Overlord (9 page)

“Okay, you have me more than curious. What was that about?”

The president shook his head and turned away, then stood and momentarily squeezed Niles’s shoulder. “That was me being a prick, my old friend.”

“We’ve always known that, but why admit to it now?” Compton quipped nervously as his eyes went to the torn-up envelope and whatever secret it held.

“When an officer in the United States military resigns, he resigns, no one says anything, it’s deemed personal, and is left alone.” The president walked toward his desk and then turned and faced Niles. “That was the resignation letter signed by Captain Everett—not accepted.”

Niles started to protest but his old friend held up a warning hand.

“No discussion on this matter will be tolerated or appreciated. It was hard enough interfering with a military man’s life, but in this case it had to be done.” The president paced toward a silent Compton. “You and General Lee once told me that hard choices were going to have to be made that would send thousands, maybe even millions of boys off to die, and no matter what happens the Overlord plan would have to be adhered to or we would lose to the Grays in no uncertain terms. The debriefing of Matchstick has explained in detail that this planet does not stand a chance of defending itself against an advanced race without Overlord. Lee said it, Matchstick has also said it, and you, my friend, concurred. Nothing interferes with the Overlord plans, especially the second section of that plan. Remember the report you turned in?”

Niles just nodded his head as he slowly opened the folder and saw the thin sheets of military flimsy. The orders were for Captain Carl Everett. He closed his eyes, then the offending file folder.

“Captain Everett has been reassigned to Overlord,” the president said. “I need him there and so do you. He’s worked closely with several of the engineers and one those engineers in particular. The captain was a part of your original plan four years ago, assigned to the same area of Overlord as this, the Antarctica discovery of his watch and the blood of he and Colonel Collins notwithstanding.”

“So no matter what it is we find that explains how Captain Everett’s wristwatch was discovered buried in two-hundred-thousand-year-old ice, we still send him out there knowing it could be his part in Overlord that gets him and Jack Collins killed?”

“That’s about the gist of it. We cannot alter the Overlord scenario by not having key people where they are supposed to be.”

“In other words, the captain is expendable?”

“Very much so—as expendable as the young boys I’m going to ask to trade their lives for fighting this war. Yes, Niles, we are all expendable.”

Niles placed the orders for Everett inside his briefcase. He wanted nothing more than for this meeting to come to a close so he could get outside and breathe where decisions that got people killed were nonexistent.

Before Niles stood the president surprised him and tossed another folder on the coffee table. This one was far thicker than the first. Niles took a deep breath and then looked over at a dejected president.

“Those are orders for Colonel Collins. They are a little more confidential. He is being transferred to Hawaii immediately, along with your young Lieutenant Mendenhall. That smart-ass Lieutenant Ryan will be going with Captain Everett to Houston.” The president took a breath and then slowly walked to the couch and sat next to his friend of thirty years. “Jack is now a part of USPACOM.”

“The United States Pacific Command—why there? His outline for Overlord never called for that.”

“I know, he was to stay with the scientific aspect of Overlord, but things have changed. I want Collins and Everett separated from each other as far apart as possible, and this, old friend, is the only thing I can think of to protect them.”

USPACOM was the largest military presence in the world and Niles knew the command would more than likely be at the forefront of any defense the world could establish against the Grays. The Pacific command encompasses about half the earth’s surface, stretching from the waters off the west coast of the U.S. to the border of India, and from Antarctica to the North Pole. There are few regions as culturally, socially, economically, and geopolitically diverse as the Pacific. The thirty-six nations that comprise the Asia-Pacific region are home to more than 50 percent of the world’s population, three thousand vastly differing languages, several of the world’s largest militaries, and five nations allied with the U.S. through mutual defense treaties. Two of the three largest economies are located in the Asia-Pacific along with ten of the fourteen smallest. This area of responsibility includes the most populous nation in the world, the largest democracy, and the largest Muslim-majority nation—India. That was followed quickly by the nation with a military the U.S. intelligence services had shockingly little information on—China.

