The Extinction Code (37 page)

Transmissions intercepted from the island’s sensors and NSA satellite imagery had revealed that Garrett, Warner, Lopez, Mitchell, most of the members of Majestic Twelve and a small number of private security guards had been present at the facility when the blasts had struck. The idea that any of those present could have survived such an assault seemed limited in the extreme, but both Warner and Lopez were professionals and they had escaped from equally perilous crisis numerous times in the past. At least, that was what Hellerman kept telling himself. There was just no way that…

‘You okay?’

Hellerman blinked awake from his reverie, realized that his eyes were still closed and that he was still clutching Lopez’s scarf as though it were an anchor to reality. He glanced up and saw General Nellis looking down at him with a strange expression. Hellerman coughed, sat up and tossed the scarf to one side as though it was a mere irritation.

‘Sure, I’m fine. Any news?’

Nellis inhaled a deep breath and Hellerman sensed both the coming of great revelations and great disappointment.

‘We just got word from the White House,’ the general said, ‘which confirms that no trace of whatever extra–terrestrial toxin may have been present at the facility has been found. Investigators have however detected small amounts of such things as sarin gas, anthrax, various acids and other nasty chemicals that might indicate some kind of manufactured and lethal aerosolized contaminant. You got any ideas on that?’

Hellerman’s mind ticked over for a few moments.

‘It’s possible that you could mix together a few real evil concoctions and then spray it over people in a fine enough mix that they wouldn’t notice it until their skin started falling off and their lungs began to burn, quite literally.’ He swallowed, thickly. ‘Have any bodies been found?’

Nellis nodded.

‘Eight bodies have been located in and around the site,’ he said. ‘None have been identified as Warner or Lopez. Forensics are doing their work now, but there’s not much left to see and dental records are mostly being used to confirm identities.’

Hellerman looked at the screens as a slim ray of hope appeared through the gloom of his depression.

‘At least ten members of Majestic Twelve walked into that facility,’ he said.

‘Yes, and three of them walked out and were incinerated less than two minutes later,’ Nellis agreed. ‘They all were identified as members of Majestic Twelve and they appear to have escaped the facility in some way. But then one of them tried to get back inside the facility. He probably heard the jets coming and figured that indoors was the best place to be. It was, for all of sixty seconds.’

Hellerman closed his eyes as he replied.

‘And we didn’t get any coverage of the site after the initial strike?’

‘No,’ Nellis replied, almost apologetically. ‘The first hits were designed to neutralize any defences and take out anybody in the compound who might have any weapons to take a pot–shot at the second wave. The debris blocked any view from our satellites, even in infra–red, because of the heat. Then two more jets hit the target with the bunker busters, followed by the rest. By the time that cloud had cleared and the fires had burned themselves out, the whole area had been flattened.’

Hellerman nodded and sank back into Lopez’s chair.

‘No survivors,’ he whispered in reply, ‘collateral damage.’

Nellis, his hands behind his back, replied as gently as he could.

‘It wasn’t our decision. The White House made the call. With Warner and Lopez underground there was no way to send a warning, and Garrett shut down the facility’s communications suite before he was killed in the blast, so we couldn’t have warned any of them even if we’d wanted to. With MJ–12 trapped so completely, it was decided by the president to end this for once and for all.’

Hellerman saw in his mind’s eye an image of Jarvis and his fists slowly clenched by his sides.

‘Jarvis,’ he echoed, struggling to keep the rage from his voice. ‘Where is he?’

Nellis sighed.

‘He’s in the wind. We can’t worry about him right now, what do you have on MJ–12’s assets?’

Hellerman shook his head slowly and reached for a folder that he handed to Nellis. The General opened the surprisingly slim file and scanned a meagre handful of sheets of paper inside.

‘This is it?’ he asked, amazed.

‘That’s all that’s left,’ Hellerman replied without looking up at Nellis. ‘Jarvis was handling the whole thing. When he started I know damned well that we were chasing so many financial leads I figured it would take us at least five years to track everything down, to account for every contact and shell corporation that Majestic Twelve were using. Now, ninety five per cent of it has just disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’ Nellis echoed.

