Текст книги "Leviathan"

Автор книги: David Lynn Golemon

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THE ATLANTIC OCEAN, 100 MILES

OFF THE NEW JERSEY COAST

The control room was dark, and the men and women were silent in deference to the somber mood of the great vessel. On the surface, the radar mast and antennas broke the clean lines of the calm sea, slicing through the water as a sharpened scythe through wheat, their stealthy design broken by sharp angles.

"No airborne or surface contacts at this time, Captain. Sonar reports the signatures of three Los Angeles and one Virginia class submarine close-aboard, but are not deemed threats. They cannot pick us up. Stealth has been achieved."

On the darkened, raised platform at the center of the control room, the captain nodded and gestured toward the weapons station.

The first officer approached the raised pedestal and leaned in close to his captain. He looked around him, then lowered his voice.

"Captain, you know I have never once questioned your orders."

The captain smiled and looked down on a man she had known since her childhood. "I suspect that precedent is about to be broken."

"Ma'am, you had planned on delivering ultimatums to all countries before any attacks began." He looked around him once more, making sure all hands were attending their stations. "Now we've sunk four vessels and attacked two nations. Why have we stepped up offensive operations before these countries find out why we're doing it? This isn't like you at all, and–"

She looked down, and her bright blue eyes, dilated as they were, stayed the first officer's words.

"Apologies, Captain, I–"

"You have other concerns, James?"

"Why are you insisting on bringing strangers aboard? The attack on the complex achieved your goal."

"We have to know exactly what knowledge these people have on us."

"Captain, our asset inside their Group confirms they know nothing. Sergeant Tyler and his security department have been screaming about the unnecessary risk of what you are–"

The captain's piercing eyes settled on the first officer, and he could only nod his head.

"James, the ploy to lure their top security men from their posts worked." She looked around the control center and saw that her seamen were doing their jobs. Only Yeoman Alvera had turned from her station to watch the captain. "Now we can better coerce the people I need to come onboard with minimum bloodshed; isn't that what you wanted?"

"Yes, ma'am, I just–"

"Vertical tubes six through twelve are flooded, birds are warm," the weapons officer called out.

"Captain, the boat reports all stations ready for launch," the first officer said after being cut off by the announcement. He turned away from the raised platform and examined the holographic board in front of him.

The captain nodded her approval, then closed her eyes.

"All hands stand by for vertical launch. Tubes six through twelve, Operation Cover Four has been ordered to commence. Navigation, once tubes have been emptied, take the boat to four thousand feet at flank speed, then steer a course south at seventy-five knots. We will take up station in the gulf before dawn."

"Aye, sir," both navigation and weapons called out from their stations.

"Permission for weapons release, Captain?" the first officer asked, watching the still figure in her chair. Her not talking was a bad sign–he knew migraine headaches had begun to plague her the last few weeks.

Once more, there was just a simple nod of her head from the raised platform.

"Weapons officer, launch vertical tubes six through twelve in numerical order," the first officer ordered, looking at the captain with worry.

A hundred feet aft of the great streamlined conning tower, six of the forty-six vertical launch tubes opened to the sea. Suddenly large, explosive water slugs ejected six sixteen-foot-long, black, streamlined missiles with no telltale maneuvering fins. Now airborne and clear of the water, their solid booster rocket fired and sent the six missiles skyward. Once they reached an altitude of twenty thousand feet, they started a slow turn to the west and then picked up speed, still climbing. They would soon reach three times the speed of sound as they headed for the interior of the United States.

Far below the sea, the giant vessel dove at an amazing rate of speed, slowly ramping up to more than seventy knots. Then she dipped her nose and dove even deeper, where no American warship could ever hope to follow.

The great vessel set her course due south for the Gulf of Mexico, and part two of Operation Cover Four.

Twenty-two radar stations, warships, National Space Command, and U.S. early-warning satellites warned of a massive missile strike over the United States, and all started tracking the assault. Soon more than a hundred warplanes on the eastern seaboard and the Midwest lifted free of the earth, in pursuit of what were deemed cruise missiles, as they plowed their way through the stratosphere, heading west.

