Killer Thrillers Box Set: 3 Techno-Thriller, Action/Adventure Science Fiction Thrillers

by Nick Thacker

  “Uncle Jensen, I’m so glad you’re okay — I’ve been so worried about you; they said you wouldn’t be harmed, but when I saw you come in, bleeding and all, I…“ She choked up. “I thought they’d hurt you,” she sobbed, entering the cell.

  He rushed forward, fighting the pain in his side to embrace his niece. Then he realized that she wasn’t alone. There was a large shadow just outside the cell door.

  A voice broke the silence. “The boss wishes to speak with both of you immediately.”

  “Who are these people, Corinne?” Jensen asked his niece. “What do they want with us, and why was I shot? Did they hurt you?” The questions came quicker than Corinne could respond.

  “Uncle Jensen, I’m fine — they didn’t shoot me, if that’s what you mean. ’And I don’t know why they’d want to shoot you,” she said, with an accusing glance back towards the doorway. “They’re interested in something they think you or I have. I don’t know what it is, but I heard them talking about some sort of an expedition.”

  They were suddenly interrupted as a hulking man strode in from the hall. “Party’s over — let’s go.” His English had a slight accent that Jensen thought could be Eastern Russian. The man jerked a thumb toward the door and stepped back into the hall. Corinne supported her uncle with an arm, and they reluctantly followed.

  As they fell in step behind the large guard, a second, smaller man fell in behind, cutting off any chance of escape that way. Why bother, Jensen thought. The pain in his side was reminder enough that he didn’t want to take any more chances with these people.

  At the end of the stark hallway, the group ascended a flight of stairs to a set of double doors. Another guard opened the doors, and as they passed through, Jensen felt the air get cooler. Once inside, they found themselves in a high-ceilinged room with a tiled floor, artificial lighting and metal trim. It had the appearance of a large laboratory, but judging by the metal tables and chairs arranged in the center of the room, it looked like it was currently being used a meeting hall.

  The tables were strewn with a variety of maps, papers, and equipment. Several more guards were milling about the room. The only person who seemed to notice their entrance was a man dressed in civilian clothes who stood at the central table and greeted them warmly.

  “Ah, Professor Jensen! Ms. Banks! It’s good to see you — I’ve been expecting you!” He smiled at them as the large guard took up a position to one side, blocking the exit. “Please pull up a chair, we’ve got some work to do,” the man continued. He held out a hand, as if greeting an old friend over drinks and a cigar. “We have been working diligently for the past few months, trying to plan our trip, but I’m afraid we’ve run out of time.” He looked at Jensen. “We needed to call in an expert.”

  Professor Jensen frowned. “You have a very indelicate method of ‘calling in’ your experts. What do you want with me?”

  The man smiled again. “Jensen Andrews, 52 years old, native of Santa Fe, currently serving as Regents Professor of Ancient and World Studies. Your work in ancient civilizations — specifically the study of prehistoric peoples — has always fascinated me. But recently, you published a paper in a research journal called ‘The Golden Civilization: The Original Discoverers of the Number Phi.’”

  Jensen looked at him, confusion settling on his brow. That paper had been a side project he’d had in interest in for some years, but nothing more than a “notch on his belt” for his accreditations list — something to publish in order to keep his tenure. He’d spent a few months researching the “GoldenRatio,” represented by the Greek letter ‘Phi’. The so-called ‘Golden Ratio’ refers to a mathematically irrational number — 1.618, and the ratio 1:1.618. Jensen had written that this number appeared numerous times in nature — from the spiral shapes of some shells and mollusks to the growth patterns of certain plants and trees — even in human anatomy.

  Many groups of people throughout history had recognized the ubiquity of this number and its ratio. Some groups had ascribed mystical properties to it, and some artists and architects paid homage to that mysticism by incorporating it into their work. Da Vinci, the Greek Parthenon — even in modern design, reflected in the layout of streets and buildings around the world.

