Atlantis: Bermuda Triangle Page 14

  Sautran’s symbol was in the same sphere Dane was currently in. Lou Wilkins, the crew’s imaging specialist was in Green 1, was shown to be on the lowest level, where the main imaging units all terminated. Bob Freeman’s, the habitat specialist, was in Red 2, the habitat’s life systems sphere.

  “Uh--” Wilkins’ voice was in the background, coming over the intercom. “Hard to tell, L-T. It’s moving straight up. All I’ve got is radar and sonar. But there’s nothing on the planet that big and alive. Hell, there’s nothing been built that big either. I’m trying--” there was a burst of static.

  “Lou?” Sautran’s voice now had an edge to it.

  “Five thousand feet and rising,” Wilkins reported. “Geez, this thing is ascending fast. We don’t have anything that can come up that quickly under control. Even the Japanese don’t have anything that--” static again.

  Sautran was no longer talking to the Log, leaving the recorder running as he dealt with this unexpected situation.

  “Freeman, get out of there. Get to the pod. Everyone to the pod. ASAP!”

  Dane nodded. Sautran was doing the right thing.

  “Lou, give me something. What is this thing?”

  “Two thousand feet below and still closing,” Wilkins reported. “I’m turning on the IR searchlights and imagers. See if we can’t get a look-see at--- Geez!” Wilkins voice went up several octaves. “Everything’s going nuts here.”

  “Same here, Lou,” Sautran’s voice was tight. “I’m reading major systems failures everywhere. Life support is--” static for several seconds. “--failure--” static “--diverting--”

  The recorder went dead, catching Dane by surprise, his ears straining to try to hear through the static. Dane waited, letting it play out for another minute but there was nothing.

  He checked the window that showed crew member status. All signs had also blipped out. Total system failure across the board. Dane looked about the command sphere. He wasn’t an expert, but everything seemed to be working fine now. He checked current crew member status. Nothing. They were all gone. Or their crew indicator sensors were gone. But Dane knew, without having to check the other six remaining spheres he hadn’t been in, that there was nobody on board but him. At least they’d managed to escape in the pod. Dane assumed that the Glomar would recover the sphere once it reached the surface.

  He got out of the chair and left the command sphere to climb down and let Sin Fen and Ariana inside.

  *****

  The National Security Agency was established in 1952 by President Truman as part of the Department of Defense. It’s mission was to focus on communications and cryptological intelligence, a field known as SIGINT, or signal’s intelligence.

  While the majority of what the NSA did was highly classified, it was widely accepted that the organization was the largest employer of mathematicians in the world.

  One of those mathematicians who had been with the organization for over two decades was Patricia Conners. She’d worked various jobs in the organization from code-making to code-breaking. She’d moved over to remote imagery five years ago and was considered one of the top people in the Agency not only in interpreting data down-loaded from the various spy systems the United States military employed, but in the actual operation of those systems.

  Conners was in her mid-50s, a short, gray-haired lady, whose benign appearance belied a razor-sharp mind. She had been become involved in the gates when running imagery from spy satellites at Foreman’s request.

  Her office was two floors beneath the main NSA building at Fort Meade. She did all her work through the large computer that took up most of the desk top. On the left side of the computer she had a large framed picture of her grandchildren gathered together at the last family reunion, all six of them, two via her daughter and four from two sons. On the right side of the computer was a pewter model of the Starship Enterprise, the one from the original TV series. Stuck on the side of her monitor were various bumper stickers from the science fiction conventions she religiously traveled to every year, ranging from one indicating the bearer was a graduate of Star Fleet Academy to another warning that the driver braked for alien landings.

  In the past week, it seemed like science fiction had become science fact as the assault came through the gates and was only narrowly stopped at the last minute. But now there were triangular shaped gates at locations around the world that resisted every type of imaging that had been tried.

  Conners knew about the Super-Kamiokande and right now that seemed to be the primary way they could detect activity around the gates. She had a direct link to the Can and also to Foreman in the War Room. Her job was to maintain a watch with the regular imaging devices on the off chance something changed and they could see in, or, more likely, if something was detected coming out of the gates.

  As part of that, she was linked to the Navy’s SOSUS array, keeping an eye on underwater activity around those gates located in the water. SOSUS had picked up the disturbance coming out of the Milwaukee Depth, but the system wasn’t fast enough to allow them to alert the Glomar-- besides, Conners knew the Glomar’s own radar and sonar couldn’t have missed picking up something that big.

  Conners was running through the programs, making sure they were all running properly when something in the SOSUS data caused her to pause.

  She stared at the screen for almost ten seconds before realizing what she was seeing. “Goddamn,” she muttered as she picked up the phone that linked her to Foreman.

  *****

  Thirty miles to the northwest of Dane’s position, the Seawolf was finally in its designated patrol area on the edge of the Bermuda Triangle gate.

  Captain McCallum had the submarine surface so he could maintain a satellite link with the War Room. He climbed the ladder to the top of the sail along with the watch crew. Training his binoculars to the east, he could see the solid black wall that marked the edge of the gate.

