Ariana lowered the gun and laughed, but there was a harsh edge to the sound. “Fine. Turn it on. Let them come.”
“You didn’t have to shove me,” Beasley whined, tenderly touching a long scratch on the side of his face. “I was going to jump.”
“Shut up,” Dane said. His eyes were scanning the surrounding terrain, the M-16 ready in his hands.
The sky above the triple canopy was growing light, but on the jungle floor it was dark, with barely enough visibility to see twenty feet. Dane had gathered in Beasley, helping him climb down. He’d heard the blast from the daisy cutter somewhere to the east, then the sound of the jungle had returned.
They were moving along the track of the aircraft, Dane working from his internal sense of direction. He’d already checked and his compass and watch didn’t work. He knew the Canadians and Freed were along this path. He could even hear someone climbing down not too far ahead.
He felt all the old skills coming back, becoming part of the jungle, one with the flora and fauna. Other than the irritating presence of Beasley and the others, he felt a peacefulness in the immediate area.
And he also felt the shadow to the east, just as he had felt it so many years ago.
Foreman watched the master board, which showed a downlink from a KH-12 satellite that was tracking the Hie-Tech helicopter. The KH-12 had picked it up as soon as it took off from the company’s base camp outside of Angkor Wat. It was flying a route along the limits of the Angkor Gate. Foreman gave whoever was in charge of the operation some credit; the chopper would get as close as possible to the downed plane before darting in.
Still, the helicopter didn’t really interest Foreman. What he found intriguing was the beacon signal that was drawing the chopper into the Angkor Gate. That the signal was being allowed to escape the electromagnetic anomaly of the Gate was a fact that Foreman found quite chilling. Someone, or something, wanted that helicopter to come.
“Which way?” Freed asked.
“The watchtower is up there,” Dane said, pointing with the muzzle of his M-16. All they could see was dense jungle in any direction but Dane had no doubt about which way to go. “The stream is on the other side. According to the imagery, the plane is another five klicks past the stream.”
Freed took point, scrambling up the steep slope, Dane following right behind. The Canadians and Beasley struggled to keep up, all in much poorer shape than the two men setting the pace.
Dane didn’t even bother to look over his shoulder. He paused for a second and closed his eyes. He pictured Sin Fen in his mind.
Still there?
He opened his eyes and kept moving.
An image came to him. The airfield they had taken off from. Chelsea and Sin Fen getting off the plane and moving over to a helicopter. In his vision, Sin Fen paused. The image shifted. He saw the satellite overhead. It exploded. Overlaid on the image was the unmistakable message from Sin Fen that the attempt to stop whatever was coming out of the Gate by destroying the satellite had failed.
Dane checked to make sure that he was still right behind Freed, then returned to what he was seeing in his brain. The scene shifted. He saw a helicopter taking off and he knew from the subtext that Sin Fen was projecting, that the helicopter was heading his way and that it was from Hie-Tech.
The helicopter was riding a line. Dane frowned trying to make sense of the image, then he realized the line was a transmission, a radio beacon coming out of the Gate.
He paused, realizing the implications of that. He looked over his shoulder, at Beasley’s sweating face, then turned back to the front.
Dane leaned into the climb, feeling sweat pour down his back, soaking between his shirt and backpack. Then suddenly he broke into the clear, a fresh breeze brushing against his face, drying the sweat. He looked up. The watchtower.
He quickly climbed the remaining distance and joined Freed at the base of the wall. Dane reached out and touched a massive stone block. The stone felt smooth under his fingers, comforting.
“You can’t see a damn thing,” Freed said.
Dane’s momentary good feeling left as he looked in the same direction. The sun was behind them, casting long shadows down into the river valley, but beyond was the thick fog that Dane had seen so long ago. It was even thicker and more impenetrable than he remembered. It stretched south and north as far as he could see on the far side of the river valley.
“Let’s get up top,” Freed startled Dane out of his contemplation.
The Canadians and Beasley broke into the open on the ridge back, all breathing heavily.
“Beasley,” Freed called out. “Come with us. McKenzie, I want a perimeter around the base of this building.”
Dane could see Beasley’s fatigue fade as the scientist took in the watchtower and the ancient stonework.
“This is unbelievable,” Beasley said as he came to the stones.
Freed led the way inside the door, Dane and Beasley following. They took the stairs around the interior wall, Beasley stopping to stare at the carvings. As Dane climbed through to the rampart, he could hear Beasley snapping pictures, his heavy breathing echoing off the old stone.
Dane walked up next to Freed who was peering through his binoculars. The view across the river from the interior rampart wasn’t any clearer, but they could see more of the country-side in the other directions.
“The walls!” Beasley was gasping for breath as he joined them. “There is so much on them. It’s not like Angkor Wat or any of the other sites. This is different! Older. Yes! Definitely older.”
“Take it easy,” Dane said. “You have a heart attack here and it’s a long haul out.”
“But don’t you see?” Beasley really wasn’t talking to anyone. “There’s only sculpture at those places. This has writing!” Beasley turned to Dane and grabbed his shoulders. “It’s writing! An early form of Sanskrit.”
“Can you read it?” Dane asked.
“I can make sense of some of it,” Beasley said.
“Then read it,” Dane ordered. He turned his attention back to Freed. The small black man lowered the glasses, a worried look on his face.
“That’s it,” Dane said in a low voice.
Freed shot him a look. “I guess we-” he paused as they all heard the sound of rotor blades coming from the east.
“Hie-Tech,” Dane said.
“How do you know that?” Freed asked, swinging his binoculars back to his eyes.
“Sin Fen told us, remember.”
“Huey,” Freed said, catching sight of the aircraft. “About two miles away.”
“I’ve got contact on FM!” Hudson yelled.
Ariana was sitting in a chair across from him, the Berretta loosely held, resting in her lap. She didn’t react like Carpenter and Ingram, both of whom jumped up at the announcement. Mike Herrin had come forward earlier, but he didn’t appear to hear. He was sitting in the corner of the communications area, eyes closed, rocking back and forth, humming to himself in a low voice.
“It’s a helicopter,” Hudson said, pressing the headset against one of his ears. He keyed his FM radio. “Bravo Two Nine, this is Angler. Bravo Two Nine, this is Angler. Over.”
“Angler?” Ariana asked. “Is that your code name?” Hudson nodded. “How long have you been working for Hie-Tech?” she asked.
“I only agreed to forward them the data from this mission,” Hudson said.
“Piggybacked on the GPS signal,” she said, earning a surprised look from the radio man.
“You knew about that?” Hudson’s attention shifted back to the headset. “Roger, Bravo Two Nine. I can read you broken and distorted. Over.” Hudson said. He held his hand over the mike. “I’m going to put the FM on the speaker.”