The Phoenix Agenda: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 6)

by JC Ryan

  Daniel, who was looking over their shoulders, had goose bumps from the excitement. “Ok wait, let’s calm down. Let’s take the computers out to the library and set up where we have more space. Sinclair, can you please bring all the translators over to the library?”

  They quickly had the laptop linked up to the projector, and everyone was looking at the projection on the wall. Roy pulled up the documents and showed them what he’d found. With the help of all the translators, they systematically worked through the files one by one and improved the translations as they read the documents. There was more excitement than at a Superbowl. No one wanted to leave. Each new document pulled up and translated was like unwrapping a mountain of Christmas gifts, each discovery met with enthusiastic applause.

  By midnight, they had the exact details of the mirrors, including the technical blueprints, the operating instructions, and the coordinates in space. The operating instructions told them the type and strength of the laser beam used by the 10th Cyclers and how the beams were routed.

  Then Roy brought up a document that looked like some sort of code. Just a few words had translations, and the rest were just weird characters. Roy looked at Raj and said, “Raj, I am not much of a programmer, but I think this is the code for their communications protocols.”

  Raj got up and walked closer to the screen while reading and asked Sinclair for the translation of a word or two. Then he asked Mandy to feed it into the translation database and refresh the page. A few more translated words and refreshes later, he was able to start reading the code.

  Fifteen minutes after that, Raj started explaining, “Yes Roy, you hit it on the head. This is their communications protocol. Not too dissimilar from the TCP/IP protocol we use on the Internet today, just a lot better, I would say. You see, here is the header of the message; it tells the receiver where the message is coming from. Then how many packets of information there are in the message, the sequence of the packets, and how big the message is. Here is the body of the message, and here is the footer of the message. The footer tells the receiver how many packets have been sent.”

  Raj stopped for a few minutes to read the next part of the code and then continued again, “Interestingly, they have the sender and receiver acknowledging the packets. In other words, on the recipient side, packets are received and placed in the correct sequence and if a packet is missing it will request a resend. That way nothing is lost. I guess if you operate at laser speed, those are luxuries you can afford.”

  By now everyone was looking on in disbelief, Raj was reading the code as if he was reading a fairy story to his little daughter, Aanya. Raj told them that although the 10th Cycle programming language was different from any other languages, he and his group would be able to pick it up without too much trouble.

  The next hurdle was the coordinates in space. Ryan explained to the audience, “Objects in space move. Therefore, the location of an object in space is always relative to another object. I don’t think they would have used another object in space. Consequently, those coordinates will only make sense to us if we can figure out which fixed point on earth was used.”

  Everyone went quiet for a while and then Sarah looked at her original co-discoverers of the 10th Cycle Library - Daniel, Raj, and Sinclair - and said, “I place my bet on the Great Pyramid of Giza.”

  Daniel got very excited, “Of course! Sarah, you beauty! The Great Pyramid is located at the exact center of all landmass on earth; it would be the ideal fixed point. Furthermore, they have left this library for us there. I’m convinced that would be the point from which they would have determined those coordinates.”

  “Do we have the coordinates of the Pyramid?” Roy wanted to know.

  Raj already had his laptop open, “Yep, I’ve got it here. But it's only the one for the center point of the construction. I imagine we need four points, one for each of the mirrors?”

  “Yes, I would think so,” said Sarah. She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Raj, do you have the correspondent figures for the four corners of the Pyramid?”

  Raj made a few searches and smiled, “Got them! Way to go Sarah!”

  “That’s my girl!” shouted Daniel while everyone applauded.

  “Those four mirrors remind me of those verses in the Bible that talk about the four corners of the earth,” Sarah observed. "This could turn out to be the four corners of our communications for the future.”

  Sinclair wanted clarification, “So what does that mean? Do we have to go to the Pyramid to find out where those mirrors are and to communicate with them? That will be a slight problem.”

  Roy just laughed, “No, we don’t need to go there. We can determine the four coordinates relative to our position here.”

  “The next question is; how do we determine the distance from the base of the Pyramid to the mirror? What we have now is a line from the Pyramid to the mirror, the direction if you want to call it that. What we don’t know is how long that line is,” Ryan said.

  “Oh, apologies Ryan. I thought I said that before. We have the distance as well. Here …” was as far as he got, before Ryan shouted, “Then its game, set, and match!”

  “Ok, I am obviously in the presence of greatness,” Sam quipped. “But I have lost you guys completely a while ago. Suppose you find the precise location - and I have to admit I have no idea how you're going to do that - what are you going to do once you find it?”

  “I’m going to shoot lasers at them. I don't know what the others are going to do.” Roy’s answer had them all laughing, but it was obvious many of them were as lost as Sam was.

  Roy continued as if there’d been no interruption, “They didn’t use the same units of measurement for distance as ours. My quick calculation shows this one is located about fifty-five thousand miles from earth. That’s just about a quarter of the way to the moon. That means ... let me see, light travels at about one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second - in other words - the laser beam would make a turnaround trip in about point six seven of a second.” Everyone was shaking their heads as Roy rattled off the figures, all calculated on the fly, in his head.

