Area 51: The Grail-5 (24 page)

"The urim does one thing, the thummin another."

"That's not much help."

"I am not here to help you," Aspasia's Shadow said. "I gave you the urim so we can end this impasse."

Duncan placed the palm of her hand on top of one end and waited. The end irised open. Reverently she took the urim and placed it in the depression, feeling the tingle as before.

She stared down at it.

Nothing.

A part of her felt relieved.

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Metayer held up the ignitor. "I'm all set."

Turcotte slipped over the edge of the shaft and went down, leaving enough room for Metayer to be above him. The demo man followed.

"Fire in the hole," Metayer announced.

"Audio down three quarters," Turcotte ordered the computer. When the blast came, it was muted.

"Audio normal power." Turcotte climbed up behind Metayer. The chamber was full of airborne dust swirling about.

The stone had been knocked out of position and a tunnel beckoned beyond.

Duncan looked up. Aspasia's Shadow stood on the other side of the chamber watching her like a hawk— no, more as a vulture would, she realized. A soldier ran up the tunnel, halted next to Aspasia's Shadow, and whispered something in his ear. Aspasia's Shadow hissed something in return, never once looking away from Duncan and the Grail. The soldier ran back down the tunnel.

Aspasia's Shadow reached inside his cloak and removed a small black sphere.

It disappeared inside his large hands, the fingers moving around the surface of it. She briefly wondered what it was, but the lure of the Grail was too strong for her to spend much time on that.

Duncan reached in and removed the stone. The opening closed. She turned the Grail over and placed her hand on the other end. It opened. She lowered the stone in and knew she had it right this time as soon as the urim got close.

The stone grew hotter, the green light inside blazed brightly, illuminating her and the entire chamber with an unearthly glow.

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A shock raced up her arm as she placed the stone in its place. The opening irised tight against her wrist. She tried to remove her hand but .couldn't.

Her fingers would not let go of the stone, held by an invisible force. Pain radiated through the flesh that touched the stone, lancing into her bones and causing her to cry out. It was as if her hand were on fire. She could feel the flesh peeling back, charred and burned. She had never felt such intense agony.

In her concern for the pain the Grail was causing, she failed to notice that the light had gone out in the ruby eyes of the sphinx head guards.

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THE GIZA PLATEAU, EGYPT

Turcotte felt a momentary sense of panic as he entered the tunnel. Was it right or left now? He forced himself to concentrate on the mission. Burton had said the hidden door was on the right, which meant he had to turn left. He shifted in that direction. Seventy paces, which meant about sixty meters.

Turcotte had checked his pace count in the suit while in the hangar during isolation. He moved quickly, the team following, each man keeping his own pace count. The last man in line dropped a chem light next to the door, marking the location as it slid shut.

Turcotte stopped where he thought the hidden keyhole should be. "Pace check," he announced over the radio. The report from the rest of the team indicated they all agreed plus or minus about three meters, which wasn't bad.

Turcotte placed the ring against the left wall at shoulder level. Nothing. He shifted left several feet, then back to the right when the outline of a door appeared. The door shifted, then slid up.

Turcotte stepped through, weapon leading. He took a quick shift glance in both directions. He turned left. "Let's go."

Like a bear trapped with its paw in the honey pot, Lisa Duncan remained on her knees, frozen. The pain was centered in her hand, but now Duncan couldn't move 209

any part of her body as it radiated through her nervous system, crawling up her arm like an inevitable tide of agony. Every nerve ending vibrated with the feeling of a red hot needle knifing through it from the inside going outward, as if the source were her bone marrow itself. She didn't even blink as, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aspasia's Shadow walk forward, past the bodies of the two soldiers that had been killed earlier.

"One hundred and eighty-seven meters," Turcotte said.

"Check," Graves replied.

Turcotte put his hand on the wall and began searching for the next door. The last door between them and the tunnel leading to the Hall of Records chamber.

Beyond the pain resonating from her hand, up her arm, and exploding in her brain, Duncan barely felt it as two soldiers grabbed her and began carrying her out of the chamber, the arm with the Grail dangling. Four others picked up the Ark, carrying it by the poles out of the chamber behind her.

