Threshold

by Robinson, Jeremy

  Fiona sat up straight. “What? Why?”

  “You frighten them.”

  “I’m just a kid.”

  “Since your arrival, you have shown greater strength, knowledge, and resilience than any of them. They believe you are either here to watch us or are the cause of all this.”

  “What are they going to do? It’s not like you can have me transferred to another cell.”

  Elma just looked at her gravely.

  They’re going to kill me, Fiona thought. Her face filled with fear, but it was momentary. Anger came next. “You just let them try it,” she whispered through gritted teeth.

  Elma’s hands shot up in frustration. “You see! Even as these people plot to kill you, you show them to be cowards.” She sat quietly for a moment, then asked, “Where does this strength come from?”

  Fiona had never thought of herself as strong. She just got by. She adapted. Life on the reservation hadn’t been easy, starting with: “My parents died when I was little. I was raised by my grandmother. But I think I took care of her just as much as she took care of me.”

  “Life without parents can be tough,” Elma said, “but you—”

  “A year ago, my reservation was attacked. More than three thousand people were killed, including my grandmother.”

  Elma’s hand went to her mouth. The Siletz Reservation attack was well known around the world as the worst terrorism attack since the World Trade Center. “The news said there was a survivor, but never gave an identity. It was you?”

  As Fiona nodded, Elma reached out and touched her face, then her hair, as though to confirm that this little girl was in fact a Native American. “It’s no wonder you’re tough…” She stood up. “This will change everything. You don’t have to wo—”

  The chamber shook. The lights hanging from the ceiling swayed.

  As the pounding of giant feet grew louder, Fiona shuffled back against the wall. She knew the sound. “They’re coming for me,” she said.

  Elma looked at her, eyes wide. “Who is coming for you?”

  Fiona pointed in the direction of the noise, toward the back of the chamber. “They’re coming for us all.”

  The back wall of the chamber broke apart, falling into rubble. A tunnel was revealed. A whispering voice came from the tunnel. The crumbled wall shifted into two piles and began taking shape. As two hulking bodies of stone emerged, Elma filled her lungs to scream.

  * * *

  ALEXANDER CONTINUED HIS explanation. “Which takes us back to the very beginning and the very first recorded mention of a golem, ‘The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.’”

  “Adam?” King did nothing to hide his continued skepticism.

  “Adam is represented in the ancient stories of many cultures. Try not to get hung up on the Judeo-Christian baggage and try to see the truth. The Bible, and other sources, say that God spoke the universe into being. Light, earth, water, life, all came from His words. And man was formed from dust. We are all golems, but have retained the life imbued to us.

  “So this is what, the language of God?”

  “Call it what you want,” Alexander said. “But it is the protohuman language, and with the right speaker, it is capable of amazing, and terrible, things.”

  “Is that why you broke your promise,” King pointed to the entryway they’d come through, “to her?”

  “What humanity does to itself is of no concern of mine,” Alexander said, his voice suddenly harsh. “I, unlike some”—he glanced at Pierce—“am a protector of history.”

  Pierce had moved closer, his attention captured by the new twist in the conversation. “You’re an eraser of history.”

  “To preserve it, sometimes it must be forgotten. The past does not belong to the present. Should your grave be exhumed in a thousand years, would you want your body dissected, put on display, or any number of other crimes committed against the dead done to you?”

  King thought about how he felt standing over his mother’s grave. He understood Alexander’s point. Life was sacred and our bodies, in death, were as well. He also understood the man’s motivation. “You knew them,” he said.

  Alexander looked at King and then to the shining floor. “There are men I knew on display in museums. Men who would find the treatment of their bodies scandalous.”

  “But what about what we can learn from the past?”

  “What man learns, he soon uses to destroy. The fascination with uncovering secrets is simply a craving for power. And this situation is no different. The protolanguage was disseminated for a good reason. It should not be in the control of modern man. It is a rape of history that cannot stand.”

  “That’s it?” Pierce said. “That’s why you’ve been running around the planet collecting people? To keep someone from learning this ancient language?”

  “And to protect their lives,” Alexander said. “They are the last speakers of ancient languages. Their knowledge—their lives—are precious to me. Whoever is doing this is desecrating everything I have sworn to protect.”

  “Then you don’t know who’s behind the killings?”

  “No,” Alexander said. “Nor do I know how this language truly works. But I have identified a man—a genius physicist and former rabbi, who dabbles in genetics and biology as well, who might be able to—”

  Pierce suddenly stepped closer. He looked nervous. “Do you two feel that?”

  King trained his senses on the physical world around him. He could feel a gentle vibration tickling his body. He’d been so caught up in the conversation that he’d missed it. “Is there a subway nearby?”

  Alexander shook his head no, and stood to his feet. “The land is protected above and below.”

  “Protected from construction,” Pierce said. “But from attack?”

  “Every entrance is watched by heat sensors and motion detectors,” Alexander said. “There is no way in without my knowing.”

  “What if someone created a new way in?” Pierce asked.

  A flash of concern appeared on Alexander’s face.

  “Fiona,” King whispered.

