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  Robin grew excited. "Colonel Huerta told me all about that circle!" she exclaimed. "It sounds like a really cool place."

  "Well..." Linda sighed. "At least this trip won't be a total waste."

  "Varan's here!" Robin insisted. "You'll see. Colonel Huerta told me that his men were coming up here to patrol tomorrow! There have been reports of missing cattle and noise in the hills. Colonel Huerta told me that his superiors think that Varan came down around here."

  Pete Hamilton adjusted his sunglasses. "It would be nice if the Mexican Air Force could actually track him on radar."

  "They can't," said Mike, "according to the reports. On radar, Varan just looks like a cloud formation or a flock of birds."

  Pete snorted. "What is it, Stealth Lizard?"

  "That's what headquarters told me," Mike insisted. "But the U.S. military can track it by satellite, and their surveillance suggests that Varan has flown south - toward the border of Guatemala."

  "Colonel Huerta says different," Robin argued.

  Linda rolled her eyes again but didn't speak.

  "Varan's taken to the air twice before," Mike stated. "Both times, the creature headed southwest."

  "Varan is not in Guatemala," Robin argued stubbornly. "Why would Colonel Huerta be here if Varan was there?"

  The kid's got a good point, Linda conceded. And the so-called kaijuologists have been wrong more than they've been right...

  Suddenly, Linda's musings were interrupted by a thunderous rumbling. The Land Rover had driven onto a rickety wooden bridge that quaked and vibrated under its wheels. As she peered out the window at the worn, battered structure, Linda wasn't sure it could hold the weight of a mule, let alone a car.

  Everyone suddenly grew very quiet. Even Robin shut up.

  Tony Batista drove briskly along, humming tunelessly, not even bothering to slow down.

  When the vehicle was in the very center of the hundred-foot span, the whole bridge actually began to sway. A board from the roadway broke loose and crashed to the forest far below as Linda watched in horror. Her keen eye spotted a few other pieces of the bridge lying down there, too.

  When the Land Rover finally drove onto the dirt road again, the INN news team breathed a collective sigh of relief. Tony continued to drive along as if nothing had ever been wrong, but Linda swore she caught a hint of a smile on his face in the rearview mirror.

  I'm gonna have to keep an eye on this bird, she thought slyly.

  Suddenly, everyone was thrown forward as Tony slammed on the brakes. The Land Rover bounced off a huge stone in the road, then skidded to one side in the loose dirt. Finally, it came to a shuddering halt. As the cloud of dry dust settled around them, the stunned news team peered through the windshield.

  At a bend in the road ahead, the stone and adobe remains of a crushed building blocked the road. On the opposite side, a wall remained standing - though it leaned precariously against a splintered tree.

  Linda popped open the door and stepped out. She gazed past the ruins up the road to a huge stone Wall in the distance.

  No, not a wall, she remembered. That's the stone circle. Mike appeared at her side. "What do you think?" he whispered.

  "I think -" But Linda was interrupted by a blast of cool, sweet air that swept down through the center of the ruined village.

  "Do you smell that?" Tony hissed.

  "Yeah," Mike nodded. "Pure oxygen..."

  "It's up there," Pete whispered. "Varan is up there. I know it."

  "What do we do?" Tony asked.

  It was Robin who replied in a firm voice. "We're reporters, aren't we? What do you think we're going to do? We're going to go up there and film a report."

  "Out of the mouths of babes," Linda muttered.

  Together, the INN news team returned to the vehicle and collected their equipment. Linda glanced at the wall again and snatched up the lighter of the two cameras. She figured she'd be doing some climbing. When they were all ready, the group trudged up the road toward the ruined village. As they walked through the debris-laden streets, it was apparent that Tehetepec was deserted.

  The people must have fled, Linda thought as she scanned the ruins. There was hardly a wall left standing in the tiny village. Even the stone well was broken and filled with debris.

  Finally, they reached the stone circle. It rose almost thirty feet upward from the center of the town. The stones were uneven, and moss and vegetation grew between them.

  "Over there," Mike said, pointing. Linda and Robin turned and saw a flight of high, irregular steps leading up to the top of the stone circle.

