Black Sun: A Thriller (43 page)

“Well,” he said, false shock covering his face, “since I can’t even afford a funeral these days … I guess the job is yours.”

H
awker was riding shotgun in a Bell JetRanger as it crossed the Everglades of South Florida and descended toward the tarmac in an isolated corner of Miami International.

Someone in the NRI or CIA had telegraphed his whereabouts to the State Department, part of the cover he would now maintain. As a result, U.S. marshals and members of the FBI were undoubtedly searching for him, possibly even in Miami. To keep the cover clean he would have to stay on the run. He was used to that.

As the JetRanger descended, Hawker gazed across the flat expanse of Florida. The air was warm and humid, an incredible difference from frigid Washington. To the west the sun was setting, a giant orange ball once again, falling through the hazy sky.

The latest estimates had the poles returning to normal after thirty-seven days, and a similar event as not likely to occur for another five thousand years.

In the meantime, the aurora that had sprouted over central Mexico was being watched closely, guarded by an impressive phalanx of military hardware but left
alone. All involved agreed that ignorant interference in the device would only risk its failure.

Yuri had been carried back to San Ignacio and buried on holy ground, a martyr unknown to most of the world. Perhaps as it should be.

The JetRanger touched down at the center of the helipad. The pilot pointed across the ramp, to an old, unadorned cargo jet.

Hawker shook the pilot’s hand and grabbed his pack. He jumped out of the helicopter and made his way across the apron to a forty-year-old DC-8, retrofitted with new engines.

The plane carried no markings. But the men who stood outside it were most definitely retired military. Thirty-year vets by the look of things: weathered, confident faces, gray buzz cuts and steely eyes.

Hawker walked up to them.

“There’s trouble,” the captain said. “You must be our passenger?”

Hawker nodded.

“My name’s Samuels,” he told Hawker, shaking his hand. He pointed to the man across from him. “This is Halle, my copilot. And for God sakes don’t tell us your name. We’d have to go through six months of brainwashing to get it out.”

Hawker smiled; there was something undeniably positive about these men. And he had a sense that they’d been told he was one of the good guys.

“What’s the plan?” Hawker asked, assuming something had been set up.

“We take you anywhere you want to go,” Samuels said. “I have ten thousand miles of gas and a tanker
standing by in every direction in case for some reason that ain’t enough for you.”

The captain looked across the airport to the setting sun. “What I don’t have is time. We have to be wheels up by sunset, with or without you. So, whoever the hell you are, you’re cutting it damned close.”

Hawker glanced over his shoulder. The sun was just touching the horizon. If he was right, the FBI was on its way, chasing a hot tip as to his whereabouts, someone’s bright idea to make sure he didn’t change his mind. It was okay; he had no intention of changing it now.

“Let’s go,” Hawker said.

“Where to?”

“I’ll tell you when I decide.”

The captain nodded and ushered Hawker aboard.

Taking a seat in the passenger compartment of this particular aircraft was not much different than being part of the cargo, so Hawker chose the jump seat behind the pilots instead.

He strapped himself in as they ran through the checklist and received expedited taxi clearance.

Several minutes later the roar of the engines announced the beginning of the takeoff roll and the big DC-8 rumbled down the two-mile strip of concrete.

Three-quarters of the runway behind them, the plane rotated and finally broke free from the earth.

The old bird climbed at a steady pace, engines roaring, the cabin shaking and rattling around him. He felt a sense of kinetic energy, of freedom and gathering momentum. His world had changed. It had been painful and destructive, but he’d come out the other side. He
wasn’t sure what the future held, but he would rush forward to meet it, much as he was rushing forward now, surrounded and enveloped by something greater than himself. He was part of life once again, instead of death. And for the first time in years the darkness had left his soul.

