The Medina Device

by T. J. Champitto

  The Medina Device

  T.J. Champitto

  © Copyright T.J. Champitto 2020

  Black Rose Writing | Texas

  © 2020 by T.J. Champitto

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.

  First digital version

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-68433-490-2

  PUBLISHED BY BLACK ROSE WRITING

  www.blackrosewriting.com

  Print edition produced in the United States of America

  Thank you so much for reading one of our Political-Thriller novels.

  If you enjoyed our book, please check out our recommended

  for your next great read!

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  “A timely edge-of-your-seat terrorism thriller that plays on every parent’s worst fears.

  This cinematic thriller is destined for TV.”

  –Best Thrillers

  For my father.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks to my biggest supporter and sharpest critic, my wife, Tisha. To my agent Linda Langton who made all of this possible, and had the foresight to believe in this project with as much heart as I did. Reagan Rothe at Black Rose Writing for taking a chance on an unknown writer and finding the forest in the trees. And to my amazingly talented editors for their astute advice; Jason O’Toole in Ireland, Ashley LaChance in Canada, and Karen Wise in the United States.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Recommended Reading

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  BRW INFO

  Chapter One

  Qaluyu, Bolivia

  An aging professor leaned through the arched passage of a mysterious tomb. Halogen spotlights exposed a thick cloud of dust hanging effortlessly in the air of the underground tunnel. He inhaled deeply, allowing the smell of freshly unearthed history to overwhelm his senses. It was the smell of victory. The taste of success.

  Dr. Ricardo Diaz and his team had been working the dig site off-and-on since last spring. Located five miles from the Incan ruins at Puma Punku, Diaz’s site on the southern mountainside of Qaluyu had shown more promise than any of his previous expeditions.

  Deep below the ground, standing before him and his small team was an ancient tomb, enclosed on three sides with limestone walls. Unlike the sandstone ruins found at nearby Puma Punku and Tiwanaku, the rare limestone located here had immediately caught their attention. The nearest limestone quarry was thousands of miles away.

  Diaz’s team, funded by the Argentina Foundation for Historical Studies, had discovered the twelve-by-twelve room two days ago, thirty feet below the surface—their reward for weeks of exhaustive digging with no more than buckets and shovels. Every five to ten feet, the team unearthed new Incan artifacts—shards of pottery, carved stone and other menial objects. But at twenty feet, they began mining items that were increasingly less and less Incan. At thirty feet, the engineers reached a man-made subterranean corridor that led directly to the tomb entrance where they now stood.

  Diaz felt certain they were closing in on evidence of an ancient, unknown civilization—one that seemingly pre-dated the Incan Empire.

  He stepped through the wide entrance with his headlamp darting its beam of white light through the thick, musty air. He scanned up and down the wall to his right as the team began to gather around him. The hieroglyphs carved vertically into the walls couldn’t be deciphered by any of his on-site experts. The team’s inability to make sense of the glyphs added a touch of drama to the moment at hand. With an immediate translation impossible, the best Diaz could do was photograph everything and send it on for further analysis to the University College London’s Institute of Archaeology.

  Atop a small stone altar in the center of the tomb rested an ossuary. It was a rectangular box no more than three feet wide. Diaz took a deep breath and tightened his gloves, then reached toward the stone box to wipe away a collage of cobwebs and debris from its limestone shell. Two assistants hurried to his side to lend a hand.

  As the ossuary’s esthetic details slowly came into focus, it revealed a flawlessly chiseled framework of symbols and glyphs. The professor took his time, examining every inch of its exterior. The glyphs proved to be as unrecognizable as those etched into the walls. But one symbol stood out to Diaz—it was the stamp he’d spent the last six years searching for.

  A slow grin appeared through his salt-and-pepper beard as Diaz shifted his focus from the side of the ossuary to its sealed cover. For a moment, he questioned whether to open it immediately or to carefully pack it up with the rest of his finds. It was a question he quickly answered. No, this discovery could not wait, he told himself.

  At Diaz’s command, a young field assistant made his way to the center of the tomb with a handheld wet saw and began meticulously cutting away the cover of the time capsule. Moments later, the slab of
limestone was carefully detached and removed. The team anxiously held their breath, allowing the professor to be the first to lay eyes on his treasure.

