EXCERPT THE ΩMEGA TRIBE
BOOK I
By
H. Paul Guerra
EXCERPT
GASPING FOR PRECIOUS AIR as he fled for his life, he charged through the ruins,
bullets ricocheting from the stone and ground mere inches from his flesh. The
thin mountain air made anything that would be a cinch at sea level contrastingly
difficult at this altitude. The hair-raising task of evading a determined
killer on this lofty terrain was near hopeless. Except he wasn’t just running
from one killer, there were two in hot pursuit, and they were closing in fast,
taking advantage of his mounting fatigue.
He stumbled and fought to regain his footing, losing prized ground from the
dark couple’s death chase in his attempt to reach his truck and flee. He
rounded the corner of a stone wall and found himself trapped in a room, high
stone barriers surrounding him except for the narrow opening he entered. His
muscles were on fire, making scaling a wall in mere seconds a fruitless task.
He was trapped, death approaching just around the corner. The shadows of his
pursuers grew on the ground in front of him, his despair growing along with
their length and girth. The couple stopped in front of the opening to the small
ancient room and turned to him, black reflective shades covering the eyes of the
two piercingly staring at him. They stood feet from him, expressionless and
dressed in pure black, overcoats draping their stout bodies. His trodden face
and panicky eyes stared back at him, the reflection off their sunglasses. His
eyes remain fixed to his riveting image, feverishly imploring to be spared.
“What do you want? What?”
“You know,” the woman whispered.
“You’re in luck. We are in a good mood. Hand it over and we’ll let you live,”
the dark man arrogantly added.
“What? Hand over what?” Brother Bueno dreadfully asked.
The dark man head gestured to the woman. She rapid drew a Justice pistol and
barrelled a titanium tip through Bueno’s right thigh, flesh splattering onto the
wall behind. He instantly fell to the dirt with an ear-splitting scream that
drenched the ruins. “Like he said, we are in a good mood. Hand it over and
we’ll let you live,” the woman said with a dispassionate voice.
“Please, I know not what you are talking about!” he cried. “Who are you? What
do you want from me?”
“Why, Brother Bueno, you disappoint me,” the young woman said sardonically.
“And to think I once respected you. Didn’t your abbot teach you better, not to
violate your precious Ten Commandments?”
“Excuse me? They are your commandments as well!” he yelled as he winced in
pain, his right hand holding his right thigh as the blood trickled around his
palm and fingers. He grit his teeth, his anger seething despite his pain. “And
how did you once respect me? I don’t know you!”
“You don’t remember me?” the dark woman asked as she approached the ailing
brother and planted cold steel on his temple. She pressed the barrel of her
Justice deforming his temple. Bueno squinted as she spoke. “Though shall not
lie. Tell me what commandment that is, and I’ll let you live. Now, get
talking, or I’ll blow your mendacious brains out,” she said with a low voice.
“Ah, number wo…wo…wo…”
“You mean one?” she asked with an evil laugh in her voice.
“Yes!”
“And you call yourself a Catholic brother?”
She grabbed the struggling brother by the hair and forced him to stand. The
dark man approached, the image of Bueno’s terrified face growing on his
reflective shades.
“Looks like you need some lessons in religion. Perhaps we can also help
rekindle your memory a little. Now, you have knowledge about something we want.
You talk, we verify, you get to live to renew you vocational vows and your
education about the Ten Commandments. Need we remind you that we are in a good
mood, still? Do we have a deal?”
Bueno’s face morphed into pure ire as he slowed his breathing. The dark man’s
eyebrows lifted. Bueno hurled saliva onto his face and spoke with a low
determined voice,
“You’re right. I lied. Perhaps this is a sin to great to be forgiven here on
earth. Looks like I need to meet with Him and reconcile, like right now.”
The dark man gritted his teeth and slapped Bueno with the barrel of his piece
causing a tooth to leap and blood to spray the lawn. The dark man yelled,
“Remember Christ’s passion, you son of a…”
The two black figures stripped Bueno of his clothes, disdainfully mocking
Christ’s final hours. He barely held himself up in front of them, stripped of
all his clothes. He grinned at the two and then started to laugh. “I guess
what I find so funny is how one of these days I’m going to be the one looking
down at the two of you as you stare up at me begging me to dip my finger in
water and cool your tongues as you sizzle in the inferno of hell forever.
You’re bloody fools. You have no idea what’s in store for both of you.”
“In the meantime, we’ll just enjoy the ride to hell,” the woman said as an evil
smile broke over her face. Simultaneously, they both unsheathed their blades,
the stainless steel reflecting the suns blinding rays into his eyes.
“Now, you shall die,” she said as the smile left her face.
