Section 8 (22 page)

Jolo Island

The corridor was six feet wide by eight high. The walls were roughly hewn rock, and Vaughn assumed that an existing tunnel had been expanded to make this passageway. He doubted that the technology existed during World War II to completely carve this out of solid rock. His assumption was confirmed as he noted occasional natural openings on either side as they moved farther into the mountain.
Their progress was stopped after about a hundred meters by an iron door that appeared to be bolted on the other side, since it did not budge when both he and Tai put their weight on it.
"What now?" Tai asked as she considered the door.
They had a limited amount of explosives, but using them was the last thing Vaughn wanted to do. "The room we just left," he said.
"What about it?"
"It's moving air out of the complex, right?" He didn't wait for an answer. "So there have to be air shafts coming into it from below. Beneath that big fan."
Tai nodded and turned back the way they had come. They retraced their steps and entered the room. Vaughn looked at the large air handler. There was a service panel on one side, so he pulled out his multipurpose tool and unscrewed it.
"Shit," Tai said as the opening revealed the large, six-foot-diameter fan, spinning, the blades thumping through the air, pushing it up. There was an open shaft below it. "How do we—"
Vaughn answered by pointing at a bundle of wires. "We cut those, we stop it."
"Won't someone notice?"
"Probably."
"Then we need a better plan."
Vaughn waved his hand, indicating she could do whatever she wished. He stepped back as Tai stuck her head in the opening, looking about. "The tips of the fan don't make it to the sides," she noted. "There's about eighteen inches of room."
Vaughn was already shaking his head. "We hit those fans and it'll cut us in two."
"There's room," Tai insisted.
Vaughn looked. She was right. But it would be damn close. He shined his flashlight down and saw. The shaft below the fan curved, so he couldn't see how far it dropped.
"I don't like it," he finally said.
"We don't have much choice," she replied.
She was right about that. But he didn't see how they were going to get out of there once they went in. He took a deep breath. This was representative of what he'd been feeling ever since becoming part of Section 8. They were on a one-way trip.
"Ladies first," Vaughn said, and the tone of his voice indicated it wasn't a choice.
Tai responded by edging over into the opening. She gripped the side with her hands and slowly lowered herself. Vaughn anxiously watched as her legs reached the level of the fan. The metal whipped by, less than six inches from her flesh. She continued to lower herself until her arms were fully extended. The fan was at chest level, barely missing her. She looked up at Vaughn, gave him a wan smile, then let go. She slid down the tube and out of sight.
Cursing to himself, Vaughn climbed into the machine and duplicated her actions. As he lowered himself, he could feel the power of the fan so close. As he extended his arms, the edge of one of the blades hit the back of his combat vest, cutting through it and the shirt underneath but barely missing his skin. Abandoning caution for speed, Vaughn let go and slid down, safe from the fan now but uncertain where and when his fall would be arrested.
The tube curved, but only slightly, and he gained speed as he went down. He tried slowing his progress with his hands but there was nothing to grip. The tube was steel, too new to be from the original World War II structure. Vaughn gasped as he suddenly went airborne into a black void. He braced himself for impact, hoping the fall would be brief.
It was. He slammed onto a steel platform with a solid thud.
"That you?" Tai asked.
"No," Vaughn grunted as he inwardly reviewed his body for injuries.
A red light came on, and he could see Tai now, about four feet away. He slowly got to his feet. They were in an open space, and as Tai slowly shifted her light, he saw that it was about ten meters square with a steel floor. He looked up and saw the opening he had fallen out of about eight feet above his head. Not good, he thought, as he considered how the hell they were going to get out of there.
Tai directed her light toward a couple of openings in the floor. She walked over to the closest one, and Vaughn joined her. There was a two-foot depression, then a metal grate in the three-foot-wide hole. Air was being drawn up through the opening. They both knelt next to the opening and she shined her flashlight down. The red light penetrated the darkness for a few feet but they couldn't see anything.
"I assume no one's in there since it's dark," Tai said.
"Unless it's a barracks room," Vaughn said, "and there's a bunch of guys with guns sleeping."
"Always the optimist."
Tai turned off her flashlight, leaving them in darkness. Vaughn could hear her unscrewing the cover. She turned the light back on, flooding the room with white light. She pointed it down at the grate.
Both of them gasped as a golden glow was reflected back at them. Directly below the grate was a five-foot-high stack of gold bullion.

