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

by JC Ryan

  After that, the computer had to work through mountains of data to get down to the levels she wanted. And then there was still quite a bit of manual processing, instinctual lines of inquiry that as far as she knew no computer could be programmed to do. Even so, she wished more than once that Raj was there to throw more computing power at this, to speed it up.

  Day 4 - the Canyon

  Once the mini robot had done its job, Roy sent in a bigger robot. This one was not only equipped with ‘arms’ to manipulate and pick up objects, but it was capable of cutting its own hole big enough for it to move through. As soon as Roy programmed it with the coordinates that would avoid the electromagnetic fields, it went to work.

  In no time, it had retrieved the metal box, with no apparent alarm from the beast. In fact, Daniel would have wondered if the face in the wall was actually the beast, as quiet as it seemed to stay after activating upon detecting movement in the room. That is, he would have wondered if it hadn’t exactly matched the description in the letter. Now the question was whether the processing unit, for it was clear this thing was a computer of some kind, was large or small. The robots hadn’t shown them anything that looked like it could be a CPU, so he assumed it was behind the wall. But, they’d soon know if they were right in believing the metal box contained the specs and operating instructions.

  Raj put his computers to work extracting the sound files, but he didn’t have all the server power he had back at Foundation headquarters. Furthermore, he had to keep pausing the process to change the batteries, requiring a trip outside each time. With the computers working at 100% capacity, they churned through the batteries much quicker. Changing them more often meant that sometimes Raj had to wait for an hour or more for a full charge.

  The process was painfully slow. It took until the following morning to get the first of the files to Joseph to begin translating.

  Between changing batteries, Raj was constantly making backups of all the files on all of the computers, Joseph’s and onto the handy little nanotech version of USB sticks that Roy made for him a few years ago. About the size of his thumbnail and equipped with a special connection device he’d modified the computers to accept, each could store approximately fifty terabytes of data. He could, and often did, put dozens of them in his pocket at the same time.

  Now that the beast had been activated, Daniel banned further exploration until they knew what they were dealing with. This left too much time on their hands for men of action, especially JR and Robert. At least most of them had phone calls with their wives back home to occupy part of their downtime. Taking turns on that secure satellite phone so kindly provided by Brideaux, they updated everyone back at the Foundation about their progress.

  Brideaux also accompanied them out, both for phone call breaks and every time they went out to swap batteries. No one thought anything of it. He had his own phone, and lots of interests and companies to stay in touch with even while he was here.

  Day 5 - at the Rossler Foundation

  Early on the morning of the fifth day of the expedition, Salome finally hit pay dirt with the first one of the names of the real owners behind the companies she was investigating – John Brideaux! It shouldn’t have been a surprise. She knew the slimy bastard was up to no good from the first moment she met him. However, it was a shock. Salome knew immediately she had found something significant, but she couldn’t quite put it together, even with Luke’s help.

  She also knew she needed more. If she’d seen his name before, she could have warned Daniel. What had she missed? Did he have his fingers in all the other pies she’d been watching? How powerful must he be, to remain hidden so well? And, what about his associates?

  Before she started the task of rooting Brideaux out in the other industries, Salome consulted with Luke. Who should she tell, with Daniel away, and when? As a result, a hurried meeting was called with Sarah, Rebecca and Sinclair.

  “Friends,” she began, the look of grave news on her face alarming them. “I’ve discovered something disturbing. I don’t know what it means yet. Normally, I’d take it straight to Daniel, but Luke and I wonder if that’s the best course of action at this time. So, you’re here to help us decide.”

  Sinclair, unable to restrain his curiosity any longer, interrupted. “Well, spit it out, lass! What is it?”

  His outburst broke Salome’s tension a bit, and she gave him a half-smile. “I’m getting to that Sinclair. There’s no easy way to say it. I have evidence that John Brideaux may not be the unselfish benefactor he seems to be.”

  The anti-climax startled a laugh out of both Sarah and Rebecca, which in turn startled Salome. She turned a look of confusion on them. Sarah explained. “He ‘may not’ be? Salome, please explain why this required a meeting.”

  Salome regrouped. “Oh, I see I needed more background for you.”

  She proceeded to explain her Spiderweb, omitting the fact that she had been instrumental in constructing the top-secret government project it was based upon. They didn’t need to know that. Once she’d explained its function, Rebecca remained a bit confused about its significance, but Sarah got it. She remembered her conversation with Salome a few days ago.

  “So, you’ve been monitoring people who are, through wealth and influence in major financial and industrial areas, capable of shifting power in any number of ways.”

  “To put it in a nutshell, yes,” Salome replied. “My major concern is the influence on social behavior world-wide. Finances, industry and political power. Those are the three legs on which society functions. It’s just like the concept of our government – separation of powers. When one person or a handful of people dominate all three of those pillars, we’re in trouble if that person has nefarious motives. In fact, we’re in trouble anyway. No one should have that much power. Not even a Mother Teresa.”

  “Amen,” Sarah breathed. “This is disturbing. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.”

  “Of course,” Salome replied.

