Prologue
July 1977
There was no sound.
No crickets, no insects, no anything…
but dry, dead air.
Utter silence. Unmoving. Slowing time and existence to a crawl through endless days of searing heat and suffocating air followed by long, empty black nights.
No movement of any kind.
Until it happened—
Almost instantaneously.
Grains of sand began to move across the trembling ground a split second before a massive explosion of sound and speed. Overhead, it was sudden, thunderous, and gone as quickly as it came.
Barely three hundred feet above the ground, with hands gripping the control column like vices, a lone pilot peered intently through the cockpit window into the darkness in front of him, feeling every vibration traveling up through his trembling arms.
The aircraft was under enormous strain, pushed to its limit by twin turbojet engines at the tail of the craft, sending it hurtling forward just below the speed of sound, ensconced in total and utter darkness.
All navigation lights had been turned off, including the interior lights, leaving the only illumination of the pilot’s face coming from the instruments themselves, the only lights keeping the small cockpit from pitch blackness. Except perhaps the dim scattering of stars across the ebony sky above.
A thousand kilometers was all he needed. Due East. Below the radar horizon. Enough to give him a fighting chance.
Fear coursed through his body, down his arms in the same path as the vibrations and into his hands, which remained wrapped around the controls in a death grip. He was fearful of making the slightest mistake, as it would take almost nothing at his velocity and altitude to slam the aircraft directly into the earth at full speed.
His thoughts briefly drifted to the rest of the craft behind him—to his cargo. He almost turned his head as if needing to verify it was still there.
Don’t look! Pay attention!
He squinted tighter and continued peering through the tiny windshield, searching for anything in his way.
But he knew the truth. At this speed, anything he saw would hit him before he could even react, leaving his desperate plight fixed solely upon hope and prayer.
Hope that there was nothing in the way.
And the prayer that he would reach salvation in time.
What the lone pilot could not know, what he couldn’t see, was the sky behind him, which was also black and dotted by a multitude of faint stars appearing like a giant shimmering blanket overhead, with more than enough twinkling lights to hide what was approaching from the rear.
Navigation lights from another jet.
In the lead cockpit, the man released one hand long enough to wipe the sweat from his forehead before immediately returning it to the controls, blinking wide and staring into the night. Each passing minute gave him another minute of hope.
If he could just—
He never heard the launch of the missile behind him—or its impact when the entire Learjet instantly exploded into a brilliant ball of orange flame.
1
Present Day
The mighty Pacific winds buffeted the small car as though trying to push it from the narrow gravel road upon which it was traveling alone, struggling through continual waves of dust clouds passing over the plains of Baja. Over thirty miles of barren hills and valleys before the powerful gusts finally rising up and over the open waters of Mexico’s Gulf of California.
The car didn’t surrender. Instead, it held its ground and stubbornly continued along the dirt-strewn road until reaching and turning onto an abandoned set of worn tire tracks heading toward the distant cliffs.
The tracks grew less visible as the small automobile wound back and forth over rugged terrain, reaching with difficulty the remnants of an old structure severely damaged but still technically standing in its own relentless fight against the elements.
The white car stopped and remained for several moments before the driver’s side door opened, and Joe Rickards stepped out onto the hard ground.
Dressed in a light jacket, jeans and boots, he fought against the mighty wind to force his door closed and stood for several minutes staring at what was left of the old house. He then stepped out from around the car and approached. The house’s entire roof was collapsed, with half of it missing entirely. What sections remained were wedged between several stone walls that managed to remain standing against all odds. Windows whose glass was broken and missing remained embedded within the stone in empty wooden frames.
Debris was scattered everywhere—large stone chunks down to small rocks and pebbles covered the entire stone foundation, obscuring what appeared to be broken dishes and a plumbing conduit.
Behind the structure lay perhaps another mile of rolling hills which eventually dropped off and began a meandering descent to the aqua-colored waters of the gulf several hundred feet below.
Rickards studied the abandoned dwelling and gradually began to circle, viewing it from all sides, his brown hair whipping wildly in the wind.
He stepped forward to move onto the house’s foundation but stopped himself, deciding against it. He didn’t want to desecrate the place any more than it already was.
Twenty-six years.
Twenty-six years had entirely destroyed the house, along with the family who’d once lived there.
He stepped back and scanned the horizon, finding nothing but dry grass waving under the forceful breeze. With hands in both pockets, he turned back to the remains and continued staring.
Loss was painful, but regret was forever.
2
Several days later, Angela Reed found Rickards on a bench in Denver’s Bear Creek Park, quietly overlooking a small playground filled with children scampering about, squealing with laughter and chasing one another in a game of tag.
