by J C Ryan
Shutting the computer lid, he moved away from the desk toward the window and stared out into the night. Looking up at the stars, he tried to imagine where his family was; can they see the stars? Does Mackie look at the moon and wonder how I am? Does she even know I’m looking for her? Probably not, how could she possibly know. Does she even know there was an explosion? Is there any hope for her and Liam at all? His skin crawled with stark terror at the thought of her and his son in such dire circumstances and not even being sure if they were alive. His emotions see-sawed between desolation and violent fury.
“Hang in there my darlings, I will find you, I promise. I won’t stop until I do,” he whispered. As he spoke those words, his thoughts left his heart with such urgency he could only hope they reached her. Surely there were ways people could reach each other if they loved strongly enough.
He went back and sat down, once more opening the computer and staring at the photos, drinking them in as he realized these were how they looked before they were lost to him, smiling, healthy and alive – so alive.
Okay, Carter, come on, get a grip and move forward, what else is here? He moved the pictures along the screen peering at each of them, taking in every little detail. He hadn’t seen his loved ones for many months, and this was something so precious that he lingered over each and every photo.
Finally, coming to the end of the photos he saw there was more; a letter apparently written by Mackenzie to herself.
Wednesday
I must calm down.
I have to do it.
It is important; I can’t stop now.
I’m so afraid of being caught.
Thursday
I had to do it; it was too valuable to leave it behind.
I know how wrong it is but the whole of humanity needs this and, despite all the moral issues, I know I’ve done the right thing – haven’t I?
What would Carter say about what I’ve done?
Carter stopped and read it again, thinking.
What have you done Mackie?
What is it that’s troubling you so much my dear?
You are echoing the same doubts I had when I lifted those records from the City of Lights.
I had to do it despite it being morally wrong. Too much hangs on them not getting into the wrong hands. I had to do it.
Now, what did you do Mackie?
What he saw next made him sit bolt upright and yell with shock. Trying to muffle the sound by slapping his hand over his mouth as he remembered this was not to be talked of, this was so secret it was buried almost so deep underground no one could ever reach it – figuratively speaking, but at that moment, Andre and Roy appeared at his door, guns drawn.
“Carter! What? What happened?” Roy demanded as he took in that there was no one else in the room.
Andre stood and observed him quietly once he saw there was no visible threat.
“Sorry guys,” Carter hid his shaking hands, “Sorry, I just came across something in the files that startled me, a real ‘Eureka’ moment. All is well I promise,” he grinned at them and they slowly relaxed and returned to their television muttering things about people yelling wolf and spoiling a man’s movie… “Idiot,” Andre was heard to mumble, “Carter wouldn’t call wolf, he’d have to call tiger or panther.”
Carter chuckled and shook his head; it was their wacky sense of humor that got him every time.
Calming down, he looked at what he’d uncovered. What followed was very clearly page after photographed page of the Sirralnnudam. Beautifully colored plates one after the other of an incomprehensible language to Mackenzie, which she knew was vital to her research and to humanity.
He ached to phone James immediately but thought better of it. Andre and Roy were still up and moving around, it was not a good idea, no matter how important it was to let James know. It had already waited for months; another few hours wouldn’t make any difference. It was something Irene, Dylan, and Sean had to hear, and it wouldn’t take long for Sean to arrange transport first thing in the morning to fly them up to Freydis.
Nevertheless, he knew he was in for a sleepless night. How could he sleep with such an incredible discovery in his hands? He looked at the photos of Mackenzie and Liam again.
Mackie you have given us the key! Just hang in there; I will be with you and Liam soon. Just hang in for a little while longer. Will you?
With this, they could make up a copy of the original manuscript and use it as bait for the Greek Professor.
His mind was flying, but it flew on wings of silver in a blue sky above the clouds. This would lead him to Mackie and Liam; he just knew it would. Soon the borers would come out of the teak, and he would be waiting for them.