  But the true roots of the number — rather, the original “discoverers” of the ratio — were still unknown to modern historians, and it was this puzzle that Jensen had tried to solve in his paper. The results were compelling, yet many of his colleagues and contemporaries at the academic level dismissed the treatise as far too bold of an idea with too little supporting evidence.

  The work had been an interesting aside to his professorial duties at the university, and it had helped to keep him occupied during the previous summer. Still, even he didn’t think the paper was definitive enough to warrant much attention after it was published.

  “Professor Andrews, I feel that you would be a valuable asset to our team. My name is Dr. Tanning Vilocek, and I have spent the last thirty years of my life trying to find the solution to one problem. I believe you can help me solve that problem.”

  “Dr. Vilocek, I don’t understand — what exactly is it that you’re trying to accomplish?”

  “And why were we kidnapped?” Corinne suddenly interjected. “Why not just ask for help?”

  Dr. Vilocek didn’t respond. Instead, he sat down and sifted carefully through a stack of papers on the table. With a large pair of tweezers, he gently extracted one document from the pile. It was old — very old — two yellowed and cracking pages loosely bound together. He carefully slid it toward Jensen and Corinne.

  “If in fact this item is one of a larger collection, we have underestimated immensely the gravity of the situation. As the men here have seen firsthand, the item has already shown some intriguing characteristics.

  “On the first day of the month, we had placed the stone next to a wilted flower on the sill. Within the night, the flower had begun to heal; it was a most unexpected reaction, and we have since determined that the stone itself was the cause of this reaction.”

  Jensen faced Vilocek, shocked. “Where, exactly, is this ‘item,’ or ‘stone,’ now?”

  Vilocek reached into his suit pocket and withdrew a small rectangular box, no larger than a bracelet gift box or eyeglass case. He placed it on the table and slowly, deliberately, lifted its lid. As the lid came off the box, a slight bluish glow emanated from within.

  It’s beautiful, Jensen thought. Inside, resting on a bed of what looked to be cotton cloth, was a very small sliver of stone, clear and mostly translucent. It was no larger than a common sewing needle, thinner at one end and rounding out into a head at the other, as if it had in fact been chipped off of something larger. The whitish-gray sliver itself was hardly distinguishable against the white of the cloth beneath it, but the glow it emitted could not be missed.

  “We’ve been running tests on the material for some time now,” Vilocek explained, “and we know that it reacts differently with different elements, but for the most part, we have no idea what it really is. Obviously, one of the first experiments we ran was to measure its healing capabilities with small shrubs, like from the letter. It works better than we’d expected — taking a completely dead, dried-out plant to a robust, exceptionally alive state.

  “Subsequent experiments with other life forms, unfortunately, have not been as successful. We’ve been able to resuscitate small mammals like mice and gerbils, but only for a limited amount of time. Each test subject showed a small flicker of life for a moment, but then immediately reverted to a state of death.

  “For small wounds in larger animals, including humans, we’ve seen improvements in healing speed and have been able to replicate the material’s effect in isolated incidents. For the most part, though, we believe this sliver of stone is just not large enough to cause any lasting regenerative effects for larger life forms.”

  Vilocek continued, “Further, we’ve found that this element — whatever it is — bonds quite easily with
almost any pure substance, at least temporarily. That’s how we know it becomes active in different states with different materials…”

  His voice trailed off as Jensen and Corinne gazed at the small glowing sliver of crystal. Its beauty was certainly evident, however small it was. Vilocek let them gawk at it for a few more seconds, then called their attention back to the document in front of him.

  It appeared to be missing the second page, but concluded on a third, offering some hypotheses the author had come up with to explain the stone’s mysterious properties. It ended with a single symbol in the place of signature.

  It was the symbol of the Golden Ratio:

  “You see, Professor,” Vilocek said, “there may in fact be some use for you here.”

  CHAPTER 10

  DR. VILOCEK CONTINUED TO EXPLAIN his thoughts on the ancient letter. The large guard, whose name tag read ‘Karn’, was joined by two more guards; one named Beka and another, younger man named Rogers. As Vilocek went on, Jensen and Corinne listened with increasing interest, forgetting for a moment how they came to meet this man.

