CHAPTER 10: THE PRESENT
AIRSPACE ENGLISH CHANNEL
The Swarm pod was less than five meters above the wave tops and practically invisible in the darkness. Lisa Duncan was still securely strapped to the gurney, no longer connected to the Ark of the Covenant. Crammed in next to the tables was Garlin, hunched over and waiting.
The pod flew over the southern English shoreline between Weymouth and Bournemouth, the lights of both cities clearly visible on either side. It raced over eastern Dorset until it reached the Salisbury Plain, where it reduced speed. Its objective was outlined ahead by several lights, but there didn't appear to be anyone about not unexpectedly, given the early hour.
A solitary set of headlights raced along a nearby road, then disappeared in the distance. The pod moved forward until it was directly above the lit area. It paused there, scanning the ground with penetrating radar, which revealed nothing, then moved to the northeast and slowly settled on the grassy plain, just outside a fence surrounding the compound.
SPACE COMMAND, CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN
Mary Keene had volunteered to work an extra shift so that some of her married colleagues who had been on extra duty during the recent world war could go home and see their families.
What she hadn't told her supervisor was that she didn't want to go home because she was afraid of what messages he might find there. Her only daughter was in the army and had been stationed in Seoul, South Korea. She'd seen the images downloaded from the spy satellites of what had happened to that city.
As long she didn't know for sure, it wouldn't be true. Keene couldn't bear to think about it, so she focused on her screens with more attention than usual. She was inside one of the metal buildings set on heavy springs deep inside the complex. She was among a dozen operators watching their screens at a long, curved table.
Her area of observation was the North Atlantic, a region that had seen relatively little action given recent world events. She had access to three KH-14 spy satellites that observed from the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast of Europe.
She sat up straighter as she noticed activity. A very fast thermal trace, arcing from the Gulf of Mexico, across the Atlantic, across the coast of England came to an abrupt halt in southern England. Keene accessed her computer, correlated the stopping point, and discovered there was no airfield in that location. It couldn't have been a helicopter it had moved too quickly and too far. In fact, as she entered the Might data, it had moved too quickly to be a top-of-the-line military jet.
That left the bouncers. She and others at Space Command had seen tracks of the alien craft prior to the truth about Area 51 being revealed, but every time they brought them to the attention of their supervisors, they were told to ignore them.
After the truth about what was at Area 51 was revealed, she had also tracked them occasionally. But this track, while similar, was somewhat different on the thermal readout. Hotter.
She also remembered that an alert had been circulated for information on any unusual flights in the Gulf of Mexico region.
She checked the alert list and noted that Area 51 was listed as the source of that alert, with contact information via MILSTAR. She hit the access code. The other end buzzed repeatedly, with no answer, and after thirty seconds she was about to cut the connection when a distracted voice came out of her speaker box.
"Major Quinn here. What?"
"Do you have a bouncer on a transatlantic flight?"
"Negative. What have you tracked?"
Keene relayed the information.
"You say it came from a location in the Gulf of Mexico?" "Yes, sir."
"Where is it fixed now?" Quinn asked.
While she was talking, Keene had been zeroing in the nearest KH-14 for an exact location. She brought up the ground mapping for the area and mixed the two on her screen. What she saw surprised her. The spot was marked with red writing, indicating it was of national significance.
"South, middle, England. It's at Stonehenge."
STONEHENGE
Stonehenge was just off the M-43 the biggest tourist attraction in the immediate area, and one of the largest in all of England. The Swarm pod was just to the northeast, simply observing for a while before moving in. A good scout always reconnoiters before approaching a target, and the Swarm had a great deal of experience at scouting, whether on the galactic or local scale.
When the Swarm was satisfied that the area appeared to be safe and deserted, the pod moved forward. It hit the fence and tore through easily. It came to a halt just at the edge of the inner circle, in front of the altar stone. Unknown to the Swarm, an alarm system built into the fence was activated, and a warning light went off at the local constabulary.
Inside the pod, Garlin had put the crown back on Duncan's head during the recon and hooked it up to the Ark leads.
The ground-penetrating radar hadn't revealed the presence of the craft that had been displayed in Duncan's memory. However, during the probing of Duncan's memories, the Swarm had noted the red netting that had been spread over the surface of the spaceship before it was buried and had to assume that it was some sort of shielding.