  Ricardo Diaz inched closer to the altar and peered cautiously into the ossuary. His gaze remained frozen for what seemed an eternity.

  “Todos fuera. Ahora,” he shouted, waving with great urgency for everyone to evacuate.

  Chapter Two

  Providence, Rhode Island

  Cameron Lyle looked like a zombie. His plane had just touched down at Green Airport and after a four-hour flight from New Orleans, with a breakneck layover in D.C., Cam glanced down at his wristwatch and noticed his flight had arrived seven minutes early.

  He lumbered through the jetway with wrinkled khakis, a loosened tie and the look of a man who hadn’t slept in many days. With a backpack slung over his right shoulder and a briefcase dangling at his side, the thirty-eight-year-old defense consultant finally made it to the gate lobby—the home stretch.

  On the heels of a weeklong business trip to Louisiana, Cam was relieved to be back in Rhode Island. It had been an agonizing mission rubbing elbows with private military executives and contractors. As a tactical combat strategist, his trip to the annual defense conference allowed him the opportunity to pitch potential clients. Weeks like this made him feel cheap.

  With no checked baggage to claim, he swiftly exited the airport terminal to the transportation depot. He stepped into the clear, northeastern air and jumped into a shuttle, which loitered on the curb for fifteen minutes before whisking him to the parking deck.

  It was the end of a harsh season and Providence was taking the brunt of a small storm—winter’s final encore. After a painstaking forty-five-minute drive through a frozen rain, Cam pulled into the driveway of a modest four-bedroom home in the suburbs. While happy to be home, he sighed with a sense of disappointment because it was late and the girls were surely asleep. Cam quietly made his way upstairs and slipped into bed next to his wife, Hannah. He admired her beauty before kissing her on the forehead and collapsing against his pillow.

  The next morning, Cam slept in late. Hannah had gone out of her way to keep the two girls quiet during their normal routine. “Daddy’s been working hard,” she told them, “he needs the rest.”

  Upstairs, Cam’s eyelids slowly unpeeled. He sat up and planted himself on the edge of the bed. It was Thursday morning and he had nowhere to be, a thought that comforted him. His next consulting project wouldn’t begin for another two weeks and his subsequent hunt was still months away. Just then a familiar voice shouted from the hallway.

  “Daddy!” called out his oldest of two daughters. She charged through the bedroom and into his waiting arms. This was the first time Abigail had seen her father in eight days—a millennium for a little girl.

  “How’s my princess?” he muttered, snatching her up onto the bed next to him with a kiss on her cheek.

  “I missed you. Did you have fun on your trip?” she asked in a tiny voice as she pulled her long brown hair into a ponytail.

  “I did have fun on my trip,” Cam replied with exaggeration. “And I missed you and your sister very much.”

  Lindsay, the six-year-old with a head full of blonde tangles, bounced into the room like a missile and landed successfully in his lap. The direct hit forced a deep moan from Cam’s gut. It was good to be home.

  Hannah stood quietly in the doorway holding a cup of coffee in an over-sized mug. She was happy to have him back and could spend eternity watching her husband frolic with the girls. But she had been up since dawn preparing for day six of her trial, and it was time to get dressed and ready for court. Cam would be responsible for getting the girls ready for school over the next few weeks—a chore Hannah was somewhat thankful to be temporarily relieved of.

  She was an assistant prosecutor for the state of Rhode Island and had a strong track record of convictions. She excelled at law and liked nothing better than sending the bad guys to jail. It was very much a career that suited her rigid, hyper-organized lifestyle.

  Twenty minutes later, Cam was plating the last of the toaster waffles when Hannah made her way down the stairs with all the grace of a lawyer running late for a trial. She slid her way into the kitchen and kissed both of her children—now seated and fighting over syrup—on the cheeks.

  “Love you, Cam,” she finally got around to saying. “I should be home by seven, I’ll pick up some dinner.”

  “Love you too, babe. Stick to your guns out there, and you can tell me all about it tonight over a glass of wine.”

  She replied with a knowing grin and a roll of her big, blue eyes. Cameron then walked her to the foyer and was rewarded with a quick kiss. He shut the door behind her, sneaking one last look at her blonde hair and flawless curves as she paraded down the steps and disappeared around the corner to the side driveway.

