"Like a computer, young lady," Garrison said as he slid a liver-spotted hand over hers. "Not bad at all for a woman approaching the century mark."
"That's you, my dear, not I." She smiled and patted his hand. "Now, if I do remember correctly, carbon dating and other tests placed her destruction in a ten-year time frame between eighteen sixty and eighteen seventy-one. What does that have to do with today?"
"I don't believe in coincidence, never have. Advanced submarine in the past, advanced submarine in the present, explosion that takes out what material we do have on level seventy-three, one-plus-one-plus-one equals someone wanted us not to reference that boat in our vault. Now we know why, and we know what attacked us — all we need is the who? Is it something in that vault that will give away this vessel's technology, or on the other hand, maybe her metallurgy? Her home port or waters, or was something left aboard the relic that will assist in identifying the man behind such an advanced craft?"
"We better report to Niles and—"
That was as far as Alice got before several men broke through the double doors of the cafeteria and started rounding up the few people inside. In the next moment, a submachine gun was pointing right in Garrison Lee's face.
Alice placed her hand on Garrison's, letting him know that he was not to try anything foolish.
"Young man, please aim that weapon in another direction, unless of course you plan to murder us. If not, you little bastard, point it somewhere else."
The masked gunman smiled inside his black nylon hood at the woman who continued to confront him with her eyes, even after he moved the weapon and aimed it at the floor. He then pulled a list out of his armored vest and looked at the typed names and their pictures. He looked from Alice to Garrison.
"Mrs. Hamilton, your reputation precedes you, ma'am. Would you and the senator please follow me to the main conference room?"
As the man spoke, the power grid flickered as it had before, and then the overhead lights went completely out.
"Don't worry, ma'am, we have just sealed this level from the others, and that means we have successfully taken control of the most secure facility in the American government."
Alice looked at Garrison Lee in the emergency lighting shining from the corners of the cafeteria. His one eye was glaring at the man standing over them. Once more, she took his hand and started to stand.
"Very well, young man, it seems you have the advantage," Alice said as she assisted Lee to his feet.
"At least for the moment, you little prick," Garrison Lee said directly into the man's masked face, and as he did, he used his hand to slide the file they had been examining onto his vacated chair.
The man's laugh sounded muffled, but it traveled through the entire cafeteria as he reached down and gathered up the folders on the table to take with him.
"I'd hate to run into you two in a dark alley," he said as he gestured for them to head for the cafeteria doors.
* * *
Sarah cautiously opened the stairwell door one level up. She looked down the dark and curving hallway using the night scope, being careful not to look at the dim emergency lighting at the far end.
She held the door ajar by the barrel of the weapon, allowing her to see the comp center directly across from her. There were figures moving inside, but she couldn't make out who they were. Then she smiled as she saw the form of Pete Golding throw a chair against the bulletproof glass as hard as he could, but all it did was bounce back and almost strike him. In the green haze of the scope, she saw Pete as he screamed in frustration. The sound didn't penetrate the glass, but the gesture was almost comical. Pete just wasn't the herculean type.
With the weapon opening the door farther, Sarah stepped into the hallway, allowing the door to close gently behind her. She slowly made her way to the center and tapped on the glass doors with the gun barrel until Pete looked up. He twisted his head because he couldn't see who was out there in the dark. Sarah waved him over, and the relief in Pete's face was apparent. She mouthed something he couldn't understand. Then, with her sore arm she reached into her jumpsuit pocket, brought out a Sharpie felt pen, and hastily scrawled, Attacked.
Pete nodded, and then he suddenly started pointing frantically behind Sarah as if the Devil himself were there.
Sarah turned and there were two men standing directly behind her. One grabbed the barrel of the weapon and pulled it from her grasp while the other grabbed her by the throat and shoved her against the glass. Pete and his comp team were frantic. They was gesturing wildly and banging on the glass, screaming threats that went unheard. The man who had grabbed the gun saw Sarah's cutoff sleeve, the sling, and the remains of the cast on her forearm. He reached out and hit her in the upper arm above the elbow, and Sarah immediately collapsed in agony.
