hoped that day would not come. He imagined the man who had assassinated Hussein had felt the same way, as there was little doubt in Kashir’s mind that Al-Iblis’s long reach had been involved in that.

Satisfied that the entrance to the cavern wasn’t far off, Kashir turned off the flashlight and removed the poncho. The first thing he saw as his eyes adjusted to the dark was the small red dot trained on his chest. Kashir slowly got to his feet, peering about in the dark. Men were moving — men with something on their faces. Night-vision goggles, very advanced, something that Kashir knew his army did not possess. The red dot was still on his chest. Then, as his eyes adjusted further, Kashir noted that his men lay still, too still.

One of the figures came up to him. Kashir now saw that the muzzles of their weapons were bulky — silencers. His men had all been killed while he had read the instructions underneath the poncho. He felt his stomach quake and bile rise in his throat.

The man held out his hand. Kashir handed over the envelope and letter. “Please,” he whispered in Arabic.

He never saw the Kurd who was behind him. He did feel the steel as it slid across his throat and the explosion of warm liquid on his chest.

Kakel wiped the blade on the dead general’s coat, then sheathed it. “What is that?” he asked Yakov, indicating the letter with the point of his knife. “Was that necessary?” Yakov asked.

“You killed the rest while they slept,” Kakel noted. “Was what I did any worse than that? They are Iranians. They kill my people without a second thought. I feel nothing killing them.”

Yakov dropped the matter, flipping up the night-vision goggles. He put a red-lens flashlight between his teeth and turned it on. Then he opened the letter. “It is directions into the chamber.”

“Let me see.” Kakel looked over his shoulder. The Kurd cursed. “Someone knows the back door.”

“There’s more,” Yakov said as he read. He nodded. “The way into the mothership. I was concerned about that. Good. Now it is your turn to live up to your end of our bargain,” he said to Kakel. He signaled to the Delta commandos. “Let’s go.” They headed back toward the cave.

Radar was an active electromagnetic activity, so Admiral Kenzie had ordered his ships to turn off their chief means of detecting an enemy’s approach in order to keep his ships from being detected. To give early warning, he kept one E-2 Hawkeye constantly on station two hundred miles to the southeast, the direction from which he assumed the Alien Fleet would approach. The Hawkeye had three means of detecting objects — radar, IRR (infrared radar), and a passive system. He hoped keeping the Hawkeye over two hundred miles away would give him both early warning and some distance in case it was detected by the Alien Fleet. He also had two F-14 Tomcats with the Hawkeye to give it some protection.

The craft were currently flying a figure eight, two hundred miles southeast of the fleet. The Hawkeye was at thirty thousand feet while the Tomcats were ten thousand feet higher than that. The dome receptor on the top of the Hawkeye gave the crew coverage out to just short of Hawaii.

They picked up incoming aircraft just about the same time several surface targets appeared at the edge of their detection to the southeast. The aircraft originated in the same location, so the crew had to assume they were carrier-launched. The Hawkeye tracked the aircraft as they spread out in a search pattern, a dozen planes on tracks ranging from southwest through almost due north of Hawaii.

And one of those craft was on a track for Midway, and if it went beyond the atoll, it would definitely discover the American fleet. Under radio listening silence, the commander on board the Hawkeye had to make a command decision. Using low-power radio he contacted the two F-14 pilots.

For a long moment there was silence from both planes in response to the plan he proposed. Then both pilots WILCO’d — will comply.

Aspasia’s Shadow held the thummim in his hand, feeling the warmth that came out of the stone. The Grail was on a table in front of him, top end open. The end he had not yet partaken of.

He knew much of what Aspasia had known, but not everything. There were a few things his progenitor had withheld from the first incarnation of his Shadow via the ka. The knowledge of the ability of the Grail to grant immortality had not only been given him through the ka, but it was a well-known legend among the human priests on Atlantis. It had been part of the carrot Aspasia had dangled in front of humans to keep them in line.

But the other end of the artifact. There was nothing from the ka although the legend said the other end of the Grail granted knowledge. But knowledge of what? Aspasia’s Shadow wondered. He supposed Artad knew, but it wasn’t likely his ancient enemy would give him the answer.

Plus, the legends said that knowledge was also linked with the Ark, which he had left behind when he fled Mount Sinai. Aspasia’s Shadow held the thummim over the end of the Grail, tempted ever so much to place it inside and let the alien machine do whatever it had been designed to.

The F-14 pilot spotted the target aircraft visually, his radar turned off. He’d been flying on dead reckoning to the northeast. The Hawkeye had given him the speed and track of the bogey and the F-14’s navigator had plotted both, picking the interception point. They were almost due north of Hawaii and the bogey was the one farthest right on the search fan the Alien Fleet had deployed.

“Ready?” the pilot asked his navigator over the intercom. “Yes.”

Both men had families back in Hawaii and had no clue as to their fates. But they had known their own fates from the minute the senior officer on the Hawkeye had radioed his plan.

