"I'm afraid Dahlia has informed me that our old family members Carmichael and Martha have taken a trip to Nevada and are more than likely breaking their tradition of silence about their heritage. I must assume we are, or soon will be, compromised. We must leave immediately for Crete, as it has now become a sanctuary earlier than we thought it would have to be."
"We knew this day would come," Lilith said as she set down her drink and slowly stood. "I will miss the lifestyle and titles, I must admit."
"We can commiserate on the plane later. For now, we must evacuate." Tomlinson made for the study doors, then stopped as he placed his hands on the doorknobs. "August, leave a defensive team here and tell them nothing. I also want a large surprise waiting that will show the authorities they have a fight on their hands. I want the destruction of my own home and everything I possess to show my dedication and firm belief to our cause. Also, get Operation Boomerang launched immediately and order Professor Engvall to prepare for his move to Crete."
"I will order it," August Nelson answered, as he placed a reassuring hand on Tomlinson's shoulder. "And Professor Engvall is already safely in Crete, supervising the unloading of the Wave equipment."
With one last look at his American home, William Tomlinson left, knowing that he would not return until the Coalition was in control not only of the United States but the entire world.
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE FLIGHT 2897 HEAVY
TWO HUNDRED NAUTICAL MILES FROM
SAKHALIN ISLAND
(OPERATION BOOMERANG)
The Boeing 777 weapons platform that had initiated the attacks in Iran/Iraq, Russia, Korea, and China had undergone a radical change during its layover in Jakarta. The Wave equipment remained inside and intact, and the outside of the aircraft had been repainted, from the livery colors of a commercial carrier to those of the United States Air Force. Every Russian fighter pilot in the world would recognize the blue-and-white paint scheme, and that was just what William Tomlinson and the Coalition wanted.
The pilot and copilot onboard had explicit instructions to turn on the Wave Decibel Transmitter remotely just as they crossed over Russian airspace. The system could do no harm because the frequencies had been changed in Jakarta to new, benign settings, and now an that would happen was that the Wave signal would be broadcast in the open--directly into the ears of Russian listening posts.
The airliner was equipped with military-style ejection seats in the cockpit; the pilots would eject when they made first contact with Russian air-superiority fighters. Within thirty minutes of ejection, a Coalition trawler would pull them from the rough sea. Dangerous, to be sure, but they each would receive a two-million-dollar bonus.
"We have company and are being painted," the copilot said in heavily accented Bulgarian from his position in the right seat.
AIR DEFENSE FLIGHT TANGO-ABEL SIX, TRAILING
U.S. AIR FORCE FLIGHT 2897 HEAVY
"Roger, we have attempted contact and have had no reply to our instructions," said the leader of the flight of four MIG 31s.
"Can you identify the aircraft? According to commercial routes it should be an American Airlines flight out of Fairbanks, Alaska, over."
"Negative. We have visually identified aircraft as that of a U.S. Air Force 777 transport conversion, tail number 6759875. We will attempt--"
The Russian colonel yelped as the penetrating Wave signal burst through his headphones.
"This is Tango-Abel lead; we have picked up a strange audio tone emanating from the American aircraft, over!"
"Tango-Abel, lead, lock on to, and destroy target, immediately!"
"What? They may just be off course--"
"Flight leader, destroy the target. This command is from the highest authority!"
The MIG 31 slowed and took up station half a mile from the American 777. He ordered his wingman to lock on and fire. The Russian colonel heard a clear and long signal from his missiles' seeker heads as they both locked on to the large GE engines.
As soon as the Coalition pilot saw the incoming MIGs on his radar, he set the controls to automatic pilot and made ready for his ejection. He and the copilot wore cold-water survival gear and were equipped with a life raft.
"We are ready. Stand by to eject. Eject, eject, eject!" he shouted out as he pulled the ejection seat's yellow-and-black-striped release bar.
Nothing happened. He pulled again and still nothing. The copilot pulled the dual handle on his and had the same result. Both men started to panic, as they knew they were only seconds away from a fiery death. In their terror, neither that the men who had paid them so handsomely had betrayed them. The Coalition needed American-uniformed pilots to be discovered if any wreckage was ever found, but the men had never questioned the need for such an elaborate ruse as the uniforms.
The missiles flew off the rails. The first heat seeker struck the port engine mount just below the long, wide wing of the Boeing plane, while the other hit the engine itself. The next two, fired by the copilot, struck the remains of the already damaged wing and the giant plane rolled over in the sky and nose-dived two miles down into the sea.
The Russian pilot angrily pulled his face mask away. He was confused as to why the American pilot had not attempted to break away and try to avoid the missile attack.
It was as if he had wanted to die.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Niles sat on one of the ornate couches in the Oval Office and watched the president listen to his opposite number in China through an interpreter. His old friend was about to put the medicine into the mouth of the president of the People's Republic of China first, before feeding him the sugar. The Chinese ambassador to the UN Security Council, with Russian backing, had been claiming a horrible accident since early morning concerning the air-to-surface encounter with North Korea.
