And the Meek Shall Inherit (Harbinger of Change Book 2)

by Timothy Jon Reynolds

  He dialed her cell, she answered on the second ring, “This is Sarah.”

  Ray enticed, “I’ve got something you’re going to love.”

  Sarah responded in kind, “Stop talking sweet to me, Ray, and tell me what’s up?” She was looking out her window, past the wing at the long expanse of the Atlantic Ocean as they were talking.

  “Looks like I’ve found a possible thread, but it’s going to take some amazing work with Interpol to get this done in any type of a time frame we can use. I’m sending you the files now.”

  “Ray, every agency on earth is on high alert. Leaks of the spy plane being lasered and the loss of the Ecuadorian troops and their communications have led to widespread uncertainty. Have you seen the stock market?”

  “Truthfully, no. It’s one of my weaknesses. I tend to get tunnel vision on hot leads.”

  “Okay, Ray, I’ll see what I can do, I do have some friends on that side of the pond. I should be in Panama soon, and I’ll be in touch.

  “Thanks, Sarah. Be careful and bring our boy home.”

  * * *

  Segundo Marine Research Group was stationed between the Galapagos and the mainland. They were currently doing dolphin research, studying eating habits and tagging a few for a migration study. That was strictly for the public, though. Actually, they were releasing five hundred pound battle groupers. Pablo’s team had put together the most state of the art animal robotic drones, the five hundred pound grouper being the main water weapon but not the only one.

  The Grouper, which by itself could nearly sink an aircraft carrier, had some friends. Each grouper had ten Remoras (cleaner fish that attach themselves to sharks and bigger fish to clean parasites). As in the wild, they stick themselves to the outside of a host (his robotic groupers), only his manmade fish do not eat parasites, they remove them with lethal accuracy.

  The operator had the ability to control the Grouper or one of the Remoras at any time. Pablo even added a twist. You could release five at a time and control a school. At present, he had sixty Groupers that were controlled by ten operators. The fish were all designed to act like real fish. They swam like fish, they looked like fish, and they each had a payload roughly large enough to punch a ten-foot hole in the hull of any ship.

  The “swim like a fish” part was the hardest part of the game to create. Pablo could make a robot have fish motion, but unless the operator was in tune with it on the controller, it didn’t translate. There was no auto-attack mode. The operator could leave them swimming on auto or could operate them for attack, no in-between. Unsuccessfully operating a fish drone resulted in a herky-jerky motion that would fool no one, least of all the trained sailors in the U.S. Fleet.

  If his operators did it right though, the enemy are trained to ignore the very thing that will wipe them out, schools of fish.

  The Bush Carrier Group entered Ecuadorian waters between the Galapagos and Parque National Isla del Coco, a body of water covering roughly nine hundred kilometers. They never noticed the Groupers they passed four hundred yards to the south, but the fish noticed them and started to slowly follow their wake. Pablo knew that they would line up coming in toward Quito forming a shield. It’s what he would have done if he weren’t concerned about being attacked from behind, but was instead concerned about some stealth drones coming in at water level from the front. They’re playing right into my hands and now the hammer is falling.

  Pablo watched the Ants at work and he felt a wave of pride. He had an army that was going to take on the world’s only remaining superpower, an army of eleven soldiers and me. Of course, Felipe had a control console as well, in an absolute emergency, and he was second only to Pablo in ability. But we shouldn’t need it.

  They’d had very little in the way of technical problems and their greatest asset, other than their technology, was their home field advantage. Pablo had years to set up relay stations for hundreds of nautical miles: research boats, small islands, even a natural gas platform. Who says the Chinese can’t build quality wares? Give them the right plans, materials, and equipment and he would pit them against any skilled workers in the world. Plus, it was so easy to get them out illegally and get them working here; every one of them a free man now with money for a lifetime. The smart ones probably figured out who they were working for by now, Pablo assumed, but he was fairly certain they would remain silent.

  The workers were all brought blinded into the complex, so they never knew where they were to begin with. They had sectioned out a part of the third sub-floor, which became their quarters for the duration of their employment. Once the work was done, they signed oaths of secrecy, were paid large sums of money, and let go. Of course, Felipe killed the first one that asked a question. The man said, “What this?” Then he said, “No sign,” and then he started backing away.

  After that, the tone was set, they were signing with their lives. No one else seemed to have an argument after the point was made, the refusing man finding Pablo’s maniacal soldier’s angry knife blade. The complex was empty now on three out of four floors, as all production had ended. Pablo reflected, the Chinese did all right by us, as we needed an unscrupulous partner that would help build our automated army without knowing who we were or what the machines would be used for. Their loyalty was the money. Of course, as far as I’m concerned, a monkey could do it given enough time. After all, I’m the anointed one here, and they were just assembling it for me.

  All in all, China was a wealth of skilled labor and now his ex-workers had better start spending their money as fast as they could . . .

  He looked at his dedicated right hand man, “Felipe, how ready are we?”

  With his twisted smile enacted, Felipe responded with as close to the emotion of happiness as he knew, “There is no way the carrier group can get through our net. We have over sixty fish in the water now.”

