Temple of Fire (4 page)

Ops
Center

Aboard the
Alamiranta

 

“I have some troubling news,” said Captain
Papagantis
.

“Shoot,” said
Caine
.

“The torpedo is Chinese.”

Caine
raised her eyebrows.  “How could a sub possibly hit us in rough seas?”

“Torpedoes can acquire targets from just about any angle or depth,” the Captain explained.

“Do you read any underwater targets, Touchdown?” asked
Caine
.

“Negative — probably a stealth sub with internal propellers — but I think that Titan Global isn’t the only world power to have a dog in this fight.  I’m guessing that the Chinese have some interest in the
abiogenic
theories of U.S. Petroleum.”

“Something doesn’t add up,” said
Caine
.  “I don’t see how the Chinese could possibly have
intel
on a drilling site in
Nevada
.  U.S. Petroleum takes extraordinary measures against industrial sabotage.”

“Nevertheless,” said Touchdown, “we have company.”

“My men below have the casing off the torpedo,” said the Captain.

“And,” said
Caine
?

“It would be a lot easier to disarm it if the
Alamiranta
wasn’t heaving up and down in a typhoon.”

“We play the hand we’re dealt,” said
Caine
.  “Right now, we’re holding a pair of deuces.  Let’s hope we can bluff Beatrice.”

 

Titan Six

Altitude: 25,000 Feet

 

It was a standard HALO jump: High Altitude, Low Opening.  Titan Six dove towards the ground, air rushing by their sleek bodies, arms tucked at their sides.  The morning sky was clear, but the earth directly below wasn’t visible.

“It’s like diving into a bowl of soup,” Tank said in his COM set.

“It’s a miasma of dust, gas, and smoke,” said Touchdown from the
Ops
Center
.  “We actually dropped you a few miles to the northeast of the crater, but prevailing winds have pushed this mess in your direction.  You’re going to have to rely on your helmet altimeters when it comes time to open your chutes.”

The inside of Titan’s helmet visors could display numerous kinds of data: atmospheric, biometric, and tactical, plus anything that the
Ops
Center
wanted to relay to the members of its team.

Titan Six plummeted head first through the dawn until they entered the haze wafting up from the crater below.

“Temperature just jumped thirty degrees,” Hawkeye reported.  “Altitude is ten thousand feet.”

“I’m tumbling out of control,” Quiz said.

“Visibility is very limited,” said Tank.  “How the hell are we
gonna
land?”

Shooter angled her body, causing her to veer sharply to the right.  “I think I see him,” she said.  “He’s spinning like a son of a bitch.  Quiz, can you hear me?”

Silence.

“Quiz!” said Shooter.

“Yeah, I’m here — wherever here is,” said a shaky voice.

“Quiz, we only have a couple of minutes,” said Shooter.  “Do exactly what I say.  Spread your arms and legs as widely as you can.  Don’t worry about your orientation towards the earth.”

A strange voice entered Quiz’s consciousness.

* I suggest you follow the lady’s instructions to the

letter
.  I haven’t stuck around all these centuries for nothing. *

I’m trying, thought Quiz.

Quiz spread his limbs and began tumbling more slowly.  His body resembled a four-pointed star doing cartwheels.

“Brace
yourself
,” said Shooter.  “I’m coming in.”

Shooter reached out and grabbed Quiz’s left leg directly below the knee, stabilizing his body.  He was no longer tumbling, but now upside down.

“What now?” asked
Quiz.

“I’m going to flip you right-side up.  When I do, pull your ripcord.”

Shooter oriented Quiz’s body and then released her grip on the novice jumper.  “Now!” she said.  “Open your chute!”

Shooter fell rapidly as Quiz disappeared from view.  He was far above her, his parachute deployed.

“I still can’t see a damn thing!” repeated Tank.

“Open your chutes!” ordered Hawkeye. 
“Everybody!
  Now!  We’re one thousand feet above the ground.  Contact alarms will sound in your helmets when you’re twenty feet from the surface.”

Moments elapsed without communications from Titan Six.

“Did they make it?” asked
Caine
.

More silence.

“Beatrice is causing some interference,” Touchdown said.  “That should resolve if we make it into the storm’s eye.”

Agonizing seconds passed without contact from Titan Six.  Such missions were not without peril.  Although fully recovered, Touchdown had been paralyzed during a raid on a Somali pirate ship.

