The Extinction Code (16 page)

‘I don’t believe they’d block something like that,’ Lopez said.

‘No?’ Lysander challenged. ‘In a recent study of Israeli and Palestinian Muslim Arabs, more than seventy per cent of the Jewish men and over eighty per cent of the Arab men whose DNA was studied had inherited their Y chromosomes from the same paternal ancestors, who lived in the region within the last few thousand years. In short, Israel’s people are not a distinctive race after all and have no right to claim to be. Israel promptly blocked the report wherever they found it, and it was distinctly under–reported around the world for fear of upsetting Jewish beliefs, their faith and their perceived right to a country with an undivided Jerusalem as its capital. Faith trumps fact once again, with media compliance.’

‘But this alien DNA is sensational, right?’ Lopez argued. ‘I’d have thought that they’d be all over this no matter who it upsets?’

‘Do not underestimate the power of politics over science and the media,’ Lysander cautioned her. ‘This isn’t the first time scientists have been censored over what they can release publicly. The International Committee on Climate Change has repeatedly used its governmental connections to suppress any evidence suggesting that climate change is anything other than man–made. Manufacturers of everything from toothpaste to major drugs repeatedly do the same to conceal the long–term effects of the products they produce, and tobacco firms long fought to suppress evidence of their efforts to create cigarettes capable of crossing the blood–brain barrier, increasing addictiveness. In the case of alien DNA, however, the suppression appears genuinely motivated by a desire to prevent a paradigm shift in human nature and understanding: mankind has never been able to answer questions of this magnitude until now, and the reaction of the general public is notoriously difficult to predict. Ask any presidential candidate.’

‘How did they find this alien DNA?’ Ethan asked. ‘Are you sure this isn’t just some Internet Meme or something?’

‘It was part of the Human Genome Project,’ Lysander explained. ‘Scientists worked for thirteen years to unravel the code, and in doing so they discovered that some of the non–coding sections of our genetic sequences, once referred to as “junk DNA”, were in fact extra–terrestrial in origin. The research published in the open access journal
Genome Biology
focused on the use of horizontal gene transfer, or HGT, the transfer of genes between organisms living in the same environment. Scientists from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom proved that HGT has contributed to the evolution of many, perhaps all, animals and that the process is ongoing.’ He smiled as though in wonder at it all. ‘We’re full of extra–terrestrial material, and nobody knows where it came from.’

‘Could it be a mistake?’ Lopez asked.

‘Regretfully, no,’ Lysander replied. ‘Maxim Makukov of the Fesenkov Astrophysical Institute supported the Cambridge researchers’ conclusions, which were essentially that our DNA consists of two versions: a large structured code and a simple, shorter one. The larger part of the code is non–terrestrial, inherited from some other place or species, while the shorter section of the code is the result of biological and chemical evolution over the history of our planet. The research, along with other material on directed panspermia, has featured in the prestigious journal
Icarus
, among others.’

‘Can this code be read?’ Lopez asked.

Lysander seemed uncertain.

‘The human genome contains many millions of lines of code but in principle yes, any message contained therein should be decipherable in the same way that binary code can be converted into words, images and mathematics. Precisely such a code was found in the human genome in 2013, in the form of mathematical and semiotic patterns within that code.’

‘Mathematical patterns?’ Ethan echoed. ‘Like a
message
?’

‘Precisely,’ Lysander agreed. ‘However I haven’t heard anything about the work since, which leads me to believe that it was rapidly covered up by the governments in question and the scientists involved in the work prevented from elaborating any further on what they had achieved.’

Ethan thought for a moment and then he thanked the doctor for his time and marched back up the shore with Lopez.

‘The Black Knight contained information,’ Lopez said as they walked, ‘that device inside it and the quantum computer that Hellerman’s been working on. This whole thing is connected to Majestic Twelve. Maybe this is what they’ve been working on the whole time?’

