The Alexandria Project: A Tale of Treachery and Technology (Frank Adversego Thrillers Book 1)

by Andrew Updegrove

  As Ralph lowered his binoculars, the engine revved menacingly, and the camper began to inch forward.

  To Jeff’s relief, Ralph called out again. This time, he said, “Okay, okay, we get the point. We’re leaving.”

  “That’s it,” Ralph said quietly to his partner. “I’ve had enough. Let’s just back up slowly and get the hell out of here. It’s time to call in the SWAT team.”

  * * *

  Carl slipped the master key into the door across the hall from Frank’s apartment and entered, followed by Marla and George. Outside, Bert and Ernie covered the ends of the block, ready to raise the alarm if either spotted Mrs. Foomjoy returning from her shopping.

  Once inside, the trio made a quick circuit of the modest, one bedroom apartment. Aside from a remarkable penchant for tacky decorating and a morbidly obese corgi snoring on the floor of the bedroom, it was unremarkable. More to the point, the flat was totally devoid of any sign of technology more advanced than a VCR – and the clock on that item was blinking “12:00.”

  “Okay, no surprises. We’ll have to look a bit more closely.”

  George placed his case of TEMPEST equipment on a coffee table in the living room and opened the lid while Carl peered into closets.

  But Marla continued to stand in the middle of the living room with a puzzled look on her face. “There’s something not quite right here.”

  “No kidding,” George replied, scanning the vases of ugly artificial flowers, frilly curtains, and slip covers. “This takes the banality of evil to a whole new level.”

  “No – that’s not what I’m talking about. This apartment should be a mirror image of my father’s across the hall, but something’s different, and I can’t tell what it is.” Marla turned slowly around and then pointed to a large china cabinet.

  “That’s it – there should be a closet behind that piece of furniture.”

  “Excellent – gold star for you! Carl, help me move this monster.”

  They moved to either side of the breakfront, looking for hand holds and not finding much to work with. But as soon as they started to grapple with the cabinet, they found that they could push it aside very easily.

  George knelt down and peered under the cabinet. “Huh – look at that. The feet are a couple of millimeters off the floor, and there are wheels just behind them.” He stood up and they rolled the cabinet away from the wall, exposing a locked closet door.

  Happily, the same master key they had used to gain entrance to the apartment did the trick, and the door swung open. Inside, a single deep shelf spanned the closet at desk height. Above it were narrower ones, packed with a miscellany of electronic gear, cables and assorted junk. Most importantly, in the center of the desk stood a large flat screen display, and next to it a high-end computer.

  “Piece of cake,” George said. “I’ll have the hard drive copied and back in the box in no time. She’ll never know we touched it.”

  * * *

  In the cold pre-dawn darkness, three blacked out, camouflaged military vehicles labored their way up the same Jeep trail in Nevada that Ralph Johnson had driven the afternoon before. A driver with night vision goggles sat behind the wheel of each.

  Two were trucks carrying a SWAT team of FBI professionals trained and equipped to handle anything. The third was a Hummer, in which rode Ralph Johnson and the Las Vegas Bureau Chief of the FBI. When they reached the last fork in the road before the pass, they halted and their occupants disembarked.

  Ralph and the Bureau Chief watched as the team members donned their equipment and the commander gave his quiet instructions. Then they melted into the darkness, fanning out to assume their positions surrounding the clearing and wait for the rising sun.

  The Bureau Chief looked at his watch, and then at the pale glow that was only just beginning to show in the east. “Hell of a cold morning. Let’s get back in the Hummer and turn on the heat.”

  Back inside, the Bureau Chief turned on the cab light, pulled out a sheaf of papers and began reading, leaving Ralph to stare out the window in silence. The sun was close to rising before the quiet was broken by an alarm going off on the Chief’s cellphone.

  “That’s about all this is good for out here. Mind if I borrow your satellite phone?”

  The question was of course hypothetical. The Bureau Chief outranked Johnson by multiple pay grades.

