Unbeknownst to Mike and the others, a late model, tan-colored Toyota sedan with four white male passengers slipped into the stream of traffic behind the Suburban. The occupants of the tan-colored sedan sat with quiet intensity. They uttered nothing as their driver expertly followed the three-vehicle caravan north on West Street over the pot-holed roadway.
Mike’s caravan, followed by its uninvited hanger-on, rolled into the Holland Tunnel, still in its perennial repair and reconstruction phase, the missing ceiling tiles looking for all the world like an elongated crossword puzzle. Minutes later the caravan emerged in New Jersey and then connected to the New Jersey Turnpike extension.
After they passed Newark Airport, Mike settled back for the drive to the Naval Facilities Command in the southern part of New Jersey.
From the briefcase lying on her lap, Margaret took out a red metallic folder with diagonal stripes of yellow and black. The top of the folder was marked: “Level One — Top Secret; Project Watch.”
Before handing the folder to Mike, Margaret took out a gray metallic box from her briefcase. The box, about the size of a cigar box, was activated when Margaret encoded a short alphanumeric sequence on the keypad. She handed the box to Mike as she quietly slipped her other hand underneath the briefcase. Mike looked into the glass eyepiece on the box; a quick burst of white light startled him, causing him to blink once. Instantaneously, the circuitry in the gray metal box had compared at least thirty reference points in a library identification file against the image of the blood vessels lining Mike’s retina.
Mike then took his right thumb and pressed it onto the glass plate next to the eyepiece. In a similar fashion, the image of Mike’s thumb was electronically compared to approximately two dozen reference points on file copies of Mike’s fingerprints.
Finally, Margaret asked Mike to repeat: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country,” into the microphone of the gray box. Mike’s voice was compared to file copies of his voiceprint registered in the machine. The phrase randomly selected by Margaret was one of several contained in her duty instructions.
Mike would not, as a matter of security, know beforehand what he would have to repeat. By having Mike repeat the randomly selected phrase, which itself was specifically encoded at the moment of the test to the reference points in the voiceprint analysis algorithm, Margaret could be certain within a probability of one in sixteen billion that a proper identification had been made.
In less than one moment, the digital readout, seen only by Margaret, flashed the following: “Liu, Aloysius Xavier Kang Sheng, Commander U.S.N.R., DOB 12-20-43, Level One — XR2907.33.”
Without a change in facial expression, Margaret removed her hand from underneath the briefcase, leaving the Glock semi-automatic pistol on her lap — the pistol she would have had to use if any of the measurements had gone wrong.
When the voiceprint analysis was completed and proper identification established, the security box activated the folder release sequence.
Margaret ran the top edge of the red folder through the slot on the side of the gray box, rendering the folder’s explosive mechanism inoperative, and handed the folder to Mike, who put on his reading glasses and broke the metallic seal. The message:
NAVOPSCOM
CSAC
DIVCONOOD
Top Secret — Project Watch — CSAC Category XX
10 June 1993
To: Liu, A.X.K.S., Com., U.S.N.R.
From: McHugh, R.M., RADM, U.S.N., CO — CSAC
Activity noted Watch Stations 1, 2, 4. Time of activities CSAC Classified CSAC Category Need Only — Oral Only. Suspect messages being transmitted. Encoding in progress. No activity Watch Station 3. Watch Officer activating RECOM procedure.
You have been activated pursuant to CSAC Directive Number 1. TDY Newport News, Virginia. Report immediately to Watch Station 1. Advise CSAC CNet ETA.
Situated just west of Interstate Route 95, the United States Naval Facilities Command looked like a battleship that had stranded itself in a cornfield. The superstructure of the building was designed to resemble the command deck of a naval vessel. Despite the rather open nature of its outward appearance, observable daily by thousands of commuters going south on I-95, the building was a highly secure facility. McHugh designated the facility as a safe point to pick up Mike.
The gray caravan turned off I-95 and turned on to State Route 1 and proceeded north. Finally, the cars reached the rather nondescript access road to the facility. A prominent sign by the side of the road stated simply, “Private Road — Do Not Enter.”
The three vehicle caravan sped down the dirt road, a traveling dust cloud following each car. Mike was glad the air-conditioning in the Lincoln Town Car enabled him to keep the car window shut and spare him from having to breathe the gritty air.
The car radio crackled.
“Sir, a strange car followed us onto the access road.”
“Unit Three, check out the car and report back immediately. Probably some dumb tourist,” said the Marine Lieutenant in the lead sedan. “NAVFAC security, we have uninvited guests.”
“Roger. Intercept and identify.”
The dark metallic gray Suburban slowed to a stop, blocking the Toyota sedan that had turned onto the private road.
A Marine private got out of the Suburban and walked cautiously back to the strange sedan. A second Marine stood at the right rear corner of the Suburban with his AR-15 assault rifle at the ready. As the first Marine approached the driver’s side of the sedan, the driver rolled down the window.
The Marine said, “Sir, can I help you? This is a private road.”
The driver of the car stared at the young Marine and without a comment took out his Colt auto pistol and held it to the face of the Marine. “Get that truck out of my way, asshole.”
He pulled the trigger, its loud report heard by the occupants of the two sedans already far down the private road. The young Marine took the full force of the .45 caliber slug in his face. The power of the bullet flung his body into the underbrush lining the road. Softened by his years on Wall Street, Mike flinched visibly at the clatter of gunfire. However, he quickly recovered his composure, hoping for the world that Margaret had not noticed.
The second Marine instinctively aimed his AR-15 assault rifle at the occupants of the sedan and opened fire, as did the Marines inside the Suburban. The four occupants of the sedan jumped out as the fuel tank exploded, engulfing the car in flames. They dove into the brush, returning small arms fire with an assortment of Uzi’s and other automatic rifles.
The four attackers succumbed quickly to the superior firepower of the Marines in the Suburban and the attack was over before it had even begun in earnest. The Marine guards checked the four bullet-ridden bodies in the brush alongside the narrow dirt road. They found no identification. The sedan would later prove to have been stolen.
As the drivers of the other two vehicles accelerated down the road, the Marine Lieutenant radioed the Navy installation that the Suburban was under attack. Mike sat quietly in the second car, knowing that there was little that he could do at the moment. Mike had been an agent of CSAC long enough to know that in this shadowy world anything could happen. What was troubling was that the Sentinels were a closely guarded secret at CSAC and no one should have known why Mike was being taken to NAVFAC, or even, for that matter that he was being taken anywhere. The entire episode was illogical.
He turned to Margaret. “What do you make of that, Chief?”