Area 51: The Grail-5 (27 page)

Turning, Turcotte saw an Egyptian patrol boat, forward machine-gun manned, heading straight toward them from upstream. He was too tired to even attempt to swim away, not that he could outswim the boat anyway.

QIAN-LING, CHINA

Lexina ran her hands across the High Runes etched in the surface of the black tube. "It is not Artad's resting place." She turned toward the black wall which had just stopped its slow retreat across the chamber after clearing the end of the tube. "He rests further within. This—" she tapped the tube "—is a guard who must awaken before the wall goes any further."

"How do we open it?" Elek asked.

"We don't." Lexina stepped back. "The process is automated and works on its own schedule. This is beyond us."

"Perhaps if we access the guardian—" Elek began, but his words were cut off as the black surface slid open, revealing a silver material that immediately peeled back in several layers until all that was left was a body encased in a clear material.

"It is not Airlia." Elek pointed out the obvious. The body was human, less than five and a half feet tall; a male with Chinese features. He was dressed in a richly embroidered silk robe, dragons breathing fire swirling about the material. Lying next to the man's right hand was a spear, the head of which was of highly polished

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metal, a replica of the Spear of Destiny that Lexina had used to access this chamber.

The air inside the tube crackled with electromagnetic static as the field which had preserved the body for thousands of years was slowly reduced in power.

THE MISSION

Every cell of Lisa Duncan's being was in pain. It had started with her hand inside the Black Sphinx chamber. Then up her arm, into her chest, and throughout her body. On the helicopter ride, all she could see was the top of the cargo bay through the haze of tears brought on by the agony as the pain spread through her entire body.

She had no idea where she was, although she was vaguely aware she had stopped moving and been taken off the helicopter. She was on her back, of that she had some sense. But the pain—she had never experienced anything even remotely close to it.

Her brain could tolerate it no longer, and her conscious mind shut down as she slipped into a state closer to a coma than anything else.

Across the room, Aspasia's Shadow looked at her body on the bed. The priestly accoutrements had been removed and were neatly piled next to him.

They were inside a small room, the walls carved out of brown rock. The Ark rested on the floor and Aspasia's Shadow's eyes shifted from Duncan to the Grail's container. He was tempted. Such a temptation he had not felt in a long time, but he had waited millennia to gain possession of the Grail—he could wait a while longer to see if it still functioned, to see what it did to Duncan, if the ancient

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prophecies would be fulfilled. In the meanwhile, he removed his black cloak and dressed in the priest's clothes.

Reluctantly, he left the room. One of the two guards on the outside came inside, standing just inside the door, to keep watch on Duncan. Aspasia's Shadow checked for the third time, making sure the man knew his order—to call as soon as there was a change in Duncan's condition.

Then Aspasia's Shadow went down the corridor and entered another chamber hewn out of the brown stone. In the center a golden pyramid glowed—a guardian computer. A chair, more a throne, was set just in front of the guardian.

Aspasia's Shadow sat down and the golden glow encompassed him.

Through the alien computer he made contact with Easter Island to be updated on all that had happened there since he had left The Mission to pursue the Grail. He saw that the forces there were just about ready for action. He issued orders to be implemented as soon as all preparations were completed.

EASTER ISLAND

The rebuilt F-14 did what designers at Grumman had known it was capable of but never expected to see—execute a double digit G-force turn. The fact that the maneuver snapped the neck of the man in the cockpit didn't bother the guardian computer controlling the plane in the slightest. Pilot-less, the plane nosed over and crashed.

Taking the data into consideration, the guardian prepared the next pilot better, enclosing him in a suit it de-

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signed to take the forces involved. Another rebuilt F-14 went up and began running through the same tests.

The plane made several more high-G maneuvers, then lined up on the Easter Island runway and came to a landing any carrier pilot would have been proud of. It taxied down the runway and came to a halt beside the full complement of F-14s that had been captured on board the Washington, all modified to the same specifications.

