The Oracle's Message (16 page)

Annja slept through the refueling in Honolulu and only woke when Roux tapped her on the arm. She was alert immediately. “Where are we?”

“Boston, according to the pilot. We’re starting our preliminary approach. But we’re not landing at Logan.”

“Why not?”

“Apparently this plane is more welcome at military fields. So we’re landing in Bedford, Massachusetts, at Hanscom Field. Part of an Air Force base but it also handles civilian planes like this one.”

“Civilian. Right.” Annja stretched. “I’ve been out for a while, I guess?”

“Hours and hours,” Roux said. “It was pleasant being alone with my thoughts. Did you get some good sleep?”

“Actually, yes. I feel like I slept better on this plane than I have in months.”

Roux nodded. “Strange how that happens sometimes.”

Before Annja could respond, the flight attendant came toward her with a phone. “Excuse me, Miss Creed? I’ve got a phone call for you.”

Annja took the phone. “Hello?”

“How’s the flight?”

Annja smiled. “It’s amazing, George. I can’t thank you enough.”

“Oh, sure you can,” George said. “But we’ll talk about that later. For right now, we’ve got other things to discuss.”

“Did you find a connection?”

“And how. Turns out the German chancellor is vacationing in Massachusetts. On Martha’s Vineyard. The president is supposed to join her in a few days.”

“Well, that’s good news, right? I mean, if the chancellor is there now and our president is coming in soon, then that means the Secret Service will have that place buttoned up so much a mouse couldn’t sneak through.”

“Presumably,” George said. “But it depends on what your team of lunatics might be trying to do. If they’re going for a kidnap, then, yeah, it’s probably almost certainly not going to work. But if they’re looking to blow them all to hell, for instance, then depending on the explosive, they wouldn’t need to breach the perimeters that the Secret Service will have set up.”

“That would mean a lot of explosives, wouldn’t it?” Annja asked.

“Usually. Unless they had access to, say, something nuclear. Then they could be back on Cape Cod and set the thing off and it would vaporize everything within twenty miles, depending on the yield.”

Annja’s stomach sank. That had to be it. A nuclear explosion.

But George interrupted her thoughts again. “Or they could use a dirty bomb. Set it off and make everyone ill with radiation sickness. That’s pretty nasty stuff, too.” He paused. “So, what do you think they’re up to?”

“I don’t know,” Annja said. “There’s a chance they might have access to nuclear material, though.”

George paused. “Are you serious?”

“I think so.”

“Annja, I’m going to have to escalate this accordingly. You know that, right?”

“Yes,” Annja said. “But the thing is, we need to get these guys now. If they get wind that we know about it, then they’ll go to ground and we’ll never find out where that nuke is.”

“Are you sure they’ve got a nuke?”

Annja paused. “I don’t know.”

George sounded impatient. “Well, what the hell does that mean?”

“It means I don’t know, George. I wish I did. We were in the Philippines to find some long-lost giant pearl, but it turns out that it wasn’t a pearl, after all. It was some sort of naturally radioactive object that could power lights, supply oxygen and all that stuff.”

“Are you messing with me, Annja?”

“Definitely not.”

George groaned. “I don’t know how I’m going to take this to my bosses. What am I supposed to say, that I think there might be a band of crazy ex-special-ops guys looking to take out the German chancellor using some sort of naturally radioactive globe of something?”

“I know it’s not the best scenario.”

“It’s not even close.”

“So what do we do?”

“Fortunately for you, you happen to be friends with a pretty incredible guy. Leave it to me and I’ll get something cooking on this. You guys are slated to land at Hanscom. Stay there until I contact you.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, gotta run.”

The phone disconnected and Annja slumped back in her seat. She looked at Roux. “This whole thing sounds ridiculous.”

“Not necessarily,” Roux said. “There are such things as naturally occurring radioactive materials—they’re called NORMs—and they’re a by-product of the oil and gas industry. You don’t normally find them in such a form as the pearl, but the concept at least is not unbelievable.”

“What a relief.”

