Terrorcota (Stone Soldiers #8)

PROLOGUE

Zuo Zheng Duan looked around the Forbidden City and smiled–soon, it would all be his. No more would politicians and bureaucrats lead the People's Republic into an uncertain future. Zuo would step forward and restore China to its former glory. And it all started right now.

The shaved-head man reached down to his bright orange sleeve and pulled the loose flowing fabric back to check his waterproof digital watch. It was time.

Zuo nodded to several of his companions nearby. They nodded back in agreement and the five men in loose-fitting monks' robes came together. After feigning a brief discussion of the plaza they stood in, they walked in a small group across the wide courtyard in the center of China's former Imperial palace.

No one paid them any attention as they walked. They were just five more tourists come to see part of the People's history. Five monks clad in bright orange robes, their heads shaved, hands clasped before them in reflection. Utterly unthreatening.

Zuo could feel the weight of history pressing down on him as he crossed the plaza. He could almost hear the footfalls of the Imperial Guard, coming down to him through the ages, spurring him on.

Zuo and his companions at last reached their destination, a simple doorway in an unremarkable building overlooking the plaza. It was like many of the structures within the walled city.

After walking inside, Zuo nodded to four more monks waiting–signaling them to move into position. Each did so, standing watch in pairs by two exits leading from the small chamber.

Zuo stepped up to the third exit, reaching under his monk's robes and retrieving a small pair of bolt cutters. He slipped them over the chains wound in place over the door before him and quickly cut them apart.

Zuo's companions followed him silently into the next room, the last man scooping up the broken chains, then easing the door shut behind him. They needed to avoid detection a while longer.

The room beyond the chained door had not been visited for decades. Crates and cartons were stacked in great dusty piles, filled with pamphlets declaring the majesty of China's Great Leader, Mao Tse Tung. Zuo kicked the crates aside, spilling their propaganda onto the floor. He stomped across the leader's great image and moved to an even larger one hung on the wall.

Less than a Century ago, the frame before him had held the image of China's last Emperor, painted by one of the Forbidden City's former residents a century ago. Zuo produced a knife from under his robes and sliced at the painting, freeing it from its ancient frame. Behind it were elaborately-embossed bricks.

Zuo concentrated, remembering the pattern he had learned from an ancient scroll. Then he pressed the bricks in the correct sequence–Dragon, Sword, Shield, Lightning.

A deep rumbling filled the room and the wall before Zuo began to move. The frame that had held Emperor and Despot's images fell free–caught by the monks and moved hastily aside.

Once the wall had retracted back nearly a half meter, it began to go down, into the floor. As it did so, a new chamber was revealed.

Nearly four meters across and at least three high, the massive, gold and bronze-walled chamber was covered in filigree and wire patterns, an ornate box hidden for decades.

Zuo and his monks stepped inside, then Zuo pulled a large, ornate lever, the end of which was fashioned like a dragon's roaring mouth, its eyes made of tiny emeralds.

The chamber jerked then began to move downwards, grating and scraping noises reverberating inside it. The freight elevator had not been used in so very long. But Zuo knew that the Emperors of the past had always insisted on the finest of craftsmanship. The elevator would work.

After several long minutes, the gilded elevator cage came to a stop. The wall before it parted down the middle, swinging out to reveal a dusty corridor lit by cheap incandescent lights held on the ceiling in wire baskets.

Footfalls could be heard coming down this hallway, along with excited shouting from two men. Soldiers.

The soldiers had their rifles at the ready, aimed at the elevator they had never known existed. They shouted in Mandarin, their voices tinged with fear and excitement.

Stop! Raise your hands!

Zuo raised his hands–with lightning speed. As he did so, he released two small darts made of steel, one from each hand. The darts were razor-sharp on one end and coated in poison, while the other was tipped with a small tassel of threads.

Zuo's aim was perfect and the darts found their marks before the soldiers' brains had even realized they'd been thrown. The poison on those darts, now coursing through the carotid arteries each dart had punctured, worked even faster.

Both soldiers fell over, dead before their bodies even hit the floor.

The monks in the elevator poured out, pulling off their robes, revealing modern camouflage military uniforms matching those of the deceased. Two crouched by the dead soldiers, stripping off radios, assault vests, web belts and weapons. In moments they were dressed like the deceased soldiers.

Zuo motioned and his men fanned out, heading down the long hallway, automatic weapons and ancient darts at the ready. Zuo followed them confidently, his own monk's robes discarded, his General's uniform visible in the harsh light of the tunnel.

More soldiers soon appeared, headed toward their missing companions. Zuo's men were ready and they added four more soldiers to the ranks of the dead. Four more of the People's Army sacrificed for the greater good.

