by Nick Thacker
The same Seth who appears as the foil to Cain, the son of Adam who murdered his brother Abel.
The same Seth who fathered generations of descendants that eventually led to Noah.
And the same Seth whose children built the pillars based on Adam’s prediction that the world would eventually be flooded, killing all humans.
It’s all connected, she thought. Everything — the tapestry. The quilt of history. It’s all one, massively complex quilt.
64
Ben
The next bend emptied the jeeps into a long, narrow clearing. Ben sped up, taking advantage of the relatively flat, open area, then slowed again when he realized what lay in front of them.
“That’s it,” Julie said. “It has to be.”
A squat, stone building sat near the edge of the trees to their right, and Ben saw that it was a long, rectangular structure. The roof was stone, and he could see a doorway that stretched nearly to the roof on the end pointing toward them.
Directly in front of them but farther away, a larger, round building stretched nearly to the tops of the trees, which bent in toward the roof of the domed structure. Both buildings were weathered brown, dusty, and seemed to have been hewn from single stones. From here, Ben couldn’t see any patchwork of masonry or stonework. No lines crisscrossed the structures’ walls.
Looks like a big stone circus tent, he thought.
Beyond that, stretching up and over the scene, was a massive, perfectly triangular peak with a rounded top. It loomed upward like a stone titan, guarding its temple and valley.
But his attention was quickly pulled to the left of his vision, where he noticed movement in the forest.
“There,” he said, throwing the jeep into park. Julie followed his gaze, then put a hand over her mouth.
“It’s them,” she said.
“Get the weapons,” Ben said, holding a hand out. Before he’d finished the sentence, Archie had placed one of the pistols into it.
“What’s the plan?”
“How long do we have?”
“Ten, maybe twelve minutes,” Julie said. “But that’s a best guess.”
The other jeep pulled up next to theirs, and Ben looked over at the short, wide Peruvian soldier in the passenger seat. He pointed two fingers at his eyes, and then one at the men, who had now broken through the trees and were walking away from them in the distance. Ben nodded.
“They haven’t seen us yet,” he said. “But the jeeps will tell them we’re here, and if we try to back out we risk them hearing us. I want to be in the woods when they figure it out, ready to ambush.”
“Got it,” Archie said. Ben had a fleeting moment of despair when he realized the man he was planning a gunfight with was old enough to be his grandfather, but he shook the feeling away. He’s been through much worse. He’ll be fine.
Still, he made a mental note to try to put himself between any gunmen and Archie’s body.
They piled out of the jeeps, crept behind them, and checked their weapons. Each of the soldiers had a rifle and a sidearm, and each carried two grenades. Ben and Archie carried the same rifles, while Julie had one fitted with a distance scope. If they needed to adapt their plan and got captured or stuck out in the open, Ben hoped Julie could get off a clean shot while still hiding in the trees.
They split up into two groups, Ben, Archie, and two soldiers heading to the left, and the other two Peruvian Army men and Julie heading right. The plan was simple — head through the trees around the narrow clearing until they were sure there were no more hidden guards, then open fire on the men walking toward the large round building.
Ben told them they would only fire when they were near the first building, to maintain a triangular shape as their two flanks fired on the enemy. Any closer and the enemy soldiers could be directly between them, the two teams risking the exchanging of friendly fire.
It took only five minutes walking through the forest to get even with the first building, and Ben held up a hand for his team to stop. They were about equidistant from the front of the stone building and their jeeps, a good place to set up an offensive without being too far from their escape route. Ben wished he’d thought to turn the jeeps around, but he knew it would have risked being spotted or heard.
“Okay,” he whispered, holding his walkie-talkie up with his free hand. “Those dudes are coming back this way — obviously a patrol. When they get to the opposite edge of the smaller building, we take them out. Julie fires first, got it. Then our marksman. If they’re not both down after that, we open fire. But let’s not waste ammunition — we don’t know how many more are inside.”
He looked around, then pressed the button on his radio once again. “… Over.”
He heard a quick succession of clicks, the sound of his teammates confirming the order, and a sense of pride welled up inside him. I’m actually running a military battle, he thought.
Then his heart sank, and the pride was almost immediately replaced with anxiety. I’m actually running a military battle. I’m a park ranger. I barely even know how to use this —
“There!”
Ben heard the man shouting and pointing toward their jeeps, then the two men were joined by two more soldiers who had appeared from the side of the round building. The four began racing up the middle of the narrow clearing, their boots pounding.
“Change of plans,” Ben said. “Julie, take your shot now.”
The gunshot rang out and echoed off the exterior walls of the buildings, but Ben didn’t see anyone fall.
Dammit.
“Ben,” the voice through his radio said. “She missed. We need to —”
Ben started shooting, wildly at first as he got a feel for the rifle, then with a bit more precision. The Peruvians joined in with a zealous, rapid pace, and he saw two of the men in the field fall.
