Pete reddened as he nodded his thanks.
“I will now alert the president and Director Compton in Washington that I am officially calling an Event alert.” She turned to Pete once again. “You will have to do without Sarah for the time being. Get with the Cartography Department and Europa and get me those exact coordinates in Ethiopia ASAP, I mean right now!”
Men and women started to move and Pete shot through the door as Virginia picked up the phone and pushed the Intercom button.
“Attention to all departments: an Event alert has just been called. I need Colonel Collins and his discovery team to report for briefing in ten minutes. This is no drill.”
The Event Group went into action on all levels of the complex. Alice would get the official guidelines for the discovery team to Europa, and then orders would be sent out to be displayed on departmental computers for whatever actions their divisions had to take.
Most of the people left the room, but Sarah stayed where she was, looking at a strange pattern of lines that were grouped into fours. One of them was shaped roughly like the North American continent, while the other groupings were unfamiliar. For some reason, that same flickering thought entered and then left her memory just as fast. She decided that it was nothing of value at the moment and moved off.
Down in security, Jack heard the announcement of the alert and looked at Carl from over his desk.
“Only sixteen hours; not bad,” Jack said.
“So, you expect to meet our blond-haired friend in Ethiopia, huh?”
Jack had stood and started for the door, but he stopped at Carl’s words and turned, and his look was intense.
“I’m banking on it, swabby.”
Five minutes later, Collins and his discovery team were in logistics, drawing supplies for the dig in Ethiopia, when the next announcement went out.
“Attention, Event Order has been canceled; Discovery Team Phoenix security element is to stand down. Dig team will continue to prep. Colonel Collins and Captain Everett, report to the main conference room.”
Everett looked at Jack. “What kind of happy horseshit is this?”
Virginia was pacing in front of the large monitor on the far left side of the conference table as Jack and Carl entered the room. Alice was jotting down notes and looked small as the only one sitting at the large table.
“Niles, Jack and Carl are here. You explain this to them.”
Collins looked at Virginia as he took up position in front of the high-definition screen.
“Niles, what’s going on? We have to be on a plane in about twenty minutes,” Jack said, looking at Niles’s tired face.
“Jack, you and your team have been ordered to stand down by the president. He feels that the importance of getting to that device dictates that this be a military recovery operation.”
“What in the hell are we, rent-a-cops?” Everett asked angrily.
“Captain, you are not aware of the pressures we have building here. I was not about to add to the president’s burden by arguing the point any more than I have.” They saw Niles force himself to calm down. “Look, he knows what kind of a job you two did at Pearl; if it wasn’t for that, he would never have fully realized the importance of this device the Coalition seeks. The Security Council would feel better having a Special Operations team sent in with Professor Leekie.”
Jack knew there was no use in trying to argue the point. He took a deep breath to calm himself because he thought that Niles had more than likely fought hard and lost the argument with the president.
“Jack, have you heard of a Major Marshall Dutton?”
“Jesus,” was all Jack said as he lowered his head.
“Who is he, Jack?” Carl asked.
“A career officer who’s by the book and very, very, predictable. Niles, didn’t they learn anything by having the FBI blown to hell and watching a SEAL team get decimated by these people? We’re dealing with an element that knows how to do one thing particularly well, and that’s killing.”
“I know, but I can’t sit here and argue with the Security Council about the classified details of our Group’s security element and their prowess.”
“The woman in Hawaii—she’s not going to let us just waltz into Ethiopia and take the item they desperately need,” Jack said as he looked around him and then back at Niles, on the monitor. “She’s going to be there, Niles. Ethiopia isn’t large enough to hide a bunch of Americans out digging in the sand.”
“Colonel, this Major Dutton is being briefed on enemy capabilities. The situation outside of the actual dig is out of our hands.” Niles looked around him as if he were a conspirator in a grand scheme. Then he faced the camera and raised his left eyebrow.
Alice smiled from her place at the table. “Pay attention here. I know that look,” she whispered.
“Colonel Collins, during the formal request for the dig, the president spoke to Vice President Salinka of Ethiopia, who granted our request on the spot. He cited the deed you and your vacationing revelers pulled off by saving those students on the Blue Nile. He requested during the meeting that you come back to Ethiopia and receive his personal thanks for saving the life of his only daughter, Hallie. So, I am ordering a forty-eight-hour stand-down period for rest and recuperation for Captain Everett, Mr. Ryan, Mendenhall, and you. I figure you could go fishing again. Perhaps the same spot where you caught your last big one.”
Collins and Everett turned away from the monitor and left the conference room without another word.
Virginia crossed her arms and looked at the screen. “I’m beginning to think you’re picking up bad habits from those two.”
“I haven’t a clue as to what you’re referring to. Now, I have to go, the North Koreans have just sent five more divisions south from Pyongyang.”
With those words the monitor went dark, and with it the good feeling Virginia had about Niles and his subterfuge. Time was in short supply and the Coalition and North Koreans controlled the clock.
AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE BAKER-ABLE
FOUR MILES EAST OF ADDIS ABBA, ETHIOPIA
FIFTEEN HOURS LATER
Dr. Leekie and her team of four Event Group specialists guessed the age of the ruined mosque at close to twenty-three hundred years. The once-great minaret and tower were but a ghost of the former structure, having fallen into the sands many hundreds of years before the founding of America. The foundations and walls that remained upright allowed the wind to howl through them with soft moaning sounds.
There were aspects of the mosque that confused the professor. The surviving walls had been constructed around the time of Christ, plus or minus a few hundred years, she estimated. However, the foundations were much older. Leekie could not say how old they were because they were built in a style she had never seen before. They were not Roman or Greek and certainly not Egyptian.
“Not much to look at, is it?” Ryan asked, lying prone between Jack and Carl as they watched through binoculars from a rise of sand.
“Not much,” Everett mumbled in answer, gazing at the professor down below, about a quarter of a mile away.
Professor Leekie was taking measurements inside the ancient mosque with the help of two of her archaeology team and Will Mendenhall, whom Jack had snuck onto the team as an archaeological assistant. The Ethiopian laborers hired by the professor for the dig stood watching from under a date tree
“I have to tell you, Jack, I sure hope you’re wrong on this one. The way that Major Dutton has his men deployed, they’re very exposed. Mendenhall keeps looking around and he doesn’t look too happy.”
Collins lowered his binoculars and glanced at Everett, but hesitated as he noticed Ryan in his new desert wear, complete with zinc oxide on his nose and a blue baseball cap with a white kerchief attached to the back to protect his neck from the sun. Jack shook his head and then raised the binoculars again.
“Mr. Ryan, since you’re dressed for it, go a thousand yards to our rear and watch the desert to our back. If Dutton
won’t deploy his men properly, we will.”
Ryan turned and looked at the vastness of the wasteland behind him with a frown. “What desert?” he joked.
Leekie was just rolling up a tape measure when Major Dutton and his platoon leader approached.
“The laborers are going to have one hell of a time digging through this sand. I would have expected better soil for a burial spot,” Leekie said as she shaded her eyes and looked at the stern countenance of Major Dutton. “Are you sure you have the coordinates my people gave you correct?”
“In my line of work, miss, reading a map is fundamental,” answered Dutton as he looked away.
“It’s Professor, or, if you prefer, just Leekie.”
“Ma’am, I would appreciate it if you would get on with your survey. This was not supposed to take as long as it has.”
“I won’t go into a long and boring speech about the dangers of ancient burial sites, Major. One wrong move and we could have the entire area collapse under our feet.”
“Well, have you anything to report?”
“Not yet,” she answered, and then she waved the diggers over and used the interpreter to order several pilot holes dug in the sand for her equipment to take readings.
“Major, we will be placing portable ultrasound units at the base of what’s left of the foundations and inside the remains of the prayer tower. If there’s something buried here, that should tell us.”
Jack had moved away from Everett and stood watching the eastern part of the desert. The midday sun was a killer as he stood still and listened. He had that old prickly feeling in his stomach that told him they were not alone in the desert. For the life of him, he could not tell where a potential enemy could hide. There was very little cover, just scrub and sand. The Blue Nile was more than a kilometer away, and any force coming from there would have given ample warning to the op team at the mosque site.
He shook his head as he started to turn, and as he did so he saw a mark in the sand. It was only a track, but it was one with which he was familiar. He did not want to lean down and examine it in case eyes were on him, so he removed his sunglasses and stretched, and as he did so he eyed the track more closely. It was a track in the literal sense: padded and linked; the sort of track used on a bulldozer or a backhoe. It had been brushed over but not completely wiped from the desert floor.
He replaced his glasses and turned back to the mosque. He had just confirmed that the dig team was not alone in the desert. Jack also knew that they had arrived too late.
As he casually walked back to where Everett was watching the camp and mosque, he reached into his pocket and felt the reassuring touch of his panic button.
Professor Leekie was getting frustrated with her equipment. She slapped at the laptop computer she had perched on the broken wall and cursed.
“This damn sand is so thick, it’s almost impenetrable.”
Dutton was just returning from the perimeter of the encampment, where he had checked on the positions of his twenty-five-man team. He shook his head after hearing Leekie curse her equipment. He saw her assistants return from laying their last remote ultrasound probe in the ruined tower of the mosque.
“Fifteen thousand years ago this area was forest land with compacted soil good for trees and plants. This equipment should have no trouble penetrating a few lousy feet of sand to reach the old earth beneath.”
“What’s the matter, Professor Leekie, modern science failing you?” Dutton asked with a smile, masking his ire.
“If we have to use the laborers to remove six or seven feet of sand before we can search, we’ll be here forever. Let me try the probes attached to the walls; their base should be closer to that ancient topsoil—at least two thousand years closer.”
Dutton heard Professor Leekie curse again:
“Damn, I’m getting a better reading, but there’s still nothing there. No metal and no empty space that would indicate a shaft or cave…. Damn, I thought … Oh … Just damn!”
One of the Event Group assistants slapped his head with his palm. “Just a sec, Doc. I didn’t switch on that last sonic probe.”