A mile off the south shore of Easter Island, the Jahre Viking loomed like a half-mile-long wall. Smaller boats from the Washington had been commandeered to bring the people who were needed ashore. Others worked at menial tasks on the ship as a flow of nanomachines did the bulk of the important work.

The nanomachines were building two huge doors by the expedient method of removing metal atom by atom. Behind the doors they were preparing they built a watertight seam at the same level. The first several compartments behind the doors were dissolving, the metal being used to reinforce the hull around the large open space being designed inside. The forward quarter of the ship was being prepared as a large open space, accessible through the doors.

Deep under the Rapa Kara volcano, Kelly Reynolds became aware of a new presence communicating with the guardian. A force that was issuing commands to the alien machine, something she had not experienced before, even when it had been in communication with the guardian on Mars.

For a moment, the link from Mars spiked in activity, trying to shut down the new link, but the new connection was more powerful, closer. At first Kelly thought it was the master guardian reestablishing its control, but 239

then she picked up the presence of a mind, a human mind, behind the new guardian and she realized that was the controlling force.

Aspasia!

The name echoed in her consciousness. How could it be? And human? Aspasia was Airlia. And he was dead.

In her fear of being discovered and the uncertainty about what was going on, Kelly retreated, releasing her toehold in the data stream and hiding in the shell of what remained of her body.

AREA 51, NEVADA

"It doesn't look good." Major Quinn slapped down a black-and-white photograph on the conference room table. The air was heavy; the only change from before was that Mualama was back at work, his fingers hitting the keys even more furiously than before as he translated. Quinn pointed at the man in the water.

"This was taken eight minutes ago. That's Turcotte."

He put a second photograph on top. "This was taken six minutes ago."

They could all see the Egyptian patrol boat next to Turcotte. The next picture showed him on board the deck of the boat, surrounded by soldiers.

"What about the rest of the team?" Yakov asked. "Any sign of them?"

"Negative."

"Can you get someone in Washington to contact Cairo and try to get Turcotte released?" Yakov asked.

"Washington has been screaming at Cairo about the AWACS getting downed,"

Quinn said. "Now the Egyptians have captured an American soldier, illegally 240

in their country. Also, they let those helicopters get out of their airspace.

Someone holds a lot more leverage with the Egyptian government than we do. I think the time for negotiating is long past."

"What do you recommend?" Yakov asked.

"We need to wait and—" Quinn began, but Che Lu slapped her palm on the table, getting their attention.

"We cannot wait. The Navy SEALs who went under the shield wall on Easter Island have not been heard from. The Ones Who Wait are inside of Qian-Ling with the key to the lowest level." She tapped the photograph. "Turcotte has failed in his quest of rescuing Duncan, and I see no Grail in his hands as this boat picks him up." She turned to Quinn. "You must get beyond thinking only of your country and think globally. There is a country, is there not, that would have a very good intelligence system in place in Egypt?"

Quinn nodded. "Israel."

Che Lu was in her lecture mode, as if she were back at Beijing University.

"Very good. And an agent of that government met Turcotte at Hazerim air base, did he not?" She didn't wait for an answer. "I recommend contacting that person and seeing what assistance he can render." She almost shoved him toward the door. "Go!"

After Quinn had exited, she turned to the bank of computers that hid Professor Mualama. "Do you have any more of the manuscript done?"

Mualama raised his head, just his eyes peeking over the top of the monitor.

"Yes. It's loading now."

"Does it say what exactly the Grail is and what exactly it does?" Che Lu asked. "That information is most vital now that it appears that someone has escaped with it."

"The new chapter speaks of the Grail's travels

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and—" Mualama paused. "You will have to determine what more for yourself." His eyes disappeared and she went back to work.

"Sit!" Che Lu ordered Yakov as she scrolled.

