“Black projects?”
The officer smiled. “I don’t know a lot about those kinds of things. My job revolves around learning how the crafts they make work and testing them out. But U.S. citizens know only too well about the existence of military defense projects which are totally secret. They aren’t recognized by the government, or military personnel, or the defense contractors. Project Aurora was a black project which received exorbitant amounts of government money. The planes were used to spy on enemies but after the discovery of tracking satellites, they fell into disuse. They say that the government closed the project down.” He opened the hatch to the cabin and invited James inside.
“And you believe that it’s true?”
“Well, no,” he replied honestly. “I’ve been testing out the planes they make for almost twenty years. It’s obvious that they have continued with the project, even though the eventual aims have been changed. If they designed spy planes before, it now seems that they are searching for the perfect aircraft, one which is capable of reaching unbelievable speeds, easy to pilot and uses another kind of energy.”
James entered the plane via the side staircase which had been set up for such a purpose.
The interior of the SR-91 was unbelievable. There were only two seats but it had a completely futuristic appearance, with hundreds of buttons, screens, levers and lights, which made maneuvering it an extremely complicated task.
“Please put on your safety harness and don’t touch anything!”
James obeyed him at once. “What speed can this plane reach?”
The officer hesitated for a few seconds. “I couldn’t tell you, but I’ve had it at over three thousand seven hundred miles per hour and at an altitude of over eighty-eight thousand feet.”
“Amazing! I didn’t know it could reach those speeds.”
The officer started to chuckle at James’ naivety. There were so many things that everyday people didn’t know about that he felt proud to be a part of. “I’ve told you that this plane is about to be retired. NASA has a prototype which they have christened X-43A, which is the result of a project called Hyper-X and uses a ScramJet engine designed to fly at speeds of over Mach-10. In fact, it has already exceeded seven thousand four hundred miles per hour at a height of over one hundred and eight thousand feet. It is currently thought that it could reach Mach-15 speed. However, they are way behind us.”
“What?!”
James was completely astonished.
“I can’t tell you about these things, mainly for my own safety, but I can assure you that I have piloted aircrafts at higher speeds. Our scientists have managed to create an ideal design which doesn’t need runways to land or take off. They use magnetism to move as well as an inexhaustible energy source which was recently discovered by you, but one which we have known about for a long time: antimatter.”
“Why don’t people know anything about these experiments? Doesn’t anybody see them flying?”
“Yes, of course. Sometimes we simulate emergency situations and land in distant places but our radars classify them as safe. Civilians have seen us on more than one occasion and they were absolutely terrified. Then we see them on the news swearing that they have seen a UFO with a little green man at the wheel.”
James smirked. Many people thought that most UFO sightings in the area were nothing but secret tests carried out the scientists at Area 51.
“To be honest, they’re right,” continued the officer. “UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object and that is what they actually are. Having seen the shape of the prototypes, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that citizens get confused.”
The fuselage vibrated when the officer started up the aircraft engines. However, it couldn’t be felt inside the cabin. He gently pushed the control lever forward and the plane slowly emerged from the hangar.
It moved towards the nearest runway. It was a very long strip, the biggest in the world and over six miles long.
Just then, James’ cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and saw that it was his daughter. He hadn’t spoken to her for several days and she would be worried.
I’ll call her later, I’m about to take off.
He cancelled the call.
The plane was ready to soar through the skies at dizzying speed. The pilot wanted to make sure that James was prepared as well, but just when he was about to give him the thumbs up, his cell phone began to ring again.
Not again! What does she want? he wondered. His daughter wasn’t usually so insistent. This was very odd.
He gestured for the pilot to stop and then he picked up the phone. “How are you Lily? I can’t talk right now. I’m about to catch a flight and - “
“Dad, help me! Help me!”
Lily’s voice sounded as if it was faltering but she was speaking in a low voice. Maybe she didn’t want them to hear her?
“What’s happening?! What’s the matter?!”
James was frightened. His daughter never joked about these kinds of things, so something must have been going on.
“Some men have come into the house! They’ve hurt Mom!”
The girl couldn’t stop crying, but she was trying not to make too much noise and stifle her sobs with her hands.
“Where are you?”
“Dad, help me! They’re going to kill me!”
“Don’t worry, darling. Don’t worry. Tell me where you are!”
“In Mom’s house.” The girl was having a panic attack. “The woman hit Mom and threw her on the floor.”
“The woman? What does she look like?”
“I don’t know. Help me, Dad.”
“Lily, keep calm! What does that woman look like?”
The girl fell silent for a few seconds. “Brown hair, slim, tall…”
Mary! he thought. She’s alive! “Where are you right now?”
The girl went silent again which made him even more nervous. “I’m in my hiding place.”
