Trifariam, The Lost Codex (2012) (61 page)

“Why did you kill him?”

“You still don’t get it, do you? Justin would be my safe-conduct, my passport to absolute power with total impunity. Meanwhile, although we don’t have anything on film, Agatha has recorded you entering and leaving the scientific laboratory where the
Trifariam
was being held.”

“What?” It had just occurred to James what his plan had been, and it was truly Machiavellian. “You’ve set everything up so that the government thinks that me and Justin tried to steal the source?”

Charly grinned. “Exactly! It will be easy to make the President believe that a young scientist with a thirst for glory disabled the security system and handed over complete access to the laboratories to his accomplice.”

“Nobody will believe you and even if they do, you don’t know how to channel and store that kind of energy.”

Charly lowered the gun slightly, pausing to think for a moment. “Our scientists claim that we are looking at the energy of the future, an energy which is clean, cheap, inexhaustible, safe and public. The technology used to make the
Trifariam
is much more advanced than our own. We believe that we could study it and be able to produce similar prototypes in less than a decade thanks to reverse engineering. However, without the
Trifariam
it would take us five hundred years of evolution to reach a point where we could design it for ourselves.”

“But what about the free energy that you are developing in your laboratories? Why don’t you use that?”

Charly’s eyes glinted as if he was staring into flashlight. He hesitated over whether or not to tell him the truth. He knew that none of his “guests” would get out of that “meeting” alive, so he decided to explain. “It is true that we have made great advances in renewable energies which could supply power to the whole planet without causing pollution. Our studies in magnetic and gravitational fields could be applied to conventional vehicles with no problem whatsoever, not to mention the results obtained from antimatter.” Charly smiled when he thought about what he was going to say next. “We’ve already created a craft which can be powered by a matter-antimatter engine. But don’t be fooled - all those developments belong to the United States of America and they are projects which will be channeled for their own ends. In other words, they will maintain world supremacy, both on land and in aerospace. It will take over thirty years before it reaches the general public and if the
Trifariam
remains in their hands, the exact same thing will happen.”

Although James was wondering how one sole nation could have gained such a large advantage over its competitors in so little time, the answer lay once again in the Exopolitics. Supporters of this theory have always claimed that after the Roswell incident, the United States had access to extraterrestrial technology which they were able to study and clone through reverse engineering. The project was later put on ice because the burning of fossil fuels would provide their companies with greater power and influence, even if their own planet was destroyed as a result.

There is a famous statement attributed to one of its members, Alfred Webre, which says that we “live in a world in a cosmic quarantine”, isolated from our distant neighbours, waiting for their inhabitants to give us that evolutionary push needed to integrate ourselves with Universe.

“This source can give you the world monopoly on renewable and clean energy for the next thousand years, something that the United States doesn’t want to be a part of for the time being. You intend to make the Government believe that I stole the
Trifariam
with Justin’s help, but you took us by surprise and killed the scientist, risking your own life in the process. You’ll make it look as if I escaped, but in reality you will kill me and it will be you who keeps the source and studies it. You will come out of all this looking like a hero and you will eventually become the largest energy supplier in the world. That being said, did you really have to kill her?”

The clock showed less than eight minutes and James was starting to get impatient.

“The chloroform wore off sooner than I had expected. She woke up and caught me by surprise when I was trying to hide Justin’s body in the chamber.” Charly undid one of his shirt buttons and showed him a couple of scratches which ran from his neck to his chest. “I still have no idea how she untied herself, but she tried to kill me with that letter opener. I had to shoot her.”

Even though he no longer had any feelings for her, he was filled with sadness when he looked at his ex-wife’s lifeless body lying on the carpet. At the end of the day, she was still the mother of his child. “There are six minutes left! Deactivate the bomb! You already have what you wanted!”

“That is not entirely true. There is a strange link between you and this object, as if it only pays attention to you. We believe that the source is a device which relies on quantum computing. It is a branch of science in which we have made great progress but conventional scientists are only just starting to study the area. It involves a computer which is infinitely superior to our most innovative model, and for some strange reason it only pays heed to you.”

James looked at the burn on the palm of his hand.

Four and a half minutes.

“I still need you for the time being.”

James was beginning to realize that he couldn’t let Charly escape with the
Trifariam
but he didn’t know what to do. If somebody could harness such immense power, they would become the leader of the world. Nobody would be able to compete with them and they would create a monopoly based on a technology five hundred years superior to that of our own. They would become a god among mortals. “What do your people think about what you are doing?”

“You must think I’m stupid! Nobody knows. The vast majority of MJ-12 members are actually in favor of making all the information they hold public. It is ridiculous!” he exclaimed. “Over time we would lose our privileged position.”

He glanced at the desk in search of something he could use, but Charly seemed to realize what he was doing and quickly raised his weapon so as to intimidate him.

“You’re running out of time, professor.”

“I will do everything you want, but deactivate the bomb. If you kill her, I will never help you and you will have to kill me, too.”

Charly knew that but he didn’t pay any attention. Time was still running out. “Pick up the object!” he said eventually. “Activate it. If you can do it… I’ll let her live. If not, she’ll die.”

“What?! You’re crazy! How the hell do I do that?! Fuck!”

“You have three minutes left.”

He instantly grabbed the
Trifariam
and picked it up. He started to manhandle in an attempt to activate it but it was impossible. He started to pace around the empty space between the desk and the door and walls.

Two minutes.

Fuck, what do I do?
He looked at his daughter. She was kneeling down and gazing at the body of the mother. By the tears in her eyes, she seemed to know what had happened. The image was horrific and it caused him indescribable pain.
I have to concentrate. How does it become activated?

Charly did not take his eyes off him for one second, lifting up his gun by way of warning whenever James got a little too close.

