Black Sun

Stecker glanced at the digital readout that had been hastily installed in the cab of the Humvee. It was ticking u

Up ahead, Stecker saw the proverbial light at the end of the tu

“Seal the doors!” he shouted into the radio. “Seal the damned doors!”

Sinking fast, Hawker could feel the pressure growing in his ears. His hands scraped the walls, searching for something to grab, but the granite was smooth and the weight of Kang and his mechanical armor continued to drag him down.

He slammed his heel into Kang’s chest, trying to break free, and Kang tried to grab his other leg. Neither succeeded and they crashed into the bottom. The impact jarred Kang’s hand loose, and Hawker pushed off, pumping his arms and legs, desperate to reach the surface.

Below him he saw Kang trying to swim or climb, but the weight was too much and he fell back, landing at the bottom of the well, like some kind of offering to the gods. A spot beside him waited for Hawker if he didn’t keep going.

On the verge of blacking out, Hawker pushed harder, kicking and clawing for the surface.

He burst through, exhaling a cloud of carbon dioxide and sucking in a breath of clean air. The closest land to him was the island at the center of the cenote. He swam for the stairs.

By now he could feel the waves of energy whipping, a staticlike feeling that ran through his frame. The water around him began to churn and vibrate with a sound so deep that it shook his body from the inside.

Reaching the stairs, he dragged himself out of the water. He crawled up toward the well that Father Domingo had spoken of.

The Sacrifice of the Body.

Hawker stared at the altar. The vibration inside him had sharpened into pain; the sound in his head became a scream. With each piercing wave, ropes of water whipped up into the air around him, like some beast trying to break its chains.

To the left, on the shore, he saw movement. He turned to see a figure scampering down the slope. Yuri.

How was it possible? How had he come here?

Yuri made it down the side of the embankment to where Hawker’s backpack had come to rest.

“No!” Hawker shouted.

Yuri opened the pack and pulled the lead case out.

“Yuri, don’t!”

Yuri did not hear him. He opened the case and stared at the stone as if the gates of heaven rested inside.

The ground trembled from the next surge of energy, but Hawker remained locked on Yuri.

This can’t be happening.

He heard shouting. Over the noise in his head, and the chaos around him, he somehow heard shouting. He looked up. Danielle was sliding down, racing to Yuri.

Another wave of energy whipped through. The pillar he stood on shook to its foundations, knocking him down. More ropes of water whipped off the surface, lashing the walls and flying around like deranged spirits.

With the world coming apart around him, and the ground shaking so hard he could no longer stand, Hawker crawled forward. He saw the counterweights and the ropes. He spotted the lever that Father Domingo had said he would find.

Moore kept the pedal floored, but up ahead the light was dimming. The monstrous doors to Yucca Mountain were closing.

“Twenty-nine … twenty-eight … twenty-seven.”

He crossed into the triple-bore area near the entrance; the tu

Shots were fired, blasting into the cab. Moore flinched as the mirror shattered. His arm took a hit and flew off the steering wheel.

Moore’s truck swerved, a front tire exploded, and the big rig went over on its side. It crashed down hard and skidded toward the exit, grinding to a stop twenty feet from the threshold.

“Twenty-three … twenty-two … twenty-one.”

Moore looked out through the shattered windshield. Blood ran down his face; one eye was swelling shut. But there was still a chance.

He grabbed his coat, extricated himself from the wreckage, and crawled toward the narrowing band of light.

He heard the klaxons sounding, heard the voice warning.

“Nineteen … eighteen …”

Suddenly he was unable to move. He looked back, straining to see through his swollen eye.

Stecker was standing on the tail of his coat, looking down at him like an owner who had caught the leash of a disobedient hound.

“You’re too late,” Stecker said. He yanked the coat from Moore’s grasp as the doors ahead of him slammed shut with a monstrous metallic clang.

Stecker opened Moore’s coat but found nothing inside.

“Fifteen … fourteen …”

“Nothing in here!” one of the guards yelled from the cab of the overturned truck.

“Where is it?” Stecker shouted.

Moore stared up at him, battered and shaking. “I don’t have it,” he said simply.

Stecker’s face betrayed utter confusion, but suddenly he seemed to understand. He looked back down the tu

“Ahiga.”

In a distant part of the Yucca Mountain, at the top of a ventilation shaft that served as an escape route should something go wrong, Nathanial Ahiga heard the alarm go critical. He pushed upward, slamming against the hatch.

“Three …”

His mind reeled from the darkness and the fear of falling that gripped him. He pushed again, barely moving the heavy door.

“Two …”

Shouting a Navajo curse, he forced the hatch open. The blazing Nevada sunset burned his eyes and he tumbled out onto the mountainside holding the stone aloft.

“One …”

Hawker lunged for the handle.

“I believe,” he whispered as his hand slammed onto the lever.

The counterweights released. Heavy stones dropped into tu

Hawker saw it for an instant. Then the world went still. His hearing shrank to nothing. And everything vanished in a blinding flash of white.

CHAPTER 68

Hawker became aware of being conscious, and by extension alive, when the pounding in his head became too much to bear. He woke with his back to the stony ground and some type of wet cloth over his eyes.

The quiet around him seemed complete—the exact opposite of all he remembered.

He tried to move but found it too painful.

“Hawker?” a voice called to him. “Can you hear me?” The voice was kind but worried. He recognized it as Danielle’s.

He managed to move his hand, trying to bring it up toward the cloth, but he lacked the strength even to do that.

Danielle pulled the cloth from his eyes.

At first he saw only shadows, blurs of light, and the outline of her face. But slowly his eyes focused and the details appeared. She was a mess, but God she was beautiful.

“What happened?” The words croaked from his throat, dry as dust.

“You put the stone into place,” she said. “The blast knocked you a hundred feet, and you landed in the water.”

He looked at her. Her clothes were damp, and muddy in places instead of dusty. “You end up in the water, too?”

“I didn’t want you to drown.”

He was thankful for that. He tried to prop himself up. She helped him.

“How long have I been out?”

“Two hours,” she said. “I thought I’d lost you.”

They were up on the mesa. It was completely dark. “Aside from getting my ass kicked, did anything happen?”

She smiled for the first time, but there was still a sense of sadness in her eyes. “See for yourself.”