The 22nd Secret Page 15

  Paula’s hair was a tangled mess, but she was still the most beautiful creature Jim had ever seen. He tenderly brushed Paula’s wet hair away from her eyes.

  “Paula, you’re so beautiful. I love you.” They were the words he wanted to say almost from the moment he met her.

  Pam kissed Jim’s lips, cheek, and forehead.

  “I love you too,” she whispered. “I love you very much. More than you realize.”

  Jim caressed Paula’s face, causing her to stop kissing him and looked into her eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he asked with genuine concern. He knew he had lost control of himself toward the end. He remembered her request not to hurt her mentally.

  “Am I okay?” she said incredulously, tongue firmly in cheek. “Am I okay? I just had the greatest sex of my life and you want to know if I’m okay.”

  Jim chuckled and she continued.

  “You think you can do what you’ve done to me all day and tonight and I’m ever going to be okay? I’m never going to be okay again.” Pam closed her eyes, opened her mouth, and drew Jim close to kiss him. “Unless I can be with you forever,” she whispered.

  They kissed each other for several minutes. She thought Jim was much more fulfilling than Ben. She caught herself, and hoped Jim had not read her thought of Ben. She quickly scanned Jim’s thoughts. He was completely engrossed in Paula, cherishing this moment. She also had no desire to think of anything but Jim for tonight, and would not make that mistake again.

  After a half hour of kissing and caressing Jim got up and added a few logs to the fire. He got the pillow and blanket he used last night and they lay on the soft bearskin rug under the blanket. Nothing else existed at that moment just the bearskin rug, pillow, blanket, roaring fire, and the two of them.

  They talked for hours with Paula curled into his chest. Jim talked mostly about their future lives together – how she would help him all winter to get the lodge ready, and how she could help him with the guests during the rest of the year. Pam listened and gazed into Jim’s eyes. She grew hypnotized by his voice and realized she could listen to him talk forever. She wanted to completely open herself up to him, give him access to every recess of her mind. She wanted him to control her mind like he had controlled her body.

  Pam had never wanted to lose control of herself for even a second. She longed to be one with Jim in body and mind. She had to have complete trust in him to submit to him totally, to completely belong to him and for him to belong complete to her. Jim was the man she had hoped she would find for as long as she could remember. She had made her once in a lifetime selection. She would belong to Jim forever, but she would not allow Jim to do the same. She would be Patty Lawrence again by tomorrow afternoon, and people that came in contact with Patty sometimes died. Two already had. She wanted Jim to have nothing to do with Patty Lawrence.

  A little after nine that night they gathered their items of clothing and went up to Jim’s room. In Jim’s bed they made gentle caring love, punctuated with whispers of their lifelong love for each other. The alarm woke them at 4:30. They showered together, ate breakfast, dressed for the trip to the cabin, and loaded the snowmobile.

  “Wait just a second,” Paula said just before they walked out the door. “I have to go.”

  Jim wondered why leaving someplace made every woman he had ever known need to go to the bathroom. There was no way he could know she actually had to retrieve the disks.

  Chapter Seven

  The Investigation

  The day after the crash - Chugach Army Base, Alaska

  Colonel Pickett set his phone down, leaned back in his high-backed leather chair, and thought about the telephone conversation he just had with Tom Walker. After a few minutes, he got up and walked over to a large map of Alaska that hung on his office wall. He studied it until he located the spot he was looking for on Kenai Peninsula. He tapped it several times with his finger and thought awhile longer. He opened his office door, stuck his head out, and summoned his orderly.

  “Sergeant Carter, get in here.” He walked back to the map, leaving the door open. A woman wearing sergeant’s stripes on her shoulder came in carrying a note pad.

  “You get that e-mail from that Walker guy yet?”

  “Yes, sir, it was a pretty large file so it took a while.”

  Virginia Carter was a physically fit woman, but was not blessed with great beauty. She was a career soldier. The army was not only her home; it was also her family.

