Duncan felt her pulse quicken, and she sat up straight in the seat. “What do you want?”
“I am not your enemy,” Lexina said.
Duncan remembered the two STAAR representatives and how they had tried to stop Turcotte from taking off in the mothership. “Why should I believe you?”
“You can believe whatever you wish,” Lexina said. “But your wishes and your beliefs don’t concern me. What is essential is your cooperation.”
“What do you want?”
“How much of the dig at Dulce has been uncovered?”
“You should know better than me,” Duncan said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lexina said.
There was a pause, and Duncan let the silence ride. She saw no need to confirm that or give up any information.
“I need something,” Lexina finally said.
“Exactly what do you need?”
“Don’t play games,” Lexina said. “We don’t have much time.”
“You’re the one playing,” Duncan said. “Your organization has been playing for a long time. I want to know who exactly you are before this conversation goes any further.”
“We’re The Ones Who Wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“We wait.”
“Oh, that clears everything up.”
“I assure you, our goals are the same.”
“I don’t think so,” Duncan said.
“I need the key.”
Duncan frowned. “What is it the key to?”
“That is why I need it,” Lexina said. “You have no idea what you have. If you have it.”
“This conversation is going nowhere,” Duncan said.
There was a long pause. “You don’t have it, do you?”
Duncan wasn’t sure how to answer that. “We know that you aren’t human.”
“You know nothing. I need the key. It would be in your interest to give it to me if you have it. There are enemies everywhere, and they will want the key too. I will call back.”
The phone went dead. Duncan thought for a few moments, then she placed another call.
• • •
Turcotte opened up a footlocker bolted to the floor of the bouncer. There were four MP-5 submachine guns inside. He tossed one to Yakov, then one to Kenyon, who almost dropped it.
“What am I going to do with this?” Kenyon asked.
Turcotte was leaning between the two pilot seats, showing them where he wanted to go. He ignored Kenyon.
The bouncer began moving to the west.
“The objective is a hundred kilometers away,” Turcotte announced. “ETA in six minutes.”
“What do you think is out there?” Kenyon asked. He was holding the gun as if it were as toxic as the samples he’d just finished dealing with.
“Somebody’s out there in the middle of all this death,” Turcotte said. “Using SATCOM and looking for something. I don’t have a clue whether that somebody has anything to do with this disease, but it’s a bit too much of a coincidence.”
• • •
“Wait a second,” Baldrick said.
Toland went down to one knee, Sterling at the ready. Baldrick flipped open the lid on the case. He pulled out the GPR into which he had programmed the location of whatever it was he was looking for. “That way,” Baldrick said. “Four hundred meters.”
Toland didn’t have to say a word. He stood, the other men deploying around in a wedge. They were in steep terrain, with small clusters of trees every hundred meters or so rising above the thick undergrowth. By Toland’s pace count they had moved three hundred meters when he saw something silhouetted on the top of a ridge ahead.
Toland twisted the focus on his goggles. A tree, twisted and shattered by some powerful force, was leaning to the right.
Baldrick checked the GPR one more time. “Wait here for me.”
“We should go with you to the top of the ridge,” Toland said. “If there’s someone—”
“I said wait here,” Baldrick said. He picked another case and took it with him.
Toland gestured and the other two men went to earth, facing out, weapons at the ready. Toland watched as Baldrick walked up the ridge and past the broken tree. As soon as the doctor was out of sight, Toland followed.
As he came up to the tree, Toland crouched low. He slowly peeked over a broken bough. The terrain dropped off on the other side, but Toland’s attention was focused on the gouge in the grassy slope. Starting from the tree and going downslope, the dirt was torn as if a large tank had ripped through. Baldrick was at a large piece of crumpled metal at the end of the gouge, opening the third case.
Toland heard the screech of metal as Baldrick leaned into the wreckage. A downed aircraft? Toland wondered. Perhaps Baldrick was here for its black box, or maybe classified equipment or something else that had been on board.
