The Lance

by Alex Lukeman

  He knew where to go. He stopped in a dim recess. He opened the book and removed the bomb. He checked his watch. He set the timer and molded the explosive against the stone, in the exact place where aerial sonar scans had shown a serious fracture in the bedrock supporting the mosque above.

  It took only a minute. His father was going to be proud of him.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Ronnie and Selena were on the rifle range at Quantico. Time to get Selena familiar with M4A1 rifles. Their sat phones signaled. Ronnie grunted when he read the message. Selena looked at her display.

  Alpha Red.3P.FC.XG.E5.

  "What…," Selena started to say. Ronnie placed his finger on her lips, shook his head. He tore a page from his pocket notepad and wrote on it.

  Talk about the weapons. Act normal. Trouble.

  Selena began loading magazines for the rifles. She asked him about the laser range finder.

  "We'll get to it in a bit," Ronnie said. He rummaged around in his bag and took out a black metal box about eight inches square. He set it on the shooting bench and pressed a button. A green light began blinking on top of the box.

  "We can talk now. This will scramble any electronic surveillance aimed at us. I'll fill you in, then we'll turn it off and get on with the guns. Don't say anything important unless this box is on."

  "Ronnie, what's up? What's 'Alpha Red'?"

  "I don't know what's up. Alpha Red is an emergency code. It means the shit has hit the fan."

  "Nice choice of words. What's the rest of it?"

  "3P means we meet the Director at three o'clock this afternoon. FC means change our sat phones to a shifting frequency. It's not much used."

  "What about the rest?"

  "XG means deactivate the GPS locator in the phones."

  Ronnie took Selena's phone and entered the new frequency. He showed her how to shut down the signal that told anyone with access to the Global Positioning System where she was.

  "E5 is something Stephanie set up," Ronnie said. "It routes email and the internet through so many countries and servers no one can find the point of origin."

  "Where do we meet Harker?"

  "At the Marine Corps War Memorial."

  "What about Nick?"

  "He'll get the message. He'll be all right."

  Selena waited.

  "We shoot for a while, like we planned." Ronnie gestured at the weapons. "We get back to the car, I'll run a sweep. It's all part of Alpha Red. Clear?"

  Selena nodded. Ronnie turned off the box and put it back in his kit. He picked up a rifle. They'd been blacked out from eavesdroppers for less than a minute.

  "You're familiar with the MP-5," Ronnie said, "so you know how to control rate of climb and get off a three round burst."

  The Heckler and Koch MP-5 in its many variations was a favorite weapon of SOCOM units all over the world. Selena knew how to use it. It had been part of her baptism in blood.

  "The M4A1 is different from the H-K, but the principles are the same. This is what most of our troops carry. It fires a 5.65 by 45 millimeter NATO round, high velocity, good penetration. After five or six hundred rounds it can heat up and jam in a bad firefight. That's why we use the MP-5. But you should get familiar with this weapon."

  He handed it to her. "It's not much good beyond 300 yards. It's meant for close combat. Let's get you set up at a hundred and we'll try it out."

  He showed her the attachments, scope adjustments, stock configurations. They began shooting. After two hours they packed up and headed back to Ronnie's Hummer. He took a detector from his bag and walked around the car. He reached down and found a tiny device the size of a grain of rice, covered with grease. He made walking movements with his fingers.

  Selena nodded. A bug.

  Ronnie put the bug back where he'd found it. He completed the sweep outside, then covered the inside of the car.

  "Hop in," he said.

  They drove out through the main gate and headed toward the city.

  Ronnie said, "Let's get something to eat. There's a joint along here that's pretty good. Slow service, but we're done for the day. Let's grab a beer and a steak."

  "Sounds good."

  Ten minutes later they pulled into the restaurant parking lot. Ronnie got out and removed the bug. A green BMW with Virginia plates was parked two cars down. Ronnie sauntered near, stooped down and planted the bug underneath.

