Young Again
Copyright© 2018 by Edward Douglass Patterson
Chapter 25: Allies Meet
When Marsha, Ashley, and Sarah got to the door of the conference room, they found two SEALs guarding the door with Wayne Sobczak, Romano Aviles, Julia Evans, and Sandy Vickers waiting outside.
Ashley looked at Sarah with a mischievous smile. Sarah returned the smile and nodded. Marsha was the only one there who didn’t see the interchange.
“Good, you all could make it. We’ll learn more about why we are here when we are inside.” Ashley turned her attention to the two guarding the door. “Master Jian Chang will be the last of the people we need until we find out what this is all about. He will be here in fifteen or twenty minutes. Mrs. Cuervo will have food and drinks later. Make sure you have someone to relieve you so you can have some too.” She waved the others to precede her.
“Miss Sawyer. Only you, Miss Pierce, and Agent Poe are authorized for the meeting.”
“Marsha, tell President DeSantis we will be looking at the NSA intercept data.” Ashley turned to lead her people and Sarah to the area which was set up for the hackers.
Marsha sighed. “I’ll tell them you want some of your people there. Why do you want Master Chang?”
“General Zhang Haiyang will see his inclusion as a sign of how seriously we are about cooperation. We’ll go and get the others started looking at the data.” They left Marsha to explain to the President why they weren’t at the meeting.
When they entered, they saw Master Chang seated at the table. Ashley, Sarah, and Sandy took seats at the table while the other four took seats behind them. Sarah placed a foil-wrapped package on the table in front of her.
Captain McRae started to ask about the package, but Ashley was handing her a note. She read the note. “Mr. President, Ashley and Sarah are here with the people they requested. Sarah has a computer with data related to the terrorists, including data their people collected. They are asking permission to use the computer during the meeting.
“Captain McRae, Morris Rae, NSA Director. What level of security do we have with the room and with this computer?”
“General Rae, Ashley Sawyer. The conference room is unchanged since we took over the facility from RUSTI. We have been working to upgrade other areas. The computer is the same model which MSI delivered to Ray Arnold for evaluation last week. We and our people aren’t familiar enough with maintaining the proper security for what we will be working with, so we are being supported and monitored by some of Captain McRae’s people. It is one of the items on our to-do list.”
“Yes, we are aware of your work to set up the facility there. Would you mind if Olivia White was sitting next to whoever is operating the computer?”
“General Rae, I’m not sure if my sitting next to Sarah would help. The people in the three hacker groups are way beyond my abilities.” Olivia White was the NSA representative to the group they were organizing at the old RUSTI facility.
“Olivia, I could use your help in understanding how some of the data relates to areas you are a lot more informed about than we are.” Sarah realized having Olivia’s help could be very useful.
“General Haiyang, I apologize for these interruptions and delays which have occurred. Sarah and I were at school when we learned about the meeting. We look forward to a long friendship continuing after we have dealt with those who have cost us our families.” Ashley’s words were in Mandarin.
There was a pause of a few seconds. General Haiyang answered in English. “It is a task which having friends who have suffered as we have will speed the settling of the debt. I understand we owe you also for our Russian comrades joining us in this task.”
“Yes, our friend Sergio lost his family when Moscow was hit. Dmitry Shiskin, have you introduced the others you have brought to this meeting?” Ashley winked when she saw the surprise on Sheila McRae’s face.
Over the audio connection, hushed words were heard in Russian until their connection was muted.
“I take that for a no.” Ashley said. “Sheila, do you have an agenda or information on what we want to cover? I have some things which I would like to add if they are not already covered.”
Sheila shook her head no just before the President spoke. “This meeting is to set up a joint effort to go after the terrorists who are responsible for setting up the attack by North Korea. These are the same ones who have tried to kill you a number of times.”
“The ties of friendship we form here will be needed after we have finished that task.” Ashley saw that the politicians were not looking at the long picture. “We need to expand this discussion.”
Sheila was surprised when Ashley confronted the President. She looked at the others in the room and stopped when she saw Mark smiling and nodding. Then she remembered Master Chang. Looking at him, she saw he was looking at Ashley and seemed pleased.
“Master Chang, did you include in your report the tattoos which the two assassins at the tournament had? You had expressed that they were very provocative.” Sheila’s statement caught those listening by surprise. Jian Chang nodded to her.
“My reports have been very complete on all which was learned since I met Ashley and Sarah. The two of them and what they are involved in has been of much interest to my superiors.”
The sound from the phone went very quiet as others in the phone conference put their phones on mute. A couple of minutes later, the phone in Washington was taken off mute.
“Ashley, what other topics do you believe we should include in this meeting?” The President asked.
“Oh, my grandfather’s health and the implication of what we hope to find. Also, my cousin, Tony, sent me a short text message which I read on the ride here this morning. Both have important implications for our future. I think we need to be working together on both of them also.”
“Yes, I agree with you on including those topics and related items. Could you start by telling us about your cousin’s message, then give a brief outline of what we are looking into which led to what Professor Jacobson is looking into. I’m requesting our people familiar with this investigation join us. Then we will get back to discussion of what we know about the terrorists and what we can do to work together to find out more about them.”
“President DeSantis, Dmitry Shiskin. With me are three of the leaders of our new government. The situation is still unstable here and plans for the new government are still being discussed. They have asked me to serve as coordinator for relief efforts your government and others have been offering. We know this may be unsatisfactory but we are still more concerned about internal problems than external.”
“Mr. President, Olivia White. Sarah Pierce has shown me information which is in agreement with NSA’s latest assessment of what is happening with the Russian government. Dmitry Shiskin, are the leaders two women and a man?”
After a few seconds, Dmitry answered. “Yes, since the United States knows then we probably need to also inform our Chinese comrades.”