  “However,” Sarah went on, “I don’t think this is the time to spring it on Daniel. Or any of the others. They have a dangerous job to do. Putting more stress on them with little to back it up and no idea what Brideaux may be up to just doesn’t seem productive to me.”

  “I agree,” replied Rebecca. “JR’s so much better now than he was five or six years ago, but he can still be volatile if something sets him off the wrong way. Let’s wait until we know more.”

  With Sinclair and Luke in agreement, Salome bowed to the majority. Nevertheless, she had a sinking feeling it was the wrong decision.

  Day 5 - the Canyon

  Meanwhile, in the Canyon, Joseph got an early start on the first sound files and worked as fast as he could. The first file is like an introduction to the rest, a table of contents.

  From that first foil they quickly learn what they can expect to find in the foils. His first report to the group was to let Raj know that in the first foil, he’d find diagrams of the beast, which may need to be handled differently than the text. Joseph didn’t know of any way to translate a diagram to speech.

  The diagrams would show how the beast was constructed, critical knowledge if they were to dismantle it.

  Next would come detailed descriptions and code for how the beast communicated with something he translated as ‘skywalkers’. Joseph didn’t stop to analyze what skywalkers must be, but as he spoke his translation into the microphone of his computer, Raj had arranged it so a speech-recognition program would pick it up and broadcast to a streaming file for the others to read if they liked, in real-time. As Joseph continued, JR, Robert and Roy gathered around Daniel at his computer and discussed it.

  “It’s got to be the same as the ‘birds’ in the letter,” JR said.

  “Maybe.” Daniel sounded doubtful. “We can’t jump to conclusions.”

  “Whether it’s the same or not, I’d lay odds it means satellites,” Roy said.

  “No takers,” said Daniel. “I think you’re right.”

&n
bsp; By now, Joseph’s next translation was rolling down the computer screen. JR looked at it and jerked his head toward Joseph in his corner. It took Daniel a moment longer, but both of them recalled hearing Navajo legends at their grandfather’s knees. How did Joseph mean this? JR strode over to Joseph’s corner to question him.

  “Joseph, can you stop a minute? We need clarification.”

  Joseph looked up. “Yes?”

  JR assessed his demeanor. Most Navajos, even ‘modern’ ones who’d been completely assimilated to mainstream American culture, would be a little shaky at the mention of ‘skinwalkers’.

  “Can you come over to Daniel’s desk?”

  Joseph got up and joined the others. “What’s the problem?”

  JR hated to even say the word. Not that he was superstitious, but he didn’t want to offend Joseph, and he certainly didn’t want to have to delay the translation for a ceremony.

  “This word,” he said, pointing to it on the screen. “Did you mean a witch, or is it literal?” He waited with apprehension for the answer.

  Joseph laughed. “There are no witches. This is exactly what the sound file said.”

  Relieved, JR asked the next logical question. “So, what do you think it means?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? It has to be the device the letter described, the thing everyone had implanted at birth to control their health and diet.”

  Joseph’s interpretation was so matter-of-fact and practical that JR was ashamed to have thought he’d be superstitious.

  Joseph went on, though. “Is that all you got out of that section though?”

  “Well, it was the first thing that jumped out. What else did you notice?” Daniel asked.

  “It isn’t just the beast that’s connected to those ‘skywalkers’,” Joseph said. “The ‘skinwalkers’ are, too.”

  A ripple of uneasiness went through everyone around the computer, as each began to get an idea of how the beast had managed to kill people. Unconsciously, more than one rubbed the back of his right hand and felt relief when they found no ‘skinwalker’ embedded there.

  Chuckling and shaking his head, Joseph went back to his corner. Next thing he knew, they’d be asking him to do a rain dance. Foolish white people thought all Navajo were backwards. If it hadn’t been so funny watching JR try not to offend him, it would have been an insult.

  As the long day went on, Joseph translated untiringly. Details emerged about the nanotechnology, which kept Roy engaged and the others horrified at the level of control over the general population it gave the beast’s operators.

  Finally, Daniel asked Joseph to skim the table of contents for what really mattered; how to shut down the beast, and how to dismantle it if necessary.

  That evening, as Daniel spoke to Sarah, he told her they had decided not to make it a two-stage expedition. Rather than bringing everything back to the Foundation, it would be safer and just as easy to shut the thing down right where they were, assuming they could quickly find the foil that contained the shutdown instructions. It should be straightforward; the table of contents indicated the foil was included in the user manual.

  Once they identified it, Joseph would translate it, they’d do the shutdown and get out of there. The only challenge was to find that specific foil in the box. Raj was supposed to find it tonight, as soon as he’d spoken to Sushma on their nightly call.

  Day 6 - at the Rossler Foundation

  Salome had gone along with the decision not to alarm the guys on the expedition, but she couldn’t shake a feeling that they were in as much danger from John Brideaux as from the beast. For that reason, she had pulled an “all-nighter” to dig more. As a result, she’d come up with a handful of names. These were people who could be Brideaux’s associates based on mutual business interests. After narrowing it down to a group of six who had business interests one hundred present aligned with his, she employed one of the most secret and powerful aspects of The Prophet, a complete history of the cell phone movements of a select group of wealthy and powerful men and women in the world. With it, she was able to track the movements of four of them. The report revealed that those four had been together a few times the last few weeks for an hour or so at a time.

