The Thirteenth Legion (A James Acton Thriller, #15) (James Acton Thrillers)

by J. Robert Kennedy

  The shiver.

  A tingling sensation racing up his spine then spreading out over his body. He was certain it was just a physiological response to an emotional reaction. It was hardly the first time he had shivered. Lots of eerie moments in his life, whether it was out on a dark night, deep in a damp cave, crawling through a narrow passage leading to an ancient chamber not seen in thousands of years, or just watching a great horror movie, all had led to a shiver exactly like it.

  The skulls were creepy looking, and the way light would gather in the eye sockets gave it the appearance it was glaring at you.

  Definitely enough to trigger a psychological reaction.

  No magic involved.

  So why was he here?

  He looked at his sleeping wife and knew she was part of it. She believed there was something special about the skulls, beyond their unknown method of manufacture. She had told him once she believed that when man was ready to understand them, then their secrets would be revealed.

  Definitely not very scientific.

  Yet that was only part of it.

  He was here for his own reasons. Perhaps it was his penchant for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, or his sometimes nearly fatal curiosity. Whatever it was, something had compelled him to come along. Though he was positive nothing would come of this, he couldn’t deny himself the opportunity, no matter how slim, to see what could be a discovery that would change mankind forever.

  And tonight, what was sure to be the biggest disappointment in the Triarii’s two thousand year history, would soon be over, and his involvement with these people would be too. He and Laura would head home, and the skulls would be done with.

  A disappointment for Laura, for certain, though the mystery of how they had been made would remain.

  And he was sure the true believers would claim they just hadn’t been ready to receive the power, and the mystery would continue, left for a future generation of Triarii to challenge.

  A generation he hoped would come long after he was dead and buried.

  They crested a rise and Chaney pointed. “Do you see it?”

  Acton leaned forward, disturbing Laura who woke, rubbing her eyes.

  “Are we there?” she asked.

  “Apparently.”

  Acton searched the area Chaney was pointing at yet saw nothing, just rock. Nothing but rock. Laura poked her head between the seats beside him. His eyes suddenly narrowed, spotting something then losing it as the car dipped slightly. He caught it again, still not sure what he was looking at. It still appeared to be rock, but there was something wrong, something out of place.

  “Do you see it?”

  Acton shook his head. “No, but yes. I don’t see it, but I know there’s something there, something wrong.”

  Chaney chuckled. “Then the designers got it right.” He pointed slightly to the left. “Look at the dark spots.”

  Acton leaned further forward, still seeing nothing, when suddenly it all snapped into focus. He gasped. “I see it!” The dark spots were too symmetrical, too smooth, whatever they were apparently not lending themselves to the camouflage the rest of the facility utilized. Laura gasped beside him as she too finally spotted it.

  “What is it?”

  Chaney turned in his seat. “A location we’ve been preparing for over a decade for just this occasion.”

  Acton looked at him then back at the rapidly approaching installation. “What, some sort of Dr. No lab?”

  Chaney chuckled. “Exactly, just a lot less evil.”

  Multiple Austin Powers lines leapt to mind, but Acton bit his tongue as the driver reached up and pressed a button, a large chunk of rock just down the road and to their left sinking into the ground. The driver slowed, making the turn quickly. Acton leaned back in his seat, Laura beside him, gripping his arm as they sped through a narrow road cut into the volcanic rock. Acton glanced back to see the other two vehicles behind them, the large rock rising as they passed, hiding their path from the road. Looking to the sides his eyes narrowed. He leaned toward the window and stared up, suddenly realizing the road had been cut so deep, that the stone arced over their heads, leaving only a sliver of sky visible.

  It was probably completely hidden from aerial view unless you knew to look for it.

  And why would anyone?

  “Very impressive.”

  Chaney smiled. “This is nothing. Just wait.” He pointed at a looming stone outcropping, the driver not slowing down. Suddenly the wall parted like a massive set of French doors and they plunged into the darkness, the vehicle immediately tipping forward as they descended what Acton had to hope was a ramp. He glanced back at the other vehicles, the doors already closing behind them, the sliver of light from outside suddenly gone.

