EARTH PLAN (24 page)

CHAPTER 39

Inside the mountain, Lang and the others were loaded out of the truck.

Blindfolds had been placed over their eyes, so all they knew was that they were inside, someplace. Lang and the two guards from the Guild knew they were likely underground, but didn't say anything to the rest, as their captives were all around them, shoving them forward down a hallway.

Charles could hear snippets of TV news reports playing clips from the supposed alien invasion—in English! And those watching it were laughing, thinking it was very funny. This told him that Lang was probably right about it all being fake; at least he was warming to the possibility.

Fear went through his mind too, and he worried that they would fail on their mission to send out the means to repair the DNA, as this faked alien invasion was obviously a grand distraction of some kind. He thought, Maybe it was the dark forces buying themselves some time?

And then he thought, with horror, Maybe it's the dark forces who have us now?

To take his mind off that line of thought, he tried to just focus on the sounds around him as they moved through the corridors, in case there was anything else useful he could pick up.

Their captors didn't say much, but Charles thought he heard some of them who were watching TV speaking Spanish and also some English. They hadn't been in the truck that long, so they were probably still in Mexico, Charles reasoned. But these troops could be from anywhere, he thought.

Charles and the others were pushed into a room and the door was closed over. Then it was quiet.

“We must be in a holding cell,” said Tony. He took off his blindfold. “Yep. Just us in here. You can take off your blindfolds now.”

The others slowly took theirs off, too.

“Where do you think we are?” Lang asked him.

“Dunno,” the guard shrugged. “Still in Mexico, maybe. But, we did dip down there, so we're probably underground. There's no telling where the tunnels go.”

“I think we're probably still in Mexico, too, judging by the time we were in transit. But, what tunnels are you talking about?” Charles asked.

“There are tunnels under most countries,” Lang said. “Military or secret operations. They can go for vast distances under the surface. Once you're in one, you can go most anywhere.”

“Wow, those things are real, huh?” Charles's eyes went wide.

“Yes, they sure are,” Lang said.

“We've found that out the hard way, a couple of times,” Tom said.

“I'd like to hear about that, if we ever get out of this,” Charles said.

“When we get out of this, you mean,” Lang said and smiled. He knew he had to stay strong and positive to be a good influence on the others in his command.

“I wish I had your optimism,” Charles said.

“It's learned from experience. There have been many times I didn't think we'd get out of something, and we did. Right guys?” Lang looked to the guards.

“Right,” Tony said.

“That's right,” Tom said and nodded.

Lang pulled up his sleeve to reveal his wristwatch. “In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if our rescue forces are on their way now.”

“I hope you're right,” Charles said. He looked at the professor and Wendy. She looked terrified and the prof hugged her tightly.

Lang went over to comfort them, being a veteran of such situations.

***

Ben Veers looked over the files of the rescue team on his computer. He was going to send the team of four in, all veterans of special ops forces, to track down Lang and his group. With the help of the remote viewer, he knew they had a good chance of success.

But something made him hesitate.

He got up from his desk, his heavy frame outlined against the window as he looked out. He looked to the distance, at the old cathedral rising up high, the Golden Mean embedded in its dimensions. It was closer to God, he knew, to build in that way, and the results were sure in the seeing. He smiled, even though it was a dire time, but his smile didn't last.

He wondered, Why am I hesitating to send in the team? It was standard procedure. To do otherwise he would be risking the lives of those captured, and he would also have to answer to the other senior members of the Guild for this. But, he just couldn't do it.

Maybe it was because the kidnappers had not yet made any contact, nor any demands. It was sometimes good to wait for that contact, as then he'd have a better idea who he was dealing with. As it was, he could guess, and he knew his guess was going to be quite accurate.

There were only a few groups who would have any interest in Lang and his party, or could even find them. Then, even fewer groups would be able to take them into a hidden mountain base. He must be dealing with his arch enemies, he knew; those who served the Dark One under various names.

The servants of the Dark One usually didn't come right out and say it, and those at the bottom of the pyramid often didn't know who they were ultimately serving. The structure of dark power was so compartmentalized that it was an easy thing to keep those who served in the lower levels out of the loop.

What a difference from the Guild he belonged to, where everyone knew the true purpose of what they were involved with and no secrets were kept. All members of the Guild advanced at their own pace, with their own will, with none left in the dark purposefully. Theirs was a wholly different aim, he knew, and that made so much difference in the way things were run.

The Guild helped its own and excluded none, which made what Ben was about to do very hard. He didn't send out the order for the rescue team, at least not yet.

When the call came in from Frank at the control center, he was ready with an answer.

“Sir?” asked Frank on the phone. “I see the rescue team is ready, but you've not told them to ship out yet. Is something the matter?”

“No,” Ben said. “I just think we ought to wait for a while, let the kidnappers make first contact.”

“But, sir...it could be too late, then.”

“I know, Frank. But if they are really inside a mountain installation, then I don't think our team is going to be able to get them out very easily. I don't want to sacrifice the team unnecessarily.”

There was a silence on the line, then Frank said, “I understand, sir. Would you like me to tell the team they can standby?”

“Please. And, thank you, Frank. This was a difficult decision for me to make.”

“I know. Lang is a close friend of us both. I'll let them know, sir.”

“Thank you.” Ben hung up the phone feeling a mixture of relief and pain. He knew he was doing the right thing, but it was not without its own element of risk. He went to the bar in his office and poured himself some cold water, not touching the bottles of booze, but looking at them. He had too much to do to get sloppy, now.

