Carpathian (12 page)

“What of the troubles you have been having at the castle?” Zallas asked while replacing his sunglasses.

“Every time we send men into the mountains to survey the terrain to ensure there will be no rock slides or avalanches during the snow season, they either come back with tales of terror or of being stalked and watched. Just last night we had two night shift electricians who didn’t come back at all and the rest of the crews are starting to make noise about it.”

“Give the missing men, or surviving families, a complete compensation package, or kill the damn families, I really do not care, Janos.”

The stunned look on Vajic’s face elicited a much larger smile from the Russian.

“Surely you’re joking?”

The smile remained. “Surely.”

“My point of all of this is that the castle will remain behind schedule if we do not get the main cable cars operating. We need them not only for the last of the kitchen equipment delivery, but also food and beverage. These items cannot be manhandled up the mountain or travel by the small cable car; we need the four resort cars for transport. The men are frightened out of their minds by old wives’ tales and the isolation of working seven days is driving these workers mad. That is the reason they vanish in the middle of the damn night. It has to be the local villagers and those damn Gypsies that roam through this area constantly. And to tell you the truth we don’t need that sort of realism for the castle. I mean Gypsies, real Gypsies. I thought they were extinct in these parts.” He looked self-consciously at a man with little sympathy for frightened workers, or junior partners for that matter. “We need security posted at the castle with my workers for the remaining days we have left to complete the project.”

“Oh very well, I have a few men that have experience at this sort of activity. I believe all you’re dealing with here are a few peasants and transients, maybe even student protesters mad at us for using once protected lands. Kids, or Gypsies, or mama and papa villagers that are angry their mountain range and precious sheep meadows are no longer a sanctuary for backward people made possible by two thousand years of inept and clueless government.”

“What of them?” Janos asked as his head dipped toward the mountain.

“Who?” Zallas asked as if he was annoyed.

“The Gypsies in the villages up there.”

“Gypsies? Please, Janos, Gypsies? They dress differently than the other mountain people for sure, but to call them Gypsies? That’s a little much.” He smiled. “I think you’ve been listening to some of those tales these peasants tell around here.” He smiled. “Gypsies—that’s funny, friend Janos, perhaps one too many American and British Dracula motion pictures, you think?”

At the insult to his intelligence and his country, Janos closed his eyes momentarily. When he opened them again Zallas was stepping into his Mercedes.

“A man will contact you immediately about your mountain peasant problems.” The door was pushed closed without another word.

Once inside the Mercedes, Zallas stared up the mountain in the direction of the unfinished castle. Then his eyes moved upward from there to the Patinas Pass covered in clouds. As he watched he knew the cursed Gypsy was also up there watching him. He knew what the attacks at the castle were about and he would have to put a stop to it. He removed his satellite phone and made a call. As he looked at the phone in his hands he decided to bring in his own communications equipment for the opening weekend, that would cure the problem with no cell phone towers.

“Yes, I need you here by tomorrow and bring some men with you. No, not a hunt but you will want to be protected while you’re in the mountains. No, just a payment delivery.” Zallas placed the satellite phone back in its cradle as he watched the mountain above him as the car drove away. “Yes, I received your message loud and clear,” he said as he spied the clouds above the pass where he knew the Gypsy was watching. He looked away from the window. “In a few days you will receive my message, my backward Gypsy inbred.”

*   *   *

One mile up into the low foothills, eyes watched the progress of the hotel and the land surrounding it. Then the bright yellow eyes dimmed as they moved to the castle above. From the shadows of the thin line of trees a low growl was heard. The eyes then settled on a lone figure that was clearly seen in a grayish haze caused by the daylight hours. The object of the growl was looking back at the mountains. This time a much louder growl rumbled and shook the loose earth around the stand of trees—then the tree line became silent once more as shadow melted back into stone.

For the first time in their long and ancient history, the inhabitants of the region—sheep men, dairymen, and huntsmen of the Carpathian highlands—were afraid, and when they became afraid bad things would start to happen in the world of men.

