Overlord

PROLOGUE THE THINGS OF LEGEND

The entire crew with the exception of himself and the maneuvering watch had been evacuated to the new colony on the western side of the giant supercontinent. The captain knew that setting his battle-damaged warship down onto the lush forest and then easing her into the inland sea would be a near impossible task with decks ten through eighteen awash with flames. The last massed assault by the enemy had been catastrophic.

The large eighteen-inch guns had fallen silent when the ship’s powerful engines stopped providing the needed energy for the turbo-generators of the massive upper and lower turrets of one through four. Turrets five and six on the underside of the vast ship had been blown free of her superstructure in the warship’s last battle above the hostile new world. The crews of those gun-mounts had bravely stayed in place and they had all had died at their stations.

After the loss of the one-hundred-thousand-gallon coolant tanks that supplied the necessary gases to refrigerate the large-bore weapons, his remaining crew had sent the last three enemy vessels to their deaths by ramming them with the wedge-shaped deflector plow at the bow of the battleship. With maneuvering power only the battered ship had limped into low orbit around their new home. The orbital track he had laid into his navigation console was fast deteriorating and the captain knew they either had to obey the orders of a dying race or try desperately to save the last battleship from destruction. He figured the citizens of this new world owed his vessel a better grave than the one he had planned for her — as a floating reminder of a lost civilization that would be seen in the night sky for thousands of years until a decaying orbit sent her crashing into the planet below.

The captain had refused his last order and had decided instead that his battleship would not suffer the same fate as Ranger, Vortex, and Guidon, the last ships of the grand fleet that had met their fate on the surface of this planet’s lone moon. He swore the demise of his ship would not be the same. He gave the order to enter the atmosphere of this hostile planet and face whatever fate would be bestowed upon it by a new, better civilization.

“Liquid fuel maneuvering engines at 100 percent, Captain. We have ejected the main engine core for safety,” his executive officer called out as he wiped blood from a gash on his forehead.

“Bring her nose up fifty degrees, set it down easily. Use the trees and terrain as much as possible and slow her down before she breaks her back.”

The giant battleship’s thrusters were slowly turned and aimed straight down. The articulated jets were never designed for entering an atmosphere nor to carry the bulk of the mammoth warship, but with the loss of the weight of the lower gun turrets and superstructure she just might have enough. She came down fast and hard, trailing a tail of flame that ignited all in its wake. She slammed into the trees hard. Her massive weight crushed the thick, hundred-foot monoliths and her liquid-fueled thrusters started fires that began to rage out of control. The captain saw their approaching target through the electronic view-screen: the giant inland sea.

“Thrusters are overheating, now at 120 percent capacity,” the first officer called out. “The lower battle bridge has been sheared away along with the remaining crew compartments!”

The sudden explosion of ion gases burst through their containment bells on the two stern thrusters, taking them and one of the main engines at the stern with it. The enriched gas blew up and the stern vanished in a microsecond, rocking the battleship.

“Stern section has come into contact with the surface, she’s dragging and stress forces are at maximum — she’s about to break in two!” the maneuvering officer called out.

The captain swallowed as he grabbed the railing lining the center of the bridge, then glanced at the few remaining men on the battle bridge. He was proud of them, as he knew they would die just as assuredly as he in saving their last ship from being just a nighttime display of brilliantly colored debris orbiting a savage world.

They approached the inland sea at fifty kilometers per second. He knew the battleship would sustain massive damage but she would remain intact for the future of their colony if needed again — or some other race for their savagery. His goal was to save the massive eighteen-inch guns in her four remaining turrets. He saw the sea just over the elevated number one gun turret and determined that they would make it to the choppy green waters.

“Gentlemen, fighting alongside of you has been an honor,” he said proudly.

The ten men stood at their stations beaten and bloody after their five-day fight to get the colony moved from the moon to the surface of this world.

The inland sea roiled and bubbled as the great bulk of metal eased into the water. Massive steam jets erupted as her engines became inundated with moisture, blowing the mixing chambers of ion particles into oblivion. She rocked as the detonation set off by the heat of the melting main engines mixed with the coldness of the sea. There were several large explosions as it began to sink. Giant pressure-filled bubbles and steam vents were the only grave marker for the most powerful warship ever built.

There the great ship would remain for millions of years until the inland sea on the hostile continent was covered in two miles of snow and ice.

The snow fell as the group of quickly vanishing Neanderthals moved across the barren landscape. The wind picked up as the last remaining group of the human subspecies fought their way through the drifting snow. The small clan of twenty-seven men, women, and children were so burdened by the wet skins on their backs that it weighed them down to a point where they could no longer keep from falling and sliding into small crevasses as their footing became perilous.

The large leader of the group stopped as he heard a noise not common in snowstorms. The male shook his head from side to side as the noise seemed to emanate from his own head instead of the sky where the snow was now swirling in patterns never seen before by the group of Neanderthals. As he dropped his long spear and bundled skins and placed his hands to his ears he saw that the same noise was affecting not only the others in the soon-to-be extinct people but the large and voracious timber wolves that were hidden behind the blanket of white and green of tree. The air erupted with the howls and animal screams of other beasts as the ringing struck all in the area. Soon women and then the smaller of the children succumbed to the strange sound and fell to their knees. The wind started to pick up and now the leader of the group was fearful of getting caught in the open plain and buried forever. He had known many who perished because they could not grasp the cruelty of nature.

