by M. G. Harris
If DiCanio was right about there being a possible link between the ancient chamber and extra-terrestrial intelligence, then it made perfect sense. Could it be that the chamber contained some kind of signaling device that might send information through space, to its place of origins? When DiCanio had asked him, Jackson hadn’t listed ‘alien invasion’ as one of the perceived greatest threats to mankind. Secretly though, he knew that in the massively unlikely event that extra-terrestrial beings had actually reached our solar system, there wouldn’t be much chance of fighting them off. Any civilization that could overcome the challenges of interplanetary travel had to be so far ahead of our own that the odds – at least in terms of technology – would be pretty bleak for humans.
Connor’s position at the NRO was fairly recent. It had come as a total surprise to Jackson. He’d thought that his brother’s tour of duty in Iraq had ended last year. At that time there had indeed been rumblings about his moving to Virginia. Then suddenly, he’d been sent back out. So perhaps Connor’s local knowledge of Iraq had led to his being stationed out there once more? Jackson could only speculate. At least his brother was now a non-combatant.
When the car reached the more densely populated city center, there was evidence of greater post-war recovery. Fishing skips and motorboats churned through the milky-brown river. Above the second story, many buildings bore pockmarks from bullets. The area came alive in the hordes of bright, tacky shop fronts selling Turkish shawls, Lebanese sweets, fragrances, imported electronics, cell phones. As in the outlying region by the airport, the streets teemed with shoppers.
The driver dropped them outside the newly-re-opened Basra International Hotel, formerly the Sheraton. A porter took two suitcases from the trunk of the car and led them into the lobby. It was a wide-open space, overlooked by the layered arches of the hotel’s many floors, clean, geometric lines of cream and brown. Subtle, concealed lighting giving the impression of lamps burning inside the windows of a hillside, Moorish village.
A few guests lounged on the generous leather sofas that were carefully positioned around the lobby, smoking whilst conducting energetic cell phone discussions in Arabic.
They checked in with minimal fuss, although DiCanio was clearly upset at the receptionist’s insistence that they leave their passports.
Calculating how much time that’s going to add to our getaway.
With some trepidation, Jackson realized the extent of the trail he was leaving. When it came out – as it surely would – that someone closely resembling Connor had removed something from the burial chamber, Jackson would be the first to be implicated. Now there’d be physical evidence of his intervention.
This hypnoticin stuff had better be amazing. Or I’m totally screwed.
In the hotel room, Jackson subjected himself to a buzz cut at the hands of one of DiCanio’s bodyguards. Luckily for them, Connor was a stickler for his hair length, taking a weekly number three cut. It wasn’t difficult to fake a ‘Connor’.
DiCanio opened one of the suitcases and removed a US Air Force uniform. Jackson ran a finger over the insignia; two silver bars.
“Does it look right?” DiCanio asked him.
“I guess. . . ” His brother’s world was a total mystery to him. They better have done their research, or he was in dire straits.
Jackson took the uniform into the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror as he watched the transformation take place. He ran the palm of one hand over the trimmed, almost black scrub that his hair had become. With no long strands of raggedy fringe to fall into his eyes, his face seemed suddenly open. There was an air of purity, almost innocence. This wasn’t how he remembered seeing his brother. The longer he stared the more he realized that his brother and he weren’t all that identical, even without the differences that they had imposed on themselves. Jackson’s face had retained a mischievous, boyish quality that Connor’s more disciplined facial expression had somehow lost. He fastened his shirt collar and tie, slowly buttoned the jacket, arranging the lapels carefully. Jackson clenched his jaw and stared deep into his own dark brown eyes, willing them to return something of his brother to him.
“This is a heap of horseshit,” he shouted through the door. “No-one’s gonna buy it.”
DiCanio pushed the bathroom door open. Her eyes wandered over the length of Jackson’s uniformed body.
“It’s perfect,” she pronounced.
Irritated, he insisted, “No, it looks like Jackson Bennett dressed up in a captain’s uniform. Dressed like Connor.”
