The scene was mesmerizing. The torchlight, the spices in the air, the cool mountain breeze, and the slow, rhythmic humming from hundreds of robed followers.
Good lord, Caesar, what have you gotten yourself into?
Haylie’s train of thought was broken by a noise from above as a high-pitched whine buzzed through the air. She watched the crowd tilt their heads back towards the sky, the sound now beginning to warp and twist. The chanting and drums stopped cold as the foreign noise filled the canyon, buzzing like a mosquito on fire, left to right around the lake.
Haylie’s eyes were drawn to the sky to see what could be creating such a commotion.
Oh no. It’s BusyBee.
The drone whizzed over the heads of the crowd, circling with lower and lower spirals, emitting screams from the rotors as it missed the crowd by inches on its last pass. It made a flyby past the watching face of the owl statue and the crowd gasped, pointing and holding their torches up for a better view. The craft righted its direction for a slight moment, but then picked up speed. It was headed straight for the lake on a dive-bomb course.
No, no, no.
Haylie grabbed her phone from her pocket, activating the screen to take control back. It was too late. The status screen read the dreaded words: ‘Battery at 0%. Craft offline.’
The drone accelerated straight across the water at a downward angle, gaining speed in a last blaze of glory. Haylie’s heart raced as BusyBee found its final mark: the boat at the center of the lake.
The drone cut right through the cloth roof, spinning sideways with its final remaining rotor power and knocking over two of the torches lighting the boat. The vessel lit up like a roman candle, with fire shooting across the stern as the lake glowed red. The boat’s captain jumped from the bow with a great splash, dog paddling furiously against the weight of his waterlogged robes, headed for the nearby shore. The crowd of onlookers scattered, pointing, yelling, turning in every direction.
Haylie slid her phone back in her pocket while already sprinting back towards her entry point. Well, this was fun. Not even bothering to stay low, she ran at full speed into the heart of the Grove, around the back of the owl, and up the beaten path to the top of the ridge. There was no time to go off-road, if someone had already returned to the cabin, she’d just have to try and get by them.
The Utukuru camp lay deserted as Haylie darted right past the cabin, jumping back into the thick gray darkness behind the campfire’s light. With a quick check of her phone’s compass, she headed due south into the twisted maze of the woods. Branches smacked her face and limbs as she pushed to distance herself from the growing chorus of shouts coming from behind her, blind to anything in her path.
She ran, breathing deep gulps of air as her shirt grew wet and heavy with sweat and mud, stained with moss and earth. She kept her eyes up, her feet moving. Tree after tree. Stream after stream. Ravines mixed with fallen logs, ferns and branches.
Just keep moving.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Heathrow Airport - London
March 9th, 8:26AM
Martin Bell walked briskly through the terminal, engulfed in a churning mishmash of jet-lagged tourists and the thousand-yard stares of men with blue blazers and overnight bags. Voices boomed over the public address system with polite English accents, calling travelers to their departing gates.
Martin’s flight had arrived on time, which was simply infuriating. It was a well-known fact that when flights, especially British Airways flights, were on time, they were in fact late. Airlines always padded their expected arrival by five percent of flight time in order to make their on-time numbers look better, and by sandbagging the timetable a bit, the entire industry played with the expectations and travel plans of millions of passengers every year.
If they knew they were going to be late, they should just tell the passengers that. Idiots.
He approached the customs area, veering quickly into the Premium Access lane with only a lone security officer standing guard at a podium. Martin made his way through customs in under thirty seconds and hustled his way past the mass of people waiting their turns, all standing there with dull eyes like a herd of cattle. But not Martin, there would be no waiting for him today. He glided by with a big, fat smile on his face.
You see, having privilege wasn’t enough on its own. The true rush came from seeing everyone else still stuck on the other side of the fence.
As Martin navigated the final hallway out of the main terminal, he saw a woman between him and baggage claim, moving slowly and fitfully. She held a wailing child dangling from her left hand, half-wrapped in a swaddle that had just twisted open, the blanket now dragging along across the cement floor. The baby’s knitted blue hat twisted and pulled down across his right eye, blocking tiny tears from running down his cheeks.
In the mother’s right hand, she had pinned an overflowing bag to her side while grasping the handle of a large carry-on suitcase, dragging it behind her like a circus act. She was more limping than walking, shuffling her feet towards the exit.
As Martin marched ahead, he saw her twisting against gravity, her bag sliding off her shoulder and hitting her at the elbow; dragging her down, finally succumbing to its weight and falling to the floor. She landed on her right side, her young child suspended above her, now crying with a repeated, shrill wail.
Martin moved slightly to his left and slid right around the whole ugly mess.
As he walked into the wide expanse of the baggage claim area, he searched for his driver. With a squint, he saw a man across the room with the printed name ‘M. Bell’ on an electronic sign. Martin quickened his step. He gave the driver a nod, handing over his suitcase without a word. Martin drank in the moment, knowing that the rest of the baggage claim area must have been watching, all wondering the same thing. Who is that, a celebrity? A leader of industry? A movie star? The slick smile crept back to his face as he followed the driver outside.