EVENT GROUP COMPLEX, NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA

Alice sat in the office she had spent her entire adult life working in and at the moment felt as uncomfortable as if she were in a hospital waiting room. As Niles went about canceling the morning’s departmental meeting and field assignment assessment teams in lieu of the recent security developments—Alice herself—she looked about the office once occupied by the man she had loved since the end of World War II—Senator Garrison Lee, whose new portrait hung on the wall in a place of honor next to the oil painting of Abraham Lincoln, the creator of Department 5656. The painting of Lee was a portrait she had never seen before and one obviously made without her knowledge. She found she couldn’t look at the man she faced every day of her life for the past sixty-five years until his death in South America the previous summer.

Known as the strongest personality in government service, Alice Hamilton had intimidated presidents from every decade of her service. Now she was basically under house arrest and was also sitting in her friend’s office like a student caught cutting class—
Well, maybe a little more serious than that
, she thought to herself. Alice knew this was going to be the end result of her using the asset Jack and Niles had placed so carefully inside the Vatican but she knew she had to take the chance and ask the agent known as Goliath to search for the items she so desperately needed for her Event package.

Alice looked up as the double doors opened and Niles Compton, Jack Collins, and then finally deputy director of Department 5656 Virginia Pollock all came in and then sat around the smaller of the two conference tables in the large office of Director Niles Compton. The exception was Collins, who knelt beside Alice.

Alice confidently looked up and into Jack’s blue eyes. He placed a kind hand on her knee and looked into her eyes.

“Been busy?” the colonel asked.

“Jack, I’m fine. I know I went against protocol but I have good reasons for doing so.”

Jack nodded and then straightened. He glanced at Niles, who hit the intercom switch to his outer office.

“Please tell the security element of Lieutenant Commander Ryan to go ahead and remove the Europa link from Ms. Hamilton’s house and then secure the location for hardware removal. Tell Ryan that Pete Golding will be assisting.” Niles turned the intercom off and then took a deep breath.

Alice would not blink nor would she shy away from Niles’s saddened features. She knew everyone in the room was thinking the same thing—that she had gone over into Alzheimer’s land never to return.

“In 1947 you and Director Lee forged the rules of secrecy here at Department 5656. In the ninety-five-year history of the Event Group there has never been a prosecution for treason or dereliction of duty.” Alice hung her head but when she looked back the old fire was back in her eyes. “Usually these things are dealt with in-house and never make it to the courts as you all well know.”

“This is Alice Hamilton we’re talking about,” Virginia interrupted, “and in case you hadn’t noticed, Niles, she’s right here in this room.”

“If I may finish, Virginia?” Niles said as he forced his anger down once again, mad as hell that no one but he and Jack was seeing that an absolute and serious security breach had occurred. He quickly walked over to his desk and replaced his glasses.

“Apologies,” Virginia said and then looked over at Alice, who was taking this thing far better than herself.

“Alice, you know as well as anyone in the world what could have happened if the Europa system had been compromised by using her capabilities outside of the complex. I gave permission for your home link to Europa be made available to you in your retirement, but since you are who you are, a legend here at Group, Dr. Pete Golding didn’t place any constraints on your activities at home as far as the use of Europa was concerned. He gave you full access to the Cray system. Dr. Golding and I will discuss this after we are through here. Colonel Collins, your department will prepare an incident report and list Dr. Golding as responsible for the massive security failure. He is hereby suspended from active duty until I figure a way to hang him without actually killing him.”

Jaws dropped around the table, with again the exception being Jack Collins.

“Europa, are you online?” Niles asked, looking at the large eighty-five-inch monitor in the center of the conference room.

“Yes, Dr. Compton.”

“List the names of departmental personnel who have signed onto the home terminal of Alice Hamilton, please.”

“Date of user login 12/3/2013 1350 hours—Hamilton, Alice, Jean—Executive Director, Department 5656. User login 12/3/2013 1415 hours—Ellenshaw, Charles, Hindershot III—department head—Cryptozoology. User login 12/3/2013 1510 hours—Golding, Peter, Maxwell—Director, Computer Sciences Division, Department 5656.”