From behind, DiCanio took hold of Jackson’s shoulders, rotating him so that they both faced the mirror.
“This is not how you see Connor. When you look at him, you see the mirror image. But to everyone on the outside, Jackson, this is Connor. So get used to it; name and rank?”
“Captain Connor Bennett, United States Air Force,” said Jackson with a weary air.
One of the bodyguards, who’d been standing idly by, turned to him.
“Not like that.” Then he shouted; “Airman, what is your name and rank?”
“Sir, Captain Connor Bennett, sir!” repeated Jackson in the staccato bark which he’d so often heard his brother rehearse.
The trio assessed him in silence.
DiCanio didn’t appear terribly impressed, merely declaring, “OK, get your jacket and shirt off. You’re halfway there.”
Jackson stared. “You want me to get his tattoo?”
“I’m perfectly serious. You can relax; there’s no time for a proper job. We’re just going to ink you. A real tattoo would show signs of bleeding and inflammation; it would be rather obvious.”
He began to unbutton his shirt, shaking his head.
DiCanio grinned. “The Stars and Stripes it is, then.”
Medecins Sans Frontieres
Dressed once again in his everyday blue polo short and taupe-colored chinos, Jackson rode an elevator to the lobby. This time he was alone. He passed a metal ash tray and disposed of the tiny cotton wool wad, which DiCanio had jammed into the crease of his elbow to absorb the blood from where she’d injected him with hip33 – hypnoticin. The drug would now circulate in his blood and combine with the naturally expressed joust-like-factor made by his own body. The combined molecule would stimulate pathways that they didn’t yet understand, to render his will difficult to resist.
“Most people naturally want to please. It seems that only a little is required to tip them over the edge. Hypnoticin supplies that extra.”
The major drawback was that, in the present formulation, the drug’s effects would last less than fifteen minutes. At the current cost of manufacture, it wasn’t really viable as a world-changing pharmaceutical. However, Chaldexx, DiCanio assured him, was working on a new method for delivering the molecule. If it worked, a tiny amount of the drug would work for hours.
He ordered a beer at the bar and paid for it with the twenty dollar bill that DiCanio had given him. The bartender passed him a squat, sweating bottle of Efes Pilsener. As Jackson sipped from the bottle, he took a good look at the human traffic in the lobby. With his buzz-cut, a clean-shaven white face and casual dress, he stood out as a foreigner. Already some eyes strayed in his direction, wondering who he might be. An off-duty soldier? One of those technology millionaires looking for new business opportunities in Iraq?
Jackson caught sight of one man whose gaze landed on him and didn’t stray. There was more than curiosity in that gaze; there was a certain, unmistakable hunger. A guy who stared directly at you for so long could only have one intention. Normally, Jackson would look away. It wasn’t fair to lead another guy on. Not that he minded when girls did that; at least you’d get some flirting out of it. With a guy, flirting was out of the question. This time, however, he sensed an opportunity of an altogether different type.
DiCanio claimed that the drug could only work through use of the voice. Yet Jackson had willed that the Middle-Eastern man who was staring at him should stand up, leave his comfortable place at
the sofa and join Jackson at the bar. That was precisely what happened.
The man was in his late forties, his face even more closely shaven than Jackson’s except for the exceedingly trim moustache and goatee beard. His short black hair was slicked back with fragrant oil; the scent of expensive cologne reached Jackson’s nostrils before the guy uttered a word. His suit was immaculate and the blue-and-yellow tie looked like a Missoni design.
He placed his drink on the counter and looked at Jackson, without a hint of a smile. Suddenly he seemed nervous. He seemed to have expected Jackson to speak first.
“What’s your favorite charity?” Jackson said. The line had been suggested by DiCanio. It seemed to cause a certain amount of turmoil in the guy who’d accepted what he’d assumed was a tacit invitation to chat with Jackson.
“Charity . . .?” he said, at last. His eyes scanned Jackson’s face in a way that would normally have made him deeply uncomfortable. But he stuck to DiCanio’s script.
