Carpathian: An Event Group Thriller (Event Group Thrillers) Read online

  Lee decided that the girl was showing him a way out. He dove after her, praying that Alice had made it to the main deck and over the side.

  * * *

  Alice Hamilton watched as the panic-driven guests fought their way to the main deck. She angrily removed the fur stole and her white gloves as she reached down to assist an elderly man to his feet and then unceremoniously push him over the railing of the heavily listing Golden Child.

  “Damn it, Garrison, where in the hell are you?” she shouted at the many frightened faces jumping over the side of the ship. She kicked off her high heels and furiously started back toward the salon opening.

  * * *

  Lee held his breath as he felt the shudder come from beneath the Golden Child. Another scuttling charge went off, sending a pressure wave through his eardrums that came near to stunning him. The blast was obviously meant to send the $6 million yacht to the bottom of the South China Sea. The murder of the antiquities thieves and bidders had been meticulously planned out. The first charge was meant to send the guests scurrying off the ship. The second was meant to break the back of the Golden Child and send her to the bottom. A tactic Lee had used himself on numerous occasions during the war, both in Europe and South America.

  As he swam though the darkness a fresh rush of seawater struck him from beneath. The powerful explosion placed along the keel of the ship sent a torrent of heated water upward, where it slammed Lee into the very block Alice had been mesmerized with not fifteen minutes earlier and that now sat at the lowest portion of the decking near the engine spaces.

  Garrison was starting to lose faith that he had enough air left in his lungs to escape through the bottom of the Golden Child. As his hands fought for purchase against the rush of incoming sea, his fingers tore lose a large section of the stone block from Jericho. He held on to the small piece of stone as his vision started to tunnel and his lungs were close to exploding.

  He knew he would never see Alice again. And he found that was the only regret he had. Alice.

  Suddenly his leg was tugged on and he felt himself being pulled further down into the water. Whoever had his leg was not too gently pulling him to the bottom of the engine spaces where all hell was breaking loose. As Garrison fought to keep consciousness he saw the floating bodies of many of the Golden Child’s crewmen. Most were burned and some had parts of their bodies missing from the two powerful explosions. He was pulled even further along the hull. Then suddenly Lee and his savior were free of the Golden Child. The water was much cooler as he felt himself rising from the depths. When he broke the surface of the choppy sea he didn’t think he had enough strength to take a deep breath, then just before he did he felt his face being slapped hard.

  “Don’t you know when you abandon ship you head to the deck, not the engine room?” the voice said as a life preserver was thrust into his hands.

  Lee tried to catch his breath as he saw who his rescuer had been—the young Gypsy girl from the salon. She was treading water not inches from Lee’s face. Her smile caught the senator off guard.

  “Don’t think us cruel,” she said as her swim fins kept her easily above the choppy water. “I set the first charge to scare the guests, the second to sink the ship, but I’m afraid it went off too early. I’m really not that good with explosives.”

  “Who are you and who made you judge, jury, and executioner?” Lee said, spitting saltwater from his mouth.

  “I am no one, Mr. Lee, but the woman who gave the execution order is that pig Harrington’s judge, jury, and executioner, and also my queen.” The girl smiled and lowered her dive mask. “Your woman is your equal American, but don’t allow her to follow us. It will only bring her grief. If we ever meet again, Keeper of Secrets, it will not go so well for you.”

  Lee started to say something but the girl turned away. Lee watched her swim away as sirens and patrol boats from the distant harbor were starting to get closer to the scene of the tragedy at sea. Lee looked for the girl but she was nowhere to be found.

  “Thank God!”

  Lee quickly turned around.

  “Hamilton!” he said as he reached for her.

  Alice placed her arms around Lee and then they both just remained that way as the seas lifted them and then lowered their floating bodies back down. As Lee held her he noticed that they were being carried away from the survivors and the arriving rescuers.

  “We better start swimming or it may be a while before I can apologize for being such an ass.”

  Suddenly and before Alice could speak a splash sounded next to them. As Lee looked up he saw that an inflatable raft had been tossed into the sea.

  “As I said, my crystal ball may be cracked, but it still shows a pretty clear picture of future events. Mrs. Hamilton, Mr. Lee, good luck, and swim that way.”

  Lee and Alice looked up onto an ancient-looking Chinese junk. Standing at the railing was the young raven-haired girl. She was wrapped in a blanket. Standing next to her and leaning on the old wooden railing, the girl’s grandmother stood with her arm through that of the girl for support. The junk was slowly pulling out of the debris field left by the sinking Golden Child.

  “Remember, Mrs. Hamilton, what you have seen here tonight cannot be.” She slowly waved her small hand, as did her grandmother. “God doesn’t have that kind of sense of humor. After all, animals like that cannot, should not exist. God wouldn’t have it,” the girl shouted. The junk slowly vanished into a fog bank and was gone.

  “That has got to be the strangest girl I have ever met.”

  Lee didn’t answer Alice, he just yanked the ripcord on the CO2 cylinder and the raft immediately inflated. He pulled himself in and then Alice after him. As the sirens and the screams slowly started to fade because of distance, Lee looked into the fog after the fleeing ghostly image of the Chinese junk.

