Agent on the Run (The Agents for Good) (4 page)

“What is he to you?”

“He’s the man who gave me a job and coincidentally the man who told me to hire you against my better judgment. You see I knew your back story was an elaborate cover from day one Maria, but he told me to hire you anyway. Elon is even more of a mystery than you are my darling.”

Maria looked like she wanted to say something, but she pulled it back and walked away toward the house not saying a word.

Chantry watched her go, what a pity. He’d been hoping to discover more about her. It didn’t matter really; she was someone else’s concern now.

Chapter Four

Que the Adventure

“Will this do?” I asked.

Jane looked up from where she was hooking up on more computer display to the growing number within the room to the device in my hands.

“It should work.” She affirmed.

I set the box down and looked around the virtual computer lab the apartment I had rented had become. The little chick certainly did know her stuff when it came to technology. I came to attention, as I realized that she was standing before me waiting expectantly for me to notice her.

“Okay what do you need now?” I asked.

“I need one of each of the four components that makes up the device.” She said in a straightforward manner that had no hint of a joke to it.

I blinked, “Since when?”

“I told you I’m only familiar with one component of the device and it’s going to take a lot more resources than what this setup has to offer to complete so I think it’s a far better idea to gather one of each of the four components. I can’t see any other way to complete the task you’ve put before me to accomplish.”

She seemed to be on the level of what she’d said, but I didn’t like it. “Okay then, when do we leave and where do we go?” I asked.

“We don’t leave, only you do.” She said hesitantly, as if not sure of my reaction.

“What!” I exclaimed.

She responded defensively, “There is a lot of work and programming that I must do here before it’s even possible to put the components into a disruptive configuration such as you desire and on top of that I’m not going along because to do so is to commit suicide and this isn’t my fight and I’m not dying for it!”

I felt consumed with anger because of her shallowness and I shot back sarcastically, “And I suppose you’re going to wait around here working while I’m gone?”

“Why shouldn’t I? I’m in little enough danger here and I want to get paid and you’ve shown me that you can so why wouldn’t I stay?” Jane responded.

I gritted my teeth not liking her at all, but she had made some logical points. Grimly I asked, “So where are these components?”

“The components are manufactured and stored in four separate locations. Remote locations that to my knowledge have never been found. The place’s that the components were put together as a whole have all been destroyed, unless they’ve built new ones.” Jane said.

“What’s first on the list?” I asked bad naturedly.

“Peru, the facility was constructed within the workings of an overgrown Incan temple in the jungle.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not. The masters of the Code were very meticulous in disguising their places of work for fear of exposure before their plans could come to fruition.” Jane said in a perturbed tone at my lack of belief in her.

“You speak like you weren’t one of them, but it was technologies like the ones you worked on that brought the Code’s bloody two-year reign to life!”

She looked hurt by my words and in some ways I was glad and in others I was ashamed.

In a hurt tone she said, “You make it sound like we did what we did willingly. Do you know what kind of torture they threatened us with?”

“I would’ve killed myself before doing what you did!” I stated harshly in return.

“I thought about attempting to do that many times!” She fired back just as harshly, as I had spoken, but then lamely she finished with, “but I didn’t.”

At last an honest response from her.

She looked away, as she thrust a paper out to me, “The coordinates of the temple and what the device looks like.”

I took the paper from her hand and headed for the door of the apartment.

“Utah?”

I looked back and she said, “Please be careful.”

I didn’t say anything in return, but just left the apartment.

Oh she was going to pay for this! My skin felt like I had been chewed upon a thousand or more times. My ancestors may have dwelled in jungles similar to this habitat, but I was far removed from that time. I only wished that I was as far removed from the sweat soaked humidity and voracious bugs, as I was with the continent of Africa.

I hate humidity!

I hated bugs and more alarmingly given the habitat I was now in, I hated snakes!”

I peered through the heavy undergrowth at the Incan temple long since overtaken by the forest. Imagery from Indiana Jones movies I had watched as a kid kept playing over in my mind; weighted floor tiles that flipped into oblivion, poisonous arrows that shot out from holes in the wall, and worst of all a huge writhing pile of entangled snakes on the floor, as tarantulas and scorpions skittered up and down the walls and across the ceiling.

I shivered involuntarily at the prospect of those horrors.

Stop it your scaring yourself half silly!

Did they even have scorpions in South America?

Whether they did or not, they still had plenty of other undesirables to deal with. I started forward again toward the temple, as my observations told me that no one was in the immediate vicinity.

I had spotted several security cameras in the trees, but none of them were active. For all intensive purposes this facility appeared to be deserted. That was a good thing right?

Hopefully they’d left some merchandise behind or I might be up the creek without a paddle so to speak. I eased through the heavy fronds of some tropical giant sized plant and almost stepped on to the carcass at my feet before I realized it.

Despite how the jungle floor had already begun to digest its victim into obscurity I could tell several things. One, it hadn’t been so long since the individual had been alive, maybe a little less than a year. Two, it wasn’t a native, as it was much too tall and heavy of bone structure. Three, the head was missing, which likely meant that native headhunters were to blame.

I had forgotten to include headhunters in my litany of horrors. What rousing adventure into the jungle in search of something of great value, hidden in an ancient temple, would be complete without the inclusion of poison dart wielding natives cursed with the need to collect heads?

Sweat ran down off my forehead to drip burningly into my eyes at a renewed pace that had nothing to do with how much exertion I was under in the humid forest. There was no way of avoiding it. The mission was before me and I had a job to do.

I warily coasted up the mossy steps of the temple toward a pillared opening. More dead bodies lay headless around me on the stairs. It would appear that the natives had cleaned house after the Code had fallen, go them. Hopefully they were all back in their little tree huts busy feasting on whatever it was they feasted on.