Suddenly the skies erupted above them. The snow started swirling in an ever-increasing circle. The leader managed to move his aching head to the skies and saw a sight the early man had never seen before. The swirling snow was now highlighted with blue, green, and yellow lights. The miniature tornado trailed down into the plain and struck the ground as if water had been poured from the heavens. The wave of melting snow and ice still moved in an ever-increasing vortex. The strange system started moving toward the small band as lightning and wind knocked the remaining men from their feet. The terror-filled eyes of the first humans watched as the tornado of ice, wind, and snow, highlighted by the colorful streaks, moved toward them.

The alpha male finally managed to gain his feet as his children cowered on the ground, reaching out for him, but he just watched as the strange system moved closer to him and his band. The eye of the storm circled as the tornado came over them. The eye of the storm was clear and the male could see he was staring into a giant tunnel that was violent and terrifying. The blackness at the top of the funnel was filled with stars the size the beast had never seen before. The Neanderthal could never fathom that what he was seeing was not stars, but whole planets — planets that were millions of light-years away.

The funnel cloud passed over them and the long, filthy hair of the small band was lifted as static electricity filled the air around them. The male held out his arm and he could see the soft blue hue of electricity as it coursed around, over, and through his exposed skin. He looked up and could see the interior walls of the swirling mass of ice, snow, and color as the tornado engulfed the small cowering band. The leader watched as first the taller of the men were gone; they vanished right before the alpha male’s eyes. Then the children and women followed. It was then he felt the deep penetration of the electrical field as it covered his entire body. Then he was gone.

In seconds the swirling mass of the tornado lifted from the ground and then suddenly turned inside out. It was if someone were shaking out a knotted sock. The tornado shot back into the sky and then vanished. It only took a few moments for the falling snow to start falling in a far more normal pattern. It swirled and eddied as the last of the multicolored vortex blasted through the high clouds above the earth. Then the strange pattern moved not into the high atmosphere, but back down again into what would eventually become known in many thousand years as the Middle East.

With the disappearance of the last band of Neanderthals in the world, their demise would spark debate amongst the most brilliant paleontologists in the future world as to when and why the Neanderthals had vanished from the face of the earth.

The four thousand men of the Ninth Legion ceased the chase and laid down moat and stockade for the night’s security. The Legio IX Hispana — founded by Pompey Magnus himself and also a legion once commanded by Julius Caesar — was far north of Hadrian’s Wall, which dissected Britannia across her middle, dividing the civilized south from that of the killing grounds in the north. The Ninth was chasing the barbaric tribes of blue-painted Caledonian savages as they tried to put an end to the increased raids into Roman-controlled territory.

The command of all forces north of the wall had fallen to Centurion Flavious Pettellus. With the remainder of the Ninth safely ensconced south of the borderlands, the forces on the hunt felt their vulnerability in this desolate and cold land.

The punitive action against the Caledonians was now entering its seventh month. Pattellus’s one hundred cavalry and three hundred and fifty foot soldiers were weary and worn, with many of them having been cleaved to the bone. The soldiers as well as their commander were ready to end this raid and return to Hadrian’s Wall.

Pettellus turned his face to the skies as dark rain clouds closed over the last of the sun as the centurion sat by his fire. He removed his helmet and stared into the crackling flames. He didn’t notice when his aide removed his red cloak and then placed it over the commander’s shoulders for warmth. The sounds of the camp were nothing but muted noises as his eyes remained fixed on the fire even as his body ignored the mist starting to veil the evening under the ominous skies.

“The honor has left this pursuit just as surely as the warmth of the year vanishes around us,” he mumbled as his eyes remained locked on the flames.

His aide stopped before entering the tent but decided not to comment on his commander’s increasingly sour mood at the lack of success in his campaign to rid the northern regions of the devils that raided south of the Wall. The aide shook his head and was about to step into the tent when he saw the lights to the north. He was about to comment when Centurion Pettellus was approached by the watch commander. Even then the aide’s eyes never wavered from the strange sight directly to the north. The green and blue shades of light were unlike the northern lights they had witnessed at these climbs and the aide knew he was seeing something very much different this night.

The watch commander slapped his right fist to his armored chest and then waited for the centurion to acknowledge his presence. The messenger soon realized that Pettellus was not going to respond and hesitantly lowered his hand and arm.

“Sir, we have activity reported by our outer pickets.” The man waited but Pettellus remained still and his eyes continued to watch the flickering fire before him. “There seems to be Caledonian movement in force. They may be using the weather for cover for possible attack.”

“I would hardly call the placement of fifty men to spy our movements as activity in force, Commander.”

“The pickets report—”

“Thus far on this campaign we have yet to see more than a hundred of the savages on open ground, and by the time we react they have vanished as magically as wine and coin in a brothel.”

“Sir, these reports are verified. Possibly one thousand to two thousand blue-painted warriors are near our breastworks.”

