The phone went dead. Foreman would have smiled but for the current state of affairs; he'd tried to get to the President for the last twenty-five years but had been blocked at each turn by Bancroft and other muddle-headed bureaucrats like him, none of whom had believed the threat. Well, now it was here.
A figure silently appeared to his right. Foreman’s voice was barely above a whisper as he spoke to the woman. “Sin Fen.”
The woman was striking, both for her height and beauty. She was six feet tall with oriental features. Jet-black hair framed high cheekbones above which almond shaped dark eyes were focused on the man in the chair. “Michelet will be landing at the airport in two hours,” she said.
“Dane?” the man asked.
“He boarded the plane in America. It would be logical to assume he is still on board.”
“Can you sense him yet?” Foreman asked
“He is coming,” Sin Fen said. “I feel him getting stronger.”
“And the others?”
“The others here or the others that went there?” the woman asked cryptically but Foreman understood.
“Here.”
“I have eyes watching them. I believe they will act to stop Michelet before he even gets started.”
“And those who went into Cambodia?”
“As you predicted. Which is why the elder Michelet has brought Dane.”
“Do you have any data on their disappearance?” he asked.
“A rescue team coordinated by a man named Lucian who represents the Michelet interests in this city crossed the Thai-Cambodia border within three hours of the Lady Gayle going down,” Sin Fen said. “The team was on board a CH-53 helicopter.” Her eyes looked past Foreman at the papers taped to the glass. “Once the helicopter crossed the Gate boundary all contact with it ceased. There have been no reports since.”
Foreman quickly updated Sin Fen on what had happened to Bright Eye. Her face betrayed no emotion as to how she felt about the news. As he finished, the fax machine next to him spewed out several pieces of paper.
Foreman picked up the top sheet and looked at it. It appeared that Bright Eye had worked, if only for a short period. He squinted at the paper, making sense of what it showed, then held it out to Sin Fen. “At least we have a location for the Lady Gayle.”
Sin Fen looked at the paper, then up at Foreman. “Most strange, the plane.”
“An understatement,” Foreman said.
“There must be a specific reason why this was done to the aircraft,” she held up the imagery.
“That's exactly what I'm afraid of,” Foreman said.
“Should I give it to Michelet?”
“At the appropriate time,” Foreman said.
He picked up the other paper. He closed his eyes briefly, then handed it across to her.
“Where is this?” Sin Fen asked.
“Bermuda Triangle Gate,” Foreman said. “The Bermuda Triangle.”
“It is activating once more,” she said, a statement, not a question.
Foreman nodded. More paper was coming out of the machine. Foreman looked at each piece, then at her. “We've got disturbances at eight of the Gates. Not an open Gate yet at any of them, but give it more time at the rate it's going and they are going to open. Two near the States. Some near populated areas.”
“How can that be happening?” she asked.
“I don't know, but we have to find out.”
“You might wish to inform your Mister Bancroft,” Sin Fen said.
“I will. I think we have his attention now. Or rather I should say that Angkor Gate has his attention now.”
“What will you do about those other places?” she asked.
“My primary concern is Bermuda Triangle Gate near Miami. I’ll move some forces near the area to be ready, but since we really don’t know what we’re facing, it’s difficult to know exactly what our response should be. I’m hoping we can get some of those answers out of Angkor Gate.”
“What about the Devil’s Sea Gate?” Sin Fen asked. “How are the Japanese reacting?”
“Intelligence reports indicate the Japanese are dispatching several submarines and ships to the area to stand by. I’ve been in contact with Professor Nagoya and we are prepared to exchange any information we acquire.”
“The Russians?”
“They are monitoring their two known Gates. At Chernobyl, naturally, they can only work remotely. And at Lake Baikal they are deploying their on-site survey team. I am in contact with them also but I think they will be less forthcoming than Nagoya if they discover anything.” Foreman grimaced. “The old ways die hard. There are too many suspicions and by the time we work together, it might be too late.” The woman turned to go, but he spoke again. “Sin Fen.”
She paused, her body still, only her head turning so that she could see him out of the corner of her eye. “Yes, Mister Foreman?”
“Stay close to them.”
“Yes, Mister Foreman.”
He held up the papers. “There’s not much time.”
“No, Mister Foreman, there is not.”
“Sin Fen,” he said once more halting her. “I think this is the beginning of mankind's worst nightmares and we are the only ones who know it.”
Sin Fen nodded. “But remember, too, how little we know.”
“That is what really frightens me.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Any idea who the spy is?” Ariana asked in a low voice. Ingram had been deciphering data for over an hour.
“No,” he said. “Once it hits the GPS satellite, the signal goes everywhere. Anyone with a GPR anywhere on the planet can receive it if they know what to look for.”
“What about the message? Wouldn't that make our data accessible to everyone?”
“Like I said, someone's got to look for the piggyback. And then the data's encoded. It would be gibberish to anyone else who doesn't know the code or the original data to match against the code. That's the only way I was able to figure it out. It's a really smart method.”
“Any ideas?”
“Most likely Hie-Tech,” Ingram said. “They've got the technology and they've got the money to get access to the GPS transmitter.”
“Great,” Ariana muttered. “Just what we need. Could Hie-Tech have sabotaged the flight?”
Ingram shook his head. “That wouldn't be too smart if they had a spy on board. I'd assume they'd want their spy back. Plus they have nothing to gain by sabotaging us this way. They would want the data as much as we did. Remember, we went down before we were directly over the target area.” He held up a disk. “We got maybe twenty-five percent of what we wanted.”
Ariana took the disk and slipped it into the vest pocket of her shirt. “Maybe the spy screwed up. Hie-Tech wanted the data but they wouldn’t want us to get the data. Maybe the spy cut it too close.”
They both looked down the body of the plane at the other members at their stations, illuminated by the dim red glow of the emergency lights, the glare of their computer screens and the golden glow emanating from the vicinity of Argus’s mainframe.
“The spy could be dead,” Ingram noted.
“Could be, but we don't know,” Ariana replied. “Any idea who'd have the expertise to do this type of messaging and encoding on our end?”
“Anyone with the proper training,” Ingram said. “And anyone who has access to the main computer could have put the message in.”
“Damn,” Ariana muttered. “That’s everyone.”
“They must have paid someone off at the NSA to get their messages piggybacked on the GPS signal,” Ingram noted.
“They could afford it,” Ariana said. “We paid forty million for this gear and several million in bribes to get it here. They could afford to spend quite a bit to steal our data after we do all the work.”