THE LIGHT WE LOST: a gripping thriller

by Valera Titov

  “Her pulse and heart beat are both normal. Somebody sure went to great lengths to stop her from finding something with the use of this telescope.”

  Matt puffed out his cheeks.

  “The moment I saw this Elena woman I was immediately suspicious,” he said.

  “There was just something about her that didn’t sit right with me and my gut feel is not often wrong. Besides, isn’t the name ‘Elena’ of Russian descent? Anyway, how many of our guys are on their feet still?”

  “All are back upright except for Agent Ted Baxter,” answered Fred Courtney.

  “Ted gulped back about ten mugs full of that coffee, we are lucky that he is still alive. The coffee wasn’t the problem. I am sure that someone popped some other mixture into it and mixed it up well.”

  Matt slammed his fists on the laboratory table.

  “If Elena Hayek knows where the artefacts are, then she is one step ahead of us and Adam Kennedy’s life could be at further risk, particularly if this woman is working with the Russian government or an outside force.”

  Phil chipped in.

  “The sooner Ms Falcon wakes up the better but of course we don’t know how many cups of that coffee she put away,” he said.

  Matt charged for the door.

  Ï am going to the aircraft and will try to radio home to tell them to order the team on the ground in the Amazon to speed up,” he said.

  “If the Russians or other force find Kennedy before the FBI does, we have got problems.”

  Matt put his mobile phone back into his jacket pocket. What good was it to have a mobile phone if the network signal was close to zero?

  It was the best part of an hour before Glory Falcon’s body began to show some sort of movement in the far corner of the laboratory.

  Finally she was able to sit up straight and gazed into the eyes of Agent Evans Balfour.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “It looks like someone poisoned the whole team, probably through the coffee since we were all enjoying it quite a bit,” replied the agent.

  “Where is Elena Heyek?” questioned Glory.

  “She has disappeared, Ma’am,” answered the agent.

  “She is nowhere in the building or on the premises and what makes it even more strange is that the security guys on the gate claim that nobody has entered or exited the property since our aircraft touched down earlier today.”

  Glory began to wonder if the security personnel on the gate had not been bribed by Elena. Then she remembered the bright light that she had seen through the telescope. It was the last thing that she could remember before waking up a few moments ago.

  ………………

  Adam Kennedy still wearing the purple dress that he had obtained during the chaos in the shop in the market place a little earlier, checked into a 2-star bed and breakfast lodge. He only planned on staying a night but even more importantly, he needed to get off the street and change out of the female clothing.

  Once in the safety of his room, he took off the purple dress and bra, which had belonged to Glory.

  He filled the wash basin in the bathroom with cold water and washed the lipstick and make up form his face. The wig that he had worn lay on the double bed and he soaked a towel and washed his hair. To be a woman wasn’t easy, he thought.

  He had peace of heart that neither the US nor the Russians or even the Bratva knew the formula that applied to finding the hidden artefacts that were of so much value not only to the human race, but also in terms of cash.

  Adam knew that the best chance of finding the treasure was in the afternoon. The chance of going to the site in the morning in foggy conditions wasn’t to be taken lightly. Even though the ‘Legend of the Aborigines’ dated back many years, the chances of some form of radiation being down near the treasure, could not be ruled out.

  On his last trip to the Amazon when he not only found the site but managed to leave there with one of the artefacts safely in his possession, Adam had seen sights that he hoped he never would and didn’t even have the heart to tell Glory about them.

  He had seen human skeletons and body parts. These were clearly from people who fancied their chances of finding the artefacts but their luck had run out along the way.

  Adam had noted a man’s body, which still looked fairly fresh, that had an axe still stuck in the heart, while another looked like a midget until he realized that both of the man’s legs had been removed from the body.

  Along the way he had seen another ten or more corpses that were close to burnt beyond identification. He realized that they weren’t burnt through fire but through radiation.

  He had no doubt that radiation still existed down there and goodness knows what else too.

  Meanwhile Bratva hitman Vladimir Masterkova had problems of his own. He had lost track of the woman in the purple dress, which he thought was Adam, and knew better than to report that to his bosses. Boyevik agents were killed for a lot less than that. Gross incompetence didn’t go down to well in the world of organized crime, particularly in Russia.

  “Ya znayu, gde sokrovishche. Ya znayu, gde sokrovishche (I know where the treasure is. The girl told me),” was the half-truth that Vladimir relayed back to his superiors.

  Yes, Elena had dropped him a message after she had found some crucial notes among the late Professor’s documentation in the building at the Paranal desert. However he was still not one hundred percent sure where the artefacts were hidden, as the area was invisible for much of the time. Of course, being a greedy man, he did not know the full facts about the radiation element but stood a chance of finding out sooner rather than later.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Back on Angel Island, three unhappy campers sat in a brainstorm session.

  Space program advisor Shaun Kelly and Chief of Security Myles Jenkins had a tough task on their hands. Their President, John Carmichael III was not a happy man. The much-hailed FBI was failing their country on all fronts.