They bloodied him with unbearable painful slashing to his torso and piercing to
his face with the tips of their blades. Their knives were now painted bright
red with blood dripping from the razor sharp edges as they stood in front of him
laughing, his naked body’s surface covered with flowing red liquid from the
numerous slashes gouged on his legs and arms. She mordantly spoke as Bueno lay
against a sloping wall, wailing yet slowly slipping into unconsciousness. “If
you are truly of God, command Him to send an army of His angels to rescue you,
for it is written in scriptures that no harm shall rain down upon you.” She
drove her tactical blade through his right open hand, the nine inch piece of
steel causing him to emanate another distressing scream. The dark man pierced
his other hand and turned to his bare feet, piercing the blood dripping steel
into the dome of his feet. The pain was so colossal, Bueno almost fainted. She
neared his trembling face, her closeness causing him to force his eyes open one
last time. He struggled to talk; his vision tunnelling as life hastily fled his
filleted body. She removed her glasses, his bloodshot eyes widening.
Bueno whispered sinking words as the pool of blood grew under his feet, a grin
now replacing the agony on his face. “Now I understand why those not of God
will never see the afterlife. I vowed never to talk, and so I keep silent. I
was blind but now I see, my vision of my promise growing sharper with each
passing second. No wonder you don’t know sacred writing, you’re incapable. You
always were.
“I guarantee you both, that on this day, you cannot ever share in my Creator’s
kingdom. But, on my day of judgment, I will ask Him to go easy on both of your
souls. At least I can be thankful to both of you for freeing me. Your worth
has been measured and you have both been found useless. May God have mercy on
your souls, provided you…”
Bueno fought to yield his last words, his body so cruelly lacerated, not a
speck of skin was spared the covering of his flowing blood. He gave her a
confident stare as he spoke his last.
“I guess I would tell you to go to hell, but since you are not really human,
you’re incapable, daughter of Satan, you bit…”
Her Justice barrel deformed the cornea of his right eye; Bueno’s last inputs a
blinding white out and deafening blast.
Drew yelled. He was panic-stricken, his voice cracking like a frightened
soldier fleeing from an unexploded grenade. He awoke to darkening clouds, soft
thunder echoing off the jagged mountains. His hands and feet hurt, his skin
crawled, and his muscle were as hard as rock. Drew, never more frightened in
all his life hit the grass with his beaten boots and sought what Bueno once
called the piano room. He was drawn there somehow, like steel to a high flux
magnet. Machu Picchu was rapidly going dark; its rich history of some of man’s
most exultant yet repugnant past. Still hurling emotionally from dreamt
revelations of his passing friend, he shot across towards the darkening pillars
of earth behind the ruins of the ancient city. He knew he had mere moments
before he needed to leave, or remain stuck in this primordial edge of
civilization for the remainder of the night and brave a rapidly encroaching
torrent.
The vivid dream hit like a sucker punch, the murder of a man of the cloth again
relived. A ribbon of lightning illuminated the walls and nearby faces of steep
mountainside, the ghostly glow giving the place an appearance of a manmade
purgatory. He caught a glimpse of blood splatter marks and the remains of
Bueno’s belongings including a gold rosary and fragments of a bloodied prayer
book. Monsoon rains here were rare but savage, leaving little place to run and
hide from columns of lightning and pelting rain.
The precious mountain light continued fading as he was swirling with emotion.
At first, he thought Bueno’s death was a random act of violence. But drops of
Bueno’s dried blood and a tooth on the ground near another splatter mark led him
to reckon otherwise. The taste of stomach acid hit his tongue as he gazed upon
the torture scene, not having noticed it during his last outing since Bueno’s
death.
Drew spoke to Bueno ten days ago before Bueno disappeared, his body found two
days later by a tourist and recovered by Peruvian authorities. They graciously
handed Drew copies of the nauseating crime scene photos, forwarding them hours
later to Dr. Joanne Wilcoxen, a doctor, agent, forensics expert, newly
grandfathered government cleric from the ranks of the withering CIA back in the
former States. What he died for was anyone’s still guess, but Drew’s dream of
his death was dreadfully lucid. Still, it was just a vision. Had it not been
for the operating micro digital recorder function of Bueno’s optical companion
commonly known as an OP4 that was in his hip pocket at the time of his torture,
there may have been little credible evidence to rely on. Yet, even voice
forensics back home repeatedly failed to yield hints. Still Joanne worked long
hours trying to decode anything that would help reveal the bloodthirsty couple’s
identity.
Another light sheet whitened his surroundings as his eyes happened on a mangled
mud-covered folder within the tomb’s recess. He grabbed the folder and dashed
for the jeep, rain pelting him as he charged down the slope. It became readily
apparent he would be held captive by the rain and would have to camp out in his
jeep for the night. As the world around him morphed to pitch black and
lightning ripped the darkness, Drew slammed the door and reclined the driver’s
seat. He covered his eyes with his jacket and stuffed paper in his ears in an
effort to drown out nature’s fury and reclaim sleep.
