Sleep came surprisingly quickly now that she felt safer, although she had left the lights on throughout the house to make any would-be assailants less sure of themselves if, heaven forbid, they did come-a-knocking.
In the morning Jessica woke with the heavy loaded gun resting underneath the palm of her right hand. She sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward. Is this what it had come to? If her father had taught her anything, it was not to let anyone push her around, regardless of their position. This advice had stood her in good stead for the previous forty-two years of her life, so why had she stopped paying heed to it now? So the GMRC were the biggest and most powerful organisation anyone could come up against. So what? she could hear her father say. The bigger they come—
Martin had gone to Germany and ended up dead, but she could well end up the same way if she stayed here. She was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t. She had to wrest control of her life back, and that is exactly what I’m going to do, she decided, starting right now.
Five hours later Jessica had packed a case, left a letter for Evan, collected the train ticket, Berlin address, and passport papers, and left the house, the front door swinging shut behind her with purposeful finality. Fighting her way through the assembled massed ranks of the media, still camped on her doorstep, she reached the street and her parked silver Mercedes. Shouts and cries from the paparazzi wanting a comment fell on deaf ears, the flashing of cameras dazzling her as she struggled into the confines of her car. Glad she’d put on her dark glasses, she was amazed the cameras hadn’t sparked some kind of epileptic fit as there were so many going off. I don’t know how these big celebrities deal with this on a regular basis, she thought, securing her documents in the glove compartment and starting the car.
Revving the engine on her diesel driven classic, she edged her way past the people and roared off down the street, the twin turbos whining as they kicked into gear. As Jessica raced through the West London streets she felt free and empowered and back in control. Next stop Berlin.
Chapter Five
The heat from the big yellow sun felt hot on her skin, pleasant and comforting. Springing up from the dry, cracked earth, bright orange flowers with tall, green, luscious shoots swayed in the soft breeze. They were nearly as tall as her! She bent and sniffed inside the cup of petals; a wondrous smell flooded through her senses. Leaning back up, she jumped in surprise, letting out a small yelp when a huge, bright red and orange butterfly flitted past her face. It moved funny, jerky like a puppet on a string, but coupled with an effortless ease. Leaping high, she attempted to catch it in her small hands, but on inspection only her empty palms were revealed. It had been too quick for her.
Searching around, she spotted her quarry once more, skimming over the surface of the lawn. Chasing it across the dry, mown grass, she couldn’t help but giggle as every time she closed in on her prey it escaped her clutches. With the butterfly always just out of reach, she danced and hopped along behind the flying beauty until her foot caught on something and she fell onto a hard, flat surface. Pain exploded within her and she couldn’t help but cry.
‘Sarah, come here, little one,’ her mother’s voice called out, the sound seeking to make itself heard through the agony of the fall.
Sarah clambered to her feet, her hands pressed onto her left leg as tears streamed down her face and racking sobs escaped her mouth. Each step made the pain seem worse, but at last she made the long walk down the garden to be embraced in her mum’s arms.
‘Have you hurt your knee?’
Sarah nodded mutely, the shock lessening.
‘You have? Oh no,’ her mother said in deep concern. ‘Do you want me to kiss it better for you?’
Sarah very much wanted it better so she nodded again as she wiped the tears away from her chubby cheeks. The kiss helped and then she was lifted into the air and she found herself sitting on her mum’s lap. Cuddling into her warm body, Sarah felt safe and enclosed, away from the sharp, hard world she had just experienced. The sound of her mother’s slow, rhythmic heartbeat became louder to her ears, the gentle thump, thump, thump morphing into an all-encompassing, hypnotic embrace.
Sarah felt herself drifting off to sleep and the heat of the sun increased on her skin, hotter and hotter it got, accompanied by a roaring noise that exuded a thick, dense smoke. Shouting and other noises sought to overwhelm her senses as she felt her lungs choke with the pervasive black gases that sprang from the fire that now blazed around her. A piercing scream punctuated the night sky, an awful sound entwined with pain and terror. Sarah looked on as her mother’s hair caught alight and her skin blistered and burned. Screaming out as loud as she could, Sarah sat bolt upright in her bed, feeling traumatised and confused, her breathing shallow.
