Area 51: The Sphinx-4 (32 page)

"Templars?" Mualama interrupted. "I have heard much of the Templar Knights interwoven with the history of the Ark. The original Templars—"

Duncan kicked Mualama, out of sight of von Seeckt. Getting the archaeologist's attention, she shook her head

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very slightly. "Tell me about Lanz," she said to von Seeckt.

Von Seeckt's eyes shifted between Duncan and Mualama.

"Answer," Duncan snapped.

"Lanz was from Vienna, the bitch city that eventually gave birth to the Hitler of the Third Reich. Lanz desired to become a Knight Templar, even though that group had officially been disbanded for many centuries. He chose the next best thing—at age nineteen he entered the Cistercian Monastery of the Holy Cross. A year after being in the order he wrote a bizarre paper about a vision he had from the time of the Crusades, of a godly man treading upon an animal-like human being. He believed that vision delineated the pure line of man treading on the unpure.

"After he was kicked out of the monastery for carnal desires, he founded his order. The symbol was the swastika. The slogans: Race fight until the castration knife, and Love thy neighbor as thyself—if he's a member of your own race!

"He bought a castle in lower Austria and flew the swastika flag above it. He believed that his pure beings had electromagnetic-radiological organs and transmitters which gave them special powers."

"Like foo fighters or a guardian computer?" Duncan asked.

Von Seeckt spread his hands. "This is all secondhand knowledge to me. I am repeating what I have read and heard from others. I don't know exactly what Lanz meant by that. Hitler and Lanz first ran into each other in 1909. They met several times after that. Most interestingly, Hitler had Lanz barred from publishing anything after the Nazis took over Austria in 1938. List and Lanz together had a very strong influence on Hitler, something he turned his back on after his rise to power."

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"What exact influence did Lanz have on Hitler?" Duncan asked.

"Lanz did what you're trying to do," von Seeckt said. "He looked backward in time. To the origin of mankind, or at least his version of it. He divided early man into two groups. The ace-men and the ape-men. The former, of course, were white, blond, and blue-eyed, and responsible for everything noble and good. The latter was every other racial trait. In German the ace-men were called the Asings and the others the Afflinge. The Afflinge always threatened to contaminate the purity of the Asings through interbreeding." Von Seeckt coughed.

"The image of the Aryan woman being raped by the impure was one Hitler and his minions used in many posters to rally support to his cause."

"Lanz developed a scorecard by which he could grade candidates for his organization. So many points for eye color, skin, hair, even the size and shape of the skull. It was called the Rassenwertigkeitindex."

Von Seeckt's mouth twisted in an evil smile. "They urged members to breed with women of the same traits, but even then they knew women could not be trusted, Ms. Duncan. Women were the source of all evil."

"Spare me the lecture and give me the facts," Duncan said.

"That is a fact," von Seeckt replied. "That is the way the groups that eventually formed the Nazis felt. It was brought out in the purification rights of the SS."

"How did the SS get the Airlia blood?" Duncan asked.

Von Seeckt shrugged. "I assume from one of those hybrid creatures. What I was injected with was a negligible amount."

"But enough to still be present over fifty years later," Duncan noted. "Does it have anything to do with the

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fact you are still alive? The doctors can't understand why you haven't succumbed yet to your illnesses."

"Perhaps," von Seeckt admitted. "I don't know. I was very young at the time and—"

"Don't start with the lies again," Duncan warned. "Was The Mission running Hitler?"

"No one ran Hitler," von Seeckt said. "I believe The Mission—through List or Domeka, if you wish to call him that—got Hitler started. But he went too far.

Hess was Hitler's partner, the man who shared his prison cell, who helped write Mein Kampf. Everything went well for a while, but then Hitler began spinning out of control. When Hess saw what was happening, he flew to England in 1941. No one has ever adequately explained why he did that. I will tell you why. He was looking for The Ones Who Wait. Seeking help in stopping Hitler."

"Why England?" Mualama spoke for the first time. "Why would he seek those alien-human creatures there?"

