The Four Corners of the Earth

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

The atmosphere was electric, every soldier tense and expecting some kind of war. The team passed between wide brick pillars and moved among many gravestones, each one the resting place of a fallen hero. Geronimo’s grave lay off the beaten track, and took them long added minutes to reach. Hayden led the way and Kinimaka brought up the rear.

Drake listened as he adjusted to his surroundings. The site of so many artillery battalions was never likely to be quiet, but today a man could almost hear a leaf blowing in a breath of wind. All around the base, men waited. They were prepared. The order had come down from on high to stand strong in the face of whatever was about to happen. The Americans would not lose face.

They walked a narrow, shale-strewn path, their boots crunching. It seemed peculiar to remain on high alert inside such a base, but the countries and teams they were up against were no doubt capable of anything.

Drake walked beside Lauren, who kept the team apprised of any new information.

“The French are still operational. Two of them for now, more on the way.”

“Reports of a gunfight in Oklahoma City. Could be the Brits. No way to tell at this point.”

And a reply: “Yes, we do have the Conquest weapon. It’s right here. If you designate somebody on the base I’m sure we can hand it off.”

Drake guessed they were probably safe from SEAL Team 7 inside here, at least. The simple fact that they’d been allowed into the United States and then the army site told him something was seriously amiss.

Who sent the SEALs?

Why?

Hayden pulled up then as their guide led them along another even narrower path. Presently he stopped before half a dozen markers.

“That one,” he said, “is Geronimo’s.”

Of course, it was pretty much unmistakable. The marker was no ordinary gravestone, it was a cairn; a large, man-made pile of stones in the shape of a rough pyramid with a plaque mounted at the center, the name ‘Geronimo’ deliberately unambiguous. Incredibly old it was, and must have been spectacular in its time. It was flanked by the grave of his wife, Zi-yeh and his daughter, Eva Geronimo Godeley.

Drake felt a kind of spiritual reverence upon seeing the great warrior’s grave, and knew the others felt the same. The man had been a soldier, at war mostly with the Mexicans and fighting for his family, his lands and his way of life. Yes, he had lost, just as Cochise and Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse had lost, but their names lived on through the years.

A small digger stood poised.

Hayden nodded at the base commander, who nodded to the digger driver. Soon, the large digger was at work, turning up huge chunks of soil and depositing them on the ground nearby. Drake was also aware of the desecration, and accusations that might be leveled at the military but the presence of so many soldiers nearby meant it was unlikely anyone would know. They would probably shut Fort Sill down from the public for a while.

How did the Order do this?

Interesting… all those years ago? Perhaps access was easier back then. Hayden told the digger driver to take it easy as he delved, no doubt remembering Hannibal’s shallow grave where no coffin had been buried. The team watched as the hole grew deeper and the mound of earth grew higher.

At last, the digger stopped and two men jumped into the hole to remove the last scraps of earth.

Drake inched toward the rim of the hole. Alicia stole along with him. Predictably, Kinimaka hung back, not wanting to end up at the bottom. The two men cleared earth from the top of the coffin and shouted up for lifting ropes to be attached to the digger’s bucket. Soon, the coffin was rising slowly, and Drake took another look around.

Stoic, hard-faced individuals stood all around, and encircled the camp, he knew. It began to occur to him now that there would be no battle. Geronimo’s coffin was deposited gently on the ground, small portions of rocks and soil falling away. Hayden looked over at the base commander who shrugged.

“Your party, Agent Jaye. My orders are to give you everything you need.”

Hayden moved forward as one of the diggers prized open the lid of the coffin. The team came forward. The lid lifted surprisingly easily. Drake peered over top of the frame and into the box’s depths.

To see one of the greatest surprises of his life.

Hayden pulled away, frozen for an instant; the mission forgotten, her life forgotten, her friends suddenly gone as her brain petrified.

No way…

It was an impossibility. Surely it was. But she dared not tear her eyes away.

Within the coffin, mounted on a titanium bracket, hung a state-of-the-art digital screen and, as they stared, it burst into life.

Canned laughter burst from the speakers. Hayden and the others jerked backward, dumbstruck. The laughter echoed artificially from the advanced screen as a plethora of colors filled it — starburst after starburst mushrooming outward. The team started to recover and Drake turned to her.

“Is this the right… I mean… what the—”

Dahl stepped closer for a better look. “Is poor old Geronimo still here?”

Hayden pulled him away. “Careful! Don’t you understand all the connotations of this?”

Dahl blinked. “It means somebody left us a screen instead of a box. You think it’s the weapon?”

“The Order didn’t leave this,” Hayden said. “Not the Nazi war criminal part of it anyway. This means that the Order is—”

But then the laughter stopped.

Hayden froze, unsure what to expect. She stared down, ready to duck and cover. She moved in front of Lauren. She wished that Kinimaka, Drake and Dahl weren’t so damned close. She…

A logo flashed up on the screen, bright red on black, no more than a slash of blood to her mind.

“That’s the Order’s logo,” Alicia said.

I don’t understand,” Mai admitted. “How could they have put this screen in place? And how could it still function?”

“They didn’t,” Yorgi said.

The logo faded and Hayden banished all else from her mind. The black screen reappeared and an artificially-lowered voice began to grate from the speakers.

“Welcome to your nightmare, boys and girls,” it said and then paused for a burst of canned laughter. “Famine greets you, and you have to know that the last two Horsemen are the worst of all. If Famine doesn’t get you, Death will! Ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha.”

Hayden took a moment to wonder what kind of a twisted mind and warped imagination came up with this shit.

“Straight to the point then. The third Horseman will destroy you all, rather than let you destroy each other. Famine does that, am I right?” the guttural tones went on. “And now that you’ve advanced into the electronic age it’s going to move much, much faster. You ever hear of Strask Labs?”

Hayden frowned, sent a quick glance around and included the base commander. He nodded and was about to speak when the voice went on.

“They’re one of the big conglomerates, hellbent on taking over the world. Power. Influence. Immense wealth, they want it all, and are starting to move into the big leagues. The American government recently took Strask Labs into its confidence.”

What does that mean? Hayden wondered. And how recently?

“In Dallas, Texas, not far from here, Strask own a bio testing facility. They manufacture drugs, diseases, cures and weapons. They run the whole gamut. If there’s a deadly infection out there, a world-killing virus, a canister of nerve gas or a new bio-weapon, Strask in Dallas have it. Literally,” he grunted, “it’s a one-stop shop.”

Hayden wanted to stop it right there. This was going in a very bad direction.

“The bio lab has been targeted. Famine will be unleashed. Your crops and those around the world will wither and die. It is a manufactured poison, deliberately targeting a specific strain of crop and it cannot be stopped. We are the Order of the Last Judgment. And like I said, this is your nightmare.”

The recording stopped. Hayden blinked and stared, the world and her problems entirely forgotten. If the Order were targeting a bio lab who’d made a precise crop infection and were planning to wipe out all reserves, then…

It was possible. And probable. No doubt the disease would be targeted toward the soil too, so that no edible crops would ever grow again.

Then, suddenly, the screen exploded into life once more.

“Oh, and now we’re in the electronic age let me tell you this. By opening this coffin, by starting this recording, you put the whole thing into motion — electronically!”