  Alexander burst into motion, running out of the gallery, back the way they had come. King followed close at his heals, knowing the immortal man was going to protect the people he’d worked so hard to hide away. Pierce lingered a moment, not wanting to leave the room of archaeological treasures behind, but then followed.

  As they entered the maze of hallways the vibrations became intense enough that they had to stop moving to remain standing. When the shaking dissipated and the rumbling of stone quieted, a new sound filled the tunnels—a woman screaming.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Washington, D.C.

  PRESIDENT TOM DUNCAN sat at the head of an executive table in a West Wing conference room. Seated with him were twenty-seven advisors on everything from the school system to the space program—apparently every sector of the country was feeling the pinch. But none greater than the economy.

  “People are staying home,” Claire Roberts said. She was one of five top financial advisors. Her expertise lay in foreign investments and lending, but she was rarely ever wrong. “People are choosing to watch movies online rather than go to the theater. They’re driving less. Buying less. And if it keeps up, they’ll all start losing their jobs.”

  “C’mon,” said a firecracker of a man. Larry Hussey, Duncan’s domestic economic advisor, was eternally optimistic and, without fail, disagreed with Roberts. “Internet sales are up. Way up. The market will self-correct when the crisis is over. The American people are still consuming, just in the privacy, and safety, of their own homes.”

  Roberts sighed and looked at Duncan. “He’s right about Internet sales. The economy is hanging on, but it’s by a thread. Here’s the difference. When the average American goes out to buy a book, they don’t just spend eight dollars on a paperback. They spend between three and five dollars on gas un
less they’re driving a hybrid. They buy a chai latte or frappachino. A large percentage of those people end up eating at restaurants afterward and another chunk of people will go see a movie as well. To buy a book online requires no gas, shipping is often free, and there are no opportunities for residual spending.”

  “It might solve the country’s credit card debt,” Hussey grumbled.

  Roberts raised her voice. “The vast majority of online sales are made with credit cards.”

  Hussey slouched a little. Though the man would never verbalize defeat, Duncan recognized the body language.

  “That leaves us with the question of ‘why’ and the potential solutions,” Roberts continued. “The why is simple. In normal times of crisis, war for instance, people spend less money on nonessentials. Movies, books, music. Luxury items. All the entertainment industries take hits to the pocketbook. People feel unsure about the future and instinctively hoard a little bit. But what we’re experiencing here is something a little different. People are afraid to go out. They’re afraid to congregate in large groups because that might make them targets. After all, if Fort Bragg can be hit hard, what’s to stop the bad guys from striking a concert, or football game, or a packed movie theater? Even church attendance is down, and that normally goes up during wartime.”

  “Solutions?” Duncan asked. He hated the question because he had his own answer: to personally hunt down and catch whoever was behind the attacks. Instead he was stuck deciding what to do about the population’s spending habits. There might be ways to ease the problem, but he knew damn well that the only real solution was to rain down a healthy dose of Deep Blue justice.

  “People are afraid,” Roberts said. “We have to make them feel safe. Encourage cities to increase patrols. Address the nation. Talk about the progress being made in tracking down the ‘evil doers.’”

  “What progress?” Hussey said.

  Roberts rolled her eyes. “Exaggerate if you need to. The point is people won’t go out. They won’t congregate in places with other people if they feel like it puts them in the crosshairs.”

  “You’ll need to appeal to their wallets as well,” Hussey said. “Making them feel safe is one thing, giving them incentive to spend will pull people off their couches and out of their homes.”

  “Larry…” Roberts said. She apparently knew where Hussey was headed and wasn’t comfortable with it.

  He waved her off. “It’s a good idea, Claire.” Then continued. “Suspend sales and meal taxes for a week. Maybe two. Some people won’t be able to resist. And when nothing bad happens to them, the rest will follow.”

  “That would require a lot of state cooperation,” Duncan said.

  “Mm-hmm,” Hussey said. “We’d likely have to reimburse their losses. But it could prevent a financial meltdown.”

  “Sir,” Roberts said, trying to interject.

  But Duncan liked the idea. “Get it done.”

  Roberts sighed. It was her turn to deflate. “Why don’t you tell him whose idea that was, Larry.”

  Hussey’s face went pale.

  The door to the conference room opened. Duncan’s secretary entered and fought her way through the packed space. Duncan knew by the serious look on her face that she had an important message to deliver, but he needed an answer from Hussey, too. “Spill it, Larry.”

  “I thought you would have known,” Hussey said. “It was on the news.”

  “I’ve been a little distracted,” Duncan said. The secretary was almost there.

  “The idea was Marrs’s.”

  Fuck. Marrs was going to eat this up. Not only had he already committed to the idea in front of all his advisors, it was also a good idea. He couldn’t back out on it just because it came from Marrs first.

  His secretary whispered in his ear. He flinched, having forgotten she was incoming. “Dominick Boucher called. Wants you to make contact asap.”

  The nation’s economic woes took an instantaneous backseat. “Make contact. Those were his words exactly?”

  The secretary nodded.

