The Milestone Protocol

by Ernest Dempsey

  “Emily and I worked a lot of jobs together. When she got the director job, I left. She wanted me to stay. I declined.”

  “Because you wanted the director gig?”

  “No,” Sean laughed. “Definitely not. I was glad she got it. She’s the best person for it, and the youngest director in the agency’s history. I could have never done that job.”

  “But you left.”

  “As I said, I thought I wanted a simpler life. Deep down, I still do. A place in the mountains and a place on the beach, and I’m good. But not yet.”

  “Money’s not the problem. I’m sure you earned a good income with Axis, and from your current job.” Her eyes darted to Tommy, who sat across the aisle with June.

  “It wasn’t money,” Sean confessed. “Sometimes, the skills we don’t want to use are the ones the world needs the most.”

  “Did you just make that up?”

  Sean shrugged. “I’ve thought about it a lot. The trick is making sure you can separate that person the world needs from the person you want to be. That may sound easy, but it isn’t.”

  “Who are you right now?”

  Sean looked up into her eyes with a grim expression. “Today, I’m a weapon. Just like the rest of us.” His eyes panned the aircraft interior, sweeping over Alex and Tara, Niki, Emily and Dak, Tommy and June, and Adriana. “Tomorrow, hopefully, we can all go back to that other life, those other roles. If we make it out of this alive.”

  Emily made her way down the aisle and stopped next to Tabitha. Bracing herself with both hands on the overhead compartments, she looked down at Sean. “The diamond mine is in a small mountain about thirty minutes outside the settlement of Longyearbyen. Prichard is going to arrange a cargo van for us. The ride isn’t optimal, but it will have to do.”

  “That’s okay,” Sean said. “Whatever gets us there.”

  “I’ve analyzed the layout of the entry points into the mine. It won’t be easy. From the satellite analysis, it looks like the best way in is through a ventilation shaft on the north side of the mountain.”

  “Ventilation shaft?” Tommy asked, steering his attention away from his wife.

  “It’s not like we’ll be crawling through a vent in the Nakatomi Tower. It’s large enough to drive a small car through, but we’ll have to get in first. Once inside, we’ll make our way through the tunnel and into the mines. From there, though, we’ll have to find our way. There aren’t any schematics or blueprints that can guide us.”

  Sean didn’t like the sound of that. “So, we’re going in blind?”

  “Yes. It’s not ideal. I know.”

  “I guess it won’t be the first time we’ve done something that way.”

  “There is another option,” Emily offered. “Matt poked around and learned that the Framtid Mining Corporation is due to get some supplies delivered within the next few hours. Those supplies are coming straight from the airport.”

  “So,” Tabitha said, “you’re thinking we hijack those cargo trucks and drive in through the front door? No offense, but the ventilation shaft sounds less risky.”

  “None taken. The vent does seem like we might encounter less resistance, except that to get to it we’ll have to trek through the freezing darkness. We won’t be able to take a direct route, which will lose us some time—a valuable commodity. Then there’s the possibility that the vent will be sealed. Our intel on it is outdated. I would expect Magnus would have taken measures to seal every possible way into that place. The only reason I suggested it as the first option is that the ventilation shaft would pose the least amount of human resistance. However, if we go the cargo-truck route, we may be able to pass right through security. To do that successfully, we’ll need to be disguised as the delivery personnel. I’m sure there will be access ID cards at the very least.”

  “I say we go through the front door,” Sean said. “Even if we need clearance passes to get in, it’s subfreezing outside. I don’t think the guards will put up much fuss about us pulling down masks so they can see every inch of our faces.”

  “They might even just wave us through if they’re expecting a delivery,” Tommy added.

  Everyone in the cabin turned to Tommy with the same look on their faces.

  “What?” he asked defensively. “It could happen.”

  “I doubt we’ll be that lucky, Schultzie,” Sean said. “But I like your optimism.”

  Adriana agreed with a short hum.

