The last soldier to be nominated for a fifth star in the nation's history, the new president didn't look at all convinced as he stepped up to a small vault and waited for the director.
"And that's just one artifact from the world's past," Niles said as he waited for his assistant, the eighty-two-year-old Alice Hamilton, to enter her security clearance on the keypad beside the vault. Then he and the president watched as she placed her thumb on a clear glass plate that read the minute swirls and valleys of her print. The vault hissed open.
"Okay, Dr. Compton, please explain the subject of this vault and its direct relationship to our nation's security, if you please."
Niles nodded and Alice opened the eight-inch-thick door of the small vault, and a cool mist rolled out and formed at the feet of the president.
"Very mysterious," was the only comment he made.
"This way, sir," Compton said, gesturing to the open door.
As they entered, the interior lights came to life. The two men stared at a small glass enclosure that had lines running into it, supplying nitrogen in its coldest state. Niles placed his thumb on a small plate just inside the door and allowed the center's Cray computer system to explain the find.
"The item you see before you, Event Group artifact and file # 4578-2019, was discovered in a Swiss bank vault by an undercover operative of Department 5656 in 1991."
The president looked closer at the acrylic enclosure and saw what looked like a small disk and disk player. Both items were worn and very old-looking. The disk itself was cracked and scratched and a third of it was missing.
"The object has been identified as a portable video-recording device manufactured by the Sony Corporation. Market date for this item was discovered to be in 2019 AD. This information was formulated through the serial number located on the video player/recorder and according to company sources the serial number coincides with a future manufacturing date as indicated by the last four digits of the serial number."
The president looked from the enclosure to the face of Niles Compton. The look told the director that the man was skeptical at the very least.
"Upon study by the Mechanical Forensics Department, the damaged disk, though incomplete, held a visual magnetic resonance of the Battle of Gettysburg, recorded on the evening of July 3, 1863. This has been verified by the alignment of stars recorded at the 1678 reference point of the disk's recording. Department historians authenticating the images recorded of the battle indicated no evidence of staging. The material enclosed was found on August 26, 1961, by Park Ranger August Schliemann one hundred and ten yards from the area known as "Little Round Top." This material was stolen from the National Parks Service and stored in The Bank of Switzerland, safe-deposit box number 120989-61. The item has been declared authentic by Group historians."
"What we have here is a device that was used to record the battle of Little Round Top in 1863. While we speculate that the damaged portion of the disk shows the actual battle as recorded at the time, we at Group have come to the realization that coupled with the manufacture time of the recording device, that battle was not only observed by someone from the future but recorded, for what reasons we can only speculate."
The president was speechless. He looked from the director to the acrylic enclosure. He turned and was about to ask a question when Alice, standing by the vault's door, cleared her throat.
"Director, the president has an urgent call from the White House."
"Thank you, Alice," he said as he gestured for the president to take the phone, which was just outside the vault door. As he moved off, Alice stepped in and smiled at the director.
"How's it going?" she whispered.
"I hate this stuff," he said back in a hushed voice. "It could go either way."
She patted Niles on the shoulder. "Well, it may cost us some budget money, but he can't close us down. Just keep that in mind." She smiled and turned toward the president as he spoke in quiet tones on the phone. Then she looked at Niles. "You seem to be taking this rather calmly, Niles. Are you forgetting to tell me something about you and our new commander in chief?"
Niles pushed his glasses back up to their proper resting place on his nose and then looked at Alice curiously.
"Forgetting something? No, I don't believe so."
The president hung up the phone and started to turn to them. Alice was looking at Niles with even more curiosity. She knew him well enough that she thought he wasn't being totally honest with her.
"Mr. Director, I'm afraid I have to cut this meeting short." He looked at the enclosure and then half smiled. "Even though I must say you have indeed piqued my imagination, the real world is intruding on us. The North Koreans are still rattling their sabers and now we have a serious incident at the Iran-Iraq border. It seems an earthquake caused a lot of deaths."
"Sorry to hear that, sir. We can continue when you have more time."
A frown crossed the president's face. "I can tell you're not used to being challenged on budgetary matters, Doctor. I assure you I just don't start axing programs and budgets without due consideration."
"Yes, sir."
"Ms. Hamilton, it's been a rare pleasure to meet a lady of your ... your--"
"Years, Mr. President?" she finished for him while batting her lovely eyes.
"Well, I was going to say quality. But if Dr. Compton has the smarts to keep someone like you way past mandatory retirement without anyone catching on, well, maybe you folks deserve the benefit of the doubt." The president turned to Niles and held out his hand. "Until we have more time, Mr. Director."
Alice watched their eyes meet and became aware of a momentary softness there that had not been evident before.
Niles watched Alice lead the president to the secure elevator, where he would meet his Secret Service escort, and frowned. He wanted to tell Alice and a few of the others about the president and himself, but he didn't know for sure what the man wanted everyone to know just yet. He decided that since the president hadn't said anything, he would play it close to the vest for now.
