Ethan smiled as he leaned against the wall and folded his arms.
‘Well, you see that’s the other problem. You travelled here without visas or passport, so there’s no record of you actually being here at all. So, we figured, y’know what? If Forbeck doesn’t play ball, that’s just fine. He’s not going anywhere on that leg and since we just froze his bank accounts and recovered his cash assets, we’ll just pretend this whole thing never happened.’
Forbeck frowned in confusion and Lopez smiled brightly.
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘We’ll just let you go.’
Ethan pushed off the wall and took a moment to look around the hospital ward at the stained walls, the emaciated bodies of two dying men laying in nearby beds, the sickly aroma of lousy disinfectant and urine heavy in the air.
‘This is as bad a prison sentence as you’ll ever get back home,’ Ethan said. ‘We already know who you’re working for so I guess there’s not so much you can do for us anyway. I doubt you’ll make it out of here alive. Best of luck with that.’
Ethan walked away from Forbeck’s bed, Lopez turning on her heel and following him toward the ward exit. He got to within two paces of the door when Forbeck’s strained voice cried out.
‘Wait!’
Ethan turned at the door and looked at Forbeck expectantly. His face was flushed red both from pain and the incessant heat. Ethan knew that he wouldn’t last long in here, that he would probably not survive the wound in his leg if he wasn’t shipped to America real fast.
‘Talk,’ Ethan said, ‘and make it damned fast and equally good or I’ll walk out of here right now, something that you’ll never be able to do.’
Forbeck grit his teeth, but he knew that he had no place left to go.
‘I work for a man named Garrett.’
‘Tell us something we don’t already know,’ Lopez insisted.
‘He has an island,’ Forbeck gasped as a fresh wave of pain washed over him and he squirmed in agony, ‘off the coast of Brazil.’
Ethan walked back to the bedside. ‘An island?’
Forbeck nodded.
‘I don’t know exactly what he does there but he leases the island from the Brazilian government for experiments of some kind, and whatever it is that he’s up to is not good. I don’t go there if I can avoid it.’
‘Why?’ Lopez asked, interested now. ‘What is it that you don’t like about the place?’
Forbeck clasped his wound with both hands. ‘I need pain killers,’ he whimpered.
‘You’ll get them,’ Ethan promised. ‘Talk.’
Forbeck managed to get himself under control and spoke in a weary, ragged voice, the tone of a man in total defeat.
‘I saw some of the things they have there,’ he whispered, ‘creatures.’
‘Creatures?’ Lopez echoed, almost nervously.
‘People,’ Forbeck said, ‘but they’re not people, not really. They’re… they’re not human.’
Ethan felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as he considered what Forbeck was saying. If the man was trying to stall for time he was doing a damned good job of it: nobody in their right mind would make up such an outlandish story if they were trying to convince government agents that they were telling the truth. The pain alone wasn’t enough to make Forbeck delirious.
‘This island,’ Ethan asked. ‘What’s it called?’
***
XXXI
‘It’s called Ilhabela, and is two hundred miles south west down the coast from Rio de Janeiro.’
The interior of the Lockheed C–5 Galaxy was blessedly cool compared to the dense humidity of Madagascar. Ethan sat at a communications terminal inside the aircraft’s cavernous fuselage, just behind the cockpit, the immense Galaxy having been diverted south from a flight out of Iraq to collect them under the pretence of collecting the dead bodies of two US agents killed in the line of duty in Madagascar. At the same time, Forbeck had gotten himself a ride back to the USA and the medical attention he so desperately needed.
A monitor before Ethan showed an image of Doug Jarvis in his office in Washington DC, while a small window to Ethan’s right revealed the twinkling lights of Madagascar’s coastal towns vanishing beneath swathes of cloud as the Galaxy climbed out toward the African coast and the vast South Atlantic Ocean beyond.
‘Tell me about it,’ Ethan said as he leaned back in the seat. ‘Forbeck is convinced that whatever Garrett’s up to, it’s happening on that island.’
