Old Earth (27 page)

Franklin, the American, did not discuss the last assignment he’d remotely overseen. To his mind it had been botched by an aide. The target survived and two collateral subjects got in the way. Without orders, his field man pursued them until it was necessary to break off. Franklin was pissed, but he couldn’t be in two places at the same time. He figured he’d have opportunity to clean up the mess, if and when the order came.

The American stood six foot five. He’d been trained by the Marines and went rogue after being approached by a recruiter who offered a much more lucrative life without a tax bite.

Winston had a somewhat different story. He’d been an SAS officer who concluded that his country, like much of Europe, was losing its cultural identity and religious heritage to Muslim immigrants. When the offer came to the prematurely graying special forces operative, he jumped at the opportunity. Of the three, he was more inclined to truly believe in the cause.

Conrad was the shortest, the angriest, and possibly the deadliest of the bunch. Five-seven, scarred and bald. He wasn’t pretty to look at, and he didn’t care. He couldn’t even remember how many people he’d killed: men and women, politicians, spies, clergy, explorers, reporters, former partners. They were all the same. Nothing to get weepy about. Merely assignments and targets.

This unholy alliance teamed, as they’d done before, to re-configure a private Cessna 150 for a new purpose. Franklin had bought it from a pilot in Prescott, AZ two days earlier and flown it to the retired Air Force landing strip.

Winston came to the site in a Winnebago he’d rented in Denver. Along the way he stopped at various hardware stores and Walmarts, purchasing everything on his specific shopping list.

Conrad had the more difficult job. He was in charge of delivering the package that the Cessna would soon carry. For his part, he had to drive extremely carefully and not raise suspicion. For a man with a short temper and deadly intent, he was extremely cautious.

They were a day-and-a-half away from finishing. It went without saying that with only one pass, everything would have to work.

• • •

LOS ANGELES NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

“Do I look like the bank?” Bellamy said sitting behind her desk. She motioned for her uninvited and now seemingly broke guests to sit in the twin high back chairs that faced her.

McCauley nodded in the affirmative. “As a matter of fact.”

“You son of a bitch, Quinn McCauley.”

“Allow me to explain to Dr. Alpert. Marli is filthy rich.”

“Quinn!” Bellamy exclaimed.

“Old family money and new personal causes make for a remarkable philanthropist,” he continued. “None better.”

“Okay, okay,” she said. “Flattery doesn’t mean you’re going to get a dime.”

“Not a dime, Dr. Bellamy,” Katrina said. “We’re in trouble and we need cash. A lot.”

McCauley started to speak up.

“No, not you, Quinn.” Marli focused on Katrina. “I like this woman. Go on.”

“It’s serious,” she admitted.

“How serious?”

“Very. Our credit and debit cards have been cancelled. No, co-opted, hacked. And we have to get back to Montana. God only knows where we’ll go from there. Quinn said you were the only person he could trust.”

Marli laughed. “I’m also the only person he knows in LA. But tell me why.”

“You don’t want to know. Not really. Let’s just say we uncovered something that’s caused a little stir.”

McCauley shivered at the understatement. “Trust us, Marli, less is best.”

“What the hell did you find?” Bellamy asked not letting up. “A new species? The Holy Grail?”

“Neither,” McCauley laughed. He ran through the high points, describing the discovery in general and the questions they had. Then they got to the bombing at Greene’s.

“That was you?” she exclaimed. “I heard about it on the news.”

“That’s us,” Alpert offered lightly.

“See, you’re better off not knowing more, Marli. If anyone asks, you never even saw us.”

Dr. Bellamy looked at a picture on her desk. It was her graduation photo from Harvard, a graduation that Quinn McCauley had a big hand in. After a half minute she stood.

“Will you excuse me? I’ve got to make a bank run. In the meantime, grab something in the commissary,” she smiled, “if you can afford it.”

Forty-four

LOS ANGELES NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
AN HOUR LATER

The choices were limited. Six-plus hours out of LAX, Burbank or Ontario and four flights to get back to Glendive’s Dawson Community Airport, or…

“I’m booking you on a private jet out of Van Nuys,” Marli said.

“No you’re not,” McCauley argued.

