The Nabatean Secret

by J C Ryan

  “We woke up in the place where we were to be held prisoner for nearly a year. I didn’t know it then but shortly learned I was pregnant. My daughter was born in captivity. I learned later everyone had believed us dead the entire time.

  “Then we were rescued and reunited with my husband, along with another American woman who was also being held prisoner. Not much was printed about it at the time. I think another big news story took precedence, probably.

  “It’s strange, though, that in all the hoopla that’s been going on in the media about us in the past few weeks, no one has ever bothered to mention what happened back then, when the information has been available all this time.”

  This was the longest answer Mackenzie had given, and as she continued, Davis felt her gains slipping away from her again. These facts were easily enough checked. She knew Devereux wouldn’t be stupid enough to lie about such a thing while under oath. It must all be true. She could see and feel the audience felt the same way. They were almost all now siding with Mackenzie.

  Desperately, she seized on the one thing Mackenzie hadn’t elaborated on. “Tell us about the operation you alluded to when you said you and your son were rescued. Who rescued you, who authorized the operation, when, and how did it happen?”

  Mackenzie paused, this time to think through the consequences of the answer. If she gave it in full, she would reveal top-secret information, and she wasn’t going to let that happen. She neatly sidestepped.

  “It was actually my son, my infant daughter, and me. You’ll recall I learned while I was in captivity that I was pregnant. I gave birth to my daughter while in captivity. And the other American. She was rescued at the same time, too.” Mackenzie withheld Liu’s name. She didn’t need to be dragged into this as well.

  Murmurs of sympathy rose from the gallery until Davis picked up her gavel and looked in the direction of the noise with purpose. They quieted without making her resort to verbally warning them.

  Mackenzie had the upper hand now, and she decided to capitalize on it. “I can’t tell you about the details of the planning and execution of the rescue operation. Obviously, I wasn’t involved in them.

  “What I can say is I thank God we were rescued. Can you imagine what it feels like not to see the sun for close to a full year? To not know where you are, not even what country you’re in? To be subjected to wearing a black niqab day in and day out?

  “I was required to work under constant threat that my children would be taken away, perhaps harmed, if I didn’t cooperate. I didn’t know if anyone knew we were alive or even cared. I thought my husband was dead, killed in that explosion.

  “Can you imagine wondering if you’d ever see the sun again? Wondering what would happen to your child if you were to die? And to top it all, to be pregnant with another baby, knowing you’d bring another child into that miserable existence? Can you understand that I wanted to die, but couldn’t bear to leave my son unprotected, or to destroy my unborn baby along with myself?”

  Mackenzie had almost succumbed to her own hypnotic story, remembering the horror. Her eyes were damp, along with many in the gallery. A few were unabashedly sobbing. Even on the committee, she could see faces full of shock and shame.

  Davis, however, seemed unaffected. Oblivious to what was happening to the mood of the room, she pushed harder.

  “I can see that you must have endured a terrible ordeal. However, you haven’t answered the question. Would you please do so now?”

  Mackenzie first looked down at the table in front of her for a second or two and then slowly looked up. She said, “I was trying to avoid answering the rest of it. You know as well as I do, Senator Davis, that I can’t answer the rest of your question in public… because—”

  Davis tensed like a big cat getting ready to jump onto its prey. She interrupted. “Are you refusing to answer? I promise you there will be serious consequences if you do.”

  Mackenzie looked Davis straight in the eyes and said, “In that case I have to inform you that my legal counsel has advised me—”

  Davis interrupted again. Smugly, she said, “Oh, I see. So now you are going to hide behind the Fifth Amendment. Is that how it’s going to be from now on?”

  Mackenzie shook her head. “It doesn’t have to be like that. If you and your committee members will promise to stop this witch-hunt right now, I will answer every question. I’ll make you a deal—”

  Davis dropped her jaw in an exaggerated parody of surprise. “You’re in no position to make deals, Doctor Devereux! This is not a flea market where you bargain for the best prices!”

  She was about to continue her tirade when she saw the admonishing look from one of the committee members who’d read her the riot act during lunch break. The senator next to her, another one of those who was in her office during lunch, leaned over and whispered something in her ear.

  She shook her head violently in obvious disagreement. He leaned over again, and her demeanor changed. Now she looked like she’d taken a big bite out of an unripe lemon.

  “This goes against my grain, but I’ll give you some latitude. What’s your proposal?”

  Mackenzie thanked her and said, “Clear this place out–and I mean everyone except you, the committee members, and the witnesses behind me. Clear out your staff and the public, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know. Because what I have to say is top-secret, and believe me, I am very, very serious. National security is at risk. I will not discuss it in an open hearing.”

  Davis tried to save face–and the remnants of her authority. “This is an open hearing. It will remain open. End of story. You can’t dictate terms and conditions to this committee! We are here to protect the American people and act in their best interest. They will hear it.”

  “Well then you leave me no choice. I have been advised by my legal counsel—”

  Davis waved her hand impatiently and interrupted. “Yes, yes, yes, I know we won’t get any answers from you. What about the rest of the witnesses?”

