“They found the Vril!” Lisa exclaimed hopefully. It had been her life’s ambition as the head of the Vril Society to obtain some Vril. She wanted to use it to build a space ship and travel to the utopia she learned about in her séances. At least that was her dream.
“My friends will deliver it here, later tonight,” Banyon told Lisa. “You can look at it then.”
“But even if I wanted to, how could I stop the NSA now?” Joey asked.
“Let me work on that,” Banyon said. “We are also your lawyers, Joey. We will find a reputable company to buy your land. It won’t be Goblin. We’ll work out all your problems without you going to an institution.”
“Joey, let him do this for us,” Kayah pleaded. “Maybe we can still find a way to be together.”
Joey blinked and suddenly shouted. “They’re here.” He had noticed that the sentinels were standing inside the house.
Chapter Sixty-Six
The four people outside rushed for the front door just as Chase’s voice erupted in their ear pieces.
“The games are on folks. Follow the plan. We have confirmation that the choppers are in the area.” Chase stood over the shoulder of one of his people. They were monitoring a portable radar screen which was tracking the choppers.
As soon as Banyon entered the room, Loni flew out of the back area. She crashed into the much bigger Banyon. “Colt, we need to track the source of the emails on the computer in the bedroom. I found Joey’s email and the response from his doctor in Oklahoma. If we trace the source, we’ll find who is behind this project at the NSA and maybe even who leaked the information to them.”
“Good detective work Loni,” Banyon whispered to her. “But you know that Wolf can’t trace emails. It has something to do with the energy trail left by people and things. He can’t help us on this one.”
“I know that, silly,” Loni argued. “But the world’s best hacker can. He is only a phone call away.”
“You’re right,” Banyon said and snapped his fingers. “I’ll call Timmy right now,” he quickly agreed. He pulled out his phone while leaving the room.
Loni now tracked down Chase. “We need to send people up to the roof as soon as the missile attack is over. There is a trap door in Joey’s bedroom,” she rapid fired at Chase. “The Goblin people intend to get on the roof and blow it. We all could die.”
“How do you know this?” Chase asked.
“Joey told me.” She didn’t tell Chase that Joey had premonitions.
Chase thought for a second and then nodded his head in agreement. “It’s a good strategy, especially since we are blind on our sides. We’d better protect the area above us.” He turned and pointed to Steve. The three people in reserve trotted over.
“What’s up?” Steve asked.
“As soon as Goblin fires all their missiles, I want you three up on the roof. There is a trap door in Joey’s bedroom. We have solid Intel that some of their men will try to scale the walls and blow the roof. You need to stop them, got it?”
“How many missiles will they fire at us?” Heather quickly asked. “We need to know when to go up there.”
Chase turned to look for Banyon, but he was gone. “I don’t know right now. Colt was supposed to find out.”
“I’ll get the information,” Loni promised and started for the back where she knew Banyon was on the phone with Timmy at Dewey & Beatem. She called over her shoulder. “I’m going with them.”
***
She found Banyon in the back bedroom and barged right in. “Colt, Chase needs to know how many missiles Goblin has to fire on us.”
“Christ,” Banyon mutter. “I forgot to find out. Timmy, hold the line a second.” Banyon pressed the mute button and asked Wolf. Loni stood by the door to make sure that no one listened in.
She watched him tilt his head as he tried to understand what Wolf was telling him. “Hurry Colt,” she screamed.
“They have only three missiles. That was all their government contact, Vice Admiral Leghorn, would let them have for evaluation — and no machine gun ammunition.”
Loni bolted from the room and quickly found Chase. “They only have three missiles,” she reported. “Also the machine guns on the Cobras don’t have any bullets.”
Chase smiled and pressed his ear piece. “Listen up people, we just found out that the Goblin attack force has only three missiles and the machine guns on the choppers are empty. Give them hell.”
Suddenly, all the defense team members heard a voice in their ear pieces. “This is red tip one. Two choppers have landed and it looks like twenty men have unloaded. They are headed your way. The two Cobras are remaining stationary about two klicks out.”
“That’s our farthest out RPG man. He is also our lookout,” Chase said. “You’d better get with your group,” he said to Loni.
“Roger that,” Loni replied and scampered off to Steve’s group.
Chase once again pressed his ear piece. “Alright everybody, the enemy is on the ground. We are going to start the jamming device and the other weapons now. This will be the last communication. You all know what your part is, so make it happen. Chase out.” He nodded to his geek and the man hit the buttons.
“All activated,” he called back.
“And now it begins,” Chase muttered to himself.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
The President of the United States paced the floor in the situation room at the White House. He was considering what he would say. The Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security, Marlene Moore, were in the room with him, as well as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Their primary reason for being in the basement of the White House was to observe the takedown of the Goblin warehouse — but it had been delayed. The President hated to waste time.
“Send him in,” he ordered in an official, but stern tone. “Let’s get this over with.”
