The Citadel (3 page)

Area 51, Nevada
28 May 1949

The man who had been in the front seat of the car outside of Bethesda Naval Hospital picked up the phone on the first ring. "Vandenberg here."
The voice on the other end was distorted by both distance and scrambler. "This is Lansale. The final link has been severed. The Citadel is secure."
"Did you receive the last package?"
"Yes, sir. A ground convoy brought them in, but I don't understand why—"
The man cut him off. "It's not your place to understand. Did you secure them?"
"Yes, sir. They're in the base."
"The men in the convoy?"
"Taken care of."
"Excellent."

CHAPTER 1
Oahu, Hawaii
The Present

The woman gasped and the man stopped what he was doing.
"You don't like it?" he asked.
"Like it?" Tai reached down and unstrapped her leg from the weight he had attached to her ankle. "It's killing me." She slowly stretched out the bandaged limb. She looked at the Velcro strap with the two weights attached and then added a third. She strapped it back on her ankle.
"I thought it was killing you," Vaughn noted.
"No pain, no gain," Tai said as she got to her feet and looked down the beach. Vaughn stared with respect at the slender woman of Japanese descent. Her short dark hair was plastered to her head with the sweat from her efforts. They were on the north shore of Oahu, far from the tourists in Waikiki. The first day Tai had been released from the hospital she insisted on hitting the beach, managing to walk about twenty yards in her casts before collapsing. Now she was running five miles. With weights on her ankles. They had just come one way over three miles, so he knew it was going to be even farther today as they turned to head back. She had switched the weights from her hands to her ankles, as was her routine.
With a sigh, Vaughn set out after her as she began to lope down the beach. Three inches taller than her, at slightly over six feet, Vaughn also had a slender build. His hair was beginning to turn prematurely gray, flecks appearing here and there, the result of living in the covert world for too many years.
Now he and Tai were so deep under, he wasn't sure where they were. Their handler, Royce, wasn't even sure who
he
worked for. He'd reported them killed in action three months ago when they'd stopped the Abu Sayif terrorist group in its attempt to attack Oahu with nerve gas sprayed from the deck of an old World War II submarine.
Vaughn kept pace with Tai, but when they got within a half mile of the bungalow they were living in, he picked up the pace. She spared him a glance as he went by, then lowered her head and churned her legs harder. Vaughn felt slightly guilty for passing a woman who was only three months removed from intensive care, but over the time they had spent together, he'd learned she wanted no slack cut, nothing but his best effort. He saw the small path through the jungle that led up to the bungalow Royce had gotten for them and turned onto it. He came to an abrupt halt as soon as he saw Royce standing there, waiting, leaning against his old Land Rover with a battered leather briefcase in his hand.
"Been a while," Vaughn said.
"Where's Tai?" Royce asked.
Vaughn jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "She'll be along in a second."
"So you two are bonding?"
Vaughn wasn't sure how to take that, given the deadpan way Royce said it. "We're getting back in shape."
"Good. Because something just happened."
Vaughn turned and looked over his shoulder as he heard Tai coming down the path. She slowed to a walk when she saw Royce. He'd only stopped by a couple of times in the three months, judging their improving condition but not saying anything.
Neither Tai nor Vaughn had been anxious to press Royce for more information about the mysterious Organization he worked for, not after it had tried to kill them several times after using them on a covert mission against the Abu Sayif terrorists. They didn't know if the Organization was working for the U.S. government, as they were told when initially recruited, or some other government or entity. The real problem had been learning that Royce didn't know either. He worked through cutouts, a link that only knew the links on either side but nothing further. And Royce was now their cutout.
"So what happened?" Vaughn asked, now that Tai was present.
"I just received a letter from a dead man," Royce said, holding up the briefcase. "Actually a letter from a man who was murdered by the Organization. The letter directed me to a package. And there was more than just a letter in the package." Royce nodded toward the cottage. "Come inside. I'll explain and show you."
They followed him in. Royce placed the briefcase on the small kitchen table. Through the surrounding trees, one could catch glimpses of the ocean and the surf pounding the north shore. "The man who sent me the letter—he used to live here," Royce said. "For many, many years. Although he was traveling most of the time. Doing Organization business."
"He was your Hawaiian cutout," Tai said. A statement, not a question.
