Six Sacred Stones Part 45

"Most modern scholars believe that Moses' full name wasThuth moses: the son of Thoth."

"As in the Word of Thoth?"

"The very same. And as you and I know very well, Thoth was the Egyptian G.o.d of knowledge. Sacred knowledge. This has led many scholars to deduce that the man we call Moses was in fact a member of an Egyptian priesthood. More than that, he was a very influential priest: a gifted orator, a charismatic leader of people. Only there was a big problem. He preached a heretical religion."

"Which was?"

"Monotheism," Jack said. "The idea that there is only one G.o.d. In the century before Rameses ascended the throne of ancient Egypt, Egypt had been ruled by a peculiar pharaoh named Akenaten. Akenaten has gone down in history as the one and only Egyptian pharaoh to preach monotheism. Naturally, he didn't last long. He was a.s.sa.s.sinated by a group of holy men, aggrieved priests who had been telling Egyptians for centuries that there were many G.o.ds to wors.h.i.+p.

"But. If you look at the Biblical Moses, you'll see that he preached a very similar idea: one almighty G.o.d. It's very probable that Moses was a priest of Akenaten's who survived his downfall. Now, think about it, if this charismatic priest were to come upon a pair of stone tablets carved by an advanced prior civilization, don't you think he might use them to augment his preaching, to say to his followers, 'Look at what G.o.d in his wisdom sent you! His immutable laws!'"

"You realize that if you're right, Christian Sunday schools will never be the same again,"

Pooh Bear said. "So what has all this to do with some remote stone churches in Ethiopia?"

"Good question. According to biblical history, the Ten Commandments were kept in the Ark of the Covenant, thearca foedera, inside a special vault deep within the Temple of Solomon. Now, in the movies, Indiana Jones found the Ark in the ancient Egyptian city of Tanis, but according to the people of Ethiopia, Indy was wrong.

"The people of Ethiopia have claimed for over seven hundred years that thearca foedera has resided in their lands, brought there direct from the Temple of Solomon by European knights in the yearA.D. 1280, the same European knights who built the churches of Lalibela. Seems the Ethiopians were right."

"So if the tabletsdon't contain the ten ultimate laws of G.o.d, what's written on them?"

Pooh Bear asked.

Jack gazed at the engraved writing on the two tablets in his lap. "What the tablets contain is just as important: they contain the words of a ritual that must be performed at the sixth and last vertex of the Machine, when the Dark Star is almost upon the Earth. The Twin Tablets of Thuthmosis contain a sacred text that will save us all."

They drove south through Kenya, zooming along its highways until at last they crested a final hill and their old base came into view-a large farmhouse not far from the Tanzanian border. On the distant southern horizon, the cone of Kilimanjaro rose majestically into the sky.

And standing on the porch of the farmhouse waiting for them, were two white men.

One wore a black Ts.h.i.+rt, the other a white one.

The s.h.i.+rts read:"I HAVE SEEN THE COW LEVEL!" and "THERE IS NO COW LEVEL!"

The twins.

Horus was perched on Lachlan's forearm. She squawked with delight when she saw Jack and flew directly to his shoulder.

"When we got here this morning," Julius said, "your little friend was waiting."

"That's one loyal bird you've got there," Lachlan said.

"Best bird in the world," Jack said, grinning at the falcon. "Best bird in the world."

THEY HEADED inside the farmhouse.

"We've got a lot to tell you-" Lachlan said as they walked, but Jack just held up his finger and went into his old study.

There he prised open a floorboard and extracted from under the floor a s...o...b..x filled with wads of US dollars and an Australian SAS firstaid field kit.

Jack grabbed a syringe from the kit and loaded it with a drug called Andarin- "Superjuice" as the men of the SAS liked to call it. Andarin was a potent mix of adrenaline and highgrade cortisol. It was a battle drug, designed to mask pain and provide an adrenal kick, and thus get a badly wounded soldier-as Jack was now-through a hostile engagement.

Jack injected it into his arm and instantly blinked. "Ow, that's powerful stuff." He apologized to the twins: "Sorry, gentlemen. Just needed something to keep me standing till this is over. Now, tell me everything."

They settled in the lounge room of the empty farmhouse, and there the twins blurted out everything they'd learned over the last week.

They informed Jack of the location of the Second Vertex: to the south of Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa.

They told him about Tank Tanaka and his j.a.panese brotherhood's avowed mission to avenge their national disgrace in World War II-through ma.s.s global suicide. They also mentioned their golden piece of knowledge: that this j.a.panese brotherhood had infiltrated Wolf's CIEF force with one of their own, a man named Akira Isaki.

While they'd waited at the farmhouse for someone to arrive, the twins had hacked an American military database and discovered that there was indeed a US serviceman named A. J. Isaki-Akira Juniro Isaki-a Marine who had been seconded to the CIEF.

Lachlan said, "Isaki was born in America in 1979 to a j.a.paneseAmerican couple who-"

"-by all accounts were very lovely people," Julius added.

"Thing is," Lachlan said, "hisgrandparents -his paternal grandparents-were purebred j.a.panese and during the Second World War, they were imprisoned in a Californian internment camp-"

"Very nasty, those camps. Black spot in American history..."

"But when baby A. J.'s parents were killed in a car crash in 1980, A. J. Isaki was brought up by his grandparents-"

"His now bitterly resentful pureblood j.a.panese grandparents, members of the Blood Brotherhood. A. J. joined the Marines, was steadily promoted to Force Recon, and was ultimately seconded-upon his own application-to the CIEF in 2003."

"His call sign," Lachlan said, "is Switchblade."

