“Yes, Reverend, you did. But bragging about your insight will not stop the public from gaining knowledge about Operation Columbus.”
Rawlins sat straight up in the high-backed chair. He closed his eyes as he tried to compose himself. Then he opened them as the momentary tempest quickly and expertly subsided.
“Please don’t use that name on the phone, even if we have a secure line. I’ve told you about that numerous times.”
“I… I… am, uh, I apologize, Reverend. I am just frustrated. We have not only this headache, but the ongoing nausea inflicted by this Case Blue that’s just a wisp of a rumor.”
“I understand, Harry; you’re in a very stressful business. Politics is something I wouldn’t want to be in. We know this Case Blue is being handled by a department not in the norm of day-to-day business, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What is the NASA and JPL plan of action?”
“For right now they are officially off mission. They are reprogramming the remote rovers: one more will join the first inside of the crater and the other two will be used as communications relays.”
“Well, I must conclude that this little find has to be related to Columbus. I’ve never been a big believer in coincidence. The president knew there was something there and he hid it well by cutting NASA’s budget, sneaky bastard.” His anger was elevated once more, but Rawlins forced his rage back beneath the surface of his speaking voice. “I was hoping we had seen the end of it. I want to thank you for the instantaneous way you informed my office on this disturbing find on the Moon. Of course you will be rewarded in a suitable way, maybe far more than a monetary offering after the next four years is up.”
“I just wish the president would have kept his head in the sand and allowed me to do what he assigned me to do. I can still control things to a point.”
“My only question is, what about the press?”
“That’s the worst of it. The president is going public with everything they find up there. It’s like he was waiting for a big discovery to justify a major boost in the space budget. I’ll admit he was good, but how did he know there was something in that crater?”
“The press is the problem right now; we’ll get into how he knew what was up there later.” Rawlins thought a moment, swiveling his chair to see his daughter through the twenty-by-thirty-foot plate glass window. The eighteen-year-old saw him and waved. He smiled and waved back with a glimmering smile on his lips. “I wish we could make the president disappear.”
“Even though this line is secure, I didn’t hear you say that,” the vice president said hurriedly.
“Yes you did. I’ll say it again in far more profound and legalese wording: the man is a pain in the ass and needs to go away. Another four years of his leadership is not part of the Lord’s plan.”
“We’ve known each other since seminary school, Sam. You know I love my country and my God, so you must understand me when I say those loves are in that exact order.”
“And you must understand me, Mr. Vice President; we’ve managed to bury Operation Columbus for seventy years. I will not allow the public to start needless speculation about its origins. I will not allow that. I will not!”
“Give me time. I can convince the president this is not in the best interests of the nation. Hell, there may be national security issues to deal with. Give me the time I need to discover what and who’s running this Case Blue operation.”
“Time is a commodity we don’t have.” Rawlins stood and watched his daughter lay out her towel by the pool, and then his eyes went to the security man who was watching her do it. He frowned and turned back to his desk without sitting. “I want that find on the Moon hushed up. Ever since I let you in on the Columbus find in Ecuador, when we were in school, and-you’re right-since I was a seminary student and you were stealing books to sell back to the school bookstore, we made a deal that the world will never be tempted by the devil and the knowledge that Columbus would bring to humankind.” Rawlins furrowed his brow as he watched the security guard and the absolute shameless way he ogled his beautiful daughter. He closed his eyes to shut out the sight. “Now, I need you to start thinking ahead. The news about this find is already all over the world. What if this nation, or any other power in the world, decides to get to the Moon and they uncover the equivalent of Columbus? What are you prepared to do?”
“Are you asking what if the United States tried to send a manned mission to the Moon? Or someone else?”
“Of course that’s what I mean, you moron. I will not allow that to happen. I would spend fifty billion dollars to see that any attempt would be stopped. Now tell me, are we capable of getting back to the Moon on short notice? Is anyone in the world capable?”
“No, of course not. NASA hadn’t planned a return for at least fifteen more years. And other nations-well, it would be impossible.”
“I hate that devilish word, impossible. That’s why I’m in a position of power, my friend, because I didn’t listen to people who said that the things I wanted to achieve were impossible. Nothing is impossible. So-” His eyes sprang open and he glared out the window at the security guard, who didn’t seem to care who was watching him stare at his younger daughter. “What are you prepared to do if the impossible happens?”
“I… I… don’t know.”
“You disappoint me, Harry. Maybe you shouldn’t be in line for the job I thought you were ready for.”
The Reverend hung up. He had wanted to throw it through the window, but caught himself before he allowed his explosive temper to fully vent. He slowly and deliberately walked over to the large plate glass window and tapped lightly on the thick pane, trying not to attract the attention of his lounging daughter. The security guard, a large man himself, turned with his thumbs pressed into his gun belt. Rawlins smiled and waved at the blond-haired guard. With his smile still in place he gestured with his right hand for the guard to join him at the ornate French doors. The guard’s face flushed, and then he pointed at his own chest and mouthed the word me?
