Tesla Secret, The (20 page)

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

The face of AEON's representative from Brazil filled the teleconference screen in Foxworth's London office. Don Julio Silva was apologetic. His voice oozed with false sincerity. Foxworth listened and controlled his rage. He knew what was coming. The pack had turned on its leader.

"Malcolm, most unfortunately these last adventures have failed, at great expense to the organization. It has brought unwanted attention." Don Julio paused. "We are appreciative of the guidance you have provided these past years. However, we all feel it best if you step down from the Chair."

"All of you?"

Don Julio's face hardened, "Yes, Malcolm. All of us. Out of respect, it has been decided to tell you of our decision rather than simply terminate your position."

Transitions of leadership within AEON were always terminal, but the illusion of civility had to be maintained. There was tradition to be considered. Don Julio was giving him time to set his affairs in order and make his arrangements. Perhaps even arrange his own death in a comfortable manner of his choosing. Socrates and his cup. Otherwise, death was likely to be neither comfortable nor convenient.

"I see," Foxworth said. His face betrayed nothing.

"I knew you'd understand," Don Julio said. "For what it is worth, Malcolm, I truly regret the necessity of this decision. And now I am afraid I must say goodbye."

The screen went blank. Foxworth stared at it for a few seconds, then picked up a heavy cut crystal ashtray and threw it at the monitor. It exploded in a shower of glass and sparks.

He understood, all right. Weak, ambitious minions grasping for power. People without his vision, his sense of destiny. Cautious, small minds unwilling to take risks and speed the day of AEON's supremacy. They were about to find out what a mistake they had made. If they could be swayed to betrayal by a few setbacks, they deserved to die. Malcolm had prepared for this day. His head throbbed with sudden pain. His hand began trembling. He stuffed it in his pocket.

He activated the intercom on his desk.

"Mandy, get Dragonov in here. After him, Morel."

A few minutes later Foxworth's new chief of security knocked on the door frame. Foxworth beckoned him in.

"You sent for me, sir?"

"Increase security to level one immediately. There will be attempts on my life."

"Yes, sir."

"I have a difficult assignment for you. It will require you to make use of your old contacts and I want you to handle it personally. There is a high element of risk involved."

Valentin Dragonov had been a senior sergeant in the Bulgarian secret police before he'd been recruited. He was intelligent and totally ruthless. His contacts included the faceless men who still ran the interrogation cells of Eastern Europe and the old Soviet Union. Dragonov liked women. He liked money. Foxworth had provided both, in generous amounts. The Bulgarian was perfect for what Foxworth had in mind.

Foxworth took a folder from his desk and handed it across. It contained the photographs, names and locations of the other members of AEON's inner circle. With Ogorov gone, there were seven.

"Open the folder."

Dragonov did as he was told. The first page showed a picture of Don Julio Silva and listed his locations, habits and vulnerabilities.

"These men are to be eliminated. I understand you will need to make plans, but time is critical. Do it quickly. Each will be alert and each one will be heavily guarded. Plan accordingly. Do you understand?"

Dragonov said. "These are very high profile targets. I will need to recruit. I will need ordnance. All this will be expensive."

"Get what you need. You have a blank check. Hire who you want. Make sure there are no trails back here."

Foxworth took several banded packets of purple 500 euro notes from a drawer and pushed them across his desk. Dragonov eyed the money.

"This is pocket money for personal expenses. If you need more, tell me. With each success I will give you 200,000 euros. When all seven assignments have been completed, you will receive an additional 1,000,000 euros in a Swiss account. I trust this will be satisfactory?"

The large man nodded.

"Good. Don't let me down."

He didn't need to say more. Dragonov had carried his predecessor's body from the library in Italy.

The Bulgarian picked up the money. "I won't fail."

"That's all."

Dragonov left the room. With Silva and the others handled, Foxworth considered what to do about Elizabeth Harker and the Project. She had to be removed, permanently. He considered possibilities, complications. The Project wasn't Langley or NSA, but their security was still formidable.

He'd been saving a unique asset for something special. Foxworth decided this was the time to use it. With the right spin there would be few consequences. No one would trace it back to him. He pictured the result, watched it happen in his mind's eye. It could be done. He smiled to himself.

Morel entered the office with his briefcase full of magic.

It was turning into a good day.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

A freighter flying the Panamanian flag churned across choppy waters fourteen miles off the Virginia coast. The
Consuela
had been stopped once by the US Coast Guard, a routine inspection that yielded nothing. Her papers were in order. She was bound from Vera Cruz to Norfolk with shipping containers full of furniture consigned to an American chain that specialized in items from third world countries.