They stepped out of the terminal and into a wash of cool air, swirling and twisting with moisture and exhaust. Martin stood in the doorway for a moment to drink in the oxygen with a few deep breaths. On the curb stood a black BMW 750i with tinted windows, door wide open.
This will do nicely.
As the driver sped towards central London, Martin crossed his legs and enjoyed the view, not of the surrounding landscape, but of the backseat. Two bottles of slightly chilled water sat in the center console for him to enjoy or disregard; in the seat pocket were folded copies of this morning’s Financial Times and the Daily Mail. Martin watched as drivers swiveled their heads to catch a glimpse of what had just passed them. He smirked, knowing they could only see their own pitiful reflections in the black tint of the windows.
As the gray nothingness of brick-fenced small towns, awkward freeway exits, and trash-lined grass flew by, he thought through the past few years. All the decisions—decisions that others were too weak to make—had finally paid off.
He’d relocated to a city with opportunity while others had stayed away from the traffic and bustle. He had stayed single, which had resulted in an optimization of his personal time and finances. Saving the trouble of finding a companion was one thing, which even with today’s streamlined process of digital dating algorithms still had far too much trial and error for his tastes, but there was also the relationship itself. Every night, spending his time with another human being. Spending every weekend sharing meals and opinions and picking out paint colors. Even the thought of it seemed so exhausting, so all-consuming. Martin had much better things to do with his time. He knew that was why he had made it here, and the others had not.
He had been waiting for the moment that he knew would come, and then, yesterday, the phone rang. He heard the words he had been waiting for: “We need you at Headquarters.” Someone had finally reached out and touched him, like the finger of God breaking through the clouds and down from the heavens, to be a critical piece of a plan that few people on Earth even knew about.
He wa
sn’t lucky, this was all part of the plan. Prime Minister Crowne had asked for him, and only him, because of all the sacrifices he had made.
He had been chosen.
As the car worked its way deeper into the city, he leaned closer to the window and observed the people passing by. They stood on street corners, waiting for permission to cross.
What are they all doing out here in the middle of the afternoon? Don’t they have jobs? Don’t they have someplace to be?
The driver pulled a sharp left into a private driveway, a solid gate blocking their path. Martin squinted through the windshield to see a pair of wide-eyed owl sculptures on either side of the gate embedded into the thick red brick wall. Rolling down his window, the driver flashed a badge over the RFID reader on the gate’s intercom box. A series of lights followed.
Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Green.
A loud mechanical clunk started the gate’s opening sequence, which split the barrier down the middle and opened inward, revealing a gray cobblestone road with three-foot flagstone barriers on either side. The road twisted up and to the right, revealing rich green elm trees and bright emerald grass behind the exterior walls. Two guards stood on either side of the gate, holding MP-5 machine guns at the ready. The guards wore olive shirts, military-style pants, and combat boots. They kept their guns roughly aimed in the direction of the BMW’s driver-side window. The vehicle rolled down the road, crunching gravel as it approached the main structure.
As the car pulled into the forward receiving area, three porters dressed all in black with earpieces and automatic weapons made their way down the steps and towards the vehicle. As the driver came to a firm stop, the door opened.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Bell,” said an attendant, dressed in a well-fitted suit with slicked hair and a stern, polite smile. “We’ll handle the luggage. Please, right this way.”
As they proceeded up the stairs and towards the entrance, Martin turned to take in the view over his right shoulder. The landscape was breathtaking, as if Central Park had been transplanted into North London and plunked down right in front of the driveway. Green grasses, tall shrubs, and three fountains that he could count from his vantage point: a view fit for a king.
Martin walked into the mansion to find a secretary, a thin pale man seated at a small desk and surrounded by three closed doors, one on each wall.
“Mr. Bell, sir,” said the secretary, rising to greet his guest. “It’s wonderful to see you. A pleasant trip, I presume?” Martin was thrown off by his accent—French, not English—but he fought the urge to telegraph any sense of surprise.
“Of course,” replied Martin as he tightened his tie around his neck. “I’d like to get right to business if you don’t mind. We’re on a schedule, as I’m sure you already know.”
“Yes, of course,” the man at the desk replied. “Please, head to the east wing. You’ll find your next meeting in room seventy-six. A few more appointments have been set for tonight; we’ll get you a full schedule.”
“Has the Prime Minister….” Martin paused as he carefully chose his next words. “Has he mentioned anything about me?”
The man at the desk stared back without reaction. “As I said, we’ll get you a full schedule.”
Martin gave a polite, frustrated smile. His heels clicked across the gray marble as he made his way down the long, dimly lit hallway. Every ten feet or so there was a door to the left, each with a paired picture hanging on the wall to the right.
Room 70: a sketch of elephants.
Room 72: a painting of a tiger devouring an antelope.
Room 74: a charcoal drawing of snakes coiled around a basket full of eggs.
Room 76.
Martin stopped and straightened his tie a second time. He fastened the top button on his jacket and gave a light double-knock on the door while turning the knob and walking in. He stopped after two steps across the threshold and spoke.
