Excalibur a5-6 Page 4

  It was this precarious world situation plastered all over the situation board at the front of the CUBE — command, control & communications, C3—deep under Groom Mountain, that the small group saw as they got off the elevator from the hangar above.

  Turcotte ignored the sit-board and helped Duncan to the conference room. The others trooped in and the door was shut as an uneasy silence pervaded. Turcotte sat Duncan in the chair at the head of the table and slumped into the seat next to her.

  Yakov was next to Turcotte. Mualama, an African archaeologist who had followed in the footsteps of Sir Richard Francis Burton and uncovered that explorer’s secret account of all he had learned of the Airlia and their influence on Earth, was next to him. Mualama had also uncovered the scepter that had allowed Duncan and him access to the Black Sphinx, deep under the Great Sphinx, which had contained the Ark of the Covenant and the Grail. They had also discovered that Mualama was a former Watcher.

  Then there was the elderly Chinese professor, Che Lu. She had opened the upper levels of the ancient tomb at Qian-Ling. She had recently been trying to figure out an alien grid system that highlighted many of their ancient bases. She had cracked the code and was still working on fixing the various locations, which included Qian-Ling, Easter Island, and Mount Sinai, where the Mission had hidden itself for a long time.

  At the other end of the table was Major Quinn, a leftover from the days of Majestic, the man who knew the inner workings of Area 51 and was able to get what was needed from the US government. Or had been able, as it now appeared that Area 51 was being cut out of the chain of operations. He was a small man, with thick-lensed glasses perched on a thin nose.

  “My friends,” Yakov began.

  Turcotte didn’t particularly want to hear whatever it was the Russian had to say. He was watching Duncan, who seemed to be slowly coming to her senses.

  “My friends,” Yakov repeated as he turned to the others at the table. “We must look at the larger threats.”

  “And what can we do about them?” Turcotte snapped. He was bone-tired. Since uncovering the secret of Area 51 he had been fighting the aliens and their minions almost nonstop. For every step forward, every victory gained, there seemed to be two steps back and more secrets uncovered and more defeats. They had learned much but Turcotte felt there was a level of all of this that they had yet to penetrate. They didn’t know why the civil war among the Airlia had started millennia before, nor what each side’s true agenda was, although there was little doubt neither side cared how many humans died in the course of their battles. Beyond that, they didn’t even know why the Airlia had come to Earth so many years earlier or what the civil war had been about. Mualama steepled his fingers. “We have been approaching this incorrectly. This is a war. And war is all about power.”

  Turcotte, who had been practicing the art of war his entire adult life, stared at the archaeologist. “And?”

  “We must search for the source of our enemies’ power,” Mualama said. “And that is?” Turcotte prompted.

  “We must find and control the Master Guardian,” Mualama said. “If we do that, we can control the Easter Island — and most likely the Qian-Ling — guardians. Maybe even the guardian at Cydonia on Mars.”

  Turcotte rubbed his eyes for a second. “Now you say we need the Master Guardian but yesterday you said we needed the Grail.”

  “We did need the Grail,” Mualama said. “But we don’t have it. Aspasia’s Shadow has it and it is now under the shield at Easter Island. The Grail is indeed powerful, as it holds the secret of eternal life. However, most of Aspasia’s Shadow’s power comes out of the Easter Island guardian. The guardian controls the shield wall and the nanovirus he has infected his forces with. It is also the way he communicates with his forces. It is the key to his power.”

  “We don’t have the Master Guardian either,” Turcotte said. “We don’t even know where it is.”

  “Burton’s manuscript described Watcher records saying it was removed from the top of the Great Pyramid thousands of years ago,” Mualama said.

  “And taken where?” Turcotte asked.

  “The Watchers—” Mualama began, then paused. “Go on,” Yakov urged him.

  “Yes,” Turcotte said, spinning in his seat toward the African archaeologist. “Tell us what else you’ve been lying to us about.”

  “Not lying,” Mualama said. “It just did not come up.”

