Ancient Origins: Books 4 - 6 (Ancient Origins Boxset Book 2)

by Robert Storey

  I’m sorry, Jessica. I’ve failed you.

  ‘It’s not your fault, Eric,’ Jessica said. ‘Tell the professor I’m sorry and tell Bic, wherever he is, to send my family the video I recorded for them. Tell them I love them ... always.’

  ‘I said, drop the device! DO IT, NOW!!’

  Jessica was about to drop the computer, but before she could do so a black sedan screeched to a stop behind the two patrol cars and four men in black suits emerged.

  ‘This is GMRC jurisdiction!’ said the man at their head. ‘Relinquish the woman to us, or face the consequences.’

  ‘Back off, traitor,’ said one of the officers. ‘Haven’t you heard? The GMRC is finished. You have no jurisdiction anywhere, anymore.’

  The GMRC agent paused, but like all people with power, he wasn’t about to go quietly.

  ‘The GMRC still functions,’ said the agent, as his men turned their guns away from Jessica and towards the police, who outnumbered them two to one. ‘And until international law says otherwise, it will continue to do so.’

  ‘Are you threatening an officer of the law?’ said the first policeman.

  Jessica backed away as the two factions faced off against one another, their target momentarily forgotten. She had no idea why they weren’t working together, but she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, or not if she could help it anyway.

  As she ran back down the street, a loud computerised voice behind made her run faster.

  ‘WARNING!’ said the drone. ‘Suspect is escaping!’

  Breathing hard, Jessica reached the alley and pelted down it as the sounds of pursuit resumed.

  An old pickup waited in the next street, its passenger door left open.

  ‘Get in!’ said the driver, waving her on.

  Jessica didn’t need telling twice and leapt into the front seat, slamming the door shut behind her.

  Wheels screeched and they rounded a corner soon after, before being confronted by the same military blockade Jessica had seen previously.

  She swore and looked out of the window as the GMRC drone hovered above; its light trained on the vehicle below, while approaching sirens announced the police cars were also closing in on their position.

  The driver slowed to a stop in front of the metal fence and waited.

  ‘What are you doing!?’ Jessica said. ‘Reverse!!’

  The woman turned to look at her with cold eyes. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  The three cars that were giving chase screeched around the corner behind and skidded to a stop.

  Police and GMRC agents jumped out, but before they could surround the car, the soldiers who’d been thrust into the midst of the chaos had taken matters into their own hands.

  Having opened a gate, the four rifle-wielding marines moved to intercept the pistol-toting officers of the law and their GMRC counterparts.

  ‘Lay down your weapons!’ said one of the soldiers. ‘Civilian law enforcement has been ordered to stand down until further notice!’

  ‘Under whose orders?’ said an officer.

  ‘The Commander in Chief’s orders. Haven’t you heard? John Henry’s declared martial law.’

  The police hesitated, their expressions uncertain.

  The GMRC agents, however, approached Jessica’s car with intent.

  A gunshot rang out, making Jessica jump.

  A GMRC agent looked at her through the window, his hand frozen in mid-reach to the door handle, a look of shock on his face.

  A trickle of blood ran down from his mouth and he toppled to the ground, dead.

  The remaining black-suited agents rounded on the marines. Automatic fire rang out and Jessica put her hands to her ears again, before everything fell silent an instant later.

  Tendrils of smoke drifted up into the night sky from the muzzles of the soldiers’ weapons.

  Jessica gawped in shock at the four dead GMRC agents, who lay sprawled on the ground in pools of their own blood.

  The police also looked shocked and their own weapons dropped to the ground with a clatter as they ceded control to the marines.

  One of the soldiers approached the driver’s side of the pickup and motioned for the woman to lower the window.

  ‘Name,’ said the man, his rifle trained on the two women inside.

  ‘Brett Taylor,’ said the driver. She reached to her breast pocket and then stopped as if remembering something. ‘I’m FBI.’

  ‘I don’t care what you are. Why were they chasing you?’

  ‘Outstanding parking ticket.’

