“Just throw it out. You won’t be criticized. Even if you do, just get on with it.”
The rookie took his time but finally said, “Park may think that we may not be able to help at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“This may be between forces too dangerous for simple town cops.”
Morgan let out a small laugh. “You need to stop reading those thrillers. Too much is always too bad. Its messing your perspective.”
“Be that as it may, I think we should send someone to find and aid Park. And someone else to wake up Nate McCain so that we can actually get a grasp of what’s happening here.”
“I’ll think about it,” assured Morgan. “Any luck with the recordings of the security cameras of the lab?”
“Not the way the guards are passed out. I’ve thought of an alternative to check it out. I’ll need your permission as it is not exactly legal.”
“When exactly do you think in terms of what’s legal?” The sheriff sighed. “What do you have?”
Quill leaned closer to his boss and spoke softly. “I’m sure the IT nerds at the tech repair store can hack the lab’s system. They were bragging about their ethical hacking secret life a month ago at one of my parties after a few shots. Wouldn’t hurt to try it out. We are desperate about this explosion, right?”
“We sure are desperate. But not that desperate. All in good time, Quill. All in good time. Tell Deputy Harris to go to McCain’s place across the bridge and bring him here with something useful.”
The rookie nodded and hurried away. Stan Harris, the aging deputy sheriff was managing the crowds. Quill pitied the old man as he had to go alone across the bridge that connected the island to the Alaskan mainland. Fortunately, Harris would get to once again visit the luxuriously large villa built with futuristic architecture and containing high-class art.
Edna Morgan went to the back of the lab, near the woods and found a forensics analyst processing the scene where a few bullet shells were found. She asked the analyst what caliber it was. When she found out that they were .40 caliber rounds’ shells, she began to think who she knew had that caliber of firearms.
A sudden realization made her feel stupid. Nobody in this town, including Park owned any firearms expect the cops, the security and McCain. And all of them had alibis, she assumed.
“Park’s on the line, ma’am.” Her thoughts were once again broken by Quill’s words. She saw him holding out a cell phone and approaching her.
“Put it on speaker.” She ordered well aware that they were away from the crowds gathering to see the blazing lab.
After Quill selected a few options on his phone, he said, “You’re on speaker. Tell the Sheriff exactly what you told me.”
Park’s panting, harsh yet low voice broke out. “Send your best men to follow the footprints behind the lab and into the woods. Two masked men who’re exceedingly well trained have stolen my research and are about to escape on a stealth hovercraft. That vehicle has a 50-caliber machine gun mounted on it and the assassins now have Night Vision Goggles. So clearly, I need help. Hurry up.”
The sheriff grew curious. “I’m not offering any of my men to you as cannon fodder. Where exactly are you?”
“I’m at the edge of the woods, near the coast. Dammit! The lives of your men aren’t up for debate. There’s more at stake than you realize. If the wrong people get their hands on what I’ve created, the world would go awry.”
“Then please enlighten me on what’s at stake. You were supposed to be making medicines.”
Park hissed in anger. “It is a damn medicine! But there are multiple applications for it. I can’t tell you because you’re better off not knowing things like this exist. It’ll curtail unnecessary hope or fear.”
“Shouldn’t your military buddies be handling this situation?”
“I don’t have any fucking military buddies anymore. You people are the fastest response I can count on. Please, I’m begging you. Send someone.”
“We don’t have any hot-shots who’d put themselves in danger to be a hero in this town other than you. I can pray for your safety. But that’s where I draw the line as I don’t act blindly.”
Park began cursing which bored Morgan and she looked away to find Quill, but found him nowhere. She turned to a forensic analyst nearby and asked, “Where’s Quill?”
The crime lab analyst replied, “He slipped by towards the footprints in the soil. By now, he’s far into the woods.”
Anger rose and fell within the sheriff. She broke in between Park’s curses to give him a sliver of hope. “Park, Dominic Quill has left the scene and is approaching your location through the woods. Keep this loose cannon safe. He has brains but is inexperienced.”