Sarah Morgan placed her hands over her face, which felt cold and sweaty. Her mind cleared, but the emotions evoked by the horrific dream lingered. She sank back onto her bedroll as the cruel reality of her situation re-asserted itself in her now fully conscious psyche. A single powerful, bright LED lamp hung suspended high above the bed, shedding its crisp light over the confined space. The small area, spartan, cold and unwelcoming, smelled of bleach, and a musty neglect, which hung in the stale air. Rough linen clung to the small bed on which Sarah lay and harsh grey tiles lined the floor and walls. A formidable steel door dominated the room, a small slit in its centre the only means of access to the outside world.
Sitting back up on the cot, Sarah pulled her knees up to her body to keep warm. The ill-fitting bright orange jumpsuit she’d been forced to endure itched and scratched at her skin as she moved. She felt tired, exhausted, but couldn’t sleep now, not after that dream. The dazzling light on the ceiling also didn’t assist her condition. She’d been imprisoned for weeks, perhaps months now, living on rationed food and water. She must have lost quite a few pounds during her captivity and her stomach had definitely shrunk in size during that time.
Her body clock told her it was nearly time again – time for more questions – time for the same answers. She wondered when they would stop these endless interrogations and mental mind games. She had told them everything she knew – well, almost everything. She wasn’t prepared to let them have it all their own way; it was one of the only things left that was hers to control and she wouldn’t give it up lightly.
Sarah’s head came up when a muffled bell sounded outside of her cell. Footsteps followed and a key was inserted into the lock and turned, the clank and click of metal on metal echoing in the enclosed space. The door slid to one side in one fluid motion, accompanied by a grinding noise and a heavy boom as it hit the end of its rails.
‘Morgan. Let’s go!’
Sarah glared at her guard, a burly, shaven-headed U.S. marine dressed in loose-fitting combats and black, steel toecapped boots.
She didn’t move.
‘Don’t make me come in there again, Morgan,’ he said in warning.
Sarah sighed, swept her unkempt blonde hair back, unfurled her long legs and dropped to the floor, her thin plimsolls squeaking on the shiny surface. Once she’d emerged the guard slammed the door shut and relocked it. Stowing the bunch of keys on his belt, he moved past her, leading the way down a passage and up a flight of stairs she knew only too well. A left and right followed by another left and they were entering a large room, empty except for a plain table and two functional chairs.
Sarah pulled out one of the seats and sat down on it while the guard left to stand outside the door. It wasn’t long until her tormentor, one Sergeant Major Collins, appeared and sat down opposite her. He had with him the same red folder he always had and opened it the same way he always did, arranging it just so on the desk and then placing a white plastic pen alongside.
‘So,’ he said in his sharp cutting voice, which accentuated his American accent, ‘how did you access this facility?’
‘By magic,’ Sarah replied almost smiling at her own insolence.
Collins slammed his hand down on the table with a loud BANG, makin
g Sarah jump. ‘Do not fuck with me, girl,’ he said, eyeballing her, ‘or things will go badly for you. You think what you’ve experienced so far has been hard, then think again. I can make your life unbearable in so many ways you wouldn’t believe. I’d have you begging for me to end your miserable existence in less than twenty-four hours if I wanted to, so stop fucking me about and start talking!’
Sarah looked at the man and his flat, dead eyes told her he wasn’t messing about. She dreaded to think what he was referring to and as she didn’t want to find out, she played along, as usual. ‘We found this place, this facility, through tunnels and an entrance we located on the surface,’ she said, her tone sullen.
‘Where on the surface?’
‘Tancama.’
The sergeant major noted something down in his red folder. ‘And where exactly is that?’
‘In the mountains in Mexico.’
Collins looked up and his eyes flashed a warning.
