The Sphinx

CHAPTER 10

“Why are we stopping here?” Turcotte asked.

The landing strip outside the bouncer was a desolate piece of concrete cut out of the surrounding tundra. The flight had been a long one… even for a bouncer… north and west over the pole. They’d crossed a large part of Siberia also. Turcotte had followed the route Yakov directed on a map and knew they were now outside the northern Russian town of Tiska about three hundred miles from the island where Section Four had been headquartered.

Yakov stood and headed for the top hatch. “Information. I think it best if we proceed somewhat cautiously. Would you not agree?”

“The clock is ticking,” Turcotte said. He could see a truck heading out from the small control tower building.

“I know that,” Yakov said, “but I have learned it is better to go into a strange situation a little slowly with more knowledge than quickly in complete ignorance.”

Turcotte agreed with that reasoning, but he also knew it was his country and not Yakov’s that was being threatened.

Yakov threw open the hatch. “I have someone waiting for us who might have some useful information about who destroyed Section Four, and possibly about the key itself.”

Turcotte grabbed Yakov’s arm. “What do you mean?”

“I did not want to say anything at Area 51,” Yakov said, “but Section Four did not have all of the Airlia artifacts that the Soviet Union gathered. There is no doubt that the KGB also hoarded whatever they found. I have heard rumors that the KGB has an archive of such things hidden somewhere. Perhaps the key is there.”

Turcotte gave orders to the pilots to stand down, then followed Yakov. As soon as he cleared the hatch, a bitter-cold wind cut into his exposed skin. A tall figure covered in heavy furs got out of the truck. Yakov wrapped the driver in both arms.

When Turcotte got close, Yakov let go and turned to introduce the driver. “My American friend, Captain Turcotte, this is Katyenka.”

Turcotte extended his gloved hand and shook the woman’s. He estimated she had to be at least six feet four.

“A friend?” Katyenka repeated as she pulled back the hood on her long fur coat. Her face was startlingly beautiful, with high cheekbones, flawless skin, and deep gray eyes. “That is high praise,” she said. “Very few people have been Yakov’s friend. I often worried I was the only one still alive he has so branded.”

“Let us get out of the cold.” Yakov jumped into the driver’s seat as Turcotte and Katyenka crowded in next to him.

Yakov floored the pedal, throwing Turcotte back against the cracked vinyl. He gripped the edge of the seat as Yakov tore across the runway onto a snow-covered road at a rate of speed certainly too fast for the slippery surface.

As they fishtailed around a turn, Katyenka looked over at Turcotte. “Yakov tells me you saw Colonel Kostanov die.”

“Yes.”

“He was one of Yakov’s friends,” Katyenka said. “And yours,” Yakov said.

Katyenka nodded sadly. “And mine. He was a good man.”

Yakov leaned over to Turcotte and tapped him on the chest. “He was once… for a little while… to her what your Dr. Duncan is to you.”

Katyenka gave Yakov a glance that Turcotte couldn’t interpret. Before Turcotte could say anything, Yakov skidded the truck to a halt outside the small building next to the airfield tower. Yakov jumped out of the truck. He threw open a door and stomped in, leading the way to a small office. Throwing his black coat onto a chair, he gestured for Turcotte to take a chair. Katyenka took off her coat and sat on the edge of the desk.

“A drink?” Yakov held a clear bottle in his hand.

“Something warm?” Turcotte suggested.

Yakov laughed. “What can be warmer than vodka?” He poured three tall glasses.

“How long will it take us to get to the base from here?” Turcotte asked.

“In the bouncer? An hour, no more.” Yakov pointed north. “It is on the northern edge of Novaya Zemlya, an island off our north coast. Above the Arctic Circle. We put Section Four there because it is remote. Much more remote than your Area 51. Much of Novaya Zemlya is uninhabitable due to nuclear testing.”

Turcotte hadn’t yet taken a drink from the large glass of vodka. “When do we leave?”

