The Sword of Gabriel: Ten Days on Earth

by Tom Holloway

  Luca is angry, leaning forward, with a snarl, exclaiming, “Senator, stop complaining. We will take care of you!”

  The senator just gives Luca a defeated look, a sad, painful expression, and does not reply.

  Luca actually smiles, even friendly, then responds with a normal voice: “We are not lightweights in this area. Enough said. You know what to do. Senator, by the way, I have something completely different to ask you. I have another proposal I would like you to think about as a personal favor to me, something really critical to me, good for you, too.”

  “My son Anthony, is turning thirty years old, and his mother and I wish to see him married. I know your daughter, Anna, is twenty-eight, and I have seen her in the movies and I know she has done well. You must be very proud of her, as we are of Anthony. He is very good-looking, as is Anna, and he has expressed an interest in her. His mother and I would consider it a special favor if you would arrange a date with Anna for our son and foster the relationship as much as possible. Your future and mine are linked; let’s become real family. I cannot tell you how important this is to us. He is a good boy.”

  The senator is visibly shocked. “Luca, this is a complete surprise. I have no control over Anna. She is self-supporting, actually wealthy, a celebrity, and she says she’s not looking for romance. Her career is critical to her.”

  Luca smiles. “Sam, I understand. It’s just a date. They’re both young. Who knows where it may go if given a chance? Surely you can arrange a simple date.”

  The senator, with a superficial smile, says, “I will explore this with Anna, but as you know, she is my stepdaughter, and she has a mind of her own.”

  Luca looks hard at Sam. “Senator, over the years I have not asked much from you personally, and we know each other very well. You know what I am capable of when I need something important. I also know all of your secrets. You have gained much from our relationship over the years, and I want this to happen. I hope you understand me. Let me make it clear to you: my son is my son, and I will do whatever I have to do to make this happen.”

  Luca gets up without a further word, looks at his two bodyguards, two big thugs waiting at the door, and nods at them. They follow Luca out the door.

  After Luca Deforleo walks out, the senator sits at their table not moving, physically nauseated, and trying not to vomit. He always knew over the years that this day would come, and he would pay the devil his due. He knew what was going through Luca’s mind, and it was not finding a wife for his awful son Anthony. Sam knows Anthony, in and out of trouble for years, more sadistic than his father, narcissistic to the extreme, cruel, and using up girls, the prostitutes working for him, like throwing a daily newspaper into the trash can. Even more disgusting, he is involved in human trafficking.

  No, Luca is more cunning than that, Sam reasons. The safe way is to kill me after this is done, he thinks. No evidence back to him. Yet Luca wants to find a reason for not killing him, to continue to use Sam as long as possible. He needs to find something to tie Sam down, yes, by using his daughter. Otherwise, he knows if Sam is caught, he will ask the US attorney for immunity. And get it just for ratting on Luca and his thugs. No, before that happens it is much smarter to kill Sam, maybe make it look accidental, maybe even kill his entire family in case they know about his dealings with the Luca Deforleo mob. Probably it will be a car bombing or maybe the house. Of course his family doesn’t know about Luca, yet he will kill them anyway.

  However, the senator thinks, Luca may prefer a second way, a better option for him and Sam. He thinks if Sam’s daughter is married to his son, he holds her hostage, and they are all one big happy family. Anna is beautiful and a famous actress, which will please Luca and his son. Then when she has children, she will want to protect them. Luca controls her and Sam. The senator knows if he rats on Luca, he hurts Anna and his future grandchildren. God only knows the abuse she would receive from Luca’s terrible son. Maybe even beatings or worse if Sam doesn’t behave. Luca figures Sam could never rat on him and will continue to do his bidding because of what would happen to Anna. How on Earth can Sam tell Anna this, then face his wife? If he ignores it, they’re all dead. What can he do to get out of this mess?

  The vision of Anna being married to Anthony is ridiculous. Maybe she will have some ideas to solve this awful threat? Sam is ashamed to tell her, and his wife will think he is an old fool, or worse. He does not blame her. “I am an idiot!” he declares under his breath. Oh yes, tomorrow, he just remembered, he is having lunch with Anna and his wife. He has been looking forward to it; now he is dreading it. Wait. Maybe he should put off telling them, as Anna is bringing a boyfriend. Sam thinks his name is Henry, someone special she is excited about, probably some famous Hollywood actor. And he remembers Anna wants him to stay with them at the farm for a couple of days.

  Chapter 21

  Earth Again—Day Four

  The Cyclone is about forty-five thousand miles out and looking at the moon orbiting on this side of Earth. The navigational challenge is the simple fact that Earth is a moving target. It is traveling 67,108 miles an hour orbiting its star, the sun. Then, to add to the problem, the entire galaxy is also orbiting at a massive speed, averaging five hundred thousand miles an hour as it moves through space. Then, a further complication, the Earth is spinning at 932 miles an hour. The moon is very close to the planet, with all its massive craters, gray and foreboding, looming over the Northern Hemisphere, its gravity slowing the Cyclone down. Henry is thinking once again he is coming into the Earth’s atmosphere so fast it will light up the sky when he hits. He knows he can be noticed by maybe 10 percent of the Earth’s population when the Cyclone hits the atmosphere so fast, maybe this time around forty-five thousand miles an hour.

