Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Five
John Harrison Henry surveyed the Oval Office as a man reborn – his power total, his vision grand. ‘This country used to have a dream,’ he said, as he continued his public address. ‘A dream of a free and fair America. That dream is not dead. And while I still reside in the White House, that dream will not die. I once said some famous words and I say them again now: Where there was oppression, I will deliver freedom. Where there was deceit, I will deliver truth!’ The camera zoomed in on his face. ‘And where there was corruption, I will deliver JUSTICE!’
Around the country people had stopped in the streets to listen as the president’s voice was broadcast through ubiquitous speaker systems designed to promote GMRC curfews. Big screens in cities displayed his image and people everywhere paused in their activities, peaceful or violent, constructive or destructive, to watch and hear their leader speak.
‘Martial law is now in full effect,’ John said again. ‘Return to your homes. Lock your doors and protect your loved ones. The GMRC is no longer in control. This is your Commander in Chief, and you have my word the world as you knew it is at an end. A new dawn has begun, free from tyranny. God bless you all and the United States of America. May God show us the way home.’
John gestured to Diane.
‘And we’re ...’ – she raised her hand and then lowered it – ‘off air.’
‘John,’ Paul said, as he strode towards him, ‘that was, that was ...’
‘Terrible?’ John said, suddenly worried.
‘Amazing,’ Paul said and grasped his hand in his.
General Andrews approached. ‘Mr President, we need you to sign the executive order, it’s a matter of law.’
‘Of course,’ John said.
Soon after, the paperwork had been rushed to the Oval Office and John had signed his name on the dotted line, sanctioning martial law and the order itself: PDD 51.
‘So, what now?’ John said.
‘Now you can do what needs to be done,’ Paul said.
‘No more Congress getting in my way?’
Paul shook his head. ‘No more Congress.’
‘No more GMRC?’
‘Nope. At least, in theory, anyway.’
John sat back down at his Resolute desk and ran a hand over the aging wood. ‘“In theory” isn’t good enough.’
‘We need to ground all GMRC air patrols,’ the general said. ‘And all American citizens working for the Response Council should be given an amnesty to resign their service.’
‘I like it,’ John said. ‘Do it. What else?’
‘We need to secure our resources, food and water,’ Paul said. ‘The military should make that their primary duty, alongside public order and presenting a united front against the GMRC itself.’
John nodded. ‘Excellent. What do you think, General?’
‘The GMRC will try to counter us.’
‘What can they do?’
‘Not much, initially, but they will think of something, they always do.’
‘Work up a number of scenarios,’ John said, ‘plus how we can nullify them. Liaise with Paul to keep me updated.’
General Andrews gave a salute. ‘Very good, Mr President. I’ll make it happen.’
The U.S. Army officer strode from the room and John sat back in his chair, suddenly feeling like a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
‘Anything else?’ Paul said. ‘You’ve got no red tape now, what you say goes.’
John thought for a moment. The sensation of having carte blanche to act as he chose was intoxicating and he had to remind himself not to get carried away. He was effectively running a totalitarian regime, he had to remain calm and in control, get the country back to rights and then transition back to democratic oversight.
‘Get the FBI all the resources they need,’ John said. ‘And if they need to raid GMRC compounds, ensure they get military support.’
Paul nodded and motioned to his assistant to write it down. The young woman, who’d been keeping a low profile until now, scribbled the orders down on a digital pad.
John stifled a yawn; it had been a long day. There was one thing, however, that he still needed to do before he gave himself a break. ‘Retrieve the photofits I had made of my abductors, along with a photo of Jessica Klein, and make it known there’s a ten-million-dollar reward for information on the cyberterrorist and his associates. If it’s verified and results in any concrete leads, it’ll be paid out in full immediately to a bank account of their choice, tax free.’
Paul suppressed a smile. ‘Is that it?’
‘No.’ John’s expression hardened. ‘There will be a one-hundred-million-dollar reward for their capture.’ He remembered how close they’d come to killing Ashley and Dante, and how many Secret Service agents never made it home to see their loved ones again. ‘And the reward will be paid in full, if they’re brought in ... dead or alive.’ He noticed the look of concern on Paul’s face, but John knew what he was doing was right. These people had to be stopped. No more games. No more pussyfooting around. There was a time to get tough, and that time was now.
As his Chief of Staff moved off to carry out his orders, John prayed he’d made the right decision in activating the executive order. Time would tell. He just hoped he hadn’t made the biggest mistake of his life. I had no choice, he told himself, as he turned to gaze out of the window. Did I?
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Six
Around the country and beyond, sirens wailed across U.S. Army bases, USAF installations, and naval ports the world over. The combined fleets had been recalled. Their Commander in Chief had cried havoc and set loose the dogs of war.
