Legacy (17 page)

“Jack, all of our intelligence services were caught flat-footed on this one, and I for one won’t start pointing fingers; keeping tabs on the ESA hasn’t been the highest priority. The same goes for China and Russia. CIA counts warheads and missiles, not lunar-capable systems. For all we know they could launch as soon as they get their systems online and their vehicles assembled.”

“Is there anything we can do about it? I mean it’s obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention that there is a mineral up there that would be highly desirable. And the technology those remotes dug up, that’s not a bad second prize either.”

“The president wants me to get with DARPA and NASA to see if we have any alternatives,” Niles said, speaking of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. “I’m flying out in a few minutes to meet with the Defense Sciences Office in Arlington, and then I’m off to Houston.”

“Do we have any capability at all to get back there since the budget cuts?”

“I doubt it, Jack. That’s why you and Captain Everett had better come up with something. We need Operation Columbus and its artifacts found. One more thing, the excavation you’re visiting is owned officially by Hans Dieter Brinkman, a German businessman who leases and sells land out of his Munich offices.”

“What’s the story on this guy?” Jack asked.

“Well, Europa ran a background check on him and it seems our Mr. Brinkman is the son of Field Marshal Karl Brinkman. We have learned that the field marshal was an engineer before and during the war. He died in 1963 in, of all places, Quito. Pete Golding dug deeper and found that our man was a mining engineer. His son took over the business end of things but has never once set foot in Ecuador. Europa, as is her style, surmises that Mr. Brinkman the younger is nothing more than a front for another owner that she can’t find in the fine print of the property ownership papers. So, watch it, Jack. It could be anyone.”

“Is that all?” Collins asked, shaking his head at Everett.

“There is one more little thing. Pete Golding analyzed the material sent from the Beatles and has come up with an approximate age for the lunar site and the remains found inside Shackleton.”

“We’re listening,” Jack prompted.

“Right around seven hundred million years old,” Niles finally said. “Give or take a month.”

“A month, huh? Well, I can see you’re beginning to develop that sense of humor, Mr. Director. We’ll call when we have something.”

“Okay, Jack. I’m meeting with the president and he tells me I’m going to be incommunicado for the next eight hours, so I guess something’s pretty important. Anyway, good luck.”

*   *   *

As Jack, Mendenhall, Everett, and Ryan waited for the only rental car available at the Mariscal Sucre International Airport, Quito’s brand-new facility, they realized from the taxis and beat-up bus service that the airport had yet to see an influx of high-traffic rental car companies and high-end service industries. The services were somewhat lacking as the four men waited at the curb for their rental to be delivered. Ryan had gone to the only open rental counter inside the terminal and found sparkling new counters and floors, but only one company, Quito Express, was open for business. When Ryan returned he was unusually quiet as he waited beside Will Mendenhall.

“That was pretty quick,” Will stated, peeling his Hawaiian-style print shirt from the small of his back. The heat wave that had struck the foot of the Andes had surprised them when they exited the executive jet.

“Uh, yeah,” Ryan answered and then handed Will a brochure from Quito Express Car Rentals. The large picture on the front showed a shiny new Lexus SUV. The flyer folded out into three large panels of makes and models. “The choice was pretty simple.” Ryan moved his feet uneasily as he looked at the colonel and captain out of the corner of his eye. They stood with their sunglasses on, stoically waiting for any sort of punch line Ryan might add to his statement. They didn’t have to wait long.

Mendenhall was the only one to jump when a large bang sounded in the underground roadway that fronted the large and shining terminal. The backfire was soon followed by the squeal of an alternator belt as their rental pulled to the curb. Jack turned and looked at Ryan, who stood and stared straight ahead.

“I see your taste in cars is right in line with your taste in women, Mr. Ryan.”

Everett just stood and looked from the 1986 Yugo to the brochure Will was comparing to the actual rental. The car was white and looked as if a giant tiger had raked large, sharp claws across its side and hood. The rental manager hopped out. With a gold tooth showing, he smiled and handed Jack the keys. Collins looked at the set of keys and saw the remote door lock. Out of curiosity he pushed a button on the key fob. Mendenhall jumped again as the horn blared and the emergency lights started blinking. Jack pushed it again and the horn stopped, the lights went dead, and they all heard the audible click as the doors locked. Jack lowered his head and handed the keys to Ryan.

“Hey, guys, this was the only thing they had,” Ryan said, objecting to the looks he was getting from everyone as Mendenhall pushed the color brochure into his chest.

“Come on, Ryan,” Everett said, opening the car door and holding the front seat forward for Jack. “Maybe we can find a used llama dealer on the way.”

Ryan looked at Mendenhall, who was just shaking his head.

“Next time, you get the car.”

*   *   *

An hour later, with Ryan driving and fighting the maladjusted wheel alignment along with the burning clutch, they reached the foot of the Andes. The paved roads that Ecuador boasted of in their vacation travel guide, which Will was trying to read in the passenger front seat, failed to mention that the roads had been repaved sometime in the early sixties, right around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. They hadn’t seen repair since.

“Turn right on the next road you see, Lieutenant,” Everett said, as he held the Global Positioning monitor. “Then another quick right and stop. That will put us at a safe distance from the first guard shack and place us behind the main road where the roving security patrols travel. We should be able to get a good bird’s-eye view from there.”

Ryan fought the steering as they approached the dirt road on the right side of the paved highway. With brakes squealing and the alternator belt in danger of piercing their eardrums, the Yugo made the turn.

“Jack, why don’t we have a geologist with us? I mean even if we came across this mineral, we wouldn’t know it from a granite countertop.”

“I asked Niles if we could have one of Sarah’s people, but he said they had all been assigned other duties.”

