Origin (17 page)

‘I think it was an electron trigger,’ Arawan said, voice subdued. ‘Such a device is rumoured to be undergoing military trials but is not yet commercially available. A burst of static transmits from the device straight to the heart, where it interferes with the normal, regular electrical signal, producing the signs and symptoms of a myocardial infarction. I would have missed it entirely had I not been looking for something out of the ordinary. But he had two tiny burns underneath the hair on his chest, which indicate the use of some sort of electronic device.

‘This also corroborates my other findings, which included several bruises and contusions on the body, symptomatic of being manhandled and bound with restraints of some type. And then there are the needle marks on the inside of his right elbow, and the unusual blood samples.’

‘Unusual how?’ Adams asked, the guilt eating at him painfully.

‘I found traces of short-acting barbiturates, most notably thiopental, an active ingredient of the so-called truth serum, sodium pentothal. It indicates that he was kidnapped and interrogated, before being killed with an electronic device, unknown outside military circles.’

‘So he was executed?’ Adams asked.

‘Without a shadow of a doubt,’ Arawan confirmed.

John Ayita looked at Adams with steely eyes. ‘And I think it’s about time you told us why.’

Adams did not check with Lynn before he started the tale; he knew she would understand. Another man had laid down his life due to Lynn’s discovery, and they owed it to his friends to tell them the truth.

Adams started at the beginning, with Lynn’s mission to Antarctica, and described their ordeal in its entirety. It did not disturb Adams that the men he was sharing this information with worked for the same US government that was potentially behind the situation; tribal ties would always outweigh loyalty to the government.

When he reached the end of his tale, Ayita shook his big head slowly in disbelief. ‘Incredible,’ he said at last. ‘Simply incredible. So Mark is dead now because of this discovery?’

Adams nodded his head in shame. ‘Yes. He is dead because I asked for his help.’

‘And now you come to us, to ask for our help?’

Adams paused. The thought that he might now be endangering his other friends had never occurred to him, and he felt the hard, hot flush of guilt wash through him once again. What had he done?

‘Please forgive me,’ he stammered. ‘I—’

Ayita held up his hand. ‘Do not worry, brother,’ he said. ‘Mark Takanawee was taken from us by a powerful enemy, and we will not rest until we have our revenge.’

Adams’ heart glowed, hope rising within him. ‘But can you all spare the time?’ he asked.

Ayita nodded. ‘I am afraid so,’ he said. ‘Since we examined Mark’s body, the Department of Homeland Security has announced the dissolving of the Shadow Wolves unit. We are to return to our tribes, and disband. They have not even offered us alternative employment. The Wolves are no more.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ Adams exclaimed.

‘I am afraid not,’ Ayita said. ‘It would be difficult to kill us all, especially while we’re working for the government, so they did the next best thing, disbanding the group and sending us all back to our own tribes, scattered around the country. It wouldn’t surprise me if some more of us meet unexpected “accidents” over the coming months.’

‘But who are these people, that they can shut down a group like the Shadow Wolves? It’s part of the damned Department of Homeland Security!’ Lynn spoke for the first time and everyone in the tent looked at her.

Ayita turned to a man on the far side of the firepit, looking through the hazy, hot mist. ‘Samuel?’ he urged.

Samuel ‘Two Horses’ Stephenfield was the unit’s intelligence officer. ‘We have started an initial investigation already, of course,’ he began, and he could see the looks of sudden interest from both Adams and Lynn. ‘Have you ever heard of the Bilderberg Group?’

Lynn answered first, trying hard to ignore the suffocating heat and humidity of the firepit. ‘Isn’t that just a bunch of politicians and media figures who meet up once a year to exchange ideas and phone numbers? A bit like an informal networking group for global bigwigs?’ She wiped the sweat from her brow, which reappeared instants later. ‘I think even Sam Atkinson went to one of their meetings a few years ago, and—’

She stopped dead as the ramification hit her. Atkinson was the head of NASA, and he was the first person she had told about the discovered body.

‘Maybe you should tell us what you know,’ Adams said to Stephenfield.

