The belial spear the bel.., p.1
The Belial Spear (The Belial Rebirth Book 2), page 1
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“All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
CHAPTER 1
HUNTINGDON, PENNSYLVANIA
Homeland Security agent Mustafa Massari tightened the cuffs on Rocco Swann’s wrists.
“This isn’t legal. This hurts, man,” twenty-year old Rocco fumed, his muscular arms held at an awkward angle behind his back.
Mustafa ignored the young man’s complaints. He wasn’t taking any chances. He had cuffed the AWOL soldier and murder suspect around a pipe.
“Too bad.” Mustafa walked over to the owner of the Huntingdon Military Recycling and Scrapping, Owen Butler, a well-built African American man in his late fifties. A former Navy guy, Owen sat, still tied to the chair the Swanns had put him in. Slipping his switchblade from his pocket, Mustafa cut the ropes from the man’s wrists.
Pulling his arms back in front of him, Owen winced as he rubbed his wrists. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Just take it easy.” Mustafa flicked a glance at the door where Laney had disappeared.
Noting the look, Owen nudged his chin toward Rocco. “I’ll keep an eye on him. Go after your partner.”
Mustafa didn’t agree right away, even though he wanted to. He took a moment to study the man. Owen looked steady, and backup should be arriving shortly. He knew Delaney McPhearson could handle herself, but he’d heard Danny Wartowski, Lou Thomas, and Rolly Escabi say they were joining the search for Rocco’s brother Damien. The three of them had accompanied Mustafa and Laney to the scrapyard, but Laney and Mustafa had left them back at the car. The only reason they were here was because they hitched a ride on the Chandler jet with Laney. After the scrapyard, Laney and Mustafa were supposed to fly with them back to New York for a concert.
He’d known the three of them for years, since they were teenagers. Back then, Lou and Rolly had been Fallen, but like all the others, they had lost their abilities after Egypt. Rationally, he knew they were adults now and that they had received training. But in his heart, he still considered them kids. He turned back to Owen. “Okay. Give a yell if you need help.”
“Will do.” Owen glared at Rocco.
Not wanting to wait a moment longer, Mustafa slipped out the door. In front of him was a wall of junk: Army jeeps, old tires, busted-up shelving, the wing of a plane. Above the metal, he could even make out the top of an old military chopper. The scrapyard was where old military equipment was brought by the U.S. government to be stored until it could be melted down.
Laney had contacted Mustafa just this morning to join her in looking for some old piece that had been here since the Vietnam War. He cut through the path in the towers of junk, listening for her or any of the others. He knew the other Swann brother was younger and a suspect in at least two murders. And the idea of Swann finding his people before him did not sit well with him.
Gun held firmly in his hand, he stepped out into the main passageway. A yell came from his right. Picking up his pace, he hurried in that direction while keeping his eyes peeled.
Winding his way through the pathways, his stress level increased. Deciding to risk contacting Laney, he’d just reached for the mic at his throat when his hand stilled. A faint red glow appeared above the rows of metal, along with a low hum.
He reached the end of the path and peered to his right. A hundred yards down the path, he found the source: a red glow at the top of a metal object that lay on its side. His mouth fell open, knowing that no good could come of that. He picked up his pace as he caught sight of Laney only ten feet from the object.
The object, shaped like a giant bell, rose up off the ground and began to spin.
Fear gripped Mustafa as she backed away from the object, her hair blown back by the wind the object was creating. “Laney, run! Laney!”
His voice, however, was lost as the force of the wind increased, causing the objects around her to move and shift as if they were alive. Laney turned to the path that had been behind her moments ago, only to find it blocked.
Movement across from Laney made Mustafa’s heart nearly stop beating entirely. Lou, Danny, and Rolly were on the other side of the object, similarly trapped.
Mustafa increased his pace, even as the red light began to grow brighter. He needed to help pull them out. He didn’t know what the object was, but he could sense the danger of it. No, please, God, no, he prayed, willing his legs to move faster.
The light sped up and enveloped most of the object, nearing its apex. The object was massive, at least twelve feet tall and nine feet wide. And he couldn’t be sure, but it looked almost like a Nazi symbol had been painted on its face. He tensed as the object hovered ten feet from the ground, now completely enveloped in the red light as it spun even faster. His hair stood on end as Laney and the others backed away.
