The Skywalkers: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 5)

by JC Ryan

  Chapter 34 - Our time has come

  Daniel located John Brideaux via his cell number. Rather than in his office, Brideaux was fortuitously in Salt Lake City. As soon as Daniel told him there was an important matter to discuss, but not over the phone, Brideaux agreed to fly to Boulder by private helicopter. It would take about two hours, during which time Daniel prepared copies of all the evidence they’d obtained.

  Brideaux could barely contain his true reactions to the letter Daniel handed him. Now and then, he glanced at Rossler and shook his head, or raised his eyebrows. Could this be true? Why hadn’t Matthews yet reported it? If this letter wasn’t a hoax, he and his compatriots were on the verge of world dominion and a chance at peace for all human beings. It was an extraordinary opportunity.

  Brideaux finished the letter, looked at Daniel and smiled. “Daniel what the hell is this? I’d hate to think you summoned me here on the double over some sort of hoax”

  “No, John, not at all. This came from the files we found in the artifact our team brought back from the Grand Canyon site. We’ve had it checked by our best translators. It’s as real as the nose on your face.

  “I’m a busy man, Daniel. I can’t run around after fairytales.”

  “I’m telling you, it is not a hoax. Or, if it is, then the entire site is, and a multi-billion dollar one at that. But there’s technology there we don’t understand yet. I’d bet my life we’re looking at an Eighth Cycle site with a huge problem in it,” Daniel replied.

  “I agree. If this is all true, and I am still trying to believe it is true, we have some goddamn serious fuckin’ shit on our hands.” Brideaux noted with satisfaction that his language had thrown Daniel for a loop. Off-balance, Rossler wouldn’t question his own reactions. He continued, “We need to get that fuckin’ beast and destroy it, like yesterday. It must not be allowed to leave that canyon, ever.”

  Visibly relieved, Daniel said, “That’s why I asked for the face to face meeting. I believe it should be top priority, and we have already thrown all the manpower we have at it. Can we count on you to keep on funding this?”

  Brideaux answered without hesitation. “Yes of course! I never do a job halfway. What do you need from me? Name it, and I’ll get it or fund your acquisition.

  Daniel gave him an overview of the steps they had taken, to Brideaux’s approval. ”It looks like you've got things under control. I have nothing to add except that you must stay in touch and let me know your progress and if there is anything else I can do. Whatever you need, you’ve got it

  ***

  Salome walked by just as Daniel was walking someone she hadn’t met before out of his office. Daniel stopped her and introduced her to John Brideaux, who he said was a great friend to the Foundation and a great supporter.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. James. I must say, you’re by far the sexiest head of security I’ve ever met.”

  Salome felt her eyes grow as big as saucers as she shot Daniel a look that plainly said ‘what the hell is this?’ She’d automatically held out her hand to shake Brideaux’s but the time had come and gone for him to let go, and yet he still held her hand. He was going on about having heard of her heroics during the Sword of Cyrus crisis. She tugged on her hand a bit, but he held it fast.

  Salome had met his type before; filthy rich and most probably could buy as many women as he wanted. She despised men like that, especially men who acted this way. She tugged her hand again, this time successfully extricating it from his. If he ever tries to get funny with her, she thought, I’ll get Roy to shove a nano nuke up his ass and detonate it.

  When he and Daniel moved on, Salome went to the bathroom and washed her hands to get the sticky feeling of Brideaux’s touch off them. While she chafed her hands under the dryer, she decided to check him out as soon as she can get a free moment. For now, she had her hands full, with the security audit of the Foundation she and Luke were running.

  ***

  John Brideaux felt what had to be the ultimate feeling of satisfaction as the secure satellite link showed him his group's faces one by one. Though there was a babble of questions, he intended to wait until everyone was here. Out of the background noise, he heard, ‘John why did you call us?’ ‘What’s going on?’ and ‘What is so urgent?’

  When the noise had grown to an almost unbearable level and all were in attendance, Brideaux took a sip from the cognac in the crystal glass in front of him and started with the words, “Gentlemen, our time is here. We must start to prepare ourselves at once. I have called this urgent special meeting of Eligo Rarus due to very important information I gathered from the Rossler Foundation today.”

  It was not for his wealth alone that John Brideaux was president of Eligo Rarus. He’d made a connection that hadn’t yet occurred to even the geniuses of the Rossler Foundation. As he recounted to his compatriots what he’d learned about the latest discovery, he quoted the letter almost verbatim. Expressions of shock followed his presentation, yet he smiled throughout, until even the most vocal fell silent. Finally, someone thought to ask why he seemed so pleased, and he revealed to them the connection he’d made. The beast was some sort of device that was programmed with the “blood” of the citizens and that was how the Eighth Cycle government got control and kept control over everyone. “We now have the opportunity to do the same, as soon as the Rossler Foundation locates this ‘beast’ for us. Rest assured, we will be on hand to take control of it.”

  Next, he laid out the simple plan to exploit the beast. “We must buy up all pathology labs at once. From now on each and every blood test will be used to create a genetic profile using GENTS. Within a few years, the genetics of almost the entire world population will be in our hands.

