The Joshua Files - a complete box set: Books 1-5 of the young adult sci-fi adventure series plus techno-thriller prequel

by M. G. Harris

  “Melissa.” He could hardly keep the tremor out of his voice. “I don’t know if it’s a fake. I didn’t see what they were doing in the chamber, I only heard. When I went down there, this was the only object which matched your description.”

  DiCanio frowned. “Hafez tells me that you took much longer than we’d anticipated. Now your story is that they were conducting some experiments down there, which you had to wait out. But this Adaptor you brought us, it looks brand new, Jackson. It feels heavier than the one we found in Mexico. All of that, I could just about believe. This Adaptor is inscribed with text from the Lament of Eridu, written thousands of years after we know the chamber was last touched by human beings. Now, that just don’t seem right.”

  “Melissa, please, I just did what you said to do, I brought the thing that you said was the Adaptor, from the chamber . . .”

  “You want me to believe that your brother planted a fake before you got there? I’m not saying it isn’t a good story, sugar. It’s just that for Connor to have anticipated any kind of infiltration, someone must have got to him first. I’m guessing that someone was you.”

  Jackson hesitated, and the hesitation was deadly. With little more than a slight inclination of her head, DiCanio signaled to Kazmi. He grabbed Jackson with his left hand, pulled back his right fist and slammed it into his face. Jackson managed to turn away just enough to avoid having his nose broken, but Kazmi’s solid fist connected with his cheek bone. His eye juddered in its socket. A sunburst of pain exploded in his face. The energy of Kazmi’s punch threw him backwards; he toppled towards the sofa.

  “Now maybe you warned your brother, Jackson, and maybe you didn’t. But when in doubt, I find it’s safest to assume I’ve been betrayed.”

  A kick followed, to Jackson’s ribs. Sharp, intense pain radiated throughout his torso. His hands moved to shield his own face, only to find them being grabbed and pulled behind him.

  She was telling Kazmi to tie him up. Shock was setting in. Jackson could barely think straight. Where the hell was Connor? He was supposed to have followed, to prevent exactly this. In another minute his hands were bound together, above his head. He was being strung out between the two leather sofas. He heard DiCanio saying something about getting no blood on the floor. Jackson’s shirt was being ripped open.

  Silence fell on the trio. Jackson strained to focus. DiCanio came into view, then Kazmi. She was speaking, but her words were falling around him like shards of glass. He couldn’t see where they fell or concentrate on their meaning.

  This knife, she said. This knife.

  A blade came into view. It was small, no longer than a finger, about as broad as a thumb. It was in Kazmi’s hand. He’d grown up in a small mountain village in Iran, she was saying. His father was a goat herd. A boy might learn a useful skill in such a place; how to slaughter a goat, how to bleed the animal and retain all the flavor of the flesh. How to remove the skin in one piece.

  A terrible clarity exploded in Jackson’s mind. The shards of glass assembled into one solid form now, something recognizable.

  A skinning could be made to last hours, Kazmi said. Intense, prolonged pain was involved. The suffering was quite beyond imagination. Blood loss could be kept to a minimum, making the death slow. In the hills where he’d grown up, a goat’s throat would be cut before it was skinned. That was mercy. Sometimes though, because boys will be boys, they’d catch a goat and stake it out. They wouldn’t bother with the slaughter, but proceed directly to the skinning.

  “I’ve never seen the whole operation performed on a man,” Kazmi said. He ran the blade across his own thumb and winced as a line of blood appeared. “In the Persian War, we captured an Iraqi, a Ba’athist from Saddam’s own village; one of the Fedayeen Saddam. We wished to send a message to Saddam, so we removed a piece of this man’s flesh, the skin of one arm. The man had a tattoo, very characteristic. All of Tikrit knew him by that tattoo. We sent the skin to Saddam, as a message. It was a very neat job. The hand too; just like a bloody glove.”

  The blade hovered over the tattoo they’d inked onto Jackson’s chest earlier that day. The red-and-blue of the Stars and Stripes.

  “If we send this to Captain Bennett, do you think he’ll get the picture? You think he’ll be a good brother and send us the Adaptor?”

