by Aiden James
Voices in the tunnel grew louder and Jeremy motioned for them all to run over to the Escalade. Before he pulled the vehicle’s keys from his pocket, the trap door flew open and the barrels of three rifles clanged noisily against the sides of the opening. Deshawn dropped the duffel bag and ran over to one of the trash containers. He ripped the lid off and bravely turned the container over on top of the hole, sending a pile of rancid garbage down onto the soldiers trying to climb out of the tunnel. A spray of gunfire just missed him as he ran back toward the Escalade after leaving the container upside down over the hole.
Jeremy caught him and spun him around before he got there, handing the duffel bag back to him while pushing him away from the truck.
“Let’s move, man!” he shouted, running with Jack to the smaller door that led out to the alley. Deshawn hesitated and looked back at the Cadillac. “Forget about the truck, Deshawn, we need to get out of here!!”
Jeremy pushed Deshawn through the door once he rejoined them, and he sprinted to safety behind the crumbling remains of a cement incinerator across the alley. He ducked down behind it and looked back toward the shed. The brothers had just stumbled out of the building, pushing the door shut as a short burst of bullets tore through both sides of the door and the wall around the exit, shattering the window. They escaped the gunfire, but as they prepared to join Deshawn, the pair of maroon vans from earlier raced up the alley.
Before either one could react, the vans swung around and effectively closed them in between the alley and the shed. The only other means of escape was a gate to the tall wooden fence that enclosed the back of Dr. Quard-e-Lazim’s property. They made a run for the gate but it was locked. A dozen men of Spanish appearance poured out of the vans and chased them down before they could scale the fence. With five or six of these men in dark jumpsuits on each brother, they pulled them down from the fence and dragged them back to the vans kicking and fighting their captors.
Two of the Spanish men pulled out gray cloths and covered Jeremy and Jack’s mouths and noses. When their bodies became limp, their assailants threw them both into one of the vans while placing the backpack inside the other vehicle. A moment later the vans sped back down the alley and disappeared on Eleventh Street.
***
Deshawn couldn’t move. Gripped by terror and shame, he crouched behind the incinerator. His focus drawn to the shed’s bullet-riddled door, he watched his treasured basketball roll around on the pavement in front of it. He waited for the soldiers to emerge from the building. But other than slight movements he detected behind the window’s shredded straw curtain, they never did. When he realized the Israelis were long gone, nearly twenty minutes later, he was filled with even more remorse. He angrily chided himself for not trying to rescue his friends, ignoring the fact it would’ve been futile.
But now it was time to vacate the area as quickly as possible. Surely someone heard the commotion from a short while ago, despite the fact the gunshots were muted by silencers. The squeal of the van’s tires alone were loud enough to alert residents on either side of the alley that trouble was in their midst. With all the heightened security reported in the news, it surprised him that the FBI and whoever else was out and about in Tuscaloosa hadn’t arrived already.
He ran back to the shed and scooped up his basketball, and then moved as discreetly as he could along the fence line. Crouched low, he didn’t stand up straight again until he passed several houses.
For the next hour Deshawn simply walked, occasionally bouncing the ball on the sidewalks and roadsides in the neighborhoods bordering the university campus while he tried to figure out what to do next. He needed time to think about everything that had happened since last night. When he reached the point where he was about to retrace his steps near 12th Street, he stopped and offered a silent prayer for Jeremy and Jack’s safe deliverance from whoever had abducted them. He then headed toward the heart of campus.
Part IV
Servants of the Angels
“This is not good, Jack!” scolded Oscar Mensch. “It’s not good at all, my young friend!!”
Sitting in the seat across the aisle from Jack and Jeremy on a cargo carrier, he moved into the seat between them, turning to face Jack directly. Jeremy slept soundly next to one of the plane’s passenger windows despite the carrier’s noisy hum and the professor’s perturbed tone. The rest of the vessel was deserted.
“Everything was going so well—It couldn’t be any more perfect!” Dr. Mensch leaned closer to Jack. “I understand why you, Jeremy, and Deshawn left the way you did. Unfortunately, we were unable to warn any of you, as we don’t know every event on this side before it happens. But, why in the hell did you remove the Cristal Del Sol from the house?”
“I-I thought it was the right thing to do, Doc,” Jack stammered, glancing nervously beyond him toward Jeremy, still asleep.
“I thought it was the right thing to do!” the professor mocked, his tone more harsh and derisive than Jack ever remembered it being before. “Was it a message from your mom, hmmm? Did it ever occur to you that if Genovene had a hand in orchestrating the delivery of the Cristal Del Sol to our quiet little ‘college town’ of Tuscaloosa, then does it not seem logical she would keep it safe from harm, without your help??”
He glared furiously at Jack, who pressed himself against the aisle side of his seat in a vain effort to escape the professor’s wrath.
“I honestly didn’t know what else to do!” Jack replied. “Deshawn won’t let anything bad happen to it, Doc—honest! You should realize it’s better to trust him with it than most anyone else, especially the folks who tried to kill us back there!”
