The Medina Device

by T. J. Champitto

  . . .

  The Knights of Medina were originally founded in a subterranean cave system beneath Hyères, France, in 1292 AD. Within deep caverns, guided by wooden torches, a group of engineers, soldiers and academics came together and dedicated their lives to preserving the human knowledge that had been lost from the Ancient Library at Alexandria. The cultural archive had been destroyed little by little over the previous millennia: drowned by the Persians, buried by the Arabs and burned by the Romans. By the time the Knights of Medina were born, little, if any, of the original texts remained.

  If any group had invested themselves more into archiving, documenting and searching for the lost scrolls of the most technologically advanced civilization to ever walk the earth, it was the Knights of Medina.

  Over the centuries, the order blossomed, as did their archive of teachings and philosophies. By 1495, the Knights’ membership had grown to thousands—national dignitaries, statesmen, judges, astrologers, warriors and philosophers. In 1496, King Charles VIII of France hired the Knights of Medina—by Royal Appointment—to secure the Crown of Thorns worn by Jesus Christ.

  The Knights succeeded in their objective and were paid handsomely in return. Their prominence swelled over the next two hundred years. The brotherhood was not just tasked with protecting the lost knowledge of Alexandria, but also hunted down ancient technologies that would eventually lead to some of the greatest discoveries in modern times. The irony, the Knights understood, was that each discovery—from the harnessing of energy to human flight—had been realized by civilizations thousands of years prior.

  Today, the Knights consisted mostly of fringe scientists, astrophysicists and billionaire philanthropists. While their existence was rarely recognized, the mystery surrounding them had been debated by historians and conspiracy theorists for centuries.

  Rook, after a lifetime of service, often questioned the amount of power and influence his knighthood still held. He’d reached the highest rank possible for someone not born into the order, and as a result his life had become a clouded memory, blurred by time and space.

  He entered the sitting room from the balcony and slowly pulled the bowtie from his collar. Rook sat down and lost himself in a red leather chair. Relaxed, he allowed the weight of the ossuary to lift from his shoulders.

  The old man would sleep well tonight, knowing that his prize would never make it to San Diego, and that it now rested in a Mexican safe house under the protection of three American cowboys. His trophy may have been thousands of miles away, but tonight it felt so much closer.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Puerto Nuevo, Baja California, Mexico

  It was just before dawn, and with the exception of some short-lived naps, no one slept during the night. Trip sat quietly, hovering over his laptop, which had been linked to the Internet through a Chinese satellite passing overhead. The location of the drop was to be established through a random online chatroom within hours of the heist.

  Trip scrolled down the page through layers of random posts. He continued scrolling until something finally caught his attention.

  Hatshepsut_1507. It was Rook’s handle.

  Trip knew exactly what to look for—numbers. He examined the post, which was timestamped twenty-three minutes ago.

  Hatshepsut_1507: 0401230146110915

  It was simple really. Trip was looking for coordinates and a meet time. The message was an order of numbers: the location coordinates in reverse followed by a timestamp. He quickly noted that the meet time—the last four digits of the code—was 9:15 AM, a mere three hours away.

  Cam entered the small, wood-paneled room, just as Trip punched the coordinates into a satellite map on his screen. He quickly zoomed in on a small town forty miles away. San Jose de la Zorra.

  “Looks like we’re headed inland, for the hills,” Cam observed, pointing to the rendezvous point, then back to their current location. “If this is our SP, we need to leave in an hour.”

  “The ossuary?” Trip asked.

  “Let’s get it out of the crate before we load it up. It’s too bulky packed up like that, we need to be as nimble as possible.”

  “Roger that.”

  Trip holstered a 9mm into his black fatigues as Cam slipped out of the room and into the main quarters of the small, damp palapa, where he found Michael ducked beneath a window, scanning their surroundings through the night vision scope of his rifle.

  “Hey bro, three hours,” Cam whispered. “Sixty clicks out, small town called San Jose de la Zorra. We hit the road at oh-seven-hundred.”

