The four had said little other than to thank the Native Americans who had bailed them out of a tight jam. The FBI agent paced in front of them, stopping now and then to peer at one or the other of them. They smiled and returned the look, frustrating the man to no end. He was in the process of looking at Nathan because the older man had averted his eyes when stared down, possibly a chink in their armor. The fed was about to pull the professor out of the room and question Nathan alone when the phone rang and the bored-looking county sheriff picked it up.
“Interrogation,” he said. “It’s for you.” He held the phone out to the FBI agent.
“Special Agent Phillips,” he said into the mouthpiece. “Yes, that’s right, we have two National Parks rangers dead and I … well, yes, but you listen here, Mr. Compton, I don’t know who you think you … yes? My director?” he said as he swallowed. “Yes, sir; no, sir …I understand … yes, sir, national security, but … but … yes, sir, immediately,” he said as he handed the phone back to the sheriff without looking at anything other than his highly polished shoes. Then he adjusted his tie, which hadn’t needed straightening, and turned to the sheriff. “Cut ’em loose,” he said.
“What…on whose authority?” the sheriff sputtered in protest.
“On the authority of the director of the FBI, and above him, the president of the United States. Do you need any more names?” the agent responded angrily. “Now take those cuffs off.”
Jack looked at Sarah and Mendenhall and raised his brows.
“May I borrow your phone, Sheriff?” he asked.
The bemused county sheriff slid the phone over to Jack. “Probably long distance,” he mumbled.
Jack hurriedly punched in numbers and then waited as he was connected to the Group’s secured phone line. After a series of beeps and static it was answered.
“Compton,” the voice said.
“It’s Collins. This line isn’t secure.”
“Confirmed, phone line is not secure. Now, are you all right? Sarah, Will, Nathan?”
“Yes, we’re fine. Niles, we have the item in our possession,” he said as he turned away from the sheriff.
“Thank God!”
“Listen, the people that hit us, the sheriff’s office and the FBI have identified them as Colombian nationals. Did you tell anyone else we would be here in Montana?”
“Commander Everett, remember? He was in on our conference from his location in New Orleans,” Niles stated flatly, suddenly knowing where Jack was heading.
“Did Everett use a land line?”
“Yes, his cell had no signal. His end of the conversation was in the clear.”
“They must have had a tap, what we call a SATAG on the phone. That means they may have tracked him to New Orleans and, through our conference call, tracked us to Montana. Where’s Carl now?”
“Making ready the expedition’s transportation in New Orleans,” Niles answered.
“Call him and tell him to use only his secure cell and to watch for visitors. I’ll send him more security; he may have more company headed his way when the powers that be find out they failed out here.”
“You got it, Jack. Get home.”
EVENT GROUP COMPLEX NELLIS AFB, NEVADA
Niles made the necessary calls and the compartmentalized Event Group went into action to prepare hurriedly to get a rescue team down to the Amazon. Departments went through an amazing array of logistics to supply the team with everything they would need for the exploration of Padilla’s lost valley and to search for any survivors of Helen Zachary’s expedition. The equipment that Everett had ordered could only be partially filled with Event Group stores; the rest had to come from such companies as Raytheon, General Electric, Hanford Laboratories, the Brookings Institution, and Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island. The expedition was officially sanctioned as a rescue operation, but scientific investigation would still be performed.
An Event Group tech team comprised of sixty men and women were already en route by air force transport to Louisiana to assist Master Chief Jenks on finalizing the installation of the equipment and outfitting Teacher for river duty. There would be no time for a shakedown cruise.
The Group’s Intelligence Department made arrangements to be a privately funded surveying mission to map the Amazon River depths from the Peruvian government, which was a nice cover to get into Brazil, which had steadfastly denied permission for American military personnel to cross into their territory.
Niles and Alice were busy in his office with a team of assistants, coordinating the paper end of things, and that wasn’t going well at all.
“The president,” Alice said, holding out the red phone.
“Mr. President, thank you for securing the cooperation of the navy, it’s much appreciated.” Niles watched Alice leave the room.
“I have the FBI report on those photos your people sent over from San Pedro,” the president said tersely. “It seems the man named Kennedy, which is his real name by the way, is a U.S. Navy SEAL, and another was identified as an air force captain named Reynolds. The others have yet to be identified.”
“Has the navy and air force explained the reasoning behind infiltrating a university-sponsored expedition with a bunch of young people?”
“So far they haven’t said anything. They said they have an intense inner investigation going on to find out. And to me right now, that isn’t goddamned good enough!”
“You mean to say they don’t know what their special operations people are doing?”
“So far they came up with records that show Kennedy and Reynolds were on detached duty out west. I put my bulldog on it. My national security advisor, Ambrose, will get some results.”
“Someone is out of control here and there are lives at stake—”
“Dammit, Niles, I know whose lives are at stake!”
“Yes, sir, I apologize. Those kids may be lost or fighting for their lives down there, and I have a team getting ready to go in. I need to know who we can trust!”