High desert of Nevada, three months later

A
rnold Moore stepped out of a gray four-wheel-drive Humvee with the USAF logo stamped on the door. He stared at the open expanse that stretched out before him. It was the same type of barren terrain he’d seen on the journey between Groom Lake air base and Yucca Mountain, with one minor difference. This was the desert in its natural state—unscarred by bomb craters, piles of rubble, or endless rounds of weapons testing.

In the distance, whitish salt flats shimmered in the morning sun. Beyond them lay rugged mountains the color of chocolate, as if the endless waves of heat had blackened them over time.

To his surprise, Moore found it beautiful, majestic, awe inspiring.

As he admired the scenery, a second man exited the Humvee behind him. Moore turned to Nathanial Ahiga. “Ready for a hike?”

“I really think I’ve had enough of climbing,” Ahiga said.

“No ladders this time,” Moore said. “I promise you.”

With Ahiga following, Moore took to a winding trail that snaked up the side of a weathered hill, about a hundred and fifty feet high.

“I thought you might want to see this,” Moore said. “In a way it was your idea.”

“My idea?” Ahiga said.

Moore nodded. “I was trying to figure out what we should do, based on what they sent back to us. You told me it was the other way around. That our descendants weren’t asking us to do anything, but were responding to what we asked of them. That being the case, I thought we’d better send them a message. Just to be sure.”

They crested the hill. Ahead of them, a deep circular section had been hollowed out. In the center, a hundred feet below, stood a tall, thin obelisk, gleaming like polished silver.

“You’re leaving them a marker,” Ahiga said.

“The Maya called them Stelle,” Moore said. “According to McCarter they carved stones like this around most of their major monuments. Ours is made of hardened titanium, covered with a layer of clear Kevlar, but the principle’s the same.”

He pointed to the side facing them. Markings could be seen in the surface.

“The larger details of what occurred have been engraved on its sides, laser cut and protected, in four different languages. English, Russian, Chinese, and—out of respect for those who kept the legend alive—Mayan hieroglyphics.”

“The Brotherhood of the Jaguar,” Ahiga said.

Moore nodded. The small sect had kept the truth
alive as they journeyed from South America to the jungles of the Yucatan and the surrounding countries. Protecting the secret of the stones, passing it on in the best way they could, energized by the feeling given to them by the stones themselves.

In some ways Moore, Danielle, and McCarter had themselves become members of the Brotherhood. Certainly, as he looked back on it now, Moore found many of his own decisions irrational, even if they were ultimately, desperately needed.

In some strange way, he’d felt a sense of fulfillment and release only as he watched the laser cutting the glyphs into the sides of the marker. He knew then he was doing his best to pass the message on.

Was it the influence of the stones and the effect they had on his brain chemistry, or was it his own sense of duty?

He couldn’t be sure. Ultimately he’d decided that it didn’t matter. Certainly others had made the decision to help without such influence, Hawker and Ahiga chief among them.

Remembering that, Moore turned back to the scientist.

“Thank you,” he said, “for what you did.”

The old Navajo shook his head. “For giving me a chance to help the world? I should be thanking you.”

Moore didn’t feel that way, but he understood what the man was saying.

At the edge of the hollowed-out section a large crane swung a bucket of fill dirt into position and released it, allowing it to cascade down the side of the crater.

“Why are you burying it?” Ahiga asked.

“For the same reason we’re keeping it all a secret,” Moore said. “We’re not sure that the world at large is ready to comprehend it yet. But this way, the people who need this information should find it about a hundred years before they decide to do something about it.”

Ahiga cocked his head.

“The erosion in this valley is ninety-five percent wind driven,” Moore explained. “It progresses at an extremely consistent rate. About a thousand years from now, the bulk of this hill will be scoured away and the obelisk will begin to appear.”

Ahiga looked out over the barren plain. “What if no one’s here to see it?”

“Three others are being set up,” Moore explained. “One each in Russia, China, and Mexico. In addition, each marker contains a small nuclear core, an atomic clock—like those on the Voyager spacecraft—and a transmitter. If no one has found these things by the time they’re needed, the markers will begin broadcasting a signal to draw someone to them. Inside, stored in multiple formats, is everything we know about the stones.”

