Legacy

4

Jack, Carl, Will, and Ryan watched as the excavation dug back in the thirties and forties slid by the windows of their tram. There were three cars attached to the motorcar and they were riding in the middle six-wheeled conveyance. The road they traveled on was old but well maintained. The concrete poured all those years ago must have cost the German government a small fortune. As Collins tried to examine some of the deep depressions where men had once dug into the base of the mountain, he saw no evidence of anything that had been taken out years before.

Finally their journey came to an end. Although they had stopped in front of a large steel-reinforced gate, the paved road continued downward at a steep angle, indicating that there were further excavations beyond. The guards in the front and rear cars motioned for them to get out. McCabe was there and he was again writing on his clipboard. As the guards herded the four men toward a Quonset hut in front of the large gate, Jack saw several items that chilled his blood. Lined up neatly against the stone wall were approximately a hundred crates of varying sizes. On several of the smaller ones, stacked thirty feet high and sloppily covered in tarpaulins, the crate’s markings had been exposed.

“Damn, Jack, do you see that?” Everett asked, just as he was pushed from behind.

Collins took one last quick look before he himself was jabbed in the back. FIM-92 was stenciled on several of the exposed plastic cases. Jack immediately recognized what they were seeing. FIM-92 was a Stinger missile system, an infrared-homing surface-to-air missile developed in the United States and licensed by the Raytheon Corporation to be built by EADS, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company in Germany.

“Shit, there must be over eighty of those cases!” Carl said, as a door was opened and they were led into the hut.

James McCabe stepped in behind them and watched as Jack and the others were placed in seats. McCabe then gestured for the men and women who were sitting at several desks to leave. Once they were gone, McCabe sat on the edge of an empty desk and looked at the four men. He seemed confident, even though none of his captives was restrained. Jack supposed the eight large men in gray security uniforms holding AK-47s were a confidence builder for the former Delta officer.

“Okay, here we are. As you can tell, Jack, there’s nothing much to see here but an old German mining company that was once a promising site for recovering uranium. The mining attempt failed, and the new owner is particularly worried about others digging around and finding something the old boys from the war didn’t. A patriot, you might say, who doesn’t want any undiscovered material falling into the wrong hands.”

“I see, and that makes you a man who is concerned about the well-being of innocent people?” Jack asked, his brows raised.

“Ah,” McCabe said, raising his hand and swiping it through the air, “You know me far better than that, Jack. It’s the money, of course. I’m paid a lot by my employer to keep this place secure. It’s not the rest of the world I care about-it’s my world I’m concerned with, you should know that.”

McCabe stood from the desk and walked up to Will Mendenhall and looked down at him.

“Now, I need to know who you work for.” McCabe looked from Will to Ryan, and then down the line until his eyes rested on Jack. “Any volunteers?”

The room remained silent as McCabe glanced from face to face. He didn’t seem disturbed that all four men kept their mouths shut.

“It’s just a matter of curiosity. It makes no never mind to me. You came, you saw, and now you can report to-” He smiled. “- whomever it is you answer to that there is nothing in Quito that requires American involvement.” He looked at his wristwatch. “Well, I have to be somewhere else in a few hours. I think it’s time to feed you that lunch that my colleague promised you, and then you can get back to wherever you came from.” He slapped Collins on the right knee. “Jack, it was good to see you, old friend. Take care of yourself.”

They all watched as McCabe left the room. After he did, Jack and Carl exchanged a look and their unvoiced thought was that they would never see the light of the outside world again.

The security men gestured for the four to stand. The door was opened and they were escorted out into the massive cavelike gallery. Collins looked to the left at the large gate, and then to the right, where several workers were starting to load the crates and their contents onto the tram. The lead security guard pointed his AK-47 in the direction they had come from. Altogether there were just four of them and they had eight large men with guns. Jack was trying to think as fast as he could as they were led to a small excavated gallery that had been dug into the side of the large tunnel system. He remembered Sarah explaining to him that miners sometimes dug out side shafts for the discarding material that would save them loading it onto a conveyance to take topside. He knew this was where they would be shot and dumped. They were out of time.

“Colonel, I don’t think this is the way to the kitchen,” Ryan said from the front of the line as they were led into the darkened chute. “I hope you have a plan.”

“Nothing comes to mind,” Collins answered from the back. The security men were in two rows beside them, four on the left and four on the right.

“This job really sucks sometimes,” Mendenhall said from behind Ryan.

“Shut up and move forward,” the guard said. He turned around and faced Mendenhall. They could hear that he was one of the Americans in the security group.

As they moved further into the darkness, Jack could see that the excavation was getting smaller, and the walls rougher. He could also feel a much cooler draft on his face. Finally, they could see the end of the small shaft and the drop-off ahead. Jack kept his calm. He allowed his eyes to roam across the walls and the men that were watching them. He saw one advantage; most of the guards were aware of their surroundings and were uneasy in the semidarkness. Their eyes moved from place to place as they drew closer to the edge. Jack could smell water and hear the rush of a river somewhere far below. He closed his eyes as a plan formed. It was a long shot at the least and an expedient way to meet their death at the most.

