“Get ready to die, asshole.”
The two men circled each other, the soldier making a low growling noise. Randall searched in vain for something to use as a weapon. Anything to help keep the mercenary at bay. He seized hold of a table light, tearing off the shade. The soldier let out a sick laugh.
“Is that the best you can do?”
The mercenary lunged at the Professor, who deftly moved to one side, batting away the knife-wielding hand with the lamp base. Randall took two steps back, and once again the circling ensued. Letting out a grunt, the mercenary came at Randall, full force, knocking him to the ground. The Professor tumbled backward, the lamp base skidding across the floor. Regaining his composure, Randall raised his hand just in time to deflect the knife to the left, just inches from his head. He could smell the soldier’s stinking breath as he drew his face near.
“After I take care of you, I’m going to make sure that little bitch daughter of yours gets it, too. I’m going to enjoy that one, going to take my time and have a little fun first.”
Suddenly the soldier’s head jerked up.
“Take that, you asshole!” Mike said, throwing his boot at the mercenary’s head. He was standing now, balancing against the bed with his good leg.
It was just enough of a distraction. Randall hit the mercenary in the side of his head with his elbow, rolling to the side while he did so. Caught off balance, the mercenary rolled off, his knife falling to the side. Both men caught sight of the gun at the same time and lunged for it. The two wrestled on the ground. Unfortunately for the Professor, the strength of the younger man was too much for him and the mercenary emerged victorious. Randall stood and held his hands up, the soldier blocking his view of Mike.
“Not this time, cocksucker. No prisoners.”
The mercenary took aim, but once again, Mike threw something at him.
“How did you like that asshole, want some more?” Mike raised his hand, ready to throw the other boot at the soldier, who smiled, pointed his assault rifle at him, and fired.
“No!” Randall lunged at the soldier, ramming him headfirst into wall. The mercenary’s body fell limp to the floor, blood trickling freely from a gash on his head.
Randall raced to Mike, too late to help. The graduate student lay helpless on the bed, his shirt crimson with blood and a gaping hole in the middle of his chest. His eyes rolled helplessly to Randall as he gasped for breath.
“Hold on Mike, you’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay,” the Professor repeated, tears streaming from his eyes.
Mike grasped his mentor’s hand, squeezed once, and went limp. Sobbing, Randall dropped his face onto the bed next to Mike’s body.
“No, no, no!” He cradled his head in his hands, gently closing Mike’s open eyes that stared vacantly at him. For a moment, Randall forgot about everything else, his heart consumed with grief. He continued rocking back and forth, holding his friend’s lifeless body, sobbing.
“Excuse me.”
Randall spun, ready to fight again. There was someone else in the room, but in his panic of fighting the guard, Randall hadn’t seen him.
“Who are you?”
“My name is George…these guys kidnapped me from my company.”
Randall just stared blankly.
“We built four satellites for a project Mr. Dumond was working on, but it turns out he lied about what he was doing. He’s been holding me prisoner here with Mike and wants me to help him finish his plan. He’s crazy, and I can’t help him do what he wants to do. Please, you have to help me.”
Randall’s mind raced between grief, anger and disbelief. Still clutching Mike’s body, he wiped the tears from his eyes with his free hand.
“How do I know that you’re telling me the truth?”
“Your name is Nick Randall, right? You have a daughter, Sam, who’s also an archaeologist, and you have a son, John. Your wife was killed in a car accident. Mike told me all about you. He looked up to you, Dr. Randall. He said you would come for him and that you would help me. Please Dr. Randall, I don’t want to die here…”
Glancing again at Mike and realizing that there was nothing he could do, Randall gently set him down on the bed.
“Good-bye, Mike.”
He glanced over at George. “Come on.”
Randall went to the door, opened it and ran for the exit. George followed closely behind. Consumed by grief, Randall dispensed with his usual routine of carefully searching for soldiers, he simply ran for the safety of the jungle. Upon reaching the heavy foliage, he dropped onto his knees and vomited, repeatedly.
“First Phil and now Mike. My God, what have I done?” Randall asked himself. He rubbed at his eyes as if he were having a terrible dream and doing so would wake him from his nightmare, but no such relief was coming. He collapsed to the ground and lay in a state of shock, unmoving for several minutes. George looked on, helpless to assist Randall in any way. Finally, Randall forced himself to his feet and shuffled deeper into the safety of the jungle. George followed him, not saying a word.
* * * *
Sam looked at her watch. Her father had been gone for 67 minutes, but she refused to accept that he might not be returning. Finally, she saw movement in the distance. She squatted low behind a large plant and craned her neck to look around the large leaves obstructing her view. It became quickly apparent that the figure moving in her direction was her father, but something was not right. He was moving slowly, methodically, as if something was wrong with him. Sam’s initial reaction was to call out to him to see if he was all right, but she fought back the urge, choosing to keep watch on him instead. Another figure appeared behind him. Sam’s heart beat faster.