  Jackson found his voice. “No. Please.” He began to struggle against the hard plastic handcuffs they’d fastened onto him. It was no use. Within seconds they bit into his skin and he felt his own blood lubricate the bindings.

  DiCanio leaned over him. “I think you know where the real Adaptor is. I really hoped that you’d help us, Jackson. Of course, I had to have something up my sleeve.”

  The blade cut into Jackson, just level with his sternum. The stroke was firm and steady. The entire line was scored before even one drop of blood appeared. Then, as though the blood had been sprayed on him with a fine hose, a line of it suddenly appeared on his chest. The pain followed about a second later, sharp and tight. Kazmi pulled back, examined his handiwork. He grinned, broadly. “Perfect! Just under the dermis. The muscle wall should be perfectly intact!”

  Kazmi leaned over him, peering closely at the next edge of the inked flag. He brought the knife forward and scored Jackson’s skin again. Blood trickled out immediately this time and ran towards his belly. Kazmi seemed disappointed with himself. “My apologies,” he murmured, as though he were a barber who’d just used the wrong razor comb. “That time wasn’t as good. Clearly, I’m out of practice.”

  He brought the blade back against Jackson’s skin. With meticulous care, he sliced alongside the third edge of the flag. Terror flooded his every pore. He felt a scream of sheer panic rising in his throat. It took all his self-control not to let it go.

  Then he heard something which gave him a tiny shred of hope. Far away, but unmistakable, was the thrumming sound of a helicopter. It was growing closer.

  Jackson dared not show even remote interest in the sound. Within seconds, however, the noise had roused the suspicions of DiCanio and her associates. Kazmi glanced up, moved the knife to Jackson’s throat, pressed the blade against his jugular vein.

  “Were you followed?”

  In wordless terror Jackson gazed at him. DiCanio raised the Adaptor above her head. Her features were suddenly and unnervingly distorted by a twisted grimace. She hurled the artifact down onto the marble floor. It shattered into three pieces. She picked up one piece, examined it with an immediate, accusatory glare at Jackson.

  Baked clay encased within a thin glaze. The counterfeit nature of the article was obvious.

  DiCanio’s countenance grew incandescent, furious. “We might as well just kill him now.”

  Jackson exploded. “You think the NRO will care? They made me do this, forced me to come back to you, as bait! They threatened to send me to Guantanamo as a terrorist if I refused! But you still need me, remember? I’ve seen the real Adaptor; I know what it can do. Don’t you want to know?”

  DiCanio stalled. “What are you talking about?” she asked incredulously.

  Jackson was desperate now. His chest was covered in the crisscross patterns of tiny rivulets of blood, deep red stains were appearing on his open, white shirt. He was about to reveal the NRO’s greatest secret about the Adaptor – the fact that it was protected by a deadly bio-toxin to which few were immune.

  DiCanio crouched low until she was level with Jackson. “Come on, Jackson. What have you seen the Adaptor do?”

  The helicopter was in the neighborhood; its low droning was unmistakable. Jackson hesitated. If he told, it might jeopardize Connor even further, literally to save his skin. But what could he do? There was no good reason to let himself die. Maybe DiCanio was some kind of eco-extremist, as his brother claimed. So what? He was broadly sympathetic to the ‘Green’ cause. He certainly wouldn’t side against them at the cost of his own life.

  “The Adaptor – can’t be handled by just anyone. There’s some kind of poison gas released when you touch i
t. Connor isn’t affected, neither am I.”

  Uneasily, DiCanio shot Kazmi a conciliatory glance. “That might actually be true. We’ve come across that kind of use of a poison gas, with this ancient technology. Didn’t know the Adaptor had it, though.”

  Kazmi lowered his gun. Like DiCanio, he didn’t seem too taken aback by Jackson’s news.

  “Guess ours was too badly damaged,” DiCanio said, thoughtfully. She didn’t seem totally convinced, yet Jackson could tell that she knew enough to know that he could well be telling the truth.

  Interjecting, Jackson said, “If I’m lying then you’ll soon know, when you use me to get the real Adaptor back for you. But my price for that is my safety . . . and Marie-Carmen’s.”

  His eyes met DiCanio’s, watching revelation sweep across her features.

  “You’re Hans Runig, Melissa. I know.”

