Last War (17 page)

    
"Yes sir." The head analyst responded.



     Jason, panned around the lab. It was neat and clean; empty, almost.  The room was constructed in an L shape. When he walked in he could see the introductory area of the room. But as he walked to the back of that room, there was a place that allowed him to turn left into another long, narrow, wing of the room. The narrow space was lined with lockers.

    
Checking his watch, he slowly made his way to the computer screen, keeping his ears wide open for any unwanted visitors. The lab wasn't filled with much, as it didn't look like a lab anymore. Of course his sight was limited to the red exit sign light that sat above the door he entered through.  It illuminated the room in an ambient red glow.

    
More garble entered his ear.

    
"Ten-fifty We have no sighting of GL. He's nowhere to be found."

    
"Ten-four we'll make a report of it, immediately. Over."

    
Jason’s time was running short, so he quickly logged onto the computer. The card he had photo’d displayed the guard’s name as, Terrance Losman". His employee number: 66502. As he logged in under the identity of ‘Terrance Losman’, he heard in his ear, "MG to TL, didn't you say a bathroom was locked?"

    
"That's a ten-four sir,” Terrence responded, with a brief fart being cut off in the transmission. He continued a second later. “Yeah, uhh… in the fourth floor north wing bathroom."

    
"We're gonna go check it out. Maybe GL is in there."

    
Jason quickly moved the arrow on the computer to the various icons to fish into Tameka's activities. He clicked the activity log for the date of Thursday, May 22nd 2003, the day of her visits from the strange men, and the day before she died. Before the files loaded up, he noticed that on her desktop, not only, was the Homeland Security seal displayed, but it seemed Tameka, or possibly someone else, had the definition of the significance to each design of the seal.

     "Twenty-two stars representing the twenty-two departments in the DHS.

    
The Eagles wings breaking through the inner circle into the outer ring, suggesting that the Department of Homeland Security will break through traditional bureaucracy and perform government functions differently.

    
The eagle's talon on the left holds an olive branch with thirteen leaves and thirteen seeds, while the eagle's talon on the right grasps thirteen arrows--"

    
Although the files Jason needed popped up on the screen, he was frozen for a minute on the thought of the design of the seal.

    
Twenty-two stars; twenty-two departments. Thirteen arrows. Thirteen? Megiddo? The two numbers were significant to a secret society named Megiddo. The mission of Megiddo was to get as many of its members into high positions of importance. They were a life-long fraternity.

    
The task, when successful, would make their fraternity one of the most powerful in the world. The Megiddos were rumoured to be devil worshipers. None of it was making any sense.

    
Another sentence, in bold, sat atop the Homeland Security description. Oddly similar to the sentence he found in the tin box. The new sentence was: “Many Educations Give Instruction; Destruction Doesn’t Offer.”

    
He took a picture of that sentence, too.

    
More garble over his earpiece.

    
"We've broken into the bathroom; no GL. Over."

    
Jason quickly remembered he didn't have time to linger. As he looked at the file that he had pulled up, he noticed a profile summary of Tameka Washington. He clicked on it in pure curiosity. He figured it’s not like he knew what he was looking for. Any bit of information helped him.

    
On the top right hand of the profile page, the database showed Tameka's I.Q. numbers which soared off the charts at a whopping 172. No one in modern history had ever scored that high. She was more intelligent than Albert Einstein.

    
Wow, this girl was an absolute genius. Why was she only a BDO?

    
Something told Jason, Tameka was a door opened to a whole new America. As funny or unrealistic as it seemed in his head, he felt this in his bones. Tameka was the answer.

    
"MG to TL. Do you copy?"

    
With every transmission, Jason felt the walls close in on him. He much rather the guards resume their post like they usually do any other night, when most of them are fighting to keep their eyes open.

    
But, of course, not tonight.

    
Tonight, they want to be wide awake, doing rounds, checking floors, and asking questions.

    
"I hear ya loud and clear MG, what’s up?"

    
"Do you see a light on in room 4-1977?"

    
"Ten-Four. Not the main light, but there is extra light in there."

    
Jason frantically looked around the mid-sized room for a decent place to crouch, or tuck away. He found a place inside an empty locker room towards the back wall. As he dashed to the locker, he heard a swipe and a beep of approval as the door unlocked for the guards. Just as they entered, Jason managed to close the door of the locker, very softly masked under the click of the door jarring open.

    
"You see anything, Terrance?"

    
"Besides someone leaving their computer on before they left? No." Terrance responded.

    
Jason made a mental note of everything he heard and saw in this experience. The unnamed guard, who Jason could only identify as MG, walked deeper into the room and down the arm of the L, towards the locker that he was in. 

    
"You know, Terrance, isn't this the room that Tameka worked in?"

