"What war?" Che Lu spoke for the first time. "Beyond our solar system there was a war between the Airlia and another alien race, and that was a factor. Artad couldn't fly the mothership because of that.

But since Aspasia had their communications system, he couldn't contact their home. But . . ." Nabinger paused, confused, the images in his brain swirling about.

"I'd love to stand here and discuss these most interesting revelations,"

Kostanov said, "but I think our first priority is to get out of here and get to the pickup zone."269.

"This information is critical!" Nabinger exclaimed.

"Hold up!" Turcotte's voice caused everyone to fall silent. He pointed a finger at the guardian computer, while his eyes remained fixed on Nabinger. "Why do you believe this guardian now? You believed the one under Easter Island until this one told you a different story. Now Aspasia's the enemy and Artad's the good guy. Before Aspasia was the good guy. It's all bulls.h.i.t. There's only one fact we have to keep in mind."

"What is that, my friend?" Kostanov asked.

"That we're human and they aren't. We have to look after our own interests regardless of what these d.a.m.n computers tell us." Turcotte took a step closer to Nabinger. "Do you know what Aspasia wants? Why he is coming back?"

"For the mothership."

"Why didn't he come sometime in the last five thousand years and take it and go home and leave us alone?" Turcotte asked.

"Because they were in a standoff all these years, each one's guardian computers monitoring the situation, waiting."

"What was the standoff?" Turcotte asked.

"Artad controlled the ruby sphere," Nabinger said. "I know what it is now! We have to go to it. It's what Aspasia needs before he can fly the mothership. It's the energy source for the interstellar engine. The mothership can fly without it, but it can't go into interstellar drive without it. I know the code to get the sphere released."

"So why is Aspasia coming now?" Turcotte repeated the question.

The words came out of Nabinger in a tumble.270.

"Because General Gullick and Majestic moved one of Artad's guardians that was linked to the Rift Valley and the ruby sphere. And that guardian was destroyed by the foo fighters-so now Aspasia must think he can get the sphere and the mothership."

"What about this guardian?" Turcotte asked, pointing at the golden triangle.

Nabinger put his hands to his head. "It's very confusing. As best I can tell, Artad dispersed not only his people but his a.s.sets. This guardian is responsible for different things than the one Majestic uncovered under Temiltepec."

"I don't get it," Turcotte said. "Why did the guardian Majestic uncovered try to get them to fly the mothership? Obviously that upset the standoff when the one under Easter Island reacted."

"Maybe . . . h.e.l.l, I don't know," Nabinger said. "Maybe the guardian computer Majestic got thought they were Kortad. It's not really clear to me either. But what is clear is that we have to stop Aspasia from getting control of the ruby sphere."

"Then we'd best get out of here," Kostanov said, tapping his watch. "I think we need to focus on our most immediate problem." Turcotte agreed with that, at least. "Did the computer give you another way to get out of here?"

Nabinger shut his eyes. "The information it gave me was all in images. It's hard to remember and ..." He paused, then his eyes snapped open and he looked about the room. He walked over to the control console. "There's a shaft. It goes diagonally from the main chamber to the surface." He271.

paused in thought, trying to sort through an overloaded brain. "I can open this end from here, but the surface end could only be opened by a special command code. I don't have that code."

"How thick is the surface door?" Turcotte asked.

Nabinger shrugged. "Hard for me to say. A couple of feet."

"Is it the black Airlia metal?"

"No. As with most of the chamber, they used local materials."

"Open the inner door," Turcotte ordered.

Nabinger ran his tongue across his lips as he placed his hands over the console. There was a glow of green lights. Everyone turned as they heard a rumbling noise to their rear. Turcotte ran out into the ma.s.sive chamber where the soldiers were looking up. A large piece of metal was moving to one side, exposing a forty-foot-wide opening on the side of the chamber, about twenty feet off the ground. The tunnel sloped up into darkness.

"Let's go!" Turcotte yelled, getting everyone moving across the floor to just below the opening. He had a reason for speed beyond the time the choppers would be at the pickup zone. If Nabinger was right and Aspasia was a threat, they had just over thirty-six hours to do something.

According to the news reports VIPs from all over the world were flowing into New York. Feeling totally out of the stream of action, Kelly Reynolds could only watch the TV in the Cube and follow as the focus of interest made its third shift272.

in the past week: from Easter Island and the guardian computer, to Area 51 and the bouncers/ mothership, and now to New York, where soon, if all went as planned, the first live contact between humans and an extraterrestrial life-form would take place.