A bright red light burst out from the object, slamming into everything within a thirty-foot radius. A blast of wind crashed into Mustafa, sending him flying off his feet. He careened back through the air and hit an old jeep hard, then slipped down the side of it, crumpling to the ground.
Spots appeared around the edges of his vision. His ears rang as the world swayed. He knelt on the ground, his body shaking as he balanced on his hands, trying to get his equilibrium back.
Crawling on hands and knees over to an old tank, he latched onto its frame and pulled himself to his feet. Using whatever was next to him, he pulled himself unsteadily forward.
Scraps of metal and entire machines had been blown back by the blast. They now lay scattered across the yard. Pathways that had been perfectly clear moments ago were now blocked entirely.
Mustafa continued on, ignoring where a ragged piece of metal cut through his pants and into his skin. He shoved, pushed, climbed, and crawled his way forward.
Finally, he shifted around a plane that lay on its side and stopped, needing to prepare himself for what he might see. In Egypt, he had seen too much horror. And he knew in his gut that whatever that blast had been, what he would see here would be even worse because it would be people he knew, people he loved.
He squeezed passed the plane and stopped, his mouth falling open in shock.
There were no bodies. There was no blood. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
A perfect circle seemed to have been carved in the middle of the junkyard. It looked to be about thirty feet wide. Not a scrap of metal was within it. It was as if a giant vacuum had come down and sucked it all up, not leaving a piece.
Trying to figure out what exactly he was seeing, he blinked hard. He turned to the meta
The more Mustafa stared, the less he comprehended. It made no sense. Beyond the circle, everything was in disarray. Everything had been thrown about.
But within the circle, there was nothing, not a single sign of violence.
Not a single piece of anything.
He pulled out his phone. He had no idea what had happened here. But he knew one thing for sure: he needed help.
CHAPTER 2
Over three dozen federal agents scoured the scrapyard, trying to figure out what had happened to Laney, Lou, Rolly, and Danny. Director of Special Operations of Homeland Security Jennifer Witt stood with her sunglasses in place, her arms crossed over her chest, overseeing the process. Her black hair was pulled into a tight ponytail, and she wore her signature dark-blue suit. From the outside, she no doubt looked like the consummate professional, calm, cool, and collected.
But inside, she was shaking.
Mustafa had called Jen three hours ago. Her heart rate had risen at his somber tone, and she immediately ordered a team to his site and boarded the Chandler jet and headed here with her husband, Henry Chandler, and the security head for all of Chandler Group, Jake Rogan, in tow.
They had all envisioned worse. Somehow, though, the complete lack of anything was worse than bodies. They simply had no idea what had happened.
“Director Witt?”
Jen turned to one of her most trusted agents, D’Artist Vaughn, who had driven in from New York to help. She and Laney had just seen D’Artist at a white nationalist bookstore, where they believed the owner had been killed by Damien Swann.
When D’Artist heard about the situation, he’d immediately offered his help. He’d been the first member of her team she called, and he was the most detail-oriented person on her team. If there was something here to find, D’Artist would find it.
D’Artist had known about the Swann connection, which was another reason why Jen called him. Right now, very few people knew about Laney’s involvement in the events in the scrapyard. And Jen intended to keep it that way as long as she could.
“What did you find?” she asked, looking for something, anything to work with.
But D’Artist shook his head, glancing back at the sight, a confused look on his face. “There are trace amounts of radiation higher than what’s in the rest of the scrapyard, but nothing dangerous. We’re going to have those sent to a lab to analyze. The technicians will know what to make of them. I’ll have copies of everything sent to you as well, of course.”
Jen nodded. She’d get those findings to Dr. Dom Radcliffe, the genius who worked for the Chandler Group and who was also a good friend. Hopefully he’d be able to make heads or tails of it.
“Have they found anything else?”
The agent’s frown deepened. “No, nothing. And I mean nothing. In fact, it seems as if even part of the ground was somehow taken. The circle is three inches lower than the ground surrounding it.”
Staring at everyone running around like a very busy ant colony, Jen ran a hand through her hair. All this activity, and yet they had nothing. “Okay. Let me know if you find out anything else.”
D’Artist paused as if he wanted to say more, but he just nodded. “Will do.”
As he walked away, Jen turned her attention back to the site. There was actually nothing for her to do right now. Henry and Jake were interviewing Rocco Swann, trying to get what information they could on why he and his brother wanted the Bell. But from Henry’s recent short text, the elder Swann wasn’t the brightest bulb. Both Henry and Jake believed he was just following Damien’s lead.
