Area 51: Nosferatu-8 (32 page)

The X-Craft design was simple but functional. He'd begun work on it many years previously and kept it as secret as possible to prevent interference from the Ones Who Wait. Over the years he'd brought in the best and brightest to work on certain parts, but he'd kept overall control of the development compartmentalized so that only the tiniest handful of people knew the big picture. Money had been no object.

The X-Craft was a delta wing craft, more arrowhead-shaped than the American space shuttle, and smaller. Its cargo bay could hold only one-quarter of what the American shuttle could, but it was one-tenth as costly to produce and fly.

The crew consisted of a pilot and copilot. Additional personnel could be put on board if a crew pod was inserted in the cargo bay. For the moment, the cargo bay was empty except for two EVA space suits and special equipment they would need once they reached the derelict mothership.

Nosferatu had test X-Craft models flown in Australia and even achieved two successful landings of the craft that was now on top of the booster, flying it up on top of a 747 and releasing it. The Ariane 5 booster was proven with many successful liftoffs. As far as Nosferatu could predict, everything should work perfectly.

He was less certain of Vampyr's actions.

His thoughts were interrupted by the final seconds of the countdown. The rocket ignited and began to lift. Nosferatu slipped on a pair of sunglasses to protect his eyes as the flame seared the night sky. He watched the rocket accelerate upward until he could no longer see it.

Time to move on to his next task.

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Hong Kong Chek Lap Kok Airport

"You are not welcome here."

Vampyr had had a feeling that he would not be warmly greeted in Hong Kong. He was standing on the tarmac at the new Hong Kong International Airport, an island set apart from the mainland. His jet was behind him in a secure area, bathed in the flashing lights of security vehicles. The man who had greeted him with those five words wore the blue uniform of the Hong Kong police. There was some rank insignia on his collar but Vampyr had no clue what they meant.

Vampyr had a pack slung over his shoulder. Inside the pack were some goodies he had rigged—just in case. He had walked into too many strange situations not to prepare for the worst possible scenario.

"You are not welcome here," the official repeated.

Vampyr decided to ignore him as he saw someone approaching, a man dressed in a very nice suit that must have come from one of the most expensive stores in Hong Kong. More important, everyone in uniform who saw him approach immediately adopted body language that indicated this was a man with real power.

"I am Chon. Deputy governor of Hong Kong. How may I be of assistance?"

"He"—Vampyr nodded at the man in uniform—"says I am not welcome."

"A misunderstanding," Chon said. "Things have been most in flux recently as I am sure I do not have to tell you. We in Hong Kong have a long history of welcoming guests regardless of outer circumstances."

Chon had been on Vampyr's payroll for over twenty years. He held his high position through Vampyr's influ-

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ence. He had had only one task all those years—to keep tabs on Tian Dao Lin.

Chon snapped a command in Chinese. The area immediately around them was suddenly clear for a distance of twenty meters. Chon glanced to the right, along the east-west runway. The sun was hovering above the western horizon, a landing 747 silhouetted against it. "We do not have much time before dark. Come with me." With that Chon turned and headed for the helicopter he'd arrived in.

Vampyr followed. The blades were powering up for takeoff as they boarded. The chopper lifted and headed toward Hong Kong proper, over forty kilometers away.

Since Chon hadn't bothered to put on the headset on the ceiling over his head, Vampyr assumed he didn't want to talk while in flight. They landed on top of a tall building set among a cluster of skyscrapers. Chon got off and headed immediately for a door without looking back. Vampyr followed. They descended a flight of stairs, then went into a room containing a large desk and bay windows with a commanding view of Hong Kong.

"Please be seated," Chon said. Then he took the seat behind the desk and hit several buttons. Steel shutters dropped over the windows, cutting off the view.

Vampyr placed the backpack next to the seat, facing the door behind them.

"This room is now Tempest proof," Chon said.

Vampyr knew that meant it was supposed to be secure from all forms of bugging.

Tian Dao Lin was a very powerful man in Hong Kong, perhaps the most powerful.

