by M. G. Harris
The R44 made a sharp turn towards the right, the Blackhawk followed. Connor removed a small pair of night goggles from his jacket and fastened them over his face. As he adjusted them, he moved his head, scanning the sea below and ahead. He pointed towards the southwest.
“That’s it! They’ve got some kind of boat waiting.”
Jackson peered into the pitch black below. He couldn’t see anything where Connor pointed.
Connor released his safety belt and hurried into the back of the helicopter. He opened a panel, removed a large mound of wrapped, khaki plastic.
“They’re gonna land on a boat. I see a helipad, but the boat isn’t slowing up too much. It’s gonna take some pretty smooth flying. Her pilot must be good.”
“Hafez Kazmi,” Jackson offered, “he’s ex-Iranian Air Force.”
Connor didn’t look up from his work. “Figures,” he said, almost to himself. “They’ll be hard to catch. What are they armed with?”
“At least one gun. Automatic I think.”
“They’ll have more,” Connor said shortly, “If this guy is ex-military, he’s stashed weapons all the way on his escape route.” He turned to Jackson, another smirk forming on his features. “Got some bad news for you, bro’. You’ll have to come with. See, I have no idea what these guys look like. If I lose them in a crowd, I’m counting on you to I.D. them for me.”
Jackson’s mouth was still opening to ask where Connor was planning to go, when Connor flung open the door of the helicopter. Jackson could hear the throbbing pulse of blades on the smaller craft, sight of which could now be plainly had through the front window.
The R44 dropped suddenly. The Blackhawk followed, plummeting like a stone. He felt his stomach sloop up within his abdomen, and almost gagged.
Connor worked quickly, strapping on a backpack. “How long?” he yelled at the pilot, the noise of their own blades almost drowning his question.
The pilot answered, “Thirty seconds?”
Jackson watched, bewildered, as his brother thrust a large flashlight into his hand.
Then Connor spoke, firing instructions like a machine gun. “When we get lower, you’re going to jump out in the dinghy. It will inflate the second you hit the water. Like an airbag. Then I’m going to ‘chute in. Shine your flashlight, so I can find you. It won’t be a long drop, so be sure to keep that light shining up, straight into the sky. You got that?”
But Jackson could only mumble, “I’m jumping out?”
Connor unfastened Jackson’s seat belt, pulling him to his feet. “You don’t think about these things, Jacko, you just do. Got that? Don’t think, just do.”
He pushed him away. “I can take care of myself. Give me the boat.”
Connor stood back, evidently pleased. He unrolled the plastic package until it was open far enough to envelop Jackson, and passed it to him.
He pulled the plastic around his body, then made for the open door.
Connor looked down at the sea below. They were now close enough to see the waves by the lights of the Blackhawk. Shouting the count, he pushed Jackson over the edge.
For the second time that evening, he felt himself fall into the void. Tons of emptiness weighed abruptly on his stomach. He hit the water with crash, felt the dinghy suddenly simultaneously explode and inflate, cushioning the impact of landing. He was now lying in a small inflated boat. The black waves of the Persian Gulf lapping gently around him.
About a hundred yards away, he could just make out the lights of a large speedboat, over which the helicopter had been hovering. The dark obscured the movements of the passengers. Seeing the boat suddenly speeding away from his own position, he guessed that DiCanio had escaped. Kazmi must have remained aboard because the helicopter now took off. It flew ahead, continuing east, the coast to his right.
Jackson shone the flashlight directly upwards, as his brother had instructed. After dropping him and the dinghy onto the water, the Blackhawk had ascended quickly. Just seconds later, he saw a small parachute open. It lifted Connor higher into the sky.
Connor dropped slowly, swinging from side to side, directing his parachute carefully toward Jackson’s light. With a triumphant yell, Connor landed squarely in the middle of the dinghy. He pulled in his parachute, and stuffed it into his backpack. Then he cracked open the Velcro strips which held a small motor against his chest. He began to work on fastening the motor to the rear of the boat. Jackson responded swiftly by shining his flashlight on the area.