She didn’t trust herself to speak with the man. Her control was on a razor’s edge. She should have been here with Laney. Laney had told her she was coming, but she’d insisted Jen stay back and spend some time with the kids. And Jen had selfishly taken her up on the offer. She’d barely seen her son, Witt, and daughter, Tori, in the last few weeks.
But maybe things would have been different if she had come along. Now she had four people missing, all of them important in her life. She and Henry hadn’t mentioned anything to their kids about what had happened. She didn’t know how she would break it to them if something seriously bad had befallen Danny. It would devastate them.
Even in her own mind, she shied away from going too far down a dark path regarding him or the others. It was too painful to even contemplate.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” a deep voice called.
Jen turned as a tall, strongly built older African American man wearing a navy baseball cap strode toward her. The left-hand side of his face was swelling, and he had a bandage along his hairline.
“Mr. Butler, how you feeling?”
Grimacing, Butler said, “Pretty ticked off. Those little punks got the drop on me.”
“It happens,” Jen said with a shrug.
“I was told you wanted to speak with me.” Butler nodded over his shoulder to Mustafa, who sat with a few of the agents, giving his report again. He looked completely shell-shocked.
She knew how he felt. She still couldn’t quite comprehend the idea that Laney and the others had simply disappeared.
She couldn’t say gone. Gone sounded so final. Instead she focused on the man in front of her. “What can you tell me about the object that Damien Swan was interested in?”
Butler took off his hat and ran a handkerchief over his forehead before placing the hat back on. “Not much. That thing’s been here longer than I have, and I’ve been here for a good twenty years. I did look it up in the files, though. It was dropped here back in ’65, at the height of the Vietnam War. I’m guessing there were plans to get back to it, but they never quite got around to it. I think it was just kind of forgotten.”
“And it came from Kecksburg, is that correct?”
The older man nodded. “It was supposed to be the Kecksburg UFO.”
UFO, right. Jen definitely wasn’t ready to go down the UFO road, so she ignored the statement. “What about the object itself? Did you see anything unusual about it? Did anyone ever express an interest in it?”
Shaking his head, Butler said, “Not a soul. Not until Ms. McPhearson contacted me to make sure it was still here. I didn’t even know it was here. The thing’s literally been buried in junk for sixty years.”
Jen sighed. Great. Another dead end. “Thank you, Mr. Butler. Have you given your statement?”
He nodded. “Yes, a few times.”
“Well, I’m afraid you’re probably going to have to give it a few more times,” Jen said.
He nodded, his eyes narrowing and his brow furrowing. “That was really Delaney McPhearson? The Delaney McPhearson?”
“That was her,” Jen said softly her stomach clenching as fear rolled through her again.
His gaze strayed out over the junkyard, before it retuned to Jen. “Whatever you need me to do, you just let me know. I’ve got a cousin. Duane’s always been a little different, you know? He went into hiding after the Day of Reckoning and ended up with Laney down in, well, wherever they were. He told me how she was constantly going out, getting more and more people, bringing them back, keeping them safe. She saved a lot of lives, and that was before Egypt. So anything you need me to do, just let me know, okay?”
“I will, Mr. Butler. And thanks.”
He gave her a brief nod and then headed back in the direction of his warehouse. Jen watched him go for a few minutes before her attention turned to the two familiar faces making their way toward her.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she braced her legs, as if somehow that could help her face what was to come. Because if these two were here, it wasn’t a sign of something good.
David Okafor, a tall, slim African American man and top U.S. intelligence agent with a loyalty to Laney, looked as fashionable as ever in dark jeans and a gray-blue T-shirt. Next to him, Bruce Heller, deputy director of the CIA, looked downright frumpy in his brown suit and shades-of-brown tie that only seemed to bring out the paleness of his skin. Jen would’ve laughed at the contrast except that right now, nothing seemed funny.
The two men stopped in front of her.
“Director,” Heller said with a nod.
“Deputy Director,” Jen replied.
“Hey, beautiful,” David said softly, his eyes full of concern, but he kept his hands in his pockets, even though Jen knew he was itching to hug her. Lord knew, she could use a hug. Something happening to Laney. It was their worst nightmare. But appearances had to be kept up.
