The Milestone Protocol

by Ernest Dempsey

  She stared at Sean, indignant. “Excuse me, Sean. I know that you have some experience in the field and all that, but I have boots on the ground at the scene of the crime telling me what happened. They have access to the—”

  “Forensics, ballistics, all that stuff,” he interrupted. “Yes. I know. I also have contacts in Prague. And I’m telling you, Svoboda was murdered.”

  “Who would have done such a thing?” Magnus asked. “His wife? Perhaps another lover? I was friends with Valentin, but I admit he did have a habit of indulging in some of his…vices.”

  “No,” Tommy answered after a long silence.

  Kevin’s attention shifted to his rival as he continued to listen intently.

  “It was the shadow caste,” Tommy finished. “If they knew about the discovery of this tablet, it would explain the attack on Kevin’s team in Russia.” He glanced at Dr. Clark, whose face blushed red with sadness and regret. “They must have been waiting for its discovery.”

  “They have been waiting for this for a long time,” Sean said. “It’s the first clue to the greatest of all mysteries, and one that will unlock the most devastating weapon ever created.”

  “Would someone please tell me what in the world you two are on about?” Tabitha roared, stepping forward. “What shadow caste? And how does this tablet,” she pointed at it, “have anything to do with a rich man who killed himself on the other side of the continent?”

  “This is no ordinary tablet,” Sean corrected. “It’s a clue… to something very old, and extremely powerful.”

  “Fine,” Tabitha huffed. “Ruby. Gem. Whatever. What does it matter? And why would someone attack Dr. Clark’s camp for it?”

  “I don’t know,” Sean admitted.

  Tommy seemed lost in a vortex of thoughts as he stared blankly at the floor in the corner. When he spoke, his voice sounded distant. “You see the connections, Sean. You and I have talked about this many times. About the shadow caste, how they watch and calculate, always trying to create balance. All this time I thought our conversations were fascinating theories. But this proves it.” He pointed at the tablet. “This proves that they exist, and were in existence during the time of the Khans.”

  “Like I told Sean,” Kevin interrupted, “you’re taking a pretty big leap simply based on the vague information contained in this text. Jani Beg could have had it written when he was near the end of his days, perhaps unclear of mind. He might have been hallucinating near the end.”

  Tommy denied the statement by shaking his head. “You know better than that, Kevin. You are the world’s foremost expert on the line of Khans and the Golden Horde. When Jani Beg was killed in battle, he was still a strong leader—misguided, sure. It was a miscalculation, I believe, that led to his demise, but it wasn’t senility. If he believed they were there, then it stands to reason the organization is still around, still pulling the world’s strings.”

  “What organization?” Magnus asked, intensely curious. He wore a look of determination, even eagerness, like seeing the training wheels taken off his bicycle for the first time.

  “Their structure is organizational,” Sean said. “But make no mistake. What we’re dealing with here is a cult.”

  15

  Madrid

  Miyamoto gently unrolled the scroll, spreading it out flat on the smooth wooden table. The writing on the ancient document wasn’t Japanese. It wasn’t a language Adriana had ever seen before. She’d been all over the world, learned many languages, and mastered several, but this was unlike any form of writing she’d ever come across. Or had she?

  Something about the script seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “This,” Miyamoto said, “is the story of why we are here.”

  “The purpose of human life?” she asked innocently.

  He passed her an appreciative smile. “No, little one, it is a big story, but not that big. It is the reason you trained so hard your entire life. It is the reason behind your father’s mysterious infatuation with intelligence and covert operations. For the heir to a vast wine and coffee fortune, your father keeps strange hobbies, does he not?”

  She’d considered that before, but often justified Diego’s actions as his way of trying to make the world a better, safer place. For years, he’d operated out of a small shop in Ecuador, where he could keep a low profile, all the time scooping and selling information to the United States and its allies regarding all manner of enemy factions. He’d delivered terrorist intel that the most expensive satellites in orbit couldn't obtain. He’d uncovered nuclear weapons movement, conventional arms transportation, and human trafficking. Diego also traced monetary fluctuations and disbursement through accounts that would be difficult for the IRS and other entities to track, thus giving the Department of Defense and the Justice Department critical information and data so they could track down enemies of the state before that money could fund an attack—cyber or physical.

  The more Adriana considered it, the more she realized that his actions weren’t just some hobby, some way of giving back with an unusual skill set. Diego was a plainclothes spy, an off-the-payroll asset. Having grown up with that fact, she grew accustomed to it. Not knowing any other way of living, it was her normal until she went off to college and saw other people’s lives, learned how others lived.

  She’d always kept her father’s activities a secret, as he requested, though the extent of his operations had never been fully realized until after she finished her work at the university.

  Now, apparently, another layer to that onion was being peeled away.

  “Yes,” she said after a thoughtful pause to consider her master’s question. “I have long thought that his…activities were unusual.” She cast her father a quizzical glance, to which he simply nodded.

  “Unusual activities protect the normal the rest of the world knows, little one,” Miyamoto said, using the nickname he’d given her in her youth.

  “I’m not so little anymore, Master,” Adriana said.

