The Milestone Protocol Ernest Dempsey (best short novels of all time .txt) 📖

to a vast wine and coffee fortune, your father keeps strange hobbies, does he not?”

She’d considered that before, but often justified Diego’s actions as his way of trying to make the world a better, safer place. For years, he’d operated out of a small shop in Ecuador, where he could keep a low profile, all the time scooping and selling information to the United States and its allies regarding all manner of enemy factions. He’d delivered terrorist intel that the most expensive satellites in orbit couldn't obtain. He’d uncovered nuclear weapons movement, conventional arms transportation, and human trafficking. Diego also traced monetary fluctuations and disbursement through accounts that would be difficult for the IRS and other entities to track, thus giving the Department of Defense and the Justice Department critical information and data so they could track down enemies of the state before that money could fund an attack—cyber or physical.

The more Adriana considered it, the more she realized that his actions weren’t just some hobby, some way of giving back with an unusual skill set. Diego was a plainclothes spy, an off-the-payroll asset. Having grown up with that fact, she grew accustomed to it. Not knowing any other way of living, it was her normal until she went off to college and saw other people’s lives, learned how others lived.

She’d always kept her father’s activities a secret, as he requested, though the extent of his operations had never been fully realized until after she finished her work at the university.

Now, apparently, another layer to that onion was being peeled away.

“Yes,” she said after a thoughtful pause to consider her master’s question. “I have long thought that his…activities were unusual.” She cast her father a quizzical glance, to which he simply nodded.

“Unusual activities protect the normal the rest of the world knows, little one,” Miyamoto said, using the nickname he’d given her in her youth.

“I’m not so little anymore, Master,” Adriana said.

“I know. But you will always be to me. You are a daughter with two fathers, two teachers. In that regard, I hope it has been a blessing to you.”

“It has,” she said with a slight bow of her head.

Miyamoto directed her attention to the scroll. “This is a story that you won’t find in any of the history books, and for good reason.”

Her eyes pored over it as his finger traced the characters a few inches above the surface.

“This scroll,” he continued, “details the events leading up to the spread of the Black Death across Europe. It is written in the old language of the Mongols. Historians call it Classical Mongolian.”

“That’s why I thought I’d seen it before,” Adriana admitted. She couldn’t read modern Mongolian, and had probably only seen it once or twice in her lifetime, if at all.

“Yes, for someone such as yourself, who has dedicated their life to the rediscovery of primarily European works of art, I can’t imagine it would have been useful for you to learn this language." He returned his attention to the script and read out loud, though she got the impression he’d memorized the writings long ago. He spoke with a distant tone that almost sounded unconscious.

“These are the secret chronicles of Jani Beg, great Khan of the Golden Horde.”

“Jani Beg?” Adriana questioned. “I haven’t heard of him.” Her statement insinuated the doubt as to how great the Khan could have really been.

“His father, Öz Beg, was Khan during the height of the Horde’s power. Once Jani Beg took over, their empire began its decline. That demise was spurred by the Black Death as it decimated his army while they laid siege to the merchant city of Kaffa.”

She nodded, listening closely to every word he uttered.

“This is where the history books’ version of the story ends,” Diego said, his voice quiet and serious.

Miyamoto never took his eyes from the scroll.

“In 1345,” it says, “a mysterious visitor came in the night, seeking audience with the Khan. This visitor was unannounced, and Jani Beg treated them as a hostile threat. When the visitor offered a solution that could quickly end the siege, the Khan listened. This visitor, who kept their face concealed from Jani Beg, explained the idea of using the siege engines to fire the bodies of his dead soldiers over the walls of the city.”

Miyamoto paused for a heartbeat and then went on. “The Khan resisted the temptation. He considered it a dishonorable way to win a war.”

“Biological warfare,” Adriana realized.

The master gave a nod and kept reading. “The Khan soon realized it was the only way to end the battle without losing his entire army to the plague. So, determined to end the standoff, he decided to go ahead with the mysterious visitor’s plan. But as the stranger turned to leave, the Khan killed them with cunning and a skillful attack that ended the threatening invader’s life almost instantly. As he turned over the body to discover the identity of one who would threaten him, the Khan realized it was a woman. She bore a strange tattoo on her neck and also wore a red gem the shape of a rod around her neck.”

Adriana held on to her questions, sensing more was yet to come.

“The Khan took the necklace and disposed of the body. Then he ordered his men to fling the bodies of the dead soldiers over the wall. When they were done with that grim task, he ordered a retreat away from the city, hoping to evade more infections of his already devastated ranks.”

“The people in the city,” Adriana said, “who were they?”

“Genoese merchants,” Diego answered. “During the siege, they still had access to the sea since the Golden Horde didn’t have an efficient way to blockade them from getting supplies. When people started getting sick and dying, the merchants evacuated the city, hoping they could flee the plague. Instead, they ended up carrying the illness back to Europe, where it spread like wildfire.”

“And the woman?”

Miyamoto grinned grimly, still staring at the scroll. “That answer is