Rawlins nodded his head enthusiastically. The big man in the blue security uniform walked away and disappeared around the corner. Samuel Rawlins walked back to his desk and pulled open the top drawer, retrieving a small item, then turned and opened the outside doors to his study. The security guard was standing there. His arms were at his side and he looked as if he were at attention.
“Yes, sir?” he said, looking from the smiling, silver-haired Rawlins to his right, and then left, suddenly wishing he wasn’t the only guard on duty on the west side of the estate.
“How are you today-” Rawlins asked, as he bent at the waist to get a better look at the man’s name tag-“Officer Wright?”
“Uh, just fine, sir, how are-”
“I saw you looking at my daughter a moment ago.”
“Uh, yes sir, she is very-”
Rawlins’s large hands shot through the air so fast that the guard never knew what was happening. One minute he was standing there facing the Reverend and the next minute his neck was being twisted brutally to the left. Before he even realized his words had been cut off, he heard his own neck snap in two. Rawlins grimaced and let the large man slide through his hands to collapse onto the concrete walkway.
“You were about to give an answer that would have gotten you in trouble, young man.” Rawlins stepped out onto the walkway and looked around. Then he removed the object he had retrieved from his desk. It was a small digital camera. He adjusted the automatic focus, zooming into the shocked and now strangled security guard. He snapped a picture and then looked down at one of the hundred security men he had on staff. “Your services will no longer be needed at my home.”
Rawlins turned and stepped inside the French doors and closed them behind him. His anger was totally vented and the relief he felt was just this side of ecstasy. He turned the small digital camera over and looked at the picture he had just taken on the small LED screen. He smiled and half nodded his head. “Not bad.”
He pic
ked up the phone as he placed the camera on the desktop. He punched in a number and waited.
“Security. Anderson speaking,” the voice said as Rawlins picked up the camera once more and studied the picture.
“Ah, Mr. Anderson, one of your men seems to have had an accident right outside my study on the west side of the house. I think you better call for an ambulance-very quietly of course, I think he tripped and fell. Very good, no, please don’t disturb me. I have quite a bit of work to catch up on.”
Rawlins set the phone down and smiled at the small picture of the dead security guard. He finally opened the drawer and shut off the camera as he placed it inside. As he did he saw the small framed photograph he had placed inside a few months earlier, meaning to get the frame changed. He had forgotten about it. He picked it up once more as he had a million times in his life and looked at himself forty-five years earlier. He was standing next to his father in the black-and-white photo. He himself was as unsmiling as the man standing next to him. The dark-haired man wore the uniform of an Army lieutenant colonel. The uniform was spit-polished and fit as snugly as a tailor could make it. They stood in front of an old castlelike structure that looked as if it had seen better days.
“Nineteen sixty-five,” he mumbled.
As he lay the picture back inside the drawer, he knew the old castlelike building was no castle at all. Nowhere close, in fact. It was a stone monstrosity made to keep men imprisoned and his father had been the gatekeeper of that fairy-tale place-the man with the key in a rotating nation-by-nation watchman’s role.
He closed the drawer, shutting out the stern image of his father. Yes, his own flesh and blood had been the gatekeeper back in 1965, and that was how the events of today were related to Reverend Rawlins.
The keys of the gatekeeper opened and closed the dungeonlike cells of Germany’s Spandau Prison.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
Jack Collins and Sarah McIntire stood on the large front porch of one of the more modest houses high in the hills just off Flamingo Boulevard in Las Vegas. Collins was a former black operations guru and a man with countless incursions behind enemy lines, and that was why Sarah McIntire could not figure out exactly why Jack was nervous about seeing his old boss, Senator Garrison Lee. Jack knew he was never one for watching people he loved and admired slip away. Sarah, her stature exactly one foot four inches shorter than the colonel’s, placed her hand through Jack’s arm as they waited for the door to be answered. They both wore civilian attire; the colonel in a button-down blue shirt and Sarah in a green skirt and white blouse. They both felt odd and out of place without the blue jumpsuit of the Event Group uniform, or at the very least their desert BDUs.
Jack and Sarah were both officially on detached service to Department 5656. Collins was head of the large security force at the complex that provided security for all archaeological digs and the safeguarding of its valuable finds and equally valuable complex, while Sarah, an Army lieutenant, was head geologist assigned to the Earth Sciences Department. It had been the senator who recruited them both and all three, along with Alice Hamilton, had grown close over the years. They were both worried as much about Alice as they were about the senator.
The left side of the double doors opened and Alice stood inside the threshold smiling. Sarah stepped in first and hugged the older woman while Jack looked around, uncomfortable at the very least. Finally, without a word spoken between Alice and Sarah, they parted and then Jack tried to smile as Alice hugged him. The embrace seemed to go on forever, and instead of making Collins feel uncomfortable, he relaxed. He patted her back and then stepped back and looked down at the smaller woman.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m tolerable, Jack, come on in out of the heat,” she said, stepping to the side to allow them access to the large but modest house.
Jack had been here on several occasions for dinner, just to talk with Lee about everything under the sun. He and Niles Compton went out of their way to update the senator from time to time on the current status of things at the Event Group complex. The former senator and OSS general seemed to appreciate the visits far more than he let on to Alice.
