Domain (36 page)

“Not too close, okay, luv.”

Saxon hands Renee the camera, then moves to within fifteen feet of the being. “I don’t think this thing’s even alive. It’s just perched here, like a char-broiled condor.”

A golden hue appears on the horizon. “Perfect timing. Wait for the sun, it’ll make for a better photo.”

The first rays of dawn peek out over the Pacific, the solar light kissing the surface of the creature’s reflective tail.

Saxon jumps back as the tail rises with an hydraulic
hiss
.

“Son of a bitch, the thing’s activating.”

“Sax—look—its eye’s starting to blink.”

Saxon stares at the amber disk, which is flashing off and on faster and faster, its color darkening to a crimson hue.

“Come on—” He grabs Renee’s wrist and runs back to the Jeep. Slamming the vehicle into gear, he accelerates north across the wide-open expanse of flatland.

The orb deepens to bloodred, then stops blinking. A spark ignites along the outstretched wings, bursting into a brilliant, white-hot, silvery flame.

With a blinding flash, the creature detonates, unleashing an unfathomable amount of combustible energy that expands outward across the entire Nullarbor plateau at the speed of sound. Shock waves from the nuclear explosion seep through the porous limestone rock.

Vaporizing everything in its path.

Saxon registers the searing-hot, sixteen thousand-degree blast wave a nanosecond before his body, his girlfriend, the Jeep, and the terrain evaporate into a sizzling, toxic gas which is swept upward into the atmosphere in a hellish vacuum of microcosmic dust and flame.

Gulf of Mexico

The Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate USS
Boone
(FFG-28) floats silently on an ominous lead gray sea beneath a threatening, afternoon sky. Surrounding the warship, scattered along the surface over a two-mile radius are all that remains of the semisubmersible oil rig,
Scylla
. A dozen motorized rubber rafts maneuver carefully through the debris field as emotionally drained sailors pull the bloated remains of the dead from the water.

Ensign Zak Wishnov seals another body bag as Sublieutenant Bill Blackmon weaves the motorboat slowly through the flotsam.

“Zak, there’s another one, starboard bow.”

“God, I hate this.” Wishnov leans out over the bow and hooks the corpse with a reach-pole. “Oh, geez, this one’s missing an arm.”

“Shark?”

“No, it’s been severed cleanly. You know, now that you mention it, I haven’t seen one shark since we’ve been out here.”

“Neither have I.”

“Makes no sense. There’s blood everywhere, and these are shark-infested waters.” Zak rolls the mangled corpse into the boat, shoving it quickly into a body bag. “It’s that thing down there, isn’t it, Lieutenant? The source of that green glow. That’s why the sharks are staying away.”

The lieutenant nods. “The sharks know something we don’t. The sooner the skipper takes us out of here, the better.”

Captain Edmund O. Loos III stands motionless on his bridge, his hazel eyes staring out at the foreboding horizon, his lower jaw clenched in anger. The thirteenth officer to command the
Boone
and her crew of 42 officers and 550 enlisted men is seething inside, has been ever since he received the orders from his CO to divert his warship away from his Persian Gulf-bound battle group and report to the Gulf of Mexico.

A goddam salvage operation in the middle of what could turn out to be the biggest conflict we’ve had in twenty years. We’ll be the laughingstock of the whole fucking Navy
.

Commander Curtis Broad, the ship’s Executive Officer and second-in-command, approaches. “Excuse me, skipper. One of the LAMPS has located a submersible, floating 1.7 kilometers due west. Two survivors on board. One claims to know what destroyed the
Scylla
.”

“Have him brought to the briefing room. What’s the VP’s ETA?”

“Thirty-five minutes.”

A bolt of lightning flashes silently in the distance, followed seconds later by the growl of thunder.

“Recall all boats, Commander. I’ll be in the briefing room. Inform me when the vice president arrives.”

“Aye, sir.”

The Kaman SH-2G Seasprite antisubmarine helicopter, also known as the Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System, or LAMPS, bounces twice before coming to rest on the missile cruiser’s helopad.

Mick Gabriel grabs one end of Dominique’s stretcher, a crewman the other. As the chopper’s bay door slides open, they are joined by the ship’s physician and his medical team.