CHAPTER 16
Oahu

"Space Command did track the plane," Foster said.
It didn't surprise Royce, because Space Command had tracked everything flying since 9/11. He waited out Foster. There was little activity in the operations center. Everyone was still waiting for the report from the surviving recon team member on the ground—if he lived long enough to make a report.
Foster slid a piece of paper across his desk, and Royce recognized the location it displayed: the middle of the Pacific Ocean, west of Midway Island. A thin red line went from Oahu to a point about four hundred miles away from Midway, where it ended.
"That's where it disappeared," Foster said. He cleared his throat nervously. "There was no report of a plane missing in that area or anywhere close to it. But there was also no flight plan for a plane flying in that area at the time. No one has reported a plane missing either."
"Of course not," Royce said as he stared at the end of the red line. A watery grave. At least David's brother had gotten the honor of being buried in the Punchbowl here on the island. There would be no markers to commemorate David's service. It was as if he'd never existed.
Royce folded the piece of paper and slid it into his pocket.
"Also—" Foster hesitated.
"Yes?"
"We just got a report that one of the team members, Hayes, is very ill."
Royce stood up. "Inform me as soon as the recon element reports in."
He went out to David's Defender and drove into the hills. Once in the clearing, he opened his laptop and typed out two messages. The first one was to the isolation area on Okinawa. The second went to the backup team that should now have been departing Hong Kong to converge on the primary mission.

Okinawa

The Humvee ambulance slowed to a halt outside the door to the isolation area. The medic/driver hopped out and went to the rear, pulling out a folding stretcher. Orson was waiting for him, arms folded. "This way."
He led the medic to where Sinclair had Hayes lying on a couch, a cold compress on his forehead. The medic checked Hayes's pulse while he looked at the other members of the team. "Any idea what's wrong with him?"
"Pancreatic cancer," Orson said succinctly, which earned a surprised look from Sinclair and a not so surprised look from Kasen.
"Jesus," the medic muttered. "What the hell is he doing here?"
"His job," Orson said.
The medic shook his head. "He needs to be in a hospital ASAP."
Orson frowned and glanced at the other members of the team. "I'll go with him. You two continue mission preparation. Contact me ASAP if you hear from the recon element."
Orson and the medic put Hayes on the stretcher and carried him to the Humvee. They slid the stretcher in and Orson climbed up next to Hayes. The black man was sweating profusely, his gaze vacant. The medic slammed the back door shut and got in the driver's seat. The Humvee ambulance slowly wound its way through the tunnel toward the outside world.
Orson glanced at the front—the medic was focused on the road. Orson leaned over and placed his forearm across Hayes's throat, applying pressure. Hayes's eyes went wide and he reached up and weakly grabbed Orson's arm, trying to push it away, but he was too sick. Orson kept the pressure up as he watched the front of the Humvee.
The panic in Hayes's eyes disappeared as the life drained from them.
When the Humvee cleared the tunnel, Orson rapped on the back of the driver's seat. "Let me out."
The medic stopped the Humvee and turned, confused. "What?"
Orson indicated Hayes's body. "He's gone. I've got to get back to isolation."
"'He's gone'?" The medic hopped out and came into the back. He checked Hayes's vitals, confirming that the man was indeed dead. "I don't get it," he muttered as he pulled a blanket over Hayes's face. "He was sick, but—"
Orson stepped out of the Humvee. "We really needed him to last a while longer." He shrugged. "Some things you just can't control." With that he disappeared into the black gaping mouth of the tunnel entrance.

Johnston Atoll

The Navy F-14 Tomcat came in low and fast. It had made the flight from Hawaii in less than two hours, dispatched after the tower on Johnston Atoll failed to respond to repeated radio queries. That, combined with a complete electronic blackout from the atoll—no e-mails, faxes, phone calls—absolutely nothing, had caused the jet to be scrambled.
It roared across the island one hundred feet up, the pilot peering out of the cockpit. He saw nothing out of the ordinary except that he saw nothing happening on the island. No movement. No people. He did a wide loop then came back, flying slower, just above stall speed, while transmitting, trying to contact the tower. There was only the sound of low static in reply.
The pilot knew that the sound of his engines could clearly be heard, even by people inside the buildings. Yet no one came running out to look up. Absolute stillness.
Then he noticed something else. There were no birds.