Some said he ultimately was in control of all the Triads. He also owned many legitimate businesses, just like Vampyr, Nosferatu, and Adrik. The most dangerous aspect of Tian Dao Lin, as far as Vampyr was concerned, 286

was his inner core of Quarters. More than any of the other three Undead, Tian Dao Lin enjoyed breeding with human women and bringing offspring into the world.

Even Vampyr feared being attacked by a pack of Quarters.

"What is the latest?" Vampyr finally asked.

"One of the Quarters, named Tai, paraglided off Everest earlier today. He is on his way here with a package."

Vampyr nodded. Tian Dao Lin had succeeded in recovering the blood of the One Who Waits. The end had begun.

"Do you know when he arrives?"

"In four hours."

"Will we be able to intercept?"

Chon looked uncomfortable. "I have not yet been able to determine where Tian Dao Lin's lair is. Every time we try to follow his people, they manage to lose us. He is most careful, and if one gets too close, then his inner circle makes that person disappear."

Vampyr had anticipated Chon's failure. "I am trying to discover the location by other means. Still, have your men try to follow the blood when it arrives. I want both the blood and Tian Dao Lin."

Moscow

Colonel Kokol felt the point of a needle enter his right arm but didn't have the energy to react. He focused all his remaining power on opening his eyes.

Once more he was greeted by the captain's face looming over him.

"There is a problem. We did not stop them from removing what they stole from the archives. They escaped."

Kokol forced his eyes open. He was lying on a cot in a mobile operations center. He could see soldiers and police

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scurrying about. For the moment, the two of them were left relatively alone.

"What happened?"

"After they knocked you out—and left you for dead under the body of the soldier—the infiltrators made their way up the ramp, then through other tunnels and out the exit they came in. The Moscow police and SVD security tried to stop them and suffered heavy casualties in the process."

"What did they take?"

"It appears a stock of old blood taken by the Russians from the Germans from Berlin at the end of the Great Patriotic War."

"World War II," Colonel Kokol muttered. "Who did this?"

"We have video from the entrance—they killed the guards on their way out, along with Pashenka, the SVD man who let them in. Police files indicate they are Mafia under the control of—"

"Adrik," Kokol completed the sentence. Everyone had heard whispers of the head of the Mafia in Moscow. Nothing happened at this level in the city without his blessings.

"Yes."

"Would blood stored like that still be viable?" Kokol wondered. "Why would they steal it?"

"I do not know, but twelve men are dead, so it must be important."

Colonel Kokol swung his feet to the side and tried to sit up. The attempt caused a hiss of pain to escape his lips but he managed to get upright. "Do the police have a line on where we can find Adrik?"

"Yes. They've always known where his headquarters is. No one has ever had the power or the will to attack him."

"We'll see about that," Kokol said, pulling a SatPhone out of his pocket.

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Earth Orbit

With a slight burst from a forward thruster, the X-Craft decelerated as it entered the large cargo bay of the mothership. Another burst brought it to a halt, floating just above the deck and among the battered Talon spacecraft that had been knocked out of commission by the nuclear blast combined with the power of the ruby sphere that Turcotte had brought there from the cavern in Ethiopia.

A hatch on the side of the X-Craft opened with a puff of escaping air and both suited crew-members exited, carrying large plastic cases in the zero gravity.

They split, going to different Talons. Each went inside, to the first Airlia body they saw, and opened the case, revealing syringes, blood bags, and the same type of battery-powered pump that Tai had used.

They quickly got to work, poking each body in different places to draw the little remaining blood that hadn't drained out into space.

Moscow

Vampyr's reach was indeed long.

Kokol's SatPhone rang and he listened for a moment, then held it out for the captain. "It is the premier."

The captain stared in disbelief and took the phone. He listened for about a minute, his only replies "Yes, sir," then closed the phone and handed it back to Colonel Kokol.

"And?" the colonel asked.

"We attack and destroy Adrik." The captain spun on his heel and shouted orders. Soldiers jumped into vehicles

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and they raced into the city toward the modern office building that held the Mafia leader's office.

