Excalibur

CHAPTER 14: THE PRESENT

Alpha Four was built into the side of a mountain fifty miles south of Seoul, not far from Osan Air Force Base. General Carmody saw the devastation that had been wreaked on the Air Force Base by suicide squads of North Korean commandos as his helicopter flew by. Burning wreckage littered the runway and aprons and he could see that there were still pockets of resistance here and there.

Disaster. That was the only word that Carmody could think as the chopper began going around the mountain. So far his command’s performance in the field in the face of the invasion had been a disaster. Seoul was practically devoid of life. North Korean forces were infiltrating behind his front lines. His Air Force power had been severely hamstrung by the unexpected ferocity of the suicide attacks from groups of North Koreans who had been in place prior to the onslaught, combined with the nerve gas rocket assaults by the Chinese, something they had not expected.

The Blackhawk landed on the concrete pad next to a vault door. Bodies were strewn about and it was obvious the North Koreans had sent several suicide squads against Alpha Four, but Carmody had confirmed over the radio that the bunker remained unbreached. The large steel vault door set into the mountainside slowly swung open. A Humvee came racing out, a large plastic case in the back. Carmody slid open the cargo bay door and helped the crew chief load the nuclear bomb on board. As soon as it was secure, the chopper lifted into the air and the second of Carmody’s aircraft landed to on-load its bomb.

“Where to, sir?” the pilot asked over the intercom.

Carmody had already made his decisions on the way down. He gave his pilot coordinates and then radioed the other five helicopters with their own coordinates.

The Blackhawk banked to the north.

The pattern was one that could not be allowed to continue. Tek-Chong knew that, but he didn’t know how to counter the mainland forces’ strategy. As soon as he pulled his men back out of range, the shield wall would be turned off, the mainland troops would advance within range, and then the shield would go back on, only coming down when the mainland forces were dug-in and prepared to fire.

He’d already retreated four times, falling back over fifteen miles from the beach.

Through his binoculars, Tek-Chong watched the Chinese forces advancing under the protection of the newly forwarded shield and he noticed something. Machine-gun fire burst out from a buried bunker of his own forces, men who had apparently survived both the bombardment and the shield passing over and had not been able to follow the order to retreat. The bunker was immediately destroyed by point-blank tank fire, but it planted an idea in Tek-Chong’s mind.

He immediately issued the orders.

The Taiwanese soldiers dug in, hunkering down in their foxholes and bunkers and remained still. Some were killed by the preparatory bombardment, but most survived. And when the firing ceased, Tek-Chong did not give the order to retreat. Instead, the men stayed in place underground, allowing the shield wall to pass over them as it was moved forward.

After the wall passed over them, they then sprang up and engaged the mainland forces at point-blank range. It was brutal fighting, face-to-face combat not seen since the advent of gunpowder. Small arms, bayonets, entrenching tools, fists, and teeth, it was man against man in the most elemental of combat.

And it worked for the defenders.

The mainland army was forced to slow down, its superior firepower negated by the fact that its front lines were mixed with those of the Taiwanese. The shield wall was negated by the close-in combat.

The mainland advance ground to a halt as the commanders pondered how to deal with this new development.

Six machine guns were set up in position overlooking the main highway running north to south that bypassed Seoul. Colonel Lin had personally positioned each gun on the hillside and now he watched the road through his binoculars. Thousands of South Korean refugees crowded the road, making it difficult for American and South Korean reinforcements to make their way north. Lin planned on making it even more difficult.

“Fire,” he ordered.

The machine guns erupted, spewing out thousands of rounds per minute. The bullets chewed into the defenseless civilians, killing them by the hundreds, wounding many more. Bodies littered the road, the wounded and the dead.

After two minutes, Lin issued another order. “Cease fire.”

When the guns fell silent, the screams of the wounded civilians echoed off the mountains. Lin scanned the carnage with binoculars, seeing the women and children, their bodies torn apart by the large-caliber bullets. Unbidden, an image of his family back in the north came to him and for the first time he wondered what exactly victory would bring for anyone.

One thousand forty-two nautical miles northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands lies Midway Atoll just short of the International Date Line. Despite the distance, the three Midway islands were actually part of the Hawaiian Island Archipelago. A coral reef surrounded Sand, Eastern, and Spit islands, whose landmass totaled less than sixteen hundred acres. The atoll was first discovered in 1859 and since it consisted of little more than three tiny spits of sand, little attention was paid to them. They were claimed by the United States in 1876 and annexed in 1908.

