Dragon Over Washington (The Third War Of The Bir Nibaru Gods) (23 page)

Benson, eyes sparkling, watched the lizards eating and prancing with delight. The small, cheeky lizard even brushed itself against his boot, catlike, but then left Benson’s feet to start ambushing the big, shy lizard. It snuck behind it, its changing colors camouflaging it perfectly, and then jumped on the shy lizard. They rolled on the soft earth and the bigger lizard easily threw the smaller one aside. Undaunted, the smaller lizard jumped back to its feet and started to circle the bigger lizard, waiting for it to turn away.

“That’s what I’m saying, man. That’s nature, man. Forget guns and violence. Live naturally,” Benson murmured, watching the lizards.

Benson’s head snapped up, his eyes moving to the grassy meadow outside the base. He looked at the dark, starlit field, watching the grass and the few cedar trees swaying and bending with the gentle winds.

A deep hiss arose from the meadow and Benson felt his eyes swimming. He rubbed his eyes and gradually, as if seeing a pattern emerge from a trick drawing, was able to make out two giant dark green eyes with vertical reptilian slits watching him. Benson's breath caught. He was mesmerized by the eyes, though he couldn’t make out their size in the darkness. Benson felt the small lizards gather around him, squeaking softly, staring out into the meadow. Benson was afraid to blink, to lose track of those eyes.

Suddenly another hiss sounded. The large green eyes disappeared, followed by a flurry of barely visible, rapid snaking movements. Benson’s eyes watered, but he had the impression of a long, rapidly undulating body twining and curling and whipping around. A low growl exploded across the meadow, followed immediately by another one. There were two creatures out there.

“They’re fighting,” Benson whispered.

The fight was accompanied by a constant, furious hissing. Benson had the impression of lightning-fast lunges, huge fangs, lashing tails, and long snake-like bodies coiling one around the other. Earth flew everywhere as claws skidded on armored bodies and plowed into the earth. A cedar tree bent and snapped as the combatants crashed into it.

Benson jumped when the base’s alarm sounded. A moment later, spotlights started roving the grassy field, but the fighting creatures had disappeared, melting back into the darkness. Soldiers came running from the base, toting rifles and missiles, and shouting to one another. Engines rumbling in the night as army vehicles approached.

Benson looked down. The small lizards had disappeared, leaving a few small half-eaten pieces of hamburger.

Day 13 after Earth Barrier Breach.

Fort Meade, Maryland, United States. Saturday, 13:41.

Thorpe trudged his way through the NSA corridors. He was tired, dead tired. It was turning out to be one of those days, a day better spent in bed. There had been a fifteen-minute traffic jam because the idiots at the city council in Jessup, Thorpe’s home town, thought it was a good idea to block two lanes for road repairs, so Thorpe had to wait in his car, barely managing to stay awake. His ID card wasn’t recognized in the entrance to Fort Meade and he had to wait there as well. The security doors had refused to open before him because he had waved his NSA ID card faster than they could read it. He passed the refrigerator in the small kitchen before entering his cubicle and he remembered that he forgot to bring anything to eat today. He shuddered. Cafeteria food again. It really would have been better to stay in bed today, especially since his mother had made him spaghetti and cheese. Thorpe sighed. He really liked his mother’s spaghetti, but he had still forgotten it at home.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t forget the investigation. He had to know - just had to know - what was going on. Thorpe hated to lose. Every day before he left for home he took a picture of the blackboard with his smartphone and then he looked at it at home. He thought he might think of something, maybe an idea would come up. So far, nothing. He had no idea what the big picture was, he only had a few details here and there.

Thorpe entered his cubicle and threw his backpack on the floor. He sat down and looked around him, a smile appearing on his wan face. He lifted the wireless headset, touched the black joystick and traced his finger on the huge LCD screens. He looked at the blackboard and the map on his cubicle’s wall. The game was becoming less and less fun, but Thorpe wouldn’t give up. He tried to concentrate on the blackboard. The image of the giant reptilian monster was still haunting him, especially in his dreams. He kept seeing the videos Agent Mathew had sent of the creature devouring the bull in the farm.

Thorpe put his smartphone on the table, pointedly ignoring the blinking messages that waited for him. He had already missed several online gaming sessions. Probably all his guild members outranked him by now.

Next, Thorpe checked his NSA email. There were several emails from Molly, which Thorpe ignored. There was an email from Agent Graham. Thorpe opened it. It was Ellis’s reports out of Owego. Thorpe read the digest of her reports and opened one of the audio files Graham had sent. It was a recording of a conversation Ellis had with an agent code-named Guardian. Thorpe leaned back and listened.

