Threshold

by Robinson, Jeremy

  He turned around to see how close the mantises were and found two dagger-lined limbs opening up to embrace him. With a violent, bloody death only a few inches and a fraction of a second away, King did the only thing he could: closed his eyes.

  The sound didn’t register until after the event took place, but King heard a close, wet sucking sound followed by a distant thunderclap as a single round was fired.

  King was struck hard and knocked to the ground, but his head was still intact and the attack did not continue. He scrambled up and found a headless mantis at his feet. King saw gore sprayed across the palace wall and traced an imaginary bullet trajectory back across the base to where a security tower stood.

  King knew of only one man who could hit a moving target from that distance.

  Knight.

  A glint of light from the tower flashed a message in rapid-fire Morse code: run.

  King obeyed as the brush near the top of the hill shook with the approach of the remaining mantis. His feet carried him swiftly down the hill. So swift, in fact, that he caught up to Bowers and maintained a healthy distance from the mantis. He could hear the distant sniper rifle shots being fired by Knight, but had no idea if he was hitting his target. So when they reached the bottom of the hill, which ended at a football field–sized stretch of desert sand, King gave Bowers a shove and urged him to move faster.

  As they crossed the sand, King looked back and saw the mantis exit the protection of the hillside brush. A round immediately struck one side and burst out the other. The mantis staggered, but then took flight, following an erratic flight path that was impossible to predict.

  As they approached the edge of the ruins, King said, “Head for the back. There are two people inside that can help. Just keep moving until you find them.”

  Bowers looked at King, his eyes wide with fear. “Why are you telling me all of this? Tick on dick, remember?”

  “Because we’re splitting up,” King shouted.

  The ruins loomed before them. Though he could only see the arched entrance and the halls that led to the left and right behind it, King knew the ruins were a labyrinth of open halls, chambers, and atriums. “I’ll get you over that first wall,” he said to Bowers. “Then you’re on your own.”

  Bowers gave a grateful nod.

  Then they were at the dull brown wall. It stood eight feet tall. King clasped his hands together. Bowers stepped onto King’s hands and working together, they launched him up and over the wall. “Good luck, man,” Bowers said after landing.

  But King had no time to reply. The flying mantis descended toward him. Adapting to its prey, this mantis was going to attack from the air! But it didn’t attack. Instead, as the hum of its clear wings grew intense, the insect rose up and over the eight-foot wall.

  “No!” King shouted. “Bowers, run!”

  But it was too late. As the giant predator descended on the other side of the wall, Bowers let out a scream. The shrill sound turned to a wet gargle. Silence followed, then the sound of something tearing, followed by more silence. King had seen the mantis in action and knew what happened. Bowers had been impaled, pinned to the ground, and then left. The mantis was still on the hunt.

  King ran to the left, entering the maze. Before he reached the first turn, he heard the telltale clack of the mantis walking on stone, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

  King tore around the corner, weaving his way through the chaotic ruins. An opening in the wall to his right opened up into a courtyard. Bowers lay in the center of the space, his eyes glossy, his body surrounded by a pool of dark red blood. King pushed forward and spilled from a hallway into what had once been a kitchen. He leaped over the three stone stairs that descended into the room and then over the three-foot foundation to exit on the other side.

  As he ran past an open doorway, he caught sight of an aberration in the wall. Then he was struck in the side and sent sailing. He slammed into a wall, tearing ancient bricks away as he attempted to stop his descent. But the wall was old and weak. He toppled over, landing on his back.

  Loud clicks filled the air as the agitated insect wiggle-walked into the hallway. King pushed away, sliding on his back. But there wasn’t far to go. The hall ended at a ten-foot-tall dead end just a few feet behind him. He got to his feet, hoping to dodge the mantis’s strike, and then? He had no idea.

  A loud whistle caught his attention. Looking beyond the mantis, he saw Queen, XM25 aimed straight for the mantis’s back. But the high-caliber rounds would pierce the mantis and strike him as well. “Down!” she shouted.