The anger faded from the professor’s demeanor as he considered Jack’s words.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he said finally, his smile weak as he nodded thoughtfully. “However, we’re now officially behind schedule in restoring the Blood Star. Keep in mind, Jack, that Talusha has decreed this must be done by the time his brothers and sisters complete their journeys to the shrine by dawn, the day after tomorrow.
“Therefore, you now must find some way to get home immediately,” he advised, and then looked briefly toward the silent walkway that led to the cockpit. “It’s almost time for me to leave you. Do whatever it takes to convince these Essenes to bring you back to Tuscaloosa as quickly as possible. I would insist on them turning back to the United States right now, but no one on this vessel has the authority to make that decision. When you meet their Superior within the next hour, you must get him to relent on your expedient return! Otherwise, you may not have enough time to retrieve the Cristal Del Sol and return it to the house. This would be disastrous for all three of us—you, Jeremy, and myself.
“As for Deshawn, I’m afraid it’s likely too late for him. Genovene is greatly displeased by his most recent careless behavior. Perhaps if you are extremely diligent to return home promptly, there may be enough time for you to intervene on his behalf. For now, I must leave you, my young friend. I implore you to take my words very seriously! Our eternal happiness depends on it, Jack, so don’t let me down!!”
A brilliant golden glow suddenly filled the entire cargo carrier’s passenger compartment, absorbing the professor’s image….
***
Jack sat up with a start.
Shit, it was just another dream!
And then he looked around himself. Amazingly, the cargo carrier was identical to the one he dreamt of, though this one was filled with the Spanish men who abducted him and Jeremy from the alley behind 1016 South Queens Court. Both unconscious since then, Jeremy now stirred as well.
“Ow-w-w…. My head feels like it’s going to fucking explode!” Jeremy mumbled in pain as he tried to sit up in his seat against the window. “Where are we anyway?”
“I don’t know,” said Jack, glancing nervously at their captors who smiled while watching him and his brother.
Jeremy sat up straight, grimacing as if from a serious hangover.
“I feel lik
e a goddamn Mack truck slammed into my head…. How about you?”
“I’ll be all right,” he replied, thinking right then of Dr. Mensch’s latest words with him. “Where do you think they’re taking us?”
He motioned to the men standing nearby, while others moved past them to other areas of the plane.
“Who knows?” replied Jeremy, looking away from the men dressed in military fatigues and glancing out his window toward the earth far below. He gasped, pressing his face against the glass to get a better look.
“Oh, shit!” he whispered in panic. “Where the hell are we??”
He motioned for Jack to take a look, and when he did, he was amazed by the rugged snow-covered peaks and rich green hillsides clearly visible through gaps in the sea of billowy clouds beneath them.
“We are above the Andes, Señor Kenney,” said one of the men who had been observing them.
“Who are you?” Jeremy demanded, turning from the window.
“My name is Rafael Diegas,” the man replied, unfazed by the rage in Jeremy’s tone. “Would you like a drink of something and perhaps some aspirin for your head? I am sorry for that, but we were a little excited and may have left the chloroform on you too long. At least you both are alive to see another day, no?”
Slightly taller than the other men on the plane, he smiled, and his dark brown eyes sparkled warmly. The timbre of his voice and the slight spread around his waist revealed the approach of middle age, though his face was free of the normal lines one would expect and his jet-black hair lacked any gray.
“So, are you the same bastards that tried to shoot us?”
Jeremy’s response told Jack he wasn’t ready to warm up to this stranger just yet. Especially not after the man took responsibility for his throbbing headache.
“Actually, no,” Rafael told him, a slight twitch suddenly appearing just below his left eye. “That was a band of Israeli assassins who beat us to your location. They were the first group we had to contend with. If we waited any longer to move in, and the Israeli’s had failed to complete their assignment—which, from what we understand, was to kill you both and destroy all artifacts in the house—at least three other death squads waited to take over and finish the job.”
“Were they all from Israel?” asked Jack, surprised by the international scope of attention they received.
Rafael eyed him thoughtfully before responding.
“No, Señor Kenney,” he said. “May I address you both by your first names?”
The brothers looked at each other first before nodding together that this would be fine.
“You see, Jack and Jeremy, only one of the other squads was from Israel. The other two were Christian forces from Turkey and Greece. There are a number of persons in powerful positions throughout the world who are greatly alarmed at what is taking place right now in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.”
“What the hell??... No, wait...wait a moment. Run that by me again, Rafael.”
Jeremy leaned toward him, his brow furrowed.
Rafael’s smile remained warm and his demeanor calm. The only thing that indicated anything other than inner peace was the nervous tic fluttering sporadically beneath his eye. He shook his head to indicate he wouldn’t repeat what he just told them, at least not yet.
“I know you are very curious about this, and understandably so. But, for now I think it best if you wait to talk with Francisco de Luciano. We should arrive at our destination in the next thirty minutes, and he will meet with you shortly after that.”
“Who’s he?” asked Jack.
“Our Superior,” said Rafael. “It was his idea to send us in the first place, even though we were not as successful as we hoped.”
He frowned slightly, and Jack wondered if he was referring to the Israelis they encountered or if his disappointment had to do with the basement’s contents, perhaps even the Cristal Del Sol that Jack prayed would remain in Deshawn’s possession.
