Fallen Star (Project Gauntlet Book 1)

by Richard Turner

  A sailor in a naval style white shirt and blue trousers ran over and held the door.

  Roth picked up his briefcase, got out of the chopper, and stepped onto the landing pad. “Thank you, Diego,” said Roth to the crewman.

  “My pleasure, sir,” replied Diego.

  “My bags are in the back.”

  Diego nodded. “I’ll bring down your luggage right away.”

  “No hurry. I’d like some time to myself. How about you bring them to my cabin an hour from now?”

  Diego saluted. “As you wish, sir.”

  Roth walked off the pad, down a flight of stairs, and onto the upper deck. The Asteria was one of the most expensive private yachts ever built. At the cost of over three hundred million dollars, the ship was one hundred and twenty meters in length and could accommodate twenty guests in opulent luxury, along with a crew of fifty ex-naval personnel. Roth headed straight for his private cabin on the main deck. His valet, Adrian, a slim man in his fifties dressed in a black uniform with a long-tailed jacket, was waiting for him outside of his door. He held a silver serving tray in his left hand. On it was a flute of champagne.

  “Good day, Adrian,” said Roth, smiling when he saw the drink.

  “Welcome back, sir,” replied Adrian, dryly. He handed Roth the champagne before opening the door to his cabin.

  Roth took a sip. “Ah, a Krug 2000. A fine choice, my good man.”

  “Yes, sir. The rest of the bottle is on ice in your room.”

  “Thanks, Adrian. That will be all for now.”

  Adrian bowed slightly. “Very good, sir. I’ll be in my quarters should you need me.”

  Roth stepped inside his spacious cabin, and walked straight to a desk against the far wall. The highly polished oak table shone in the light of the room. The antique had once belonged to José Carrera, the first commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army after its independence from Spain. Roth opened up his laptop and turned it on. While he waited for his encrypted computer to boot up, Roth topped up his flute of champagne.

  At fifty-two years of age, Roth was South America’s wealthiest man, and its most eligible bachelor. He had wavy blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and a weathered face from years of outdoor living. Roth was fit for a man of his age, and tried to run or swim several kilometers every day of the year. He had taken his late father’s modest aerospace company and turned it into a multi-billion-dollar corporation. Roth had recently diversified his holdings by buying into rocket and satellite technology, along with the ever-growing South American oil and gas industry. His latest oil rig off the coast of Ecuador was performing beyond his wildest expectations.

  Roth’s computer chimed, letting him know it was ready to use. He took his seat at his desk and typed in his password. A second later, the image of a man came up on the screen. His eyes were bloodshot. It was evident that the man had not shaved in days.

  “Good morning, Max, how are you doing?” asked Roth in German.

  “I’ve had better days, brother,” replied Max, Peter Roth’s younger brother.

  “I’ve seen the reports on the news. The Georgian authorities have issued a press statement, calling the explosion at the Batumi airport an unfortunate accident.”

  “Yes, they claim there was a fire during the refueling of the An-12 which caused the catastrophic explosion that engulfed the hangar and everyone in it.”

  Roth took a sip of his champagne. “So, brother, what really happened?”

  “The plan to lure the American and Russian Special Forces teams to the plane worked perfectly. Both groups were eliminated within seconds. Unfortunately, one of my men went missing during the fight. I fear he may have been still in the hangar when it exploded.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Bulow.”

  Roth shook his head. “That is too bad. He was a good man. I will see to it that his family is properly compensated for their loss.”

  “Thank you.” Max hesitated for a moment.

  “What is it? Did something else go wrong?”

  “We didn’t have time to blow up the hangar. It was the Americans who flattened it.”

  “An unforecasted outcome, but not an unwelcome one, either. How did they do it?”

  “They hit the building with two missiles. I think the warheads were thermobaric. The Georgian police found nothing of the bodies we had left behind, other than the melted remains of the weapons the Americans and Russians had been carrying on them.”