The presidential helicopter was waiting just inside the ancient-looking hangar. The staged dilapidation kept prying eyes from paying too much attention to gate number one of the Event Group complex. As the five-bladed rotor started to turn, the president frowned at the folder just given him by his chief of staff, Daniel Harding.
"Do we know just how much armor loss we're looking at?"
"No, sir. With the earthquake damage it's still a mess over there. The Iraqis are claiming to have lost forty percent of their ready divisions in the disaster. CIA reports that Iran has lost a like number. The quake hit at just the right area and the ayatollah is saying it's a divine sign that the end is near and that disarmament is the only option, starting with Iraq of course."
"Well, I wouldn't be crying over that, but how about unilaterally first," the president said as the huge marine helicopter eased out of the mysterious hangar of the Event Group. "Might make the world a sight happier."
"Indeed," the chief of staff said. "Now, that damn Kim Jong Il is a different story. He's claiming he has evidence of offshore tampering by South Korea that caused this earthquake and tsunami against the People's Army. He says it was underwater drilling that sparked the episode."
"Has he completely lost his mind? The South Koreans manipulated a seismic event by drilling for oil?"
"He claims to have evidence that shows naval elements and aircraft in international waters doing the foul deed. Even the Chinese are looking at him like he just fell out of the idiot tree and hit every branch on the way down."
"Well, get UN Ambassador Williams on it and tell him to find out what he can through unofficial channels. I don't want the State Department to officially give this story any credibility, understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"Listen, also get Nathan Samuels to the White House. I want to know from my science adviser just how natural two quakes of this size almost half a world away can be separate natural events. I w
ant an answer to tell the press when this idiot Kim Jong Il's statements hit the newswires."
Alice rode with Niles Compton on the elevator up to level seven. At first, the director was content to stare at the numbers as they rose. Then without turning he said, "I want a detailed report on all the field teams that may or may not have been affected by these quakes. Any team, no matter who they're attached to, gets removed if there's the slightest danger. We don't need anyone getting hurt while the president mulls over our value."
Alice was silent as she wrote his instructions in her small notepad. When she was done, she saw Niles remove his glasses and rub the bridge of his nose in worry.
"Everyone is out and safe."
Niles half turned and replaced his glasses. "Excuse me?"
"The Ethiopian field team--they're safe and should be home in about twelve more hours. Our wandering vacationers are with them."
Alice saw the director relax. He nodded as the real reason for his inquiry into the field teams had been answered.
"Are you angry with Jack?" Alice asked, looking at her notepad.
The elevator stopped and Niles waited for Alice to exit before following. He walked straight to his large office, which had the Group's motto above the door in gold letters: THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO FORGET THE PAST, ARE CONDEMNED TO RELIVE IT. He gestured for Alice to close the large double doors behind her.
The office was spacious and dominated by thirty small-screen monitors that could be tuned to any science department or vault on any of the seventy-five sublevels of the complex. In the center of these monitors that were situated on the wall in the circular office was one large monitor that was currently tuned to the dilapidated hangar designated gate one. It was empty, meaning that the president had safely lifted off. He went to the credenza and poured himself a glass of water, then sat behind his large desk.
"You asked if I was angry at Jack."
"Yes," she said as she sat down in a chair beside the desk.
"Not as much angry as I am worried." He took a sip of his water and rifled through some papers on his desk. He found what he was looking for and pushed the paper to Alice. "I requested that Jack be here for the briefing of the new president; he instead requested leave for himself, Everett, and Ryan."
"You granted the leave."
"How could I say no after what Jack has done for this Group in the past two years?"
"Then why are you worried?" Alice asked as she laid down the memo.
"He takes too many chances sometimes."
Alice smiled and looked at her boss. She knew that Niles from time to time overthought a situation, and she was duty-bound to ease his mind. Jack Collins was the very best at what he did. His army record was unparalleled in achievement. The only mark against him was his battle with the Pentagon over policy, which had eventually led him to be transferred to the Group.
Carl Everett was Jack's equal in many ways, with the exception of his heart. Everett was the one to whom Jack turned for the harder things involved with his new command. Such as how to handle people.
"Jack doesn't have a death wish, Niles, if that's what you're thinking. What he does have is an overwhelming commitment to do what is right. He was restrained for so many years in his duties with the army. The inability to do the right thing instead of what policy dictated he do. You gave him the freedom he needed to act when you brought him here. Bad people were hurting us in the field and Jack stopped that after you gave him a free hand, and I must say it was the smartest order you could ever have given a man like Colonel Collins."
Niles placed the glass down and then looked at Alice and nodded. "Do I always overlook the obvious?"
"Jack's not growing bored. He wanted to be there to give Will Mendenhall his new second-lieutenant's bar. He's proud of Will, you know that. A fishing vacation was only an excuse."
"He goes fishing and thwarts an attack on innocent students. Taking chances is a bad habit I want him to break."
"If he breaks that habit, we go back to losing field personnel. It's still an ugly world out there, Niles, and Jack just happens to know how to deal with it."
