The Bermuda Connection (A Nick Randall Novel Book 2)

by Robert Rapoza

  “Did he say how he’d get here and how he escaped?”

  “No. My father’s a careful man and probably didn’t want to tip his hand in case someone intercepted his message. He just said he had the package and was on his way.”

  “Thank God! Do you have any idea when he’ll get here?”

  John glanced at his watch. “I would say in 2-3 hours, but that’s just an educated guess.”

  “Captain, send a team to each airport and have them stationed at each gate with a flight arriving from Mexico. I want Dr. Randall escorted by our men the moment he emerges from the boarding ramp.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The caravan of Humvees pulled to a stop in front of the main building as John and General Flores waited impatiently. A small cadre of uniformed soldiers sprang from the vehicles, taking protective positions around their important guest as Captain Keane barked orders. A single soldier opened the rear door of the third Humvee and Randall exited the vehicle looking somewhat bewildered by the amount of attention afforded to his presence. Slung over his right shoulder was a faded, brown leather courier satchel, which he clutched by his side.

  Seeing John, Randall smiled, and jogged over to him.

  “Good to see you, pops!” John said, embracing his father in a long hug.

  “Good to see you too, son,” Randall replied, smiling broadly. He turned to the general. “General Flores, I assume?”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Dr. Randall. If you wouldn’t mind, let’s discuss the situation in my office,” Flores said, gesturing to the main building as a large soldier held the door open and saluted the group. Captain Keane trailed behind, deferring to his guests and the General.

  “Where’s everyone else?” Randall asked.

  “Sam, Gabby, and Andy are having dinner. The general felt it would be better if just the three of us met. Sam is dying to see you. She was nearly in tears when we heard you were missing.”

  “I’m glad you’re all okay. I wasn’t sure how this situation would play out. By the way, who’s Andy?” Randall asked.

  “He’s my old roommate from college, remember?”

  “That’s right. I just forgot.”

  “He helped introduce us to the general,” John said, grinning.

  They entered Flores’s office and took seats around the desk.

  “Dr. Randall, I understand you have the tablet?” Flores said, a trace of anticipation in this voice.

  “Yes, it’s right here,” Randall said, tapping the bag. “But first, what happened to Rob and Jamie?”

  “They were captured by the Red Dragon brigade, a small group comprised of former soldiers of the PLA,” Flores replied.

  Randall turned to look at John, who was nodding.

  “We saw the video feed. Apparently, these men are trained soldiers who split away from the People’s Liberation Army. They captured Jamie and Rob and rigged explosives to trap you in the cavern. When they got Rob, they took his video camera too, so they have any information you recorded.”

  “My God. We have to rescue them, and this is the key,” Randall said, gingerly removing the tablet from his courier bag. He stared at the stone intently. “In the midst of the commotion, I never really had a chance to examine it.”

  “Did you film the stone? We need to know what information the Red Dragons might have acquired when they captured your friends,” Flores said.

  Randall shook his head no.

  “And you say you didn’t study the stone on the plane?” Flores asked.

  Randall’s face went flush at Flores’s infatuation with the artifact and his apparent lack of concern for Rob and Jamie.

  “No. I was concerned that taking it out of my bag would draw attention, and I’ve become somewhat paranoid about people trying to harm my family and friends for possessing such items,” Randall replied, glaring at Flores.

  “Message received, Dr. Randall, and I assure you, no harm will come to your children and friends while you’re on this base. The markings, they’re smaller than I had expected,” Flores said, changing the subject.

  “Yes, and by the crisp nature of the symbols, they appear to have been created by a machine and not by hand,” Randall said. “The translation key is in Sanskrit, which I happen to know well. This stone will let us translate messages written in the foreign dialect to Sanskrit and then into English. I’m assuming that there is a message to interpret?”

  Flores shifted uncomfortably and sat back in his chair. He strummed his fingers on his knee, clearly mulling something over in his mind. Randall held his tongue, waiting for Flores to reply.

  “I’m in a precarious situation. This operation is highly classified and only a handful of people are aware of the current situation. We strongly feel that this information must be shielded from the public or it could cause panic and a possible collapse of our social structure.”

  “But…?” Randall asked.

  “Time is of the essence and you possess the skill to translate a message of critical importance to the success of our mission.”

  “I think I know more about this subject than you imagine, and so do my son and daughter. There’s nothing that you can show me that’ll be earth shattering at this point. Besides, my friends are being held captive by a group of thugs and there’s no way on God’s green earth I’ll sit by and let them be harmed.”

  Flores just stared.

  Randall scooted to the edge of his seat, locking eyes with Flores. “To be frank, you don’t seem to be too concerned about them, and that bothers me. They both risked their lives to get this artifact, and if you’re not going to do something, I will.”

  Flores flinched at the comment, letting Randall know he had hit the mark. The General quickly recovered his poker face.

  “I appreciate your candor, but I believe the best way we can help your friends is to translate the message on that stone and get to the base before the Red Dragons. As long as they don’t know where to find it, they’ll hold your friends as insurance.”

