The Grail

CHAPTER 1

Deep under the Giza Plateau, Lisa Duncan placed her hands on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant. A surge ran through her body, a feeling of power. A red glow suffused both of the cherubim-sphinxes on either end of the Ark and extended over the lid, encompassing her.

She could no longer hear those outside the veil that surrounded the Ark. Her world was the Ark: the gold under her fingers. She grabbed the edge of the lid. She felt suspended in time, beyond the reach of everything she had ever known. She lifted the cover. A golden glow blazed out, overpowering the red as the lid went up. It locked in place, revealing the chamber inside.

Of the seven wonders of the ancient world, only one remains in the modern world. Located on the Giza Plateau, southwest of Cairo, stand the three large pyramids of the Pharaohs Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure; they are symbolically guarded by the Great Sphinx, whose stone visage peers to the east, into the rising sun and over the Nile River, the lifeline of Egypt through time immemorial.

All four structures have been weathered and battered by time: the hand-smoothed limestone facing of the three great pyramids had long ago been looted for building materials, diminishing some of their majesty, but until the building of the Eiffel Tower, they had held reign for millennia as the tallest man-made objects on the planet.

As one comes upon them from the Nile Road, the middle pyramid of Khafre appears to be the largest, but only because it was built on higher ground on the Giza Plateau. The Pharaoh Khufu, more popularly known as Cheops, was historically credited with building the greatest pyramid, farthest to the northeast. Over four hundred and eighty feet tall and covering eighty acres, it is still the largest stone building in the world. The smallest of the three is that of Menkaure, measuring over two hundred feet in altitude.

The sides of all three are perfectly aligned with the four cardinal directions from northeast to southwest, largest to smallest. The Great Sphinx lies at the foot of the middle pyramid — far enough to the east to also be out in front of the Great Pyramid, behind the Sphinx’s left shoulder.

As long as men have stood on the plateau, dwarfed by the immense structures, they have been one of the greatest mysteries of the ages. Egyptologists had come up with dates and origins for the three pyramids and the Sphinx, but the data, upon close examination, was woefully incomplete. Not a single mummy was found in any of the pyramids, casting doubt on the age-old theory they were large mausoleums. Up until recently, every chamber discovered was empty. Even more puzzling was the distinct lack of any documentation concerning the architectural development of the pyramids or Sphinx. Not even among the numerous stone and papyrus documents from the various Egyptian dynasties.

The recent revelation that aliens — the Airlia — had visited Earth in the distant past, and never left, had thrown the accepted version of human history into disarray, including the reason why the pyramids and Sphinx were built. Peter Nabinger, one of the original members of the team that had penetrated the secret of Area 51, had come up with his own explanation of the pyramids’ purpose before his death in China: when sheathed in the original smooth limestone their radar signature had been immense, able to be picked up far out into space. Thus, he reasoned, they were a beacon, designed to bring a spaceship close. That was stage one, the attention-getter. Then Nabinger had found stage two, the accompanying message written on the face of the Earth in the form of the Great Wall of China itself, spelling out the Airlia High Rune word for HELP.

Unfortunately, Nabinger had not lived long enough to unravel the riddle of the Sphinx. With the aid of another archaeologist, Professor Joseph Mualama from the University of Tanzania, Lisa Duncan had discovered that the Sphinx was a surface marker for what lay buried deep beneath, where she had just opened the lid of the Ark of the Covenant.

Almost a half-mile directly below the Great Sphinx was a cavern, just short of a half-mile in diameter with curved walls. Light came from a bright orb on the ceiling, a mini-sun that had burned for millennia ever since the object that rested in the center of the floor was first hidden.

Here lay a replica of the Great Sphinx. Its skin, however, was not made of stone, but a flawless black metal that absorbed the light. The head was larger, the nose not shot off like its cousin on the surface. The eyes of the Black Sphinx were blood red with elongated red irises that glowed from some inner power.

The Sphinx’s paws extended almost sixty feet in front of the head, which rose seventy feet above the floor of the cavern. The body stretched one hundred and eighty feet back, making the entire object almost three hundred feet long. Between the paws, just under the chin, stood a statue over nine feet tall, shaped like a man, but with subtle differences — the body was too short proportionally, the limbs too long. The largest difference was the head, with polished white skin, ears with long lobes that ended just above the shoulders, and two gleaming red eyes set in the long narrow face. The stone that covered the top of the head — imitating hair — was also red.

