Omega: A Jack Sigler Thriller

by Jeremy Robinson

  King recalled the effects of the apple seed. When crushed and liquefied, they acted as a potent regenerative medicine. King himself had been healed by one once, thanks to his good friend, George Pierce.

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll heal the old fashioned way,” King said.

  “Thought you might say that,” Alexander tossed a white plastic bottle through the air toward King. “Heads up.”

  King caught the bottle in the air with his left hand, grimacing, as his chest muscles stretched.

  “800 milligram ibuprofen tablets—the old fashioned way. Have some green tea to wash it down.” Alexander began pouring tea from an ornate golden cloisonné kettle into delicate little matching teacups. King raised an eyebrow at the man again.

  “Seriously,” the large man said. “Green tea has long been known to reduce the risks of heart disease and cancer, as well as boosting the metabolic rate. Plus, it’s soothing to the nerves.”

  “You were saying about my parents?” King asked, watching the man’s hands for any signs that he was slipping something into the brew.

  “Peter and Lynn were being held by Ridley’s people. While Chess Team was content with the New Hampshire base, my people were taking all the other Manifold facilities around the world.” Alexander nodded to Peter and Lynn. “I freed them. They were in Singapore under my protection until last week, when I brought them here. You see, Jack, Ridley was long fascinated with all aspects of antiquity. One of the things he wanted most—the mother tongue—he eventually got his hands on, as you well know. But to get there, he hunted down every sign and every clue he could find that would lead him to the last living speakers of several ancient languages. You know all this.”

  Alexander finished pouring the tea, placed a cup on the table in front of King, next to the untouched glass of scotch, then took his own seat, next to Asya. He pursed his lips, blew on his cup to cool the brew, then sipped his tea. The tiny teacups looked ridiculous in his massive hands.

  Lynn reached for her own cup and took a sip. Alexander had not poured a cup for Peter. The man still had a glass of scotch in his hands. King eyed the tea suspiciously, but seeing no ill effects on Lynn, and not wanting to be rude, he sipped the brew. It was strangely lacking in flavor, like drinking hot water. He wondered why anyone would drink it. Still, he popped the ibuprofen and washed it down with another sip of the scalding liquid.

  “Those speakers of ancient languages all had one other thing in common, Jack. Something I didn’t find out until too late, which is why so many of them perished, and why I was so keen to safeguard them all.” Alexander scowled at the thought of the dead that he had failed to protect.

  “What did they have in common?” King asked.

  Alexander looked directly at him. “Me.”

  King turned to Asya, but she looked as confused as he did.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Jack, I know you might not believe it, but I am several centuries old. How many offspring do you think a man like me might have had over those years?”

  Then it hit King all at once. “No…”

  Asya hadn’t figured it out yet. “What?”

  “All those people…my daughter. They’re all your descendants.” King looked at Alexander, with his mouth open. “And...shit. We are too.” He glanced at Asya again so she would know the ‘we’ implicated her.

  Alexander nodded. “As is your father. I didn’t know at first, but I looked into the incident when your mother bugged you.”

  “Sorry, son,” Lynn smiled sheepishly.

  “I had suspected our connection for quite some time, Jack.” Alexander drank his tea.

  “You mean to tell me you weren’t tracking my movements?” King asked.

  “Think about it, Jack. Centuries, and generation after generation? I can’t possibly keep track of all my descendants. But sometimes I come across someone I’m sure about. You noticed that you and your sister were immune to those creatures—you called them Dire Wolves—in Norway, while the rest of your team was affected?” Alexander pointed to King and Asya. “My blood, diluted by centuries of course, but enough to keep you from feeling the effects of those creatures.”

  King recalled that other members of Chess Team and even support members of Endgame had been affected by a fear-inducing sonic cry from the creatures they had faced the previous year. He alone had seemed immune to the effect. But during the final battle, he had discovered that Asya was likewise unaffected.

  “Wait, you’ve mentioned that you’ve been known by many names. Was one of them Adoon?”

  Alexander’s face darkened. “Where did you hear that name?”

