The Milestone Protocol

by Ernest Dempsey

  A few surprised eyes blinked in surprise.

  “How did you hear about that?” Tabitha asked. “Sean said you were in Madrid. I don’t believe that’s been shared in the media.”

  “It hasn’t. I don’t trust the media.”

  “She has other ways of gathering information,” Sean added.

  “So it would seem,” Tabitha mused.

  “Would you mind catching me up to speed?” Adriana asked.

  Sean ran through the events of the last few days, including his interception of Kevin in Bulgaria, their escape to Stockholm, and then, eventually, to Magnus Sorenson’s home.

  “If they could find you at the hotel in Stockholm, they can find you here,” Adriana said. “It’s not safe here.”

  Magnus took his turn at looking surprised. “I assure you, my dear, no one is going to find us here. We are quite safe.”

  “I’m not so sure,” she said, stalking over to one of the large windows that looked out at the fields beyond the rear of the house.

  “I have guards on duty twenty-four hours a day. We are safe, for now.”

  Tommy turned his head in surprise. “For now? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means we need to keep moving,” Sean answered.

  “Possibly,” Magnus agreed in part. “I would prefer not to test my security measures if at all possible. But I do think we are safe for the night. We should get some sleep and then move out in the morning.”

  Adriana looked back over her shoulder at the Swede. “Where are we going?”

  “Moscow,” Magnus said.

  At the sight of her confusion, Sean clarified. “We are going to a cathedral there to look for the relics of Saint Alexius. We believe he had something, a gem or stone, that will help us with this whole mystery.”

  She held back the information her father and Miyamoto had shared. Adriana didn’t know Tabitha, and even though she was familiar with Kevin, she wasn’t sure she could trust him. Not yet. His camp had been attacked, but he could have been the one covering up evidence, directing the killers when and where to hit. The convenience of his absence during the assault had not escaped her, and she decided that keeping certain information from him might be the most prudent course for the moment.

  “And what mystery is that?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

  Sean explained the theory about the pyramids and the Cult of Thoth. Adriana held back her surprise at his knowledge of the cult. While they’d discussed it in vagaries in the past, she didn’t know how much he actually knew about it.

  “We know it sounds far-fetched,” Tommy added after Sean finished. “Pyramids all over the world as some sort of ancient network for a doomsday weapon? Insane. But based on what we’ve learned so far, it seems to add up. And whoever attacked Kevin’s site wanted that tablet.”

  Her first instinct was to take the tablet, run outside, and smash it into a thousand unrecoverable pieces on the driveway. If she eliminated the clue the cult was after, there would be no way for them to ever find the gem, no chance to wreak unimaginable devastation and tragedy across the globe.

  Adriana’s intuition told her that Sean and the others had already considered that move. “Why not destroy it?” she asked plainly. Doing so would certainly make her mission easier. The only reason she could come up with as to why the Khan hadn’t thrown the gem into the deepest ocean was that the man hoped he could somehow harness its power as a weapon.

  “We thought about that,” Sean answered. “Saint Alexius of Moscow must have known something else about this ancient machine and what it was capable of, otherwise he would have destroyed the gem himself.”

  “The hypothesis, my dear,” Magnus grated, “is that the global network of pyramids is an energy source. We can’t know for certain, but Saint Alexius must have discovered something to keep him from getting rid of the gem. As a righteous man and a good leader, had he learned about the potential for unlimited energy, he no doubt would have considered how it could advance the well-being of humanity for centuries to come.”

  “Electricity wasn’t invented yet, though,” Kevin countered. “Which means whatever he discovered must have been perplexing, bewildering even. He wouldn’t have a way to harness it, to utilize its power.”

  “So,” Tommy finished, “he took the secret to his grave until mankind developed far enough to find a way to use the power.”

  Adriana listened patiently, processing everything they said against the information she’d gleaned from her father and Miyamoto. The two patriarchs in her life had failed to mention a potential positive with the cataclysm machine, but she doubted that was deliberate. She didn’t need anyone in the room to tell her what unlimited free energy would do for the planet. It was something she and Sean had considered when they discovered the Sahara and Denali pyramids, but not to the level of this—an entire network that spanned the globe.

  “I see,” Adriana said, opting for a simple reply. “So, we are going to Russia.” Adriana turned to Magnus. “Will you be coming with us?”

  Magnus cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Unfortunately, I have some business to attend to here in Stockholm.” He turned toward Tabitha. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything from your superiors about the attack on the hotel?”

  Adriana puzzled at the question but let the MI6 agent answer.

  Tabitha appeared startled for a second, then recovered. “No. I haven’t received anything from HQ about it.” Her expression changed, forehead darkening at the realization. “That’s odd,” she realized.

  She turned and removed the phone from her pocket, checking to make sure she hadn’t missed something.

  “You going to check in?” Sean asked. He tried not to sound suspicious, but the fact that the MI6 agent hadn’t bothered to report what happened, call for backup, or receive word from her superiors about the incident at the hotel brought several questions to his mind.

  Sean had never worked for MI6, so he wasn’t certain about their procedures, but he knew enough to question both Tabitha’s and the agency’s inaction in the last several hours.