Pacific Ocean

"Target bearing zero-six-seven degrees, range four hundred meters."
Moreno nodded at the sonar man's report. Exactly where it should be. "Periscope depth," he ordered. It wasn't necessary to make a visual confirmation, but Moreno believed in double-checking.
He grabbed the handles for the periscope as it ascended, flipping them down, and pressed his head against the eyepiece, turning in the direction the sonar had indicated the target. Moreno blinked as he saw the massive ship. He'd seen pictures, but that had not prepared him for the real thing.
It was one of the largest oil tankers in the world—the
Jahre Viking
. It wasn't moving through the ocean so much as plowing through the water, ignoring the four-foot swell that pounded against its steel hull, heading almost due east, toward San Francisco. The tanker was over a quarter mile long and seventy meters wide.
"Down periscope," Moreno ordered. "Descend to fifty meters."
According to the intelligence he had, the tanker drew almost twenty-five meters when fully loaded. Moreno went forward to the sonar man. "Range?"
"Three hundred meters," the man announced.
Moreno waited. He cocked his head as a noise began to reverberate through the hull. The sonar man turned down the volume on his set and looked up at Moreno. "The screws."
They were hearing the sound the
Jahre Viking
's propellers slicing through the water. It grew in intensity as they got closer.
"Two hundred meters."
"Slow to one half," Moreno ordered. The
Viking
was big, but it was slow, making no more than ten knots.
The entire submarine had begun to vibrate, and when the ship rolled almost ten degrees before righting itself, Moreno knew they were passing through the massive tanker's bow wake.
"One hundred meters!" The sonar man had to yell to be heard over the vibrating sound echoing through the steel tube.
"Slow to one-quarter," Moreno announced. "Are we past the propellers?" he asked, leaning close to the sonar man.
The man nodded, his eyes closed, focusing on the sound. "Fifty meters," he announced.
Moreno felt a bead of sweat dribble down his temple onto his cheek. He did not raise his hand to wipe it off, knowing the action could be more easily seen than the perspiration.
"We're under!" the sonar man yelled.
"Up, slow, very slow," Moreno ordered. "Maintain one quarter speed." He licked his lips, as this part was guesswork. It they were over and didn't make contact squarely or hit the propellers—he didn't allow himself to project those lines of thought further.
"Forty-five meters," the dive master announced. "Slow and steady. Forty meters."
Moreno slowly walked back into the center of the crowded control room. Every eye was on him, except those of the dive master, who was watching his gauges, hands resting lightly on his controls. "Thirty-five meters."
The submarine was rocking even more violently now, turbulence from the proximity to the massive ship right above them.
"Thirty meters."
"All stop. Brace for impact!" Moreno yelled, and the order was relayed through the submarine. "Turn on the magnets."
His executive officer threw a red switch, and power ran to the two horseshoe-shaped brackets fore and aft. The energized magnets caught the nearest attraction—the steel behemoth above the submarine. The invisible lines of force reached out and pulled the much smaller submarine toward the vessel above it.
Moreno's knees buckled as the magnets made contact with the oil tanker with a solid thud.
"Contact!" the executive officer yelled unnecessarily.
Moreno stood still for several moments, the only sound that of the tanker's screws behind them and the turbulent water rushing by.
"Maintaining contact," the executive officer said.
Finally Moreno allowed himself to smile. They had their ride to San Francisco.
"Power down to minimum," Moreno ordered. "Silent running." Not that anyone was going to hear anything from the sub, given the sound of the tanker's massive screws churning just a couple of hundred meters behind them, but it never hurt to be careful.

