Ancients

6

The first female elected chancellor of the German state stood and walked to the podium. The dinner was a benefit for the German Red Cross and was a timely affair since the agency's resources had been stretched thin by the recent natural disasters in Asia and the Middle East. The chancellor was radiant in her black gown and she smiled brightly for the five hundred paying guests of the Red Cross. Her security detail scanned the forty round tables in the ballroom located in the newest of Berlin's luxury hotels.

The audience stood to applaud the woman who had so recently taken the country by storm, by word and vote. She had been elected on the peace vote just as her American counterpart had been, thus allying herself with American foreign policy.

She waved at the gathered guests and raised her arms in a triumphant gesture, which pleased the very rich in the ballroom to no end. Her black-gloved hand was richly appointed with a bracelet of diamonds, a gift from her husband on election day.

One man in the rear of the room just stood watching. The new chief of security for the hotel, a well-regarded man in his midfifties, watched as the left-wing bitch, as he thought of her, took in her glory. He sneered as he raised a cell phone to his ear and made a call. He nodded at one of the chancellor's security men who was covering the door; the man smiled and nodded back, never suspecting a thing.

"Yes," the voice answered.

"The chancellor is being well received," the security man said in perfect English.

"Very nice. Would you please send her our regards."

"I most certainly will--and my family, they will be honored by this?"

"They will want for nothing for generations."

The security officer closed the cell phone and placed it back in his suit jacket. He again smiled at the agent next to him and then moved off toward the stage, easily bypassing the standing guests and zigzagging around the tables. The mission he had volunteered for had been in the planning stages for ten years and he was well prepared. As a former German soldier and then later an intelligence officer, he was beyond reproach as far as his security clearance was concerned; thus, his advantageous position had been attained with no problem at all.

As he moved through the throng of people, he unbuttoned his coat, and that motion drew the attention of the chancellor's security detail on the stage. One officer saw the well-dressed man and knew him by name, and he knew that his hotel position required him not to be where he was.

The chancellor had finally persuaded the guests to settle in for one of her fiery speeches on the economy, the European Union, and the war on terror, when she saw the man approaching the stage. She watched as he stopped, and then a shot rang out from the left wing of the stage. The bullet caught the security man in the shoulder, but it wasn't enough to stop him from carrying out his mission for the honor of his Coalition-sponsored family.

The explosion from the eight pounds of C-4 plastic explosive disintegrated the first seven feet of stage, along with the new German chancellor. The security man along with ten tables in the front of the room vanished. The ceiling came crashing down into the guest tables in the center, killing a 110 more people.

The bomb squad would sift through the debris of the ballroom for the next week, and the only thing they would recover of the new chancellor was one gloved hand with a diamond bracelet still clinging to the silk.

With the major chess pieces in conflict across the board, and the occupied just surviving, the assassination had taken out the white queen, without any of the players really being aware of how their side of the board had been compromised. The chessboard was now in check because a large part of the western defense apparatus had now been removed from the board, and all it had cost the Coalition was one little black pawn.

The Boeing 777 was starting its takeoff roll. The livery colors were white on red and on the tail boom was the national flag of Japan. Prime Minister Minoro Osagawa was rushing home just after hearing the news from the Pacific. It had been a hectic day since the earthquake had taken a devastating toll on the northern tip of his nation. The prime minister had been trying to take off for four hours, but the Los Angeles area had been blanketed in fog for the better part of the day. Finally, his pilot had received clearance and was heading down the runway at 140 miles per hour.

The white, blue, and red Federal Express van had been parked in the long-term parking area of British Airways for the past five hours. The men inside had been patient and even joked about the L.A. weather, but they became serious as they received word that the prime minister's plane had been cleared for takeoff. Three men stepped from the large van, each carrying a large case. They heard the loud whine of a large aircraft as her engines spooled up. They were exactly 1.8 miles from runway five. A Coalition source had informed the fire team of the prime minister's imminent takeoff.

As the three men placed the cases on the ground and opened them, they could almost feel the power of the items inside. Each of the three cases held a weapon that once upon a time had terrified the bravest of Russian combat pilots. Because the Stinger missile employs a passive homing seeker, it is a "fire and forget" weapon, which needs no guidance from the operator after firing. Other missiles--ones that track the reflection of a designator beam--require the operator to maintain a lock on the target. This allows a Stinger operator to take cover, relocate, or engage other targets immediately after firing the missile. This is just what the men trained for in the months and years leading up to this day.

A fourth man had placed himself strategically in front of the van and was watching the sky through a pair of binoculars. He turned and looked at his three companions.

"Get a move on; here she comes."

The men had already placed the Stingers on their shoulders and were just waiting. An old woman walked by, pulling a suitcase on rollers. One of the men looked at her and winked. The woman didn't even know what the men held; she just hurried along a little faster than before, and she didn't look back.