“So, ya’ll are Essenes?”
Jack thought again of his most recent dream. Both Rafael and Jeremy reacted with surprise.
“Why, yes,” said Rafael. “But, how did you know that, Jack?”
“I’ll tell you what, Rafael,” he said. “I’ll reveal that information once I’ve had a chance to talk to your Superior first.”
Jeremy immediately smiled at Jack’s shrewdness, but surely wondered where in the hell his reference to the Essenes came from. Rafael smiled as well, perhaps also admiring Jack’s sagacity. His facial twitch lessened.
“Very well, then,” he said.
He called one of the other men over to him who seemed anxious, having waited patiently to speak with him. The two spoke briefly in a strange Spanish dialect. The unique sound of what he heard fascinated Jack, while Jeremy seemed to actively listen to the conversation itself. A moment later, the man left the passenger compartment and headed toward the plane’s cockpit.
“Juan just told me that our dinner will be waiting for us soon after we arrive at our destination” Rafael advised. “Hopefully, Black Angus steaks and good wine will be all right with you. If not, I can call ahead and have our chefs prepare chicken, or at least something that tastes like chicken.” He laughed.
“Steaks and wine will be fine,” said Jack, looking over at Jeremy, who nodded his approval.
“Tell me, Rafael, you were just speaking an interesting dialect of Spanish. It reminded me a little of Quechua or Aymara,” said Jeremy.
“That is correct, Jeremy,” said Rafael, impressed by this observation. “Since when did you learn about the ‘tongue of the ancients’? I know of your recent college expedition to Columbia. But very few people speak Aymara that far north.”
“How’d you know about the trip?” Jeremy asked him.
“I know you will not like it, but this is another issue you will want to address with our Superior,” he replied. “I apologize for being so evasive, but I promise there will be no secrets hidden from either of you when your time with us is done. Information will be given freely to you—perhaps in ways you can scarcely imagine. For now, I ask that you hold your questions.”
An uncomfortable silence followed and Rafael looked away, toward his comrades. Jeremy turned his attention back to the view through the window, mostly obscured by a thick cloudbank. Jack fidgeted where he sat, unsure what to focus on while wondering how extensive the Essenes’ knowledge was of him and his brother. When the plane began its final descent, Jeremy picked up his conversation again with Rafael.
“So, where are you taking us?” he asked. “From what you said about Columbia, I gather we’re headed for Chile, Bolivia, or Argentina.”
“Bolivia,” said Rafael. “As a matter of fact we are presently just south of the Altiplano. If you will look out your window to the right, you should see Lake Titicaca in the distance behind us. Perhaps you can see part of La Paz as well.”
Both Jeremy and Jack pressed their faces up against the glass to take a look. In the distance behind the plane they discerned the faint outline of the enormous lake that once was part of an inland sea. Jack asked Jeremy if the rows of white peaks that glistened in the late afternoon sun beneath them were actual glaciers.
“There is plenty to see in Bolivia,” said Rafael. “They do not call it the ‘Tibet of the Americas’ for nothing. Right here, the majesty of the Andes surrounds you. Yet, you are seldom more than a few hours’ drive from the tropical paradise of the Amazon. Perhaps, Jeremy, the University of Alabama should consider a trip further south next time, eh?”
“Actually, before we decided to visit Columbia our archaeology department strongly considered visiting Bolivia or Chile, since both countries contain more sites that haven’t been picked over by the international antiquities community,” said Jeremy. “If it wasn’t for security concerns due to the frequent violence in either country, our department’s chairman would’ve probably approved an expedition down to this part of South America.”
“As if Columbia does not have such security concerns
!” said Rafael, chuckling. “Are there not more violent drug cartels throughout Columbia than in Chile and Bolivia combined?”
“Yeah, that was my own assertion back when the proposed destination was up for discussion,” agreed Jeremy. “But, the few of us who felt that way were overruled. To be honest, it turned out to be a great experience for us in Columbia.”
“Well, perhaps you will feel the same way about Bolivia before your stay with us is over,” said Rafael. “In a few minutes we will reach our landing field. My men and I will escort you from there to a remote area of the southern Andes. Once you have spent some time with us at our Essene home, I am certain you will understand our need for the utmost secrecy and seclusion.”
A red light suddenly came on above the doorway to their compartment, and Rafael told them the plane was ready to land. His men moved to their stations throughout the carrier, while Jack and Jeremy secured their seatbelts. Rafael and another man moved into the seats in front of them.
The carrier shook as it hit the ground, nearly jolting Jack and Jeremy from their seats. The calm expressions on most faces said it was routine for a less than smooth landing here. When the plane finally came to rest, the brothers peered out through the window. Immense, snow-capped mountains in an arid valley surrounded them on three sides.
Two men in the passenger compartment approached them, each holding a sheepskin-lined combat jacket for them to wear. They were grateful for the garments, especially once the carrier’s main door opened and a gust of frigid air swept into the plane.
“No doubt you miss Alabama’s wonderful heat and humidity, eh?” said Rafael, chuckling.
