There Where the Power Lies (Monster of the Apocalypse Saga Book 2)

by C. Martens

  Now the Family would have so much power that money would be meaningless. In fact, the new robotic labor pool meant that human labor, and money, would be obsolete. The only exercise the survivors would get was in hunting game as it returned or in walking the earth as ultimate masters.

  Soon the time would arrive to reveal the secret to the rest of his family. Many would be appalled, most assuredly. But as survivors they would get over their angst. He would be hailed as the right hand of Allah.

  Chapter 5

  Surrendering his passport to the captain of the dirty container ship disturbed Andy. He was now committed. It was not good fortune that found this last minute berth. The man he was replacing had met with some well-placed blows and was going to be too late to see the ship leave port. The captain was glad to employ anyone that looked competent, and Andy was available. Of course his name was no longer Andy, according to his well-travelled and entirely counterfeit passport.

  Moving into the bowels of the ship, the new hand carried what little he required to make the crossing to Los Angeles. As he moved through the narrow confines, following a man that would show him his new quarters, he considered the last few hours.

  §

  Buru wanted to get home immediately. He would take the shortest and fastest route that he could find from Shanghai. He relied on speed to distance himself from the dangers of the royal retribution. Never asking, Andy knew that would be his strategy and wished he did not. If he were caught, he would not be able to divulge anything other than speculation, but that would be enough. Andy did not have any illusions about a man’s ability to keep secrets under the right kind of pressure. He shook Buru’s hand as they left the side entrance of the hotel.

  “Luck, Buru.”

  The black man grinned, “Yes, Andy, may Allah guide you as well.”

  They parted and walked in different directions.

  Hailing a cab immediately, Andy took a chance. A cab ride could be traced easily, but he had some business to do before he made any effort to escape. Speed was of the essence. Part of the information he learned from the interrogation was in relation to an antidote to the Arab plague. Although he had shared the information with Jimmy in their short but intense communication, Andy wanted to do whatever he could to assure that a possible cure was available to the FBI man.

  §

  As the taxi worked its way through the typical gridlock, making way to the airport, he made another call. One of his trusted friends, a man he had worked with in the past, was head of security for a man in Khor Fakkan.

  “Tooley…Andy. Hey buddy, I’ve got a high priority job for you. And when I say high priority, I mean the highest.”

  The hesitation on the other end was miniscule.

  “Talk to me Andy. What gives?”

  Andy thought he was prepared, but now he hesitated. His mind was suddenly in a whirlwind. Shaking it off, he made himself speak. Time was too precious.

  “Listen, Tooley, I can’t tell you everything I know right now, but this is DefCon 1 stuff. I’ll give you what I can later, but right now…and I mean RIGHT now, I need you to find a place out on the old highway toward Al Rifaisa Dam. It’ll be on your right. I don’t know the address or what it looks like, but it will have a medical lab and probably have some office space. Probably not too large, eith…”

  Tooley interrupted, “I think I already know the place. There’s been some strange talk about it.”

  “Good, you need to find a way into it and be able to get some materials out. It needs be done in a hurry, buddy. If you have to hire an army, do it.”

  Now Tooley really hesitated. He was well established in his job and enjoyed it. This kind of thing would end it. By the tone in Andy’s voice, there would be no time to finesse things and stay anonymous.

  “Andy, you and I go a long way, but damn, man…this is asking a lot. You’ve got to give me something. And partner, it better be good.”

  Knowing what he was asking, Andy spoke, “It’s a plague, Tools. An engineered plague. It’s already been released, and you have to find the antidote. It’s got to be given to people that can stop this thing. Ya gotta do it NOW.”

  Grinding gears and thinking quickly, Tooley asked, “Is this somehow involved with that Sheik, ah…ah…Akil? There’s rumors about him in relation to that building, too. He’s been seen there but nowhere else in town.”

  “Yeah, he’s involved. Listen, I don’t have time to convince you if you aren’t already, Tooley. If you can do what I’m asking, it’s time to shit or get off the pot. If you can’t do what I need, I’ll have to find another way.”

  Brothers in arms, Andy and Tooley understood what was being asked. Requests of this magnitude so rarely came to this point, that neither had experienced anything similar in their careers. But there were stories from the past, and this was what mercenaries masquerading as security men lived for in their hearts.

  “Consider it done, Andy. Give me whatever details you have, anything you think I should know, and I’ll deliver it by hand…if I can.”

  Soon the communication ended. Tooley had a description of what he was looking for and an address where the antidote was needed in the United States. He would be successful in attaining the ampoules but would fail in hand delivery. But he was intelligent enough to have a backup plan. A container, addressed to Jimmy Flynn and shipped overnight, arrived in the FBI mail room and sat undelivered to the addressee for two days. Not being marked “Priority,” the new hire clerk did not think it was important.

