The Society of Orion Book #7: The Turkish Findings (Colton Banyon Mystery 21) Read online

  “But couldn’t they just wear contact lens?” Heather asked.

  “From what we have gathered, they have never had eye problems and as a result never conceived of inventing glasses or contacts,” Carol explained. “It is part of their weakness.”

  “Okay, I can understand that, but what are their real weaknesses. What can we exploit?” Loni shot back.

  “I can sum it all up in one word,” Carol replied. She turned and wrote the word on the easel.

  “Utopia,” she pronounced dramatically.

  “I don’t get it,” Loni blurted out.

  “The Greek translation of Utopia is ‘no place’,” Carol explained. “In a true Utopia, there is no poverty, no crime, no hunger, disease, war and corruption. There is no need for believing in God either.”

  “It sounds wonderful,” Loni remarked. “How is that a weakness?”

  “I’ll explain,” Carol continued. “In a true Utopia people work towards a common goal, like building a building. Everything else is done for them. Those that actually work don’t get to pick their jobs, they are assigned. That results in lack of interest in the work and creativity is stifled.”

  “They become bored,” Banyon added. “In the beginning, most Utopian societies believed that creativity would flourish, but in reality, people became lazy and the desire to achieve was destroyed. There have been several Utopian societies on Earth over the centuries, but they haven’t lasted for any length of time.”

  “That’s right Colt,” Carol agreed. “They have also lost their ability to be deceptive. They move in unison in one direction only. They don’t anticipate obstacles. We can use that knowledge.”

  “But how has the Sumi culture lasted so long then?” Heather asked.

  “Vril,” answered Carol emphatically. “As you know, it is the ultimate energy source. Everything they have comes from Vril. Machines powered by Vril do all the work. Vril powers air machines to purify oxygen. Vril is used in food machines to power nanobots that make food. The Sumi just press buttons. They have done that for more than five hundred million years. Vril is their narcotic. They can’t survive without it.”

  “But don’t they have scientists?” Loni asked.

  “Their scientists are nothing more than maintenance workers who service the machines,” Carol said. “As far as we can tell, they have not invented anything since they arrived on Matos.”

  “There is one new complication,” Banyon suddenly threw out. “It appears that they have figured out how to enlarge some of their weapons. The Cambodian site is cloaked by a Covers device that is four feet across. The cloak covers the whole mile square complex.”

  “Will that hinder our plans to stop them?” Heather asked nervously.

  “Their weapons are powerful to be sure. Making them bigger increases their destructive capability,” Banyon replied. “So I guess the answer is yes. But our goal needs to be to find a way to neutralize their weapons and that means we have to find a way to stop the effectiveness of Vril.”

  “So is Vril the weakness?” Loni asked and scratched her pretty head.

  “No,” Banyon said. “Their weakness is actually their attitude. They think that by using Vril they can solve anything. They have become overly-dependent on the power source. Take their Vril away and they will crumble.”

  “Okay, so let’s do that,” Mandy piped up cheerfully.

  “The problem is that we don’t know how to defeat Vril,” Colonel Cole explained.

  “Oh!” Loni gasped with alarm.

  “Our best bet for success is to cut off the snake’s head,” Colonel Cole continued. “If we can capture or kill their leadership, the rest of the Sumi won’t know what to do and we can out-maneuver them.”

  “But how can we ever get close enough to perform a raid on them?” Heather quickly asked. “They have all kinds of sensing devices.”

  “Actually, there are four of their leaders in the second depository right now,” Banyon said. “We need to capture them.”

  “That sounds impossible,” Heather replied with alarm. “Just their machines alone almost killed us in the first depository. With Sumi guiding their devices they will be more dangerous. How are we going to capture them?”

  Colonel Cole suddenly got a beep on his cellphone. He got up and went to the door to open it.

  “We might have just the right weapon to do that,” he said to the group. He stepped back and everyone gasped as the visitor ducked his head and passed through the doorway.

  It was a seven foot Sumi dressed in a Sumi tunic and battle gear.

  Part Two

  The Players

  Chapter Seven

  A man sat out on his large veranda sipping hot tea. The plantation where he lived had a huge bright-white clapboard house with a green tiled roof. The veranda circled the house. A large vegetable garden filled the East side of the house. The tea the man drank was grown there. There were several barns and they were well stocked with livestock. He had cleared the trees and jungle from around the compound and could see open meadow for five acres in all directions. It was his home, but it was also the base for his operations. It was situated right in the middle of the jungle in the Preah Vihear province of northern Cambodia

  It was only mid-morning, but the temperature was already over ninety degrees and the humidity was the usual one hundred percent. But the man didn’t mind, he was used to it and always drank hot tea when he was thinking. His mind was working at a furious pace right now and he was angry.

  His name was Kiri Keo which loosely translated to “mountain jewel” It was the name he chose after his first run in with the law. He had become prosperous under his new name and had stolen the plantation from a British couple a few years ago. They had just disappeared.

  Kiri was only forty years old, but appeared to be much older. He was barely five feet tall and weighed less than one hundred and fifty pounds. His skin was dark brown and weathered from the outdoors. His hair was pure white. He walked with a limp from a beating he took while in prison. It taught him a lesson. He learned how to be ruthless.

