She exhaled and smiled calmly at her accomplishment, and she never truly realized the potential energy for destruction that had been wrapped around her feet. She walked confidently and barefoot out of the restroom, and the one remaining security guard gave her a look of curiosity as he saw her walk out of the building without any shoes and indifferent to the alarm.
Neither guard found the camouflaged metal balls that were magnetized and stuck to a nearby metal table leg. After a reset to the detector, the guard who took over, after the shift change, sat down and sneaked a sip of his mixed water and vodka in his thermos. Little did he know—there was an explosive planted not more than thirty feet away from him.
Not too far away, Tom exited the ground floor elevator. He gestured his goodbye to the guards at the end of the hallway on the east side of the building. They had seen him before when he had entered the elevator with the invisible David. Since he was alone again, they dismissed him as harmless while he walked off toward the building’s exit.
Meanwhile, David had managed to climb on top of the elevator, just after he had disengaged the elevator below. His handheld scanner had detected an unusually high-energy source, and he suspected it to be the source of a large force field. It made sense to David that Haj was inside or at least near the force field, according to his monitor. He had to be there, David thought.
David used specially prepared elevator cable ascenders during his dangerous climb. He used two of them, one for each hand. He depressed a button to lock and unlock each ascender as needed. First, he pulled himself up with one hand and then locked it. Then he released the other ascender and slid it upward on the cable, locking that one. He repeated these actions continually and climbed quickly to the next level.
Tom walked back to the closet to collect their equipment. He still had his toolbox, and Cali was in it. Cali had done the job very well. Earlier Tom and David had pretended to clean in an office where there was a safe. Tom had swung the sword to break the safe open. That break-in allowed David access to all of the backup keycards to all of the secured rooms in the building. Some intelligence information about this that Sam had shared with David had paid off. Between David’s knowledge of the building and its systems, and Sam’s information, this seemed almost too easy.
Mattie was back in the Cavalier and still in the parking lot. She acted as if she waited for a signal as she tapped her nervous fingers on the beat-up steering wheel. She considered the notion that David should indeed get rid of his old car, but it was his baby. She was startled when she heard a tapping on the passenger window, and she almost screamed. Her heart started to race as she quickly glanced at the visitor.
She looked and saw that it was only Tom. He gave her a thumbs-up signal, and then he walked away. Was she finished? Is this all I was here for, she thought. “Big deal!” she mumbled. “But I can’t leave. He might need me.”
Tom, back at the van, closed the back doors and secured the vacuum cleaner and toolbox in the rear. Then he got into the driver’s seat. He looked at his watch as if he waited for something. The toolbox started to rattle. He yelled back, “David is going to be fine, Cali! Settle down!” Then he mumbled, “I’m talking to a bloody sword, in a bloody toolbox!”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Haj did not respond as David talked to him and shook him lightly. David had found Haj, but again, David was suspicious of how easy all of this was. Perhaps this was nothing more than a trap, he thought.
“Haj, old buddy! Wake up! Snap out of it, man!” David said.
Slowly Haj’s eyes started to open and roll. It took a moment to get used to the light. David had opened the padded room with his keys and had dragged him into the hallway, just feet away from the door. There was no one in the area because it was one of the most secure and less frequented locations in the building.
David rolled up Haj’s sleeve and grabbed a pre-filled syringe from his jacket pocket. He injected the clear colored juice into Haj’s upper arm, and he tossed the syringe to the side.
“We got to get out of here, Haj! Wake up!” David repeated.
It was another minute before Haj became aware of his surroundings. Haj stared intently at something behind David’s back. Haj pulled himself up on his right side. He grabbed David’s left knee for support, but he continued to focus intently on a figure that approached David from behind. Haj saw a man armed with a crossbow aimed at David’s skull. It was Robbie!
“The dead has arisen it seems!” Robbie said as he moved closer to them. David then spun around and saw Robbie and his readied projectile. Both David and Haj were in front of Robbie’s loaded weapon. It was a crossbow with a loaded arrow that both Haj and David assumed had poison on its tip.
They were instructed to place their hands behind the heads and to interlock their fingers, but David concentrated on something else at the same time. David deliberated in his mind about his exploding putty. He wanted to look at his watch to calculate how much time he had before it exploded downstairs. The bathroom was just below the electrical fuses that controlled the lighting in the building. David hoped that the fuses and wiring would be close enough to be affected by the intended explosion. If an explosion successfully hit those fuses, the entire lights of the building would go off. The event would trigger a generator that would provide backup lighting—if everything worked correctly.
In truth, David and Tom had made sure that the generator would not work correctly. The generator power had been cut, just before they entered the building. A few minutes in the dark would provide a better escape out of the building that had few windows and lots of artificial lighting. And David had the torch that would light the path of escape. He had the same watch that he had worn when he had visited Peter, about a week earlier, the same night that David had found out that Haj was a prisoner. That watch had recorded his path into the laboratory that night to provide a type of GPS tracking out of the plant—an escape in the shadows.
