by Jacob Hammes
She did not know how much longer she would have to put up with this torment, but hopefully it would be over soon. Her ears felt as if they would start bleeding at any moment and she had finally begun choking on the fumes from the generator.
Brenda was sick of waiting. She was tired of looking at some huge hulk of a man that could not even control his own feelings enough to help a teammate. She had not been this mad in years and the feeling left her burning inside.
The pain of her standing was nothing compared to the hot flash of anger she had inside of her. She hobbled, nearly tipping over in places, as quickly as she could to the back of the cave. David was only a few steps from her when she lifted the pistol to the back of his head. The hot barrel nearly burned him but he couldn’t move to stop her.
“You get your fucking ass moving, you son of a bitch,” she screamed at him. He did not move. Perhaps he could not hear her over the screaming of what she thought was her friend and teammate being tortured in the other room. Smoke had begun billowing from underneath the door.
It would have done little good to threaten the man again. Either he could not hear or he had lost his spine all together. Stephen was staring at her, wide eyed at what she was doing. His girlfriend was acting like some superwoman with a grudge and still the man would not move.
Brenda could hardly control herself. She cocked her free hand back and punched the man in the back of the head as hard as she could. It felt as if her hand cracked across his occipital bone.
He had a reaction to that. He stumbled forward, grabbing the back of his head with both hands. She was grabbing her hand, too. They were both hurt. She did not give up, though. Brenda stumbled forward into David and shoved him with all her might forward toward the door.
Almost drunkenly, David stumbled forward and into the range of Stephen’s iron grip. He latched onto his teammate’s wrist like a vice and pulled him straight up to the door.
The lights flickered as David’s face met the hard oak. They stayed on just long enough to show his grotesque face, smashed against the wood like a child on a clean plate of glass. Just as they had come on, they vanished once again.
Natural light was once more the only thing filling the inside of the cave. The newly darkened cave left everyone with a sense of blindness as their eyes once again adjusted to the change. Pressure from David’s face pushed the door open easily now as if had always been free to swing open and finally the missing teammate was reunited with her counterparts.
Cynthia was choking audibly on the smoke, curled a few feet back from the door between some boxes, her weapon between her knees. She did not seem hurt at least. The most she had suffered was being short of breath or from some inhalation poisoning. In just a moment the smoke was clearing, flowing smoothly along the roof of the cave out into the open air. It left the choking woman with some fresh air, finally.
“What happened?” Stephen asked, nearly throwing David to the side in his scramble to get to distressed woman. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Cynthia said, nodding as she stood. “The generator started and the door slammed shut. I figured the two were correlated when no one came to get me out.”
“We heard you screaming, Cynthia,” Brenda said. She had sat down in the middle of the cave and was once again nursing her wounded leg. The place that had been injured, just above her ankle, was almost the size of a softball already. “It was awful.”
“I wasn’t screaming. It must have been the generator. The damn thing sounded like a rape victim. Did you start it from out there?”
“No,” Stephen said. “The door slammed shut and next thing we knew you were being tortured or something. I swear it sounded like your voice.”
“Well, trust me, I’d remember screaming. All I could hear was some loud music from a radio in here that must have been attached to this even louder generator. I swear my ears are damaged.”
Stephen exchanged a glance with Brenda. He was baffled and, from the looks of it, she was too.
“Where are the others?” David asked. Apparently he had woken from his stupor and wore a genuine look of concern. “My head is still ringing and it’s not from anything in here.”
“They haven’t come back yet,” Cynthia said. A look of alarm crossed her face, as well. “I was going to wait for them to get back and bust the door down.”
“I almost broke my shoulder on the door already, Cynthia,” Stephen said. “It wouldn’t have helped.”
“You think it was a gust of wind that shut the door?” Cynthia asked. “I didn’t feel anything but it must have been a gust of wind, right?”
“I didn’t feel anything, Cynthia,” Brenda said. Everyone looked back at her, sitting in the middle of the cave grabbing her swollen ankle. “I think we’re dealing with some very powerful Relics here. Something we’ve never encountered before.”
“Dozens of things we’ve never encountered before,” David said. “We need to get Marcus and Bishop out of there. Something is wrong down there, I can feel it. My head is buzzing.”
“Can you manage you big oaf?” Brenda asked. “I don’t want you to freeze up again.”
“I doubt it,” he said, truthfully. “But maybe you can just push me along like you did a minute ago.”
Cynthia helped Brenda back to the front of the cave. The two women did not need to go along with the men and someone needed to guard their only exit as well as keep the pilots from coming inside. Who knew what such powerful electromagnetic forces would do to them. David and Stephen had flashlights that worked and a trail of glow sticks to follow which was more than enough light to get them through the tunnel.
Not ten feet into the tunnel, however, Stephen heard a very distinct sound; gun fire.
“We’re almost there,” Bishop shouted over the gunshots. “Just a few more feet and we will be in.” Whatever was stalking them had taken its time advancing, but a steady ring of reaching limbs had made what looked like an impenetrable wall behind them. Either whatever the men had been shooting at was dying with every shot only to be replaced with new creatures, or hot lead had no effect on them.