  Prichard’s voice came over the intercom again. “Touching down in about ten minutes. Please remain in your seats with your seatbelts fastened. The captain has turned on the seatbelt signs, and all in-flight services will be ending.”

  Dak laughed a few rows up. “I like him.”

  Emily offered a rare grin. “He’s a good one. Lost his family in a fire more than a decade ago, so he moved to Finland to get away from the pain. I imagine flying by himself gives him too much time to think on the tragedy, but we all deal with those things in our own way.”

  The humorous moment was gone, replaced by a somber tone.

  “Yes, we do,” Sean said.

  He turned and looked out the window again at the churning black sea below. “Yes, we do.”

  44

  Svalbard

  Magnus observed the passing landscape from the back seat of his black Range Rover as it rumbled along the snow-covered road. A convoy of four other matching SUVs escorted his in the center of the line. The procession snaked its way around hills surrounding an ice-covered bay, making its way east toward the mountains. This time of year, the Svalbard archipelago was shrouded in darkness for most of the day. The moon, along with the northern lights, cast their heavenly glow down onto the mountains and waters. The snow-covered roads and flats reflected the light, giving off at least some illumination.

  “So cold out there,” Kevin commented, rubbing his hands together as he watched the landscape pass by. “How does anyone live here?”

  “They’re a hearty people, I imagine,” Magnus replied. “Determined. Full of grit. Less than three thousand people live in Longyearbyen.”

  “Well, it might be cold, but I bet it’s peaceful out here. No one to bother you except neighbors you already know.”

  “Yes. In this isolated, sometimes desolate place, there is a measure of what it feels like to truly be free.”

  Kevin looked at the man, perplexed.

  As if reading the archaeologist’s mind, Magnus chuckled. “Oh, you think that the man in charge of the order that runs the world isn’t free? Sure, I can go where I want, do what I want, but heavy lies the crown, Dr. Clark.”

  “You’re worried about someone trying to assassinate you?”

  “I wouldn’t say I’m worried. I have good people around me, people I can trust.”

  Kevin thought back on the man Magnus had executed at the salvage yard. He wondered how anyone could work for the Swede, knowing that, at any moment, they could be murdered without warning.

  “Besides,” Magnus went on, “they have no reason to betray me. Still, it could happen. A government entity could revolt against our control. There are any number of things that could occur, but out here”—Magnus looked out at the aurora borealis—“all is peaceful. There is no hidden threat lurking in the shadows.”

  That brought Kevin to his biggest concern. “What about Wyatt and his friends? Do you think they made it out of the farmhouse alive?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  The blunt honesty of the response caught Kevin off guard. “You don’t seem worried about it.”

  “I’m not,” Magnus said.

  “But they know about this place,” Kevin motioned around with one hand. “They know this is where we are going.”

  The convoy rounded a long curve, and up ahead the earth dropped away to the left. Kevin peered through the window at the chasm next to a tall, snow-covered mountain.

  “I thought diamond mines usually went deeper than that,” Kevin said, noting the hole only appeared to be a hundred feet
deep—though it was still imposing.

  “This mine was abandoned. The original owners believed there were diamonds here and ignored most of the geological experts’ counsel on the matter. After more than a year of digging and burrowing into the mountain and around it, they never found any diamonds. They did, however, find something interesting.”

  “A lost pyramid.” Kevin’s answer came in a reverent, hushed breath.

  “Not quite,” Magnus corrected, to his companion’s surprise. “They found a chamber that served as the entrance to tunnels connecting the surface to the pyramid. The ancient door was only a few dozen feet underground. It was surrounded by hieroglyphs that predate anything in Egypt, and are more closely related to ancient Sanskrit. Of course, the moment I heard about the discovery, I purchased the land from the owner at more than a fair price and extinguished any reports that might have come out regarding the find.”