  Randall nodded.

  “The next step is to show you the message so you can help translate.”

  “I want to see my daughter first.”

  Now it was Flores’s turn to glare at Randall. The senior military officer clearly wasn’t accustomed to having his authority questioned. He relented, however, and took Randall to see Sam. After receiving a hug from his daughter and letting her know he was fine, Randall turned to Flores.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  Flores escorted Randall down the hall as John followed behind. The General stopped abruptly.

  “Dr. Randall,” Flores said to John, “this is a highly classified area that I’m taking your father to, and I will only take him.”

  The elder Randall shook his head. “I won’t go without my son.”

  Flores’ face turned red, his bottom lip curling over the top. His eyes narrowed as they locked on Randall’s face. Randall stood expressionless, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Do you realize how many laws I’m violating by taking one of you into this section of our facility?” Flores asked.

  “About the same number of laws you’d be breaking to take both of us,” Randall replied.

  “I could be court-martialed for my actions and spend the rest of my life in prison.”

  “Either both of us go or we leave you to figure things out for yourself.”

  Flores looked like an overfilled balloon ready to pop.

  “General, I think you might need my expertise with this situation. Jacob and I created the serum you wanted, so I know more about it than anyone. You mentioned earlier that you’ll need to create a compound to counteract it and I can help you with that. You thought enough of my abilities to fund my research for years, let me finish the job with my father.”

  Flores exhaled a long, slow breath, and nodded to the security detail to allow John to follow. They traveled to a heavily fortified section of the main building and arrived at an entrance guarded by two very large and wel
l-armed soldiers. Flores placed his hand into the biometric reader, which confirmed his identity. The thick metal doors slid open to reveal an elevator car into which the three men entered.

  Flores tapped at a keypad embedded in the elevator wall and entered his ID badge into a thin slot adjacent to the pad. The elevator car began to descend at a rapid pace. As they dropped deeper into the earth, Randall and John exchanged glances about the depth they were traveling.

  “How far underground are we going?” John asked.

  “That’s classified.”

  Once again, father and son shared a glance, a smirk spreading across John’s face. Randall smiled, shaking his head.

  After a short while, the car slowed and then came to a stop. The doors peeled back, revealing a long hallway with an arching roof hewn from the bedrock. Along the spine of the arch ran a solid bank of lights, which bathed the hallway in brightness. The walls of the hallway were made of smooth, gray painted concrete stretching three-quarters of the way up until meeting the arched natural stone that comprised the ceiling. Lining each side of the hallway were sturdy metal doors, some with small windows, others simply solid steel. Randall assumed that the latter were meant to keep prying eyes from looking in … or something inside from getting out. He shivered involuntarily.

  Flores stepped out of the elevator car first, striding past two guards who saluted as he walked by. He flipped them a quick, stiff salute and marched past them as Randall and John followed. A million thoughts swirled through Randall’s brain as visions of a thousand rumors about the complex churned through his mind. The internet was filled with whispers of secret and sinister things happening in this deep underground facility, and he was certain that he was about to discover if at least one of them was true.

  The general paused outside one of the windowed doors, running his ID through the scanner. The door opened and the three men walked into what appeared to be a medical office. A man in a white lab coat greeted the general.

  “We’ll need three clean room suits,” Flores ordered.

  The man in the lab coat disappeared into the back room and returned with three neatly stacked outfits.

  “You’ll need to put these on,” Flores said, handing suits to Randall and John before donning one himself.

  Properly attired, the three men exited the room, turned left, and walked to a sturdy windowless door. Flores placed his hand into another biometric reader. A small opening in the wall appeared, revealing a black keypad with green glowing alpha-numeric buttons. Flores tapped in a sequence and stepped back as the three-inch-thick metal doors slowly slid open, revealing the secrets contained within.

  The room was long and narrow, nearly fifty feet wide and one hundred and fifty feet deep. Small teams of scientists in clean suits and dust masks hovered over small work benches studying pieces of twisted metal, sheets of iridescent material, and high-tech gadgetry. Overhead, large light fixtures provided ample illumination for the researchers to conduct their work, and air ducts filtered any remnants of dust from the environment, ensuring that contaminants were summarily removed. Flores walked down the main aisle, which traversed the middle of the room, affording an excellent view of the research taking place on both sides. Striding past the work stations, he ignored them all.

  Randall was astonished at the sheer amount of material being evaluated. He glanced over at John, who was similarly mesmerized by the sight. He spied one work bench with a perfectly smooth section of metallic material with strange markings similar to the ones found on the stone from the undersea cavern. As they finally reached the end of the walkway, Flores stopped in front of a station attached to the wall. Perched upon it was a rectangular black box with several wires running out of it and into ports embedded in the table. Mounted on the wall above the box was a large piece of curved glass that Randall estimated was ten feet long and six feet high.

  “Turn it on,” Flores said to the technician, who punched a command into his keyboard.

