Atlantis

PART I: THE PAST

It was well into the first month of the wet season but not a drop of rain had fallen. Concern in the first week had turned to fear by the fourth week. As the water level of the deep moat fell, so did the will of the occupants of the capitol city. Anxiety was spreading like a sickness from person to person and mother to babe.

The city had taken the people over five hundred years to build. Within its watery protection lay all their wealth, memories and the graves of ten generations of their ancestors. It was the most advanced and beautiful city on the face of the planet.

Thousands of miles to the west, Charlemagne was being crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in the Eternal City, but this place deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia dwarfed even Rome in comparison. It was the center of kingdom extending south to about the Srivijayan Empire of Sumatra and the Shailandra Empire of Java. To the northeast, the Tang Dynasty of China ruled, while to the west, in the Middle East, the tide of Islam was rising. The capitol city of Angkor Kol Ker, the heart of the Khmer empire, held architecture the likes of which Europe would not see for half a century. But within the empire lay a Shadow-a dark place, which closed off all travel toward India and the world beyond.

The ancestors of the Khmer people had traveled halfway around the globe to avoid the shadow and for many generations they had seemingly foiled the force that had destroyed their original homeland. That place had birthed the Ones Before; the ones who knew the secrets of the Shadow. Secrets that their descendants had forgotten or remembered only as myth. But two generations ago, myth and legend reappeared in the lives of the Khmer. The Shadow had appeared in the mountainous jungle to the northwest, sometimes coming close, sometimes almost disappearing, but always stopping at the water. Now the water was disappearing.

The Emperor and his advisers gazed toward the mist-covered jungle beyond the evaporating moat knowing the Shadow had removed their choices as quickly as the sun took away the water. They spotted a fire from the guard tower on top of a northern mountain that poked above the mist. The fire burned for two nights, then went out and never came back.

The Emperor knew it was time. The Ones Before had written thousands of years ago of abandoning their home. He knew the cost of quitting the city. The Ones Before had chosen a hard thing to save the people. The next morning, the Emperor issued the order to evacuate the city.

Wagons were piled high, packs were placed on backs, and en masse, almost the entire population of the city crossed the lone causeway and trekked away to the south.

Fifty strong men remained. Warriors, standing tall, spears, swords and bows in hand, they had chosen to represent all the people of the Khmer. The would face the Shadow, so the city would not die alone. They destroyed the causeway and waited on the northern edge of the city, staring across at the dark mist that approached. It grew ever closer despite their prayers that the clouds would come overhead and rain would fall, filling the moats.

The men had been tested in battle numerous times. Against the Tang people to the northeast, and the people of the sea along the coast to the south, they had fought many battles and won most, expanding the kingdom of the Khmer. But the warriors of the Khmer had never invaded the jungle-covered mountains to the northwest. They had never within living memory gone in that direction, nor had any intrepid traveler from the lands on the other side come through.

The warriors were brave men but even the bravest's heart quavered each morning as the mist grew closer, and the water still lower. One morning they could see the stone bottom of the moat and only puddles were left, drying under the fierce sun. The moat was over four hundred meters wide and surrounded the entire rectangle of buildings and temples, stretching four miles north and south and eight miles east and west.

Inside the moat, a high stonewall enclosed the city. Over 200,000 people had called Angkor Kol Ker home, and their absence reverberated through the city, a heavy weight on the souls of the last men. The tread of the warriors’ sandals on the stone walkways echoed against the walls of the temples. Gone were the happy cries of children playing, the chants of priests, the yells of merchants in their stalls. And now even the jungle sounds were disappearing as every animal that could flee did so.

In the center of the city was the central temple, Angkor Ker. The center Prang of the temple was over five hundred feet of vertical, massive stone, a hundred feet taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza. It had taken two generations to construct and its shadow lay long over the city as the sun rose in the east, merging with the Shadow that crept closer from the west.

As the last puddle dried, tendrils of the thick mist crossed the moat. The warriors said their prayers loudly, so their voices would prove to the gathering Shadow that this was a city well loved. Angkor Kol Ker and the fifty men waited. They did not wait long.

“Sir, I request stand-down from this afternoon's training flight.”

Captain Henderson looked up from the papers on his desk. The young man standing in front of him wore starched khakis, the insignia of a corporal in the Marine Corps sewn onto the short sleeves. On his chest were campaign ribbons dating back to Guadalcanal.

“You have a reason, Corporal Foreman?” Henderson asked. He didn't add that Lieutenant Presson, the leader of Training Flight 19 had just been in his office making the same request. Henderson had denied the officer's immediately, but Foreman was a different matter.

“Sir, I've got enough service points to be mustered out in the next week or so.” Foreman was a large man, broad shouldered. His dark hair was swept back in thick waves, flirting with regulations, but with the war just a few months over, some rules had waned in the euphoria of victory.

“What does that have to do with the flight?” Henderson asked.

Foreman paused and his stance broke slightly from the parade rest he had assumed after saluting. “Sir, I-”

“Yes?”

“Sir, I just don't feel good. I think I might be sick.”

Henderson frowned. Foreman didn't look sick. In fact his tan skin radiated health. Henderson had heard this sort of thing before, but only before combat missions, not a training flight. He looked at the ribbons on Foreman's chest, noted the Navy Cross and bit back the hasty reply that had formed on his lips.

“I need more than that,” Henderson said, softening his tone.

“Sir, I have a bad feeling about this flight.”

“A bad feeling?”

“Yes, sir.”

Henderson let the silence stretch out.

Foreman finally went on. “I had a feeling like this before. In combat.” He stopped, as if no further words were required.

Henderson leaned back in his seat, his fingers rolling his pencil end over end.

“What happened then, corporal?”

“I was on the Enterprise, sir. Back in February. We were scheduled to do an attack run off the coast of Japan. Destroy everything that was floating. I went on that mission.”

“And?”

“My entire squadron was lost.”

“Lost?”

“Yes, sir. They all disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No survivors?”

“Just my plane's crew, sir.”

“How did you get back?”

“My plane had engine trouble. The pilot and I had to bail out early. We were picked up by a destroyer. The rest of the squadron never came back. Not a plane. Not a man.”

Henderson felt a chill tickle the bare skin below his own regulation haircut. Foreman’s flat voice, and the lack of detail, bothered the captain.

“My brother was in my squadron,” Foreman continued. “He never came back. I felt bad before that flight, Captain. As bad as I feel right now.”

Henderson looked at the pencil in his hand. First, Lieutenant Presson with his feelings of unease and now this. Henderson's instinct was to give Foreman the same order he'd given the young aviator. But he looked at the ribbons one more time. Foreman had done his duty many times. Presson had never been under fire. Foreman was a gunner, so his presence would make no difference one way or the other. “All right, corporal, you can sit the flight out. But I want you to be in the tower and work the monitoring shift. Are you healthy enough to do that?”

Foreman snapped to attention. There was no look of relief on his face, just the same stoic Marine Corps stare. “Yes, sir.”

“You're dismissed.”

Lieutenant Presson tapped his compass, then pressed the intercom switch. “Give me a bearing,” he asked his radio operator, seated behind him.

“This thing's going nuts, sir. Spinning in circles.”

“Damn,” Presson muttered. He keyed his radio. “Any of you guys have a bearing?”

The pilots of the four other TBM Avengers reported a similar problem with their compasses. Presson could sense the irritation and underlying fear in some of the voices. Flight 19 had been experiencing difficulties from take off and the other crews were in training with little flight experience.

Presson looked out of his cockpit and saw only ocean. It was a clear day with unlimited visibility.

They should have been back at the airfield by now. Two hours ago they’d passed a small string of islands which he assumed were the Florida Keys. He wasn't as sure of that assumption now. This was his first training mission out of Fort Lauderdale Air Station. He had been recently transferred from Texas, and, as he stared at his wildly spinning compass, he wished he had paid more attention to their flight route.

He hadn't wanted this flight. He'd asked the Squadron Commander to replace him, but the request had been denied because Presson could give no good reason for his request. He hadn't voiced the real reason: to fly today would be a bad idea.

Well, it had been a bad idea, Presson thought to himself. And now he was beginning to question his judgment. Believing they had flown over the Keys, he'd ordered the flight to turn northeast toward the Florida Peninsula. But for the last 90 minutes, they had seen nothing but empty ocean below them. Could he have been mistaken? Could they have flown over some other islands and were they now well over the Atlantic, rather than the Gulf of Mexico like he had assumed? Where was Florida?

They had barely two hours of fuel left. He had to make an immediate decision whether to turn back, but now he couldn’t depend on his compass for a westerly heading. He glanced at the setting sun over his shoulder and knew that west was roughly behind them, but a few degrees off either way, and if Florida was behind them, they could pass south of the Keys and really end up in the Gulf. But if his original assumption had been right, then Florida should be just over the horizon ahead.

