The Wolves of Freydis

by J C Ryan

  Carter could see that his words were sinking in with them.

  “These giants understood and harnessed the power of electricity in ways we don’t even understand; you’ve seen it working here. Humans have been studying electricity for millennia, but it was only in the late 1800’s that we learned how to use electricity for our own purposes. The giants preceded us by more than 50,000 years, not only that, but they were using technology so advanced our scientists have yet to figure out how it worked.”

  Carter had stopped talking and was looking at them to see if he had said enough or if he should continue. It was difficult to judge by their facial expressions; therefore, he left them with one more thought.

  “The Giants were much more advanced in certain aspects of technology than we are today, that much we know. However, we have only discovered their electricity and electromagnetism. The question is; what else did they know that we haven’t uncovered yet? What we don’t know is what’s dangerous.”

  “Don’t worry Carter,” Roy smiled, “we’ve got it. You don’t have to explain anything else.”

  “Okay, with that out of the way, what’s your plan?” John asked.

  “We have to sneak into that place at night and have a look. I suggest one of you come with me and the other three, stand guard, ready to create a diversion if anyone approaches and to alert us on the inside.”

  “Right,” Kevin said, “the four of us will check everything out tomorrow during the day, plan it, and if everything seems to be good we can move in late tomorrow night. At least, we know that Daan’s people are usually all asleep by 11:00 pm.”

  It was shortly after 1:00 am the next day when Carter and Kevin arrived at the burial chambers, opened the main door, entered, and swiped the GRP on the inside wall to close it behind them.

  On the outside Roy, Andre and John were positioned in various places from where they would be able to observe anyone approaching and create a diversion if necessary. They had small, handheld two-way radios which they used to keep in contact with each other, as well as with Carter and Kevin on the inside. Kevin had a signal booster that he placed just inside the main door to improve the signal strength of the little radios.

  As expected, the first door opened soon after Kevin started probing the area on the wall, pointed out by Carter. It was the area where his earlier scanning with the EMF meter showed the most electromagnetic activity.

  When the first door slid backward and then sideways, Carter walked forward into the chamber and stopped. Seconds later the brilliant bright lights went on, as he expected and he took a deep breath. Kevin stood next to him in silence; he had stopped breathing and was standing in awe at what he was seeing.

  Carter turned to him, “Breathe, Kevin, I need you here,” He chuckled.

  The air was fresh and cool, almost cold. There wasn’t a single speck of dust anywhere as far as their eyes could see; it felt as if the place had been fitted with air-conditioning. If Carter expected to enter into a spacious place, he would have been disappointed, but over the years he’d learned to have no expectations; but to search and explore, and enjoy the surprises when they came.

  At first glance, seeing this room wasn’t a breathtaking moment for him. It was a small room, about ten by ten feet square with beautiful marble walls, but no engravings anywhere. In the center was a granite table with a rectangular marble box on top. The box appeared to be about one-foot-wide, three feet long, and two feet deep. It had, what looked like a solid marble lid covering it. The minimalism of the room and its contents stood in sharp contrast to everything else in the City of Lights. It was almost an anticlimax.

  That feeling lasted only until he and Kevin carefully lifted the lid. The first surprise was its weight. It looked like it was solid marble but it couldn’t be. It was as light as a feather; any one of them could have lifted it with a pinky. Staring into the box, Carter was now the one gasping for air.

  “What is this?”

  Kevin was already looking at him for an answer. “Breathe, Carter,” he whispered, and then shook his head, “No idea.”

  The box was about one-third full, with three neatly stacked bundles of flimsy, metallic looking sheets. Carter donned a pair of cotton gloves and slowly and carefully retrieved one of the sheets; it was thinner than paper. When he held it up, he thought it looked and felt like a sheet of cellophane, yet it had an unmistakable metallurgical aspect to it; nothing like he had ever seen before.

  “What do you think?” Kevin asked.

  Carter was startled out of his reverie. “The Chronicles of the dead.” He murmured.

  “What?”

  “I think these sheets hold information about the people who have been buried here.”

  “But there’s no writing on it.”

  Holding the sheet up again, Carter pointed with his finger to the rows and rows of tiny dots, about the size of a pinhead covering the entire sheet. “The writing is inside those little dots.”

  “How the hell…?”

  “Nanotechnology,” Carter smiled. “In 2007 scientists used nanotechnology to print the entire Old Testament of the Bible onto a silicon chip which was less than 1/1000th of an inch, in other words in a space that was much smaller than a pinhead. They used a focused ion beam (FIB) generator to shoot ions onto a gold surface covering a base layer of silicon. The actual ‘writing’ of the full text took just 90 minutes.”

  “From 50,000 years ago?” Kevin shook his head. “Nanotechnology? Wha … how... nah… just forget it, don’t even try to explain. I’ve just gone crazy, much easier to deal with a mind that has gone around the bend than this.”

  Carter laughed. “Okay, let’s go and have a look at the other room.”

  They left and walked across a passage, and seconds later, stood in a room identical to the first. The only difference was the table in this room held three boxes the same size as the one in the first room, and these boxes were all filled to the brim with the same type of sheets.

