“I don’t know.”
“Well, you’re supposed to escort this walking corpse to lunch. My cane doesn’t do me much good anymore.”
Jack could see the dilated left eye and knew Lee was under the influence of a powerful medication. He wondered if he was up to leaving the room at all. Lee settled it quickly as he reached out and took Jack’s arm at the shoulder and then he and Jack made for the door.
“How has … everything been?” Collins asked hesitantly.
“What, you mean dying? It’s like finishing off a roller-coaster ride, Jack. Scary as hell, but when you get to the end, you want to do it all over again.”
“You mean life?”
“Yes, my boy. Never grow old, Colonel, it—what do the kids say? Oh, yes, it sucks big-time.”
“Yes,” Collins said as they approached the dining room. “That’s what they say, sir.”
When they entered the large dining room, Jack saw Niles Compton standing there. He was actually dressed in something other than his usual white shirt and black tie. His button-down shirt was blue with white stripes and his slacks were gray. Jack thought to himself that he had never before seen Niles in a civilian outfit that didn’t consist of the most mundane black and white clothing.
“Ah, Niles, now it seems all the people playing hooky today from work have finally arrived for this very late lunch.”
Niles Compton nodded a greeting, looking just like Jack had on the front porch. He pulled the senator’s chair out and smiled as best he could.
“Everyone, please do me a favor,” Lee said as Sarah came in carrying a large bowl of salad. “Stop acting like this is the goddamn Last Supper. I have something to discuss with you and I don’t need all of these cow-eyed looks. Frankly, it doesn’t help my appetite.”
“What’s he bitching about now?” Alice asked, coming in behind Sarah with a platter of sandwiches.
“I think he’s saying that he doesn’t want any sympathy from the likes of us,” Sarah said, walking up to Lee’s chair and kissing him hard on the cheek.
“Well, if he gets any, it won’t be from me,” Alice said, and placed the platter in the center of the table. She took Lee’s napkin and tucked it into his pajama top. He fidgeted like a petulant child and then scowled, sending his eye patch askew and his good eye ablaze.
“Would you sit down, woman, for crying out loud?”
Jack, Niles, and Sarah knew the act between Lee and Alice very well, and it never grew old. If Lee had to live without Alice he would be happy to be dying. It would be living without her in his life that would have been unbearable and anyone who saw them together knew that.
“Niles, thank you, my boy, for coming to see me on such short notice. I know you absolutely hate leaving the complex.”
Compton was putting salad in a bowl. He looked as if he were about to say something but caught himself. “Oh, it’s kind of slow at the moment,” he offered instead.
“You always were a poor liar, my old friend.”
Jack watched the exchange between the senator and Niles. He felt he was not privy to something. He accepted the salad from Niles but remained silent. When he passed it to Lee, he waved it on.
“That was quite an event that happened on the Moon this morning,” Lee said as matter-of-factly as he could.
Niles looked at Jack and then back at the senator. He nodded his head. “The president just asked our group to see what they can find out from NASA.”
“Kind of spooky,” Sarah said, looking from Niles to Jack.
“Ah, that is the gist of the matter, isn’t it?” Lee said and then coughed. That turned into another, and another. “Scary … stuff … to say the … least,” he managed to say through his coughing.
Alice, her fork paused halfway to her mouth, watched Garrison for a moment, and then continued eating when he seemed to get the coughing under control.
“Anyway, do you have a thought on the subject of this fantastic discovery on the lunar surface?” He looked at Jack first.
“I would say that we weren’t the first ones to the Moon, or if we were, someone was a damn close second. I can’t say I admire whoever it was for leaving a man behind.” He looked at Sarah and then Alice. “Or a woman,” he added.
“My thoughts exactly,” Niles said as he laid his fork down, knowing Lee was leading them to something, like a horse to water. He had been in too many conversations with the man and knew his traps well. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and waited.
Garrison took his own napkin out of his pajama top and then pulled a pen from his robe’s front pocket. Alice watched as he did this, and then looked at the others around the table. She knew what Lee was doing and was watching the reaction of the others. Garrison took the pen and started making a design on the white napkin. When he was done he held it up and showed Jack, Sarah and Niles.
“For the benefit of those around this table, and with the deep knowledge of world history bestowed in the heads of same, can you tell me if you have ever seen this design before?”
“I believe that particular design is linked to more than one culture,” Niles said as he leaned back in his chair and examined the crude drawing Lee had scribbled on his napkin.
“I think one of the cultures was Mayan,” Sarah said, her sandwich paused at her mouth.
“Yes, also the design has been found on cave walls and deserts from Mexico, the American Southwest, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay, and as far south as Australia.”
Jack looked over at Niles and then at Sarah. “Don’t ask me, the only thing it reminds me of is the sign in front of Pocket’s Billiard Parlor outside Fort Bragg.”
Lee was silent for a moment and looked as if he were having a hard time catching a breath. His chin lowered to his chest and once more Alice watched him closely. Sarah looked at Alice and wondered how long she would let the senator fight through this visit. She lowered her eyes and then looked at Jack with worry on her face. Soon, Lee gathered himself and looked across the table at Alice.
