Excalibur

CHAPTER 2: THE PRESENT

Lisa Duncan looked down her blood-spattered robe, fingers reaching into the hole in the cloth where the bullet that had killed her had gone through. The skin below was unblemished with no sign of the fatal wound. She touched the spot herself, as if not believing her own eyes.

“Who are you?” Mike Turcotte was in front of her and he placed his hands on her shoulders, fingers digging in a little too tightly. “I saw you die.” Turcotte said the words in a whisper, as if not believing them. “I held you in my arms and watched you die. I felt you die.”

A deep, accented voice caused Turcotte to look over his shoulder. “She partook of the Grail,” Yakov said, as if that explained everything. “The legends are true. She is immortal.”

Given that Yakov was the one who had shot her, Turcotte wasn’t feeling too kindly toward the Russian, even though Yakov had done it in a vain attempt to prevent the Grail from being stolen. The Russian was a huge man, standing almost a foot taller than Turcotte. He was a former agent of Section IV, the Russian equivalent of America’s Majestic-12, set up to monitor alien activity on the planet. Both Section IV and Majestic no longer existed, victims of the events of the past year.

Turcotte wore camouflage fatigues that fit loosely on his solid body. On both shoulders was the same subdued military patch: an arrowhead shape, with a dagger insignia crossed by three lightning bolts: the patch for the US Army Special Forces. He was of average height and stocky, with short dark hair sprinkled with gray. The stubble on his chin indicated it had been a while since he had enjoyed the comforts of a warm shower and a sharp razor.

“I’m cold,” Duncan muttered.

Turcotte let go of her shoulders and blinked, looking about, taking in their surroundings, as if realizing for the first time that he was standing in a morgue and Duncan was sitting on a stainless-steel autopsy table. She looked small and vulnerable inside the bloody robe. Her short dark hair was plastered against her skull and her face was pale and drawn.

Turcotte scooped Duncan up in his arms and headed for the door. Yakov, Professor Mualama, Che Lu, and Major Quinn followed, the core of the group that was leading the fight against the alien presence on Earth. By default they were the ones who now ran Area 51.

Turcotte carried Duncan to a parked Humvee and slid her into the passenger seat before going around and getting behind the wheel. The others piled in, Quinn just managing to get inside before Turcotte stomped on the accelerator. He drove toward the large hangar cut into the side of Groom Mountain. To one side a long runway stretched out of sight along the dry bed of Groom Lake. Various hangars and support buildings were clustered around the end of the runway, between it and the mountain.

Area 51 was about ninety miles northwest of Las Vegas, in the middle of nowhere on the way to nowhere, established on land that held no value other than its isolation. Numerous mountains surrounded the dry lake bed, land that the US government had gobbled up to make the location secure. The spot had gained its name from the training area designation number it received on the military map for the Nellis Air Force Base range of which it was ostensibly a part.

Most had thought Area 51 was placed in the location because of its remoteness. The truth, however, was that it had been placed where it was because of the shocking discovery during the early days of World War II of a massive alien spaceship in a cavern underneath Groom Mountain — the mothership. Over a mile long and a quarter mile in width at its center, the craft had both stunned and intrigued the scientists sent to investigate it. Images on plaques found in the cavern led the Americans to discover smaller atmospheric craft, called bouncers and shaped like golden flying saucers, in Antarctica. They had been brought to Earth in one of the holds of the mothership.

The entire discovery was classified at a higher level than anything had ever been in the United States. A committee — Majestic-12—was established to oversee the alien artifacts. For over fifty years Majestic kept the truth secret from not only other countries but Americans also.

But even Majestic hadn’t known the real truth about the aliens: that Earth had been visited by aliens over ten thousand years earlier and they had headquartered themselves on a large island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean — the legendary Atlantis. And that when other aliens of the same species, the Airlia, had arrived thousands of years later, there was civil war between them. One side was led by an alien named Aspasia, the other by Artad. The initial battling resulted in the destruction of Atlantis and a tenuous truce. Aspasia was banished to an Airlia base underneath the surface of Mars at Cydonia, where human astronomers had long been intrigued by anomalies on the surface. Artad and his followers, the Kortad, went to China, underneath the massive tomb of Qian-Ling, and like Aspasia and his people, went into suspended animation. But each side continued a subversive war throughout the millennia on Earth. Aspasia’s side was represented by the Mission, led by a continually regenerated human, Aspasia’s Shadow, who passed Aspasia’s memories and personality through succeeding generations via the ka, a memory device that could be updated much like a computer hard drive. Artad’s side was represented by the Ones Who Wait, Airlia-Human clones, and Shadows of Artad, such as King Arthur and Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of China.

