Emerald Sky
By
David Clarkson
www.davidclarksonwriter.com
As always, this book is dedicated to my wife, Katie, who continues to inspire me every day
Emerald Sky
Copyright 2015 by David Clarkson
Kindle Edition
Cover Image/Design by David Clarkson
Copyright 2015 by David Clarkson
Also by David Clarkson
The Outback
Stealing Asia
Diamond Sky
Sapphire Sky
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, events or localities, is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
About the Author
Also by this Author
Copyright Notice
Chapter 1
A vast horde lined the platform waiting for the train to arrive. It was the peak of rush hour and workers of white collar and blue parried for prime position, impatiently trying to guess where the carriage doors would settle. All were eager to be carried on to someplace else; be it a relaxing home or a welcoming bar. Each unaware of the remarkable young man about to enter into their midst.
Jimmy was on a tight schedule and the crowds were only going to make it tighter. With no margin for error, every second lost could easily equate to a life lost later. This was the burden he carried. It was the price he paid for his unique power - a power sought by all who knew of its existence.
There was no telling who or even how many were attempting to track his movements. The only certainty was that they would never give up. They would not stop until he was in their custody.
Anonymity was his best defence and the packed locomotive fortified him well. It did a far greater job of shielding him than any of the alternate modes of transportation could. Flying would have gotten him to his destination sooner, but the threat posed by airport security was too great, even for him. Every terminal was essentially a quarantine zone, which could be locked down at a moment’s notice. The last thing he wanted was to let them fence him into a corner – for their safety as much as his. When his instinct took over, it controlled every aspect of his being. The ability to exercise restraint was not an option.
As the doors opened, he let the more eager of the commuters, the ones who had stood in the aisle long before the station had even come into view, get off unimpeded. It was the usual mix of stressed out workers and expectant tourists. They jerked and jostled their way from the train onto the lifts and escalators that would take them to the surface. If his intuition was correct (it always was) they would be safer staying underground.
With the more heavily laden passengers still struggling out of their seats, he slipped quietly from the carriage and took an escalator to street level. The sun was only just starting its descent and the tightly focused light it cast was a nuisance to his eyes. He put on his sunglasses before stopping at a kiosk beside the exit in order to buy a paper.
The news held little interest to him, but that was no matter as he had no intention of reading it. Sometimes the warnings arrived late and sometimes they did not come at all. Whatever happened, he needed to stay alert and be prepared for any eventuality. When bent in half, a tightly rolled newspaper had the potential to do a lot of damage; certainly more than his small, bony fists were capable of inflicting. He was a slight man, and as such he thought it prudent to seize any advantage offered his way.
Violence did not come naturally to Jimmy. He despised every aspect of it. The problem was that no matter what he did and where he went, violence was never far behind.
Take the incident with the biker gang in Townsville. All he had wanted was to prevent a mugging - to stop an elderly lady being parted from her purse. Before he knew it, he was surrounded by five guys. He did not mean to hurt any of them. Usually thugs like these give up once they realise they cannot win and he had assumed this would be the case.
Then he saw the knife.
Sometimes he sees too much and that is what happened then. Even now, he wonders if it could have ended differently; if he actually had the power to change any of it.
Not that past failure had any bearing on his present. He was not even sure if he should be regarding them as failures. What was meant to transpire would and who could argue with that? He was simply a character in the great story of human existence. If there was a God-like author out there, then fate rested on their conscience not his.
Jesus – was he really thinking like that? There was a time, not so long ago, when life had been simpler. Much simpler. Back then he was little more than a laughing stock; the town fool. Yet when he looks back on those days it is with a fond heart. If he could rewind the clock, he would. He would give anything to go back to Jackson’s Hill. To take up a bar stool and chat with Mindy, the landlady of his old local, the Sly Fox. Or to be reprimanded by Lucas, the town’s solitary enforcer of law and order, on some minor charge that would always be dropped on an apology or a promise. Even his old nemeses, the Carlton brothers, would provide welcome company.
Now they were all gone. An entire town swallowed whole by the desert. He knew there was no going back. He could only go forward, compelled to follow in the footsteps of his unique intuition.
As he travelled deeper into the city, skyscrapers shielded him from the worst of the sun’s rays, but he stuck with the sunglasses. It was always useful to have a disguise however small it may be. He also liked to keep his eyes covered.