Pete Golding and the other techs saw this and started throwing their bodies against the glass doorway. They were desperate to keep any harm from befalling the little geologist.
The masked man moved his weapon aside on its strap, then reached down and grabbed Sarah by the collar and pulled her to her feet.
"This is our little hero from level eight."
The other man stepped back. "No casualties — remember the orders."
"Unless in self-defense," the smaller of the two said as he brought his weapon back around.
Sarah grimaced in pain, and then suddenly struck out with her right foot, trying desperately to kick at the two men, but her tennis shoes were striking nothing but empty air.
"These people just don't know when to quit," the larger assailant said, laughing at the violent way Sarah struggled.
Suddenly, the hooded face jerked violently forward and Sarah felt the splash of warm blood hit her in the face. There was a crack of a bullet, but only because it had penetrated the man's skull and passed through, hitting the glass of the comp center. The other man tried to turn, but two bullets struck him in the side of the head and neck. As he fell, he pulled the stunned Sarah down with him.
Pete and the comp center technicians stopped banging on the glass as the blood from the first man obscured it. Pete straightened in shock as he prayed Sarah wasn't hit. He looked from her form to the darkened hallway beyond. He couldn't see anything.
Sarah kicked at the man who had fallen on her legs and at the same time struggled to get ahold of one of the fallen weapons. As her hand found one, there was a calm voice echoing from the bend in the long dark corridor.
"Little Sarah, always a fighter."
The voice was familiar. Sarah searched the darkness, raising the automatic weapon toward the darkness.
"Not advisable, at least for the moment," the voice said, as if reprimanding a child. "Tell me, dear Sarah, is Jack with you?"
Her recognition of the voice came flooding into her memory. Pictures of the man it belonged to hit her like ice water. Colonel Henri Farbeaux.
"Come now, you owe me your life. Surely worth the price of an answer."
"This isn't your style, Henri, extravagant though it is." Sarah still twisted the weapon until its muzzle pointed into the dark.
"I'm what you would call a stowaway. As well as these people planned, it was far too messy. But then again, I don't know the motivation behind it. Nor, dear Sarah, do I care. I'm here for the man that cost me the life of my wife."
"What in the hell are you talking about, Colonel?"
"She never returned from our little Amazonian excursion. Our Major Jack was the cause of that."
Sarah made a face as she tried to sit up. "And you're blaming the colonel?"
"Colonel? Colonel Collins? Ah, the rewards for having my wife meet her fate in a godforsaken lagoon. This is getting rich, little Sarah."
"Henri… Jack is—" Sarah lost her voice for a moment. "Jack's dead."
There was silence from the hallway.
"He didn't kill Danielle; we didn't even know she was lost. Jack Collins never would have wanted that. He wanted everyone to make it out — even you, Henri." Sarah twisted and tried to ris
e to her feet.
She tried to peer into the darkness, but she saw no movement. She thought about reaching down for the goggles, but decided she wouldn't make the effort. Finally, she heard movement.
"A shame. I will not ask about the possibility of a lie, I can see the truth of it in your face. It hurts, does it not?"
Sarah saw the darker outline of the man as he stepped from the wall.
His weapon was still held at belt level and it was aimed right at her. She looked at the heavy weapon in her hands, then slowly tossed it away.
"A part of me died that day." Sarah looked into the face of the Frenchman and didn't flinch.
"Yes, loss will do that to one," he said. He looked into her eyes as his silenced pistol finally wavered and then lowered. "You have been injured, I see."
