Chapter 157: A storm is coming

When Markus Jersey finished to work it was already late at night. Looking at his prized wristwatch, he realized it was after three in the morning. He let out a grunt: he really needed to settle down. As his wife continually pointed out, working so hard was not good for his health at all. The house was extraordinarily quiet. Even if hardly any sounds were heard even during the day due to the size of the villa, at night that silence seemed to condense and become even more oppressive. Markus left his study and, after locking it, headed for his bedroom. His wife surely had already fallen asleep for some time, or at least this was what she hoped for her: he didn't crave the idea of finding her awake waiting for him ready to give him a groom on the importance of a good rest. However, as he walked through the corridors, he noticed that one of the windows was open. For a moment he thought of an oversight, but the servants would hardly ever forget to close it and especially the guards would hardly have fixed it during their patrol shift. Intrigued, he stepped out onto the balcony. It was there that she, leaning on the railing looking at the stars, he found her daughter. "Jocelyne!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing out here alone? Go back inside, before anyone... " "Jackson is lurking in the garden with ten other men and he has already ordered release the safety locks on the weapons. There are at least five other men on the roof" his daughter stopped him immediately. "I'm not stupid, dad" Markus walked over to the railing and actually noticed the unmistakable silhouette of the security chief in the garden below. He breathed a sigh of relief: since Jocelyne was kidnapped he was almost in paranoia that it might happen again, and knowing she was careful reassured him. The two stared at the sky for a few minutes, then Markus decided to break the ice: "So... what are you doing here?" "I cannot sleep" Markus pursed his lips. If there was one thing he had learned in the last fourteen years it was that if her daughter was quiet then she never gave an answer without less than fifty words. The fact that she had given such a dry answer was a sign that something was wrong. "Is there something that worries you?" Jocelyne let out a sigh. "I don't know" she replied. Lie. Jocelyne could fool many people, but not her father. However, the man preferred to not ask any questions for the moment. He felt that forcing her to talk would only make the situation worse. And honestly, Jocelyne wouldn't even know how to explain the truth to her father. The awakening of the cognitive abilities of dinosaurs seemed nonsense to the ears of scientists, let alone those of an ordinary person! If she had talked about it with her father, Jocelyne was more than sure that Markus would have called the psychologist again and would have forced her to at least a couple of hundred sessions. And anyway, it wasn't the awakening of the dinosaurs' cognitive abilities that worried Jocelyne. For the moment, at least that still remained a hypothesis. No, there was something else in the air. A strange feeling that Jocelyne had begun to feel, as if her instinct was warning her that something terrible was arraving. "I feel like a storm is coming" she admitted to her father. "I don't know why, I just feel it's like this" Markus frowned. "It is unlikely, the forecasts are sunny for the next few days. Agree that they are not always accurate, but..." "Dad, you know I don't mean storm in that sense" Markus looked down. Yes, he knew that his daughter meant something else. He was just trying to play it down. "So what storm are you talking about?" "This is the point. I have no idea. I just know it's coming"Jocelyne replied staring up at the stars, which seemed so calm and still as they watched the world from trillions of kilometers away. "And that it will be very, very violent. So violent that it will shake our whole world" Markus didn't know what his daughter was talking about, but he had the feeling that she didn't know either. He just put his hand on her shoulder and pulled her close, cradling her in a fatherly embrace. Even though she was fourteen now and she no longer loved that contact as much as she did when she was little, Jocelyne let him. For some reason, she urgently needed some comfort that evening. 'I hope it's just a feeling...' she thought bitterly, but in her heart she knew it wasn't like that. She looked up at the mountains rising to the west, which glowed in the pale moonlight; for some reason she felt that the storm would come from over there. ********** At dawn Abe showed up at the gates of Cartago where Carver had told him to go. By the time he arrived the first rays of the sun had just begun to light up the sky, so he didn't surprise him that there was still no one there. All he found was a couple of jeeps parked in front of a shed. He sat down on the first bench he found and waited. He grabbed his cell phone wondering if he should call Jackson, at least to let him know he was okay and make sure everything was okay at home, but then put it back in his pocket. After all, Jackson knew how to take care of himself and if something went wrong he