Area 51: The Mission-3 Read Free Page A

earpiece in his left ear, attached to a receiver he'd planted days earlier. It had picked up the conversation the two had had on the porch.
    The man was thinking about what had been said, condensing it

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    for the report he would have to make shortly. A receiver he'd hidden inside the house now picked up the sound of the two making love, but that interested the man not in the least.
    An MP-5 silenced submachine gun, round in the chamber, lay across his knees.
    Behind him, a backpack rested against a tree. A bulky plastic case was strapped on the side. The man laid the sub aside and reached for the pack. A large silver ring glittered in the moonlight on his left ring finger as he did that. He opened the plastic case and pulled out the two parts of a sniper rifle. His practiced hands quickly bolted the parts together. He pulled a different scope out of the pack and slid it into place on top of the rifle.
    One never knew how those he worked for would react to his report, and he wanted to be prepared just in case. He looked through the scope and turned it on. The image came to life in an array of colors, from hot red through cold blue. He sighted in, the thermal sight letting him see through the curtain.
    There was one large red spot in front of the flickering deeper red of the fireplace—the man and woman sleeping arm in arm. Twisting the focus knob, he zeroed in on the man's head. He knew he'd have to take down the Green Beret first.
    The rifle ready, he leaned it against the tripod. Then he pulled out a secure cellular phone. He punched in a number. He made his report in a few concise sentences. After a short pause, he received his orders. It was the same 99
    percent of the time as it had been for generations of those before him.
    Take no action—for now. Just watch.

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    -2-

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    A long black streak, over a hundred meters long amid a row of smashed and splintered trees, marked the crash site of the Blackhawk helicopter that Peter Nabinger had been on. It was on a hillside, in a remote area in the west of China, the terrain rough and difficult to reach by foot. It was thirty miles east of Qian-Ling, the mountain tomb that Nabinger had investigated, not too far from the ancient capital city of Xian.
    The largest intact piece of the chopper was the armored cockpit and the area right behind it. All were dead, the two pilots still strapped in their seats, the control panel buckled against their chests. In the rear, Peter Nabinger's body lay on its back, both legs badly broken, his left side covered in blood.
    His sightless eyes looked up at the shattered rotor blades.
    Clutched in his right hand was a leather notebook with his high rune translations and the drawings and photographs he had collected during his years of tracking down the source of the ancient language. In it also was the secret of the lower level of Qian-Ling, the ancient tomb of the Emperor Gao-zong and his empress. Given that a guardian computer had been found above that lower level, along with a large area containing numerous Airlia artifacts that no one had had a chance to investigate, that secret was critical.

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    Writing down what he remembered from his contact with the guardian and his interpretation of the high rune characters on the wall leading to the lowest level had been the last thing Nabinger had done. He had been desperately trying to radio out that secret when the foo fighters had caused the Blackhawk to crash. And now the secret lay here on the hillside with him, gripped by his dead fingers.
    It was a terrible ending for a man who in the past month had made some most startling discoveries in the field of archaeology. He had penetrated the secret of the Great Pyramid, built as a space beacon during the war between the Airlia factions, and then the corresponding message built into the very shape of the Great Wall of China, beckoning to the sky for help. The entire previously accepted history of mankind had been thrown on its ear due