The Aegis Solution (30 page)

"Those are not the makings for an easy marriage."

Elias smiled. "We were used to it. The times apart were hard. The times together were so intense,
so good. I guess it balanced out. But we were planning on Leah coming in from the field and taking a
desk job at OCI."

His voice dropping to barely above a whisper, Elias said, "We just didn't make the move quickly
enough."

"Oh!"

"I lost Leah while she was on an assignment in Afghanistan."

"Elias, I am so sorry."

Elias kept his eyes on the greenery, allowing his mind to conjure pleasant images of his prior life.
"Richard Faulk, the man who took my place, was her immediate supervisor. He's the one who ordered
her to infiltrate a Taliban training camp."

"A woman to infiltrate a Taliban camp?"

"Actually, it works better than you think it would. As long as the woman follows Sharia law,
including keeping herself covered in public, she is nearly invisible. The mentality of the Muslims is that
women are less than nothing. They don't take them seriously as a possible threat. And burqas are a great
way to conceal weapons and communication gear."

"Makes sense."

"And she had a backup. Eric Stone."

"Eric Stone sounds like an Anglo name. How was he able to fit in with the Taliban?"

"Eric's father was English, his mother Lebanese. He got the lion's share of his genes from his
mother. He looked the part, and he also spoke the language fluently."

Frustration welling up, Elias stopped himself. "I don't know why I'm referring to Eric in the past
tense. I don't know that he's gone."

"If he's in Kreitzmann's camp, Tillie will find him."

"I hope so. Leah was also amazing with languages and sounded like an Afghani. She had free rein
– could come and go from the training areas, serve food to the Taliban leaders as they met, clean their
quarters, everything. All she had to do was listen to their conversations and record them. While cleaning
their quarters, she photographed documents, maps, plans, you name it."

"Impressive."

Elias smiled ruefully. "Leah was good. Very good."

"Do you want to tell me what happened?"

"We ordered a missile strike on the base. Leah and Eric were notified and knew to be out of the
area before the strike. Eric made it out. Leah didn't."

"Why didn't she get out?"

Wilson watched as Elias' face went through a gradual transformation into an unrestrained mask of
rage. Through gritted teeth, Elias explained, "They, the Taliban, knew the strike was coming. Somehow.
From what I've been able to put together since it happened, the Taliban leader, Khalid, ordered the
evacuation of the camp. But only the key men were told to leave. The women, the children, the elderly,
and all of the others he considered to be nonessential were made to stay."

"Why would he do that?"

"He knew that we maintained high-altitude aerial surveillance right up to the strike time. He didn't
want us to call it off. He wanted us to think, at least initially, that we were successful. Remember, it's as
much a war of PR as it is a war of bullets and bombs. He wanted to embarrass us. We would announce
the successful bombing of a Taliban camp and then, through Al-Jazeera, he would release videos
showing that we had only killed women, children, and old people, news that would inflame the anti-war
side in America and the rest of the world."

"What happened to your wife?"

"That was icing on the cake for Khalid. Apparently, he not only knew about the impending strike,
but her cover was also blown. When the missiles hit their lased targets, Leah was staked spread-eagled
on ground zero."

Wilson was speechless. The horror of the description burned everything else out of his
consciousness. All he could see with his mind's eye was the image of Elias' wife staked to the ground,
knowing the exact moment the missile would be arriving. He could not even begin to comprehend how
she must have felt in those last minutes and seconds.

Recovering enough to speak, Wilson asked, "Did you ever find out where the leak came from?"

"No." Elias' mood transformed from furor to despair. His voice became muted. "I left the agency
right after it happened. I had to. I couldn't think about any of the other aspects of the job. All I could
think about was Leah, Khalid, and the traitor. I've spent every waking minute since that day trying to
find the sonofabitch who was responsible for her death."

"Elias, I cannot begin to express my sympathy. Going through what you've been through is
unimaginable to me."

Elias did not speak. He had long ago run out of appropriate responses to the condolences he
received.

"I don't understand something, though."

Elias looked back at Wilson. "What's that?"

"If Eric Stone was able to get out in time, why didn't he call off the strike?"

"He did."

Wilson could see the anger returning to Elias' face.

"Then why did it still happen?"

"He contacted his immediate superior. It was the supervisor's job to convey the news to the
military. Let's simply say that they didn't receive the ‘abort' message in time."

"His immediate…wouldn't that have been Faulk? The man you said took your place?"

His voice drenched with bitterness, Elias answered, "One and the same."

"And he is the man who sent you into Aegis?"

Elias nodded.

"Wilson, it's a shame I didn't know you earlier."

"Why's that?"

"It occurred to me that your knack for pattern recognition could apply to intelligence work,
particularly the process of finding a mole…a traitor…within an organization."

Wilson leaned forward, resting his elbows to the sides of his half-eaten plate of food. "That would
be an avenue I've never traveled, but I believe that you could be right. If we get through our current
dilemma intact, I would be happy to take a look at your notes."

"Oh, we will get out of this. I promise you that."

"How can you be so sure? You're locked inside a fortress designed to keep everyone in, and you
have an army of superhuman beings searching for you."

"I'm sure because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I am going to live long enough to hunt
down the bastards who killed my wife."

Wilson fell into silence. He picked up his fork and took a bite of the now cold omelet. Then he set
the fork back down and listened to the howling of the wind.

"When I first saw your atrium, Wilson, I thought you were just a kook who liked jungles."