  Even though John Brideaux was not on the list, there was a strong possibility he and the other two men she’d identified as his associates had been with the others. If not, it didn’t prove they weren’t involved in some sort of secret cabal. Only that the others very likely were.

  It almost looked like they had become careless in the last few weeks, because there was no trace in the records that these people were together before. At least, not for the past twelve months prior to that first meeting she’d found out about, which was as far back as she looked.

  Based on their holdings, when they’d acquired them and how the stock had behaved both before and after their acquisitions, she had no doubt they’d been associates for years, though. The only conclusion was that they had a secure method of communication and ordinarily had no need to be in each other’s physical presence. It worried her that they now gathered in the same place, that the frequency of these meetings seemed to be accelerating, and that all of them, to the last man, were buying up pathology labs as fast as humanly possible.

  ***

  Luke received a call from his old friend Sam Lewis early the same morning with an invitation to lunch. Sam was on his way from a fishing trip in Wyoming to a balloon festival in Santa Fe, New Mexico and would like to swing through Boulder to catch up. Luke was enthusiastically on board. He hadn’t seen Sam since he retired right after the Sword of Cyrus near-miss. It would be good to have a beer and talk about old times.

  Without saying so over the phone, Luke thought it would be a great idea to fill Sam in on some of the peculiar goings-on within the Rossler Foundation as well. He trusted Sam more than one hundred percent. In a back corner of a little tavern between Boulder and Limon, Luke and Sam had enjoyed a good meal and talked about shared memories until the place cleared out from the lunch crowd and the two old friends were alone except for the bartender.

  It was then Luke turned serious and began to tell Sam about the Eighth Cycle site, the beast, and why they could not go to government with this. Finally, he got around to Salome’s project. Sam knew of The Prophet, but was shocked when Luke showed him what Salome could track and learn about people’s personal stuff these days. He laughed when he said he was glad she was an exceptional case, but still, it was a little scary.

  “You should see the report she ran on me to convince me of all this, Sam. On second thought, you shouldn’t. Too much very private data on there. Almost lost my temper with the girl when I saw it,” Luke said.

  ”I’m glad I’m not in the job anymore,” Sam replied. “I’m enjoying my retirement and catching up on all the fly-fishing I missed all those years. I don’t mind telling you, I’m just too old and tired to handle all of the demands of the job. And these days, the total lack of privacy is too much for me. “

  Luke’s interested expression encouraged him to go on.

  ”You know, just the other day I was talking with one of my old operatives who’s still at the Agency – don’t think you knew him, Luke. Anyway, just as an example of what you’re talking about and what I don’t miss about the job.

  He told me that a major breach in computer security happened a few weeks back. When security audits were done to see what the hackers got, they found that all medical data from the president down to every high ranking government officials, top brass military, FBI and even CIA were copied or hacked into.”

  “No kidding,” Luke said.

  “Nope, not at all. It was a good week after the break-in before they discovered it, too. The guys who are supposed to keep a lookout for this sort of thing twenty-four-seven were fast asleep at the wheel! Even more embarrassing, it happened in other countries at the same time.”

  “So, what happened?” Luke asked. “Why didn’t anyone hear about it?”

  “Oh, a fe
w heads rolled. Nothing was given to the press, because it was a limited number of people, even though they were very important people. It was just too embarrassing to admit their screw-up in public.”

  “I can imagine,” Luke deadpanned. The two had a good chuckle and agreed it certainly was much better to be in retirement, even though Luke kept getting pulled back into the Rossler Foundation business.

  “You’ll have to escape and go fly-fishing with me sometime, buddy,” Sam said. “But right now I have a date with a hot-air balloon. Always wanted to fly in one of those things. Now I’ve got time, it’s something to cross off my bucket list.”

  “Well, have fun,” Luke said. He hoped Sam would get to cross off a few more things on his bucket list before all hell broke loose, but since he couldn’t say when that may happen he didn’t say anything but goodbye.

  Luke waved Sam on his way and then drove over to Foundation headquarters to look in on the girls. He poked his head into Sarah’s office and found her deep in conversation with Rebecca, so he just waved and went on to see Salome in her office. She was staring into space, but gave him a warm welcome, so he sat down to tell her about his lunch with Sam Lewis, who sent her his regards. Then he related Sam’s funny story about the security breach.

  As he talked, though, Salome’s face changed. She was white with shock… what had he said?

  ***

  While Luke was talking, the light dawned for Salome. Thanks to Sam’s story, which wasn’t at all funny, she finally saw the connection, why this group of men, through the guise of their ownership in pharmaceutical companies, had been buying up pathology labs.

  It all fell into place; the merger with the company that had perfected GENTS, the pathology labs, even the reason for the theft of medical data belonging to highly-placed officials in government and the military. Worst of all, the connection to the beast, and the reason for John Brideaux’s presence at the site.