Aspasia's Shadow knelt next to Duncan. His long fingers closed around the narrow center of the Grail and squeezed at a certain spot. He carefully removed the Grail from her hand. Then he turned it upside down and a glowing stone dropped out. That end of the Grail closed. He pocketed the stone and then placed the Grail inside the Ark. He threw a white sheet over the Ark, covering it.

Still Duncan didn't move.

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A burst of automatic weapons fire echoed into the chamber.

Aspasia's Shadow stood. "It is time to leave." He still had the black sphere in one hand. The surface was divided into small hexagonal areas. His fingers tapped several of the hexes.

The first burst hit the ceiling above Turcotte's helmet, sending chips of stone flying. There was no chance for the soldier to get off a second burst, as Turcotte had centered the reticules on the man's chest even while he was firing. Turcotte's trigger finger twitched and a dart ripped through the man's chest, sending him tumbling back down the tunnel into the darkness from which he appeared.

"We're in the right place," Turcotte yelled, hearing the echo through his own receiver.

"Right behind you, sir!" Graves replied.

Turcotte ran toward the darkness. He paused just before entering and fired the rest of the magazine into the blackness as quickly as the cylinder rotated. He grabbed another cylinder off the bandoleer on his chest and reloaded.

Then he went in.

A soldier staggered onto the landing leading to the tunnel, blood spurting from the stump of his right arm, neatly severed by a dart. The man tumbled over the edge and fell to the ground with a solid thud. The blood stopped spurting.

Aspasia's Shadow yelled commands in Arabic, sending the soldiers he had in the chamber running up the stairs toward the ledge.

Just as the darkness enveloped him, Turcotte heard the beginning of a startled yell over the team radio net. Then it was cut off as if a switch had been flipped. He

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waded forward through the darkness and stepped into the brilliant light of the Hall of Records chamber. Behind him, the tunnel was as dark, the strange doorway closed behind him.

"IR off, normal light," Turcotte ordered as his screen was overloaded and blanked out for a second.

That's all it took for a three-round burst from an AK-47 to hit Turcotte in the chest, staggering him back a step. The special ceramic/alloy armor absorbed most of the impact, chips flying.

The screen came alive with normal light. The reticules were high. Turcotte drew them down to the lead man coming up the stairs and fired. The steel dart tore through his chest and kept going, taking out the two men directly behind him before hitting the spine of the third man changing direction slightly, flying down into the chamber.

Turcotte took a second to scan the chamber. The Black Sphinx dominated the view, but he was more concerned about finding people. He saw Duncan! She lay unconscious on a tarp, being carried by two men. Behind her was a tall figure in a black robe, and behind him something draped in white also being carried.

"Spread out on the ledge," Turcotte ordered over the team net.

There was no answer.

Turcotte fired another dart down the stairs.

"Rear view."

There was no one behind him. The tunnel went ten meters, then faded into the strange black darkness.

"Front view."

Turcotte fired the MK 98 again, spearing the closest man. He could see the flashes as others fired. Rounds from men on the floor of the chamber chipped stone all about him. Hard thuds on the suit indicated some of the bullets were hitting.

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Turcotte took a step back into the tunnel, getting out of the angle of fire of those on the floor. A head appeared coining up the stairs and Turcotte fired, taking it clean off. That bought him some time. Still, no one came out of the darkness.

Silence on the team net.

"Can you hear me?" a voice yelled from below.

"External speaker on," Turcotte instructed the computer. "I hear you."

"You will let me out or your friend will be dead."

"Who are you?" Turcotte needed to buy time for the team to reinforce him. He had no idea why they hadn't come through yet.

"Aspasia's Shadow. You will let me out or your friend will be dead and then we will kill you," Aspasia's Shadow continued. "Be glad I give you mis offer."

Turcotte tried to think, to assess the situation. "I'll let you pass only if you give me her in exchange."