  Michael checked his watch and responded with a thumbs-up. Cam pushed through an exit and marched briskly around the thatched hut to the outbuilding behind it. There, he pulled back a dirty tarp to reveal a baby blue, rusted-out, 1964 Chevy C10 with bald, whitewall tires. The pickup truck had to have a million miles on it, he thought.

  Inside the house, Michael and Trip began the process of breaking down the crate. Once finished, they buried the planks beneath the dirt outside. The ossuary, however, was carried to the old Chevy as the sun rose above the hills to the east.

  “Is she running?” Michael asked his brother.

  “She is!” Cam shouted from behind the steering wheel.

  With a turn of the key and a press of the pedal, the old truck growled to life.

  Michael and Trip wrapped the limestone ossuary within a tarp and strapped it to the truck bed. Satisfied, they went back inside to search for hats and jackets—anything to hide their black fatigues and gringo faces.

  Cam quickly donned a brown leather jacket and beige gaucho hat. He checked his weapons and stood by the door. As Trip and his brother looked on, they noted how ridiculous he looked, and feared for their own mischievous costumes. Michael dug through a small closet, producing a similar coat and large-brimmed hat that hid his face. He then tossed Trip a colorful poncho.

  After a thorough check of their GPS coordinates, the aging Chevy rumbled its way off the property and south onto the coastal roadway known as México 1D. With a cloud of orange dust in their wake, the Huntsmen were on the home stretch.

  A thirty-minute drive took them to the small village of Primo Tapia. Trip huddled up in the truck bed, his back against the cab with his knees folded up to his chest. A submachine gun rested in his carriage, hidden by the green and blue wool poncho. He bowed his face beneath a large straw hat. It quickly dawned on him why Rook had chosen broad daylight for the handoff; the small towns and villages between point A and B were buzzing with similar pickup trucks, each loaded down with some sort of large cargo or equipment, and most carrying a passenger or two in the truck bed. They blended in perfectly.

  The pickup darted through town, the dirt road pulling them deeper into the Baja Peninsula. From the passenger seat, Cam held out five fingers as Michael pushed the Chevy into its final climb up the mountain range west of San Jose de la Zorra. The metallic clicks of gun safeties disengaging and rounds being chambered put a sudden exclamation point on the moment.

  There was no specific landmark or road name that had been transmitted to them—just coordinates, which the Chevy was now approaching as it struggled up steep hurdles and deep potholes that had been left over from the rainy season. Trip bounced around in the back, prepping himself for what lay ahead. Now out of sight from the main village below, he stood up and removed his hat to scan the passing mountain terrain.

  Cam finally signaled Michael to stop the truck. The forest around them glistened in the sunlight as a soft rain began to fall.

  The truck pulled off the trail beneath a canopy of a banana palms as Trip took up position in the back, resting his short-barrel submachine gun on the roof of the cab. He peered with focused intent into the deep thick of th
e mountainside terrain, searching for any movement.

  Cam exited the passenger side and stepped out onto the soft ground. He removed his costume jacket, then grabbed a green Kevlar vest and pulled it over his head, strapping it around his chest. Michael and Trip followed his lead and slipped into their armor.

  “This is it,” Cam confirmed.

  “We’re five minutes early,” Michael noted from the other side of the truck. He shouldered his M4 rifle and squinted down the scope into the weaving mountain trail they had just climbed. All was quiet.

  “I feel exposed out here,” complained Cam. “Trip, how you feelin’?”

  “I’m good,” Trip replied from the top of the truck, still scanning the jungle around them.

  Cam’s only weapon was a 9mm pistol holstered on his right thigh. His job was to run point, with Michael and Trip acting as security. They were meeting with Rook’s gang, the Knights of Medina who, so far, had treated them well. But nonetheless, this was the handoff of a priceless artifact to an organization that had promised them millions of dollars. It was a volatile moment that could easily go sideways. The guys had prepared for all possibilities, good and bad.

