The Athena Project

CHAPTER 60

FORT BRAGG

FAYETTEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA

ONE WEEK LATER

Thanks to Luka Mikhailov, it took the local authorities in Premantura two entire days to respond to complaints of an enormous gun battle at Armen Abressian’s compound. When they arrived, they didn’t find much.

There were bullet-scarred walls, signs of explosions, and even a few small fires still smoldering, but that was it. There wasn’t a single corpse anywhere. In fact, there wasn’t much of anything. It was as if the entire place had been cleaned out, which was exactly what had happened.

After the F-16s made two strafing runs, Casey and her team returned to the compound. While Mikhailov and his men secured the entrance, the women swept through, searching for any survivors. They found several, all scientists who had been working on the project and who had hidden themselves beneath their beds in the dormitory when the shooting and explosions had begun.

One of the scientists helped identify the bodies in the church as those of Thomas Sanders and the project’s lead scientist, George Cahill. Casey put Cooper and Rhodes in charge of guarding the EMP bombs and the Kammler Device. They were now property of the United States government and no one was to be allowed anywhere near them.

The scientists, aware of how much trouble they were in, cooperated and helped Casey and Ericsson locate all of the remaining data and documentation on the Kammler project. They admitted to having been hired by Sanders and knowing who Abressian was, but knew very little beyond that. None of them had any clue who Abressian might have been working for or who had funded the entire project.

From his office in D.C., Jack Walsh had coordinated a convoy of civilian trucks at the Bosnian border in the hope that the Kammler Device might indeed be inside the compound. Once he received confirmation, he gave the order for them to roll. They arrived three hours later. A military team in civilian clothes photographed and videotaped everything. Then they dismantled and loaded all of it, including the Kammler Device, into the trucks.

They took the scientists as well, and a final truck even collected the bodies of Abressian’s security detail. There had likely been some wounded security personnel at some point, but between the F-16s and Mikhailov’s revenge-fueled men, who had swept back into the compound, none of them would have stood a chance.

As quickly and as efficiently as the trucks and their teams had arrived, they departed. Casey, Cooper, Ericsson, and Rhodes slipped off into the night and disappeared as well.

The Department of Defense launched a full investigation into two U.S. F-16s on a training mission that had accidentally strayed into Croatian airspace and launched a single Hellfire missile. They apologized and promised that both flight crews would be punished severely.

In a small office back at Aviano, the crews of the F-16s were ordered to sign a series of top-secret nondisclosure documents and were all quietly promoted.

The CIA continued its investigation into Armen Abressian. Jack Walsh, though, received a surprising phone call from his colleague at the FBI, the same man who only days before had admitted to never having heard the name Armen Abressian before.

He informed Walsh about Ben Matthews, Dean Pence, and a woman named Victoria Suffolk. Pence, who had claimed to be working for Abressian, had been shot and killed by FBI agents as he raised his weapon to fire at them. Suffolk had also been shot, but she was expected to recover. The Bureau had already begun questioning her, but it appeared she knew nothing about Abressian. She believed she had been spying for the Russians.

Walsh had thanked his colleague and had asked him to keep him up to speed on whatever else the FBI learned. He also asked if Leslie Paxton and DARPA could have a look at the devices Suffolk wanted Ben Matthews to plant beneath Denver International. The FBI man agreed and said, “Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on beneath that airport, Jack?”

Walsh chuckled and told him that he had no idea, that it was too far above his pay grade. The FBI man doubted that, but he didn’t press for further details.

Once the Kammler Device had been secured, Leslie Paxton assembled a team and flew to Tuzla to examine it and debrief the scientists who had been apprehended. They seemed to have no idea of the scope of the research and development projects going on beneath Denver International Airport. All they knew was that based on his research, Professor Cahill believed that once he was able to get the Kammler Device functional, the United States had a device at DIA that could track and neutralize it. Therefore, they had intended to strike first.