"The Korean assault on our task force was an overt act of war and the American people insist I respond in kind. Now, for me trying to keep the peace, the world press is crucifying me! Your ally's actions were wrong in the least and criminal at the most. Either you will get Kim to listen to reason or we can carry this madness to its obvious conclusion."
Niles watched as his oldest friend's knuckles grew white on the handset and he saw the jaw muscles working at a furious clip.
Now the sugar, Jim, offer the sugar, Niles thought.
"We have evidence of an outside entity being responsible for these quakes and it is being forwarded through official channels now. Official and not private, for the reason that I want it to leak out, because the world must know that we were not responsible for these quakes that your ally North Korea is blaming us for. If you do not heed the evidence we send to you, Mr. President, circumstances will force me to defend this nation's soldiers, seamen, and airmen as well as those of our allies, and I will do so with vigor. Do we understand each other clearly?"
The American president listened to the return tirade and then closed his eyes and visibly relaxed.
"Have your people study the names and evidence we have sent and then I will await your call. Until then I have ordered our military to set DEFCON Two for defensive reasons. No more American lives will be lost without us shooting back." Again he listened to the other end of the line. "Very well. I will await your decision."
The president slowly placed the phone into its cradle on the coffee table in front of him. The secretary of state, newly arrived from his address to the United Nations, where he had condemned the actions by Korea and the unhelpful silence of both the Russians and Chinese, awaited his new orders.
The president looked at his watch and then glanced at the director of the FBI, who sat off by himself in a small chair to the sofa's left.
"When will you round up this man in Chicago?"
"The HRT unit is in place as we speak. They should have break-in in exactly ten minutes," he answered as he looked at his wristwatch.
"Good. Mr. Secretary, you may proceed back to the UN and address the Security Council and lay o
ut all the evidence that Dr. Compton has provided you. I understand his people are working on learning more background on the technology used and the people using it. I believe it's time to share what little we do have on this Coalition faction. Mr. Director, take that son of a bitch in Chicago alive if you can."
"Yes, sir, that is the plan."
The president felt in control for the first time in days. He nodded his thanks to all in the room.
"Gentlemen, with the exception of Dr. Compton, you are excused."
The secretary of state along with the directors of the FBI and the CIA stood and left the room, excited to be moving against the man who might have been responsible for the American lives that had been lost.
When the door closed, the president half slid down into the sofa. He rubbed his hands over his face and then looked at Niles. "This job really sucks, bookworm."
"You're the one who wanted it. By the way, thanks for giving Colonel Collins a blank check as far as Hawaii goes."
The president raised his chin once and then let it fall again to his chest. Then he half smiled.
"You may have saved our bacon, Niles. Tell your people ... tell them--"
"You can tell them when this thing is over, Mr. President. All they have done is what they've been doing for a hundred years."
"I just hope I can face them and others when this is over. As of right now, I'm responsible for getting a lot of American boys getting killed."
Niles leaned forward and looked at his friend. "That's not true." He looked at his watch. "The man responsible is just about to realize that it's he who's not the secret any longer."
5708 LAKESHORE DRIVE
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
The Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) of the FBI was in position. As Agent in Charge George Weston watched the thermal monitor from the large house across the street, he was confused as to what he was looking at.
"Walk-in freezer?" he asked the technician sitting at the bank of monitors.
"Probably; by far the largest one I've ever seen. Then again, look at the house--who has that much money?"
"Evidently this Bozo does. Anything changed in the last two minutes?"
"No. We still have three hot bodies in the room the house specs say is the den, and three in the kitchen."
The AIC was worried about the room that the thermal scan was picking up, shading it a solid blue on the monitor. The warm bodies were easy to discern, but if someone was in that cold room, his team would not know it until they broke in.
"Is there any movement at all from the warm bodies in the den and kitchen?"
"None."
The AIC raised his walkie-talkie. "Red One, are the sniffers picking up anything?" he asked. He watched the monitor that showed the green night-vision image of the HRT Red One unit, whose job it was to check for minute traces of explosive materials by using the "sniffer," a small portable computer that smelled the interior air that escapes around windowsills and doorways. They were able to get so close because, surprisingly, the arrogant Mr. Tomlinson had no security grid around the house.
"Negative. Clean, cool air only; no nitrates are indicated and no chemical trace other than household deodorant and disinfectant are evident," the field tech answered.
He made his decision even as his eyes moved to the cold spot in the house.
"Okay, advance technical units move away. Strike team, we're a go in two minutes, on my order and by the book."
He did not need a response from the HRT as he saw that they were moving into position. His eyes moved to the cold spot and he frowned. He then forced his eyes away and saw the window, door, and upstairs teams reach their IPs.
"Stand by ... Move, move, move!" he said into his radio.
As the command team watched from across the street, the first team used a ram to break through the thick double doors and then a flash-bang grenade flew inside, and then smoke canisters quickly followed. The flash and boom echoed loudly even from across the way as agents dressed in black charged through the door just as more smashed through the front and back windows. Up on the roof of the three-story house, a rappeling unit jumped from the expensively shingled roof and smashed through the upstairs windows.