After several minutes passed, it was clear that the man following her father posed no threat. At one point, the other man came to Randall’s side and held his head as Randall doubled over. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked like her father was throwing up. Sam strained to make out the other face, but in spite of her deepest hopes, it wasn’t Mike. Confused, she wondered aloud what was going on. Sam decided it was safe to approach them, and as she got closer, she was thankful to see that her father did not appear physically injured. As she drew to within a few yards of him, she could see that he had been crying and seemed oblivious to the outside world. The other man slowed his approach and stayed a short distance from Sam and her father.
“Dad, are you okay? What happened,” she said softly.
Randall looked up absentmindedly, “He’s gone, Sam.”
“What do you mean?”
“They shot him. He’s gone. First Phil, now Mike.” Randall slumped to the ground, his hands folded across his knees.
“Oh my God, I am so sorry. Mike was a wonderful guy. I’m just so sorry.” Sam put her arm around his shoulders, unsure of what else to say or do.
“They were like sons to me, Sam. They trusted me and looked up to me, and I got them both killed.” Randall lowered his head and wrapped his hands around it, shaking from side to side. Sam held him, trying to comfort him. After a few moments, she spoke softly.
“They loved you, Dad. Whenever I talked to either of them, they always said how much you meant to them.”
Sam looked up at the other figure that had followed her father out of the jungle. “Dad, who’s this?”
“His name is George. He’s an engineer, Dumond was holding him hostage. He says his company built satellites for Dumond and then they kidnapped him. He claims he knows what Dumond is really up to and can help us.”
“Can we trust him? How do we know he’s not lying?”
“Mike trusted him, Sam. He told him all about our family.” At the thought of Mike, Randall’s head once again sank into his hands.
Sam left her father’s side and walked straight over to George, her eyes never leaving his face. George shifted uncomfortably. A combination of her piercing eyes and her physical beauty was more than the shy engineer could take. She stopped just a foot short of him.
“Who a
re you and what do you want?”
“I … I’m George Walker. I work for Gemini Orbital Services. Mr. Dumond hired my company to build four satellites for him. He said he was going to use them to test a new technology he was developing. He said he wanted to meet me to look at the last satellite and then his men kidnapped me. They took me to this jungle compound and have been forcing me to help them with their plan.”
Her brown eyes were overwhelming. George looked down to break eye contact.
“How do I know that any of this is true? For all we know, you could be working for Dumond. He could have hired you to befriend us and then signal him when he’s ready to jump us again.” Sam tilted her head to catch George’s gaze again. He was clearly nervous.
“No, I swear I’m not working for him. Geez, I’m just an engineer! He was going to kill me if I couldn’t get away. Please, I’ll help you and your dad, just don’t send me back to that crazy man.”
“So what’s his plan, George? What is Dumond trying to do?”
“Like I said, he hired my company to build four satellites for him. We already launched three of them into orbit. The fourth one is going up next week. He told us he was going to use the satellites as relay stations to test a new technology his company had developed.”
“Go on.”
“He was going to bounce a large, ground-based laser beam off of the satellites to ground stations and use it to power machines. He said his company was testing the technology to see if it was feasible to deliver energy to any spot in the world without having to build a nearby power plant. If it worked, his company would be the only one that could offer to send power to anyone, anywhere in the world.”
“But that’s not what he’s really planning to do?” Sam asked.
George shifted uncomfortably, trying to gather his thoughts. “Sort of. The problem is that a laser that powerful would need huge amounts of energy. It’s just not feasible with current technology…”
“And…”
“Then I found out about the generating facility he’s building. It’s huge. Larger than anything I’ve ever seen. He and his men said they had found a power source to operate it. The scale of energy they talked about was off the charts!”
“So what’s the plan, George? What’s Dumond going to do?”
“A focused beam from a strong laser is pure energy. The problem so far has been the impossibility of building a laser powerful enough to overcome the dispersion caused by atmospheric interference. The other problem has been that we haven’t had a strong enough power source to make it work. But, now, Dumond has built the laser, and if he gets his power source working, he can actually power it. Once the system is working, he can deliver a huge energy pulse anywhere on earth, or in space. The pulse we’re talking about would be more than the energy needed to power a few simple machines. The energy delivered would exceed the energy produced by both atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.”
“He’s created a super weapon!”
“Exactly. He can destroy entire cities from space or use his system to take down satellites.”
“What was your role in this, George? What does Dumond want you to do?”
“I’m an electrical engineer, and I design systems to integrate the power systems and the machinery they drive. Dumond wants me to look at this power system and figure out how to use it to power his laser.”
“What do you know about the power system?”
“Not much. Just that it’s some sort of new technology that no one seems to understand, and for some reason, it was developed out in the middle of nowhere. Dumond needs to relocate it to his power facility and figure out how to hook it up to his laser. If he can’t, his whole plan goes up in smoke.”
Sam softened somewhat. She felt he was telling the truth. She took a deep breath, realizing that the information she was about to share with George was going to sound crazy, but she had no choice.
“George, I need to explain something to you.”
