"Please step aside and let Dr. Kowalski join us, Mr. Everett, we have much to do and a very short time to do it," Asaki admonished while waiving a small pistol of his own.
Carl allowed the newly disclosed Danielle Farbeaux, or as she said, Serrate, to step up from behind him. He still wasn't sure she wasn't a part of what was happening here.
"Very good; as you can see, things are not as they seem. Your situation has turned from one of discovery to that of cooperation. Do this and I assure you no one will be harmed," Asaki said loudly enough for all in the cave to hear, his voice carrying easily in the small enclosure.
"You… are a… dishonor," said Seito in halting English.
Asaki ignored the old man and gestured for Danielle to come forward.
"Now, what sort of biological agent are we dealing with, Doctor?"
"I haven't completed my analysis yet."
"I think you are lying, but have no fear, Doctor, we have people for that; we will remove the weapon first and then—"
Andrea cut him off. "If you make one mistake, you could doom yourselves to a horrible death," she hissed as she stepped directly on the remains and tattered uniform of the World War II army colonel. Her foot had come down on the colonel's samurai sword. "Just why are you doing this?"
"The man you are so casually standing on is my grandfather. My real name is Yashita," said the man they knew as Asaki.
Carl now understood at least part of what was happening. Who would have figured?
The government man adjusted the aim of his pistol and pointed at Seito, "He was murdered by this man and the cowardly, disgraced Admiral Tarazawa because they didn't have the fortitude to save the war as my grandfather had wished to do with this gift from the gods. But today, old wounds will be healed and I will kill two birds with one single stone."
Seito, the old warhorse and feisty to the end, spat at Yashita. Sarah, seeing the rage cross Yashita's features, stepped in front of the old soldier without thinking. Then a strange calmness came over the government representative's face and he smiled as he wiped the old man's spittle from his cheek and neck.
"As I said, by the end of today my sense of justice will be satisfied."
"What will someone like you do with a biological agent? Sell it to the highest bidder?" Carl asked, his hands still up.
"Nothing so mundane, I assure you. You Americans always think it's the money. Money, money, money," he said with a snarl. "The war never ended for many of us, Mr. Everett. Like my grandfather before me, I am a patriot and still very much active in the war with your country, as are many from all over the world." He stepped forward and motioned below as ten men dressed in green chemical suits started up the scaffolding. They all carried large zippered bags. "After we have the weapon analyzed, it will be dispersed worldwide. Every element in our cause against the West will receive one canister. Who would have thought the great and mighty Kublai Khan would come to the aid of our struggle? This will be used to avenge the rape of my country and the senseless slaughter of hundreds of thousands," he said as he watched Carl take a menacing step forward.
"Please, continue to advance, Mr. Everett, and we can begin this right now if you wish," Yashita said as he aimed his gun at Sarah.
Yashita's men pushed by Carl and Danielle, knocking them together, a move that forced Carl to grab her to keep her from tumbling off the scaffold. As he righted her, he found himself standing on the old samurai sword.
Yashita shouted in Japanese and his men below herded the students to the outer cave. Then he climbed the last scaffold, placed the protective hood over his head, and easily lowered his body into the hold to see the containers for himself.
The interpreter and three of Asaki's men herded Sarah, Fallon, and the old man toward Carl and Danielle.
"You two all right?" Carl asked.
"I've never felt so damned helpless in my life," Sarah said angrily.
"This is a little different than your clean classrooms in Nevada, isn't it, Second Lieutenant McIntire?" Danielle asked.
Sarah didn't respond to Danielle's sarcasm; she instead raised her eyebrows as she looked at Carl.
"Our Dr. Kowalski, as it turns out, is Danielle Serrate, the former Mrs. Henri Farbeaux."
Sarah allowed her shock to show as she momentarily dropped her arms, eliciting a loud rebuke from their captors. She quickly raised them again. Then she laughed.
"No wonder she's such a bitch," she said, echoing Carl's earlier comment.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, the armed men allowed them to lower their arms and ordered them to sit on the creaking wooden scaffolding. Carl was careful to place his ass right over the colonel's old sword, as uncomfortable as it was.
"You work for the French Antiquities Commission?" Sarah asked.
"Yes, my being here has not been authorized. I learned that my former husband had started learning all he could about dangerous biohazards; he had an extensive file on the Kublai Khan invasion, which mentioned this vessel in several passages, so I thought he might show up here."
"You went through all that trouble to track down your ex? Were you in that much of a reconciliatory mood?" Sarah asked.
"My mood was a bit darker, little Sarah; I was going to kill him," Danielle answered coldly.
"He used to work for your department. What would your director say about that?" Carl asked her.
Danielle slowly turned toward Carl and smiled grimly. "I am the director of my department."
Sarah and Carl exchanged looks.
"Who are you people? Is anyone who they said they were, when they signed on?" Fallon asked angrily.
