Atlantis (29 page)

“Think about Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat,” Beasley said. “The moats the Khmer put around the city. I’d say the Khmer were trying to imitate what was done at Atlantis except they didn’t have the ocean. They had to make their own water supply and insure that it would always be there.”

Dane was listening to Beasley but he was more concerned about what was across the stream. If that radio call had been real and Flaherty was really out there then--Dane started. If Flaherty had sent that message just a few days ago . . .

“Let me have the PRC-77,” Dane said to Freed cutting off Beasley’s excited rambling.

“Why?”

“If that message you played for me was legit, then my team is still in there and they have commo,” Dane said.

Freed pulled his backpack off. Dane took it and lifted up the top flap. He saw the faded green paint on the top of the radio. He turned the frequency knob, the clicking noise almost comforting, reminding him of missions long ago, dialing up frequencies in the dark by feel. He screwed in the whip antenna, then turned the radio on. He dialed up the emergency FM frequency for that last mission, then took the handset.

“Big Red, this is Dane. Over.”

Dane waited for five seconds, then pressed the transmit button again. “Big Red, this is Dane. Over.”

Still nothing.

“Big Red, this is Dane. If you can hear me, break squelch twice. Over.”

“Watch out,” Freed hissed, grabbing Dane’s arm and pointing to the west. A large golden circle was forming directly opposite them in the mist, a mile away.

The radio crackled with two squelch’s, then a quick burst of Morse code. Dane’s mind was still working on the code, interpreting the letters, making them into words, as he raised the mike again. “Big Red, this is--” Dane paused as the letters came together in his head:

N-O-V-O-I-C-E

He dove down as a lightning bolt of gold flashed out of the center of the circle, heading directly toward their location. Freed grabbed Beasley and pulled the portly scientist down behind the cover of the stone rampart. The bolt struck with a thunderous crack. Dane heard stone shatter and felt himself peppered with fragments. He rolled onto his back and looked up. A large chunk of the rampart had been blown out, the stone splintered.

“You OK?” Freed asked, slowly getting to his feet.

“Yeah,” Dane said. Beasley was staring at the hole in the wall.

“No voice,” Dane said. “That’s what the Morse was.”

“Figure it out a little faster next time,” Freed said.

“You all right?” A voice echoed up to them from below, McKenzie calling out.

“We’re OK,” Freed yelled back.

“What the blazes was that?” McKenzie demanded.

“I don’t know. Get back to your security position,” Freed ordered.

“Security?” McKenzie was incredulous. “Against thunderbolts out of the mist?”

“Get back,” Freed said.

Shaking his head, the Canadian did as ordered.

“Do you have a Morse key?” Dane asked.

“Nope.”

“Damn,” Dane muttered.

The radio came alive again with dashes and dots crackling out of the speaker. Dane pulled a small pad out of his breast pocket and rapidly copied them down. When he recognized that the message was repeating itself, he stopped copying and began translating.

D-A-N-E-B-I-G-R-E-D-D-O-N-T-S-E-N-D-V-O-I-C-E-G-O-T-O-G-R-I-D-7-8-2-9-4-3 W-I-L-L-T-R-Y-T-O-C-O-V-E-R-Y-O-U

Dane looked up from the pad and through the newly blasted hole in the rampart at the mist. Flaherty was out there. Alive.

Freed had his map out, checking. “That coordinate is north of where the plane is down. About ten klicks.”

Dane stood. Without a Morse key he couldn’t ‘talk’ to Flaherty and it was obvious his former team leader wasn’t going to be sending much more than the terse message they’d just received. There was no way he could check on the MILSTARS issue like this. He looked at the map.

The grid was direct center of what looked to be a large, depression shaped like a rough rectangle, about seven kilometers wide by twelve long. The dark green marking covering the entire area indicated thick jungle. Of course, a notation on the bottom of the map informed the reader that the data represented was not verified. Dane noted that the area inside the depression held no contour lines and no detail, as if the map makers had simply made a best guess. He remembered Beasley’s comment on the plane about the blank areas on ancient maps. It appeared there were still blanks on modern ones too.

Dane looked up. “It’s out there,” he pointed to the right front.

