David Golemon - Ancients

"Who do you have working on the murder of your people?"

"Colonel Jack Collins, the Group's security director."

The president looked at his longtime friend. "Collins is with you? I know Jack; I thought Congress and the Joint Chiefs crucified him a few years back for talking to Congress about the screw-up in Afghanistan?"

"They did. I got what was left. And he's still a better soldier than you ever were."

"What in the hell do you know about soldiering, you bookworm?" he shot back. "You're right about Collins, though." The president thought for a moment. "Dammit, Niles, I need you and your best people on this thing."

Niles stood and patted his old friend on the shoulder.

"I want my budget request fulfilled, Mr. President."

"You're a blackmailing little bastard!"

Niles patted his shoulder even harder.

"I ordered my people on it before I left Nevada. Still one step behind me on the uptake, aren't you, Jim?"

Both men grew silent as the vision of the burning Theodore Roosevelt entered their minds at the same time. Niles knew that the president was angry and wanted to hit back at someone. He just wanted to make sure that the anger was directed at the right someone.

Coalitionist Zoenfeller, representing Austria, and the members from India, Canada, and Poland, along with main council, sat in the main conference room of the factory. Caretaker was on the main monitor from a location other than Oslo.

The richly appointed area was semidark, which was close in color to the mood of the four men and one woman gathered there. In front of each of them sat open file folders that had been forward to them from the Coalition's new headquarters in Chicago. The information contained in the folders was an insult. It bordered on treason and had been done so brazenly that the gathered members actually feared for their lives for the first time since the thinly veiled coup had started.

William Tomlinson was declaring war on the world almost three full years ahead of the schedule set by the whole of the Coalition members five years earlier.

"Caretaker, we have the grounds to remove Mr. Tomlinson from the council and expunge him from the Coalition, do we not?"

The elderly man cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable on the monitor.

"You have the right of law on your side as set down by Juliai writ. However, you gentlemen and lady," Caretaker nodded in deference to the Indian representative, "I'm afraid you will not have the votes. Many of your colleagues have joined the young American in his actions. I have learned they are very close to finding one or even all of the Atlantean Keys."

Zoenfeller could not help but notice that Caretaker kept saying you and not us or we .

The old man picked an eight-by-ten photo from the file in front of him showing the aftermath of the Korean air attack on the American task force and slapped it with his fingers. "This is madness! The loss of life on those two American warships was horrendous! He is weakening someone the Coalition needs to maintain continuity in the world until we consolidate."

Knuckles rapped on the table in agreement.

"It's not I you have to convince. I would recommend, secretly of course, that you contact the members of the Coalition who are teetering on the fence. Get them to commit to a more subtle approach. For now I must take my leave." Caretaker reached to turn off his laptop camera.

"Where are you going? We have other matters to discuss," Zoenfeller said angrily.

"Until you do receive the needed support of the rest of the Coalition, I am obligated to advise only the ruling body of the council. Thus far, with all due respect of course, you are not it. I am sorry."

With that quick apology, the image of the Caretaker of Coalition law vanished. The four members looked at the table in stunned silence.

Without preamble, a six-sided monitor slid up in the middle of the conference table. The test signal was a sharp and clear picture of a golden eagle on a red background. It soon vanished and the concerned face of Tomlinson appeared on the screen.

"Good morning." He looked at his watch. "Awful late to have a meeting the rest of us weren't informed of, isn't it?"

"You have done a grievous injustice to our plans. You have moved on the leadership of Germany and Japan, who are now stunned and running scared," Zoenfeller said as he stood and leaned over the table, making sure that his face was framed in the camera lens on top of the monitor.

"They are not running anywhere. Germany's replacement, a Coalition designee, is already in place. He has already issued a statement saying all is well, assuring the German people that the terrorist element he is holding responsible for the assassination will face swift German justice. Japan in the meanwhile has but one choice in this matter and can only turn to our candidate in the next few days. By Japanese law, they can do nothing else."

"You're going to bring the entire free world down around our heads!"

"You're worried about the attack on the American task force? Well, even that has its benefits. While it weakened the NATO response in Korea, it has also guaranteed Kim Jong Il's destruction sooner, rather than later."

"And how is that--by giving them the military courage to cross the border?"

"Exactly. The American theater commander, once the Second Infantry Division and its South Korean allies are overrun, will have no choice but to deploy battlefield nuclear weapons to stop them. As for Russia and China, they will soon cease to be of concern, as their countries lie in ruins, smashed beyond all ability to govern their own populations. There will be no assistance rendered to North Korea by her allies."

Zoenfeller sat back heavily in his chair, amazed at the calm demeanor Tomlinson was showing.

"After that, the assassinations will continue in later weeks until we have all of our people in place in the capitals of the West, and then our two-thousand-year-old charter will be fulfilled. We will have done what every Coalition Council has failed to do since the time of Julius Caesar. It gives me chills to think it was our Council that did this great feat."

The elder members looked horrified but remained silent.

"When the great Julius Caesar threw off the shackles imposed on him by the weaker members of our Ancient family, he couldn't have the foresight to believe the power his children would someday wield. His murderers, in their vain attempt to stop his desire for one rule for all the people, have finally led us to this momentous occasion."

Zoenfeller tried one final effort to bring the lion of the Coalition to the table of reason.

"Surely we can wait until the Atlantean Key is recovered. If we continue to accelerate beyond planning, things could spiral out of control and these great dreams of finally gaining all that was lost by our ancestors fifteen thousand years ago will be lost, possibly forever."

Tomlinson smiled and then looked into the camera. He now had Zoenfeller and the others right where he wanted them, and he would use the old man's fears and words to silence his voice in the Coalition forever.

"The recovery of the plate map is happening as we speak. The Atlantean Key will be found in no more than a week, and then our greatest enemies will be bashed to pieces by the very earth they walk upon."

"You have already been found out!" the old man said incredulously as he lost all control.

"You are referring to the supposed audiotape of the wave?" He laughed, and then he seemed to look into the monitor hard enough that the members thought he was staring directly into their souls. "The aerial platform will no longer be used. We will not need it. With the tone receptors already in place, we will strike at the world from a lair they would never, could never find--the very birthplace of the Wave itself."