Event

FOUR

Specialist Fifth Class Sarah McIntire closed her book and notepad at the end of class. Today's lecture had been on ancient burial pitfalls, traps made to prevent looting of various burial sites throughout the world that Event Group archaeologists had come across during the many excavations in places like the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, Egypt, and in the Peruvian Inca ruins excavated in 2004. Sarah taught geology and used the opportunity given her by the ancients to spice up an otherwise boring day of geological subject matter. She had been joined by a professor visiting her class thanks to a virtual video link from the University of Tennessee. He'd delivered a nice lecture on the use of hot springs and other natural elements as traps by ancient architects in their planning of tombs.

"Boy, was that dead or what?"

Sarah looked around to see her roommate, Signalman First Class Lisa Willing, USN, smiling and holding her books against her ample chest. The blue Group jumpsuit fit her a little too well, which helped in giving her part of her nickname, behind her back of course, of Willing Lisa. Sarah knew Lisa had to have heard it before, but her friend always said it was just better to ignore people. Sarah knew Lisa to be smart as a whip, and she was the best in her field of electronics and communications as well. And, as her roommate, Sarah knew her not to be willing to do much of anything other than study at night and, on rare occasions, catch a movie on the complex's cable television station. Though there was a certain someone in her life, it was secret, and sadly, nicknames like that lingered.

"Oh, thanks, so I'm boring?"

"Nah, just kidding, kiddo," Lisa said, smiling and nudging her friend with her shoulder.

"Well, just another week and I'll finish my graduate work and I'll have my master's from the Colorado School of Mines. That still won't guarantee a field assignment." Sarah looked at Lisa. "You've been there, haven't you?"

"Egypt? Yeah, last year we had that busted field operation when that French asshole blew the whistle on Dr. Fryman from NYU. We were this close"--Lisa held up her index finger and thumb about an inch apart--"to getting a good lead on some relics that may have escaped the destruction of the great library of Alexandria."

Sarah looked at her friend with envy. She longed for the day to participate in something other than simulations and attending classes. She would walk out of here with a master's degree in geology and an officer's commission, a second lieutenant's gold bar, but she wanted what everyone here at the Group wanted, and that was fieldwork. But the opportunity hadn't arisen in the two years she had been here. She was not like a lot of the scientists here at the Group. She was a soldier first and that was what was so damn frustrating for her. She had the training she needed to survive, she should be eligible for more than just geology and tunnel teams, and she should be placed on any roster where a soldier was required. She knew it had been just a fluke that her geology team hadn't had any fieldwork, but that didn't make it any less frustrating.

"I would have loved to have been there," Sarah said as they passed others on their way to class and the mess hall.

"You'll get your shot," the blond woman said. "Hey, you wanna grab a late lunch? I'm starving." Lisa had become quite adept at steering her roommate away from a very sore subject.

Sarah hunched her shoulders in a "whatever" gesture and started for the mess hall.

As they stepped into the main cafeteria, Sarah, concentrating on her thoughts, didn't see the large man with gold oak leaf bars on his collar. Luckily, he saw the collision coming before it happened. Moving quickly, he raised his tray full of roast beef and mashed potatoes at the last second above her small frame. Sarah raised her arms over her head, hoping if food fell, most of it would fall on her textbook and not her. As she was doing this, she inadvertently backed into another, only slightly smaller man. As she hit his tray, the man deftly backed up two paces and righted the plates before he lost his sandwich and green-tinted lime Jell-O.

"Boy, you're just a little pinball, aren't you?" asked the first, taller officer.

Sarah turned to the second man, who held his tray in one hand and was readjusting its contents.

"I'm so sorry," she said, embarrassed.

"You'll have to excuse my roommate, sir, she's daydreaming of caves and tunnels and all other kinds of nasty stuff," Lisa chimed in, letting her eyes linger a little too long at the taller of the two officers.

"Think nothing of it, ladies, just a minor traffic pileup, no harm done," said the man with the dark brown hair and wearing an army major's rank on his new coveralls.