  “Sixty, huh?” Pablo said, “That’s a lot of firepower, and unless the gringos can figure out what’s a fish and what isn’t, the ocean is never going to look the same again.”

  * * *

  Jesus Christ, now it starts. Somehow the last two years had been no pressure—comparatively. He really hadn’t been stressed nor obvious in his true emotions because he could hide behind his love for Vera. He would just look at her and everything else would disappear. But now things were changing quickly. First of all, within the next six hours, this place is history. Secondly, he was going to miss her way more than he anticipated.

  He never figured he would really fall in love with her and never expected her to be “the one,” but she was. He truly loved her and that was the only reason he was standing where he was standing. No one could fake “true love,”—and to allow himself the ability to fall in love with her knowing the whole time he was going to take her down, had been something he found out about himself as he went along in this situation.

  No one could predict the unknown and he had been winging this thing from the first minute. He’d been worried throughout this whole ordeal that he wouldn’t be able to go through with it when the time came. To be so cold hearted, to be so deceitful, she will truly hate me, as I will then become just another lie in her life, another betrayal. He watched the two of them training on the console. Pablo was instructing her on a procedure coming up and Matt could see that these two were so simpatico.

  Even if he were to waffle and stay, letting them fulfill this supposed “destiny,” he would still have to contend with the fact that his Vera holds Pablo in as much esteem as him, and that wouldn’t sit well for any man. Now this? This was going to take his poker face to a new place. The Bush is a Nimitz Class carrier, which means it’s nuclear powered!

  There was no way to warn his countryman other than what he already did, but at that point, he only knew about the compound and the satellite. Matt knew that this added a whole new threat, and therefore a whole new threat assessment. First and foremost he felt guilt, as the items she stole from Conceptual must be what was now being used here against his own
country, something America could directly thank him for.

  This is madness, but I must hold my tongue. Pablo was beyond smart, so anything Matt said would be instantly analyzed by him and he would just end up showing his hand. He could not tip off that he cared one iota about the fate of the U.S., or he would find Felipe’s knife in his back.

  CNN was silently on in the background and Matt could read that flights in and out of Ecuador were suspended indefinitely as they had suffered a crippling cyber-attack that had blacked out the communications for their whole country.

  Inwardly he was losing it. His face was going to expose his emotions to Felipe and this charade would be all over. Unannounced and unplanned, he spontaneously walked over, interrupting Pablo and Vera’s training session. Felipe tensed and was ready to pounce as he had instructed Matt not to interfere with them in the slightest.

  Matt went to her and wrapped his arms around her with love. He took in her aroma and gently kissed her cheek and her forehead, then retreated, their touch lasting to the fingertips as he walked backward to his post. That’s the worst part of all this, I love her and there’s no training in the world that can truly prepare a deep cover agent for this type of quagmire. You’re not supposed to fall in love, but it’s recondite to say the least. If you don’t go all the way, you can’t accomplish the mission.

  Matt imagined the training class that he never attended. The instructor would be teaching him the things he needed to know to stay alive in this situation—significant things, like how to deal with the emotions when two years is coming down to less than six hours.

  Felipe looked more than stern, but Matt winked and smiled and shrugged. Everyone knew the two of them couldn’t keep their hands off each other, and Pablo hadn’t minded; so no harm no foul. It did immediately take Matt’s mind off the stresses that were building too quickly, like a storm surge of emotion.

  She reset that flood in an instant. One smell, one touch and she got right into my heart and cleared my head. How am I going to live without her? He sighed inwardly and placed his hand in his back pocket for rest. The paper he pulled out was the heaviest blow he’d ever received in his life . . .

  * * *

  Being the Captain of a Super Carrier and its subsequent attack group had an obvious “high profile” aspect that came with it, but Julius never could have imagined it would become this high profile.

  The President flying in Rear Admiral Bonnet to oversee him in battle was unheard of as Bonnet was not an active Admiral in the fleet at this time. Julius Washington was a decorated veteran of not one, but two Gulf Wars. He’d been involved in every major conflict this country had had in the last forty years and he just couldn’t believe that they put that much stock in thinking that this unknown enemy was so capable as to defeat the most sophisticated warship on the planet.

  His first protest would have been his first order, as there was no way the way the carrier fleet should have been set up this way. The Bush literally had a wall in front of it, like some ridiculous “bull’s-eye photo opportunity.”

  It made Julius seethe that his group was not even in an actual attack formation, but apparently their stealth drones were that good and all in front of them. The plan was to get into Tomahawk range and sever the head. They were now fifty miles inside range. “You have the clearance, Julius,” said Admiral Bonnet, getting off the phone with the Sec D.

  Captain Washington addressed the Fire Control Board Commander, “You are cleared to fire.” Under normal conditions they would have fired from the guided missile cruiser in his group the Normandy, but these were not normal conditions, as that ship was in the ridiculous bull’s eye formation. Even a ship as big as the Bush flails when those missiles slide out of their launchers. The crew tracked the flight on screen, but Julius was watching them live on a hunch he had.