PART TWO

THE SEA CHASE

I have strived to meet my kind with open arms of shared brotherhood, but alas, the distance to cover is too great, the wounds too deep, and the memory of brutality too sharp and clear. So all I will ask my former brethren is to leave me to my sea.

– Roderick Deveroux,

former condemned prisoner,

Chateau d'If, France

6

NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE,

NEVADA

The four VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft suddenly went low to the ground. Their unique design was far stealthier than anything the Americans or Russians had on their drafting boards. Instead of being propeller driven, like the Marine Corps V-22 Osprey, these craft utilized a twin-engine turbojet.

When the four tilt-jet aircraft came within ten feet of the ground, their ground radar computers took over the flying, avoiding the many bumps and telephone wires crisscrossing the desert around the air force base. From the underbellies of each of the assaulting planes a small dish popped free and sent out a stream of microwaves that went invisibly toward the control center of one of the most advanced air force bases in the world.

The control tower sitting high above the airstrip suddenly went dark. All radar screens died within a microsecond of one another. Down below in the command and control area, the phone lines went out and their screens ceased to function. Traffic control was dead, as well as any response the base could muster. It seemed an eternity until the emergency generators kicked in, but in the three seconds it took for the circuit to be made, the attacking aircraft were already past them and down on ground level, beyond their radar search.

The four strange-looking craft overshot the darkened runways at Nellis and turned north toward the old firing range that hadn't been used since 1945–their target: the hidden underground complex of the Event Group.

EVENT GROUP COMPLEX,

NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA

Pete Golding had been working eighteen straight hours. He had been back and forth with Europa since the security lockdown was initiated. Several technicians were still inside the darkened computer center, but three of the six were dozing; the soft drone of Pete's voice trying to be as patient as possible with the supercomputer had lulled them to sleep. Once more, he went at Europa.

"Okay, let's try this again. Let us assume that a security breach from outside the complex occurred at the same moment the breach message was initiated. Is it possible you missed a back door in your programming, perhaps designed by your original program team at Cray?"

" Not possible, Dr. Golding. The internal algorithm ciphering my security program would have been disturbed, thus setting off my shutdown protocols."

Pete rubbed a hand over his balding head. "So, what you're saying is that it would have been impossible to have received the message without a door being left open from inside the complex, with the validation of a departmental manager?"

" Correct"

With the recent call in from Captain Everett, Niles knew the people who had sent the message had been tipped off that the FBI was lying in wait for them. That meant that someone here had to have communicated with the terrorists at some point after the security shutdown. Europa had indeed shut down all systems of communication. No one used any of the phones, and it would be impossible to get a cell phone call out of the complex. Europa closed all e-mail access, so that was eliminated. The director even cut Everett short when he wanted to explain who they had recovered from the meeting. Security at the moment was just so porous, he didn't chance anything.

"Shutdown was ordered at oh-nine-fifty-five this A.M. Was there any computer access just before I ordered you to close all internal loops?"

" One."

Pete shook his head in exasperation. "Well, do you want to share that with me?"

" Terminal is located in office forty-five-seventy-six, sublevel seven, and logged at oh-nine-fifty-three from the office of Assistant Director Virginia Pollock."

The blood in Pete's face drained. "No, Virginia doesn't have it in her." Still, Golding was scared.

Pete moved to his desk on the main floor, picked up the phone, and started punching numbers. He didn't hear anything. He flicked the disconnect a few times and then listened.

"Europa, did you shut down communication for the comp center?"

When he didn't get a response, Pete turned and looked at the large center screen monitor he was using for Europa's typed-out responses. It, too, was blank.

"Europa, respond."

Golding slapped the shoulder of one of the dozing men and woke him.

"Europa's down. See if you can make keyboard contact," he said as he started for the risers that led to the doors two stories above the main floor.

The other technicians awoke and looked around as the main lights flickered, steadied, and then went out. Pete reached the top and pulled the door handle. The door had locked, automatically he assumed, when Europa went down.

"What in the hell is going on here?"