Sarah backed away with her book held to her chest. Her eyes locked on the man's blue ones. His stare didn't waver; his smile was dazzling and his gaze almost hypnotic. She finally broke what was to her an awkward moment by turning and walking away quickly enough that Lisa had to run to catch up.

"Hey, slow down," Lisa called at Sarah's retreating form, looking back at the taller of the two men, the one with a navy lieutenant commander rank on his collar. He was returning her look, smiling as his companion commented on something, and then he had to finally turn away.

"Damn, that's the new head of security," Sarah said as she took a tray from the stack and placed it on the serving line.

"With you becoming an officer yourself soon, there could be something there," Lisa chided, nodding her head in the direction of the almost accident, but all they saw were people staring at them, waiting for the line to start moving again.

Sarah turned and looked at her friend. "Is it the entire navy that has dirty minds and reads nonexistent things into something as mundane as me almost getting a bunch of food knocked onto my head, or is it just you?"

Lisa smiled and batted her eyes. "Just me, I guess."

Lieutenant Commander Carl Everett stood six foot three inches, which was how he had maneuvered his tray over Sarah so easily. His blond hair was trimmed short. His arms were tanned and muscular in his short-sleeved jumpsuit. He set the tray with his lunch on it down and pulled out a chair. But he waited for his new boss to sit first and watched Lisa and her roommate, Sarah, the one he had almost run into, walk through the serving line. He waited for Lisa to look back again, but she was too busy talking with those around her, already joking with the cooks serving her. Giving up, he finally sat. He tried never to communicate with Lisa during duty hours because the secret they kept was a serious breach of military etiquette and a court-martial offense.

"Is the mess hall food always this good?" Jack asked.

"Yes, sir, they usually have three or four entrees, and since this is a government-and not a military-run outfit, it's officially called a cafeteria, whatever that is," Everett joked, then paused with a forkful of mashed potatoes halfway to his mouth. "But field RATS are still the same, MREs in quantity if not quality."

Collins smiled. In his time in the service he had eaten enough of the freeze-dried rations to feed Botswana.

"So, Commander, you like the duty?" he asked, then chewed.

"Enough so that I don't want to rotate out. They want to send me back to the SEALs with a promotion and a nice fat training stint, but I've officially requested another six years of detached service."

Collins's eyebrows rose.

"Yeah, I promised to re-up my enlistment if they cut my orders for another tour in the Group."

"Don't you miss SEAL duty?"

Everett thought a moment as he placed his fork down. He had learned in the past that while speaking to commanding officers he should take his time and give the answer he wanted to give and not the one they wanted to hear. "I miss my mates, but this is the duty I want. And to be blunt, sir, there is enough excitement here for three SEAL teams."

Everett looked up beyond the major's shoulder and saw Lisa and Sarah seated far across the vast dining complex. Lisa looked up briefly and gave Everett a trace of a smile. She leaned over and whispered something to her friend, then continued eating.

By the way, I saw the way you and your Mr. Everett locked eyes just a minute ago," Sarah said without looking up from her lunch.

Lisa paused, her spoon halfway to her mouth, and looked at her roommate. "My Mr. Everett?"

Again Sarah never looked up. "You know, the more I think on it, you're probably better off with duties here at the Group and not aboard any ship. For a navy person you have a bad habit of talking in your sleep, and not only that, if I can notice these things, so can others."

"I do not talk in my sleep--or do I?" Lisa said, her thoughts turning inward.

"Yes, and remember, you're an enlisted-type person, and your Commander Everett is an officer and a gentleman, at least according to the Congress of the United States," Sarah said as she finally looked up from her salad.

"I've let it get a little too serious, and we are trying to cut back on our meetings. I just think about that big lug constantly," Lisa said, placing her spoon back into her bowl of soup and then rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hand. "So what about that new officer? Carl hasn't said anything at all. Have you heard anything?"

"He's supposed to be some sort of black-operations guru or something."

"From what I saw just a minute ago, he looked like an ordinary officer to me. But then again, you had a better look at him than me."