“All right Niles, you and I need to keep a perspective here. Even though my own daughter is in danger, I’m afraid my hands are still tied up to a point. I can’t risk a shooting war just because my daughter stepped out. Here’s something for you to think on: no matter what reason Kennedy and those other men have for being attached to that expedition, doesn’t it ease your mind a little that they have at least one SEAL with them?”
Niles was slow to answer, as he didn’t feel comfortable with the military involvement, no matter if there were special operations people giving Helen and her kids a better chance at survival or not. So he decided to answer truthfully.
“It would make me feel better if in fact they hadn’t been off the air for over a week now.”
“I’ll keep pushing Ambrose on my end; a hard task, since he knows nothing of the Group’s existence.”
“I understand.”
“Now, your Lieutenant Ryan has been cleared for Fort Bragg. The Proteus team will be waiting on him, along with his Delta squad. Remember, Niles, even though my daughter’s life may be at stake, I have only okayed the Proteus backup mission. Again, I stress the fact that I can’t allow a military ground incursion, even if we know it to be a rescue mission, into a friendly nation by American troops; it just won’t fly. I’m sorry, it’s Proteus or nothing.”
“Mr. President, I—”
“No,” the president cut him off, “we can’t have American ground troops on friendly soil without invitation. Too many things can go wrong. If your backup plan works properly, Proteus should give Major Collins a nice edge if it’s needed.”
“Sir, that damned weapons platform hasn’t worked right since testing began; we’re running an awful risk with Operation Spoiled Sport as our only backup. What if there is close-in fighting down there? Proteus can’t possibly help out in that situation.”
“I’m sorry, Niles, it has to do, we have too many black eyes given to us by bad press lately. It’s not that I’m sacrificing any of those kids
or my own daughter for political reasons, but I can’t let American boys die in a rescue attempt that would surely be challenged by Brazilian troops. Tell Major Collins to find our people and get his butt back in one piece, and Niles, please bring my daughter home. I’m sorry Proteus is the only backup at this time, but it can be disguised as civilian whereas fighter aircraft can’t.”
Niles stared at the screen, knowing full well the president was right. The burden of getting those kids out of that green and hostile world was squarely on the shoulders of the Event Group.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Ambrose drove himself over to Foggy Bottom. The Department of State was clearing for the day, so he had no bothersome eyes watching as he took the stairs three at a time.
He was escorted to the secretary of state’s office by two guards. As he entered the office, Ambrose saw the secretary was busy jotting something down on paper. For someone who was only fifty-two, the cabinet member’s hair was turning a distinguished shade of gray at the temples. Ambrose had watched earlier in the day as the president praised him on television for his unyielding stance with the crisis that he had thwarted in Iraq. He was definitely the flavor of the month. But as Ambrose set his briefcase down and took a seat, he could see the man who would soon become the next president of the most powerful nation on earth was angry.
“I take it your conversation with the president was enlightening, Mr. Secretary?” Ambrose asked.
The tall man behind the ornate and ostentatious desk finally looked up.
“How in the hell could this happen?”
“How were we supposed to know his daughter was on that ship?”
“That little bitch has been nothing but a royal pain in the ass since the president took office and her presence in Brazil could bring our whole shaky house of cards down around our neck.”
Ambrose swallowed as he listened to a man who was world famous for keeping his cool, a man who planned the outcome of events, never just hoping for a favorable one.
“They haven’t been heard from since—”
“It doesn’t matter, you fool, even if the whole expedition is dead, do you think for one goddamned minute the president will let the body of his daughter go unclaimed down in the fucking jungle?” He stood up and tossed the ballpoint pen he had been using at Ambrose, who flinched as it bounced off his shoulder. “Now he tells me he’s authorized not one, but two naval task forces to the south. Sailing orders that you should have informed me of!”
“He consulted with the secretary of the navy directly. I didn’t know anything until a moment ago. Look, we can steer him away from a recovery effort, just advise against it. I am his national security advisor, goddammit, and you’re his secretary of state.”
“That bastard just ordered me, ordered me to Brazil. He wants inroads laid so we can either clear the way for a rescue operation by the marines of all people, or at least get the Brazilian military in there.”
Ambrose had been briefed as to what the president was going to say to the secretary, so he wasn’t surprised by his orders.
“It’s the president doing the requesting, so why don’t you just put it as a threat? President Souza won’t take too kindly to that. Make the situation hot enough to where there is no action taken at all. What will he do, invade a friendly nation over his wayward daughter who is most likely dead already?”
“Yes, goddammit, you work for the bastard; he loves his daughter no matter how much of a pain in the ass she is!” the secretary yelled as he paced to his large window behind his desk. “And now he knows about the team the intelligence chiefs sent with the Zachary group, who may or may not have eliminated the very team the president wants us to rescue!”
“Then all the better we get this thing to blow up. Cover our tracks where no one can trace our involvement in either Iraq or what was taken out of that damned valley down there. With any luck, Kennedy blew the goddamned thing up and buried everything and everyone forever.”