  Just then, they were blasted by another gush of cool, oxygen-rich air. Linda shivered.

  At the stairs, Mike took the lead. He climbed quickly, though sometimes he had to pull himself upward with his arms because the stairway was so uneven. He turned and helped Linda and Robin. Tony and Pete struggled on by themselves.

  When Mike scrambled up the last step, he froze.

  "What do you see, Mr. Timko?" Robin called.

  "Shh, quiet," the director whispered.

  On top of the huge stone ring, Varan lay sprawled out in the hot tropical sun. Like most reptiles, Varan, it seemed, liked sunning itself on a rock.

  The sight was incredible. The creature's eyes were closed, and its breathing was slow and regular. The multicolored, pebbly hide of the giant reptile gleamed in the bright Mexican sun.

  "Get your camera ready, Linda," Mike whispered. Then he turned to Robin. "Here's your chance, kid," he said.

  Robin swallowed hard, but she was determined to do her job. Pete broke out his sound stuff, and the team was ready in minutes.

  "Okay," Mike announced. "Let's get this on the first take - and then get the hell out of here!"

  But just as Robin took up a position with the sleeping monster directly behind her, a Mexican military helicopter appeared overhead. Another chopper flew in behind the first.

  The noise was incredible, and the downdraft almost blew the INN news team off the edge of the stone structure. Linda dropped to her belly and started to film. Pete dropped to the stone wall next to her, extending his boom mike.

  Tony and Mike ducked, too, and huddled against the warm stone. Robin just stood there, paralyzed.

  "Get down, kid!" Mike hissed. Linda and Pete were too busy doing their job to notice Robin. Just then, Varan's reptilian eyes opened, and the creature awoke with a threatening rumble. With a speed that belied its tremendous size, Varan rose up on its four legs as the helicopters hovered overhead.

  The first chopper quickly sped out of range when its occupants saw the creature, but the other just hovered over it.

  Robin stood, still clutching her microphone, frozen in place.

  Suddenly, Varan turned to face the hovering helicopter. The creature scrambled sideways and whipped its long tail. Linda and Pete and Tony and Mike all ducked their heads as the tip of the tail swished over them.

  But Robin did not move, and the tail brushed her off the stone circle. Robin squealed and disappeared over the edge.

  "Robin!" Linda cried.

  Varan roared and rose on its hind legs.

  "Get off the wall!" Mike shouted, grabbing Linda by the scruff of her neck. The four of them tumbled down the stone steps as Varan spread out its forearms and inhaled. Gusts of wind roared around them as the creature filled its sacs with hydrogen. Then, with a final gust, Varan leaped into the sky.

  Linda looked up in time to see the Mexican Army Huey helicopter explode as the monster swiped it out of the air with its forepaw. The main part of the burning wreckage tumbled into the jungle below the hilltop, though smaller debris rained down all around them.

  Finally, Mike rose. "Is everyone all right?" he asked. Linda lifted the remains of her camera and nodded. Then she pulled out the tape cassette from the battered device and pocketed it. Pete was bruised and bleeding, but he was okay. So was Tony.

  "Oh my god!" Linda cried. "Where's Robin?"

  In the eerie silence that fo
llowed the skirmish, they heard the young woman calling for help. The four of them ran around the base of the stone structure, searching for the lost intern.

  "There she is!" Tony shouted, pointing.

  Robin was waist-deep in a pool of slime, trying vainly to drag herself out of the slippery, slimy slop. She looked up when she saw the others approach. Linda held her nose, and Pete, still suffering from the effects of a hangover, gagged.

  "I fell in a swamp!" Robin whined.

  Linda got closer. "That's not a swamp," she announced. "That's Varan poop!"

  Mike almost laughed. Then he took a closer look.

  "Come out of there, Robin," he said ominously "And whatever you do, don't turn around."

  Of course, like Lot's wife, the stubborn intern did just that. Then she began to scream and scream. Robin didn't stop screaming until Mike and Tony dragged her out of the pool of dung.

  Linda held her nose and stepped closer for a better look.