“Maybe you better get ready with that needle you’re so fond of wielding like Excalibur.”
Alice excused herself and walked out of the dining room.
“Endless apologies. General Sherman was wrong. It’s not war, but dying that’s hell. Now, the symbol—of course you are all correct, except for Jack, who wasn’t even close. And I know that pool parlor very well by the way.” He looked at Collins and winked with his one eye. “All of these civilizations, or more accurately, the regions you spoke of, had depictions of this diagram in one form or another. All throughout history science said they were more than likely drawings of eclipses that these differing tribes of man witnessed at one time or another.” Lee took a deep breath. “I also saw this exact symbol someplace where it had no right to be, at least as far as I was concerned.”
Jack placed his napkin on his empty plate and watched the senator, who was growing visibly weaker.
“In 1945.” His one eye good wandered over to Alice as she entered the living room with a small black bag. She did not look at the others as she pulled out a chair and sat next to the senator. “I saw this symbol on several crates we intercepted in Ecuador. They were in the hands of the Nazis and they were going to attempt to use their contents as a bargaining chip for leniency from the Allies after the war. They were excavated from a mining operation right under the noses of the Allies in Ecuador.”
“What were the contents?” Niles asked, watching Alice fill a syringe with an amber liquid. As she did, Compton lowered his eyes when she pulled the senator’s robe and pajama sleeve up, and then dabbed an alcohol swab on Lee’s arm. Then she expertly jammed the needle home. They all watched as the old man’s face cleared up. The pain eased almost instantly.
Alice sadly tossed the needle into the black bag and then stood, ignoring the senator’s bravery. Lee watched Alice leave the room and then he became serious as he finally reached for a sandwich from the platter. “Everyone saw the extraordinary video from the Moon this morning,” he s
aid, taking a bite of the sandwich. He looked from one face to the other. Everyone nodded their head.
Alice returned and sat, replacing her napkin and stoically eating her salad.
“Now,” said Lee, “you mentioned that the president has called his best friend for help.” He looked at Niles, who in turn acted as though his friendship with the president was a bad thing. Lee nodded his head. “It’s not a bad thing to be friends with the most powerful man in the world, Niles. I must say, I never achieved such lofty acquaintances in my tenure at the Event Group.”
Everyone around the table knew that the senator was fudging on his own history, as every president since Harry Truman knew and respected Lee more than anyone in government service.
“Cruella, can you bring me the map please. It’s on my desk.”
Alice stood and made her way into the senator’s study, again ignoring his jibe.
“She thinks I could have handled this on the phone. But what she doesn’t realize is that I know this is my last, grand adventure, and I’m damn well going to see it through.”
Jack, Sarah, and Niles all felt uncomfortable because they knew anything that Alice thought was bad for the senator, you could take as gospel. None of them looked at Alice when she returned with the map. Sarah finally smiled as Alice sat and lowered her head. Sarah placed her small hand over Alice’s more elegant one and squeezed.
“Now,” Lee said as he folded the map and pushed it toward Jack and Niles. “The Nazis dug up what was in the crates here.” He tapped the map.
“Quito, Ecuador,” Jack said aloud.
“Yes, there was an excavation just at the base of the Andes that the Germans carried out for years, at least since the spring of ’38. We discovered, or I should say Cruella’s late husband, Ben, discovered, the shipment and stopped it, for a while anyway. That mission cost that boy his life, or I should say my slow reactions did.”
Alice looked up and gave Lee a dirty look.
“Slowed reactions because you were half dead at the time,” she countered while holding Lee’s singular gaze. “If you’re going to tell it, tell it right, or what’s the damn point?”
“I defer to one that’s not tripping the light fantastic,” Lee joked as he bowed his head in Alice’s direction.
“As he said, he and Ben, my late husband, stopped the Nazis from removing the shipment from South America.” Alice pushed her salad plate away. “The old man received his beauty mark there, and Ben lost his life. When the senator recovered enough to tell his story to his superiors, he was informed that the crates were gone, and no trace of them was ever found. It was as if Ben had died for nothing and Garrison was half butchered for the same result. Someone in either our government or the German high command had taken the crates from the train before an unconscious Garrison was found by members of the FBI.”
“Do you know what was in the crates?” Sarah asked.
“Of course I do. As I said, each crate, about fifteen of them, were marked with that circular symbol, and during some unpleasantness at the time, one of the crates had broken open. Guess what was inside? None other than a skeletal corpse,” Lee said, enjoying the moment as he watched his lunch guests closely, and then he finished when he saw that his statement had the right effect. “Inside were items coded by the Germans as Operation Columbus, and that quote came directly from a Nazi general named Goetz.
“Tell them, Garrison,” Alice said, trying to hurry him on as she watched his good eye start to droop.
“As I said, inside the crate was a skeleton. The petrified remains I saw in 1945 wore the same kind of blue and red space suits as the one discovered on the surface of the Moon just this morning. And here’s another tidbit: on the shoulder of this ancient bit of clothing worn by our visitor was that symbol right there,” Lee said, tapping the drawing of the circles on the napkin.
The room was silent. Alice stood and walked over to Lee and stood behind him. She placed her hands on his shoulders and pressed.