  DiCanio continued to stare at him in stunned silence. “Well, darlin’,” she murmured. “Ain’t you all kinds of smart . . . ?”

  “We don’t need him to get the Adaptor,” Kazmi urged. “We can use Madison or one of the others. Let’s just kill him and go!”

  “No.” Her tone was measured. “You can’t be sure who is resistant to those poisons. If Jackson is telling the truth we’d better start with him. We’ll take him with us.”

  Kazmi sliced through the sticky, blood-coated plastic handcuffs that bound Jackson’s wrists and ankles. He strode up the stairs, taking them two at a time, into the office. He pushed back a panel in the ceiling, pulled down a ladder and ascended. He followed with his shirt still open to the waist and spotted with blood. DiCanio was last onto the ladder.

  When Jackson reached the top of the ladder, he stood, looking around the large extension to the house. A white helicopter was parked there, standing on a circle that had been painted onto the concrete floor. Kazmi was already inside the helicopter, preparing. About a yard above the helicopter, a slatted metallic ceiling began to roll back, exposing the darkening sky. It was now dusk. He could clearly see the lights of the other helicopter which had been flying low around the district.

  Jackson suspected that Connor would be just as surprised as he to find their tracer rising into the sky, rather than disappearing down a fast road. Fleetingly, he wondered where they’d placed it. He’d seen such things in films, knew that they could be practically undetectable, tiny microdots embedded in a scrap of adhesive plastic.

  Kazmi assumed the pilot’s seat. He passed a chunky-looking pistol to DiCanio, who turned it on Jackson. She pressed him towards the two passenger seats behind the pilot and co-pilot’s positions. Jackson took a final glance around, hunting for escape routes. There was no choice but to join them in the helicopter.

  The second helicopter began to approach, its occupants clearly intrigued by the sudden activity on this roof. Kazmi started up the motor. The blades leapt into action. The second helicopter now hovered thunderously above the house, its dark, matte surface practically invisible against the evening sky.

  Then the shooting began, bullets burst glass and ricocheted off the body of the helicopter. Sitting nearest to the flank under attack, DiCanio ducked low, doubled up, briefly ignoring Jackson.

  For a precious few seconds, Jackson noticed that he was unguarded. The gun in DiCanio’s hand was pointed at the ground, somewhere between her knees. Before he’d even properly registered any conscious plan, Jackson lunged at the door handle. He opened it and flung himself out.

  He’d guessed that they could only be a several feet or so off the ground but when at the last instant he saw the lights of the house, Jackson managed to grab hold of the helicopter’s leg before he fell. Deafened by the twin roars of the two helicopters, he clung on for his life. DiCanio’s helicopter was already twenty yards above the roof.

  Jackson couldn’t make himself let go.

  Kazmi swung the helicopter over the yard Jackson spotted his chance. The pool lights were on. They illuminated the water just enough for Jackson to realize that they were probably directly above it, albeit three stories off the ground.

  Shaking, he screwed up his eyes. Jackson let go. He plunged downwards.

  He landed feet first, with a resounding splash. By the time he hit the bottom of the pool Jackson had lost enough momentum to break the fall without smashing any bones. As he surfaced, he saw DiCanio’s white helicopter disappear behind the house. The lights of the second, bulkier craft, beamed down onto the pool, picking him out. Jackson heard his brother’s voice from a megaphone.

  “Jacko? That you?”

  Jackson bellowed back, as loud as he could, although his breathlessness made it impossible to make much noise. To his amazed relief, Connor’s helicopter began to approach. One of the men aboard tossed a rope ladder overboard. Jackson grabbed hold of it and started to climb. Then he spotted another chilling sight.

  The bodyguard who’d remained in the house was opening the French windows. A sudden bolt of energy flung Jackson backward. The bodyguard was firing at him. Jackson felt a heavy punch on his left side. A wave of heat burst inside his shoulder and he screamed. His left hand lost its grip on the ladder.

  From somewhere above him, Jackson heard the noise of a submachine gun rip into the air. He turned to watch as the bodyguard tumbled head-first into the pool.