Presson bit the inside of his mouth, drawing blood but the pain was unnoticed as he struggled with the problem, knowing the wrong decision would put them all in the sea. Presson ordered his radio operator to make contact with someone, anyone, to get a fix on their position. As he waited, Presson checked his fuel gauge, the needle now on the negative downslope toward empty, and the sound of the plane's engine droning loud in his ears. He could almost sense the high octane fuel getting sucked into the carburetors and being burned, the fuel tanks growing emptier by the second.

“I've got someone,” the radio operator finally reported. “Sounds like Fort Lauderdale. Coming in broken and distorted.”

“Can they fix us?” Presson demanded.

“I'm asking them but I'm not sure they're receiving us clear, sir.”

Thirteen lives in addition to his own weighed on Presson's mind. It should have been 14, but Corporal Foreman had been excused from the flight. Presson wondered how the corporal had managed that.

Presson tried to concentrate on the present. “Come on. Get me a fix!” he yelled into the intercom.

“I'm trying, sir, but I'm not receiving anything now.”

Presson cursed. He once more looked out at the sea hoping to see something other than the endless water. And he did see something. A swirl of mist that had not been there seconds earlier. It was boiling out of the sky above the surface of the ocean several miles directly ahead, strangely bright in a sky that was turning dark with night. It was as if there was a glow deep within it. It was a yellowish white color with dark streaks running through, highlighted by the internal glow. It was several hundred yards across, billowing outward at a rapid rate.

At first Presson thought it might be a ship making smoke, but he had never seen such strange colored smoke produced by a ship before, nor had he ever seen smoke that was brighter than the surrounding sea. As the mist rapidly grew in size, Presson knew it was no ship. Whatever it was, it was directly across their flight path.

His instinct was to turn and fly around it, but with their compasses out, he feared he would lose the heading they were on. Of course he wasn't sure if their heading was taking them closer to land and safety or further away.

Those seconds Presson wasted on mental debate brought Flight 19 within a mile of the rapidly growing fog bank. It was now a wall in front of them, reaching their current flight altitude, growing at a rate that defied any man-made or natural phenomenon Presson had ever experienced.

Presson stared hard. The fog was swirling around its center. Inside of the glow, he could make out a pitch-black circle, darker than anything he had ever seen. It was like the center of a whirlpool, the mist spinning around, getting sucked in.

“Let's go over,” Presson called out over his radio, but he got no response. He looked around. The other four planes were in formation. He pulled back on his yoke, gaining altitude, hoping they would follow his lead, but a glance to the front told him it was too late.

He hit the edge of the mist, and then he was in.

At Fort Lauderdale, Corporal Foreman had watched Flight 19 on the radar since it had taken off. After crossing some of the western islands of the Bahamas near Bimini, the flight had inexplicably turned to the northeast, heading toward open ocean. The planes had threaded a needle, passing to the south of Grand Bahama and north of Nassau with nothing but open ocean ahead, the only land within flight range being the Bahamas to the far northeast.

At first, following the flight, Foreman had not considered that overly unusual. Perhaps Lieutenant Presson had wanted to give the other new pilots some more open ocean flying time. Flight leaders had a lot of latitude in how they trained the crews under their command.

But as the flight had strayed farther from land, neither turning back or heading directly for Bahama, Foreman had finally reacted, trying to contact them by radio. Occasionally he had picked up worried calls from the pilots but he couldn't establish contact. Foreman had radioed the Flight's location to orient them but the planes had continued heading northeast, away from land, indicating the aircraft were not receiving him.

“Flight 19, this is Fort Lauderdale Air Station,” Foreman said for the thirtieth time. “You are heading northeast. You must turn around now. Your location grid is-”

Foreman stopped in mid-sentence as the radar image of the flight simply disappeared. Foreman blinked, staring at his screen. They were too high to have crashed. He watched his screen while he kept calling out on the radio. With his free hand he picked up the phone and called Captain Henderson's office.

Within ten minutes Henderson and other officers were in the control tower, listening to silence play out the unknown fate of Flight 19. Foreman quickly brought them up to speed on what had transpired.

“What's their last location?” Henderson asked.

Foreman pointed at a point on the chart. “Here. Due east of the Bahamas.”

Henderson picked up a phone and ordered two planes into the air to search for the missing flight. Within minutes, Foreman could see the large blips representing the two Martin Mariner search planes.

“What's their weather, corporal?” Henderson demanded.

“Clear and fair, sir,” Foreman reported.

“No local thunderstorms?”

“Clear, sir,” Foreman repeated. The men gathered in the control tower lapsed into silence, each trying to imagine what could have happened to the five planes. By now they knew the planes were down, having run out of fuel. Each man also knew that even in a calm sea, surviving a ditched TBM was a dicey proposition at best.

Less than thirty minutes into the rescue flight, the blip representing the northernmost Martin, the one closest to Flight 19's last position, abruptly disappeared off the screen.

“Sir!” Foreman called out, but Henderson had been watching over his shoulder.

“Get them on the radio!” Henderson ordered.

Foreman tried, but like Flight 19, there was no reply, although the other search plane reported in.

That was enough for Henderson. “Order the last plane back.”

“Yes, sir.”

Many hours later, after the mystified officers had left the control tower worried about inquest panels and careers, Foreman leaned over the chart and stared at it. He put a dot on the last location he'd had for Flight 19. Then he put a dot where the Mariner had gone down. He drew a line between the two. Then he drew a line from each dot to Bermuda, where Flight 19's troubles had begun. He stared at the triangle he had drawn, raising his head to look toward the dark and ocean.

After being rescued eight months ago he had tried to discover what had happened to his brother and squadron mates. He'd learned that the area of ocean his squadron had gone down in was known to local Japanese fisherman as the Devil’s Sea, an area of many strange disappearances. He'd even gone ashore after the surrender and traveled to one of the villages that faced that area. He'd learned from one old man that they fished in the Devil’s Sea, but only when their village Shaman told them it was safe to do so. How the Shaman knew that, the fisherman could not say. Today, staring out at the sea, Foreman wondered if the village shaman just got a bad feeling.

Foreman reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a photograph. It showed a family, two boys who were obviously twins and in their teens, standing in front of a large man who had a big, bushy beard, and a small woman with a bright smile, her head turned slightly, half-looking up at her husband. Foreman closed his eyes for several long minutes, then he opened them.

Foreman pulled the chart off the table and folded it up. He stuffed it into the pocket of his shirt. He walked out of the control tower and down to the beach. He stared at the water, hearing the rhythm of the ocean, his eyes trying to penetrate over the horizon, into the triangle he feared. His head was cocked, as if he were listening, as if he could hear the voices of Flight 19 and something more, something deeper and darker and older, much older.

There was danger out there, Foreman knew. More than the loss of Flight 19. He looked at the picture of his family once more, staring at his parents who had ignored the warnings of danger six years ago and had been swallowed in the inferno of Europe during the dark reign of Hitler.

He was still standing there when the light of dawn began to touch that same horizon.

On one side of the world a secret aircraft capable of several times the speed of sound was leveling off at a very high altitude; on the other, a nuclear submarine, the pride of the fleet and equipped with the latest technology and weapons, was letting seawater into ballast tanks as it began its descent. They were linked electronically to a point in the Middle East.

The listening station had been placed in the rugged mountains of northern Iran to monitor the southern belly of the Soviet Union, Today it had a different mission: coordinate the SR-71 Blackbird spyplane flying out of Okinawa and the USS Scorpion, a fast attack submarine that had been detached from normal operations in the Atlantic for this classified mission.

The man in charge of this operation wore a specially wired headset. In his left ear he could hear the relayed reports from the Scorpion coming up a shielded line being unreeled out of a rigging on the rear deck of the submarine, to a transmitter buoy that bounced on the waves above the sub. In his right ear, he could hear the pilot of the SR71, call sign Blackbird, directly. The man used his own name, Foreman, not concerned about concealing his identity with a code name because he had no other life than his work. In the Central Intelligence Agency he had become not a legend, but more an anachronism, whispered about not in awe but as if he didn't really exist.

In front of him were three pieces of paper. One was a chart of the ocean northwest of Bermuda where the Scorpion was currently operating, one a map showing Southeast Asia, where the SR-71 was flying, the other a chart off the east coast of Japan. Three triangles, one highlighted in blue marker on the Atlantic chart, one in red on the Pacific chart, the last one highlighted in green on the map, were prominently outlined.

The Bermuda Triangle Gate, as Foreman preferred to call it, covered an area from Bermuda, down to Key West and across through the Bahamas to San Juan, Puerto Rico. It had not had the name 'Bermuda Triangle' when Foreman had listened to Flight 19 disappear, but with the publicity over that incident the legend had grown and some reporter had come up with the moniker for lack of a better label. Foreman wasn't interested in legends; he was interested in facts.

