KADEN MORGAN.
His hand moved to the open zipper of the breast pocket before it slipped inside. His fist locked around the suit, his suspicion confirmed.
“Sir?”
Gavriel’s head snapped up at the voice in the doorway. He stared over the crate into the eyes of a security guard.
“Sir, this is a restricted area,” the guard said, eyeing him warily.
“Good afternoon, Officer,” Gavriel replied smoothly, his breathing slowing. “I was just checking my shipment here.” He casually lifted the suit up to the guard with his left hand, hiding his right hand beneath it. “It just arrived this morning.” Gavriel continued talking calmly while he pulled the Glock from his shoulder holster with his right hand, out of view of the guard. “I wanted to ensure everything was in order.” Slowly and deliberately, he stood, the suit covering the pistol as he placed it on the lid in front of him. He lowered the biosafety suit over the gun. “I was just finishing up,” he said, cocking the hammer.
The guard approached Gavriel cautiously.
“Your badge, sir? I apologize for the inconvenience, but we had a malfunction with the security surveillance.”
Gavriel reached for his ID with his left hand and held it out to the guard.
“Of course, Officer. Here you go.”
The security guard took the ID. He scanned Gavriel’s picture and the name next to it.
“Dr. Marcos Alves?”
“That’s me,” Gavriel said, the cold smile on his face not quite reaching his eyes.
The guard squeezed the button on the microphone of his radio.
“Base. This is Brawley. I need a credential check on Dr. Marcos Alves, badge number 19690309.”
The two men locked gazes, unblinking. Several long seconds passed. Finally, the static of the radio interrupted the silence.
“Brawley—base. Credentials confirmed. Site-wide clearance.”
The guard exhaled and held the badge out to Gavriel.
“Thank you, sir,” he said. “I apologize for the inconvenience.”
“You’re just doing your job,” Gavriel replied, coolly, taking his badge.
The guard turned to leave. He looked back at the heavy lid and glanced at Gavriel. “Here, let me give you a hand with that.” He grabbed the lid and lifted it. The white biosuit slid down, exposing the pistol in Gavriel’s right hand.
The guard froze.
He didn’t hear the shot as Gavriel lifted the pistol and fired in one smooth motion. He collapsed in front of Gavriel, a pool of blood forming under him from the gunshot wound in his forehead.
Gavriel glanced down at the guard, an almost rueful expression crossing his face. He took out his phone and dialed a number.
“Do you have it?” Drake’s voice was tense on the other end of the line.
“Somebody beat us to it,” Gavriel replied.
“It must still be close. Find it!” Drake hissed then ended the connection.
“Clay?” Paul knocked on the partially open door. “You in there, mate?”
Alyssa peeked inside the dimly lit office. The overhead lights were off. The only source of light, besides the two large monitors sitting on the L-shaped desk, was a thin floor lamp in the corner of the office.
“Hang on… be with you in a sec,” came a disembodied voice. “Come on in.”
Alyssa strained to adjust her vision from the brightly lit corridor. A bookshelf filled with books and software boxes, a locked metal cabinet, and a long folding table covered with various computer parts made up the only other furniture in the room.
A couple of seconds later a head poked up from under the desk.
“Sorry about that. Just trying to install a new video card in my machine and she’s not—” When he saw Paul, he flashed him a boyish grin.
“Haiya, Paul!”
Alyssa considered the young man—kid, actually—as he stood up behind the desk and ran a hand through his curly black hair. Patchy stubble covered the dark skin on his chin. He straightened out his white button-down shirt and wiped his palms on his faded jeans.
“Hey, Clay,” Paul said pointing at Alyssa. “Meet Alyssa Morgan, her dad’s an archaeologist at Cairo University.” He looked at Alyssa and pointed to Clay. “Alyssa, this is Clay Obono, fellow intern and computer geek extraordinaire. He helps out with our computer needs. If it speaks zeros and ones, he can make it do anything you want.”
