The valley below was in darkness, giving no idea how far down it went. Eight hundred feet above, the top of the mountain was silhouetted against the light of the moon.
Turcotte slid over the edge of the platform onto the rock-and-dirt mountainside and began climbing.
After a few minutes he could see lights moving in the valley below. Reinforcements. It would take them a while to get air assets in — he hoped. Having been in Special Operations for years, Turcotte knew that there just weren’t packs of men sitting around with high-speed helicopters waiting around every corner.
He moved from rock to rock, clinging to bushes at times. He’d learned mountain climbing during a tour in Germany and this slope wasn’t technically very difficult. The darkness was a bit of a problem, but his eyes were adjusting. He reached the top of the mountain after forty-five minutes. He turned to the west, following the ridgeline that he had seen coming into town during the day. He moved quicker now that he was gradually descending. His head still hurt, feeling as if a massive headache was worming its way around his head, moving from section to section. What had that pyramid been? It definitely wasn’t man-made. He knew it was connected to the bouncers and mothership.
But how was it connected to the bodies in the vats? What the hell was going on down there?
He saw the lights of Dulce to his left and he curved downslope in that direction, heading for the western edge of town. As the ridgeline leveled out to valley floor he passed the first houses. An occasional dog barked, but Turcotte moved swiftly, not worried right now about the locals.
He spotted a pay phone outside a closed bowling area and jogged up to it. He picked up the receiver and dialed the number Dr. Duncan had given him. After the second ring a mechanical device informed that the number was no longer in service. Turcotte pushed down the metal lever, disconnecting. Then he dialed a new number with a 910 area code. Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
A sleepy voice answered. “Colonel Mickell.”
“It’s Mike Turcotte, sir.”
The voice woke up. “Jesus, Turc, what the fuck have you done?”
Turcotte leaned against the phone booth, energy draining out of his body. “I don’t know, sir. I don’t know what’s going on. What have you heard?”
“I haven’t heard shit except somebody wants your ass bad. One of those agencies with a whole bunch of letters has put out a classified ‘grab and hold’ on you. I about shit when I saw it come through in my reading file.”
Mickell was the deputy commander of the Special Forces Training Command at Fort Bragg and an old friend.
“Can you help me, sir?”
“What do you need?”
“I need to find out if someone is for real and, if she is, how to contact her.”
“Give me her name.”
“Duncan. Dr. Lisa Duncan. She told me she was the President’s adviser to a thing called Majic-12.”
Mickell whistled. “Oh, man, you’re in some deep stuff. How do I reach you?”
“You don’t, sir. I’ll get back in contact with you.”
“Watch your butt, Turc.”
“Yes, sir.”
Turcotte slowly hung up the phone. He wasn’t one hundred percent certain that Mickell would back him up. He didn’t know why Duncan’s number didn’t work. The only means of communication she’d given him as he went undercover and it had been out now for a couple of days. Not good. Not good at all. He’d just killed three men this evening. “Fuck,” Turcotte muttered. What the hell was that pyramid?
Turcotte rubbed his forehead. He’d played his last cards.
When it got down to it, he had to admit that the only people he could trust right now were heading for Utah and the rendezvous he had planned. He didn’t want to go there, but it was the only place he could go.
He looked about. There was a pickup truck parked on the street. Goddamn, his head hurt. Turcotte drew deep inside, relying on years of harsh training. He drew up strength where most would find nothing. And headed for the pickup truck.
CHAPTER 26
Johnny Simmons started screaming and Kelly’s best efforts couldn’t stop it. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight, whispering words of comfort in his ear.
Getting out of the facility had been even easier than getting in. They’d piled into the Suburban, driven out past the unsuspecting guard, and linked back up with the van.
Returning the still-unconscious driver to his own truck, they’d jumped into the van and driven back down through town and turned left on Route 64.
“Can’t you keep him quiet?” Von Seeckt asked from the driver’s seat, checking the rearview mirror.
“I’d be screaming too,” Kelly answered, “if I’d been locked in that thing for four days. You just drive. No one can hear him except us.”
Johnny quieted down and appeared to fall asleep or, Kelly thought, slip into unconsciousness. She turned to Nabinger, who had his hands wrapped in a bloodstained towel. Kelly pulled out the first-aid kit. “What happened to you, Professor?”
“There was something I had to get and it was in a glass case. I couldn’t find a key so I broke the glass,” Nabinger replied.
“Couldn’t you have used something other than your hand to break the glass?” Kelly asked as she pulled out the gauze and tape.
“I was in a hurry,” Nabinger replied. After a moment’s silence he added, “I wasn’t thinking about my hands.”
“What was so important?” Kelly inquired.
Nabinger carefully unwrapped something from his jacket. He held a piece of wood, slightly curved, about two feet long by one foot high and an inch thick. Even in the dim light in the back of the van she could see that it was covered with small carved characters.
“It’s a rongorongo tablet from Easter Island,” Nabinger said. “Do you know how rare these are? Only twenty-one are known to be in existence. This must be one that was secreted away.”
Kelly pointed at the eight-by-ten glossies that the two men had gathered. “What are those?”
Nabinger reluctantly looked from the tablet to the table, where the photos were piled. “Von Seeckt told me those are the photographs taken by the first team to enter the mothership cavern. They found flat stones with high runes.”
“What do they say?” Kelly asked as she finished one hand and began working on the other.
Nabinger looked at the photos. “Well, it’s not like reading the newspaper, you know. This will take time.”
“Well, you’ve got some time, so get to work,” Kelly said as she finished the second hand, then picked up a road map. She found where they had to meet Turcotte. “You’ve got all night,” she announced. “I think we should get off this main road and take back roads through the mountains, heading west until we get to the linkup spot.”
“How soon do you think they’ll be after us?” Nabinger asked.
“They’re already after us,” Kelly said. “After us following this latest escapade, you mean. I think we’ll be okay. I just hope Turcotte made it out all right.”