The Milestone Protocol

by Ernest Dempsey

  Sean considered every angle within seconds and decided to stick to the subject at hand.

  “You heard about what happened in India, right? About the abrupt social unrest? People attacking one another? It was a few years ago.”

  “Yes,” Magnus answered first.

  “I remember it,” Tabitha said. “I was new at MI6, and we were concerned it might spread into Europe.”

  Kevin nodded absently. “It was due to that helmet the celebrity pulled out of the secret vault in some temple, right?”

  “Yes,” Tommy answered. “We’ve seen what this kind of ancient tech can do. And we’ve only scratched the surface. Foo Fighters during World War Two. The research on die Glöcke—a bell-shaped device we think was intended to jump dimensions, or may have even been an attempt at time travel. The helmet in India. The Quantium and how it reacted to the Sun Gate. There is more to what we know about history and technology. The science is beyond cutting edge, and we haven’t even begun to understand it.”

  “All to say,” Sean concluded, “that it’s possible the pyramids are all connected, that they are one giant global device intended to bring about a mass extinction event if the population gets too big for the planet and cannot be managed by conventional means.”

  When he finished speaking, no one said a word. The room fell still, and the only break in the silence came from the cars down on the street far below. Sean and Tommy waited for ridicule from Kevin, or more skepticism from Tabitha, but it did not come.

  “Is it possible,” Magnus said, breaking the silence, “that many of the doomsday, end-time prophecies from old have something to do with your theory?”

  “It would certainly seem to point to that,” Tommy confirmed. “The famous Mayan prophecy about the end of the world in 2012 is a great example. What if it isn’t just a prophecy, but a milestone, a timeline target to activate this mega machine if humanity’s population has reached critical mass?”

  Kevin shook his head. “It’s too big. I can’t conceive how any of that would be possible, not to mention the fact that whoever activated this thing would be killed along with everyone else.”

  Sean leveled his gaze with the archaeologist, holding it in the grip of his icy blue eyes. “The person who created the chaos in India was unaffected. There must be certain safeguards in place.”

  Tommy’s phone vibrated, and he stepped aside to look at who was texting him. He initially thought it would be Alex or Tara, whom he and Sean affectionately referred to as “the kids.” Instead, it was actual kids who sent the message.

  “Hey, Sean?” Tommy prodded. “You might want to take a look at this.”

  Sean turned and took the phone. He read through the message in seconds.

  “What is it?” Tabitha asked.

  “It’s from our young friends back in Atlanta. They said the cave at Brown Mountain, the one where a research team was investigating a strange phenomenon, was destroyed by some kind of accidental explosion.”

  “Did anyone get hurt?” Magnus asked, immediately worried.

  “Doesn’t say,” Sean replied, handing the device back to Tommy. “That team wasn’t working with explosives, though.”

  “Are you sure?” Kevin asked.

  “Have you ever needed explosives in your line of work, Dr. Clark?”

  Kevin got the point and immediately fell silent.

  Magnus felt his phone jiggle in his pocket and quickly retrieved it. Upon seeing the number, he pressed the green button and held the phone to his ear. Magnus’ face darkened with concern. His lips barely moved as he spoke to the person on the line. “Understood. Pull around to the back. We will meet you there.”

  He ended the call and looked at the others. “Sorry to break up the discussion, but it would appear we have company.”

  Sean sensed the Swede’s worry and immediately went to the window. He looked out and saw a collection of shadows moving down the sidewalk toward the hotel.

  Tabitha and Tommy joined him. They also saw the encroachers.

  Sean turned to Tabitha. “Friends of yours?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  Sean then rounded on Magnus. “Then I suggest we leave. Magnus, you told the person on the phone you’d see them in the back. I assume you have a way out of here?”

  Magnus flashed a devilish grin. “Of course.”

  17

  Madrid

  Adriana looked stunned. Her shoulders slumped, and she turned toward the far wall. She paced across the room and didn’t stop until she was back at the scroll again.

  She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Her father and Miyamoto had just explained the cult’s plan regarding the devastation of the human population, but they lacked one significant detail. Neither Diego nor Miyamoto knew how the cult was going to do it, but they had a theory. They suggested that the delivery system to wipe out a huge chunk of humanity could be wired into the pyramids that circled the earth on nearly every continent. After what Adriana had seen in Alaska and in the Sahara, she knew that was certainly possible. Those pyramids were emitting strange energy waves, and in one case they were being harnessed. If the energy signatures were altered, it was possible that something similar to what she’d seen in India could happen, but on a global scale. Then again, that was a stretch, and she knew it.

  “I know it’s a lot to take in,” her father said. “And it doesn’t seem plausible. But you must trust us, Adriana. The Cult of Thoth is making their move. They just killed one of their own in Prague this week.”

  “What?” She looked up in surprise.

  “Valentin Svoboda, a Czech billionaire, was found dead along with his mistress the other night. The police are calling it a murder/suicide. It most certainly was not that. They were both murdered, and it was made to look like a lovers’ quarrel.”

  “How does that have any bearing on this?”

