‘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.’