It was four o’clock the next morning, Andre and Roy were still sleeping soundly, and with no fear of waking them, he closed the door of the study and rang James; gleefully getting him out of bed.
“What in hell are you doing ringing me at this unearthly hour, Carter? I’m human; I need my sleep you know. It’d better be good.”
Carter laughed.
“Why the hell are you so cheerful?” James snarled. “Is this another joke on me then?”
“No James, it isn’t; I promise. I’ve found a treasure you will not believe until I can show you. You need to gather Dylan, Irene, and Sean and get up here ASAP.”
“What on earth can you have found that would cause this much elation this early in the morning?”
“I’m glad this is a secure line because otherwise your reaction would wake the whole world.”
“Get on with it then,” James’ tolerance had been stretched as far as Carter dared.
“I have a copy of the Sirralnnudam!”
“You WHAT?” James was suddenly alive and breathing.
“You heard me. I have a copy of the Sirralnnudam!”
“You can’t...”
“I can.”
“No shit, how?”
“Mackenzie had it on the key ring I gave her. The one you had in your hands in Jerusalem. She was not comfortable leaving the only copy of the book behind when she came home from Yerevan, so she photographed it, from beginning to end, each and every page, both sides, as well as the front and back – in color. We have the whole manuscript, James.”
“Oh my God, I can’t believe it. That conniving little red-hair fox! That cunning little fox! Oh my, that wicked little fox. Oh, the darling girl. I am going to make sure she gets a medal for this.” Carter could hear James was in tears, which made him wipe a few of his own from his cheeks.
“We’ll be there Carter, get that coffee machine going. Sean can hire a plane and fly us out; we’ll be bringing Dylan too; they both need to know what’s going on; we won’t be long.”
Carter could hear Andre and Roy muddling around in the kitchen making coffee, so he hung up and made his way out to greet the new day. It was the brightest, most beautiful day he’d seen in a very long time.
Carter warned the men they were expecting visitors; he didn’t need them suddenly going on high alert when the plane flew overhead.
Right at midday, they arrived to be greeted by everyone including Bly and Ahote. It felt like Family Day on Ye Olde Farm, and Bly, alerted to expect visitors, had surpassed herself making a lunch that would ground them all for the afternoon.
Later, Ahote and Bly returned to their homestead taking Roy and Andre with them. They invited the young men to stay for dinner while those at Freydis would be having the leftovers from lunch which Bly had left in the fridge for them.
Irene promised Bly she’d be over the next morning for a good long chat.
As they departed, Roy and Andre told Carter in no uncertain terms that he would pay dearly for this break in his routine fitness regimen. Once the house was clear, the remaining five went into the study where Sean and Dylan were brought up to date on Mackenzie’s work and the lost Sirralnnudam.
Finally, they settled down to look at the manuscript for themselves and to marvel at Mackenzie’s courage in tak
ing such a risk.
“She must have been pretty convinced it was in danger, in fact, she must have felt they were in danger as well. It’s not something she would have done lightly,” Irene observed.
“Yeah and how right she was about that,” James whispered. “Clever girl…”
“I’m sure she didn’t do it lightly, and I’m also sure she feared my anger when she would have to tell me what she’d done,” Carter said. “It’s only because I’ve had to do the same thing myself, bringing the City of Lights’ records out of Egypt, that I understand the moral dilemma she was in and how awful it feels to betray the very roots of one’s belief.”
Irene leaned forward, “Carter, there is something that both you and Mackenzie know, but you have let guilt overwhelm you. Both of you are carrying colossal loads of responsibility for the human race. Neither of you would ever have expected to be in such a position as this when you made the decision that you’d never become corrupt. I will make this clear, you are not and never have been, either of you, corrupt in any way. You had no choice; you didn’t destroy artifacts; you did not do what you did to benefit from it. You were doing it for all people who want to remain free, for the world.”
