The Orpheus Legacy

CHAPTER NINETEEN

As Chief of the Staff to the President of the United States, Joshua Muston was feeling like he had reached the pinnacle of a very long and slimy career. He had long forgotten how many people he had stabbed in the back and thrown under the bus to get where he was today, but none of that mattered now. It’s all about the ends and means to get there, as his father always told him.

Until recently, he had been happy enough with that philosophy, but watching Davis Faulkner holding court behind the Resolute Desk was starting to make him question some of the decisions he had made.

“Nervous, Josh?”

Startled, he looked up from his briefing notes to see President Faulkner staring at him. He had asked a question and now a room full of senior political aides and military personnel were waiting for an intelligent reply.

As nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, he thought.

“Sorry, sir?”

“You look nervous.”

“Not at all, sir.”

“Good. We don’t know what we’re going to find when we fully excavate the Citadel, but when we do I need people around me who can stay calm in a crisis,” he paused a beat and regarded his counsel, all glittering epaulets, shiny buttons and straight-faced men of war. “And keep their goddam mouths zipped up when the press start asking questions. Goddam internet.”

A chuckle.

“Of course, sir. You can count on me.”

But the truth was, could he? Muston’s heart had started to harbor strong doubts about just what Faulkner was doing with the presidency. There was an economy to pull out of the dirt, the immigration system was in disarray and crime in most cities was at an all-time high. And yet his boss spent most of his time dreaming about the Citadel and what they were going to find inside it or what it might lead to.

The Oracle was dead, and the Special Ops team they had sent out there had wiped out most of his cult. Those who survived had been scattered to the furthest corners of the world like dead leaves, hiding in the shadows with prices on their heads. More worrying were the reports of the strange white-robed guardians who had streamed into the battle out of nowhere and fought hard in defense of the ancient place.

No one seemed to know anything about them. He guessed that was what occupied Faulkner’s mind most of the day. Truth was, it occupied his most of the day too, but he guessed for very different reasons. He didn’t know what Faulkner was chasing, but he was pretty sure it was damned ugly and twice as dangerous.

“General Vance,” Faulkner boomed, “how are our guests on Tartarus?”

“I spoke with General Patterson earlier today, Mr President. Our new guests are settling in just fine.”

As a ripple of grim laughter moved around the Oval Office, Muston gave a fake smile and pretended to be one of the boys. The arrest and incarceration of the former president and his daughter was also weighing hard on his conscience. At first, he had welcomed the decision to take Brooke down and as hard and fast as possible, but now the job was done he was starting to feel differently. He looked down at his hands and saw innocent blood and he didn’t like it.

Vance pushed back on the cream sofa, US Army service cap resting upside down in his lap and thick, sausage fingers tapping on his knees. “In regard to the guests, what are your orders, sir?”

“We need evidence, General Vance. I need evidence from those prisoners the way a drowning man needs a life preserver.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And we need that evidence to make the treason charges stick like glue, you reading me?”

“Yes, sir, Mr President. What are your orders?”

“McGee and the daughter. I want them interrogated. I think the girl will break first and give us what we need.”

“I’ll call Patterson.”

Faulkner nodded, pleased with the progress they were making. “Have Jack Brooke made aware of what’s going on. I know that son of a bitch. You could torture him until the sun becomes a red giant and he’ll never talk.” As he spoke, Muston thought he heard a few ounces of respect creep into the President’s voice. “He was in Delta Force, and never forget that. However, his kryptonite is the daughter. Just like any father, he won’t stand for anything raining down on her. You let him know it can stop anytime he chooses to confess to his crimes.”

Raining down on her. Muston felt his stomach turning over. Was Faulkner really ordering the torture of the President’s disabled daughter?

Vance seemed less concerned and spoke up with a solid, gravelly voice. “I’ll make the call immediately, sir.”

“And this place is impregnable, right?”