The intelligence officer nodded his head. ‘Lynn is right to a certain extent,’ he began. ‘The first meeting of the group took place in May nineteen fifty-four, at the Hotel de Bilderberg in Holland – hence the group’s name. It was supposedly held due to problems with cooperation between Europe and the US when it came to some of the really important issues. It was felt that a new type of meeting was necessary, something a little more off the record, without the worry of journalists or political aides reporting or commenting on what was said, especially with the looming threat of the Soviet Union.

‘With the end of the Cold War, the meetings continued apace. Even without the threat of communism, western leaders still had important issues to worry about – trade, employment, monetary policy, ecological problems, investment, terrorism and international security, to name but a few.

‘There are usually about a hundred and twenty participants, and the list changes every year. The majority are from Europe, with the rest from the US, although other nations from around the world are being increasingly represented. The list is made up of about one-third from government and politics, and two-thirds from finance, industry, labour, education and communications.

‘No resolutions are prepared at such meetings, there are no votes taken, and no policy statements are issued. They are simply “talking shops” where the world’s great and good can get together out of the glare of the media spotlight.’

‘And how do they link in with what’s going on here?’ Adams asked.

‘The connection arose when we started to look into who had been putting pressure on Homeland Security to close us down. After some searching, we found that it was coming directly from the White House, specifically from the office of the President’s special aide, Tony Kern. We quickly found out that Kern is a member of the Bilderberg Group.’

‘A member?’ Lynn asked. ‘I thought you just said that it’s an informal network, and that a new group of people attend each year?’

Stephenfield nodded his head. ‘That’s true, yes. But there is also a steering committee of twelve semi-permanent members, of which Kern is one.’

‘But being part of a steering committee for an international group is hardly an unusual thing for a White House aide, surely?’ Lynn countered.

‘Normally you would be right, of course,’ Stephenfield conceded. ‘But the Bilderberg Group is by no means normal. It is the subject of much international scepticism, and conspiracy theories abound regarding what these global leaders get up to at their secret meetings. Some people feel that they are deciding international policy in a very undemocratic way, unelected people discussing matters of global importance without any reporting mechanism or oversight. Some believe they are attempting to gradually impose a new world order, with big business interests behind it all.’

‘But I still don’t see how it ties in with the body, or the people who have been killed,’ Lynn persisted.

‘Perhaps it doesn’t,’ Stephenfield admitted. ‘But Kern’s membership of the group is the only anomaly we have found so far, and therefore worthy of investigation. Even more so now, as Samuel Atkinson’s attendance at a Bilderberg meeting as head of NASA gives us a clear link. Your NASA group finds a body, you report it to Atkinson – who is linked to the group – and soon the body has gone missing and all your colleagues are dead. Matt goes to help you, asking an old friend for help – and then his friend is killed, and a police unit that has been operational since the nineteen seventies is suddenly shut down for no reason – again by somebody connected to the Bilderberg Group.’

‘OK,’ Adams said, nodding his head, ‘so we have a possible connection. What else do we know about them?’

‘We’ve simply not had the time to run a complete check on the group,’ Stephenfield admitted, ‘but what we have found out is interesting, to say the least.’

‘What have you found?’ Adams asked.

‘From our initial investigations, using various government resources, which thankfully we still have unofficial access to, it seems that, far from being purely a talking shop, the annual meetings are used as a recruiting ground of sorts.’

‘Recruiting for what?’ Lynn asked.

‘Ah,’ Stephenfield replied. ‘Well, that’s the sixty-four-thousand dollar question, isn’t it? Reports from certain attendees who have spoken about the event indicate that at some stage of the weekend conference, each delegate has to have an informal “chat” with the steering committee. This chat is held in a private room, something of an interview, it would seem. But nothing is ever mentioned about what it is they might be recruiting for. But it seems that over the years, an unusually high proportion of guests at the meetings end up having unfortunate “accidents” – car crashes, heart attacks, slipping in the shower and breaking their necks, you name it.’

‘So what do you think is going on?’ Lynn asked.