"You better start thinking about how to get yourself out of this thing with Commander America," Sarah admonished, raising her left eyebrow.

Lisa didn't answer; she just sat and stared at her soup without really seeing it.

The senator told me a few things, amazing stuff to be sure, but I'm not really sold as to the importance of all this." Everett thought again before commenting and placed his knife and fork down as he slowly wiped his mouth with his napkin, then said, "Sir, you're no different than I or any other serving line officer that comes on board here. You wonder, are we here just to play games and babysit?"

Collins pushed his plate away and looked into Carl's eyes, then crossed his arms and listened.

"I can assure you, Major, we're not chasing fairy tales here, this is a very dangerous and, at times, deadly business."

"How so?" Collins asked, still looking intently into the younger man's eyes.

"Well, four years ago, it was maybe my sixth or seventh field assignment. The computer nerds upstairs stumbled onto a dig, an archaeological survey being conducted in Greece. The University of Texas and the Greek government sponsored it jointly. Their team consisted of Dr. Emily Harwell, a few Texas grad students, a couple of Greek professors, and of course myself and one other Event Group doctor, posing as part of their labor force." Again Everett paused and got a faraway look.

Collins watched him, and the way his second-in-command delivered the story, it was as if he were actually giving a field report.

"The good doc and her students came across a series of mathematical calculations that were buried in clay jars and sealed with beeswax. Now this was a no-name Greek alchemist that had buried them in the cellar of his villa. He wasn't famous for anything and was one of those people that history leaves anonymous for all his brilliant work, but the equations that were found were used to calculate the speed of light, three thousand years ago. The find was amazing and made a few jaws drop, I can tell you. It was a work on papyrus that would have made Einstein proud. How would he have done this? And most importantly, why would this no-name Greek mathematician do it in the first place?"

Jack was amazed. "I would like to see them."

"The account was taken by force," Everett said. "The Event Group, while unique in the world, does have foreign agencies we work and compete with in an offhanded way through our National Archives front. No one knows we exist, officially. Oh, Great Britain has a pretty good idea, but could never prove it. These other archival groups are basically in it for antiquities, whereas the United States has turned the world's history into a science. We actually change the present by looking into the past. Now, some of the more rogue nations and organizations don't play by the rules. The night in question, we lost the manuscript to a man named Henri Farbeaux. The French deny he works for them so he may just be a mercenary, but he is ruthless in gathering information when the situation dictates. He gets intelligence and equipment from someone, some organization, because his equipment is pure state-of-the-art stuff, right on par with our equipment, and we get the best."

"I've had operational run-ins with other special ops guys, but I've never heard of this Farbeaux character, at least I've seen no intelligence dossier on him, French or otherwise," Collins said.

"Totally ruthless, Major. We suspect he hit us with a large strike team while we were in Greece, Men in Black we call them. Hit at night by the book and no one saw it coming. We lost twenty-two people, including one of our own, a lady doc from MIT. I liked her a lot. She was ugly as homemade soap, but the smartest woman I have ever known and flat out the funniest. She could tell the dirtiest jokes in the world." Everett smiled in remembrance. "I was held up in the hills surrounding Athens for three hours until a strike team of air force commandos from Aviano in Italy arrived and extracted me."

"Wounded?" asked Collins.

"Took one in the leg. I swear I'll get that bastard Farbeaux someday. He has a major hurt heading his way, and this swab's going to be the one to deliver it."

"So he took the documents and got away clean?"

Everett took a breath and leaned back in his chair. "Yes, sir, he did. And every time before and since, it's almost as if he knows our plans, knows where we'll be and what we're doing, thus the internal mole hunt we have going on at the moment." Everett closed his eyes in thought. "The Israelis almost had him three months ago, but missed just south of the Sudan. Fucker has a sixth sense about him. An hour before Mossad nails him to the wall, he skips, just like someone was tipping him. He's very good and travels with an international cast of assassins, and get this, a lot of them are known to be Americans, guys with training, like you and I."

"He has to have funding from someplace. With all this computing power around here, that information should be rather easy to come across. Does the FBI have anything?"