The first inhabitants were employees of the Commercial Pacific Cable Company in 1903, who’d come to administer the first round-the-world communications cable. In 1935 Pan American Airways established a base for their Pan-Pacific Clipper seaplanes on the island. In 1938, as tensions rose in the Pacific, the US Navy began building a naval air station. The base was finished in August 1941 and bombed on December 7 of that year.

Midway, though, is most famous for the sea battle that took place in its vicinity in June 1942. The remnants of the United States fleet that had survived the disaster at Pearl Harbor just six months previously had sallied forth to meet another Japanese onslaught. Three American carriers — the Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown—waited near the island for an invasion fleet using intelligence gathered by American code breakers.

A much stronger Japanese fleet approached the atoll, led by four aircraft carriers and numerous other ships. In a desperate series of strikes and counterstrikes the Americans delivered a stunning defeat on the Japanese, sending all four carriers to the bottom of the Pacific while losing the Yorktown. The Battle of Midway shifted the tide of war in the Pacific and marked the beginning of the setting of the Rising Sun of Japanese imperialism. Perhaps it was memories of that battle that had caused Admiral Kenzie to make Midway the destination for his fleet, even though the naval base there had been abandoned in 1997 and the entire area turned into a national wildlife refuge.

Kenzie positioned his fleet to the northwest of Midway, escort ships surrounding his lone surviving carrier, the Kennedy. Linked back to the mainland by satellite communication, he remained up-to-date on the burgeoning world war. He’d already received contradictory orders from Washington — one set from the Pentagon directing him to sail west and support American forces in South Korea, another order from the National Security Advisor directing him to sail east to San Francisco to defend the West Coast.

He ignored both sets of orders and maintained radio silence, listening to the satellite communications but sending nothing. All of his ships were powered down, running on the minimum required energy. Kenzie was more tuned in to the mood of his sailors than to the information coming in from the satellites. Many had left family behind in Hawaii. Fear, anger, despair, confusion — all floated through the fleet like a dense fog.

Captain Lockhart was to receive her first command. Despite being corrupted by the nanovirus and even knowing deep inside that she was aiding and abetting the enemy, a small part of her was thrilled. Especially this command.

She was on Ford Island, in the center of Pearl Harbor, surrounded by a cluster of similarly infected sailors. Waiting. Behind them were two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles, forgotten in a storage area in the rush of the fleet departing. Several dozen compressors were pumping air into hoses that ran from the island into the water.

Just offshore, the white memorial building was gone, the material stripped and used by the nanotechs. The dark water was boiling as if some great beast were stirring below. Lockhart took an involuntary step backward as a metal mast appeared, poking up through the surface and rising.

Slowly, as air filled sealed chambers, the reconstructed USS Arizona saw the light of day for the first time in well over half a century. As the ship’s main deck became awash, Lockhart supervised the sailors in transferring over the cruise missiles as the nanovirus began construction of launchers for them in place of the guns that had once graced the ship’s decks.

Where oil-burning conventional engines had once been, the nanotechs were changing rusted metal into a modified version of the engines that had been developed on the Springfield and its clones. Lockhart had her orders via the nanovirus from the guardian — as soon as the Arizona was seaworthy she was to put to sea and join the Alien Fleet that was now off to the south of Oahu. The mission: search for and assimilate the remains of the American fleet.

“What the hell is that?” Lisa Duncan asked as Garlin opened a door to a room she hadn’t been in before. A long, coffinlike object was in the center, next to a control console with what appeared to be numerous computers stacked around it.

“That’s how we’re going to try to break through this programming in your brain,” Garlin said.

“And I’m supposed to trust you?”

“We don’t care if you trust us or not,” Garlin said as he walked over to the control console and hit a button. The lid of the tube slowly swung open, revealing a contoured interior, roughly the size of a person, but someone much taller than Duncan.

Duncan didn’t move from the door. “That looks very similar to what Mike Turcotte told me was being used in the lab in Dulce.” “Very good,” Garlin said. “It is.”

“Where did it come from?”

“We recovered it from the ruins at Dulce. Where else?” “That thing caused people to go crazy.”

“It can be used for that,” Garlin acknowledged. He turned from the machine toward Duncan, who still had not moved. “You have good reason to be afraid of it. We think it’s what was used to give you your false memories.”

“That makes no sense,” Duncan said. “Why would Majestic have done that to me? I ended up investigating them.”

