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  “Fake. He said that the shrub was a fake.”

  Kirk bent over and attempted to pull a leaf off a branch for closer inspection. Surprisingly he was not able to snap it off. Santo saw the effort and thought it was odd enough for a closer inspection. He said to Kirk,

  “Get me the portable Magnetic Resonance Imager from the D-wing.”

  At the back of the vehicle, all the equipment Santo had thrown into the back surprised Kirk. When coming back with the MRI he said to Santo,

  “You forgot the kitchen sink.”

  Ignoring what was supposed to be humor, while making an adjustment on the equipment Santo said,

  “When going on a mission with little Intel, I like to bring a few extra things along just in case.”

  Then, returning what was also supposed to be humor, he added,

  “You will eventually learn that.”

  Santo then returned his attention to the bush and pointed the MRI at a leaf. The spectral analyzes of the colors returning to the imager greatly surprised him. He said,

  “It’s a strange combination of synthetic polymer and something that looks like nanotechnology.”

  Kirk noted that unlikelihood and said,

  “That’s an unidentified science.”

  Santo added,

  “Maybe the Professor was onto something after all.”

  Something did not sound right to Kirk.

  “But the Professor would not have known there was nanotech in the shrub. Something else had to have caught his attention”

  Santo agreed and said,

  “True, but whatever it was, it isn’t here now.”

  Disappointed, Kirk, with the intention of turning around and having a better look at the terrain placed his foot just under the bush and put his weight on it. It was then that all the questions were answered.

  Santo’s attention was still on the MRI and was about to transmit the strange readings to Jessika for analyzes when he suddenly heard Kirk’s surprised yell.

  “What the hell.”

  Santo quickly turned around and saw him desperately trying to keep his balance and not topple into what appeared to be a concealed hole under the plant. With catlike reflexes Santo shot his arm out, grabbed Kirk’s flaying hand and pulled him back to stable ground. Kirk was not finished with his bewilderment, adding,

  “What the hell happened there?”

  When both men again looked down at the bush, there was nothing to see. Investigating, Kirk placed his foot on the same spot and pressed down. As soon as he did, the whole shrub flipped up as if it were a lid on a foot-levered garbage can. Because of the perfect day-vision created by the hi-tech helmet, both were able to look deep down into a hole that was about the size of a manhole cover. Putting a large rock on the trigger allowed the shrub to stay open. On their knees and looking deep into the hole and seeing no bottom, Santo inspected the sides. He said,

  “I think this is what your Professor friend saw. Look at the side. It’s as smooth as glass.”

  Kirk nodded and said,

  “This is the vitrified rock he discovered. This is it.”

  Standing up but still looking deep into the mysterious hole, Santo voiced an astute observation.

  “This hole was not created by an atomic blast. It’s too deep and too smooth for something like that. We are looking at a laser drilled hole.”

  Kirk’s desire for exploration surpassed what Santo thought was common sense. He looked to Santo and asked,

  “Did you remember to bring the rope?”

  “Hold on cowboy, there is a better way to find out how deep it goes.”

  Kirk replied,

  “I’m more interested in ‘where’ it goes.”

  While reaching into a backpack, Santo said,

  “I can answer both of those questions with this little toy.”

  In Santo’s hand Kirk saw what appeared to be an innocuous metallic ball about the size of a baseball. Recognizing it, he said,

  “No way! How many of those did you manage to save from the destruction?”

  “Of the seventy-five we had, we managed to save only three.”

  Thanks to the advanced expertise of the Great Grays, Santo was holding a remote control small satellite drone loaded with Nano-technology. Before the destruction of the House, they were used as Hacker Satellites orbiting the Earth downloading computer data from international satellites and forwarding that information to the House of the Nazarene computers.

  Knowing what to do, Kirk held it over the hole and waited for Santo to get ready. He was holding a computer control tablet with a small screen and programing it. He then looked to Kirk and said,

  “I programmed for search and record. The anti-gravity is set along with impact avoidance. It will transmit a live visual link to our visor enabling us to see what it sees in real time. It’s also programmed for a gridded search pattern.”

  He then pointed to the drone and commanded, “Drop it.”

  Kirk took his hand away from the ball but it remained suspended in midair over the hole. The ‘enter program’ was pressed and lights from underneath the drone shone bright down into the hole. It slowly sunk while illuminating all sides of the glass wall. Without understanding how, they just made a big mistake.

  Chapter 12

  In the distance, over at the small knoll one of the soldiers Santo had spotted by the fire stood and walked away. A comrade, still sitting cozy by the heat asked,

  “What’s the matter, is our company that bad?”

  Still walking away and slowly fading into the darkness, he said,

  “No. It is good company. That’s why I am not going to stand and piss on the fire.”

  “Well, take the flashlight so you don’t get lost.”

