The Extinction Code (31 page)

The device was designed to detect electromagnetic radiation, a signature of modern electronics. He slowly scanned the forest ahead, ignoring the buzzing insects and the intense heat as he searched for any sign of surveillance equipment within the device’s range.

‘It’s clear,’ he whispered as he slipped the device back into his satchel and they moved forward together onto the trail.

The island was host to many species, but none of them were much larger than a dog. The trail was faint but discernible beneath the dense foliage, and it carved an unerring path to the east through the ancient jungle.

‘Why is it that you think a trail like this will lead us directly to the facility?’ Lopez asked as they walked slowly along the trail, relieved to be free of the denser jungle surrounding them.

Ethan replied quietly, his voice a whisper as they moved.

‘Trash. Wherever you find people you’ll find their rubbish, and scavenging animals will always make a beeline for what we leave behind. Garrett’s facility is legal and doesn’t need to be concealed, so he won’t have to worry about burning waste here. My guess is that it’s compacted and shipped out on a regular basis. Follow a game trail headed east, and we should end up finding the facility.’

‘And all the other trash,’ Lopez replied. ‘Not bad, for an old timer.’

‘Cut it out, I still give you a run for your money on a daily basis.’

‘More of a jog, really.’

‘There’s something up ahead.’

Ethan crouched down in the jungle and noted from hanging leaves that they were downwind of the facility, which could by now only be a few hundred yards away at the most. Something had moved against the deep greenery of the forest, something that to his eye didn’t quite belong there.

Lopez moved alongside him, instinctively detecting his own caution as they crouched together and waited in silence. Ethan had done this many times before during his training with the Marines, waiting out for another person, perhaps a potential target, to get bored first and move, thus exposing their position. Given enough time, any human being would throw caution to the wind unless specifically trained to do otherwise, even if their lives depended upon it. Ethan had shot and killed at least three Taliban insurgents during his time with the Marine Corps as a result of their lack of patience and training to…

Something moved ever so slightly ahead of them in the jungle. Ethan squinted, unable to pick out its lines against the backdrop of the jungle. It was well camouflaged, perfectly almost, the dappled light reaching the jungle floor merging with black and gold fur, and suddenly Ethan’s brain resolved the scene before him and he gasped softly.

The leopard paced silently away from them through the jungle, the fortuitous direction of the wind preventing the predator from detecting their scent and the easier passage on the game trail having silenced their approach.

‘Did I just see that?’ Lopez whispered.

Ethan nodded slowly. ‘What’s Garrett doing out here on this island?’

‘More to the point,’ Lopez replied as she looked over her shoulder into the jungle behind them, ‘what the hell else does he have wandering around out here?’

Ethan moved cautiously forward as he replied.

‘It’s no wonder people won’t come to the island. Anybody who did might not have made it back. Whatever he’s hiding out here, it’s not good.’

Ethan slowed as he saw more objects before him in the jungle, and this time he caught a glimpse of what could have been geometric stone, stark in contrast to the elegant sculpturing of nature’s freehand. He slowed again, crouched down as Lopez joined him and they finally got their first look at Garrett’s facility.

The entrance had the appearance of a bunker not dissimilar to the one they had visited in Norway, a large angular concrete entrance protected by large blast doors and a couple of smaller access doors to either side. Surrounding the entire entrance were ranks of razor wire fence, and Ethan could see cameras mounted on posts inside the fences, too far away to be tampered with, as well as ranks of powerful lights that he presumed would illuminate anything detected moving close to the entrance.

A single dirt road led to the security fences, where the double rows were fitted with sliding sections to allow vehicles in and out.

‘No easy way in or out of there,’ Lopez observed. ‘My guess is that’s the only door. Odd that there are no guards, though.’

‘There won’t be a rear section,’ Ethan agreed as he looked at the structure of the entrance building. ‘It looks like it descends downward, so most of what he’s got in there is probably underground.’

‘So, how do we do it?’

Ethan smiled at her casual assumption that, one way or another, they’d find a way in. However he did not have the slightest idea how they could possibly sneak past the cameras, fences, light sensors and whatever else Garrett might have set up to deter intruders. He was only certain of one thing.