As he was pacing around in his imaginary circle, he noticed the letter opener in the form of a dagger lying on the floor. It was the one his ex-wife had used to no avail to try and kill Charly. He looked at the clock on the wall; he had ninety seconds. He had to try it. He bent over slightly, making it look as if he was applying force to the
Trifariam
, similar to when one tries to unscrew a tight lid of a jar of jelly. Suddenly, he stood up straight and took a deep breath, as if to say that it was impossible. He pretended that the
Trifariam
had slipped through his hands, which were tired from all the effort, and it crashed to the floor just four inches away from the letter opener. James quickly moved to pick it up as Charly looked on quizzically, yet to pick up on the harebrained intentions of the young professor. He picked up the source in his left hand while the right grabbed the handle of the letter opener, and with one swift movement he hid it up his sleeve.

“I think that’s it. The impact activated something, a couple of lights came on and it appears to be a control panel. Deactivate the bomb!”

Sixty seconds, fifty-nine…

Charly smiled and ordered him to place it on the table, but James cleverly left the supposed control panel facing down. There were less than ten feet between them.

The Director of Area 51 quickly stood up, like a hunter desperate to claim his trophy. His nerves caused him to lower his guard slightly and he used both arms to lift it up into the air. When there were forty-five seconds left, James sprang into action. As he took a couple of steps forward, he took the letter opener out of his sleeve and plunged it in with uncharacteristic violence. Raging with fury, he towered over Charly and stabbed him right in the neck, completely tearing through his jugular just as Charly was beginning to realize the professor’s deceit. There was no light.

He took a couple of steps back, stunned, as blood gushed from his throat, sliding down his neck before finally spilling onto the floor. He covered the wound with his hand but it was no use - he was going to die. With what little strength he had left, he aimed his weapon at James but he managed to dive behind the sofas and the wooden table just in time. When the last bullet flew out of the barrel of the gun and a small
click
echoed around the room, Charly put his hand in his pocket and fell to the floor on his knees. He then keeled over in a pool of his own blood.

Eighteen seconds.

James got up and looked at the digital clock on the wall. There was still time. He ran over to Charly’s body, which was still alive but with no energy at all. The flow to his brain had been stopped. He rummaged in his pockets, there were ten seconds left. He noticed that his ex-wife’s killer was gripping the detonator in his hand.
Son of a bitch
. His fingers were squeezing the controls with such incredible strength which he had probably never before had in his life, it was impossible to prize it from his hands. With concerted effort, he managed to lift off two fingers, revealing a red button. He pressed it immediately, praying to god that it worked. The countdown stopped just two seconds from the end, just in time.

When James turned round and saw that his daughter was still alive, he burst into tears like a little boy. Two minutes later the Secretary of Defense, accompanied by several soldiers and his inseparable friend Richard, burst into the office. They had been alerted by one of the scientists who had raised the alarm when he saw that the
Trifariam
had been stolen, thanks to the GPS receiver he had installed in it.

T
he most skilled doctors at the military complex immediately attended to Lily. The diagnosis was that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress, triggered by her having witnessed the murders of her mother and the scientist. Her behavior was worthy of investigation; she couldn’t say a word, she sucked her thumb like a baby, trembled and didn’t show any response to human touch. The doctors tried to apply basic psychotherapy while they waited for more specialized staff to arrive on the premises. The girl’s mind seemed to be in another world, an inner world she had invented herself, where she could take shelter from all the experiences she had gone through without having to face them. The psychological team had a hard task ahead of them. The girl would undoubtedly suffer nightmares in which she would traumatically relive her memories, over and over again. Depression would take hold quickly as anhedonia, the inability to take joy from any activity. If they didn’t treat her correctly, she would suffer sudden panic attacks throughout her life whenever she came across something which reminded her of the situation. It wouldn’t be easy - she was just a little girl.

The soldiers had stored the three corpses in black body bags after the forensics team had analyzed them.

James was being interrogated by the Secretary of Defense, Peter Maxwell, while Richard listened, engrossed, to his friend’s explanations. He was somewhat calmer, but his heart had been in his mouth when the soldiers burst into the Director’s office and pointed all their weapons at his head. The situation was more compromising than it ever had been previously. The Secretary went pale when he saw James brandishing the bloody letter opener in his right hand and how the Director’s neck had a deep wound which was still seeping blood. To make matters worse, James was still on top of him, trying to snatch the detonator out of his hand for fear of the bomb being activated again.

He threw the letter opener as far as he could, put his hands behind the nape of his neck in a sign of surrender and offered no resistance when the soldiers piled on top of him to take him down. He simply cried: “Free my daughter! My daughter!”

They instantly noticed the presence of a girl who sat petrified below a digital clock which had stopped counting down at two seconds. She was kneeling on the floor, her face pale and expressionless, behind a huge pane of glass which hid a secret chamber. Her bloodshot eyes, a clear indication of how long she had been crying, were locked on a second body that the secretary discovered after following her gaze. The third body, belonging to the scientist, was found by one of the soldiers when he was checking the room.

It wasn’t difficult for James to prove his innocence, as the evidence spoke for itself. His ex-wife had been murdered, his daughter kidnapped, tied up and locked in a chamber with a bomb tied to her body, ready to explode at any minute; Justin had probably been another victim of Charly Humphrey’s plan.

After making a statement, he went to see his daughter and held her tightly, but this time she didn’t return his affection or even look at him. It was a really sad situation and he couldn’t help but shed a couple of tears. She seemed to be immersed in a catatonic state.

“James,” said the Secretary, resting his right hand on his shoulder. “I’m really sorry about what has happened. The U.S. Government will take its share of the blame, have no doubt about it. When all this is over, you will be compensated as you deserve.”