  “Because Svoboda was a member of the cult,” Miyamoto answered. “He was a midlevel acolyte but had risen quickly through the ranks due to his business leadership, a quality the cult values highly. We believe he was trying to warn his mistress of the coming mayhem, to get her somewhere safe so she could ride out the storm, though it is unlikely that would have been possible. Based on ancient prophecies from various religions and cultures, we estimate that a full third of the world’s population will be eradicated if this thing is activated. We’re not sure how it works.”

  “Or where the on switch is located. Until now, we have operated from the assumption they do not know where to activate it. Along with one other piece.”

  “The gem,” Adriana realized. She was still rocked by the thought of one-third of Earth’s population being wiped out in a sudden, cataclysmic event.

  “Yes,” Miyamoto confirmed. “The gem must be the key, and if they can locate that, then the cult is one step closer to achieving their goal.”

  Adriana shook her head in an attempt to deny what she was hearing. “It just doesn’t seem real,” she said, for what felt like the hundredth time. Deep down, however, she knew she was wrong. It felt as if she were in a strange dream, in a dense fog with no way to see through.

  “I know,” her father said. “But it is. And we have to stop them. Our family has been given this task. It has been our duty for centuries to watch the Cult of Thoth and counter them if possible. They would play God, choosing who lives and dies. Throughout the ages, we have fought them, but they are powerful. Many of our ancestors were killed in the war against the cult. Some died in outright battle. Others were assassinated. They are vicious and evil and will stop at nothing to complete their mission. Now, more than ever in history, they are pushing harder to uncover the secret left by the ancients, the key to unlocking the most devastating weapon ever created. In the last year, over one thousand CEOs of major companies and startups retired. Why? Their businesses were thriving. Some of them are names you know, names that regularly appear in the headlines of major media outlets. All of them, mysteriously, resigned their positions. Sin
ce then, most have gone silent. Sure, you see one or two sending out a message via social media, but no one knows where they are.”

  “Do you?” she asked bluntly.

  “Some, yes.” He gave a curt head bob. “Most of them have built bunkers they believe will save them from the attack. They bought land in remote areas, many in New Zealand, which we think might be out of the band of the energy surge or whatever it is this weapon creates. Others have gone up into the northern lands of Canada, Alaska, distant locations where there are few, if any, people.”

  She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. But Adriana knew that her father wasn’t crazy, and Miyamoto was one of the wisest, most objective people she’d ever met.

  For the two of them to be saying these outlandish things, they had either both dipped into something a little stronger than the Villa wine cellars, or they were telling the absolute stone-cold truth.

  “How do we combat an organization like this? It sounds like they have their tentacles everywhere. Who can we trust?” Her thoughts drifted to President McCarthy. She hoped the woman wasn’t working for the cult, at least consciously. Adriana got the feeling that, willing or not, most of the world was doing the cult’s bidding—based on what she’d learned so far.

  “Trust no one,” Miyamoto said. Then his expression eased. “Well, except for us, of course.”

  “Your friends at the IAA, your husband, they are good people, hija,” Diego added. “Keep them close. I fear that not everyone will make it out of this war alive. But we must do everything in our power to stop the Cult of Thoth. We must give humanity a chance to adapt, to change, to move forward with its free will.”

  That didn’t answer her question, but Adriana felt as if she already knew it. “We have to find the key,” she said. “If we can locate it before the cult, we can destroy it. Without it, they won’t be able to activate the device.”

  “Possibly,” Diego agreed partially. “Although if they locate the machine’s center, it is possible they could still find a way to turn it on. I would hope that is not the case, but we must prepare for that eventuality.”

  “So, we do both,” Adriana said, determined. “We locate and destroy the key, and find where this thing’s control center is and blow it into oblivion.”

  Diego grinned. “A good idea. Unfortunately, we are talking about finding a small gem that has been missing for nearly seven hundred years. And as to the control center, it’s been thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years since its construction.”

  “On top of that,” Miyamoto continued, “no one has ever found anything that alludes to its location. The only thing we can surmise is that around thirteen thousand years ago, something catastrophic happened.”

  “The global flood?” she asked, almost hopeful.

  “Possibly. Something wiped out the ancient civilizations that existed before our historical records. Göbekli Tepe is at least twelve to thirteen thousand years old. The Great Flood, however, buried most of the antediluvian world under the oceans. We can still see traces of their civilizations in places like the Bimini Road or the megaliths off the coast of Japan. There are many others, of course, but it is difficult to tell if the machine was activated before the Great Flood or after. We would assume before.”

  “Insinuations from the Torah suggest in Genesis, just before the Creator wiped out the world with a flood, that humanity had defiled itself. The Epic of Gilgamesh, which is widely believed to be the same story told from another culture, offers some similar views. My guess, however, is that years after the flood, as humanity began to once more turn away from the path of morality, one group decided that they would take cataclysms into their own hands. We have no records of this, of course, but our best hypothesis is that the first members of the Thoth Cult took note of the Great Flood and how it basically reset the planet’s entire ecosystem. After that, they set about building their own device that could accomplish the same, or at least similar task.”