Ellis was outlining her conclusions from what she had learnt so far. Thorpe smiled. She seemed like a fun person, full of life, and not afraid to be cynical and humorous. Her voice was soft, yet carried a sense of power. It was an interesting combination: strength of will coupled with humor. The recording ended and Thorpe shook himself and looked at his blackboard.

“They worship a Stormgod? What’s a Stormgod? She said the sign of the Stormgod has been drawn on the town’s entrances. Why? And why haven’t the police done anything about it? And how come the Stormgod is so popular there so suddenly? Suddenly, Christian, church-going folks are converting their religion? It doesn’t make any sense.” Thorpe looked through the reports.

“They come from New York City, just like the storm cloud. They are in the police. They are harboring criminals? What’s going on?” Thorpe picked up his green tyrannosaur out of habit and held it in his hand. He wrote on the blackboard under Owego ‘“Stormgod, sign on town, police taken by cult, harboring criminals”.’

“It still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. They followed the storm, the storm that came out of nowhere in the ocean, after a Radio Blanket. They worship a Stormgod. This means that the storm is the Stormgod?” Thorpe turned to his station and accessed updated weather satellite images taken a few hours ago. The strange black cloud was still hovering above the town. Thorpe shook his head. He was having trouble concentrating.

“There must be a logical explanation for all this,” he sighed and looked at the blackboard again.

“Let's see if those bureaucratic idiots in Libya managed to uncover something.”

Thorpe was about to put on his headset, but he stopped and rolled his chair to the entrance of his cubicle. He peeked outside. There was no one in the corridor between the cubicles.

“No Winder. Ha.”

Thorpe rolled back and initiated the connection on the communications computer. He whistled while a large number of clicks and electronic beeps emerged from the headset. Finally, a voice responded. It wasn’t garbled.

“Yes?”

“I wish to speak with Factor X.”

“Yes, sir. Please wait while we establish contact.” Thorpe whistled again.

Another sharp beep sounded and then a voice responded. This one was masked, computerized. The location of the conversation was marked “Unknown.”

“This is Factor X.”

“What have you discovered so far?”

“We went over the Angola site.”

“And?”

“The village there had been extensively damaged. However, there were no traces of what did the damage.”
“What damage?”        

“Almost every shack has been destroyed, demolished and pulverized. The village’s well had been filled with dirt. Most of the roads leading to the village were blocked by heavy boulders and rocks. The fields the villagers maintained were destroyed, almost every plant pulled out and the irrigation system trashed.”

Thorpe shivered. There wasn’t a shred of emotion in the cold, computerized voice. “Is there some information about who did this?”

“Negative.”

“What?”         

“There were no traces on the roads or the ground leading to the village. We could find no tank treads or heavy wheels nor anything else. There were no reports of convoys or vehicles of any kind going to the village or any of the adjunct settlements. There were no signs of helicopter landings or parachuting. There were no signs of horses or any other kind of beasts.”  

“What about the authorities?”

“The authorities are ignoring these incidents. They have no interest in causing unrest and that would surely ensue if they formally acknowledge that the villages have been attacked. They don’t have enough manpower to patrol the villages so they are simply ignoring them. The police in Mariental didn’t even send a car over.”

“Why does this have to happen to me?” Thorpe rubbed his eyes and sighed.

“Can you repeat that, sir?”

“Nothing. It seems that it, whatever it is, is moving southward in Africa. Try to find out if there were any other incidents.”

“Yes, sir.”

Thorpe didn’t quite know how to proceed, but something on his desk drew his attention. His smartphone was vibrating slowly. Thorpe rolled over and picked it up. He had a new message on his social networking site, but he didn’t open it. He opened Google instead, searched, and found the Tubruq Times online newspaper. He opened it and went to the tourism section. There was nothing on Al Jaghbub there.

“Mister Thorpe?” Factor X garbled.

“Have you found anything of interest in Al Jaghbub?”

“No, sir. Nothing.”

Thorpe searched the Tubruq Times site using Google, trying to find any reference to Al Jaghbub. Thorpe started to smile. There was one piece. “You found nothing there?”

“No, sir. The town is quiet. As far as we know all incidents happened to the south of Libya.”

Thorpe’s grin widened. The Tubruq Times reported three people from Al Jaghbub hospitalized. Doctor Mustafa Abu Hadidah, of the Jamhuriya Hospital in Tubruq, said that three people, two men and one woman, weren’t suffering from any kind of endemic disease or swine or chicken flu. However, they were catatonic and were suffering from a strange eye discoloration problem. The report said that even though they still couldn’t recognize the illness it wasn’t contagious and people have nothing to worry about. Thorpe wrote ‘“Illness”???’ on his blackboard under Libya.