When gripped by his power he would often focus on things that were invisible to others. If anybody noticed him reacting to these visions of things to come, it would appear strange. It would draw unnecessary attention. And attention was the last thing Jimmy needed.
He continued walking until the office blocks gave way to luxury harbour-side bars and restaurants. The smell of caffeine and alcohol intermingled, lending a potent, expectant intoxication to the air. The crowds fed on it. From family vacationers to young couples and carefree backpackers, everybody wanted to be a part of the action. Day, evening or night – this place was alwa
ys busy.
As soon as it came into view, the target was immediately obvious. It was the most iconic structure in the country and easily recognisable around the world. Tourists converged on all sides like ants. Not one of them aware that somewhere inside of Sydney Opera House, there was a bomb.
***
Special Agent Esteban Cruz kept a careful eye on his mark. The crosshairs of his rifle sight remained solidly on the back of Jimmy’s head – drawn on like a tattoo.
His finger was not on the trigger.
If the boy’s extensive file was to be believed, there would be little point. It was said the kid could bite down on the barrel of a gun and still avoid the bullet. Not that Esteban would take a shot even if he could. The order was clear; under no circumstance should any harm come to Jimmy Johnson. If not for that stipulation, he never would have taken the job.
There was a time when he had not been so noble in his assignments. Born in South America and raised in its northern counterpart, his ethnicity meant that after dedicating himself to service, he had been sent back across the border in order to infiltrate the many cartels that swamped both sides with their poisonous merchandise.
It was a dirty job and some of the things he was called upon to do tainted not only his conscience, but his very soul. Eventually, he had been betrayed and abandoned by his masters and vowed never to go back. Of course, it was a life that was not so easy to escape. After a time freelancing as a mercenary, helping only those who had nowhere else to turn, he had found himself back in the fold. This time the enemy was no longer the Drug Lords, but Terror itself.
From the deserts of Iraq to the mountains of Afghanistan the war had raged on. Now a more powerful threat was rising. There was talk of world conflict entering a new phase. Rumours abounded of a scientist who had devised a weapon so powerful that it targeted not the flesh, but actual human spirit. Whoever controlled such technology would become the greatest superpower of all. They would be able to set the course of history to their own desire; for good or for ill.
Esteban’s mission was simple. Apprehend Jimmy Johnson, for he was the key to gaining control of this power. Whoever could conquer the boy would one day conquer the world.
***
From a distance, the curved walls of the outer shells appeared smooth, almost organic. Up close, Jimmy could see they were actually made from an intricate mosaic of small tiles. There was no other structure on Earth quite like it. It was a triumphant marriage of creativity and engineering. The elegance was, of course, lost on the young psychic. To him, it was nothing more than a giant shower cubicle turned inside out.
He patiently walked the outer perimeter, waiting for his prompt. Occasionally, he would stop to avoid stepping into the frame of a tourist photograph. There were so many of them around – all potential casualties and not one of them aware of the danger they were in or of the one person who had the power to save their lives.
When he had completed his first lap, he began a second. Time was all it took. It was time that held the solution to all puzzles. Causality was merely a means of getting from a question to an answer. If he waited long enough, the answer would always come. Before embarking on a third circuit, he was given his cue; a translucent phantom taking to the steps and entering the building.
It had taken some time for him to get used to this type of vision. When he experienced them he was presented with two overlaying worlds separated only by time. His future played out before him like a virtual movie. Sometimes the separation was by minutes and at others, just seconds. When the future was close, as it was now, he had only to follow the phantom image of himself from moments hence to be led to where he needed to be.
A performance was about to start and the main auditoriums were closed to those without a ticket. He watched his ghostly doppelganger carefully as it mingled with the crowd in duplicate, those who occupied the here and now, and those ghostly figures from the near future.
As it passed by an elderly couple, he saw his future self deftly reach into the lady’s bag and take from it two tickets. Just moments later, he saw the same couple enter the foyer from behind him. He let them pass him by and then he quickened his pace to overtake them, relieving them of their tickets as he did so.
The theft did not weigh too heavily on his conscience. After all, it was not like he had a choice. He was merely following the script as it was presented to him.
As he handed one of the illicit entry passes to the ticket inspector, he could see an echo of the same inspector arguing with the old couple as they searched the lady’s bag in vain for their tickets. Not for the first time he had committed the perfect crime.
