The ground shaking diminished, replaced by the sound of tearing earth and snapping foliage, giant trees creaked, reluctantly wrenched from their footings. The ferocity of the sound increased rapidly.
Katherine saw the ground heave up, as the area around the complex began to move, displacing everything, the walls, the jungle, the river. Water was rushing away from the complex as the river was pushed aside by the ground shifting, the animals of the jungle, long gone. Katherine could see Jacob and Osvaldo Roderigo sitting on a hill in front of her; she opened the rear hatch, banked hard to hover in front of them.
The nacelles adjusted to vertical flight, causing a massive downdraft, as the remaining foliage around them was flattened, alerting the two men to her arrival. She hovered a dozen metres in front of them, over the gorge and then turned the aircraft moving to the edge of the cliff.
Jacob and Osvaldo Roderigo couldn’t believe it, the plane was hovering just out of reach, but they knew they had to jump. The ground beneath them was beginning to buck and crack, succumbing to gigantic stresses from below, Jacob looked behind him to see the jungle under the complex rising up, a giant wave of earth moving rapidly towards them.
Kevin was standing in the rear of the Osprey; he flung two ropes out, they hung temptingly out of reach over the cliff. Kevin was gesturing towards the men to jump, Katherine struggled to keep the aircraft stable in the changing updrafts from the gorge below. She dare not land, and they had seen the ground wrenching as they arrived. Without a word to Jacob Osvaldo Roderigo began to run towards the edge of the cliff, jumping the few metres between the cliff and the loitering machine. He grabbed the rope his sweaty hands slipping, the moisture burning off as he fell down the rope, some of his palms going with it. He gripped harder and the friction slowed his decent, he had fallen some fifteen feet down the rope, and was now dangling precariously just above the edge of the cliff.
Jacob took some steps back ready for the short run up, the ground tremor was at its most violent, the brief pause gone, worse than any earthquake he had experienced. The jungle behind him was ripping to pieces and the area where the complex used to be was now moving down into the earth, taking whole sections of land with it
The complex was sinking back into the earth and fractures and ruptures spread out over an enormous area. The complex was over a kilometre across, but the towers reached out much further.
Jacob began to run, his legs using every cell to get the speed he knew he required, not looking at the gigantic drop below, or the destruction rapidly accelerating towards him. He reached the edge, as the undulating earth caught him up, a wave of soil, plants and rocks pushed his feet from under him.
Kevin saw the earth moving towards them, and told Katherine to pull forwards, but she stood firm. Jacob grabbed the rope firmly twisting his legs around the writhing coils to stop a fall, with a cluster of debris following. Katherine obeyed Kevin’s shout and put the nose of the Osprey down, descending and moving forward, as the cliff collapsed behind them. Tons of earth cascaded into the basin below, it blocked the flow of the river. She pushed the nacelles up and had the Osprey climbed out of the disappearing gorge, heading for the larger mountains in the distance.
Everyone in the Osprey heaved on the ropes desperately. The combined effort managed to drag Jacob and Osvaldo Roderigo aboard the sanctuary of the aircraft. A heavily soiled and breathless Jacob looked back at the area he had expected to die in. Katherine gained altitude, and La gente de la luz azul watched the spectacle unfold beneath and behind them.
The area that the complex had occupied was now a huge gaping wound, almost two kilometres across, into which the rivers and streams were pouring already. The hole was at least a few hundred metres deep, the very bowels of the complex being torn down hundreds of metres. The towers that had been in the jungle fell and were dragged thru the jungle, being pulled along by the crystal conduits attached to the rapidly descending complex. Gigantic wounds appeared around below them as the massive structure sank lower into the earth.
The Osprey stayed to watch, and Kevin filmed what he could on his handheld camera, capturing the event, but losing the impact of the full spectacle. Within minutes of it beginning the entire complex was several kilometres deep. The rivers from the surrounding area poured into the void, massive waterfalls showing on all sides. Millions of tons of earth and debris following down to create a soup of chaos.
Kevin and Ana Lucia were in a heated discussion on the true origin of the complex, much to the amusement of Jacob.
‘That’s s UFO!’
‘There is no way that is a UFO Kevin it went down! We have both sat at the controls inside, don’t you think we would have realised it was a UFO?’
‘Not if the owners did not want us to!’
‘Well I think it was a UFO, and I am sure other people will too!’
Jacob had stopped laughing and felt he had to interrupt, ‘You two, even if it is or is not a UFO, do you think anyone will believe you? A UFO over two kilometres, hidden in the jungle, and you operated it? And when they ask where is it now?’
The two youngsters glanced silently at each other.
‘Thank you, I suggest both of you keep the information to yourselves, as we will all have too.’
‘But Jacob don’t you think that someone will notice?’
‘Being this remote hopefully not.’
Katherine turned the Osprey back towards the coast, passing over the complex’s grave. The excavated jungle filled with run off from the rivers and streams, already following the path of least resistance. Many environmentalists and analysts would spend the next few months attempting to work out what had caused such a devastating mess of the area, and of course only a handful of people knew the truth, and would never tell. Katherine turned the apparently ungainly aircraft towards the coast once more, increasing speed towards the sanctuary of the Arcadia.
FORTY EIGHT
President Uncotto had flown home and dealt with the strange disappearance of Chui Enzi, taking the opportunity to shut down most of his illegal operations. Men loyal to Enzi were told that they either conform to the new regime, or they can leave the country. The vast majority decided to stay, preferring to work with the President, than live in fear of possible reprisals.
He had been surprised by a phone call a week after he returned, and travelled to Washington D.C. to discuss the issues raised in the call, face to face. He landed at the airport, and did not pass through customs as expected, quickly ushered into a military helicopter and flown directly to Wallops Island on the east coast, an old testing ground for NASA and the military for years. He did not need to see where he was going, the helicopter passed right over the top of the mobile office he was attending.
The VC-25 tail number 29000 otherwise known as Air Force One sat on the tarmac, refuelling tankers adjacent. The impressive blue and white body of the customised and most recognised 747 on the planet, intimidating even at this distance. Uncotto was escorted by Secret Service from the helicopter, up the ramp, and into Air Force One. He was greeted by the President’s Chief of Staff, who escorted him to the conference room, leaving Uncotto’s two aides in the seating area to the rear. The two young men enjoyed the comfortable leather seats, and individual plasma screens of the press section. Uncotto sat in the conference room, his host noticeably absent, taking in the efficient majesty of the décor.
Even in an aircraft it was unusual to see a walnut conference table, polished to an immaculate sheen, he did just admired the way the late afternoon sunlit bounced off its surface. The oval table had a number of seats around it, identical, except one. At the head of the table, the back slightly higher, indicating the status of its usual occupant, with the presidential seal behind it. Whoever had designed this room had intended to convey the office of the President of the United States, and the power and responsibility to the world. Uncotto knew from the experiences of governing his fledgling country how difficult and isolating it could be, but the sheer scale of the task that his host faced was barely comprehensible.