The medical officer leans over the unconscious Hispanic beauty. He verifies that she is breathing, checks her pulse, then flashes a light in her eyes. “This one has a bad concussion, possible internal injuries. We need to get her to sick bay.”

A corpsman pushes Mick aside, relieving him of the stretcher. He is too weak to protest.

The physician looks him over. “Son, you look like you’ve been through hell. Any injuries, other than the cuts and bruises?”

“I don’t think so.”

“When’s the last time you slept?”

“I don’t know. Two days? My friend, will she be all right?”

“Should be. What’s your name?”

“Mick.”

“Come with me, Mick. We’ll dress those wounds, get some grub in you, then clean you up a bit. You need to get some rest—”

“Negative,” interrupts the lieutenant. “Captain wants him in the briefing room in fifteen minutes.”

It is raining by the time Ennis Chaney’s chopper touches down on the aft deck of the
Boone
. The vice president leans over and nudges the sleeping man to his right. “Wake up, Marvin, we’re here. How you can sleep through all this rickety-rack is beyond me.”

Marvin Teperman flashes a tight grin as he wipes the sleep from his eyes. “The traveling wears me out.”

An ensign slides open the bay door, salutes, then leads the two men into the superstructure. “Sir, Captain Loos is waiting for you in his briefing room—”

“Not yet. First, I want to see the bodies.”

“Right now, sir?”

“Right now.”

The ensign leads him inside a large hangar. Lying in rows along the concrete floor are body bags.

Chaney moves slowly from bag to bag, pausing at each to read the identification tag. “Oh, Lord…” The vice president kneels next to a bag and pulls back the zipper, his hands shaking. He stares at the pale, lifeless face of Brian Dodds. With a fatherly touch, he reaches out and smooths back the auburn hair from the forehead, the emotion welling in his eyes.

“How did this happen?” Chaney’s voice is a whispered rasp.

“Uncertain, sir. The one man who may know is in the captain’s briefing room, waiting to speak with you.”

Chaney reseals the bag and struggles to his feet. “Take us there.”

Mick shoves the last bite of turkey-and-cheese sandwich into his mouth, draining it with a swig of ginger ale.

“Feeling better?”

He nods to the captain. Although exhausted, the food, hot shower, and change of clothing have improved his spirits.

“Now, you say your name is Michael Rosen, and you’re a marine biologist working out of a facility in Tampa, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir. You can call me Mick.”

“And you discovered the object below us—how?”

“SOSUS. It’s an underwater sound observation—”

“I’m familiar with SOSUS, thank you. Now, your companion—”

A knock interrupts the question. Mick looks up to see Vice President Ennis Chaney enter, followed by a shorter, older gentleman with a pencil-thin mustache and warm smile.

“Welcome aboard, sir. I’m sorry you couldn’t visit us under more auspicious circumstances.”

“Captain, this is Dr. Marvin Teperman, an exobiologist on loan to us from Canada. And who is this gentleman?”

Mick extends his hand. “Dr. Michael Rosen.”

“Dr. Rosen claims to have entered the object below us in his minisub.”

Chaney sits down at the conference table. “Update us.”

Captain Loos refers to his notes. “Dr. Rosen has described a layout that resembles something out of Dante’s
Inferno
. He says the emerald glow is being emitted from a powerful energy field, originating from within this subterranean chamber.”

Chaney stares at Mick through intense, raccoon eyes. “What happened to the
Scylla
?”

“The oil rig,” Loos clarifies. “It was a sensory observational post positioned above the hole.”

“The energy field created a powerful vortex. The whirlpool must have destroyed the rig.”

Loos’s eyes grow wide. He strikes the switch of an intercom. “Bridge.”

“Aye, sir, Commander Richards here—”

“Release sensor buoys, Commander, then move the ship one kilometer due east of our present position.”

“One kilometer due east, aye sir.”

“Double-time that order, Commander.”

“Understood, sir.”

Mick looks from Captain Loos to the vice president. “Moving your ship’s not good enough, Captain. We’re in terrible danger. There’s a life-form down there—”

“A life-form!” Marvin practically leaps across the table. “Something’s still alive down there? How can that be? What did it look like?”

“I don’t know.”

“Didn’t you see it?”

“It remained concealed within an enormous pod.”

