Uncontacted, page 17
He didn’t know what the NSF man would be able to do, if anything, but he figured the NSF would like to be the first to know about any potential research projects involving the artifact. It was either that, he mused, or else try cold-calling the White House or the Pentagon and explaining his situation. He was less than confident that route would produce positive results anytime soon, so he decided to start with Duncan and take it from there.
He placed a call to his NSF contact and waited while it rang. After a few rings the familiar nasal whine came through Antonio’s speaker. “James Duncan here.”
“Good afternoon, James,” Antonio began, mentally calculating the time zone difference. It was very late afternoon there, 5:00 or 6:00, but close enough. He was lucky to have caught him before he left for the day. “Antonio Medina here.”
“Dr. Medina, to what do I owe the pleasure of your call? New grant application coming my way, I suppose?”
“You could say that. But it’s more complicated than that. And potentially much more rewarding.”
“You’ve got my interest piqued enough to pour one more cup of coffee from this newfangled espresso maker we got in the office. If the taxpayers only knew. So tell me about it while I brew up a mocha Frappuccino.”
Antonio told him the entire story from the beginning. By the time he’d finished Duncan had made a second caffeinated beverage. “Jesus, Antonio. And you’re still there now, in the Andamans? Are you in danger?”
“I can get myself out of here, James, don’t worry about that. But what I need from you is help in stopping Dr. Foster, because it doesn’t matter where in the world I am if they think I have the other half of the artifact. And I do. So what I need from you is—“
“To look into Stel’s funding sources, right?”
Normally being interrupted was a pet peeve of Antonio’s, but this time he appreciated the expediency. “Correct.”
“Okay, it’s a routine matter for me to look up in our own databases what funding he’s received recently…” Antonio heard the rapid-fire clacking of computer keys. “Hmmm, that’s a little odd.”
“What’s odd? Not that I don’t enjoy chatting, James, but I’m on a satellite phone here in the middle of nowhere, and when my battery dies, that’s it, unless we can shout across two oceans and the Gulf of Mexico.”
“Understood. It seems that not only has Foster had zero NSF funding in the last eight years, but in the past five he’s had zero public--that is government--funding of any kind.”
“He’s got a steady publication history, though, so he must be getting funding from somewhere.”
“Right, but it’s private. Hold on, searching another database…Okay, here we go. He’s been funded exclusively by a private company called International Semiconductor, Incorporated.”
“International Semi? Don’t they make computer chips?”
“Yeah. They’re in everything. Probably even in that phone you’re talking to me on right now.”
Antonio looked at his device. “Great. Listen, James, you’re the only contact I have in the government. I know this might be a little above your pay grade, so to speak, but I really need help with getting the other half of this meteorite artifact back from Stel or whoever Stel gave it to.”
“Doing that is way beyond my job description, but if I can establish a link between Dr. Foster’s lab and some kind of wrongdoing that has to do with misrepresentation of funding or something along those lines, I may be able to pass it up the chain, and then it’ll be in their hands.”
“Check into the computer lab he works with, too. They’re the ones who actually had possession of the first half of the artifact, the ones who came up with the simulation theory. Dr. James Hanlan. There was a geology lab at Oxford involved, too.”
“Will do. That’s enough homework to keep me busy for a little while, Antonio. You better get off the horn and get yourself home. I’ll contact you when I have results.”
“As soon as you can, James. Thanks. I’ll be sure to come up with a suitable gift a government bureaucrat would appreciate.”
“Get out of jail free cards are always welcome. Good luck.” Antonio ended the call and returned the phone to his pocket. Time to get back on the trail. With a last look around at the forest, he continued on toward the beach.
Chapter 32
Antonio splashed across the shallow lagoon. He’d lost his sunglasses somewhere along the way and cursed at the blinding tropical sun reflecting off the water. He’d picked a route that was further to the left, facing out to sea, than he’d gone before, and now he found himself having to pick his way carefully through a small garden of corals. Large torpedo-shaped, silver fish darted here and there as he shuffled his feet across the sandy areas to avoid stepping on a stingray, and high-stepped between the corals and sponges to avoid scraping his ankles.
He’d scouted the entire vista from the cover of the jungle before venturing out onto the mud flats, and had seen no one. No people, tribal or otherwise--no boats, no planes, absolutely nothing. Out on the mud flats he’d be closer to any boats that did happen to come along, so he opted to wait out there. He stepped out of the lagoon up onto the mud flat, softer near the edge and turning hard packed a few feet in.
He still didn’t trust Stel’s boat pilot, as much as he wanted to give him a call and say he was ready to be picked up. He imagined Stel would have him on standby, just in case he was stupid enough to contact him. No, he’d just have to find his own way out of here. And fast, too, he realized, turning around to scan the beach where he’d seen the tribe run out of the jungle to attack them when they’d landed via helo. The village had been decimated, but the hunting party that he’d gone with to the sacred stone pit—they were still out there somewhere, and after the strike team hit, they might have come back to the village. Were they to see him here after what had happened, he couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t take revenge by killing him on the spot. The language wall between them would be too great to try and explain what had transpired between him and Stel.