“Going in,” the pilot said. He kicked in afterburners and roared toward the bogey. He could tell it was also an F-14 with extra fuel tanks slung under the wings. The bogey must have picked them up, because it began to turn in their direction.

The F-14 pilot fired his 20mm nose cannon, deliberately aiming wide and to the right. He banked slightly left, racing past the alien plane. He recognized the insignia painted on the tail. He knew men who had been in that squadron. Keeping his afterburners firing, the pilot raced to the north. The alien plane followed. The F-14’s navigator could hear the alien plane reporting their presence back to the fleet. As expected. The Alien Fleet would most likely assume he was heading back to his carrier and would report his location and direction, sending them in the wrong direction.

“We’re good,” the navigator reported.

“Roger that.” The pilot pulled back hard on his stick and the F-14 did a loop and they were behind the alien plane. This time he didn’t miss as he riddled the slow-reacting craft. It broke apart, pieces tumbling to the ocean.

“Well?” the navigator asked as they leveled off.

“We don’t have enough fuel to get back to the fleet,” the pilot said, something he knew the navigator was aware of.

“And they’re probably tracking us now,” the navigator added.

“Yeah.” They continued to fly north for several moments in silence.

“Ah, hell,” the pilot finally said. “Let’s see what this sucker can do.”

The second F-14 was above and behind the scout plane heading directly toward Midway and the fleet. It didn’t miss as it made its first gun run, coming in out of the early-morning sun. The scout plane was blown to bits before it could radio a message.

Aspasia’s Shadow slowly lowered the thummim toward the Grail, his hand trembling slightly. He paused as he noted one of the Marines monitoring the satellite radio coming toward him.

“What?”

“One scout plane has reported making contact with an enemy plane that was fleeing to the north. It has since ceased transmitting. We have lost contact with another scout.”

Aspasia’s Shadow cursed as he put the thummim back in its wooden box. He went to the guardian to make direct access to the information. The northernmost scout plane had reported an intercept, then went off the air. Another had simply disappeared. It would be most logical to assume the American fleet was to the north. His fleet was already turning to the north in pursuit.

Aspasia’s Shadow had fought many battles and matched wits with the brightest mankind had to offer. He ordered his fleet to the northwest in the direction of Midway. He also noted that Artad had sent a message to Mars. There was no time to experiment with the Grail — he needed to ensure he won first.

Turcotte was happy simply to have his feet underneath him, even though the top of the ridge was extremely narrow, less than a foot wide in places. He was bent over, breathing hard, trying to catch his breath, knowing from his experience climbing the side of the ridge that it was a futile effort. He reached down and extended a hand, helping Mualama up over the edge.

“Someone’s ahead of us,” Morris said.

Turcotte finally noticed the path dug into the snow.

“It’s very recent,” Morris said. “The wind yesterday would have wiped this out, so it happened during the night.”

Turcotte looked up. There was a slight hint of dawn in the air and he could barely make out the silhouette of the bulk of the mountain above them. There were no lights to indicate another party in sight. Morris checked the rope that connected all of them, making sure it was secure to each man’s harness.

“I don’t suppose it could be a party of civilian climbers,” Turcotte said.

“No.” Morris was checking Mualama’s oxygen mask. “They’d have to be insane to be climbing this time of year.”

“That makes me feel better,” Turcotte muttered. He knelt and checked the snow. A couple of people, not many. He stood and slipped the MP-5 around so that it hung across his chest. He’d removed the trigger guard so he could fire it with his gloves, but as a precaution against accidents while climbing, there was no round in the chamber. He corrected that by pulling the bolt back.

He held the MP-5 in one hand, his climbing ax in the other. “Let’s go.”

Morris moved past him and took the lead. He began climbing up the ridgeline. The incline was slightly over forty-five degrees and Turcotte found it was all he could do to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other and trying to breathe. He didn’t even bother to look over his shoulder and check on Mualama — he assumed that if the line around his waist didn’t pull him back, then the African archaeologist was keeping pace.

He bumped into Morris’s back. “What’s the matter?”

Morris simply pointed at the spot his headlamp illuminated. Two men lay dead, their faces frozen in silent agony. Both had packs on their backs with climbing gear and ropes attached.

“Who are they?” Turcotte asked, simply glad to halt and try to catch his breath.

“There are a lot of bodies on the mountain,” Morris said. “Over a hundred. I don’t know who these two are.” He knelt and scraped some more snow away. “They’ve been here a couple of years.” Morris stood and stepped over them. “Let’s go.”

Turcotte looked down at the faces as he went over them. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would come here unless they absolutely had to. These two men had died simply for the glory of climbing Everest. Glory was something that had lost its luster for Turcotte early in his army career. Without realizing it, Turcotte was lost in his thoughts, going slower and slower, more rope paying out between him and Morris in the lead until the medic was thirty feet ahead and twenty feet above.