The guards stopped and started pushing them toward the edge of a large rock outcropping-first Mendenhall, then Ryan, then Everett and Collins. They were being lined up.

“Gentlemen, it isn’t much, but I suggest we keep walking forward,” Jack said beneath his breath.

Before any of the eight guards could react, instead of stopping at the dark edge of the chasm before them all four men kept going and walked right off into the black void.

Falling side by side, Mendenhall cursed and Ryan prayed as the automatic weapons opened up above them. Tracers started filling the darkened shaft as they fell. One round hit Jack in the shoulder, barely grazing his shirt and taking an inch of skin with it into the blackness. Another three rounds struck the wall in front of them and ricocheted in all directions. It was like falling into an abyss with angry hornets buzzing around their heads. As they braced for a crushing impact, the four men were amazed as they kept falling, gaining speed as they fell feet-first into the great unknown death that awaited them.

Mendenhall was the first to strike the water, followed by Ryan. The latter had lost the battle with keeping his body straight and fell face-first into the rush of the river, the impact breaking his nose and shocking him into near unconsciousness. Everett managed to stay upright and hit the underground river with an impact that sent him straight to the river’s bottom, where he jammed both knees on the coarse rock that made up the riverbed. Jack landed right beside him and veered off sharply after going under. The extreme angle allowed his feet to strike the left bank of the river. Collins thought he had broken his ankle as it came into contact with a large boulder, but he was aware enough to see red hot tracers stitch the water around him. He pushed with his legs and pulled with his arms, all the while assisted by the flow of the river. He finally managed to surface to the sound of rushing white water and the pings of bullets bouncing off rocks. In the darkness he bumped into someone who reached out and grabbed his right arm. Then he felt another man’s hands and another’s. Will and Jason were shaken as they coughed and spit out the freezing water.

“Damn,” Everett shouted. “Are we all here?” The words were almost lost in the din.

There was no answer as they picked up speed and the current pulled them around a bend in the river. They struck a rock wall and then spun back into the center of the current. Then there was nothing, the sound disappearing as the walls and ceiling vanished above them. They were completely submerged.

Jack tried to hang on desperately to the man he was holding, but the twisting and rolling water separated them. He knew they had followed the river underground and figured that was it. He thought they could travel for at least three of four miles without the benefit of drawing air into their lungs. As he twirled underwater, he was sorry about leading his men into such a simple trap as the excavation, but knew his people well enough that they would rather die like this than be shot in the back and dumped into the blackness.

As the four men were battered by the twisting river, Jack was amazed to see the clean, cold water brighten. As he registered this in his oxygen-deprived brain, he was suddenly free of the river. He felt a free-falling sensation as he was ejected from the underground river and into thin air. The fall was from a height he would never have volunteered for. The waterfall noise covered the screams coming from all four of the men as they finally struck the white water below the falls. Jack struggled to the surface and realized then that through the entire length of his free fall he hadn’t taken a breath. Finally reaching the surface of the roiling water, Jack took in the most wonderful breath of his entire life.

“Colonel, are you all right?”

As Jack gained his senses he felt hands lifting him up. When he looked to his right he saw it was Will Mendenhall who had taken his shoulder. In his other arm Will held Ryan by the back of his neck, keeping him afloat. There was a lot of blood clouding the water around Jason and that brought Collins back to complete consciousness as he reached out to see how badly hurt Ryan was.

“Mr. Everett?” Jack called out.

“Right here,” came the answer. The Navy SEAL had taken both the fall and the water in stride, great swimmer that he was.

“Is Ryan all right?” Carl asked as he joined the three men holding each other up.

“He’s breathing. I think his nose is broken.” Will looked around to get his bearings.

At that moment they became aware of eyes upon them. Jack looked to his left and that was when he saw a man and two small boys. They were staring at the strange scene before them with fishing poles in their hands. Their eyes were wide and they didn’t notice that the smallest child was getting a large strike on his pole.

Jack waved his hand at the three fishermen, and then out of the corner of his mouth said, “I think now may be a good time to get the hell out of here.”

Rev. Samuel Rawlins paced the floor with the cordless phone held tightly in his hand. He was irritated at the two-second delay in the voice signal caused by the scrambled transmission. That was just another thing James McCabe, or Mr. Smith as he was called, had installed that had become an incredible waste of time.

“And what do your people say? Who is this man?” he asked the person at the other end of the line. He waited in frustration for the scrambled reply.

“We don’t really know. We have a background check running right now and so far all we’ve come up with is that he was the highest-ranking student ever to come out of Harvard and MIT. After graduation in 1985, this Compton just fell off the map. That fact makes me suspect he’s CIA.”

“Mr. Vice President, you of all people should know that top MIT graduates do not go to work for low-paying intelligence agencies.” Rawlins wondered why he dealt with men who had to have the smallest things explained to them. “Now, what did their visit consist of?”

The silence on the other end of the line was far longer than the scrambling could account for. Rawlins squeezed the handset even tighter.

“They were asking questions about how fast the United States could get to the Moon.”

With the vice president’s answer, the whiteness of Rawlins’s hand on the phone increased and blood was forced out of it with the pressure he brought to bear.

“And?” he said, gritting his teeth.