The Coast Guard had opened two of the containers and brought on the drug sniffing dogs. The captain of the freighter had given them a friendly wave as they went back to their patrol boat and turned south.

Captain Krushenko was one of Foxworth's finds. Before he'd left the Russian navy he had commanded an Ovod class small missile ship. The Ovod class fielded six P-15 Termit cruise missiles, unreliable weapons with barometric altimeters and erratic guidance systems. The Termits were subsonic, reaching speeds of about 600 MPH.

Krushenko didn't have any of those. He had only one missile, a Chinese CJ-10. Unlike the Termit, the CJ-10 was supersonic, capable of traveling at two and a half  times the speed of sound. It lay flat in one of the long cargo containers, surrounded by boxes of wooden trays and salad bowls.

The CJ-10 could be armed with either a nuclear warhead or conventional explosive. This one carried a generous payload of a new high energy explosive more than twice as powerful as the older types. The missile used an accurate inertial guidance system and was difficult to detect. It skimmed above the terrain at 1900 MPH until it reached and destroyed its target. Once launched, the CJ-10 was a lethal, single purpose, suicidal robot.

The distance from the
Consuela
to the target was approximately a hundred and seventy miles. Krushenko estimated time elapsed between launch and impact at less than twelve minutes. By the time coastal defenses could react it would be too late. That was the beauty of a cruise missile. It hugged the terrain and flew under the radar, with a low profile and high speed. Anti-missile defenses like the American AEGIS system required sufficient notice to be effective. The missile would already be over land before they detected it. There wouldn't be enough time to intercept.

Krushenko didn't know why this particular target had been chosen, but he wasn't curious. He was just doing a job. He figured he had a better than 50-50 chance of getting to shore once the missile was launched. The risk made the game more exciting. He was being paid accordingly, an extravagant sum.

The sides and top of a false cargo container had been removed, exposing the missile and launcher and a camouflage of boxes around it. Krushenko used a remote control to activate the launcher. The missile lifted into firing position.

The missile employed a cold launch system. Cold launch used pressurized nitrogen to send the missile airborne, eliminating the complex venting systems necessary for a conventional, hot launch. It was the reason the CJ-10 could be concealed in a container and fired from the deck. Once free of the carrier, the solid fuel engine would ignite and send the missile on its way. The electronic brain inside already contained the coordinates for the target.

Krushenko walked in a leisurely way to the side of the freighter and descended a sea ladder to a fast motor launch that would take him to shore and safety. His skeleton crew waited in the boat. The launch pulled away. Krushenko watched the abandoned ship sail steadily on toward Norfolk. When he judged it was far enough away, he took out his remote and triggered one of two switches.

The pressurized nitrogen released with a deadly hiss and sent the missile away from the ship. It rose into the air like an ancient, mythic sea monster. The engine ignited. The missile accelerated, broke through the sound barrier with a crack like thunder and vanished over the horizon.

Krushenko flipped the second switch. Explosions blew out the bottom of the
Consuela
. The ship lifted out of the water, then settled straight down, all buoyancy gone. The ocean poured over her deck. A moment later the only sign she had ever existed was a frenzied boiling of sea froth and foam on the surface.

The missile was gone. The ship was gone. The target would soon be gone. The motor launch headed for shore. Krushenko lit a cigarette and entered a number on his satellite phone.

In London, Foxworth said, "Yes."

"It's done."

"Good. Captain Krushenko, are you a religious man?"

Krushenko looked at the phone. What kind of question was that? It gave him a bad feeling.

"No. Why are you asking this?"

"Just wondering." Foxworth pressed a button. The signal went to the same satellite that carried Krushenko's encrypted transmission, then relayed down to another phone hidden in the hold of the motor launch and wired into three blocks of Semtex. A second later the launch disintegrated in an eruption of flame and debris. The sound of the explosion rolled across the waters.

Foxworth listened to the sudden silence and turned off his phone. He remembered something Benjamin Franklin had said.
Three men can keep a secret if two of them are dead.
Foxworth thought Franklin a wise man.

It hadn't been easy to arrange everything. But with enough money, anything was possible.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

It was an Indian Summer day, warm for early November. Elizabeth, Selena and Stephanie were eating lunch outside in the sheltered garden at the rear of the Project. They sat in the sun in the far corner, away from the building. A group of six analysts sat talking and laughing at one of the tables by the doors leading into the building.