The crack of the claymore going off shocked Turcotte out of his reverie, as did Morris’s body slamming into him and knocking him backward into Mualama. The three men ended up in a pile on the ridgeline. Turcotte felt the body on top of him, not moving, even as Mualama was pushing to get free.

“Morris?” Turcotte slowly rolled the body to the side. The medic had been peppered by the steel balls the claymore sprayed out and Turcotte knew he was dead even before he checked for a pulse. “Son of a bitch,” Turcotte muttered as he pulled his glove off and slipped it under Morris’s mask. Nothing. No pulse, no breathing. Just blood, that was already freezing solid.

“What happened?” Mualama asked.

Turcotte had recognized the sound as soon as he heard it, but failed to react. “Booby trap,” Turcotte said. “Claymore mine.” He leaned his head down until his chin was just above Morris’s face. His heart was racing, whether from the constant attempt to pump blood to his oxygen-starved body or from the brush with death.

“We need to keep moving,” Mualama said.

With great effort, Turcotte lifted his head and looked at the African, whose face was hidden by the goggles and oxygen mask. Slowly Turcotte unclipped Morris from the rope. “Whoever’s ahead of us doesn’t want us following.” He knew if he’d been closer he’d be dead too. Morris’s taking the bulk of the blast and his being below were the only things that had saved him. Turcotte stood up, trying to focus his mind. Without Morris — could they make it? He looked up. The first rays of dawn were cutting across the mountain. He had a ground-positioning receiver. And a map with the location. He knew he could find the spot, but could he get to it? Morris had said — what had he said? The last part would be technical climbing. Across the top of the Kanshung Face.

Could he and Mualama do it? Turcotte took several deep breaths, but he still felt light-headed. There was no choice. He stepped over the medic’s body. “Come on,” he said to Mualama.

One of the Chinese transport planes had been shot down by a Turkish jet after crossing the border. The other three had pressed on, flying low, trying to stay under the Turkish radar. Unfortunately, the Chinese did not have anything approaching the mapping and navigational tools the American MC-130 had. As the three approached Mount Ararat and the commandos inside prepared to jump, one of the craft clipped the side of the mountain and exploded in a fireball. The other two made it into the Ahara Gorge and men began jumping out the doors in the rear of both craft, parachutes blossoming.

“More visitors,” Kakel said, watching the paratroopers descending. They were standing in the mouth of the cave, drawn out by the sound of the low-flying aircraft.

“Chinese,” Yakov noted, seeing the insignia on the tail of one of the planes as it roared up the gorge, jumpers tumbling from the doors. “Mainland forces.” He had no doubt why they were here. “Sent by Artad. This is his mothership and I suppose he wants it back.”

Kakel cursed. “Things have changed, haven’t they?”

“You can’t keep the mothership hidden away anymore,” Yakov said. “The world is at war and this is one of the pieces that is being fought over.” He had a set of binoculars out and was watching the descending troops.

“Ah!” Yakov exclaimed. He extended the glasses to Kakel. “Look,” he said, pointing.

Kakel peered up at the figure Yakov had indicated. “Who — or what — is that?”

“An Airlia. From Qian-Ling. It must be one of Artad’s people.” Even with just his eyes he spotted another dangling below a parachute, the long black, helmeted form easy to spot among the shorter Chinese commandos. “There are several of them.”

“Come.” Kakel slipped into the chamber, Yakov and the rest of the Delta commandos following. They went past the other Kurds who made their home there, toward the rear.

“We call this the back door,” Kakel said. “I don’t know why. It is the name that has been passed down. I have never seen a front door, if there is one.”

Yakov assumed that if the mothership lay ahead, there had to be another entrance, a large one capable of allowing the vessel to exit. Kakel went into a narrow tunnel and Yakov and the others followed. The floor of the tunnel sloped down and Yakov noted that the stone was cut smoothly, as he had seen at other Airlia sites. He had seen photos of the mothership at Area 51, so he knew what to expect, but still, his heart was beating rapidly as they descended into Ararat.

“Why have your people kept this secret?” he asked Kakel.

“The legend is that this is the path through which those saved on the ark came out into the world,” Kakel said over his shoulder. “We believe we would be the chosen ones to go back down this path and be saved if the ark ever were needed again. Why would we tell others about it?”

Yakov had traveled much of the world while working for Section IV, the Russian version of Area 51. He’d seen how many ancient societies had built much of their religion and their belief system around Airlia artifacts or legends. He could understand how the Kurds had kept the secret of the mothership for generations.

The tunnel came to an end, a solid rock wall blocking the way. Kakel didn’t hesitate, walking up to it while reaching inside his shirt. He brought out a medallion with an eye inscribed on it and placed it in the center. An outline of a door appeared and it slid up, revealing an opening.

Kakel went through. Yakov ducked his head and passed through the opening. He came to an abrupt stop as he took in his new surroundings. He was in a massive cavern, over a mile long and a half mile wide, barely enough to contain the huge black ship resting in a metal cradle in front of him.