  They headed for Washington.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The DC-3 turbo prop conversion came in low in the dark Antarctic night. The plane's landing lights glared bright white on the hard packed ice and snow of the runway. The throaty growl of modified Pratt & Whitney engines shook the room as the plane passed over the research station.

  Hans had been unable to sleep, his mind filled with thoughts of the Nazi bunker. Now he was charting observations made during the last month. He heard the plane. He put down his pen and went to a window.

  He watched the DC-3 make a smooth landing, turn at the end of the runway and taxi to a stop a hundred feet away. A large cargo hatch in the port side of the plane opened. Armed men in black spilled from the aircraft and ran toward the station. Hans thought for a second. Then he reached out and hit the fire alarm.

  A hundred and twenty decibel klaxon began blaring. Lights came on all over the station. Doors slammed as people roused themselves and made for the assembly area near the main stairs leading down to the outside.

  The station rested six meters above the ground on hydraulic legs. It looked almost exactly like a large ferry perched on narrow piers, a wide rectangle two hundred feet long with two levels and two long rows of windows along the angled sides. Entrance was through an enclosure that reached down to the ice from the middle of the structure.

  Hard boots pounded up from below. Nervous voices called out as people streamed from all over the station to the central area near the stairs.

  "Where's the fire?" It was Otto Bremen. He was flushed and annoyed, wearing unlaced boots and a thick jacket over his pajamas.

  "No fire. Soldiers coming toward us. They look like a SWAT team."

  Hans cut the blaring klaxon. The door burst open. Helmeted men dressed in black fanned out through the room. They pointed assault rifles at the confused scientists. An officer wearing embroidered silver oak leaves on his collar entered the room. Hans thought the insignia looked familiar. Where had he seen it?

  The officer barked orders in perfect German and sent men into the maze of station passages to find any stragglers still in their rooms or laboratories. Then he looked over the assembled scientists. He was tall, his hair the color of bleached sun under his helmet, his face chiseled from stone. His blue eyes were empty, as if no one lived behind them.

  "Who is in charge?"

  Bremen stepped forward. "I am. I'm the chief geophysicist. Who are you? How dare you break in here?"

  "If you cooperate, no one will be harmed. I will ask the questions, chief geophysicist. You discovered something today. We are here to examine your find. Where, exactly, is it?"

  Hans remembered where he'd seen an insignia like the one the man was wearing. In pictures of Nazi SS officers from the war. This was like something out of the American television series, "The Twilight Zone".

  Except for the fact that the guns were real.

  "I won't tell you," Bremen said.

  The officer pointed his rifle at Otto and shot him. The burst nearly cut him in half. It drove Bremen back against a table and spun him to the floor, splashing blood over the table and Hans's careful notes. A stunned silence filled the room. The station personnel stared at their chief's broken body.

  "You." He turned toward Hans. "The one with the beard. Where is it?"

  Hans looked at the blood pooling under his dead friend. Let them have the damn stuff. Old paintings weren't worth more lives.

  "An hour and a half from here. You can follow the tracks we made. In the Fenriskjeften. Follow the tracks to the range, turn right and not long after, you'll
see it on the left."

  "In the Jaw of the Wolf. How fitting. Where are the Sno-Cats?"

  "In a cavern under the station. You'll see the doors outside. That end. The keys are in the ignitions." Hans gestured toward the south end of the station.

  The officer gave his orders. Most of the soldiers left the station, leaving three behind to stand guard. The man who had shot Bremen in cold blood walked over to Hans. He took his black-gloved hand and grabbed Hans by the jaw, pulled him close. Hans could smell his breath, foul like overripe cheese. Looking into his eyes, Hans thought it was like looking into a lightless pit.

  "If you have lied to me, you will die. If there is any trouble while I am gone, you will die. So will all the others. Understand?"

  Hans nodded, fighting the pain of the grip.

  "Good."

  He gave a final squeeze, patted Hans hard on the cheek, then turned and left after the others.

