Area 51: The Sphinx-4 (24 page)

Turcotte was very familiar with the German interest in the alien and occult.

"The Nazis were very hot after any sort of strange information or material,"

Turcotte said. "They were the ones who were the first to realize the significance of the high runes."

"They were also big believers in UFOs," Yakov said. "They had enough information in the records we recov-

-205-

ered to make your Project Blue Book look like a thin file.

"They knew the foo fighters were something very different the first time their aircraft encountered them. The Luftwaffe lost many planes trying to shoot a foo fighter down. They also sent many expeditions around the world, searching down clues for anything that seemed abnormal or paranormal. Hitler was obsessed with the subject."

"What does that have to do with Ivan there?" Turcotte forced himself to look at the strange creature.

Katyenka answered that. "They must have found it in the same vault as the German foo fighter and other alien information files. That led the Section Four scientists to assume, besides the fact no one's ever seen anything like that in the natural world, that it is extraterrestrial in origin. It is possible that it is some bizarre creation that came from the Nazi butchers in the camps, but they did not think so."

"It's an organism?" Turcotte confirmed.

Katyenka nodded. "Yes."

"An Airlia pet?"

"They had no idea."

"Was it found with Airlia artifacts?"

"It doesn't say." Katyenka had finished reading the material available. "It does say there were two found. The German scientists did an autopsy on the other one."

"That's one thing?" Turcotte stared at the parts floating in the solution.

Katyenka tapped the glass. "The center part—the ball with the eyes—is the head, as near as they could determine. The Germans found a four-hemisphere brain housed inside a very hard protective covering, much stronger than our human skull. The brain was complex, similar to ours but different in some key ways, besides having twice as many hemispheres.

-206-

"The other things . . . well, those are arms, legs, whatever. Each one is the same. The strange thing— well, there are many strange things—is that each arm has a small, complex stem of its own at the thick end, the end that connects with the ball. Perhaps just a nervous system end point, but it appeared to be more than that."

"Why did they take all the arms off?" Turcotte asked, trying to assimilate this information.

"They didn't. That's the way it was found in the Nazi archives. From the autopsy it was determined that the arms . . . well, the best they could figure was that they were detachable and interchangeable. Not only on the main body."

She looked up from the computer screen and pointed. "See those humps? That's where the arms attach, but possibly even between different main bodies."

Turcotte blinked. "You're joking. Like I could give you my arm."

Katyenka shrugged. "That is a theory postulated by the scientists who left this record."

"But what is it?' Turcotte said. "Where did it come from?"

"We recovered much from the Nazis, but not everything. After all, you got the Airlia atom bomb. And there is much the Nazis didn't find."

Turcotte tried to imagine the thing in the tank alive, the arms attached, the three fingers at the end of each arm moving.

He shuddered.

AREA 51

D-27 Hours

Lisa Duncan paused in the door of the conference room and surveyed the two men already inside. Major Quinn had an unlit cigarette in his hands, turning it over and

-207-

over. Larry Kincaid's hands were wrapped around a large coffee mug, dark bags under his eyes, his gaze unfocused. In the corner of the room a clock indicated that Lexina's deadline was only twenty-seven hours away.

She stepped inside, ushering Professor Mualama to a seat near the end of the table. She quickly made introductions.

"What happened in Montana?" she asked Quinn.

Quinn's report was brief. "The NSA authorized use of an ICBM called Interdictor to try to take out the talon and Warfighter with a nuclear warhead.

Somehow Lexina must have gotten intelligence about that and fired first. The warhead went off in the silo. Local damage was minimal, as the silo site was remote, but fallout could be a problem. Luckily, there are no winds in the area right now."

"How did Lexina learn of the planned launch?" Duncan sat down at the end of the conference table, Mualama flanking her to the right.

Quinn shrugged. "A leak somewhere. We have to assume STAAR still has operatives infiltrated throughout the military and government."

