can’t prove anything. Strange bedfellows for strange times, my friend,” Jack said, looking at Sebastian. “Our mission is to make all these trips to the Moon a moot point. We need to uncover artifacts found by your government in the thirties and forties. These artifacts and even the mineral can be found right here on Earth. That, I suspect, is why your chancellor and my president have become close friends.”
“Okay, I expect you will tell me everything. Where do we start this quest?” Sebastian asked.
“We’ll start with, How do you feel about committing another jail break?”
“Well,” Sebastian said, smiling, “it beats the hell out of training. Besides, I think I have an affinity for the criminal side of things.”
“You know, I’ve come to the same conclusion about myself and my men,” Jack said, slapping the German on the back. “Now, the ESA has men and women ready to die in a hurried mission to the Moon. Your government’s listening to mine and now has second thoughts, but can’t pull its astronauts without endangering the lives of their fellows. So your government is hedging its bet and going for the answer that is closer to home as well as the one on the Moon. The rest of the ESA is not, because they are not privy to this Operation Columbus intelligence. And where we start is right where Captain Everett has been taken-Ecuador.”
Sebastian nodded and then leaned in so only Jack could hear his next words. “Tell me something if you can, old man. Who are those two strange ducks? Just who the hell do you work for?”
Collins smiled as the sudden change of subject threw him for the briefest second, and then he looked the German commando in the eye.
“Number one, those two guys are among the most brilliant men in the scientific world. And in answer to your second question, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He looked at Golding and Ellenshaw once again. “But you’re right. They’re two very strange ducks.”
Jack and Sebastian walked from the room.
“May I ask where we are off to?” Pete inquired, following Sebastian and Collins through the door.
“Ecuador-Mr. Everett isn’t in for a warm welcome there; I thought we may as well kill two birds with one stone. Get my man out of jail and then find out why someone is willing to kill so many people over a bunch of rocks and an old set of bones. That answer lies beneath the ground. And that, dear Professor Golding, is where we are going.”
Ellenshaw hesitated a moment and grabbed Pete by the arm as Jack and Sebastian left the small office.
“It only gets better, Pete. You’ll never want to stay at the complex again after this.”
Golding watched Crazy Charlie leave. He shook his head and then followed.
“I find it is having the opposite effect on me. It makes me never want to get out of bed again.”
It took only thirty minutes to get from police headquarters to Tempelhof Airport. While riding in the back of a two-and-a-half-ton Mercedes truck, the ten commandos, plus Jack, Pete, Ellenshaw, and the black ops team of Germans, checked their equipment. The chancellor wasn’t going to send them out into the field lacking in firepower.
“I see you plan on running into trouble,” Ellenshaw told Sebastian as the leader of the group placed two heavy caliber long-range sniper rifles back into their cases. The German looked up and held Charlie with his gaze for a moment without saying anything. Then he relaxed and sat back against the wooden bench as his other men finished the inventory of their own equipment.
“Dr. Ellenshaw, isn’t it?” he finally asked.
Charlie just nodded his head, sending his white hair over his wire-rimmed glasses.
“Over a hundred German citizens were just murdered in the streets of Berlin. My chancellor is in a mood that dictates that we respond in kind to the people responsible. We didn’t look for this trouble, but neither shall we run from it.” Sebastian looked over at his old friend Collins. “Those days are over. No longer are we to sit out of world policies because of our past. We just saw what happens when we are perceived to be weak.”
Jack nodded, not really caring for the ominous tone coming from a man he respected, especially since his words seemed to be directed at the man who assisted in his commando training.
“Ah, we are here,” Sebastian said. He took hold of his large bag and then paused in front of Charlie. “Now the question is, Herr Doctor, are you prepared for the trouble we are going to run into or are you just along for the ride?”
Charlie’s eyes didn’t waver a moment as he returned the German’s stare.
“Captain Everett is my friend. I respect him, as I do the colonel. I also have several other friends who are nearing a time when they too shall place their lives on the line if we fail to find out who is responsible and what they are hiding. So in essence-yes, I am prepared to give my life for my friends.”
Sebastian handed out his pack to one of his men. Then he looked at Charlie again and nodded his head, not saying anything but making clear that the quirky little professor had given the right answer.
Jack also nodded as he turned and hopped down from the truck.
“Very eloquent, Charles,” Pete said, as he stood in the back of the truck.
“Do you agree?” Charlie asked.
“By all means. Couldn’t have said it better myself. But I wonder about one thing.”
Charlie Ellenshaw stood and followed Pete to the back of the truck. “And that is?”
“Since we are all being brave and, as they say in the military, gung ho, how do we plan on not only breaking Mr. Everett out of jail and taking on the entire Ecuadorian government with fourteen men, but to do all of this in less than twenty-four hours before the U.S. launches the Moon missions?”
Ellenshaw didn’t have an answer, so he just pointed out the back of the truck at the figure of the man standing next to the German. Jack Collins was watching the commandos load into the aircraft.
“I don’t have an answer for you, Pete, except to say, I’ll bet on that man right there.”
The three large ships had slipped in unnoticed since most of the French military presence was based on the mainland surrounding the ESA launch facility at Kourou. This is not to say that the French army had not sent out security details in the past three weeks to Devil’s Island to make sure there were no intruders setting up camp at the old prison facilities. They had. The last had been a small ten-man French commando team sent there one hour prior to the final countdown of the two Ariane 7 rockets awaiting launch.
The two Ariane rockets were lined up as neatly as the three ships anchored just inside the main harbor at the ominous old prison. The ten-man team had walked unsuspectingly into far more firepower than they could handle. James McCabe shook his head as he looked at the bodies.
“They should have been far more cautious and less arrogant about their abilities,” he said as he turned toward the Mechanic. “Are the men we are leaving here all understanding of their orders?”
“I have chosen these men personally. They will do their duty to Allah. They are, as you say, understanding of that duty, and are proud to bring down the infidels’ attempt at mocking God. But I am surprised, James, that you find it so easy to send men to their deaths without a moment’s hesitation.”
McCabe looked the bearded Mechanic over. The man had set up the ambush of the French commandos with the expertise of someone who had far more formal training than he realized. During the brief exchange of gunfire, the Mechanic, with his thirty-man team recently flown in from northern Pakistan, had suffered only two dead and one wounded.
“I have been in the killing and sacrifice business for a long time. You should know that I chased you and your people for many months inside Iraq.” McCabe looked at the Mechanic very closely. “You seem to have become more of your old self in the past few days. Are you seeing the light of Allah in your soul once more?” McCabe offered a slight smile.
The tall Mechanic didn’t answer the insulting question. He just stepped away from the bodies of the French soldiers and nodded at his men.
“Take your stations and know that Allah is smiling down upon you this night.”
The Mechanic was present at the demonstration put on by McCabe and the specialists he had working for