‘Gone,’ Hellerman confirmed, ‘moved, buried, hidden, whatever you want to call it. All of our collated data on the financial transactions of Majestic Twelve are gone. What we have left covers assets to a value of about three billions dollars, which is the amount I reported to the National Security Agency and the administration two days ago.’

Three billion dollars was a great deal of money, and Nellis had been able to walk into the White House and report on their work with a great deal of satisfaction, while the President had been able to tell the media that the American tax payer had saved a similar amount of money through the administration’s ruthless hunting out of corruption in big business. A leaked document of data containing millions of files and dubbed
The Panama Papers
by the media had revealed the largest transactions routed through corrupt banking practices in the Cayman Islands, some of which belonged to Majestic Twelve. But both he and Hellerman also knew that three billions dollars had represented loose change to Majestic Twelve, merely the tip of their financial iceberg.

‘He set this all up, y’know that, right?’ Hellerman uttered, and then looked up at Nellis. ‘Jarvis.’

Nellis nodded. ‘Jarvis had made his mind up that Majestic Twelve could never be fully stopped unless they were eradicated completely. I tried to reason with him and I thought that he was aboard with us, but he had his own agenda. You know he was nearing retirement?’

Hellerman shook his head. ‘I thought he’d serve until he was dead.’

‘So did I, but privately I think he’d had enough of the game and wanted to do something to finish all of this before he threw in the towel.’

‘Was killing Ethan and Nicola a part of his grand design?’

Nellis sighed again, shook his head. ‘I just don’t know. Go home, get some rest. Majestic Twelve may be gone but they have a huge corporate network that needs dismantling and I’ll need you on top form to help us. ARIES isn’t over just because our top people have disappeared in the field, Hellerman. You’re number one now.’

Nellis turned and marched from the watch room, leaving Hellerman to wonder just what the hell he would do if he did go home. Nothing, other than think about what he could be doing at work.

Hellerman stood up and gave Lopez’s desk one last glance, and then he trudged across the watch room to his office and stepped inside, quietly closing the door behind him. He sat down at his desk and stared blankly at his monitor for a moment, wondering whether he wanted to play this game anymore. After graduating from MIT in computer science he had been happily employed at a games company designing three dimensional worlds for virtual reality headsets, before he’d joined the DIA at their request, and had been enthralled at the way the new technology could change the way people lived and communicated as well as the advances in gaming. His former employers would welcome him back with open arms, the pay was better, he could even move back to San Diego.

Hellerman reached out for the phone on his desk, but before his hand touched the receiver his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. Hellerman reached down with a sigh and pulled it out to see a text. His heart skipped a beat as he saw an image of Lopez alongside it.

YOU IN THERE, GENIUS? :)

Hellerman bolted from his chair and yanked the door of his office open to see Lopez standing with her smile as wide and bright as it ever had been. Hellerman didn’t even see that her left arm was in a sling as he threw himself at her and hugged her.

‘Easy, Einstein,’ Lopez gasped, managing to return the embrace with her good arm as she winced against the pain.

Hellerman stood back, barely able to contain himself. ‘I thought you were… I mean we all saw what happened and… we figured you’d…’

‘So did we,’ Ethan said as he strolled up behind Lopez, one side of his face marked with scratches and patched with medical tape, ‘but hey, another day, another dollar.’

Hellerman thrust his hand out and shook Ethan’s vigorously.

‘Nellis was just here,’ he informed them. ‘We got some of Majestic Twelve’s assets but…’

‘We know,’ Lopez said. ‘I always said Jarvis would do something like this, but nobody listened to me.’

‘We don’t know what he’s done yet,’ Ethan said cautiously. ‘Right now, General Nellis tells us that you’re making headway with that sphere we recovered from the Black Knight,
Die Glocke
?’

‘It’s a computer,’ Hellerman nodded, ‘and Die Glocke was a monitor of sorts, pre–programmed to descend at a given moment in time. Something made it come down, and whatever that something was is what Majestic Twelve was formed to figure out, before they became corrupted by power and money.’

‘Jarvis wanted to know the answer to all of that just as much as we do. Let’s figure out where he’s gone and then we’ll find out why. Are you in, Hellerman?’

Hellerman glanced at the phone on his desk.
Video games, video schmames
.