  Yet there’s no time to waste, as lunch with Anna’s parents is set at a restaurant in Richmond about four hours from now. The Cyclone already burned off the frontal ice shield three hundred thousand miles back. It looked like an asteroid breaking up, hopefully not noticed by anyone paying attention from Earth. Announcing the Cyclone’s presence so many times just causes ramifications, none good. And worse, although it is necessary, Anna makes another cell phone call to her mother, asking about lunch, where to go, the time and place. The FBI and the CIA will have fun figuring this all out. Henry smiles as he thinks about this and then about Anna. He needs to wake her up and make her breakfast.

  Not too far from Richmond, back at CIA headquarters in Langley, there is a lot of activity going on. There is more breaking news. Finally, thinks John Jacobs, along with the best minds at Section 58, there is some definite and maybe real evidence of ET activity in the United States and maybe worldwide. Sitting in the CIA’s largest conference room are the three staff members on his team, two agents from the FBI, one colonel from the air force, and a staff assistant from the White House to advise the president of whether this is worthy of his time. He knows they are all skeptical behind his back, maybe even worth a good laugh or two. He will show them this is the real thing. Actually, now that he has some real evidence, he’s a little frightened of what to do next. There is no textbook on this, and there will be really heavy ramifications if it’s not handled right.

  He starts the meeting by saying there is a top-secret folder in front of each of them with a briefing on some outer space activity in the last thirty days that looks like ET spacecraft. He says, “You all have probably read about the ET activity in recent magazine and newspaper articles—the lighting up of the night skies. And there have been some new eyewitness reports. You are probably thinking, More of the same old stuff.” He pauses to build a little suspense, looks around at everyone, his excitement growing. With a strong, confident voice, he says, “Ladies and gentleman, not this time! This time it is different. Yes, now we have verified communications coming from deep outer space. It’s impossible that they came from any Earth craft.”

  Now everyone in the room is staring intently at him. He has their attention.

  “There have been sighti
ngs that were verified by radar and radiation monitors. Our satellites have also picked up proof of a spacecraft coming from deep space at speeds impossible for any Earth craft. We have other sightings, too. Witness statements verified a UFO. Several car passengers in Virginia saw a UFO off of Interstate 64, and it was at the same location where our jets were scrambled because of another massive radar signature. They, unfortunately, were too late for contact. It vanished.”

  John continues, a little embarrassed, “Another report in front of you includes a bizarre twist. It’s almost impossible to believe. The most interesting UFO event that has been verified is the one about Anna Summers, the Hollywood actress. She has called her parents’ home, using her cell phone, from outer space.”

  Everyone in the room laughs. Jacobs, not fazed, says, “By now you have seen the first transcribed conversation in your briefing folder. Please look it over. It is real. Another call happened late yesterday. The second transcribed phone conversation is in your folder. Both were from Anna. Yes, the Anna you know as the movie star. Yes, she is the stepdaughter of a US senator, Sam Jordan. She made two phone calls from outer space, the first from six hundred thousand miles out, the second from several million miles out, not that far from Mars. These calls are verified by several sources. We know they happened! The craft she was traveling on during the second conversation was calculated to be moving at about a hundred and fifty million miles per hour, many times faster than anything we know about, and moving away from Earth. As you can see in the transcripts, not much was talked about. The second call was to arrange lunch today with her parents. She is bringing a boyfriend.”

  He continues, “By the way, we have put the whole family on surveillance—wiretaps, everything we have as a resource. The senator, as you might not know, is already on surveillance. The boyfriend we know nothing about, although we just started checking him out. Maybe he has something to do with the alien connection. We will know more after their lunch, as we will have several surveillance teams on it. We will get photos of him, maybe even talk to Anna and find out if she was abducted. This is being handled carefully, as there may be alien oversight of her or maybe all of us. There is the possibility we accidentally made contact with an alien. It does not seem possible, yet we have some real concerns. The ramifications could be dramatic, as you can all imagine.”

  “The last item is a big one, and really bad news for all of us. One weird thing happened, real breaking news for all here, extremely frightening for me and really strange. We think there is now a possible threat to our national security. We think our checking these cell phone calls, checking the data route to find where they came from, led them back to us. Incredible as this sounds, we think this alien ship knows who we are, and it is now in our systems. They routed back to us using the same path, sort of a flashback stream, and hacked into our databases within seconds. It went right through some very sophisticated firewalls quickly. Our software protection and our virus defense had no barricades to stop them. We think it is currently pulling data from us, meaning coming from the entire US government; and, roaming through our systems wherever it wants to go, including all top-secret classified stuff.”

  “Now the real scary part: we can’t shut it down. It is in our systems and will not allow us to shut it down. We even cut the power, yet everything is still running. I’m not sure where or how it is getting electrical power. Actually it doesn’t matter now, it’s too late anyway. They are with us, penetrated everything we have in place. We’re trying to figure it out—who they are and what they want from us.”

