The Force (The Kingdom Chronicles)

by Alexandra Swann

  “At the IMF meeting in eighteen months,” Nikolai continued, “the presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and premiers of each developed and developing nation will be invited to attend. They will each be made a gift of ten bills in denominations which will be roughly equivalent to one thousand Euros. As they hold those bills, they will absorb Labyrinth into their blood streams, and they will agree that this time, a world reserve currency neutral of any country is very much in the best interests of each nation and of the world at large. Our goal is that they will each pledge their nation’s national land and precious metal reserves to back this currency. As they do so, Dunamas will rapidly overtake every other currency as the soundest monetary system in the last hundred years.

  “After we have finished with the heads of state, we will next meet with the presidents of the world’s largest banks, investment houses and stock markets. Each will be made a gift of Dunamas, and as each leader of the world’s financial systems handles the money, he or she will be made to understand that only by converting to this currency can the world’s prosperity be insured.”

  “Brilliant. Truly brilliant, Nikolai,” Josef’s admiration was sincere. “Money truly is the one substance everyone in the world longs to hold and touch.”

  “Yes, but not everyone handles currency. That is the reason for the second envelope,” Nikolai pointed to a smaller pouch. “In that envelope are the specifications for a new type of debit and credit card for Dunamas. These cards will utilize your own laboratory’s invention of specially-compressed and sealed paper incorporating the qualities of plastic without the environmental downsides. These cards will be infused with Labyrinth so that as they are distributed throughout the globe, each person absorbs Labyrinth into his skin. Dunamas will be the vehicle to usher in the global utopia.”

  “Dunamas—the Greek word from which we get the English word ‘dynamite.’ I must compliment your sense of humor, Nikolai. You are using the world’s money to dynamite the present world into extinction.”

  “Dunamas is the Greek word for force, Josef. As you said yourself in your speech at the Club, the goals of sustainability can only be achieved through force on a level never before experienced. Our Dunamas combines force with greed—one of man’s most primal instincts. Force combined with desire cannot fail—there is one man in a million who can resist it.”

  “And after we are finished, there won’t be any. As Labyrinth helps us achieve our goals, we will no longer need paper currency or cards. In a world of only five hundred million people we can most easily tattoo children with a barcode at birth and assign them an account with debits and credits based on their pre-determined station in life and the tasks they are selected to perform. We have never been able to do that because of overwhelming opposition from all different sectors of society, but as Labyrinth breaks down organized opposition to globalism, and we are able to thin the world’s population to manageable levels, this work of controlling the wealth will become much easier.”

  Josef continued, “There is one other thing, Nikolai. Since you watched the proceedings at the Club, you know that I used a talisman of sorts—a crystal prism—on which to focus the attention of the participants. For Labyrinth to work properly, even in its second and third generations, it requires a focal point on which the brain can center its attention. We have found this to be true in all of our controlled experiments. Since Gaia and the Altar are the imagery you have selected for the New World Order, I must return to Germany to secure the Altar’s transfer so that we can reconstruct the original temple to Athena and Zeus, thus re-establishing it as a place of worship rather than a museum exhibit. This component is essential to our success. Do you have the funds we discussed for this purpose?”

  Sokol nodded, “I have already set aside one billion Euros to match the one billion you yourself have pledged to deposit in the German treasury as soon as the Altar is allowed to leave the country. I must caution you again, Josef, money alone will not procure the Altar for you. In order to persuade the German government to allow it to leave the country, you must have the aid of one who is as emotionally invested in this project as you are financially.”

  Josef was indignant that Sokol refused to trust his powers of persuasion where this artifact was concerned. He could not protest, however, because he still needed Sokol. Trying to look interested, he asked, “And you have found such a man?”

  “Demetri Kairos—the Turkish Minister of Cultural Affairs—will assist you. I have already made the arrangements. My jet will fly him to Berlin to meet you, where he will negotiate on the behalf of the Turkish government to have the Pergamon Altar removed to its original home in Turkey.”

  “Kairos—a Greek is the Turkish Minister of Cultural Affairs? How did that happen?”

  “Kairos,” Nikolai explained, “is Persian and Greek. His father claimed to be a direct descendant of Alexander the Great and the only rightful heir to the Greek throne. Of course, since the Greeks no longer have a monarchy, it was a moot point, but he liked to tell the story of how Alexander the Great threw off the Spartan ways in Persia to explore the delights of the lovely Persian women. He claimed that from one of these unions, millennia before, his parentage sprang. He also claimed to be the true and rightful ruler over Persia—but since the Iranians also have no king, that, too, was a moot point.”

  “An anonymous man to come from such a glorious lineage. How is it that I have never heard of him?”

  “You have...Kairos is not his real name. Demetri changed it after his father died. But I think you will recognize the family name, Karras.”

  Now Josef was interested. He did, indeed, recognize the name of Greece’s most prominent shipping magnate and the reputed head of an organized crime syndicate spanning several continents. “Aristotle Karras? Yes, that name I know. I remember when he died.”

