by J C Ryan
“I called Bill and gave him your request. He went straight to the President with the suggestion there could be no better place to keep us secure than this. James and Irene with their families will be joining us soon, but that’s not the best part.”
“What is?” Mackenzie challenged, still overwhelmed that they’d been taken to the Presidential retreat.
“The kids and your parents will be here later today. Your brother’s going to hold down the fort at Freydís, but he’ll be able to make a short visit before we get the ball rolling on our plans for the Nabateans. The rest will stay for the duration.”
Mackenzie was speechless, but the tears glimmering unshed in her eyes and the big smile on her face said it all.
Before the rest of the family got there, the four of them set up their “war room” in the conference room where so many historic meetings had taken place before.
Chapter 82 - Breaking news
May 22
With the help of Press Secretary Daniella Stewart, they laid out the plan for releasing the bombshells they hoped would flush the Nabatean council members out of hiding. After securing the cooperation of the Italians, Constance Pierce helicoptered in with a few of the copper leaves from the Nabatean library, the very ones Carter had photographed on the table inside the cave.
They had called Bill in to advise what to do about the stock market issue. The markets all had their own circuit-breakers in place to shut down in a financial free-fall, but the Securities and Exchange Commission had instituted a rule that allowed them to open more easily after a circuit-breaker shut-down.
Changing that would expose the plan to the SEC, and with proof the Nabateans had plants in some of the highest levels of government, even among Presidential appointees, they were reluctant to involve the head of the SEC.
Bill solved the problem by communicating in person with the heads of the Dow, Nasdaq, and the S&P 500. He made it very clear heads would roll if anyone else got wind of his warning.
“What about world markets?” Mackenzie asked. “Shouldn’t we warn them? At least those of our allies?”
“Logic tells us the Nabateans would go after the US first, just because we’re the biggest thorns in their sides. We expect the other markets to follow our lead if we must shut down. It’s the best we can do.
“There’s no time for Bill to go globe-trotting, and we don’t trust any other communications methodology until we have the quantum system ready.” Sean’s explanation mollified Mackenzie, but they all agreed she had a valid concern.
There was just nothing more they could do about it.
Within a week, all was in readiness, prompting the President to congratulate Bill. He’d never heard of such efficiency. Bill replied they couldn’t have done it without Grant’s generous offer of the use of Camp David.
“Brace for impact,” Bill said. “Daniella advised us to release selected portions of news at a time, but in rapid succession—every four to six hours. We’ll saturate the news on every medium and keep it coming until the A-Echelon flap disappears from view.” He looked at his watch. “I believe the first release is scheduled for early tomorrow morning. Should be fun to watch.”
“Brilliant!” the President replied. “Care to watch with me?”
Bill smiled. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
***
At five forty-five a.m. the next morning, Bill was back at the White House. His chief deputy knew where to reach him if the very first release triggered a blowup anywhere in the world. The White House staff was instructed to put through any call from the CIA.
Bill and the President settled on the sofa in the Oval Office to watch the big screen.
Everyone else, including James and Irene, Sean and Dylan, and the two Devereuxs, were at Camp David.
Mackenzie and Irene passed out cups of coffee before taking their own seats.
There was a festive atmosphere. They’d set something in motion. It remained to be seen how quickly things developed.
The first portion of news had to do with the discovery of the Nabatean Library but was prefaced with some background about the Nabateans and Petra. To ensure the safety of the library and avoid trouble for the Italians, they had deliberately avoided mention of where the library had been found, which left the impression that it was somewhere near or in Petra.
A few minutes later, following the plan, they flooded the internet with articles made to look as if they’d been hastily researched. Those articles delved into the history of the Nabateans, how they’d all but disappeared as a distinct culture, and then stating that they were still around. But the hint was that some of them were not nice people.
Bill’s prediction was spot on. It was fun to watch the ripples spread from the initial news release. It was even more fun to follow the progress of the internet articles as conspiracy theorists seized on them and spun even more shocking theories, tying the Nabateans to alien abductions and, more accurately than they’d have thought, to ooparts.
Carter observed, “They’re really going to have a field day when we release the translations.”
The initial uproar was just about to die down when it was time to release the next bombshell.
They’d chosen the contents of Algosaibi’s laptop, spilling all the secrets of the Council of the Covenant of Nabatea, to release next. Along with those contents, they mentioned how Algosaibi’s children had died and tied his beheading to the council. A few of the newspapers balked at the potential for libel suits but gave in when their sources pointed out that no one had given the names of the council members. There was no one who could bring a suit without exposing themselves to public questioning.
By close of business on the East Coast, there was public outcry for justice for the Algosaibi children. They’d been murdered! No one questioned what kind of people they had been. What mattered was two young people had lost their lives because this shadowy council thought they were a law unto themselves.
