“Are you satisfied?” al-Hinnawi asked Karilov.
Karilov nodded. “You may proceed. I’ll take these three, as agreed.”
Without another word, al-Hinnawi turned and shot Za’im in the head at point-blank range.
Zippy screamed, and Cal’s hands flew to his mouth. Frank just closed his eyes and turned away. “Syria is now an ally of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” Karilov said in Russian.
“For now,” Frank replied. “I think you just saw how quickly things can change.”
“You have no idea,” Karilov said. “Follow me.”
Frank looked around, searching for something that might trigger some advice in his head. Eight guards, plus an armed Syrian Army colonel who had already proven he had the balls to shoot a man in cold blood.
Karilov walked off, and Frank gathered Cal in with a wave, then went up to Zippy. “Come on, Zip. We gotta go.”
She nodded and stood up straighter, sniffling and rubbing a sleeve of her uniform across her face. “Never seen a man killed before.”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
They walked out of the shower room—an improvement in odds from when they’d walked in, Frank had to admit—and out of the barracks toward a waiting army truck. The drivers, Frank noticed, didn’t look Syrian in the least.
“So, where are we going, Comrade?” Frank asked.
Karilov turned back and smiled. “Far away from here, Comrade Lodge. Far away indeed.”
They were ushered around the back of the truck, which was covered with a tarp. Inside were eight armed men dressed in Syrian Army uniforms—but their pale, long faces and shaved heads told a much different story.
“Good morning, comrades,” Frank sighed in Russian as he climbed into the truck.
* * *
The first sign of trouble for Maggie was when she got off the plane at the Damascus airport and her ride wasn’t there.
In fact, nobody’s rides were there. Instead, she and the rest of her fellow passengers on the flight from Istanbul were left standing on the curb in the early morning light, wondering just what the hell was going on.
Finally, one of the police officers guarding the airport entrance—and Maggie noticed there were far more than usual on duty—made an announcement. “There is a curfew today,” he said in broken English after presumably giving the same spiel in Arabic. “You will be taken on bus to area for interviews.”
Well, that won’t do. She walked up to the man after he’d finished speaking—he’d thrown in some French as well. “Sir, you know, I hate to trouble you, but I work at the U.S. embassy here. I really think I should give them a ring, let them know what’s going on.”
She reached out with her Enhancement, trying to give the man a little nudge in the right direction—helping out a young woman, a little fear of annoying an American diplomat—and he responded accordingly.
“Telephone inside. You tell them OK from me,” he said with a smile.
“Aren’t you so sweet! Thank you!” Maggie said, touching his arm and trying to channel Mrs. Stevens. A few minutes later, she was on the phone, dialing Copeland’s house.
“Yes! Tell me what you got!” Copeland answered quickly—and nervously.
“Miles, it’s Maggie Dubinsky. What the hell is going on?”
“Shit, Maggie. There’s been a coup. Al-Hinnawi took over. Za’im’s been executed as a traitor.”
Maggie paused as she took it all in, as well as Copeland’s complete abandonment of discretion on the phone—a sure sign that things were bad. “OK. Let me speak to Frank.”
“Maggie, they took Frank and Cal. Al-Hinnawi’s men. I can’t reach Zippy, either. I got a guy at the airport who said the three of them were seen there just after daybreak with Sergei Karilov, the Russian attaché.”
Maggie looked around quickly. “OK. I’ll try to find them.”
“Wait! Maggie!”
“What?”
“They took off. On a plane. A Russian plane heading east.”
Without another word, Maggie hung up, pondered things for another moment or two, then picked the receiver back up and dialed a long string of numbers.
After a pause, a prim-sounding British woman picked up. “Amalgamated Exports, to whom may I direct your call?”
“Victor Davies,” Maggie replied. Agent down. Director’s office. Now.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that. Come again?” Request confirmation.
“Victor Davies.” No, really, get the director’s office now!
“One moment, please.”
There was a long series of whirrs and clicks, the telltale signs of trans-Atlantic phone lines switching. Finally, Hillenkoetter’s tired voice picked up the line. “This is Mr. Davies.”
“Mr. Davies, this is Miss Davenport calling from Damascus. Unfortunately, it seems three of your shipments aren’t here at the moment.” Three agents down in Damascus.
“I see, that’s … well, that’s unfortunate. Were these the special shipments you were sent to assist with?” All Variants?
