by W B Dineen
“You should give up math then and try to get into the movies. You’d be a hit!”
The 110 turns into Arroyo Parkway and we stay on it until California Boulevard. Jake looks around. “I don’t think I’d like living here. Too busy.” He’s got that right. Traffic is the bane of everyone’s existence in Southern California.
After turning right onto Arden, Jake whistles. “Yowza, this is some nice living!”
I pull up to a set of impressive gates and type in the code Tony gave me. After a good hundred yards of tree-lined elegance, we finally arrive at the estate. “Do you think Tony owns this place or do you think he’s renting it?”
Jake shakes his head. “I have no idea. I just know I’ve never seen anything this spectacular before.”
Before we have a chance to get to the house, the front door opens and Tony motions for us to drive around back. We meet him at a six-car garage. “Come on in. Your parents aren’t here yet, but they might have stopped off to grab something to eat.”
Tony leads the way through a covered portico and giant bifold doors, right into a monstrously large living room. My whole house could fit into this one room two times over and then some. “Do you own this place?”
“My family does, although they rarely use it.”
I feel a rush of panic at his answer. “It can’t be safe for us to be here if your dad owns this house!”
“Well, he doesn’t own it by himself. It was purchased by our family trust. Also, I’m not in hiding, so it would be strange for me not to stay here.”
Jake interjects, “Does your dad know you’re in Pasadena right now?”
Tony nods. “Sure. As far as he’s concerned, I’m here to talk to some people at JPL and Caltech to try to find the weapon.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know, Tony. We’ve been chased all over hell and back, I mean Einstein’s Cave was blown up right after we left. It’s like we’re hiding in plain sight by taking refuge in the enemy’s lair.”
“I’m not your enemy, Kate, and trust me, you’re safer here than any other place in town.”
“What about your staff? Aren’t they liable to give us away?”
He shakes his head. “We don’t keep a staff here. Twice a month a crew comes in to clean and maintain the grounds, but that’s it. We’re on our own.”
I feel marginally better hearing this, but I’m still pretty sure I’d be safer almost anywhere else. “How big is this house anyway?”
He thinks for a moment. “Let’s see, it’s ten bedrooms, eight-and-a-half baths, and just shy of eighteen thousand square feet.”
We might as well be staying on the moon.
CHAPTER 62
My parents arrive about twenty-five minutes after Jake and me. They took the back route via the 101 Freeway. Dad claims he wanted to see if anyone followed them on the city streets, but he’s carrying a bag from Pink’s hotdogs on La Brea, known for the best dogs in LA. Ultimately, I’m not sure what his real motivation was.
They walk through the front door and put their bags by the staircase next to ours before joining us in the living room. Theo’s not as googly-eyed by the splendor of this house as Jake and me, but mom’s mouth is wide open like she’s trying to catch flies.
Dad smiles at everyone before coming over to join us. “Where’s Niko?”
Tony points toward the ceiling. “Up in his room taking a nap. Where’s Buddy?”
My dad grins from ear to ear. “Outside taking a swim. Some pool, by the way. I’d join him, but I don’t have a suit.”
“Not a problem. Follow me and I’ll take you to your rooms and show you where we store the extra supplies for guests.” Tony leads the way upstairs which makes me feel like royalty or Kim Kardashian ascending into heaven. The staircase must be at least six-feet wide and I count twenty stairs to the first landing, which happens to be the size of my living room, and then another eighteen to the second floor.
Tony shows my mom and dad a suite right at the top of the stairs and takes us down the hall to two more rooms, conveniently located directly across from each other. “If you take a left at the top of the staircase, Nikolay’s room is the second door on the left and mine is at the end of that hall.”
Then he leads the way into an unassigned room, which turns out to be a bedroom that’s been converted into a huge closet. “There are swimming suits, clothes, and nightwear in a variety of sizes.” Then he opens a built-in cabinet. “In here you’ll find toiletries, extra towels, blankets, and medicines.”
I stare into a cabinet full of Kiel’s beauty products and feel like a kid on Christmas morning. If that kid had recently been forced out of her life and was being hunted by a phantom enemy bent on destroying her before she could help find a doomsday machine, that is. I guess it would be more accurate to say I feel like a kid in a science fiction book on Christmas morning.
Tony walks toward the door. “I’ll leave you up here to get situated. I’m off to check our food supplies. I’m sure the freezer is full, but I’ll head out to the store later for some fresh food items. Make me a list of what you want.”
My parents gather some things together before leaving Jake and me alone in the closet of the gods. I stare out the window overlooking the pool and watch Buddy splash around. He does a lap and then jumps out and runs back to where he started and does another lap. “That is one cool dog.”
Jake walks up behind me and puts his arms around my waist. “He sure is.” Then he kisses the back of my neck and I melt. I turn around and proceed to nearly suck the lips right off his face.
When I come up for air, I announce, “I don’t need a swim as much as I need a nap.” Then I wink to make sure he doesn’t mistake my meaning, because I’m subtle like that.
Jake laughs and fake yawns. “I’m exhausted, too, but unless you want the whole house to know what we’re up to, I suggest we forge through the next few hours before taking this any further.”