  §

  The airport was massive and impersonal. Andy paid his taxi driver extra and asked him to wait. Then he rushed inside and made his way to the area of the prior evening’s event. There was no remaining trace of last night’s festivities. Expecting nothing less, he asked a few questions and bribed his way into a storage area from where the event had been staged. Finding the water company pallet, Andy was relieved to see unopened cases still remaining. He grabbed a couple of bottles and departed in a hurry. The taxi driver knew where there was a package shipping facility.

  Using public transportation was a risk, and even more so a car with a driver that would remember a single passenger. Knowing that he would not need any funds to leave the country, and as soon as he had paid for the fastest delivery of the bottles to the offices of the FBI in Los Angeles, he shoved most of the remaining cash into the man’s hands. The taxi driver looked at him quizzically. It was a small fortune.

  “You need to know nothing about me if you are asked. I’ve put you in danger, and maybe this will help pay you for that. But the best way that you can be safe is to keep your mouth shut and forget you ever saw me.”

  Pocketing the money, the man understood. He would consider asking for money from anyone who approached him, if they did, about this man, but in the end he would simply deny any knowledge.

  The Sheik’s men would find him, but they were searching for a needle in a haystack, and the taxi was a straw in that stack. He lied well and decided to be content with the large bonus from his rider. The taxi turned out to be a good decision for Andy.

  Needing to put some distance between himself and anyone pursuing him, Andy made his way on foot through an open air market. Late in the day, the crowd was heavy. This kind of shopping was popular in the evenings with the Shanghai locals as well as the tourists. He was comfortable in his anonymity here, but he had to move on. Soon he was able to shed his suit and replace it with clothing that identified him as a European sightseer. Each item was purchased separately so those who were curious would have to ask too many questions, slowing them down. His small bag already held toiletries as well as his false identification, and the empty space soon contained another change of clothing as well. This outfit was geared toward work and came from the racks of used apparel. The only pieces of his original clothing that he kept were his underwear and his shoes. The comfortable footwear was too difficult to replace. Soon his fine shoes were scuffed and dirtied by intent. By the time he reached the far side
of the market, any casual attention paid to him would never recognize him as the man that had entered in the expensive, tailored suit.

  The docks and the massive ships loomed in the dark. The local bars were open all night, taking care of the trade they received from every port in the world. With a few well-placed questions, and some grease for the right palms, Andy found what he wanted. The man he chose would snooze his knockout off in an alley, in safety and covered against the night chill and prying eyes by cardboard placed over him. His funds remained intact, although his wallet was placed inside his underwear so that anyone finding him would assume he had been rolled. Andy only needed his berth.

  §

  Transferring planes in Mumbai, Buru waited for his connecting flight. If he had waited longer, he could have made a direct flight to Harare, Zimbabwe, but this transfer would save him many hours…if it worked. A plan going as expected was always questionable when traveling through India.

  He watched the airport crowd casually, confident that any pursuit had been shed in China. He would have to be cautious in Africa however. They would know where he was. That fear, of course, would probably dissipate after the plagues hit. His mind turned to the plan he was forming to isolate his family from any disease that emerged. There had to be a way.

  A hand on his shoulder surprised him. Turning, he was confronted with several policemen. Not prone to cursing, he berated himself nonetheless. He had been lax in caution, quite unlike him, and it spoke to his state of mind and the import of what he had been mulling over.

  Cuffing him, and with three men surrounding him on each side and behind, a high ranking policeman led them into a security room. When a couple of civilians arrived, the policemen disappeared, and Buru knew he was dead. He gave up little information, both because he knew little of what was asked and because his fabled strength served him until the end.

  §

  As a division chief, Ann Callagory had her own resources. She made contact with several of her sources, and an investigation was immediately under way. She asked to be informed verbally as things developed rather than in written transcripts as most information was passed. This case warranted immediacy, and there could be no delays. At least until it fizzled.

  A trip to her superior’s office was called for, and after a short discussion Ann’s boss suggested that she get in touch with the NSA. Even though there was always some amount of mutual competitiveness between agencies, the scope of the allegations in this case warranted disclosure. Besides, Ann would be asking questions more than offering information, playing her cards close to the vest until they knew what they were really dealing with.

  A nip from the bottle stashed in her lower drawer helped Ann deal with her stress. The alcohol helped, too, with the cold that she had been fighting since yesterday. The bottle was usually kept under wraps, only used in congratulatory celebrations when big cases were closed, but her head was stuffy and her lungs felt heavy with congestion. The alcohol would help, and she had calls to make.

  §

  Bluffdale, Utah, home of one of the largest NSA facilities, had grown over time into a major source of information to the LDS Church. The residents of the Salt Lake Valley had managed to stay almost fifty percent Mormon even as the city at large internationalized and expanded in diversity.

  Settled by white men of mostly northern European descent, the early settlers were encouraged to take native wives in an effort to spread their religious message through as many children as they could produce. The genetics of the Utes, Piutes, Navajo, and others were melded into the Utah population through polygamous marriage until the practice was outlawed by the federal government in the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862. The LDS Church largely ignored this law until 1878 when the Supreme Court upheld it by declaring that the Constitution did not protect the practice. Even then, especially in smaller communities, Mormon men kept large houses with “sisters” and other “relations” that enlarged the population and the membership of The Church with multiple children. As time passed, acceptance within The Church changed, until factions split off over the practice of polygamy.

