Temple of Fire (6 page)

Southwestern Quadrant of
U.S.
Petroleum Blast Crater

Great Basin
Desert

 

Will Langhorne had found four silver coins in his trek through the ruins, but nothing more.  A few worn, pentagonal pieces of ancient currency, if that’s what they were, wouldn’t allow him to sip tropical drinks with a senorita below the equator.

Black smoke poured from what appeared to be a granary up ahead.  Langhorne coughed, held his gas mask to his sunburned face, and headed in the opposite direction, settling in an area of one- and two-story mud brick buildings.  The bricks were hard as stone, testimony to the skill of the builders.  Only technically savvy cultures were able to combine water, ground up vegetation, and the right kind of soil to yield a brick that could be given square edges in order to mesh perfectly with others.

He leaned against what had probably been a family dwelling.  The crater was hot as hell, and Langhorne was perspiring profusely.  He took a long swig of water from his canteen and wiped his brow with the long, blue bandana tied around his neck.

He took a deep breath, reflecting on the life journey that had brought him to a geological inferno in search of treasure.

After receiving his Ph.D. in geology from
Berkeley
, he’d married a beautiful Asian woman named Jun Yang, daughter of Chinese diplomat Li
Soo
Yang.  Jun was so thoroughly Americanized that she went by the name June Yang, a psychiatrist who had a lucrative and thriving private practice in
Washington
,
D.C.
  Langhorne was in charge of carbon dating at the U.S. Geological Survey’s headquarters in D.C. 

Before June died from an aggressive tumor in her left lung at the age of thirty-six, she had been regarded as the “therapist to American statesmen.”  Her client list included senators, congressmen, lobbyists, White House cabinet members, a Supreme Court judge,
CIA
personnel, and several staffers from many of the above.  The ongoing joke at the many galas she and Will attended was that she probably knew the nuclear launch codes.

It was after her sudden death, when Will had gone through his deceased wife’s records and private
papers, that
he learned that she’d been feeding military intelligence to her father.  One area that Li
Soo
Yang had apparently taken a keen interest in was ancient civilizations.

Will began his womanizing and drinking after June’s death.  She had been the stabilizing influence in the marriage, as well as the principle breadwinner, charging patients four hundred dollars an hour to spill their neuroses and woes to her professional ear.  Because of his subsequent drinking, the Survey transferred Will to Elko, where he methodically used his Ground Penetrating Radar to map sections of the desert, an exercise in redundancy since the entire area was already well known to the government.

Well, maybe not every area.  He detected what looked suspiciously like an underground city on one of his many GPR sweeps near the camp of U.S. Pet.  Knowing Li
Soo
Yang’s obsession with such sites, he thought he’d capitalize on his hunch.  Yang had paid him handsomely for the tip, and Langhorne suspected that Chinese forces would arrive any minute, assuming they hadn’t landed already.

A man had to make a living; it was as simple as that.  With a little treasure, plus Yang’s payment, he might just see the verandas of
South America
yet.

He pushed back the brim of his cavalry hat, exposing the creases in his forehead.  What irony it was, he thought, that in Chinese, Jun meant “truth.”

His wife had been a spy.

He stood, took another swig of water, and continued his investigation of the blistering hot city. 

 

Ops
Center

Aboard the
Alamiranta

 

“We’re in the eye of Beatrice,” Touchdown announced triumphantly, as if he were responsible for the ship’s position.  His ebullience was dampened somewhat by a message from the Bridge.

“Mrs.
Caine
,” said Captain
Papagantis
, “we’re sailing calm waters now — I’m sure you can feel the difference — but staying in this tranquil eye might be tricky.”

“Can’t we just track the storm’s movement and maintain speed to match it?” asked
Caine
.

“Maybe,” the Captain replied, “but Beatrice is now exhibiting a classic maneuver of hurricanes.  The center has picked up speed and is starting to wobble.  It can do corkscrews, retrace its path, or start to zigzag.”

From his station, Dr. Ambergris nodded his head.  “That tallies with info from the weather lab.  Beatrice’s eye is unstable.”

“What do you suggest, Captain?” asked
Caine
.

“We’ll have to try to stay in the eye by making some uncomfortably tight turns.  The eye was ten miles in diameter two hours ago.  It’s now shrunk to six, and it’s continuing to shrink.  We don’t have a lot of maneuvering room.  The ship doesn’t exactly turn on a dime.”

“Do your best, Captain,” said
Caine
.  “Staying in the eye is our only real option.”