Sarah McIntire had arrived two hours earlier from Arkansas. She was sitting alone in the cafeteria drinking a cup of coffee after she found she had no desire for sleep. Her aching arm held firmly to her chest with a sling, she realized it wasn't just the plane ride back, but the fact that Carl, Jason, and Will were all off base, making her feel her homecoming was put on hold.

She spied Alice Hamilton off in the far corner of the room, and was shocked to see former director and retired senator Garrison Lee sitting with her. They had files stacked to right, left, and center of their table. She thought about saying hi, but they looked engrossed in what they were doing–reading, arguing, nodding, and then arguing some more.

Sarah decided to try sleep again. As she stood to leave, she saw Virginia Pollock walking past the double doors of the cafeteria. She called out, but the assistant director kept walking. Strange, because Sarah knew she had heard her call out.

"This place isn't right somehow," she said as she left for her room, just as the overhead lights started to flicker.

THE GOLD CITY PAWNSHOP,

LAS VEGAS, GATE 2

Lance Corporal Frank Mendez sat behind the counter reading his favorite book, Watership Down, a book he had read three times already, finding the story about rabbits more realistic than a lot of books calling themselves literature these days. He stopped reading as the front door chimed and two men walked inside. Mendez looked down at the computer screen under the counter to get a security clearance for the two men through a thumbprint match taken from the ornate door handle. He was surprised when he saw the screen was dark. He hit the power switch three times: on, off, on–nothing.

Mendez placed the book on the counter and stood. He checked the two men who were looking at stereo systems on display at the front of the shop. They looked harmless enough, so he turned and stuck his head through the curtain in the back.

"Hey, man, my monitor's down, and I've got customers out here."

Army Staff Sergeant Wayne Newland was on duty behind the desk. He looked at his monitor and saw it was dark also.

"Hmm, Europa's down all right. You better get back to your customers and I'll check the back room."

"Right," Mendez said and went back to the counter.

Newland stood and opened the door behind him. Inside was a desk with a computer monitor on it and a man behind it. The man looked up as the sergeant looked in.

"Europa's down. I think we better close the gate until she comes back up."

The desk sergeant safed the weapon under the desk and disarmed the tranquilizing darts embedded in the false front of the wooden desk and computer while Newland was in front of it. Then he picked up his phone and hit a button. The lone number connected him to the duty officer in the complex. Newland saw a funny look cross his features.

"What is it?"

The sergeant hung up the phone and looked up. "Phone's down, too."

"Shit, this isn't right," Newland said, and turned back for the back room and the store beyond. "Hit the alarm, let someone know we're down."

The desk sergeant hit a large black switch under the lip of the desk, but nothing happened. There should have been a steady blinking from a small LED placed in the button. The sergeant then rearmed the dart defense, but there was nothing there, either.

"Goddamn it!" he said as he removed the Ingram submachine gun from its clip under the desk, then he reached out to a small calculator-sized control board and hit the elevator emergency cutoff. Again, there was nothing. "Damn it, now anyone can just waltz into the shop and get into the complex." He started for the front of the store.

Mendez had just come around from behind the desk when he saw the two patrons. He smiled, knowing the nine-millimeter Beretta was tucked comfortably into his waistband. He was just about to greet the two men when Newland, followed by the desk sergeant, broke from the back room. He gave them a look that asked, What in the hell is wrong?

As Mendez turned back to the customers, he saw that the exact same nine-millimeter weapon as the one he had was staring him right in the face. The only difference was that this one had a foot-long silencer attached.

"Buddy, this is one place you don't want to rob," were the only words he could think of to say.

"Mendez, we're closing down. Case Blue ... you hear me? Case Blue–"

The tranquilizer dart caught Newland in the throat. Unlike in the movies, the drug wasn't instantaneous, and the impact of the dart hurt the sergeant like a kick in the neck.

"Hey, what the–"

Mendez was shot and drugged next. The man with the nine-millimeter covered the second man while he placed another dart into the breech of his handgun.

The desk sergeant came around the corner near the display of CDs and caught sight of Mendez's feet as he lay sprawled in the next aisle over. He quickly aimed the Ingram at the man with the silenced weapon. He started to pull the trigger when a fired dart bounced off the machine gun, almost knocking it from his hands. He adjusted his aim quickly and tried to fire at the man who had shot at him.