  “I’m printing it now.”

  “Good. Make me an extra copy and bring them both in here. Make up some orders for Captain Carnes and his Special Winter Team. They’re going on maneuvers as soon as he can get them mobilized.”

  “Maneuvers in this weather?”

  “That’s right. They’re going on a little camping trip, to right here.” Colonel Pickett pointed to the spot on the map. “Get him in here on the double.”

  “Yes sir.” She quickly left the office and closed the door behin her.

  Colonel Pickett walked over to the window behind his desk and stood with his arms behind his back. It was a hell of a storm to send these men out into.

  “Here are your printouts.” Sergeant Carter said returning to Colonel Pickett’s office. I’ve made two sets and divided them into separate file folders. One’s the FAA report and AP wire news story. This is the file on Jim Mitchell, mostly Navy SEAL stuff. I also have two weather reports and the most recent aerial recon data on that whole area, including the Chinese ship, all taken by satellite before the storm. You’re sure it’s worth sending Captain Carnes and his men out in this storm just to look for that downed plane?”

  “Hell, Ginny. You know he loves this kind of thing. All those Special Forces guys get off on pushing themselves to the limit. And I didn’t tell you he was looking for anything. I told you he was going on maneuvers. And that’s all you know. Where’s Carnes?”

  “Here’s the orders. Said he’d get here as soon as he could.” She laid everything on his desk and slunk out of his office. She was used to minding her own business, which was essential to her job description.

  Pickett picked up the reports and began reading.

  Captain Tim Carnes entered Colonel Pickett’s outer office a few minutes later. He stomped the snow off his boots and brushed more snow off his heavy, military-issue arctic parka. He took it off and hung it on the coat rack next to the door.

  “Old man wants to see me,” he said to Sergeant Carter. “What’s up?”

  He sat on the edge of her desk and smiled. Captain Carnes was a handsome extrovert. He was known among his friends to be a lady-killer. Sergeant Carter welcomed his flirting, even though she knew he was out of her league.

  “I don’t know anything,” she said curtly. She reached under Captain Carnes for a stack of papers she didn’t need, forcing him to jump off her desk.

  “Pickett in his office?”

  “Waiting for you,” she said. She placed the papers back on the corner of her desk where he was sitting.

  Captain Carnes opened the door and entered Colonel Pickett’s office and saluted.

  “Yes, sir. You wanted to talk with me.”

  “Sit down, Tim.” Pickett continued to read the reports. He checked his watch and saw that it was noon. “I’ve had two very interesting phone calls this morning. The first from General Parker at the Pentagon, he told me to mobilize my team ASAP. You hear anything about a small plane going down yesterday afternoon one hundred miles east of the coast near Bear Breath?”

  “No, sir I had a date last night and well…ah…I haven’t had time to check the news this morning.”

  Pickett cleared this throat. “Here’s all the info I have on this.” He held the files over his desk while Tim stood up, took them and sat back down. “You can read them later. General Parker also told me a Tom Walker with the CIA would be contacting me to give me the details. Walker will be in charge of this entire operation, and you’re to take your orders directly from him. Parker made this
part very clear. There are national security issues at stake here and we need to follow this Walker with the CIA’s orders to the letter. No screw-ups or it’s my ass. That means it’s your ass too. Clear on this so far, Captain.”

  “Yes sir.” The Colonel’s stern tone grabbed his attention.

  “Walker called me and along with this info he e-mailed me, told me a small plane went down, like I told you, near Bear Breath. Flight plan says it wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near there. There were three occupants on board. One of them was Anthony ‘Tino’ Cassioppi, boss of the Cosa Nostra’s Chinese connection. The second was Leonard ‘Lucky’ Casino, pilot and general goon for the mob on the west coast. The third was a girl no one seems to know much about, and who may have survived the crash. Walker seems to think they were trying to rendezvous with a Chinese research vessel anchored in Otter Bay. Said they may have been smuggling military secrets to the Chinese. I’m guessing nuclear missile technology, but that’s just a guess. Your job is to get your team to that crash sight, secure it, and dig it out by tomorrow afternoon when this Walker is going to show up with some FAA people to investigate the crash.”

