Falling Star (17 page)

Twoomey said, "Drop that weapon, Sheriff.  There is no way you can get all of us."

Sweat poured down Johnson's face.  His shirt was drenched from perspiration.  Nothing he had ever encountered had prepared him for this occasion.  The weapons themselves were unlike anything he had ever seen.  His trigger finger started to tighten.  His face flushed.  His eyes squinted both from fear and the salty, biting sweat that continued to bead down from his forehead.

"I don' know who you are, but I'm pretty sure you aren't who you say you are.  You just can't just come here and demand things.  I ain't gonna let you, no way."

"Sheriff, you are making a big mistake.  I'm not sure who these fellows are either but I can tell you that George Smith is legit," said Adams.

"Buddy, I don't know who you are."

"I'm Special Agent Herbert Adams of the FBI.  If you will allow me, I can get my identification card for you."

"Don't you dare reach for that.  I weren't born yesterday."

As Johnson's attention was momentarily diverted, Twoomey was able to fire one shot, intentionally grazing Johnson's right arm, which caused him to drop his revolver.  Tension filled the room as the two Marines started to squeeze the triggers of their Striker 12 Shotguns.

Instinctively, Twoomey said, "Hold your fire!"

The troopers responded immediately.

Johnson clutched his right arm with his left hand, a rivulet of blood streamed down his right arm.  Tuchman, who until this moment had been huddling in the corner of the room, rushed forward with some sterile gauze to staunch the flow of blood.  The two of them now looked at the intruders with nervous gazes.

"I'm sorry I had to fire, but you left me with no choice," said Twoomey.  "Our instructions are that we will return to our base with the remains and that no one, I repeat, no one will prevent us from doing so."  Twoomey held the small, pocket-sized communicator to his mouth.  "Bring the casket down into the cold room.  Use the service elevator."

Tuchman, for all his years in the undertaking business, had never seen a casket quite like the one being pushed into the cold room.  Shaped in a half-cylinder, the casket was made of stainless steel.  The casket was hermetically sealable and there appeared to be a way to control its internal temperature.  Two small cylinders were attached to the outside of the casket.  Stenciled on the two small cylinders was the word, "Nitrogen."  The cylinders were connected to the casket by copper tubing and gas valves.

The two men who pushed the casket in were dressed in blue and each wore a rubber apron and elbow-length rubber gloves.  Rolling the casket up to Winslow's corpse, one of the men encoded an alphanumeric sequence onto a keypad on the side of the casket.  The casket lid slowly opened, revealing a bare, metallic interior.  Inside the casket lay a gray rubber body bag.

The two men took out the body bag and placed it on the gurney next to Winslow.  They unzipped the bag and gently lifted the charred remains of Winslow into the bag.  When the body was moved, the overpowering stench of wet ashes, burnt tissue, and death once again filled the room.  The odor subsided when the two Marines zipped the body bag shut.  The two Marines gently lifted the body bag into the stainless steel casket and secured the lid.  The atmosphere inside the casket was evacuated and replaced with nitrogen gas.  The temperature of the casket was set at zero degrees centigrade.

As the two Marines quietly pushed the casket out of the cold room, Smith said, "Mr. Tuchman. Sheriff Johnson. As far as you're concerned this incident never occurred.  National security demands this extreme action.  I would rather not discuss what will happen if you continue to interfere with our mission.  Am I making myself sufficiently clear?"

Neither Tuchman nor Johnson reacted to Smith's warning.  They stood in silence as Smith and Adams searched the cold room for any more items connected with Winslow and placed the items in plastic evidence bags.

Satisfied that nothing more remained in the cold room, Twoomey picked up Johnson's revolver, took all the shells out of the cylinder and handed it back to Johnson.  Twoomey also relieved Johnson of his speed loaders.

Twoomey, Smith, and Adams left the cold room.  The two Marine guards left immediately behind them.  Outside, the stainless steel casket was loaded into the second Suburban.  The blue-clad men from the back, the front, and inside the building jumped into the three Suburbans and the gray caravan drove off at high speed.  In the cold room, Johnson and Tuchman sat looking at each other in shock.

Tomorrow morning, Johnson would discover that InfoNet would list no information on a body being found in a burning farmhouse south of Mankato, Minnesota.  His efforts at discovering the identity of the intruders would be equally fruitless.