Ethan nodded in agreement. Ever since they had begun the seemingly endless task of attempting to bring Majestic Twelve down, they had seen connections with what appeared to be a vast conspiracy to cover–up a major discovery that had occurred some decades before, perhaps centuries even. Ethan had always felt that beyond their investigations, buried deep somewhere in archives so classified that even the President of the United States knew nothing about them, was a clue that could unravel the entire mystery and reveal just what it was that the members of Majestic Twelve knew and why they were so opposed to it becoming public knowledge.

‘What if everything they’ve been doing over the years is to keep this single big secret?’ he suggested. ‘Majestic Twelve were formed right after the supposed alien crash at Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, and they’ve had a presence at virtually every major paranormal or supernatural event that we’ve investigated.’

‘And they keep silencing people who are working on this stuff,’ Lopez agreed, ‘Lucy Morgan in both Israel and Peru and the site in Antarctica where we found the Black Knight.’

‘Most of what got them started seems connected to the ancient alien hypothesis,’ Ethan said, ‘those monoliths around the world, the Nazca Lines, everything pretty much ties them into some kind of knowledge about bigger things than we’ve been looking at over the past few years.’

Ethan reached the jeep and looked back down the rocky shore to where Lysander was busily collecting samples and examining them with a magnifying glass, already oblivious to Ethan and Lopez. The fact that so many scientists were involved in programs of one kind or another that Majestic Twelve had shown an interest in made him wonder whether any of their twelve members were themselves academics. He’d heard of various scientists who had become fabulously wealthy as a result of patenting their various inventions either within universities or as private ventures outside of them.

‘Has Jarvis released the names of all of MJ–12’s members yet?’ he asked Lopez.

‘Not so far,’ she replied. ‘They’re keeping it under wraps right now, presumably to prevent them from becoming aware that we know who they are.’

Lopez, while working with a former FBI agent in New York City, had been able in a previous operation to use a small robotic drone to hover in front of a towering hotel and snap a single image of the entire group assembled in one place. There had been twelve men present, plus one more, the Director of the FBI, a shocking revelation that had ended the director’s career and ultimately his life.

‘Twelve men, and one of them was Victor Wilms, right?’

‘Sure,’ Lopez agreed, and then caught onto Ethan’s train of thought. ‘Wilms is dead, so they’re one short.’

‘I wonder if their new member, Wilms’s replacement, is a geneticist of some kind?’

Lopez yanked open the door to the jeep and was about to climb in when Lysander hurried up the shore to them, a satellite phone in his hand and an amazed expression on his face.

‘It’s for you!’

Ethan blinked in surprise as he took the satellite phone from Lysander.

‘Ethan, it’s Jarvis. You need to get to the nearest airport immediately, I’ll have a plane meet you there.’

‘Where are we going?’

The reply chilled Ethan to the core.

‘Madagascar,’
Jarvis replied.
‘The extinction has begun.’

***

XIX

Rome

Waiting was always the hardest part.

The car was parked on a side street just a quarter mile south of the iconic Colosseum, which he could see now and which provided a handy datum for orientation in the city. He kept an eye on the shadows falling on the buildings on the opposite side of the street too, gauging both the time and direction.

Aaron Mitchell had little time for modern technology, preferring instead to rely on his wits and years of training. Electrical gizmos had a nasty habit of failing when the batteries ran out, or glitching at crucial moments. The beautiful golden glow of the sunlight hitting the ornate buildings on the opposite side of the street reminded him of an operation deep inside a frigid town in southern Bosnia, where the snow and ice was encrusted around the shelled fragments of what had once been a town house. Mitchell had crept through the shattered interior of the building in search of two men who had been gunning down civilians passing through the area and robbing them before erecting the corpses on stakes in streets nearby.

A low sun made visibility difficult, bright beams of misty golden light passing through bare windows and gusty corridors littered with debris and chunks of fallen masonry. Mitchell had advanced with all due caution, but sometimes all the skill in the world was no match for sheer bad luck and the unpredictable.