  Well, she thought grimly, at least we know what happened to the people of Tehetepec. Linda turned away from the pile of half-digested human remains that floated in the slimy pool of lizard droppings just in time to watch Pete blow chunks.

  14

  DREAMS AND

  PROPHECIES

  Monday, May 31, 1999, 11:47 A.M.

  Project Valkyrie headquarters

  Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada

  "Yes, I hear you," Lori replied. Or maybe she didn't really speak. Maybe she just thought the words.

  Out of the darkness, motes of brilliant light and color began to form all around her. Then she heard the music... a melody so beautiful it tugged at her soul. Uncontrollably, tears welled up, and she squeezed her eyes shut as she painfully relived every regret, every shameful moment she ever had in her young life.

  "I'm so sorry," Lori whispered through tears.

  She felt forgiveness wash over her like warm spring rain.

  When she opened her eyes again, the motes of light had transformed themselves into a million butterflies. Each one floated in the air and gazed at her with jewel-like, multifaceted eyes of brilliant blue.

  Then, in the center of the swarm of beautiful, delicate winged creatures, more vibrant colors swirled and collided, forming a blinding-bright mass that glowed with an inner fire.

  Suddenly, the form of a woman wearing a diaphanous gown of many colors stood before her. The woman was so close that Lori could touch her. But as she reached out, the glowing entity spread its gown wide to reveal its true self to her.

  And Lori realized that it wasn't a woman at all. What she saw now was the being's true shape - the shape of a huge butterfly with gentle, intelligent eyes.

  Mothra... the name sprang into Lori's mind.

  "Mothra?" Lori asked. The creature stared at her but did not answer.

  "What do you want?" Lori pleaded. "I want to understand."

  "It comes..." The creature's thoughts filled Lori's mind. "The destroyer with three heads... the king of terror, the devastator of a hundred worlds, and the enemy of all life..."

  "What?" Lori pleaded. "What comes? Who comes?"

  "Gaze at me and I will show you the face of it..."

  * * *

  Lori's screams cut through the medical center and echoed off the antiseptic white walls. She violently thrashed about on the bed, tearing the sheets off her body and ripping the electronic monitors off her forehead.

  Inside the lab's glass booth, Dr. Irene Markham hastily shut down the computers and hit the mike.

  "Are you okay, Ms. Angelo?"

  Lori heard the doctor's voice over the intercom. She blinked away tears and sat up in the bed. Her fingers closed on something, and she looked down. The electronic monitoring sensors were clutched in her hand.

  "Did I rip these off in my sleep?" Lori asked dazedly.

  Dr. Markham, behind the soundproof glass wall, keyed the mike again. "It's okay," she said, trying not to sound concerned. "I think we've got what we need now, Lori. You can go back to your room, if you like."

  * * *

  Monday, May 31, 1999, 12:47 A.M.

  Ninunak, Alaska

  Craig Westerly was awakened by the sound of the old man moaning in his sleep. Hastily, he pulled the down comforter off and crawled to the other side of the tent.

  The old shaman was dreaming again.

  Westerly reached into his parka and pulled out his handheld tape recorder. He switched it on and held it above the shamans face. As the old man mumbled in his sleep, Westerly recorded his words.

  The shaman talked in his sleep almost every night now. Though the undergraduate didn't speak the shaman's language very well, he sometimes understood the Athabaskan words and phrases. By taping the sleep talk, Westerly was preserving it for translation at a later date by someone more fluent in the shaman's language than he.

  Westerly had come to Alaska to record some of the native folktales, legends, tribal histories, and myths that had been overlooked by previous researchers. He'd done okay, but the work hadn't been as rewarding as he had hoped.

  That is, until he met this shaman.

  Though Westerly rejected the old man's warning about the coming of the Thunderbird, he realized that the ancient medicine man was a fount of knowledge about the myths of his people. So, with the shaman's grudging permission, Westerly had followed the old man from one native Alaskan village to another, each time taking part in the sweat bath rituals, listening to the stories and the prophecy about the coming of the Thunderbird.

  In the last few days, Westerly had noticed a change in his attitude toward the shaman. He had once regarded the old mystic as a curiosity - a living anthropological exhibit. Lately, he'd come to respect the old man's wisdom more and more. Some of Westerly's anthropology professors had warned him away from that kind of thinking.