"I don't know," von Seeckt said. "Hess was a true believer; Hitler an opportunist. They did find a small syringe on Hess when he landed in England,"

von Seeckt noted. "But nothing more was ever said of it. Perhaps he brought a sample of the blood the SS was using."

"It was reported the syringe held poison, so Hess could kill himself if his mission failed."

Von Seeckt laughed. "No one knows exactly what his mission was, so how could anyone know that? Besides, he obviously didn't kill himself." Von Seeckt shook his head. "It was crazy. Hitler sent an expedition to Tibet to search for the remains of giants who he believed had walked the Earth in ancient times. Herr Hitler, our mighty Fuhrer, listened to his occult advisers who told him the winter of 1941 would be a mild one and he need not equip the troops on the eastern front. History tells us what a fantastic mistake that was. Thousands upon thou-

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sands of Germany's finest troops froze to death because of that 'vision.'

"But we fought and we believed. We were trained to. We had Kadavergehorsam—cadaver obedience. That is steps beyond what you Americans call blind obedience.

I was an SS scientist, but my training was just as difficult. We had to do brutal things to teach us not to feel. To obey without question.

"There was an inner circle to the SS. Twelve officers who met at a monastery in Wevelsburg where Himmler would preside."

"Twelve?" Duncan repeated, thinking of Majestic having the same number. "Were they Guides?"

"I do not know," von Seeckt said. "Probably."

"Was there a guardian in Wevelsburg?"

"I don't think so," von Seeckt said. "People whispered the inner circle met at Wevelsburg, but who knows where they really went. Hitler and the SS spent the war searching, always searching."

"For what?" Duncan asked.

"To find where the true Spear of Destiny went," von Seeckt said. "Hitler knew it was a key. A key to something very powerful. Hitler thought it must be to a weapon. With that weapon, he would rule supreme on the face of the Earth. Ah

..." Von Seeckt sighed. "But he never found where the Spear went."

"I will ask you one more time," Duncan said. "Have you told me all you know about the Spear?"

"Yes."

"You believe it is in Russia?"

"Yes."

"Let's go," Duncan said to Mualama.

"Where are you off to?" von Seeckt asked.

"That need not concern you." Duncan paused at the door. "One last question.

You stopped the mothership flight because you worked for The Mission. Even they

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couldn't allow the ship's drive to be detected. Isn't that so?"

Von Seeckt nodded. "I worked for The Mission as a young man. The mothership not flying was the one, absolute rule."

"So there is a danger out there in space," Duncan said.

"So it is written, and so it has been passed down even among The Mission."

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AREA 51 D-9 Hours

As the clock ticked through nine hours, the blue line representing the talon intersected with Stratzyda's red line on the master board at the front of the Cube. Major Quinn and Kincaid watched from the rear of the room, hoping that each would continue on its same trajectory.

"How long?" Quinn asked Kincaid.

"We'll know in about a minute," the JPL man answered.

There was silence in the room as every eye watched the screen that relayed data from Space Command buried deep under Cheyenne Mountain on the other side of the Rocky Mountains from Area 51.

The screen blacked out for a quarter of a second as a new update was posted.

Both lines moved a fraction of an inch adjacent to each other to the east.

The dotted line indicating Stratzyda's normal orbit disappeared.

"Ah, hell," Kincaid muttered.

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VICINITY OF EASTER ISLAND D- 8 Hours, 30 Minutes

Captain Halls had skirted the American fleet, running to the west of where he guessed it was. He'd maintained radio listening silence the whole way in, but nothing seemed to have changed regarding UNAOC's stance toward the island or its status.

He knew the Americans might pick him up on radar, but his hope was that he could get close enough to let these lunatics overboard in their rubber zodiacs and then run for home before they sent someone to investigate.

But so far there hadn't been any sign of the Americans and Easter Island was directly ahead. At least he assumed it was. All he could see out the front of his bridge in the early-morning light was a dark hemisphere on the ocean's surface.

"Doesn't look like they want visitors," Halls said.

"We will be accepted," Parker said.

A roar overheard startled both of them. An F-14 banked and came around for another run.

"They will not stop us," Parker said.

Halls watched the plane race by, the pilot wiggling his wings.

