It was his only option left. To disappear. He knew too much — about the Chinese government. About their secrets, and about their search for Li Na Wei — the daughter of General Wei.
After all, he was part of the group who had been searching for her and was one of the best hackers China had ever seen. Until they forced him to flee for his own survival. Leaving the young man known by the rest of the hacker community as M0ngol with a new agenda.
Now that he was on western soil, his first priority was to locate the man known as Will Borger — the one to whom M0ngol himself had revealed Li Na’s location, aboard the Canadian container ship.
Lee Kenwood glanced at the shadowy hills crawling past them, illuminated only by a soft glow of moonlight shining diligently between the scattered clouds above them.
Ambient light made both Lee and Will Borger thankful as they now attempted to navigate an even tighter, and much windier, dirt road. With the headlights off, the two peered intently through the windshield, using the faint moonlight to keep them on the treacherous road.
The screen on Lee’s phone illuminated and he looked down to check the incoming message. With a frown, he turned to Borger.
“They found Mr. Lightfoot’s body.”
Will Borger dropped his head solemnly. “What about Tay?”
“No word on Mr. Tay yet.”
Borger shook his head, disheartened. Will focused instead on keeping the truck’s speed under ten miles per hour, reducing as much of the bouncing and shaking as he could. The IMIS servers in the back were heavy, yet extremely sensitive to sudden jarring.
They rounded another small turn, continuing stealthily along the perimeter of the giant complex. Fortunately for them, this was the one federal site in Puerto Rico that would never have floodlights.
The project’s construction had begun in the 1960s, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, and built to study the planet’s ionosphere. The famed Arecibo Observatory was repurposed into a national research center in 1969 after being taken over by the National Science Foundation. It relied not only on the uniqueness of Puerto Rico’s limestone sinkholes, but also the island’s proximity to the equator. Not only did it hold the record of being the largest single-dish radio telescope on Earth for the last four decades, it also had the honor of producing some of the most historic radio-based observations in human history.
After almost twenty minutes, the truck wound its way through the last turn and slowed when it saw the huge chain-link fence standing twenty-foot-tall. Stretching across their path, the fence was constructed with strands of barbed wire across the top, and what appeared to be a small, narrow maintenance entrance in the center. The thick poles on each side of the double gate reached the full height of the fence, all topped with more barbed wiring.
Below, at ground level, a human shadow stood just inside the fencing. Lee glanced at Borger before opening the passenger door and sliding down onto the ground. He walked past the truck’s hood and idling engine as he approached the gate.
When he got close, the shadowed figure pulled one side of the gate open and stepped out. As Lee drew near, he stopped just a few feet from the older man, whose gray and white hair was easily visible in the moonlight. A dark-blue hat matched the rest of his uniform.
Lee grinned. “Hello, Mr. Diaz.”
The guard smiled and closed the gap between them.
“Good evening, Lee.” The man embraced him and then looked past to the truck with Will Borger sitting in the driver’s seat. “I was beginning to worry.”
“Sorry, sir.”
Diaz frowned. “I told you, no more sir.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“Is this everything?”
“It should be.”
Diaz nodded approvingly and motioned Lee in the direction of the complex. Together, they pushed both large chain-link gates all the way open, providing a path for Borger and the truck.
Borger eased forward, rolling slowly past them before the two promptly closed the gates behind him. Diaz locked them again and walked to the front of the truck where Borger was rolling down his window.
“Keep your lights off and follow me.” Without another word, the senior man continued forward and climbed into a nearby Ford Explorer.
Next to Borger, Lee gently pulled his door closed and watched keenly as they accelerated.
Their destination was less than a quarter mile away. It was one of a dozen of the complex’s maintenance buildings, standing twelve feet tall and made of thick concrete walls for improved insulation. The place felt surprisingly cool when the three men finally stepped inside.
“Used to have a bunch of outdated weather equipment running out here,” Diaz said. “Until a couple years ago, when a few of the buildings were cleaned out. Rumor has it that the old equipment was getting too expensive to operate. None of these buildings have been used since. And this one’s the furthest away.”
Using their phones as small flashlights, both Will and Lee scanned the walls, noting the power circuits near the floor.
It was the perfect location. The biggest challenge in moving the IMIS system had not been finding a secure facility. There were thousands of places they could have hidden it, tucked away from prying eyes or from all of civilization, for that matter.
Nor was it electricity. That had been easy too.
Their biggest problem was connectivity — having a communication link to the system. Even though Borger could bundle enough satellite links to make it work anywhere, the signal would still be traceable. And relatively easily for someone with the right skills.
This made Arecibo the perfect camouflage. It housed a three-hundred-meter dish, used twenty-four hours a day, nonstop. Numerous pieces of equipment, including the interferometer signaling and several more radio and optical observatories located around it. All of these devices receiving and transmitting different signals and frequencies would make it easy for Will and Lee’s satellite link to be lost in the noise. The frequencies would never interfere, and even if noticed, would likely be written off as residential bleed-over from a nearby cabin or motorhome.
The perfect place to hide IMIS was in plain sight. And all made possible by one of the facility’s senior security guards named Luis Diaz — the father of their lost friend and colleague, Juan Diaz.
118
President Carr finished scribbling his signature on several documents before glancing up after the door to the Oval Office opened. Short and stocky, his chief of staff, Bill Mason, entered without a word. He was followed by Admiral Langford and Defense Secretary Miller.
The president sat up and placed his pen down; he then watched as all three men approached and took seats around his desk. Langford leaned forward and slid a large, sealed manila envelope over the desktop, which Carr picked up and opened. He slid the papers out, placed them on top of the envelope, and began reading in silence.
After a few minutes, he raised his eyes and looked heavily at Langford and Miller. “You’re joking.”
“No, sir.”
The president placed his hands on his desk. “You’re actually serious. A marine preserve?”
Langford and Miller both nodded.
“That’s how you plan to hide this alien ship, in the ocean, by turning it into some kind of sanctuary?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you two that short of sleep?” Carr asked. “This is what you’ve come up with?”
Langford didn’t flinch. “There are hundreds of marine and coastal preserves already. Each sitting president in the last twenty-five years has dedicated funds to increase that number. You would be no different.”