  “So if the previous box contained the chronicles of the dead, what is this?” Kevin asked. “But remember I’ve lost my mind already so you can tell me anything, I can’t get more disturbed than I already am.”

  Carter chuckled, “Maybe it’s the library of the giants.”

  “Oh ok... if you say so,” was all that Kevin could muster.

  “Alright, Kevin; the moment of truth has arrived,” Carter uttered in an almost formal tone. “I have to get these boxes out of here and then find a way of smuggling them back to the States. We have to decipher the language and discover what is written on those sheets.”

  Kevin nodded.

  “Now I am not asking you to appease my conscience,” Carter was uneasy but he felt what he had to say was important. “I’m admitting to you now that what I’m doing is wrong. If I’m caught, I will take the rap for it, you have my word that I’ll never mention you or any of your teammates.”

  Kevin looked at him a bit stunned. “Carter, we already sorted that shit out the other night. This is in the interest of National… wait maybe even in the interest of humanity. Stop talking and let’s get these boxes out of here ASAP. And don’t forget, I’m crazy, there’s nothing I could say that anyone would believe.”

  On the one hand, Carter was relieved that Kevin had made it easy for him. On the other hand, his sense of right and wrong was not just accusing him, it was screaming at him. Then, on the other hand… there was no other hand… he had to do it; there was just too much at stake. If he had to choose between unethical behavior and saving millions of people’s lives he chose the latter. If he had to choose between unethical behavior and the lives of his wife and son, he would again, choose the latter.

  Kevin called Roy, who was closest to the main entry, on the radio and asked that the three of them come and help them. Twenty minutes later, they were back in their tents. They’d sealed the three boxes with duct tape, wrapped them in blankets, dug holes in the sand under the tent floor, placed the boxes inside, and covered them with the fl
oor canvas. They now had to figure out a way to smuggle everything out when they returned to America in three days’ time.

  Of course, Carter had to explain to the rest of the team what he and Kevin had found. He showed them one of the sheets and watched three more incredulous faces when he told them what he thought they could be, and about his idea that it was accomplished with nanotechnology. After listening to Carter and Kevin’s comments the three of them joined Kevin’s corner. They thought it was a better idea to surrender to lunacy than to try and explain all of this.

  Carter came up with the idea the next day that they should remove the sheets from the boxes, pack and wrap each of the bundles individually, put them in different containers, and return the empty faux marble boxes to the hidden rooms. That way, if anyone discovered the concealed doors, they would find the empty boxes and conclude that the Giants had probably removed the contents when they left 50,000 years ago.

  The bundles were removed and packed according to plan, and they returned the empty faux marble boxes to their tables the next night.

  The empty cartons that contained the rations they brought in when they arrived at the site were perfect to pack and transport the stash of ancient sheets out of the City of Lights.

  Carter had to use all his willpower not to grab one of those sheets and study it more closely under a microscope, but the risk was just too high, he had to wait until they got back home. Sitting in an Egyptian jail for artifact theft was not a pleasant thought to him or anyone on his team.

  The day before their departure, after the ‘desert-rat race’ as his team had dubbed the early morning runs, Khalid Abbasi, the marathon fanatic told Carter he would come over later in the day to show him the pictures and videos about the marathons he had participated in.

  It was shortly after lunch when Khalid turned up with his tablet PC and sat down to show him as promised. Carter found it intriguing to see the places where people were prepared to go and run to experience the joy of torturing their bodies.

  The last video clip Khalid had was of his participation in the annual family fun run in Riyadh. It was not so much the environment and his participation that had Khalid excited about this particular race; it was the performance of the winner that year.

  “Look at that,” he said. “That’s the ten-kilometer mark and that man is already eight minutes ahead of his closest rival. A pace of two minutes per kilometer.”

  Carter made a few quick calculations in his head. “He can’t maintain that pace. No human can.”

  Khalid shook his head; he wanted the end to be a surprise. “There is the 21-kilometer mark, he covered it in exactly 42 minutes; the second man was already 21 minutes behind him at this point.”

  Carter’s mind was working overtime. Something’s wrong; the video’s a fake or that man had been drugged.

  “There,” Khalid pointed his finger at the screen, “he’s three kilometers from the finish line, and he is still going at two minutes per kilometer.”

  “It’s humanly impossible,” Carter whispered. “I don’t think even with drugs it’s possible.”

  Khalid was on his feet when he said very excitedly, “There is the finish line. That man broke the world record by 40 minutes! He maintained a pace of two minutes per kilometer for the entire race. Can you believe it?”

  “No, I can’t believe it. It’s just not possible,” Carter replied. “You’re sure this video isn’t faked, Khalid? I mean… hell man, no human can do that.”

  “Well, I was there in that race; I didn’t see him, but there was a lot of talk about this man.”

  “What’s his name? Why hasn’t the world heard of him again?”

  Khalid shrugged. “Nobody knows his name. Nobody had seen him before in any race, and nobody has seen him since that race. He has been nicknamed the ghost-runner of Riyadh. There are many rumors and conspiracy theories, but I have no idea what to believe and what not to.”

