The Athena Project

CHAPTER 15

DENVER, COLORADO

She’s not going to screw up,” said Ben Matthews, as he and his partner, Dean Pence, sat in a dark blue Mazda in a parking garage downtown. “She’s a professional.”

Pence was fifteen years Ben’s senior, with black hair graying at the temples. They were discussing Victoria Suffolk.

“Really?” replied Pence. “Supposedly, so were those Russian spies the Bureau caught in New York.”

Matthews nodded. Pence had been at the FBI a lot longer than he had. If anyone knew how the espionage game was played, it was Pence. In fact, this entire operation had been his idea.

Neither of them really knew what the government had built beneath Denver’s sprawling international airport. All they were certain of was that it had attracted a lot of attention from foreign intelligence agencies.

Matthews figured that it probably served as some sort of continuity-of-government facility, a place the United States could evacuate members of Congress and other key political figures to if there was ever a major threat to the nation. Of course, they’d have to have enough advance knowledge to get them from D.C. to Denver, but that didn’t seem impossible.

Pence, though, disagreed with him. He figured it was some sort of modernized command-and-control structure meant to replace North American Aerospace Defense Command’s operations in the aging Cheyenne Mountain Complex. What better place to coordinate the nation’s air defense from, than an airport? he had asked.

Whatever the U.S. government or the U.S. military was doing beneath Denver International, they certainly had gone to interesting lengths to camouflage it.

Matthews could remember visiting the once top-secret congressional fallout shelter beneath the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia. In the late 1950s, at the behest of the U.S. government, the Greenbrier had built an entirely new wing to disguise the massive excavations needed to construct the bunker. The public had absolutely no knowledge of its existence until an investigative reporter, acting on an alleged tip, blew the lid off of the program in the mid-1990s.

But for some reason, the powers-that-be behind Denver International had taken a completely different approach.

In February 1995, despite massive protests, the city of Denver closed its previous airport, Stapleton International, and opened the brand-new Denver International, or DIA, as it was commonly called. It was the largest international airport in the United States and was allegedly built to allow Denver to step into the future, yet with fewer gates and fewer runways, the new airport actually had reduced capacity.

It was built in a severe high-wind area that often forced the delay and cancellation of flights. Originally budgeted at $1.5 billion, by the time it was completed, the price tag had risen to $5.3 billion. Some said that was due to incompetence. Others said it was by design.

Despite the fact that the fifty-three-square-mile site was perfectly flat, great effort was made to raise some areas and lower others. When all was said and done, over 110 million cubic yards of earth had been moved, the equivalent of one-third of the earth moved for the Panama Canal.

The construction had begun with five unusual buildings built below grade. As soon as they were completed, they were deemed to have been built incorrectly. But instead of being demolished or retrofitted, the buildings were simply buried.

There were up to eight levels of sub-basements beneath the airport itself and almost ninety miles of tunnels, many large enough to drive semi trucks through. Air vents and exchangers could be seen popping up from the ground at even the most remote, barren corners of the enormous property.

Surrounding the entire fifty-three square miles was a continuous barbed-wire fence. But the barbed wire was not angled out, as it was at other airports. It was angled in. And things only get odder from there.

Satellite imagery showed that the runways had been laid out in a rough swastika pattern.

Inside the airport were two enormous, highly disturbing murals, which many claimed to be a manifesto hidden in plain sight.

In the first mural was a Nazi soldier wearing a gas mask with dead women and children scattered around him. In the second, a city burned in the background as Third World populations died and a handful of the elite, in specially sealed containers, were saved from the raging apocalypse. Had Ben not seen these murals for himself, he never would have believed they existed. They were right there, out in the open for anyone traveling through the airport to see.

Embedded in the floor near the murals were the letters Au Ag, which was the abbreviation for the deadly toxin Australian Antigen. In other places bizarre acronyms like DZIT, DIT, and GAII appeared.

Then there was the granite cornerstone in the main terminal, supposedly laid by the Freemasons and packed with Masonic symbolism. Engraved upon it were the words “New World Airport Commission,” despite the fact that there was no record of any such commission ever having existed. Ben had researched for himself.

Mysterious electromagnetic pulse phenomena supposedly had cracked airplane windshields and caused people to fall ill. Fifteen acres of Teflon-coated radar and infrared-signature-resistant woven fiberglass covered the roof. The queen of England and other elites were rumored to be snapping up real estate around DIA, while contractors and construction workers had been allowed to work only for short periods on the project before being replaced, allegedly so that they didn’t grasp the scope of what they were working on.

Throw in what appeared to be open-air elevator shafts big enough to swallow 747s, along with a terrifying thirty-two-foot-high statue of a rearing blue horse with glowing red eyes that airport officials claimed was necessary to ward off evil spirits, and you had a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream.

It was almost too much in Matthews’s eyes, which was exactly what made him suspect that was the government’s intent. So many crackpot theories had exploded around DIA that every single one of them was laughed off by anyone with half a brain. Little green men could walk out of baggage claim and hail a cab, and the whole thing could be reported on the front page of the Denver Post, complete with photos, and not a single sane person would believe it.