Finally Pettellus blinked and then barely moved his head to look up at the watch commander just as the first real drops of rain hit his face through the gathering mist.

“And with the northern lights having changed their colors the men are not taking to encampment well. They are speaking among themselves about omens and that the lights are a harbinger of disaster.”

Centurion Pettellus turned and looked northward and saw the meaning of the commander’s words. The northern lights should not be visible at this time in the evening. They were at least seven hours ahead of schedule and the colors were far more radiant. The blues swirled around the green and then those dove into a yellowish mix of reds and orange. The centurion slowly rose to his feet. The red cloak slid from his shoulders as he spied the strange activity of the lights. The rain and wind picked up in strength.

“Bring the men to 100 percent alert. Get my archers to the center of the stockade to await orders. I want my cavalry mounted and ready to move.” He turned to his aide as the watch commander moved off to alert the detached men of the Ninth Legion for action. “This is perfect weather for attack. They can hit us and move into the storm and vanish as usual”—he smiled for what seemed like the first time since the pursuit had started many months before—“but not this time.”

The aide watched the centurion place his cloak back on and waited for him to tie it off. The helmet was replaced with renewed vigor and the commander adjusted the Gladius in its sheath. The steel of the blade was still shiny and a virgin to enemy blood.

“Sir, this night’s lights in the north, this … this could be a bad portent of things to come.”

Centurion Pettellus turned abruptly to face the aide who had remained quiet during his exchange with the watch commander. The man was Greek and the Roman knew him to be knowledgeable about the mysticism of the great lights in the north. The man had been a teacher of philosophy many years before his days of servitude began.

“Night arrows!”

Before Pettellus could admonish his aide about his fears, the shout of warning stopped him cold. He immediately took hold of the Greek and threw him to the ground near the fire just as the black arrows started thudding into the ground and tents around them. One of the missiles glanced off of the helmet of the centurion as his aide shouted in terror at the sudden assault from the swirling night sky. Arrows as black as the night struck the fire, tent, and the surrounding equipment of the Ninth Legion. The sound of men shouting and cursing was heard as even more of the black-dyed arrows slammed into the earth around them.

The wind picked up just as the last of the missiles fell. The blow had gone from only a breeze to gale force in less than five minutes. The northern lights were burning through the darkness as they had never done before. At that time every man of the Ninth Legion felt the penetration and assault on their inner ear. It was as if a sharp spike had been driven into their eyes. The feeling soon passed as men fought to get their bearings in the rising storm.

“The attack has stopped!” Pettellus shouted as he stood. He shook his head to clear it and casually pulled an arrow from the lining of his red cloak, then angrily tossed the black stick into the fire. The rain was now falling as if pebbles were being thrown at them from the heights and the wind was threatening the footing of every man inside the stockade.

His commanders were starting to report on casualties and to receive orders when the lights illuminated the entire breadth of the night sky, and that was when the centurion saw what evil had suddenly come upon them. Rock-sized hail started to fall. Some of the ice stones were larger than a man’s closed fist, while others were larger than a two- or three-pound stone. The hail destroyed tents and knocked running men from their feet.

“The savages have broken off and are retreating!” one of his men said just as a ball of chain lightning rent the skies above them. Blue and green bolts shot through the swirling raindrops and snaked across the black sky enough to illuminate the circling motion of the storm.

“Tell the men to hold position at the stockade, as I fear this attack may not be over!” Pettellus shouted as his men quickly moved away watching the skies as they did. “This storm may keep them out … then again it may not.”

As he watched the terror of his men start to show on their faces, Pettellus looked at the sky as lightning again ripped across its blackness. The swirling clouds above the stockade made his blood turn cold. The hurricane-like storm was now directly atop the Roman army. Men were thrown to the wet ground as more of the evil green and blue lightning broke the skies apart with such violence the men of the mighty Ninth Legion cowered in terror. As Pettellus’s eyes widened, yellow, green, and orange bolts shot out of the center of the swirling mass above. The air rose underneath the helmet of the centurion. The crack of heat and electricity filled the air and the earth shook beneath their prone bodies.

“The savages are attacking!”

Centurion Pettellus turned as his helmet was ripped away by the wind and rain. The enemy had seen the chance and were now breaching the stockade under the cover of the storm. The moat was now gone, pushed and pulled free of the trench by the storm, and that gave the Caledonians clear access to the wooden barrier.

“Defense!” The order was shouted as men rose to meet the attackers as the barbarians streamed over the stockade in a man-made rush of a waterfall.

The sky exploded.

A green bubble formed within the eye of the storm directly over the battle. The swirling clouds seemed to implode and then expand. At that moment the sky became as bright as the sun and forced every man, both barbarian and legionnaire, to freeze in fear.

The centurion turned to shout orders as the savages broke into the center of his still-forming men. Before he could utter a sound the sky exploded and the buzzing was heard all around them, piercing and deep. The green dome exited the swirling hurricane above and slammed into the ground. Pettellus felt his skin warm and then he felt his stomach heave as though trying to rid itself of the afternoon meal he had eaten earlier. His tongue was like a cotton swab and his vision became nonexistent. Then all was gone. Sensation along with thought vanished as the light washed over him and his men.

