Origin (6 page)

Adams sat on the bed opposite Lynn and listened. She had already explained how they had found a body in the ice, possibly as much as forty thousand years old but with clothing and equipment that posed a variety of extremely puzzling questions. He sipped a glass of water as she told him how the team of army engineers had descended on the glacier and extracted the body, before evacuating everyone by helicopter.

He had questions building up – too numerous to count – but didn’t want to interrupt before Lynn had finished. She was clearly relieved to be getting it all out in the open, to have someone to speak to at last about her ordeal.

‘I saw the blinking lights, and just started screaming for everyone to get out of there,’ Lynn continued. ‘And then, I don’t know why, I just reacted, I yanked open the pilot side door and jumped.’ Her voice choked up with emotion. ‘It exploded while I was still in mid-air, the flames touching me before I hit the water.’

Her face reddened as tears ran down her cheeks. ‘I couldn’t save any of them!’ she blurted, and Adams crossed to her bed, holding her in his arms as her body wracked with sobs. ‘Oh Matt, I should’ve tried to get them out! But I didn’t, I just jumped, and saved myself, and all the rest are dead! They’re all dead!’

Adams just held her tight as she collapsed into him. He could tell her how she did the right thing, how she would be dead too now if she had stayed to help the others, how nobody would have survived anyway, but he knew that these were just empty platitudes. Lynn was an exceptionally gifted woman, the brightest he had ever known. There was nothing he could tell her that her logical brain would not have already convinced her of. The fact was, she had done the only thing she could have done, and he knew she would come to terms with that sooner or later, no matter what he said.

And so he just held her, and let her cry.

‘It was a fishing trawler that found me,’ she continued later on, Adams still by her side on the bed, holding her hand. ‘They’d seen the explosion. I was bobbing around in the water like a tenpin, my backpack keeping me afloat. When the crew pulled me out, I was near hypothermic, unconscious, and in shock. They took me back to shore, off the coast of southern Chile, radioed in the crash, and got me medical attention. When I finally came to, and realized where I was, I panicked. I begged the doctor to release me, and cover up the fact I’d ever been there. I told him a modified version of what had happened, told him I was scared for my life. And I was – if the crash was recorded, and it was mentioned that there was a survivor, I knew they would come for me. I was – and still am – in no doubt that the explosion on the helicopter was an execution. That body is important to someone, that’s for damned sure.’

Adams considered the fact that he had further proof of that – the intercepted email, the attempt to force information from him – but decided to let her finish her own story before confirming her suspicions with a tale of his own.

‘The doctor agreed, even gave me some money to help me on my way. I was on the mainland by the next day, which is where I sent the message to you. I didn’t know what else to do, I didn’t know who I could trust. I mean, it was the head of NASA I’d called with news of the discovery, so who else could I go to? Now maybe NASA are in on it, maybe not – maybe the message was intercepted, some other group got involved, who knows? Maybe the engineers weren’t even from the army. All I know is that someone wants to kill anyone who had any knowledge of that body.’

Lynn looked into Adams’ eyes and squeezed his hand tighter. ‘I didn’t even know if you’d believe it. I saw the news reports, how I’d been reported dead in the “accident”. I prayed that it would get to you, that you’d believe it. I couldn’t call, couldn’t risk the fact that they could trace it. I sent the email encoded, via a few cut-off routes to lose its origin. If you hadn’t turned up within the next few days, I would’ve tried to leave the country by myself. I still have my passport, but I don’t want to use it – I’m sure they’ll be looking for me at the airports.’

If four armed men hadn’t just tried to beat information about Lynn’s whereabouts out of him, Adams would have thought her paranoid. But it would certainly appear that there
were
people out to get her, and they had been able to intercept the email. He hoped that was as far as they had got.

Lynn looked up again into his eyes. ‘Do you believe me?’

He stared back at her, melting in the green limpid pools of her eyes. ‘I believe you.’ He held her tight, kissed her cheek. ‘I believe you.’

Stephen Jacobs poked at the logs burning in the vast fireplace, feeling rather than seeing when Commander Flynn Eldridge entered the living room.