The issue was how to get into the stone elevator.
Garlin directed the probe into Duncan's mind, searching for more memories of when she had come here in the past.
The screen flickered, then came alive with an image. Stonehenge. The circles intact, indicating it to be thousands of years ago. It was nighttime, but the stones were bathed in a red glow. Several hundred meters beyond the stones, a massive wicker figure was burning. It was over fifty feet high and made of wicker branches woven onto a stronger wooden frame. Stuffed inside were dozens of people, screaming as the flames ate at their skin.
In a circle around the burning "man" were hundreds, if not thousands of people dressed in various-colored robes, watching the horrific display, the glow flickering off their rapt faces. At the back edge of the crowd were two people, edging away, heading toward Stonehenge. They were alone when they reached the monument and threw back their hoods. Duncan and her partner. She walked up to the left standing stone in the center of the complex and put her right hand out, pressing it against a spot on the stone, and the door appeared, opening.
Garlin disconnected the leads, the screen going black.
Looking down, he could see that Duncan was conscious for the first time in quite a while, her dark eyes staring at him. Her body had had enough time during the flight to recover from the damage that he had inflicted on her.
"Who are you?" Her voice was rough, her throat parched and ragged from her earlier screams. Her eyes were deep-set, weary, and worn, the memories of the pain etched on her face.
Garlin didn't answer. He reached down and tightened the strap around her right hand, pinning it securely to the table palm up.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
Garlin remained silent as he turned to the black bag and pulled out a strange-looking device, the key feature of which was a long, thin blade. He pressed a button and the blade began moving back and forth a very short distance, picking up speed until it became a blur. Duncan's eyes grew wide as he turned toward her and lowered the device toward her hand.
"Don't!" she yelled.
With a blur of flying blood, flesh, and bone, Garlin pressed it down against the wrist. Duncan's undulating scream echoed through the pod. In less than four seconds, an eternity for Duncan, the blade had cut completely through. Blood spurted out of the arteries that had been severed, and Garlin didn't bother to make any attempt to stem its flow.
He released the button, and the only sound was Duncan's pained moaning. He put the machine down and picked up her severed right hand. A section of the outer wall of the pod opened, lowered to the ground, formed a ramp, and Garlin walked out.
Behind him, Lisa Duncan lay on the table, hovering between consciousness and unconsciousness, her lips moving in a wordless babble. Blood no longer surged out of the severed artery at the end of her right arm as the virus sealed the wound. Slowly, the body began to regenerate the lost appendage.
Constable Martaugh quietly cursed as he drove the police Land Rover along the M-34 toward Stonehenge. The security system had been put into the fence by a private organization to help deter young revelers who often congregated at the monument late at night, drinking, carousing, and, in some cases, damaging the stones with graffiti. Martaugh had already run them off twice this month.
If he caught those damn kids again Martaugh spun the wheel, directing his car onto the turnoff. He didn't mind them having fun, it was the desecration of the stones that bothered him. He'd lived here all his life and like most who'd spent their time near the henge, he'd always felt a reverence for the stones. Locals cared little when they were built or who had built them the important thing was that they were here.
When his headlights illuminated the crushed fence, his foot instinctively went to the brake and the car quickly came to a halt. He blinked as he noted the large round orb floating a few feet off the ground near the inner circle. There was a man walking toward the center stones. And he was carrying something. Martaugh began to open the car door when the man lifted the object and placed it against the left upright stone, then the policeman recognized it: a severed human hand.
Martaugh ducked back into the car and grabbed for his radio, missing the mike on his first attempt, then fumbling with it for a few seconds. During that time everything went from the bizarre to the surreal, as a door opened in the stone and the man walked in, the door shutting behind him. For a moment Martaugh held the mike in his hand, not sure if he had seen what had just happened or if this was some nightmare he was acting out. But the large round black orb still floated a few feet above the ground not far from him. Martaugh pressed the key on the mike.
