“Hey, guys, what’s up?” Jason Ryan asked with his boyish grin. It quickly became a grimace when a small spear was probed into his lower back. The Sincaro chattered something in their own tongue as they herded him and the thirteen survivors from Operation Proteus forward. “Think we could get a lift out of here?” Ryan flinched and looked back at the miniature man pointing the stick behind him.
Half an hour later, after Ryan and the Delta and air force personnel had been pulled aboard and the Rio Madonna began to make its way out of the lagoon, the lone creature breached the surface and stared at the departing boat. Then the beast slowly sank beneath the surface as the small monkey-like creatures came out of the trees and started jabbering and jumping into the water. And so life returned to normal in the Garden of Eden, which returned to serenity in front of a collapsed legendary treasure that would continue to tease the mind of greedy men the world over—the lost mines of El Dorado.
25
Pete Golding paced outside Niles Compton’s office. Alice watched him walk by her desk for the twentieth time. She shook her head, wondering when people would learn that you can wear the carpet down to fibers pacing and worrying, but that still couldn’t change the speed at which things happened. She had learned this after her ten-thousandth mile of doing exactly what Pete was doing now.
Pete stopped as the door finally opened. Niles was finished with his phone call to Scottsdale, Arizona.
“Well?” Pete asked.
Niles had spoken directly to the surviving member of the 1942 expedition to Brazil. Charles Kauffman, an associate professor under Enrico Fermi at the time, was still very cognizant of what they had achieved back in the war years. His mind was sharp and he remembered everything.
“The Army Corps of Engineers, along with the U.S. Navy and Army, removed one hundred and two pounds of enriched uranium from El Dorado.” Niles sat on the edge of Alice’s desk as he spoke. “They had discovered information from a spy in 1941 that the ore samples were indeed real and were stored in the archives, the same samples and cross Farbeaux got his hands on in just the last few years. Anyway, Mr. Kauffman explained to me that Fermi and the effort at the University of Chicago had yet to achieve that which they had been theorizing since Einstein had said it was possible—”
“A sustained chain reaction,” Pete said for him.
“That’s right. They needed something that they did not have, a source of enriched uranium. Well, we now know the source fell directly into their laps, thrown there by the U.S. military and Corps of Engineers when they confirmed the existence of Padilla’s lagoon and samples. It was never about the gold. It was always the uranium.”
“Let me guess from my memory of the dates,” Pete said. “By the time the expedition had met its ill-fated end, Fermi and his team had achieved their reaction in the States?”
“Yes.”
“And the material?”
“It was placed in storage in Utah by the Army Corps of Engineers, and forgotten about until just recently.”
“Is that it?” Pete asked.
It was Alice who guessed at it.
“The material has come up missing, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, it has. And you will never guess who the beneficiary of this unusual find was.”
“Well, who was it?” Pete asked when Niles didn’t say anything more.
SIXTY MILES SOUTH OF BAGHDAD, REPUBLIC OF IRAQ
They owned the night. There wasn’t a team in the world better at operations that called for sheer audacity than the Blue Light element of Delta, the highly secretive commando and antiterrorist unit of the U.S. Army.
They had been briefed on their mission by the secretary of defense, himself. The plan called for a twelve-man incursion into the most unlikely weapons storage facility they had ever been called upon to strike. The storage unit was placed three stories below ground level in an area the Iraqis knew no one would ever suspect.
The HALO parachute jump had gone off without incident and the twelve Blue Light commandos settled easily to the desert scrub just outside of the ancient ruins. The facility had been hastily constructed and was lightly guarded and the strike team took advantage of the close in intelligence supplied to them from Iraqi informants inside their military.
The target: the ancient ruins of the city of Babylon.
The material was stored in an underground bunker originally built by Saddam Hussein during his tyrannical rule of Iraq. Since no one but the topmost chiefs of the Iraqi military knew what the material was, the area was virtually unsecured. The bunker’s few guards were easily dispatched with regret toward their innocence. Five soldiers in all silently, quickly killed without a warning being sounded.
Thirteen minutes later, the material had been found and tested, verifying the fact that it was indeed the same ore that had been removed from Brazil almost seventy years before.
An hour after the mission had started it was over and news relayed to the president of the United States that Iraq was no longer in possession of material that would enable that country to manufacture the world’s largest “dirty bomb.” The Iraqi government would have to defend themselves from Iran with the aid of a few well-chosen friendly nations instead.
BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA
The Brazilian chief of staff had just made a withdrawal from his protected accounts at the Banco de Juarez. Señor Mendez, his benefactor, was out of the country, or so he was told when he asked for him. He smiled to himself; it did not matter as he would never see him again, as his military career was over at any rate due to his final act of treachery to his country.
As he stepped from the suite of offices he looked at his watch; plenty of time to make his charter flight to Venezuela. As he strolled casually toward the elevator, his briefcase pleasantly heavy with more than six million American dollars in payoff money earned over the years from various cartels, to allow drug overflights of his country, he was appreciative of the attractive twenty-something woman who joined him as he waited for the elevator. As the express car arrived he smiled and gestured for her to enter first. As the door closed, the general removed his sunglasses and turned, smiling. His smile faded quickly as the silenced Glock nine-millimeter pistol went off in his face. The woman placed the smoking weapon in her handbag and waited for the elevator to arrive at the private lobby on the first floor. Before the door opened, she reached down and removed the briefcase from the dead hand of the general, then popped its latches and poured the money out, onto his prone body.