  “Of course not, sir.”

  The Chief put on a headset, dialed a number and waited.

  “Bureau Chief Burke for Mr. McInnerney. He’s expecting my call.” Ralph Johnson’s eyebrows rose involuntarily. Was the Bureau Chief really reporting directly to the head of the FBI about the operation they were about to launch? This guy Adversego must be a hell of a lot more important than Johnson had assumed.

  “Hello, sir. Yes, everyone’s in position. We’re initiating contact in half an hour. Yes, I’ll call back when we’re about to engage.”

  Burke rang off and said, “Let’s go.”

  Johnson led the way up the Jeep trail. When they were almost in sight of the camper they met the SWAT team commander. He led them off the track to the east and then began to circle to the left so that the sun, when it rose, would be at their backs. Frank would have to stare straight into it to see them, once the action began. Scrambling up a bank, they reached a camouflaged metal shield with a small one-way window that had been set up between two trees.

  “This should stop anything that he’s likely to have on board, but when in doubt, get behind a tree. He’d need a howitzer to get through one of those, and I rather doubt he does. It’s 0704. At 0710, we’ll engage.” And then he was gone.

  Ralph scanned the scene ahead with professional interest. Just as it should, the clearing and the surrounding woods looked exactly as they had the day before, despite the fact that 12 heavily armed operatives were now within 100 yards of the camper. Each agent had been assigned a specific task to execute – four to blow out the camper’s tires, one to take out the windshield of the cab with rubber bullets, another to fire a teargas canister through the gap immediately after. The other six, wearing gas masks, would rush in and drag their target, coughing and bewildered, out of his bunk. It would all be over in the wink of a copiously weeping eye.

  Burke dialed the satellite phone again and McInnerney’s assistant put him through.

  “We’re about to engage, sir.”

  “Remember Burke – under no circumstances is Adversego to be injured. It’s not him we want, it’s who he can lead us to. I want any computer equipment, too – undamaged.”

  “Of course, sir. I’ve made sure that’s clear to everyone.”

  “Good. Now I want you to give me everything that happens as it happens.”

  Just then, the sun began to lift above the horizon. Burke peered out through the thick window. This wouldn’t do, he thought. He was looking mostly at the back of the camper and wouldn’t be able to see most of what was about to happen. McInnerney wouldn’t like that. Burke looked down at his watch. Just enough time to swing wide and get behind another tree before the action started.

  Without sharing his intention with Johnson, the Bureau Chief darted out from behind the shield, running across the fall line of the mountain rather than swinging down hill and then up again, as the SWAT team commander had been careful to do.

  He hadn’t gone twenty feet, though, before the solar arrays on the camper came to life and started to rotate in his direction. By the time he reached his destination tree, they were locked on his position.

  “Stand down! Stand down!” The SWAT team commander barked into his headset microphone.

  Damn it, he thought, that idiot desk jockey had ruined everything. Two minutes more and the operation would have been all over, and now what? How were they to know where Frank was in the vehicle now? If he was in the cab, they might kill him when they took the windshield out, even using rubber bullets. All their careful planning had now gone by the boards. He’d have to improvise now, and fast.

  “What’s g
oing on?” McInnerney said impatiently.

  Burke broke into a sweat, peering out from behind his tree. “It seems that Adversego knows we’re here.”

  “How the hell did that happen?”

  Burke decided he’d ignore that question and follow McInnerney’s earlier command to provide real-time commentary.

  “The SWAT team commander has just stepped into the open. It looks like he’s going to call for Adversego to surrender.”

  Back behind the shield, Johnson watched a familiar sequence begin to unfold as the team commander moved slowly forward: first the solar arrays locked on him. Then they swiveled to the broadside position. Next, the camper’s headlights came on.

  Coming to a halt, the team commander yelled towards the camper. “You’re surrounded, Adversego. Look around you.”