In front of the statue was a group of soldiers armed with the latest weapons awaiting further orders. In the corridor that led from below the statue to the chamber inside of the Black Sphinx stood their leader, known to Middle Eastern intelligence agencies as the terrorist Al-Iblis. What he sought, Lisa Duncan had in her hands.

Two bodies lay on the floor near him. Both had borne the name Kaji, father and son. Both had been Watchers, entrusted with the secret the Black Sphinx held. Facing Al-Iblis stood Professor Joseph Mualama, the archaeologist who had picked up the torch passed on by Nabinger, trying to make sense of the ancient mysteries and legends. It was from his searching on the path of the famous explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton, that he had been able to lead Duncan to the Great Sphinx. From there the elder Kaji had led them to the Black Sphinx before being killed along with his son by Al-Iblis, ending the line of their family that had watched the Giza Plateau for millennia.

Al-Iblis turned as one of his men ran up to him rattling off something in Arabic about incoming helicopters. Barking commands, Al-Iblis led his soldiers toward the tunnel leading to the surface, dragging Mualama along with them. Lisa Duncan’s face reflected the glow coming from inside the Ark. Resting on a cradle of black metal lay a golden hourglass figure, eighteen inches high by eight wide at each end. The middle was an inch wide. It was a thing told of in tales and legend:

The Grail.

Immediately Duncan saw where the legend that the Grail was a cup came from, but beyond its form, both ends appeared to be solid. She reached in, surprised at how steady her hands were, and picked it up. The Grail was heavy, as if solid.

She sat down cross-legged on the floor next to the Ark, and placed the Grail in front of her. She simply stared at it for several minutes. She could see why so many legends had grown up around the object. The surface was translucent, emitting a slight golden glow. It seemed to be made of the same material as the guardian computer. There was a strong sense of power emanating from it.

She held her hand out, six inches over the flat top. Her skin tingled. She lowered her hand until it touched the metal and held it there for several seconds. She jerked it back as if scalded as the surface shimmered brightly for a second. The top irised, revealing a six-inch-wide opening. Cautiously, Duncan leaned forward and peered down into it.

Four inches into the Grail was a small, perfectly round depression, about an inch and a half in diameter. Duncan frowned, then, very slowly, she dipped the forefinger of her right hand into the opening. The tingling sensation grew stronger as she touched the depression, but nothing else happened.

She pulled her finger out of the Grail. After ten seconds, the opening closed. Duncan thought for a while, then turned the Grail over. She touched the flat side that was now up and wasn’t surprised when it also irised open, revealing another small depression, identical to the first one.

Something went in those depressions. But what? Without conscious thought, her hands strayed to the two empty pockets on the essen she wore. Where the urim and thummin stones were supposed to be. The pockets were only about two inches wide and three inches deep, just big enough for stones an inch and a half in diameter.

Lost in the Grail, what she didn’t see right away were the fine black wires clipped into the lid of the Ark that ended in what appeared to be tiny carved rose petals.

Mike Turcotte slapped the back of the magazine of 9mm bullets against his kneecap, relishing the jolt of pain and the sound of the rounds settling tight against the metal casing. He did it once more, even harder. He slid the magazine into the well of the MP-5 submachine gun and let the bolt slide forward, chambering a round. He felt emotionally detached from the members of the Special Forces A-Team gathered around him, from the Russian agent Yakov, to the Chinese archaeologist Che Lu, to every person inside the alien-made bouncer speeding through the air toward Egypt.

Weapon ready, he let it hang from his shoulder on the sling. Then he paused, taking a deep breath. Turcotte stretched his right hand out in front, opening the palm, stretching the scar tissue.

“Pain is too emotional,” Yakov said. Turcotte was startled. “What?”

Yakov shook his head and didn’t repeat the statement, and another voice filled the void.

“Sir, the Egyptians are refusing permission to enter their airspace.” Captain Billam had been monitoring the radio since they departed Mongolia.

“Screw them,” Turcotte said as he clenched his hand into a fist. “Any word from Area 51 on Duncan’s exact location?”

“Negative,” Billam replied. “Last word was the Giza Plateau. Nothing since. But we do have an intelligence report that the entire plateau has been sealed off by the Egyptian military.”