The storm stopped as if it had never been. The rain ceased and the clouds circled into nothingness and the mist seemed to climb into the sky and then quickly dissipate. The northern lights were gone and the night was still.

The earth where the stockade had stood was barren. Gone were grass, fire pits, and moat. The wood of the earthworks vanished as though it had never been. Tents, weapons, even the barbarian savages had vanished. Only the strange buzzing continued as the last of the clouds evaporated, and even that eventually faded and then disappeared.

The Ninth Legion and the savages attacking them north of Hadrian’s Wall that summer of 117 AD, vanished without a trace, then swelled into one of the great mysteries of the world.

After that night the Ninth Legion was woven into the fabric of legend.

Colonel Li Fu Sien of the Nationalist Chinese army anchored the ends of his defensive lines with massed artillery. As he observed the Japanese across the bridge on the far side of the Yangtze River where the enemy waited to cross, the colonel knew his men were ready for what was to come. He removed the binoculars from his eyes and looked down at the commander of his artillery. The hated enemy would not cross the Yangtze River without the loss of many men.

His soldiers were indeed ready. They were near mutinous in their desire to get at the men who had committed the worst atrocity in human history not three days before. The Rape of Nanking would haunt the Japanese people for the rest of human existence. This would be the historical price for the murder of over three hundred thousand civilians inside the city. Men, women, and children had been bayoneted, shot, raped, and beheaded. Yes, his men were ready to exact vengeance on the Japanese soldiers across the river.

The colonel heard the rumble of thunder and as he looked toward the sky he could see the swirling mass of clouds start to collect over the river. The boom of thunder felt as if the guns of the heavens had opened up upon the world. He watched as colors started swirling not only in the winds, but they also illuminated the funnel cloud that was starting to form. He raised his field glasses and aimed them at the Japanese troops across the river. He could see they too were growing concerned over the strange turn in the weather. Suddenly the colonel let the binoculars slip from his grasp as the pain struck first his ears, and then his eyes. He grasped the sides of head in pain, as did the men around him.

Around the two armies the wind started a slow circle as the bright green, yellow, and blue lights intensified, making the Chinese colonel look up. His eyes widened when he saw the swirling, circling funnel cloud moving over the land like a zigzagging snake or a mythical dragon of old. Then he saw the static electricity run over his exposed skin and under his hat. Men were starting to panic as the moving tornado — one that resembled a hurricane more than its landlocked cousin — closed over his men and then the river and finally the Japanese soldiers on the far shore.

The colonel fell to his knees as the gale-force wind struck him and his massed troops. Before he knew what was happening, he, his men, most of the Yangtze River, and finally the Japanese vanished. Each man in both armies felt the penetration of the electrical field as it passed over, around, and then finally through their bodies. Soon each human being just phased out of existence. Equipment, rations, and men vanished in a blink of an eye.

The strange tornado seemed to leap, settle, and then turned itself inside out and then shot back into the skies. In the eye of the tornado the blackness of space could be seen in the far distance. But there was now no soldier, enemy or Chinese, within twenty miles that would ever report it.

The two armies and every piece of equipment weighing less than a thousand pounds had vanished from the face of the earth.

The streets were now quiet. The rampage of students had settled to an uneasy array of midnight shouts praising God and its oft-mentioned counterpart, “Death to the great Satan.”

The slow-moving Mercedes turned and made its way through a small storm of flying paper and other detritus that had accumulated since the revolution against the shah began. As the car’s occupants watched through tinted windows a large white van appeared at a street corner and then flashed its headlights. The Mercedes followed suit and gave their return signal. Two large Toyota Land Cruisers sped ahead of the white van as it soon pulled out of the darkened street. The black Mercedes quickly fell in line to the rear of the small column. They were soon joined by five supporting Toyota all-terrain vehicles brimming with armed men.

The two vehicles with their military escort slowly slipped out of town just after 1:45 A.M. and with their escort quickly wound their way out of the still-smoldering city of Tehran. They slid past the darkened United States embassy where student militants were holding fifty-seven American hostages. The small man riding in the backseat of the Mercedes shook his head. Even though he was younger than most of the occupying students holding the embassy, he knew tweaking the nose of America at this critical juncture of the revolution was dangerous to say the least. Although he had met only three or four Americans in his time at school he knew them to be the most impulsive people on earth — and in his mind that made them dangerous. He watched the students as they lounged around the thick iron gates of the U.S. embassy. The university student took a deep breath and rubbed the skin of his beardless face.

It took thirty minutes to reach their mysterious destination. The van pulled off to the side of a barren road and allowed three of the Toyotas to pull up to the gate surrounding the compound. Three men exited the first vehicle and confronted the uniformed guards at the gate. The small man in the Mercedes watched as the very last of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s loyal Army members were rounded up at gunpoint. Again the young man shook his head in disbelief as the guards would no doubt be shot at the new regime’s earliest convenience.

The young student was beginning to think the revolution was taking on an air of desperation. Many of his fellow intellectuals were as concerned as he. For the moment there was nothing he could do about it. Someday the religious fools would find that the enemy was not within the Iranian state borders, but outside of it.