  “In Norway. The thing we fought—Fenrir—referred to us as the ‘Children of Adoon.’ I thought at the time that it was speaking of Earth’s inhabitants or referring to the Biblical children of Adam, but it wasn’t, was it? It was talking about me…and my connection to you. Who the hell are you?”

  Alexander sighed. “I’m just a man trying to get home, Jack. And I need your help.”

  “When you say ‘home,’ you don’t mean Greece, do you?”

  TWENTY

  Omega Facility, Carthage, Tunisia

  It had been only a few hours, but Queen, was already deeply tired of the three Ridley clones. They were the enemy, but as much as she wanted them gone, she needed to understand them.

  “So you three are exact duplicates of the original Ridley? You have the same emotions, the same thoughts? How does that work?” she asked.

  They were standing in the ruins of the Roman amphitheater, a large circular walled field with patchy grass and stone debris of what Queen guessed were once buildings. The remains of pillars stood around the circumference of the stadium—some only nubs after the ravages of time. A lone standing pillar stood on a raised platform. The center of the arena had a recessed area like a trench with gates on either end. Seth led them down to one of the gates, which he then unlocked with a key.

  “As I’ve said, we three do not possess the mother tongue, but as I understand it, our Creator used the mother tongue to merge his DNA with the raw material he imbued with life.

  Queen raised an eyebrow. It sounded hokey as hell, but she’d seen it with her own eyes more than once. “By raw material you mean, what, clay?”

  “It is the most stable of elements with which to imbue life,” he replied. “And our lives began as fully formed duplicates of our Creator, complete with his memories, aspirations and intellect. But from that moment forth, we each began creating new memories and having new thoughts shaped by our individual experiences. So while two years ago we were duplicates in every way of Richard Ridley, now we might even be considered human, as we have each led separate lives and made choices our Creator might not have.”

  “That’s too bad,” Queen said, as they entered the shadowed end-chamber behind the gate. Knight and Bishop had barrel-mounted flashlights on their MP-5 submachine guns that illuminated the space around them. Jared moved to the wall and began running his fingers along the top, where it met the ceiling. When his fingers found an indentation, he slipped his index and middle finger inside.

  “Why is that?” Seth asked.

  A loud clatch noise filled the arched space, and a portion of the stone wall began to slide back on incredibly quiet pistoning motors. Queen could just barely hear them hissing like air compressors.

  She shoved Seth toward the open doorway. “Because I was thinking about killing one of you. If you were just plain old duplicates of Ridley, I wouldn’t shed a tear. But on the off chance that as ‘new humans’ you might have some redeeming quality, I’ll keep you alive a little longer.”

  Seth stepped into the new opening, which revealed a modern metal stairwell and concrete walls. He reached to the wall and flipped on a light switch. Suddenly the stairwell was lit up with bright fluorescent spotlights mounted on the walls and protected by metal cages. He turned to Queen. “That is very considerate of you.”

  Rook walked past the man, intentionally slam
ming his shoulder into Seth’s. “I didn’t make any such promise, cupcake.”

  Seth looked at Knight, but the short Korean just stalked away into the stairwell after Rook and the other two duplicates.

  Then Bishop walked toward Seth. “Don’t even look at me.” Unlike Rook, Bishop walked around Seth, as he made for the stairs. He was the poster child for anger management, but that was primarily because he stored up his rage for when he really needed it most. Then he became a volcano. If he let himself rough up one of the duplicates, he might just open the flood gates and end one of them.

  Or all of them.

  Queen, on the other hand, had no trouble being physical. She took Seth by his shoulder, and with one deft twist of her hand, she guided his body around, so he faced the stairs. Then she shoved him to follow Bishop.

  The stone door slid quietly shut behind the group as they made their way down the stairs. At the bottom, they faced two corridors, but Jared, the supposedly mute duplicate, pointed down the tunnel leading west. Eventually they came to a metal door. On the wall beside it was a keypad.

  Jared tapped in a code of five 9s, and the door unlocked with a soft clicking noise. Enos, the supposedly deaf duplicate, pulled the door handle open to reveal a janitorial closet filled with mops and bottles of cleaning supplies on high shelves.

