“I wonder if he knows the Japanese did the same thing during World War II?” the sergeant uttered.
“And they lost,” Major Pond dramatically added.
“Erox doesn’t care if many of us die. He only wants power and control over anyone left alive. He must be stopped.”
“That would be our goal too,” the major agreed. “We just don’t know exactly how to stop him.”
After a few seconds the Sumi spoke without Major Pond asking a question. “There is one thing that could return Anax Yuk back his leadership role and he could then stop Erox,” the Sumi suddenly uttered.
“Oh, what’s that?”
“It is called the ‘Staff of Life’, the Sumi responded. “But, there is only a slim chance that it can be found.”
“Tell me about it?”
“It was lost when we left earth eons ago. The ship carrying the sacred artifact crashed into the ocean and it has been lost for five hundred million years. We have searched for it on every return visit, but have not found it yet.”
“Wow,” Major Pond muttered. “But how can you be sure it still exists?”
“It is indestructible,” the Sumi replied. “It is still on earth.”
“I need to get this information to headquarters right away.”
“You must help us or millions will die on both sides,” the Sumi suddenly added with pleading yellow eyes.
“We’re going to have to interrogate all these men back on the ship,” the major explained to Mobi. “We are going to need your translator. Give it to me.”
“No,” the Indian chief yelled emphatically. “It is the symbol of the head of my people. I can never take it off.”
“Then you will have to come with us until we understand the Sumi language better.”
“It will take me ten minutes to change into western clothes,” Mobi replied with a nod of his head and shot off into the jungle.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A half hour later, deep in the jungles of northern Cambodia, the Sumi leader who had escaped the Angkor Wat fortress massacre had a difficult decision to make.
He and his other builders had simply walked out of the rear exit of the compound under the cloaked shield sphere. All twenty men had to hold on to each other to be protected — that was part of the problem.
They had been walking or standing for more than twelve hours and some of the Sumi were too exhausted to continue. The air inside the shield was getting stale and the overhead monitor was telling the leader that the batteries were getting dangerously low. The sphere could recharge, but it would have to be turned off to do that.
The problem was that once the shield was turned off, high command would be able to see where they were located and could communicate with them. The Sumi leader knew it would not be a good conversation. Erox had told everyone sent to the Cambodian city site that they could not retreat or surrender. If attacked, they were to fight until they died.
The leader and his men had not done that. He knew that they would be charged with desertion and would die a horrible death if they were found.
The Sumi leader had taken off the observation camera from his tunic and tossed it to the side so that Erox couldn’t follow them before he turned on the shield. But he was also quite aware that some of his builders could be fanatic spies for Erox. A spy would have another camera. If that were true, the Sumi builder’s life expectancy would be short once he turned off the shield. The spy would say anything to save his own life.
So with great trepidation the leader reached up and turned off the cloaking portion of the force field. He now had a clearer view of the jungle. It looked deserted, so he turned the ring on his finger and retracted the shield.
He had just finished taking a lung full of fresh air when all hell broke loose.
The ground around the shield area seemed to erupt. Fifty Navy SEALS shed their camouflage and appeared. They looked like green monsters in the early morning light. They all had machine guns and trained on the Sumi survivors.
The leader went to turn his ring and regenerate the shield again, but before he could start the device he needed his men to grab each other again. He roared out an order, but it was already too late.
Two SEALS grabbed his arm and yanked the ring off of his huge finger. The Sumi men were too weak to put up a fight, so they dropped to their knees and waited for death to come.
To their surprise, the military men didn’t shoot them. Instead they applied cuffs and sat the Sumi in a circle. Within minutes an aircraft hovered over the site. There was enough room in the jungle clearing for one ship to land at a time. Ten Sumi were loaded on each of the first two Ospreys and whisked off to an aircraft carrier located in the Gulf of Tonkin. From there they were herded into a larger aircraft and sent to join the Sumi captured in Ecuador. They all wound up in a place called Area 51.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Colton Banyon sat on a flat rock at the top of the hill on the island of Avsa. He had sent the SIM team ahead and down the other side of the hill to scout out the entrance to the Sumi cave depository. He wanted to talk to Wolf without any them hearing him. His other team members hung around and stood watch. Wolf was filling him in on all the news.
“So let me get this straight,” Banyon commented for everyone else to hear. “The invasion has actually been concocted by some clown named Erox who wants to take over earth. The king of Maltos is not in favor of the invasion, but is powerless to stop him, is that correct?”
“Yes,” Wolf replied.
“We’ll have to change our plans then won’t we?”
“I would say that they are obsolete now,” the spirit responded.
“And Maltos is struggling to survive even though they have found out how to harness fossil fuels. Is that also correct?”
“Yes,” the spirit agreed. “Erox won’t let them use the fuel for anything but weapons. There is also the problem that the Sumi take things, but don’t replenish anything, especially wood. That policy has put their planet in jeopardy.”
“And many of the Sumi believe they have come to earth on a suicide mission. Is that also true?”
“Yes.”
