Island of the Star Lords

by James L. Ferrell

  Voyles had also done extensive computer research on the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo, an important item in the final phase of his plan. In his capacity as engineer, he had access to the NSA satellite focused on North America and the Caribbean islands. For security reasons, the navy base was only accessible by military aircraft and navy vessels. There were no identifiable streets or roads on maps that could be obtained by ordinary people, but he was able to discern the general layout of the base from satellite images. It should be enough so that he could give intelligent replies to any questions that might be asked by military police or other authorities.

  He leaned back in his chair and rethought the steps in his plan. There appeared to be nothing missing. However, Voyles was no fool; he knew that there was always the unexpected. He was a firm believer in the old saying about the plans of mice and men. All things considered, there seemed nothing to do now but proceed and hope for the best. If everything worked out, his friend would soon be free.

  He picked up the pager and clipped it to his belt. It looked similar to the pedometers that many people wore to keep track of how far they walked in a day. He was confident that airport authorities would not question it. The documents were another matter. An old, beat-up briefcase that he had used for years sat on the floor beside the table. He picked it up, put it on the table and opened it.

  A pad of yellow sticky notes lay on the table in front of him. He scribbled a four-digit number on one of them with a pencil then removed his personal bank debit card from his wallet. After sticking the note on it, he laid it on the table next to the passport. With a razor knife, he carefully slit the nylon liner of the briefcase where the bottom and one end were joined. Next he opened the passport, stuck the ID and debit cards between two of its pages, folded it closed and slipped it inside the liner. The cut in the material was easily secured and made almost invisible with a bead of clear silicone glue. When he finished, he inspected his handiwork. Only a very thorough examination by airport inspectors would arouse any suspicion. Given the volume of passengers passing through the inspection gates, he doubted that they would spend much time checking a carry-on briefcase except to open it and browse through its innocuous contents. In any event, it was a chance he would have to take. It was time to go.

  He had arranged for a week's vacation and transportation to the airport by helicopter. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was 7:40 p.m. The chopper would be leaving in twenty minutes. Given the flight time to the airport, he should be able to make his plane on time, Air West 242, Albuquerque to Miami direct, departing at 10:15 p.m. He glanced around the apartment once again. Satisfied that all was in order, he picked up the briefcase and walked out the door.

  Chapter 5

  Prisoner A215

  The confinement quarters at Guantanamo Bay, where prisoner A215 was being held in isolation, were less than two years old. They had been specifically built to house this one man. The location was nowhere near the holding cells that housed the extremist inmates. His case was completely different from theirs.

  Unlike the usual prison environment, the interior had been designed similar to a civilian apartment. The living area consisted of a small kitchenette, bedroom, living room and bath; however, there were some differences. Instead of decorator colors, the floors were laid in white asphalt tile. All the walls were painted a pale shade of green, a color believed by some psychologists to invoke a feeling of well being and calmness. A bookcase was centered on one living room wall. About a hundred paperbacks and reference volumes, all arranged according to size, occupied its shelves. It made a very orderly and neat display.

  Each of the two remaining living room walls had double-doors of black metal equipped with electronic locks and twelve-inch square Lexan windows. One set looked out into a small anteroom that could be used by official visitors who occasionally came to interview the prisoner. Beyond that room was the guard office, manned 24/7 by two Marines. The other doors opened onto a fifty-foot-square exercise yard enclosed by twenty-foot high masonry walls. Tropical plants of various types grew at random along their bottoms. Sago palms, crotons and poinsettias gave it an aesthetic appearance. There were no openings in the walls, so the prisoner could not be seen from, or see into, any of the outside areas. He was allowed access to the yard four times a day for thirty minutes each period, at any time he chose.

  The Spartan furniture consisted of a brown recliner chair, buff sofa, coffee table, and two lamp tables, one on each end of the sofa. A thirty-six inch flat-screen television hung from the wall opposite the recliner. Cable programming was limited to movies, weekly sitcoms, and a weather channel. All news and public information channels had been blocked.

  The bedroom held a military bunk, chest-of-drawers and footlocker. The bathroom was small, just large enough to allow a sink, commode, and a four-by-four foot shower with curtain. The curtain rings were made of rubber instead of metal. A small mirror made of an unbreakable substance hung over the sink. Anything that could be used by the prisoner to create a cutting or stabbing weapon that might be used against the Marine guards had been eliminated from the design of the apartment.

  The guards were curious as to why this man was allowed to occupy special quarters and enjoyed such freedoms; however, their strict code of training and obedience to orders dissuaded anything more than idle speculation.

  On this particular morning, the dark man known to the Marines only as prisoner A215, sat on a wooden bench in the exercise yard. The sun was warm, pouring its rays from the bowl of an indigo sky. A215 did not wear the standard prison attire. He was dressed in khaki slacks and a white golf shirt, which was another puzzlement for his keepers.

