that the destruction didn't show the Airlia computer in the best light.

The flight the previous day of the three foo fighters had heightened anxiety and the pressure to find the strange crafts' home base. The three had exited and entered the ocean over three hundred miles to the west, but the Navy still believed they were in the right place. The feeling was that the fighters must have traversed the intervening distance underwater.

Up until the previous day the work had consisted of searching and scanning.

The searching was conducted by several submersibles, manned and unmanned. The scanning was done by sonar and the LLS, laser-line scanner. The LLS was the most efficient piece of machinery the Navy had for the job of finding where the foo fighters were hiding. It worked by projecting a blue-green laser, capable of penetrating the ocean, in seventy-degree arcs, "painting" a picture of the bottom. The LLS was so accurate, it could show rivets on a sunken ship's hull.

The previous evening, just after sunset, the LLS had discovered an anomaly in the side of a outcropping along the East Pacific Ridge, at a depth of five thousand meters or over three miles down. The picture the laser painted showed a cylindrical tube sticking out of the side of the outcropping, extending about twenty feet, with a boxlike structure sitting on top. It most definitely was not naturally occurring.

The Navy spent the entire night moving their cla.s.sified deep-sea submersible, the USS Grey-wolf, into position. The Greywolf was tethered to a surface support ship, the Yellowstone, that towed it190.

to a spot directly over the anomaly. As dawn was breaking on the horizon, the Greywolf slipped its mooring underneath the Yellowstone and began its descent into the inky darkness. The head pilot was a twenty-five-year naval veteran, Lieutenant Commander Downing. His copilot and navigator was Lieutenant Tennyson.

The third member of the crew was a contract civilian named Emory.

The Greywolf was the result of decades of trial and error with deep-sea submersibles. Prior to its construction the record for manned depth was just under seven thousand meters. The Greywolf shattered that record on its first dive, going down to eight thousand meters. Its design was radical, being neither the traditional sphere nor cigar shape most people a.s.sociated with such vessels.

It was shaped like the F-117 Stealth fighter, with composite, flat-planed sides, made of a special t.i.tanium alloy.

The three-man crew of the Greywolf didn't know they owed the makeup of their ship's skin to the work done on the mothership in Area 51, but that was where Majestic researchers had learned much about various alloys, the results being pa.s.sed on to other military black projects such as Greywolf.

Commander Downing was not concerned about the dive itself as they cleared through two thousand meters. The depth was well within range, the currents in the area were minimal, and the submersible was operating well within all acceptable parameters. He, and the other two crew, were, however, concerned about their objective. No foo fighter had been spotted close up since the destruction of the lab at Dulce, but all three men191.

had seen cla.s.sified videotape of the results of that strike. They also knew about the loss of signal from Viking II as it closed in on Cydonia. It probably was all just automatic functioning of the Guardian computer, but they figured that wouldn't do them much good if they had an accident at five thousand meters caused by Guardian.

Because of the fear that the guardian might react to their presence near the foo fighter base, the Greywolf was being accompanied on the dive by Helmet II, a remotely piloted vehicle, or RPV. It had received its name because that was exactly what it looked like: a helmet with several mechanical arms and sensors bolted to the main body. A large propeller rested in the bottom of the Helmet and provided vertical thrust. Maneuvering was done by four small fanlike thrusters s.p.a.ced around the rim of the base.

Helmet II was equipped with not only the arms and sensors, but a video camera on top that had an unrestricted 360-degree view and one that ran around on a track just above the lip and thrusters. There was a third bolted to the center bottom, able to look directly down. The views these cameras picked up were transmitted directly back to the Greywolf, where the remote control was, and from there up to the Yellowstone.

As it pa.s.sed through four thousand meters, the Greywolf came to a halt and sent Helmet II ahead. That was Emory's job. He sat in a cramped section of the crew compartment and looked at video screens and a fourth computer screen that showed him essential data as to att.i.tude, trim, depth, and speed of the RPV. He controlled it with a joystick192.

that always reminded him of his kid's game controller for the computer at home.

As they slowly descended, Tennyson picked up several sonar contacts a thousand meters above them. He promptly reported them to Downing.

"Whales?" Downing asked.

"No. Submarines." Tennyson listened carefully, hearing the sound of screws churning through water decrease. "They're slowing."

"Ping with active," Downing ordered. "Let's get a fix, then I'll call Yellowstone and find out what's going on."