Hellerman’s face appeared on the screen as he briefed Ethan.
‘Ilhabela is Portuguese for “beautiful island”,’ Hellerman said, ‘it’s a few miles off the coast, far enough to be clear of most tourists.’
‘How could this guy Garrett hide some kind of experimental facility from so many people?’
‘Because it’s not exactly hidden,’ Hellerman explained. ‘Garrett leases the western side of the island from the Brazilian government, and that side of the island is rarely visited by tourists. The island’s interior is densely forested and virtually impassable, which means that access to the island on the far side of the channel is possible only by boat. Most folks don’t venture inland from there, staying on the secluded beaches.’
Ethan watched as Hellerman’s features disappeared to reveal a satellite image of the island.
‘The facility itself appears to be mostly underground, with thick forest canopy concealing what little is visible from the air. Access is strictly controlled, and as far as we’re aware nobody but employees of Garrett have set foot inside that facility since it was constructed some ten years ago.’
‘Ten years, huh?’ Lopez echoed, ‘plenty of time for somebody to have been busy creating who–the–hell–knows–what. Forbeck claimed that there were creatures on that island, something not quite human. Who the hell is this guy Garrett, anyway?’
‘Professor Rhys Garrett,’ Hellerman explained, ‘a former Professor of genetics at Harvard. Made himself a billion or two during the early rush to decode the human genome among other things, by licensing a series of coding protocols for DNA that allowed computers to crunch biological data more efficiently.’
Ethan saw an image of the professor appear on the screen, a hawkish looking man with thin–rimmed spectacles balanced precariously on the end of his beak–like nose, eyes with an ominous hint of radicalism glittering in them like a distant, volatile star.
‘When was he last seen?’ Ethan asked.
‘Garrett slipped the net at Dulles International two weeks ago,’ Jarvis explained. ‘Went as far as to use a body double, which fooled the tail we had on him. The flight he took was private and was headed to South Africa, but from there the trail goes cold until Madagascar and his yacht, which you both connected to the events on the island.’
The image of the island vanished and Jarvis spoke to them again.
‘As far as Garrett’s aware, you two are dead,’ he reminded them. ‘There’s no way that we can gain rapid access to this facility through normal diplomatic channels. The Brazilians are allies, sure, but they are likely generating huge revenue from whatever Garrett’s doing down there and we’ve got to assume that he’s already well in with the government and other heads of state.’
‘They wouldn’t stand against America,’ Ethan pointed out. ‘We have direct evidence linking assets of Garrett to the attack in Madagascar. Can’t we just point the finger and force the Brazilians to open the place up to an inspection?’
‘They already tried,’ Jarvis replied. ‘Three years ago the US tried to convince Brazil to open the island up for investigators, but Brazil closed ranks around Garrett. It turns out that they’re not particularly trusting of America’s history of concealing UFO events, and they seem to think that this island has something to do with the Varginha event.’
‘You think that the creatures that Forbeck mentioned are the same things that were seen at Varginha?’
‘Maybe,’ Jarvis replied, ‘but without boots on the ground it’s a
ll conjecture. Many witnesses claim to have encountered strange creatures on the island, but few have come forward in recent years.’
‘How come?’ Lopez asked.
‘Recanted their statements,’ Jarvis replied, ‘either as a result of intimidation or bribes. Garrett can do both. The only person I could find who might talk is a former military police officer name Martinez who was a witness to the original sightings in Varginha. He’ll meet you when you arrive in Brazil.’
‘And Garrett?’ Lopez asked.
‘I don’t know what the hell this guy’s up to out there but right now our best bet is to ignore official protocol and get you both onto that island,’ Jarvis replied. ‘You’re off record anyhow, so anything you can gather intelligence–wise will have to pass through an anonymous source in order to be admissible as evidence before Congress.’
‘You think that this can get to the Capitol?’ Ethan asked, somewhat amazed.