  The glass instantly transformed into a display that showed a large, 3-dimensional map of the earth rotating in space with strange symbols filling the screen next to it.

  “This looks like a heads-up display from a fighter plane,” John commented.

  “That’s where we got the idea,” the technician replied, smiling. Flores shot the man a harsh stare.

  “How long have you had these pieces of wreckage?” Randall asked, gesturing to the work areas.

  “We’ve acquired these pieces over many years, but the item in front of you came into our possession in 1947. After several years of examination, our scientists figured out how to operate it. Then it took several years to reverse engineer the component that operates the system and many more years until our equipment was advanced enough for us to interface with it. We developed a rudimentary understanding of this new language and were able to decipher parts of the messages encoded within the machine.”

  “That’s how you knew about the existence of the base.”

  “Correct. However, we weren’t able to decipher the entire message. Our linguists were able to crack parts of their language, but not all of it. This posed a serious problem. The solution came when one of our team members deciphered a message telling us about the Cosmic Rosetta Stone and its location. As you know, we sent Drs. Vernon and Kim to retrieve the tablet, but they were unsuccessful.”

  As he spoke, a tall woman with straight black hair and piercing green eyes approached and stopped next to the general. As she waited, she studied Randall and John closely, her eyes shifting between them.

  “Dr. Randall, this is Dr. Melika Chandra. Dr. Chandra is the linguist responsible for translating the parts of the language we understand. Melika, Dr. Randall and his son have retrieved the Rosetta Stone. I would like you to work with them to determine the location of the base. Please share your full research with them.”

  “A pleasure to meet both you,” Chandra said.

  “I’ll leave the three of you to your work. Good luck,” Flores said, turning to leave.

  “Thanks, we’ll need it,” Randall said.

  Chapter Forty

  Dr. Chandra led the group to a small lab just outside of the main facility, explaining that it would afford them privacy and direct access to her research. Unlike the main lab area, Dr. Chandra’s space had a much more personal feel. Pictures of her family and friends adorned the room, which was nicely appointed with overstuffed cloth chairs, rosewood furniture, and beautiful landscape lithographs of quaint Mediterranean villages overlooking the ocean.

  Chandra led Randall and John to the main workstation in the center of the room, where several ancient maps and other assorted documents were neatly stacked on one end of the table. Randall gingerly removed the stone from his courier sack, setting it on the desk under an examination light. As he did, Chandra retrieved three pairs of examination gloves, donning a set before examining the Cosmic Rosetta Stone. Randall and John followed suit. The stone itself was a dark, charcoal color with thin white bands of lighter colored rock embedded at irregular intervals. The writing was small and precise, requiring magnification to read it.

  “It’s a beautiful specimen,” Chandra said, gently stroking the smooth stone. “It’s much smaller than its terrestrial counterpart.”

  Dr. Chandra carefully moved the rock under a magnifying tool, which was attached to the workstation. Next, she opened a recessed compartment in the workstation, revealing a keyboard and power switch. She hit the switch, and one of two monitors above the workstation sprang to life. With a few clicks of the mouse, she accessed a file showing various symbols on the stone side by side with their English translation.

  “I see you’ve been busy,” Randall commented.

  “It’s been a long and difficult process, but we’ve been able to decipher a great deal of their language. However, there are still major holes in our ability to translate. I’m hoping the stone will provide information to help fill those gaps,” she responded.

  Dr. Chandra opened another com
partment in the workstation, removing a long, hand-held device that resembled a flat curling iron. She pushed the magnifying glass aside and slowly ran the wand over the stone. The second monitor now became active, the symbols from the stone appearing on the screen in tandem with Chandra’s movement over the rock. Within minutes, she had scanned the entire contents of the stone into the computer.

  “Neat trick. Did you create a program to read the language and translate it based on your research of the dialect you found in the wreckage?” John asked.

  “Yes, this algorithm lets us translate anything we find much more quickly than doing it by hand, but it’s not perfect. The process still requires a human touch to make sure the translation is correct. I’m not fluent in Sanskrit, that’s why the General asked for your help.”

  “Glad to do whatever I can,” Randall said.

  Chandra typed at her keypad. “I’ll have to make adjustments to the code based on this new information. This stone will make deciphering these messages exponentially faster and with greater accuracy,” Chandra said, her voice rising and her eyes opening wider as she spoke.

  “How long do you anticipate the programming to take?” Randall asked.

  “It’ll take the better part of the day,” Chandra replied.

  Randall looked over her shoulder and realized that she was staring into a screen mounted into the workstation. On occasion, she asked Randall to clarify certain Sanskrit symbols to ensure she was translating it correctly. Together, the two worked for several hours ensuring that the new language was properly matched with its corresponding Sanskrit counterpart. From there, the final step was to translate the Sanskrit language into English.

  “That should do it.”

  The first monitor above the workstation still showed the scanned image of the stone while the second monitor showed the translation to English in progress. The entire process took several minutes to complete, after which all three scientists began reading the message. Their initial excitement turned to disappointment.