The Solomon Key

by Shawn Hopkins

  Or something like that.

  But as Scott followed the men in front of him, concerns were being raised by his conscience — concerns about the fate of the prisoners they’d be leaving behind and of the community that was sure to be targeted as a result of their raid. Malachi would use the old adage, “the end justifies the means,” or the one about the greater good. Both of which could not erase the simple fact that real innocent people were going to be slaughtered. He adjusted the silenced submachine gun that was slung over his shoulder.

  The Mossad had equipped him with black attire — jacket, pants, boots, flight gloves, and ski mask. They’d also given him the submachine gun, a silenced pistol, three grenades, a combat shotgun, and two knives. Clips for the submachine gun were tucked in sleeves across his chest, shotgun shells and clips for the pistol filled the ammo belt hanging low around his waist, and a knife was positioned at the base of his spine, another strapped to his ankle.

  It was around 3:00 AM by the time they reached the edge of the woods, the fence enclosing the camp just beyond. The snow was falling hard now, covering the distant mountains and the evergreens descending their sides in sheets of white. There was an open space of one hundred yards between their position at the edge of the woods and the fence running below the two guard towers in the corners of the camp closest to them. But the cloud cover would prevent night’s silver light from reflecting off the snow beneath their feet, and the heavy snowfall would hide their approach while also covering their tracks. Not that the guards in the towers would even be looking in their direction. They were there to monitor the happenings within the camp, not to protect it from some unknown enemy outside.

  Scott tried to recall his bird’s eye view of the camp from earlier in the day. He knew the train tracks ran east to west and passed the prison’s entrance, and that the large loading platform stretched along most of the front fence. Three large antechambers were constructed on top of the platform and led to fenced off areas within the camp, separating the men, women, and children. He shuddered, thinking of Jennifer stepping off the train and onto the platform, being separated and herded toward one of the three tunnels like an animal, standing in a line with women screaming for their husbands and children.

  Malachi gave a signal, and everyone readied their weapons. Another signal, and they were moving out.

  They took off in a straight line, moving fluidly as a single shadow gliding across the white floor. The two guards up in the towers were dead before the Mossad team even reached the fence, which wasn’t electrified and proved easy enough to cut through with a pair of bolt cutters.

  Once through the fence, two of the men immediately broke off in opposite directions toward the guard towers they’d just cleared, each climbing up into position. Then they coordinated a silenced attack on the guards that were standing in the two remaining towers across from them on the other side of the compound.

  Scott and the other dozen men stood still beside the fence, waiting for the towers’ new occupants to signal that it was clear.

  “Two targets, northwest corner.” The whispered voice crackled over the radio from one tower to the other.

  “Affirmative. One southwest, another walking your way.”

  “Got him.”

  Scott saw a muzzle flash up in the northeast tower. Then another. Two seconds later, and after a shot from the other tower, a third and final flash blinked through the quiet night.

  “All clear.”

  “All clear.”

  Scott followed the men in front of him to the southern corner of a large warehouse. From there they could see the front of the camp, the train tracks on the outside of the fence and the loading platform stretching out past the three antechambers to meet them. Scott could see signs on the fence designating specified zones. But whether they were for new arrivals or those moving on, he didn’t know.

  They broke into groups, one group heading for the other towers, another to search for the scientist, and the third group to find the computers. Scott was on the team designated to find the computers, hoping for a record of interns.

  Malachi was in front of him, two others behind. He had the submachine gun up tight against his shoulder, sweeping it back and forth through the night. They were moving north toward the back of the camp, making their way between the warehouse on their right and a few other buildings to their left, one of which was two stories high, its windows boarded up with plywood.

  The ground they were traversing was void of any other footprints, and Scott thought that strange. Just four guards in the towers, a handful of waltzing soldiers, no electric current running through the fence, no lights, and no LZ for a helicopter? No wind markers, no dogs…

  They came upon a row of trailers lined up against the back fence, one of which had a light glowing from inside. Malachi ran up the wooden steps leading to the trailer’s door and spun his back up against the wall beside it.

  Scott went to the opposite side of the door where he could try the handle. It was unlocked. He pushed the door open a centimeter, just far enough so the latch remained free from the wall. A line of light filled the crack. He flicked the night-vision off.

  He raised a finger. Two. Three.

  He kicked the door open and spun back out of the doorway as Malachi quickly went in with the other two agents on his heels, their silenced weapons coughing.

  By the time Scott got in after them, an NAU officer was lying on the floor next to a desk, blood pooling around his head. The room contained some filing cabinets, a bookshelf, and a multi-touch desk that was already being worked on by an Israeli agent.

  As everyone stood around the computer table, Scott went back to the door and stared out across the grounds, thinking. He remembered the agent in the helicopter telling him the camp was positioned over an underground facility…

  “I’m in,” declared the one working the touchpad.

  Scott turned and looked at him, held his breath.

  “Melisa Strauss,” Malachi whispered, pointing at the image before them.

  Scott took a step toward them. “What did you say?” He walked over to the desk, suspicion in his eyes. “What’s going on?” He found it hard to believe that the very woman who’d stolen the ring from the government just so happened to be here too.