  A black Range Rover finally appeared over the horizon in front of them, only thirty yards up the trail. With a sense of relief, Michael and Trip lowered their rifles and Cam made his way to the front of the pickup truck. The ossuary, however, sat undisturbed beneath a dirty tarp in the back of the old Chevy.

  Two large, muscle-bound men emerged from the front of the Range Rover, both clad in combat boots, cargo pants and baseball caps. M16 machine guns hung from their shoulders. The rear doors swung open next and two more men exited the SUV. It was clear now who the leader of Rook’s team was—a slender middle-aged man in khakis and a white, button-down dress shirt. His shoes seemed overly expensive for a trip to the jungle.

  He approached Cam in the middle of the wet, soupy trail.

  “Cameron Lyle?” he asked.

  Cam nodded.

  “I believe you have something for us.”

  “I need confirmation of payment,” Cam sternly requested.

  Michael stood beside the truck, protecting their cargo and locking eyes with one of the meatheads across the road. Trip remained hovering above the cab, his eyes fixated on the tree line to his right. The mountain was surreal and for a brief moment he reveled in its pristine beauty.

  One of the Medina thugs marched onto the trail with a digital tablet and handed it to his boss. The man in the white shirt swiped the screen and spun the tablet to Cam, confirming the final payment had been made.

  Cam turned to his brother and motioned to the ossuary. Michael retreated to the truck bed and pulled the wooden gate from its slots, tossing it to the side of the road. As Trip was about to step down and help unload, he caught a sudden movement in the forest. Then a sharp noise.

  “Close in. Now,” he calmly called out.

  Michael backpedaled to the front of the truck with his M4 raised and ready.

  The Medina strongmen, clearly spooked, began pacing backward toward their vehicle. Just as Cam reached for his 9mm, shots rang out from the perimeter. All hell broke loose as everyone scattered for cover.

  “Ambush!” Michael yelled from the side of the truck.

  He quickly returned fire into the tree line and shielded himself behind the truck, where several rounds pinged off the side of the old Chevy.

  Cam dove beneath the vehicle and blindly returned fire into the jungle. His pistol seemed overwhelmed by the opposing automatics. There was an extra M4 hidden behind the driver’s seat, but he couldn’t risk making a move for it. Up the trail, he could see Rook’s team return fire into the green canopies to the south.

  And just as quickly as the attack began, it all stopped. The guys held their fire and caught their breath. Their focused remained on the endless mirage of green in front of them. An enemy was only yards away.

  “Anyone hit?” Cam yelled from beneath the truck.

  “I’m good,” Michael shouted.

  Trip echoed the response.

  Then, without warning, the opposite tree line exploded with gunfire. Their attackers had them in a deadly crossfire. The entire mountain raged with the sound of battle. Michael, completely exposed now, rolled to his left and dashed around the truck to the other side, where Trip was unloading his APC-9 in a sweeping barrage of laser-focused return fire.

  Cam, pinned down under the pickup, shifted his eyes up the road and saw all four of the Knights lying dead in the road.

  The incoming fire continued without mercy. Just then, Michael made a fast break from behind the truck to the base of a thick tree across the road. He was doing exactly what his brother had trained him to do—advance on his enemy.

  “Michael, get back here!” Cam yelled from beneath the pickup.

  The younger brother continued to make small advancements into the trees—inch by inch, yard by yard, under heavy fire. He could hear the high-pitch whistle of rounds slipping past him.

  Cam rolled out from under the truck and jumped to his feet. He raised his 9mm over the hood and tried to place strategic shots into the thick mosaic that hid the small army.

  “We gotta go, Cam!” Trip yelled from the rear of the truck. “Michael!”

  It was pure chaos.