He called these places ‘Gates’ because they were doorways, of that he was convinced, but the perimeters were never stable, growing and shrinking at various rates. At times, they almost completely disappeared, at other times they reached a triangular shaped limit. While the center of each was fixed geographically, the size was more determined by time, sometimes expanding, sometimes apparently completely shut.

The Angkor Gate’s legends were more distant and faint, lying off the beaten path of modern civilization and in the midst of a country known as the world's largest minefield; the result of decades of civil and international war. It had taken Foreman many years to even begin to hear rumors of the place and many years more to determine that indeed there was another place on the planet that warranted his attention. Of more significance to Foreman was that the Angkor Gate lay on land, not hidden in the ocean. He called it Angkor Gate because of the legends surrounding that area which mentioned an ancient city in the area, Angkor Kol Ker.

As near as he had been able to determine, the Angkor Gate was in northwestern Cambodia, bounded on the north by the Dangkret Escarpment separating Cambodia from Thailand, and on the south by the floodplain of Lake Tonle Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Southwest Asia. The maximum apexes of the Angkor Gate that Foreman had so laboriously worked out over the years from various sources were all positioned so that the land inside held no roads, no cities and was roughly bounded by streams and rivers along all sides. At maximum it was considerably smaller than the largest opening of the Bermuda Triangle Gate, but held much more potential as far as Foreman was concerned not only because it was on land but also because it was more consistently ‘active’.

The Devil’s Sea Gate was named thusly because it marked the boundaries of the Devil’s Sea. Since it encompassed water like the Bermuda Triangle, Foreman preferred to focus his attention on the Bermuda Triangle. There were also the reports he occasionally received of intense, covert Japanese interest in the Devil’s Sea Gate area. Somehow all the gates were connected and Foreman lived only to discover the true nature of what these Gates were, what was causing them and what was on the other side of the Gates.

“Clearing one thousand feet depth,” the commander of the Scorpion, Captain Bateman, reported. “Heading nine-zero degrees. Estimated crossing of line of departure in five mikes. Status all good.”

“Level at sixty thousand,” the pilot of the SR-71 called in. “ETA five mikes.”

Foreman didn't say anything. He had personally briefed the pilot and the captain of the Scorpion the previous week. He had made it abundantly clear that timing and positioning had to be exact. He looked at the large clock in the front of the listening room, watching the second hand make another circle. Then another.

“Three minutes,” Scorpion called. “All go.”

“Three minutes,” Blackbird echoed in his other ear at the same time. “All clear.”

Foreman looked down. A penciled-in line on the chart represented the Scorpion’s course. He knew that three minutes out meant that the submarine was less than a half-mile from the current edge of the Bermuda Triangle Gate along the western line drawn from Bermuda to Puerto Rico. A line on the map of southeast Asia had the SR-71's flight route, and Foreman knew it was ninety miles from the green line, heading in from the south, currently passing over Lake Tonle Sap. He had waited years to do this, watching, until both Angkor and Bermuda Triangle were active to this extent at the same time.

Another circle of the second hand. “Transmitting via HF,” Scorpion reported, indicating that the special high frequency transmitter that had been attached to the sub's front deck the previous week was now active.

“Ah, Foreman, this is Blackbird.”

Foreman sat straighter. He could sense a change in the normally laconic voice of the SR-71 pilot.

“I've got something ahead and below.”

Foreman spoke for the first time. “Clarify.”

“A yellow-white cloud. Maybe some kind of fog but it's growing fast.”

“Can you go above it?” Foreman asked.

“Oh, yeah. No sweat. I've got plenty of clear sky. Entering Angkor Gate airspace now.”

“We're in,” Captain Bateman reported. “Still transmitting. We're getting some electric anomalies in our systems, but nothing major. Sonar reports the ocean is clear out to limits.”

“How about HF?” Foreman asked, wanting to know if the SR-71 was picking up the signal from the submarine or vice versa. There was normally no way the HF signal could reach the SR-71 on the other side of the Earth. But the operative word in that sentence, as Foreman knew, was normally. There was nothing normal about either of the locations the two craft were closing on and the whole point of this exercise was to prove a link between the two Gates.

“Ah, I have a positive on the high frequency. I’m picking up Scorpion’s HF signal.”

Foreman tapped a fist against the desktop in triumph. The two Gates were definitely connected, and in a way that was not possible using known physics.

He keyed the radio. “Captain Bateman, can you read the SR-71 HF transponder?”

“Roger. I don’t know how we can, but we are. Loud and clear.”

There was brief silence, then a startled yell from the pilot. “What the hell?”

Foreman was leaning forward, his eyes closed. The feeling of triumph faded.

“Blackbird,” Foreman said. “What is going on?”

“Uh, this fog. I'm over it now but it's growing fast. It doesn't look right. I'm getting some electronic problems.”

“Will you be clear before it reaches your altitude?” Foreman asked.

“Uh, yeah.” There was a long pause. “I think so.”

“What about HF from Scorpion?” Foreman prodded.

“Still have HF. That's strange. Yeah, it's-hey!”

There was a garble of static in Foreman's right ear. “Blackbird? Report!”

“Shit. I've got major failures here,” The pilot's voice sounded distracted. “Compass out. On-board computer is going nuts. I'm-shit! There's light coming out of the cloud. Lines of light. Geez! What the hell is that? That was close. There’s something dark in the very center. Shit! I'm kicking it to-” the voice broke into unintelligible static. Then silence.

Foreman pressed the transmit button. “Blackbird? Blackbird?” He didn't waste any more time, hitting his other transmit. “Scorpion, this is Foreman. Evacuate the area. Immediately.”

“Turning,” Bateman acknowledged. “But we're getting a lot of electronic interference. Some system failures. Really strange.”

Foreman knew the sub would have to complete a wide turn to clear the Bermuda Triangle Gate. He also knew how long that would take. He checked the clock.

“There's something weird coming in over sonar,” Bateman suddenly announced.

“Clarify!” Foreman ordered.

“Sounds almost like someone's trying to contact us via sonar,” the captain of the Scorpion reported. “Pinging us. We're copying. Oh no!” he suddenly exclaimed. “We've got problems in the reactor.”

Foreman could hear Bateman yelling orders, his hand still keeping the channel open but the mike away from his lips. Then Bateman came back. “We've got a major reactor failure. Coolant lines down. We've also got something coming this way on sonar. Something big! It wasn't there before.”

Foreman leaned forward listening to the faint voices as the captain again addressed his men in the conning tower. “Jones, what the hell is it? You told me we were clear. That thing's going to be up our ass in a couple of seconds!”

“I don't know, sir! It's huge, sir. I've never seen anything that big and moving.”

“Evasive action!” the captain yelled.

“Sir, the reactor's off-line,” another voice was shouting in the background. “We don't-”

“Goddamnit,” the captain cut the other man off. “Get us out of here, number one! Blow all tanks. Now!”

The voice of the sonar man Jones, echoed tinnily in Foreman's ear. “Sir, it's right next to us. Good God! It’s huge. It's real-”

There was a crackling sound and a few more faint unintelligible yells then the sound abruptly cut off in Foreman's left ear.

Foreman leaned back in the seat. He reached into a pocket and pulled out some peanuts. He slowly cracked the shell on the first one and paused before throwing the contents into his mouth. He looked his hand. It was shaking. His stomach was shooting sharp pains. He threw the shell and peanut to the floor.

He waited one hour as agreed. Not another sound had come through either side of his headset. Finally he took it off and walked over to the radio that connected him to a man who sat on the National Security Council. He had a link between the Bermuda Triangle and Angkor Gates, but it looked like a high price had been paid to gain that information.

The jungle pressed up against the edges of the camp, a dark wall of shivering sounds and shadowy menace in the early evening light. Clear fields of fire had been cut for a hundred meters from the outer perimeter, but beyond that neither eye nor bullet could penetrate far.

“I'm so short I could play handball on the curb,” the team leader told the other three men in the small hootch that served as their home. The team leader kissed his fingers, then tenderly touched the photo of a young woman that was tacked to the wall on the right side of the door. “See you soon, babe.” With his other hand he pulled a CAR-15 off its peg and tucked it to his side as he strode out into the setting sun. A miniaturized version of the M-16, the metal parts of the automatic weapon had a sheen that spoke of numerous cleanings and hard use.

“I imagine Linda knows how short you really are,” the second man out of the hootch said in a rumbling, deep voice to the laughter of the other two men.

“Don't be talking about my fiancée that way,” the first man rejoined, but there was no threat in his voice. He paused, letting the rest of the team catch up. The team leader and oldest of the four, Sergeant First Class Ed Flaherty was twenty-eight, but a stranger would have thought them all older. The war had aged their faces and their hearts, etching lines that were the physical reminders of the fear, fatigue and stress. The men wore tiger stripe fatigues with no patches or nametags. Each one had a different weapon, but they all had the same look in their eyes: the haunted look of men intimate with death and violence.

