Future Discovered: Host Saga Book 1

by Michael Farlow

  The D2 drone and the fireflies spotted the expected roving guard on the roof, dressed similarly to the ones in the office spaces. He would have to be taken out or stunned quickly by the first man on-site, which Brice planned to be.

  Just as planned, the B1 came into a low hover over the Light Tower roof. The cargo door cracked open, and as soon as Brice could deploy the rappelling rope, he jumped from the hovering B1.

  Landing on his feet, with the added silence of his soft-soled combat boots, he quickly moved into position to take out the roving guard. Just at the expected time, the guard appeared around an air-conditioning vent, and Brice shot him with his stun gun. The next team member behind Brice was Johnny Weller, Rick Conners’s replacement, who secured the guard with zip ties and a gag.

  By now the remainder of the team had also rappelled from the B1 and formed up in line behind Brice. Van stayed on board the B1 this time but was ready to go if needed.

  Brice found the door leading to the stairway to the seventeenth floor and opened it without noise. Then, one after another, in combat suits in full stealth mode, the six team members followed Brice down the stairs.

  At the bottom of the stairway, Brice reviewed the area on his HUD and saw that it was empty, with nothing but minimal lighting. Even the Europeans were becoming energy conscious, and minimal lighting and air conditioning were now common during nonworking hours. He smoothly pushed the door open and walked purposefully toward the elevator with his MP5 up, sweeping the area in front of him.

  Harry had already signaled the elevator to the seventeenth floor, and when Brice was in position, the door opened and all seven men entered the confined space. Brice noted that the typical bell noise that usually announced the arrival of an elevator on a floor did not sound. Either this building’s elevators did not do that, or Harry had silenced them. He suspected the latter. Brice keyed in the code for the fourteenth floor, and the elevator began to descend.

  As the elevator approached the fourteenth floor, Brice held up his gloved right hand to signal the team to prepare to exit. Again, no bell chimed when the elevator doors opened with a slight hiss, and with practiced moves, the team quietly rushed out single file and took up defensive positions behind desks and file cabinets. Nothing happened. Apparently, none of the security personnel were yet aware of the team’s presence.

  A glance at his HUD, however, showed two people walking attentively toward the elevator, perhaps alerted by the slight noise of the doors opening and closing. They were coming from the right of the center office.

  Brice signaled to the two team members directly behind him, Ross and Jimmy, to ready their stun guns. As the head of the first approaching guard appeared over his cover position, Brice and his two selected men rose and shot both guards with their stun weapons. One guard fell silently to the floor. However, the other one tried in vain to hold himself up by the edge of a filing cabinet, which then crashed down on top of him when he fell. The noise was devastating in the quiet space, and Brice knew that his quiet entry was blown. As one, the team rose and moved forward, this time with suppressed MP5s raised.

  With two tangos down, Brice expected only three more, but what he saw were four, all clad in the same black garb, and they were shooting from cover positions on the right side of the office.

  “Harry,” called Brice, “there were apparently six guards here when we expected only five. Are there more?”

  “I only see four life forms, not including your team and the two down by the elevator, Brice.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. With four remaining guards and Borman, there should be five life forms.”

  “I agree, Brice, but there are only four total.”

  “OK, we’ll take out these guys and then look for Borman. He has to be here.”

  Just then two of the guards rushed the Carson team, Uzis flashing. One of them was very tall.

  Before he could react, Johnny Weller was thrown backward as several 9mm slugs from the opposing Uzis hit him in the chest. Fortunately, from his now-sitting position against the adjacent wall, he signaled a thumbs-up that he was still good to go. The suit’s material had protected him. But the rushing guards took cover again.

  One of the guards wasn’t quite as concealed as he thought, and Ross took advantage of the misstep to take him out. But the tall man remained, raining fire down on Brice’s team.

  “Well shit, boss. This guy is pretty good. How do we get past him?” Ross asked, flinching at the bullets passing close overhead.

  “Can you see to get a shot?” Brice asked.

  “Nope, can’t even see a foot to shoot.”

  Thinking for a moment, Brice then said, “OK, here’s what we do. See that office chair next to you?”

  “The one with the wheels?”

  “That’s the one. On the count of three, kick it to your right and toward the tall guy. Have it hit the trash can and make noise. I’ll roll left and see if I can get an angle on him.”

  Just then another series of bullets hit and splintered the desktop over Brice’s head.

  “Better do it quick, boss, or he’ll get one of us first.”

  “OK, one… two… three!”

  Ross kicked the chair as hard as he could, and it hit the trash can with a resounding crash!

  Brice rolled left, expecting to see a distracted tall man, but instead saw the man looking right at him, gun leveled at his head.

  Certain he was going to die, Brice heard the staccato fire of an automatic weapon.

  But he wasn’t hit.

  The tall man lay spread out on the floor in front of him, dead.

  Brice looked toward where Ross had been and saw that he had rushed to the right of the tall man and taken the killing shot. Ross and Brice flashed smiles and thumbs-ups to each other.

  “Only two left, boss, but they don’t want to show themselves,” Ross said.