  King hit the deck hard.

  The mantis struck.

  The roar of automatic gunfire filled the air.

  Pain lanced through King’s body, but being impaled by a score of daggers didn’t hurt as much as King thought it would. He looked up to find a bullet-ridden mantis standing above him. Its back was arched back in death. The spikes lining its forearm had merely grazed his leg, opening a shallow cut. King dodged to the side as the massive insect toppled over. He fell forward as he ducked the flailing limbs of the dead mantis. He landed hard and rolled onto his back. With the beast immobilized, he lay still, breathing hard. Anger coursed through him.

  “You okay?” Queen asked, looking down at him.

  “It killed Bowers,” he said. “He was a good man.”

  A gloved hand reached down to help King up. “Good men die every day,” Alexander said.

  King ignored his outstretched hand and took Queen’s instead. She pulled him fast. He turned to Alexander. “Not on my watch.”

  Bishop arrived a moment later, KA-BAR knife drawn and ready to use. Seeing the dead insect, he sheathed the knife. “What is it?”

  “A breadcrumb,” King replied. “They were here.” He pulled the ruined insulin pump from his pant pocket. “She was here.”

  And with all the mantises now dead, he turned his attention to the problem still at hand. “Did I hear Knight correctly? The tower isn’t here?”

  Bishop shook his head. “It’s not.”

  “Shit,” King muttered, rolling his neck as it tensed. If they didn’t find Fiona and soon …

  Bishop’s strong hand on his shoulder stopped his rising anger. “But I think we have someone who can point us in the right direction.”

  SEVENTY-TWO

  RAHIM RIFFLED THROUGH a stack of paper, looking for a map he keenly remembered but had no idea if it still existed. The four large, serious men and one woman standing behind him, arms crossed, faces grim, fueled his urgent search.

  They had found him right where they left him, standing by the river. When he heard the gunfire begin he ducked down and hid at the side of the road. Not knowing what the conflict was about or who it was between, he wanted to look as innocent and nonthreatening as possible. So he waited.

  But when they did find him, all of the politeness and patience was gone. They needed an answer to a single question and they wanted it now. There was no threat included with the question, but Rahim could feel the tension from the one they called King.

  He searched a new box and opened a journal. Recognizing the handwriting of the man he’d assisted for three years gave him some relief. He was on the right track. “I think this is the right box,” he said.

  King sat down next to him and spoke in Arabic. “I don’t understand. Most people believe the Tower of Babel is here in Babylon, that it might even be the reason for the city’s name. Why would someone think it was in Turkey?”

  As he flipped through the stack of pages inside the box, Rahim said, “Photos. From NASA. They showed evidence of a large, ancient construction project. But where you’d expect to see exactly what was built, there was only a mountain. Furthermore, a reinterpretation of ancient texts also lends credibility to the theory. The Targum Yonathan, an Aramaic version of the biblical accounts, states that the tower was in the ‘land of Shinar,’ which is now the Pontus region of Turkey, near the Black Sea.”

  King turned to Knight. Check in wit
h Deep Blue. See if we can get satellite imagery for the Pontus region of Turkey.”

  “Will do,” Knight said before exiting.

  “Furthermore, many academics believe that this region is also the birthplace of most modern languages. Texts and verbal traditions can be traced back to Pontus.” Rahim saw a folded map marked in red pen. He recognized it and yanked it out of the box. He smiled wide as he unfolded it. “Here it is!”

  He laid the map out. It was a modern map of Turkey, but had been written on in Arabic and a small location—a mountain—had been circled in red. Next to it was Arabic text: which translated as Tower of Babel.

  “This is a mountain,” King said. “There are no sands to bury a ziggurat. Wouldn’t there be some evidence of it on the surface?”

