The Cotten Stone Omnibus: It started with The Grail Conspiracy... (The Cotten Stone Mysteries)

by Lynn Sholes

  The Venatori agent brought the car to a stop and got out. “Wait here,” he said before walking toward the police perimeter. He spoke at length to one of the officers. Soon, he led what appeared to be a high-ranking officer back toward the Mercedes.

  Cotten, John, and Zanini gathered in front of the car.

  “Your Eminence,” the agent said. “This is Oberkommissar Heinz Gruber. He is in charge of the emergency response team. Oberkommissar, this is His Eminence, Cardinal John Tyler, director of the Venatori.”

  “A pleasure,” Gruber said in fairly good English.

  After shaking Gruber’s hand, John turned to Cotten. “Oberkommissar, may I present Cotten Stone, Senior Investigative Correspondent for the Satellite News Network. And this is Father Carlo Zanini, Vatican historian and advisor to the Venatori.”

  Gruber said to John, “I understand you were coming here tonight to meet with the museum curator to take possession of a valuable religious artifact?”

  “That’s correct,” John said.

  Gruber looked at each one of them. Then he said, “The Holy Lance, correct?”

  “Yes,” Cotten said. His question shot a pang through her, feeling colder than the freezing Vienna night. Even without hearing the details, she knew they were too late. Just as in Axum, the Fallen had arrived before them.

  “I must inform you that the artifact is missing,” Gruber said. “Not only has it been stolen, but whoever took it is responsible for the vicious murders of the curator and two security guards.”

  “What happened?” Cotten asked.

  Gruber gave her a grave expression. “What was done here tonight was heinous. These are the most brutal and savage murders I have seen in my twenty years in the National Police Force. The scene is too grisly to attempt to describe.” He shook his head. “I am close to being physically ill at recalling what I just saw inside the museum.”

  Cotten turned away from Gruber, not wanting him to see the tears of frustration in her eyes. The battle was never-ending.

  John nodded at Gruber. “Have a copy of the official report sent to my attention.”

  “By all means, Your Eminence,” the Oberkommissar said.

  “In the meantime, if there is anything I can do to help with the investigation, please contact me through the Vatican embassy.”

  Gruber rubbed his face as if trying to wipe away what he had witnessed in the museum. “Short of telling me who did this horrific act of brutality,” he said, “I cannot think of anything.” He extended his hand and shook John’s. “I will be in touch if I have any questions.” After a courteous bow, he turned and walked briskly toward the cluster of police cars and gathering media vehicles.

  Cotten pulled John aside, leaving the agent and Zanini by the car. A few paces away, she said, “We know who did this. But if we tell the Austrian authorities, they’ll have us locked up in the loony bin.”

  “Worst case scenario is that the Fallen have a portable version of the computer like Max’s, which means they could be slicing the thodium sample out of the Lance right now.”

  She glanced over at the SNN remote truck. “Max said that miniaturizing the computer down to a portable size was a big deal—that even the major research universities hadn’t accomplished it yet—only CyberSys. What if the Fallen still have to get the relic to their Hades facility? If that’s the case, there may still be time to stop them or find out the location. We need to put some roadblocks in their way.”

  “What have you got in mind?” John asked.

  “Let me have your phone,” she said.

  John pulled it from his belt clip.

  Cotten punched in a number. A moment later, she said, “This is Cotten Stone. I’m calling from Austria and I need to speak to Ted Casselman.”

  the report

  The President of the Russian Federation stood in his bathrobe and channel surfed. He had just stepped out of the shower and wanted to catch the news on a few of his favorite English-speaking stations before breakfast. As he towel-dried his hair with his left hand, he used the other to click the remote—his arm still in a sling from the bullet wound. Pausing a moment on the BBC World News, he moved next to the Satellite News Network’s headline news channel. He liked the SNN early morning female anchors because they were young, blonde, and always showed more cleavage than their Russian counterparts.

  When he saw his favorite SNN newscaster, he smiled approvingly. Appearing to be in her mid-twenties, she was saying, “. . . brutal and bizarre incident took place in Vienna last night and has made headlines across Europe this morning. It seems a religious object dating back to the Crucifixion of Christ was stolen from the famed Kunsthistorisches Museum, home of the Hapsburg Dynasty art collection. The robbers left behind virtually no evidence of how they gained access to the building, but during the robbery, the curator and two museum guards were viciously attacked and killed. With details from the scene, we go to SNN Senior Investigative Correspondent Cotten Stone, in Vienna.”

  The image switched from the blond to a shot of Cotten with a microphone in hand standing in front of the museum. Behind her, the building was silhouetted with the early morning dawn. A mass of police vehicles still cluttered the grounds.

  “Just after the museum closed last evening,” Cotten said, “a robbery took place that claimed the lives of three men—the museum curator and two guards. Their bodies were found by police who were called after automatic weapons fire was heard coming from inside the building.”

  The video switched from Cotten to show slow, panning shots of the interior of the museum—ornate, decorative, and opulent.