CAMP ROWE, NORTH CAROLINA
The mothership was a black mass against a dark, overcast night sky as it descended onto the old airstrip. The Delta Force commandos stared in awe as it came to a hover, the bottom of it just a few feet above the pitted concrete. A cargo door near the front slid open and a metal gangway extended down to the ground. A green glow highlighted the opening and silhouetted two men as they exited the craft. One was huge, towering over his partner, but the smaller man walked with an air of confidence, despite shoulders stooped in exhaustion. It was the same silent confidence all the Delta men guarding the location had.
Major Quinn felt a wave of relief, recognizing Yakov and Turcotte. The relief turned to concern as the two came into the circle of light surrounding the hangar. Both men looked haggard, Turcotte particularly so. There were blisters on his face from the cold, his eyes were bloodshot, and he had gray stubble across his chin. He was absently rubbing the back of his head.
"I think we've found Duncan," Quinn led with. Turcotte didn't react as the major had expected. No smile, no lifting of the weariness. "Where?" "Stonehenge."
Turcotte didn't stop walking, heading past Quinn, Yakov at his shoulder, and into the hangar. Turcotte slumped into a folding chair and Yakov did the same. A soldier came over with a steaming cup of coffee, which Turcotte gratefully accepted. His hands cradled the warm cup and he leaned over, his nose just above it, breathing in deeply.
"Stonehenge? England?" Turcotte finally looked up. How do you know?"
Quinn knelt in front of Turcotte and spoke softly and slowly. "A craft was tracked from the Gulf of Mexico to Stonehenge. It was too fast to be a jet. Strange thermal signature. They thought it was a bouncer, but all are accounted for. On top of all of that, we got a call from an Israeli sniper who said Sherev took the Ark of the Covenant to an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. And something, some sort of pod, took off from underneath the rig and flew away to the northeast not long ago. Now whatever took off there is at Stonehenge."
Turcotte had closed his eyes halfway through Quinn's explanation. "Sherev is dead then?"
"I don't know " Quinn began, but Turcotte held up a hand, halting him.
"Why Stonehenge?"
"We don't know."
Turcotte slowly turned half-lidded eyes toward Yakov. One eyebrow lifted very slightly. The Russian was leaning back in his seat, long legs sticking out.
"Does anyone have some vodka?" Yakov asked. When there was no answer he let out a deep sigh and got to his feet. "You Americans are never properly equipped. I assume we must go to England."
Turcotte also stood. "Call the Brits," he said to Quinn as he headed for the hangar door. "Get someone there. SAS if they can."
"Yes, sir."
Turcotte paused. "What about Tesla and Tunguska?"
"I've got quite a bit of information," Quinn said. "I also have some more info on the way here."
"Did Tesla shoot down a Swarm ship?"
"Yes. He invented " Quinn began, but Turcotte held up a hand.
"One thing at a time. We're going to England to get Duncan. Then we'll be back. Have the Space Command guys here and ready to go when we return. And whatever Tesla invented find someone who can duplicate it."
STONEHENGE, ENGLAND
Martaugh's tongue nervously snaked over his lips as he considered the scene in front of him. The black sphere hadn't moved and the ramp the man had obviously come out of was still down. There was no sign of the door the man had gone through in the standing stone. Martaugh had called it in, been acknowledged, then put the mike back and sat paralyzed for several minutes of indecision.
Martaugh slowly opened the door and went to the Land Rover's rear door. He lifted it open and retrieved an old Sterling submachine gun that had been issued to him during the recent turmoil. He grabbed a flak vest, put it on, then made sure he had a round in the chamber of the sub. He made his way forward, the stock of the Sterling tight against his shoulder. His eyes shifted between the ramp and the standing stone the man had entered.
He turned toward the ramp.
Colonel Spearson, British Special Air Service (SAS) was heading toward Stonehenge within ten seconds of receiving the alert from Quinn in America. He'd been with Turcotte in Ethiopia when they'd found the cavern with the ruby stone in it. He knew Turcotte was a solid soldier. A man you wanted by your side.
They'd already been in the air as part of a training mission south of Hereford, where the Twenty-first Regiment, which Spearson commanded, was headquartered. They were now heading southeast at the helicopter's maximum speed.
Spearson considered the message and the destination. Stonehenge. Perhaps the heart of ancient England. Predating all the others the Tower, the kings, the queens, all of them.
From before the time of Arthur even, who it now appears was of alien origin in some manner. Now something was there.