“Yes I am. Based on the nothing you’ve shared, better you don’t mingle with the riff raff.”

“But the expense?” he said.

“Mark up my transcript to an A+,” the former student responded. “I’ll call us even.”

She counted out the cash. “Here’s your money. In 50s and 100s. But you’re going to need some plastic. I can give you…”

“No. Nothing with your name on it. We’ll pick up some pre-paid credit cards at a 7-11 or a few supermarkets.”

Katrina was impressed.

“Can we get a cab downstairs?”

“Yes, but no. I’m driving and I’ll book the plane on the way.” Marli checked her watch. “It’s 1:30 now. We should get you out no later than four or five.”

“How far is Van Nuys?”

“It’s in the Valley. If there’s no traffic, which there shouldn’t be at this hour, it’ll be about forty minutes.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Katrina said.

“Just take care of Quinn, will you? I have a soft spot for endangered species.”

• • •

They took off at 4:45 in a Citation 5. The winds were with them and the captain said they’d land at 8:25
P.M.
Mountain Time. A few hours later, Quinn and Katrina cleared arrival. They were met by Al Jaffe who had gotten McCauley’s text from one of his new phones.

“How was the flight?”

“Bumpy,” Katrina quickly complained. “Small plane. Not my favorite. And I always worry about them crashing.”

Forty-five

GLASGOW AFB, MT

Winston reviewed the photographs he’d tacked up on the hangar wall. He had no doubt he’d programmed the right coordinates into the GPS, but real-time corrections were inevitable. It would have been far easier if the mission could have been accomplished with a military drone.

A simple commercial observational drone, such as the Puma AE, about the size of an adult golden eagle wouldn’t cut it. They needed military strength. But what they had in the works had been field-proven and effective. Moreover, it offered a good cover story.

Franklin guaranteed the Cessna would be flying in another day. Winston was finalizing his guidance system strap-ons. Conrad had to wait for them to finish before he brought the most critical part of the assignment onboard—the payload.

They worked with light and electricity from the Winnebago. It was not particularly hard, but extremely precise. Except for Conrad’s contributions and Franklin’s flying, the rest could have been accomplished by very smart high school robotics students and a teacher with deniability.

Forty-six

MAKOSHIKA STATE PARK, MT

Jaffe led McCauley alone to the site. The professor looked across the landscape.

“Damn! Good work, Al. No mistaking it. Better than I could have imagined.”

“It didn’t take much, doc. You pointed me in the right direction. Have to say, I found it exciting.”

“What about the others?”

“Busy with, what do they say, their own knitting.”

“That’s what they say.”

“Doc, what do you think?”

“In all honesty?”

“Honesty would be good.”

McCauley scanned the valley from where they entered to the far end. “The best thing we can do is bug out.”

“No argument from me.”

“But while we’re here, do me a favor, Al. Take a couple of pictures.” He pointed. “There, there, and there.”

“Cell okay?”

“Perfect. Couple of wide shots.”

Jaffe snapped the first shot which showed the cliff, the ladder leading up to an opening, the generators on the ground, and the power cables. He took another, turning the camera sideways, which he liked better.

“Any videos? I can do those, too.”

“Why not? Hold the shot for about twenty seconds.”

“K. Wanna be in the videos?”

McCauley considered it, then thought better of the idea. “Nah. Just the landscape.”

“Give me bit. I’ll have it all.” He walked around and got everything McCauley wanted. A few minutes later Jaffe was back at his supervisor’s side.

“Want me to send these to you?”

“Yes, but first, someone else.”

“Who?”

“Anna. Include a nice cheery message,” McCauley said. “No reason she shouldn’t have a few souvenirs.”

“Souvenirs?”

McCauley explained why.

Jaffe understood. “Okay, what’s next?”

“Team powwow.”

“Here?”

“No, we’ll steer clear of this area. Back at base camp. Say in an hour.”

Jaffe trekked back. McCauley remained in the valley sorting through the possibilities. After one more look, he headed on to join the others.

