Cosega Sphere (The Cosega Sequence Book 4) Page 5

  The fight had been building for years. Booker and the Foundation had opposing visions for the future. Because of the Sphere, Gale and Rip were caught in the middle, and now their daughter had become the latest pawn and youngest victim.

  The problem, Harmer thought, is that both Booker and the Foundation think they can save the world while believing the other is going to destroy it. They can’t both be right.

  At that moment, Harmer didn’t care about the power struggles of the rich. Her only concern was saving Cira’s eyesight. “We never should have let them come to Fiji.”

  “They insisted,” Booker sighed. “Gale was tired of the isolation and wanted Cira raised in a more normal setting.”

  “I remember, but you could have said no.”

  “They knew the risks.”

  Harmer looked down at the sweet little girl, bandaged and sedated. She reached for her tiny hand and held it. “How is Gale?”

  “So far, so good,” Booker replied. “But the pilot just sent a distress signal, so I’m holding my breath.”

  Chapter 10

  Wattington and his twenty-one fellow moles were part of the greatest infiltration of US intelligence in history. The men and women, all working on behalf of the Foundation, had lived and acted as perfect NSA and CIA employees for seven years. The Foundation had dozens of other operatives in the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and various military intelligence agencies. There were also hundreds more in other US governmental agencies. More of their private spies worked around the globe. The Foundation had been using their cash to conduct a slow, deliberate, and complete coup d’état of every country in the world.

  The NSA had the lead on the Eysen-Sphere matter, and the CIA had the closest ties to the Hidden Information and Technology Exchange. In fact, historically, the CIA had sent more “inventory” to HITE than any other agency.

  Stellard and his bosses had been clear; they would rather risk all out war than see HITE get the Sphere, and Wattington had been inside the CIA long enough to know with certainty that the world had evolved into a more dangerous place. Gone were the days of a simple country versus country war. Terrorists weren’t even the real threat. Their strikes were used by the elites to manipulate the masses. It was all a dangerous game. Corporations had private armies, their own espionage networks, and money had corrupted every government. If money couldn’t buy someone, manipulation would be applied.

  Whereas the NSA was the main eavesdropper, the CIA was the meddler, starter of wars, toppler of regimes, pusher of drugs, spreader of epidemics, maker of “kings,” and general confusers of truth. The Foundation used its contacts to muddy things so that the only clear path belonged to them.

  “Like crooks learn to be criminals in jail, spies learn to be conspirators in the CIA,” Stellard liked to say when he was planning for the future. But on this day the future was in doubt, and all his time was spent trying to control the past.

  It began to look like he was going to get a break. Wattington had, through an incredibly intricate and perilous series of moves, managed to delay General Gunnison and the SEALs. At least for the time being, his maneuvers would go undetected. Stellard tried to shake off the inner cold that even his extra-thick long johns couldn’t protect him from.

  That piece of good news only got Stellard and the Foundation halfway to where they needed to be, namely Fiji, and specifically in the same room or vehicle with Gaines and Asher. During the two hours since the most wanted dead people since Jimmy Hoffa had been discovered alive, the Foundation had been attempting the impossible. However, the Foundation was controlled by some of the wealthiest people on Earth, therefore, doing the impossible was almost always possible.

  “We have someone on the ground. They’ll be at the hospital in minutes,” Stellard explained to Taz over an encrypted text as soon as word came from Wattington.

  “How? Who?” Taz said, slipping a golden ring of a snake consuming itself on and off his finger. The nervous habit surfaced whenever he multitasked. At the same time, he communicated with Stellard, he scanned recent satellite images of Fiji, checked locations of several Foundation units, and reviewed data on Booker’s secret army.

  “Sugar was the sweet solution,” Stellard texted back. Turns out that sugar was Fiji’s most important export, as well as a major employer in the island nation. As luck would have it, a Foundation member had acquired the formerly state-owned sugar mill monopoly a few years earlier, during a privatizing period forced by World Bank debt restructuring. This gave Stellard what he needed—contacts and influence in Fiji. It was rough and dirty, but they now had local police on the Foundation “payroll,” ready to do his bidding.

  Stellard conveyed the plan to Taz, and was optimistic that not only would they be first on the scene, but they might even be able to track Gaines and Asher. When they hit the hospital, local police would also converge on the girl’s school, where they expected to learn the address where the fugitives had been residing. Police had orders to empty the place and hold the evidence for Taz.

  Stellard stayed connected as Taz contacted the locals and assumed command. After some back and forth, he was able to direct things from the plane. His Eysen-INU could accommodate as many calls as needed, and would mute automatically as he alternated between conversations.

  The officers assigned to the school reported that the little girl’s name was Cira Bradley, and that they had an address. At the hospital the news wasn’t so good. The girl had been discharged, but they were interviewing her doctor.

  “Search the building,” Taz ordered. “Talk to anyone who might have had contact with her parents. How long ago was she released?”

  “Sir, we’re working on it,” an officer shot back in accented English. “Trying to unseal medical records isn’t standard procedure here. Especially in a pediatric situation.”