Throughout the United States, the National Guard’s forces were bolstered threefold by the massive standing army which flooded the nation’s streets and cities. Troop transporters screeched to a halt outside town halls, police departments and GMRC compounds. Service issue boots hit the ground in their thousands as armed soldiers disembarked from land, sea and air. Helicopter gunships took off in their hundreds, their rotor blades filling the skies with a roar of noise only outdone by the fighter jets launched from airstrips and aircraft carriers into the skies above. The United States’ military was mobilised like never before and the stakes couldn’t have been higher. They were a nation on the brink, the brink of annihilation.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Seven
S.I.L.V.E.R.’s leader, Ophion Nexus, waited in Malcolm Joiner’s vacant office, while two of his assassins kept an eye on the intelligence director as he underwent surgery to correct the injuries sustained during what Ophion referred to as his, ‘realignment’.
The mountain of a man stood in the middle of the darkened office with his eyes closed, deep in meditation as he calmed his mind. Nothing stirred to interrupt his clarity, nothing, that was, until the wallscreen hummed to life, the giant screen casting its glow over the centre of the room.
‘Ophion,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘I have work for you.’
‘The nature?’ he said, without opening his eyes.
‘Assassination.’
He stood without moving for a few seconds more, then finally opened his eyes to look into the face of Selene Dubois.
The Committee member gazed back at him, her expression impatient.
‘Number?’ he said.
‘Three.’
‘Designations?’
‘All you need are photographs.’
‘Show me.’
‘This will be your most difficult assignment yet,’ she said. ‘The Committee wants your guarantee of completion.’
Something stirred deep within him. It felt like excitement. ‘I have never failed in liquidating a target,’ he said, his deep voice rumbling. ‘Why would you expect me to fail now?’
Selene moved closer to the camera at her end of the video call. ‘Your guarantee, Ophion.’
‘You have it.’
‘Then observe,’ she said.
To Selene’s right-ha
nd side, the sparse white-walled room in which she stood faded from view to be replaced by a life-size image of the first target. The next 3D photograph appeared in the same fashion next to the first, and then the third followed, this final picture making Ophion’s brows furrow a fraction.
‘Still confident?’ she said.
‘Duration for fulfilment?’
Selene indulged in a self-satisfied smile. ‘Two weeks, and in the order shown. And that is non-negotiable. The order is key.’
Ophion studied the images. ‘May I ask why?’
‘It has been foreseen.’
‘You have witnessed the future?’
‘The God Device has shown us the way.’
Ophion nodded in acceptance. ‘If you know of my success, why request my guarantee?’
‘Courtesy,’ she said, her response a little too quick for Ophion’s liking. She wasn’t telling him something, but he knew that was the nature of his work. It was what he was paid to do, although, in truth, this job was one that he would have taken for free. To pit himself against the greatest minds, to locate what could not be located. To kill that which should not be killed. If Ophion had dreams, it would be a dream assignment. As it was, he was merely intrigued as to its outcome and wondered how he would succeed where those who had gone before had failed. Through skill, strength and a centred mind, he told himself. Ophion had long known he was special, with abilities beyond those of other men. Even his fellow S.I.L.V.E.R. operatives accepted he was a freak of nature and followed his leadership of their elite task force without question. When someone was foolish enough to challenge him, he always ensured they would never be given a second opportunity. He couldn’t remember when he’d last been tested to his limits, not by a human, anyway. He thought back to his time in Sanctuary and the beast that had stalked its depths. Capturing it had been a challenge worthy of the name, and yet he still lived, despite all the odds being stacked against him. It seemed he was destined to walk the Earth alone, without equal. It was a depressing thought, and yet one he would continue to seek an answer to. He would continue to push the limits and would leave it up to his ever-present companion to show him the way. It was the only companion he’d ever known, the only one he’d ever felt an affinity with, and its name was Death.
‘Do you require notice,’ he said, ‘when each target has been eliminated?’
Selene gave a shake of her head. ‘When your task is complete you can contact me through the usual channels.’
The Committee member ended the video call and Ophion was left alone in the darkened office, with only the images of his three targets for company.
He wondered why the Committee hadn’t enlisted his help before now. It was strange, but if he’d learnt anything while in their employ, everything they did always had a reason and, as Ophion himself knew, everything also had its own time and place. And for the three people whose images were displayed in front of him on the wallscreen, their time had come.
He studied the image of the first man he was destined to kill.
He knew him by reputation only. A man of rare talent, and while it was a talent different from Ophion’s own, it was something he could respect. Professor Steiner, he thought, you shall be the first.
His gaze shifted to the second image, of a man who gave hope to many. A man whose intent was pure and noble, a man with power given him by the people. To kill such a man was against democracy itself. ‘John Harrison Henry,’ Ophion said, as he looked at the President of the United States, ‘you shall be the second.’
The assassin’s gaze turned to the final image. An image which he knew was a false representation. It might well have been blank for all the good it did him. He stepped closer to the three-dimensional photograph and reached out an armoured hand. He touched the screen, as he looked into the eyes of the man who’d tormented governments, companies and GMRC divisions the world over. A man who defied reason, a man who defied the Committee. A man, like the professor before him, and like Ophion himself, without equal in his field. His reputation was the embodiment of defiance that echoed through time, unseen and undefeated ...