The intricate dance of the talons could be seen by the Hubble with more clarity the closer the Airlia ships got to Earth, and the effect was mesmerizing. Scientists and crackpots alike were tossing out theories as to why the ships' flight paths made such a weave, but none of the theories had struck Kelly as quite right. As with everything else they didn't know about the Airlia, she had no doubt that question would be answered when Aspasia landed.

There was no further word from China. And Quinn had discovered nothing more about STAAR. Kelly thought all those issues less important now that there was a definite timeline to Aspasia's arrival.

Turcotte started moving up the tube even as the others were still clambering up the rope Harker's men had fastened just inside the entrance. The tube went up at a forty-degree angle, manageable, but not very comfortable, especially given that the stone his boots were on was practically polished smooth.

From the diameter Turcotte had no doubt that this entrance had been built to accommodate bouncers, allowing them access to the cavern below. It was also the way all that gear had probably been put in there.

273.

He could hear labored breathing behind him as he climbed, but his focus was on the narrow beam of light the flashlight on top of his MP-5 cast.

After five minutes Turcotte saw the end. A smooth wall of metal closed off the path. He stopped and looked over his shoulder. A long string of flashlights indicated the scattered line behind him. "Howes!" Turcotte called out. "Everyone else, hold where you are."

The Special Forces engineer made his way forward, his bulky rucksack resting on his back. Howes dumped the ruck at Turcotte's feet, holding it in place with a boot while he surveyed the metal.

"No idea how thick?" he asked.

"The professor says maybe a couple of feet."

Howes nodded, his mind already working the problem. He opened a pocket on the outside of the ruck and pulled out a fifty-foot length of 10mm climbing rope and several pitons. He handed a hammer and two pitons to Turcotte and pointed to the right while he went left. They climbed as far as they could up the side of the tunnel, then got to work hammering the pitons into the rock.

Once both his pitons were in, Turcotte looped a length of rope through the snap link on the end of each one and brought the two ropes back to the center.

Howes met him there and slowly pulled a large black cylinder, pointed on one end, out of the pack. It was almost three feet long and a foot and a half in diameter. Howes tied off the four ropes to bolts on the side of it.

Using the frame of his rucksack as a support, and the ropes to hold it in place, Howes wedged274.

the shaped charge up so that the pointed end pointed at the metal.

"Hope this works," Howes said. "Fire in the hole!" he yelled as he pulled the fuse.

Both he and Turcotte dropped down on their b.u.t.ts and slid forty feet down the tube to where Kostanov waited at the head of the column. The Russian grabbed them and halted their slide. "How long is the-" he began, but he was answered by a bright flash and explosion. A wave of hot air blew down the tunnel.

The shaped charge was sixty pounds of high explosive, molded in such a way that the major force of the explosion was focused several feet in front of the point. It burrowed into the metal door, heat and shock forcing its way.

Turcotte started climbing back up. This would be the moment of truth. If the charge hadn't burned through the cap, he didn't know how they were going to get out. Turcotte paused. He could feel fresh air on his face. "Let's go!" he yelled.

He clambered his way forward, toward the jagged opening through which he could see stars shining high up above. Grabbing hold of the sides of the hole, he pulled himself out, then immediately tumbled down the side of the mountain tomb until he could arrest his fall by getting a grip on some bushes. He could hear Howes behind him, climbing through more carefully and attaching a rope in place to bring the others up.

Turcotte scanned the countryside. The opening was about two hundred meters from the crest of the tomb. Turcotte could see the lights of a town several miles to his right. Checking his wrist compa.s.s, Turcotte confirmed that he was on the east-275.ern side. The pickup zone was to his left, several kilometers north.

Turcotte froze as he spotted a long line of small lights below him, about eight hundred meters away. A skirmish line, moving very slowly up the side of the tomb. He knew they were reacting to the explosion that had opened the shaft.

"Let's put a move on, people," Turcotte hissed over his shoulder. "We've got company."

Turcotte climbed the short distance back up to the exit. He could see that the metal had been covered by earth and bushes, well hidden for centuries. The shaped charge had ripped a narrow hole about three feet wide through the cover.

Harker had his entire team out, now helping the Chinese students through the hole. The Russians under Kostanov were bringing up the rear.

"We're going to be in the s.h.i.t soon," Turcotte told Harker, pointing at the long line of small lights.