  “Indeed. I knew him well—almost as well as I knew your father. I met Ari when he was a young man possessing a great deal of ambition but little else. My hedge fund financed his first shipping line—a start-up meant to compete with the powerful families whose lines ruled the Mediterranean. We financed three ocean liners for a young man of twenty-five with no cash.”

  “A risky venture—even for you,” Josef was listening carefully.

  “Not at all. Young Ari did not have cash, but he had a connection to a heroin distributor in Mumbai who was looking for a safe way to transport product into Europe. I used my connections to help Karras with customs and government agencies worldwide. He, in turn, paid back his initial debt within two years, and he paid me a premium every year after until his death.”

  “What happened to him? Did a competitor finally find him?”

  “No. He was on his yacht with only his brother—who was his business partner—and Demetri, who was about fifteen at the time. Both of the older men had been drinking heavily, and they began to argue. A scuffle ensued, and both fell into the sea and drowned. Demetri said that he was not able to pull them out of the water because of the darkness combined with their inebriated conditions. A year later his mother mysteriously fell ill and died.

  “After his mother’s death, Demetri sold the shipping line. I helped him find a buyer, and I also helped him convert the cash into real estate. He and his cousin Iona were the only heirs; she is his stunning counterpart and a devoted worshipper of Gaia. They married when he was twenty and she was fifteen—I attended the ceremony; it was very beautiful and intensely pagan. At the time of his marriage, Demetri legally changed his name to Kairos, as the alias afforded the couple the privacy and anonymity that they could have never achieved under his father’s appellation. Now they live off their vast incomes from their investments, and he devotes his time to securing artifacts from the ancient world and returning them to their original homes. I helped him secure his post as the Turkish Minister of Cultural Affairs, as I have aided in every important decision he has ever made. He and Iona are extremely grateful to me and willing to assist fully in anything I desire. The recovery of the Perg
amon Altar is of special importance to him, and he will use every resource at his disposal to aid in bringing it back to Turkey. He will be invaluable to you in completing this mission.”

  Demetri Karras, or Kairos, or whatever he called himself—already Josef hated him. Apparently, Sokol had already completed the arrangements; therefore, Josef would just have to remain quiet, tolerate Kairos and wait. He knew better than to openly oppose Nikolai Sokol.

  Sokol was watching him carefully and could see the contempt on his face. Relishing his ability to manipulate one of the world’s most powerful men as though he were merely a puppet, he raised his glass in a toast. “To the success of our mission, Josef.”

  Josef raised his own glass and returned the toast, “To the mission. We are about to make eight and a half billion people disappear!”

  Chapter 23

  Heinz Felhaber was leaving his laboratory in the armored car that transported him from one section of Helmick Enterprises to another. Nightfall came early in the Swiss Alps, so although it was only 5:00 P. M., it was already quite dark. Normally he would have been going home to enjoy a meal expertly prepared by world-renowned chef Francesco Corteloni. Actually, the meals were prepared by an enhanced version of Corteloni—Josef had obtained DNA from Corteloni and his sous-chef while they were catering a private party for Nikolai Sokol. These copies prepared all of the menus and the food for the higher-level employees of Helmick Enterprises. Heinz enjoyed their creations, but secretly he had always wished that he could sample an original meal prepared and served by the organic Corteloni so that he could judge any differences for himself.

  Tonight, however, he was eating a sandwich in the car as he traveled alone up the dark, winding road. The driver did not speak to him, nor he to the driver. This was one of the peculiarities of working for Helmick—the staff was not allowed to communicate with one another unless it was absolutely necessary for the performance of duties. Josef despised the ordinary elements of friendship, conversation and normal human interaction that marked most of civilization, and he had worked to create an environment as devoid of these properties as he could manage. The enhanced members of the Helmick team appeared to miss nothing in being deprived of these ordinary human interactions. Heinz, however, being organic, still remembered life with small talk, idle jokes and meaningless but pleasant interactions that delight the human heart, and he was often lonely.

  Heinz was on his way to the castle where Josef did all of his entertaining on the estate. The ancient stone structure was massive and impressive. Technically, it was supposed to be a museum of medieval artifacts, and in one sense it was. In the bowels of the castle was an expertly-fitted torture chamber filled with every type of implement of cruelty and suffering imaginable. The ground and upper levels were adorned with priceless artwork, rugs and furnishings. The castle could sleep fifty guests; over the years it had seen its share of week-long parties. Most often Josef used the castle as a lure for prominent men and women whose DNA he wanted to obtain without their knowledge. Many were the unsuspecting subjects of some type of experiment, but they left the property never knowing that they had been used as guinea pigs. Occasionally, though, Helmick invited a group there for a very special private party, and during those events, he always suggested to his guests that they “take the party downstairs”. Those unfortunates never left—when the agony he inflicted on them finally ended, their remains were destroyed in a crematorium he had constructed at the rear of the property.

  Heinz knew all of this; he had even been present when the torture chamber was in use. The screams that reverberated through the rooms bounced off the stone walls, and the cries of torment seemed to grow and swell until they filled the entire structure. He hated coming here; since the day he had discovered the existence of the chamber, he had always believed that one day, when Josef no longer found his services necessary, he, too, would meet a hideous death in that subterranean dungeon.

