11
The attention of the Bilderbergers was concentrated entirely on the viewing windows, and they watched with fascination as the antimatter-powered machinery throughout the vast cavern started to activate fully. Beams of intense light were cast from seemingly every nook and cranny of the distant roof, and it looked like some sort of incredible thunder and lightning storm inside the chamber. The vast power being harnessed was clear for all to see, and nobody was in any doubt as to what they were witnessing.
But then the double doors to the conference room burst open and Jacobs came tumbling in, falling to his knees as he crashed through the doors.
‘Block the doors!’ he screamed, although his cries went unheard over the thunderous roar of the wormhole machinery.
And then the double doors burst open again, and Adams and Lynn came storming in, submachine guns aimed into the room, sweeping along the rows of leather benches. The Bilderbergers dropped to the floor as one, screams starting to ring out, and then the two intruders raised their guns and fired up at the ceiling, and everyone hugged the floor harder, heads down.
Four men — men of the Alpha Brigade, unarmed in this supposedly sacrosanct area — started to run towards Adams and Lynn but were cut down instantly, their bullet-riddled bodies hitting the ground hard.
‘Turn the machine off!’ Lynn screamed at the top of her voice. When nobody moved, she let off another burst from her rifle, the rounds passing just inches over the Bilderbergers’ heads. ‘Turn it off!’ she screamed again.
Still there was no response, and Adams leapt across the benches, having seen Jacobs cowering below. He reached down and hauled him up, placing the barrel of his gun underneath the man’s chin.
‘Turn it off,’ he whispered with truly menacing intent. ‘Turn it off or I’ll blow your brains out right here, and you’ll never get to see the Anunnaki anyway.’
‘One minute to wormhole opening,’ the electronic voice advised again.
‘Do it,’ Adams said again, even more forcefully.
‘You can’t stop it now,’ Jacobs said through gritted teeth. ‘It’s over.’
Adams was about to pull the trigger when the double doors opened once more and Eldridge burst through with a submachine gun in each hand.
Half-blind, face bloodied, and incensed with rage, the big man opened fire immediately, raking the viewing gallery with high-powered .40 calibre rounds.
Adams and Lynn dived for cover and the bullets smashed into the viewing glass, ricocheting off the armoured material.
‘No, you fool!’ Jacobs called from the ground. ‘You’ll kill us all!’
But Eldridge wasn’t listening and opened fire again, the bullets tracing a line across the room, shattering and destroying an entire panel in the nearby control centre.
‘No!’ Messier cried out, running to the panel to try and save it. But it had been destroyed beyond repair. He turned to Eldridge with all hope drained from his features. ‘What have you done?’ he asked. The scientists around him were scurrying about the laboratory in blind panic.
Suddenly, the armoured viewing panel hissed from its frame, lifting and tilting, opening like some sort of huge vent, and Adams realized that Eldridge must have hit the operating mechanism.
The lightning in the chamber beyond grew even brighter, and the one hundred Bilderbergers screamed in earnest now, remembering the words of Messier. Without the protective glass, they would be doomed.
‘Thirty seconds and counting,’ the voice continued to report, without emotion.
12
‘Close the window!’ came the same cry from dozens of mouths. The whole viewing gallery erupted into chaos.
But the window couldn’t be closed, it was too large, too heavy, and the control panel had been completely destroyed by Eldridge’s bullets.
And then Eldridge’s guns clicked empty. Adams surged forward and tackled him off his feet, smashing him back against the double doors and through into the conference room. Eldridge used his superior size to turn Adams and run him through the room until he slammed into the hard metal of the elevator doors.
Adams gagged from the pain shooting through his shoulder, and then Eldridge shoved a huge, meaty forearm across his throat, leaning in with all his weight, crushing his windpipe and choking him slowly unconscious.
Adams saw the maniacal look in Eldridge’s eye and knew the man would not stop until he was dead. He started to feel his eyes going dark, the air being cut off to his brain, and his fingers reflexively reached out, searching along the wall beside him.
‘Twenty seconds and counting,’ the voice announced, and then Adams’ fingers found the button he was looking for. He pressed it and the elevator doors opened. As the men fell through on to the metal floor, the pressure on Adams’ throat eased.
Adams used the momentum of the fall to place his foot in Eldridge’s stomach and flip him over his head. The man’s huge body crashed into the elevator’s far wall. Adams felt the elevator rock with the impact, and then the doors closed, and the elevator began to ascend. Eldridge’s body had hit the controls.
Adams heard the electronic voice one last time.
‘Ten seconds and counting.’
13
Back in the viewing gallery, the excitement of the Anunnaki’s arrival had given way to abject fear and horror at what was about to happen.
In the chamber beyond, the lightning flashes became more concentrated, more permanent, as the beams began to centralize in the middle of the cavern and a ball of light formed on the rocky floor before their very eyes.
As Lynn watched, she knew what she had to do. She didn’t know why or how she knew, but know she did, with every fibre of her being.
While everyone else tried to flee from the giant window, she started to move towards it, until she was running towards the light-filled cavern.
Suddenly, a hand on her shoulder arrested her progress, and she turned to see Jacobs’ horrified face staring at her. ‘Stop!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t go in there! You’ll ruin everything!’ He reached for her throat, his crazed hands trying to strangle her, face only inches from her own, and she could finally see the insanity in his eyes.
She didn’t even have time to feel satisfaction as she pulled the trigger of her submachine gun and a burst of .40 calibre rounds ripped through Jacobs’ guts. He dropped to the floor with a groan, fingers slipping from her throat and going to his belly, intestines spilling out over his hands as he looked at them in disbelief. His eyes went up to meet Lynn’s, but she had already turned away, towards the open window.
And then she threw the rifle to one side and mounted the wide window frame, legs bent, breathing deeply.
‘Five,’ the voice announced, ‘four… three… two… one. Wormhole opening.’
And then, saying a prayer for the first time in many years, she jumped.
14
The elevator was rising rapidly, unbalancing both men, but Adams realized Eldridge was still stunned from his impact with the elevator wall.
He took advantage of this, pushing him backwards and then thrusting the web of skin between his forefinger and thumb into the man’s unprotected throat.
Eldridge gurgled, his larynx shattered, but he surged forward, clasping Adams in a bear hug, squeezing the air out of him with his powerful arms. Blood started to seep through the makeshift bandage on his upper arm, and he felt his vision going hazy.
But he wasn’t beaten yet, and he was damned if he was going to give in. His knee came up sharply into Eldridge’s groin, his forehead slamming into the man’s face, breaking the nose, but still Eldridge held on to him, crushing even tighter.