The SH-60 swung over the top of the submersible, lowering a cage. Downing grabbed on to the cage and held it steady as Tennyson and Emory climbed in, then he squeezed in beside them.

"I'll miss her," he said to Tennyson as they were lifted into the air, the chopper heading east after the Anzio even before the cage began to be reeled in.

"She was a good ship," Tennyson acknowledged as the Greywolf faded into the distance, a dark spot on a blue carpet.

They all flinched as the entire ocean surface erupted in a ma.s.sive waterspout where the Greywolf had been.

Brodie's calculations were excellent. The Tomahawk pa.s.sed through the depth the igniter was set for less than fifty meters from the foo fighter complex.

The nuclear explosion took out not only the two foo fighters that had shadowed the Greywolf and the base, but a half-mile section of the East Pacific Ridge.351.

On the other side of the world Captain Mike Turcotte gripped Colonel Spearson's weathered hand in his.

"b.l.o.o.d.y good to see you, even if you do come flying in on one of those weird saucer things," Spearson said.

"We need to get to the cavern," Turcotte said as Duncan and Zandra followed him. "Right this way."

At the same time, back in the Pacific, Kelly Reynolds's bouncer was settling down on the runway on Easter Island.352.

Chapter 38.

You've neutralized the foo fighter fleet," Duncan said as they rode the cog railway down into the cavern. "But what about the Airlia ships that are coming?"

Turcotte felt tired, the sort of tired he had experienced before in combat and in Ranger School when he'd gone for months with a couple of hours' sleep a night and barely one meal a day to provide energy. He knew the danger of such tiredness: thoughts became muddled, decision-making impaired. He closed his eyes for a few seconds and cleared his head, then he went back to the question Duncan had asked. He turned and addressed the man in the seat behind them.

"Colonel Spearson, do you have SATCOM with Area 51?"

"I can route through to that location," Spearson said.

"There's some people there I need you to send a message to."

Spearson pulled out a small notepad from the353.

breast pocket of his camouflage smock. "Go ahead."

"All right," Turcotte began. "The message is to Kelly Reynolds and Major Quinn." He nodded toward Zandra. "I'm going to need you to pull your ST-8 authorization."

"You've got it," Zandra said.

"All right," Turcotte said. "Here's what I need."

A tunnel had been blasted and drilled through the side of Rano Kau to the chamber containing the guardian. Kelly Reynolds went down the tunnel in a mental fog, her brain and heart swirling with thoughts and emotions she was having a very hard time sorting out and controlling.

She'd heard of the success in wiping out the foo fighter base and seen the military personnel at the airfield on Easter Island celebrating even while they were evacuating the island. Fools, she thought. All they had done was spit in the face of those who could save the human race. And there were still the talon ships closing on Earth.

Think what they had done to Atlantis, she wanted to shout at the idiots.

Didn't they realize the Airlia could do the same to New York or Moscow or any major city?

She reached the bottom and entered the chamber. There was no one around. The U.S. military was getting everyone off Easter Island, clearing it of all human life. Her clearance from Major Quinn had allowed her to pa.s.s the military police guards and the captain in charge had warned her that if she wasn't back up in thirty minutes they354.

weren't coming down to get her and she'd be on her own. Bouncer 6 had its orders, too, and the pilot took off and headed back to Area 51, leaving her stranded on the island. She knew why they were evacuating the island and she knew why the captain was nervous. They wanted to destroy the guardian. They wanted to destroy the machine that held the key to mankind's history and its future. Just as they wanted to destroy the Airlia.

Kelly paused as she entered the chamber. The golden pyramid was surrounded by a haze extending out a few inches. She'd also been told that the guardian was now in constant communication with the incoming fleet. She had no doubt that Aspasia now knew of the destruction of his foo fighters.

Kelly walked across the smoothly cut stone floor to the base of the pyramid.

She put her hands out and touched the strangely textured metal. "Please listen to me," she whispered. "Please listen to me."

