Area 51_The Grail Read online

  “Aiming,” he ordered the computer. A reticule appeared on the screen. As he moved the MK 98, the reticule followed wherever the muzzle was aimed, unless he went too far and it went off screen.

  The noise ceased. For several seconds Turcotte stood perfectly still, waiting, the team deployed behind him. He took a step forward. Then another.

  After four steps the noise came again, not closer, but retreating at the same rate Turcotte advanced.

  “Cover me from the right,” Turcotte ordered Graves, as he went back to checking the top of the tunnel every other step. The water rushing around his legs and waist was barely noticeable as he continued down. Whatever was making the noise continued to back up until Turcotte suddenly stopped.

  The screen showed a circular opening about four feet wide in the roof. He turned as the members of the team gathered round. “We’re going up.”

  Graves stepped forward. “Are we coming back out this same way?”

  Turcotte pointed in the direction the noise had come from. “That way should also go to the Nile and you’re with the current. Either way. If we go back the same way we came in, we can always go downstream in the Nile itself to the pickup zone.”

  It was strange, not being able to see the men’s faces, to get a sense of what they were feeling. Just dark forms bathed in infrared light. Almost inhuman.

  Three of them stuck out thick arms to form a shoulder-high platform. Turcotte clambered up onto the arms. He was able to reach up with both arms and spread them, jamming them between the sides of the shaft.

  Using the added power from the suit, he lifted himself into the circular opening. Once inside he braced his legs against one side, his back against the other. Shifting to an up view, he could see that the shaft was not exactly vertical, just as Burton described. Turcotte felt a surge of excitement. He felt they were on the right path.

  He began going up by scooting his legs up, then sliding the back of the suit along the stone.

  “Down view,” Turcotte said. He could see a suited figure—Graves—right behind. “Up view.” The shaft extended as far as the IR lights could penetrate.

  • • •

  Duncan felt a tremble in her knees and she forced herself to stay upright, her face calm. The urim was in her right hand, the stone giving off an unnatural warmth.

  “Why did you give this to me?”

  “It is time for us to move on. We cannot stay here forever. Things are happening in the outside world.”

  “What do you want in exchange?”

  “All I want is for you to pull back the curtain and let me see the Ark and the Grail,” Aspasia’s Shadow said.

  Duncan knew there was more to it than that, but she couldn’t figure out what Aspasia’s Shadow was trying to do. It was difficult to think clearly with the urim in her hand, the Grail next to her. Pulling the veil back changed nothing given the weight of the stone in her hand. She reached up and slid the white material aside.

  • • •

  The shaft ended abruptly in stone. Turcotte edged as close as possible, then stopped. “Magnify twofold,” Turcotte ordered. “Suit power lock.” The suit’s muscle magnifiers locked in place, both saving power and keeping him in his place in the shaft.

  He scanned the rock, looking for a place to insert the ring. “Magnify threefold,” Turcotte ordered.

  It was as if he were searching the surface from just inches away. The slightest of depressions in the smooth surface caught his attention. “Magnification off,” Turcotte ordered. He reached up with his right arm, maneuvering the middle finger, tip bent, ring forward to the depression. It fit perfectly. The stone dropped six inches, then slid aside. Turcotte reached over the edge and climbed into the chamber to be confronted by the mummified body of a man, arm trapped under a stone set in the wall. It confirmed that they were in the right place.

  “Who the hell is that?” Captain Graves was the next up through the floor. “Kaji,” Turcotte knelt next to the body. “One of the Kajis,” he amended, thinking of Von Seeckt’s story.

  Brown skin was stretched tight over the skull, the eyes covered with a milky surface. Turcotte wondered why one of the succeeding Kajis hadn’t come down here and recovered the body. Perhaps this Kaji’s son had not been guided this deeply into the Roads of Rostau, Turcotte thought. Burton also had Kaji’s ring.

  Turcotte recalled from Burton’s tale that he had claimed to have scoured all the walls for a way out and found no place where the ring would work. They had prepared for that in isolation.

