Suddenly, six more red-haired women, dressed just like Grace, appeared out of the crowd, converged on her, and then split up, all going different directions. The men stopped in their tracks, unsure of whom to follow.
“Stop her!” bellowed Alexandrakis.
Mitchell just sat back smiling. He had been hired to rescue the boy, not to chase after the flash drive, which was useless without the passcodes needed to open it. It was a failsafe procedure that had been established just in case the deal went south and the kidnappers refused to hand over the boy.
“I can still see Maxwell,” said Jackson in Mitchell’s earpiece. “What do you want me to do?”
“Follow her out and keep an eye on her. Until we have the boy, I’m not going to trust anyone.”
“Will do,” replied Jackson.
With a look of betrayal in his eyes, Alexandrakis stared at Mitchell. “Aren’t you going to do anything to stop her?”
“Not my problem. You lay down with dogs, you should expect to get fleas.” Mitchell stood up, walked away from the table, and made his way across the casino floor towards the hotel’s front doors. A few seconds later, Sam reported that they had the boy. He was safe and sound.
Mitchell walked out into the warm night air and spotted Jackson standing near the replica Arc de Triomphe built in front of the hotel. He casually walked over beside his friend. “Did you see where Grace went?”
“Yeah, there was a white Austin Martin Vantage driven by a smoking-hot blonde waiting for her. Trust me, Ryan, she’s long gone by now.”
“Too bad; I really wanted to talk to her.”
“After seeing the car and who was driving it, I’m seriously thinking of switching sides,” joked Jackson.
“I doubt your wife would approve. Come on; let’s join Sam and Gordon over at the Bellagio. We can call Saad’s father from there.”
With a nod, Jackson joined Mitchell as they made their way through the crowds towards Las Vegas Boulevard.
Across the street, Grace lowered her camera and checked that she had a good photo of Ryan Mitchell. With a slight grin on her face, she vowed to learn everything there was about the man she kept running into.
7
Hamilton Heights
New York City
Ryan Mitchell switched off the shower, grabbed a nearby towel and started to dry himself off. He wrapped his towel around his stomach and wiped the steam-covered mirror with his hand until he could see his face. Mitchell shaved and headed out to get dressed. He threw on a pair of comfortable jeans, followed by an old gray T-shirt and his favorite blue fleece top.
He was ready.
As he walked out into the living space of their modest apartment, Mitchell saw his girlfriend, Jennifer March, sitting at the dining table still dressed in her red silk robe. She was drying her hair and didn’t hear Mitchel as he crept up on her from behind. Like a bear, he wrapped his arms around her, leaned forward and gave her a quick kiss on the neck.
“There’s no time for that, mister,” said Jen. “March yourself into the kitchen, throw on a pot of coffee and make me some toast. I’m famished.”
“Yes ma’am,” replied Mitchell, with a mock salute to the woman he loved. They had met just over a year ago in the Philippines when Mitchell and his team had rescued her from some mercenaries who had taken her hostage at an archaeological dig site. Born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, Jen was a history professor who had recently taken a job working for Mitchell’s boss, General Jack O’Reilly.
Mitchell made a pot of fresh coffee and then went to prepare Jen’s usual breakfast of two slices of whole-wheat bread, lightly toasted, with raspberry jam. He looked over at her and smiled. He figured he’d hit the jackpot when she agreed to move in with him. Her lithe physique had become even firmer when she had taken up the cross-fit craze with some of her friends. Her face was well proportioned. She had deep-mahogany-colored eyes that seemed to glow in the light of their apartment. The only jewelry Jen ever wore to work was a pair of lustrous pearl earrings given to her by her mother that accented her warm brown skin. Her hair was a radiant caramel color that she liked to keep cut short around her ears.
Thirty minutes later, they were on their way. They drove north along the busy I-87. The two-and-a-half-hour commute was something they both hated doing. Although they only did it twice a week, Jen was already looking for a new place closer to work for them to live.