James gave Irene a long appreciative look, “Bravo Irene, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Carter what we have to do now is sort through this and make sure we protect your and Mackenzie’s reputations. None of this will ever leave Freydis, and when it’s over, and all is safe, we will never refer to it again.”
Carter sat listening, taking it all in. He’d not asked for or expected exoneration for his and Mackenzie’s actions. A load slipped off his shoulders, never to return. When he had Mackenzie back in his arms, he would tell her the same thing.
Oh, I’m going to hug and kiss the breath out of that red hair angel when I see her again.
Silence settled for a while and then Dylan suggested coffee, so they drifted out to the kitchen where they made themselves comfortable at the table with mugs of strong coffee and large chunks of Bly’s carrot-cake.
“So, where do we go from here?” Dylan asked.
“Well, first and foremost I'm going to bring my friend Ben Friedman from Mossad in on this.” James stated. “But where to from here?”
“I’ve been thinking about that all night long,” Carter started, and everyone joined in “Oh poor baby missed his sleep, Diddums!” which ended up in raucous laughter all round.
“As I was saying," Carter continued, "I've been thinking about that. We know someone is searching for a reputed second copy of the Sirralnnudam, and I believe we are just the people to supply it. It will be a replica like no other and impossible to fault in any way. All we need is someone who knows how to choose the right medium – and how to age it, and then we can transpose the photographs onto it.”
“Yes, we must have an expert for that,” Dylan said, “I think I can supply one; I’ll need a day or so, but it’s doable.”
“Right, great!” James said, and then we approach that Greek professor with our second copy of the manuscript and watch what emerges from the depths of the murky lagoon.”
Chapter 45 -
Time to talk to his friend
Dwayne Miller was still licking his wounds and sulking about the dressing down he’d received from Nate Gordon. He was again contemplating his options when his thoughts were interrupted by a sound from his laptop alerting him to the arrival of an encrypted message in his secured email inbox.
Four additional people had just landed on Devereux’s farm in a six-seater twin-engine Piper Seneca III. Video footage and images of the people’s faces were attached. Miller grinned. This Toronto outfit was professional. They won’t stuff up like those clowns from Montreal.
When he looked at the attachments, he immediately recognized James Rhodes and Irene O’Connell but not the other two. Studying them carefully on the video, he could quickly spot by their behavior that they were military or ex-military. Being in the company of Rhodes and O’Connell meant they were part of one of the alphabet soup of intelligence agencies or on contract to A-Echelon.
The only person who could put names and positions to those faces would be Nate Gordon’s secret contact aka NTC – Nate’s Top Contact. As much as Miller hated the idea of contacting Gordon so soon after their unpleasant encounter, he had no choice.
He encrypted the message and attachments again and forwarded it to Gordon. Then Miller called him on the encrypted phone and asked him to check his email to see if he could help identify the strangers in those images.
The next morning when he checked his secure emails, he was surprised to find a reply from Nate Gordon.
Those two guys with Rhodes and O’Connell are Sean Walker and Dylan Mulligan, former Navy SEALs commander and 2IC of SEAL Team Six respectively, and now CEO and 2IC of Executive Advantage. They were the CIA’s blue-eyed boys whenever there was a situation where security and intelligence agencies found themselves with an intractable problem that had to be dealt with where commercial, diplomatic, and political solutions were not an option.
Executive Advantage consists of a core group of about ten people, highly skilled specialists in the various disciplines of modern day warfare and intelligence operations. They also have access to a large number of subcontractors with a variety of skills and expertise, which they call on from time to time as the circumstances dictate.
“Something important has happened on Devereux’s farm,” he said to himself.
Dwayne Miller was a good CEO, a man who knew how to manage and motivate people, not always in the most ethical, politically correct way, but he got results, and that’s why he got the job at CRS. That’s why CRS was making obscene amounts of money.
However, Dwayne Miller also had enough brains and experience to recognize trouble when he saw it. And he knew he was looking at it now.
