The Ajax Protocol

CHAPTER 42

They buried Emile near the house where he'd spent most of his life and marked the spot with a wooden board. Selena stood at the foot of the new grave.

She looked down at the fresh earth and sighed. "I don't know what to say. He was a good man."

Nick put his hand on her shoulder. "That's as much as any man can hope for," he said. "You don't need to say anything else."

The bodies of the men they'd killed presented more of a problem. Selena showed them a deep cleft that ran like a scar across the land, a few hundred yards from shore. Nick heard a faint sound of water lapping somewhere below.

"There are old lava tubes filled with water under the island," Selena said. "This opens onto them. We can dump the bodies in here and they'll feed the sharks."

Ronnie and Lamont looked at each other. Selena's voice was cold.

They dropped the bodies into the cleft and went back to the house. The team met around the dining table.

"I've found out where those signals came from," Stephanie said. "I traced them to the Denver International Airport."

"You're joking," Nick said. "DIA? How could they be based at the airport?"

"I know a lot about DIA. It's at the heart of one of the major conspiracy theories floating around the internet. Most of them are really off the wall but I like to keep track, just in case one of them turns out to be more than a theory. I think that's what's happened here. Do you know anything about how DIA was built?"

"Why don't you enlighten me?"

"The project went way over budget, I mean way over, hundreds of millions, maybe a billion."

"That's a lot of over," Ronnie said.

"Where did the money go?" Selena asked.

"Part of it was ripped off, like it always is in big construction projects like that. But a big chunk went into constructing buildings that were buried under tons of earth."

"Why would they build them and then bury them?"

"The reason given at the time was that they were in the wrong location," Stephanie said. "Everyone made noises about waste, a few wrists got slapped and that was the end of it. Construction went on. What's even more interesting is that the story about the buried buildings changed."

"Changed to what?"

"Instead of buildings, the structures that had been buried never existed at all. Then the story was put out that the pictures of excavations and construction were really pictures of the underground tunnel system."

"Is there a tunnel system?" Ronnie asked.

"Yes, for the rail line that goes between concourses. There's also an abandoned baggage system that didn't work. It was supposed to be state-of-the-art but it never worked right. When they fired it up, it destroyed bags and threw them into the air. They finally gave up on it and sealed it off. It takes up a lot of space under the airport."

"Well, it was a government project," Lamont said. "Sounds like another bureaucratic screw up."

"That's just it," Stephanie said. "It wasn't a government project. The airport was privately funded. It was built by something called the New World Airport Commission."

For a moment, nobody said anything.

"Not another conspiracy," Ronnie said.

"Like I said, DIA is at the heart of a lot of conspiracy theories," Stephanie said. "There are some crazy ideas out there. But the buried buildings exist."

"You're sure the signals came from there," Nick said.

"Certain, yes. The buildings make a perfect underground bunker."

Elizabeth drummed her fingers on the table top. "It's time for us to get off this island," she said. "If they sent that signal to Alaska from DIA, that's where the control center for the weapon must be. We have to destroy it, and we have to do it without causing a lot of collateral damage."

"Let me make sure I understand you," Nick said. "You want us to find a way into secret bunkers under one of the busiest airports in the world. That's if we can get past whatever they've got for security without killing a lot of civilians. Then you want us to locate a hidden control center and blow it up. That about right?"

"Do you have a problem with that?"

Nick sighed and pulled on his ear. "We'll need equipment. Communications. Weapons, IDs, all that. DIA has a lot of security surveillance. We're going to need gear to jam it or take it out of commission."

"Langley could help," Stephanie said. "Hood isn't part of this."

"Two years ago I never would've thought of asking the CIA for anything," Elizabeth said. "It just shows how much things have changed. I can probably get Hood to give us what we need, but he needs plausible deniability. The less he knows, the better. Asking him to help us launch a raid against DIA might be a bit much."

Lamont started to laugh and broke into a fit of coughing.

"You gotta do something for that cough," Ronnie said.

"Yeah, I'm on it." Lamont held up a package of cough drops. "Menthol," he said. "Want one?"

Ronnie shook his head.

"Everyone agree it's time to go?" Nick said.

No one objected. "Let's get the boat loaded and get out of here." He turned to Selena. "What about this place?" He waved his hand in the air, taking in the house and the whole island. "With Emile gone, there's no one to look after it."

She brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. "I'll close everything up. When we get back to the mainland, I'll get somebody out here. It will be fine until then."

Lamont began coughing. He ate a cough drop.

Nick went around the house with Selena, helping her close the storm shutters. They latched the last one into place.

"That ought to do it," Nick said. "You ready for an ocean cruise?"

"I wish I could joke about it like you do," she said.

"It's the way I deal with the stress," he said.

"I know." She looked out at the ocean. "I've always loved this place," she said, "but it's different now. With Emile gone it won't be the same."

Nick took her hand. "I'm sorry about Emile," he said.

"I always thought that if I ever got married, I would come here on my honeymoon."

He kissed her. "There are plenty of islands we can go to for a honeymoon," he said, "but we probably ought to get married first."

"Jerk," she said. She was smiling.