Soon they saw the large Boeing plane take to the sky, and soon after that, the seeker tone sounded in their ears, meaning that the seeker head had locked on to engine one of the 777. First one, then the second, and then finally the third missile streaked out of the launch tubes.

The men lowered the empty tubes and watched in amazement as the small missiles climbed into the now-blue sky of Los Angeles. The white contrails were as clear as a stroke of paint as the missiles gained on their target. The scene was surreal and the men stood in awe.

Whoever the pilot of the prime minister's aircraft was, he was very, very good. The sensitive radar and threat detectors on the Boeing plane had to have alerted the pilot, and he swung the big plane over hard left and dived. In the tail boom, flares started to pop free of their launcher and chaff started bursting behind it. Tin foil would not fool the seeker heads of the Stingers, but the flares just might.

The leader of the fire team bit his lower lip as he kept the binoculars trained on the weaving and diving aircraft. The first Stinger went for the flares and went off harmlessly a hundred feet from the tail. The second Stinger flew true to the target and struck the large General Electric engine. The third hit the left wing and ripped off a thirty-five-foot section at the end. The 777 dipped hard left and that was when the aircraft disappeared from view.

"Goddammit!" the leader said as he scanned the sky with his glasses.

Then they heard the whine of the aircraft as it fought its way back into the sky. The whole left wing was on fire and the aircraft was without a large portion of that wing. The large turbojet engine was still there but was a ball of fire as the aircraft tried to turn back into LAX.

The men watched in rapt silence as the plane, as if in slow motion, started to tilt over to the right, as the left wing could not hold up its end of the battle. The leader smiled as the 777 finally lost its battle with gravity and slid into a small strip mall and exploded. The leader closed his eyes as the ground trembled slightly from the distant impact.

The men hastily left the area as sirens finally started sounding. They did not bother to pick up the cases that had contained the Stingers because the equipment was untraceable, having been bought as surplus from several sources inside Afghanistan, where the Coalition had unlimited contacts.

With the deaths of two of the West's most influential leaders, the Juliai was now only four moves away from checkmate.

The lighting was dim and the room deathly quiet as the president sat with his security council. Somewhere in the silent room, a pencil snapped in two. On the large high-definition monitor, a scene unlike anything seen since World War II was being played out in real time in the northern Pacific. The images were delivered from an overhead satellite and from a live feed from one of the ships of the task force. The directors of the CIA, FBI, and NSA, General Kenneth Caulfield of the U.S. Army, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs were silent. The suddenness of the attack by the Korean air force had taken the gamers at the Pentagon by complete surprise and left everyone with a deep sense of failure.

As all eyes in the conference room focused on the scenes of destruction, the door opened and allowed in a flood of light from the offices outside. A small man dressed simply in a black suit and tie and white shirt quickly found a seat against the wall. Only the president looked his way, then quickly back at the horrendous scene.

"Casualties?" he asked.

"Preliminary reports from the Roosevelt are better than you would have thought. Thus far, four hundred and fifty-seven seamen are dead with a like number injured. At this time, we are not sure of the ship's survival. All assistance is being rendered by Japan, Australia, and England, whose small task force could be in the area in four hours," Admiral John C. Fuqua said from his spot at the table. "The Russians have offered moral support only at this stage due to the damage sustained at Vladivostok."

"Okay. What are we looking at for the Lake Champlain?" he asked.

"Thirty-three officers, twenty-seven chief petty officers, and three hundred and twenty-four enlisted men. She went down with all hands."

Niles Compton placed his arms on his knees and lowered his head. He had just arrived by helicopter on the White House lawn from Andrews Air Force Base, and walking in and seeing this brought what was happening into very real and deadly prospective.

The president gestured for the lights as the large screen dimmed and the horrific scenes vanished.

"Recommendations?"

"We have to defend our people, Mr. President, that much is evident," the admiral stated flatly as he looked the president in the eyes.

"Agreed. The rules of engagement have already been sent to all American forces the world over," the president said, looking at the admiral and guessing at his next words.

"A change in our ROE will not be an adequate response, sir. We have to--"

"Start a world war, because that is precisely what we would be doing. The Korean consul and Chinese ambassador have notified us that the strike on our task force was defensive only and dictated by an overt act of war against their countries. No matter what we believe, and no matter how much we cry out our innocence, they believe they were hit intentionally by us, and if not us, someone in our sphere of influence. Who else would have the technology to do what they're claiming to have evidence of, if not the West?"

"Their claims are absolutely without scientific foundation. Our own people say that what happened could only be a natural occurrence," answered the director of the CIA, Charles Melbourne.

"Nonetheless, we have earthquakes without aftershocks and the evidence these people claim to have is just--" The president tossed his pen on the yellow pad before him and it landed on the casualty numbers he had circled several times. He closed his eyes in thought and left the question hanging.