“We go to the plane first,” Freed said.

Dan shook his head. “No.”

“Listen, this is my mission--” Freed began.

“Fine,” Dane said. “You go to the plane and take the Canadians with you. I’m going to that grid coordinate. Flaherty said he’d cover us if we went to the coordinate he gave.”

“What kind of cover can he give?” Freed demanded.

“I don’t know,” Dane admitted, “but I’ll take anything. You go to the plane, I don’t think you’ll get any help.”

“We’re wasting time standing around here jawing,” Freed said. He led the way down the interior stairs, Dane and Beasley following. “Let’s move out,” Freed ordered the Canadians.

“What happened to that chopper?” McKenzie asked, the other three men standing behind him, fingering their weapons uncertainly.

“That’s why we couldn’t fly in,” Freed said. “That fog does something strange to electromagnetic devices.”

“That was no fog that knocked that chopper down,” McKenzie said. “That was no fog that about blasted you guys to little pieces.”

“Let’s move,” Freed ordered.

“I don’t--”

“You move now,” Freed said, “or you can walk home. The only way you’re getting on the helicopter to get back to Thailand is if you stay with me and I’m going in there.”

“Sounds familiar,” Dane said.

Freed ignored him. “Move out.”

Dane didn’t move. “To where?”

Freed hesitated. “How about we go to the plane, then north to the grid?”

Dane shook his head. “We don’t want to spend any more time than we have to in there. Ed must have a reason he wants us to go to that grid and he’s already inside. He must know about the plane, too. I trust him and I think we should do what he says. I’m going to the grid.”

Dane could see Freed look past him to the shattered rampart of the watchtower. “All right. But only if we then go to the plane.”

Dane saw no need to respond to that. Even with Flaherty ‘covering’ for them, whatever that meant, he wasn’t overly optimistic about making it to the grid coordinate.

The Canadians spread out and led the way down the ridge into the river valley, Freed, Dane and Beasley following them.

Dane felt the same feeling of fear and distress rise up inside of him, but he could control it better now after years of entering destroyed buildings and disaster areas. He focused his mind on the immediate task of climbing down the hill.

***

“You came well supplied,” Ariana remarked as Carpenter lay out a length of blue detonating cord. The two of them were in the center of the console area. Directly below their feet, according the plane’s plans, lay the center fuel tank. They’d left Ingram in the communications area watching over Hudson, waiting to see if they received any more messages from Flaherty in response to their request for help once they left the plane.

“Always prepared, just like the Boy Scouts,” Carpenter said as she pulled a blasting cap out of the lining of her carry-on bag.

“Why were you sent to spy on us?” Ariana asked.

“Because of this area,” Carpenter said. “The CIA has been paying close attention to it for a long time.”

“Why?”

“Because--” Carpenter paused and pointed up. “Why do you think? There’s some weird ass stuff happening here and it’s been happening for a long time and we’re trying to figure it out.”

“Why didn’t you warn me then?”

Carpenter paused in her work and looked up at the other woman. “Your father was given enough information to know this was a strange and dangerous place. He was told about the other planes that went down and the people lost. I guess he just figured it was worth it to send the survey.” Carpenter picked up the blasting cap. “Hold this.”

Ariana took the cap. She knew what Carpenter said was true. Her dad had known and he’d sent them anyway. The payoff. Always the payoff.

Carpenter crimped the metal casing on the end of the blasting cap, attaching it to the detonating cord. Ariana watched the woman’s fingers moving deftly and knew they had done the same thing many times before.

“What is this place we’re in?” Ariana asked.

“Got me,” Carpenter sat back and wiped the sweat off her forehead. “I got tagged for this just before this mission. From my briefing, nobody knows. That’s why we’re here. Guinea pigs let loose in the maze. Everyone’s waiting to see what happens to us. I’d say it’s more than just us, though. Your father had to have launched a rescue mission and since they haven’t been knocking on the door yet, I’d say that big snake got them or something else. Same with the Hie-Tech chopper. Same with whatever rescue mission my Agency launches, if they launch one at all. I didn’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling from the guy who briefed me that he really gave a rat’s ass about me. He wanted to know what was in here, Angkor Gate he called it. I don’t think he was too concerned about whatever price had to be paid to get that information.”