  Lights flooded the entire area, forcing Acton to blink a few times to adjust. He turned toward the front and gasped as Laura gripped his arm.

  “Unbelievable!”

  Hilton Reykjavik Nordica, Reykjavik, Iceland

  Someone knocked at the door of the hotel room, killing the conversation. Dawson motioned toward Niner and Spock to check it out. Both drew their weapons and made for the door in silence. Niner peered through the peephole and waved Spock off.

  “It’s Leather.” He opened the door and Leather’s team entered without saying anything, the last man closing the door.

  Dawson rose, shaking Leather’s hand as everyone introduced themselves. “This room is too tight for everyone. I’ve got two rooms next door for your team plus equipment. Get a quick bite and get your equipment squared away. We’re leaving in one hour.” Dawson pointed to a table near the door, two cardkeys sitting on it. “Six-twelve and Six-fourteen.”

  Leather nodded to his team and the room quickly thinned out, Leather remaining. “Sitrep?”

  Dawson motioned to an empty chair then spun a laptop toward him with a map of the island. “They took a vehicle around the island, so we’ve gained a lot of time.”

  “Nice of them. I thought these guys were well funded. Why not take a chopper?”

  “I’m guessing they don’t want ATC wondering where they’re going. If they’ve got an installation here, chances are the government doesn’t know about it, and frequent air traffic might demand an investigation.” Dawson smiled. “Luckily, we have no such concerns, so I’ve arranged two choppers that will carry us to their last known location, which is here.” He pointed to a glowing red dot along the northern coast. “This is where their signals were cut off. We’re assuming they’re inside some sort of shielded structure, but satellite images from Langley are showing nothing.”

  “New images arriving now,” said Niner, clicking a few keys. “Sending them to your laptop.”

  Dawson opened up the new images. “These are better.”

  “Much,” agreed Niner as he zoomed in, Dawson doing the same. He and Leather leaned in closer, examining the area, two red dots indicating the last known location of the professors, the entire area rock with little else, the ring road in the bottom of the frame. “I’m not seeing anything, are you?”

  Leather shook his head, then pointed at a sliver in the photo, leading from the ring road to the dots. “Is that a road?”

  Dawson zoomed in the photo some more. “Can’t be. It’s way too narrow to fit a vehicle.”

  Atlas peered at their screen. “Some sort of lava tube or whatever they’re called, the top of it eroded away maybe?”

  Spock nodded. “Or a channel cut by glacier runoff. That could mean it’s hollow inside, big enough to hold a vehicle.”

  Niner opened his mouth to say something when he stopped, pressing a finger to his headset. “I’ve got that call from Langley.”

  Dawson motioned to the speaker at the center of the table and Niner activated it. Dawson leaned in. “This is Zero-One, you’re on speaker, all trusted personnel.”

  “Hello Zero-One, Control Actual.” Dawson smiled slightly, recognizing the voice of the analyst he had dealt with on several previous occasions, Chris
Leroux. He was young, though good at his job—in fact, excellent at his job. He had the added bonus of being a good friend of Dylan Kane’s, and if Kane trusted him, Dawson did too. “I’m calling about your request to retask a bird on that area. As this is a semi-unauthorized mission, I wasn’t able to get that for you, but the regularly scheduled bird just flew past. I’ve got footage streaming to you now.”

  Dawson pointed at the laptops and Niner nodded, pulling up the stream and spinning it around so everyone could see. “I’ve got that footage now, Control.”

  “Good. As you can see, there’s nothing obvious there. Just a bunch of volcanic rock. But watch what happens when you switch to thermal.” The stream suddenly switched, everything a dull blue or black, with several large red and yellow hotspots. “You see the hotspots?”

  Dawson nodded. “Yes.”