Turcotte looked down at the control panel. He pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket.

"What's that?" Zandra asked.

"The code for the sphere."

"Will it fall in the chasm and be destroyed?" Duncan asked in alarm.

Turcotte shook his head. "No. The destruct code was in the Temiltepec guardian. That's gone. This is the code to release it." He placed his hands over the panel. He touched a spot in the355.

upper left corner and a glow suffused the surface, seeming to come from within, highlighting a series of interlocking hexagons, eight across by eight down, each hexagon containing a high rune symbol.

Looking at the paper, Turcotte began touching the panel, following the pattern of symbols as they had been dictated to him by Nabinger. There were eighteen in all.

When he touched the last one, there was a loud hissing noise, followed by the startled yell of the SAS guards. Turcotte looked up. The ruby sphere had been released from the three poles going to the far side and two of the ones on the near side. The one arm in the center of the near side was retracting, pulling the sphere toward Turcotte. Twenty feet from the end the arm started to rotate, bringing the sphere up into the air, then going down, until the sphere rested at the edge of the chasm.

"We need to get that up to the surface," Turcotte ordered.356.

Chapter 39.

Five hours from arrival. The six talons were no longer dancing among themselves. They had spread out, ten kilometers between craft as they approached Earth.

On the planet they neared, troubling news was beginning to seep out. Nothing official had been released, but there were rumors of attacks by foo fighters; of a nuclear weapon being detonated deep in the Pacific; that the Airlia might not indeed be coming in peace. The rumors were not enough to stem the flow of optimism that blanketed the world, but they were enough to worry those in power and those who had always questioned the coming contact. But what was there to do? was the consensus. The world would have to wait and see.

Inside the War Room of the Pentagon the President and Joint Chiefs were helpless spectators as the plan devised by Eisenhower was being en-357.acted by STAAR. The mood, though, was getting more positive as each victory was won. Still, the main screen in the front of the room pictured the six talons as seen by the Hubble, and that deadened any euphoria as they knew the biggest battle was yet to come.

Mike Turcotte was in a rush. They had attached the sphere to the outside of the bouncer by the expedient manner of four sets of nylon cargo webbing. He'd immediately gotten back on board along with Duncan and the two STAAR personnel.

The bouncer was now racing northeast at over five thousand miles an hour.

Turcotte had spent the last thirty minutes on the radio, confirming with Major Quinn that the instructions Colonel Spearson had forwarded were being followed and all would be ready when they arrived at Area 51.

He had been disturbed to hear that Kelly Reynolds wasn't there; that she had flown to Easter Island on a bouncer. He knew her and he knew what she was trying to do. He gave her credit for trying; the only problem was that if she didn't get her a.s.s off that island in the next hour, she was going to be sitting on ground zero. He had to try to contact her.

"Firing TCM," Larry Kincaid said, although the only person in the room to hear him was Coridan. Larry pressed the enter key on the console in front of him and the message was transmitted toward Mars.358.

Turcotte watched Area 51 approach. This was where it had all started, and it seemed appropriate to him that this was where the ending would be implemented.

The bouncer did not land outside Hangar One; instead, at Turcotte's direction, the pilot flew around the side to Hangar Two. As they flew over Groom Mountain, Turcotte could see the gaping hole in the mountainside where the roof on Hangar Two had been destroyed.

The pilot maneuvered the bouncer down into the hangar, landing next to the side of the ma.s.sive ship. Turcotte was the first one out of the hatch. Major Quinn was there waiting for him.

"Do you have everything?"

Quinn looked worried. "Yes."

"Where's the bouncer I asked for?" Turcotte asked, looking about.

"It's already loaded inside," Quinn said.

"Great."

"Is it modified like I requested?"

"I had to get the boosters from White Sands. Flown here special on a C-5 and-"

"Is it done?" Turcotte's voice was sharp.

"Yes. But I can't guarantee that-"

"The specials?"

