“Colonel,” he said as he looked at the terrain just across the border.
“Sir,” the thin officer said, standing at attention.
“I want a three-tank-brigade thrust in sectors three, eight, and thirteen. Catch the Americans unaware before they can finish with their traps. I want the men and equipment they leave behind destroyed. Then order the brigades to hold position south of the border.”
The colonel could not hide the shock on his face. He stepped up to the sand table and looked at the positions the general had ordered taken.
“Are we acting on orders from Pyongyang?”
“My orders are defensive in nature, Colonel. I do not need Pyongyang’s permission. From this moment on, we will observe radio blackout. We’ll receive only.”
“But, General—”
“Carry out your orders, Colonel, or I will find an officer who will!”
The colonel saluted and left the bunker. If he hadn’t known better, he would have believed that the general was starting it, rather than trying to prevent it.
The war was now on, whether Kim Jong Il or China wanted it or not.
EVENT GROUP CENTER NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA
The computer center was abuzz as the crystal-clear imagery of Crete started coming in from two KH-11 Blackbirds in geosynchronous orbit over the Mediterranean. Europa was a great help in her microsecond washing of the pictures, which cleaned them up to maximum enhancement. The pictures were being relayed to Jack, Carl, Ryan, and Mendenhall in Ethiopia. The images of the bright blue waters looked inviting until they saw the tracks in the sand and large tents and metal buildings at the island’s southern end. Camouflage netting hid equipment that stretched for fifteen kilometers around the centermost portion of Crete, but it was the tracks in the sand that had Jack’s attention.
“What do you think, Jack?” Everett asked.
“Not good, swabby, not good at all,” he answered, and then he hit the intercom for the direct link to the Pentagon. “General Caulfield, do you see the tracks leading to the camo netting, satellite designation one through sixteen?” Europa had designated the sixteen centerline camouflage nets as 1 through 16 and the figures popped up on the monitors in red.
Collins and the general had seen enough of the tracks in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to recognize them immediately.
“I would say we have good old-fashion SAMs underneath the netting.”
“I agree,” said Caulfield.
“General, the plan for taking the beach could become very costly.”
Caulfield had worked out his end of the plan with the navy and marines and knew that it was hasty but as good as they could get with the current Mediterranean assets.
Jack had informed Niles that he and his element would concentrate on the Egyptian tunnel they had discovered on the bronze-plate hologram; they were hoping that it led to the Coalition. The theory was that the tunnel had once been used for secret travel and survival of their hierarchy. The linguists, along with Carmichael and Martha, had been working nonstop to decipher the details of the map.
“It will be very costly, Colonel, but while we’re keeping their heads down at the front door, your team just may slip in through the back door.”
“Agent Dahlia has indicated that the Coalition has at least a brigade-size force for beach defense and a minimum of thirty advanced warplanes hidden somewhere in the region. Has the navy decided what other surface assets they can give us?”
“We have the Royal Navy, but not much else.”
“Damn,” Everett said as he looked at the waters surrounding Crete.
“All we have currently in the Med is the Tarawa-class Assault Ship Nassau and the Wasp-class USS Iwo Jima. The beach assault will comprise the Iwo’s eighteen hundred marines, supported by the Nassau’s eighteen hundred in a follow-up second wave. The two assault ships, plus whatever we can get through Italian airspace, from Aviano, will supply air support. We’re just too damn low on assets in the area.”
“My team is en route to Aviano as we speak. The navy has pulled SEAL Team Six out of Afghanistan and the survivors of SEAL Team Four from San Diego. The backdoor force will be supplemented with men from our Group and by a company of marines from the two attack carriers. We’ll be going in light and fast.”
“Right, get me your final plans as soon as you have studied the intel from Space Command more closely, and then I’ll brief the president.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jack switched off the intercom and looked at his three men. “A lot of people aren’t coming back from this one. I want you to know that you don’t have to—”
“This speech really gets boring, Jack,” Everett said; Mendenhall and Ryan looked at Collins as if he had insulted their mothers.
Collins just nodded.
As they looked at the map, Sarah McIntire walked into the room and saluted Jack.
“My team is ready, Colonel,” she said.
Jack nodded. “Will, you and your protection team of ten men will accompany the lieutenant and her geology and paleolithic team to the Valley of the Kings. The president has called in a favor from the Egyptian president to get the team into the valley to find that back door. You will have no other backup, and I expect you and her to get in and get out safely and report. After you’ve located the subterranean gateway, we move in.”
“Yes, sir.”
Collins looked back down at the map and avoided Sarah’s eyes. She wanted him to look at her again with something more than a military bearing, but she could see that he was forcing himself not to.
“Good luck, Lieutenant. Your transport is waiting.”
She saluted again, but when Collins did not look up, she turned and left. Everett, Ryan, and Mendenhall turned to face Jack.
“Little cold with her, weren’t you, Jack?”