  “I ain’t going to get lost. I’m just going on the top of the knoll. The fire will guide me back.”

  The farther he got from the glow of the fire, the darker it got and the more careful he was with each step. As he started to undo his pants, he looked down into the distant field and saw a strange light looking more like a dim lit match. It was the light from the drone. Santo and Kirk were in the dark but because they wore night vision goggles turning everything as bright as day, they did not realize the drone light was cutting through the night.

  Returning to his comrades, he reported the strange event to his superior.

  “It just sort of hovered there, like floating or something.”

  Knowing that the field was a restricted area, the senior officer was indifferent to the importance of the report and said,

  “It’s probably that damn nosey archeologist snooping around we were warned about.”

  The one who saw the light did not think so, adding,

  “No, it wasn’t moving in a search pattern or anything, just sort of hovering in midair.”

  The other soldier, aware of the legend of black spirits and ghosts in the field quickly succumbed to superstitious fear. He was not happy to hear the senior soldier say,

  “Alright, get your rifles and flashlights and let’s go see what we got.”

  From the top of the knoll, all three saw a soft light beaming straight up from the mysterious hole in the field. With flashlights turned on and scanning across the ground, they started their slow walk toward the mystery. The superstitious one, the one who knew about the terrible legends of lost goats and the occasional shepherd was not sweeping his light to the ground but rather behind, fearing for an attack from behind as well as above. He lagged far behind the two more intrepid ones.

  With full attention into the hole, watching the drone get smaller and smaller and the light getting dimmer and dimmer, Kirk and Santo were paying attention to the image on their visors. Kirk voiced what Santo was already thinking.

  “That’s a really deep hole.”

  Santo, reading the data on his screen said,

  “It’s already down over two hundred meters.”

  For no reason other than a survival instinct, Santo turned and looked out into the
field. It was then that he saw the three soldiers slowly coming at them.

  “We have company.”

  Kirk was ready to react defensively but noticing it, Santo assured him,

  “Stand your ground, they can’t see us.”

  Standing still in the face of an approaching enemy was not Kirk’s favorite thing to do. He found it difficult but trusted in the camouflage technology they were wearing. To make sure that it was still dark on the other side of the helmet, Kirk lifted visor. It was then that he saw what gave their location away, the dim light from the drone emanating from the hole. He was quick to report to Santo.

  “The drone light. They are coming to inspect the light.”

  Santo was about to turn the light off when it suddenly went dark without him doing anything.

  With no mysterious light to guide the three soldiers they started a random search pattern. Although blended into the night by their light absorbing suits, both understood it would just be a matter of time before they were spotted. Santo softly said,

  “They still have a rough idea where the light was coming from. We should split up and divert them away from it.”

  Kirk agreed and went off to the left while Santo did the same in the opposite direction. While walking in opposite directions, Kirk said,

  “They might be thinking that the light has something to do with evil spirits from an old legend. Try to scare them off.”

  At what Santo considered a safe distance, he lifted his helmet and produced a deep guttural sound. As it turned out, it was the trailing soldier, the one afraid of the old legends about sprites roaming the field that Santo was trying to scare with what he hoped would sound like a ghostly moan. Santo then lowered the helmet and waited to see the result of his effort. As the terrified man spun around and shone his light onto Santo’s silhouette, all he saw in the beam was a dark figure with no eyes, ears, or mouth. Recognizing that the soldier was scared, Santo outstretched his arms as if intending to grab the terrified man. The soldier dropped his rifle, turned and ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction.

  Kirk, seeing what Santo was doing and realizing that although he could see his two men through the night vision shield, they could not see him, he decided to do the same. With the idea of diverting them from the hole, he purposely walked into one of the flashlight beams. He heard one man swear something in Turkish and fire five quick rounds in his direction. Fortunately for Kirk, it was panic fire and none of the bullets came near him.

  The intent of the exercise was to scare and scatter them and it worked. Within minutes, all three were back at their campfire rambling on about old legends and seeing the dark spirits. One muttered about the spirit he saw.

  “I swear his arms were at least three meters long. I escaped its deadly grasp just in time.”

  The other one jabbered on about firing repeated rounds at point blank range and the bullets went straight through it. It did not take long for word to spread throughout the village. The legend of the dark spirits of yore was back and looking as terrible and frightening as ever.

  Back at the hole, Santo decided that a retreat would be the best course of action. He said to Kirk,

  “Scared as they were, they will eventually regain composure and follow army protocol.”

  Kirk understood they will eventually call for backup and this place will be swarming with floodlights and more soldiers. He said,

  “Yeah, we have discovered enough of a mystery for now. Let’s call that drone back and get out of here.”

