Moore glanced through the window. He saw a barren landscape, pockmarked with bomb craters, test sites, and ugly mountains of piled-up dirt. A thousand different types of explosive had been tested here, from cluster bombs to “daisy cutters.” Even nuclear warheads had been exploded here.
The scars remained on the dry desert surface without even a hint of life to soften them. Not a blade of grass, nor a cactus, nor the smallest desert scrub could be seen. It looked like the moon or another planet. Perhaps that was why the UFO junkies were so certain that aliens had been brought here; they just might have felt at home.
The door to the trailer opened and one of the research scientists poked his head through.
“We have a problem, sir.”
Moore’s heart froze. “What’s wrong?”
“We’ve got an unexpected rise in the energy wave,” the scientist told him. “And it’s growing rapidly.”
Out on the Gulf of Mexico, Danielle studied the two boats charging toward them.
“They’re trying to corral us,” McCarter said.
“I told you we should have brought some missiles,” Hawker said.
“Next time I will,” she promised, only half joking.
Danielle watched as the gap between the two pursuing vessels widened and she thought she saw an opportunity. She nudged McCarter from the driver’s seat and reduced the throttles slightly and a moment later reduced them further. The other vessels rapidly closed the range.
A moment later, she chopped the throttles once again, whipped the boat through a quick ninety-degree turn, and then gunned the engines.
With the throttle to the firewall they charged for the gap.
As they raced across the water, Danielle held the boat’s throttles to full, ducking down as the air and spray whipped across the deck. She was gunning for the space between the two boats that had come out after them, something the drivers of those boats must have realized as they now raced to pinch it shut.
Her eyes flicked back and forth between the two boats. It would be close.
Behind her Hawker spoke to McCarter. “Might want to get down,” he said, as he gently forced Yuri to the deck. McCarter followed suit and Danielle hunkered down as far as she could while still being able to see and drive.
The boats were racing toward one another at a combined speed of seventy to eighty knots.
Seconds apart, Danielle dropped down, still holding the wheel.
She cut between them. As the pursuing boats crossed behind her, a spread of bullets whistled overhead, not aimed at her but at the squared-off shape of the outboard engines.
It was an impossible shot, taken from a pitching deck with only an instant to aim. A thousand to one, Danielle thought. She listened to the sound of the engines, felt the vibration, and glanced back at them. The odds had held. They’d come through unharmed.
She glanced behind them. One boat had been forced out to the north and the other craft had altered course and was now turning to follow.
From here it would be a race to the shore, one she wasn’t entirely sure they could win.
Out in the desert wastes of Nevada, Arnold Moore stared into the panic-filled eyes of the scientist. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked.
“A major energy spike,” his man said.
Moore tried to stand and found himself held back by the seat belt.
“That’s not possible,” he said, releasing the belt and realizing that he had no idea what was or was not possible in regard to the stone.
He pushed into the back of the truck. There, in a makeshift version of the Virginia lab, two of his staffers were monitoring the glowing stone. Moore looked at the readout on the computer screen. The energy output had clearly spiked, quadruple its normal passive state and growing.
“When did this start?”
“Five minutes ago,” the scientist told him. “First we noticed a change in the energy distribution pattern: more high-energy and less background readings. And then the countdown signal changed, becoming rapidly more complex and increasingly random.”
“Meaning what?” Moore asked, sensing that the man was hiding some conclusion he’d already reached.
“I don’t know,” his staffer said. “Something has changed and the signal is in a jumbled state now. As if it’s gone haywire and is trying to restore its order.”
Moore ran a hand through his gray hair. He glanced at the power curve. It was spiking up in an accelerating fashion, the way it normally did just prior to a discharge, but the benchmark levels were almost off the chart.
The computer attached to it began flashing a warning and chirping loudly as threshold levels continued to grow. The screen itself began to blur and bend as if it were being degaussed. The radios around them and in the truck’s cab began to squeal with feedback and static.
Moore shouted to the driver. “Are there any bunkers around here?”
The air force sergeant driving the truck seemed confused. “Mr. Moore?”
“Anywhere to hide this thing?”
“No,” the driver said. “It’s all open road.”
Hawker held Yuri tight, covering him and lying almost flat on the deck. Danielle continued to pilot the flying craft, whipping the boat to the right and then curving back to the left, doing all she could to present a hard target to the people chasing them.
As far as Hawker could tell, the boats were evenly matched in terms of speed, but every twist and turn cut into the distance between them. The pursuing boats were only fifty yards behind now, fanning out and taking potshots at them.
They’d done well so far. And in five minutes they’d reach the harbor. Hawker hoped the area would be public enough to keep their pursuers at bay. But he wasn’t sure they’d even get there. One hit on either outboard and they’d be finished.
A rifle shot hit the deck a few feet behind him and he heard another zip overhead.
Danielle ducked. “Now would be a good time to do something!” she shouted.
Even as she spoke, Yuri began to mumble something unintelligible and squirm out of Hawker’s grasp. The kid stretched out a hand toward the locker, his eyes wide as if he’d just discovered something new.
“Two,” he said suddenly, then looked at Hawker. “Two.”
Hawker beckoned McCarter, who crawled toward him.
“Is he all right?”
“I don’t know,” Hawker said. “Hold on to him.”
As McCarter grabbed Yuri, Hawker scrambled to the rear of the boat. He dug into the space beneath the seats and pulled out the anchor. They were coming up fast on the shoreline, but if they were going to make it they would need help.
“Hold us steady!” he shouted, sawing through the rope with his knife.
The boat leveled and ran straight and true for a moment. As it did, Hawker swung the thirty-pound anchor like a bolo and flung it into the air.
The anchor and a short section of attached rope trailed out toward their pursuers, but splashed down well short of the target.
“You’re going to have to throw harder than that,” Danielle shouted.
“Thanks,” he said. “I kind of realized that.”
Next he flung out one of the oars, which landed in front of the lead boat, only to be cut in half by the flying keel.