Sarah remained quiet as she looked at their old enemy. He had lost a large amount of weight, and his eyes were dark below and above the lids. There was a sense about him that he no longer held himself on a pedestal above others. Sarah could see that he was broken, mentally and physically. In addition, she was seeing something drain from the man like a tipping water glass. His hatred and willingness to strike out at something familiar, in this case Jack, were gone, as if hearing of his death completed the trade for Danielle.
"Stand aside, Sarah McIntire, and I will assist you in freeing your friends before one of them seriously injures themselves. Then I will leave you."
Sarah finally turned and saw Pete Golding, forehead bleeding and holding his shoulder, furiously gesturing for his technicians to ram the door again. Sarah shook her head. Pete was magnificent with a computer keyboard, but in rescue attempts, he left a lot to be desired.
Farbeaux walked up to Sarah and looked at her for the longest time. His eyes bore into her own as if he were looking at someone he remembered from his past with fondness. Then he reached down, picked up the fallen goggles, raised them to his eyes, and at the same moment raised the pistol and aimed at the locks in the glass door.
Sarah was just relaxing when Farbeaux suddenly jerked and then tried to turn around. The silenced automatic fell from his hand as he gasped for breath. His other hand pulled the large dart from the back of his shoulder. He looked at Sarah as if she had been responsible; then his legs gave out. Sarah reached out for him as he collapsed.
As she looked up, twenty men approached. Several flashlights illuminated the stricken Farbeaux. Men spread out and covered the glass fronting of the computer center where Pete stared in shock at the four people standing at the center of the group — Director Compton, Virginia Pollock, Alice Hamilton, and Senator Garrison Lee. They were not bound, but each had an armed escort. A man stepped forward, separating himself from the group. He wore no hood, and he had loosened his upper body armor, undoubtedly for comfort.
Sarah watched the man examine the scene before him. His eyes went from his two dead commandos to the unconscious Henri Farbeaux.
"Lieutenant, are you all right?" Niles asked.
The man quickly held a hand up as his head turned and looked at Sarah. "Silence please, Doctor."
"If you harm any more of my people, you may as well shoot us all right now," Niles said, shaking a guard's hand off his arm and stepping forward.
The man continued to look at Sarah with cold and very dark eyes.
"This one comes with us," he said as he gestured one of his men forward.
"Sarah, are you hurt?" Alice asked as she held on to the senator.
"Just my pride," she answered, as she was roughly turned and her hands wire-tied behind her back. Her eyes met Pete Golding's, who stared through the glass in frustration.
"Is that… is that Colonel Farbeaux?" Compton asked.
Sarah was turned roughly about so she could face the group. Her anger was apparent as her eyes went from the man in front of her to the man who had tied her. With her arm and shoulder screaming in agony, she shook the man's hands from her.
"Yes."
"Is he… a part of this?"
Sarah thought about saying something about the colonel's intentions, but she knew there was no point. She looked at Niles and shook her head.
"You know Henri was always an opportunist. What better way to get into the complex and steal than during a murder raid?" She said the last words looking right into the tall man's eyes.
"We must go. We have several flights of stairs to traverse to get to the hangar," the man said as he pulled Sarah roughly forward toward the others.
The tall man looked down at the Frenchman and then to the two bodies on the floor beside him. Then he pulled a nine-millimeter handgun from a shoulder holster, approached the prone Farbeaux, and placed the gun to his head.
"The same rules apply to him. You kill him, kill us," Niles said, desperately trying to keep Farbeaux from dying. He despised the man, but he didn't want him murdered in cold blood, either.
The leader of the assault closed his eyes in thought. After a moment, he straightened and holstered his weapon. He ordered two men to take the still form of Colonel Farbeaux, then turned to face Compton.
"You're quickly running out of favors, Mr. Director. I will bring this man with us, only to ask for his execution for killing my men."
"I thought violence and murder were not part of your orders," Niles persisted in his antagonizing tone.
"I have been known to adapt, Doctor, to react to a flowing situation. Do not push me."