  “So we have to ask you specific questions to get you to help us?” Turcotte asked. He slowly got to his feet and approached the archaeologist. He leaned close to Mualama. “Where is the Master Guardian?”

  “It is with the mothership,” Mualama said.

  “The mothership was destroyed,” Turcotte said, turning back to his chair and dismissing Mualama. “It’s floating dead in orbit.”

  “Aspasia’s mothership is floating dead in orbit. How do you think Artad came to this planet?” Mualama asked in a level tone.

  That caused Turcotte to pause for a moment. “There’s another mothership?”

  Lisa Duncan spoke up. “It makes sense. Remember we found the power sphere for an interstellar drive hidden in a cavern in Ethiopia, yet the mothership here had one already in place.”

  Turcotte slowly sat down and nodded. “The sphere we found came from China.” “And Artad is in China,” Duncan said.

  “But we didn’t see a mothership in Qian-Ling,” Che Lu said.

  “It might be in the lowest level,” Turcotte said, but he doubted it even as he spoke. The mothership was simply too large to be hidden there, even given how big the mountain tomb of Qian-Ling was.

  Quinn spoke up. “The Nazi records you recovered from the Soviet archives indicated that they were searching for an ark — not the Ark of the Covenant, but Noah’s Ark. It would make sense that a mothership would be called such a thing. Perhaps survivors from Atlantis were put aboard it? That would explain the legend of the Ark.”

  “But the Nazis didn’t find it,” Turcotte noted.

  “We haven’t gone through all the records,” Quinn said. “Do it,” Turcotte ordered.

  “Nor have I translated all of Sir Richard Francis Burton’s manuscript,” Mualama added. “He also was interested in the legend of Noah’s Ark.”

  “And I haven’t pinpointed all the locations that Professor Nabinger translated,” Che Lu said.

  Turcotte rubbed his forehead. Despite all they had learned, they were still far behind the information curve. The truth of the present hinged on knowing the truth about the past and that was still largely unknown. But they did have more than they had started with. Did they have the time to process it all? he wondered.

  “And if we don’t find and gain control of the Master Guardian?” he threw out. Quinn spoke up. “The military is marshaling a fleet in Hawaii. It’s our last line of defense in the Pacific. They are considering attacking Easter Island.” “They won’t be able to break the shield wall,” Turcotte said.

  “Unless we can access the Master Guardian and shut down the Easter Island guardian,” Yakov pointed out.

  Quinn frowned. “There was something in that archive material you recovered underneath Moscow about a weapon and a shield.”

  “What something?” Turcotte demanded, leaning forward. “I’ll have to look at it again,” Quinn said.

  A sergeant came into the room and handed Quinn a file folder and just as quietly left the room.

  Turcotte finally considered the strategic situation. “Without a miracle — or us finding and controlling the Master Guardian — that fleet is not going to be able to get through the alien shield with any degree of effectiveness,” he said. “And according to the status board, the ships the aliens have captured are heading toward Pearl. We’ll be lucky if they don’t seize Hawaii and our ships that we’d need to attack Easter Island. Major Quinn, send a message to the admiral in charge there and warn him of that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Turcotte’s eyes were on Duncan, who seemed to be following th
e conversation. He turned to her, going back to the more immediate issue, or at least what he considered more immediate. “What happened to you?”

  Duncan blinked. “I—” She held her hand up, looking at it as if it were an alien object. “I put one of the stones in the Grail. Then I put my hand in the Grail. One end of the Grail,” she added. “It burned. Up my arm. My entire body.”

  “We need to get her to a doctor,” Quinn suggested.

  Turcotte ignored the major. “So the legend is true — it grants immortality?”

  “It must be,” Duncan acknowledged. She touched her torso, where the bullet had torn through her, still not believing the unmarred skin. “I’m here.” She said it almost as a question. “And you say you saw me die.”

  “How does it work?” Turcotte asked.