“Even more,” Roux said, “the U.S. government doesn’t actively regulate NORMs at all. Someone with enough creativity and ingenuity could theoretically put enough together to at least create some type of dirty bomb. It’s not as though this whole thing is completely crazy. There are precedents for it.”

“Really? Another band of ex-KSK commandos got their hands on a radioactive relic and planned to kill someone with it? When did that happen?”

Roux sighed. “You should really restrain that sarcasm of yours, Annja. It does get tedious after a while.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. In the meantime, George wants us to stay put once we land at Hanscom.”

“Why?”

“He’s putting something together.”

Roux yawned. “Wonderful. No doubt it will be a platoon of government bureaucrats all jockeying to further their own careers while a potential disaster looms. I’ve always found it so fascinating that these people are supposed to be keeping others safe and yet, at the end of the day, they’re exactly like the very people they claim to keep us safe from. Everyone’s out for their own good. That bottom line is all-powerful.”

“Well, I don’t hear you coming up with any excellent plans of your own. I’m all ears if you’ve got one formulating.”

“What’s the target?”

“As far as George can tell, it’s on Martha’s Vineyard.”

Roux smiled. “Really? How nice. Charming little island. I used to visit it frequently back in the 1980s. I had quite a nice sail in Nantucket Sound with a very prestigious television news anchor who used to summer there. Oh, the stories he would tell me over a few bottles of wine. Fascinating stuff. Truly.”

“Roux!”

“Oh, all right. Let me think about it. We should be on the ground fairly soon, right?”

The plane banked at that moment and started to descend at a steep angle. The flight attendant came around. “Seat belts, please. We’ve been directed to come in fast.”

“Why fast? What’s wrong with slow?” Annja asked.

But the attendant had already walked past her so she could strap herself in. Annja heard the flaps come down and then the landing gear descended from the bottom of the aircraft.

Outside her window, trees and buildings and highways and cars came into view all at once. She saw other planes nearby, including several fighter jets. They must use those to scramble in case of a terrorist incident on board a civilian plane.

And then the plane was coming in and Annja felt the first touchdown as the wheels made contact with the tarmac. The nose of the plane came down and they were back on the ground after nearly twelve hours in the air.

Roux breathed a sigh of relief. “I happen to hate airplane landings. Truly awful things.”

“I didn’t think you were afraid of flying,” Annja said.

“You would be, too, if you were around during the initial days when no one knew what the hell they were doing.”

Annja smiled. “Good point.”

Roux stood and stretched as much as he could. “Let’s get out of here. I need to feel solid earth under my feet again.”

They thanked the pilot and crew and stepped off the plane.

Hanscom Field had been converted to a mostly civilian airfield, although it was adjacent to the part used by the U.S. Air Force. Annja looked at the line of corporate jets parked near hangars. She thought she spotted a movie star walking toward one of them.

“It’s a lot less busy here than at a regular airport,” she said to herself.

From the nearby terminal building, a young man ran up to the aircraft. “Welcome to Hanscom, Annja.”

She couldn’t believe it. “George?”

He grinned. “Figured it would be better if we did it this way.”

“How’d you get here so fast?”

“It’s a skip from Washington. A little less time than coming across the Pacific Ocean.”

“I guess.” She looked him over. George had trimmed down and cleaned himself up considerably since the last time she’d seen him. He still had thick glasses perched atop his nose, but she could see evidence of an exercise routine. And his clothes looked clean and fit him properly.

“You’ve been made over, huh?”

He smiled. “You like? Pretty different from the last time you saw me.”

“Definitely,” Annja said.

“If we could skip the fashion pleasantries,” Roux said. “I think we have more pressing matters to discuss.”

George held out his hand. “You must be Roux.”

“I am.”

“Nice to meet you,” George said. “Why don’t you guys come into the building. I’ve commandeered a corner office so we can talk this out. We’ve only got a little time before this turns into a three-ring circus so I want to be sure I have all the facts straight before the clowns get here and ruin everything.”

“Sounds good,” Annja said. They walked into the main building, but aside from a lone state trooper, Annja saw little in the way of security.

