Helios (Cerberus Group Book 2) Read online

  The transport-bot greeted them. “Welcome, Mr. Fallon.”

  “We need another cart,” Fallon said. “Scan my guests in and give them full access, on my authorization.”

  “Yes, Mr. Fallon. Another cart is on the way.”

  Fallon flashed a triumphant smile at Lazarus. “See? Told you.”

  Lazarus stared back, his expression impassive but unimpressed. He had advised shutting down all the robotic systems remotely before attempting to enter the compound, but Fallon had argued against that measure, reasoning that it would make little difference. If the hacker did attack the network again, turning the robots off wouldn’t slow him down in a meaningful way, while keeping the robots operational in the meantime would facilitate their mission. Dourado agreed with Fallon, but she did not share his confidence that they had seen the last of the hacker.

  The one concession Fallon had allowed was to disable the network’s outside Internet connection. Once on site, they would be able to interact with the computer and the Space Tomorrow surveillance satellite shadowing the Black Knight, but no one outside the complex would be able to do so. Unless the hacker was on site, he would not be able to carry out another attack.

  Of course, if the hacker was an insider, perhaps one of the very few human employees in Fallon’s operation, then it was possible that he was there, hiding in one of those dark buildings, waiting for them to step into the trap.

  The second cart arrived less than a minute later, and the five of them climbed aboard—Fallon and Tanaka rode together in the first vehicle, while the trio from the Cerberus Group rode in the second. Dourado maintained a constant vigil, monitoring the network from her laptop. There was no indication that a second incursion was in progress, but if Lazarus was correct, the enemy would not make a move until they were right where he wanted them.

  They made one stop in the heart of the complex, at a building Carter identified as ‘the Operations Center,’ just long enough to procure a second laptop computer. Then they continued on to the array site. The plan was for Fallon and Tanaka to restore the Roswell fragment to the transmitter and begin working to regain control of the Black Knight satellite, while Dourado stood ready to repel any cyber-attack.

  As they made the drive to the outlying location, Dourado noted Carter staring at the surrounding terrain. The carts’ headlights revealed some of the damage caused during the latter’s earlier visit. There was no sign of the construction robots that had come after them, but the pavement was scarred and stained with oil, and the landscaping to either side of the road had been obliterated.

  Dr. Carter probably feels like a veteran, visiting an old battlefield, Dourado thought. For the first time since leaving, she found herself wishing she had stayed in Rome.

  The carts stopped in front of the concrete building that housed the transmitter. Fallon got out and came over to Carter. “I’m going to need that piece of meta-material now.”

  Carter, unsurprised by the request, held out her hand. When she opened her fist, the crumpled fabric popped back to its original shape—a flat plane. Fallon took it and headed into the building, with Tanaka close on his heels. Lazarus and Carter remained outside with Dourado, sitting in the cart, watching the network status for any sign of trouble.

  Carter checked her watch. “Seven forty-five,” she said. “Fifteen minutes. I don’t know whether that’s plenty of time, or if we’re cutting it close.”

  “It is what it is,” Lazarus said. “Worrying about it isn’t going to change a thing.”

  Dourado knew he was right, but the wait was excruciating. She checked the network status again—unchanged, as expected—and then opened the browser page Tanaka had used earlier to check the satellite’s status.

  The orbital map showed the satellite moving above North America. It was almost six o’clock p.m. on the East Coast, midafternoon on the Pacific. She thought about the map showing the distribution of earthquakes during the earlier incident and wondered what it would look like if they failed. How many red dots would there be? Where would the tsunamis strike?

  How many people would die?

  She found a link to the video feed from the surveillance satellite and clicked on it. A small player window opened in one corner of the screen, and after a few seconds, the live image appeared. She saw the curve of the Earth—brown land and gray-green sea—and the light blue band of atmosphere transitioning into the void of space. Right in the middle of it all, like a misshapen black fly sitting on the screen, was the Black Knight satellite.