  Rahim pointed out the mountain’s rounded, flat top. “At some point in the distant past this mountain was a volcano. It’s possible the tower was buried, or destroyed, in an eruption.”

  “Buried beneath a pyroclastic flow,” King said. “Like Pompeii.”

  “Exactly,” Rahim said.

  “Is it possible Ridley figured all this out?” King asked, looking at Alexander.

  “When he determined that the Tower of Babel was not here, assuming this theory was published, he would pursue it,” Alexander replied.

  “Has the theory been published?” King asked Rahim in Arabic.

  “It’s not widely known,” the man said, “but I do believe it has been published several times since our search here ended.” He became nervous and fidgeted with his hands.

  King noticed. “What is it?”

  “You said a name,” the nervous Iraqi said. “Ridley.”

  King, Queen, Bishop, and Alexander tensed. “Yes,” King said.

  “The man who funded our search here. His name was Richard Ridley.”

  King nearly fell over. Ridley had been searching for Babel before he was even on their radar, before the mess with Hydra. And after all his searching, he’d found what he was looking for. “How deeply was he involved?”

  “He would visit once, maybe twice a year. One time he came with Saddam himself. But that ended in 2003, when”—he motioned at the mass of boxes around him, but seemed to imply the base as a whole—“all this happened.”

  “And what about the Hanging Gardens?” King asked. “Did he know about them?”

  Rahim shook his head. “The site was discovered just before the war. I don’t believe he ever knew what we believed was buried there.”

  Which is why he looked for the tower there, too, King thought. But when he didn’t find it, he set up shop temporarily and then moved on.

  “And he wouldn’t have been told about the site in Turkey?” King asked.

  “It was just a theory some of the archaeologists held and had nothing to do with the dig here,” Rahim said.

  King nodded. It all made sense.

  Light filled the room as Knight returned. “We’ll have a satellite over the area in twenty minutes and we’re cleared for a drop in Turkey. The Crescent is en route. We can be on the ground inside of three hours.”

  “Thank you, Rahim. We’ll send someone to pick you up,” King said as he took the map and headed for the door. The others left ahead of him as Knight held the door.

  Knight stopped King at the door. “Something’s going on back home. Deep Blue didn’t sound like himself.”

  “How’d he sound?” King asked.

  “Distracted.”

  King knew about the media blitzkrieg back home and wondered how Duncan would handle it. If his distraction was noticeable on the phone, then he must be close to a solution. The man could handle just about anything thrown at him. He’d come up with a solution. He just hoped the solution would be permanent. The team needed Deep Blue. He ran the show for a reason. He couldn’t help wondering how things would have worked out if Duncan had been on board as Deep Blue. Rook might not be M.I.A. The dead Delta operators might still be alive. And Fiona might already be back in his arms.

  But there was no time to think about Duncan. He’d figure out the problem without his help. Fiona, on the other hand, needed King, and needed him now. He stepped past Knight and headed for the waiting Hummer.

  SEVENTY-THREE

  Location Unknown

  THE BACK WALL of the cell was cold and filled Fiona with a chill that pocked her skin with goose bumps. Despite the cold, she did not move. She didn’t have the energy and the cool stone helped reduce her rising body temperature. The hyperglycemia, now unchecked, exaggerated the effects of the second threat to her life—dehydration.

  Her throat stung to the point where every swallow was agony. As there was no saliva in her mouth to swallow, she tried her hardest to avoid the natural reflex. Her lips were swollen and cracking. Her dry skin felt like old fabric, and the itch was maddening. But most disturbing to Fiona were the changes going on inside her body.

  Her heart occasionally palpitated. She pictured it struggling to pump sludge through her body. Her breath seemed to never fully appease her body’s need for oxygen. She figured her drying lungs couldn’t absorb as much. And her stomach … Despite being empty she felt a rising urge to vomit. She expected she would only dry heave, but dreaded the pain it would bring her contracting throat and cracked lips.