  “Hey, I know this guy.” Captain Carnes looked up from the FAA report he had been glancing at while listening to Pickett.

  “Who?”

  “This Sheriff Bill Keller. We were in boot camp and then Special Forces training together. I know him pretty well. We kind of lost touch when he left the military. Guess he went home and got himself elected sheriff. Nicest guy you’d ever want to meet, but behind that nice guy front is one tough son of a bitch.”

  “Well, stay away from him. Walker made this very clear. He told me the CIA already had people on the ground handling the Chinese, Mitchell, and his lodge. He didn’t want any of our people accidentally bumping into them and tipping off the Chinese or Mitchell. So you are to stay as far away from the Chinese ship and Mitchell’s lodge as possible. You got that Captain? Keep your nose out of Walker’s business. I’ll kick your hotshot ass all the way out of the army if you screw this up. Got it?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I mean it Captain. General Parker told me this was some pretty serious shit, and I know you. You think you’re…. Well, just do your job. Nothing else, got it?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Your job is to locate the crash and secure it before anyone else can get there. That means you start now. Once you have the crash site secured you carefully dig it out. Like an archeological dig. Don’t disturb anything that could be evidence. Then wait for Walker and the FAA. One other thing, Mitchell said the girl just walked away from the crash site due west. Doesn’t make sense, but that’s what Mitchell said. Walker wants you to send a recon team west from the crash site. See if they see anything of the girl.”

  “Unless she met someone or was trained for survival in these conditions, she’s dead and buried under two or three feet of snow. We probably won’t find anything”

  “Well, those are your orders. Officially, you’ll be on maneuvers. Tell your men to keep tight on this. No one needs to know what you people did out there or what you found. That’s all.”

  “What?” Captain Carnes looked up from the FAA report.

  “That is all, Captain. You’re behind schedule already, move out.” Pickett swiveled his chair to look out of the window. He would worry about Captain Carnes and his men until they got back or the storm subsided.

  “Yes sir.” Captain Carnes stood and saluted the back of Pickett’s chair. He briskly left the room.

  The old World War II hangar was immense, much larger than necessary to store and prepare Captain Carnes’s Special Unit equipment. But it was isolated from the remainder of the base, which facilitated their secrecy. Most people on the base knew of the existence of the special team, but almost no one knew the details. This secrecy included their equipment and deployments. Several days would pass before anyone on base knew the group was gone.

  Four heavy-duty snow cats were lined up facing one of the floor-to-ceiling hangar doors. They were painted white and specially built for this unit. Each was capable of carrying ten soldiers fully equipped for arctic combat or a ton of equipment. More often they carried combinations of troops and equipment. The 23 men Captain Carnes selected for this duty were all specially trained for winter combat. The team’s usual mission was stealth insertion behind enemy lines for reconnaissance and sabotage. The blizzard conditions raging outside were not a threat to the team. They were the customary weather environment. Their equipment and training offered a supreme advantage over any other soldier in the world in these conditions. They wore all-white arctic clothing, as though it were routine for them to travel into the wilderness in conditions that would cripple any military or civilian operation. They normally left the vehicles days away from their destination and continued through treacherous terrain on skis or snowshoes, surviving prolonged exposure and often living off the land for weeks. This time they would ride in the cats as close to the crash site as the forest and terrain allowed and base operations from the relative comfort of the vehicles.

  The first cat would carry a driver, four soldiers, and Sergeant McIntyre, who was in charge of navigation. It also carried basic equipment and all of the special equipment needed for this mission. The second vehicle carried Captain Carnes, a driver, and four soldiers. The third vehicle carried a driver and five soldiers, along with duplicates of all the equipment carried in the first cat. The fourth vehicle carried a driver, Sergeant Pierce, and four soldiers. Standard procedure was to disperse the men and equipment. The redundancy of men and equipment meant only two of the four vehicles could make it to the objective and still complete the mission with a minimum of one non-com and at least one of everything needed. The mission would not be jeopardized by the loss of any vehicle for any reason. Each vehicle carried portable lighting, a generator and a large mess tent to place over the wreckage to prevent additional snow accumulation while the men excavated the crash site.

