“Okay,” said Tank. “Open it up.”
The hydraulic steel door rumbled again and lifted up into the rock above, revealing an opening twenty meters across and almost nearly as high. There was no movement and no sound from inside.
“Pyro, you’re up,” said Hawkeye.
Pyro dropped down to his knees, then darted his head out from behind the wall for a quick view inside, and quickly pulled back behind cover. A burst of machine gun fire struck the wall where Pyro’s head had been just a moment ago.
“Hel-lo,” sang Pyro.
“I’ll take him,” said Shooter.
She chambered a round with the bolt action of her sniper rifle and tucked the stock tight against her cheek.
“Ready?” asked Pyro.
“Go.”
Pyro took his helmet off and stuck it out beyond the edge of the opening to draw fire. As he jerked it back behind the wall, the machine gunner inside fired again.
OPS CENTER, ABOARD THE ALAMIRANTA
As Shooter was preparing to take her shot at the commando hiding inside the tunnel, Caine watched the action on the display wall in the Ops Center.
“Watch this,” she said, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. She pointed to the computer-generated indicators displaying Shooter’s vital signs.
Shooter prepared herself mentally to take the shot. As she slowed her breathing and narrowed her focus, her heart rate and blood pressure dropped significantly.
“Remarkable,” said Quiz.
Then Shooter leaned from behind cover on the opposite side of the entrance, fixed the commando inside the tunnel in her sights, and fired twice in rapid succession.
“Nice shot,” said Hawkeye.
He led the Titan Six team through security the door into the main tunnel beyond.
OPS CENTER, ABOARD THE ALAMIRANTA
A live camera feed flickered into being on the wall of the Ops Center.
“Mrs. Caine, look at this,” said Touchdown.
A live video feed on the display wall showed a female Chinese commando staring directly into the camera. She wore a form-fitting suit — one that would allow for great speed and agility — but it shimmered and seemed to change colors as the monitor flickered. LED displays and small indicator lights were visible on slim, contoured plates on her chest and shoulders.
Her face revealed a stark, savage beauty. The irises of her eyes were a pale yellow color, rendering them almost invisible against her white orbs.
She stared into the camera, the slightest of smiles revealed by thin lips. She said nothing.
“What the hell -- ” said Quiz. “She looks like some kind of futuristic, high-tech ghost.”
“Touchdown, get a screen capture,” said Caine. “Quiz, run it through the facial recognition protocol.”
“I’m on it,” said Quiz. “But it may take a while to run through all the databases.”
It didn’t.
Within a minute, the computer found a match.
“Saturo Aiko,” said Quiz. “Commander of the Beijing Recon and Strike Force.”
“Touchdown, what can you tell me?” asked Caine.
“The Beijing Recon and Strike Force is an elite special forces unit of the Chinese Army,” Touchdown said. “Their chief unit for covert ops is . . . ” He paused and looked at another screen of data. “Yep, things are beginning to add up. Their special ops team is the Dragons of the Night.”
“The Chinese army?” asked Cruz.
Touchdown elaborated. “The Dragons are a highly skilled, elite commando unit. They’re the Chinese equivalent of the U.S. Green Berets or Navy Seals, but much more autonomous. The Dragons are trained to perform airborne and commando assault operations on airfields, command and control sites, and fortified installations.”
“But why is she just standing there in front of the camera?” asked Caine.
“My guess?” said Touchdown. “She wants us to know who they are. To create fear and show us what we’re up against.”
“Listen to this,” said Quiz. “Aiko and the Dragons were brought in by the Chinese government to fight the Uighur insurgents in Western China several years ago. Aiko was brutal. The Dragons slaughtered anyone who was suspected of providing aid to the rebels. They tortured hundreds of people to obtain intelligence on the location of the insurgents’ camp. When the Dragons finally tracked them down in the mountains along the border with Pakistan, it was a slaughter. They killed everyone. Whole families. Woman. Children. Everyone.”
“Jesus,” said Cruz.
Caine hurled her coffee cup against the wall, shattering it into hundreds of shards.
“Hawkeye,” Caine said over the COM system. “We need to talk. I have something I need to tell you.”
Chapter 16
TITAN SIX, SAVAGE BAY
Hawkeye and Titan Six gathered inside the sealed entrance at the South Portal. They listened intently as Caine recounted what they had learned about Saturo Aiko and the Dragons of the Night.
“I don’t understand,” said Hawkeye. “Why is a Chinese special forces team interested in a scientific research facility? They’ve committed an act of war. What could be so important that it would drive the Chinese to such extreme action?”
“That’s what I need to tell you,” said Caine. “Until now, I’ve kept you in the dark about the work being done at Savage Bay. I’ve kept the information tightly controlled. When I tell you the reasons, you’ll understand why I had to be so careful.”
“I’m listening,” said Hawkeye.
“The scientists at Savage Bay are engaged in incredibly important research. Several months ago, we became aware of rumors that the Chinese might be pursuing similar research and testing.”
“And you kept this to yourself?”
“No, of course not,” Caine replied. “Without disclosing the nature of the Savage Bay research, I discussed the situation with Titan Global’s head of intelligence operations. The rumors were unsubstantiated. There wasn’t enough there to consider the information actionable.”