  “What a weird story,” Carter said slowly. “What are the rumors you’ve heard?”

  “Drugs, he was not human, a cyborg or robot, some new technology, that sort of thing.”

  “Do you mind if I take a copy of that video?” Carter asked. “It’s intriguing. I would like to look at it again.”

  “No problem.”

  Carter handed him a flash drive, and he copied the video onto it.

  Khalid left shortly afterward. Carter just could not put the video out of his mind. If that video was real, something was out of place with that runner. He didn’t know to what extent drugs could boost performance, but he was almost sure no drug could achieve what that runner had done. If that ‘man’ were a robot, it could explain everything; but then he thought that fact would have been made public. Breaking the marathon world record by forty minutes should have been world headline news. Yet very few people knew about it.

  His thoughts were interrupted when Daan turned up so that they could study the final GPR images and Carter could hand it all over to him. Daan was grateful for the financial assistance, which Carter had organized and very pleased with the opening of the burial chamber. As a token of his appreciation, Daan’s team had prepared a traditional Arabian dinner for Carter and his men.

  The next morning, shortly after sunrise, the helicopter arrived, and they all had to say their goodbyes.

  Chapter 41 -

  He tried to sleep but he couldn’t

  Carter and his men were a little nervous going through Egyptian customs but in the end, it was a non-event, and they all sighed with relief and clapped their hands in applause when the Gulfstream jet cleared the runway and lifted its nose into the air.

  At about the time that Carter and his men had settled in and started relaxing for the ten-hour flight back to DC, Harry Auden walked into James Rhodes’ office. Harry was a short, skinny, man in his mid-sixties, with silver hair and gold-framed glasses, and a linguistic genius. He was A-Echelon’s ancient language specialist. Irene once told Mackenzie, “I sometimes get the impression that Harry Auden can speak all languages ever known to man.”

  He had accompanied Mackenzie on the trip to the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts in Yerevan, Armenia where they studied the Books of the Elders of Medicine, which eventually led them to the Sirralnnudam. It was also one of the very rare occasions where Harry had been unable to translate an ancient text.

  Part of Harry’s job at A-Echelon was to keep his eye on archeological publications from across the globe and keep his superiors up to date with the latest finds, speculations, and theories.

  While he was paging through one of the publications, his attention was drawn to an article by a Greek professor of archeology titled ‘The Sirralnnudam – The Tragic Loss of Another Irreplaceable Artifact’.

  The article explained how German archeologist, Karsten Rischmüller, on a dig site at Çatalhöyük, Turkey about 50 years ago, discovered the book and gave a brief history of it. At some stage, it was kept in the legendary Library of Alexandria somewhere between 300 B.C. and the time the library was destroyed by Julius Caesar’s legions in 48 B.C. It was believed that Ptolemy I Soter, the successor of Alexander the Great, placed it in the Library of Alexandria.

  The article stated that Rischmüller had given the book to the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts but that it had recently been stolen from the establishment and authorities had been unable to find the culprit. The article ended by mentioning that there was some speculation that a second copy of the book could have survived and was in the hands of an unknown private collector. The professor left his contact details at the end of the article in the hope that, slim as it might be, he would hear from anyone who might have knowledge of the second copy.

  Harry placed the article on James’s desk and turned the magazine so that James could read it. “That’s the book we spoke about a few months ago.”

  James leaned forward and read it. “Yes, that’s the one,” he nodded slowly. A few thoughts crossed his mind, none of which he could discuss wit
h Harry. “Thanks, Harry, I appreciate it. Can you ask my secretary to make a photocopy for me?”

  “Sure, no problem. Have a good one.” Harry left.

  James sat back in his chair and interlaced his fingers behind his head. Someone is looking for that book. Is it really just that Greek Professor with a sense of loss? Or is there more to it? Someone behind him maybe? I’ll have to let Carter and Irene know and see what they think of it.

  ***

  Carter flipped through the news channels trying to find a station where he could get a quick update on what was going on in the world. He hadn’t seen the news for the past two weeks and was feeling a little deprived. Suddenly his eye caught something about the Vice President, and he stopped on that channel to listen.

  The Vice President was about to announce his intention to run for president in the next election, eighteen months away. Carter didn’t care much for politics; he found it mostly boring and, generally speaking, frustrating to deal with politicians. They were not his favorite breed of the human species.

  Nevertheless, because he’d once met Vice President George Robertson in person, he listened for a few minutes. The man was a born talker; he had the talent. Some people had a knack for numbers; others were born athletes who could break a defensive line and bring crowds to their feet. Robertson was an orator who could bring crowds to their feet.

  “Why are we here today? Why aren’t we out fishing and camping? It’s a public holiday. Why aren’t we at home having a beer while watching the Yankees?”

  The crowd was quiet, waiting for him. He had their attention.

  “I say it’s for the love for our country; isn’t it? America is hurting, it’s on a very slippery slope, and we can’t sit by and watch it go down the drain any longer.”