This morning, Flaherty's face was creased with worry lines, befitting his position as team leader. He was tall and skinny with red hair cut tight against his skull and a green drive-on rag tied around his neck. Given the short hair, the large, flaming red mustache on his upper lip seemed incongruous. His hands were cradled around the CAR-15. Hooked by a snap link to his load bearing equipment was an M-79 grenade launcher. Flaherty liked keeping it loaded with a flechette round rather than the normal 40 mm high explosive round, in effect making the launcher a large shotgun. He had inherited it from his own team leader after his first tour of duty and he'd carried it ever since. He called the M-79 his ambush buster.

On Flaherty's back was his rucksack, a battered green pack loaded with water, ammunition, mines and food. The pack had gone with him on sixteen cross-border operations since he'd joined this specialized outfit. It was as much a part of him as the weapon in his hands.

The next senior man, Staff Sergeant James Thomas, had been on fourteen of those trips, which allowed him to joke about Flaherty's fiancée with impunity. Thomas was the radioman and his ruck was larger than Flaherty's, holding the same essential supplies as well as the team radio and spare batteries. The ruck, large as it was, looked small when placed on Thomas's back. He was over six and a half feet tall and heavily muscled. His black skin was covered in sweat, even here at four thousand feet with the cool evening air swirling in. It was a running joke on Recon Team Kansas that Thomas would sweat even at the North Pole. In Thomas's hands his weapon, the M-203, combination M-16 rifle and 40 mm grenade launcher, looked like a toy.

The third senior member of RT Kansas was Sergeant Eric Dane and both Flaherty and Thomas were damn glad to have him along. Dane was the team's weapon's man and carried an M-60 machine-gun, capable of spewing out over a thousand rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition per second. But it wasn't the firepower he carried that endeared Dane to his teammates' hearts; it was his ability to move stealthily on the ground in the point position and keep the rest of them from walking into ambushes. In three tours in Vietnam, Flaherty had never seen anyone as good. Already, Dane had walked them around four different ambushes, any one of which Flaherty knew would have been the end of RT Kansas.

Dane was of average height and had thick black hair. He wore army-issue glasses, the thick plastic frames marring an otherwise handsome face. He was lean and well-muscled, able to handle the twenty-two pounds of machine-gun without trouble.

Carrying the machine-gun, by conventional tactics, Dane wasn't supposed to be on point, but the firepower was outweighed by his uncanny ability. And Dane never complained, never felt it was someone else's turn to take the most dangerous place in the patrol. Since the second time 'over the fence' when he'd rotated into the position, he'd stayed there. One night when they were alone, Flaherty had talked to Dane about it, telling him they could continue rotating the dangerous position but Dane had said it was where he belonged and for that Flaherty was silently grateful. Dane was a quiet man who kept to himself, but the other two senior members of RT Kansas were as close to him as anyone had ever been.

The fourth man, Specialist Four Tormey, was new. The others didn't even know his first name. He'd been assigned to the team two days ago and the intervening time had been spent on more important things than becoming asshole buddies, such as teaching Tormey their immediate action drills. Tormey also wasn't Special Forces and that was another line between him and the older men. Tormey was an indicator of things to come. Special Forces had lost too many men in the meatgrinder of Vietnam. The people factory at Fort Bragg was only turning out a limited number of trained replacements every year. 5th Group had begun picking up volunteers like Tormey from regular infantry units in-country to replace dead or rotating members.

Tormey had seen combat but he'd never been on a mission over the fence. Tormey carried an AK-47, a weapon he must have acquired somewhere in his previous unit. Flaherty didn't mind Tormey carrying it as its report might confuse the bad guys with their own AK-47s. Tormey was only twenty-one and his eyes were darting about, searching for behavioral clues. The three older men knew how he felt, getting ready to go on his first cross-border mission, but they didn't say anything about it because they still felt that same way, no matter how many missions they had under their belt. More missions meant they were better at what they did, not less afraid.

The four men strode through knee high grass toward the landing zone where their chopper was due. They were halfway when Dane suddenly whistled and held up a fist. Flaherty and Thomas froze in place, and, after a slight hesitation, Tormey did the same.

Dane reached over his shoulder and quietly pulled a machete out of the sheath on the right side of his backpack. He edged forward, past Flaherty and Thomas, his feet moving smoothly through the grass.

The blade flashed in the setting sun as Dane swung it. Then he reached down and pulled up the four-foot long body of a King Cobra snake. The head was cleanly severed.

“Damn,” Thomas said, relaxing. “How the hell did you know it was there?”

Dane just shrugged, wiping the blade on the grass, then sheathing it. “Just knew.” That had been Dane's answer about sensing the ambushes. He grinned at Flaherty and offered him the snake. “Want to take it home to Linda? Make a nice belt.”

Flaherty took the body and flung it away. His stomach hurt. He'd have stepped on the thing if Dane hadn't stopped him. “I'm getting too old for this shit,” he muttered.

Dane cocked his head. “Chopper inbound.”

“Let's go,” Flaherty ordered, even though he couldn't hear the helicopter.

The terrain below was unlike any the men of RT Kansas had ever seen. It was much more rugged and emanated a sense of the primeval, of a land that didn't acknowledge time or man's preeminence in other parts of the globe. Jagged mountains thrust up from the thick green carpet of jungle, their peaks outlined against the setting sun. Rivers wound through the low ground, surrounded on either side by towering limestone cliffs or fertile riverbanks. There was little sign of mankind's intrusions below and one could well imagine the land having existed like this for millennium.

The chopper was heading northwest, and each of the four men in the cargo bay knew they had crossed the “fence,” the border between Vietnam and Laos long ago.

“Any idea where we're going?” Tormey yelled, straining to be heard above the sound of the blades overheard and the turbine engines just behind the firewall their backs were resting against.

Flaherty kept his eyes oriented toward the ground, keeping track of their progress. Thomas appeared to be asleep, his head lolling on his large shoulders. Dane looked at Tormey and a half-smile creased his lips. “I don't know where we're going but I do know we're not in Kansas anymore.”

It was an inside joke. Every recon team operating out of CCN, Combat Control North, MACV-SOG, Military Assistance Command Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group, was named after a state. The team leader before Flaherty had been from Kansas, and had so christened the team. Since RT Kansas had not lost a man since that name was assigned, the name stuck, everyone considering it to be good luck. Soldiers were a strangely superstitious lot; the green rag around Flaherty's throat had gone on every mission with him and he considered it his good luck talisman. Lately, though, he and Thomas had been considering Dane their good luck charm.

Flaherty glanced at Dane who returned his troubled look. Tormey had asked a good question. None of them had ever been on a mission like this. They'd simply been told to gear up and get on board the chopper. No target information, no mission briefing, nothing other than their commander bidding them farewell at the helipad at their base in Vietnam and instructing them to take orders from whoever met them at the other end. And where could the other end be now that they were over the border?

And there were no “little people,” the affectionate term the American Green Berets used for the Montagnard natives who made up the other half of RT Kansas, on board. Their commander had been no more able to explain why the orders from Saigon said Americans only, as he could explain anything else about this mission. Flaherty and the other men weren't happy about leaving half their team at the forward operating base. They'd never gone on a mission before without their indigenous personnel.

The second indication of trouble had been the chopper as it came in to the landing zone at the CCN launch site. The aircraft wasn't army, that was for sure. Painted all black with no markings, Flaherty knew that it was part of Air America, the CIA's private airline. The pilots hadn't said a word to their cargo, simply taking off and heading northwest. The pilots' long hair flowing out from under their wildly painted helmets and their large mustaches indicated they were CIA or perhaps part of the Ravens, a group of Air Force officers secretly loaned to the Agency for the air war in Laos.

Dane leaned close to Flaherty. “Long Tiem,” he yelled in Flaherty's ear.

The team leader nodded in agreement at Dane's guess as to their immediate destination. He'd heard of the small town and airstrip in northern Laos where the Ravens were headquartered and the CIA was coordinating its secret war. RT Kansas had been in Laos before, but much closer to the border, checking out the Ho Chi Minh Trail and calling in air strikes. They'd never been this deep nor had any other CCN team to their knowledge. He wondered why the CIA would want an American Special Forces recon team. The Agency normally hired Nungs or other oriental mercenaries for any on-the-ground work this far in, putting one of their own paramilitary personnel in charge of the indigs.

Change was in the air though, and maybe that was the reason for this strange mission. Flaherty and the other two senior men knew that the secret cross-border war into Cambodia was going to become above-board sooner or later. The word was that the NVA and VC sanctuaries in Cambodia were going to get hit, and hit hard by the US regular army and air force. Nixon was going to allow the military to cross the border and destroy the bases from which the NVA and Viet Cong had been launching their attacks all these years. This trip they assumed, might have something to do with that.

