“And if there are beams in both side tunnels?” Funing asked.
Che Lu was growing weary of the girl. “Then we truly are trapped and then we will die,” she said. “But we don’t know that right now and we won’t until we act. So get to your feet!”
“I will take the pole,” Ki said, surprising Che Lu.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Let’s go,” Ki said, and headed down the tunnel toward the intersection, one of the other students slightly behind him, holding the flashlight. The rest of them followed, single file, like blind ducks in a row.
“Look at this,” Nabinger said, holding a piece of paper the driver had given him. They were in a HUMMV, being driven to the airstrip where a plane Duncan had requisitioned waited for them. The squeak of the windshield wipers added to the unhappy mood inside. Nabinger was in the front seat next to the driver, while Turcotte and Duncan were in back. “What is it?” Turcotte asked.
“The translation of the Chinese characters on the stone that my friend just faxed back to the Naval Operations Center.” Nabinger read it to the others. “It reads: Cing Ho reached this place as directed. He did his duty as ordered.” “Who the hell was Cing Ho?” Turcotte asked.
“I’ll have to look it up once we get airborne,” Nabinger said, turning back to the front.
Turcotte felt a nudge in his side. He turned to Duncan, who leaned close so she could speak to him without being overheard. “I’m sorry about what Kelly said. About Germany. She said that to get to you. To stop you from doing the right thing.”
“You know about Germany?”
“It’s why I chose you to infiltrate Area 51,” Duncan said.
“Because I was part of a fucked-up operation that got a bunch of innocent civilians killed?” Turcotte asked.
“Don’t be an asshole,” Duncan gently said. “You didn’t kill any of them. And you stopped the man who did as quickly as you could.”
“I was there.”
“Give me a break, Mike,” she said. “More importantly, give yourself a break. I picked you because you refused the medal they offered you for the ‘fucked-up operation,’ as you called it. Because you took personal responsibility.”
The brakes squealed as they pulled up to the stairs leading up to their plane. As Turcotte started to get out, he felt Duncan’s hand on his shoulder, causing him to pause.
“And remember,” she said, “the facts show I chose the right man.”
Major Quinn had been working on his laptop for the past three hours, weaving his way through the various codes and numbers that made up the Department of Defense satellite communications system. He had finally found what he was looking for, but the information did more to confuse the situation than clarify it.
The strange woman, Oleisa, was making satellite communications back to a ground station located somewhere in Antarctica. A station that, other than having a routing number, did not exist in any government records, classified or not, that he could find, other than a reference to an organization named STAAR.
Quinn leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment. Then he typed some new commands into his control console, accessing the security camera that was in the part of the hangar Oleisa had taken over. He wasn’t surprised when the screen came back blank and the computer informed him that that camera had been taken offline.
“All right,” Quinn said to himself, enjoying the challenge. “There’s got to be a mention of STAAR somewhere. And I’m going to find it.” He turned back to his laptop and began typing. Then, suddenly, he paused. Antarctica. There was a connection between that continent and Majestic-12. And there was someone who knew about that connection: the-only surviving member of the original twelve members of the committee.
Quinn knew where he had to go now: the base hospital at Nellis Air Force Base where that man, Werner Von Seeckt, former Nazi and SS scientist, was being kept alive by machines.
CHAPTER 14
“Will Kelly report our mission?” Duncan asked.
The three of them were in the forward part of the 707, left alone by the Air Force crew. The takeoff from Easter Island had gone smoothly, and now they were heading toward Osan Air Force Base in South Korea as quickly as possible.
“No,” Nabinger said, “she won’t.”
“What makes you so sure?” Duncan asked.
“She wouldn’t put us in harm’s way.”
“Seemed to me,” Duncan said, “that her take on it was that we were putting ourselves in harm’s way.” She looked at Turcotte, who hadn’t said a word since they’d boarded. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think she will.”
“I can give the order to shut her off from the outside world,” Duncan said. “To have her put into custody.”
“Then what’s the difference between us and Majestic?” Turcotte asked.
“Point made,” Duncan said. “I’m just a little worried, is that all right?”
“I’m worried too,” Turcotte said. He didn’t want to dwell on Kelly Reynolds and the way she had been acting. “When is Viking going to be over Cydonia?”
Duncan looked at her watch. “Five minutes.” She pointed to the rear of the plane. “We can access the secure link to Viking and get the images it sends back. At least we’ll be up to speed on that.”
Turcotte and Nabinger followed her down the aisle and through the door into the communications section. Rows of computer consoles filled the space between the bulkheads, and the light was turned down low, emphasizing the glow from the screens. Turcotte recognized the plane as a command-and-control version that the Air Force kept deployed around the world.
“Over here,” Duncan said, leading him to a particular computer. A young Air Force lieutenant was seated there, her screen empty except for a cursor.
“Hook us in to the NASA downlink from Viking, Lieutenant Wheeler,” Duncan ordered.
“Yes, ma’am.” Wheeler quickly typed in several code words. Her screen cleared, then a dire warning came across the screen telling anyone who had gotten this far that they were violating federal law if they were looking at this screen without proper access and to stop now.
Then the warning was gone.
>JPL: REPOSITIONING NEAR COMPLETE. T-5 MINUTES
“Is that our time or Mars time?” Turcotte asked.
Duncan was confused, but Lieutenant Wheeler figured out what he was asking. “Our time, five minutes,” she said. She looked up at Duncan. “It takes two and a half minutes for a radio or data transmission to make it from Mars to Earth. Five minutes for us is two and half minutes for Viking plus two and a half minutes for the transmission to reach.”
>JPL: T-3 MINUTES. IMAGING SYSTEMS CHECK COMING.
>UNAOC: ALL STATIONS ON LINE. WAITING TO RECEIVE DOWNLINK.
>JPL: SUPERSEDING VIKING LINK TO ALL STATIONS.
>VIKING: IMAGING SYSTEMS ALL GREEN.
“You ever wonder why NASA never checked out Cydonia before,” Turcotte asked Duncan, “if they could move Viking so easily over it?”
“I looked into that,” she replied. “From what I’ve found out, there wasn’t that much fuel to move it around. I think this shift has burned all they have left. They used up the fuel that would have kept its orbit from decaying for a few more years.”
“Going over the same route, year after year?” Turcotte asked. “Maybe Majestic-12 had something to do with that,” he suggested. “Maybe they knew more than they let on.”