The Book of Truths (23 page)

“The first nuke that went missing in Canada,” Eagle said. “Off that B-36.”

“Correct. Your predecessors, on one of the early teams, jumped into Canada and investigated. They never found a trace of the bomb but they did suspect that someone got there before them. As if the entire thing were planned and someone was waiting for that bomb to be dumped and that plane to go down.”

“Ten more warheads have been lost since then,” Eagle said. “At least that’s the official count.”

“We believe they were not all lost,” Ms. Jones said.

“Are there other missiles in other silos aimed here?” Kirk asked.

“We don’t know,” Ms. Jones said. “We believe there is a central stockpile of most of these warheads.”

“It does not make sense,” Doc said. “That missile was sealed in. It couldn’t have fired.”

“We believe this program, code-named Pinnacle, has been so covered and compartmentalized that they’ve actually lost track of some of their own secrets over the years. Some secrets die with those who hold them tightest.”

That might have sounded crazy to a normal person, but to the Nightstalkers, so immersed in the covert world, it had the perfect ring of logic to it.

“‘Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead,’” Eagle quoted.

“Didn’t Moms say that?” Roland asked.

“Benjamin Franklin,” Eagle corrected.

Nada, once again, more familiar with Ms. Jones than any of the others, sensed uncertainty on her part. An unwillingness to cut to the chase. “If we’re not joining Moms in DC, and we’re not going to the DORKA facility, can I assume we’re going after this stockpile?”

“You assume correctly.”

“And where, exactly, is it?” Nada asked.

“I don’t know yet. But we’re working on it.”

We again
, thought Nada. This was bigger than the Nightstalkers.

The person who was supposed to find out that information was on board a Nighthawk helicopter, flying around Washington, DC, toward Pennsylvania. Neeley was seated in the back, peering at an iPad screen, scrolling through the scant amount of information Hannah had managed to forward her about Deep Six. An Asset was sitting next to Neeley, pointing at images, diagrams, and maps as they came up. He filled her in on what he knew about Raven Rock, having been stationed there for six years in the signal battalion that manned the main facility.

Where Hannah had found him on such short notice didn’t matter. It was what Hannah did. Hannah had also made sure a duffel bag full of gear was waiting on the floor of the chopper along with the iPad.

The Asset came to a halt as the scrolling did, when they were somewhere over Frederick, Maryland.

“You’ve never been inside Deep Six?” Neeley asked.

“No one I know has been inside their vault door other than the contractors. Those guys are crazy. No one messes with them.” He shook his head. “You’re never going to be able to breach the security at the Rock in the first place.”

“I’m not going to.”

The Asset pointed at the iPad. “I can show you where the ventilation shafts are. You might be able to—”

“Why would I want that information?” Neeley asked as she opened up the duffel bag, revealing all sorts of weapons and war gear.

“To get in. As I said, security is very tight. Lots of armed guards at all the entrances to Raven Rock.” The Asset had seen too many
Mission: Impossible
movies.

“I’m not worried about getting in the main facility,” Neeley said. “Raven Rock, the overall facility, is run by the Department of Defense, correct?”

The Asset nodded.

“Then I can get in,” Neeley said as she considered the various “covers” she had and which was best to deal with a DOD facility.

“They closed Fort Ritchie,” the Asset said, “which used to be the supervising post for Raven Rock.”

“Who is Deep Six’s higher command?” Neeley asked.

The Asset frowned. “I don’t think Deep Six has a higher command; they definitely didn’t fall under the military. I’m not even sure the CIA has a handle on those people. It’s all foreigners. They never mingled with us. We provided logistic support as required but no one I know ever went inside and I never saw anyone come from DOD or any government agency to check on it.”

Neeley had suspected as much. Deep Six was a top-secret facility inside of a secret facility, and to ensure deniability no one wanted command of it. After Abu Ghraib, no military officer in their right mind would want to be anywhere near this. And the CIA had Guantanamo, which allowed them to do as they pleased in Cuba. But here, on US soil, deniability ruled.

“Deep Six is in what used to be the old reservoir, right?” Neeley said.

The Asset nodded.

“Let me see those schematics again. It’s a prison. It’s designed to keep people from getting out, not getting in.”

Secure in his office, Colonel Johnston watched on screen what had gone from groping to a complete, naked orgy down in the lab.

It was not a pretty sight watching a bunch of scientists go at it with their deepest and darkest fantasies freed of inhibition.

Upton had joined in. Johnston shook his head in disgust. They all had nothing to lose down there. There was a good chance they might get wiped out when whoever was on the other end of the 666 line got here. It
was
why they all got paid the big bucks.

But not Johnston. He got O-6 pay, straight up.

He turned off the monitor.

All his outside lines were dead, but not before he’d learned that Brennan had been taken to Deep Six, and it was highly likely the First Daughter and General Riggs were infected.

Who knew how far Cherry Tree would blossom?

