The Grail

CHAPTER 6

Using the theory that stealth was better than might, particularly when the opponent had taken out a Nimitz-class carrier, the SEAL commander decided that only two of his men would make the attempt to get under the shield surrounding Easter Island. SEALs worked best in small units anyway, and two was the smallest possible operating element, as the buddy system was an unbreakable code in water operations.

Chief Petty Officers McGraw and Olivetti were the chosen ones. Both were highly qualified men with experience in combat ranging from Grenada to Desert Storm. Between them, they had over twenty-seven years of special operations time.

A three-step infiltration was planned. First, a Chinook off the Stennis would fly the two men and a F-470 zodiac to a position five miles outside the shield wall. The chopper would drop them near the island where they would use the boat to get as close as possible to the wall. They would then deflate the F-470, and take it with them as they dove down to the hole in the shield wall. Once through, they would reinflate the zodiac and continue with their mission. To exfiltrate, they would leave the zodiac behind and swim out and signal for the chopper to come pick them up.

The two men knew the location of the guardian underneath Rapa Kara and had maps of the tunnels UNAOC had drilled to get to that chamber. Beyond that, what was going on inside the black shield was an unknown.

Their priority, given to them directly by Captain Robinette, was to first find out what was going on, particularly with regard to the Washington and the Springfield, then rescue Kelly Reynolds. With these orders firmly in mind, Olivetti and McGraw boarded the Chinook and took off, heading toward the southern horizon.

The earth was scorched for miles surrounding the black shield that stretched for over three miles in circumference at the base and a mile and a half in height. The dragon paused fifty meters from the shield. Inside, Lexina had a small black sphere in her lap, the surface covered with hexagons. Each glowed slightly, highlighting High Rune markings etched on the surface. Lexina tapped four in order. The shield suddenly disappeared, revealing the bulk of Qian-Ling, the mountain tomb. Over three thousand feet high, it was obvious the hill was not a natural formation as the sides rose uniformly to the rounded top.

Elek pushed forward on the controls, edging the dragon toward the hill. Lexina ran her hands over the black sphere once more, and a large circular opening appeared three quarters of the way up the hill, allowing the dragon access to its millennia-old lair.

Lexina turned the shield back on as they entered the tunnel that angled down to the main storage area inside Qian-Ling. The dragon came to rest on the floor of the large chamber. The back ramp dropped and Lexina led the way off, the case holding the Spear of Destiny in her hand. Elek, Coridan, and Gergor silently followed.

The chamber was huge, with arching beams of black metal supporting the roof. Inside were containers of various sizes, one of which had held the dragon, another of which was open, revealing a large spinning cylinder that propagated the shield wall.

Moving past these, she headed to a doorway which opened onto a wide tunnel, the other Ones Who Wait following. She followed that to a three-way intersection, where she made a right turn and began descending, the others still behind.

She stopped abruptly when a dim red glow lit the main tunnel about twenty meters ahead of her. The glow began to take form, elongating until a ghostlike apparition appeared before her. Lexina knelt, the others following suit, their eyes on the strange image. The legs and arms were longer than a human’s, the body shorter, the head covered with bright red hair. The skin was flawless and white, the ears with long lobes that almost reached the shoulders. The eyes were red in red, just like Lexina’s.

The figure’s right hand came up, palm open, six fingers spread. It began speaking, the voice deep, but the language almost musical. It went on for a minute, then slowly faded.

Lexina put the case in front of her and opened it. She lifted the Spear of Destiny out, holding it by the short haft behind the lance-head. She stood, spear pointing forward, and took a tentative step down the tunnel. Then another step. She froze as a flash of light momentarily blinded her.

Blinking, her catlike eyes adjusted. A steady red beam went from one side of the wall to the other just below the spear point. Carefully she lowered the point until it intersected the beam. Like a multifaceted mirror, the blade reflected the beam in a circle around the tunnel for several seconds, then suddenly the beam disappeared.

With several more tentative steps, Lexina passed the guardian beam and continued down the tunnel, the others following. She kept the spear out in front, not knowing what to expect now that they were past the first trap. Like soldiers walking through a minefield with the point man holding a detector, they moved down the main tunnel toward the bottom level of Qian-Ling.

“Silbury Hill is the largest man-made mound in Europe.” Quinn put a photograph on the conference room table for the others to see. “One hundred and thirty feet high covering five acres.”