Toland turned and worked his way back down the slope considering the possibilities.
“What’s happening?” Faulkener asked.
“There’s a plane or chopper crashed on the other side of the ridge,” Toland said, his mind working.
“Must be pretty damn important to be worth this much,” Faulkener said. Toland looked upslope. Baldrick had appeared, moving quickly toward them. “Let’s get moving,” Baldrick said.
“Change in plans,” Toland said. “Last message I got from The Mission said to call in for air evacuation as soon as you recovered what you were supposed to.” “Well, I got it,” Baldrick said. “So call.”
Toland’s head snapped up like that of a bird dog on the scent. “Something’s coming.” He scanned the sky, then, in a flash of lightning, spotted the bouncer passing by to the south, heading for where they had been.
Toland stuck the muzzle of his Sterling in Baldrick’s stomach. “Maybe you already called someone and we’re getting double-crossed here?”
“I don’t have a radio!” Baldrick said calmly.
“You have that SATCOM thing you used to get this position,” Toland said. “I left it here,” Baldrick pointed out.
“Then who’s on the alien craft?” Toland asked.
“I don’t know.”
“It’s setting down to the south of here,” Faulkener noted. “Where we were stopped last.”
Toland removed the gun from Baldrick’s stomach. “Someone picked up our satellite transmission.”
“How can they do that?” Faulkener asked.
“I don’t know how,” Toland said, “but it’s the only thing that makes sense.” He took a deep breath and cleared his head. “All right. Here’s the plan. We call on the SATCOM. If someone’s intercepting, that means they get a fix on us here, but we start moving right away. In the message we designate a linkup point.” Toland studied his map. “Here. Eight klicks north.” He knew the spot. It was an abandoned dirt strip that had been used occasionally by drug smugglers before the American crackdown on air traffic.
“What if they decode the message?” Faulkener asked.
“I don’t think anyone can break a one-time pad,” Toland said, not even really aware of where he was for the moment as his brain worked. “No, I think we’re just getting the signal picked up. Get the rig set up.”
Toland blinked as Faulkener threw his ruck down and scrambled to pull out the radio. He focused on Baldrick. “What did you get out of that aircraft?” Baldrick was adjusting his pack straps. “What are you talking about?” “What did you just get? What did we come here for?”
“That’s not—”
Toland drew his knife and slashed, the blade cutting across Baldrick’s right cheek, a thin line of blood following the cut.
“Why did you do that?” Baldrick was calm, staring at the other man.
Toland stepped forward and slammed a knee into Baldrick’s chest, pinning him to the ground. He pressed the point into the skin under Baldrick’s right eye. “What crashed over there?”
“I can’t—”
The point of the knife edged
forward until it was a scant millimeter from Baldrick’s eye. “I’ll take one eye, then the other. Nothing in Skeleton’s orders about you keeping your eyes,” Toland said. “Just get you and your cargo back. What crashed?”
“It was a satellite,” Baldrick said.
“A satellite?” Toland frowned. “What did you get out of it?”
“Film,” Baldrick said.
“Film of what?”
“The Amazon rain forest,” Baldrick said. “The satellite wasn’t supposed to come down so soon.”
“That’s worth millions?” Toland didn’t wait for an answer. “Bullshit.”
“This type of photo is worth a lot.” Baldrick spoke quickly, eye still focused on the knife so close by. “The camera used special imaging. With thermal and spectral imaging the specialists can determine areas under the rain forest that have a high likelihood of holding diamonds, particularly alluvial flood areas.”
“It’s set,” Faulkener reported.
Toland sheathed his knife and pulled out his onetime pad. He quickly began transcribing. He finished the message and punched it into the SATCOM and burst it out.
“Where did you say for the transportation to meet us?” Baldrick asked. Toland laughed. “I don’t think that’s information you need. You just stick with us. We’ll get you there.”
• • •
“Both launches are go so far,” Kopina said.
