“I cannot bribe you,” Yakov said, “because you say you do not have the information I am seeking. I just mentioned that UNAOC would probably pay for that information. It is you who are making the connection between that statement and yourself.”
“Very cute.” Lyoncheka leaned back and steepled his thick, sausagelike fingers. “I do not enjoy playing word games. Tell me, do you know who destroyed Stantsiya Chyort?”
“I do now. The Ones Who Wait.”
Lyoncheka nodded. “It is a terrible shame. The Americans are having trouble also. Their Area 51 was attacked from the sky, was it not? And there have been reports of a nuclear explosion in the… what do they call it… their heartland? And one of their shuttles destroyed on the ground. Their government vehemently denies such stories, of course. I also understand their fleet off Easter Island has had some trouble?”
“I know nothing of any of that.”
“But you want information from me?” Lyoncheka pulled a bottle out of a drawer and two glasses. He poured a generous amount into both. He shoved one across his desk, and Yakov picked it up.
“To Mother Russia,” Lyoncheka proposed.
“To Mother Russia,” Yakov agreed, but his hand paused at Lyoncheka’s next words.
“I do not think you put your country first.”
Yakov put the glass down on the desk and waited for the other man to continue. “You will toast our country, yet you work for the Americans.”
“I do not work for the Americans,” Yakov said.
“You let your Section Four comrades get killed, yet you immediately go to the American Area 51 instead of coming home. You seem in no desire to avenge the deaths of your comrades.”
“There are larger issues,” Yakov said.
“Larger than Russia?”
“Larger than Russia.”
“There is nothing larger than Russia,” Lyoncheka said flatly.
“The world is larger than Russia,” Yakov argued.
“Not to me.” Lyoncheka took a drink. “Not to me, comrade. I served the Soviet and I serve the new state, but it is all the same to me. The old women cleaning snow off their steps with whisk brooms, the children playing in the parks, the men working in the factories. I serve them.” He abruptly changed directions. “The Americans’ Majestic-12 was infiltrated by these aliens, was it not?”
“Yes. Their minds were affected by an alien computer they uncovered at Tiahuanaco in Bolivia. They brought it back to their lab at Dulce in the state of New Mexico. It directed them to fly the mothership, working most likely because of a program that was activated when they uncovered the guardian.”
“I know all that,” Lyoncheka said. “Don’t you think it highly likely that maybe some of our own people have also been so affected?”
Yakov nodded. “I have always considered that a possibility.”
Lyoncheka lifted his glass, unwrapped his index finger from around it, and pointed it at Yakov. “You think me, perhaps?”
“Perhaps.”
“Would I know if I was?”
Yakov blinked. “I don’t know.”
“And if you were, would you know? Would I?”
Yakov didn’t say anything. He wondered where this was heading.
“Section Four caught one of these human-alien creatures… didn’t you?”
“Years ago,” Yakov acknowledged. “It chose to die rather than be questioned. We autopsied it and found evidence of cloning. And some nonhuman genetic material.”
“Yes, but the others, the humans affected mentally by this guardian computer, they are not so easy to discover. They are just like you and me. The Americans had one on their shuttle crew who killed his shipmates,” Lyoncheka said. “And then there are these Watchers… who blew up that other shuttle. So many groups, so many enemies. And now they are tightening the noose. The American President is threatening our president with retaliation if Stratzyda is used against his country, even though we no longer control the satellite and can do nothing to stop it.
“I am neither progressive, saying let us work with these aliens, nor am I isolationist, saying let us ignore them. You cannot ignore a threat. I am Russian. I say we fight them.” Lyoncheka leaned forward and his voice dropped. “But they are all around us. They have tried to get to me before. You can trust no one.” A large meaty fist slammed down on the top of the desk.
“To stop them we need something,” Yakov said. “Something from the Archives.” Lyoncheka cocked his head. “What exactly do you need?”
“A key. With it we can stop Stratzyda.”
Lyoncheka remained still for a minute before he spoke. “The Archives you look for exist. I can give you some help. But you must remember, Russia comes first.” Lyoncheka slid a piece of paper across the desk. “Meet me there, this evening.”
Quinn turned the scepter so that the ruby eyes glittered in the overhead lights of the conference room. It was not what von Seeckt had described. “It’s heavy. There’s something inside.”
Mualama nodded. “I suspect it is some sort of machine that functions as a key.”
They both looked up as the door to the conference room slammed open and Lisa Duncan walked in. She had raced back to Area 51 from the Nellis hospital after getting Major Quinn’s report that Professor Mualama had withheld an artifact… a key.
Quinn placed it down on the table, and Duncan picked it up. She wasted no time on recriminations. They had seventeen hours before Lexina’s deadline.
“What do you think it opens?” she asked Mualama.
“I’ve made a barely legible translation of the marker. Knowing that this”… he tapped the scepter… “is a key pulled it all together.”
Duncan had no more patience. “It goes to the lowest level of Qian-Ling?” Mualama frowned. “Qian-Ling?”
“The tomb in China.”
“Dear lady, I know what Qian-Ling is. And there is a reference to China on the tablet.” He pulled out a notepad and flipped through it. “Here. It says: ‘Admiral Cing Ho… In the Year 2038… brought the power and the key. The power stayed. The key was passed on to the ones from the inner sea.’”
“Is this the key to Qian-Ling?”
“I do not think so.”
Duncan closed her eyes to collect her thoughts. “What is 2038 from the Chinese calendar in the Western calendar?” she asked.
Mualama thought for a few moments. “Six fifty-six B.C.”
“Who was this Admiral Cing Ho?” Duncan asked.
“I do not know.”
Duncan looked at the translation for a few seconds. “The power… could that be the ruby sphere we found in the Great Rift Valley?”
“Very likely,” Mualama agreed.
“But if the Qian-Ling key was passed on”… Duncan tapped the scepter… “what is this?”
“A different key,” Mualama said.
“‘A different key.’” Duncan sat down and put her head in her hands. After von Seeckt’s disclosures, she had to force herself to focus. “One thing at a time. You say this isn’t the Qian-Ling key?”
Mualama was patient. “No, I don’t believe so. According to the marker, it is… ”
Duncan held up her hand. “Okay. Do you know where the Qian-Ling key is?”
“If it is the key discussed on the stone,” Mualama said, “it was passed on to those from the inner sea, which means the Mediterranean. In 656 B.C., that could be one of several groups of people. Rome was not yet founded, but the Greeks controlled a good portion of the Mediterranean. The Assyrian Empire, which ruled from Turkey along the crescent of the eastern Mediterranean to Egypt, was still in power, although its capital, Nineveh, was sacked not long afterward, in 612 B.C.”
“In other words, you have no clue where the key mentioned on the stone went,” Duncan summarized.