That left the bouncers. She — and others at Space Command — had seen tracks of the alien craft prior to the truth about Area 51 being revealed, but every time they brought them to the attention of their supervisors, they were told to ignore them.
After the truth about what was at Area 51 was revealed, she had also tracked them occasionally. But this track, while similar, was somewhat different on the thermal readout. Hotter.
She also remembered that an alert had been circulated for information on any unusual flights in the Gulf of Mexico region.
She checked the alert list and noted that Area 51 was listed as the source of that alert, with contact information via MILSTAR. She hit the access code. The other end buzzed repeatedly, with no answer, and after thirty seconds she was about to cut the connection when a distracted voice came out of her speaker box.
“Major Quinn here. What?”
“Do you have a bouncer on a transatlantic flight?” “Negative. What have you tracked?”
Keene relayed the information.
“You say it came from a location in the Gulf of Mexico?” “Yes, sir.” “Where is it fixed now?” Quinn asked.
While she was talking, Keene had been zeroing in the nearest KH-14 for an exact location. She brought up the ground mapping for the area and mixed the two on her screen. What she saw surprised her. The spot was marked with red writing, indicating it was of national significance.
“South middle England. It’s at Stonehenge.”
Stonehenge was just off the M-43—the biggest tourist attraction in the immediate area, and one of the largest in all of England. The Swarm pod was just to the northeast, simply observing for a while before moving in. A good scout always reconnoiters before approaching a target, and the Swarm had a great deal of experience at scouting, whether on the galactic or local scale.
When the Swarm was satisfied that the area appeared to be safe and deserted, the pod moved forward. It hit the fence and tore through easily. It came to a halt just at the edge of the inner circle, in front of the altar stone. Unknown to the Swarm, an alarm system built into the fence was activated, and a warning light went off at the local constabulary.
Inside the pod, Garlin had put the crown back on Duncan’s head during the recon and hooked it up to the Ark leads.
The ground-penetrating radar hadn’t revealed the presence of the craft that had been displayed in Duncan’s memory. However, during the probing of Duncan’s memories, the Swarm had noted the red netting that had been spread over the surface of the spaceship before it was buried and had to assume that it was some sort of shielding.
The issue was how to get into the stone elevator.
Garlin directed the probe into Duncan’s mind, searching for more memories of when she had come here in the past.
The screen flickered, then came alive with an image. Stonehenge. The circles intact, indicating it to be thousands of years ago. It was nighttime, but the stones were bathed in a red glow. Several hundred meters beyond the stones, a massive wicker figure was burning. It was over fifty feet high and made of wicker branches woven onto a stronger wooden frame. Stuffed inside were dozens of people, screaming as the flames ate at their skin.
In a circle around the burning “man” were hundreds, if not thousands of people dressed in various-colored robes, watching the horrific display, the glow flickering off their rapt faces. At the back edge of the crowd were two people, edging away, heading toward Stonehenge. They were alone when they reached the monument and threw back their hoods. Duncan and her partner. She walked up to the left standing stone in the center of the complex and put her right hand out, pressing it against a spot on the stone, and the door appeared, opening.
Garlin disconnected the leads, the screen going black.
Looking down, he could see that Duncan was conscious for the first time in quite a while, her dark eyes staring at him. Her body had had enough time during the flight to recover from the damage that he had inflicted on her.
“Who are you?” Her voice was rough, her throat parched and ragged from her earlier screams. Her eyes were deep-set, weary, and worn, the memories of the pain etched on her face.
Garlin didn’t answer. He reached down and tightened the strap around her right hand, pinning it securely to the table palm up.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Garlin remained silent as he turned to the black bag and pulled out a strange-looking device, the key feature of which was a long, thin blade. He pressed a button and the blade began moving back and forth a very short distance, picking up speed until it became a blur. Duncan’s eyes grew wide as he turned toward her and lowered the device toward her hand.
“Don’t!” she yelled.
With a blur of flying blood, flesh, and bone, Garlin pressed it down against the wrist. Duncan’s undulating scream echoed through the pod. In less than four seconds, an eternity for Duncan, the blade had cut completely through. Blood spurted out of the arteries that had been severed, and Garlin didn’t bother to make any attempt to stem its flow.
He released the button, and the only sound was Duncan’s pained moaning. He put the machine down and picked up her severed right hand. A section of the outer wall of the pod opened, lowered to the ground, formed a ramp, and Garlin walked out.
Behind him, Lisa Duncan lay on the table, hovering between consciousness and unconsciousness, her lips moving in a wordless babble. Blood no longer surged out of the severed artery at the end of her right arm as the virus sealed the wound. Slowly, the body began to regenerate the lost appendage.
Constable Martaugh quietly cursed as he drove the police Land Rover along the M-34 toward Stonehenge. The security system had been put into the fence by a private organization to help deter young revelers who often congregated at the monument late at night, drinking, carousing, and, in some cases, damaging the stones with graffiti. Martaugh had already run them off twice this month.
If he caught those damn kids again — Martaugh spun the wheel, directing his car onto the turnoff. He didn’t mind them having fun, it was the desecration of the stones that bothered him. He’d lived here all his life and like most who’d spent their time near the henge, he’d always felt a reverence for the stones. Locals cared little when they were built or who had built them — the important thing was that they were here.
When his headlights illuminated the crushed fence, his foot instinctively went to the brake and the car quickly came to a halt. He blinked as he noted the large round orb floating a few feet off the ground near the inner circle. There was a man walking toward the center stones. And he was carrying something. Martaugh began to open the car door when the man lifted the object and placed it against the left upright stone, then the policeman recognized it: a severed human hand.
Martaugh ducked back into the car and grabbed for his radio, missing the mike on his first attempt, then fumbling with it for a few seconds. During that time everything went from the bizarre to the surreal, as a door opened in the stone and the man walked in, the door shutting behind him. For a moment Martaugh held the mike in his hand, not sure if he had seen what had just happened or if this was some nightmare he was acting out. But the large round black orb still floated a few feet above the ground not far from him. Martaugh pressed the key on the mike.