Duncan checked the red digits on the large clock, then returned her attention to the Endeavor. She thought of the crew, strapped to their seats, essentially sitting on top of a tower of high-explosive fuel.
“T-minus nine minutes. The count has resumed. GLS auto sequence has been initiated.”
• • •
Five thousand meters to the south of Toland and his small patrol, Turcotte looked around, weapon at the ready. The bouncer was sitting a short distance away, silently floating.
“What do you think?” Yakov asked, looking about in the dark at the rolling terrain around them.
“They were here,” Turcotte said, pointing at where the grass was pressed down. “Maybe three, four men.”
“So where’d they go?” Yakov asked.
“They could have gone in any direction,” Turcotte said. “We need help. Let’s get back on the bouncer.”
• • •
“T-minus one minute.”
The shuttle on the pad directly in front of Duncan, three miles away, was mirrored in the TV screen in the observation room, with a view of Columbia on the pad at Cape Kennedy.
“T-minus fifty seconds. Ground power removal.”
“If they have an abort now, there is an escape mechanism built in,” Kopina said. “You can’t see them, but there are seven twelve-hundred-foot-long wires from the top to the ground. Each has a basket big enough to carry three people.
“The wires come down right next to bunkers,” Kopina said. “The theory is you get out of the orbiter, into the basket, ride the wire down, jump out of the basket and into the bunker.”
“T-minus thirty-one seconds. Go for auto sequence. Start SRB APUs.” Duncan could see gas venting out of the bottom of the shuttle.
“T-minus twenty-one seconds. SRB Gimbal Test. Activate sound suppression water. Perform SRB AFT MDMS lockout. Verify LH2 high-point bleed valve closed. Terminate MPS helium fill.”
More gas venting, lines falling off the shuttle from the tower.
“T-minus ten seconds. Go for main engine start! Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.”
“Engine three on the shuttle has started,” Kopina said as a loud roar rumbled by them.
“Five.”
The roar grew louder as the second main engine kicked in.
“Four.”
The third main engine on the shuttle now ignited. But still gravity held the shuttle in its grip.
“Three.
“Two.
“One. SRB ignition.”
The ground shook as if the hand of God had come down and was waking up all nearby.
“The bolts have been cut,” Kopina said. “It’s free.”
Rising on a plume of fire, Endeavor lifted off the launch pad. On the other side of the country, Columbia was climbing into the sky at the same rate.
“How long until linkup?” Duncan asked.
“Three hours for Alpha with the mothership. A half hour later for Bravo at the talon.”
Duncan watched the tower of fire go higher and higher.
CHAPTER 18
“Okay, okay,” Waker said as he read the intelligence request. He was pumped. He was hooked in to his electronic network, everything coming in and dancing in front of his eyes in letters and symbols his brain automatically translated.
“Perfect timing,” Waker muttered. The KH-12 had picked up the SATCOM transmission as it was being made. Within thirty seconds it had come up on Waker’s screen. And now, three minutes later, someone on the ground in South America wanted the location of the transmitter.
This time, though, he was talking direct back to the man in the field, and that gave Waker a rush. It was as close as he was ever going to get.
He typed, each finger slamming down on the key with authority.
TO: TURCOTTE
FROM: NSA ALPHA ONE ONE
TRANSMISSION SENT BY SAME SATCOM LOCATION UTM GRID 29583578
Waker hit the send button.
• • •
“We’ve got an AWACS on channel two,” the pilot of the bouncer informed Turcotte.
Putting a headset on, Turcotte switched to channel two. “This is Bouncer Two. Over.”
Circling two hundred miles to the northwest, just outside of the international boundary of Colombia, an Air Force plane was always on station, its mission to catch drug traffickers, part of an electronic wall put in place.
At 45,000 feet, over eight miles, above the Pacific, the Boeing E-3C Sentry AWACS—airborne warning and control system platform—could “paint” a picture of everything within a three-hundred-mile radius using the thirty-foot radome above the center of the fuselage.