The door to the situation room opened and in walked Vice Admiral Thomas Leghorn. Two Secret Service agents followed him inside and closed the door behind them. They then took up positions to block anyone from leaving. The Vice Admiral was dressed in an immaculate white dress uniform. His hair was freshly trimmed in a grayish crew cut. There was a smile on his rugged face.
“Good evening sir,” Vice Admiral Leghorn said in a deep baritone voice. “This is my first time in the situation room.” Vice Admiral Leghorn saluted the Commander in chief. He then thrust out his hand for the President to shake, but the big man didn’t react. The vice admiral suddenly felt a little uncomfortable.
“Thank you for coming at such short notice,” the President said evenly.
“What can I help you with, sir?” the vice admiral asked.
“Well, we are about to attack one of your suppliers,” the President said evasively. “I thought that you should be here.”
“Oh, which one?” The vice admiral replied cautiously.
“Goblin International, Inc.,” the President replied as he stared at the man. A stab of fear appeared in Leghorn’s eyes.
“What have they done, sir? I keep a close eye on all my vendors,” the vice admiral said unconvincingly.
“That is not your concern any longer,” the President said roughly.
Sweat suddenly appeared on the vice admirals brow. He shuffled his feet “I don’t understand, sir.”
“Why did you give Goblin some of our most top-secret and destructive weapons,” the President screamed at him.
“Sir, we routinely loan weapons and even ammunition to our suppliers so they can test and evaluate them. It’s been standard practice for over twenty years. Are you saying that they have misused some of them? I’ll cancel their contracts,” Thomas Leghorn blustered. He face was already red and his voice had become squeaky.
“Anytime a weapon is in the hands of a vendor, they are required to have a military chaperone,” The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reminded his subordinate. “It’s to prevent them from misusing the weapons.”
“I know that,
” the vice admiral said defensively.
“We can find no such orders for the two Cobra choppers, the three guided missiles, the sounder, the grounder and the jamming device that you lent Goblin. All of them are top-secret weapons. How do you explain that, Leghorn,” the leader roared.
“All of those weapons require your signature to be released,” the Secretary of Defense chipped in.
“There must be some sort of snafu,” Vice Admiral Leghorn said quickly. He could sense where this was headed. He needed to get away. “I run a very large organization, sir,” he responded as an excuse. “I’ll go and cancel their contracts right now.” He turned to leave, but the Secret Service agents stepped forward menacingly.
“We’ve already done that,” the President said dryly. “And we are about to take our weapons back.”
“I’ll start an immediate investigation,” the vice admiral said weakly.
“Cut the bullshit, Leghorn,” the President roared. “We know about your secret accounts in the Cayman Islands and your payments from Goblin too.”
“I…I…” Leghorn was at a loss for words.
The President now stepped forward and ripped the bars off of Vice Admiral Leghorn’s tunic. “As of this minute, you are disbarred and dismissed from the military.”
“And as a civilian, you are subject to the Patriot Act,” Marlene Moore said as she stepped forward. “As a result, we are arresting you for domestic terrorism.”
Thomas Leghorn realized what that meant. He was headed to Guantanamo Bay. There would not be a trial, no public announcement and no appeal. He would just disappear from the face of the earth.
In desperation he played his last card. “I’m not alone in this.”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
The Patel clan was just passing the halfway point on the way to Las Vegas. They had successfully eluded capture and had made their way to the airport. Eric had quickly switched the plates on Previne’s car before they took off.
The jet was very comfortable — courtesy of the Indian Government. They had each showered and changed clothes in the plane’s bathroom. The women now wore jeans and the colored pullovers they usually wore so people could identify one from another. Maya had put little Greg to bed in the one bedroom on the airplane. The nanny agreed to stay with the baby. The four clan members now sat at the table in the middle of the plane and stared at the recently cleaned jars.
“I don’t know,” Maya said with a touch of concern. “It looks like the color of the Vril is deeper and brighter to me.”
“If it starts to bubble, we’d better throw it out a window then,” Pramilla said half-seriously. This got her evil-eye stares from her sisters.
“The container which holds the Vril has no opening,” Previne commented.
“So?” Pramilla asked.
“That leads me to believe that it is a sample size or maybe a standard dosage used to power a machine.”
“You mean kind of like a battery?” Maya asked as she considered the statement.
“Yeah,” her sister replied. “It looks like you could just drop it into a slot and forget about it.”
“And the markings on the outside could just be branding of some sort. They look like a map of the world and look here,” Pramilla pointed. “This looks like a logo. I can’t read the words, but it might say something like EveryReady battery?”
“So you think that this jar was purposefully manufactured?” Maya inquired.
“Well, we know Vril was used to run everything. It probably was mass-produced as well,” Previne agreed.
“I’m more intrigued by this other jar,” Maya uttered. “What do you think is written on the scroll inside?”
“I don’t know, recipes maybe?” Pramilla joked.
“There is only one way to find out,” Maya said as she looked at each of her sisters.
“Shouldn’t we wait until we are all together with the rest of the members? That is always the way we have worked before,” Eric pointed out.