Once inside, he resumed his mission. A crowd had gathered in a secondary foyer directly outside of the auditorium. There was a large Aboriginal painting covering the entire side wall, which was being admired by the concert-goers waiting for an usher to show them to their seats. Others queued at the bar or stared out of the windows at the harbour beyond. The translucent form of Jimmy’s ever so slightly older self appeared to be fixated with a different view entirely.
Three men, possibly of Middle-Eastern origin, were in front of him. Their features were vague and indistinct (they were also mere phantoms) and before Jimmy could fully assess what threat, if any, they may pose, his other self, quite literally, leapt into action.
Jimmy was awestruck as he watched himself jump head-on into one of the men. The scuffle was controlled and concise. His future self wrestled the man to the ground with ease, avoiding his foe’s attempts to strike him with all the fluidity of a ballet dancer. Jimmy then saw the other version of himself tear open the man’s coat to reveal a bomb vest. He was unable to make out any detail as he watched his phantom self thrust out a hand and tear out a wire. Of course, detail at this stage was unimportant as when the time came, he would know exactly what to do.
Another of the men, who Jimmy now knew without doubt to be terrorists, grabbed a female bystander and placed a knife to her throat. The weapon brought back painful memories, but he did not have time to dwell on the past. All that mattered was the future, which to him was almost as tangible as the present. He could see it in the man’s eyes that he was prepared to slit her throat. He could also see it in the woman’s eyes that she knew this too.
Fear removes all lies, displaying emotions like the pages of a book. Jimmy watched on and noted that as his other self slowly rose up to his feet under forceful instruction from the hostage taker, he reached behind his back to where the newspaper he had bought earlier was tucked into his pants. In the present, the paper was still in his hand, but he quickly transferred it to where it needed to be. At this point the vision ended and it was time for the rerun in real time.
The three men had been at the bar all along with their backs to him, but once they turned and recognition sparked, he made his move, following the script from moments earlier.
His higher sense returned, but more sporadically this time. Flashes of fists where they were about to be warned him which spaces to avoid. He saw not only the attacks, but what he had to do to defend against them. His intuition enhanced his reflexes to the point of virtual infallibility. He was literally untouchable.
When the bomb vest was revealed, he could see it in much more detail this time. There were three wires: one red and two blue. One of the latter was hanging loosely with a severed end. This confirmed that there were in fact only two wires and he knew exactly which one he needed to pull.
One down – two to go.
The scream came, just as he knew it would. It was not only the victim who cried out. The hostage taker also made a lot of noise, but in a language Jimmy found incomprehensible. He guessed the terrorist wanted him on his feet.
As he rose, he remembered about the newspaper. He tightened his right fist around it and used his fingers to bend it in two, reinforcing its middle into a compact and rigid point. Sometimes what he had to do was obvious and a sixth sense was not necessary.
With a powerful conviction that
far belied his slight build, Jimmy lunged toward the hostage taker, thrusting out with the now lethally rigid paper. The terrorist reacted on instinct, but without the unique hindsight of his foe. He pushed away the hostage and redirected his blade at the young psychic.
With the woman safe, Jimmy did not hesitate. He rammed the folded back newspaper into the terrorist’s chin, smashing teeth and dislocating jaw, as the knife scraped impotently at its sides.
The man fell to his knees. Jimmy twisted his makeshift weapon in his hand, and wielding it like a club, he delivered a knockout blow to the back of the assailant’s head with a heavy backhanded swing. Like his predecessor, this man also wore a bomb vest, and once again, blue proved to be the fortuitous colour.
With panic directing the crowd, it made it difficult to locate the third and final terrorist without existential assistance. The fact that no bomb had yet gone off revealed the terrorist’s likely motives. They had intended to take hostages to use as leverage rather than simply going for the easier act of outright murder and destruction. Although Jimmy could not have come to this realisation earlier, it never occurred to him that he may have acted rashly. Experience taught him to trust his foresight. It never let him down.
Alarms sounded throughout the building. Those who had not witnessed the scuffle assumed it was a standard fire drill and left in a more controlled manner than those fearing an imminent detonation.
It would not be long until the police arrived. Jimmy knew he must catch the third man quickly as his hero status would not last for long once the authorities uncovered his identity; his abilities. There were people out there who saw him as a much greater threat to world peace than a single terrorist cell could ever be.
He ran down the corridor like he was treading on hot coals, before passing through a door marked for the use of staff only. This led past a kitchen area and onto another corridor, which connected with the building’s second auditorium. Thanks to the earlier furore, it was deserted. It was also where he found the final terrorist.
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