"The same ship?"
Ernie answered, "This is unknown. But the size of the vessels was similar."
Nina pounced, "Did they raise the alert? I mean, what did they do?"
"This is just the thing, miss. They did nothing. On that day, they had a very important visitor who was overseeing operations."
Gordon knew the answer before Ernie could speak: "Dante Jones."
Knox’s tone suggested satisfaction, not surprise. Nina’s head swiveled fast between the two men. She noted how their eyes seemed to speak without words.
"You knew? You knew, didn’t you?"
Ernie explained, "Gordo had me check the D.C., center first. He knew Mr. Jones to be there that day."
"A hunch," Gordon admitted. "As soon as I heard what happened, I wanted to know where all of Trevor’s people were. Jones was in an important place. I had my friend here ask questions."
"And that’s when my friend told me about the air space…hmmm…violations."
Gordon spoke fast, "And the data tapes aren’t around anymore, are they?"
Ernie nodded his head and sipped the last drops of his drink.
Nina said, "So there’s no record? Only your friend’s word that he saw something. I mean, no evidence."
"Si. He went back to check the center’s logs for that time and found no warnings, no sightings. As far as Internal Security is concerned, all was quiet on the…hmmm… eastern front."
Again Nina spotted a silent conversation between the two old comrades. Ernie smiled.
"What? What is it?" Nina’s voice carried the slightest hint of a pout.
Gordon said, "The buoys. The network. You have someone on it already, don’t you?"
"Another one of our friends, Gordo."
Ernie pulled a folded paper from his pocket and stretched to hand it to Knox who examined the contents and nodded. He spoke when he noticed Nina glaring at him, "The tambourine line is a series not only of monitoring stations but computers. Networked computers. Some on land, some on buoys in the Atlantic Ocean. With the right encryption codes, someone could access the backup information on the hard drives on those computers. Assuming they haven’t been erased."
Ernie laughed, "These amateurs? Half of the I.S. officers I work with don’t even know how the tambourine line works. Our friend is going to the buoy off Abaco Island tonight. He will meet you in the morning."
"Wait a sec," Nina’s voice wavered. "You said the fence was tripped near New Jersey. Why would that info be down here?"
"It’s a network," Gordon answered. "Someone with the right skills can hack into the whole system from one terminal."
"Yes," Ernie laughed. "Someone I know made sure this to be the case, did you not?"
Nina glared at Gordon yet again. "You? You built this into the tambourine line?"
He answered, "Always have a backup plan, Captain."
Ernie quipped, "And oh yes, hmmm, never trust anyone."
"What matters," Gordon insisted, "is that we’ll have some answers tomorrow."
"No, Gordo. What did you always tell me? You’ll have more information. Answers are the stories you tell from that information and stories can be told a lot of different ways."
17. Fast Attack
"Untie the stern line."
Nina—who felt only slightly more comfortable in a boat than in a car—searched around until finding and letting loose one of the thick cords keeping the vessel attached to the dock. The rope had barely released when Gordon thrust the throttle. The twin Mercruiser engines propelled the thirty-foot Sleekcraft away from the marina on the west side of Key Biscayne.
Gordon wore his straw hat, Nina had ditched the previous night's sun dress in favor of more comfortable garb: camo BDUs and a black tank top. Not quite right for a hot South Florida afternoon, but about as casual as Nina would get again anytime soon. A baseball cap provided some shade and layers of protective lotion covered every square inch of her body, a reaction to the patch of burning red on her neck from the day before.
In any case, Gordon steered his low-profile, high-performance boat to the south. Nina walked gingerly toward the front trying to find her sense of balance as the boat bounced. She stumbled, practically falling into the forward V-berth.
"Easy does it," Gordon suggested. "You gotta get your sea legs."
Nina righted herself into the passenger seat. The salt water spray from the bobbing bow fell across her face in a loose veil. She found it slightly refreshing.