The man and his roommate had been awoken and taken from their small apartment with no apology and told they were to accompany the armed men on a most secretive trip to the outskirts of the city. The young man had been up most of the night studying and was not pleased with being taken from his bed. He glanced at his friend in the backseat and shook his head once more.

“If they wanted to shoot us would they have taken us all the way out into the middle of nowhere?” his friend asked.

“No, I believe if we threatened them in any way they would just walk into our apartment and shoot us there. No, this is something else. Now relax, worrying about it won’t change our fate.”

His roommate leaned over and whispered, “They have no compunction about shooting anyone they see as a threat. I’ve noticed of late quite a few of our forward-thinking friends have suddenly decided to take the short road out of town.” The young bearded man looked through the tinted window. “And this is a short road out of town.”

The large double-door security gate was finally opened and three of the guards from the first three Toyotas were left behind as the new security for the state-run facility. The Mercedes drew past following the van and the man’s eyes locked with the guard that held the gate open. He looked like a brute and a ruthless killer from the old days of the Persian Empire. The black beard framed a face that seemed to be full of hatred.

“All I know is that if they don’t get the citizenry under control inside the cities we will have no cities left.” The young man faced his friend and fellow student. “They need to stop the destructive ways of the people. The fools just don’t realize they have won.”

He stopped speaking when he saw the driver of the Mercedes looking at him in the rearview mirror.

As the two vehicles with their escort rounded a bend in the road the two men riding in the backseat saw the building for the first time. It was block shaped and looked nothing like one of the expensive structures that the shah had erected in the past several years. This was functional and any student with a brain could see that this small, ugly facility was military in nature. The Mercedes pulled into the parking area and the motor was shut off. As the tired young man reached for the door handle the driver turned and shook his head.

“You are instructed to wait.”

The boy swallowed and released the door’s handle. He then watched the white van as a small squad of men exited the rear doors and spread out. Several of those dark eyes were on them. They watched as the right-side sliding door was opened and a small box was placed on the ground. A black-shoed foot exited the van and before they knew what they were witnessing, a tall, thin man stepped quickly up to the door and assisted an elderly man out. The black turban and silver beard with its black streaks were immediately recognizable. The black cleric robe framed the thick, dark, and unforgiving brows as the old man was steadied as he stepped into the night.

“Praise be to God,” the young student mumbled as he watched the older man.

The cleric’s eyes roamed over the building. Soon other clerics were surrounding the man as he moved toward the glass-fronted building. Suddenly the tall man in the black turban stopped and slowly turned toward the Mercedes. He nodded in that direction and both men in the backseat froze as they knew the most famous man in the known world at that time was referencing them.

“I knew we shouldn’t have written that paper on the technological aspect of our relationship with the west. We should have condemned it.” The student turned and faced his slightly older partner, but the man was enraptured as he studied the man surrounded by the black-clad clerics.

“This is about something else,” the clean-shaven one mumbled.

“You may exit the car, but do not approach the party until you are called on to do so. Any move toward the group will be met with extreme force.”

The man didn’t even hear the threat as he opened the car’s door and stepped out. He stopped and made eye contact with the man centered in the circle. The long gray and black beard was recognizable in any corner of the world as his face had been on television screens across the planet for months. The two students fell in line as the front doors of the blockhouse were opened by men and women in white lab coats.

The large group accompanying Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini entered the most secure and top secret facility in all of the Middle East.

The silent group entered a lift that could hold no less than a hundred men. The ayatollah stared straight ahead at the gate in front of him as his advisors spoke in low whispers. The tall man raised his left brow and then turned and faced the two students behind him. The eyes of his advisors followed suit.

“May God grant you favor,” he said in Farsi as he faced the young, clean-shaven man.

“God is great,” the student said as his throat almost seized as the ayatollah held his gaze upon him.

“You are enrolled at Iran University of Science and Technology?” the ayatollah asked with a barely audible voice.

“Yes, we are in our third year of study.”

A man dressed in a white shirt buttoned to the throat and wearing thick glasses faced the two students.

“You are first in your class. I believe your instructors”—he paused and turned to face the ayatollah—“Westerners for the most part”—then he turned back to the two frightened men—“have pegged you as a future leader in the field of high energy.”

The young man listened but made no comment. Why should he, he thought. They seemed to know all anyway.

“I am not in the same classes as my friend. I am in the field of agriculture,” the younger of the two men braved.

The ayatollah lowered his head, not commenting on the statement from the young man’s roommate.

The elevator stopped at its lowest level. The gate was raised and they were met by two men also attired in white coats. The group stepped out onto a bare concrete floor. The man in the white shirt and glasses paused at the entrance and held the younger of the two students back. He nodded with his head that the older of the two should follow the group.

“As it stands, agriculture is not the lesson we seek here tonight, so this is where your journey ends. It was our mistake in assuming you worked with this young man and Professor Azeri.” The man pulled the door down and the two students were left looking at each other through the wire-mesh gate. The student inside the lift looked scared.

“Where are you taking him?” the older asked as the elevator started to rise.

“Back to your apartment, of course.”