Garlin shrugged. “Remember that Von Seeckt was a renegade from Majestic. We think it might be possible he used you as the key to get the government to prevent the mothership from flying. Or there may be a similar but different machine like the one at Dulce that was used on you.”

“You don’t know much, do you?”

Garlin took a step closer to her and shook his head, a strange smile on his lips. “For someone who has false memories, you’re very sure of yourself. You don’t know who you are. And let me tell you something else you don’t know. You don’t know who Turcotte is either.”

“What do you mean?”

“After we discovered you weren’t who you appeared to be, we checked everyone else. Turcotte’s past — it’s all fake too. He was never in a classified antiterrorist unit in Germany. That charming story he tells about trying to save the pregnant woman… never happened. He’s as false as you are.”

Duncan didn’t believe him. Why that thought came to her with absolute certainty, she wasn’t sure. Turcotte was who he appeared to be. But accompanying the thought was an almost overwhelming sense of guilt, which confused her. What about Turcotte did she have to feel guilty about? That she had involved him in this? But the feeling was much stronger than that.

As Garlin came forward, his hands up to grab her, Duncan stepped back and felt a pinprick of a needle in the back of her neck. She didn’t even manage to turn her head to see whoever had done it before she passed out.

Brutality was being met with brutality. The mainland forces, realizing they were going to be slowed anyway by the defense tactics of the Taiwanese, now resorted to lining up artillery hub to hub along their main axis of advance. They fired a barrage just inside the forward edge of the shield wall, devastating the terrain and killing many of the dug-in Taiwanese soldiers and destroying everything in their path.

But as armies had learned ever since the invention of gunpowder, despite this tremendous effort, many of the defenders still survived. The mainland infantry still had to follow behind the artillery and dig out the survivors. As their commanders pressed them forward so relentlessly, they lost significant numbers to friendly fire, but if there was one thing the mainland didn’t lack it was bodies.

So the slaughter went on. But to Chang Tek-Chong and the others in the Taiwanese high command, the result began to appear inevitable. They could only trade so much terrain before they were pushed into the ocean.

Artad cared little how many humans were dying in Taiwan or South Korea. The two assaults were just the beginning. From intercepted satellite traffic he knew the United Nations, the closest thing these humans had to a planetary government, was considering Aspasia’s Shadow’s ultimatum. It was time for a counteroffer.

Yakov had not been impressed by the plan he had been given and events were proving him correct. His team had scoured the cliff face and while there were several crevasses, there had been nothing significant enough for him to order the Delta Force demolitions men to do their job. If the mothership was behind the cliff, he had yet to see the way in.

Night had fallen and the men had gathered together in a small depression. No fires, just a cluster of men huddled in the dark. They’d heard gunfire from farther down the mountain just before dark and noted several overflights by Turkish jets. Thus Yakov wasn’t surprised when one of the Delta men reported movement nearby.

Yakov slipped off into the dark to investigate, leaving instructions with the commandos to remain in place. He passed between two boulders, his weapon at the ready, then froze when he heard the sound of an AK-47’s slide being worked. The sound was echoed by several more assault rifles.

He took a step backward toward the hide site when he felt the muzzle of a weapon poke him in the back. Letting his MP-5 hang on its sling, Yakov slowly brought his hands up.

“Who are you?” a harsh voice asked in accented English.

“From America,” Yakov said.

“You don’t sound like an American.”

“I am Russian, but I am working with the Americans.”

The muzzle was pulled away as figures appeared in the darkness, surrounding Yakov. The man who had been behind him came around in front. He was wearing a sheepskin coat and a black watch cap. Definitely not Turkish military, Yakov realized.

“What are you and the others up there”—the man jabbed the muzzle of the gun in the direction of the Delta hide site—“doing here? We saw you parachute in.” “Who are you?” Yakov asked instead, not certain how to proceed.

The man spit, narrowly missing Yakov’s boots. “This is our land. Our mountain. You do the answering.”

“We search for the ark.”

The man’s head snapped up and he said something in a different language. From the excitement among the men, Yakov knew he had broached a sensitive subject. He realized they were Kurdish guerrillas.

“Freeze!” The voice came out of the darkness and Yakov knew the Delta commandos had the group covered.

The man cursed, shoving his gun into Yakov’s face. “You die first.”

“Easy,” Yakov said, keeping his hands up. “They’re friendly,” he called out to the unseen commandos.

Several Delta commandos with night-vision goggles on appeared out of the dark, weapons at the ready. Yakov could see the guerrillas relax as they saw the American flag patch on the commandos’ shoulders.