“What's your feel?” Flaherty asked Dane. Next to them, Thomas's head moved ever so slightly, his ear closer to hear the answer, belying the impression that he was sleeping.

“Not good.” Dane shook his head. “Not good.”

A grimace crossed Thomas's face and Flaherty felt his stomach tighten. If Dane said it wasn't good, then it wasn't.

The chopper cleared a large mountain and then swiftly descended. Flaherty could make out a landing strip next to a small town. There were numerous black painted OV-1, OV-2 and OV-10 spotter aircraft and various helicopters parked on the landing strip along with propeller driven fighter aircraft. Air America. Long Tiem as Dane had predicted.

The chopper touched down and a man on the steel grating waved for them to get off. The man wore tiger stripe pants, a black t-shirt and dark sunglasses. A pistol was strapped to his waist and a knife to his right calf. He had long, shiny blond hair and looked like he belonged on a college football field rather than in the middle of a secret war.

“This way!” he yelled, then turned his back and headed off. RT Kansas shouldered their packs and followed him into a building with walls of plywood and a corrugated tin roof.

“My name's Castle,” the man said, sitting on a small field table while the team dropped its rucks and settled down into folding chairs. “I'll be leading this mission.”

“And I'm Foreman,” a voice came from the shadows to the left front. An older man, somewhere in his late forties, stepped forward. The most distinguishing feature that caught everyone's attention was his hair. It was pure white and combed straight back in thick waves. His face was like a hatchet, with two steely eyes set on either side of the blade of his nose. “I'm in charge of this operation.”

Flaherty introduced the team but Foreman didn't seem to care what their names were. He turned to the maps mounted on the wall behind him. “Your mission is to accompany Mister Castle on a recovery mission to this location.” A thin finger touched the map in northeast Cambodia, along the Mekong River. “You will take all orders from Mister Castle. Infiltration and exfiltration will be handled by air assets from this location. All communications will be to me.”

Flaherty and the other men were still staring at the map. “That's Cambodia, sir,” Flaherty said.

Foreman didn't answer. He reached into his pocket and pulled out several peanuts and began cracking the shells, throwing the contents in his mouth as soon as he had one open. He dropped the empty shells to the floor.

Castle cleared his throat. “I have all call signs and frequencies. It will be a simple mission. Straight in to a landing zone, move a couple of klicks to our objective and do the recovery, then a few more klicks to a pick up zone.”

“What about air cover?” Flaherty asked.

“None,” Foreman said, cracking another shell. “As you've noticed,” he said without a trace of sarcasm, “you are going into Cambodia. Although that theater of operations will be legalized before long, it isn't legal now.” Foreman shrugged. “Closer to the border, yes, we could bring in some fast-movers and claim they misread their maps, but you're going in somewhat deeper.”

“What are we supposed to be recovering?” Dane asked. Flaherty was surprised as Dane rarely spoke or asked questions during mission briefings.

“An SR-71 spy plane went down over Cambodia last week,” Foreman said. “Mister Castle's job is to go in and retrieve certain pieces of classified equipment from the wreckage. Castle's been fully briefed. You are simply to provide him security.”

“How did the plane go down?” Flaherty asked.

“You don't have a need to know that,” Foreman said.

“What about the pilot and recon officer?” Thomas asked.

“The crew is assumed to be dead,” Foreman answered.

“Did they make any radio contact prior to going down?” Flaherty wanted to know.

Foreman's answer was abrupt. “No.”

“How did it go down?”

“We don’t know,” Foreman said. “That’s why you’re going there. To get its black box.”

“You say it went down last week. Why have we waited this long?” Flaherty asked.

“Because that's the way it worked out,” Foreman said. His dead stare indicated he wanted no further questions.

“How accurate is the plot of the wreckage?” Flaherty asked.

“It's accurate,” Foreman said.

“Who's the enemy?” Flaherty asked. “Do we fire up anyone we come across or do we run and hide? What are our rules of engagement?”

Cambodia was a nightmare of warring parties with shifting alliances. There were the Khmer Rouge, the Royal Cambodian Army, and of course, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong.

“You won't make contact,” Foreman said.

Flaherty stared at the CIA officer in surprise. “That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.” The team leader stood. “These men are my responsibility and I'm not about to send them out on a half-assed operation like this.”

Foreman pointed at Flaherty. His voice was level and cold. “Sit down, sergeant. You will go wherever I want you to. Those are your orders and you will follow them. Clear?”

“Not clear,” Flaherty said, forcing himself to calm down. “I report to CCN, MACV-SOG, not to the CIA.”

Foreman reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. He negligently threw it at Flaherty. “No, you report to me for this mission. It's been authorized at the highest levels.”

Flaherty unfolded the orders and read. Then he refolded it and started to put it in his pocket.

Foreman snapped his fingers. “Give it back.”

“I'll keep this copy,” Flaherty said.

Foreman's hand slid down to the pistol on his right hip. Dane was up, his pistol pointing at the CIA man's forehead.

“Whoa!” Flaherty yelled, more shocked by Dane's action than Foreman's.

“Tell your man to back off,” Foreman said, his voice under tight control.

“Dane,” Flaherty said, his tone indicating what he wanted.

Dane reluctantly holstered his pistol.

Foreman tapped Flaherty in the chest where he had put the copy of the orders. “You are mine for the duration of this mission. There will be no more questions. Your chopper leaves in ten minutes. Get to the landing zone.”

Castle had remained still throughout the confrontation. Now he pointed to the door. “Let's go.” The CIA man picked up his own rucksack and threw it over his shoulder.

Flaherty jerked his thumb and the team walked out. Flaherty felt the straps of his pack cut into his shoulders as he got close to Dane. “What's with you?”

“This is screwed,” Dane said. “Foreman's lying about something and Castle is scared.”

“Hell, I'm scared,” Flaherty said.

“Castle's more scared than just going on a deep mission over the fence,” Dane said.

“Maybe he's a cherry,” Flaherty said.

Dane just shook his head.

Flaherty knew Foreman was full of crap but the part about Castle being scared was news.

Dane stopped and pointed. Two Nung mercenaries, powerful looking Chinese men armed to the teeth, were watching them from the edge of the landing zone, their hands moving in certain gestures toward the recon team.

“What's with them?” Flaherty asked.

“Do you wonder why they had to get us when the CIA usually uses people like them?” Dane asked.

“Yeah, I been thinking about it,” Flaherty said. “But I figure now it's cause of the SR-71. Maybe they don't want anyone to know they lost one and they're keeping this American only. That's why we had to leave our little people behind.”

“I've never seen Nungs afraid of anything,” Dane said, “but those guys are scared. Those symbols are to ward off evil spirits.”

“Oh, crap,” Flaherty muttered as they continued to the chopper. “Just what we need. Evil spirits.”

“And they're not even going with us,” Dane noted.

The refueled black Huey was waiting for them, its blades slowly turning. RT Kansas, along with Castle, got on board and the chopper immediately lifted, heading southwest.

Flaherty looked at his map, noting the location where Foreman had indicated the plane had gone down. It was near the Mekong River, about a hundred klicks from where the river crossed from Laos into Cambodia. The map was mass of dark green and contour lines in the area. No sign of civilization.

Flaherty glanced over at Dane. The younger man was tense, his hands holding his M-60 tightly. Flaherty didn't know how Dane knew what he did about Foreman and Castle and the Nungs, but he didn't doubt that it was the truth. Dane just knew things, like he had known about the cobra at the base camp.

Flaherty knew little about Dane, only what had been in his thin personnel folder he’d had with him when he’d signed in to CCN six months ago. Dane never got any mail and he kept mostly to himself, not joining the others when they unwound by getting shit-faced at the CCN bar in their compound. But Flaherty had instinctively liked the younger man when he’d first met him and over the months that feeling had deepened into mutual respect.

Flaherty shifted his gaze from Dane to the terrain below. They were flying high, over six thousand feet and the landscape below was bathed in bright moonlight. Flaherty oriented himself, but it was hard as fast as the chopper was flying. He had no doubt though, when they came over the Mekong. The wide river reflected the moon and he could see occasional rapids. They flew above the river for an hour, then the chopper suddenly banked and headed west.

Flaherty felt a hand on his arm. It was Castle. “No maps,” Castle said, his hand on the edge of Flaherty's map.

“Where the hell are we going?” Flaherty demanded as the Mekong disappeared to the east. “The crash site you indicated is south.”

“Just do what you're told,” Castle said. “We'll be in and out in twenty-four hours.”

Flaherty gave up the map. He had hoped to leave this behind when he went into Special Forces: following stupid orders that could get you killed for reasons you would never know. Flaherty now knew that Castle and the CIA were playing secret games. They didn't want the team to know exactly where the SR-71 had gone down. For all Flaherty knew they might be going into China, but that would require another right turn and a long flight north.