Vance gave a short, professional nod. “Without official sanction, there is no way in and no way out of Tartarus Base. Most people don’t even know where it is. It’s not on any maps, paper or digital and any references to it on the internet are cleaned within seconds.”

“But what concerns me, General,” Faulkner said quietly. “Is the human factor.”

“Sir?”

“You said most people don’t know where it is, but clearly some people know. How many?”

“The base has a skeleton crew of Special Ops under the command of General Patterson and then there are half a dozen people in the CIA, half a dozen in the NSA and the people in this room.”

The President gave a reluctant nod. “Less than one hundred?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What about the pilots who fly there?”

“They’re included in the Special Ops men who work on the base. All ARSOAC men.”

“ARSOAC?” Muston asked.

Vance disguised his sneer. “Army Special Operations Aviation Command, Mr Muston.”

Muston made a note. He couldn’t be expected to know every last detail of the entire US military infrastructure, but he could see Vance had enjoyed showing him up.

“The ARSOAC men number four — two rotating air crews who all live on the base and fly out to complete their missions before returning again.”

Faulkner nodded and turned to Wilson Murphy of the CIA.

“I want an update on the international terror group known as ECHO.”

The CIA man looked down at his briefing notes, flicking a few pages to get to the right section. “They were last seen in the Citadel during the fire fight with the Special Ops team. After that I had US Air Force Space Command re-task satellites and track them west across the Zagros Mountains and into northern Iraq. We lost them on the Iraqi-Turkish border.”

Faulkner leaned forward and fixed his eyes on Murphy. “You lost them?”

Murphy returned the stare, unfazed. “They might officially be a terror group, Mr President, but they also happen to be pretty much the best Special Ops team in the world right now. The range of skills across the team is impressive, and yes, we lost them. But we’ll find them again. You were in the CIA a long time, sir. You know how this works.”

Faulkner wasn’t placated. “I know how it works if they find Tartarus, Wilson. If they find Tartarus then we’re looking at one great big fucking hornet’s nest the likes of which we have never seen before.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please tell me you at least have a vague idea where they are.”

He nodded and one corner of his mouth turned up with a shade of doubt. “We think they’re en route to Crete right now, but they might have already moved on. I have a special task force on this, Mr President. They can run but they can’t hide. Not from us.”

“What assets have we got out there?”

“The USS Abraham Lincoln is in the eastern Med as we speak. The Captain’s running a number of V-22 Ospreys on search patterns all over that part of the world. They’re as good as dead, sir.”

Faulkner gave a distracted nod. “And what about Agent Cougar?”

“She’s on their tail, too. She checked in a few hours ago.”

“Where is she?”

He shrugged. “No one knows.”

“No one knows?”

“That’s how she works. It’s why she’s so good at what she does.”

“But she’s on it?”

A nod.

“Good.” Faulkner now leaned forward and dropped his cigar down in the ashtray. A column of pungent blue smoke twisted up in front of his lined face.

“Listen very carefully to me, all of you. The ECHO team are just as Mr Murphy here describes. The Chinese assassin is as ruthless as they come and probably the greatest practitioner of martial arts on the planet. The French legionnaire is a force of nature of his own making and has mercenary contacts all over the world. The English SAS officer is even more dangerous. She could shoot the diamond off an ace card while doing a backwards somersault. The nerd can hack any system he chooses and to call him a polymath is an understatement.”

In the silence he had created, he lifted his cigar and leaned back in his chair. “The Irish woman, Donovan — there’s something motivating that woman that scares even me. She is the driving force at the heart of ECHO and she just won’t stay down.” He sucked on the cigar and savored the smoke. “And as for Hawke, that son of a bitch has more grit than a snowplough. Ladies and gentlemen, we underestimate ECHO at our peril.”

Murphy broke the silence. “We’ll get them, sir.”

Faulkner spun around in his leather chair and stared out across the sunny lawn. Raising the cigar to his mouth he spoke only one word.

“Dismissed.”