  “The police SWAT team swarmed the museum but found that the robbers had made a quick exit, leaving behind absolutely no clues. What the authorities discovered were the badly mutilated bodies of the three men. Unconfirmed reports describe a scene of extremely violent attacks in which at least one man was decapitated and another shot with more than fifty arrows. We learned that the curator may have died from multiple venomous snake bites to the head and neck.”

  The video changed to a close-up of a police officer. Beneath his image was the inserted text: Oberkommissar Heinz Gruber, Austrian National Police.

  “It was without a doubt the bloodiest murder scene I’ve witnessed in my years as a law enforcement officer.”

  “Do you have any leads to the identity of the killers, Ober kommissar?”

  “None whatsoever.” He shook his head in disgust, then turned as if being called away. “Excuse me,” he said.

  The image returned to the establishing shot of Cotten in front of the building. “So what was stolen? What was so valuable to warrant such vicious killings? An ancient relic known as the Holy Lance was the only object determined to be missing so far.”

  A file shot of the Lance taken from an SNN historical documentary series filled the screen. The camera slowly moved from the tip of the spear head down its length as Cotten said, “The Holy Lance, also know as the Spear of Destiny, is attributed to being the object used to pierce the side of Jesus Christ as he hung on the Cross more than two thousand years ago. Among the powerful historical figures that once possessed the Holy Lance were Constantine, Charlemagne, and Adolf Hitler. The legend of the Lance says that whoever possesses it holds in his hand the destiny of the world.

  “One theory is that it might be sought after in the highly competitive race to develop the first functioning quantum computer—a device that could render all security and encryption codes around the world useless. Some historians theorize that the Lance is actually made from a rare element called thodium, the extremely rare material needed for storage of data in a quantum computer. If this is true, then the stakes are extraordinarily high, and the Holy Lance might just be one of the most valuable objects in existence today—certainly for the handful of facilities developing the latest computing technology.

  “I’ve been told that inspecti
ons at all borders throughout Europe are being stepped up to help intercept and recover the artifact before it reaches its final destination.

  “The Austrian National Police are forming a task force to track down the missing artifact and locate the person or persons responsible for the deaths of these three men. They’ve assured me they will stop at nothing to solve this heinous crime. For now, this is Cotten Stone, SNN, Vienna.”

  The blonde anchor said, “Thanks, Cotten. Stay tuned to SNN for the latest developments in the theft of the Holy Lance, or you can visit us online at satellitenews-dot-org for up-to-the-minute news.”

  The president pushed the mute button on the remote before walking to his bedside table. He picked up the phone receiver and waited until his personal secretary answered. In Russian, he said, “Call the Satellite News Network’s Moscow office. Tell them I need to speak with Cotten Stone immediately.”

  anomaly

  The Satellite News Network anchor looked into the camera and read from the teleprompter. “The Time and Frequency Division of The National Institute of Standards and Technology reported today that a strange, never-before-seen anomaly occurred at midnight, Greenwich Mean Time, last night. For a few seconds, the atomic clock—the one maintained by the NIST and used to synchronize virtually all the computers, GPS, and satellite systems in the world shifted the current date into the future by exactly six hundred and sixty-six years. Before any action could be taken to correct the time shift, the system appeared to fix itself as the atomic clock jumped back to the accurate time.”

  The video showed an exterior shot of the NIST facility in Boulder, Colorado. A woman identified as an NIST spokesperson said, “Our engineers are working to identify the cause of the strange time-shift anomaly. So far, we believe that it was just a glitch in a new version of software recently installed. We want to assure everyone that the problem is being fully investigated, and we have no reason to believe it will occur again or affect the many systems that rely on us for proper time synchronization.”

  The image changed back to the anchor. “Thousands of extremely critical systems rely on the atomic clock for synchronization, including those used by air traffic controllers, global positioning systems, military protocols, and others. An error in the atomic clock could have serious global consequences if not corrected immediately—everything from cell phones to atomic reactors to ICBM launch coordinates. Some organizations are suggesting that the time shift of six hundred and sixty-six years, or the number six-six-six, has biblical or satanic overtones. Are they right? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. And coming up next, the latest sports scores.”

  _____

  Cotten stood in the main cabin of the CyberSys corporate jet and stared at the TV monitor. They had reached cruising altitude on their flight from Vienna back to Miami. “Was anyone else watching just now?”

  Alan and John were deep in conversation. Lindsay sat next to Tera as she and Devin played a board game. Max Wolf was engrossed in a project on his laptop.

  Everyone glanced at Cotten.

  “What did you see?” John asked.

  “A report on an anomaly in the atomic clock?”

  “What’s that?” asked Lindsay. “The atomic clock, I mean?”

  “Among other things,” Max said, looking up from his computer, “atomic clocks are the basis of the GPS or global positioning system. Each of the GPS satellites has an on-board atomic clock. They all synchronize with each other and the main clock at NIST to make sure everyone is marching to the same beat, so to speak.”