... Until now.
‘I shall find you and you will die.’ Ophion withdrew his hand and his eyes narrowed. ‘It is inevitable.’ The leader of the elite taskforce known as S.I.L.V.E.R. stared at the image before him. ‘You shall be the third, Da Muss Ich, and the last.’ Ophion donned his helmet, its mirrored visor reflecting the three men depicted on the wallscreen. The internal head-up display activated, producing a steady eye-like glow from its sculptured facade, his armour shimmered like quicksilver and Ophion Nexus vanished from view. Death waited for the assassin’s offering and he would deliver, it had been foretold.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Eight
A woman hurried along the darkened streets of San Francisco, the strikes of her high heels echoing from the abandoned buildings that lined her way. A noise made her glance back in fear. The street was empty save for a few homeless people huddled together on the steps of a disused restaurant. The smoke from their small fire drifted up into the night sky, the faint smell of burning newspaper permeating the air and tickling her senses.
There was no sign of her pursuers.
With a final look around, she continued on her way, keeping to the shadows as a GMRC drone patrolled the skies of a nearby neighbourhood, the sound of its rotors reminding her of her need for haste.
She turned another corner, then stopped dead in her tracks. A large cordon had been erected across the street, blocking her way. However, it wasn’t the eight-foot-high metal fence that quelled her heart, but the military truck parked behind it and the four armed soldiers who patrolled its sixty foot width.
Scuttling back into the previous street, she looked up as the roar of approaching helicopters reverberated through the night sky. Gunships, she thought, as eight aircraft appeared, flying low over the rooftops towards San Francisco’s city centre. She pressed herself up against the wall and her hands to her ears, while the homeless ran for cover. The deafening noise pulsated through her body as each of the Apache helicopters passed overhead, the pilots inside almost close enough to touch.
When the procession had passed, she stared after it in confusion. Are they looking for me? she thought, her heart pounding. She peeked back round the end of the building to look at the soldiers. One of them shone a light in her direction and she ducked back out of sight. Terrified, she turned and hurried back the way she’d come.
Moments later a distant rumble, like thunder, made the woman glance up again. A whoosh of noise split the sky asunder as a Sabre jet fighter flashed past, its afterburners aglow in the night sky like demonic eyes.
This can’t be for me, she thought, petrified, can it?
‘The President of the United States is after you, you fool!’ her inner voice told her. ‘Of course it’s for you!’
A vibration in her overcoat pocket made her withdraw her computer. The screen glowed to life and a message appeared:
JESSICA, YOU NEED TO HURRY, THEY’RE ALMOST ON YOU.
Jessica Klein gripped the device tighter. ‘Where the hell have you been?! I’ve been trying to contact you!’
There’s no time, you need to move.
NOW!
‘I can’t; there’s a blockade, the military are everywhere!’
A loud noise blared and a light engulfed the sidewalk.
‘CITIZEN!’
Jessica gazed up into the bright light of a GMRC drone.
‘You are wanted for questioning,’ said the computerised voice. ‘Remain where you are!’
‘Okay!’ Jessica raised her hands, stepped back into an alley, turned tail and ran.
She jumped over a trash can, landed badly, and her ankle twisted as she stumbled and fell.
‘CITIZEN!’ The drone’s light tracked her from above. ‘You are in violation of GMRC protocol! Agents are en route. Cease your movement and await restraint!’
Jessica grasped the high heel on her shoe, snapped it off
and threw it at the drone. The machine veered out of its path, giving her time to twist off her other heel and dash off in a headlong sprint.
She burst out of the alley and angled left, while the drone continued to blare out warnings as it continued its pursuit.
Reaching an intersection, she jumped in front of a slow-moving car, waving her hands in an attempt to get the driver to stop.
The vehicle swerved out of her way.
As it drove past, she looked inside to see no one at the wheel and its passengers asleep in the back seat.
The self-drive car disappeared into the dark as another two drove past in the opposite direction, their automatic horns honking in warning at the pedestrian in the middle of the road.
Whoop! Whoop!! A police car sped down the road towards her, with another close behind.
The police have found me again!
‘Stop, or I’ll shoot!’
Jessica spun round as three more officers on foot appeared from another side street. They were the same three she’d given the slip half an hour before.
Don’t they ever give up? she thought. Resigned to being taken into custody, Jessica’s shoulders slumped in defeat. There was no way out. Finally, her time had come.
The police cars skidded to a halt before her, while the three officers approached with caution, weapons raised.
What do they think I’m going to do? she wondered as she glanced down at the screen on her computer and a new message that had appeared:
Don’t let them arrest you!
She put it to her mouth. ‘It’s a little late for that, Eric.’
‘Put down the device and put your hands up where I can see them!’ The lead police officer moved closer.
Ancient Origins: Books 4 - 6 (Ancient Origins Boxset Book 2) Page 68