"Is the NSA planning any further action against the talon?" Duncan asked.

"Not that they will admit to me," Quinn said.

"Anything on the key?"

"No."

"Anything on the runes?" she asked. She'd sent an image of the stone marker ahead via SATCOM to Quinn so the UNAOC high rune experts could take a look at them.

"Nothing so far," Quinn said. "They're still working on it."

"That's helpful." Duncan's tone indicated how she felt about that. "And the skeleton we brought back?"

"Sent to the lab," Quinn said. "It will be examined."

-208-

"Any word from Turcotte?"

"Nothing. Last report was he was landing at Stantsiya Chyort."

Duncan turned to her right. "Dr. Mualama, anything you care to say?"

Mualama steepled his fingers together. "It is obvious that the Airlia have been on this planet for a very long time. The discovery of this particular corpse is the first Airlia body that we know of that has been found. The dating of the grave site puts it about ten thousand years ago, or after the destruction of Atlantis."

"We know the Airlia have been here a long time," Quinn said wearily.

"But the thing you don't know," Mualama said, "is how much influence the Airlia have had on our development. Initially, Professor Nabinger believed they had little to do with us after they destroyed Atlantis over thirteen thousand years ago. However, the skeleton site was newer than that, and the marker on top of the coffin was only about two to three thousand years old. Someone put that marker there a long time after the coffin was in place.

"The question that has to be answered is how much interference have the Airlia had in our history? Think of the discoveries by Professor Nabinger in China about the Great Wall and the tomb of Qian-Ling. The possible true purpose of the Great Pyramid that he uncovered. The guardian on Easter Island, the statues there that we now know mimic the Airlia themselves." Mualama leaned forward. "We have to reevaluate everything we think we know about our history."

"We know that," Duncan said. "We've discovered other interference. We know the Guides from The Mission have been active at times throughout our history. We believe the Black Death in the Dark Ages was caused by The Mission. The thing we don't know is why

-209-

the various Airlia factions have been doing what they've been doing other than it appears to be a continuation of the millennia-old civil war and we happen to be caught in the middle."

A phone buzzed, and Quinn picked it up. He listened for a second, then put his hand over the receiver. "We finally have Captain Turcotte on the SATPhone."

"Put it on the speaker," Duncan ordered. She leaned forward. "Mike, you there?"

Turcotte's voice sounded clear, relayed through Department of Defense satellites from his location in Russia. "Yes."

"The control for the talon?"

"Stolen." Turcotte quickly updated her. "At least we know why Section Four was attacked," he concluded.

Duncan told him of the explosion in Montana. Then she moved on to the actions off Easter Island.

"I think I know what happened to the Washington." Duncan had been checking databases about that during the flight back. She'd had imagery of the aircraft carrier relayed to Turcotte's bouncer. "I think the guardian sucked up a lot of information on nanotechnology from the Interlink and used it."

"I've never heard of nanotechnology," Turcotte said. "What is it?"

"It's only a theory to us," Duncan said. "We're several decades from actually applying the theory."

"It looks like it took the guardian only a couple of days to go from theory to application," Turcotte noted.

"It makes sense," Duncan said. "If I was the guardian, nanotechnology would be the way I would go."

"And what way is that exactly?" Turcotte asked.

"The best analogy I can give you," Duncan said, "is to think about the way computers deal with information. They can process it, change it, and reproduce it by themselves at practically no cost. They do that by breaking the

-210-

information down to bits, the most basic level, and then manipulating or reproducing it.

"Imagine if a machine could do the same thing structurally at the atomic level. The real kicker to it is that it is almost like inventing a new virus, a machine virus, because the nanomachines are capable of taking new material, manipulating it molecule by molecule, and reproducing. A nanorobot can break down a molecule, change it, and eventually make another nanorobot."

"So that was the virus that invaded the Washington?" Turcotte asked.

"Yes. The nanorobots were able to take apart the material of the Washington at the molecular level."