The lift continued to rise. He waited until a hand fell on his shoulder and he turned to face the large man, who gestured that he should follow.

“Where are they taking my friend?” he insisted, not trusting the provided answer of a moment before. This time he asked with a little more force as he was taken by the arm and hurried along a winding corridor made of cinder block.

The man didn’t answer a second time. He stepped up to a large door and before the student could ask his question again the steel door slid into the frame and he was unceremoniously nudged forward. The door slid closed behind him.

The room was massive. The small group was situated high up on a catwalk. Newly returned from exile, Ayatollah Khomeini was a few feet away and looking far down into the interior of the room. His arms were folded at his waist with the hands hidden inside the sleeves of his black robes. The student finally realized they were on a viewing platform. When he moved away from the ayatollah he slowly stepped forward and looked down. His eyes widened when he saw the object that was in view of all of the clerics. It was no less than two hundred feet in diameter and at least a story tall in height. It was round and silver in color. There were no identifying marks on its slick skin and the thing looked as if it had been built the day before. Spotlights shined off the skin, giving it an almost heavenly appearance. When he looked back at the ayatollah he noticed the man didn’t see the object as heaven-sent at all. The dark eyes were closed in prayer.

Khomeini slowly opened his eyes and then turned and faced the young man without saying a word. The young student finally tore his gaze from his new leader and then faced the object far below once again.

The flying saucer was the most amazing thing he had ever been witness to.

Khomeini watched the amazement as it grew in the young student’s face. The new national leader narrowed his eyes and continued to watch the boy’s reaction.

The young man was pulled aside abruptly by shaking hands. When he saw who had broken his spell of wonder, he was shocked. It was Professor Azeri. The man was in a state. He was sweating and his beard looked twisted and dirty. His lab coat was askew on his slight frame. He removed his wire-rimmed glasses and looked him in the eye.

“You have a million apologies from me for getting you involved in this. Someday I hope you can forgive me.”

“Professor, what is all of this?” The student couldn’t help it — he moved his gaze away from the rattled older professor and once more looked down upon the saucer. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

The sixty-five-year-old professor stepped up beside his best student and replaced his glasses.

“How could I tell you I was working on a special project for the shah?” He leaned in closer to him and whispered, “Isn’t my execution enough? I didn’t want you involved.” He shook his head, “And now I’ve involved you anyway.” The professor closed his mouth and suddenly froze when he noticed the man in the black suit and half-collared white shirt watching them from the opposite side of the viewing platform, far away from the clerics. The eyes seemed to glow in the darkness.

“Who is that man?” his student asked as he too noticed the medium-sized man with the well-trimmed beard.

“I pray you never find out, my boy.” Azeri faced him and sadly looked past his shoulder at the ayatollah as the man in turn was watching him. “At least as well as I will soon come to know him.”

His student was about to ask about the strange statement when he saw that Khomeini was slowly walking toward them. His clerics and guards stayed behind. He approached and both student and teacher lowered their heads. The ayatollah placed his hands on top of their heads. Then he used his fingers to gently raise their faces toward his own.

“The demon known as Shah Pahlavi wanted to use this apparatus that was unearthed in the desert?”

The professor swallowed and tried to speak.

“I have heard the tale, but from mouths that are unlearned in this area. Perhaps you can enlighten the unworthy?”

The boy looked at his professor and thought the man was going to have a stroke before he could hear the story that he himself wanted desperately to understand.

“The incident…” Azeri paused as he tried to recall the details. “The incident occurred over southern Soviet airspace in 1972. Their border defenses scrambled fighter planes to assist in identifying an object that refused all transmission with ground stations.” The professor seemed to relax as he started to remember the event. “Our own air force, that is, the shah’s air force, tracked the object that was heading for our northern border. The thought was that the Soviets would get to it first, but then the pursuing Russian aircraft vanished from the radar screens of both countries at the same moment.”

The ayatollah closed his eyes as he listened. The young man was hoping the old cleric hadn’t dozed off as it seemed the professor was relating chapters from a bad science fiction novel.

“Soon the object passed over our northern and joint border with the Soviet Union. The path brought it into one of the most heavily trafficked air zones in Iran. The air force watched as the object”—he turned and looked at the saucer—“collided with a commercial 727. Everyone onboard the airliner was killed instantly but this object survived. Its crewmen were never found. It was assumed it may have been a drone of some kind. We are still not sure of that.”

“A drone?” Khomeini asked as his eyes opened and took in the old professor.

“Yes, unmanned.”

“A mindless demon, you mean?”

“Uh, yes, that is a drone. Well, I was contacted as the only man inside Iran who could possibly understand the technology involved … that is, without asking our allies at the time, the Americans, for assistance, of which the shah … Excuse me.” He looked up into the stark features and swallowed as he corrected himself. “The Satan Pahlavi would not do. You see, he wanted the technology to stay inside our borders.”

“Yes, I would imagine this object would interest that fool beyond measure.”