Like the stranger said, it just didn't happen.

1993: Ambush

0630 Hours, Saturday, June 12, 1993: Bachelor Officers Quarters, Newport News, Virginia

The incessant ringing jarred Mike out of a deep sleep.  After an enjoyable evening with his old friends, Gladys and Bob McHugh, Mike had turned in about 12:30 a.m.  Seeing his old friends had helped Mike forget about his other war, the one he had waged daily in posh offices high above the common crowd.  The warmth of this friendship with the McHughs was important to Mike, particularly with the drama now unfolding.  As a field grade officer, Mike rated a single room at the bachelor officers' quarters.  Turning in, he had asked for a wakeup call at 0700 hours so that he could report to McHugh's office at 0800 hours, as requested by the Admiral

Half asleep, Mike searched in the dark for the telephone.  I must be late, he thought.  Don't they send orderlies around anymore like they used to?

McHugh was a stickler for punctuality.  Mike had sat through the discomfort of his fellow officers when they received an uncharacteristic dressing down for being even a few minutes late to a meeting with McHugh.  God, what a way to start this tour.  Mike shuddered at the thought.

Finally, Mike found the telephone and put the handset to his ear.  He heard McHugh's deep voice.  "Mike, sorry to wake you, but we've gotten some bad news.  Can you get dressed right away and get over to my office?  A car has been sent for you and will be outside."

Mike jumped out of bed, stripped off his pajamas and shaved.  He then headed for the shower in his private bath and gave himself five minutes to scrub his body and hair.  Afterward, he put on the uniform of an officer of the United States Navy.  Because of the requirement that he carry his Walther revolver, the uniform coat was cut fuller than normal.

Wearing his overseas hat with the silver oak leaf of a Commander in the United States Navy, Mike blinked as he stepped into the bright daylight.

A gray sedan was stopped in front of the BOQ.  A Marine in summer dress uniform stood at parade rest at the side of the car.  As Mike approached the sedan, the young Marine corporal snapped to attention and saluted Mike.

Fumbling, Mike returned the salute.

"Good morning, Commander," said the young Marine as he opened the rear door of the sedan.  After Mike settled down, he was driven to the other side of the sprawling naval station to the CSAC Operations Center, located in a nondescript, white clapboard building.

Once inside the small, unpretentious foyer, Mike walked over to the counter, which was manned by two young Marines dressed in the sand-colored camouflage fatigues that had become popular since the Gulf War in 1991.  Mike had no doubt that despite the relative youth of these guards; they were battle-hardened veterans.

CSAC drew its military personnel primarily from the special operations groups of each of the armed services.  Marines came from their Special Operations Regiment, which was in many respects the United States' answer to the British SAS.  Mike knew that many of the Marines in the Special Operations Regiment had served inside Iraqi lines throughout the Persian Gulf conflict and some had paid the supreme price.  None were ever identified.  Navy Seals were another prime source of talent for CSAC, as were the Delta Force and the Air Force Special Forces, the ones that wore the distinctive red berets.

"Good morning, Commander," said the Marine behind the counter.

Stowed within easy reach under the counter was a Striker 12 shotgun, with the choke on maximum fire pattern.

"Commander, may I see your credentials?"

Margaret had packed Mike's CSAC credentials in his suitcase.  Normally, CSAC agents carried no credentials whatsoever, until they had passed the stringent credibility tests at CSAC Operations Center.  Those credentials had to be returned upon leaving the CSAC facility.  Technology had advanced dramatically in terms of these identification cards.  Encoded with a silicon chip, the modern cards permitted the holder to access only those areas for which he or she was authorized.

Mike handed the identification card to the young Marine, who placed it into a special card reader.  The liquid crystal readout confirmed that the holder of the card was Mike Liu.  The Marine dutifully returned the card to Mike.  "Commander, we will still need the ReTek DNA Analyzer identification."

"That's new.  What does this ReTek Analyzer do?"

"I'm not a scientist, sir, but I understand that it compares your saliva sample with file DNA records to verify that you are who you say you are.  The information from the DNA Analyzer is then collaborated with your other identification parameters so that a proper statistical correlation can occur."

The Marine handed Mike a small plastic cup from a sterile packet.

"Thanks, that's very interesting."

