by J C Ryan
The crowd roared with applause.
“We want our country back! We want it restored to its former glory. The American dream, that’s what we want back.”
He had to stop as the noise from the crowd erupted and overpowered his voice on the amplified speakers throughout the stadium.
“Our country is approaching a crossroads in history. America is facing a crisis worse than any previously known in our nation’s history. And do you know why? I’ll tell you why.”
He held two fingers in the air.
“Failed policies and incompetent leadership.”
Carter was wondering what the President would think about that statement. Politics was a dog eat dog environment, and if you didn’t know it when you entered the political arena, you were in for a rude awakening.
“We’ve become a country of stress and anxiety instead of a country of hope and prosperity. Unemployment has reached a new record high. We are drowning in red ink; our national debt is growing at almost $3 million a minute, more than $4 billion a day. My fellow Americans, we have to stop this insanity. We have to take our country back.”
The crowd was on its feet.
“Your votes are going to make or break this country. Think on that.”
Carter mumbled, “don’t we always hear that?”
“You can feel it in the air and on the airwaves! This time, it’s serious! It’s more far-reaching than at any other time in our history!”
Carter had lost interest; he’d heard all of this before. Every election cycle sounded the same; the only things that changed were the faces and the voices saying it. Same tune, different station, he thought with a disgusted shake of his head.
Robertson turned his attention to the evangelicals. He needed their attention and their votes to propel him into power.
“Those who call themselves Christians, who avoid politics, I say to you this is not an option anymore. We are all needed; needed I say, to participate in the electoral process. When Jesus said, ‘render unto Caesar what is Caesars’ this is what he meant.
“The 60 million U.S. evangelicals are the people who can turn this country away from disaster. The future is in our hands. If every evangelical of voting age would take the responsibility to cast a ballot in each of our local, state, and federal elections, the United States will be a better place. 60 million Jesus-loving, God-fearing men and women are called upon to step boldly into the voting booths this election season and elect a Christian president.”
Carter turned the TV off; he was a Christian, but this was playing religion for political ends. Robertson would not get his vote. He placed headphones over his ears, found his favorite classical music, reclined his seat and closed his eyes.
His mind returned to his family, as it always did every free moment he was awake. Where are my Mackie and my Liam?
That must have been the thought that triggered his knee-jerk reaction when he shouted “Respirocytes!”
Everyone in the cabin jumped and stared at him. He realized he couldn’t say anything more about it, and he waved his hand saying sheepishly, “Sorry, bad dream.” He tried to smile as he settled back into his seat.
The ghost-runner of Riyadh had been injected with respirocytes!
That was the only way the man could have run like that for that distance. He found his tablet and replayed the video Khalid had given him, stopping and rewinding it as he went along. He wasn’t sure what he was trying to find; maybe he just wanted to feed his brain more information and images so that it could work out the answer.
Hours later he was still thinking and conjecturing; that marathon was in Riyadh. Was that runner from Saudi Arabia? Who were the people who manufactured the respirocytes? Where were they? Where were their labs?
Are Mackie and Liam somewhere in Saudi Arabia?
Who is doing respirocyte research in Saudi Arabia?
Who is doing human trials?
Questions, questions, and more questions hammered his brain until he had a headache. He had to wait until they landed in DC when he could talk to James and Irene.
He tried to sleep, but couldn’t.
Chapter 42 -
The debriefing
Carter stared out the window as the Gulfstream taxied into the hangar and the doors closed behind them. He saw James, Irene, Sean, and Dylan on the ground, waiting for them. None of them had any idea of the artifacts Carter had on board.
After they had disembarked, greeted each other, and exchanged the how-are-you’s and other pleasantries, Carter pulled James, Irene, Sean, and Dylan to one side and told them about the contents of the cartons. They needed a quick decision about where the boxes could be kept safely, and they all immediately agreed that definitely would not be at A-Echelon.
Instead, it was decided that Sean and Dylan would take the containers with the artifacts into safe keeping. They would store them at one of the CIA’s training facilities in Virginia where only they had access.
Carter also informed them that he had to divulge some information to the men who accompanied him and requested that Sean and Dylan reiterate the requirement for secrecy with their men.
When everything was unpacked from the plane, they proceeded in separate vehicles to one of Executive Advantage’s safe houses for the debriefing.
Roy, Andre, Kevin, and John stayed only for the first part of the debriefing and left to go and enjoy a few days of R-and-R before they returned to duty. Two of them would return to Freydis with Carter.
When they left, Carter gave Sean and Dylan a glowing report about the four men who accompanied him.
The discussion then turned to the artifacts and how to go about deciphering them. As this was outside their area of expertise, everyone was looking at Carter for guidance.
“I need to look at the sheets first before we decide how to proceed, and for that I’ll need an electron microscope and a quiet, secure place,” Carter said.
“I’ll see what I can arrange with DARPA,” Irene replied.
