‘Absolutely right, Admiral, which brings me to an outline of our third major experiment,’ Dr Hershey responded, glancing at Rodriguez. ‘The research is not yet complete, but based on our findings to date, we’ve every reason to believe that hurricanes, tornados, volcanoes and earthquakes can all be controlled and initiated at will. It’s a form of weather warfare we intend to perfect before the Russians and the Chinese beat us to it.’
Neither Jackson nor Rodriguez was surprised when they were excluded from the informal discussions over lunch, and the two dined together in the canteen.
‘Your concerns are absolutely valid,’ Jackson said as they shared a barely passable coffee at the end of their meal. ‘We’re able to generate ELF with the power to identify deep underground tunnels, and blast them with heat waves, but there’s a problem with accuracy.’
‘Can that be overcome?’
‘In theory. Using the ionosphere as a lens to reflect the waves back to a target is too imprecise, so they’re planning to use a Minuteman missile which can be manoeuvred into a known position. The outer casing will be specifically configured to act as the reflecting lens.’
Rodriguez handed Jackson a card. ‘That cell’s clean… the system won’t pick it up. If things get worse, call me. I used to work at the White House, and my former boss, Andrew Reed, is now the President’s Chief of Staff.’
46
O ’Connor directed the taxi driver past the railway sidings to the end of Buchheisterstrasse. He retrieved the backpacks containing the precious figurines from the trunk of the taxi, paid the driver, scanned the length of Buchheisterstrasse, and then the dockside itself. Satisfied, he nodded to Aleta. ‘Let’s go.’
Dark clouds scudded across the midnight sky, and behind them a three-quarter moon was intermittently reflected off the inky waters of the Elbe, 120 kilometres upstream from the river mouth on the North Atlantic. Together, they walked unhurriedly along the concrete dock, past warehouses and containers and the massive forklifts used to manoeuvre them to the loading cranes. The rusted shape of the MV Galapagos, a 15 000-tonne container ship, loomed at the far end of the dock, smoke wisping from her blackened funnel as the engineers worked up the required head of steam for departure.
‘Are customs and immigration going to be waiting for us?’ Aleta asked nervously.
‘With a bit of luck, they won’t be too bothered with a small cargo vessel, particularly at this time of night. Although the captain will probably ask to see your passport, and depending on how busy he is with the final loading arrangements, he might see us in his cabin. Just be your charming self – but not too charming; we don’t want to excite the crew on the first night,’ O’Connor added with a mischievous grin.
‘If we were anywhere else I’d kick you in the shins!’ Aleta said, smiling to herself. The prospect of sailing across the Atlantic with this dashing Irishman was as exciting as it was nerve-racking, but her smile quickly faded as she caught sight of two men in uniform descending the ship’s gangplank.
‘Keep walking. Just act normally,’ O’Connor said softly, weighing up his options as the two men approached.
‘Who the fuck does she think she is?’ Howard Wiley fumed at his chief of staff, shaking with rage at the ‘please explain’ he’d received from the CIA’s director. Rodriguez’ questions at the HAARP briefing had raised eyebrows in more than one corridor of power.
‘I don’t think she understands the potential of the HAARP experiments,’ Larry Davis agreed, sweating more than usual as he absorbed the full force of Wiley’s tirade.
‘Rodriguez wouldn’t know if a goddamned San Francisco trolley car was up her ass until the people got off… and in her case you’d have to ring the fucking bell. I want her head on a plate the minute she steps back into this building. She’s fired!’
‘And if she goes to the media?’
‘We’ll have her behind bars. She’s signed up to the Intelligence Authorization Act like every other motherfucker around here, and if she so much as thinks about opening that big mouth of hers, I’ll have her in the slammer faster than she can blink.’
‘With respect, Deputy Director – and I’m not defending Rodriguez here – the Authorization Act didn’t protect Valerie Plame, and if Rodriguez sues -’
‘Let her! She won’t win, and we’ll clean out the bitch’s bank balance in the process.’
‘She wouldn’t win, sir,’ Davis persisted, ‘but the peaceniks would be all over us like a rash. So far, they haven’t been able to stir up much media interest in HAARP, but this would give them air time, and the director will be more pissed than he is already.’
‘So what are you suggesting?’
‘The chief of station in Guatemala City’s just resigned. Why don’t you send Rodriguez down there in his place?’
‘As chief of station? Are you out of your mind, Davis?’
‘Think about it, sir. Guatemala’s an armpit and we were short-staffed down there even before this codex thing came on the radar, let alone now the chief of station’s resigned. Rodriguez will be working like a dog from the day she arrives. You can claim it’s a promotion into the field; it gets you off the hook with the equal opportunity wankers and gets her out of our hair. And if it all turns to custard, you can remove her, and she’ll probably resign.’
‘It’s a pity we don’t have anyone at the North Pole,’ Wiley grumbled. ‘She could freeze her tits off up there. All right, make it happen,’ he said finally. ‘In the meantime, what’s the word on Tutankhamen and that other bitch?’
‘We’re still checking. We’ve traced them to Hamburg, but they may have left by train.’
‘I want them found – and fast!’
‘ Guten Abend.’ O’Connor flashed a smile at the two officers approaching along the dock.
‘ Abend,’ one of them replied.
‘Who were they?’ Aleta asked, breathing a little easier after the two men had passed.
O’Connor shrugged. ‘Don’t know, but Merchant Marine, not customs or police. Watch your step,’ he said as they reached the gangplank.
‘You’re cutting it fine,’ the ship’s steward observed haughtily as they reached the deck. ‘We sail in twenty minutes.’
‘Sorry about that,’ O’Connor apologised.
‘The captain’s on the bridge,’ the steward sniffed. ‘I’ll show you to your cabin and then he’ll want to see your passports. Follow me,’ and he minced his way down the port companionway.
‘Opening bat for the other side,’ O’Connor whispered.
‘Stop it!’ Aleta whispered back, suppressing a fit of the giggles.
Aleta and O’Connor stood at the rail of the port wing of the bridge. Aleta watched the two tugs herding their charge away from the dock towards the middle of the Elbe. Powerful lights lit the for’ard decks of the MV Galapagos as the crew worked to get the heavy mooring hawsers aboard. O’Connor scanned the docks up to Buchheisterstrasse, searching for any signs of anyone on their trail.
‘The captain didn’t seem too interested in the paperwork,’ Aleta observed as the MV Galapagos moved slowly out into midstream.
‘One of the reasons I timed our arrival to just before sailing: he’s got a lot of things on his plate right now, and he won’t relax until he’s clear of the English Channel and out into the Atlantic.’
‘Slow ahead,’ the captain ordered. Below decks, a single gleaming steel shaft, driven by the massive Hitachi-Man marine diesel engine began to turn.
Howard Wiley looked into the biometric security scanner outside the door of the Operation Maya ops room. In an instant the powerful system computed the algorithms and analysed the pattern on Wiley’s iris. No two irises were the same; even identical twins had different irises. The security Wiley had installed on Operation Maya was far tighter than fingerprint recognition. The light glowed green and he stepped into the room, just as a message alert from the Berlin station pinged on Larry Davis’s computer screen: Information just to hand indicates Tutankhamen and Nefertiti departed Hamburg by sea. MV Galapagos, a 15 000-tonne container ship, left Buchheisterstrasse docks nine hours ago, bound for Havana and then Puerto Quetzal on Pacific coast of Guatemala.