Apocalypse

6

During his military years Ethan had spent a fair amount of time training out in the Florida Straits, so the area was familiar, but he had never before even considered the fact that he’d probably spent much of that time in the legendary Triangle.

‘You’re kidding,’ Lopez uttered, flipping the file in her lap shut. ‘You want us to go down there because you think this guy’s dad disappeared in a puff of smoke in the Bermuda Triangle?’

‘There may be some kind of connection,’ Jarvis replied. ‘We’re keeping an open mind about it.’

‘I’ll say,’ Lopez replied.

‘Some kind of connection how?’ Ethan asked. ‘The father disappearing into the Bermuda Triangle is one thing, but the murder of Charles Purcell’s family is another entirely. They don’t share anything in common.’

Jarvis tapped the file in his lap with his finger. ‘There’s nothing to suggest that Montgomery Purcell was murdered, but then there’s nothing to say that he wasn’t either. However Charles Purcell’s wife and daughter were most definitely the victims of homicide.’

‘You think that this has something to do with a death that occurred over forty years ago?’ Ethan asked.

‘Wow, Doug, this just gets better and better,’ Lopez murmured and glanced across at Ethan. ‘Doesn’t want us to grab bail-running criminals down the road in Chicago, but he’s happy to send us all the way to Florida to look for rotting corpses.’

‘Montgomery Purcell was a big enough name during the Cold War that the agency feels there’s justification to send you two down there,’ Jarvis pointed out. ‘By all accounts what Purcell didn’t know about nuclear weapons wasn’t worth knowing. Not only that, but there may have even been sensitive documents or similar on his person when he disappeared.’

‘They’d have rotten to nothing by now,’ Ethan said. ‘If he went down in the water there’s not much that would have survived the best part of fifty years.’

‘The risk warrants the effort,’ Jarvis replied and gestured out of the window. ‘Terrorist organizations would kill, literally, for the chance to obtain details of nuclear weapons, even those from half a century ago.’

Lopez looked at Ethan with interest as she spoke.

‘So why send us down there and not official DIA agents? Because of what the police said, that Purcell was asking for Ethan?’

Jarvis smiled as he closed his folder.

‘It’s not so much what he asked as the way that he asked it.’

Ethan blinked. ‘What does that mean?’

‘You’ll have to see that for yourself,’ Jarvis said. ‘Right now, we need to get down to Miami as fast as possible, and for that we’ll need a ride.’

‘We?’ Lopez echoed.

Jarvis’s jaw twisted into a tight grin.

‘The Defense Intelligence Agency has some concerns about the way the operations that involve Warner & Lopez Inc. have been conducted. You’ll remember Washington DC, and of course Santa Fe.’

Ethan sighed and leaned back in his seat. Years after they had gone their separate ways from the Marine Corps, Jarvis had approached Ethan in Chicago and begged him to search for his granddaughter, who had gone missing in Israel. At the time, Ethan had been grieving for the loss of Joanna. Tempted by the possibility of resurrecting the search for his missing fiancée in Gaza, Ethan had agreed. The chase had brought them back to Washington DC, where he had met Nicola Lopez and founded Warner & Lopez Inc. Much later, he and Lopez had travelled to New Mexico as partners on another mission for the DIA. The resulting carnage out in the lonely deserts had proved difficult for Jarvis’s department both to justify and to cover up.

‘We did what we could under extremely difficult circumstances.’ Ethan glanced at Lopez. ‘Sometimes you just can’t keep these things entirely under the radar.’

‘Indeed,’ Jarvis murmured. ‘Abraham Mitchell has insisted that in this case I accompany you on your investigation and provide a full report on your methods.’

Ethan knew Abraham Mitchell, Director of the DIA, as a towering pillar of patriotism and not a man he would cross lightly. But placing Jarvis in the line of fire was an uncharacteristically reckless gesture. Christ, he was in his sixties. Ethan stared at the old man. ‘No offense, but that could slow us down, Doug.’

‘Wasn’t my decision,’ Jarvis said with a shrug. ‘I’m too damned old to be charging about, but I can oversee and hopefully justify your work to Command.’ He leaned forward in his seat. ‘Fact is, I gave up a great deal in order to get this department of the DIA sanctioned and provided with both a budget and trust. After what happened in New Mexico, there’s concern that you’re unable to maintain a discreet profile.’

‘We get results,’ Lopez challenged.

‘You do,’ Jarvis conceded. ‘But if the cost is too high then this whole thing will be over and I’ll be looking at retirement, so let’s just play the game the way the high and mighty want to, and see what comes up. Right now, our priority is getting down to Miami the fastest way possible.’

A shadow of concern fell across Lopez’s features. ‘Just how fast are you thinking?’