Jolo Island

"The Golden Lily," Vaughn said.
"Literally," Tai confirmed. They both sat back on their rucksacks, listening to the air being pulled by them. "At least part of it."
"But our target isn't the gold," Vaughn noted. "We still have to find Abayon."
"And when we find him?" Tai asked. They were seated on their rucksacks, the only light the dim red glow of Tai's flashlight.
Vaughn pulled out a canteen and took a deep drink. "Then we get out of here, call it in. The rest of the team comes in. We kill him. We leave."
"Hell of a plan, since we still haven't pinpointed his location."
"That, we do next."
"And go where, after the mission is done?"
"That's too far ahead," Vaughn said.
"All right," Tai allowed. "Say we find him. The rest of the team comes in. We kill him. Then what?"
Vaughn shrugged. "Then he's dead and the Abu Sayef are fucked."
"And the gold?"
Vaughn stared at her in the glow from the red lens flashlight. "Not my business."
"Whose business do you think it is?"
Vaughn closed his eyes and rubbed the lids, trying to momentarily drive away the irritation he felt there. He'd been up now for over thirty-six straight hours and it was beginning to wear on him. "Who are you?"
When there was no answer, he opened his eyes and looked at Tai. She was staring at him, and he knew she was trying to figure out if she should trust him, which he didn't give a shit about, because he had no clue whether he could trust her.
"Remember back in isolation where I mentioned the Black Eagle Trust?" she finally said.
"Yes."
"It came out of the Golden Lily," Tai said. "After the war, we recovered a good portion of the treasure that the Japanese and Germans looted. Some of it was given back to the rightful owners, mostly pieces of art in Europe where the scrutiny level was higher. But gold—like that below—a lot of it was untraceable, or could be melted down into bars that were untraceable."
"And that became?"
"The Black Eagle Trust," Tai said. "At the end of the war some far-thinking people saw the threat that communism posed for the West. And they realized that they would need money—a lot of it—to wage the fight."
"I thought that was called taxes," Vaughn noted.
"The Black Eagle fund was a slush fund," Tai said. "Used to bribe people, influence elections, pay for black ops with complete deniability."
The last thing she'd mentioned caught Vaughn's attention.
"There was an OSS operative by the name of Lansale," Tai continued. "He went into the Philippines before MacArthur invaded and linked up with the guerrilla forces—not to mobilize the guerrillas, but with the explicit order to find as much of the Golden Lily as he could. Which wasn't as easy as it sounds, since the Japanese were brutal about trying to hide places like this. They thought nothing of executing all the slave labor they used to build them—and even killing their own engineers who worked on them—in order to keep the locations secret."
"How did this Lansale know about the Golden Lily?" Vaughn asked.
Tai shrugged. "That's an interesting question. After the war, General Yamashita, the Japanese commander in the Philippines, was captured. He never talked before his execution, but his driver, a Major Kojima, was secretly tortured, and it was rumored he gave up the location of several of the caches, including some that Marcos recovered directly for his own fortune."
"But you said Lansale went in
before
the war was over," Vaughn noted.
Tai nodded. "I don't know what Lansale knew or how he knew it, but however he found out about it, he realized its significance right away. He went to three of Roosevelt's top advisors—the Secretary of War and the two men who would shortly become the Secretary of Defense and the head of the World Bank. They told Roosevelt that they needed to gain control of as much of the Golden Lily as possible—and when Roosevelt died, we have to assume they went to Truman with the same cause. The treasure they recovered was spread out around the world, to a lot of banks. They used that to create gold bearer certificates that could be used in any country in the world. The war against communism was, in a way, fought in a most capitalistic way.
"There was more to it than just fighting communism, though," Tai continued. "If so much gold flooded the market, it would have destabilized all the currencies that were based on a gold standard."
"So this Black Eagle Trust was a good thing," Vaughn said.
She shrugged. "It was illegal."
He gave a short laugh. "You think what we're doing here is legal?"
"No, it isn't," Tai allowed.
"So what the fuck is your point?" Vaughn snapped, tired of being strung along.
"My point is that there's a lot more going on in the covert world than we know—or maybe than anyone except a select handful know."
"So?"
"So, I think we better be damn careful and watch our backs."
Vaughn let out his anger with a deep breath. "I agree to that." He stood, shouldering his ruck. "Let's go find Abayon."
"How do you propose to do that?" Tai asked.
Vaughn pointed at the various openings that lined the walls. "Pick one."
She walked to the wall and went to each opening, shining her light into them. Vaughn waited in the middle of the room, listening to the thump of the air circulator.
"This one," she finally said.
"Why that one?"
"It goes up. Bosses always like being above it all. Plus the air intakes should be up there—and we're going to need another way in and out of this place."
It made as much sense as anything else. Without waiting, Tai climbed into the tube. Vaughn followed.
The pipe went upward at about a twenty-degree angle and was about two and a half feet wide. It was uncomfortable moving through it, and Vaughn was forced to tie his rucksack to his boot and drag it behind him. Every so often they came to a grate and paused to check out what was on the other side. So far the grates had opened onto dark rooms, and Vaughn was reluctant to shine a light into them for fear one might be a barracks room with sleeping guards.
Finally they came upon a grate with light shining through it. Tai peered through, then moved up, gesturing to Vaughn. He crawled to the grate and looked inside at a room with a half-dozen long tables. From the odor wafting in, he assumed it was some sort of mess hall. There was no one in sight.
Tai was already moving, and he followed her.
Another grate. A single lightbulb glowed in what was obviously a storage room. Tai kept moving. Vaughn estimated they had gone up at least two hundred feet in altitude, but it was hard to tell.
They came to another grate where light shone through. Tai spent several moments looking, gesturing for Vaughn to be very quiet, then slid up, giving him access.
He slid up to the grate, peered through and saw a medical dispensary. A woman in a white uniform was working on some sort of machine, checking it. It seemed they were getting closer, since the dispensary would be close to where the people were.
As they continued to ascend, Vaughn began to wonder how much farther they could possibly go. He also worried about a way out. Reversing course meant they would have to find a way to get back up into the tube they had slid down, which he didn't think would be possible. He hoped his information about air intakes was correct.
Tai stopped at another grate, and Vaughn waited as she peered through for over a minute. Finally she moved up the tube and signaled. He crawled up and peered through.
An old man sat in a wheelchair behind a desk in a room portioned by what appeared to be a blast-proof clear wall. Even though the photo they had was out of date, Vaughn had no doubt the man was Rogelio Abayon. His hand slid down to his holster, but he paused as Tai's boot tapped him on the head. He looked up.
She shook her head, then pointed up. She clicked on her red lens flashlight briefly, showing that the tube ended at what appeared to be a hatch. Without waiting, she began crawling upward.
Vaughn took one last look at Abayon, then followed.