Both men watched the ayatollah turn away and then he gestured the stranger from across the way to come forward into the weak lighting. He spoke in whispers to the dark man, who stood a full head taller than Khomeini. The stranger nodded several times and then looked over at the two waiting academics. Ayatollah Khomeini tiredly turned back to face Professor Azeri and his prized student. He didn’t smile; he didn’t even look as if the two men interested him in the least. He looked at them with raised brow that hooded his dark eyes.

“Do you believe in the greatness of God?” he asked as his eyes bore into theirs.

“Yes,” both mumbled humbly.

“This…” He turned and gestured toward the railing of the platform and the flying saucer beyond. “This apparatus must be destroyed and its mechanics scattered to the sands of our most barren lands. I will not start our world with this … this thing of the shah. I wish it burned to nothing.”

The professor looked as if he were about to say something in protest, but his student shut him down with a slight touch of his hand and spoke before the Great Leader could see the protest from the older man.

“Of course we agree. This thing cannot be a part of our world revolution. God is Great, and this … this machine has to be from Satan.” He looked directly into the ayatollah’s hard eyes. “It must be burned and its ashes hidden from the sight of men.”

Ayatollah Khomeini turned and looked at the man he had spoken to, then placed a hand on his shoulder. The old cleric moved off into the group of religious men, who nodded their heads and left the viewing room.

The bearded man then smiled and walked up to the physicist and his student. He placed his hands behind his back and stopped in front of them. He half-turned and looked to make sure they were alone. Then his smile vanished as he turned back to face the two scared men.

“Did you understand the ayatollah’s orders?” he asked.

The men didn’t say anything but just stood there waiting for him to continue. Instead of continuing he removed a gold case from his suit jacket, opened it, and lit an American cigarette. He blew smoke out and smiled at the two men.

“Secrets amongst friends,” he said with a smile as he held the American brand into the air for them to see. “Now, I have been issued the same orders as you — orders that have to be followed to the letter.” The man turned his back and walked over and looked down at the saucer. “Conflicts can arise in any given situation. And I have a conflict.” He faced the two men once again. “I have been charged with the security of our new country. That is my job and I do it very well.”

The young student started to see the flicker of daring in the man’s eyes.

“No one will ever know my name. The clerics here tonight do not even know who I am. But you gentlemen will. I have need of you. Are you both familiar with another revolution which occurred not so very long ago — something called the Cultural Revolution?”

“China, Mao, yes we have heard of it,” the young man answered, anxious for the man to get to his point.

“And what was the Great Leader’s biggest blunder in this so-called revolution?”

The two remained silent.

“It was detrimental to his nation because he set Chinese technology back a hundred years and they are just now fighting to catch up. Gentlemen, Iran cannot make the same mistake no matter what our great man of God says.” He watched for a shocked reaction, but was soon pleased to see the two men just waiting for him to finish. “Yes, I am not about to destroy a thing that can guarantee the future of this country.” He leaned over into the younger of the two. “When these madmen are finished with it, of course.”

“What are you saying to us? You want us to disobey our leader and commit what amounts to treason?” the young man asked, his eyes boring into those of the internal security man.

“Precisely; that is why you were brought here. Your politics are well known in the circles I frequent. You would have been rounded up if it had not been for my protection from afar.” He looked at the old, tired man of science. “You and the good professor here.” He paused and then seemed to think something over. “To demonstrate how serious and compassionate our new and fearless leader is, your roommate is at this moment being buried in a shallow grave not far from here. The rest of the technicians assigned to this building are meeting the same fate.” He saw one of the younger lab-coated science technicians walk past while averting his eyes from the three men. “As soon as it is more convenient, of course.”

The anger the young man was feeling was clearly demonstrated on his face after his gaze followed the tech off the scaffolding. He took a menacing step toward the man.

“Take hold of your emotions, boy, it was not I who ordered this. I don’t kill children and close my eyes to science. But secrecy must be maintained, so I did not argue the decision that was made.”

“But if we do not go along with your treason you will have no such concerns when it comes to killing us?”

“Again, you are precise in your assumption and your reasoning.”

“What do you want of us?” the professor asked as he twisted his hands together.

“Nothing other than to study and bring this machine back to life, as I believe it may be very beneficial for military use in the future. Oh, we will bury it, but we will be the only three to have a map to its location.”

“Yes, we must protect this find,” the student said reluctantly, agreeing to this one point as he watched the man standing resolute before him.

“Someday this will make you a great man, my young friend.” The bearded enforcer and traitor to his nation’s newest cause slapped the student on the back. “The professor is right; you are a very bright student.”

With that quick smirk and gesture a deal was struck. The flying saucer was hidden from sight and the minds of those who thought it evil.

The young beardless student looked from the man to the saucer below and its cold silver-colored beauty.

The future president of the Republic of Iran smiled slightly. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a boy with very high political aspirations, and now one of three men who had knowledge of a captured UFO in his country’s possession, turned and walked confidently into his and his nation’s suddenly brighter future.

The four men tried in vain to find shelter from the sudden storm that had erupted around them. They fought the gale-force wind as they crawled through the thick snow and ice. They had been on a British government — sponsored survey of the Bartle Slope, hoping to take core samples of the area they had long suspected of covering an ancient inland sea. Their equipment was now behind them and was no doubt three feet underneath the blowing snow and ice. If it hadn’t been for the safety lines attached at their waists they would have been separated to each die alone.

