The 731 Legacy (25 page)

Brennan took a seat in a third. He felt a spear of anxiety poke at his throat and rolled his head again, hearing it crack and a sound like sand being grated between his cervical vertebrae. "Tension affects the whole body."

"And you certainly have a stressful job," John said. "Exercise helps. But you're in good shape."

"Actually my health is good. The First Lady keeps me in line. I eat right. Jog or fast walk every day. But I haven't done any real running since track in

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Boston." He paused a moment, then locked his eyes on John's. "Might as well get on with the rat killing, John, don't you agree? I'm sure you didn't come all this way for small talk. So shoot."

"Mr. President, I think the United States and its allies are in grave danger."

Immediately Brennan knew that his fears were justified. They had come about the investigation.

John went on to explain what they knew and how they had gone to Director Swan at the CDC. Cotten chimed in now and again, adding details.

When they finished briefing him, Brennan sank deeper into the chair and bit his bottom lip in a grimace. The integrity of the United States was at risk if this investigation went forward. He was the President, and it was his duty to protect the nation. He had to come up with some legitimate-sounding response. He had to stop this from going any further or the country would be forced to reveal a dark secret long buried. It could irreparably damage the United State's position with respect to human rights in the eyes of the world.

Brennan gathered his thoughts. "This is alarming. Especially your suspicion of a Korean connection. Know what's really scary about that? The DPRK is a closed society. Try as we might, we have little success penetrating their world. Might as well be on another planet. Frankly, I wouldn't put this or anything past that nut-job tyrant."

"Mr. President," Cotten said, "we don't know why, but we suspect that somebody shut down Director Swan's investigation on purpose. But at this point it probably doesn't matter. We're asking that you consider bypassing the forensic investigation and move to take action to stop North Korea and the Black Needles threat before it's too late."

"Dr. Swan is excellent at what she does," Brennan said. "If she dropped the investigation, I'm sure it was for good reason." He ran a finger under his collar, loosening it from his neck.

"But you can do something, Mr. President," Cotten said. "Forget about Dr. Swan, it's bigger than that. If North Korea is planning a biological attack on this country, it's your sworn duty to try to stop it. Don't you see they've been field testing their weapon? Black Needles has already claimed innocent lives."

Brennan gave a patronizing smile. "If you're correct, the thought is frightening. But where is the evidence? I can't act on supposition. I can't go to the Joint Chiefs and Congress and say, hey, I've got this funny feeling that North Korea is up to no good." He laughed. "It would be dead on arrival."

John swiped his hand over his face and stood. "Mr. President, we go back a long way, and I know how strong your faith was then. I'm depending on it being even stronger now. I'm going to reveal something to you that I think will change your mind. I need you to not only listen to what I'm about to say, but alsohear. The future of the world may be dangling from a thread hanging from your soul."

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GRAND TOUR

It had been a fairly quiet morning at Golden Ridge Elementary School in Chino Hills. Even the traffic in the front office was slow.

The secretary was listening to a parent on the phone who wanted to cancel a teacher conference when a cough at the front counter got her attention. She looked up to see a man standing there. The secretary nodded to let him know she would be right with him. "I'll get the message to your son's teacher," she said into the receiver, then hung up.

"Can I help you?" She got up from her desk and walked over to him.

"Yes. I purchase home next to Hidden Hills Park. My children attend this school? Correct school, yes? And I have questions." He coughed again, covering his mouth with his hand. "Sorry. Bad cold."

The man spoke with an accent. Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, one of them, she thought. She hated to be prejudicial, but Oriental accents all sounded alike to her, just like Spanish accents—Mexican, Columbian, Cuban, Venezuelan—she couldn't tell the difference.

"That's definitely in our boundaries." Poor guy seemed to be miserable.

"Everybody's had a bug lately," she said. "Stuffy head and cough. We had three teachers and a ton of kids out last week."

"I thought I am only victim," he said grinning.

It was an odd smile, the secretary thought, as if he had put something over on her—slipped something by like a private joke. "When you come to register the children you'll need proof of age, such as their birth certificates, passports, baptismal certificates along with proof of residence address, and immunization records. Are they up-to-date on their immunizations?"

The man didn't answer and seemed distracted, surveying the office.

She asked again. "Are the children's immunizations up-to-date?"

The man glanced over his shoulder out the glass doors. "Yes," he said, turning back.

Oddball, the secretary thought. She hoped the kids weren't as bizarre as their daddy. She took a couple of brochures from the stand on the counter.

"Here's information on bus routes, and this one is about after-school care. Some other basics you'll want to look over." She held them out.

He took the pamphlets. "Thank y—" He couldn't finish, instead sneezing several times in succession.

The secretary reared back to avoid the spray of droplets she saw in the air. Even so, she felt a fine mist on her face.

"So sorry," he said when the coughing subsided. "I came here yesterday but school already closed. I like to take tour. Now, please. Tight schedule. I like see classrooms, maybe cafeteria? Must do today."

"Sure." The secretary glanced up at the wall clock. "Lunches started about twenty minutes ago. Let's get you signed in, Mr...." "Choi."

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"Okay, Mr. Choi, I'll need your driver's license, and here, sign in on this log." She pushed a clipboard with an attached ballpoint toward him as he took his wallet out of his pocket.Mr. Choi is really Mr. Weird, she thought.

A few minutes later Choi had a visitor's pass sticker to put on the front of his shirt.

"Have a seat and I'll get someone to take you around. It shouldn't be but a few minutes. We'll give you the grand tour."