Park felt hope and replied, “Sure thing Edna. I’ve never lost a soldier under my command and never will.”
Saying that, he cut the call.
Quill’s not a soldier, thought Morgan.
5
Chapter 5
June 2nd
04:00a.m (A.S.T.)
Airborne
North-East Atlantic Ocean
Darkness. Can’t feel my limbs. Am I flying?
Where am I? . . . Ouch!
Something threw me off course with great force. OUCH!! That hurt. But where have I fallen?
Am I even alive?
I can feel my eyes. They’re too heavy. I can only get them partially open. Everything is a big blur. I think those are legs. Women shoes.
What the hell is happening? Can’t move or think. The cold air burns my right eye, nose and right collar bone. A wave of heat and pain is storming those areas. Head aches like a volcano. Need to fight this to survive.
But how?
Fear may help me. But, I’m weak.
Suddenly I feel my heart thumping loudly. Energy rushes into me through adrenaline. Eyes burst open, hands and knees take support and I rise to find myself in a familiar place and in known company.
“What’s happening?” blurt out Chris Flynn. He found himself in his mobile office, the Bombardier Learjet 75, a private luxury transport plane. Clearly, he neither remembered a shred of the fight with the two Templar assassins nor the call with the director of DARPA which had landed him a contract. The heavy levels of scotch he had consumed had deprived him of a memory he could never get back. He would never remember how he got his injuries. Some things would be a mystery in his books.
As he barely stood firmly and looked into the serious face of Neha Rao, he realized that his drinking had yet again caused problems that his logistics and operations manager had to fix with tedious effort. Flynn almost felt sorry for being a burden on her, though he paid her handsomely for her services.
Rao filled him in on the events of the previous night. As she neared the end, she read the question on his face which he was too weak to ask. What immediate problem occurred which made you wake me up so violently?
“I’ve been receiving numerous calls in the past hour from a Colonel who wants to brief you in on the situation. He also wants you to brief a few active teams on the Haemus Stone. It seems the Baltic range is gonna see only one side of the action. There’s a lot more happening, which we’ll know once you make contact with our clients,” said Rao and slowly helped Flynn into the very seat from which she had thrown him down to wake him up.
“Who’s the Colonel?” Flynn could barely talk as the adrenaline had drained away from his body leaving behind pain and weakness.
“He works for General Campbell and says that he heads a joint special ops branch of DARPA and the DIA.”
Flynn’s surprise brought in the energy flowing again. “Holy shit! This is something big. What’s our security support?”
Rao sat down opposite Flynn and said, “The same team we used on the Sudan job two weeks ago. The six-man team led by ex-Captain Patel with the same chopper.”
“I really like those MARCOS trained hard-cut commandos.” Flynn was referring to the Marine Commandos of the Indian Navy which was a
n all-terrain special forces group and equivalent to the Navy SEALS. “The private security contracting job exclusively for archaeologists pays them well. Let’s hope they’re enough. When this is over, I’m taking them to scale an Arctic iceberg.
“What exactly happened to the alleged Templars? They didn’t really die in your story.”
“The suite was cleared by a DoD clean-up crew sent by the General. Unfortunately, the assassins went to Gitmo. If you were sober, we could have interrogated them about the Templar treasure.” Rao sighed, bent down below the table and retrieved a laptop and a water bottle from a luggage bag. She placed the laptop on the table between them and handed the bottle to her boss.
Slowly, Flynn unscrewed the bottle and drank in long gulps by putting his lips around the mouth of the bottle making it look like he was devouring it. Finishing half of the big bottle, he got up, turned and said, “Prep a video call with the Colonel in fifteen minutes and make some steaming hot coffee.”
“Also tell the crew to make my usual breakfast and whatever you’d like,” he added and jogged towards the bathroom at the back.