“At some point,” said DJ, “we’re going to need an exit strategy.”

“True,” said
Caine
.  “Start addressing the problem and see what options you can give me.  Meanwhile, we’re not deviating from our present plan until the torpedo in the cargo bay is disarmed.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said DJ.

“Contact reestablished with Titan Six,” said Touchdown.

“It’s about time we caught a break,” said
Caine
.  “Let’s see what’s going on in
Nevada
.”

 

Titan Six,

Ancient Ruins inside the
U.S.
Petroleum Blast Crater

 

The Titan team had scanned the area for possible hostile activity and exited the vehicle.

“The
EFV’s
radar might not be fully accurate,” Hawkeye told the
Ops
Center
, “given the many buildings surrounding us.  We’ve stumbled upon the ruins of an ancient city.”

“My reception is five-by-five,” said Touchdown.  “Telemetry is solid.  I show about thirty targets clustered on the southwestern side of the crater.  The Chinese, if you haven’t already figured that out.  You’re
go
for recon now.  I’ve also got a holographic display of the city.”

Caine
turned to look at the holographic projection of the ruins on the circular platform in the middle of the
Ops
Center
.

“Give me a geographical status report first,” said
Caine
.  “Then we’ll deal with your unexpected find.”

It was Dr. Madison who spoke.

“Catherine,” he said, “I doubt that U.S. Petroleum is going to like my initial assessment.  This area is unstable in the extreme.  We’re standing outside the EFV, and although there’s a little blue sky above us, there’s still a great deal of yellow haze drifting through the ruins.  I can see fires in several of the temples, fanned by occasional dust storms.  There are obviously numerous pockets of volatile gas beneath us.  Add in tremors and some ominous smoke coming through dozens of fissures, and I think this place could collapse.  Or it might stabilize if the tremors and aftershocks finally subside.  I can’t say for sure unless I get beneath the city and look at the geological activity.  My guess is that the drilling itself didn’t cause such a catastrophe, but it certainly destabilized whatever is three miles down. 
Probably a pocket of gas that, if ignited, could blow away everything for fifty miles.
  And fire is not in short supply here.”

“Thanks for the rosy scenario,”
Caine
said in a deadpan voice.  “I want everyone to spread out and use their helmet cams to give me a three-sixty view of their positions within the city.  We can at least record what U.S. Petroleum uncovered if things get out of hand quickly and we need to extract you.”

Titan Six moved through the streets and passages for a hundred yards in every direction, threading their way through the millennia-old architecture.

“This is absolutely amazing,” Dr. Joshua Ambergris said, studying the screen above his station, which was displaying images from Titan’s helmet cams.  “And it doesn’t make a bit of sense.”

“Explain,” said
Caine
.

“This architecture is a mixture of designs seen on several different continents.  I would expect to find similarities with Mesoamerican architecture because of
Nevada
’s geographical proximity to
Mexico
and
Central America
.  But . . . but . .
. ”
  Ambergris paused to wipe his glasses.  He was perspiring even in the cool, climate-controlled
Ops
Center
.  “But I’m seeing elements not only of Aztec and Mayan architecture, but of Egyptian, Assyrian, and Babylonian influence. 
Even Cambodian.
  One temple in the distance resembles the
Temple
of
Angkor
Wat
in southeast Asia.”

“What are you getting at,
Doctor.
”

“I think you know, Mrs.
Caine
.  I think you know.”

* * *

 

Dr. Joshua Ambergris had formerly led a project for Triad Genomics in
Manhattan
before entering Titan
Global’s
full-time employ.  He had made an astonishing discovery: within strands of
DNA
were long nucleotide sequences called
introns
, or “junk
DNA
.”  They had not appeared to carry any meaningful genetic messages.

Appeared was the operative word.  Working with Christian Madison, Quiz, and Grace Nguyen, Ambergris had found a cipher within ancient Jewish texts that unlocked the random genetic
introns
, producing what had come to be called The Genesis Code.  The Code was still being studied, and news of its existence had not yet been made public.

But what had the Code revealed?  Nothing less than that ancient ancestors of modern-day humans had faced one of many global cataclysms that nearly decimated the human race.  Technologically advanced beyond imagination — the concept of an
Atlantean
culture was the closest analogy — the Ancients, as they came to be known, had left invaluable information for future humans.  They had accomplished this by planting information on the meaningless sections of
DNA
, and hence the name: The Genesis Code.  The Code had been inserted into every member of the Ancient culture so that any survivors would pass down the information for generations until humans once again developed technology that could decode it.

