The Nabatean Secret

by J C Ryan

  As they went up the stairs, the designated groups peeled off on their assigned floor to explore and secure it. They crept silently, assault rifles aimed, peering through the sights of their weapons, ready to fire. Fortunately, the floors were well lit.

  It had been quite some time since Bill had been in the field. Truth be told, it had been more than thirty years. His heart hammered as he worked his way up the stairs with the men.

  Just when they reached the basement’s second level, a short burst of gunfire sounded from the level below them—basement level three, Joe’s group. Bill’s heart rate doubled.

  Peter, who was leading, said over his shoulder, “Keep on going. Joe will take care of it.”

  Joe was leading three of his MI6 men when they rounded a corner and ran right into one of the workers. Joe acted in a flash and cold-cocked the worker with the butt of his assault rifle. But then two more men came running around the corner. Joe’s men shouted at them to freeze, but they just kept coming—the operatives had no choice but to shoot them down.

  “Shit, I hope those shots weren’t heard on the outside,” Bill said.

  “Impossible,” Peter replied. “These walls are too thick to let out any sound. But everyone inside would have heard it.”

  Bill and Peter found it strange that despite the fact that the whole place must have been on alert after those shots that there was no eruption of gunfights.

  Then the leader of the level four group reported, “Level four secured. No resistance. Ten rounded up and secured. But man, they are weird!”

  “What do you mean?” Peter asked.

  “They were all sitting at computers when we came in. They didn’t even look up at us. When we pulled them off their chairs and tied them up, they were moaning a bit but didn’t resist. Now they’re just staring at us. None of them has said a word. And you’re not going to believe this, but they all look the same.”

  “What do you mean they look the same?” Bill interjected.

  “They look like clones.”

  With a sickening shock, Bill remembered Carter’s report—these monsters had programs to make their own savants. “Oh, my God!” he sighed. “Listen, those people are autistic. Make sure no one hurts them.”

  “Will do,” the team leader replied.

  Peter and Bill, with the last team, reached the first level. The sleeping quarters, kitchen, and dining area were on this level. They found twenty people asleep in their beds and discovered the same experience as the team on level four. The people all looked the same—tiny, fragile, bleak-skinned humans with dark hair and big, dark eyes, wordlessly staring at them. It was like a horror movie.

  “What do I do with these poor people when the operation is over?” Bill muttered. Before he could think any further, the reports started streaming in.

  “Basement level three secured,” Joe reported. “This is the medical lab. Twelve here, two dead, nine more clones, and one normal. Says he is a brain specialist.”

  Joe was sickened as he stared at the liquid-filled jars on the shelves—fetuses in vitro. The doctor had explained these were savants in various stages of development. The doctors would, at the right times, insert different chemical substances to create the conditions for determining the exact type of genius the Nabateans required.

  “But be warned,” Joe said, “you’ll need a strong stomach for this one.”

  “Basement level two secured,” the team leader reported. “This is the IT hub. There’re two ‘normals’ and eight clones. Send the IT experts in. The ‘normals’ are cooperating.”

  “Okay, sending them in now,” Peter replied.

  Bill had been adding the numbers—fifty-two. He turned to Peter. “We were told to expect more than a hundred people. We’ve only got fifty-two.”

  Peter nodded. “Yes, I’ve been wondering about that. As far as we know, there’s no place in this facility where they can hide. They could have escaped or could’ve been evacuated as part of the Nabateans plans to disappear.”

  Bill paused for a moment. “Animals! They’ve evacuated the best and left these poor souls to be killed.”

  Peter raised his phone to his mouth, “Okay, everyone, listen carefully. Leave two operators with the IT gurus on level three. The rest of you all up to level one. We need to work level by level and find those bombs, now.”

  Bill went up to the ground floor and told Shane to join the IT team on level three. He questioned Aubert to find out if he had any idea where the bombs could have been hidden. But Aubert had no idea. He had very little empathy when he tied Aubert’s arms and feet to the chair and wrapped a few pieces of duct tape around his mouth.

  “Bastard! You knew exactly what was going on down there. I have a good mind to shoot you right now.”

  Simone put her hand on Bill’s arm to calm him down.

  Bill took Simone’s hand, led her into an adjacent room, and told her what they had found so far. Simone had tears in her eyes when he told her about the people. “I’ll have to go back down now, Simone, but in the meantime, you’ll have to think what we’re going to do with those unfortunate people down there…. If we get out of this alive.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Bill. We’re going to make it out of here—all of us. You and I have some unfinished business to take care of.” She smiled and rose to the tip of her toes and kissed him. “Now go and find the bombs and deactivate them.”

  When Bill arrived in the IT hub on level three, he found room after room of what the computer geeks identified as highly advanced computer servers, used as databanks.

  The two “normals” they captured in the IT hub became extremely helpful when they were told their bosses had abandoned them to die in an explosion.

  Unfortunately, they had no idea where the thermobaric bombs could have been placed. Neither did they know about the antimatter bombs, nor if they were controlled from the IT hub. However, they told Bill and Shane that more than half of the workers were moved to a new facility over the past two days.