     
Terrance paused, raising his head slightly.

     "Oh yea, that cute woman, with the huge
tits, who died."

    
Another beep sound stunned both the guards and Jason together.

     “Agents. It’s
Michael DHS Secretary.” He peeked before stopping just to look into the face of the guards.

    
"What are you guys doing in here?”

      Tension and fear mixed
in the room’s atmosphere. The guards had a disposition of ‘I’ve been caught.’

     “
You are unauthorized to be in here." Michael said.

    
"Sir, we heard a noise," MG started to say, "So we came in here to investigate."

    
"You heard a noise?"

    
"Ye--I mean no.”

     “
We saw a light on.” Terrance added. “But it was just the computer. So we figured someone forgot to log out of their computer, as usual."

    
Michael walked over to the computer. All of Tameka's files were still visible.

    
"Did you fellas find anything?"

    
"No, we just got here." Terrance submissively responded.

    
"Well, Terrance,” Michael said tapping on the keyboard, “this has your log in number, and says you logged in here, originally, not too long ago."

    
"No, I was in the bathroom; it has to be someone else."

    
Michael leaned his left hand onto the table and massaged his jaw with the right hand.

    
"Well, no one has had this office in a while."

    
The guards were silent.

    
"Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s look around. I f you didn’t do it, then you had better found who did.”

    
The three men started raiding through the entire room. The chairs and doors scraped across the room’s floors. The tin lockers were opened and slammed shut, until they reached the locker Jason was in.

    
Terrance walked up to the locker, but, only, stared directly into the locker’s open air fins. Never opening the door, Jason found himself face to face with the guard and nothing but a thin, cast iron door in between their faces.

    
Staying as still as he could, he wondered if Terrance knew he was there.

    
Can he hear my breathing, or maybe the garble from my earpiece?
    

    
Terrance broke into a hyena-like laughter.

    
"This is hilarious, this comic strip on this locker. Sheesh, I tell you. Funny stuff." He said.

     “Terrance, pull yourself together.” The partnering guard shouted. “This is the reason your job is on the line in the first place. You need to take this thing more seriously.
Focus.”

    Terrance
kept moving on to the next locker, violently opening it and slamming it closed when finished. 

    
After thirty minutes of searching, their raid ran cold.
How could three adult men, miss a tall bulky man hiding inside a seventeen inch wide locker?

    
Jason's legs were cramped from standing in the crouch position for forty minutes straight. He was losing his mind. He had a thought flash across his head about Christine, so he switched the channels on his device back to the channel monitoring Christine. The sounds he heard were directly from a horror movie.

    
He heard heavy breathing,

    
"No, no, please don't hurt us, I don't know where he is, I swear!"

    
He heard his beautiful wife’s scream accompany a sudden, continual,
thump, thump, thump
.

    
"Tell me where he is!"

    
"If I knew I would,” She cried. “I'm looking for him just like you. Please let me help you"

    
Jason felt his knees growing weak, his heart rate raised.

     “Jason” Sirus called out in his ear. “Your vital signs are reaching the critical point.”

     He shut off the scanning app on his device.

    
He felt like if he had sat in that locker another second, his legs would give out. He was losing strength just listening to the horror of thump after thump; horrifying scream after another.

    
What have I drug my wife into?

    
"Lady,” an unidentified voice hollered. “I'm gonna ask you one more time, then I’m gonna--"

    
"No, no, no, ok. Please sir--ok-- don't touch me there. Anything. Just don’t touch me there. I’ll help. Please, I'll take you. I know where he is, right now. I'll help you find him. Please."

    
"Where is he?" The man hollered.

    
"Bowie."

    
"Let’s go!"



XVIV

THE WHITEHOUSE CABINET ROOM
7:00 a.m.
CURRENT HSAS: ORANGE-HIGH RISK OF TERRORISM
      "This is gross violation of the first amendment, which prohibits the establishment of a national religion by the Congress or the preference of one religion over another, non-religion over religion, or religion over non-religion."

    
Harold Davis said, “I can’t believe the words coming out of the mouths of you people.”

   
The President’s Cabinet was present to discuss Operation Faith. Among those in the cabinet sitting at the huge oval table was, Homeland Advisor, Josh Grambling,  Secretary of the Treasury, Jon Ross, Secretary of Defense, Joseph  Beckard,  White House Chief of Staff, Tony Haverton and of course, the President of the United States Milton B. Harris and his Vice President Fredrick Tyson.

     The door
crept open, and Michael hurried to his seat. 

     “Nice of you to join us, Michael.
” The President said only glancing Michael’s way for a second. Turning his attention back into his folder, he continued. “It would be nice to have our Secretary of Homeland Security with us in this meeting… of Homeland Security.”