James knew perfectly well which one it was. All children have a secret place where they feel secure and think that they will be safe. One day, before James had separated from her mother, he had spent over half an hour looking around the house for Lily while she played hide and seek. He eventually found her hidden inside the fitted closet in his room, wrapped in a blanket and fast asleep. Since that day, whenever Lily disappeared she was hiding in that corner of the house where she felt safe.
“Don’t come out of there! Listen carefully!” The girl managed to get herself together and listen carefully to what her father had to say.
“They’re not going to hurt you. They need you to get to me, but you have to get ready and not get scared.”
The girl started shaking again. She couldn’t keep her feelings under control and started to cry again. “Get ready? What for?”
“Lily… they are going to kidnap you.”
Chapter 71
The AUTEC base, or more commonly known as the Underwater Area 51, is a secret U.S. Marine base whose fundamental mission is to help establish and maintain the naval supremacy of the United States in the world. In its scientific laboratories, the greatest technological advances are being made in submarine engineering.
Located on one side of the island of Andros in the Bahamas, the base comprises various laboratories, all of which are spread along the “Tongue of the Ocean”, a deep ocean trench which is one hundred and eighteen miles long by seventeen wide and over six thousand five hundred feet deep. The presence of non-navigable banks and subsequent lack of maritime traffic, noise, heavy swells and submarine currents make this place ideal for carrying out all kinds of research pertaining to weaponry, submarine and maritime navigation, aerial espionage via radar, global positioning systems, tracking systems and other much more innovative areas, such as advances in electronics and magnetism.
When the hatch opened, Richard got out of the craft following the instructions of the Secretary of the Navy and stepped onto dry land. The “Pit” was a gigantic room, but both glo
omy and damp. Despite being over three hundred feet below sea level, it was one of the busiest parts of the site, housing the experiments of over fifty scientists who used the facilities on a daily basis. The constant hustle and bustle and their breathing consumed the oxygen in the room at a dizzying speed, which is why they had to install several regulators to control the fresh air supply, the pressure and water level inside the pit.
At one end of the room, two men and a woman wearing military gear were carrying out last minute preparations. The three of them greeted his with the respective military salute when the Secretary drew closer to them.
“Good afternoon, officers. From what I have been told, you are the Marines chosen for the mission.”
Richard gave them the once over. The woman must have been about thirty years old, while the men seemed around forty. The three of them were of slim build but with a powerful, muscular physique which gave them a well-defined body and facial features. Several backpacks were lying on the ground, along with a box which was approximately ten square feet and made of polyurethane foam, making it clear that whatever was inside was fragile.
“We’re ready, sir. We have everything we need.”
Richard frowned. He was slightly disappointed. Just a few bags and a ten feet square box to carry out the mission? I was expecting something a little more impressive.
The Secretary caught a glimpse of doubt on Richard’s face and addressed the three Marines. “Mr. Matheson is a prestigious paleographer. He will be accompanying you on this mission and will go down to the seabed with you, where he will confirm the nature of our discovery.”
“What…?! I… I thought I’d be staying on the boat and checking what they found from there.”
“That’s impossible! We only have one chance. If they don’t bring back the object first time round, we won’t be able to try again for weeks. That would be completely out of the question given the situation we are currently in.”
“Why?” asked Richard, awash with concern and staring him straight in the eye. “I can’t swim!”
William barely looked at him. “You won’t need to. Everything will become clear in an hour.”
Without further delay, the three Marines loaded their belongings and the polyurethane box onto the boat previously used by Richard and the Secretary of the Navy. This would be their means of transport.
Meanwhile, Richard was going over and over the words of the Secretary. Why won’t I need to swim? How does he think we’re going to get down there?
Several thousand miles away, on the landing strip on the other side of the world, the SR-91 Aurora remained stationary but with the engines running in anticipation of having to soar through the skies once more. The pilot had already received the go ahead from the control tower and was waiting for confirmation from his companion, who was still talking on the phone. He wasn’t able to hear the conversation due to his headphones being activated to allow communication with air traffic control, but James’ face seemed to show that something wasn’t going well.
“Dad, I’m scared.”
“Don’t worry darling. They won’t hurt you, they need you. Are they in the room?”
In an act of bravery, the girl opened the door slightly and scanned the room through the gap of a fraction of an inch. Her heart suddenly leapt into her mouth when she saw two men coming through the doorway. They were armed with assault rifles.
James was very nervous. “Are they there? Lily, can you hear me?!”
The girl was unable to make a sound. She had froze the second she spotted the weapon of one of the attackers.
They walked around the room, looked inside the bathroom, behind the curtains, under the bed, but they didn’t find what they were looking for. One of the men started to open the closet doors, each of them comprised of four sections with two doors apiece. Lily had a feeling that they were going to find her; it was just a matter of time. He opened the first door and rifled around, but he didn’t find what he was looking for and moved onto the second. It was then that the girl smelt how his nauseating body odor was beginning to filter through the gap between the two doors which she had created to see around the room. Third compartment… Lily began to cry.