  Taz thought of the stakes, knowing that for the forces that were heading to Fiji, unsealing medical records would be like opening a candy wrapper. Fiji was about to be invaded. If Gaines wasn’t found, the sovereign nation would essentially be occupied. But the country consisted of more than three hundred islands. Gaines could be anywhere.

  “Damn it, where did they go!?” he yelled in the open line.

  “Easy, Taz,” Stellard said as the other lines muted. “These locals are our only chance to beat the others.”

  “They’re gone! No one will find anything,” Taz said. “Don’t you see? If they didn’t know we were coming, they would never have risked moving a six-year-old girl fresh out of eye surgery!”

  “Yes. Of course Booker Lipton would have had a well practiced evacuation plan in place, but as wealthy and powerful as he is, the man is still constrained by the laws of time and physics. They could only be so far. They haven’t had much time since the surgery. Gaines could be two blocks away holed up in some cheap motel right now.”

  “Then we need access to the current satellite feeds. We’ve got to trace them out of here before the NSA does.”

  “Wattington is working on that.”

  “I’m sure he is, but we need it now.”

  “Sir, we’re in the residence,” an officer said in a thick accent from one of the other lines.

  “Is it occupied?” Taz asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Not presently,” the officer responded. “Small place. We haven’t sorted through every shadow, but there don’t appear to be many hiding places.”

  “Can you get me visuals?”

  “One of the men is working on it, but we don’t have the full crew yet. We rushed here in the chopper, you know.”

  Taz did know. They were busy trying to get every chopper they could find into the air to search for these ghosts. “How do they do it?” he asked Stellard. “You’ve read the files. From the time they took the artifact from that cliff in Virginia, half the world was after them, and yet there were almost no confirmed sightings. And Dixon Barbeau, the one man who actually did capture Gaines, we now know was in on their escape.”<
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  “They got lucky,” Stellard said.

  “No one is that lucky . . . no one.”

  “We’ve got some people going to have a chat with Barbeau now,” Stellard replied. “He’s no longer with the Bureau, but still seems to be involved in investigation work. We’re not sure who’s paying him, but it might still be a government agency, or . . . Booker Lipton.”

  “Why am I not surprised? Damn it, I wish I were on the ground.” Taz twisted the gold ring on his middle finger, a Mayan scull, and turned his attention back to the former residence of Gaines and Asher, now also known as Rick and Terry Bradley.

  Images began streaming from his Eysen-INU. He could see a cup of tea on the kitchen table, still half full, a plate of nori rolls beside it. “They left in a hurry, obviously to get to the hospital. They didn’t take the time to sterilize the place,” Taz said out loud, though he was mostly talking to himself. “We may find something helpful here.”

  Chapter 11

  Huang knew the connection was scrambled nine different ways and routed across the globe like a crazed ping-pong ball. The call was safe. Still, he double-checked the encryption codes before telling Rip the bad news. Only hours had passed since they last spoke, but to Rip it felt as if it had been years.

  “I don’t want to tell you this,” Huang said reluctantly.

  “Gale?” Rip asked, trying not to panic.

  “Cira. She’s alive, okay, but . . . ”

  “What?”

  “There was an accident on the playground. Her eyes were cut with scissors.”

  Rip’s whole body tightened, his mouth went dry, thinking of his sweet angel suffering, bleeding, her eyes. Her eyes! “No, oh please no!”

  “She had an operation. May need more, but they think she will see again.”

  Rip’s fears and desperate worry swelled into confusion and anger. “Does Booker know?” Rip demanded, then answered his own question before continuing his rant. “Of course he knows. If you know, he knows. What’s his problem? I know what he’s doing! He knew I’d never come here without them.” Rip pounded his hand on the table and glanced out the windows at the water—nothing but water for a million miles. “Can you get Gale on the phone? Can you connect me to their room?”

  “I can try, but it would not be safe for them.”

  “Wait . . . Cira’s accident was the breach, wasn’t it? The hospital link . . . The NSA is heading to Fiji! Everyone is heading to Fiji! Are they out? How much time will they have to get out? Are they on the move . . . damn it, can they even move Cira yet?”

  “You need to talk to Booker.”

  “You bet I need to talk to him. I need to do more than talk to him. Damn, damn, damn!” Rip pulled up the emergency section of his Eysen-INU, but the connection didn’t go through. It was the first time he’d been unable to reach Booker since they went into hiding after their “deaths.” Rip wasn’t sure if Booker was just avoiding him or if something horrible had happened. “Huang, get me in touch with Gale or Booker, please.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Rip could only wait until Huang worked his magic, but as the minutes since their call ended began adding up, he realized he was not completely powerless. Although trapped on the remote and beautiful island of El Perdido—or “El Prison,” as Gale had always called it—Rip possessed the most powerful object known to man.

  “To hold all the stars in your hands,” Rip whispered to himself as he held the Eysen-Sphere in the sun, then gently set it down above the Odeon Chip on a teakwood table. A moment later it levitated and images projected out.