“Good to meet you, Alyssa,” Clay said, his smooth African accent instantly growing on her. “But my good friend Paul is exaggerating a bit,” he said with a wide, toothy grin.
“Intern?” Alyssa raised her eyebrows. “Aren’t you a bit young?”
“My dad is the director,” Clay replied, a hint of embarrassment creeping into his voice. “So you’re from Cairo? That’s lit. You here for a tour of our virtual reality lab?”
Alyssa smiled. “I’m sure it’s fascinating. Maybe some other time.”
Paul handed the crystal to Clay.
Clay sat down in his chair and examined the crystal. He let out a long whistle. “It’s a beaut.” He slowly turned it over in his hand. Finally, he put it down and faced them. “So, what is it, Oxford boy?”
Alyssa looked at Paul and rolled her eyes.
He glanced back and shrugged, lifting his eyebrows in the same motion. “It was worth a shot,” he said.
Clay feigned hurt. “You do me injustice.” He picked up his large cup of soda and swirled it around, bouncing the ice cubes against the sides before taking a sip. “Whose algorithm boosted your dating profile to the top of every girl’s list?”
Alyssa eyed Paul, not trying to hide her smirk.
“I… uh,” Paul stammered. “It was a class assignment… in psych…” He stared at Clay and said, a bit too quickly, “Can you figure out what it is?”
Clay spun his chair and pulled a magnifying glass from a drawer. He peered into the crystal. “I don’t see any inclusions, cut marks or other signs that hint at how it was made.” He picked up a small flashlight and aimed it into the crystal.
“That’s curious,” he muttered.
“What?” Paul and Alyssa asked in unison.
“I think it’s getting warm,” Clay replied.
“Warm?” Paul asked. “Is it supposed to?”
Clay gave Paul a look. “Last one I checked stayed frosty cool.”
“Bollocks,” Paul replied.
“I’ve never seen this type of facet structure,” Clay continued. He scratched the stubble covering his chin as another thought struck him. “If we can determine the angle of refraction, we may get an idea of what kind of material we’re dealing with.” He reached into a pencil cup on his desk and pulled out a laser-pointer.
“A gift from a friend in China,” he smirked, “and about ten times more powerful than the ones at our office shop.”
He looked up at Alyssa and Paul. “Don’t look directly into the crystal,” he instructed.
“What’s it gonna do?” Paul asked. “Melt my face off?”
Clay put on a pair of goggles and pointed the laser at the crystal. “Nah… but the beam’s reflection might burn a hole in your retina.”
Paul and Alyssa quickly looked away as Clay pressed the button on the laser pointer.
The crystal exploded with brilliant light as the green laser beam grazed it, lighting up the office with an image of dozens of people dressed in white robes, congregating in a large, magnificently decorated room. A split second later, the scene was replaced by a view of several adults and children playing in a lush green garden, azure blue waters beyond it in the distance. Before any of them had a chance to take in any details, the face of a dark-skinned woman filled the office, her stunning eyes turning to them in a piercing gaze.
“What the… Ayy!” Clay screamed and dropped the crystal to the desk. Immediately the pictures disappeared. He put his fingers in his mouth then popped the lid off his cup and dunked them in the icy drink. “Did that get bloody hot!”
Aly
ssa and Paul stood frozen in place. The views of the three scenes lasted less than a second, yet nobody in the room seemed to be breathing or moving for much longer afterward.
Finally, Clay took his fingers out of the cup and checked them. His flat voice broke the silence.
“Well, that was unexpected.”
Alyssa looked at him, dumbfounded. “What… just… happened? What did you do to it?”
Clay shook the drops of soda from his fingers onto the floor and wiped his hand on his jeans. He looked up at her, blinking. “I’m not entirely certain.” He rubbed his forehead, staring at the crystal on the desk.
“There’s been some research using frequency variations and highly reflective optical media to store information.” He stopped and looked from Alyssa to Paul as they stared at him with blank expressions. “Ah… think of it as a DVD or BluRay, except instead of rotating the disk to get more information, you change the frequency of the laser beam shooting into it.”