"I think he wants to talk to us," Halls said. He started for the radio room, when Parker put an arm out, blocking him.

"No. We will not be interfered with." He pointed at the circling jet. "These are the people who attacked the Airlia. Who killed Aspasia. We will not talk to them!"

"Then I suggest you get your people in gear and get

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overboard," Halls said. "That plane has got a radio, and I'm sure they're calling someone."

Parker left the bridge without a backward glance. Halls watched the progressives climb into their zodiacs, sixteen to a boat. The small convoy circled the Southern Star until all were launched. Then the ten boats headed directly for the black shield. The F-14 came low between them and the island, the pilot almost touching the wave tops, but they went on.

"Turn on the radio," Captain Halls ordered his first mate. "Put it on the speaker."

There was a crackle of static. Then a voice came on, speaking urgently.

"Unidentified ship, this is the USS Thorn, representing the United Nations blockade of Easter Island. You are to turn on a heading of nine zero degrees immediately."

Halls reached down and picked up the microphone on the wall in front of him.

"This is the Island Breeze. We will assume a heading of nine zero degrees."

The voice lost its officialness. "Who am I talking to?"

"This is Captain Halls of the Island Breeze. I am complying with your orders."

"Captain, this is Captain Norris. We've been trying to raise you for the past thirty minutes. Who the hell are in the small boats our pilot sees heading toward the island?"

"I am not responsible for them," Halls said. "They're a bunch of progressives going to greet their almighty computer."

"Good God, man, you have no idea what's going on and neither do they. You have to stop them right away!"

"They're not my responsibility."

"By the law of the high seas, they were passengers on your ship, and you're abandoning them in harm's way," Captain Norris retorted.

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"What's the big deal?" Halls wanted to know. He looked ahead. The first zodiacs were within half a kilometer of the shield. "They're just going to hit that shield, bounce off, and come on back. They . . ." Halls paused, his hand still on the send as something came out of the shield. "What the devil is that?"

It looked like a black cloud, but it kept shifting in shape very quickly, as if it were alive.

"Full speed, hard port," Halls ordered. The nose of his ship very slowly swung in the direction of the zodiacs. Halls could see Parker standing up in the lead boat, hands in the air, as if supplicating the dark cloud.

The F-14 banked hard away from the shield. That made Halls think. "Full astern," he yelled into the tube leading to the engine room. "Hard starboard,"

to the helmsman.

"I'd get out of there!" Captain Norris confirmed his decision over the radio.

"What's going on?" Halls demanded.

"I don't know," Norris said, "but whatever is on that island took down the George Washington."

Halls swallowed. He'd seen the Washington one time in Sydney Harbor. He knew there was no comparing his ship to the carrier.

The black cloud descended onto the boats, swarming over the people inside. As his ship ponderously turned away, Captain Halls watched the people in the zodiacs collapse and flail about.

"Get us out of here, Helm," Halls said, even though he knew the ship was moving as quickly as possible.

But then the people in the first boat began resuming their positions. Halls pulled up his binoculars. He trained them on that zodiac. Parker was standing once again. The man was looking directly back at the Island Breeze. His body was twitching, but the eyes were steady, glowing with the same insane light Halls had been wit-

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ness to the entire voyage. But something was different. Halls twisted the focus on the glasses, then his fingers froze on the knobs. The skin of Parker's face was rippling, as if there were something alive just under the surface. Halls shifted to the other people in the boat—all had the same thing happening to them. One of the women stood up, her hands ripping at her own face, blood flowing through her fingers, her mouth contorted in a scream Halls could not hear. She staggered to her feet, then fell overboard.

In another boat, a man was pounding his chest, screaming. He flopped back, his legs drumming against the floorboards of the zodiac. Then he was still.

The black cloud was gone, but Halls could see that the rubber pontoons of the zodiacs were covered with a black film that was moving on its own in surges.

Halls went back to the lead boat. Parker's mouth moved; he was yelling something to the people in his boat and the other zodiacs nearby. Halls lowered the glasses. Two of the zodiacs turned and headed for the Island Breeze, throttles wide open, the boats planning out. The others continued toward the shield wall.