  “Demo man forward,” Turcotte ordered. “Everyone else, back in the shaft.” Metayer, the senior engineer on 055, went to the block that had pinned Kaji’s arm. Turcotte helped him remove his waterproof pack and lay it on the floor. Unzipping it, Metayer pulled out a long strip of explosive which he pressed along the stone’s seam. He ran out detonating cord with a fuse igniter.

  “What about the body?” Metayer asked.

  “He’s already dead,” Turcotte said. “I don’t think he’ll complain.”

  • • •

  “Which side does it go in?” Duncan asked. She had the Grail in front of her, between her knees as she sat on the floor. She felt like a child with a new toy on Christmas morning, sitting on the floor, cloaked in the over-sized robes of the ancient priests. The pull of the Grail was irresistible to her. “I do not know,” Aspasia’s Shadow said.

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “As far as I know, the stones have never been in the Grail,” Aspasia’s Shadow said. “I certainly have never seen it used.”

  Duncan wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. “Do you know what it does?”

  “The urim does one thing, the thummin another.”

  “That’s not much help.”

  “I am not here to help you,” Aspasia’s Shadow said. “I gave you the urim so we can end this impasse.”

  Duncan placed the palm of her hand on top of one end and waited. The end irised open. Reverently she took the urim and placed it in the depression, feeling the tingle as before.

  She stared down at it. Nothing.

  A part of her felt relieved.

  • • •

  Metayer held up the ignitor. “I’m all set.”

  Turcotte slipped over the edge of the shaft and went down, leaving enough room for Metayer to be above him. The demo man followed.

  “Fire in the hole,” Metayer announced.

  “Audio down three quarters,” Turcotte ordered the computer. When the blast came, it was muted.

  “Audio normal power.” Turcotte climbed up behind Metayer. The chamber was full of airborne dust swirling about.

  The stone had been knocked out of position and a tunnel beckoned beyond.

  • • •

  Duncan looked up. Aspasia’s Shadow stood on the other side of the chamber watching her like a hawk—no, more as a vulture would, she realized. A soldier ran up the tunnel, halted next to Aspasia’s Shadow, and whispered something in his ear. Aspasia’s Shadow hissed something in return, never once looking away from Duncan and the Grail. The soldier ran back down the tunnel.

  Aspasia’s Shadow reached inside his cloak and removed a small black sphere. It disappeared inside his large hands, the fingers moving around the surface of it. She briefly wondered what it was, but the lure of the Grail was too strong for her to spend much time on that.

  Duncan reached in and removed the stone. The opening closed. She turned the Grail over and placed her hand on the other end. It opened. She lowered the stone in and knew she had it right this time as soon as the urim got close. The stone grew hotter, the green light inside blazed brightly, illuminating her and the entire chamber with an unearthly glow.

  A shock raced up her arm as she placed the stone in its place. The opening irised tight against her wrist. She tried to remove her hand but couldn’t. Her fingers would not let go of the stone, held by an invisible force. Pain radiated through the flesh that touched the stone, lancing into her bones and causing he
r to cry out. It was as if her hand were on fire. She could feel the flesh peeling back, charred and burned. She had never felt such intense agony.

  In her concern for the pain the Grail was causing, she failed to notice that the light had gone out in the ruby eyes of the sphinx head guards.

  CHAPTER 16

  The Giza Plateau, Egypt

  Turcotte felt a momentary sense of panic as he entered the tunnel. Was it right or left now? He forced himself to concentrate on the mission. Burton had said the hidden door was on the right, which meant he had to turn left. He shifted in that direction. Seventy paces, which meant about sixty meters. Turcotte had checked his pace count in the suit while in the hangar during isolation. He moved quickly, the team following, each man keeping his own pace count. The last man in line dropped a chem light next to the door, marking the location as it slid shut.

  Turcotte stopped where he thought the hidden keyhole should be. “Pace check,” he announced over the radio. The report from the rest of the team indicated they all agreed plus or minus about three meters, which wasn’t bad. Turcotte placed the ring against the left wall at shoulder level. Nothing. He shifted left several feet, then back to the right when the outline of a door appeared. The door shifted, then slid up.