  He had kept his eyes on them as long as could, but they eventually fell out of his field of vision. No sooner were they gone from his sight than the Normandy (the very missile cruiser he was just thinking of) had a large explosion go off in the area of her screws. The spray of water went a hundred feet up. Then, one by one, every ship in his group (except one) had the same fate—all in the course of ten seconds. Then the pain came to them and they got the big punch!

  Every sailor in the room was thrown to the floor as the Bush was hit with a five hundred pound Grouper right on the screws. Captain Washington was not the type to utter absurd proclamations like “what happened” and other inane utterances, but this warranted at least one hyperbole, “What the fuck just hit us?” The only person not thrown to the floor was Commander Hodges of the FCB (Fire Control Board) team. He had been holding a rail and was still glued to the birds as they approached the mainland. He shouted as everyone was gaining composure, “One hundred miles out.” Then, just as loudly he shouted, “Birds are down, I repeat, our birds are down before landfall.”

  * * *

  As usual, Ray was tunnel visioned, down a rabbit hole, reading over a report and never heard the phone ring. It wasn’t until the message light indicated he had a message did he realize Sarah had called him.

  She picked up on the first ring of the call back. “Turns out your teacher has come into some new money as of late. He’s recently upgraded his living and driving arrangements.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s not all, get this—we can prove he was close to the boy. A new fact came up.”

  “What’s that?” Ray inquired.

  “We found a newly acquired safety deposit box. He doesn’t know yet, so we’ve looked over the tapes on the day it was set up. The bank keeps them for two years now thanks to the digital age.”

  Ray quipped, “Well don’t keep me waiting Sarah, what did we find out?”

  “It was the boy, he lives!”

  Ray mused, “And he set up a loved one after the heat was off, it makes sense.”

  “That’s my take, Ray. Now that we have that, what’s next?”

  “It is time to play crack the teacher, Sarah. He has a plethora of information. More importantly, I need the Administrator code for that chess site. I have a hunch. James was quite the chess fanatic as I recall, he was even touted as a bit of a prodigy when he was a kid.”

  “So you’re thinking this site could lead to Haberman? Brilliant, Ray!”

  * * *

  The TV was blaring all kinds of madness. It seemed that everyone was now on board that some major things were going down in Ecuador of all places. So, of course, all the channels had been doing pieces on the troubled past of Ecuador. Sandy Burroughs had to admit, he knew very little about how those people had endured one hardship after another for hundreds of years.

  He was at the stove with four burners on for four pans of water—which were all now boiling. He placed the Mason jars into the water and turned to the TV again. The same rhetoric was going on about conspiracy theories and Government subterfuge. He tasted the strawberry preserves that he was going to be enjoying all the next year. They were awesome. He did well growing them and gave himself a pat on the back for his awesomeness.

  His TV suddenly did that pulse thing again—and the Jesuit Sheep was back. The message this time started with the greeting, “Brothers and Sisters of the Planet.” After a pause, the angry looking and judgmental sheep avatar began its speech.

  “Our plan is unfolding. Before we made “The Change,” we had to establish with The Superpower that there are no more superpowers. The only true power is given to the true people of the Earth, the Meek. By attacking the satellite, the United States of America has now activated its survival program. We provided a way for our satellite to protect itself and more. It will now seek out and destroy all of the Earth’s satellites. Had it been left alone, it would have bleated until it died—about a hundred years from now as that’s its life expectancy, give or take fifty years.

  “If we’re attacked again, or if attempts are made to destroy the satellite again, then America’s carrier group off our waters will be destroye
d completely, instead of being left as the worthless smoldering pile of floating junk that they are now.

  “As we stated before, we are not seeking the kind of change we accomplished in Peru. The fact the U.S. fleet remains afloat is proof we are not warmongers. Those ships may be evacuated, but any attempt to move them will be met immediately with hostility.

  “Unless the world has an answer where there is none, then the fighting is over Brothers and Sisters. This is Checkmate. The superpower cannot fight by air, land, nor sea. The warmongers lose, and their power is slipping away by the minute, as each new orbit of the Earth will reveal a new path for the cleansing satellite to go on.

  Once the change has come, only the Word of God will get you through. Come together, people. It is God’s will. Again we warn, do not believe our detractors. We are not terrorists. We seek nothing in return for our service. The only people that we are destroying are ones who were attacking us, as we sought no battle. So peace be with you, Brothers and Sisters. Please do not be afraid of the change unless you are the privileged. In that case, be prepared for a new kind of life.”

  The message disappeared and the news came back on. Could that be true? Could the boy have disabled a carrier group? Sandy watched his pots boil. Canning was yet another of the many skills he’d learned. He’d also become quite the chicken farmer, and a vintner too. He even entered into the county fair, placing third for best rooster and second for best Riesling. I wonder if James sanctioned this? It seems so impossible yet I’m watching the impossible happen.

  Sandy wondered if James knew the U.S. was going to suffer as a result of his and Pablo’s actions? He had to have known in theory what was going to happen. Sandy knew that when an individual was able to bring the United States to its knees, then that was about as “God blessed” as one could get if one lived to tell the story.