“If the sheets contain text, then we might be able to copy the contents onto an electronic storage device and work from there. I would prefer that those sheets are handled as little as possible. Besides, I don’t want anyone else to see them.”
They all agreed.
“Once we have copied the data from the sheets to another medium the real fun starts when we have to decipher it,” Carter smiled. He was excited to get to that part.
Next, Dylan and Sean told Carter about their investigation into the organization that had been watching him before he left for Egypt. The organization involved was AMZ Security. EA had conducted a few discreet inquiries, and spoken to some of the people who were on the team watching him. They didn’t know anything other than that they were following the instructions from one of their bosses, Mr. Schwall, who was one of the directors of AMZ. Mr. Schwall, however, died of a heart attack before EA’s investigators could talk to him. None of the other managers or supervisors at AMZ had any idea about this operation.
Rick Winslow’s digging in the company files and financial records produced nothing, confirming that no one else knew about the operation. There was nothing left they could act on.
“AMZ would not have acted on their own initiative; they would have been doing the job for someone else. That someone else made sure nothing could lead back to him or her,” Dylan concluded.
Carter nodded. “It’s a strange feeling to know you are being followed; sort of a constant itch between your shoulder blades.”
All of them knew the feeling very well. It was Carter’s humorous but very accurate description that gave them reason to chuckle.
“Fact is, Carter, we now have confirmation that you are being watched,” Sean said. “Although that’s what we wanted, to lure them out and feed them false information, we also must tread very carefully.”
“So now that they have been exposed do you think they will back off?” Carter asked.
“I doubt that,” Sean replied. “All they’ll do is be more
careful and sophisticated; with what is at stake here, you can be sure they won’t back off.”
Dylan got up and started the coffee machine while they kept talking. When he had served everyone their coffee, Carter took his tablet out and switched it on.
“I’ve got something I want to show you. It kept me awake the whole trip back here.”
Turning the screen so that they could all see it, he started the video of the Riyadh Marathon he’d copied from Khalid Abbasi, giving them a running commentary just as Khalid had done for him. When the video ended, he looked at them. They were shaking their heads in mistrust.
“Not possible,” Dylan and Sean said as if on cue.
“That’s hogwash, Carter,” Dylan said. “There is no way on God’s green earth that any human could do that.”
“As you know, I’ve got a Ph.D. in Human Biology,” Irene responded. “Admittedly, I haven’t done much in that field since I’ve moved over from DARPA to A-Echelon, but one thing I’m pretty sure of is that no human can do what you have shown us on that video,” she was shaking her head. “I’ll check it with the DARPA scientists just to make sure, but I’m positive they will confirm what I’ve said.”
Carter chose not to tell them what he was thinking just yet; he didn’t want to influence their thinking.
“Okay, let’s assume for a moment that what we have seen there is real. In other words, it was not a scammer out there who concocted the video and published it on YouTube. Then we are left with a few other options …”
“Like what?” James interjected.
“It could have been a robot, cyborg, alien or something like that,” Carter grinned, as he knew James was going to throw a fit.
“Bovine droppings!” James exclaimed. “Why have robots run in a marathon? There aren’t any robots that can run like that.”
Carter cracked up laughing, “Relax, Jim; I was just having you on,” Carter held his hands up. “I haven’t had a laugh at your expense for two weeks; I couldn’t wait to get one in as soon as possible.”
“It’s so good to have my two teenage boys back home again,” Irene snickered.
“Okay, but seriously,” Carter brought them back on topic. “What about drugs Irene? Can drugs make a man perform like that?”
“Drugs can certainly enhance an athletes’ performance, which is one of the main reasons why they are banned in competition, but they certainly couldn’t give a man the capability to run a 42-kilometer marathon at a pace of two minutes per kilometer. No way. Well, at least not any of the drugs I’m aware of.”
“So there is a slim possibility that there could be some sort of a super drug out there that we are not aware of yet that could produce those results?” Carter asked.
Irene shrugged. “I can’t rule that possibility out, but I really doubt it. You see the thing with drugs is that it wouldn’t make you perform better than your body is capable of. For example, if your body has the strength to lift 200 pounds, drugs can’t enable you to lift 400 pounds. The only way you could lift 400 pounds is if you have some sort of mechanical, computerized exoskeleton – the stuff you see in Sci-fi movies and which DARPA has been building and experimenting with for many years.”
“Mhh, I see,” Carter murmured. “We haven’t seen anything of that kind on that runner.”
James noticed Carter’s body language and questions and decided Carter had something in mind but didn’t want to talk about it yet. What is he thinking?
“Resi pi thingamabobs!” James’ shout startled everyone.
They were all staring at James and didn’t notice the grin on Carter’s face. “What was that?” Sean asked.
“Yes, man those funny-name thingamajigs Mackenzie was working on. She told me they could make humans stay under water for four hours with one breath and run at full speed for 30 minutes and that sort of stuff.”