  ‘Funny.’ The soldier stepped back. ‘Get out of the vehicle and keep your hands where we can see them.’

  Brett glanced at Jessica and gave a nod of her head.

  Jessica was just about to do as instructed when the GMRC drone, which had remained curiously silent as its agents were gunned down, suddenly reactivated and swooped down on the marines. They dived for cover as the half-ton machine swept past over their heads.

  ‘DRIVE!’ Jessica said, but Brett just sat there as the soldiers opened fire on the drone.

  ‘What are you doing?!’ Jessica reached over with her leg and stamped on the accelerator.

  The pickup lurched forward and Brett grabbed the wheel as they crashed through the fence and on into the street beyond.

  A hail of bullets chased them down the road, then Brett took a hard right, taking them out of sight of those they’d left behind.

  Jessica’s ordeal was over; she’d escaped by the skin of her teeth.

  She glanced behind for signs of pursuit and when none came, she breathed a sigh of relief. She’d escaped and she was safe ... for now.

  ♦

  The pickup continued to weave its way through deserted streets as seconds turned to minutes, and minutes to an hour. Silence hung heavy over the two women within, the driver unwilling to speak and the nervous exhaustion of the passenger fuelling sleep’s siren call.

  Jessica resisted the urge to close her eyes and slip into haunted dreams. Instead, she glanced behind again and then looked up into the night sky. There was still no sign of any of her pursuers, but she knew looks could be deceiving and she said as much to Brett, who responded with an obstinate remark. It sparked an inevitable argument.

  ‘What were you thinking?!’ Jessica said, glaring at Brett as the heated exchange reached boiling point.

  ‘I was thinking I was saving your scrawny English ass.’

  ‘You know what I mean. Telling them your name, not trying to escape when you had the chance.’

  Brett slammed on the brakes and the truck skidded to a halt. The FBI agent turned in her seat and grasped the back of Jessica’s head.

  Jessica struggled to release herself from the much larger woman’s hand, which had clenched into a fist around Jessica’s long dark locks.

  Brett dragged her closer, until their eyes were inches apart. ‘I risked my life to save yours, you ungrateful bitch; accuse me of anything again and I’ll hand you over to them myself!’

  Brett released her hold, stuck the transmission back in gear and got them moving again.

  Jessica scowled at her companion. The two of them had been together now for what seemed like an eternity, but which in actuality was just a year. They’d been brought together by the elusive cyberterrorist she’d come to know as Bic, and Jessica often wondered if Brett’s presence was some kind of penance for something she’d done in a previous life. The mood swings, angry outbursts and childish sulking were bad enough, but add to that the self-assured arrogance of a federal agent with a chip on her shoulder and unbearable wasn’t the word. Ex federal agent, Jessica told herself. She was a wanted terrorist now, just like Eric, and Jessica herself.

  The two women remained in frosty silence as they drove through the deserted industrial neighbourhood. Soon, the car slowed and pulled into a burnt-out building that hadn’t been used since the turn of the century.

  The pickup crunched over unseen detritus as they passed beneath rusting beams and
rotting floorboards of the floors above, the headlights illuminating rows of disused printing presses from a forgotten age.

  Taillights glowed brighter as Brett parked the vehicle behind an interior wall, which shielded it from view if anyone should be curious enough to take a look inside the structure. Heaven forbid, Jessica thought. That they’d been able to find a hideout with its own power supply was lucky enough, but it was also off the main grid, which meant being located by GMRC or government agents was slim. Tapping into the power line had been risky, but it seemed everything they did now was laced with risk; it was just a question of how much.

  Doors slammed shut as the two fugitives left their transport behind and Brett turned on a flashlight.

  Jessica prised open a dilapidated wooden board that covered a dark entrance and they both took a final look around, then ducked inside.

  Jessica followed Brett through a series of darkened corridors until they saw a strip of pale light shining out beneath a closed door. Moments later, she was pushing it open and entering a warm, brightly lit room.

  Jessica blinked against the bright interior and surveyed the room, her eyes adjusting to the portable floodlights positioned in each of its four corners.