“Reminds you of someplace, doesn’t it?” Turcotte asked Che Lu. Upon receipt of the intelligence, Turcotte had called a meeting in the conference room to plan their next step.

“Qian-Ling,” she said. “The Airlia had a penchant for putting their bases underground.”

Quinn nodded. “No one knows who built Silbury or why. According to legend it was always there. It’s always been avoided by the locals, though, even today.”

“The Watchers took over some old Airlia outposts,” Mualama said. “Just as The Guides and The Ones Who Wait did. I’m sure Silbury is a smaller version of Qian-Ling.”

“All right,” Turcotte said. “That’s where we’re going.”

“My friend—” Yakov’s voice held a note of something mat Turcotte couldn’t quite place.

“What?”

“What are you proposing we do?”

“Get a Watcher ring so we can then go rescue Doctor Duncan,” Turcotte said.

Yakov raised his bushy eyebrows. “Why?”

“Why?” Turcotte wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. Then his face turned red and his hands balled into fists. “We’re not abandoning her. We’re a team here and—”

“My friend—” Yakov held up his hands, as if surrendering. “Listen to me for a second. In Moscow I acted from here,” he tapped his chest, “and look what happened. I trusted Katyenka and she betrayed us.” Turcotte remembered the incident deep beneath Moscow where Yakov’s former lover had turned her gun on them.

“Are you saying—” Turcotte spit the words out, but Yakov spoke over them, quieting him.

“I am not telling you anything about Doctor Duncan. What I am concerned with is the larger picture. Both sides of this alien civil war have tried to destroy us. That is the overriding concern. What does Giza have to do with Easter Island? Or Qian-Ling? Or The Mission? Are threats growing there? We have no clue where The Mission disappeared to, and we know how dangerous it can be.”

Turcotte blinked, confused. His mind had been so focused on the mission of rescuing Duncan that he couldn’t quite fit Yakov’s words. The Russian must have sensed that because he sat down, shoving out a chair for Turcotte next to him.

“We have made many mistakes. I have made many mistakes. Trusting Katyenka was just one of them. There have been others. Let us try not to make any more. Are you with me on that?”

Turcotte forced the anger in his chest to hold, a dike of resolve that was thoroughly saturated. “Yes.” The word was torn from his lips.

Yakov nodded. “We are slowly learning some of the truth from Burton’s manuscript. Information that would have helped us greatly had we been aware before. We would have known of the Watchers. The Mission. The Ones Who Wait. The Guides. All before they showed themselves to us in ways that took us by surprise. That cost the lives of all those people in South America. That cost your country two space shuttles. That cost me my comrades at Section IV.”

Yakov pointed past Turcotte at the computers and Professor Mualama, who was now working on the manuscript, the clicking of keys a constant backdrop in the room. “Burton’s manuscript. You see it as giving us the intelligence to find Doctor Duncan. But what is it really about?”

“The Grail,” Turcotte said.

Yakov nodded. “Yes. The Grail. I think it is, how do you say, the linchpin to this civil war. Whatever it is — whatever it does — it is very, very important. I think it may possibly be what the civil war among the Airlia was about in the first place. I think the manuscript will give us an idea how important.”

“What is the Grail?” Turcotte turned to Mualama. “Besides what we have here, I’ve read about it in terms of King Arthur and the Last Supper and all that. If it’s so damn important, we might as well have everything we think we know about it on the table.”

Mualama leaned forward slightly so he could see both men. “The Grail is a very old legend, one that rose from many places.

“It is often tied together with the legend of the Ark of the Covenant. It is said that the Knights Templar, when they ruled Jerusalem during the Crusades, knew the whereabouts of the Ark and the Grail. While legend often leads one to truth, the path is never clear or straight. So the Grail could be anything. Or it could be nothing.”

“It’s got to be something important for Burton to devote his life to trying to find it,” Turcotte said, “and for Aspasia’s Shadow to want it so badly.”

“I agree,” Mualama said. “The ancient legends are very complicated and have many different interpretations. There are indeed some who believe the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail to be one and the same, but not either.”

Seeing Turcotte and Yakov’s confused expressions, Mualama tried to explain. “The Ark was possibly not an Ark. And the Grail was most likely not a grail or cup. But whatever each was, they could have been the same thing. Or maybe not. Or maybe each are parts of a whole. I think the latter is the reality, but I do not know for certain.