The garden was two hundred feet long, surrounded by high concrete walls painted in desert earth tones. On the back wall was an exit door with an emergency bar on it. No one had ever needed to use it. The walls caught and held the warmth of the sun in the winter and provided seclusion and shade in summer. It was popular with everyone who worked at the Project, a favorite spot for a quick cigarette or a coffee break. Graveled walks meandered through decorative beds of flowers and under tall shade trees. This late in the year the leaves were down. The flowers were gone except for a few purple mums.

The paths intersected in the middle at a low fountain shaped like a smooth, gray boulder. Water flowed over artfully placed rocks, murmuring like a mountain stream. The sound made Elizabeth think of other places, other times. If she closed her eyes she could imagine the sound of the creek that ran behind her childhood home in Colorado.

Nick and Ronnie came out with trays and headed toward them. Nick had abandoned the sling but he had to be careful about the stitches. He looked at Selena and felt something close down.

Lamont was at a hospital in the city. His mom was ill again.

Ronnie and Nick were almost across the garden when something screamed out of the sky and exploded in the front of the building. The blast picked them up and tossed them aside. The air filled with flying debris. Blocks of concrete slammed into the earth and smashed against the garden walls. Pieces of the building rained from the sky.

In the aftermath, it seemed as if time had frozen and sound had ceased to exist.

Nick couldn't understand what had happened. He was lying on gravel. The stones dug into his face. The stitches in his back were torn open and bleeding. He couldn't hear anything. He tried to comprehend what he was doing there. Ronnie lay twenty feet away, not moving. A thick cloud of white dust drifted down on everything.

Hearing began to return. It brought the crackling of flames and the sound of things falling inside the building. Nick started to get to his knees and hit something with his head. A jagged spear of steel had embedded itself in a tree next to him. He saw Selena on her knees, bent over someone on the ground. The side of her face was covered in blood. Director Harker lay on her side, her back against the garden wall. Her black skirt was pushed up above her knees.

Nick struggled to his feet and looked back at Project headquarters. Black smoke and orange flame rose over the building, climbing into the blue Virginia sky. The rear wall was rubble. The roof was gone. He remembered that people had been talking and eating near the building entrance. They were buried under the remains of the wall. He could see a woman's leg sticking out from under concrete and twisted rebar.

He stumbled over to where Ronnie lay unconscious. The back of his head was covered with blood. Nick turned him over and lifted an eyelid, then the other. One pupil was large, the other small. A bad concussion, or worse. He pulled off his jacket and wadded it up into a pillow.

He looked again at the devastation. He wiped his forehead and his hand came away bloody. He had a headache. Ronnie's eyes fluttered and opened.

"What..."

"Easy, amigo. You're all right. Don't move." Gently, he put the makeshift pillow under Ronnie's head.

"Got a headache."

"Yeah."

"What happened?" His voice slurred.

"A bomb. Lie still. I'm going to look at the others."

Ronnie closed his eyes.

Nick went to where Selena knelt over Stephanie. Selena's clothes were ripped and covered in dirt and dust. She had a gash on her scalp that had bled down over her face.

"You all right?"

"Yes. Steph isn't."

"Shit." White bone stuck out of Steph's lower arm. There was a lot of blood.

"She's unconscious. Nick, what do we do?"

"Be ready to hold her still in case she wakes up. Give me your jacket."

Selena had a light weight suit jacket of silk. She pulled it off. He saw her wince.

"You sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine, just bruised. Here." She handed him the jacket.

He tore off a long strip of silk.

"Hold her head."

Nick lifted Steph up while Selena held her head off the ground. He wrapped the strip of silk around her body and pulled the upper arm tight against her chest. She moaned.

"She's waking up. Hold her."

Elizabeth knelt down next to them. "I'll help." She coughed, hard , rasping coughs.

He wrapped another piece below Steph's elbow and pulled it tight. The bleeding slowed to a trickle. The flames made a steady roaring sound, sucking in air around them. Heat from the fire was intense.

"Let's carry her out of here. Each of you take a leg."

The three of them carried Stephanie out through the door in the back wall and set her down.

"Stay with her. I'll get Ronnie. There's no one else we can help."

What was left of the Project building was an inferno. Nick got Ronnie to his feet. He half walked, half dragged him to where Harker held open the emergency door. Sirens sounded in the distance. He lay Ronnie down next to Stephanie and started toward the parking lot where the rescue trucks would be.

Then the rage began.