  The helicopter pulled away sharply, rising vertically. Jackson clung on. His right arm was wrapped tightly around the rope ladder that was now being raised by the men above. In his other shoulder, there was steady throb of agony. He began to tremble with shock. The last thing Jackson saw before he passed out was the man who’d shot at him, splayed out in the dimly lit pool. Blood swirled red in the blue water, a steady flow from the body.

  Friends in High Places

  The night air of Manama was warm and faintly dusty. Jackson breathed heavy and slow, forcing deep inhalation, trying to emulate what he’d seen practiced on TV by women supposedly in labor. Connor’s injection of lidocaine had frozen part of his shoulder. It took the edge off the pain. The bullet had snagged the collar bone, but not broken it. Connor had used tweezers to pull out the bullet, while Jackson lay rigid, his entire upper body a symphony of agony. Then shock had begun to take a hold. He thought fleetingly of Priya and the shoulder injury he’d seen her take. The young woman had skied like a champion after that injury and yet here Jackson was, incoherent.

  The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed that even Priya’s injury had been faked. What if she’d merely been hit with a rubber bullet, and then herself aggravated the injury with a concealed weapon? The entire subterfuge had been designed to convince Jackson that Hans Runig was a threat to DiCanio as much as to him.

  It had worked.

  When he’d injected Jackson, Connor had made a point of telling him how impressed he was. The partial skinning of the fake tattoo on his chest had drawn attention, too. One more cut and his torturer would have started to peel the flesh away. After some initial surprise, Connor’s reaction had seemed mainly one of amusement; brutality measured for its novelty value. Jackson was still trembling. He didn’t want Connor and his colleagues to see just how badly shaken he was.

  Thankfully, Connor’s attention was now focused elsewhere. He sat up in the front of the craft, talking to the pilot. From his position on the floor, Jackson couldn’t see what was happening directly in front of the helicopter, but he could hear from Connor and the pilot’s discussion that they were gaining on the smaller helicopter, which they referred to as “the R44”.

  The pilot was saying something about them flying back to Iraq. Connor seemed to disagree. “No – they’re planning something; trying to confuse us. If they go back to Iraq, they’re target practice. Here in Bahrain, we’d be in a difficult position. In Qatar, who knows? It all depends on whether DiCanio has contacts in the Royal Family.”

  He tried to sit up. His voice sounded faint, even to himself. “Don’t take too many risks. She’s well-connected. Friends in high places.” Absently, he added, “and she’
s probably going to use the hypnoticin.”

  Connor said, “Hypnoticin?”

  Jackson paused. “The ‘Eastern mind-control shit’.”

  “Oh that,” Connor muttered, dismissively. “The neuroscience thing. What does it do?”

  “It’s something to do with inducing suggestibility.”

  “Sounds interesting, this Professor DiCanio. What’s she doing getting mixed up with the race to get into these ancient chambers?”

  He shrugged. This wasn’t the right time to get into his own theories for how ancient survivors of an advanced civilization might have used retroviruses to introduce their own DNA into plants and animals. There was an edge to Connor’s interest in DiCanio that felt somehow suspicious. Maybe Connor’s determination to pursue DiCanio was because of the attempt she’d made to steal the Adaptor. Yet Jackson sensed that there was something else going on. Connor and his team seemed altogether too prepared, the operation too smooth.

  It was as though DiCanio was the answer to a question that Connor had been asking for quite some time.

  Connor peered through binoculars. “My guess is they’re headed for Qatar. It’s not far away; the coastline begins just over the horizon.”

  The Air Force Blackhawk flew behind the R44, remaining just out of shooting range. Approaching the coast of Qatar, the blinking lights of the oil refineries and the lights from cars streaming along the coastal highway became visible. Kazmi led the way, flying the R44 over land, proceeding due East across the peninsula. Then, without warning, Kazmi swerved northwards.

  Connor remarked, “Change of plan. I’m guessing they’re headed for Madinat Al-Shamal. Small town at the northern tip of the peninsula.”

  In the distance, Jackson could see lights on the ground. Roads were laid out in a characteristically modern grid, and a few larger buildings were lit up. The two helicopters flew right towards the inky black Persian Gulf, keeping the town to their right. Seconds later they were, once again, flying over water. Not far away, gas burned at the top of stacks on the oil rigs in the Gulf.