  It looked like the pictures Dourado had seen of it on the Internet.

  “Is this right?” she said aloud.

  “Is what right?” Carter looked over her shoulder at the screen. “No. That’s what it looks like when it’s dormant. Fully deployed, it will look like a glowing sphere. That must be an old picture.”

  Dourado checked the time stamp. “No. This is live.”

  Behind them, a loud hum began to emanate from the transmitter building.

  Carter hopped out of the cart and headed for the open door. “Fallon,” she called out. “Are you seeing this?”

  The door slammed shut.

  “What the—”

  Before Carter could complete the rhetorical question, the electric cart closest to the door lurched forward, heading right toward her. She threw herself to the side, just barely getting out of the way. The cart continued forward, maneuvering as it moved, until its front end was kissing the door. The cart held it shut, blocking the entrance to the transmitter building.

  Lazarus leapt from the cart, then spun around and pulled Dourado along. “It’s starting.”

  She stumbled after him, her free hand still gripping the laptop, struggling to process what was happening.

  He pulled her to the corner of the little concrete building. She couldn’t see the carts or the door. “Stay here,” he told her, then he ran out of her view. The concrete walls muted the hum of the transmitter, and she could hear Carter shouting Fallon’s name, demanding an explanation.

  It’s starting, Lazarus had said.

  Was he talking about the transmitter?

  She glanced down at the computer screen again and saw that the image had changed. The Black Knight, still hanging in space about the Earth, was changing shape before her eyes, unfolding. Expanding. The change was rapid. She could already see the first hints of the sphere it would become.

  Somehow, instead of shutting down the Black Knight, the reactivation of the transmitter had accelerated the process.

  Or had it?

  “Fallon!” Carter cried out, and then there was a loud, insistent banging sound as she beat her fists against the metal door.

  Dourado barely heard. Her attention was fixed on the computer screen, but she wasn’t watching the live feed anymore. Instead, she was navigating into the archive of footage from earlier in the day. She entered the time code for one hour earlier. Then two hours. Three.

  Each picture showed a different perspective, but there was one unchanging constant. The Black Knight itself.

  Dormant.

  Inactive.

  The Black Knight had not posed any threat at all.

  Not until thirty seconds ago.

  Suddenly, she understood everything. She understood how the hacker had defeated the Tomorrowland network firewall, hijacked the robots and autonomous vehicles, and then melted away, leaving no trace.

  Lazarus reappeared, dragging Carter after him. “Cintia. It’s starting.”

  “I know,” she groaned. “They lied to us.”

  He shook his head. “I’m talking about the robots. The carts. You need to get control of them. Move them away from the door so we can get in there.”

  Even as he said it, she heard the rhythmic clanking sound of metal treads moving on asphalt in the distance, growing louder by the second. The construction robots had come out of hiding and were headed their way.

  The hacker had made his move.

  But there is no hacker, she realized. Ther
e never was.

  She turned back to the computer, steeling herself for the life-or-death cyber-battle to come.

  On the video player screen, the Black Knight began to shine with blinding, radiant solar energy, and Dourado knew that, on the far side of the world, the sun had just stopped moving.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Mount Sinai, Egypt

  There was another explosion, so close that the flash and the bang happened almost simultaneously, and a section of the ancient wall that had stood for more than a thousand years disintegrated in an eruption of rubble. The second blast confirmed that the first one had not been an accident.

  The monastery was under attack.

  Beams of light pierced through the smoke and dust, probing the interior and heralding the arrival of the attackers.

  “Come with me,” Justin hissed. “Quickly.”

  They had just rounded the corner of the Katholikon basilica, when the noise of gunfire reached Pierce’s ears.

  Definitely an attack, he thought. So much for enduring peace.

  Justin led them into a narrow alley behind the basilica and pointed to an enormous tree with long leafy vines growing from a raised bed. Pierce had noticed it during their earlier wanderings. It was the only one of its kind inside the walls. Even in the middle of a crisis, Justin could not forget who he was. “This is the bush from which God spoke to Moses. Behind it, there is a passage that leads out onto the mountain.”