“Come.” The leader of the guerrillas gestured. “There are others on the mountain.”

“Let’s go,” Yakov said to the Delta men as he followed the guerrillas. They clambered toward the cliff face, then turned right. Yakov was surprised when the man in front of him seemed simply to disappear into the cliff. Edging around a boulder, Yakov saw there was a narrow crack that they hadn’t spotted during their search. He could barely force his way in, then he was in darkness, stumbling forward. The Delta commandos followed, two of them carrying the man with the broken leg.

Yakov went about twenty feet before the tunnel turned to the right and he saw a dim light ahead, the forms of the guerrillas silhouetted against it. The tunnel widened into a cave, about sixty feet wide by thirty deep. The ceiling was low, forcing Yakov to remain slightly bent over. Two oil-burning lanterns illuminated the cave and the interior smelled of their burning as well as unwashed bodies. There were several women and children inside and they greeted the men with smiles and hugs while casting suspicious glances at the strangers. “Sit.” The man who had first met Yakov indicated a spot near one of the lanterns. Yakov squatted and he was joined by the commander of the Delta commandos.

“I am Kakel,” the man said.

“Yakov. And this is Major Briggs,” he added, introducing the senior Delta man. Kakel shook their hands but his words were less than pleasant. “Americans. You promised us much and you delivered little. You asked my people to rebel in Iraq and then abandoned us. You side with the Turks and let them hunt us down like dogs.” He sat down with a sigh. “This is our land. It was called Kurdistan long before there was a Turkey or an Iraq. Do you know it is illegal for us to speak our own language here?” Kakel didn’t wait for an answer. “Why do you seek the ark?”

“We think it is an Airlia spacecraft.”

“Airlia?”

“The aliens.”

“The gods of old.” Kakel glanced around to see if any of the others were listening. “There is much history on Agri Dagi — that is what we call this mountain. There is the legend of the Ark of Noah coming to rest here after the Great Flood. My people believe we are the direct descendants of Noah. And now you say it might be a craft of these aliens.” Kakel shook his head. “Did you know that Lawrence of Arabia hid in this very cave?”

“No, I did not,” Yakov said.

“There are those who have a different”—Kakel searched for the right word, then shrugged—“sight. Some come here.”

Yakov wanted more information on that, but he knew he had to stay with his priority, so he remained silent.

“We call this the back door.” Kakel pulled the magazine out of his weapon, checked the bullets, then slammed it back in. “Outsiders are not supposed to see this.”

“I thank you for taking us in,” Yakov said.

“There are others on the mountain,” Kakel repeated himself. “Iranians have crossed the border. Many were killed by the Turkish planes, but some still climb up the mountain. They are not far off. Of course that means the Turkish army is close.” He smiled fiercely. “But they have learned not to come into our land. They wait around to catch the Iranians when they try to leave. I assume the Iranians seek what you seek.”

“It is most likely,” Yakov agreed. He saw a twitch on the side of Kakel’s face. Yakov had been around men like this before— men who spent their entire lives hiding and fighting. The stress wore them down, making them old before their time.

“It has been here for many centuries,” Kakel said. “Beyond the time of remembering. Why do you need to find it now?”

“There is war all over the world,” Yakov said. “We think—”

“We have been at war here for a long time. No one was ever interested.”

“It is worldwide. In many places people are dying—” Yakov began, but Kakel again interrupted him.

“There have been world wars before.”

“Not—” Yakov halted, realizing he had been about to say not with aliens involved, but who knew how much the two sides had been involved in previous wars. “The aliens have shown their true natures and come out of the shadows,” he finally said. “The ark holds the thing we need to defeat the aliens.”

“And my people? What good will it do us?” “I do not know,” Yakov answered.

Surprisingly, Kakel smiled, revealing several broken teeth. “I like you, Russian. At least you are honest. We have had too many promises and every one was broken.” He put the AK-47 down. “The legend is that my people, the Kurds, are the descendants of Noah and the survivors of the Great Flood. That we came here in the ancient time, brought by the gods on the ark, which landed on this mountain when the waters receded.

“My father, and my father’s father, and through my family beyond what can be remembered, have lived here on the mountain. He told me, as he was told, that there would be a day when the ark would be needed again. Others have come seeking the ark.”

“And have you shown it to any?”

“Those who had the correct symbol. Yes.”

Yakov reached into a pocket and pulled out a Watcher ring. “This symbol?” Kakel pulled a chain from around his neck. On it was attached a Watcher medallion. “Yes.”