"Gentlemen, this has to be thought out clearly. I have my doubts that the Koreans would have done this for any other reason than because they were pushed into it. It just does not make military sense. The move to hit that task force was an act of desperation on their part. I feel it. If it's a direct attack launched with some unknown science or not, it doesn't matter, gentlemen; they believe it is."

"We have to respond, we owe it to those boys." The admiral's voice was easy and steady but every man in the room could see that it was forced.

"First, I want a five-hundred-mile exclusion zone placed around our task force. I am ordering the air force to start low-level recon overflights of the North Korean rally points. I want preparations made and target packages on my desk in three hours in case Kim moves across the border. We will let him know clearly that this threatening gesture toward the South shall be met with unyielding force."

The president met every set of eyes in the room.

"The Koreans have said they are finished talking, but I will not allow them to once again start a bloody war without more facts to back me. I will make them see reason, but I need proof that these were natural disasters, or I need evidence of a crime, is this understood?" He was looking directly at the directors of the CIA and the FBI. "We are lucky the Russians have remained quiet on this tape of theirs. We can be thankful they are not adding fuel to Kim's fire, at least for the time being."

There were nods all around the table.

"We'll meet back here in three hours. Get me answers. Dismissed."

Niles received several curious looks from the security council as they broke up. He did not exactly avoid eye contact but did not outwardly look directly at them, either. He watched as the last member closed the door, then he looked at the president.

"It took you long enough to get here, goddammit."

Niles nodded. "My people needed their instructions. If we had not been so secretive about our friendship, I could have left much sooner. Especially now that I see we've got some real problems here."

The president smiled and then quickly stood and walked over to the director of Department 5656 and held out his hand.

"Don't want people knowing about how close we are. It could be bad for you on your end and me on mine. Secrets, the world runs on them."

Niles stood and took his hand. Alice had been right in her assessment about the president and Niles Compton. They were not only childhood friends but had attended Harvard together. The ROTC student and the computer-sciences nerd had been friends since they were eight and had been roommates together at the first of several colleges.

"I trust my people. You're lucky I caught on when you first arrived at Group," Niles said as he watched his friend wearily sit down.

"When I visited at the complex I thought it wise to play our friendship low-key. I didn't know if you had told anyone about us being friends. And then," he poured himself a glass of water from the decanter, "when this earthquake stuff started, I was bombarded from everyone from MIT to my own science advisers saying that the events were natural in nature and there could be no way they could have been manmade."

"And?"

"Niles, something's wrong here. I have a gut feeling--not really much to go on, I'm afraid--that something's happening here we don't understand." He took a drink of water and set down the glass. "I've been a soldier all of my adult life and this is just not right. The Koreans would never chance their annihilation on this. Regardless of what most people think of them, they do not act without cause, even if it is a ridiculous one."

"The Russians and Chinese--how are they reacting?"

"The Russians are just waiting to see what we do before committing one way or the other. China, well, the chairman condemned the Koreans for attacking our ships, but fell far short of telling their ally to back down. In other words, they're not sure either."

"What can I do to help you out?"

"Niles, you're the smartest man I've ever known. The people you've collected in that desert hamlet of yours are truly amazing. I need your brains. I need you here to help me get us out of this growing nightmare." The president slid a folder across the table to Niles and then looked away.

Niles read the report and then looked at the president.

"Both were assassinated today, only minutes apart."

"God, this can't be just a coincidence."

"The goddamn world's falling apart just like it's being orchestrated. It makes you think the North Koreans may be onto something."

Niles closed the folder that held the CIA report. "Pinpricks against the body," he said quietly.

"What was that?"

"Enough pinpricks will bleed a body, no matter how strong and powerful, until it's too weak to function."

The president did not have to ask any more. He knew that Niles was the man to turn to.

"Who do you have working on the murder of your people?"

"Colonel Jack Collins, the Group's security director."

The president looked at his longtime friend. "Collins is with you? I know Jack; I thought Congress and the Joint Chiefs crucified him a few years back for talking to Congress about the screw-up in Afghanistan?"

"They did. I got what was left. And he's still a better soldier than you ever were."

"What in the hell do you know about soldiering, you bookworm?" he shot back. "You're right about Collins, though." The president thought for a moment. "Dammit, Niles, I need you and your best people on this thing."

Niles stood and patted his old friend on the shoulder.

"I want my budget request fulfilled, Mr. President."

"You're a blackmailing little bastard!"

Niles patted his shoulder even harder.

"I ordered my people on it before I left Nevada. Still one step behind me on the uptake, aren't you, Jim?"

Both men grew silent as the vision of the burning Theodore Roosevelt entered their minds at the same time. Niles knew that the president was angry and wanted to hit back at someone. He just wanted to make sure that the anger was directed at the right someone.