by A D Davies
“Commander Ah, your mission is evolving. Are you in good physical shape?”
Good physical shape?
Meaning the evolution could lead to more violence, more bloodshed.
“Your mission,” Executive Ryom went on, “is not simply about bringing artefacts to the People’s Republic. It is about what we found beneath the Dragon’s Pit. About holding our country dear and ensuring the West cannot take from us what is rightfully ours.”
“Yes, Executive Ryom. I understand.”
“Because there are spies everywhere. Not only the satellites, but even in our country. They will learn what we have. And, like our nuclear program, they will seek to steal it. We cannot allow that to happen.”
Although he wasn’t privy to every detail, Ah Dae-Sung had been clear about the consequences from the very start. Like the Executive, he knew an invasion was unavoidable, and that they needed all the pieces in place if they were to defend against it.
“Our latest experiments did not produce the results we hoped for,” Executive Ryom continued. “You must pursue the people you failed to kill. You may eliminate Tane Wiremu on sight. Along with his new friends. I want two people alive: the professor who knows so much about the items we have acquired, and the ones you must collect next. And, if possible, the negro. Julian Sibeko.”
“Why him?” Dae-Sung asked.
“I understand he carries objects with him that may be of interest. Which only he can use. You saw the effects of the green rocks two years ago? Before our Striovian friends were neutralized?”
Ah Dae-Sung showed assent with another bow. “Yes, of course. It is rare to find someone who commands their properties.”
“I believe we will need him for the other power source too. Along with your next mission. Details will follow.”
“I will not fail.”
He signed off and waited for instructions.
“They do not want us home yet?” Pyong-Ho said.
“One more mission.” Dae-Sung read the revised orders streaming before him. “This is… daunting. Our own people will meet us soon. It is the final phase. We cannot fail, or this will all be for nothing. Either Korea will fall into the hands of the Americans, or we will all perish.”
Chapter Nineteen
While the rescue party comprised one Apache gunship, a squad of heavily armed Department of Homeland Security agents, a starched and hair-gelled FBI liaison who Tane’s superiors had tipped off, and a medevac helicopter, it was too little too late. It took four hours of debriefing before they released Jules from the scene, and they supplied the team with an armed escort as they headed back to Bridget’s estate. While it sounded like a long time, Jules found the ease with which the authorities discharged them highly suspicious. He’d voice that later, though.
Jules drove the truck they’d used for the ATVs, Bridget in the passenger seat, staring out the window, pinching her lip. They were alone, the others opting to use the Humvee from the backup contingent and the SUV hire car from the airport.
“It’s tough,” he told her.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
The last time he ventured out in search of lost knowledge, Jules had accidentally killed a man. While Dan, Harpal, Charlie, and even Toby viewed those people as having dug their own grave by standing shoulder-to-shoulder with evil, Jules had found peace in devoting his philosophy to every life being worth something. After a tumultuous childhood seeking the artifacts stolen from his dying mother, he was angry and violent, and it took mastery of aikido, and the mentorship of one of the world’s foremost teachers, to quell the rage and reveal to him a clear path.
While Bridget agreed with Toby and the others that she would not mourn the death of someone willing to do an evil man’s bidding, it was different when you snuffed out that life with your own hands. Jules had understood that life as a cop might mean killing someone one day, but he’d hoped it would strike him as urgent, necessary, not a sad, inevitable shadow encroaching from within. If he carried on helping Toby with his shield quest, given the nature of their competitors, he expected that shadow would darken his soul sooner rather than later.
Jules drove in silence the rest of the way, the gates opening thanks to Bridget’s key fob, and they allowed the two vehicles behind through too.
Once parked, Bridget said, “Not a word to Mom and Dad about what happened. Y’know, with the gun.”
“Sure.” Jules wouldn’t have said anything, even without being asked, but he added, “It’s your business, Bridget. You wanna talk about it, just talk about it. Okay?”