“I don’t know. All of this information was passed to me as the head of the space program, but I’m being kept at arm’s length as far as the president is concerned. He’s not taking me into his confidence.”

“If that is the case, Harry, why the hell am I paying you so much money?”

“Look, this Compton can’t get any information that won’t eventually get back to me. Obviously the president has chosen this man to formulate a plan of some kind, possibly as a contingency only, so all we have to do is watch him.”

“No, we can’t take that chance. I want this man eliminated.”

“What? He works directly for the president of the United States, Reverend. I think that would cause some very serious consequences.”

Rawlins moved out from behind his desk and strode to a large couch fronted by an ornate coffee table. On the couch was a woman reading a magazine with her legs tucked underneath her. Rawlins placed his hands on her blond hair. The softness seemed to calm him considerably. He looked down at the family portrait sitting on the coffee table. It was a photo of Rawlins and his two daughters. The elder of which was sitting right in front of him.

“Use your imagination. If he is indeed on his way to Houston, as you say, any number of things can go wrong in flight. Am I correct?”

The young, beautiful woman on the couch, his daughter Laurel, lowered the Esquire and turned her head toward her father. She had a questioning look on her face. He smiled down at her.

“I wouldn’t even know how to go about ordering something like that. I can’t be caught committing what amounts to an assassination. That’s tantamount to treason, no matter what you-”

“Do you really think I would put such an assignment into your lap, Harold? I’m not a fool. Just keep me informed about what this Niles Compton learns on his trip to NASA. That will give me time to make the arrangements. With luck, NASA and DARPA will tell him the same thing you’ve told me for years, that our space program is tits up in the water.”

“Look, Reverend, we need to think this out. We need-”

Rawlins pushed the disconnect button on the phone and lowered it to his side. His hand continued toying with his daughter’s blond hair until she finally became irritated enough to push him away.

“Are you going to keep me in the dark forever, Daddy?”

Rawlins looked down at his eldest daughter and smiled. “Just the usual incompetence with employees. You know the drill. They just can’t see the things I do.” Rawlins leaned over the back of the couch. “God’s will can be an angry and ugly thing.”

“I love your euphemisms for murder, Daddy, I always have.”

“I will assume you mean that in the most respectful way, daughter.” Rawlins straightened and walked back to his desk, tossing the phone into its cradle.

Laurel Rawlins stood and walked to her father’s desk, perching on the edge. Her shapely right leg swung back and forth as she tilted her head low so that her father could see her eyes.

“I told you, you need more dependable people on your payroll. Now, give me your wish list and I’ll get things done. I have the people, and I have the contacts. You said it yourself. Mr. McCabe will have his hands full in the coming days and weeks and can’t be every place he needs to be. And we don’t need the Mechanic getting himself killed before his usefulness is at an end, do we?”

Rawlins looked up at his older daughter. Her blue eyes were as blue as his own. Unlike his younger daughter, Laurel was all him. She was a woman who even as a child knew what made her world go around and that was the money her father could provide her. She had so much of it that her nighttime activities were a mere hobby to her. That fact alone should have concerned him, but he knew she had to have excitement in her life.

“I do things for the love of my God, daughter, but never for myself. Of course, the money is always nice, but it never seems to be enough.”

“The money is good. And I have no doubt that you do what you do for the love of God,” Laurel said, reaching out and touching his cheek. “And I do what I do for the love of you.” She smiled broadly and batted her eyes. “And the money too, of course.”

“I suspect that is not all you do it for. I believe I should be worried about your wicked ways, Laurel-for instance, your little affair with Mr. McCabe.”

The young woman slid off the desk, hopping gently to the carpeted floor and straightening her skirt. “Believe me, Daddy, when I say that my relationship with our former Army friend had its little perks. I’ve met people who will be a benefit to us, even if our dear Mr. McCabe has to, well, even if he suddenly has to leave our employ.”

“For now, I need him like no other. He devised a brilliant plan that will shift blame away from our actions to where it belongs. It’s ingenious really. And he chose the perfect man in the Mechanic, a man who will set us on the road to everlasting glory.”

Laurel raised her eyebrows, knowing that her father was as crazy as they come, but she still loved him in her own special way. She returned to his desk and became serious.

“Now, if I heard you right, you spoke of a Niles Compton?”

“Yes.”

“And he’ll be in Houston this afternoon?”

Rawlins saw the gleam in his daughter’s eyes as she demurely took a notepad from his desk and wrote down the pertinent information.

“Yes, the Johnson Space Center.”

“Now,” she said, lowering the writing pad, “I take it you want him to cease his activities, whatever they are?”

Rawlins looked through the large window. His eyes fell on the smoggy afternoon outside his offices.

“Fine, if you want to know about the ugly side of God’s work, I may have something even more thrilling for you when you finish with this. If what is happening is truly going to happen, we will not only be out many valuable patents on the technology in the mines, but the world could turn against the word of God for those damnable petrified bodies. The nonbelievers of the world are going to try to make my people, and others of our kind, turn from their faith. If it comes to that, we may have to commit ourselves to the salvation of our very souls, and that of the people who allow us into their homes three times a week.”