  She slowly shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “It must do more than give immortality,” Yakov said. “It brought her back to life.”

  Turcotte thought for a few seconds, then rattled out more orders. “Major Quinn, you check the Nazi records we brought back from Moscow to see if you can learn any more about the location of the ark/mothership. Also, I want you to go back through Majestic’s records and see if there is anything on this shield wall — how it works, and if there is any way we can get through it on our own. Because if we can’t, we’re defenseless against Aspasia’s Shadow and his forces.

  “Professor Mualama, you go through Burton’s manuscript again and see if we missed anything regarding the location of the Master Guardian. Professor Che Lu, I think you need to get with Larry Kincaid and check all the locations that Nabinger recorded. Perhaps one of those is the second mothership. I’m going to try to send a message to Kelly to see if she can tap into the Easter Island guardian and give us a better idea where those objects are. Any questions?”

  “And me?” Duncan asked.

  “We need to find out what happened to you,” Turcotte said. “How the Grail affected you.”

  Turcotte looked around the room. They were the experts, the ones who knew the most about the Airlia and their technology, yet he felt grave misgivings about their loyalties: Yakov, the Russian, who had shot Duncan; Che Lu, the Chinese, who had delved into Qian-Ling at such an opportune time; Mualama, the African, who had lied to them about being a Watcher and only told them things when it seemed to be convenient to some agenda of his own. And most of all Lisa Duncan, the woman he had thought he loved — what had happened to her?

  Quinn had a headset on and he pulled the small mouthpiece away from his lips. “A doctor is coming down on the elevator. We need to get her looked at.” He was staring at Turcotte. Surprisingly, the tiny officer got up and went to the head of the table, where he extended his hand to Duncan, indicating she should get up.

  As Turcotte started to protest, Quinn put his other hand in the Green Beret’s chest. “A doctor can tell us more right now than anyone else. We need to get her looked at.”

  Turcotte was so surprised by Quinn’s action that he allowed him to escort Duncan out the door, where a man in a white coat waited. Quinn returned, shutting the door behind him.

  “What the hell—” Turcotte began, but Quinn picked up the folder that he’d been given and tossed it in front of Turcotte.

  “I don’t know who that woman is,” Quinn said, “but there is no Lisa Duncan. I had the Agency do a check on her. Everything in her background is a lie.”

  CHAPTER 3: THE PAST

  Glastonbury Tor, Britain

  A.D. 529

  Surrounded by water, the Tor jutted five hundred feet above the countryside, crowned by a ruined stone abbey. It was a sacred place, one where few dared travel, yet on this dreary morning, a small boat, oars pulled by a single man dressed in a long black robe fringed with silver, slowly made its way across the placid water. It was a place of legend, rumored by many to be the legendary site of Avalon, home to strange folk with even stranger powers. Those who lived nearby dared not set foot on the island.

  The bottom of the boat grated onto a pebbled beach. The man stowed the oars, tied the boat off to a stunted tree, then made his way up the track that wound its way up the hill. He walked as if carrying a great burden, stoop-shouldered and with stiff legs, but all he had in his hands was a long staff of polished wood that he leaned on to aid his climb. His face was hidden in the shadow of an overhanging hood, but a white beard poked out at the bottom.

  When he reached the top, he paused, taking in the shattered stone of the abbey. Then he looked all about, at the country that surrounded the lake. Nothing moved under an overcast sky. It was as if the land had been swept clear of man and beast. A gust of cold wind caused the man to pull his robe tighter around his body. Ever since the great battle of Camlann — the showdown between Arthur and Mordred — the land had appeared bleak and cold.

  He walked to the abbey and through a doorway. The interior was open to the sky, the floor littered with stone blocks from the collapsed roof. With a gnarled hand the man reached into the neck of his robe and retrieved a medallion. On the surface of the metal was the image of an eye. He placed it against the front of the small altar where there was an indentation of similar shape. He held the medallion there for several moments, then removed it, sliding it back inside his robe.