  She closed her eyes, fought off a wave of nausea, and focused on what she’d learned in the hours since the woman had been shot. There were now four men in the space beyond her cell. Alpha, Adam, Cainan, and Mahaleel. Based on their conversations, it was Cainan who had brought her here. And it was Adam’s wet voice she’d heard earlier speaking in uncanny unison with Alpha.

  They had discussions about genetics, of which she only understood bits and pieces. They spoke of ancient languages and the power they contained. The powers of creation. The future world remade.

  She had listened to Alpha instruct the others on how to use the ancient tongue. She heard countless phrases, and tried to remember what she was hearing, but it wasn’t possible. So she focused on the one she thought would be most useful, the one spoken casually by all when the services of the conjured stone monsters were no longer needed.

  But her body was failing and unless she could call forth a spring from the stone, she would soon die. But that was just as well. If she were dead they couldn’t experiment on her. They couldn’t control her. They couldn’t have her kill her father. Death was preferable, so she laid back, closed her eyes, and accepted it.

  Darkness closed in around her vision. A faint ringing grew louder, then faded. She felt each beat of her heart, slowing. In the absolute darkness that followed, she heard a voice.

  The voice of the devil.

  Calling her back.

  The words came as a whisper, pulling her from unconsciousness, from death. Her eyes opened. A large bald man knelt above her, his lips moving. She couldn’t read his lips, but knew he must be speaking the ancient language she’d heard before because her body was responding to it. She felt herself growing stronger. The pain eased. Her thoughts cleared.

  And then a canteen of water was offered.

  She took it and drank. At first the cool liquid stung her throat, but it was unnaturally absorbed into her body. With the canteen drained, Fiona stood to her feet feeling fully replenished. She had been on the brink of death, but Alpha had pulled her back.

  He’d saved her.

  “Praise be to Alpha,” she said, then knelt at his feet.

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  Washington, D.C.

  FOR THE FIRST time in a very long time, Duncan felt at peace. Some people experienced this feeling after quitting a stressful job, or breaking up with an overbearing partner. In every case the emotion experienced is the same: freedom.

  “I can’t believe we did this,” Boucher said, staring at the flat-screen TV. The pair had holed up in the situation room because they couldn’t be seen together. Not now. Not for a very long time. To the rest of the world they were political enemies.

  After watching Marrs call the
press conference, Boucher had snuck back to the White House to watch the fireworks start.

  Duncan looked at his CIA chief. “We did what needed to be done. It will all work out for the best.”

  There was no arguing that. Duncan had thought of everything. And the world would be better off for it.

  The last part of the plan required no paperwork. No signatures. No trail.

  Black ops were like that sometimes.

  And the Chess Team would become the blackest of all black ops. Their operating budget would be lessened, but still substantial and one hundred percent under the table. They would lose their all-access pass to military support, but they could operate with total anonymity and freedom. No red tape. No political repercussions. They would retain a flight crew from the Nightstalkers, two stealth Blackhawks, the Crescent, and a handpicked staff of scientists, weapons experts, and intelligence operatives. The former Manifold Alpha facility hidden beneath a mountain in New Hampshire’s White Mountain region would become their base of operations.

  And no one, not even the future president of the United States, would know they existed. Outside of the expanded Chess Team, just Boucher and Keasling would know the truth.

  Only one task remained unfinished. Duncan needed to assume his role as Deep Blue, permanently, and step down from his position as commander in chief. And for that to happen, Marrs had to fulfill his end of the deal.

  Boucher switched on the wall-mounted TV and sat down on one of the couches. The press conference was just getting under way. The crowds from the recent rallies were all there cheering. And at first they were as fervent as ever. Even more so when Marrs launched into his claims. But when he offered his proof in the form of authentic documents and the future testimony of Dominick Boucher, the crowd fell silent. The reality of Duncan failing so miserably set in hard and took the wind out of their sails. Even Marrs looked sad.