“Are we talking about the Chinese government? The Chinese military? Private companies?”
“Those types of distinctions aren’t useful when discussing the Chinese. Elements of the power elite in China are heavily invested in supporting China’s companies involved in high-tech research. Elements within the Chinese government and military provide support to many of these companies at the behest of the powerful leaders of the ruling party. As I said, we were never able to corroborate the early rumors. But now it appears the Chinese may in fact be conducting their own program, and they certainly know about The Genesis Project at Savage Bay.”
“An armed incursion into a sovereign nation to steal some scientific research?” said Hawkeye. “If this were revealed to the Spanish or American governments, NATO would be forced to take military action,” said Hawkeye.
“But the Chinese know we won’t make this public,’ said Caine. “Not if we can help it. The Genesis Project is too important. The information is far too valuable and explosive. It’s going to change everything we believe about the human race. It will change human civilization -- forever.”
“What is so important that the Chinese military would take such drastic measures? And keep you from asking for assistance from the Spanish government or NATO?
Caine turned to Dr. Ambergris. “Joshua, I think this should come form you. Will you explain The Genesis Project to Hawkeye and Titan Six?”
Dr. Ambergris nodded solemnly. “For twenty years, I’ve been working in the field if human genetics. My research has been aimed at unlocking the mysteries of human DNA.”
Caine interrupted. “Dr. Ambergris was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work. His team was the first to complete the sequencing of the human genome.”
Ambergris nodded at the recognition.
“A little over a year ago at the Triad Genomics facility in New York, I made a profound scientific discovery,” he said. “Do you know much about DNA?”
&nbs
p; “Just what I learned, and then forgot, in high school,” said Hawkeye. “If it’s important for us to know this genetics stuff, give it to me like I’m stupid. Start with the basics. Actually, keep it with the basics if you can.”
Caine smiled. She knew Hawkeye’s personnel file intimately. He had an IQ of 143 and a college degree. He clearly wanted the explanation kept simple for the benefit of those Titan Six team members who weren’t as mentally gifted.
“Okay,” said Ambergris. “Here are the basics. DNA is the blueprint of life. It’s inside the cells of every living thing, from tiny microscopic bacteria all the way up to elephants and blue whales, the largest animals on the planet. DNA carries the chemical instructions our cells use to construct and operate our bodies. It’s the language of life. Our genetic code is passed on from one generation to the next.”
“I’m with you so far,” said Hawkeye.
“Our genetic code looks like a chain. The links of the chain are made of DNA molecules. It’s incredibly long. If we were to compare the chemical units of DNA we call base pairs to words written in a book, the human genome would be over a billion words long. That’s longer than eight King James Bibles.”
“Damn,” said Tank. The only books Tank ever read from cover-to-cover were comic books.
“Go on,” said Hawkeye.
“When I made the discovery that started The Genesis Project, I was studying introns,” said Ambergris.
“Okay, there you lost me,” said Hawkeye.
There were mumbles of agreement from the Titan Six team.
“Let me back up,” said Ambergris. “Some of our DNA has a clear purpose. We know what it does. We can figure out why it’s there. But there are long parts of our DNA that don’t appear to have any purpose at all. If DNA were a television show, introns would be commercial breaks that interrupt the T.V. program. But they are very long commercials. Longer than the actual show. We had no idea why they were there. Scientists have a name for these introns: junk DNA.”
“I’ve heard of that,” said Tank.
“The goal of my research was to find out what introns are and why they’re inside human DNA. A few years ago at the Triad Genetics facility in New York, I finally figured it out. It’s the revelation of a lifetime. Of a hundred lifetimes.”
“Don’t keep us in suspense, Pyro,” said Tank.
“Introns are a coded message. There is a secret message hidden inside human DNA.”
TITAN SIX, SAVAGE BAY
“Run that by me again,” said Hawkeye.
“I know it’s difficult to believe,” said Ambergris. “But our DNA hides a coded message. An enciphered text. Hidden in the building blocks of our own cells. We call it The Genesis Code.”
Hawkeye let out a low whistle. He was having trouble wrapping his mind around the revelation. “A coded message? But how did it get there? I mean -- who could have put it there?”
“Aliens?” asked Tank.
“No, not aliens,” said Ambergris. “Although we certainly considered that possibility at first.”
“Damn,” said Tank. “I was hoping it was aliens.”
“And for a while, we also seriously wondered if it could be a message to humanity from our Creator. From God.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” said Gator.
“Exactly,” said Ambergris. “What we ultimately discovered, however, was something else entirely. The Genesis Code has been in our DNA a very long time. It is truly ancient. And it’s been preserved and passed down from one generation to the next in our own cells, waiting for the time when humanity developed the ability to find it and unlock its secrets.”
“My God,” said Hawkeye. “But who created the message? Who put The Genesis Code in our DNA?”
Ambergris paused for a moment before answering.
“We did.”
OPS CENTER, ABOARD THE ALAMIRANTA
“I don’t understand,” said Tank. “What do you mean ‘we did?’”