In response, I duck under his arm, grab the stack of supplies I’ve collected and saucily reply, “Well then, I guess I’ll take a cold dip in the pool to get my mind off what I’m really after.” As I walk out the door, I hear him groan.
Everyone but Niko meets down at the pool to join Buddy for some outdoor recreation. Tony lays out some bottled water and wine. After getting our lists of what we want, he excuses himself to do our shopping.
This would be the perfect vacation, if I could somehow forget our current situation. I’m in the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen, with both my parents, a gorgeous hunk of man I’m going to devour later tonight, and a seriously righteous dog. I’d go so far as to say Doris Day would be jealous.
While I’m floating on my back, daydreaming, my mind drifts to what my life was like before I got caught up in my dad’s drama. Even Chuck makes an appearance in my reverie. I didn’t live in the same house with him for many years, and he never took my dad’s place in my heart, but he’s a good man and he brought my family back to the land of the living after Theo left. He doesn’t deserve to be in this situation.
If we somehow get out of this mess, and even if we don’t, I know my mom has pledged her love and loyalty to my dad. I don’t think she’ll ever be able to go back to Chuck and resume her life with him which, of course, will devastate my sister.
Niko joins us at some point while I’m daydreaming. He, Jake, and my dad are in deep conversation and I want to know what they’re talking about. I jump out of the pool, wrap a towel around my waist, and join them. “What’s up, guys?”
They look up, a bit startled. I don’t think it was my stealth ninja skills as much as their distraction that kept them from noticing me. Jake pulls me onto his lap. “We were discussing what our next step is.”
Theo interjects, “Tony wants us to wait until his meetings are over tomorrow, but it’s hard to sit back and do nothing.”
I want to know, “Are you sure you trust Tony, Dad?”
He nods his head in affirmation. “I’m sure. If he’d been working
with his father all this time, Niko and I would have been dead years ago.”
The Russian agrees. “It’s true, dorogaya moya. Tony is a good man and he’s earned our confidence.”
The expression on Jake’s face leads me to think he might be a bit more skeptical. So, I ask, “You don’t look like you feel the same way as Dad and Nikolay do.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t have the same history with Tony, so I guess I’m less inclined to trust him so completely. Also, I have a past working for the government and I’ve learned not to put my trust in someone who hasn’t earned it directly.”
CHAPTER 63
When Tony gets back from the store, we make dinner. Dad mans the steaks on the grill and Mom and I throw together a salad. We eat poolside in relative quiet. You’d think we’d have a lot to talk about, but it seems we’re all a bit preoccupied. When we’re finally sated, Tony stands up and pushes in his chair. “Now that we’ve eaten, it’s time to get down to business.”
Okay, that’s not what I was expecting. I didn’t think we were “getting down to business” until after his meetings tomorrow. We all jump up and follow him, as he leads us across the back lawn toward a gazebo. Inside is a classic garden statue of a woman half-draped in a toga, with her chin up and arms stretched out behind her, like she’s relishing the summer breeze. It’s captivating and I would probably have stared at her a lot longer if Tony hadn’t caused the foundation she’s standing on to pivot to the side, revealing a hidden staircase.
The others seem to be as startled as I am. We follow our host down the steps to the underground bunker. He turns on a light switch to guide our path, which triggers a mechanism causing the statue to return to her rightful place. I have mixed emotions. I’m both excited and absolutely terrified to see what comes next.
We’re in some kind of computer hub. Tony walks over to a screen and points to a map of the world. There are fourteen flashes of light on it. “Even the Trēdecim don’t trust one another. Each one of those points is the current location of its members.”
My mom interrupts, “But there are fourteen lights, not thirteen.”
Tony nods, “The fourteenth is me. As an incoming member, slated to take my father’s place, I’ve been chipped as well.”
“Chipped?” I’m dumbfounded.
“Yes. We’ve all been chipped with a GPS tracking device, so the others in the group will have confirmation that we are where we claim to be. It decreases our ability to deceive one another.”
Theo sits down in a chair in front of the computer, seemingly mesmerized. “If that’s so, then the rest of the group knows you spent the night in Albany.” It appears my dad doesn’t know everything about his handler, after all.
Tony nods his head in confirmation. “Correct. When I checked in last evening I told them I was in Oregon on business. But that’s all they were told.”
Jake demands, “What the hell, Tony? I mean shit, why would you lead those people straight to Theo and Niko like that?”
My mom wants a piece of this, too. She looks from the screen to Tony. “I trust Theo with my life and even though he trusts you, I can’t say I do. Why should we believe you’re not really working for your father and your story isn’t some ruse? Why should we trust you won’t turn us over to this Trēdecim?”
Go, Jake! Go, Mom! I want to do a little cheer for them, but I’m so intent on watching Tony’s reaction, I don’t want to break the mood. He smiles understandingly and walks over to a safe in the wall. He types in the combination and pulls out a sheet of paper which he hands to my mother. “Because of this.”
We all cluster around my mom to see what Tony has handed her. There are thirteen longitude and latitude coordinates written in a column. My mom shakes her head in confusion. “What is this?”
