by Ryan Hartung
Lightning
World’s Divide
Book 1
Ryan Hartung
All people in this book are a work of fiction that were birthed within the author’s mind. Places, names, and everything in between are a complete work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places and events is purely coincidental.
Published 2014 By Molecularly Prime Publishing at Smashwords
Lightning: World’s Divide Book 1
Copyright © 2014 Ryan Hartung
ISBN 978-1-942123-00-2 Electronic
www.ryanhartung.com
All rights reserved, No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without prior written permission, except in brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews. For more information, contact Molecularly Prime Publishing.
Cover illustration and interior design by Raven Tree Design
www.raventreedesign.com
Smashwords Edition, License Notes:
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Death Book 2 Sample
Acknowledgements
About the Author
This book is dedicated to my beautiful wife Elizabeth.
Chapter
1
BOOM!
Dust filled the chamber, clouding Colt Andrews’s view. Coughing, he waved his hands, trying with little success to shoo the floating dust particles away. The other two members of his tiny archeological search team took a few steps backward as the dust slowly dissipated.
Colt slapped his worn blue jeans and tan button-down shirt with his red and yellowed-white baseball cap, causing miniature dust clouds to explode off his clothes. As the dust continued settling, Colt grimaced as the damage to the ancient stone temple door became more apparent.
“I said push the door. Not break it down,” Colt said scolding his assistant Dominic Barboa; who was still lying on the temple’s sandy floor. Dominic had tried to budge the solid rock door by running and hitting it at full speed, only to bounce off its solid surface and onto the ground. However, the momentum built by his sprinting start had nevertheless done the trick. But instead of pushing the heavy stone slab inward, Dominic’s rushing attack had hit the upper half of the door, knocking it off its center of gravity and causing the massive slab to crash to the floor.
“Sorry boss, guess I screwed up huh?” Dominic sullenly replied as he stood.
“Naw, we needed that door opened one way or another. The way I see it, you just saved us over a week’s time by not having to get a team in here to move it the right way,” Colt replied half joking while half serious. Colt paused before entering the newly unsealed room and fingered the Greek name for Zeus etched into the temple wall. “What I want to know is what are ancient Greek and Roman symbols and text doing in a temple in the middle of the Amazon? Can either of you tell me that?”
Colt Andrews—or Sir Colt Andrews as the Queen of England had just knighted him three months ago, was one of the finest archeologists in the world. His attention to detail and immeasurable knowledge of ancient civilizations, coupled with an almost prophetic knack of discovering lost treasures left him with no equals.
Three weeks ago, deep in the Peruvian portion of the Amazon rainforest, a group three American hikers had trekked to a remote citadel of the ancient Chachapoyas people. Unlike Peru’s other darker-skinned ancient tribes, this particular race had been called the Warriors of the Clouds, as they were white skinned and had blonde hair.
While traveling through the ruins of the ancient city, the trio had accidentally stumbled upon a hidden underground passageway leading to a richly decorated temple after one of their party fell through a weakened tile slab outside of the citadel. The Peruvian government had then called the most respected archeologist in the world to come make sense of their newfound labyrinth.
“I don’t know, maybe those other Americans carved it into the rock to screw with us,” Colt’s other assistant and girlfriend Hillary Chapman joked.
“Do you guys see that?” Colt asked, not paying attention to the joke. He pointed to a thin sliver of light emanating from a crack at the base of a far wall in the adjacent room.
“See what Colt?” Dominic asked. He squinted, but still didn’t see anything. From Dominic’s position the sun’s bright light was still seeping into the ancient carved tunnel too much and was thus washing out any weaker sources of illumination.
“Follow me guys and watch your step,” Colt ordered. He stepped through the threshold of the fallen door and into the next even more dimly lit room. After their eyes had adjusted to the room’s darkness, Colt asked them again. “You two see it now?” He crouched low to the ground and waved his hand along the rocky crevice. For a few seconds his hand glowed a pale yellow. As he moved his hand away from the wall the yellow light again dissipated into the dark room.
“What do you make of it?” Hillary asked.
“I’m not exactly sure Hill. None of this makes any sense. What was a tribe of Caucasians doing in the Amazon? And why are these Roman and Greek symbols carved in only these underground rooms; not up above? I don’t know why yet, but they must be interconnected somehow. Let’s get out our flashlights and see what this next wall has to say.”
Although the first two rooms had contained adequate lighting from the sun’s afternoon rays as they shone through the American’s accidental hole, the new more secluded chamber was beyond their reaches.
