Area 51: Excalibur-6 Read Online Free PDF

me?"
    "Asim is dead. I killed him."
    Khufu looked back up at the defaced pyramid. The sword pressed tighter against his throat. He waited to feel it slice his skin. Now, for the first time in his life, Khufu felt his mortality, and knew that he was not the favored of the Gods, that he was just a man.
    "He lied to you because he was lied to," Kaji said.
    "Lied about what?" Khufu asked, hoping to avoid this dark fate as long as possible, thinking that perhaps one of his guards might check on them, also knowing that hope was futile, as no one would dare interrupt the Pharaoh while he was consulting with his high priest.
    'The gods. The empty promises." The sword was removed from Khufu's throat and Kaji sheathed it, before hiding it under his cloak. "My Pharaoh—" Kaji pointed toward the pyramid. "That is what has been done to your people in the name of the gods. Perhaps it is best if these gods are not part of our lives. I will let you live if you give me your word as Pharaoh to rule as a man and not as a puppet to the gods." Khufu swallowed and nodded, his confidence shattered by recent events. "Yes. Yes. I can do that. I will do that."
    "I do not believe you," Kaji said simply. "Still, killing you will solve nothing and in reality, you have little choice now

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    but to rule as a man. And there is doubt in your mind now. Perhaps that is all I can do here. Doubt is the seed from which one day may grow independence. The ability to think for ourselves. We have been lied to many times, by the gods, by the priests. We must make our own truth."
    With that, Kaji turned and disappeared down the ladder. He made his way along the processional path, the guards keeping their distance, recognizing the cloak of Asim, the high priest, second only to the Pharaoh himself. Kaji maintained the strange gait of the priest until he reached the Lower Temple. Then he went by the priest's path to the nearby Nile where a small boat waited, manned by a young man who wore the medallion of the Watchers.
    Set in the boat was a wooden box, three and a half feet long. The young man swung the top of the box open. Kaji placed the sheathed sword into the box, then closed the lid. He then handed the tube holding his report to the man. The boat slipped away into the darkness to make its long journey to deliver the report and sword.

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    CHAPTER 2: THE PRESENT
    AREA 51, NEVADA

    Lisa Duncan looked down her blood-spattered robe, fingers reaching into the hole in the cloth where the bullet that had killed her had gone through. The skin below was unblemished with no sign of the fatal wound. She touched the spot herself, as if not believing her own eyes.
    "Who are you?" Mike Turcotte was in front of her and he placed his hands on her shoulders, fingers digging in a little too tightly. "I saw you die." Turcotte said the words in a whisper, as if not believing them. "I held you in my arms and watched you die. I felt you die."
    A deep, accented voice caused Turcotte to look over his shoulder. "She partook of the Grail," Yakov said, as if that explained everything. "The legends are true. She is immortal."
    Given that Yakov was the one who had shot her, Turcotte wasn't feeling too kindly toward the Russian, even though Yakov had done it in a vain attempt to prevent the Grail from being stolen. The Russian was a huge man, standing almost a foot taller than Turcotte. He was a former agent of Section IV, the Russian equivalent of America's Majestic-12, set up to monitor alien activity on the planet. Both Section IV and Majestic no longer existed, victims of the events of the past
    year.
    Turcotte wore camouflage fatigues that fit loosely on his solid body. On both shoulders was the same subdued mili-

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    tary patch: an arrowhead shape, with a dagger insignia crossed by three lightning bolts: the patch for the US Army Special Forces. He was of average height and stocky, with short dark hair sprinkled with gray. The stubble on his chin indicated it had been a while since