  Each session was always like his first: the indescribable wonders, the lights, the magical floating Sphere shining out visions of the universe, Earth, humanity’s past . . . and the blurry future. He stood yet again in awe, as if dancing in a dream, surrounded by clouds and stars in a gentle rain of colors.

  They had learned so much, but the most important questions concerning the eleven-million-year-old treasure still remained unanswered. Rip had dubbed the people who created the Eysen the Cosegans, named for his once controversial Cosega theory. Cosega, an old Indian word meaning “before the beginning,” turned out to be an incredibly accurate choice.

  Rip’s hypothesis hadn’t gone back far enough before the beginning; he was off by more than ten million years. No one with any kind of decent reputation within the scientific community, other than Rip, dared to entertain the notion that intelligent humans had existed for more than the last 100,000 years. Even Rip, who believed a sophisticated society on par with ours might have risen and fallen in prehistory, hadn’t dared to dream that they’d achieved such an advanced degree of knowledge and technology—far beyond what humans enjoy in the present day—until he held the Eysen.

  Still, after all the years spent studying it, he second-guessed everything, especially the choices that resulted in the deaths of those who helped to protect it, particularly Larsen, his closest friend. Lately what he’d been most unsure about was the decision to hide it. Enough information from their early research had been released, causing the world’s religions to collapse, but the world went on, seemingly missing the significance.

  What if they had let it all out? It had become a constant debate among Rip, Gale and Booker. Every commercial Eysen-INU that Booker sold came preloaded with actual data from the original Eysen-Sphere, complete with the new history, new science, and more, but humanity still drifted rapidly toward a perilous future. A future made more immediate because of Cira, who would have to endure what was coming. Yet now even that was in doubt.

  He stared at the Eysen-Sphere, mesmerized anew, as it floated in the air. “Like a wizard’s crystal ball . . . What are you truly capable of?” Rip asked out loud. “You contain the history of the universe, all human knowledge, and you grant glimpses into the future . . . ” He paced around the Eysen-Sphere, thinking of it somehow as something different, something more than he’d ever considered before. “Can you be used as a weapon? A time machine?” He laughed at his absurdity. “Can you save my little girl?”

  During their seven year quest into the Sphere, they’d found so much, yet frustratingly little in the way of practical understanding. What was it for? Why had it survived? Who were the Cosegans, really?

  “Crying Man, are you there? What about the other ghosts who dwell inside this ancient orb?”

  Rip called the man who had silently guided them through the turmoil and vastness of their early days of exploration into the Sphere. Back then, Crying Man had been an almost daily presence. Then, inexplicably, he had all but disappeared five years earlier. They’d only seen him twice since, and not once for more than three years. Rip’s instincts told him that the Sphere might be the only way to save his loved ones. He and Gale had devoted their lives to its study, and, by default, Cira’s life too.

  “It’s time to give back, Crying Man,” he said, his tone more pleading than demanding. “Please, my daughter is only six. She’s never done anything wrong in her life, she only knows the innocence and beauty of the world.”

  As a single tear slid down Rip’s cheek, incredibly, Crying Man appeared in life-sized form, fully projected out from the ancient Eysen-Sphere. He stood opposite Rip, the Sphere between them. His stern expression, contrasted by smiling eyes, gave him the aura of a parent upset with a child over some minor mishap.

  Last time he’d seen him, Crying Man had had long hair. Now his head appeared completely shaved beneath a white hood of light, flowing, silk-like cloth. It matched his long robe, which was tied with a sash that seemed to be made of a thin, green, glowing, neon-like-light. His robe ruffled around him as if in a steady breeze, although the air in the skyroom was still.

  Rip stood transfixed, part of him shocked at the appearance of a man he’d just called across eleven million years, and part of him not at all surprised. He wanted to ask, “Where have you been? What took you so long?” but instead he smiled, as if seeing a long lost old friend, and said, “Thank you.”

  Chapter
12

  Gale woke with a start, quickly taking in the cramped metal cabin, and decided she was on a ship. Cira flashed into her mind.

  A uniformed woman sitting next to her smiled. “Welcome back,” the woman said. “Let me just check your eyes.” She shone a light and then moved it away. “Good. How do you feel?”

  “Where’s my daughter?”

  “I have no information about that,” the woman said. “I need to check your vitals.”

  “My head hurts,” Gale said. “Where’s Kruse?”

  “Yes, you suffered a contusion during impact, but there’s no concussion.” She held out her hand. “Take these.”

  Gale eyed the pills suspiciously.

  “They’re just aspirin,” the woman said, checking the digital readout as a blood pressure cuff deflated.

  Gale figured if they wanted to drug, her they would have done it while she was unconscious. She sat up and took the pills. “Kruse?” she repeated, suddenly worried he might not have survived.

  “He’ll be along in a few minutes. He’s checked in on you regularly.”

  “How long have I been out? Where are we?”

  “You’ve been onboard about forty minutes. We’re on one of Booker’s subs.” There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” the woman called.

  Kruse peaked in and grinned as soon as he saw Gale sitting up with open eyes. The woman got up and squeezed past him, Kruse taking the now vacant seat.

  “So you’re fine?” he asked.