“I’m down,” Hawkeye said at last.

One by one, the members of Titan Six checked in.  All had landed on the desert floor safely.

“Home in on my beacon, everyone,” said Hawkeye.  “When we rendezvous, we’ll look for the EFV.”

Like ghosts, team members appeared from the dust and smoke as they gathered around Hawkeye.

The ground shook ominously as a fissure opened up thirty feet away.  Flames thirty feet high erupted from the crack in the desert.

“Run!” Hawkeye yelled.

Titan Six ran blindly away from the fire rising from the earth.

 

Ops
Center

Aboard the
Alamiranta

 

 “This is Ops, Titan Six,” said Touchdown.  “Your Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle is three hundred yards straight ahead.”

“We’re on our way,” said Hawkeye.  “I don’t know what the hell happened here, but it looks like one of the post-World War Two sites where the government tested some kick-ass weapons.”

“
Nevada
used to be a testing ground back in the fifties, but at least there’s no radiation showing up on my scans,” said Touchdown.  “By the way, I’m showing one other life form in the area. 
South end of the crater.
 
Seems stationary for right now.”

“Any theories on who it might be?” asked Hawkeye.

“Probably an old prospector who had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“We’ll check it out if time permits,” said Hawkeye.  “Do you have any telemetry on what the terrain in the crater is like?”

“Telemetry is cutting in and out because of Beatrice.  I’ve picked up some strange readings, but until we’re in the eye of the storm, the satellite feed is going to be erratic.”

Titan Six started slogging through the sand, searching for their EFV.

* * *

 

With his parents having been killed in a car accident, Quiz had been raised by his grandparents, Charles and Mary Whittington, in Whittington Manor on
Long Island
.  He spent many long, lonely hours reading every tome in the family library.  To say he was well-versed in the classics would be an understatement.  To say that he had an ongoing relationship with Dante Alighieri would not.

As he read and reread the Divine Comedy in his youth, the voice of the poet seemed to come alive in the boy’s mind.  The conversation between the Italian poet and Quiz had taken on a life of its own, one that he dared not share with any adult lest people think he was mad.

Now in his early adulthood, Quiz regarded Dante as his closest confidante.  The dead poet had no hesitation in weighing in on matters that touched Quiz’s life, personal or otherwise.

* We’re about to descend into hell.  Not that we
  haven’t
already been there, of course. *

What’s in the crater?

* Intelligence. *

That’s pretty vague.

* That’s all I can sense at the moment. What’s more interesting is what Mrs.
Caine
put in the EFV. *

I’m under orders to tell no one about it unless it’s absolutely necessary.

* Let’s hope that it won’t. *

Amen to that.

 

Aft Cargo Hold 6

Aboard the
Alamiranta

 

Pyro
was a muscular, Japanese-born Titan operative who had been a member of the elite
Narashino
Airborne Brigade earlier in his military career.  He was an explosives and ordnance specialist.  Captain
Papagantis
had therefore asked him to supervise the disarming of the Chinese torpedo.

Pyro
knelt next to the weapon that had partially breached the hull of the
Alamiranta
.  The leaks around the torpedo had been plugged, and the seawater in the cargo bay had been pumped out.  Lieutenant Bender watched as
Pyro
and three bomb squad members examined the torpedo.

Pyro
sighed as he surveyed the electronics beneath the torpedo casing that had been removed behind the nose of the sleek gray weapon.  Modern-day torpedoes had sophisticated guidance systems, and detonation was controlled by complex circuitry that was comprised of a maze of computer chips, batteries, and color-coded wires.  A dozen small green lights blinked in sequence, indicating that the torpedo was still armed.

“What should I tell the Captain?” asked Bender.

Pyro
stood up and faced the Lieutenant.  “That a random radio signal or electronic pulse could trigger this damn thing at any moment.”

Pyro
stumbled backwards several paces as the ship heaved up.

“But there’s radio noise everywhere on the
Alamiranta
,” Bender said, worry claiming his features.  “We have a million pieces of equipment on board that send out electronic pulses, from bow to stern.  We can’t function without them.”

“I know,” said
Pyro
.  “That’s what worries me.”

 

Titan Six,

The
Great Basin
Desert

 

“We’ve moved three hundred yards,” said Hawkeye, “but I don’t see any assault vehicle.”

“My mistake,” said Touchdown.  “It’s twenty feet away.  I forgot to turn off the stealth shielding.”