  Daniel asked Roy to draw a picture so that everyone could get a visual idea of what they were discussing. Mandy had a picture ready and handed it to Roy on her tablet. He took the tablet and stylus from her, brought the picture up on the screen and slowly stepped the audience through the information.

  By two o’clock in the morning, they decided that it was time to go to bed. The next few days were going to be frenetic, and they would need all their energy to turn their discovery into reality.

  Peter sat through it all, thunderstruck; he could not believe what he saw and heard. He often looked at Sam and saw the look of excitement on his face. He had thousands of questions, but he knew it would slow everything down if he asked them. He resolved to sit down with Daniel at the first opportune moment, so that the enormous gaps in his knowledge about the 10th Cycle Library and other discoveries could be filled in.

  As they all got up to go to bed, Sam and Susan looked at each other. Sam shook his head and whispered to her, “Susan, I have never seen anything like this in my life. It’s absolutely incredible to watch these people at work. I have never had the privilege to be among so many brains. Nothing can stop them; nothing is ever too big or too complicated for them.”

  Susan got tears in her eyes as she heard her husband talk. She remembered how they were evacuated and brought to safety in the Rabbit Hole. Indeed, it was a privilege to be part of this family.

  Sam turned to Peter and asked, “What do you think of what you’ve seen here tonight?”

  Peter smiled, “Sam, to say that I am impressed would be the understatement of the century. My brain can’t expand enough to comprehend what I’ve have witnessed, not only tonight, but since I arrived here. Wait, actually my astonishment started the moment I opened that birthday card from you and kept on growing when I met Owen and Alison, read the brief you sent me, and started using those ga
dgets.”

  “Yes, those techies are brilliant are they not? Much better than James Bond’s Q.” Sam smiled. “But let me tell you, those gadgets combined with these mirrors will be game changing. I’m convinced if those mirrors are still up there and still able to function, Roy and Raj will get the system operational. Can you even begin to realize what that would mean for us?”

  Peter shook his head. “I comprehend that I’ve been privy to an earth-shattering discovery. I have to admit, they lost me some time back; most of it is way out of my league. I just hope there’s enough time while I’m here for Daniel or someone to tell me more about the 10th Cycle, the Rossler Foundation, and all this technology.”

  “I’ll ask Daniel to make time for that. Let’s get some sleep, and then get back into that material you have collected for us. There’s a lot we have to work through,” Sam said.

  As they were all leaving, Salome walked over to Gemma and expressed in a pretend serious tone, “Young lady, I have a bone to pick with you. I am told you kissed my husband. Is that true?” Gemma, still a bit shaky from the events, looked at Salome and shook her head in denial, “No! No! That’s not true. He kissed me. On the head. I don’t know why. I didn’t do anything!” which had Salome cracking up with laughter.

  The treat of a lifetime

  Back in the meeting after four hours’ sleep, Peter first showed Daniel, Sam, Salome, and Luke the material he collected at the Wappinger warehouse. Everyone listened carefully, made notes and asked questions. Then Daniel started mapping the warehouse process step by step, asking for clarification from Peter along the way.

  A few hours later, they had it all in front of them - the delivery of the chips from China, the unpacking and storage, the distribution trucks’ appearance, the order checking process, robots fetching the boxes from storage and delivering the boxes to the loading bays, and the loading of the trucks. They also had the images of the boxes with all the labeling and markings on them. There were still a few gaps in their knowledge, which Peter would fill in when he went back to New York.

  Salome, a scholar of psychology and ex-FBI profiler, noticed the slight change in Peter’s demeanor when he started sharing the footage of the implantation clinics. She wondered what was wrong. Could it be that he is just afraid of hospitals and blood, or was there something else? She kept a close watch and noticed how he got more and more troubled the more images and videos he showed. Is this something to worry about? Did something happen during the mission, which he is not sharing with us?

  Salome decided to surprise him with a “full frontal attack” to see how he would react; she would know if he was hiding something or not.

  “Peter, what went wrong?” Salome shot the question at him out of the blue, startling everyone else in the meeting, who turned questioningly to her.

  Peter was well aware that he did not completely hide his feelings and that an experienced observer like Salome would be able to pick it up. The reason was, he had nothing to hide. These were his friends and he felt he could relax in their midst. He had enough interrogation training to recognize Salome’s tactic.

  He just smiled and said, “Nothing went wrong, don’t worry about that. What you’re observing is the aftershock of the horrors I witnessed. I made a promise to myself that if I never had to look at some of those videos and pictures again, it would be too soon. But I know I can’t keep that promise.”

  Salome relaxed. He was not dishonest, and she could see that immediately. “Sorry we have to drag you through it again but perhaps it would help if you do share it with us. You know what they say - ‘a problem shared is a problem halved.’”

  “I guess you’re right about that,” Peter said and continued.

  Two hours later, everyone in the room understood why Peter was upset by what he saw. It was appalling to see the people waiting in those lines to be chipped, everyone believing that they were doing it for a better and longer life. Sam commented that it reminded him of some documentaries he’d seen of Nazi death camps and gas chambers.