She nodded and climbed out, confronted by both Roger and Audrey Carson bursting out the door, demanding to know why their daughter was being accompanied by DHS after the reported death of someone she visited not twenty-four hours earlier.
“Darkeen,” she said, folding into her father’s arms with a sob. “They killed Darkeen.”
Instead of fury dominating, Roger and Audrey embraced Bridget, Roger with one beady eye on Jules, drawing across to the others disembarking their vehicles.
“Let’s go inside.” Roger led Bridget toward the house. “The rest of you, get cleaned up, then meet me on the patio. I want an explanation, and I want it directly.”
Half an hour later, all but Sally Garcia waited for Roger, a member of staff having served sandwiches and soft drinks. Jules hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the first bite, then he could hardly stop.
Tane said, “We have to go soon. I have people waiting—”
“Just a minute,” Dan interrupted. “As far as we knew, you were a spy, sent by the New Zealand government to get information out of the prof.”
“Right.” Charlie paced behind Tane. “Then suddenly, you’re ordering around DHS guys and calling in Apaches.”
They all glanced toward one of two armed agents, kitted out in full tactical gear, sweating in the afternoon sun.
“Yeah, and let’s not forget how easy they let us go,” Jules said. “I mean, I can predict what you got coming up, but I don’t know if everyone else is there yet.”
“What do you mean, easy?” Harpal asked.
“I mean, you and Toby and Charlie, you’re in the country on either illegal passports or something false on your visas. They’ll know that by now. They’ll also’ve connected you with the shootings on the west coast. Not to mention the comms tech that ain’t exactly standard spec, and Dan pulling in explosives without a license or planning. That’s before we get onto several deaths…” Jules was careful to not even glance Bridget’s way. “No chance we walk outta there without some serious pull.”
“He’s right.” Toby was sweating in the heat, not having yet acclimatized. “I hadn’t had time to think it through, but yes. We should be in custody. Why aren’t we?”
“Fine, fine, look…” Tane paused as Roger came outside with Audrey.
“Don’t let me stop you.” Roger gestured stiffly toward Tane. “I’d like to hear all about the people my daughter was nearly killed alongside. Perhaps I’d even understand why I was under the impression this was an archeological expedition, not fighting foreigners who also knew of this lost item on the Museum’s grounds.”
Dan withered under the man’s gaze. “Sorry, sir. We… didn’t have a full picture.”
“But you’re about to.” Roger again indicated Tane was up. “Please continue.”
Tane spread his hands. “I wasn’t here in my official capacity as a New Zealand SIS agent. I was here because I’m a damn good undercover operative, and we believed Sally was being targeted by the North Koreans. We couldn’t let what they were chasing end up with them, so…”
“You were to protect her and run interference,” Toby said. “Until such time as the threat eased and you could obtain the things she knew about. Under the radar.”
Tane nodded. A nervous lick of the lips. “And now the Koreans have the shield, we must get it back.”
Jules said, “We?”
“We.” Tane leveled on Jules.
“We can protect your status as a cop, to a degree, but obviously this is voluntary.”
“Okay, I’m out, don’t worry about it.”
“I hope this isn’t blackmail,” Charlie said. “Cooperate or that chap with the gun and armor takes us somewhere to rot.”
Dan’s shoulders seemed to expand, the muscles in his neck swelling. “Let’s hope that isn’t the case. Because it won’t go well.”
Toby extended his hand, appealing for calm. “Let’s hear what he has to say first.”
Jules could have thrown a barb concerning how he was in the hole with Alfonse in a big way. The ex-mafioso had funded Toby and issued an ultimatum on results. Losing it to a competitor, regardless of their intentions, was not acceptable. But Jules could do without igniting an argument like that, so he kept to himself.
Tane said, “I don’t have as much pull as you think. I’m sorry. I need you to volunteer, or we can’t make you part of the task force. The DHS will do what they want with you.”
They all let out a resigned groan. While some of those at the table would have happily put themselves forward, the fact they had little choice weighed heavily.