“Good morning, Caesar,” Martin said with a smile.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Interstate 101
near Santa Rosa, CA
March 9th, 12:58AM
Haylie squirmed across the polished leather of the car’s seat, facing backwards and sitting directly across from the brothers. She was trying her best to ignore the impatient stares coming from their direction. Walter and Benjamin were actively craning their necks to the side to catch a glimpse of her screen, but with no luck.
“How are we doing?” Benjamin asked.
“Hold on. I’m just getting set up here.” Haylie opened a few more applications—an iPython browser window, a few tabs for searches—and then bent the laptop’s lid towards her, giving her a full view of the brothers. “I’m assuming there’s no Wi-Fi in this car. Does either of you have a hotspot on your phone?”
Walter nodded, sliding his phone from his pocket, opening an app, and extending the screen in Haylie’s direction to show the login information. She typed it in and gave a thumbs up once she had connected.
Placing her computer down on the bench seat, Haylie scraped a few remaining pieces of mud from her fingertips, wiping them across her jeans. She reached for the tattered piece of paper laying on the seat next to her. She held it up to the passing headlights, stretching its wrinkled edges and searching for anything other than the QR code that she might have missed.
“You guys missed all the good stuff,” she said with a yawn. “There was some crazy-lazy happenings going on in there.”
Walter and Benjamin laughed.
Her phone signaled a sharp beep as she scanned the QR code. Waiting for a few moments as the app went to work, Haylie’s face scrunched as she read the result.
This doesn’t seem right.
She typed the address into her browser and hit return.
http://www.ThompsonScreenDoors.com/
dontPanic/2309.html
The browser rendered the page as Haylie shook her head, not believing the results. She hit command-R to reload, and leaned her chin on her palm, staring into the screen. The page held no images, no banners, no header, no colored background. Only a single element in the center: an audio player. Haylie gulped and hit the PLAY button on the controls.
As sound began to trickle from her laptop’s speakers, Haylie tapped her keyboard to increase the volume. The sounds of an orchestra filled the back of the car, with the string section performing a series of violent strokes.
“I’ve heard this before. What is it?” Haylie asked.
“It’s Mozart,” Benjamin replied. The driver craned his head towards the back seat as the volume grew. Benjamin flipped a switch, closing the privacy window with a shake of his head. “It’s an opera … ‘The Marriage of Figaro.’”
“One of his most famous pieces,” Walter added.
Haylie shot them both a look—trust fund babies—and turned back to the audio controls. “The track is four minutes and fifty seconds long. Let’s listen to it, see if there’s a message in here.”
The three sat without a word as the swoops and chords of Mozart filled the car. She cranked the volume even higher, bending her ear closer to the speakers to try and make out any faint signals or masked sounds, but heard nothing out of the ordinary. As three prominent chords signaled the completion of the track, the car filled once again with the ring of silence.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Benjamin said.
“Me either,” Walter added. “And what does any of this have to do with Raven? It’s weird, I don’t get it.”
“Well, ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ is about class warfare,” Haylie said, reading the Wikipedia entry. “It’s all about servants tricking their masters, how the people in charge are fools behind the curtain. It was banned in the time leading up to the French Revolution; I guess King Louis and his buddies were afraid the crowd would figure it out.”
“So?” Walter asked.
“Think about it,” Haylie said. “The clues so far: Cecil Rhodes, the Bohemian Grove. Whoever built Raven is obviously trying to point fingers at p
eople in power.”
“But that still doesn’t get us closer to the next clue,” Benjamin said.
“I’m checking the Internet registry for more information on where this page is hosted,” Haylie said as she typed.
“What does that tell us?” Walter asked.
“It tells us who owns ThompsonScreenDoors.com,” Haylie said, reading the results on the page. “There’s nothing here. It looks like a legit company in Missouri; they sell screen doors, obviously, but it would be a strange shadow company for something like Raven 2309. I’m guessing they got hacked and probably have no idea this file is even on their server.”
“So where does that leave us?” Benjamin asked.
“Nowhere,” replied Haylie crossing her arms and staring at the screen. “I have no idea what to do next.”
> > > > >
Typing away at her keyboard, Haylie had turned to her side to shield herself from the constant stare of the impatient Sterling brothers. Even in their silence, she could feel their disappointment. It was pretty obvious that the two had been texting back and forth for roughly the past twenty minutes, exchanging glances and gestures after each message notification buzzed in the other’s hand.
Benjamin cleared his throat to get her attention, but she wasn’t biting. He nudged Walter as he typed on his phone with his thumbs, pointing over to Haylie. Walter, typing back a reply to Benjamin, opened his mouth to speak.
“I can see you guys, you know,” Haylie said above the noise of clicking keys, stopping for a moment to push her glasses back up on her nose. “I’m sitting right here. I’m like three feet away from you.”
“You’re obviously working on something over there,” Walter said. “Are you getting closer? Anything you can share?”
Crash Alive (The Haylie Black Series Book 1) Page 13
