David Golemon - Ancients

"Jesus, who in the hell hit this place?" Everett said as he turned to face the police captain.

"As far as we can tell, it was at least a fifty-man raid. So far, only your people are accounted for. Due to the fact that around each of the bodies are several expended rounds, we must assume that your security put up a fight, and bloodstains show that the suspects must have carried off their wounded and dead."

"You said there was a survivor?" Mendenhall asked, looking ashen, as he knew personally all the men in the security team they had left there. Jimmy Sanchez was a close personal friend.

"Second floor."

The three men left the captain and trotted hurriedly up the stairs. Everywhere they looked, the walls and doors were riddled with bullet holes. Technicians were lying about where they fallen after being hit. A few of the academics had been dispatched execution-style in one of the offices. Four of the scientists and assistants looked as if they had been tortured. The artifacts, as far as they could tell, were all missing.

"Over here, Jack," Everett called out.

Jack looked up and saw three paramedics close to the second-floor elevator. They had a single soul on a stretcher and were fiercely working on him. As they approached, Mendenhall froze as he discovered who it was who was fighting for his life: Lance Corporal Sanchez.

"Oh ..." was all the stunned Mendenhall could say as he looked on sadly.

Everett placed a hand on Mendenhall's shoulder and watched helplessly as the medics worked furiously.

Jack's eyes never blinked as he watched another one of his men slowly slide away from the living. As Sanchez took his last breath, Collins closed his eyes. When he opened them, he saw the stairwell that still sported the blood where Sanchez had made a stand against the overwhelming odds he had faced.

One of the bodies closest to the corporal was a full-time archaeologist assigned to the main complex in Nevada. The boy was taped into a chair, and Collins could tell by the missing fingernails that he had been tortured in the most brutal manner possible. He closed his eyes, knowing that the poor kid would have given information on the Group. He didn't have to look far to find his proof. His eyes locked on a portion of the wall above just as Everett joined him. They examined the four words written in the blood of Corporal Sanchez, declaring the Event Group fair and open game. They dripped and ran red down the white wall above the stairwell.

NOT SO SECRET ANYMORE!

A man who had been taking pictures most of the morning from across the street changed his position and climbed the stairwell inside the building. He went to the second floor, where he was surprised to find a great location to shoot directly into the Freemont Building. He adjusted the telephoto lens and framed three men standing on the second-floor landing. A large blond man, a black man, and a man who stood ramrod-straight were glaring at the message left on the wall. As he clicked away, the hard-featured man turned to the landing's large window and seemed to look right at the camera's lens. The shooter abruptly stopped snapping pictures, as he could have sworn that the man was looking right at him. He lowered the camera and swallowed. He decided that what he had was enough.

Dahlia would have to make do with what he had learned, because, for some reason, the man on the landing scared the living hell out of him.

With the situation in Korea growing steadily worse, the Russian navy was on deployment alert. Every man in the Pacific Fleet, both surface and subsurface, had been recalled and awaited sailing orders.

Of the serviceable surface combatants, the fleet was in a sorry state, to say the least. Only three of her large battle cruisers were operational, and only one of them could ship a full-crew complement of trained seamen. The rest were out-of-date and undermanned light cruisers and destroyers. Still, the Russian navy was a proud entity and could still draw blood when needed.

The crew of the Russian heavy battle cruiser Admiral Nakhimov had been at their stations, ready to put out to sea for the past two hours to shadow the two U.S. carrier task forces. The captain of the Admiral Nakhimov was delayed, waiting for the bulk of their task force to form up before putting out to sea.

The surrounding harbor was full of antiquated warships, but the Nakhimov was part of the Russian president's massive strive to reclaim some of the old Soviet pride and power. Next to the Nakhimov was the heavy cruiser Petr Velikiy , commissioned the Uri Andropov in 1998. She would sail with the Nakhimov to the Sea of Japan.

Seven hundred miles out at sea in the freezing waters of the Pacific, a large aircraft strayed off course just as she had in the Middle East. This time her course would not take her over any appreciable landmass.

The navigator of the large Boeing 747 tracked their marker, an undersea beacon laid down a full year before by a Japanese-flagged fishing trawler.

Tomlinson, with his assistant in the seat next to him, had been silent since the registered charter flight lifted off from a private airstrip in the Philippines. The navigator and the pilot knew who the man was and it showed in their nervousness.

The head of the Thor program stepped out of the protected area and walked to Tomlinson. He cleared his throat.

"The Wave is operational and online. We have return echoes from the amplification modules on the seabed. Radar reports no contact of any air-superiority fighters in our immediate area."

"Then all is well for the strike?" Tomlinson asked, his blue eyes boring into those of Professor Ernest Engvall, former head of the Franz Westverall Institute of Geology and Seismic Study in Norway.

"All is as planned; nothing has changed for the past three years of calculations," he said, but Tomlinson knew that he had stopped short of finishing his report.

"Except?" he asked, holding his penetrating gaze on the world's foremost seismologist.

The thin, bookish man held his tongue for a brief moment but knew that he had to bring up what his entire technical crew was discussing.

"Do I have to ask twice, Professor?"

"We have two wave aircraft at our disposal, both of which could be tracked and attacked at any time. If I may ask, why have you risked your life to be on this particular strike?"

Tomlinson smiled and looked away without answering. His assistant cleared his throat and concluded the conversation.

"You may resume your countdown without further delay. Release Thor's Hammer, Professor."

Engvall's look went from Tomlinson to his impeccably dressed assistant. Then he abruptly turned and entered the protective area of the 747.

Tomlinson was staring at nothing as he thought about his father. He had been integral part of the Coalition in the latter days of the world war. He'd never risen as high in the council as his son would in future years, but he had done his part. The thought of his father being held up against a crumbling wall and shot by Russian shock troops just outside Berlin, after delivering the Coalition's ultimatum to Hitler, didn't anger him like it used to. After all, his father had allowed himself to be used by those higher in the order and thus had reaped that particular harvest. It was the Russian leadership he had always despised and their weak-minded followers. It was not personal, as most on the Coalition Council would believe, but the smart thing to do, with their government weak and their populace uneasy.

He looked up when he heard the soft humming of the Wave equipment. He wanted the strike to be flawless, and that was the real reason why he was here. The old guard of the Coalition would be shown that a limited strike did not need the Atlantean Key for control of the weapon. Now, he was here to prove it. Their race had split once before and it had almost cost them their existence in the time of Julius Caesar. He would see to it that if this demonstration did not have a positive effect on the Coalition members who refused to follow, he would scratch them from the equation in totem.