Harpal got to his feet, stretching. “Let’s hear the big problem. The thing no one wants to ask.”
“What might that be?” Roger asked.
Bridget sat forward. “What is the shield? What does it do, and why do they want it? Is it connected to the other three? Do they have the other three?”
Tane set himself and took a breath, a nervous student delivering a dissertation. “Okay, here’s what we’re facing—”
Sally Garcia burst out of the house with an e-tablet carried in one hand. She was white, almost gray. “Was it one of you?”
“One of us, what?” Jules said.
“What’s happened?” Toby asked, rising from his seat.
As Garcia approached, she held up the tablet so they could see a video playing. “It’s everywhere. YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, Instagram, probably more.”
All craned to look.
All except Jules. “I’m waitin’ to hear what he thinks we’ve gotta do to help get his shield back. And why.”
“But I didn’t put this here.” Sally marched over and stuck the screen in Jules’s face. “It’s my more esoteric video journals. A lot of them I’ve debunked myself, but now every single one of them is out there.”
Tane watched the footage, currently silenced. “They were all on an air-gapped portable hard-drive in your safe.”
She lowered the device. “How do you know that?”
“You told me.”
“Oh, right, yes, of course.” She resumed waggling the screen at everyone nearby. “So, who did it? They make me look like a crazy loon.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Toby said. “We have software that can wipe all sorts from these sites. We use it to keep ourselves hidden, too. Charlie, can’t you—”
“It’s too late.” The professor lifted a hand to her face. “The university already saw it. They called me, just now. It’s how I discovered it. They’ve been up for almost a whole day.” A couple of tears brimmed and spilled. “They won’t give me a chance to explain. They say I’ve brought the university into disrepute. No way I’ll make tenure. And I have to endure a board hearing when I go back.” She dropped the tablet on the table, making the lemonade glasses shake. “I’m finished.”
“Maybe not,” Tane said.
“Okay, great,” Jules said. “You get another recruit for your mission. Let’s hear it. No more stalling.”
Tane reset himself, taking that breath again. “Sally can be comforted that the giants thing may pan out. The secret history of the Guardians and their allies can be documented. But only once we secure the shield and neutralize the threat from Ah Dae-Sung and his bosses. The other stuff, things she recorded and then refuted herself, she’ll prove them false with the analysis she’s also recorded, and denounce any thought of aliens landing, the connectedness of pyramids on different continents, the magnetic flips of the Earth, whatever.”
“There’s a great deal of evidence for magnetic flips,” Toby said. “Mostly thought to be brought on by solar flares, but they are often accompanied by large-scale extinction events. The last one was around 42,000 years ago, which would have been—”
“Around the peak of the Witnesses’ civilization,” Jules interrupted. “Let’s hear what’s really going on here. Now. In the twenty-first century. History lessons can wait.”
Toby reluctantly agreed.
“I only kept the films for posterity,” Garcia said, almost in a squeak. “Giants and ancient civilizations, sure, we can prove them true in time… But will it wipe out the other stuff?”
“We’ll get the truth,” Bridget said. “If we can hear it.”
“First thing you need to understand and accept,” Tane said, “is that Darkeen Willis, Telah and the others here… They are not direct descendants of the Guardians. Sure, they know about the warriors who protected endangered people, knew the legends of the shield and the giant humanoids who carried this particular one. But they took up the mantle to honor them. To keep the secrets and guard the entrance.”
“Then the Guardians are gone?” Toby asked.
“No.”
“No,” Jules said. “It’s him.”
Tane slowly nodded again. “That’s why I have the authority I showed you today. I am one of the Guardians. Or, as it’s known in black-ops government departments around the world… The Guardian Protocols.”
“And you’re one of them?” Bridget said.
“We’re officially an NGO. A non-government organization. Multi-national, with scope to do as we need. Anything connected to our history, and the need to suppress that knowledge from hostile agencies or private individuals.”