  Kevin wondered what the man meant by extinguish, but he didn’t care to ask. He already had enough blood on his hands, and while the smattering of guilt racking his chest may have been a difficult burden to bear, he knew that it still beat being dead—which had been the other option. At least this way, he could survive. He justified his actions, too, by telling himself he would be the one to build new perspectives on history once all of this was over. The thought, however, caused visions of billions dying—children, women, innocent people who were simply trying to live their lives. Soon, all of them would be gone. Kevin hoped that they wouldn’t suffer, that whatever this machine did to them would be quick and merciful. An ache tightened in his chest at the thought, and he forced himself to think about something else. Fortunately, there was plenty on his mind.

  He noted a series of lights hanging from tall posts at the base of the mountain ahead. They lined the road and then spread out around a series of buildings and shipping containers. In the bright artificial light, Kevin could see the hole cut into the mountain, surrounded by steel scaffolds and an inflated tunnel leading into the mine’s entrance.

  “So, what did the hieroglyphs say?” Kevin asked, trying to divert his guilt-riddled mind back to the conversation.

  “I’ll show you. We will be there soon.” Magnus passed him a look of tempered excitement.

  Kevin settled into the heated leather seat and peered through the windshield. Tiny snowflakes blew across the glass and the SUV’s hood. A harsh wind cut across the vehicle and howled along the door seams. This was the coldest place he’d ever been. Down in the tunnels, though, it would be much warmer. He reassured himself with that, though the thought of being deep underground did little to comfort him.

  The convoy rolled up to the entrance of the mine where two guard shacks stood on either side of the inflated awning that stretched out from the mountain.

  A guard clad in several layers of clothes emerged from the shack on the left. He held up a device to the window and then motioned the vehicle through. The guard stood there waving his hand for the others in the procession to continue ahead through the gate as it rolled open to the right.

  The bright lights were stunning to Kevin’s vision, and he was grateful for the tinted windows on either side of the vehicle.

  Soon, though, the vehicle was beyond the lights and under the shelter of the temporary tunnel as the convoy continued into the mine entrance.

  Kevin hadn’t realized that the opening would be big enough to drive a car through, much less five SUVs. “Bigger opening than I thought,” he admitted, ending the silence that had taken over inside the cabin.

  “Yes,” Magnus said. “People often think of the old mine shafts from the gold rush days or from silver mining. In this location, they tried a combination of pit mining as well as shaft mining, though both proved fruitless. Once we owned the property, we bored a wider berth into the mountain and made some additional modifications.”

  “I suppose you’d have to if you wanted to build your bunker down here.”

  “Correct. And as you’ll soon see, there is enough room for a small army down here, and supplies to sustain it through the coming devastation.”

  The inflated roof over their heads merged with wide strips of rubber hanging from the edge of a thick steel frame. Once through the entrance, bright lights fixed to the center of the arched stone ceiling illuminated a massive corridor with a paved road that stretched far ahead into the mountain. Dozens of similar SUVs lined the road, all parked in neat rows on both sides. Four men guarded the entrance from positions on either side of the road, each pair housed in guard shacks similar to the ones outside—probably, Kevin figured, because despite the huge rubber flaps hanging over the entrance, a fair amount of cold air blew into the tunnel.

  “It’s like NORAD,” Kevin whispered as he looked around at the engineering marvel. Steel girders stretched across the road, bracing the ceiling above. Narrow walkways stretched down both sides of the tunnel with yellow railings next to them. Huge ventilation ducts lined the ceiling, running next to the lights.

  “Have you been to NORAD?” Magnus asked, genuinely curious.

  “Actually, no,” Kevin confessed.

  “Then how do you know what it looks like?”

  “Movies, I guess.” The answer came with a shrug, but he felt like an idiot for saying anything.

  “The movies don’t get it completely wrong,” Magnus said. “But there is much they don’t include whenever you see depictions of that high-security site.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “Of course.” Magnus responded plainly, as if he were talking about visiting his local grocery store. “I have been there on several occasions. While I took some of their design aspects to heart when engineering this place, we made some necessary modifications. One being the heat pumped through those ventilation ducts up there. This part of the tunnel gets quite cold when the gate is open.”

