The Genesis Cypher (Warner & Lopez Book 6)

by Dean Crawford

  ‘Why not?’ Green challenged. ‘MJ–12 are gone. The program’s main initiative has been completed.’

  ‘Except, as you all have stated so clearly,’ Nellis replied, ‘thirty billion dollars are not accounted for. Neither you nor the president would shut ARIES down without having first recovered that money. It’s the only government effort getting anywhere close to recovering those billions…’

  Nellis broke off as Dillinger and the other three men stood and made to leave, and he finally understood what was really happening behind the scenes.

  ‘We’ll be in touch,’ Foxx promised with a curt nod.

  ‘Who’s taking over the ARIES program?’ Nellis asked him outright.

  Dillinger smiled but said nothing as he left the office. Nellis sat for a long moment and then he picked up a phone on his desk and dialed Hellerman’s number. The specialist answered immediately.

  ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘We need to find Jarvis and thirty billion dollars real fast, or we’re all out of a job.’

  ***

  XI

  Green River Medical Center,

  Utah

  ‘I can’t stand these places.’

  Ethan walked with Lopez across the parking lot of the medical center, a low building set against the dead straight main road through the town of Green River and surrounded by the burning deserts and distant mountains that were a soft blue in the haze. Many of them appeared to float on transparent oceans of rippling heat as the sun blazed down above them.

  ‘Nobody likes hospitals,’ Ethan replied. ‘Homeland and the FBI will be here soon, so let’s get this done before they arrive and start asking too many questions.’

  The interior of the center was cool and air conditioned against the savage heat outside as Ethan and Lopez showed their identification badges at reception and were hurried through the center to a private room. Inside, lying on the pristine white sheets and with her eyes closed, was the girl.

  She looked vulnerable to Ethan to say the least, maybe thirteen years old, thin but with perfect skin and long dark hair. Her face was genuinely beautiful but tinged with sadness, and the color of her skin betrayed her foreign origins.

  ‘She looks like she’s Middle Eastern,’ he said to the duty nurse. ‘Do we have any ID?’

  ‘Nothing,’ the nurse replied. ‘This one’s a real mystery. We got a blood sample and ran DNA on it but she doesn’t show up on any database. No name, no address and she doesn’t want to speak to anyone.’

  ‘Shock,’ Lopez replied. ‘She’s trying to come to terms with everything that’s happened. Do we know how long she was kept by the cult in their compound?’

  ‘No,’ the nurse replied. ‘Could’ve been days, could’ve been years. She may not even know herself.’

  Ethan nodded. Preventing captives from keeping track of time was one of the most common and effective means of disorientating and breaking down a prisoner’s ability to resist whatever coercion was being used against them.

  ‘We’ll take it from here,’ he said, and opened the door to the room.

  ‘Maybe I should go in first,’ Lopez suggested.

  Ethan didn’t argue and let Lopez inside ahead of him. Despite her ferocious temper Lopez had a knack of winning people over, especially children, a skill that evaded Ethan. As they walked into the room he saw the girl stir but she did not open her eyes, merely lying in silence on the bed.

  Lopez eased closer to the girl and sat down on a chair beside the bed.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ she asked, her voice soft in the quiet room.

  The girl did not move but Ethan could see her eyes shifting beneath her eyelids, evidence of brain activity. Either she was dreaming or she was perfectly awake and trying not to react to their presence.

  ‘It’s okay if you don’t want to talk,’ Lopez purred. ‘We’re just here to make sure you’re feeling better.’

  Ethan remained silent, not wanting to interfere, but he doubted that even Lopez could reach the girl in the short amount of time that they had.

  ‘We know something of what you went through,’ Lopez went on, ‘inside that building. I know it must be tough to think about, but we were wondering what the hieroglyphics were about?’

  The girl did not move but Ethan could see her eyes still flickering beneath the lids and so he took a chance.

  ‘We want to know about Atum.’

  The girl’s eyes flew open, pale white discs that flicked to the right to look directly at Ethan. For a moment it seemed as though she was looking straight at him, and then she turned away and stared sightlessly at the ceiling.

  ‘Atum,’ she whispered.

  ‘Do you speak English?’ Lopez asked softly.