“Private individuals,” Dan said. “Like our old pal, Valerio.”
“Yes.” Tane had clearly heard the name. “We took steps to keep him in the dark, and it seems to be working.”
“He knows about the Witnesses,” Bridget pointed out. “He still has a ton of scrolls that we couldn’t take ourselves.”
“That doesn’t concern us. Once we enacted our jurisdiction here, generals with top level security clearance activated the Homeland Security and ordered them to deal with this the same as any domestic threat.”
“With command conferred to your good self,” Toby said.
“Correct,” Tane confirmed. “We know about what you call the Witnesses, of course, and there is a connection. They’re just too obscure to get a firm read on them. But, that connection, the similarities in the materials, how they interact on a quantum level and tap the subconscious in order to activate… I think it’s what caused us to cross paths.”
“Please don’t start talkin’ about destiny,” Jules said. “I’ll throw up.”
Tane chuckled. “We have our own agenda. The Lost Origins Institute has theirs. It simply happens that they’ve aligned. Belatedly. Unfortunately, what we’re facing has little to do with ancient pre-history. It’s chronicled. More recently.”
“The shields.” Jules heard the impatience in his voice as much as feeling it in his limbs. In recent times, he’d learned to temper this side of him, which could come across as obnoxious, but today felt like a good day for obnoxious to speed things along. “Tell us about the four shields. Now. Or I walk.”
“Me too,” Dan said. “Get on with it.”
Tane sighed, unable to put off his confession much longer. “Ah Dae-Sung and Pang Pyong-Ho—the two guys who rabbited and left behind their subcontractors—work for a guy in North Korea called Ryom Jung-Hwan. He is known as the Executive. In Korean culture, they use important job titles the way we often use ranks and qualifications, like Professor, Doctor, Colonel. He is Executive Ryom, and he is very well respected in the North Korean government.”
“Why?” Bridget asked. “What’s his deal?”
“His deal,” Roger Carson answered for Tane, “is that he is a multi-billionaire
in a deeply socialist country. He swans around the world under assumed names, using numbered bank accounts, and about a hundred companies. His main firm is Dragon Teeth Enterprise, a tech company. He has almost as many contacts in the Middle East and China as the Carson Corporation.”
“Thank you, sir,” Tane said. “I have to add, though, that he does all of this under the gaze of his government. They approve of it because he ships his hardware to them, to their military, for free.”
“What hardware?” Charlie asked.
“Chips, processors, phones cloned from the best in the world. You want the latest iPhone or Samsung in North Korea? Sorry, no. But you can get one of Dragon’s Teeth’s knockoffs with software backdoors approved by the ruling family, and it’s a damn fine copy. He has a strip-mine up in the mountains and is channeling a river to a nearby dam where he seems to be moving into hydroelectric power.”
Tane appeared to sense Jules was about to move him along again which he did with a rapid delivery of a line that made them all hush.
“They need the capacity to contain an orb. Much like those you’ve encountered before.” Tane paused in the thick silence. “The mine is only a mine on paper. It’s more of a Gulag. It’s set in a remote mountain range near the Chinese border. A valley which, in English, translates as ‘Dragon’s Teeth.’ Hence his company name, I guess. They discovered the object purely by chance when Gulag prisoners fell through a pocket of air during a fresh mining operation. They’re now experimenting with metals and other minerals that have produced some troubling signals.”
Jules recalled two encounters with spheres, linked to the Witnesses, that ancient order of hyper-intelligent humans that seemed to disappear on the cusp of the last ice age. From Bridget’s translations, and Toby’s understanding of pre-history, plus a significant contribution from Jules, they’d worked out this branch of humanity evolved in isolation, separate from the hominids and Neanderthals, and even shepherded the dumber side of the family to survive the climate catastrophe that almost eradicated the species. They hadn’t been able to determine if they’d selected the brightest of the dumb apes or simply interbred, passing on their intelligence. Did they evolve, or did they die out?