The president of Brazil did not care to be made a fool in front of the Americans.
THE WHITE HOUSE
The crowded pressroom was deathly still as the secretary of state slowly unfolded his prepared statement. He scanned those assembled and saw the president standing well away from any prying camera lenses. Secretary Nussbaum closed his eyes and then opened them, and tried in vain to smile.
“Good afternoon. For the many months of campaigning to succeed the president into this very office, I have been blessed with many letters of support from our party. Thus it is with a sad heart that I must now decline the upcoming nomination for the presidency due to health reasons I won’t go into here—”
The president listened for a moment and then turned away. He had never been so tempted in his many years in public life to throttle a man he had considered a close friend and advisor. A man who found it easy to lie, cheat, and murder his way into the highest office of the country.
“Hi, Daddy,” Kelly said as she joined him on his way back to the Oval Office.
He smiled and placed his arm around her. “Hi there, yourself.”
“What’s going to happen to that jerk and his buddies now?” she asked, thinking about Robby, Professor Zachary, and the others, and the horrible fate handed to them from these men her father had trusted.
“They are all being retired from public life.”
“That’s all? After what they did?” she asked incredulously.
He would have loved to explain the
real inner workings of the world to his daughter, because she and the other survivors deserved at least that much. But what good would it do to tell them and his countrymen that, on his watch, trusted men were able to get their hands on the most deadly material in the world and use it for their own gains? None. Passing enriched uranium to a foreign nation and allowing them to use that material as a possible means of detonating a dirty bomb over the forces of an aggressive Iran was not legally treason. No U.S. law existed to forbid it. And so, the military men involved in the conspiracy were simply reassigned for their failure to foresee the Iranian threat of invasion. At least officially. They would be quietly retired, and their despicable lives would go on with only a look back at the positions they might have held in the secretary’s new government.
As for the secretary, he would die quietly in his sleep from something resembling a massive coronary. That would be the only justice handed down for the man who had cost the lives of over seventy Americans. Kelly did not need to know the details.
“That’s just the way of it, baby.” He stopped and turned her toward him. “I’m sorry. So, are you heading back to California to visit your friend, Robby?”
“Yes.”
“You tell him to get well, and we’ll talk about certain aspects of his summer with you when he’s better,” he said. He kissed her on the cheek and sent her upstairs to her mother. Then he turned and entered the Oval Office.
The four Secret Service agents and three FBI were standing around a lone man sitting on the couch. The director of the FBI sat facing the man, who held his head down. The president walked past them and sat at his desk. He looked up and shook his head. The ex-national security advisor slowly looked up into the eyes of his former boss.
“Now, what am I supposed to do with you?” the president asked no one in particular as he glared at his own personal Judas.
The Secret Service agent by the door reached out and closed it.
Epilogue
It had been a surreal experience since the moment the team had stepped off the transport until the time they had finally been called to final debrief by Niles. The invitees didn’t include any of the regular Event Group hierarchies, with the exception of Virginia and Jack. Pete Golding was even missing. Heidi Rodriguez was there, sitting next to Sarah, and so was Professor Ellenshaw. Alice smiled as she took in the small group. Carl came in late and apologized. Only Niles was yet to enter the room.
“This isn’t a normal debrief,” Virginia said, looking at her watch.
“No, its not,” Alice said, knowing full well that Virginia was anxious to get out of the meeting and fly back to Los Angeles to see Master Chief Jenks, who was laid up in the hospital there. The Stanford graduate students had been debriefed by members of the FBI and told that the others on their trip had met with a boating disaster—a story they all wholeheartedly agreed to proliferate if asked. Three of the Zachary team was in for much harder times, including Helen’s assistant and Kelly’s fiancé, Robby, who had taken in enough rads to assure him of some form of dreadful illness before he reached old age. The other two kids wouldn’t make it through the month.
As for the Event Team that had been under Jack’s command, including the Proteus Operation, they had lost thirty-three people, all brilliant men and women, friends that couldn’t easily be replaced—Keating, Jackson, Larry Ito, Dr. Waltrip, and many others. Losses Jack would have a hard time getting over.
The door opened and Niles walked in. He stepped aside and allowed Senator Garrison Lee, the former director of the Group, to enter. Lee was followed by the president of the United States, who was supposed to be on a fund-raising tour of Arizona, Nevada, and California in support of the newest party candidate, a former general in the U.S. Army whose campaign was starting to steamroll after the secretary of state’s abrupt resignation.
The Group started to stand, but the president waved them back down.
“Don’t do that, please,” he said. He couldn’t meet their eyes.
He waited for Senator Lee to be seated out of respect for the old gentleman, and then he sat at the far end of the conference table. Alice smiled at her former boss and current roommate, and Lee patted her hand.
