striding amid the huge blocks, followed by a crowd of officers.
Martin gazed long at that lens. It appeared to be perfectly round and convex, perhaps twenty feet high at its center. He cast across his memories of the past, trying to find in the encyclopedia of his mind some point of reference.
There was nothing. The past had not portrayed this. But he did not think it an accident that it had emerged immediately beneath the Great Pyramid. Of course it wasn’t an accident.
Had the pyramid, then, been built to block it, or perhaps to conceal it?
These were mysteries, but the even greater mystery was, what was it for? Clearly, it was the product of an advanced technology—and not only that, a very old one. The Giza Plateau had not been disturbed in thousands of years. Certainly, nothing this large had been buried here after the pyramids were built.
It was old, it had to be, but its construction must have presented more than just a structural challenge. The energy needed to blast all of those stones into the sky would have to be enormous. And yet, in all the years that the ground beneath the pyramid complex had been probed with tunnels and shafts, and examined with sonar and radar, no sign of the lens or of any sort of explosive device had been observed.
In fact, very little had been found. In the 1950s, the two so-called “solar boats” had been found buried in the boat-pits along the southern side of the Great Pyramid. But nothing else had ever been located—a few shadowy areas that suggested caves, but that was all.
God, but look at it! Gleaming in the light. Ominous as it could be.
The air was filled with the mourning of sirens. He thought of the British Empire as being ramshackle and overextended, but the Cairo Emergency Service was certainly well supplied with vehicles. He wondered about the hospitals, though. Had they as yet extended the National Health System to the protectorates, as well as the outright colonies? He didn’t know, but if not, then the hospitals here were liable to be primitive and he was damned lucky not to have been hurt.
Even his ears had stopped ringing.
He turned away, unwilling—or unable—to stare any longer at the gaping dark eye that had replaced that great wonder. Eternal pyramid, built for the ages.
How long had it taken to destroy it? No more than five minutes.
He’d started back downstairs when he hesitated. This was a nightmare of some kind. He wasn’t awake.
But he was.
He turned back, and there it was again. Nothing to call it but a lens. Huge, glaring darkly upward at sky into which it had spit the pyramid.
As old as it must be, it seemed perfect, fresh and new, come up out of the earth like some demon’s eye that had opened after a sleep that had crossed the ages.
Which was exactly what had happened.
ONE
NOVEMBER 22
DANCING IN THE DARK
GENERAL ALFRED WILLIAM NORTH ENTERED his superior officer’s luxurious suite in the Pentagon. General Samson had been appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last year, and had taken Al with him into the stratospheric world of high-level military politics.
General Samson’s orderly had not been present to announce him. Given the present state of chaos within the military, that wasn’t too surprising. He was probably on some detail or other within the vast building, and there hadn’t been anybody available to spell him.
They were due at the White House in ten minutes, so Al didn’t stand on ceremony. Knocking once, he entered the office. Al had met Tom Samson when he’d been promoted to Air Force Chief of Staff. He’d been a very efficient officer, and personable.
That, however, turned out to apply only to superior officers. Now that he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Al was still vice chairman, things had changed. Tom was a cold, charmless yeller, he was intolerant of failure, he was extremely demanding. Al still believed him to be a good officer, but his approach to the job was often too rigid. Truth to tell, Al had expected this promotion to be his. Counted on it, actually. What had happened had been a serious humiliation and a sad end to a great career. He had known the president for years, and he could not understand why he’d chosen Tom over him, frankly. He’d carried out his responsibilities with excellence.
The difference between the two of them was that Tom had served in fighters and Al had trained in them but served his entire career as a staff officer. Tom had a Purple Heart and an Air Medal. Did Al, who had never heard a shot fired in anger, envy Tom his participation in the Cuban Troubles?
Short answer: damn right. If it had been him, his career would not have stopped just short of the pinnacle.
“Tom, I’m here,” he said. Tentatively.
Silence.
The bathroom door was ajar, so Al walked toward it. “Tom?” he repeated.
There came a shuffle of sound from inside the bathroom.
“Excuse me,” Tom replied, an angry challenge in his rumble.
“Tom, I’m sorry, Lenny’s not out front—”
“Get out of here!”
“Sorry!”
As Al headed for the door, he noticed, open on Tom’s desk, a silver box about the size of an old-fashioned cigarette case. Inside were six narrow golden cylinders. Lying beside them was a hypodermic, silver, that tapered seamlessly from a wide back with a socket in it that would obviously fit one of the cylinders, to a needle with a point so fine it almost appeared hairlike.
Al hurried out, his mind racing. That outfit—was he an addict of some sort? A cancer victim? And what strange looking equipment.
A moment later, Tom slammed his office door with such force that the entire room shook.
Al hardly heard. If Tom was an addict, very frankly, that could be good. Worth knowing.
At that point, Lenny reappeared.
“General, let me announce you,” he said.
“He knows I’m here.”
Lenny went white. “He does?”
Al nodded. Nothing more was said, and a moment later Tom strode out, resplendent in his uniform, his gray eyes staring straight ahead, his face expressionless.
Lenny snapped to attention.
“We need to talk,” Tom snarled at him as he passed his desk.
“Yessir!”
“You bet, yes sir, young fella.” He went stomping off into the outer part of the suite.
Al followed him, and together they descended in his private elevator to the basement garage, where his staff car awaited them, rear door open. All of this was done in silence. In point of fact, you just plain did not talk to Tom unless he spoke first. He wasn’t responsive to social chatter, jokes, gossip—anything like that. In fact, the most amazing thing about him was that he held this most political of all military appointments. How the bastard had managed it, every single general on his staff would have loved to know—if only to help find a way to hurt him.
Historically, the Joint Chiefs was a solid, smooth-running organization. Not under Tom. Tom had made it into a rat’s nest full of spider webs. Men who had worked together for years now fought like what they were—creatures in a trap.
In the year since Tom had come, there had been five “resignations.” All, in fact, firings, brutal, mean spirited, often mysterious. Worse, they had been followed by vindictive little appointments to posts designed to humiliate the victims. General Halff had been Army Chief of Staff. He was now serving out his time as commander of Fort Silker in Mississippi. Fort Silker was being decommissioned, so Harry’s basic job was to arrange for