“This is not good,” Banyon uttered while shaking his head. “Our whole plan to capture the king will only aid this idiot Erox, won’t it?”
“It would definitely give him more control of the invasion.”
“Where is this Erox character anyway? We need to go there and eliminate him.” Banyon said with anger. His whole plan had suddenly gone up in smoke.
“From what I can gather, he is currently resting comfortably in a starship behind the moon. He’s not known to be a frontline soldier according to his warriors,” Wolf replied.
“Then how do we get to him?”
“I suggest luring him to earth,” Wolf explained.
“How can we do that?”
“Offer the king the ‘Staff of Life’.”
“What is that? And where am I going to get this ‘Staff of Life’?” Banyon uttered sarcastically.
“Did you say the ‘Staff of Life?” Maya suddenly inquired with schoolgirl excitement.
“Yes I did,” Banyon responded. “Wolf thinks that it will give the King of the Sumi enough power to stop this rebel Erox.”
“It’s mentioned in the codex,” Maya told everyone. “It was one of the original weapons given to Orion by his father Poseidon. The writer said Poseidon found it in the sea by a shipwreck. We just assumed he meant a boat.”
“So the staff actually exists?” Loni said in amazement.
“Yes, Maya said gleefully. “First it was called the ‘Staff of Life’, then it was an original Orion weapon and now we call it by another name. It’s Moses staff.”
“Oh my God, are you sure?” Previne asked skeptically.
“We can check,” Maya said. “If it is the ‘Staff of Life’ then there will be markings that look like the symbols of the Sumi weapons etched all over the staff. The staff has the power of all the weapons etched on i
t combined.”
“Wolf can you see the staff? Is Maya correct?” Banyon quickly asked.
“Actually, I can see the staff clearly. Heather has it in her hands and yes it has the markings,” Wolf immediately replied. “But it seems that Steve’s team is in a bit of trouble. We may need to help them, Colt.”
“Alright,” Banyon said wearily. “What’s the situation?”
Chapter Thirty
Steve’s Vatican team did need help. Everything had gone like clockwork up until the last five minutes. But right now the question was this — would they even survive?
The mission had started out with Mandy loading their baggage into the rental car. She then parked right in front of the hotel with the engine running to wait for the team to return with the Orion weapons.
She was charged with the communications for the mission and was expected to intercede and rescue them if needed. The team all wore earpieces to keep in touch. She could also call Colton Banyon for help.
The rest of the team casually strolled across the street and entered the Vatican dressed in their rented costumes. Heather wore a white nun’s habit and looked angelic. The garment did little to hide her natural beauty. She carried a large black bag that contained the tools Chase would need to break into the vaults. Timmy wore a choir boys robe and looked pious by carrying a large bible. It was actually his trusty laptop.
Chase’s outfit was the most colorful. He wore a Swiss Guard uniform that had yellow and blue four inch wide vertical stripes, pantaloons with horizontal striped socks and a shiny metal helmet. Bright red feathers adorned the headpiece.
Steve was dressed like a Vatican policeman. They were called Gendarmes. He carried a wooden club and the hard look of a career law-enforcement professional.
Under their religious disguises the team carried an arsenal of guns, knives, and even some Semtex explosives in case Chase couldn’t open the vault doors. Timmy didn’t look old enough or comfortable enough to carry a gun, so he didn’t. They all wore plastic gloves that were the color of skin tone. They didn’t want to leave any finger prints.
The team looked like a Vatican guard and a Vatican policeman escorting a nun and her charge to some special event. Their movements flowed together like water as they strolled to the archive building.
Their first obstacle was a Swiss Guard who stood outside the nondescript building which housed all the real secret archives. Heather promptly walked up to him and smiled. He was quickly captivated by the attractive nun and didn’t realize that she had started a chant that Freud-a-sized him. She told him to forget that he was on duty and to go get a cup of espresso. The guard turned and walked away.
At the door to the archives, Timmy quickly bypassed the security system and replaced the camera images with a video loop that he had prepared. Once they were inside, they knew that there were no other guards. The items in the archives were ultra-top secret and only a few people even knew they existed. There were no official records. They were also protected by several layers of vaults.
Inside the building, the teamed moved to the false library in the back of the building and popped a bookshelf open. Chase quickly unlocked the first vault door and the Vatican team entered a stairwell that descended deep into the ground. Along the journey, they lost their ability to communicate with Mandy, but didn’t know that. There was too much solid rock for the transmissions to overcome.
At the bottom of the stairs, they reached a small alcove and faced four more vault doors.
“It’s the door on the right,” Heather said and pointed. “But I wonder what is behind these other doors? What is the Vatican keeping secret?”
“We’ll look if we have time,” Steve replied. “But our mission is to get the Orion weapons. That comes first.”
The second vault door took Chase longer to open because it was a newer vault door and had a very sophisticated lock. As he pulled open the steel door, he froze in his tracks.
Lights came on immediately and exposed a fairly long corridor with five more vault doors on either side. But that was not what caused Chase to hesitate. It was the crisscrossing red laser beams that filled the walkway.
