THE LIGHT WE LOST: a gripping thriller

by Valera Titov

  Glory was taken aback. Surely she should be the one asking the FBI men if they knew where Adam Kennedy is?

  Glory tried to speak but no words came out.

  The bigger of the two agents could see that the woman was in complete shock.

  “Ms Falcon, what do you know about a bright light from the solar system?”

  Again, Glory stared on. How did the bright light link in with the disappearance of Adam?

  “Ma’am, Adam Kennedy went in search of a very important item in the Amazon which is a key link to the bright light and the Project X problem.”

  Glory shook her head. It was as if the FBI men were speaking in riddles. How could the bright light be linked to a treasured item that Adam had been searching for in the Amazon? She felt like she was building a puzzle in her mind but most of the pieces were lying on the floor rather than on the table in front of her.

  “Ma’am the bright light that you have witnessed is reflecting off of the item that Mr Kennedy was searching for and anyone who comes in contact with the glares could face instant death,” said the African-American FBI man.

  “A Professor in Chile has already been killed in this manner.”

  Ah, so she was right about how Professor Goic met his maker, thought Glory

  “Then why am I still alive after being struck three times by the blinding light? asked Glory.

  “That is exactly what we want to know from you,” asked the thinner agent in a stern tone.

  “What is your link to the ‘Corridor’?”

  Chapter Eight

  Safety comes first

  The silence was deafening inside the Oval office as US President John Carmichael III sat staring at the ‘three wise men’ seated in front of him.

  Dressed in a grey suit, and wearing a white shirt and yellow, black-striped tie, the American No 1 had done well in his first year in the White House. Some would not attest to that fact. He was like the average company CEO. He thought things through hundreds of time before making a decision rather than relying on gut feeling and common sense. Then again, if you are responsible for the lives of over 323 million people, he really had little option other than to think of it in that fashion.

  Something needed to happen that can break icy tension in the room. The President began to tap his US$1800 Conway Stewart Teal Fountain Pen against his notepad.

  Chief of Security, Myles Jenkins, puffed out his cheeks. Economics advisor, Stan Appelby, sat staring at the floor, shaking his head. Space program advisor, Shaun Kelly, was staring at his Tablet computer, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief on few occasions, more out of stress than sweat running down his face.

  “How much time have we got?” asked President Carmichael.

  Shaun looked up from his Tablet computer.

  “It is very hard to tell, sir,” he replied.

  “It could be today, it could be tomorrow, it could be next month or next year. Planet X seems to adjust its speed continuously. The navigational symptoms all shows that it is heading for Planet Earth, but it was moving much faster a week ago than how it has over the past two days.

  The President continued to throw questions at his advisors.

  “How safe are out spaceships and how many people can we evacuate at a time? How many spaceships do we have available?”

  Again Shaun piped up.

  “Sir, each spaceship can accommodate around one thousand people including staffs,” he answered.

  “We have one hundred of these vehicles and two hundred and fifty if we include the Russian spaceships.”

  President Carmichael’s head jolted backwards. He was a firm believer that the Russians could not be trusted in any situation. Weren’t they the ones who had helped former President Donald Trump rig the election through email hacking, so that he would get into power ahead of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton?

  “How safe are those Russian spaceships if we are going to put American lives onboard of them?” asked the President, looking at Myles Jenkins.

  Jenkins, who had worked in the White House for the past thirty years knew his President’s emotional habits better than anyone. He was almost hesitant to answer the question. Myles knew that President Carmichael listened to the first sentence of what anyone told him and would only listen more if he liked what he was hearing. If not, he switched his mind off of the subject.

  “Sir, the Russian spaceships could well be safer than our own,” commented the Chief of Security.

  “With due respect, the Russians spent over ten times more on their own space program over the past ten years compared to our budget.”

  President Carmichael stood up from his chair and began to pace up and down the room, staring out of the Oval Office window from time to time.

  Stan Appelby, the President’s leading bean counter in terms of the US Dollar, could read the mind of his leader.

  “Sir, we have an extra twenty billion available to throw at this project, you know that.”

  The President turned around at speed. He didn’t like being reminded of such things for one simple reason. He had no time for the space program. He didn’t believe in it, let alone throw billions of taxpayers’ cash at it. John Carmichael III lived in a world of his own. The space program was nothing more than a figment of someone’s imagination, according to him.

  How on earth could the lives of people on our own planet be in danger by something called Planet X? He didn’t believe in UFOs. President Carmichael thought that UFOs were only spotted by people who had too much to drink. What would be next; Little green aliens landing from Mars at John F Kennedy International Airport? No. He would be tar and feathered if he threw twenty billion US Dollars at this pie-in-the-sky campaign.

  “Time is ticking, sir. We can’t take the risk of leaving things too late,” said Shaun.

  “It’s not about our lives. We have all experienced life to a degree. It’s about the future generations of America.”

  President Carmichael’s eyes were raging in the direction of Shaun. He didn’t respond with his thoughts, but what was going through his mind was: ‘you mean the future generations of Mars citizens, Shaun, because that is what they will be’.