“Sounds like we may be busy then,” she said, moving her head to get her long blond hair behind her shoulders. She tore the page from the pad and tossed it onto the desk. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a flight to catch.”

“Not to ruin your good mood, my dear, but the Mechanic is coming in from Ecuador immediately and I will have him meet you in Houston. Use him. I do not want you directly involved if the Mechanic finds an opening against this Dr. Compton.”

“Oh, I have many uses for our Arab friend. Using him to kill is just one of them,” she said, shooting her father a demure look.

Rawlins watched his daughter leave the office. He knew Laurel was not a follower of his word, but there was a quid pro quo. She allowed him his own small peccadilloes as far as his religion went. As long as the money supply was up to a minimum level, Laurel was his forever. He smiled as he figured that it was probably time she earned her keep. He looked at his watch and frowned.

“All right, Mr. McCabe, where are you?”

Ryan had come around nicely. They made their way through the thick stand of trees as Jason asked Will Mendenhall one more time if his nose looked as bad as it felt. Collins raised his hand when he saw Everett suddenly stop and hold up five fingers, then clench his fist. He lowered his hand slowly with the palm facing down, telling through his fingers to stop, get down, and be quiet. Collins eased his way forward.

They had heard helicopters fly very low over the sparsely forested part of the foothills, and each time they had to scramble for cover, barely staying out of view of people who were obviously McCabe’s men searching for them. For the most part they had been lucky. The bulk of the search was being conducted around the falls and the lake they had been near more than two hours before.

Everett turned around and knelt beside Jack. “Looks like a cop up ahead on that small road-looks local to me. He’s parked next to a ’66 Chevy Impala with a male driver and a woman passenger. Looks like they’re changing a flat. The cop is just standing there, jawing.”

“This may be our chance to bum a ride.”

“That’s what I was figuring,” Everett confirmed, and looked back at the scene just below on the roadway.

Jack turned and held up a hand to Ryan and Mendenhall, indicating for them to stay put. As he watched, Will reached out and patted Ryan on the shoulder. He silently shook his head and made a face indicating that the nose looked real bad, causing the small Navy man extreme consternation.

“Okay, looks like we may be in business here, Jack. The cops are leaving.”

“Okay, stay in the tree line. I’ll see if we can get a ride.”

“Well, they look to be pointed in the right direction,” Carl said as he moved aside to let Jack by. “Watch your ass.”

“Yeah, my judgment hasn’t been real good today, so maybe you better watch it for me,” Collins said, easing out of the trees.

“Hola,” Jack called out. He raised his right hand and crossed the broken macadam of the old roadway.

The man was just lowering the large car from its jack. He paused and stood. He pulled the woman behind him as he looked at the bedraggled man crossing the road.

“Hola,” the old man answered, as his eyes searched the area around Collins to see if he was alone.

“ Habla ingles?” Collins asked, smiling the best nonthreatening smile he could muster.

“Si,” the man said. “Little… bit,” he said, holding up his index finger and thumb about an inch apart.

“Uh, I and some friends seem to be in a fix. Our car broke down a few miles back, and we need a ride into the next town.”

The middle-aged man watched as Jack approached the car, hands held slightly out in front of him. He seemed to relax a bit as he stepped away from the car.

“You need assistance?” the man said, the words clearly understood by Jack.

“Yes,” Collins said, looking around the car. All he could see was the woman standing behind the man, as though hiding.

“ Si, we will assist you,” the man said. He pointed west. “Quito,” he said, looking back at Collins.

“That’s where we’re headed.”

“ Si, bring your friends,” the man said.

Jack turned away and gestured toward the trees. Everett came first, followed by Will and then Ryan. As Jack watched them come down the small incline, he was shocked when he saw Everett dive into some bushes, quickly followed by Mendenhall and Ryan.

As he turned he saw that the small woman had stepped out from behind the older man. She held an ugly-looking UZI machine gun. Jack’s eyes widened as she brought the weapon up and started shooting. The initial line of bullets stitched a path directly to Jack’s front. He saw the gun move in slow motion. Without thinking, he jumped to the right and landed behind the car’s rear bumper. He rolled until he was underneath the hot exhaust pipe. The heat was intense, but he kept rolling until he hit the right rear wheel, still partially suspended by the jack on the rear bumper. As he watched, the man went to one knee and the first thing Jack saw was the blue steel barrel of an automatic being angled toward him. Thinking fast, Jack spun on his back, causing broken pieces of blacktop to dig into his skin. The woman once again opened fire on Everett, Ryan, and Mendenhall across the road. Collins, mustering all the strength he had, kicked at the jack. It didn’t take as much strength as he thought to make it break loose. The man had just spotted Collins and was about to open to fire when the car began to fall.

“Oh, shit,” Collins said, flattening himself as low as he could manage. The large Chevy came down and the rear quarter panel caught his would-be killer in the side of the head, propelling the side of his face into the roadway. The weapon was knocked out of his hands just as the car’s bottom hit Jack in the chest. The heavy-duty springs brought the car back up. Jack reached for the gun and fired into the woman’s legs. Two bullets hit her in each thigh, dropping her to the ground. Jack saw her face twist in anger, shock, and pain. She desperately tried to bring the UZI around.