  “What are you thinking?” Alice asked as she slowly pulled the expensive gown over her head and then tossed it into the boat. Her slip was soaked through and Lee could see that Alice was in no mood to care who could see her body underneath the thin material—especially Garrison Lee.

  As the small boat bobbed in the water and searchlights started to poke through the mist, Lee reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the piece of stone he had torn from the block after it had fallen through the deck. He looked it over and then pressed the large piece into his palm and closed his fingers around it.

  “I’m thinking we had better take a closer look at what we have in Vault 22871 when we get back to the complex.”

  Alice tilted her head as she also tossed the wide-brimmed hat into the sea. She shook out her long brunette hair and then caught the item Lee tossed to her.

  “Because I have never seen anyone go that far to create a hoax.”

  As Alice brought the chunk of block closer to her salt-encrusted vision, her heart froze. “Yes, I think we may have something a little more to investigate at Jericho than just the ancient ruins of the city, because something else was happening a few thousand years ago that isn’t recorded in the Bible.”

  As the small piece was rolled in Alice’s hand the bone was clearly seen underneath the petrified fur of that long dead animal. What antiquities forger would think to do that, place bone under the petrified skin of a hoax?

  Alice Hamilton and Garrison Lee of the Event Group had learned that night for the first time that things do go bump in the night and there is always the beast under the bed and in the closet. So yes, Mrs. Hamilton, Lee thought, there really may be monsters in the world.

  PART ONE

  OLD SCORES

  We cry “Our Father!” we that yearn

  Upward to some divine embrace,

  And dimly through the mist, discern

  At times a lovely awesome Face,

  Whose darkened likeness haunts our race.

  —Caroline Spencer, “On the Dark Mountains”

  1

  2577 FLAMINGO BOULEVARD, LAS VEGAS, NEVADA—PRESENT DAY

  As she reached for
the small piece of broken block her hand lightly rubbed against the stronger hands of a man she hadn’t felt the touch of in nearly a year. All thought of that long-ago Hong Kong night vanished during the daylight hours only to reappear when sleep claimed the eighty-four-year-old woman. As the small rubber boat bobbed up and down in the cold waters outside Hong Kong harbor she remembered the feel of the piece of stone block and the touch of Garrison Lee’s fingers as the dream continued. In her sleep the woman wanted to cry out that she didn’t want the relic, she wanted him. As always in her dream all Lee would do is smile and wink that irritating wink he always did to make her think everything was all right—she knew it wasn’t. This was the same dream Alice had been having for the past six days and it always ended the same way—with the feeling of massive loss and the sharp pain of her heart breaking every time she saw Garrison in the dream.

  “Hamilton, you’re obviously dreaming this for a reason—now wake up!”

  The voice of a man gone for a full year woke her as she lay at her small desk in her bedroom. She had fallen asleep again at her computer terminal and as she looked at the screen she saw the jumbled words in one long and continuous sentence, the result of her head lying on the keyboard.

  Alice Hamilton reached out and angrily punched at the keyboard and cleared the screen of all the nonsensical words. As she yawned she looked at the clock on the wall. It was four-thirty in the morning and for the fifth straight night she had fallen asleep while in the midst of her research, and that in turn brought on the dreams of Garrison Lee and the time they spent together in China in the forties. Alice straightened in her chair, finally remembering what had prompted this dream in particular. She frantically searched the scattered papers on her usually neat desk.

  “Where is it, where is it!” she asked herself, almost fearing the letter itself was part of her sleeping remembrances.

  “Calm down and think,” came his voice. This was a tool she used many times. Garrison always told her think and then act.

  Alice stopped her searching and then squeezed her eyes closed and thought. She opened them suddenly and reached for her robe’s front pocket. She took a deep breath as her fingers touched the two-page letter that had been overnighted from Rome.

  “Thank you,” she said as she pulled the letter from her pocket and opened it, sitting back in her chair as she did. Alice again closed her eyes realizing that she just thanked a man gone from her for what seemed an eternity. She swallowed and then caught herself and mentally shook the tears from her eyes before they fully developed and then opened the letter. She read it once more for the umpteenth time in the twenty-four hours since receiving it.

  “Europa, am I still signed in?” she said aloud as she folded the letter but this time held it tightly in her hand as she forced herself to relax. Alice was finally feeling her age after many years of keeping up with the best of them.

  “Yes, Mrs. Hamilton, User 0012 is still logged on,” came the sexy Marilyn Monroe–voiced Cray supercomputer located at the secure center inside the Event Group complex underneath Nellis Air Force Base ten miles from her house.

  “My apologies for being rude and dozing off on you,” Alice said as she pulled her robe tighter around her.

  “Computer center activity is light, access should be uninterrupted until 0600.”

  “Well, thank you anyway, Europa. Now, can you…” Alice stopped briefly to stifle a yawn, making herself realize she was getting far too old for these all-night research digs. “Excuse me, can you give me the status of security element Goliath please?”