As the explores entered the new chamber, three sources of unnatural pure white light switched on, bathing the room’s far wall in their eerie glow. The team’s flashlights, although powerful, were not a match for the sun’s brilliant rays, causing the explorers to venture even closer to the far wall. The wall appeared to be one massive continuous slab of dark brown stone with another similar doorway cut into its middle. Colt shifted his attention from the wall and to the singular door. Etched into the giant stone slab was more of the ancient Greek writing.
“What’s it say?” Dominic quizzically asked. This being only his fourth trip with the world-renowned archeologist, Dominic had yet to pick up on the subtle differences between the ancient languages. When he had first agreed to join the team, Colt had left what Dominic considered a laughably huge stack of language and history books in his beaten up truck for some light nighttime reading. Dominic now wished he had at least opened a few of thick dusty books instead of scattering them around his messy apartment.
Colt studied the stone door. Carved lightning bolts surrounded the door’s edges. The bottom half of the stone slab featured another singular lightning bolt, which was ten times the size of the smaller ones adorning the door’s edges. The top half of the stone slab however, was covered in ancient Greek.
“It says. HERE LIES ZEUS, THE GOD OF LIGHTNING’S FINAL RESTING PLACE. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE ZEUS.” Colt read and scratched his head.
“What the heck does that mean?” Dominic asked.
“Not a clue. Only one way to find out though,” Colt replied with a wry smile. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a long black iron crow bar.
Concerned, Hillary rested a soft hand on his arm. “What are you thinking? You can’t just pry the door open. What if you damage it? Whatever’s behind that piece of rock could be the find of the century.”
“I know,” Colt replied and patted her hand with his, trying to ease her worry. “Dom already busted down the first door and I need to see where that light is coming from.”
Hillary saw the determination in Colt’s eyes and reluctantly released her grasp and took a step back. Colt grabbed the iron tool and jabbed it into the door’s sealed side with all his might. Chips of splintered rock sprayed his sweat-soaked shirt.
“No turning back now,” Hillary muttered, unconvinced Colt’s idea was a good one. Colt put his back into the crow bar and pushed with all of his might. The door didn’t budge. He took a step back, leaving the crow bar precariously hanging out of the wall. Colt spit into his hands and rubbed them together.
“Here’s looking at you Dom,” he said and took a running start towards the iron tool. An “umph,” escaped Colt’s lungs and mouth as his impact with the rigid metal bar forced out any excess air. Undeterred by the brief loss of stale unused air, he continued prying against the door and dug his shoes into the hard ground. Finally, the rough sound of rock grating on rock began to hum throughout the room. The door opened an inch and stopped. Although barely ajar, the unmistakable odd pale yellow light was now showing through the entire side of the partially opened stone door.
“Hey, wanna give me a hand here?” Colt asked Dominic optimistically.
“Sure. I’ve already broken one priceless artifact, what’s another,” he dryly replied. Dominic’s two hundred pound Hispanic frame, when added to Colt’s thickly muscled core, made quick work of the rocky doorway. With two coordinated pushes, using the crowbar as leverage, they opened the door enough to where they were able to wrap their fingers along the back of the door’s side and begin pulling. Hillary then helped the two burley men scrape the massive slap of rock along the floor’s smoothed stone tiles.
Once the stone door was fully opened, they each stared in awe. The pale white light from the inner room bathed them and their surroundings. It almost seemed brighter than the sun. Initially the light was too bright to look at directly, but as time passed their retinas adjusted to where brief glances at the object stopped initiating immediate watering of the eyes.
“I’m going in,” Colt determinedly announced. With a hand he shielded his eyes and took a small step forward.
“Are you loco?” Dominic gasped. “You don’t know what the heck that thing is. It’s not natural, that’s for sure. Maybe it’s alien, maybe it really is from Zeus. I don’t give a crap. Seriously, you shouldn’t go in there.”
“He’s right,” Hillary said. “That light’s not natural. You better be careful.” Hillary knew when it came to Colt’s work the only person he ever listened to was himself. His belief in himself was what had made him so successful. Ever since she’d known Colt, he’d marched to his own tune. Maybe that was one of the reasons she was so attracted to him. What woman didn’t want an overly confident man, whose sole purpose in life was to travel for adventure and fun?
Dominic and Hillary nervously watched as Colt disappeared into the room filled with light. Once inside the chamber, Colt was barely able to open his eyes more than the tiniest of slits. The light inside was pure and blinding. He wasn’t sure how big the room was, maybe twelve feet by twelve feet? All Colt knew, was that the unknown object emitting the freakishly bright light was growing closer with each step.
As he continued, carefully footing his steps forward, he felt the room’s temperature increasing the closer the light became. After a couple more steps, Colt’s foot kicked something solid. He’d been in enough temples and seen enough Indiana Jones movies to guess the solid object was resting on a pedestal or some type of alter. Nervously and with shaking fingers, he reached out. His breathing quickened while sweat beaded from every pore on his body. He touched the object.
ZZZIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGGG!
Electricity pulsed through Colt’s body. Pain. The only sensation he felt was pain. The electrical force of the shock blew him out of his shoes and against the room’s far wall. His senses went dead.
Chapter
2
“We don’t have any other choice. The cost of oil is dropping like a rock and with it each of our country’s economic net worth,” the Iraqi prime minister shouted and slammed his fist on the table in front of him. “The world is moving away from the one major commodity each of our countries possess; oil. We must decide here and now what we are going to do.”
The presidents and prime ministers of almost all of the current members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries were convened in Baghdad, where ironically OPEC had been birthed decades ago. Now, they were heatedly debating OPEC’s inevitable collapse.
The western technologies of lithium ion batteries, wind farms and highly efficient solar arrays were decimating the world’s appetite for their precious black gold. The countries were desperate for an answer. So desperate in fact, that even war with the West was on the table.
Only the United Arab Emirates’ president was missing from the quickly convened meeting. Although under the guise of a traditional OPEC assembly the UAE president, as did the other nations’ leaders, knew the gathering was about much more than oil. It was about survival. Long ago the UAE’s governing body had wisely shifted their country’s national image from not only being just an oil producing country, but a major economic hub in the Middle East.
Even though the UAE’s president had declined the meeting’s invitation, his country’s ties to the Middle East were strong enough to diffuse any of the other presidents’ worries about which side the United Arab Emirates would actually support if it came to war. The UAE had too much to lose to openly support the Eastern nations’ agenda and would act as the Switzerland of the Middle East should any conflict arise.
Venezuela’s president Ramirez raised a hand for calm. A tall, olive skinned man with wide shoulders and a head full of thick black hair, he somewhat resembled a Middle Eastern man, but yet was also very different.
“Comrades. We are in agreement that something needs to be done, no? Although Venezuela feels the same as Iraq, I’m not sure an all-out war is a viable option. If we can’t convince the Russians or China to join us, our efforts will be in vain. The United States’ and Europe’s military technologies are too highly advanced. We need the military might of at least Russia or China, hopefully both. Even if they choose to remain neutral, their non-action would spell our doom.”
“Don’t forget to include Israel with the West. They may not be the United States or close to your country, but in this region they are not a power to be taken lightly. Let us not forget their dominance of Syria, Jordan and Egypt in only a matter of days in 1967,” Libya’s president interjected.
“Yes, yes, Israel cannot be overlooked,” Venezuela’s president affirmed and continued. “I have only had limited conversations with my other South American brethren, but I believe if this body comes to an agreement on war they will join us. Too many years has the world looked down their noses at our South American nations. The United States is like a bat, sucking away at our hard work, our life blood, only to see its citizens prosper off our overly burdened backs. We are tired of being tread under their feet and I believe Venezuela will not be the only South American nation to join the cause.”
Algeria’s dark skinned president cleared his throat. His black skin appeared even darker when contrasted against his peoples’ bright traditional colors he wore. He warily surveyed the other presidents who formed the uneasy alliance before speaking.
“As President Ramirez has said he expects many of the South American nations to join our cause, I also have reason to believe most of Africa will also come to our aid.
The African nations that decide to abstain from war will be isolated by the rest and will be unproblematic.”
President Ramirez nodded in agreement and again took the floor. “It appears that we have the rough beginnings of a crude military alliance, gentlemen,” he said with a grin, masking his worry. “Before any actions are taken we must find out who is with us and who is not. Africa, South America, the Middle East; these are the conglomerates of nations which will instigate this war. Before we send a delegation to Moscow and Beijing we need the majority of continental Africa, South America and the Middle East to be solidly behind our agenda.”
“I agree with President Ramirez,” Iraq’s president interjected. “The more nations we have behind us, the greater our chances to convince the Russians and Chinese to also join. I however have doubts that the Chinese will want war. They are too entangled in the American’s and European’s economies to side against them in an international war. Although the Chinese consider themselves a communist nation, their international trade agreements and obligations with the West are morphing their country closer to a western nation every day, whether they realize it or not. Not that I believe the Chinese will side with the West, I just do not believe they will side against them.
The Russians on the other hand will be a much easier sell. Their constant bickering with the European Union has taken its toll on them. Many of Russia’s territories have shirked their old master in favor of their more democratic and successful European neighbors.”
“Plus, ever since the cold war, Russia’s been playing second fiddle to the U.S. on the world stage. With the U.S. and the European Union constantly slapping Russia with sanctions for this and that I believe they will be more than happy to join us. I must reiterate that Russia’s inclusion in this war is almost a necessity if we are to have a fighting chance,” Algeria’s president interjected.