Area 51: The Grail-5 (14 page)

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The next place they were to go was the southernmost volcano, Rapa Kara. Over a thousand feet high, it dominated that part of the island and would also allow them to look to the center where the International Airport was. After checking the airfield, they were to descend inside the volcano, locate the guardian computer—and Kelly Reynolds if she was still alive— and destroy the alien object.

Olivetti checked his bearing on the global positioning system, out of habit, as he brought the prow of the F-470, about. There was no mistaking direction.

On the horizon, the top of the black shield was clearly visible now, straight ahead.

GIZA PLATEAU

Lisa Duncan felt stone pressed up against her cheek. She opened her eyes and saw she was lying on a stone floor looking at a white veil. She had to think hard for several moments, her head pounding as if from a severe hangover, before she remembered where she was.

She heard Aspasia's Shadow call for her." She noted the two sphinx heads turn, so she knew someone had entered the chamber. Slowly, she got to her feet, the pounding in her head almost making her ill. She pulled the veil aside and saw him standing in the entranceway.

"You've discovered you don't have everything you need?" Aspasia's Shadow asked.

"I've discovered the Ark is the history of the Airlia on this planet,"

Duncan said.

"The past is not important," he said. "You're like a child looking in the dark, not sure what you are looking for and if you did find something, not sure what its importance is."

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"Where are the thummin and urim?" Duncan asked.

"Very smart," Aspasia's Shadow said. "I am currently in the process of tracking them down."

"So you don't know where they are?"

"They're in a very secure place," he allowed. "They are in the Negev."

"Israel?"

"They traveled for a long time and were last held by monks in Ethiopia at one of the monasteries on Lake Tanaga. But they were not safe there, and the Israelis took them back to the Dimona archives bunker in the Negev Desert that also houses their nuclear weapons. It is supposed to the most secure place on Earth." He gave an evil smile. "But I have learned over the years that no place is totally secure."

"And if you get them?"

"Then we can bargain. I'll have something you want, while you have something I want. I almost had them once before, long ago, but they slipped through my grasp."

"How long ago?"

"I have been walking this Earth since before the beginning of your human histroy."

"How can you have lived so long?" Duncan asked.

Aspasia's Shadow pointed at his head. "This—the knowledge, the experiences—have lived as long as Aspasia's Shadow lived." He tapped his chest. "This body, this shell, has a life span. I acquired this one forty-five years ago. It will be time to move on soon. This body is failing me."

"I don't understand."

Aspasia's Shadow pulled an amulet from underneath his black cloak. "This is the essence of Aspasia—of me. All that is missing are my experiences since I last updated it a month ago. It is called a ka. Think of it as a recording device for one's life, for one's memories. But

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it is more than that. When the time comes to pass on, as it is called, I will go to The Mission. There the ka will be updated to the present, then this body will be destroyed. The ka will be used to install my essence into the new body and my life will go on."

"If you can do that, then why do you want the Grail?"

"Because the Grail can do more than that."

"What more?"

"That information I cannot give you."

AREA 51

Turcotte studied the information Quinn had gotten regarding Silbury Hill as the bouncer lifted off the floor and floated out the hangar doors. As soon as it was clear, the pilot accelerated and gained altitude.

"Do you believe Mualama's information?" Yakov asked.

"He has the scars from the fire," Turcotte noted.

"He also withheld telling us he was a Watcher for a long time," Yakov said.

"We need a Watcher's ring," Turcotte said simply. "If there are no Watchers at Silbury, then I won't believe him."

"Do you have a plan?" Yakov asked. The two of them were the only occupants, beside the pilot and copilot.

"Not yet."

"Should we knock on the side of the hill and ask them if they can spare us a ring?"

"Why don't you do that?" Turcotte snapped.

"My friend, I think you are not seeing the forest for the trees."

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"Look," Turcotte held out a photograph. "See how the side of the hill is indented right here?"

Yakov took the picture. "Yes."