  She looked at Sebastian, Bill, James, Irene, and Carter. They stood as one, and Sebastian answered for them.

  “We will do the same as Doctor Devereux. We’ll take the Fifth.”

  Davis was furious. She stared at them, seeing not the faces of enemies but a future that included her ouster in the next election. She mumbled, “How am I supposed to conduct a hearing if they can take the Fifth just to avoid my questions? It’s a damn circus.” Without meaning to, she pounded her fist on the podium, but the uproar in the room meant that few saw it and even fewer heard it.

  Mackenzie saw her chance, correctly guessing the source of Davis’s frustration with a little help from lip-reading. She said, “Madam Chairwoman, it’s easy, as far as I am concerned, and I am speaking now only for myself. The rest of the witnesses must speak for themselves.

  “I ask you again to clear out this room as I have suggested, and I will tell you everything you want to know. You have my word – I will not invoke the Fifth. After that, you and your committee will own the information, and if you decide to place this country’s security on the line by making what I tell you public, you’re to blame, not I.

  “So, what’s it going to be? The truth or the Fifth?”

  Davis knew she had lost. It was a reasonable request, and the important thing was to get the incriminating information. She looked at the other witnesses questioningly. They all nodded their agreement with Mackenzie. She looked at the committee members. They all nodded as well.

  She was alone—the gallery had deserted her during Mackenzie’s touching story. Only the media representatives looked unwilling, but they were only thinking of their stories, not the big picture.

  “So, just for the record then,” Davis said reluctantly, “we clear out this room, only the committee members and you remain, and you answer all questions truthful and honestly? No one takes the Fifth?”

  Mackenzie turned to look at the rest of the witnesses as Davis spoke, and all were nodding. “Yes, that’s it,�
� she said, turning back to face Davis.

  Davis rapped her gavel. “We’ll take a half-hour break while the room is cleared.” She stood, gathering the shreds of her dignity, and strode out of the room. Once out of sight of the gallery, she almost broke into a run as she scurried to her office.

  She needed a cigarette, maybe two, and another Valium. If she’d had her wish, she’d have had a double shot of the strongest alcoholic drink she could get her hands on. Even moonshine would have done in a pinch.

  Chapter 79 - It would only get worse

  Graziella and Mathieu had been watching the newsfeed from their respective lairs. The latest development had them almost foaming at the mouth. Nothing was going as planned, and they were devastated to see their scheme slipping away from them—again.

  Every time the cameras showed Carter’s face, one or both erupted like a volcano, spewing smoke, fire, and molten rock.

  That redheaded bitch had wrapped the public, and now the committee members, around her pinky. The final straw was how she finally convinced the committee to have the meeting behind closed doors.

  They did have a few senators and representatives in their pockets, but none on the Senate Intelligence Committee. They knew once those doors closed they would soon become the topic of conversation.

  By the time Davis called for the break to clear the room, Graziella and Mathieu had a very long list of people whom they blamed and whom they were going to have killed. And the list was growing.

  If the hearing going off the rails hadn’t been enough by itself, they’d had even more bad news just hours before the hearing started. They’d had communication with a sleeper plant, who broke her long silence with a report that the President of the United States had ordered and was personally overseeing a secret project code-named QIT. She had been fortuitously assigned to the administrative team for the project.

  Having gathered sufficient information to believe it would be of interest to the Council, she contacted her handler to ask what they’d like her to do. She’d never seen her handler and didn’t even know if it was a man or a woman. Meetings took place in a confessional booth in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, where she could neither see nor hear the full voice of the handler, who spoke in whispers only. She highly doubted the person was a priest, though. Even though she took care to confess a few “sins” each time, she never received a penance.

  That such a project could have escaped the Council’s notice except for the accident that their plant was assigned to it was a shock. But the project itself shouldn’t alarm them. It had taken their own savants years to develop their system. This wasn’t something a bunch of government IT people, notoriously hampered by budget restrictions that left them with obsolete equipment, would be able to do in a decade, much less the six- to eight-week timeline their informant mentioned.

  Their confidence faltered a bit when they were told that private sector technology companies and a few universities were lending their expertise. But they lost it completely when their informant told them about the visits from the mysterious, well-dressed consultants.

  It seemed after every such visit, the project leaped ahead.

  The handler had questioned the informant in detail, knowing the Council would want to know everything. She didn’t know much because she wasn’t part of the coding team. But she did know what progress had been made, and there’d been a rumor going around about a black box they’d brought in. Apparently, understanding how it worked would help them with the secured communications part of their project.

  When Graziella and Mathieu heard that, they nearly lost their minds. The only conclusion they could come to was that the outsiders’ information was coming from the A-Codex, which was just about the worst thing they could think of. Absolutely the worst was the news that the project team had one of the Council’s own devices, the black box, to reverse engineer.

  It could only have come from McCormick’s car. The fact that he and his car had disappeared without a trace was ominous. They were beginning to feel incompetent, and that didn’t bode well for the fate of anyone who’d crossed them or would do so in the near future.