  “Security element Goliath has not reported in as of this time.”

  “Europa, I am expecting a package through the complex communications system and I want that e-mail package to come straight to me and is not, I repeat, is not to be entered into the incoming communications log. Is that clear?”

  For the first time in many years Europa didn’t answer right away. Alice thought maybe her systems were still being disrupted from the troubles a few months earlier when her mainframe was attacked from an outside source.

  “Mrs. Hamilton, your request cannot be granted due to security regulations.”

  Alice closed her eyes knowing that she could seal the incoming e-mail off from everyone—except one man, and that was the head of Event Group security and the smartest man outside of Garrison Lee and Director Niles Compton that she had ever known—Colonel Jack Collins. As far as she could see there was no way around Jack not seeing the e-mail, especially from a source as important to Department 5656 as anyone could ever remember—Goliath, a code name for one of the security departments and Director Compton’s most guarded deep operatives. The information this agent gives the Group is as important as any historical intelligence they had ever received from any one source. Goliath was deep—the deepest any security element had ever been before, and only Jack, Niles, deputy director Virginia Pollock, Captain Carl Everett, and Alice knew who it was and where he, or she, was buried.

  “I understand, Europa, but no one else gets copied on the package. I hope I can handle Colonel Collins on this one security oversight.”

  “Incoming packet has arrived, Mrs. Hamilton.”

  Alice was stunned at how fast her requested data from their deep operative came as a follow-up to the first communication, which had set Alice on a course of action she had wanted to take since 1951.

  “Put it through, please,” she said.

  The coded pictures sent by Goliath slowly started coming up on her monitor as fast as Europa could decipher them. As she scanned the screen trying to figure out what the coded pixels were starting to form, her eyes started to widen and then recognition struck and with her usual self-control lost for the moment, Alice clapped her hands together and let out a yelp. She stood and hopped once as she picked up a picture of Garrison Lee that sat upon her desk. She kissed it, knowing in real life that gesture would have caused an immediate rebuke if it had not been done in private. She looked at the pictures once more as Europa broke them down into a four-square shot and they all clearly showed the item she had for so long searched.

  “You were right, damn you, you were right! This would have been something that had to have been covered up. And it was your idea to get someone inside—oh, not for this, you old goat, but I figured our agent was in place anyway so why not have him do a little private searching for me?” She kissed the picture again. “Now I’ve got to kiss Jack and Niles for getting our agent placed!” Alice stopped dancing and then looked at the picture of the one-eyed love of her life. “Jack and Niles are going to hang me out to dry for this one,” she said sadly, and then she suddenly smiled. “But what the hell, Europa, I’m fully vested so they can’t take my retirement away.” This time it was Alice who winked at Lee as he grimaced back from his eight-by-ten glossy.

  “Mrs. Hamilton, should I code-name and secure the file in your private program?”

  “Yes, Europa, I also want you to place all files developed on the contents of Vault 22871 with this new file and secure it.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Hamilton. Do you wish a code name for the new combined file?” Europa asked in her sexy voice that Alice never quite noticed any longer.

  “Yes, code it—Grimm.”

  VATICAN CITY, ROME, ITALY

  The young Vatican counsel held the door open for a young woman. He nodded as she went past. Once outside he placed the black hat on his head and looked around the building. The cybercafe wasn’t as crowded as it would be when the students hit just before classes started in less than an hour.

  As he turned toward Vatican City a mile distant he felt the eyes on him just as he had the day before and then again this morning—both times coming to and from his office and then from his office to the cybercafe. Now he was feeling it again. His training was either kicking in or he was starting to lose it. He dipped his head as he passed another young lady on the street. As he did he used the opportunity to glance in the storefront window to his right. Beyond his own reflection of black
robe and collar he saw a lone woman about fifty feet behind him. Her gaze seemed just a little too intent on him. He quickened his pace.

  Crossing St. Peter’s Square he felt more secure as the crowds grew thick with tourists and others seeking the comfort of the city. He no longer felt the eyes upon him as he had. As he made his way back to his office inside the Vatican archival building he stopped and leaned down to tie a shoe that needed no tying. He again looked around and his heart froze. Not twenty feet away from where he had stopped that same young woman he had seen on the street was staring right at him. He was tempted to turn and walk toward the girl just to see what reaction he would get, but his training told him to cut and run and then report, let others far above his pay grade make the decisions. He did however reach his cell phone and then he brazenly straightened and started taking pictures like he was a normal tourist. He framed the young woman in his fourth shot of the milling crowd. For good measure he took another just as her face went stern and she turned away. The young Vatican archivist smiled and turned away himself.

  The man deep undercover at the Vatican, United States Army Second Lieutenant Leonard DeSilva, knew he would have to report to Colonel Collins in Nevada, because if his cover inside the Vatican was blown there was going to be hell to pay.

  The young priest, who had spent the past year and a half after graduating from Notre Dame fighting for his assignment at the Vatican, knew he would have to call home for instructions—and that entailed a call to Department 5656—the Event Group.