Ahiga put his hands in his pockets and looked out over the expanse once again. He seemed pleased.

“Symmetry,” he said. “They sent us four stones that were transmitting signals. We send them four that are doing the same. I like it.”

Moore liked, it too.

“Any worries?”

“Tons of them,” Moore said. “I worry about everything I ever do. But this …” He waved a hand over the hollowed-out mountain, and the obelisk slowly being buried within it.

“Nathanial, this is the first message I’ve ever sent that I’m certain will be received.”

Thank you for joining me on this latest adventure. For those interested in the creative process and the blend of fact and fiction in this novel, I offer the following, beginning with my own thoughts on 2012.

At this point in time, it would be almost impossible not to have heard of the Mayan prophecy. Knowing that other authors and filmmakers had already explored the same subject, I felt it was important to take a different path. That path centered on three questions:

1. What did the Mayan people really think about 2012?
   
2. What type of event could possibly change the world or destroy a good portion of it?
   
3. If the prophecy were to come true, how could the Mayan people have possibly known?
   

In answering the first question, I found that the concept of a 2012 cataclysm is far more ingrained in our society that it was in the Mayan one. The primary source of the 2012 prophecy is the writings of Chilam Balam, the Jaguar Priest. These texts were written after the
Spanish conquest, and while they do contain references to dark events occurring at the end of the thirteenth Baktun (December 21, 2012), the vast majority of the writing focuses on other, more mundane parts of Mayan life, and in some ways serves as a method of explaining the oppression of the conquistadors.

Interestingly enough, the Jaguar Priest’s books were actually written at different times, in different places, and by different people, yet they are referred to as if they were the work of a single person, as if some greater force was behind the whole. In time, this thought worked its way into the novel, with the fictional concept of the Brotherhood of the Jaguar: a hidden group acting as one, carrying out their mission, throughout time and despite all odds.

Beyond the words of Chilam Balam, there is less to go on than one might imagine. But less is not nothing. The Tortugero Monument Six is indeed a reality. It lies in a place once ruled by Ahau Balam, the Jaguar Lord, in what is now the Mexican state of Tabasco. Tortugero Monument Six is one of the very few—in fact some say the only—hieroglyphic carving directly referencing the end of Baktun 13. As described in the book, it tells of Bolan Yokte, the god of change (or the god of war, according to some), descending from the Black “something” and accomplishing a great feat. Interestingly enough, Bolon Yokte is as much a mystery as the 2012 reference itself. Little is known about this god and his place in Mayan theism. As described in the book, a portion of the carving is damaged and thus a full translation/interpretation is impossible. Could it be the Black Sun, or the Black Sky? No one knows at this point, and unless something new comes to light we probably never will.

To answer the second question, I had to find a new way to destroy the world. Not as easy as you might think! This earth and the creatures that live on it have proven incredibly adaptive to change. Ice ages, droughts, plagues: Life has survived all of these. Earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, no problem. Life even survived a rock the size of mount Everest hitting our planet at 70,000 miles an hour (the Chicxulub impact, which is believed to have destroyed the dinosaurs).

As I considered this, it occurred to me that we constantly hear how nature is going to rise up and throw off the burden of man, destroying us in the process. And yet, even nature’s greatest efforts have little effect on mankind as a whole. So I chose to write from the opposite perspective: Even if nature could not destroy man, man almost certainly had the power to destroy nature and himself.

And that left the question of how the Mayan people could have known or predicted this. There were only two ways that I could fathom: either they could see the future in some form of clairvoyance (an answer that was not concrete enough for me), or it was told to them by someone who knew it. In the greater sense, the theme of time travel had been settled on during the writing of
Black Rain
, the novel that preceded this book, but I had chosen that theme with this end already in mind. Of course, as far as we know, no one has ever traveled back to meet us, but there are enough theoretical physicists who think it might happen someday for me to believe in the possibility.