  “I know. But you will always be to me. You are a daughter with two fathers, two teachers. In that regard, I hope it has been a blessing to you.”

  “It has,” she said with a slight bow of her head.

  Miyamoto directed her attention to the scroll. “This is a story that you won’t find in any of the history books, and for good reason.”

  Her eyes pored over it as his finger traced the characters a few inches above the surface.

  “This scroll,” he continued, “details the events leading up to the spread of the Black Death across Europe. It is written in the old language of the Mongols. Historians call it Classical Mongolian.”

  “That’s why I thought I’d seen it before,” Adriana admitted. She couldn’t read modern Mongolian, and had probably only seen it once or twice in her lifetime, if at all.

  “Yes, for someone such as yourself, who has dedicated their life to the rediscovery of primarily European works of art, I can’t imagine it would have been useful for you to learn this language." He returned his attention to the script and read out loud, though she got the impression he’d memorized the writings long ago. He spoke with a distant tone that almost sounded unconscious.

  “These are the secret chronicles of Jani Beg, great Khan of the Golden Horde.”

  “Jani Beg?” Adriana questioned. “I haven’t heard of him.” Her statement insinuated the doubt as to how great the Khan could have really been.

  “His father, Öz Beg, was Khan during the height of the Horde’s power. Once Jani Beg took over, their empire began its decline. That demise was spurred by the Black Death as it decimated his army while they laid siege to the merchant city of Kaffa.”

  She nodded, listening closely to every word he uttered.

  “This is where the history books’ version of the story ends,” Diego said, his voice quiet and serious.

  Miyamoto never took his eyes from the scroll.

  “In 1345
,” it says, “a mysterious visitor came in the night, seeking audience with the Khan. This visitor was unannounced, and Jani Beg treated them as a hostile threat. When the visitor offered a solution that could quickly end the siege, the Khan listened. This visitor, who kept their face concealed from Jani Beg, explained the idea of using the siege engines to fire the bodies of his dead soldiers over the walls of the city.”

  Miyamoto paused for a heartbeat and then went on. “The Khan resisted the temptation. He considered it a dishonorable way to win a war.”

  “Biological warfare,” Adriana realized.

  The master gave a nod and kept reading. “The Khan soon realized it was the only way to end the battle without losing his entire army to the plague. So, determined to end the standoff, he decided to go ahead with the mysterious visitor’s plan. But as the stranger turned to leave, the Khan killed them with cunning and a skillful attack that ended the threatening invader’s life almost instantly. As he turned over the body to discover the identity of one who would threaten him, the Khan realized it was a woman. She bore a strange tattoo on her neck and also wore a red gem the shape of a rod around her neck.”

  Adriana held on to her questions, sensing more was yet to come.

  “The Khan took the necklace and disposed of the body. Then he ordered his men to fling the bodies of the dead soldiers over the wall. When they were done with that grim task, he ordered a retreat away from the city, hoping to evade more infections of his already devastated ranks.”

  “The people in the city,” Adriana said, “who were they?”

  “Genoese merchants,” Diego answered. “During the siege, they still had access to the sea since the Golden Horde didn’t have an efficient way to blockade them from getting supplies. When people started getting sick and dying, the merchants evacuated the city, hoping they could flee the plague. Instead, they ended up carrying the illness back to Europe, where it spread like wildfire.”

  “And the woman?”

  Miyamoto grinned grimly, still staring at the scroll. “That answer is coming soon, little one. After the fall of Kaffa, Jani Beg Khan spent years of his life searching for information about the assassin he’d killed. He learned as much as he could, but was also afraid of digging too deep. He feared that the group who had sent the messenger might return to exact vengeance, blood for blood. The last twelve years of his life were filled with paranoia. He rarely slept through the night, as every noise awakened him. All the while, he continued his search for answers until his mother became ill. The Khan and the physicians all believed she would be blinded by the illness, and so Jani Beg summoned the Metropolitan of Russia, Alexius, to come heal her. The man’s efforts were successful, and he was rewarded for healing the Khan’s mother. Seeing the power and wisdom Alexius displayed, Jani Beg sought one more request from the man. He showed him the gem he’d taken from the dead messenger years before and relayed the story.”

  A candle flickered to the left, casting long, dancing shadows on the far wall to the right. Adriana only let it distract her for a second. “What did Alexius tell him?”

  “Alexius stared at the fire gem with eyes full of terror and hope. He explained to the Khan that it belonged to an agent of one of the most powerful and evil organizations in the world.” Miyamoto stopped and took a deep breath, adding drama to the story. “The Hermetic Cult of Thoth.”

  Adriana tensed her eyebrows and thought for a second. “Thoth?” she asked. “As in the emerald tablets legend?”

  “This goes far beyond that much-debated artifact. The moon god Thoth was considered a powerful Egyptian deity—god of writing, magic, wisdom, and science. He was one of the judges of the underworld and the scribe of the dead. Many of those who worshipped him attributed the famed Book of the Dead to his own hand. After the fall of Egypt’s great empire and the loss of its ancient religion, the followers of Thoth went underground. They hid in the shadows, but their power and influence continued to grow. The cult infiltrated philosophical circles in Ancient Greece, continually gaining new and important members. As their ranks swelled, so did their power.”

