mercenaries. 'Colonel Collins, Captain Everett, I would like to introduce you to Hallie Salinka, daughter of Ethiopia's vice president, Peter Salinka.'
'I ... would ... like ... to--'
That was as far as the young woman could go. She broke down crying as she threw herself into Jack's arms. She sobbed uncontrollably and Collins knew that she was still feeling the shock of the assault. He looked at Everett, not really knowing what to do, but Carl did not offer any advice. He just watched the scene stoically. Leekie placed a hand over her mouth as she imagined the terror this child must have endured. Feeling awkward, Collins finally and very slowly reached up and patted the girl on the back. Slowly her sobs lessened and then Leekie pulled her away.
Jack watched as Leekie slowly led the bloodied girl away. He looked at the cell phone in his hand for a long moment before he pocketed it.
3
The hidden complex that housed the Event Group sat a half a mile below the desert scrub of Nellis Air Force Base. Its location underneath the northern firing range was not by accident. The mere fact that you could end up setting off one of the experimental missiles deployed by the air force was reason enough not to go snooping in the area. The complex had been finished in late 1944 by the same design team as had built the Pentagon complex. They had used the expansive natural cave system that dwarfed its more famous cousin in Carlsbad, New Mexico.
Housed along with the military and science teams that made up the secretive Event Group were secrets that the world had mostly forgotten or that lived on only in folklore and legend. Behind thousands of banklike vault doors and inches of reinforced steel, the secrets of world history, once buried in time, were studied and cataloged. The charter of Department 5656: to make sure mistakes and civilization-altering moments from the past were never again repeated. The Group had been in existence officially since the time of Teddy Roosevelt, but their roots went far deeper, extending to President Abraham Lincoln.
The president of the United States handled the Group personally. The person who occupied the Oval Office-- that person alone was trusted with the secrets studied in the ancient cave system below the sands of the high- desert airbase.
For every sitting president since the time of Woodrow Wilson, the first tour of the magical wonders of the Group, a subdepartment of the National Archives, always amazed and usually won over a new president.
The current director of the Event Group was Professor Niles Compton, recruited from MIT. Compton had been chosen by his predecessor, Senator Garrison Lee, and groomed specially to become the head of the most secret agency in the world outside of the American NSA.
He escorted the newly elected president past the third-vault level of the underground complex.
'Apart from the fact that you have artifacts like the Roswell saucer, something that may or not be Noah's Ark, and several items that include the bodies of historic figures, just where does it say you have achieved your mission, that you have been a deterrent to those who would harm our nation by studying past events?'
Niles Compton studied the newly elected president. The commander in chief was at the very least studious. It was a well-known fact that he came from an intellectual family and his platform of budget restraints and checks and balances had gotten him elected. Niles had his work cut out for him.
'Let us take the Ark as an example. Did it tell us anything about religion other than it fit the dimensions and design as stated in the Bible?' Niles shook his head. 'Absolutely not. What it did lead us to is the now well- accepted science that the Middle East was most definitely flooded around thirteen to fifteen thousand years ago, which has led the scientific community to the conclusion that it was caused by a seismic event or a nonterrestrial occurrence like a meteor strike. Thus, we monitor the movement of the earth for patterns like they may have faced thousands of years ago. Our policy of tracking large bodies out in space is another example of what we have learned, just from this one Event.'
Niles knew that the president needed this information to make a sound judgment when it came to budgeting hidden money for his department. Thus, he brought out the heavy guns on the initial tour.
The last soldier to be nominated for a fifth star in the nation's history, the new president didn't look at all convinced as he stepped up to a small vault and waited for the director.
'And that's just one artifact from the world's past,' Niles said as he waited for his assistant, the eighty-two- year-old Alice Hamilton, to enter her security clearance on the keypad beside the vault. Then he and the president watched as she placed her thumb on a clear glass plate that read the minute swirls and valleys of her print. The vault hissed open.
'Okay, Dr. Compton, please explain the subject of this vault and its direct relationship to our nation's security, if you please.'
Niles nodded and Alice opened the eight-inch-thick door of the small vault, and a cool mist rolled out and formed at the feet of the president.
'Very mysterious,' was the only comment he made.
'This way, sir,' Compton said, gesturing to the open door.
As they entered, the interior lights came to life. The two men stared at a small glass enclosure that had lines running into it, supplying nitrogen in its coldest state. Niles placed his thumb on a small plate just inside the door and allowed the center's Cray computer system to explain the find.
The president looked closer at the acrylic enclosure and saw what looked like a small disk and disk player. Both items were worn and very old-looking. The disk itself was cracked and scratched and a third of it was missing.
The president looked from the enclosure to the face of Niles Compton. The look told the director that the man was skeptical at the very least.
'What we have here is a device that was used to record the battle of Little Round Top in 1863. While we speculate that the damaged portion of the disk shows the actual battle as recorded at the time, we at Group have come to the realization that coupled with the manufacture time of the recording device, that battle was not only observed by someone from the future but recorded, for what reasons we can only speculate.'
The president was speechless. He looked from the director to the acrylic enclosure. He turned and was about to ask a question when Alice, standing by the vault's door, cleared her throat.
'Director, the president has an urgent call from the White House.'
'Thank you, Alice,' he said as he gestured for the president to take the phone, which was just outside the vault door. As he moved off, Alice stepped in and smiled at the director.
'How's it going?' she whispered.
'I hate this stuff,' he said back in a hushed voice. 'It could go either way.'