Throughout human history both groups fought covertly, using humans as pawns in their battles. Turcotte and the others had discovered much, but they still didn’t know the full extent of this interference in human history. They knew about the clash between Arthur (Artad’s Shadow) and Mordred (Aspasia’s Shadow) in early Britain; the development and spread of the Black Death in the Middle Ages; the rise of the SS in Nazi Germany; the invention of the atomic bomb from studying an Airlia weapon discovered underneath the Great Pyramid, also in the early days of World War II. Many other events throughout history were the result of efforts by one side or the other to gain the upper hand.

Turcotte and the others had also learned that the human survivors of Atlantis had formed a group called the Watchers to monitor the aliens. The Watchers were former priests who had worshipped the Airlia as gods, and who tried to monitor their conflict.

The lid blew off all those covert actions when Majestic-12 was corrupted after discovering a guardian computer in South America. The guardians were golden pyramids secreted around the world by the Airlia, as part of their ancient outposts. Contact with one by a human resulted in a direct mind interface, with the guardian taking control and turning the person into a Guide. The members of Majestic were corrupted in this manner and Mike Turcotte was sent by Lisa Duncan to infiltrate Area 51 and discover what was going on. Turcotte had learned that Majestic was preparing to fly the mothership on orders from the guardian, most likely to go to Mars and pick up Aspasia and his followers. He also found information that initiating the mothership’s interstellar engine would attract the attention of the Airlia’s ancient enemy, known only as the Swarm, and bring destruction to Earth. Turcotte foiled that plan and all-out civil war had erupted between the two Airlia sides, the human race caught between them.

As it stood now, Turcotte had killed Aspasia and destroyed his fleet coming from Mars, but Aspasia’s Shadow was now secreted on Easter Island with the Grail in his possession and a burgeoning military force. And in China, Artad had been awoken by the Ones Who Wait.

It was this precarious world situation plastered all over the situation board at the front of the CUBE — command, control & communications, C³—deep under Groom Mountain, that the small group saw as they got off the elevator from the hangar above.

Turcotte ignored the sit-board and helped Duncan to the conference room. The others trooped in and the door was shut as an uneasy silence pervaded. Turcotte sat Duncan in the chair at the head of the table and slumped into the seat next to her.

Yakov was next to Turcotte. Mualama, an African archaeologist who had followed in the footsteps of Sir Richard Francis Burton and uncovered that explorer’s secret account of all he had learned of the Airlia and their influence on Earth, was next to him. Mualama had also uncovered the scepter that had allowed Duncan and him access to the Black Sphinx, deep under the Great Sphinx, which had contained the Ark of the Covenant and the Grail. They had also discovered that Mualama was a former Watcher.

Then there was the elderly Chinese professor, Che Lu. She had opened the upper levels of the ancient tomb at Qian-Ling. She had recently been trying to figure out an alien grid system that highlighted many of their ancient bases. She had cracked the code and was still working on fixing the various locations, which included Qian-Ling, Easter Island, and Mount Sinai, where the Mission had hidden itself for a long time.

At the other end of the table was Major Quinn, a leftover from the days of Majestic, the man who knew the inner workings of Area 51 and was able to get what was needed from the US government. Or had been able, as it now appeared that Area 51 was being cut out of the chain of operations. He was a small man, with thick-lensed glasses perched on a thin nose.

“My friends,” Yakov began.

Turcotte didn’t particularly want to hear whatever it was the Russian had to say. He was watching Duncan, who seemed to be slowly coming to her senses.

“My friends,” Yakov repeated as he turned to the others at the table. “We must look at the larger threats.”

