"Did Earl also brief you on the Tebezza gold mines?" asked Sandecker suddenly.
The President hesitated and shook his head. "No, I'm not familiar with the name."
"After Pitt and Giordino were captured at Fort Foureau," Sandecker went on, "they were taken to another one of General Kazim and Yves Massarde's sinister enterprises, a little-known gold mine where opposition and dissident prisoners are enslaved and worked to death under the most barbaric and inhumane conditions. A number of them were French engineers and their families Massarde imprisoned so they couldn't return home and expose Fort Foureau. My men also found the missing World Health Team that was supposedly killed in a plane crash, all horribly starved and exhausted from overwork and little food…"`
The President gave Willover a cold stare. "It seems I'm kept in the dark on a number of matters…"
"I try to do my job fielding priorities," Willover offered hastily.
"So where is this leading?" the President asked Sandecker.
"Knowing it was useless to ask you for a special force," Sandecker continued, "Hala Kamil again came to the rescue and volunteered the United Nations critical response team. With Pitt and Giordino to guide them, Colonel Levant and his force landed in the desert near the mines, conducted a successful raid, and rescued twenty-five foreign national men, women, and children—"
"Children were forced to work the mines?" the President interrupted.
Sandecker nodded. "They belonged to the French engineers and their wives. There was also an American, Dr. Eva Rojas, who was a member of the World Health Team."
"If the raid was successful, what is the urgent problem?" demanded Willover.
"Their transport, the aircraft they flew from Algeria, was destroyed on the ground at the Tebezza airstrip by fighters of the Malian air force. The entire force along with the rescued captives are trapped in the middle of Mali. It's only a matter of hours before Kazim's military finds and attacks them."
"You paint a bleak picture," said the President seriously. "Is there no way they can safely reach the Algerian border?"
"It would matter little if they did," explained Sandecker. "Kazim won't hesitate to run the risk of a confrontation with the Algerian government to stop the captives from exposing the atrocities at Tebezza and dangers of Fort Foureau. He'll send his military deep into Algeria to destroy them and guarantee their silence."
The President went silent, studying the canapés without biting into one. The implications of what Sandecker had told him were not to be brushed aside as he knew Willover was about to advise. But he could not stand by and do nothing while a backwater despot murdered innocent foreign citizens.
"Kazim is as bad as Saddam Hussein," muttered the President. He turned to Willover. "I'm not going to hide under the covers on this one, Earl. Too many lives are at stake including those of three Americans. We've got to lend a hand."
"But Mr. President," Willover protested.
"Contact General Halverson at Special Forces Command in Tampa. Alert him for an immediate operation." The President stared at Sandecker. "Who do you suggest to coordinate this thing, Admiral?"
"General Bock, commander of the UN Critical Response and Tactical Team. He's in contact with Colonel Levant and can provide General Halverson with constant updates on the situation."
The President set the canapés aside on a credenza and. placed his hands on Willover's shoulders. "I value your advice, Earl, but I've got to act on this one. We can kill two birds with one stone and take half the flak if the operation goes sour. I want our Special Forces to secretly infiltrate Mali, rescue the UN tactical team and the captives. Then get the hell out before Kazim and Massarde know what hit them. Afterward, perhaps we can figure a way to neutralize the Fort Feureau waste project."
"You get my endorsement," Sandecker smiled broadly.
"I guess nothing I can say will change your mind," Willover said to the President.
"No, Earl," said the President, retrieving his canapé tray, "we're going to close our eyes and bet the bankroll on an inside straight."'
"And if we lose?"
"We can't lose."
Willover looked at him curiously. "Why not, sir?"
The President matched Sandecker's smile. "Because I'm dealing the hand, and I have the greatest confidence in our Special Operations Forces to kick slime like Kazim and Massarde into the bog where they belong…"
Several miles west of Washington, D.C., in the Maryland countryside, a large hill rises above the flat surrounding farmland. Passing motorists who take the time to notice the anomaly think of it as merely a geological trick of nature. Almost none know that it was secretly man-made from soil that was excavated for a command center and shelter for the capital city's politicians and military leaders in World. War II.
During the cold war, work never stopped, and the subterranean spread was enlarged into a vast storeroom for the nation's records and artifacts dating back to the first pioneers who settled the eastern coastline in the 1600s. The interior space is so expansive it is not measured in meters or acres but in square miles or kilometers. To those few who are aware of its existence it is known as ASD (Archival Safekeeping Depository).
Thousands of secrets are buried away in the seemingly unending archival storage bins of the depository. For some strange reason, known only to certain very few bureaucrats, entire sections of the depository hold classified material and objects that will never be revealed to the public. The bones of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan and Japanese records of their execution on Saipan, the secret conspiracy files of both Kennedy assassinations, the intelligence of Soviet sabotage behind American space rocket and shuttle accidents and the retaliation at Chernobyl, staged films of the Apollo moon landing hoax, and much, much more-it was all filed and stored away, never to see the light of day.
Since St. Julien Perlmutter didn't drive, he took a cab to the small Maryland town of Forestville. After waiting on a bus stop bench for nearly half an hour, he was finally picked up by a Dodge van.
"Mr. Perlmutter," asked the driver, a government security agent wearing regulation mirrored sunglasses.
"I am him."
"Please get in."
Perlmutter did as he was told, thinking to himself that all this subterfuge was a childish game. "Don't you want to see my driver's license," he said acidly.
The driver, a dark brown-skinned African-American, shook his head. "No need. You're the only one in this town who fits the description."
"Do you have a name?"
"Ernie Nelson."
"What agency you with? National Security? Federal Bureau? Special Secrets?"
"I'm not at liberty to say," answered Nelson officially.
"Aren't you going to blindfold me?"
Nelson gave a quick shake of his head. "No need. Since your request to search through historical files was approved by the President, and you once held a Beta-Q clearance, I think you can be trusted not to reveal what you see today."
"If you had dug deeper into my file, you'd have seen that this is my fourth research trip to ASD."
The agent did not respond and remained silent for the rest of the trip. He turned o$' the main highway and drove down a paved road to a security gate, showed his credentials, and entered. They passed through two more guard stations before the road led into a small barn-like structure in the middle of a farm complete with pigs and chickens and wash hanging on a line. Once inside the barn they rolled down a wide concrete ramp that dropped deep underground. They finally arrived at a security station where the agent parked the car.
Perlmutter knew the routine. He exited the car and walked over to a waiting electric vehicle that looked similar to a golf cart. An archivist/curator wearing a white lab coat shook Perlmutter's hand.