I slipped inside the dark interior of the temple. I flipped my flashlight on, thankfully no scene of writhing snakes was illuminated upon the floor, but there were a few spiders. Most notable about the space though was that it was filled with metallic compartment like structures that had been fitted to take advantage of all the interior available space of the vault roofed temple.

The doors of most of the compartments were open and it looked like the natives had made a mess of things. I started at door number one and then moved on to the next. I quickly lost heart though of the chance of finding what I needed. The place was a shambles with stuff gone or in pieces everywhere.

I came to one of the few doors that was still closed. It was locked and from the looks of it the natives had beat long and hard at it. It was really a simple lock and I was surprised that their efforts hadn’t been successful.

I slipped my wallet out and taking an ATM card out I slipped it into the slot between the door and the frame where the lock was and the door popped open. Warily I peered inside the darkened room. It appeared to be living quarters with the only notable thing about it being the skeletal remains of a woman propped up against one wall.

A pistol lay on the floor beside her and the story was clear enough. She’d managed to lock herself in here when the attack had begun and then out of fear of what the natives would do, as they banged on the door she’d taken her own life. I can’t say that I blamed her for her choice given her circumstances.

Jane was lucky, because this could’ve easily been her. Even if this woman had been coerced into her work, as Jane claimed to have been, it was hard to feel sorry for someone who by their efforts had helped usher in the slaughter of over 1 billion people globally by the Code’s takeover of the world. If the Agency hadn’t stopped the Code the number of dead would’ve been far worse.

By rights people like Jane should be made to stand trial for their part in the slaughter as their excuse for helping because of coercion was little better than the Nazis death camp guard shoving stick figured Jews into the gas chambers trying to get off the hook because he was only following orders.

I did feel sorry for the woman in one way, she was the classic example of a life wasted and the atmosphere of the room reflected the loss of spiritual hope not secured by this woman. I left the room and went to the only other door still closed.

It was a key lock type door and lo and behold there was a key laying on the floor farther up the way I had already come. I went to it and picked it up and tried it in the lock. It went in and the tumbler turned and the door creaked open ominously.

Would this be the snakes writhing on the floor part?

I pushed the door open farther and stepped into the room. Lights came on automatically illuminating an extensive lab like environment. There was a flashing light directly beside the door. It was an alarm indicator and I had 10 seconds to disarm it!

I ripped the panel off to reveal lots of colored wires. So many options, but which to pull?

Two seconds left.

I had narrowed my options down to a blue and a green wire. I pulled the green one and alarms rang out echoing throughout the lab and out into the temple. I yanked the blue wire and the alarm stopped.

“Idiot! Always pull the blue one first!” I whispered harshly to myself in self reprimand.

I really hoped that I hadn’t just rung the proverbial dinner bell to summon an aboriginal horde of poison spitters to their afternoon entertainment at pinning the tail on the donkey. I couldn’t worry about that right now or at least try not to.

I hurried on into the lab and at least one thing was made easy for me. Shelves lining one side of the room were literally stacked high with boxes of the devices that I had come for. Someone had been planning big.

I grabbed one and stuffed it into my pack and then I grabbed another in case I lost the first, because I wasn’t coming back here!

I took off for the temple entrance, but I stopped when I reached it. The jungle still looked its usual self thankfully. I stepped out and down onto the steps. A dart pinged off the column right beside me and I took off down the stairs and into the jungle in my best impersonation of the 100 meter dash.

I wanted to run straight, but a zigzag course was for the best. I dodged away from an oncoming tree trunk and watched, as three darts stuck fast into it. Que the poison arrow side of this adventure. It didn’t help how much I knew about what was being shot at me. Check that, it probably did make me run faster, it would be sheer luck to not so much as get nicked by one of the poison tipped projectiles skewering into the heavy foliage all around me.

My avid pastime hobby of being an inveterate bookworm came to the foreground. The poison on the darts skewering through foliage all around me was that of the poison dart frog. While all of the many color variations of the cute little frogs were poisonous one more than the others was more potent than the rest, the Golden Dart Frog. One tiny frog had enough poison to kill 40 adult men or two elephants. Pick either of the options and it was still clear that I was very much dead and my head was a trophy, if one of the darts landed.

The darts were infrequent now, as I had outdistanced the shorter natives, who were still in hot pursuit of me. I felt like I was flying I was running so fast. The idea of having your head lopped off and shrunk will do that to a person.

I was actually getting away from the heathens. No, actually I was in the process of half stumbling my way to a full trip into the forest’s floor. In my effort to regain my footing I spied in horror the coiled length of something slung around the branch of a shrub that I was fast approaching. Que the snake side of this misbegotten adventure.

In sheer effort of mind over matter and circumstance I strained to arch my torso out and away from the death awaiting me ahead. The snake feeling threatened lashed out in a fanged arc and barely missed me, as I watched in slow motion, as a pearly drop of venom went sailing to splatter harmlessly off a big leaf near my face.

I went tumbling head over heels onto the forest floor with all of its creepy crawlers and somersaulted back over and up to my feet, my pace never slowing. I heard no sign of pursuit, but then I heard little over the raging of my heart and my heavy pants for air. Maybe I was going to get away.

I was going to live and then I was clutching at plant life and rocks alike as I tried to stop, but failing to do so I went over the edge. Que falling into oblivion. All that was missing was the booby-trapped floor tiles of an ancient temple.

My hand touched something midflight and I gripped down and abruptly I jerked hard like a fish on a line. For a moment I thought I dislocated my arm, but my grip remained, as whatever I grasped burned through my palm, as I slid down it. It was a vine and I grabbed a hold of it with my other hand and I came to a painful stop, as debris from above rained down on me.