“And what can we do about them?” Turcotte snapped. He was bone-tired. Since uncovering the secret of Area 51 he had been fighting the aliens and their minions almost nonstop. For every step forward, every victory gained, there seemed to be two steps back and more secrets uncovered and more defeats. They had learned much but Turcotte felt there was a level of all of this that they had yet to penetrate. They didn’t know why the civil war among the Airlia had started millennia before, nor what each side’s true agenda was, although there was little doubt neither side cared how many humans died in the course of their battles. Beyond that, they didn’t even know why the Airlia had come to Earth so many years earlier or what the civil war had been about. Mualama steepled his fingers. “We have been approaching this incorrectly. This is a war. And war is all about power.”

Turcotte, who had been practicing the art of war his entire adult life, stared at the archaeologist. “And?”

“We must search for the source of our enemies’ power,” Mualama said. “And that is?” Turcotte prompted.

“We must find and control the Master Guardian,” Mualama said. “If we do that, we can control the Easter Island — and most likely the Qian-Ling — guardians. Maybe even the guardian at Cydonia on Mars.”

Turcotte rubbed his eyes for a second. “Now you say we need the Master Guardian but yesterday you said we needed the Grail.”

“We did need the Grail,” Mualama said. “But we don’t have it. Aspasia’s Shadow has it and it is now under the shield at Easter Island. The Grail is indeed powerful, as it holds the secret of eternal life. However, most of Aspasia’s Shadow’s power comes out of the Easter Island guardian. The guardian controls the shield wall and the nanovirus he has infected his forces with. It is also the way he communicates with his forces. It is the key to his power.”

“We don’t have the Master Guardian either,” Turcotte said. “We don’t even know where it is.”

“Burton’s manuscript described Watcher records saying it was removed from the top of the Great Pyramid thousands of years ago,” Mualama said.

“And taken where?” Turcotte asked.

“The Watchers—” Mualama began, then paused. “Go on,” Yakov urged him.

“Yes,” Turcotte said, spinning in his seat toward the African archaeologist. “Tell us what else you’ve been lying to us about.”

“Not lying,” Mualama said. “It just did not come up.”

“So we have to ask you specific questions to get you to help us?” Turcotte asked. He slowly got to his feet and approached the archaeologist. He leaned close to Mualama. “Where is the Master Guardian?”

“It is with the mothership,” Mualama said.

“The mothership was destroyed,” Turcotte said, turning back to his chair and dismissing Mualama. “It’s floating dead in orbit.”

“Aspasia’s mothership is floating dead in orbit. How do you think Artad came to this planet?” Mualama asked in a level tone.

That caused Turcotte to pause for a moment. “There’s another mothership?”

Lisa Duncan spoke up. “It makes sense. Remember we found the power sphere for an interstellar drive hidden in a cavern in Ethiopia, yet the mothership here had one already in place.”

Turcotte slowly sat down and nodded. “The sphere we found came from China.” “And Artad is in China,” Duncan said.

“But we didn’t see a mothership in Qian-Ling,” Che Lu said.

“It might be in the lowest level,” Turcotte said, but he doubted it even as he spoke. The mothership was simply too large to be hidden there, even given how big the mountain tomb of Qian-Ling was.

Quinn spoke up. “The Nazi records you recovered from the Soviet archives indicated that they were searching for an ark — not the Ark of the Covenant, but Noah’s Ark. It would make sense that a mothership would be called such a thing. Perhaps survivors from Atlantis were put aboard it? That would explain the legend of the Ark.”

“But the Nazis didn’t find it,” Turcotte noted.

“We haven’t gone through all the records,” Quinn said. “Do it,” Turcotte ordered.

“Nor have I translated all of Sir Richard Francis Burton’s manuscript,” Mualama added. “He also was interested in the legend of Noah’s Ark.”

“And I haven’t pinpointed all the locations that Professor Nabinger translated,” Che Lu said.

Turcotte rubbed his forehead. Despite all they had learned, they were still far behind the information curve. The truth of the present hinged on knowing the truth about the past and that was still largely unknown. But they did have more than they had started with. Did they have the time to process it all? he wondered.