Yakov sighed. “I know you are worried about the danger from above, and I agree it is a dire and immediate threat, but we must also keep our vision on the big picture, and that is knowing the truth about the past. We have been attacked by both groups… the Guides/Mission and The Ones Who Wait/STAAR. There may come a time when we have to choose between them. Indeed, if we find this key Lexina wants, it is not automatic that we should hand it over to her. We must have more information first.” He nodded at Katyenka. “Tell us what more you have learned about Tunguska.”

Katyenka got up and walked to the small bar. Turcotte thought it quite bizarre, but typical of Russia, that there would be a bar in the office at such a small airfield. He knew Yakov was right once more about gathering information, but he itched to be moving, to be searching for the key.

Katyenka poured herself another glass of vodka. “Not much more than is common knowledge. The commonly accepted theory is that a meteorite exploded in 1908 over Tunguska.”

Turcotte found her accent intriguing. He imagined if she had lived in the West, she might have become a model… in Russia she became a spy.

“Exactly who are you?” Turcotte asked.

“She is Katyenka,” Yakov said simply.

“That’s a name,” Turcotte said, “which means nothing to me. Who do you work for?”

“I am not Section Four,” Katyenka said.

Turcotte had already checked her hand and not seen the large ring that indicated a Watcher, but the ring could be hidden. “Who do you work for?” Katyenka spread her hands. “I am GRU.”

Turcotte turned to Yakov. “And you brought her into this?”

Yakov laughed. “How do you think I am still alive? How do you think she is still alive? She is the spy the GRU picked to infiltrate Section Four. I knew they… and the KGB… would send someone. So we sent spies to infiltrate the GRU and the KGB. It is the way things work in Russia. Except my dear Katyenka decided that she was working for the wrong people after getting a glimpse of what we were doing in Section Four.”

“I realized the alien threat was larger than the Section Four threat,” Katyenka explained simply.

“So she came to me and offered to be a double agent for us,” Yakov said. “That was over six years ago. It is all part of not knowing who to trust. You had a group called STAAR working in the United States, did you not?”

“Yeah.” Turcotte nodded. “It was the way The Ones Who Wait could infiltrate our government.”

“We have had our Ones Who Wait also,” Yakov said. “We don’t think they had an official organization here like your STAAR, but they had operatives infiltrated in the KGB and GRU.”

“And we believe that The Ones Who Wait destroyed Section Four,” Katyenka added.

“Why?” Turcotte asked.

“I don’t know,” Katyenka said.

“Maybe they were looking for something,” Yakov suggested.

“What?” Katyenka asked.

Turcotte wasn’t sure how much he should say in front of Katyenka. He noted that even Yakov didn’t answer that question, so he thought it best to keep quiet about the key also.

“Have you discovered anything about the KGB… FSB… archives?” Yakov asked Katyenka. “We need to be moving now.”

“There is a man at FSB headquarters. A very powerful man. His name is Lyoncheka. I think he is the one at FSB who knows of the Airlia. Who knows what secrets the KGB has kept hidden all these years. As my GRU has hidden records, I have heard rumors of an archives of artifacts and information maintained by the KGB about the Airlia. If anyone would know where it is, it would be Lyoncheka.”

Yakov stood. “I will look for him shortly. First, though, let us go to Stantsiya Chyort and discover what happened there and look for what we came here for.”

“Now that I have some leverage”… Mualama hefted the scepter in his hand —“we can call UNAOC.”

“Do you know where the Hall of Records is?” Lago asked.

Mualama smiled broadly. “This was where I thought it was. I think the Hall will be where I believe it is. Far from here.”

“Where?” Lago pressed.

“That was the promise Burton made… that he would not reveal what he had seen and where he had seen it. But I think I have figured it out.” Mualama tapped the side of his head. “That remains here. With this key and the knowledge, UNAOC will have to allow me to continue. And we will need their help to get to the next place.”

Mualama pointed toward the south rim of the crater. “Take the Rover and go to the lodge we passed on the way here. Call UNAOC in New York. Do not tell them what we have, only that we have discovered high rune writing. You can fax them a picture of the stone marker. Do not mention the scepter.

“Try to talk to someone who knew Professor Nabinger. Someone who can appreciate what we have found. Tell them we will meet whoever they send right here.”

