The Medina Device

by T. J. Champitto

  “We’re leaving, Dr. Damion,” he proclaimed. “There’s no point in staying involved any further. I’ve done my part, I have my money and now you have your stuff. We’re done here.”

  “I appreciate your manners, Mr. Lyle, but leaving this here will only put my life in danger. Was that your objective, to simply pass your death wish off to someone else?”

  “Not what I signed up for, old man. You and your friends paid me to deliver it, so I’ve delivered it. What happens next isn’t my problem. Enjoy your retirement.”

  Cam and Rand made their way to the foyer and let themselves out. Escaping the courtyard, they barged onto the street and walked northbound up Rue Voltaire.

  Cam felt liberated, the chains had been removed. He suddenly felt lighter knowing the items were now back in the hands of their intended owners.

  As they made their way to the intersection ahead, a tall, dark foreigner sat undetected at the sidewalk patio of a restaurant, sipping cappuccino and thumbing through a newspaper.

  He found it perplexing how often his targets simply appeared from thin air and presented themselves to him. And how often just sitting in one place, in a general, high-traffic area, would produce such results.

  His two targets walked briskly up Rue Voltaire and turned onto Rue de Château. He stuck his face into the wide cappuccino cup as they passed by him. They looked tired and worn down.

  Then, the foreigner noticed something peculiar—neither Cam nor Rand were carrying the backpack. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly where they had just come from, but with a check of his watch he determined there had been a ninety-minute window of unaccounted time that they could have made a drop. The backpack could be anywhere between their current location and the Gare de Courbevoie station where they had last been seen on security camera.

  His targets were now one block passed him, marching up Rue de Château. He dropped a few bills on the table and tucked his newspaper under the arm of his gray pea coat.

  His sluggish pace allowed a gap to open between he and the two Americans. He kept his distance, remaining entrenched with the small crowd shuffling up the street.

  Cam kept a steady pace as he motioned to his friend.

  “Here, let’s grab a bite and sort this out before you go.”

  “I don’t need your money,” Rand countered.

  “Fine, but we both need food.”

  They stepped off the sidewalk and into a quaint little bistro, where only a few tables were available. Rand rolled his sleeves up and straightened his belt, then ran a hand through his dark hair and tried to relax.

  Cam pulled his cap further down over his brow and ordered two, pre-made sandwiches from the glass display. They grabbed a couple bottled waters from the cooler and found a table against the wall.

  Cam was ravenous. He tore through the deli paper and stuffed the warm, ham and cheese croque monsieur into his mouth, then washed it down with water.

  “These things are great—délicieux,” he said out loud.

  Rand was taken aback by the careless demeanor. “Cam, I have to tell you something. When we walk out of this bistro, if you ever see me again, you’ll be in handcuffs. I toyed with the idea of double-crossing you when we landed, but you’re just a good guy in a bad situation. It’d be better if you never saw me again.”

  Cam was somewhat concerned. Rand was talking as if he was still a member of the FBI. It sounded delusional.

  “Forty-eight hours. That’s all I’m giving you,” Rand continued. “And then I’m going to start hunting you and Michael down for the robberies. That’s the best I can do.”

  “You can’t go back, Rand,” Cam sternly said under his breath. “You are wanted for the killing of several intelligence officers, aiding a known fugitive, tampering with evidence and interfering with a federal investigation. They’ll send you to prison if they don’t just kill you first. How are you not seeing this?”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Fine,” Cam conceded. “Fine by me.”

  It wasn’t fine by him. He’d grown to like Rand and didn’t want to see his new friend in danger.

  “I appreciate the help and the offer. But I am what I am, and you are what you are. I’ll survive,” promised the hard-headed former agent.

  As they finished their sandwiches, a man sat down at the table next to them.

  Rand noticed the gray pea coat and jet-black hair—something he’d seen for the second time today. He dropped his head in disbelief and placed his sandwich on the table. He’d had enough of the running, the hiding, the shooting.

  “You really wanna do this here?” he softly said into his water bottle, just loud enough to be heard.

  “We have Michael,” the foreigner quietly said into his newspaper.

  Rand and Cam locked eyes. Cam slowed his breathing and casually reached for his Glock. He couldn’t quite make the accent. Dutch, he thought.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the man mumbled in a slow cadence. “The device. Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation at midnight.”

  Cam’s mind flashed through a myriad of potential responses, both physical and spoken. Everything inside of him wanted to blow a hole in the Dutchman’s face right there in the tiny café. But strategically, he knew he had no real advantage. Michael wasn’t collateral damage, he was his brother.

  “Prove it,” Cam finally asked into the air.

  The man pulled a smartphone from his pocket and held it in his lap, just in view for Cam and Rand to easily peer over and see. With a swipe of the screen, an image of Michael sitting in a white room—bloodied and beaten—appeared.

  “You motherfuckers,” Cam threatened under his breath.

  The tall Dutchman stood up and tucked the paper back under his arm.

  “Midnight.” He turned and walked to the door, leaving Cam and Rand sitting in frustration and shock.

