Jacobs supposed it wouldn’t be the end of the world if they didn’t get one hundred people; after all, it would hardly affect him. But it was in his nature to deal and bargain and negotiate, and when he had been in the early stages of his negotiations with the group — who referred to themselves as the Anunnaki — he had been offered the survival of just the steering committee.
Jacobs put down the dossier he was reading and chuckled to himself. The first offer had been basic survival, and for just twelve people. By the time Jacobs had finished, he had negotiated for one hundred people and the conferring of equal status and powers as the Anunnaki themselves.
He wanted the extra people not only to make a point to the Anunnaki that they couldn’t dictate terms to him, but also because the more like-minded people he had behind him, the more secure was his own position. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his partners — although it was true that he didn’t do so entirely — it was just that his long decades of practical experience had taught him that the more people you had in your corner, the better. If the Anunnaki were to try something, he would rather have ninety-nine capable people with him than eleven.
The whole thing was a gamble, of course; the Anunnaki might well renege on their deal, and he and his people might well end up dead, along with the rest of the world’s population. But if he hadn’t said yes all those years ago, somebody else would have, and he would have eventually been killed anyway. At least this way, at the forefront of the mission, there was the very real possibility of the big reward, and rewards truly came no greater than what had been finally negotiated.
Jacobs took a sip of his cognac and picked the dossier back up from the desk, when the voice came into his head, crystal clear as always.
He looked across the room to the metal box by the door, one of the machines built out at Area 51 according to the specifications of the Anunnaki.
‘How are preparations?’ he heard the voice say in his head, and he wondered at this ‘voice’ as he always did. It was not a voice in the normal sense of accent, tone and inflection; instead the words appeared directly in his brain, fully formed, almost like thoughts of his own.
‘Good,’ he said out loud. ‘The device is almost complete.’
‘When can we expect it to be operational?’
‘One week from now,’ Jacobs said with confidence. ‘And then we will meet properly for the first time.’
The journey to DC took less time than expected. Adams had figured they would have to use roads rather than fly, due to the need to avoid airport or any other kind of security. This would have taken about two days, though, and he was relieved to find that Ayita had his own helicopter, kept round the back of the warehouse. Lynn, however, was less sanguine about boarding another helicopter. Adams had seen the fear in her eyes, but her resolve soon overcome her wariness — the time they would save would be well worth going up in the air again. At least this chopper wouldn’t be stolen, or flown by remote control.
Ayita flew the helicopter himself, stopping for fuel only once at a friendly airstrip in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. He finally landed just outside Fredericksville, well short of DC airspace. There, a nondescript Toyota sedan was waiting for them, and Adams and Lynn transferred quickly to the car, while Ayita refuelled once more and made his preparations to return to their home base, to monitor everyone’s activities from a central point.
An hour later, the pair had arrived at Potomac Plaza Shopping Centre in Woodbridge, where one of Najana’s three brothers met them. They left the sedan in the parking lot, and joined Ben Najana in his large SUV.
After introductions, Adams got straight to the point before the 4x4 had even pulled on to the main road.
‘So what have you found out so far?’ he asked.
‘Security’s good, man,’ Ben said seriously. ‘Better than the schematics we had. We’ve had a quick recon but didn’t want to go in too far. The woods connect up to Mason Neck State Park and look to have some sort of body-heat sensors strung out between the trees. Cliff access looks impossible due to the breakers below — you couldn’t even get close to the cliff base even if it wasn’t under surveillance, which it is. The driveway is patrolled by guards and dogs, as is the lawn which backs up on to the cliffs.’
‘Anything else?’ Adams asked.
‘The security guards are good. We estimate about a dozen of them, plus a couple of personal bodyguards. All good, professional people, the kind you’re not gonna find sleeping on the job.’
‘The dogs,’ Adams asked next, ‘what kind are they?’
‘Doberman Pinschers, well-trained. There are four canine teams, one security guard with two dogs in each. They run alternate routes, swapping teams for both the driveway and the lawns.’
‘OK. Where are you based now?’
‘Camping up in the park. We’ve tried to approach the fence to his property a couple of times during the night, but it’s a bitch to get over.’
Adams nodded his head. ‘OK, let’s get to the camp and we’ll see if we can come up with a plan.’
6
By nightfall, the plan had been drawn up and rehearsed, and everyone was ready.
Lynn looked at Adams, her eyes displaying all sorts of emotions — fear, concern, belief, love — and Adams willed her to trust him. He would be going in by himself; he knew it would be safer that way. The truth was, he was the best there was at this sort of thing. It had been true before he had ever joined the Shadow Wolves, and it was true again now, his powers fully returned to him at last.
There was no need for words, just the exchanged looks of two people who had been through so much together, and realized that they still wanted to go through more. A tear rolled down Lynn’s cheek, and then Adams turned on his heel and was gone, through the treeline and into the thick woods of Mason Neck Park.
The fence to Jacobs’ property was an eight-foot stone wall topped by blades and razor wire, with CCTV cameras placed along its length every twenty feet. As Adams looked at it, he considered that perhaps the cliffs wouldn’t have been such a bad choice.
It was a cloudy night, and at first the wood had been pitch black. Adams could have used night-vision goggles — Ayita could certainly have found some for him — but he had never liked them, as they cut off peripheral vision and made you vulnerable from the flanks. He preferred to rely on the abilities that nature had given him, and had spent the first half-hour in the woods squatting on the cold ground, letting his eyes adjust to the dark.
The simple fact was that there was really no such thing as pitch black, that was just how things appeared before you let the eyes adjust. Even with clouds covering any available natural light source such as the moon and the stars, manmade sources of light were ever present, especially so close to a major city like Washington DC. Even though he was in a state park, surrounded by huge trees in an area many people would feel was in the middle of nowhere, the truth was that the nation’s capital was only twenty miles away, and Mason Creek itself was separated from several major towns by only a relatively small body of water. The result was that, if you let the eyes adjust for long enough, there was enough light to see clearly with no technological apparatus whatsoever. You just had to be patient, a quality Adams had in abundance.
He also knew how to see things in the dark, looking at just the right angle to whatever object he needed to see, never directly at it, to maximize the effect of the available light on his retina. It was one of the skills he had learnt long ago on the plains of the Badlands.