‘Where do you want me to start?’

***

XLIV

Tortola, British Virgin Islands,

Caribbean

The white sands of the private beach stretched for what seemed like endless miles in both directions alongside a glassy, gin clear sea beneath a flawless blue sky. Palms lined the secluded cove, their broad leaves rustling in the warm breeze as Jarvis strolled near the water’s edge.

For the first time in as long as he could remember he was not wearing a dark blue suit. Instead, beige slacks and a white shirt were all that he needed, along with the sunglasses that shielded his eyes from the brilliant beach before him.

They would come for him, he knew. Sooner or later, the DIA would set their agents in pursuit of him and he would once again have to look over his shoulder. The joy of his position now was that he had done no wrong. With the media focused entirely on The
Panama Papers
and the scandal causing such uproar in the press, Jarvis had been able to slip silently away and at this time was merely missing in action. Nellis, and Hellerman no doubt, would guess at what had happened but it would take them an age to figure out how he had achieved it: long enough that he would be forever beyond their reach.

He was tired, although the warmth of the beach and the freedom of his flight from the DIA had invigorated his soul. His advancing years had precluded him from ever seeing Majestic Twelve suffer the fate that they truly deserved, the years spent rotting in some cell somewhere, and so he had decided that this last act, this late in his life, would be committed to give him some sense of satisfaction, to know that he had completed what he had set out to do. However, he would never have expected to be doing what he was now doing. The irony of his path was not lost upon him.

At his insistence, the meeting was to take place on a tourist beach at a popular holiday island. Some had been appalled at his choice of location, but Jarvis had always been a firm fan of hiding in plain sight. The DIA and others would be searching for them in exclusive villas or private islands, in the most expensive and salubrious locations on earth, not in bars popular with retirees and vacationing families. Only moderate disguises were required, simple means to conceal one’s true identity and avoid easy recognition, especially when most of them were entirely anonymous beyond their offices anyway.

Jarvis reached the small veranda of a bar nestled amid the swaying palms. This early in the morning it was mostly empty, a few vacationers and honeymoon couples sprawling in bliss beneath the sun as he walked onto the veranda and sat down at a table occupied by a small group of men and women.

All of them looked unremarkable, except perhaps for the physical size of the dark skinned man who looked at Jarvis.

‘You’re alive then,’ Jarvis remarked as he sipped from the coffee awaiting him.

Aaron Mitchell raised an eyebrow. Beneath his loose shirt Jarvis could see fresh wounds concealed by medical tape and what was probably carefully applied make up, but Mitchell seemed otherwise intact.

‘No thanks to you,’ he growled.

‘Ethan and Nicola?’ Jarvis asked, genuine concern in his voice.

Mitchell leaned forward on the table between them. ‘They got out just in front of me. They made it.’

Jarvis sighed and sank back into his chair as the coffee and warm sunshine suddenly seemed to take effect on him and the last tight knots of anxiety unwound somewhere deep inside his belly.

‘So, we’re all good then,’ he smiled finally.

On the opposite side of the table, Rhys Garrett raised a glass of what looked like sparkling champagne in Jarvis’s direction.

‘Three billion down, but still standing.’

‘Don’t knock it,’ Jarvis replied, ‘you can’t spend money when you’re dead. How did the leak go?’

‘I take it you’ve seen the news?’ Garrett replied. ‘I managed to warn most of my clients before the leak was made, and it’ll probably sink
Mossack Fonseca
in the long run, but it covers the presence of Majestic Twelve’s missing money for now.’

The Panama legal firm
Mossack Fonseca
had been the source of a massive data leak of clients who were subject to international sanctions. Dozens of individuals and companies under sanctions by the US Treasury had been exposed, with
Mossack Fonseca
registering companies as offshore entities operated under its own name to conceal the identities of the real owners. Although some clients were registered before international sanctions were imposed,
Mossack Fonseca
had continued to act as a proxy after they were blacklisted. No less than eleven million documents held by the Panama–based law firm were discreetly passed to the German newspaper
Sueddeutsche Zeitung
, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and media organisations in over seventy countries to show how the firm had helped clients launder money, dodge sanctions and evade taxes.