The secretary of state turned toward Ambrose, his eyes afire. “If even a hint of this gets out, the election is lost. Remember, I’m still tied to the president’s coattails whether I like it or not.”
“That doesn’t worry me all that much,” Ambrose said as he stood.
“Oh, and why is that?”
“If even a hint of what we’ve done leaks out, we’re all going to hang for treason, because the danger you failed to foresee when we took into our confidence the military chiefs of intelligence is that they will indeed cover their tracks, any way they can. And in case you didn’t know it, Donald, they do have the assets to get that part done, and we would be the one to be covered up. Good luck in Brazil, Mr. Secretary. I’ll do what I can from the White House.”
“If they were so good at their jobs, why did we have the fiasco at Arlington?”
“That was contract work; for us, they’ll come themselves. You have to look at the military hierarchy. The men we are dealing with are hungry for power, and that power lies in the climbing of the corporate ladder. This plan of yours was to help them in doing just that. They won’t be happy if they sense it’s too hot,” Ambrose said. He opened the door and left.
The secretary of state watched the door close and then sat heavily into his chair. He knew he would virtually have to start a war in South America to confuse the situation and make that godforsaken valley in the Amazon vanish from everyone’s radar.
Then it struck him. The president would never rely on just one option. He, like himself, always thought in the same terms as that of a master chessman, thinking five and ten moves ahead. That son of a bitch would have a second option already in the planning stages at least. That meant if his diplomatic queries failed, the president might even have an armed team on the ground or in the air for a rescue operation, hell, maybe even more options. An illegal and underhanded rescue attempt done behind the back of the Brazilian government? The secretary realized he had his out. An operation such as that would constitute an invasion of a friendly country. He had his main asset in the Brazilian Air Force, and he would alert that man that he might be needed.
He picked up the phone and called the front desk to have Ambrose turned around. He had one more instruction to give the advisor. All he needed was to know the location of that goddamned valley. He was sure the Brazilian authorities would welcome a tip that either their airspace or their ground territory was about to be compromised.
And that, he surmised, could get messy, and that mass confusion could be his best ally.
PART FOUR
BLACK WATERS
Man has always feared that which he cannot understand, hasn’t conquered, failed to tame, failed to make his own. When man is confronted by the unknown, his greatest fear, and I daresay excitement, takes hold. And the death of innocence is always our answer to that fear in the end.
—CHARLES HINDERSHOT ELLENSHAW III, CRYPTOZOOLOGIST
11
USS JOHN C. STENNIS, CVN 74, 140 MILES EAST OF PERU 28 HOURS LATER
After almost seven full years of continuous warfare, the USS John C. Stennis had been mysteriously ordered from her home port of San Diego, California, with only half of her complement of warplanes. And those that weren’t actually on the roster for flights were stored belowdecks in their hangars. The ship’s crew of nearly five thousand–plus were curious as to the strange craft that lay in eleven distinct pieces of ten-foot sections on her flight deck. They knew they would find out soon enough, as another warship had joined them early that morning. The USS Iwo Jima, a navy assault ship, was brimming with U.S. Marine Corps helicopters, and the scuttlebutt said those choppers would be removing the strange package from the Stennis’s flight deck.
Off in the distance, the Department of the Navy wasn’t taking any chances, as another carrier battle group was two hundred miles east of the Stennis’s position, to assist in an emergency, since they were shorthanded on attack planes. The USS Nimitz was riding shotgun, making the crewmen on-board the giant ship feel somewhat better about
their hurried sailing orders.
The Styrofoam-packaged sections were flown from Louisiana to Los Angeles, where they were transferred onto army UH-60 Blackhawks and then flown out to the Stennis just 160 miles from South America. This would negate the need for flying over foreign territorial land and sea, as well as the need for asking permission from governments that become overly curious and suspicious. The plan was devised by Niles Compton, using the authority of the president. The mission was classified as a field test by a private company. That company just happened to be the Event Group.
Master Chief Jenks and the support team from the Group were still working on the engines and the electronics suite for Teacher. The task was made far more difficult because of the rush out of New Orleans to California and then having to install everything with the boat lying in eleven sections. The master chief had already threatened the lives of almost everyone on his team and some of those of the Stennis. Jack had actually and absentmindedly reached for a sidearm he wasn’t wearing when Jenks had confronted him about something Jack had no control over. Actually, Jenks was mortified when he found out that Jack Collins was serving as head of the expedition and was essentially the man that saved his boat from the scrap heap. So Carl had seen him do something the master chief had never done before: he apologized to the major.
Carl joined Danielle on the signalman’s platform overlooking the flight deck and was grateful for the sea air.
“This is what I miss about sea duty,” he said as he stood by her side, “the air, can’t find it in the desert.”
She smiled and went back to watching the activity below with Teacher.
“Hi there,” Sarah said as she joined them.
“Well, if it isn’t Wild Bill McIntire,” Carl teased her.
“Funny,” she said as she lightly punched him on the arm.
Legend: An Event Group Thriller Page 22
