Colonization (Alien Invasion Book 3) (32 page)

“Chain?”

“Kind of like a scavenger hunt, where one thing leads to another,” Benjamin explained. “I suspect it’s a sequence of riddles, and what we’re after explains them, like a decoder ring. But I know more about history and alternative archaeology than most people. Once Terrence plants that virus in the network hub, we should get some clear time to reach colleagues we haven’t been able to talk openly with for fear of being overheard. After we get this — this
codex
, I guess you might call it — we should know where the hammer’s been hidden. And if we can reach it before they do, we might be able to destroy it … or hide it again.”

“I still don’t see how there were Templars in Colorado,” Cameron said. Piper looked at his profile. If Benjamin knew the most about alternative archaeology, Cameron came in second. It was a distant second, because Cameron had spent most of his youth disbelieving then disavowing his father’s work, but even Piper didn’t think there had been Crusaders on this side of the ocean.

“It may have been moved several times,” he said. “We can’t trace the history. The last move might have been recent. Moves of the codex, not the tablet, I mean.”

“Moved by whom?”

“Descendants of the Templars.”

“Who is that?”

“In this case,” said Benjamin, flipping to the next slide showing an enormous church, “the Mormons.”

Two of the rebel camp’s leftovers (Taylor and Olivia, Piper thought their names were) laughed, but Benjamin gave them a remanding look.

“I’m serious. Those of us who are on the outside of the Templar organization as it existed — and I’m sure that’s all of us here — can only guess at the organization’s trajectory through the ages. We know they were highly,
highly
secretive and ritualistic. Any number of modern-day secret societies are believed to be linked to those roots. Like the Freemasons. Or the largest power structures in any society: the churches.”

“I could believe the Vatican,” said Cameron. “But the
Mormons?”

“The Catholic church of course has its ties,” Benjamin said. “But think about it. There’s always been a secret elite. The elite makes the rules and pulls the strings. For a long time, those were the religions.
All
the religions. Call me cynical, but it’s hard to believe even the most stalwart holy people back in the day failed to notice their relative wealth, their relative power, and the way they could get others to do what they wanted.”

“Now hang on a second.” Piper hadn’t practiced any religion in years, but old roots went deep. That had sounded like an insult, and she felt the need to defend what she’d once believed with all her heart.

“It’s not a wholesale judgment, Piper,” Benjamin said, holding up a hand. “But it’s objectively true that modern politicians and institutional figures of
all
stripes, across
all
faiths, are in the business of controlling hearts and minds. Many do so honestly. Plenty do not. But all hold control in their palms, to a greater or lesser degree. The Mormons, in America, would be no exception. And the Templars’ descendants, be they Freemasons or the friggin’ Rotary Club for all we know, would be foolish not to make contact. To bring them into the secret at least. And honestly, is it really surprising that there’s a connection? We now know there’s been a prominent Astral contact site in North America all along, and that Vail was one of their cornerstones. Utah’s next door, and just so happens to be home to the Latter-day Saints. Joseph Smith talked about alien life all the time. Their planet of Kolob and all that. Hell, in the twenty-teens, there was even a public art project erected in Salt Lake City showing two Mormon missionaries arriving in a flying saucer, one with blue skin. They got details wrong, but the artists building statues outside Heaven’s Veil probably have it wrong too, and they're right there among them. After all we’ve seen, is it really so crazy to believe that there’s a connection, church to stars?”

“You said it was church to Templars.”

“Sure. Enough of a connection to the idea of alien visitation that, when the Templars or whoever came knocking, the church would listen. And would, perhaps, help hide something they believed in enough to fear its return.”

The room was momentarily quiet. It dawned on Piper that most everyone who worked at the lab and the few who’d survived the camp massacre were all present and listening. It was probably overkill to explain all this theory to the rank-and-file grunts — but the fact that there
were
grunts where there had previously only been workers gave her goose bumps. It meant that they might be through studying and analyzing. Piper had brought them information, and now Benjamin knew what it meant. The time to act was nigh. Now, while they were still ahead of the game, before the Astrals solved the puzzle and fell into pursuit.