Poor Fallon, Sarah thought. What could she tell him, that she worked for the most secret organization in the American government? That all she did is collect data from history and analyze it, catalog it, and learn from it to make sure her country didn't make the same mistakes twice? A job that required her to infiltrate field digs from universities, and hire into private companies to gain information about anything and everything? That she was there to protect the American people and sometimes the world from themselves, because what they didn't know is that their government agency knows most everything from the truth of religion to that of UFOs?
"Professor Fallon, all we can say is that we are here to help," Sarah answered.
"I'm sure that will comfort him," Yashita said as he climbed back up from the inside of the ancient hold. He removed his protective hood. "One thing you should know, all of you: there are no more heroes left in your part of the world, only robots that do the bidding of Washington and other dying entities just like it."
"I think there may be one or two left in the West," Danielle said smiling.
As if on cue, screaming started from the outer cave. Yashita looked confused and ordered his three men to investigate. As they started down the scaffolding, Danielle unzipped her protective suit, pulled her Beretta, and quickly fired, but missed Yashita as he jumped from the topmost scaffolds to the bottom one, landing hard and rolling. As he tried to stand, a tremendous explosion rocked the cavern, knocking everyone over. The chemical-suited men began exiting the hold of the ship on the ladders they had installed for their descent, and pulled handguns from their satchels. The interpreter started shouting orders and then the men turned their weapons on their captives.
"Oh, shit," Carl yelled. He struck out with a rubber-booted foot, hitting the closest man and knocking him from his feet. He quickly grabbed for the man's weapon, a small-caliber Colt, and fired into the facemask of another of Yashita's man. As he did so he saw several others suddenly flop to the scaffold, as something unseen and unheard took them down. Their added weight hitting rotten wood was too much for the structure. It cracked and folded in on itself. Just before it did Carl saw several holes stitch across one of Yashita's men as he fell backward into the cargo hold. Then that was it — they were all falling.
There were shouts coming from all areas of the cave. Carl was lying in the hull, stunned, with Danielle
on top, fighting to get a hundred pounds of rotted wood off them. He could hear Sarah from somewhere shouting that Yashita was over to the left. Suddenly Carl felt himself lifted and shoved over. He felt hands reaching under him and then whoever was assisting him disappeared into the dust and smoke. Then he heard Sarah shouting again.
As the scaffold started coming down, she had grabbed for the interpreter's weapon. It had fired and Sarah felt a searing pain crease her shoulder. The man had then fired point-blank at Seito. She yelled again in warning, and saw the old soldier jump to the right, pushing debris from the scaffolding out of his way as he did. Sarah started to pull herself out of the mess of rotted wood, when she saw Yashita above her, firing at someone in the cave below. She wondered if the students had somehow gotten free and started this nightmare. Suddenly she felt herself lifted, by none other than Yashita. He was bleeding from the mouth and shaking her.
"Who are you people?" he screamed.
Below them, Carl finally pulled Danielle to her feet, took the Beretta from her firm grasp, and then tried to step free of the debris that covered the cave floor. As two men took aim at him, he knew he couldn't get the pistol up in time, but even before he could try to shoot, a line of tracers struck the men and they went down. That was when Carl noticed someone dressed in black Nomex and wearing a nylon hood and gas mask step out from a rock out-cropping. He was about to shout when he heard other, louder screams of outrage coming from behind them. The man in black ran forward; Carl and Danielle quickly followed.
"I want out of here! You will allow me to pass or this woman's death will be on you, not I," Yashita shouted again. His pistol was pointed right at Sarah's temple. She had a scowl on her face as if she were far more angry than scared.
The man in black acted as though he hadn't heard; he slowly inched forward, his Ingram submachine gun not wavering a millimeter. Carl reached out and tried to stop the black-garbed commandos but the man easily shrugged his hand away. From behind the black goggles and a night-vision scope placed over the gas mask, the man's eyes were trained directly at Yashita. Carl knew that if the commando fired, Yashita could have a knee-jerk reaction and kill Sarah anyway.
Suddenly there was a loud shout in Japanese and a figure jumped out of the darkness. The bright and shiny edge of a blade made a streak in the darkness, and Yashita's pistol hand fell away from Sarah's head. Sarah was sprayed with blood as she pulled free of her captor's other arm. Then all movement stopped as all eyes fixed upon Seito. He held the samurai sword high. Blood was coursing down his chest, staining the yellow plastic of his chemical suit. With a scream of outrage, he brought the sword down and into Yashita, severing him from the neck to the center of his chest. The old man watched his enemy collapse. He continued to stand there quietly, sword unmoving, his brown eyes focused on the dead man before him. Then he slowly allowed the sword to fall from his arthritic grasp as he crumpled onto his right side.
The man in black ran forward with his weapon still trained on Yashita's head. When he saw no movement, he quickly went to Sarah and, with one powerful arm, lifted her to her feet. Carl and Danielle ran toward the fallen Seito. Carl immediately saw the bullethole in the old man's chest and exhaled in exasperation. He then lowered himself and raised Seito's head. Danielle sadly took the old man's hand into her own.
* * *
There were seven commandos all together. Six of them had herded the students and Fallon into a protective bunch at the cave's opening; all were in good shape, from what Carl could see.