Eldridge, a former commander of the US Navy’s SEAL Team Six, was now in charge of an even more clandestine group. Known as the Alpha Brigade, it operated out of the Nevada desert, on the direct orders of the organization headed by Stephen Jacobs. The group consisted purely of ex-military special forces operatives, pulled in from the SEALs, the Marine Force Recon, the Green Berets, the Delta Force, and from the Air Force Special Forces. They were a private army, not operating on government orders but able to exist above the law due to the protection given to them by Jacobs’ organization.

Eldridge loved every minute of it – no congressional oversight, nobody breathing down his neck, no ridiculously restrictive rules of engagement – and the only thing that mattered to Jacobs was results. Eldridge was therefore given carte blanche in his operations, as long as he got the job done, a fact that appealed immensely to his ruthless, aggressive nature. If he needed information from someone, he could torture them. If he needed to make a point for someone, he could execute the person next to them.

He was the king of his own little world, a world of hired mercenary killers, one which he dominated through sheer force of will. Sometimes he thought he was in danger of becoming like the US Army Special Forces men sent into the jungles of Laos and Cambodia to train up the guerrilla forces that ‘went native’ during the Vietnam War, men who were treated like gods by the tribal people, and who lost all sense of reality. But he always reigned himself back in when he felt it was getting to that stage – after all, he was a professional. Ruthless, fearsome, merciless, but a professional nevertheless.

But as he entered the large, mahogany-panelled living room of Jacobs’ vast mansion house on Washington’s Potomac River, Eldridge was all too aware of his recent failings. First, he had failed to make sure everyone aboard the helicopter was dead back in the Antarctic. Second, a team of his men had seriously underestimated the survivor’s ex-husband, Matt Adams. Now Adams was undoubtedly going to rendezvous with Edwards, and then – who knew?

‘Sir,’ Eldridge announced, standing to attention behind the old man.

Jacobs continued to prod the fire, causing embers to fall, to ignite the dead areas and feed the flames. ‘Good evening,’ he said eventually, without turning round. He continued to stoke the fire for a few more minutes, Eldridge growing more and more uncomfortable with every passing second.

Finally, Jacobs turned round and locked eyes with the special forces commander. ‘I am sure you understand how our organization responds to failure.’

Eldridge nodded, having executed several men himself who had been deemed to be unworthy of the group’s standards.

‘How secure are you feeling right now?’ Jacobs asked directly.

Eldridge adjusted his position uncomfortably. He was not used to being on the receiving end of threats. ‘I need another chance, sir,’ he answered. ‘I’ll get them.’

Jacobs smiled, reassured by the strength of Eldridge’s conviction. He wasn’t sure if it was the threat of execution or the thought of the coming reward if everything went according to plan that gave the big man such convincing self-belief. Either way, Jacobs believed him.

‘Good. The fact is, we need to find these two characters, and we need to find them fast.’

Eldridge nodded his head. ‘Do we have any leads?’

For the first time that night, Jacobs smiled. ‘As a matter of fact, we do.’

‘I
T’S SO STRANGE,’
Lynn said, holding a fresh cup of coffee in her hands.

‘What’s that?’ Adams asked, sweat starting to bead on his forehead. He had managed to sleep for a few hours on board the plane, before the nightmares woke him, but was now unable to do so again. And perversely, now his body had been rewarded with sleep, instead of being satiated, it just craved even more.

‘The other helicopter,’ Lynn answered straight away. ‘I’ve been checking a few things out since I’ve been here, and it just seems to have vanished – no flight plans filed, no record of a take-off, no record of it ever having landed. Maybe I’m just looking in the wrong places, but it seems to have never even existed.’

‘Sounds military,’ Adams said, thinking about the recent visit to his house by what seemed to be government agents. ‘Probably linked to the intelligence services.’

Lynn nodded her head. ‘That’s what I thought,’ she continued. ‘But why? I mean, why would they be doing it?’

‘I guess the reason they’d give would be national security, but who really knows? It could be rogue elements, it could be anything. The one thing that
is
clear is that they’re ruthless.’ Adams pointed at the backpack. ‘And that evidence you’ve got in there is our only potential bargaining chip.’