  Adriana recalled the ark they’d discovered in the mountains of Armenia. The mammoth boat was long gone, but the truly wondrous discovery was the ancient genetic storage facility that contained many samples of both current and long-extinct species. Scientists were still studying the specimens in hopes of reviving some. As yet, though, they’d been unsuccessful.

  “This week,” Diego said, “an expedition near Volgograd in Russia discovered something in the area believed to contain the lost cities of Sarai. Within hours of sending information to the University of Volgograd about their discovery, the expedition team was attacked, and everyone there was killed.”

  Horror washed over Adriana’s face. “All of them?”

  “All but one,” Miyamoto clarified. “The leader of the expedition, Dr. Kevin Clark, escaped. He’d taken the artifact to the university for immediate testing and analysis.”

  “Sean let me know,” Diego said, “that he was on his way to intercept Dr. Clark and get him to safety, along with the relic. I haven’t heard back as to whether he was successful in locating Dr. Clark before the cult’s goons got to him.”

  “Sean?” Adriana asked. “Did you call him?”

  “No. Dr. Clark reached out to Tommy to see if he could help. Fortunately, Sean was in Croatia and able to hop on a plane to Bulgaria. As I said, I’m not certain what happened after that. I can only hope that Sean got to Dr. Clark before the cult could.”

  “So, Sean is in Bulgaria?” She tried to put it all together but wanted to make sure she had all the facts.

  “Maybe,” Diego said, uncertain. “He may have left the country, taken Dr. Clark somewhere safe, assuming Sean was able to find the man in time. Your husband has a way with things like that.”

  He certainly did. She almost never worried about Sean’s well-being, even though he occasionally got wrapped up in dangerous scenarios. When that happened, she was usually with him or could get to him quickly. Even now, her instinct was to track him down and help. Perhaps that was what she needed to do.

  She steeled her nerves and stiffened her spine. “So, we are some kind of old line of defense against an ancient cult bent on initiating a mass-extinction event that could kill a third of the planet’s population.” She took a breath. “What do I do first?”

  Adriana knew what she hoped they would say, but honestly didn’t know.

  Miyamoto answered. “We need you to get to Sean and Dr. Clark. They’re going to need all the help they can get.”

  18

  Stockholm

  Magnus stepped quickly into the hall and looked both directions. The corridor was empty, but he knew that would change any minute.

  “Come,” he said. “We must hurry.” The Swede glanced at the coats piled up on the table near the doorway. “And get your coats. You’re going to need them.”

  Sean held the door so the others could exit the room. He let it close behind him and followed Dr. Sorenson down the hallway toward the elevators. When the man stopped, Sean questioned him.

  “We’re not taking the elevators, are we? They’ll have the lobby blocked off.”

  “No,” Magnus insisted. “We’re not taking the elevators. As you say, that would be foolish.” He pressed the button in the center and, thankfully, the lift doors on the right opened. He leaned inside and pressed three random buttons, then retreated into the corridor, allowing the doors to close. A second later, the elevator descended.

  Magnus pressed the call button again.

  “We should probably get moving, Magnus,” Sean insisted. The anxious looks in the others’ eyes told that they were thinking the same thing.

  “We are,” Magnus said. “I just wanted to make sure this one was unavailable for our guests.” The Swede spun on his heels and stalked toward the stairwell, forty feet away.

  The rest of the group hurried to follow.

  “They’ll be coming up the stairs,” Tommy warned. He risked a glance over his shoulder as the elevator dinged and the doors opened. No one got out. While he wasn’t surprised, he was relieved
at that.

  They reached the stairwell entrance, and Magnus paused. He twisted his head, meeting Tommy’s worried expression with a calm stare. “Then I guess it’s a good thing we’re not going down.”

  Magnus shoved the door open and stepped through, going left toward the roof-access landing. Confused, the others followed, though every one of them felt as if they were rushing right into a trap.

  The Swede led the group up the steps, around the next landing and then to the top, where the stairs ended with a red door on the left. Magnus pulled on the latch, and the door opened, letting in a burst of frigid air from the outside.

  Tommy pulled the zipper up on his coat to block against the cold and held the door open as the others stepped out.

  He looked down through the gap between the stairs to the bottom of the hotel. He saw movement but couldn’t tell who was coming up. One thing was certain: whoever it was, they were in a hurry.

  Tommy joined the others out on the chilly rooftop and slowly eased the door shut behind him, momentarily wondering how they would get back in if it was locked from the inside.

  A gust of wind smashed into the group as they looked around the rooftop. The city of Stockholm spread out around them. In the center of the building’s roof, Sean felt okay, but deep down he knew that the second he went too close to the edge, his oldest nemesis would kick in. His fear of heights was no secret to Tommy and Magnus, but Tabitha and Kevin probably didn’t know about it.

  The sun hung in the bright blue sky to the west, making its way to the horizon. Sunset was still hours away, but at this time of year the days were short and the nights nearly everlasting. Christmas lights were already popping on along streetlamps and on some of the storefronts that were visible beyond the edge of the rooftop, but no one felt particularly festive at the moment.