About thirty kilometers south of Albany, New York, Mitchell turned off the highway and then took a dirt road full of potholes that got worse by the season. They soon made their way into thick, pine-filled woods that surrounded the three hundred acres that all formed part of the Polaris Complex, a growing enterprise with its administrative buildings and extensive training grounds.
The creation of Major-General Jack O’Reilly, U.S. Army (retired), Polaris Operations (Global) was a security agency that specialized in unique problem solving. They specialized in training military, police, and civilian organizations that needed help in learning new skills to survive in an increasingly hostile world. Along with consulting services that would go anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice, it was an organization that truly worked twenty-four-seven. General O’Reilly was very clear in his organization’s focus: he and his people only ever dealt with legitimately elected governments and internationally recognized organizations. To keep out the glory seekers, like failed police and former military personnel that flocked to business such as Polaris, it was a strict rule that no one could apply for a job there. All the people working there were handpicked and had extensive background checks done on them well before they were offered a position in the organization. Many of the people were enticed to come and work for General O’Reilly for considerably more money and benefits than they had been making in their previous jobs. He had four field teams that worked anywhere in the world. However, only Mitchell’s worked on the riskier missions selected and approved exclusively by the general himself.
A short while later, Mitchell pulled into his parking spot, switched off his Jeep’s engine and jumped out. He opened the door for Jen and looked over at the snow-covered grounds surrounding the headquarters building. Mitchell grinned when he saw a family of deer saunter their way across the open ground as if they owned the place. For all the kilometers of fencing and high-tech surveillance gear, the same family of deer somehow managed to make their way onto the complex whenever the mood struck them.
Mitchell took Jen by the arm and escorted her inside. After passing through the usual airport-style security screening, Jen gave Mitchell a quick kiss on the cheek and headed down into the basement of the building where the intelligence section kept its office.
With an hour before he had to meet with General O’Reilly, Mitchell decided to track down Jackson and see if he wanted a coffee. He found him in the weapons vault, busily cleaning his M4 carbine.
The coffee could wait.
Mitchell asked Gary Wallace, the man in charge of overseeing the storage of all the complex’s weapons and ammunition, for his rifle. He took a seat at a nearby table, disassembled his weapon, and began to give it a quick cleaning.
“Any word on who the mystery guest is?” asked Jackson as he reassembled his weapon.
“Apart from the fact that he’s flying up here from Texas, I know nothing about the man,” replied Mitchell, wiping down the trigger mechanism of his weapon.
Jackson grinned. “I figured since you’re sleeping with someone from the intelligence section that you might have some insight.”
“Not a word, she’s just as in the dark as we are.”
“Don’t you find it odd that we know nothing about this potential client? I mean, unless it’s a short-notice mission, like our trip to Liberia, we usually get a heads-up on what we’re getting into before we take on a new assignment.”
Mitchell shrugged his shoulders. “He must be one of those eccentric Howard Hughes-types that likes to keep to himself and shuns the spotlight.”
; Thirty minutes later, with their weapons stored away, Mitchell and Jackson swung by the cafeteria, grabbed a couple of coffees, and made their way upstairs to the main briefing room.
Already seated in the room was Mike Donaldson. A tall Texan with a full head of white hair, Donaldson had been a lieutenant colonel, intelligence officer, with the U.S. Air Force before coming over to Polaris as the head of the intelligence section. He was wearing a beige turtleneck sweater and gray slacks that made him look like a university professor from the 1970s.
“I was wondering when you two might show,” said Donaldson.
Mitchell glanced over at the clock on the wall. “Hey, let’s have none of that today. We’re five minutes early.”
“For once,” replied Donaldson with a smile.
“I guess he knows us all too well,” remarked Jackson as he sat down in a high-backed, dark-blue, leather chair.
Mitchell said, “So Mike, what can you tell us about our mystery guest?”
“All I know is his name.”
“Which is?” asked Jackson.