  President Carmichael’s drifted from the face of Shaun to Myles and then Stan. Would these well-educated and experienced men really consider sending American citizens to outer space forever? Or was it a case of the President of the US who was out of touch with reality and who should use his expensive fountain pen to sign a letter of resignation as leader of one of the most powerful nations on earth?

  “Perhaps we should have a meeting with the Russians or a Skype chat at least?” he asked.

  The last thing that the US No 1 wanted at this point was to spend quality time chatting with his Russian counterpart, but it seemed like he has no other option. Former President Trump had created a channel of communication with the Russians which many of his predecessors were against.

  The desk phone next to the President’s notepad sprung to life with a buzzing sound and was answered by the country’s leading politician.

  “Sir, US Head of Military Operations, Ted Kingsley is on the line for you, may I put the call through?” asked the White House secretary Gillian Kent over the phone.

  The call was put through and President Carmichael began to chat with the military head. Those in the room could sense that there was a good relationship between the two men. After all, any leader of a nation would know to keep his military man close. If ever a President was to be unseated by a coup de’tat overthrow.

  An example of this was recently seen in southern Africa where Zimbabwe’s ruthless Robert Mugabe had his dictatorial, 37 years of leadership ended by being overthrown by his own military.

  “Ted, what’s happening?” asked the President to his military chief.

  “John, the North Koreans are one step away from blowing Guam out of the water,” said the frustrated and tense military boss.

  The tensions between North Korea and the US had reached fever
pitch a few months earlier when the North Korean President, Kin Jong Un, had threatened to launch a full-scale nuclear attack on the US territory island of Guam if then-President Trump did not refrain from his threat of disarming the North Korean nuclear program by force.

  President Carmichael was fully aware of the Guam/North Korea problem. He had hoped that the issue would disappear now that former President Trump had left the White House.

  “What has brought about Kim’s reincarnation of the threats on Guam?” asked the President.

  Ted Kingsley responded.

  “Kim has heard that the US is working closely with the Russians on a space program, which he sees as a means for the US to heavily arm military equipment. Kim doesn’t believe the spaceship story. He thinks that the US and Russians are working together to have a full go at North Korea to disarm their nuclear program.”

  President Carmichael shook his head. First, he had his ‘three wise men’ telling him that Americans should live out their lives in Mars and now he had the North Koreans threatening to blow an island full of Americans off the face of the earth. This just further enhanced the President’s view that the ‘Corridor’ project was actually more trouble than it was worth.

  The President thanked Ted Kingsley for the heads-up and asked his secretary to send Press Secretary, Peter Cox, to the Oval Office.

  A minute later, Peter Cox, a man in his forties dressed in a black suit with a matching tie, arrived. He greeted the President and ‘the three wise men’.

  For the next thirty minutes, those in the Oval Office discussed the pros and cons of the situation. The space program between the Russians and the Americans was supposed to have been a secret one. However, if the North Korean government opened their mouths about it in the media, then it won’t be much of a secret after all, will it?

  Should the Americans go with a media statement? Would it be better to have the public informed by their leader, the American President, rather than reading about the North Korean President’s quotes in a newspaper or television interview?

  “President, sir, you have to push the button before it is too late,” said Shaun Kelly, in reference to the transportation of Americans by spaceship to Mars.

  “Surely the North Koreans military will know the difference between a spaceship on its way to Mars and a spaceship sent in their direction?”

  President Carmichael’s fear was that the moment the first spaceship was launched from Cape Canaveral, the first nuclear weapon could be sent towards Guam. John Carmichael III made the point that the North Koreans operated on a ‘do it now and think later’ approach rather than the other way around.

  “How safe is this ‘Corridor’?” asked President Carmichael.

  “I mean, if a spaceship is sent to orbit, surely the North Korean nuclear weapons won’t reach it there?”

  The ‘three wise men’ agreed. The North Korean nuclear weapons were not designed to destroy objects in outer space.

  That left the Guam issue? The Americans could not take the risk of emptying the islands of all life forms. The North Koreans would surely smell a rat and could quite easily take aim at another US-occupied island or other land-space.’

  The citizens of Guam, the island in the Pacific Ocean, are known as Guamanians and are American citizens by birth.

  “Sir,” remarked Shaun Kelly.

  “I have read an interesting story about an American planetology graduate from the University of Chicago who may know more about this. Apparently, she was dating an archaeologist who disappeared in the Amazon while searching for an artifact that is key to this whole story.”

  The President gazed at Shaun.

  “Where is this woman now?” asked the President.

  “I believe that FBI agents have been sent to interrogate her,” replied Shaun.

  “I have also read that she recently married physicist, Alan Falcon, who is a senior operations man on the space program at Cape Canaveral.”

  Shaun passed the print out of the page to the President, whose eyes were caught on the beauty of Glory Falcon.

  “Tell the agents to bring her to the White House,” quipped the American No 1.