  The final shock came when Peter showed them the video of the babies being chipped. At the end of that video, Daniel voiced what everyone was feeling at that stage, “I am sick to my stomach! Those bastards! How could any human be so sick and twisted?”

  Salome was white in the face from shock and rage. “Peter, please accept my sincere apologies. This is one of the most ghastly atrocities I have seen in many years. I can understand your distress.”

  “No need to apologize, Salome. You had no way of knowing what I saw. I took an oath that I would not rest until I saw the end of these wicked people,” Peter said, his tone manifesting that he was dead serious.

  Sam brought everyone’s attention back to the task at hand. “I suggest we do the same as before by mapping out the entire process, painful as it might be. We have to get our facts straight.”

  Daniel opened his laptop and started typing as they all contributed. Peter asked aloud what he’d been wondering since he saw it. “Why would they take a mouth swab from everyone?”

  “To get their DNA. They own the technology, developed a few years ago, that enables them to sequence a person’s DNA in a matter of minutes. My guess is that the chips are personalized with the DNA of the carrier.” Salome replied.

  Daniel thought for a moment and said, “Let me make a guess; if the DNA is linked to the chip, could that be the way they would prevent the carrier from taking it out?”

  Salome replied, “I agree, it could very well be the way they’re doing it. I think Rebecca and Jack would be able to advise us better on that, and once we get hold of the chips, we would be able to verify that.”

  By the time they had the process mapped out completely, the excitement of the previous night, the little sleep they’d had, and the long day in the meeting room were taking their toll. The group agreed it was time to take a break and get back to it the next morning.

  Sam and Susan had invited Peter, Daniel, and Sarah for dinner so that they could use the opportunity to provide Peter with more background information about the Rossler Foundation and the two libraries. By the end of the night, he felt he had taken a few significant steps forward in terms of his knowledge. He was blown away by the facilities and the technology. In addition, the family atmosphere, the absolute dedication, and positive attitudes of everyone involved overwhelmed him.

  The next morning the group gathered again and started constructing a plan. They considered Peter’s three options. The first option of trying to get into the compound unseen posed many problems and many risks and was parked for the moment. The second option of attempting to track down someone who worked at the compound warranted more consideration.

  Peter thought it could be possible to get the personal details and background of everyone who worked at the warehouse. Someone among those workers could very well be open to a bribe or other gentle persuasion techniques. Everyone agreed it was an option worth more investigation.

  The third, which Peter hadn’t given much thought to a few days ago when he started thinking about choices, was to find a way to get inside the compound with a remote controlled device. That got everyone excited. He didn’t understand the enthusiasm for that choice until Daniel and Sam explained that with Roy and Raj's combined brainpower, it would probably be the best, and certainly the safest, of the three options.

  By midday, they had gone through every detail they could think of and noted all the missing information still to be collected before the final stage of the assignment could commence.

  Next on their agenda was to bring Roy and Raj in and give them a chance to provide some input. The two of them were given an overview of what Peter told them and shown the process maps created the previous day, as well as some of the pictures and videos.

  They said nothing, listened carefully and made a few notes.

  The group had decided, intentionally, not to tell Roy and Raj about the options they’d discussed earlier. They wanted to give the two of them an opportunity to co
me up with their own fresh view of potential solutions. At the end of it, Roy looked at Raj as if to ask, you want to go first?

  Raj said, “You go first, Roy.”

  Roy asked Daniel to bring up some of the pictures of the compound on the projector screen. He had another good look at some of the pictures, asked for a few to be zoomed and made a few more notes. He then asked Daniel to show him some of the footage taken inside the warehouse. He was interested in the videos that showed where the boxes were stacked at the loading bays and loaded into the trucks. Finally, he asked Daniel to bring up images of the boxes and zoom in on them as much as he could.

  Everyone was quiet while staring at him, waiting to hear what he thought, although he was unaware of their scrutiny. His mind was entirely focused on the screen.

  “Peter, do you know what they’re doing with those empty boxes at the clinics?” Roy asked.

  “No, I didn’t think of that. There is a video that shows them flattening the boxes and dumping them in a bin, but I didn’t follow the bins to see where the boxes end up,” Peter replied.

  Roy replied, “Don’t worry about that for now - it should be easy to find out when you get back there. I get the impression they don’t follow a strict security procedure to get rid of the boxes.”

  “Yes, from what I’ve seen that would probably be the case,” Peter replied.

  Roy gave them his initial thoughts. “Okay, here’s what I think. We have to get hold of a few of those empty boxes and restore them back to their original state, or close to it. We know what the chips look like from the videos Peter took at the hospitals. Perhaps we can get more close-up images of them so we can build replicas. Then we could swap one or more of our boxes and chips for one or more of theirs. Inside the warehouse, the only place where humans handle the boxes is when they are loaded into the trucks. That’s where and when we have to swap them. Those loading bay doors are big and wide and, it seems to me, always open. I think we could use a few drones to do the job.”