“Don’t do it,” Jack yelled, aiming at a spot between the woman’s eyes.

Before she had a chance to fire her weapon, and before Collins managed to kill her, a large boot came down onto the side of the woman’s face. Jack relaxed when he realized Everett had come up on her without her knowing it. He lowered his head and took a deep breath.

“You okay?” Carl asked as he knelt and looked at Jack’s dirty face. “It’s a damn good thing you don’t have a beer gut, buddy. This car would have surely flattened it for you.” Everett reached out a hand and pulled Jack out from under the car.

When Collins stood he saw that the woman was out cold not two feet from the man’s body. Was the man her husband?

“Will, see what you can find in the car,” Jack said, reaching down and retrieving the UZI. He tossed it to Carl. “Get her legs wrapped. You and Ryan can pull both of them into the trees. I suspect their friends will find them soon enough.”

“Yes, sir,” Mendenhall said, amazed at the close call the colonel had just had.

“May I suggest we take the car and get the hell back to the city?” Everett removed the ammunition clip from the UZI and checked its remaining rounds. He smiled as he slammed the clip back home. He went around to the driver’s side, kicking the jack stand and crowbar out of the way as he did so.

“Let’s go, gentlemen. I have a feeling our ex-Delta man may have more friends waiting for us.”

Two hours later the old and battered Impala pulled into the main concourse area of the airport. Everett had taken all the back roads he could find into the outskirts of the city and the zigzag route had cost them time. The four men were sore and exhausted.

“Well, here we are,” Everett said, slamming the car’s gearshift into park. “Ryan, do you think you can fly with that swollen nose of yours?”

“Very funny. I want you guys to know that this thing hurts like hell-and the face Mendenhall makes every time he looks at me doesn’t help.”

Will turned away and opened the rear door without saying a word, but he was smiling where Ryan couldn’t see him.

Jack stood and stretched as he tried to examine as much of his surroundings as he could.

“What do we do about the excavation, Colonel?” Will asked.

“There’s nothing we can do about it at the moment. We don’t have a clue how deep this thing goes. We may be dealing with the Ecuadorian government and their military.” He turned and faced the others as he closed the car’s door.

“What about the weapons inside?” Ryan asked. He gently touched his nose.

“They won’t be there even if we do come back. We need to bring Niles up to date as fast as possible. This thing has to be figured out at management level.”

As the men turned and headed for the private section of the new airport, James McCabe lowered the field glasses that he had been using to examine the parking structure across the way.

“We can shoot them before they board their aircraft,” his assistant said.

McCabe raised the glasses once more and watched as Collins and his men moved into the terminal.

“Why in the world would I want to do that?” he asked, smiling. “When mistakes are made in field operations, you try not to compound them by making another equally disastrous move.” He lowered the glasses and tossed them to the plainclothes security man. “You minimize the mistake by at least getting intelligence for the next round of battle. When they leave here, we’ll know exactly where they will land.”

“Yes, but instead of a tracking device, we should have planted a bomb onboard their aircraft,” the large German said, turning to follow McCabe.

“That is why you are you and I am me. I need to know who Jack and his pals are working for, and I couldn’t do that if he’s dead, could I?”

McCabe opened the door of his limousine.

“I want those two fools who got shot up on the roadway eliminated for trying to kill them after they managed to escape. You should have passed on my orders far sooner than you did,” McCabe said, looking closely at the large German before stepping into the limousine. “And that’s exactly why I will kill you if my instructions are not followed to the smallest detail. You see, there must be discipline in the ranks or else there will be chaos. And then we could not do what we are paid to do.” The small man climbed into the car and the German felt the heat of the man’s glare.

“Now, I need to go to our private hangar. I feel like blowing something up.”

Director Appleby watched the face of Niles Compton. Although tired from his many flying hours in the past day, Compton seemed bright and eager. He was astonished to see what DARPA in its dark guise had to show him.

They stood in a small nondescript room and watched the large screen before them. Sarah, always one to show wonderment when faced with the unbelievable, walked to the screen and placed her hand on the image. She turned and looked at Appleby.

On the large monitor the director had instructed the NASA/DARPA computer system to bring up a split image of two different warehouses. One of the warehouses was active. Niles, Virginia, and Sarah saw men and women walking around in their white coveralls as they worked. In the foreground was the giant solid booster rocket that made up the heavy power stage.

“Mr. Compton, I give you the Ares I. The new platform is an in-line, two-stage rocket configuration. The vehicle’s primary mission is carrying crews of four to six astronauts into Earth’s orbit. However, Ares I may also use its twenty-five-ton payload capacity to deliver resources and supplies to the International Space Station or to park payloads in orbit for retrieval by other spacecraft bound for the Moon or other destinations. Normally this would have been in the cut portion of the president’s budget restraint, but with the retirement of the space shuttle program nearing, the president pointed out a small loophole in the budget, some sort of secret black project that kept the Ares program operational.”

“How many do we have?” Niles asked, looking at the giant booster and Ares’s different stages as they lay prone in the massive complex housing the project. The director of DARPA saw that Compton had expertly sidestepped the issue of the president secretly saving the Ares system even though his budget cut had called for it. On the monitor everything gleamed in pure whiteness and the sight was so impressive that Niles had a hard time not looking at its beauty.