Quinn swallowed hard. "They're loaded too. I don't know who you got to authorize that, but-"

"Load the ruby sphere into the cargo bay with the rest of the gear," Turcotte ordered. Quinn nodded. He started to walk away, then paused. He reached into his pocket and pulled out what359.

looked like a TV remote. "You'll need this. It's labeled."

Turcotte took it and slid it into the breast pocket of his dirty camouflage fatigues. Quinn turned and walked away toward a waiting crew of Air Force men. There was a surprised look on Zandra's face. "You're not putting the sphere in the engine where it belongs? What exactly do you have planned?" she demanded.

Turcotte turned and stared into her sungla.s.ses while Duncan quietly watched.

"I'm going to give Aspasia what he wants. He wants the mothership and he wants the ruby sphere. I'm taking them to him. That way he has no need to come here to Earth."

Zandra was shaking her head before he was done. "That's unacceptable. You have no guarantee that he'll take the mothership and leave Earth alone. In fact . .

." She paused.

"In fact what?" Turcotte demanded."I can't let you do that," Zandra said.

"How are you going to stop me?" Turcotte asked.

"I have the President's authorization and-"

"You have an authorization from a president who has been long dead," Turcotte cut her off. "It's worked quite well with all these idiots who salute and would rather follow orders than think, but it doesn't work with me."

Turcotte saw Oleisa, who had remained mute and in the background throughout their long journey, start to move. He smoothly drew his Browning High Power pistol. He didn't exactly point it at the two women, but he kept it hovering in their360.

general direction, freezing them both in place. "I don't know who you people are. You may be who you say you are, but this is where your interference ends.

I'm taking the mothership up and there's nothing you can do about it."

Oleisa jumped forward and Turcotte fired, double-tapping as he'd been trained.

Both rounds. .h.i.t the woman right between her eyes, shattering the ever-present sungla.s.ses and knocking her back onto the cavern floor. But that gave Zandra time to draw a pistol. Turcotte knew it was too late as he shifted to the new target; he could see the muzzle of Zandra's gun, a ma.s.sive black hole centered on his own forehead.

Then a small red dot appeared in the middle of Zandra's chest and she staggered back a step, the gun wavering, then coming back up. The sound of a pistol going off again and again reverberated through the cavern as Duncan kept firing, her bullets. .h.i.tting Zandra.

The fingers went limp and the gun dropped out of Zandra's hand as she collapsed to the floor. Duncan stepped forward, her weapon at the ready as she nudged the body with the toe of her shoe.

"She's dead," Turcotte confirmed, seeing where several of the rounds had come out of Zandra's back.

"Who the h.e.l.l were they?" Duncan asked, looking up from the two bodies as MPs ran up, weapons ready.

"Everything's all right!" Turcotte yelled to the MPs. He put a hand on Duncan's shoulder. He could feel her trembling. "I don't know who they were.

That's something we're going to have to361.

find out. But right now our big problem is coming from that away." He pointed upward.

"How are you getting back, Mike?" Duncan asked.

"I'm coming back on the bouncer in the hold," Turcotte said. "But they don't work that far outside the Earth's magnetic field," Duncan noted.

"I know that," Turcotte said. He turned her to face him. "Trust me that I will make it back."

Duncan nodded. "I do."

"I have to go now," Turcotte said.

Duncan stood on tiptoe and kissed him. "Good luck."

Inside the chamber Kelly Reynolds's pleadings echoed off the stone walls. Then she paused as a golden tendril coalesced above the top of the pyramid. It wavered in the air, then reached down toward her.

Kelly remained perfectly still as the translucent golden arm wrapped itself around her head. The tortured look on her face disappeared and her features relaxed, a smile even touching her lips.

The message Larry Kincaid had sent had finally made it across the gap from Earth to Surveyor, silently orbiting above the planet. The on-board computer came to life. The simple commands Kincaid had programmed were sorted through and acted on. Maneuvering thrusters fired and Surveyor's...o...b..t changed. It moved on a course362.