Event (event group thrillers) Page 7

  Collins smiled. In his time in the service he had eaten enough of the freeze-dried rations to feed Botswana.

  "So, Commander, you like the duty?" he asked, then chewed.

  "Enough so that I don't want to rotate out. They want to send me back to the SEALs with a promotion and a nice fat training stint, but I've officially requested another six years of detached service."

  Collins's eyebrows rose.

  "Yeah, I promised to re-up my enlistment if they cut my orders for another tour in the Group."

  "Don't you miss SEAL duty?"

  Everett thought a moment as he placed his fork down. He had learned in the past that while speaking to commanding officers he should take his time and give the answer he wanted to give and not the one they wanted to hear. "I miss my mates, but this is the duty I want. And to be blunt, sir, there is enough excitement here for three SEAL teams."

  Everett looked up beyond the major's shoulder and saw Lisa and Sarah seated far across the vast dining complex. Lisa looked up briefly and gave Everett a trace of a smile. She leaned over and whispered something to her friend, then continued eating.

  By the way, I saw the way you and your Mr. Everett locked eyes just a minute ago," Sarah said without looking up from her lunch.

  Lisa paused, her spoon halfway to her mouth, and looked at her roommate. "My Mr. Everett?"

  Again Sarah never looked up. "You know, the more I think on it, you're probably better off with duties here at the Group and not aboard any ship. For a navy person you have a bad habit of talking in your sleep, and not only that, if I can notice these things, so can others."

  "I do not talk in my sleep--or do I?" Lisa said, her thoughts turning inward.

  "Yes, and remember, you're an enlisted-type person, and your Commander Everett is an officer and a gentleman, at least according to the Congress of the United States," Sarah said as she finally looked up from her salad.

  "I've let it get a little too serious, and we are trying to cut back on our meetings. I just think about that big lug constantly," Lisa said, placing her spoon back into her bowl of soup and then rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hand. "So what about that new officer? Carl hasn't said anything at all. Have you heard anything?"

  "He's supposed to be some sort of black-operations guru or something."

  "From what I saw just a minute ago, he looked like an ordinary officer to me. But then again, you had a better look at him than me."

  "You better start thinking about how to get yourself out of this thing with Commander America," Sarah admonished, raising her left eyebrow.

  Lisa didn't answer; she just sat and stared at her soup without really seeing it.

  The senator told me a few things, amazing stuff to be sure, but I'm not really sold as to the importance of all this." Everett thought again before commenting and placed his knife and fork down as he slowly wiped his mouth with his napkin, then said, "Sir, you're no different than I or any other serving line officer that comes on board here. You wonder, are we here just to play games and babysit?"

  Collins pushed his plate away and looked into Carl's eyes, then crossed his arms and listened.

  "I can assure you, Major, we're not chasing fairy tales here, this is a very dangerous and, at times, deadly business."

  "How so?" Collins asked, still looking intently into the younger man's eyes.

  "Well, four years ago, it was maybe my sixth or seventh field assignment. The computer nerds upstairs stumbled onto a dig, an archaeological survey being conducted in Greece. The University of Texas and the Greek government sponsored it jointly. Their team consisted of Dr. Emily Harwell, a few Texas grad students, a couple of Greek professors, and of course myself and one other Event Group doctor, posing as part of their labor force." Again Everett paused and got a faraway look.

  Collins watched him, and the way his second-in-command delivered the story, it was as if he were actually giving a field report.

  "The good doc and her students came across a series of mathematical calculations that were buried in clay jars and sealed with beeswax. Now this was a no-name Greek alchemist that had buried them in the cellar of his villa. He wasn't famous for anything and was one of those people that history leaves anonymous for all his brilliant work, but the equations that were found were used to calculate the speed of light, three thousand years ago. The find was amazing and made a few jaws drop, I can tell you. It was a work on papyrus that would have made Einstein proud. How would he have done this? And most importantly, why would this no-name Greek mathematician do it in the first place?"

  Jack was amazed. "I would like to see them."

  "The account was taken by force," Everett said. "The Event Group, while unique in the world, does have foreign agencies we work and compete with in an offhanded way through our National Archives front. No one knows we exist, officially. Oh, Great Britain has a pretty good idea, but could never prove it. These other archival groups are basically in it for antiquities, whereas the United States has turned the world's history into a science. We actually change the present by looking into the past. Now, some of the more rogue nations and organizations don't play by the rules. The night in question, we lost the manuscript to a man named Henri Farbeaux. The French deny he works for them so he may just be a mercenary, but he is ruthless in gathering information when the situation dictates. He gets intelligence and equipment from someone, some organization, because his equipment is pure state-of-the-art stuff, right on par with our equipment, and we get the best."

  "I've had operational run-ins with other special ops guys, but I've never heard of this Farbeaux character, at least I've seen no intelligence dossier on him, French or otherwise," Collins said.