Sean Walker and Dylan Mulligan, former commander and 2IC of SEAL Team Six; CEO and 2IC of Executive Advantage.
A cold shiver descended slowly down his spine. This is not good. Not good at all.
He took a piece of paper and a pen out of his drawer and spent the next three hours creating a balance sheet of his financial position.
***
Xavier Algosaibi had a sense of impatience, and it annoyed him; it was a trait that was not part of his makeup. He was a man who could always wait patiently for the right moment, to speak and to act. That’s what made him successful. Maybe it was because he was getting older and he so desperately wanted to see his dreams, his mission, and his destiny fulfilled in his lifetime.
Maybe his impatience was because of the failure of his lieutenants to produce results. Failure to capture Carter Devereux, messing up a simple operation and almost killing the man he so desperately needed. Missing a golden opportunity to capture Devereux when he was less than a 1,000 miles away. Spending millions of dollars on the respirocyte project to create a super-soldier just to learn it was all in vain and having to start again. Letting the Sirralnnudam, the one book that possibly held the key to the respirocyte breakthrough, wash down the storm water drains of Yerevan.
Maybe his impatience had something to do with the fact that Hassan Al-Suleiman, the self-anointed Sultan of Syria, and his True Sons of the Prophet’s armies were marching across Syria and almost half of Iraq already. Accolades and reverences were raining down on Al-Suleiman. Peace and prosperity followed in his wake; he was a hero. Hassan’s brigade of spies and propagandists had opened up a new front in southern Egypt, their eyes fixed on Cairo in the north. Al-Suleiman was scratching in places where Algosaibi was not itching.
The time for the Foundation of the Real Princes of Saud to stand up and make themselves known was rapidly approaching, and there was nothing he could do to slow it down, to wait for the right moment. He and his fellow members of the Foundation of the Real Princes of Saud had set the wheels in motion, and they couldn’t be stopped. It irritated him that it felt as if things were spinning out of his control, seeming to charge toward him
like a wounded bull. And he had no nuclear weapon; neither did he have his super soldiers.
He was not desperate; Algosaibi was not one who acted in desperation. It was time for him to get in touch with his primary contact in America. Years ago, when he was the deputy director of the General Intelligence Presidency of Saudi Arabia, Algosaibi had befriended a young American politician. That friendship had proven to be advantageous for both men.
It was during those years the two of them discovered they both had ambitions. Ideas and dreams about a world where America would be allowed to be America and Islam would be permitted to be Islam.
Over the years, it was that man who helped Algosaibi create his empire, providing him with exclusive distributorships for pharmaceutical products, and telecommunications technology contracts throughout the entire Middle East. The exchange of valuable insider information between them at the right time to win lucrative contracts and obtain the right strategic positions had made both of them very wealthy.
Between them, they had created Competitive Response Solutions. So discreet were they in their actions that not even the shareholders and directors of CRS knew what was going on. Nate Gordon was the only other man on the planet who knew, this man was the silent partner in CRS. NTC – Nate’s Top Contact.
It was NTC who provided the information that led them to the Sirralnnudam; it was his information which gave them Dr. Mackenzie Devereux and almost Professor Carter Devereux. Unfortunately, it was the idiocy of Algosaibi’s trusted right-hand man, Youssef Bin Bandar, who failed to deliver.
What was starting to worry Algosaibi was that he had always been able to rely on CRS to do a perfect job with every assignment he channeled to them, but they had blemished their impeccable record in the past few weeks with a few stupid blunders.
It was time to talk to his friend.
Chapter 46 -
Shake trees and rattle cages
It was Sean’s first time on Freydis, and his reaction to the place was the same as everyone before him; he was immediately in love with it. He wanted to go for a walk and if it was possible, to see it from the air. Carter suggested they make the aerial trip the next morning; Irene, James, and Dylan would join them.