They flew west for an hour. Flaherty had to shrug when Dane and Thomas wanted to know why they had left the Mekong so far behind. There was nothing he could do. They were under orders and they were on board a CIA bird.

Finally, Castle turned to them, holding up a finger. “One minute out. Lock and load.”

Flaherty looked out. The land below was triple canopy jungle with mountains poking through here and there. There was no sign of humanity. No roads, no villages, nothing. He took a magazine of 5.56 mm ammunition out of his ammunition pouch and placed it in the well on the bottom of his CAR-15. He slapped it to make sure it was seated, then pulled the charging handle on the weapon to the rear and let it slam forward. Then he placed the weapon between his knees, muzzle pointing down. He also took a 40 mm flechette round and loaded his M-79. He watched as Dane carefully fed a 100 round belt of 7.62 mm into the M-60 machine-gun, making sure the first round was locked in place, then attaching the canvas bag holding the rest of the belt on the side of the gun, insuring it could freely feed, yet be covered. Flaherty had seen plenty of grunts carrying the belts of ammunition across their chests or over their shoulders; he’d also seen plenty of those guns jam up as the dirty rounds fed into the machine-gun. The other three members of RT Kansas all gave Flaherty a thumbs up.

The chopper slowed and then descended rapidly. Flaherty glanced forward. The pilots seemed to be arguing about something, pointing at the instrument panel. Still they went down. A small clearing on the side of a ridgeline loomed ahead and below. The chopper slowed further and the pilot maneuvered them in close, touching the right skid against the side of the hill while the other one hung in the air. Castle gestured and Flaherty jumped off, the rest of the team and Castle following.

The chopper was gone just as quickly, heading back east. Flaherty knelt behind his rucksack, weapon at the ready as the sound of the aircraft slowly faded. Finally, the noise of the jungle returned. Flaherty felt what he always felt on infiltration after the friendly noise of the chopper disappeared into the distance: abandoned in Indian Country. He took comfort from the presence of Dane and Thomas. Tormey he didn't feel much about either way. The man would have to earn his place.

They were all clustered together on the steep hillside, under the cover of trees just off the clearing. Castle made a low whistle and the men gathered closer.

“We go over this ridge, then down to a river on the other side. The crash site is just across it. Then we follow the river for four klicks north, re-cross, and move back east about six klicks to our pick up zone.”

Flaherty pulled out his compass and looked at the glowing needle. His eyes widened. The needle was spinning.

“Your compasses won't work,” Castle said, noticing what the team leader was doing.

“Why not?” Flaherty asked.

“Let's get out of here,” Dane said in a low voice. “This is real bad.”

Flaherty reached out and grabbed the collar of Castle's t-shirt. “What's going on?”

“You were told,” Castle said. “We're here to recover pieces of the SR-71.” He peeled Flaherty's hands off his shirt.

“How do you know the compasses won't work?” Flaherty asked, trying to get back under control.

Castle shrugged, but he didn't quite pull off his attempt at nonchalance. “That's what the pilots were saying as we came in. Their instruments were going nuts. Maybe there's a large ore deposit nearby. I don't know.”

“Call a Prairie Fire,” Dane said. He hadn't even heard what Castle said. Dane was looking about, his expression extremely worried.

Flaherty rubbed his hand along the green rag tied around his neck as he considered Dane’s words. Prairie Fire was the code for an emergency exfiltration to CCN headquarters. The CIA bird might have brought them here, but Flaherty's ace in the hole was that CCN took care of its own. He knew if he called in a Prairie Fire, a CCN chopper would be inbound, weather permitting. Or should be inbound. They might be so far over the fence now that CCN couldn't give authorization to fly. Hell, Flaherty cursed to himself; he didn't even know exactly where they were.

Flaherty looked at the circle of faces. Dane's fear was evident. Thomas was Thomas, his face inscrutable, but Dane's words were having an effect as the large black man was nodding in agreement to Dane's suggestion. Tormey also looked scared, but this was his first time across the fence. The issue for Flaherty was Dane. The man was solid. They'd been in firefights together and the weapons sergeant had always done his share and more.

Flaherty tapped Thomas on the arm. “Get up on the radio and call in a Prairie Fire. I want exfiltration ASAP. We can guide them in using radio direction off our set.”

Castle was shocked. “You can't do that. We have to recover the black box off that SR-71.”

Flaherty ignored him. “Let's get a perimeter here. Dane, there. Tormey, you cover downslope.”

Castle leveled his CAR-15. “We have to go over into the valley and get to the plane.”

Dane was looking at the ridgeline as if he could see the valley on the other side. “You go over there and you'll never come back.”

“What the hell is he talking about?” Castle demanded.

“I don't know, but I trust him,” Flaherty said. He was trying to ignore the CAR-15, but Castle looked ready to lose his cool.

“You're just security and pack mules to bring back the equipment,” Castle said. “We've got imagery of the area. There's no sign of VC or NVA.”

“Put the weapon down,” Flaherty said.

Dane had his M-60 trained roughly in the direction of the CIA man's stomach.

Castle reluctantly lowered the muzzle. “Foreman will have your asses,” he said.

“He can have our asses,” Flaherty said. Hell, he was going home in less than a week and trading in his uniform for civilian clothes. He didn't need this shit. What was Foreman going to do? Give him a dishonorable discharge?

Thomas had the team's radio out. He talked quietly into the handset for a little while, then he worked on the radio, turning dials and maneuvering the antenna.

“Damn,” Thomas finally said, throwing down the handset. “I can't get diddly on FM.”

“Interference?” Flaherty asked.

“Nothing I've ever seen. Like we're on the dark side of the moon. I can't even pick up Armed Forces radio and they blanket this part of the world from Vietnam to Thailand.”

“Is the radio busted?” Flaherty asked.

“It's working,” Thomas said with conviction. “Something's interfering, but I couldn't tell you what.”

“FM Radios don't work here either,” Castle said.

“The chopper pilots told you that too?” Flaherty asked.

“Yes.”

“Any other piece of information you could dribble over to us?” Flaherty demanded.

Castle pointed to the west. “Our exfil bird is laid on for the PZ,” Castle said. “We have to go into the valley to get there anyway. I suggest we get moving if we're going to make it on time. Since radios don't work, there's no other way out of here unless you want to walk through five hundred kilometers of unfriendly territory.”

Flaherty cursed. He had no options. “Let's move. Everyone stay alert. Dane, take point.”

RT Kansas moved upslope, weapons at the ready. Once they were clear of the small opening, they were under the triple canopy of the rain forest. It was pitch black with even the faint light of the moon blocked out. Dane picked his way with care, moving uphill by feel. The other men followed, keeping their eyes on the small glowing dot on the back of the man in front's field hat.

Flaherty checked the glowing face of his watch. At least dawn wasn't far off.

Then he shook the timepiece. For all he knew, it wasn't working either.

They made slow progress up the ridge. It took two hours before they reached the crest and the eastern sky was just beginning to lighten as they broke out of the jungle onto the rocky knife edge that overlooked the river valley. In that time, Flaherty confirmed that his watch had stopped working.

Flaherty looked down. He couldn't see the river, it was too dark. On the far side the land sloped up but less steeply. As near as he could tell in the moonlight, there was a broken plateau stretching as far as they could determine on the western side of the river. Dane tapped Flaherty on the shoulder, pointing to the right, where the ridge went even higher. There was something large and blocky there.

“Ruins,” Dane said.

“Take ten,” Flaherty said and the team slid down to their stomachs, rucks in front, weapons pointing out. It was getting light fast. Flaherty could see that Castle was doing something with his ruck, his hands hidden from sight.

“Never seen anything like that,” Dane whispered, still looking at the ruin. Large stone blocks were built up into a three-story structure, with apertures for guards along the top. The tower overlooked the valley. It was about thirty feet high and each side was almost forty feet long. The jungle had encroached on the stone, creepers climbing the side, but it was still an imposing structure.

“Let's check it out,” Castle said.

Flaherty looked at him. “This part of the mission? Checking ruins?”

“It gives a good view of the valley,” Castle said. He got to his feet and headed toward the stones, a hundred meters away.

Flaherty signaled for Thomas and Tormey to remain in place. Taking Dane with him, he followed Castle. The closer they got to the structure, the more impressive it was. The stone blocks were each about six feet high and wide. The stone was cut very smoothly. The joints were so well done that Flaherty doubted he could slide a knife between them. Flaherty thought of the staggering weight each stone represented and the effort required to get them to this place.

There was an entrance on the side, and Castle disappeared. Flaherty followed. Dane paused, then slowly entered. The inside was small with stone stairs wrapping around the outside wall, leading up to what had once been a wood roof but was now open. The three men took the stairs until they were at the top landing where a small, four-foot wide stone ledge was built inside the outer wall, making a parapet for watchers to stand on. The view was unobstructed for many miles in all directions.