The other two had realized what was happening and had stopped, falling to the one knee, and were now hiding behind the longer rectangular building.
“Julie, Archie,” Ben said. “Take your soldiers around the back of that building. I’ll run around to that side, too, but do not take the shot unless they’re firing at you. We can’t risk hitting each other.”
“Got it.”
The men took turns popping their heads out from the side of the building, but neither fired on them as they moved through the forest. Ben assumed that meant they still hadn’t figured out their location. He wanted to take that as a small victory, but he knew better. No plan survives first contact with the enemy, he reminded himself. And we don’t even know if this is all the enemy.
He was almost certain these men were guards on patrol outside, or just taking a break. But that meant there would be more of them.
Julie reached the rear of the building before Ben, as his radio crackled to life while he was still jogging over. “Ben,” she said. “I’m here.”
He looked up and took in the situation. Both men hiding behind the building were facing his direction — if he fired on them, they’d see him. The building was also farther from him than from Julie. She had a clear, open shot, and it was as close to a can’t-miss situation as they would get.
“Take the shot,” he said, keeping his voice down in case the volume on Julie’s radio was still turned up.
Within seconds it was over. Ben saw the men fall after four gunshots — Julie and one of the soldiers, or Archie, had aimed and fired, and all had hit their marks.
Ben waited, holding his breath. Do the others know we’re here? Will they come out? He took a step into the clearing, heading toward the dead soldiers’ bodies. The others followed behind, everyone careful to watch their surroundings as they moved.
He looked toward the strange, round building. It looked like a miniature observatory that had sunken into the ground, with a slightly flattened top. Again, the architecture was strange. Nothing like the Incan designs he’d seen before with their tight-fitting stones and layered structures. This was something that reminded him of the Anasazi and t
heir carved-stone buildings.
And yet… it was big. It seemed off, as if this temple or meeting place had been designed for taller, wider people. He saw a vertical, rectangular indentation along the rounded wall — a door? It was tall, its top reaching nearly to the start of the roof, but it too seemed as though it had been made from one massive brick of stone.
And as he examined it, as Julie and Archie and their other teammates walked into the clearing and joined him, the door began to slide open.
“Move in!” Ben yelled. “We don’t have time to explore — get inside and keep your eyes up!”
65
Reggie
“Doctor Prichard, please prepare your medications for the immediate treatment of the bone lattice.”
Prichard’s mouth dropped. “But — but the preparation will take an hour, at least. I need to run the analysis on the yeast to ensure —”
“Skip the analysis, Prichard,” Garza said. “I’m no longer interested in ensuring this is a properly controlled trial.”
Reggie swallowed. Both his eyes were bloodshot, rims of dark purplish bruises around the soft skin. Garza hadn’t spoken another word to him, simply raising his pistol over his head and smashing it down between his eyes. The blow had decimated Reggie’s nose, blackened both his eyes, and left his mouth full of blood, which he’d been trying to clear every few seconds.
Spitting it out caused him severe pain, however, and swallowing it made it feel like he would choke.
“But Mr. Garza, I strongly advise that the testing continue as —”
“Your advice is duly noted, doctor. Thank you. Now kindly do your job. The one I hired you to do. Do you understand?”
Dr. Prichard nodded.
Garza had kicked Dr. Jenner’s lifeless body out of the way before he’d struck Reggie, and he could see her shadowy shape slumped into the edge of the rounded room.
Please come, Ben, he thought. For Sarah.
“How long?” Garza asked.
Prichard didn’t answer at first, instead checking mental calculations by tracing a finger around in the air in front of his face. “If I… there could be…”
“Well?”
“Sir, we would be ready to go now, potentially. One, two minutes tops — we have medication leftover from —”
“Do it.”
Garza turned on a heel and exited the chamber, while Dr. Prichard walked the other direction — apparently the direction of the small hospital-like room they’d been in previously.
Reggie groaned.
If you’re coming, Ben, now would be a great time.
66
Ben
Ben blinked a few times, his eyes taking an unnaturally long time to adjust to the dim light.
Julie was there, next to him. He sensed the others as well, Archie and the Peruvian soldiers.
But he also noticed another person, a woman, kneeling at the foot of a massive stone altar.
“Hey!” Ben shouted.
The woman turned around, her eyes wide.
“Where are they?”
“Who?” she asked. “The weird Freemason guys? They left.”
67
Reggie
The sound fell out from a PA speaker hidden somewhere along the side of the room.
Fifteen seconds.
Fourteen seconds.
Thirteen —
Reggie tried to tune it out. It was torture, and he knew Garza was doing it on purpose. The voice, a computer-generated woman’s voice, carried no emotion or remorse.