Tony explains, “It’s a list of thirteen locations that will be destroyed as soon as the weapon is turned over to the Trēdecim. Each member has chosen a site to be removed from the planet.”
My dad sighs heavily and points to the first number. It says, 34.14745° N, -118.1443° E. “I can’t wrap my head around this. Why here?”
Tony replies, “That one’s my father’s choice. Once the antimatter weapon is found, this is the first place that will cease to be.”
Nikolay moves to the closest chair and falls into it. “Why in the world would he want that?”
“Because he’s already created his own facility to take over the work performed here, and because it will significantly cripple governmental research.”
I can’t take it anymore and demand, “What are they going to remove, Washington, DC?”
Tony shakes his head. “No, Kate, but it wouldn’t matter too much if they did. DC is only the figurehead of our government. Decades ago a duplicate capitol was built under Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. There won’t be a problem transferring power there, if something happens to the current capitol.”
“But what about all the politicians? They aren’t in Colorado.”
“They’re of no consequence. Like I said before, they’re mostly puppets that can easily be replaced. The politicians that belong to Bilderberg and Trilateral would be warned and given enough time to relocate before disaster struck.”
Bethanie interrupts, “Then where is this place?”
Tony sighs deeply. “The first target is Pasadena, California.”
The room is so quiet you could hear a fly burp.
CHAPTER 64
“The whole town?!” I nearly scream. “They want to vaporize the whole town? But I thought the weapon could only take out one city block at a time?” Not that any of that really matters because, oh my God, even taking one block of Pasadena would be a horror.
Tony looks over at my dad. “Theo, do you want to take it from here?”
My dad nods his head solemnly. “The project Niko and I have been working on in our lab is regarding magnification. Tony’s father and the Trēdecim have had a team of scientists working on the same thing. They’re certain if they find the weapon, they can reverse engineer it to create one with significantly more destructive power. If they have Fareed, that would be a lot easier, but if they had me and Niko it would be a slam dunk.”
Nikolay agrees, “Theo and I realized we could probably have built a bigger weapon but chose to make it according to the specifications of the one we were reverse engineering, as we only had it for a finite amount of time.”
Dad continues, “We concluded the technology we were given by the otherworldlies was their version of our BB gun. They handed it over because it was enough to scare us into giving into their demands, but was so inferior to what they possessed, they had no worries what would happen if we tried to use it on them.”
Jake asks the obvious question, “Where are the other locations?”
Tony clears his throat. “Number two is Vatican City. Then there’s Mecca, Shanghai, Singapore, Mexico City, Jerusalem, Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, Tehran, Dubai, Tibet, and London.”
My legs plain give out from under me. I can’t make it to a chair; I simply collapse to my knees. “How many people is that?”
Tony reaches an arm out to help me stand. “Nearly fifty-two million people.”
It’s an unfathomable number. He continues, “The spots were chosen primarily for the emotional toll they’ll take on the world. Hitting Vatican City, with a population of less than a thousand isn’t that big a loss of life but considering there are one point two billion Catholics in the world, or a seventh of the world’s population, its impact would be staggering. One point six billion Muslims will feel the weight of Mecca, and Jerusalem will speak to the Jews and Christians alike.”
Tony continues, “All governments study how people react after a devastating event. In fact, most create some of those events for that very purpose. The US uses HAARP, or the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, in Gakona, Alaska, to create tornados, blizzards, hurricanes, and other phenomenon to see how the victims of the weather destructions react. Their main f
ield of research is using the weather as a weapon, but they’ve found it quite helpful in observing the population during a crisis. HAARP was widely reported to have been closed down in 2014, but that was just an attempt to get conspiracy theorists off their back.
“Fracking or drilling deep into the earth’s surface is used to create earthquakes for this very purpose. School shootings have been orchestrated to increase tension between the NRA and the anti-weapon movement, but also to study how long it takes a community to recover from the devastating blow of losing children.”
At some point my brain is going to refuse to hear any more and simply shut down for good. I’m moments away from becoming a drooling mass of uselessness.
Tony seems to recognize this, and it propels him back on topic. “The reason I’m telling you all of this is that with the help of those studies, the Trēdecim projects the emotional toll of their destruction to take twenty years, or an entire generation before some semblance of normalcy returns. In the first five years, they expect an additional loss of life to reach over two hundred million. This will occur through lawlessness, random violence, and of course, mass suicides.”
My mom asks, “How will thirteen people control an entire planet after creating such chaos?”
“Through governments.” Tony pulls up a map of the world on a computer screen. “World powers will immediately bow to the authority of the Trēdecim and do their bidding without complaint, lest they bring more destruction to their corners of the globe.”
Jake interjects, “But twenty years? Won’t most of the group be dead or in their dotage by then? Why would they attempt such a thing when they probably won’t live to witness the final outcome?”
Tony seems confused by the question. “For power, of course. They want to be known, until the end of time, as the few who finally created the New World Order. They want to be worshipped for their courage and ability to see this dream come to fruition, even if they don’t get to fully appreciate the fruits of their labors. This is their bid for immortality. By grooming their children to take over when they die, their blood will rule forever.”