  Turcotte stepped through, weapon leading. He took a quick shift glance in both directions. He turned left. “Let’s go.”

  • • •

  Like a bear trapped with its paw in the honey pot, Lisa Duncan remained on her knees, frozen. The pain was centered in her hand, but now Duncan couldn’t move any part of her body as it radiated through her nervous system, crawling up her arm like an inevitable tide of agony. Every nerve ending vibrated with the feeling of a red hot needle knifing through it from the inside going outward, as if the source were her bone marrow itself. She didn’t even blink as, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aspasia’s Shadow walk forward, past the bodies of the two soldiers that had been killed earlier.

  • • •

  “One hundred and eighty-seven meters,” Turcotte said. “Check,” Graves replied.

  Turcotte put his hand on the wall and began searching for the next door. The last door between them and the tunnel leading to the Hall of Records chamber.

  • • •

  Beyond the pain resonating from her hand, up her arm, and exploding in her brain, Duncan barely felt it as two soldiers grabbed her and began carrying her out of the chamber, the arm with the Grail dangling. Four others picked up the Ark, carrying it by the poles out of the chamber behind her.

  Aspasia’s Shadow knelt next to Duncan. His long fingers closed around the narrow center of the Grail and squeezed at a certain spot. He carefully removed the Grail from her hand. Then he turned it upside down and a glowing stone dropped out. That end of the Grail closed. He pocketed the stone and then placed the Grail inside the Ark. He threw a white sheet over the Ark, covering it.

  Still Duncan didn’t move.

  A burst of automatic weapons fire echoed into the chamber.

  Aspasia’s Shadow stood. “It is time to leave.” He still had the black sphere in one hand. The surface was divided into small hexagonal areas. His fingers tapped several of the hexes.

  • • •

  The first burst hit the ceiling above Turcotte’s helmet, sending chips of stone flying. There was no chance for the soldier to get off a second burst, as Turcotte had centered the reticules on the man’s chest even while he was firing. Turcotte’s trigger finger twitched and a dart ripped through the man’s chest, sending him tumbling back down the tunnel into the darkness from which he appeared.

  “We’re in the right place,” Turcotte yelled, hearing the echo through his own receiver.

  “Right behind you, sir!” Graves replied.

  Turcotte ran toward the darkness. He paused just before entering and fired the rest of the magazine into the blackness as quickly as the cylinder rotated. He grabbed another cylinder off the bandoleer on his chest and reloaded.

  Then he went in.

  A soldier staggered onto the landing leading to the tunnel, blood spurting from the stump of his right arm, neatly severed by a dart. The man tumbled over the edge and fell to the ground with a solid thud. The blood stopped spurting.

  Aspasia’s Shadow yelled commands in Arabic, sending the soldiers he had in the chamber running up the stairs toward the ledge.

  Just as the darkness enveloped him, Turcotte heard the beginning of a startled yell over the team radio net. Then it was cut off as if a switch had been flipped. He waded forward through the darkness and stepped into the brilliant light of the Hall of Records chamber. Behind him, the tunnel was as dark, the strange doorway closed behind him.

  “IR off, normal light,” Turcotte ordered as his screen was overloaded and blanked out for a second.

  That’s all it took for a three-round burst from an AK-47 to hit Turcotte in the chest, staggering him back a step. The special ceramic/alloy armor absorbed most of the impact, chips flying.

  The screen came alive with normal light. The reticules were high. Turcotte drew them down to the lead man coming up the stairs and fired. The steel dart tore through his chest and kept going, taking out the two men directly behind him before hitting the spine of the third man changing direction slightly, flying down into the chamber.

  Turcotte took a second to scan the chamber. The Black Sphinx dominated the view, but he was more concerned about finding people. He saw Duncan! She lay unconscious on a tarp, being carried by two men. Behind her was a tall figure in a black robe, and behind him something draped in white also being carried.