He went to the control room to watch the real-time maps with Frank, who'd be working overtime until this crisis was over. The least Ben could do, he figured, was to offer him some support, maybe cover him for a break.

There were not a lot of staff at the headquarters that could be pulled away from their tasks to help Frank out. A big push was on to get the final pieces in place for the DNA repair serum. The astrologers the Guild employed were insistent that the time was coming soon when there would be a “window,” an auspicious time in the stars to make the move to repair all of the DNA on Earth.

With the fake alien visitation making the news, Ben and many others in the Guild knew the time was getting very short, indeed. All hands were working long hours to get all the many facets of the plan of the big counter-attack in place as quickly as possible.

And, while it worried Ben to face the loss of his good friend Lang and the others with him, the bigger worry was how that would slow down the counter-attack. Two of the leading scientists on the project were with Lang, and the fact that they had been kidnapped worried Ben greatly. He knew that the ones who had kidnapped them must have known who they were, and if they did, they might have knowledge of the plan.

So, if they were tortured, then the details of the plan might leak out. Ben was getting a headache just thinking about all the things that would have to be changed to safeguard the plan in such an event—and might still have to be, just in case.

“Are you alright?” Frank asked him.

“Yes, just all this stress,” Ben said. He rubbed his forehead as he stood in the control room, holding onto the handrail as he went down the stairs with one hand.

“You should go and take a rest. This can't be easy on you.”

“No, I'm fine. In fact, why don't you go for a break? Get something to eat; it's going to be a long night, I think. Here, get something for me, too.” Ben handed over some paper money.

“Alright, sir. I'll be back, fast.”

Ben nodded as Frank whisked out of the room. Then, Ben was alone with the computers and displays, looking over the little empire he was in command of. There were no other emergencies at the moment, just others in labs working away who he could see on the monitors. The castle had been outfitted with state-of-the-art labs deep below the surface, where the work was continuing on the DNA serum.

Charles and the professor had been sending in their updates while on the road and that had been valuable, Ben knew. Now that they were out of the loop, it was slowing the whole machinery down. They'll be back soon, he told himself. “They'll be back soon. They have to be.” He didn't know if they'd be able to continue without them. The work had been at a crucial stage.

He sat down heavily on the seat behind Frank's desk and watched the screens. There was still no sign of the biochips of Lang or the two guards with him. Ben closed his eyes and put his hands together and prayed, imagining them safe and back with him.

His phone went off, starling him. “Hello?” Ben said.

“Sir, we're waiting for you in test lab B,” a female voice said.

“Oh, yes, of course. I'll be there as soon as I can, please wait for me. It shouldn't be too much longer.” He rubbed his hand over his face, feeling the stress and fatigue of the last few hours wearing on him.

“Very good, sir. We'll wait.” She clicked off and Ben put his phone back on his belt. He wondered, Where is that Frank?

A few minutes later, Frank came in with a couple of white bags of takeout food from the local Thai place. “Sorry it took so long, they were busy,” Frank said, handing over some change and a bag to Ben.

“That's fine.” Ben waved away the change and took the bag. “I'll check in with you later, I have to run.”

“Alright. Thank you.”

Ben smiled, walking into the hallway. Now, which way was the lab? He looked both ways. He was not often in the lab, so he had to think for a moment. Getting his bearings, he moved off down the hallway.

Minutes later, Ben opened the door marked Lab B. “Hello! Sorry I'm late, everyone. Please excuse my eating, but I didn't have time to stop,” he said.

“That's fine,” a young woman said, the same one who made the phone call. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties, dressed causally, as was the other man in the room who sat at a desk making notes, with a couple of screens in front of him. A young staff, making me feel old, Ben thought. He was in his sixties, now.

“Hello, sir,” the man said.

Ben waved and stopped, staring.

There was another man in the center of the room in a chair that was able to put him in a comfortable position on his back, sort of like an examination chair. He seemed in his early twenties and was also dressed casually, so it was obvious there was no work going on here that involved microbes or sterile conditions. Indeed, this was a test of the mind.

The man on the chair had all sorts of wires attached to his head, which led to a bank of machines.

The woman continued, “We've done the first round of screening tests, and our subject, Jacob here, is showing very good results. Of course, this is not his first round of psychic testing; he was carefully screened before coming to us.”

“Hello Jacob!” Ben called out. “I'm the big cheese here, Benjamin Veer, but you can call me Ben.”

“Thank you, Ben,” Jacob smiled. That seemed to put him more at ease.

Ben thought about how those with the pure human DNA were being discovered at younger ages, now. That gave him hope, as it showed that some of their efforts to improve, or cure the human DNA were being successful—or at least he believed they were. The main thing was that there were more humans with repaired DNA being found by the Guild and being put to work in their efforts. For this, Ben was very thankful.

He thought about the screening methods that were used. These ranged from DNA and blood screenings, but there was usually some other kind of indicator, first. In the case of a psychic there were obvious signs in that person's life that they had an ability above the norm; they could see events that were going to happen, they could read people with an uncanny accuracy, or they even might display some telekinesis abilities to move things with their minds.

When these people identified as psychics were brought into the Guild and tested, almost always they exhibited the Eden Gene as it had been called, the mark of untainted human DNA, free of the evil alien influence of the Dark One's servants the Greys.