  Malachi’s gaze lifted to take in Scott’s concern. “She was the one who brought the ring into the country. She was part of the research team preparing a diagnostic report on it for the NAU.”

  “I know who she is.”

  “She could know how it works.”

  Because the Messiah wouldn’t be able to figure it out when He got here, would He? “Where is she?”

  The guy at the desk answered. “General population. The ground floor of the two-story building.”

  Scott pointed back to the monitor. “And what about my wife?”

  His fingers danced over the glass surface, each letter button he pressed lighting up in response. He shook his head. “She’s not listed here.”

  “What?”

  “We may be too late,” Malachi whispered.

  No. Turning, Scott hit the button on his goggles, activating the night-vision, and ran out of the cabin. He sprinted toward the two story building, passing one of the Mossad teams that seemed to have the NASA scientist already in their custody. Reaching the doors, aware that Malachi and the others were following behind, he pushed them open and entered a world of cruelty.

  Bunk beds lined both sides of the walls, and he paused only long enough to glimpse the green faces occupying the beds. His heart was pounding in his chest as he moved frantically from one bed to the next. “Jennifer!”

  The residents began waking up, stirred out of their sleep by the commotion.

  “Jennifer!” he yelled, growing desperate. But only the nutrition-deprived faces of women he didn’t recognize stared back at him, their eyes glowing in the night-vision like ghosts ready to exact their revenge on him — for the part he’d played in making this degenerated world of
theirs come to be. Trying to ignore the impending judgment it reminded him of, he burst through another door and entered another section of the building. More bunk beds sleeping more women. “Jennifer!”

  “Over here!” someone called out in the darkness. “I’m Jennifer!”

  He raced to the voice, to the godforsaken bed it was coming from.

  But it wasn’t her.

  He swore, leaving the woman groping in the darkness of her world for a hope that would never be. He kept calling out.

  And then he saw Melissa Strauss.

  She was just getting up to her elbows, trying to make sense of what was happening. He ran right past her. But a second later, he could hear Malachi and the two other agents wrestling her from the bed, taking her out into the snow. He didn’t care. He just continued searching beds, beds that were running out. No. This couldn’t be happening. She had to be here. He needed her to be here. “Jennifer!” he screamed again.

  The next door he went through took him back outside. No! Turning back, he searched for the stairs to the upper floor, and after finding them took three at a time.

  Just the male population.

  He felt dizzy, his world spinning. He leaned against the wall for support, making his way back down the stairs. “Jennifer!” He stumbled outside just as Malachi and nine others, the scientist in their possession and helping Melissa along, ran past him. Feeling the picture of his wife in his pocket, he ran after them, hoping the scientist might recognize her.

  He caught up to them at a tool shed. Except, upon entering, he saw no tools of any kind. Instead, the Mossad agents were all standing around the scientist as he worked a series of buttons on a concealed keypad against the wall. Then the floor suddenly retreated at his feet, revealing a descending staircase. The scientist led them all down into what Scott assumed was the underground facility, though the reason why they’d be heading down there wasn’t entirely clear to him. They had everything they’d come for… except his wife, of course.

  They came to a large steel door at the bottom of the stairs, and the scientist slid an ID card through a slot on the wall beside it. The door opened, and they descended another short flight of stairs before coming to another, even larger door. This one required the scientist’s eyeball, voice, name, access code, and fingerprint. The large vault-like door swung outward with a beep, revealing yet another stairwell — three flights descending down into the earth, cinderblock walls surrounding them, emergency lights flickering above.

  Pulling the night-vision goggles from his head, Scott stole a glance at Melissa, able now to see her more clearly under the artificial light. She looked terrified, a far cry from her NAU identification photo the news had posted when tagging her as a terrorist. Big black circles surrounded her eyes, her skin pulled tight against her cheekbones and neck. She wasn’t completely coherent.

  Coming to another door, the scientist turned and looked at Malachi, whispered, “There’s a guard on the other side of this door. I’ll swipe my card, and the door will release. I’ll go in and walk past him, get him to turn his back to the door. Then you can do whatever it is you do.”

  It was pretty clear now that the true reason for them being here wasn’t just to get this guy. They were here to do something else, and the fact that Scott hadn’t been informed about what that was had him uneasy. He was also the only one on the team not equipped with a radio.

  The scientist was old, what hair he had left was whiter than the falling snow, his shoulders hunched forward with what Scott knew to be a burden of shame, his heavy eyes revealing as much.

  “There’s a long corridor stretching north and south, connecting the laboratory with offices, barracks, and quarters. The whole sublevel is networked into the surface, most buildings having a way up and down.” The scientist swallowed. “At the end of this hall, there’s another door. Behind that door is a long corridor, and there’s usually one or two guards patrolling it. We’re going south, or left. I don’t advise going right. Fifty sleeping soldiers are that way.” Taking another breath, he continued, “There’s another door in the corridor, and then the one that leads into the lab. You’ll be going in at six o’clock, west. A guard will be on the other side of the door, positioned at the top of the stairs. To the right, or five o’clock, is another door and staircase with a guard. Directly beneath you will be a long conference table. There are usually two scientists working through the night and two patrolling guards. Once you get what you need, there’s an elevator on the east wall. It’s a freight elevator they use to transport the subjects, and it’s connected to the warehouse. You may have to take two trips.”