The man with the silencer had no choice; he cursed his bad luck and fired one round into the desk sergeant's head, blowing his brains all over a rack of sunglasses.

The second man quickly ran over to the front door and opened it. As he waited, twenty men quickly moved in from an abandoned store to the right, and another ten from the alley next to the pawnshop. They entered the store with purpose, following the first two men into the back.

The taking of the Event Group Complex had begun.

Sitting across the way in a rented van, Colonel Henri Farbeaux watched in stunned disbelief at the taking of gate 2. He raised his field glasses and watched as thirty-two heavily armed and hooded men entered the store and disappeared into the back. He was confused and amazed that he was witnessing a breach of Group security such as what was happening at that moment.

Farbeaux saw an opportunity. He wouldn't need the tracking device on the seat beside him, nor the tracer he had infected the black sergeant with.

He removed his own weapon and clicked the safety off. He opened the van's rear doors and slowly walked across the street, fully intending to follow the assault element inside. Even if this was a drill of some sort, he would take advantage.

For the colonel–in case this was a real assault–having someone else kill Collins was not going to do. For the loss of his beloved wife and his own esteem, no one but he had the right to kill Jack Collins and his men.

No, the security personnel of the Group were his.

Farbeaux slowly removed the hidden gun and held it at his side as he calmly moved inside the pawnshop, following the assault element.

EVENT GROUP COMPLEX,

NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA

There were only six logistics men and women working the underground loading dock on level 3 at that early hour of the morning. They had little to do since the security alert had been called, shutting down all shipping to the complex. Now all six were inventorying material that was to be shipped in the next few days after being released to the National Archives and the Smithsonian. When they heard the sound of the monorail heading their way, they paid it no mind, as they thought it was gate-2 security coming home after their shift.

The loadmaster, an air force sergeant, looked at his watch and took a double take.

"This isn't right," he said, looking up from his watch at the approaching tram. It was now on its last two hundred feet of centerline rail as it straightened out from its dive into the earth from Las Vegas, ten miles away. "There's no scheduled security change, and there's no one allowed to arrive through gate two during the lockdown."

"So, maybe one of the guys is sick or something. You worry way too much, Sarge," said one of the men as he checked off the weight of a large crate.

"Then why didn't Europa notify us?" he asked as he gestured for a female specialist to check the computer for a missed command.

"She's down, Sergeant," the woman said as she exited the small booth on the massive loading dock. She tossed an M-16 to the sergeant and another to the man next to him, who dropped his clipboard in his effort to catch the weapon. She herself drew a nine-millimeter from a holster at her side.

The sergeant took station next to the large crate, and the others followed suit as the sound of the approaching tram slowed, then picked up speed again. They saw the glow of the monorail's glassed-in interior as it sped to a stop at the loading dock. It was empty. All seven cars and their plastic seating were void of any passengers. Still, the air force sergeant approached cautiously with his weapon at the ready. He chanced a look into the darkened tunnel beyond, but could only see the fluorescent blue and green track lighting fading away in the distance.

"Specialist, illuminate the tunnel, now!"

The female specialist ran to the controller's shack and hit the switch that would turn on the overheads lining the massive tunnel's ceiling. Nothing happened.

"We have a problem here, Sarge. Europa may have killed this panel when she went down."

"Damn!" he said, just as a dart slammed into his chest and then another into his cheek.

Small sounds echoed off the concrete walls of the monorail tunnel as twenty darts streaked toward their targets, embedding themselves in the five remaining personnel on the dock. The female specialist had the fortitude to remain on her feet and slam her hand into the intruder alarm as she fell forward. Again, there was nothing.

Soon, thirty-two men stood in the dark, illuminated only by the blue and green running lights of the tunnel. For now, the dart guns were holstered and submachine guns took their place. The men started forward, chambering rounds as they did. They knew from this point on, the Event Group personnel would not be so easy to subdue.

The fall of the Event Group complex was now more than just a plan; it was close to a fact.