Angela slowed several feet from the bench when Joe turned and glanced up at her.
“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you.”
“Sorry,” he replied. “Been a little busy.”
She stepped forward and eased herself down onto the other half of the bench. “Everything okay?”
“As well as it can be.”
“When you disappear, you really disappear.”
“Sorry,” he said again, briefly glancing back at the playground. It used to be his daughter’s favorite.
Angela lowered her large purse beside her and watched the children with a smile. “How did it go with your mother-in-law?”
“Interesting.”
“Just interesting?”
He thought a moment and turned back. “She was more than a little reluctant. But I convinced her.”
“How?”
“I told her I’d just keep coming back to visit her until she agreed.”
“I’ll bet that did the trick,” Angela said with a laugh. “And?”
“I took her,” he said simply, “to Bolivia.”
“And did she go in?”
“Eventually, but it took a while. She thought I was insane.”
“And?”
“Well, she doesn’t think I’m insane anymore.”
“What happened?”
He gave a soft shrug. “She went in—and came out thirty minutes later crying.”
Angela inhaled. “What did she see?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t say.”
“At all?”
Rickards shook his head.
“So… you have no idea what—?”
“No. But something happened. After that, she didn’t hate me anymore.”
“Well, that’s good.”
He nodded solemnly. “Yeah.”
They both fell quiet, listening only to the sound of the children playing.
“Are you back to work?”
Rickards shook his head again. “I quit.”
“You quit?”
He raised his head and looked at her. “Kind of hard to go back. Things are too different now.”
“I can understand that.”
“How about you?”
Angela nodded beneath a head of light-brown hair. “I’m back teaching at the university. But it is different.” She looked out over a group of pine trees, their needles twinkling in the light spring breeze. “Surreal, really. It’s as if very little in the world matters anymore.”
“Yep.”
“I turn on the TV and listen to the news, and it all feels so, I don’t know, juvenile. Everyone just arguing over things that don’t matter—at all. But they don’t know it.”
Rickards gazed absently at the ground. “That’s about it.”
She grinned and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Half the time my students ask me a question, and I just want to answer, ‘Who cares?’”
Rickards smiled.
“I feel strange,” she went on. “As if I’m in this place between the life I’ve lived and the life I’m supposed to live now.”
“I get that.”
“You’re probably the only one who does, which is why I’ve been calling. I was worried something had happened to you.”
“I just needed some time.”
“I’m happy you’re okay.”
“You don’t have to worry, Angela. I’m not… you know.”
She watched as a couple strolled past. “Well, that was one of the reasons. To make sure you’re okay.” She turned and picked up her purse. “The other reason was to show you something.”
“What’s that?”
She reached in and retrieved a thick manila envelope.
Rickards looked at her curiously and then at the envelope until she pushed it forward and into his hands.
He took it and studied it before flipping it over. “What is this?”
Angela didn’t answer. Instead, she motioned to the envelope and waited until he’d opened the flap and pulled out the top piece of paper.
It took only a moment for his expression to change and his eyes to widen as he read the paper.
He didn’t speak, but instead read the entire page. Then, when he’d finished, he sat in stunned silence.
“Is this real?”
“Yes.”
“From Mike Morton?”
“Yes.”
“How is that possible?”
“Look at the date on that email. He sent it the night we met. I’m guessing he had a satellite connection or something.”
“But…”
“I know. I couldn’t believe it, either.”
Rickards repeatedly blinked at the sheet before finally pulling out the rest of the papers inside, page after page filled with what looked to be computer data and mathematical computations, including images from different maps.
He turned to Angela. “How long have you had this?”
“Since I got back.”
“Have you told anyone?”
“No one else would believe me. Only you.”
“And this is why you’ve been calling me?”
She winked. “One of the reasons.”
3
“Something tells me you haven’t been idle,” said Rickards.
She grinned. “I’ve located the person Mike references in his letter.”
“Who is it?”
“An old colleague who worked at NASA with him. Maybe on the same project.”
“Mike said no one else believed him.”
Angela shrugged.
“So who is he?”
“His name is Leonard Townsend. He’s retired and teaches college math and physics.”
“Have you contacted him?”
“No.”
“But you plan to.”
“I was waiting to talk to you first.”
Rickards returned the pages to the envelope and sighed, leaning back against the wooden bench. “Another location.”
“Sounds like it.”
“That does what?”
She shook her head. “I have no idea.”
After a long pause, Rickards took a breath and exhaled slowly. “I say leave it alone.”
“What?”
“Angela,” he said, turning, “you do understand the significance here.”
