Hiccock grabbed the map. “Locals call it Leadfoot. It’s an old lead mine … here, right here, Cummings Peak.”
“It’s outside the perimeter that brain boy indicated.”
“Yes it is.” Hiccock cast his gaze to the far-off mountains. Focusing on the nearer foothills, he scanned the terrain as if he might find a sign shaped like an arrow reading “to the bad guys.”
“Kronos!”
Kronos came over wiping special sauce from his mouth. “Yeah, what’s up?”
Hiccock stabbed at the map. “Could this spot right here be the point of presence?”
“Sure, could be.”
“Could be?”
“Well, jeez, I only had an accuracy of fifteen decimal points, so it could have been twelve miles also … instead of eight.”
“Now you freaking tell me!”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
When John F. Kennedy was in the depth of the Missile Crisis, he mostly conducted the operations from the Oval Office. The majority of meetings Carter attended to plan the Iranian hostage rescue were held in Plains, Georgia. Obama spent a little more than a half-hour in the nerve center when the Navy Seals delivered final justice to Bin Laden. Presidents spend less time in the Situation Room under the White House than one would think. In fact, the actor Henry Fonda probably got more “Sitch-time” in the movie Fail-Safe than all the real presidents who served since that film was made. The current acting president — that’s how James Mitchell felt sometimes — was using the crisis center as an interrogation room. Far from peering eyes and electronic ears, he was able to speak his mind, which he found came easily with the momentum of 300 million American lives behind him.
Today, the situation was dire. President Mitchell was sweating his handpicked cabinet members, trying to weed out the traitor, or idiot, who had been inflicting these terrorist acts on America. “Sweating” was in fact part of his methodology. Mitchell had the air-conditioning turned off to make it as uncomfortable as possible. Like another Henry Fonda movie, 12 Angry Men, everyone was in shirtsleeves, although the president was the only angry man in this silent room. The one sound heard was his drumming fingers.
“C’mon. We’ve got it down to an eight-mile radius, fifty miles north of Carlsbad. One of you has got to have a clue.”
The phone next to him rang and he picked it up. “What do you have for me? Really! I’ll be damned. What’s this Kathleen Ronson doing there? Blacked out? For the love of God, it’s blacked out. What a way to run a government. What was that address again? Thanks, Paulsen, I’ll let you know if we need more … Oh, what’s the phone number?”
“Well, your hunch seems to have paid off, Bill.”
“Really?”
“123 Desert Trail, Mercado, New Mexico.”
Hiccock pulled out a pen and jotted the address down on a McDonald’s bag. He handed it to the driver.
“Get us there on the double!”
The three Humvees were now parked in front of the Domino’s Pizza in Mercado. The major, having arrived about a minute before, walked up to Hiccock. “Well, they say an army travels on its stomach.”
“And computer nerds on junk food,” Hiccock added. “Even though they may be working on an illegal, ultra secret, black op government project, they still need their fix.”
“I can’t believe the hole in their security was some bean counter handing in a receipt for pizza night to Uncle Sam.”
“Thank God for government forms and rigmarole.”
“Nice account. Sometimes 30 pies, 100 pizza sticks, and they love our chicken wings.” Chuck, the owner, was filling in the major and Hiccock.
“How often do they order?” Hiccock asked.
“Twice a week usually. In fact there’s a big order going out tonight.”
Kronos approached the counter beyond the major and Hiccock. “I’ll have a large pie with everything on it.” He turned and saw the two men looking at him. “What?”
They returned their attention to the owner. “And it’s always a delivery?” the major asked.
“Have to send two guys.”
“You ever make the delivery yourself?”
“Sometimes.”
“First squad, fall in,” the lieutenant barked as the soldiers scrambled and formed a line eighteen across. Hiccock and the major walked Chuck, the manager, down the line of troops. He looked at each as if he were trying to identify one of them to the police. He suddenly stopped, then back-stepped to a smaller, mustachioed Latino soldier, Fuentes.
“He looks like the kind of kids we get,” the owner pointed out.
Hiccock handed Fuentes the folded red-and-white striped uniform of a Domino’s delivery driver.
“Without the mustache, of course,” the owner added.
“Shave it, Ranger!” the major ordered.
“Yes, Sir!” They moved on out of earshot, and the dutiful GI muttered under his breath, “Ah, shit, Sir!”
Ten minutes later, Fuentes, in his delivery uniform and green hat, reported to the Domino’s delivery car and snapped a salute. It was a 1977 red-white-and-green-painted Gremlin hatchback. Hiccock, in a manager’s uniform that almost fit, saluted him back. The other hard-assed troops in the unit couldn’t help but crack up.
“All right! Settle down,” the major growled, without hiding his own grin. “Got your orders, Ranger?”
“Sir, the pizza is hot or it’s on us, Sir!” Fuentes barked as he crisply snapped to attention.
“Fuentes, maybe you should loosen up a little,” Hiccock said.
Fuentes smiled, and the kid from South Central came out. “No prob, Homes, it’s all good. Who gets the pepperoni?”
A car pulled up, causing Hiccock to turn his head. An Air Force captain got out from the driver’s side. To Hiccock’s surprise, Tyler got out of the other. She walked straight toward him. “Moonlighting on government time?” she said, taking in the silly costume.
“You always said I wasn’t utilizing my full potential. Fuentes and I are off to make the world safe for democracy and fast food.”
“Hey, Mr. Hiccock, you’re management, you shouldn’t be doing this,” Janice said.
“You’re trying to tell me I’m too old for this, aren’t you?”
“I just want you to know that you don’t have to do this to prove anything to me.”
“Oh, so that’s it! You think I’m doing this to impress you. Well, I hate to break it to you, but the only other guy here who has a shot at recognizing something high-tech is Kronos, and I just don’t think he has the right sensibility to be a pizza guy from around these here parts, missy.”
Janice adjusted his collar as if he was a little boy going out to play. “Don’t get hurt.”
Hiccock grabbed her hand and stared into her eyes. They both softened and simultaneously breathed in deep. “The only way I’ll get hurt is if I get between the pizza and the nerds at the other end.” He gave her hand one last reassuring squeeze then he and Fuentes got into the car and drove off.
Tyler walked over to Hanks. “What’s this all about, Major?”
“Professor Hiccock had a hunch that the bad-guy nerds were as much a pain in the butt about junk food as our Kronos nerd. He got the president to check with the GAO and, sure enough, some idiot compromised millions of dollars of secrecy and the security of the whole black op by handing in a bill for pizza so he could be reimbursed.”
“He’s finally getting it.” She smiled, peering off at the little car as it disappeared in the distance.