Area 51

CHAPTER 34

Gullick sat in the back of the large Navy helicopter parked on the runway and listened in on the command frequency as the strike force moved in. There was enough ordnance on those planes to reduce the volcano to rubble. After that — Gullick shook his head, trying to get rid of a pounding headache and think clearly. They would have to dig down to the mothership again. And then, then—

“Are you all right, sir?” The navy lieutenant was worried. He didn’t know what was going on, but one thing for sure, the shit was hitting the fan.

“I’m fine,” Gullick snapped.

“We’ve got bogeys!” the radar man called out. “Coming up out of the volcano.”

The flight leader saw the foo fighters rising up to greet his planes. He’d been in the wardroom when the flight that had been dispatched to set the trap had gone down, their engines shut down by these very same craft.

“Eagle Flight, this is Eagle Six. Abort! Abort!”

The F-16’s banked hard and kicked in afterburners, the foo fighters in hot pursuit.

In the guardian cavern everyone relaxed as they watched the warplanes turn away, followed by the foo fighters.

“Seems like this guardian can take care of itself,” Turcotte said.

“Is there any way we can get hold of Washington?” Duncan asked. “I need to get this madman Gullick relieved.”

“Can you ask the guardian to let us use the SATCOM radio in the bouncer?” Turcotte asked Nabinger.

“I’ll try,” Nabinger replied.

Gullick had one last card up his sleeve. He knew there was an Aegis-class cruiser in the Lincoln battle group. He grabbed the microphone and called the admiral.

The three-dimensional glow suddenly shifted perspective and showed four trails of flame coming off a warship.

“What the hell are those?” Kelly asked, freezing Turcotte and Duncan in their tracks.

Turcotte spun around. “Tomahawk cruise missiles.”

“He’s going nuclear?” Duncan was shocked.

“No, those probably aren’t nuclear, but they carry a hell of a wallop,” Turcotte said.

“Do you think the foo fighters can stop them?

“No time. The foo fighters are chasing away the jets,” Turcotte said. “They’re out of position.”

They watched, mesmerized, as the four missiles hit supersonic speed and crossed the shoreline of Easter Island, less than three miles away.

“We’ve got maybe four seconds,” Turcotte said.

The image blanked out, then returned, showing the island unchanged. “What happened?” Kelly asked.

On the Lincoln the admiral was asking the same question of his staff on the battle bridge. He ignored General Gullick’s screamed demands as he talked to the officers working there.

“Near as I can tell, sir, there’s some sort of force field around the volcano. The Tomahawks were destroyed when they hit it.”

The admiral rubbed his forehead. He didn’t have a clue what was going on. He’d already lost six multimillion-dollar fighters, and now four Tomahawks.

“I demand you launch another strike!” Gullick was yelling on one frequency.

“Sir, I’ve got communication with someone claiming they are inside that volcano,” one of the men said.

“Give me that frequency,” the admiral said, ignoring Gullick. He picked up a mike. “This is Admiral Springfield.”

“Admiral, this is Lisa Duncan, the President’s science adviser. You’d better listen up and listen good. Who authorized you to attack this place?”

“General Gullick, ma’am.”

“General Gullick is insane.”

“He had the proper authorization codes and—”

“Admiral, I want you to get me a direct line to the President. I’ll give you my authorization codes to get that call through, and we’ll get this all sorted out. Clear?”

The admiral gave a relieved sigh. “Clear, ma’am.”

The golden tendril unwrapped itself from around Nabinger’s head and returned to the orb. The orb pulsed and seemed to grow larger.

“What’s happening?” Kelly asked.

“I don’t know,” Nabinger replied. “As much as I’m getting information from the guardian, it’s getting information from me.”

On Easter Island, Gullick was still yelling into the radio in the back of the helicopter when the navy lieutenant took off his headset and looked at the general. “Sir, I’m under orders to take you into custody.”

Gullick’s face twitched and he ripped off his own headset. “What? Who the hell do you think you are?”

“I have orders to take you into custody,” the lieutenant repeated. He laid a hand on Gullick’s arm and Gullick ripped it away.

“Don’t you dare! I had served my country for over thirty years. This cannot happen. We must succeed. We must fly the ship.”

The lieutenant had almost lost friends on the previous night’s F-16 mission and he had his orders. He drew his pistol. “Sir, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way.”

Gullick drew his pistol. The lieutenant froze, stunned that his bluff had been called.

From its perch watching the mothership hangar the foo fighter came out of the north at over five thousand miles an hour. It stopped abruptly and hovered, three miles over the mountain housing the Dulce facility. A tightly focused beam of golden light came out of it, aimed straight down.

It passed through the mountain as if it didn’t exist.

On the bottommost level the small pyramid was touched by the beam and instantly imploded. The layers of the facility pancaked on top of each other and the entire facility was destroyed in less than two seconds.

Gullick turned to the north and his mouth opened wide. A high-pitched scream came out. He fell to the floor of the helicopter, dropping the pistol and pressing both hands against the side of his head. Dark red blood flowed out his ears and nose.

The lieutenant stepped back, shocked by what he was watching. Gullick reached a hand up, the fingers twisted in pain, in a gesture of supplication. Then he collapsed in a fetal position and was still.

The lieutenant stepped forward and rolled the body over. Lifeless eyes stared up at the morning sun.