  “So what’s wrong, Cotten?” Lindsay asked.

  Cotten turned to face the group. “The report said something strange occurred last night. For a few seconds, the NIST clock shifted exactly six hundred and sixty-six years into the future.”

  Max shoved back his thick brown hair. “Did they say what caused it?”

  “Possibly a software glitch,” Cotten said.

  “Well, that could be, I suppose.” Max went back to his laptop.

  “Six-six-six,” John said. He got up and walked toward Cotten. “Interesting choice of numbers.”

  “Why do you say that?,” Alan asked as he followed behind.

  “Six-six-six is commonly known as the mark of the beast,” John said. “In the book of Revelation—the Apocalypse—it says, ‘Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast—for it is the number of a man—and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.’”

  “I remember that from the movie, The Omen,” Lindsay said. “It was on the boy’s head.”

  “Right,” Cotten said. “It might be nothing more than a coincidence, but now that we know about the Hades Project from Kai, this could have something to do with it. Max, you told us in Miami that it would take a global event to trigger the launch of the virus. Could this be it?”

  Max shrugged. “Maybe. The launch could be done with an unusual event that everyone assumes would never happen, like an outrageous time shift. All clocks, including the atomic clock, are set to GPS time. To alter the clocks would mean that someone working on the inside would first have to drop a virus on the government server and alter the system. Everyday, millions of computers call home by synchronizing to the atomic clock. If a computer had the Hades worm buried on it, when it saw the date change, it might be the launch event.

  “No one believes that the government’s main servers can be altered. So the momentary time shift in the atomic clock would be considered just a wild anomaly. But like I said, it would have to be done by someone working inside.”

  “How hard would it be for the Secretary of Homeland Security to plant someone inside a government facility?” Cotten asked.

  The realization seemed to hit everyone at once.

  “Not very hard,” Alan said.

  John said, “So, let’s say Mace did manage to plant someone inside NIST and they were able to infect the system. And let’s say the time-shift anomaly was the trigger mechanism for the millions of computers infected with the worm. What do you think would happen next?”

  Max said, “If it were me doing it, I would have the virus fool or eliminate the redundancy checks on the system.” He thought for a moment. “Or even better, just fool the humans at the controls—like an air traffic controller—into thinking there’s a problem when in fact everything is fine. Basic human behavior says that the operator would react to what he sees as a critical issue and make a correction. In reality, his correction actually creates a real problem.”

  “Like what?” Cotten said.

  “Let’s say he thinks a commercial airliner is a thousand feet higher than it really is,” Alan said. “There’s a good chance that when the plane attempts to land, it would plow right into the ground.”

  “Or some guy at a nuclear reactor sees a sudden and significant drop in core temperature,” Max said, “and overcompensates. Next thing you know, he’s shooting fuel rods on a direct course to China, and the property value around the reactor drops for a few thousand years.”

  “But wouldn’t there be backup checks?” John said. “Safety procedures in place?”

  “Sure,” Max said. “But since they are all seeing the same fake problem, they all confirm that the correction is appropriate. Then when real problems start popping up, everyone overcompensates again. The house of cards starts coming down.”

  “How about communications?” Alan said.

  “They would be highly disrupted,” Max said. “Once an operator is fooled into correcting a non-existent problem in the GPS system, the subsequent effects will not only stop time, but stop most digital cell phone and RF communications. Almost every cell phone switching site utilizes GPS signals for instant conversation hand-off and decryption between sites.”

  “So if you have an emergency, you can’t call anyone to report it?” Cotten said.

  “Exactly,” Max said. “Once I cause
d enough havoc, the very last thing I’d do is finally target the power grids. The operator sees a huge jump in line usage and starts rolling brownouts, which create blackouts. No electricity, no traffic signals, no emergency vehicles getting through. Can’t call the police or fire department. Can’t call anyone for that matter. Everyone becomes an isolated individual fearing for his life.”

  “Can’t pump fuel,” Alan said. “No money from dead ATMs, no natural gas or water flowing. Traffic comes to a standstill with no signal lights.”

  “How quickly could this happen?” Lindsay asked, hugging Tera tightly.

  Max shrugged. “Days, maybe hours. Depends on how fast the human operators react to the fictitious problems and start causing really tragic corrections.”

  “What about the military?” Cotten asked.

  “Christ,” Max said, rubbing his forehead. “I didn’t even think about that. There’s the Global Information Grid, part of the Defense Information Systems Agency Network. Reliance on the GIG is so critical that if it were to be taken down, it would send military operations into the Stone Age. Cross network infrastructure would be compromised, and the Hades worm could gain access to the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center and the North American Air Defense, not to mention their counterparts in other countries. The military systems are triggered to display launch preparations from Russian and Chinese nuclear missile silos. To take this to the highest level, if fake launches were displayed, and there was no way to communicate for confirmation, the U.S. Nuclear Security Council would have no choice but to authorize a nuclear response.”