  It was a key phrase they had established. It meant that Boucher needed to have a chat with Deep Blue. And that meant it was mission related, and, he looked at his watch, it was far too soon for the teams to have reported in. And that meant something was wrong.

  Duncan stood.

  A sea of voices rose up with him.

  Documents had to be signed. Approval given. The nation managed. And Marrs’s plan had to be put in motion. None of it could happen without his John Hancock.

  He stood rooted for a moment, torn between his conflicting duties. Manager and warrior fought a battle for his attention. His pulse quickened. He could feel it in his neck. The voices of his advisors were like needles in his eardrums. He had to take action. Every cell in his body cried out for it.

  But that wasn’t what he signed up for.

  He held out a hand, silencing group. “One at a time. Quickly.”

  As the first form was handed to him by Larry Hussey, the form that would set Marrs’s plan in motion, Duncan turned to the secretary and said, “Call Boucher. Tell him I’m digging a trench and will call him when I’m done.”

  “Digging a trench” wasn’t code for anything, but he knew Boucher would understand. No one liked digging trenches, but they could save your life when the mortars started flying. And if the crisis wasn’t ended soon, the skies would be clouded with rounds.

  * * *

  DUNCAN ENTERED THE empty situation room, hidden in a basement of the White House, and sat down at the head of the empty executive table. Using a small remote control, he dimmed the room’s lights and sat in darkness. After rubbing his eyes, he leaned forward on his hands, rubbing his temples. It had taken him forty-five minutes to sign all the required paperwork.

  In that time, the news networks had already caught wind of Marrs’s seeming ability to dictate presidential policy. And the press along with Marrs had brewed a firestorm. Marrs called the decision to use his suggested tax pause a smoke screen, an attempt to distract people from his failings. The man could turn anything, even his own ideas, into an attack.

  The loudest pundits called him a traitor. A warmonger whose policies on terror endangered the nation. Comparisons to Hitler and Stalin were casually hurled by men seeking higher ratings. Marrs led a rally in Washington, D.C., shouting for justice and shaking his fist.

  Duncan wanted nothing more than for Marrs to come to his office and try shaking that fist face-to-face. But instead he had to remain measured and calm. “Defuse the powder keg,” his advisors said. Settle. Appease.

  It was all bullshit.

  The man was brewing fear, contaminating the people with it and making sure Duncan’s assurances of safety were ignored. He would probably derail his own tax pause idea, too, but would not be held accountable for it.

  But every time the American public’s focus turned away, Marrs brought them back with wild allegations or bolder calls to action. The most recent one being impeachment. He’d heard the same call to action a year previous when the nation faced a killer pandemic thanks to a weaponized strain of the Brugada syndrome used in an assassination attempt on his life. He had taken drastic measures—quarantining the White House staff and hundreds of U.S. citizens against their will. The rumbles died down when a cure had been provided, but the whispers never faded. With new ammunition, the guns of impeachment fired again.

  He didn’t fear impeachment. It was a ridiculous notion championed by the minority. But they were loud and persistent. They kept the national attention focused on him, binding his actions. The fools were unknowingly crippling his efforts to find the people responsible for the attacks.

  He hit a second button on the remote. A blue screen lowered from the ceiling, stopping behind him. Once lowered, a bright light backlit the screen, making it glow and casting him in a silhouette that disguised his identity. He switched on the laptop in front of him and established a secure video feed with Dominick Boucher, who had been overseeing
the team’s latest batch of rescue missions. He stood in Delta’s tactical HQ and was surrounded by an array of stations with men and women watching satellite feeds, monitoring endless flows of information from news, police, and military sources around the world. It was the intelligence heart of every Delta operation. One that he normally commanded.

  Boucher’s white mustache twitched when he faced the screen. It was a telltale sign that things were not well. “Dom, what’s the score?”

  There was no “What took you so long?” No annoyance in Boucher’s eyes. The man knew the score: Deep Blue was the president of the United States and he sometimes had shit to do. Instead, he simply cut to the chase. “Bad guys four. Us, zip. We’ve been played. The authorities in Taiwan, Russia, Colombia, and Argentina knew we were coming.”

  Duncan’s mind spun, trying to figure out who knew enough to reveal their hand. The list was short.

  “I don’t think we have a snitch,” Boucher said, as though able to read Duncan’s thoughts. “We tracked down calls to several other countries that resulted in troop mobilization. All were on our list to hit next. Whoever did this only knew we would be looking, but not where we were going first. They were shooting scattershot, hoping to hit us.”

  “Which they did.”

  Boucher’s mustache twitched again.

  “How bad is it?”

  “Bishop’s team was captured, but escaped without being identified as U.S. military.”

  Duncan felt some of his tension slip away.

  Boucher quickly added, “But not before wounding seven Argentine National Gendarmerie soldiers.”

  His tension returned with a vengeance, squeezing the small of his back.

  “Queen and her team escaped after instigating a gunfight between the Colombian military and a bunch of drug runners. Both sides received casualties, but there were no reports of our team’s involvement.”

  None of this was good, but so far it was manageable. Any claims of U.S. involvement from these countries could easily be denied. But Boucher’s face grew grim. He had worse news to report.