  ‘Ach, shut the door,’ someone said, rushing to close it behind them. ‘You’ll let all the heat out.’

  Brett pushed past Jessica, who removed her overcoat and chucked it onto an old desk.

  The young man who’d closed the door whistled in appreciation.

  Jessica turned round and gave him a stern look. ‘Eyes up, Eric.’

  The young German blushed and dragged his eyes from Jessica’s skimpy outfit.

  ‘Put this on.’

  Jessica turned back and accepted a pair of jeans and a woolly jumper from Brett, the tall woman’s hard, unyielding eyes emotionless behind her butch facade.

  ‘Did you follow procedure?’ Brett said, her expression critical.

  Jessica glared at her. ‘To the letter.’

  ‘Then how do you explain the police and GMRC agents?’

  Jessica gritted her teeth and ignored her.

  ‘We were getting worried,’ Eric said.

  ‘So was I.’ Jessica shrugged into the clothes. ‘Bic led me a merry dance. I didn’t even get the chance to change; I’ve been in this get-up for days.’

  ‘They nearly caught you at the press conference,’ Eric said, his voice full of concern. ‘Bic sent a message saying you’d made your escape, but it didn’t stop us from worrying.’

  ‘Didn’t stop you from worrying, you mean,’ Brett said.

  Eric glowered at her.

  ‘I was never in any danger.’ Jessica tightened the belt on her jeans. ‘Bic had everything under control.’

  ‘So he says,’ Brett said, ‘but look what happened outside the concert hall. I take it he didn’t bother explaining himself while he was helping you?’

  ‘He still hasn’t been in touch?’

  Brett shook her head, her face grim. ‘Apart from the odd cryptic message, no.’

  ‘He’ll reach out to us when he’s needed,’ Eric said. ‘Da Muss Ich will never let us down, you’ll see.’

  Brett grunted something and Eric moved past her to give Jessica a hug.

  Jessica tensed, she still wasn’t used to the young computer hacker’s affectionate nature, but the warmth of the embrace melted her resistance and she smiled despite herself.

  ‘You were lucky to escape,’ he said, still clinging to her.

  Jessica saw Brett smirk at their reunion and realised Eric’s hug was not relenting.

  She gently, but firmly, prised herself from his grasp, noticing as she did so the mixture of emotions that played across his face. A thought suddenly struck her as she looked into Eric’s moon-shaped eyes. She groaned inwardly in realisation. ‘The poor boy’s in love with you,’ said her inner voice, ‘go easy on him.’

  I’m married with kids, she thought, what is he thinking?! He’s not thinking, she told herself, you’ve been through a lot together, too much. And he’s young, it’s a crush, he’ll forget about you as soon as someone else comes along. She avoided the young man’s adoring gaze and her eyes narrowed as she looked at Brett, who seemed to be enjoying Jessica’s discomfort.

  ‘It was lucky the GMRC drone intervened,’ Jessica said, trying to defuse the moment, ‘or we’d never have got away.’

  Startled back to reality, Eric said, ‘It wasn’t the GMRC.’

  ‘Then you have heard from Bic?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘You hacked the drone?’ Jessica said, amazed.

  The young hacker sighed and shook his head again. ‘Nein. I wish I had, but it’s far beyond my skill.’ He peered past Brett’s large frame and into the next room, where a grey-haired man busied himself at a hodgepodge of digital devices and an array of aging computer screens.

  Jessica followed Eric’s gaze and said, ‘I thought Bic was the only one capable of hacking the GMRC’s drones?’

  The young German nodded. ‘So did I.’

  Jessica considered the short-statured man; he looked more like a schoolteacher than someone possessed of a cognitive ability rivalling some of history’s greatest minds. Although, she thought, perhaps that’s exactly what he should look like. This was the man who had almost singlehandedly created the GMRC’s subterranean programme, Earth’s primary defence against the coming storm. The man who once ruled the world at the head of the Response Council’s infamous Directorate. It was hard to believe he had fallen so far, but as far as Jessica was concerned, it was a blessing from God, for without him the surface and everyone on it would surely burn, including Jessica’s husband and two young daughters who awaited her return back in England.

