Conquest: Rise of the Fifth Horseman (The Fifth Horseman Series Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

felt himself
falling into a thick darkness. He tried to scream, but he couldn’t find his
voice.
    He landed violently on
a thick floor of concrete. He shook his head, feeling disoriented in the large
dimly-lit chamber that was fitted with a mass array of plumbing. Wandering
around the chamber were about twenty cloaked men.
    They turned their
attention to Allan’s crash landing, and then they all made a humble bow when Timur
appeared from seemingly out of nowhere.
    “Rise!” he shouted and
pointed at Allan, “We have a problem.”
    “Who is this, your
holiness?” one of the cloaked men spoke up.
    “An abomination.” he
seethed in fury, “Take him to a cell.”
    Rough hands seized him
from all sides. Allan uselessly struggled against the overpowering force as he
was dragged deeper into the chamber. He tried to scream for help, but his voice
was cut off by a massive hand. He thrashed about, and bit as hard as he could.
    He felt a loud crack
hit the back of his head, and a searing pain followed. That was the last thing
he remembered before he was knocked out cold.

 
     
    Chapter Seven: Incriminating Evidence
    And
God blessed man, and God said unto them, I have fortified this world against
the influence of the Leviathan. Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the
earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over every living thing that moveth
upon it…
    –
Methuselah 6:17 –
     

     
    Modeled after the Medieval
Era, Timur’s entire penthouse reminded him of his earlier livelihood. Every
expense had been made to beautify and perfect it with handmade crown moldings,
hand sown curtains, and carefully crafted furniture. Every room was decked out
to look like a palace fit for a king.
    He stared out at the
brilliant orange reflection on the water as the sun continued to rise. It was
about 7:52 AM, and the morning traffic was just beginning to fill the streets
below. It wouldn’t be long now before someone would find Jason’s body, and the
police would begin an investigation. Having stepped through his own shadow, he
was able to return to his penthouse instantaneously. At any moment he knew that
his Chief Operations Officer would be arriving with the company’s Daily Brief.
    As
he sat on his porch, he booted up his laptop and inserted the thumb drive that
he had taken from Jason. It was of a peculiar design, with little patches of
blue that had been painted on the white background. It was shaped like a trash
can with a half-spherical lid and feet sticking out the bottom. Now that he
studied it, he realized that it looked like some silly robot from the nineteen-eighties.
    He
opened the contents of the thumb drive, and to his relief the drive hadn’t been
password protected. There were two files. The first was a surveillance video
taken nearly five years ago. Timur watched the scene in horror.
    How
did he get this?
    As
he watched the old footage, he recognized himself aiming his gun at the late
NSA agent Michael Thornton.
    “But
I did everything you asked!” Michael panicked with his hands raised high above
his head in surrender, “I presented your blueprints as my own, and they took
the bait! We’re in the Beta testing stage now!”
    “Yes,
you served your purpose well.” Timur watched himself smile as he cocked his
gun, “But I can’t take any chances. I’ve worked too hard for this. Letting you
live is too much of a risk.”
    Michael
turned to flee, but it was too late. A gunshot rang out, and Michael’s body
spun from the force of the bullet and he collapsed in a bloody heap.
    Timur
stared at the blank screen in shock for several minutes.
    Who
else has seen this footage?!
    He
was irate as he opened
the second file stored on the thumb drive. As he had suspected, they were the
blueprints he had drafted many years ago for the Gamma-Frequency Identification
(GFID) Nano-chips that the National Security Agency (NSA) had developed under
the guise that Michael Thornton had invented the technology.
    The
technology was