“Well, gang,” McCauley began as everyone was gathered. “Three things. First, great work while we were gone. You did magnificently. I’m truly proud of everyone, which leads me to my second point. It’s been a terrific, and shall I say a surprising summer. We might not have all the fossils we’d expected, but we sure have one helluva story, which brings me to the third point. It’s a story that you’ll have to keep quiet. Really quiet. Like nobody gets to know. Military quiet. You can only guess what that means. They’re clamping down on us.”

“They? Who’s they?” Cohen asked.

“Folks who have a stake in the installation.” He thought that was innocuous enough.

“And you learned that in one day?” Trent wondered suspiciously.

“Let’s just say it became abundantly clear.”

Now McCauley gave them a warning that had come to him during the flight to Glendive. He believed it would serve to keep things under wraps. “Considering most of you are on federal loans,” he said, “I wouldn’t recommend doing anything to jeopardize things.”

This caught students off guard. “Really?” said Leslie. “But…”

“It’s the best advice I can give you.”

“Did anyone threaten that?” Lobel wondered.

“They didn’t have to.”

At least that part was true
, McCauley thought.

“And there’s actually a fourth point.”

The team, relaxing on their folding chairs, leaned forward.

“We’re going home.”

The questions came faster. McCauley was ready. Alpert stood by his side.

Lobel: “Can’t we move to another location?”

“No, it’s best that we leave immediately. Actually, not best. We have to.”

Jaffe: “We’re just leaving the cave as it is?”

“That’s correct.”

Trent: “Who’s going to tell my department that we shut down three weeks short?”

“I will.”

Cohen: “I think it’s been an unusual summer. What’s the chance we come back next year?”

This broke the tension. McCauley was quite relieved.

“Great! Thank you, Leslie.”

McCauley looked around. They were all exceptional students. Surely the news was disappointing. However, breaking camp was for their own good.

“Gang, I’m sorry,” he said lowering his voice. “I really share your frustration, but I have a responsibility. To you, to my employer, to your schools and departments. We got more than halfway through the time. It’s not what I wanted, but you can consider it a success.”

McCauley hadn’t sold them yet. He’d have to do better.

“Naturally, you feel you’re just beginning to break through and don’t have much to report back home or to your advisors. But remember, we came across something exciting. The only problem is we can’t talk about it. Certainly not right now.”

“But it’s our discovery, Dr. McCauley,” Tom Trent said for the group. “That’s good enough for me. And I’ve catalogued some great fossils. I’m up for coming back next year.”

“Great attitude,” Katrina added. McCauley looked to Katrina for reinforcement. She gave him a nod in the affirmative.

“So what the hell did we find?” Leslie Cohen asked the question most wanting to be answered. “Some Strategic Air Command mountain base like in…what was that old movie with Matthew Broderick?”

“
War Games
,” Lobel said.

“Yeah, like
War Games
?”

“Maybe,” McCauley said. “But it was my mistake for even looking into it; even worse for dragging all of you along.”

“That’s what we’re supposed to do,” Cohen offered. “We’re scientists.”

“Yes, but this got out of hand.”

With the exception of Al Jaffe, Rich Tamburro knew more than the others. But the pieces he put together played into the story McCauley proposed.

“Okay, folks, so we’ll box up the fossil finds, write some good scholarly papers, and then wait for the doc to tell us when we can go public. In the meantime, I agree. We go home. We don’t email about this. We don’t tweet. We don’t tell anyone. I certainly don’t want to jeopardize my loans.”

“Thank you, Rich.” McCauley crossed over to Tamburro and hugged him. Then he smiled and turned to everyone. “We sure as hell stepped into something. I don’t normally believe in bad guys in black helicopters, but this is as close as I want to be. So let’s back out quietly.”

Everyone agreed.

“Okay. Here’s the drill. Tomorrow we’ll break camp and by dinnertime check into the GuestHouse Inn. I’ll get you all out on planes the day after and take care of shipping everything out. Rich, you’ll check on Anna and see if she can be discharged. If so, make sure she gets where she’s going.”

“My pleasure.”

“I’m sure it is,” Leslie said. “Give her a kiss for me.”

“From all of us,” Rodriguez added.

“A few more things, everyone,” McCauley continued. “We have cash for your expenses and we’ll figure a time to regroup. I promise I’ll keep you posted on when, if ever, you can discuss this wild experience. Believe me, for now you’ll just want to walk away.”