“So where does your analysis suggest this codex is hidden?” Trevor sounded stilted, as if reading from a script.

Benjamin smiled and clicked to the next slide: a sheer cliff with a wide parking lot at what the shot showed of its base. Several vehicle-sized tunnels were cut into the rock, yawning into darkness, their mouths muffled with gates.

“Little Cottonwood Canyon, outside Salt Lake City. Kept safe in the hidden tunnels of the Mormon Genealogical Archives.”

Beside Piper, Cameron’s mouth fell open. So did Piper’s. They knew about Little Cottonwood Canyon. Benjamin wasn’t wrong about that particular Mormon connection to extraterrestrial life, and nobody here needed convincing.

“That’s an Astral outpost,” Cameron said.

“Unfortunately, it is.” Benjamin nodded. “According to the tablet they found under the Apex pyramid, the Astrals are practically sitting on what they’ve lost.” He shifted uncomfortably then continued. “This mission’s success, then, depends on us snatching it from under them before they realize it’s there.”

C
HAPTER
51

“I don’t like this,” Benjamin said.

Nathan Andreus smirked across the table. The room’s door was closed but not impervious to the intrusion of small, pearl-sized silver spheres. Nathan’s signal detector was in the table’s center, still declaring the room clear. But the detector was a rubber stamp, not a deterrent or a protection. If the BB entered this room, they’d be sunk. They’d be alerted to its arrival with no time to hide. They were clearly plotting something, and Benjamin had never been good at keeping a straight face and a secret. Andreus had only told him about the spy among them because Benjamin was the linchpin that would make their deception possible. Without that, he’d be as much in the dark as everyone until the big reveal beside the Great Salt Lake.

“Of course you don’t,” said Andreus.

“We should at least tell Ivan. He’s the muscle. Ivan has the survivors from the rebel camp who are hot for revenge. They can at least stay ahead of us and — ”

“Nobody’s hotter for revenge than I am.” Andreus recrossed his legs and leaned back. “But this will only work if the Astrals don’t think we’re expecting problems with this plan of ours. They know we don’t think they’re stupid. If we go out heavy, they’ll know we’re assuming the shuttles are watching from above. Then it’s a big game of who knows what. Trust me.” Nathan’s disturbing smile bunched his goatee. “I’ve done this sort of thing before.”

“So we go in unarmed?”

“Not unarmed, but not heavy. We can’t take any of my biggest, best vehicles. Remember, this is cat and mouse. After your little performance, explaining the mission to everyone, they’ll assume we’re going into the front lateral tunnel of the Cottonwood archive. They’ll get out of our way when we arrive — trying to make it look like we just managed to sneak by without being seen — because they
want
you to take the supposed codex.” Nathan laughed. “Where did you get that photo you showed of the codex we’re supposedly looking for anyway?”

“It’s a back stock photo from the Smithsonian. I think it’s an ancient adding machine, like an abacus 2.0, but I’m not totally sure.”

Andreus laughed again then settled. “So that’s where we have to go: into the front lateral tunnel. And that adding machine — our decoy — is what everyone in the group other than the few of us who know the truth needs to believe we’re after. Everything has to go exactly by the supposed book. The BB will follow you, and I can hang behind to verify that it does. Then we branch off: Cameron, Trevor, and I going for the plate the tablet actually talks about.

“How can you know the BB will follow me?” Benjamin asked.

“Because I’ve been watching it for days, and it
always
follows you. It’s only with Cameron now because he’s out in the front room delivering ‘important mission information’ while it thinks you’re asleep. It even hung out in your room well after you
were
supposedly snoring. Believe me, I’d been hoping it would just leave and we wouldn’t need Cameron’s distraction. I didn’t want to have to tell him about this, too.”

“Cameron can keep a secret.”

Andreus assessed Benjamin, who felt X-rayed.

“I sure as hell hope so. Because if someone looks directly at that BB, we won’t be able to trust any of this from that point on. Even now, part of me thinks they’re playing a long con: trying to trick us into lying in front of the spy BB so we’ll show our true hand elsewhere, the way it played Piper to deliver that information then
almost
played you to decipher it for them.”