“Thank you, Europa. Were there any more names listed as active on the home system of Mrs. Hamilton?”

“No, Dr. Compton, the only other user login was made 6/23/2012, Lee, Garrison, Donner, former director, Department 5656—deceased.”

With the name mentioned Alice perked her head up and then looked over at the portrait of Lee, which was staring back at her with that “
I told you so
” look that always infuriated her. The others felt horrible that the name was mentioned by Europa. They all looked at Alice, who had a change come over her as she straightened in her chair and then actually slid it up and placed her hands on the tabletop and folded them. She looked up at Niles and the fire in her eyes was palpable—this was the face they all knew from Alice Hamilton.

Niles placed his hand on the thick file and then sat down next to Alice. He shook his head and took a deep breath.

“Do you see what your persistence in this quest has done? I’m leaving it up to Jack on what to do with Charlie Ellenshaw, but I believe a year’s suspension is in order—the same for Pete Golding. Of all the personnel who know the importance of keeping Europa secure it is Dr. Golding. If the president had a mere suggestion of what happened here we would all be looking for work, if he lets us off that easy. This is a major crime. You just didn’t break a rule; you may have compromised an agent of this department. A man it has taken Jack, Senator Lee, and me six years to get into place.”

“I know how long it has taken; it was I who suggested the young man in the first place.”

“Alice, we have a man inside the Vatican archives who may have to cut and run, and that action by a member of the Vatican staff would surely leave the Swiss Guard and even the Italian Carabinieri to conclude that he was an agent. And if they ever found out it was not only an American agent, but a second lieutenant in the United States Army, well, I don’t know how the president of the United States could ever explain that one to the Catholic faith. And with the recent religious developments in the world this country does not need to antagonize another religion. They already think the president is against all religion, which he is most definitely not.”

This time Alice did hang her head.

“The only people who knew about our man in the Vatican archives were Niles, Virginia, me, and you,” Jack said.

“All for a possible Event that we have not been able to prove since all of us have been here,” Niles said as he opened the folder. “The only consensus on that animal in that vault since the day it was found buried in France in 1918 is that it cannot be real. Our own people believe it was a hoax perpetrated on the people of Bordeaux in 1187. That is the science here, Alice. Even your co-conspirator, Charlie Ellenshaw, doesn’t believe an animal like that ever existed.”

“Damn it, Niles, do not dare to sit there and quote me the fossil record data. Was what we found in South America listed in the fossil record? No. Were the animals of the Stikine River in Canada listed in the fossil record? No. And were the symbiants’ life-forms we found deep in the Marianas Trench and the Gulf of Mexico in any fossil record? No. Of anyone in this room I have earned the right to believe in the impossible after working in this basement menagerie for over sixty years.”

The room became silent as the tension hung in the air between Alice and Niles Compton. It seemed that Alice, who suddenly had come to life and back to the strong woman who used to run the Event Group like she was Genghis Khan, had been reborn in just the few seconds it took to get riled up after her project was basically called a fairy tale.

“I think we need to know what Alice here is subscribing to, Dr. Compton,” Jack said as his curiosity came to full boil when he saw how adamant Alice was. For the first time in many weeks he was not thinking about the murder of his sister. The colonel was now fearful that he was losing a great friend, and he wanted to give Alice every break possible and allow her to explain why she would risk so much.

“Alice, in her compromising of our man at the Vatican, thought she hit the jackpot with what our agent found buried in the archives.” Niles chose a picture out of the file and then slid it toward Collins, who picked it up and looked it over.

“A dog’s skull?” he asked.

Alice reached out and removed the photo from Jack’s fingers. “No, not a dog, but an exact duplicate of the specimen we have preserved in Vault 22871. Niles, I had convinced both you and Garrison, and now I have the proof, and what’s more, I think we may have a real problem with ancient artifacts that have been showing up on the black market.” Alice looked at one of her oldest friends. “Niles, you believed in this once also.”