"All I know is that bastard has friends in high places and is always one step ahead of our Group. As for the Feds, all we know is that we're not the only ones this guy goes after, he's after technology also. It's said that he hits the big companies for new advances, that kind of thing, big-time industrial espionage."

Collins shook his head.

Everett reached in his back pocket and pulled out a handheld data-fact. He switched on the small portable computer and used the small aluminum pen device to find the information he wanted. Then he handed the computer to Collins.

"This is the list Alice, the senator, and Director Compton made up for security. He told me to show it to you as soon as I could."

Collins looked from the naval commander to the data-fact. There on the liquid-crystal screen were listed fifteen names; most he noticed had computer sciences listed after their monikers and duties. He scanned the names, only recognizing the one at the top.

"Those are people of interest in our mole hunt, listed in the order of probability," Everett said as he looked around their table, then picked up his fork even though he had lost his appetite.

"This first name, are they kidding?"

Everett just looked at the major and then took a bite of his cold roast beef.

Jack glanced back at the name that headed the list of suspects. The other top six were the heads of all the investigative and intelligence agencies in the federal government, and the name at the head of the list was that of the president of the United States.

After lunch, Jack, Carl, and Niles Compton sat behind closed doors and discussed the security list Everett had shown Jack. Collins wasn't impressed with the way they went about screening names to place on the "watch" list. They assumed that their mole was high-ranking, but in Collins's experience it could be someone as low in security clearance as the night janitor. He knew this thing would have to be broken down and backgrounds checked more thoroughly. Home life checked. He had found that the easiest way for someone to be caught was in their home lifestyle. The 1RS had used the same system for years; it was easy to catch someone living beyond his means. So that would be the first place the security department started, checking out how some of the Group's people lived at their off-base residences. Collins outlined to Everett and Niles how they would go about starting the next phase of the investigation, and that the first thing they should do is burn their current list of suspects and start fresh.

"Why, this is everybody with access to material that has been leaked," Niles said, incredulous.

"We have to start with a fresh outlook," Jack replied.

"And what is that?" Niles asked.

Collins smiled and stood when Alice walked into the room to begin their tour of the vault area. He looked down at Compton and Everett. "Everybody, Mr. Director, everyone in this complex is now suspect, from you to the last person to be recruited, and that's me."

Sarah McIntire saw the new major and Alice walking along the hallway. During her lunch with Lisa they had discussed field assignments and their upcoming commissionings, Sarah to second lieutenant, and Lisa to ensign, ranks that the new head of security would have to approve. She had wondered aloud what kind of man this officer was, and now she had a chance to at least get an opening impression. She spied a classmate of hers and asked her to take her books and drop them off at her room, then she hurried to catch up with Alice and Collins.

"Good morning, Alice, Major," she said from behind them.

Both turned at once and saw the army specialist standing there smiling.

"Hello, dear," Alice answered.

Collins looked at her and gave a slight nod of his head, recognizing her from the cafeteria and their near collision.

"May I walk with you?" Sarah asked Alice.

"I'm just taking the major on the Magical Mystery Tour," Alice answered, "but you're welcome to walk with us a ways."

"Major, have you met Sarah? She'll be a geological department head in just a few months and then she'll be drawing second lieutenant's pay."

"Yes, we met unofficially at lunch," Jack answered.

Sarah began to feel a little embarrassed and decided after looking into the major's eyes, this wasn't such a good idea. "If you're going to the vaults, it's probably important. I better..."

A speaker they were passing under drowned her out. It was Niles Compton: "Will Alice Hamilton and Dr. Pollock please report to photo intelligence? Alice Hamilton and Dr. Pollock to photo intelligence."

"I'm sorry, Major, it looks like I have to go."

"We can tour some other time, Alice," Collins said.

Sarah looked from the major to Alice and quickly volunteered, "I can take him down, I'm cleared for vault security."

Alice looked at the young woman and smiled. "That's an excellent idea. Major, would you mind?"

"That's up to the specialist. If she has the time and doesn't have to be anywhere..."