Royce nodded. "His name was David Lansale. He'd been in the OSS in World War II. He recruited me into the Organization. I worked for him along the Pacific Rim for many, many years. Then he decided it was time to retire."
Vaughn glanced at Tai. He sensed what was coming. He could tell by her face that she could too. And Royce noted the exchange. He smiled wanly "Yes, I know. A bit foolish to think one could retire from this life. But you do it long enough, get burnt-out enough, when someone dangles a carrot in front of you, you just might jump for it, even though you know better."
"Lansale jumped?" Vaughn asked.
Royce shrugged. "Jumped might be a bit strong of a word. I think he knew his time was up and he took the chance that maybe, just maybe, what the Organization was offering was real." Royce reached out and tapped the briefcase. "But obviously he also had strong doubts or he wouldn't have led me to this."
"Tell us what happened to him," Tai said as she wiped the sweat off her face with a towel.
"Short version," Royce said. "Three months ago—while we were in the midst of our little operation against the Abu Sayif—David 'retired.' He got on a private, unmarked jet with a group of other 'retirees' out at Kaneohe Marine Air Station. The jet took off heading west, for their island paradise retirement. It went down in the ocean, no survivors. No one was supposed to know about it, but I managed to track it through Space Command's eyes in the sky."
"Some retirement your group has," Vaughn said. He stared at Royce. "No wonder you got us on your side. You don't have much to look forward to, do you?"
"I suspected as much," Royce said. "Neither of you have much to look forward to either, especially considering you should be dead."
"Was he your friend?" Tai asked, which earned her a surprised look from both Royce and Vaughn.
After a moment's reflection, Royce nodded. "Yes."
Tai continued. "And his death was part of the reason you kept us alive and want to use us to find out what the Organization really is."
Royce nodded once. "Yes. That's partly it. It was probably the thing that pushed me over the edge. But there have been many things over the years that just haven't added up. And even David was suspicious of it all. Most of the time we seemed to be doing the right thing, but once in a while…" Royce's voice trailed off.
Vaughn had been recruited by Royce right after he led a disastrous hostage rescue mission with his Delta Force team in the Philippines. A mission where his brother-in-law was killed under his command. Tai had also been recruited in a similar manner—except she'd been sent undercover by the Defense Intelligence Agency to try to infiltrate the Organization to learn more about it, a move that had almost cost Tai her life when she was uncovered. Both of them now existed in a void. Thought to be dead by all except Royce.
"The letter?" Vaughn asked, trying to get him back on task.
"It was sent FedEx, but apparently held by a bank until yesterday to be delivered today," Royce said.
"Why the delay?" Tai asked.
Royce sighed. "I think David had it delayed in case he really did end up on that island. To give him time to cancel it being sent and cover his ass." He tapped the briefcase. "The letter directed me to a safety deposit box at the same bank where I found this." He opened the top of the case and pulled out several folders. Royce shook his head as he placed them on the table. "The funny thing is, I got most of this material for him. He sent me to St. Louis, to the National Personnel Records Center, a couple of years ago to do some digging. He didn't tell me what he was really looking for, just the bits and pieces." He indicated the table. "Which we now have here. A puzzle that I think we should solve to get a better idea of who and what the Organization is."
Vaughn sat on the open windowsill, feeling the slight ocean breeze stir.
"It's a strange place," Royce said absently as he stared at the material on the tabletop.
"What is?" Tai asked, confused by the sudden shift.
"The Records Center," Royce said. "Did you know they had a fire there in 1973 that destroyed the top two floors of the old Records Center? Which also conveniently destroyed the personnel records for those men involved in the government's nuclear testing in the late forties and the fifties, and also the records for those troops that had been exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam.
"Sort of put the crimp in all those lawsuits the government faced from all those same personnel who had come down with various ailments they claimed were a result of those two government actions."
"Convenient indeed," Tai said.
"I got a crash course in the place when I went," Royce said. "I naturally had the highest clearance, and they assigned me a full-time research archivist. In the new archives, you have seventeen acres of paper hidden underground with an eight-story office building housing other federal agencies above it. Papers tucked away in the building run from old social security records to the original plans for Fat Man, the first nuclear bomb. As both of you know, the U.S. government runs on paper, and the National Personnel Records Center is the temporary storage place and clearinghouse for every imaginable type of government record. Even the Organization can't keep a lid on everything."
Vaughn was growing a bit impatient with Royce's recollections, but Tai gave him a look that indicated he needed to listen, so he forced himself to say nothing.