“After all,” Mualama continued, “all those objects in their own time were extremely revered. Some of the legends that grew up around them were, as a spy would say, cover stories. Misinformation. Do you know how many different objects each has been described as?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “The Grail has been described as a stone from the stars, one description which would seem to be more applicable now, wouldn’t it? Of course, before people knew of the Airlia presence here on Earth so many years ago, that was interpreted to mean that it might be a meteorite. But maybe it literally was a stone from the stars brought here by the Airlia.

“There is even a legend that it is a stone that was given to man during the battle between Lucifer and the Christian’s Holy Trinity by the pure angels, who took neither side in this war. Or a spin-off on that legend where the Grail was actually a precious stone that fell off Lucifer’s crown when he was defeated in his revolt against God and cast down. And remember, Lucifer was an angel first. And he is mentioned in Burton’s tale as a name given to Aspasia’s Shadow.

“Pushing the Ark legend forward to the time of Christ, there is of course the more common notion of the Grail being the cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper. Most people these days believe that to be the source of the legend, but it actually predates the time of Christ.

“There is an older Jewish legend — mentioned in the Old Testament and tied somehow to the Grail — about two objects called the thummin and the urim. These are balls of clear material filled with burning water. They are supposedly made from the fire of the sun. The thummim and urim were supposed to be buried in a cave with the Ark, or perhaps they were the Ark, who knows? Then again, maybe the thummin or urim were something entirely different. Maybe the ruby sphere you found under the Great Rift Valley in Ethiopia was one of those balls filled with a burning water? You must remember that early man had limited ways to describe things they had never seen before.

“Another way to explore legends is to examine the languages the legends are told in and their nuances in definition. Another word often used for the Grail is sangreal. Some cut that word in two, San Greal, meaning Holy Grail. However, if you cut it a different way, Sang Real, it means royal blood.”

Mualama smiled. “This theory has never gained much light of day because it suggests something the Christians fiercely deny. The royal blood is the lineage of Christ. Those who espouse Sang Real as the true meaning of the Grail say that Christ had a child with Mary Magdalene. There are those that believe a secret society has maintained Christ’s bloodline down to the present day and that the progeny of this bloodline has been involved in many of the world’s great events over the ages, and that person is the incarnation of the Grail.”

“You’re joking, right?” Turcotte asked.

Although Mualama was smiling, his voice was entirely serious. “I am not joking. I am simply relating to you some of the many legends surrounding the Grail and the Ark.”

“I think blood does play into this somehow,” Yakov added. “Burton mentions it and speaks of vampires in his manuscript. During my investigations for Section IV, I often came across references to blood. There were rumors the KGB ran an experiment for many years involving draining blood from people, searching for a certain strain. We know that the SS used blood from a Guide to inject into each of their top members — what were they seeking by that?”

Turcotte nodded. “Duncan thought that Von Seeckt stayed alive as long as he did because he had a trace of Airlia blood in his veins, even after all these years.” He turned to Mualama. “What else do you know of the Grail?”

“There are, of course, the Celtic and Arthurian legends surrounding the Grail. These date from well before the supposed time of Arthur, though. And, of course, Arthur himself and the entire Camelot tapestry is a legend that we don’t know how much credence should be attached to.

“In Celtic legend, there is the Cauldron — or Grail — of Awen which could bestow all knowledge on those who drank from it. It is also said the Cauldron could restore life itself.

“There is or another theory that the Grail is somehow connected with another object of legend, the lance of the Roman legionnaire Longinus — the spear that pierced Christ’s side on the cross.”

“We know that part is true,” Yakov said. “The Spear of Destiny was an Airlia artifact.”

“So you agree with the manuscript that whatever the Ark or Grail are, they are also Airlia artifacts?” Turcotte asked.

Mualama nodded. “Yes, and very powerful ones hidden after their civil war and presently of utmost importance now that the war is being renewed.”

“What do they do?”

“To that, I have no answer. But all the legends, from all the different sources, agree that the Grail, in whatever shape it is in, brings health, wisdom, and immortality to those who partake of it.”

Turcotte thought about it. “But if the Grail is in the Black Sphinx with Lisa, then rescuing her is one and the same thing.”

“Yes,” Yakov said, “but I wanted to be sure you were thinking clearly. Because that means that she is not the important thing down there, no matter what your heart tells you. If it comes down to it, we must get the Grail before we get her. Do you agree?”

Turcotte looked up, met Yakov’s dark gaze, and lied. “I agree.”