BURTON MANUSCRIPT: CHAPTER 7

For just short of five hundred years, the Grail was hidden by the Watchers
in their headquarters at Avalon. That none of them succumbed to the temptation
offered by the alien device in those successive generations is a testament to
the discipline of the order. But it was inevitable that such a powerful icon
would once again cause trouble.

A Watcher by the name Myrrdin, Merlin as he is more commonly known, read
the same scrolls I have translated. He read of Atlantis, the Grail, the Ark,
and the alien creatures who walked the Earth. He learned much of the ancient
ways. Indeed, I believe he stole some of the original scrolls that told of
some of the powers the wedjat of Atlantis had and used them to his advantage,
presenting himself as a magician to the people of his day. Indeed such things
as gunpowder, the use of a compass, which plants to be used for healing,
surely the humans of Atlantis had such technology and knowledge as part of
their day-to-day life, but they would be wonders to the people of Britain
ofk.D. 500, toiling in their fields and dying on average before the age of 30.

Imagine the effect this information had on Merlin?

One can understand Merlin's desire. I have been in the room deep under
Glastonbury Tor, surrounded by the scrolls of the Watchers. I too wondered why
they kept such knowledge hidden. How would I have

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felt if I had found information in those scrolls that I knew could help the
people around me ? Would I have been able to stay true to an ancient oath, or
would I have tried to spread the knowledge to do good? I cannot judge.

But there were more than scrolls under the Tor. In addition to the Grail,
there were other Airlia artifacts. I found a listing in one of the scrolls,
dated A.D. 489, which tells of the Grail, shaped like a golden cup, yet solid
on both ends—the first description I read. It also says that the Grail is not
complete by itself, that two special stones are needed for it to work. This
may have been much of the problem that it caused throughout the years—men
could hold the Grail but not partake of it!

It also tells of a weapon, a sword of unbreakable metal, yet lighter by
three times than the normal sword of the same size fashioned by the best of
current blacksmiths. And the sword had runes written into the handle and blade
telling of its power.

You must remember that Britain at this time was a divided land, racked with
wars between petty kingdoms, threatened from the north, east and south with
invasion.

What harm, this Merlin must have wondered, would there be in using this
wondrous sword as a symbol of power to help unite the land? After all, the
Watchers didn't even know what it really was.

So Merlin stole the sword from the Tor. He gave it to the one he thought
had the best chance of uniting the various factions, Uther Pendragon, one of
the two sons of King Constantine.

But the sword was not enough. Fighting continued and Merlin realized he
needed something stronger.

The myth is that he disguised Uther, brought him

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together with Ygraine, the wife of the Duke of Cornwall, and out of that
illegal bond came a son, Arthur.

This is not the truth.

Merlin stole the Grail from the Tor. He had it in mind to allow part of it
to be used, the part that brought knowledge, to the next ruler of Britain. But
he did not have the stones to work the Grail. And then it was taken from him
by one of the many fierce tribes from the north.

This brought about what the Watchers had feared. The Ones Who Wait brought
forth one of their own, Arthur, to regain the Grail. I believe Arthur was an
incarnation of Artad, using the ka method—his Shadow.

The Mission, of course, responded. Mordred, one of the many incarnations
ofAspasia's Shadow again using the ka, came forward to do war with Arthur.

"Is this ka thing connected with the Grail?" Yakov asked as the chapter came to an end.

"Perhaps we will find out later in the tale;" Che Lu said. "For now, let us hope Major Turcotte has a plan." She pointed at the screen. "Note, however that Artad, or his Shadow, was King Arthur, while Aspasia's Shadow was Mordred. I think our cause lies closer to what is in the lowest level of Qian-Ling than what is hidden in The Mission."

"Perhaps," Yakov allowed. "But you would have to convince the United Nations Alien Oversight Committee of that, and then all the countries that are aligning as Isolationists, Progressives, or Neutrals." He laughed. "I can just imagine trying to convince those politicians that Artad was once King Arthur!"