Yakov placed a large hand on Turcotte’s shoulder. “My friend, I do not think this is a time we should — how do you say? — ‘Shoot first and ask questions later.’ We do not know exactly where your Doctor Duncan is. We may be able to get this craft to Giza, but what then? Once we go outside, we will be fair game.”

Yakov was a giant of a man, almost seven feet tall with a thick bushy beard hiding his lower face. He had been a member of Russia’s Area 51 team called Section IV, and now that the aliens had destroyed his home base, he had joined Turcotte and Duncan’s small group, searching for the truth about the aliens and their followers, trying to foil their plans.

Yakov leaned closer. “Also, you have a wounded man on board. It would be best if we got him to a hospital, yes?”

Turcotte could feel the gaze of every man — and the wizened, dark eyes of Che Lu — in the bouncer on him. He refused to look at them, instead staring down between his feet through the floor of the bouncer at the blue water of the Mediterranean flashing by below them. Human scientists had yet to figure out the Airlia technology that allowed someone inside to see out, yet kept the outside opaque to observers. Turcotte knew it was one of many things humans didn’t understand about the Airlia. He felt as if he and his fellow men and women were children who had stumbled upon a grownup’s cache of technology. They had discovered many things over the years; some could be used but their true purpose never understood. More unsettling to Turcotte was what they hadn’t found yet — or even more disturbing — the other uses for things they had but didn’t know about yet.

Ever since uncovering the secrets of Area 51—the alien mothership and atmospheric craft, called bouncers, hidden there — Turcotte felt like he and the others in his small group had constantly been reacting, never ahead of the various forces at play in the civil war among the Airlia and their semi-human minions.

On one side were the Airlia led by Aspasia, whom Turcotte had killed when he destroyed their fleet coming from Mars trying to claim the mothership. The death of their leader didn’t seem to have slowed their forces, though. Their human servants were Guides, men and women whose minds had been altered to obey by direct contact with a guardian computer. The Guides’ headquarters was a place called The Mission, its present location unknown.

The Guides and their followers were being drawn to Easter Island where a guardian computer that shielded the island was using nanotechnology — machines crafted at the atomic level — to convert both humans and machines to Aspasia’s cause.

On the other side were the Airlia led by Artad. Turcotte strongly suspected that Artad lay in suspended sleep underneath the great Chinese tomb of Qian-Ling, and he had just handed over the “key” to the lowest level of that ancient tomb to one of Artad’s followers, a human/Airlia clone named Elek.

This group was known as The Ones Who Wait. Turcotte had a feeling they weren’t going to be waiting much longer.

The leader of the The Ones Who Wait, Lexina, and some of her people were heading to China to unlock the lowest level and uncover whatever — or whoever — was hidden there.

And both sides, as they had clearly shown in the past several months, cared little how many humans were killed in the pursuit of their goals. So far Turcotte and his partners had uncovered evidence that both sides had greatly affected human history with such things as initiating the Black Death in the Middle Ages and manipulating forces of the SS during World War II. It kept Turcotte awake at night wondering how much more of the history he had been taught in school had been manipulated behind the scenes by the aliens and their creatures.

Every walk of life seemed to be infiltrated by one or the other of these alien groups, making it nearly impossible to trust anyone. Already there had been numerous instances of betrayal and even assassination. He trusted only Lisa Duncan, and now he was being told to abandon her.

His eyes finally rested on Master Sergeant Boltz, who had been wounded during the rescue operation in Moscow. The team medics were working on him, but it was obvious he had lost a lot of blood.

Turcotte’s thoughts were interrupted by Captain Billam, the A-Team leader. “We’ll go in, sir. Whatever you say.”

Turcotte felt a wave of gratitude for the captain’s support.

“We’re crossing into Egyptian airspace,” the bouncer pilot called out. “We’ve got multiple bogeys on radar closing on our position. Egyptian jets. We can outrun them easily enough, but if we land…”

Turcotte turned to Che Lu, eyebrows raised, deferring to age to help him make his decision.

“Giza is a large place,” the old Chinese woman said. “I have been there several times to study the mysteries. There are secrets there yet to be uncovered. Such a thing takes time.”

In Ranger School, Turcotte had been taught one thing above all else — any action, even the wrong one, was better than doing nothing.

“Lock and load,” Turcotte ordered.

