Area 51: The Grail-5 (31 page)

"Roger. This is Checkmate Six. Over."

"CAG to checkmate. You've got the bogies. Clear our way in. Over."

"Roger."

CAG watched as one of his squadrons of F-18s accelerated, firing their afterburners.

"Where's that Hawkeye from the Washington?' CAG called back to the Stennis.

"We have it west of your flight at high altitude, closing on our position,"

the carrier reported.

A new voice cut in—Captain Robinette. "Concentrate on your attack, CAG. I'm sending one of the CAP F-18s to take out that Hawkeye."

The pilot of the F-18 detailed to destroy the Hawkeye was flying with afterburners on toward the slower-moving plane headed directly toward the fleet. He wasn't worried about the confrontation, since the Hawkeye was unarmed. He flipped the switch turning on his 20mm Gatling gun and slowed as he neared the other plane.

The Hawkeye made no attempt to maneuver, coming straight on. At one mile, closing rapidly, the pilot pressed the trigger and held it for two seconds before breaking right. As he passed he could see the tracers race toward the Hawkeye and hit. Chunks of the plane blew off as the 20mm rounds ripped through.

"What the hell?" the pilot muttered as he noticed the 273

rotodome on top seperate from the body of the plane and continue flying on its own as the plane nosed over and headed for the ocean. He turned hard, circling around. The rotodome was slowly disintegrating, changing from a solid into what appeared to be a black cloud that was spreading out.

The pilot keyed his radio, but there was nothing but static. He changed frequencies with the same result.

"We've lost all communications with Pearl."

Robinette spun his chair around. "Say again?" "We've lost all communications, sir. SATCOM. High frequency. Everything."

Robinette turned back. There was a clear Plexiglas screen on one side. A sailor stood behind it, updating the position of the strike force and the enemy flight. The two were closing on each other at rapid speeds. A tremor of unease passed through the captain.

The leader of the forward F-18 squadron blinked as the incoming flight disappeared from his radar screen. "Anyone have a lock on bogeys? Over."

"Negative. They're gone. My radar is down!"

Without their radars, the F-18s from the Stennis were forced to find their targets visually. This was difficult flying at twelve hundred miles an hour, especially when their targets were approaching head-on at the same speed.

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"There!" the squardon commander yelled as he fired his 20mm cannon at a blur he spotted coming at him.

The bogeys were past, F-18s passing each other at a combined speed of over two thousand miles an hour. The startled commander of the Checkmaters whipped his head left and right, barely catching a glimpse of the enemy aircraft. They weren't up to intercept. The path to the Washington was clear for the strike force.

Robinette pounded the arm of his chair in frustration. He was blind and cut off from both his strike force and his protective CAP. He could only hope his men's training held true and both did their jobs.

CAG had taken over lead of the flight. Without communication among the planes, it boiled down to a simple tactic—everyone was to follow him and do as he did.

He spotted two massive silhouettes on the horizon and knew he had the targets in sight. He armed his bombs as he searched the sky for a protective air cover, but the sky seemed to be clear.

In their abbreviated mission briefing before takeoff, CAG had divided the two targets among his planes. He pointed his nose toward the Washington and was relieved to see the planes designated for the Jahre Viking break left and head toward their target. Without his aiming radar, and not having to worry about air cover, CAG decided the best plan was to come in low and slow and drop his bomb when he was right on top of the target. He would use the plastic sight bolted to the front of the cockpit reserved for when the radar didn't work.

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He extended flaps and reduced throttle. He could make out more details about the Washington as he got closer. Planes lined the deck. Some adjustments had been made to the ship, particularly in the radar array and bridge island. Then he saw the people. Hundreds covering the forward part of the flight deck. Men, women, and children. Most of the adults were dressed in Navy uniforms.

CAG hesitated, and that was all it took for him to fly by the carrier, the rest of his strike force following without a single bomb being dropped. The same happened with the force at the Jahre Viking.