  Burke picked up his commentary again. “The twelve operatives just stepped out from behind their trees, sir, all in full battle dress and with rifles aimed at the camper.”

  But the only response was the roar of the camper’s engine as it came to life. Then its emergency lights began to flash.

  “Can you see Adversego?”

  “No – all of the windows are covered.”

  “There’s no way you’re getting out of here, Adversego. Give yourself up before you get hurt,” the commander yelled.

  The camper was now turning away from Burke and towards the commander.

  “Adversego’s turning his camper towards the commander!”

  The SWAT team leader spoke quietly to his team through his microphone. “Hold your fire; if I give the order, take out the tires and give the engine area everything you’ve got, but don’t touch the cab or the camper. If I can get Adversego to show his face, though, don’t wait for an order – take out the windows farthest from him and give him the gas, inside and out. Got it?” Twelve voices confirmed.

  “Now what? What’s happening?” McInnerney barked impatiently.

  “I don’t know; I think the commander was giving orders to his team; now he’s yelling again.”

  “Give it up, Adversego. You can’t escape. Even if you get by us, you won’t go far; we’ve got forces covering the entire area.”

  The commander waited, wishing the last part was actually true. But nothing happened. He called towards the camper again. “Frank, I’m just going to walk slowly towards you so we can talk, okay? Nothing else right now, just talk.”

  “He’s trying to get closer and see if he can get Adversego to respond.”

  The commander took one slow step forward, and then another. But there was no response.

  “Adversego is letting him get closer.”

  The commander took a third step, and then a fourth. Soon, he was only forty feet from the cab.

  “Good choice, Frank. That’s playing it smart. Now I’m just going to….”

  But that was as close as the commander got, because many things began happening at once; so many that it was only later that Burke was able to sort them out.

  The chaos began with the camper suddenly lurching forward, throttle wide open in second gear and engine roaring as it red-lined.

  At the same instant, music began insanely blaring at ear-piercing volume from the speakers mounted on the camper, almost drowning out the commander’s screamed command of “fire” as he dove out of the path of the accelerating truck. But none of the rifleman shot at first for fear of hitting him.

  “What’s that? What’s that?” McInnerney yelled into Burke’s ear as he heard the sounds of gunfire in the background.

  “I think it’s Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ Burke yelled back into McInnerney’s ear.

  “No, you idiot! What’s happening?”

  The camper was well beyond the cordon of operatives now, racing downhill to the east. Now it was the SWAT team that was looking straight into the rising sun, hoping at best to pick off a rear tire as the camper careened down the mountainside.

  It was just then that CIA Director Baldwin, staring at a video screen on his desk far away, spoke a single quiet word of command into his speaker phone.

  “Fire.”

  * * *

  Burke had been shouting “He’s getting away! He’s getting away!” into his earpiece when a giant, invisible hand raised him up, and then threw him down to the ground. Now his head was spinning. Were those pine needles he felt against his cheek? What had happened?

  Dazed, he raised his head weakly. What looked like the remnants of a giant fireball were dissipating above from where the camper had been just a few moments ago. He wished the cloud would disappear entirely, so he could see where the camper was headed now. Then he began hearing noises. They must be coming from the objects that were landing around him. A shoe. A spoon. Pieces of paper were fluttering away in the wind, and the sun was glinting on small pieces of what looked like metal falling gently around him like spring rain.

  Burke stood up, shaking. Now he could see the blackened, burning wreckage of the camper; a single axle tilted up at a crazy angle with a charred tire still attached.

  He became aware that McInnerney was still screaming “What happened? What happened?” in his ear, so he removed the wireless earpiece and dropped it into his pocket as he stumbled towards the wreckage of the camper. Suddenly, everything was peaceful and still, except for a small, even, far away sound. He stopped and looked up, and then nodded his head slowly.

  A Predator drone heading back to base, of course. A Hellfire air to ground missile almost certainly. It all made perfect sense.

  Burke replaced his earpiece. It was time he reported in.