Leekie shook her head and watched as the young man trotted back to the base of the prayer tower and vanished through the arched doorway. She wanted to shout out that it wasn’t necessary but then decided that they had to be thorough, at least.
“All right, Doc, it’s on,” her assistant called out from the tower’s opening.
Leekie switched the mode over to the frequency of the last probe. When the picture came onto the screen, she saw only a rounded blackness, as if she were looking into an old well. She tapped the laptop once again in anger.
“This thing, I swear—” She looked over at the base of the prayer tower. It was round. Then she looked at the screen again. The darkness there was round, too. She looked up suddenly. “There’s nothing!”
“Well, maybe your people were wrong and this is just a wild goose—”
“No, I mean there’s nothing there! The ultrasound probe isn’t picking up anything under the sand inside the prayer tower but empty space!”
“What are you saying, Professor?” Dutton asked.
“I’m saying that the empty space I’m looking at is a covered shaft of some kind and it’s deep. Damn, this may be the place. The mosque is here to cover the opening!”
“I was informed that no one knew about this spot until recently,” Dutton stated. “You said earlier this burial site predates all religions. So why is there a mosque here?”
“Who knows? Maybe it wasn’t a mosque to begin with. Maybe it was something else long ago and future generations just added to the foundations.” Leekie’s pretty face lit up with the answer to her earlier question concerning the age of the mosque and its foundations. “My God, that’s why the foundation and wall ages don’t match. Don’t you see, it all fits! The people of this area, never knowing an original structure covered the ancient burial site, have used this place repeatedly. They never knew that a structure was here literally thousands of years before their civilization was even born.”
“Okay, you sold me, Professor. What are you waiting for—let’s recover this device,” Dutton said, impatient to be out of there.
“I can’t believe it,” Leekie said, slamming her laptop closed. She smiled and jumped up and slapped the reserved Dutton on the shoulder. Then she ran to get the diggers to unearth the shaft inside the smashed prayer tower.
“She’s excited about something,” Jack said, adjusting his field glasses. “She must have discovered the burial site.”
Carl watched Leekie as she hastily gave out orders; the reserved professor was more excited than any of her colleagues at Group had ever seen her before.
“Damn, Jack, you didn’t say she gets to keep the diamond, did you?” Everett asked.
The Ethiopian diggers worked within the confined space of the ancient and collapsed prayer-tower base. The sun was now beyond its zenith, which cut the heat significantly. The sand was loose and hard to keep out of the hole they were digging. Finally, a shovel struck something hard with a loud ping—a sound that Leekie had always equated with finding buried treasure.
Three workers went to their knees and started shoveling the remaining sand out with their hands, until they hit a smooth surface. Leekie squeezed her way through the workers and knelt, brushing away the last of the sand.
“A cover stone,” she said barely above a whisper.
“What’s a cover stone, Doc,” Mendenhall whispered beside her.
“In ancient times, civilizations such as the Egyptians and Greeks used cover stones to … well … cover anything buried. They were a deterrent to grave robbers and usually had curses written in their language warning an intruder that foul things and horrible deaths would befall them if they removed the cover stone.”
“I guess that’s you, huh, Doc?” Mendenhall asked, becoming nervous when she mentioned the word curses.
“Yes, that’s me, Lieutenant.”
Lee
kie instructed her team to remove the large, flat stone from the hole. Three Americans plus Will started pulling and prying with long-handled steel bars. The stone moved easily, and Leekie was surprised at the ease of removal after thousands of years.
“Can we get some lights over here?” she called out.
In minutes, several high-powered lights were shining down into the deep shaft. Leekie pulled a long tube filled with green liquid out of her pack. She snapped the inner casing inside the tube, then shook the liquid inside to life. When it began to glow bright green, she tossed it into the hole, where it soon struck bottom.
“There’s flat flooring beneath. This is definitely a manmade excavation.”
Mendenhall watched as Leekie removed a small device that resembled a flashlight from a case, turned it on, and pointed it down into the shaft. A thin red laser caught some of the swirling dust, making the beam visible. She turned it off after only a second and looked at the readout on the handle.
“It’s only seventy-five feet deep. We can rappel down.”
Mendenhall wished the colonel were there to lead this side of things, but he couldn’t dwell on that now as he reached into his rucksack and brought out his gear used for a short repel.
“That cover stone was blank, right, Doc?”
Ten minutes later, Mendenhall and two of the Green Berets had hammered their rope stakes deep into the soil closest to the tower’s foundation. Then they tossed their ropes into the shaft. Will pushed off first from the edge, quickly followed by the two Special Ops soldiers.
Will let the rope play through his belly ring smoothly, hitting the sidewall only twice to cover the seventy-five feet to the bottom. He held his position two feet above and examined the packed earth in the green glow of the nightstick. He saw solid footing below and then allowed the final feet of rope to slide through his gloves. He hit bottom and immediately shone his flashlight around the large chamber. A moment later, the two soldiers hit bottom and joined him.
Ancients: An Event Group Thriller Page 31