  “Gentleman, even worse, they are not hiding from us. They know we know they are checking us out. We know data is leaving us and going to outer space. This is my final proof that this is real. We are in the presence of aliens, and they are checking us out, and they know there is nothing we can do about it.”

  Jacobs looks at the people around the conference table, who are all in shock, pale, and with real fear on their faces. No one is laughing now. All were expecting an easy day, not an extremely complicated day, as it is now. All now have to brief their bosses, all thinking they are telling their spouses even if they are sworn to secrecy. All are thinking everything they know about life has just changed.

  Unknown to Henry, these aliens on the bottom of the sea are thinking about a strategy to attack him, allowing them to proceed on their Earth plans. Henry is in the way of their plans. They know they are a serious threat to him, even more since his last encounter with them, as they have recently obtained more sophisticated technology: weapons equal to those of the Cyclone. Unfortunately for Henry, as Henry was on Earth, as of now, they might have him with the element of surprise. Just waiting to ambush him, and if successful, everyone on this planet would suffer. Earth would be without his defense. They know they just need to patiently wait, making preparations to attack, in their massive starship, their battleship; and, stay hidden, deep in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific.

  They hate Henry and everything he stands for. They blame him for the politics of the Consortium, which considered them criminals to be arrested or destroyed at any opportunity. The truth was they had few options other than their current source of revenue. By pirating nuclear capacity in off worlds, they can almost meet their energy needs, but they always need more. They also are experts at extortion, kidnapping, and stealing anything that has value. They take and sell minerals and scrap metals, creating valuable element compounds needed by wealthy civilizations. They are pawnshop dealers and peddlers of stolen goods, selling throughout the universe, murdering most of their victims. Rarely do they give mercy.

  As far as they are concerned, Henry’s death is long overdue. If he does not know they are on this planet, a trap or ambush has a good chance of catching him unaware. Yes, a chance to destroy the Cyclone and Consortium captain, Henry Johnson, would be a fortunate turn of events.

  They are preparing their lighter attack ships, going up to patrol the surface, careful to stay hidden. These spacecraft fighters are good for confronting anything, with especially vicious weapons in short-range battles. They are eighty-two feet long, dull black in color, and difficult to see in black space, with small upfront windshields and fourteen-foot wings on both sides, a dorsal fin on top, sleek and very fast, as propelled by huge fusion rockets, attached underneath with support arms. They are not manned with organic pilots; instead use deadly efficient, intelligent robot pilots. They are deadly machines using direct fusion weapons and incredibly hot lasers. Just one can destroy every army or air force on this world. The pirates have 284 of them on board and are now preparing ten of them to do stealth reconnaissance; if there is no Cyclone or other Consortium starships, they may go ahead and attack Earth. There must be something here they can sell, and they will also take as much nuclear energy as possible. Caution is the priority right now. There will be many issues if they end up in a confrontation with the Cyclone. It will take every weapon they have to destroy the Cyclone and then make a fast escape, head to a far corner of the universe, as the Consortium fleets will try to hunt them down. If caught by them the revenge will be brutal.

  Chapter 22

  Meeting Anna’s Family

  I am currently in a strange environment, one I’ve never encountered before. I am not at all confident in these surroundings. In fact I am feeling really vulnerable. I am a long way from the world of starships right now, feeling both physically and mentally challenged. I am completely focused on Anna’s parents, who arranged this luncheon at a very expensive restaurant in downtown Richmond. My mission is to make a good impression and the possible results seem problematic.

  I think, A good war is easier than this. Anna’s parents are tough, giving me a hundred-question overview. They want to know all about me. How did I get myself into this?

  Both Senator Sam Jordan and his wife, Linda, are charming, and they are paying a lot of attention to my answers. Both of them are looking me over head to toe, asking me many personal questions. They both are really intent on findin
g out about me, not easy to avoid. The senator asks if I am with the military or have military experience, as I certainly look military. Anna said the best way of handling my current occupation status was to be honest, as the senator might check me out, and Anna feels honesty is always the best way, even if, as in my case, it’s unbelievable. I think maybe Anna is naïve, or at the very least, too trusting, but it is impossible for me to tell her this.

  My other problem is that Anna does not know, nor do her father and mother, anything about their being the target of FBI wiretaps and surveillance. They are clueless. But I know a lot about the senator now; the Cyclone has uncovered many issues with him and his dealings with the Deforleo crime family, plus some serious illegal Iranian connections. I might be able to help him with some of these bad guys, although he is in a real fix, with no decent options left.

  For today the Cyclone can block the CIA/FBI surveillance; plus maybe I can try to explain as much as possible to her parents. Not the whole story—best not to freak them out. I can make the CIA/FBI equipment not work just for today and blank out the camera shots, giving no information from us. However, I will not stop the FBI’s continuing investigation into the senator’s possible criminal activity in the past or future, nor will I tell him about it. Although I have decided I will insert the recognizant slips into the brains of all the surveillance team here today for some reverse surveillance. They will become my eyes and ears without them ever knowing it, and I will know who they are as individuals. The only effect they will feel from the slips inserted into their frontal lobes is a slight headache and some weird dreams when they sleep. Slips will be inserted into the senator and Luca Deforleo as soon as possible, too.