"Excellent, I'll see you later and we'll discuss the security drills you want to conduct. Thank you, Sarah, for volunteering your services, even though you're supposed to be deep in study for your engineering final."

"I helped Professor Jennings make up the test; besides, I think I'm a better tour guide than you, I'm not so clinical."

Alice laughed. "Perhaps so, and I will speak to our Mr. Jennings about having students, no matter how gifted, devise his tests for him." She turned to the major. "Jack, I'll see you later," she said, touching his arm and then walking quickly away. "And don't forget, Sarah, your final..."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," she said as she strode confidently toward the three elevators aligned side by side against the wall. Collins watched her for just a moment, then followed.

"I guess you know we are situated on level seven?" she asked.

Collins didn't say anything, he just stood with his arms crossed. Finally the elevator doors opened with a soft ping and Collins caught the female voice of the computer announcing, "Level seven." Sarah stepped in, followed by Jack, who swiveled away from the door and stood straight-backed against the right side of the car.

"Level?" the canned voice asked.

"Seventy please," Sarah said, not really noticing she was being polite to a computer-controlled elevator.

Jack felt a slight movement and the hiss of air as the car started its long descent. He closed his eyes as he thought about the elevator riding on nothing but air. He thought he heard Sarah say something.

"Excuse me?" Jack asked.

"I said here we are," she repeated.

The elevator came to a halt. "Level seventy," the soft female voice stated.

Sarah stepped out and waited for Collins. The major looked at her, then down the long and high-ceiled corridor. The first thing Jack noticed was what looked like a normal bank of fluorescent lighting that wrapped around the entrance to the vault area. He knew what it was from his time at the proving grounds at Bell Labs and Aberdeen. He knew if you walked through that lighting without disarming the harmless-looking security system, lasers set inside would cut you to ribbons in seconds. This was what was known as a kill zone breach. They both stepped up to the portal leading into the vault area and presented their identification to a blue-overall-clad marine guard. He slid their IDs down an electronic reader one at a time and seemed satisfied when their information came up on the reader screen. The corporal handed their cards back without comment.

Collins followed Sarah inside after the laser defense was turned off. The vaults were made of thick-chromed steel, not unlike the variety you find in banks. They disappeared into the distance as they were set in a circular fashion into the rock. Technicians roamed the wide corridors carrying clipboards and sample cases, not paying Sarah and the major any attention other than to nod a greeting.

"As I'm sure you've been told, Major, some of the artifacts in these vaults will never see the light of day. Others are being released one or two at a time for security reasons. Our security mostly, as it wouldn't do at all to have this stuff traced back to us."

Collins nodded his head in understanding and stepped toward Sarah. "Is any of this worth people dying for?"

Sarah thought a moment. "Yes, sir, I believe most of it is."

Collins just looked down at her. Her eyes were honest and he thought she really believed what she was saying.

She produced a card that she wore around her neck on a chain and tucked into her coverall, then stepped to the nearest vault. She took the small card-key and swiped it down a reader, which ordered the lock to disengage. There was an audible click and the door slid silently inside the wall. An overhead light came on automatically and the computer said, "The vault requirements for file number 11732: all personnel are prohibited from making contact with the sealed enclosure."

"We lost two people on this particular mission, a doctor from the University of Chicago and a student from LSU. They thought it was worth dying to bring it out."

Collins stepped past McIntire and into the small theater-style room. Four spotlights shone down on a four-foot-wide-by-eight-foot-long glass box, with latex hoses running into its sides from the aluminum panel embedded in the wall. The room was cool and smelled of wet stone. Inside the glass box was a decomposed body lying on a slab of gray granite. The tattered remains of khaki-style clothing hung off the exposed bones, and the remains of short-topped boots were visible through the glass. The blondish red hair was short and still held a part just left of center of the head. There was a nice clean bullet hole in the side of the skull.

Sarah stood motionless for a long time until finally placing her small hand over the glass as near as she could get without contacting it and seemed to gaze forever at the figure inside.

"The Yakuza killed our people over her," she said in reverence, seeming to show deference to the dead.

