Michelet had done some checking with other sources and knew the specific area he wanted the Lady Gayle to survey was even more remote. He narrowed down the area he had indicated, tracing it on the map. “This area, the highland region of the Banteay Meanchey region, is practically unmapped and uninhabited.”
Beasley looked at it. “There's a reason for that besides the roughness of the terrain, the mines and the Khmer Rouge.”
“Excuse me?” Michelet was surprised. This was news to him. “And what is that reason?”
“Angkor Kol Ker,” Beasley said.
“And that is?” Freed took a step closer.
“As I was saying. There was a legend of a great city in Cambodia for many years. When the French naturalist Henri Mouhot discovered Angkor Thom in 1860 everyone thought he had solved the mystery of the legend. But there have always been, and still are, rumors of ruins, to the north and east of this area. Of a city even more ancient and more magnificent than Angkor Thom and its temple Angkor Wat. It's called Angkor Kol Ker. Many legends surround those ruins, but very little fact is known. A French expedition tried to get there in the 1950's but it disappeared. It was assumed that they ran into unfriendly guerrillas, the forerunners of the Khmer Rouge. Since then, no one else has tried. It’s not even certain that the city ever existed. It might just be a myth. Sort of a jungle Shangri-la. Some of the legends that are associated with it are rather fantastic.”
Beasley’s hand twirled an edge of his mustache. “The legends, if they are to be believed, promise dire consequences to anyone entering Angkor Kol Ker or the area surrounding it. So in mythical terms, this area is cursed.”
Michelet turned his back to Beasley at the last sentence. Freed had quietly moved over and he was also looking at the map. “Let's hope Lady Gayle gives us some pinpoint data. That region is over forty-thousand square kilometers. That's a lot of jungle to survey.”
Michelet smiled. “With the imagery from the Lady Gayle, the interpreters will pinpoint possible sites down to within a half a kilometer.”
“That good?” Beasley was impressed.
“That good.”
Beasley was excited. “I wonder if we might be able to find Angkor Kol Ker using the data.” He squinted at the space shuttle imagery. “Hell, I bet no one's even looked at these pictures for ruins, have they?”
“Ruins don't make money,” Michelet said.
“Schliemann made out pretty well after he found the ruins of Troy,” Beasley commented. “And remember, people thought Troy was as much a legend as Angkor Kol Ker.”
“What about the curse?” Freed asked. “Doesn’t that concern you?”
“I didn’t say I believed in the legends,” Beasley said. “I just believe it’s worth looking into. Some of them are legends based on legends, including one that the people who settled this area over ten thousand years ago were refugees from Atlantis. In the same manner there are those who believe the early Egyptians, the ones who built the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids were also refugees from a greater kingdom.”
Michelet was focused on the large electronic map in front of the IIC where the small dot represented the Lady Gayle had crossed the Cambodian Border and was approaching the target area, which was outlined in blue light.
Freed glanced over at Beasley. “Do you think Angkor Kol Ker was real?”
Beasley spread his fat hands. “It’s a personal belief of mine that there is always much more truth to legend that most scientists espouse. But, to convince those others, I must hold a stone from a ruin of the city in my hand and smash it over their forehead. Then they might believe it is real. Until then, it is only a myth to them and thus for me.”
“The stones we are looking for are more valuable than any that could come out of an old city,” Michelet said.
Beasley picked up the imagery and looked at it more closely. “I would not be so sure of that.”
At fifteen thousand feet, the Lady Gayle was cruising at three hundred knots and beginning to loop north toward the target area. Ariana had their location pinpointed to within ten meters, updated every one-thousandth of a second by use of the global positioning receiver mounted in the rotodome. The GPR worked off the band of global positioning satellites, GPS, the United States had blanketing the world, picking up a signal emitted by the three closest and then a computer in the GPR immediately determined location through triangulation. They were getting close to the target area and the interior of the 707 was a bustle of activity as controllers prepared their equipment.
“Slow to imaging speed,” Ariana ordered and the pilots reduced thrust until the 707 was flying only 20 knots above the aircraft's stall speed.
Ariana knew the routine by heart but she used the checklist taped to an open space on her console anyway. “Open viewing doors.”
Along what had been the luggage compartment of the aircraft, hydraulic arms slid open doors on the right side of the plane. Inside were mounted the eyes of the Lady Gayle. There were regular video and still cameras with various degrees of telephotic lenses thermal sensors, and imagers that could view throughout the spectrum from infrared to ultraviolet. Although they couldn't directly see the outside world from the enclosed space of the plane, the analysts could now see the world below through the magic of their machines.
Verbal reports came back to Ariana through her headset, confirming what her console told her; they were ready.
“Mark,” she said to Ingram, “let Argus take over and give us the planned racetrack over the area.”
Ingram coordinated with the pilots and soon the plane was being flown by the master computer along a pre-determined path. The 707 banked to the right, aligning all the sensors with the ground and began a long, slow turn.
“We're getting some interference on FM,” Mitch Hudson announced in her ear.
“Switch frequencies,” Ariana ordered.
“We've got nav problems,” Ingram was looking at the relay he had from the cockpit.
“Specify,” Ariana ordered as she leaned forward and her fingers flew across the keyboard of the closest computer, drawing up the navigational information.
“Our compasses are going nuts,” Ingram said.
“GPR still working?” she asked.
Ingram's hands were flying over his control panel. “Roger. We still have GPR and satellite communications, but our FM and UHF are down.”
“High frequency radio?”
“Still working.”
Her father's voice crackled in her headset. “Ariana, what’s going on? They're going crazy down in the IIC.”
“We're getting some interference, dad,” Ariana said. She glanced at Ingram's data, then spoke to him over the intercom. “Can we make the run, Mark?”
“Imaging is fine. I've switched from normal data link to putting everything through satellite. So far so good. But if we lose satellite and HF we have no back-up. Standard operating procedure for this situation is we abort.”
“This is our only window of opportunity,” Ariana said. “Hie-Tech will be here, if they aren't already, and get a jump on us if we don't do it now.”
Ingram's voice was impassive. “I'm telling you the rules we wrote, Ariana.”
Ariana thought for a second, then keyed the radio. “Dad, I think we should abort.”
“What's that?” her father's voice was now distant and scratchy. “I… hear… said. Repeat…”