Sarah was silent as they listened to the sound of the ticking clock.
Come on, Ben, he thought. Now’s the time for a big entrance.
Ten seconds.
Nine seconds.
It wasn’t going to happen. Reggie knew that even if Ben were in the area, somehow fighting his way in, he wouldn’t be able to make it to them before the blade fell.
He gripped Sarah’s wrist. He wanted desperately to reach her to hold her, but they were stuck. Bound to the surface of this stone altar, bound to the fate Garza had laid out for them.
Shit.
He tried to think of something.
There’s always a plan. There’s always something we can do.
Think, Red.
All his training had led him to this. To fight, to adapt, to —
He stopped.
Five seconds.
Four seconds.
He squeezed his eyes shut, ignoring the pain and surge of liquid that pumped down his nose. No, he thought. There’s got to be a better way.
His training was there, waiting for him.
When a ‘perfect’ plan seems impossible, a ‘good enough’ plan takes its place.
The perfect plan was to escape. His hands and Sarah’s hands intact.
The perfect plan was to get out, free and alive.
The perfect plan was to kill Garza.
The perfect plan is impossible. But maybe we can keep some of those elements in the ‘good enough’ version.
Namely, he wanted to kill Garza.
Two seconds.
But for now, he focused on just getting out.
“Hey Sarah?”
“Yeah?’
“Bend your legs. Unlock your knees.”
One second.
68
Ben
Ben was thrown off for a moment, but he stepped into the room and continued barraging her with questions. “No, the two people who — Reggie and Sarah. Dr. Lindgren. Gareth Red.”
The woman’s mouth dropped open. “Archie?”
She was looking over Ben’s head, and Archibald Quinones stepped forward. “Victoria?”
“What the hell’s going on?” Ben asked.
Victoria ran over, stopping in front of the group. The Peruvians moved to get ready for an attack, but Julie waved them down. “You — you must be Harvey. And Juliette. I’m Victoria Reyes.”
Ben nodded slowly. “What is this place? And where are our friends?”
“This place is a temple,” Victoria said. “And that —” she pointed to the big, round rock in the center of the room. “Is a pillar.”
“Why is that important?”
“Because I think I just figured it all out. And I think I know how to find your friends.”
Ben waited.
“Because there’s another pillar.”
69
Victoria
Victoria stared at the large, thick man in front of her. He wasn’t ripped, but he wasn’t fat, either. Brownish hair, brown eyes, and tanned skin, he looked like he was a construction worker who’d come in from outside to take a quick break.
Harvey Bennett, she thought. He held himself well — handsome in a very unassuming sort of way, like a guy confident about his own abilities, but lacked the knowledge that the opposite sex might find him attractive.
A woman stood next to him — Juliette Richardson — and behind them was Archibald Quinones, flanked by some armed men who looked to be locals.
She reached out a hand. “I — I’m Victoria,” she said again. “Reyes. Professor of —”
“Sorry,” he said. “I hate to cut this short, but I’ve got some friends who really might want some help right now. You said there’s another pillar? What does that mean?”
“Right,” she said, dropping her hand. “I, uh, came here — I was kidnapped — and I think I might know where your friends are.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s… not really that simple.”
Harvey Bennett stepped toward her. He seemed to grow larger as he got closer. She involuntarily took a step backward. “What do you know?”
She shook her head, then pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. Where do I start? “Harvey, the guys who took me, the Guild Rite, they —”
“The Guild Rite?”
“It — it’s a Freemason thing, hard to explain.”
Ben stiffened. “Masons tried to kill us in Rome.”
Victoria bit her lip. “Yeah, same g
roup. They… brought me here to help them.”
“They kidnapped you.”
“True. But I think they can help us. They might be —”
“They tried to kill us. What is a pillar?”
Victoria swallowed, then turned around and pointed at the circular stone table. “This is a pillar. It’s got writing on it. A language I can’t read — it predates ancient Egyptian.”
“This is older than Egypt?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t believe it is. But whoever put it here knew the language.” She paused. “Anyway, there’s another one. A pillar. Just like this one.”
“How do you know?” Juliette asked.
“Well, it’s a long story. But I can explain it, I promise. You said your friends are in trouble, correct? That means we have little time to talk through it. Do you trust me?”
“No,” Harvey said. “But we don’t really have a better option. You think this other pillar is close?”
“Yes,” she said. “It has to be. We just need to get out of —”
One of the massive doors slid open, and Harvey and his team turned to see a man walking in. He was in a hurry, his white apron bouncing as he steamed ahead.
“What fresh hell is this?” she heard Harvey say under his breath.
He reached for his weapon, and Victoria only then noticed that their entire team was loaded down in weaponry, including grenades.
The man continued toward them, and Victoria saw his face once he stepped into the light. “Agent —”