  “Obviously those shouldn’t be there. They’ve done an excellent job at heat dispersion, and if you weren’t looking for something, you’d just dismiss it as either volcanic activity of heat retention from the sun.”

  Dawson pursed his lips, glancing at the others. “But we’re sure it’s neither.”

  “Yes. No matter how much you want to hide things, you need some sort of exhaust for your ventilation system. In cases like this, you try to pipe it away from your location so if it’s discovered, at least your main site is still secure.”

  “But how do we know these heat sources are from exhaust ports?”

  “From this image, you can’t. But as the satellite continued, we got an angle shot.” The screen changed and a new image appeared. “Do you see it?”

  Dawson leaned in then smiled, his head bobbing as he leaned back so the others could look. It was clearly a rectangle, clearly manmade.

  “Looks like a grate,” observed Atlas, his booming voice excited. “I think he’s found it.”

  “That’s our assessment as well,” said Leroux. “This appears to be their final destination, and the facility appears to be underground, which would explain why their tracking devices stopped transmitting.”

  “We’ll be heading there in less than an hour.”

  “Understood.”

  “Any signs of sentry guns? After what happened in London, I don’t want to be walking into a wall of lead.”

  “We’ve been going over the images and we haven’t been able to find anything, however that doesn’t mean they’re not there. The ones they used in London were designed to be completely hidden until it’s too late.”

  Dawson frowned, everyone exchanging glances. He hated automated defenses, which was one of the reasons air support was so important. Bomb the shit out of an area, and you had a good chance of taking out any sentry guns.

  That wasn’t an option in Iceland.

  “Any signs of a way in?”

  “Nothing beyond the vent.”

  Dawson leaned in, examining the image. “What’s the scale on that? Can we fit?”

  “You can definitely fit through the opening. No promises as to the rest of the way, or where it goes. They’ll probably be monitoring it so you’ll need to bypass any security.”

  Niner leaned toward the speaker. “Any idea where they’re getting their power?”

  “Good question.”

  “Of course.”

  Leroux chuckled, Atlas punching Niner in the shoulder. “Respect, dude!”

  “There’s no evidence of any wind or solar, and not enough heat is being vented for diesel or some other type of fossil fuel generator.”

  “Batteries?” suggested Spock.

  “They’d still need to be vented, and to be charged. But, we did find this.” A new photo appeared showing the waterline and some sort of manmade structure extending into the water.”

  “What the hell is that?” asked Niner.

  “Our guess is they have some sort of tidal generator, and the electricity is fed into the facility through wires underneath this covering.”

  Dawson nodded. “So if we cut those, they go dark.”

  “They’ll probably have some sort of battery capacity that will kick in, but someone will definitely poke their head outside to take a look.”

  Dawson smiled. “And that will tell us where the damned door is.” He checked his watch. “Okay, anything else?”

  “Not at this time, but we’re still going over the data. If we find out anything, we’ll contact you.”

  “Good. We leave in thirty mikes.”

  Denier Installation, Iceland

  “My God, I feel like I’m on the set of a James Bond movie!”

  “Thanks,” replied Chaney, he leading Acton and Laura deeper into the buried facility. “I have to admit that every time I come here, I get goosebumps.”

  It was everything Acton could do to keep his jaw shut, each new glimpse causing it to drop, Chaney freely answering all their questions as they walked through massive open areas with vehicles, piping, ducts, cable bundles and more, along with dozens upon dozens of personnel in color coded jumpsuits. It was a marvel of modern engineering, built inside what appeared to be long dormant magma chambers.

  “This must have cost a fortune,” said Laura, her head on a swivel just like his.

  “It did.”

  “Where did you get the money?”

  “The Triarii is very wealthy.”

  “Yes, but you’re not the Triarii.”

  Chaney tossed a smile over his shoulder at her. “Noo, but many who controlled the purse strings joined us.” He extended his hands to either side, encompassing the sight before them. “It’s the dawn of a new age, Professor, and many of our people wanted to join us in our quest. This entire facility is a dream taken form, a means to an end we’ve been seeking for two thousand years.”