  The rain had picked up outside. Marco Damion snapped the collar of his trench coat against his neck and peered out beneath a brown ascot cap. He watched the Dutchman exit the bistro and disappear behind a passing bus and small crowd.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Cam was dumbfounded, still trying to process their encounter with the Dutchman.

  “We need to move. Now.”

  “Hold on,” Rand blurted out.

  “We don’t have time to hold on. It’s a tag-and-hunt. They’re going to tail us from here, follow us and kill us. All of us, including Michael. The second they have the asset in sight we’re all dead! We need to go now, Rand.”

  They jumped from the table and moved with purpose to the front of the bistro, then pushed through the door and onto the sidewalk. The streets of Paris were getting more crowded as the tourists flocked out for lunch.

  Cam quickly re-evaluated their situation, which had progressed from an escape to a full-blown rescue mission. They were now firmly caught in the CIA’s web. He needed to cut himself loose, recover Michael, and get off the grid as quickly as possible.

  With Rand right behind him, Cam broke into a full sprint down the sidewalk and threw himself into a nearby alley. As he turned the corner at top speed, he was stopped dead in his tracks. Rand crashed around the corner and slammed into Cam’s side.

  There, standing like a statue, was Marco Damion.

  Cam stared in disbelief at the physicist. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked.

  “Come with me. You’re not safe here.”

  Cam again pulled the 9mm from his waistband and stepped up to Marco, pressing the barrel against the man’s cheek.

  “Bring me the backpack, Marco, or bring me my brother.
I won’t ask again,” he threatened.

  Cam no longer cared about discretion, or the fact that he was brandishing a weapon only feet from the tourists walking by. He was done with rules and best practices. He was done with all of it.

  “I came for you because I don’t like being hunted, Mr. Lyle. And I presume the only reason that man left you alive in the bistro is because he wants the device. I’m just saving you a step. Now don’t be difficult, come with me.”

  Marco turned away from the gun and began pacing up the alley.

  “Shit!” Cam snorted.

  They followed Marco through the alley, which brought them to a well-manicured courtyard garden. Together, the men darted into another alley hidden from nearby pedestrians. At the halfway mark, Marco halted. He leaned over to grab the handle of a cellar door, framed neatly into the cobblestone at his feet. He struggled at first but managed to pull one of the metal doors open, then the other. It revealed a steep staircase chiseled from stone.

  Marco led them blindly into the dark abyss below. Cam and Rand followed carefully behind, folding the metal doors behind them and disappearing into the cellar.

  They continued further beneath the streets of Paris. Marco had made this trip dozens of times before, navigating each step of the ancient passageway with ease.

  After a disorientating plunge into the darkness, Marco’s footsteps echoed as he reached the bottom. Cam and Rand hurried to join him. Their guide struck a match to light an old lantern, revealing stonewalls of a long corridor, chiseled by hand long ago. Marco raised the lantern and pushed onward into the corridor. They quickly reached the end, where they were met by several more tunnel entrances surrounding them on each side.

  The old physicist moved without hesitation to the second hall on his left. “This way,” he whispered from the shadows.

  The four-foot wide hallway was lined with electrical wires on both sides. After hustling into the tunnel, Marco stopped at a black metal door that appeared from nowhere. He placed his thumb on an electronic fingerprint scanner on the wall. The indicator light zapped from red to green and, after a click of the lock, Marco pushed his way through.

  The doorway opened to a large underground parking deck. The place was completely empty, except for a loading dock taking up the entire right wall. Lined along the dock were four unmarked delivery vans—black with heavily tinted windows. Marco limped down a few paved steps to ground level and made his way to one of the vehicles.

  “Jump in, lads. We’re almost home!” he shouted.

  Without question, Cam and Rand slumped into the van—Cam in the passenger seat and Rand into the rear through a gliding door.

  The black Mercedes Sprinter jerked out of its space and squealed around the corner, climbing through a spiral parking deck to the city above. After a series of hard left turns, they paused at the exit and checked for traffic on Rue Sartoris.

  The Sprinter darted left and accelerated toward a six-way traffic circle ahead. Without stopping, Marco careened the van into a parade of cars and broke off onto Rue d’Estienne d’Orves, where they soon settled into a clustered enclave of residential blocks.

  For the next ten minutes, Marco worked his way south through the outskirts of Courbevoie and across the Seine. They were now cruising into downtown Paris. Cam noticed the tip of the Eiffel Tower cresting over the horizon.

  “So, what’s the score, Marco?” Cam asked, now that the intensity of the escape began to wane. “They’re holding my brother hostage. I’m taking the artifacts back from you, I have no choice. And then I’m gonna forget about you and Rook and this whole damn thing.”

  “I understand your objective,” Marco replied. “We will get you to safety and off the CIA’s radar. Arrangements can be made then.”

  The Sprinter pressed on, southbound through Ternes and Chaillot, until they reached their destination—Musée du Vin. The Wine Museum.