  Two decks down and to the rear of where McCallum was, Captain Bateman took several CD-Rom discs out of a large bank and stuffed them in his shirt pocket.

  He stood up and left the wardroom and headed forward, passing through the command and control room. He noted that the hatch to the sail was open but continued on to the helm.

  Three men were seated facing a bank of instruments and displays. A chief petty officer was in a higher chair directly behind them. Bateman watched them for a few seconds, then continued forward in the ship until he came to the combat systems electronic space. Two men were overwatching banks of computer that ran every system in the ship.

  Bateman shut the pressure hatch behind himself, the only way out of the room and began turning the handle.

  One of the ratings in the room cleared his throat. “Sir, that door is to remain open unless--”

  Bateman pulled the pistol out of his belt, turned and fired, cutting off the rest of the sentence and blowing the man’s brains all over the gray painted side of a computer hard drive. The other sailor stared in disbelief, which changed to shock as Bateman fired again, hitting him in the stomach. The man dropped to his knees. Bateman fired again, a shot directly to the heart, killing him.

  Bateman clamped down the lock on the handle, insuring that he would be left alone.

  Then he turned to the computers, pulling the CD-Roms out of his pocket. He inserted the first one in a laptop and brought up the information he wanted. He used a screwdriver to pull the cover off one of the pieces of hardware and went to work.

  THE PAST

  Chapter 12

  999 AD

  They passed swiftly between more barrows, the unnatural formations forming small valleys between them. Ragnarok was glad to be putting distance between themselves and the wicker man, but his sense of foreboding didn’t abate. This was a strange land and a strange folk. Worshipping oak trees and burning people as a gift to the Gods, chanting in the darkness, all were things foreign to Ragnarok and he longed for the feel of a swaying deck under his feet.

  The two wo
men moved like wraiths, their long legs swinging back and forth under their cloaks through the knee high grass. Ragnarok followed, his ax resting on his shoulder, towering over both of them. He had done more walking in the last three days and nights than ever in his life.

  “We must arrive before dawn,” Penarddun said, “or else hide. The king’s men will be searching.”

  “Why?” Ragnarok asked.

  “Because he has sworn allegiance to the Christians,” Penarddun said. “He has turned his back on the old ways. Every so often, when the bishop of the Christians squeals, he sends soldiers to hunt us down. Fortunately there is not much profit in it or else he would do it all the time.”

  “There are older ways than your beliefs,” Tam Nok said.

  “That is most likely so,” Penarddun agreed. “But I only know what I know. Much has been lost over the years. Where we are going is part of that older way. If what you seek is not there, then I know not where it is.”

  Tam Nok suddenly halted, holding up her hand to indicate for the others to stop also. Her head turned, almost like an animal sniffing the night. Ragnarok looked to and fro, but all he saw were the barrows dotting the plains that surrounded them.

  “They are coming,” Tam Nok said.

  “Who?” Ragnarok asked.

  “The Valkyries. They are not close but they are coming.”

  “I thought they could not cross the water or move out of the fog.” Ragnarok noted.

  “They have many powers,” Tam Nok said. “We have time but not too much.” She began walking even faster and Ragnarok followed, his senses on alert.

  They passed between two long barrows and there were no more burial mounds. A long plain stretched to the horizon and in the center of it, about half a mile away, some sort of strange building unlike anything Ragnarok had ever seen.

  Penarddun had halted upon first sight of the structure and Tam Nok and Ragnarok flanked her. It was difficult to tell at this distance but it looked to Ragnarok like a much larger version of the stone monuments that the Vikings would erect on the burial mounds of one of their leaders. Numerous large stones were set in the Earth, with other stones on top bridging the open space between them. There were two circles of stones, the outer about a hundred feet in diameter. There appeared to be a road leading off between banks to the northeast where the land dipped down slightly, indicating there was probably a river or stream.

  “What is this place?” Tam Nok asked.

  “The holiest of our places,” Penarddun said, as they continued forward. “It is now called Stonehenge. No one knows how old it is. It was here long before the Romans came.

  “Some say the Ancients built it when they first came here. That is what I believe. Who else could have moved the stones? Some come from the Preslie Mountains over two hundred and forty miles away. Some, I think, from over the sea, in the land of the Irish, from a place known as the Dance of the Giants in Killarus.”

  Ragnarok had landed in Eire Land several times and they were as strange a people as the Britons. But he doubted either had the ability to move such large stones, especially across the water between the two islands. Even one of those stones would probably sink the stoutest longship. And why would anyone go to such trouble?

  “There are some who say the stones did not even originate in Eire Land. That they came from a dark land far to the south of even Rome and Greece, a land where the people’s skin was black and many strange creatures walked the Earth.” Penarddun continued. “Who could have done such a marvelous thing? Even an army of the strongest men like your Viking friend could not move one of the larger stones.

  “Others talk of high priests and priestesses. A man, one of the earliest of our order, named Myrddinn Wyllt in the old tongue, Merlin in the new, is said to have brought the inner ring of stones here by floating them in the air.”

  Ragnarok would have laughed but he remembered the Valkyrie flying through the air and seizing Thorlak. Perhaps this Merlin was not human either, Ragnarok thought.