  Jensen found himself getting lost in the compelling results of Vilocek’s research, and had to keep reminding himself that Vilocek had abducted them — and shot him. The fact that he had a bullet hole in his side reminded him that there was something sinister about this whole thing, regardless of how interested he might be in Vilocek’s research. Jensen wondered how Corinne could have any role in this. She was a smart girl, with a degree in Applied Physics and Mathematics, on a fast-track to a career at NASA. But with NASA’s budget dwindling, her interests had shifted to a research career, or eventually a teaching position. She’d reached out to Jensen six months ago, hoping he could find her a position in his department. He had an opening, and they’d been working together since.

  They made a pretty good team, Jensen thought. It wasn’t every day that Jensen got to do some old-fashioned research, the kind that turned him on to ancient history in the first place. But having Corinne around helped his preliminary information-gathering process go twice as fast.

  Corinne spoke several languages, including German and Spanish, but most notably native Hawaiian — she’d lived there from the age of eight. Now, her knowledge, wit, and linguistic skills helped her to quickly grasp new concepts and tie them into historic contexts. Maybe having her here would be good for him to keep his head in the game, though he knew it was a selfish thought — she would be, or already was, in more danger being here than back at her apartment in Santa Fe.

  Vilocek continued, explaining that the letter was written by Thomas Jefferson and addressed to Benjamin Banneker in 1791 — prior to the founding of the nation’s capital. Jefferson and Washington apparently believed there was a legendary “source of power” that provided supernatural abilities to whoever possessed it. The item mentioned in the letter was possessed by a group of men — referred to by Vilocek as the ‘Phi Group’ — who had discovered its strange characteristics. They believed this item was a smaller piece of a much larger power source, and that they must retrieve and protect it, eventually using its magical properties for the benefit of the nation.

  “So,” Corinne interrupted, “the Founding Fathers wanted to protect the nation, and this would be a huge insurance policy for them, but they didn’t already possess the main source of power? How did they know it was part of a larger piece?”

  Vilocek looked at her. “We believe that they knew it was part of a larger piece because someone in their group had found it. Whoever it was, we don’t know. But they did seem to believe they knew where on Earth the larger item was located.

  “We don’t have the whole letter — there’s a page missing — but we do know that the group wrote Banneker to request that he approach the man in charge of laying out the city’s streets and buildings — Charles Pierre l’Enfant — and have him slightly alter the city’s layout. The letter’s middle page was the only written account of the actual location, and Washington ordered it to be destroyed after Banneker read it. They wanted to design into Washington D.C.’s streets a secret map to the location of the power source — forever hidden in plain sight.

  “We know Banneker at least partially succeeded, because within a few months Charles l’Enfant resigned from the job and took his original plans with him. Benjamin Banneker became the assistant to the new surveyor — Andrew Ellicott — and they created the layout that remains to this day.”

  “So what were the changes they made?” Corinne asked.

  “An excellent question — one that had boggled me for years. Since there are no surviving copies of l’Enfant’s original map, we can’t know for sure what the differences are between his and Ellicott’s designs.”

  “We had been analyzing the street’s angles and shapes, expecting to find a constellation or some kind of symbol that would point us in the right direction. There are so many obvious symbols, and recent popular culture has often pointed to these as symbols of Satanism, Freemasonry, and even more obscure possibilities. But your uncle’s recent paper,” he said, nodding toward the article on the table, “led me to what I believe can only be the proper explanation.”

  With that, Karn pulled a map from among the papers on the table and laid it out before them.

  “Look familiar?” Karn asked them.

  Jensen examined it. “Sure,” he said, “it looks like the layout of Washington, D.C., obviously before the modern additions, like highways and city expansion.”

  “It’s actually before any construction had begun on the city at all,” Vilocek said. “This map is one of the preliminary documents created by Banneker and Ellicott’s team, borrowing heavily, we assume, from l’Enfant’s original sketches.”