  “But we know where they are. Still to the right of the office. Johnny, you really good to go?”

  “Yes sir!”

  “Good, then you’re with me. Ross, take Jimmy and we’ll go around the center office and get in position behind them. I’ll go left, you go right. Everyone else stay here and watch the elevator.”

  “Got it, boss,” Ross said as he and Jimmy started to move out.

  Brice and Ross reached their positions at nearly the same time, just as a smoke grenade went off, followed by the fire from one Uzi.

  “What’s going on, boss? I thought there were two of them.”

  “So did I. You take out this guy, and Johnny and I will look for the other one.” Brice and Johnny started back toward the elevator, searching while they went.

  A short burst from an MP5 told Brice that Ross had finished off his guard.

  Looking at his HUD, Brice could see that the remaining life form was indeed on the way to the elevator.

  “Heads up, Bobby. I think the last guy is headed your way!”

  “Roger that, boss. I see him,” Bobby said.

  But the last guard also saw Bobby standing a few feet from the elevator and opened up with his Uzi, forcing Bobby to dive to the floor and drop both his stun gun and his MP5.

  Seeing Bobby was disarmed, the guard rushed to the elevator and started punching in a code. Bobby rolled to his left, searching for his MP5, but the guard saw him and raised his Uzi to fire.

  Just then, the guard was hit in the side and chest by rounds from an MP5. He tumbled over and fell to the floor, blood pooling under his body.

  Bobby looked up and saw Brice standing over the dead guard, MP5 still smoking.

  “All clear here,” shouted Brice over helmet communications.

  “Clear here,” Ross called. “But I’m in the office and no Borman.”

  “Harry, all guards down. But we can’t locate Borman. Do you have him in sight?” Brice said.

  “No, Brice, I have no more life signs on the floor, and nobody exited the floor or the building.”

  “Hey, boss, do you suppose—” Ross started to
say when Brice interrupted.

  “Bobby, check out that last guard, see if he has blond hair.”

  “Doing it now, boss. And… yes he does.”

  “That’s him!” shouted Ross.

  “We got him! Now let’s get started on the computers and hard drives. Jimmy, get into Borman’s office and collect his laptop and any storage devices. You guys with the magnets, do your stuff,” Brice commanded.

  With that, Brice walked quickly to the elevator and trained a camera at the dead face of Eric Borman.

  “You getting this video in the Ops Centers?” he asked.

  “Clear as a bell, Brice, and we confirm that’s Borman. Now I’m guessing it’s time to leave before the authorities show up.”

  Getting a thumbs-up from his team, Brice responded, “We’re on our way to the roof now. Stand by, Van!”

  “In position, ready and waiting,” replied Van.

  Brice felt some satisfaction that he had taken down Borman himself, primarily because of what he had done to Barbara. At the very least, this was an emotional win for the Carson team, but Brice knew it was not the end of Meier.

  Meier had set out for a trip on the Valkyrie and a time to plan his next step in discovering Van Childs’s secrets, but en route to the airport, he received the news that Borman was dead. Not just dead, but killed by the forces supporting Childs.

  Now what? Meier asked himself. With Borman gone I have lost my immediate protection and counterforce. I need to get to a safe location and regroup.

  Looking at his notepad, he noticed that one of his ships, the Argos, was en route to an island of his in the Aegean. A plan started forming in his mind. Borman may be dead, but he taught me a few things about deception and survival.

  CHAPTER 38

  Back at Site R, Van elected to go to his cabin for a shower and rest. Harry took care of the B1, and several red – and blue-striped maintenance robots began looking the craft over for needed repairs. The modified shuttle had logged many miles on these last two missions, and it was time to give it a good once-over.

  Van’s eyes opened to the first rays of the sun coming through his bedroom window. For just a moment he thought himself on a weekend away from the city and all the hassle. This was the place, all right. Cool breezes, birds singing, and the scent of pine.

  But then he was fully awake. So much still had to be done. First with the intruder in his life, Meier. Then deciding what to do with his newfound knowledge and all the technology available to him and ultimately the world. And then there was Barbara, reawakened in his mind and body, but seemingly different since she’d been injured. The phrase “No rest for the wicked” passed through his head as his feet hit the cabin floor and he wandered into the bathroom.

  After a shower, a quick breakfast of cereal and milk, and a change into fresh clothes, Van took the elevator and eventually met Harry in the Ops Center.

  “Good morning, Harry,” he said to the lifelike physical version of Harry before him.

  “Good morning, Commander.”

  “What news do we have about Mr. Meier?”

  “As you instructed, Commander, I have been setting up the transfer of funds from the Meier liquid accounts to the accounts you requested.”

  “And what’s the progress?”

  “I am ready when you give the word.”

  “How much will we be taking from him again?”

  “Twenty-one point five billion dollars, Commander.”

  “And who are we sending the money to?”

  “The same thirty-five active research and development groups, Commander, to whom I sent white papers and process details when your memory was damaged. These groups represent medical, ecological, computer, aerospace engineering, space flight, construction, and tool-making groups, to name but a few. With their success, the human state will be improved substantially even without the technology of the Host. And, of course, there will be the ten percent that will go into our accounts for operating expenses.”