Collins just closed his eyes and said nothing. Then he straightened from the map and looked at Mendenhall with his piercing eyes. The look alone said it all. His orders were clear.
“I’ll watch her, Colonel.”
Jack just nodded, not trusting his voice because of the fear he felt.
CRETE COALITION SITE 1
Tomlinson stared down the long shaft, the sides of which were shiny from the equipment used to widen it from its original series of stone arches. The rebar used to shore the downward-spiraling tunnel made it seem like a thirty-five-foot-diameter spiderweb. Tramcars sat at the entrance ready to transport the final troops and Wave equipment down into the city, of which 2.2 square miles was indeed dry, as they had hoped. All thought of the missing Dahlia was now far from his mind.
This was the pivotal moment in the history of the Juliai. Whole nations would be placed under the umbrella of the Coalition, which would dictate to the world the Ancients’ laws of a demanding new society, a model of which had once been the city and civilization right beneath his feet.
Tomlinson shivered in the wind as he saw the shaft that would lead to his lost city. From there all things would be righted.
THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON, D.C.
“Your people really came through, Mr. Director, I want you to know that,” the president said as he looked through the window at the protesters out on Pennsylvania Avenue.
“Don’t get all mushy on me. I still want my budget.”
The president shook his head, then turned and sat in his chair.
“So, even if Colonel Collins finds this back door, what if the tunnel has collapsed in the thousands of years since it’s been used?”
“Good question. It’s all just best-guess, Mr. President—that’s all historical science ever is. But if there’s a way in, Jack will find it.”
Niles yawned and cleaned his glasses. “What bothers me is the fact that we had a group of citizens in this country and in other free nations who knew about this Juliai Coalition for almost two thousand years and didn’t do anything to stop them. As much as they have helped, I can’t excuse the arrogance of these … Ancients.”
“What
should we do with them?”
“Nothing. They’re old and the last of their kind. They just need to go away.”
“Niles, you know that if Colonel Collins can’t find a way down, those marines are going to have a tough time of it on Crete.”
“I know it,” Niles answered. He knew that the president was fishing for reassurance that Collins was as good as advertised.
The intercom buzzed and the president quickly picked it up. “Yes, put him on.”
Niles heard the change in the president’s tone of voice and sat up.
“When and what is the force?”
Compton watched his friend place his free hand on his forehead and then hang up the phone. He looked at Niles and then stood and walked to the window once more.
“The North Koreans have come across the border with a small force. The details are sketchy and they don’t know in what strength yet. The original assault is by a three-pronged group of armor we hope is just a probe, or something to elicit a response. Now there are indications that other units of the People’s Fifteenth has started massing north of the DMZ.”
Niles knew that the worst-case scenario was happening and there wasn’t a damn thing the president could do but fight back.
“Come on, Jack,” he whispered to himself.
THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS LUXOR, EGYPT
The only difference in the ancient valley since the time of Howard Carter, who discovered of King Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922, was that there was a literal traffic jam of people with permits issued by the Egyptian government seeking the archaeological riches of the valley.
Sarah, Will Mendenhall, and twenty Event Group security men and women were being escorted through the valley by Professor Anis Arturi, the director of information for the city of Luxor. He was not a willing partner in their endeavor to find the gateway to Atlantis. He knew only that the president of Egypt himself had ordered him to watch the Americans and indulge them in their search for a tomb of some significance to the desert government.
They had been on station for four hours, but the coordinates of the Atlantis plate map did not match with what they had hoped to find. Instead of the longitude and latitude being in the valley where the tombs were located, they found themselves on a flat piece of sand-swept desert with not so much as a date tree for a hundred miles.
“Not exactly Times Square here, is it?” Will said as he checked his global positioning link on his laptop. The eight other Land Rovers were idling behind them as he and Sarah got their bearings.
“There isn’t one landmark for miles around.”
“I can now see why this doorway to the underworld has never been discovered.”
The headlights started to pick up the sand as it blew across the desert. The wind was increasing in velocity and the guide and the Egyptian professor started squirming in the backseat.
“We should be heading back; these windstorms can be quite dangerous in the valley.”
Sarah turned and looked the man in the eyes. “We haven’t found what we came to find and we won’t be leaving until that happens.” Sarah had a momentary flash of Jack and the rest waiting on the USS Iwo Jima for their report. If they did not find the doorway, Jack would be going on the assault of Crete with the marines. There was no way she would stop looking.
“Will, drive south, very slowly.”
“But, madam, there is no road, we are off the track. We cannot go further into the plain!” Professor Arturi said as he looked out into the darkness.
Mendenhall rolled his eyes and then put the large Land Rover into first gear and started forward. The wind picked up in violence as if in warning as the small line of vehicles moved onto the plain of Luxor.
Two hours later, Sarah was biting her lip. They had come across nothing even remotely manmade in this horrid area of Egypt. They had traveled in a zigzag pattern and had even spread the vehicles out in a straight line in case they had overlooked something.