Benjamin nodded slowly. That near-miss had occurred to him with some ferocity. If Andreus hadn’t noticed the signal and its source, Benjamin would have given the same basic briefing, but telling everyone the truth instead of the lie.

“If we’re trying to mislead them,” said Benjamin, “why don’t I just stay in the lab, pretending to work while you sneak out to Salt Lake and grab the plate unseen?”

“Because we won’t
be
unseen.” Andreus pointed at the ceiling. “The trick here is to almost show them what we’re after —
almost
, but not quite. Haven’t you ever lied to someone, Benjamin?”

“Sure.” But staring into Andreus’s eyes, he felt like a rookie masquerading as a veteran.

“Little lies sell deception. Big lies get you caught. If you’re not greedy, you can get away with a little lie here and there. It’s like warming an ice-cold bath one degree at a time.”

Andreus sat forward and continued. “The shuttles will see us leave this place, so we have to explain
why
we’re leaving, and do that part of it openly. The Astrals knew you’d crack the Templar code when they couldn’t, so you had to do that, too. We’ll have eyes on us the entire time. This mission has to succeed, and all on the sly. So no one can know. We have to go in numbers. Not because we need them to get the book from the archive, but because going in numbers is what we’d do if we thought they weren’t watching, and if we were truly pulling a trick we thought they’d never see coming — while simultaneously pulling a
different
trick they
actually
don’t
.”

Benjamin planted his head in his palms. “This hurts my brain.”

“Oh, come on now. That big brain of yours? You’re humanity’s salvation, Mr. Bannister.”

“Or its downfall.”

“We get the plate.” Andreus tapped the table for emphasis. “I’ve communicated with your man, Terrence. He’ll inject his virus in time with our finding the artifact. When the network opens and we’re again topside, we can broadcast our find. We’ll grab the artifact and smuggle it out then rejoin the group on the decoy mission to try and find your typewriter thing (and ‘unfortunately’ fail) then leave. We’ll act disappointed that the tablet steered us wrong and go home. They’ll never know it steered us right and gave us what we needed. If we’re lucky, no one fights.”

“Can’t the Astrals intercept the messages you’re sending to Terrence?”

“The Astrals know about our new channel of discussion,” Andreus said, “but that’s okay because reestablishing a channel to Terrence is what crafty people like us would do if we didn’t know the Astrals were watching. So yes, they’ll hear whatever we say to each other. But fortunately, Terrence and I have worked out a simple code so I can tell him what I really want him to do, out in the open, without raising alien eyebrows. If they had them.”

“How did you manage that?”

“Did you ever tell a kid, ‘Don’t you
dare
mop that floor, Timmy’ because you want him to do the opposite?”

Benjamin stared. “You’re kidding.”

“The Astrals are terrible at understanding the nuances of human communication. This is safe, especially given how little needs to be said. Remember, the Astrals let my people use our comm channels openly as part of our deal. Yet we’ve been talking behind our hands, to some degree, the entire time.”

Benjamin chewed his lip. It would work. If the channel was already established, Terrence only needed a signal. A command of “Now” would suffice. But he still didn’t like it, with so many ways to go wrong.

“You’re afraid,” Andreus said, watching him.

Benjamin didn’t respond.

“It’s okay, Benjamin. Everyone’s afraid. It’s not bravery to act when you’re sure everything will be fine. Brave is being scared shitless and acting anyway.”

“I don’t want to be brave.”

Benjamin didn’t think it was cowardice holding him back. He flat-out
didn’t want to do this
— not because of his or anyone’s fear but because it simply wouldn’t work. The people they had for this mission weren’t fighters. With the exception of the rebel leftovers, they were all scientists. The Astrals had disposed of their fighting force, leaving Ivan and a few others in possession of a killer instinct. Ivan would agree to this plan in a bloody instant and arm everyone to the teeth if he knew its full truth, but that was
why
nobody had told him.