A few shots later and the two reached the entrance only to be bowled over back into the cave by something big. The crash was thunderous and the two men were shoved forcefully back, Bishop flying over the top of Marcus and landing on his face in the darkness.
Before Marcus could make a move to fire on whatever had attacked, his flashlight sprang back to life. He was suddenly aware of three more similar lights, cutting beautiful swaths across the darkness. It was not one of those creatures that had slammed into them after all, it was their own teammates.
A big black man was holding his head with one hand while pointing his rifle out into the darkness with the other. David, another source of light, looked rather petrified standing in the entrance. His broad shoulders nearly touched both walls and from what Marcus could see sweat, or tears, streamed from his sullen face.
“What the hell,” Bishop said as he jumped to his haunches and immediately turned to face their aggressors. He had his weapon reloaded, shouldered, and ready to fire in less than three seconds. Once he recognized his own team, he turned back to the darkness of the inner cave.
Baffled, Bishop cut his light frantically back and forth through the oppressive darkness. As ready as he was to face some unknown foe, there was nothing for him to shoot at. Whatever had been advancing on them in the darkness was no longer there. It was as if they had vanished into the cold, dark air.
“How many,” Stephen said, using his rifle to search through the cave for anything to shoot. “How many contacts?”
“Zero,” Marcus said, understanding immediately what had just taken place. “There’s nothing in here but a mass grave.”
Chapter 10
Dust from the downwash of yet another pair of helicopters signaled the arrival of the team’s replacement transportation. The dual UH-60 Blackhawks came in quickly, landed roughly on their tails and bounced heavily on their struts bef
ore rolling to a stop. The team was already outside the cave, waiting for the transportation to land.
Once communications were back up between their teammates at the FOB and the cave, Henry was notified of the situation. A cave full of dangerous electromagnetically charged objects would have to be closely monitored. The arriving soldiers were carefully instructed to stay at least thirty feet from the entrance of the cave to stave off any effects they might have. They had already lost a team of Special Forces soldiers to whatever was inside and Marcus doubted they wanted to lose any more.
A team of UOD agents, men and women who specialize in cataloguing the unique pieces, would be dispatched soon. They would be tasked with the objective of not only transporting the Relics to a safe storage facility but also with studying the particular history of each.
Until they arrived, armed soldiers would stand guard over the cave making sure no one could enter. Only then, when the last pieces of antiquity had been moved, would the mass grave be ‘discovered’. Henry thought better of letting the Army lose more troops and further exposing the soldiers to danger. It would be easier to keep them in the dark as to any grave sites so that no one went poking their noses where they shouldn’t be.
It was hard to miss the mass of movement at the base of the mountain as the helicopters took flight. The graceful lift of the helicopter, filled with only the UOD agents and the new flight crew, changed as it dove down the side of the mountain to gain speed. Marcus could see the troops, both on foot and mounted in tanks and Humvees, converging from all directions on what may or may not be a large contingent of insurgents. He hoped for their sake it was just a group of mischievous rebels.
Henry had been very busy, coordinating both with the Department of Defense and the Unusual Operations Division to make the proper arrangements. Phillip had apparently taken care of the team’s transportation to their next stop, Xian, China. They would be landing, once again in the early morning hours, inside the city. It would be easiest to link up with their contact on the ground that way.
Jeff Chang would be picking the team up from the airport whenever they arrived. He was fluent in the local dialect and was familiar with the case. Jeff was lucky enough to have been in Beijing when the incident with the shopkeeper occurred and was dispatched upon the Division receiving word of the case. He had been the guy tailing John when he nearly beheaded the random individual in the street.
As far as Marcus knew, he was reliable enough.
They were met with all of their baggage and yet more military vehicles at their last stop in Kandahar before boarding their own aircraft to start yet another flight to China. The transition was very quick and it was nearly complete by the time Marcus and the team arrived back at the airfield. The order by Gregory was apparently taken very seriously. It seemed as if anyone in the Army that wasn’t working on a mission was working for the UOD. Their temporary lodging was emptied and packed away and Henry met the group at the foot of the loading ramp at the back of the jet. As always, he wore a smile.
“Good to see you all back in one piece,” he said. “I thought you’d bit the big one there for a minute.”
“Thanks for having faith in us,” Brenda said, helped out of the car by Stephen. His big arm looked like it weighed about as much as her abdomen, but she held on to it while she hobbled up the ramp. She made it a point to pat Henry on the chest as she passed.
The team settled in much like before, though Stephen never left Brenda’s side. Apparently a brush with death had made him somewhat more open about his concern for Brenda’s safety. Marcus found a place to download his equipment and dumped himself into one of the plush seats before unlacing his boots and letting his feet breathe.
Cynthia sat directly across from him, determined to talk business.
“I found a book,” she said. “I brought it with me. It’s written in German but I think it may be a catalogue of all the stuff in the cave. It has the Nazi emblem on it, just like everything else.”
