‘The only other way would be to access the base on foot. It is not secure in the conventional manner — it is too big to fence off entirely. But there are armed patrols, called “cammo dudes” due to their camouflage uniforms. They are actually part of a private security firm, and are authorized to use deadly force on anyone crazy enough to trespass. The whole area is littered with body-heat sensors too, so it would be very hard to move through undetected.
‘And even if one of us managed to penetrate the security and get on to the base, we have no idea of the internal layout of the place. Some internet sites have put up satellite photos of the overall layout, and others have taken photographs with telephoto lenses from the nearby mountains, but what is inside is simply not known. I mean, there’s a reason it’s the world’s most secretive military installation. So all we have to go on are rumours. One such rumour is that there are up to ten levels to the base below ground. If there is even just the possibility that this is true, where would we start? Finding anything in such a huge place would be next to impossible. Another rumour is that there are seven hangars, with concealed doors hidden in the side of a mountain at Papoose Lake ten miles to the south of Area 51. So the chances of finding out anything of use — if we even managed to get in there in the first place — would be next to zero, and the chances of being caught, arrested, and probably killed would be exceedingly high.’
Adams nodded his head in agreement.
‘What else do we have?’ Lynn asked.
‘Stephen Jacobs,’ Adams answered, reading Ayita’s thoughts. ‘You’ve looked into him?’
Ayita nodded his head. ‘We have. Sam?’
‘He lives in a colonial mansion near Washington,’ Stephenfield explained. ‘Right on the Potomac, next door to Mason Neck State Park near Colchester, about twenty miles south-west of the city proper. You’ve read his dossier?’
Adams and Lynn both nodded their heads. In the limited time Stephenfield and his contacts had had available, he had not only written a briefing paper on the Bilderberg Group itself but had also collated biographical details on the organization’s steering committee.
‘So you’ll know he was a DC bigwig, and obviously still holds a lot of sway in town. Can’t really find out too much about him before the age of thirty, but since then he seems to have literally skyrocketed through the ranks of both military and civilian intelligence. He likes to be where the action is, so even though he’s retired, he’s kept close to the capital. Makes sense. As head of the Bilderberg Group, he’ll want to be dialled in to everything.’
‘And we know something about this house?’ Adams asked.
Stephenfield smiled. ‘Almost everything. We’ve got the original building plans from the civic authorities, as well as internal schematics which include various security updates, and we’ve checked with the security firms that installed them and got further details. The place isn’t military, and so we also have the latest satellite images of the place, in high definition.’
Stephenfield took out a sheaf of papers, blueprints, maps and glossy photographs, and spread them out on an old, battered card table placed in the middle of the office.
He pointed to one of the satellite photographs first, which showed Jacobs’ house and grounds. ‘You see the house here,’ he said, gesturing at the huge, double-winged mansion. ‘It’s close to the edge of a cliff that descends two hundred feet to the Potomac River, set back on a lawn of about one hundred feet in length. At the other side of the house, the driveway runs almost a mile from the access road gates to the front door. And these woods that the road cuts through and that spread out for about a mile on either side? They’re all his, giving him about two square miles of land, or about twelve hundred acres.’
‘That’s a hell of a lot so close to the capital,’ Lynn observed.
‘You’ve seen what he’s worth,’ Adams commented. ‘What was it, two billion dollars? He can afford it.’
Stephenfield nodded. ‘Yes, and that’s a conservative estimate.’
Adams looked up at Stephenfield and Ayita. ‘So what’s the plan?’
Ayita spoke plainly. ‘Our resources are limited, obviously. There are the twelve of us,’ he said, referring to the unit of ex-Shadow Wolves, ‘and we are also using other colleagues from the tribes. Some of our people are tracking Tony Kern already, and we’ve put two men in position near to Jacobs’ house. They are members of the Mattaponi tribe in Virginia, brothers of Great Spirit.’
Thomas ‘Great Spirit’ Najana was relatively new to the team, but Adams trusted Ayita’s judgement, and he had no trouble with outsourcing to the man’s family — blood ties were the strongest kind of reassurance.
‘We are also sending others to run surveillance on the other American on the committee, Harold Weissmuller,’ Ayita continued. ‘He is up in San Francisco, but we should have him by dawn.’
Weissmuller was another billionaire, a businessman who had made his fortune from oil but who had then branched out into any and every field he could, from arms sales to media ownership.
‘And the others?’ Adams asked.
‘The other members are beyond our reach for the time being,’ Stephenfield admitted. ‘They are from all over the world, and hard for us to gain access to. We’re trying to arrange some sort of remote electronic surveillance, though. Pretty soon, we should have a good idea of what they’re up to.’
Adams looked directly at Ayita. ‘I want to meet up with Thomas in DC.’
Lynn looked across at Adams, then back to Ayita. ‘Me too,’ she said, aware that her ex-husband would be less than happy at the suggestion.
‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ Adams interjected immediately. ‘You’re not used to surveillance operations, and someone really needs to stay here and wait for those lab results, and—’
Lynn held up a hand to silence him. ‘Stephen Jacobs sent the men who killed eight of my friends,’ she said. ‘I want to be there.’
Adams was about to protest further when Ayita raised his own hand. ‘Thomas is waiting for you already,’ he said, turning to Lynn and smiling. ‘Both of you.’
Adams looked up and rolled his eyes, pointedly ignoring Lynn’s own triumphant smile.
5
The large mahogany desk was swamped with papers, and Stephen Jacobs sat behind it with a large glass of cognac. There were twenty-three names on his list, and he had to decide on one of them soon.
Normally such selections were made at the annual Bilderberg Group meetings, and indeed up until last night they had their full complement of one hundred individuals, as agreed all those years ago. But last night one of the ‘Bilderberg Hundred’ had been hit by a car and killed instantly, which left a small gap that had to be filled.
He hoped when the offer was made, it would be accepted. Nine times out of ten they were; the people approached were carefully vetted, and their acceptance was virtually guaranteed. The promise of near immortality and undreamt-of power was the sort of thing that was not in the nature of such people to refuse.
But over the years, there had been some who had refused, who had demonstrated what could only be termed horror at the group’s real plans, as if the sacrifice of human life was something abhorrent. In the main it was, of course; but for something so incredible, such sacrifice was nothing.
But the fact remained that there were the odd refuseniks, people who subsequently had to be dealt with by Eldridge and his Alpha Brigade. It was not that Jacobs regretted the killing of such people; rather, it was that if a selected candidate subsequently refused, they would have to waste time selecting another in their place. And with the device just about ready, time was something that they were quickly running out of.