  Captain Carnes briefed Sergeants McIntyre and Pierce in one corner of the hangar, reviewing maps and aerial photos, while the men loaded the equipment. It was all pretty routine except for the special equipment. The men joked and speculated about the nature of this mission considering the unusual equipment. The general consensus was they were going to build a giant covered latrine for some endangered species. The men hustled to gather at attention in front of their assigned vehicles as Captain Carnes and the sergeants approached. Carnes stood in front of the men with the sergeants on each side, slightly behind him.

  “At ease men,” the unit snapped smartly from attention to at ease. Captain Carnes spoke with the strident authority of a military officer, enunciating each word. His voice ricocheted through the cavernous hangar. “Men, we have been asked to do a special job for the CIA. We were asked because we are the only ones that can do this job, and we will execute this mission with pride and excellence. We will never speak to anyone about what we did while on this mission. If anyone asks, you will tell that person this was a surprise exercise called by Pickett to see if we are ready to deploy at any instant under any conditions. We will proceed by vehicle to a crashed plane near White Bear Lake and secure the crash site. If there is anyone there, we will take whatever actions necessary to make them leave. We will operate under the direction of the CIA. Once the sight is secured, we will proceed to excavate the crashed plane from the snow so the CIA and FAA can investigate it by tomorrow afternoon. This is not a dangerous or even difficult mission. We will be able to base the operation out of our vehicles. However, our country’s national security depends on us doing this job and doing it right. Mount up.”

  The men loaded themselves into the vehicles and the drivers started the massive engines, which were equipped with special mufflers to make them almost silent, even in the confines of the hangar. One of the team’s mechanics opened the hangar door and snow blasted into the giant building. It swirled around the white caravan as it proceeded into the storm. It was instantly clear
that there were near whiteout conditions, and even though Sergeant McIntyre knew the roads and passable trails between the base and Bear Breath, it would be a constant struggle to cover the 200 miles. After about five hours, Sergeant Pierce relieved McIntyre and navigated the caravan for the next five hours to an agreed upon point five miles northwest of White Bear Lake.

  Everyone but the four drivers and Sergeant Pierce, who was resting from the strain of navigating the convoy in near-zero visibility, got out and assembled near Captain Carnes.

  “Okay,” he shouted to be heard above the howling wind. “The crash site is approximately five miles southwest of our current position. In teams of two, I want you to fan out from here and locate it. Move out.”

  The procedure was well-rehearsed from years of training. Sergeant McIntyre watched as the men paired off and disappeared into the blizzard on snowshoes. Then he got in the vehicle to wait with Captain Carnes for a radio message from one of the groups.

  Tom Walker picked up the phone built into the seat back of the private Air Force jet as it reached cruising altitude on its way from Washington D.C. to Seattle. There he would board a C140 for the final trip to Anchorage. He dialed Colonel Pickett’s base residence and waited for the answer.

  “Colonel Pickett? Walker, heard anything yet?”

  “No, but no news is good news, at least up until now. They won’t reach their objective for several hours at best. The fact I haven’t heard from them till now means they at least haven’t had any trouble so far. Carnes would have reported if they were off schedule.”

  “Good, I’m en route to White Bear Lake now and should get there by early tomorrow. Take down this number. It’s the phone here in the jet.” Walker gave Pickett the number. “Let me know when Carnes’s team reaches the plane. Oh, and I almost forgot, Mitchell said there was a body about twenty yards in front of the plane. Said he thought it was a man’s body. I want Carnes to dig that body out as well as the plane. I want to make sure that it’s the body of a man not a woman.”