“Quick! Come and look at this!”
Another of the attackers who Lily had not seen until then, called them over to the living room and the two of them ran out of the room.
The girl picked up the phone again. “Dad, I think they’ve gone.”
James had been expecting a horrific ending and breathed a sigh of relief at his daughter’s words.
The girl drew closer to the crack in order to have a wider field of vision when she suddenly screamed in fright, scaring James on the other end of the phone.
“Lilyyyyy! What’s going on?! Lilyyyy!”
A dark, emaciated face with several scars and tattoos appeared on the other side of the door, looking in through the crack. It smiled, showing off graying teeth and a blood red tongue. He was happy, he had found what they were looking for.
He violently pulled open the doors two by two. The girl tried to scramble between his legs but his strong hands grabbed her and lifted her up as if she didn’t weigh a thing.
Her screams were like daggers tearing into James’ heart. The pilot wasn’t aware of what was going on, he couldn’t even see the tears streaming down his face.
“Let me go!” screamed the girl while her limbs flailed about in the air, trying to use her arms and legs to hit anything in her reach. “Leave me alone!”
The man raised one of his arms and delivered an unexpected slap to her face. It was intended to shut her up and keep her quiet. It worked, but the girl began to sob.
“Leave her alone! You bastards! Son of a bitch! Do it to me! She’s only a little girl!”
Even though the telephone was on the ground, the attacker could hear James’ voice loud and clear. He picked up the handset and answered in a menacing voice. “If you want to see you daughter alive again, you’d better complete the object. When you do, we’ll get back in touch with you.” Then he cut off the call without warning, ignoring all the obscenities and threats that James was shouting over the phone.
Although the call had finished, the professor was unable to tear the phone away from his ear. His daughter’s screams had disturbed him. He didn’t know what to do.
“Shall we take off?” asked the pilot after he saw that he had finished talking on the phone.
There was another silence. After surreptitiously wiping away the tears from his eyes, he gave a thumbs up sign. He couldn’t even speak. He had to complete the Trifariam as quickly as possible to save his daughter.
Chapter 72
A tall, thin man with Afro-American features entered via the northeast door which led to the office of the President’s secretary. He was wearing a smart dark suit and carried a briefcase in his right arm. He quickly walked towards the curtains and pulled them closed, making the room slightly darker. He hastily brushed aside the piles of paperwork which had been mounting up on his Resolute desk over the last few weeks and set the briefcase down on top.
The President of United States of America punched in the secret code into the lock on the briefcase previously given to him by his secretary. He was confused - everything had been extremely unusual that morning.
He was in a meeting with his Cabinet in the White House Situation Room when an unexpected call disturbed them. Despite being the conference center where the leader and his counselors dealt with all the country’s issues and therefore equipped with the latest in communications technology, the call required a much more private place where the president would be alone. At any other time the call would have to wait, but it was the Secretary of Defense who interrupted them, the same person who should have been present at that meeting but was absent for reasons unknown.
The briefcase opened to reveal a small screen with a button which was lit up. He didn’t know what to do at first until he noticed a kind of post-it stuck on one of the sides. It read, �
��Press the button”. He did so with no hesitation whatsoever. The monitor switched on and a program began to run in the main window without the President having to move a finger. After several seemingly eternal minutes, the face of the United States Secretary of Defense came into view on the screen.
“Mr. President! At last I can talk to you.”
“Peter, you’ve taken me out of a very important meeting which you should be attending. We are in the middle of a world financial crisis and the opposition wants to slit our throats. We have to find a solution urgently. Where the hell are you?”
Peter nodded. The President could never have imagined what was about to be revealed to him. Calmly, the Secretary set about explaining everything: the discoveries made in Cairo and the Pyramid of the Sun, the route the investigation had taken, the operations which were being carried out at that time and, finally, he showed him a recording which detailed what their scientists had found just a few hours before. The video was made up of real images, captured by the Department of Defense, which gave details of everything that was to come and a graphic simulation of what would happen on Earth if it could not be averted.
When he saw it, the President’s face turned red and he couldn’t help but stutter when he spoke. “How long do we have?”
Peter bit his lower lip and breathed in as much air as he could. “Days, Mr. President. Just days.”
Chapter 73
The Bermuda Triangle is also known as the Devil’s Triangle. It is a geographic area between Miami, Puerto Rico and the Bermuda Islands, each of which is a point of the imaginary triangle.
The boat arrived at the established coordinates much earlier than Richard had imagined. The ship slipped through the water at breakneck speed, using a hydraulic system which enabled it to penetrate the waves rather than navigate them. On more than one occasion, Richard became frightened and grabbed the first thing he found when he saw the boat dip beneath the waves only to reappear on the surface a few seconds later.
Trifariam, The Lost Codex (2012) Page 40