“Keep your eyes on that boat!” ordered Connor.
It took Connor less than two minutes to get the motor started. Overhead, the Blackhawk had turned around and flew out to sea, following Kazmi in the R44.
Jackson beamed the flashlight ahead of the boat, into the black depths of the sea. DiCanio’s yacht was now too far ahead to be caught by the beam. Connor, wearing his night goggles, was tracking their positions.
Their inflated dinghy slapped the water rhythmically as they followed the larger, faster boat which carried DiCanio. Within minutes it was obvious: they were unlikely to catch up. Yet Connor remained determined, focused. They couldn’t gain much speed, but the faster boat remained steadily just in sight.
Jackson rubbed his shoulder. The cold prickling of the anesthetic was uncomfortable, irksome. The bright lights of the shore were now clearly visible. There were a few large, blocky buildings. A small pier stretched into the sea and a small number of yachts were moored alongside.
DiCanio’s yacht reached the pier and spun violently, creating a wave in its wake. DiCanio could just be seen dashing towards the shore, accompanied by the boat’s skipper. As the dinghy neared the pier, the brothers were almost thrown clear of their craft when the heavy swell from DiCanio’s boat hit them. Jackson and Connor’s dinghy reached the pier just in time for them to glimpse DiCanio and her companion being picked up by an orange-and-white taxi at the end.
The brothers bolted down the almost deserted pier. The added weight of Jackson’s soaked clothes slowed him considerably, and the heavy, wet denim chafed. A couple of yacht owners, men dressed in long, crisp white thobes worn over white cotton trousers and enjoying drinks whilst seated on their decks, watched in amazement as for the second time that night, the stillness of their small town was shattered by newly arrived foreigners.
Parked along the coastal road were several cars. Connor examined the line swiftly and rejected them all. At the end he found a sierra-red Harley Davidson DynaGlide motorcycle. The immobilizer was not engaged, theft being unheard of in that town. He watched as Connor worked for a couple of minutes, using tools he’d extracted from his equipment belt, fiddling with the ignition mechanism.
As far as Jackson was concerned, Connor had the motorcycle’s engine purring in lightning speed. The problem was there was neither sight nor sound of the taxi that had retrieved DiCanio and her escort.
Other yacht owners had now emerged, disturbed by the commotion. Seeing Jackson and Connor on the Harley, one of them yelled loudly. The sounds brought even more men onto the pier, shouting admonishments. By the time the observers realized what was happening, the brothers had disappeared westwards along the coastal road.
Jackson wrapped arms tightly around his twin’s waist. Despite himself, Connor’s actions so far that night had begun to inspire in Jackson the faintest twinges of a hero worship that he hadn’t experienced in two decades. Connor’s determination to catch their prey was infectious. Even though Jackson couldn’t help feeling that it was destined to fail, he admired Connor’s derring-do. Not for one second did Connor seem to accept the possibility of failure.
They tore past the last few buildings of the town, following the highway into the barren rockiness of the country’s interior. There were a few cars on the road. Nevertheless, Connor rode the motorbike at over ninety miles per hour, overtaking every vehicle they encountered.
Jackson was about to shout a question, but realized that at this speed, his brother would hear nothing. Instead, he concentrated on hold
ing on tightly as the bike continued to gain speed. After about ten minutes, they saw a car with taxi markings, about eighty yards ahead. Connor accelerated once more. Riding that Harley, Jackson was finally racing along the desert road faster than he’d ever moved on land before.
The taxi, an E-series Mercedes, lunged ahead as soon as the Harley ventured within fifty yards. The two vehicles remained approximately the same distance apart as they careered dangerously along the road, swerving as they passed every obstacle. Shortly after they passed a sign to ‘Al Zubara’ the Mercedes, without any prior indication, pulled off the main road and into the slip road.
Connor was only just far enough behind to make the turn-off without crashing into the side of the road. Hitting the cats-eyes at the edge of the carriageway, the Harley launched into the air, landing with a crashing jolt. The Mercedes, now almost a hundred yards ahead, made another sharp turn. It disappeared to the left.