Sam told George how her father believed he had found the ancient underground city. She also explained how Dumond had funded her father’s field research so he could step in to take the power source as soon as they found it. George listened intently, if somewhat incredulously, to some of the details that Sam imparted.
“So you’re saying that there’s an ancient civilization that’s thousands of years old, made up of creatures which are possibly from another world, and that they decided to set up camp in the middle of the Amazon rainforest?”
Sam nodded.
“They built a huge underground city and have been monitoring human activity from there, using a secret power source that they developed. That’s the power source that Dumond wants to use to power his laser, the one that I’m supposed to figure out how to operate. Is that about right?”
She could see that he wasn’t buying the story.
“I know it sounds kind of crazy, but yes, that’s it.”
George looked into Sam’s eyes. She was telling the truth, or at least what she believed was the truth. Her explanation also clarified some of the conversation he had overhead between Dumond and one of his men. Although his analytical mind was telling him that this was all impossible, he wanted to believe her.
“There’s something else you should know, Sam. He believes in aliens, too,” George offered.
“Who believes in aliens?” Sam asked.
“Dumond. I overheard a conversation he was having with one of his men. He claims that he was abducted by aliens when he was young and they did terrible things to him. Sam, he’s a psychopath, and his experience with these aliens, real or imagined, warped the hell out of him. He was talking about how they had the power to control his mind and body. He said that after being abducted, he vowed he would find a way to get back at them and use their power for himself. When he said it, he looked possessed! He’s scary as hell!” George said, his eyes growing wide.
“It’s okay, George, you’re safe now,” Sam said, taking his hand.
“Okay, but what are we going to do?” George asked.
“Get to the underground city first and stop them.”
George’s eyes went wide with disbelief. He had the look of a small child who had just been told that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were real. “You can’t be serious?”
“I am, and you’re coming with us.”
Sam walked over to her father. He was still sitting on the ground, his head between his knees. She put a hand on his shoulder.
“What do I do now, Sam?” Randall asked.
“You have to finish this, Dad. That’s what they would have wanted you to do.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“We’ll do it together.”
She glanced at George, who looked back without saying a word.
Randall slowly rose to his feet, wiping the tears from his eyes.
“Before we try to find Vilcabamba, there’s something else we need to do, first. When Kristoph was holding me captive, I met another scientist who knew about the medallion and its backstory.”
Randall explained the trip to the tomb with Richter and how Kristoph’s men had executed him. He also told her about the book in the sarcophagus.
“The purpose of the medallion must be explained in that book and we need to understand what the medallion is for.”
“I found the secret note in your journal explaining that the medallion is ‘THE KEYSTONE’ but to what?” Sam asked.
“The answer to that question is in that book,” Randall replied.
“So now we’re going into the jungle to find a book in a tomb?” George asked.
“No. Sam and I are going George. You need to wait here for us,” Randall answered.
George shifted, nervously, “How far away is it?”
“I don’t think it’s far. We should be back before nightfall.”
Chapter twenty-seven
Randall and Sam walked through the shrouded pathway on their journey back to fi
nd the tomb that Richter had shown him. Still in a state of shock over losing Mike, he found his mind wandering between the past and the present. Once again, Randall felt the humidity beating him down as he trudged along through the jungle. The path was relatively clear, but hiking through the undergrowth was still exhausting. Pushing aside his current predicament for a moment, Randall found himself wondering how much longer he could realistically keep up with the physical demands of field work. While these were not typical circumstances, the simple fact was that Randall was getting older and working in these conditions wasn’t as easy as it had been when he was a young man.
When Richter had said the path led to a compound in the middle of the jungle, Randall had known it was Dumond’s base Richter had seen. Despite this knowledge, finding the path hadn’t been easy. The compound was large, and he and Sam had to be careful while they searched for the opening to the trail. On several occasions, they had had to hide as guards protecting the perimeter of the camp made their rounds. Finally, after a great deal of searching, Sam had found the entrance that led into the main part of the trail connecting Dumond’s base with the tomb. What Randall hadn’t known was how far the compound would be from the tomb.
“So the burial mound is along this route?” Sam asked hoping to break the silence.
“Yes. According to Dr. Richter, he had traveled along this path from Dumond’s base, all the way to the coast where Kristoph’s men had dropped us off. We started from a clearing on that end of the path and walked for about an hour until we came to the tomb. The problem is, I’m not sure how far away we are on this end. I’m hoping it won’t take us too long to find it again.”
“Why didn’t Kristoph’s men take the book when you were in the tomb?”
“They’re trained killers, not scientists. Kristoph wanted them to get the medallion and hadn’t said anything about a book. When they saw that the medallion itself wasn’t there, they didn’t search the coffin. They just killed Richter,” Randall stopped for a moment to consider the loss of Richter as well. He quickly realized he didn’t have time to reflect on the grief of losing others with so much hanging on their success, so he resumed walking. “To be honest Sam, they knocked me unconscious. For all I know, they may have taken the book, but we need to see if it’s still there. I’m hoping there might be some information in it that can shed some light on the purpose of the medallion.”
The Vilcabamba Prophecy: A Nick Randall Novel Page 15