Colonel Lorenz was the officer in charge (OIC) of the rear compartment. Most of his crew were veterans of the Gulf War and numerous missions over both the subsequent no-fly zone and this drug zone south of the United States. There was no real threat to the plane itself on this mission, but that didn’t mean Lorenz let things get slack as they “rode the southern fence,” as the drug mission was known among the AWACS crews.
Lorenz spoke into the boom mike in front of his lips as soon as he received acknowledgment. “Bouncer Two, this is AWACS Eagle. We have new coordinates for you.”
• • •
The point man stumbled and fell. Faulkener was quickly at his side. The man reached up, grabbing Faulkener’s arm.
“Damn!” Faulkener hissed as the man vomited over his arm.
Toland came up and looked at the man. He was a mercenary who had served with Toland for the last two years. “Can you go on?”
The man groaned and rolled on the ground. Faulkener stood, flicking his arm to shake off the black vomit.
Toland rubbed his forehead. He brought up the Sterling. The man raised an arm weakly. Toland fired twice, then his arms slumped to his side, the Sterling hanging by its sling.
“Let’s go.” Baldrick said.
Toland thought of the two dead drug runners in their poncho stretchers. Two million dollars. Would he make it out of here in time to buy help? “Let’s move.” As they went forward in the darkness, he noted that for the first time Faulkener had not added up their suddenly higher shares.
• • •
“Lock and load,” Turcotte yelled. The bouncer came in fast, the pilot using the craft’s superb turning capability to keep them just above the treetops.
In a small open area, less than a hundred meters short of the location they’d been given by the AWACS, the pilot touched down. Turcotte was out of the hatch, followed closely by Yakov and Kenyon. The bouncer lifted and hovered ten feet overhead.
&n
bsp; Turcotte scanned the area, but he saw nothing. He began moving forward, and Yakov grabbed his arm.
“What’s up there?” Yakov was pointing with the muzzle of his MP-5 upslope at a tree that had been sheared off halfway up its trunk. Turcotte ran up the slope and crested it. A pile of twisted metal lay at the end of a trail of torn-up earth.
“The satellite,” Yakov said as he knelt next to the wreckage. The scene was lit by a bolt of lightning. Thunder rumbled a few seconds later.
• • •
Toland had his small band of survivors moving. He checked out the sky as everything was brilliantly lit. He’d seen this before. Heat lightning, soon to be followed by a torrential rain. Perfect. There was no way they would be found, no matter how close their pursuers were.
• • •
“Here!” Kenyon called out.
Turcotte ran over, the others following. A body lay in the grass. Yakov shined a light down and they immediately saw the blood and the bullet holes. But there was also the sign of the disease. Black welts crisscrossed the man’s exposed skin.
“We’re exposed,” Kenyon said.
“Everyone will be exposed sooner or later,” Turcotte said. He was tired of hiding in the suits. There was no way they were going to track down the source by hiding.
Turcotte looked out into the dark. The wind was picking up, and he could feel dampness being carried with it. “Weather’s changing,” he called out. “Back to the bouncer.”
CHAPTER 19
The pilot checked his map one last time, then carefully folded it so that the portion he needed was faceup. He used a band of elastic to attach it to his kneeboard. He had no electronic devices on board other than the engine, windshield wipers, and the rudimentary instrument panel, so this truly was going to be a seat-of-the-pants navigation job. He did have a small FM radio to be used to contact the people on the ground when he got close. The pilot was used to such missions and felt confident he could find the target runway. He looked like Baldrick’s brother—tall, his six-foot-two frame crammed into the cockpit, with straight blond hair and brilliant blue eyes.
He’d been waiting here for two days, the aircraft—a specially designed, top-secret prototype named the Sparrow—under camouflage nets at a deserted airstrip as close as he could get to the target area without actually entering the suspected infected zone.
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