Almost ninety percent of the adult residents of the Eastern portion of the US were glued to their TVs for the five o’clock news.
They weren’t disappointed.
This part of the plan called for the release of information about an unnamed, high-ranking FBI agent who’d been working for the Nabateans. Accusations against him were he’d fed misleading information to the press, infiltrated a top-secret INSCOM investigation, and stolen top-secret information and passed it on to the Nabateans.
It was reported he’d been taken into custody and would be brought to trial for treason.
At the end of the day, the subject of A-Echelon had all but disappeared from traditional media and would have required a very specific search to be found on the internet.
By then, the nation had seen all the news from coast to coast, and the foreign press had picked it up as well.
Everyone in the know about the plan from the President down was satisfied it would dominate the news for days.
Carter and Mackenzie, Sean and Dylan, James and Irene, and the newest member of the inner circle, Daniella, knew all it would take to push this news out of the forefront would be a world disaster.
They expected that to happen as soon as the Nabateans formed a plan for a response.
***
In his Washington townhome, Jason Sullivan turned off his TV after learning the devastating news that McCormick had been taken into custody. Even though his name hadn’t been mentioned, Sullivan knew it had to be him. Why else would he have disappeared?
Sullivan knew McCormick wouldn’t be able to identify him by name. But the mere fact that he existed and had been giving McCormick sensitive information would set a hunt in motion. And from the other side, he wasn’t at all certain the council would believe him. Even if they did, they didn’t take chances with their anonymity.
He could feel his time ticking away rapidly.
What, if anything, could he do to save his own skin?
Chapter 83 - A plan of escape
May 23
How could it be true? Of course, it had to be Carter Devereux. No one else could have found what they themselves had been seeking over many centuries. It shook them like a magnitude eight earthquake.
There weren’t enough swear words in the languages of the world to express what they thought of Devereux. He was Satan incarnate, the most diabolical adversary they’d faced since the beginning of time.
Whichever it was, he had to be destroyed, utterly and completely. Along with his wife, children, and any speck of DNA that belonged to him or his family.
This was the last straw.
As if the first news release on its own wasn’t enough, bad news kept hitting them in aftershocks. First the internet articles, then the copycats. It simply couldn’t get worse! They were exposed. They’d never be able to operate in secret again—and even worse, Devereux would soon have every secret of their ancient forebears, some of which were keeping them technologically ahead of their time to this day.
What else might be in that lost library?
What knowledge might defeat them as soon as Devereux translated it?
Questions pelted Graziella without mercy until the second wave of news hit. With it went every last vestige of privacy. What they’d done to Algosaibi’s children was being shouted from every rooftop, and speculation about their methods and who they were sent them into a full-scale panic.
Further news about Durand’s revelations, his murder, and the suspicion that Nikolaev’s accident had been no accident pounded them.
The crisis meeting went on for hours, and each time, just when they thought they had a handle on what they should do, a new wave of disaster sucked them under again.
The news about one of their primary sources of information from the FBI being taken into custody was the last straw. The last time they’d faced such a crisis was in 106 AD, when the Romans had taken over their empire.
Graziella pulled herself together to preside over their last resort. Always in the past, when faced with a crisis that threatened their existence, the council had done what they did best. What they’d done in 106 AD. They’d retreated and disappeared, to emerge again when it was safe.
This time, however, their tentacles spread farther than ever before. It wouldn’t be easy, and they couldn’t just disband the council and walk away. There were preparations to make—a modern library to hide, evidence to destroy, and some tough decisions on operations cleanup to make.
The takeover of their empire by the Romans way back then was peaceful, but this takeover was going to be different—it was going to be vicious.
Everyone not on the council who could potentially inform on them must go. They began to realize with dismay that this part of the cleanup, more than anything else, could expose them. There were just too many to make disappear or “die unexpectedly.”
Worse, their modern library contained some seriously damaging information. Not just their history since 106 AD, but their savant program, full specifications on their advanced technology, their medical secrets, and the algorithms that allowed them to control the stock markets to their advantage. Full records of the people they’d terminated over the millennia. Information concerning their contacts and plants in high places throughout the world, including those who were council members themselves.
Some of it had to be destroyed completely. The majority had to be concealed and this time left where the members of the next Council could retrieve it when next they emerged from obscurity to take up the mission of restoring the progeny of Nabatea to world dominance.
And then there was the matter of retribution. To a man and woman, the council members believed in the superiority of their bloodline. Hitler’s views on a Master Race didn’t begin to rival their own. When Mathieu mentioned that if he had to go, he’d prefer to go with a bang, he got unanimous agreement from the rest.