“I do.”
“Are you sure? Because what we already know is enough to change everything.”
“I understand that.”
“Then you also understand it’s only a matter of time before others find out.”
“Yes.”
He held up the papers. “And you still want to find this?”
“Mike obviously did.”
“Mike didn’t even know what the first one was,” exclaimed Rickards. “What it was or what it could do. This is big, Angela—bigger than either of us. Jesus, it’s bigger than all of us.”
“I know that, Joe.”
“Really? Because it seems to me as if maybe you don’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What I mean is this thing is beyond…”
“What?”
Rickards struggled for the right word. “I don’t know—comprehension. And it’s dangerous. What happens when everybody else finds out?”
“And uses it for something bad?”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t see how they could do that.”
“Anything can be exploited, Angela. Anything. Every object on this planet has been used for something terrible at one time or another.”
“Just because something can be abused doesn’t destroy the good it can do.”
“You’re an anthropologist. You, more than anyone, should understand what people are capable of. How many times has a country, or a race, wiped out another, be it oil, land, or just ideology? Don’t tell me you think this would be any different.”
Angela contemplated before finally answering. “Yes. I’ll admit it has and does happen. A lot.”
“But now—”
“Let me finish,” she said, cutting him off. “Yes. You’re right,” she acknowledged. “You’re right. History is littered with terrible acts against one another. Without a doubt. Will it ever change? I don’t know. Maybe it will, and maybe it won’t. But good God, Joe. Look at the world today. Look at the fighting and the vitriol. It’s everywhere! Is this our future? Is this the way you want the world to be? Because I don’t.”
She took the envelope and shoved it back into her open purse. “The world is lost, Joe. Lost. No one knows what’s real anymore. No one tries to listen. It’s as if the whole world is trapped in some constant, never-ending fight with itself where no one ever wins. They just incessantly attack each other.”
“You’re making my point for me.”
“No, I’m not,” she said. “Here we are, you and me, sitting on a park bench knowing something no one else knows. Something that could fundamentally affect people’s lives, change them deeply, right down to their cores, and we think it may be too dangerous? Too dangerous for what? Do you really think it could make things worse than they are now?”
“Angela—”
“No. Say it, Joe. Say you think the greatest potential discovery—maybe ever—is actually going to make things worse.”
“What I’m saying,” he replied slowly, “is there is something powerful about that place. About that thing. And sooner or later, someone will try to exploit it. Harness it. Use it for their own self-interests.”
“So, then no one should benefit? Because eventually someone will exploit it?”
Rickards sighed.
She softened her voice. “What do you want the world to be like?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because I don’t have any incentive to make it any better. Not anymore.”
“None at all?”
“No.”
Angela looked around. Her gaze stopped on the playground again and she pointed at the playing children. “Not even for them?”
There was no answer.
“What if your daughter were still here?”
Rickards suddenly shot her a stern glare. “Don’t!”
“You said yourself this is bigger than all of us. You, me, anyone.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then tell me this,” she said, looking back at the children. “With the path this world is on, do you think things will be better for them… or worse?”
4
Hard polished gray tiles stretched the entire length of the long hallway, creating a loud echo from the woman’s heels as she walked.
Nearly every door she passed revealed another elderly patient lying in bed or sitting idly in a wheelchair with old, frail hands folded limply in their laps. Some shook uncontrollably, all against a backdrop of distant coughing.
These patients were all in their final waning days and years. Heads down. Sitting and waiting.
With each door the young woman passed, she briefly glanced in—sympathetically and respectfully—before eventually slowing as she reached the second to the last door, every one of them painted in a muted beige amongst perfectly matching walls.
She glanced in through the small window and, seeing nothing, reached forward to pull open the door, suddenly jumping when it was immediately pushed open from the inside, revealing a black-bearded man dressed in a light tunic and white skull cap.
Squeezing through the door, he promptly greeted the woman.
“A ‘Salaam Alaikum.”
“Alaikum a ‘Salaam.” The woman nodded and bowed respectfully, speaking in Arabic. “You were the one who phoned me?”
“Yes, yes. Thank you for coming. We do not have much time.”
The young woman, dressed in a plain red dress instead of a traditional hijab, stepped back and peered curiously through the window again. “Time for what?”
“Please,” the man answered, widening the door behind him. “Come. He is very weak.”
The woman cautiously followed, unsure of what or who was waiting on the other side of the wooden door. She’d been told almost nothing on the phone, only that it was an urgent matter and she needed to come quickly. Even in modern-day Egypt, when an imam summoned, you were expected to respond.