  Ethan watched as Lopez gently placed one hand on the girl’s. The girl recoiled slightly but then she relaxed as Lopez spoke.

  ‘It’s okay. Just take your time. If we can understand what happened to you, we can prevent it from happening again to somebody else.’

  The girl’s head turned toward Lopez, who spoke in a voice so gentle that Ethan could barely hear her.

  ‘We think that there may be others,’ she whispered.

  The girl watched Lopez for a moment and then she nodded slightly. ‘There are others.’

  Her voice was heavily accented with the musical lilt of Arabic, but Ethan felt galvanized as he realized that the girl could indeed speak English. Lopez did not rush, waiting for a respectful few moments before she went on.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  The girl replied softly. ‘Aisha.’

  ‘That’s a great name,’ Lopez enthused gently as though she had heard it for the first time. ‘Where are you from, Aisha?’

  ‘Hims,’ she replied. ‘Syria.’

  Lopez nodded as though she’d known all along, recognizing the girl’s use of Arabic for Homs. ‘You speak good English, Aisha.’

  ‘My father was an English teacher.’

  Aisha’s voice had changed tone, became flat and emotionless as though she were reciting from some unseen page. Ethan guessed that she was unable to properly process the horrors that she had seen and endured, the death of her father and probably the rest of her family simply too traumatic to contemplate beyond flat statements of fact.

  Lopez detected the same vibe and steered gently away from the subject.

  ‘How did you come to be in Utah, Aisha?’

  A pause, long, thoughtful. ‘They bought me.’

  ‘The cult?’

  ‘The one they call Messian.’

  ‘He’s dead now, Aisha, he can’t hurt you.’

  ‘I know.’

  Lopez hesitated, thinking carefully before asking her next question.

  ‘Why was the cult interested in Atum, Aisha? Do you know?’

  Aisha sighed softly.

  ‘They seek the knowledge of the Egyptians, the understanding of god, of Atum.’

  Lopez frowned. ‘How did those hieroglyphics get onto the wall of the ranch?’

  ‘I drew them,’ Aisha said, ‘I drew them as they were being drawn thousands of years ago. My hand followed the hands of the artist’s.’

  ‘Trans Cranial Stimulation,’ Lopez voiced silently to Ethan, who nodded in response.

  ‘They seek the knowledge,’ Aisha went on. ‘They seek power.’

  ‘What knowledge and power?’

  ‘That of the ancients,’ Aisha replied. ‘They seek the power of The Watchers, of The Nine.’

  Lopez glanced at Ethan and gave a vague shrug. Ethan returned the gesture and with a start of shock he realized that, somehow, Aisha detected their failure to understand.

  ‘There is no time, no space, only our place within it and our own frame of reference,’ Aisha said in a calm voice as though reciting from a sheet, or perhaps from memory. ‘Those who came before can commune with us and we with them, if only we are able to open our minds.’

  Lopez hesitated again, this time from uncertainty.

  ‘I don’t understand what that me
ans,’ she said finally. ‘We just want to make sure that this never happens again.’

  Ethan saw Aisha’s expression quiver, saw a tear trickle from her eye down one flawless cheek. Lopez’s concern turned to distress and she got to her feet even as Aisha rolled onto her side and threw her arms around Lopez’s neck.

  Ethan stood for some long minutes as Lopez held the girl’s trembling body in her arms and waited until she calmed. Slowly Aisha lay back on the bed and now her features were filled with urgency, as though something in her had changed.

  ‘You must listen to me,’ she said.

  ‘We’re ready,’ Lopez promised, one hand still holding Aisha’s.

  The girl spoke quietly and confidently, gazing directly at Lopez with those unnerving, unseeing pale eyes.

  ‘The past, the future, all times are as one,’ she said. ‘Some of us can see through the veil of history, can hear the whisper of voices long gone. They call us the Oracle.’

  Ethan felt a twinge of superstitious awe creep like insects beneath his skin as Aisha went on.

  ‘Messian made us commune with The Nine.’

  ‘Who are The Nine?’ Lopez asked.

  ‘Atum and his followers, those who came before us. You know something of them, for you know of the descent of the Black Knight.’