Rummaging through these mystifying dwellings of a once contemporary Incan city
had become a Drew’s passion since fleeing a world crumbling in the former United
States. Father Andrew John Lorenzo, Drew for short, assumed the life of
seclusion within the breathtaking but remorseless mountains of Peru, far away
from the tyranny that now ruled over former America. Religion in America had
digressed into covert societies of worshipers, hiding from the new religion
called self, a newly fashioned ideology for a dazed society. Years before,
after Bishop Mugabe left St. Louis back to his hometown in Africa, Brother Bueno
retreated to Brazil and later joined Drew in Peru. Here Bueno’s life hastily
ended, slain by a strange couple no one could identify. It was odd that his
death happened after a long interrogation with torture of such an extreme, even
a superhero would succumb. If they wanted him dead, why not just be quick and
shoot him?” He surmised they must have wanted some very precious information
and would torture to get it. And the knife slashes to the body with facial,
foot and hand piercing, was all additional evidence that they wanted Bueno to
talk before killing him.
“Just what was it they wanted from him?”
It was strange that an aging priest would want to spend the rest of his
productive years living an itinerant life up in these mountains, at the seat of
a civilization remnant located almost two miles above sea level, reflecting,
praying, wondering and doing everything else but live the life of luxury
afforded to men of the cloth in their latter years? Even though the good life
was one enjoyed mainly by Ujeens, he had enough e-dollars to move to an
appetizing tropical paradise. He knew it was increasingly arduous to use
e-dollars, also known as edolls, since this electronic currency was tracked by a
supercomputer called OMNI. But, edolls could be traded in for electronic
credits kept within the bowels of the Swiss monetary computer system, electronic
credits know by the global community as swanks. They were encrypted so as not
to be tracked. And since Switzerland continued to claim neutral global status,
high ranking Swiss officials spent billions designing a computer system that
would make tracking swanks an astronomical impossibility. It was the same old
concept, but different century. Drew had many swanks, enough to afford him the
life of a modern day, middle-aged, highly sought after bachelor. Still, he
chose some element of discomfort, a life of ruggedness much like his former boss
lived, the late Cardinal Barney Walters.
Hours after falling asleep in his jeep, long after the storm passed, his eyes
caught sight of a marbled red and bright orange sky. In the distance the mist
rose, bubbling above the ruins as the sky lightened. He stepped out of his
beaten jeep, his legs cramping and his back sore. He relieved himself beside a
nearby pile of stony rubble, his mouth dry and his stomach rumbling. He took
out a water bottle and food packet from his backpack and slowly walked towards
the mossy walled perimeter. At the outer wall, he sat, eyes transfixed at the
low clouds claiming the view of the now milky sky. The smell of Andean mountain
had a hypnotizing aroma, subduing for just a moment this most frazzled man. All
he had were his tattered blues, flannel shirt, worn leathers boots, a modest
windbreaker, and a day’s worth of bland sustenance. Soon, he would need to
drive his rusty jeep into town, or chance becoming a victim a dangerous stormy
or night time drive. Even though the Peruvian Historical Society had managed to
secure money in the recent years to construct a reliable road between Cuzco and
Machu Picchu, the road was still narrow and treacherous, a drive reserved only
for the most vigilant and skilled of drivers. Yet, he thought of remaining all
alone in Machu Picchu for a few hours more if it meant getting some more answers
to his friend’s untimely death.
He stared at the ghostly white cloud bank as it approached, obscuring the rich
green jagged terrain around him. He lived for the peaceful life in the clouds,
his refuge from a world of despair back in former America. But, he longed to
find Brother Bueno’s reason for falling into the hands of enigmatic murderers,
Bueno’s relatively young life inexplicably extinguished. Many men he knew would
scuff at the idea of returning to the place of a fallen comrade. He missed his
friend and his fun nature, so much so, Drew’s purpose for living was dipping.
It was ten years later and another one of his kind who chose a life of deference
was prematurely snuffed out.
The veil of mist surrounded him as he lay on the wall of an ancient Incan
dwelling. His surroundings morphed into white vapour, the cool droplets holding
the smell of distant mountain snow melt and highland vegetation. He sat up and
tore open the plastic wrap of his ham slice and helped it down with bottled
water. Similarly, he wolfed down the crackers and cheese, trying to fill the
emptiness within. He wanted justice and at times thought of avenging his
friend. But, he was a loyal man of the cloth, defender of church law. Yet, he
knew he was only human and wished he could maim Bueno’s assassins. And at times
like this he wished for his own death, a thought that surprised him when he
first thought of it some years ago. Now, he accepted it as potential part of
the eventual game plan, killing himself whether he avenged Bueno’s killers or
not.
“Why!” he yelled as he stared up at the misty sky. He knocked the remains of
his tasteless food off the wall and clenched his fists. He reached for nearby
stones and hurled them, throwing till he winded himself. He fell to the ground,
his fists banging the hard ground. He lay there, grieving as if he were facing
the gates of a prison. He was living hell in a place he fled for rest,
tranquility, and reflection. And, the last ten days proved he could not flee
internal tumult. He thought he reached his end. He limped to the jeep, took
out his revolver, and pressed the barrel to his temple and…
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