  “Merlin was one of the first of our order that we know of,” Penarddun continued. “Many now talk of him as a legend, a man of magic and spells, but he was more a seer, one who could see over the lines of time forward and back. The Christians call him a demon, but he was no demon. He was one who had a link to the Ancients and the Ones Before.

  The stone structure was now a quarter mile away. Ragnarok looked about, half-expecting to see Valkyries swooping out of the sky, but all was still except for the noise of the clothes through the grass and their feet on the ground.

  “The stones do heal, I know that,” Penarddun said, “because I have seen it.”

  The monument was very close now. The ground dipped slightly, a small trench circling the entire thing. Then they passed through a ring of holes dug into the ground. Ragnarok wanted to look in the nearest hole, but the women didn’t pause.

  The outer circle of standing stones was over four times Ragnarok’s height. He felt dwarfed and insignificant as he walked under the lintel stone that went from one standing stone to the other.

  Inside was another circle, five taller pairs of standing stones, also topped with lintels that left an opening toward the northeast. Penarddun paused under a lintel stone, not going into the center, horseshoe shaped clearing. Ragnarok felt cold, as if the air had gone chill. He did not want to go any further. There was a strange power here, he had no doubt of that. He had raided several churches and had felt some of the power of the Christian God inside them, but that was nothing compared to the sense he was getting here.

  In the very center was a small stone, about three feet high by two in circumference. Unlike the larger stones which all had rough surfaces, this stone was carved smooth, a perfect pillar. From the open end of the horseshoe, a path went straight out toward the northeast, the road Ragnarok had spied earlier. The dirt in the path was worn down by generations of feet.

  “What you seek should be under that,” Penarddun said. “We call it the memory stone.

  “No one has dared touch that stone for as long as it is remembered among the Druids.” She waved her hand about. “We worship here, but go no further than where I am standing. After purification in the River Avon we come up the Processional Way-- there is a stone in the midst of the pathway-- the heelstone, which is a warning against coming that way for those who are not believers.

  “When the midsummer sun comes up, it is on line with the memory stone, highlighting and then casting the longest shadow possible toward the sunset stones--” she gestured at the pair of tall stones they were between.

  “The legend is that the memory stone was placed here by the ancient ones when they first came here fleeing the Shadow. That the stone is not to be disturbed until it is time.”

  “Is the time now?” Tam Nok asked.

  “You should know the answer to that,” Penarddun said.

  “The Shadow is growing,” Tam Nok said. “I saw it over Angkor Kol Ker, my people’s city that was destroyed by the Shadow. I saw it in other places as I traveled here. In the high mountains north of India was a place of the Shadow. In the vast emptiness of the land of the steppe riders, there was another. Along the shore of the Norsemen, there was a place of shadow. It was the same in all four places. The Shadow is darker now than it has been in living memory. The words handed down among my people is that when the Shadow becomes black, the end is near. The same was the belief of those who lived near the other places of Shadow I passed. There were some differences in the legends and story but the core was the same.

  “The Earth is unquiet in places. It trembles and shakes. Mountains of fire are rumbling, in some places bringing forth burning rock. I have traveled far and across many lands and it is true everywhere. The only thing that can stop the Shadow from taking over the rest of the world is the Shield left us by the Ones Before. My search for that weapon has led me here, so I must believe it is time.”

  Ragnarok didn’t think it was time to go forward-- he thought a hasty retreat back to his sh
ip was long overdue. He felt a trickle of sweat roll down his left temple, a strange thing given the unnatural chill in the air.

  Tam Nok walked into the very center of Stonehenge and up to the memory stone. She placed her hands on it. She knelt, hands wrapped around the stone, her head against it as if listening.

  Ragnarok fidgeted, nervous with the ponderous weight of the lintel stone above his head. There was a dull glow on the horizon, in the direction the horseshoe opened to. Dawn was not far off.

  Tam Nok stood and waved for them to come forward. Ragnarok would have preferred to go in any other direction but he knew he could not show fear in front of the women. He walked forward, his feet dragging as if in deep sand.

  “We must lift the stone,” Tam Nok said.

  Ragnarok noted there were strange, very faint, carvings in the top of the stone. “What does that say?”

  “I do not know,” Tam Nok said.

  “I thought you could read the writings of the ancients?”

  “I can, but this is something different.”

  “How are you sure then that we should disturb this?” Ragnarok asked.

  “I paid you,” Tam Nok said. “Lift the stone.”

  “You paid me to bring you here,” Ragnarok said.

  Tam Nok pulled her hood back and turned to stare at the Viking. Her almond eyes searched his. Ragnarok took a step back.

  “Please help me lift this stone,” Tam Nok said.

  “We do not have time for all this!” Penarddun said. “Dawn will be here soon and we must be away by then.”

  Ragnarok looked down. He had no idea how deep the stone went into the ground. He put his ax down and squatted, wrapping both arms around the rock. He lifted with his legs, straining.

  The stone didn’t move at all.

  He tried once more, putting all his energy into moving up. His hands slid off the stone and he fell backwards onto the cold dirt. He started to get up then paused, putting his head against the ground. He listened for several seconds, then stood.