The president spoke first, catching Niles off guard.
“No,” he said looking up from the tabletop toward Niles. “I will not accept it, so don’t even try.”
Niles angrily removed his jacket and looked at Lee, who didn’t flinch from his gaze.
“My right; I was lied to at every step,” Niles calmly said.
“Not by me,” the president countered brusquely.
Alice closed her eyes and stopped taking the minutes of the meeting.
The president took a deep breath and then finally looked at the people around the conference table.
“The United States government has known about Padilla’s valley since early in 1941. The information was discovered by an American agent working in the Vatican. He gave the information to his controller in Army Intelligence, who knew beyond a doubt what ore was in his possession. That agent was able to retrieve the route from the diary, with the official sanction of the Catholic Church and the Archdiocese of Madrid. They deemed that we Americans would be able to use the material wisely in the end. So, the route and ore found its way to the University of Chicago, whose experiments in building a reactor underneath Stagg Field in Chicago had been an unadulterated failure to that point. Enrico Fermi was allowed to examine Padilla’s ore samples firsthand. He came away convinced the samples were as close to weapons grade as they could ever achieve artificially. Naturally, he continued work on his atomic pile in Chicago. But they wanted to use the Padilla samples as a fallback material, so they went after it.”
Niles had refrained from telling everyone in the room. The president insisted he be the one to take full and ultimate responsibility for the lives lost.
He swallowed and looked from face to face. “You know the rest. His friend at Princeton, Albert Einstein, sent ten of his closest and most trusted people, along with Fermi’s chosen few. He dubbed them the Chicago Mining Association. Unfortunately, he never saw most of them again and the ones he did would live only three months, with the exception of Professor Kauffman in Arizona. Needless to say, Fermi was more competent than he believed himself to be, and was successful in producing a chain reaction the very same month his expedition was destroyed.”
“And then the world became a better place,” Lee interjected with sarcasm.
“The material from El Dorado had been kept and filed away for years and years. Then it was accidentally discovered by the head of the Army Corps of Engineers, and that information was shared with several friends of his, including my own national security advisor and the former secretary of state. Together, they found a worthwhile cause for the use of the weapons-grade material. An event that would make one man look good enough to hold this very office, and for the others to have high new positions afterward as a reward for stopping the threat of invasion from an aggressor nation.”
Niles still looked angry.
The president looked at Compton and said, “Resignation not accepted, Mr. Director, simply for the reason you are too valuable to the American people.”
Niles swallowed and allowed himself to feel for the first time in days.
“I withdraw my resignation request,” Niles said and allowed Alice to take his hand and for Lee to reach over and pat both of theirs.
The president sat a moment, looking tired. “Now, Major Collins, I understand you believe you have the right to award battlefield commissions to sergeants?”
Jack grinned. He was prepared for the argument with the president. “Not only sergeants, but navy junior grades also.” He nodded toward Virginia, who stood and made her way to the double doors and pulled them open.
Second Lieutenant (temporary grade) William Mendenhall stepped in dressed in his U.S. Army dress blues that still had his gold, staff sergeant’s stripes on the sleeve. He was followed in by Lieutenant JG
Jason Ryan, USN, who was dressed in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt of multiple colors. They both stood at attention.
“Glad to be home, Mr. Ryan? I understand Delta wants you back, and the Proteus program also wants you. So tell me, are you done flying for the air force?” the president asked.
Ryan glanced at Collins before answering the president.
“I think the major knew that laser platform would try to kill me, sir.”
“Well, it’s his right to do so. After meeting you and seeing you again, Mr. Ryan,” he looked pointedly at the shorts and Hawaiian shirt, “I can’t blame him.”
“Mr. President,” Jack said, standing, “I officially request that Sergeant William Mendenhall be given assignment to the very next class at OCS. He will make a fine officer in the army. As for Mr. Ryan here, either we need to promote him for duties above and beyond, or kick his ass out of here completely, if you’ll pardon the expression—your choice.”
The president stood and shook both men’s hands, and nodded his agreement.
“I suppose you would have also tried to resign if I didn’t give in?” he asked the major.
“Me, Mr. President? Not a chance, I was hoping for Niles’s job until you talked him out of quitting.”
The president smiled and then slid two small cases along the conference table toward Niles. “Do the honors, Mr. Director, please.”
Niles, with as much pomp and circumstance as he could muster, simply tossed one box to Jack and the other to Carl.
The director then opened a flimsy paper and read. “Major Jack Collins, as befitting a military liaison to an agency outside of his own, you are hereby promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, with pay grade adjustment commensurate of said rank, minus one hundred dollars per month, which is to be deducted toward the repayment of monies to the United States Navy, stemming from charges brought about by Master Chief Archibald Jenks, United States Navy, for the destruction of U.S. government property, namely the commissioned river transport, USS Teacher. Lieutenant Commander Carl Everett is hereby promoted to the rank of captain, United States Navy, with pay grade increase for same, plus a monthly deduction of pay amounting to one hundred dollars, as aforementioned compensation for property recently destroyed.”
Legend: An Event Group Thriller Page 48