  Marco pulled the van around the back of the historic winery and into an alley that stopped at a set of iron gates. The gates pushed inward until enough room was available for the Sprinter to pass through, then creaked eerily closed behind them. Marco pulled in and parked the van in a courtyard. The men exited and followed his lead through a large wooden door, entering the grand foyer of the museum.

  From there, they began weaving through another maze of hallways and passages until they found themselves at a rustic wooden bar in a fifteenth century storage room. Surrounded by an endless supply of cobweb-covered chiantis and merlots, Marco reached over and turned on the lights, then proceeded to pour three glasses of red wine.

  “We’re safe here,” he promised.

  “I appreciate you snatching us off the street and everything, but I want answers.” Cam’s voice was clear and stern. “The time for all this cloak-and-dagger bullshit is over. Where’s the bag?”

  “Yes, Mr. Lyle. I believe it is time for us to get right to it. But I cannot allow you to just walk out of here with these items. You see, surrounding this building are approximately two- to three-dozen armed members of my security detail.”

  “Bullshit,” Rand called from his barstool.

  “Perhaps,” Marco shrugged. “But the odds aren’t in your favor.”

  “They have my brother. They have Michael,” Cam pointed out.

  “And let me guess, they’re going to kill him unless you deliver the artifacts?” Marco concluded.

  “Yes!”

  “Bring me the bag, it’s over there,” the physicist said to Cam, waving him toward a wine rack nearby.

  Cam walked to the rack and retrieved his backpack, then placed it onto the dusty bar.

  Marco pulled the items out one by one. Each photo carefully placed in a row in front of them. He then produced the tablet and finally the mysterious device.

  “Dr. Damion, what exactly are we dealing with here?” asked Rand in a defeated voice. “I mean, what is so important about this stuff that has me hiding from the CIA in a wine museum in Paris?” He was pleading now.

  “You’ve come a long way to be a part of this, Mr. Kershaw. My heart feels for you greatly. As it does for you and your children, Mr. Lyle.” Marco was calm now, speaking clearly and from the heart. “But this device has come further than any of us combined, which is saying a lot, I assure you.”

  Cam listened closely, but his perceived interest was no more than a smokescreen. His mind was already made up—as was Rand’s. They were patiently waiting for an opening. Marco was not about to stand in their way of bringing the device to Martyrs Memorial, located on the grounds of the famous Notre-Dame Cathedral, at midnight. Michael was the only objective, and Marco presented a clear and present danger to the plan.

  “I’ll start with the photographs you’re so concerned with,” the aging scientist began. “As I mentioned, they were taken at various points in time, at various locations around the world.”

  “Who buried these?” Cam anxiously asked.

  “These items were buried in 792 AD. More than a millennium to you and I,” he explained. “But not to everyone.”

  “That’s impossible,” Rand charged.

  “Of course, it is. But physics is a world of theories and conjecture. We spend our entire lives providing guesswork for the rest of the field to study and review. And every now and then, we’re rewarded when a theory is proven beyond any reasonable scientific doubt. This photograph here,” Marco pointed out, tapping a finger on an image of himself and several other men posing with spear-carrying tribesmen. “This was the Huastec tribe—their culture was made up of gruesome warring factions and a brutal form of governing. But they had a remarkable knowledge of energy and physics.”

  Cam narrowed his eyes on the photograph, then peered over a
t the device. “This thing,” he said as he reached for the metallic lightsaber. “What is it? And don’t say it’s a time machine. Our patience is running very thin, doctor.”

  “You must expand your mind, Mr. Lyle. These are simply photographs—the result of light reflecting against molecules in a three-dimensional capture. Physics can play tricks on you.”

  “The kind of tricks like…oh, I don’t know…burying a twenty-first century piece of machinery in a fifteen-hundred-year-old hole before it’s even invented? Or shooting photos of an ancient civilization with a Polaroid camera?” Cam was growing impatient now. It was almost time to strike.

  As the two battled fiercely for middle ground, Rand shuffled through the photographs on the bar.

  “I’ll start at the beginning,” Marco said. “The photos were taken during our process of developing the device. Or re-developing it, I should say.”

  “You built this thing?” Cam asked.

  “Not exactly, it surfaced in the spring of 1962. I was a young physicist in Edinburgh, brought to the US to join a team of scientists tasked with re-engineering a piece of advanced technology.”

  “That’s not the beginning,” Cam interrupted. “You said it was buried in 792. Who the hell buried this thing back then?”

  A smile crept across Marco’s face. “Well, therein lies the problem, Mr. Lyle. The answer to your question gets a bit murky.”

  Cam’s face said it all. He was being toyed with.

  “You see, a series of events cannot be drawn in a straight line,” explained Marco. “There are millions of other factors that determine the course of that line. And it is never straight, nor is it chronological.”

  “Wait—just wait a second,” Rand thought aloud. “You said it ‘surfaced’ in 1962. What do you know about the castaways found on an island in the Pacific that year. The device they were carrying…is this it?” He was recalling the strange document that Melissa had told him about.

  Marco nodded with a prideful grin on his face. “It is. No one knew where the castaways had come from, they seemed to appear out of nowhere, from what I was told. But yes, they had the device with them.”