The Code spoke of the cataclysm that wiped out the Ancients two hundred thousand years ago.  Their civilization pre-dated any known to man.

But the Code had also been a veritable encyclopedia of scientific, cultural, medical, and spiritual information.  Titan Global had been conducting classified research on the Code at the top-secret military base of
Savage
Bay
, off the coast of
Ibiza
,
Spain
.  The project director had been Dominique
Caine
, daughter of Catherine.

The paramour of Li
Soo
Yang, Dominique had given knowledge of the discovery to the Chinese, who Yang said would make the technology available to the world for free.  Disease and poverty would be wiped out.

Dominique
Caine
had betrayed her mother, and the Chinese were now also in possession of The Genesis Code.  Both Titan Global and covert arms of the Chinese government, under the direction of Li
Soo
Yang, were still unlocking the secrets of the Ancients.

* * *

 

Joshua Ambergris spoke next as he sat at his station, stroking his beard pensively.

“There’s only one explanation,” he said.  “There is a diversity of architecture and cultural expression in the city because the descendants of the Ancients two hundred thousand years ago scattered widely around the world before the cataclysm that claimed their own civilization.  This is a more overt example of what scientists out in the field have been seeing for years, namely that customs and artifacts from one civilization show up in the remains of another half a world away.  Like all cultures around the globe, this culture descended from the Ancients who wrote The Genesis Code.”

“Agreed,” said
Madison
.  “The Mesoamerican cultures thrived from about 200 A.D. to 1500 A.D.  The
Kmer
culture of
Cambodia
and
Thailand
reached a highpoint in the twelfth century.  The Fourth Dynasty of Egypt’s
Old Kingdom
can be dated to around 2500 B.C.  Assyrian and Babylonian cultures also predate the Common Era.  The only theory that accounts for similarities in these diverse cultures at different periods of history is the dissemination of the Ancients on a global scale, as Joshua indicated.  I think we need to take a piece of stone from one of these buildings and use the portable carbon dating unit in the EFV.”

“I’m on it,” said Quiz.

“I hate to change subjects abruptly,” said Hawkeye, “but what the hell are the Chinese doing here?  We just ran into three of their commandos.”

“They were Dragons of the Night,” Tank said.  “The same highly trained outfit we saw at
Savage
Bay
, gauging from their uniforms, weapons, and style of combat.”

“Are they here because of
abiogenic
oil or to examine the ruins of the city?” asked Hawkeye.

“Unknown,” said
Caine
. 
“Maybe both.
  Or they simply got lucky and walked in on a two-for-one sale.  Either way, I’d like to know who tipped them off.”

Caine
paused.  She knew what most of the
Ops
Center
, as well as Titan Six, was thinking: her daughter Dominique was working with the Chinese on The Genesis
Code,
and that meant she had an ongoing interest in ancient cultures.  Dominique no doubt still had numerous American contacts.  There was no way to be sure.

Quiz emerged from the EFV.  “The rock sample is in the carbon dating chamber.”

“Meanwhile,” said Catherine
Caine
, “I need some hard data on the crater.  Observe the ruins all you want, but do so while investigating the causes of the blast and tell me what U.S. Petroleum can expect from the site in the immediate future.”

“I’m sending each of you a schematic for the portion of the city that’s exposed,” said Touchdown.  “There’s a structure in the middle of the crater that seems to be especially hot.”

The inside of Titan’s helmet visors displayed the following
. 

[I think we could substitute some symbols below, like triangles, etc.]

 

pyramid
    
 
pyramid
         
pyramid
    
pyramid

 

astronomical
observatory

 

Royal
Palace
    
 
Temple
of
    
Temple
of

 

Kalpur-az
    
 
High Priest

 

temple
    
temple
    
temple
    
 
temple

 

(
minor
gods)

 

granary
    
 
plaza
    
 
granary

 

row
of mud brick residential dwellings

 

 

Titan Six had reassembled by the EFV.

“You heard the lady,” said Hawkeye.  “Tank, Quiz, and Gator, I want you to move left — past the pyramids and towards the temples.  Get some temperature readings, look for gas pockets, and measure any tremors.  And keep your assault rifles at the ready.  Christian and Shooter, you’re with me.  We’re going to have a look at that burning temple in the middle of the crater.”

The ground shook, and a new column of smoke, black and thick, emerged from the burning temple.

“Let’s move, people,” Hawkeye ordered.  “I think our time here may be limited.”