Royce continued. "Unclassified records are in folders placed inside cardboard boxes, which are stacked on rows and rows of shelves. The secure 'vault' contains all the classified records. Every scrap of paper produced by the numerous organizations, and every piece of paper relating to any person that ever worked for the government, are all kept in the Records Center."
"So there's a lot stuff there," Vaughn said, unable to hold back.
"Yeah," Royce agreed, "a lot of stuff, including this." He indicated the desk.
"And that stuff is?"
Royce picked up a folder on top. "Organizational record. Every Army unit keeps them. Regulation. Most are just boring recitations of facts filled out by some second lieutenant as an extra duty." He held up the folder. "But this one—Lansale sent me looking for a specific type of unit. Engineer units, 1949. That served in a cold weather climate. And this one fit the bill: it had photos in it."
He opened it and spread out twelve photos showing a desolate winter landscape and bundled-up men working on some sort of structure dug deep into the snow. Several of the photos were obviously posed, the men aware of the camera, but others showed them hard at work. One photo caught Vaughn's attention and he picked it up. About fifty men were gathered around a crude, hand-lettered sign that read: A COMPANY: THE CITADEL.
"That's doesn't make sense," Vaughn said.
Tai looked at the photo. "What?"
"The Citadel is the military college of South Carolina in Charleston. That sure isn't Charleston."
"I think they're referring to something besides a military college," Royce said.
Vaughn looked closer. Right behind the men was a metal shaft with a hatch on the side. In the faint distance were three massive mountains looming out of the snow-covered landscape. He turned the picture over. Printed in neat lettering was: 12 MARCH 1949. 48TH ENGINEERS. LIEUTENANT MACINTOSH.
"I asked the archivist who was helping me," Royce said, "about what that Citadel thing could refer to. She said it was probably some unit nickname."
Vaughn shook his head. "A company wouldn't be called the Citadel."
"That's what I thought," Royce said. "They've been trying to put as much as possible into digital form at the Records Center, so I had her do a search for the term in the unclassified data base, accessing armed forces installations. We started with the Army. It didn't take us long to learn there were no listings for Citadel. We then moved on to the Air Force and then the Navy with the same negative results. We even checked the Marines. Nothing. What that meant was that this one file folder of photos was the only record in the entire Records Center of such an installation. Or at least in the unclassified records."
Tai frowned. "Why did Lansale send you after this?"
"There's more," Royce said. "This unit history was just the start of what I dug up there. The photos there cover a four-month time period from February through May 1949. It's obvious they were taken in a very cold place, so we checked Alaska. Nothing. Greenland. Nothing. Iceland. Nothing.
"So we checked the unit, the 48th Engineers. Went into the stacks where every unit in the military has their records shipped eventually. We found a box from the 48th Engineers from 1949 through 1950. It was full of the usual stuff: copies of orders, promotions, citations, operations plans, and the various other forms of paperwork that Army units churn out in the course of business. I learned right away that the unit had been stationed right here in Hawaii at Schofield Barracks."
"That isn't Hawaii," Tai said.
"No shit," Royce said. "I found orders detailing two platoons, heavy construction, from the battalion to support Operation High Jump in late 1948."
"What was High Jump?" Vaughn asked.
"We'll get to that," Royce said.
"And what does this have to do with the Organization?" Tai asked. "Besides the fact Lansale sent you after this stuff and then put it together for you to get three months after his death?"
"Have either of you ever heard of Majestic-12?" Royce asked, instead of answering the questions they'd posed.
Vaughn shook his head, but Tai spoke up. "Something to do with aliens and Area 51?"
"That's the cover story," Royce said. "It's also sometimes called Majic-12." Royce spelled it out. "Majestic-12 was formed by presidential decree, this one"—he pulled out a copy—"which was buried deep in the archives among Truman's materials that weren't sent to his presidential library. He signed it into existence in 1947. When he did, he also authorized the building of two classified installations. One at Area 51. The other was called the Citadel.
"Majestic remains one of the most highly classified groups in the United States for the past sixty years." Royce picked up another piece of paper. "The original roster consisted of the first Director of Central Intelligence; the Chairman of the Joint Research Board, Dr. Vannevar Bush; the first Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal; the chairman of the precursor to NASA, and others. A lot of the power of the military-industrial complex was wrapped up in Majestic."