Black Sun

“Me?”

Her eyes tracked him. “I don’t know what it is that haunts you so deeply,” she said. “But that’s the past. And today I’ve come to realize that we can’t change that. No matter how hard we try. No matter what we have in our possession. Including these stones.”

There was something in her voice, a partial resolution of her own issues, he guessed.

“All we can do is fight for a better future,” she added.

“With the stones,” he said.

“With everything we have,” she replied. “For everyone we love.”

She continued to gaze at him and he again had a sense of her searching him, as if he were hiding something and she was unwilling to let him continue.

“What would you decide,” she said, finally, “if it was up to you?”

He held her gaze in the quiet of the church. He’d long since lost faith in most things: governments, churches, himself. The thought of having this decision rest on his shoulders had not weighed easy on him before. Since arriving in San Ignacio that feeling had grown worse.

“You’re the only one who hasn’t been affected,” she said.

“Let’s see what McCarter finds,” he said.

“I just spoke with him,” she said. “It’s not going well. And he didn’t look particularly good, either, so I don’t know how much we are going to get out of him.”

Hawker didn’t like the sound of that. Without McCarter’s translation they would be left with little more than guesswork.

“So if you have to decide,” she said, pressing him.

He felt more than a sense of ambivalence toward the stones; he felt anger. They were like some kind of blank piece of paper to him, letting everyone see what they wanted to see.

“Most of what I’ve seen from humanity is brutality, selfishness, and greed. You want me to trust in mankind?” He looked toward the crucifix, the image of Christ battered and bleeding. “This is what we do.”

He stared into her eyes. “Better hope McCarter figures something out, because if using those stones means harm to you, or him or Yuri …” He shook his head. “Then the hell with them. I’ll smash that stone into a thousand pieces. And if the world burns around us, so be it.”

Her eyes were locked on his. She didn’t blink or move or speak. She just stared at him in the silence. And he didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

He looked around the church, feeling out of place, much as he had in the simple wooden building in Africa. “I should go,” he said.

“I’ll go with you,” she replied.

She looked back to the altar, crossing herself, and then turned and walked with Hawker to the church door. Together they stepped out into the cool night air.

For the briefest second, as they stepped outside, Hawker thought he heard the sound of a small plane. But he tilted his head and couldn’t pick it up. A moment later the musicians in the street began to play and Danielle led him off to where the town folk were dancing.

Three hundred miles away, at Kang’s command center in the warehouse, Kang’s men processed the incoming data. The foot patrol units with their networked cameras had sca

So far they’d found several parties of hikers, a crashed military trainer that had rusted to pieces in the trees, and three possible sites of undiscovered ruins. But there had been no sign of his quarry, at least until now.

One of the drone operators received an alarm. He sat facing a pair of large computer screens displaying what looked a great deal like a modern military cockpit. And indeed it was similar. The readouts on his screens were created by remote telemetry from the sensors and instruments in the drone. Three hundred miles away, sitting on the ground in Campeche, the “pilot” controlled the drone and he had taken this one to the very end of its range, before picking up a signal.

The strength of the signal faded rapidly and he decided to risk one more pass before turning the million-dollar machine for home. This time the signal came in stronger.

He pressed the intercom switch, which buzzed Kang’s office. “I report contact from drone number five. I repeat we have contact. I’m locking the location in now.” He typed the coordinates into the computer and hit ENTER.

The computer ran the sensor analysis and confirmed the signal.

“San Ignacio,” he said, looking at the map. “They’re hiding in San Ignacio.”

CHAPTER 56

Arnold Moore remained at Yucca Mountain deep into the night, ru

Using assumptions the NRI had come up with, he changed the inputs several times. The numbers skewed slightly high.

He changed them again.

The numbers were off to the low side.

Frustrated, Moore ordered the simulation to do a reverse analysis, to take the actual data and back out to what the numbers should be.

He waited. The screen flashed.

Operational parameter invalid.

Something in the equation was preventing the operation, like dividing by zero.

Moore typed. Suggested parameter adjustment?

The computer ran through a series of calculations and then offered its best guess.

Parameter with highest likelihood of successful adjustment: Number of Magnetic Fields.

Moore stared at the blinking cursor. Number of Magnetic Fields. What the hell could that mean?

Sliding a pair of reading glasses back onto his nose, he clicked over to the input page and scrolled through all of the preset parameters. Among them he found a box to input number of magnetic fields. It currently was set at 1.

Moore looked around, feeling foolish. Could there be more than one magnetic field? The program came from the North Pole survey group; it was designed to calculate the speed and magnitude of future changes. Moore’s people had modified it to assess the impact of the stones.

The stones.

Could they be considered their own magnetic field? Moore looked over his glasses and changed the number to 2. He then designated the output for field number two to match the believed power level of the stones. Hitting ENTER, he ran the reverse query again.

The screen blinked. Operational parameter invalid.

“Damn,” he cursed.

He went back and changed the number to 3. The computer asked for the strength of the third field and Moore had no answer. He typed “X” and hit ENTER.

The computer began to think. It was co

After several minutes, Moore sighed. He was about to give up when the screen flashed. A series of numbers came up relating to field strength, where the pole was, and where it should be. Moore studied the numbers. They matched exactly.

If the computer was right, they were dealing with not one earthbound magnetic field but three.

CHAPTER 57