  The product of a young Piute wife in a polygamous marriage over a century ago now sat contemplating his options. Over the generations the native aspect had disappeared until Orem Johansen looked as Caucasian as any full blood Swede. A hint of red in his thin blonde hair gave evidence to the fact that his beard would be auburn should he decide to grow it out. His blue eyes were pale in a sallow complexion, even though his mother’s had retained the Native American dominant gene and been almost black.

  If what Orem suspected were true, he should get this information up the ladder as soon as possible. Not to his NSA superiors, although that would happen as well, but to the investigative branch of The Church. Although his career within the NSA office had peaked early, The Church had recognized something in Orem from his college days. He had an amazing ability to gather information, coupled with an ability to extrapolate and compartmentalize. His scores on spatial reasoning were off the charts. This meant he could take what to most seemed insignificant clues and unrelated minutia and see how they played on each other until he could recognize future events in the making. Very few people realized this, thinking him an insignificant cog in the great wheel of the Federal government. But The Church fertilized and nurtured his abilities, and in the end recognized that he was one of their best assets. Orem Johansen was a spy.

  There is a long history of secrets within large organizations. Clandestine activity within governments is, of course, common knowledge. There is also vast evidence of secret societies within houses of higher learning and religious organizations.

  Perhaps as a result of the actions taken in Nauvoo, Illinois, as they were forced to flee their homes, the LDS faithful had more than their share of hard feelings. As the Mormons were viewed by many in Illinois as similar to gypsies, with unscrupulous business practices and a basic lack of trustworthiness, they had been expelled for reason. A secret organization, started against the wishes of the young Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, at least publicly, was peopled by hard core believers. They took their effort seriously and believed in blood atonement for crimes against The Church. This meant that all of the faithful had a vigilante militia that righted any perceived wrongs, as all members were viewed as an extension of The Church. The acts of the Danites, as the organization was called, fueled the growing rage of the maligned non-Mormons and hastened the eventual exodus.

  As the settling of the Salt Lake Valley and Utah progressed, one of the leaders of the Danites rose to prominence within The Church as an enforcer. Porter Rockwell had acted as a personal bodyguard for Joseph Smith and later, after Smith’s death, for Brigham Young who replaced Smith as the head of The Church. He was quoted as saying, “I never shot a man that didn’t deserve it,” and was labeled by the faithful, “the destroying angel of Mormondom.” As he was appointed a deputy U.S. Marshal, his results were never officially questioned.

  The Danites organization went underground within The Church. Although blood atonement was still seen as valid within the membership, they avoided questions about it and other practices that The Church wished to suppress.

  Several strategies that The Church encouraged actively, on the surface, seemed benign. Food storage, genealogy, and the monstrous granite vaults in the canyons east of Salt Lake City that were said to be storage for Church records, all had reasonable explanations. But anything reasonable can have motives which are not spoken of.

  The man that led the current Danites was high in The Church. Orem had an immediate need to report to him.

  Faking an illness, Johansen quickly departed the building and climbed into his new Fiat. The car hummed pleasantly as he accelerated. He charged it every night, so there was no reason to worry about the distance to Provo and back. Placing a finger behind his ear Orem made a call to an unlisted number, and speaking several code words and numbers, he connected with a secretary. The man took a request for time within the hour and aff
irmed that they would be waiting. There was no discussion of what was involved or what importance there was. If this operative, Orem, needed a personal meeting, arrangements would be made.

  What better place could there be for a clandestine organization than in the heart of where they processed and trained missionaries? Placed next to the Brigham Young University campus, every person that went through the program was assessed for their abilities, their faith, and their motivations. The Missionary Training Center was the perfect setting to absorb agents into a secret society that demanded absolute loyalty, in fact, an organization within an organization that demanded loyalty.

  Small cars populated the parking spaces. Economy being a hallmark of The Church until members could be placed in well paid positions and encouraged to show off their monetary success, the students of BYU and the MTC drove what they were encouraged to drive. Orem’s Fiat fit right in. He found a space in the midst of the crowd and parked. A small locust tree, one of many planted in the dividers, placed some shade directly on the car.

  Offered a Coke on entering the inner office, Orem accepted what had been denied by The Church in former years. One of the idiosyncrasies of The Church was that until the early part of the century, they had discouraged the drinking of anything containing caffeine yet owned a huge share of Coca-Cola. By the time the young spy sat down with his soda in hand, it was considered normal within the executive offices of the MTC.

  No small talk or pleasantries were offered with the drink, though. The silver-haired man across the desk flicked his fingers across the monitor built into it, and a screen on the wall woke up. A man of equally regal bearing noticed that he was now being viewed and focused on Orem from the wall. Neither elder spoke. They were here to listen.