  A young man cautiously approached Kiri on the veranda. He was dressed in jungle fatigues and his body bristled with weapons. He carried a machine gun on his back, a handgun on one hip and a machete on his other hip. Like his boss, he was small in stature and looked like he could barely carry the weight of his weapons. He was Kiri’s right hand man. His name was simply Bona. He was sixteen years old.

  “Medoeknoan kampoul,” he said to address Kiri. He bowed and pressed his hands together in a traditional greeting. The words meant “Supreme leader”.

  “What news do you bring,” Kiri demanded. His intense eyes bore into the nervous young man.

  “The three men I sent to investigate have not returned,” Bona explained.

  “Something is going on and I want to get to the bottom of it,” Kiri screamed. “Someone is attempting to take my poppy fields and I want them back.”

  “Sir,” Bona cried out. “We have not had any communications with anyone from three villages in two days. They must have a huge force to capture all of them.”

  “I didn’t build this drug empire without battles with my competitors. I’ll bet it is those damn pirates out of Laos,” the supreme leader roared and pounded the table. “I want my poppy fields back. Do you hear me?”

  “What are your orders,” Bona asked as he cringed.

  “I want you to collect six heavily armed men,” Kiri replied. “I want you to sneak into the area and find out what is happening. You send them in and you stay out of the area but nearby. Report back to me using this walkie-talkie.” He pushed the device across the small table.

  “We will find out how large a force they have,” Bona replied with less confidence than Kiri wanted to hear.

  “Meanwhile I’m going to collect about a hundred men and get ready to attack them. We are going to kill them all and teach anyone who tries to take something from me a lesson.

  Chapter Eight

 
; The massive creature stood in the doorway and totally blocked the entrance. Several people near the door began to slowly move away from the giant. He stood with his hands on his hips and kept a nondescript grimace on his face. He surveyed the room like he was looking for someone to eat.

  The tunic he wore was silver and flowed all the way to the ground making him appear even taller. His small waist was sashed with a bright red silk-like tie. He wore ornate heavy-metal armor that ran from his very broad shoulders to his tiny waist. His upper body was so broad that it looked like you could drive a Volkswagen across it. Blond shoulder-length hair surrounded the dark blue features of his face. Laser-piercing yellow eyes devoured everything in front of him. He was very frightening and the metal helmet, with serpents perched ready to strike, on his head added to his height and his evil-looking appearance.

  “Hey everybody, it’s just me,” the creature said as a smile crossed his face. “I’m supposed to deliver a bag of Orion weapons to someone here.” He brought up what looked like a purse and showed everyone.

  “My God,” Banyon croaked. “You’re Gunny…I mean Joe…I mean Professor Gersch.”

  “My friends still call me Gunny,” the creature replied and laughed.

  Maya, Previne and Pramilla made a beeline for the Sumi. “I’ll take that,” Maya told him and grabbed the bag. They knew Gunny Gersch. They had also been at the safe house where Gunny sergeant Gersch had saved their lives.

  Previne went to hug the giant, but couldn’t get her arms around him. “What have they done to you?” Previne asked with concern. “You weren’t this big before. I would have noticed.”

  “May I present Zoda, ambassador at large for the Sumi,” Colonel Cole happily announced. “He is actually Professor Joe Gersch and a one man wrecking crew. He will be our secret weapon.”

  Chapter Nine

  Meanwhile in a cave on the island of Avsa in the Marmara Sea, just south of Istanbul, Turkey, four Sumi were busy working the three transmitters in the control room.

  “So we have recovered our dead king. Is that correct?” The leader of the Sumi barked out in the strange guttural language they spoke.

  “Yes,” a subordinate responded. “We are routing the container holding his body to site number one.”

  “And what happened to the plans for the second city at site number two?” The leader whose name was Anax Yuk asked. Anax meant temporary leader or King. The previous King had held the position for almost two hundred years, but died on earth during an inspection tour. He had succumbed from an insect bite twenty years ago.

  “The intruders used our own weapons and melted down all the plans. They also destroyed the transmitter, your grace,” another Sumi explained. “There are currently no plans to use to build our city.”

  This caused the leader to think for a second. “Tell the third ship that they are responsible for forming new plans for the city. They’ll have to live in the starship until we build some housing for them.”

  “They will not be happy. We have already been aboard ship for three years. It may take a long time to develop new plans,” the subordinate replied.

  “We all must sacrifice for the greater good.” The leader said dismissively and waved his hand.

  “I will send them a message,” the assistant replied and began typing on a keyboard.

  “Do we have enough laborers?” an assistant asked.

  “Hmm,” the leader muttered while thinking. He had already moved on to a new topic. “How many prisoners did we capture on site one?” Yuk asked.

  “We are holding three hundred non-blues,” a Sumi replied. “We had to kill three intruders who had weapons and attempted to infiltrate the cloak,” the fourth Sumi answered. “We await orders on what to do with the captured non-blues.”

  “Don’t kill the captured ones yet. Use them to help build the city,” the leader said. “And tell the third ship to capture some natives to help build the second city faster as soon as they have plans.”