  Ethan almost staggered off balance as he heard Aisha speak of the bizarre satellite that the DIA had discovered orbiting the earth only the previous year. Cloaked in secrecy, that the event had ever occurred was unknown to all but a handful of people on earth.

  Ethan wanted to ask her how she could possibly have known about the satellite, but Lopez shook her head at him to warn him off and let Aisha continue.

  ‘Atum will return,’ Aisha said, ‘may have already returned. Messian and his Russian friends want to know how to contact Atum and…’

  ‘Russians?’ Ethan asked, unable to stop himself this time. ‘There are Russians involved in this here in the US?’

  ‘There are others,’ Aisha said softly, ‘others like me. They are not in this country but in Syria and they are being held as I was. One of them, she is powerful, stronger than I in her mind. They are using her to find the tablets, and they must be stopped.’

  Lopez squeezed Aisha’s hand gently.

  ‘Tablets? What tablets?’

  Aisha looked at Lopez, her eyes wide. ‘The tablets that started it all. The instructions of The Watchers that fell from the sky and were written upon the tablets.’

  Ethan’s mind spun as he listened to Aisha’s bizarre descriptions, Lopez soothing the girl and trying to extract more information.

  ‘Like the Ten Commandments?’ Lopez asked, clearly wondering like Ethan whether Aisha’s memory was warped by the suffering she had endured.

  ‘The Ten Commandments of the Bible are a fallacy,’ Aisha replied scornfully, ‘there were originally forty–two and they were the principles of Ma’at, an Egyptian god, written down two thousand *ndash; no, three and a half thousand years before the Old Testament. The tablet I speak of is much, much older.’

  Ethan eased forward. ‘Do you know where these tablets are?’

  Aisha stared vacantly into the middle distance as she replied softly.

  ‘Abraham Messian said that they are in a place of secrets, stolen and hidden like so many other secrets, in Rome. I can see them, but others could do better that I. Can you find them? They suffer still.’

  ‘We will find all of the others,’ Lopez promised. ‘Can you help us find the tablets, and the other girls?’

  Aisha turned her head toward Lopez.

  ‘If you let me try I can take you right to the tablets,’ she replied softly and with a confidence that Ethan found somewhat unnerving. ‘I can see them.’

  Ethan dialed a number on his cell phone, and Hellerman answered on the first ring. ‘We’re going to need the DIA to take custody of Aisha,’ he said.

  ***

  XII

  Defense Intelligence Agency,

  Washington DC

  Hellerman was waiting for Ethan and Nicola in the ARIES watch room as they arrived after their flight from Utah, and he beckoned them quickly to follow him into his office. Ethan noted that many of the giant wall–mounted screens in the watch room were tuned in to news channels covering the civil war in Syria, images of fighting amid shattered cities and political wrangling dominating the news.

  Hellerman closed his door behind them.

  ‘Did you manage to dig anything up about those hieroglyphics?’ Ethan asked as he leaned against the office wall.

  ‘Oh hell yeah,’ Hellerman replied, ‘and you’re not going to believe what’s been going on.’

  ‘Where?’ Lopez asked.

  ‘Not where,’ Hellerman replied, ‘but when.’

  ‘I’m not following,’ Ethan said.

  ‘Okay,’ Hellerman enthused. ‘Your first assignment for the Defense Intelligence Agency concerned a Doctor Lucy Morgan, who had gone missing after discovering a tomb in Israel that contained the bones of a seven–thousand–year–old humanoid that wasn’t human at all, right?’

  ‘Sure,’ Ethan replied, ‘Lucy’s been a friend ever since. What’s that got to do with the hieroglyphics?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Hellerman said, ‘and everything at the same time. Here, take a look at this.’

  Hellerman unrolled a large print that he had made, showing the hieroglyphics on the walls of the Egyptian temple at Saqqara.

  ‘These are the original hieroglyphics found in the tomb of the Egyptian sage Ptah–Hotep, the ones that were copied by the cult in Utah on the walls of their ranch building. They’re around four and a half thousand years old, yet as you can see there is a clear image of an alien, humanoid figure among the images, identical to what those in UFOlogy would now term a “gray”.’