Zuo continued on, deeper into the subterranean complex.

The next batch of soldiers were far easier. They saluted the General who came toward them. They then surrendered with no bloodshed when the General's guard held them at gunpoint. Now all Zuo's men were armed with modern weapons. And they had captives.

A warning claxon at last sounded throughout the complex. It was old, a relic of a bygone era, but it still worked. Zuo nodded to his men and they split up, two heading for the stairs and two for the other elevator that led to the surface. The remaining four pushed the bound captives along, toward the vault the complex was built around.

Zuo paused before the vault, regarding the massive door with its ornate carvings of dragons and the Imperial Seal. He smiled and stepped forward, ramming a triangular-shaped key into the lock at the center of the vault door.

Gears and springs moved smoothly, making only the faintest of sounds. Precision machinery, they retracted great deadbolts around the vault door, then swung it slowly open-for the first time in nearly a century.

Beyond the door, a pale white light shone from stones set into the ceiling. Like marble, but all one milky-white color, the stones gave off an eerie, otherworldly light. This soft light revealed wooden shelves and panels lining the walls of the massive vault. And the great, golden ring at the center of it.

Zuo moved toward the great ring, at least two meters across and half a meter thick. It was like a great disk, standing on edge and inscribed with dragons, elemental symbols and writing from an age long, long ago.

The General bent over and picked up two long silver spikes, attached to silver chains that hung from either side of the gleaming disk. His men immediately shuffled the prisoners forward.

The four bound men were in awe, looking all around the vault they had been guarding for years. The vault each had been told had not been opened since Mao Tse Tung first liberated the People's Republic from the Imperial invaders of Nippon.

They were so engrossed at looking at the detail carved into wooden panels and drawer faces that they never saw the spikes in Zuo's hands coming.

The four captives all jerked in place as the General thrust the spikes into them–spearing the two closest men in the stomach, then pushing the spikes through in one thrust, out the first men's backs and into the next two bound men.

Zuo released the spikes and the four men, speared in pairs, like human shish kebobs, fell to their knees, blood pouring from their wounds.

Then the golden disk began to glow.

The very air around the disk seemed to crackle and spark with energy. The disk itself began to brighten, like a light bulb supplied far too much current. A bright white emanated from the disk, then flowed like smoke into the open gap in the middle of the metal ring. There it met, flashing brightly.

When the light faded, the four speared men collapsed to the ground, dead. The General stepped over their bodies and walked up to the disk.

Now, he said, looking through the shimmering portal to a vast chamber thousands of miles away.

The Colonel standing inside that chamber saluted, then turned and began barking orders to the two dozen soldiers standing at attention behind him.

CHAPTER ONE

It had been another great show, John Shepherd thought to himself. He carefully moved the joystick on his control panel, slowly swiveling the camera mounted on the nose of his helicopter, panning it across the cheering crowds below.

Many of the onlookers were still cheering. Most were packing up their lawn chairs and blankets after a long day of watching the annual air show and fireworks display that kicked off the start of horse racing season in Louisville, KY.

Men, women and children, families and couples, friends and strangers all celebrated along the banks of the Ohio River–an all day long celebration that was one of the largest of its kind in the nation.

John Shepherd wondered what it would be like to see the huge fireworks show from the ground. For the past eight years he'd watched it from the air, working as the cameraman in a news helicopter.

High above the crowds, he'd recorded year after year of celebrations–then celebrated himself when he got his overtime check. It was hard work flying all day long in a helicopter, every day for two weeks, covering first the fireworks, then the parades, the steamboat races, and finally, the great race itself.

That was odd.

Shepherd adjusted the controls for the camera mounted on the nose of the helicopter. He'd been pulling back, getting a wider-angled view of the crowds as they slowly dispersed. He did this every year, showing the slow build of traffic as tens of thousands of people tried to make their way home.

Normally, the tired revelers shuffled slowly to their cars, some carrying coolers, some children. It was a slow exodus, everyone knowing it was futile to rush as the roads would be clogged for hours.

But this year, something was different. The crowds were running.

The fleeing crowds were in full blown panic now. Many tripping and falling–falling in the stampede of confused humanity. Shepherd imagined he could hear the screams that went with this. He had to imagine, as in a noisy helicopter, with protective headphones on, he couldn't even hear himself talk.

John pulled the camera back quickly now, looking up from his screen and out the Plexiglas door beside him. Was there a fire? Gunshots?

All he saw was a cloud of smoke drifting in from the river–the after effects of all those fireworks. This year the smoke was spreading out on both sides of the river. This year-

The smoke was brown?