“One platform is available now, complete with the Orion crew capsule and the Altair lunar lander. All are highly advanced systems designed for Moon debarkation and extended habitation. The other Ares can be put together in a matter of a week and transported to either one of two launch facilities, complete with a three-quarters-finished lunar landing and transport system.”

“We have two Ares and no other backup?” Niles turned and faced Appleby. “Those are all untried systems.” Niles held up a hand when Appleby looked to protest. “That’s not a rebuke, just an observation. What if the president gives a go to a Moon mission and the system fails?”

“That’s exactly why I brought you here, Mr. Compton. I need to show you the only reliable backup we have.”

Sarah stepped back from the large screen as Appleby punched some buttons on the computer keyboard. “My science offices axed this program many, many years ago, but NASA, in its nostalgia, hung on to it.”

As they watched, the scene went from Ares to a view that was live but had none of the activity that the Ares I mission warehouse had. The giant hangarlike structure was dark and all they could see was four men standing near a giant object.

“This is a warehouse on seldom used grounds at the Cape-hidden away, if you will.” Appleby looked at Sarah and Virginia. “That’s Cape Canaveral.”

As they tried to figure out what it was they were looking at, Appleby brought a phone to his ear.

“Okay, Dan, hit the lights and pull off the tarp. Let’s show our guests what it is they’re looking at.”

Niles, Virginia, and Sarah watched as the bright lighting of the warehouse came up. The four men reached for the bottom of a giant red plastic tarp. They started pulling. Soon they were joined by several security men in white shirts in an effort to get the tarpaulin off without the massive hundred-yard material killing someone. As it finally gave, Niles recognized it immediately and fell in love all over again. He recognized the most amazing sight he had ever seen as a boy, an object that dwarfed the men who were uncovering it.

“I give you the Atlas V rocket, designed by Wernher von Braun, at one time the most powerful launch system in the world.”

Niles examined the copper-colored features of the unpainted Atlas V. It was glorious in all its terrible beauty. The vehicle that had taken mankind to the Moon over four decades before was still a sight that sent chills down his spine.

“Are you telling me we have a complete system?”

Appleby smiled and stepped up to the screen. “We have this one and one other, but the second is hanging like an old out-of-date picture in the Smithsonian. NASA never had the willpower to dismantle this one. We have everything for the old girl. We have the Apollo capsule, which of course we couldn’t use today for safety purposes, and we also have the lunar lander, or LEM, complete with upgrades for her systems on the design boards. But I’m afraid that would take too long to rebuild. We would probably have to go with a third Altair lander, if we can match the designs together.”

“My God,” Sarah and Virginia said simultaneously.

“This would be our backup for Ares, Dr. Compton.” Appleby walked back to the control system and closed the image from Florida. “I guess you can tell the president that we weren’t caught totally flat-footed on this one. All we need is a launch time frame and we can meet any challenge. Of course, we’ll have to remove most if not all of the safety protocols.”

Niles grabbed his coat and his briefcase. He turned to Virginia and Sarah as he neared the door. “Once aboard the plane, I need a direct line to the president.” He held the door open for the two women and looked back at Appleby. “I hope you can meet any challenge, Mr. Appleby, because the Chinese have just informed the United Nations they plan to launch in three weeks. The ESA should follow shortly. But we will meet that challenge and beat them to the punch if at all humanly possible.”

“So, what are you saying?”

“Begin preparations to get the two Ares systems up and get the Atlas ready to go. We’ll need them in less than a month from today. That still puts us a week behind everyone else.”

“That’s crazy!”

“No, it’s necessary, Mr. Appleby. If we like our way of life, we’d better beat those other powers to the Moon and bring back whatever is up there. Much more than falling behind is at stake here.”

“Does the president know about this?” Appleby asked, as Niles turned and walked through the door.

“He soon will, Mr. Appleby. I suggest you get on the phone and start waking up about a million people, because we’re going back to the Moon.”

Appleby watched as the door closed. Then he turned and brought up the image of the warehouse at Cape Canaveral again. He watched as the men stood there, dwarfed by the powerful rocket, its five motors, and its engine bells. He shook his head.

“Impossible,” he said. His eyes continued to dwell on the image of the old spacecraft, and then a smile slowly crept across his lips. With fist clenched, he hit the desk lightly. He didn’t care if it was impossible. They were going back to the Moon and he would give it the best possibility of success. Finally he closed his eyes and shouted, “Yes!”

A front of rain clouds and wind had encircled the city of Houston. Niles, Sarah, and Virginia were forced to wait out the storm on the private tarmac at William P. Hobby Airport. As they waited they were informed by Pete Golding from the Event Group Complex in Nevada that Jack and his team were on their way home, and with that message the Department of State had received notification that an arrest warrant had been issued for Colonel Collins, Captain Everett, and Lieutenants Ryan and Mendenhall. The charge was two counts of murder and industrial espionage.

Niles sat in shock. Virginia and Sarah both exchanged incredulous looks, knowing that if Jack and the others had to kill, it was only as a last resort, and it would never be anyone who didn’t intend them harm first.

