Aboard transporter 001

Destination: Cain’s Mansion

It was a dark and stormy night, perfect weather as far as four men in a transporter flying down to Earth were concerned. The lack of moonlight was to their advantage since they were planning to be extremely stealthy tonight. Max confirmed that Philip Cain wasn’t at the site they were about to break into. Nevertheless, Max and Ares gave almost 90% chance that this was the location of that basement he talked about in the Oval Office video. If they were right, it was filled with information about the ‘High Council’, which was their objective.

It was not even that hard to find the place; now that they had more pieces of the puzzle and were connecting the dots. It was a house that had been in Cain’s family for centuries, one of several located all over the world. Of all of them, this one was by far the oldest and a semi-official headquarters of the family.

The house was a mansion built in the late eighteenth century, on the same site where the previous residence of the family stood. That one was perhaps not grandiose enough for such an influential clan, and they needed to show their wealth to the world. It was big originally, but over the years, various additions made it grow to gigantic proportions. The entire building screamed of an insatiable thirst for power, every brick paid for with the pain and suffering of others.

There was a discrepancy between filed architectural plans of the building and the originals. Max has found scans of the originals in some old museum archives, and those indicated that there was an additional subterranean level, which was omitted in those that were submitted in later years.

Philip Cain was out of the country, attending a conference in Geneva about the recent world events, yet that didn’t mean the manor was left without security. A few guards were walking the perimeter and by Max’s satellite scans, at least ten more inside.

Michael and the team jumped at various locations out of the transporter and quickly tranquilized all outside guards. Those were private contractors, hired to guard Philip Cain’s property and were probably not connected with all the bad things their employer was responsible for. Hence, they only received a dose of tranquilizer, guaranteed to take them down for the count while Michael and the team browsed through the property. Those inside were even easier to deal with; they were feeling quite secure with their colleagues guarding outside, so they were less alert. Four invisible men were the last thing they expected.

Inside, the mansion was as pretentious and luxurious as if they were walking inside the Louvre. Big tapestries and huge oil paintings were everywhere. The decor was designed to make visitors humble and small; an abode worthy of a king. Michael was interested in only one thing, finding the basement that held answers about the ‘High Council’. The trouble was the place where old architectural plans indicated the entrance to the subterranean level should be, it appeared as a blank wall, no different from all others around it.

He knocked a few times on the bare wall, and heard a hollow sound; then he hit the surface with all of his strength, only to see the brick facade cracking and falling to the ground. Behind it was a bronze metal backing, which four monomolecular knives cut through, in short order.

What opened behind it was a dark staircase that led deeper underground.

“I’m the point,” Tyron said, and cut in front of Michael.

Ever since the missile attack, the big man was acting like a mother hen, making sure he was out of harm’s way. He would have to talk with Tyron about that, it disrupted their rhythm.

The team went through the opening, looking for booby-traps or any sensors that would activate some protective measures. Surprisingly, there wasn’t any; in fact, the entire feel of it was ancient, with a few cables bolted to the ceiling, representing modern additions to the structure. The staircase ended and they entered into a cavernous basement; Al pressed the light switch on the wall and the night vision on their helmets turned off.

The basement was huge and full of miscellaneous stuff. There were racks filled with gold bricks and valuable artworks. It was as if they entered one of those super secure bank-vaults, not a hidden basement in an old mansion.

Michael did not care for all the material wealth they could see, it failed to draw his intention as what was next to the far wall did. A massive industrial bookcase occupying the entirety of it; the same model museums used, to preserve their valuable literary pieces, with temperature and humidity controls. Close to it was a tall computer rack with a professional scanner attached to it. The whole bookcase was filled with handwritten journals, skillfully bound in leather, with its owner's name on it. This was a generational record of Cain’s family, meticulously detailing their history. He walked to it and picked the last one in the row; it had the name Philip Cain stamped on it in gold leaf.

Michael sat in a nearby leather chair and started reading the handwritten pages.

It was all there, proudly recorded for posterity. From the beginning, when the man was still in his 20’s, to this year when he wrote down all the things he accomplished. The last few paragraphs were all about Michael, and Philip Cain’s struggle to deal with the man he considered a personal enemy. There was a short entry about the Predator missile drone and the entire operation that resulted in his father’s death.

Michael closed the journal in his hands and squeezed it so hard that the leather bindings tore from the applied force.

“He was the one who sent that drone…” He whispered in the silent room.

The others didn’t say a thing, they grimly nodded; a silent understanding that there was no force on Earth, or above it, that would allow for the owner of this mansion to escape Michael’s judgment.

“What do you want to do with all this?” Pete asked after a few moments, indicating the things in the room.

“We’ll take everything with us; don’t leave a single thing behind.” He firmly replied.

It took close to three hours to pack everything onto the transporter, and Max even had to bring a cargo model when the first was packed to the brim. The security guards should sleep for another twenty-four hours, based on the tranquilizer’s dose in their system. Max assured him that he would observe the property, and all communication to it; to ensure their deed was not discovered until they were done with Philip Cain.

When they packed everything they could, even going through the whole mansion and taking everything valuable, they boarded the transporter and went back to the ship.

Max was mostly excited by the lone computer in the basement and the big server rack that had dozens of memory drives in it. It would seem that Philip Cain scanned every journal into electronic form, which was not a bad idea since some of the early journals were starting to deteriorate. As soon as those drives were on the Ascension, he copied them to his memory banks. Now they had a complete gruesome history of Cain’s family. He gave them a short summary of its contents, and it read like a history of evil, with every deed chronicled for posterity. The Cains were monsters begetting monsters, generation after generation.

Max also found a few pieces of information that were very useful to them; first was the location of the ‘High Council’ meeting place. A castle in Switzerland, and coincidentally the place where Philip Cain was right now. The next information was the time of the meeting, which was scheduled for tomorrow. They even got all security information, the number of guards, and the location of checkpoints… the whole nine yards. There was also mention that the entire ‘High Council’ archives, all their secrets and blackmail material were kept there.

Acting President Philip Cain’s fate and that of the ‘High Council’ was sealed; even if they did not know it yet… they were enjoying the last few hours of freedom.

***

City-Ship Ascension

Geostationary Orbit

They still had a few hours before the beginning of the ‘High Council’ mission, and Elizabeth requested that he join her in the Central Park. They found a secluded bench inside of the small forest and sat there, surrounded by trees.

“It won’t bring you peace, you know that.” She told him while holding his hand.

He looked at her inquisitively.

“Killing him, I mean. When I killed those people responsible for all that happened to Anna, I did not feel fulfillment… I felt hollow. Their lives were not important. Revenge is good for that instant gratification, but when it passes, it leaves an emptiness within you. It won’t bring your father back.”

Michael nodded, “I guess I know that, but there is this drive that makes me want to hunt him down like a rabid animal. Do you think I shouldn’t kill him?”

“Oh no, if any human has ever deserved that, it’s him. Max showed me some of those journals, they read like a horror story; a thousand deaths would be less than he deserves. I’m telling you that in the end, he is not important; you, me, people with us, those are the important ones. He is a piece of trash, so throw him in a garbage can and forget that he ever existed.”

She pointed through the trees, and through the small opening in the foliage, a group of children could be seen playing on the lawn. They were of different races and backgrounds, but they played together, unaware that there were people on Earth that would find such a sight offensive.

“You did this, brought all of us together, and created something new. Take a good look at them, because they are our future.”

They stayed on that bench, enjoying the tranquility of the place until Tyron came to tell him that it was time to go.