Professor Early Standish of Oxford University finally fell to his knees as a sudden gust of wind that would have clocked in at over a hundred miles per hour struck him. He tried in desperation to hold on as the other three men in his small party hit the snow beside him.

“We have to dig in!” he shouted as loud as he could. “This will bloody well end us if we don’t—”

The snow and ice vanished beneath the team as his words fought their way through his frozen mouth. The professor dropped first, followed by the other three as solid earth became thin air in a split second of blurred motion. The four men hit solid ice and then the sensation of speed hit them as they started to slide. Soon the sun and light vanished as they fell away into darkness as the world seemed to open up underneath them. Bump after horrid bump bruised their already frozen bodies as they continued to slide into the open abyss. The safety rope connecting the men together tightened and then snapped as man after man hit his own speed as the hell ride continued.

The professor felt the ice slide give way again to air as he fell from a small cliff and farther into darkness. He hit with a bone-crunching impact. He had his breath knocked from his lungs as he rolled onto his stomach and then felt his eyes burn in pain as he realized his goggles had been shattered. He felt the others strike the ice near him. Several screams of pain and thuds of bodies announced the arrival of his team.

He finally managed to draw a breath.

“Henson, Goodfellow, Wiley, are you all right?” he called out in a coughing fit as air filled his lungs.

He tore at his parka hood and slapped away his broken goggles. Suddenly a bright flare of red-tinted light filled the frozen spaces around him, and he quickly closed his eyes to the harsh light.

“I think Henson may be hurt bad,” Professor Wiley said. He was kneeling beside a prone man with the smoking flare alight by his face.

Standish took a cue from his partner and struck alight his own flare. It sputtered and flamed to life as he assisted the others. Wiley stood and shook his head.

“Henson is out like a light — he must have hit his head a good one on the way down. Concussion possibly.” The tallest of the group adjusted the light of the flare and looked back at the ice tunnel they had blindly stumbled into in their fight to find shelter from the sudden storm above them.

“Looks like some sort of water runoff maybe, or just one hell of a big crack in the ice strata,” Professor Standish said as he examined the area high above them. The blue-tinted ice had not a hint to the daylight that was now possibly a mile above their heads. “Wiley, old man, please tell me your radio is still working and that we have a signal.” Standish removed his broken walkie-talkie from his belt and tossed it onto the ice.

Wiley tossed down the flare he was holding and retrieved his radio. He called the basecamp and was happy to get an answer. After telling base to stand by, he nodded at the leader of the survey team.

“Thank God for that, now we better—” Standish stopped when he saw both Wiley and a limping Goodfellow looking past his shoulder. Goodfellow slowly removed his goggles and then allowed them to fall to the ice at his feet.

“Oh, bloody hell,” Wiley said as he quickly struck another flare.

Professor Standish slowly turned around as the shock registered on his boys’ faces froze his blood far more than the temperature ever could have. His eyes widened as the newly struck flare erupted into a hellish tint of red.

The giant object rose far above them and eventually disappeared into the thick, three-mile ice. The steel was frozen solid and looked as if it was buried in a long-ago green sea. His eyes traveled down its partially hidden length as he felt his bladder threaten to let go of its contents.

“I bloody well think we found our prehistoric inland sea, Professor.”

Standish didn’t answer as his eyes kept roaming over the giant before him.

The British-sponsored survey team had found far more than an ancient sea. They had stumbled upon the greatest discovery in the history of mankind.

The small rail line had taken the British government almost six months to complete. The steepness of the ice-water runoff that had created the tunnel had to be shored up and the engineers had finally declared it safe enough to allow the scientific experts access to the site. The five gentlemen of the darkest sections of British Intelligence now stood looking at the object that was estimated to have been buried over a hundred million years before man began scrambling from the trees.

“Well, now the Americans are not the only ones to have something like this to hide,” said the young man from MI6. He was portly and stood with his cold-weather clothing masking the heaviness of his body. He smiled and rocked back and forth from heel to toe as he studied the giant object buried inside the ancient sea before them.

“You speak of the Roswell vehicle?” asked his aide. The question only elicited a look of disdain from the science advisor to Her Majesty.

“From this moment on, gentlemen, the need to know on this project is absolutely being apprised through my offices.”

“We cannot hide this from the men and women who need to know,” said his aide.

The man removed his parka and in the harsh lighting of the portable lamps he glared at the three men before him.

“You will remove the survey team from Antarctica and sequester them until they can be debriefed by me, and me alone. Is that clear?”

“But—”

“Is that clear?” he insisted. He turned his gaze from the men before him back to the object. His eyes traveled the length of the find and he could not help but be amazed at its sheer size.

“Yes, sir,” the aide finally said.

“Not even the palace is to know what we have here. This find may make the American discovery from 1947 seem trivial. It seems that strange group headquartered underneath Nellis Air Force Base in their Nevada desert that we suspect is there is not very forthcoming as far as secrets are concerned.” He turned toward the other three men from British intelligence. “It seems we now have a bargaining chip to trade for the future.” He smiled. “I love secrets, don’t you?”