“Niles, I’m afraid that isn’t all.” The president pulled a small sheet of paper from his breast pocket and handed it to Compton. “Take this memo back with you and post it for all of my military personnel to read. I will be taking and accepting all military transfer requests to either support roles or any combat command of their choosing. I am reassigning Treasury to assist in securing the Event facility. That and personnel too old for support or combat should be sufficient.”

“Why all of a sudden? What aren’t you telling me?”

“I’m surprised you don’t know already with that criminally controlled computer of yours, but I imagine Pete Golding and his accomplice in crime, Europa, have been busy looking for downed saucers.”

Niles was silent, not really wanting to joke about Pete Golding and Europa’s diligence at breaking into other computer systems the world over.

The president reached beside him and took yet another folder from the coffee table. It was large and when he pulled the contents free Niles could see it was an image from space. His heart froze momentarily.

“The Hubble?” Niles asked as he took the offered photo.

The president stood and paced away with his hands inside of his pockets. “No, that’s a KH-16 satellite image—CIA, actually. That is a shot of the Algerian desert. You notice anything?”

“Yes, it looks like about three miles of earth has been taken out like a plug.” Niles examined the picture more closely. He saw roads leading in and then out of the void, but inside there was nothing but subterranean geological formations and dirt. The roads led to nowhere other than the giant hole in the ground.

“That is what’s left of a large oasis that has stood for close to ten thousand years in the Hoggar Mountains of the central Sahara Desert—specifically, Algeria, in the Tropic of Cancer.”

“And you suspect the Grays?” Niles asked as he continued to examine the CIA spy satellite image.

“That is the consensus of NASA. There is nothing in the world capable of doing that—to reach down from the sky and snatch a billion tons of earth and rock and make it vanish like a shovelful of dirt tossed over someone’s shoulder.”

“When did this event happen?” Compton asked, angry that he hadn’t been told sooner.

“Six days ago.”

Now the president’s behavior became crystal clear to Niles Compton.

“Thus the push to build up the military is now escalated to priority one.”

“Yes, the Joint Chiefs believe we have already been hit by the Grays, but we have no evidence other than a destroyed watering hole in the middle of the desert. Hardly enough of an incentive to start the largest military buildup in world history, would you agree?”

As Niles examined the space-based image he wasn’t sure what it was he was looking at. Something wasn’t sitting right with the image. One thing he did know for sure, he was losing two top people and his world of science and fact was slowly starting to go up in flames—just as he knew the entire world soon be burning with that same fire.

The president nodded with satisfaction when he saw Niles hurriedly gathering his case and the orders for Jack and Carl.

The fire had been lit underneath the man that the president of the United States considered to be the smartest man in the world—Dr. Niles Compton.

2

PATINAS PASS

DACIAN HOT SPRINGS

ROMANIA

The raven-haired woman stood silently just inside the doorway, leaning against the frame of the dilapidated house with the thatched roof. Her stance was relaxed and motionless with her arms crossed over her chest. She watched the large man in the distance as he sat at the base of the pass, staring out into the valley far below. The summer air had turned warm and the flowers inside the pass brought on a multitude of colors that usually brightened her mood—with the exception of the past week, when the flowers’ bright cheerfulness became lost amid an ever-increasing storm front she felt was sliding her way.

Captain Carl Everett seemed content, with the exception of his feelings when night started to descend upon the Patinas Pass. It was at those moments when his past life intruded upon the gentle and loving life he had chosen these past three months. The woman loved Carl and she knew her feelings were returned. But she also knew that very same love would eventually take the life right from the man she fell for. He was not a herder of sheep and he wasn’t a farmer and she would be a fool of the highest order to believe he would be content at that over the life he had led just a few months before. His spirit was drowning here in Romania and she knew it.