In fact, slowly—as they passed the southern tip of Key Biscayne and turned east into the Atlantic proper—she began to appreciate the cooling blast of wind and water vapor.
For the first half an hour, she spied other sea goers ranging from long sail boats to a freighter headed north, a military patrol ship watching the waterways and a pair of dueling cigarette boats engaged in a test of speed. However, Nina soon saw herself and Gordon as the only human beings within miles.
Knox closely kept watch over the gauges and readings on the dash, occasionally consulting the folded slip of paper Ernie provided last night.
Still, the further they went the more Nina grew apprehensive. Part of that came from the real worry of sea monsters, but most from her anxiety over the investigation. Clandestine meetings, hacked computer systems, and conspiracy theories did not sit well in her gut. Nina Forest wore a soldier's uniform, not a spy's cloak. While she had an eye for tactics and an instinct for fighting, she did not trust her ability to sift through deception.
Apparently Nina's concerns surfaced in her expression. Gordon asked, "What's wrong?"
She lied, "Nothing."
"You're wondering why Ashley chose you. Are you the right person for the job?"
She sighed. "So you're a mind reader now? Is that it?"
"I wondered the same thing," he rubbed salt in the wound. "You have a reputation as a tremendous soldier. But you'd think Ashley would turn to Jon Brewer or Shep to dig this up. Whatever the reason, it's not because of your talents, but because Ashley has faith in your ability to get the job done. She sent you to me so that you'd have help with the spooking around. She knew I have the contacts."
Nina confessed, "She told me she knew everything that happened during that year I can't remember. If I do this, she'll tell me."
"Ah, so there is a big secret or two. Is that it? I suppose she has faith, then, in your motivation. The good news is I don't think our conspirators are going to be too hard to find. A few more pieces of the puzzle and we…" Gordon's voice trailed as he checked the instruments on the dash, thought, and slowed the Sleekcraft. "A few more pieces of the puzzle and I think everything is going to come into view."
The high-powered boat stopped and drifted on calm seas. The bow slowed its bobbing; their wake faded.
"This is it," Gordon checked his wristwatch and added, "Right on time, too."
Nina grabbed a pair of binoculars from the starboard settee and raised them to her eyes. She revolved in a complete circle, scanning the horizon in all directions for any sign of activity.
"There's nothing out there."
Gordon glanced at his watch once more and suggested she, "Look again."
A vibration shook the Sleekcraft. Fifty yards off the port bow the water bubbled and foamed. A groaning klaxon echoed. A spout of water shot like a geyser, followed by a mammoth beast jumping from the sea like a killer whale performing at Sea World.
Black and gray, two eye-like windows at the front, sixty feet long with a bow shaped like a hammerhead shark that hovered in the air for a long second then slapped the water's surface with a heavy splash. The spray fell across Gordon and Nina like a sheet of rain.
The submarine sat on the surface where there had been nothing seconds before. Its sleek body resembled an alligator floating with its spine poking above the surface and its eyes scanning for prey. It made Nina think of a smaller version of Captain Nemo's Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; a book her father had read to her nearly thirty years ago.
; Gordon said, "Barracuda fast attack sub. First one went into service two years ago."
Nina knew of the vessels and rattled off, "Crew of twelve, used primarily for coastal patrol, designed specifically to combat underwater hostiles. Oh, and it runs on something called a magnetohydrodynamic drive that makes it quiet and fast. The military has about a dozen."
Knox added, "And Intelligence has a couple, too."
He turned on the twin Mercruisers again and guided the boat closer to the new arrival. As they closed the distance, a pair of hatches on the smooth skin of the man-made beast popped open. Four men in black wet suits stood on the deck. Gordon maneuvered the Sleekcraft alongside and threw the stern line to one of the seamen who held it secure to allow boarding.
Gordon told Nina, "You go ahead. I'll wait here."
"Huh? These are your friends, aren't they?"