Less than two miles from where Professor Mualama and Lago were scratching the dirt of the crater, deep under the mirrorlike surface of Soda Lake, Lexina was watching two of her kind die.

She stood over them, a tall, slender figure wearing a gray robe that was worn and dirty from her travel to this location. If Mualama had followed a difficult path to arrive at Ngorongoro Crater, then Lexina’s trial had been almost impossible. She’d walked south along the Great Rift Valley, one of the most inhospitable tracts of land on the face of the planet, dwarfing the Grand Canyon in length, running from southern Turkey, through Syria, between Israel and Jordan where the Dead Sea lay… the lowest point on the face of the planet. From there it formed the basin of the Red Sea. At the Gulf of Aden the Rift Valley broke into two, one part going to the Indian Ocean, the other inland into Africa. South of Ngorongoro Crater, the Rift Valley continued for hundreds of miles before ending in Mozambique.

She had swum out into Soda Lake the previous week and found the entrance to the remains of an ancient Airlia base, her new home after spending the past twenty-two years under the ice in Antarctica at Scorpion Base. She was the head of The Ones Who Wait. Since they had been forced to flee Scorpion Base, her small group had scattered across the globe to continue their tasks, but as always, it seemed like all they were doing was reacting to the forces of The Mission.

Her skin was pale and smooth, but the strangest feature visible were her red eyes with elongated pupils. She stood on a black metal floor in a circular room, approximately fifty feet in diameter. Light came from a series of blue, glowing tubes spaced along the vaulted ceiling.

She knew little of this base from the records her kind had kept other than that the Airlia had established it during the height of their domain on Earth. To find it, she had followed ancient markers from the kingdom of Axum.

One of her operatives, Elek, was in Qian-Ling but needed a key to access the lowest level. Two of her other operatives, Coridan and Gergor, had been the ones who destroyed Section Four’s base on Novaya Zemlya in their search for the key. In the process of leaving there, they had crossed the contaminated part of the island and now they were paying the price for their rush. However, they had brought her an artifact from the archives of Section Four… a black sphere that could make communications with the computer on the surviving talon. She had found instructions how to use it in the base’s data files and taken control of the ship from its autopilot.

The talon was badly damaged and low on power, but the main weapon system could still function out to a limited range, as it had done automatically in destroying the space shuttle Columbia approaching the ship; the weapon could also be used on a lower setting as a tractor beam, as Lexina had used it to draw in the Warfighter satellite. She had then established contact with the Warfighter’s main computer through the talon, using information STAAR had gathered over the years they had infiltrated the American space program.

Lexina knelt next to Coridan and Gergor and administered more pain medicine so that their distress would not interfere with her work. She knew they had only hours left. She was not overly concerned with their loss, because the previous day she had found a lab deep in the complex where there was equipment similar to what she had used at Scorpion Base to “grow” more operatives.

Reaching into each man’s shirt, she removed a gold medallion, shaped like two arms extended upward in worship, strung on a thin metal chain from around their necks and placed the object into her pocket.

She left the two and reentered the main control center for the complex. She had no idea what this place had been, nor did she know how the upper portion had been destroyed.

Her job for all her “life” had been to maintain the status quo. It had been easy as long as the truce held, but once the balance had been upset, things had been happening faster than her group could keep up.

She needed help. Taking tissue samples from both dying men, she went to a room filled with large vats. She loaded the cells into the base of two of the vats. The controls and setup were similar to what she had had at Scorpion Base. She inserted the samples and turned the machines on.

The Southern Star rolled and pitched in the rough fifteen-foot swells. The entire ship vibrated from the engines churning at full speed.

On the bridge, Captain Halls watched the deck as several of the passengers slowly moved along a rope from the forward cargo hatch to the galley below. He felt nothing for them and the misery they were currently experiencing. Idiots, in his opinion.

“Progressives” is what the newspaper called them, and Australia had been hopping full of the lot when he’d left Sydney Harbor to pick up this group in Tasmania. He had the most extreme on board, but there had been thousands of others who would have gladly joined this expedition. Of course, Halls had to be honest with himself: He had those who had been willing to pay the top dollar he had asked.