“I’m afraid so. They seem to have been loaded onto a different plane here at the airport. I’m afraid they may be headed elsewhere, and I’m not sure where.” All three Variants assigned to this theater of operations have been captured and taken out of theater.
“Well, that’s not going to work. Did you happen to catch which plane?” Who took them and where?
Maggie swallowed hard before answering. “No, sorry, but someone here thinks they were loaded onto a plane with red livery. That’s all I know.” Soviets. Destination unknown.
“All right. Why don’t you head into the office over there? I’ll get folks working over here on my end.” Report to the nearest U.S. diplomatic post immediately and do not leave. Await further orders from Washington.
“Very well. Thank you, sir.” Without any further ado, Maggie hung up the phone. The consulate was the safest place for her to be, of course, if random Reds were kidnapping Variants.
But of course, if that were the case, all bets were off.
FROM: DCI HILLENKOETTER
TO: LCMR WALLACE USN
CC: POTUS, LTG VANDENBERG USAF, DR BRONK
RE: SEARCH AND RESCUE OPERATION
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET-MAJIK
DATE: 16 AUGUST 1949
AGENTS HOOKS, LODGE, AND SILVERMAN ARE MISSING AND PRESUMED CAPTURED, POSSIBLY BY SOVIET AGENTS OR THOSE AFFILIATED WITH THE SOVIET UNION.
THE LAST CONFIRMED SIGHTING OF AGENT HOOKS WAS APPROXIMATELY 2200 ON 14 AUGUST AT THE RESIDENCE OF AGENT COPELAND OPC IN DAMASCUS.
THE LAST CONFIRMED SIGHTING OF AGENT LODGE WAS APPROXIMATELY 0200 ON 15 AUGUST AT THE COPELAND RESIDENCE. LODGE HAD TAKEN COPELAND’S CHILDREN TO THEIR MOTHER AFTER SOUNDS OF A BREAK-IN AT THE RESIDENCE. COPELAND CONFIRMS FORCED ENTRY AT THE RESIDENCE. BOTH HOOKS AND LODGE WERE REPORTED MISSING AFTER THE BREAK-IN, AT APPROXIMATELY 0230.
THE LAST CONFIRMED SIGHTING OF AGENT SILVERMAN WAS APPROXIMATELY 1900 ON 14 AUGUST, AT THE DAMASCUS BUREAU OF THE JERUSALEM POST, WHEN SHE LEFT FOR THE DAY. HER WHEREABOUTS SINCE THAT TIME ARE UNKNOWN.
THERE WAS AN UNCONFIRMED SIGHTING OF AGENTS HOOKS, LODGE, AND SILVERMAN TOGETHER AT THE DAMASCUS AIRPORT AT APPROXIMATELY 0530 ON 15 AUGUST, WHERE THEY BOARDED AN AIRCRAFT IN THE PRESENCE OF SERGEI KARILOV (SEE FILE). THE AIRCRAFT WAS LAST SEEN TAKING OFF ON AN EASTWARD BEARING.
AGENT DUBINSKY ARRIVED IN DAMASCUS AT APPROXIMATELY 0800 ON 15 AUGUST, AND HAS BEEN ORDERED TO SHELTER IN PLACE AT THE US CONSULATE, WHILE DIRECTING CONSULATE STAFF TO ASSIST IN LOCATING THE MISSING AGENTS. THERE HAVE BEEN NO FURTHER UPDATES AS OF THIS WRITING.
YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO SURRENDER OPERATIONAL COMMAND OF AREA 51 TO MAJ HAMILTON USA AND OPERATIONAL COMMAND OF MAJESTIC-12 TO DR BRONK FOR THE DURATION OF THE FOLLOWING OPERATION.
YOU ARE HEREBY AUTHORIZED TO FORM VARIANT GROUP TWO, WITH AGENTS MEYER, SORENSEN, VANOVERBEKE, AND YAMATO UNDER YOUR COMMAND, AND DEPLOY TO DAMASCUS. AGENT DUBINSKY WILL JOIN GROUP TWO UPON YOUR ARRIVAL.
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br /> YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO LOCATE AGENTS HOOKS, LODGE, AND SILVERMAN. IF OPPORTUNITY PRESENTS ITSELF, YOU ARE TO CONDUCT RESCUE OPERATIONS. IF RESCUE IS IMPRACTICAL OR IMPOSSIBLE, YOU ARE TO ELIMINATE ANY VARIANT OPERATIVES IN SOVIET HANDS.