‘If those creatures that were seen in Varginha were something to do with this facility then they must have escaped somehow. If they were able to get out…’

‘Then we can get in,’ Lopez nodded slowly. ‘If it’s an underground facility it must have ventilation, and I don’t see any vents on that entrance.’

Ethan scanned the surrounding forest thoughtfully. ‘Maybe they built the vents somewhere out in the forest away from the main entrance. Metal grills would stop animals getting inside, but they wouldn’t necessarily stop some kind of intelligent humanoid from getting out.’

Lopez led the way, pushing off into the forest, but before she took a single pace Ethan grabbed her arm.

‘Wait,’ he whispered.

A whispering sound reached their ears, and Ethan watched as from further down the dirt road he saw a flash of sunlight on metal. As they crouched, he saw three jeeps driving toward the facility, each leaving a plume of golden dust from the track behind them as they drove.

Ethan watched as the jeeps rolled by toward the facility, the fences opening automatically, and he saw immediately the men sitting in the jeeps. Most wore suits, expensive ones, and all were middle–aged or older.

‘That’s Majestic Twelve!’ Lopez gasped under her breath as she saw the passengers in the vehicles rumble past and go through the entrance gates.

Ethan had never before directly laid eyes upon the cabal that they had hunted for so long. Now, he was surprised to find himself somewhat underwhelmed. In his mind they had taken on a sort of demi–god status, untouchable men, surrounded by ranks of powerful politicians and governments, unreachable by ordinary men. Now that he saw them, he finally saw them for what they truly were: just men, and mostly old men at that. Without their protective shield of money and influence, they were as weak as Victor Wilms had been.

A final jeep entered the compound, this one filled with six security guards that Ethan took to be the personal escorts of Majestic Twelve. As the vehicles came to a halt, Ethan counted the suits and allowed himself a grim smile.

‘Only ten of them,’ he said to Lopez. ‘Mitchell’s been hard at work.’

‘Yeah,’ Lopez said, ‘and he won’t want to miss an opportunity like this. If he knows that the entire cabal is right here on this island he’ll move heaven and earth to get here and take them all down at once.’

Ethan felt himself galvanized as he nodded.

‘And we’re not going to let that happen,’ he replied. ‘I want those bastards rotting in a cell for the rest of their lives, not being switched off in the blink of an eye by a bullet to the brain. C’mon, let’s get in there and finish this.’

Lopez held his forearm to stop him.

‘General Nellis,’ she said. ‘He’ll need to know that MJ–12 is all here at once.’

‘And do what?’ Ethan asked. ‘Garrett hasn’t committed any crime because we haven’t proved his involvement in anything illegal. Nellis can’t send a team in here unless he’s got a damned good reason to infiltrate the borders of an allied nation and arrest ten of the most powerful men on earth.’

Lopez bit her lip. ‘We could call him now and then hope that we can pin something on Garrett by the time they get here.’

Ethan smiled. ‘That’s Mitchell talkin’ right there, or maybe even Jarvis. No, we can’t afford to let these men walk out of here. We get the evidence we need and then we call in the entire Air Force, Navy, Army and Marines if we have to, but we don’t do it until we’re ready.’

‘And what if they leave before we manage that?’ Lopez protested.

Now, Ethan’s smile grew wider.

‘Who said anything about letting them leave?’

***

XXXVII

The heat was unbearable.

One of the hardest things to do in extreme environments is to maintain focus when all the human mind wants to do is try to deal with the discomfort and find a way to endure it as best as possible.

Aaron Mitchell lay on his front amid a dense thicket of ferns, looking down toward the compound. The gentle rise of the slope behind Garrett’s facility provided a natural vantage point, and Mitchell had known that his only real chance of success lay in his ability to enter the facility without being seen. It also was dependent on his ability to endure the insects, snakes, mosquitoes and other horrors that inhabited this island, and survive them long enough to gain an opportunity to infiltrate the compound.