Something unknown, tracked across the Atlantic. Most likely alien in origin. It bothered him greatly that the aliens seemed to have corrupted every legend and myth, even something as noble as Arthurian legend. And now they were at Stonehenge.
"Faster," Spearson ordered the pilot. In the rear of the Westland Lynx helicopter sat a dozen Special Air Service troopers. The elite of England's soldiers. They had weapons in their hands and steely looks in their eyes. They were all sick of it. Aliens. Servants of aliens. Humans being manipulated, infected, changed. They'd watched the reports of Taiwan being devastated, Seoul being assaulted first by North Korean chemical agents, then American nuclear bombs, and somehow they knew, they just knew that while humans had always fought among themselves, it was the aliens behind things. Acting from the darkness, from the shadows. And they were all sick of it.
AIRSPACE UNITED STATES
Turcotte was in the pilot's seat of the mothership racing across the Atlantic. How fast neither he nor Yakov knew, but the ocean far below was going by at a dizzying speed. Excalibur was leaning against the control console nearby.
"My friend," Yakov said.
"Yes?"
"Are you all right?"
"No."
"Me neither." Yakov placed a large hand on Turcotte's shoulder. "Do not let what Aspasia's Shadow said cause you to doubt yourself."
Turcotte didn't respond, staring at the display screens.
Yakov didn't remove his hand. "And" he drew the word out, sure he had Turcotte's attention "as far as Ms. Duncan goes, you must remember that no matter what her past, she is different now even from the person you knew very briefly the last few months."
Turcotte nodded, very slightly. "I know."
"We sometimes do things when we are in stressful times," Yakov continued, "that in retrospect "
Turcotte interrupted the Russian. "I know I wasn't thinking straight."
"Neither was I when I got involved with Katyenka," Yakov said, referring to the woman who had betrayed them in Moscow.
Normally Turcotte would have bridled at the comparison, but too much had happened in the past few days for him to argue anything. "I was a lumberjack."
Yakov removed his hand and sat down. "What?"
"I was a" Turcotte hesitated "a man who worked in the forest, cutting down trees."
"Ah, yes." Yakov waited.
"It always struck me as very strange what I did. Cutting down living things. Trees. Beautiful big trees. That had been there for much longer than I would be on Earth. The other guys didn't think like that I don't know why I did. But then I would reconcile it with the thought that the wood would be turned into valuable things. A kid's bed, maybe." Turcotte gave a thin smile. "Bull, I know. But hey, I had to deal with it somehow. So I dealt with it."
"And this?"
"I don't know how to deal with it."
Yakov slammed a large open palm into Turcotte's chest.
"You're human." His hand thumped his own chest. "I'm human. That's it. That's all. I spent all my life, while you were cutting down these trees you care so much about, tracking these aliens and their creatures. They killed my friends, they destroyed my country. Destroyed many other countries and killed millions billions of people most likely over the thousands of years they have been here on our planet. We know they caused the Black Death. Tried to bring a version of it back that we were barely able to stop. "All those years I spent in the dark, tracking them, I had to, how do you say, deal with it in some manner. Make my mind" Yakov searched for the words "wrap around what I was doing, understand it. Just as you had to understand what you were doing. And do you know what I decided? What it came down to?" Turcotte shook his head.
"I am human," Yakov said. "They, and those who work for them, aren't."
"That simple?" Turcotte asked, "It is that simple."
STONEHENGE
Martaugh slid his feet up the ramp. He didn't dare take a step, afraid his boot would make too much noise. He'd watched the BBC. He knew about the aliens, Area 51, the world war. Everyone did. He had no doubt somehow that this was involved. How he had no idea.
He moved inside. There was a green glow. Martaugh swallowed, but continued forward. The ramp went up to a metal door that was half-ajar. Using the muzzle of the Sterling, he slowly pushed the door open, revealing a chamber. The first thing he noticed was the pale woman covered with blood strapped to a gurney, her right arm ending in a stump.
"Good Lord," Constable Martaugh muttered.
He sensed, rather than heard, someone behind him and he swung about. His finger froze on the trigger the shock was so great. He saw it wasn't a person, but a thing, an unspeakable thing, even as the tentacle wrapped around his throat. He opened his mouth to scream, and that was a mistake.