Eighteen hours later, Collins stood at semiattention before the desk of his director. He had not taken the seat offered by Niles, preferring to wait until the director got off his chest that which had to be said.
"Bring back any fish, Colonel?" Niles asked as he looked at the debrief folder that Jack and the others had filed.
"All we brought back was a hangover and an Ethiopian field team."
Niles flipped a page in the file and then looked at Collins. He tossed the filed report onto his desk and then gestured for the colonel to sit.
"Take a seat, Jack ... please."
Collins finally relented and sat. The silver bird on his collar sparkled in the soft light of the office.
"You take too many chances, Jack," Niles stated flatly as he looked straight at Collins.
Collins was about to speak when Niles held his hand up.
"Save it. For people like me who only see science and numbers, we can't even begin to imagine what it's like to have the ability you have. It is a hard thing for us to conceive of risking one's life to save a stranger. Cannot fathom it. I just want you to think before you leap. You are too damn valuable to this Group. To me." He mumbled the last words.
Collins watched the director. While he and Niles had never become close, they had a mutual respect for each other that went far beyond the normal working relationship. He may not have expressed himself to the director the way he should have, but Jack knew that the bookish director was the smartest man he had ever had the pleasure of meeting. In addition, the two worked well as a team, always thinking about the safety of their people.
"You and many others sell yourselves too short around here, Niles. My abilities are no greater than any one of the five hundred people assigned to Group. In my time you've made choices I could never imagine making--life-or-death decisions for people out in the field--and I must say you have never come up short. All soldiers ever ask for is a superior to have his back. They all know that you do."
Niles Compton nodded, signaling an end to that discussion. He cleared his throat, undid his top button, and then slid the knot in his tie down. He picked up the file with the field report in it.
"This Addis Abba archaeology team--their dig was similar to our own?"
"As far as we know, it was an information-and-acquisition dig only. No one knew what would be found."
Niles turned in his chair and typed a command on his computer. The main ten-by-fourteen-foot monitor came alive, and he and Jack looked into the clean room on level forty-three of the artifact-sorting room.
A straitlaced technician no older than thirty stepped up to the monitor. Professor Alan Franklin smiled and nodded at Niles.
"Mr. Director, good morning."
"What have you got so far?" Niles asked.
"Well, the team brought back some very rare finds. Artifacts, I may add, that had no business being in the area where they were unearthed. For instance," he turned away and pulled up a shard of pottery, which he held very delicately in glove-encased fingers, "this little item: I can tell you, even before my assistant hands me the carbon-14 test results, that it predates anything we or anyone else in the world has on record. The pottery is almost porcelainlike in looks and made from a material civilizations have never used before in the making of pottery. Initial analysis says it's made from crushed volcanic glass."
"That's interesting, but--"
"Now here's the twilight-zone moment, Mr. Director. The shard itself had no business being in Ethiopia. We suspect that a great and powerful flood event may have carried it against the Nile's flow from the Mediterranean. The design is usually associated with a carafe and is a cross between Greek and Egyptian lineage."
"Your point is ...?"
"You don't see? It should not exist. A cultural exchange between Egypt and Greece couldn't have happened before 3700 BCE." The professor accepted a handed printout.
"Just as I suspected, carbon-14 dating places the aggregate material in the shard between 11,000 BCE and 14,000 BCE, give or take five hundred to a thousand years. This is totally amazing!"
"Have your team run the carbon-14 testing again. Test everything our team came back with."
"Yes, sir, we're on it."
Niles turned off the monitor and faced Collins. "You're steeped in history, Jack; tell me, have you ever heard of anything that old?"
"No."
"You know why?"
Collins knew he was not going to like the answer.
"The Egyptian and Greek civilizations didn't even exist at that time."
"Then who made this little item that was unearthed two thousand miles away from where it was made? And what event could have been powerful enough to make the Nile River reverse its flow?"
"That's what we need to find out. In addition, what artifact could those mercenaries have been looking for that was important enough to kill for?"
"I think maybe I'll bring in our new operatives at the FBI we recruited last year, it's time they earn their keep anyway. They can also find out who was on the other end of that cell-phone conversation in Africa."
Director Compton nodded, agreeing that Jack should contact FBI Special Agent William Monroe in New York to bring him up to speed on Ethiopia.
"This could be a find that changes the face of history. It would predate any known civilization by at least four thousand years."
The Event Group had a mission.
GOSSMANN METAL WERK BUILDING OSLO, NORWAY
The large conference room was situated 160 feet below street level, under one of the oldest manufacturing firms in Europe. Grouped around this table were men and women from most western nations of the world, plus Japan, India, and Hong Kong.
The flags arrayed along the walls of the conference room were bright red and each carried a symbol handed down since the time of the Caesars, and each one differing only slightly from the others. A large golden eagle was prominent on all of them. Some had sloping lines that resembled a bent swastika clutched in the eagle's powerful talons, while others depicted more bizarre symbols from antiquity. The prevalent theme of all the flags was the golden eagle emblazoned over a scarlet field.
Ancients (event group thriller) Page 8