  “Why don’t you keep it closed?”

  “Full of questions, aren’t we? The steel door that seals off the bunker from the world will be closed in the next few hours, but we have another couple of shipments due to arrive before then. Once those shipments arrive, we will seal the door shut. It takes several minutes to close, and when the delivery arrives, we want the convoy to be able to get inside as quickly as possible.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” Kevin hedged. He’d noticed the guards protecting the place and wondered why there weren’t more, but he figured there had to be several he didn’t see, both on the surface and somewhere in this tunnel.

  The road curved to the left, then straightened. Up ahead, it stopped where several more SUVs and a few military cargo trucks were parked around a shipping container that had been modified into an office. The makeshift HQ was wedged into the corner of the tunnel where it ended next to another inflated awning much like the one on the surface, though smaller in scale.

  “Is that where we go in?” Kevin asked, pointing at the air-filled tunnel.

  “Yes,” Magnus said. “That’s the entry point to the pyramid passageway.”

  “And to the right?” Kevin nodded toward a steel scaffold with a winch at the top and cables attached to lift.

  “Faster way down into the bunker. Trust me when I say you’ll want to take the lift. This pyramid was built around five hundred feet down into the mountain.”

  “How is that possible?”

  Magnus rolled his left shoulder. “You’re the expert on that,” he said with a wink. “Let’s just say that they had much more advanced technology than we ever thought possible.”

  The driver followed the other cars to five open parking spots on the left and pulled into the middle one.

  Once stopped, the guards in the vehicles exited and fanned out to secure the area, though Kevin felt like that was a tad redundant at this point. No one was going to be able to infiltrate this stronghold. It was a veritable fortress, not to mention located on one of the most remote islands he’d ever heard of. Even if Wyatt and his friends had escaped the ambush in Russia, there was no way they’d b
e able to get into this passage.

  The thought made him feel more secure as he stepped out into the cool, but not unpleasant, air in the tunnel.

  Kevin walked around the back of the SUV and followed Sorenson’s lead as the older man stalked toward the inflated entrance abutting the rock wall.

  A million questions floated in and out of Kevin’s mind as they walked. He stared ahead at the original entrance to the tunnel compound and, despite being told what to expect, couldn’t hold back his surprise at the sight.

  Two stone columns, one on each side, supported a matching header beam. Kevin stared at the inscriptions as he approached, noting that it was indeed written in some form of ancient Sanskrit, but with a few instances of Egyptian hieroglyphs interspersed.

  “This is authentic?” Kevin asked when he stopped at the doorway.

  Magnus turned to him with a scowl. “Do you really think I invested so much money and time to create all of this if I had a single doubt as to its authenticity? And do you believe I would have brought you here if this weren’t real? Not to mention the pyramid down below us.”

  “Right. Sorry. Force of habit.”

  “Ah. Well, it’s one you should drop. Yes, it’s authentic. We date it to nearly fourteen thousand years ago, though it could be older. We’re certain it matches fairly close to the timeline of Göbekli Tepe.”

  “The mixing of languages,” Kevin said as he stepped closer to the columns. He ran one hand along the stone, though he was unwilling to touch the engravings. “This could indicate the original peoples or tribes on Earth, joined here at this place for a—”

  “Holy endeavor,” Magnus finished. “They were unified in their purpose, knowing that someday there would be a need to eradicate the earth’s population again if it didn’t reach the right milestones.”

  Kevin’s face darkened. “You said, ‘again.’”

  “Yes.” Magnus turned his eyes to the inscription. “You see, it says that the followers of Thoth gathered here to build the first of the chain that would purge the earth of its iniquity and bring balance once again. We know that there was a cataclysm at least one other time in this planet’s history.”