  “Furthermore, we must activate all our contacts in government security agencies and extract the medical files, DNA sequences and genetic profiles of all high-ranking politicians and security force officers. Everyone’s files that are kept in government hands must be collected at once.”

  It needed no further discussion. Each had long been prepared with their assignments in case something like this fell into their hands. Within 24 hours they were fully operational. They had activated sleeper agents and other contacts with generous sums of money and benefits, or bribed and threatened others. In some cases their network of hackers had broken into the servers of government security agencies and downloaded what they wanted, carefully taking all precautions to wipe out their tracks after the hacks to make sure no one would know they had been there.

  Within three weeks they had everything they wanted from the entire senior officer corps of every security agency of almost all of the Western countries, as well as those of Russia and China. What’s more they had all the required information for each and every political leader and other high ranking politicians and government officials for all of those countries as well.

  All they wanted now was The Beast, so they could deploy it at the right time. With no news from the Rossler Foundation in this time, Brideaux assured the group that if they couldn’t get their hands on it they will develop their own beast and take over the world. But, why wait for that to be developed when they can have it delivered to them on a silver platter in the next few weeks?

  All this activity was managed without a single alarm being raised in any security agency. Their well-placed contacts and carefully-laid plans made sure of that. When it was done, they raised a gleeful toast to John Brideaux, their leader, for his foresight.

  ***

  Raj hadn’t wasted time in writing a program that could search the sound files for the words relating to the beast. He not only threw all the computing power he could at doing the work, he bought more servers and put them to work as well. Though he had it all done within a few days, now the translating team was swamped with work. As usual, the human component was the bottleneck. Raj trusted his computers far more. He suggested the expedition not wait for them to finish. Instead, he recommended they get to that Room of Knowledge on the 4th floor d
escribed in the letter, so they could find the rest of the information pertaining to the beast and produce the sound files and search them.

  Daniel agreed with Raj. At one of what were becoming interminable meetings, he proposed to the rest of the team that they go sooner rather than later. Everyone agreed it was a good idea, as long as they stayed away from the room of the beast. JR and Robert were the first to volunteer to go and get it. With Brideaux’s earlier assurance that he would be more than happy to fund their trip, Daniel made arrangements to fly them out by private jet and helicopter as with previous expeditions.

  ***

  This trip was becoming like a commute to JR and Robert, though they were happy for the helicopter ride as opposed to the original trek by mule and foot, through the slot canyon and around to the entrance of the site. Apart from the unnerving elevator ride, it was a walk in the park, so to speak.

  It was the work of less than an hour to locate the room. JR and Robert had assumed it would be quick, and had the helicopter pilot wait. It took rather longer to move out what they found: 100 metal boxes, each containing 10 smaller metal boxes like that first one and the other 5 they found before. 1,000 small metal boxes in total. They could imagine it being the entire history of the Eighth Cycle - or would it only be the part of the history that the Council of The Selected decided should be recorded? They were about to find out.

  Once JR reported by sat link how many boxes were on the way, Raj got permission from John Brideaux via Daniel to get whatever computer power he needed. Two days later, JR and Robert were back at headquarters with the boxes and Raj went to work. With his new server setup Raj was in the seventh heaven. The only thing that could have given him more pleasure would have been if Sushma had told him he was going to be the father of twins. Within two hours after JR and Robert’s arrival, he had five parallel streams of computers running, producing sound files while churning through about fifty of the small metal boxes per hour. At this rate they would have all the sound files ready in less than twenty-four hours. And they did.

  All the files were now in an enormous database and again Raj did his magic, split the database into five segments and started all five server clusters in parallel search functions. When the entire search had been completed in the next 12 hours, about 100 references to the beast had been found.

  Those Raj handed off to Sinclair and the translation team, with Stephen Matthews helping where he could. After flying through the preliminaries with the computers, it was a slow and tedious process for the translators to do what they were tasked with – like watching grass grow. It would take a few weeks to get through the translations.

  Chapter 35 - Its 30 seconds to 12

  Meanwhile, Salome and Luke continued with their security audit. There wasn’t much more they could do to make things more secure around the Rossler Foundation, nor to protect everyone. But they kept an eye on the Spiderweb, and periodically updated the Enigma timeline.

  When they estimated the doomsday clock had moved to 30 seconds to 12, it was time to brief the inner circle, those who didn’t yet know, about their findings and what the Foundation was going to do about it.

  Thus it was that the old team and those of the newer group who’d proved themselves part of the family found themselves once again in the large conference room, hearing all about something called Enigma. Raj, Robert, Roy, Salome, Luke and now JR, Rebecca and Sinclair were about to be brought fully up to speed on what had been a closely-held secret before.

  Since Salome had been the one to initiate these plans, Daniel asked her to bring everyone up to speed and then hand out individual assignments. Sinclair had been through something like this back in the original search for the Pyramid code, so he wasn’t surprised. JR and Rebecca were more so, but they took it in stride. No one there was a stranger to crisis.