  “First they let Adam Kennedy slip through their fingers not once but twice, and now the only link to the opposition, Elena Hayek has also given our security team the slip!” freaked out the President.

  “It is quite uncanny, Sir,” said Myles.

  “I spoke to Agent Floyd Patterson who is here on the island with us and he was informed that Elena Hayek may have poisoned our team in Chile, in order to have a chance of making a getaway.”

  John Carmichael III shook his head out of frustration.

  “I don’t want to hear the name ‘Patterson’ because he screwed things up here on the island in the first place. I sent a team of our best men over to Chile to protect Glory Falcon. The only thing that surprises me is that they haven’t lost her again yet either.”

  Shaun Kelly tried to calm the President down.

  “Sir, something will happen soon. I just have a gut feel that we are on the brink of a break-through. Something will give.”

  Again John Carmichael III shook his head.

  “Something will give, yeah, you are right. At the moment it is likely to be my heart or my nervous system. We are supposed to have the best secret service infrastructure in the world and at the moment I am not sure if we are able to find our own shadows. If the North Koreans get word of this, they will blow us away with nuclear, probably thinking that we are not bright enough to push the defence buttons on our side.”

  “Does our team on the ground in the Amazon really believe that they can find the artefacts without Kennedy?” asked the US No 1.

  There was an uncomfortable silence in the office. Somebody needed to answer but nobody seemed too keen because the President would not take too likely to a negative or half-baked answer.

  John Carmichael III went on.

  “Has Glory Falcon spotted Kennedy or the artefacts using the telescope in Chile yet?” he asked.

  Again, an awkward silence followed.

  “Sir, I think that…” began Shaun Kell
y.

  “Don’t think, just give me facts!” burst out the President.

  “Do you know how many millions of people vote us into power? Do you know how many billions of US Dollars we are entrusted to run this God-forsaken country!” fumed the US No 1.

  At that point, there was a knock on the office door and it came at a time when it seemed like war was going to break out in the office of one of the most powerful politicians in the world.

  In marched FBI Bureau boss Floyd Patterson.

  The President took one look at Floyd and those seated in the office thought that the US No 1 was about to have a heart-attack. At the moment, the term ‘FBI’ wasn’t positioned too highly in the mind of the leader of the ‘Land of the Free’.

  “Sir, some news at last,” said the agent.

  “Glory Falcon has spotted the artefacts using the telescope in Chile.”

  Chapter Twenty one

  Knockout time in Chile

  Adam Kennedy’s legs are moving as fast as they can carry him. He is close to the place where the artefacts are hidden. A lot of what he is seeing, he recognizes from his previous expedition to the Amazon, but a lot is also new to him as he was not able to take everything into his mind last time.

  He thinks he hears footsteps behind him, but each time when he turns around there is nobody in sight for a good five hundred yards. Adam’s mind is playing games on him out of fatigue.

  The area that he is in very poorly lit and he can’t see more than five yards in front of his own nose. This could be a problem if the bad guys were able to get to the artefacts before him.

  “Ouch!” he shrieks in pain as his right knee gets caught up with an object low down ahead of him. He shines his torch towards the object as he hobbles around trying to retain his balance, with most of his weight resting on his right leg. It doesn’t take him too long to work out what the object that he collide with is.

  A communications pack with a US military badge on it! In a sense, Adam felt relief as in his mind the Americans were on his side. He bent down to take a closer look at the communications pack, which was a square foot in size and contained a small aerial on the edge and some sophisticated technological equipment inside the canvas cover.

  He pushed his head as close to the pack as he could and that was the last thing that he remembered as someone powered an object over his head which forced him into a state of unconsciousness.

  Adam Kennedy, the renowned archeologist, went to the muddy floor surface like a sack of potatoes that had just fallen from a vegetable delivery van.

  He would not have felt the dose of Propofol that was injected into his right arm. Adam Kennedy would be sleeping for quite some time and when he would eventually wake up, he would not be anywhere near the artefacts. In fact, when he would regain consciousness he would not even be in Chile!

  Two men dragged the lifeless body of the archeologist away from the area near the artefacts and put him on to the back of an open truck.

  Something dropped from the jacket pocket of one of the two men as he packed the communications pack on to the back of the truck next to Adam’s body.

  “You don’t want to leave that lying around, mate,” said the one man to the other.

  “That could potential cause World War III.”

  The man was referring to a pouch that contained the identification badge of the second man.

  “Yeah,” he said as he packed the pouch away that contained his FBI identification.

  The truck sped off and reached a deserted air strip a few miles outside of Leticia. The sun had long since set and few people would have noticed the private plane that was set to take five FBI men and their unconscious passenger off to a secret paradise destination.

  The second FBI man leaned through the open back window of the truck and undid the canvas cover that protected the communications pack. He pushed a few knobs as he tried to find the right frequency to communicate the latest success back to Angel Island.

  “10-97, 10-97,” said the man as he tested the signal.

  “10-44.”

  The FBI agent was requesting permission to fly out from the airstrip.

