“I got a phone call from one of my contacts at the airport. He told me that Mongolian soldiers raided our hangar. Everything we left behind has been taken,” explained Yuri. “Someone must have put two and two together and tipped off the authorities to arrest us on sight.”
“What’s the game plan now?”
“I have a Chinese friend who lives just across the border. He owes me a favor or two. I contacted him and told him to have a plane waiting for me.”
Mitchell shook his head. Yuri seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of shady characters who seemed to owe him favors. He sat back in his seat. He could feel the adrenaline begin to fade from his body, quickly replaced by a deep fatigue that threatened to overwhelm his tired body. He was about to fall asleep when he thought of Atsuko standing there in the hangar. There was no doubt anymore. She was a willing participant in whatever was going on. Borrowing Yuri’s cell phone, Mitchell made a quick call.
Sam and Cardinal might be headed home, but he had unfinished business, and he intended to discover what Cypher and Atsuko were up to and put an end to it — no matter the cost.
31
Phillip Farragut pulled his cap back on his head and then slowly made his way down the newly installed metal staircase that descended over one hundred meters into the earth. The old wooden staircase would have creaked and wobbled from side to side with each step as if it were about to collapse after fifty years of neglect. Close behind him were two people, a man and a woman, both Asian. They were dressed casually in blue jeans with loose-fitting shirts and comfortable hiking boots on their feet. Farragut, closing in on seventy, was dressed as he was most days in his faded coveralls and a blue, grease-stained ball cap perched far back on his head. He had been tinkering on an old 1977 Mustang Cobra when his guests arrived at his farm and right away asked to see the cavern.
Found at the turn of the last century when Farragut’s grandfather had been looking for oil, the cavern had formed millions of years ago when an underground river had eroded away the limestone, creating the massive cave. Numerous tunnels branched off in all directions, some going for miles. No one really knew how far the tunnels went, since no one in his family had ever been bothered to spend the time exploring the maze of tunnels that meandered under their farmland. Nicknamed The Dome by Farragut’s grandmother, she always thought that it resembled a domed cathedral, the kind you saw in old books on Rome. The cave was breathtaking. Long stalactites hung from the roof, while thick columns of stalagmites reached up from the floor. In the center of The Dome sat a small pond, its water a glistening jade-green color under the powerful lights installed all around the interior of the cave.
His family had never really bothered with the cavern. Unlike other natural caves spread throughout Texas, it had never been developed into a tourist attraction. In the late 1960s there had been some interest shown in the cavern by the University of Houston. Used on and off for the next decade, during the summer months, gangs of paleontology students would descend upon the cavern to look for fossils. Their efforts unfortunately proved mostly fruitless. After a while, the university, looking to cut costs, abandoned the project, leaving the cavern in silence until about a year ago when, out of the blue, a couple claiming to represent a major movie studio showed up on the front door and asked to see the cavern. They said that they represented a film producer from Hong Kong scouting a suitable location to film a horror story set in an old cavern in the United States. Farragut was eager enough to show them about, especially when they offered to pay him for his time. Never married, he lived on a paltry pension. Paid a thousand dollars a day just to show the people and their growing team of experts around, Farragut couldn’t believe the money he was making.
About two weeks ago, a group of men arrived at the farm after dark and soon set to work replacing the old staircase and building what looked to Farragut like an old-fashioned oil derrick inside The Dome. When he asked about the derrick, the woman had explained that it was simply a prop to be used in the opening of the film. He knew nothing about the movie business and took her word for it. Besides, who was he to object? They were paying him well to use his land. With the money he was making, he could easily afford to fix up a couple more of his vintage cars sitting under dust-covered tarps in his barn.
When he stepped off the stairs onto the cool, rocky floor of the cave, Farragut waited for his guests. He could see about a dozen men, all Asian, busy working on what he assumed were more props to be used during the filming of the movie. The sound of saws cutting wood and hammers pounding away filled the vast cavern.
“It’s always so nice and cool down here,” said the woman, with a warm smile on her pretty face. She had introduced herself as Jane Tam and explained that she was the liaison representative between some of the movie’s silent backers and the film studio. Farragut was good at placing a person by their accent and pegged hers as Southern Californian.
The man with her rarely said a word and when he did, he spoke exclusively to Jane in Chinese. Farragut had long forgotten his name. He only dealt with Jane Tam and he liked it that way. The man was cold and officious. Hardly what Farragut had expected from a movie producer. The ones he had seen on TV always seemed to be full of life.
“Is there anything in particular you wish to see today?” Farragut asked Jane.
“No thank you, Mister Farragut,” pleasantly replied Jane. “Mister Wu just wanted to see how things were progressing down here.”
“It all looks good to me, but then I’m not in the film business like you folks.”
Jane smiled and then led Wu toward a couple of men working on top of the derrick. Wu called up to the men, who waved back, pointed to something they were welding in place, and then got back to work.
“How come you hired Koreans to build your set?” asked Farragut.
Jane turned her head. For a brief second, her eyes betrayed surprise. With a practiced smile on her face, she looked into Farragut’s weathered face, and said, “Pardon me?”
“Your men, they all speak Korean, not Chinese. I may not be a linguist, but I know that Mister Wu just spoke to those men up on the derrick in Korean.”
Jane smiled. “You have an ear for languages, Mister Farragut.”
Removing his ball cap, Farragut ran a hand through his thick, silver hair. “I served in the navy during Nam, spent my whole time in the Pacific. When we pulled into port, it was always good to know a couple of phrases in the local language just in case you bumped into a lady, if you know what I mean,” said Farragut, trying not to sound too crass. “Can’t speak a word of any of ’em anymore, but I can still tell the difference between ’em.”
“Well, it just goes to show you how much the world has become interconnected these days. Anonymous donors in China and the States are financing this movie. The producer, Mister Wu, comes from Hong Kong, while the director, whom you have yet to meet, is from Europe. We put the labor requirements out to tender and a South Korean company had the best bid, so we hired them to work on the film.”
“Sure is a small world these days.”
“It sure is, Mister Farragut. I hope as per our signed non-disclosure agreement that you haven’t told a soul about what is going on here.”
“No, Miss, I have not. As far as I am concerned, what happens on my farmland is of no concern to anyone else.”
Jane smiled and laid a manicured hand on Farragut’s shoulder. “Tonight after dark, more laborers will be arriving to speed up work on the set. I asked them to arrive sometime after ten to avoid prying eyes. The last thing the studio wants or needs right now is a swarm of reporters poking their noses around trying to see what is going on.”