  “Yes, your grace. It will be done,” the minion responded and slightly bowed.

  “Are we still on our time schedule?” Yuk now inquired.

  “We are exactly ten minutes ahead of plan,” the subordinate responded.

  “Good. Then let’s send a full starship to the third site,” Anax Yuk ordered.

  “But what if the non-blues manage to see us?” The subordinate protested.

  “Cloak the ship while it is still in space and leave the cloak on when it lands.”

  Chapter Ten

  Soon everyone in the penthouse suite was greeting Gunny Gersch and touching his uniform. He stood like a statue while talking and joking with those around him.

  “The disguise is great, but what can you hope to accomplish against a couple of million Sumi,” Heather asked.

  “Originally the plan was to go and infiltrate the first Sumi encampment, find the leader and snatch him. But when we found out that four of them are in a cave on an island, we decided to change plans. I’m now going into the cave. It appears that they are the leaders.”

  “Where’d you get the uniform?” Loni quickly asked as she admired his disguise.

  “It was the outfit that the real Zoda wore when we captured him,” Gunny Joe replied. “We had to repair the bullet holes, but this is real Sumi battle dress.”

  “But I don’t remember you being seven feet tall,” Previne commented with confusion.

  “I’m not,” he replied. “I’m actually six foot six inches tall. Colonel Cole provided me with platform shoes.”

  “Do you think that you can fool the Sumi?” Heather asked.

  “We don’t think that they have any way of determining who is a real Sumi and who is not. Except for the skin color of course,” the gunny responded. “Besides I will only have to fool them for a few seconds.”

  “Why do you say that?” Loni challenged.

  Colonel Cole answered for Gunny Joe. “Professor Joe Gersch is the resident expert on the Sumi. He has studied everything we have gathered over the years. We have been listening to their transmissions for almost sixty-five years now and he has cracked their language enough to say a few words. He just needs to get close enough to attack.”

  “But Colt said that there are four Sumi. They may be bigger and stronger and we don’t know if they are any good at hand-to-hand combat,” Loni the fight expert commented.

  “Show them your arsenal,” the colonel ordered with a flip of his hand.

  The fake Sumi nodded and began to pull up his tunic. He wore jeans underneath the garment. Strapped to his left thigh was a machine gun pistol. His right thigh held a short barreled shotgun. Two pistols rode his hips and a pouch was wrapped around his waist.

  “I have two stun grenades and a fragment grenade for an emergency,” the gunny said. “In addition I have a machete strapped to my back, small retractable knives in the toes of both boots. There are three Chinese shuriken knives or throwing stars up each sleeve taped to my arms and another knife hidden in my helmet. If I get close enough, I also have a stun gun in my pants pocket.”

  “Wow!” Loni exclaimed.

  “I’m also an expert in using several martial arts disciplines to fight,” the gunny added modestly.

  “I told you he was a one man wrecking crew didn’t I,” Colonel Cole beamed.

  Colton Banyon, who had no knowledge of the SIM team’s ruse, was already thinking about how to change his plan to go after the Sumi in the cave. He was, however, troubled by the fact that Colonel Cole hadn’t told him about Gunny Joe earlier. Does he have a hidden agenda?

  “Enough talking, we need to get back to work,” Banyon bellowed urgently. “The Patel women need to examine all the weapons Gunny brought so we can determine if we need to go and collect the ones at the Vatican. Remember, the Sumi have already established a base in Cambodia that we need to neutralize. We also need a new plan to go into the cave on Avsa and we just found out that one of their starships is missing. We haven’t much time.”

  “We als
o need to decide how to stop the Sumi for good,” Colonel Cole said while agreeing with Banyon.

  ***

  Banyon divided up the tasks and had several people working on a plan for each obstacle. While they were working on the plans, Banyon and Colonel Cole discussed the long-range plan.

  “Where do you think the missing starship is headed?” Colonel Cole asked Banyon.

  “I’m not sure that I can find out,” he replied. “If the ship is cloaked, I won’t be able to find it.”

  “It’s going to India,” Carol yelled out from across the room.

  “How do you know that?” Banyon asked her.

  “It’s simple really,” she replied smugly. “They have three depositories and therefore three cities planned out. The Sumi are very straight forward and logical remember.”

  “Okay, I’ll buy that,” Banyon agreed.

  “They would want to build their cities where there are few people, where it is warm and where there are lots of trees,” she added. “Northern India is the logical choice.”

  “But they have a depository in the Marmara Sea. That’s not near a forest,” Heather argued.

  “We don’t know how long ago they built the depositories,” Carol explained. “But we knew that they were already there when Orion lived, correct?”

  “He killed many Sumi back then,” Banyon agreed.

  “And the Black Sea was much smaller back then too,” Carol noted. “It was only about 7,600 years ago that the Marmara Sea breached the Bosporus and formed the straits that filled up the Black Sea. The breech was caused by the rising oceans from the end of the ice age. The Black Sea is twice the size today as a result.”

  “So they changed the location of one city because the site went under water,” Loni recapped. “That makes sense.”