  As he basked in the sun, his mind drifted off to another time and place, where he had been happy and content with his lot in life. Power, prestige, distinction, and the respect of other men had all been his. But with all that, he was not given to conceit or arrogance, as might have been the case with other men who occupied as important a position as he had enjoyed. He had been satisfied with who he was, and where he fit into the scheme of the universe. His only fault was narcissism, a trait he never saw in himself. He had always lived life as he chose, allowing no one to interfere with his personal desires or goals.

  Then the world had been jerked from beneath his feet by an insidious plot he believed was designed to destroy the economic welfare of his native country. He had discovered it quite by accident while attempting to open certain computer files that had been blocked by passwords he could not break. In his capacity as Director of Middle East Studies, he should have been granted access to any and all information relating to operations in that part of the world. But these files, though they pertained to his field of authority, had been forbidden to everyone but the agents who had created them, and the Apache Point Director, Dr. Richard Durant. When he had confronted Durant about the situation, he was told in terse language that those particular files were restricted to persons with a need to know, and that his security clearance did not meet the required criteria.

  Enraged by that answer, he had nonetheless kept his temper under control. Instead of arguing he had put his analytical mind to work and by nightfall had conceived a plan to gain access to the forbidden documents. A woman with whom he had been sharing an intimate relationship, worked as a computer analyst at the facility. Educated, but with a simplistic mind, she lived her life through tunnel vision: She usually thought of nothing except what was happening at the present time. Though lacking in abstract ability, she was nevertheless an accomplished computer hacker.

  Converting her to his cause had been an easy matter, and he had accomplished it without revealing his reasons. She had broken the passcodes in less than two hours, enabling him to study the mysterious files at his leisure. When he learned that an incredible project being carried out in the distant past might be detrimental to the welfare of his native country, he had become infuriated and vowed to stop it at any cost.

  His position at Apache Point made him pr
ivy to certain secret information about daily operations, and it was from snooping through the daily reports that he learned about some damage to the Chronocom power source. The director had labeled sabotage, but the truth of what had really occurred was far more fantastic than that cover story. FBI and police authorities were understandably stymied in their attempts to discover the identity of the saboteur, because such a person did not exist. He had been elated to learn that because of the damage, the time machine could only be operated a few more times to rescue agents already carrying out missions in the past. The project that he feared so much would die an unintentional death.

  Had it ended with that, and the Chronocom had been shut down, there would have been no need for the dastardly acts he had later committed. But the unexpected had occurred: The Apache Point computers, working through NSA satellites, had discovered traces of the element in Egypt. An exploratory team was dispatched, but their mission had failed: Someone had already removed the stellarite. They did, however, unearth an ancient digging tool and an identity tag that had once been worn by a soldier of Pharaoh Ramses II. It was no monumental task to conclude that the stellarite had been taken by natives of that era, so a new expedition was commissioned and sent back to find it.

  By that time, he had become obsessed with preventing acquisition of the replacement power source. If the machine could not be operated, the entire project would be halted. Since his position at Apache Point gave him authority to use the machine whenever he chose, it was a simple matter to transport back in time ahead of the new expedition and wait for them to arrive.

  He had thought the matter out, and had reached the inevitable conclusion that the only way to stop them from tracking down the element was to kill them. With that in mind, he had shot to death three members of the expedition as they arrived in 1250 BC. However, Matt Leahy's brother, Edward, had only been wounded and had escaped into the desert while he had been occupied digging the murder victims' graves.

  He rolled his eyes back in his head and trembled at the thought of Matt Leahy. He had already made two attempts on the detective's life, both of which had failed. It was those attempts, in addition to the murder of Gail Wilson, which had resulted in his arrest and confinement in this prison. The insufferable woman had learned that he had killed the time agents and was planning Leahy's death. That night, while they had been talking in his apartment, she had threatened to expose him if he did not abandon his plan. It had proven to be the worst mistake of her life. Pretending to acquiesce to her demands, he had enticed her into a late night swim and had drowned her in the facility pool. He had gotten away with it until her confession implicating him had been found taped behind a picture on the wall of her apartment.

  He shook off the rage, inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly. The sun was becoming hot, so he arose and went back into his apartment. He was about to continue reading a novel he had started when the guards announced that he had a visitor. Visitations from the outer world were infrequent, usually FBI or NSA investigators who wished to question him about some imagined involvement with foreign intelligence agents. The fools should know by now that they were wasting their time.

  He stood up, walked to the door and peered through the small window into the office on the other side of the anteroom. He could see one of the guards speaking with someone who was outside his field of vision. Finishing their conversation, the Marine stepped behind his desk and the visitor moved into view. His eyes grew wide as he saw the man's face.

  There was a loud click as the electric door between the office and the anteroom opened. He stepped away from the window as the visitor was guided through. The room was furnished with a rectangular metal table and four chairs, otherwise it was bare. The only time it was ever used was when the guards passed through to inspect his quarters, or when one of the government agents came to conduct another of their pointless interviews.

