Damn, he thought, getting up and going to his computer. Why the hell hadn’t he already thought of this on his own?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Enid Municipal Airport. Three Days Later.
It was mid-afternoon as Hogan adjusted his binoculars to better observe the three people outside the main airport hanger. Near as he could tell, nothing of any significant interest had occurred since he’d tailed them here fifteen minutes earlier.
Or maybe there was something going on . . .
Standing alongside the police cruiser with Deputy Sheriff Torres and the attractive young woman, Manning now began to occasionally check his wrist and glance skyward. Were they awaiting a plane’s arrival?
It had to be.
Convinced of this, Hogan dialed Marino and filled him in on what was happening. Not surprising, his employer wanted additional information phoned to him immediately after the expected plane’s arrival; type, description, identifying registration numbers—the works.
Breaking the connection, Hogan pulled out his notepad, prepared to oblige.
“Is that it?” asked Torres a few minutes later, pointing to the east where a plane was now positioning itself for an approach at the airport’s longest runway. “A twin-engine turboprop, right? Impressive. It somehow looks bigger than I expected.”
David nodded, familiar with the dimensions of the Hawker Beechcraft 250 as it reduced airspeed and lowered its landing gear. It was the same private aircraft that ferried him and Elizabeth from Boston to Ithaca for Peter’s funeral—then again a few days later to their home outside Chatham on Cape Cod.
Though Torres was visibly impressed as the DeCaylus Corp plane touched down, it was trivial compared to David’s pleasure with what the craft contained. In his opinion, Ted and his people had worked a minor miracle over the past forty-two hours locating and then flying out the state-of-the-art piece of equipment that should decisively put to rest David’s theory as to what En-Tex Environmental was all about.
There was no doubt Elizabeth had selected the right man to assist him, for acquiring this unique piece of technology apparently wasn’t easily accomplished. Far from it, in fact. After several clarifying phone conversations and accompanying faxes back and forth between them, Ted had eventually been able to find and temporarily secure precisely what was required from a relatively new R&D outfit called L.P. Technologies
As it happened, his efforts couldn’t have been timelier.
Located in central Vermont, this company had within the past year developed and tested what promised to be the most advanced aerial metal detection system currently available to mining industries anywhere in the world. Three of their initial orders were already scheduled for delivery to an international consortium based in South America, their exploration teams eager to begin using this sophisticated ‘fly-over’ system on promising geological areas such as dense jungle and mountainous terrain, both extremely prohibitive to on-ground exploration.
Exactly what costs had incurred for Ted to negotiated the loan of one of these three was a question David hadn’t asked. Truthfully, he couldn’t even speculate; he only knew from Ted’s last fax that the proverbial clock was now officially ticking, allowing them less than forty-eight hours from this delivery until the valuable piece of equipment must again be airborne and headed back to Vermont.
David watched as the plane pivoted and taxied off the runway, confident this two-day window should be more than adequate to accomplish the task.
However, he also knew there was another wrinkle that needed to be ironed out—one still not entirely resolved to his satisfaction.
The difficulty was with the size of the twin-engine craft now carefully easing its way over to the open hanger. Basically, the plane was simply too big and powerful to allow the selective metal detection system to properly perform at its optimum level. According to the specs provided, the equipment was designed to function at maximum capability only when used from a much slower operating platform. Ideally, that would be a helicopter or a single engine aircraft. The Hawker Beechcraft 250, however, was restricted by having a stall speed of 75 knots, which in all likelihood could provide only marginally results.
This simply wouldn’t suffice.
One way or another, the ensuing read-outs must be absolutely definitive.
When the two familiar pilots disembarked, David greeted them with a handshake, introducing them to Pilar and Torres. This done, he broached the question most on his mind.
“Any word on when the leased helicopter is due in from Del Rio?”
“I’m afraid not for another couple hours, Professor,” replied Tim, the senior pilot. “A minor delay. Things are apparently running a bit behind schedule down there.”
“Nothing serious, I hope.”
“No, not that we’ve been told. When it arrives, by the way, I’ll be the one flying it for you. It won’t take long to make the transfer and set the system up. Paul and I spent time with the equipment’s technical specialist in Vermont going over the operational requirements before we left. I must say, it’s very well designed. Quite user-friendly. Would you like to look it over while we’re waiting?”
“Definitely.”
He took them aboard, leaving the younger co-pilot with the task of signing them in at the airport terminal and taking care of what arrangements were necessary for their stay.
The groundbreaking creation designed by L.P. Technologies occupied two adjoining seats in the spacious passenger section, all three of its carefully boxed parts strapped securely in place. Most surprising to David, their collective size was far smaller than anticipated, for he fully expected to see something of considerably more bulk. But this wasn’t the case, doubtless attributable to the continual advancements of modern engineering and software development.