  “It’s all over,” he said, and then switched the earpiece off for good.

  * * *

  27

  Is this the Person to Whom I am Speaking?

  FBI director Francis X. McInnerney pressed the intercom button on his speakerphone.

  “Yes, Mary?”

  “Mr. Baldwin for you, sir.”

  McInnerney gave a gasp that began with astonishment and ended with rage. Baldwin was calling him after nuking an FBI target less than an hour ago? He punched the phone ferociously with his index finger and cut loose.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing Baldwin, interfering with an FBI operation on American soil? You’re so far over the line I’m going to get your head handed to you if it’s the last thing I do!”

  “Dear me, Francis. Why, I’ve just been sitting here at my desk, wondering why you haven’t called. I thought for certain you’d want to thank me for the invaluable support the CIA gave you today in your hour of greatest – not to mention most inept – need. And now you’re yelling at me! Why, I’m shocked!”

  “Can the crap, Baldwin. You had no right to interrupt an FBI operation in process and you know it!”

  “Tut, Tut! ‘In process,’ Fran? That’s not the way it looked to me. I was watching the live video feed from our drone, and I saw Adversego break through your perimeter and make a clean escape. And goodness, that camper was traveling! All your people were running around like ants, and their vehicles were a good mile away. Why, as I understood it, your nearest backup personnel were all the way back in Las Vegas!

  “The way we saw it, your operation was over, and Adversego was fair game. If we hadn’t intervened, he would have gotten away for certain. Now, that wouldn’t have made the FBI look good at all, would it?”

  No, it wouldn’t, McInnerney had to admit – to himself. His men had figured that picking up a computer geek in a camper would be a cake walk. And they’d been wrong. For all he knew, Adversego might have had something else up his sleeve, like a getaway car parked a few miles away. If he’d switched vehicles and abandoned the camper, how would the FBI have picked up his trail again?

  “I thought not,” Baldwin continued sweetly. “So why don’t we just chalk this one up to a splendid case of inter-agency cooperation on a matter of vital national security importance? That makes for a much nicer story, don’t you think? I’ll have one of my people contact one of your
s, and we can harmonize our reports accordingly.”

  McInnerney fumed in silence, not yet trusting himself to respond.

  “Excellent! I’m glad we’ve got a deal.”

  Baldwin knew he should leave well enough alone. But he couldn’t resist lobbying one last grenade into the FBI Director’s foxhole.

  “Oh – I almost forgot. I’m sending you a copy of our Predator video – it should make a great training tool to help your people avoid screwing up so badly in the….”

  It was five minutes before the FBI Director felt sufficiently composed to ask his secretary to replace the speakerphone that lay in pieces on his desk.

  * * *

  Frank burst out laughing as he watched the chaos unfold once again on his laptop.

  “You just can’t get enough of that video feed from your clearing, can you?” his father asked.

  “You know, I really can’t. Every time I see the look on that SWAT team commander’s face as he vaults out of the way of the Avenger, I just lose it. Maybe we could start a TV show called ‘America’s Funniest Homeland Security Videos’?”

  “Yeah, well, there may be some explaining to do down the line about that part.”

  “True. But we wouldn’t have been 600 miles away before they moved in if I hadn’t had a lot of time to kill over the last couple of months. That, and the extra sensors I found in the camper’s tool kit to play around with. I’ve got to say that I’m going to miss the old Avenger, though. And I wonder what made the video go dead like that?”

  Outside, the Great Plains rolled endlessly past, with nothing to see but more of the same. Things had been peaceful twenty-four hours earlier, too, when Frank first noticed a plume of dust crossing the valley below. That changed immediately when what had been a black dot at the head of the plume grew into his father’s ancient Land Rover, tearing up the Jeep’s tracks to his clearing.

  “Time to move out, Frank – now!” his father had called out even as he slammed the door. “The FBI’s on the way, and we’ve only got a few hours’ lead.”