Duncan nodded. “I know you called me earlier. That’s why I’m here. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”
She turned back to the guard. “Your prisoners are not going anywhere. None of us are. Get General Gullick up here now.”
“Sir,” Quinn said tentatively, putting down the phone.
General Gullick’s eyes were transfixed on the main screen, which showed the overlay of Area 51. All the vehicles had finally been corralled and the UFO watchers placed under arrest.
“Yes?”
“Dr. Duncan was on board that Blackhawk. She’s up at Hangar One right now demanding to see you. Von Seeckt, Nabinger, and the reporter are there too.” A nerve began twitching on the side of Gullick’s face.
“Do we have commo yet?” Gullick demanded.
Quinn checked. “Yes, sir. The interference has stopped.”
“Do you have contact with the engineer site?”
“No response, sir.”
“Order Bouncer Four to check it out, ASAP!”
Gullick spun away from the screen and walked to the elevator. Quinn relaxed slightly as the doors shut behind the general and he relayed the orders.
The bouncer suddenly darted away to the west, leaving the tableau outside the hangar frozen in a standoff between the weapons of the Nightscape men and the tentative shield of Duncan’s position.
A large figure walked out of the hangar, casting a long shadow from the backdrop of red light. General Gullick walked up and looked about. “Very nice. Very nice.” He stared at Duncan. “I’m sure you have an explanation for this circus you’ve orchestrated?”
“I’m sure you have an answer for attempting to shoot down my helicopter,” she returned.
“I am authorized by law to use deadly force to safeguard this facility,” Gullick said. “You are the one who violated law by coming into restricted airspace and failing to respond when challenged.”
“What about Dulce, General?” Duncan retorted. “What about General Hemstadt— formerly of the Werhmacht? What about Paperclip? Where is Captain Turcotte?”
Kelly saw the change come over Gullick and she reached out to stop Duncan’s harangue.
As he finished typing, Turcotte saw a bright light coming out of the east through the camouflage netting. The same bright light he had seen his first night out here. The bouncer came to a halt forty feet away and landed. A man came out of the hatch on top, weapon in hand.
Duncan and Gullick both stopped their arguing and turned as a new voice called out. “You both don’t understand!” Nabinger yelled. He looked about wildly, holding up the rongorongo tablet. “None of you do.” He pointed at the hangar. “You don’t understand what you have in there and where it came from. You don’t understand any of it.”
Gullick snatched a submachine gun from one of the Nightscape guards. “No, I don’t understand, but you never will either.” He pointed the muzzle at Duncan.
“You’ve gone too far,” Duncan said.
“You signed your own death warrant, lady. You said too much and you know too much.” His finger had already closed over the trigger when he was blinded by the searing glow of a bright searchlight. Without a noise Bouncer Four settled down behind Duncan’s group.
“Get over here!” Turcotte yelled from the hatch on top of the saucer.
“Let’s go,” Kelly said, grabbing Duncan by the shoulders and pushing her toward the bouncer. The others followed. Turcotte saw Gullick raise the muzzle of the submachine gun in his direction. “Do it and I fire the charges!” Turcotte called out, holding up the remote detonator for Hangar Two. Gullick froze. “What did you do?”
“I did a little resequencing. I don’t think it will quite work the way you’d like,” Turcotte said, keeping an eye on his people as they moved in his direction and climbed the slope of the disk.
“You can’t do that!” Gullick cried out.
“I won’t if you let us get out of here,” Turcotte promised.
“Back off,” General Gullick ordered, waving to his security men.
Turcotte stepped aside, allowing the others to climb in the hatch. When all were on board, he slipped down inside, shutting the hatch behind him. “Take off!” he yelled at the pilot.
On the ground Gullick whirled. “I want Aurora ready for flight now!” He didn’t trust this alien technology anymore.
“Yes, sir!”
“Where do you want to go?” Captain Scheuler asked from the depression in the center of the disk. He’d put up no argument at the engineer site when Turcotte had dropped through the hatch, weapon in hand, and ordered him to fly back to Hangar One. The others were sitting gingerly on the floor of the bouncer, gathered around the center. Von Seeckt had his eyes closed, trying to keep from being disoriented by the view out.
Turcotte still held a submachine gun pointed in the general direction of the pilot. “Turn right,” he ordered the pilot.
“What are you doing?” Kelly asked.
Turcotte was looking out the clear skin of the bouncer as they went around the mountain that hid the hangar complexes. He flipped open the cover on the firing button on the remote, then pressed the trigger.
“You told Gullick you wouldn’t do that!” Lisa Duncan said.
“I lied.”
Hangar Two was deserted, which was fortunate. The outer wall caved in, not in the orderly manner that had been planned, but in a cascade of rock and rubble crashing down onto the mothership, burying it under tons of debris.
In the Cube, Major Quinn felt the rumble of the explosions and watched the first rocks begin falling in Hangar Two on the remote video screens before the cameras were consumed by the man-made earthquake. “Oh, fuck,” he muttered.
Gullick knew what had happened even as the last of the aftershocks of the explosions settled away. He staggered, then sank to his knees. He pressed his hands to the side of his head as pain reverberated back and forth from one side to the other, searing through his brain. A moan escaped his lips. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Sir, Aurora is ready for flight,” a young officer said with much trepidation.
Maybe it could be salvaged, Gullick thought, seizing upon that single idea. He slowly got to his feet. The manta ray of the high-speed plane was silhouetted against the runway lights. Yes, there was still a way to salvage things
CHAPTER 32
“What now?” Kelly asked. The others were gathered around, now standing on the floor of the bouncer, trying to get used to the eerie view straight through the skin of the craft. It was a bit tight with everyone inside. They were currently heading south out of Area 51 at two hundred miles an hour and slowly gaining altitude.
“I don’t know.” Turcotte turned to the others. “I got you out of there and the Mothership won’t be flying for several weeks at least. So I did my part. Where to?”
“Nellis,” Duncan said. “I can—”
“Las Vegas has got a good media hook-in,” Kelly said, excited. “We fly this damn thing right downtown! Land in the fountain at Caesar’s Palace. That’ll wake them up.”
“This isn’t a media circus,” Duncan said. “I’m in—”
“No!” Nabinger held out the wooden tablet that he’d been hauling with him throughout the entire adventure at Area 51. “You’re all wrong. We have to go to the place where the answers are.”
“And that is?” Turcotte asked.
Nabinger pointed with his free hand at the tablet in the other. “Easter Island.” “Easter Island?” Duncan asked.
“Easter Island,” Nabinger repeated. “From what I’ve decoded on this, the answers are there.”