  One of the soldiers ordered everyone to sit on the floor, hands over their heads. When one of the biologists protested, the soldier clubbed him to the floor with the butt of his rifle. After that there was no more talking.

  Four hours later, the officer returned. He smiled a cold smile at Hans.

  "Thank you. Your directions were accurate."

  He stepped back and gestured. "Kill them."

  Like a well oiled machine, the guards raised their weapons in one smooth motion and began firing at the helpless people on the floor. It's not fair, Hans thought. I'm going to be married. Then his thoughts were gone.

  The officer walked among the bodies, rifle in hand. Twice, he fired.

  "All right. Let's go."

  At the top of the stairs, the last man out tossed two incendiary grenades into the station. He pulled the door closed and ran down the steps. Orange and yellow flame exploded through the windows and shot skyward.

  Someone pulled the cargo hatch closed. The engines of the DC-3 rose to a full-throttled roar. A thousand feet later, the plane lifted away and disappeared into the night. On the desolate, frozen ice shelf below, the flames from the burning station soared skyward like a beacon of warning from some dark and ancient Nordic myth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Elizabeth wanted the latest NSA information on President Rice's trip. She had full access to the NSA database. The kind of details NSA had on the trip were highly classified, but Elizabeth's clearance was UMBRA, as high as it got. She entered her password.

  Except the computer screen displayed a curt message.

  Access Denied.

  She tried again, with the same result. An unpleasant thought occurred to her. She entered a different search, unrelated to the President but still restricted.

  Access Denied.

  She buzzed Stephanie. "Steph, can you come in for a sec?"

  Stephanie had on one of her favorite red and black color combinations. A tailored blouse and jacket hid the Glock tucked into the waist of her black skirt. She came into Elizabeth's office.

  Stephanie was one of the secrets of Elizabeth's success. If necessary, she could take over the Project. More, there was nothing Stephanie couldn't do with a computer. Elizabeth sometimes thought Steph had binary bits and electrons running through her veins along with her blood.

  There was no need to talk about Alpha Red. Stephanie knew the drill.

  "Let's have lunch," Elizabeth said. She pointed at the screen with its infuriating message and put a finger on her lips. "We can sit out back in the shade garden."

  The back of the Project building sheltered an enclosed garden with high walls and a pleasant, shaded fountain. In good weather it was a favorite spot for lunch and impromptu meetings.

  "My pleasure." Stephanie twirled the gold bracelets on her wrist.

  Harker shut down her computer. She had Stephanie. That was all she would need.

  The two women rode down to the first floor and went out past the security station into the parking lot. They walked in silence to Elizabeth's Audi. Stephanie used a detector to make a sweep. She found a bug near the driver's side door and placed it on the curb.

  They headed for the highway.

  In a darkened room lined with monitors, the technicians manning the audio surveillance and tracking equipment noticed nothing amiss. They were multi-tasking, monitoring a stream of audio and video transmissions from multiple sources. The locator showed Harker's car parked outside her building. The bug transmitted normal background sounds. The subject had given no sign she knew she was being surveilled. There was no reason to be suspicious.

  The GPS readouts indicated the vehicle belonging to Ronnie Peete was parked in Virginia at a well known restaurant. Selena Connor's car was still in the parking lot next to Harker's and she was with Peete anyway. Everything looked good. Just another routine job.

  Elizabeth drove toward the city. She told Stephanie of the morning call from the new head of NSA.

  "Dysart is the only one who could have blocked my clearance."

  "Do you think it's personal?"

  "I hardly know him, Steph. He's got no reason to do this." She paused. "He's moved fast. General Hood only went down last night."

  Her intuition sent vibes all over her body, raising goose bumps.

  "Do you think he had anything to do with that? Dysart?"

  "With General Hood's illness? Elizabeth, that's a terrible thought."

  "Dysart wants me to pull Nick out right away. A decorated, effective agent in place when the President is in a high risk security situation and Dysart wants him gone. Then he knocks out my classified access. I don't like what I'm thinking."