  Roth raised an eyebrow. “Ingenious. Where is the real craft now?”

  “It was airdropped over Armenia and picked up by some of my people there. It was then flown on to Romania, where the disc is now safely stored in our underground facility in the Carpathian Mountains.”

  Roth smiled. Their facility was an old Cold War bunker, hidden deep inside the mountains. Years of hard work and planning had paid off handsomely. His heart began to race. He licked his lips. “Have you spoken with Professor Cordovan since it arrived there?”

  Max shook his head. “No, I haven’t had the time.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry, Max, I’m just so excited. I’ll call him later.”

  Max ran a hand through his thinning blond hair. “Peter, my men and I are at a safe house in Baku, Azerbaijan. We’ll lay low here for another twenty-four hours before taking a flight to Romania.”

  “A wise idea. I shan’t contact you again until you are safely in Romania.”

  Max’s leaned forward. His face filled the screen. “We have done it, brother. Father would be proud of us.”

  “Yes, he would. Take care, and I’ll speak to you in a couple of days.”

  Max terminated the conversation from his end. The laptop screen turned dark. Roth closed the lid and sat back in his chair. He looked over at a portrait of his late parents hanging on the wall. He was the spitting image of his father, while his brother had their mother’s aristocratic looks. Roth raised his flute of champagne and toasted his parents. “You may have taken grandfather’s technology as far as it could go. But Max and I will take it beyond your wildest dreams as we reach for the stars and our future.”

  Chapter 7

  The Atlantic Ocean

  No matter how hard he tried, David Grant couldn’t get the man in the shadows to stop nudging him. With an exasperated huff, he rolled over and opened his eyes. It was hard to see in the dimmed cabin.

  “Hey, glad you could come back to the land of the living,” said Maclean, standing in the aisle.

  Grant rubbed his tired eyes and looked around. “What’s up? Is something wrong?”

  “No, not at all. I’ve convinced Professor Hayes to check out the dead body. Want to see who our friend is?”

  Grant sat up. Tatiana was fast asleep in the seat next to him. He carefully got out of his seat and walked to the back of the plane. The corpse lay on the floor, covered by a couple of blankets.

  Hayes got down on his knees and pulled the bloodstained covers off the body. In the dim light, Grant could see the man’s unusual uniform was a grayish-green color. Hayes moved his hands over the fabric and stopped when he got to the man’s glass faceplate. He studied it for a few seconds before unlatching a couple of clasps under the chin and lifting off the glass.

  Grant and Maclean leaned forward so they could see the face of their attacker. The man’s green eyes were open. He looked to be about thirty-five, had a tanned visage, and appeared to be European.

  “This outfit is quite interesting,” said Hayes. “It’s called a stealth suit, and is designed to mask a person’s body heat. If you were to look at him through a thermal scope while he was still alive, the best you would see would be a blur. He’d probably look like a ghost moving across the ground. There’s a power pack on his belt which keeps the suit cool.” Hayes looked at the faceplate and grinned gleefully. “My word, whoever built this knew what they were doing. There’s a heads-up display projector built into the bottom of the faceplate. I bet their team leader could see where all of his men were at all times.”r />
  “Doc, do you think you will you be able to identify who he is by his fingerprints?” asked Maclean.

  “I don’t know. He may never have had his fingerprints taken by the authorities.”

  Maclean picked up the dead man’s rifle. “What can you tell us about this? I’m sure it’s a modified German G11 assault rifle. I tried to fire it, but it wouldn’t work for me.”

  Hayes hefted the rifle in his hands. “It’s heavy. I’d never do any good in the army.”

  “It’s not for everyone. Can you tell me why it wouldn’t fire, and who modified it?”

  “These weapons went out of production in the early 1990s. I don’t think more than one thousand of them were ever made. I’ll get the MOD to contact the German Bundeswehr in the morning and see if they sold them, or the weapon’s design patent, to anyone. As for why it wouldn’t fire, Sergeant, it’s because the gun is coded to the firer’s hand. Only he and he alone could fire the rifle. We tinkered with signature guns for a few years, but gave up. It was too expensive, and the technology required to make it work has yet to be perfected.”