"Come again?" Collins asked.

"Japanese organized crime."

"I know the Yakuza. Why did they kill a student and a doctor?"

"They thought it was important enough to kill for." She turned to face Collins. "The head of the Yakuza today is named Menoka Ozawa. He had a grandfather of not very high standing in the Japanese army in 1938." Sarah looked at the body through the glass again as she felt a kinship with it every time she was near it. "It was that man that was responsible for the bullet hole you see." She once again watched Collins for a reaction, and when none came, she continued, "This woman was executed on a small island in the Pacific for being an alleged spy, her and a man named Fred Noonan."

Jack looked closer at the skeletal remains. He smiled. It was the small gap in the cadaver's front teeth that clinched it for him.

"Amelia Earhart," Jack said, looking from the coffin to Sarah.

"How did you guess?"

"Believe it or not, I saw it on Unsolved Mysteries." He smiled. "So why not tell the public?"

"I can only assume, since the senator and director don't take me into their confidence."

"Assume away then," he said, sweeping his arm in a mock bow.

"She was on a stunt, that's all. That is until President Roosevelt and Naval Intelligence asked her to gather some information on Japanese movements and bases in the central Pacific, which she did. That was one of the unflattering things about Roosevelt." Once again Sarah looked at the major. "He played on her womanhood at being needed and accepted for his own ends. She had mechanical problems and her Electra aircraft went down. They found her and executed her without really knowing or caring who she was. A typical military response, if I may add. Anyway, this Yakuza fellow didn't want any bad taint to fall on his grandfather, who had left a detailed accounting of the incident in his personal journal. Thus he was willing to kill to keep the body right where it was found."

Sarah started for the door, pausing to look at the major as he was still taking in Earhart's body. He stood motionless for a moment, a sad look crossing his features.

"She was something, though, wasn't she?" he asked, still looking.

"In my opinion, one of the bravest women in history." Sarah thought a moment, then added, "Major, did you meet the old gunnery sergeant at Gate Two?"

"Campos, if I remember right."

"One of our people went on vacation ten or so years back and adjusted the thinking of this Yakuza person. They found him hanging in his rather expensive apartment one day. The person who vacationed in Japan that year was Gunny Campos."

Collins turned and looked at Sarah, wondering if viewing this particular vault had been a deliberate way of showing the worth of women, such as Earhart, or old people, such as the gunnery sergeant, or if it was just a fluke. He suspected Sarah was a person to watch.

"Well, anyway, her body is being flown back to Hawaii next month. We have arranged for Ms. Earhart to be found by a professor from Colorado State University and a University of Tokyo faculty member, both of whom had brilliantly proven this theory linking the Japanese and Earhart. So they deserve to find the body after we place it back." Sarah looked once more at the body. "Amelia deserves far better than this," she said as she gestured to the glass enclosure.

After Jack quietly left the vault, Sarah closed the door and it locked automatically. Then she turned and walked down a hundred feet before stopping at a larger, more heavily built door. She let Collins catch up before she turned and slid her access card into the slot. Instead of sliding up or into a wall, this one just clicked, and there was a gasp of air as it only opened an inch.

Sarah swung the large vault door open and stepped inside and the lights came on automatically.

Jack was amazed to see the metal ribs of a boat. It was long, about three hundred feet in length, he quickly deduced. The stern disappeared into the vastness of the vault. He made out hull plating that covered about a third of the vessel and the huge metal rivets that held them in place.

Sarah asked him to follow her up a large metal staircase that was permanently attached to the floor, allowing people to reach the top deck and travel the length of the find. As they reached the top, Collins saw what looked like more metal covering of what was once indeed a deck, which led to a tall structure that resembled a rusting conning tower of a submarine. Only this tower was rounded at the top with long diving planes attached to its sides. He could see large rusted-through holes that afforded a view of the interior, which was lit up by lighting that had been placed inside. He made out rust-encrusted gauges and levers.

"Resembles a submarine," he said.