  “Spread out on the ledge,” Turcotte ordered over the team net. There was no answer.

  Turcotte fired another dart down the stairs. “Rear view.”

  There was no one behind him. The tunnel went ten meters, then faded into the strange black darkness.

  “Front view.”

  Turcotte fired the MK 98 again, spearing the closest man. He could see the flashes as others fired. Rounds from men on the floor of the chamber chipped stone all about him. Hard thuds on the suit indicated some of the bullets were hitting.

  Turcotte took a step back into the tunnel, getting out of the angle of fire of those on the floor. A head appeared coining up the stairs and Turcotte fired, taking it clean off. That bought him some time. Still, no one came out of the darkness.

  Silence on the team net.

  “Can you hear me?” a voice yelled from below.

  “External speaker on,” Turcotte instructed the computer. “I hear you.”

  “You will let me out or your friend will be dead.”

  “Who are you?” Turcotte needed to buy time for the team to reinforce him. He had no idea why they hadn’t come through yet.

  “Aspasia’s Shadow. You will let me out or your friend will be dead and then we will kill you,” Aspasia’s Shadow continued. “Be glad I give you his offer.”

  Turcotte tried to think, to assess the situation. “I’ll let you pass only if you give me her in exchange.”

  “I cannot give you the woman. She has partaken of the Grail. She must go with me to finish the process. If you take her, she will die.”

  Turcotte had no idea what he was talking about. Where the hell was the rest of the A-Team?

  Another head appeared, peering cautiously. Turcotte aimed. A black object flew through the air. Turcotte shifted the reticules, tracking, fired, and the dart hit the grenade in midair.

  At the same moment, a terrorist leapt up onto the ledge, firing on full automatic. The rounds impacted on the left side of Turcotte’s suit, staggering him sideways. The screen inside the helmet flickered, then adjusted as the left-side helmet mini-cam was destroyed. Turcotte dropped to his knees and fired, killing the man. Warning lights were flickering on the bottom of the screen, informing him that the left front mini-cam was out. Some of his lithium batteries had been destroyed, reducing available power by twenty percent and various other problems that he didn’t have time to rea
d or know how to deal with.

  “We will kill you,” Aspasia’s Shadow yelled. “And I will kill Doctor Duncan unless you immediately allow us to pass.”

  Turcotte kept his aim on the top of the stairs. He switched to FM. “Report? Anybody?”

  Silence.

  “We are coming up and Doctor Duncan is in front,” Aspasia’s Shadow’s voice echoed in Turcotte’s helmet.

  Turcotte stood. He could see two men coming up the stairs supporting Duncan, who appeared to be unconscious, between them. Turcotte knew he could take both men down easily, but they might take Duncan over the edge with them. Behind them loomed Aspasia’s Shadow.

  “If you are thinking of killing me,” Aspasia’s Shadow began, a second before Turcotte pulled the trigger, “you need to know I am the only one who can revive her. Without me, she dies.”

  “What did you do to her?” Turcotte demanded.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Aspasia’s Shadow said. “She accessed the Grail and now the process must take its course. And I am the only one who can make sure it develops properly or else she dies a most terrible death.”

  “What process?”

  The two men had reached the ledge, less than twenty feet from Turcotte. They paused as Aspasia’s Shadow came up behind.

  “We will go now,” Aspasia’s Shadow said, the other survivors from his group on the stairs, carrying the Ark.

  “What process?” Turcotte repeated.

  Aspasia’s Shadow pointed and the men moved forward. Turcotte held his ground for a second, then stepped aside. “You’ll never get out of here.”

  “I believe we will,” Aspasia’s Shadow said. He smiled, revealing long, sharp teeth. “Do you know who she is?”

  Turcotte was at a loss for an answer, not understanding the intent of the question.

  “She is not who you believe her to be,” the creature continued. “She has lied to you—or more likely even she does not yet know her true identity.” The two men and Duncan disappeared into the blackness. “Do not follow us or she will die.” He stepped into the blackness before Turcotte could say another word.