Two full detachments of HRTs, one from Chicago and the other from Kansas City--a full twenty heavily armored and armed men--were inside the large residence in less than thirty seconds.
As he watched through the window, forsaking the monitors, Weston saw more flash-bang grenades go off. He was relieved when there was no initial gunfire coming from the large mansion. Maybe this traitorous bastard Tomlinson will go down without a fight, Weston thought.
"Down, down, down on the fucking floor," came the shouts over the open microphones of the assault element. "One, study is secure. Kitchen is secure; five men and one woman in custody."
"Is Tomlinson one of them?" he asked, looking at the monitor that showed the cold room on the thermal camera.
"One, Tomlinson is--"
Suddenly and without warning, the Tudor mansion disintegrated. The explosion was so powerful that the entire HRT assault element vanished in a microsecond. The explosion ripped through the mansion and blew outward toward the surrounding homes.
Weston was killed a split second after he saw the thermals on the cold room suddenly go red. The house they had borrowed for a command post blew apart and collapsed. The two houses in the back and two on the sides of the Tomlinson residence blew inward and started burning. All told, with the sacrificial lambs the Coalition had left inside the house along with the twenty assault members of two HRT units and fifteen other FBI agents and Chicago police officers, forty-one died in the explosion.
After Tomlinson and the other Coalition members had left the house on Lakeshore Drive, a Coalition courier had delivered a special package to the huge walk-in freezer in the kitchen. This package was protected behind freezing temperatures and a tight seal, so that nothing the FBI had in their bag of tricks could detect it. One hundred seventy-five-pound boxes of C-4 exploded with the flick of a switch twenty miles away at O'Hare International.
Tomlinson tossed the long-range remote to the steward and looked away. He reached for his drink as the Boeing 777 started its takeoff roll. As the large plane lifted off and started its turn north over the lake, everyone on-board was looking out the right-side windows of the aircraft. In the distance, they saw the small, brightly colored cloud rising above the rooftops of the very rich neighborhood they had recently left.
Dame Lilith was the first to turn away from the scene, and she looked at Tomlinson. He calmly took a sip of his drink, stretched out on the long leather couch of the richly appointed aircraft, and then looked over at her.
"How long until our teams can be in action in Ethiopia after we receive the plate map from Dahlia?" he asked as he placed his drink on the long table in front of the couch.
"Six hours," she answered.
"Good," he said as he smiled at Dame Lilith. "All in all, even with the loss of my home, it has not been an entirely unsatisfactory day."
11
PEARL HARBOR
HAWAII
Inside the solemn enclosure of the USS Arizona memorial, Jack was listening closely, but that didn't stop his inner furnace from burning hotly as he stood beside the eighteen U.S. Navy divers. The meeting of the National Parks Service, the Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit--or, as Carl Everett had introduced them, the "Mudzoos"--and the eight-man U.S. Navy SEAL Team Four, which had flown out with Collins and Everett from Coronado, California, had been in progress since the sun set low in the Pacific.
They were listening to the special assistant to the secretary of the interior talk about the remains of the crew onboard the USS Arizona. The secretary finished and then a park ranger took over the briefing. So far, everyone in the group was going, with the exception of Jack, the assistant secretary, and two other park rangers. This exclusion was not sitting too well with the colonel.
"By the time you enter the water, it'll be full dark. Keep i
n mind, we have mapped where we believe most of the old ordnance is, but there are always surprises inside the old girl. It's as if she still thinks she's fighting the war," the park ranger giving the briefing looked at the faces around him, "and she has every right to think that way. She's earned it."
The divers and SEALs nodded in understanding. Jack could see the respect that everyone in the room had for the Arizona. It was as if she were a sick woman and everyone was there to take care of her. They also knew what was at stake, and the respect they had shown thus far belied the fact that they knew, no matter what, that plate had to come to the surface. When the president orders something done, you do it.
"Why was the captain's safe never opened before? It's my understanding that the National Parks Service has made several forays into the cabin," Everett asked as he zipped up his wet suit.
"Because of respect and privacy, it's that plain and simple. The captain was the only one with his personal safe's combination, thus the items inside are his own. We had no right to enter it. Captain Everett, you and these men have to get a clear understanding of what we have here. This warship is still on the rolls of the United States Navy, she is alive and you will respect her as a fighting combatant," ordered Richard Chavez, head ranger of the memorial. "Believe me, if it's in our country's best interest, the old girl will give up her secrets willingly. Ghastly, but that's the way it is."
Again the men nodded in understanding. They all knew that military battle sights had a way of causing deep, soul-searching experiences, and none of them came close to scoffing at the idea of the Arizona being haunted.
"Okay," one of the salvage divers said. "SEALs are outside, conducting security sweeps. When we dive, they will relieve the UDT already providing security. The eight-man Underwater Demolition Team will then board the memorial platform and await demolition orders if needed. Let us hope that is not where we're headed."
Ancients (event group thriller) Page 25