AIRSPACE
The coast of England appeared ahead and Turcotte looked down at the GPS navigational screen to check their location and the direction to Stonehenge. He adjusted course and the mothership turned slightly to the left.
"One minute out," the pilot informed Spearson via the intercom.
The colonel pulled back the bolt on his MP-5 submachine gun and made sure a round was in the chamber. Seeing that action, the rest of the men in the helicopter's cargo bay did likewise.
The Lynx flared as it slowed, losing altitude.
"Talk to me," Spearson ordered the pilot, who he knew was flying with night-vision goggles and had a clear view of what was ahead. Spearson also had night-vision goggles attached to his helmet, but he couldn't see past the pilot.
"There's some sort of black sphere, about five meters in diameter, hovering just in front of the center ring of stones. There appears to be a doorway of some sort, emitting a green light. There's also a police Land Rover parked nearby. No sign of whoever drove it."
Black sphere? Spearson had kept up with the torrent of intelligence reports about the recent world war, fought primarily in the Pacific and Middle East and he could recollect no such description. Something new. Something different.
Spearson had been under fire many times, in Northern Ireland, during the Gulf War, in Ethiopia but he felt a shiver of unease as the Lynx's skids hit the ground with a slight thump. He didn't have to yell any commands. He knew the men would be right behind and spread out tactically. That was the difference between the SAS and a regular line unit. He ran from the chopper toward the black sphere, shoving his night-vision goggles down on their slot on his helmet. He blinked for a second as the darkness gave way to a bright green scene, The black sphere was perfectly still, hovering a few feet above the ground, part of the outer shell forming a ramp to the ground.
Spearson froze as a figure carrying a Sterling submachine gun came out of the opening. He had the muzzle of the MP-5 centered on the man, when he stopped his finger, just short of firing, as he recognized the uniform.
"Over there!" the constable yelled, pointing to the left, away from the monument.
Spearson turned, as did all his men. Nothing.
Spearson heard the sound of an automatic weapon going off as the first rounds hit him in the chest, knocking him backward. The police officer was moving toward the SAS troopers, weapon to his shoulder, firing.
Spearson landed on his back, his chest aching from the impact on his Kevlar vest. He lifted his head as his men returned fire. He watched in disbelief as the cop was riddled with bullets, yet kept firing. Two more SAS men went down, one fatally shot in the face.
The cop's weapon an old Sterling, Spearson could see through the goggles clicked on an empty chamber. The SAS troops kept firing, literally tearing the cop to pieces until his body collapsed.
Spearson got to his feet. One of his men ran forward and checked the body. Spearson indicated for the rest to follow him. He edged around so that he could see into the pod. A door blocked the way just inside. "Blow it," Spearson ordered.
One of his men pulled a small shaped charge out of his pack and ran up to the door, placing it in the center. He pulled the fuse.
"Fire!" the demolitions man yelled as he exited the craft and dived for cover. Spearson hit the ground, tucking his head down. There was a sharp crack. He got up and cursed. Only a two-foot-wide hole had been blown in the door.
He heard shots behind him and spun about. The man who had been with the cop's body had shot another SAS trooper right in the face. The second man screamed, hands to his face, blood pouring between his fingers. The SAS man fired at his comrades, head shots as he'd been trained.
"Goddamn," Spearson cursed as two more of his men went down. He squeezed the trigger, the bullet hitting the man in the head, just above the right eye, below the edge of the helmet. Blood and brain flew out the exit wound in the back of his head. And still he fired. Another SAS man was down.
Spearson sensed something overhead, but didn't take the time to look up. He fired, pulling the trigger as quickly as he could, head shots all, hitting his own man repeatedly until he finally collapsed.
"What the hell was that, sir?" one of his few surviving men demanded as they converged on the body. It was unrecognizable. Spearson had literally blown the man's head off.
Spearson glanced up. The stars were gone.
Then he was blinded as a brilliant light filled the sky.
Turcotte was waiting right by the cargo door and as soon as Yakov opened it, he rushed down the still-extending gangway to the ground. He had an MP-5 in one hand and Excalibur in the other. The Russian must have also found some way to illuminate the ground below, because it was as bright as if it were high noon.