However, all of David’s plans of escape had to wait as David and Haj looked steadfastly at the weapon that was upon them. Usually, a single crossbow was not a threat to two targets at once, but this crossbow was a repeater. There was a boxed mechanism, and it was ready to autoload a new arrow into place after each arrow fired. The box held several arrows, and could fire rapidly. The weapon, designed by Robbie, was a significant improvement from an earlier version he had used in another time.
“You didn’t come alone, most likely. Get up!” Robbie assumed as he led them both down a long hallway. David stabilized Haj as he staggered along. They walked toward the same lab area where Peter had shown David the purple stone field. The lights came on automatically as they entered, and David saw in the back corner of the lab, behind an opened door, the familiar curtain in front of the purple and red field of energy.
Robbie closed the lab door and sealed the room by entering a lock code on the keypad of the door. His eyes revealed a confused and drugged mind. Drops of continual perspiration fell on the bow from his ragged chin full of unshaved stubble.
Haj started to regain some form of strength, thanks to a shot of adrenaline from David. His awareness gradually came back to him. He noticed a black ring on Robbie’s finger that seemed to flicker with white specs of life. But as he stared at it, Haj found that he could not stand any longer and had to kneel down to regain some strength. David knelt down with him to assist, against the wishes of Robbie.
“Leave him alone!” Robbie blurted. “We are going to wait for Peter to arrive, he can deal with you! But now, I want some information!”—Robbie found a lab chair and sat down, with his bow still aimed at them.
Haj looked up and spoke first, “Sam is not with us, Robbie.”
David finally looked down at his watch while Robbie seemed distracted by Haj’s remark. He saw it had been about forty-five minutes since he left Mattie. The explosion was still about an hour away, he calculated. It had been a backup plan anyway—just in case.
Haj still focused steadily on Robbie’s ring as he co
ntinued, “I know you want your revenge, but you are still under a powerful spell.”
“Silence!”—Robbie’s bow shook with a trembling grip. He stood up, walked to the curtain at the back of the lab, and pulled it away. He revealed the field that glowed behind it. As Robbie stood in front of the curtain, David looked at Haj. Haj tapped one of his left fingers with his right index finger, signaling David.
Suddenly they all heard an explosion that seemed like it came from several floors below.
David instantly concluded that he had mixed his formula too strong and that somehow it had gone off earlier than he had expected. But the truth was somewhat different. Mattie, when she had tossed the explosive putty upwards, had unintentionally thrown the putty directly onto a light bulb, and it had overheated. In addition to blowing a hole in the floor, the explosion had caused a short in the wiring. Both events had caused the breakers to trip in the fuse boxes, just above the bathroom ceiling. The lights went out in the room, and the glow of the stone field provided the only lighting in the lab. Charlie was heard barking at the far end of the room behind the field.
For a brief moment, after the sound of the explosion, Robbie turned his back to look at the glowing field. David rose up and took his opportunity. David rushed Robbie. He tackled and knocked him down. His bow fell to the floor, just underneath him. David held and pinned him down. He grabbed his left arm and lifted it up. Then he slammed it down on the hard tiled floor. Robbie’s hand came down with a force that caused the black ring to shatter, and black liquid oozed out. An ephemeral puff of smoke came out of the ring. The ring was broken, and the spell was forever removed.
David got off Robbie, but stayed close to him and knelt at his side. Haj attempted to stand but was unable to do so. David looked at Robbie and saw a look of pain come over his face. It was an expression of sheer agony. Haj, his strength still not fully regained, crawled toward Robbie’s feet, and stopped just behind David. They were only a few feet away from the energy field. It glowed with purple and red colors that radiated. Then David and Haj saw Robbie’s leg and the unexpected injury. One of the arrows had ejected during the tackle, and it had lodged into the right leg of Robbie. His own poison was rushing through his body.
Robbie spoke, “I have been a fool! Tell Sam that I forgive him.”—tearing eyes and gritting teeth did not stop his words. “Haj, go through the field, and get Charlie!”
“We will go together! We both will be healed,” Haj said firmly while he made his way to the right side of Robbie, with David still on the other side of him. David then grabbed the arrow and ripped it out of Robbie’s leg with one swift pull.
“NO!”—Robbie gave another scream of pain. “No, I am ready to die, and the field will not help against this evil. Haj, go through the field!” again he insisted.
Haj crawled toward the energy field, and David helped him to stand up. Then David assisted Haj and walked him through the field, not realizing that he had just crossed the field as well. The glowing energy sent waves of strength into both of their bodies and needed healing into the body of Haj. Within seconds, Haj had regained his full strength, and David felt inebriated from the experience.
“Wow!”—David suddenly collapsed on the cold floor from the surge of energy in his body as Charlie, the familiar German Shepherd, came up to him from the end of the room and started to lick his face.
“Are you ok, my friend?”—Haj took hold of his friend as David petted the excited dog. Haj looked for any signs of ill-health, but saw that David was only slightly shaken.
“Yeah, but we are still locked inside this room,” David said.
“That is the least of our problems.”—Haj looked back into the lab past the field of energy—as if there was much more to tell.