It was compact yet luxurious. He stripped himself and entered the shower cubicle which was lodged into the wall. As he pressed a few buttons, water from the porous walls on both sides rushed onto him with overwhelming force and steaming heat. His body was neat except for a scar below his neck, just missing his spine. He had got it on his first archaeological expedition, when his mentor had literally back-stabbed him and left him for dead. Luckily, Flynn had never again crossed paths with the man who had given him that scar.
The heated water nudged his thoughts. Flynn wanted to be chasing the leads to the Templar treasure back in Havana. Instead he was here on a hero’s journey. His scar had taught him a lesson he would never forget.
Being a hero only creates pain and leads to more suffering.
After the soapy, steaming shower, he brushed his teeth, dressed himself in fatigues that he had bought in an underground store in Berlin and combed his hair.
When he finally stepped out, he smelled eggs, cheesy bacon and a spicy burrito, all of which he was used to. A plate of fried eggs and roasted bacon and cheese sat on the table at his place. Opposite to it was a half-eaten burrito being devoured by Neha Rao. Between the plates, lay the laptop facing her and beside it was the half empty bottle of water.
Flynn sat down and began hogging his food. His assistant barely noticed him. She stayed busy with her laptop and food.
The silence bored Flynn. But just as he grew restless, footsteps came from behind him. A middle-aged lady, placed a thermos mug on the table which smelled of good coffee. Flynn turned and smiled at Emily Carlos. She was the stewardess of the three-man crew which included herself and two pilots.
She went back to the small food storage area, not because she had work, but because she didn’t want to be privy to the conversation which was about to take place.
Flynn felt dizzy out of the blue and shut his eyes for a few seconds to calm his head. A few voices exploded into his head. It didn’t make sense at first but soon it did. He broke the silence. “I think I just recalled the conversation with General Campbell. He was pissed off at me. Did you tell him about my intoxicated state?”
“No.” Rao stared at him blankly. “Coffee does work wonders on you.”
“Never tell the General that. DARPA is too opportunistic and will surely misuse my body for the sake of research. Thank God, they don’t have a thick file on me.”
“You never know. I always wanted to work for them.”
They both began laughing sarcastically. Flynn’s subconscious feared some truth in her statement. Just as they stopped laughing, Rao shocked him suddenly with a surprise. Since it was at the wrong time, it sent a jerk through him. She turned the laptop, disconnected her headphones and said, “Chris, this is Colonel Harold Ryan and his strike team’s leader in the other window.”
Flynn assumed that the middle-aged man in a suit on the left side of the screen was the Colonel and the tall, well-built man in a BDU on the right was the strike team’s leader. He waved at them and continued eating, expecting them to begin.
The Colonel began, “The file General Campbell has kept on you speaks wonders of your skills and sometimes heroics. What I see doesn’t stand up to it.”
The enraged ex-SEAL coolly said, “Looks can be deceiving. Just say what you want from me. Being a mean hard-ass like the General doesn’t end in many happy endings. No offense as I didn’t mean anything related to his recent tragedy. You tell me everything I need to do and I’ll brief you on the stone’s history. And is that strike team for me? I already have one.”
“No. The Hounds team isn’t for you,” sighed the Colonel. “But you’ll wish that you had it. I head a task-force called COBALT that runs covert ops jointly for DARPA and the DIA. Also, on our call is Captain Damian Blood, the leader of the Hounds team. What do you know about any hostile force involved with the stone? Because we haven’t any clue about it. We only suspect the Serbian Turks. But all intel is hazy.”
“If you wanna get straight to it and not inform me about the Hounds’ objective, all right. I don’t like it. But, all right. Since we all have some flight time left, do you want me to go on about the ancient myths, theories and history of the stone or should I tell the most recent tales about it which may have an impact on what’s happening?”
Damian Blood spoke, “Just tell it from the start. Even I’m in flight. So, time can’t hurt.”
Flynn took a sip of coffee and said, “The Haemus stone has connections from Biblical tales to Greek mythology and goes on to create rumored legends in the crusades. In the latter it connects Templars, Ottoman Turks and the Serbian locals. This Blood stone has created miraculous tales throughout time.”
