"No sign of an eruption," Friez said as he studied the photo. "Besides, if anyone on Tioga was concerned about that volcano, you would not see all these people milling about. Still," Friez said, leaning in close to the photos, "there's no response on satellite phones or radios. At first I thought that meant there was no one left to answer the calls."
"Based on what we can see here, General, there are plenty of people on the island."
"Then that means the calls aren't getting through." He stood straight, looked at Springer, and said, "Call me a pessimist, but that tells me that someone or something is jamming those transmissions."
4
A huge C-17 Globemaster shared the otherwise lonely sky with a bright half-moon, both floating over what resembled a solid bed of white clouds that created the illusion of a firm surface where, in fact, another thirty thousand feet separated the gigantic cargo carrier from the Pacific Ocean. Despite its size, the vast emptiness between that phony floor of clouds and the outer rim of space made the craft appear miniscule.
A fake manifest indicated a cargo haul of fifteen master pallets of assorted clothing and gear destined for troops in South Korea. Instead of the thousands of pounds of equipment officially stowed on board, the big, empty, and pressurized cargo area carried four members of Task Force Archangel.
Each wore a black polypropylene body suit and a full-face helmet. Three of the four were connected via plastic umbilical cords to a console from which they drew 100 percent pure oxygen, part of the necessity of purging all nitrogen from their bloodstreams.
The fourth — Sergeant Franco — kept his visor up and was not attached to the console. The injury to his leg meant limited duty.
Dr. Stacy sat between Major Gant and Jupiter Wells, where the trio had spent the last half hour preparing their bodies for the big jump.
Annabelle Stacy had lived quite a lot for a woman still under thirty years old. Yes, much of that living had been in classrooms and laboratories, stops along the way to each of her three PhDs. Yet those studies had also sent her around the world, to some exotic as well as many not-so-exotic locales, oftentimes traveling and staying in less-than-first-class accommodations.
A stint in service to Doctors Without Borders had taken her across the Sudanese desert on board a bullet-hole-ridden Cessna and she had endured weeks of travel through some of the roughest parts of Mexico in search of Toltec ruins.
Go out there and live, her father had told her on many occasions. Archangel gave her exactly that chance, plus the opportunity — as promised by General Friez — to see things that most people on the planet would not believe, all while working to keep America — the world — safe.
Of course she had come to realize that most of what the world needed to be kept safe from apparently came from the other types of people with whom Friez worked. It seemed Archangel's primary role was to wait around for someone to screw up and then clean up the mess.
She had yet to participate in an actual field mission, in part because General Friez had decided to rest the team for an extended period, apparently due to a particularly nasty job a few months back at some place in Pennsylvania.
Just as she had started to worry that this "exciting" new job differed from a corporate cubicle only in that her office was situated underground, along came this trip. In the span of a few hours she had moved from that boring subterranean office to a massive cargo plane cutting through the night six miles above the Pacific Ocean.
Franco grumbled, "Ten minutes."
She swiveled her head around at the sound of his voice.
Stacy found Franco a strange man. On the one hand, he was big, tended to be loud, and had already made more than his fair share of sexist, racist, raunchy, and just plain stupid jokes in the short time she had known him. Exactly the type of behavior his brutish nature would suggest.
At the same time, however, he came across as somewhat restrained, particularly whenever he was around Wells or Major Gant. Almost shy or embarrassed. That puzzled her, because if the stories she had overheard were true, it had been Sergeant Franco who had saved the day in Pennsylvania.
Her head turned fast in the other direction as Gant answered Franco with a flat, "I know."
Ah, yes, another puzzle. Major Thom Gant. She knew him to be stubborn and one glance told her he was tough as nails. At first she had thought his reluctance to share all the secrets of the Darwin facility came from chauvinism or a general dislike of any newcomer to the Archangel fraternity. However, Colonel Thunder had suggested a different motivation.
She thought about that. She wondered if Thunder was right.
Then she thought about Franco again and how such a loud, boisterous man could become so quiet so fast. She considered—
Stop it, Annabelle. Your mind is racing a thousand miles per second because you're nervous. Just take in the oxygen, one easy breath at a time.
She knew she was not a soldier, regardless of what the jumpsuit and gear might suggest and despite all her training in preparation for joining the team.
Yes, she had practiced high-altitude low-opening jumps, but this was not practice; this was her first real mission and she was going to jump practically from orbit, free-fall for miles, and land on a tiny little island in the middle of the world's largest body of water.
Jumping from this height meant staving off hypoxia, not to mention the extreme cold at such a high altitude. She could literally die before hitting the ground. Indeed, that was why Wells had been Gant's choice to come along. Wells had aerospace physiological training, meaning he would watch the jumpers for problems caused by the altitude.
Well, at least before we jump.
Her mind picked up speed again, retracing previous thoughts from new angles. As she sat there and felt the pure oxygen rush through her lungs like a cleansing agent she wondered exactly why she was a part of the whole thing. She held three PhDs and was still in her twenties. Her social and political leanings were so estranged from the military environment that she figured her superiors considered her the biggest security risk on the team. Annabelle Stacy knew she could command just about any post at any university, corporation, think tank, or research center. Yet she had accepted the offer of civilian scientific consultant to Task Force Archangel. Why?
She considered. Sure, she could be studying the melting polar ice caps, researching the medicinal treasure chest of the rain forest, or exploring the subatomic secrets of a supercollider, but Archangel promised to show her things few people knew existed.
But if you're going to get to see those things, Annabelle, she thought, forcing her rambling mind to focus, you'll have to get stop being so damned nervous.
Stacy grew determined to chase away any fear of the coming jump. She would focus on the facts, using logic and treating the whole thing like a procedure. No different than baking a cake or setting up an experiment.
"Hey, you okay?" Franco's voice cut through her thoughts. "It's okay to be scared, you know. Most chicks don't really like jumping out of—"
"I used to skydive for fun," she replied with the type of confidence she knew was needed to stop Franco's annoying jabs.
He trumped her, however.
"From outer space, honey? This ain't some Cessna you're jumping from on a sorority dare."
Gant interceded, "Sergeant Franco, establish satellite contact with base. I want to check in before the jump."
Stacy did not mind. She was nervous, and Franco could sense it. And he was the type to keep hitting the same nerve. Apparently his bashfulness was reserved for others.
"Don't let him get to you," Wells said, leaning over and speaking just loud enough to be heard over the rolling roar of jet engines vibrating through the chamber. "He's an ass but he's harmless. You'll do fine. And if it means anything, this shit makes me nervous, too, and I've done it a dozen times."