  They’d met twelve years ago and it was love at first sight for Cam. It was a chance encounter at an airport bar that sparked a romance that would ultimately change both of their lives forever. At the time, he was a special forces operator from Delaware and she was an ambitious Penn State grad from Chicago.

  Cam knew she had been struggling with her current case, but until now he had been too preoccupied to show much interest in it. He’d missed her over the last week and was determined to spend a relaxing night sipping pinot noir, listening to her champion through the finer details of the case. He could be a brilliant listener when he wanted to.

  After breakfast, Cam ushered the girls outside and down the sidewalk, where their school bus awaited with open doors. He hugged them both with his burly arms and watched them board. Abigail and Lindsay both waved through the window before the bus disappeared around the corner. The smile remained on his face long after they were gone.

  It was one of those moments that could tug a parent back to their own childhood—to a time when he and his brothers would wave goodbye like this to their father.

  Cam was the middle child of three boys. He’d joined the Navy out of high school and breezed through boot camp. From there, the strapping young athlete completed BUD/S training and SEAL Qualification Training (SQT). After earning his Trident, he was assigned to SEAL Team 8 and served in the Middle East for ten years. He went on to become a training officer with the Naval Special Warfare Command in San Diego, before finally retiring from the Navy. His work as a tactical combat consultant had seen its ups and downs but afforded him more family time.

  Just as he made his way back to the front door his cellphone rang.

  It was his younger brother, Michael.

  “What now?” Cam sarcastically answered.

  “You know exactly why I’m calling,” Michael chuckled. “It’s time.”

  There was a long pause before Cam responded. “Of course. When?”

  “Seventy-two hours from now.”

  “Fine,” he huffed. “I’ll pick you guys up in Philly. Make sure your target packs are ready.”

  Chapter Three

  FBI Field Office, Las Vegas, Nevada

  It was just before midnight. The last remaining sign of life in the building leaned over his laptop, squinting at the words staring back at him. With his face illuminated in the dark office bullpen, he scanned through digital documents. The night’s research had provided a treasure trove of new, useless information regarding one of Special Agent Rand Kershaw’s most frustrating cases.

  Other agents from the Las Vegas field office had written the Wynn casino heist off as an “unsolvable wild goose chase.” While the FBI would never publicly throw in the towel on any criminal investigation, it often did.

  The heist had become a giant stain on the FBI. It had been almost a year since three masked men stormed the casin
o, and Kershaw seemed to be the last agent left with any intention of solving it. The case had driven him to drink, as evidenced by the half-drowned bottle of cheap whiskey sitting on his desk. Having long ago given up on soda mixers and cocktails, he rifled through a collection of discarded Dixie cups until he found a relatively clean one and poured another straight whiskey. Even if any superiors had been there, they likely wouldn’t have noticed, or cared, about his behavior—neither did he.

  At thirty-five-years-old, this was Rand’s first unsolved case and he had chased this rabbit down the hole into depression and a growing list of anxiety disorders. Yet he continued grinding, chasing the ghosts that haunted his dreams.

  Rand Kershaw was a handsome man, never married and single for reasons he couldn’t explain. He had a medium-build and dark hair, with eyes that could burn a hole right through a person.

  The special agent now stared intently at a computerized map, which outlined the path of the robbery, or at least the small patch of ground the FBI could account for. He opened a new tab, then pulled up several security cam videos and began cycling through them. The black Jeep Cherokee used in the heist was caught on traffic cameras heading south on Las Vegas Boulevard moments prior to the robbery. Property cameras at the Wynn resort showed the vehicle pulling up on a hotel side street just north of the main entrance. Three masked men armed with M4 machine guns exited the Cherokee with its engine running and the hazard lights on. They disappeared on foot behind the adjacent parking garage.

  One minute and seven seconds later, they broke into the rear of the Wynn Theater, which was empty at the time. The ghosts pushed across the theater and the other side, where security footage showed them spill out into the northwest corner of the casino, a mere twenty yards from their target—the Main Cage. Just down a hallway, they quickly disarmed a gated door with three deliberate, well-placed rounds of .223 Remington bullets and kicked it open with the heel of a boot.