“Then how do you know it was alive? Did it move?”

“It communicated with me—telepathically. It has the ability to access our thoughts, even our most subconscious memories.”

Teperman is on his feet, unable to contain his excitement. “This is incredible. What thoughts did it communicate?”

Mick hesitates. “It accessed a memory of my deceased father. It—it wasn’t a very good memory.”

Chaney leans forward. “You said we’re in terrible danger. Why? Is this life-form a threat to us?”

“It’s more than a threat. Unless we destroy the being and its vessel, every man, woman, and child on this planet will be dead by 4
Ahau
… uh, by December 21.”

Marvin stops smiling. Chaney and the captain look at each other, then back at Mick, who can almost feel the tension behind the vice president’s eyes as they bear down on him.

“How do you know this? Did the being communicate the threat?”

“Did you see a weapon of some kind?” the captain asks.

“I’m not sure. Something was released. I don’t know what it was. It looked like an enormous, deformed bat, only it didn’t flap its wings, it just sort of rose out of this pool of liquid silver energy—”

“Was it alive?” Marvin asks.

“I don’t know. It seemed more mechanical than organic—sort of like a drone. The energy field churned, the whirlpool formed, then the ceiling of the chamber was partially vented to the sea, and the thing just rose straight up and out of the funnel.”

“Straight up through the funnel?” Chaney shakes his head in disbelief. “This is some pretty wild stuff, Dr. Rosen.”

“I realize that, but I assure you, it’s all true.”

“Captain, have you examined this man’s submersible?”

“Yes, sir. The electronics are totaled, and the hull’s badly battered.”

“How did you access the alien craft?” Marvin asks.

Mick looks at the exobiologist. “That’s the first time you referred to it as an
alien
craft. It’s the remains of the object that struck Earth sixty-five million years ago, isn’t it, Doctor?”

Marvin’s eyebrows raise in surprise.

“And the deep-space radio signal—it must have activated the vessel’s life-support system.”

Teperman looks impressed. “How do you know all this?”

“Is this true?” Captain Loos asks, incredulous.

“It’s very possible, Captain, although, based on what Dr. Rosen has just told us, it seems more likely that the alien’s life-support system never completely shut down. This pod Dr. Rosen refers to must have continued to function, keeping the being alive in some kind of protective stasis.”

“Until the deep-space signal activated it,” Mick finishes.

Chaney eyeballs him suspiciously. “How is it that you know so much about this alien being?”

A loud knock, and Commander Broad enters. “Sorry to interrupt, skipper, but I need to see you in private.”

Captain Loos follows him out.

“Dr. Rosen, you say this being will destroy humanity on December 21? How do you know that?”

“Like I said, Dr. Teperman, it communicated with me. Its intentions may not have been verbal, but they were quite clear.”

“It conveyed the twenty-first to you?”

“No.” Mick readies for the captain’s notes. He glances over them, nonchalantly removing the paper clip from the stack. “I’ve spent a lifetime studying the Mayan prophecies, as well as a half dozen ancient sites located around the globe which link this malevolent presence to the end of the world. The twenty-first is the date referenced in the Mayan calendar, the date humanity will perish from the face of the Earth. Before you scoff, you should know that the calendar is a precise instrument of astronomy—”

Chaney rubs his eyes, losing patience. “You don’t sound like a biologist to me, Doctor, and this Mayan prophecy of yours doesn’t amuse me in the least. A lot of people died on board that rig, and I want to know what killed them.”

“I told you.” Mick slips the paper clip into his waistband.

“And how were you able to access the alien craft?”

“There are twenty-three burrows situated in a perfect circle in the seafloor about a mile from the central hole. My companion and I directed our minisub down one of these burrows. We became caught in an enormous turbine, which sucked our submersible into—”

“A turbine!” Teperman’s eyebrows raise again. “Incredible. What’s the turbine’s function?”

“I suspect ventilation. The minisub jammed the rotary blades during its intake phase. When the rotors reversed to drain the chamber, we were flushed back out to sea.”

Captain Loos reenters the briefing room, a smug look on his face. “We have a situation, Vice President Chaney, one that may explain a lot. It seems Dr. Rosen isn’t quite who he says he is. His real name is Michael Gabriel, and he escaped last week from a mental facility in Miami.”