Area 51: The Reply-2 (18 page)

Kelly stared at him. "What—" she began, but paused as Quinn suddenly leaned forward and began rapidly typing into his keyboard.

"Well, this is interesting. There's a live link be-

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ing picked up by the NSA involving STAAR," he said.

"From where?" Kelly asked.

He pointed up at the screen at the front of the room. "From Aurora." An electronic map of China appeared. A small flashing light on the wall screen sped across the overlay of the western edge of China, heading toward the safety of the ocean with surprising speed.

Kelly knew that Aurora was the top-of-the-line spy plane that the Air Force had, the successor to the SR-71.

"Data is being downlinked from Aurora to Scorpion Station," Quinn added. "I'm intercepting a copy. Maybe we'll learn something."

Inside the STAAR command center deep under the ice, the woman who had run the organization for the past twenty-two years sat in a deep leather chair, looking at the various display screens that ran across the length of the front of the center. When she had to make contact with those in Washington or elsewhere, she had the ST-8 clearance that could get her whatever she wanted, no questions asked, and she was known only by her code name: Lexina.

She'd been picked by her predecessor for her intelligence, her loyalty, and above all her willingness to exile herself to Scorpion Station and never leave.

She considered herself a soldier. A soldier who, like all soldiers, wished always for peace in her time but constantly prepared for the alternative and was willing to give her all if that alternative did occur.

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"What is the status of Dr. Duncan?" Lexina asked.

"Airborne," Elek, her chief of staff, answered. In STAAR the code name was the only way one identified oneself or addressed another. "Should be landing in Korea in less than an hour."

"Who is on the ground waiting for them?" she asked. STAAR kept an active network of only twenty agents around the world. Add in the five members who ran Scorpion Base and they were an extremely small organization, which further added to their ability to maintain a veil of secrecy.

"Zandra is ready to meet the plane and brief them. Her cover is CIA," Elek said. "Turcotte knows her as CIA from the Rift Valley mission, so that works best."

The last was standard. STAAR used whichever government agency it saw fit as cover. Maintaining such covers had never caused trouble, due to their lack of intrusive activity over the years. Now Lexina saw trouble coming, but complaints from the CIA or NSA or any of the other alphabet-soup agencies were the least of her worries. She also knew it was just a matter of time before their initial veil of secrecy was pierced, but that didn't concern her either. They had a plan in place for that.

"What about intelligence?" she asked.

"We haven't heard anything out of China for—" Elek began, but Lexina cut him off.

"I know what we haven't heard. That's why we've authorized Duncan and her people to go in. How does it look for their mission?"

"We've got Aurora taking a look and gathering imagery," Elek said. He typed into his keyboard

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and one of the screens cleared. An electronic map of China appeared.

Shaped like a black manta ray, Aurora was cruising at forty thousand feet over China, at a speed of Mach 5. As it approached the target area, it slowed down to less than 2.5, still over two thousand miles an hours, but slow enough so that the reconnaissance probe could be deployed.

In the backseat the RSO, reconnaissance systems officer, made sure all the systems were ready, then he activated them as they passed the target area.

"Anything on the HF or SATCOM frequencies we were told to monitor?" the pilot asked.

"Negative."

"I wonder who the hell is down there," the pilot said. "You couldn't pay me to be on the ground in China these days."

The RSO noted a red light flash on the left of his console.

"We've got missile launches," he told the pilot. "I have what we came for.

Pod's coming in. Get us out of here."

"Roger." The pilot kicked in the afterburners. Both men were slammed back against their specially designed seats as the plane more than doubled its speed in less than fifteen seconds, leaving the missiles fired by the Chinese military well behind, the guidance systems electronically wondering where the target they had locked on to had gone.

"Downloading data," the RSO said as the red

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light went out and the Pacific Ocean rapidly approached.

The data went through a scrambler and the garbled transmission was recorded onto a digital disk. The disk then played forward at two thousand times normal speed, bursting the message to an orbiting satellite. That satellite bounced the message to a sister satellite farther west and down to South Korea, where Zandra waited, the data also forwarded to Scorpion Base and intercepted by the NSA and sent to Major Quinn in the Cube.