As the special forces men checked their weapons, Yakov shook his head and removed his long, heavy coat, sure he wouldn’t need it on the Giza Plateau. He eased next to Turcotte and lowered his voice. “This is not a good idea, my friend.”

“If we wait, we may not have another chance,” Turcotte said. He turned away. “I want to do a low-level fly-by,” Turcotte told the pilot. “I’ll show you where to put us down.”

Everyone started as an Egyptian jet flashed by less than fifty feet away. “Hold on,” the pilot advised as he accelerated and dove at the same time.

The bouncer was now just above the desert floor, startling an occasional group of villagers as it raced overhead approaching Cairo.

The pilot gained a little altitude as they hit the city limits, but he was still so low that everyone cringed as he shot the craft between two high-rise buildings, then was above the Nile, scraping by just above the boats.

They could see the top of the Great Pyramid now, off to the right. Then the other two pyramids. Everyone stumbled as the bouncer abruptly slowed. Turcotte knelt, looking through the floor as they went over the Giza Plateau. He saw the ring of troops and armored vehicles surrounding the plateau, the troops a good distance from both the pyramids and Sphinx. Then he spotted a cluster of people between the legs of the Sphinx, a tall black figure among them.

“There.” Turcotte had one hand on the pilot’s shoulder, the other pointing at the Sphinx. “Put us on top of the head. Have your rappel slings ready.”

He jumped to his feet, grabbed the ladder that led to the top hatch, and climbed up.

“We have helicopters inbound,” the co-pilot announced.

Turcotte threw the hatch open and climbed out, clinging to the lip of the hatch as the bouncer arrived at the massive head of the Sphinx, edge touching the top. Turcotte slid down the smooth skin of the alien craft and landed on the ancient stone. He unslung his MP-5 and edged out to where he could see down.

He could see Mualama in the center of a group of armed men in unmarked desert camouflage. A figure in a black robe was next to the archaeologist, looking up. No sign of Duncan. Turcotte grabbed a sling rope and looped it around a snap link on his harness. Then he tucked the steel butt of the submachine gun into his shoulder as the rest of the A-Team deployed on the top of the Sphinx.

“Choppers are less than a minute out,” the co-pilot informed him through the FM-radio. “From the north.”

The men below had their weapons trained up, while Turcotte and his had theirs pointing down.

“An international incident,” Al-Iblis called out. “Americans invading Egypt. Excellent. I couldn’t have planned it better myself.”

“Where’s Duncan?” Turcotte demanded.

“I suggest you surrender your weapons.” Al-Iblis ignored his question.

“Helicopters thirty seconds out,” the co-pilot announced. “Egyptian gunships.”

Turcotte lowered his voice so only the members of his team could hear. “Flash-bangs on three, then board the bouncer.”

“You do not have much time,” Al-Iblis said. “I control the forces here.”

“One,” Turcotte said. He stood, letting the submachine gun dangle on its harness, both hands held up as if surrendering.

“Two.” He could hear the inbound helicopters and knew he was probably in the sights of a mini-gun.

“Three.”

Six black canisters were tossed, arcing down from the head toward the men below.

Al-Iblis’s eyes widened in surprise — surely they wouldn’t kill Mualama with grenades!

The flash-bangs went off. One was enough to deafen and blind anyone within twenty feet. Six, in the enclosed space between the Sphinx’s paws, was devastating.

Turcotte jumped off the head of the Sphinx, letting the line slide through the snap-link, rappelling down. The members of the A-Team were clambering up the side of the bouncer toward the hatch when the first gunship made its run spraying bullets at the rate of three thousand rounds a minute. Two SF men were hit, torn to shreds, bodies tumbling past Turcotte as he went down. He saw them fall but kept his concentration on what he was doing as he flexed his legs and sprang out, pushing his right hand out to release the rope brake on the snap link.

He hit the sand between the paws, all the men around him blinded, hands over their eyes, blood coming out of ears deafened by the detonations. He ran to Mualama and wrapped his arms around the equally stunned archaeologist.

“Go!” Turcotte ordered into the boom mike.

The bouncer lifted, half the survivors of the team inside, the others clinging to the side. Turcotte dangled below, his arms gripping Mualama tightly.

A second gun ship fired a quick burst before the bouncer was out of range and another green beret was hit, his body caught in the cargo netting that lined the bottom edge.