***

"I can't believe I'm really standing here looking at it," the elderly, grayhaired tourist said to his wife. He had recently retired, and they were visiting London on the first leg of an around-the-world vacation. They stood a few feet away from the Rosetta Stone on display in the British Museum. "You know how when you buy an appliance or tech device, you get an instruction manual in multiple languages?"

"Sure," she said, holding on to his arm.

"Well, let's say a thousand years from now, archaeologists lost the ability to read and write English but they know how to speak and read Japanese. So, let's say they come across the owner's manual for your blender. If they compare the Japanese version of the instructions to the English version, they would probably have enough information to learn English."

"That's how the Rosetta Stone works?"

"Right. After Egyptian hieroglyphs went out of use, the knowledge of how to read and write them soon disappeared. Now, jump forward to Napoleon's time. His army discovered the Rosetta Stone while digging the foundation of a fort in Egypt. What's inscribed on the surface is actually nothing earth shattering. It's something about some royal event commemorating the coronation of a pharaoh. The big deal is that the decree is inscribed three times just like your blender's owner's manual. It's in hieroglyphic, some other Egyptian script, and Greek."

"So, the Greek version was the key."

"You got it. Scholars realized they had a means of decoding Egyptian hieroglyphics by comparing the Greek version to the glyphs on the stone. That started the whole—"

They both turned toward a commotion coming from the tour group exiting Room Four that housed the large collection of Egyptian sculpture. The tour group opened up around an Asian man who was bent at the waist as he threw up on the marble museum floor.

Even from a dozen yards away, the retiree could see that the vomit was bloody.

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ASPEN

John paced in front of the huge Aspen Lodge fireplace while President Brennan's eyes tracked him.

What on earth was John getting at? Brennan wondered. Why such high drama?

John gazed into the flames, his back to Brennan. "Steel yourself for what you're about to hear, Mr. President. Listen with an open mind." He turned around. "Can you do that?"

"Of course."

"We did some Bible study together, so I know you're familiar with the scriptures. Go back to the original battle for Heaven. God cast the rebellious angels out of Paradise, never to return. And what does Genesis tell us about those Fallen ones?" He removed a small Bible from his jacket pocket and opened to an earmarked page. "In Genesis, chapter six, verse four:The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown."

"I'm familiar with that verse," the President said.

"The Nephilim were the offspring of the Fallen and mortal women. They were half human, half angel, described as giants. Goliath of Gath was believed to be one. The Nephilim aren't just an Old Testament legend, Mr. President, they're referred to in myths of almost all cultures including the Egyptians, Hindus, South Sea Islanders, American Indians—across the globe, giving credence to their existence."

"Yes, John, I know that. Where are you going with your Bible lesson?"

"Think about this, Mr. President. What motive did the Fallen have to populate the Earth with their hybrid children? Was a plan orchestrated by Satan to interrupt Abraham's bloodline because the Seed of the Woman, Jesus Christ, was to come through Abraham? God responded with the Great Flood to cleanse the earth of this corrupt genetic race. Only Noah and his family were spared because they had not been defiled. No Nephilim in their family, and so they were saved."

John continued reading: "Genesis, chapter six, verses five through seven: The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said, I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth, men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air, for I am grieved that I have made them."

John stopped and looked up. "Can we agree that the Fallen and Nephilim existed in Noah's time?"

Brennan shifted in his chair. "If you take the scripture literally, then we

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can agree. But I ask you again, what has that got to do with the suspected virus threat and the North Koreans?"

"Be patient," John said, holding his hand up. "Matthew, chapter twentyfour, verses thirty-seven through thirty-nine:But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be."

"Some would say that the Nephilim were wiped out by the Great Flood," the President said.

"They were, but the Fallen will be with us until the End of Days. They continue to have offspring who have grown as many or more in number today as they were prior to the Flood. We're told to pay attention to how things were in Noah's day." John stared hard into Brennan's eyes. "The Nephilim do walk among us, as do the Fallen. You have to believe me. I know. I've seen it firsthand."

"John, I'll concede that there's more than enough evil in the world..." Brennan wasn't certain he wanted to hear more. And he didn't want to keep sounding negative to John's theories, even though he had no choice. He glanced over at the desk and thought of theTop Secret folder.

"So you do accept that Satan's legions exist today?" John asked.

"You know I do. You and I share the same faith." He did believe it, but he still wasn't getting the connection to the biological threat.

"What are some of the signs of the Tribulation, the terrible times we will suffer before the Second Coming?"

The President thought for a moment. "Wars, famines, earthquakes."

"Right," John said. "And false messiahs. How many of those have we seen over the last generation? But these are only the birth pangs. The end is still to come. Also from Matthew twenty-four:

There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. An increase in false messiahs, an increase in warfare, and increases in famines, plagues, and natural disasters " John paced again before stopping directly in front of Brennan.

"Plagues. I don't think it's just the North Koreans behind Black Needles. I'm certain it's much bigger than that."

Brennan blinked, and a wave of uneasiness swept over him. He had to end this discussion soon before he was pushed into a corner. John was right, there were bigger things here. Things that could irreparably harm the reputation of the United States.

"You see where I'm going, don't you, Mr. President?"

Brennan didn't answer, but simply stared at John.

"Let me bring it all together for you. The Fallen and Nephilim are still at war with God today, and what is happening now was prophesied in the book of Revelation." He turned to another page in the Bible. "Revelation, chapter sixteen, verse two:And the first went and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon men which had the mark of the beast... I believe that refers to Unit 731's work. Revelation, chapter sixteen, verse three: And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the

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blood of a dead man. Could the sea be a reference to the Pitcairn?"

Brennan's throat and mouth went dry, and he found it hard to speak.