  “This,” Karn said, “is the layout approved by President Washington, his advisors, and Thomas Jefferson. After Banneker had Ellicott change the plans according to that letter.

  “As we found out, there are numerous places in this city plan where crossing streets and their shapes create angles that are closely related to the Golden Ratio and its derivatives. Professor, when we read your paper on the Ratio, we were struck by the fact that there also numerous angles found in the Great Pyramid of Giza that are related to the Golden Ratio — some of them exactly the same as those in the city’s plan — here, look for yourself.” He pulled out another diagram detailing the dimensions of the Great Pyramid at Giza, in Egypt:

  “But,” he continued, “perhaps the nation’s capital city was altered, not be a map to a location, but a map of a location?” He asked this rhetorically, obviously knowing the answer.

  Jensen’s mind was racing. Corinne wasn’t as quick to pick up the implication. “What do you mean, ‘a map of a location?’” she asked.

  “Well,” Vilocek said, “it turns out that it is not just angles that the two locations have in common.”

  “Here’s a diagram of the interior of the Great Pyramid,” Karn said, flipping the paper over. “A cross-section from the side. Look familiar?”

  Corinne gazed at the picture, and pointed out elements of the diagram. “Here’s the main chamber — the ‘King’s Chamber,’ I believe. And this smaller one must be the ‘Queen’s Chamber,’ but I’m not sure about the bottom box or the other lines.”

  Vilocek nodded approval. “That’s correct — and although the bottom chamber is simply referred to as the ‘Lower Chamber,’ or ‘Subterranean Chamber,’ as it’s completely underground, directly opposite the pyramid’s apex. The lines on the diagram are actually passageways inside the Great Pyramid — the ‘Ascending Passage’ and ‘Descending Passage,’” he continued, pointing out each in turn. “There’s a central shaft down the middle, and the double-lined section is the ‘Grand Galley’ — part of the ‘Ascending Passage,’ leading directly to the ‘King’s Chamber.’”

  Professor Jensen silently took it all in. He knew the diagram from his own research, and had seen it used on websites and in Giza books. He also knew now where the two men were going with their mini-le
cture, but he let Vilocek continue.

  “We immediately noticed a similarity between the two diagrams,” Vilocek said, “and with a little resizing, we came up with this,” he pulled yet another paper from the stack, this one much larger:

  It took a moment for Corinne to understand what she was looking at, and although Professor Jensen had anticipated this, it took him by surprise how well the two images — one of the Great Pyramid of Giza, and one of the original Washington, D.C. City layout — fit together, now superimposed.

  Labels of the pyramid’s main features had been added, and in parenthesis under each element was the corresponding street or feature on the D.C. map. The Ascending Passage was Pennsylvania Avenue, leading directly to the King’s Chamber — the White House map. The northwestern side of Pennsylvania Avenue was the Grand Galley, starting on the D.C. map perfectly where the Capitol Building was located.

  The Descending Passage lined up with Potomac Avenue, the Subterranean Chamber corresponded to a point in the Potomac River. The shaft section of the pyramid had a similar shape to D.C.’s canal, and Vilocek explained that there were some liberties taken by the architects of the canal due to the natural topography of the area. Still, the similarities were uncanny. After a full minute examining the map, Corinne and Jensen looked up at Vilocek’s wide grin.

  “You see, Professor, you’ve helped us determine the location of this power source — hidden in plain sight for more than two centuries. The Founding Fathers needed to protect the location of the secret if they were unable to find it in their lifetime — in some way that would go relatively undisturbed over the years.

  “The small sliver of crystal you see before you was originally found at the bottom of the Potomac River, in Washington, D.C. by a team of scientists. As a matter of fact,” he said, pointing now at the superimposed pyramid/street map image on the table, “they found it right here. It was in a rotting box, almost buried by silt, directly where the Subterranean Chamber on this image lies. It turns out they were pointing us to Egypt; to the chamber beneath the Great Pyramid.”