“Geez,” Ariana muttered.

“Yeah, baby, we’ve both been screwed,” Carpenter said. She held the det cord and cap in her hands. “We’re ready to blast.”

Ariana turned toward the front of the plane. “Let’s see if we have any news on how we’re supposed to get out of here.”

When she entered the commo section, Ingram held out a sheet of paper. “We just got this in.”

Ariana read it.

G-O-T-O-G-R-I-D-7-8-2-9-4-3 G-O-T-O-G-R-I-D7-8-2-9-4-3

Ariana pulled a map off the counter and slapped it onto the table. “All right, this is what we’ve got.” She stared at the area that the grid designated, then looked up at Ingram, Hudson and Carpenter. “It’s about five klicks north of here.”

“I can’t make it,” Hudson said immediately.

Ariana shrugged. “Fine. We’ll leave you.”

“You can’t--” Hudson began, but stopped at the glare she gave him.

“We’ll help you get there, but don’t you dare tell me what I can and can’t do you son-of-a-bitch.”

“But how do we know there’s something there to get to?” Ingram asked.

“As this point I don’t think we have much choice,” Ariana said. “Let’s get ready.”

“Ariana!” Carpenter’s voice echoed from the back of the plane. “You’ve got to see this.”

Ariana ran to the center console section, avoiding the gold line that had killed Daley. Carpenter was looking into the mainframe of Argus.

“What’s going on?”

“Look,” Carpenter said. “Something’s happening.”

Ariana stared as a piece of Argus’s hardware disappeared inside the golden glow surrounding it.

“What is going on?” Ariana asked.

“Twelve hours,” Carpenter said. “I think we might be too late.”

“Let’s get moving!”

*****

“It was using the MILSTARS satellites,” Jimmy confirmed, studying the latest imagery, “but the points of convergence are not based on that.”

“But the power was being carried via MILSTARS,” Conners argued. They were in her office now, the walls covered with imagery, reams of computer printouts covering every available surface and the floor. “What’s carrying it now?”

Jimmy threw down a computer printout and slumped down into a chair, ignoring the paper underneath him. “I think it outgrew the need to use MILSTARS. Many of these lines run across European and Russian satellites. This thing, whatever it is, is using anything up there it can get a hold of. I think it’s on the verge of not needing the satellites any more. Of being able to sustain itself.”

“Damn,” Conners muttered. “I guess we’d better update Foreman.”

*****

The chopper flared to a hover above the blasted clearing. The two men in black hooked thick ropes into the roof of the helicopter bay, then threw the free ends into the downblast. Bags slung over their shoulders, they stepped out into the air and rappelled to the ground.

Sin Fen watched, her mind on other matters. The chopper moved away slightly and she could look down and see the men pull chain saws out of the duffel bags and begin clearing away branches and other debris that would interfere with their landing.

Sin Fen felt Chelsea stir next to her, but she kept her hands tight on the dog’s collar. She closed her eyes and reached outward. Dane was close to the Angkor Gate. Very close. And soon he would be in.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

After getting off the satellite phone with Conners, Foreman stared at the electronic map at the front of the operations center and watched the various moving symbols that represented the military forces being marshaled by the Pentagon. The
Wyoming
was closing on the Bermuda Triangle Gate and other aircraft and ships were vectoring on the vortices where activity was strongest. Part of the Seventh Fleet was circling around the southern tip of Vietnam to go on-station in the Gulf of Thailand.

But there was no plan yet. Everyone was still reeling from the failure of Thunder Dart’s mission to stop the propagation. They’d thrown the most technologically advanced equipment the country owned against this threat and been beaten. The pilot of the Thunder Dart had been recovered but the 2.2 billion dollar aircraft had been swatted like a fly.

But it wasn’t just the United States. Foreman had been in contact with both his Russian and Japanese counterparts. The Russians had used a hunter-killer satellite to take out one of their own communications satellites that had been taken over by the propagation. The result had been one hunter-killer satellite blown apart by the golden glow. The Japanese Navy had sent their most modern destroyer into their closest Gate, into the heart of the Devil’s Sea, and it had not been heard from again.