Although surrounded by razor wire, cameras and lights, Mitchell had already identified weaknesses in the compound’s defensive structure. The movement–sensitive lighting had sensors that faced only out toward the jungle. This was often done to allow defensive troops to move freely without tripping the lights, ruining their night vision and exposing their position to enemies that might lay in wait in the jungle. However, it also meant that if anybody
were
able to get inside the compound, they too could move without detection. Mitchell had been positioned in his laying–up point for almost forty eight hours, and though his muscles and weary bones ached for release from their torture he remained silent and still, poised like a coiled cobra for the perfect moment to strike. Mitchell could imagine a fairly sizeable armoury inside the facility, with plenty of ammunition should any defenders require it, although strangely he had seen no guards. He had quickly discarded any thoughts of a full–frontal attack, and instead opted for stealth and patience.

The jungle played tricks on his mind, the dense canopy above and the heat sending him back decades. Mitchell was reminded of his time in the Vietnam conflict, and during his silent vigil had often looked over his shoulder for the reassuring presence of a platoon commander who was no longer there, momentarily forgetting his place in time and space. The long hours forced the brain to make its own entertainment, shockingly vivid hallucinations drifting before Mitchell’s very eyes as he lay in silence in the jungle; his mother, washing dishes near a massive tree; his father, driving past on the dirt road to the east and waving from the window of his old Chevy. Sometimes he thought he saw Viet Cong soldiers crouching in the shadows, watching him with predator’s eyes, and once he’d seen a leopard stroll by not fifteen yards from where he lay, had even heard its growl. He was busy thinking about the animal when a flash of metal caught his eye and he looked up to see three jeeps approaching the facility.

The fences and gates opened automatically, the jeeps entered the compound, and Mitchell’s eyes widened as he watched the entire cabal of Majestic Twelve exit the jeeps. Ten men, all of them matching the faces in the image that he had carried with him for so long. Felix had been right: the meeting here was not just important, but enough so for MJ–12 to all be in the same place at once. The last time it had happened, more than six months before, the Director of the FBI had died as these men had watched and laughed, Victor Wilms among them.

Mitchell calmed himself by force of will. Now, the game was truly afoot. He knew that he could not afford to miss this opportunity, that indeed he would be willing to risk everything for one decent shot at these men with any weapon on automatic fire. His long–cherished dreams of hunting them one by one and prolonging their deaths as he had done Felix’s vanished as he saw the chance to cleanse them as one by fire.

The jeeps remained parked near the facility entrance, their roofs just visible on the far side of the facility entrance to Mitchell from where he lay. As he watched, two of the guards disappeared from view as they accompanied the cabal inside, leaving four outside to guard the jeeps.

Mitchell wasted no time.

He pulled from a Bergen lying beside him in the foliage a weapon that resembled a crossbow. Installed upon it was an arrow made of titanium with a steel core, its tip barbed, extremely strong and with enough mass to create considerable momentum. Attached to the rear of the arrow was a five hundred pound rated para–cord, the other end of which was secured to a tree limb ten yards behind Mitchell in the forest.

He raised the crossbow, took careful aim, and fired.

The titanium arrow rocketed across the open space between Mitchell’s hideaway and the rear of the facility entrance. The arrow hit the concrete surface and buried itself six inches into the wall, its barbed head lodging itself firmly. Mitchell turned around and grabbed a greased leather strap from his Bergen, looped it over the line and locked it in place. Then he stood, reached around and pulled another line that ran through a simple pulley driven deep into a tree trunk to his right.

The line stiffened as he increased the tension and then locked it in place, the leather strap now inches above his head. Mitchell slung his weapons across his shoulders, turned and grabbed the overhead line, then pulled on it as he picked up his legs and sailed down the line, his feet brushing the foliage until he swept out of the forest, the gentle incline dropping away from him.

The line was silent, the grease helping both the strap to slide and reducing both friction and noise as Mitchell glided down the line toward the roof of the entrance. The motion sensors nearby were aimed at the forest floor, not in mid–air where passing bird life would set them off too often to be of any use. He glided over the fences and hoisted his boots up to slow his approach onto the roof.