  “An escape route,” Pierce said. “Good thinking.”

  Justin shook his head. “It’s the pilgrim’s path. A sacred route leading to the Cave of Moses, where he hid himself when beholding the glory of God. It is not meant for you, but...” He paused and crossed himself again. “When you are outside, you will see the path. Keep to it, for if you stray, you will in all likelihood wander the mountain until you freeze to death. The path will lead you to the cave. Hide there. If I am still alive when the sun rises, I will find you.”

  He pointed to the tree again. “Go. May God keep you and watch over you.”

  As if to underscore the urgency in his voice, there was another burst of gunfire. A section of wall high above them shattered, as a dozen bullets tore into the ancient stone. Pierce shielded his eyes with one hand until the debris stopped raining down. When he lowered his hand, Father Justin was gone.

  Pierce climbed up onto the elevated soil bed and drew back the branches to expose what looked like a drainage hole. “Go!”

  Gallo went first, clambering up and scurrying under the foliage, disappearing into the dark hole. Fiona was next, but as she brushed past him, Pierce felt a jolt, like an electric shock, pass through the branches and into his hands. He let go with a yelp and looked around for a moment, wondering what had happened. For a moment, he thought that one of the explosions had damaged a buried electrical line, but then he remembered that the power was out in the monastery.

  Weird, he thought, and then he ducked under the vines and plunged into the passage. Whatever its cause, the shock did not reoccur.

  Pierce’s headlamp revealed the smooth, baked-clay brick wall, Fiona’s backside, and not much else, but there was enough room for him to crawl on hands and knees without scraping his back against the ceiling. There was more sporadic shooting behind them, the noise of the reports distorted by the tunnel’s acoustics. Pierce tried not to think about the carnage they were fleeing, or the senseless hate that had motivated it. Maybe the terrorists would be content with vandalizing the monastery, sparing the monks’ lives.

  He could hope.

  The tunnel sloped downward for its full length, about a hundred and fifty feet, and then deposited them onto the desert floor at the foot of the south wall, facing the mountain slope. The walls muffled the sound of the ongoing assault, but Pierce knew the fortress would not contain the violence any more than it had protected those within.

  He located the path Father Justin had spoken of, a well-trampled foot trail, dotted here and there with dark stains.

  Blood.

  He recalled what Justin had said about holy ground and taking off their shoes inside. The pilgrims who followed this secret route probably took that admonition very seriously.

  As the grade increased, their pace faltered to a walk, and soon all three of them were struggling for breath. The monastery was a mile above sea level, and the summit of the mountain was at least another half-mile higher.

  With their increased elevation, Pierce could see down into the monastery. Columns of smoke rose from two or three small fires, the rest of the darkness illuminated by occasional flashes of gunfire. Then he spotted lights outside the walls, a small group of men skirting the exterior of the monastery.

  “Lights off!” he ordered the others, switching his own headlamp off as well.

  Had they been spotted?

  “Looks like we’re going to have to skip the Cave of Moses,” he said, keeping his voice low, barely louder than a whisper. “We’ll skirt along the base of the mountain and then double back. I doubt these guys will stick around much longer. I’m sure the Egyptian army has already heard about this, and the cavalry is on the way.”

  “Do you think they’re here for us?” Fiona said.

  “Possibly,” Pierce replied. “Maybe our cover story was too convincing. ISIS couldn’t pass up a chance to take UN hostages.”

  Gallo spoke up. “George, what if this isn’t Islamic extremists? You heard what Brother Justin said about the charter of protection. No Muslim would defy the Prophet like that. What if they’re here because of what we’re looking for?”

  “How would they even know?” Fiona asked.