IF NEITHER OPTION IS PRACTICAL OR POSSIBLE, REPORT TO DCI HILLENKOETTER FOR FURTHER ORDERS.
YOUR TOP PRIORITY IS TO PREVENT ANY VARIANT--THE MISSING OR THOSE UNDER YOUR COMMAND--PERMANENTLY FALLING INTO SOVIET HANDS.
(SIGNED) HILLENKOETTER
August 16, 1949
Danny Wallace was throwing clothes hastily into a duffel bag when the knock came at his door. “Commander!”
He smiled, knowing the voice. “Come on in, John.”
Major Hamilton entered and Danny’s smile vanished in the face of the man’s hurried concern. “Julia Meyer is missing.”
Danny dropped his shirt to the floor. “Come again?”
“We went to assemble Group Two, as you ordered. She’s nowhere to be found.”
Danny screwed his eyes shut and reached out with his Enhancement. There were thirteen other Variants on base he could sense. The first was just one building away—Mrs. Stevens, back puttering in her labs—and the captive Russian POSEIDON was in the main research facility under lockdown. There were supposed to be four others in each of the three training areas—but one area only had three. How?
Danny immediately hustled for the door, dragging Hamilton with him by the arm. “What about the others?”
“All accounted for, waiting in the staging area,” Hamilton said as they headed out the officers’ quarters block toward a waiting jeep. “Nobody’s seen her since lunch. Just locked down the entire base.”
“The rest of the Variants know she’s gone,” Danny said as he jumped into the passenger seat. “Or at least they have suspicions. They have to.”
Hamilton gunned the engine and took off for the training area. “How can you be sure?”
“Because they’re Variants, John.”
They spent the rest of the ride across the lakebed coordinating security efforts via radio. There were teams of at least four MPs with eyes on every critical asset there—the vortex, POSEIDON, Schreiber, Bronk and his lab, and each Variant. Searchers in Bell H-13 Sioux helicopters began an overlapping grid search of the base and surrounding mountains, while soldiers on the ground methodically fanned out around the buildings across the main base and training areas.
They arrived at Julia’s training area to find the three others on her team in the mess tent, under armed guard. There was no sign of a fourth.
“Major, if we could have the room,” Danny said, but it was more an order than a request. Hamilton motioned for the MPs to get out, leaving Danny alone with Tim, Rick, and Christina, all of whom looked scared and properly chagrined. He sat down in front of them and gave them a small smile. “All right. We have a problem. What I need to know from you is information on where she went.”
The three other Variants looked at each other pointedly until Rick finally spoke. “She didn’t tell us about any immediate plan to escape,” he said haltingly.
Danny nodded. “But she had plans,” he prompted. “You all did. You probably still do.”
Tim seemed to get his nerve up at this, looking Danny straight in the eye. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”
“Well, the last four Variants who lived here did. They plotted and planned and eventually figured out more about this place and themselves than you four ever have. They asked the right questions of themselves, made the right choices, and proved themselves to be curious, smart, and capable. And they graduated to field operations and did well.
“But now they’re in trouble, and they need our help,” Danny continued. “We think that several of them have fallen into enemy hands. Soviet hands. And I’ve seen firsthand these Soviet Variants. They’re brutal. I know a little of what they went through to become that way, and it makes what you’ve been doing here at Area 51 look like a garden party. The Russians will study our Variants. They will use them. They’ll seek to brainwash them, and if they can’t do that, they’ll probably torture them for information and eventually kill them. Is that what you want to see happen?”
Christina narrowed her eyes at Danny. “Our Variants?”
Goddamnit! Danny hung his head for several long moments, trying to think of a way out, but ultimately his silence became his answer. “Yes,” Danny admitted. “Our Variants. American Variants. Like you. Like me. And like I’ve been saying over and over again, you will be stronger together and working with this program than you will be on your own. I know. If this program didn’t exist, they might have hunted you down and locked you away with the rest of us years ago. They might have just killed us. Instead, we have a chance to do some good and to stick up for one another.
“I’m going to head out to go get my fellow Variants,” Danny said, standing up. “And I need you with me to help your fellow Variants as well.”
One by one, the three remaining members of Group 2 looked to one another and began nodding. “All right,” Rick said. “What do you need?”