Jack Walsh realized how lucky they had been. Had Pence and Suffolk been able to deliver targeting coordinates to Abressian, and had he managed to transmit even one of those EMP devices into the facility beneath Denver International Airport, it would have had immeasurable consequences for America’s high-tech weapons program. What’s more, there was no reason to believe that Abressian would have stopped there. It very likely would have been only the beginning. Those bombs and others would have begun appearing and detonating all across the United States.

Walsh hoped that with the strike on Abressian’s car in Croatia, his organization would be severely diminished, if not completely decapitated. The two questions he was unfortunately not going to get answered, with Abressian dead, were who he and his people had been working for, and how they had discovered the location of the Kammler facility in the first place.

While Jack didn’t know if it would produce any further intelligence, he had okayed Tracy Hastings to remain in Paraguay with Ryan Naylor. Naylor wanted to visit the present-day Nueva Germania colony to see what he could learn, and Tracy would be posing as his wife. The hope was that the colony women might be more comfortable chatting with another woman.

Rob Hutton discussed all of this information with his team over dinner at McKellar’s Lodge at Fort Bragg.

“What happened to Bianchi?” asked Ericsson as she cut another piece of steak. “We didn’t really make a deal with him, did we?”

“He’s still being debriefed.”

“It’s debriefed now, not interrogated?” commented Rhodes. “So we have made a deal with him.”

“Like I said, he’s still being debriefed.”

Cooper picked up the bottle of wine and topped off their wineglasses. “Which probably means Harvath has handed him over to someone else.”

Megan winked at Casey and then asked Hutton. “Yeah, where is Harvath now?”

“Well, that’s another thing we need to talk about. Something else has come up. There’s this island we’ve been hearing about near Burma-”

Gretchen raised her hand and put it almost right in Hutton’s face. “No way, Rob. No way,” she said. “The ghost of Armen Abressian could walk through that door right now and the only thing I’d want to know is what’s for dessert. So whatever you have, save it. My team and I are off the clock for a little while.”

“Amen,” said Rhodes, raising her glass.

“I’ll second that,” replied Ericsson.

“Me too,” threw in Cooper as she lifted her glass.

Casey joined them and said, “To the smartest, best-looking, hardest-working warriors I know.”

They all clinked glasses.

Casey then looked at their commanding officer and added, “And also to Rob.”

“And also to Rob,” they all agreed.

A silence fell over the table as they drank. Hutton was the first to break it. “You know there is one thing I need to ask,” he said.

They all looked at him. “Why has John Vlcek been calling me and leaving me six messages a day asking about Megan?”

The women laughed.

“Are you making fun of my man?” Rhodes joked. “’Cause we can take it outside right now, Rob. You say they word and it’s go time.”

Rob smiled. “You all did a really good job. I’m very proud of you.”

They smiled in return and thanked him for the compliment.

“That said,” he continued, “I really want to talk to you about Burma.”

“Why, Rob? What’s so important about Burma?” asked Casey.

Hutton set down his wineglass. “We think we have a lead on a group called the Amalgam. We think that might be who Abressian was working for.”

Casey took the wine bottle from Cooper and filled Hutton’s glass right to the rim.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” he asked.

Gretchen smiled, “If that’s what it’ll take to get you to give my girls a rest, then you’d better hand over your car keys now.”

Hutton relented. “All right, we don’t have to talk about this tonight. We can discuss it tomorrow.”

“Not too early, though,” replied Rhodes as she jabbed Ericsson and pointed at the bar.

“Why not?” asked Rob.

“Because Cooper may have a very late night tonight,” stated Ericsson.

Alex looked up at one of the men who had entered.

“Let me guess,” said Hutton. “Mr. Right has just walked in.”

Cooper took a big sip of wine and stood. “I don’t know about Mr. Right, but he definitely looks like he could be Mr. Right Now.”

Hutton shook his head and the ladies cheered for Alex as she squared her shoulders, put a smile on her face, and made a beeline for the bar.