"It's your mission, Captain. I'm just here to help. Are you afraid of going in there alone?"
Nina narrowed her eyes and then swung her leg onto the sub, refusing a helping hand from one of the crewmen in the process.
Gordon called, "Ask 'T' where they were!"
She glanced back at him before eyeing the dark portal leading below. Nina crouched and lowered herself inside.
Two decks comprised the small sub. Nina did not know about the lower level but the upper one felt cramped and humid. It was, in essence, a long tube. She saw two wheelmen sitting at helms in the two 'eyes' that were actually darkly tinted windows. Consoles and monitors lined the walls manned by crewmen who leered as she entered their world.
A small, raised platform with a chair sat in the center of the cramped chamber. A white man in a dirty shirt with a Captain's hat occupied it, chewing on a toothpick. When she took a step in his direction he pointed her toward the rear of the deck and a heavy door amid pipes and wires and valves and storage compartments. Nina knocked. The crew laughed. Nina did not wait, she turned the knob and entered.
The room probably served as the Captain's quarters but someone else had usurped that privilege from the boat's master. He sat behind a desk with a big grin revealing one gold tooth. He wore his hair in long dreadlocks and dressed in a blue, short-sleeve shirt unbuttoned enough to reveal a scar across his black chest. A shoulder holster displayed an ivory-handled revolver.
Papers, curled maps, and a laptop computer cluttered the desktop. Closed metal cabinets and a chart table occupied the rest of the space but enough room remained for a metal seat in front of the desk.
Nina still felt the leers of the men on her back. Without looking, she reached and closed the door. The man at the desk found that very funny. He laughed and spoke with a Jamaican accident, "Hello! Gordon did not come himself?"
"He's outside…waiting."
"That is too bad. You tell Gordon that 'T' sends his best. You tell him that he still owes me fifty continentals and I will not forget, no matter how he tries to avoid me. Understand?"
"I will," Nina said trying hard to hide the feeling of being trapped in a floating tomb.
"This is what you came for, I think."
The man with the gold tooth—'T'—opened the lap top. The black screen of the hibernating computer came to life and showed line after line of numbers.
"Tell Gordon that his suspicions are correct. These are back up files from two tracking stations in New Jersey, understand? Something did trip the alarms way up there but no one seems to know nothing. Well, except for you and I now, I think."
She peered at the data tables, easily translating date and times while assuming the rest to be coordinates.
"I'll tell you what it says so that you can get off this little boat of mine before the men start going crazy. They have been at sea for a month so it would be best if we speed this along, understand? One something trips the wire in New Jersey not long before the assassination. Then not long after, another something trips the wire again on the way out."
Nina said, "But this doesn't tell me what that something was. I'm just saying, this is all a bunch of numbers. Nothing concrete."
"Oh, now I would not be saying that, I think. It tells you that there was an unidentified flying object that slipped its way into our air space and then out again, all on a heading that would have taken it first right toward D.C., and second right away from D.C., if you start drawing lines on charts and whatever. But what it really tells, I think, is that someone who was operating the switch for all this high tech mumbo jumbo decided not to report these numbers."
Nina wondered, again, why Ashley entrusted her with this job.
'T' popped open the laptop drive, slipped the disc in a jewel case, and handed it to Nina.
"And there you are. Now as much as I enjoy a visit from such a lovely woman, I think you should be leaving now. I have a trip to make to Trinidad with a hold full of weapons for the resistance. Quite a problem for the Hivvans, I think."
She stood but paused, remembering, "Gordon wanted me to ask where you were."
The man with the dreadlocks smiled again and stooped to grab something. He handed an unlabeled bottle of red liquid to Nina who accepted the unknown substance with caution.
"Wine from the Rhone Valley. Tell him that our friends at Camelot are waiting, but with all that has happened here in the last month I think they may be waiting a long while for us."
She studied the bottle for a moment then hardened her face, opened the door, and marched past the leers of the sailors again, climbing from the humid, shadowy confines of the submarine's interior to the warm, sunny deck.