"Jesus, that's at least a battalion," Harker said, estimating the situation.

The Special Forces warrant officer scanned the sky. "I don't see any Chinese helicopters. They get air on top of us, we're finished."

Turcotte pointed to the north. "We're going that way. We'll stay at this height, go around, and come down on the north. It should be clear."

"They'll come up behind us at alt.i.tude," Harker noted. "With the old lady, we can't move fast. We'll be in their sights and they'll have the high ground."

"Got any better ideas?" Turcotte asked.

"Mission accomplishment," Harker said shortly. "My a.s.signment is to get you and the pro-276.

fessor out of here alive, not a bunch of students and some Russians."

"Ah, most true," Kostanov said from behind them. "Mission accomplishment must come first."

"We go together," Turcotte said, not wishing to waste any more time. "Are we all up?"

"Yes." Che Lu was poised precariously on the side of the tomb, a bamboo pole in her hand dug into the earth, keeping her in place.

"We have to-" Turcotte began.

"I know what we have to do," Che Lu interrupted. "Do not worry about me. I will keep up."

"I'll cover our rear," Kostanov said.

"Let's go." Turcotte moved past the cl.u.s.ter of students and soldiers. It was hard going, walking along the forty-degree slope, and Turcotte knew the tactical reality was against them.

He heard the rattle of pebbles and swung up the muzzle of his MP-5, the laser aiming-dot reaching through the darkness. Turcotte centered the dot on the forehead of the lead figure in a group of five men about twenty feet ahead.

A voice cried out in Chinese from the group and Turcotte's finger curled around the trigger and began to pull it back when Che Lu called out, "Do not shoot! They are my friends." She immediately said something in Chinese as she worked her way along the group to stand at Turcotte's side.

"Lo Fa!" she exclaimed as the old man walked up, body leaning against the slope.

"I told you not to disturb things best left alone," Lo Fa said. He looked past them at the line of lights climbing up the hill, getting closer. "We have been searching for what the army277.searches for. I told these other idiots"-he gestured at the men with him-"that it was just a foolish old woman poking her bent nose where it shouldn't be. You must come with me if you wish to get away."

"Which way?" Turcotte asked.

Lo Fa pointed straight up the hill. "We go over the top and then west."

Turcotte shook his head. "We have to go north."

"The army is north," Lo Fa said. "You cannot go that way. We came from the west and we know a secret way to go in that direction."

"We have to go north," Turcotte said. He knew they didn't have time to make a wide sweep around the Chinese. Not only was their PZ clock ticking, there was the larger clock of Aspasia's pending arrival.

"As you wish." Lo Fa shrugged. "Old lady, bring your students with you."

Che Lu turned to Turcotte and Kostanov. "It will be easier for you without me."

Turcotte didn't have the time or inclination to discuss it. "All right."

Che Lu reached out and grasped his arm. "Bring the truth to the world. I must stay here with my people." She took Nabinger's hand and pointed down. "Besides, there is much in here we have not uncovered yet."

"Good luck," Turcotte said, but she was already scrambling away in the dark, following Lo Fa and his guerrillas.

As they disappeared upslope, Turcotte was moving, leaning into the mountain tomb, working his way to the north. The skirmish line was now278.

less than six hundred yards away. Turcotte looked along it to its right wing. At the current rate the two groups were traveling, he knew that he would not clear the right wing before it reached his alt.i.tude.

"Harker!" he shouted, still moving.

"Yeah?" the warrant officer replied.

"Get Chase up here with the radio."

When the commo man caught up with him, Turcotte paused. "Get the SATCOM ready.

I'm going to transmit in the clear to warn . . ."he began, then paused. He could hear the thump of helicopter blades.

A searchlight flashed on, lighting up Turcotte and the soldiers, overloading their night-vision goggles and blanking them out.

Overlaid on top of the blade sounds came the chatter of a heavy-caliber machine gun fired from the helicopter. Turcotte ripped off his night-vision goggles and grabbed Nabinger, covering the professor with his body. The rounds ripped by, tearing into Chase and throwing the commo man against the mountainside. The body tumbled down toward the skirmish line. Turcotte knelt and raised his weapon and fired, joined by the others.

The searchlight shattered and the chopper banked hard right and flew away to a safer distance.

"Status!" Turcotte yelled.

Harker's voice came from his right. "Chase and Brooks are dead and the radio's destroyed."

"I've got a man wounded," Kostanov answered.

"Let's go!" Turcotte ordered.