“So this is a hard drive? With movies?” Paul asked.
Clay shrugged before shaking his head slowly.
“What is it, Clay?” Alyssa asked.
“It’s just… the technology to manufacture this kind of medium, let alone the processing power to encode that much information… doesn’t exist.” He scrubbed his face with his hand. “So where did you say this came from?”
Alyssa wet her lips. “You’d never believe it anyway,” she replied hesitantly, glancing at Paul.
“Try me,” he said, his eyes crinkling with anticipation.
Alyssa’s face was a mask as she looked at Clay. “If my father is correct, from about ten thousand years ago.”
9 Kasir El Aini Hospital, Cairo
Tasha Mendeva strode through the elegant sliding-glass doors into the hospital. She scarcely noted the marble floors and statues that adorned the massive lobby and the thirty foot tall, glass water fountain that welcomed visitors into the atrium. Physicians in white coats, professional smiles pasted on their faces, dodged clusters of concerned families as they scurried to attend to their patients.
Dressed in a gray abaya dress and black shawl, Tasha blended seamlessly into the bustling crowd. She glanced at the signs in the lobby before aiming for the restrooms across from the fountain.
Tasha opened the door and moved inside, catching a whiff of detergent and scented antiseptic. She surveyed the room. Four stalls lined the right wall, a mirror fixed over the sinks covered the entire left wall. This will suffice.
She stalked to the first stall and pushed on the door then checked the other three stalls. Satisfied they were empty, she entered the handicapped stall at the far wall and pulled the door closed, leaving a small crack to give her a view of the mirror and the restroom.
Tasha leaned against the wall and began to breathe, focusing on her training. Inhale… one… two… three… Hold… one… two… three… four… Exhale… one… two… three… four… five… six… She slowed down her breathing, finding comfort in the familiar pattern, as she allowed her mind to drift.
St. Petersburg, Russia—Ten Years Earlier
The young girl’s feet were cold and wet as she shuffled through the snow-covered cobbles of the dark alley. The white dampness filled her lungs, clinging to her like the shreds of a ghastly cloak. Her disheveled auburn locks hung upon her tattered dress, her sunken eyes darting anxiously across the shadows.
She stopped and squeezed her eyelids tighter than tight. She imagined stuffing her terrors into a bag and carrying it down a long hallway, past the other locked doors.
Her mother’s shuddering screams behind the wall.
Her father, drunk and leering, standing in her bedroom doorway.
Her mother’s stare, filled with terror, the bloodied knife in her hand.
The men in uniforms, her mother’s face contorted with guilt and fear as they dragged her away.
A great sob knotted up in her chest. She swallowed and took a deep breath, closing another door in her mind. You’ve made it this far.
She tried to ignore the smell of sewage and wet trash as the aching pain deep in her belly pulled her toward a garbage can leaning against the wall.
She began sifting through it for anything that could fill her stomach without making her ill when she spotted an old plastic doll. Hesitantly she reached for it.
The hand around her mouth was as sudden as it was vicious. The girl’s blood drained from her face when the attacker lifted her and spun her around to another man, his cruel glare and callous sneer tearing into her.
She tried to scream. Hot tears blinded. Her heart and lungs threatened to burst. She fought the vicious man with all her strength, but her arms were pinned at her sides in his vice-like grip.
Suddenly, the other man dropped to the ground, revealing the tall silhouette of another man behind him, his hard eyes burning into her captor.
The vicious man dropped her. He stared down the tall man, eyeing the crisply pressed suit and polished shoes. His mouth twisted into an ugly sneer before he pulled out a knife.
“Aristocraty…” he spat, then lunged at the tall man without warning.
The tall man’s move was a blur to the girl as he deftly stepped aside and grabbed the other man’s arm. An instant later she heard a sickening sound that grew into a tortured howl. She gasped when she saw her attacker on the ground, his arm at a grotesque angle. The tall man loomed above him as her attacker crabbed away clumsily, holding his broken arm, before awkwardly getting on his feet and scampering into the dark alley.