George led them up to the second floor and into an office that he promptly locked behind them. On the table was a state-of-the-art computer. George sat down behind it and typed in his password.

“All right, so let’s go over this again.”

Annja took him through everything that had happened over the past several days. Roux interrupted at key points, including taking five minutes to describe how Annja had apparently single-handedly killed a massive tiger shark intent on devouring her.

“A tiger shark?”

Annja sighed. “Roux, you’re not helping matters.”

When they were finally finished, George leaned back and put his hands behind his head. “That’s pretty crazy shit.”

“I know,” Annja said. “But it’s the truth.”

“Oh, I know it’s true. I mean, we’ve got the trail to prove these guys aren’t good eggs. But the facts surrounding the situation are just bizarre. I mean, how the hell would they transport something radioactive on a civilian bird? They’d set off all sorts of alarms. I don’t know if it could even be done.”

“Unless they had someone helping them on the inside,” Roux said. “For a team of experienced operators like these guys, that wouldn’t be too difficult to obtain.”

George nodded. “Good point.” He checked his watch. “Their plane ought to be landing in the next thirty minutes. That means we’ve got a small window to plan our strategy. Any flaws with the plan will mean we’ll potentially be turning a picturesque seaside tourist attraction into a glow-in-the-dark hunk of barren rock.”

“Not if we have anything to do with it,” Annja said.

George looked at his watch again. “In about five minutes, this place is going to be overrun with suits looking to get their next promotion based on how well this operation unfolds.”

“Wonderful,” Roux said.

George smiled at him. “Welcome to my world. For the most part, I love what I do. But having to deal with these idiots is the low point of any day for me.”

“Why is that?”

“They don’t trust the opinion of a tech guy like me.” George smiled. “Which is why we need someone whose opinion they will respect.” He stood and walked to the door.

“You have someone in mind?” Annja asked.

“An old friend of yours, Annja,” George said. He opened the door and Annja saw a face she hadn’t seen since the jungles of the Philippines a long time ago.

“Vic?”

The Marine sniper walked in with a big wide grin on his face. “Hi, Annja, long time, no see….”

Annja looked at George. “This is your doing?”

George grinned. “Think of it as me stacking the deck in my favor, that’s all. These suits need someone whose opinion they respect. I’m just giving that to them. When Vic tells them the facts surrounding this situation, they’ll listen. If I tell them, they’ll ignore it.”

Annja nodded at Roux. “This is Roux. Roux, this is Vic Gutierrez, gunnery sergeant with the Marine Corps.”

“Ex-Marine, actually,” Vic said, shaking Roux’s hand. “I’m with another agency at this time.”

“Which agency?” Roux asked with a thin smile playing out across his face. “Or can’t you say.”

“Exactly,” Vic said. “And besides, it’s not important. When George called me and told me what was up, I got here as soon as I could.” He smiled at Annja. “You’re looking good. Still getting into all sorts of trouble, I see.”

Annja nodded. “I was on vacation, I swear it.”

“Weren’t you on vacation the last time you were over there? Right before the Abu Sayyaf grabbed you?”

“That poor country has a bad reputation with me,” Annja said. She looked at George again. “How did you know about Vic?”

George shrugged. “I told you that I’ve followed some of your adventures with great enthusiasm. You know how some people search Google to find references to themselves? I did that only on my computers. I wanted to see if you’d had any dealings with the government. Imagine my surprise when Vic’s name came up.”

“I’ve had plenty of dealings with spies and soldiers,” Annja said. “Sometimes they don’t end all that well.”

“Sometimes they do,” Vic said. He smiled and turned to George. “So, bring me up to speed here. I’m hearing chatter that there’s a phalanx of bureaucrats on their way here to ruin any hope of resolving this thing intelligently.”

George led Vic over to his computer and Annja watched as the former hacker briefed the former Marine sniper. Vic looked different in his suit, but Annja could tell the heart of a warrior still beat proudly in his chest. He listened intently as George briefed him, waited until he was done and then asked several pointed questions that George answered as best he could.