"Remember at Qian-Ling how there was an opening for a bouncer to go in and out on the side of the mountain?"

"Yes."

Turcotte tapped the picture. "That's where we're going to knock."

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Popeye McGraw and Olivetti simply sat in the zodiac, bobbing in the slight swell. As a SEAL they'd traveled all over'the world and seen some pretty amazing sights from the interior of whorehouses in the Philippines to the full fury of a Pacific typhoon to the northern lights off the shore of Alaska, but they'd never seen anything like the black wall that shimmered in front of their boat.

"Damn," Popeye said, which pretty much summed it up.

Olivetti spit over the side of the zodiac. "Yeah."

Popeye grabbed his tanks and slid them on. He secured his weapon and equipment bag. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

Popeye did one last position check using the ground positioning receiver—GPR—confirming they were over the spot where they needed to be. He sealed the GPR in its waterproof bag. They turned the valves that connected the five chambers that made up the U-shaped outer hull, opening them to each other. Then Popeye opened a valve cap near the rear and air rushed out. He turned and opened another valve, attaching a hose from a CO2 tank secured on the floor of the zodiac securely to it.

Both men fit their mouthpieces, turned their backs to the water, sat on the transom, then flopped overboard. They bobbed in the water as the zodiac slowly settled lower and lower. They grabbed the hull nearest them and wrapped their arms over it, helping push out the last

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of the air. Popeye reached over and secured the valve cap as the zodiac reached less than neutral buoyancy and slipped beneath the waves. Olivetti attached a lead from the lifeline that lay on top of the buoyancy tubes to a line around his waist. Then both men dove.

They had worked together so often that they fell into a pattern as soon as they started diving, angling toward the wall—Popeye in the lead with his nav board held out in front, Olivetti right on his fins pulling the deflated zodiac behind him.

Popeye paused as he saw the black wall just ahead, then went vertical, diving straight down. He slowed as he saw the bottom. A large divot had been carved out of the bottom as if a large hand had scraped along the coral and rock.

Cautiously, Popeye settled down to the lowest point of the divot. There was a gap below the shield wall, about seven feet deep. He looked over his shoulder at Olivetti floating behind him, the zodiac slowly settling to the bottom. There was no question if they were going through.

Popeye finned forward, scraping his belly on the bottom. He went for several seconds, then rolled on his back. He was through. He floated up as Olivetti shoved the deflated zodiac through next. Popeye pulled it through, then the other SEAL followed.

Popeye grabbed Olivetti's shoulder and gestured furiously. Ahead of them was a long gray wall, touching the bottom as it reached toward shore. The Washington. It was moving very slowly, the hull edging back into deeper water.

Looking closer, the two SEALs could see that a black film covered the hull where it was touching the bottom, fluctuating as if it were alive. They'd heard the reports of how the ship had been taken over and had no desire to get closer.

Popeye jerked a thumb toward the surface. Olivetti nodded and twisted a valve on the CO2 canister. The zo-

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diac began filling and ascending, the two SEALs following. By the time the boat reached the surface it was almost fully inflated.

Popeye's head burst into the open air and he blinked. The Washington's enormous bulk filled his vision. Something was different about the ship. He'd spent a lot of time aboard Nimitz-class carriers and he didn't doubt his first impression. He scanned the ship from bow to stern, checking for the differences.

The first thing that struck him was that there was no one moving; not a single crew member. A ghost ship, slowly sliding into the ocean from the shore. But then he saw more. The island, which contained the ship's bridge and operations center, was more streamlined. The various radar and communication masts were different too, although Popeye wasn't sure what that meant. The bow, facing inland, was torn and twisted, but even as he watched, he could swear that it was being repaired, centimeter, by centimeter, even though he could see no men working on it. He felt a chill watching the majestic carrier, the pride of the fleet, being controlled by forces he couldn't understand.

He shifted toward the island. Six maoi statues gazed out to sea. Popeye rolled on board the zodiac, Olivetti following. They were a half mile away from the carrier, now afloat. Olivetti cranked the engine and they turned to the west to circle around the island. The first part of their mission was complete, although they weren't exactly sure what their report would say.