wouldn't wait for him to call him; Abe had no reason to disturb him at that hour of the morning without having done anything yet. After about half an hour a guy arrived. As soon as he saw him he motioned for him to leave: "Go away, boy. This is a government area" "I am aware of that. I'm part of the team" Abe replied. "Bullshit. I've never seen you" "Obviously, I arrived yesterday. Mr. Kimber sent me". Billy Kimber was Odaria's biggest tycoon and the biggest financier of that small expedition, so Abe had chosen to use him as an excuse. The man raised an eyebrow. "Do you have a document?" "Of course. Here it is" Abe replied, handing him his identity card, obviously cleverly forged. "May I know your name, by the way?" "Werner" the man grumbled as he checked the document. "Abraham Kenyatta, huh? Why have I not been informed of your arrival?" "Because you didn't have to be. I'm a supervisor" Abe replied. "Mr. Kimber wants to make sure that his employees know how to do their jobs well and above all that there are no imaginary obstacles or annoying political dissidents to stop his projects. You can think of my coming as a surprise inspection. Only Mr. Carver had been informed. All the others have to be evaluated, so I couldn't allow you to prepare" Surprise inspections were by no means uncommon in a country like Odaria. Werner seemed skeptical, but in reality in his eyes Abe read greater calm and his instinct told him that the man had let his guard down. Luck would have it that just then Carver arrived. "Hey, Werner! I see you've already met the newcomer" he greeted them. "Carver! So is it true? Is he a supervisor?" Werner asked surprised. "Do you doubt his honesty? Be careful, it might take away points about it" Carver obviously understood immediately what the story Abe had made up was and decided to ride the situation. "Give him that document back and stop playing the fool. He is not only being kind to you, but he has also offered to help us load the equipment. Make sure you don't disfigure us" "Of course, absolutely!" Werner exclaimed, immediately returning the identity card to Abe. "I'm sorry, sir!" "You were just doing your duty" Abe replied pretending to be pleased. "At least you have shown that you care about the secrecy and safety of the equipment, and that you are smart enough to not trust a stranger. Come on now, let's load that stuff" Werner obeyed and opened the shed door. Inside there were several very delicate instruments, but Abe knew how to handle them. He, Werner and Carver quickly loaded everything into the jeeps. Shortly thereafter, three more people arrived. They were a tall man with a hair, a slightly shorter blond woman, and a boy who didn't seem to be about sixteen, maybe seventeen. "Malcolm! You're late" Carver greeted him. "Excuse us. We've had some setbacks. Dreyfus wanted to talk to me before leaving" the man replied, then looked at Abe. "Sorry, but who are you?" "Supervisor Kenyatta" Abe responded. "I'm here to evaluate your work. Mr. Kimber sent me" Malcolm looked confused at Carver and Werner, who just nodded about it. "Oh... sorry, I didn't know anything about it. Not even Dreyfus informed me of..." "The mayor of Cartago isn't required to know certain information. He has to take care of the administration of the city. What Mr. Kimber wants is none of his business" Abe immediately stopped him. He hoped he hadn't made a gaffe: from what he remembered Dreyfus he must have been the mayor of the colony, but he wasn't sure. Fortunately, he had hit the mark. "Oh... I understand" Malcolm said. "Well, then let me introduce myself. I'm Malcolm, this is my companion Ellie and my son Alexander..." "Nice to meet you. I'll make it short, I just want you to do your job as you always have. How to evaluate you will be my business" Abe said trying to be as authoritarian as possible. Then he looked at Alexander. "You are quite young, boy. Do you follow in your father's footsteps?" Feeling called into question, Alexander looked at his father, who motioned for him to answer. Even if with a little hesitation, the boy said: "Yes, that's it. I'd like to become like him" "Very good. Tell me, how do you recognize a land suitable for oil extraction?" "By emitting compressive waves in the subsoil through a seismic source, which are reflected by the geological layers and sent back to the surface where they are picked up by the geophones. At that point it is enough to analyze them to understand what materials the soil is made of and to understand if there are oil fields" "And with this you have absolute certainty?" "No, not always. The only way to really verify the presence of oil is to drill the ground, with compressive waves you can only make assumptions" Abe gave a satisfied grunt and smiled. "You are really good, boy" Alexander seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Mr. Supervisor" "Call me Abe. In fact, all of you should call me Abe. I don't want you to think of me as a stranger, consider me a normal member of the team. Even better, forget I'm a supervisor" Abe said with a laugh. Malcolm walked over to him. "In that case, I hope we'll work well together" he said, holding out his hand. Abe squeezed it vigorously. "I can't wait"