“Respirocytes!” Irene laughed for a few seconds and suddenly stopped. “Wait a minute. Hang on there for a moment.” She took a deep breath, “That is definitely another possibility.”
Sean stopped them. “Okay, I know Mrs. Devereux has done research on respirocytes, but I’m afraid you will have to explain a bit more about it to Dylan and me before we continue.”
Dylan nodded.
Irene spent the next few minutes explaining what respirocytes were and how they could enhance human performance to incredible levels. “However, as far as I know, and last time I checked with DARPA, it is still very much a theoretical concept. There are a few biotech companies doing research in this space, but thus far there have been no promising results. Forget about pumping it into humans.”
James pushed back in his chair and looked at Carter. “You have something in mind, I can see that. What is it?”
“Jim, I don’t have to tell you or anyone else here that it is impossible for me to remain objective in my opinions as long as my family is held captive somewhere. Maybe I’m chasing shadows…” Carter had to clear his throat to get rid of the quivering, “but I have been wondering: What if that man was injected with respirocytes? That is one plausible explanation for what we saw on that video. If so: Who did it? Where are the labs where they would have created the respirocytes? That race was in Saudi Arabia: Is that where the lab could be?”
Jim nodded slowly and proceeded to say carefully, “Carter, those are all valid questions, but it’s only relevant if it could be proven that the runner had been injected with that stuff. And the problem is, I can’t see any way for us to establish that.”
“I understand that Jim. I’m just wondering if it would be worthwhile trying to find out if there are any labs in Saudi Arabia. That someone is, maybe, conducting research in this field?”
“It’s certainly worth turning every stone we can. Irene and I will put our heads together and come up with a way to go about answering those questions without raising any suspicions.”
“DARPA might be a good place to start,” Irene agreed. “They told Mackenzie and me that although they are not doing any research about respirocytes themselves, they had been following all research about it for years. It’s something in which they are very interested.”
“Let us know if you need anyone on the ground in Saudi Arabia,” Sean said. We have a few good contacts in Oman, former Desert Phantoms.”
Carter raised his brows curiously.
Sean explained, “The Desert Phantoms are the Omani Special Forces. There is nobody on earth that knows the desert better than they do. They are the hardest men I’ve ever encountered. They train British and American Special Forces teams in desert warfare and survival, and we have often embedded some of them who were on special operations in those parts of the world. If there is something out there in Saudi Arabia to be found they will find it.”
Carter looked at James and Irene. “If our other methods don’t produce results we’ll certainly come knocking on your door, Sean.”
For the moment, there was nothing more to discuss. Carter’s two new bodyguards were introduced and left with him, James, and Irene.
The next morning Irene took Carter over to the DARPA offices and introduced him to the two medical nanotech scientists who had met Mackenzie before, Dr. Cate Nelson and Dr. Scott Watson.
Irene explained to them that she and Carter were working on a project but that she could not divulge too much information about it. The two scientists had no problem with that; they had been working in a highly confidential environment for many years.
She asked them about the capabilities of performance enhancing drugs and got confirmation that her ideas were correct. No drug can boost performance to beyond the physical capacity of the person. They were also sure that there was no secret drug available, which could do it. Otherwise, they would have heard about it from the CIA and other intelligence agencies.
They could not recall off the top of their heads any research facilities in the Middle East working on respirocytes. However, they would double check and were happy to supply a copy of their list of known labs to I
rene later in the day.
The last request Irene had for them was to provide Carter with a secure room and an electron microscope. They were happy to help with that, and let her know that the room and microscope would be ready for Carter’s use the next day.
James had asked them to drop by his office when they were finished with the DARPA meeting. They gave James a quick overview of how the meeting went and then James showed them the copy of the article Harry had found in the archeology periodical and pushed it across his desk so that they could read it.
“What do you think?” He asked when Irene and Carter looked up after reading the item.
“Well, like I told you yesterday, it’s impossible for me to be objective,” Carter started. “But my first reaction is; someone is looking for that book.”
James nodded and looked at Irene.
“What Carter said,” she responded, “someone is looking for the book, and somehow I get the feeling Professor Anatolio Kakos… yeah, no, I don’t know. Let’s stick with that for now. Professor Kakos is looking for the Sirralnnudam.”
“Okay, I happen to agree with you; and I have that same uneasy feeling about the Professor, but can’t lay my finger on it. I’ll get Ben Friedman to put a few tabs on him.”
The entire time in James’ office Carter had a mysterious feeling that he couldn’t shake off. He knew Mackenzie was one of the last people who held the Sirralnnudam in her hands. The book had literally gone down into the drains of Yerevan, months ago. All of the sudden, Professor Anatolio Kakos is looking for that book.
“Jim, do you think we could get a copy of the records of the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts to see who else has checked that book out over the years?”
“That shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Irene? You’ve got the contacts there.”
“I’ll check it out,” She replied. “You’re starting to think like a real investigator Carter. That’s good,” she laughed.