"I cannot give you the woman. She has partaken of the Grail. She must go with me to finish the process. If you take her, she will die."

Turcotte had no idea what he was talking about. Where the hell was the rest of the A-Team?

Another head appeared, peering cautiously. Turcotte aimed. A black object flew through the air. Turcotte shifted the reticules, tracking, fired, and the dart hit the grenade in midair.

At the same moment, a terrorist leapt up onto the ledge, firing on full automatic. The rounds impacted on the left side of Turcotte's suit, staggering him sideways. The screen inside the helmet flickered, then adjusted as the left-side helmet mini-cam was destroyed. Turcotte dropped to his knees and fired, killing the man. Warning lights were flickering on the bottom of the screen, informing him that the left front mini-cam was out. Some 213

of his lithium batteries had been destroyed, reducing available power by twenty percent and various other problems that he didn't have time to read or know how to deal with.

"We will kill you," Aspasia's Shadow yelled. "And I will kill Doctor Duncan unless you immediately allow us to pass."

Turcotte kept his aim on the top of the stairs. He switched to FM. "Report?

Anybody?"

Silence.

"We are coming up and Doctor Duncan is in front," Aspasia's Shadow's voice echoed in Turcotte's helmet.

Turcotte stood. He could see two men coming up the stairs supporting Duncan, who appeared to be unconscious, between them. Turcotte knew he could take both men down easily, but they might take Duncan over the edge with them. Behind them loomed Aspasia's Shadow.

"If you are thinking of killing me," Aspasia's Shadow began, a second before Turcotte pulled the trigger, "you need to know I am the only one who can revive her. Without me, she dies."

"What did you do to her?" Turcotte demanded.

"I didn't do anything," Aspasia's Shadow said. "She accessed the Grail and now the process must take its course. And I am the only one who can make sure it develops properly or else she dies a most terrible death."

"What process?"

The two men had reached the ledge, less than twenty feet from Turcotte. They paused as Aspasia's Shadow came up behind.

"We will go now," Aspasia's Shadow said, the other survivors from his group on the stairs, carrying the Ark.

"What process?" Turcotte repeated.

Aspasia's Shadow pointed and the men moved

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forward. Turcotte held his ground for a second, then stepped aside. "You'll never get out of here."

"I believe we will," Aspasia's Shadow said. He smiled, revealing long, sharp teeth. "Do you know who she is?"

Turcotte was at a loss for an answer, not understanding the intent of the question.

"She is not who you believe her to be," the creature continued. "She has lied to you—or more likely even she does not yet know her true identity." The two men and Duncan disappeared into the blackness. "Do not follow us or she will die." He stepped into the blackness before Turcotte could say another word.

"Damn!" Turcotte cursed. He wondered if Graves and his men would ambush them. He waited a few seconds, so he wouldn't be caught in the kill zone, then dashed into the darkness, the heavy metal thud of his legs hitting the tunnel floor echoing into his helmet.

The blackness grabbed him, and he propelled himself forward, the MK-98

extended, finger ready. He stumbled over something as he entered the tunnel on the other side, hit his knees, forced the muzzle of the weapon up, scanning the screen for targets—nothing moving.

As he got to his feet, he almost fell once more.

"Down view."

Turcotte blinked, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. A black tube, about two feet long. Turcotte took a step back as he realized what it was. The severed leg of one of the team members, still encased in the suit armor.

"Forward view."

The tunnel was littered with body parts, some still in armor, others ripped out of the suits. A head, half out of the helmet, lay to one side. It was Graves, dead eyes staring at nothing, neck cleanly severed. The body was ten feet away, farther down the tunnel, blood pooled

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where the head should be. The walls of the tunnel held large divots where darts had hit, so the team had put up a fight against whatever had attacked them.

"It's the whole team," Turcotte whispered to himself, as if hearing the words would make the impact less severe. He counted, trying to add up body parts and suits. As near as he could make out, every member of the team was dead.

How could Aspasia's Shadow have done this? He wondered, but even as the thought crossed his mind, he realized this had happened while he was in the chamber still talking to the alien creature.