Inside the small room was a single hospital bed occupied by an older man. Tubes ran from his left arm up to a hanging IV bag, while a mask over his nose and mouth fed his thin, frail body fresh oxygen.
The man remained motionless, watching with a pair of sunken eyes as she entered the room.
“Sit down. Please,” urged the imam, who circled the bed and took a seat on the opposite side.
Uncertain, the woman stepped over to the empty chair and eased herself down.
After an uncomfortable silence, she introduced herself in a polite tone, unsure how well the man could hear. “A ‘Salaam Alaikum. My name is Mona Baraka. I am a journalist—”
The religious leader interrupted with a reassuring gesture of his hand. “It is okay. He knows who you are. He is the one who asked for you.”
With some difficulty, the patient raised a hand and pulled the oxygen mask from his mouth, briefly licking his lips and inhaling before speaking in a low, raspy voice.
“Thank you,” he said weakly, “for coming.”
“You’re welcome,” Mona replied, glancing briefly around the room. “What, exactly, am I here for?”
With a heaving chest, the man glanced at the imam to his left, who answered for him. “Tawbah.”
Mona blinked and turned back to the old man, studying him.
Tawbah was the Islamic word for ‘repentance.’
“My name is Abasi Hamed,” he began, inhaling between sentences. “I was born and raised… in a village outside Kharga.”
Mona’s brief hesitation went unnoticed by both men before she reached into her handbag to retrieve a small audio recorder. “May I record this?”
Hamed, the older man, nodded.
It wasn’t the first bedside confession for which she’d been summoned. Quite the contrary—though rarely did they prove to be newsworthy. They were often little more than an unburdening from the person facing the certainty of the great beyond, even from some of the most ardent and faithful believers. It was something to help them feel at ease with their indiscretions or regrets. While these deathbed confessions were critical in helping another human clear their conscience, it was hardly justification for Mona to suddenly drop whatever she was working on. Regardless, she gave a polite smile and offered no hint of annoyance, quietly pressing the small round button on the handheld unit and setting it on her lap.
“I am,” the old man corrected himself, “was a captain in the Egyptian Air Force from 1963 to 1995.” His eyes rolled and peered at the ceiling as he spoke. “Accepted when I was twenty-four years old.”
Mona thought for a moment. “You are now 82?”
The old man didn’t respond, instead using his energy to inhale again.
“Yes,” confirmed the imam.
Hamed nodded. “I served for thirty-two years. I flew F-16 Falcons and later MiG-23s.”
Mona was impressed. “That is admirable,” she said, but to her surprise, the old man merely shook his head.
“I have served my country,” he replied. “Faithfully.” After another short breath, he added, “Mostly.”
He watched while she glanced at the imam. “There are many things of which I am proud,” he whispered. “But some of which I am not.” Another pause to breathe. He was staring at her now. “By not proud… I mean ashamed.”
Mona Baraka was unsurprised at the change in subject. “What are you ashamed of?”
It took the man a long time to respond. “I participated in many battles… things they now call conflicts. The Romani ambush… The Battle of Suez… The Four-Day War. Many more.”
“You served your country well.”
Hamed did not respond.
“You need not be ashamed,” she offered.
“We are all ashamed,” he mumbled.
“If you were—”
The man held up a finger and suddenly coughed violently, prompting the imam to rise and hold a small towel to Hamed’s mouth until he gently pushed it away.
“Listen,” he said. “Before it is too late.”
“Of course.”
“Soldiers are not given explanations. We follow orders. That is all.” His dark eyes had returned to the ceiling. “But some orders,” he said, now almost whispering. “Some orders felt wrong.”
“Wrong in what way?”
“I am no longer fearful,” he said, changing topics. “My family is now gone. In Jannah.” He turned back to the imam. “But for me… it will be Sijjin.”
The Islamic equivalent of hell.
Mona followed his gaze to the younger man at his side, staring back at Hamed. “What did you do?” she quietly asked.
“I sought.”
She frowned.
“I sought,” he repeated.
“Sought what?”
“To know the truth of what I had done.” His words stopped until his eyes returned to Mona. “Firing on an enemy you know is easy, at least during combat. But other times…”
“You did what you were told,” said the imam.
“It will not be enough,” the old man croaked. “Not in the eyes of Allah.”
“It will be enough,” the imam assured him.
Hamed feebly shook his head. “Not this.” He turned back to Mona and said, “Sometimes knowledge is worse.”
“What do you mean?”
He replied almost painfully. “In 1977, I shot down a private jet.”
After a long moment, Mona asked, “Who was in it?”
Hamed's eyes became glassy as though he were staring through her. “Allah.”
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