Black Sun

CHAPTER 67

Byron Stecker rode in a Humvee, chasing Arnold Moore.

“Shoot him!” he shouted to an air force SP in the back. “Do you hear me? Shoot the son of a bitch!”

The man leaned out the side of the Humvee, firing with a rifle. But items of equipment, including the heavy vault that the stone had traveled in, were piled up behind the flatbed’s cab. Shells struck the vault repeatedly, but they would never penetrate.

A second Humvee tried to race up the driver’s side looking for a better angle to fire from, but Moore swung the big truck sharply, and the tail end slammed the smaller vehicle against the wall of the narrow tunnel.

A shower of sparks lit up the darkness. As Moore pulled away, the Humvee tumbled out of control, rolling over and almost wiping out Stecker’s vehicle in the process.

His driver swerved around it and a third Humvee joined the chase. But Moore had now built himself some space and was still accelerating.

“Shoot out the tires,” Stecker ordered. “Stop him or we’re all dead.”

As if on cue, alarms, hooked up throughout the complex, began to sound. “One minute to EM Burst Event,” a computerized female voice announced. “Shut down all electrical systems. Repeat, shut down all electrical systems.”

Stecker glanced at the digital readout that had been hastily installed in the cab of the Humvee. It was ticking unnervingly fast. The voice rang out through the tunnel. “Fifty-five … fifty-four … fifty-three.”

Up ahead, Stecker saw the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. A place he did not want Moore to reach.

“Seal the doors!” he shouted into the radio. “Seal the damned doors!”

Sinking fast, Hawker could feel the pressure growing in his ears. His hands scraped the walls, searching for something to grab, but the granite was smooth and the weight of Kang and his mechanical armor continued to drag him down.

He slammed his heel into Kang’s chest, trying to break free, and Kang tried to grab his other leg. Neither succeeded and they crashed into the bottom. The impact jarred Kang’s hand loose, and Hawker pushed off, pumping his arms and legs, desperate to reach the surface.

Below him he saw Kang trying to swim or climb, but the weight was too much and he fell back, landing at the bottom of the well, like some kind of offering to the gods. A spot beside him waited for Hawker if he didn’t keep going.

On the verge of blacking out, Hawker pushed harder, kicking and clawing for the surface.

He burst through, exhaling a cloud of carbon dioxide and sucking in a breath of clean air. The closest land to him was the island at the center of the cenote. He swam for the stairs.

By now he could feel the waves of energy whipping, a staticlike feeling that ran through his frame. The water around him began to churn and vibrate with a sound so deep that it shook his body from the inside.

Reaching the stairs, he dragged himself out of the water. He crawled up toward the well that Father Domingo had spoken of.

The Sacrifice of the Body.

Hawker stared at the altar. The vibration inside him had sharpened into pain; the sound in his head became a scream. With each piercing wave, ropes of water whipped up into the air around him, like some beast trying to break its chains.

To the left, on the shore, he saw movement. He turned to see a figure scampering down the slope. Yuri.

How was it possible? How had he come here?

Yuri made it down the side of the embankment to where Hawker’s backpack had come to rest.

“No!” Hawker shouted.

Yuri opened the pack and pulled the lead case out.

“Yuri, don’t!”

Yuri did not hear him. He opened the case and stared at the stone as if the gates of heaven rested inside.

The ground trembled from the next surge of energy, but Hawker remained locked on Yuri.

This can’t be happening.

He heard shouting. Over the noise in his head, and the chaos around him, he somehow heard shouting. He looked up. Danielle was sliding down, racing to Yuri.

Another wave of energy whipped through. The pillar he stood on shook to its foundations, knocking him down. More ropes of water whipped off the surface, lashing the walls and flying around like deranged spirits.

With the world coming apart around him, and the ground shaking so hard he could no longer stand, Hawker crawled forward. He saw the counterweights and the ropes. He spotted the lever that Father Domingo had said he would find.

Moore kept the pedal floored, but up ahead the light was dimming. The monstrous doors to Yucca Mountain were closing.

“Twenty-nine … twenty-eight … twenty-seven.”

He crossed into the triple-bore area near the entrance; the tunnel widened. Almost immediately the second Humvee pulled up on his left. Moore swerved toward it.

Shots were fired, blasting into the cab. Moore flinched as the mirror shattered. His arm took a hit and flew off the steering wheel.

Moore’s truck swerved, a front tire exploded, and the big rig went over on its side. It crashed down hard and skidded toward the exit, grinding to a stop twenty feet from the threshold.

“Twenty-three … twenty-two … twenty-one.”

Moore looked out through the shattered windshield. Blood ran down his face; one eye was swelling shut. But there was still a chance.

He grabbed his coat, extricated himself from the wreckage, and crawled toward the narrowing band of light.

He heard the klaxons sounding, heard the voice warning.

“Nineteen … eighteen …”

Suddenly he was unable to move. He looked back, straining to see through his swollen eye.

Stecker was standing on the tail of his coat, looking down at him like an owner who had caught the leash of a disobedient hound.

“You’re too late,” Stecker said. He yanked the coat from Moore’s grasp as the doors ahead of him slammed shut with a monstrous metallic clang.

Stecker opened Moore’s coat but found nothing inside.

“Fifteen … fourteen …”

“Nothing in here!” one of the guards yelled from the cab of the overturned truck.

“Where is it?” Stecker shouted.

Moore stared up at him, battered and shaking. “I don’t have it,” he said simply.

Stecker’s face betrayed utter confusion, but suddenly he seemed to understand. He looked back down the tunnel.

“Ahiga.”

In a distant part of the Yucca Mountain, at the top of a ventilation shaft that served as an escape route should something go wrong, Nathanial Ahiga heard the alarm go critical. He pushed upward, slamming against the hatch.

“Three …”

His mind reeled from the darkness and the fear of falling that gripped him. He pushed again, barely moving the heavy door.

“Two …”

Shouting a Navajo curse, he forced the hatch open. The blazing Nevada sunset burned his eyes and he tumbled out onto the mountainside holding the stone aloft.

“One …”

Hawker lunged for the handle.

“I believe,” he whispered as his hand slammed onto the lever.

The counterweights released. Heavy stones dropped into tunnels on either side of the well and the ropes spooled out over metal pulleys at tremendous speed. Something came racing up the tunnel toward him. The blocks slammed home and the fourth stone was jammed into position.

Hawker saw it for an instant. Then the world went still. His hearing shrank to nothing. And everything vanished in a blinding flash of white.