  Through a remote signal Santo turned off the search light and recalled the drone. Once it was in his hand, he put it away. At the same time, Kirk made sure the lid that the fake shrub was attached to was again in place. Knowing that in the morning the soldiers will eventually come back to inspect more of the mystery, to ensure that they would not chance upon the hole like he had done, he wedged a stone into the trip lever. He looked to Santo and said,

  “That should keep the lid closed until we come back.”

  By the time both men had returned to Bulgaria and House of the Nazarene headquarters it was 4AM. Santo had not slept in 24 hours and so with great relief flopped into bed, buried his head deep in the pillow and closed his eyes tight. Suddenly an arm smacked onto his chest. Maria liked to cuddle and thank goodness that was all the arm requested, just contact and knowing he was there. Both slept soundly.

  Kirk was not as lucky. When he gently and as quietly as possible slid into his side of the bed, Jessika turned into him. However, her intent was not to cuddle but to start a communication with her man. There were questions about how his day had gone or in this case, how his night had gone. Even pretending to be sound asleep did not deter her questions. In an attempt to distract her, he said,

  “I thought you had to meet Santo in a couple of hours.”

  It worked, for as soon as she realized there were only a couple hours of sleep left, she gave up and cuddled into him.

  Chapter13

  The next morning Kirk woke up to an empty bed. He knew that by now Jessika was at a meeting with Santo regarding somebody somehow hacking into Nazarene computers. After a quick breakfast, a muffin, and a cup of coffee, he hurried over to the main mansion. He wanted an important meeting with the boss of the House of the Nazarene. Seeing the new directive pinned to Maria’s laboratory door, ‘Please knock before entering’, this time Kirk had learned his lesson well. Not only did he knock, he politely waited for the command to enter. When it was clear that none was forth coming, he knocked again and dared open the door, albeit slowly. Entering, he saw her sitting at her desk intently staring at a strange computer program. Standing still, he waited for her to look up and acknowledge his presence. When she finally did, she said,

  “I don’t bite Kirk. What is it this time?”

  He approached carrying a small box and put it on her desk. With a tease, she said,

  “A present? For me?”

  She opened it and took out a small baseball size metallic drone. He explained,

  “You asked for a report of our trip to Alakati and Professor Asker’s strange discovery there.”

  Knowing what the drone was capable of, she said,

  “I’m listening.”

  He started at the beginning, the flight over where he research the area supposedly being haunted. He told her about the soldiers discovering them and how they were scared off. However, it was the part about the hole being too deep and smooth to be caused by an ancient atomic bomb that caught her attention. Realizing this, her hopes faltered about discovering an Anannaki and Rama war zone and perhaps an ancient alien city. Still, the mystery of a secretive cauterized and deep hole held some attraction for her. She looked at the drone and said,

  “May I presume that you sent this thing down there?”

  “Yes. At the beginning of its descent, we saw it sinking into the hole but that was all we saw. While the soldiers distracted us, the drone continued with its reconnaissance and recorded what was down there. I only saw the recording while having breakfast. I believe you might be interested in what it found.”

  “So you want permission to go and explore further?”

  “Yes. I believe what you will see down there will get me that approval.”

  She turned slightly at her desk and put the drone on top of what looked like a simple pane of glass. From her keyboard, she entered an access code that tethered to the drone and the glass instantly lit up. At first, all she saw on the screen was a close-up of Kirk’s palm but when it slid away, a search light came on and she saw the shaft with the mirror smooth walls. Kirk explained,

  “Because we were wearing those new night vision helmets from Brazil, we did not realize it was a bright light. That was what the soldiers saw and came to investigate.”

  “I see. You’d think that was something both of you should have realized.”

  “Yes, but it turned out okay. We dispersed them by pretending to be the dark evil spirits of the legends. While we were doing that, the dron
e followed programing and continued to lower into the shaft.”

  Pointing to the screen, he added,

  “That’s what you will see now.”

  She drifted her attention back to the screen and again saw the footage of the descending drone. After a few minutes, she commented,

  “That’s an awfully deep hole. What was the measured depth?”

  “The drone measured by projecting a laser beam and according to the read-out, it was 315 meters straight down.”

  Impressed, she said,

  “That’s way over a thousand feet.”

  “Yes, and we felt a slight air updraft coming from it as well.”

  She understood what that meant and said,

  “So I guess that implies there is another opening down there somewhere.”

  The drone had reached the bottom of the shaft and was now showing a pile of something indistinct at the bottom.

  Maria pointed and said,

  “What is that?”

  Kirk had no idea and so only shook his head. It was not until the drone located a tunnel leading out of the shaft and pulled into it, away from the mysterious pile that it became clear. Maria instantly recognized it, gasped, and uttered,

  “Oh my god.”

  Kirk explained,

  “That might explain the ancient legends about evil spirits eating goats as well as unlucky sheep herders.”

  There, at the bottom of the shaft was a pile of mixed bones, mostly goat and sheep but a few human skulls as well. Maria recovered and predicted,