Nothing but jungle and mountains as far as the eye could see. Early morning fog was rolling down the valley below, covering the river and its banks. Castle had his rucksack out and was looking inside.

“What are you doing?” Flaherty asked.

“Repacking my load,” Castle said.

Flaherty figured the CIA man had some sort of transponder locator in the ruck that told him where the SR-71 was. Why Castle wouldn't check it openly was beyond Flaherty.

Dane was staring down into the valley and at the land beyond, hidden in the early morning mist. Then he stepped back and looked at the ruins they were standing on. “This is old,” he said to Flaherty, his hand resting on the parapet. “Very, very old.”

“What do you think it is? A guard outpost?” Flaherty asked. He'd never seen anything like it in Vietnam or in Laos. He'd heard there were massive ruins in Cambodia, and if this lone building was any indication, that rumor was true.

Dane nodded. “A guard post. But the question is, what did it guard against?” He pointed to a large cairn in the southwest corner of the top. “Looks like that was for a signal fire. Maybe this was an early warning post against invaders.” He lowered his voice, so Castle couldn't hear. “We shouldn't go down there, Ed.”

“VC?” Flaherty asked. “NVA?” He could see no sign of life, but maybe Dane did.

Dane shook his head. “I don't think it's either. Just something bad, real bad.” He pointed at the walls of the ruin. There were very old, faded drawings of warriors on them. The figures had spears and bows in their hands. Several were mounted on elephants. There were elongated circles in the air about them, perhaps representing the sun or moon, Flaherty guessed, except there were more than one. There were also lines drawn through every picture, some of the lines intersecting with the warriors. There was also some sort of symbols scattered about the pictures, writing, although Flaherty had never seen anything like it before. On each corner of the rampart, there was a stone sculpture of a seven-headed snake, a figure Flaherty had seen at other sites in southeast Asia. He knew it had something to do with the religion in the area. The carvings bothered Flaherty and he involuntarily jerked his shoulders and stepped back.

“Weird stuff,” Flaherty muttered.

“They all died,” Dane said.

“Who did?” Flaherty asked.

Dane spread his hands. “The warriors who manned this post. And those they guarded. All dead. They were great once. The greatest of their time.”

“Yo, Dane,” Flaherty slapped his teammate on the back. “Come back to me, man.”

Dane shivered. “I'm here, Ed.” He tried to smile. “I don't want to be, but I'm here.”

Between Castle and his mysterious rucksack, the compass and radio not working, and Dane's warnings, Flaherty was anxious to get moving to the pickup zone.

“We'll get out OK,” Flaherty said to Dane, but he could tell the words were finding no purchase. Castle had finished doing whatever it was he was up to, but continued to stare toward the jungle.

“Let's go,” Flaherty said to Castle.

The CIA man sealed his pack and threw it back on his shoulder.

“Can't we just move along the high ground?” Flaherty asked. “We can see everything from up here.”

“We have to go down to the river,” Castle said. “The crash site is on the other side. Down there.”

It was lighter now, but fog still blanketed the ground below, hiding whatever was down there. It looked like the fog was lifting on this side of the river but it was just as thick on the other side.

“That’s strange,” Flaherty commented. He didn’t like the look of the fog. It was yellowish-gray with streaks of something darker in it. He’d never seen anything like it in all his years in the field. He turned back to Castle.

“My man here,” Flaherty said, pointing at Dane, “thinks we're going to get blown away if we go down there. So far he's four for four on calling ambushes. I suggest you listen to him.”

“There's no VC down there,” Castle said.

“I don't know what's down there,” Flaherty said, “but if Dane says there's something bad, then something bad is there.”

A shadow came over Castle's face. As if he were resigned, Flaherty thought with surprise. “We have to go,” Castle simply said. “The quicker we get this over with, the better. This isn't negotiable. It's too late for all that. We all signed on, we do what we're paid to. There’s no other way.”

The three of them stood on the ancient stone rampart, each lost in their own thoughts, each realizing the truth of Castle’s words. They had all taken different roads to get here, but they were here together, cogs in a machine that was not overly concerned with the quality or length of their lives.

“Let's get going then,” Flaherty said.

They rejoined the other two men and began the descent, Dane in the lead. As they left the craggy rocks behind, they again went under the blanket of green. It was dim now, despite the sun. Flaherty was used to that. No light penetrated the triple canopy unblocked. Halfway down the ridge toward the river, tendrils of fog began snaking their way through the trees until visibility was down to less than forty feet.

They pressed on. It was like walking in place, the trees and other fauna the same, the ground sloping down, the fog crowding around. Then they could hear water running, getting closer, until Dane, walking point, saw the ground drop off in front of him.

Dane halted, looking out onto the river. It was shallow and fast moving. The swirling fog occasionally parted to show the far side, a dark green line of jungle forty meters away but his vision couldn't penetrate beyond that. The fog was much thicker across there, a smear of grayish white overlaid on top of the green vegetation. But even the trees looked strange, sickly almost. It was chilly and the sweat on the men's skin met the damp air, producing goose-bumps and shivers.

Castle moved past Dane and slithered down the bank until he was knee deep in the water. He pulled a jar out of his ruck and filled it with the water, resealing the lid and putting it back in his pack.

“We have to cross,” Castle said, looking up at the four men who were kneeling on the bank, the muzzles of their weapons pointing in the direction Castle wanted to go.

“What are you doing?” Flaherty demanded. The water sample bothered him.

“I'm not authorized to tell you that,” Castle said.

“No, you're only authorized to get us killed,” Flaherty muttered. He gestured. “Thomas and Tormey, cross with Castle. Dane and I will provide far security, then you cover us.”

Thomas climbed down without a word or a look back. Tormey looked at Flaherty, then across the river and back at his team leader before he followed. Flaherty thought he had never felt the responsibility of command as sharply as the moment Tormey’s face shifted to utter resignation.

Dane extended the bipod legs of the M-60 and lay down on the bank behind a log. He flipped up the butt plate and put his shoulder under it. Flaherty joined him. The other three men were moving in a triangle, Castle in the lead, Thomas on the left and Tormey on the right, ten meters between each man.

“Call them back,” Dane suddenly said as the men reached the halfway point.

“What?”

“Call them back. It's an ambush!” Dane's voice was low but insistent.

Flaherty whistled and Thomas stopped, ten meters from the bank. He looked back and Flaherty gestured, indicating for him to return. Thomas hissed, catching Tormey's attention. The new man halted. Castle looked over his shoulder, irritated, then continued, reaching the far bank.

Thomas was backing up now, retracing his steps, his M-203 swinging in arcs, aimed over Castle's head. Tormey was frozen, uncertain what to do. Flaherty gritted his teeth, waiting for the explosion of firing to come out of the tree cover of the far bank and the bodies to be riddled. Castle climbed up, but nothing happened as the CIA man disappeared. He seemed to just fade from view and be swallowed up by the fog and jungle.

Flaherty blinked, but Castle was gone. If there was going to be an ambush it would have been sprung while the men were in the kill zone of the river.

“No ambush,” Flaherty said.

“There's something over there,” Dane insisted.

Castle suddenly reappeared on the far bank in a brief opening in the fog, angrily gesturing for them to follow.

Flaherty stood and indicated for Thomas to hold. “We have to cover Castle,” Flaherty put his hand on Danes arm. “Plus he's the only one who knows where the pickup zone is.”

Dane reluctantly stood and followed his team leader down the bank and into the river. They hurried through the water, linking up with Thomas and Tormey.

As they clambered up the bank, Dane suddenly grabbed Flaherty's arm. “Listen!” he insisted.

Flaherty paused and strained his ears as Thomas and Tormey got to the top of the bank. “I don't hear anything.”

“The voice,” Dane said.

“What voice?” Flaherty cocked his head but heard nothing.

“A warning,” Dane whispered, as if he didn't want to be heard. “I've been hearing it for a while, but it's clear now. I can hear the words. We have to get out of here.”

Flaherty looked ahead. Castle was nowhere to be seen. Flaherty heard nothing, the silence in the midst of the jungle as disconcerting as Dane saying he heard a voice. “Let's get Castle,” Flaherty ordered, not wanting to let the CIA man further out of sight.

They climbed up. All four paused as they reached the top. Dane staggered and went to his knees, vomiting his meager breakfast. It felt as if his stomach had been turned inside out. His brain was pounding, spikes of pain crisscrossing in every direction. And still the voice was there, inside his head, telling him to turn around, to go back.

Flaherty shivered. The fog was different here. Colder and there was a smell in the air that he'd never experienced before. The air seemed to crawl across his skin and he couldn't seem to get an adequate breath.

“You all right?” he asked Dane.

Dane shook his head. “You feel it?” he asked.

Flaherty slowly nodded. “Yeah, I feel it. What is it?”

“I don't know,” Dane said, “but I've never felt anything like it before. This place is different from anywhere I’ve ever been. And there is a voice, Ed. I can hear it. It's warning me not to go forward.”