  "Totally ruthless, Major. We suspect he hit us with a large strike team while we were in Greece, Men in Black we call them. Hit at night by the book and no one saw it coming. We lost twenty-two people, including one of our own, a lady doc from MIT. I liked her a lot. She was ugly as homemade soap, but the smartest woman I have ever known and flat out the funniest. She could tell the dirtiest jokes in the world." Everett smiled in remembrance. "I was held up in the hills surrounding Athens for three hours until a strike team of air force commandos from Aviano in Italy arrived and extracted me."

  "Wounded?" asked Collins.

  "Took one in the leg. I swear I'll get that bastard Farbeaux someday. He has a major hurt heading his way, and this swab's going to be the one to deliver it."

  "So he took the documents and got away clean?"

  Everett took a breath and leaned back in his chair. "Yes, sir, he did. And every time before and since, it's almost as if he knows our plans, knows where we'll be and what we're doing, thus the internal mole hunt we have going on at the moment." Everett closed his eyes in thought. "The Israelis almost had him three months ago, but missed just south of the Sudan. Fucker has a sixth sense about him. An hour before Mossad nails him to the wall, he skips, just like someone was tipping him. He's very good and travels with an international cast of assassins, and get this, a lot of them are known to be Americans, guys with training, like you and I."

  "He has to have funding from someplace. With all this computing power around here, that information should be rather easy to come across. Does the FBI have anything?"

  "All I know is that bastard has friends in high places and is always one step ahead of our Group. As for the Feds, all we know is that we're not the only ones this guy goes after, he's after technology also. It's said that he hits the big companies for new advances, that kind of thing, big-time industrial espionage."

  Collins shook his head.

  Everett reached in his back pocket and pulled out a handheld data-fact. He switched on the small portable computer and used the small aluminum pen device to find the information he wanted. Then he handed the computer to Collins.

  "This is the list Alice, the senator, and Director Compton made up for security. He told me to show it to you as soon as I could."

  Collins looked from the naval c
ommander to the data-fact. There on the liquid-crystal screen were listed fifteen names; most he noticed had computer sciences listed after their monikers and duties. He scanned the names, only recognizing the one at the top.

  "Those are people of interest in our mole hunt, listed in the order of probability," Everett said as he looked around their table, then picked up his fork even though he had lost his appetite.

  "This first name, are they kidding?"

  Everett just looked at the major and then took a bite of his cold roast beef.

  Jack glanced back at the name that headed the list of suspects. The other top six were the heads of all the investigative and intelligence agencies in the federal government, and the name at the head of the list was that of the president of the United States.

  After lunch, Jack, Carl, and Niles Compton sat behind closed doors and discussed the security list Everett had shown Jack. Collins wasn't impressed with the way they went about screening names to place on the "watch" list. They assumed that their mole was high-ranking, but in Collins's experience it could be someone as low in security clearance as the night janitor. He knew this thing would have to be broken down and backgrounds checked more thoroughly. Home life checked. He had found that the easiest way for someone to be caught was in their home lifestyle. The 1RS had used the same system for years; it was easy to catch someone living beyond his means. So that would be the first place the security department started, checking out how some of the Group's people lived at their off-base residences. Collins outlined to Everett and Niles how they would go about starting the next phase of the investigation, and that the first thing they should do is burn their current list of suspects and start fresh.

  "Why, this is everybody with access to material that has been leaked," Niles said, incredulous.

  "We have to start with a fresh outlook," Jack replied.

  "And what is that?" Niles asked.

  Collins smiled and stood when Alice walked into the room to begin their tour of the vault area. He looked down at Compton and Everett. "Everybody, Mr. Director, everyone in this complex is now suspect, from you to the last person to be recruited, and that's me."

  Sarah McIntire saw the new major and Alice walking along the hallway. During her lunch with Lisa they had discussed field assignments and their upcoming commissionings, Sarah to second lieutenant, and Lisa to ensign, ranks that the new head of security would have to approve. She had wondered aloud what kind of man this officer was, and now she had a chance to at least get an opening impression. She spied a classmate of hers and asked her to take her books and drop them off at her room, then she hurried to catch up with Alice and Collins.

  "Good morning, Alice, Major," she said from behind them.

  Both turned at once and saw the army specialist standing there smiling.

  "Hello, dear," Alice answered.

  Collins looked at her and gave a slight nod of his head, recognizing her from the cafeteria and their near collision.

  "May I walk with you?" Sarah asked Alice.

  "I'm just taking the major on the Magical Mystery Tour," Alice answered, "but you're welcome to walk with us a ways."

  "Major, have you met Sarah? She'll be a geological department head in just a few months and then she'll be drawing second lieutenant's pay."

  "Yes, we met unofficially at lunch," Jack answered.

  Sarah began to feel a little embarrassed and decided after looking into the major's eyes, this wasn't such a good idea. "If you're going to the vaults, it's probably important. I better..."

  A speaker they were passing under drowned her out. It was Niles Compton: "Will Alice Hamilton and Dr. Pollock please report to photo intelligence? Alice Hamilton and Dr. Pollock to photo intelligence."

  "I'm sorry, Major, it looks like I have to go."

  "We can tour some other time, Alice," Collins said.

  Sarah looked from the major to Alice and quickly volunteered, "I can take him down, I'm cleared for vault security."