“Stop and let me take another bearing,” Sarah said as she placed the laptop on her knees.
The wind was howling at sixty miles per hour, rocking the Land Rover on its springs, and the windows were starting to pit from the abrasive sand. Will felt movement and thought at first it was just the wind. Then it happened again. He felt it in his stomach first, and as it increased he grabbed the steering wheel.
“Did you feel that?” he asked Sarah.
“What,” she asked, her face aglow with the brightness of the screen. She did not turn away from the positioning report.
Mendenhall looked around and peered outside. He turned on the spotlight and shone it around, but he still could not see ten feet in front of the vehicle. Then he let go of the wheel and light handle when he felt the truck lurch again. He knew then that somehow it had slipped downward.
“Uh-oh,” Will said when he felt it again.
“What in the hell was that?” Sarah said, looking up when the laptop jumped in her lap.
“We must leave this spot. There is quicksand all over this area; I told you it was dangerous to leave the road!” Arturi whined.
“Will, get us moving.”
Mendenhall put the Land Rover in gear once more and it started to struggle forward. Suddenly the rear end went down into the sand and the two men in the back screamed. Then the vehicle rolled to the right, then to the left, and then the front went down into the sand. The laptop slid off Sarah’s legs as she reached for the radio. Then the Land Rover rolled nearly upside down and then quickly straightened before vanishing into the sand.
The security personnel in the convoy could not believe their eyes as they left the safety of their own transports and ran for the spot where the lead vehicle had vanished.
Sarah and Will Mendenhall had disappeared into the soft sand and there was not so much as a tire track to say they had ever been there.
USS IWO JIMA, 100 KILOMETERS WEST OF CRETE
Jack listened to the final plan for the invasion of Crete. He was impressed with what commanding Marine Corps General Pete Hamilton had devised with the commander of the Joint Chiefs.
“It all boils down to the defenders taking the first piece of bait we throw into the water.”
Collins nodded at the logic. “If they take your bait, that will expose all of their batteries before our people begin the assault.”
“These are mercenaries—not unlike the terrorists we have tangled with—and I have learned that although it’s hard to get inside of their heads, they can be expected to do one thing when the shooting starts, and that’s to shoot back. Surprise is key; if we achieve it, we have a fighting chance.”
Jack nodded and looked at his watch.
“Worried about your team in Egypt?” the general asked.
“If we have to depend on taking the front door and using that to gain access to their underground center instead of just holding it, we could be in for a long-running and very costly battle.”
The marine general nodded in understanding.
Jack walked away from the planning table and cornered Everett.
“Nothing from Sarah and Will?”
“I’ve got Ryan babysitting communications, but there’s one hell of a storm over the search area and they may not be able to get any signal out.”
Jack looked at his watch for the hundredth time.
“Jack, Sarah knows what she’s doing. Unless she’s been swallowed up by the desert, there’s no way she’ll fail us.”
FORTY-FIVE KILOMETERS SOUTH OF LUXOR, EGYPT
The eeriness of the sudden silence did not set well with the occupants of the Land Rover. Sand completely covered the vehicle and the air was growing foul.
“We are doomed because you refused to listen to the people who have lived here for thousands of years!” Arturi said, wiping sweat from his brow.
Sarah looked into the backseat and saw through the dome light that the guide was taking the situation far better than his boss was.
“We have twenty men up there that will get us out. What w
e don’t need is for you to go and lose your cool,” Will said, when he saw that Sarah had little patience with the Egyptian.
Suddenly they felt the Land Rover slide farther into the quicksand. Sarah saw long-buried, skeletal-looking bushes slide by the window in the wrong direction and she was worried that very soon they would be too deep to get out without the use of heavy equipment.
“The air’s getting a little ripe in here, why don’t you open a window,” Mendenhall joked.
“Don’t do that, you fool—do you wish to kill us all!”
Sarah looked back at Arturi, then back at Will. They both laughed at the same time.
“You are crazy, both of you, laughing at a time like this!” the professor said with as much indignity as he could muster.
“Mr. Arturi, the more you speak, the less air we will have to breathe. Take a hint from your man there: relax.”
Sarah’s words sounded good, but she knew that they were in a very serious situation. The vehicle was sliding deeper and deeper into the loose sand, one or two feet at a time. It as was if the very ground beneath them was spilling into some unknown abyss.
“Uh-oh,” Mendenhall said again as the rate of their sinking increased.
Sarah closed her eyes and thought of Jack. The first thing to enter her mind was the base fact that he would be killed in the assault because they had failed him. The second thought was more personal in nature. The last time they had been together at dinner, she had chided him for being so straight and rigid all the time. She now regretted doing that.
Suddenly the descent stopped as the rear end of the Land Rover sank far lower than the front.
Ancients: An Event Group Thriller Page 35