The three sisters glanced at each other once again. “We’re not waiting. We are opening it right now,” Maya said happily.
“Eric, get the jar open,” Pramilla ordered.
“Sure, I always get the dangerous jobs,” he remarked. “What if there’s a deadly virus inside?”
“Then we’ll die shortly after you do,” his wife replied. “Come on, Eric, the jar is over three thousand years old. What could live that long?”
“Eric didn’t bother to continue the argument. He knew he would lose. He flipped open his knife and began to pry off the copper strip which held the top on. It only took a few seconds to remove it. He picked up the jar and turned it upside down. The scroll slid out onto the table.
Maya pounced like a cat after a toy. She quickly unrolled the scroll and used the two jars to hold the corners down. “It’s a map,” she declared. “It looks like a map of the Atlantic Ocean area. This is an incredible find. I’ll bet this is the oldest map of the known world ever found.”
“It proves the people who drew it knew where America was located,” Previne gushed.
“Look, what’s that writing in the middle? It’s right next to an X,” Pramilla exclaimed.
“I can’t read that either, but it looks like numbers of some kind,” Maya said as she studied the markings.
“I’d say they were coordinates for where the X is located,” Eric threw out.
“But the X is in the middle of the ocean. There is nothing there,” Pramilla stated the obvious.
“Maybe those are coordinates for where the captain collected the sample of Vril,” Eric said logically, “And he buried them there so no one else could get them.”
“Maybe it’s the coordinates to where Atlantis was located,” Maya cried out and slapped the table.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Tony Ryder leaned over the shoulder of the pilot. He was standing in one of the now grounded troop-transport helicopters. He couldn’t ride in either of the two seated Cobra gunships. Otherwise he would have been the one to launch the missiles himself. He had a lot riding on the elimination of the remaining Brownwater family and could not afford any screw-ups. He needed to get the land for Goblin. There was billions of dollars at stake.
He knew there would have to be an investigation into the deaths, but believed he had enough pull with the government — especially the military — to put a lock-down on the site while his people swept away the evidence. He just had to make a few phone calls and say, oops, a couple of your top secret missiles accidently got fired. The military would immediately start a cover-up.
“What’s he waiting for,” Tony yelled. “He should’ve fired a missile already.”
“All our communications are being jammed,” the pilot replied. “I think someone forgot to tell our man with the jammer on the desert floor we were coming.”
“Impossible,” Tony said in denial “I heard him say we were good to go.”
“Well, the guys on the ground can’t communicate either. Let’s hope they find the jammer,” the pilot replied.
“They know what to do anyway,” Tony blustered. “I briefed them.”
Their discussion was interrupted when they saw a bright flame light-up just below the first Cobra. They watched in awe as the missile deployed and streaked straight at the mountain two miles away at an amazing speed.
“Now we’re getting some….” Tony stopped talking when he saw the streak suddenly bend to the left and explode harmlessly in the open sky.
“What the hell happened?” He screamed.
Chapter Seventy
Colton Banyon and Chase stood at one of the windows and watched the spectacular event unfold in the sky. They were the only two people who hadn’t retreated to the tunnels for protection. Chase was there because he believed in his plan and Banyon was there because Joey had said they would survive the attack. They also were on the watch for any Goblin attackers who got to the ranch early.
“That’s absolutely amazing,” Banyon exclaimed wi
th excitement as he watched the explosion in the air burn-out and then watched as debris began falling to the ground. It fell well to the right of the ranch.
“My geek looked up the specs on the sounder. It’s astonishing what you can find on the internet if you know where to look,” Chase replied happily. “While the sounder is a good crowd disperser, the original purpose of the device was to knock missiles out of the sky. It’s a defensive weapon.”
“How does it work?” Banyon wondered.
“It’s fascinating,” Chase responded. “When aimed in the flight path of a missile, the intense noise actually blows it off course just like a strong wind would do and vibrates the internal instruments until they explode.”
“How close to the missile does it have to be to be effective?” Banyon asked. “I mean, could you be miles away?”
“Maximum range is two hundred yards. It’ll knock anything out of the sky inside that range, planes too.” Chase told him.
“Does it have enough power to take out all three missiles? It must have a tremendous power drain.”
“Guess we’ll find out won’t we?” Chase said with a smile.
“Look, they’ve fired another missile,” Banyon screamed.
Chapter Seventy-One
The attack was not going well for Tony Ryder and the Goblin troops. When the first missile veered off course and exploded harmlessly in the desert, Tony had written it off as a malfunction in the missile itself. But when the second missile performed the same way, he began to get suspicious.
“What do you think is happening to our missiles?” Tony asked the pilot.
“Somehow, they are shooting them out of the sky,” the man answered. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Do you think they got any of the equipment we left in the desert to work?” Tony speculated.
“The men we brought back from the attack this afternoon said it was all shot up and not working,” the pilot told Tony.
A Dubious Race: The Phoenician Stones (A Colton Banyon Mystery Book 14) Page 20