Antonio turned back around and stared out to sea. How had he gotten himself into this mess? He never should have called Stel. But it was too late for that kind of thinking now. He had set this chain of events into motion and now he had a responsibility to make it right.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a rumbling, throaty engine. He looked up from the burrowing clam he’d been staring at and out to sea. He scanned left to right until he spotted a fishing trawler chugging along from the open ocean toward the Indian mainland. Antonio shot to his feet. He bolted to the edge of the mud flat, the Andaman Sea representing a chasm between him and the Indian continent.
The vessel was still far off, a couple of miles or so, but he knew it would have to pass within decent visual range of the flat for it to continue on its current course, since a shallow coral reef created a navigable channel. But what was the best way to make himself seen to the boat? He had no flares, no radio, no way to start a fire…Antonio eyeballed the mudflat, looking for nothing specific, just anything that might give him an idea. Finally, on the lagoon-facing edge of the flat he spotted a tree branch that had been freshly washed up, judging by the fact that it still had green leaves on it.
He ran to it and picked it up. It was a good twenty-feet long. He broke off a couple of peripheral, smaller branches that made it unwieldy, and then he tried hoisting it into the air. He found he was able to stick it straight up and wave it back and forth, a good twenty-five feet or so into the air combined with his height.
He ran with it to the ocean edge of the mud flat and waited for the trawler to approach. Antonio knew that during long sea voyages, sailors didn’t always have someone watching to see what was around them, other than potential navigation hazards, so spotting a man standing on a distant mud flat or sandbar was not a given. But in this case, the reputation of the Andaman Islands tribes was well-known, and so he gave it good odds that they would be looking his way. In fact, he thought, raising his tree branch into the air, he had to be careful he wasn’t mistaken for a tribal member himself and shot at.
Antonio waved the tree branch back and forth as the trawler neared. He started to run back and forth along the mud bank to hopefully make himself even more visible with added motion. His arms burned with the effort, but he willed himself to keep at it, knowing that this fishing boat was his best chance of leaving this island anytime soon.
He had just resigned himself to the unsavory reality that the boat was going to pass him right by, when the cadence of the engines changed and the prow of the vessel turned toward the mudflat. Antonio lifted a booted foot out of the muck, dredging up a large clam with it. He eyed the mollusk, thinking about how he would probably need to eat these raw while he waited for another ship to come along unless he could make this opportunity work.
Suddenly two bright flashes of light appeared from the bridge of the vessel. They were signaling him! He stood in place and dropped the branch, waving both arms above his head instead. No doubt they would be extremely wary of approaching, suspecting a trap, of being lured to the mudflat only to be attacked by the rest of the tribe hidden just inside the forest behind the beach. But he persisted with movements he knew were uncharacteristic of tribal people, decidedly western gestures, even when seen from a distance.
The fishing boat continued to approach the mudflat at a slow pace. Encouraged, Antonio continued his show of needing help, waving his arms in an X pattern, then running to a different place and doing the same thing. When he was certain that he had been seen, he stood in place and watched the boat as it neared.
The vessel was old, rust streaked, but clearly very functional, its decks stacked with nets, crates, cranes, winches and other machinery. He could see a few crew members going about their working business on the aft deck, while some others were lined up against the port rail, looking in his direction. He heard a voice over a loudspeaker but couldn’t make out what it was saying. It was taking the right action, though, he could see that, so he stood and waited, trying to project as peaceful a demeanor as possible.
At last the craft was close enough to shore that they could shout to him through a megaphone. The sentence was in Indian, but Antonio recognized a single word: help. He raised a hand high and shouted, “Yes!” A minute passed during which Antonio began to think they didn’t believe him, that they were going to head back out to sea without him. But then he heard a splash as a tender vessel was launched. Shortly after that he heard the whine of a small outboard motor, and then two men riding the dinghy rode up onto the mudflat, about fifty feet away from him. No doubt they wanted to give themselves one final chance to assess him, to see whether he posed a threat.
“Hi, do you speak English?” Antonio called out when they stepped from the dinghy onto the flat.
“Yes,” one of them, an Indian man who was thinner and taller than his fellow crewman said. “How did you get here?”
Antonio explained with as little detail as possible that he was a scientific researcher who had become separated from his expedition team. They had already been picked up, he lied, but due to an erroneous head count, they hadn’t realized they were short a man when the boat left the island.
After more conversation, the crew made the decision that he was trustworthy enough to take aboard. He was given a hammock in a shared crews’ quarters, and during the two-days’ passage to the Indian mainland, he passed the time regaling the crew with tales of the natives and the island itself. He slept a lot, too, surprised at how exhausted his ordeal had made him. He awoke from such a slumber to find that the vessel was docking in a harbor.
Antonio gathered his backpack—he’d slept with it to keep the artifact safe—thanked the crew and captain and walked onto the Indian continent.