  At the other side of the closet-sized space was another door.

  Queen nudged Seth.“What’s on the other side of that door?”

  “It’s a biology lab. Should be empty. There’s no more staff here. Just Alexander and his...servants. But as far as we could tell, they tend to congregate near the mouth of the vehicle entrance for some reason. We’re taking you in a different way. We should be able to get to where Alexander is holding the Creator without being seen. Unless Alexander is present. He’s the only real obstacle.”

  “I’m less worried about him than I am about you three,” Queen mumbled.

  Seth smiled. “Across the bio lab to the hallway. Turn right and go all the way to the end. We’ll take the stairs down. At that point we’ll need to be quiet in case Alexander has protection about.”

  Knight led the way, with his MP-5 submachine gun at the ready. He’d normally have an XM2010 Enhanced Sniper Rifle strapped to his back, but for this mission, sniping wasn’t going to be a useful skill. Behind him, Jared and Enos followed, with Bishop coming behind them, also armed with an MP-5. The weapon felt tiny to him, but the large machine guns he typically wielded in the field weren’t the best choice for enclosed spaces or fast getaways. Finally, Seth followed Bishop, and Queen brought up the rear.

  They moved across the lab with its shiny tables and brilliant white walls into a hallway exactly as Seth had described. At the far end of it, after passing several doors labeled for different kinds of labs—Cold, Sequencing, Data, and Restoration—and one door labeled Personnel, they came to the stairwell, and descended. Queen noted the sign on the back of the door as she closed it. Sub Level 1. They passed Sub Level 2, and stopped at a door for Sub Level 3. Jared waited at the door as she and Seth descended to the floor.

  “What’s on Sub Level 2?” she asked Seth.

  “Mostly office space. This level is primarily storage and the loading dock I mentioned,” Seth answered her in a quiet voice, not quite a whisper. “We’ll need to move silently from here. The hallway runs straight through to the other side of the facility, just like the hallway on Sub Level 1. On the right will be a solid wall. On the left there’ll be a storage room, the dock, and then the security room, where He will be. After the security room is a bathroom, more storage and a small lounge. Then a natural cavern and another stairwell at the end of the hall. Any questions?”

  Queen shook her head. She peeked through the wire-reinforced window in the door. The hallway looked like Seth had described it. “Bishop, you’re on point. Knight, keep an eye on our six. Rook, you keep an eye on the Three Amigos, here.” Bishop stepped in front of Jared and grasped the doorknob with one hand, his MP-5 at the ready in the other. “Go.”

  Bishop slipped the door open and moved out into the carpeted hallway. As promised, they passed an unmarked door on the left, and then came to two windowed doors that led to the loading dock. Bishop peered through one of the windows and motioned that they could continue. As Queen slipped past the door, following Seth, she glanced in and saw a large concrete platform that dropped away to a larger lower space where a bright yellow forklift sat in front of a ramp. On the end of the dock was a blue metal dumpster. Otherwise, the dock was free of vehicles, and there were no signs of any people or Alexander’s wraiths.

  The next room was clearly marked Security. Bishop paused at the door, then opened it slowly, the barrel of the submachine gun leading. As prophesied, the room was empty. Five black office chairs sat on casters in front of five darkened monitors and computer stations. At the back of the room on the left was a door with a security pad, like the one they had seen upstairs.

  “He will be in here,” Seth began to rush toward the door, but Bishop shoved the man roughly aside. Rook turned a fierce gaze on the other two duplicates, but neither made a move.

  Queen stepped up to the door and the keypad. “What’s the code?”

  “It should be disabled with the code we punched in upstairs,” Seth replied. He looked surly about having been held back from his master.

  Queen opened the door and stepped in. When she gasped, Rook was right behind her into the room.

  “Oh my God,” she managed. “This is… This is…”

  “That’s some gnarly fuckin’ potatoes, is what that is,” Rook said.