“Don’t worry, Haj. Tom told us the whole story. Mattie heard it too.”—David looked at Haj. He expected a look of surprise. Instead, Haj had a look of concern.
“I will call for some help with the door,” David continued while he reached for his cell phone that had no signal. He gave Haj a look of fond remembrance and told him, “Good to see you again, my friend!”
“He did not tell you everything, because he doesn’t know everything, David. Did he tell you about Medraut?” Haj asked.
“Medraut and King Arthur?” David answered and snickered. “Of course, we know everything.” But Haj had more to say. David did not truly know it all—not yet!
“David, there is something you do not know! His name is now Dred, and he is very much alive! And he is now inside of the body of Peter Jenkins! Peter is Dred, and he has been for five years.”
“What!” David said with an air of partial disbelief.
“David, you should know the whole story. But first, if you have the strength, we should try to drag Robbie through the portal, whether he wants us to or not!” Haj insisted.
Chapter 19
Gold Rush Fever
Part One
In the Words of Haj
I first met Mattie and David in a taxi, five years ago, in the heart of an old historic district, in Cairo, Egypt. They stayed at the Ptah Royal Hotel, and I acted unofficially as their tour guide. In reality, I was more than that. I was also a trained archaeologist, gemologist, cafe owner, and most importantly, a Priest, in charge of guarding ancient secrets of a lost civilization.
David Hughes was there to finish a thesis on an archaeological degree, and he had made inquiries at the hotel concerning the whereabouts of a certain Dr. Hajen Habib. Since the manager was a frequent patron of my cafe, he called me to tell me of David’s inquiry. I decided to meet David in my role as a tour guide, in order to find out his true intentions.
I was very intrigued when I first picked them up on a warm Sunday afternoon. I exited my cab and treated them like royalty.
“Sir, I understand you need a tour of the city?” I pretended.
“Well, actually my girlfriend, Mattie, could use a tour. But I was hoping that you could take me to see a Dr. Hajen Habib.”—David had innocent eyes in those days. This was before he was ever involved with the Guardians. Soon after they entered the taxi, David pulled out a white stone to show me that his question was legitimate. I asked to hold it, and then I handed it back to him after a quick examination.
Two things aroused my curiosity. The first thing that interested me was his question about a particular white stone that sounded similar in nature and description to one that I possessed. The second thing that I noticed was the reaction of my small and golden crystal ball of prophecy. It pulsated in my open cigarette compartment in the car as I held David’s stone in my hand. It was a sign that a genuine stone of the Living Spirit was close by.
I drove them both briefly around the city and gradually got to know both of them. I took a personal interest in them. Mattie wanted to see the Al-Azhar Mosque and the Coptic Museum, but I took them instead to the Khan el-Khalili for some shopping before driving them to my cafe, which also doubled as my tour guide station. My wife, who was a very private woman, usually stayed at the cafe during my taxi trips. She was the wife of a Priest, and she kept everything she knew to herself. Mrs. Habib kept her secrets well.
The cafe that we owned had two stories above ground. We lived on the second story, so we called it our high-rise home, an odd term that my wife thought of. The first floor consisted of the cafe, or as some called it, the coffee shop. It was full of various coffees, libations, sandwiches and even the typical tourist souvenirs. The cafe had a popular internet room and a hookah or shisha room as well, where smokers of various flavored tobacco could gather and gossip about their lovers, friends, and enemies. Most of the time, we hired friends to operate the cafe, but they knew nothing of our dark secrets locked down in the basement.
The basement of the cafe was the most unique part of the cafe and residence. It was actually the site of an ancient burial ground and was full of ancient treasures and antiquities. It would be better described as levels of an underground world, rather than a basement. It held the ent
rance to an elaborate tunnel system. Legend once said that inside the tunnels were great mysteries.
Mrs. Habib and I had no children. We found comfort in our work, our cause of an ancient origin, and the companionship of two special pets, a dog, and a cat. My wife could not have children, but we made up for it, with extra love between us, and a special closeness that others merely longed for, even if they had many children.
My father was Joseph Habib, a man who once knew King Arthur, in a land long forgotten by time. He was a Guardian, in charge of the royal stones. He had traveled to Egypt nearly a thousand years ago, and he had participated in sardius stone rituals that assisted in prolonging his live. He met the Priests and joined their group, and thus, he kept the cause of guarding the ancient stones alive. The Priests took him into their confidence and made him part of their order. He rose in ranks and became one of their most significant leaders and keepers of the stones. He married very late in his life, which for him was nearly nine hundred years old. He had several children and raised them in the house that gradually became the cafe and coffee shop.
My parents, unlike David’s parents, were functional, content, and totally at peace with their world and their life. I was raised to be a Priest, the holiest of callings in our order, the keeper of the deep and ancient magic. I had a good upbringing, wonderful life, and the strength that comes from a supportive and loving family. I had not experienced the hardships of a real world, until one fatal night.
The Royal Stones of Eden (Royal Secrecies Book 1) Page 21