Shepherd looked back to his control panel. He'd never seen brown smoke before. The smoke was always a dirty gray. And it was never this thick.

Shepherd zoomed in on the ground, just ahead of the expanding smoke cloud. The camera under his control was impressive–the best money could buy. Shepherd could read a paperback with it at a thousand feet. The news channels wanted details when they paid the high price of jet fuel to send a helicopter up.

His jaw dropped when he saw the cloud sweep over a man who had fallen to the ground. The camera clearly showed the panic in the man's face. Hell, Shepherd could make out the name of the team on the man's faded ball cap: the Wildcats.

But despite the clarity his advanced camera gave him, Shepherd couldn't believe what he was seeing. The fallen Wildcat fan below was turning to clay.

Like the brown cloud increasing in density as it swept over the man, the fallen reveler's skin was turning brown. And his eyes. And his teeth. Even his clothes turned a dirty, clay-brown, dry and cracked. Then he was enveloped in the cloud and lost from sight.

The helicopter lurched suddenly and Shepherd's hand sent the control stick far to the right, swinging the camera around and away from shore.

Shepherd looked up and started reaching for the switch to communicate with his pilot up front. That's when he noticed the dirty brown haze in the cabin of the helicopter.

Terror filled the cameraman as he recognized the smoke from below. He glanced at his hand and shuddered. It was turning brown.

***

Kenji Nakayama watched the running lights of the helicopter as it spun out of control and plummeted down toward the stampeding crowd. In the thick brown haze of smoke spreading out from the river, the lights were faint, nearly masked out. Then a brilliant ball of orange flashed as the helicopter struck something on the ground and exploded.

The screams and running feet were dying out now. Kenji looked over at the woman laying broken on the pavement near his van. She had turned to brown, clay-like stone as she ran. Then she had toppled over and shattered against the hard pavement.

Go! Josie Winters said, tapping Kenji on the shoulder.

He nodded and opened the doors at the rear of the big panel van. He grimaced as the brown smoke swept into the van, passing over him. But his luck held and the biological contamination suit he was wearing protected him.

Kenji could hear his breath, echoing inside the plastic helmet. It fogged the faceplate of the helmet a little. He realized he was almost hyperventilating.

What the hell is this stuff? Jimmy Kane asked. Like Kenji, he was wearing a full protection suit and helmet, hands and feet protected by gloves. Even the air they breathed was cycled through a backpack unit and pumped fresh into their helmets.

Jimmy, Kenji and Josie had all been waiting quietly in the plain panel van parked on the lot of a riverside restaurant. They had been there all day, enduring long, long hours of waiting, remaining hidden.

This isn't petrification, Dr. Laura Olson said, crouched by the remains of the shattered woman nearby. She was the last member of the little team that had been stationed at the parking lot.

Dr. Olson picked at the broken pieces of the victim with tweezers, stuffing samples into a Ziploc bag.

What about her clothes? Josie Winters asked.

The chill the young girl felt up her back was very strange to Josie. She normally didn't feel heat or cold. But this, this was enough to make the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.

Looks like it only affects natural fibers, Dr. Olson said, lifting up a polyester sleeve. Fragments of hardened clay-like material fell out, breaking apart on the pavement like dried clods of dirt.

Report! a man's voice called from out of the thick brown cloud.

Kenji looked over and saw the dense brown smoke stirring as something moved through it. Something that glowed a bright green.

Colonel Mark Kenslir was not wearing a protective suit. Kenji wondered if any would even fit him. Well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and arms like a lumberjack he had short black hair cut in a military flattop. Piercing green-black eyes were set in what should have been a pleasant face–if only the Colonel wasn't always so serious and grim-looking. Even after all these months working together, the big soldier still scared Kenji.

When Kenslir stopped walking, the smoke around him seemed to fade away–as did the green glow coming from his exposed skin. His khaki pants and black jacket were unphased by the clay-colored smoke, just like the Colonel himself.

I'm not sure what this is, Mark, Dr. Olson said, standing. Subconsciously, she reached up to brush at her long red hair. Instead, her gloved hand banged into her helmet and she blushed a little.

Josie? the Colonel asked, turning to his granddaughter–something he didn't look old enough to have.

Josie Winters, a twenty year old girl with a pretty face, jet black hair and the same green-black eyes as Kenslir nodded and concentrated on a patch of smoke nearby. The smoke moved, flowing downward to the pavement of the parking lot as it rapidly cooled. I don't think there's any moisture, sir. Just smoke.

Kenslir reached up and tapped an earpiece he wore. Team 2, anything?

"Same thing