  Adriana processed the information quietly. She’d heard of the Egyptian deity, and of Hermes Trismegistus—the supposed author of the Hermetic Corpus.

  “Thoth and Hermes,” Miyamoto explained, “were worshipped as one in many places. During the Hellenistic Period, both were revered in the Temple of Thoth in Hermopolis.”

  “I don’t mean to be rude, Master—” Adriana said.

  “But you want to know what this has to do with you and your family,” Miyamoto finished. “I know.”

  She blushed and nodded. “Yes.”

  “Patience was never your greatest asset,” he said with a smile. “The Cult of Thoth members believe themselves to be the hands of their deity. They consider it their sacred task to maintain the balance of Earth, judging who lives and dies based solely on the need for planetary optimization.”

  He noted the confused look on her face. “Thoth,” he said, “held the Book of the Dead. He decided who was sent to the underworld and who wasn’t. As a god of science, he also understood the delicate balance between the planet’s ecosystems, the organisms inhabiting them, and how those things could be changed or altered. The cult’s followers have a powerful understanding of this and are driven almost solely by their belief that it is their duty to monitor and, occasionally, maintain the population of the planet.”

  Adriana didn’t like the way he used the word. “What do you mean by maintain?”

  “Exactly what you think it means,” her father answered. “Throughout the ages, for thousands of years, the Cult of Thoth has been behind nearly every major war and every pandemic that has swept the world. They have influenced the rise and fall of empires.”

  “Wait a second,” Adriana protested. “You’re telling me that one group that’s been around for a few thousand years or so has been behind most of the wars?”

  “As well as many plagues and diseases that have ravaged the population.”

  “I don’t understand,” she confessed, shaking her head. “You’re talking about a single entity deciding the fates of billions of people. That seems—”

  “Implausible,” Diego said, finishing her thought. “I know. It’s too broad in scope. Many have said those words when people speak of a deep-state entity that controls the ebb and flow of history. I’m aware of the arguments against it. It’s called a conspiracy theory by skeptics, and yet whispers of it abound at water coolers, around campfires, in secret conversations where people aren’t afraid of being called a quack or mentally ill. You must keep in mind, Adriana, that this is a group of fanatics who formed more than three thousand years ago. They have had millennia to build their ranks and resources, and they only choose from the elite of society. Billionaires are often the first to be chosen, but there are others. Most are from familial connections. It’s easier to spot them since their family chain of power tends to continue for long periods of time.”

  Adriana pondered the point but said nothing.

  Miyamoto continued where Diego left off. “Think about the lines of presidents in the United States, the politicians whose families control seats of power for generations. Surely you have heard of secret societies that it seems many major political players are involved with. Many people have at least heard the names Illuminati, Bilderberg, Rosicrucian. These and several other groups like them all work under the umbrella of the cult. They are the appendages of the body and are all driven by a single purpose.”

  “Which is what?” Adriana asked after two breaths.

  “Total global control, of course,” Miyamoto said matter-of-factly.

  That wasn’t enough for her. She had to know more. At the moment, none of this made much sense. She’d heard crazy conspiracy theories before, even ones similar to this about a deep state that decided the fate of humanity, but it was too big, too much for one organization to oversee. Wasn’t it?

  “To what end, though?” she pressed. “Money? Powe
r? What’s their motivation?”

  “That, my dear, is what Jani Beg learned from Alexius.” Miyamoto returned to the scroll and rolled it up, no longer needing to see the text. “They do not need money or power. They already have it. They can take the richest person in the world and turn them into a pauper within a day.”

  “So, why then? What’s the point? You mentioned total control of the world, which I’m still skeptical about, by the way.”

  “Reasonably so.”

  “Again, then. Why? What’s the point?”

  Her father stepped closer, drawing the triangle together. “What is the absolute base need of any human being, hija? Take away all of these things we see in our everyday lives: entertainment, cars, fancy homes, gourmet food, all of it. What is the simplest of human needs?”

  She thought about it, and it didn’t take long to come up with the answer. “Survival,” she said finally. “To keep on living is the basest of human needs.”

  “Correct.”

  “And that,” Miyamoto said, “is their entire purpose. At least they claim it is.”

  Adriana did her best to process the statement, but it still didn’t add up. “Survival? It sounds like if they’re controlling everything from global finance to politics that they don’t need to worry about survival.”

  “Ah, but they do. We all do.”

  “What?” Her bewildered frown deepened.

  “How many people do you believe this planet can sustain?” Diego asked. “At this moment, there are more than seven billion. How many more can it feed and house?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Who knows that?”

  “The Cult of Thoth believes they know,” Miyamoto drawled. “And their ultimate purpose is to manage the population, just as you see many governments manage wildlife populations around the world. The United States allows hunting seasons of certain animals to maintain the population of deer, elk, ducks, and wild hogs, among others.”

  “But we’re not animals,” Adriana said. “And again, that task is so big.”