"Damn it!" CAG cursed as he banked and circled wide, coming around for another run. He steeled himself for what had to be done. With his squadrons right behind him, CAG came in for a second run. He lined up his sight on the center of the flight deck. Then he released the bomb. He banked hard and up, looking over his shoulder as the bomb arced toward the carrier.

Two hundred meters above the flight deck the bomb exploded. CAG cursed as he watched the rest of his planes drop their loads with the same result.

Inside the Washington's cavernous hangar deck, a shield generator, similar but smaller than the ones inside Easter Island and Qian-Ling, spun, projecting a field completely around the carrier. Aboard the Jahre Viking was a twin generator, also protecting it.

Alarms clanged and Captain Robinette ran to the wing of his bridge, looking up in the sky. A group of small

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dots had appeared in the southern sky. He watched helplessly as his CAP

reacted, going to intercept.

Unable to use their targeting radars, the F-18s flying CAP had to rely on their Gatling guns. Given that they were moving faster than Mach I, and the incoming bogeys were flying close to one thousand miles an hour, it was like being in a car going full speed and threading a needle held by someone on the side of the road. They had one pass as the bogeys came in, firing long bursts in the hope of hitting something.

Miraculously, one bogey F-18 was struck in the wing, huge holes torn out of it, but the damage was immediately repaired by nanotechs.

The other eleven bogeys nosed over and picked up even more speed as they branched out, five heading toward the Stennis and one each toward each of the accompanying ships in the battle group.

The Stennis had only four 20mm Vulcan Phalanx guns for close-in protection.

The escort ships were more heavily armed, and as they were on the outside, they began firing first. Unfortunately, they had the same problem as the jets—the Phalanxes were normally radar aimed and automatically fired. In this emergency, they were being manually fired and aimed by eye.

The cruiser Champlain scored a direct hit on one of the F-18s heading toward the Stennis, the round smashing into the cockpit, killing the human pilot. The plane spiraled down toward the ocean out of control.

From his bridge, Robinette watched events unfold, and before the first explosion he realized what the enemy's plan was. The Champlain was the first to be hit,

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an F-18 flying straight into its bridge, killing the entire command group.

"Kamikazes!" Robinette exclaimed as more F-18s hit his escort ships. He saw one coming in low over the water, directly for his bridge. He could see the line of tracers as one of the Phalanxes tried to hit it. A second later, just before the F-18 reached the bridge, the fuel canister slung below each wing popped open, a fog of black spreading out from each. Then the F-18 slammed into the bridge.

It took the air wing forty minutes to return to the task force. CAG circled overhead surveying the ships. He could see damage on some of them, but they were all afloat. He tried to contact the Stennis, but the radios were still out. He did a fly-by, low over the deck, and was startled to see no one moving about. There was no signal officer to wave him in for landing. It was as if the ship were deserted. He could also see the damage to the bridge. He circled once more, the rest of the air wing waiting overhead, fuel levels dropping.

"The hell with it," CAG muttered. He didn't need a signal officer to land.

He'd done hundreds of carrier landings and he could see that the wires were ready. He leveled off, reduced throttle, and came in for a perfect landing as his tailhook caught the first wire. He was slammed forward against the restraints as the F-18 came to an abrupt halt.

He cursed as he slid back the canopy and saw no crew members rushing to his plane to clear it for the next jet to land. He unbuckled and climbed out of the cockpit, down to the flight deck. It was unnerving to be 278

standing there with no one else about when the flight deck was normally a bustle of activity.

Then he noticed that the damage on the bridge island was changing, appearing as if it were slowly repairing itself. A sailor appeared in a hatchway, staggering toward CAG, arms held out. There were others behind him, their eyes vacant and dull.

CAG turned and ran down the flight deck toward the rear of the ship. His second in command was coming in low and level, doing a fly-by to see what was happening. CAG swung his arms, the classic wave-off signal.

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QIAN-LING, CHINA

Ts'ang Chieh knelt in front of the large black door, backed up by two hundred Airlia in flowing robes. One by one, each Airlia went to the door and inserted his or her spear/sword into a slot five feet off the floor, just to the right of the center seam. The Airlia would then go back to his or her place and kneel.