David understood that all metal detectors essentially functioned on much the same principle. By transmitting an electrical field from a search coil into the ground, any metallic targets found within this field would themselves became energized and transmit an electromagnetic field of their own. A built-in search coil would then receive this transmitted field, alerting the user by producing an audible response tone with a corresponding visual display of the target information.
To one degree or another—dependent on a detectors’ sensitivity—most were capable of discriminating between different types of metals by the magnetic signature produced. If your sole interest was in finding objects of gold or silver, the more expensive ones on the market were generally capable of being calibrated to ignore all other ferrous targets. The inherent problem with these, however, was in the somewhat narrow scope of their use. Not only did they have major limitations in regards to range and depth, but also they were highly localized, meaning they were hand-held and must be physically walked over any site being explored.
Not so with L.P. Technologies’ latest offering.
Utilizing a system of advanced ‘pulse induction’ circuits accompanied with a high-speed aerial scanning parameter, their machine provided for a much-widened field of target resolution plus a greatly extended ground penetration ability accurate to extreme depths.
Though David made no pretense of fully comprehending all of the finer technical details, he was nonetheless mightily impressed by the potential of the end product. Now all that remained was to get that chopper in from Del Rio and make the necessary transfer. It was already 4pm. If possible, he wanted the machine tested out over En-Tex Environmental well before sunset.
Two hours later and twenty-three miles to the west, Marino hurriedly placed a call to Ruiz’ private cell number in Dallas, something he rarely did. He felt he’d no other option but to do so. Under the present circumstances, he considered this an emergency situation requiring immediate action. As he suspected it probably would be at this hour, he caught the Senior Consulate General at an awkward time.
Once realizing it was Marino at the other end, Ruiz abruptly said, “I assume this is important?”
“Yes
, sir.”
A brief moment of silence.
“Give me five minutes and I’ll phone you back from a better location.”
While waiting, Marino lit a cigarette and mentally reviewed the grim implications of what he’d learned over the past few hours. The initial information identifying the plane as belonging to DeCayus Corp was relayed to him earlier from Hogan—which, when he then ran it through a search program, produced some unexpected and very disturbing results.
A multimillion dollar company based in Boston, DeCaylus Corp’s sole owner and CEO was a woman named Elizabeth Manning—and there could be no doubt of her relationship with the annoying investigation being conducted by David Manning. Though not totally uncommon, the name couldn’t be a coincidence. This discovery completely dashed any hopes he harbored that Manning must eventually give up and leave town. Not hardly. With this kind of deep financial pockets at his disposal it appeared certain the persistent bastard wasn’t going anywhere—and definitely not anytime soon.
Then things rapidly worsened.
According to Hogan’s last call, it now appeared that electronic equipment of some sort was being transferred from the DeCaylus plane to a newly arrived helicopter. What the hell that was all about, he couldn’t even conjecture. Yet his instincts warned him something potentially disastrous was afoot and time for counter measures was fast running out.
Marino picked up Ruiz’s return call on the first ring.
As concisely as possible, he relayed the afternoon’s unsettling revelations and his own rapidly growing fears, stressing the need, in his opinion, to implement immediate defensive action to salvage their operation.
“Are you suggesting what I think you are?”
“I believe we’d be foolish not to do so.”
Ruiz was quiet for several long moments.
“I suspect you’re probably right,” he finally said. “The success of what we’ve accomplished can’t be put in jeopardy. It’s unfortunate that it comes down to this, but we thankfully anticipated the possibility of such an eventuality arising and made appropriate backup plans. Looking at the bigger picture, once done, any disruption to our present operation will prove quite negligible, don’t you agree?”
“I do, sir,” said a relieved Marino. He’d expected more resistance to his proposal. “If nothing else, we’ll be in a far more secure position.”
“And your expected time-frame?”
“Six to eight hours. No more.”
“Beginning when?
“Tonight. After sunset.”
Ruiz gave his consent, then again hesitated before saying in a more ominous tone, “Once this is done we’ll be in position to better address a permanent solution to this David Manning business. And not just him, either. I’m including that Torres fellow and the young woman. Her recent involvement in this is a riddle we must solve. Keep it in the back of your mind as being our very next priority.”
“I’ll do that, sir.”
When off the phone, Marino butted what remained of his cigarette and lit another as an unfamiliar noise now drew him to the office window. His face tightened in anger as he looked up and located its source.
Son of a fucking bitch!
A low-flying helicopter was rapidly approaching from the east.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
One mile out, the leased helicopter with four aboard gradually reduced altitude to an optimum seventy feet as recommended by L.P. Technologies Likewise, Tim slowly eased back on the craft’s air speed, taking it under forty knots. Directly ahead lay their first view of En-Tex Environmental, its isolation making it appear somewhat more ominous than expected.
The enclosed compound comprised two horizontal buildings, both running east to west and separated by roughly eighty feet of open ground. By far the larger and most northerly was a long structure sheathed in corrugated metal, the smaller made of cement blocks and apparently serving as an office of sorts.