"I've got a copy of the data," Quinn announced.

"Is it going anywhere else other than Antarctica?" Kelly Reynolds asked.

"A copy is being forwarded to Osan Air Force Base in South Korea," Quinn said.

"Looking through it, there seems to be mainly imagery of western China."

"Osan is where Turcotte and Nabinger are being briefed," Kelly said.

"I don't get it," Quinn said. "Who's handling their operation? I thought it was CIA."

"If you don't know," Kelly said, "I for one don't know. But this may mean that whoever is in Osan waiting for them isn't CIA but connected to STAAR."

"It's a possibility," Quinn agreed. "But whoever's there, they're obviously getting the best possible intelligence for the mission."

"What's the political situation in China?" Kelly asked. She felt very uneasy in the closed confines of the Cube, so far underground. Everything here 178

represented what she hated, and this intrigue about the mission into China was causing her to teeter on the verge of despair.

"CNN has the best coverage," Quinn said as he turned one of the front screens to the news network. A reporter was standing in front of a modern building in Hong Kong as people hurried in the streets behind him. Ever since Hong Kong had been turned over to the Chinese government it had existed as a strange netherworld between the rest of the world and the government in Beijing. Any news that managed to get out of China came out of the small former colony like this reporter's best guesses as to what was happening on the mainland:

“There have been unconfirmed reports that elements of the Twenty-sixth Army have moved into positions around the city of Beijing. Whether these reports are true is not known, nor is it known whether the government will use these troops in an attempt to abort this movement that has been going on for the past week.

''So far things in the capital have been calm, but there are vague reports of fighting in the countryside, especially in the Western Provinces, where ethnic and religious groups have long chafed under the heavy hand of the Chinese government.

''There have even been unconfirmed reports that commandos from the Taiwanese army have been operating on the mainland, helping to foment the unrest.

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“We have also been informed that we have twelve hours to leave the country or face arrest. Xenophobia is sweeping the Revolutionary Council and China is closing its borders to the outside world.”

“This will be our last broadcast as-”

"Nothing from the CIA or NSA?" Kelly asked as Quinn turned the volume down.

"Some troop movements. The Twenty-sixth Army is indeed being moved in near the capitol. The PLA is doing a shell game, moving units away from where they were conscripted and putting them where they'll be more likely to shoot at the locale populace if ordered to do so."

"And the Taiwanese?" Kelly asked.

"According to the CIA the Recce Commandos, part of the Taiwanese special forces, have infiltrated several teams into mainland China to do exactly as the reporter said. And China is closing off from the rest of the world." Quinn looked up from his computer screen. "Do you think this site in China is important?"

"I don't know," Kelly said. "Turcotte and Nabinger did, and obviously whoever is pulling strings from Antarctica thinks it is. I just wonder who is who here and what their motives are."

"Well, whoever this STAAR is, they sure have a lot of power," Quinn noted.

"We need to keep an eye on things in case Turcotte and the others need help."

Kelly knew that Quinn would give her information, but he would not help her try to stop the mission.

"Already on top of that."

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"What about the person from STAAR who took over your bouncer?" Kelly asked.

Quinn shrugged. "She seems to be waiting." "For what?" "Your guess is as good as mine."

The duty officer for the 1st Special Operations Squadron (1st SOS), home-based out of Okinawa, looked up as the secure SATCOM terminal machine nestled in the corner hummed with an incoming message. He put down his book and went over to the machine. After five seconds the humming stopped and the message was spit out. The man's eyes widened as he read the message.

CLASSIFIED: TOP SECRET ST-8

ROUTING: FLASH

TO: CDR 1ST SOS/ 1ST SOW/ MSG 01

FROM: NATIONAL COMMAND AUTHORITY VIA

CIA

SUBJ: ALERT/TANGO SIERRA/AUTH CODE:

ST-8

REQ: ONE MC-130

DEST: OSAN AFB/ROK

TIME: ASAP

POINT OF CONTACT: CODE NAME ZANDRA, CIA

END: TBD

CLASSIFIED: TOP SECRET ST-8

The duty officer grabbed the phone and punched in the number for the commander's quarters.