"You may be right about the nominative ‘kook,' Elias."

Elias ignored the comment and continued, "When we spoke and you told me you wanted to
surround yourself with complexity, I didn't quite buy it."

Wilson made no comment as he waited for Elias to finish his point.

"You filled this place with dense foliage to create an environment where the Zippers can't function
effectively."

It was not a question, but a statement.

"Very perceptive, Elias. The Zippers, like any other high-speed mechanism, require a relatively clear
playing field to function as they were designed. The obstructions force them to either move in
short-distance spurts or thunder through the leaves and branches, making as much noise as an elephant
charging through the brush. At least that is the theory. It hasn't been tested as a defense against
them…yet."

"The shotgun should prove to be a fairly effective weapon against them, as opposed to a pistol or
rifle."

"That probably is the case."

"Does Kreitzmann have any other super-soldiers in his bag of tricks?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Unless of course he's going to send one of his motor-mouths to talk us to
death."

"Motor-mouths?" Elias repeated, cracking a smile. "That sounds like yet another Tillie-ism."

"She is quite gifted in that regard."

"That isn't the only area. Taking on the Zippers and rescuing me was no mean feat."

Wilson nodded. "Mathilda is quite a unique and resourceful individual. I can truthfully say I've
never known anyone quite like her."

"I'm surprised that she is in Aegis."

"She's been here since it opened, day one."

"So I've heard. But she didn't mention her reasons for coming in."

"I would be surprised if she had."

"She doesn't talk about it?"

Wilson shook his head. "She has never broached the subject with me, and I've never asked."

They both heard the loud cowbell, followed a moment later by Tillie shouting, "Wilson, it's me."

He turned to look at Elias. "It appears that our able friend has returned."

They could hear Tillie as she quickly pushed through the branches which hung over the pathway,
breaking into the clearing, flushed and nearly breathless.

"I found him!"



Elias and Tillie were crouched next to a large-sized return air grille. On their way, they had stopped
at Tillie's apartment, as she referred to it, to gather up some items they might need. Elias had made a
perfunctory attempt to talk her into staying with Wilson, but she would not hear of it. She insisted that
he would never find Stone through the maze of passageways without her.

Now that they were above the room where Stone was being held, Elias tried again. Huddled close
to her ear, he whispered, "I'll take it from here."

Instead of saying anything, she shook her head violently, without ever taking her eyes off the room
below. Elias looked down and saw that Stone was sitting on the edge of a bunk, cradling his head in his
hands. From their vantage point, and the fact that Stone was not interacting with anyone else, they
surmised that he was alone. At least they hoped he was.

Elias knew that their next move could not be accomplished without making some noise, and he
hoped not only that the room was empty, but that there was no audio or video monitoring equipment
installed in what seemed to be Stone's holding cell.

"Well, here goes," Elias muttered to Tillie, gripping the edge of the grille. It lifted out of the track
with less of a clatter than he expected. Stone did not even hear it in the quiet room. Lying down on his
stomach, Elias lowered his head through the opening, and in a soft voice called, "Eric!"

The man on the bunk jerked up his head in surprise. Elias saw that it was definitely Stone. At first
confused, Stone swiveled his head back and forth, searching around the room for the source of the
voice without looking upward.

Elias repeated, "Eric!"

This time Stone looked up, stunned to see his friend's head dangling upside down from the ceiling
grille, eighteen feet above him.

"Elias?" Stone's face was a mixture of confusion, fatigue, and despair.

"We're gonna get you out of here," Elias promised, keeping his voice subdued.

Stone stood and moved closer to the grille, tilting his head back to look up. "I can't."

"Of course you can, Eric. We brought a rope and we'll pull you up if we have to."

"That's not what I mean," Stone said, lifting his right trouser leg and showing an ankle bracelet with
a blinking green light. "This thing sounds an alarm if I leave this room."

Tillie, who was watching the exchange from over Elias' shoulder, assured him, "No worries. I
brought something."

Elias pulled his head back from the opening and looked at her as she opened the duffel bag that
she had lugged with them through the mechanical chases. Within moments, she extracted a pair of bolt
cutters, held them up for Elias to see, grinned, and said, "Lower me down to him. I'll get that sucker
off."

Shaking his head in amazement, he told her, "Tie the rope around your waist."

She did and, clutching the long-handled cutters under her left arm, grabbed the rope with her right
hand and eased herself through the opening as Elias slowly payed out the rope. Within moments she
was on the floor.

"Who are you?" Stone asked.

"My friends call me Wonder Woman." She immediately bent over and applied the cutting teeth to
the curved steel rod which surrounded his ankle, careful to not pinch any skin in its grip. With a smooth
motion, Tillie closed the hinged handles, and the teeth cut through with a soft snick. There was enough
play in the attachment points to allow the bracelet to fall away. Both watched the blinking green light,
hoping they did not see it change to red.

When it was obvious that it was not going to change, and they heard no alarm sounding, Tillie
tucked the bolt cutters back under her armpit, telling Elias, "Hoist me up so I can help you pull."

Elias obeyed, and in less than a minute she was, again, beside him. Wasting no time, she untied the
rope from her waist and dropped it down to Stone, who was waiting quietly.

Before tying himself, Stone glanced up and mouthed a quick "One sec." He grabbed the ankle
bracelet and tucked it under the mattress before returning to the rope. With both of them pulling, it
took less than a minute before he was in the mechanical chase with Elias and Tillie and the grille was
back in place.