"Jesus," Turcotte exclaimed. "What about the people these things touched?"

"I don't know," Duncan said.

"There were over six thousand people on board the Washington," Turcotte said.

"I know that. The Navy picked up almost four thousand crew members out of the ocean. They jumped overboard when Admiral Poldan gave the order."

"And the other two thousand crew? We don't know what happened to them?"

"From Poldan's last transmissions, we know some of them were killed. The rest, well, I would have to assume they have been ... the only word I could use is captured."

"Can nanotechnology affect humans?" Turcotte asked.

"In various ways, yes."

"Goddamn!" Turcotte exploded. "We stopped the Black Death and now we have this?"

"Nanotechnology," Duncan said, "is the wave of the future in almost every area. It will revolutionize practically everything we know. Think of machines built at the molecular level able to go inside our bodies and help

-211-

maintain them. Machines that can attack cholesterol at the molecular level in our bloodstream. Or be designed specifically to attack cancer cells.

"And nanotechnology removes waste in construction. Since the building is done at the molecular level, there is no excess or lost material. It is also extremely efficient of energy. It's like"—Duncan paused, searching for an analogy—"like having a machine that is a paper copier, except dealing with machines rather than paper images—it would be able to make copies of anything.

"A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter," Duncan continued. "You get about ten atoms per nanometer. What I think the guardian has mastered that we can't do yet is be able to work the atoms individually and place them where it wants.

We've barely begun to work at microtechnology, which are small robots you can see. You can't even see a nanorobot.

"I call it a virus, because it's the mechanical sibling of the organic virus.

Capable of replicating on its own, operating at a level even smaller than that of organic viruses."

"What is the guardian going to do now that it has mastered this?"

"I don't know," Duncan said.

"We'd better come up with something," Turcotte said, "because it just sucked up the most powerful weapon system on the face of this planet. How many nuclear warheads were on board the Washington?"

"Eight."

"Great."

"Don't forget that the Washington also had two nuclear reactors," Duncan added. She leaned forward, and her voice lowered. "I think this is going to force UNAOC's hand. They're going to have to attack Easter Island."

-212-

"Then you'd better hope those two thousand sailors are really dead," Turcotte said.

"Even if they aren't," Duncan said, "when you have a virus, sometimes you have to cut off the infected part."

"Jesus!" Turcotte exclaimed. "That's a bit cold."

"I didn't mean it like that," Duncan quickly said. Her hands were pressed against the side of her head. The others in the room were watching her, not able to offer any support.

"I know you didn't, but is that the way UNAOC is going to look at it?"

Turcotte asked. "When I was getting ready to go on an operation, we always had to ask ourselves some hard questions. One of those questions was what we would do if we had someone wounded and he couldn't keep up with us.

"It's real easy in the movies for that guy to volunteer to stay behind, or for someone to make the decision to leave that guy behind with a pack of cigarettes in one hand and a gun in the other, but in real life it's a whole different ball game. Because the question we would ask was what if it was me, not some other guy." His voice was tight. "Me that was the one who was wounded. The one we were talking about leaving behind. The one on Easter Island we're talking about nuking."

"I understand, Mike, but this is out of our hands now."

"I know, but goddamn, two thousand men! And Kelly Reynolds, let's not forget she's still there."

Duncan sighed. "Mike, let's let UNAOC take care of this. The good thing is that Easter Island is very isolated. Whatever the guardian has planned, I hope we can contain it. Let's keep our focus on finding this key. That's the most immediate problem."

"What about Che Lu?" Turcotte changed the subject.

"There's not much we can do about that either. We

-213-

haven't heard from her since the nuke went off. The Chinese have sealed their borders."

"Goddamn," Turcotte swore. "This is ridiculous. We're not only fighting the aliens, we're fighting ourselves again."

"Mike, I know that. We have to do the best we can."

"And if it's not good enough?" There was a short pause. "Does anyone there have anything useful?" Turcotte finally asked.