  “Evidently, someone else has perfected it,” observed Grant.

  “Yes, it would appear so.”

  “Do we have stealth suits like this?” asked Maclean.

  Hayes nodded. “Most NATO countries have a similar suit which is worn by their Tier One Special Forces units.”

  “Have you seen one like this before?” queried Grant.

  “No, this is truly state of the art. I’d love to meet the people who made this.”

  Grant patted Hayes on the shoulder. “No, you don’t, Doc. Trust me, these are the kind of people you don’t ever want to bump into in a darkened alley.”

  Hayes covered the corpse and took a seat with Grant and Maclean.

  “If this suit isn’t from a NATO power, could this man be Russian?” asked Maclean.

  Hayes shrugged. “He could be, but a medical doctor will need to examine the corpse first, to help determine where this man comes from.”

  “If he’s not Russian, then who else has the technology to pull this off?” said Grant. “Think about it for a minute: they first had to find the downed craft, and then they had to set off a device which caused an electromagnetic pulse which blackened out twenty to thirty kilometers of the Iraqi countryside. They had advanced stealth helicopters and suits. This operation would have cost someone a small fortune to finance.”

  Hayes scrunched up his face while he thought. “You know, it’s not inconceivable that a private corporation instead of a nation state could be behind all of this. If you can find a city lost in the Amazon rainforest for centuries using a satellite, you could just as easily find a downed craft, if you knew what you were looking for. As for the EMP bomb, it’s quite easy to put together a device capable of rendering everything with an electrical circuit useless in its wake. The U.S. Air Force has already tested a counter-electronics missile, and is now paring down the technology to fit it inside cruise missiles. As for the stealth helicopters and suits, the technology is out there. All a person has to do is find someone willing to sell him the designs, and he can build it on his own without anyone knowing what he…or she…is up to.”

  “Surely, you people keep track of these kinds of illegal business deals?” said Maclean.

  Hayes smiled grimly. “Each year, the world’s powers spend trillions of dollars on surveillance technology, and for all of the money expended, they’re lucky to catch five percent of what is going on out there. We can make inquiries when we land, but don’t hold your breath that we’ll find who was behind the attack on your camp any time soon.”

  “Swell,” muttered Maclean.

  “I suppose the question right now isn’t who is behind the attack as much as why,” said Maclean. “Who’s after this technology, and what do they plan to do with it?”

  Hayes sat back and clasped his hands together. “Those very questions quite often keep me from getting a decent night’s sleep, Captain. Welcome to my nightmare.”

  Chapter 8

  Peterson Air Force Base

  Colorado Springs, Colorado

  The whine from the Learjet’s engines grew quieter, as the plane taxied to a halt inside an expansive hangar.

  Grant looked out his window and saw an ambulance accompanied by two military police cars waiting off to one side.

  “When we get off the plane, stay close to me, and don’t say a word to anyone,” said Andrews to the plane’s passengers.

  “What about the stiff?” asked Maclean.

  “Don’t worry about him, that’s why there’s an ambulance,” replied Andrews.

  “And the G11?”

  “Leave it on the plane next to the body, but make sure it’s unloaded.”

  Maclean ejected the magazine and cocked the weapon twice, to ensure there weren’t any bullets left in the chamber.

  The plane came to a halt. The co-pilot walked out of the cockpit, opened the front door, and lowered the stairs. Everyone stood and followed Andrews down onto the hangar floor. He flashed his identification at the military police and kept on walking.

  “How are you doing?” Grant asked Tatiana.

  “Tired, and more than a little bit confused,” she wearily replied.

  “That makes two of us.”

  Andrews led them out a side door. An Air Force van was sitting there with its engine running. “All aboard,” said Andrews, as he opened up the passenger-side door and got in. The driver waited until everyone was seated before driving away. They drove across the base until they came to an old, two-story building.