“David Houston.”
“Well, they don’t get more Texan than Houston,” observed Mitchell.
A minute later, the door to the briefing room opened and in walked General O’Reilly.
As one, Mitchell, Jackson, and Donaldson respectfully rose to their feet.
O’Reilly was dressed in a snug, dark-gray suit for the meeting. For a man in his late fifties, O’Reilly kept himself in superb shape and still looked as if he could throw on his West Point uniform and play football with the current team. His head was smooth-shaven. His dark-brown eyes shone with a keen intellect. The only concession to growing older he allowed himself were the silver-rimmed reading glasses that he wore suspended around his neck.
A moment later, a man wearing a cream-colored cowboy hat on his head sauntered into the room. He wore blue jeans and an open-necked white shirt with an undone charcoal-colored jacket.
“Gents, may I present Mister David Houston,” announced O’Reilly.
“Sir,” replied all three men in unison.
“Please, call me Dave,” said Houston, sticking out his hand in greeting to Mitchell, his Texas accent coming on strong.
“Ryan Mitchell,” said Mitchell as he shook the man’s hand. It was the firm handshake of someone who worked hard for a living, not that of someone who sat behind a desk. Mitchell saw that Houston looked to be in his early sixties, fit, with dark-blue eyes, and had a wide rakish smile on his tanned face.
“Nate Jackson.” He shook Houston’s hand; like Mitchell, Jackson was surprised by the man’s strength.
“My God, you’re a big fellow,” exclaimed Houston. “You must have played football in college.”
“No, sir, I never went to college. I enlisted in the army the day I turned eighteen.”
“Well, that was Uncle Sam’s gain and some college’s loss,” replied Houston with a wink.
Mitchell grinned to himself. The man surely knew how to work a room.
“Mike Donaldson, at your service,” said Donaldson. Unready for Houston’s vise-like handshake, he grimaced in pain.
“Sorry about that, Mike,” Houston apologized as he let go of Donaldson’s hand. “Don’t know my own strength some days.”
“Sir, would you happen to be David Houston, owner of Olympus Space Technologies?” asked Donaldson.
“That I am,” he replied proudly.
“It’s quite an honor to meet you. Yours was the second civilian company to resupply the International Space Station.”
“We would have been first if the bureaucrats at NASA could have agreed on a launch date,” replied Houston, sourly.
O’Reilly offered Houston a seat at the table.
Houston sat down, removed his hat, and ran a hand through his thinning blond hair.
Tammy Spencer, O’Reilly’s personal assistant, opened the door and walked in carrying a silver serving tray. On it were five cups and a carafe of fresh coffee. Tammy wore a blue dress with a strand of pearls around her delicate neck. She was a beautiful African-American woman in her early thirties, who had lost a leg below the knee to a roadside explosive device in Iraq. Under her dress, she wore a state of the art prosthetic. Unless you knew of her injury, you would never have been able to tell that she had an artificial leg.
“Morning, Tammy,” said Mitchell with a smile.
Tammy shot him a not now look. They had played this harmless game ever since they had first met. Their friendship, however, was one of deep respect for each other. She set the tray down and went back to her desk.
O’Reilly poured his and Houston’s coffees; everyone else was on their own. As soon as everyone had a coffee, O’Reilly asked their guest how the flight from Dallas was.
Houston smiled. “When one has a fleet of private jets on standby, no flight is really ever that bad.”
His comment elicited a chuckle from the other men in the room.
“Mind if I borrow one for the weekend to fly my wife and me to Florida?” joked Jackson.
“If y’all can find what I’m looking for, I don’t see why not,” replied Houston seriously.
“I don’t know where this is going, but I’m in,” said Jackson.
“Why don’t we let Mister Houston tell us why he would like to hire our services first,” admonished O’Reilly. Sometimes he wondered if Mitchell and Jackson could do anything without the need to kid around.
Jackson sat back in his chair, grinning like a teenager.