Mike spat into the cup.  The Marine opened a sterile package, removed a small glass rod and inserted it into the plastic cup. The sample of Mike's saliva that clung to the glass rod immediately turned a bright purple color.  The Marine guard then placed the glass rod briefly into a small opening in the desktop ReTek DNA Analyzer where the purplish solution was quickly dried.

The glass rod was finally inserted into a second opening.  Within seconds the small liquid crystal screen displayed the following: "Liu, Aloysius Xavier Kang Sheng, D.O.B. 12-20-43, Level One -- XR2907.33."  The Marine triggered a buzzer that unlocked the door to the immediate right of the counter.

"Welcome to Newport News, Commander Liu."

Mike turned to see the possessor of the pleasant, but familiar female voice.  Ellen Jones, McHugh's long-time civilian secretary, had been sent out to the foyer to get Mike and to bring him immediately to the Situation Room.

"Hi, Ellen, long time no see."

"I heard that you've become a bigwig on Wall Street.  Any hot tips?"

"No, I wish I had hot tips, but the side of the business I'm on only deals with new project development -- I'm not your man."

"Shucks, that means I'll be stuck working for the old man until I retire," said Ellen, smiling.  "Anyhow, come on, they're waiting for you."

Turning a corner at the end of the long corridor, Ellen and Mike stopped at a stainless steel elevator door, which was guarded by two Special Operations airmen wearing their special red cravats and berets.  Each airman held a Heckler Koch MP-5 submachine gun.  The least known of the special operations forces from which CSAC guards were drawn, the Special Operations Air Force personnel's normal duties included guarding installations such as the stealth fighter bases in Tomah, New Mexico, and other lesser known places, such as the mysterious Area 51, where highly classified artifacts were stored.

"These guys seem so young," Mike whispered.

"They may look young, but they are all Special Ops guys," said Ellen.

Mike and Ellen held out their identification cards for the guards, one of whom ran each card through the reader on the door.  The doors of the elevator opened and Mike and Ellen boarded.  Silently, the stainless steel cage dropped Mike and Ellen more than 50 feet below ground.  The CSAC installation was under sea level at this location.

The elevator slid to a gentle stop and the stainless steel doors slid open to reveal a subterranean world of artificial lighting.  Sodium vapor lamps gave the narrow stainless steel corridors a yellowish hue.  The corridors smelled of Lysol.  If Mike hadn't known better, he could have believed that he was inside a modern nuclear fleet submarine.

Mike and Ellen hurried down the narrow corridor, finally reaching a hatchway, which silently slid open on their approach.  In the anteroom which was flooded in red light, two Navy Seals stood silently with their submachine guns at the ready.

As Mike and Ellen approached, one of the Seals said, "Hello, Ms. Jones, the old man is waiting for you."

After the outer hatchway shut and a short period of time had passed for their eyes to adjust to the red light, the inner stainless steel hatchway slid open and Mike and Ellen went into the surprisingly small Situation Room of CSAC.  Television monitors lined one wall of the remarkably small room.

On one wall was a large wall monitor, currently displaying a world map showing the locations of the four Watch Stations and the operational status of various CSAC facilities around the world.  By punching in the right code, the operator of the wall monitor could bring up a variety of different geographical or informational inputs.

Using the flexibility of the various monitors available to him, McHugh could be in instant communication with the head of CSAC, all CSAC operations, the chief of staff of the armed services, the heads of the various intelligence agencies, the National Security Adviser, and the President at the touch of a button.

McHugh and several naval officers were clustered around a conference table at one end of the operations center.  As the hatchway slid open, McHugh looked up.

"Mike, get over here."

"What's happened?" said Mike, knowing that in the security of the operations room, McHugh would finally brief him on the dramatic events that had been unfolding during the last forty-eight hours.

"Winslow's dead.  George Smith in the Washington office has a friend who's the special agent in charge of the FBI's Minneapolis-St. Paul field office.  A guy named Herb Adams.  Adams found out that Winslow had been killed, we don't know by whom.  With the attacks on you and Mildred and now confirmation on Winslow, we have to consider the possibility that someone has broken our cover.  Anyway, Smith and that young kid, er, Twoomey, are taking a contingent of Marines up to Mankato, Minnesota, to retrieve the body.  We're hoping that the cylinder will be intact."