Brian Dodds clutches the lines of one lifeboat, his ears filled with the howling roar of the maelstrom. The craft is suspended six feet below, but the Scylla is now tossing so violently that climbing down to the lifeboat is no longer an option.

The oil rig lurches sideways, caught within the centrifugal force of the maelstrom, which pins the Scylla against the wall of the funnel. The NASA director opens his eyes, forcing himself to look upon the dazzling source of energy radiating upward from the center of the turbulent sea. Dodds holds on, sucking in a desperate breath as a forty-foot wave washes over him, crashing through the lower deck as it snags the last of the lifeboats in its fury.

Dodds’s stomach lurches sickeningly, his eyes widening in disbelief as the center of the vortex suddenly drops to the seafloor, the rig spinning precariously atop the two-thousand-foot watery precipice. Within the blinding emerald madness he sees something—a black, winged creature, levitating steadily upward through the whirlpool’s vortex like a demon rising from hell.

The winged beast soars past him, disappearing into the night—as the Scylla tumbles sideways, free-falling into the mouth of oblivion.

The lifeless being streaks along the surface of the Gulf at supersonic speed, gliding effortlessly on a dense cushion of antigravity. Moving southwest, it ascends to a higher altitude, its energy stream rattling the mountain peaks over Mexico as it races toward the Pacific.

Upon reaching the ocean, its preprogrammed sensory array alters its course to a more precise westerly route. The being slows, adjusting its speed so that it will remain on the darkened side of the planet during the entire length of its fateful journey.

JOURNAL OF JULIUS GABRIEL

JOURNAL OF

JULIUS GABRIEL.

Our honeymoon in Cairo was bliss. Maria was everything to me—my soulmate, my lover, my companion, my best friend. To say her presence consumed me is no exaggeration. Her beauty, her scent, her sexuality—everything about her was so intoxicating that I often felt myself drunk with love, ready, if not eager, to forsake my sworn oath to unravel the riddle of the Mayan calendar, just to return to the States with my young bride.

To start a family. To live out a normal life.

Maria had other plans. After a week’s honeymoon, she insisted we continue our journey into man’s past by searching the Great Pyramid for clues linking this magnificent Egyptian structure to the icon drawn upon the Nazca plateau.

Who can argue with an angel?