  Arthur Voyles was required to pass through a metal detector and body search before entering the room. His briefcase was emptied and the contents thoroughly inspected. He held his breath as they dumped the items onto a table and went through the files, obviously looking for blades that might be taped to the pages. They were so interested in the files, that they did not notice the slight bulge in the liner where the passport and ID card were concealed. Voyles had planted several sharp pencils and ballpoint pens inside the file pockets of the briefcase for the guards to find and confiscate, thinking that the diversion would further distract them from the liner.

  Finished with the briefcase, they had him remove the miniature pager from his belt for inspection. As planned, he identified the object as a pedometer. To prevent accidental activation while they were handling it, he had installed a piece of clear plastic film over the Lexan screen. Satisfied that it was not a weapon or communication device, they handed it back to him. He stuck it back on his belt as he entered the interview room. He walked over to the table and put the briefcase down. He remained standing while the guard opened A215's cell door and allowed him to enter the room.

  The Marine turned to Voyles and said in a stern voice, "You have fifteen minutes, sir." With that, he turned and went back into his office.

  A215 stared at Voyles for several long seconds before he stuck out his hand. "I can't believe you're here," he said quietly. "How did you manage it?"

  "With this." Voyles retrieved his NSA identification case from his coat pocket and flipped it open. "The guards are apparently used to seeing these."

  A215 smiled and nodded. Both men sat down, facing each other. Voyles glanced back at the guard office to check that the door was closed. The interview room was not wired for sound at the request of FBI and NSA officials for fear of unauthorized persons overhearing secret information; therefore, whatever the two men said would remain confidential. Voyles opened the briefcase and sat it on his lap. His back was to the door, so the guards could not see what he was doing. For effect, in case one of the guards happened to look through the window, he opened one of the files and placed it on the table in front of him. Then, using his fingernail, he lifted one edge of the briefcase liner where the hidden documents were located.

  "It was just by accident that I learned of your whereabouts," he said in a tight voice. "The official story at Apache Point is that you committed suicide!"

  A215 smiled sourly. "You should have known better, Arthur. It would take more pressure than those NSA buffoons could exert to accomplish that scenario."

  "Why are you here?" Voyles asked in a guarded tone. "Is it true you murdered that girl at Apache Point? I can't believe you would do such a thing."

  A215 shrugged his shoulders. His friend was a trusting sort. It had always been easy to take advantage of him. "It's better that you don't know any of the details of what happened that led to my imprisonment. That knowledge could land you in here with me, or someplace even worse." He regarded Voyles thoughtfully for a few seconds. "However, I will tell you that the lies spun by Matt Leahy and Taylor Griffin are what put me here in the first place. I can only conclude that it was retaliation for my having caught them conducting an illegal operation." He paused for a long moment, allowing Voyles time to absorb the lie then continued. "In any case, how did you manage to get in here? The only visitors I've had have been investigators trying to find out if I've revealed any information about Apache Point to unauthorized persons."

  "It wasn't easy. As you know, my job is to run functional tests on the Chronocom to keep it calibrated. Some of those duties require use of our satellite system. After I learned your location, I used the satellites to scan this base in its current configuration. I then compared those images to some of the NSA history files from past years, looking for any newly built structures. I scanned all of the new areas in fine detail and noticed the walled courtyard attached to this building.

  "I continued my scans of the courtyard for the next few days and eventually saw a solitary man walking around inside the enclosure. Super-fine detail revealed that it was you. I could not be
ar to see an innocent man incarcerated, especially my long-time friend. It was then that I conceived a plan for your rescue. After the details were completed, I flew to Miami, drove to Key West in a rented car and used my NSA identification to gain entry to the Navy base. From there is was a simple matter of obtaining passage to Gitmo by military aircraft." Voyles then proceeded to give A215 a summary of the events of the past few weeks, including the creation of the mini-pager, passport and U.S. Navy ID card.

  The prisoner's eyes narrowed as Voyles removed the pager from his belt and palmed it. "I have a few items for you. Is the window behind me clear?" he asked in a conspiratorial tone.

  "Yes, no one is watching."

  Voyles passed the pager to the other man, who closed it up in his fist. Keeping his eyes on the window, he lifted his right foot and clipped the pager to the inside of his sock. Next, Voyles took a sheet of paper from the open file folder and placed it on the table in front of A215. Pretending to be looking for something in his briefcase, he slipped the documents from inside the liner. In one smooth movement, he slid them underneath the sheet of paper. At that moment, one of the guards peered through the window. A215 dropped his head and pretended to be reading what was on the paper.

  Voyles leaned back in his chair and seemed to be innocuously waiting for the prisoner to finish with the document. Seeing nothing suspicious, the guard returned to his duties. A215 took the passport and ID card and stuffed them into his other sock.

  Voyles leaned toward the prisoner and said in a low voice, "I picked an arbitrary date for your transport destination. One in which conditions here at Gitmo were much more primitive than they are today. In order to materialize outside the walls of your courtyard, you must set the pager to the year 1950, long before this building was constructed. The satellites show that there was nothing here then except an expanse of bare ground covered with palms. The airfield is not far, but you may have to walk through a few weeds to reach it. I suggest that you approach it from the west side, closest to the main building. Everything you will need to escape from the island is inside the passport.