Chapter 33
Mumbai, India
The sheer density of crowds on the sidewalk and the traffic in the streets was shocking to Antonio as he strolled along the avenue. It was his first trip here, and the chaotic mish-mash of cars, bikes, lorries, motorcycles, and pedestrians was disorienting, especially after being in the jungle for days. After being dropped off at a wharf by the fishing boat, he’d taken a bus across the country to the city of eighteen million. There were closer cities and towns along his route where he could have stopped to rest, but he needed access to very modern technology for what he had in mind—for starters, a cell-phone signal.
He heard his smartphone ring for the first time since he’d left with Stel in the helicopter. He glanced at the caller ID and saw that it was James Duncan, his NSF contact. “Talk to me, James. You find anything out?”
“Where are you by the way?”
“I’d better not say.” Antonio shifted the weight of his pack on his back as he threaded his way through the thick sidewalk crowd. “But I’m safe for now, off the island.”
“You’ve got cell reception, at least, wherever you are. I’ll get right to the point. I called in a few favors and got our investigative unit to fast-track this little issue.”
Antonio paused to let three kids sharing one bicycle pass him by. “The NSF has an investigative unit?”
“Kind of a little-known fact, but yeah. Normally this wouldn’t make it across their desk, either, but like I said—favors. And after they see what I dug up, I’ve got a feeling they may want to throw some resources at this, Antonio. But before we get too far—I know we’re short on time—let me tell you this: There are some powerful people after this artifact or whatever it is.”
“Politicians? Black market dealers? Who?”
“Let’s start with your man, Stel Foster.”
“Okay.”
“It sure is noisy wherever the hell you are.”
Antonio did his best to shield the phone from the blaring horn of a bus trying to make its way through a throng of people and horses. “Big city. Nice change of pace from where I’ve been, though, I’m not complaining. So tell me more.”
Duncan continued. “This company that’s been funding Foster’s research—International Semi?”
“What about it?”
“Strange bird, it is. It’s set up like a global conglomerate, with sub-holdings and subsidiaries all over the place from all the major cities—maybe even the one you’re in now, who knows—to assorted backwater towns pretty much no one’s heard but the people who live there.”
“Is there something wrong with that?”
“It makes it harder to figure out where all the money goes, I can tell you that much, but in and of itself, no. But what is a little odd is that a sizable percentage of holdings from various offshore and numbered accounts can all be traced to one William Vandoven.” Duncan paused as if to see whether Antonio would have a reaction.
“Doesn’t ring any bells for me.”
“He’s Chairman of a sort of secret society called The Bilderberg Group.”
Antonio coughed as he passed a vendor stall that wafted pungent incense smoke. “I do think I’ve heard of them—they’re like a think tank?”
“Sort of, yeah, formed back in the 1950s. Officially, their goal is to bolster Western European and U.S. relations, but some people say they’re really striving to achieve a one-world government.”
“So they’re trying to take over the world?” Antonio smiled at a passing Indian man who gave him a quizzical look as he spoke the question.
“That’s one way to interpret it. And if what we understand about this artifact you found is even half true, it sounds like something that would further their aims.”
“So Stel’s funding comes from The Bilderberg Group?”
“Yes.”
“Is Stel in it?”
“He’s not actually a member as far as we can tell, nor is the computer scientist at Oxford whose team decoded the first half of the device—Dr. James Hanlan. I’m still checking into the geologists, but they appear to be uninvolved so far. But we know for sure that both Foster and Hanlan are funded almost exclusively by The Bilderberg Group. It’s weird, even though they are both full-time faculty at the university, it’s like they’re operating as some rogue academic group within the school. Their own funding, their own research, their own schedules.”
“Both of them?” Antonio reached a small open air café and took a seat at an empty table. “No wonder he jumped to help out so quickly.”
“Right, so Antonio: a word of caution. The Bilderberg Group is extremely powerful with many wealthy and connected ties to governments and corporations around the world. If they want the other half of that device—and you know they do—they’ll be coming for you.“
“Yeah, the airborne jungle strike team kind of gave me that impression.”
“I know, I don’t need to tell you, but I’ve got to go on record putting it out there. I’m afraid your safety is in fact in jeopardy as we speak. Maybe you should turn the rock over to us.”
Antonio set his pack on the ground, looping a foot through the straps to discourage would-be snatch-and-grabbers. “Turning the rock over to you doesn’t get us back the other half of the artifact, though. Besides, there’s only one safe place for both of these rocks, James, and that’s where we found them. The one I have has to go back to the Amazon, it’s its destiny.”
There was a pause while Duncan considered this. “You asked me to help on this, Antonio, and I did. But a side-effect of that is that now the NSF knows about this…artifact, as you call it…and they’re not simply going to forget about it. You’ve set something into motion here.”
“The assistance is welcome, James. I called you, remember? It was my fault for calling Stel in the first place, but now you’re the one I called to try and fix things because I’ve got nowhere else to turn. Look, we have to get the other rock back from Stel, and keep him from getting this one. Because if they have custody of both halves, James, you know what that means?” The silence on the other end told Antonio to continue. “It means they can destroy the world. They’ll put the two halves close enough together to demonstrate the awful power of it, and then they’ll threaten everyone into doing their bidding, meeting their demands, or else…”