  He rubbed his hands together as he waited. He started as a door swung open in the wall of the abbey. A figure stepped into the abbey, cloaked in brown. He too wore a hood, which he pulled back, revealing a lined face and silver hair. His eyes widened as he recognized the man by the altar.

  “Myrddin!”

  The old man wearily smiled. “I have not been called that in a long time, Brynn. At the court of Arthur the King they called me Merlin.” “So I have heard,” Brynn said.

  Merlin looked about. “They would have brought Arthur here.”

  “He died right there.” Brynn pointed toward the nearest stone wall of the abbey. “And Excalibur?”

  “No sorrow?” Brynn folded his arms across his chest. “No sign of grief for the death of your king?”

  “I knew he was dead,” Merlin said. “I have grieved in private.” “I doubt it.”

  Merlin straightened, drawing himself up, and despite his worn condition, Brynn took a step backward.

  “I did what I did for the land, for the people.” “It did not work,” Brynn noted.

  “It was better than hiding in a cave with old papers,” Merlin snapped.

  “Was it?” Brynn didn’t wait for an answer. “The land is worse off than it was. Many have died. The Grail was almost lost. The sword too.”

  “I know about the Grail. One of your fellow Watchers has it.”

  “It is good that you don’t consider yourself one of us any longer,” Brynn said. “You betrayed our order.”

  “I went beyond our order as must be done at times,” Merlin said. “You will return the Grail to Egypt?”

  “That I cannot tell you.”

  Merlin shook his head. “Returning to the status quo. That would be fine, except what is the status quo?”

  Brynn frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Merlin stamped his foot on the Tor impatiently. “Our order has watched since the time of Atlantis. We once worshipped the ‘gods.’ And when they fought among themselves, many of our people died and Atlantis was destroyed, the survivors scattered.

  “I talked with Arthur many times — he was a Shadow of one of these creatures. He knew much of the great truth.”

  “‘The great truth’?”

  “What do we know?” Merlin asked Brynn. “Do we know where the ‘gods’ came from? Why they are here?”

  The look on Brynn’s face indicated he didn’t even understand the questions, never mind wonder about the answers.

  Merlin sighed and dropped that line of thought. “Excalibur is more than just a sword. It does others things. And the war will come again. And both sides will want it. And men like me”—Merlin nodded, acknowledging his role in recent events—“will try to use Excalibur
also as a symbol. But it is more than a symbol. It has a purpose, a very critical purpose. It is a critical piece, one of several, in a very ancient puzzle.”

  Brynn waited, listening.

  “I am here to make amends,” Merlin said. “And how will you do that?”

  “Excalibur must be hidden better than this place.”

  “I do not—” Brynn began, but Merlin slammed the butt of his staff onto the stone floor.

  “Listen to me, Brynn. The sword must be hidden. Since it was brought out, those whom you watch now know where it is. We — I—awakened those better left sleeping and they sent forth their Shadows to do war to try to gain the sword and the Grail. Both were hidden for many generations but now this place is no longer safe. You know that or else you would not have sent away the Grail.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Watchers are so ignorant. I was ignorant, but I have traveled far and seen much. Have you even read some of the papers you guard so closely below? That is what I spent my time doing while I was here.”

  “I have read those scrolls I can,” Brynn argued.

  “And the ones you can’t read? The ones written in the ancient runes?” “None can read them.”

  “I could and can.”

  “And what do they say?” Brynn asked, interested in spite of himself.

  “The decision that demanded that our sole function be merely to watch what transpired was made by a vote at the first Gathering of Watchers. And it was not unanimous. There were those who thought watching wasn’t enough and action needed to be taken. That man would be best off if we continued to fight for freedom from the Gods and their minions.”

  “But the vote was to watch,” Brynn said simply. “It is the rule of our order.”

  Merlin sighed in frustration. “But it was a decision made by men. And we are men. We get to change it.”

  Brynn shook his head. “The order would never change that. And there has not been a Gathering in memory.”