  “I believe you now understand why they did that?” Bill said.

  The two men nodded in shocked silence.

  Shane asked them about their external communications link, and the leader explained they had fiber-optic cables running to one of the houses on the outside, where it was connected to small but very powerful satellite dishes.

  “Shit!” Shane exclaimed. “We’ve to assume that if we cut those, it will trigger the bombs.”

  “Okay,” Bill started with as much calm as he could muster, “if you want to save your asses and the rest of the people here, we need to find the server that’s controlling the antimatter bombs. It’s linked to the thermobaric bombs—all of it will go off at the same time. That much we know.”

  The two men asked that the rest of their team be untied and promised none of them would cause any trouble—they would do exactly what they were told. Shane looked at Bill.

  He hesitated. “Okay, but tell them one wrong move and… no, just tell them about the bombs and that they’ll be dead if they don’t find that controller.”

  Bill’s phone crackled. It was Peter’s voice. “We got one in the kitchen. The experts are looking at it, but you better come and have a look.”

  Bill ran up the stairs and was out of breath when he arrived in the kitchen. Peter and one of the bomb disposal experts stood in front of a cavity in the wall, which was previously blocked by a stove. He saw the bomb—it filled the entire cavity and was rigged with wires and a device, which looked like a smartphone.

  He looked inquisitively at Peter and the explosives expert.

  “No touching that thing, sir,” the expert said. “That device there” —he pointed to the smartphone— “is wirelessly connected to some other device. Breaking the link will set the bomb off.”

  Bill took a step back, and before he could say anything, Joe came through on his phone. “Found another in the sleeping quarters.”

  Bill, Peter, and the expert rushed to the sleeping quarters. Within a min
ute, they reached the same conclusion as with the first bomb—hands off.

  “Damn! We’re down to one option—find the controller. Okay, Peter, let’s stop the search for the bombs, and evacuate the people and as much of the medical lab and IT equipment into the catacombs as we can.”

  “Yes, sir,” Peter replied and started issuing the orders.

  Bill turned and went down the stairs back to the IT hub. “I’m too damned old for this,” he muttered.

  Chapter 102 - In ten minutes

  Shane’s voice came over his phone before he reached the third level. “They’ve found it!”

  “The bomb controls?” he retorted.

  “Yeah. And you’re not going to believe this—”

  “Spit it out, man! We don’t have all day.”

  “Sir, it’s… It’s going to detonate them in ten minutes.”

  By now, Bill was inside the IT hub. “Can they stop it?” he asked in an almost inaudible voice.

  “Sir, there are safeguards. They’re working as fast as they can to break the password or pin code or whatever. I’m not sure what they’re up against, but it doesn’t look good.”

  Bill’s blood ran cold. That wasn’t enough time to warn the President to evacuate Capitol Hill. And the antimatter bombs wouldn’t be stopped even by the hardened shelter below the White House. His friends… Grant, James… They’d be annihilated. His head dropped. Simone!

  He ran to the room where they found the control server and skidded to a halt behind a knot of computer scientists in front of a server and looked at the numbers on the screen. It displayed 9:30, and just then it ticked down to 9:29.

  He shouted, “Stop that fucker!”

  It seemed to break the collective trance, even for the savants.

  Bill didn’t look back. He sprinted out of the room, skipping the stairs two at a time up to the first basement floor to the elevator. On the way, he got his phone out, pushed the button, and shouted, “Simone! Get in the elevator and come down immediately. We have to get you to safety.”

  Simone jumped up and entered the elevator, leaving Aubert behind, whose eyes were wide—he knew what was going to happen to him.

  Bill literally dragged Simone out of the elevator while the doors were still opening and dragged her with him to the stairs leading down to the fourth floor and the sliding door. Out of breath and with a heartrate that must have been exceeding two hundred, he explained what was going on.

  When they reached the IT hub level, Simone stopped and shouted, “Bill, if you’re not going with me, I’m not going out. I stay with you.”

  Bill stopped and was about to shout at her that there was no time for arguing but saw the determination on her face. For a moment, he considered throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her down then realized he had almost no strength left to walk, let alone lifting and carrying her. He gave up and instead said, “Come this way.”

  Hand in hand, he and Simone entered the server room. Bill’s eyes sought the screen first—2:28.

  One of the savants was in the seat in front of the server, his fingers a blur over the keyboard. It looked like a science fiction movie set. Everyone else was quiet. It was as if they had stopped breathing.

  Moments passed.

  The counter showed 2:10.

  The savant’s hands came to an abrupt halt. He didn’t say anything—he just rested his hands on the desk on either side of the keyboard and stared at the screen.

  Everyone’s eyes move from the person’s hands to the screen.

  The clock showed 2:08 and below it a message:

  Confirm Shutdown of Countdown Sequence.

  Press “Y” to stop or “N” to continue.

  Shane took a step forward, leaned over the person’s shoulder, and pressed the Y-key.

  Countdown Sequence Ended.

  It was exactly two forty-five p.m. in Paris.