Alice pulled Niles back and made him assist in supporting the senator. On their way past the leader of the assault, Assistant Director Virginia Pollock shot him a look that had murder etched in it. The man just smiled as the others were herded toward the stairs.
The Event Group Complex had fallen in less than twenty-five minutes.
NORTHERN FIRING RANGE (INACTIVE),
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE
The UH-60 Black Hawk had met Everett, Mendenhall, Ryan, the limo driver Rodriguez, and the improving Jack Collins on the military tarmac at McCarran airport in Las Vegas. Everett was on the headphones talking with the chief warrant officer flying the large helicopter. The others watched as Everett shook his head negatively and shouted something into his microphone. Ryan and Mendenhall exchanged looks. The captain angrily removed his headphone and then went into the rear compartment.
"It seems Nellis just went on alert. They wanted us to vector back to McCarran, but we're still trying to get the okay to proceed to gate one."
"What's up?" Ryan shouted.
"They have missiles heading this way, target unknown. They've been tracking them for the past two hours; they were zigzagging all over the place, and then started this way. The launch area was off the Jersey coast — which means our new friends may have been responsible. At least they are the more viable candidate at the moment. In addition, all search radar and communications are down with the exception of hard lines. Emergency systems at Nellis are just coming back online."
Everett looked at Jack, who was looking back at him and trying to understand what it was that was happening. Everett patted him on the leg.
"Don't worry, buddy. Sarah's going to have the surprise of her life when she gets back from her mama's."
Collins forced a smile and nodded. His head was filled with cotton, but ever since Carl and the others had started talking to him on the flight back from the East Coast, his memory was now returning in waves instead of dribbles. The most important memory that came first was Sarah's death as he held her in the waters of the Med, and then his closed-eyed prayer of thanks when Carl smiled and told him she was alive. Everything else was placed in the back of his mind as his body immediately relaxed with the knowledge he would see Sarah again.
The Black Hawk banked sharply and headed for the deck. Carl held on to the seat as he turned and saw the copilot give the thumbs-up from the right seat.
"Okay, we just got permission to get to the house."
As the Black Hawk screamed low over the desert, the pilot was shocked when his radar detected a missile lock on them. He
figured his bird had picked up a stray beam from the circling F-22 Raptors flying combat air cap over the prized air base. He became worried when the tone in his headphones became louder and steady. He pulled his stick back into his belly, slammed it over to the right, and the large helicopter fought for altitude while rolling to the right. Chaff, small explosions of aluminum foil, started popping out of the tail boom, and flares bright as the sun flew from the Black Hawk's underbelly, all in an effort to thwart the missile lock that had them zeroed in.
"Hang on," the crew chief called out.
As Everett sat and strapped in, a sudden bright explosion rent the side of the Black Hawk, throwing shrapnel into the large right-side T700/CT7 engine. Large chunks of hot metal severed the fuel lines, and the rest shot up and into the composite rotors, removing huge chunks from the aerodynamic edges. The big chopper keeled over to the right far farther than its pilot intended. The copilot was on the radio screaming mayday and that they were under attack.
"Jesus Christ," Ryan screamed as he braced himself against the aluminum bulkhead.
"If this is for my benefit, I admit, you got me," Jack said loudly.
With the rotors vibrating, the Black Hawk shuddered and started to fall from the sky. Then one of the four blades flew from the hub and the rest of the rotors sheared away because of the massive torque placed upon the unbalanced rotor assembly.
"Oh, shit," Everett said as he saw the ground rushing up to meet the falling aircraft. "Hang on, this is going to be sudden!"
The Black Hawk luckily slammed into the false dilapidated roof of the hangar building of gate 1. It careened back into the air and actually slid through the air, finally landing on its belly, minus its rotors. The Black Hawk slid about a hundred feet through the Nevada scrub, and then the airframe hit a large rise of sand and flew back into the air and onto her left side, tearing free the landing gear assembly. She finally came to rest, her right-side engine burning.
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