QIAN-LING, CHINA

The main tunnel widened beyond the scope of the lights Lexina and her comrades carried. From the echo their

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feet made on the stone floor, it was obvious they were entering a large open space.

Lexina froze, seeing a tiny point of light, above and ahead. The light grew stronger, illuminating the cavern they had entered. It was over a quarter mile wide and a half mile long, with the roof over four hundred feet above their heads, where the glowing orb was now at full power. The walls were smoothly cut stone, the floor so flat it looked polished. But it was the center of the far wall that drew the attention of Lexina and the other Ones Who Wait.

Two golden doors, inlaid with intricate lettering, each one hundred feet high and fifty wide, were set in the wall. Doors worthy of a god. Like moths to a flame, Lexina, Coridan, Elek, and Gergor were drawn forward, across the cavern floor. They stopped in front, overwhelmed by the sheer size and beauty of the doors. Etched into the gold was High Rune lettering mixed with Chinese symbols.

Elek pointed. "That is the sign of Shi Huangdi, the first Emperor of China."

But Lexina could make out something in High Rune that was much more significant. "Artad and his people are behind these doors waiting to awake!"

"How do we open them?" Coridan asked, always the practical one.

Lexina continued to translate what she could of the High Runes, and found the answer, right before them. "This—" she held the Spear of Destiny "—goes here." She put the point on a spot at eye level exactly along the seam where the doors met. The spot she was pointing to was outlined with black metal, b'ja, the metal of the Airlia.

She pushed the spear, pressing it against the black. The point slid into the b'ja to the base of the tip, then

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stopped. Lexina let go and stepped back. The doors seemed to shimmer, then, as if a stone had been thrown in a pond, the gold changed ,to black in an ever-widening circle. When both doors were completely black, there was a loud groaning, as if the metal were protesting. The seam split smoothly and the doors began swinging outward, the spear staying in the opening.

AREA 51

Professor Mualama hit control-D on his keyboard and looked up as the screen filled with words. He turned as Che Lu came into the conference in response to summons.

"What do you have?" she asked.

"You'll find this interesting." Mualama pointed at the screen.

BURTON MANUSCRIPT: CHAPTER 2

Following the destruction of Atlantis and the departure of Aspasia for the
skies and the disappearance of Artad, the Watchers at first thought that the
world was free of the direct influence of these creatures from the stars. It
turned out they were wrong.

Some of The Guides traveled to the Middle East and established a place
called The Mission. There appeared in Egypt around nine thousand years before
the birth of Christ, new gods, called Neteru, of whom Isis and Osiris were the
two primary ones. The Watchers eventually learned that these new gods were a
different form of Guide who wore the ka of Aspasia and some of his other
Airlia, being their Shadows on Earth to prepare for their return. These
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were of an order above that of Guide in a way, because they had the memories
of the Airlia imprinted on their brain.

There is a device called a ka The word in ancient Egyptian means soul or
spirit. The symbol for it is two extended arms with no body in between. I have
seen this sign on walls and even carved into statues, such as the ka statue of
Hor Auibre from the thirteenth dynasty.

I have talked to scholars about the root of the ka and there is much that
is not known. They feel that the ka means something more than just the soul.

It represents the sustaining power of life, an interesting term if one thinks
about it. There are many representations of a ka being fashioned by the
ram-headed god Khnum and it was meant to be a double or twin of the person
from which it was drawn. The ka came into existence when a person was born,
and the term "to go to one's ka" meant one died and the ka was passed on.

The hemu-ka were a kind of priests that facilitated the passing on of the
ka / was told by Kaji about the Airlia. But he also talked of Ones Who Were
Not Born of Women, also known as The Ones Who Wait. Throughout the history I
will recount to you, there will be those who are "shadows" of Airlia from both
sides. How they come into being, I do not know. But they are not born.