‘I suppose one possible explanation,’ Adams ventured, ‘would be that occasionally one of them turns the offer down. And, now that they know what it is, the group silences them in order to ensure their true purpose never becomes public knowledge.’

Ayita nodded his head slowly. ‘Our thoughts exactly, Matt,’ he said. ‘So the question still remains, what are they recruiting for? Something they are willing to kill for, certainly. And so I can’t help but feel that it ties into your own problems somehow.’

‘But how?’ Adams asked, confused.

‘We are still investigating, but our powers are now – thanks to Kern – necessarily limited.’

Adams and Lynn looked at each other, thinking hard. Was there anything? Anything at all that they might have missed?

‘The helicopter,’ Lynn said suddenly, looking up. ‘I tried to find out information on the flights myself, but I couldn’t get access to any of it. In Antarctica, there were two military helicopters, Chinooks I think. They had serial numbers on their tail rotor assemblies.’ She thought for a moment, and then recited the numbers, glad that her scientific mind and memory of detail were still working.

Stephenfield nodded his head. ‘They may have been false IDs, but given that they expected everyone on board your chopper to die, it’s possible they may have been genuine. We’ll look into it.’

Adams looked at Stephenfield, then at all of his comrades both new and old, until his eyes came to rest on John Ayita. ‘Thank you,’ he said with deep sincerity.

Ayita waved his hand. ‘It is our duty to avenge the death of brother Takanawee,’ he said gravely. ‘And if it involves a forty-thousand-year-old body and the world’s most powerful secret cabal, then that is an adventure none of us would turn down.’

S
ANTA
R
OSA IS
a tiny township in Pima, Arizona. Less than four hundred and fifty people live there, in an area of just under six square miles, with over fifty per cent of its population existing below the poverty line. It is situated squarely in Tohono O’odham territory, and was therefore safe – outsiders were unwelcome, and very easy to spot.

The tiny flat-board house Adams and Lynn were using was one of the only unoccupied units in the township, and Ayita had organized for them to stay there for the time being. They were given a pick-up truck in case they needed to get to Phoenix to collect the lab results or if they needed to leave in a hurry for any reason, and were told that Stephenfield would visit them in twenty-four hours with news of their investigation. As telephones and other forms of electronic communication could no longer be trusted, it was decided that face-to-face meetings were the only answer.

As Adams looked out of the dirty living-room window from behind the dusty shutters, he felt the memories returning. He had spent many days in Santa Rosa – known as
Kaij Mek
to the O’odham – over the years he had worked for the Shadow Wolves, running down leads, talking to the town’s inhabitants, and cutting for sign down by the area’s major highway, Indian Route 29.

It was close by, just off Indian Route 15, that he had discovered the truck all those years before. And the bodies.

He turned away quickly and headed for the kitchen, and saw Lynn lying on the sofa, asleep. She had been complaining of sickness, and Adams had laid her on the couch, where she had passed out instantly.

Even asleep, he admired her beauty, the taut yet soft line of her cheek, the arched eyebrows, the way her hair fell across her forehead, arms wrapped across her body and knees up to her chest.

He crossed the room, took his jacket from an easy chair opposite and placed it over her. He bent closer, kissing her gently on the cheek.

He wondered how she felt about him. He knew that their physical reunion in Peru was probably the result of deep emotional needs requiring some sort of powerful physical release after their escape across Chile and the subsequent helicopter crash. But for him it had been more than that, something he had wanted to happen on an even more fundamental level, and he hoped that Lynn felt the same way.

They hadn’t really had a chance to talk properly since then, everything had been happening so fast, but as he looked down at her, his heart skipping the proverbial beat and his stomach swimming, he knew one thing. He loved her.

He lay down next to her, cradling her in his arms, nestling his head against hers. He closed his eyes, drinking in the scent of her hair, contented for the first time in many years.

And then, mercifully, he drifted off into a deep sleep; for the first time in a long time, a
real
sleep.

Twelve hours later, Adams sensed the man about to knock on the door. He was already standing next to it. The sound of footsteps coming up the path had woken him from his sleep, and he had leapt from the couch, revitalized and filled with new life from his extended, much-needed rest.