Four Keys to Doomsday

by Anastasia T Wolfe

The mission is impossible. The stakes are incredible. Failure is unthinkable. A multinational arms race is brewing, a race to locate the four keys of death and claim the weapons stockpile deep below the ground. Any one of the warring parties could destroy the world. Jack West has to find a way to pull together his shattered team to find the stockpile first... and destroy it.

1. Chapter 1

PROLOGUE

VICTORIA STATION, KENYA

2009

It had taken her a long time to find Victoria Station. She had been on the trail of the Coalition for years, and after some clandestine stealing from the American Caldwell Group, she had obtained the location of this old farmhouse. According to her intel, it was no longer used as a main base of operations, but a backup base. It would be useful to control.

Dressed entirely in black, she approached the abandoned farmhouse. She wore a hood despite the heat, and as the sun set, she searched the immediate area. The only sound was the wind sweeping the plain, and the place was very dead.

Her attention turned towards the farmhouse, and she ambled up to it, keeping a look out for any witnesses. There was nothing around for miles except the birds that now nested in the stables. A rocking chair creaked in the slight breeze, and in the half-light, it looked like a scene out of a horror movie. She stepped out onto the verandah. The wooden step creaked, and she froze. Despite the knowledge that she was alone except for the wildlife, she was not used to making so much noise. As she approached the door, the floorboards creaked, and she cringed.

The door wasn't locked, so she stepped into the entry hall. It opened up into a large kitchen on the left, and an equally large living room to her right. She picked the kitchen. It smelled foul, clearly the electricity had been cut a long time ago, and the milk had gone off. The fridge was covered with mediocre children's art, held up with cheap, tatty magnets. On the kitchen table, a pair of black leather gloves had been left, and the long table had been set for one. This place looked like it had been barely touched since 2006. In the living room, three large sofas were splayed out, shelves by the sides of the room and a small television sat in the corner, attached to a VCR, left to gather dust. The shelves however had been cleared off.

Pretty much everything was gone, and it was hard to believe that this was even a backup base.

She searched the bedrooms. One was scarily pink; the child was clearly a girl. Each room had been cleared out, but she could still tell a lot from them. In one room, perhaps a study, there were indentations on the floor that indicated that there had been a lot of shelves lining this room that had not been moved until a few years ago. A whiteboard had been mounted on the wall. The white paint underneath where it had been was brighter and less scuffed than the rest of the paint, and she could see the sinkholes where it had been mounted to the wall. One of the rooms had been occupied by a Muslim. She could tell by the large knee indentations likely made by a large man kneeling towards Mecca.

The last room had a sort of familiarity about it, and she entered the room and had a look around. So far, it was the most unremarkable room in the homestead. Judging by the indents in the floor, it was once a junk room, and had been cleared out for a bedroom a few years ago. The wall was lined with shelves, except there were several hooks above the bed where ammunition could have been hung. The bed was still there, and was indented with a curled form. The occupant of this bed was likely very tall.

A hint of gold winked up at her from the floor, and she bent over and picked it up. It was dusty, and so she blew the dust away.

It was a Star of David, tiny and gold, and it glinted in the twilight. Judging by the dust, it had been here for three years. Perhaps the owner had dropped it in a rush. She slipped it into her pocket. Perhaps she would find the owner.

She tapped her radio, "there is nothing here, Sir. Perhaps it would be more prudent to find the members."

"We know who the members are," the person snapped through the radio, the unmistakable hard voice of Mordechai Muniz, "they are all that stand in my way."

"What's the plan, General?" she asked carefully.

"Get close to them," Muniz ordered, "according to my intelligence, Cohen still has a soft spot for you. Join the team, gain their trust and bring them to me."

Of course she remembered Cohen, and she remembered how happy she was when she was with him. She remembered all the good times they had, it seemed a lifetime ago. She had seen all the updated files on him and his new friends, and at first she didn't want to believe it. Then she realized that in the end he would have always chosen his path, but she had chosen hers.

"Will that be a problem, Steinbeck?" Muniz snapped at her.

"No," Steinbeck said, "not at all."