“Can you turn them off?” Chase asked Timmy the geek.
“They seem to be on another security system that is not controlled by the central Vatican controllers. It may take me a while to find that system. The geek dropped to the ground and crossed his skinny legs in a yoga position. It was a sure sign that he was stumped and working hard on a solution.
“There sure are a lot of vault doors down here,” Chase noted as he scratched his head.
“The Catholic Church had been collecting unique and supernatural objects for two thousand years,” Steve replied. “Only God knows what they have in storage here. Anything they can’t explain is put down here.”
“Crap,” Timmy suddenly uttered loudly.
“What?” a concerned Steve asked.
“I found the system, but it is going to take me over and hour to override it. I’m sorry,” he said.
“Are you saying that there is nothing we can do until then?” Heather asked impatiently. “We don’t have that much time.”
“Well, there is a safety cutoff button, but it is on the back wall of the corridor,” Timmy responded without looking up. His fingers were flying over the laptop keys.
“That doesn’t do us any good,” Chase lamented as he eyeballed the red button at the end of the corridor. “We don’t have any way to get to it. We’re stumped.”
“I think I can get to it,” Heather quickly announced in her silky voice. “I’ve been studying the grid and there appears to be enough holes for me to slip through. I’m smaller than most men.”
“You can’t,” Steve screamed. “I won’t let you. What if a laser beam hits you?”
It was the wrong thing to say to a woman as determined as Heather. “I’m going in,” she said flatly.
She immediately pulled off her white Habit. Underneath she was dressed in a black body leotard. Guns and knives hung from a belt around her small waist. She quickly shred the belt and then, to the amazement of the men in the room, she wiggled out of the leotard. But she wasn’t done yet. When she unclasped her bra and dropped it to the ground, there was a collective gasp from the three men.
“I need as little clothing as possible on me to get through the grid,” she explained logically as she turned towards the men. “If you ever tell anyone that I did this and I hear about it, I will kill you all.”
“Threat noted,” Chase said with a gulp.
Heather quickly turned and dove into the vault. She had easily avoided the first laser by diving over it. She then crawled on her belly under the next laser and went into a handstand. She arched her back and pushed off flipping into the air. She landed on her feet and avoided the next set of crisscrossing lasers.
While watching from outside the vault, Chase turned to Steve and punched him in the arm. “You lucky dog you,” he said. “She sure is talented.”
Steve had steam coming out of his ears, but said nothing that could affect Heathers concentration. He eyed Timmy gawking at his woman. The geek had stopped typing as he ogled Heather and her movements.
“Back to work,” he ordered in a deadly voice.
“Why? She’s almost there!” The geek huffed, but lowered his eyes back to his keyboard anyway.
Heather had only one more set of lasers to defeat. She stood in the middle of the corridor with her back to the men. She studied the three lasers in front of her. One was too near the ground to crawl under. One was too high to flip over and one covered the middle. It looked like there was no way around them.
Steve watched as she turned around facing them. She flexed her muscles and suddenly leaped into the air. There was a sprinkler system pipe running lengthwise down the corridor. She grabbed it and began moving backward, hand over hand. When she got close to the lasers, she began spreading her long legs and eventually was able to open them wide enough to be even with her small bottom. He
r toes pointed straight out and almost touched the side walls as she maneuvered her frame over the top laser with an inch to spare. It was an incredible display of strength and flexibility. The exertion on her face told the men not to breath.
Timmy suddenly had his cellphone out and was trying to take a picture for his collection.
Steve gave him a look that could kill. “Don’t you dare,” he said in a murderous voice.
Before Timmy could snap a digital photo, Heather passed the lasers and blithely dropped to the ground. She quickly punched the safety button. The laser grid disappeared as she sagged to the ground exhausted from all the effort.
Steve ran to her, Chase ran to the second door on the right and began the work needed to open it, and Timmy brought Heather her clothes.
“I’m skipping wearing the leotard,” Heather said in a weak voice. “It takes too much effort to get on. Just give me my bra and the Habit.” She stuffed the small black outfit into a pocket in her garment.
Steve helped her to her feet. “You were spectacular,” he announced.
“You just like to see me naked,” she responded with a weak smile.
“Maybe,” he coyly responded.
“I’ve got the vault open,” Chase yelled to them. Everyone rushed over to see what was inside the vault.
When Chase pulled open the heavy door, the Vatican team immediately saw all the missing Orion weapons including Moses’ staff. But they also noticed something else. There was a medium sized cloth bag set in the middle of the weapons. There was a message attached to the bag.
“What’s this?” Steve uttered as he snatched it from the shelf. Chase was busy placing the weapons in the black bag. Heather was adjusting her clothes and Timmy was watching her.
Steve immediately opened the cloth bag and let out a shout of joy.
“Whoopee,” he shouted. “There’s about ten pounds of diamonds here. We’re rich.”
“I don’t think it’s meant for us. Put it back now,” Heather ordered.
The Society of Orion Book #7: The Turkish Findings (Colton Banyon Mystery 21) Page 9