  "You think Dysart is setting something up. Something about the President."

  Stephanie shifted in her seat, adjusted the pistol tucked behind her back.

  Harker said, "The Middle East is a powder keg. I think someone may want to set it off. If Dysart is part of a conspiracy, he'd try to shut us down before we discovered whatever is being planned. It would explain the surveillance, everything."

  Stephanie looked out the window.

  Elizabeth thought about Dysart. I hope I'm wrong and this is only some petty vendetta. But what if I'm right? Something must be set to happen in Jerusalem, or why block me? Block the Project? How do I stop something I can't pin down?

  She had no answer. There was no one outside of the team she could trust. She'd have to handle it on her own.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  They skirted the Capitol and crossed the Arlington Memorial Bridge. Elizabeth turned right onto Memorial Parkway. In a short time they came to the Marine Corps War Memorial. The thirty foot high bronze figures were frozen in time as they struggled to raise the flag on Iwo Jima. The flag flew overhead in a brisk autumn breeze. In the distance the Washington Monument thrust white and shining into the blue sky.

  America.

  Ronnie and Selena came across the grass. The four stood facing each other next to the polished granite base of the memorial. Ronnie set his black box down on the ground between them.

  "Hell of a thing," said Ronnie. "Someone bugged my Hummer, high end stuff, government issue."

  "My car, too, Ronnie. We have to assume Selena's car is tagged also."

  "What's going on, Director?" Selena brushed a wisp of hair away from her forehead. It was a habit Elizabeth had noted.

  "Nick is blown. He found our contact in Jerusalem dead. Someone was waiting and tried to kill him, too. NSA has a new boss, General Dysart. I've got a bad feeling about him."

  Selena's voice was strained. "Is Nick all right?"

  "Yes."

  "Dysart is bad news." Ronnie looked up at the flag. "He's one of those Pentagon desk jockeys who thinks paper work is more important than body armor. Why is Hood gone?"

  "He's in Walter Reed, supposedly with a stroke."

  "Supposedly?"

  "Maybe Hood's stroke wasn't an accident. Hood goes down. Then Dysart calls me up and tells me I should terminate a mission he's not supposed to know about. He's blocked my classified access to NSA. We're
being surveilled. Someone tries to take Nick out of the picture. I think we've stumbled into something."

  Ronnie looked down and scuffed his shoe against the grass. "You think someone's going after Rice? You sound like you think there's a conspiracy to take over the NSA. Who could set that up?"

  "Dysart said he'd been talking to Lodge, so CIA may be in on this, too."

  "What's our next move?"

  "I think we'd better be damn careful. Whoever's behind this may try to take us out of circulation. If Dysart or Lodge are involved, we're in trouble."

  Elizabeth looked around. The only people in sight were an older couple some distance away. The man was taking pictures of the Memorial.

  "I think we go to ground," Elizabeth said.

  Stephanie said, "The safe house?"

  "Yes. We've got everything we need there. No one at NSA or Langley knows about it."

  The safe house was in the rural Virginia countryside, an hour and a half from Alexandria. Elizabeth had set it up two years ago. Not even the President knew about it.

  "We'll leave now for the house. Then we decide our next moves. If I'm right, it won't be long before people will be looking for us."

  Elizabeth looked up at the flag, then back at the others. "Agreed?"

  The four got back in their vehicles. In a short time it was as if they had disappeared from the face of the earth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Carter and Rivka were in the sushi bar at Nick's hotel. It was evening. Two of the president's entourage sat at the end of the counter, watched by a Secret Service agent loitering near a tall, potted palm.

  Nick's headache was gone. The fingers of his hand were swollen and stiff, but aside from that he felt pretty good. He downed a cup of sake, to help his fingers.

  "So, now you've seen Old Jerusalem." Rivka sipped her sake and set it down. She lifted a piece of maguro with her chopsticks. "I'm curious. What do you think?"

  "It's like a schizophrenic's dream. Like three or four different worlds."