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

Cult of Thoth. We must give humanity a chance to adapt, to change, to move forward with its free will.”

That didn’t answer her question, but Adriana felt as if she already knew it. “We have to find the key,” she said. “If we can locate it before the cult, we can destroy it. Without it, they won’t be able to activate the device.”

“Possibly,” Diego agreed partially. “Although if they locate the machine’s center, it is possible they could still find a way to turn it on. I would hope that is not the case, but we must prepare for that eventuality.”

“So, we do both,” Adriana said, determined. “We locate and destroy the key, and find where this thing’s control center is and blow it into oblivion.”

Diego grinned. “A good idea. Unfortunately, we are talking about finding a small gem that has been missing for nearly seven hundred years. And as to the control center, it’s been thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years since its construction.”

“On top of that,” Miyamoto continued, “no one has ever found anything that alludes to its location. The only thing we can surmise is that around thirteen thousand years ago, something catastrophic happened.”

“The global flood?” she asked, almost hopeful.

“Possibly. Something wiped out the ancient civilizations that existed before our historical records. Göbekli Tepe is at least twelve to thirteen thousand years old. The Great Flood, however, buried most of the antediluvian world under the oceans. We can still see traces of their civilizations in places like the Bimini Road or the megaliths off the coast of Japan. There are many others, of course, but it is difficult to tell if the machine was activated before the Great Flood or after. We would assume before.”

“Insinuations from the Torah suggest in Genesis, just before the Creator wiped out the world with a flood, that humanity had defiled itself. The Epic of Gilgamesh, which is widely believed to be the same story told from another culture, offers some similar views. My guess, however, is that years after the flood, as humanity began to once more turn away from the path of morality, one group decided that they would take cataclysms into their own hands. We have no records of this, of course, but our best hypothesis is that the first members of the Thoth Cult took note of the Great Flood and how it basically reset the planet’s entire ecosystem. After that, they set about building their own device that could accomplish the same, or at least similar task.”

Adriana recalled the ark they’d discovered in the mountains of Armenia. The mammoth boat was long gone, but the truly wondrous discovery was the ancient genetic storage facility that contained many samples of both current and long-extinct species. Scientists were still studying the specimens in hopes of reviving some. As yet, though, they’d been unsuccessful.

“This week,” Diego said, “an expedition near Volgograd in Russia discovered something in the area believed to contain the lost cities of Sarai. Within hours of sending information to the University of Volgograd about their discovery, the expedition team was attacked, and everyone there was killed.”

Horror washed over Adriana’s face. “All of them?”

“All but one,” Miyamoto clarified. “The leader of the expedition, Dr. Kevin Clark, escaped. He’d taken the artifact to the university for immediate testing and analysis.”

“Sean let me know,” Diego said, “that he was on his way to intercept Dr. Clark and get him to safety, along with the relic. I haven’t heard back as to whether he was successful in locating Dr. Clark before the cult’s goons got to him.”

“Sean?” Adriana asked. “Did you call him?”

“No. Dr. Clark reached out to Tommy to see if he could help. Fortunately, Sean was in Croatia and able to hop on a plane to Bulgaria. As I said, I’m not certain what happened after that. I can only hope that Sean got to Dr. Clark before the cult could.”

“So, Sean is in Bulgaria?” She tried to put it all together but wanted to make sure she had all the facts.

“Maybe,” Diego said, uncertain. “He may have left the country, taken Dr. Clark somewhere safe, assuming Sean was able to find the man in time. Your husband has a way with things like that.”

He certainly did. She almost never worried about Sean’s well-being, even though he occasionally got wrapped up in dangerous scenarios. When that happened, she was usually with him or could get to him quickly. Even now, her instinct was to track him down and help. Perhaps that was what she needed to do.

She steeled her nerves and stiffened her spine. “So, we are some kind of old line of defense against an ancient cult bent on initiating a mass-extinction event that could kill a third of the planet’s population.” She took a breath. “What do I do first?”

Adriana knew what she hoped they would say, but honestly didn’t know.

Miyamoto answered. “We need you to get to Sean and Dr. Clark. They’re going to need all the help they can get.”

18

Stockholm

Magnus stepped quickly into the hall and looked both directions. The corridor was empty, but he knew that would change any minute.

“Come,” he said. “We must hurry.” The Swede glanced at the coats piled up on the table near the doorway. “And get your coats. You’re going to need them.”

Sean held the door so the others could exit the room. He let it close behind him and followed Dr. Sorenson down the hallway toward the elevators. When the man stopped, Sean questioned him.

“We’re not taking the elevators, are we? They’ll have the lobby blocked off.”

“No,” Magnus insisted. “We’re not taking the elevators. As you say, that would be foolish.” He pressed the button in the center and, thankfully, the lift doors on the right opened. He leaned inside and pressed three random buttons, then retreated into the corridor, allowing the doors to close. A second later, the elevator descended.

Magnus pressed the call button again.

“We should probably get moving, Magnus,” Sean insisted. The anxious