“Was it a nuclear bomb?”
“Heavens, no! Thank God that the Imperial Japanese Army never built one of those horrid weapons. I’m not really sure what it was, but it was deemed to be a high priority by Unit 881 right up until the end of the war. All of the other projects smuggled out of Nazi Germany like jet engines, wire-guided missiles, and those enormous V2 rockets were all abandoned as being impractical, but not Tanaka’s project.”
“Did they ever test it?”
“No, I don’t believe so. They were having problems getting it to work. For its time, it was quite a complicated piece of machinery.”
“So what happened?”
“Fortune smiled upon me. One day, while driving back to base, I was in an accident and broke both my arms and my jaw.”
“That doesn’t sound like good luck.”
“With my jaw wired shut, I was of no use to Professor Tanaka anymore, so I was shipped home on the second-to-last flight to leave the island before the Soviets arrived.”
“So what happened after you arrived back home?”
“I was drafted by the allied powers to work as a translator. I worked with them for several years before being allowed to immigrate to America. Part of the arrangement in resettling me here in Vermont was that I was never allowed to speak with anyone about Unit 881, and I haven’t; until today, that is.”
Jen reached over and squeezed Joe’s hand. “I don’t know how I can ever repay you for the information that you have given me today.”
With a sad smile on his face, Joe said, “Once you don’t need those pieces of paper in your hands anymore, promise me that you’ll destroy them. Like a dragon, the past does not need to be awoken. Only misery and death can follow.”
“I promise that the instant they’re no longer needed I will personally destroy them.”
Joe said, “Jen, all this talk of the past is like re-visiting a tragic event long suppressed and hidden away in the back of my mind. I need some fresh air.”
Taking his arm, Jen led him outside. The sun hung high in the sky, its heat warmed Jen’s face as she looked out over the lake.
“Jen, do you think your friends will go to Matua Island to try to find out what the Russian scientists were building?”
“I don’t know, but if the trail they are following leads them there, then I highly suspect that they will. Something very dangerous is going on and the answer may lay hidden in one of the tunnels under the island.”
Joe placed his hand over Jen’s and looked up into her warm brown eyes. “Tell them to be careful.”
“I will. They’re professionals; they know what they are doing.”
“That may be so, Miss March, but when I was injured, they were wiring the place. The tunnels are filled with booby traps.”
Jen’s stomach dropped. A feeling of helplessness overwhelmed her. She turned her head to the sky and wondered what Mitchell was doing. Whatever it was, she prayed that he was safe.
27
Green light bathed the world below.
Mitchell pulled slightly on his right-hand toggle and felt his parachute gently turn to the right. The wind moving across the darkened desert wasn’t very strong, but it still had to be compensated for as Mitchell and Jackson neared their landing zone on top of the main building in the compound.
They had jumped from their MI-2 helicopter at just over two-thousand meters, deployed their steerable parachutes and begun the descent.
Yuri had obtained what he could on such short notice. The parachutes, weapons, radio gear and SWAT-style blue uniforms were easy to buy; however, decent night-vision gear had presented him with a challenge until a contact managed to ‘obtain’ some from a Russian military helicopter parked on the runway.
The top of the main building looked like a large black rectangle from above that grew larger by the second. Four stories high and the length of a football field, Mitchell knew that there would be no problem landing on it. The unknown variable was if they had surveillance cameras located on the roof. If so, they would be spotted the instant they landed. Hedging his bets that the security was designed to look out into the desert and not at the top of the complex’s buildings, Mitchell prepared to land.
A Master Jumper with almost one hundred jumps to his name, Mitchell was a rookie compared to Jackson, who had been jumping from planes when he was still in high school. A fact that he rubbed in every chance that he could.
With seconds to go, Mitchell took a deep breath and waited until he was a couple of meters from the rooftop. He pulled down on both toggles, and felt his forward movement stall. A second later, his feet touched down. He ran forward for a couple of meters before coming to a complete stop. He turned about and quickly pulled in his parachute harness toward him, collapsing his parachute. Mitchell looked about and was relieved to see that aside from himself, the rooftop was empty.
With the practiced skill of an accomplished jumper, Jackson stalled his chute and touched down on the roof as easily as if he had been stepping down off the last rung of a ladder. Like Mitchell, he collapsed his chute and hurried to pack it away. Removing his parachute harness, Jackson jammed his parachute back into his backpack.
Mitchell drew his Styr tactical machine pistol from its holster and quickly screwed on a suppressor. He was hoping to avoid firing on anyone, but if he had to, he didn’t want the whole world to know. He keyed his throat-mic. “Package has arrived.” Mitchell let Yuri know that they had landed. Acknowledging the call, Yuri headed farther out into the night to find a safe place to land and wait for further instructions from Mitchell.
“Okay, I have their signal,” said Jackson barely above a whisper. In his hand was a small, portable tracking device.
“Come on, let’s get to work,” replied Mitchell as he led Jackson to a closed doorway on the side of the roof.
Mitchell wasn’t surprised to find it locked.
Jackson dug out a skeleton key from his pocket. Within a couple of seconds, the door was unlocked. Peering inside, Jackson saw a couple of beat-up old lockers resting beside a set of stairs that led down. Quickly pulling his NVGs off his head, Jackson, with his machine pistol held straight out, stepped inside. He took a quick look over the railing and saw that they were alone.
Mitchell pulled open one of the lockers. It was partially filled with cleaning supplies.
“In here,” said Mitchell to Jackson as he jammed his parachute harness and NVGs into the locker.
With a grunt on his lips, Jackson threw his gear inside and forced the locker door closed.
Mitchell dug out a ball cap from his pocket and placed it on his head. “How do I look?”
“Like a tall, white guy in a blue uniform,” replied Jackson.
“Well, then we’ll both stand out as I doubt there are too many non-Mongolians on the payroll.”
Mitchell was hoping that anyone they ran into would see the uniform first before they realized that the man wearing it didn’t belong there. It was that split-second hesitation that he was relying on to help them gain the upper hand.
“I’ll lead. You tell me where to go,” said Mitchell as he began to climb down the stairs.
As they moved down the stairwell, Mitchell and Jackson weren’t surprised to see that the complex descended well below the ground. They had expected a basement floor or two but were taken aback when the stairs seemed to go on forever into the dark and changed from newly installed metal ones to much older cement ones.
“I think we just stumbled on an old Soviet installation,” said Mitchell over his shoulder. “It doesn’t look like they use these older floors very much.”