  Alice looked at the young woman and smiled. "That's an excellent idea. Major, would you mind?"

  "That's up to the specialist. If she has the time and doesn't have to be anywhere..."

  "Excellent, I'll see you later and we'll discuss the security drills you want to conduct. Thank you, Sarah, for volunteering your services, even though you're supposed to be deep in study for your engineering final."

  "I helped Professor Jennings make up the test; besides, I think I'm a better tour guide than you, I'm not so clinical."

  Alice laughed. "Perhaps so, and I will speak to our Mr. Jennings about having students, no matter how gifted, devise his tests for him." She turned to the major. "Jack, I'll see you later," she said, touching his arm and then walking quickly away. "And don't forget, Sarah, your final..."

  "Wouldn't miss it for the world," she said as she strode confidently toward the three elevators aligned side by side against the wall. Collins watched her for just a moment, then followed.

  "I guess you know we are situated on level seven?" she asked.

  Collins didn't say anything, he just stood with his arms crossed. Finally the elevator doors opened with a soft ping and Collins caught the female voice of the computer announcing, "Level seven." Sarah stepped in, followed by Jack, who swiveled away from the door and stood straight-backed against the right side of the car.

  "Level?" the canned voice asked.

  "Seventy please," Sarah said, not really noticing she was being polite to a computer-controlled elevator.

  Jack felt a slight movement and the hiss of air as the car started its long descent. He closed his eyes as he thought about the elevator riding on nothing but air. He thought he heard Sarah say something.

  "Excuse me?" Jack asked.

  "I said here we are," she repeated.

  The elevator came to a halt. "Level seventy," the soft female voice stated.

  Sarah stepped out and waited for Collins. The major looked at her, then down the long and high-ceiled corridor. The first thing Jack noticed was what looked like a normal bank of fluorescent lighting that wrapped around the entrance to the vault area. He knew what it was from his time at the proving grounds at Bell Labs and Aberdeen. He knew if you walked through that lighting without disarming the harmless-looking security system, lasers set inside would cut you to ribbons in seconds. This was what was known as a kill zone breach. They both stepped up to the portal leading into the vault area and presented their identification to a blue-overall-clad marine guard. He slid their IDs down an electronic reader one at a time and seemed satisfied when their information came up on the reader screen. The corporal handed their cards back without comment.

  Collins followed Sarah inside after the laser defense was turned off. The vaults were made of thick-chromed steel, not unlike the variety you find in banks. They disappeared into the distance as they were set in a circular fashion into the rock. Technicians roamed the wide corridors carrying clipboards and sample cases, not paying Sarah and the major any attention other than to nod a greeting.

  "As I'm sure you've been told, Major, some of the artifacts in these vaults will never see the light of day. Others are being released one or two at a time for security reasons. Our security mostly, as it wouldn't do at all to have this stuff traced back to us."

  Collins nodded his head in understanding and stepped toward Sarah. "Is any of this worth people dying for?"

  Sarah thought a moment. "Yes, sir, I believe most of it is."

  Collins just looked down at her. Her eyes were honest and he thought she really believed what she was saying.

  She produced a card that she wore around her neck on a chain and tucked into her coverall, then stepped to the nearest vault. She took the small card-key and swiped it down a reader, which ordered the lock to disengage. There was an audible click and the door slid silently inside the wall. An overhead light came on automatically and the computer said, "The vault requirements for file number 11732: all personnel are prohibited from making contact with the seale
d enclosure."

  "We lost two people on this particular mission, a doctor from the University of Chicago and a student from LSU. They thought it was worth dying to bring it out."

  Collins stepped past McIntire and into the small theater-style room. Four spotlights shone down on a four-foot-wide-by-eight-foot-long glass box, with latex hoses running into its sides from the aluminum panel embedded in the wall. The room was cool and smelled of wet stone. Inside the glass box was a decomposed body lying on a slab of gray granite. The tattered remains of khaki-style clothing hung off the exposed bones, and the remains of short-topped boots were visible through the glass. The blondish red hair was short and still held a part just left of center of the head. There was a nice clean bullet hole in the side of the skull.

  Sarah stood motionless for a long time until finally placing her small hand over the glass as near as she could get without contacting it and seemed to gaze forever at the figure inside.

  "The Yakuza killed our people over her," she said in reverence, seeming to show deference to the dead.

  "Come again?" Collins asked.

  "Japanese organized crime."

  "I know the Yakuza. Why did they kill a student and a doctor?"

  "They thought it was important enough to kill for." She turned to face Collins. "The head of the Yakuza today is named Menoka Ozawa. He had a grandfather of not very high standing in the Japanese army in 1938." Sarah looked at the body through the glass again as she felt a kinship with it every time she was near it. "It was that man that was responsible for the bullet hole you see." She once again watched Collins for a reaction, and when none came, she continued, "This woman was executed on a small island in the Pacific for being an alleged spy, her and a man named Fred Noonan."

  Jack looked closer at the skeletal remains. He smiled. It was the small gap in the cadaver's front teeth that clinched it for him.