“Who were these who came? Was Sir Richard Burton one of them?” Kakel nodded. “Yes.”

“Who else?” “Tesla.”

“‘Tesla’?” The name sounded familiar to Yakov, but he couldn’t place it. “A man named Nikola Tesla came here many years ago.”

“Why?”

“To go into the ark.” “For what?”

“I do not know that. But he had the proper symbol, so he was allowed in.” “Anyone else?”

“As I said, there have been those who had a different sight.” Yakov returned to his mission. “I seek something inside the ark.”

Kakel considered that. “You have the proper symbol. Tomorrow I will show you what you seek. But only after you help me.” “Help you do what?” Yakov asked.

“Does it matter? You want to see the ark, do you not?”

“Aspasia’s Shadow lies.” The sound of Artad’s voice echoed through the General Assembly.

“First let me tell you the truths among his lies. Aspasia was indeed the first Airlia to come to your planet. And he did establish a base at Atlantis. And his mission was to protect your planet from the Swarm.

“That is the extent of his truths. Long after he had been sent here, communication ceased with our home world. I was sent to investigate when we didn’t hear from him. It was feared that this planet might have been overrun by the Swarm.

“I arrived to find that Aspasia had become corrupt. He had begun acting like a God and treating your people as slaves who should worship him. He had become fearful he would be recalled and have to rejoin the fight against the Swarm.

“We battled. There was much death and destruction, which I regret. When neither side could completely gain the upper hand and we feared an escalation of the combat would send out signatures into space that would be picked up by the Swarm we came to terms on a truce.

“His base at Atlantis was to be destroyed and he was banished to our base on Mars. Before I destroyed Atlantis, I rescued as many of your people as I could. I came here to Qian-Ling and went into a long sleep.

“The atrocities committed against humanity by both sides throughout that long sleep cannot be laid at my feet. They were reactions by my guardian computer and my Shadow against actions by Aspasia’s Shadow.

“But I am awake now. You have killed Aspasia for which I give you great credit. But you will not be able to destroy his Shadow without my help, which I offer freely. And after we have destroyed him, I will assist you in moving forward in technology in order to join the rest of the peace-loving sentient species in the universe. You have seen the mothership and know we are far more advanced than you. There is much I can give you that will make life on your planet many times better.

“The Chinese government has already joined me. Do not let old enmities stand in your way. You must come together as a species if you wish to join the other sentient beings of the universe.

“And there are greater dangers beyond this planet. You will need my help to face those threats. The Swarm is still out there destroying planets like yours. You cannot face them alone.

“Aspasia’s Shadow threatens all of you. He has corrupted many humans with his nanovirus. He wants all of you back under his thrall. To worship him. I want you to join me as equals.

“The choice is yours, but make it quickly. Events are moving and there is not time for you to waver.”

The transmission ended. An explosion of debate roared in the Assembly Hall. Given what was already happening in Taiwan and South Korea, Artad’s words weren’t exactly greeted with applause. Still, though, there were those countries that saw Artad’s offer as a chance to ally with the enemy of Aspasia’s Shadow. Perhaps it would be the lesser of two evils?

The debate went on.

General Carmody slipped the gas mask over his head as the helicopter slowly descended. The nerve agent that had been spread over Seoul would most likely have already dispersed, but he was taking no chances. The Blackhawk landed on the Tongjak Bridge over the Han River. There were bodies everywhere and no sign of life. Carmody slid open the cargo bay door and, with the aid of the crew chief, off-loaded the nuclear weapon.

There were sixteen bridges over the Han. Four within view of this one. Carmody opened the plastic case and punched in the arming code for the bomb. He set the delay at fifteen minutes. The other Blackhawks were doing the same thing in a pattern designed to destroy all sixteen bridges. It was a desperate act, but one that Carmody felt had been forced on him by the use of nerve agents.

He got back on board the helicopter and the pilot began to take off. It was then that he noticed the squad of men moving through a street a quarter mile to the north. The men wore protective suits and gas masks — North Korean versions. They carried AK-47s and were headed toward the bridge, drawn by the sound of the helicopter.

“Land again,” Carmody ordered.

The Blackhawk touched down. Carmody opened the door and went over to the bomb.

He heard shots, then the door gunner on the Blackhawk returning fire. He entered his code on the keypad. Then he accessed the timer code. 14:21 and going down. Carmody hit the scroll key and the number rapidly went down until he reached:10.

Then he waited as the last seconds ticked off.