"That's Qian-Ling," Nabinger said, tapping a satellite photo that showed a large mountain. He

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was looking at the satellite and thermal imagery tacked to hastily erected plywood bulletin boards. The others followed him. They had landed at Osan less than ten minutes ago and an Air Force major had immediately escorted them into this hangar, past the armed guards standing next to the door, and then left them alone.

Turcotte peered at it. "Big target area. How do we find Che Lu and get into it?"

They all turned as the door slid slightly open and a figure stepped in. "Fancy meeting you here," Turcotte said as he recognized the tall, slender form.

"Captain Turcotte, Dr. Duncan, we've met," the woman said. She turned to the other person. "Professor Nabinger, my name, as far as you are concerned, is Zandra."

Nabinger raised a bushy eyebrow. "Greek?"

"It's just a code name," Zandra said, a bit taken aback. She gestured around the room. "We have all the information we can gather about Qian-Ling here for your use, including imagery from Aurora."

"What's the plan?" Turcotte asked.

"This is the launch site, and I will be your FOB commander," Zandra began, only to be interrupted by Duncan.

"You are going to have to speak English here. Launch site for who and what is an FOB?"

"An FOB is a forward operating base," Turcotte explained. "In Special Forces it's the headquarters with operational control of deployed elements." He indicated his two comrades. "Are we to be the deployed element?"

Zandra shook her head. "You will have a Spe-

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cial Forces split A-team accompanying you, Captain. And only you are going."

"Split A-team?" Duncan asked.

"An A-team has twelve men on it," Turcotte said. "A split team is six men, with each specialty: weapons, demolition, medical, and communications; represented by one man, plus a commander and intelligence expert."

"I'm going too." Nabinger stepped forward.

Zandra shook her head. "Captain Turcotte can relay back via digital video any information they find in Qian-Ling or get from Professor Che Lu. You're too valuable to—"

"I'm going or you're not getting my assistance."

Zandra stared at him for a few seconds. "It's the tomb, isn't it? Can't pass up the opportunity?" She didn't wait for a reply. "Fine. You can go."

"And I'm staying here with you," Duncan said, earning herself a sidelong look from Zandra.

"Where's the split team?" Turcotte asked, feeling more comfortable knowing that he would have six men with him who were part of his Green Beret brotherhood.

"Already isolated next door. They've been planning since they were alerted,"

Zandra said. "They don't know the actual objective, just where you are going and that they are to get you in and out in one piece."

"Does that mean alive?" Nabinger asked.

"That would be beneficial to mission accomplishment," Zandra said without the slightest crack of a smile.

"How are we getting there?" Turcotte asked.

"MC-130. The plane is en route from Oki-

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nawa," Zandra said. "It's the quickest and safest way in."

Turcotte turned to Nabinger. "Have you ever parachuted?"

Nabinger's eyes got wide. "Wait a second! Parachuting?"

For the first time there was some amusement in Zandra's eyes. "You want to see the tomb, you jump. Don't worry, at five hundred feet it's just falling off the back ramp of the plane. The static line will open the chute and then you land."

Turcotte looked at the woman more closely. "This doesn't give us much time.

We'll be going in tonight."

"That should not be a problem. The team has been doing your mission planning for you. They'll be briefing back shortly. You just go for the ride and to discover whatever Airlia artifacts, if any, are in Qian-Ling. You try to make contact with Che Lu and find out what she knows. Then you come home." Zandra turned toward the satellite imagery. "By the way, we believe that Che Lu and her party have been sealed inside the tomb by the PLA, so you can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak."

"Stop," Che Lu ordered, although the command was unnecessary, for once she stopped her slow and careful steps along the tunnel, the students all froze behind her.

"Turn off the light," she ordered, and Ki complied.

They were bathed in blackness. Che Lu blinked, and peered down the tunnel.

"There," she said,