  They were looking at Richard Ridley—or what was left of him.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Loading Dock Entrance, Omega Facility, Carthage, Tunisia

  The vehicle paused at the entrance to the ramp that led from the massive underground parking garage to the loading dock down on Sub Level 3. He climbed out of the white van and checked that his Beretta M9 handgun was seated in its holster. Then he walked across the huge echoing space, leaving three more vans and the bulk of his men to wait.

  He knew a small team of three covered the amphitheater exit above ground, but most of the men would go in with him through the loading dock. He was damn glad that the cloaks had mysteriously bugged out. That would make his job a lot easier. He loved it when things came together smoothly on an op—not like that mess in the Ukraine, where he’d lost an ear to that blonde bitch.

  A few more strides across the deserted concrete floor and he came to the ladder at the base of the fountain. Two men stood to either side of the metal ladder, and he knew a third would be up top, hidden in the trees near the unused fountain.

  The men snapped to attention at the sight of him.

  “Who’s topside?” he asked.

  “Sir, Trigger is up top, in a tree about ten meters from the entrance.” The man was short, with thick hairy forearms, covered in thin straight scars. Eagle respected the man and his knife fighting scars. There were a lot of them, but seeing as how the man was standing here, his opponents faired far worse. “Sounds good, Carpenter. You two stay frosty. When the shit hits the fan—and it will—things are likely to bubble up here. Anyone not wearing solid black BDUs like us? You dust them. That includes the clones.”

  “Understood, sir.” Carpenter nodded.

  Eagle smiled grimly.

  Carpenter’s companion, a greasy, nasty man named Keller, who went by the callsign of Raven, simply stood and looked forward, as if Eagle wasn’t even there. Eagle wondered if Raven’s bearing was from his time in the Marines, or if he was just zoned out on drugs. It didn’t really matter too much. You took what you could get with a mercenary force. Most of the soldiers were veterans of multiple engagements, and they would all stay loyal through the mission; the money he had promised them would ensure that.

  Eagle, tall, imposing and to his own mind, hideously deformed, turned and strode back across the garage to his waiting caravan of mercenary soldiers. Each was armed with s
moke grenades, and AK-47s, like his. Except for a few of the men, who were less than savory, he liked most of them. Twenty-three in all, they made a nice round twenty-four with him. His own little private army, funded with money from the former Manifold Genetics.

  He keyed his microphone as he walked. “Station Two, give me a sit-rep.”

  “This is Mason at Station Two. They just went in. We gave them five and moved in after them to lock the gate down. No one coming in or out over here, Eagle.” The voice was young, but Eagle knew the man was a competent fighter, and the veteran of some bloody battles in Rwanda and Burundi. Eagle had brought the young man on the previous year.

  “Excellent. We’re moving in. Expect things might come your way. Anything coming down that tunnel is to be considered hostile. Kill it. Eagle out.”

  He smiled and strode back to the waiting line of vans. As he reached the third van in the convoy, he slapped the side of it hard. In response, the driver started the engine. Without needing to be told to do so, the second and first vans did likewise. Eagle stepped up to the passenger side door on the first van and slid into his seat. He pulled an AK-47 up out of the foot-well, and lowered the window, leaning the tip out. He knew the vehicle tunnel leading three levels down to the dock was plenty wide for the vans. There was no danger of hitting the walls with the tip of the rifle.

  “It’s time for the Chess Team and Alexander Diotrephes to die. Let’s go,” Eagle barked.

  The driver threw the van into drive and slowly proceeded down the ramp.

  Then Eagle keyed his microphone again. “This is Eagle. Squad One is moving in. Squads Two and Three, stay alert. If the fighting gets past us to the surface, you move in.”

  Twenty-Four men in the immediate fight. Another forty-eight waiting up top—just in case.

  Oh yes, he thought. In less than an hour, this installation will be mine. He would execute the members of Chess Team. Kill off the intruding Greek. Eliminate the ridiculous doubles. Then Omega, and its information on the last resting place of the Chest of Adoon would be his. And along the way, he’d get to stab that bitch that took his ear. It was going to be a great day. Darius Ridley was finally going to have his revenge.