  Lopez leaned in close, able to better see the original image now before her at full–size and in full color.

  ‘How the hell can this be there on that wall?’ she asked. ‘Grays and alien stuff is from the modern age, the X–Files and things like that.’

  ‘So people would believe,’ Hellerman replied, ‘but as Ethan knows the phenomenon is far, far older.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean that this artefact is genuine,’ Ethan replied. ‘It could conceivably have been added at a later date, some kind of forgery perhaps?’

  Hellerman blinked in amazement.

  ‘I doubt it. It’s in a tomb thousands of years old, which is well protected against such attempts at defacing due to the number of tourists passing through all the time, not to mention armed guards and such like. Besides, what end would such a defacing of an ancient monument achieve? Archeologists would spot the fraud in an instant, and they’re all quietly ignoring this artefact rather than queuing up to condemn it as a fake.’

  Ethan knew that history was littered with countless examples of ancient people recording the appearance of bright lights in the sky, from which came down powerful beings who taught the people how to manipulate the world around them. Virtually every religion on the planet had an origin story that described sky gods mingling with humans and warring with each other in the skies, ending with a great flood that sent mankind back into the Stone Age and the gods back into the heavens.

  ‘So, the hieroglyphs are real,’ Ethan said. ‘Where do we go from there?’

  ‘To this,’ Hellerman said as he produced another large image and rolled it out in front of them. ‘This was written on another wall in the Utah cult building, and is one of the most controversial historical documents you will ever see. It is called the Tulli Papyrus and is thousands of years old, and what it says will absolutely blow your mind.’

  The image before Ethan was almost square and contained rows of hieroglyphics, beneath which were English translations. Hellerman looked at them both expectantly and Lopez smiled fondly at him.

  ‘Jo honey, my ancient Egyptian’s a little rusty, y’know?’

  ‘Oh,’ Hellerman flustered, ‘right, of course. Okay, here we go:
“In the year twenty–two, on the third month of winter, sixth hour of the day, among the scribes of the House of Life it was found that a strange fiery disk was coming out of the sky. It had no head. The breath of its mouth emitted a foul odor. Its body was one rod in length and one rod in width. It had no voice. It came toward His Majesty’s house. Their heart became confused through it, and they fell upon their bellies. They went to the king to report it. His Majesty ordered that the scrolls in the House of Life be consulted. His Majesty meditated on all these events which were now going on.”‘

  ‘Are you telling me that this is a UFO report from ancient Egypt?’ Lopez asked.

  ‘It’s the earliest report known to man,’ Hellerman confirmed before going on: ‘After several days had passed, the lights became more numerous in the sky than ever. They shined in the sky more than the brightness of the sun, and extended to the limits of the four supports of heaven. Powerful was the position of the fiery disks. The army of the King looked on, with His Majesty in their midst. It was after the evening meal when the disks ascended even higher in the sky to the south. Fish and a variety of birds rained down from the sky: a marvel never before known since the foundation of the country. And His Majesty caused incense to be brought to appease the heart of Amun–Re, the god of the Two Lands. And it was ordered that the event be recorded for His Majesty in the annals of the House of Life to be remembered forever.”‘

  Hellerman stood back from the manuscript and looked at them expectantly.

  ‘Who was the Pharaoh in the manuscript?’ Ethan asked.

  ‘Thutmose III,’ Hellerman replied. ‘The manuscript was written by a scribe of his known as Tjaneni, famous for recording the Battle of Megiddo that occurred shortly after the sightings.’

  ‘Veracity?’ Lopez asked, somewhat stupefied.

  ‘Unquestionable,’ Hellerman replied. ‘The original Egyptian papyrus, written in hieratic, was described in great detail by the Italian scholar and Egyptologist Prince Boris de Rachewiltz. The original was part of the Royal Annals of Thutmose III and was held by the Vatican, but mysteriously was lost to history after Doctor Edward Condon, the head of a U.S. Government sponsored committee to study UFO reports called Project Blue Book, pursued the papyrus via the Scientific Attache at the U.S. Embassy in Rome. The New World Encyclopedia includes the Tulli Papyrus in its list of ancient papyri.’