  “Everyone out,” announced Andrews.

  “Where are we?” asked Maclean.

  “We’re at Peterson Air Base in Colorado. The base is home to the 302nd Airlift Wing, as well as the headquarters for NORAD, and several other important armed forces commands.”

  Grant read the sign on the front of the building. “Base Archival Records.”

  “My organization isn’t very large, Captain,” said Andrews. “We have to share the building.” The colonel shepherded everyone inside.

  They walked up a flight of stairs and opened a closed door. A woman in her early sixties with short, gray hair and silver glasses on her nose, sat at her desk reading over a file. She looked up and smiled. “Good afternoon, Colonel Andrews. Was your trip successful?”

  “Partially,” he replied. “Miss Young, I have two new team members with me, and one person who needs to be cleansed.”

  Tatiana furrowed her brow. “What does cleansed mean?”

  “I assure you it’s nothing sinister,” said Andrews. “You can’t go back to Georgia. Not after what happened. If the authorities don’t arrest you, the people who ambushed the Special Forces team will undoubtedly kill you for what you know. For your years of service to this nation, you’re going to be given a new identity, and a new life here in the States. I’m sorry, but this is it. You can’t go any farther than this office.”

  “I guess this is goodbye,” said Grant, squeezing one of Tatiana’s hands.

  “Well, this has been a couple of days I’ll never forget,” said Tatiana. “Goodbye, gentlemen. Perhaps our paths will cross sometime in the future?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Please take a seat and I’ll look after you,” said Miss Young to Tatiana.

  Andrews stepped past Young’s desk and opened a door leading to a hallway. At the end was another closed door. They stopped, while Andrews opened his briefcase to look for his ID.

  “What’s in there?” asked Grant, when he didn’t see a sign over the door.

  “Project Gauntlet,” replied Andrews.

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “I’d be shocked if you had. Have you heard of Project Sign or Project Grudge?”

  Grant shook his head.

  “What about Project Blue Book?”

  “Hey, I’ve at least heard of that,” said Maclean.

  “I’m glad one of us has. What is it?” ask
ed Grant.

  “I read a book about it. It was a U.S. Air Force study of UFOs in the sixties.”

  “To be precise, it was operational from 1952 to 1970,” interjected Hayes.

  “So what does Gauntlet have to do with Blue Book?” asked Grant.

  “Gauntlet is the Air Force’s top-secret successor to Blue Book,” explained Andrews.

  “I’m getting confused. I thought you two were in the business of retrieving downed UAVs and planes?” said Maclean.

  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” replied Andrews, as he slid his ID into a control panel next to the door. With a loud click, the door popped open. Andrews put his ID away, and motioned for his guests to walk through the open door.

  “I wonder if we should make a run for it while we can?” joked Maclean.

  “Then I’d be forced to order one of my people to shoot you,” said Andrews, completely deadpan.

  “Well, when you put it like that, Colonel, I guess we’ll just follow you.”

  The two soldiers stepped inside and stopped. In front of them was a room set up as a command center. There were a half dozen computer workstations occupied by Air Force personnel, all busily working away. On the walls were four massive flat-screen monitors, showing images coming from drones and satellites flying over countries all around the world.

  “This way, gents,” said Andrews, motioning for them to join him. “I hope you both slept well on the plane, as you’re about to get a crash course on who we are and what we do. And more importantly, where you fit into the organization and why I think you’re still needed.”

  They walked down a short corridor until they came to a briefing room. “Please make yourselves comfortable while I fetch Elena,” said Andrews.

  “Colonel, do you have to?” groused Hayes.

  “Just because you two don’t agree on things doesn’t automatically make her wrong,” said Andrews.

  “My body clock tells me it’s well past my bedtime. Could we get some coffee?” asked Maclean.

  “Sounds like a good idea. I’ll see if I can find us a pot,” said Hayes.