“Who the hell did they supposedly kill?” Niles asked Pete. They were speaking over a secure video link between the private Learjet owned by the Event Group and Niles’s office beneath the desert sands at Nellis AFB. Pete slowly removed his glasses and looked into the camera.

“Two Ecuadorian tourists, supposedly during a carjacking,” Pete said, with a tinge of disgust at the accusation.

“But they are safely out of the country and in the air?” Niles asked.

“Yes, ETA Nellis in forty-five minutes,” Pete said. He slid his glasses back on and continued with the report. “Also, the government of Ecuador has closed off the region that includes the old German excavation and has reinforced that closing with federal troops. That’s something that particular government has never done before.”

“Has Europa come up with anything about the true ownership of the excavation?”

“No, that information has been buried pretty deep, but we’ll find them. We do have a lead on this Brinkman fellow in Berlin. It seems there is a connection between him and Operation Columbus, a pretty strong one.”

“What’s that?” Niles asked, always irritated at the way Pete had to have information dragged from him.

“It seems his father was a prisoner at Spandau Prison at the same time, for a few hours or so, as Albert Speer. Speer was Hitler’s architect and one of the managers of Columbus. There’s a smoking gun here.”

“Tell Jack to contact me as soon as he settles in at the complex. We may need for him and the captain to take another trip.”

“Germany?” Pete asked.

“It seems everything begins and ends right where it all started, and I’m afraid we need feet on the ground there to find out what everyone else knew that we didn’t. Also, have Europa get into the Ice Blue computer system at CIA, the Pentagon, and the FBI. We need to pin down a connection between this Brinkman character and Columbus. Cross-reference all of the pertinent names Senator Lee mentioned. Get any information you receive into Jack’s hands. I’ll leave it up to him and his team to decide what to do with it.”

Pete was writing furiously as he took down the instructions.

“Anything else?”

“Yes, it seems NASA and DARPA have been keeping secrets from the rest of the federal government-to our benefit it seems-but I need a complete workup of everything those two agencies have on inventory with the National Accounting Office. Also, get Europa into the House Ways and Means Committee and find out what secret funding NASA and DARPA have received over, say, the past thirty years. Anything that relates to a manned incursion into space. I don’t want to have to pry information out of these people, especially about projects they want to keep hidden. We may need everything they have.”

“Wow, is that all?” Pete finally looked up at the camera.

“No, get your coffee cups and lunch tray off of my desk,” Niles said, disconnecting the view of a stunned Pete on his laptop.

Niles took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. Then he looked at Sarah and Virginia.

“Okay, as for you two, you’re dropping me off at Andrews Air Force Base. I have to pay the president a visit, and then you’ll fly on to Nevada. Virginia, you take charge, assist Jack and determine if we need feet on the ground in Germany.” He held up his hand to stop Virginia before she could say anything. “No, you are not to go on any field missions. Stay put at the complex.” He put his glasses back on and looked at Sarah. “Lieutenant, I want you, Ryan, and Mendenhall to put together a team and start trying to figure out what this mineral is and how we can get a handle on controlling it just in case some other nation brings back a load of it. There has to be something in our own natural makeup that resembles it in some way. I suspect that earthbound samples of it exist. The Germans may have it lying around or maybe they’ve distributed it in some form.”

“I don’t think we-”

“Humor me, Sarah. Find anything, we’ll need someone with an understanding of what we’re dealing with where this mineral is concerned”-he leaned closer toward Sarah-“and to put it frankly, I want at least one of our people on any attempt to get a mission up there. Guess at what that mineral is and what it’s made of. Your best guess will get you on one of those missions. I don’t trust anyone I don’t know to give me the straight dope on what it is we’re dealing with. The president would feel better too. Virginia and I will explain further when the time comes.”

Sarah leaned back in her seat, stunned as she’d never been stunned before at the suggestion that she could possibly be included on something like a Moon shot. Niles saw her dilemma and patted her on the knee.

“I suggest you don’t mention what I just said to Jack.”

“For your sake,” Virginia said to Niles.

“Director Compton,” said the voice of the Air Force pilot in the cockpit. “We’ve been cleared for runway three north. We’ll be rolling in one minute.”

Niles winked at the still shocked Sarah and then finally fastened his seat belt.

Laurel Rawlins watched the Learjet from the dry shelter of a private hangar three buildings down, where the small jet was spooling up her engines for taxiing onto the runway. She smiled as she turned to look at the man McCabe had recruited, someone from his antiterrorist days with the army. The bearded man watched Laurel closely. He never spoke much and when he did she could always hear the disdain he held for women of any religion or country. A man losing his faith was a nasty thing to watch.

“At what speed did you set the charge to go off?” she asked, watching the blue and white Learjet start moving.

She had nervously waited as the Mechanic-the name he was known by in every police agency in the world-placed a one-ounce charge of C-4 explosive near the aluminum rim of the nose wheel of the jet.

“The charge will detonate at one hundred knots, a split second before the jet reaches takeoff speed. That should be enough to send the plane off course and cause it to crash before liftoff. I have done this before. You may not wish to watch.”

Laurel smiled and pulled her silk windbreaker closer around her upper body.