One last operation, or maybe two, in addition to the destruction of that demon, Carter Devereux. Then their legend would grow among the inferior beings who lived on the planet with them. Next time they came into their own, people would respect and fear them, making their mission of world domination that much easier.
As their enemies had done, they’d do as well, not with news, but with disasters. They’d collapse the stock market first. When things got back to normal, they’d deliver another one-two punch. First, a bomb to vaporize the seat of government in Washington, DC. It would have been nice to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, by destroying a more populous city, but DC had several advantages.
First, America, and specifically Washington, had a special significance for them. It was there that their downfall had been plotted and executed.
Second, destroying the government would cripple the country for some time to come, leaving them free to operate and track down everyone they had to terminate.
And finally, it would leave the country reeling and set up the knockout blow.
That would be the pièce de résistance, the final statement of their power. An antimatter bomb large enough to leave a mudflat where New York City once stood.
Again, it would have been preferable to take out a bigger city, such as Tokyo with its thirty-eight million inhabitants. New York City, by contrast, had only eight million or so. Nevertheless, their main gripe was with America, and New York City represented the United States and all its most reprehensible qualities to the Nabateans.
After the first day, the bad news slowed down, and though the story was still the top news in the world, the council felt they could settle down, take a figurative deep breath, and do what needed to be done.
Among their priorities was a distributed record of where each was located, what information or system they controlled, and where and how they would secure it before disappearing. They didn’t want a repeat of 106 AD, when the collective knowledge of their forefathers had disappeared from their own grasp.
They knew what it would mean if that happened again. The knowledge of some of the secrets had lived on in the council members of old, but they’d had to start afresh with a fraction of their secrets going forward. Next time, even if they lost some, which would be doubtful, the majority would be readily available.
They’d be able to gain the advantage again quickly. Next time, it wouldn’t take two millennia to again be ready to rule the world.
Next time might even come within their own lifetimes.
During the crisis meetings and throughout the planning, Jason Sullivan was a participant. He took pains to keep up appearances but wasn’t fooled by the lack of a hint of his own demise. He had a special circumstance. His direct contact, McCormick, was in custody, they didn’t know where, and the Council couldn’t be certain he didn’t know about Sullivan.
He wasn’t stupid. His name was on someone’s hit list as part of the cleanup operation.
Therefore, he’d been working on a plan of escape for himself. When it came to personal survival, bloodline be damned.
Chapter 84 - An eerie quiet
Suddenly, the pressure was off the Devereux contingent. They’d set their plan in motion and the ball was in the enemy’s court.
For now, there were no more libraries to discover, though Carter had an idea about that. Secure at Camp David, there was no more hiding, worrying about being caught. The children and Mackenzie’s folks were with them. They all missed Freydís, their friends, and the wolves, but Camp David was delightful and the best they could do under the circumstances.
Michelle Davis and her one-time band of vicious, self-serving senators were singing a different tune after their briefing about A-Echelon at the last hearing.
Most were now ardent supporters. All played their part in keeping the media at bay by being vague, evasive, and ambiguous—any good politician’s specialty.
Those very senators who, up till a
few days ago, were ranting about “getting to the bottom of this” to “protect and inform the American people” to “stop this lunacy” and “hold officials accountable for the way they spend taxpayers’ money” were now answering with “National security is at stake here,” or, “It’s being investigated thoroughly,” or, “No comment yet,” and “We’ll root out this evil.”
Not mentioning, of course, what evil they intended to root out.
There wasn’t even any more news to release about the Nabateans. They’d spent all that currency and were happy with the result, if a little apprehensive about the fact that they hadn’t yet had any pushback from the council. Most likely, the Nabateans had enough to deal with themselves that Carter and Mackenzie had become secondary projects.
Nevertheless, the adults at Camp David and those who came daily to support them felt the other shoe had to drop soon. The quiet had come too suddenly.
Were they in the eye of the hurricane? What havoc would be wrought when the eye had passed?
It had to have been a low blow to the Nabateans to learn that outsiders were in possession of their library. Because of the assassins in Matera, no one believed the smokescreen about its location would last long, yet the Italians hadn’t reported any assaults on the defenses of the cave.
Maybe the Nabateans, every member of the council, would run and hide, but a bunch of psychopaths like that would surely not go out without a statement.
The uncertainty was getting on everyone’s nerves. Not being able to adequately prepare for an unknown eventuality was the worst. It made for unbearable tension among the group and even a few near-misses when arguments flared among the men.
All that alpha-male testosterone was like a tinder-box hidden in a pile of dynamite.
Even Carter and Mackenzie had an argument—something which almost never happened. Afterwards, they couldn’t really recall how the argument came about. It probably started when Carter mentioned it would be nice to get breakfast in bed one day, and Mackenzie responded with, “If you want breakfast in bed, go and sleep in the kitchen.”