Three hundred feet above the loading dock, the four VTOL aircraft popped into the air a hundred feet short of the dilapidated hangar that was the cover for gate 1. As each aircraft peeled off, two to the right and two to the left, the gunners in the open doorway brought their night-vision goggles down to cover their eyes. They chambered the larger dart rounds into a large pneumatic six-barreled cannon. Soon, the gunner in the lead aircraft had several targets.

Event Group security kept a small squad on duty outside of the massive hangar where large loads were brought into the complex. The first of these soldiers, a marine, saw the strange craft slow. He took aim at the unauthorized intruders and was about to open fire with his M249 machine gun when the sound of a hundred bees surrounded him. Several of these angry insects struck him in the chest and the torso. As he fell forward with the darts protruding from his body, he saw several of his team succumb to the same quick fate.

Soon, the entire eight-man squad of Event Group security was eliminated as a threat to the assault units now landing outside the old hangar. Soon forty more heavily armed men stormed inside the hangar and lined the giant elevator. Within thirty seconds the dark-clad men were headed down into the heart of the Event Group.

Niles Compton rubbed his eyes and then picked up his phone. He punched in the three-digit code for the computer center. The line was dead. He then swiveled in his chair and turned on his Europa monitor, but all that appeared was a blue screen. Concerned, Niles replaced his glasses and stood from his desk. Just as he was about to move toward the oaken double doors, they opened and several hooded men dressed in navy-blue body armor and BDUs came through. Niles froze as three submachine guns, the likes of which he had never seen before, were leveled at his chest. The man in the center of the five intruders gestured quickly for his team to lower their weapons.

Niles saw through the open doorway that his assistants were being rounded up, and plastic wire-ties were being used to bind their wrists.

"Dr. Compton, you have our sincerest apologies for this sudden intrusion," the tall man in the center of the group said as he moved quickly to the bank of monitors lining the wall. He flipped a switch marked GATE 1 and watched as the security camera sent its signal from the mock dilapidated hangar. Satisfied when he saw several of his own men in command of the gate, he turned to Compton. "You'll pardon our haste, but I understand your Captain Everett is due to return shortly with his men, and I am led to believe that he would not take too kindly to our visit."

One of his men stepped forward and whispered something. He was holding a small radio in his hand.

"Doctor, I assure you, your people are being well treated. There have only been five casualties thus far, four of them from your interior security department, and I am informed two of those will live. We do not wish any more loss of life."

"You knew from the start the meeting in New York would be compromised," Niles said, standing straight and looking directly at the man as he removed his hood. Niles risked a quick glance at the closed-circuit camera that was independent of Europa, and saw the small red light was still on. The same system that was installed at gate 1, they had intentionally not shut it down because they needed eyes on that gate.

"Yes, but the ruse was useful to get Captain Everett and the more experienced members of his team out of the complex. He and his men would have made the taking of the most secure location inside the United States, well, to say the least, a challenge."

"And now your plans are?" Niles asked.

The tall man moved to Compton's desk and looked it over. The man was average looking, his hair was somewhat longer than a military-style cut, and he had a decidedly menacing quality about him. His English had an Irish lean to it. Compton knew that if the closed-circuit camera was working, their conversation was being recorded along with this man's face.

"Your presence is required by my superiors for two reasons. One is information; two is so you can bear witness to what the world is up against."

"And if I refuse to come along?"

"You won't. I don't need to make threats against your people, that's the stuff of television. We are under orders to act accordingly. So if you will follow us"–he pulled up his sleeve and looked at his wristwatch–"we will depart."

Sarah was riding the elevator down to the personal quarter's area on level eight when the elevator lurched, and then continued on to her selected floor. She didn't like it when there was anything out of the ordinary about the elevators. She knew they rode in a tube and were raised and lowered on a cushion of air.

Finally, the indicator said she had arrived on level eight and the doors slowly slid open. Then the power failed. The elevator again lurched. Sarah wondered why Europa didn't compensate for the loss of pumped air; she decided not to take a chance and dove from the car just as it hissed and then was sent crashing down into the complex. Sarah rolled over her sling, crying out as she hurt her damaged shoulder. That was when she hit someone standing in the hallway. The dark figure looked down, quite surprised when he saw a woman at his feet. He maneuvered his weapon just as it crossed Sarah's mind as to what kind of screwed-up security drill Carl was running, but she was in too much pain to think, only react. Then she saw the weapon in the man's hands point down toward her prone body.