  It makes sense, George thought, and then he turned to Gallo. “You’re right. We have to consider what Felice discovered in Geneva. Somebody caused that. Intentionally. Maybe they’re trying to create a weapon, or maybe they just want to bring the apocalypse, but they have the resources to make it happen. Who’s to say they don’t have an army, too? If they’ve learned what we’re looking for and why, then they would want to stop us. Or take it for themselves. The question is, how would they even know about us in the first place?”

  “Maybe they hacked our phones? Cintia was worried that there might be a mole in Fallon’s inner circle.”

  As much as he didn’t want it to be true, he knew she was right. As usual. The timing of the assault, and the fact that the attackers were moving up the hill, was all the proof he needed.

  Worst of all, the sun chariot wasn’t even there, or if it was, it was hidden so well that Fiona could not sense its presence.

  “It doesn’t change what we have to do,” Pierce said. “We just need to stay alive—”

  The ground heaved beneath him, knocking him flat. He slipped a few feet down the slope before catching himself, but even before he stopped sliding, he knew the sudden disturbance wasn’t another explosion. The ground was still moving under him.

  “Earthquake!” Fiona shouted.

  Pierce stayed down in a prone position, hugging the ground to avoid being launched into an uncontrollable downhill slide, but as the frightful shaking went on, the seconds stretching into minutes, he could not help but wonder if this was the beginning of the solar event Dourado had warned about.

  If it was… If the Black Knight satellite had been activated again, redirecting the sun’s light and gravity, the tremor would only be the beginning.

  A noise, loud like a thunderclap, split the air, and a wave of heat flashed over Pierce. His nostrils filled with a strange smell, a mixture of burning dust and freshly turned soil. There was a second report, more distant, but still very loud, and then another, the two overlapping. Pierce couldn’t tell if the noises were from bombs or maybe rocket-propelled grenades exploding on the slopes around them, or something related to the quake. Regardless, there was nothing he could do to protect himself. His life or death was in the hands of fate.

  Then the shaking stopped.

  “George!” Gallo’s cry was choked by a mouthful of dust, but at least she was a
live.

  “I’m okay. Are you? Fiona, are you okay?”

  “I’m okay,” Fiona replied, then added. “The Black Knight just woke up again.”

  Pierce pushed himself up to a crouch and, despite the unresolved threat from the monastery attackers, flipped his headlamp on.

  The dust motes caught in the beam of light made it look like a solid thing, but amid the haze, he spotted Gallo and Fiona, both huddled just a few feet away. He crawled over to them, hugged them for a moment, and then shone his light on the mountain, scouting a route to freedom.

  Below them, a hundred yards away, the line of glowing artificial lights advanced up the slope—the monastery attackers, homing in on Pierce’s headlamp. As he stared down at them, Pierce saw a tiny flash, barely bigger than a spark, followed half-a-second later by the report of a rifle shot.

  “Down,” he called out, flipping off his light and pressing himself flat. “We can’t stay here.”

  “We can’t very well move either,” Gallo said. “You saw it, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he grunted. “I saw.”

  As if being hunted by killers armed with guns and rocket launchers wasn’t going to be challenging enough, fate had decided to increase the difficulty setting. Pierce’s brief glimpse of the mountainside had revealed the quake’s aftermath. The ground had split apart all around them. Long fissures, bleeding acrid smoke into the chilly night air, now crisscrossed the slope. Without the aid of artificial light, Pierce could just barely make out the ground in front of him. The jagged cracks in the terrain were a shade darker than the brown soil.

  “Slow and steady,” he said. “We’ll crawl out on hands and knees if we have to.”

  “Uncle George!” Fiona’s voice rose with increasing urgency, as she called out. Pierce couldn’t see her face, but he could make out her silhouette. She was pointing into the nearest crack.

  The fissure was glowing a dim red, but getting brighter by the second, like the coils of an electric heater warming up. Pierce’s first thought was that they were witnessing volcanic activity, but as the light grew, rising through the spectrum—orange, yellow, and then bright white—he realized the cause was nothing as ordinary as a rising magma plume.