“Can you read German?” Marcus asked. He was not familiar with the language.
“Phillip can. I’ve already asked him to look it over.” She seemed excited about the prospect of learning what else had been stashed in there. It did sound like a good idea, Marcus had to admit, but he was grumpy and tired and ready to take a shower.
As if on cue, Phillip found Cynthia and took a seat behind her. Marcus wondered if he had been hiding close by. He looked rested, much more so than when Marcus had first seen him some twenty hours ago. He gave Cynthia a brief smile and Marcus a pat on the knee.
“Hiya, boss,” he said. “Good work out there, we were listening as much as we could.”
“Thanks,” Marcus said through a yawn. “Good work on your part, too.”
“Thanks, boss,” Phillip replied. “Now what about this book you recovered. You think it might be a log of all the junk you found, right?”
“Well that’s why we have you,” Cynthia said, handing the ancient-looking bound tome to Phillip who regarded it with something like distaste.
“It’s pretty gnarly looking,” he said as he thumbed through a few of the pages. “But the writing is good. It says Personal Property of the Third Reich on the front. Sounds like a mystery to me.”
Phillip had a way about him. He was not personable like the rest of the team, but he did like to kid when given the chance. To know that he had a skill that was useful practically turned the man into a ham.
He scanned through the pages for a few moments trying to find the indicators that gave Cynthia the impression the book was a log. The book did look like something that had been used to catalogue; it had tables and numerals, lists and handwritten entries beside them as well.
“Well,” Phillip said after a few minutes of thumbing through the book. “Here is the ‘Jewel of Babylon’. Cynthia is betting that the orb depicted here is the same that visited the Chinese shop we’re headed to. There’s a part in here for everything that was in the Berlin Museum of History in the year nineteen forty-two as well as catalogue numbers, stock numbers, and library references. This book is probably as valuable as that ball of gold we’re searching for.”
“So the object John has been toting around is called the Jewel of Babylon, huh?” Marcus asked rhetorically. “I wonder where it got its name. Do you have any other information on it yet? I would like to know a little bit of background on whatever this thing is we’re after.”
Phillip shrugged. He was good with computers but even he could not work some miracles.
“Unfortunately, all I got was this picture,” he said, flipping to the page depicting the golden sphere then poking it with a boney finger. It was something they hadn’t gotten until recently and though Phillip and Henry might have seen it, along with Brenda because of her constant communications with headquarters, this was Marcus’ first look. “Cynthia shot me an e-mail en route to the airfield and I Googled everything I could on the name. I couldn’t find any information except that it has been missing since the end of World War II.”
“Wake me if you find anything important, will you,” Marcus said, rolling his eyes and turning his back on the pair. In a show of sleepiness, he put his hands together and tucked them snugly beneath his head. Unfortunately for him, the two operatives weren’t done pressing the issue.
“Wait just a minute,” Cynthia said, obviously insulted. “We have a lot of stuff to figure out by the time we get to China and you going to sleep is not going to help any of us.”
“Oh, all right!” Marcus said, exasperated. He threw a playful hand in the air in mock anger. “I need to talk to Bauss about what’s going to happen here and find Brenda some medical attention. You two work on this and give me the shortened version, will you. I’d like to know what we are dealing with but please don’t make it excruciating!”
Phillip tried looking indignant but failed miserably. He smiled, knowing he prided himself on detail, and nodded to Marcus as he got up and walked away. Cynthia merely shrugged and went back to studying.
She could care less what insults Marcus had to throw at them or why. Even if he was joking, she was more interested in figuring out exactly what significance the Jewel of Babylon held in history.
Henry was up near the front of the large jet talking on the telephone to someone back at headquarters. As Marcus approached, he shot a smile in his direction and plugged one of his ears to hear a little better. Henry was always putting things together and Marcus loved the man for it. It was his best attribute, being able to plan on the go and make accommodations for practically any scenario.
He hung up promptly after finishing up whatever details he had been laying. Two laptops were facing him on a desk that he was using in the would-be first class area. Henry would be researching just as much as the rest of the team, all while laying out the logistics of the next phase of the operation.
“I have Jeff Chang on schedule to pick you up at oh-seven hundred,” Henry said, looking exhausted. Marcus hadn’t taken into consideration how the trials of the day had affected the man. Deep creases in Henry’s forehead showed his age and black bags beneath his eyes belied the fatigue he tried to hide. “It will be you, David, and Stephen going to visit the shop. Bishop and Cynthia will have their hands full elsewhere.”
“Is that so?” Marcus said, surprised. “What’s up?”
“There were two murders and a robbery just reported and I’d like them to stop by and check the place out. Besides, Cynthia speaks Mandarin. Maybe she can get a handle on this guy.”
“What makes you think, in a city of almost two million people, John would be the culprit,” Marcus asked. The question was perfectly legitimate. Big cities meant crime and though Xian was not a metropolis, it was poor and dense and had a huge rural population.