  Acton stared at what appeared to be massive capacitors. “And when it’s all over, and you’ve either proven or disproven your theory, what then?”

  Chaney paused, turning to face them. “I would hope we could find peace among ourselves and reunite, stronger than ever, knowing once and for all the answers to the questions we have been asking for so long.”

  Laura looked at him. “You truly are convinced this will work.”

  “Absolutely.” He smiled, leaning slightly toward her. “And Professor, I think you are too, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.” He tilted his head toward Acton. “And you as well.”

  Acton smiled slightly, wagging a finger. “Don’t mistake my being here for anything other than self-preservation. Scientists were afraid that if they detonated the first atomic bomb, it might start a chain reaction that would destroy the entire planet.”

  “Yet it didn’t.”

  “No, after a bunch of mathematics, they were pretty sure it wouldn’t. Yet they weren’t a hundred percent, and they went ahead anyway.”

  Laura nodded. “And many feared turning on the Large Hadron Collider would create a wormhole that would consume the planet.”

  Chaney chuckled. “And again, it didn’t.”

  Acton shook his head. “I’m not sure if that thing’s at full power yet, so the jury might still be out on that one.”

  Chaney laughed. “Sceptics. Think of it this way, Professors, if a wormhole is created, none of us will care, will we?”

  Acton grunted. “We will for a few seconds.”

  Chaney snorted. “And I’m sure they’ve got someone on a kill switch, just in case they spot something odd.”

  Acton pulled in a slow breath, any levity gone. “And that’s why I’m here. I kill this if anything strange happens. Agreed?”

  Chaney bowed. “Absolutely. We’re here to learn, not destroy. Tonight is the beginning of what will be a fascinating chapter in humanity’s history.”

  Laura’s eyes narrowed as they resumed walking. “Haven’t you already had time for experiments? You’ve had nine skulls now for days.”

  “Our scientists have been working hard on getting things ready for today’s final experiment. The machine is only now ready to go online, which was why we triggered the en
dgame when we did. We now have all thirteen skulls, and the machine that we’ve been working on for a decade is ready.”

  “What machine?” asked Acton.

  “One designed to safely harness the energy released by the skulls.”

  Acton shook his head, giving Laura a look behind Chaney’s back. “Energy you’ve never actually witnessed.”

  “Personally, no, but we know what happened in London in 1212. That disaster won’t be repeated.”

  “If only three skulls destroyed half of London, how could you possible hope to handle thirteen?”

  Chaney stopped in front of a set of doors, flanked by two guards with very serious looking FN P90s. “With this.” The guards pulled open the doors and they stepped inside.

  Acton gasped, his jaw forgotten, his mouth agape. They were standing in a large control center, ringed with monitors and workstations, the only gap the door they had just entered through. It was stark white, the only color from the displays, all showing various readings, of what, Acton had no clue. The floor was translucent, and below them was bare rock, the chamber they were in, mounted on pylons driven into the ground below, large springs coiled at the midpoints, suggesting the entire structure was designed to handle any type of seismic event that might be thrown at it.

  Laura gasped. “Oh my God!”

  He turned toward her to see her head tilted back as she stared above. He looked and his eyes shot wide open, his chest tightening at the sight. Thirteen telescoping arms surrounded the structure in a circle, all equally spaced, all but four with a crystal skull mounted to the end. Each of the empty arms had teams in cleanroom suits working to mount the newly arrived skulls.

  He hugged himself, cold, noticing Laura doing the same.

  Chaney smiled. “See, even I’m shivering, and it’s worse now that all thirteen are here.”

  Acton willed himself to stop shivering. “It’s cold in here, that’s all.”

  Chaney laughed. “There’s no convincing you, is there? But yes, it is cold. The scientists say electricity conducts better in the cold. Outside this chamber, where the skulls are, will be lowered to near absolute zero when they’re ready.” He held out his hand. “Please, feel free to look around and ask questions. We’re all friends here.”