“What’s the Blood stone?” asked the former MARSOC soldier.
“Well, Haemus in ancient Greek literally means blood. There’s a whole lengthy tale about it concerning the final fight between Zeus and Typhon. But long after that, the Hebrews and the Latin people called it the Fruit of Life.”
“Holy Hell! Do you really mean this stone is the fruit from the tree of life on Eden where Adam and Eve first lived?” asked Blood whose curiosity was now sparked.
The Colonel broke in, “Flynn, stop throwing around things which amuse you. Assume that we know nothing about this and explain like it’s a seminar.”
“Sure thing Colonel.” Flynn nodded and organized his stream of thoughts. “First the Greek story. After the war between the Olympians and the Titans, Zeus’ glory was envied by Gaea as she felt bad for the Titans who were her kids. She was Zeus’ grandmother and the Goddess of the Earth. She mated with Tartarus, who’s literally the main prison in the Underworld, to create a mighty monster-Typhon, which could kill Zeus.
“Typhon was a gigantic winged monster with the lower body of two coiled serpents. His fingers had numerous serpent heads and he could breathe fire. He was so big, that his head was said to brush the stars. Soon he attacked Olympus with fire and made some of the Gods flee to Egypt where they were converted into animals. Eventually Zeus attacked him but was captured. Typhon tore the tendons off Zeus’ limbs. Hermes managed to fix those tendons in secret and they escaped. Then Zeus descended from heaven and rained thunderbolts at the monster. Typhon was severely wounded. Zeus threw Mt. Etna at the monster and trapped him below it. . .”
Blood apparently got bored and said, “What’s all this got to do with a healing stone?”
Flynn calmly replied, “I’ll get to it. During the final fight between Zeus and Typhon, some of Typhon’s blood is said to have fallen on the Balkan range. A group of historians a few years ago believed that the blood of the monster eventually became a stone over time and still exists. That’s why it’s called the Haemus stone or the Blood stone. Even the Balkan range during the time of the ancient Greeks was known as Haemus. Its healing properties may be connected to the fact that Gaea, the Earth and the mother of all gods had created Typhon.
”
The Colonel said, “That makes sense as it is a meteorite. A stone that falls towards the earth from space could be mistaken for blood falling from the heavens.”
Inside the Learjet 75, Flynn agreed. “Sure, now that I know that it’s a meteorite, the other tales make sense. Now, I know everyone here knows about the fruit of life, but I’ll still explain.
“During the events where the Devil came as a serpent and tricked Eve into sin which made humanity fall from Eden and come to Earth, there were two main trees on Eden. Atop that hill, closest to heaven, where Adam and Eve lived, the two special trees were the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Tree of Life gave a fruit every month. Each of those fruits when eaten would give immortality. The very group of academics which had interest in the stone believed that this stone is a fruit from the Tree of Life which somehow fell and landed on Earth. It might have dried up and become a stone.”
From the screen, Blood asked, “What happened to that academic group who were interested in the stone and how do you know so much about them?”
“I was almost a part of them. . .” Flynn hesitated but continued, “They went on an expedition to the Balkan range a few months ago to study more about it and I’ve never heard from them again.”
Colonel Ryan said, “What about the tale that occurs in the middle ages? That could be helpful.”
Eagerly Flynn nodded. “Now, this is not solid. But the academic group who disappeared had strong theories on this. Between the third and fourth Crusades, a group of soldiers from Saladin’s armies and the Venetian Empire, were off on a chase in the Balkans, continually reversing the roles of pursuer and the pursued. In the Venetian troops, were a few Templar Knights hiding undercover, as their order was purged and hunted down by the Vatican around that time. They survived and won with the help of a local village. The locals treated the wounded Venetians with a stone which they called the Blood Stone. The few Templar knights saw the importance of this miraculous stone and built a castle on the slopes of a mountain and secured the stone, breaking free from their Empire.
Alaskan Storm (Part 1 of Blood Stone Impact): A Taskforce COBALT Action-Adventure Technothriller Page 4