  It wasn’t the first time that day her thoughts had returned to her loving family and it wouldn’t be the last, either. How could they not? They were her everything, which was why she would stop at nothing to ensure their continued survival. She just wished she had some control over events yet to unfold. Her mind worked furiously trying to solve the unsolvable and whenever she stopped her endless thinking, she was confronted with the monumental scale of the task ahead. That, and the realisation that she was so far out of her depth it was untrue. The real problem was that failure wasn’t an option. If they didn’t stop the asteroid destined for the United States, they were all as good as dead, and everything else on the entire surface of the planet along with them. It was a sobering thought and one that sought to send her mad if she dwelt on it too long. Jessica shook herself back to the present moment and refocused on the man in the next room. ‘How is he?’

  ‘Still furious,’ Eric said.

  Brett followed their gaze. ‘He’s barely spoken a word since you’ve been gone.’

  ‘Then it’s about time he did.’ Jessica moved towards the door with Eric in tow, her expression set for the challenge ahead.

  As they entered their hub of operations the man in question turned to face them and Jessica noticed how he’d aged since she’d first met him. Deeper worry lines now creased his face. There was an inherent kindness in his expression which masked the iron will of the man behind it, a secret supported by the fierce intelligence that blazed forth from his unyielding gaze. It was a gaze that seemed to see right into a person’s heart, and Jessica felt the same sensation she always did when in his presence: a feeling of safety mixed with belief, and an unusual sense of inadequacy. His was a focus unlike any other. Jessica opened her mouth to speak, but her words caught in her throat as she stared into those powerful, all-seeing eyes.

  Brett followed them into the room and shut the door behind her. Jessica couldn’t help but remain fixed in place under the weight of the man’s gaze. He was a man with the weight of the world upon his shoulders and, despite Bic’s reputation and powers of manipulation over the digital world, as the hacker himself had said, this was the man on whom everything rested. This man was the key not just to their survival, the survival of the United States or even of the entire human
race, but the key to the survival of all life on Earth, above and below ground. Without him all hope was lost. He was a man that had known many names in his lifetime: computer wizard, engineer, physicist, visionary, genius, director general, son, husband ... widower … and, more recently, terrorist, criminal, and even murderer, but as far as Jessica was concerned, the man who had saved her life on numerous occasions, the man on whom she could bestow the name of friend, would always be known by one emotive word that seemed to combine all others that had gone before ...

  Jessica went to say his name, but it caught in her throat as his eyes stripped bare her facade. She’d been fractions away from getting caught and they both knew what that meant. If any one of them got captured, the whole mission was put in jeopardy, which meant by association that Jessica would never see her family again.

  The man’s eyes softened and he stepped forward and embraced her as a father would a daughter.

  ‘We were worried,’ he said. ‘I was worried.’

  ‘I know, Eric told me.’ Jessica stood back as he released his grasp. She looked into his eyes and felt like the child she’d once known. ‘It’s good to be back,’ she said, and smiled, ‘... Professor.’

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Nine

  The laughter lines around Professor Steiner’s eyes creased, as a smile came upon him unbidden. Jessica Klein might have been a hardened reporter, hammered into iron by the cutthroat industry in which she’d excelled, but Steiner knew that like all God’s children, like himself, her heart was as pure as the driven snow. How could it not be? Steiner thought. The creator’s divinity resides in us all. And, as Steiner also knew, God watches through our eyes. As he gazed at Jessica, Steiner felt the love for a daughter he’d never had.

  He squeezed Jessica’s hand with calloused fingers, her skin soft and delicate beneath his engineer’s grasp. Steiner gave her a fond look before releasing her and turning his attention to Eric.

  The young German’s tense expression changed to relief when he saw the professor’s permanent frown had thawed. Steiner gave him a nod in acknowledgement of a job well done. Jessica was back safe and sound.