“Look, there’s no way villages can be destroyed without the perpetrators being seen, or at least their transports being seen. Find out how they got there,” Thorpe said.

“Yes, sir,” Factor X said and hung up.

Thorpe marked on the map the locations had Factor X reported. North of Moundou in Chad, in Angola’s center, and in Namibia’s east. He checked the times. According to Factor X, the reports happened in the last twenty-four hours.

“This is making even less sense,” Thorpe sighed. His eyes were closing. He got up, went to the bathroom and washed his face. He looked at his puffy eyes and unshaven countenance in the mirror. He moved a hand through his red hair though it had very little effect. Thorpe walked back slowly to his cubicle, sat down and faced the blackboard.

“There’s no connection between anything, only the Radio Blanket and maybe the Mesopotamian language, in the message left in the NYC apartment and the intercept from Russia. Now these attacks in Africa. There is also the deadline.”

When Andy walked into Thorpe cubicle ten minutes later, he found Thorpe still staring at the blackboard, holding his green dinosaur in his hand. Five weeks and six days left.

“Meditating?” Andy asked cheerfully. Thorpe shook himself, looked surprised that he was holding the dinosaur and put it on the table near the plastic stegosaur, which hadn’t been moved for days.

“No. Just trying to figure out what’s going on. It’s not going well,” Thorpe said morosely. Andy looked at the red-headed young man with concern. He couldn’t recall ever seeing Thorpe so worried. Andy went over and opened the window near Thorpe’s desk, causing Thorpe to squint and shield his eyes. “Hey, turn that big yellow neon light off!”

“You haven’t seen much daylight lately, have you?”

“I’ve got more important things to take care off. If only I could -” Thorpe stopped talking, casting his eyes towards his blackboard.

“What?”

“Well, I thought I was on to something, something big. I thought it was important. But now, I can’t seem to understand what’s going on. Maybe it was just fantasy, only something in my imagination. Maybe it’s just some strange things happening, totally unrelated. I am afraid I raised the alarm because of nothing. False alarm,” Thorpe said. Andy looked at him a moment and then at his blackboard. Thorpe also stared at the blackboard.

“But whatever is happening in Russia seems to be spreading to Africa. What I really think is that all of this is important, but I won’t be able to figure it out till it blows right in our faces,” Thorpe snarled.

“Look, maybe you’re working too hard. Heaven knows I never thought I would say this to you. Wherever you said there was something, we found something. Maybe it’s not world- shaking news, maybe it’s just local things. Maybe you should give it some time. Intelligence work needs patience, you can’t just barge in and expect results. It takes time,” Andy said. Thorpe looked at him with tired eyes.

“I’ve got something that may cheer you up a bit. Check you email. I’ve sent you some images we captured of a town near Pechora. The enemy, whoever it is, has it now. I think it may interest you,” Andy said. Thorpe moved towards his workstation. His fingers moved slowly, almost sluggishly. He browsed through a number of visible light images that Andy had sent him through the NSA intranet.

“The town is thrashed. Almost every building is demolished. You can see that most of the roads, including the main road leading in and out of the town, are blocked. Even the railway is trashed. Somebody did a real job on this place. They had a small factory here and it’s still burning. Some of the houses have caved in while others have been smashed apart. Trees have been uprooted and we can see power lines scattered all over. It was real thorough, the damage. Even the welcome to town sign has been ripped apart. These pictures answer some questions and raise others,” Andy said. He paused while Thorpe was browsing through the images. Some life was returning to the red-haired analyst. “This is what Factor X told me about the attacked villages in Africa,” Thorpe said.

“We already knew they destroyed cities in Russia. If we assume the enemy did it, then that means that it’s not an insurrection, a recurrence of Chechnya or Afghanistan. Local people fighting for their freedom have no reason to demolish a town of their own. On the other hand, it seems strange for the Russian army to destroy the town, but they could have done it to prevent it falling into the enemy’s hands like they did in the Second World War. But then they were fighting the Germans. What kind of enemy must they be fighting to do this now? If the enemy did it, this raises even more questions. This means that the enemy is not local since it doesn’t care for the town or its people. So, what enemy can appear in the Ural Mountains, fight the Russian army and force it back?” Andy said.

Thorpe was shaking his head. The young analyst turned to Andy, eyes full of light. “You’re wrong. You forgot to take something into account.”

“Oh?”

“Look at the damage. Think what could cause such damage to the town,” Thorpe said. Andy frowned, He leaned over Thorpe to watch the images again. He browsed through them, his frown deepening.

“I think I’m starting to see what you mean,” Andy said slowly.