Flaherty looked around. Even the jungle itself was strange. The trees and flora weren't quite right, although he couldn't put his finger on the exact differences. Dane struggled to his feet.

“Can you move?” Flaherty asked. “Let's get Castle and get the hell out of here.”

Dane nodded, but didn't say anything.

The team went into the jungle about fifty meters, the eerie quietness making each member of RT Kansas jumpy. Flaherty shivered, not so much from the cold but the feeling of the fog against his skin. It felt clammy, and he could swear he felt the molecules of moisture ripple against his skin like oil.

Then there was a sound, one that pierced through each man like an ice pick. A long, shivering scream of agony from directly ahead. The four men paused, weapons pointing in the direction of the scream. Something was crashing through the undergrowth coming toward them, hidden by the vegetation and fog. Fingers twitched on triggers and then suddenly Castle was there, staggering toward them, his left hand clamped onto his right shoulder, blood pouring between his fingers. He fell to his knees ten feet from them. He reached out, bloody hand toward the team. Four inches below his shoulder, his right arm was gone, blood pulsing out of the artery with each beat of his heart.

Then something came out of the fog behind him, freezing every member of RT Kansas in his tracks. It was a green, elliptical sphere about three feet long by two in diameter. It was moving two feet above the ground, with no apparent support. There were two, strange dark bands crisscrossing it's surface, diagonally from front to rear. The bands seemed to pulse but the men couldn't make sense of it until it reached Castle. The front tip, where the bands met, edged down toward the CIA man, who scrambled away. The tip touched Castle's left arm, held up in front of his face, and the arm exploded in a burst of muscle, blood and bone. For lack of any better comprehension, the men could now see the bands were like rows of black, sharp teeth moving at high speed on a belt. From the widest part of the elongated sphere, the thing suddenly expanded a thin sheet of green like a sail and the object slid forward, catching the remnants of Castle's left arm in the sail. Then the green folded back down, taking the flesh and blood with it.

RT Kansas finally reacted. Dane's M-60 machine-gun spewed out a line of rounds right above Castle's body into the sphere, which promptly floated back into the fog. Dane raised the muzzle and cut a swath through the undergrowth into the unseen distance. Tormey spewed an entire magazine of his AK-47 on automatic. Thomas fired off a magazine, quickly switched it out, then fired three rounds of 40 mm high explosive in three slightly different directions to their front as quickly as he could reload. Flaherty contributed his own thirty rounds of 5.56 mm from his CAR-15. Silence reigned as their weapons fell silent. There was the stench of cordite in the air and smoke from the weapons mingled with the fog.

Remarkably, Castle was still alive, crawling across the jungle floor toward the team, using his legs to push himself, leaving a thick trail of blood behind.

“What in God’s name was that?” Thomas demanded, his eyes darting about, searching the jungle.

“Let's get him,” Flaherty ordered. He and Dane ran forward and grabbed the CIA man by the straps of his ruck and dragged him back to where Thomas and Tormey waited.

Flaherty ripped open the aid kit. Castle was in shock. Flaherty had seen many wounded men in his tours of duty and he knew the signs. Castle's face was pale from loss of blood and he didn't have much time. Even if they had a medevac flight on standby there was no way the man would make it.

Flaherty leaned forward, putting his face just inches from Castle's. “What was that?”

Castle ever so slightly shook his head. “Angkor Kol Ker,” he whispered, his eyes unfocused, the life in them fading. “The Angkor Gate.”

“What?” Flaherty looked up at Dane. “What the hell did he say?” When he turned back to Castle, he was dead.

“Angkor Kol Ker,” Dane repeated. “That's what the voice said,” Dane stared at the dead man in surprise.

“Let's move to-” Flaherty began, but then he paused.

There was a noise, something moving in the jungle.

“What is that?” Thomas hissed as the noise grew louder. It was closer now and whatever it was, it was big, bigger than the thing that had gotten Castle. From the sound, it was knocking trees out of the way as it moved, the sound of timber snapping like gunshots was followed by the crash of the trees to the ground.

And now there were more sounds, many objects moving unseen in the fog and jungle. Noise was all around them, but not the natural noise of the jungle; strange noises, some of them sounding almost mechanical. All the while somewhere to their left front was that incredibly large thing moving.

“We'll be sitting ducks in the river,” Flaherty said, glancing over his shoulder.

“We'll be dead if we stay here,” Dane said. “We have to get out of this fog. Now! Safety from these things is across the river. I know it.”

Tormey screamed and the three men turned right. The newcomer's body was off the ground, quickly moving up into the first level of canopy. His body was surrounded by a golden glow that emanated from a foot wide beam extending into the fog.

Even as they brought their weapons to bear, Tormey's body was drawn back into the fog and disappeared.

“Oh fuck!” Thomas said. Then he staggered back, a look of surprise on his face as some unseen force hit him in the chest. The big man dropped his weapon, his hands to his chest, blood flowing through them. There was a neat circular hole about the size of a dime cut through the uniform into his chest.

“What's wrong?” Flaherty asked, stepping toward the radioman, then freezing as a half-dozen unbelievably long red ropes flickered out of the fog and wrapped around Thomas, dragging him toward their invisible source.

Dane fired, the M-60 rolling on his hip, the tracers disappearing in the direction of whatever was controlling the ropes. The firing jerked Flaherty out of his shock. He moved forward toward Thomas when movement to his left caught his eye. Something on four legs was bounding toward him. The image seared into his consciousness: a large serpent head with a mouth opened wide, three rows of glistening teeth, a body like that of a lion, long legs with clawed feet and at the end a tail with a scorpion's stinger.

Flaherty fired his CAR-15, the rounds slamming into the chest of the creature, slowing it, stopping it, knocking it down, black fluid flowing out of the wounds. He emptied his magazine even though the creature had stopped moving.

A beam of gold light came out of the jungle to the right of where the red ropes were dragging Thomas and hit Flaherty on his shoulder. He felt instant pain and could smell his own skin burning. He rolled forward and to his right, putting a tree between himself and the beam. The tree trunk glowed bright gold for a second, then exploded, scattering splinters across the jungle floor, peppering Flaherty’s side. Flaherty rolled onto his other side and looked around.

Thomas was still screaming, feet kicking in the ground. Thomas had his knife in his hand and was hacking at one of the ropes that held him.

The muzzle of Dane's M-60 was glowing red when the weapon suddenly seized up and jammed. He threw it down and drew his pistol and fired, emptying the clip. Flaherty started again for Thomas, who had now dropped his knife and had both large hands wrapped around a tree. Flaherty tossed his CAR-15 to Dane and ran forward, unhooking the M-79 from his LBE.

Something scarlet-hued dropped down from above and Flaherty dodged it as it curled forward, reaching for him. It missed. He came to the tree, stepped to the side and fired the M-79 down the line of ropes. The flechette round spewed its deadly load, but the round seemed to have no effect. Flaherty drew a 40 mm high explosive round out of his ammo pouch and slammed it into the breach.

“Don't let it get me,” Thomas pleaded.

Dane was there now, firing short sustained bursts into the ropes with Flaherty's CAR-15. Flaherty fired the HE round into the fog and heard the dull thump of an explosion, muffled as if it were under sandbags.

Then the fog suddenly changed, coalescing, becoming darker, forms coming out of nothingness. Several spheres like the one that had gotten Castle floated in the darkness, rows of black teeth whirling around their forms. Flaherty and Dane went from trying to help Thomas to self-preservation, stepping back, dodging the wildly shifting and probing objects.

Thomas's hands were ripped from the tree, leaving a layer of skin and blood.

Then he was gone into the fog, his scream echoing through the jungle. The scream was cut off in mid-yell as if a dungeon door had slammed shut.

A flash of blue light came out of the mist and hit Flaherty in the chest. It expanded around his body until he was encased in a glowing, second skin. He looked at Dane who seemed to be immune for the moment from the attacking forms.

“Run!” Flaherty yelled, his voice muted. “Run, Dane.”

Dane rolled left, under one of the figures, and came up to his knees. He fired the rest of the magazine in the CAR-15 along the line of the light, until it was empty. Then he drew his knife.

“No!” Flaherty screamed as he was lifted into the air. “Save yourself!” Then the team leader was being pulled rapidly through the air, toward the source of the blue light beam.

The last Dane saw of Flaherty was his face open and contorted, yelling for Dane to run, the words already distant and muted. There was a flash of bright, blue light around Flaherty and then he was gone in the mist.

A beam of gold light slashed out of the fog and touched Dane on his right arm, slashing up his forearm, leaving charred flesh in its wake, and causing him to drop the knife. Another beam of blue light came, wrapped around the knife, lifted it, then dropped it, continuing its search.

The voice was louder now, more insistent, screaming inside of Dane's head, telling him to leave, to get away.

Dane turned and ran for the river.