  “What about the biohazard protocols?” Malachi asked. “Are we able to gain access to these levels?”

  “Given the nature of the work conducted here and the complete lack of government oversight, such regulations are irrelevant.” And then he remembered something else. “You should know that every soldier has the ability to sound an alarm.” Then he dipped his head and swiped the card, releasing the door. He stepped through it and allowed it to close most of the way behind him.

  Malachi slowly pushed the door open, once they could tell the scientist and guard were walking away, and shot the soldier in the back of the head. The agents went to retrieve the body, dragging it out of the corridor and into the stairwell.

  The scientist looked unmoved by the violence, his soul hardened by whatever it was he had been doing here. He was already at the end of the hall and swiping his card again, pressing his thumb onto a shiny surface and orally dictating a code by the time Malachi and company caught up to him. Once the door opened, the scientist entered the next corridor, looking left and right. He waved a hello to the right. “I’m sorry,” he called out, “but I think something might be wrong with the door down here.” He pointed behind him, to the other end of the corridor and the entrance to the lab.

  A few seconds later, a guard walked straight past the door hiding Scott and the elite Israeli team.

  Malachi stepped out into the corridor and again shot his target in the back of the head, the process of hiding the body being repeated before continuing on to the “lab.”

  Before they reached the door, however, Scott grabbed the scientist by the arm and asked through his mask, “What is this place?”

  The scientist looked confused, by both the question and the American accent asking it. “It’s a research facility.”

  “Sponsored by whom?”

  “It’s not officially sponsored by anyone.”

  “Unofficially?”

  “The men who comprise our World Government, of course.”

  “The NAU?”

  “Such people as these are above territorial designations and their governing philosophies...”

  “Who’s running it?”

  “A secret faction of the new CDC is overseeing it.”

  “What’s going to happen to the prisoners?” Scott asked.

  The scientist shrugged and looked away. “They’re all implanted with microchips. They can’t cross the electromagnetic perimeter that surrounds the camp.”

  That would explain the lack of security, Scott thought. “What about her?” he asked, looking over to Melissa.

  “Hers has been removed.”

  “When?”

  But Malachi interrupted. “Let’s go.”

  While the scientist went to work opening the door, Malachi checked in with the four agents manning the guard towers.

  “All clear,” came the response through a blast of static.

  Scott could feel the tenseness growing in those around him.

  When the door slid open, it invited them to an even brighter length of passageway, and their black uniforms looked ridiculous contrasting it.

  “Remember, there’s a guard on the other side of the next door, another guarding the door on the right, and one standing down on the floor against the left wall. There are two patrolling guards and at least two scientists working. You need to take them all at once, or they’ll tr
igger the alarm.” The scientist raised his card to the mechanism beside the final door.

  “Wait,” said Malachi.

  He paused, hand elevated over the swiping mechanism.

  “How long will we have once the alarm sounds?”

  “Five minutes.”

  “And the alarm, how far does it sound?”

  “Like I said, this is a black site, and whoever the new president is, I guarantee he doesn’t know about this place. It would light up a few switchboards across the country, but outside response would take at least a day.”

  “Okay,” Malachi responded.

  The Mossad agents gripped tight their assortment of weapons, ready for a swift surgical strike.

  “What’re we doing here?” Scott quickly whispered in Malachi’s ear.

  Malachi brushed him off.

  They piled out onto the metal staircase overlooking the enormous room, shooting immediately. The guard that was standing right beside the door went backwards over the railing. A soldier standing by the elevator sprayed blood up the wall behind him while the third guard atop another metal staircase took bullets in the shoulder, chest, head, and stomach before he could react. The two scientists at the long conference table were dropped to the floor, their own blood covering their disgusting work. One of the patrolling guards had just enough time to raise his weapon but never got further than that. A line of holes punched through the dividing wall he was standing beside, tracing up and into his head, exploding it.

  “Where’s the other guard?” Malachi asked over his shoulder, his weapon aimed intently beneath him, covering the room.

  “No trace of him,” another responded.

  Malachi immediately began descending the metal stairs, sweeping the sights of his silenced M4 back and forth, searching for the last person who should be there.

  The last one out of the corridor, Scott stepped out onto the staircase and took in the sight before him. It was breathtaking, the magnitude of it overwhelming. The room’s glowing white floor was forty feet below, and it was the size of an aircraft hangar. It was divided into three sections by two standing walls, but the walls were meant only to separate, not conceal. The front of the room, a large open space stretching from the elevator doors on the left to the other staircase on the right, faced no obstructions. Sitting at the work table, those working from there would be able to look straight into any of the three stations. And what they would see, what Scott was seeing now, was science’s version of hell for all the unfortunate people strapped to the beds lined up beneath the low, blinding lights. Rows upon rows of beds, twelve by twelve in the center section alone, contained naked bodies, wires snaking in and out of them and running along the floor before connecting to the walls.