‘I think that it’s time to open this up beyond the Defense Intelligence Agency’s walls,’ Jarvis replied. ‘The public needs to know what’s happening here. We’ve been pursuing Majestic Twelve for years and we’re not really any closer to bringing them down, and the attacks you’ve endured on this mission prove that they’re out to finish us off any way they can. Our best bet now is to publicly expose them for what they are and embarrass them in the media as much as possible to force them to back off.’
‘They’ll find another way,’ Lopez pointed out. ‘They won’t stop hunting us.’
‘They might,’ Jarvis said, ‘if we can get Garrett to admit his involvement with the cabal.’
Ethan raised an eyebrow. ‘Garrett wasn’t one of the eleven men we imaged in New York City.’
‘Indeed,’ Jarvis said, ‘and that’s why we think that he’s involved in an attempt to join Majestic Twelve. He has the financial power and the expertize, but there must be something else up his sleeve that he’s using as leverage to win himself a place. It’s your job to find out what that something is. I’ll have the Navy send a ship before you head to Brazil so you can intercept Garrett’s yacht. Report back in when you have him in custody or you reach his island.’
‘Done,’ Ethan replied. ‘We’ll get some sleep while we cross the Atlantic.’
‘Be careful. If Forbeck is right, whatever Garrett has on that island won’t be friendly.’
*
Washington DC
‘Did you get the codes?’
Jarvis turned to Hellerman as soon as the link with Ethan and Nicola had been switched off. Hellerman eagerly handed him a thick wad of papers.
‘Most of it’s the account details,’ the scientist explained. ‘The bread’s on the first couple of pages, all of the codes. They’re held in off shores around the world and the codes change regularly, so we’ll have to be quick to catch them all and freeze up the money.’
‘How much is there?’ Jarvis asked.
Hellerman actually swallowed, as though nervous to say it out loud.
‘Almost four trillion dollars in assets,’ he said. ‘More than some countries.’
Jarvis nodded, and then clapped Hellerman on the shoulder. ‘We’ve got MJ–12 by the balls now, don’t we?’
Hellerman grinned. ‘You gonna take it to Nellis now?’
‘Right this instant,’ Jarvis confirmed. ‘Get on the horn to the NSA and set up a meeting will you? You deserve the credit for breaking this.’
Jarvis walked from the ARIES watch room as Hellerman hurried to his office to make the call. He strode up to the ground level of the DIA’s Headquarters building and walked toward the lobby, his pass card checked by security as he logged out of the building and walked through the south exit.
Broad lawns basked in the afternoon sunlight and a fountain glistened as Jarvis strolled casually toward the parking lot and slipped a cell phone from his pocket. He dialled, and after three rings Mitchell answered.
‘Yes?’
‘Ilhabela, off the coast of Brazil, just south of Sau Paulo,’ Jarvis said simply. ‘Target is Rhys Garrett, private facility, defenses unknown. All of Majestic Twelve are likely to be there.’
‘Understood.’
‘I’m sending you some codes, an unexpected bonus,’ he added. ‘This is what I need you to do.’
As soon as Jarvis had finished speaking the line clicked off and Jarvis switched off the burner and yanked off the rear of the device. He pulled out the SIM card and dropped it down a drain as he walked, then broke the cell phone in two. He would deposit the remains of the phone in two dumpsters at least a mile apart on his way home, having taken a suitable detour that would avoid any blocks monitored by CCTV.
*
‘Flash traffic, south lawn.’
Hellerman sat at a monitor and watched as the automated “crawler” program he had initiated locked on to the cell phone signal burst that had been emitted from a local tower just moments before.
‘Where’s it from and where is it going?’
General Nellis stood behind Hellerman with his arms folded and watched as the kid worked his magic on the computers, which were linked from his office to the vast data servers of the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency. Within moments the combined resources of all of the agencies and the local telephone company’s willingness to comply provided Hellerman with the information that Nellis needed.
‘The call originated from our own south lawns and was received by an unregistered cell phone in Tijuana, Mexico.’