The three guests sitting around the table were flabbergasted. Niles opened his mouth, wanting to ask something, but his voice failed him. It was left up to Jack to ask the obvious question.
“Columbus? Why that code name?”
Lee reached up and patted Alice’s hand as she rubbed his shoulders. “I assume it’s because the Germans believed, and I think rightly so, that the remains of the spaceman they found was a visitor, an explorer if you will, to this planet.”
“How long ago?” Niles asked, finally finding his voice.
“I don’t know,” Lee said, lowering his head. “If only the OSS had had a chance to examine the crates more closely.”
“And we don’t know where the crates are now?” Sarah asked as she stood and started pacing.
“No. No trace of them has ever been found,” Alice said with resignation. “The last known sighting was Ecuador. So, either Germany or Washington is where you should look.” Alice removed her hands and then sat in the empty chair next to Lee’s. “I think you need to start there.”
“Start what?” Niles asked.
“Your investigation, of course. I assume it would be within the parameters of what the president has given you authorization to do,” Lee said, smiling at Niles.
“Why not start at the excavation you spoke of?” Jack asked.
“Because it has been buried and the ground salted. The Ecuadorians allow no one near the site. I know. I was shot at years later trying to get in,” Lee said.
“May I suggest, since we have a geologist on hand, that we use her to find out what she can about the excavation? And while Sarah is doing that, Niles and Jack can start the search for the crates. Because whatever is in those wooden boxes holds the answer to what they just found on the Moon.”
As they watched Alice answer for a very tired-looking Lee, she stood and helped the senator to his feet. She placed her arm around him and started walking toward the hallway.
“That’s enough for you for one day,” she said. “Say good-bye and good night.”
“Damn woman won’t let me play no more.”
“Get some rest,” Niles said as Sarah walked over and kissed Lee on the cheek once more. Then she regretted the gesture; the senator had to bend low to accept it.
Jack turned toward Niles and shook his head. “I don’t see the point of this. NASA will soon have the answers we need, and if the skeletons are indeed from one and the same civilization, why bother to find the crates? And we have to consider the big question here.”
“What’s that?” Sarah asked.
Jack stood and replaced his chair. Alice walked back into the room to show them out. Jack thought a moment and then came to the conclusion that Alice also needed to hear his question.
“Someone thought the find in 1945 was important enough to get rid of, and important enough not to announce. Now here we are trying to find out where those crates are. Whoever has them may want them protected at all cost, for reasons of their own.”
Niles bit his lower lip and then his eyes settled on Jack.
“Good point.”
2
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, HOUSTON, TEXAS
Evans looked up from his clipboard to the monitor.
Atlantis was on its way.
Hugh Evans had worked his way up the chain of command from engineering to flight director. His normal duties called for his expertise on the space shuttle program, but eighteen months earlier he’d had a mild heart attack. Shuttle missions were well beyond his health situation at the moment, so when his superiors asked for a liaison and flight manager to work with JPL on the Peregrine mission, he jumped at the chance to get on the boards once again. He was working closely with Stan Nathan out at Jet Propulsion Lab, not interfering with his mission leadership but helping with some of the more NASA-based situations that sprang up. It had been his suggestion to Stan that morning to use John, George, and Paul as a linkup from Ringo and then up to REMCOM at JPL, completing the relay of the communications signal back to earth.
Mission control was running shorthanded. The Peregrine mission was squeezed in between STS 129, one of the last space shuttle missions to be launched before that particular program came to a close, and a Mars orbiter currently on course for the red planet.
Now, in the large monitor to the right-center of the main screen, Hugh Evans saw the shuttle Atlantis as it started making its journey from the barn to the launch pad. The large-tracked vehicle carrying the giant shuttle moved slowly and surely toward one of the final missions of the shuttle program. Hugh was looking at it longingly, as he knew he would never be a flight director again for one of the last few missions to the International Space Station.
Hugh turned his gaze back to the main screen in the center of mission control. He watched as Ringo started another grid pattern search of the center of Shackleton Crater. He glanced over at the large telemetry readout next to the image and saw that Ringo was beginning to show a power loss of over 65 percent.
He frowned.
If he had been in charge he would have cut the grid search down. He would have concentrated Ringo closer to the center of the crater for expediency. He had started to suggest just that four hours before, but he knew that Stan Nathan in Pasadena was having a far more harrowing day than he. So Evans had decided to keep quiet, even though as a second recommendation he would have used Paul, the second rover into the crater, as a search partner to Ringo instead of digging out the mysterious skeleton. After all, they knew what the damn thing was. So his priority would have been on finding other remains or something that could identify what it was they were dealing with.
Finally, Hugh switched his view from the interior of the crater to the rim, where George was watching with its long-range lens. He saw the zoomed image of Paul as it used its drill arm to scoop out deposits of lunar dust from around the left side of the half-buried skeleton. All of a sudden the robot stopped. He saw the image being streamed from George switch to the close-up view from Paul’s camera.
“What’s that?” he asked aloud as several of the overnight telemetry technicians looked on just as confused.
Legacy: An Event Group Thriller Page 9
