He was still sitting there when Doug Jarvis strolled in and took a seat alongside Ethan, the pair of them staring at the same wall.
‘What intel did we get on Majestic Twelve?’ he asked.
Jarvis looked at him for a moment. ‘Let’s forget about them for a moment. How are you doing?’
Ethan sighed and looked into his lap for a moment before he replied.
‘It doesn’t really matter how I’m doing, does it,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘We have a job to do and it costs lives every day. All that matters right now is finishing the job.’
‘You need to take some time,’ Jarvis began, ‘or this whole thing will…’
‘It won’t be for nothing,’ Ethen growled back. ‘Hannah gave her life for this, for what we do, for this cause that we’ve been recruited for. You and I both know that the only reason her name is up on that wall is because she worked for the FBI and had enough history there to warrant it. As it is, the cause of her death has been put down to terrorism.’
‘It was the only way to get her on the wall,’ Jarvis replied. ‘Had we not opted for that, her sacrifice would have gone entirely unnoticed.’
‘Which brings me back to my original question.’
‘Nicola and Michael succeeded in identifying the members of Majestic Twelve in New York City,’ Jarvis informed him. ‘While you were returning from Antarctica our team was able to put names to those faces. We know who Majestic Twelve are, Ethan, every last one of them and we already have one of them in custody, a man named Victor Wilms.’
‘The man behind the missile attack,’ Ethan said. ‘What about Mitchell?’
‘He gave us Wilms, but is now in the wind. I can only assume that he intends to flee and live out his days on some obscure beach far from civilization, or that he intends to continue exacting his revenge on Majestic Twelve.’
Ethan shook his head. ‘He won’t last long on his own. A man like Mitchell always has a game plan of some kind, an escape option.’
‘Perhaps,’ Jarvis conceded, ‘but he’s getting too old for field work. If he’s planning something it’ll be big, something sufficient to allow him to live his life in peace.’
‘The eradication of his enemies,’ Ethan agreed, ‘which now represent Majestic Twelve. He’ll hunt them down as we do, but he won’t stop at arresting them.’
‘No, he’ll kill them one by one,’ Jarvis replied.
‘I’m not going to let Hannah have died just so Mitchell can go on his revenge spree,’ Ethan said, his voice hard and cold. ‘That asshole spent enough time working for the bad guys and knowing it to have expended any sympathy I might have had for him. You should never have worked with him, Doug.’
‘I had no choice, and the intel’ he gave us resulted in us apprehending one of MJ-12’s most senior members and identifying the rest. Not only that, the images we obtained show them in the company of Gordon LeMay, who is now dead. They were the last people to see him alive and we have evidence of their complicity in his death: his autopsy revealed the use of a drug called pancuronium bromide, slipped into champagne which the members of MJ-12 handed to him. We even have LeMay’s collapse on record and MJ-12 standing around laughing at him on the floor.’
‘Nothing less than he deserved,’ Ethan observed.
‘I’m not going to disagree with you on that score, but we have them on the run. Hannah and Mitchell’s work gave us a major breakthrough Ethan, the first step on the road to crushing MJ-12.’
‘What about the blast at the glacier, and the remains of the base?’
‘The impact event has been put down to a meteorite strike, with NASA providing data and material borrowed from other genuine Antarctic impacts to support the assertion,’ Jarvis explained. ‘With the glacier weakened it will be many months before scientists can again visit the area. We have teams already monitoring the site, which is filling up once again with ice and snow as it refreezes. Our best estimates suggest that within three months there will be no remaining evidence of the impact.’
‘And global nuclear detection satellites?’
‘All detected the impact, as did seismic survey instruments around the globe, but all nations with sufficient resources to observe the event have taken NASA’s story as gospel and there appears to have been no international enquiries about what happened. On the same vein, we have enough evidence to charge Victor Wilms with the attempted murder of United States service personnel at the site, along with the illegal missile test event known as the Vela Incident. He’ll be tried behind closed doors and likely incarcerated in a maximum security facility — I felt that the one in Florence would be a nice touch to finish his story.’
‘He’ll get out,’ Ethan said. ‘These people have too much power, too much money.’
‘Not this time,’ Jarvis countered. ‘Wilms’ targets were military, which makes him an enemy combatant and effectively a terrorist. His lackeys in MJ-12 won’t be able to help or reach him, and we’ll be using Wilms as an example and a message to others among the cabaclass="underline" we’re coming for them and there’ll be no escaping true justice this time.’
Ethan sighed again as he stared at the plaque on the wall.
‘What about Amy?’
Jarvis shifted in his seat.
‘She is in confinement in a laboratory at Edwards Air Force Base and under the strictest security, but she’s doing fine and Doctor Chandler is with her. The Seehund submarine you used maintained a perfect seal and Chandler got her out, with Polar Star picking them up off shore. The DIA has the disc in its possession and we’re working on deciphering it now.’
‘How long will that take?’ Ethan asked.
‘I have absolutely no idea,’ Jarvis replied, and then stood up. ‘You did good work down there, Ethan. There’s a light at the end of this tunnel now and it’s all down to Hannah.’
Ethan nodded, and Jarvis walked away. He had barely gone when from the other side of the room somebody else approached, and Ethan looked across to see Nicola Lopez striding toward him.
Ethan stood up and practically fell into her arms, the two of them leaning into each other and saying nothing for a long time. Eventually, Lopez looked up at him and one hand touched his cheek.
‘You okay, hero?’
Ethan could not prevent the awkward smile that slapped itself across his face as he tried to keep his grief inside. His jaw ached and he nodded.
‘Just another day, right?’
Lopez nodded as she released Ethan and looked at the plaque on the wall. ‘Would’ve been me if I hadn’t been in a coma.’
‘Napping on the job again,’ Ethan replied.
‘You wanna be the next plaque on that wall, asshole?’
Lopez’s eyes were hot with contempt but he could see the twinkle in them. Her skin was filled once again with color and though he could see that she had lost weight, she was rapidly making her comeback.
‘Does this mean we’re partnered up again?’ he asked wearily.
‘You work for me, remember?’
‘That was before we threw our lot in with the DIA again,’ Ethan pointed out. ‘We’re on an equal playing field now.’
‘You mean level playing field.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘That’s what I just said.’
‘Jeez, I need another break from you already.’
Lopez smiled brightly, grabbed his hand and gently led him away from the memorial wall.
‘We’ve got work to do,’ she said. ‘We’ve got MJ-12 on the run, and now’s the time to strike. They know we’ve identified them, so they’re going to do everything they can to erase their histories before we can charge them with anything.’
‘And how do you propose we stop them?’ Ethan asked.
‘They’re Nazis, right? We’ll hit them where it hurts them the most,’ Lopez replied with a cruel smile, ‘their history and their pockets.’