Anya Korvesky was alone in what was once a bustling village but was now empty, with the exception of a young couple who thought they could leave their pasts behind them and move on into a future that didn’t include killing and subterfuge. Anya didn’t miss her former life in the Mossad, but she knew Carl was slowly starting to break into pieces. He felt he’d left all of his responsibilities behind; it was eroding what happiness the two of them had found together. She knew the captain loved her dearly, but felt him slipping away in small increments.

“It used to be I could never have crept up behind you without you blowing my head off with a hidden gun.”

Anya slowly lost the smile as she heard the voice behind her. As she turned to face the man she cocked back the hammer on a nine-millimeter handgun and patted it on her bare leg. Her smile returned.

“I see you haven’t lost your trusting nature or your ability to smell a rat.”

The man was dressed in tan clothes and work boots. His bush hat looked ridiculously out of place, as did the large briefcase he carried in his right hand. The men he came with were spread out behind him and were watching the empty village with concern.

“I wouldn’t call you a rat necessarily, General, more like an unwanted pest.”

“Touché, Major, touché.”

Anya closed her eyes at the mention of her Mossad rank.

“As you well know, General Shamni, that is no longer my military rank. My name is now Korvesky, the same as yours.” She sniffed as if a bad odor had entered her nostrils. “Or so it used to be.”

General Avis Shamni—with his ridiculous safari clothes covering his large and rotund body—stood smiling at the brightest Mossad agent he had ever produced. He held out his hand while his eyes looked at the pistol in her hand. She lowered it and then refused the handshake.

“What do you want, Uncle?” She stepped to the old table that used to belong to her grandmother and set the pistol down. She turned and faced her onetime commander in the Mossad, Israel’s elite intelligence service.

“Actually,” he said as he lowered his hand, “what I have come about concerns your American friend.” He stepped up to the open doorway and saw Carl Everett just below the entrance to the pass mending a small fence. He turned back to face his niece. “And thus, indirectly, you.”

“Uncle, I am not returning to the Mossad. I don’t belong anymore, my place is here.”

“Here?” Shamni glanced around the former home of his his elder sister. “My dear, this place is now a part of history. It sits above a fiasco that was once going to be the Las Vegas of Romania, but now sits wrecked, its evil seed returning to the earth.” He looked down the mountain through the open wooden shutters of the window and saw the Edge of the World Hotel and Resort Casino lying in ruins far below. Closer were the remains of the tourist attraction, Dracula’s Castle, where only its foundation remained after it was destroyed three months before.

“It’s something of a home, General. Far more than Israel is.”

“Ah, I see.” The general opened up his briefcase and pulled out a photo of a man. He held it out to Anya, who tried her best to ignore the offering. “Does this man look familiar to you?”

Anya glanced out the window and saw that Carl had started his descent of the mountain, heading her way. Anya then turned and looked at the black and white photo without reaching for it. The man in the eight-by-ten was thin and looked to have a thinning head of hair. She smirked when she noticed the man was wearing sideburns that almost went to his jaw line.

“Not in the slightest. I’ve never seen him before.”

The general brought out another. “And this gentleman?”

Anya picked up the eight-by-ten and looked it over. This man did seem familiar to her but she couldn’t place him. The bright orange jumpsuit was a major clue; the man, whoever he was, was dressed in standard prison fashion. The general could see the face that stared back at her was familiar so he decided to help out her memory.

“That man once ran the largest arms manufacturing firm in the world. His company was into everything.”

Anya tapped the photo with her index finger. “The Centauris Corporation?”

“As the Americans say, bingo! Correct, that is Charles Hendrix II, CEO and chairman. Well, he was, now he’s just federal prisoner Hendrix.” Shamni smirked with a knowing twitch of his heavy moustache. “Secreted away federal prisoner, I should say. You see, Hendrix doesn’t really exist.”

“I take it you’ll explain this before Carl returns?”

“The man was divested of all corporate holdings, his bank accounts seized and his manufacturing divisions sold off, then he was locked away without trial and hidden away at Leavenworth penitentiary by none other than the president of the United States.”