“For starters, I need Julia.”
Once again, they glanced at each other for guidance until, finally, Tim spoke up. “She knows about the vortex. That German scientist told her. I think she went to turn him loose. Him and the Russian Variant you got over there at the base.”
Danny actually staggered backward at this, words failing him and his hands instinctively reaching for a sidearm that wasn’t there—yet. “How?” he asked.
“The electrical for those null-generators you got. They were jury-rigged together pretty slapdash, frankly. Easy for me to keep the ‘on’ light working when the rest of the thing was shut off,” Tim said with an apologetic half-smile on his lean face. “I was even able to whip up a little device from old radio parts that could counteract the fields for a while. I can get it to last a good thirty minutes now.”
Danny cursed himself for thinking too much about Enhancements and simply not enough about the regular skills and ingenuity these folks brought to the table. “All right. Thank you. I mean that. Get your gear and be ready to move. I’m going to find Julia.”
The three other Variants nodded as Danny purposefully strode out of the room, only to break into a dead run for the jeep as soon as he was out of sight. “Hamilton! Back to base! NOW!” He jumped in the passenger seat and grabbed the radio, setting to a base-wide broadcast.
“Attention, attention! Lock down Area 51 completely! Seal the main hangar and all facilities. Any nonessential personnel seen outside a building will be shot. Repeat, any nonessential personnel seen outside a building will be shot.”
Then he flipped the channel to the MP band. “All security personnel, we need a room-by-room sweep of the base. Each team will need a null-generator and tranquilizer guns. And double the guard around POSEIDON and Schreiber.”
Hamilton clambered into the driver’s seat as the affirmative responses came in, and minutes later—after a wind-whipped, high-speed ride back across the lakebed—they came to a jolting stop in front of the main research hangar. “Report,” Hamilton barked at one of his junior officers, a lieutenant who seemed fresh out of officer training.
“We’re working through the area now. Administration and personnel quarters are clear—all base personnel are sheltering in place, and nobody is out of place at the moment.”
“Schreiber? POSEIDON?” Danny asked.
“Secured, sir. I think—”
The lieutenant was interrupted by the sound of tearing metal from above their heads. Danny looked up to see the sheet-metal wall of the hangar beginning to cave in, as if someone had grabbed it from the inside and pulled ….
“POSEIDON is loose!” Danny yelled. “Swarm the building!”
Danny rushed inside with the rest of the security men, even though that was technically violating orders. Nobody would be standing on ceremony now. Overhead were more sounds of screeching metal; it sounded like POSEIDON was tryi
ng to rip apart the entire base. Someone offered Danny a tranquilizer pistol, which he gratefully accepted. He took a moment to concentrate, and finally sensed the two Variants he was looking for. “Second floor! Research labs! Go!”
The men rushed up the stairs, but Danny felt his perceptions shift—the two targeted Variants had just left the building through the hole they’d created, even though it was a good twelve feet off the ground. “They’re outside now! Move!”
Danny was the first out the door, and saw just what POSEIDON had been planning. The Russian, dressed in a simple olive-drab uniform, had his arms around Julia and Schreiber, one on each side, and was using his telekinetic pulling enhancement to move incredibly quickly through the base, pulling himself through the air from building to building.
“Fire!” Danny shouted, running after them. A flurry of darts launched from a dozen guns, but POSEIDON was moving too fast for them.
But he was also running out of buildings to use. Soon, they’d have to hit the ground and run—at least until he got close enough to the mountains, at which point he could pull them up faster than a jumped-up billy goat.
Danny dashed toward a jeep and hopped in the driver’s seat, slamming it into gear and tearing off even as Hamilton and two of his MPs were still climbing in. They hung on for dear life as Danny sped off toward the fugitives. They were in the desert valley now, too far from the base buildings for POSEIDON to anchor his Enhancement but still about two hundred yards away from the first foothills—close enough for him to latch onto them.
“Take aim!” Danny shouted above the wind. “If tranqs don’t work, then use firearms. Shoot to injure, not kill, if you can help it.”
POSEIDON was running full tilt now, reaching back with his Enhancement to pull both Schreiber and Julia along, as neither seemed to be as fast or enduring a runner as the MGB man. Danny floored it, quickly gaining on them.
And then the jeep began to rise.
“Shoot! Now!” Danny yelled.
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