  Fortunately, that day was not today. Josef was still safely in Dubai, and Heinz had received a message from him that the organics to be used in the Labyrinth experiments would be arriving this evening. There were five in all. Heinz’s mission was to administer Labyrinth to each and then to “rewrite” their memories, beginning with their memories of what would take place this weekend. When they left the estate, they were to have no memories of Heinz or the castle—he would set a memory for each of them that would fit with the new persona he was about to create.

  The truth was that Heinz really had no idea how Level Three of Labyrinth would perform on organics. It worked in the tests on the enhanced subjects, of course, but the enhanced subjects had already been treated with Labyrinth several times in order to stimulate memory action and brain growth. As Josef exterminated and remade them to correct any physical imperfections, their natural brain functions became weaker and weaker, until, not unlike copies made on a copy machine that become increasingly fuzzier with each new generation, their memories and their overall mental functions became so clouded that they would probably have believed anything they were told about themselves.

  “’Enhanced!’” Heinz sniffed to himself, “What a laugh!” Josef’s clones were enhanced physically to the point of stunning beauty, but their intellectual capacity was so diminished that they could barely remember to inhale and exhale without being instructed to do so. It seemed to Heinz that if Josef really wanted to gain control over the world’s population, he would be ahead to have the chemist construct a virulent biological weapon that would annihilate ninety percent of humans, and then he would be free to repopulate the world with his enhanced copies. The end result would not be unlike the infamous “Zombie Apocalypse” so feared and desired fifty years before—only with beautiful people rather than hideous ones. Heinz knew better than to make that suggestion to Josef and risk the beating he would receive, just as he knew better than to tell him that his clones did not even possess the cunning and survival skills of many animals. Instead, he remained quiet and continued modifying Labyrinth until he could practice on organic specimens who had never before been exposed to any of its properties. At their last meeting Josef had promised him an unlimited supply; now he was receiving five. When he arrived at the castle, he would be given a brief description of his subjects, including what they were to remember and what they were to forget. He did not know where Helmick had procured these particular subjects, nor did he care. Like everyone employed by Helmick, he worked on a “need to know” basis, and none of these details was anything he needed to know. Josef had found them; Josef had arranged for their transport to the castle, and Josef would arrange for their transport back.

  ψ

  Two weeks earlier, as Kevin Leeds was entering his office after completing a lecture for his freshman class at Harvard, his PCD rang. A familiar mechanical voice spoke, “You have been selected to assist the Guardians in an experiment for the greater good of mankind. Further instructions await you in your office.” The incoming number was blocked, but he recognized the mechanical voice. He had received these calls before, and the message was always the same. When he opened the door to his office, he saw a plain manila envelope lying on the edge of his desk. Inside was a note that said simply, “What would you like to make someone forget? What would you like to make that person remember? Input the name of the person into a word-processing document in the university-issued communication device along with the answers to these two questions, and save the document as ‘amnesia’. We will take care of the rest.”

  Professor Leeds thought carefully for a few minutes. He loved mind games. Supplying subjects for experimentation was one of his favorite duties as a Guardian of Mankind. He was always fascinated to see how easily the most closely-held values of ordinary people could be manipulated.

  Taking a smart chip from his desk, he quickly backed up all of the important documents on his office PCD, including the sixty-five page start that he had on his new book entitled, “Population Engineering for the Benefit of Mankind.” When he was finished,
he opened the word-processing software, entered the name “Kelly Carpenter” followed by a description of what he wished Kelly to forget and a description of what he wished Kelly to remember, and then he shut down the PCD.

  The next morning when he arrived at work, he turned on the PCD only to discover that it had been infected with a virus that had destroyed everything on the hard drive. He smiled as he shut it down and called Michael in the Harvard IT department who wondered aloud to the other techies how Professor Leeds contracted so many malicious viruses when no one else in the department was affected.

  ψ

  Kelly Carpenter was a freshman at Harvard. This semester was her first time away from home, and she was having a hard time adjusting. Until his retirement her father had worked in the Texas oil fields and, though Jack had never made a lot of money, he had provided well for his family and had lived frugally so that he could provide a stellar education for his daughter. Jack had always had big plans for Kelly; he wanted her to have a better life than he and her mother. Jack wanted Kelly to be an attorney, and sending her to Harvard was his dream. She had studied hard in high school and had made excellent scores on her SATs. The fact that she was a private-pay student was an important factor in her admission—few students could qualify under the rigorous terms now set by student loan agencies, and Harvard still admitted a handful of students who were not from elite families so that they could claim to have a diverse student body.

  At home in Texas, Kelly had been very involved with her Baptist church group. When she was sixteen, she had gone on a youth mission trip with YWAM to India, and while there she had worked on dramas for street ministry. With her golden blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes, Kelly attracted attention wherever she went. She was not a classically beautiful girl, but she was very pretty in a wholesome, corn-fed sort of way. She possessed a naturally outgoing personality that made her popular in her high school, popular with her friends at church and popular with the mission trip leaders at YWAM.