‘What happened in the past is irrelevant,’ said a new voice. ‘The present is all that matters. Warner represents an obstacle to our obtaining of the item. The wisest course of action is to intervene at the earliest possible opportunity and ensure that whatever happens, Ethan Warner does not beat us to it.’
Aaron nodded, and then remembered that none of the men could see his movements.
‘I have somebody on the inside, who will keep me informed,’ he promised. ‘But if the unthinkable should happen? If either Warner or Lucy Morgan should obtain what we seek, what should my orders be?’
A long silence pervaded the room, and Aaron wondered whether the methods required to maintain secrecy around Majestic Twelve were preventing them from forming a clear leadership. Then again, in this day and age of absolute responsibility, perhaps preventing a clear leadership also prevented any one individual from taking any blame for errors.
‘Your orders are clear,’ came the final reply from a voice just distinct enough for Aaron to be sure that he had never actually heard it speak before. ‘The obtaining of the item is far more important than any other part of this operation. If its secrets were revealed to the public at large, we have no idea what the consequences could be. Such turmoil on a global scale would be unprecedented and our ability to contain it unknown. Lucy’s work must continue to be suppressed at every level. Whatever it takes.’
Aaron knew that he would hear no more from the men and that the implied action required was clear.
‘Understood,’ he replied. ‘We know that they are in Japan. We’ll bring them in before the week is out.’
Aaron heard a faint blip from the speakers as the connections were cut off. He looked down to his side at the remains in the container and suppressed a shiver of revulsion. Seven feet tall, and with a fused chest plate and massive cranium, the creature was both something human and something from another world, a horrifying chimera. That it was seven thousand years old made Aaron even more uncomfortable. Whatever it was, and whatever had happened, it was too important to be left in the hands of a former Marine and a low-level civilian scientist.
Aaron turned and walked to the door of the room. A pressure pad beneath his feet detected his presence and the door opened once again. Aaron strode out to the double doors and they also opened. He was scanned once more for recording devices by the two guards before he was finally allowed to walk back towards the elevator doors.
Aaron travelled back down to the third floor and was making his way towards his office when an agent hurried towards him with a panicked look on his face.
‘We’ve lost them,’ he reported.
‘Tell me that’s a joke,’ Aaron snapped.
‘We have two men dead,’ the agent replied. ‘The others were unable to keep track of Warner and Morgan after they made landfall. Whatever they found at the Yonaguni Monument they took with them.’
‘Do you have any idea where they might be headed?’
‘We have everybody working on it.’
Which, roughly translated, meant that nobody knew where they had gone. Aaron followed the agent back towards his office, pursued by the uncomfortable feeling that he was going to be forced to make unpleasant choices in the next few days to avoid having to be the bearer of bad news once again to Majestic Twelve.
XVI
‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’
The town of Purot was nestled against mountainous and forested hillsides that overlooked a perfect blue ocean that sparkled in the sunlight as Ethan stepped off a battered fishing trawler and onto a rickety jetty.
‘Trust me, we’re better off moving this way from now on,’ Ethan replied to Lucy. ‘If we can’t be tracked, we can’t be attacked.’
Ethan had spent two years working in the Philippines and Indonesia with his former fiancee, Joanna Defoe. Much of their work had involved exposing corruption in local governments, whereby major corporations were obtaining legal rights to land owned by fishermen in the wake of natural disasters such as tsunami. The government took control of the damaged land under the pretence of health and safety, but instead of returning the land to villagers instead allowed corporations to build new resorts and hotels in return for cash, the fishermen forced to move on and their livelihoods taken away from them. Once independent and proud villagers now laboured for miserable salaries as porters and servants in those massive hotels, their rights to ownership of the land revoked by the government.
As a result of his work, Ethan had made many friends among the ordinary people of the Philippines and it had taken only a phone call or two to arrange discrete passage for himself and Lucy aboard a small freighter bound from Japan to Sumatra. The local fishermen of the Philippines had been more than happy to pick him up as the freighter moved through the Sulu Sea, although Lucy had been most disconcerted about the nature of their transfer. Her hair was still wet from where she had hurled herself over the freighter’s side with Ethan in hot pursuit, the captain turning a discreet blind eye to the exit.
‘I’m not used all this creeping around,’ she complained, ‘or travelling this light.’
‘That’s probably why you got caught in Israel,’ Ethan pointed out.
They both carried a single rucksack that contained their essential papers and passports, along with changes of clothes and what they could fit inside before they had hurried away from Japan. A waterproof cover protected the contents from their unscheduled dips in the ocean.
Ethan turned and paid the fishermen for their passage despite the old man’s insistence that he take no money. Ethan was not an expert in local dialects, but he took the old man’s shoulder firmly in his hand and squeezed it gently to convey the importance of the journey and the great assistance the fisherman had provided them with. The old man ceased his arguing and took Ethan’s money with a toothy smile and a flurry of well wishes.
‘Now what the hell do we do?’ Lucy asked. ‘Couldn’t we have just taken the freighter all the way to Cambodia?’
Ethan set off along the jetty as he replied. ‘We could have, if the freighter had been going to Cambodia. This is as close as we could get and frankly it’s exactly where I want to be.’
‘Do you have friends here?’ Lucy asked as they walked into the small town and searched open fronted buildings that they passed.
‘Kind of.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Well, they were friends, and now they’re sort of acquaintances.’
‘Sort of acquaintances?’ Lucy echoed uncomfortably. ‘So what you mean is you know some people who don’t like you?’
Ethan’s jaw split in a wry grin. ‘Now you’re getting to know me.’
Ethan changed direction and began heading towards one of the open fronted buildings, outside which stood some thatch-weaved tables and chairs. There were few tourists at such a remote location, but Ethan wasn’t looking particularly for tourists. He had already seen a man sitting outside, a fedora over his face as he reclined in a chair. He was wearing denim shorts over tanned legs, hiking boots and a loose white shirt unbuttoned to reveal a densely forested chest. On a table before him was a steaming cup of coffee, an unusual drink considering the heat and humidity.
Ethan came to stand in front of the man as Lucy moved alongside him.
‘Let me guess, another heavy night at the bar?’ Ethan asked.
The head turned slightly as the man heard the sound of Ethan’s voice, and then one big hand moved lazily to lift the hat off his face as he squinted up at the new arrival. It looked as though the man had noticed something unpleasant tasting in his mouth as he screwed his face up and then replaced the hat.