  Their days of exclusive access to quantum computing were rapidly coming to an end. And with the knowledge gained from digging into the black box communications device, their access to private communications with quantum security could very well be in jeopardy as well.

  This day was proving to be the worst in their lives, and they had a gut-wrenching feeling it would only get worse when the hearing reconvened.

  Chapter 80 - Enough is enough!

  Sebastian had pulled a few strings to commandeer a private meeting room on-site for them. When Davis announced a half-hour break, they gathered there to wait and have some refreshment. No sooner had they entered than Carter scooped Mackenzie off her feet into his arms and kissed her in front of the others until she begged for mercy. She had single-handedly turned the threat around and had given them the upper hand.

  Sebastian was more than a little embarrassed that Mackenzie had succeeded where he’d failed in getting Davis to hear them out behind closed doors. But he was enough of a team player to congratulate her with the rest of them. Irene, Bill, and James hugged her.

  When they’d settled down, Sebastian also had a question. “So, what now? We go back in there and spill our guts?”

  Bill shook his head. He was disappointed with Sebastian’s lack of understanding, but he managed to hide it. Though the man was his boss, he was more of a political appointee than a person who truly understood security issues.

  “No. We feed them bits and pieces. I’ll see if Davis will agree to let me give them a short address about A-Echelon and what they’ve been doing. I’ll make it interesting and give them enough to ask questions about. We’ll stay away from anything too sensitive to even tell them about.”

  ***

  Once in her office with the door locked and her assistant told she wasn’t to be disturbed, Davis got through two cigarettes before popping that much-needed Valium. She wisely decided to forego any alcohol.

  While smoking, she mentally berated herself for not listening to Sebastian in the first place. If she had, she wouldn’t have lost face in having to finally close the hearing. Her reputation had taken a heavy blow, and voters had memories like elephants. They’d never allow her to forget she’d been bested by a soft-spoken scientist.

  She started thinking about retiring from politics. Life was just too short to deal with this kind of crap on top of everything else.

  ***

  Both sides, the committee and the witnesses, reconvened in the hearing chamber with a sense that things would go better from then on. With the meeting now behind closed doors, the witnesses could be more forthcoming, and the questioning could be less adversarial.

  As soon as Davis had called the hearing to order, Bill stood.

  “Madame Chairwoman, may I address the committee?”

  “Go ahead, Director Griffin,” she answered. Glad she’d not have to face Dr. Devereux again, at least not for as long as Griffin was talking.

  “I’d like to propose that I take the stand now and give the committee some background information. It will help give everyone on the committee an understanding of what A-Echelon does. I believe it will help us get your questions answered much quicker,” Bill said.

  “You’re saying you’d like to begin with an information session rather than questioning?”

  “No, Madame Chairwoman, the committee would, of course, be welcome to ask questions as they arise, as well as afterward,” Bill conceded.

  Davis, though it was too little, too late, and her constituents wouldn’t see it, was eager to make herself look better. She polled the committee members before answering. They were just as anxious to put the entire matter behind them so they could also assure their constituents they’d been thorough but fair. She turned back to Bill with a smile that belied her personal animosity toward him.

  “You have the floor, D
irector Griffin.”

  Bill began, “A-Echelon investigates unexplained archeological phenomena, conspiracy theories, and ooparts. There are so many wild ideas and strange beliefs out there it makes my head swim. I’m talking ancient astronauts, aliens, star gates, time travel, Atlantis, the lost continent of Mu, or UFOs.”

  He got no further before someone interrupted him to ask what ooparts meant.

  “Out of place artifacts,” he explained. “Like what we think of as modern inventions encased in solid rock, or objects in paintings that resemble items we think of as not having been invented until long after it was painted.”

  Though some of the senators still had puzzled looks, he forged on.

  “I know it sounds crazy, and to the uninformed, it may sound like a waste of money. But our government can’t afford to ignore those. We have to investigate and decide if it’s fact or fiction. Most turn out to be exactly that—fiction and fantasy, but a few have proven absolutely true and the technology has implications for national security.

  “We simply can’t afford for advanced or incomprehensible technology to fall into the hands of people who may use it for purposes contrary to our security. Whether those people are other governments or organizations with wicked intents.

  “Rather than give you examples and sidetrack the intent of this hearing, I’d prefer to tell you about the biggest threat to the United States, and indeed the world, we’ve uncovered in A-Echelon’s existence.”

  After all that, Bill could see he had the rapt attention of everyone on the committee, even Michelle Davis.

  She leaned forward, apparently eager to hear what came next. “Please continue.”

  For the next hour, Bill summarized everything he knew about the Nabateans. He shared with them just a few of the horror stories that had come to light through A-Echelon’s activities. How the Nabateans killed Algosaibi’s children, the information Durand gave them, including how the Nabateans assassinated him while he was in US custody. He went on to describe what they were capable of, including how the head of the Council, Graziella Nabati, and her son, Mathieu, disappeared after those killings.