  “No,” she answered succinctly.

  Sean raised his eyebrows, and then the realization hit him. “Deep under, huh?”

  “Something like that,” Tabitha said without taking her eyes off the phone. She quickly changed course. “They haven’t said anything about the attack, which might mean nothing. Did you encounter anyone on your way out of the hotel?”

  The question directed at Sean caught him off guard, but he recovered instantly. “No. I managed to sneak out without being seen. When I was out of sight, I disabled the tracking device on the vehicle as well, so it’s unlikely whoever was left would know how to find us.”

  “So, all the men you killed,” she paused at the grave statement, "they were on the rooftop?”

  “Yes,” Sean said. “Unless they have a maintenance person going up there for some reason tonight, I doubt the bodies will be found until the morning.”

  Tabitha nodded. “Then it sounds like we should get an early start.”

  “Agreed,” Tommy said, easing the tension between the two. “I’m heading to bed; I’m wiped. We could all use some rest. Tomorrow, we leave first thing in the morning and head to Moscow.” He turned to Magnus. “I hate to ask, Magnus, but could you make arrangements for us?”

  “Won’t you be taking your own plane?” the Swede asked.

  “Yes,” Tommy answered. “And normally, I don’t have any issues. But I know you have connections in Russia. Perhaps a friendly call might make our passage easier.”

  Magnus nodded. “I would be happy to, my friend.”

  “Tommy?” Kevin blurted. “If it’s okay with your friend, I would prefer to stay here. I’m not such an adventurous type, and I need to let the families of my team members know what happened and what’s going on. I’m sure by now there’s an investigation happening, and I’d like to help the authorities if possible.”

  “Of course,” Tommy said. “
Magnus, would it be okay for him to stay here with you?”

  “No trouble at all, my boy,” the Swede said cheerfully. “Happy to help. Now, let me show you to the guest rooms. We have plenty of space here.”

  Sean allowed everyone else to leave first, following their host out of the study. Lingering by the door, Sean held his wife back with a look. When the others were out of earshot, he said, “What’s going on?”

  She looked down at his feet and then raised her gaze to meet his eyes. “I’ll tell you when we get to the room.” Adriana looked around at the walls, the corners, the desk, the fireplace, the furniture, scanning every inch as if searching for something.

  “What is it?” he hissed. “What’s wrong?”

  Her coffee-colored eyes flicked back to him. “Nothing. I’m just tired and on edge. Come. Let’s get to the room, and I will explain everything.”

  27

  Vienna

  Niki looked down at the phone sitting next to him on the nightstand. It danced on the surface, vibrating rhythmically like one of those old football games with the metal top and the magnetic players.

  He picked it up and stared at the number. He knew that whenever his employer called, answering wasn’t an option. It was a requirement.

  A quick look at the time caused him a wince of pain. It was unlike his boss to ring him at this time of night. Normally, the man would already be asleep. It must have been terribly important to warrant a call now.

  Niki pressed the green Answer button and put the device to his ear. He ran his fingers through thick black hair and rubbed his scalp to help him wake up.

  “Yes, sir. Go ahead,” he said in a clear tone.

  “I’m sorry to wake you.” There was no insincerity in the statement, and Niki knew the man meant it. His boss wasn’t one to say things he didn’t mean.

  “It’s no problem. I was barely asleep anyway.”

  “That’s one of the things I appreciate about you, Niki. You are always ready, always ahead of everyone else.”

  “Thank you, sir. I learned it from you.”

  The man accepted the compliment without acknowledgment. “Darcy is handling the situation in the United States. She’s tracking the two lab rats from the IAA. Apparently, they’ve made their way out of the city and into a small town north of Atlanta.”

  “You want me to rendezvous with her there? It would take me”—Niki looked at his watch as if that could tell him the estimated time of travel to Atlanta—“around ten hours to get there, if I left immediately.”

  “No, no. She has it under control. They will be eliminated soon enough, along with any proof of their knowledge of the Quantium. I have something else I need you to do.”

  The voice paused, leaving Niki to wonder why the man was being unusually cryptic. Ever since joining the organization, Niki had known the man to be secretive, even elusive, regarding certain operations, missions, and systems that kept the enormous machine turning.

  There were multiple factions—groups of ordinary people called secret societies—all working for the same goal, and the same person. While most of the world believed these clusters of prominent or wealthy people were merely clubs or had become defunct, Niki knew their true purpose. He was one of the select few privy to that information. The Bilderbergs, the Illuminati, the Rosicrucians, the Syndicate, and a smattering of others maintained order in the world, just as colonial governors of old did.

  Niki knew not to press his benefactor. The man had saved him from the streets in Greece, where he’d been abducted by a madman and set free by a kind woman who sacrificed her own life to let him escape. Many nights, he wondered what happened to that woman. Her beautiful, kind face held him on nights when he couldn’t sleep in his new home with the man who’d likewise saved his life, given him sanctuary, and become a father figure after seeing his own parents thrown off a cliff.

