The Chair (7 page)

How this could have happened so quickly for me I don’t have the foggiest notion but it was certain. At first I felt ashamed thinking of Catherine, but then again I was never formally engaged to her; we had only talked over the years the possibility of marriage and how many children we might like to have; but a turn around on my part would be more than hard to explain to her now.

 As we were securing our weapons we heard voices fast approaching the chapel. One of them anxiously shouted. “I saw them coming through here! I think it was that same chap we took to security only he was with a woman.”

“No one here! Check the side rooms!”

Their shadows were quickly approaching the doorway and we instantly sat down in the trackers which were hidden in the darkest corner of the room. I suspect they never had a chance to see us as the whole chapel began to dissolve out of our sight.

We both blacked out and when the darkness began to dissipate once again the familiar conduit began to materialize before us. We had both returned from the Tower of London. Leaving the trackers, we both went to the map window showing the target recticle directly over the jewel house on the ground floor of the Waterloo barracks! They were indeed most likely after the Crown Jewels.

 We were using both of the trackers so either Anders or Paxton, using the chair, went to the Tower of London, leaving the other still here on the island in hiding no doubt.

 “It’s probably Anders that went. Paxton should have been caught by my security team at some point and probably thrown in the tank by now.”

 “We had better stow the trackers somewhere or they’ll be taken. There
is
a perfect room no one knows about.” Walking over to the opposite wall Ara reached down to the floor and touched something. A hidden door on the wall slid open revealing a very small room to which we dragged the trackers inside and closed it.

Stepping out into the cavern, we walked toward the tunnel entrance. The air was crisp and the waves were crashing along the shore. We walked out on the beach and to the waters edge where we got a good look at the rising cliffs of the island; as large as they were, it was hard to imagine this island was just a tiny speck in the ocean. It occurred to me that from out at sea no one would really be able to determine if there were any inhabitants inside the perimeter of cliff-like structures rising high above the water. There were no structures built on the perimeter of the island and after conversing with Ara I found out that the leaders deliberately intended for the buildings and inhabitants to remain unseen.

As we began walking back to the conduit we heard the voices of a group headed down the opposite side of the tunnel and we both recognized Paxton’s voice. Ara put her hand up signaling to stop and we stayed along the wall in a crouched position.

“I can’t believe it! That’s Paxton casually talking to the security guards! They’re all armed to the teeth and headed for the conduit.” She quickly drew her weapon, kneeling down.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead with my sleeve. “What would
she
be doing with Ara’s security team? Shouldn’t they be walking the opposite way and taking Paxton to the tank!”

Ara quickly answered. “That’s exactly what they
should
be doing, but they’re not; what exactly is going on here?”

The sound of the waves pounding the beach were echoing through the tunnel making it difficult to hear, so we slowly crept up to the doorway close enough to listen in on their conversation.

“Why don’t you all just shut up and listen eh? You guys would still be under the supervision of your “would be” queen Ara, which I just made a total fool of in London!”

“Alright, alright Paxton,” one of them shouted out. “Just lay out the plan; where’s all this money supposed to come from?”

“Anders and me are working on it right now and you’ll all have your money, don’t you worry. We have a few more stops to make. Right now though, you do your part and get me those two losers’, Ara and her new boyfriend, they’ll be back here sooner or later believe me and when they do, I’ve got something planned for them they both deserve.”

Ara looked at me and I looked back at her. It was obvious that some if not all of her security force had turned mercenary, siding now with Paxton and Anders; this was going to make our task much more complicated.

I’ve always wondered why sometimes things had to go from bad to worse. I think it must be something like gravity; you drop something and it’s sure to go straight down. Their conversation went on.

“So what do we do with the dissenters to our cause?”

Paxton stood up on the desk. “Keep ‘em in the tank for now. They don’t want any part of us or the money, so they can take part in what I have in store Ara and her new boyfriend.

“And you Eric, have been on the fence about this ever since we started, are you with us or not? Seems to me you fancied little miss princess Ara for a time and what did you get out of it, nothing! She rejected you because you’re below her; just another admirer she could take or leave. She’s found someone else now, and you’re only a piece of history!”

Eric stood up, his expression tense, “Shut-up Paxton! She’s history with me anyway; I’m in with you and Anders.”

“Alright then, you’ll be on the payroll as soon as we take care a business!”

Just then the room began to tremble slightly with that familiar weird whirring sound. As we peered around the corner of the doorway, everyone was moving away from the large center platform.

 Anders was back.

CHAPTER

NINE

E
ach person had their eyes on the large center compass platform which was beginning to become a blur as the space above it began forming the distinct image of a chair and its passenger. Atoms were turning to molecules and molecules into cells before our eyes; it truly was an astounding though frightening sight observing the shapes of both the chair and a human reforming and becoming visible. Just the thought that I had gone through the same extraordinary process being pulled apart and put back together, suddenly gave me the creeps.

The chair with Anders in it finally solidified on the platform and he sat there for a moment gazing at the security people that had now joined him.

A smile formed on his face as he stood up holding a rather large canvass bag in one hand and a weapon in the other. Standing up he raised the bag high over his head with a prideful look.

“
This
is the first step of our goal and very soon
we
will be in charge of this island!”

“What’s in that bag Anders?” A voice from among them shouted.

“Has anyone here ever read of the Crown Jewels in any of the hundreds of London Times newspapers that Gratten brought us back to the island over the years?”

Ara and I looked at each other acknowledging that what we had earlier surmised was indeed what happened.