  Shaun Kelly left the room to relay the President’s orders to the FBI office down the passage.

  President Carmichael placed his hands over his face. If it wasn’t Planet X trying to blow them away, then it was the North Koreans. He had often heard the slogan of ‘tough at the top but crowded at the bottom’. Right now, he wishes that he was at the bottom and not the world’s leading politician.

  He had always wanted to be a politician and the Pussycat Dolls hit song played on his mind, ‘Be careful what you wish for cuz you just might get it’ was racing through his mind.

  With the news about a potential North Korean onslaught on Guam, the ‘Corridor’ project was becoming more and more of a solution in the mind of President Carmichael. Unbeknown to the others in the room, he was now just a step away from spending that extra twenty billion in cash on the project.

  He could envisage himself strapped in on a spaceship with his family en route to Mars. Goodness knows that this planet could only be a better and safer place than earth at the moment.

  Chapter Nine

  White House, here I come

  Back at the Falcon home at Cocoa Beach, a match was taking place. It wasn’t football, tennis or any other sport, but rather a shouting match.

  “I am telling you for the last time, I don’t know where Adam Kennedy is and I know nothing about the artifact that he was searching for in the Amazon,” said a distraught Glory Falcon, who was being interrogated in the comfort of her lounge by FBI agents, Dirk Lange and Scott Rogers.

  Neither was buying into Glory’s innocence.

  “Ms Falcon, don’t play the innocent game with us,” said the thin white agent, Dirk Lange, in a stern voice.

  “We have brought down large crime syndicates who also protested that they know nothing. In fact, word is that we are able to make the deaf talk if you know what I mean?”

  Glory gulped. She was pretty sure that neither agent would lay a hand on her.

  “Do you want to know what I think, Ms Falcon?” questioned Scott Rogers.

  “I think that you are a two-timing gold-digging little cow. You knew exactly where Adam Kennedy was headed to in order to collect the treasured item and when he didn’t return with it which would have changed your life financially, you went the other way. Wow, Ms Falcon, this mansion that you stay in must be worth quite a bit?”

  Glory burst into tears.

  “It is not what you think,” she said in a sobbing tone.

  “I am not like that at all. It isn’t like that at all.”

  Agent Rogers continued.

  “Then you had better tell us what you know or else we have no option but to conclude what I have just stated.”

  Glory ran her hands over her face to push her black hair out of the way.

  “Somebody booked Adam at short notice for the Amazon mission,” she said.

  “He left on Christmas Day. He wouldn’t tell me what he was looking for or who booked the mission. You know how it is? You can’t tell your family members half the stuff that you do or see in your daily jobs. It’s simply too dangerous.”

  Agent Dirk Lange wasn’t convinced.

  “Tell us about your phone call to the Paranal Observatory in Chile?”

  Again Glory gulped.

  How did the FBI know about her chat with the assistant to the late Professor Goic? Was her mobile phone and home phone tapped by the government agency? Did they know about the bright light that had thrown her to the floor at the University of Chicago’s laboratory, as well as at Prom Night and upstairs in her home here at Cocoa Beach?

  Did the FBI also think that the bright light from outer space, quite possibly from Planet X, had also blinded Professor Goic so much that he had lost control of his car before going over the cliff?

  Glory had so many questions racing through her mind, but she needed t
o tread carefully as she wasn’t sure what the FBI men did or did not know.

  Agent Dirk Lange spoke again.

  “We believe that you were trying to make contact with Professor Goic at the Paranal Observatory because you had some important information to pass on to him about the space program and you knew that he had been working on it for quite some years via a powerful telescope.”

  “You know by now that Professor Goic is deceased. His car went over the cliff. We don’t believe that there was foul play involved but did find something strange on his body.”

  Glory Falcon listed carefully.

  “There was a burn mark, about three square inches on his right arm,” went on Agent Lange.

  “It was almost as if a UFO had launched a ray from outer space to take him out.”

  Glory ran her left arm up her right with the aim of reaching her shoulder, but it didn’t get that far. She felt a large bump, pretty close to a type of mark near where her right arm joined the body. She couldn’t remember it being there before. She tried to rub the mark without making it too obvious to the FBI men.

  The bright light that had stunned her and burnt the Professor before he drove his car over the edge, had clearly been on a mission to end her life too, on no fewer than three occasions.

  Agent Dirk Lange stood up from his seat near the lounge window. The curtains had not yet been drawn although it was well past dusk.

  “Ms Falcon, we don’t know what your husband is telling our other FBI team at the space office, but my friend out there, Agent Scott Rogers, is not a man known for having much patience and he is close to reaching his limit with you.”

  Glory stared at the African-American and he stared back at her with a fierce look on his face.

  “However, we are honourable gentlemen, so we are giving you one hour to reconsider your story,” said Agent Lange.

  “You can speak to whoever you like, but I would be careful on that front if I were you. We will return in an hour. To hear what you have decided to tell us. Oh, don’t even think of making a run for it. That would definitely not be in your best interest.”