“Charity,” Jackson repeated. “Your favorite one. Who’d you really like to help out? I mean, like, seriously help.”
The man stared at him, baffled. A helplessness had entered his demeanor. He seemed to want to leave, but something was stopping him. Jackson could see the tension in the guy’s hand as he gripped the bar rail. It was easy to imagine that Jackson’s will alone held him at the bar.
“When I say seriously,” Jackson continued, “I’m talking big money. Enough to hurt a guy, you know what I’m saying? In the wallet, I mean.” He took another sip and watched the well-groomed Iraqi businessman struggle for words. “So – who’d you like? Red Cross? Médecins Sans Frontières? Save the Children?”
“Médecins Sans Frontières,” stammered the Iraqi, his French pronunciation perfect. “I suppose. They helped us a great deal after the war. Good doctors, good people.”
Jackson beamed. “Excellent. So why don’t you call them? Donate something. Something decent. You’re good for, what . . .?” Ostentatiously, he looked the man up and down. “For fifty thousand bucks at least. Am I right?”
The man blanched. Yet he didn’t get angry or walk away. Rather he appeared utterly crestfallen. The amount was beyond him, Jackson could tell that much. Yet he badly wanted to be able to say yes. “Too much?” Jackson shook his head reassuringly. “How about fifteen? Is fifteen good?”
The man broke into a smile of relief. “Fifteen, yes, better! I can afford fifteen thousand, just.”
“All right! We’re doing this! Get out your phone,” Jackson said. “Call your bank.”
Then he watched as the Iraqi called his bank and demanded an immediate transfer of funds to Médecins Sans Frontières. When it was done, he shook the man’s hand, which was now slick with sweat. He turned and headed for the elevators.
Jackson looked back only once, to see the Iraqi still standing at the bar, a glass partway to his lips. The man seemed calm. But Jackson had felt the tension in his body when he’d shaken the guy’s hand. He’d obeyed Jackson, insofar as he felt himself commanded.
Part of his brain hadn’t wanted to surrender; Jackson had sensed it.
Ninety minutes later, dressed in the captain’s uniform that DiCanio had supplied, Jackson rolled up a sleeve. One of DiCanio’s men injected him with a fresh burst of hypnoticin. He pulled the jacket back over his left shoulder and buttoned up. They dropped him just out of site of the guard station for the base, behind the temporary buildings which housed the officer’s quarters. As instructed, he walked briskly, confidently through the security gates and into barracks, his head held high. Inside though, he was a hard, twisted knot. The sensation of powerlessness he’d experienced in the airplane with DiCanio was returning. The experiment with hypnoticin had given him something that was diametrically opposite; the pure rush of control. Where was that confidence now, he wondered? It obviously didn’t come from the drug.
He had to believe, or he had not to care. But the hardness in his abdomen wouldn’t let up. Infiltration, physical conflict; this was Connor’s world, not his.
It was trespass.
The two young airmen on guard duty nodded at him as he passed.
“Captain Bennett.”
“Afternoon, airmen,” he said, imitating his brother’s clipped tones. It seemed to do the trick, because they didn’t give him a second glance.
The more people he passed, the less he worried. DiCanio had been right; the uniform and close resemblance to Connor were obviously enough to persuade most people that he was indeed his brother.
But I know the difference. It’s all about nerve. Do I have Connor’s nerve?
Jackson had memorized the map of the base whilst aboard the airplane. On the ground, however, things seemed to have changed somewhat. A new tent had been erected directly in front of where he expected to find a path leading to the lift shaft. He walked into the tent, where an enlisted airman was making and attaching labels to articles placed on large tables covered in vinyl sheeting. Each article was bagged in clear plastic.
I’m supposed to know all these people.
The enlisted man had four stripes on his arm. A sergeant of some kind, probably. Jackson outranked him, at least.
The sergeant glanced up. “Sir. Can I help you?”
Jackson went blank for just a second.