Nina jumped into the Sleekcraft where Gordon Knox waited.
"I think your friend gave us some good stuff, but I'm not the expert. He says it's evidence of a second plane or ship of some kind entering our air space then leaving again."
Gordon powered on the engines and moved them away. Nina heard that klaxon again and the fast attack sub slipped below the waters.
"Good, that's what we needed," Knox increased speed to hurry for shore. "But there's a lot more work to do."
"Yeah, like your pal Ernie is going to have to come forward and tell us who his friend is. Maybe then we can figure out exactly what happened. I mean, this data doesn't change much about what we know, it only makes things more complicated."
"Ah, but it does tell us that there's a cover up going on," Knox pointed out as the Sleekcraft gained more speed. The nose bobbed so fast that Nina had to hold on tight. "That means there's more here than meets the eye."
"So now what?"
"So I think you're right. We're going to see Ernie again."
---
Much to Nina's dismay, traffic nearly cluttered all five of the northbound lanes on Interstate 95. Dump trucks, pickups, commercial vans and 18-wheelers hauled citrus, seafood, fuel, and other goods between the docks, warehouses, and train stations.
Scooters were a popular choice for couriers and individuals commuting to the fishing wharf or industrial centers. Most everyone moved along at a comfortable seventy miles per hour, a few slower and a few faster with lumps of like-minded drivers attached together to form herds of a sort. Gordon, much to her surprise, kept his foot light on the accelerator as they cruised with the flow on their way for Ernie's home in Miami Shores, a suburb north of downtown.
She glanced out the window, noting the Miami skyline. Several signs of battles fought dotted that cityscape, but not nearly the type of wounds other metropolises showed. She wondered if the early years of Armageddon would have been different had other people joined together with the same tenacity as the people in Dade County. She recalled her own home—Philadelphia—and how chaos, conflicting orders, and panic turned neighborhoods into isolated islands, law enforcement into small groups, and the chain of command into a joke.
Gordon grabbed her attention saying, "We get to Ernie's, he gives us the name of his contact, and then we have someone to corroborate this data."
"So what? What does this mystery ship have to do with the assassination? I'm just saying, it could be a coincid
ence."
"Someone is covering it up," he reminded. "That means it's something more."
"Will he help us? Is he even home?"
"He'll help us. He owes me big time. If he's not home…if he's not home…" Gordon peered first in his rearview mirror, then a side mirror before finishing, "…then we wait."
She asked, "Problem?"
"I don't know, but I think I just saw something silver flying around back there."
He did not have to say 'Witiko' for her to understand but the overpasses of the Dolphin Expressway disrupted their view as they drove through the sprawling arms of a concrete cloverleaf.
With their attention distracted to the sky, neither Gordon nor Nina noticed the black Suburban loitering on the grassy median alongside the Interstate. Chief Hobbs sat behind the wheel with sweat gleaming on his forehead; Ray Roos occupied the passenger's seat watching traffic through dark sunglasses.
The Witiko Skytrooper Gordon and Nina failed to spot—the one with the portable rocket launcher--landed on the roof of an old office building to the east of the thoroughfare, joining another of his breed. The first alien nodded his head toward the SUV. Roos responded by pointing his finger at the aliens
The Skytroop with the rocket launcher reacted to the gesture. As he watched the target car—the black BMW 540i—drive northbound, the alien opened a small panel on a heavy gauntlet and sent a signal.
It began.
They came from the shade alongside the ramp connecting 395 west to I-95 northbound, following the curve of the on-ramp toward the interstate. An old, half-drunk hitchhiker wearing a tweed sport jacket over a Hawks jersey stood at the end of the on-ramp with a cardboard sign reading 'Atlanta or Bust'. The first blur went by him so fast that his sign flew from his hands; the second blur knocked him off his feet.
Beyond Armageddon IV: Schism Page 28