  Each member of what they now decided to call the Enigma “group” naturally had an assignment according to their specialties.

  With no further questions or discussion for the moment, Daniel adjourned the meeting. He had a feeling the final decisions on who went with them would rest on his shoulders. He could only hope he was strong enough to know when to say ‘no’. If only he could save everyone.

  Chapter 36 - Find the instruction manual

  Although the progress was slow, over the course of the next few weeks the translation team found the information they were looking for about the beast. It came in bits and pieces and slowly but surely they build the picture. Adding to some confusion, the translators had to substitute words they had for sophisticated concepts, just as the Code-talkers had done decades before. But, at last, the picture emerged.

  The beast was a machine, probably a computer, which somehow communicated with “birds” in the sky.

  “Planes?” Sinclair questioned. “Joseph told me the Code-talkers used the same word for planes.”

  “I doubt it,” Roy said. “I suspect those would be something similar to what we would today call a satellite.”

  The “birds” in the sky had the blood data of every person on earth at the time, and strangely, were somehow aware of the whereabouts of each person in its database at all times. While Sinclair declared it mindboggling and demanded to know how such a thing were possible, Salome pointed out that since GPS was built into cell phones, today’s communications companies were able to track and pinpoint anyone who had one in a similar way in seconds. And who these days didn’t have one? It had been going on for years; how else had Special Forces tracked terrorists in the early part of the century but with GPS and satellite photography so sensitive it could identify a face from outer space. So maybe they had something implanted in their citizens to track them?

  However, the mechanism for control wasn’t so clear. The records mentioned something the translators called an invisible ray of death or pain that came from these “birds” in the sky. Some accounts even stated that no one had ever seen it, but millions upon millions had been killed by it or extreme pain inflicted on them. Invisible ray? Raj thought of alien ray guns, but Roy had a more plausible suggestion. Maybe nano robots or the type of nano-poison or disease the Sword of Cyrus tested in Africa, he suggested.

  Daniel thought it was like building a puzzle with some of the pieces missing and no picture to look at.

  ***

  Despite, or perhaps because of, the concern everyone felt about the mysterious ‘beast’ references and the need to hurry to secure and destroy it, Enigma was moving along with good pace. This was largely because Daniel had now thrown his full support behind the idea, for which Salome was grateful. She had a feeling of looming disaster that had less to do with the increasingly disturbing data from the Spiderweb than it did a gut feeling.

  That Daniel now had it too was both encouraging, because his authority lent hers wings, and alarming. Because all the time she’d known Daniel, even in the midst of the Sword of Cyrus crisis, he’d been an optimist. Raj was a different matter. Even before Salome had met him, by all reports Raj was paranoid.

  He always said something strange, that he attributed to a habit Daniel used to have of twisting aphorisms. “Just because you’re not paranoid, doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you.” Or something like that. She’d never been able to sort out the cancelling negatives. And besides, Raj was paranoid, so it made no sense.

  Raj designed a mirroring system among his servers so that at any given time, one set was within ten minutes of powering down while the others took the load. This way, he could reliably shut them all down, with the one that had gone through the proper sequence most recently serving as backup in case an emergency shut-down corrupted files in the others. Then he performed drills to make sure it all worked.

  Rebecca would have a complete medical setup, including a small surgery room, ready and waiting at the Rabbit Hole, so that she would be free to help Sarah with her family. For now, Emma and Sally were packing everything they could think of to take with them, as if they were pioneers setting out across the land for a new
way of life. In a way, they were.

  Taking a leaf from Rebecca’s book, Roy had a duplicate lab designed to be included in the Rabbit Hole engineering plans. Of course, he’d still have to pack up and take his current projects. As Salome had warned him, he couldn’t leave anything behind for the use of whoever or whatever invaded the building after they were gone. She encouraged him to practice the bug-out, to try to cut his time down from half an hour to ten minutes, like Raj.

  Going into Daniel’s office one day, Salome found him staring at nothing and wondered if he were sleeping with his eyes open. She wouldn’t have blamed him; he’d been stretched thin over the past few weeks.

  “Daniel, am I disturbing you?”

  “What? Oh, no, Salome. I was just thinking. Do you remember the zombie apocalypse craze that was popular eight or nine years ago?”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling. What was on his fertile mind now?

  “I was just thinking, we’re acting like a zombie apocalypse is coming. Are we over-reacting to things?”

  Salome took a minute to consider her answer. “No, I don’t think so. I have a bad feeling about what I see on the Spiderweb, and an even worse one about this beast in the canyon site. It may not be zombies, but if we fail to destroy it and it falls into the wrong hands, it could be just as bad.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “Fortunately, I think we’re just about ready to go after it. Did you need something? If not, I need to give John Brideaux a call and get final funding to get the expedition on its way.”

  “No, what I have can wait. Send for me when you’re ready.”

  “Okay, thanks Salome.”

  Her next stop was at JR’s office, where she found him and Robert with their heads together, planning something.