As Connor and Jackson skidded around the same corner, they could just see the Mercedes disappear behind the heavy doors of a large stone-built fortress. Connor slowed down. He stopped the motorcycle in front of the solid-looking gate, which sat in a small opening cut into the thick stone wall.
“Friends in high places? Yeah, that looks about right.”
Civilian Geek-Boy
The tires of the motorcycle crunched against the sandy pathway. Connor began slowly to circumnavigate the structure, looking for a way in. The fort itself was square-shaped with circular towers in three of its corners and a rectangular tower in the fourth. The walls were high, thick, substantial. There was no sign of anyone around. There were no other buildings within immediate view. No cars were parked outside; no sounds could be heard emanating from within.
Night had fallen completely but the sky glowed faintly, iridescent with the light of nearby cities. For as far as they could see, the sands around them shimmered with a ghostly luminescence. The shadows cast by the fortress loomed ominous and stark. To Jackson, they struck a chord; a metaphor for the end of their road. DiCanio’s disappearance inside that towering keep seemed almost inevitable. Everywhere they went, he feared, they would find doors closing before them, voices silenced as DiCanio vanished within the protectorate of her recondite society.
Before Jackson could share these impressions with Connor, his brother drove the Harley back down the entrance road, stopping further along. He turned off the engine and signaled for Jackson to dismount before he slid off the bike. Connor turned to gaze back at the fortress. Its hard lines framed against the luminous night sky, the keep seemed impenetrable.
Connor sighed. “Well, there’s only one way out of that place.”
“What is it?” asked Jackson. “It looks real old.”
“Some kind of military fort. I’d guess it’s a museum these days: most of these historic buildings are. It’ll be closed at this hour. She has to leave sometime. It’s worth waiting, at least until tomorrow.”
“Are you kidding?” said Jackson. “The people on that pier will have reported us for taking the Harley! The police will be along any minute.”
Behind the night goggles, Connor’s eyes scanned the surrounding landscape.
“Maybe, maybe not. I’m gonna see if there’s someplace we can hide. They won’t look very hard. I doubt they’ll look for us here. Most likely they’ll think we’ve gone across the interior, to Doha. But this place? It’s closed. There’s nothing around.”
Jackson recognized the logic of Connor’s reasoning. He could hear the noise of cars zooming by on the highway from which they’d come. Unless they’d actually left a rubber burn on the road, Connor was probably right to believe they’d be undisturbed, at least for a few hours.
Then Jackson thought of a flaw.
“What if DiCanio’s people tip off the police?”
Connor thought for a few seconds. “Good point. Maybe we’d better make a show of driving away. We’ll come back real quiet, with the lights off.”
Connor started up the Harley again and they both climbed aboard. They rode back towards the highway, until the fortress was out of sight. He then turned around, extinguished the lights and engine. They rolled the machine back quietly to the just within sight of the entrance to the fortress. Connor pointed out a small rise, about one hundred yards away.
“We can hide behind that, camp out, keep watch and look out for any car leaving the place.”
The brothers rolled the bike to the small hill, dropping low enough behind it so that the fortress was completely out of sight. Connor approached the crest of the rise, lying flat on his belly. He examined the building with the binoculars, then he removed his equipment belt and stripped out of his desert camouflage flight jumpsuit. Underneath, Connor wore a plain white T-shirt and shorts. He tossed the flight suit towards Jackson, saying, “Here. You should get out of those wet clothes. Lay them out on the sand.”
Jackson looked down at his clothes. Connor had a point; they were sodden and blood-stained. He undressed to his boxers and then climbed into the flight jumpsuit. It even had his name on it: a label with the word ‘Bennett’ was embroidered on the right breast pocket. He left the jumpsuit open, letting air get to his wounds. They were throbbing badly now, fresh and impossible to ignore. Exhaustion was beginning to swamp him. He longed to give in to it, but Connor wouldn’t stop whispering. Anxiety chewed away at him. If DiCanio was the power behind ‘Hans Runig’, then what of Marie-Carmen? Her last email to him had ended with a hurried, slightly mysterious farewell. She’d left the hotel in Acapulco. Why? Where had she gone next? Marie-Carmen had no idea what she might be up against.