When they were finished, Vic looked at Annja and Roux. “Well, this is something to tell the grandkids, huh?”

“Something like that,” Annja said. “Will it be a problem?”

Vic shrugged. “Depends on who walks through that door. We could get lucky and score someone with half a brain they don’t mind using. Chances are, however, that we’ll get a boatload of idiots looking to rubber stamp their own careers even at the cost of thousands of lives.”

“That’s not exactly doing a lot for my morale,” Annja said.

Vic smiled. “Which is exactly why you and your buddy Roux are leaving. Immediately.”

“What are you talking about? We brought this to you.” Annja frowned. “I want in on anything that happens.”

Vic held up his hand. “Relax, Annja. I’m not cutting you out completely. I just don’t want you guys around when the bullshit brigade arrives. The less they know of the situation, the better off we’ll be.”

“That doesn’t even sound like it’s supposed to make sense,” Roux said.

“Smart man,” Vic said. “It’s not. I’ll give them the barest amount of intel on this so they can see how bad it is. Once they realize that, they’ll want to stay far away from it, which means they’ll turn over command to me.”

“You’ve got that kind of sway?” Annja asked.

Vic grinned. “Been a few years since the jungle, Annja. You wouldn’t believe what kind of pull I can get if I ask real nice.”

“Okay.”

Vic continued. “The problem with these idiots is that if they see you guys here—civilians, in other words—they’ll go nuts and start parading around trying to impress one another and you, not to mention they’ll start poking into the story details. And once they learn this came from you, they’ll start overstepping their bounds, dismissing facts and pretty much doing everything in their power to give this guy Spier exactly what he wants—a genuine clusterfuck.”

“So where are we going, then?”

“Martha’s Vineyard,” Vic said. “I want eyes on the ground there. George and I will join you, along with a select team of operators, once I get this mess cleared up.”

Roux glanced out of the window. “Speaking of which, I think your brigade just arrived.”

Annja looked out and saw a fleet of black SUVs had rolled into the parking lot. From within, dozens of suits with phones stuck to their ears spilled out and stalked toward the terminal building.

Vic frowned. “Shit, that was fast.” He looked back at Roux and Annja. “All right, you two, get the hell out of here. You’re just two people catching a flight to somewhere. Take the back stairway down and find hangar five. There’s a chopper there already spinning its rotors.”

“That’ll take us to Martha’s Vineyard?”

Vic pushed them toward the door. “Yep. Now go!”

Annja and Roux stepped outside and the door locked behind them. From down below they could hear the commotion. Roux glanced at Annja. “I guess we should get lost.”

They hurried down the back stairway, as Vic had told them. Outside on the tarmac, a stiff breeze blew in from the west. As they wandered the flight line, Roux pointed at a hangar on their left. “There it is.”

Just outside the hangar, a Bell Helicopter painted blue with yellow trim sat spinning up its rotors. The pilot waved them aboard.

Annja climbed in and slid over so Roux could sit next to her. The pilot motioned for them to put on headsets.

When they had, he spoke. “Welcome aboard.”

“Thanks,” Annja said. “You know where we’re going?”

The pilot nodded. “Sure do. Sit back and enjoy the ride. We’ll be there before you know it.”

Annja heard the air-traffic controller come on the headset, directing the pilot that he was cleared for takeoff. The pilot responded, and then instead of racing down the tarmac toward liftoff, he simply pulled back and the helicopter lifted off the ground. Annja looked out the window and saw the ground falling away fast.

They skimmed at treetop level until the pilot adjusted his heading and increased their altitude. Then they were off on a straight course bound for Martha’s Vineyard.

Annja had been to Massachusetts a few times, but she couldn’t recognize any landmarks as they flew farther southeast. She watched the cities and towns fall away beneath her.

Roux, for his part, looked annoyed at having to be in the air again so soon after the ride across the Pacific.

“You okay?” she asked.

He nodded. “Tired of flying. If God had meant us to do this, he would have given us wings.”

