Even trying to move stealthily, he could hear the scraping of his boots on the floor, and his own breathing sounded unusually loud. The sound of the men right behind bothered him, disturbing his concentration.
Turcotte halted, holding his hand up, and the group froze. He could have sworn he’d heard a noise. Turcotte held his submachine gun at the ready. “Professor Che Lu?” he called out.
An accented voice came out of the dark. “She’s busy. Who may I say is asking for her?”
Turcotte knew that voice and that accent. He searched in his memory for when and where. He could make out what appeared to be an intersection in the tunnel about fifty meters ahead.
“Gruev?” Turcotte asked.
A figure walked out of the side tunnel. Turcotte quickly pulled off his goggles as the man turned on a large flashlight, bathing the tunnel in its glow. Turcotte squinted as he walked toward the man. He recognized him when he was ten meters away. “Kostanov!”
“Captain Turcotte.” Kostanov gave a mock bow. “Fancy meeting you here.” “You were Russian all along,” Turcotte said. “All that stuff you told us on the carrier was bullshit.”
Kostanov shook his head. “What I told you was mostly the truth, but we don’t have time for that now.”
“Maybe we ought to make time,” Turcotte said.
“We don’t have time,” Kostanov insisted. “I will explain all later.” “What have you found in here?” Turcotte asked.
“A control room.” Kostanov was looking past Turcotte. “Ah, Professor Nabinger, there is something you must see.” He snapped something in Russian to his right. “I am sending one of my men to get Professor Che Lu. Then we go that way.” He pointed to his left.
Captain Rakes squinted into the wind as the second helicopter settled down on the helipad. He waited until the blades on both birds stopped turning and then walked out to the lead one. He was already disquieted by the fact that both helicopters bore no marking. He recognized the type: Sikorsky UH60. But he’d never see a UH60 Black Hawk with a flat black paint job and the extra fuel tanks hung on small wings above the cargo bay.
With those extra tanks they must be flying an awfully long way, Rakes estimated. That made him feel even more uneasy. The only country in three directions was China. And those birds had come from the fourth direction. He didn’t think the Navy would go through all the trouble of moving his ship here to meet two helicopters that were going to just refuel and go back to where they had started from. Of course it wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibilities. He’d done stranger things in his time in the Navy.
Rakes watched warily as the pilot got out of the first chopper and walked over to him.
“Evening, sir,” O’Callaghan said. “We’d appreciate it if your men could top our birds off and if you could find the four of us a quiet place to get some rest for a couple hours. We’re not leaving again until just before dark.”
Rakes designated one of his ensigns to show the pilots a stateroom where they could rest.
“Ours is but to do and die,” Rakes muttered to himself as he turned and went back to his bridge, where at least he was in charge of something.
“Goddamn, it’s cold,” Emory sputtered between chattering teeth.
Downing had expected the civilian to be the first to say something about the freezing temperature inside the Greywolf. Condensation had formed on all the fittings, and the drip of water was the predominant sound inside the submersible. The dim glow from the control panel was the only light, other than the occasional flicker from a foo fighter passing one of the portals.
Downing looked at his depth gauge. They had lost another two hundred meters in the last hour. Still not too bad. The problem was that as the submersible got even colder, it would lose more of its buoyancy and then depth might become a problem.
“How long are we going to wait?” Emory asked for the fifth time in the last hour.
Downing didn’t bother to answer. He pulled his flight suit in tighter around his body and tried to keep from shivering.
“Why doesn’t UNAOC contact this Aspasia guy and ask him to call off the foo fighters?” Emory demanded, his voice on edge.
That was a new question, one that Downing had already considered and knew the answer to. “Because UNAOC doesn’t know we’re down here,” he said.
“Then who the hell gave the order for us to go here?” Emory demanded.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Downing said. “But I would suppose it’s the same person who gave the orders for those L.A.-class attack subs to be hanging around.”
At the Cube, Kelly Reynolds was playing the role of spectator, and it didn’t bother her in the slightest. The images that had been beamed from the Surveyor IMS, showing the Airlia craft on the surface of Mars, had kept her glued to the TV set in the control center. There had been activity around the ships, but the resolution on the IMS camera had not been such that they could make out what the activity was. There was no doubt, though, that the ships were being readied. Surveyor was now shut down and the Hubble had taken over the watch.
A series of red digits was in the upper right-hand corner of the screen and they had been there, slowly winding down, ever since the timing of the Airlia landing had been announced. In less than forty-two hours the alien craft would be touching down in Central Park.
That timing fueled speculation as to the capabilities of the ships inside the Fort. It was obvious that if they were going to cross the distance between Mars and Earth in a little over a day, then they would have to attain tremendous velocity. It was just one more technological wonder that the scientists and most Earth people hoped they would have access to shortly. There was also speculation about where those six ships had come from. There was a bay inside the mothership with cradles specifically designed to hold the bouncers. But there was no place inside the ship where these “talon ships,” as the media had dubbed them, could have been carried on an interstellar journey.
The answer had been advanced by several analysts around the globe at roughly the same time, so it was hard to pinpoint who exactly should get credit for it: the talons had not been carried inside the mothership, but rather outside it. Calculating as best they could with the IMS image, scientists determined that the talon ships would fit around the curved front nose of the mothership.
That conclusion had led to further speculation that the talons, both because they were transported in such a ready position, and because they simply looked so fierce, were warships. Concern about that had quickly been allayed by UNAOC when it was pointed out that if the Airlia had wanted to do humans harm, they could have most easily done so before they flew the talons from Earth to Mars so many millennia ago. Besides, Aspasia was the protector of the human race, UNAOC added.
Turning her gaze from the screen, Kelly wondered about her friends and how they were doing in China. Occasionally the news shifted from the pending alien contact to more immediate matters here on Earth. Saddam Hussein’s attempt to invade Kuwait for a second time had been readily smashed by Allied Air Forces and his army was once again in retreat.
From China the news was also grim. There were reports of fighting on the outskirts of Beijing and in the streets of Hong Kong. PLA forces were entering the newly acquired city in large numbers and there were rumors of massacres and Taiwanese commandos fighting alongside the students.
But of the ancient tomb Qian-Ling there were no rumors or reports. And for that Kelly was grateful. She had the greatest confidence in Captain Turcotte and she was sure he would see Professor Nabinger through whatever they were doing and return safely. And hopefully in time to see the Airlia land, Kelly thought to herself as the screen once again shifted to the Fort and the Airlia spacecraft.