The subs were silent now, fixed in position. Tennyson sent out a ping and listened to the return. "We've got three Los Angeles-cla.s.s attack submarines over our heads."

"d.a.m.n," Downing muttered. He clicked on the ULF radio linking him to the Yellowstone. "Mother, this is Wolf. Over."

The reply came back in the flat way ULF transmissions did, muted by the ma.s.s of water over their head. "This is Mother. Over."

"What's with the subs? Over." Downing had no time or inclination to be tactful or subtle at four thousand feet. The pressure of the water surrounding their ship would crush them in an eye-blink if the hull were breached in any manner.

Their commanding officer on the Yellowstone was also terse, for different reasons. "We have them on sonar also. We have no contact with them, but we have been informed by CINCPAC that they are here at National Command Authority directive. I don't know what their orders are, and when I asked, I was told to mind my own193.

business. They won't interfere with your mission, so ignore them. Out."

Downing twisted in his seat and looked at Tennyson. "Prepare to ignore," he said. Tennyson smiled. "Preparing to ignore. Aye, aye, sir."

"Implement ignore mode."

"Ignore mode it is." Tennyson laughed, but it echoed hollow off the t.i.tanium alloy walls and died quickly.

"If you gentlemen are interested," Emory said from his little corner, "I've got visual contact with the ridge."

The other two peered over his shoulder as the rock-strewn surface of the East Pacific Ridge appeared on the video screens.

"How far to the objective?" Downing asked.

"Another two hundred meters down and Helmet should be right on top of it,"

Emory reported.

A minute went by, then the view from the bottom camera showed something different. Emory's hands manipulated both the controls for the RPV and the camera.

"That's it!" Downing announced as the camera focused on a large smooth black tube sticking out of the side of the ridge. "That's where the foo fighters are based."

"And there they are!" Emory exclaimed as three glowing spheres shot out of the end of the tunnel. They raced directly at the camera, splitting off in three different directions just as they were about to collide with it.

The men in the submersible shifted their gaze to the top camera, which Emory frantically maneuvered to try and track the foo fighters. He194.

caught glimpses of one of them turning abruptly and heading back toward the RPV.

Suddenly all the screens went blank as Emory cursed. "I've lost the link with Helmet." His fingers flew over the controls as he tried to reestablish contact.

Downing and Tennyson jumped back into their respective seats.

"Give me sonar on those things," Downing ordered as he quickly powered up the engines.

"They're approaching." Tennyson was trying to listen and read his screen at the same time. "They're coming fast, real fast."

Downing goosed the engines, then gave full power, straight up. "How long?"

"Uh, forty seconds," Tennyson said.

"Still no contact with RPV!" Emory called out.

"Ping it," Downing ordered.

A loud ping echoed as the sound wave went out.

"Thirty seconds, no, wait, make that twenty."

"d.a.m.n," Downing cursed. They had gone up less than forty meters so far. He reached down and flipped open the cover on red switch.

"Negative on ping!" Emory was stunned. "Helmet is gone!" He pulled himself together. "Ten seconds. We should be seeing them any second!"

Downing threw the switch and the interior of the Greywolf went pitch black except for two small battery-powered emergency lights. The drumming of the engines went silent.

"What the h.e.l.l did you do?" Emory demanded.

Downing pointed at the small super-Plexiglas portal above his head. A foo fighter flashed by.

"I killed all our power systems," Downing said.

"Why?" Emory asked.195."I did it before they did it," Downing said. "Every report from aircraft encountering foo fighters said that close proximity to the fighters totally drained the power systems. If they took out Helmet, we were next. We're four thousand meters down in the ocean. We're going to need our power to get back up."

"Well, what do we do now?" Emory asked.

"We wait."

On board the three Los Angeles-cla.s.s attack ships, the crews were running to battle stations. Wire-guided torpedoes were armed and the captain of each submarine was glued to his sonar men, tracking the progress of the three foo fighters and the Greywolf.

Fingers were poised on launching b.u.t.tons until it was determined that the three fighters and the submersible were all holding at four thousand meters.

As the minutes went by and nothing changed, the ranking commander on board the Springfield, Captain Forster, issued his orders, based on the instructions he had been given over the radio by some woman named Lexina with an ST-8 clearance.

"All weapons are to remain armed and locked. We will not instigate action unless the foo fighters act against the Greywolf or if they go above three thousand meters."