“Something wrong, sir?”
He gave a nervous laugh. This was going to be harder than he’d expected. What the heck was he supposed to say?
“I left something here . . . You didn’t find my iPhone?”
“This morning? Or yesterday?”
“Let me see, when do you last remember seeing me here?”
“That would be this A.M., sir,” offered the man helpfully.
“That is correct, Sergeant. Any sign of it?”
“No, sir, I’m sorry. Let me help you look.”
The two men pored over the tables, Jackson taking the opportunity to examine the objects that were being accumulated. They comprised stone objects of various sizes. Could the artifact he sought be among them? From what he could see, none of them matched the description he’d been given.
Eventually, he stopped. “I must have left it in the chamber.”
The sergeant seemed puzzled. “Why would you take your cell phone down there, sir? We’re under strict instructions not to take wave-emitting equipment down there.”
Jackson decided it was time to test the hypnoticin’s power. Looking directly into the younger man’s eyes, he said, “I must have forgotten to leave it up here before I went down. No big deal, it’s switched off anyways. I need to go down and check for that cell. I need you to stay up here and keep an eye on things. Will you do that for me, airman?”
The sergeant nodded. He looked vaguely confused; the same look of baffled disorientation that Jackson had seen in the eyes of the Iraqi at the bar.
Pitching his voice with precision, Jackson repeated, this time louder, “Will you do that for me, airman?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” He seemed to remember, belatedly, to salute.
Jackson’s eyes swept the tent. The entrance to the elevator shaft must be on the other side of this tent. A flap of canvas in the tent wall caught his eye. He pulled the flap back to reveal a sturdy metallic frame structure, the elevator shaft. The elevator consisted of a thick metal platform wide enough to accommodate up to four men. A huge pulley structure at the top of the shaft looked tough enough to take a huge weight load. The elevator appeared to be operated by a simple lever apparatus attached to the platform.
He stepped onto the platform and pulled down on the lever. It began to move, descending into the darkness. The light dimmed rapidly as the top of the shaft grew smaller.
How deep is this thing?
Full descent took two minutes. The platform came to a juddering halt at the mouth of another small tunnel walled in canvas. Artificial light streamed from behind thick plastic swinging doors, about ten yards away. There was no sound other than Jackson’s own footfall. When he stopped the stillnes
s was profound.
He arrived at the entrance to an octagonal chamber about thirty yards across and six yards high. What he saw would remain with him as long as he lived. Without recourse to any singular splendor or beauty, its captivating nature lay instead in the way his gaze became dazzled by patterns; inscriptions which followed one another, networks of the abstract, written concepts enlaced with the architectural. Each piece in the room belonged with the others, placed with precision, like the keys on a piano.
Two large arc lamps stood in the middle of the chamber. They threw harsh yellow light into the far corners of the room. The main body of the chamber was thus thrown into shadowed relief. The effect made Jackson catch his breath. It emphasized the unsettling atmosphere of the room. How many people had stood in this room, in the seven years since it had been discovered? There had to have been at least a dozen. And yet the room maintained an unsullied ambience, so much that he felt himself an intruder from the second he stepped inside. He felt as foreign as if he’d walked onto the surface of an alien planet. He felt something stir within him, transcendent; the crushing weight of history.
In the middle of the chamber stood what appeared to be a small stone platform or altar, about waist high. Around the room were stone sarcophagi, three against each wall, their lids carved with wedge-like markings.
Jackson moved slowly into the middle of the chamber. He took out the cotton gloves he’d been given, and put them on. Cautiously, he laid his palms upon the central altar. The surface was smooth, hard, calcareous, yet unlike any stone known to him, possessed of a diaphanous quality, a porcelain marble. Like the chamber, the altar was octagonal, inlaid with twenty-one stone tablets, each covered with similar markings to the lids of the sarcophagi. As he began to examine the markings more closely, he could see that each tablet’s markings corresponded to one of the sarcophagus’s. In the middle of the altar was a small depression, in which lay another artifact.