The tall man turned to her and his face softened. She scooted backward until she hit the alley wall and stared at him, frozen, too scared to look away. Her heart squeezed tightly in her chest and she could no longer take a breath.
“Easy. It’s all right. I will not harm you,” he said in a comforting voice.
The young girl trembled, not understanding.
He kept his gaze on her and repeated.
“Ne boysia. Vse horosho.”
She blinked. The tall man held out his arms to his side, palms facing her, as he slowly approached her. He spotted the doll on the ground and picked it up. He wiped it off, gently smoothing the doll’s hair and held it out to her.
The girl hesitantly reached out, her striking violet eyes locked on his, as he continued speaking to her in Russian.
“There, there,” he said softly. “You shall never have to be scared again. Would you like that?”
The girl continued to stare at him silently, the terror slowly ebbing from her belly. She nodded, uncertainly.
“What is your name?” he asked.
The girl held his gaze for several moments. Then she spoke, timidly, “Tasha…”
Tasha’s eyes snapped open at the sound of the door. She bit down on a smile when she glimpsed the white color of a physician’s coat before the woman entered a stall. With unhurried movements, Tasha slid her hand inside her abaya, pulling out a small syringe. She carefully removed the plastic cap from the needle and waited until she heard the woman flush the toilet and leave the stall. Tasha flushed the toilet a moment later and, palming the syringe, opened the door and strode to the sink next to the physician.
The woman pulled a lipstick out of her pocket and leaned closer to the mirror to apply it. Tasha slowed down for an instant as she passed behind her. Without a warning, she jammed the needle into the side of the woman’s neck and emptied the contents of the syringe in one motion. The physician gasped a split second before the paralytic drug took effect and her body went limp.
Tasha deftly caught the other woman before she hit the floor and dragged her into the stall, locking the door behind them. She sat the woman on the toilet and calmly pulled the syringe from the physician’s neck. Tasha ignored the terror in the paralyzed woman’s eyes as she removed the physician’s white coat, ID badge and key card. She leaned the woman against the back wall then climbed nimbly over the stall door.
Taking slow and easy breaths, she strode toward the sink and washed
her hands before putting on the white coat. She glanced in the mirror and adjusted her shawl and coat, flipping the ID badge backwards. Her lips curved up into the barest of smiles as she turned to the door and reached into the coat pocket, pulling out a stethoscope. Stepping briskly, she put the stethoscope around her neck and left the restroom.
Tasha crossed the lobby to the information desk in the center of the atrium.
“Kade Morgan?” she said to the clerk then she spelled the name.
“Just a moment, Doctor,” the woman replied as she typed the name into the computer. “Tenth floor, Intensive Care Unit Quarantine, Room 1021.”
The elevator stopped on the tenth floor and Tasha stepped out into the brightly lit corridor. The smell of antiseptic and the metallic tang from stainless steel hung in the air, trying in vain to mask the odor of sickness. She read the overhead sign: Rooms 1001-1030 left, 1031-1060 straight, 1061-1090 right. She turned left and paced along the hallway.
Room 1021. She glanced through the window into the small anteroom and into the hospital room beyond. Tasha’s breathing quickened when she recognized the man lying in the bed.
She used the physician’s key card, entered the small chamber, and pulled out a mask and a pair of blue gloves from the overhead cabinet and slipped them on. She glanced out into the hallway before taking a deep breath and stepping through the second door into the hospital room.
Tasha’s senses sharpened as she slowly moved to the bed enclosed in a transparent, plastic canopy. The man lying in the bed appeared to be sleeping. Close-up, he looked much thinner than in the pictures she had memorized. His skin was ashen and his breathing was labored.
Tasha pulled out an empty tube and disconnected Kade’s IV line outside the plastic canopy. She hooked up the tube to the port and watched Kade’s blood fill the small cylinder. After a few seconds, she unscrewed the tube, carefully placed it in a Ziploc bag, and slipped it into a pocket inside her abaya.
Heir of Ra (Blood of Ra Book One) Page 7