“Are you kidding? This is what I live for,” she said. She was disgusted that the bearded Mechanic would even suggest such a weakness. She turned away and watched the Learjet taxi toward the runway. “You need to have faith in women, my friend. Your old ways of looking at things have never made you any true friends among your own kind. James and Daddy will be proud. They won’t be using this Mr. Compton to coordinate anything having to do with the Moon. I’m afraid they’ll have to get someone else.”

She was so excited that she could barely keep her legs still.

As the Learjet taxied further into the misting gray fog of Hobby Airport, the cell phone inside Laurel’s windbreaker rang. She shook her head, not wanting her glee at what was about to happen disturbed. Her blue eyes were glowing in anticipation. Her father’s eyes had glowed that morning too, though what she was feeling was anticipatory wonder and excitement and what her father had been feeling was pure anger at not being able to control everything around him. Finally, she realized that the only people who had this particular cell phone number were her father and James McCabe, her Mr. Smith. She angrily tore into the coat pocket and ripped the phone free. She opened it hard enough that the Mechanic standing next to her heard the cover crack.

“What?” she hissed into the phone.

“Laurel, what are you doing?” a voice asked.

“I’m doing what you would do if you were here,” she said into the phone. “And you know what, James? I’m a little busy at the moment.”

“Listen, tell me what you’ve done, quickly.” McCabe’s voice was calm and precise.

“I’m helping you and Daddy, just like you taught me to do.”

“Slow down and listen to me. If you are planning on hurting Compton and his team, you’ll not be doing us any favors. Do you understand?”

“But-”

“Laurel, right now we have the advantage. We know about him, but he has no idea who we are. Stop whatever it is you are doing, right now.”

McCabe’s voice was so calm and measured that Laurel was taken off guard. She felt embarrassed and humiliated at having thought this was something that would have made her part-time lover and her father proud of her. She lowered the phone and looked at the Mechanic, who was still wiping his hands on the red rag and sneering at her.

“Disarm the charge,” she said, not looking directly at the bearded man but at the distant jet as it rounded onto the runway. The man saw her face go slack, and the vitality she had displayed only seconds before had drained away. For the first time he saw through the young woman’s expensive exterior and the ugliness that he saw was shocking. He nodded his head. Her eyes narrowed and she watched as the Event Group Learjet spooled up its engines to full takeoff power.

“You realize that the charge will be discovered when the mechanics check the aircraft?”

Laurel, instead of replying, just tossed the cell phone at the Mechanic, not caring if he caught it or not, and then she turned angrily away and stepped out into the misting air.

“Yes?” he said into the phone.

“Can you undo what you have arranged with that aircraft?” McCabe asked.

The Saudi-born Mechanic reached into his coveralls’ front pocket and brought out a small transmitter. He hit the single red button on its face.

“It is done,” he said into the phone.

“Now listen closely. You are never to engage in any wet work without my explicit confirmation of action. You are never to allow Laurel to… compromise herself again. She, like her father, needs to be protected. Do you understand?”

“Completely.”

“Now, I assume you used a remote device on Compton’s aircraft, yes?”

“This is correct,” the Mechanic said. He watched Laurel as she stared after the streaking Learjet on the runway.

“Do you have the ability to track the device?”

“Up to three thousand miles. I am tied into the Faith-” The man stopped himself before saying the name of his employer. “I am patched through a reliable satellite service.”

“Track-only for now. Gather your equipment and alert your ground personnel. We have duties in Russia and then down south in French Guiana.”

The Mechanic closed the phone without saying anything. He watched as Laurel fixed on him with a look of hatred and failure.

“You will have to fly home commercially, madam,” he said. “Or hire a plane. I have been ordered to another area of opportunity.”

Laurel stood in the light rain and stared at the Mechanic. Her hair was drenched and her beautiful features were obscured by the stringy strands of hair.

“It must be hell for a man like you to lose your faith in yourself,” she said. “So many of your brothers have been martyred and here you are, worse than your onetime enemies. Taking money from the people you once professed to despise, who you would have killed in a minute. You are worse than sad, and you hate me because I am a woman.” She took a step toward the Mechanic. “Well, at least I have the courage of my convictions. You have nothing. I expect McCabe knew what he was doing when he hired you. You just may make that martyrdom yet, but don’t expect your promised virgins in the afterlife. From what I understand they don’t reward cowards.”

The Mechanic watched her smile a lunatic’s grin as she turned to leave. He knew that she was right about him. For a man once feared by the Zionists and the entire Western world, he was a skeleton of his former self. A man who thought his brothers in Afghanistan were weak and without conviction, enough so that they thought him unstable. He was banished from the movement forever and now he found himself in the employ of pigs, the very same people he had sworn to annihilate. Laurel Rawlins’s words about achieving martyrdom echoed in his head and then just as quickly disappeared.

He turned away from the woman and watched the Learjet climb into the sky. Then he looked down at the remote device in his hand. He safed the system and placed it in his pocket to check the GPS later for the final destination of the aircraft. He smiled as he saw the landing gear retract on the expensive Learjet and pointed a finger at the plane. He made a motion as if he were pulling a trigger.

“Another time, my friend. Another time.”