“Humans,” said Ambergris. “An ancient human civilization on Earth, millions of years ago. An advanced society that was more developed technologically than we are today.”
The enormity of it was overwhelming.
“But this changes everything!” Tank exclaimed
“Yes, it does. We believe that this civilization, the common ancestors of what we believed to be our oldest cultures, was wiped out by a global cataclysm.”
“Like the one that killed all the dinosaurs?” asked Gator.
“Perhaps. We don’t know for sure. But they found a way to pass along some of their knowledge to future humans that survived the catastrophe. They inserted a coded text into their DNA. As long as humans survived, The Genesis Code lived on inside us.”
“But -- ”
“Humanity lost tens of thousands of years of technological advancement,” said Ambergris. “We almost didn’t survive at all. The disaster was so terrible that most humans perished. Humanity returned to a simple existence, just struggling to stay alive, living like animals. Over hundreds of generations, our knowledge of that first civilization was lost. It became nothing more than myth and legend, like the stories of Atlantis and the creation mythologies of our oldest religions. But their message survived. The Genesis Code. Hidden inside us.”
“That’s what The Genesis Project is about,” said Caine. “At Savage Bay, we’ve been unlocking the secrets contained in The Genesis Code.”
“It hasn’t been easy,” said Ambergris. “The entire message isn’t just laid out for us to read. Think of it like a series of puzzles. Each new puzzle unlocks the path to the next. We have a long way to go. But we have made some astounding discoveries.”
Caine knew that it was a lot for Hawkeye and the team to absorb all at once.
But the clock was ticking.
There would be time for them to process the information later. They needed to know the whole story.
“The Genesis Code is teaching us how to reprogram our own DNA. We’re learning how to manipulate and rewrite our own genetic code.”
“What does that mean?” asked Hawkeye.
“Well, for starters, we -- ”
TITAN TEAM, SAVAGE BAY
“Wait a minute,” said Shooter. “Quiet everyone.”
She cocked her head to one side and listened intently. In the quiet of the empty tunnel, she could hear the faint sound of metal sliding against metal.
Hawkeye pointed to a doorway set into the wall not far inside the South Portal entrance. On the Unit Display at the Ops Center, the video feed from Tank’s helmet cam centered on the door.
“Ops, I thought there were only two doors leading off this tunnel. What’s this door here?”
Cruz shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s not on the original schematics.”
“Is it a blast door?” asked Gator.
“I don’t know that either. But it doesn’t look like a blast door -- ”
“Titan Six, cover!” yelled Shooter.
The team scattered. Gator and Pyro upended a heavy metal desk and dove behind it. Tank dropped to the ground and rolled behind a stack of wooden crates. Hawkeye and Shooter took cover behind a concrete pillar.
A tremendous explosion blew the steel door off its frame and shattered the wall around the opening.
A storm of concrete dust and metal shards blasted into the tunnel. The concussive force of the explosion threw the door several meters where it landed in a twisted, broken heap of metal. Flying shrapnel sang as hundreds of tiny projectiles slammed into the metal surfaces in the tunnel.
“Titan Six, covering fire on that doorway!” yelled Hawkeye.
A thick, white haze clouded his vision. He could taste concrete dust in his mouth. The acrid smell of cordite and hot smoke filled the air.
Pyro and Gator lay down a blistering field of fire toward the shattered doorway. Tank and Shooter charged across the tunnel to take flanking positions on either side of the ragged opening.
“We need to clear the area behind that door!” yelled T
ank. Shooter nodded, then retrieved an air-burst fragmentation grenade from her belt.
“On three,” said Tank.
Tank poked his pinky finger through the metal pin of his own air-burst grenade. It was the only one of his fingers that would fit.
“One. Two. Three!”
Tank and Shooter launched their fragmentation grenades around the edges of the opening. Desperate cries in Chinese were cut short as the air-burst grenades detonated a meter off the floor, each covering a twenty meter radius with deadly flechettes, pointed steel and tungsten projectiles that sliced through both kevlar armor and human bodies.
“Gator, Pyro — through that door!”
Tank, Shooter, and Hawkeye provided covering fire from their positions on either side of the opening, shooting blindly into the room beyond.
With a rebel yell, Gator and Pyro charged through the jagged opening, side-by-side, weapons blazing.
Chapter 17
OPS CENTER, ABOARD THE ALAMIRANTA
“Cruz, given the location of the door, can you tell us what’s on the other side?” asked Caine.
“I think so. Quiz, how far inside the main tunnel do you think Titan Six was when they spotted that doorway?”
“Based on their GPR coordinates, I’d say right about 210 meters north of the South Portal entrance,” said Quiz.
Cruz manipulated the optical track-pad at her workstation and the holographic display rotated to show a cross-section of the facility near the South Portal.
“The doorway isn’t on the original plans, but assuming it was added later, it would lead into the Mezzanine.”
Cruz punched at her keyboard, and the holographic display zoomed in on the interior of the Savage Bay complex.
“There’s an open air atrium in the center surrounded by catwalk on all four sides. One level up is the administration section. One floor down are the private quarters for the full time residents of Savage Bay.”
“It therefore looks like Titan Six would be entering on Level Two,” said Quiz.
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