  He spoke her name now and then, to make certain he never forgot it. Adriana, she’d said. He tried to recall if she’d mentioned her last name, but if she had, it had slipped from his memory. But the first name he would never forget. It was as elegant and beautiful as she had been. There’d been times he wondered if she’d died there in that basement dungeon, but something told him she’d survived.

  Niki didn’t know why he felt that way, but over the years his instincts had proved corrected more often than not. Although he had to admit much of that had to do with the training he’d received from his benefactor, a man he only knew as Odin.

  “I am an instrument of the cause,” Niki said, a motto he’d heard used many times by other followers of Odin within the organization.

  “You are much more than that to me, Niki. I hope you realize that.”

  “I don’t like to make assumptions, sir. I am grateful for the life you have given me, for taking me in and saving me from the streets. Every day I wake up, I am grateful for what you have done.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Niki had never heard a loving, tender tone from the man when he spoke to others in the organization. As far as Niki knew, Odin had never been married, though the leader’s backstory was something of a mystery. No one seemed to know much about Odin’s life before he took the reins as the head of the shadow caste—the Fellowship of Thoth.

  “You have served the cause well, Niki. For a man of such a young age, you have the fighting abilities of someone with twice the experience.”

  “I’m twenty,” Niki said. “Wars have been won and lost with younger men than me.” The quote was one that had been ingrained in his mind since the day he began his training. They were the same words Odin used when he delivered Niki to the training facility to begin the arduous journey to becoming an elite warrior.

  Through the years of toil and sweat, he’d honed his figure into a lengthy, muscular form, and with a mind more than capable of matching the quickest fighters in the world.

  “I’m happy to hear you recall that,” Odin drawled.

  “Would be difficult to forget, sir.” Niki knew the man had more on his plate than any single individual in the world. More than presidents or kings or prime ministers; Odin alone controlled them all. He used committees, councils, advisers in all things, but the last decision was always his as it had been for the leader before him. “What would you have me do?”

  “Direct,” Odin said. “Just as I like it. We have an issue I need you to handle. The pests from the IAA have managed to salvage the tablet Dr. Clark discovered in Russia. They’re leaving Sweden and heading to Moscow tomorrow morning. I need you to intercept them.”

  Niki knew what that meant. Odin wanted them dead. “I’ll handle it.”

  “There’s one other thing,” the older man added. “I need you to wait until they have uncovered another item. It’s a gem, red in color, from what I’ve managed to gather. If it is still where they believe it to be, it will rest with the bones of Saint Alexius of Moscow. Once they have the stone and are out of the cathedral, you may eliminate them. Bring the stone to me as soon as you have it. Make sure their entire team is eliminated.”

  “How many?”

  “Five. Sean Wyatt is with them and an MI6 agent. So, be on your toes.”

  “MI6?” Niki had heard of Sean Wyatt, the exploits, the wild adventures, the heroism. Sean was old enough to be Niki’s father, though, so he wasn’t worried about him. Not now. He knew better than to underestimate Wyatt, but the man’s methods were predictable, as were those of most MI6 agents.

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about them,” Odin reassured. “They are as out of their element as a lion swimming with sharks.”

  “The rest of the Russian expedition is dead, yes?” Niki heard what one of their assault teams had done, and how they had failed to rein in Dr. Kevin Clark. “I was surprised to hear they were conducting an archaeological dig at the beginning of winter.”

  “Yes,” Odin grumbled, his voice full of gravel. “They were, apparently, trying to get as much done as possible before the seasonal freeze.”

&n
bsp; Niki looked out the window at the twinkling lights of Vienna. Snow glistened on the nearest rooftops. He could see faint traces of it on the mountains and trees surrounding the city. It was only the earliest days of December, and he knew more snow would come soon. He liked the snow. Growing up in western Greece, he’d only seen it on a few occasions as a child when his parents took him to the north country where the mystical mountains towered to the heavens and lush forests sprawled across the land.

  Austria gave Niki a sense of that childhood he’d lost so long ago, even if it were just four or five months out of the year. It looked like Christmas, even when the snow was gone. The holidays were one of the few strong memories of his family he could still cling to.

  Odin had been generous with the location for Niki’s apartment. The man had paid for everything, purchasing the unit outright. Niki never saw a bill for utilities or anything else. His life was completely taken care of. A part of him didn’t like being reliant on someone else, but he dismissed that sentiment by reminding himself that he provided a valuable service to Odin. Niki was an asset and had proved himself on more than one occasion when his benefactor had called upon the young Greek’s skills to eliminate enemies of the order.

  “Anyone who is our enemy,” Odin had said before Niki’s first mission, “is an enemy of humanity. Our goal is to ensure the survival of the human race and all the knowledge we have accumulated throughout the ages.”

  Niki took that creed to heart, and when he killed it was without mercy, without deference. He never questioned his role in the grand scheme of the order. He was its instrument, and the Fellowship provided for him generously.

  “Where will I find them?” Niki asked.

  “I’m sending you the details now. Your team will meet you in Moscow.”

  “Usual squad?”

  “Yes. You will have four.”

  “Perfect. Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.”

  “I know you won’t, Niki. You’ve always made me proud.”