"Nope. The plan was to get halfway to Anchorage, stop for an hour or so to refuel and take a nap, then fly the rest of the way. Thanks to him, we didn't have to stop long at all."
"This guy, did he have a name?"
"Sure. Said his name was Drew. Didn't catch his last name. Said he'd been working for you for a while, though."
Emily's face flushed white like she'd seen the devil himself. "Where is this Drew now?"
"I don't know. He got his own room here at the hotel. Said he had to grab some things in town before he came back to sleep."
"Thanks, Perkins. I've gotta go."
"You're welcome."
She ended the call and turned to face Adriana and the president.
"What's wrong?" Adriana asked before Dawkins could.
"I think I just found out where Porter went. Sean and Tommy could be in grave danger. Mr. President. I'm going to need a plane."
Chapter 36
Two armed guards waited just around the first bend in the mine. They pointed their weapons at the approaching intruders, malice filling their eyes.
"You're trespassing on government property," one of the guards said. He motioned to Porter. "Put down your weapon immediately."
"Tell your boss that Drew Porter caught these three snooping around outside," Porter said.
The guards looked at each other, suddenly thrown off by the order.
"Do it," Porter said in a stern tone. "He knows who I am."
The guard on the left pressed a button on his earpiece and did as told. He listened closely, looking down at the ground as the response came through. A few seconds later, he looked up at the four intruders and waved them on.
"You may proceed," he said. "He'll be waiting for you down below."
The three captives trudged by the guards and into the dimly lit tunnel.
They pressed on, marching ahead for fifteen minutes, seeing nothing more than a bunch of old mining tools, wooden beams supporting the ceiling, and some side tunnels the branched off in perpendicular directions. Those were blocked off by flimsy wooden boards.
"What's all this about?" Tommy asked as they marched through another bend in the tunnel. "You abandon your country to work for some madman? And for what, money?"
"Everything is about money," Porter sneered. "Countries, even this one, have murdered millions of people for nothing more than profit. I see no reason why I shouldn't get a piece of the pie."
"You have no idea what's down here, do you?" Sean said. His statement was half button-pushing, half feeling out their captor.
"Honestly, Sean, I don't. I have no clue what we're about to see. My former employer is down here. You'll probably recognize him when you see him."
"We already know about Secretary Foster. He'll be tried for high treason, not to mention attempting to murder the president of the United States."
"Along with like forty other charges," Tommy added.
"I don't care if he is or not," Porter said.
"Because you've gone rogue?" Sean asked. "You think that's going to keep you safe?"
"Oh, I am safe. And Foster will do as I say, or he'll burn. But there's no reason why he and I can't be civil. After all, the right amount of money can mend the most jagged of rifts."
The sounds of machines began to echo through the corridor. They whirred and hummed with an occasional clanking sound. The noise grew louder as the group progressed farther into the mine.
"Sounds like generators?" Tommy said.
Sean thought the same thing but kept quiet. His mind was already working on how to get away. If they rushed Porter, he'd mow them down like tall summer fescue. They'd have to wait for the right moment, when Porter lowered his guard. Since the man was CIA, that was going to be tricky.
They rounded another bend to the left and were greeted by a giant opening in the tunnel. Bright light poured into the corridor from beyond. Ahead was the most astonishing thing the four men had ever seen in their lives.
"That's… impossible," Tommy said as he stared at the giant structure.
The mine tunnel opened into the largest underground room they'd ever seen. The ceiling was easily two hundred feet high, and the circumference took up acres of space.
In the center of it all was something that didn't belong anywhere near that part of the world.
The four smooth sides of the structure rose dramatically to a single point at the top. From the looks of it, the top piece was made of pure, glimmering gold.
"It looks just like one of the pyramids in Giza," Sean said.
Yuri said nothing. He merely stared in disbelief.
Giant floodlights were positioned all around the cavernous room, pouring bright white light onto the ancient structure. Cables and wires ran along the walls and disappeared into other tunnels. Where they went, the four visitors didn't know.
Their tunnel veered to the right and wound its way down to the ground floor about fifty feet below. Down at the base of the pyramid, dozens of men in hard hats were working at computers, checking cables and running control panels with hundreds of buttons and knobs. One was running through a checklist on a clipboard, making an occasional note as he did so.
A gray trailer was parked off to the side. It looked like ones Sean had seen at construction sites. On the opposite side of the room, far away across the massive interior, was an electrical power station. Power lines ran from somewhere inside the pyramid out to the station, which then ran lines into some of the other tunnels.
"This is unbelievable. What is that pyramid doing here?" Tommy asked.
"It's a generator," Yuri said.
Porter looked at him like he was crazy. "A generator?" He hadn't engaged with his prisoners much since entering the mine.
"He could be right," Sean said. "I've read several studies about how the ancient Egyptians were able to harness electricity from various natural sources. The hieroglyphs at the Hathor temple in Dendera show an image that looks like a lightbulb attached to a simple battery."
Tommy nodded. "There's speculation that they were somehow able to harness geostatic electricity. I read a book that theorized that was how the Ark of the Covenant worked."
"That doesn't explain what this thing is doing here,” Sean said.
"I don't care how it got here," Porter said. "Where's the gold?"
It was a good question. If there was a large cache of gold in the mine, they couldn't see it except for the pyramid's golden top.
"Get moving," he grunted a moment later. Sean and the others could tell Porter was irritated. Finding an ancient pyramid in an abandoned mine wasn't what he'd planned.
He motioned with his weapon toward the narrow path leading down below.
His prisoners obeyed and reluctantly started down the trail. As they rounded the first turn, some of the workers below saw them approaching. One ran hurriedly over to the office trailer and disappeared inside.
A minute later, he reappeared with a similar weapon to Porter's and stood at the trailer's front door.
A man in a gray sweater and black pants appeared in the doorway. As Sean and the others walked slowly across the main floor, the man in the sweater moved closer.
He stopped a dozen feet away, surrounded by men in hard hats with submachine guns. They all wore stern faces and kept their weapons pointed at the trespassers.
"Mr. Secretary," Sean said. "Interesting little operation you have here."
Kent Foster crossed his arms and tilted his head to the side. "Yes, Sean. It's impressive, isn't it?" He turned and looked up at the pyramid towering over them. "I have to say, I only get out here a few times a year, but when I do it's still quite the imposing figure. I never really get used to it."
"I caught them trying to get in, sir," Porter interrupted.