Anders reached into the bag and slowly pulled out a solid gold, jewel encrusted crown holding it up in front of everyone. “The crown of King George the Xll.”

“Man, that is the
real thing
isn’t it?” someone shouted.

 “Must be worth millions!” another one cried out.

Anders quickly snapped back, “It’s priceless!” He reached back into the bag and slowly brought out the foremost article of the heist.

“Anyone know the location of the world’s largest cut diamond? It’s right here in my hand, the Star of Africa!”

Everyone gasped and stood closer; as he held it high in the light; it was dazzling in luster.

“Believe me, there are those that would pay a kings ransom for these items and that is just what I’m going to get!”

Paxton walked up to Anders, giving him a hug and turned around shouting out “
Now,
who’s with us?”

They all shouted, “We are!”

Anders then warned. “Keep your eyes peeled for Ara and her new boyfriend. When they return, and they will, we want
them
and the trackers. Whoever delivers them to me will get a little extra bonus I’ve got in this bag. I want guards posted around this chair till I get back here tomorrow morning. You know what to do if you see those two. The rest of you stay close by till tomorrow morning.

“There is another place on my list to visit; an interesting person I’ve been reading about lately in the paper; someone with a cause who will be willing to pay us handsomely for these.”

I grabbed Ara’s hand pulling her away from the doorway and we quickly walked back down toward the mouth of the cave. Now being out numbered, we needed to bide our time till we could get to the chair. I also noticed some of them had heavier arms with strange looking rifles I had never seen before. Professor Gratten must have made quite a few recent trips in order to acquire some of these newer concept articles that I had noticed on the island including their handguns and that rifle.

We would wait until things had settled down and the men inside had relaxed their guard, then move in. We needed to get the chair and we had to take them by surprise. The thought ran through my head for a moment this would be a good time for me to extricate myself from this whole affair and go home. Ara would have to follow in a tracker to retrieve the chair but I could be out of the picture and on with my life.

 As I was looking at Ara readying herself to make an assault into the conduit and waiting intently for the right moment, I couldn’t pull myself away from it all. I had actually become an integral part of her vital cause and for conscience sake would have to see it through.

We double checked our weapons and began to making our way back into the cavern, both of us well aware that the element of surprise would be important. We waited till it was all clear in the tunnel and we were able to sneak up to the entrance of the conduit. The guards were talking and joking amongst each other about who was going to get the bonus that Anders had offered to the one who was responsible in capturing us so we listened for a minute…

“Why don’t the rest of you guys go to sleep, I’ll take care of both Ara and her boyfriend when they get here.”

“You couldn’t take care of yourself on a rainy day, It’ll be me that gets the bonus and no one else, mark it.”

“And what if we all get ‘em at the same time, do we split the bonus four ways?”

“What
is
this bonus anyway? I doubt he even has one, he just wants them caught promising anything to get that done.”

Just then Ara and I looked at each other, nodded and we both entered the room at the same time, weapons out.

“No one gets the bonus today; you’ll all end up with a
punishment
if anything, now drop those weapons!”

They all looked at us as if they had seen a ghost and slowly put down their rifles.

“What? Where did you two come from, how did you get here without the trackers?”

 “Never mind how we got here.” I motioned with my weapon. “All of you get over there where we can see you.”

“Richard I’ll watch them while you get to the controls. I need to take that chair to London and find my father; it might already be too late!”

I went over to the desk and ran my hand across the metal plate. The display lit up with the recticle and crosshair centered over the Tower of London, the last place it traveled to.

“Where is it you need to go Ara?”

“Thames Parkway… the furniture warehouse.”

I slowly moved the target recticle to Thames Parkway and looked closely at the warehouses till I recognized the one I saw targeted when I had first arrived. I was carefully centering the target recticle over the warehouse building while Ara stepped in front of the chair, her weapon still trained on the four men.

“Ok Richard I’ll see you soon, hopefully with good news.”

She began to sit down in the chair and suddenly another one of them grabbed me from behind. My hand, still holding the leaver, jerked violently to the left and then to the right just as she sat down. He grabbed my gun while holding one in my back. I struggled to bring the recticle back on target but it was too late; the chair had begun to fragmentize and I had no clue where she would end up.

 I yelled at him. “You fool, you have no idea what you’ve done; where in hell did you send her?”

Then quickly looking up at the display my eyes finally focused and I could see the target recticle was over Southeast Asia on the northern part of the island of Borneo!

What must it be like there? I was beside myself but totally helpless at the moment. She’ll be totally confused, frightened and could be in big trouble! I had to get to a tracker as soon as I could.

Half instinctively and half out of desperation, I quickly bent over forward and reached between my legs grabbing his ankles and yanked on them. Shockingly, it worked exactly as I’d hoped and took him completely by surprise. He went down backwards firing off one round as he dropped his rifle. The others began to run but I picked the rifle up pointing it at them. “Hold it, right there; you, hand me those keys and get over there with the rest of them.”

He slowly picked himself up holding his head. “Ok, ok don’t get so anxious!”

I don’t know what got into me, but I seemed to stand up fairly well to the occasion surprising myself. It felt good to have the upper hand for the moment and I was going to bask in it as long as I could.

“All of you keep your hands up, walk to the elevator and don’t try anything funny, or I’ll blow a hole in you so big there won’t be any room for the rest of you.”

I marched them to the elevator and up to the second level. When we reached the tank I looked through the bars and saw what looked like the remainder of Ara’s security team. These must have been the few that refused to go along with the rest and were locked up.

I unbolted the heavy wooden door of the tank and it swung open. There were twelve of them inside and I could tell they had been there for awhile.