Legacy (71 page)

“You’ve become very popular lately in my country,” she said.

“Yes, I imagine I have. The people responsible for that popularity are no longer in a position to use men such as myself.”

Alice didn’t say anything but tried to block the man’s path as he stepped to the tent flap to enter. He easily moved her to the side. He saw Lee lying on the cot with a blanket pulled nearly to his chin. The Mechanic looked from the old man to the woman who now stood next to him. By the look in the older woman’s eyes, the Mechanic knew that if she had been armed she most definitely would have attempted something stupid.

“I believe I saw you and this man enter the mine during the battle outside. Who are you and why are you here?”

Alice neither moved nor spoke.

“Madam, know that while I don’t particularly like women, I also wish them no harm. However, I have on occasion killed many of them. I shall have no qualms about ending your life.”

“Why don’t you save your questions for the colonel? He’s in there,” she said. She tilted her head to the left, indicating Gallery Number Two.

“Ah, the very resourceful Colonel Collins. You know him on a personal level?”

Alice again didn’t answer.

“You have said nothing, but have answered me nonetheless, madam. I suspect this old man knows him also, and that you may be close to him in some way. Therefore, you will be what is known as a bargaining chip.”

“And you think Jack’s going to deal away whatever you want for two old farts like us?”

“For a mere weapon or two from the excavation, yes, he should have no possible argument.” He turned and raised a flashlight, clicking it on and off twice. “If not, he risks the chance of me killing you and sending the entire cave system tumbling down around them all. And then we all lose. Yes, he will trade, I believe.”

An explosion rocked the gallery. In the distance Alice heard the crashing of rocks and a rumbling beneath her feet.

“Please, don’t be alarmed. We just made sure that the front door closed behind us.”

The Mechanic gestured for his men to assemble. He took Alice by the arm and pulled her toward the back of the chamber, his men falling into step behind them.

*   *   *

Lee mumbled in his sleep, his good eye opening.

He didn’t know what had awakened him, but he felt the last trembling of the earth as it passed through the legs of the cot. He raised his head and felt the cotton in his mouth from the painkillers. He smacked his lips and that was when he thought he heard voices. He tilted his head and listened, but no one spoke again. He tried to sit up but found that his back wouldn’t work the way it should. So he threw his left leg over the side of the cot and moved his right leg over after it. He tapped the ground with his boot and tried to move again. This time he sat up until he could rest his weight on his left elbow. He looked around in the semidarkness of the tent. Alice was gone and that helped him get his thoughts into some sort of order. He finally sat up and saw his hat where one of his feet had knocked it to the floor. To Lee it looked as though it had landed a hundred miles away. He shook his head and closed his good eye. He tried to stand. He pushed upward with one hand and swiveled his hips until he felt his feet under him. Then he pushed with both hands against his knees and he was up.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad for a zombie,” he said to himself. “Now I know why they walk so slow in those movies. It damn well hurts.”

Lee turned shakily and eased the flap aside. He ducked his head back into the tent as the last of the terrorist force vanished through the old composite buildings left by the Visitors.

“What the hell is going on? I take a nap and everything falls to pieces. Where the hell is that old girl?” he asked himself, chancing another look outside. As he finally located the head of the force, Lee saw Alice in the front quarter of the men. She was being pulled along roughly toward the falls where Jack and his men had found the opening.

“Goddamn it,” he hissed. His brow furrowed and his lips set into a straight line.

Garrison Lee turned and looked back into the interior of the tent. He spied his cane and took hold of it. He reached down without feeling any of the previous pain or stiffness, snatched up the fedora, and placed it on his gray head. He stepped out of the tent and saw that the men, with Alice in tow, had vanished into the opening of the next gallery. When he finally looked away he saw the bodies of the men that the Mechanic had just killed. Lee closed his good eye and shook his head. Then something happened that he hadn’t experienced in some time—he became furious, murderously so. He opened his eye and looked at the cane in his hand. He angrily tossed it away and reached down to retrieve one of the fallen soldiers’ weapons. It was an Ingram submachine gun. Lee hefted it and liked the weight of it. He reached down and tore free the ammunition belt. It contained a pouch full of ammo clips for the weapon.

“I’m sorry, young man, but in return for the loan of your weapon I’ll kill the son of a bitch who killed you.”

*   *   *

Collins stood before the cement blockhouse and watched Captain Everett and Major Sebastian Krell enter. He could see the darkened and barred windows flare to life with light, which illuminated still more torn and tattered flags emblazoned with swastikas. The large eagle, symbol of the state, stretched across the opening of the blockhouse and Jack felt anger for what the Germans had done here. As he thought about the situation his eyes never left the windows. He was just dawdling along and totally cut off from any information on the fate of
Dark Star
. It was starting to drag down his ability to think clearly. Carl was forcing him to do things more in line with the book, reminding him that there were a bunch of young soldiers in here who depended on him.

Jack watched as Everett cleared the large blockhouse. He was coming to the conclusion that he would have to turn over command to Everett or Sebastian, because he was starting to take shortcuts, and shortcuts got men killed. Finally, Everett stepped to the large door.

“All clear, Jack,” he said. He nodded his head, indicating that he believed they had found just what they had come to Ecuador to find. “Mr. Director, you’d better bring in your equipment.”

Niles closed his eyes and thanked God that they had finally found something that would make all this death not as meaningless as it otherwise would have been. He gestured to the twenty soldiers who were carrying their cases, including a large computer for Pete.

“Are you coming, Jack?” Niles asked.

Collins acted as though he hadn’t heard Niles. This was the second time the director had noticed that Jack had wandered away in his mind.

Finally Niles slapped Collins on the shoulder and faced him.

“Colonel, are you with us?”