Turcotte took in the tableau. The large stones were right in front of him, the black pod, a Land Rover, bodies. A few men in uniform still standing, ripping off overloaded night-vision goggles. He recognized one of the men Spearson from the mission in Ethiopia.
"Colonel," Turcotte called out as he headed for the SAS "Commander.
Spearson blinked, trying to reorient himself, still confused and dismayed by the insane actions of his own man.
"Colonel, what do you have?" Turcotte was next to him, noting the bodies. "What happened?"
Spearson shook his head, confused and shocked. "I don't know. The police officer shot at us. Then one of my men I don't know why."
Turcotte looked down at the headless body. Something was stirring in the area of the stub of the spinal column that poked above the neck. Something gray.
"What the hell is that?" Spearson took a step back.
The three-fingered tip of a Swarm tentacle emerged, grasping, searching for a new host. It was slithering out of the body, a foot now exposed. Turcotte swung Excalibur and sliced the tentacle in two, just below the "fingers." The severed portion fell to the ground, and then began to "melt," producing a foul smell.
"What the hell is that?" Spearson demanded.
Turcotte ignored the question. "Duncan? Have you seen Dr. Duncan?"
Spearson shook his head, still staring where the tentacle had been. "We just got here. The copper shot at us. Then my man went crazy. What was that thing in him? What is going on?"
Turcotte continued to ignore the questions, as there was no time to explain. He moved toward the pod, both weapons at the ready. It didn't even occur to him to feel strange holding an ultramodern submachine gun in one hand and a legendary sword in the other. He stepped onto the pod ramp and saw the hole that had been blasted in it. He paused for a moment, then leaned over and poked his head inside. The skin on the back of his neck prickled as he waited for a tentacle to lash out at him. In the green glow he saw Duncan strapped to a table. He took in the massive amounts of blood under and around her; the half-regenerated hand; the Ark of the Covenant on a table next to her along with the crown.
Duncan turned her head and met his gaze. Turcotte could see the pain in her eyes.
"Mike." She said it so softly, Turcotte wasn't sure whether there was an actual word or he was interpreting the way her lips moved.
"I'll get you out of there," Turcotte said. The hole was too small for him to fit through. He would need more demolitions.
"Mike."
He definitely heard her this time. He took a quick look around, half-expecting to see one of the creatures he and Yakov had found in the ruins of Section IV. "What?"
"I'm sorry."
Turcotte staggered as the pod moved beneath his feet. "I'll get you out." He wondered if it were taking off. He pulled his head out of the hole and stepped back. It wasn't the pod. It was the ground itself moving. The nearest standing stones were leaning precariously. A lintel stone fell off, slamming into the ground with a loud thud. Spearson was yelling orders, ordering his men to pull back.
Turcotte turned back to pod, just as the door he was standing on began to lift. He knew he had just a few seconds. "I'll be back!" he yelled toward the opening, then he dived to the side, narrowly avoiding being crushed as the door sealed. The pod rose and moved to the side, out of the way of the hovering mothership. It stopped about fifty yards away. Turcotte stood, then had to dash out of the way as another tall stone came crashing down, missing him by a few inches. He felt the rush of air displaced by the stone as it hit the ground with a solid thud.
Turcotte's fingers scrambled to grab hold of solid ground, but the dirt was sliding away beneath him. Then he felt metal, warm metal, which was strange. The mothership overhead was still illuminating everything and he looked down. Gray metal. More and more of it. The surface Turcotte lay on was slightly curved. He realized he was on some sort of craft, a type which he hadn't seen before. And it was going up. On all fours, Turcotte scuttled toward the edge he could see about ten yards away. He heard a loud, echoing thud, which he could only imagine was one of the standing stones falling onto the skin of the craft.
By the time he made it to the edge, the craft was clear of the ground. It was saucer-shaped with a large protrusion near front and two more near the rear. Turcotte didn't spend much time checking it out. He gathered himself and jumped off, the airborne training he'd received at Fort Benning so many years ago taking over. Black Hats with megaphones yelling: Feet and knees together, knees bent, arms tucked. Hit. Roll.
Turcotte lay on his back and saw the outline of the strange craft against the mothership's lights. Then it darted off to the west, the Swarm pod following.