There was no doubt that the cutoff was the result of the 666 call. DORKA was in external lockdown and when it was unlocked after Cherry Tree burned out here, he was going to be the one in the line of fire. He wore the rank, he was responsible. He’d lived his life by that code.

The White House.

The Pentagon.

This was bad.

Johnston hit the button on the side of his pistol, ejecting the magazine.

He knew he’d never make O-7, get that star. When he’d been given this assignment, running herd on a bunch of geeks, it was implicit. This was a dead-end, an end-of-the-career, get-ready-for-retirement slot.

All the years he’d given the army and this was his reward. To be undone by a bunch of geeks who’d never seen a day of combat.

Johnston took off his coat and carefully hung it on the hanger on the back of his locked door.

Johnston pulled open one of his drawers. He pulled out a single 9mm round.

He’d saved it for more than two decades, from the First Gulf War.

He laughed bitterly over the fact that it was now called the
first
. What had been the point if they’d had to go back and do it all over again?

This bullet had been in his pistol when he’d left his company CP to take a leak during the heady days when they had the Iraqis on the run.

But not all of the Iraqis had run.

A kid in an ill-fitting uniform, maybe seventeen, but no more, had run into the alley with just a bayonet in hand.

Dick still hanging out, piss dribbling, Johnston had drawn the pistol, finger on the trigger, but not been able to pull it.

It was just a kid. But he kept coming, screaming something, bayonet glinting.

Johnston had still been frozen when the kid stabbed him, knife sliding off the body armor covering his chest and slicing into his arm, causing him to drop the pistol. As the kid stabbed
him again, this time in the gut, just below the end of the armor, Johnston had finally reacted, grabbed a piece of cinder block and swinging it, hitting the kid in the head, stunning him.

Then he’d kept swinging until the kid wasn’t moving anymore, his head a bloody pulp.

Johnston had slumped against the wall, bleeding from two stab wounds, the kid’s mangled head cradled in his arms, weeping. For how long he’d never known, but it couldn’t have been long, because he was able to finally compose himself, stand up, zip up, and make it back to his CP, blood dripping from his wounds and his chest and face drenched in the kid’s.

Johnston looked over at the rows and rows of medals lining the jacket chest.

He’d gotten the Purple Heart for the knife wounds and the Bronze Star for killing an enemy combatant in hand-to-hand combat. He still remembered an interesting tidbit about medals, although he could no longer recall the source: Napoleon was credited with inventing the modern version of medals, pieces made of ribbon and metal, awarded for bravery. In medieval days, bravery was rewarded in real terms—with land, with riches, with titles that were worth something. But now a man was supposed to be satisfied with just a piece of cloth?

Of course, it wasn’t that simple. It was what the cloth represented.

Johnston stared at the two ribbons at the top of several rows of awards.

What exactly did they represent?

He hadn’t thought of that incident in Iraq in years. Not consciously. A secret buried deep inside, in the depth of his soul, that he’d wanted no one to ever know about, least of all himself.

It was a visceral revulsion of himself.

The truth.

He pulled back the slide on the pistol that locked it and dropped the bullet in the chamber. Then he hit the release, slamming the receiver in place.

Loading it.

Locked and loaded.

Johnston got up and turned the uniform jacket around, hiding the medals.

Then he put the gun to his temple.

His military aide had stomped out in a huff because General Riggs had just told him he was the most worthless human being ever and to find Brennan. It was strange that Riggs had told the full-bird colonel off like that because, like all aides, he was something important to someone important (a nephew, an important wife, holder of some good blackmail) and that mattered more than if they could do the job.

Still it was kind of funny that Riggs had finally bothered to tell him what he’d always thought. Outside of that aide who had been foisted upon him, every member of Riggs’s inner circle was intensely loyal to him, owing their careers to his rising star. As he went, so went they. They also shared his philosophy that the military needed to be given a freer rein to deal with the problems in the world, that the civilians could fuck up a soup sandwich.

Let the aide sulk. That just proved the point that he was useless, taking things personally. The damn idiot was an aide to the vice chairman of the JCS. Didn’t he realize his ticket was already punched by some rabbi somewhere who had the strings to get
him that job? Riggs might be number two in the Department of Defense but he knew who controlled the purse strings and also knew who got the lucrative contracts and could offer jobs to retiring generals to make lots of money.

The game was rigged, and it disgusted Riggs, but like the Robert Heinlein quote hanging on his wall said, “Certainly the game is rigged. Don’t let that stop you; if you don’t bet, you can’t win.”

The key, of course, was that each man’s idea of winning was different. Money, unlike most people, interested Riggs not in the slightest.

Riggs prided himself that he’d never been anyone’s aide. He’d worked his way to this position. He was a good soldier and a smart soldier, meaning he did the damn job, not aided someone else to do it. Although, technically, he was number two to the chairman, Riggs was the one who did the real work.