  "Don't identify with your subjects," Professor Hendricks cautioned. "It ruined Margaret Mead, and it will ruin you!"

  In truth, the old shaman reminded Westerly of his college professor. It was odd to compare a famous scholar with a tribal shaman, but there were more similarities than differences. Perhaps science and religion were just two equally valid ways of looking at life and searching for truth.

  Suddenly, Westerly was jolted from his memories of college as the old man opened his eyes and looked up at him. Embarrassed, the student hid the tape recorder. The old man blinked with confusion, then looked right at him.

  "Rodan is coming," he whispered.

  At that moment, the wind abruptly kicked up. The blasts whistled across the tundra, and the canvas tents began to shake as the air battered them. In the hunting camp, others began to awaken and cry out in confusion and alarm.

  Westerly heard a loud crash and watched the party's satellite dish and cellular phone system roll across the tundra, sparks flashing.

  As the shaman rose from his sleeping bag, Westerly pulled on his boots and stumbled out of the tent. The Alaskans were running about the camp excitedly, trying to secure their kayaks - and their valuable pelts - before the freak windstorm carried everything off.

  Westerly barely got to his feet before he was knocked backward by a tremendous gust of air. The tent collapsed behind him, the tent poles rattled as they were swept away. The icy water of the tundra began to blow too, filling the air with cold droplets of stinging ice.

  "Look!" a frightened voice cried. "Look at the moon!"

  Craig Westerly looked up into the night sky. Darkness had only fallen a little over an hour before, and daybreak was less than three hours away. But at the moment, the moon was big and bright.

  Westerly gazed upward, squinting against the cold Wind. The sky seemed empty, except for a few high, thin clouds. And then he saw it. A moan escaped his lips when he saw the huge, batlike silhouette cut across the bright face of the moon.

  Suddenly, a wild, sustained, cackling roar echoed across the tundra. The sky was filled with electric flashes, like heat lightning on a hot summer night.

  Magically, the shama
n appeared at Westerly's side. The old man gazed up into the sky with eyes filled with joy and awe.

  "The Thunderbird," the shaman cried, his arms spread wide. "Rodan, the mighty Thunderbird, has awakened!"

  * * *

  Ninety minutes later, an object of tremendous size and speed was tracked on radar as it approached the air space over Fairbanks, Alaska. Air traffic controllers warned commercial aircraft away as the object rapidly approached Nenana Airport.

  The object was moving through the sky from the northwest at nearly 400 miles per hour, at an altitude of 55,000 feet. When an air corridor was hastily cleared of all other aircraft, four F-16A Fighting Falcons were scrambled out of nearby Eielson Air Force Base to intercept the object and determine its nature.

  The aircraft flew in a classic "finger four" pattern - two flights of two planes each. One aircraft, the aggressor, flew with eyes forward and down. His wingman, on defense, flew looking back and up. Each all-weather fighter was equipped with four AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and a fuselage-mounted Vulcan cannon with 500 rounds of ammunition.

  If this bogey turned into a bandit, then the Falcons from Eielson were ready.

  At 60,000 feet, the formation approached the unidentified object. The dawn was just breaking in the skies over Fairbanks when Captain Bill Wellman painted the bogey with his forward-looking infrared targeting system.

  "This is Kodiak One," he radioed. "I got the bogey coming in dead ahead and below us, at 55,000 feet. Do you have a visual?"

  "We got 'em," Captain Philip "Bud" Bundy radioed from Kodiak Three. He and Kodiak Four split from the formation and dived toward the target.

  "You see him yet, Three?" Captain Ken Kelly asked from the cockpit of Kodiak Four.

  "Negative," Captain Bundy replied. "Just a lot of clouds. But I got it on my scopes."

  Captain Kelly and his wingman, "Bud" Bundy, were often paired for duty lately. A television station in Fairbanks had started airing old reruns of Married... with Children, and everyone got a good laugh when they saw "Kelly and Bud" on the duty roster.

  "Coming out of some clouds here," Captain Bundy reported. "But - wait a minute!"