Ryan made the other quick right ordered by Everett and for the first time they saw the high cyclone fence surrounding the excavation site. Ryan slammed on the brakes and then shut down the engine as fast as he could before the alternator belt told everyone from there to South Miami they were in the neighborhood. Ryan opened the car’s door accompanied by loud cracks and squeaks and then stepped out to allow the colonel to squeeze out of the backseat. As Jack stretched his taxed legs, he saw the barbed wire that topped the high fence. Then he saw something coursing through the steel chain link.

“For a patch of dirt, someone sure doesn’t want visitors, do they?” Mendenhall said. He removed his dark glasses and looked at the wire that led to conductors, then to the power pole nearby. He read the warning signs posted every forty feet along the electrified fence.

“Serious enough that someone’s going to run up one hell of an electric bill,” Ryan said, as he read the sign out loud. “Fifty thousand volts worth of persuasion.”

Jack watched the interior of the old excavation and saw that the ground was bare. It was flat and with not one single bush, flower, or weed. He turned and reached into the car. He brought out a pair of binoculars and sighted the glasses on the silverish-looking Quonset huts that lined the sides of the fence. Then he turned and scanned two of the posted guards in their towers. They were carrying something else the satellite pictures hadn’t shown them—AK-47 assault rifles.

“Jack, I’m not getting the best feeling here,” Everett said, reaching behind him and making sure the nine-millimeter he carried in the waistband of his jeans was still in place.

“Definitely overkill for a large sandbox,” Jack said as he watched two more guards exit the largest of the six Quonset huts. “I figure they have the facilities for over a hundred men. Complete with a self-contained mess hall, and God knows what else. Will, get the parabolic mike out and let’s see if we can eavesdrop on one of these good ol’ boys and see what nationality they are, because they sure as hell aren’t Ecuadorian.” Jack handed the glasses over to Everett.

As Carl zoomed in on the first set of guards he saw that one had blond hair and the other red. He turned the glass 100 degrees to the right and saw a second set of security men as they waved at the first and then said something he couldn’t hear.

Mendenhall placed a set of headphones on his ears and pointed a short, very slim black microphone down into the compound. He adjusted the sensitivity when the words the guards were saying almost shattered his hearing. He then turned the set to external application and the words came out clear so the others could hear.

As they listened, they heard the first set discussing the horrid lunch they had just finished and that the second set of guards had that to look forward to.

“American,” Jack said. “At least the one on the left, maybe from Georgia, I’m not sure.”

“Yeah,” said Everett, as he eyed the guards. “The blond-haired gentleman may be from the south too—south Berlin. What we have here, Colonel, is a multinational security concern, heavily armed and looking like they mean business. There is no way we get in there.” Everett turned on Jack with a smile. “Unless you’re feeling brazen today.”

Jack took the glasses and scanned the interior again. “I am indeed feeling brazen, Mr. Everett,” he said, and turned the glasses on the large main gate and the guard shack beside it. “Shall we pay them a visit?” He reached into the back of his shirt and pulled out his own nine-millimeter. He handed it to Ryan as he continued to look at the gate. Everett followed suit with his own weapon and Mendenhall accepted it, shaking his head.

“Why don’t we give you a lift in something more comfortable than your rental car?”

Jack and Everett turned at the sound of the voice. A small man in tan work clothes and five others in immaculately pressed gray uniforms stood just on the other side of their Yugo. They had very lethal-looking AK-47s leveled at the four of them.

“Hi,” Jack said.

“Hello,” the small man said in German-accented English. “I predict you are going to tell me that you are four American tourists lost in the foothills of the Andes?” The small man gestured about the wilderness area and then came forward, as did his men.

“Boy, this guy’s good,” Everett said. “You get lost tourists all the time out here, then?”

The small man removed the set of headphones and parabolic microphone from Will’s grip.

“Ah, but none so well equipped as you. Listening to the local wildlife as you try to find out where you made your wrong turn?”

“Silly hobby, I know,” Jack said. “If you can just show us on our rent-a-car map here where we went wrong, we’ll get out of your hair.”

The man nodded at two of the guards and they stepped around the Yugo, deftly removing the four weapons that were being held by Ryan and Mendenhall.

“You know it is illegal in Ecuador to carry concealed weapons?”

“But they weren’t concealed,” Everett said. “Our two friends had them right out in the open.” Everett’s eyes moved from guard to guard. They didn’t have much chance of escaping without being cut to pieces.

“You know, half of my men here at the Müeller and Santiago Mining Concern are American, but after all of the years I’ve spent with them, I have yet to understand American bravado when you’re caught doing something you’re not supposed to be doing. Is it to cover your fear or are you just that stupid in not knowing when you have been caught.” The man shook his head. “I suppose it would be too much to ask if you have passports on your persons.”

“Damn, I told you we forgot something,” Everett said, looking at Jack.

The small man smiled and stepped as close to Everett and Collins as he could get. “To save us all a bit of time here, gentlemen, I will inform you that all private aircraft coming into Quito are thoroughly researched and checked out. It has been that way for over sixty-five years. You see, we like to know who’s visiting our friends the Ecuadorians, and when an aircraft with registry numbers identifying it as part of the United States Air Force inventory lands in this country, we become concerned not only for our friends but for ourselves as well. Imagine our surprise when the occupants of that aircraft just happen to be found on our security cameras zigzagging their way onto our property.”

“Well, we can always zigzag our asses right back out of here,” Collins said smiling.

“That you can, but I think we should escort you to our facilities and have a small chat. That is, if you don’t mind.”

“Well, if it’s all the same to you—” Jack started to say.

“Oh, but I insist. There’s lunch in it for you. Today is Salisbury steak day.”

“Then how can we say no?” Collins smiled at his three companions, then gestured toward the small man. “After you, Herr…?”