‘East of a small town called Jalpan de Serra,’ Sarah said, knowing full well he knew the answer.
‘And this Tancama, it’s an old ruin?’
‘Yes, it’s an archaeological site built over a thousand years ago.’
‘You’re English, why were you in Mexico?’
Sarah really wanted to say on holiday but knew she shouldn’t push the man; he wasn’t right in the head. She also wanted to point out to him he was an American and ask him why he was in Mexico, or should that be beneath Mexico; sadly, though, she decided on a non-antagonistic answer. ‘We were exploring the site; we’re archaeologists, that’s what we do.’
‘This entrance,’ he said, going back to her first answer, ‘how did you find it?’
‘From a map.’
He took an A4 photo from the folder and put it in front of her. It was a picture of a rectangular metallic artefact with Mayan hieroglyphs on it, a single line intersecting them.
‘This map?’
‘Yes.’
‘And where did you find it?’
‘As I’ve told you before, we dug it up in the Mayan ruins of Copán in Honduras.’
‘How did you know it was there?’
‘Using a scanner, I found it buried in one of the stone stelae.’
‘Stelae?’
She sighed. ‘Sculpted stone monuments, or statues, you could call them.’
It was quite true; the metallic map had been a wonderful find, although Sarah had to deface a priceless Mayan statue to extract it. On a sanctioned dig, breaching the integrity of the site in such a way would have been a big no-no, but as it was they were there without authorisation and Sarah had certain motivating factors which had driven her into desecrating the world heritage site.
Collins stood up and picked up the folder, turning over the pages as he read through it. ‘Have you found other ancient artefacts in the past?’
‘Many,’ she said.
He considered her for a moment. ‘Have you ever discovered bones and artefacts which you thought were much older than human civilisation?’ he said, rephrasing the question.
‘Yes.’
‘How many?’
‘A handful.’
‘Where?’
‘In Turkey, near Mount Ararat.’
‘And where are those now?’
‘They were stolen from us.’
‘By whom?’
‘I don’t know who.’
‘But you suspect someone, an organisation?
‘The Catholic Church, but now you lot are on the scene I’m beginning to wonder.’
Collins ignored her quip. ‘Have you found anything anywhere else?’
‘A few locations,’ she said evasively.
‘Recently?’ he added, his face growing angry again.
‘South Africa.’
‘What did you find there?’
‘More bones and a canister.’
‘Were these bones human?’
‘No.’
‘What were they?’
‘I think they’re from a human ancestor or cousin who evolved on the planet over half a million years ago.’
‘And you refer to these human ancestors as—’ Collins said, pausing as he looked in the folder once more, ‘Homo gigantis, correct?’
Sarah nodded. It was the most appropriate scientific Latin name and one generally agreed upon by those who believed in its existence. She liked it; it rolled off the tongue and fitted in well with the names of humanity’s other close relatives, Homo erectus, Homo floresiensis and Homo neanderthalensis.
‘And what was in the canister?’ the U.S. soldier asked her.
‘A parchment.’
He glared at her.
‘A map on a parchment,’ she conceded.
He took out a piece of light brownish paper and laid it in front of her.
She picked it up, feeling its odd texture and noting the small circle indented into it at the top. It was also completely blank.
Collins’ eyes narrowed. ‘And where is that map now?’
‘I don’t know. It was on here,’ she told him, knowing full well that you had to access the images on it using her pentagonal pendant; something else they had confiscated from her.
The pendant in question was similar to another one Sarah had found over a year ago, buried deep in the ground amongst bone fragments and what turned out to be hair. Carbon dating had revealed the bone and hair to be five hundred thousand years old, raising the tantalising question that the pendant had been forged in the same era. Since humans, as they are known today, hadn’t even evolved at that point in time, it posed the question, who made it? The answer soon became apparent: Homo gigantis, a large ancient human ancestor who may have been as advanced, if not more advanced, as modern humans themselves.