Lexina received the word of the foo fighters' appearance as soon as the L.A. - cla.s.s subs had for-196.

warded it to CINCPAC, Command in Chief, Pacific Fleet, and the message was placed into the highly cla.s.sified U.S. Intelligence Dissemination Network.

"What should we do?" Elek asked.

"Nothing yet," she replied.

"But-"

"Nothing yet," Lexina repeated. "We've waited a long time and we cannot fail because we move too quickly. Timing is critical."197.

Chapter 18.

Power from the solar panels was pouring in, a waterfall of energy that filled the guardian computer and its subsystems. It began accessing and opening other programs that had long rested dormant.

Two programs had priority, one biological, the other mechanical. Even deeper than the computer under the surface of Mars was a cavern lined with rows of black, coffinlike objects, each just over ten feet long by four in diameter. For the first time since they were sealed, the black metal protecting each pod slid back, revealing layers of silvery, magnetically charged material that peeled back one by one until finally a clear material was left, tightly wrapped around the bodies that had been preserved.

They were all tall, male and female, between six and seven feet, with short torsos and inversely long arms and legs. The heads were half again as big as a human's, with red hair covering the scalp. The skin was white and unmarked.198.

The air around each body began to crackle with electric static as the fields that had preserved them for so long were slowly reduced; all except for twenty of the eighty. Twelve of those twenty had failed and the bodies inside were mummified. The other eight were to remain asleep as a security measure.

Mechanically, power was diverted into the chamber closest to the surface, just under the object known as the Fort. Lights went on and a half-dozen ships were illuminated in their glow. Neither bouncer nor mothership, these lay in between.

Each rested on the smooth rock floor, like an upright bear's claw, tapering up and curving slightly to one side until it reached a razor-sharp point. Each craft was over two hundred meters high and forty around at the base. They all pointed slightly inward, the grouping making an image like the paw of a very dangerous animal. The skin of each ship was flat black, so black that it absorbed all light and reflected nothing back.

A bolt of golden light arced from cables crisscrossing the roof of the chamber down to each ship and they began to power up.

Turcotte, Nabinger, and Duncan walked into the A-team's isolation area and were immediately challenged by one of the men, who demanded to see their identification cards. As Turcotte was pulling it out his wallet, Zandra stepped in front.

"Captain Turcotte, Professor Nabinger, and Dr. Duncan are all on your access roster," Zandra said. "As a matter of fact, Captain Turcotte is the mission commander."199.

A short, muscular soldier with graying hair walked over, looking none too happy. "I'm Chief Harker. I wasn't told that someone would be taking over my team." Harker had a deep gravelly voice that had smoked too many cigarettes and drunk too much whiskey. His leathery face was crisscrossed with wrinkles and lines, but his gray eyes were sharp and focused on Zandra.

"You were told to follow any orders I gave, right?" Zandra asked.

"That's correct."

"Then Captain Turcotte is in command." Zandra turned. "I leave you all to get acquainted, but don't waste time. You depart in less than two hours." She walked out the door, leaving Turcotte and the others under the gaze of the six Special Forces soldiers.

"Are all of you going on the mission?" Harker asked.

"Myself and Professor Nabinger," Turcotte answered.

"Professor of what?" Harker demanded.

"Archaeology," Nabinger said.

"Archaeology," Harker repeated. "Then maybe you can tell me then why we're infiltrating Communist China to get into a tomb."

"I'm sorry-" Nabinger began, but Turcotte stepped forward.

"There's information in the tomb about the Airlia," Turcotte said.

"I thought-" Nabinger started to speak, but Turcotte interrupted him once more.

"These men are risking their lives to help us," he told Nabinger. "The least we can do is give them the truth."200.

"Sure, no problem with me, but the ice queen in the other room might not like it," Nabinger said.

"The professor here," Turcotte continued, "is the world's foremost expert on both the high rune language and the Airlia." "Hey," one of the younger soldiers said, "you're the guy who made contact with that guardian computer, aren't you?"

"Yes, he is," Turcotte said. "But right now you need to get us up to speed on how you plan on getting us to the tomb."

Harker turned and walked over to one of the plywood boards. "This is the operational area," he said.

Turcotte was impressed with the quality of the Aurora imagery. It looked as if the pictures had been taken with a zoom lens out of an aircraft at three hundred feet. Not for the first time Turcotte wondered who was behind all this. Zandra claimed to be CIA, but every contact Turcotte had ever had with that agency had demonstrated nothing like the efficiency being shown by Zandra.