  Michael Lyle peered back at his team. He was now elevated on an embankment above the road, crouching wild-eyed behind a tree. With a thumbs-up, he laid down one last blanket of gunfire into the forest. He was fighting brilliantly but couldn’t tell if the enemy was being eliminated or simply moving quickly from position to position. He had no idea how many there were. Maybe ten, twenty, thirty?

  The attack had begun from one side of the road and then switched to the other. Cam, Michael and Trip appeared to be surrounded.

  Somewhere out there, Cam knew, in addition to the army attacking from the north, was a death squad lying in wait down the trail. Surely, our escape route’s been cut off, he thought.

  Michael continued squeezing the trigger until he ran out of ammo. From the cover of a tree, he slung the M4 over his shoulder and anxiously bounced from his knees as he zeroed in on the pickup truck, now riddled with bullet holes, behind him.

  Cam sensed his brother’s next move. He ducked his head and reached for the driver-side door handle. Pulling it open, Cam grabbed the hidden M4 from behind the seat and smoothly pulled it to his shoulder. The hardened soldier, now properly armed, stepped out in front of the truck and released a crushing wave of gunfire into the jungle.

  Aided by Cam’s momentary rain of cover, Michael sprang to his feet and sprinted through the leaves. As he closed in on the truck, he dove into the bed, slamming his back against the base of the ossuary. It knocked the wind out of him, but he was alive.

  Cam was now fully exposed in the road and continued to exchange fire with the tree line. As he bore down the barrel of the rifle, he could see glimpses of men in camouflage. It was his first visual contact. He noted their textbook movements; these were pros. The soldier kept his aim five feet above the jungle floor to ensure kill shots. Then, in a sharp flash, he was slammed to the ground. It felt like a sledgehammer had swung into his chest. The former SEAL couldn’t breathe, or move.

  “Cam!” Trip yelled from nearby. “Cameron’s hit!”

  Michael, still laying against the metal bed, scurried his way around the ossuary to the backside of the truck, where he slithered out onto the muddy trail. He ran to the front of the truck, where Cam lay in the road only feet away.

  “I need cover!” he yelled to Trip, who quickly responded with a litany of .45 caliber rounds.

  Mud spit up around Cam as bullets burrowed the
mselves into the nearby ground. Michael grabbed his brother’s collar and pulled all 225 pounds of him to the safety of the Chevy.

  Cam forced himself into a sitting position against the wheel and yanked the vest from his stomach. No blood. He grabbed the Kevlar and noticed a bullet fragment embedded in the front, still smoking.

  “You okay?” Michael yelled above the sound of continuous gunfire.

  “Yeah. Yeah. Let’s go.” Cam was fighting for a breath, unable to find it.

  “Trip! Let’s do this!” Michael yelled over his shoulder. “Trip!” he screamed again.

  “I’m okay,” he finally shouted back. Trip was leaning up against the back bumper, holding his neck.

  Michael peeled off and joined his teammate. He quickly noticed the blood escaping between Trip’s fingers.

  “You hit?”

  “Just a graze.” The hacker pulled his hand away and revealed a deep gash across the side of his neck.

  Cam was now on his feet, slightly crouching for cover. He checked the clip of his M4 and chambered another round. He realized now that the Chevy had been murdered. There must’ve been three dozen rounds buried in the engine. It was clear they wouldn’t be getting off the mountain the same way they arrived. Cam glanced up the road and set his sights on the Range Rover.

  The gunfire paused—an unexpected break in the fight.

  “You and Trip stay here,” commanded Cam. “I’m going for the Range Rover. When I get down here, jump in and we’re gone. Got it?”

  “The ossuary!” Michael blurted.

  “Fuck the ossuary! Are you good?”

  Michael replied with a steely nod. We’re good.

  Cam found a deep breath and prepared for a long sprint to the Range Rover. Michael laid down another barrage of cover fire, allowing his brother to break for the open trail. The small army responded with a fury of their own. As bullets chased Cam up the road, he came to a sudden halt, the mud in front of him exploded angrily. His eyes widened with the familiar fear of death.