“But the view is incredible,” Annja said. “You’ve got to admit that.”

“My eyes are closed,” Roux said. “Wake me up when we get there.”

Annja leaned back and looked out toward the horizon. She could already see the Atlantic Ocean far off to the south. The pilot pointed ahead of them.

“That’s where we’re going. Beautiful day for flying!”

Annja agreed. She hoped Vic was right about the bureaucrats. They couldn’t afford to screw this up; everything had to work out perfectly or else Spier and his gang of ex-special-ops commandos could succeed in killing the German chancellor, and possibly the American president, as well.

Anger bubbled to the surface as she thought about Hans. He played me, she thought. And I fell for it. I made it so easy.

But could she blame herself? All she’d been looking for was some companionship. And a vacation is the perfect place to have a little uncommitted involvement, right?

Imagine if they hadn’t been around after the shark attack, she thought. She owed him that at least. He had saved her life.

Unless he caused the shark attack in the first place, she thought. She frowned. How could he have done that? They would have had to chum the waters. And she’d seen no evidence of that.

Besides, deliberately setting up a shark attack would also have meant they had to be certain Annja could kill the shark. And how would they have been able to predict that?

None of them knew who she was, after all. And they certainly hadn’t known about the sword.

At least, she hoped they hadn’t.

The thought that they might have researched her before they traveled to the Philippines was disconcerting, but at the same time, she disregarded the fear as completely unsound. There were too many factors at play for anyone to control completely.

The shark-attack save had to have been legitimate, she figured. Probably it was the only thing that was in this whole vacation.

Beneath the helicopter, the landscape changed from taller trees to shrub pine and sand.

And then they were out over Nantucket Sound, flying into Martha’s Vineyard. Annja could see the boats in the water, the sandy beaches and the darker blue of the Atlantic Ocean far below. It was so different from the Pacific Ocean and the Philippines, she thought.

But just as beautiful.

“We should be down in five minutes,” the pilot said. “Stand by, okay?”

Annja responded and then nudged Roux awake. “Almost there,” she said. “I thought you’d want to see us land.”

“Ugh, no,” Roux said. “Why do you torment me so, Annja Creed?”

“Because I love it.”

“Apparently.”

The helicopter flew over a small airfield and then slowed, started to rotate, and the ground came up at them with a suddenness that made Annja’s stomach drop slightly.

The skids of the chopper touched down. The pilot switched the rotors off and they waited until they’d stopped turning.

Annja removed her headset and stepped out of the chopper. The pilot smiled. “Thanks for flying with us.”

“Thanks for the lift.”

Roux stepped out behind her. “Thank God that’s over.”

“I wonder where we go from here,” Annja said. “You think Vic’s got something set up already?”

“That would require quite a bit of planning on his part,” Roux said. “And considering George only just filled him in on things, I’d say it’s doubtful we have a solid plan in place.”

“I guess we should do as he says and just look to get some eyes on the target. See if Spier and the gang show up.”

Roux checked his watch. “They’d need to either drive or fly down here. If they drove, they’d have to catch a ferry. If their plane landed on time and if they flew, then they could already be here.”

“I think they’ll probably drive down and take the ferry. Blend in more that way,” Annja said. She pointed near the terminal. “See the people here hoping to catch a glimpse of a celebrity flying in on a private bird? Spier won’t want that kind of attention.”

Roux nodded. “Good point.”

“We need to get into town and find out where the chancellor is staying on the island. Once we get that information, we can plan accordingly.”

Roux frowned. “You know any sort of action we take is going to immediately put us on the radar of the chancellor’s security people and possibly also the Secret Service, right?”

“What about it?”

Roux put a hand on his chest. “I’m as attention averse as Spier. The last thing I want is people looking into my background and figuring out that I should have died about five hundred and twenty years ago.”

Annja smiled. “You really think that they’d be able to find that kind of information?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time someone tried,” Roux said. “And you don’t need anyone looking beyond your lightweight celebrity, either. Now come on, let’s find a shuttle so we can get this game afoot, shall we?”