Event

Pacific Ocean. The house on Mulholland Drive had been paid for in cash thanks to small trinkets such as the one he now held in his hand. His eyes roamed from the lights of the city below to the pool that wound its way around from the side of the house to a stop just below his window. He then held the gold cross up against the blue of the pool and admired the emeralds that sparkled.

'The Cross of Father Corinth,' he said softly. The very cross the priest had made specifically to bless the Spanish soldiers that had helped loot and rape Peru in 1533. The late father Corinth had then been a part of the Francisco Pizarro expedition.

His reverie was interrupted by a soft knock on the study door. The man placed the cross on his desk and covered it with a satin cloth.

'Yes,' he said, hating the interruption at what was supposed to be his quiet time.

The door opened and a big man with short-cropped hair stood there. He was well dressed in a black sport jacket and black nylon T-shirt underneath.

Henri Farbeaux, former colonel in the French Army and late of the French Antiquities Commission, looked the American over and then waved him in. The man walked toward the desk and sidestepped the huge lion skin that sat in front of the Frenchman's desk and held out a manila file.

Farbeaux looked at the file without moving. He then looked back at the cross and uncovered it and once again examined it. 'What is that?' he asked, letting the man know his interruption wasn't appreciated.

'It's our Black Team's field report on our successful infiltration of the General Dynamics Pomona facility.' The man patiently held the file out to the Frenchman.

'Ah, the Space Systems engineer,' he said as he again laid the cross down and took the file.

'We can turn him, he's sloppy. It took us only three days to find his mistress. The initial approach has been completed by Hector, and our engineer friend would be quite amenable in assisting Centaurus in acquiring the blueprints for the TOIL system.'

Farbeaux had been working in vain for over six months on his own to find something with which to blackmail the engineer in charge of TOIL, and then Hendrix had sent his Men in Black out to assist him and they had achieved results in only five days. The female agent code-named Hector was undoubtedly good at getting needed and well- hidden information out of highly placed sources.

Hector, he thought. Hendrix and his talent for naming his different Black Team members by ancient period names always made him smile. But regardless of their overly dramatic code names, they did get results. TOIL--Tactical Oxygen Iodine Laser, the new toy on the block that Centaurus had to have as their own. Where General Dynamics would have to face years of testing to achieve U.S. government certification, Hendrix would bypass all of that and have a working prototype in six to eight months and ready for government scrutiny. Another weapons system the company could call its own.

Farbeaux signed the report and handed the file back to Achilles, another stupid name.

'I suppose you will be taking your team out of here now?'

'It depends on the orders we receive from New York.'

A near silent buzzing came from the man's jacket, and he removed a small radio while he looked at the Frenchman. Hendrix had warned him again and again about Farbeaux. He was not to be taken lightly. He was an opportunist and not an official member of the Centaurus family, therefore he was a man to be watched.

'Achilles.'

'I have New York on the secure line in the office,' the voice said.

Farbeaux acted as though he didn't overhear the man's counterpart downstairs and continued to examine the cross on his desk.

'I have the report signed. Inform New York it will be sent on the secure channel.'

Farbeaux saw the man out of the corner of his eye tense up as the caller said something he couldn't overhear.

'Hendrix himself?' he mumbled into the small radio. 'I'll be right down,' he said quickly, and placed the radio back into his pocket.

'If you'll excuse me, I'll get this off to the New York office,' Achilles said as he quickly turned with the file and hurriedly left.

Farbeaux finally looked up and watched as his door closed.

'Idiot' he mumbled, and slid the valuable cross across the desk and then leaned over and used a key to unlock his bottom right drawer.

The Black Team were guests in his home while they were here to assist in the Pomona operation. They had brought their own secure communications system and thought their software was invulnerable to tapping, which it very much was, but it wasn't the system that Henri was tapping into, it was the man himself.

He pulled a small box, a gift he had liberated from the French government while he had been employed with them, from the drawer and set it on his desk and opened the lid. Inside the opened lid were sixteen small six-inch monitors lined in three rows. He selected DOWNSTAIRS OFFICE, and the monitor came alive showing a clear color picture from an embedded camera in the heating duct on the ceiling. One of the Men in Black was pacing in front of the desk that had their secure phone system upon it. Farbeaux smiled as he reached down and found a small toggle switch and tested the camera angles. The picture easily moved toward the door and waited. Then he turned on the laser system that was mounted just below the camera and initiated the invisible beam. Then he turned on the small recording device and looked to make sure the small two-inch disc was turning.

Farbeaux saw Achilles enter the office and, ignoring his pacing counterpart, go straight for the scrambling device on the desk. Anyone hardwired into the system for spying purposes would only hear meaningless blips and beeps instead of words. But that didn't worry him as he watched Achilles pick up the phone receiver. He quickly adjusted the camera and pinpointed the laser on the man's ear as he sat in the chair behind the desk. Farbeaux adjusted the beam and moved it down an inch as the camera zoomed in. The laser was now exactly centered on the earpiece of the phone itself. Thus the conversation was being recorded after the voice on the other end had already been descrambled by the Centaurus system. The cleverer you think you are, the easier the system is to beat in the simplest manner, he thought. Just eavesdrop, like putting a glass to the wall. He set the system on AUTO-TRACK and the system imprinted on the receiving earpiece and kept tracking that spot.

'It's very rude to keep secrets from your host, Achilles,' he said as he leaned back in his chair and waited.

The flashing light blinked several times when a few minutes later the call downstairs was terminated. Farbeaux then lightly punched a button that shut the system down as he watched Achilles leave the room. He smiled as he hit the playback button on the recorder and placed a set of headphones over his ears. He heard the chirps and whistles as the filter scrambled the call, making it come out the other end sounding like a slowed-down recording of Darth Vader. Very dramatic, he thought, smiling. Then he listened, it was indeed Mr. Hendrix calling his boys.

'Achilles,' the man said downstairs.

'I have an assignment for your Black Team. The Frenchman is not to know anything,' Hendrix said.

Farbeaux listened with his eyes closed, seemingly not even breathing.

'Yes, sir.'

'This involves Purple Sage, so it is of the highest priority. This is why the Black Group was first created. Do you understand that?'

'Perfectly,' the man downstairs answered.

'There will be a man at the Ivory Coast Lounge in Las Vegas. He is our main asset at a think tank nearby. He is to be eliminated immediately, is that clear?'

'Yes, sir. Subject's name?'

'Reese, Robert Reese. He's expecting to sell information concerning our Purple Sage file. We don't need it and sadly we also don't need him any longer, as he has just undoubtedly and unknowingly compromised his position. We need him buried deeply. We believe he may even be aware of the Event personnel disappearances in '47. This we cannot have and cannot take a chance of Lee and Compton finding out about. Do you understand?'

'Yes, sir, I will gather my team and be in Las Vegas ASAP.'

'Don't bother to explain your destination to Legion, the Frenchman can smell opportunity. His loyalty does not