Despite their money, these people worried him because they believed the aliens held the key to everything good. Halls clutched his side as a spike of pain cut through him.

“Blinking ulcers,” he muttered.

“The guardian can cure your problem,” a voice behind him startled him. Halls turned. The Guide Parker had come onto the bridge.

“From the news I’m picking up, the guardian isn’t doing much of anything.”

“That is because UNAOC forced it to protect itself.” Parker walked up next to the captain and stared out the glass. “Wouldn’t you retreat and protect yourself if you were attacked?”

Halls had no desire to get into an argument.

“Whatever pain you feel, whatever trouble you have in your life, the guardian will take care of it,” Parker continued. “It holds all knowledge.”

“How do you propose to get ahold of it?” Halls asked. “It don’t seem to be talking to anybody.”

“It is talking to Kelly Reynolds, and she will give us safe passage.”

“They’re not sure that message was really from her,” Halls noted.

“Are you an isolationist?” Parker asked. “Afraid to step out of your cave?”

“I’m just a ship’s captain,” Halls replied.

“That’s not going to work.” Parker’s gray eyes focused on the captain, and he squirmed under the scrutiny.

“I mind my own business,” Halls said.

“You can’t.” Parker said it without raising his voice, but the words carried weight. “No human can. This will reach into every corner of the planet. No one is unaffected by what is happening. It is time for the human race to move forward,” Parker said, his voice almost breaking with emotion. “To gain a place in the stars.”

“But to take your line of thinking a step further,” Halls said, “what if we go out of the cave and there are lions and tigers and bears?”

“If we go with the aid of the guardian and the Airlia, we will not have to worry about those things you fear.”

“But,” Captain Halls said, “what if the very things you look to for aid are the very things we should be afraid of?”

“Disbeliever!” Parker hissed.

Captain Halls looked out the forward glass of his bridge to the storm-tossed ocean. He wondered what lay ahead on Easter Island.

But Parker wasn’t done. “Every human will have to choose soon. You will either be for or against. There will be no hiding.” Parker raised his hand toward the heavens. “You will be either a believer or a heretic. And if you are a heretic, you will burn as they burned in the past!”

“There’s a message for you.” The copilot of the bouncer held out a headset. They were thirty minutes out from Task Force 78 and Easter Island, and Duncan could see the west coast of the United States rapidly approaching. They really had no idea what the fastest speed a bouncer could achieve. Right now they were moving at over five thousand miles an hour, fast enough for Duncan and the pilots, as it almost outstripped the ability of their radar to see ahead of them and give them time to react.

Duncan put the headset on. “Yes?”

“This is Major Quinn. I’ve got a strange report that was forwarded to us via the Pentagon.”

“Go ahead.”

“There’s a Professor Mualama who claims to have discovered an Airlia artifact in Tanzania.”

Duncan leaned forward, hands over the headset so she could hear clearly. “What kind of artifact?”

“It wasn’t specified. The person who sent it mentioned Professor Nabinger.” Nabinger. Duncan remembered the archaeologist who had been with Turcotte and Kelly Reynolds and von Seeckt in the attempt to stop Majestic-12.

Duncan pulled up the mouthpiece, leaned forward, and tapped the pilot on the shoulder. “Change in course. Tanzania.”

The pilot nodded, already used to the strange requests and destinations he had shuttled Duncan and the other members of her team.

Duncan pulled the mouthpiece back down. “Who knows about this?”

“It was relayed through the Pentagon intelligence channels,” Quinn said. “So everybody and their grandmother.”

Duncan remembered both her friend at USAMRIID being killed and the betrayal within the SEAL team on one of the shuttles. There was no doubt the military was thoroughly infiltrated by all three groups… The Ones Who Wait, The Mission/Guides, and the Watchers. She wondered which of those she was racing to Tanzania right now. The only advantage she had was the speed of the bouncer. “Anything from Turcotte?”

“Nothing.”

“Keep me apprised of any changes. Out.” She took off the headset. “A little faster if you please, Major Lewis,” she ordered the pilot. The southwestern United States flashed beneath them in a blur and they were over the Gulf of Mexico.