"Switchblade," Jack said, vaguely recalling the AsianAmerican Marine whom Wolf had introduced to him back in the Ethiopian mine, when Jack had been nailed down at the base of the pit. He asked, "You guys still online?"

Julius c.o.c.ked his head. "Is the stars.h.i.+pEnterprise powered by dilithium crystals? Of course we're online."

He handed his laptop to Jack.

Jack tapped some keys. "We've got to find out if Wizard and Zoe got the Second Pillar from the Neetha. Hopefully, they've left a message for me on the Net."

He brought up theLord of the Rings chat room, punched in his user name-STRIDER101-and pa.s.sword.

A new screen came up, and Jack scowled. "Nothing."

No message awaited him.

Wizard's message would not arrive on the noticeboard for another three days.

Lachlan said, "Jack, there's one more thing."

"What?"

"Since we got here we've been scanning the military frequencies, searching for news of you or the others. Over the last twentyfour hours, a whole bunch of African nations have scrambled their air forces. There's also been a spate of air traffic lockdowns in the south of the continent: first Zimbabwe and then Mozambique, then Angola, Namibia, and Botswana. No commercial air traffic allowed. Someone's cutting off all the air corridors to South Africa."

Jack thought about that. "The next vertex is underneath Table Mountain in Cape Town, you say?"

"A little to the south of it, yes," Lachlan said.

"We have to get there," Jack said, suddenly standing. "We have to get there before the deadline."

"What do you mean?" Julius asked.

"The way I see it, there are two ways this thing can pan out-one, Wizard, Lily, and Zoe get the Pillar and get to Cape Town which means they're going to be arriving in Cape Town with enemies hot on their heels. They'll need us there."

"And second?"

Jack bit his lip.

"The second option is worse. It's that Wolf gets the Pillar and heads for Cape Town with it. If he sets it in place, that's fine by me-it saves the world for a little longer. But as you've just said, Wolf's CIEF team has been compromised by the j.a.panese Blood Brotherhood. At least one member of his team, this Switchblade, is a traitor-and he doesnot want to see the Pillar set in place at all. He wants to destroy the world, to erase j.a.pan's shame. And if Switchblade is part of Wolf's Cape Town team, then he's going to make sure theydon't successfully lay the Pillar."

"Which would be very bad," Lachlan said.

"Endoftheworld bad," Julius said.

"Yeah," Jack said. "So, either way, we have to get to Cape Town, to help Wizard or-and I can't believe I'm going to say this-to help Wolf."

Julius asked, "But how do we get to South Africa within four days andnot do it by air?"

Jack gazed out the window.

"There's one man I know who might be able to help us, but we haven't a moment to lose." He stood up. "Come on, gentlemen. We're going to Zanzibar."

NAIROBI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.

DECEMBER 13, 2007, 1800 HOURS.

4 DAYS TO SECOND DEADLINE.

THAT EVENING, Jack stood on the tarmac at Nairobi International Airport, about to board a chartered private plane, a little Cessna that he'd paid for wholly in cash, adding a grand to ensure that no questions were asked.

The Kenyan pilot took the money without so much as a blink. Such payments weren't uncommon for people traveling to Zanzibar.

As the twins boarded the plane, Jack remained on the tarmac with Pooh Bear.

"I guess this is it," he said.

"It's been an honor and a privilege to serve with you, Jack West Jr.," Pooh Bear said.

"The honor has been mine, my friend."

"When you see Lily again, please give her my love."

"I will."

"I am sorry I cannot go with you from here. But I just can't leave Stretch to-"

"I understand," Jack said. "If I could, I'd go with you."

They stared at each other for a long moment. Then, as if he were struck by a thought, Jack reached down and unstrapped his bulky wrist.w.a.tch. He handed it to Pooh. "Here. Take this. It has an SOS distress beacon, a GPS locater. If you get in rouble, press the b.u.t.ton and I'll know where you are."

Pooh Bear took the watch and put it on. "Thank you."

Jack regarded Pooh for a moment, then he stepped forward and embraced the Arab tightly.

"Good luck, Zahir."

"Good luck to you, too, Huntsman."

And then they separated and Jack watched as Pooh Bear walked purposefully off the runway, and as he stood there by the steps of his plane, Jack wondered if he would ever see his friend again.

ZANZIBAR.

OFF THE COAST OF TANZANIA.

DECEMBER 13, 2007, 2345 HOURS.

4 DAYS TO SECOND DEADLINE.

IT WAS ALMOST midnight when Jack and the twins arrived in Zanzibar in the Cessna.

Zanzibar.

A small island off the east coast of Africa, in the 19th century it had been the haunt of pirates, slave traders, and smugglers-a decadent and lawless hideaway for those with little respect for the law.

In the 21st century, little had changed.

Except for the glitzy waterfront hotels that serviced tourists on their way home from Kilimanjaro, Zanzibar largely retained its centuriesold seaminess: modernday pirates lurked in backalley drinking holes while South African fishermen frequented the many gambling dens and brothels, engaging the services of cutprice African native girls in between blackjack hands. Old pirate caves on the island's ferocious eastern coast were still used.

It was to this ferocious eastern coast that Jack and the twins headed in a c.r.a.ppy old Peugeot rental car, heading for a longabandoned lighthouse on a remote headland.

They pa.s.sed through a barbedwire gate and drove up a long overgrown driveway to the front door of the lighthouse.

Not a soul could be seen anywhere nearby.

"Are you sure about this?" Lachlan asked nervously. He fingered the Glock pistol that Jack had given him.

"I'm sure," Jack said.

Stopping the car, he got out and walked over to the main door of the lighthouse. The twins followed him, eyeing the waisthigh ring of uncut gra.s.s that encircled the structure's base.

Jack rapped on the door three times.

No answer.

The door did not open.