Sarah didn't respond; she nodded her head and made her way along the catwalk. She stopped toward the stern and pointed down into a compartment that had been cut away.

"See those boxy-looking things lining the floor?"

Jack followed her finger and saw several hundred large, rusty boxlike rectangles. "Yes, what are they?"

"Batteries. This is an electrically powered submarine, Major."

"World War Two? But I've never seen a class of boats that had as strange a bow as this one. I don't think they had a spherical bow in the forties."

Sarah smiled. "No, they didn't. Our most advanced classes of submarines for most of World War Two were the Gato and Balao classes; they fought mostly in the Pacific campaign against the Japanese."

"So what are the dates on this craft?"

"Well, she was a little ahead of her time. Would you believe 1871?"

Jack looked at Sarah as if she had fallen off the deep end.

"This is what we know for sure. The boat was discovered off the coast of Newfoundland in 1967. She was totally buried in mud and she came up basically as you see her today. We have confirmed that she was electrically driven and, according to our engineers, had a top speed of twenty-six knots submerged, far faster than our boats in the war, and very comparable to our attack subs today. She had a crew complement of close to a hundred men and carried rudimentary torpedoes that ran on compressed air. For obvious reasons they are stored in a different vault. She had a ramming spike on her bow that has yet to be recovered, but we know it was there because the mounting for it is still bolted to the window frame. She had a glass nose made of quartz crystal for underwater viewing. She's just like the vessel described by Jules Verne in his novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."

"You have got to be joking."

"Major, all I can say is, there she is. You decide. Her electrical-powered engines are in some ways far more advanced than what we have today and far more efficient. We've had people from General Dynamics Electric Boat Division here who swear this thing was a model of efficiency."

"Don't tell me this is the Nautilus."

"No, I'm not telling you that because we know her real name. We discovered her commissioning plaque only five years ago encased in mud just aft of her control room. Her name was Leviathan. The senator suspects that Mr. Verne may have modeled his vision after a real craft. It's just speculation of course, but a sound theory."

"Her crew?" Jack asked.

"Went down with her. Carbon-14 dating places her right around 1871, but her demise could have been anytime within fifteen years of her commission. We know she was manufactured in 1871 because of the engravings on her gauges. That coupled with testing is tantamount to gospel." She hesitated. "Only thirty-six of the crew remains were discovered inside the Submarine. But we know her ship's roster was close to a hundred due to the berthing areas we found."

"Amazing," Collins said, looking at the rusted skeletal remains.

"We have all the data there is to collect. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute has been working on her for the past thirty years."

Collins acknowledged the name of the prestigious oceanographic institute. "Are they a part of the Group?"

"A few are consultants trusted with our existence. They owe us for"--she paused for dramatic effect--"certain things we've sent their way."

Collins caught the innuendo. One thing he knew on the subject of the Woods Hole institute was that the oceanographer Dr. Robert Ballard was a part of the institute, and it was he who discovered the resting sight of RMS Titanic. He just shook his head.

Sarah was just turning to go on to the next Event vault she had in mind when they were interrupted.

"Attention, all department heads are to report to the main conference room immediately, all department heads to the main conference room. This is Code One Active. Major Collins, please contact 117, please call 117."

"Well, Major, I've never heard that call sign given since I have been here." Then she explained, "That's the director; code one active is an alert for an Event, the big kind. The phone is right there." She pointed to a wall line next to one of the vaults.

Jack removed the handset and punched in the number 117, then looked at Sarah, who was ashen. There was an audible click and then Alice picked up.

"Major, please meet Mr. Everett up on level seven. He'll show you how to get to the conference room, and step on it, Major, Director Compton is ready to bust about something," Alice spoke quickly, and hung up.

"Sorry, Sarah, I have to cut this short." He turned away toward the circular hallway and the elevators beyond.

"I understand. In the elevator hit the red EXPRESS button, that will ensure no stops between here and seven," she called after him.

She watched him vanish beyond the curve of vaults.

Code One Active. Sarah shivered at the thought of those three words. She had heard rumors of what those words represented. Code One Active--a possible Civilization Altering Event.