“China’s interests would be better served by a stable Russia. We can wait for you to be ready to announce your new government.” General Haiyang informed the Russians.
“General, would you have someone contact Dmitry about an exchange of diplomatic representatives? We both lost our ambassadors, and we need to rebuild our relationship.” The voice was female.
“I will pass your request on. I expect they will get back to you quickly. We have been looking forward to reestablishing diplomatic relations. Miss Sawyer, I’m interested in the information your cousin sent you.”
“My cousin is Professor Anthony Jacobson. He is an archaeologist. He and his wife were brought into the investigation of a site near my grandfather’s cabin in the mountains. He was able to date debris from some damage at the site to 12757 years ago with an accuracy of plus or minus 149 years. This is the beginning of the Younger Dryas period when the Northern Hemisphere returned to the cold conditions close to our last ice age. The significance is that the damage to the site may be related to the cause of the Younger Dryas period. The reason we think this is the case is that the damages there are indicative of an attack on the site. The entrance to an underground bunker or fortress was destroyed and sealed by the attack. The damage would have required modern technology. What drew attention to the site was when the military was investigating the area after the North Korean attack. The site caused a reconnaissance aircraft to crash. A beam model EMP weapon was used. The EMP weapon is still active. It is hampering our efforts to investigate the site. Recently, the weapon at over a mile and a half distance responded to a chainsaw which was partially obscured by a hill. We have found active technology which we haven’t yet invented that is almost 13,000 years old.”
“We have not had a very warm relationship with your country.” General Haiyang asked. “Why are you sharing this information with us? This weapon could drop our planes and missiles from the sky.”
“General, Mark Sawyer. They were using the EMP weapon to defend themselves. There have been very few signs of an ancient civilization with advanced technology. The advanced, ancient technology items I have were only dated back at most three thousand years, but the dating was not of the advanced technology relics but of more recent items which made use of a useful artifact. One example is a handle made for a piece of titanium which made a crude knife. We have advanced technology being used in a conflict thirteen thousand years ago. That conflict may have led to a return of an extremely cooler climate. We have reason to believe this was caused by an attack from another species. Aliens who have not returned for a long, long time, but they or some other may someday return. We don’t have the technology that man had then. What will happen if they return? So, we need to get rid of the small problem which we now have before a much larger one arrives.”
“General Haiyang, Dmitry Shiskin. This is President DeSantis. I now better understand the view of the Sawyers on the relative importance of the two topics. Today, I was interested in taking the opportunity that events of the past couple of days offered to track these terrorists. I requested Ashley and Sarah miss school so they would be here to work with us. We are planning to go over other information, which we have on ancient civilization, with them and others on the week of our Thanksgiving holiday in November. We invite your countries to send representatives to attend. We plan to make an announcement about this on the following Monday. We welcome you joining us when we make the announcement.”
“I will inform the Central Military Commission of all we discuss here. It may take some time to reach a decision.” Zhang Haiyang’s voice held amusement as he thought of the initial reaction of some of the officers.
“We will also pass this information on to those we are working with. I don’t know if we will be ready to join you in such an announcement. We would like to send people to learn more about what you have found.” The same unidentified female Russian voice spoke.
“We are offering Jian Chang, Dr. Shen Lee, and other associates of Jian Chang the opportunity to assist us in learning more about what we have found in the mountains near the Sawyer cabin. Other individuals from both China and Russia with knowledge which would help in the investigation would also be welcome.” President DeSantis offered. “Now let us return to discussing tracking down the terrorists.”
Late in the afternoon, Mark explained the changes that had occurred in him.
“You are saying the biological agent the North Koreans used in the attack was mutated by the nuclear explosion and it is what caused these changes in you.” General Haiyang didn’t hide the doubt in his voice.
“That was our initial assumption until we came up with one, which points back to the same ancient civilization we were previously discussing. Doctor May Flower provided several examples of plants she had identified, which had properties which shouldn’t naturally occur in the same plant. These plants have multiple beneficial compounds growing in different parts of the plant. It appears some ancient botanists and doctors worked together to develop plants, which would be available to people after their civilization was destroyed.” Sarah paused. “We believe there is another such plant near the Sawyer’s cabin. Somehow, the North Korean attack triggered something from the plant to cause the changes in Mark Sawyer. This is an area, which the Chinese with their long history of botanical remedies and medicine, would be able to greatly assist us.”
“Do you know if the plants Doctor Flower identified are linked to the same civilization?” General Haiyang appeared very interested in the topic.
“Scientists at Stanford are investigating the genes of these plants. In other areas of investigation, gene mapping has allowed scientists to estimate when genes change. We are hoping for similar information here, but this is a much newer and complicated investigation than carbon dating. They haven’t even supplied an idea of when they expect to have an estimated date. They have confirmed genetic manipulation occurred long before current man had the ability to do it.”
“Jian Chang, I assume none of your associates has expertise in this area?”
“Generally, we weren’t directed to obtain information in those areas of knowledge.”
“Jian, please work with the Americans on any topics they make available to you. Identify other areas where Chinese experts could assist. Supply this information to your superiors.”
“Jian Chang has been spying on the Americans.”
“As was your brother, Viktor Shiskin. Sarah and Ashley identified both spy rings. With Viktor, they manipulated the information so the FSB brought him home. I believe it was done that way because of Sergio. With the Chinese spy ring run by Jian Chang, they used the opportunity to bring China into starting to work with the United States on finding the terrorists. That time they let the United States government know something about it after they started. We are working to train them so they will keep us informed about what they are doing without impacting their capabilities or those of the members of the team we are assembling.” Mark looked purposely at Wayne, Romano, and Julia.
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