He had eased around the corner of a corridor to see a remote machine gun emplacement staring straight at him, likely installed by mercenaries paid to take down whatever Serbians or Croats their employers had decided no longer had the right to life. Sunlight glowed in beaming shafts through mortar holes in the corridor wall and fell onto the ugly black barrel, damp with moisture that glistened in the light. He had seen the operators a moment later, huddled excitedly over some little black box that controlled their new toy and tucked safely out of easy shooting range around the far end of the corridor. Mitchell had heard the motors of the machine gun whine and the barrel shift slightly to the right, and then he had heard the laughter as the two operators pressed the fire button. The empty click that had echoed down the corridor revealed the flaw in trusting one’s life to circuits and electrodes: the bitter cold had caused ice to form on the machine gun’s attached auto–trigger circuitry, breaking up the flow of electrons and denying the signal when the sunlight had hit the weapon and melted the ice.

Mitchell had lunged forward, yanked the machine gun round to aim back down the corridor and pulled the trigger himself. A deafening few seconds later and the opposite side of the corridor was peppered with rounds that punched easily through the crumbling walls, long since exposed to the elements. Mitchell had passed by what was left of the two operators sprawled across the corridor with a deep mistrust of such gadgets and a conviction never to fall prey to their lure of an easy kill.

A distant bell chimed and woke Mitchell from his reverie. He cursed himself silently, aware more now than ever that his advancing years were blunting his skills and his senses, that he would not much longer be an effective asset in the field. That, of course, meant that sooner or later a younger, fitter, more able man would be the one pulling the trigger on Mitchell. He recalled his being bested by Ethan Warner not much more than a year ago, in Nevada. He had barely escaped from that encounter with his life, and once again only good fortune had been on his side – without it, he had no doubt that Warner would have finished him for good.

Movement on the opposite side of the street, and again Mitchell cursed his drifting mind as he saw four men exit an exclusive restaurant. Suits, shades, broad shoulders, glances cast carefully up and down the street. It amused Mitchell sometimes that the security teams wealthy men assembled to protect them were also the very thing that drew attention to them: a man walking alone, ironically, was much harder to spot from a distance than somebody who walked with five bodyguards to protect them.

Mitchell watched as one of the guards opened the door to a glossy black Mercedes, and then a man walked from the restaurant. Perhaps fifty years of age, smartly dressed, empowered by money but not by honor. Mitchell glanced at a high resolution photograph in his hand and confirmed that this was indeed the mark he had followed from Dubai.

Time to go to work.

The Mercedes pulled smoothly away from the restaurant, a second vehicle moving into view to follow it a few car lengths behind. Mitchell knew that this would be the vehicle carrying two of the security team, with the other two driving the Mercedes. There would likely be a third vehicle that would now have pulled out somewhere ahead, which would have two further agents inside who would recon’ the route ahead, looking for obvious trouble spots like traffic bottlenecks or perhaps unplanned roadworks which would signify a possible assassination attempt.

Majestic Twelve were worried, Mitchell realized, and smiled.

The two vehicles moved off, and Mitchell pulled out into the traffic flow and followed them a discreet distance behind. The security team, if they were sharp, would have noted his vehicle among all of the others and would monitor their presence, looking for some sign of a tail. Mitchell’s vehicle plate began with the letters
Delta Echo Zero Four
, easy to memorize for a keen–eyed agent and pick up again if he was seen too often following the Mercedes.

Mitchell had a map of the city open beside him, and he began noting where the Mercedes was headed through the city. The airport was in the opposite direction so his target was not intending to leave the city today. Having just eaten would mean that a social engagement was unlikely at least until the evening. That meant a likely route was to one of the exclusive hotels, of which Mitchell knew they would pick only the absolute finest. Sometimes, men of power revealed their hands far too easily, their love of luxury an Achilles Heel. Mitchell had already circled the three most expensive hotels in the city, and now he identified one of them in particular as being the most likely destination. He could be wrong of course, but the closer they got, the more likely his judgement was correct.