‘Can you trace the location of the receiving signal?’ Nellis asked.
Hellerman shook his head. ‘No, it’s already gone. My guess is that they’re using multiple burner cells and destroying each one after a single use. There’s no trail to follow.’
Nellis nodded. ‘Okay, just bring up the CCTV on the south lawn and wind it back.’
Hellerman obeyed, picking up the relevant camera feed and winding it back to the time of the call. Moments later a still image of Douglas Jarvis appeared, a cell phone pressed to his ear.
Nellis sighed heavily as he looked at the image. Hellerman stifled his own gasp and looked up at the general.
‘You’ve been tracking Jarvis? Why?’
‘That’s why,’ Nellis said as he gestured at the screen. ‘Ever since Felix Byzan was killed in Rome I’ve suspected that the hit required inside knowledge. The only people who know the identities of Majestic Twelve work in this building, and Jarvis has made no secret of his desire to see the cabal liquidated.’
Hellerman stared at the still image of his boss. ‘You’re sure there can be no mistake?’
Nellis shook his head.
‘No other calls went out south of the border from this location in that timeframe, and we’re a long way from Mexico. Get the tech team to place a GPS tracker on Jarvis’s car. I want to know where he is at all times, okay?’
‘Who do you think he’s been calling?’
Nellis rested a reassuring hand on Hellerman’s shoulder before he turned and walked from the office.
‘I have a few ideas, but I’ll deal with this. Share it with nobody, understood?’
‘Are you going to arrest him?’ Hellerman asked. ‘He’s served his country his entire life and his record is impeccable.’
‘That doesn’t give him the right to act as judge and juror,’ Nellis snapped. ‘The moment we start acting like that, we’re no better than MJ–12.’
The General turned and stalked out of Hellerman’s office, closed the door behind him and headed swiftly for the elevators. It was only once the doors were closed that he let out a long sigh of relief, grateful for the brief moment of privacy as he pondered on his next course of action.
Jarvis’s work had led directly to the death of a member of Majestic Twelve, and Nellis had not the first idea of what to do about it.
***
XXXII
USS Independence,
Gulf of Mexico
‘Do we have a locati
on?!’
Ethan had to shout over the noise from the blades of a US Navy Black Hawk helicopter that was winding its engines up as they walked out onto the stern deck of the littoral ship.
‘We’re working on it now! Stand by!’
USS Independence was one of the Navy’s newest combat ships, a small–crew corvette capable of multiple roles. She was a futuristic looking trimaran design, with a wide beam supporting a very large flight deck and capable of sustaining speeds of more than forty knots.
Ethan climbed aboard the Black Hawk alongside Lopez, and around them were packed a small but elite team of US Navy SEALS, heavily armed and their features concealed behind bandanas and camouflage paint that made them somehow look less human and more machine.
Ethan strapped into his seat with Lopez alongside him as the helicopter lifted off the corvette’s deck and turned, her nose dipping as her tail rose and the Black Hawk accelerated away from the ship and skimmed over the waves of the Gulf of Mexico, the broad and flat greenery of the Yucatan Peninsula crouched against the horizon before them.
The loadmaster’s voice in Ethan’s earphones was barely audible as he sat in his seat and watched the glittering seas race by.
‘The yacht is still in international waters, but she’s making a run for Cancun by the look of things!’
‘We’ve got to get to her first,’ Ethan insisted. ‘Can we cut her off?’
‘Coast Guard already ordered her to heave to, but there was no response,’ the loadmaster replied. ‘She’s making for the dock no matter what, and once inside she’s beyond the reach of our government.’
Ethan checked the 9mm pistol in his shoulder holster one last time as he replied.
‘We don’t have time for political wrangling. Either we stop them now, or this is already over.’
The loadmaster smiled grimly. ‘Don’t worry, these guys can be aboard her in sixty seconds, and have her engines shut down right afterward. We’re ten miles out, it’s gonna be close, but they’ll make it.’
The Extinction Code Page 21