Colonel Kokol, having survived World War II, the Cold War, and the end of the Cold War and the bitter departmental infighting after it, along with being Vampyr's spy in Russia on Adrik for over half a century, decided to watch the assault from the command truck three blocks away. It had direct video feeds from each of the assault units, from cameras mounted on the team leaders' helmets.

"Your optics are excellent," Kokol observed, as they watched the teams surround the building.

"A gift from the Americans," the captain said. "They're supposed to be used by counternuke teams to keep track of our nuclear material and weapons."

Kokol watched as the teams stealthily approached all the known entrances to the building, listening as the captain counted down to the breach.

At zero all the ingress points were hit.

Kokol was shaking his head within five seconds as no opposition was apparent on any of the screens. "It's too easy. Something's wrong."

The teams had breached the perimeter of the building and were working their way in. Still no shots fired. Nothing.

Colonel Kokol turned to the captain. "I would pull the teams. Now."

Two of the teams were working their way up stairwells, the elevators out of order as they cut the power to them. Three other teams were doing room-by-room searches of lower-level offices.

The captain leaned over Kokol's shoulder. "I cannot pull them out. We must have revenge. Watch. We have other equipment from the Americans. Most efficient and useful." He rattled something into his mike. One of the 290

men with a camera stopped at a computer on a desk and pulled something out of his pack. It appeared to be a handheld organizer with a lead going to a floppy diskette, which he shoved into the A drive on the computer.

"We can take everything off the hard drive in ten seconds," the captain said proudly. "It is being transmitted right here." He pointed at a computer next to the monitors.

"I'm telling you that you've got a problem," Kokol said. "The place is abandoned."

"What?"

Kokol stood, looking across the monitors as the teams progressed deeper into the building. "Get your men out. Now!" He yelled the last word.

"I don't—"

"Do it," Kokol said. He turned to the captain. "Adrik is prepared for an attack. You've encountered no resistance, which means he's letting you in. If he's letting you in, then it can't be good." Even as he said the words, Kokol knew it was too late.

This was confirmed as a flash filled one of the video monitors, immediately followed by the feed blacking out. In rapid succession the other four feeds did the same.

The command and control van lifted off its right tires as the blast wave hit it, followed by the roar of the explosion. The van slammed back down, still upright, as debris from the explosion hit the side.

Kokol knew the entire team was dead. He felt it run through his body as surely as the shock wave had hit the van.

"The computer." Kokol tapped the dazed captain on the shoulder.

"What?"

"Check the computer."

"For what?"

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"The download. What they tapped."

The captain slid the seat over to the nearby computer as chaos reigned inside the command van, everyone shouting into radios trying to figure out what had happened. He looked at the screen and saw the small emblem indicating the information that had been transmitted by the team member just before the explosion.

Kokol doubted anything of value would have been picked up, but over two dozen men had just died, and he owed it to them to look. The hard drive data came up.

He quickly scanned through it. Daily calendar. Interoffice . memos. Shipping.

Time clocks. Phone logs.

Kokol backed up. He scanned the shipping logs for the last two days carefully.

Kokol smiled when he spotted a rush shipment to Hong Kong.

He pulled out his phone and dialed a number, giving the address to the person on the other end.

Dulce, New Mexico

Nosferatu and the team of mercenaries he had hired had taken off in two Huey helicopters with US Army markings from an abandoned airstrip in southern Colorado, where they had been awaiting his arrival. They were flying due south, low to the ground to avoid radar.

The town of Dulce was just south of the Colorado-New Mexico border, between the Carson National Forest and the Rio Grande National Forest. The terrain was full of mountains covered with pine trees. The town was on the forward slope of a large mountain. On the back slope was the entrance to the secret lab that Majestic-12 had established shortly after World War II.

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The experiments there had been as varied as the human imagination, according to what Nosferatu had been able to learn, although much of it was still shrouded in secrecy. The United States government had done work on mind control using memory-affecting drugs and electronic dissolution of memory. Some of the work came out of Airlia technology and some from German scientists captured at the end of World War II and impressed into US service under Operation Paperclip.