“Sarah, why don’t you help me in the kitchen and let Jack and that old grizzly catch up with one another?”
Sarah smiled and looked at Collins. Then she followed Alice down the long entranceway.
“Go ahead, Jack. He’s awake and in pretty good spirits-this being one of his good days. Oh, by the way, he insisted I ask Niles over for lunch also. He said he had something to discuss with all of you.”
Jack watched as Sarah and Alice disappeared, then he grimaced as he turned and walked down the long hallway of the one-story house. As he moved, Collins saw not one bit of memorabilia on the walls. There were no personal pictures, nor was there anything to indicate that the senator or Alice ever had a personal life, much less a life spent together. There were beautiful prints of desert sunsets on the walls, and that was when Jack realized it was like walking through one of those model homes that set fake fruit on the dining room table and dishes inside cabinets. As he approached the senator’s bedroom he also thought the reason the house was like a model was because the senator and Alice would never consider this their home, not after spending almost every day since 1946 underground at the Event Group complex. Yes, he thought, the complex under the sands of Nellis was their home, not this pile of wood and stucco. He stopped at the senator’s door, took a deep breath, and knocked.
“Well, don’t leave me in suspense. Open the damn door,” sounded the gruff command from inside.
Jack turned the knob and looked in, feeling as if he was a young boy and was intruding on his father. He saw the senator standing at the sliding glass window watching the desert behind the house. He finally turned and took in Collins, and then he smiled. Jack nodded silently back. In all of his visits he still wasn’t used to seeing the large senator in a pair of pajamas and a robe.
“Don’t laugh, Colonel. The Queen of Mean went and hid my clothes on me. She says I don’t need the aggravation of dressing.”
Jack walked into the room and held out his hand. He was taken aback by how weak the return handshake was. He remembered the first time he had been greeted by the senator four years before and the powerful grip of the ninety-something man. The difference was night and day. Collins released his hand and looked around the large bedroom quickly as if the senator might have read his mind. The only thing on display on the walls was a large shelf. Sitting upon it was what looked like a collection of hats, fedoras to be exact.
“Nice collection,” Jack said in true admiration.
“Yeah, I used to look good in hats. Reminded me of Mike Hammer, you know-the impression of toughness. Anyway, glad to see you, my boy.” Lee looked behind Jack. “Where’s that little girl of yours?”
“You mean Lieutenant McIntire?”
“Cut the crap, Jack. You two never put anything by me, or Niles. By the way, is he here yet?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you’re supposed to escort this walking corpse to lunch. My cane doesn’t do me much good anymore.”
Jack could see the dilated left eye and knew Lee was under the influence of a powerful medication. He wondered if he was up to leaving the room at all. Lee settled it quickly as he reached out and took Jack’s arm at the shoulder and then he and Jack made for the door.
“How has… everything been?” Collins asked hesitantly.
“What, you mean dying? It’s like finishing off a roller-coaster ride, Jack. Scary as hell, but when you get to the end, you want to do it all over again.”
“You mean life?”
“Yes, my boy. Never grow old, Colonel, it-what do the kids say? Oh, yes, it sucks big-time.”
“Yes,” Collins said as they approached the dining room. “That’s what they say, sir.”
When they entered the large dining room, Jack saw Niles Compton standing there. He was actually dressed in something other than his u
sual white shirt and black tie. His button-down shirt was blue with white stripes and his slacks were gray. Jack thought to himself that he had never before seen Niles in a civilian outfit that didn’t consist of the most mundane black and white clothing.
“Ah, Niles, now it seems all the people playing hooky today from work have finally arrived for this very late lunch.”
Niles Compton nodded a greeting, looking just like Jack had on the front porch. He pulled the senator’s chair out and smiled as best he could.
“Everyone, please do me a favor,” Lee said as Sarah came in carrying a large bowl of salad. “Stop acting like this is the goddamn Last Supper. I have something to discuss with you and I don’t need all of these cow-eyed looks. Frankly, it doesn’t help my appetite.”
“What’s he bitching about now?” Alice asked, coming in behind Sarah with a platter of sandwiches.
“I think he’s saying that he doesn’t want any sympathy from the likes of us,” Sarah said, walking up to Lee’s chair and kissing him hard on the cheek.
“Well, if he gets any, it won’t be from me,” Alice said, and placed the platter in the center of the table. She took Lee’s napkin and tucked it into his pajama top. He fidgeted like a petulant child and then scowled, sending his eye patch askew and his good eye ablaze.
“Would you sit down, woman, for crying out loud?”
Jack, Niles, and Sarah knew the act between Lee and Alice very well, and it never grew old. If Lee had to live without Alice he would be happy to be dying. It would be living without her in his life that would have been unbearable and anyone who saw them together knew that.
“Niles, thank you, my boy, for coming to see me on such short notice. I know you absolutely hate leaving the complex.”
Compton was putting salad in a bowl. He looked as if he were about to say something but caught himself. “Oh, it’s kind of slow at the moment,” he offered instead.
“You always were a poor liar, my old friend.”
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