  “I am really too old for this shit,” Bill growled.

  Everyone except the savants started laughing and high-fiving each other. Simone put her arm around Bill’s waist and hugged him.

  “Okay, Shane,” Bill started after a deep breath, “shutdown everything. Unplug and dismantle everything on this floor. I’m going to meet with the others and figure out a way to evacuate everyone and everything from these chambers of horror.”

  With the assurance that the Nabateans’ global communications system had been deactivated, Bill felt it was safe to let the President know. He and Simone went up to the ground floor where he switched his encrypted satellite phone on and called President Grant.

  Chapter 103 - I’m proud of her

  The French situation was a prickly problem from the outset and only became worse in the aftermath. The French President was informed of the details of Operation Rock Concert through a briefing by the US ambassador to France, and of the fact that one of his citizens was the leader of this nefarious group. However, he was oblivious to the operation that took place on French soil.

  After stopping the countdown to the bomb explosions, Aubert was brought down to show them the hidden entrances to the adjacent houses. Peter and Joe took some of their men and searched the three residences and were not surprised when they found no one inside.

  That made their next decision much easier. They rented two furniture removal trucks and packed all the equipment. By six p.m., they had emptied the place and dispatched the trucks, driven by their own men, two from each of Peter’s and Joe’s teams, to 21st Theater Sustainment Command, Kaiserslautern, Germany.

  Kaiserslautern was two hundred seventy miles from Paris— about four and half hours’ drive. With the European Union’s open borders, they didn’t expect any problems with crossing into Germany and reaching the US Military base at Kaiserslautern from where the equipment would be flown out to the US.

  Their next big issue was what to do with the captives. They couldn’t smuggle them out of the country, and they couldn’t just abandon them. But even more of a problem was, what happened to those people who were evacuated in the days leading up to Operation Rock Concert? Who took them? Where were they taken? And adding to their already throbbing headache was learning from the “normals" that some of the equipment was evacuated with the people two days ago.

  The problem was they couldn’t start a manhunt for them in Europe, or anywhere for that matter, without divulging the background information about the Paris operation.

  This situation presented the potential mother of all lose ends and the father of all diplomatic catastrophes.

  Eventually, after much deliberation with the NSC members, it was decided that there was no way around it—President Grant and the Secretary of State, Constance Pierce, had to pay an urgent visit to the French President.

  The personal call from President Grant came through five hours into their flight from Lima to DC.

  When the call ended, Constance let out a few very unladylike expletives, looked at Sean, and said, “You guys really know how to stir up shit properly, don’t you?”

  At Sean’s inquisitive look, Connie explained. All Sean could say was, “I’m sorry, ma’am, ah… Constance. I’ll be more than happy to go with you if I can be of any use.”

  She just smiled. “Thanks, Sean, I appreciate that, but what we need now are people who can talk their way out of trouble, not shoot their way out. But trust me, if I need anyone shot, I’ll be on the phone to you immediately.”

  Grant was waiting for her on the tarmac when they landed, and they were immediately escorted to the waiting Air Force One.

  Neither of them were looking forward to the meeting with the French President and his advisors.

  When Air Force One reached cruising altitude, President Grant got hold of Bill and told him he had seven hours to get himself and his men and Simone out of France and into the UK before Air Force One landed in Paris. Once in the UK, MI6 would take care of them and escort them to RAF Lakenheath, from where they would be airlifted back to the US.

  “Bill, don’t worry about Ms. Bou
vier. I know you well enough to know there’s more than just a professional relationship between the two of you. You can let her know we’ll not throw her under the bus. Constance and I’ll be discussing her situation with President Robichaux. And if we can’t get the necessary guarantees from them, we’ll take care of her—US citizenship and a job if that’s what she wants.”

  “Thank you, Sam.” Bill sighed in relief. “I’m grateful for that. I’ll pass the message on to her.”

  When the call ended, Bill walked over to Simone, sat down next to her, and told her about the call with Grant, his instructions for them to move out, and his offer to protect her.

  She stared out into middle space for a long while before she spoke. “I knew what I let myself into when I agreed to help you. Now that it’s over, even with the wisdom of hindsight, there’s nothing I would’ve done different.

  “I love my country, and it is that which kept me from marrying you forty years ago and going to America with you. I still love my country, and what I did here was as much as anything I ever did to protect my country. If my President can’t see that and acknowledge I was acting in the interest of France, then so be it.

  “Of course, I would prefer to not be labeled a traitor by my own people, but if I’m to be persecuted by them for doing the right thing, then I’d prefer not to stay in France. “

  Bill took her hand and looked her in the eyes. “Simone, let’s not put the cart before the horse. President Grant is an old and loyal friend of mine, and he gave me his word. I’m confident he’s not going to drop the ball.

  “We’ve got very little time to wrap things up here, but before we do, let me just say this. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Whether that’s in France or America, I don’t care, as long as I can be with you from now on.”

  Simone wiped the tears from her eyes and said, “And that’s exactly how I feel.”

  Bill got up from the couch and called the team together to plan their withdrawal.