  This was a short pause before a voice was heard from the other side.

  “10-40, 10-42,” was heard over the communications system.

  The men with Adam were being told not to use any form of sirens or blue lights and to ‘end the tour duty’ which basically meant that they should leave the area as soon as possible.

  On the first note, the agent communicating with them from Angel Island would hardly have known that his colleagues in Chile were driving in a rickety old truck more likely to be used to transport cattle, rather than a police vehicle with a blue light and a siren on it.

  Adam’s body was dragged towards the private plane and put on a seat, with one of the FBI men being kind enough to strap him in for safety reasons, using the seatbelt.

  The wind was swirling and one of the FBI men thought that he saw the headlights of a car approaching the distance, but it was actually the branches of a tree moving in the wind, near a streetlight.”

  “Let’s get the hell out of here, this place is starting to freak me out,” he said.

  His partner laughed.

  “You mean that it is only starting to freak you out now?” he asked.

  “I haven’t liked this place or even this mission since we got here and some of the body parts and skeletons that we saw while tailing Kennedy didn’t help make me feel any better about it either.”

  “What about the other artefacts?” the first agent asks.

  The other man shook his head.

  “It is a pity that we couldn’t wait for Kennedy to find them but we have to follow orders. We have to get him to the island.”

  The agent put his right index finger over his lips as if to tell his colleague to keep quiet, as three other FBI men approached. FBI agents should have the highest level of discipline and loyalty to their tasks, but with this mission being of such a sensitive nature, it was hard to tell who to trust. Billions of human lives were on the line here.

  The island that the agent was referring to was not Angel Island. Adam Kennedy was about to be transported to a place of safety.

  Within thirty minutes, the plane was ready for take-off and the two FBI agents who had captured Adam glanced at each other.

  Only they knew the rough location of where the artefacts were. Would they ever be asked to return to Leticia? Not if God really loves them, they thought simultaneously. There was something evil about this place. It was like it was the home of the devil.

  …………….

  Over at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, Glory Falcon was doing her best to pin down the exact location of Adam Kennedy. A few hours earlier, she had managed to gain some signals via the world’s largest telescope. However, the signals had now disappeared. It was almost like Adam had disappeared himself. Glory knew enough to know that the signals worked on sound principles. The data would only vanish if the person was in one of two places – under the sea or up in the air.

  Little did she know that her second option was exactly where Adam was. Even more so, if she only knew that she would be joining him soon, the 20-year-old planetology graduate may have looked at life a little differently.

  Seated outside the laboratory in which Glory worked, FBI agents Matt Michaels and Phil Rawson touched their knuckles against each other. It was time to carry out the orders which had been passed on to them by the superiors from Angel Island.

  One of the pilots of the US military jet came charging into the area where the FBI agents were seated. He looked to be in quite a state of panic.

  “Agent Michaels, we just got a message over the flight radio that needs to be passed on to you,” said Captain Bill Walters.

  Matt stood up from his seat.

  “What is it, Captain?” he asked, as he sensed the pilot was bringing some seriously bad news.

  “Two of your men down in the Amazon, in the form of Agent Mar
k Shuttleworth and Agent Glen McKenzie are both deceased,” relayed the pilot.

  Matt felt weak at the knees. He had spent five years on the FBI with both men.

  “What do you mean deceased?” he asked.

  The pilot began to explain.

  “Agents Shuttle worth and McKenzie were advance party in search of whatever you are searching for in the Amazon. Some of your other men found their bodies. Both agents had their eyeballs removed from their faces with a sharp instrument.”

  Matt’s face turned grey. He had knocked back a few beers with Mark Shuttle worth five nights back and remembered how the agent told him how excited he was about the fact that his was, Nancy, was six weeks away from giving birth to their first child. Mark and Glenn must have got too close to finding the artefacts after Adam Kennedy had been carried away, and had paid the ultimate price.

  The FBI team leader knew that the killings had to be the work of the Bratva, thought Matt. Mark and Glenn must have been close to finding the artefacts and the Russian gangsters had tried to force the information out of them.

  Matt turned to Phil Rawson.

  “We have to move fast,” he said.

  “We need to carry out orders before more lives are lost.”

  The pilot left to go back to the aircraft.

  Phil took a small bottle from his jacket pocket and opened the cap, before putting some of its liquid on his handkerchief.

  “Good luck,” said Matt to his colleague.

  Phil knocked on the laboratory door and upon hearing Glory’s voice telling him to enter, levered it open with the handle, before closing it behind him.

  “Are you making progress, Ms Falcon?” he asked.

  Glory shrugged her shoulders.

  “I was up until a few hours ago, but the data that I have received is not relating to the current status,” said Glory, dressed in a yellow blouse and jeans.

  “It is weird. It is almost like Adam has left the area but he would never do that without finding the artefacts first.”

  Phil took a few steps closer to Glory.

  “I am sure that Mr Kennedy is fine wherever he is,” remarked the FBI agent.

  Glory smiled.