Taken with the default of the elevator, she realized instantly that this was no security drill. She pivoted on her hip and kicked out with her right leg, hitting the man right at both ankles. His legs were knocked out from under him and his weapon discharged, creating bright flashes in the darkened hallway. The bullets thumped into the plastic wall as the man struck the carpeting. Sarah, still on her back, quickly raised her left foot and brought it down into the man's face, her heel striking precisely where she had aimed it: the nose. The man grunted in pain, then lay still.

She heard a shuffling coming down the hallway and knew immediately the downed man hadn't been alone. Sarah was blind and on her back. She quickly felt around for the man's fallen weapon and finally hit upon it as ten silenced rounds thumped into the wall and carpeting around her, with one actually striking the cast on her arm, breaking it apart in large chunks.

"Bastard!" she mumbled as she quickly raised the strange weapon. She prayed it wasn't on safebecause in the dark she would never find the selector switch on a weapon she knew nothing about. She squeezed the trigger. The weapon erupted with fire and a loud clacking noise as the silencer did its job. Bullets struck the wall, floor, and ceiling, and then in the flare of the muzzle, she saw bullets stitch a crooked pattern on a man no more than six feet from her, with a bullet finally striking him in an unprotected spot just above his body armor.

Sarah was shaking badly as she tore the night-vision scope from the face of the man under her. That was when she noticed his companion's bullets had struck him several times in the side. She quickly held the scope to her eyes and looked around frantically. She tried desperately to control her breathing, thinking that anyone in a hundred-foot radius could hear her terror.

"What kind of screwed-up homecoming is this?" she whispered to herself, hoping her sour humor would allow her to inject more bravery into a terrifying situation.

Sarah picked herself up and then quickly felt her arm. She realized she hadn't hurt it any more than it had been; it was sore, but at least she could move it. She hefted the heavy weapon and made for the stairwell beside her, knowing she had to get to either level seven or at the very least the computer center where she knew Pete Golding and his techs were always working.

For the first time in over a month, Sarah wasn't thinking about the loss of Jack Collins.

Senator Garrison Lee was in his element. He sat with his longtime live-in companion in the cafeteria and went through each file that he himself had okayed in the years leading up to deprioritizing the items in the vaults on levels seventy-three and seventy-four.

"That's it, Garrison, we've covered all six hundred and seventy-two vaults. What do you think?"

"I think I want some of that coffee, old girl, if you would be so kind."

Alice shook her head and stood, tired herself. She decided she would have tea just to offset the mood that the caffeine would put the senator in.

Garrison looked at one file he had placed on the left side of the table, separating it from the others.

"Why that one?" Alice asked. She placed the cup of coffee on the table and sipped her own tea just as the lights in the cafeteria failed. The bright emergency lights came on, and Lee continued.

"Because, woman," Lee said, also looking around him at the emergency lighting, "it's the only vault that would make any sense. I'm surprised you didn't pull this file immediately after learning the facts of the attacks at sea. I think you're slowing down some."

Alice raised her eyebrow but said nothing as she sat down.

"Okay, Mr. Lee, how about explaining?" Alice asked while she looked around in the now-shadowy cafeteria. Then the lights came back on at full strength.

"Point number one: This report from the USS Columbiastates that the vessel that launched the attacks on Venezuela was like nothing ever encountered before. I quote, 'a submarine of extraordinary capabilities,' end quote. We've had a partial answer to why the complex was attacked from the very beginning. Someone was afraid of what we had stored in vault number 298907. A vault that was classified as cold and relegated to the storage level, all testing and analysis completed." He slid the single folder over to Alice, who looked at the name and number on its outer jacket.

"Leviathan,"she said to herself.

"That's right, Leviathan. Recovered in nineteen sixty-seven by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution off the coast of Newfoundland, with parts of her discovered as far south as Maine."