As each sword or spear was inserted, the door began to glow. Golden bands rose from the floor upward. When the last Airlia slid his spear into the slot, the door became completely golden, bathing all those who knelt in front of it with its glow. Heads bowed as the large doors began to swing open. Lexina prostrated herself, the other Ones Who Wait following suit.

When the doors were completely open, she risked a glance up. A single black tube, resting in a silver cradle, was set on an altar of clear crystal. The top of the tube slid back. Ts'ang Chieh went to the right of the altar, picked up a robe, and stood perfectly still, waiting.

An alien hand grasped the side of the tube, six fingers pulling. A tall Airlia with long flowing red hair appeared, and long legs slid over the side of the tube, touching the ground. Artad stood as Ts'ang Chieh brought forward the robe, wrapping it around Artad's shoulders.

Ts'ang Chieh cried out something in the alien tongue

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and the two hundred Kortad replied with one voice. Lexina's body was shaking, tears flowing down her cheeks. This was the moment her people had waited over two hundred generations for.

They were no longer The Ones Who Wait.

AREA 51, NEVADA

On the main screen of the Cube, Larry Kincaid could watch the progress of the bouncer carrying Turcotte as it raced across the Atlantic, but his entire being was caught up in the grid problem Che Lu had given him. The computer had gone through all twenty-four points and then all possibilities for a second hit on Easter Island without success. He'd reprogrammed it to initiate at Giza with the second hit to be Qian-Ling.

He'd already considered the possibility that the guardian computers at those locations had been moved there after the grid points were recorded, but again that did him no good. He had to think of possibilities that might work, not ones that were non-starters.

If the grids had been manipulated by a number code— for example, each one moved slightly—that wouldn't make a difference because the points would still line up. Unless it was a graduated number code where the number change shift depended on the original number, but that seemed very complicated unless it was a set code the Airlia used all the time. In which case, he was again down a dead-end path.

He had a feeling the solution was right in front of him, but he just wasn't seeing it.

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"We will be there in fifteen minutes." Turcotte's voice echoed out of the speaker in the center of the conference table. "Have a copy, of all that has been translated from Burton's manuscript ready for me, particularly anything about The Mission."

"We'll do that," Yakov said. "We'll see you shortly." The speaker went dead and the Russian turned to Che Lu. The news that the entire Space Command team had been wiped out and Duncan was in the hands of Aspasia's Shadow did nothing to lighten a mood that was already heavy. "We still have not found anything to help him with. We have an idea what the Grail's effect is, but it is now in Aspasia's Shadow's hands."

The main screen in the Cube showed the airfield above, a video camera tracking the bouncer as it hovered and moved toward Hangar One. Larry Kincaid barely spared it a glance as he focused on the rotating sphere covered with red dots filling the computer screen in front of him.

When he'd first started working in the space program in the sixties, his immediate supervisor had always emphasized what he called "reverse thinking."

If an engineer ran into a problem that he couldn't get through within a reasonable amount of time, the suggestion was to try to look at the problem the opposite way one had been approaching it.

What was the opposite of a point on a sphere? Kincaid asked himself.

Then he saw it.

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Mike Turcotte's head felt heavy; his thought processes were slow and fragmented, like sand pouring through an hourglass.

"My friend!" Yakov held out a hand to help Turcotte off the edge of the bouncer. "You do not look well."

The hangar was almost deserted, a stark contrast to the normal bustle of activity that had gone on here for decades.

"What have you learned?" Turcotte asked.

"We have much of the manuscript translated," Yakov said. He gestured toward the elevator and led the way as he spoke. "We have learned bits and pieces, but the exact composition of the Grail and the location of The Mission have eluded us so far."

"Easter Island?" Turcotte asked as the elevator doors slid shut.

"Nothing from Kelly Reynolds since the last message," Yakov answered. "The SEALs have not reported back and are presumed lost. And to top all that, contact with the naval Task Force has been lost."