The Seven Seals of Egypt

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Karin Blake sat with her back to the tall white fridge, the laptop open in front of her on the scarred wooden table. Palladino and Wu sat opposite, legs propped up on tired-looking chairs, a bottle of chilled beer clasped in their hands. The house in the Californian desert was cool, due to cold snap sweeping through the state, and a tranquil breeze blew through the open doors.

“You relaxed enough there, Dino?” Karin asked the young soldier.

“Oh, yeah, I’m good. I could get used to this.”

Wu saluted his friend. “Me too, bud. Me too.”

Karin shook her head, but it was for show. Truth be told something had just popped up on her computer screen that she didn’t want them to see.

Am I really seeing this now? I really don’t want to see this now.

Plans were already prepped. Arrangements made. Time was ticking and she didn’t have long before they were due to head out. It had taken awhile, even for her, to sift through Tyler Webb’s maze of secrets, draw out the useless from the perverted and the plain silly to those skeletons in the closet that might just rock the world.

Three she classed as megaton blasts, but one of these was in play even now — the American splinter group that had disavowed SPEAR without anyone’s knowledge and were pursuing world-domination of their own, codename: Tempest. It was an attempt to amass the most terrible weapons that had ever existed — the weapons of the gods. Two more were imminent, but it was the Tempest riddle that she had to unravel first.

It would do no good if they succeeded.

So, the enigma presented itself. She and SPEAR were on the same side, at least for a week or so. Another issue that made what had popped up on her laptop rather timely and interesting.

“You checking up on Drake again?” Dino asked. “Hey girl, you still on board with the plan?”

“I am.” Karin nodded. “They’re somewhere in Egypt right now chasing down the seven seals. Last I heard, seal four was down and then they vanished off the radar. Even our radar. Luther was closing in.” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s all over.”

“We need to get going soon,” Wu said. “Enough of this waiting around. We end this, and then we can move on. You can move on. We’re a team, right? You ready?”

“Give me thirty,” Karin said. “Still a few things to finish off.”

Guiding her plan to fruition had already caused great heartache, and the dangerous part was yet to come. Since the day Komodo died on the streets of Tokyo, since Drake found a place for her in the army training camp… since then the wheels had never stopped turning. In truth they’d been turning long before that — when Ben died perhaps — but not so loud that they consumed her every waking and sleeping moment.

Tyler Webb had owned a wealth of secrets. Karin and her team had appropriated them a short time ago. Now, she knew.

She knew everything.

One member of the SPEAR team was dying.

And Drake? Well, his secret would have to wait. She didn’t know whether she hated the man or admired his tenacity, but when all the people he proclaimed to love died around him and still, pigheadedly, he forged on down the same path, the reasoning had somehow become lost.

But she felt for Lauren Fox. Felt deeply. Living with what she knew could happen at any minute was one of the worst nightmares imaginable, and Karin admired the New Yorker. Her attention was then taken again by the image bobbing around her computer screen.

An ultra-confidential invite to meet FrameHub face to face and talk about becoming a Fellow.

The language of it told her what to expect. Calling it ultra-confidential envisioned an organization of young know-it-alls that bristled with self-importance; that knew very well how clever they were. She assumed a ‘Fellow’ was a sworn-in club member, another arrogant term. She’d worked with male geeks before. Back then she had tolerated the looks and the sniggering. Now, she’d maim them for it.

Still…

It came at entirely the wrong time, but joining an organization like FrameHub was a lifelong dream come true. There, she could make a difference. There, she could fight in the way she really knew how. But what about her bloody plans?

So long in the making, perfect in the execution. This was the endgame.

This group were behind the deadly ransom demand of Egypt, Greece and Turkey. It didn’t make perfect sense, but she assumed there was another motive behind it. Perhaps they were involved in the seven seals hunt for the ancient doomsday weapon. That made a kind of sense — geeks would think it cool and want to own it, they would see it like some kind of game. To them, knowledge was power and the ancient seals and the machine without doubt offered some kind of all-powerful knowledge.

She thought again about all the threads, slowly coming together. Drake and SPEAR. Egypt. FrameHub and their ransom. The splinter cell. Tempest, all the weapons of the Gods. Lauren Fox now in DC. Luther.

Her world was no longer her own, and was moving on at a frightening pace.

“Wait for me,” she said. “Make ready to go. I have a final call to make.”

She rose, grabbed a bottle of water and walked across the kitchen and out the back door. A rather nice desert breeze caressed her face, telling her what she was about to miss.

“Shit.”

She tugged out her cellphone and dialed a number.

“Yes?” Robotic, the voice answered on the fifth ring.

“This is Karin Blake. I just received an invite from you.”