The second pendant, which activated the map, Sarah had found in a curious canister she’d dug up on the Turkish plains during a quest that had ultimately led to her current location. Amazingly, this small artefact had also enabled Sarah to operate some kind of lift transportation device that had brought her deep underground. Of course she wasn’t about to disclose any of these facts to Collins and it was the one thing she’d been holding onto. She knew if the U.S. military found out about the pendant and its amazing properties she would definitely never see it again and she couldn’t allow that to happen for anything. She had made the discovery and she was damn well going to keep it. At least that was the plan.
‘I think it runs on some kind of battery,’ Sarah continued by way of explaining the oddity of the disappearing map. ‘It’s like digital paper and the power source has run dry.’
‘That’s what your friends keep telling me.’ Collins looked frustrated at receiving corroborating information which was of no use to him.
The friends he referred to, who’d accompanied her on her journey of discovery, included her best friend Trish from London, whom she’d known since university, and Jason, another archaeologist she’d met on a dig site and whom she’d also grown close to over the years. After their capture in this – for want of a better word, underground city – and prior to their separation, the three friends had benefited from some precious moments alone. Sarah had told them both not to disclose anything about the pendant and its secrets and how they’d managed to activate the ancient device that had brought them there. They’d also devised a basic cover story to cover their tracks.
Apparently Jason and Trish had stuck out as stubbornly as she had, apart from a few slip ups like letting Collins know the parchment was capable of displaying moving images. However, this new knowledge about her friends, to know they were still nearby and on her side, helped to strengthen her flagging resolve. Collins was slipping, it seemed; this was the first titbit of information he’d relinquished in all the many hours she’d had the misfortune of spending with him.
Collins sat down again and pondered his precious red folder. ‘These tunnels that brought you from the surface,’ he began, ‘how far from this facility did they bring you out?’
And th
ere it was – the question that caused Sarah the most problems. Since she had used the ancient device to descend into the depths of the Earth, there weren’t any actual tunnels to speak of. Therefore the exit, by simple deduction, was also non-existent. The issue came when Collins and his military colleagues wanted to know where, exactly, Sarah and her two companions had been able to infiltrate this most secret of compounds.
‘A few miles away from here,’ Sarah said.
‘Elaborate,’ Collins demanded, his eyes searching her face, perhaps for the telltale signs that she might be lying to him.
‘When we emerged from the tunnels we found ourselves on a narrow path next to a high cliff with a deep drop on the other side.’
‘And where did you go from there?’
‘We scaled a few rock faces, travelled underneath a couple of massive carved archways and then passed through what appeared to be a long dead forest. Which is weird, as we’re deep underground, so how did that happen?’
‘And then what?’ he said, ignoring her question.
‘And we saw a light. I saw a light, and we followed it to here. That’s when your men chucked a stun grenade at us, arrested us and stuck us in here.’
Collins’ brow furrowed further as he frowned down at his folder. He rubbed his temples with his hands. In something resembling agitation, he flicked through the pages until he stopped, and then amazingly closed it altogether. ‘I want to know exactly where these tunnels came out, do you hear me? Exactly!’
‘I don’t know exactly, it was pitch-black and we only had small torches with us.’
‘Try harder,’ he said, an odd desperation to his tone accompanied by a curious twitch in his right eye.
‘I can’t tell you what I don’t know,’ Sarah replied, her tone placating, her hands held open and an apologetic half-smile playing across her lips.
The sergeant major banged the metal table once more. ‘UNACCEPTABLE!’
Before Sarah knew what was happening he’d risen up, hurled the desk to one side and grabbed her by the throat. Sarah may have been nearly six foot tall and athletic, but Collins, although slightly shorter, was powerfully built and she found herself up against the wall while he slowly crushed her windpipe. Fighting for breath, she felt herself blacking out as she fought to prise his vice-like grip from her throat. With her vision fading to a blur, she caught sight of the guard sprinting into the room. Grabbing Collins around his neck, he grappled him to the floor as two more soldiers came running in from the corridor to subdue the out of control interrogator.
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