"Had to go and play soldier again, huh?" he asked the dying Seito.
"The… man… had no… honor."
Carl nodded.
Seito smiled as he looked at the man in black Nomex. The old man started to say something in English but failed. Instead he croaked out a few sentences quickly in Japanese, the words slurring as he finished, and then his eyes closed and he was gone.
"I wonder what he said," Carl asked, brushing some gray hair out of the old man's eyes.
"He said he had heard what Yashita said about there being no heroes left," Danielle translated.
The man in black removed his night-vision gear, gas mask, and hood in one movement. Jack Collins, the director of security for the highly secretive Event Group and Carl's boss, looked down at Seito.
Danielle frowned. "He said that Yashita was wrong; where there are good men, there will always be heroes."
4
Altogether there were sixteen Japanese Red Army faction members dead, including their cell leader, Tagugi Yashita, the most wanted man in Japan. The embarrassment of the Japanese government of having a known and wanted terrorist so deeply ensconced in the Okinawa civil authority would be something debated for many years to come. But Yashita had indeed used his family influence to place himself as deeply undercover as he could, biding his time while directing the assaults on Japan's officialdom from the safety of his governmental position, even receiving notices of gains against the JRA movement. His activities would scar the government for many years.
The Japanese Army Special Forces unit that had planned and carried out the assault on the cave complex had allowed Major Jack Collins access to the operation only because Jack had had a hand in training their officers in the fine art of covert assault years before. The information Jack had given them was also a deciding factor in allowing him to come along, with the Japanese military believing fully that he was still a part of the Fifth Special Forces out of Fort Bragg. But little did they know he had been on detached service to Department 5656 for the past year and a half.
The Japanese assault element was now working closely with the home island's chemical warfare department for the safe handling and removal of the powdered agent. Altogether, 865 pounds of the unknown powder was present in the hold of the old junk.
Sarah McIntire walked up to Jack and didn't say anything; she simply grabbed his wrist for a brief moment and squeezed. Collins winked at her.
"How in the hell did you know what was happening here?" Carl asked, walking up to Jack as soon as he had made sure Fallon and his graduate students were safe and secure outside.
Collins safed his Ingram and eased it onto his shoulder; the whole time he never took his eyes off Sarah. Then he finally looked around and found the person he wanted to speak to, Danielle Serrate.
"Since it had been a woman who called Director Compton on his private line at Group two days ago, and we know it hadn't been Sarah, because we couldn't get through to you or Mr. Everett on your radios — if you check to see, I suspect they have been tampered with — and since we can eliminate Dr. Fallon's students because they don't even know we exist, may we assume it was you, Miss…"
Carl shook his head. "Jack, this is Danielle Serrate, the head of the Commission des Antiquites of the government of France."
Danielle stepped forward, her chemical suit was unzipped and the upper half tied at her waist. Carl saw that she had a few large scratches on her arms, but other than that she had come through the hostilities with little damage.
"The United States government is indebted to you. But if I may ask, why call us? French commandos would have been more than happy to jump into the fray," Jack asked.
She clicked the safety back on her Beretta and then placed the pistol in her satchel. "My government does not know about this operation. I was on a personal leave of absence."
"Okay, now can we have your real name?"
"Jack, her married name is Farbeaux," Carl said in a low tone.
"I no longer associate myself with my ex-husband, Mr. Everett. I believe I informed you of that earlier."
"Well, the plot thickens," Jack said, turning from Danielle to Carl. "That would explain how she came by Director Compton's private phone line." Jack turned back to the Frenchwoman. "Ms. Serrate, may I offer you our hospitality and a chance to explain yourself?"
"I am afraid I cannot allow you to take me to the Japanese authorities, as that would leave too much explaining to do to my government."
; "No problem; we have a ride coming that'll take us to a secure location. I think we can leave the Japanese government out of this one."
"This is not the sort of hospitality I would expect after aiding you in saving all of these lives."
"That's what I'm curious about, ma'am — just why would the ex-wife of an antagonist contact us instead of using her own national resources? Commander Everett, assist our savior outside. I believe our ride is here," Jack said, as the sound of a helicopter could be heard outside of the cave.
* * *
The gray MH-60 Seahawk flew low to avoid becoming an unknown blip on any airborne radar. The navy chopper skimmed only a few feet above the masts of Japanese fishing vessels. Jack Collins, Sarah McIntire, and Carl Everett, still in their covert guise, sat calmly without talking. Their cover as naval special weapons people was still intact, a story sanctioned by Niles Compton and the president of the United States. Danielle had seen dossiers on all three from her husband's files recovered in the raid on his Los Angeles home. She knew Sarah to be a new second lieutenant in the U.S. Army, the new head of the Geology Department. Sarah had been an integral part in another mysterious operation in the American desert last year. The same with Jack Collins; it was rumored in the dark places where governments meet that it was the major who had actually headed the bizarre mission that had confronted a UFO. Danielle had only heard rumors, only bits and pieces about the Event from intelligence speculation.
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