Hawkeye turned in every direction, but he only saw the dry and forbidding sagebrush desert.  To his right, heat rose in ghostly shimmers, distorting his view of the mountain range in the distance.

And then the shimmers began to dissolve as the EFV simultaneously began to materialize.  At first, it resembled nothing more than a transparent troop carrier.  Second by second, however, it became solid and three-dimensional.

“Damn,” said Gator.  “We almost walked straight into it.”

“The EFV absorbs certain wavelengths of the visible spectrum,” explained Touchdown, “but reflects others.  It’s currently set for desert mode.  It reflects an entire continuum of desert colors, such as tans, browns, rust — you name it.  All other colors are absorbed by its armored plates.”

Hawkeye looked at the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle.  It was a modified AAVP7A1, which was both a land-based troop carrier and amphibious tank twelve yards long.  Its wide metal treads were more than adequate to handle any kind of hostile terrain.

Gator walked slowly around the vehicle, his eyes wide with admiration for the EFV.

“The long barrel is a 120 millimeter M256 smoothbore gun,” Gator said.  “It has two M240 machine guns, an MK19 grenade launcher, and a YAG log laser range finder.  This gem can do it all.”

“Sunken marble tub inside?” asked Tank.

Gator laughed as he wiped sweat from his almost bald scalp.  “No, but it can carry fifteen soldiers and has sophisticated communications, radar detection systems, a three-station tactical display, and a six-point camera array for seeing what’s on the outside.  It also has storage capacity for ammo, food, and medical supplies that you wouldn’t believe. 
Even a mini-lab.”

“Let’s drive it off the lot, ladies and gentlemen,” said Hawkeye. 
“Time to punch the clock.”

Titan Six climbed into the EFV.  Hawkeye took the driver’s seat, Gator manned the large M256 smoothbore, and Shooter and Tank sat behind the two machine guns.  All firing stations were internal.  No one would be exposed to the noxious gases near the crater.

Quiz and Christian Madison buckled themselves into two seats midway back.

Slowly, the EFV advanced towards the crater.

* Are you sure that our special cargo can handle the rough ride? *

It’s not armed.  Don’t worry.

* * *

 

“We’re fifteen yards away from the crater rim,” Hawkeye said.  “Maybe Tank and I should repel down into the crater.  The air is very hazy, and I’m not sure I can see where I’m going without a little recon.”

“Proceed at your discretion,” said Mrs.
Caine
from the
Ops
Center
.”

Hawkeye cut the engine and was preparing to rise from his seat when the EFV tilted forward.

“That can’t be good,” said Shooter.

Hawkeye glanced at the tactical systems and camera array.  “Damn.  I think the ground is giving way under the weight of the vehicle.”

The EFV tipped forward and descended into the crater at a thirty-five degree angle.

“Hang on everybody,” said Hawkeye.  “Gravity seems to be overriding my command decisions.  We’re going in.”

The front of the vehicle fell sharply, hit solid rock, and then continued its uncontrolled descent, rolling right and left as it fell.

“Like a cheap carnival ride,” said Tank.

“What if this thing reaches the bottom and starts to sink into the sand?” asked Dr. Madison.

“Then we’re riding in the most expensive coffin ever made by man,” Hawkeye replied.

The right-side EFV treads rose sharply off solid ground, lifted by an eruption of gas and flames.  The vehicle hung in the air for several seconds, Titan Six collectively holding its breath.  The tank leveled again with a bone-jarring thud.

“We’re picking up speed!” Hawkeye said.

The path downwards was smoother now, but steeper.  The treads were literally gliding over rock and sand like sled runners on smooth ice.

The engine roared back to life, gears growling, as the treads finally engaged and found traction on the desert grit.

“We’re on level ground now,” Hawkeye announced.  “I think we’re at the bottom of the crater, at least this portion of it.  The visibility seems to have slightly improved.”

“We dropped about one hundred and sixty meters,” Tank said. 
“One
helluva
ride.”

“Let’s get out and take a look,” Hawkeye said.  “The atmosphere reads breathable, but everyone make sure to adjust your helmets as needed.”

Moments later, Titan Six stood on solid rock outside the EFV.  Jaws agape, they stared in wonder at dozens of geometrical stone formations.

“My God in heaven!” cried
Madison
, looking at the vista before him.  “It’s an ancient city!”