“General, like I said, please call me Dave,” said Houston as he turned in his seat and fixed his deep-blue eyes on the three men sitting across the table from him.
“Gents, how much do you know about mining in outer space?” asked Houston.
“Practically nothing,” said Mitchell, answering for everyone.
“Well, it’s the next big thing, and you can tell yer kids that you heard it from me. I’m not talking about flying to Mars or other such nonsense, but actually mining minerals and bringing them back to the Earth from the Moon or perhaps from near-earth asteroids.”
“Not meaning to sound disrespectful, but that sounds a bit far-fetched,” said Mitchell.
“And expensive,” added Donaldson.
“Hear me out, fellas,” said Houston as he leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. “I’m not saying it’s going to be easy or even cheap, but trust me, it is going to happen. Private companies like mine will dig for precious minerals in outer space in the next decade or so.”
Houston paused to take a sip of coffee. “It may not be profitable in the near term. However, in the long run, once we have established the viability of mining in outer space, the profit margin will quickly and irrevocably swing into the black, and stay there forever.”
“Surely the government is planning to do the same thing,” said O’Reilly.
“General, as an American, I hate to say it, but NASA is nothing but a mere shell of its former self,” said Houston. “We don’t even have the capability to put a man in space anymore. For the foreseeable future, we’ll have to rely on the damned Russkies to get our people to and from the International Space Station. Can you believe it? The damned Russkies!”
Mitchell could tell that Houston was becoming quite perturbed.
Houston stood, jammed his thumbs into his brown leather belt, and began to pace the room. “Heck, even the Chinese are capable of launching their own astronauts into space. Where are we these days? Nowhere, I tell you. If it weren’t for private companies like mine, there would be nothing flying up to the space station from the United States.”
“Sir, with its limited budget, these days NASA is primarily focused on the launching of robotic probes to Mars and further out in the solar system,” explained Donaldson.
“That’s fine, but it doesn’t put food on the dinner table, now does it?”
“Sir—sorry, I mean Dave,” said Mitchell, feeling awkward about using Houston’s first name. “This is all very interesting
, but unless someone has been keeping a really big secret from me, Polaris doesn’t have any astronauts capable of flying to the Moon to dig for gold.”
Houston laughed aloud and then took his seat. “Sorry boys, I was preaching a bit there. I do that from time to time. It’s just that I get so passionate about the fact that the rest of the world is passing us by in outer space, and our government is letting them. Iran, India, Japan, the Europeans, and even Israel, they’re all capable of launching their own satellites. It won’t be long before they start to put men in orbit too.”
“Sir, what exactly would you like us to do for you?” asked O’Reilly.
“Have any of you gents read anything about the Soviet Luna Program?” queried Houston.
Donaldson said, “If I remember correctly, the Soviets sent a series of robotic probes to the Moon to gather information. It was a program that ran from the 1960s all the way up to the mid-seventies.”
“Correct. However, do you know the history of Luna 15?”
“Not in any great detail,” replied Donaldson.
“Mike, it was a probe that was sent to the Moon the exact same time as our boys on Apollo 11,” explained Houston, looking straight into the eyes of the men sitting across from him.
“What’s so special about Luna 15?” asked Mitchell.
Houston’s eyes began to blaze; his voice grew excited as he spoke. “That particular probe was sent to gather samples of rock and dirt and then return them to the Earth. It would have allowed the Soviets to claim that they were the first nation to go to the Moon and return with a sample of rock.”
“What happened to it?” asked Donaldson. “As I recall we beat them to and from the Moon, and our astronauts returned with quite a few kilograms of rock from the surface. I don’t ever remember reading anything about a Soviet probe returning with a sample from the Moon before Apollo 11 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.”
“Apart from a few lines in the morning papers announcing that the Luna 15 probe had been deliberately crashed into the Moon, there was nothing further written or said about that particular attempt by the Soviets to land a probe on the Moon,” explained Houston.
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