  “Now that’s what we are supposed to be doing, Harry. Very well done. And we’ll be solvent again. Do it now!”

  Harry started the huge money transfer.

  Van treasured the moment and the feeling, knowing he was at last doing some good. He had reluctantly given up his plan for a life of peace and quiet to act as the conduit of Host technology on Earth and to use it in protecting people everywhere. That damned Meier has been sapping our time. Time we could have used doing more of this work. The sooner we eliminate him the better! Van told himself.

  “Now tell me what we know about Meier, like where he is and how we can get to him.”

  “Two days ago, Commander, I had electronic evidence that Mr. Meier had fled to his facility in the Aegean Islands. More specifically the Cyclades, on a supposedly uninhabited island near Santorini, as we can see on the holographic projection table. Santorini, by the way, is part of the remnants of an ancient volcanic caldera, which could provide geothermal power to an island such as the one we are looking at. To gather additional intelligence, I took the liberty of launching the Truman and recalling the B2 to Site R for modification. A D3 and fireflies are accompanying the Truman. They are in stealth orbit now and information is just coming in.”

  “Great, Harry. I almost forgot about the B2. We wanted to reconfigure it to be the same as the B1. How is that progressing?”

  “We are done, Commander, and a test flight has been completed over the Nevada desert. Everything works as planned.”

  “Even better news! Start patching the intelligence in to the Carson Ops Center as soon as you can. Meanwhile bring up the Carson Ops Center so we can talk to Dick and his team.”

  “Dick, good morning!” Van said with a smile from Site R.

  “With a smile like that, you must have some good news.”

  “I do indeed. Meier is about to become a cash-poor man when half his net worth disappears!”

  “That is good news, and I’m not even going to ask how that happened. I assume there’s more?”

  “Yes. Harry believes he has located Meier on an apparently abandoned island in the Aegean. He is focusing Big Brother assets on him now, and we hope to have details shortly. Harry will send the intelligence data to you as soon as it comes in, along with his analysis.”

  “We’re anxiously awaiting it.”

  And the information did indeed flow in. Every inch of the island surface was photographed in fine detail. The Truman and the D3 started collecting electronic signals and communications, though electronic sources were few. But there was enough, along with the presence of a long pier and a connecting road going to a small hill, to suggest that the island was indeed inhabited. About two miles away, between the small island and Santorini, a medium-sized freighter lay at anchor. Not necessarily unusual, but interesting enough. Harry decided some fireflies would be of use on the freighter and disbursed them from the Truman.

  The next day the picture became much clearer. Harry and Van again established a video and audio connection with the Carson Group from Site R.

  At Van’s prompting, Harry opened with, “As you can all see, a freighter, the thirty-year-old Argos out of Athens, was spotted at the island pier by satellite several days ago. Arriving at the pier, she was low in the water, but is now at anchor a mile away, and much of her red hull normally below the waterline is showing. She appears to be empty. I suggest that whatever she had been carrying is undoubtedly on or in the island somewhere.

  “At the end of the road reaching the small island hill, the fireflies have discovered a large camouflaged door capable of accommodating passage of one or more heavy trucks. The door seems to be both sturdy and locked. The fireflies could find no way past or through.

  “Using IR detection from Big Brother, fireflies were vectored to several small hot spots, which turned out to be vents disguised as rocks, apparently leading to something below. I sent several hundred of them into those vents, and you can see what they see.”

  To everyone’s surprise, the fire
flies transmitted a visual of a huge underground cavern filled with pallets of supplies of every sort, along with stores of weapons. A few workers were milling about with several obvious guards armed with assault rifles of some sort, probably AK-74s as in other Meier facilities. This must be Meier’s main storage area for his arms trade, as well as a getaway bunker, Van thought.

  “Are you seeing this, Dick?” asked Van with amazement.

  “I know I am, but I am having a hard time believing it.”

  “What do you think should be done?”

  “Well the right thing to do would be to alert some of my friends in the CIA and the DIA and hand the whole thing over to them.”

  “But you’re not going to, are you?” Van already knew what Dick would say.

  “No. By the time they verified what I told them and then got things moving, Meier would probably be long gone. Plus, I don’t want to share with them exactly how we got this information. That would make for too many bureaucratic problems.”

  “Agreed. So we proceed with the fireflies to locate Meier and see what else is down there.”

  “Not much else we can do until we know more. I’m getting Brice up here right now to share this with him and see what he thinks. Barbara can work with you and Harry to finalize the picture if you’d like.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll plan on calling back in about an hour.” And Van terminated the video conference.

  In the ensuing hour, the fireflies discovered Meier in a plush apartment off the side of the main cavern. On either side of the apartment were barracks for about thirty guards and as many workers. Close surveillance, however, could only spot about fifteen guards and ten workers. Apparently the arms trade was slow at the moment due to the destruction of much of Meier’s trade in Libya. Potential buyers were apparently holding off until they knew dealing with Meier was safe.

  Nevertheless, getting to Meier would be the most challenging mission that Van and the Carson Group had ever attempted.