It reminded him of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Purloined Letter” in which a stolen letter, packed with sensitive information, is hidden right in plain sight. In Ben’s estimation, whoever was responsible for what was happening beneath Denver International was either absolutely nuts, or incredibly brilliant. Though he was unaccustomed to attributing brilliance to the government, he had a feeling in this case that it might be merited.

Which brought Ben back to what he and his partner were doing right now. When Vicki Suffolk had become known to the Denver FBI field office, courtesy of one of Pence’s local informants, the elder FBI man had suggested they try to flip her, to double her back against the Russians. The SAC, or special agent in charge, a woman by the name of Carole Mumford, hadn’t been so keen. She didn’t want her career tarnished by greenlighting some elaborate op against nothing more than another Facebook-obsessed, low-level Russian Mata Hari. The spy ring the Bureau had recently rolled up in New York was an embarrassment, both for Russia and America. Permission for Pence’s op was denied. Permission to surveil the subject, though, was authorized, and Pence and Matthews had been given the job.

Over the course of their surveillance, they had learned very little about Victoria Suffolk. All they knew was that she was interested in Denver International Airport.

That was enough for Pence. His gut told him that there was something special about this case; something big. He felt certain it was going to make both of their careers. Mumford, though, didn’t see it that way. She remained unwilling to allocate further resources to Victoria Suffolk unless Pence and Matthews could bring her something substantive. This left the two FBI agents in a difficult position.

They had been approved only to surveil Suffolk, nothing else, but the surveillance wasn’t producing. After three weeks, Pence sold Matthews on expanding their efforts by putting some teeth into what they were doing. That’s when they began pushing the envelope. And as many people who fall from lofty heights eventually realize, the sins begin small, but from little sins, bigger sins soon grow.

Pence was the one who had bugged her apartment and her car without a warrant and without the FBI’s approval. But from that, they learned that Suffolk was looking to place someone in DIA. That was why Matthews had studied up on all the conspiracy theories surrounding it. Pence had a pretty good feeling that if they dangled Ben in front of her, she’d take the bait, which was exactly what she had done.

Warrantless eavesdropping was the first of Dean Pence’s sins. Ben Matthews’s sins began when he first took Suffolk to bed. She had made so many advances, he was worried she was getting suspicious. He told himself that if he didn’t sleep with her, it might blow the entire operation. It was a lie and he knew it, but he couldn’t help himself.

Not only did he know it was wrong, he also knew what Pence would do to him if he confessed, so he lied to his partner as well. This entire operation felt cursed, and part of him wished that he had never met Victoria Suffolk.

Dean Pence looked at his watch. “If she can lead us to her handler, there could be a whole network of Russian spies we could take down.”

Once again, Ben shook his head and repeated. “I’m telling you, she’s good. I don’t think she’s going to make that kind of mistake.”

Their meeting was pretty much over. If Matthews was going to get out to DIA in time for his shift, he had to get going.

After an uncomfortable pause, Pence said, “Ben, I need to ask you something.”

Ben was now looking at his own watch. “What is it?”

“Are you having sex with her?”

“Who?” replied Matthews. “Suffolk?”

“Who else?”

Ben looked his partner right in the eyes. “I am not having sex with Victoria Suffolk.”

“Not that anyone would blame you,” said Pence. “She’s extremely good-looking.”

“Dean,” Ben insisted. “I’m not having sex with her. Okay?”

“You’d tell me if you were, right?”

“Of course I would.”

Pence shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe this is a bad idea. You’re still raw from your divorce. Dropping you into a situation like this isn’t fair.”

The elder FBI agent was right. It wasn’t fair. Ben’s divorce had been beyond messy. His ex had kicked him in the teeth so hard and so many times it was a wonder he didn’t need to eat all of his meals through a straw.

His wife had been the one who cheated, but throughout the bitter, scorched-earth proceedings, she had blamed all the problems in the marriage on Ben.

All things considered, was he vulnerable? Absolutely, but divorce or no divorce, there weren’t many men who could say no to a woman like Victoria Suffolk. The fact that Ben Matthews hadn’t even caught as much as a second look from a halfway attractive woman in the eight months since his divorce had begun to nudge him dangerously close to the desperate column.

Women like Suffolk didn’t happen to men like Ben Matthews, at least that was what he believed. Sleeping with her was wrong on multiple levels and he knew it. It was something that had been bothering him more and more. Nevertheless, he had yet to find the strength to bring it to a halt.

Determined to shield himself and the relationship from criticism by Pence, Ben lied a final time. “I’m not having sex with that woman.”

His partner studied him. “That’s almost believable,” he joked. “Wag your finger and say it like Bill Clinton this time.”

“I’m going to be late for work,” replied Matthews as he opened the door and stepped out of the car.

Pence put the Mazda in reverse and followed him. Rolling down the passenger window, he said, “Ben, for what it’s worth, I do believe you.”

“You don’t sound like it,” replied Matthews as he pulled his keys from his pocket and unlocked his truck.

“You’re a big boy, Ben. You can make your own decisions. Just be careful, okay?” cautioned the elder FBI agent. “I’ve got a bad feeling that Victoria Suffolk is going to turn out to be a very dangerous woman.”