“And if we don’t find and gain control of the Master Guardian?” he threw out. Quinn spoke up. “The military is marshaling a fleet in Hawaii. It’s our last line of defense in the Pacific. They are considering attacking Easter Island.” “They won’t be able to break the shield wall,” Turcotte said.

“Unless we can access the Master Guardian and shut down the Easter Island guardian,” Yakov pointed out.

Quinn frowned. “There was something in that archive material you recovered underneath Moscow about a weapon and a shield.”

“What something?” Turcotte demanded, leaning forward. “I’ll have to look at it again,” Quinn said.

A sergeant came into the room and handed Quinn a file folder and just as quietly left the room.

Turcotte finally considered the strategic situation. “Without a miracle — or us finding and controlling the Master Guardian — that fleet is not going to be able to get through the alien shield with any degree of effectiveness,” he said. “And according to the status board, the ships the aliens have captured are heading toward Pearl. We’ll be lucky if they don’t seize Hawaii and our ships that we’d need to attack Easter Island. Major Quinn, send a message to the admiral in charge there and warn him of that.”

“Yes, sir.”

Turcotte’s eyes were on Duncan, who seemed to be following the conversation. He turned to her, going back to the more immediate issue, or at least what he considered more immediate. “What happened to you?”

Duncan blinked. “I—” She held her hand up, looking at it as if it were an alien object. “I put one of the stones in the Grail. Then I put my hand in the Grail. One end of the Grail,” she added. “It burned. Up my arm. My entire body.”

“We need to get her to a doctor,” Quinn suggested.

Turcotte ignored the major. “So the legend is true — it grants immortality?”

“It must be,” Duncan acknowledged. She touched her torso, where the bullet had torn through her, still not believing the unmarred skin. “I’m here.” She said it almost as a question. “And you say you saw me die.”

“How does it work?” Turcotte asked.

She slowly shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“It must do more than give immortality,” Yakov said. “It brought her back to life.”

Turcotte thought for a few seconds, then rattled out more orders. “Major Quinn, you check the Nazi records we brought back from Moscow to see if you can learn any more about the location of the ark/mothership. Also, I want you to go back through Majestic’s records and see if there is anything on this shield wall — how it works, and if there is any way we can get through it on our own. Because if we can’t, we’re defenseless against Aspasia’s Shadow and his forces.

“Professor Mualama, you go through Burton’s manuscript again and see if we missed anything regarding the location of the Master Guardian. Professor Che Lu, I think you need to get with Larry Kincaid and check all the locations that Nabinger recorded. Perhaps one of those is the second mothership. I’m going to try to send a message to Kelly to see if she can tap into the Easter Island guardian and give us a better idea where those objects are. Any questions?”

“And me?” Duncan asked.

“We need to find out what happened to you,” Turcotte said. “How the Grail affected you.”

Turcotte looked around the room. They were the experts, the ones who knew the most about the Airlia and their technology, yet he felt grave misgivings about their loyalties: Yakov, the Russian, who had shot Duncan; Che Lu, the Chinese, who had delved into Qian-Ling at such an opportune time; Mualama, the African, who had lied to them about being a Watcher and only told them things when it seemed to be convenient to some agenda of his own. And most of all Lisa Duncan, the woman he had thought he loved — what had happened to her?

Quinn had a headset on and he pulled the small mouthpiece away from his lips. “A doctor is coming down on the elevator. We need to get her looked at.” He was staring at Turcotte. Surprisingly, the tiny officer got up and went to the head of the table, where he extended his hand to Duncan, indicating she should get up.

As Turcotte started to protest, Quinn put his other hand in the Green Beret’s chest. “A doctor can tell us more right now than anyone else. We need to get her looked at.”

Turcotte was so surprised by Quinn’s action that he allowed him to escort Duncan out the door, where a man in a white coat waited. Quinn returned, shutting the door behind him.

“What the hell—” Turcotte began, but Quinn picked up the folder that he’d been given and tossed it in front of Turcotte.

“I don’t know who that woman is,” Quinn said, “but there is no Lisa Duncan. I had the Agency do a check on her. Everything in her background is a lie.”