Somehow, he had to warn her.
Jackson focused back on what his brother was saying to him; planning their water consumption, how they’d organize the sleep shifts. The guy had to be joking. Jackson was in no fit state to fight anyone now. He stretched out a hand, touched his brother’s arm.
“Is your phone working?”
Connor peeled away the wrapper from a stick of Big Red chewing gum and popped it into his mouth. “Sure thing bro, you want to call your girlfriend?”
“I wish. She’s keeping her phone switched off. I need to email.”
Connor took out his phone, which was encased in a thick, black rubber case. He tapped the screen a few times and handed it to Jackson. Jackson typed a quick email to Marie-Carmen.
Hans Runig is Melissa DiCanio. Ninhursag – I guess it’s her idea of a joke. I’ve stopped helping her. There will probably be consequences. Please stay out of sight. I’ll find you, we’ll be together soon. That’s a promise.
When Jackson returned the phone, Connor read the email, chewing his gum. A sweet, spicy smell of cinnamon wafted from his mouth. He glanced down at his brother, one eyebrow raised. “You like this girl a lot?”
Jackson closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, through pursed lips. The pain was building to levels that were getting hard to control. “I think I love her,” he said. What the hell – it didn’t matter now. Might as well be truthful.
“You think you love her,” Connor repeated, pensively.
Jackson rolled over slightly so that he could see his brother’s eyes. They were gazing back with a quizzical, amused look. Connor chewed the gum, thoughtful for a few seconds. “Good. I’m glad you found a girl to get serious about. It’s time you cared about something apart from science.”
“This from the guy who signed up to the air force before college.”
“Yeah well, it’s just me, Jacko. There are good, practical reasons for someone like me to remain unattached.”
Jackson didn’t reply. There was no point in rerunning their old argument about whose job was more significant.
“You got something for pain?”
Jackson took the two tablets that his brother held out. He gulped them down with a mouthful of water. Connor spread out the parachute silk and rolled up one end to use as a pillow. Jackson lay down and closed his eyes for a moment. He could feel the blood pumping along the wound on his chest.
“You did OK today, Jacko. For a flabby, civilian geek-boy. I’m almost proud of you. Aside from the fact that you got caught stealing from your own government.”
Jackson sighed. “DiCanio totally manipulated me. She had a gun to my head as Hans Runig, and a fistful of dollars as herself.”
“There’s always a choice Jacko. You could’ve just said ‘no’ to both.”
Almost inaudibly, Jackson replied, “I tried.”
“So now you’d better try help us catch her. You have no idea how much we want to talk to this bitch.” Rather abruptly, he stopped talking.
There it was again. Jackson was certain that Connor hadn’t meant to let that last part slip.
“You’ve been wanting to talk to her? For how long?” Jackson tried to sit up. “Are you saying that you know about DiCanio and her society?”
There was a long silence. Finally, Connor spoke. “We knew there was someone else out there who knows about these chambers, who built them and everything.”
“Okay – who built them?”
His brother faced him with eyes that were two sharp, white points glinting in the reflected starlight. “There’s something pretty big going on here. We’re only just fitting together the pieces. These underground chambers are not the only evidence of some kind of ancient technology.”
“What else is there?”
“We’ve found aircraft.”
“Ancient aircraft . . . ?”
“Not ancient; new. Working. People flying them and shit.”
“People – not aliens?”
“Correct. Not aliens. People. With access to technology that’s fifty, a hundred years ahead of anything we know how to do. DiCanio and her society, they’re connected to it all, somehow. We need to know what they know. We need to find their chamber.”
“Why?”
The question appeared to derail Connor. “Why? You think we can just let clandestine groups fly around the world controlling weird ancient technology, injecting people with mind-control drugs? You really believe that DiCanio just wants to solve the planet’s climate problems? Exactly how is that gonna happen? A few quiet words in the ears of some billionaire, Chinese factory owner? Or they planning something a little more substantial, a little more disruptive?”