Adams stretched out, thinking about what was in the bag. High-definition footage of the burial site, measurements, notes, diagrams and, most importantly, DNA samples of the body itself.

‘If we’re going to get out of this, we have to learn more about that body – who it is, what it was doing there, and why it’s so damned important.’ He considered the matter further. ‘We need to get back to the US and get those samples tested, get the rest of the evidence copied and spread around. Like insurance.’

Lynn nodded, knowing he was right. All of a sudden, she was extremely glad she had sent the email to Matt. He was always so sure, so strong. And despite her own strengths, she had felt so lost here, stranded and alone against the vast machine of the US government, or whoever it was that was after her.

She felt unfamiliar feelings in her gut, ones she had not felt since – well, since the last time she had been with Matt, she finally admitted to herself. Was it the stress? Or were the feelings real?

As she lay back on her bed and closed her eyes, giving in to the need for sleep, she had no answer.

Later that night, she awoke in a cold sweat, nightmares from the helicopter crash swamping her unconscious, disturbing her inner demons.

And then Matt was there with her, holding her close, whispering in her ear that she would be OK, everything would be all right.

He climbed in next to her, arms around her, and as she felt his strong embrace, she knew that he was right.

Eldridge smiled to himself as the aeroplane shot through the thin air of near-space at over four thousand miles per hour, one hundred thousand feet above the earth.

The Aurora stealth aircraft was a secret military project many thought was still years from completion, although it was in reality already mission-ready. Powered by a radical new pulse detonation wave engine, it could reach speeds once thought impossible. From the airstrip at Groom Lake in the Nevada desert to the skies above Santiago would take less than an hour.

The only unfortunate thing, Eldridge reflected as he checked the harness on his chute, was that the aircraft wouldn’t be able to land – the risk of people seeing it was just too great. Instead it would take the lesser risk of slowing down and reducing altitude so that he could parachute out of it once it had reached its destination.

Eldridge was no stranger to parachute drops and was looking forward to liaising with his team. There were six members of the Alpha Brigade already on the ground in Santiago, who had been searching for Lynn Edwards in Punta Arenas since the email had been sent. More of his team would join them later; at the moment they were being recalled from other operations, and tasked to Eldridge in Santiago. They would have to travel by more conventional, slower aircraft, but they would be there by late the next morning.

And then the hunt would begin in earnest.

Jacobs rubbed his chin in contemplation as he relaxed in his private sauna. Sweat dripped from every square inch of his body, pooling on the Scandinavian pine-wood floor, and he breathed in deeply, then exhaled, expanding his chest.

The information had come in unexpectedly and had to be acted on fast, and he was pleased he had managed to arrange for the Aurora to get Eldridge there quickly.

Once there, Eldridge would capture Matt Adams and Lynn Edwards, and arrange for the pair to be delivered covertly to the base in Nevada for interrogation. It would be tidier if Adams and Lynn could just be taken out, executed on the spot, but it was vital that Jacobs knew what had been going on for the past week – who else Lynn had told, who
they
had told, ad infinitum until the situation was entirely contained.

And that was a definite possibility, now that the pair’s location had been determined. Computer power had defined a possible area that Lynn could have reached since the crash, taking into account various factors such as data from ports, airports, train stations and bus depots, credit card use, availability of cash, use of passport, feeds from CCTV units, and basic triangulation algorithms.

This area was then cross-referenced with every available scrap of information about the past lives of Matt Adams and Evelyn Edwards, and further computer searches had finally found a seventeen-year-old credit card bill for two train tickets from Lynn’s family home in Maine down to Mexico. Time-consuming manual labour had at last unearthed the circuitous route through South America taken by the young couple, and card purchases along the way provided further confirmation that it had in fact been Lynn and Adams who were the travellers.

Once the data was cross-checked, the triangulation zone matched almost perfectly with the couple’s prior visit to Santiago, Chile. It made perfect sense, too – Lynn could easily have gone that far north in the time available, without having to cross any borders, and it would be easy to get lost in a city of five million people.