Jack nodded his head and, without saying a word, stepped past Niles and the men carrying the equipment. He went into the blockhouse.

Compton watched until he vanished and then turned to see Ellenshaw looking at him.

“Charlie, lend a hand and let’s get this thing over with.”

“Didn’t you feel that?” he asked, not even hearing Niles.

“What?”

“It felt like, I don’t know, a deep rumble, like an explosion.”

“Just help with this equipment, Charlie,” Niles said as he followed Jack inside the concrete laboratory.

Niles stood beside Jack and saw the technologically advanced weapons sitting in what looked like a large gun rack. There had to be close to a hundred of them. They were all intact and despite being covered in dust looked brand-new. Around the large room there were workstations, a much more elaborate setup than in the first gallery’s lab. There were film projectors and screens. There was what appeared to be discs of some kind, lined up and protected by clear plastic. There was a whole row of hanging alien environment suits, complete with helmets protected from the passage of time by the very plasticlike material they were made from. On the far concrete wall was a flag, and it was this that Jack and the others were staring at. It was blue, and it had the four circle emblem just like the one the senator had drawn for them in his dining room. The circles were blue, red, white, and gray. The flag was trimmed with gold tassels and it had a golden triangle in the upper left-hand corner.

“Wow,” a voice said from behind them.

Charlie Ellenshaw and Pete Golding entered the laboratory and set down the large case they had been struggling with. Appleby and Dubois followed them in and they too were kids seeing Disneyland for the first time.

“Amazing, simply amazing,” Appleby said as he saw the stored weapons of these ancient Visitors to the planet.

“Oh,” Ellenshaw said. He advanced into the room and found himself staring at a globe. It was large, about ten feet in diameter, and the Germans had covered it with a sheet of plastic. With Pete’s help, Ellenshaw pulled the sheet of thick plastic from the large globe. Both men stared at the unfamiliar terrain of a world that wasn’t theirs. “A green ocean, almost like our own. And look at the continents. They’re much smaller than ours and there are only—” Charlie slowly spun the globe. “—three large ones compared to our seven.”

Pete stepped back and looked at the ocean-covered world. He tilted his head and almost ran to the crate that he and Charlie had just wrestled inside. He pulled out his laptop. Before Jack could stop him, he opened the lid and turned it on. Collins, Niles, Sebastian, and Everett froze. They felt a momentary vibration, sharp and hard, which vanished far faster than the vibrations that had preceded it.

“Doc, you take it easy. Don’t make sudden moves like that.”

Golding ignored him. He was busy attaching what looked to be a camera to the laptop. He ran out a line and placed the small camera on the tabletop facing the globe.

“Did I ever tell you my big hobby when I was a kid, Niles?”

“No, Pete, you didn’t.”

Charlie Ellenshaw watched Pete move around like a bug on a hotplate. He smiled as he saw the enthusiasm in the computer man’s face.

“Well, it was astronomy. Mostly kid stuff. My parents bought me telescopes. I sent letters to NASA asking for pictures, things like that. Well, I had one set of pictures that amazed me and I used to stare at them for days on end.”

“You go, Pete,” Charlie said. He loved the way Golding had become excited. Ellenshaw knew that feeling of discovery and wanted Pete to take it all in.

Jack, Everett, Sebastian, and Niles turned and looked at Charlie, who smiled timidly.

“Europa, are you online?” he asked the laptop.

“Yes, Dr. Golding,” Europa answered in her sexy voice.

Appleby, the director, looked over at the MIT professor and raised his brows as the computer spoke in her Marilyn Monroe voice.

“Europa, do you see the planet’s representation in your camera lens?”

“Yes.”

“Do you recognize the surface features of the planet represented?”

Europa was silent for a moment. Pete looked up at the faces staring at him.

“Yes, Doctor.”

Pete stepped up to the large globe and pointed to a raised area mostly covered with snow. The mountain towered from the center of one of the landmasses.

“Europa, according to your records from NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope, what is the name of this mountain?”

“It is actually a volcano, Olympus Mons. Mons means mountain. It is the highest known mountain in the solar system.”

Oh, my God,” Appleby said as he stepped toward the globe and saw what Pete had noticed right off.

“Olympus Mons is calculated to be 373 miles across at its base and eighteen miles high,” Europa added, as if she were bragging about her knowledge.

Pete spun the globe and pointed at another mountain.

“In relation to the polar north and south, what mountain would you say this is?”

“Tharsis Montes, actually a mountain range consisting of three extinct volcanoes, located south of the previously mentioned Olympus Mons.”

“I can’t believe it,” Niles said, finally understanding what Europa, Pete, and Appleby saw.

“Do you mind letting us humans in on what you’re looking at?” Everett asked, angry that they were being left out of the thought process. The room remained quiet.

“Europa, what is the name of the planet you are currently examining?” Jack asked, showing that he had no patience for the amazement in the scientists’ faces.

“Mars.”

Jack was stunned. He leaned against the edge of the large table. He looked over at Everett and Sebastian and saw in their faces that they were just as stunned as he was.

“Look at the oceans,” Ellenshaw said. He joined Pete and placed a hand on his shoulder. They all stared at the world known to them their entire lives as the red planet, only now learning that it had once been beautiful and filled with green vegetation and gorgeous oceans.

“Niles, are you going to say that this is where our Visitors came from?” Everett asked, as everyone else remained silent.

“I’m not saying anything, Carl. Nothing at all.”

Ellenshaw saw something sitting in the corner. It was larger than the globe of Mars and was also covered in plastic. Charlie kicked a swastika-embossed flag out of the way and struggled with the thick plastic. He pulled on the tarp, assisted by Everett and Sebastian. As the plastic fell free they were stunned to see three more globes.