David occupied the co-pilot’s seat, the better to monitor the illuminated electronic display on the control box. It provided a complete visual record of all incoming target information in real time. Behind him, Torres and Pilar both leaned forward to watch through the tinted Plexiglas bubble.
It wasn’t David’s initial intention to bring Pilar along, but she insisted so adamantly that he’d finally caved. Time had become an overriding issue. Sunset was less than fifty minutes away.
“Your call, Professor,” said Tim as they flew closer. “Where do you want to make our first fly-over?”
David pointed to his right.
“Keep it slightly north of the long building,” he said. “Down its entire length and maybe thirty feet out. This is set for wide-angle ground penetration, so let’s see just how good this machine is at ignoring all that metal sheeting and steel framework.”
“No problem.”
Half way through their pass, David frowned as he studied the unresponsive screen and hurriedly slipped on the equipment’s accompanying earphones. Neither was giving him any kind of meaningful feedback; definitely no image change on the display screen and only a faint background tone on the headgear.
In his mind this could only mean one of two things. Either the machine was incredibly good at tuning out and ignoring all non-gold targets as presently programmed—or it was completely malfunctioning.
He shook his head, fearing it might be the latter.
But how to know?
Reaching down, he hesitated only a moment before turning up the acoustic retrieval dial on the control box a further two notches, taking it well beyond L.P. Technologies’ recommended setting.
As the helicopter completed the pass and swung around to re-position for another, three men ran out of the long building into the open area, joined seconds later by yet another from the smaller. All were staring up at them, seemingly not-too-pleased by this unexpected and clearly unwelcome intrusion.
“What next, Professor?”
So far none of the figures below appeared armed—which didn’t mean that wouldn’t change in the next few minutes. In point of fact, one of them was even now sprinting back into the long building.
Based on this alarming observation, David went for broke.
“Take it down the middle between both buildings,” he instructed. “Low and slow—right over top of them—then get us the hell out of here. They look pissed off enough to start shooting.”
As Tim did so, the first flicker of activity abruptly lit up the display screen.
It came fast—almost instantaneous—and with its sudden appearance David simultaneously grimaced in intense pain, ripping the offending earphones from his head. Even when removed, the piercing shriek from it was audible throughout the entire craft.
And there was more . . .
Equally telling of a massive ‘hit’ directly beneath them was a corresponding spike on the screen that now literally registered off the scale.
“Holy crap—!” blurted a surprised Torres.
When back at the airport, the four of them carefully reviewed the recorded results a half dozen times, repeatedly double-checking and verifying all of the equipment’s settings. According to the company specs provided by L.P. Technologies, they could find absolutely nothing amiss—save, of course, for David’s untimely adjustment to the acoustic volume control. His head was still ringing from the experience.
But did this make the astounding read-outs accurate?
He wanted to believe it did, yet needed additional confirmation. Too much rode on that question to make decisions he might later regret.
Pondering this dilemma, he was acutely conscious of the time.
Ideally, all of this should be reviewed as rapidly as possible with the company’s expert back in Vermont. The problem here, however, was that it was now well past sunset—which made it already late evening on the east coast.
It was Tim who came to the rescue.
Before the DeCaylus Corp plane had left for Texas with the machine, the equipment specialist wrot
e his home phone number on a company business card, telling him he could be reached at any time for consultation should a need develop.
Now it had.
Tim placed the call from the hanger office, first identifying himself and apologizing for the lateness of the hour before transferring the phone over to David at his first opportunity. This done, David quickly but thoroughly reviewed their findings with the amenable technician over the next twenty-plus minutes.
Once off the line, he glanced at his wrist and turned to the expectant faces eagerly waiting to hear the results of his conversation.
“Well, we’re basically stymied, I’m afraid,” he informed them. “At least until tomorrow morning, anyway. He’s going into his office at 6am his time—5am ours—and see if he can recreate any possible ‘default’ explanation that might account for our results. I obviously couldn’t tell him any details of what we were seeking, so I had to let him go ahead and do whatever double-checking he thinks necessary. He’s going to phone me the results first thing in the morning—no later than 7am our time.”
Torres again chose to play devil’s advocate.
“So he admits there’s a chance that the equipment screwed up? Under certain circumstance it’s capable of giving false readings?”
“No, not really. That’s what has him so puzzled. If none of the settings have been tampered with, he still stands behind his machine one hundred percent. It’s the huge spike range and duration we recorded that has him completely baffled. In fact, he laughingly asked if we’d perhaps inadvertently flown over Fort Knox.”
Torres’ face immediately brightened.
“Then that’s actually good news for us, right?”
“Apparently so.”
Pilar now voiced her rising confusion.
“Since we know the settings are where they should be,” she said, “why not just do another fly-over right now to verify our findings?”
The Emperor's Treasure Page 11
